Chapter 8

[Nora Valkyrie]

"And there was I, fighting all on my lonesome against a horde of beringel," Vinny narrated, waving his arm around to express the vastness of the aforementioned horde. "Silver wasn't by my side, the treacherous thing that he is. He was too lazy, you see, and was taking a nap-"

"I had been stabbed, Vince."

"-So I had to deal with them by myself, but that was fine," Vinny reassured, puffing his chest proudly. "Because if there's one thing I'm good at, it's dealing with great numbers."

"I thought it was stealing stuff," Mr. Grumpy grumbled from his place at the forge. Fanning the flames while Renny helped him by carrying a lot of boxes around.

"That too," Vinny nodded, smirk still in place. "Anyway, I summoned a small army of my not-Grimm-Grimm and gave the horde a thorough ass-kicking. The mother of all ass-kickings some would say in their songs. The princess of the city we protected didn't know what to do with herself after that. I had to reject her as politely as I could when she threw herself at me."

"I'm fairly sure I remember you-," Silver started before stopping, blinking, and closing his mouth. "... Yeah, that's what happened."

"So cool," Nora mumbled, eyes wide.

And she meant it too! Granted, he wasn't as cool as her, but that was only because he didn't have a hammer. That could be fixed! Maybe if she gave him a tiny dagger hammer he would be unstoppable!

No, in that case, he would outshine her, and there is only room for a single queen around these parts.

"How much of that is true?" asked Renny as he left another box at the other end of the forge.

"About half, I would say. I wasn't there for most of it, given that I was trying to not bleed out on the ground," Mr. Grumpy answered as he grabbed a hammer, not the super big cow-grimm one though! It was one of the small metal normal ones and glared at it with critical eyes. Silly Mr. Grumpy, he already did that at the store when they bought his smithy equipment. There was no point in doing it again. He'd already paid for it.

Beside her, Vinny made a tiny Mr. Grumpy and a hammer out of shadows in his hands and then brought them together, whispering "now, kiss".

"Gasp! Can hammers have babies?-"

"Did you just say 'gasp'?" Vinny asked her, turning to give her a raised eyebrow. That was mean. He knew she couldn't do that!

"-Is that how Magnhild was born, Renny?" Nora asked, deciding to ignore the man as she looked at her weapon in wonder. Magny would have been so small and cute before. Nora hoped she could have seen it.

"Nora, you know Magnhild was forged. You were literally there when it happened," Renny answered with his usual deadpan.

"She might have been forged but I still love her as my own," Nora glared at Renny as she hugged and shushed Magnhild. Family is more than blood, after all… Or, well, metal in this case.

"Man, this reminds me of when you got your first weapon," Vinny commented, giving Silver a look. "Talk about being emotional, huh? I think you cried a little and all."

"Ohh, what was his first weapon? A sword? A spear? It better not be that stupid shield," Nora grimaced remembering that particular dumb thing. She didn't like that one.

"It was a bow, actually," Mr. Grumpy said with a smile as he seemed to get lost in his own thoughts again, but this one was a good one, it seemed. He still kept doing that often but it was less than before and he didn't look as haunted as before now.

"That arrow saved my ass," Vinny commented, apparently uncaring about the admission as he smiled softly. "That golem was kicking our collective asses, actually. Broke my first dagger, the piece of shit."

"And my sword. Shield was all bent too," Mr. Grumpy continued.

"Golem?"

"Petra Gigas," Vinny explained, drawing an understanding sound from both Nora and Ren.

"Huh, I wouldn't have expected a long-range weapon given-," Ren said before cutting himself. "I am sorry, that was incredibly rude of me," he finished with a small bow after leaving another one of the boxes that held random tools to go around the shop.

"No offense taken, kid. Also, I am great with it, it's just… mechanical weapons that I am less used to," Mr. Grumpy said with a small smile as he continued to work and organize his stuff on different shelves they had bought yesterday.

Nora knew what Renny was talking about. He had told her all about their visit to the license thingy after thwarting her and Vinny's plan to get into the syrup deposit inside that stupid restaurant. She guessed that a man who used his own Semblance as a weapon would not have much practice with more conventional stuff given that they would probably rarely need it. Still, a bow being his first weapon was surprising.

