Chapter 6

[Nora Valkyrie]

"-And then, we should totally put a slide here, so people that are on the second floor just go 'wooh!' when they come down and then you go 'Heh, see that? That was Nora's idea' and then people will go 'Oh my gosh! She is so smart!' and then they will buy your stuff," Nora said enthusiastically, as she imitated the sounds the future clientele would say by jumping from the railing of the semi-open second floor towards the first. She also added hand motions to make things more clear. That really helped, after all.

"I mean-," Vinny started, looking thoughtful as he raised a finger.

"No. Absolutely not. I am not putting a slide in a store with sharp weapons around," said Mr. Grumpy as he continued to be his boring self while sitting on his boring tiny chair reading his boring not-so-tiny book. "Vincent, don't enable her. I know you well enough already."

"All I'm saying is that if they get hurt by something like that, they obviously shouldn't have been in a weapons store in the first place," Vinny pointed out, which-

"I know, right?!" Nora exclaimed, glad to find someone who understood how things worked.

Mr. Grumpy's only answer to their flawless logic was to slam the book against his face and let out a tired groan. Silly Mr. Grumpy, it wasn't easy to read a book like that. It was too close to your face! She should know.

"Why did I think asking for both of your help was going to be a good idea?" he continued while looking at the dusty roof.

"Because the explosion distracted you?" Vinny asked, tilting his head as he looked down from the railing of the second floor he was sitting on.

"...Sounds about right," Mr. Grumpy answered with a sigh as he went back to reading the book. The boring normal way at that. He shouldn't give up training on how to read with his forehead. It might have taken years, but it was still one of her more useful abilities.

It didn't matter how much Ren said that she was just falling asleep on top of the book and that her dreams were not the contents of it.

Speaking of her Renny, he walked into the front of Mr. Grumpy's future shop from one of the back doors with some cleaning supplies in hand. He was wearing a flowery light-green apron and a matching bandana on top of his head with his hair neatly tied.

"I just finished with the bathroom, Mr. Astra," he reported, looking at the reading man. "Should I continue with the workshop or this part?"

Nora spared a glance around the store. It was a nice place, she guessed. A big first floor with wooden stairs that lead to an open second floor. All of it completely empty and filled with dust due to it not having been cleaned in quite a while. The front looked good though, with those really big windows that let the natural light come through.

At the back, there was the aforementioned bathroom, a closet room from where Renny had just come from, and a big stone arc that led to the workshop. There was one more door for the staff room and storage on the opposite wall she hadn't been able to explore because Mr. Grumpy had the keys and he wouldn't let her have them.

He had just unlocked the toilet and sat on the lone chair to read something about licenses to sell guns in Vale or whatever. She wasn't paying attention. She just thought it was silly that you would need a license to sell guns. Who is going to tell someone with a wall full of sharp weapons what they can or can't do?

Still, though, her multiple attempts to take the keys had been thwarted by the boring man, even with the help of Vinny they couldn't beat his grumpiness. The Lord of all things Grumpy was just too powerful for them. Case in point, one of Vinny's miniature Nevermore not Grimm-Grimm sneakily positioned behind Mr. Grumpy and tried untangling the key that dangled from his jean's pocket, only to have its head grabbed by the man and squeezed. The not-Nevermore died with an indignant squawk and went back to being shadows. His eyes never left the book.

"Thank you, Ren, start with the workshop if you can. And make sure to not fill the front of the shop with soot, please," Mr. Grumpy answered as if he hadn't just destroyed her hopes and dreams and thrown the remains at her face.

"Awww," she said, Vinny joining her in her disappointment. And she thought that the slide distraction number 25 would work…

"Ok, explosions didn't work last time, but what if we-" Vinny started, instantly getting Nora's attention. The new plan already sounded perfect.

"You will do nothing of the sort. I will not clean the mess a fourth time," said Renny with a frown. The pain of treason stung deeply in her heart.

"Agh," Vinny exclaimed, placing a hand on his chest as he grimaced. "I thought we had something special, Renny. What happened to my cute little disciple?! How can you betray me so?!"

