Chapter 53 – The Dreaded Red
Blake discovers that weapon repairs aren't cheap when you lack a multinational terrorist organization to foot the bill.
Blake handed Velvet another tissue, the last one in the box. The rabbit Faunus accepted it with a mumbled, shaky thanks, blew her nose into it, and handed it right back to Blake.
Rolling her eyes, Blake just slid the trash can closer to Velvet.
"She…guh…I thought the world of her!" Velvet sobbed.
"There, there," Blake said, not really sure how else to comfort her.
"Three years, she was my role model. The best huntress in the world, in my eyes. And now she hates me!"
All Blake could do was hand Velvet another tissue and hope that she herself wasn't to blame for that.
I mean, I warned Velvet how Beacon saw us. I'm not really dragging her down, am I?
"By the brothers, she spoke about us with so…so much hate!" Velvet struggled to swallow, with her throat choking up along the way. She turned to face Blake. "Was this what you meant?"
Blake nodded. "I'm afraid so."
"B-But we saved someone! We saved a person's life – two people's lives. A-And Jaune says that he planned to kill everyone in that building. Shouldn't she be happy we stopped that?"
"We didn't do it with Beacon's stamp of approval," Blake pointed out. "And that means we're the bad guys."
They had been just one block away from their office when Velvet fell apart from the stress of it. Blake and Jaune had needed to help her walk the rest of the way, but then Jaune himself started to stumble (likely due to exhaustion and low aura), so Blake had basically carried them both the rest of the way.
Jaune himself was passed out in the back room. Blake might have been a little more upset about him leaving comforting Velvet to her if not for the fact that he'd basically soloed Glynda Goodwitch and come out on top.
Not on top. Alive. We may have survived as a company and as a team, but Beacon's probably going to bump us up on their shitlist to near the top.
"She had less to say about the murderer than she did us!" wept Velvet.
In Goodwitch's defense, the murderer had already been caught and taken away when they'd arrived. For all they knew, Goodwitch had cussed him out just the same only moments earlier.
But against Goodwitch's defense, Jaune was now sporting two bruised wrists, and Velvet was in tears.
We're within our rights to sue. She practically assaulted Jaune when she rescued him out of carelessness, and there's no way to prove from a legal standpoint that we knew that there was an ongoing police investigation at the apartment complex. They'd withdrawn all of their officers and hunters, and one of the residents let us in.
But Goodwitch has the whole of Beacon's resources behind her, not to mention the support of the kingdom as a whole. Hunting is quite popular as careers go, and many legal defenses exist to prevent them from facing frivolous lawsuits on a regular basis.
What do we have: three people and a tiny bank account? We'd starve alone from legal fees before we even made it to court.
They were in a stalemate, Team Job and Beacon. The former wanted the latter off of their back, but their troubles would probably only intensify now that Goodwitch had seen, in her opinion, Team Job competing with hunters. The latter wished to see the former destroyed, but it had no legal means to do so short of resorting to underhand methods.
They could have us arrested if they wished or start a smear campaign, but they either aren't willing to stoop that low or haven't found us to be a big enough thorn in their side – but we certainly are now.
Still, Blake couldn't bring herself to regret it. She'd been hesitant about taking the mission in the first place, but actually getting to save a life had changed her mind about it. In hindsight, her concerns about them being unsuited for the job were proven both right and right – Team Job had stopped the killer from ending the life of his next victim, but they'd lost Jaune in the process. Goodwitch had rescued him, but Blake and Velvet might have been there in time to save their own teammate had she not.
Or maybe they might not have. They would never know.
On the practical side of things, the mission had been a bit of a bust. Make no mistake, the warm feeling in Blake's chest was good, especially in the way it contrasted to the heavy lump that formed in her throat whenever she thought about her days in the White Fang, but it had simply cost them a lot.
Financially, I mean. My weapon was destroyed, and Velvet's as well. We weren't paid for our services, nor were we even technically hired for it. Beacon's got a reason to hate us, albeit a stupid one. Jaune's injured, Velvet's in tears, all three of us are exhausted…
Needless to say, it wasn't the crowning achievement that many of their previous, flawless jobs had been.
Velvet eventually cried herself to sleep after maybe a half-hour or so. Blake carried her over and plopped her down next to Jaune, who was slumped against the wall with his eyes closes and her arms splayed out on his chest.
After locking the doors, changing their sign to say closed, and turning off the lights, Blake joined them both in their slumber, lying down on the ground in the back room of the office. It was an uncomfortable floor, but she had no energy left in her to protest when sleep claimed her.
Blake had no idea how long they'd slept when she woke up. The others were still asleep, cuddling together in roughly the same pose that Blake had left them. Rubbing her head and coughing drily, Blake swayed to her feet and rubbed her eyes.
Her scroll said it was 2pm, and Blake groaned.
My circadian rhythms are probably going to be ruined for a week.
Not only was she still feeling sleep deprived, but waking up at 2pm was a surefire way to not be able to fall asleep when night fell six hours later. Blake was going to have to slowly shift her schedule backwards for the next few days, maybe a few hours each time she went to bed, in order to correct herself.