"Tell me about it, man," Vinny commented, pulling a handgun from… his shadows, Nora guessed. "These things are weird," he added, twirling the thing on his finger. "I much rather be throwing knives, honestly."

"Agreed. Also this…shifting mechanisms are pretty complex. Incredibly unreliable too given how easy all the tiny parts are to break. What is wrong with the classics?" Silver asked as he agreed with Vinny.

"I mean, they are cool though…" the other man pointed out with a lazy wave of his hand. "Besides, it allows people to personalize them more to themselves, between that and semblances… I guess that's better than standard weapons."

"They are not unreliable either! You just have to cover them with Aura dummy!" Nora exclaimed, feeling offended on Magnhild's behalf. It might not be her biolo- metal- Hmm, metiological daughter! But she loved her as one anyway!

"Forgive the dummy," Vinny told her with a grin. "He's just forgotten how it is to use a normal weapon that's not his Semblance."

"You are forgiven," She said imperiously to the heretic man. Hands at her hips while looking down towards . Who only raised an eyebrow in her direction with an unimpressed face.

"Would like to ask if you are planning to sell analog weapons only, in that case. It is not uncommon for some people to not bother with mecha-shift, but it is definitely what sells the most," Renny asked with a tilt of his head. Sweat gathering on his forehead and his shirt had already gotten damp given the fire of the forge warming up the place. It stuck to his muscles, and his abs, and his- Down girl! Down!

"If it's a weapon, Silver will make it, I'm sure," Vinny commented, looking at his friend with a grin. "Might take a bit to get him out of his old man mentality, but I'm sure he'll have fun figuring out mecha-shift. He's just grumpy because he's stuck in the old ages."

Mr. Grumpy for his part just made grumpy noises as he rubbed his eyes.

"I might as well, I already bought the equipment for it, after all," he said as he signaled to some of the big boxes that lay open at one corner of the shop. Inside them, there was a lot of machinery that she sort of remembered seeing at the Haven's workshops, back when they took that tour at Mistral's huntsman academy.

Dust-Infuser and, uhh the thing that makes the tiny gears. She didn't remember most of it because she wasn't paying attention since she was hungry at that time. She could ask Renny later if she really wanted to know though!

Nora remembered the Dust-Infuser because it kind of reminded her of a Cotton Candy machine. Also, it does pretty colors when you put dust in it. She and Renny might have gotten kicked out because of her pouring food into it too.

"I will just have to do some… reading, for it," Mr. Grumpy said with a pained expression, gesturing toward a really big pile of books about mecha-shift weapons. That was a lot of forehead reading he would need to do, just looking at it was making her sleepy already. Vinny made an exaggerated gesture of falling backwards, as if asleep, with snoring and all. Then he sat back up immediately and ran his hand through his hair.

"Good thing it wasn't me that wanted to open a weapons shop. I told you that we should have opened a-"

"No," Mr. Grumpy interrupted, as he always did when Vinny was about to get to a good part. Nora just knew that was what kept happening.

"Fine, ruin my fun, why don't you?" Vinny replied in faux offense as he stuck out his tongue. "This is why the kids like me more than you. Don't you, guys?"

"You are the best, Vinny!" Nora exclaimed with her best megawatt smile and waved at the man. Renny for his part, just looked to the side and started sweating a bit more, she was convinced it was only because of the heat this time.

"I'm watching you, Ren. I'll remember this betrayal," Vinny said, pointing at his eyes with two fingers and then at Renny. Somehow that made him sweat even more and start shaking slightly. Nora wondered why.

"I knew you were my favorite for a reason, Ren," Mr. Grumpy said, drawing a squawk of indignation from her. How dare he?! She was the one who dealt with his boring sitting lessons! Queen Nora would remember to put double itchy powder on his pants next time Vinny invited her to mess with him. "Also, go and take a break, thanks for the help. Different from these two, you are being of great assistance."

Meanwhile, Vinny and Nora remained sitting next to each other, glaring at them.

"Our vengeance will be swift and thorough," they threatened. Renny, for his part, just went to sit down. He moved to the other side of the room from them, keeping Mr. Grumpy con- consipiculo- conspi- oddly between them too, for some reason. "I think it's time, Nora," Vinny said then, his voice grave. She turned towards him, eyes wide. "Time to do what we were always meant to do…" he continued solemnly. "Let's go and buy a store out of syrup."

