"Percy." he greeted from the other end.
"Shiro," Percy chirped happily. "Calling for a monthly update I assume?"
"How did you know? Is it, perhaps, because it's the first of the month, and I do this every month?" Shiro's voice was biting, but clearly playful.
"Oh Shiro," Percy said, grasping his chest with his hand though Shiro couldn't see it. "You wound me so."
Percy could practically feel the eye-roll through the screen. "Whatever. First, before we get into anything, we found some information on those two girls you asked me to look into."
"Oh? Do tell."
"Well, for the first one we don't have much. Her name is Illia, and she's some sort of chameleon or lizard faunus. She's been with the White Fang for some time, but that's just about all we've managed to gather on her, other than the fact she's practically glued to the side of the other girl."
"And the other one?"
"Blake Belladonna. She's the legitimate daughter of the Chieftain of Menagerie, the founder of the White Fang. She hasn't been home in some time, however, and there's apparently something between her and Adam."
Percy smiled slightly. "Well, the age difference is a bit much, but that's good. Thank you Shiro. Next?"
"Business in Vacuo has fallen through fully. I don't know who, but someone is paying the council big bucks to keep us out."
Percy frowned, "The SDC?"
"Probably. Again, not sure. But given proper motive and resources… again, probably. I'll put an agent or two on it, but Vacuo is a dead end at the moment. I'll keep poking around on the side."
Percy sighed. It was too good to be true, he supposed. "And Mistral?"
"That at least is going well. Haven't seen hide nor hair of anyone from the families, and the first factories were up and running as of a few days ago. Including warehouses to hold the stuff, hiring muscle to protect our workers, and arranging for the transportation itself business is starting to boom down here. It's great news and the profit will start rolling in for sure, but it's only a matter of time until someone takes notice and starts looking into it. We could use you here. Speaking of which, are you almost done in Kuchinashi?"
Percy wrinkled his nose as he cut part of a shirt off of one of the bodies laying across the ground, wiping it down Riptide to clear the blood from it. "Yeah, just cleaning up. I should be done here within the week." he lowered his voice so the biker gang picking over bodies around him didn't hear him. "I haven't seen quite yet how the locals will react to us installing some regional governors. I'll be sticking around for a little until that happens."
"I understand. I also wanted to let you know I've temporarily put a hold on expanding the MTC's operations. Between renovating these old factories and slowly but surely and anonymously buying out the other arms companies we're a bit strapped for cash at the moment."
Percy sighed. "Is it really that bad?"
"Well, to be honest renovating these old factories isn't all that bad. It only costs a couple dozen thousand lien to get everything working again and with the cheap labor earns its worth back in a matter of a week. The problem is the other arms manufacturers. There are three we're buying out simultaneously, and the most expensive of them is worth billions of lien. It'll be a bit before we own them all at our current rate."
Percy cursed. "There are military contracting companies actually making so much lien they can be worth that much?"
"Well, the first one is simple. They sell drones, big and small. Automatons, robots, mechanical soldiers. That sorta thing. They're barely taking off the ground, so they're worth a couple million. Next is a defense contractor. They build automated turrets, anti-grimm defenses, stuff like that. They're worth about a hundred million but they have more one off, custom orders from the Atlesian military for colonies. Lastly there's an airship producer. Once again their only customer is the Atlesian military, but their merchandise is much more expensive than the other two. They're really picking up off the ground right now, and they're worth about three billion lien. They may be worth twice as much by this time next year, or half as much. It's hard to tell, and depends entirely on the Atlesian general."
Percy perked up. "Well, at least that's a bit better. I doubt the SDC will be ordering airships anytime soon. Prioritize the drone company, then the fortifications, and maybe lastly we can work on airships, though I'm not sure it'd be the best move financially to buy them outright. I can work an angle to sell drones to the Schnees as soon as tomorrow, and more unmanned defenses means the less people die in this war of mine. How long will it take until we can buy all of them?"
