Chapter 39 – A Date with the Callows

Dinner with a madman turns out to be a surprisingly tame affair, until it doesn't.

"What do we do?" Jaune asked.

"Why are you asking me?" Blake said back. "You were the expert on this guy just a second ago."

Jaune had been all intent on promising just how sure he was that this guy wanted to be found; well, now he'd been proven right, but Blake was certain this wasn't how he'd imagined it happening.

"He's waving us over," Velvet said, looking down her own binoculars at the man. "Do we…maybe this isn't a part of the mission? Maybe he wants to discuss the terms of the arrangement."

It was Blake's first time seeing this man, and he wasn't at all what she'd been expecting. For whatever reason, in spite of Jaune's descriptions of his appearance, she'd still personified him as some grizzled, white-bearded huntsman riddled with scars in her mind's eyes. The actual man was much more palatable, arguably even handsome for his age.

Jaune had done him justice in his reporting on Mr. Callows' looks (he even still wore the three-piece suit), but there was no way he could have explained the manic look in the man's eyes. Even at the distance and with the aid of the binoculars, Blake could see the rank glee Tyrian was exhibiting upon their arrival. Still waving, he stepped out of view from the window. A moment later, the exterior front doorknob twisted, and the door opened up.

"I guess we go in?" Jaune said, not sounding all that sure.

"I thought he said he wanted us to start hunting him as soon as we were convened," Blake said to him.

"Yeah, but he's clearly put that on hold if he's just waiting for us at the door to his place," Velvet said. "Someone who wants a fight with three hunters doesn't just wait at the front door for them to jump him; he'd be preparing for our arrival or at least armed if he still wanted a fight."

Blake didn't like it, but even her paranoid ass had to admit that approaching head-on was basically their only option to resolve this mystery. Besides, Tyrian hadn't wasted any time in locating them, so it wasn't like they could even surprise him if they wanted to.

They'd been ever-so-slightly hiding behind a thin-barred metal fence, not having expected to need any cover given the distance at which they stood from the house. Their binoculars were rather nice pairs, and they had to be at least 800 feet away.

How did he even locate us? Has he got cameras set up in the neighborhood, or perhaps motion sensors? But we're such a great distance away from his house; unless he rigged the entire suburb, there's no way…

As they exited their 'hiding spot,' Blake led the party with Jaune to her right and Velvet to her left. Tyrian continued to await their arrival, utterly unperturbed by the grand distance between their two parties as they moved in the direction of his house.

The rest of the neighborhood seemed like it really was abandoned. Blake saw no movement or light in the windows of any of the homes on either side of the street, and there were no signs of being lived in like cars in the driveway, well-kept grass, or children's toys on the lawn. It felt something like a ghost town, especially as the sun got closer and closer to setting and dusk approached.

"My friends, please, come right on up," greeted Team Job's host as they finally got close enough to him to speak. "I cordially invite you to join me and sup."

"Uh…" Blake wasn't exactly sure how she was supposed to respond to that. "Uh…"

"We'd be delighted," said Jaune, not as disturbed by the weirdness of Mr. Callows' speech habits. "Though, I feel like I ought to ask: do you still wish for us to pursue you?"

"Why, but of course," Tyrian said, moving aside to allow them entry through the doorway. "I've no buyer's remorse."

The house, in spite of what Blake had assumed about it being some trap rigged to blow at a moment's notice, was actually fully furnished with everyone one would need to live. In the front foyer was a coatrack and doormat, and the living room to which it entered had a meditation mat that reminded Blake in its style of Mistral mixed with Menagerie. Through a hallway she could make out a kitchen and a dining room with all of the expected accoutrements. She noted that the dining table also seemed to be fully covered with a sumptuous spread of food and four table settings.

Are we expected to have dinner with him? He mentioned supping; that means eat, right?

"It's a lovely place," Jaune said, speaking on behalf of the full team since Blake and Velvet were momentarily spellbound.

"A handsome abode in a distinguished sector," Tyrian said proudly as he moved into the kitchen, running one hand along the walls. "Some would call it cursed, but I fear no specter."

Blake leaned into the doorway to catch sight of him opening up the oven, mitts on both hands, and remove an herb-encrusted roast bird from it.

Okay. That's clearly a pheasant. I don't really know what I was expecting, but I'm just glad it's not a person's head.

"I left it in the oven to stay warm," he explained upon catching her peeking. He smiled gently. "My little trick to keep the heating uniform."

Blake slowly backed out of the room and rejoined her team in the front of the house.