"Yay~!" As always, Vinny was the best. Actually, he was the second, syrup was the best. The way Mr. Grumpy and Renny winced was a close third, too. Or maybe Renny was the best and then the rest?... Hmm, thinking was hard. Obviously, she needed more syrup.

[}-o-{]

[Lie Ren]

"Man, they really got your uglier side," Vincent commented as he watched the video Ren was showing him, the one that was taken at the Huntsman outpost while they had been visiting for Mr. Astra's license. "And that's saying something," the man added, taking another of the fries they'd gotten with the takeaway and eating it. "It's hilarious though, the way everyone's just gawking at you," he added with a grin and a shake of his head.

"I still don't get what their obsession with my looks is, it has gotten annoying to be stared at every time I go outside," Mr. Astra said with a roll of his eyes at his fellow huntsman's antics.

"Maybe you should get your nose out of those history books for once in your life and read more actual stuff?" Vincent asked, raising an eyebrow at his friend. "I know you have white hair and all, but there's no need to act like an old man."

"It is not the point, Vince," Silver said while looking at his friend with a deadpan. "I am fairly sure I can't be the only person with white hair and blue eyes outside of that family, but everyone is going nuts for some reason. I mean, they literally have a registry for the family tree online and all."

"That's because you clearly aren't familiar enough with the eternal art of gossiping, my friend. It is not about what is true, it is about what is interesting," Vincent pointed out, shaking his head as if Silver was a very depressing case of some kind. "You really need to get out more. See? If you'd come with me to some fun places, you wouldn't be like this. Like that one time, you said yes and we went to-"

"That's enough of that," Silver interrupted, giving his friend a glare.

"You act like you didn't have fun," Vincent said, grinning widely. "Or like they didn't have fun either. I know they did. Those poor women kept asking if you'd come back."

Silver just facepalmed.

"They were inconsolable. I had to cheer them up so muc-"

"That's enough of that, Vince. There are children present."

At that, the black-haired man just laughed, extending his hand to take another fry. Nora opted to stay quiet all this time in favor of gorging herself with her ultra-large triple baconator monster burger with extra cheese. Ren will have to prepare one of his herb smoothies for her to make sure she stays healthy.

Leaving aside his picking curiosity about the current argument, Ren was still more interested in the mystery of the similarities. It was true that he was hardly the only person with white hair and blue eyes, but it wasn't exactly common either, more like really really rare. There was also the fact that his semblance had to do with summoning just like the Schnee semblance did. Also, the ridiculous amounts of money the two of them had…

While he doubted the claims about him being a Schnee, like everyone in the Dustnet seemed to believe, he would admit that the number of similarities had started to question it if it wasn't the truth himself. Naturally, he had asked the man if the claims were true as soon as he found the video. He wasn't one to dig into others' pasts, but he felt their relationship as mentor and student had progressed enough for that kind of question to not be considered improper or offensive.

Besides, it was something that could indirectly impact Nora's and his lives too, so he needed to know.

The man had denied having any connections with the family at all. Of course, Ren took the denial in stride and tried to accept it as it was. Yet, a small part of him couldn't help but wonder-.

"We are filthy rich though," Vincent commented casually, interrupting his thoughts. "Maybe we should indulge in some filthy rich habits, you know? Let's have a huge party with blackjack and h-"

"No."

"You are a real bore, have I ever told you that?"

"Repeatedly," Silver replied flatly.

"How am I supposed to spoil the kids if you are like this, man? Come on, throw me a bone here!" Vincent protested, throwing his arms up in the air before leaning towards Nora and placing a hand on each of her shoulders from behind. "Look at those eyes, how can you say no to them?" Vincent asked, and the girl followed suit pulling off her best puppy dog eyes. She looked like a squirrel with how full her cheeks were as a strip of bacon poked from her lips and the lower half of her face was covered in cheese and different condiments. There was some of it on her hair too, for some reason.

Ren likely wouldn't have stood a chance, but he knew Mr. Astra was made of sterner stuff. The man would surely do the sensible thing and-

Why was Mr. Astra shaking like he was making a great effort?

