Roots 2.5

The masks-on alarm sounded through the elevator door, and after a few moments the door opened up. Vista was nowhere in sight, and neither was anyone else.

It was only after stepping into the room that I noticed a girl sitting quietly on a couch that was pushed up against the wall, dressed in solid black with a woman's face etched into her mask. She looked up from the Scroll in her hand, and though I couldn't see her eyes she looked to be watching me.

"Oh, hi. Shadow Stalker, right? Uh… is Vista down here?"

She huffed. "The runt? Upstairs, I think. Dragged Clock and Kid with her."

Runt? Huh. I thought back to my mental map of the building. "In the cafeteria?"

"Hell if I know. Thought keeping an eye on her was your job, not mine."

Shadow Stalker wasn't one for second impressions either, it seemed. "Not exactly, but okay. Thank you for your help."

She huffed and looked down to her Scroll- no, they were called phones here - and proceeded to ignore me. I turned and re-entered the elevator, assuming that I wouldn't be getting any more help from the Wards dome.

I was thinking I'd have to ask somebody about her. I couldn't quite figure out why, but the impression I got from her was similar to the one I got from Raven. A sort of automatic disdain for everything surrounding them.

A search of the cafeteria didn't reveal any Wards, and their boss in the PRT, a man named Renick, hadn't seen the trio either. After a good fifteen minutes of looking, my questions about Shadow Stalker slipped away as I finally found them in, of all places, the PRT building's gym. It wasn't nearly as impressive as the setup on the Rig, but it had a small boxing ring, which they were currently occupying. Well, Vista was occupying it, anyway. Clockblocker and Kid Win were a little too busy groaning on the floor to be occupying much of anything.

Vista noticed me coming this time. "Hey, Scatter!"

I laughed as I responded, "How'd this happen?"

She seemed pretty happy, for once. "I was talking about our sparring, and they wanted to see how well it was working."

Clockblocker sat up. "I can confirm, it seems to be working!"

"Was this with or without powers?" I asked.

"Without," Vista replied, ducking under the ropes at the edge of the ring and jumping down. "We're not supposed to use them in here."

Kid Win climbed to his feet, bracing himself on the raised floor of the ring until he found his balance. "So, uhh…" He shook his head. "Can you teach me how to do that too?"

"Same here," said Clockblocker. "I never even touched her, couldn't have done anything even with my powers. How did you manage that in a single training session?"

Vista and I traded glances, and I saw that she was waiting for me to answer. "She was already pretty good at it, and I can tell you from experience that normal combat seems sluggish after spending a few hours trying to dodge a speedster." Not even touching him was pretty impressive though. How had she managed that? "As for training… sure, I guess. You want to join us at the PHQ?"

They both- well, Kid Win grinned. I assumed Clock was too, from his voice. They both whooped, attracting some extra attention from the handful of seemingly-everpresent PRT troopers in the room.

I, caught between not wanting to interrupt but wanting to get things moving, got their attention with a hand. "Alright, um, let's get moving."

They looked surprised, and Clock was the one to speak up. "Oh, now? Umm… sure!" Kid, looking to him, nodded along as Vista gave the pair a funny look.

That was… odd. A thought occurred to me, and I responded. "Okay, you three head up to the roof, and I'll meet you there in a couple minutes."

They happily started moving toward the locker rooms. I, meanwhile, stepped back towards the elevator, going down instead of up. The ride back down to the Wards HQ was just as fast as the first time, and I found Shadow Stalker missing when I arrived. That… was probably a good thing, to be honest.

A quick check of the roster confirmed my suspicions. The pair were scheduled for a patrol in half an hour. I guessed they were planning on taking my offer as permission to skip out. I guessed they would still get in trouble for it, but maybe they thought they could deflect some of it

It almost felt hypocritical to get mad at them for this, since it was pretty much exactly the kind of thing team RWBY would have tried back at Beacon, but still. We had thought we knew what we were doing, and it was only after facing some of the real threats we were up against that we learned our success was more due to luck than anything.