"Well, it's hardly our only expense. We're making a lot of money, but we're also using a lot. We're prospecting for dust, bribing Kuchinashi officials, paying the wages of the Windpath officials, loaning out millions of lien to local businesses, funding what is essentially an army, expanding our own police forces and upgrading their gear, purchasing more bullheads, refurbishing factories and warehouses, attempting to crack that encrypted message— my point is, we have a lot of running costs, despite how much money we're making. So it mostly depends how high we prioritize this stuff. If we prioritize it above everything else, I'd have it arranged to purchase all three by the end of the week. If we put it below everything else, it might be months before we have the spare money sitting around to buy any one of them, with all the investment opening up in Mistral."
Percy sighed. "Alright, get the drones soon. Like, today. The defenses can wait for a convenient time, a couple weeks at least, and slowly buy up shares of the airship manufacturer. I can wait for a while on that one."
"You got it, boss. Let me know when you're flying into Mistral, and I'll let you know if we're having any trouble."
"About that… try taking care of it without me. I'm gonna start working on the rest of the outlying cities in Mistral. I think this'll be good for us."
Percy didn't like lying to Shiro, but he didn't have much of a choice. In reality he was hoping that by hopping from city to city under the guise of taking them over (though to be fair, that was quite a nice side benefit) he could find some sort of information on a relic. He'd been relying on the Malachite's network for too long with such little results. It was time he got proactive, and maybe stumbled upon something useful.
If only he realized how useful that something would be.
"Sorry, governor?"
"Governor." Percy confirmed.
Percy sat in a long room in the middle of the city of Kuchinashi, nursing a drink he swirled in his hand. If the liquid inside was a bit more turbulent than a gentle swirling of the glass may have caused, well, nobody called him on it.
One of the tattooed men on his right — from some biker gang or the other, Percy was pretty sure, — slammed his hand on the table and stood, shaking the table and causing various glasses to shake up and down it. Normally someone of Percy's influence would have people around the room that would have levelled guns at the man due to his outburst. As it was, the man standing next to Percy tensed slightly, and everyone else in the room remained stock still. Percy could feel their heartbeats rising at the tension, just as well as he could feel his own remain steadily calm.
"This wasn't part of the agreement!" the biker spat, looking for all the world that he might try and jump Percy then and there.
It was good, then, that they had all seen what he could do during the uprising.
"There wasn't an agreement." Percy bit back, taking another sip of his drink and resting it on the table. "At least, not between us." he said, glancing over to where the chairman of the council of Kuchinashi sat. It was telling that among a room full of bikers and gang members only the chairman was influential enough to be allowed to attend. It truly was pitiful what democracy had come to in this city. "I'm proposing an agreement now. You get spots as enforcers under me, you report to my governor, and you do what he tells you to do when he tells you to do it. In return, you get paid. Well." he picked up his glass and took another sip. "That's the agreement."
"You piece'a—" he was interrupted by one of his colleagues in-between him and Percy standing and putting a hand on his chest. This one was wiry and devoid of half the tattoos the other one had. This one was just a drug peddler, if he wasn't mistaken.
"And if we don't wanna be your lackeys?"
Percy shrugged. "Retire, skip town, whatever you want. But business that goes on in this town from now on is mine. You don't peddle drugs here without going through me."
Another biker from across the table snarled. "We took your help to kick out the cartel because we wanted things to be better. Why would we just fold to you now?"
Percy shrugged. "Honestly, that's not my problem. I need an answer from all of you, and I need it before you leave the room. You can work for me, you can leave, or you can try and stop me. The choice is yours."
Most of the room glanced between each other, not sure who would make the first move, to either direction.
The scrawny one sitting next to Percy was the first one to speak.
"Alright, fine. I'd rather go through you than the cartel anyway, and from what I've heard of you you're not likely to take half as big a cut as those fucks. As long as I can make my money slingin' dope, you have me."
Percy nodded and jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at one of Shiro's most trusted men, the one who would become the governor of Kuchinashi. "I'll let you get acquainted. Anyone else?"
Slowly more and more made their decisions. Most of those running rackets — drugs, pirated media, extortion — folded. After all, they could make a lot more money here with him than elsewhere. They also didn't have the muscle to actually do anything to him, and on top of it all they'd be making more money with him than the stifling cartel that had existed just earlier that day.
