Author's Notes
Another chapter was posted today, so read that one first if you haven't already.
Happy rats, and don't do crime!
Chapter 31 – We're All Friends Here
Blake breaks and takes responsibility for her mistake for Velvet's sake.
In spite of the fact that they actually had a brick-and-mortar office now, their next client still reached out to them from Jaune's website. He'd updated it to include a picture of the office, so perhaps it had had something to do with it, but they would never know. The client was from a remote village called Jkonna way out there on the border of what constituted Vale and Vacuo, and thus it was impractical for them to physically come in to Vale to hire them in person; thus, he'd digitally submitted a request for them to come on out and provide security to his town.
At Jaune's insistence, Blake was sitting in the copilot's seat next to Velvet rather than the Job Hunter's cabin. Apparently, he had grown a spine while she was gone and learned how to assert himself; Blake was one part proud of her pupil for his newfound courage and one part astounded that he dared talk back to the woman who'd taught him everything he knew about hunting.
But he's not exactly wrong about me and Velvet. I'm the one who treated her poorly, and I'm also the boss – there's no way she can take the first step towards reconciliation when this power imbalance between the two of us exists as it does.
Her excuse for joining Velvet in the cockpit was that she was interested in watching how flight happened, and Blake had been able to run with that line when Velvet had been doing all sorts of button-flipping and switch-turning during liftoff, but when they reached a safe cruising altitude and had nothing to do but keep it steady, Blake realized she needed to speak.
"H-How was your vacation?"
"Pretty great!" Velvet said, eyes still on the skies. "For the first few days, I tuned up Anesidora and had a little bit of fun making some baby furniture from raw materials I bought at the hardware store."
"You like to build?"
Velvet nodded. "I'm no Pietro Polendina, but I'm – oh, he's an Atlesian scientist."
"I know," Blake said before she could stop herself.
"Oh, great. As I was saying, I'm no Dr. Polendina, but the design of weapons always fascinated me. My semblance lets me become an expert with almost anything in an instant, so I've got experience behind the blade with tons of types of weapons. Dad works in Atlas as a huntsman, so I used to see a lot of different people there – I even got to take a picture of Due Process. I-It's General Ironwood's gun."
Blake had to suppress a shuddered as the conversation became a little tougher for her to hear, especially from a fellow Faunus. The reason that Blake knew Dr. Pietro Polendina was because he was a war criminal who outfitted Atlas with the weapons and technologies that they'd used to destroy the lives of White Fang brothers and sisters she'd fought alongside. Due Process was stained in the blood of their innocent kin, and Velvet had photographed it.
Except they weren't innocent, were they?
It was a tough truth for Blake to reconcile. On one hand, she knew these people, years spent together growing up alongside some of them, and it was almost impossible for her to not understand why they had to do what they did. On the other, she wouldn't have left if she hadn't taken issue with them at some level.
Adam's weapons have far more innocent blood on them. From our perspective, we are…we were defending ourselves, but from theirs, so were they.
It wouldn't be fair to dump all of that on Velvet for being Atlesian, though, so Blake just smiled and nodded congenially. "You said that was the first few days…anything fun happen later?"
"Yeah, Jaune and I joined up and went out to explore Vale. I mean, it was all places I'd seen before because a compact city like here only has so many attractions to visit, but it was fun to see them through new eyes. It was like going on a roller coaster you've ridden before but with a child who was enjoying it for the first time – it brought back memories of my own first ride, you know?"
Blake didn't really know, since she wasn't sure what a roller coaster was, but she nodded along once again. It did strike her as a little weird that they'd essentially gone on a date during the week, she'd been out, but Jaune had repeated time and time again that he wasn't dating Velvet. That didn't mean it hadn't changed in the time she'd been out, but he probably would have told her if it had. Hell, there would have been no way he would shut up about it if they became a couple.
"What about you? Did you go somewhere nice?"
An apology was going to be difficult if Blake couldn't even speak to Velvet, but again she found no words and merely nodded.
She hadn't actually gone anywhere nice. Vale was the only safe place for her, given the influence that Adam exerted in the other kingdoms. All it would have taken was a single spy of his noting her presence and he'd be on her like wildfire on a field mouse. As for Vale itself, she hadn't really know what to do on her own, so she'd just used her money to book a hotel and read for the full day. She'd gone through ten full books before the week had ended.
It was relaxing, for sure, but Blake had kind of been hoping to do more. Vale was an enormous city with so much to offer, but she just couldn't get into it for some reason. On her first day, she'd ventured out on her own and tried to find something to do, but her first attempt at having fun by visiting a historic cathedral that was a popular tourist destination according to the website on her scroll been a disaster.
Complete and utter boredom was all that had awaited her there. She looked at the stone walls and mighty pillars and stained-glass depictions of historic figures from Vale's monarchy, and she'd felt nothing. It had sapped all the joy out of her on the first day of her vacation, and she'd lost the will to try anything new.
