Hi-ho, reboot time. This is a reboot of my old Smothered Mate fic, and it is indeed an SYOC. This is set pre-canon, back during team STRQ's generation at Beacon, and it follows the premise of Ozpin's past members of his inner circle. He made the statement that he'd heard from plenty of people in the past that he could trust them, only for them to betray him or die, and I'm taking that statement and running with it like someone taking a mile out of an inch. A ton of information is on my profile, which you can refer to and (definitely) need to thoroughly read through, as a lot of submissions for the last Smothered Mate warranted all of that info. The sheet is also chonky, but please don't be disuaded from submitting with it! It's just a lot of info I wanna be thorough with, is all!
Anyway I hope you like this new version of Smothered Mate, and everyone please give a round of applause to my co-author (and beta reader) oihsoke! Shio did a lot of good in helping me with the reboot and offering to co-author with me to take the load off whenever I needed, so hopefully we'll be a bit more consistent/won't peter out like the old version did!
00
Opening
Year 44 AGW
(Three years ago)
"Gotta say, this was a great turnout, man."
From the booth inside of Amity Colosseum, designated specially for the headmasters of the schools, Professor Gail Theodore could already feel his itch to fight emerging. A far too casual tone, a far too careless demeanour, and the much too familiar way he was called man all combined to make him turn a glare in the direction of the man who'd said it.
The Vytal Festival had just come to a close in front of them, the victor crowned and cheered by adoring fans in the crowd. It wasn't one of Gail's own students, much to his chagrin, but instead a student from Atlas Academy who took the victory home. A feral little thing who had issues working with her team, but seemed to know exactly how to conduct herself in a one-on-one setting. Gail could roll his eyes at the circumstances—he was fairly certain this one had been picked up from a fight club over in Solitas, but the damned headmistress of Atlas Academy was as tight-lipped as ever about the girl.
Regardless of her circumstances and what amount of human words she knew, Pekel Mostarde knew the sounds of triumph and applause when she heard them.
"It's the same as it always is," Gail commented dryly as Pekel did a strange wiggling dance as her opponent meekly walked off the platform they'd been fighting from. It had connected with the rest of the arena once again, and staff from Shade Academy were already coming out to greet Pekel with a trophy in hand.
He didn't hesitate to look over in the direction of the Atlas headmistress, though, as he added just as dryly, "You must be satisfied with your little pet project."
"Rehabilitation is no mere 'project', Theodore," General Tarasque reminded him.
Gail begged to differ. "Can she even understand what's happening right now?"
"She understands enough. And Vytal is familiar to her. She knows the difference between winning and losing." General Tarasque's gaze flickered to him. "She knows when to hold back and not actually kill someone, too."
So she really was picked up from some illegal fight club. Did the woman have no shame, dumping this kid in Atlas Academy to be made into a soldier, rather than giving her a chance at a normal life?
"I know what you're thinking, Theodore," General Tarasque snapped.
"I didn't say anything," Gail said airily.
"It's all over your face."
The annoyance in the room jumped in between them, following the view of Pekel from the window as he waved his arms and body in the same fashion as the young girl outside was.
"Wow, wow, wow!" he said, loud and obnoxious and so obviously trying to break the budding argument up. "She's got some moves on her! Go, little girlie!"
It wasn't like Gail outright preferred one brother over the other, or that he was a stickler for rules and following them. Vacuo was a near-lawless land, with the only law and order being around Shade Academy, where its students regularly jumped into the fray to stop bandits and thieves from making a profit off of those who sought shelter near the school. But when the Vytal Festival called for the headmasters to all sit in a room together to observe the fights, he kinda… expected the actual headmaster to come with the others.
Not his bonehead of a brother.
Gail was far from a shrewd man, and he wasn't one for closeness. He knew quite a bit from his talks with Oswald Ozpin and his own investigating—more than what the veteran General Cinis Tarasque and the newcomer Leonardo Lionheart knew, at least, and he had a feeling it would stay that way unless they did some digging for themselves. He knew there was a lot on Oswald's plate, but at the same time, there was something in Gail's gut that told him there was risk in trusting the man.
So perhaps it was a combination of just plain not liking Kaolin and the way his younger brother had skipped out on Vytal that made Gail so testy today. It was hard to trust a man who drew you into his inner circle when he couldn't even be present during one of the rare few times that inner circle got to meet in person.
"Hey, Cin, what're you gonna do for her after this? She getting any rewards?" Kaolin asked General Tarasque.
The General sighed and tucked some ashy hair behind her ear. She seemed to reflexively reach up, then, and rub at the base of the lizard horns sprouting from her crown.
"Pekel told me she wants an egg sandwich with the local spices in it," she said, and Gail could tell why she sounded so dismal.
"The local spice is sand," he muttered.
"Try telling her that. She only just learned what sand was last week when her team helped coach her on some of the unfamiliar words." General Tarasque did crack a small smile as she added, "She calls an oasis an 'osissi'."
A snort that barely held back a small laugh. When everyone looked over at Leonardo on the far side of the room, he quickly looked away and pretended as though he hadn't made a sound.
"I'm sure it'll be fine," Kaolin insisted. He stopped dancing and properly turned to look at the other headmasters. His long mane of platinum blond hair was half over his shoulders, but it was pushed as far out of his face as he could manage—showing off his eyepatch proudly and his rough stubble like he'd lost his razor. "But is this gonna be safe? Lotta eyes on the kid now. You guys have to go back to Atlas like this."
"It'll be fine," General Tarasque said smoothly.
So Kaolin even knew what was going on? That was the cherry on top. Gail lamented his position in Vacuo, but at the same time, he knew he wasn't cut out for places like Vale and Atlas. Too much drama, too little empathy, way too much trouble. He got his fair share here, anyway. He supposed he was just irritated he was out of the loop, especially with the clearly pressing issue that came from Pekel's origins.
So when he crossed his arms over his chest and gave General Tarasque a dry stare, he wasn't surprised in the least to see her rub at her brow and groan.
"For crying out loud…" General Tarasque muttered. "It's not a big deal, Theodore. Pekel escaped from a criminal organisation when she was twelve, and now—"
"That girl is nineteen," Gail said pointedly. "And she still doesn't understand a lot of the world around her yet? What are you thinking, General?"
"I was thinking," General Tarasque hissed, "that she was safest in Atlas's walls. It doesn't matter that the world has eyes on her now. She has her team to back her up, and no criminal would be brain dead enough to waltz into Atlas's most heavily guarded building just to take her back."
And to the shock of Gail, Kaolin seemed to side with him. He smiled lazily as he stuffed his hands in his pockets, and Gail swore it was toeing the line into a smirk as he titled his head at General Tarasque.
"But Hemlock House is no ordinary criminal organisation, right?" he drawled. "A dynasty that's been running since before the Great War, supported by the criminal underbelly of all the kingdoms—in exchange for some entertainment and under the table deals you can't find anywhere else without being raided by Huntsmen."
General Tarasque chewed her lip. She glared over in Leonardo's direction next, and she grumbled, "I suppose you have something to add to that?"
Leonardo raised his hands. He'd been in the middle of drinking his water, and his mouth was full as he hurriedly swallowed and shook his head. "N—No, ma'am," he croaked. "I just got here."
Here being the inner circle. But you didn't have to be a member to be aware of seedy organisations in other kingdoms.
"What's stopping the military from shutting the place down?" Gail asked.
Simultaneously, Kaolin and General Tarasque let out a laugh and a groan at the question. Gail hummed, unimpressed, and shook his head.
"Either laziness," he said, and he could see the headmistress bristle, "or unfavourable circumstances."
"It would be the latter," Kaolin said cheerfully. "Don't know how, but the founder of the organisation managed to build a whole colosseum out in the tundras. Most soldiers who go there are either taken out by the Grimm on the way or ambushed by the organisation. Don't get your hopes up on seeing them ever again."
He rose from his chair. The statement was interesting, considering General Tarasque had just said Pekel had escaped. He walked to the window, where he could see Pekel being held up in the air by her team as she proudly waved her trophy about, and Gail couldn't help thinking that you could never tell she was a prisoner with how big the smile on her face was.
The only true telltale signs of being put through hardships were the half-torn cat ear on her head and the numerous scars on her bare arms, all from different kinds of damage.
Gail hummed again. "Is she the first to escape?" he asked.