The gangs left, most of them. The odd one stuck around to work for him for some extra lien, but most of the bikers and thugs hit the road. They likely valued their independence too much. Percy couldn't blame them. He was sure that many of the gangs wanted to fight back against him, but none spoke up. They all left silently, keeping their peace.
Percy leaned back in the comfortable leather chair.
Well, at least that hadn't turned into a shitshow.
Percy approached a nearby village, nothing but Riptide in his pocket and a duffel bag full of supplies on his back.
A part of him — a rather large part of him — was happy he was out in the wilderness again, on the frontier. It reminded him of his myriad quests, which while they were some of the hardest times in his life, they were also the best. Sometimes three people hoofing it through the wilderness in a mad dash to save the world from divine apocalypse just couldn't be beat. (Which, technically, he was doing again. Sans the two other people, of course.)
He was out here south of even Kuchinashi for a few reasons. One of which was obviously to start gaining more control over the frontier. They were few and far between but as large as Anima — the continent Mistral owned — was, the many small cities, towns, and villages sprinkled over the continent cumulatively had about as many people as there were people in the city of Mistral itself. He had spoken to Shiro about it, and even as he was making his way to the nearest town on foot, half a dozen small teams went from city to city. Hopefully with promises of aid and protection from the grimm, as well as a better life, most cities would fold.
On top of that, as much as it pained him, there was the threat of just straight up invasion if they didn't agree. Considering some of these villages were as small as a hundred and fifty people, a bullhead full of police stood a decent chance at convincing them. Of course there were always cities with thousands of people, but once again the idea that they'd be able to provide support against the grimm and be able to run the city better than the local council was hopefully enticing to people. For those that it didn't convince… well, they had a clean-up crew for that kind of situation.
Percy shook his head to rid himself of such thoughts. This was as much a vacation as it was work. At least he'd be telling himself that until he got to the village he was headed towards. Which, looking ahead of him, would be in about… thirty seconds.
Damn.
Percy shrugged the pack higher on his shoulders. Even if he would have to stop training for a little bit as he entered the small village of roughly 400 people (at least, the last time any intel on this town was collected that was the case) he could get a nice warm bed with some home cooked meals. He needed to top off his rations, too. All in all, spending a few days in a village to convince the local sheriff to let him run the city would probably be a welcome change of pace.
Fire. Screaming. The sound of glass breaking and doors being broken down.
Mothers cradled their children, people forced into cages by shadowy figures and hauled off to who knows where. Those that resisted were beaten to an inch of their life by the shadows.
Flames of death, and chains of slavery.
Percy bolted out of bed and rubbed his eyes, blearily being woken in the middle of the night. A glance at his scroll told him it was almost one in the morning, and Percy groaned as he buried his face in his pillow. He didn't know why he couldn't have a night of peaceful sleep. On his last day in the village, nonetheless. He'd already made his deal with the mayor and the sheriff, was it too much to ask to stave off the nightmares?
Percy was on the edge of sleep when the screaming started again. Percy resigned himself to being stuck in the same cycle of fire and death for the rest of the night. Glass shattered, and guards called for help. He tucked his pillow further around his ears, and was surprised when it actually dulled the noise.
Percy bolted upright. This one wasn't a dream.
Leaping out of bed, Percy threw on his pants and shoes, throwing riptide and his scroll into his pockets before bolting out of the room, not even bothering with a shirt. He was on the first floor in seconds, ignoring the remaining patrons of the tavern so late at night downstairs and bursting through the front door.
What greeted him was his nightmare.
Men and women both surged through the gate of the village, destroying everything in their path. There had to be dozens of them, at least, all of them bearing weapons and latching to the nearest thing to them. The buildings closest to the gates were quickly ransacked, and the people nearest to it either subdued and dragged off, or killed for their resistance.
Percy's blood went white hot.
He'd agreed to protect these people not five hours before. This was his village. These were his people. If these bandits thought they could just waltz up and loot his village, and kill his people… they had a nasty surprise on their hands.