"Renny, how could you?!" Nora joined in, blinking repeatedly as she used the age-old trick of crocodile tears. Worked like a charm every time. Sure enough, Renny tried to avoid her eyes but he was too late. Soon, he fell to her technique, which had been sharpened over a thousand battles.

"Fine, I will clean again, but this time please don't use mustard or any other condiments with the explosions, taking it out of the roof the first time wasn't easy-"

"What have I done to deserve this?" Mr. Grumpy said to himself as Renny continued to explain what they could and couldn't use for their next fight against boredom. Vinny produced a notebook out of nowhere and noted down what Renny said while nodding his head with an intense look of concentration on his face.

Sneaking a glance, Nora had to cover his mouth as a chortle escaped her looking at a poorly doodled Silver with poo on top of his head and stinky lines coming from him as he kept reading his book.

"I mean, I can think of several things," Vinny commented, as he continued pretending to be writing, this time adding a stickman version of himself with a crown and all of them bowing to him. "Like that time you invited me for a drink and we ended up-"

"I get it! That is enough of that" Mr. Grumpy said in a hurry looking haunted about something. He looked at them and at Renny who continued listing the things they couldn't use while cleaning the entrance of the workshop and let out a sigh. "Fine, I guess that if you are bored we can go do something. It is not like I will be able to open the shop any time soon with the amount of paperwork I need to do," he continued while looking at the sky through the window he was close to.

It appeared to still be around early afternoon.

"Poor fucker," Vinny said, shaking his head and clicking his tongue. "Told you we should have set up a bar instead. I can take Nora somewhere if you wanna keep reading, by the way."

Nora looked at him then, eyes wide with curiosity.

"Can I know how that story continues?"

"Sure."

Silver's answer was to slam the book back against his face. Nora was glad to see that he hadn't given up on reading with his forehead. Maybe he'd just decided to take breaks and such? That was smart.

"If you were so willing to take her out why didn't you do so in the first place? No, it doesn't matter. I am not letting you out of my sight, you will corrupt Nora and she needs plenty of work as it is." Nora's indignant screech didn't deter him from continuing. "We are all going together and doing something where I can make sure we won't end up running from the police."

"I mean, really leaving me with few choices with those kinds of unreasonable rules, man," Vinny commented, deflating where he sat. A moment later, he straightened again and let himself fall to the first floor. "But I guess I can work with that. Let's go, people, we have places to be, fun to have, and police officers to run from."

Mr. Grumpy just groaned.

As they started bickering though, Nora followed Vinny's example, letting herself fall.

She landed a lot less gracefully, but she'd learn, she was sure.

"Let's go, kids. Follow Uncle Vinny to the Land of Entertainment. And please ignore Mama Silver, yeah? She's just here to ruin our fun and we can't have that," Vincent called, moving towards the door with an exasperated Silver.

Nora giggled at their antics, sparing a glance towards her Renny to make sure he would follow and not stay cleaning the afternoon away. Sure enough, the man came without a prompt leaving the cleaning tools back in the closet. His eyes met hers for a moment and she gave a big toothy smile. He answered that with a small one of his own, making her face feel a bit hot and something funny to happen in her stomach.

It was a pretty one because she could tell it was genuine. It wasn't like the ones that he used to calm her down when things went wrong. Or the ones he used to reassure her when he snapped out – or she snapped him out – of a memory of Kuroyuri.

This one was happy and radiant, like the one when they bought their first hot meal after working, or the one after they saved that town from a pack of beowolves.

"Come on, kids," Vinny called again, looking entirely too amused. He obviously had an awesome idea. Nora couldn't wait to see what it was. "We are going to be visiting my favorite faunus."

"Perry?" Ren asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Second favorite faunus," Vinny corrected. "Have I told you about this wonderful person Silver and I met? Her name is Deery."

[}-o-{]

[Hei Xiong]

He set the glass down on the counter after taking a gulp of the drink and with the burn of the alcohol still in his throat, he looked around. The twins were mostly fine if a little scratched. Then there were the rest of his men, who went from being more or less in the same state as the girls to completely incapacitated. Granted, those weren't around at the moment, but there were several of them bandaged up and limping around.