"The first we're aware of," General Tarasque told him. She also approached the window, and Gail saw Pekel's eyes dart to the booth immediately. She waved up at General Tarasque, and she was clearly calling out her name, drowned out by the cheering crowd. He saw her wave back to Pekel through the corner of his eye. "She's trying very hard to articulate how she got out. But a lot of the words are difficult, and Pekel was kept isolated from other fighters in the colosseum at the request of her owners. She wants to take some Huntsmen back there to show how she got out, or at least so she can help others get out."
"How noble," Gail muttered.
Awkwardly, now with his water finished, Leonardo meekly moved closer to the trio. Compared to General Tarasque, who grew up only knowing the biting cold of Mantle in her youth, Leonardo was the one sweating the most under the Vacuo sun. He'd definitely tried to dress up a little, wearing some armour that looked out of place on him, and it was obvious he'd been expecting Oswald to come, not his brother.
He quietly chimed in, "It's very brave of her. Are… Are these criminals also based in other kingdoms?"
"No," General Tarasque said. Leonardo let out a quiet sigh of relief, but he was tense again as she added, "But their associates are. Ozpin's crunched the numbers while Bonehead over here has done some missing persons missions. About point-nine percent of Vale's disappearances are kidnappings for Hemlock House, usually done by other organisations."
Ever the bright spark, Leonardo stammered, "W—Well, point-nine's not so bad?"
"It could be zero," Gail pointed out.
The man's lion tail curled around his leg in shame.
Kaolin clapped his hands together. He was trying to ease the tension again, and Gail sighed as he reached up to fix his bowtie. General Tarasque even stepped away from the window, arms crossed over her chest, as she levelled the three men with a hard stare.
"I assume Ozpin sent you here in his stead for a reason," she told Kaolin.
Kaolin made finger guns at her. "You're correct," he said. "Oz is a little busy with some personal business at the moment. But he gave me a whole itinerary for this meeting that I'm probably not gonna follow to the letter."
Well, as long as he covered the important parts, Gail wouldn't complain. General Tarasque seemed a bit more peeved about him deviating from what he was told, but she was the minority in the grievances. Leonardo didn't seem to have an issue with it, just waiting patiently for Kaolin to continue with his topic.
"He wants me to check in on everything with you guys before anything else," Kaolin informed the trio. "Anything unusual. We're all aware of the whole mumbo jumbo with magic and artifacts, so I won't go into detail. But Oz wants to know if you have any concerns or leads on anything strange in your kingdoms. Any reports or patterns."
No one spoke up. As much as Gail could see the reason why Oswald was asking, he was reluctant to let an outsider in on the struggles of the people of Vacuo. Vacuo had everything worked out just fine for itself, and if they needed help, that was what Shade's whole purpose was for. What was the point of training children in a lawless land such as Vacuo if you weren't going to let them make a difference in the kingdom itself?
Leonardo seemed to be a little confused on what constituted strangeness for his kingdom. General Tarasque gave off the impression that she was already peeved about everyone knowing so much about one of the struggles Atlas was facing right now.
So Kaolin let out a soft laugh and chided everyone playfully. "C'mon, guys, don't be like that. Here, I'll start with something Vale is looking into right now. This is one of the off-itinerary things, by the way. You're welcome."
Hm. Maybe the bonehead brother was good for spilling some secrets.
"As you're all aware, there's a lot of ruins from old kingdoms," he explained. "Particularly from Anima and Sanus, the biggest continents. And a lot of them are from long before the Great War. We're actually investigating one of those ruins to see if a Maiden is hiding there."
"You lost a Maiden?" General Tarasque deadpanned.
"Oops." Kaolin brought a hand over his mouth, but he didn't look like he regretted what he said in the slightest. "Let a little too much slip there. Good thing Oz is so lenient with his big bro."
"And why are you looking for a Maiden?" Gail asked. That seemed to be the more pressing question in his mind. Surely they weren't thinking they'd need to open the vault in Vale for any reason, were they?
Kaolin looked a little sheepish now. He scratched at his neck as he laughed meekly, an uncharacteristic show of apprehension as he explained, "Well… Autumn's been kinda MIA since her big falling out with Oz, and we just wanna make sure she's okay. There's been an uptick in Grimm activity near the ruins we've been eyeing, so either she's hiding there, or something is attracting the Grimm from inside the ruins. Can't hurt to investigate, right?"
All in all, a non-issue. But it was obvious Kaolin was holding back some information as he explained the situation, especially regarding her falling out with Oswald. The Maidens were supposed to be on the side of humanity, and from what Gail had been able to gather, Oswald knew about the origins of those Maidens to the point where he was confident in their willingness to help the inner circle. So if she'd had a falling out with him, it was something bad.
Yet another reason to not put his complete trust in an outsider.
Leonardo raised his hand, then, and he was more confident in what he was going to say. Kaolin's example must've given him some ideas.
"There's a village in the mountains of Mistral," he explained. "It was recently resettled about a decade or two ago, but now it's been completely silent. There's more Grimm activity near the village, too, like they're drawn to it, and some of the Huntsmen who went to investigate haven't come back. The last thing we heard was, ah… A Huntsman named Zingiber Rhizome? He sent a message to Haven for some teams to help clear out nearby Grimm nests, but we haven't heard anything from him since."
Kaolin was interested in that information. He rubbed at his chin, calloused fingers scraping loudly against his stubble, and Gail almost wanted to ask him why he was so interested. There was nothing special about something like that—as far as Gail was aware, people disappeared fairly often in the mountains and forests of Anima. Once you hit a certain point beyond Mistral's border, you were on your own in terms of protection and safety.
Whatever it was, it gave Gail enough of an excuse to lawball his own response.
"There's a cult in Vacuo," he reported. "The Cult of the Sun. They set up a permanent residence in the desert, and while they haven't reached out for help, it's obvious they're being accosted by thieves passing by. Somehow they've made the land around the pyramid they reside in fertile again, and I plan to personally investigate why. I have an idea in the works, but it could just be that the land is healing."
He'd have scoffed if anyone had said it to him, rather than the bold lie he'd just told everyone. Even Kaolin didn't seem to buy it, but he had a very impressed look on his face—like he had some respect for Gail because of how easily he'd lied to his face. And marked his territory, in a sense.
Finally, General Tarasque sighed and chimed in, "We might've discovered a new type of Grimm in the tundra. It's unconfirmed, though."
The men all gawked at her, shocked. Even Gail wouldn't deny his jaw dropping just a little bit.
"All we have is theories," General Tarasque insisted. "All we know is that soldiers did a routine check near a cave to clear out any nests near the entrance, and they came back with their memories scrambled to high hell. They can't tell from their own perspectives which one of them is the other. It could be the work of a rogue operator, but no one could trace any aura signatures in the area when they found the soldiers."
"Freaky," Kaolin muttered. "How are the soldiers now?"
General Tarasque sniffed. "Let's just say Pekel is doing a hell of a lot better than they are right now."
That bad? No wonder they wanted to eliminate the threat of a human capable of such a thing. It seemed nothing beyond Atlas's borders was safe for the average soldier and citizen of Atlas.
Quietly, as though he didn't want someone to hear him, he told General Tarasque, "I know where the Wyrm siblings are."
Gail had heard the name before. He had a passing respect for the fact that the siblings had effectively dodged the draft upon graduating from Atlas Academy, and they'd even visited Vacuo during their first year of freedom to study the local Grimm. Not everyone had liked their presence, but he couldn't deny that the brother had a brilliant mind. He definitely knew how to break down certain Grimm habits and weaknesses for exploitation.
How interesting that Kaolin was bringing up the siblings to General Tarasque. From the way General Tarasque bit her lip and held back a groan, it was obvious that he was using them as a bargaining chip.
So the bonehead had some deviousness to him. Gail was starting to warm up to the bastard.
"Right, well," Kaolin said loudly. He pointed to Leonardo, and the lion Faunus flinched at the sudden movement. "I want a report on that village and the missing Huntsman, Leo. It might be something worth looking into. And Theo—"
Gail gave Kaolin a sharp glare. Kaolin stared at him, thinking on whether or not he wanted to finish Gail's name, and he pursed his lips as he considered it.
"...dore," he finished, slow and cautious. Gail eased up on the glare and let him continue. "You seem to have everything with the cult covered, so I won't tell Oz to poke his nose into it. As for you, though, General, we have a lot of talking to do. Shall I join you and Miss Mostarde for her egg sandwich seasoned with the local spices?"
