TWNY: Directors Cut

[Miss Peacecraft]

Taylor wakes up.
-------
Trapped. I was trapped again. Hemmed in on every side, a confluence of Strangers pressing in, pouring in, more every moment. There's nowhere for me to go, no escape, nothing. Darkness. Pain, fear. I had to run. I had to survive. I had to fight. I-

-hit the ground. I scrabbled across cold tile, my heart thundered in my chest, gasping to drag any kind of breath into my chest. Shaky legs and arms moved to push me up, only to fail and crash to the ground again with my right arm coming up a foot or so short. I crashed face first into the floor, a painful reminder that I was down half an arm. The incessant beeping from somewhere in the darkened room made a poor companion for my budding migraine. It took some effort, but I finally managed to get my legs under myself with a groan. My body felt strange, alien. Like I hadn't lived in it properly, like there would be cobwebs if I bothered to go looking for them.

For a moment I just sat there, panting raggedly. My mind was awash, a mess of panicked adrenaline and whirling thoughts. A jumbled mess. I tried to marshal my thoughts, dragging something like a breathing exercise to the fore, but I couldn't count. How many in? How many out?

I tried anyway.

On instinct, my missing right arm reached out to paw at a warm sensation dripping down my left, and the staticky ghost-pain made me dry heave. Another shaky breath, steadying myself. There was no other way to check, not in this cloying dark and missing my glasses. Another, deeper sense of loss sank into my gut as I raised my arm to my lips. My tongue darted out, and the familiar taste of copper splashed across my tongue.

I found the source next, a small dimple against the largest vein in my forearm. An IV site? I patted my chest next, finding two small adhesive pads connected to thin wires over my heart. I tore them off, the incessant beeping becoming a high pitched whine. I was in some kind of hospital, at the very least.

I stood, legs getting sturdier with every passing second. I needed to center myself. What did I know? I narrowed my eyes, brow furrowed in furious thought.

I was eighteen. Easy enough.

My name came harder. I could remember what an IV was, but not my own fucking name? I grit my teeth. Skitter came to mind first, then Weaver, but neither felt right. It clicked in a sudden gasp. Taylor Hebert.

Something else was there, whatever was putting that ill feeling in my gut. But that damn whining wouldn't let me just think. I spun and lashed out at the dimly lit monitor stand, only for the stump of my right arm to once again come far, far short. Anger spiked, but I tamped it down. Anger wouldn't get me out of here.

I yanked the power out of the thing with my left, and the whining finally ceased. A blessed, near total darkness fell, broken only by a thin stream of moonlight drifting in from the drawn curtains to my right. It was enough that I felt like I could finally think beyond the pounding in my head.

My name was Taylor, I was eighteen. Now where was I, or failing that, where had I been? I went to run a hand through my hair, and was stopped twice: once when I again tried to use my missing dominant hand, and again when my left made contact with two protrusions from my hairline. Frantically, I combed a hand over them. Fuzzy, over sensitive. Antennae? What-

The door to my left, the one I hadn't taken note of, burst open to admit what I was forced to assume was a medical team. The light seared my eyes, and I could barely make sense of the blurred blobs. Yet, I could tell you they were wearing scrubs, the one at the back was taller and wider than the ones up front, and one of the women had antlers.

"You're—" One of them muttured.

"She's up! This is fantastic!" Another said.

The whole group stepped towards me. I stepped back. Too close.

"Ma'am, you're okay. You're in the Beacon Academy medical wing, you've been here for a month now." The woman with the antlers said, as gently as one would talk to a frightened animal. She stepped forward, one hand out.

"Who are you with?" I managed to get out between breaths. I had precious little to defend myself with; I was down an arm and under-armored. A paper-thin hospital gown offered far less protection than my silks would have.

A memory pricked. Chitin and silk armor. A costume.

"Ma'am, if you could just calm down and take a few breaths we could have this all sorted out." I lost track of who was talking as they drew closer, the window behind me a wall against my continued retreat. I needed to get out of here, I needed more space, I couldn't fucking breathe. They could-

-attack me at a moment's notice. I could only see them through the clairvoyant, still clinging to me. They were all looking at me, advancing on me, observing me. What for? Attack. They all had power, and they could all use it to attack me. We had won, but I was next. The pause was pregnant with expectation, until finally it broke. The assembled crowd roared to life, with nothing held back. Fireballs in the sky, streaks of lights, people flying in great arcs. It was too much. I had to-

-get up. For the second time in one night I pressed myself up into a stand, pulling myself up out of wet grass amidst scattered shards of glass. I'd thrown myself out of the window, or been thrown. I didn't remember it happening. But, save the streak of quickly drying blood I already knew about and the somewhat torn gown, I was fine.

I looked up and squinted. Three stories, give or take. It was hard to tell. I should have broken a bone, or something. I should-

A gasp. The fall had jarred something in my head loose, the surrounding nature had done the rest. The sinking feeling in my gut finally made sense; I couldn't feel anything. I could feel myself, I could feel my new parts and I could feel that painfully empty space where my arm should be, but I couldn't feel anything outside of that. No bugs, no worms, no spiders. Not even a damn crab.

I was a parahuman and my power was gone. I almost threw up again, saved from the sudden overwhelming stress only by the lack of any food in my belly. I felt so very small all of a sudden, a situation not helped by the severely unfamiliar surroundings, that I could barely make sense of. A courtyard, maybe. Full of trees and nature.

And I was still boxed in. There would be security of some kind after me now, too; whoever had me would want to keep me under lock and key, I was certain of it. I picked a direction and ran—stumbled, really. There was a door ahead of me. It was another way into the castle, but it was my only way out. How I could resolve that fuzzy shape into the knowledge of door was still lost to me.

I tried the handles. No give; locked for the night. My heart threatened to thunder out of my chest, but the knowledge that I'd been through worse kept me steady. That the 'worse' was vague, fuzzy at best, was a concern for later. Where to next, where to—

"Ma'am!" Another shout. One of the nurses from before? No, all three of them. Antler-woman included.

I backed up, not bothering to face them. There was a long bay window next to the double door. I'd survived breaking through one, why not a second? Three steps brought me up to speed, and I jumped as the group behind me shouted again. My arms went up, though my stump offered little in the way of protection.

I didn't need it. There was a flicker of silver sparks around the arm in my view, glass shattering around me and bouncing off of me. Some instinct, some bit of training, let me catch my feet in a rough combat roll and come up running through the darkened hallway, even as my mind whirled. I remembered a power like that, a forcefield, but putting a face to the name to the power was almost impossible through the haze. Glory... something. Dallon?

I put it out of mind as I ran, taking every left hand turn I could. Names were a tossup, but random maze trivia sprung readily to the tip of my tongue. Amnesia could fuck right off. This strange new power would be a concern for later. For now it was a tool in my arsenal.

Someone rounded a corner ahead of me. A hazy blonde blob, she was hastily throwing a jacket across her shoulders and pulling a wand—no, a riding crop—out of a holster on her thigh. She seemed frazzled, her hair loose across her shoulders.

"My dear, this is hardly—" I paid her no mind. Just another obstacle in my path. I didn't have a power anymore, or at least not the same one, but I'd dealt with worse opponents than what I could only describe as a frazzled schoolteacher.

I feinted left then ducked right past her as she moved to block me. I nearly slid, my feet coming out from under me, but I managed to stay upright enough to make it around the corner.

I had to come to a screeching halt, barely able to stop myself from slamming face first into the bricks that tore from the walls and rearranged themselves into an impassable barrier before me. I spun on my heels, ready to turn the other way, only to find the woman I'd just dodged blocking the way. Purple light snared yet more bricks, and soon enough, we were closed off.

"Miss. You need to breathe. Calm down. You were very badly hurt. I understand things may be fuzzy right now, but you have to calm down." One hand was held out, palm up. Like she was reaching out to a dog off its damn leash.

"Who are you with. Cauldron? The PRT?" The same thing, but- How did I know that? I had a vague sense of what those two groups were, one that was slowly but surely coming back to me. They'd wronged me, I understood that much.

"We're with Beacon. I don't know who those organizations are." She was exasperated. Frustrated. Because I wasn't accepting her lies?"

"Likely story. What did you do to me? Why am I-"

"We helped you heal." An interruption. She took another step towards me. I had no where to go, backed up against the impromptu wall. I felt like a dog without a leash, and it set adrenaline screaming through my veins. So I-

-cut him, slashing my knife haphazardly through the offered arm once. The second, feebler blow bounced off a sudden crystalline shield. Shouts, screams, cries went up, yet there was no blood. Only the person in my range, the one I'd cut, bled. Too many people. I hadn't counted on having to deal with them. My swarm wasn't enough, so I purloined what I could, moving people to help myself and the clairvoyant along. I moved like that for a time until I was stopped, waylaid by a woman with three shadows surrounding her. My connection deviated from her as she stepped into my range. I recognized one of the powers arrayed around her, a man who could summon any three. I lapsed, then, and spoke.

"What do you want?" I muttered, only half lucid now. I was in her grasp, one arm wrapped around me in a half nelson. The box was gone, replaced by a hallway she was frog marching me through. Had I gone catatonic in my flashback this time? One hand, however, was pressed to her ear.

"What do you mean, let her go? Headmaster, that seems very unwise."

I struggled weakly against her grip. Trouble in the ranks?

"Because she's not lucid, Ozpin! She bit me!" The woman whisper-yelled into her hidden earpiece. "She could hurt herself! Or worse, someone else! We're lucky that it's summer break, or this would have been a far worse incident than otherwise!"

I struggled again, but she was tall enough that even my feet didn't reach the ground from where I was pinned against her chest. Phantoms seemed to pass us by, only panicking me more. People, things I thought I should recognize. I was half in, half out of a flashback that much I could tell. They hemmed in around us, reacting to something I'd done.

I'd fought them. Hurt them, all in a bid to escape them.

"I'm not-" She stopped, cut off by whatever the other end of her conversation was saying. I could barely focus, attention dragged around by faces I should have recognized. That I almost recognized. My weak flailing was a token effort, now. "Fine. But this falls on you, I hope you understand that."

She released me, surprisingly gently. Despite being set on my feet I still stumbled forward several steps before I could find my balance. I spun to find some distance from her, and quailed from the contact of my imagined crowd. They weren't there. I had to believe that.

"Well? You're free to go, against my advice." She sighed and adjusted a pair of glasses. "Don't make us regret this. Please."

I turned to run, and felt for all the world like I was retracing my steps. Fleeing something I didn't understand, running towards an uncertain doom. The halls of the castle flashed by, the phantom crowd dispersing until finally they disappeared just as I crashed into a massive pair of double doors. It took an effort, Herculean in scale, to move the damn things, but even down one arm I managed. I was stronger than I was, once.

I stumbled through the door once it was wide enough to accept me, and my eyes were drawn up. Up. The moon was bright, painfully so, the stars rendered into shards of glass that pierced my gaze. It took my breath away, not for beauty, but for distant horror. It was shattered, great chunks torn off of it to drift gently beside it.

A gun cocked behind me.

I spun on my heel, but no one was there. Another memory. A familiar one. Things started to fall into place, dominoes crashing into each other, lifting the fog more and more with each strike.

"You knew it would come to this."

The grim conversation played out in my head as I turned again to regard the alien sky. A different Earth, then. I'd visited at least one, hadn't I? Earth-

"What you are cannot be allowed to exist, I hope you understand."

-Gimel. Dull steps against cold stone carried me to a fountain I hadn't noted at first, too distracted by the moon pinned in the sky above it. My own responses were muted in my mind, less important than what the woman in the hat had to say.

"We've walked such similar roads. Done ugly things for the greater good."

I stared up at the statue that topped the fountain. A knight, sword held high. The imagery of heroism felt... mocking, in this exact moment.

"I keep asking myself the same questions, round and round. Perhaps you can answer them. Was it worth it?"

"No," I answered her. The cold night air bit at me, reminded me of my poor state of dress. I couldn't bring myself to care.

"Would you do it all over again? Knowing what you do now."

The last domino fell, and the fog finally cleared. Far from a lifted weight, it was like a great log had been laid across my chest. I couldn't breathe. And yet, even here, even racked with all that I missed them, racked with horror at leaving them again, my answer was the same as it had been in that damn glade.

"No," I whispered again. "Dammit, no."

"I think you have a chance to come back from this. Not much of one, though that rides on me."

The memory-hallucination, really-was fragmenting. Only bits and pieces, now. But I knew what was coming. I turned to sit on the edge of the fountain, and ever so gently leaned forward to cradle my head in my hands. Only one made contact, and yet I felt the sensation of the other. I hadn't had time to really come to terms with losing it down in that facility. Maybe I never would.

I didn't want to look, didn't want to feel for what I knew had to be there. Yet, I did, fingers tracing up to my forehead.

Phantom pain lanced through my head, paired with the roar of gunshots. Twinned shots, both striking before I could even hit the floor.

The tears didn't come, not really. I'd already cried them. Still, I couldn't help but feel... lost. Everything I did, and here I was. Alive. I had to accept that was part of her plan-there was nothing the Contessa couldn't accomplish after all.

A man stepped out of the castle, and I felt him come even though I hadn't yet looked up. Here, the need to run already well and truly drained from my bones, I could take the time to feel out this new... sense. It didn't feel like my power did, it wasn't a sure injection of data. It was messy, like sight or sound or taste. A kind of fuzzy feeling that resolved into higher and higher fidelity as he got closer. He walked with a cane, and carried a mug in his off hand. Still, there was a surety to his gait, a confidence despite his disability. Or was the cane a ruse, a purposeful gambit?

As he grew closer, I picked out more detail. I felt my new antennae prick as he did so, confirming a burgeoning theory; somehow the new appendages were related to this sense. It was nothing my swarm-born panopticon, but it was some kind of comfort.

In just a few more strides he was beside me, gazing up at the moon as I had just done. I appreciated the small sense of privacy; I was painfully aware of my lack of dress at this point.

"Before anything else is said tonight, first I'd like to extend an apology. I'd warned the medical staff that you would likely not be lucid once you woke, but it seems I underestimated quite how severe that would be." He lifted one hand, the cane resting gently against one thigh, to rummage through his suit pocket. Whatever he was reaching for was the wrong shape to be a weapon, but I still felt a thrill shoot down my spine.

"I suppose I should apologize for the windows, then." I muttered without any real intent.

"Windows are easy to replace, put them out of your mind please. Here," he held out a soft velour case at that, and I turned to regard the blurry shape. "These were on your bedside table, but I understand you were a touch busy at the time."

I took it and opened it. A pair of simple black-wire glasses. Opening them was a struggle, but I had no intent on asking the man beside me for help. I had to use my mouth to open the other arm, and despite the dull suspicion in my gut, I put them on. The scene resolved into sudden clarity, and I felt a modicum of relief. That was one weakness sorted, at least.

"Hot chocolate?" The man beside me asked. "It's a touch chilly at the moment."

He was a kindly man, though I'd learned to distrust appearances by now. Silver haired, green eyes touched by just a hint of crows feet, and a genteel smile. The green scarf and dark black suit he wore completed the look; he reminded me of one of my mother's older coworkers, though he hadn't insisted on wearing a pair of sunglasses perched on the tip of his nose in the middle of the night.

"I prefer tea," I said instinctively, but I still took the steaming mug. If he wanted to poison me, I reasoned, he could have accomplished it while I was in the hospital. No reason to look a gift in the mouth now. I took a gentle sip, then a deeper draw as the riot of sensation crashed into me; I'd never had a better hot chocolate in my life.

"I've always had something of a sweet tooth myself," he said with a smile. In an eyeblink, he slipped his coat off and hung it over my shoulders before I could say anything.

It warded off the chill well enough. Still, I narrowed my eyes at him. Old habits. "How did you know my prescription?"

"You were wearing prescription lenses when you crashed in my office." He said it simply, cut with the gentle effort of sitting down. I stared into the mug in my hands, mind suddenly awash. Had Contessa shot me, then had me dumped somewhere she knew I would get the help to live? Why not just let me bleed out...

"What happened? How did I survive?"

"Ah. The question of the night I suppose," He hummed, fingers tapping the head of his cane resting between his legs. "First, allow me to ask my own question. What's your name, dear?"

I let the term of affection slide. Old people tended towards them, and I didn't want to sour the interaction already. "Taylor Hebert." Then, after a beat, "Yours?"

"Professor Ozpin," he said with a smile. "Though I'll forgive you if you just call me Oz, for now. You aren't a student at my school, after all."

For now, he said. I shook my head, though it did explain some things. The ornate castle before me was a school; hadn't the woman I bit called it an Academy? There were more important problems at hand. "How am I alive, Ozpin."

He sighed softly. "You really were quite lucky. Whatever delivered you to me did so just in time; I fear, had I not been there to awaken your aura, you'd have died in quite short order. You still needed quite a bit of work from quite the team of doctors, but I have to say I'm glad to see you've awoken so soon. I would have hated to watch a young faunus like you perish so young."

He didn't know who sent me to him, then. Or he was lying, but I couldn't detect any hint to that effect. And 'faunus'. I'd never heard of something like that, beyond the term fauna. A concern for later. "I have two more questions: What is 'aura', and what did the portal I arrived through look like?"

"Popular theory holds that aura is the emanation of the soul; it strengthens, shields, and heals the wielder. Silver is a rare color to see, however. As to your second question," he shrugged. "A tear in space, perhaps. I could make out little through the light."

"Ah. Thank you." That was more information to process than I'd anticipated. Putting aside the soul mumbo-jumbo for a moment, he'd just casually admitted to awakening a decent Brute power in me; I'd survived a three story fall after all. As for his description of the portal... It didn't fit any power I'd experienced. Every portal I'd ever seen was neat, clean.

"I'd like to ask my own question, if you don't mind."

