Touko's nose flared in disgust at the heavy stench of cigarette smoke that permeated from every surface of the bar, having always hated the smell of burning tobacco ever since she'd first smelled it as a young girl in her father's study. Sure, her own herbs had a certain funk to them, but those were mostly for the anxiety, and the pain… and sometimes just when she needed to relax, but still, they were different! Then again, she just hated the whole atmosphere that came with bars. It wasn't that she disliked people in general, but she had no patience for loud and obnoxious twenty-somethings with too much free time acting stupid because they had nothing better to do on a Friday night. Glancing over at Ruby, she saw that her friend was at least trying to maintain a poker face, even if her smile was obviously forced. Maybe it was just her expectations being set by Ozpin's weird secretive behaviors, but she was expecting their business to be done in some sort of private area, not a busy bar open to anyone.
Their associates didn't mind at all however, as Onyx, the cat Faunus from the caravan, was three beers down with no signs of stopping. Thankfully, Carmine had opted for a simple mixed drink which she'd only taken a few sips out of. Meanwhile, Onyx's partner, Asher, had just ordered a soda, although Ruby questioned if that was more due to him being considered a minor by Vacuo's standards, not that she actually bothered to check what age that was, but it wasn't the point. He was easily the youngest person in their group, if not the bar, and looking at him now, he couldn't have been older than one of her students, maybe a second year or late first year, and Onyx was only a little older looking, although definitely past the average age of graduation. She'd been expecting to meet with fellow veteran Huntsmen, not someone young enough to be one of her nieces or nephews, wasn't this what they were specifically fighting to avoid? It wasn't fair in her eyes, sure, he was choosing to be a fighter but it was hardly different from her students, she didn't want this for him like she didn't want it for them! They should be enjoying themselves, goofing off with their friends and worrying about tests, who to take to the dance, she didn't want them to have to take things into their own hands like she'd had to! The boy had already lost an arm, just like her sister, and like her friend sitting right next to her. Glancing over at Touko, she saw that her sour mood hadn't gone unnoticed, Touko didn't like it either, his own missing limb reminding her of her own extensive cybernetics she'd gotten at around the same age, as well as the traumatic reason she needed them. The pair's introspection went unnoticed by Carmine, the woman flipping through the binder Ruby had thrown together with all the relevant information they'd gathered so far. She'd stopped numerous times through her readthrough to make a few notes, the ritual murders detailed connected a few unsolved incidents to the cult, which already gave her enough of a reason to look into them, but what really caught her eye was the symbol found in Tyrian's journal, one she'd seen years ago.
"Yeah, I've seen this symbol, back when The Crown was still around, Jax and Gillian tried to get in contact with the people who use it. I'd heard they found them, but they disappeared off the map soon after."
"Considering the people who use it are a bunch of Grimm-worshiping psychos, somehow that doesn't surprise me." Touko pointed out, and as much as Carmine didn't like the implication, she had to agree, Jax was never the type to share power with those he saw as beneath him and she doubted The Goddess's Shadows would feed his ego enough for any lasting peace. Even if they both ultimately brought death and destruction with their ideals, Salem was far more coordinated, the anarchy Jax sought to bring just wouldn't stand. Really, she just hoped Gillian had been smart enough to cut her losses before it was too late.
"What, like a cult?" Onyx interjected, laughing at how ridiculous it had sounded. However, the silence from her superior and the two professors was palpable, causing her laughter to slowly fade as she tried and failed to find a hint of levity on their faces. "Wait, no shit?"
"At this point, you've probably encountered some of them whether you know it or not. Ever been fighting Grimm and had someone go after you instead of them?" Pondering Carmine's question, a few incidents that she hadn't really been able to explain popped back into her head.
"Yeah, a few times now that you mention it…" Thinking back on it, most of the time they were bounty targets, so at the time she had just assumed it was a desperate attempt to avoid capture, though that didn't explain how the Grimm had always seemed to prioritize her, even when there was unarmed, seemingly terrified prey a stone's throw from it. She tried to remember if it had been any particular area that may serve as a lead, but the more she thought about it, she was certain it had happened all throughout the Kingdom. She found herself taking another swig of cheap beer to steady her nerves at the realization. "So what do you need from us?"
"Right now, their target is a woman named Durga Sahara." Ruby said, and silver met silver as Asher's eyes widened. It wasn't the first time he'd heard that name, in fact, he'd been on the woman's protective detail once. Said job was actually how he'd met Onyx, saving him from the desert's embrace after things went completely tits up. It was a relief to know she was apparently still alive and if nothing else, it meant he hadn't screwed up completely. He, along with his partner and boss on the job, all watched as Ruby reached out, gently took the binder from Carmine, and flipped to near the start, revealing a set of photos, including an official Huntsmen license printed out and enlarged with a picture of Durga, though since he'd last seen her she'd dyed her hair to blonde. There were other photos, including one showing her when she was younger with the dark brown hair he'd remembered, but sporting a set of eight mechanical arms sprouting out of a backpack. He assumed she must have swapped the eye-catching weapon out for the comparatively basic trident and sword combo she'd used when he'd traveled with her. It wasn't surprising to see her looking different, she knew she was being hunted after all. "Durga's coming to the city to spend time with her daughter, and while she's safe here, it's up to you three to find anything you can on these guys. Locations, names, if you can get some plans or capture a live member, that would help us a lot."
"No sweat, I'll poke about my usual people, show them what you showed us, and see what pops up. Until theeen, c'mon Asher, this round's on you!" Onyx announced, getting to her feet and dragging her smaller partner up with her by his metal arm. The boy sighed but followed her along anyway, his smile breaking through the sigh as he tried to act exasperated, leaving Carmine with the professors.
"Bounty Hunters? Really?" Touko's lack of faith in the pair was obvious, and if Onyx acted anything like this on real missions, then she hardly trusted the woman to make breakfast, let alone go hunting for potential agents of Salem, and Asher's youth spoke for itself.
"When it comes to finding people who don't want to be found, there's rarely better people to go with. Those two may be young, but they're just as good as most veterans."
"Did that have anything to do with his eyes?" Ruby asked, a hint of a biting tone in her voice. For a brief moment, Carmine's golden eyes fell to her drink, unable to meet Ruby's gleaming silver, the same eyes as Asher's.
"That wasn't my call, but Theo says he's performed well in this position before."
"Still, you do know what they do to Silver-eyed people, right?"
"He's a Bounty Hunter, he signed up for a job he knows can get him killed, just like you." Before she could say another word though, her scroll went off. Glancing at the screen, Touko noticed a picture of her and a boy in frame as it rang. Ironically enough, he looked as though he could be the same age as Asher. The two in the photo couldn't be any more different if they'd tried, the only similarities being both of them wore red scarves. Standing up, Carmine answered the call, only offering a quick explanation that it was important before walking off. Ruby sighed, slumping back and looking up at the ceiling as her concerns had clearly fallen on deaf ears.