General Tarasque sighed, heavy and tired, and she shook her head.
"Report back to Ozpin and then make the trip over to Atlas," she told him. Gail almost smirked at the way she folded so easily under Kaolin's offer. Even Oswald didn't immediately go for the low blows in negotiations like Kaolin had. "It'll be easier to show than tell."
Kaolin was pleased with that. He turned to Leonardo, and he wrapped an arm around the younger man's shoulder as he yanked him closer to him.
"Well, if I have some time on my hands," he chirped. "Why don't I go with you, and you can tell me all about this mountain village, huh?"
As Gail and General Tarasque watched Kaolin drag Leonardo out of the booth, they could see the lion Faunus quietly begging them to save him as he stared at them with pleading eyes.
The door shut behind them. Gail let out a breath, and he looked over at General Tarasque.
"Suppose I better congratulate the winner," he said.
"And I should get started on that sandwich."
"Is it the egg sandwich specifically she likes? Or just the eggs?" he asked.
General Tarasque shrugged one shoulder. "Eggs," she told him. "Doesn't matter which way you make them, she'll steal them from someone's plate."
Gail pulled his scroll from his pocket and opened up General Tarasque's contact. He keyed in a location he knew would be good enough for a victory lunch, and her scroll pinged in her pocket as he sent the location to her.
"Buy her some egg custard from the stall near the academy," he told the General. "It's nothing fancy, but sometimes some milk and sugar is all you need."
Ever so slightly, like her frosty walls melted the teensiest bit, General Tarasque cracked a small smile at him. "I appreciate it, Theodore. She'll love it."
And so they left the booth—Gail to greet Pekel Mostarde and congratulate her and her team for winning the 22nd Vytal Festival, and General Tarasque to locate the stall and buy enough egg custard to make the winner really feel like she won today.
Year 45 AGW
(Two years ago)
It wasn't much, but the plate of curry and rice was the best dang thing he could offer up right now. And, if Kaolin said so himself, it was the tastiest damn curry he'd made in a long, long time.
"Just like Mom used to make it," he said, more to himself than to the guests in his house. He did, however, address his brother as he poured curry onto a third plate, making sure to get as much vegetables on it as possible. "Hey, Oz, remember how picky you used to be about this stuff? Drove Mom up the wall with how much you'd dump sugar all over it."
From the dining room table, his brother sat with the two little guests Kaolin had picked up on his mission. All of them were nursing mugs of drink—Oswald with his favourite hot cocoa, and the teens with warm milk mixed with honey. Anything to be easy on their stomachs, Kaolin thought, but he supposed milk and honey weren't the best choices there.
"Spicy food doesn't sit well with me," Oswald said sagely. He sipped at his hot cocoa, and Kaolin glanced over his shoulder at the trio. The teens were torn between who they should watch more: The man with the cooking utensils in his hand, or the man sitting closest to them. "Mother did figure out an alternative that we both enjoyed, at least."
"The day she realised it was Mistralian-style curry you wanted, she just about had a heart attack," Kaolin laughed. "You'd never even left this part of Vale by then! I got in trouble for filling your head with things we couldn't afford, y'know."
"Better you take the fall for your poor little brother, than to make him explain how he knew about such a homely recipe from the mountains."
Kaolin was about to set down Oswald's plate, but he pulled it back just as Oswald said that. Half-jokingly, he warned him, "Hey, I can still spit in this, you know."
"After all the toiling over the stove you just did today?" Oswald gave him a half-smile, propping his chin on one hand. "You'd never."
Yeah, yeah. He was lucky Kaolin was too damn proud to sabotage his own kickass cooking. The last thing Kaolin needed was to catch strays about spitting in his food. He knew Oswald wouldn't say anything, but the kids would definitely refuse any food from him if he actually went through with the threat.
He set down the curry and plated up his own, twice the size of everyone else's servings, and he sat down at the table with a tired groan.
This week had been the most action he'd seen in a long while. Kaolin was so used to just rushing into a fight with his bare hands and mowing down criminals and Grimm alike in the blink of an eye. Subterfuge and sneaking around just wasn't in his repertoire, and yet he'd been ballsy enough to take on this latest mission in an attempt to get more intel for Cinis. That damn Hemlock House was just so slippery, and the only true ways to get anything information-wise was to either be captured and made into a fighter, or to go in as a buyer looking for some exotic or less than legal goods to purchase.
It wasn't so much the infiltration that'd been a pain, but the escape. A brief few days hiding in Atlas Academy, then taking an airship to Vale—and from there, hiding from the gangs in Vale who worked with Hemlock House until he reached Beacon. And now, after his very exhausting week of travel and hiding and fighting, Kaolin was just glad to be back in his apartment that was attached to the school, same as every other teacher's residence.
And what had been so important, that Kaolin had had to spend a whole week running and fighting when he could've just kicked up a fuss about the Hemlock House owner not having anything that suited his tastes? Well, the two teens sitting at his dining room table were the exact thing. They looked like skin and bones, cheeks hollow and eyes sunken, and they'd barely even eaten anything on the trip over. The girl had her hair almost shaved off, with some patches being longer than the others, and the boy's arm had clearly been in a cast before Kaolin had spotted them. To say they had looked like they were on death's doorstep was an understatement, and from what he'd seen, they were the youngest fighters in there.
The owner had called them defective. His son had picked on them a bit too much, and now they weren't even worth their weight in Lien for fights. They had good dust-based Semblances, that was for sure, but they'd become obsolete to the owner after his son had been done with them. They used to be obedient, he'd said, and then they'd tried to escape with another fighter their age.
Kaolin could see the writing on the wall. The other fighter they'd tried to escape with hadn't made it.
What had stuck out to him, though, was the background the owner had given on them. The village Leonardo had told him about, where Zingiber Rhizome had gone missing after sending out a cry for help, had been the one their family had tried to resettle. It turned out that it wasn't Grimm that had ransacked the village and killed all the people there—it'd been Hemlock House, or their associates at least, in search of more fighters for the arena. And with only one Huntsman to defend a village of civilians who were mostly farmers and merchants, it was easy for Kaolin to see how that encounter had gone.
By now, Ramis Hemlock was probably fuming that the cheque used to pay for the teens had bounced. But Kaolin didn't care. The week he'd spent with the teens had been the most exhausting part, with their constant nightmares and their legs always being rooted to the spot when danger struck. The only real reaction he got from them had been when he'd picked them up, far too easily for a pair of fifteen-year-olds, and ran; they'd kicked and screamed and pounded their fists against his back, and Kaolin had felt himself wavering for the first time in his life as a Huntsman.
No, that was a lie. He'd wavered before. This was just the first time in a long, long time that he'd hesitated in his mission because of someone else's trauma.
The group ate in silence, though it was more accurate to say that only the Ozpin brothers ate. Kaolin exchanged uneasy glances with Oswald as they were halfway through their food, and it wasn't until the steam stopped rising from the teens' plates that one of the brothers spoke up. It was a tense silence, otherwise, and Kaolin was thankful that his little brother always seemed to know what to say, even in times like this.
Oswald held up a spoonful of curry, glossy carrot and potato sticking out from the mix, and he let out an impressed hum.
"Mother used to put honey and yoghurt in the curry mix," he told the teens. "A dash of coffee powder, as well. But she stopped after the first time. I couldn't get a wink of sleep after eating it."
"Didn't she also put a ton of berries in it, too?" Kaolin asked. He could recall tasting little chunks of raspberry and blueberry in some of their mother's curries.
"Her fruit ones, yes," Oswald said. "But the more savoury curry had just half an apple in it. Sometimes she'd caramelise it so it'd be in chunks with the potato and carrot. Sometimes she'd grate it so it would blend with the curry sauce better. I can't quite tell which way I liked it better."
He ate the curry on his spoon. Over his glasses, Oswald stared at the teens. They were both looking at their plates, and the boy looked ready to give in and start eating. But he held fast, and Kaolin had to wonder how hard they'd worked to not lunge at the first food they caught in their sights.
Oswald pointed the cleaned spoon to the teens. He asked, "I hear you two are from Mistral. How did your family make curry? Perhaps my brother here could learn a few tips."