Velvet was kicking off her shoes and adjusting the strap on her camera as Jaune looked around like a lost lamb as though he expected an explanation for their bizarre circumstances to be written on the back of a piece of furniture.

"Alright, Mr. Expert," she said pointedly. "You know our guy better than anyone. Why's he cooking us a meal instead of sharpening his pitchfork and loading his machine-gun?"

"I…I think we might get a straight answer if we just ask him."

Blake fixed him with a glare.

Jaune immediately recanted. "I mean, not a straight answer. A rhyme-y, twisty, turn-y, one, but…look, I don't think Mr. Callows is trying to deceive us. He's a straightforward guy, just a bit weird. He may speak in rhymes, but he doesn't speak in riddle. Let's just sit down and see if he might tell us when he wants us to fight him."

Blake somehow doubted it would be as easy as just flat-out asking. If their dude wanted them to know and was willing to say, he would already have before going through all this rigamarole.

Still, it was possible that Jaune had merely misinterpreted Mr. Callows' original request, and this was all on his shoulders. Maybe it was just a spar he was after, and the coordinates were just a polite invite to dinner with his newly hired security consultant firm.

I guess we have nothing to lose by asking.

"Don't eat any of the food," she ordered her team.

"Why?" Velvet asked.

"It could be poisoned," Blake said. "Or drugged."

"Yeah, but if he wants to fight us because he wants to test himself, wouldn't handicapping our side sort of –"

"We don't know what he wants," Blake said.

"I dunno," Jaune said. "It just sounds like we're being rude to our client out of an outlandish fear."

Blake was tempted to keep the argument going, but she had to let it stop there, because it was on the word 'outlandish' that Mr. Callows entered the room they were in.

"Ah, sir. We were just…ah." Jaune cleared his throat. "We were hoping to discuss the terms of our –"

"Please, let's not start the business talk until supper has begun." Tyrian slipped behind them and ushered them in the direction of the dining room, oven mitts still on. "You're a tad later than expected, and I'm hoping to dine before the setting of the sun."

Once they were finished saying grace for Velvet's sake (Blake hadn't even been aware than she was religious), Tyrian wasted no time in distributing the foods around the table and generously offering them to the members of Team Job.

"I insist you try the cardamom rice and enjoy its richly tangy spice. Oh, do serve yourself a scoop of devilled egg. The secret to bring out the flavor is a pinch of salt and a dash of nutmeg. And be sure not to miss the main course, my pheasant. I'm told the rub I use is most deliciously pleasant."

Jaune chuckled a bit. "You were just waiting to use that one, weren't you?"

Tyrian carved a piece of the bird's leg and placed it on his plate. "I'll admit, I am a bit of a poet, nor am I ashamed to show it."

Blake could only cringe as her teammates actually took bites of the dinner, with Jaune nibbling on a cob of corn and Velvet sipping her sparkling cider. At least they waited until Tyrian had already sampled those foods, but still…

Is no one a paranoid wreck but me? What if he administered the antidote to himself in advance? Come on, you two.

Tyrian placed his hands together. "Now that our mouths are zesty and our stomachs crammed, the talk of the table is at last at hand."

Blake looked at Jaune expectantly. If he was so confident with his and Mr. Callows' rapport, he could be the one to do the talking.

"I think we mostly just have a single question, sir." Jaune put down his food and folded his hands together, elbows on the table. "A minor point of clarification, that would be."

"Ask away, young consultant. To answer and feed you is my only intent."

It was almost frightening the way that Tyrian could rattle off the rhymes on the fly like he'd planned them out in advance. Blake clandestinely angled her head to check his ears for an earpiece, curious to see if someone might be feeding him lines – nope, nothing.

"When we last spoke, I was under the impression that our mission – which, as I understand it, is to engage you in combat so that you may test your skills – was to begin as soon as Team Job assembled and informed you. Now it seems that we're having dinner when we're supposed to be fighting…I think you see my confusion."

"I do see the origin of our misunderstanding," Tyrian said as he cut apart his cut of pheasant with a fork and knife. "You clearly expected me to be much more demanding. Good lad, you and your lasses may launch your attack at your discretion. Dinner was a courtesy, not diversion nor digression."

Jaune tilted his head to the side. "You want us to fight you…now?"

"I'm ready when you are. I do so hope you're up to par."

Blake had to intervene at this point, for she was bursting with confused curiosity. "If you want us to start fighting immediately, why did you cook us a meal?"

Mr. Callows shrugged his shoulders. "Call it a healthy professional politeness, coupled with the desire to meet my antagonists. Until you launch your strike, I see no reason why we cannot –"

The table flipped over, and a Hard Light minigun underneath it opened fire no less than a millisecond later.