Things were escalating and Hei didn't like it.

This was the second fight they'd gotten into that week, and it was worse than the first. More and more gang members were starting to pop up in their territory too. His contacts were telling him that they were basically being circled. Soon, things would get much worse, no matter how well he dealt with them.

He brought a hand up to massage the bridge of his nose.

'Maybe I should have been a lawful, productive member of society,' he thought wryly.

"Wow, you guys look like shit," a voice said and the glass in Hei's hand cracked. Fortunately, it didn't break though. He didn't need more shit to deal with. It was enough with the headache that had apparently decided to visit them. The twins couldn't even bring themselves not to glare at the reason for their current problems.

"What do you need?" Hei asked, doing his best to sound like he was fine with things and not thinking about how strangling the man would feel. Evidently, he wasn't very successful, considering the amused look Blackwood sent his way.

"A drink would be nice," the man answered with a shrug. "As for what, whatever works. Surprise me."

He had half a mind to give the man poison. Hei didn't like the grin Blackwood was giving him at all though. It almost seemed like the man was reading his mind or something. It was unnerving, and that was saying something considering how the huntsman usually made him feel.

"I kind of want to know what poison you could slip in that," Blackwood commented casually, making Hei pause and pale. "But maybe we can leave that for another time. I see people didn't take too kindly to me making friends with you."

"You could say that," Hei replied, barely stopping himself from growling. "It's being handled."

"I can see that," Blackwood said idly, looking around the place. "You might wanna speed things up though. The Black Hammer is gonna strike soon-ish."

Hei froze at that.

"How do you know that?"

"I know lots of things, Hei. You aren't the only one that's good at learning things you shouldn't know," the man answered, his grin turning into a lazy one as he closed his eyes, rubbed his face with one hand and yawned. "Regardless, do make sure you don't die, yeah? It'd suck to have to find someone else to give me a drink… And the rest of things you can do too, I guess."

"I'm sure," Hei replied. Although, if he were honest, he rather doubted that. Blackwood didn't strike him as the kind of person that struggled to get what he wanted. If Hei did die and his gang fell apart, the huntsman would be fine. It was a rather depressing thing to acknowledge.

"I like messing with you too, so that helps," Blackwood added, and… Hei could believe that a lot more.

The man remained silent after that, looking around calmly as he slowly drank what he'd prepared for him. Time passed like that, as Hei considered the man and imagined the many ways he wanted to kill the bastard for causing so many problems for them. He wanted him gone. He wanted him to never have appeared in the first place.

And yet, he could do nothing about that.

He could only deal with the shitshow that followed Blackwood's appearance. There was no use complaining. Now, he needed to think, he needed to plan. And as he did so, something occurred to him.

"All this," Hei started, because what did he have to lose, really? "All this started because of you."

"Oh?" Blackwood seemed… not surprised, really, but there was a tone of curiosity there, as if Hei had done something mildly unexpected. Then the man grinned widely, making him feel more and more like he was starting to make a deal with the Dark Brother. Not that he didn't know that he was, honestly. "What about it?" the man asked.

"If we die because of this, you'll have to find a new minion," Hei pointed out, hating that he had to call himself that. He needed to focus on the important things though. His pride could wait. "And after the absolute shitshow you caused? After there's a hole in the criminal world the size of my gang? Good luck with that."

He might not be able to threaten the man before him, he might not even be able to force him to do anything. However, what he can do is point out that it is in his best interest to keep him around. Hei was nothing if not a businessman after all.

"I knew I liked you for a reason, Hei," Blackwood commented with a slight chuckle. "You are smart. Not quite that smart, but you are smart."

"And why is that?"

"Do you know what'll happen when I step further into this mess?" Blackwood asked, tilting his head, smile still in place. Hei knew what he was referring to. If the man did anything, it'd cause more ripples, because everyone would know what he knew, what a dangerous shark had dropped in their small pond. And once they did, there was a very much non-zero chance that things would blow up.