"Hey, you don't gotta come here and eat my cooking—"
Quietly, so faint and raspy, that Kaolin almost missed it with his complaint, one of them said, "Chocolate."
The brothers stared at the duo. It wasn't the boy who'd said it—he looked just as surprised as the brothers did, staring at the girl with wide eyes—and when Oswald hummed in response, asking for the girl to repeat herself, she said a little more clearly, "A square of dark chocolate. She'd… mix just a little bit in at the end."
Just a square of dark chocolate? Kaolin hadn't heard of that before. But the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. If you wanted a sweeter, richer curry, dark chocolate would be perfect.
"Huh," Kaolin said, more to himself. "That works."
Oswald was looking at him with hopeful eyes. He couldn't care less about getting one of the kids to talk—he just wanted to know when Kaolin would start putting chocolate in their dinners. Kaolin reached over and flicked his brother on the forehead, and the flash of green aura flickering over his body was enough to let Kaolin know he'd almost broken it from the flick alone. Damn, he was still too wired after this week's events. Maybe he should find some Grimm nests outside of Vale's city and unwind.
"I'd swear, if you were king for a day, all you'd eat would be chocolate. You'd probably make it a law. Bring not a single thing with less than a fifty percent cacao content before the king," Kaolin told Oswald.
Oswald gave him an almost knowing smile, and it disappeared just as quickly as it flashed across his face. "Now there's an inspired idea."
A clink of a spoon. The brothers both glanced discreetly at the teens, and Kaolin was delighted to see the boy finally moving to try the curry. Only a small amount was on his spoon, and the rest was mostly rice, but it was still a good old try. The spoon shook in his hand, and Kaolin couldn't tell why—was it fear? Exhaustion from the effort? Apprehension? Excitement? Whatever it was, the boy ignored it as he stuffed the spoon in his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut.
When he pulled the spoon from his mouth and chewed, there was a distinct look of disappointment on his face. Kaolin panicked. Did he fuck up the curry? Was the kid allergic to anything?
"I—Is it okay?" he asked the boy. The boy didn't look up from his plate, but he did swallow what was in his mouth.
"Cold," he said pitifully.
"Oh." Kaolin stood up quickly, and he couldn't help the sympathetic tone his voice took. "Oh, buddy, don't worry. I'll microwave it for you real quick. You okay with that?"
He nodded once, and the girl pushed her plate towards Kaolin as well. Almost as soon as the food was reheated and in front of them, the kids began to stuff their faces to the point of almost choking, if not for the glasses of water they'd been sipping on earlier. It was a sorry sight to see. Kaolin had been to villages that had been cut off from supply chains and food sources before, escorting merchants to remote places so people can survive another week, and the way these kids just dug into the food instead of nibbling like they had the entire week… He almost wondered if he should've taken them to a hospital first.
Nah, that wouldn't have ended well. He didn't know how deep those issues ran, and a hospital trip might've made it worse. This was the first taste of freedom these kids have had in who knew how long. Confining them to a hospital wing for a few days would definitely give them worse cabin fever than they already had.
The kids finished eating quicker than Oswald and Kaolin had. They were gasping for air, breathless and exhausted from the effort, and Kaolin swore they'd go into a food coma on the spot. The girl was fighting to keep the food down, one hand over her mouth, while the boy let his forehead rest on the table as he folded his arms behind his head. It was the most relaxed they'd looked the whole week, and they still looked pretty damn tense.
It was hard to figure out when to actually say anything. What would be acceptable to say, even. He could ask the kids if they knew Pekel, but he didn't want to assume they'd been in that place as far back as Pekel's escape eight years ago. All things considered, Kaolin had finished the mission he'd embarked on regarding the village the kids had come from; he'd found a couple of survivors who'd been taken to Hemlock House, and he'd verified Zingiber's corpse among the buried. Someone had clearly been to the village before Kaolin, taking the time to make graves and headstones for everyone, but they'd long since abandoned the village after that. All that remained was Grimm attracted to the ambient negativity left behind by the village and its trauma.
Frankly speaking, Kaolin wouldn't have known the kids were from that village if he hadn't checked the houses for signs of life. He'd taken a lot of family photos back to Vale with him in the hopes of making missing persons posters, but the only ones he'd truly held onto were the ones he couldn't find graves for. And one family, the de la Creme family, only had three graves he could find—not five, like the family photos suggested there'd be.
The girl may not be the one hundred and fifty pound child she used to be, and the boy may not have been the vibrant and curious child he appeared to be in the photo, but it was them. Little Marzipan and Zefir, all grown up and almost unrecognisable under the grime and dirt Hemlock House left them in.
The brothers glanced at each other as the teens let their stomachs settle. Wordlessly, Oswald picked up his cocoa mug and shook it in Kaolin's direction—a demand for a refill.
"God, you're such a baby," Kaolin muttered. He grabbed the mug, though, and noticed for the first time that the mug had the school's insignia on it. "We have Beacon mugs?"
"A lot of the students drink coffee," Oswald said matter-of-factly. "Better to keep some fresh mugs in the cafeteria for them to make a drink with than to force them to go into the city for a drink."
"You should invest in canned coffee for the school." Kaolin moved back to the stove and flicked the kettle. It loudly began to boil as he searched his cupboards for the cocoa. Oswald always kept a supply in Kaolin's apartment. It was always the good stuff, from one of those old pre-War companies who managed to survive the brief economic collapse and rebuilding process. Kaolin had heard this brand was once famous for gifting cocoa to the King of Vale on his birthday, right after he was crowned. "You can get them from vending machines, and all you have to do is shake them up before opening them. Nice and compact, too."
"Canned coffee?" His brother pushed his glasses up his nose and shook his head. "Diabolical. Who would want a cold coffee? I can't fathom a cold hot chocolate. It's an oxymoron."
"Tell that to the pumpkin spice iced latte girlies every Halloween."
There was a small huff. It was so quiet that Kaolin had almost missed it, drowned out by the sound of the kettle boiling. But when he glanced over, he could see it—the boy's shoulders shaking, his head lifting ever so gently as a hollow smile made its way onto his face. He glanced at his sister, and she was watching him like a hawk, and Kaolin could tell what he was conveying with the looks they were exchanging. There was familiarity in the Ozpin brothers' banter, and if Kaolin had to guess, they were the type of siblings that gave each other the hardest of times while quietly supporting each other away from prying eyes.
Oswald saw that as progress. He leaned forward, hands folded onto the table neatly, and that gentle smile was back on his face as he addressed the siblings.
"I should preface this next part with some important information," he told the siblings. "Despite my brother purchasing you from Ramis Hemlock, you're not actually slaves anymore. The payment was designed to bounce, and Kaolin never had any intention of using you for whatever excuse he gave to buy you. Obviously, with how much trouble you likely ran into on the way to Vale, you've seen how capable he is of taking care of himself."
"I broke someone's legs like a wafer," Kaolin supplied helpfully. Oswald looked at him, soft smile gone, and Kaolin quickly realised that he hadn't included that part in his report. He quickly turned back to the hot cocoa and poured an absurd amount of sugar into Oswald's mug.
Oswald sighed and looked back at the siblings. "Whatever happens next, you are free. You can forge your own path in life as you see fit. No more fighting, no more abuse, no more anything."
The girl spoke up, and she was accusatory as she pointed at Kaolin.
"So his name's not Clayton Kiln?" she demanded.
Oswald looked at Kaolin again. He was still unimpressed. Kaolin jabbed a spoon in his direction then, and he didn't miss that he was mirroring the girl in his posture.
"Hey, it was a clever name," he insisted. "Bone china and clay both go into a kiln, and anyone who knows me would pick up on it. That bastard doesn't know who I am, so it was fine. It's the perfect codename."
"It's a little uninspired," Oswald muttered.
"It's more inspired than what everyone calls me already!" Kaolin crossed his arms over his chest, and he was clearly sulking now. "Seriously, what's bonehead even meant to mean? I don't have any bones sticking out of my head. Anyone calling me that is the uninspired one."
Oswald shook his head. "Your skull, Kaolin."
Kaolin furrowed his brows. He reached up and felt his head, and yeah, there was a skull in there. How'd he forget that?
Man, if Cinis were here, she'd say Kaolin lost some brain matter with that eye back in the day. Theo, too.
"Are you two Huntsmen?"
This one was from the boy. He was looking up properly now, and the familiarity in his expression was gone. Now there was only a cold, almost calculating expression as he observed the brothers from afar.