"You okay?" her cyborg friend asked as her artificial hand drifted over and grabbed her knee. As she did, Ruby couldn't help but to notice her friend's prosthetic hand had started to tremble a little as she squeezed with a gentle grip that she'd hoped would calm the both of them. For a moment, she stopped to smile and rest her own softer hand over the Dust construct to let her friend know she appreciated the gesture, that even when she was bothered by the situation, she'd still take a moment to make sure she was alright, but after the moment had passed, she still felt no less bothered by what she saw as a direct result of her own failures.
"I just… he's a kid, Touko."
"He's old enough to make his own calls." Touko hollowly echoed Carmine's sentiment, though obviously not fully buying into it. She didn't know what had transpired to get the boy into this sort of job, but it reeked of Ozpin's meddling.
"He's barely older than Lao or Jin. I thought we were taking this burden so they wouldn't have too." Looking back over to the boy at the bar, she couldn't help imagining her nephew, Lao, or Nicholas in the same position, and the idea of sending them, or frankly, sending any of her students out like this made her blood curdle in disgust, and yet here she was, doing just that. Touko sighed, she hated knowing there was so little she could do about the helplessness her friend felt, so she did what she could, telling Ruby the same thing she was telling herself.
"We are, this is one job, and it's just recon, not search and destroy. Besides, once all this is done, we're gonna take care of it." Ruby nodded, her eyes narrowing. That was right, it wasn't their responsibility to do this, it was theirs. She wasn't going to let them inherit the threat of Salem the way she had.
Panic started to take hold of Elizabeth as she heard the second buzzer go off. Gazing over at the screen hanging up above the coliseum-like arena, she was shocked to see Goose's icon go red, leaving just her and Lao against SABL. Predictably, Belka had been the first to fall, at first deciding to try and use her weapon's superior range to provide covering fire. It wasn't her worst plan, considering the enemy team was comparatively lacking in ranged options, but what she wasn't expecting was what she could only explain as Beryl's very Aura detaching itself to produce a translucent purple demon, sporting a monstrous fanged maw and horns that made Scarlet's look tiny in comparison. With a lazy order from its master, the summon, apparently named Faust, rushed in, not wasting a second as it formed one of its arms into a shield to tank the Dust-infused light while its master lazily walked behind it. Belka didn't last much longer after Faust forced her to engage in close combat, quickly overwhelming her with its monstrous strength and transforming physique. BGEL's leader was taken out embarrassingly quickly, and what was worse was that she had the gall to order her to counter with a summon of her own, as if she wasn't currently locked in combat with the infuriating Alyx and her equally infuriating scissors. She wasn't even defeated traditionally, Faust simply grabbed onto Morgan and turned its hands into a pair of enclosed spheres, taking her control of the Naginata away long enough for Beryl to come in and literally push her to the ground, disarming her. At that point, she was declared eliminated by default.
Liz didn't fully see what happened with Goose, as she'd been beating Siyah when she last looked, but she had to assume she'd simply been overwhelmed. Lao, however, had actually been losing the last time she checked. She didn't know what it was, but he'd get in and do well against Lamia for a moment, before suddenly whiffing his strikes and just standing there as she struck him with her saber. Damn it, she had to do something, otherwise this was going to go just like their fight with JWEL. Okay, first thing was to beat the annoying girl in front of her, then use her summons to even the odds against the rest of their team. Unfortunately, in the middle of formulating a plan of attack, Alyx blew a raspberry at her, and her anger at the childish taunt caused her to activate Exenterator's whip form, sending the segmented blade at the girl's face, however, just before she could wipe that stupid look off of her face, the girl opened up her giant pair of scissors, catching the wire in-between it's blades and stabbing them down into the floor, trapping both weapons.
Realizing just trying to pull her weapon free wouldn't yield any results, she decided to change things up. Holding out her hand and placing her other on the holstered Due to draw from the Dust in its chambers she formed a Glyph under the girl, intending to hit her with gravity and send her flying. Unfortunately, she never got the chance, as something slammed into her, knocking the small woman onto the floor and making her drop Exenterator. Faust stood tall, silently looming over her like a predator that had cornered its prey, but she wasn't her aunt, and rather than crawl away pathetically, she drew Due and shot a round right between its eyes, causing its head to snap back as the translucent Aura that constituted it flickered for a split second. She wanted to press the attack, to keep firing at the purple demon, but she had no time, immediately having to dodge as Alyx snipped her giant scissors at her. Using her small size, she rolled under the attack, shooting her opponent square in the back as she did so, taking a hefty chunk out of her Aura and buying her some more space. However, the final buzzer sounded out, and she didn't need to look to see it was Lao, her only real option now was to use her own summons and hope she could distract them long enough to finish off Alyx and Faust. Placing her hand on the ground, she created another Glyph, this time preparing to summon a pair of Ursai to fight alongside her, before a hail of bullets started pelting her side and she was forced to raise her Glyph and use it as a shield instead to try and protect herself from Siyah's LMG and Lamia's pistol sword, but the moment she did, Faust punched her down onto the ground, dropping Due and smacking her head on the stone floor.
In her daze, she almost didn't hear the buzzer, but even if she had missed it, she didn't miss seeing BGEL's side of the screen flash red before disappearing, just leaving team SABL. Taking a moment to recover from Faust's blow and watching her team crumble around her, she got to her feet. She expected to be angry, but by now, she was just… numb to the idea of defeat. She started to collect her weapons, silently grabbing Due from where it lay a few feet away, and when she knelt down to grab Exenterator, her eyes met with Belka's, her leader looking similarly disappointed with the outcome. Her aunt could feel her heart sink as Elizabeth just sighed, not even having the energy to get mad over their loss, like it was expected, and what was worse is that she couldn't fault her on that, not when she'd yet to earn her team even a single victory as their leader. If anything, she'd started to backslide, and this fight proved it. She wasn't sure what made her angrier, that they'd been defeated yet again, or that it had gone down in the exact same manner as with JWEL. Wordlessly, she walked back to her section of the stands.
"Ouch, did that hurt as bad as it looked?" A familiar, mocking voice called from above. She didn't bother looking back at Alaska, she could already see the smug sneer clearly in her mind. "Cuz' I really hope it did."
Belka took a deep breath in through the nose and out through her mouth, she was just trying to provoke her, trying to get some sort of response now that her actions finally had consequences she cared about. Well she wouldn't get the satisfaction, not from her, and holding her head high, she walked right up the stairs.
"Aww, nothing smart to say? Not surprising, if you had any brains on ya', you'd have figured out how to work as a team by now." Gritting her teeth, the Atlesian girl stopped in her tracks, that particular taunt striking a nerve. It was one thing to make up reasons to taunt her, like her being better off, or weaker, but hearing the truth of her inadequacy be thrown at her hurt almost as much as the girl's punches. Even after half a year at Beacon and nearly a month at Shade, and she'd only marginally improved.