The people of the criminal world didn't like being contained in any way. It was why they were criminals, because it allowed them to do whatever they wanted. So, if Blackwood came and started trying to put everyone under his thumb as he had Hei, they wouldn't take to that kindly. The only reason Hei did, was because he was more pragmatic than most.

It made him wonder if it really had been luck that had sent the duo to his doors or if he'd been picked because of that.

"But you know what, sure," Blackwood said then, leaning back and looking like he was holding back a laugh. "I'll do what you want. I'll go and have a… chat with these people for you. You are the one that will have to deal with the mess that'll follow that after all."

Hei almost didn't feel that it was worth it. Almost. He'd much rather with turbulent times due to gang politics than have everyone circling around him and attacking his people. At least, in one of those scenarios, he wasn't the focus of it all. Either way, things would be very hectic for criminals everywhere in Vale.

"So, have fun with that, I guess," Blackwood commented, turning around on the bar seat and jumping up. "Take care of yourself, everyone. And keep being interesting, Hei," the man called over his shoulder and waved at them. "And I'll borrow this for the night, yeah? It fits quite well with me."

"Borrow what?" Hei couldn't help but ask.

Then, as Blackwood reached the entrance of their club, he seemed to flex the hand that he was still waving with. Two blades extended from his wrist then, black and red. More importantly, though, they were familiar to Hei. So very much.

A second later, the door closed behind the man.

A second after that, Miltia cried out.

"What the fuck?!"

[}-o-{]

[Sky Lark]

Sky continued tapping at his phone distractedly as he sat behind the wooden front desk. People milled around quietly forming cues here and there and looking through the holographic displays for instructions and available missions. Everyone was doing business and so was he. Important business at that, obviously.

After letting out a chuckle at a funny meme Dove sent to their group chat, he sighed tiredly as he looked at the holographic clock on top of the main board. 'Still quite a few hours to go,' he thought distractedly. His mouth let out a yawn that he failed to stifle, only to wince as he caught the eye of his boss giving him the stink eye from the second floor.

Right, he needed to finish filing the paperwork. The woman continued looking at him as he proceeded to do his job, before nodding and disappearing into her office beyond the stairs. Sky continued for a few more minutes, making sure that woman wasn't going to come back before dropping the papers to the side again and continuing to tap at his phone.

A huff of annoyance left his mouth when he realized he didn't have any new messages.

Without his main source of entertainment, he looked around the room. Currently packed with way more huntsmen and huntresses than usual. Apparently, for some unknown reason, most Grimms around the south of Vale had been exterminated by some anonymous huntsman. Leaving the rest of them pissed off and having to look through the board for any missions further away across some settlement.

At this point, Sky wasn't sure if said person hadn't reported his kills because they didn't care, or because they were afraid to do so, hiding from the huge mob of pissed-off huntsmen ready to beat up whoever poor sod had been taking easy jobs from them. On the plus side, the amount of sexy huntresses around made for some really nice eye candy. On the other hand, however, the amount of fun-killing work had multiplied for him in the last 2 weeks.

If someone told him three months ago that working at a Huntsman outpost would be this boring, Sky wouldn't have believed them. The Sky from the present, however, would probably punch his previous self in the face before dying of absolute boredom. One's opinion could change a lot in three months, apparently.

One would expect that a work office where most of the greatest warriors Remnant could produce gathered to file through the available missions and decide on their next deadly adventure would have at least something interesting to it. They'd be wrong. It was just another 9 to 5 job like any other, at the end of the day.

There weren't any fights between prideful huntsmen trying to measure who was the biggest shot. There weren't any frazzled civilians running inside in despair calling for all huntsmen available for a gigantic horde of Grimm approaching the city. And there most certainly weren't any hot huntresses sauntering in and flirting with the young receptionist at the front desk.

Sky would admit that it wasn't what he was expecting when his father offered him the spot. In the man's words, it was for Sky to "familiarize himself with the huntsman environment". Honestly, he'd been fine with that, better than fine.

For as long as he could remember his father had always tried to make him follow in his footsteps. To become a huntsman like him, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather before them. It had become part of the family tradition for a long time by then. Warriors who looked at danger in the face and laughed, ready to protect those behind them with their bodies and bravery.