Oswald nodded once. "In fact, I'm the headmaster of Beacon Academy. If you'd like, you may call me Professor Ozpin—"
"Why didn't either of you come when Mr. Rhizome asked for help?" the boy demanded.
Ah. Kaolin knew that was a question that was going to come up. Zingiber sent out a lot of distress signals during his stay at their village, but the cell tower signal was so bad out there at times that you'd be lucky to bounce off a local tower and message someone in the next village over. The messages from his scroll were shown as sent, but Kaolin had cross-referenced the received signals at Mistral's tower with Leonardo. Only one signal made it through, and it was the last one, right before the village was raided.
No one had enough time to fly out there and stop what was coming to that poor village.
It was just the worst kind of accident.
Kaolin heaved a sigh and sniffed loudly. "I've been following leads about your village for a couple years now," he admitted. "Just last year, I managed to meet with the headmaster of Mistral Academy to check the tower in the city. Only one of Zingiber's messages came through. You guys were… too far into the mountains to get a good signal. It would've been faster to send someone by foot and ask for help that way."
"Bullshit!" The girl slammed her fists on the table and jumped to her feet. "You just don't want to admit no one cared enough!"
Kaolin started, "Hey, that's not—"
But Oswald held up a hand, silencing him. He was staring at the girl, still smiling at her, and he looked every bit the gentle and wise professor his students had come to know him as. Kaolin was disappointed that he had to zip it, but he shut his mouth regardless. Times like this, his little brother always seemed to have enough experience and wisdom to know what to say.
Sometimes he wondered if his brother had lived something like this before, once upon a time. Before he was born as Oswald Ozpin, Kaolin's baby brother.
"Why do you believe you were ignored?" he asked the girl.
She bristled, and like it was the most obvious thing in the world, she spat, "Because most of the village were Faunus."
Thinking about it, she had a point. Even in the photo Kaolin had found of their family, two of the members had been Faunus—both mother and youngest daughter had big owl wings draped over their shoulders, while the human father and elder siblings lacked any traits whatsoever. A lot of the family photos had been complete Faunus families, too, and Kaolin was almost ashamed he hadn't taken that into account. A lot of the bodies buried in the village hadn't been human. Which meant Hemlock House had only seen value in taking the humans for their blood sport.
He hung his head, face turning red from the shame, and he was immediately overcome with a need to apologise. He was supposed to be on top of small details like that, since he was the one investigating why the village had been wiped off the map, and he'd missed such a key detail.
Even Oswald had something to say on the matter, albeit more cryptic than him.
"All that time to heal the wounds," he muttered, "and all it did was infect them."
"So you admit it?" the girl asked.
Oswald shook his head. "The current headmaster of Haven Academy is a Faunus himself. He's green, but he tries to uphold justice for his people wherever he can. I've no doubt he knew about your village's circumstances before bringing it up to Kaolin last year."
The girl slowly sat down, still dubious, and she was glaring at Oswald as he continued.
"Nonetheless, we've been looking into older Huntsmen and Huntresses who have disappeared suddenly," he explained. "Zingiber was a very reliable man who was supposed to retire not long before his signal reached Mistral. I wanted him to teach at my school, as his knowledge would've been invaluable to future generations, but it was difficult to find him. He was one of the few Huntsmen who made up the first ever class of students at the newly opened academies, you see. He's seen and learned a lot in his time, but even before then, he'd been part of a family of survivors. Zingiber's lessons on navigating the wilderness and navigating through the stars would've been invaluable to our current students."
The girl worked her jaw, still angry and disbelieving. "Well, he's dead now, so—"
"What did he teach you?" Oswald asked her, tone light and almost playful.
The siblings looked at him in shock. It was like they hadn't expected him to even guess that they'd been trained by Zingiber, let alone know him personally. Oswald just tilted his head and shrugged his shoulders.
"The village fell around six years ago, and you look to be about fifteen, perhaps fourteen. That'd put you at a very young age—eight or nine, I'd say. So how did a pair of children survive in Hemlock House this long? Pekel Mostarde is an outlier, from my understanding, as she was specifically kept isolated from other fighters. But you two are more verbose and adjusted. You've continued to socialise, even in Hemlock House. So how did two children survive if they had no combat experience?" Oswald huffed a short laugh. "It's simple. They did have combat experience. And some training under their belt, I'd wager. So how much did Zingiber teach you?"
Despite being taken aback, the boy was able to force out the words, "Not enough."
There was a finality in the statement. It wasn't enough to keep their family alive. It wasn't enough to escape on their own. It wasn't enough to not be subject to the things that went on behind closed doors in Hemlock House. And with the way they trembled ever so slightly, Kaolin didn't want to let his mind wander as to what those things were in that hellhole.
Oswald nodded once, understanding, and he asked, "How would you like to learn more?"
Despite not even laying out his terms—explaining what he'd meant with the question—Kaolin could see, as the kettle finished boiling, something spark in the eyes of both of the children. Something that'd been missing, even when they were hostile and upset and vocal about their grievances. Even with Oswald's vague question, it was obvious what was running through their minds: Revenge. Enough training and resources to help them get revenge against Ramis Hemlock and his empire.
And after everything Kaolin had seen in the aftermath of the colosseum's path? Why, he wasn't inclined in the least to stop them.
Year 47 AGW
(Present day)
"They're callin' it the Goat King?"
Kaolin snatched the scroll from Marza's hand. He stuffed it into his front breast pocket, a sour expression on his face as he focused on the road again. The drive back towards Vale's city limits had been long, and despite the airship ride back offered to them, Kaolin had said it would be good to bond by taking a car.
Though they were getting some study materials from Signal—or, at least, old material that Kaolin had gotten his hands on secondhand—they still had to leave the safety of the city to shadow Kaolin on his jobs. Officially they were known as his apprentices, though if you heard Kaolin tell it, they were his "kids". Never mind that adoption papers were never signed, or that the twins never agreed to him being their father figure. It always caused confusion to those Kaolin introduced them to, and if Marza had to pick between the two brothers… It was hard to decide who was the more insufferable one.
Kaolin was overbearing and a giant manchild. But Oswald was cryptic and always spoke in half-truths, bordering on riddles at times, and Marza felt ganged up on whenever he and Zefir spoke to her. Maybe Kaolin was the slightly less insufferable brother, if only because she didn't feel as bad getting physical with him. If anything, tackling Kaolin made him excited to throw hands and give a beatdown to someone. When it came to Oswald, it felt like Marza might break him in half if she hit him wrong.
She lounged in the back of the car, disregarding road rules entirely as she stuck her feet out the open window and laid back on the backseat entirely. Zefir took the front passenger seat, and he was staring out the window with a listless expression as he hummed gently.
"I wonder if that means someone's caught sight of it yet," he mused.
"For your information," Kaolin said, and he was snide as he said it, "the very confidential report says that it's because someone remembered hearing a goat bleat before their memories got scrambled."
"Gross," Marza said. "Those things are nasty."
"You just don't like that they're perfectly stable," Zefir teased. He looked away from the window, and he smirked at Kaolin. "She dry heaved when she saw some goats standing on a ninety degree slope like it was nothing."
"It's gross," Marza insisted.
"You're just a hater," Kaolin chimed in. "Those little bastards will do anything to lick some salt. You should strive to be like a goat."
God she hated when they ganged up on her over stuff like this. Was it so terrible that she wasn't a fan of goats? They had such a vacant stare in their eyes, too. She swore those things could see into her soul.
So Marza groaned and pulled her feet back in from the window, sitting up properly to peek out the front window. It looked like they were almost back into the city now, and she leaned on Zefir's chair to get a better view.
"Hey, can we do some window shopping before we go home?" she asked.
Kaolin let out a sheepish laugh. "Is it actually going to be window shopping, or are you gonna cave and buy something with my card?"
"Well, if you gave us an allowance…"
"How much do you think a teacher makes?"
"Uncle Oz would've said yes," she tried.
Zefir looked back at her with a dry stare. Marza scrunched up her face at him. Discreetly, she threw up the hand signal they used whenever they wanted the other to back each other up—reward for doing so included.
In Zefir's case, his reward would've been something sweet from his favourite bakery. Which just so happened to be right next to Marza's favourite clothing store.