"Don't you need to go clean up cow pies with your pa' or something?" Despite her spiteful tone, the cowgirl smirked back at her, having gotten what she wanted, proof that even after being publicly embarrassed, she still had an effect on her favorite stress ball. She chose to ignore her bully's little victory, instead marching up to the top of the stands where she could grumble in peace, she didn't even watch as teams KRMA and JWEL were selected for the next demonstration, not really caring what came of the match, she just wanted to be alone. Which was why a boy in some stupid pirate get-up casually sitting down beside her irritated her far more than it reasonably should have.
"So, she was a bitch about it, but she kinda had a point you know." However, once those words left his mouth, she felt fully justified in her dislike of him.
"Excuse me?"
"About your teamwork, you and the small girl on your team were pulling in completely different directions." Noah hadn't meant to be insulting with the comment, simply seeing another team leader struggle he thought that maybe he could help, but as he saw her face turn red with anger, he realized he had just stepped on a landmine.
"Yes, I'm very aware of what went wrong, and I don't need some sadistic hick or some jackass who's so stupid he thinks he can magically fix all my issues with some encouraging words and a pat on the back despite knowing nothing about me!" Who the hell did this boy think he was to try and lecture her? What did he know? Did he have a partner with a damned luck Semblance that made any strategy a coin toss? Or a teammate who refused to listen to him on principle? What about a melee fighter who now refused to fight in melee? Or a whole team of upperclassmen working against him? Because unless he did, she didn't want to hear a damn thing about what he thought she needed to improve on!
"Woah, hey no need to get personal, I got it, you don't want help. Sorry." he said, scooting back to give her her space, but she wasn't done, not even close.
"If you're sorry, do me a favor and shut the hell up instead of giving your worthless opinion where it wasn't wanted!" By now, Noah was similarly growing angry, he had tried apologizing and stepping away but clearly that wasn't good enough for her. He obviously didn't know what her problem was, but even then, he sure as hell didn't appreciate her taking her anger out on him over it when he'd only been trying to help, so rather than disengage he doubled down. If she wanted to be stubborn, then he could be as well.
"All I'm saying is, if your team actually had a hint of cohesion, she wouldn't have had a point!" While most of the students were busy watching the fight, by now, their little spat had grabbed the attention of the students in their immediate vicinity, as well as a few others here and there. Those who had been tuning into the argument instead of the fight half-expected her to slap him over the act, and one such listener was Jin. Upon seeing her enraged face, he quickly made his way up to the top.
"Woah, what's going on here?" the blond asked, easily pulling the petite girl back and inserting himself between the two in an attempt to stop the fighting. Unfortunately, this only seemed to infuriate Noah even more.
"Nothing, butt out of it Jinzi!" he snapped as he jabbed his finger into the Faunus's chest. Belka tried to scoot around to give the man a piece of her mind on that as well, but Jin proved to be just a bit too big.
"Look, you're both getting worked up over a simple mistake, you don't need to fi-"
"I don't need to hear a lecture from an asshole who doesn't appreciate what he's got!"
"Huh? Wait, but I-" As Jin tried to figure out what in the world that was even supposed to mean, Noah had reached his limit, scoffing as he turned to leave.
"Forget it, you wanna work this out? Come down to one of the rings so I can hit you, otherwise just stay the hell away from me." Once again, Jin could do nothing but watch dumbstruck as the boy stormed off away from him for seemingly no reason.
"What was that about?" Belka asked, suspecting some sort of history between the two considering his earlier comment, but as she looked at him, it didn't seem like the monkey boy was lying about his present state of bewilderment.
"I dunno, I thought he was pretty cool when we first met, but I feel like he hates me for no reason." he explained glumly, not knowing why he seemed to bring out the worst in this complete stranger. Seeing this, she patted his back. She couldn't really claim to know Jin all that well, but he'd always been nice to her despite being one of Lumi's friends. As far as she was concerned, he didn't deserve the confused hurt that came with being hated for factors he couldn't control, something she knew all too well.
"Don't worry about him, some people will just decide they hate you." Looking down at one of the lower levels of the stands, she saw the family she felt so far away from despite living under the same roof, Elizabeth sitting with Lumi, Lao, and Goose, smiling and laughing at one of Goose's jokes despite their loss only minutes before. "Even if it's not fair."
Scarlet panted and gasped as she nearly collapsed back into the mailroom, grabbing onto the wall for balance as she wiped the sweat from her brow. With a flash of light, Blitz appeared beside her, similarly covered in sweat, but having grown up with the heat, she'd been leagues more prepared. Scarlet liked to think she was getting used to the oppressive Vacuan sun, even if she still hated it, but just existing in it was one thing, running back and forth across the city underneath it was another. It was so bad, she was tapping into her Aura just to run faster so she'd be finished sooner.
"Good job Scar, you did great!" her senior student praised, checking the last two packages assigned to courier six, her designation at the company. Most of it had just been newspapers and letters written between some of the older residents of the city who couldn't figure out or just refused to learn modern technology, but there was also a fair share of packages she'd been tasked with delivering. Thankfully, none of them were too far from the facility they were stationed at, and she'd been nice enough to give her the smaller packages, but still, she didn't know how the tanned woman did it day after day.
"I feel like Imma pass out."
"Yeah, but you didn't! Good job!" Scarlet would be lying if she said the pat on the back didn't feel good, but then again it was weird getting praised in general. It wasn't that her parents never did it, it was just that it was always reserved for the big milestones, like the first time she did a kata perfectly, or landed her first Grimm kill. She'd have never gotten praise for what was basically a more complicated paper route, but damn did it feel good.
"You know, when you asked me to hang out, I thought we'd be chilling in the shade or getting some frozen yogurt. Not working under the damn sun." Scarlet wasn't exactly sure when or how she'd agreed to help Blitz finish her shift at the courier service, one minute she was just tagging along, giving her someone to kill time with while she worked, and the next, she was holding a package so her friend wouldn't have to handle it all on her own and could relax a bit. Then she was taking her own chunk of the work and leaving it on doorsteps and in mailboxes.
"Sorry about that, I forgot I picked up a shift this morning." she explained sheepishly, wincing as Scarlet collapsed into the seat next to her, quickly kneeling down beside her and worriedly looking her over. "Here, have some of my water."