He remembered the stories his father would tell him before sleep as he tucked him in. Stories about his team's adventures before retirement, followed by words of encouragement and hope that he would one day be the great huntsman he was destined to be.

There was a big problem with that, however. Something that had come to his attention time and time again in his short life of being exposed to all things huntsman. Something that his father would have been deeply ashamed to learn about, he was sure.

Sky didn't want to become that.

Sky Lark was a coward, after all.

He hated the idea of being out there fighting monsters made of literal hate. He loathed having to wake up early in the morning to move his sore body through one more set of exercises. He didn't like the feeling of tiredness in his body or the sharp pain of bruises after every spar. His father said that he needed to rise above all these things, to let his spirit guide him forward, but all he wanted was to curl up into a ball and stay like that until all of it went away.

It was something vexing to realize when he was younger. The shame and disgust on himself had consumed him for a long time. Sleepless nights were spent crying himself to sleep because of how much of a failure he was for both himself and his lineage.

It wasn't until much later in his life that he came to accept himself as he was. He was a coward, and that was that. There was no shame in being a lover instead of a fighter.

He would much rather sneak alcoholic drinks from his old man's cabinet and drink the afternoon away with Dove and Cardin. Go out and hit on a new girl every night and enjoy the best things his family's money could afford. What was the point of living if he were to just go out looking for death?

Yet, true to his nature, he chickened out of every opportunity to inform his family of his cowardice. He would inform them at some point though. Maybe once he was sure he was in a place far away enough to not get grounded… or killed. For the moment, he would continue to go along with all the grueling training while doing the bare minimum. Besides, he could skip the occasional lesson by telling his dad he would be sparing with someone more on his level, like Cardin and Dove just for all of them to go do something fun around Vale.

Sky was fine with his new job not having any dangers, like getting in between two trained huntsmen and asking them to stop. He just hadn't expected it to be this boring. There weren't many chances for him to even sneak a nap here and there in the back room. His boss had already caught him doing just that multiple times and threatened to fire him. She didn't like him very much and he didn't understand why she didn't just chill out a bit.

It wasn't like two hours late for work was a big deal. Yet the woman seemed to have some kind of issue with him and his "lackadaisical attitude", whatever that meant. Really, there hadn't even been that long a queue anyway.

Still, Sky would rather take this over extra afternoon spear lessons with his father. The way his old man's face lit up after hearing that he wanted an extension on the one month he was supposed to stay at this place made him happy. The extra personal money was good too. This way he didn't have to explain to his dad what he needed the money for whenever a party came up.

He guessed all in all this was pretty good. It might not be his dream job, but there were no dangerous, scary, or painful things here – save for the atrocious quality chair currently torturing his sore butt –, just the way he liked.

Deciding that he had done enough work for the day, Sky laid down on the cold surface of his desk for a well-deserved nap. He would have gone to the back room, but he didn't have the key anymore. There wasn't anyone needing his attention right now anyway, and if there were, he was sure they could wait in line for some of the other receptionists.

Letting his eyes close, he let out another sigh and let sleep slowly take him.

It wasn't like anything interesting happened around there either way.

Maybe Sky should have known better than to tempt the Brother Gods.

After all, not a second after the dreams claimed him, a big man with silver hair entered the establishment tailed by a teenager in green. Scanning the building for a moment, the new arrival made a beeline towards the only receptionist desk that wasn't currently burdened with a queue. Long after that day, Sky wouldn't be sure if what followed was good for him or not.

It had been… an experience, that was for sure.

[} Chapter End {]

Adrian: Nora strikes again, once more becoming the heart of a chapter. Honestly, any chapter she's in, she makes the others seem unnecessary… Or maybe that's just me.

Arc: She eats the word count like there is no tomorrow, I can tell you that.

Adrian: So did Sky, evidently.

Arc: That he did. When a simple setup scene becomes an entire biography about his life and motivations….curious how that happens.

Adrian: And then there's Hei… suffering, as usual.

Arc: Poor man can't catch a break. Should have thought about it before letting Vincent get involved in his life.

Adrian: How dare he?!... Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.

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