BLATATATATATATAT!

Even as a frightened Blake and a far more terrified Jaune dove for cover and fell over in their seats respectively, Velvet continued to rip the room to shreds. There seemed to be no limits to how much that huge blaster of hers could fire away shots or how fast they could come out.

At times like this, Blake wondered why the biggest possible firearm could be called a 'mini'-gun. The force of the blast was so strong that the spray that came out of the angle was enough to fracture the table in two without even aiming at it.

BLATATATATATATATATATATATAT!

As for where the gun actually aimed, which was where Tyrian had been sitting, the empty chair was reduced to splinters and sawdust almost instantly. The Faunus himself somehow had a sixth sense to avoid danger and was already in motion by the time the rapid fire rain of bullets had begun. Just narrowly, he kept himself ahead of the line of fire, nimbly leaping about the room as Velvet rotated in place to keep aiming at him.

Blake, from her crouched position with her arms covering her head and vital organs, could see the rabbit Faunus' tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she laid waste to the Callows household. Her intangible bullets were destructive enough to tear a literal line out of the walls of the room around them like a long, wide sword was being used to carve the top and bottom of the house in two.

BLATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATA!

It was only when the gun finally ran out of Dust and disappeared did Blake wait a full three second before scrambling to her knees and nearly fainting against her chair, which had now been reduced to a stool.

Blake tried to speak, but her voice was completely gone for some reason. Velvet noticed her mouth moving silently and began to silently move her own lips.

Wait, why is she – oh, it's our hearing that's shot, not our voices.

Bits of destroyed food was splattered about the room, and Blake's jacket was full of holes – not from the bullets, in this case, but from the fragments of high velocity wood that had been dislodged from the table, chairs, and frame of the house itself. Jaune looked like he was dying of a heart attack on the other side of the room, but as Blake looked around, she could find no sign of Mr. Callows or his lifeless corpse.

Blake massaged her human ears and tried out her voice again. It was far fainter than desirable, but she could just barely hear her own words.

"…Velvet, what…?"

Velvet let another ten seconds pass as she too surveyed the room for signs of life.

When she spoke, it was at a regular volume, but she looked like she was shouting from her movements. "I think I missed him."

"You missed…! You literally hit everything inside this house!" Blake looked around the room and was amazed that the second floor and roof hadn't already fallen in, given how little was holding them up. "You've destroyed our client's home!"

"Not his real home," Velvet said, creating a buckler shield and long, curved blade out of Hard Light from her camera. "Remember, this is some pedo neighborhood where the houses are cheap and the neighbors are nonexistent. It's a façade. He doesn't actually live here – the whole dinner thing was a charade, but I called his bluff and nearly got him by surprise."

"On the contrary, my fellow Faunus child," called out Mr. Callows' voice from some other room. Velvet immediately hunched down into a defensive posture, thrusting out her shield. "This castle was, in fact, where I used to reside."

"Slant rhymes?" Velvet mused with a grin. "I got you on your toes."

"The lengths to which you'd go impress me so. I'm quite curious just how far you three will go."

Blake helped Jaune up to his feet and draw Gambol Shroud. As much as she hated Velvet for the irreparable damage her imitation minigun had inflicted on her four eardrums, Mr. Callows had more or less confirmed that this was what he desired.

I guess he cares less about his house being demolished than he does getting a good fight out of us. Well, I guess we'll just give the man what he wants.

"He's unarmed, but we don't know what weapon he has stashed away in this place," Blake said.

Tyrian was in his element, and Team Job were the foreign invaders. They needed to push him out of the house if they were to win this three-against-one duel.

The dining room had three exits – one window that was currently a safety hazard, one doorway to the kitchen, and one path that led to the stairs. Blake hadn't seen which way Tyrian had gone in the confusion, so she went back to back with Velvet. Jaune joined them once he'd gotten his head back into place, allowing each of them to get eyes on a means of egress.

"Okay. On the count of three, we slowly walk to the doorway and then to the front entrance, without breaking formation. We're too exposed here."

She couldn't see if Jaune and Velvet were nodding, but she trusted them to heed her orders without question. Their backs were pressed against hers, so she knew they were still there.

"Alright. One…"

There was the flash of a shadow moving past the window, which Blake was watching. It was difficult to see in the near darkness outside, and the lack of lighting from Velvet's initial blitz attack disrupting the power made it only more difficult.

Blake decided to ignore it and keep counting. "…two…three…go!"

They began to move step by step out of the room. Jaune was the closest to the doorway and walked through it first. Velvet went through next, and Blake was the rearguard as the trio finally entered into the main living room.