She gladly took the water bottle and began to chug, the water immediately helping her cool off along with Blitz grabbing some papers and waving them her way to fan her off. It was a little weird having someone so close to her own age act all motherly to her, but she honestly couldn't say she minded the treatment. In fact, she kinda liked it. She'd never really been fretted over from what she could remember, Mom always said her dad was a helicopter parent at first, but by the time she was old enough to form lasting memories, both of them trusted her enough to figure out what was a good and bad idea on her own. Having Aura pretty much from birth probably helped with that though, made the whole 'fork in a power outlet' thing less of a tragedy and more of a learning experience. Then again, maybe it was just them not caring. Damn it, no, they loved her and she knew it. She thought she'd be over this by now, but how could she after they'd lied to her for her whole life? Like usual, she tried to shove the thoughts away, not wanting to dwell on them for as long as she could put it off. Speaking the first thing that came to mind that would distract from her current thoughts;
"I'm surprised you work at all, does Shade not give you guys the stuff you need?"
"Nah, nothing like that. I just do this part time along with some odd jobs here and there to send money back to my family." As she explained, Scarlet couldn't help but to feel a pang of guilt, feeling as though she'd opened her big mouth and said something she shouldn't have again, making things awkward between her and the cool second year.
"Oh, sorry, I wasn't trying to snoop on your personal life or anything." Rather than seem offended or even ashamed like she'd feared, Blitz just shrugged, unbothered by the younger student's question.
"It's fine, it's not some big secret or anything, raising five kids is just expensive. I like to help out, you know?"
"Yeah, I get it, my parents weren't exactly rich, but we made it work." Scarlet sighed, remembering her own less than lavish upbringing. They weren't poor per se, it's just that Dad's job meant that money was good, but inconsistent, and what money they had generally went either into the house or essentials. She remembered how it felt growing up, starting a school year with old shoes and clothes from second hand stores while the other students all had brand new things, all while she was the better off of them, she'd never had to work a part time job to help make ends meet. In hindsight, it really didn't matter, but she remembered it feeling like it made all the difference. As she considered this, Blitz walked over to punch out, stopping as she saw the updated schedule.
"Oh damn it."
"What?"
"I got scheduled on the night of the dance, ugh, now I gotta find someone to switch shifts with next month." Two thoughts ran through Scarlet's mind at that, the first was her wondering what kind of weird control freak Blitz had as a boss as to where they had to have the schedules done more than a month in advance, and the second was complete confusion at this dance Blitz suddenly brought up.
"Dance? What dance?"
"You didn't hear? The Vytal dance, they do one every festival for the students." Scarlet scratched her head, though now that she mentioned it, that did sound kinda familiar. Blitz chuckled teasingly as she took a seat next to her. "So I'm guessing you don't have a date yet then?"
She shook her head. She hadn't really thought about it, mostly because no one had bothered to ask her, or more specifically, a certain green-haired gun nut hadn't. Then again, knowing Jet it had probably gone in one ear and out the other while he was busy with something else. But… she knew he'd go if she asked, he let her drag him around all the time, it's not like this would really be any different. Well, except that she'd be all dressed up, which reminded her that she'd have to get a dress, preferably something sexy and form-fitting but not too slutty, she didn't want to step on Aethelflad's toes. And Jet would of course need a suit… Okay, yeah, she was going to this thing for that sight alone.
"No… but I got someone in mind."
"Ah, the big boy, huh?" The purr in Blitz's tone didn't go unnoticed, not that Scarlet blamed her. Now that she thought about it, most of the guys she knew were some flavor of eye candy, but she had a feeling they were thinking of two different boys.
"Jin? Nah, I mean he's fucking hot, don't get me wrong, but I was gonna ask Jet."
"You're gonna ask him?" Blitz asked, surprised at how forward the redhead was being about this. She hadn't really thought much about it, only planning to go for the hell of it, but if she did have someone in mind to go with, she was uncertain if she'd be the one to approach them. It just sounded… weird to her. Didn't guys find that weird too? She was certain she'd heard that somewhere.
"Yeah, he's kinda dense like that, though it's actually kinda cute. Like, if you don't stop him, he'll just work on his guns all day until he's exhausted, and then you gotta drag him to bed like a pouty little kid." As the smile on the Faunus's face grew, it clicked for her, she knew that look, that toothy smile and dreamy eyes like she was talking about her whole world. She always thought it would be her little brother Dash who she'd first get to tease about young love, but she figured it wouldn't hurt to have some fun with her too.
"Someone's gushing." Blitz couldn't help but chuckle as Scarlet tried to hide her cheeks immediately turning a rosy red to match her hair, it was an unusually cute response from the girl in front of her as she tried to keep her cool. "Hey, it's cool, we like what we like, I just wasn't expecting you to be into twinks is all."
"He's not a twink! He's got some muscle." Blitz raised an eyebrow at that, wondering just how she was so certain.
"Oh, so you've seen him naked?"
"Well… no." It was technically true, at least, in the sense that she hadn't gotten a good look at him, but she had peeked once or twice, not in like, a creepy way though, and it wasn't as if she'd seen that much, just his ass… his tight and toned ass.
"Do you wanna?"
Scarlet paused for a moment, she tried to lie and deny the tanned girl's cheeky question, but at her suggestion, she was already envisioning it and could feel the blood rush back to her cheeks. "...Yeah."
"Hey, I get it, we all have needs, just make that boy wear a rubber, okay? I know a girl who had to repeat a year because she was too pregnant to attend classes. I don't wanna see that with you, got it?" she said, somewhat teasingly, but just as, if not more so, seriously. Scarlet, for her part, just laughed nervously. She obviously couldn't lie and say she wasn't into him in that way after what she'd just admitted, and to be fair, she wasn't wrong. In fact, if the goal had been to scare her, that had more than done the trick.
"Bliiitz? Are you in there?" the voice of Sarasvati called out from the front. Blitz wasn't too surprised, it wasn't hard to track her down, especially if she wasn't with her team. If she wasn't at The Lookout or the gym, then it was a pretty safe bet that she was working. As she and Scarlet exited the back room, she was surprised to see a familiar face. It took a second for her to recognise the blond woman next to her friend, but the moment she did, she lit up, both literally and figuratively.
"Oh my gods, Durga!" In a flash of light, Blitz had closed the distance, running up to the woman and lifting her off her feet into a tight hug. The older woman groaned as if the hug was wringing her out, but still returned it, warmly wrapping her arms around the girl's head.
"Careful, one of these days you'll run right through me if you're not careful." she gasped out as she was set back on her feet. Getting her bearings, she noticed the horned girl watching them from the back. "Oh, who's your friend?"
"Oh this is Scarlet, she's a Beacon student here for the festival. Scarlet, this is Durga, Sarasvati's mom. Don't worry, she's super cool." Blitz said, flashing back over to Scarlet to introduce her to the woman before flashing back to Dura in order to introduce her to the woman. In the middle of this, a co-worker of Blitz's walked in, completely ignoring the display as they dropped off a large package onto the counter before walking right back out, leaving the job to them. "Son of a- hey, Sarasvati, can you help me in putting this up real fast, I've been dragging Scarlet with me all day."