For the sake of his sanity and his need to preserve his personal mental image of his more proper mentor, Ren decided to ignore the conversation and continued searching for the current news on his Scroll. Mr. Astra would hold up. He was great like that. Ren had the utmost faith in his inner strength.

He knew his strength firsthand at this point. He could still feel some phantom bruises from previous spars against the man. While certainly the less violent of the two huntsmen, he certainly tended to go overboard during his sparring matches.

He still didn't know if he preferred Mr. Blackwood's idea of training, which mostly consisted of throwing more and more of his summons at him until he was constantly at the edge of his abilities, lest he be overwhelmed, or Mr. Astra's one one-on-one training which…

Ren shuddered.

With a shake of his head, the teen continued scrolling through the news feed in the CCT main forums.

The SDC claimed another attack to one of their cargos from the White Fang, who had become more active and violent as time went by. At this point, it was unknown if it was truly an attack, or the SDC was just trying to add bad propaganda to all faunus to reduce their wages. Given the way Jacques Schnee implied all faunus kind as the culprit, it was a possibility. It could also be both, Ren supposed.

There had also been found some worrying evidence that Karkinos might have become active near the beaches of Argus. He could see the link to the small old lady general giving a speech to calm the population down and promoting Atlas ability to deal with the suddenly active Titan class Grimm. From the comments on it though, it hadn't worked all that well.

There was another piece of news regarding the criminal groups of Vale, that had suddenly become far more active during the last month for some reason. It had led to the arrest of multiple gangs that were left exposed to the authorities. However, it also meant that shootings in open daylight and gang fights were becoming a very real concern.

"Yay~!" Ren was brought back from his musings by Nora exclaiming excitedly, which could only mean chaos and probably a lot of apologizing on Ren's part. "Renny! We are going to become super spies!"

"Never said that," Mr. Astra said as he massaged his forehead with one hand. "I said that we will be taking you two with us to see an informant. Not sure where you got the super spies part."

"I mean," Mr. Blackwood started, raising a finger. "I think I could count as a super spy. And I'll train you in my super spy-ish ways, young Nora. Don't you worry," the man said, wrapping an arm around the girl's shoulders.

"Gasp!-"

"She said gasp again," Mr. Astra pointed out with a deadpan.

"-Does that mean I will learn to walk on water, spit fireballs and teleport?! Oh my god! Imagine the amount of coffee I will drink without anyone ever being able to stop me. I would be invincible. Believe it!"

"She completely lost me already…" Mr. Astra just said with a groan as he looked towards the ceiling of the suite.

"I can teach you all that and more, young Nora."

"You can?!" Nora asked, eyes filled with wonder.

"You can?!" Ren asked, eyes filled with dread.

Mr. Blackwood just smiled in a way that didn't reassure the boy at all.

"Anyway, take some of those nice clothes you got from our outing with the darling that's Deery," the man said then, in a way that Ren almost missed the sarcasm. Difficult to do though, considering how the woman had acted around them… Especially Mr. Astra. Ren had never seen someone so… discriminatory, which was a little ironic, considering it was a faunus the one with such an attitude. "We are going to a club."

Ren froze.

Mr. Blackwood grinned.

"Gotta see if I can teach you to have some fun," the man explained, and then shook Nora, still with his arm around her shoulders. "And I can't wait to see how your girlfriend is with some alcohol in her. That's gonna be a riot."

'Oh no…'

[}-o-{]

[Hei Xiong]

"This… isn't what I had in mind when I asked you to help," he commented, looking at the poor bastards that had decided that night was a good one to attack his gang. Blackwood had been there, which had been almost a mercy, really, despite the fact that he'd been the one to bring all that trouble in Junior's direction to begin with.

"I'm sure I don't know what you are talking about," Blackwood replied, bringing his glass up to his lips as he leaned back against the bar counter. The man wore a grin on his face as he enjoyed the sight before him. Junior wasn't sure if he should be doing the same thing. Somehow, it made him more nervous than anything, despite the fact that it worked in his favor.

"Wohoooo!" the girl exclaimed, swinging around a poor, unfortunate soul as if he were a hammer. "I'm queen of the club!" Then, she proceeded to slam the poor sod against one of his comrades repeatedly. Both of them had long since stopped begging for mercy and had passed out.