I guess I'm semi-nocturnal for a few days. Maybe it'd be easier to just pull another all-nighter…er, all-dayer, and just manually sync up to the rising and setting of the sun.
Still, she was awake now, and it was still daylight. Blake wasn't exactly feeling fresh, but going back to sleep sounded impossible with the minor aching she felt in her head, so she might as well be productive.
The little dagger thing Jaune carried around was lost, having been embedded into the shoulder of the huntsman they'd fought when he'd teleported away, but he still had his crossbow thing, replete with arrows. Blake turned it over and found a small insignia carved into the base.
Ten minutes of web searching for blacksmiths in her local area and comparing their logos to it, she was fairly certain that she knew the name and address of the smithy that had built it. Velvet had bought it from him, but she'd also taken Gambol Shroud and Crocea Mors to him for repairs and upgrades, so Blake figured it'd be a good idea to have the former fixed there.
He's familiar with the design, having improved upon it himself, and if he's good enough for Velvet to trust, he's good enough for me.
Blake took a quick moment to draft a small note, just to ensure that the others wouldn't panic when they woke up to find her missing. Then, she grabbed the larger fragments of Gambol, packed the smaller ones in a resealable bag, and headed out.
It felt like early morning, since Blake had woken up from a deep sleep less than an hour ago, but it was actually closer to closing time when she finally arrived at the smith's workshop. From the outside, it distinguished itself from all other nearby buildings by having a large smokestack, though Blake made sure to check that the name matched up as well.
"Hello, ma'am," he greeted. "May I help you?"
"Yes, I think you might be able to," Blake said.
She held forward the split sword, then took the bag of bits and pieces from her pocket and placed it in front of the man.
"My weapon was recently destroyed in a fight, and I was hoping that it might be repairable. If not, then I'd be interested in commissioning a new blade for it and would like to get a pricing estimate."
The smith took one look at the blade and grimaced.
Blake knew that metal weapons couldn't just be glued back together, but she also knew that the most intricate part of Gambol, the handheld gun mechanism, was intact. It was the blade itself that had snapped – much like the tearing of the ribbon, it wouldn't require a smith to start again from scratch or something.
"Do you happen to have blueprints on hand?"
"One second."
Blake pulled out her scroll and opened up the file that had the sketch diagrams of her weapon that she, Adam, and Sienna had created many years ago. Blake had been too keen on a sword like Wilt to take any other weapon, but seeing Sienna's Cerberus Whip in action had convinced her that a long, fluid cord could be exceedingly useful in action. In the end, she'd decided to take the best of both worlds. It meant that she would have to train twice as hard in order to master both weapons, but it had been worth it.
After a quick once-over to make sure there wasn't some lingering White Fang watermark or notation on the blueprints, she handed them over to the blacksmith. He stuck out his tongue and bit down on it as he looked them over.
"Familiar…"
"You did some minor work on it before," Blake admitted. "I wasn't the one who brought it to you, though."
"Ah, of course. It was the –"
The smith cut off mid-sentence and suddenly turned beet red. Blake stared at him in confusion before realizing that Velvet had been the one to introduce Team Job to this craftsman, and that this particular blacksmith just so happened to be both male and above the age of consent.
"No," Blake said immediately. "I won't."
"I-I-I didn't say anything!"
He hadn't, but it was better to get that out of the way clearly beforehand.
I think Velvet even mentioned she'd…something about asking this guy for a discount? Or…no, no, it was that she DIDN'T ask this guy for a discount even though they did…stuff.
The smith cleared his throat and tore his eyes from Blake's face. "Y-Your…ahem. Your weapon, then. As I recall, it was something of a homemade project originally, and I ensured that the mechanisms and ribbon wouldn't break under typical strain and loads. Unfortunately, I did nothing to enhance the blade, and it seems that that lack of care has led to some rather catastrophic damage."
"Can it be fixed?"
The smith held up the handle and looked at it closely. Blake patiently watched as he took out some sort of scope-lens and began to inspect it under greater magnification. She knew that these things took time.
"The blade's going to have to be redone from scratch, I think," said the guy. "Just to be safe. Otherwise, it'd risk breaking again, and it's illegal to sell a faulty weapon in Vale. Just so you know."
"I understand," Blake said, sighing. She'd been expecting this, even if her hope had been for something cheaper. "Do you know what it might cost?"
"To give you an exact figure, I'd have to take some time to check it out. Right now, ballpark…eighty-five smack. Maybe ninety."
"Eighty…eighty-five thousand?" Blake repeated dumbly, blown away by the number. "Eighty-five thousand lien?"
"A full rebuilt is one-twenty-five smack for huntress' weapons, flat rate, as long as the weapon isn't digital. This is less than half of a weapon by materials and engineering, but heating up the tools is a lot of that, and it makes no difference if I built a whole or a half once they're fired up."
Their bank account only had eighty-seven thousand lien in it, meaning that they might have to conceivably pay for the weapon on credit in order to afford rent.
And that doesn't even cover the cost of Anesidora.
Blake beat down her jitteriness and spoke. "Velvet's camera…you remember it?"