"It's nice to meet you, your daughter's really cool." Scarlet greeted, none the wiser to the feeling that was coming off of her. Durga, however, could, a warm contradicting feeling that was almost impossible to put into words, like pins and needles without the prickly feeling, or electricity without the spark. Magic, though not much, just a faint, residual amount left upon her that would never truly fade, much like the same aura Sarasvati carried from her.
"You as well, Scarlet." After a moment, she recognized the girl in front of her. She'd already pieced together that she was related to a Maiden in some aspect, but upon remembering that Blitz said she was from Beacon, and the sensationalized incident at Beacon just under two decades ago, it clicked. "You're Fall's daughter, right?"
"You know my mom?" Scarlet whispered, quickly pulling her hand back, worried. It was sort of a new feeling, typically the people who recognized her knew her from her dad, but knowing what her mom had done, and the sort of people who recognized her for it, worried her even more, that once again, her parents actions would ruin things for her. "Do you hate her like everyone else?"
"For what she did a lifetime ago? No. Besides, motherhood changes you, I was a whole different person before having Sarasvati. You quite literally wouldn't be able to recognize me when I was around your age." she said playfully, trying to joke around to ease the tension, but it didn't work, as Scarlet's amber eyes never fully met her own light brown, yet there was this mixture of hurt and anger she could still see clearly. "Do you hate her?"
"No! No I- I'm just so mad I don't want to even look at her." Scarlet said quickly, finding the idea absurd she could never hate her own mom. That was part of why it hurt so much, because after everything they'd done, she should have, she absolutely should have… but the thought never seriously crossed her mind. She was mad, furious even, but she didn't want that to ruin things between them. "I… don't wanna say something I can't take back."
"I'm sure there's nothing you can say to her that she hasn't told herself."
"I thought you said you didn't know her." Scarlet pointed out, getting a small giggle from the woman.
"I don't, but she raised someone selfless enough to want to become a Huntress. That tells me more than I need to know." She hadn't been expecting that sort of answer, and it actually gave her pause. No one else had bothered to give her family the benefit of the doubt that they could have changed, all the negative things she'd heard had just sort of… stuck to her. Yet, here was this complete stranger looking at it from another way, that maybe what they'd done wasn't wholly unforgivable.
"Alright, I'm done, let's go find the others!" Blitz announced as she and Sarasvati suddenly came through the doors, startling Scarlet.
"Well I'll leave you girls to it then." Durga said, getting ready to report back to Theodore when a familiar flash pulled in front of her, arms on her hips with a smirk.
"Oh no ya' don't, you've been gone too long." Sarasvati said in a sing-song voice as she came up behind her mother, linking their arms. Scarlet, seeing what was happening here, quickly joined in, doing the same on her other side.
"C'mon old lady, afraid we'll leave you behind?" Durga scoffed, but had already given in, Theo's report could wait one afternoon.
"Darling, if you think being in your forties is old, then you've got another thing coming. Okay then, I think I can spare some time to see what it is that passes for fun at your age nowadays."
Jet sat, staring down at the blueprints before him, scowling as if trying to intimate the drawing into making sense, because he certainly couldn't make them work. This was why he stuck with guns, guns were simple and efficient, not like this overcomplicated mecha-shift exoskeleton arm design he was desperately trying to make work on a conceptual level. The design was just too bulky and impractical, but he'd already trimmed everything that wasn't essential for offense and defense, and even still, the only practical way to make it work was a full body rig system that would severely hamper his movements. It was just so… frustrating, he'd never hit this sort of roadblock before, after two weeks he'd normally at least have a functional baseline design to experiment with, so this much time passing with zero progress to show for it only made the approaching deadline all the more pervasive in his mind. Even if his team assured him it was a while away and he had plenty of time, he wanted to work out all the kinks before the tournament and he couldn't do that if he was still stuck at the drawing board.
If he'd gone into the tournament expecting to need said upgrades, he'd have already done them. For all their faults, BGEL was a skilled team, Belka was a better shot than even he was, Goose made combat look effortless, Lao was arguably better at hand to hand combat than Jin, and Elizabeth's Semblance was, frankly, busted. While it was easy to chalk their earlier loss up to their awful teamwork, he couldn't ignore that SABL was good, far better than he'd expected. They'd completely dismantled his friends, easily scoping out and playing around their weaknesses, weaknesses his team shared. What he immediately focused on was his and Belka's overreliance on ranged combat, as while they were more than competent in that role, the rest of their friends had less than stellar options for ranged combat. Hell, Jin's kit literally had no ranged options to speak of whatsoever. Fortunately, the designs for the rest of his team had been easy to figure out. For Scarlet, he looked to Adam's own sheath and worked backwards, a one to one design wouldn't work given the fundamental differences in how they fought, and he had a feeling Scarlet really wouldn't appreciate it either. Lumi's was simpler, really, his designs could be considered more so attachments rather than full on upgrades, but considering her reverence for her weapon, he wasn't going to start work on them any time soon. Jin's was by far the easiest, mostly due to the fact that, at close range, he was already as dangerous as he possibly could be, so he just designed a revolver like system to give him a ranged option so he wasn't useless once he was five feet away. Then came his own upgrades, hence the problem. He wasn't a melee fighter, and while sure, he knew the basics of how to use a blade, but when compared to most people who'd been developing their skills for years, it wouldn't make much of a difference. So, without much other choice, he was left looking for a way to enhance his hand to hand abilities. While he realistically couldn't match someone like Jin or Lao in skill, he wouldn't need to against most opponents, so enhancing his speed and strength was his best bet, leading to his current struggles with the exoskeleton. Struggles that just about everyone could tell as he muttered about how the design was 'overly complicated bullshit.' and a 'frankensteined mecha-shift abomination.' Luna happened to be one of the many people who noticed and came over to his table, standing on her tiptoes to look over his shoulder at the blueprints and immediately cringing over the design, it was all… theoretically sound, but practically, it would be a nightmare.
"I don't think that's gonna work." Luna muttered gently, pulling a chair up and sitting down, already trying to figure out how to fix the… interesting design she was looking at.
"I know, at this point I'm ready to give up and just scrap the mecha-shift for something I can just summon and slide on." The idea was tempting, mostly because of how it'd be so much simpler, all he'd need to do was build a full sleeve of armor that he kept stocked with Dust beforehand. But that design came with a few downsides, the biggest of which was that it defeated the basic purpose of the weapon, which was to have it in case of an emergency. He couldn't really roll the dice on the odds of him having enough time to summon and then equip it if he was backed into a corner.
"Well, if you want a collapsible design, you might have to think about making them smaller, like just covering your hands up to your elbow."