Of course, I understood not wanting to go, if their patrols were as pointless as mine seemed to be. Extra training might actually be more useful if that was even their plan. What to do…

Several minutes later, I thought, inspired by, of all things, my time traveling to Haven. More thinking turned it into a full idea. I'd have to move before they suspected anything, though.

"Go for Challenger."

"Hi! I've got an idea, not sure if I can pull it off, wanted to check with you first."

"...I'm sorry, who is this? You're not in my contacts."

Oh, right. Still had to figure out how the phones here worked. I had decided a while ago not to mention the full hour I had spent trying to figure out how this thing worked when I first got it. "Oh, sorry. I'm Scatter. Clockblocker and Kid Win were wanting some training instead of patrolling, and I was wondering if we could combine the two."

"Ah, they tried to skip out on that again?" His tone was resigned, as if this were a regular occurrence.

I responded, "Yeah, afraid so. How often does that happen?"

"Too often," Challenger chuckled. "I'll bring it up next time I see them. What'd you have in mind, training-wise?" He sounded intrigued, but it was hard to tell without being able to see him.

"Vista and I would shadow them on the patrol. We could get some practice done outside of the gym, and the boys would join us once they were done."

"Sounds good. Actually, if you're working with them off-base, do you want some help? You could probably use somebody who knows the city, and I could pull some attention off you like Dauntless did if it comes up."

DId he expect it to come up? I guessed he would know best, there. "Sounds good. Meet you at the bridge building in a few minutes?"

"See you there." He ended the call, saving me the trouble of figuring out how.

Alright, now we had a plan. I walked out of the empty office, clearly one that somebody used regularly, closed the door behind me, and headed for the roof. I'd needed somewhere quiet fast, and this was the first one I'd found.

The Wards were waiting for me on the top floor, looking pretty bored after the ten minutes I'd kept them waiting. I'd ducked into the office to avoid a tour group that I'd heard coming through looking at the views earlier, and the Wards would have been right in their path. It had probably looked like I'd set them up for that, but they still perked up when they saw me coming in.

"Alright kiddos, let's head out!" Vista's expression dropped a little, defaulting to neutrality. It was harder than it looked to keep from annoying her with that kind of thing. It was usually pretty easy to fix, though. "Vista, how fast can you get us to the PHQ bridge?"

As expected, she perked back up at the opportunity to make herself useful. She smirked and responded, "My record's two minutes and twenty-one seconds, but I can usually make it in less than five."

"Alright, let's go! Challenger's waiting for us, so we should hurry." Clock and Kid both paused at that but kept moving. Yeah, they caught the subtext there. Most people probably wouldn't have noticed, it, actually. I guess the emotive training I'd heard about us having to take worked pretty well.

We stepped outside, and Vista immediately raised an arm and started running. Within moments, the entire block of rooftops was no more than a few dozen yards across, and the next block over was tilted towards us, stretching over the street in a way that didn't look like it could possibly be safe. Kid dropped his hoverboard, jumping onto it as it hovered back up, and flew a few blocks ahead.

If I had my mental map right, there were maybe three miles between the PRTHQ and our destination. The way we were moving, from one empty, partially compressed rooftop to another, turned it into less than a quarter of that. The city practically flew by underneath us, and, just as Vista had claimed, we found ourselves dropping down to the ground across the street from the bridge in just a hair over four minutes.

There was some light applause from the gathered crowd - not nearly as big as the one from my first day, but still big enough. The Wards jumped into it easily, expertly tackling most of the crowd and, maybe even accidentally, took almost all the heat off of me.

Not everyone, though. It was only a couple of minutes before a little girl, no older than seven or eight, shuffling up to me and hesitantly holding out a little notebook and a marker.

She clearly wasn't going to say anything, so I overrode my internal squeeing, knelt down, and grabbed her marker. "Hi, there! What's your name?" I caught cameras pointing our way out of the corner of my eye, and intentionally put them out of my mind.

She went very still, not out of fear, but more… surprise. "E- Erin," she spoke, in a voice that was barely even a whisper. She was adorable.

"Hi, Erin. I'm Ru-" I cut myself off. I was starting to hate this whole identity thing. "I'm Scatter. Are you having a good vacation?" It was a guess, but a good one. I could see her parents watching carefully from a few yards away, and tourists were recognizable just about anywhere.