"Man, did we luck out finding you two," the man commented, looking to the side at the boy in green that had the gall to ask for water at a club. Sitting properly at his stool next to Astra who even now continued to ignore the chaos and read a book about gravity dust based mechashift weapons, for some reason. He had a glass of bourbon on his other hand at least.

"Didn't we find you?" the kid responded, looking at what could only be called a carnage with a look of dread and grim acceptance.

"Keep thinking that," Blackwood replied with an amused grin. "So, how are things going for you, buddy?" the man proceeded to ask, turning towards Junior. He had to do his best not to glare at the man that could probably erase his gang from existence.

"I thought you said you'd help," he commented, trying his best to sound casual. Somehow, he didn't think someone could lie to Blackwood and get away with it, sadly.

"I did. The Black Hammer weren't a problem," the menace of a man told him, more a statement than a question, which was… Fair, Junior supposed. The Black Hammer had pulled back and held their heads firmly down since that night. The problem was that that was the only thing that happened.

"You do know that those aren't the only problem around, right?" Hei pointed out.

"I do," Blackwood answered with a shrug. "You want me to go and smack everyone because it's convenient for you? Nah. Too much work. Besides, it's more fun to see the chaos unfold."

Suddenly, it made a lot of sense that the man had brought a girl like that into his club.

"Couldn't you do something about the gangs?" the boy to the side asked, and Junior knew that he meant the question in a much different way than he would have if he were the one asking. He looked like a goodie-two-shoes. He had to be more Astra's than Blackwood's, that was for sure.

"Crime is always around. As it is, you could say I am doing something," Blackwood commented. "I kicked the hornets' nest, and now they are all panicking and running around like headless chickens. The police have a much easier time like this than when the criminals have things under control."

Junior blinked at the same time as the boy did.

"Huh…" the latter mumbled while the gang leader narrowed his eyes at Blackwood. The man had the nerve to grin at him and wink. "So, that's how it is."

"That's why you won't help?" Junior asked, not quite managing to withhold the growl in his voice.

"A bit of that, a bit of something else, a bit some other thing too, I do things for lots of reasons," the man answered vaguely. "Ultimately, Junior, I don't care enough to get involved more than I need to. Silver and I came here to have a good time, forget bad memories and try to build a life for ourselves. I'm not eager to get involved in overly complicated things when I don't need to. I did what I did, because it suited me and because it was fun. Don't think you can get more out of me than I'm willing to give you, because you might go from fun to annoying really quick."

Junior paused, gulped and nodded stiffly.

"Smart man," Blackwood told him mockingly. "I guess I can throw you a bone though," the man added, glancing towards where the twins were standing and then back at Hei. "You three are the only ones with Aura here, aren't you?" he asked, which confused Hei quite a bit.

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"I hope you have some free time in between not dying to other gangs," Blackwood told him. "Because Ren and Nora need some new spar partners to spice things up and you need strength so… I think we can work something out… It might even be fun."

All of a sudden, Junior wasn't sure if asking the man for help had been a good idea.

Especially judging by the way the psychotic girl continued beating up the enemy gang members even though the fight was long since finished.

"GIVE ME ANOTHER MOJITO!" She exclaimed with a slur and a drunk flush on her face. It only made her manic grin even more terrifying, especially with all the fire and screams of pain around.

She had only drank lemonade, though.

"She's the best," Blackwood said, laughing even as more pained sounds reached them.

[} Chapter End {]

Adrian: Nora is, indeed, the best.

Arc: I don't think either of us can tell what will happen when we start writing her POVs. The outcome and tangents are completely random.

Adrian: A rollercoaster of emotions and thoughts, she is. She's mostly fun though, so that's nice.

Arc: Vincent proves yet again, why he shouldn't be left around children without supervision.

Adrian: Or around anyone, really.

Arc: Well, not much happened this chapter, but I promise this was all set up for later in the story. It will be fun, I promise.

Adrian: It was? *Arc hits him on the shoulder.* I mean, yeah, it was. Anyway, hope you guys liked the chapter. As always, please leave a review to let us know-

Nora: MOJITO!

Adrian: *Pushes Arc down and runs.*

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