"It has to completely cover my arms, because if it's just exerting the force on the end, it'll end up dislocating them." Luna slumped forward, resting her chin in her hands as she looked down at the exoskeleton, looking over his notes, trying to brainstorm a solution. Unfortunately her experience with melee was even more minimal than his own, and it made her think, particularly about how she really hoped his new weapon didn't give Juliet any ideas about her own lack of close combat options. She could punch now thanks to Jin, and she'd even practiced when she could! On that same thought, she remembered how he'd been dragged along to that same training and hadn't liked the idea either, yet now he was specifically designing a weapon specifically for hand to hand, a curious change in attitude.
"I thought you didn't like getting close when you fought?" He didn't, and he never would, why anyone would prefer melee weapons utterly mystified him when there were perfectly good guns that were, on average, far more effective and easier to learn. But, seeing his shortcomings in Belka's own had been a wakeup call, hopefully for her as well, but he could only really fix his own problems presently.
"I don't, but it's better to be safe than sorry." Luna nodded, agreeing even if she still didn't think it applied to her. Nope! She was perfectly fine without getting in close to the fight, no siree! Back to the project, she leaned in close to the blueprints, and started taking stock of their internals. Part of the issue was that the Dust lines ran inside of the armor, which meant they had to be far enough removed as to not interfere with, or worse, get caught, in the mecha-shift systems. The only issue was with how much he needed to flow to achieve the power he was looking for, that ended up restricted his movements.
"Maybe if you made it less armored so you don't need as much Dust? Oh, or maybe have the Dust tubes run over the metal rather than under it?" Jet just shook his head at the suggestion.
"Then they're a massive weak point, and without them, it's just slowing my draw and screwing with my aim instead of giving a boost in combat." Ah, now that she thought about it, that made sense, although the mental image of Jet walking into battle with a literal glowing weak point like a video game enemy made her giggle. From a table over, another set of eyes and ears listened in on their conundrum, and upon hearing about the issue, he had some thoughts of his own.
"Dust infusion." Anga muttered to himself as he sodered the wires of his gloves back into place after one had been damaged in training. Next to him, Ken tilted his head as, from his perspective, it seemed like his friend was just talking to himself, which wasn't exactly uncommon when he got stuck in his own head.
"What was that buddy?"
"They're trying to figure out how to make an armor-plated powered exoskeleton for his arms and keep it collapsible without sacrificing power, the answer is Dust infusion."
"Oh, cool." The Faunus wasn't gonna pretend he really understood how that would solve their problem but he trusted his friend enough to know that was more than likely the solution. After a moment of silence and waiting for the bluenette to make some sort of move, or even to just yell the solution at them, he started to impatiently scoot closer until he was right next to Anga, who only glanced in his direction. Ugh, did he really need to spell it out? "Are you gonna tell them?"
"No."
"Seriously?"
"If I help, then all I'm doing is lowering our own chances at victory in the tournament. We benefit in absolutely no way from me helping." Ken listened to the explanation with a flat, unimpressed expression
"You know this is why you only have friends in KRMA, right?" Ken teased, stretching as he leaned back, plopping down and using his friend's lap as a sort of makeshift pillow, blinking innocently as Anga scowled at him from above.
"I'll be fine." he said flatly as he turned in his seat, Ken jumping up a moment before he could lose balance. The boy sighed, really starting to be annoyed by the weird results first mindset his teammate maintained at all times. There were two people right there working on engineering and techy stuff too advanced for him to understand when his antisocial ass needed friends, but instead he was too worried about giving them some nebulous advantage they could get from him. Well, as team leader he couldn't just let such a sad mindset go on now, could he?
"Oops." he said, making a dramatic show of pulling the glasses off his friend's face and heading over to the table Jet and Luna were seated at.
"Don't you da-" Anga stopped himself, knowing it was fruitless and getting up to follow his leader.
"Hey there, I'm Ken, whatcha working on?" the boy said quickly, not giving either of them time to actually answer as he leaned in and pretended to know what he was looking at. "Oh, an exoskeleton for your arms? Sick!"
"Oh, are you an engineer? We could use some help." Luna asked, visibly excited at a possible third set of eyes on their problem.
"Nah, I don't really know much about that stuff, Anga here's a genius though!" he said proudly just as the taller boy came over, snatching his glasses back with a huff, clearly not appreciating being thrust into the position he was in, where, if he walked away, it would look like he didn't know what he was talking about.
"You're having trouble powering a collapsible design, right?" Anga asked rhetorically as he pulled a seat up and pointed to the tubing on the blueprints, immediately identifying the problem. "Offensive mechashift technology is notoriously difficult with armor integration unless you're using a prosthetic, but you can bypass that if you instead integrate metals that can conduct Dust energy rather than having a standard power system."
"That's-" Jet was ready to dismiss the idea, having convinced himself that nothing would work at this point, but the more he thought about it, the more possible it sounded. He'd never worked with Dust channeling materials before, seemed overly flashy and impractical, but from his understanding, it wouldn't be difficult, he'd just need to pick a metal that could channel Dust as a base and it would transfer the charge, and with it, the energy, throughout the weapons. Almost like a switch had been flipped in his head, the design he wanted went from impractical at best to suddenly seeming like child's play. "That… might work."
"I think it's a good idea, we can look into what alloys channel Dust without sacrificing strength!" Luna chimed in excitedly, eager to tackle the design with this new discovery.
"You know, I could tell you were a smart cookie." Ken said, scooting a little closer to Luna, a move that may have gone over Luna's head as the girl was simply happy to receive praise; it was not missed by his friend however.
"Kenneth Katt, what did I tell you about fraternizing with the enemy?" Anga snapped, causing Ken to wince and Jet and Luna to flinch.
"Enemy?" Initially, Jet couldn't help but be put off by the weird phrasing he used, but then he remembered the looming tournament. Still a weird choice of words in his eyes, but then again, he was part of Beacon's designated weird team, so maybe he didn't have room to talk. "Oh, right, Goose said you guys were an Atlas team right?"
"Goose? You guys are from Beacon too?" Ken asked, eager to change the subject, something Luna was similarly happy to coax along.
"Yup! I'm Luna from JWEL, Jet's from SJJL."
"Oh cool, how do you guys know BGEL?"
"Oh yeah, I know them, Lao's really nice, he's helping me learn to meditate!" At the mention of Lao's gender, Ken's smile faltered, meanwhile the corners of Anga's lips raised ever so slightly, though Jet couldn't tell if it was because he had known and just chosen not to say anything, or if he was just happy to see his friends flirting backfire.
"Lao's a guy!?" Ken asked, hiding his face in embarrassment over the mistake. "Ah man, I hit on him!"
"You hit on his friend too."
"Well yeah but she liked it, now I just feel like some kinda creep." Ken lamented further, the way Lao looked around as if he didn't know who Ken was talking to when he made a move suddenly making much more sense. Gods above, he must have come across as such a weirdo…
"Goose likes everyone, probably best not to read into it." Jet said matter of factly, finding the idea of Goose being wooed by the boy in front of him a bit too out there to believe, especially if he was shameless enough to hit on Lao.
