Chapter 8 – Splash
Nothing like a little dip to cool off.
Jaune supposed that there were benefits to being a legitimate company as opposed to two teenagers who were blatantly lying through their teeth about having huntsman licenses.
The biggest one was that he could walk about without his heart beating nearly out of his chest every second. In Lemuria, he might not have shown it, but he'd nearly been a nervous wreck every time he'd had to lie. It was important to exude confidence even if one didn't actually feel it.
But here, in this new town, he could walk through town square without any risk of his secrets being exposed, because he had none! How cool was that?
We're here as a security firm, and if anyone tells us we're not supposed to be here, we can just shut them the heck up by flashing our licenses. I actually have a real, paying job, and it's…well, I'm not actually a huntsman, but I am one in everything but name. This is freakin' awesome, man.
This wasn't the opulent type of settlement from before, but a far humbler one. The dirt streets were what he expected from a frontier outpost, and the buildings were made of actual wood. He wasn't happy at how poor it was, but it felt like…like he was doing a good thing by helping these folks.
"They contacted us because they can't afford huntsmen," Blake explained. "They have a Grimm they want killed, but this entire village collectively just produces enough money to break even on what they import."
"So they came to us," Jaune reasoned. Again, it just felt right to be here. He and Blake may have set their rates low to draw in as much business as possible, but it didn't change the fact that they would be saving a town from having to choose between destitution and oblivion.
"Exactly," Blake explained. "But Jaune, there an important distinction I have to make. We're not here to kill Grimm."
Jaune was about to blindly agree when he realized that what she'd just said made no sense. "What? We're not?"
"No," Blake said, shaking her head. "We're not. Huntsmen kill Grimm, and we're not huntsmen. We're a private security firm, so our job is just to provide security to the lake until such time as a week ends. Then, we leave."
Ah. That makes much more sense.
"And if any Grimm attack us during our assigned period of security provision, we'd defend ourselves out of necessity."
In spite of her stoic exterior, the Faunus couldn't help but let a little smile slip out. "Precisely."
The town itself was built only a few hundred feet away from a large body of saltwater, and both shared the same name: the Lake of Lost Voles. It was an exceedingly big lake at that, and much of their commerce came from fishing it, collecting seaweed, or other aquaculture. However, they'd recently had a number of people go missing when they'd ventured out into the lake on misty days, and that left them in a tight spot given how much of their economy depended on farming it for resources.
Jaune and Blake had flown out using the same airship rental service (their punch card now had two holes in it) and met with a prominent citizen since this place wasn't big enough to warrant an elected leader. The Grimm that presumably haunted the lake was of an unknown type, but Blake had assured him that it couldn't be something larger than they could handle.
"Grimm have size limitations that prohibit their habitats," she'd explained. "Sea Feilong don't flop about in streams, nor do Leviathans bask in ponds. Aquatic Grimm exclusively take to bodies of water that scale with their own size."
"It's a big lake," Jaune had worried.
"The scaling factor is huge, Jaune. Don't worry; I wouldn't take us on this job if I didn't think we could actually do it."
The townsfolk had wasted no time in explaining the situation to them and pointing them to the direction of the dock. This was their home on the line, so they didn't beat around the bush and give them a tour of the town or other pointless stuff. According to the leader guy, they could only shut down for one week, as the town was bleeding money for every day they remained out of work.
"We'll survey the lake for the rest of the first day, and then we'll go out in a longboat," Blake said as she and Jaune stood out on the shores. "Grimm are attracted to auras, so our presence should be enough bait. If it hasn't gone for us after two days of baiting it, we'll try diving."
Jaune ran his tongue over his teeth. "Uh…"
"I'll try diving."
"…thanks."
Blake's a cat Faunus. I wonder, does she not like water? Or am I racist for thinking that?
The dock itself seemed to go on forever, but Jaune knew that it was just the fog blocking his view. Still, it was a really picturesque shot, the kind of thing that would go really well into a horror film.