The first one to catch the surprise caught it in the form of Riptide sprouting through the back of their throat.
He didn't think he'd ever killed so blatantly before. He wasn't sure he'd ever killed someone so quickly and personally. He was sure he could have knocked them out, or subdued them, or something. But tonight, he didn't care.
Percy let the night turn into a blur as he surged towards the invaders. Riptide sung through the air, a beautiful song of speed, of danger, of blood. And blood there was. Every time Riptide came down another life was forfeit, every swing of his sword drew blood, and every stab of the blade met flesh.
Percy grunted, shoving another off of his sword. Luckily he'd not completely lost himself to the flow of battle, or he may have missed the calls of 'huntsman' echoing through the bandit's ranks. They weren't calling it out in any sort of shock or fear, but instead as if it was a formation they had been taught. So, they had a way of dealing with huntsmen, did they?
Several cooling corpses later and Percy had his answer at the end of a red blade.
Percy only took a moment to meet the eyes of the one across from him. She wore a bone white mask, wore black and red clothing, and had long, black hair. Percy grunted and shoved her back with all the strength he could put into his sword arm. Shocked, his mystery assailant stumbled backwards, almost through the gate. Percy didn't give her a chance to recover.
He pressed the assault, swing after maddened swing forcing the bandit backwards until she was perpetually backpedalling just to keep enough distance between them to keep her alive.
She kept backing up into the forest, and Percy followed her. Levelling a swing everywhere she was, she was gone a moment later, backing up further into the forest. He was certain that if he could see past that mask of hers he'd see her wide, surprised eyes. Somewhere in the back of his mind he acknowledged that this may be the most skilled person he'd yet faced in this world, despite the way the fight was going. Rage and adrenaline fuelled as he was, he didn't think even Qrow could have evaded him for half this long. But his conscious mind didn't care about that. His conscious mind only cared about blood.
In a seemingly desperate move she levied a stab at him with her sword. It accomplished the objective of lengthening the distance between the two, but it wouldn't be for long.
Apparently she didn't need long. Instead of pressing her — very momentary — advantage, she swung her sword behind her without looking. A portal opened up, and Percy snarled, lunging forward as fast as he could. She stepped backwards into the portal, but not before Percy managed to land a stab on her shoulder causing the bandit to cry out in pain, aura or not.
Just before he could get through the portal himself it closed, forcing Riptide out. Grunting, Percy turned back to the village, cursing semblances all the while. She may be able to escape for now, but he had more important things to deal with, like saving the people of the village. At least he did until the same bandit came sailing out of the trees faster than anyone he'd met, Qrow besides.
Percy snarled once again as he fended the attack off, blocking the stab on the side of his sword and surprising the bandit by tanking the force of her momentum. He heaved his sword forwards, reversing her momentum and causing her to fall straight onto her back. Percy made a stab for her head she just barely managed to avoid, tilting her head to the right. It did, however, have the effect of shattering one side of her mask and revealing part of her face. That soon became all of her face as she scrambled to stand, hastily blocking one of his slashes as she did so, the mask slipping off in pieces. He kept the pressure on her, pursuing her further into the forest. Unfortunately he didn't recognize her, but he'd make sure he remembered her face for their next run-in, if there was one.
Percy belatedly realized a storm was gathering overhead, unnaturally quickly. He figured that was likely because of his current, well, emotions, and continued on with the fight. It wasn't anything that hadn't happened before.
A few moments later he had her trapped in a corner. A convenient barrier of close-together trees blocked the way forward unless she wanted to try squeezing between the two nearest to her. She likely could, but it'd take so long that she'd also end up a bandit-kebab by the time she made it to the other side, courtesy of Riptide.
Grimacing, the bandit made one, final, overhead swing at him. Percy readied himself to block it and then kick her sternum back into one of the oak trees, but the bandit had other plans.
Percy's eyes widened as a bolt of lightning fell from the sky, meeting her sword half way and hitting Riptide with the force of a truck, causing lightning to flow through Percy's body and into the ground.