It wasn't supposed to have been like this. As a child, Blake had never been hesitant to explore the world around her. She had many fond memories from her youth of being able to enjoy herself on the crowded markets and sunny beaches of Menagerie. Then, as she'd gotten older, the White Fang under her parents had taken her to the new kingdoms of Vacuo and Mistral, each full of their own rich cultures and vibrant lifestyles to explore. Blake had seen ancient ruins of bygone civilizations, grassroots music festivals so in touch with the ground that they were practically muddy, and even the majestic council buildings where the governments ran things, and she'd enjoyed all of it.
But Vale was worse.
No, that wasn't right. Vale wasn't worse than the other kingdoms; Blake had just changed.
There were two possibilities, and both frightened her an awful lot. Either the childlike wonderment at witnessing the new was something that she'd outgrown upon becoming an adult, or she had only truly enjoyed those places because of the company that she'd kept at the time. Mom, Dad, Ilia, Sienna, even Adam – a part of the fun had been sharing it with someone, much like Jaune and Velvet had in her absence.
Was Blake truly so empty that she couldn't find anything to do on her own besides read stories about other people living their own lives?
Did Blake even know how to enjoy herself on her own?
With those existential dreads at the forefront of her mind, apologizing to Velvet suddenly seemed less like a challenge and more like a welcome distraction. Blake cleared her throat and broke the silence that had ensued in the wake of her lackluster answer.
"V-Velvet, I want to apologize. Some of the things I said to you were really shitty, and I want to take them back."
"It's fine," Velvet said.
"No, it's not fine," Blake countered. Pleasant non-truths might spare them both embarrassment, but Blake needed Velvet to know that the things Blake had been saying weren't what was truly 'her.' "I kept wondering in my head why you told Jaune about your pregnancy first and not me. It bothered me for a while, especially since we're so similar in a lot of ways, and I just couldn't figure it out for a while. But what you said back at the salt flats about being responsible for your own actions and not letting your…actions hurt people…well, you didn't hurt anyone, but I did."
"Blake, it's fine. It's nothing I haven't heard before."
"But you shouldn't have to!" Blake said forcefully. "And even if you have, I shouldn't be slut-shaming you and adding another problem. Fuck's sake, I made things so bad between us that I had to run away for a week just to get over myself. I'm sorry, Velvet. As a boss, as a woman, as a person…I'm really sorry. I won't judge you, not ever again."
Velvet's fingers strummed the airship's stick. "You can judge me a little bit. Not gonna lie, it can get me going in the right circumstances. Heh…cir-cum-stances…"
"Velvet, I'm serious here. I was a bitch to you."
"And so am I," said the rabbit Faunus, smiling. "Blake, a few unkind words here and there aren't enough to negate all of the amazing things that you guys have done for me. I'm an academy dropout who showed up in the park with storebought egg salad sandwich bribes because I knew you were poor and would be hungry, and you hired me. I get to pay rent and eat and regularly visit the doctors because of you. That's not nothing."
Blake couldn't keep the truth hidden, for her shame was too great. "J-Jaune was the one to –"
"Yeah, and I mean no offense to Jaune, but it's pretty obvious to anyone with eyes that you make all of the serious decisions on this team. He may have campaigned for me, but you could have pulled the plug on my employment at any time. Honestly, when I told you I was pregnant, I thought that was gonna be it."
Blake remembered that moment. She'd called Velvet dumb for having 'spread her legs.' Bright red shame spread across her face at having to relive the moment again in her mind.
Velvet's arm reached across the cockpit and gently shoved Blake, a grin on her face. "Enough of that. If you're gonna think about something, think about your actions, not your words. If I recall correctly, you said that you would make sure I was okay financially, contract-obligated salary or not. That's not how a bitch would act."
Blake couldn't help but smirk a little. "S-So…s-so was this all just the next step of your master plan to guilt me into sticking by my promise of a higher pay for you?"
Velvet chuckled. "You caught me."
For maximum comedic effect, she let go of the stick and raised her hands in mock surrender, but the airship began to drop out of the sky, and Velvet frantically grabbed ahold of it.
"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" Jaune screamed from the backseat. "HEEEEEELP!"
When the airship was back on an even flight path, Velvet (holding the stick firmly with one hand) reached over to pat Blake's shoulder.
"I accept your apology, Blake. I don't think I need to hear it, but…I'm guessing you feel like you need to say it, so I accept. Thank you for making an effort."
"I…y-you're welcome."
Velvet's hand went back to the stick, but when it did, she stared at the rod-shaped controller that she was now gripping with both hands for a little too long. Blake couldn't help but notice it as well.
Velvet a grin on her face, giggled. "H-Heh."
Then, after just enough of a pause for perfect comedic timing, she moved her hands up and down on the stick rapidly.
Both girls burst into a fit of laughter.
It took landing on the ground and taking five steps out of the airship in the direction of the nearby village of Jkonna for Blake's positive mood to evaporate like a forgotten kettle's full of boiling water.
