Saturday morning, Nigel and Rock found themselves in the city. With their other teammates occupied, the two decided to take some time to get to know each other. At least, that's how Rock chose to see it. In reality he had dragged Nigel kicking and screaming out of the dorm room, intending to force him to socialize. Despite Nigel's numerous, loud objections, he ended up traveling alongside his teammate.
The two weaved through crowds of people. Vale was incredibly busy, especially on the weekends. Nigel tried to keep up with Rock, but couldn't keep from accidentally bumping into people. After all of the apologizing their trip was delayed by several minutes.
"I hate the city," Nigel complained. "It's too crowded and noisy."
Rock rolled his eyes. "You've been complaining nonstop since we got here. Why don't you try not bumping into people?"
"It's harder than it looks. Besides, I told you I had plans today."
"And I told you that sitting in your room all day isn't how you're supposed to spend the weekend. Maybe if you went outside once in a while you wouldn't be so fucked up."
Nigel scoffed. "I'm messed up because I went outside."
The two of them were suddenly stopped by a crowd of people. The streets was filled with the sound of panicked murmurs. Curious, Rock pushed past the crowd to see what they were staring at.
He saw a space between two buildings that was cordoned off by police tape. A group of uniformed cops were keeping the crowd away from the crime scene. Behind the yellow tape, two detectives were examining bodies.
"I'm gonna get a closer look," Rock said.
"What? I don't think that's a good idea," Nigel said.
Rock walked up to the crime scene and looked at the bodies. There were six of them, all older men who looked like they had been bludgeoned to death. Some had broken bones with jagged white edges sticking out of their flesh. One's neck was bent at an odd angle. One had a fist shaped indentation in the center of their face. The ground was littered with broken teeth and pools of blood.
Rock felt his stomach churn. "Damn, they got fucked up."
Nigel stared wide eyed at the strewn bodies.
"It's wonderful."
"What?"
"Just look at it. The efficiency, the grace. He killed them with just the right amount of power. There were no wasted moves, no superficial attacks. Every single blow was delivered perfectly. It's a work of art."
"You can tell all that just by looking at some bodies?"
"A corpse is like a calling card for a martial artist. Just by looking at the wounds you can see what school they were from. I wish I could get closer, then maybe I could see what style they used."
Rock eyed a nearby garbage can. "Let me help."
He discreetly pointed at the can. There was a high pitched whining noise, and then the can exploded. Burning pieces of garbage flew in every direction as people ran away screaming. The police guarding the crime scene ran off to investigate the blast.
"See? Now we're in," Rock said with a grin.
Nigel sighed and ducked under the police tape. His nose stung with the stench of blood. He knelt down next to one of the bodies. The man's left wrist was broken, and his throat had been crushed.
Nigel took out his scroll and began to take pictures. "It's even more incredible up close. It's such a simple pattern: deflect the attack, disable the opponent, and then kill. I bet if I see the other bodies they'll all tell me the same thing."
He hurried to the next corpse, but found someone standing in his way.
"What are you kids doing in my crime scene?"
It was a heavyset man with balding brown hair. His face was twisted with a scowl and he was chomping on a cigar.
"I'm sorry!" Nigel said in a panic. "I just wanted to get a closer look at the bodies."
"Why in the world would you want to do that?" the detective asked.
"Because whoever did this has to be a master. He took them out with precision that could only come from years of training. I think I can learn from looking at them."
The detective thought for a moment. "Wait, you're saying all these were done by one guy?"
Nigel nodded in response. "Yeah. I'm certain of it."
"Alright. I might as well use you while I've got you. Follow me, and watch where you step."
Nigel stepped over the blood stains and scattered teeth. "Shouldn't there be other people here?"
The old man laughed. "Don't need anyone else besides my partner. There he is now."
The boys' eyes were drawn to another, younger looking, man on the ground muttering to himself. He had his ear pressed to the ground, nodding in agreement to something no one had said. He wrote something down on a notepad and kept talking. He was so caught up in his conversation that he didn't notice the others approaching him.
"Hey, Salt," the older detective said. "How's the investigation going?"
Detective Salt got up and brushed the dirt off of his clothes.
"Same as all the other ones. Some guy came into the alley, some other guys came in, and then six people died."
"Yeah well, I've got someone here who thinks they can help."
"Was that guy just talking to the ground?" Rock asked.
The heavyset detective laughed. "Everyone says that at first. This is Detective Salt, my partner. Show them the file, Salt."