Percy grit his teeth at the pain, and readied himself for the next blow, all the while wondering what the hell that was. This bandit's semblance was portals, right? Or was that some sort of incredibly useful Remnant technology he'd never even heard about.
No, it was probably her semblance.
Which left his mind whirring as to what the Hades that lightning bolt could have possibly been about. He didn't have much time to ponder it, though, as soon the assault resumed. Her wide, now flaming eyes glowed in rage as she redoubled her assault on him.
It was similar to how their fight had been going before, except this time… reversed.
With every swing of her blade the bandit let loose the elements. Lightning, wind, fire, all came to batter him down with every blow. Her eyes were wide after the fifth time he tanked a fireball with not so much as a singe on his chest, or a lightning bolt without collapsing to the ground. Perks of being the son of Poseidon, he supposed. He wasn't actually sure if aura was supposed to protect from extreme temperatures or electricity, but he made sure to find out as soon as this battle was over.
Speaking of which…
As the fight went on, the bandit only ramped up her attacks. Entire tornados sprung from her blade, torrents of fire and enormous bolts of electricity increasing in intensity. Luckily he was mostly immune to fire, and the lightning had a much reduced effect on him compared to how it would affect anyone else, but the shocks still made his muscles tense and his reactions slower. The wind fought against him, slowing his strikes to half of what they should have been. The gale was so strong in places that it ripped trees in half and destroyed entire swathes of the ground. It looked like the battle was between two armies, not between two people.
But as Percy was forced to back up another step lest he bite the edge of the bandit's blade, he came to a startling realization.
He was losing.
Despite the fact that this couldn't have been one semblance, and none of this made sense in any real way, he was losing. For the first time since Kronos he wasn't actually confident he could win a fight. He'd fought giants with more ease than this.
Well, that wasn't entirely true Percy granted, grunting at another impact of a lightning bolt straight to his sternum. He had been using his powers against Polybotes, where he was limiting himself here.
The more his distracted mind thought about it, the angrier he got.
Here this bandit was, daring to wield the elements against him. The wind and lightning was an insult to him as a son of the stormbringer. No, the son of the stormbringer.
Fine, this bandit had some bullshit she wanted to pull out of her sleeve to even the odds? Well, so did Percy. And he'd be willing to bet that whatever control she had over the elements, she wasn't a god.
With a grunt of exertion, suddenly the wind shifted. A hurricane formed well above them, encompassing the tornado and devouring it into it's overwhelming gale. This barbarian thought her winds were impressive? Percy doubled their speed, whipping the hurricane up to surround them and their surroundings for miles to come. Subconsciously he formed its eye over the village, ensuring they would be safe as they could reasonably be.
The wind suddenly on his side, Percy pressed the advantage. Instead of slowing his attacks the wind moved with him, aiding him. Instead of levying more force behind her blows it slowed her until all she could do was backpedal. She attempted to harness lightning from the clouds above to send at him, but instead she called out in shock as she was hit squarely in the chest and sent flying dozens of meters into a tree.
Percy was on her in moments, not giving her time to breath… right in time to catch an enormous torrent of fire straight to his face.
He had to admit that it was hot. Hotter than he'd imagined she could produce. In fact, from his limited experience he could tell it was a bit hotter than the inside of a volcano. Which meant he needed to put an end to it before he started to really feel the heat.
Unable to see anything in front of him Percy reached far into the underground, and yanked the groundwater to the surface. It convulged on the form of the bandit spewing fire from her hands and suffocated it. Superheated steam erupted around them but Percy kept the pressure up. Water from the rain around them, from the grass they were standing on, and the dirt they were over coalesced to extinguish her flames and suffocate the bandit. Percy only let the water drop when it stopped evaporating, preferring to deal with her personally.
It may have been just a bit stupid but Percy couldn't much find it in himself to care. He straddled the figure on the ground, laying into her with punch after punch. She didn't do more than squirm on the ground, trying in vain to cough out the water that filled her lungs. He only relented when he heard the telltale sound of an aura shattering, and a red energy rippled and fizzled out around the bandit. She barely paid it any mind, still attempting to hack out her lungs. Percy gave her one last punch for good measure (and, a small part of him remarked, to make sure there was some punishment for their fight today, regardless of what happened) and hauled her to her feet.