This room was even more open, but the absence of tight and constricting walls meant that they would be able to see Tyrian coming if he tried anything. Blake knew from the fact that he'd evaded a Hard Light magazine's worth of bullets without even losing a drop of blood was a testament to his agility.

If he does attack us, I don't think I could outpace someone that fast. Jaune certainly wouldn't. Velvet…maybe.

"Jaune, switch to your crossbow and give us ranged support," Blake ordered. "Move to the front door and press your back against it. If someone tries to get in through it, don't let them."

Velvet twirled her scimitar and scanned the room. "I don't have enough ammo to pull another minigun out of Anesidora. For the time being, I'm gonna be stuck with melee."

Not taking her eyes off the doors, Blake nodded to let Velvet know she'd heard. She couldn't say for certain, but someone as physically talented as Tyrian would almost certainly use his own melee weapons. If Blake could disarm him, even sacrificing herself to do so, Velvet could beat him to a pulp in hand-to-hand while Jaune covered her with crossbow shots.

The three of them waited in a tense silence for about five minutes before it became apparent that Mr. Callows wasn't going to be making himself known.

"He probably wants us to come to him," Jaune theorized. "Same with the whole 'I'll give you dinner until you're ready' thing. He's somewhere in here, waiting."

"Right you are, Jaune Arc," called a voice from the walls, or perhaps it was the ceiling, or maybe the floorboards. "Dead on the mark."

He was toying with them. In the comfort of familiar territory, Tyrian would always have an advantage over them while they search the house for him. It was superior numbers vs. home turf.

That doesn't mean we can't make up our own fog of war.

Blake switched Gambol into a gun and lowered her voice. "Alright. He can hear whatever we're planning, wherever he's hiding. Here's the plan." Blake's finger pointed towards the door to the kitchen. "Move 90 degrees clockwise one time for every month Velvet is pregnant. That's where Jaune and I will look."

Five months would mean a full rotation and one more right turn from there, pointing them in the direction of the walk-in bathroom. Blake couldn't say where they were moving when Tyrian was potentially listening, but only Team Job would understand her code.

"Velvet, watch our six. Jaune, I'll count to the number of days we spent at the Alizarin farm, and then we move. Keep your crossbow ready, and shoot anything that moved. Everyone clear?"

The three all nodded in unison.

Blake braced herself for combat as she stared towards the kitchen, just in case Tyrian was somehow watching them.

"One…two…three…four…five…six…seven…"

She couldn't shout the last number, as that would give away their presence, but Jaune was already moving when she enunciated the first syllable. His crossbow raised, he immediately turned to the right, leaving the left side of the room to Blake as she followed in after him.

No one was there. The bathroom was –

CRRRRTHNK!

Startled, Blake turned around to see a crossbow bolt stuck right through the mirror, fracturing it into hundreds of shards of glass.

"What was that?" Blake asked, trying not to sound terrified. "Was it Tyrian?"

"N-No…sorry, my finger was on the trigger and my own reflection moved when I…s-sorry, Blake."

She tried to steady her heartbeat as Jaune retrieved his arrow. Velvet called out to let them know she was okay, and the group gathered together once more in the main living room.

The bathroom had no other doors, so it was effectively cleared. With the kitchen having been where they came from, that left only the upstairs and a closed door behind which Blake had no idea what lay.

"If Jaune and I ever dated, we go for the door," Blake said. "If not, we try upstairs next."

It was an intentional tactical blunder to leave the door unchecked, and Blake was counting on Tyrian to fall for that. He would assume that they were going to be for the door first, and that would mean he was operating on the wrong intel.

"On the count of the number of rooms in –"

The front door of the house opened up, and Blake froze up and fumbled with her sword from sheer shock.

"He's…the, the, the…the door!" She pointed vehemently, as both Jaune and Velvet had their backs to the front entrance of the house. "It's him! The door!"

Tyrian was already upon them by the time Jaune even had his crossbow raised. He went down first, a single punch to the throat knocking him out in one hit.

Idiot! Raise your aura! How could you not – Gods, I'm gonna kill him when we're done here.

Velvet slashed her own blade into Tyrian's arm as Blake began to fire at him with Gambol, but he kept leaning from side to side faster than she could aim, so only about a quarter of her shots actually landed the mark.

His tail flipped out from between his legs and wrapped around Blake's leg. Blake turned her gun downwards to shoot it, but the Faunus trait constricted, and Blake felt pain right through her aura.

How…he's bypassing aura? What?

Her leg snapped, and Blake tumbled down to the ground, screaming in pain. "AAAAARRRGGHH!"