"I can't stop you." I said before taking another long drink. The chocolate was cooling swiftly, but it still proved bracing.

"Saying no is always a choice, Taylor." When I didn't respond to that, he continued. "You aren't from Remnant, are you?"

"Remnant? That's what you call this Earth?" I asked. "That's grim."

"More than you know," he said with a kind of bone deep weariness I was achingly familiar with. "Would you forgive me if I asked—"

"I'm from Earth-Bet. We got second billing because Earth-Aleph is the one who discovered us, and thus, the multiverse." I tried to inject a kind of bitter home-town humor into it, but I just couldn't manage it. Thinking of home... Thinking of home came hand in hand with thinking of the people I'd left behind.

I drew in a shaky breath. They were alive. I had to center that thought. It was all I had really.

"I find myself curious, then. How many Earths are there?" He said it with a kind of wonder that I'd rarely heard from someone his age. I had to admit, it did make me smile.

"I'm not sure. I've seen Bet and Gimel personally," and more in a haze that I barely wanted to think my way through, "but the actual number is probably uncountably large."

He nodded, opened his mouth, before closing it and taking a deep breath. "Ah, my apologies. I can pick your brain about that later. For now, I'd like to offer you lodging. Forgive me for saying it, but you look like you've been through quite a lot."

I paused, mug halfway to my lips. "That's it?"

He cocked an eyebrow at me. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, that's it? You're going to house me based on, what, pity?" I couldn't keep the note of naked suspicion from my voice now. No one, I mean no one, ever did anything out of outright altruism. Not in my experience, not towards me. "You aren't even going to question me about why I came across your desk with two bullet wounds to the head?"

"I can't imagine it's for good reasons that are easy to talk about, Taylor." He took a deep breath. "And it's not pity, either. I can hardly conscious kicking a young girl like you out on the street in the middle of the night."

"That sounds like pity to me."

"It's kindness." A thoughtful hum. "If you must, think of it as an extended physical therapy stay; I have no intention of sending you out into the world without the basics of aura under your belt either. I've seen my fair share of disasters happen due to lack of proper care." He stood heavily, and turned to take the suddenly empty mug from my hand.

I racked my head for an angle, and I could only find one. "You want me for your school, a way to get information about the other Earths."

He shrugged. "If you want to enroll, I would welcome you. You strike me as a woman who likes to keep moving forward. As for using you for information, I assure you my curiosity is purely academic."

I grit my teeth. I could leave. There was always that option, he'd said it himself. Always the chance to do it my way. I'd done the same thing when I left Dad's house, that last night. I almost did; I stood, but not to follow. Yet that damnable conversation still echoed in my head. I said I would do it differently, didn't I?

I braced myself and took that first step forward. I was still wearing his coat, besides. "Fine. I'll take you up on it for now."

"Good. Our first stop is getting you some clothes; The school store isn't strictly speaking open at the moment, but I am the headmaster." He led me back into the castle at a sedate pace, and I subconsciously drew the jacket tighter around myself.

"And then?"

"You'll be seen to your dorm. It's been a harrowing night for you; some rest is deserved."

I fully intended to walk silently behind him, but my curiosity got the better of me. Or maybe I couldn't bear to be alone with my thoughts. "What sort of school is this, anyway?"

"Ah, of course. Beacon Academy is a finishing school, the final destination for several combat schools around Vale—the kingdom we are situated in—intended to produce the finest Huntsmen and Huntresses we possibly can."

I didn't miss that I was the only one to ask him questions, all the way up until he quietly unlocked the quaint little school store and asked what color shirt I would prefer.

* * *​

It was a scarce hour later that I was led to the dormitories, this time by the blonde woman I'd bitten. Glynda Goodwitch, she'd called herself. I'd barely kept from asking her where Elphaba was.

I doubted she would appreciate the reference.

"There's a communal kitchen," she noted as we walked inside. "Please clean up after yourself."

"Sure," I responded. There wasn't a chance to admire it as she led me deeper into the dorms.

We strode past unremarkable doors, this section of the castle feeling cozier, more residential. It was actually carpeted, for one, and the ceilings only somewhat loomed, rather than arching over me into the distance. It reminded me uncomfortably of the massive Cauldron bases I'd spent some time in, and even with my head mostly screwed in I thought I could hear things echoing from the vaults above.

It didn't linger long, thankfully. My mind was awhirl with new information, too much to focus on anything else. Grimm, faunus, aura, semblances. Ozpin had spared only specificity with my questions, and anything he couldn't answer was appended with a careful 'my professors are more than capable of answering this.' I was beginning to believe that he wanted me in his school for entirely normal reasons. It was disconcerting in its own way.

He'd even tucked a pamphlet into my new duffel bag, before having to beg off, citing a call on his phone. Scroll. I may never break that habit.

She came to a smart stop, presenting a door that looked identical to the several we'd already passed. 308, it said. "Miss Hebert, welcome to your current lodgings."

Her voice was curt, and she tucked an errant strand of blonde hair behind one ear. She was less frazzled, but her bun was messy and her skirt and smart top somewhat wrinkled still. Narrowed green eyes regarded with somewhat more suspicion than Ozpin had managed to muster, and I had to admit I appreciated that. It was a reasonable response, one that made sense.

"Sorry I bit you," I said. I wasn't entirely sure I meant it, but it was the expected response here. No reason to cause waves.

"I trust it won't happen again."

I hummed and walked into my new room. It was spacious, clearly designed for four people judging from the four twin beds and the row of desks under the far window. Idly I threw my duffle bag of new clothes-sweats and tank tops, really, nothing worth writing home about-across the closest bed and stepped in. It was cozy, I had to admit. Lonely though.

"Is there anything else, Miss Hebert?" She asked.

"No," I said. "Thank you."

"Sleep well. Try not to tear through the castle when you wake, yes?"

She was gone before I could respond. I didn't care; I'd picked up on a thick shape resting atop the row of desks. Soft, folded cloth with something resting atop it.

I turned smartly and ignored it, despite the sudden tightness in my chest. I slipped into the bathroom and turned on the faucet in the surprisingly small space; were four people supposed to share a single sink bathroom? I couldn't imagine doing that with any of my teams. Working around the crush of the Wards, or trying to find anything in the chaotic mix that would have been the Undersiders. Lisa alone probably-

I splashed a handful of cold water in my face and nearly crashed into the counter when I tried to brace myself with a missing right arm. For a moment I laid there, staring into the plain white granite sink.

"Fuck," I managed. A tired arm lifted me up, and I found the light.

A ghost stared back at me from the mirror. I almost didn't recognize myself: my skin was pale and drawn, rendered paler still by frazzled dark hair and heavy eye bags. Two puckered scars peaked out from the hair that had fallen around my eyes; bullet wounds. Contessa.

And yet that wasn't what drew my eyes; I was more concerned with investigating my new appendages.

My remaining hand delicately reached up to touch the antennae poking up and out from my hairline. Long and a tawny orange-brown, they were unmistakable to me. Moth antennae. Was my brain interpreting the new sensory data in an approximation of how I'd once seen the world. They weren't unsightly—more akin to Canary than Weld as far as mutations went—but the question remained. Where had they come from? Ozpin's words echoed in my head; Faunus.

Whatever this was, I knew it wouldn't be simple.

"Focus, Taylor." I said to myself. I didn't heed the water still dripping down my face, marking the oversized hoodie I wore. "Can you trust him?"

I found I didn't have an answer. I sighed and punched the counter, that strange silver field flickering as I did so. Another answer I needed, one that seemed to only be on offer from one place.

The faucet and the light went back off, and I made my way back to the desk and the lump of silk that beckoned to me. It was familiar, achingly so.

My mask had seen better days. Near the end I think it had been hanging around my neck, so it was spared what the bullets would have done to it, but it was worn and torn from combat. The mismatched silks of my costume beneath were stained with mud and worse, but they'd clearly been run through the wash. It was unwearable, but I still palmed it and ran my thumbs over the spider silk. My chest felt heavy, the air felt thick.

There was a bank of windows behind the desks. I stepped up and swung one open with a shaky hand, mask clutched between my body and my stump. The glass swung open to admit a cool wind, and I made to step out on the thing ledge beyond.

I'd been brought here, which meant that there was a way home. There had to be. I could go home, find my friends, and—

"And what?" Some traitorous voice inside me asked. "What then?"

What then, indeed. I sat, legs dangling out of the window, and faced my mask once again. The blue lenses were almost accusatory, reflecting the light of the moon into a pair of eyes glaring up at me. What then?

I didn't have an answer.
------
I understand the statistics on rewrites. However, I fully believe in what I'm doing. Check out V1E2 early at Patreon, especially if you want to shout about card games in between chapters.

 

[CalumTraveler]

I will be watching with continued interest

 

[Miss Peacecraft]

Yang Xiao Long helps a girl out
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Patch was nice, don't get me wrong. I had a certain hometown pride in my little island. I would always love its little coves and forests, all the secret little spots Ruby and I had found and claimed over the years. But there was a problem with growing up in the same place, going to school there, making friends there. You made too many memories.

So sometimes you gotta hop over the pond, so to speak, and have some fun in the big city.

Vale had better shopping anyway, and my little sister deserved a reward for kicking the shit out of a bunch of bad guys. I gunned the throttle and threaded the needle, riding the line as I slipped between two cars to pass through the light before it could change. More than one driver flipped me the bird for the deed, and all I had to offer them as I screamed through the intersection was a jaunty salute, one collapsed gauntlet clanking against my helmet.

Vale's streets were wider than Patch's, and laid out in a grid pattern instead of the winding mountain paths and meandering town streets characteristic of the island. Still fun to drive, but not quite the same.

And it wasn't even a refuge from the memories. I mistimed a light and had to come to a screeching halt just before the line. I slapped my gas tank in gentle frustration before I noted a bank of tvs behind the glass of an electronics store. Tuned to the news of course. No sound, but the subtitles were on and perfectly legible from here.

-latest in the string of disappearances from the Greater Vale Area is one Mr. Carmine. Last seen returning home from his place of work, he has been missing for 72 hours. If you have any tips related to his, or the listed persons, disappearance, please-

I gunned it through the light and skidded down a side alley. Fuck. I'd managed to cheer myself up just to get brought back down into the fucking dumps. I slid past a car on the other side, the driver laying on his horn as I did, but I managed to right myself and pull into the first parking lot I saw.

I knew the list. Twelve missing, thirteen now., in the span of just a month. I'd gone down the list before, over and over, looking for anything any name on it had in common. My helmet came off and one hand went up to clear the tears piling up in my eyes. I'd already cried about this. "Fucking dammit."

A hand yanked my scroll out of my pocket, unbidden. I knew it was a bad idea, but I still scrolled down through my messages. I skipped past my unreads from Dad and Ruby, finding a chat I'd left untouched.

ONYX<3 - inactive for one month three days

My thumb hovered over the name. I knew what was in there, just unread messages I knew she hadn't seen, and that she probably would never see. I didn't need to read them again. "Fucking hell. Just... come back. Please." I said it to the universe, like I could pull her out of whatever hole she'd ended up in.

She didn't choose that moment to respond, and I shouldn't have been so disappointed. What else should I have expected?

Instead I flicked to my outgoing calls and found another contact, Mama. Not my mother, but near as. The mother of my best friend. I tapped it and pressed my scroll to my ear. One hand tapped a rhythm out on my handlebars as it rang, and I drifted into people watching as I waited. Not a lot of people out and about this early. A few pedestrians rushing to work, or breakfast. Cars streaked by for the same purpose.

I was about to hang up and do something else when it finally clicked. "Yang, dear? Is everything okay?"

"Morning Mama Igna," I said, hiding the sudden choke in my throat as best I could. "I just wanted to check up on you."

"Honey, you don't need to do that," there was a stacky shuffle over the line as she moved. Sitting up in bed, maybe? "Tai checked in on us just last night. We'll make it."

Her voice sounded thick, like she'd been crying just before she picked up the phone. 'We'll make it' was almost impossible to believe in that situation.

"I know, I know. I'm just worried," I shifted myself, slipping off my bike to lean against it instead of astride it. "How's Papa Mica?"

"Distraught. You know they had that fight before—" Igna choked a bit, and my heart turned. "Before. He's at work right now, but I'm going to bring him his lunch soon. But, baby, we're worried about you too. You two were thick as thieves for years. Remember how Onyx would always correct us on-"

"I'm fine, really," I cut her off awkwardly. That time was just as hard to think about as anything else right now. "I'm just in Vale for the day, seeing the sights-"

"You saw the news, didn't you?" Igna said, quietly cutting right to the point. Just like her. "I figured you would call after it broke."

"...Yeah," I admitted. "I just don't get it. You'd think that so many people going missing would be a big deal. Why haven't they, I dunno, mobilized? Search parties?"

There'd been a search of maybe a few days for Onyx before they'd called it off and added her to the missing persons roster. May as well be a death sentence; there was a general undercurrent that anyone who went missing for more than a day at best had been a victim of the creatures of Grimm. It had almost happened to me, once. But Onyx was different. She had to be.

"They don't want to cause a panic, dear. You know what could happen. They just want to keep the peace." Igna asked. I'd heard the line before.

"That's what people like dad are for. People like me." I ran my hand through my hair with a deep sigh. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be venting to you. You're going through more than I am. She's your daughter."

"That's hardly fair to you, dear. You're her best friend, you don't need to—" She cut herself off, and I heard some mumbling in the distance. Someone at the door? "I'm so sorry dear, I have to go. Prior engagements and all."

Right. It was Friday; Mama Igna had her support group. It must be her turn to host this week. "Alright, okay. Have a good day Mama. Thanks for talking to me."

"Of course honey, anytime. Don't be a stranger, okay? And make sure you keep taking your medication. I know you can be a bit forgetful."

I bit back a frustrated sigh. She was right, I had forgotten them this morning. "Thanks Mama, I will."

We said our farewells, and she let me go. I took a deep, bracing breath and pressed the back of my hands to my eyes for just a moment before I managed to get myself together. My scroll went back into my pouch, and I rustled around for what I was looking for. I came back up with a little orange bottle. I tipped a pair of little blue tablets out and stuck the estradiol under my tongue.

It was a psychosomatic effect—my doctor's words, not mine—but I felt myself calm down, just a touch, as soon as they started dissolving. Skipping my hormone dose for a few hours always made me a bit high strung. So, I pulled in a deep breath in just the way dad taught me; a great draw from gut to center and root myself.

Then I blew it out in one great breath and stood from my bike. The day was still young, and I still had a little sister who needed a gift. It wouldn't do her any good if I collapsed like the wreck I felt like. Keep it together Yang. Like always.

"Big Bad Wolf Shooting Sports huh?" I read the sign of the building, finally. I'd pulled in a whim, but maybe it was fate. "Yeah, they've probably got something for Ruby in there..."

I adjusted my jacket, checked my hair in a rearview mirror, flicked my sunglasses open to slip them on, and made my way inside. The door rang a jaunty little bell, but no one looked up to answer me. That was fine by me. It was a little square of a shop, with the guns proper at the back behind a glass counter, and the rest of the store taken up by gear, gifts, and clothes. Not too many people either, I only saw maybe three up by the counter, not counting the woman manning it. Somewhere there'd be a door to the range proper.

There was a beowolf mask hung up on the back wall, and I had to scoff. Fake shit like that was in bad taste, but you found it in just about every shop that didn't actually cater to Huntresses. That didn't really matter to me though, I was just here to find something goofy to give to my sister to celebrate her victory. Maybe a shirt? Or a charm..

I browsed up and down the racks. Most of the shirts were just branded stuff, like SDC shirts or Vale State Arms jackets. I didn't see any point in them, and neither would Ruby. Big heavy jackets, cargo pants, the kind of thing I'd expect to see in Dad's closet. She'd wear it at least once if I was the one who got it for her, but they really weren't her style.

Muffled conversation from the front. I couldn't quite make it out, but it sounded calm enough.

Accessories then. I slipped out of the racks to find the stacks of optics, triggers, guards, and the like. I was a little closer to the counter, but not enough for anyone to bother me. The lady was chatting up a couple of middle aged guys in khakis and puffy vests anyway. The third person I'd noted was a faunus girl, antennae visibly peaking up above her black curls even though she was turned away from me to stare into the case of pistols. Something about her drew the eye... The loose tank top? The cascade of curly black hair? The brazenly displayed prosthetic arm? It was a loose comparison, but she kinda reminded me of—

I shook my head. I was losing it. I returned to the scopes with something approaching disappointment; civilian fare to a T, the kind of stuff you'd want on a home defense weapon or a hunting rifle, not a monstrosity like Crescent Rose.

"You seem a little out of place here," I heard a man's voice say. It had the thick sinus-resonance of a man who'd broken his nose one too many times. My ear pricked, but I didn't move.

"New in town," the girl responded. There was a dryness to it, like she was already bored with him.

"That would explain why our friend there had never seen you before," the other guy said. His voice was higher, nasally. "What does a girl like you need a gun for, anyhow?"

I saw them shuffle closer to her out of the corner of my eye. She didn't budge an inch, and I revised my estimate of her up a few points. A civilian wouldn't have remained so solid. One of her hands slipped out of her pocket, too. Twitched towards something that wasn't there.

Another point.

"Self defense." It was as curt a response as before. "Do you mind?"

I chanced a peek proper, making a show of picking up a scope like I was gonna look down it. The owner, or at least the cashier, was a thirty something year old woman, and she was looking on at the interaction with an odd kind of drawn worry. The two men, on the other hand, had hemmed in the girl, one on either side of her leaning against the glass. They looked interchangeable: same boots, same high and tight haircut, same puffy vest even. One was just taller than the other.

"I think we do mind. 'Self defense' is pretty loose, don't you think?" Tall boy, the one with the busted nose, directed to his buddy.

"Could mean anything," Short and nasally agreed. "Are you telling the truth, girly?"