They spent the entire first day just walking around the full circumference of the lake. It wasn't nearly circular, and you couldn't see one end from the other due to the mist, but it didn't seem as big once he'd gone around the whole darn thing. Sure, it was bigger than most of the ponds around Ansel, but so were most swimming pools.
If I had to say, this is only about the three to five times the size of Crater Lake, the one at the top of the mountain in Mistral. It's big, and there's probably creepies lurking in the depths, but Blake was right about it not being anything monstrously huge. No primordial abominations hiding at the bottom or anything like that.
The village itself had been built in a clearing, giving it a brief sandy shore where the ground met the water, but the rest of the lake almost immediately turned into forest the second the water ended. It was coniferous trees mostly, and Jaune was tempted to try and come up with a plan utilizing his knowledge of botany like last time, but he knew that it was stupid to even pretend.
It had only come up last time because of random chance, and they were going to be fighting the Grimm at the center of the lake. It was the beast's home turf advantage, but doing anything else would risk drawing it ashore and endangering the townsfolks, so the waterfront was out of question.
This is the kind of mission we were made for. One Grimm hardly justifies flying a full pro-hunter team out or something, but Blake and I can handle it for much lower than they ever would. For a licensed huntsman, the rates we're charging would be chump change, but it means another month…actually, more like another two weeks for Team Job.
Their expenses were going up. The hotel was a fixed price, as was food, but Blake was digging up new costs each and every day. Jaune had known the airships would cost more and more, and sure, licenses had a fee, but then she'd brought up Dust refills, insurance, regular visits to blacksmiths –
We're eventually going to have to raise our prices. But hey, the money stuff, that's Blake's department. I'm just advertising.
He'd learned enough skills in high school to make a functioning website for them to work with, and a few blog posts on prominent SubRemnits and videos on RemnTube to sell their brand had been enough to catch the ear of this kind of place.
All in all, it was working well for now. Maybe it wouldn't work like this forever, but as long as it kept working, he and Blake would milk this for as long as they could.
The next morning, after a long night of slumber in sleeping bags on their guide's kitchen floor and a quick breakfast of fish (Blake seemed really stoked about that for some reason that Jaune dared not ponder), they were off.
And by off, Jaune meant pushing themselves into a rowboat mid-morning when the mists were thinnest as though this were the start of a fishing trip between father and son. They had agreed that since Blake was their resident real combatant, she would hold off on rowing so as to save her strength.
"This is how we're going to catch it?" Jaune asked, one part incredulous and one part thirsty for secret huntress knowledge. "We just wade out and wait?"
Blake nodded as he twisted the oars rhythmically. "As I said, our aura will be enough to draw it out. If this thing has only just started hunting people in the past few weeks, it's probably a smaller Grimm that recently grew big enough to go after humans and Faunus on its own. We'll be tempting prey for the thing, we'll kill it, and we'll finish five days early."
It sounded simple when she explained it.
It had sounded simple when she'd explained things in Lemuria as well.
"So," Jaune went on as he rowed. "Aquatic Grimm. You mentioned Leviathans and Sea Feilongs, right? What else can you tell me about them?"
"Well, I can tell you that most hunters don't care much for Grimm in the water. The ones in the deep seas tend to be too big for our kind to kill with swords or spears, so boats that go out to sea carry their own heavy weaponry. As for inland bodies of water, people other than fisherman usually don't care if the Grimm are there as long as they stay there. This is a saltwater lake, meaning that freshwater Grimm like Garrials, Mahambas, and Sulcatas won't be involved."
Jaune cleared his throat. "Do you mind describing those? Even if they won't be here, they might be on the next mission."
Blake looked over the edge of the boat into the clear waters. "Well –"
"Unless you have something you'd rather talk about."
She looked at him in surprise, and Jaune had to admit that he was rather surprised with himself. He normally didn't raise his voice, certainly when talking with his far more experienced partner, but this his life they were dealing with. He was supposed to be learning how to be a huntsman, not sitting back and letting Blake handle every mission for the both of them. The whole reason she was getting paid more was because he was expecting her to be tutoring him.