Her eyes went wide. "Yeah!"

I finished signing, adding a little flair by capping the 'R' with a hastily-drawn rose, as close to the one on my mask as I could get it with the marker, and handed them back to her. I smiled, still unsure if it actually mattered, and said, "I'm glad to hear it. I think your parents are waiting for you over there, you might want to get back to them."

Erin nodded excitedly, turned around and ran back to her parents, waving the book back and forth through the air. I saw her mother catch her and swing her in the air as her father looked to me and mouthed 'thank you.'

A flicker of shimmering silver in the corner of my eye drew my attention away, and I saw Challenger coming in for a landing. Parts of the Wards' autograph lines converged on him as his forcefield platform vanished and he dropped the last three feet or so to the ground across from me.

After a moment I heard a crackle as the communicator in my ear activated and a voice I didn't recognize spoke. "Challenger wants me to tell you that your group should start moving along. This many heroes in one place tends to clog things up. Challenger will stay behind for a few minutes, while you four move along into the city."

The earpiece communicator worked pretty much exactly like the ones in the movies, so I slipped my hand under my hood and pressed the button. Then I realized that I didn't know any of the protocols or whatever for talking on the radio, but I'd already pressed the button. "Uh, Roger, understood. We're moving out."

There was a short pause before he responded. "There's no need for the radio procedure Scatter, you can talk normally." I heard the man's voice catch a little, and as the Wards began making their way towards me I saw Kid's shoulders shaking as he poorly suppressed laughter.

I turned around, not really knowing what else anyone was expecting from me, and started making my way out of the crowd. The Wards followed close behind, and the crowd started falling away once we left the Boardwalk. By the time we were a few blocks in, the handful of tourists following behind us who hadn't known where we were headed had noticed their surroundings decline and turned back.

At the Ward's prompting, we made sure not to leave that street until they were back to the Boardwalk. Very few people were dumb enough to start something with no less than four heroes within line-of-sight, but that changed if we left the area.

Within a few minutes, Challenger flew overhead, and a shout from Vista drew his attention. "Sorry about that, wasn't expecting that big of a crowd for an unannounced patrol," Challenger said as he came in for a landing. He looked over towards Clock and Kid, who were busy looking as non-suspicious as possible. "I heard you two volunteered for some extra training on your patrol! Glad to hear you're being so responsible for once!"

Nobody was fooled by his tone, least of all the boys in question. They assumed suitably ashamed postures and muttered apologies, and Challenger 'hmm'd and nodded. He looked to be suppressing some laughter as he did it though, and the Wards perked back up as soon as he turned around. From that, and from Vista's shaking head, I got the impression that this wasn't exactly an uncommon thing.

Challenger spoke up again a few moments later. "Wards, how about you move ahead a little? Don't get too far, but you can do some running on your own for a bit."

The boys practically glowed with excitement, and even Vista had a smile on her face. "A Wards-only patrol through the Docks? Really?"

He held up a hand, and they quieted. "Stay in contact, and within a few blocks. If you see trouble, call us and wait for our approval before engaging, and stay together. Understood?"

Vista's attempt at a mature 'Yes, sir!' was drowned out by Clock and Kid's cheers, and she eventually gave up and followed after them, warping space to catch up and move the group along even faster. Within seconds, they were out of sight.

Challenger chuckled. "I see the Wards have already attached themselves to you."

I gave him a confused look, then remembered my mask and spoke instead. "What do you mean? This is only, like, the second time I've met Clock or Kid."

"You haven't seen much of it yet, but it won't take long," he said. "The same thing happened back when Velocity joined up - he was in the military, had some fighting experience, so the Wards that were here at the time jumped all over him for a few weeks."

Made sense. "I noticed they were a little starved for action. I figured some training and sparring would help with that." If their reaction to that little bit of independence was any judge, they really needed it.

Challenger nodded. "Yeah, I think it will do them some good. I… would be careful not to do anything too crazy though. If you can honestly call it self-defense, that would probably be best." He paused, continuing more hesitantly a second later. "I'm… not sure if this is a sensitive topic, but from what you've mentioned about your past, I got the impression that you've been fighting… for a long time."