Salt pulled a file out of his coat and handed it to Nigel. Nigel opened it and found that it was filled with pictures of corpses. All of them had similar injuries to the ones in the alley. Nigel slowly pored over the images, taking in every single detail.
"Yeah, these were all the same person. I can tell."
"How so?" Rock asked.
Nigel pointed at one of the bodies. "See that fist mark on his face? The way it's lined up, the killer's fist was vertical when it hit. That's not something an amateur would do. And look around us." He pointed at the debris scattered around the alley, the broken bottles, discarded pipes, old bricks.
"This alley is full of traps, but none of them were ever touched. This is someone with absolute confidence in his fists."
"I'm impressed. You sound like you know what you're talking about," Rock said.
Nigel puffed up with pride. "I happen to know a few things about murder."
"Could you not look so pleased when you say that?" Cotton said.
Salt sighed. "In any case, if you're right then this person is responsible for five different bare-handed murders in the past two weeks."
"It's getting real out here," Rock said.
"Tell me about it, between the White Fang, the Torchwick gang, and all these murders, this is the worst the city's been in years."
Salt pinched the bridge of his nose. "Why am I complaining to a bunch of kids?"
Nigel checked the time on his scroll. "Oh, we really need to get going. How about we exchange scroll numbers, that way you can call if something develops."
"Sure, kid, whatever you say."
After exchanging numbers with the detectives, Rock and Nigel left the alley.
"That was fun," Nigel said.
"What's so fun about ogling a bunch of dead bodies?" Rock asked.
"Everything. I've never been able to see bodies that look so pristine. I love studying bodies. I never got the chance to before coming to Vale. I know this might sound conceited but sometimes I wonder if anyone has studied some of the bodies I've left behind. Oh, that's not to say that I just go around randomly killing people. I've only ever killed people in duels."
Rock shook his head. "You know, you really need to learn when to stop talking."
He looked ahead and saw a familiar head of blond hair. Yang was walking in their direction with her sister in tow. Yang grinned when she noticed the two.
"Hey guys. What're you up to?" she said.
"Nothing much," Rock replied. "I heard there was this arcade downtown and I wanted to check it out. What about you?"
Ruby pouted and kicked the ground. "I just burned through all my allowance buying bullets. Everything is so expensive because of this dust shortage."
"Well, if you're not doing anything, wanna come to the arcade with us?"
Yang grinned. "Mr Rock, are you asking us out on a date?"
"Nah, nothing like that. I just wanna hang for a bit."
Yang sighed. "You're no fun. But, we'd be more than happy to join you. Show us a good time, okay?"
The arcade was a short walk from where they were. As soon as they stepped inside they were greeted with a cacophony of game sounds and the low roar of various conversations mixing together. Ruby's eyes went wide as she saw the various games all over.
"They have a Red vs Blue 2 machine!" she shouted, excitedly skipping over.
Rock followed her to the machine. "How about a few games? Promise I'll go easy on you."
"You're on."
Nigel silently pleaded for Rock to stay near him. He wasn't used to this much noise or this many people. He kept glancing back towards the door, his mind racing for excuses to leave.
He was snapped back to reality by a hard slap on the back. Yang looked worried, like she was observing a wounded animal.
"You okay there, buddy?"
"Yeah, I just don't go outside that often so," he gestured around him, "all this, not really used to it."
"I can see that. You definitely need to get out more. Thankfully, I'm here to show you around."
"I'm surprised you'd even want to do that, after what happened before."
Yang sighed. "Yeah. Listen, Rock told me about what happened to you, or at least the broad strokes. I can see why you freaked out back then. It was messed up, but that's in the past. I know a little about holding on to bad feelings. I'll tell you from experience, it doesn't lead anywhere good."
Nigel was about to reply, when Yang suddenly grabbed his arm and dragged him to a machine.
"Oh cool, a DDR machine. I freaking love this game."
Nigel looked at the contraption. There was a cabinet displaying a video of several colored arrows flying towards the top of the screen. In front of the cabinet were two metal platforms with glass panels that had pictures of arrows on them. From that, Nigel had a brief idea of how this game was played, but he had no idea if he'd be any good at it. Normally, he would vehemently refuse to even try, but something about Yang's insistence broke through his hesitation.
Yang put some money in the machine and picked a song.
"You ever played this before?" she asked.
Nigel shook his head. "I spent most of my time training. Never really had time for video games."