The clothing store that sold cringey targeted T-shirts that she loved to force everyone in the apartment to wear together.
Zefir decided the reward was worth the punishment.
"Uncle Oz definitely would've let us," he agreed.
"You kids are brutal, ganging up on an old man."
Marza sat back in her seat and fixed her very messed up seatbelt, if only because Kaolin had complained about them being stretched out the last time she'd gotten antsy in the back seat. When it started clicking back into the socket, Kaolin reached up and flicked the rearview mirror to look right at Marza. She innocently let go of the seatbelt and looked back out the window.
"We'll go window shopping," Kaolin decided, "if you two pass your entrance into Beacon."
Both twins groaned out loud. Zefir even sank into his seat, long legs folding in half to fit under the dash.
"Hey, we don't bitch in this house," Kaolin scolded them.
"All we ever do is bitch," Zefir groaned. "I bitch about Marza, Marza bitches about me, you bitch about us, and I don't buy for a second that Uncle Oz doesn't bitch about you."
"I'm a very reliable older brother," Kaolin said in defence of himself.
"We're a family of bitchers," Marza reiterated.
The way the car swerved was sudden and shocking. Marza clung to the seats as Zefir hit his head on the door, and the car practically slid to the side of the road in a drift as the traffic behind it laid on their horns and sped past. When the car came to a wobbling stop, bouncing a couple of times for good measure, Kaolin put it into park and looked into the back seat.
He had a goofy smile on his face.
"Famiwy?" he said in a babyish voice. Marza felt the embarrassment rush to her face as her skin burned and she kicked at Kaolin's seat.
"I didn't say that!" she snapped.
"You did," Zefir deadpanned.
"Shut the fuck up!"
"Watch your fuckin' wangwage," Kaolin cooed at her.
"You guys suck." Marza laid back down on the seat and rolled over, her back to the front of the car as she crossed her arms in front of her chest. She was totally not sulking right now, but damn it, she wanted to go relax with Oswald now. At least he just quietly judged and sipped his cocoa without making a big deal out of something. "We call Uncle Oz our uncle all the time. It's not a big deal."
"But you don't call me Uncle Kaolin," Kaolin whined. "I'm just 'you' and 'fucker'."
Zefir did at least come to his sister's defence this time—likely because his favourite bakery was on the line still. "To be fair, you were a bastard when you didn't even warn us about your Semblance the first time you trained us."
"Like a bandit is gonna tell you their whole moveset," Kaolin scoffed. "In the Huntsman world, we call that sink or swim. And you guys swam perfectly fine."
"You broke my aura six times in a row," Zefir argued.
"It's not my fault you have an insane recharge time. Use that time to get smarter."
"Not everyone has a Semblance that makes things brittle," Marza mumbled.
"But you do have people with more tricky Semblances out there." Kaolin turned back to face the road, and the car began to move again. "Pop quiz. What's the Schnee family Semblance in its entirety?"
The twins groaned again, but Zefir replied nonetheless, "It's a Semblance that's a rare hereditary type. In its base form they can apply glyphs with varying effects combined with dust, while its more famous application is that they can summon Grimm they've defeated in a battle previously. Nicholas Schnee is most famous for slaying the Krampus Grimm that used to terrorise the villages outside of Mantle, but the most well-known of his summons is the Arma Gigas whose armour he took as a trophy."
God, she hated pop quizzes. And since Zefir answered the easy question, now Kaolin was going to sling a harder one at Marza. She totally wasn't taking him to his favourite bakery when she got her window shopping request granted.
Kaolin chuckled and made the annoying bing-bing sound he made whenever one of them got something right. The car moved quickly down the road, and Marza frowned as she glared at the fabric of the back seat.
"Okay, Marza, since you're a girl," Kaolin decided. Oh, great, he was picking on her specifically now. "What's the main difference between a Maiden's powers and a person's Semblance?"
Marza blinked. She sat up and looked back at him. "For real?" she asked.
"For real."
"That's so easy, though." She glared at Kaolin, suspicious, and continued, "A Maiden can create elements as she sees fit. A person's Semblance can only manipulate the elements. A person can heat something up by making the molecules move faster, but they can't make fire from nothing. A Maiden can."
Another bing-bing sound. "Follow-up," Kaolin chirped. "How are Maiden powers transferred?"
"Through death," Marza said slowly. This was weird. Normally he didn't give her easy questions. Or maybe he was just thinking she hadn't done her homework. If he was, that was ridiculous—Marza always studied dutifully so she could get the top grades and be Kaolin's best apprentice. He should know better than to think she wouldn't be competitive about it. "A Maiden has to either think of someone eligible to inherit the power, usually someone under forty, and most of the time it's usually their killer, who's a woman younger than them. If they don't, it's completely randomised."
"I wonder if Maidens can have magic babies," Zefir pondered aloud. "Would the magic even be hereditary?"
"It wouldn't," Marza said matter-of-factly. "The magic is linked to their aura specifically. So unless someone's popping out babies made entirely of their aura, it's not hereditary."
Zefir sniffed. "Was just a thought experiment."
"Not much thinking to be done with it, genius," she grumbled.
"Well at least I'm engaging and asking questions."
She kicked his seat. Zefir glared over his shoulder at her. "I don't need to ask questions because I know these things already," Marza scoffed.
"Teachers do like students who ask questions," Kaolin chimed in.
"Oh, like you take questions in your classes," Marza snapped at him. "Uncle Oz says you just throw people around and make them fight you."
"I'm a combat instructor," Kaolin reasoned. "I'm teaching combat." And then, as an afterthought, he added, "I also hold little tournaments. Keeps everyone on their toes."
Marza rolled her eyes. Zefir just sighed and shook his head. As much as they were grateful to Kaolin for keeping them sharp and taking them on as apprentices, he really did live up to his boneheaded nickname at times. Marza wondered how he even kept his job at Beacon Academy with the way he acted, and on more than one occasion, she and Zefir had suspected Oswald was soft on him. There was no way he got the results that were expected of someone in his position, especially not when training the future Huntsmen and Huntresses whose goal was to defend Remnant from the threat of the Grimm.
"At least we'll know how to neutralise our classmates, on the off chance they turn evil and find crime more lucrative," Zefir said, and the sarcasm was hard to miss.
Kaolin overtook a car on the road, and Marza sat up properly in her seat—fixed her seatbelt, even—as they finally made it into Vale and passed through the gates blocking the city from the open road.
"You kids might not like it," Kaolin explained, "but not everyone is cut out for the life of a Huntsman. Sometimes you have to skirt dangerously close to illicit activities, and not everyone can bounce back and resume being an upstanding citizen. Sometimes they're too desperate for the straight and narrow."
The twins were quiet. Marza glanced at the back of Kaolin's head, and he wasn't making any moves to look back at either of them now. Even his rearview mirror was fixed in place, focused on the road behind him rather than on Marza.
"I had to stay in character as Clayton Kiln for a whole year," he went on. Marza saw Zefir shift uncomfortably in his seat, looking away from Kaolin and even angling his body away from him. "I did a lot of stuff I'm not proud of. I sent a lot of my friends to the hospital, and I'm ashamed to say I even ended my former teammate's career. I ruined a lot of lives to build up that reputation. Ramis Hemlock wasn't going to let me in based on my word alone."
He sighed, solemn, but his voice notably perked up when he spoke again. The usual forced enthusiasm that came with Kaolin always telling people to look on the bright side of a situation. "But! I did make some strides. Did you know Ramis has a brother? Much older than him, but he was like Zingiber—one of the first students of the newly opened Academies. He was expelled from the family for messing with the fighters too much, and I believe it was General Tarasque's mother who gave him a chance at Atlas."
Marza leaned forward in her seat again, intrigued, but Zefir was still blocking out Kaolin's words.
"The Martha Tarasque associated with that trash?" Marza scoffed. "I call bullshit."
"Well, no one wanted him. Least of all his family. But I'm losing the point I was trying to make." Kaolin waved a hand dismissively, trying to get Marza to sit back down. She leaned back just in time for a police officer to glance at the car and give Kaolin a wave. An old friend, no doubt. "I would've had to blur the line between the greater good and the mission I'd taken on if I'd stayed as Clayton Kiln for longer. All I have is my brother, y'know. And he's always been fine without me. Was never one for being tied down, either. I could've just faked my death and kept going as Clayton. My men actually respected me a lot, y'know? But then I met Ramis's brother, and he clocked immediately that I was toeing that line. If he hadn't written a letter of recommendation to Ramis, I would've been a goner."