I set the optic down and darted over, grabbing a random kitschy keychain along the way, and insinuating myself into the situation with little grace but a wide bright smile. I didn't know this girl, but that was more than enough from a couple of weird men. I tossed my arm across her shoulder and bit the bullet that was the inevitable stiffening. "Holy shit, there you are! Why didn't you shoot me a text, tell me you were already here?"

I had to look up just a touch, she was more than a few inches taller than me. I met her narrowed hazel eyes with a wide eyed glance and a smile. Trying my best to communicate mentally with her, hoping like hell she got my point, while also doing my best to not marvel at how pretty her eyes were, even suspiciously narrowed and rimmed with heavy eye bags. Down, Yang. You just took your hormones.

A breath, and a smile graced her own lips, and dammit even that was pretty. "Sorry, I should have. I got a little distracted I guess."

"Honestly, I don't blame you. Ruby gets the same way sometimes," I said it with a weight of familiarity and a little nudge. A nonverbal 'play along and they'll fucking leave.'

"Maybe she's worn off on me a little," the nameless girl said with a shrug. "The revolvers caught my eye."

I really couldn't blame her. They had some good pieces in there.

"Speaking of Ruby," I said, still playing the casual friend. The two men were still staring at us. "Do you think she'd like a… beowolf keychain?"

The little cartoon monster dangled from the chain in my hands, and I had to marvel at exactly how tasteless it was. No-name girl cocked an eyebrow at it, clearly stymied the same way I'd been. Anti-human monster, made marketable I guess.

"Well, she does like dogs, but—"

"We were in the middle of-" Tall and busted started, cutting her off.

"Bothering my friend. I saw." I fixed him with an unhappy stare. She might not actually be my friend, but that didn't mean I had to be any less upset about this. In situations like this, all women were friends. "Now, if you don't mind, we're going to buy some range time. And rent some guns," I turned to her and put on a conspiratorial tone. "Trust me, you gotta try before you buy, otherwise you'll get a dud. For more than just guns, really."

I waggled my eyebrows, and she rolled her eyes. No, motioned with them. The guys weren't moving. They'd lost just a bit of their joviality, and they seemed to loom over us. Like they were scary at all.

"Seriously. I know we're cute, but you're, what, twice our age? Fuck off and let us breathe." I turned, let her go, and crossed my arms across my chest. "You do this to every young woman. No wonder you're single."

Shorty shook his head with a huff. "Come on man. We're running late anyway."

"Yeah. Fine." Tall and busted shifted and walked around us, but I didn't miss the way his eyes lingered, first on me and then on my new friend. Keeping an eye on us?

"What the fuck was even their problem?" I muttered to myself.

No-name regarded me for a moment, metaphorically chewing on something. "Hey," she called out to the cashier after a moment. "Some range time."

"...Yeah, sure. Renting anything?" The cashier sounded deeply unimpressed, like she wanted to tell us to fuck off, but I had to wonder if the promise of a decent chunk of change coming her way led her to actually tap our request into the register.

What followed was pretty rote. My new friend pointed out three pistols: two semi autos and one beast of a revolver. The cashier was curt, and frankly a little rude, but there really wasn't much I could do about that unless I wanted to make a bigger scene than I already had. The guns, and a box of ammo for each, went into a plastic range-tote, and she turned back to us to set it down with a slight thud.

"That'll be-"

"Could you throw in a box of ten-gauge?" I smiled and shook my gauntlets jauntily. "I need to sight the girls in before Beacon Initiation, you know?"

"...Huntresses. Fine," she sighed and threw in a box of shotgun shells. Then she pointed to the back wall, where a list of common sense range rules hung. "You follow those or you get kicked out, got it?"

We both nodded. I was anxious to get this moving along, and my companion clearly thought the same. She was stiff as a board, and I got the sense she was checking me out, trying to figure out exactly how dangerous I was. Her eyes kept darting to me before she thought better and tore them away.

"Fine. That'll be 124 lien."

Both our hands darted to our pockets, but I was just a touch faster than her. My card landed on the glass first and I gave her a wink. "I invited you out, let me pay this time. You can get next."

"I'll hold you to that," she responded easily. Good, she was still following me.

My card processed and I mentally started coming up with ways to explain the charge to Dad as we were lead back to the range. I could feel a pair of eyes drilling into my head as I lead her through the double sound-lock doors into the cold concrete range beyond. We studiously ignored the cashiers suspicious stare and found a stall on the far side of the range. We were alone, thankfully. The plastic tote went down on a ledge behind our stall, and my companion started laying out her chosen pieces in silence. Observing them with an experienced eye.

I leaned against the workspace. "Sorry for springing that on you. Those guys looked suspicious as hell, so-"

"You did it on a whim?" She didn't turn to regard me, preferring to press check the smaller pistol she'd picked out. The black polymer slide slipped through her prosthetic fingers, just a tad, and she scowled minutely at it. "No other reasons?"

I frowned, just a touch. Damn, no thank you? "No? I saw a girl being bothered by two old guys, so I stepped in. Anyone else would have done the same."

She stared into me, antennae twitching. Through me, really. She looked almost sickly pale under the harsh lighting, and, when her long hair fell just the right way I caught two small silvered scars set into her forehead, up and to the side of center. Maybe she had a reason to be suspicious.

Something shifted in her eyes. She nodded and closed her eyes, her chest rising in what I could only imagine was a bracing breath. "I doubt that. Most people wouldn't care."

"Because you're a faunus?" I asked before I could snap my jaw shut. Yang, you should know better!

She just cocked an eyebrow—and an antenna—at me, instead of unloading like I'd expected. "Unfortunately, yes. Cops especially."

"Those bozos were cops?" I asked, grateful for the change of subject. It didn't change what I did, but it did make me grateful they'd just backed off. I didn't need Dad to bail me out again. "How could you tell?"

"They had badges under their vests. Concealed weapons at their backs, and handcuffs in their back pockets," she rattled off like it was obvious. Maybe to her it was. I went ahead and revised her up several points. "Could you set up a target for me?"

"Yeah, sure. How far out do you want it?" I asked as I stood and went to our stall. There was a sheaf of paper targets pinned to one side, and I went ahead and pinned it up to the trailing line just above us. "What's your name by the way? I'm Yang."

I could feel her attention on me as I worked, nearly burning a hole into my back, but when I turned, target properly pinned, she was still turned away to work on her weapon. Maybe I was just being nervous. I was wired after the way we'd met, and the chill of the concrete range did little to quiet the electric tingle in my fingers.

"Fifteen feet," she responded, punctuated with the metallic rasp of a slide ramming home. "Taylor."

"Cute name," I mumbled as I flicked the switch and watched the target until the little screen on the stall table read a big red '15'. "Got any family? I mentioned my little sister already."

"Just me." She said it so factually, but I could hear the little hitch in her voice. Got it, avoid that topic as best I could. She had two pieces of ear protection in her off hand, and the gun held down and to the ground in her prosthetic. She offered one to me.

Aura would handle it, but... No need to give them an excuse to toss us out while we were still talking. I pulled over my ears and said a silent apology to my hair. I could just redo it, but it was the principle of the thing!

Taylor stepped up to the metaphorical plate as I stood back to give her some space and took aim. Her stance was loose, easy. Confident. Coreded, well trained muscles flexed and shifted under her loose tank top, and I was suddenly painfully aware of the fact that she wasn't even wearing so much as a sports bra.

Her gun barked, ten times in quick succession, breaking me from that reverie. I shook my head free of the inappropriate thoughts, and approached as her stance fell and she regarded the simple target.

Eight of the shots were in the ring, but they were really spread out, with only one near the center. Rusty, maybe? I turned to see her reaction, but her eyes were narrowed and focused on her prosthetic of all things. Silver fingers flexed for a moment before she picked her gun back up and slipped the empty magazine out.

"Something wrong?" I asked.

"No," she was already reloading the mag. "Just a bit rusty."

It slid home, and this time I leaned against the wall to her left. She stood at rest, gun against the prep table. "You didn't have to lie, you know."

"I mean, I kinda did? Those cops wouldn't have budged otherwise." I cocked my head at her, trying to figure out what she meant.

"You called me cute," she said. She still wasn't looking at me. Studying the target to figure out what she did wrong, maybe?

"That wasn't a lie. You are." She reminded me of a knife. It was in the way she held herself, even in the contours of her form. I could probably cut myself on her jaw, her collar, even her eyes. Maybe not a conventional kind of cute, but she was striking and interesting. It counted.

Her jaw worked, but no words came. Another volley of bullets was the only response. This time, watching from closer up, I could see the issue. She was pulling, her hand twisting just that little bit on every single shot. And, judging by the frustrated narrowing of her eyes-her antennae drooped at the same time-she noticed too. The gun, slide racked back and barrel still gently smoking, came down and she stepped away, long legs taking her back to the range tote.

"You mentioned Beacon?" She asked as she rolled her metal hand. Maybe she was having an issue with the wrist joint? It would explain the pulling... And I didn't know her well enough to ask if I could see it. Maybe if I played my cards right, but I was no Ruby. Guns were one thing, complicated prosthetics entirely another. Better to just leave it be.

"Hey, toss me the shells? I wanna finish this target." I held out a hand expectantly. She threw them over her shoulder without even looking, the box landing perfectly in the palm of my hand with a gentle rattle. "Nice. Anyway, yeah, I'm heading to Beacon. Top of my class at Signal, even!"

"Signal?" She asked.

"Feeder school for Beacon, out on Patch. My dad teaches there." I kept a couple spare ammo belts in my pouches, and the box had ten shells. Five for each belt, five for each gauntlet. "But that's not that impressive, really."

She stepped beside me and set down the hand cannon she'd been working on. "Top of your class, and an invite to Beacon aren't impressive?"

I shrugged, fingers still working on the belts. How do I even explain that to someone like her? She had to have led a much more interesting life than I did, just judging by the way she wore her scars. Maybe if I played my cards right I could find out more. "Genetics, really. Dad went, Mom went, my Uncle went. It was sort of a foregone conclusion I would go too."

She mimicked my earlier pose, leaning against the divider. "What if you'd wanted to do something else? Art, maybe."

There was an analytical bent to her words as she asked, one I couldn't quite figure the meaning of. I just shook my head and took center stage, ammo belts gripped in each hand. "You know, I never thought of that."

I jerked my wrists back, just hard enough to engage a specific mechanism inside my gauntlets. Metal ground together, gears whirred to life, and they expanded. Plates shifted, a handle snapped around into my fists, and long glimmering yellow gauntlets expanded out, great enough to cover the back of my hand and most of my forearms. A gentle flick locked the belts in place, and the feed ratcheted forward until I heard the telltale click of the first shells sliding home behind the short barrels that barely jutted out over my knuckles.

Ember Celica. My babies.

I jabbed out, pulling the trigger in time with each punch. Shotgun roars echoed in the tight confines, and the hail of buckshot turned the paper target into little more than ticker-tape confetti. I couldn't help the wide grin that split my lips as I finished, ten rounds spent as fast as Taylor had spent her own.

I turned and winked. "I can't imagine doing anything else."

Taylor, for her part, regarded the ruined target with a blank yet focused stare I couldn't quite understand. Her antennae were up, too. She was a mystery, this one. One I couldn't help but want to dig into, figure out. "Grimm killing guns, huh?"

I snorted. "Not with that load. The nerve of calling this ten gauge. Twelve with a false sense of superiority, maybe."

Taylor hummed again, ignoring my rambling, and regarded the gun before her with a critical eye. It wasn't a bad piece, to be sure, though I'd spent enough time with Ruby to know that it was more a vanity project than anything else. Unless I missed my guess, it would jam and stovepipe all to hell. She seemed to be thinking the same thing.

"You trying to kill Grimm, too?" I asked, casually. 'You going to Beacon too?' would sound too hopeful.

Taylor just grunted and unloaded the useless gun before her. "Something like that."

"Well, let's see the revolver you got, then. If you aren't gonna shell out for mechashift, that is..." I shook a still expanded gauntlet at her. "It's really the way to go, but It's pricey. It's all custom work after all."

"Maybe. Assuming the cops don't break my door down over it," she grumbled as she turned to find the last gun she'd rented.

"Aww, come on. I'll make sure they don't," I didn't know why I said it, and I chose to turn and pin a new target rather than face what I'd just let slip from my lips. My fingers shook as I did, and I quietly tried to steady them. What was wrong with me today? Why was I so shaky? Get it together Yang.

"I can handle them," Taylor said. I had to hope that she hadn't seen my sudden nerves, I couldn't come across as some shaky weirdo around her. "But... thank you."

How did a simple thanks make me flush like that? From anyone else it would be something so simple, but from her it felt so much weightier, in ways I struggled to really process but still hit me like an ursa nonetheless. I shook my head and desperately searched for something safer before I made a veritable fool of myself. "Let's see that piece of yours, then."

She held it out, handle first. "I should have asked your opinion. I never went in for the specifics on weapons; I only ever used what was on hand."

Another thread to add to the mystery. So she did have some kind of a fighter's past, and those wounds weren't from some kind of horrible accident. I reached out for the gun, and in gripping the handle our fingers brushed. It was the cold metal of her prosthetic, but a lance went up my spine anyway.

I looked down and turned the thing over, a cover for my embarrassment. That was easy enough at least, she'd finally handed me a gun worth looking at. A hefty thing made of simple, unadorned steel, the black polymer handle was comfortable enough in the hand. It balanced well, and with the low bore axis I expected it would handle well in the hand too.

The little Ruby that lived on my shoulder could see a few spots to improve; a red dot instead of irons, a muzzle brake to further control the recoil, things like that. Still, it was a perfectly good revolver. "What's it chambered in?" I had to ask. Revolvers weren't my specialty.

".485 Trailhead," she said after a moment to check the box.

I whistled, impressed, as I handed the gun back to her. That was a pretty big round, maybe not big enough to kill a grimm in one shot but certainly enough to do some damage to one. Plenty of room for-

She pushed the cylinder open and my brain froze, skipped a note, whatever. She palmed it flat and pushed her two middle fingers through the frame, braced against the cylinder. Her index, pinky, and thumb braced the gun proper as she went through the process of carefully loading each fat bullet into one of the six chambers. My eyes were stuck, glued to the proceedings. Her fingers were long and dexterous, calloused in just the right places that-

"Are you okay?" She asked, and I finally remembered to breathe.

"What? Yeah, I'm fine. Got distracted I guess. Looks like a good gun," I trailed off, unsure if she'd bought the line.

She nodded and snapped the cylinder closed, a finality that broke the spell. She spent the next several moments sighting in the revolver, flexing and shifting her prosthetic on the grip. Finding a comfortable hold with that thing must be kind of hard. The dead air felt unbearably awkward, like it would crush me if I didn't do what I could to alleviate it.

"Anyways, Beacon. Yeah. If you think it's impressive, you'd find my younger sister really impressive," I said with an awkward laugh.

Taylor flexed her hand on the grip for the eighth time. "Why is that?"

"Ruby is, like, a prodigy." Talking about my sister was easy, a safe topic. I could gush about how proud of her I was all day long. "Bit of a techhead, kinda scatterbrained, but damn if she doesn't know how to fight."

"Is that so?" Taylor asked after a moment spent shaking out her prosthetic. I couldn't quite make out the problem; she was proving hard to read.

"Yup. She's good enough that the Headmaster saw fit to admit her two years early."

Taylor flipped the revolver to her left hand and let loose. The shots sounded more like a throaty roar than gunpowder, but the gun barely moved in her grip. If I squinted, really looked, I could see a faint flicker of light around her hand. Aura reacting to the force of the recoil? A sign of poor control, maybe, or just stress? The gun fell, her chest heaved, and I thought I saw something behind her eyes, just for a moment, before it vanished.

Just a reflection in her glasses, maybe.

"A bit early to be risking her life, don't you think?" There wasn't any venom in the question, but there was still an odd tilt to it. Reflective, almost. How young had she started fighting, I had to wonder? I couldn't think of any other reason for her to react like that, and combined with her looks...

I shrugged and reached around her to press the target return key. "Maybe. But... that's life on Remnant, isn't it? Grimm are always sniffing at the gate, looking for a way in."

She hummed noncommittally at that, looking down at the revolver in her hands. Gently, she opened and unloaded the brass. A flicker around her eyes, and jerk of her antennae, was all I got as far as clues to her thought process. I almost regretted bringing it up, and I had half a mind to apologize.

Instead I dug in. "You should meet her. I think you'd get along."

"You only just met me," she said, voice low. She glanced up to meet my eyes for a moment before looking away and back.

"So?" I asked. "I like to go with the flow."

She stopped for a moment, but kept moving towards the range tote. "I'm done here."

The next few minutes happened fast. We stepped out, I cased the swiftly filling joint for the two guys who'd harassed her while we paid for our purchases—1,200 lien for the revolver, 45 for a combat knife, and five for my little keychain—and we made our way out. The cashier seemed happy to see us leave, and to be honest I was glad to not have to look at her face. No one followed us, and I didn't see anyone lurking anywhere. Maybe I was being paranoid, but the news this morning had me on edge.

We emerged into a morning that was swiftly making its way to afternoon. I made my way to my bike easily enough, Taylor following along beside me. I was halfway through considering whether or not I should offer her my helmet when I realized she'd kept walking, not even looking back at me. I leaned against my bike with as much confidence as I could muster.

"I don't even get a goodbye?" I called after her. If she was that confident, walking into the city, I wasn't going to ruin my chances by saying anything about it. If no one had followed us so far, she would be fine.

She stopped, as if she'd suddenly been reminded of my presence. I did my best not to feel a little hurt.

"Beacon, right?" She asked, head turning just a bit. Not enough to see me. To hear me better?