"Was it damaged as well?"
"Yes," Blake admitted. "I-If you're firing up the –"
"It's different," he said. "That's an entirely different beast. Those kinds of weapons typically require a personal touch, as they're less so physical blades or guns and more along the lines of computerized technology. A smith like me can't repair it – I think she built it herself and is the only person in Remnant capable of handling it."
He couldn't do it…
"But…that's good, then." Blake ran through it again in her head. "Velvet can fix it?"
"Aye." The smith set down Gambol Shroud. "Though I'll warn you that she needs parts for that sort of thing, in case you need to budget."
In and in went more money, sinking down to the bottom of the swamp. Team Job had broken even for the past two missions, and now they were going to need to spend money they barely even had.
But what else can we do? I need a sword to fight Grimm. Velvet could probably stick to her fists if she's up against human or Faunus opponents, but even she can't tear a full grown Nevermore in half with nothing more than her fingers and toes.
"Could you do the inspection and then let me know the exact price?" Blake asked. "You can hold onto the weapon if you need."
"I can, but the full inspection will cost five smack as it is. It takes time, and I need to eat and pay the electric bill."
Great. So that locked Blake out of finding a cheaper blacksmith.
I could still pay the five thousand and look for someone else to do it for less, but if I can't find a better price, that's just money down the drain
Blake sighed. It wasn't like she could look for another blacksmith anyways. She needed Gambol fixed ASAP, since it would be essential to the next mission which would be paying for this. The longer her weapon was in the shop, the longer she was out of work.
"It won't be more than ninety, right?" Blake said.
The man nodded. "A blade like this? No way. I'd lean more towards the eighty if I had to guess, but I don't wanna blindside you if it ends up taking more of my time. You're with Velvet, and I like customer loyalty, so I'll try to get it done as quickly and as chea…as inexpensively as I can." He looked down at the broken sword on his anvil. "But I can certainly promise you one thing – it won't ever break again once I've rebuilt it."
Jaune and Velvet were still somehow unconscious when Blake returned, so she set out to silently balance the books while they slumbered.
When the mission with Tyrian ended four days ago, we had exactly 86,615 lien in our bank account. We have had to pay rent and gym membership costs in that time, as well as flat payments for two rideshares and our Dust. That drops our account down to 84,595 lien.
My new weapon's going to eat all of that up, and then we don't have anything to fix Velvet's. We're gonna both need to be up and running for our next mission…crap, I think we're gonna have to take out a loan.
Maybe now was a good time for another price hike for Team Job's rates. Both of their past two clients, Mr. Callows and Mr. Gottleib, had heard of them because of their apparently astounding reputation. Was that enough to justify bumping up the prices?
Their typical leftover profits after a seven day mission were about 13,000 lien, after expenses, Velvet's cut, and rent were factored in. Assuming Velvet's new weapon cost roughly the same as Blake's, that meant that they would need to complete a full seven missions before they broke even. Seven missions, seven weeks a mission…and interest on any loan they took out would extend it even longer…Team Job could be hindered by lingering debt above their heads for a while now.
But if we bump up our prices by, say, 5,000 lien more per job, it'd decrease it to around five missions. The faster the loan is repaid, the less interest that accumulates on it, and banks tend to charge pretty high rates.
To put a number to it, Blake looked up the average rates in Vale, and how frequently they compounded. This was something that she would look up in greater detail when the time to actually take out the loan came, but right now, she just wanted a rough estimate.
When she read the numbers, she cringed.
For a business loan in Vale, they say that it's an average of 20%, compounded monthly. We could get simple interest, but then the rate jumps up to 35%. Good gods, that's so fucking high.
Banking was a cutthroat industry. It had to be, when there were only seven places in the entire world that were stable cities with populations larger than a few hundred folks.
Blake considered crunching the numbers a second time in hopes that she might have made a mistake that made the numbers worse than they actually were, but the fear that the hypothetical error might have only ended up making things worse convinced her not to.
We'll be fine in the long run, she promised herself. Team Job's always been profitable, and we've typically gotten out of slumps pretty quickly before. I mean, we're a hustling, bustling company with a brick-and-mortar office, our very own airship, and enough military-grade gear to make a White Fang grunt cry. Jobs are coming in back to back, and every single one of them gets us a positive rating when we complete it.
Blake had to remind herself that, even though her bank account was about to be cleared out and worse, she and Jaune had built their entire current empire from the ground up out of a one-bed hotel room with nothing more than a pair of swords, a pair of three thousand lien checks, and a pair of dropouts. They'd risen from nothing before, and they could do it again.
Coming Soon: Viewer Discretion Advised
An unexpected client comes to Team Job with a request for some under-the-table work.
Author's Notes
You may recall me ranting incoherently about plots and themes about seven chapters ago. Now you sort of see one of them. With a debt over their heads that will carry over from mission to mission, this will be that 'goal-plot' I was talking about before. They now have something to work towards which will motivate just what kind of missions they need to take and how frequently.
I mentioned two goals, and the other one…well, I won't spoil it yet. It's already begun, we just haven't explicitly talked about it.
Happy rats, and don't do crime!