"Why would Ramis take a Huntsman's word for anything?" Zefir grumbled.
"That's the funny part. This fella, Durua Hemlock? Yeah, he never really… officially got recognised as a Huntsman. Make no mistake, there's paperwork in Atlas that says he has a licence, but publicly… Bit of a vagabond, you could say." Kaolin shrugged. "Let's put it like this. If I were secretly plotting to do something heinous, and someone was trying to steal secrets from Oz or something, he's got… no actual reason to think I'd sabotage him beyond petty pranks from childhood. So if I called him up one day and said, 'Yo, Oz, this guy I met is super reliable and would be a great fit for the faculty. Can we hire him?' Oz won't immediately jump to foul play. And that's what I imagine Ramis thought, too. His bum of a brother probably just wasn't as famous in the underworld, but he knew Clayton Kiln, an up-and-comer, personally—and he was willing to vouch for the business he does."
"What business did you do as Clayton?" Marza asked.
Kaolin snorted. "Dust smuggling. But it was cheap shit. Good for maybe one or two uses, and it was so volatile that you could vaguely blame the buyer's grunts for mishandling the stuff rather than get caught selling them defective dust."
"And your gang was just fine with that?"
"They thought it was hilarious. Couple of them lost family to the Hemlock dynasty, y'know. Though I imagine they're more pissed off about being used by a Huntsman and losing out on a stable job doing shady deals. They got good dental with me in charge."
Imagine that. Gangsters with a good dental package. Marza almost wanted to laugh.
They entered the main street, and Marza was surprised to watch Kaolin pull over into a parking space and set the car to park. He sighed, heavy and tired, and he rubbed at his eye as he seemed to struggle with what he wanted to say.
They weren't far from Zefir's favourite bakery. Whatever Kaolin was going to say, it was going to end in the twins being let out of the car to cool off. He knew them well enough to know they needed something sweet to decompress after a heavy talk.
"Look, kids," he started, and then he stopped, like that wasn't how he wanted to open at all. Kaolin pursed his lips and rubbed at his stubble, groaning. "I dunno how to say this… I just… About what Oz offered you guys. With his inner circle. You don't… have to join it in order to get into Beacon. It's just some incentive and something to think about."
He turned in his seat to look at them both. She'd never seen Kaolin look so conflicted before.
"Look, I love my brother to death. He's my baby brother," he explained. "But you kids, you've gone through enough. You don't have to be involved in all these secrets if you don't wanna. I told you that I found some leads on your village—the survivors. I can reach out to them and send you home. Or— Or I can look into your paternal family. You said you had some in Atlas—"
"We're good, Kaolin," Zefir cut him off. He glanced over his shoulder at the man, and he was guarded. Polite, but distant. "Thank you for the concern. But it's not like we have anything better to do. Might as well run some errands for Uncle Oz until we can take down a whole crime empire on our own."
"Besides," Marza mumbled, "Dad's genetic donors in Atlas probably watched some of our matches and didn't care. He told us enough to know we have no business seeking them out. And they have no business knowing us."
"What about the survivors—"
Zefir held up a hand, a swift movement that silenced Kaolin immediately.
"We're fine," he repeated. "It's fine."
Kaolin deflated a little. But in the end, he didn't argue; he just sighed, scratching at his brow, and he reached into his jacket for his wallet. The credit card he pulled out always had the same set limit to it, especially after Marza wracked up a massive debt on it the first time he let the twins loose with it, but it was enough to keep them busy for an afternoon.
He passed it to Zefir right as Marza tried to reach for it. Zefir gave Marza a smug smirk as he tucked the card into his sleeve.
"Take your time before coming home," Kaolin told them. "But don't pig out before dinner. I don't slave away in that kitchen just for you kids to come home with full stomachs. Maybe just grab everyone something nice from the bakery for after dinner, 'kay?"
"Women have a separate stomach for desserts," Marza huffed.
"And Kaolin has only one salary," Kaolin pointed out.
Marza clicked her tongue. "Maybe I should just become a sugar baby."
"As long as your wallet can last a full minute in the ring with me, I fully support you kids' weird life choices. Now go on, go disobey me and stuff your faces with a ton of croissants or something. I expect a bag of donuts as an apology." The twins began to leave the car. Just before Marza shut the door behind her, Kaolin added with a shout, "And get a chocolate cake for Oz!"
He drove off without even getting confirmation from them. Marza let out a low sigh, and she glanced over at Zefir with a frown.
"What do we think?" she asked him, and it was one of the rare occasions where Marza actually asked his opinion on something.
Zefir shifted on his feet and motioned to the bakery. They walked inside, wasting no time buying some desserts and apology donuts for Kaolin, and when they emerged from the bakery, they moved towards the nearest clothing store to stare through the front window. Marza munched on a slice of apple pie as she gave the outfits on display a once-over, and Zefir simply contemplated his answer as she window shopped.
Finally, he said to her, "I think getting our licences would do us some good."
"So we apply for Beacon?" she asked.
"Yeah. Maybe… Maybe we can cheat the entrance exam and grab on to each other when we launch," he explained. "I jump on your launch pad just as you get tossed, or you jump on mine, or we use dust to follow each other. We can't risk being put on separate teams."
"Maybe," Marza agreed. She took a big bite of her apple pie and chewed thoughtfully. "What about the inner circle stuff? What's your read there?"
He shrugged one shoulder. "We'd be able to work with General Tarasque," he reasoned. "That's a good way to get info on Hemlock House. And she has another escapee under her care, so maybe we can work with them."
"Right, Pekel…" Marza sniffed as she remembered Ramis's rage regarding Pekel Mostarde. They'd been her replacements, and when he'd found Zefir and Marza among his new gladiators, he'd called them Pekel's replacements to their faces. He must've been so angry to lose a fighter like her. "Maybe we can compare notes with her."
"If we apply to Beacon," Zefir went on, "she'll likely be at the Vytal Festival coming up. We can talk to her there."
It was a sound idea. Marza stuffed the rest of her apple pie in her mouth and chewed some more. All they had to do was play the waiting game, and with Kaolin as their teacher so far—and a bit of apprenticing under their belts since being "adopted" by him—they could even apply for their licences early compared to their teammates.
Quietly, as Marza was looking at some jewellery on display, Zefir asked her, "Hey, do you think the survivors were…?"
"People we knew?" Marza finished for him. "Our honorary family members? Even our parents? Doubt it. And anyone who did survive probably abandoned the village anyway. The most we can expect going back there is graves and reminders of what we used to have."
Zefir clenched his fists tightly by his sides. He was staring hard at a little dress that was clearly meant for a child, almost transfixed by the pattern of feathers along the hemline.
"Yeah," he agreed. "You're right."
Marza did give him a nudge, though, and she sniffed as she mumbled, "Still wanna grab our photo albums, though. We had a lot of good pictures over the years."
"Mom's recipe book might've survived the raid, too," Zefir reasoned. Marza perked up at the mention. Their mother's recipe book was like gold to her. All those recipes used for the bakery, and Marza never got the chance to learn them all before everything went to shit. Zefir saw the smile on her face, and he gave her one of his own as he let out a soft laugh. "Maybe we can bring back the era of the fatass Marza who sits on people and steals their food."
"I can still do that. I don't need to be fat for that when I have gravity dust in my stomach."
"You're such a gremlin. Why can't you bring that energy to a fight with Kaolin?"
She gave him a shove and a scoff. "That bastard's semblance is a nightmare," she groaned. "I'd rather not get backhanded with Ivory Bone if I can help it."
"One of the top ten fighters in Hemlock House is afraid of a walking cane," Zefir teased. "How the mighty have fallen."
"Shut up, Thirty-Ninth Place."
They started walking back towards Oswald's apartment. Despite Kaolin's warning not to fill her stomach with too much food, Marza had bought multiple slices of apple pie to munch on as they walked. It was a quiet walk, the same old faces in each store, and it was a walk they'd surprisingly gotten used to over just a couple of years. A lot of their situation was quick to get used to, Marza wouldn't deny. Kaolin was so different from their reserved parents, and even Zingiber, yet they considered him their guardian so quickly after they finally realised he wasn't going to let anyone take them. Even Oswald, cryptic as he was, was considered that weird uncle they had but never knew very well.