Rain pouring around them, thunder blaring in the distance, wind moving by so fast it was tearing smaller trees from the ground, Percy shoved the bandit up against the nearest tree, allowing her a slightly better vantage point to hack her lungs out.
"Where the fuck is your leader!?" Percy demanded, shoving her harder against the tree.
As much as he wanted to press her harder for answers, he wasn't an idiot, and could see clear as day that she couldn't talk with the water in her lungs. So, reminding himself he was hardly doing this out of mercy, Percy rested his hand on her chest and expelled the water from it. A torrent came out of her mouth with a shocked choke, and the bandit stood there breathing quickly. "I'll ask one more time. Where. Is. Your. Leader?"
The bandit looked at him helplessly. "I am. I'm the leader."
Percy snarled. It was hardly too surprising, after all he figured the only real way out here in the wild was that the strong led, and she was certainly strong. Stronger than anyone else he'd found here even without her mystical bullshit. But with it? He was willing to bet if he wasn't here she'd be able to take out anyone on remnant short of a maiden.
Wait… maidens. That was… probably the answer to most of his questions. She was female, after all. And she looked relatively young, even if she probably wasn't younger than thirty. Don't get him wrong, on earth she could have passed for twenty-something pretty easily, but on Remnant with aura she was likely much older. Whatever the case, he would worry about that later.
"Call off the attack, now. Tell your bandits to high tail it back to your camp."
The bandit nodded tiredly. It seemed she was resigned to do whatever he demanded of her because she pulled out a very wet scroll and made a call.
"Call off the attack. Things didn't go as planned. Leave whatever you have, including the people, and head back to the camp." the bandit managed to muster some steel in her voice before closing her scroll, glancing at him as if to say 'happy now?'
Percy could feel a large group of people leaving the village with haste, so he knew at the least her message had been delivered. If they'd decided to follow her directions word for word was something he could worry about later.
Percy grunted, tossing her to the side and onto the wet grass to his left. The storm above still raged and bathed them both in water. While the bandit was soaked and muddy Percy stood perfectly dry, the only sign of wear the mud and singe marks on his pants. Admittedly he had some sweat beading along his chest and face, and he was breathing quite heavily. It was certainly a testament to her ability, at the least.
The bandit scrambled to at least not be lying down in the mud, letting her hands reach out behind her to support some of her weight. Despite not wanting to literally lay down, she also wasn't willing to challenge the dynamic here, it seemed.
"What the hell are you?" she asked, wiping some mud from her brow from when she had landed face first in the ground.
I could ask the same Percy thought.
Could he, though? She certainly didn't seem like an immortal witch, and though being a bandit was hardly conducive to humanity's survival, it was also really not evil-mastermind type scheming to end the human race.
So as far as he was aware there was one more distinctly female magical presence in this world. The frustrating part was that he couldn't remember what Monty had told him about the maidens. That they controlled the elements? The seasons? He really couldn't remember, despite how useful that information might be right now.
Mentally shrugging, Percy decided to ignore her question and go for the hail mary. If he was wrong, well, he'd just kill her anyway, right? He'd never killed a prisoner before but he figured if there was a time to start it'd be now. If he was right and she was a maiden, she was useful to him. If he was wrong… she wouldn't be able to tell anyone.
"I didn't expect a maiden to be walking around the middle of Mistral, at the head of a bandit tribe nonetheless."
She was barely surprised, if he read her body language right. She had to figure he was somehow magical by now, why wouldn't he know of the maidens?
"What's your name?" he asked. Still standing over her with his sword lazily hanging at his side.
"Raven." she answered curtly.
"Okay Raven." Percy said slowly. "What exactly do I do with you now?"
Raven shrugged, completely resigned to her position. "I figure you would've just killed me, but considering you know I'm a maiden I'm assuming you'll just drag me off back to Ozpin."