I hummed and looked out into the city. Over the bustling city, Beacon was still visible. Glittering on its cliff like its namesake, a light in the dark for so many. The way she asked... I had to smile. "Will I see you there?"

She turned and left me standing without a word. I sighed and straddled my bike. The engine came alive with a roar, my helmet came down over my head, and I leaned into the hefty machine beneath me and gunned it. My wheel screamed, pedestrians turned to stare at the cloud of dust and smoke I kicked up, and I peeled into the street through a thin gap of traffic. Threading between the cars was easy enough, and catching up to Taylor was even easier.

I screamed past her in a flash, just enough time to flick her a jaunty salute against my helmet. There was no time to see if she'd reacted beyond the raised eyebrow; I roared through a red light and swerved deeper into the city. Nervous energy carried me through, destination-less. It was only familiarity with the streets that saved me from becoming truly lost. Storefronts flashed past me, thinning out until finally I made it to the base of the cliff that led to Beacon.

I skidded to a stop for the second time today. The ferry station wasn't exactly busy, which made the parking lot a decent spot to take a deep breath and relax. I let the surroundings fade, becoming little more than background noise. My scroll came out of my pouch again, and I mindlessly darted to the photo gallery. It took a few scrolls to find what I was looking for, but find it I did.

It was an older photo, by a couple years at this point. Taken in a doctor's waiting room. My hair barely brushed my shoulders, my crop top and jacket didn't fit quite as well as they do now. I'd covered my face for the surprise selfie, but I knew my face was just a bit scraggly there.

The focus was Onyx. She'd taken the selfie with her arm thrown around me and a wide, sharp toothed grin. Familiar features looked back up at me: Long, straight black hair, flint-colored eyes, and angular features that were nonetheless somehow soft with affection and happiness. I reached up to trace the dusting of black scales under her eyes and down her cheeks and neck.

"Come on, we should commemorate this! You look so happy, Yang!" she'd said, right before taking the picture.

"The cops told me you'd probably been eaten by a beowulf," I said to her. "I never told Mama or Papa. Didn't wanna hurt them like that. They deserve a bit of hope." It had been a rough conversation. I'd argued back, of course. They'd barely fucking tried, I yelled. No effect, of course.

I sighed and glanced up, up, up at Beacon. "Not that I believe them. You're built different. You wouldn't have lost to a Grimm. But, then... Why haven't you come back?"

She didn't answer, of course. She never did.
-----
Check out V1E3: Stray Cat Blues now on Patreon!

So about halfway through writing TWNY the first, I was possessed with the feeling that I just should have made Yang a trans woman. So here we are. Also I guess other stuff happened but hey.

 

[Kiera]

There is some wonderful tension between Yang and Taylor.

 

[MyriadDigits]

Wasn't expecting a rewrite of TWNY, but it's a welcome surprise.

While TWNY is my favorite RWBY fic, I always felt the first few chapters were the weakest part. These two chapters are heaps cleaner than their equivalents in v1.0. Excited to see more.

Also going to be interesting seeing how trans Yang might affect later interactions.

 

[Miss Peacecraft]

Blake does a touch of breaking and entering.
-------
Vale positioned itself as a city of progress. To the outside observer, this might even be true; it was certainly fact that the citizenry, faunus and human alike, enjoyed rights and protections that kingdoms like Atlas or Mistral lacked. The fact that its Huntsman population was not directly tied to its military was a point in its favor, I was forced to admit.

And yet, under cover of darkness, it was nearly impossible to tell. Night brought out the worst in people; I had to wonder if the few groups of people I'd seen, humans all, really understood the kind of privilege they enjoyed. To savor the night air without fear, worry, or anxiety. To not have to glance behind themselves every few steps.

I sighed and reached up to adjust my mask. The full face covering, grey silk gi, and dark black tabi felt a touch too traditional, but I couldn't risk being recognized, and I certainly couldn't risk what little cover I had being blown. Blake Belladonna was, as far as Vale was concerned, a regular human set to attend Beacon. So, here, I could leave my ears bare. One of the few I could allow myself right now. The facemask and eye mask were uncomfortable enough; adding a bow or cover on top would be too much.

The street below me, stained sepia by the amber lights that dotted the avenue, had emptied long ago. It was technically a residential street, but most of the houses were boarded up. Not much point living across from a district of closed and abandoned factories. Anyone who'd stuck around must be someone up to no good.

Like the two men smoking on the stoop of a white, two storied house. A haze of cigarillo smoke clouded them, and the way they slouched against the stone went a long way to making them seem like a pair of unbothered friends enjoying a quiet night. The beanies and heavy jackets did the rest of the work, hiding the truth of their nature that an eye less discerning than mine could pick out.

They were faunus, and that was an old safe house. One of the only ones I'd seen with any proof of occupancy this side of Mistral. Which meant it was my target. Which meant I needed to get in unseen. Disguised I might be, but I would prefer to do what I needed to do without having to fight anyone. Luckily, Cedar Heights was an old faunus district, which meant it was lousy with industrial runoff and transit construction.

I jumped straight up, kicking off the metal support pillar that split the alley below my defunct-processing plant hiding place. Vale, like many other kingdoms, had a strong public transit network. A necessity when you had a population living in such close proximity to each other. And so, hung over my head, was a great steel structure, a raised thing of metal trusses and horrible clanging rackets.

The bitterness came easily, even as I sank my shuko deep into the metal structure and braced against the vibrations I could feel. A train roared past, wheels screaming against the metal, loud enough to pin my ears to the back of my head. The two men below and across winced and leaned away from the sound, but didn't look up. Good.

Of course this thing was hung over a faunus neighborhood.

But there was no time to brood. I had work to do. Carefully I shifted, crawling through the network of supports like a spider through her web, shuko—metal spikes worn across my palm—supporting me where grip alone would fail. The track above wound through, cutting across townhomes a few rooves down from my true target. But this too was fine. The guards were posted at the front to deter cops and curious pedestrians. The rundown, shitty neighborhood was supposed to deter more determined actors like myself from finding it at all.

That leant me a stealth all its own. They'd never expect me.

I dropped and landed in a silent crouch atop the sloped roof of a townhouse and slunk forward. My tabi made nary a sound as I moved, speed sacrificed on the altar of stealth. In what felt like a painful half hour, but was more like a single minute, I made it to my target. If I was lucky, I would be in and out without anyone noticing.

Another jump, more of a drop than anything else. I impacted the side of the safehouse with a small grunt, fingers finding purchase on a second story windowsill. My feet planted against the wall, finding whatever slim grip they could to push myself up.

I took a deep breath. The blinds were drawn, the window cracked but still largely intact. It was also, I found as I gently slipped a knife from my belt and slid it into the gap between frame and sill, locked. My mind skipped a beat, and even bolstered by my aura my grip was starting to slip.

My ears flicked as I focused. I needed to know if I'd been heard before I did anything else.

"Nah man," I could hear one of them saying, though I couldn't tell which. "Brilliant Max just doesn't have what it takes. He's not that guy."

"Not that guy? He's the best up and coming boxer in Vale, period. Like, when he—"

I tuned them out. Useless sports talk. They hadn't heard me, and that was good enough.

I shifted, reoriented, and pressed my knife deeper, searching for the latch. An older sliding window, no screen, with a thick wooden frame? There should only be one simple latch, and there was no evidence to suggest the White Fang had upgraded it. New locks could be suspicious, after all.

My fingers slid slightly as my knife deflected off the lock. I held my breath, hoping that I wouldn't make a fool of myself. The seconds stretched longer and longer; I couldn't afford to fail here, so soon. To be found out before I'd truly started my atonement would be the cherry on top of the horrible sundae of my life, and the idea sent my heart dropping into my gut.

When I thought I could hold on no longer, the lock slipped and I levered the window open and rolled in. There was no time to relax; I rolled to my feet and spun, eyes casting about the room.

No need to turn on a light, even if my night vision rendered the place somewhat fuzzy and grayscale. It was enough. I'd broken into what looked like a simple barracks; four sets of bunks pushed against the wall, and enough space for whatever luggage or carry-on a tired freedom fighter might bring with them to a new theater of war. It looked mundane on the surface, but to me it near dripped with blood yet to be shed.

And it was empty of anything but potential energy. I strode carefully to the door and pressed against it, ears straining once again. I knew the safe house was in use, the question remained; for what.

No noise outside the door. No creak of floorboards, no gentle rush of breath. I was alone, or close enough.

I gently pulled the door open, just enough that I could slink through and shut it again. The door spat me out into a thin hallway, with a stairwell leading down on my left and three more doors on my right: one across from me, one next to where I'd exited, and one at the terminus of the hall.

My desire to rush through my work warred with the need to scout and ensure I did it right. I slipped to the edge of the wall in a rolling gait designed to minimize the noise of my steps. I pressed against it and peered around the edge, down the stairs. A dimly lit kitchen was my only reward, and directly past that was the front door. I could somewhat make out a hall that led to a den or living room.

No one was there. Was I that lucky, that the only two occupants were outside smoking? I could scarcely believe it, and indeed I needed to operate like it wasn't true. Caution would be my savior, here. I turned and moved in that same silent walk.

The first door opened on a bathroom, neat, tidy, and useless to me. The second was a closet, empty save for a few coats and a rifle. Normal, unassuming. That left one last room upstairs.

The hinges creaked, just a touch, as I opened it. My heart soared, just a touch. This was an office, complete with desk, computer, and file cabinet. Nothing should be kept here permanently, and indeed any paper records between residencies should have been destroyed, but I could always get lucky.

The old computer booted up slowly, fans spinning as it worked through whatever cycle it needed too. While it did, I turned to the file cabinet and pulled it open. Unlocked. Unprofessional. The lucky break I was looking for.

It was slim pickings inside, manila folders with expense sheets and other personnel details. Coded, I noted as I pulled one out. 'Brown's Dry Cleaning' it said, but the expenses listed below seemed just a bit off. 250 lien, then 350, then 150 and so on. Smaller expenses, then. Paying off informants, buying a family in need a months worth of groceries. Community funding. The good things the Fang did.

It went back in. That drawer contained more of that, just paper bookkeeping that would get digitized and burned. Even an operation as dispersed as this one needed to keep track of it's limited funds. The second drawer was much more promising. 'Limited Run Hardware' this time, with commensurately larger expenses listed, on the order of thousands of lien each. These were full receipts now, each one listing one transaction with coded lists of what was delivered.

Arms deals were all I could imagine this was. It wasn't what I needed. I resisted the urge to slam the drawer closed, choosing instead to gently slide it while holding the clasp open.

I turned to the computer instead, after taking a deep bracing breath of course. I couldn't let any lack of evidence get to me; this was my first outing, my first attempt. This would be a slow process. If only telling myself that worked.

The monitor snapped on, providing a nice break from my internal anxieties. It presented me with a username and password screen, and normally this would stymie me. It would have stopped the average snoop, at the very least. I'd spent many, many years in and around this group however, and my opinion of its average foot soldier was perhaps a touch lower than the a regular girl on the street.

ADMIN

PASSWORD

The login screen disappeared, replaced by a barebones desktop with a lurid pinup for a background that put a hiss in the back of my throat. Men. Ignoring the tasteless display, I clicked through and found the things document folder, careful not to rest my shuko on the trackball and leave tell tale four-pronged claw marks. It was an old thing, so it took it time to work through the logic necessary to open what I needed.

I itched, the waiting almost too much. My ears flicked, hyper focusing on every errant sound or noise from outside.

It loaded, and I breathed. Tapping through, I found vanishingly little; there was plenty stored on the thing, but it was mostly personal entertainment. Pirated movies and the like. Frustrated, I kept going. There had to be something here, right? Even the records of sent messages were relatively basic, coded requests for recon information and the like. More than a few messages from dating sites, too, which had me rolling my eyes. Didn't they know those things were mostly bots nowadays?

One jumped out at me, my eye drawn by the single blank subject line in a sea of mundanity. White Fang message protocol put subject-less missives as the most important electronic communications they could send. I clicked on it, heart thundering for a new reason.

Written in that same loose code, it was dated for yesterday at around 4 in the morning.

Expect some out-of-kingdom relatives visiting in the next month. They've never been to Vale, go ahead and give them the tour.;

I froze. 'Relatives' was code for any White Fang operative; brother or sister also filled the same role. But the importance of the message, the note that they would need a full tour, all of that came together to mean something very, very clear.

White Fang Leadership was coming to town. Sienna Khan wouldn't concern herself with one cell, which meant it had to be one of the lieutenants. And knowing my luck...

A loose floorboard in the hall creaked, startling me out of my skin.Not enough time to do little more than get out of the way. I jumped straight up, planting myself amid the exposed rafters above with just a touch of time left before one of the men I'd seen outside could walk in.

I was glad I'd put my hair up in a braid as he groaned and sat down in the chair. I didn't need anything giving me away. Most people never looked up in their day to day life, but I couldn't hold this position forever.

"Come on, man…" He muttered under his breath when he discovered the computer was on. He clicked away from the messages, navigating to the web browser.

Not a single note of suspicion colored his voice. Just the boredom of a long term station getting to someone. Who knew when he'd last been relieved, or even had leave.

Though one could imagine the Vale post as shore leave, if you took this place at face value.

Leaving was exactly as easy as I'd entered. It took far more stealth to exit the study without being heard, but I was a cut above the men guarding this place. He didn't even hear me land as I dropped from the rafters and slunk away. His companion was shifting through the fridge, rummaging around for something out of my view. Similarly enough, he missed my presence as I slipped back into the barracks room and back out the window.

Fifteen minutes, and a mad dash across the rooftops until I was through the old factory district and on the edge of the slightly more rundown part of downtown Vale. I finally stopped to catch my breath, leaning against a stone gargoyle mounted at the corner of an old brick building. The Grimm depiction was a bit morbid, but I had other things on my mind.

That message, barely two sentences long, spun through my mind. There was no confirmation of who was coming, no proof, but I could feel in my gut who it was. I wasn't so lucky to avoid this. Misfortune would bring him to my doorstep once more, I knew it.

I would never escape him. I could never run far enough, could I?

I nearly tore my mask from my face, but a commotion below stopped me. It brought me back to the present, pushed the anxiety low under my curiosity. I focused and drew myself up, alighting atop the gargoyle's head and peering down into the dark alley several stories below.

Four men, around one woman. I picked out two things about her, even through the way the streetlights played havoc on my night vision. She was a faunus, with long moth antennae, and she was disabled, judging by the silvered prosthetic strapped to one arm. She'd shifted a bag to that hand, and she seemed to stand with electric energy. There was little between her, the elements, and her accosters aside from a tank top and a pair of sweatpants.

My ears flicked. The men were largely unremarkable, humans in casual wear, jackets to brace against the weather. Two leaned against the wall ahead of the woman, and two more had hemmed her in, closing off the mouth of the alley.

"You know," one of the guys behind was saying. "I think I heard about a faunus harassing people in these parts."

A lie. A common one, even. My mother had warned me of that kind of thing when I was young.

"I think I heard the same thing," said a guy up front. "Think she matches the description?"

The woman didn't move. Was she scared stiff? I understood; out doing some last minute errands is hardly an ideal time to be presented with a hate-crime in progress. I tensed, ready to pounce. I couldn't just watch something like this happen. I glanced back, and found the street proper to be largely. No pedestrians, and just the occasional car.

"She looks rough enough to be the one we're looking for," Another guy agreed. His hand was in his pocket, clenched around something. Just a knife if I was lucky. A gun if I wasn't.

No more waiting. This situation had to be stopped, and no one else was around to do it. I stepped off the head of the gargoyle and let gravity take hold. The several stories passed in a blink, my passage unnoticed by the group that was near to erupting with violence. It was the scream of my shuko digging into the stone wall that alerted them, but by then it was too late.

I crashed into one of the men standing behind her, kicking off the stone to start the violence. One of my shuko caught the knife that leapt from his pocket, metal claws twisting it out of his hand to skitter across the stone in a clattering ring.

They were just civilians in the end. The first man fell with a blow to the gut and neck, whining in pain. The man beside him whirled with a shout, only to find his arms caught in mine. The slur on his lips vanished as I spun, flipping him down to crash into his companion. My spin completed, I sighted on the woman I'd dove to save–-

Just in time to watch her slam one man into a dumpster against the other side of the alley. Her prosthetic left bright red marks on his face as she released him to move around the sloppy haymaker the next man threw.

He stumbled over the poorly laid cobblestone and came to a crash next to the two I'd toppled. "Get out of here," I near growled at them, gesturing for them to get up and run. They scrambled to their feet, but they didn't run. Not yet. I could see the fear in their eyes as they glanced back and forth between each other, trying to see if the other had any courage they could borrow. "I said get out of here!"

"Of course the fucking animals stick in packs," one guy muttered. "Come on, there's four of us and—"

The response died on my lips. There was a click behind me. I spun just in time to watch the woman I'd 'rescued' catch the fourth man's hand and knock it skyward just as he pulled the trigger on the handgun he'd pulled. It barked once before the moth-faunus slammed her metal hand into his wrist and pulled the pistol free. It was an easy, practiced motion that saw the magazine fall and the slide come apart in her hands.

I had to wonder, as the men scattered and fled with curses of retribution on their lips, if she'd really needed the help. This close, she looked so much harder than I'd first assumed. Whipcord thin, and scarred from what I had to assume was a life of either hard labor or hard combat, she glared me down from behind simple wire frames. I could hardly call her a civilian.

"I had that well in hand," she said after a moment of chewing on her words. It didn't miss my notice that her eyes had lingered on my ask for just a moment longer. I felt faintly embarrassed, despite my need to stay disguised.

"There were four of them and one of you," I said, incredulous. The dismissal, the way she knelt to collect her shopping without acknowledging me further.

No answer.

I took a deep breath. "You should be careful. Those guys were probably from one of the local 'humanity first' groups, and—"

"I'll be fine. You'll want to leave before the cops show up." She stood and strode away, moving deeper into the alleyway without another word.