And she has been. Things have been great so far. But we're out here, and we've got nothing to do but wait, so we may as well take them time for another lesson.
"O-Okay. So those three I mentioned are the basis of all freshwater Grimm. There are variants of each one, Alpha Sulcates and Flying Garrials and the like, but you won't find anything that doesn't somehow translate into one of 'em unless you're in saltwater, like we are now…"
Five hours later, they were no closer to getting the attention of any saltwater Grimm with their mere presence, but Jaune could probably tell you anything you needed to know about any species of water-dwelling Grimm that existed. Blake was from Menagerie, meaning that she had a lot of unique insights about aquatic monsters that occasionally plagued her island home.
"Should it have shown up by now?" Jaune asked once a full hour had passed following their small lunch. "Is this still according to plan?"
Blake leaned over to face her own ripple-y reflection in the water and splashed a hand to disturb it. "I don't know why it's not here. Hunters attract Grimm. We're…okay, forgetting legal bullshit, we're hunters." She looked back up at Jaune. "You have any clue? Some, I dunno, secret knowledge about lakes and pH that explains this away, Mr. Science Man?"
"Hey, don't…I'm not some nerd or something. I just paid attention in school and am good at remembering what I've been taught. Well, that and I like comic books. And superheroes. And I buy Pumpkin Pete merch. And I guess I was a bit of a huntsman weeb for a while." Jaune leaned over to look at his own reflection. "Woah, I guess I am a nerd."
Sighing in annoyance, Blake placed her hands on the oars and began to row them back to shore. "This isn't working. I'll think of something else, but we're making no progress here."
Jaune reached over to relieve her of the wooden paddles, but she shook her head. "You rowed us out, I'll row us back. Equal work for equal pa–"
She cut off.
"Equal work for equal partners," Jaune offered. "But I should still row. If it's waiting to surprise us when we retreat, we can't have you all tired from rowing."
"Grimm aren't that smart, Jaune. I mean, unless it's an…hmmm." Blake put a hand to her chin. "It could be an elder, I guess. A Grimm so old that it's learned to recognize patterns in human behavior. That could explain why it's only recently started attacking, and why it chose not to attack armed humans."
That was a rather alarming concept, that Grimm could eventually just level up by existing to the point that they gained sentience. Or was it full-on sapience? Did these elder Grimm understand language? Could they talk, or maybe communicate with sign language?
"If it is an elder, how do we get it to come on out?" he inquired, wrestling the oars out of Blake's hands.
She resisted and kept her fingers around the grips as Jaune pushed his onto the shafts. "We do what any normal people do when they're fishing."
Jaune had no choice but to relent on this battle of wills over who got to paddle. Letting go, he asked, "What's that?"
Blake smirked at him. "We use bait."
As Jaune's dingy floated out into the completely misty lake, with his visibility so limited that if he stuck out his tongue, he wouldn't be able to see the end of it, Jaune rescinded all of the nice things he'd ever said or thought about Blake.
Huntress're kind…what a bunch of hooey! Huntresses are…are…they're harridans! She-devils! Complete and utter tarts!
Jaune's gentlemanly offer to row on Blake's behalf had been taken up, but when he'd suggested it, he hadn't intended for his load to be the combined weight of two boats – his own and the second one in which Blake was hiding.
I can't wait to become a huntsman, because then she can be the bait and I can be the, uhhhhh, the hook, I guess, if we're still going for the fishing metaphor.
Her plan was simple; the Grimm needed to suspect Jaune was vulnerable and be attracted to his fear, so Blake had literally done everything she could to make Jaune as afraid as possible.
Nighttime? Check.
Foggy and impossible to see? Check.
Disarmed of Crocea Mors because, and Jaune quoted, 'he could trust her to protect them both?' Checkerino.
Sore and cold from having to row? Also checkity check check.
She got it easy. Blake was lying on the floor of the second rowboat covered by a tarp, nice and snug and cozy-like. According to her, Grimm might be smart enough to recognize threats, but they weren't smart enough to figure out that second boat probably contained a second hunter. Jaune and his immense state of terror due to being alone and exposed in the chilling (in every meaning of the work) night was what would draw it out, and then she would kill it.