"I don't think you're a creep." Luna said, giving him a soft smile. It sounded like an honest mistake, Lao was a very pretty boy after all, and if she didn't know he was a he, she'd think he was a she too.
"Thanks…" Eager to change the subject once more, Ken looked down at the blueprints, unable to make heads or tails of it. "So uh, wanna tell me how this stuff works? I kinda feel like the only one here who doesn't get this stuff."
Anga raised an eyebrow at Ken's question, as it seemed genuine as far as he could tell, and as Luna went about explaining the concept, he didn't butt in with inane compliments or bad pick up lines. Well, there really was a first time for everything.
"You are not touching Crocea Mors." Normally Jet would have been disappointed or even frustrated at Lumi's straight-up refusal at the mere mention of him touching her prized possession, but honestly, it was what he'd been expecting, she didn't even let Jin touch it, so the chances she'd let him actually alter it was a pipe dream at best. Still, he had to try.
"It's a simple attachment for the hilt, I wouldn't even be altering the blade in any way." It was technically a lie, he'd probably have to make a new crossguard to accommodate the dust channeling system and actually attach it to the blade but what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. Even still, Lumi was not having it, stopping dead in her tracks and facing him with her arms crossed over her chest and a look that was probably meant to be angry, but was just more pouty than anything.
"No, even if I trusted your craftsmanship with my life, I'd need to consult both my father and grandfather before I even considered letting you alter my family heirloom." Jet sighed, he didn't really understand why she was so against changing the weapon, but then again, he didn't really have any heirlooms passed down through the generations, so maybe it was just a lack of perspective? Either way, he decided to stop pushing, happy his proposal got shot down before he had already purchased all the necessary pieces. Okay, back to the drawing board, maybe a pistol grip for her dagger or something? He'd run it by her later.
Alongside the pair walked Lao, carrying most of the materials for the upgrades. He hadn't really been paying attention to their discussion outside of the basics, not wanting to eavesdrop on what was a personal discussion. Looking up into the air, Lao took a moment to bask at the Atleasian fleet that loitered over the city, their vast shapes providing momentary reprieve from the sun. From what his father had told him, the first time Atlas had provided military security to the Festival was rather controversial, being a surprise gesture from Elizabeth's father, who had been the presiding general at the time, though many saw it as a display of power, or worse yet, a threat. However, after the attack that transpired, many found it unthinkable to even consider holding the bi-annual event without the protection given by Atlas, as despite the fact that it had horribly backfired, it gave a sense of security that was desperately needed for the event to continue, the arrival of the military fleet now marking another milestone in the preparations. Personally, he didn't care much either way, as with all the Huntsmen present, the battalion of soldiers felt redundant, but so far, none of them had made themselves a problem, which was nice.
"So Lao, Elizabeth tells me you've been doing more meditation than usual. Is everything okay?" Lumi asked, trying to get a read on the boy. Even after knowing him for years, his stone still face was near impossible to read, though she could still pick up on him through other means. The moment of silence that followed her question was particularly telling from him.
"I've been finding it more difficult to clear my mind lately. It's… frustrating." Jet winced, he'd never even seen the smaller boy complain before. Maybe he was reading into it too much, but hearing Lao outright say how he was feeling felt like a cry for help.
"I'll talk with my dad about setting some time aside for the two of you to talk soon." she said, reaching over and stroking her friends back gently, immediately feeling the tension in his back.
"That's not necessary, I wouldn't want to interfere with his perso-"
"No buts, you're family Lao, we watch out for each other, and besides, it's the least I could do after you agreed to help Jet carry the materials for our upgrades." Lumi said, cutting him off. "Especially since a certain pair of dunces ditched us."
Jet paused, taking note of the hypocritical way she complained about Scarlet and Jin's absence despite the fact that she wasn't carrying anything either, instead handing off all the bags and boxes to Lao. He considered mentioning it for a brief moment, but as if he could read his mind, Lao just gently shook his head in a silent "no". Eventually, they reached a small outdoor food court, no restaurants were around but multiple food trucks had been set up around it. Lumi nearly retched as she saw Jin and Scarlet sitting, each having a disgustingly greasy meal in front of them.
"There you two are, how dare you! Leaving Lao and Jet to carry all those materials by themselves, seriously!?"
"Oh, sorry man, I forgot, Scarlet saw these fried cheese sticks and she said they were amazing." Jin said, genuinely apologetic even if it didn't come through as well with a mouth full of cheese. Lao's blank face faltered for a brief moment, previously unexposed to such an outlandish idea. Just a fried stick of cheese, did people really eat that? Apparently so, as Jin took another bite as Scarlet wolfed down her second piece. "They're actually pretty good."
"Hey, where are your bags?" Scarlet asked, unable to help notice that, despite being the only one complaining, Lumi was doing none of the actual work.
"I couldn't carry that, it's far too heavy." Her partner tried to dismiss the question, but she didn't plan on letting her get away with such a lousy excuse. Thankfully, she didn't have to, as it was so bad even Jin was able to call it out.
"You have Aura, you could literally bench press a car." Jin pointed out, having plenty of experience with how much Aura could boost someone physically, and knowing Lumi arguably had higher Aura reserves than the rest of them combined, knew she could've easily carried everything herself if she'd wanted.
"Well- yes, maybe, but it's different in this heat. Besides, they're only doing the gentlemanly thing, they could have refused." The excuses just kept rolling out, huh? Realizing the hole she'd dug herself into, she tried to end the conversation, but most of the group had stopped paying attention as one of the several soldiers also eating a meal had stopped eating and begun to sneak up behind Lumi. He lifted his visor, revealing his face, and a familiar looking set of bright blue eyes looked over Lumi, simultaneously raising his fingers to his lips in a shushing motion. Scarlet didn't recognise him at all, though he did look vaguely familiar, but really none of that mattered, she saw the opportunity for some fun and took it, egging Lumi on further.
"Aww, would they hurt your widdle pwincess muscles?"
"Seriously? Baby talk? Of all your taunts, that has to be the most pathe-TICK!" Despite failing to make Lumi annoyed, the sheer childishness of her taunt had her attention long enough for the soldier to get in close and lift her into a bear hug that took her off guard. "Put me down!"
"No way! I haven't seen you for half a year!" Wait a damned minute, she knew that voice!
"Nicholas Arc-Schnee, you put me down this instant you little brat!"
"From where I'm standing, you're the little one."
"Nick!" Chuckling, he finally set his sister down, accepting the punch to his shoulder that came after as she huffed with embarrassment. After taking a moment to thoroughly scowl up at him, she couldn't keep it up anymore, rolling her eyes to try and hide her smile. "Despite your impressively juvenile greeting… it is good to see you."