I stood, mouth open under my mask. Embarrassment turned into annoyance; a masked, costume stranger intrudes on her moment of need to rescue her and all she had on offer was dismissal? The only thing that stopped me was the sound of distant sirens growing closer. I glanced up to find someone peeking out a window at me, eyes at once curious and fearful. A glance behind at the sound of stone shifting and I found another person staring at me from across the street, scroll held aloft.

Shit. Maybe the cops were the least of my worries.

I jumped, kicked off the wall, and fled across the rooftops once again, my mind whirling. Maybe tonight would have been better if I'd found nothing.

* * *​

An hour later, I let myself into Tukson's Book Trade through the rooftop service door. The place was technically closed, but the proprietor owed me a favor. And, being clear across town from the scene of my little scuffle, it made as good a hiding place as any. The little stairwell was only a single flight to slink down, and it opened into a densely stocked backroom, full to near bursting with books, tomes, and even traditionally bound scrolls. Across the way was another door that led to the business proper, but I didn't care about that.

I pulled my eye mask off and let it clatter to the floor, before pulling the lower cloth facemask down with a weary sigh. One of the sturdier shelves took my weight, and for just a moment I allowed myself to revel in the smell of paper and ink. It did little to soothe my tired bones and frustrated soul, but it was at the very least pleasant, and right now that alone was valuable to me. It centered me, helped me to focus on the screaming cyclone of thoughts in my head.

Three things stood out to me: A member of White Fang leadership was coming to Vale, I'd rescued a woman who turned out to be incredibly suspicious, and I'd been seen in my disguise by at least three civilians.

I needed to tackle the simplest one first. The photos were bound to happen, I reasoned. I intended to operate under this disguise for as long as possible, which meant that inevitably I would be seen, inevitably someone would have something to give to the news. That it had happened so soon wasn't ideal, but I could tough it out.

The woman, then. The insect faunus. I stood and paced as I thought back to our interaction; she'd carried herself like an experienced fighter. Nothing about the fight had startled her, not until she'd seen my mask. Even that shock had smoothed over far too fast, replaced by an impassive mask that, on reflection, looked an awful lot like simple annoyance. Why would she be annoyed that I was there? Had I interrupted her?

Why would she be—

The answer struck me like a physical blow. The White Fang already had a proven interest in the city. What if they'd sent an operative ahead of the arriving leadership to scout it out? What if I'd stumbled on said operative scouting out the local anti-faunus groups? That could spell certain doom for my efforts in Vale, especially if they decided I was an issue to be dealt with as opposed to just assuming I was some local crackpot and letting me be.

I worried at my thumb, eyes flicking around the cramped space as I spun out. Was she reporting directly to—

The door that led out into the store clicked open, jolting me from my spiraling thoughts. My hand went to a cleaver that wasn't there and forgot the knife sheathed at my back. A man strode through, his wide yawn interrupted by his eyes snapping to me. Surprise yanked a choked gasp from him, sent his hand slamming into his chest and a hand reaching for a concealed weapon.

"Tukson!" I hissed. "It's just me!"

My older friend caught his breath, leaning against the doorframe like it was the only thing keeping him upright. "Blake, what the hell are you doing here? And dressed like that? I thought someone was trying to rob me!"

Tukson ran a hand through his messy hair, then dragged it down his face where it ruffled the poorly maintained sideburns he insisted on wearing. He was in casual wear, which told me he'd come in to open up for a day of business. No breaks for the average small business owner, it seemed. "What the hell are you even wearing?"

I glanced down at my dark grey gi, my tabi, and the ceramic mask still on the floor. Slowly, gently, I bent down to pick it up. "A disguise." I said quietly.

Those words echoed in the silence for a time, which I spent turning the black ceramic over in my hand. I'd intended it to be a mirror to the masks worn by the White Fang; the bone white of the Grimm that they wore contrasted against my stark black. I had a whole list of poetic reasons for it, but now they felt hollow and ashen. Silly.

"You know, when I'd told you to come by whenever, I meant if you needed a place to sleep. Not if you needed a hideout for your caped crusader persona." He had a light tone to his voice, joking.

"I'm not wearing a cape!" I protested. I nearly stamped my feet. "It's different from what I usually wear, and—"

"It still looks like a costume," he interrupted as he closed the distance. "I thought you were going to Beacon. Trying to make a better way for yourself."

I scuffed my feet on the ground. The space was well kept, really. A poor place to have a breakdown, I couldn't do that to Tukson. "I am. But..."

"But you can't stay away," he said quietly, turning to lean against the wall next to me. "The Fang here isn't like it is elsewhere. Direct action, meal runs, that kinda thing. You don't have to worry."

He didn't know. Of course he didn't know.

"Yes I do. High Command is sending someone important. I saw the message myself," I looked up and sighed. The mask went down on a stack of books and my hands came up to take my braid down. "I can't think of anyone else they'd send."

"Surely you don't think he knows where you are." Tukson shook his head and sighed; I got the sense he would have lit up a cigar if I wasn't here with him. He'd pulled a lighter from his pocket and started twirling it between his hands anyway. "That guy is focused. Last I heard he was running ops against the SDC up north."

I knew that. Of course I did; I was there, and I remembered the burn of his stare on me as I separated the train cars too well. He had every reason to hunt me down.

"It could just be coincidence," I tried. It sounded like a lie to my own ears, but Tukson just hummed and let it sit.

"Or Sienna could be sending someone else. She wants the mutual aid to keep going, same as us."

Went unspoken was the surety that, if they sent who I feared, such charitable actions would cease far too quickly.

"Let's hope."

Another moment of silence, then he sighed and turned to face me. "Is that all that's bothering you? You look like you've had a long night."

His dark eyes searched mine, but I just turned and hid what must have been some impressive stress lines if he'd noticed. A breath in, and I considered telling him about the strange interaction I'd had with the maybe-White Fang operative. Get ahead of the news cycle before he assumed I was just running around beating the shit out of random humans.

I let the breath out. "No. I'm just tired."

He shrugged. "Alright. Go catch a few winks upstairs; I've got a cot in my office for when I have to stay long hours. I gotta actually open up."

"Okay," I said, instead of trying to assure him I was okay. Tukson wouldn't listen anyway. "Thank you."

He clapped me on the shoulder and turned to head back into his shop. I went back the way I'd come, climbing the thin service staircase to take a left shortly before the roof access. What I found was an unlocked office, maybe ten by ten feet with a desk at one wall and a bed at the other. Despite the thin mattress and flat pillow, it looked like the most comfortable thing I'd seen in my entire life. It was lit by a single guttering bulb, but I couldn't bring myself to care.

I collapsed across the inviting cot, remembering at the last second to loosen my knife and let it clatter to the floor while I laid face down. Despite the tired chill seeping into my bones, I still rolled over and fished my scroll out from the secure spot inside my gi where I'd strapped it to my side. I checked my messages, where I found a familiar reply. One I could recite from memory at this point.

Dear Blake Belladonna,

I'm happy to say that, after careful review of your transcript and application, we have moved forward with your acceptance into the incoming Beacon class. We are more than happy to have you, and look forward to helping you along the yellow brick road to what I am sure will be a bright future as a Huntress. Please, do not be afraid to reach out if you have any questions at all.

Sincerely, Headmaster Ozpin

My scroll slipped down to fall to my chest. The back of my hand came to rest across my eyes, and I sighed.

"Am I doing the right thing?" I asked the room.

I got no answer.
-------
Check out V1E4: Tucking right now on Patreon!

This is one of the really big changes I'm super excited for, in case you can't tell.

 

[CalumTraveler]

HAHA. No doubt Taylor thinks she just got saved by a local Cape! XD

That's a lovely little change. I love it a lot!

 

[Miss Peacecraft]

Taylor hurts herself.
------
My coffee had gone cold sometime in the middle of the night. Not that I cared that much; I downed the sludge with little more than a grimace as I dragged myself up from another restless night in an unfamiliar place. Sunlight streamed through a gap in the sterile white curtains as I stepped out of bed, leaving the sheets in a wild tangle. Two quick steps carried me across the dorm I'd been given, enough for me to step into the bathroom to try and wake up.

I splashed water in my face and stared at myself. I still looked like shit.

Three more steps and I collapsed into a creaky desk chair. The desk was a mess, what few belongings I now possessed strewn about it with little care. My arm, side panel left open overnight, the tools used to do so in a disorganized pile next to it. My gun, next to a case of ammunition. The only neat part was the carefully folded square of spider silk, atop which sat my old mask.

A huff of breath left me, and I distracted myself by grabbing the silver metal prosthetic. It had been given to me almost as an afterthought; one of the nurses I'd fled from had left it for me with an awkward smile that turned stale as she turned to hustle back to her work. The arm itself was, near as I could tell, entirely unremarkable. I turned it over, still eyeing it suspiciously. I'd checked where I could, but I lacked the skill to fully dismantle the thing or discover any kind of tracking elements in it.

There was nothing for it. I couldn't afford to be down an arm. The sensation as it mated to the harness I'd worn to sleep could best be described as cold, the neural connections shocking my nerves and generating a phantom sensation, like ice flushing my veins. According to the documentation they'd given me with it at least.

I flexed the metal fingers in some vain attempt to get anything close to actual feeling in them, over just the knowledge that they were there. To distract myself, I turned to the rest of the mess on the desk: the piles of haphazardly organized research material, the scroll displaying a constantly updating news feed, and the corkboard strung with red string. It was a pale imitation of what I'd seen Lisa whip up, but...

I just sighed and leaned down to rest my head against the cool wood of the desk. A week, and nothing. Nothing to show for it but a revolver I should have had the sense to go looking for on the black market, and a series of shady encounters and outright profilings, ending in—

My scroll beeped, an alert I'd set last night. I popped back up and snatched at it, only fumbling it a little bit with numb metal fingers. It was one of my news alerts, a tone I'd assigned to anything mentioning any keywords that could conceivably be associated with capes.

Masked Vigilante Attack! One headline read. Comic books ome to life? Said another. There were five more in that vein, and I expected more would start trickling in sooner rather than later. I didn't much care for the content as I clicked through them, just the pictures.

They all had the same grainy cell phone... scroll photo. The masked woman who'd attacked my stalkers, staring up and directly at the camera. It was a pretty artistic shot; the way the light glinted off her black ceramic mask lent an almost sinister air to the faunus. It only amplified the mood her costume gave off. Assassin. Killer.

I think I understood how Colin felt when we first met just a little bit better now.

"Idiot," I muttered to myself. "Throw some blue in there at least."

The words felt hypocritical as soon as they left my mouth. I'd raged against that exact thing, hadn't I? I couldn't quite let it go, and the urge to read the articles was almost too much. It should have been good enough that I was neither pictured or mentioned, but...

I set my phone face down and let my head slam onto the desk again. I needed a distraction. Any distraction. It was an exercise in will to pull myself back up and make my way back to the bathroom; maybe a hot shower would help. I'd been neglecting my hair for the past few days anyway, and that was hardly a situation that could continue.

My hand found the faucet, but just as the water came on I noted the little shampoo and conditioner bottles, sitting on a little white ledge set into the tiled wall. Both clear, and both empty. Used up my first night here, no doubt. I couldn't even sigh. I just straightened up, bit the inside of my cheek, and turned the water off.

My distraction would have to be grocery shopping, then. I shut the bathroom door a touch harder than I'd intended, enough that I had to catch my corkboard before it tumbled off my desk. I felt foolish as I fetched my boots and pants from the clutter on the floor; I hadn't expected to ever have to do something so mundane as grocery shopping after my little stunt at the end of the world. It would have been easier if—

I cut that thought off at the pass. My card was in my drawer, but as I reached in my hand caught on a stray hair tie. I'd used it to tie my hair back the other night while I picked through my arm as best I could in search of any tracking devices.

The attempted hate crime last night flickered through my head yet again. I could handle myself, but dealing with bigots was proving to be a major drain on my time.

Now, there was an idea.

* * *​

I'd made a mistake. My antennae hid in my hair well enough, this was true. They were just the right shade to blend in and look like a trick of the light, and I'd figured the light tingling discomfort was worth it. I could deal with stares at my prosthetic and my scars, I was used to that. But that discomfort had built, grown to such a static scream in my temples, such a great pressure behind my eyes that I found myself stopping to catch my breath in the middle of the general store.

I couldn't even feel the people around me, my new sense reduced to a thick soupy mess. My hair getting in the way? Or the pressure of the hair tie?

My back straightened and I moved on. I'd dealt with worse; I could muscle through my trip and take an ill-advised amount of painkillers when I made it back to my room. The bright fluorescents assaulted my vision as I stumbled through the aisles, the pain rendering them painful enough that my eyes watered and stung. I nearly jumped every time someone walked past me. Everything was a haze. Why did this hurt more than when I'd lost my arm?

I could make it to the ferry. Taking them out on the ferry would be fine. I had to believe that.

A long breath in, and longer held in. I'd stumbled my way to the haircare section somehow, but I could barely read the labels in between desperately trying to blink the water out of my eyes. What did I need? Why did I come here? It was so hard to think straight.

"Oh my. Are you okay dear?"

I didn't jump in place. I wasn't startled.

"M' fine." I grabbed the first bottle I could see that looked like it was for curly hair and charged out of the aisle. My shoulder smacked an endcap, but I kept going. I didn't look back.

A lance went through my head when I turned my head wrong, neck moving just right that the tie tugged at my antennae hard enough that I had to bite back a scream. It hardly seemed fair that something this simple could lay me low. I could feel eyes on me, stares. I shouldn't care.

The cool tile of the bathroom floor was the next thing I noticed, my flight to the pathetic refuge already dim and fading. I'd run here on instinct, hadn't I? My little basket of things had clattered to the floor, but I paid them no mind. I reached up for my ponytail, but both my numb metal fingers and my shaky organic ones brushed over my antennae. Already over-sensitive, the resulting feedback nearly knocked me flat.

"Fuck. Okay."

I braced myself with my prosthetic and hissed as I slowly pulled the damn elastic out, pain or no pain. It felt like I was trying to pull an eye out of its socket, so of course that was when some poor employee decided to barge in and ruin my day even more.

"Uhm, ma'am?" His voice cracked. "You can't have unpaid merchandise in here, I'm going to have to ask you to—"

"Fuck off," I managed through grit teeth. At that moment, one antennae popped free. The relief was palpable, like the cooling near-pain of pushing a joint back into place. The second was still stubbornly caught, and I had half a mind to just rip the damn elastic out and fuck the consequences.

"Ma'am, if you don't I'm going to have to call the cops," the kid said again.

"Could you give us some space, young man?"

The elastic finally came free, only to scatter across the floor, shaky fingers failing.I planted my other hand and, for just a moment, reveled in the freedom. I dragged in heavy breaths, greedily drinking in air that wasn't choked immediately from my body. My head was still pounding, every word spoken behind me another knife.

"I really can't—" The employee, again.

"Can't you see she's in pain, honey? Give me a moment with her. If your manager has an issue, I'll deal with him."

How weak was I that I felt genuine relief at someone backing me up? I couldn't begin to guess at her motivations, but I would be lying if I said it didn't feel nice at that exact moment.

The door swung shut without any more words spoken, and I tried to blink tears out of my eyes. That soupy mess in my head was clearing up, enough that I had a vague sense of a woman stepping closer to me and gently kneeling down beside me. she held one hand out, offering me something.

I nearly smacked it out of her hand. She got a chance to speak before I could.

"You dropped your glasses dear."

I didn't remember dropping those. But, true enough, there in her hand were my black wire-framed glasses. It was difficult to take them from her gently; I wasn't sure I could trust my arm at the moment, and she'd knelt on my right side. Still, I managed somehow. I finished rubbing my eyes on my shirt and put them back where they went.

I couldn't muster a response. It died in my throat as I tried to ask why she was helping me; my senses chose that moment to clear up just enough for me to make out the long canid tail. I covered myself with a cough into my elbow as I stood and turned.

My balance must have been off, because she had to reach out to catch my elbow and stop me from falling over. "Oh! Maybe this is worse than I thought."

"I'm fine," I managed. She was short, soft, and wearing a turtleneck sweater with a long floral skirt; the kind of woman you'd expect to see sitting in front of a fire with a book and a hot chocolate. There was a touch of age to her chubby face, the smile lines and crow's feet of a happy woman. She looked kind, even through the concern that twisted her face.

I couldn't assume she wasn't a threat, but I found that very hard at the moment.

"I highly doubt that, young lady." She leaned forward, leveling a critical eye at me. I tried to level a mean stare back, but I think I only managed to look faintly pathetic. It was hard to tell through the stabbing pain and freshly watering eyes. "No, no. How far away are you from home?"

"An hours walk and then a ferry ride?" I answered on instinct. "Really, I'll be fine. I have–"

"To come with me," she insisted. She picked up my things off the floor, then wound an arm through mine. "Come on. Let's pay and get you out of here. I have just the thing to pick you up."

It was the lingering shock that let her pull me along and out, and the same shock that failed to stop her from paying for my shampoo and conditioner. I quailed against the sun as she pulled me out into the sun, and immediately cursed the physical reaction to both the light and the people staring at us.

"Oh, don't worry honey, it's only ten or so minutes to my café from here. I know a few shortcuts," she said, before she steered me down a side street. I could barely keep track of the winds and turns, too focused on keeping my coffee from earlier down. "I have this little tea recipe, fixes a migraine right up, don't you worry."

"No, please," I found I couldn't pull myself away. This woman's grip was like iron; I could force the issue, but in broad daylight? Hurting an older woman could only end poorly for me.

So I let her pull me along. If it went poorly, I could handle it, I told myself. Nevermind that I'd left my gun and my knife in my dorm, that all I had was a baton in my boot.