The routines became easy. Even now, as they finally made it to the apartment and found no sign of Kaolin being home, Marza naturally gravitated towards the fancy coffee machine they owned to start making a hot cocoa. Zefir habitually checked the fridge and oven to see if anything had been prepared for dinner, and they both went about doing their own things as they settled into their routines.
The only deviation was in the form of Zefir following Marza to the campus of Beacon just a short distance from the apartment. While Marza carried a thermos with Oswald's cocoa, Zefir carried a small folder with their applications included inside. They rode the elevator in silence, a quiet understanding of where they were moving after today, and when the doors opened to Oswald's office, neither of them spoke up to interrupt his call.
The holographic head of a man they didn't know—an older man, who Marza heard Oswald quietly address as Durua—vanished from his scroll, and Oswald folded his hands neatly under his chin as he greeted the twins.
"Marzipan," he said, surprised but not taken aback by their appearance. "Zefir. It's rare to see both of you in my office at once."
"I brought some cocoa," Marza told him. She approached his desk and set the thermos down. Oswald wasted no time opening it and pouring himself some, sipping it with a satisfied hum.
"You always manage to make it just right," he remarked. "I'll be sad when you leave the nest."
He looked over at Zefir.
"And you, Zefir?" he asked.
Zefir placed the folder on the desk, and he was surprisingly stoic as he told Oswald, "We're applying for Beacon."
They watched as Oswald flipped through the pages of their applications, humming to himself in between sips of cocoa. Something in Marza had assumed he'd enthusiastically agree to the applications without bothering to read them thoroughly, but the care he took with checking everything over just threw her for a loop.
After a while, he finally told them, "I'll have Kaolin come and fill in his assessment of you two. You must understand—without any information from a combat school such as Signal or Pharos, I can't just go by your word alone on your skills and ability to protect yourselves."
"It's fine, Uncle Oz," Zefir told him. "We spoke with Kaolin about it today, actually. Is it… possible we can join the inner circle? Once we're in Beacon?"
Oswald gave a pointedly loud sip of his cocoa. He looked over his glasses at the twins.
"That remains to be seen," he mused.
Marza's anger flared as she fought back the urge to slam a fist on the desk.
"You can't just dangle a carrot in front of us and then take it away when we reach for it," she hissed.
"He wants to see where we're at mentally," Zefir explained. She glared at him. How in the hell was he privy to that information? Or was he just guessing based on what he'd do in this situation? "Whatever the inner circle is for, it's more than just what we want to use it for."
"You would be correct," Oswald told him. He motioned for the two to leave, and he began to refill his cocoa again. "I don't accept people into my inner circle without caution. I know what you two have in mind for this role, but I need you to understand it won't just stop at that mission. I can help you with your goal even without the inner circle position, but while you two need support, what I need is commitment. What my inner circle fights is bigger than Hemlock House."
"Then we fight it," Marza argued. "What's the big deal? If it's worse than that hellhole, why wouldn't we commit?"
Oswald stared at her. It was one of his blank, almost unreadable stares, and Marza glared at him in return. She hated when he got cryptic like this. He never gave straight answers, just anecdotes that barely gave her any insight to his life so far, and he sounded like a completely different person when he got like this.
Oswald eventually said to her, "My fiancée said the same thing. I got too hasty and told her everything, and the last thing she ever told me was that she'd wished I'd never told her a single thing. Ignorance truly can be bliss, Marzipan. I need to know you won't spiral once you do learn of the inner circle's true goals. Studying at Beacon will help broaden your horizons to the things we'll be handling going forward. Until then, take some time to train with Kaolin until the entrance exam. I've received… a few interesting applications, to say the least, so passing the exam won't be the cinch you think it will be."
Marza huffed. She never said it'd be a cinch. She thought it would be, but she never admitted it. She threw a disgruntled look at Zefir, and Zefir gave her a nudge with his elbow. Marza nudged him back, not as gently as he had, and they both bid Oswald goodbye as they headed for the elevator.
As soon as the doors shut, Mazra let out a groan and barely held herself back from following through on a punch to the elevator wall.
"He has a point," Zefir reminded her. "We're not exactly the most healthy people in terms of trauma."
"He offered the position to us first. We didn't ask to be included," she pointed out.
"So we prove he was right to offer it to us," Zefir said. He gave her a pleading look as she steeled herself with calming breaths. "The entrance exam could be a test. Kaolin went to the trouble of teaching us all about things like maidens and which fairy tales were rooted in truth—maybe Uncle Oz wants to see how well we keep a lid on all of that in public. We have to make snap decisions in the exam, so how we conduct ourselves will probably contribute to us getting into the inner circle."
"Or maybe we just don't bother with it," Marza grumbled. "Maybe we just—fuck, I don't know—Kaolin said he worked with a bunch of guys and had Ramis's brother on his side. What if we just left and handled it ourselves?"
Zefir groaned and threw his head back.
"We're two mentally ill teenagers. You can't even let people touch you without throwing up all over them," he pointed out. "What the hell are we gonna do to a whole crime family on our own? And that's if we get past the tundras to even get into the Godforsaken place without being spotted!"
"I don't know!" Marza shouted back at him. She sucked in a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut, her face scrunching up as she did so. "I don't know. I'm just sick of the goalposts moving all of a sudden."
They were silent as the elevator continued to descend. It was a palpable, oppressing silence, and Marza could feel the tension in her body become tighter, almost to a painful point. What were they supposed to do if they didn't pass Oswald's test? What would they do if the entrance exam went horribly for them?
The doors opened. They walked slowly back to the apartment, heads down as they passed the vice headmistress on her way to the elevator, and they didn't speak until they made it into the apartment again.
Still no Kaolin. Marza wondered what was taking him so long.
"Hey," Zefir said, almost too quiet for her to hear. She followed him to the kitchen, and he was pulling out a bag of candy from the pantry for them to snack on. "Whatever happens, we have options."
"Like what?"
"Well…" Zefir set the candy on the table and rummaged around for a strawberry-flavoured ball. "Hemlock House isn't going anywhere, whether we like it or not. If we fail to get into the inner circle, why don't we just…" He shrugged. "Get as much training as we can and then handle it ourselves? Can't help to network with other teams. Maybe some of them will feel like being naughty little Huntsmen and Huntresses."
It wasn't ideal, waiting four more years, but it wasn't a bad idea… Marza jammed her hand into the bag and pulled out a whole variety of candy balls.
"I guess we could do that," she mumbled. "What about allies? Wasn't the point of joining the inner circle to find allies we could use?"
"Classmates," Zefir said quickly.
Marza scrunched up her nose. But just as she was about to object, it hit her: It didn't have to be their Beacon classmates.
She remembered Kaolin mentioning to them that, if they joined the inner circle, there was a chance they could do an "exchange program" with the other schools. Be "randomly" selected among the student body and sent to other kingdoms for the purpose of following leads.
"Plenty of mysteries still out there," Kaolin had told them during one hunting trip. "Plenty of new Grimm and ruins to discover."
It was perfect.
"Let's…" Marza unwrapped a candy and popped it into her mouth. "Let's do some networking in the exam. We don't have to be on the same team."
"We can just make it so our teams interact often," Zefir finished for her.
Yes, this was a sound plan. A way to get their revenge, learn more about being a Huntsman, and network all at once.
Maybe applying for Beacon wasn't a total bust.
"I can't wait to see Ramis's face when we take down his empire," Marza muttered darkly, a smile drawing across her face. "And his freak of a son's when we gun for him."
"Save some for poor Pekel," Zefir joked. "She's been waiting for this even longer than we have, I'll bet."
"Sure, whatever. She can jiggle their faces off their bodies or something. But I wanna break their legs and make 'em squirm."
Zefir yanked the bag of candy from her and stuffed it back in the pantry.
"Maybe you really are suited for the darker side of Huntress work," he told her. "That sounded like something Clayton Kiln would say."
No, Marza thought. Their parents may not have told them about their paternal family often, but she knew enough to get a read on them. Marza was just echoing the sentiments of their predecessors and being a hypocrite about it.
Whoever she sounded like, one thing was for certain: This was going to be their revenge, and no one else's.
Yeah, the twins are little edgelords. They'll get better, don't worry lmao, plenty of therapy to be had with Uncle Kaolin as their legal guardian.