"Sorry, I really did miss you." Lumi sighed at his words, giving in and leaning in to give him a proper hug. After having her younger brother around almost her entire life, she'd have been lying if she had said she hadn't missed his presence as well. As the hug parted, he looked back over to the group again. "So, are you gonna introduce me to your friends?"
"This is Jet, he's smart but a bit dense and a smart ass. Your co-conspirator with the horns is Scarlet, a crude and immature hothead, but she grows on you."
"Sounds a lot like Ágrios." he chuckled, able to envision Scarlet and Lumi getting into the same petty squabbles that he and his squadmate did. "Nice to meet you guys, I'm Nick. It's nice to see Lumi with some friends, outside of Jin, Lao, and Liz, that is, she spent most of her time just training."
"Yeah, we tried to kill each other at first, but we're all cool now." The blunt response got a laugh from Nick who was ready to tease his big sister some more when he noticed her embarrassingly avoiding his eyes. It clicked a moment later that this was probably the same girl she'd gotten into a fight with at the start of the year.
"You joined the military?" Lao thankfully asked, cutting through the awkward tone the joke had set.
"Yup, Penny and Uncle Ironwood helped set me up under Colonel Nasturtium. Honestly, it's not all bad, I was expecting someone like Aunt Winter, but she's pretty cool once you've been around her."
"You're looking even bigger man, they're feeding you good, huh?" Jin asked, bumping his fist against the other boy's chest. It wasn't quite on his level of muscle, but his figure was respectable to say the least.
"I wouldn't say good, but yeah, lots of protein. I bet I'm catching up to you."
"Little Nicky's all grown up!" Jin declared with genuine pride in the boy despite them being rather close in age.
"We're third wheeling this, aren't we?" Jet asked as he and Scarlet awkwardly stood there, not really having anything to add to the small reunion.
"Yeah, feels like it…" she shrugged, not really minding. Besides, it gave them some one-on-one time. "Hey, let's give them a minute, I wanna talk with you real quick."
It was less a suggestion and more of a warning as she grabbed him by the wrist, pulling him away. He wasn't bothered by it, following her lead until they got a fair bit away.
"So, what's up?" Looking around to make sure the coast was clear, Scarlet pulled a folded up magazine page from her pocket, unfolding it and holding it open for Jet to see, instantly making his mouth go dry. It was a black shoulderless dress, he didn't know what exactly it was called, but it had a few layers aside from the soft and form fitting fabric that made up the base. The skirt itself consisted of two layers, the outer layer being a long, flowing, open front drape style skirt that reached down to her ankles, while the inner layer was more tight, but remained loose enough for comfortable movement, with both layers ending with red ruffles at their very edges. There were also a few layers of frills that covered the chest of the wearer, and gloves that reached all the way up past the elbows, ending with a laced edge. Finally, the outfit came with laced leggings that were held up by garter belts.
"What do you think?" That he wanted to see her in it this very second, it was already an alluring dress on the model, he could scarcely comprehend what it'd look like on her. He couldn't actually say that of course, so he just opened his mouth and let words fall out.
"It's… certainly a dress."
"Very observant. How do you think it'd look on me, dummy?" Hot, insanely hot. Just from the image alone, he could see that the dress would hug her figure in the best ways, and those garter belts on her thighs? Fuck. Wait, no, damn it, what was wrong with him? This was Scarlet, he couldn't be thinking this way about her! Sure, she was attractive, and with her dirty mind she probably assumed he thought this way anyways, but she was his friend, it wasn't right to imagine her like that! With his mind muddied with thoughts of Scarlet, he opened his mouth, saying the first thing that came to mind.
"It's kinda… girly isn't it?"
"I can like girly things!" Scarlet huffed, stomping her foot. Turning the paper back around, she looked it over once more. She guessed the dress was kinda frilly now that she looked at it, did that really fit her? Maybe this was just him trying to be polite and say she shouldn't wear it… She frowned at the picture, having never picked out a dress before, she was worried she'd picked something that might make her look like a kid or something. "Do you think it'd look bad?"
"No!" he said quickly, too quickly. He coughed, trying to play it off in hopes that she didn't notice. To his dismay, Scarlet definitely noticed it too, her small frown tilting upward into a smirk as she started to catch on. It wasn't that he didn't like it, it was that he really liked it! "I mean, what does it matter what I think? You'd make it look good either way."
"It matters because I'm thinking of wearing it to the dance. I talked with Lumi, and she said she'd get it if I actually showed up." Still focusing on avoiding the mental image of Scarlet in that dress, he almost missed her saying she was going to the dance, a surprise as they'd usually sat out of those kinds of events in favor of just staying home and playing video games or going out into the woods to hang out. He couldn't help but wonder what was so different this time.
"You're going to that thing?"
"Yup, I don't have a date yet though…"
"Wait, so why get all dressed up if no one's taking you?" Scarlet paused, not knowing how to take the obvious hint going over his head like that, especially since she'd assumed Jet was smarter than that. Was this what Lumi felt with Jin? Because man, it was frustrating.
"Uh, I wanna look hot? Buuut, if you're not doing anything, maybe we could go together?" Jet's mind worked overtime to see if he'd heard that wrong, but no matter how he thought about it, that was an obvious invitation to go to the dance with her. It wasn't that he didn't want to, even if it might be a little weird taking his best friend on what was unavoidably a date, they'd always had fun together in weirder situations, but he had their equipment to work on.
"I don't know if I'll be free then…"
"It's like a month and a half away!" she said, calling out his blatant cop-out answer, frustration bubbling up to the surface. What was this? Because it went past the simple 'guys can't read a hint' cliche, there was literally no other way to see her offer as anything but an invitation.
"Yeah, and I need that time to build prototypes for all our upgrades, and work with everyone to test them, and work out all the kinks before the end of the tournament." To be fair, she knew he wasn't lying about the project taking as long as it would, Jet was meticulous and it took him a while before he was satisfied with his own equipment, let alone equipment for three other people, but it was just one day. Was he just not into her? Was this him trying to let her off easy? Dammit, why couldn't he just give her a straight answer instead of whatever this was?
"Okay, screw my upgrades then. Boom, you just got a bunch of free time!"
"Scarlet, no." Jet said, firmly shutting her down. "Besides, isn't this sorta stuff what couples do? I don't wanna make things weird or anything, we're just friends after all."
That… stung. More than she'd expected it to. Damn it, how could she be so stupid, she should have seen this coming. 'Like a sister' that was what he always said, wasn't it?
"Fine, you don't have to go, sorry I wanted to go do something fun with my friend." she muttered coldly, pushing past him as she stomped back over to rejoin the group.
After a few moments of blankly looking at where Scarlet once was, Jet's brain started working properly again, and as he stood there, one singular thought ran through his head.
"... What just happened?"