"Blake! Shite! You'll pay for that, fucker!"

Velvet kept doing her best to fight Tyrian one on one, but even unarmed as he was, he was clearly beyond her. Her buckler faded out of existence when Tyrian smashed his right knee into it, and the sword she was waving only just managed to land a scratch on his thigh in exchange, cutting his pants and his aura minorly.

Throwing the sword his way, Velvet abandoned the use of weaponry and switched to her area of expertise, martial artistry, but Tyrian was faster than her, and his ability to go right though aura made the scorpion far more likely to triumph than the rabbit.

Every punch she threw his way was dodged with relative ease, but Velvet didn't let Tyrian go at her freely either. Falling back when he tried to land his own chops, she raised her arms in a boxing stance and let her arms take the bulk of the hits as she shielded her vitals, swatting away that tail whenever it got close. He was landing blow after blow against her, but nothing truly debilitating, whereas she just couldn't keep up with him.

All Blake could do was watch as the two of them danced back and forth, exchanging ground and then immediately ceding it to their opponent when they went on the offensive.

It was inevitable that Velvet would eventually fall. Though Tyrian couldn't penetrate her defenses and fell her in a single blow as he had with Jaune and Blake, the torment she was putting her arms through eventually added up, and it got to a point where she seemed to be struggling to raise them.

In a desperate last stand, she leapt up into the air and tried to go for a spinning kick to his torso, but his arm and its nearly full aura absorbed the blow. Velvet lost her footing and toppled to the floor without Tyrian even having to knock her down. She twisted midair to land on her shoulder and protect her stomach.

With her only hope for victory now down, Blake finally took her eyes off the fight and crawled towards Jaune to see if he was alright. Last she'd seen, he'd been gasping for air before abruptly stopping.

Well, he had a pulse, so that was good. However, he was down for the count.

"Gods-damned dicksucker!" growled Velvet, groaning in pain as she knelt at Tyrian's feet. "Motherfucking assfondler!"

"All in all, I'll call it decent. Still could use some improvement."

"I'll shove my fucking sword up your shitter!" she raved, in spite of the fact that she had neither have a sword nor an opening in Tyrian's defenses to assault his posterior at the moment. "I'll jizz in your grandfather's mouth!"

Tyrian's only response was to pat Velvet on her head, his fingers coming dangerously close to the rabbit ears that identified her as a Faunus. Then, he turned his back to them and stepped into the kitchen.

Blake waited for him to return with an edged weapon or firearm to deliver the killing blow, but he never did.

"W-Where did he go?" Velvet asked after nearly a minute had passed. "Where's that bitchwhore gone?"

Blake tried to reason it out. He went into the kitchen, which had been utterly destroyed. The only thing left of value in there was the stairs to the second floor.

What's on the second floor that's not on the first? We've got a living room, dining room, bathroom, and a kitchen. All that's left is the…

The bedroom.

"He…He lives here," Blake realized at last. "He's gone to bed."

"What?" Velvet asked.

It was impossible for Blake not to laugh at the stupidity of the situation. "He hired us for a week, and he intends to get his money's worth. We're defeated, so he's letting us go to heal up and try again. It's like before, both times – he wants us to come to him when we're ready."

"Well, whatever his reasons, I'm not gonna let the opportunity go to waste." Velvet grumbled in pain as she hoisted herself upwards, using a lamppost for aid. "Let's get the hell outta here."

Blake felt bad asking Velvet for help walking after everything she'd been through, but with her leg in shambles, there was no way she could even get out of the house without aid.

She's also going to have to hoist Jaune. Damn it, losing really does suck.

"I'll call us a rideshare when we're out of here," Velvet bit out. "Fuck me backwards, I don't like losing. I…I'm sorry for losing, Blake."

"Don't apologize to me, not when I went down first." Blake looked down at Jaune's unconscious body. "Erm, second."

Doing her best to balance on one foot with the aid from Velvet's arm around her shoulder on one side as she hoisted up Jaune in the other, Blake trudged out of the half-ruined house and into the street, the shame of Team Job's first defeat burning up within her.

Coming soon: Remodel, Renovate, Retry

It's time for Team Job to get right back up and eat that horse.

Author's Notes

Inevitably, it couldn't last forever. Three dropouts can't just keep fighting and winning against every enemy they ever come across, not when there's a whole wide word of RWBY enemies out there.

Hopefully this clears up what Tyrian's about. He's playing games with our minds, getting in our heads, rearranging the furniture, but he really is just there to get that grand old fight with Team Job, the upstarts he's heard so much about.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!