Assuming it doesn't kill me first. Like, I get that I can protect myself with aura, but could I not have at least hidden the sword on the floor of the boat? It's an opaque rowboat; the Grimm can't see if I brought it along!
But no, Blake had insisted Jaune be utterly powerless in this situation. He despised nothing more than being the damsel in distress, but that was what she'd decided his role was to be on every mission so far. In Lemuria, she abandoned him at the top of a tree with Grimm pawing at the base, and now he was literally here for no other reason that to be a scream queen.
I hope the Grimm appreciates eating my emotions or whatever it is they do, because what I'm feeling has to be some premium quality fright.
It was times like this that Jaune appreciated the trials his parents had put him through as a kid to teach him how to swim. Despite being a brave huntsman, his father had never learned how to stay afloat in the water, and it was something he never forgave his parents for; thus, the entire Arc brood was thrown into the water as babies and told to sink or swim.
Jaune had once had eight sisters…
Okay, not really, but that would be super metal. We all got swimming lessons with pool noodles and arm floaties and the works. But if I had never learned, capsizing or turtling this boat would literally be the death of me.
The biggest danger was a Grimm dragging him under. Blake, in her one moment of actually acknowledging and not downplaying Jaune's worries, had informed him that aura could do nothing to pump oxygen into his lungs, so drowning was a real concern. He'd raised it pre-emptively to prevent a snapping turtle Grimm's beak or shark Grimm's fangs from yanking off a leg, but Jaune honestly wondered if it might actually be better to lose the limb rather than be pulled down by it.
It was impossible to not be at war with himself over his faith in his partner. Yeah, they'd both bared their souls to one another and knew that they were both flawed people, and yeah, Blake's abandonment of him may have been sort of cancelled out by the fact that she had saved his life when he'd forced his way onto a huntsman job he had no training or business being on, but…
She says that she's training me to be a full huntsman, but so far we've just done low effort spars and gone on missions where she does the heavy lifting. And I get that we don't really have the resources to actually fight in a ring, nor do we have the luxury of picking our missions, and sure, we've only actually had a week of practice to base this off of, but…
You know, when he actually listed all the reasons that made him sound like he was being the high maintenance partner, there were a lot of them. Was he sounding spoiled here? Was Blake doing her best in spite of her impatient, action-hungry partner?
I just don't want to get used to taking the backseat. I'll never become a huntsman if I don't participate in missions, so she can't hide behind the excuse of me not being a huntsman to stop me from participating in missions. It's only a vicious cycle if I let it be one.
Aside from keeping a lookout for saltwater Grimm (and Jaune used the term 'look' loosely in this mist), there wasn't really much for Jaune to do other than reflect on himself and his partnership. In the end, it was too early to start making demands like taking on a great role during missions, but maybe he could set a deadline.
A month…that sounded fair. If Blake hadn't made him an equal partner in their firm by the end of the month in terms of responsibility, he would have a chat with her. Nothing major, no threats of leaving or anything, just a chat between friends.
They were friends, right? Jaune was pretty sure that just because they were business partners and hunter partners, but that didn't mean they couldn't be friends.
…ssssssplish…
The noise was barely even audible. For a second, he wasn't sure he hadn't just imagined it.
Huh? What was that?
Jaune looked over his shoulder to see ripples in the water.
Coming Soon: Bait
Even if you catch the fish, the worm on the hook rarely survives.
Author's Notes
Members of the Rat's Nest who suffer from severe mental illinois or head trauma will notice that the Lake of Lost Voles has appeared in another one of my fanfics, though only just briefly mentioned. Lemuria was also referenced in the same line, and all of the rest of the locations will be mentioned in the future (of either this fic or another one). I like to reuse names within the Ratcrimes cine-rat-ic universe. Dang, that was ass. Maybe I'm the mental illinois.
Happy rats, and don't do crime!