"You've gotta be fucking shitting me."
Velvet cringed a little bit at first, but then she noticed what Blake had instantly. "What's wrong?"
"Hunters," Blake seethed. "A team of them."
And the worst part was, it was even more Beacon hunters, or perhaps Shade ones, given the age. Memories of the mission that had put them head to head with Team LTUC of Beacon came back, and how Team Job had been utilized as a scare tactic akin.
"I don't get it," Velvet declared innocently. "What's wrong with hunters? Do you not like them or something?"
"No. It's not even them," Blake said. "We've done this before."
In hindsight, Blake might have carried a little resentment to the hunters themselves who had rejected her and then belatedly done their worst to shut down her company, but it wasn't that disdain that motivated her current state of anger.
"I really hope this doesn't become a regular thing," Jaune said to himself, having exited the Job Hunter and come to the same realization as Blake. "Team Job isn't a bargaining chip, you guys."
Blake agreed that that would be a disaster for them. They had only emerged victorious last time because Jaune had cheated. Should they find themselves regularly pitted against full-fledged hunter teams, especially the older years of Beacon like Velvet who could hunt circles around them, it could be the end of them.
There were two huntsmen and one huntress loitering around the gate of the village, but from the way they looked like they were waiting for someone to come out, she could imagine their fourth member meeting with the mayor of Jkonna to discuss terms and work out the details. That meant they might have had a limited time before a contract was negotiated!
"Jaune, get in there and get us a job." She slapped him on the back and gently shoved him forward. "Hup to it!"
He didn't seem at all offended by being manhandled, likely having already figured that he was going to have to break out his 'leadership skills.' She trusted him to either pull off another miracle or somehow handle it before they lost the upcoming mission to Beacon.
He knows what this is going to be after last time. I trust him to handle it.
Jaune rushed ahead, nodding a brief response to the greeting from the hunter team when he passed by them. The mayor's house's location had been given to them when they'd been hired, and Jaune made a beeline for it.
I'd like to go with him, but until we know for sure that us being Faunus isn't going to be poorly received, I think it's safer to stay out here.
That meant they were going to have to stand the presence of the huntsman team that was gunning to steal their jobs. One of them almost looked familiar…
"Holy crap, I think I might know those guys," Velvet whispered to her, a grin across her face.
I guess they're familiar to her too, as classmates up until a month or so ago.
"Don't get too friendly," Blake said to her in a similarly low voice. "This isn't the first time this has happened to us, where we get called out to a village in the middle of nowhere only to find a Beacon team that's doing our mission for free."
Velvet blinked. "W-Wait, was that –"
"Team LTUC." Blake nodded. "Our employer, Mrs. Corundum, was displeased with their performance and called in 'the professionals' to handle it if they didn't. We were a tool for her to threaten them into compliance, and it took 10% of our fee to buy their compliance into not reporting us." Blake scowled at the thought of it. "And they did anyways. Ozpin paid us a visit the next day."
"O-Oh. I…I didn't realize…I had no idea it was this…"
Before they got to the Beacon team, Blake stopped Velvet with an arm in front of her stomach so that they could finish this last bit in privacy. "Be honest with me. If you hadn't gotten kicked out of Beacon, would you have seen a team full of dropouts as anything other than a liability?"
Velvet's sad little frown got even sadder, and Blake rushed to reassure her.
"I'm not mad at you or something, nor do I hate huntresses. I tried to go to Beacon and become one. I'm just explaining what we're facing. To them, we're either civilians to be ignored, rivals to be quashed, or novelties to be –"
"OMIGOSHBLAKEIT'SYOU!"
Something crashed into her and nearly knocked Blake to the ground. Her hands tried to reach for Gambol Shroud as she frantically raised her aura, but whoever it was that had grabbed her like a vice and wasn't letting go.
"Velvet, help!" Blake shrieked, wriggling in the grasp of the mass of red and black that was too close to her to reasonably identify.
It was too tight to replace her body with a shadow clone; they were good distractions but did nothing to actually wrench her body free of the enemy's grasp. Blake was truly pinned, and she needed help.
"OMIGOSHVELVETIT'SYOU!"
"Hold your horses, Ruby," came Velvet's voice from Blake's right. "No hugs for me, thanks."
Ruby? Wait, wasn't that Jaune's friend from –?
Blake looked down at the human that was clutching her. Her face was furiously rubbing into Blake's shoulder from the hug, but the brunette head of hair with bright red tips was distinguishably unique enough for Velvet to recognize it.
"Blake, we get to do a mission together!" said Ruby Rose.
Coming Soon: Join Hands and Sing Along
Team Job breaks bread with the enemy.
Author's Notes
That's as far was we this year. Tune in next year for more idiocy.
I worry that the dialogue is kinda cringy during the apology, but I also feel like some people might speak like that, so we get what we get.
Happy rats, and don't do crime!