The city passed in a blur, my mind too occupied by the pain and a steadily building flashing in my vision to really pay attention. An ocular migraine, an old memory in the back of my head provided. I'd never had one before, but...

"Jaune!" The woman called as we barged through a door I hadn't seen or felt coming in the middle of my pained recollection. "Make up a cup of migraine tea, please!"

"Maggie! I don't, no one told me how—" A young man's voice, nervous. Confused.

"The recipe is at the register! Now hop to it young man!" As this 'Maggie' spoke, I was unceremoniously hurled into a chair back first. It was a comfortable armchair, cool leather and soft cushions that tried to absorb me deep into them. More comfortable than anything I'd found at Beacon yet.

"Yes ma'am!" The young man replied, his voice cracking in the middle of 'ma'am'

"Let me go, please. I'll be fine." I made to stand, only for a hand to catch my shoulder and press me back down into the armchair.

"You haven't opened your eyes the whole way here, young lady. I'm going to fetch a cold cloth for you."

My eyes snapped open at that, catching a brief glance of the ginger-haired woman turning to step away, before the lights above forced me to snap my eyes shut again. When had I ever been this susceptible to pain? I felt like a kid again, wavering at the first sign of distress. Not since... Not since Bakuda. I cast out with my other senses instead, trying to get a measure of where I'd found myself.

"Goodness Mags, who's the urchin?" A voice from a table across the small room, next to an exit I could only assume led to a patio. Textures were still hard to distinguish, but I could feel a man leaning over his drink, a newspaper or something similar folded up in one hand.

"Let her be," someone else hissed, drawing my attention away. Another woman, a girl maybe, sitting in the other armchair on the other side of a potted plant from me. She was soft, like Maggie, but she had a pair of small... bear ears, atop her head, if I judged it right.

"I don't think that's right. Ginger?" Muttered a tall boy from behind an espresso machine. Must be the 'Jaune' who Maggie had yelled at when she barged in.

Another shaky breath left my body. There were exits. I could handle the three people who kept eyeing me; none of them had that feeling of violence about them that came with the sort of experience I had.

Maggie stepped out from around the bar, her bar, I had to assume. It was a few short steps towards me. She was holding something out; a cloth?

"Here baby, let me put this on your eyes," she said. I could practically feel the concern radiating off her body. What was with people being worried for me, lately? I nodded, unwilling to let her keep milling about awkwardly in front of me. May as well get it over with.

"Taylor," I managed as she carefully removed my glasses and laid the ice cold cloth across my eyes and temple. It felt good, impossibly soothing, the cold biting back against the hot burn that had built behind my skull. "My name is Taylor."

Next she accepted a mug of the promised migraine tea from the boy—her employee I had to assume—and gently offered it to me with a simple muttered warning about its temperature. I took it from her and hissed; the mug was burning hot, but I found a way to hold it and held it up to my nose on instinct. It smelled strong, green tea and lemon and ginger and something unidentifiable.

"Next," Maggie said, shrugging a bundle of cloth off her arm. "We turn out the lights."

She tossed it over my head and torso. Mug included. I would have protested if the immediate, much more profound darkness than what the cold cloth alone offered. It hung and tented over the top of the armchair just right so that it didn't brush my currently oversensitive antennae. It did, however, nearly entirely cut off my feeling of the café outside.

I wanted to panic, but the swiftly receding migraine went a long way to calming my pounding heart. Instead, I drew the mug up to my lips. That strange, unknown scent bothered me. It was a little grassy, a little earthen. Was she trying to poison me? Why go through the effort...

"Is she okay?" The girl I'd heard before asked. "You kinda rushed her in here like she was dying..."

Fantastic. I'd been made to look weak. But, the existence of witnesses did go a way to calming my paranoia; I took a hesitant sip. It was good, soothing and calming. Not my preferred blend of tea, but it put a warmth in my gut that I desperately needed.

"Just a migraine, honey, don't worry about it."

I tried not to feel like a little girl hiding under her blankets as I took deeper draws on the hot tea.

"You do like to take in strays," the man from before said with a chuckle. "She looks appropriately pathetic.

The urge to throw the covers off and show him exactly how pathetic I wasn't was stifled by a sudden sharp bark. "Reynauld. That's hardly appropriate."

I didn't hear a response. Nonverbal acquiescence, then. She had these people well trained.

I let the tea sit, and simply steamed in its vapors. The cloth was rapidly warming from my body heat, but it was like that motion of temperature wicked away the pain that had settled into my brainpan. Instead, I wallowed in a different kind of misery, for an unknown amount of time. The darkness and the worry had shattered my internal clock.

How did I come to this? It was pathetic.

I needed to go. I needed to be alone. The migraine was gone enough.

My metal hand came up and grabbed what turned out to be a heavy canvas jacket, ruffed with thick fur around the collar. It came down easily, and I only had to blink a little bit against the light. It really was quite a cozy shop; a bar and register directly across from the entrance, where I was sat, with a few tables sat against the walls.

It was near to bursting with potted plants, hung from the ceiling, in planters in the window, in pots along the wall.

Maggie approached me as I stood, legs sure and steady as ever. My hand clenched around the fabric of the jacket at the naked concern on her face. I didn't know how to handle such a thing anymore.

"Are you feeling better already, Taylor?" She cocked a head at me, and I had to note that her tail was swishing gently from side to side. Of course.

She thought I was a faunus, like her. And I couldn't even say I was wrong.

I needed to leave, now.

"Yes. Now I'd like to go—" I was interrupted by a traitorous thing, as if the embarrassment of the day was not already more than enough. No, it had to keep going.

My stomach grumbled, making its displeasure more than known. I nearly turned and bolted, but something kept me bolted to the floor. Shame? The sudden hunger I'd finally noticed after the pain was gone? The concerned dark eyes that stared up at me?

"Taylor, dear. When was the last time you ate?" She put her hands on wide hips and cocked an eyebrow at me.

I averted my gaze, even if it would do nothing to stop me from feeling the disappointment radiating off her. I'd met her today, how did she have this power? I racked my brain; my morning coffee didn't count. I could lie to her, tell her I'd had breakfast.

"Lunch, yesterday." I said truthfully, the words spilling out without my say so.

She sighed, a deep, bone weary thing. The urge to offer an apology was overpowering, but I kept my mouth firmly shut. I would not embarrass myself further.

I felt the man at the far table roll his eyes. I chanced a glance; another faunus, wearing a nice button up, slacks, and suspenders. His sleeves were rolled up to reveal thick fur that coated his forearms and the backs of his hands. He didn't seem to notice my glance, already returning to his coffee and newspaper.

"At least eat something before you go," Maggie said, making her way to her pastry case.

"I really can't—" My stomach growled again as I laid eyes on the spread on offer. It really did look quite delicious, especially the fat danish Maggie was busy pulling out.

"...Okay. But at least let me pay, I'm not a charity case."

I left ahead of more questioning with three pastries, a sandwich, and a refill on my tea. If I had any luck, I could leave today behind me and never think of it again.

* * *​

I came back the next morning, the fur-lined jacket I'd accidentally kept clutched in one hand. It was still early, but not so early that I would get jammed up in any morning rush the place might have experienced. This time, head clear and eyes capable of focus, I noted the name of the place, written in quaint font on a sign hung over the entrance.

Cozy Corner Cafe

I'd had half a mind to just throw the damn jacket out, but something had stopped in front of the open window once again. That same half a mind still wanted me to just throw it across the bench out in front of the cafe, nestled into a little nook made up of plants and a small fountain.

A deep sigh escaped me. I couldn't even bring myself to do that much. Was I so starved for positive reinforcement? Aisha would die laughing at me if she could see me now, make some quip about how low such a feared warlord had fallen. Why—

I shook myself. I'd lost my train of thought. At the very least, the neighborhood the little café was in was...quieter, than the ones I'd frequented on my outings from Beacon. Not quieter, not really. There was still talking, still people going about their business, going too and from home and work, shouting at their neighbors from the window. The difference was that I got barely a passing glance, here. Maybe an eyebrow at my prosthetic, at most. It took me longer than I would care to admit to figure out why.

Aside from one or two standouts, almost everyone I'd passed after a certain point had been a faunus. The camaraderie they assigned me came with a faint feeling of guilt, one I steeled myself against as I stepped forward to enter the café once again. There was nothing I could do but metaphorically grin and bear it.

The door dinged gently, and the blonde boy from yesterday glanced up from his work at the bar. His eyes widened just a touch, and he started rushing the drink he was making. I rolled my eyes and made my way inside. The main room was largely empty, aside from two older women gossiping at one table, and someone I remembered from yesterday.

"Rosie!" Barista-boy called out, before darting away into the back.

"I think you startled him," the soft girl from the day before said. She was camped out in the exact same chair she'd been sitting in last time, but this time she darted up to invade my personal space, after grabbing her drink. "Hi! I'm Rosie, like Jaune said. You're Taylor."

Socializing. I was capable of this. "I am."

Perfect. Rosie beamed at me; her hair matched her name, the kind of deep burnished red one would expect to find on a rosebush than a human head. Her eyes and choice of clothing-green, and a hunter spaghetti top-only sold the floral theme further. She was smiling eagerly, her bear ears flicking, like she expected way more than that. I floundered a little, I admit.

"...Good to see you again?" I tried. I cast about, looking for Maggie. Was she out? Had I timed this poorly? Maybe I could hand the jacket off to Jaune, but he was still in the backroom. I was trapped, if only by niceties.

"Yeah!" She chirped. "I'm happy you're feeling a lot better. You looked like crap yesterday."

"Thanks." A few people had filtered in, forming a small line that had no one to help them. I saw Jaune poke his head out of the backroom and wince, before darting to help them. "Do you come here often?"

Drop the jacket and run! I screamed at myself. My arms refused.

"Oh, yeah. I come here to study for my college courses. It's nicer than the library." She was rocking back and forth on her heels, like she could hardly contain how excited she was.

My eyes darted to the door, then to the backroom. I could leave and come back, but if I left again I would just throw the jacket in the garbage, and some part of me felt faintly like that would be a shame. "What do you study?"

"Oh, I'm doing a Mathematics major at Royal Vale University! I'm still in the early years, though, just finishing up Calc 2, thanks for asking." Another smile, and her head tilted. "What about you? What do you do?"

"Crime." It slipped out of my mouth unbidden, and my eyes went wide. "I mean, I studied crime. In school."

She nodded, like the oddity of how I'd worded that had simply washed over her back. "Criminal justice is a really interesting field, what are you trying to do with it?"

I was saved from having to continue lying, something I was normally good at, by another familiar figure stepping out of the backroom and hurrying over to me. Maggie, dressed today in a floral sundress, hair up in a high messy bun. "Taylor, it's good to see you."

There was a strange note to her voice. Why were so many people excited to see me? I was a stranger to them, just another person on the street. If they actually knew anything about me they'd want nothing to do with me.

"I just wanted to bring you this," I held the jacket up as I spoke, near vibrating to leave and get on with what passed for my life now. "I took it by mistake."

"Oh, that's no problem dear. You could have kept it if you wanted," she waved it off with a single hand.

I glanced down at it. It was a nice jacket...

"Oh, Rosie dear, do you mind if I steal her for a moment? I didn't mean to interrupt your conversation." Maggie interrupted my self-admonishment; I could have avoided all of this if I'd just stolen the fucking thing? I robbed a bank! Did the gunshots to the head not properly heal?

"That's no problem! I really should get back to studying!" Rosie swung forward and hugged me, and I was surprised enough that she had the chance to crush my arms to my side. "Don't be a stranger!"

And then she was gone, back to her seat in a whirl, latte in hand. Maggie tapped my shoulder and gestured to the back. As we made our way back, with a tossed greeting to Jaune, she gave me a gentle smile. "Rosie is a lot, but she means well."

"I didn't expect to be remembered," I admitted as she led me into what I imagined passed for her office, a little room with a small desk off to the side of the storage area. Something about Maggie was disarming. Or I was just off my game.

"You're a very memorable girl, Taylor." A wide, honest simple, then something more serious passed over the older woman's face. "I wanted to talk to you about what happened yesterday."

My hand froze on the back of the swivel chair she'd offered me. What did she mean? Yesterday was over. "It's not a big deal. I'm fine."

My antennae ached in memory of a pain.

She smiled. It was a thin, painful thing. "You know, you aren't the only faunus to do something like that. Pretend to be human, I mean."

"I don't know what you mean," I deflected despite the fact that she'd been there. Seen me in such a pitiful state. "I was just trying to do my shopping."

She propped her elbows up on the desk. "Without being bothered, right? Without being followed by someone convinced you're going to steal something?"

I bit my tongue. The answer was yes, and she knew it. I'd just wanted to get my shampoo and go, deal with other people as little as fucking possible.

She stared at me for a moment, chewing on something. I didn't meet her eyes, preferring to stare just past her. I couldn't voice how I felt. That it wasn't fair, that I shouldn't be dealing with this. How monstrous would that be, to say to someone who'd been born into this bullshit.

God, I'd been like that to Brian, hadn't I?

"Taylor, I..." she sighed and rubbed her eyes. "I know I only just met you, and I hardly have the right to try and tell you how to live your life."

"But." I said. It was such an odd feeling, being reached out to. I suppose it wasn't the first time someone had done so, to try and help me. The Wards had been like that, and I'd slapped their hands aside and thrown their kindness back in their faces.

"But," she stressed, "I want to help another faunus. You have to know that living your life like that will only make it harder. What happens when someone finds out?"

"I could handle it. I've handled worse." I emphasized my point by waggling my prosthetic hand.

"I can tell. But... wouldn't living like that hurt? I saw what tying your antennae back did to you. Can you live with a migraine 24/7?"

She sighed when I just bit my lip and looked away. "What do you want, Taylor?"

"What do you mean?"

"With your life. I've known a few people your age with that look in your eyes." She shook her head and now she was the one to break eye contact, gazing off into the middle distance. "You see it all the time. Boys who've worked the mines, girls who've had to take to sex work on the bad side of town to survive. Men and women your age who've seen friends, loved ones, family die because of what they are. Of course some try to hide it. The world forces them to."

"Some of us can't," I muttered. She was right. I couldn't live with a migraine that debilitating 24/7. A faint thought slipped through the cracks in my mind, a dark one. I had a knife.

I could cut them off.

"Some of us can't," she agreed, flicking her tail.

I nodded absently and immediately discarded that thought. Whatever this sixth sense I had was, it was tied to my newest features. I couldn't afford to lose that advantage, not in the condition I was.

"What do you do, then?" I asked. It was the most vulnerable I'd ever felt.

"I do my best to keep moving forward. I surround myself with my people," she gestured at the shop around her. "That's why I have the Cozy Corner.

Keep moving forward...

I'd stuck myself in a rut, hadn't I? I hadn't focused so hard on just existing like this since... since Winslow, really. I nodded. She had a point.

"Thank you, Maggie. Really. I think I needed to hear that."

She let loose a great breath. "Oh thank goodness. I was so worried this would go so poorly. I'd hate to assume too much about you and make you upset!"

"No, it's fine. Really."

"People tell me I can be a little overbearing, you know? Sometimes I try and help too hard," she laughed at that.

"Maggie, really. It's okay." I worried at the jacket in my hands for a moment before my mind made itself up. I spun it around and slipped it on; it fit surprisingly well, if a touch short at the wrists. That wasn't an issue, really. I could fix that myself. The fur ruff was comforting, familiar. Reminded me of the sound of dogs on a cool night. "I think I know what I need to do."

I had a Professor to talk to.
----
Check out the first interlude, The Other Lemmings, on Patreon! Speaking of, I should mentioned: this chapter features a couple characters given to me *by* patrons: Reynauld, from one of my Red Shirts, and Rose, from one of my Side Characters.

 

[CalumTraveler]

Taylor gets friend-group-adopted by Maggie! Another bond established!

Also, her remark about Blake throwing some blue into her costume is perfectly on point XD

 

[spectreN7]

This doesn't make any sense. Taylor already spent two years in Winslow as a punching bag. All her time in the Ward as an outed murderous cape who. And she grew up in a city where echnic Asian gang is a thing.

She shouldn't care about this weak-ass social pressure.

 

[Miss Peacecraft]

Oh hey theres other girls in this story huh.
-----
"Go make your own friends, she says. I have to go see my friends, she says. What friends! Oh, no, I shouldn't say that, that's really mean..."

Beacon Academy accepted a select group of students every year. The best of the best, top of their class, talented young fighters from across all of Vale. Upon them was thrust the weight of the whole world, and they were expected to answer in kind. The castle loomed above them in judgement; the coming years would filter out those among them who cannot answer the call.

"Bee's knees," one of these hopeful heroes muttered under her breath. A combat boot kicked a stone into a nearby grove of trees on the outskirts of the glittering castle. "I don't wanna be cool. I wanna be a normal girl."

She slapped her knees in a moment of pique. "With normal knees!"

Wind fluttered through her red cloak and ruffled her black combat dress. When the only response was the gentle chirp of a bird in a tree, she reached up to slap her cheeks once, twice. Fists went to her hips and she barked out to herself.

"No! You're Ruby Rose! You got in two years early! You can do it, and you deserve at least two cookies about it!"

"...Only two?" A voice asked from behind her.

Ruby shrieked and spun, forgetting the weapon hung at her back in her surprise. Her thrown fist missed entirely, brushed aside with the side of a hand. She stumbled forward once, twice, shock throwing her off her game just enough. Her eyes went wide, her arms went out to catch herself, and...

She realized that was dumb. Her Semblance blurred around her, a swirl of rose petals whipping into being as she spun herself back around onto her feet. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to try and punch you!"

"No, it's okay, really!" The tall intruder waved it off, both hands coming up as if to ward off the apology. "I shouldn't have startled you!"