"Wow, that's sad." she motioned for him to join her on the other platform. "There's no time like the present. We'll start you off with the easier difficulty and work up from there."
The first song began and the two began to play. It didn't take long for Nigel to get the hang of things, though he still stuck to the intermediate difficulty. He was nothing compared to Yang, who was getting perfect scores on the second highest difficulty setting. Nigel could hardly comprehend the endless stream of arrows flooding her side of the screen. They were enough to completely block out the background visuals.
In time they had managed to attract a crowd. People had left their machines to ogle Yang as she danced. Nigel couldn't help himself, staring at her as well.
She was a work of art. The way her hair swayed as she moved, her muscles rippling beneath her skin, the sweat that flew from her body, the way she smiled like she was having the time of her life. Everything about her was beautiful.
The last song ended and Yang stopped to catch her breath. She took a drink of water. Nigel couldn't tear his eyes away from her. Yang seemed to notice by the look she was giving him. She cried out in feigned shock and made a show of covering herself up with her arms.
"Jeez, keep staring like that and you'll burn a hole right through me."
Nigel turned red and quickly looked away. "Sorry. I didn't mean to stare."
"It's no big deal, you're not the first guy I caught checking out my personality."
Nigel groaned and placed his head in his hands, which only made Yang laugh harder.
"Come on, man, lighten up," she said.
Nigel looked at Yang's score. She had managed to easily take second on the high score list. "Wow, you're really good at this."
Yang scoffed. "That's nothing, you should see Ren."
Yang walked off the machine laughing. She and Nigel went over to where Ruby and Rock were playing and both found themselves stifling laughter.
Rock was getting his ass kicked, to the amusement of the gathered crowd. A look at the screen showed that Ruby was already at nine wins in a row, and judging by the fight they were seeing at the moment, she was on her way to a tenth. The crowed jeered and hurled insults at Rock as he got beaten like faunus stepchild. He wasn't a beginner, but Ruby was on another level. Ruby beat Rock with ease, seven golden letters flashing on the screen.
"Perfect!" the game announced.
Ruby jumped and pumped her fists. "Wooo! Ten wins in a row, a new record!"
Rock scoffed. "I almost had you last time."
Ruby had a mischievous grin. "Well, if you need some pointers I'd be happy to give you a few."
Yang sighed. "Ruby played this game every day when we were younger. If she wasn't working on her weapon she was grinding at the game."
"Yep, there wasn't a single kid as Signal who could beat me," Ruby bragged.
Rock grumbled to himself and ground his teeth in frustration.
"Why don't you try a different game?" Nigel suggested.
At Nigel's advice, Rock challenged Ruby to every game they had. Basketball, ski ball, crane games, darts, billiards, target shooting, Ruby beat him in every single one.
Rock laid on the ground, utterly defeated in his campaign against a fifteen year old.
"Get up off the floor. People are staring," Nigel said.
Rock sprang back up. "Whatever. I'm gonna beat you one of these days, kid."
"You're a thousand years too early to stand a chance against me," Ruby gloated.
Yang looked outside and saw the sun going down. "It's getting late. If we hurry we can make it back to Beacon in time for dinner."
Several minutes later the four of hem were on a Bullhead landing at the edge of Beacon's campus.
"That was fun," Yang said.
Nigel nodded in agreement. "I'd like to do that again sometime. If you'd want to, that is."
"Sure. Maybe next time we can make it a team thing."
"That'd be cool. See you tomorrow."
The two groups said their goodbyes and parted ways. As soon as they were gone Rock exploded with excitement.
"Dude, you're in!" he almost shouted.
Nigel shushed him. "What are you talking about?"
"Dude, she said she wants to hang out again. Why would she do that if she wasn't into you?"
"Maybe she's just being nice. Besides, she isn't my type."
Rock grinned and got uncomfortably close to Nigel. "Really? Who is then?"
"I'm not telling you that. Besides, I've never had any luck with girls."
Rock deflated as all enthusiasm left from his body. "Fine, whatever. We better hurry before they run out of food."
Rock ran off ahead. As he watched Rock leave, Nigel's mind went back to the arcade. Ruby had bested Rock in every game they played, but the margins grew slimmer each time they played. Even in games Rock had never played before, he was immediately able to grasp the basics and hold his own against someone who'd been playing for years. No one noticed this except for Nigel, but he couldn't help but feel like this would be significant later.
"No, I'm probably just overthinking things again."