Percy raised an eyebrow. Ozpin knew about the maidens, did he? That wasn't that surprising, given his position of influence. But Monty had assured him no-one but Ozma and Salem's inner circles knew of the maidens and relics, even the governments of the kingdom. So, either Ozpin was in Ozma's inner circle, or Ozpin is Ozma. It would make… a lot of sense, given what he knew, especially considering the similarity in names. But it wasn't enough to jump to any concrete conclusions. At the least, it was useful to know that Ozpin knew about the larger forces at play.
"Ozpin and I… don't see eye to eye." Percy said eventually, deciding to more or less tell the truth. He didn't really dislike the old man, but Percy would hardly look forward to having to work with him all the same.
Raven let out a rather unladylike snort. He considered that was par for the course and all considering she had literally been raised in the woods, from what he could tell. "Then we have something in common, you and I."
Percy scowled at the supposed similarities. He'd love to just kill her now, but he did need her. If he killed her, he had no idea where the maiden powers would go, and he'd be back to square one when it came to finding and accessing the relics. As horrible as her crimes were, he couldn't place justice for one small village over getting access to a relic, or even more than one.
"Here's the deal." Percy led. "You tell me everything you can about the relics, you open a vault for me, and I'll let you and your tribe survive."
Raven paused for a moment, searching his eyes for something. He wasn't sure if she found it, but she did respond over the crash of the rain.
"Why do you want the relics?" she asked simply.
Well, that was a fair question he supposed. She knew he didn't like Ozpin, but that didn't mean he wasn't working for Ozma. Or more likely, for Salem. He rewarded the reasonable question with the truth.
"Ozma is an idiot." he said bluntly, watching for her reaction before continuing. "He hid the relics in four vaults, with no actual security around them, instead of somewhere secure. To protect them he split his power between four maidens, with no way of ensuring that whomever wielded the power was actually trustworthy, leading to fuckups like yourself." he gestured to her, laying on the ground, just having been attempting to steal from and enslave an entire village of people. "And that is somehow supposed to ensure Salem isn't able to access any of them. I want to actually protect them. Use them as a means all on their own, and if I can't kill Salem I'll at least try to contain her." he said, ending his rant.
Raven smiled, tilted her head back, and laughed.
It was a real laugh, he could tell, standing above her as bemused as he was. It wasn't forced, or mocking, or anything of the sort. It was born of real, genuine amusement. Raven let her head fall backwards into the mud soaked ground, bursts of amusement still escaping from her lips.
She leaned back up, wiping a tear from her eye. He wasn't sure why she bothered with the downpour of rain quickly replacing the sign of her amusement, but she did anyway.
"We're more similar than you know, boy. More similar than you'd hope, at least. Fine, I'll help you. If only to say fuck you to Ozpin." she grunted, lifting herself to her feet. Brushing off her muddy hands on her shorts (which were very short, now that Percy wasn't too distracted to notice) she extended a hand away from the village, towards where Percy supposed her tribe was. "After you, I need to tell my tribe what to do while I'm gone opening your vault for you."
Percy raised an eyebrow and jerked his head in the direction she pointed. "Lead the way."
Sighing, she started towards the tribe, muttering about 'no fun hot male maidens'. Percy didn't feel like dissecting that one.
Wrapping it in a coat of water Percy summoned Raven's blade to his hand, following behind the maiden at a casual pace. He figured he needed to check out their camp anyway, to make sure they didn't have any slaves. Especially from his village.
A few minutes later Percy's fears would be proven true. They strode straight into the camp without anyone so much as speaking to them, though they were certainly looked at. Watching their leader, covered in mud, soaking wet, and bruising walking into the camp with the shirtless huntsman that had slaughtered their ranks holding her sword, most of the bandits couldn't stop looking at them. The broken tents all around them (from his still-raging storm, he was sure) did nothing to distract the bandits from the sight of him and Raven, nor did it do anything to distract him from the sight of the hundreds of people around the camp either wearing collars or being kept in cages.