They were a study in contrasts: short, fully covered in black cloth with red and silver accents, versus tall in gleaming red and gold armor that leaves her arms, chest, and legs exposed. A shield and a collapsed sword are hung across one back, while a bulky collapsed rife is hung across the others hips. Short, red so dark it's almost black, hair, and long fire-bright maroon hair.

And yet, babbling at each other as though they were mirrored reflections.

"Wait!" Ruby called out, slashing her arms across her chest in a great X. Her newfound companion paused, mouth open in an apology, her diadem slightly askew from the effort of such. "This is getting us nowhere!"

Green eyes met silver, and another apology died on her lips. "You're right. Of course."

"And," Ruby said, crossing her arms over her chest. "To answer your question; yes, only two cookies. Because otherwise then I would be out, and that would be unacceptable."

A bird in the distance called once, twice, before the taller girl put a hand to her lips to cover a small giggle. "I suppose I can't argue with that logic."

Something itched at Ruby Rose. Memory, ideation trickling down her spine. Recognition, but from where? It wasn't enough to speak up, but there was something about the weapons her conversation partner carried... She shook her head. A concern for later.

"So!" Ruby said, after the silence stretched long enough another bird began calling back to the first. "Come here often?"

"This is actually my first time at Beacon. I'm originally from Mistral," she gave a little laugh, though Ruby wasn't quite sure at what. "The headmaster asked if I would like to attend, and I felt like a change of scenery would be quite nice. So I accepted."

Ruby nodded seriously, a hand going to her chin. "Interesting. Professor Ozpin also asked me if I wanted to come to his school. But I'm from here, of course, so it's more like the same scenery. Well, I'm from Patch actually but that's only a few miles away so I've been here a lot and-"

"Oh, that's so exciting!" The girl clapped her armored hands together. "You must be very talented to get an invitation at your age!"

Ruby played it cool, like a girl with normal knees would. "Pssh, nooooo. I'm just a regular girl. Who... skipped two years."

It sounded faintly ridiculous to say that to someone else, to one of her peers. So much so that one hand drifted awkwardly to the back of her head, a motion she'd picked up from too much time spent around her sister.

"...Well, do you want to head inside? I don't think we're intended to stand around admiring the scenery." Maroon hair gestured, intent clear to Ruby that she should walk with her.

"Aww, but it's so pretty out here. Not as pretty as Patch, of course, but it's really pretty!" Ruby said as they moved forward. They walked companionably enough, but the tall stranger's gaze kept slipping to an unaware Ruby. Had she been a touch more attentive, she may have seen the beginnings of a question forming in her eyes. But she didn't, and so it went unremarked on.

Something clicked in Ruby's mind, and she snapped her fingers, turned on her heel, and pointed at her newfound companion. "Wait! I recognize you!"

A sigh rippled, and shoulders sagged. "I know, I was hoping—"

"No!" Ruby called out, darting around the taller girl to marvel at the sword and shield across her back. "You.... Milo and Akouo were featured in last month's issue of Guns and You! You must be a really good weaponsmith to get them in there. I thought about entering Crescent Rose but..."

They entirely failed to introduce themselves to the other through the excited shop-talk.

* * *​

Weiss Schnee was, and had been accused of being, many things. It was a long, exhaustive list that included kind things like talented beyond her years and the voice of a generation, and other not so kind things as pampered and spoiled Schnee brat and second choice. But, she thought with pride, the phrase unprepared had never once graced that list. It was why she was double and triple checking the cart stacked to bursting with elegant SDC labeled luggage. She went over a mental list at each one.

Myrtenaster and its attendant spare parts? Check. Personal clothing: combat, formal, and casual? Check, check, and check for each suitcase. Her dust, carefully ensconced in protective cases? Fire, lightning, ice, and even gravity?

"Check," she said with no small amount of pride. "Weiss Schnee, you've outdone yourself. No, you will outdo yourself!" She hyped herself up, fists on her hips, and grinned wide. Why, Beacon would hardly know what hit it. Any team lead with her stern but kind hand, her gentle wisdom, her sheer forethought, would surely prosper. Nay, flourish!

So focused was Weiss Schnee on her own impending success that an approaching typhoon went entirely unnoticed.

"Now, where the hell would she be? I know she's going to Beacon." Muttered though it was, a trained Huntress like Weiss should have been able to hear the approaching person. But, alas, she did not.

Yang Xiao Long, focused on the castle above, eyes furrowed in thought and hand shielding them from the sun, walked straight into the carefully stacked Schnee Dust Corporation branded luggage. The great tower came crumbling down metal crashing to stone in a great tortured scream, drowned out by one girl's pained shout, and the other's horrified gasp.

"Who left their luggage in the middle of the fucking walkway," Yang grumbled, pulling herself up out of the tumble like she was digging herself out of the rubble of some great accident. "And have they heard about moderation?"

"How very dare you!" Weiss screamed, stomping one heeled foot into the ground. The crash had kicked up dust, enough that she had half a mind to draw her sword and burn some dust to guard her delicate white dress from being marred. If, of course, it was on her hip and not scattered out of its case. She cried out and dove for it. "Do you not watch where you're going when you walk, you, you, you brute!"

"Brute?" Yang responded, dusting off her cropped jacket and fixing Weiss with a deeply unimpressed stare. "Have you considered not leaving your stuff just wherever? You're lucky you didn't hurt anyone. Or worse, mess up my hair."

"Oh, I'm lucky?" Weiss laughed as she tucked her sword away and clasped the case shut once more. "Dust is highly volatile, you could have blown us both up, you bimbo!"

Yang's jaw worked, eyes wide with shock. She took a few steps, closing the distance between them in a flash. She glared down at the diminutive girl before her, who simply tossed her long white side-pony over her shoulder and glared up in kind. "Even a bimbo knows you should be more careful with dust than to leave it in the middle of a walkway like that."

"Then perhaps you should have taken some care in an unfamiliar place, hmm?" Weiss made a show of her frustration, scoffing and breaking eye contact with Yang for just a moment. "If this is the class of Huntress they let into Beacon, then there's a chance I made the wrong choice of secondary education..."

They'd drawn a small crowd with their theatrics, other first years milling about at a safe distance. Whether they were hoping for a fight or something else more exciting to break out between the two young women is unknown, for neither of them noticed, preferring instead to continue glaring each other down, as if the force of their ire alone could slay the other.

"Class of Huntress? Talk about elitist. Daddy teach you to talk like that?" Yang ground out through a dangerous grin, gesturing at the SDC logo emblazoned across a case laying beside them with her chin.

"It's not my fault you aren't as talented as me! Maybe you'll get lucky and be assigned to my team; I can teach you the fundamentals you clearly lack. Like spatial awareness." Weiss grinned, an evil little thing. Some onlookers glanced between themselves, suddenly uneasy.

"Or hair care."

This was spat with the kind of venom normally reserved for statements about someone's mother. The crowd gasped, and for a moment Yang was struck silent.

Then her eyes flashed red and flame roared into existence about her, semblance burning into being unbidden save by her sudden rage.

An errant spark lit a stray chunk of fire dust, silencing the next shout.

* * *​

One girl, on the other end of the vaunted academy, perked up. She cupped a hand to her ear as an excited light flared behind her wide green eyes. Her voice lit, as though there was a fire inside her exactly as powerful as the detonation she'd just heard. "Did you hear that, Ren?"

"I did," a dark haired boy said. As he did, he flicked a single pink strand out of his face. He faced away from his friend, working at a borrowed stove with focus. Strictly speaking, it was Beacon property, and strictly speaking they didn't have permission to actually use it, but...

"An explosion, Ren. The festivities are already starting! Oh I can't believe I'm missing it. What if we don't get to fight at all!" She groaned and slammed her forehead into the table where she sat.

"We will." Ren assured her, in the kind of tired but patient tone one takes when they have to repeat themselves to a loved one.

Nora simply groaned and rolled until she was laying across the bench seat, staring up at the deeply uninteresting arced ceiling. She'd thought Beacon would be more exciting than this. One hand anxiously picked at her white and black dress, and she externalized her thoughts out of habit. "What do you think our team is gonna be like? Obviously we'll be on the same team."

"Of course we will." Ren flipped a pancake out of his pan, expertly landing it atop a stack right next to him. "Do you want syrup?"

"Of course I do!" She chirped. "Maybe we'll end up with a real ice queen on our team. Or some kind of like, crazy brawler. Either way they would have to be able to keep up with me. I can't carry our whole team on my back!"

"Mhm."

"And then we'd end up with a gruff but ultimately approachable leader, who warms up slowly but surely," Nora continued to ramble. "We'd be shooting stars, rising to the top of Beacon!"

"...Why are you in my dorm?" A tired voice cut through, surprising the both of them. Nora shot up, standing bolt upright atop the bench she'd been laying across. Ren, shoulders stiff, very carefully turned to find a towel and gently dabbed away at the syrup that he'd spilled across the front of his green silk tunic.

They were met with a tall faunus, moth antennae poking up through messy curls that hung across her face. She looked tired, and she was bowed just a bit under the weight of the sewing machine clutched in her arms. A beige tote hung from one elbow, emblazoned with a white logo: needle and thread crossed in the same fashion as the Beacon axes, and white text wrapping around it in a circle that read 'Beacon Seamstress Club'.

"Oh, we're incoming first years!" Nora chirped, as though she missed the naked suspicion in the tall faunus' eye's. Perhaps it was hidden by the glint of light in her glasses. "We just needed to grab a snack. Hungry from the road, you know?"

"...A snack." The girl said, eyes flicking across the twenty-cake tall stack still resting next to Ren. Disbelief, or maybe annoyance passed across her face. It was difficult to tell, and Nora had no interest in either.

So she bulldozed past it. Literally. She was suddenly in the other girls space, checking out everything she was doing. The bag was full of sewing supplies like cutters, thread, and needles. Wirecutters, too, though Nora could hardly say if that was normal or not. She almost grabbed at the girl's prosthetic before she realized she needed to actually respond.

"I work up one hell of an appetite!" She grinned and squatted, slapping iron-like thighs as she did. "And I gotta fuel these thunder thighs somehow dontcha know!"

The new girl just stared at her, brow furrowed. Nora's smile wavered not an inch, so sure was she. Still, she had to wonder; why hadn't that landed? Usually her jokes and antics were surefire hits, but this girl... She was so aloof. Nora grinned and stood straight; she would have fun getting this one to break.

"Are you a second year? If so, our apologies for arriving unannounced. We were led to believe this was a first year dorm." Ren interrupted her thoughts, calmly cutting the tension like a knife.

Their conversation partner, unintroduced, seemed to chew on her words in an almost physical way for a moment, jaw working over them like a stubborn piece of food stuck in her teeth. "Not exactly," she finally managed. "And it's fine. I was just surprised."

As if a switch had flipped, she turned from them and marched into the dorms, speedwalking away with all the purpose of someone who very much did not want to be there. Nora had half a mind to follow, to interrogate her further on the facts of Beacon life, but a call from her friend stopped her.

"Nora. Syrup or no?" He asked simply, as though he was entirely unconcerned with what had just happened. She envied him that, for all she wanted to do was dart down the hallway to ask – nay, demand! – to learn more about what she was sure to be one of her new best friends here at Beacon.

A groan in her stomach won out, and she spun from where she was halfway down the hallway after the mysterious girl with a shouted "Yes please!"

She had time. Four years of it!

* * *​

"Are you absolutely certain of this, Headmaster?" Glynda Goodwitch rubbed her wrist, where a memory of teeth digging into skin lingered. Aura had kept her skin from breaking, blunted the pain, but the desperation of the act still rang inside her head. "We know nothing about her. I understand that you want to help, but..."

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and huffed. Her companion had nary a reaction, save a small smile. His cane tapped out a light rhythm as they walked. Students parted before them, receiving little more than nods or waves of acknowledgement. Something about his stride, his demeanor, striked them as unapproachable.

There was a small break in this crowd, as they stepped through one great hallway into another. "Is that not enough, Glynda? To reach out to a stray?"

He glanced up at that, and Professor Goodwitch missed the black and white clad girl who darted away and out of a high window at his gaze.

"What if she's a danger to our school? We have no idea what kind of person she could be, or if what she says is even true. Alternate Remnants? We have no way of proving this."

"You believe it more reasonable that this is a ploy by our enemy." Ozpin spoke matter-of-factly, even as he refused to look at her. His gaze was firmly forward, firmly on what he had set out to do this day. Glynda's concern fell across his shoulders and shattered, as if they did not even exist.

"I think it would be remiss of us to ignore the possibility."

He hummed and came to a stop, just outside the entrance to the first year dormitories. Inside he could hear talking and chatter, one person talking to another who was much calmer and less bubbly. Neither of them were the girl he was here to speak with, and this conversation would be too much for their ears just now.

"I will admit, I was worried. To send me a young girl in need, only to have her turn around and stab me in the back... Our enemy would be clever indeed to do this." A thumb worked at the top of his cane, a thousand years and more worth of memory crashing into and through him in a single moment. He was not there, at Beacon, for just a moment.

It was a different castle. Different, but just nearly the same. He shook his head; no time to walk down memory lane.

"And yet you aren't worried."

"Glynda... Our enemy is not so clever." Then, low in his throat, so low his companion did not catch it as he pushed the door open and stepped into the dormitories. "She does not know me quite so well anymore."

The communal kitchen had pride of place in the dormitories, accessible as soon as one entered. Ozpin had a small smile and a nod for the two students, shocked from their meal of late morning pancakes. "Miss Valkyrie. Mr. Lie. I'm glad to see you've already made yourselves at home."

"Mhm!" The orange haired girl threw him a thumbs up, mouth too full to truly respond. The boy beside her simply nodded, and they continued on. Ozpin led Glynda down and through, taking two turns before finding himself at the dorm he'd had assigned one Taylor Hebert.

She was working hard, if he judged by the staccato thundering of a sewing machine running at max speed. Ozpin knocked three times, loud enough to be heard over the machine. It stopped, but there was no response.

"Miss Hebert? You asked to speak with me?"

The creak of a chair, the slight rustle of feet picking their way across the floorboards. He waited patiently as the door creaked open slowly. Taylor met his eyes, impassive and unimpressed. Her clear disrespect for authority was refreshing; any other student would have sprinted to not inconvenience the headmaster on the off chance they would be punished for it. "Took you long enough."

He smiled. "It's the start of a new school year. You'll find I'm quite the busy man. Can I come in?"

"Yeah. Be careful, it's a bit messy," She stepped back and swung the door wide, the brown wood pushing aside discarded laundry and takeout wrappers.

Ozpin, free of judgement, stepped in after her. He turned to Glynda, who wore a slight grimace across her face – one that Taylor seemed not to comment on, preferring to return to her work at the sewing machine setup at her desk. "Go ahead and wait out here."

"Of course," Glynda said, voice tense.

The door clicked shut and the machine whirred back on. Ozpin watched with some interest as Taylor split a seam on a canvas jacket with a ripper, then slowly fed a bolt of that impossibly fine cloth she'd been found wearing in between and sewing it all back together.

Her insectoid mask rested next to her on the desk. He had the sense it was staring at him, yellow lenses inquisitorial in some way. There was a history to that thing, enough that he could near-as feel that history leaking off of it.

"It's spider silk," she answered his unasked question. "Darwin bark spider, specifically. I don't know if you have that spider here."

"Oh?" Ozpin was impressed, even if he didn't recognize the species. "I was led to believe that spider silk was almost impossible to work with; something about it being impossibly prohibitive to harvest. Did your world find a workaround?"

Taylor carefully checked her stitch work, finger tracing the fine line she'd put into the cloth. "They didn't. I cheated; I made the spiders weave it themselves. That was my power."

The stress on the word was echoed, and for a moment Oz saw her eyes flash in something like pain, remorse, relief. His curiosity lost out to his better judgement; he had nothing but time after all. "I suppose the next question is why."

"My suits were bulletproof to most pistols, and just about perfectly slash proof, barring something a Tinker could brew up."

A capital T, now. She grew more and more interesting. "Creating a backup, just in case your aura fails? I have to applaud the forethought; even some experienced Huntsmen fail to think that far ahead."

She grunted and kept at her work. For a moment, Ozpin simply watched her; there was an energy to her motion that had been lacking since the fight went out of her in that moonlit courtyard, an electricity to the way she moved and held herself. She was still just a touch clumsy with her prosthetic, she was still taking poor care of herself, but this was a far cry from the woman that had haunted his halls for the past week and change.

"However illuminating this chat has been, I doubt it's why you asked me here."

Taylor stopped in the middle of snapping open another panel on her jacket. "You never asked me outright. You asked around the question."

Ozpin smiled. He had figured she would catch what he meant, by pitching his school as hard as he had. "I did. That's true."

"You want me to join your academy. Why?"

Ozpin took another few steps to stand next to her, but carefully avoided looking at her. Instead, he gazed out the open windows at the school beyond. The first year dormitories overlooked a broad courtyard, with a statue of four women, each wielding a different weapon, each looking in a different direction. "What do you suppose Beacon's purpose is?"

"It's a career school, functionally a military academy. You train people to kill Grimm, and give them an education to make sure that's not all they have to fall back on when they're inevitably hurt or disabled by their profession." There was a crack after her words; she was yanking on her seams, making sure they wouldn't pull apart.

"Close. That's the literal truth of what we do here. The spirit is much different; it's no secret this is a troubled world. I'm sure you have some experience with that."

Taylor laughed, a dry thing.

"I give these young people, these rising stars, what they need to survive the things they will see. To do more than that; the name of this Academy was not chosen blindly. The people need lights in the dark, guide posts to follow when the worst happens." His hand spasms, just a touch, tightening on the head of his cane against his will.

"That's a lot to put on their shoulders. They're children."