He watched me carefully as if to gauge my reaction. I was more confused than anything though. "Yeah, ever since I was a kid. Why?"

When he responded, his voice had changed. Not so much hesitation as… wariness? "That's the kind of thing that the Youth Guard are watching for. If they learn that the Wards are being combat-trained by somebody who grew up in and supports that kind of environment? It wouldn't go well for us, to put it lightly."

I had several questions bubbling up in response to that. Why did it matter who was training them? What was so different about the 'environment I grew up in?' I held back though, thinking of Challenger's comment about it being a sensitive subject, and chose the safest option. "What can I do to make sure that doesn't happen? If what I've seen from them over the past few days says anything, they'll need this sooner or later, or they'll wind up fighting when they shouldn't be and getting themselves hurt."

Even I was itching for a fight by this point, after a solid week of nothing but schmoozing and patrols. The Wards had been here for years, and as far as I could tell, they were being kept away from fighting in general.

His response was immediate. "Talk to Piggot. Brockton Bay is one of the most dangerous cities on the East Coast, and like it or not our Wards get involved in more fights than virtually any other team in the Protectorate." This was more fighting than anywhere else? "She's been negotiating with the Youth Guard for years, she knows what they will and won't accept in regard to training and resources. We can get away with a little, and she tends to not look too closely if nobody finds out and we don't tell her, but I recommend you check with her before doing anything.

Ugh. More bureaucracy. I was starting to feel for Ozpin and Glynda, they must've had to deal with this kind of thing all the time. Still though, if it was what I had to do, then I'd do it. "Alright, I guess I can do that."

He nodded, and we continued on. Four blocks ahead of us, I saw the roofs on either side of the street stretch towards each other, and all three Wards jumped across the gap. It must've been a good four feet across when they jumped, but Challenger didn't seem too worried.

I found myself considering the conversations I'd been having with my new teammates over the last few days. There'd been quite a few common threads, which made sense given the circumstances, but the one that stuck out at that moment was my past, and how I operated. I'd been working as a Huntress since I was sixteen, and I'd been training at some level since I was nine. That wasn't all that special for Huntsman families like mine, even if most Huntsmen-in-training started in the local academies at age thirteen.

The Wards were apparently kept away from combat as much as possible, yet I was younger than Vista when I killed my first Grimm. Miss Militia was upset at the idea of killing villains, but I had killed people relatively often in defense of others. Assault and Battery balked at the idea of constant, dangerous fighting, but that had been my entire lifestyle before now.

I was going to have to admit that the habits and beliefs that I'd developed back home just didn't apply here. Maybe it had to do with the Grimm, maybe it was just Semblances being more recent here, but the culture here was totally different, and it wasn't about to change on my account.

Whether the culture was different or not though, people were the same at the core, and kids with Semblances needed to use them in any world. I could see the effects this lifestyle was having on the Wards and where they were going to wind up without something changing, and they needed this. This world didn't have anything approaching Beacon, so I was going to need to take its place for these kids. Bureaucracy, PR, and all.

I could do it. Probably.

A thought came to me, and I turned to look back at Challenger, smiling. "How do you think Piggot would feel about a surprise sparring match for those kids? There's probably some abandoned warehouses out here, right? Keep everything out of sight?"

He paused, then chuckled. "I'll radio in."

Holy crap, two chapters in two weeks. I don't know how I did this. I already had a solid two-thirds of this done by the time I posted 2-4, but still. Who am I and what did I do with the real me?

This'll be the last chapter until December, most likely, with The Salem War (the prequel) coming out biweekly in the interim. It'll have much shorter chapters, though. There'll be an overarching story, but it'll be more of a snippet anthology than something resembling this. It'll probably release on some combination of Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, but even I won't know which until I try it. It might take a week or so to stabilize.

I don't feel like this one is as good as I'd like it to be, especially for how important it is to the overall plot, but it's good enough. Now to take a few light days before beginning the daily 4-600 that'll be required for my mini-version of NaNoWriMo.

As always, thanks for reading, I'll take any criticism I can get, and I'll see you next time!