Raven made her opinion clear to any who were too obvious with their staring, though, shooting looks that might have literally been able to kill if she was willing to use her maiden powers in the open like this.
Raven led him to a large tent towards the center of camp, presumably hers. She glanced at someone near it (Percy couldn't quite make out who she was looking at) and jerked her head at the tent, entering before Percy could tell who it was. Percy followed in behind her, setting her sword down on her table and sitting down himself in a chair she had on the inside of the tent, resting Riptide between his legs. There was no way her aura had recovered yet and she had seen what he could do. She wouldn't try anything, he was sure.
A moment later an older man walked into the tent, a sword strapped to his side. He looked at Percy uneasily, but apparently he had a good enough grasp of what was going on because he ultimately directed his attention at his leader, who was busy attempting to wring the water out of her hair.
Halfheartedly Percy bid the hurricane to dissipate, ceasing the winds and rain outside. He was probably the only one that enjoyed that sort of weather, and it wasn't much helping anyone outside.
Raven noticed the entrance of the man, and glanced at him as she continued to comb the mud out of her hair with her bare hand.
"Take the tribe northwest a few miles. I'll be gone for a few days, kill anyone that tries to defect." she said easily, as if reading off of a menu at a restaurant. The man nodded his assent, looking as if he was about to leave.
Percy shifted in his seat. "Release your slaves."
Raven stopped combing her hair momentarily. "Wait, what?"
"I said release your slaves." Percy repeated. "Now, while I'm in the camp. I want every one of your slaves free."
Raven let out a disbelieving laugh. "You can't be serious. Half of those out there are from rival tribes, they'll terrorize that town just as soon as we will. You can't actually be asking me to—"
"I'm not asking you to do anything. I'm telling you to release your slaves."
Raven shook her head and let out a long sigh. "Alright, whatever. Release all of them
Hawk." She ordered the man, apparently named Hawk. What was up with all the weird bird-themed names? Hawk, Raven, Qrow. Okay, maybe the last one was more stupid than avian themed, but it still counted.
Hawk hesitated for a moment, glancing hopelessly between them, but Raven didn't seem super happy at that.
"Did I fucking stutter?! I said release the slaves! Go!"
Percy watched as Hawk quickly spun and walked out of the tent, revealing the weather outside had cleared up and the wind had dulled to a stiff breeze.
Percy looked back from the flap of the tent to Raven only to see her in the middle of removing her top. He froze for a moment. Mostly, he liked to think, because he wasn't expecting it. Not at all because he liked the view. No, of course he didn't like the sight of a trained huntress peeling the wet fabric of her shirt off of her smooth skin. Or the way it clung to her breasts as she moved it over the tips of her— Nope!
Nah, nope. Not today. Percy looked away quickly, and despite himself blushed heavily. He liked to think he was a pretty confident person, but he was hardly expecting her to strip in the middle of the room, sue him. Raven finished removing her shirt and he could swear she was smiling at him.
"What, not enjoying the show? I figured most teenagers would give their left nut to get a view like this."
Percy didn't say a word, grabbing Riptide and walking out of the tent without glancing back at her, her mocking laughter following him all the way.
He'd end up regretting running into her, wouldn't he?
Happy birthday Percy! And welcome to operation D-day. If you're at all in the pjo fandom, you'll prolly notice a lot of your favorite authors updating today. Enjoy the day of reading :). Blood and water as well as proditione et fide are also updated on my profile, if yall havent seen those.
This extra chapter is due to shiro's contribution on Pat-reon. To even it up, I've only posted this chapter here, and not posted an extra on pat-reon, so they're just one chapter ahead again. I've also gotten another $20 contribution from someone else (no idea if they actually wanna be named) which means there will now be three chapters every month. I'm currently thinking one on the tenth, one on the twentieth, and one on the thirtieth of every month. So just every 10 days. If you wanna keep me motiveted, get a bit early access to chapters, and support me, my pat-reon is on my profile.If you wanna hang out with me or any of the other big authors that updated today, we're all hanging out in the emerald library discord, which is also linked on my profile. I'll see ya there.
Next chapter September 10th