"So are you," he said, finally turning to face her. She was studiously ignoring him, and he got the sense her focus was turned inward, on some argument she was having with herself. It was in the line of her brow, the gentle twitch of her lips. "That's what Beacon is for. To give them four years where they can still be children, despite the horrible effort this world will ask of them."

"I thought about running," she said, "But.."

"Something stopped you." He was surprised, when he'd found her wandering the castle that next day. He had been worried she would flee again, in another blind panic.

"...I'm bad at sitting still, but I don't have anywhere to go." She stood then and drew her coat around her shoulders, fur ruffle settling in comfortably against her neck as she zipped it tight. "I'm good at fighting."

There was a corkboard, leaning against the closet beside them, strung with red string. News clippings, sightings of the masked vigilante that now stalked his city. But also crack research articles, headlines like "Portals to another world?" that she'd scratched great x's across. Fruitless research, perhaps, but it painted a story.

If she hoped to find a way home through his academy, he supposed he could let her. It would hardly be the worst thing someone has come to him for.

"I could allow a last minute admission. That is, among many other things, within my power. But, before I do, I would like to ask one last thing."

"I can't stop you," she said softly while testing the way her coat settled with the added armor.

"What changed your mind? What helped you decide?"

She stopped and licked her lips carefully, as though the words didn't come easily. She too stared out the window beyond, though for a moment Ozpin thought he saw her eyes alight somewhere in the distance, among the sea of glittering glass that was Vale.

"I had a very good cup of tea."
-----
And you can check out V1E5: Player vs Player, right now, on Patreon!

This one is a little later on account of the fact that I just spent a lot of emotional and phyiscal energy moving, but I'm hoping to get back in the swing of writing (and more!)

 

[CalumTraveler]

A good intermission with a lot of fun character moments! :33

Of course, the non sequitur to Ozpin of "I had a good cup of tea" is just perfect. XD

 

[Miss Peacecraft]

Yang gets into a scrap
--------
"First, I would like to extend my thanks to every single first year here today. Make no mistake; the sacrifices-in-potentia you have made, in making the choice to join this academy, are appreciated."

The transmission cut through the dull roar of idling bullhead engines outside. I tapped my foot anxiously; there was a massive well of energy brewing within me, begging for initiation to start, begging for something to punch, something to do, something to distract me from the raucous thoughts inside.

"You good back there kid?" The pilot called back.

"I'm fine!" I said. "Just excited."

"I am sure all of you had some idea of what initiation would entail. A great struggle against Grimm, perhaps. A puzzle. A chance to meet those who would be your future team. In some ways you are right; it is here and now that you will select who you will fight alongside for the rest of your days here at Beacon."

I shook my arms out, Ember Celica shifting and clanking and expanding as I did so. A fight was a fight; get on with it.

"He sure does like to talk, huh?" The pilot asked, echoing my own thoughts.

"I guess so. It is his job." I agreed absently. Standing alone in the crew cabin of a bullhead felt somewhat strange. It should have felt crowded, but with just me it was downright spacious. The pilot was a pro too; despite the high winds outside I felt like I was standing on solid ground. Where did Beacon find people like her? Did they just keep them on staff?

"Today, I must ask you to do something we have never done in the history of Beacon."

A thrill went up my spine at that. Despite the way my mind whirled with distraction, the prospect of being part of something even vaguely historical was really very cool.

"Dramatic too," my pilot snickered. Despite myself, I chuckled too. It seemed to be a requirement to so much as step foot on Beacon's soil. My mind went to the Schnee princess I'd had an... altercation with. Let's hope I didn't end up on a team with someone with that short of a fuse.

"Today I will ask you to fight your fellow students."

Another thrill, this one of adrenaline spiking and bolting through, of my aura sparking and coming up around me in a soothing warmth. Fighting other students? We were here to fight Grimm, protect other people, right?

I cracked my neck. The pilot keyed something and the heavy canopy door I stood in front of slid open, admitting beams of sunlight and whipping winds. It took my eyes a moment to adjust, long enough for me to slip out a pair of sunglasses from a pouch at my belt. I was itching to start this, to get into the thick of it.

"Below you, you will find a mock city. A training field, typically reserved for third and fourth year students to train the less savory, less heroic side of their chosen trade. Today, it is opened up to you, my incoming freshman, to prove yourselves. The rules set out are simple: Find your partner, and retrieve an artifact from your upperclassmen fellows who will seek to test you and your mettle."

True to his word, a squat grey city was laid out below us, a grid slicing through the wilderness outside the academy. The sun was just beginning to set on this, our literal first day. And he wanted us to fight?

Maybe I'd get lucky and I could deck the Schnee princess.

"We live in tumultuous times. I fear it is as much as Huntsman's duty to fight his fellow man as it is to eliminate the threat of Grimm wherever it might fester. Whether that is the aura enabled criminal element, or even rogue Huntsmen. Please, accept my apologies for forcing you to face this fate so early."

Dramatic was right. Professor Ozpin must have been one hell of a theater kid growing up.

I flicked my sunglasses open and settled them on the bridge of my nose. A smirk came to my lips; fighting people was a lot more fun than fighting Grimm. Maybe some of these upperclassmen could help me really destress from my disappointing day. A fight with a cute girl always helped me forget about my troubles.

In the distance, I could just barely make out a collection of other bullheads, seven or eight strong. Group 1, they'd told me. It was a nasty thought, but I seriously needed to consider second choices for a partner. Ruby, maybe. Then again, I hadn't seen her since I split off to go hunting.

What if she wound up partnered with the Schnee? That was a horrible thought.

"Oh, and one more thing before you jump; the first person you make eye contact with will be your partner for the next four years."

"Well, good luck kid! Have fun down there!" My pilot called, and she banked the entire craft into a roll. I couldn't help myself despite the sour feeling that last pronouncement put in my gut, the feeling of freefall gripped my gut and yanked it up into my throat. I was nothing if not a thrill seeker at the end of the day.

I hollered with joy and fired both guns behind myself, setting out like a rocket into the great unknown. A twist, and the world spun around me as the wind caught me, turned me into a shot from a rifle. Blue, green, and dusty brown spiraled about me. It would have made just about anyone else sick, but I was used to it. There were a lot of cliffs to dive off of on Patch.

Anyone else would have been turned into a horrible red splat across the mock city below. Me? I knew exactly how long I'd been falling for, and how fast I'd been going. A few hundred feet above the ground and I fired again, over-powered rounds altering my path into a curve. I had a lot of momentum to bleed off, but if I planned it right...

Two more shots in my gauntlets and the gravel covered roof of a building fast approaching. They roared, one shifting me several gees in one direction, nearly killing my path in a sudden jerk that tore up my spine and slammed into my aura hard enough that I felt a burn deep in my gut.

The second shot me forward and over the side of the building, low enough that I could roll, pull fresh ammo belts from my belt, load them, and come up all in one fluid motion.

"Perfect landing Yang," I said to myself, arms pumping to load my new shot. "Too bad no one was around to see it."

I sighed and made my way over to the edge of the building. I had three stories of view, so it was easy enough to see what was going on. It was like they'd taken a slice out of downtown Vale and just made it shittier. The little faux-retail/residential area I'd found myself in was full of boarded up windows, graffitied walls, and even junked out cars. One side street was even blocked off by an overturned train car.

"They really went crazy on this huh?" I muttered to myself, slipping my sunglasses up to really take it in. "May as well enjoy it. I respect the dedication."

I jumped up and over, the relatively short fall easy enough to absorb. Just bend at the legs, admire how cracked the pavement is under you, and get going. I did it all the time.

Again, no one around to fucking see me.

"Hello?" I called, hand cupped around my mouth. "Anyone there?"

No response, just a gentle echo from among the buildings. Somewhere in the distance a gun barked, but it was hard to tell from how far away. They were really gonna make me work for my good time, then? I braced myself, cracked my knuckles, and plastered a grin across my face. That was fine.

"Alright... If I was Ruby Rose, where would I be?"

We'd all been dropped near an edge, myself included. This meant the only sensible thing to do was to head in, to seek out partners and contend with conflict both.

So I picked a road and took it, hands behind my head and a whistle on my lips. No need to run or rush, I could have fun at my leisure. Just gotta wind my way into the little fake city, see who crossed my path first. No biggie.

The high pitched whine of a motor spinning up was the only warning I got. I threw up a hand, catching two bullets across my gauntlet as I ducked and dove for cover. Minigun fire tore across the scene, shattering windows, kicking up stone, and filling the street with dust and gunsmoke.

I pressed my back against the cool metal of a rusted out car. Adrenaline roared in my gut and my grin threatened to split my face in two. Finally, a good time.

There was no need to wait for a break in the gunfire, I threw myself around the car and punched out twice, shooting two fire dust slugs in the vague direction of the torrent of gunfire. They punched through unbroken storefront glass and detonated in a great burst that silenced the gunfire for just a moment.

There was no reason to think that was the end of it. I moved to act, to take advantage of my momentary opening.

The air behind me whistled, and I wasn't fast enough. I turned, just enough to catch the edge of a great blade across my midsection, impact barely blunted by one hand, and I was sent flying. One foot skipped off the asphalt, my shoulder impacted hard, and I spun end over end for several meters before finally finding a hold, aura-enhanced fingers digging grooves in the street as I brought myself to a halt.

I stood, the base of my gut, the base of my spine, screaming with new glorious heat. "Looks like you have me outnumbered."

He shrugged and shouldered his sword. "My apologies, I hope you will not hold it against us."

He was tall, easily two heads or more above me. A green robe hung off one shoulder, leaving a black tank exposed. Brilliant green layered armor — sode, if I remembered my classes right — adorned a bare shoulder, but he was otherwise dressed sensibly in brown pants and heavy leather boots. Even his hair was sensible, cut short and leaving his face unobscured. Dark eyes took my measure easily. One of the upperclassmen, then.

"Nah. Why would I? I'm here for a good time," I said. No gunfire; was his teammate giving us time? repositioning?

Maybe they just had a sense of drama.

And that great bronze sword rests easily in his grip, like it weighed nothing at all. "My name is Yatsuhashi Daichi."

He lunged at me then, sword coming down in a helm breaker blow. I ducked to the side, pushing it away in a gout of sparks where it crashed into the street, asphalt chunks spitting up into my face, and landed two punches in his gut.

I got little more than a grunt in response. I hissed and ducked back, skipping away from an answering swing of his sword. Through gasps, I managed to respond in kind. "Yang Xiao Long. Nice to meetcha."

Battle was rejoined with little fanfare, after that. My opponent took one great step into my guard, and I ducked away, only to have to spin away from the gout of gunfire that spat from the second story of the storefront I'd already assaulted. I grit my teeth and knuckled down; I would find a way out. It was the Xiao Long way.

What bullets I couldn't dodge slammed into my aura, becoming another spark to my inner fire. Yatsuhashi was a formidable combatant on his own; but with the addition of fire support I found it harder and harder to stay away from his searching blade. Glancing blow after near miss drove me further back, closer to the store where it was harder for me to avoid the shots.

Whoever was shooting was good, better than I'd seen anyone be with a full auto weapon like that. In the flashes, in the corner of my eye, I could see her by the flash in her sunglasses. I needed to find an opening to put Yatsuhashi down fast. Using my semblance would leave me vulnerable, but I saw no other option.

For now, I needed to duck and weave. Boots slid across the ground as I dodged around massive sword swings, hammering in with shotgun blasts when I could, letting bullets skim my Aura when I thought I could risk it. Dust kicked up in clouds around us, glass shattered, cement shattered, but I couldn't find a single damn opening.

I grunted as I took another full volley. Could that gunner asshole just give me a chance?

The universe seemed to answer, because that chance came. Another gun joined the chorus, a report I recognized.

My heart soared as the minigun stopped, replaced by the throaty voice of a revolver. It was soon joined by the staccato thunder from before, but now the bullets tore through the roof, the sides, no longer a threat to me.

New confidence filled me. I grinned wide and ducked into my dance partners guard. Two more hits to the gut barely fazed him, but the uppercut to his chin did. He stumbled back with a grunt, but failed to fall.

I batted the answering swing away with a punch, a gunshot, and a smile. "Sounds like your buddy is distracted."

"Coco can handle herself." Yatsuhashi countered, sword flashing about.

"Figures. Only a woman could shoot like that." I thumbed my nose and hid my heavy panting. I couldn't escape a biting truth; it took everything I had to just keep up with him. And he wasn't even breathing all that hard.

"She's our leader for a reason."

The gunfire continued, cut through with unintelligible shouting, muffled by concrete.

"Hey, we're friends right? You'll be honest with me?" I asked him as we circled.

"We have not known each other long enough to be friends," He said without a single blip in facial expression. "And I prefer honesty no matter what."

"Then lay it on me," I said, feinting a couple jabs at his face. "Are you taking it easy on me?"

"Of course I am. This is just an examination."

The chance to take out the sudden anger from that easy statement came in a flash. A crash of glass dragged his attention away from me just a moment, the fighting from the building spilling out into the street. It was enough.

Fire roared to life around me, my hair itself a roaring bonfire. I reared back in a great haymaker, stance set. The scrabble in the corner of my vision, two women - one of whom I recognized - fighting rough in close quarters, went unnoticed. My focus was near-entirely on the face of my opponent, the minute way his eyes went wide at my sudden display. His sword was coming up, presenting the flat of the blade in a last minute block.

It wouldn't be enough.

A gauntleted fist met the bronzed weapon in a great clang. A dust charge went off, adding just that little bit more oomph to the massive blow. I roared and followed through, smashing his sword into his face with a second great effort. A roar left my lips and Yatsuhushi left the proverbial building, skipping across the cracked asphalt like a stone over water. The beret-clad girl who'd come crashing through caught him by the arm as he passed, but she was just along for the ride.

I didn't care, not really. Something else had caught my eye.

"Hey," I managed. My sunglasses were still on, and I flicked them up to my forehead with a thought. "Almost thought you weren't actually gonna be here."

"I almost wasn't" Taylor admitted. The knife in one hand went to her belt, and she made a show of slowly reloading her fuck off revolver.

She looked more... put together. More awake. Her hair was still loose about her shoulders, her eyes were still gently ringed with dark bags, but she looked like she meant business. Her antennae were up and attentive and she wore a heavy fur-lined jacket to compliment the tactical pants tucked into heavy boots. Her eyes, cast almost golden in the sun, were hard. Focused. The revolver slammed closed with a simple flick, and I noted she was still using her organic hand to shoot it. Was she a lefty?

"Interesting display," She said before I could speak up. She gestured at me, reminding me that I was, in fact, still smoldering.

I ran a hand through my hair, the remaining heat just enough to lightly sting. I'd started a few fires around us, scattered little things that would go out in a few hours. "What can I say, I run kinda hot."

She cocked her head at me. "I can tell."

"So..." I felt like I had to ask. No other potential first years had shown up yet, but my mind insisted on shoving the horrible image of the Schnee princess stalking out of the building after Taylor like some tiny possessive demon. That would be just my luck in the end. "See anyone else?"

Smooth, Yang. Like butter, really up to my usual snuff.

Taylor just cocked an eyebrow at me, like she didn't even care about the awkward slip-up. "No. Just you."

"Oh. That's good. Cool, even. Partners, then?" I snapped my fingers and flashed a quick pair of finger guns at her, even managed a bright smile. I died inside a little, but I thought I saw a quick, almost impossibly small smile.

"Will you two just kiss already, or can we get on with this?" A woman catcalled, and I nearly lit on fire again.

It was beret-girl, arms crossed and one eyebrow raised over her sunglasses. Her chaingun hung jauntily from her hip, and the teammate I'd decked into her stood easily at her side. She looked like she'd walked off a catwalk, and not directly out of a nasty scrap with my now-partner.

"What, get on with kicking your ass?" I said, cockily covering my embarrassment by putting my hands up in a high guard.

Taylor slowly shifted, taking a spot by my side. There was a rasp of leather on metal, her knife coming back out of its sheathe I bet.

Our opponent just rolled her eyes and raised a hand. "Woah, woah. Cool it hotshot. You couldn't handle us at 100% anyway."

"Oh yeah? Why don't you try us-"

"Ozpin didn't give us the full rules, in the VTOLs, did he?" Taylor interrupted. "We don't have to actually beat you to get our relic. 'Test you and your mettle,' he said."

Beret smiled and clicked her tongue. "Exactly. Ozzie gave us pretty much carte blanche to decide who was actually good enough to get past this stage."

My guard slipped, just a fraction. "So, wait. If we hadn't impressed you...?"

She winked. "Don't worry about it. Here, you earned it."

Taylor reached out to pluck a thrown object from the air, whatever it was thunking against the hilt of her knife in her palm. Our upperclassman opponent had tossed it in one smooth motion I'd barely caught. This all seemed vaguely unfair, frustrating even. The satisfaction of a good fight plucked right from my waiting fingers!

"The black queen?" Taylor murmured, cutting through my turbulent thoughts. I turned to take in the thing in her hand. A chess piece, a bit oversized, made of fluted black marble.

"What are we supposed to do with this?" I asked dumbly.

"I dunno, figure it out! You're a couple of smart cookies!" The girl who threw it called, already halfway down the street from us with her teammate. There was even a comical cloud of dust expanding behind them as they left, no doubt to terrorize some other poor pair of incoming freshmen.

I sighed and let my hand drop. "What the hell is this supposed to test, anyway?"

"Urban combat, how we work with unfamiliar people with unfamiliar abilities, how we handle ourselves on a longer op. I'm more surprised there aren't Grimm involved as well..." Taylor answered me. She was turning the piece over in her hand, brow lightly furrowed.

"Hey, can I see that?" I reached out, hand stopping just short of hers. "Maybe there's a clue about what we're supposed to do next. They do stuff like that in books sometimes."

A moment, then she bridged the gap. Metal fingers met my fleshy ones, and for a moment I thought the ground beneath me was shaking with the momentous occasion. My heart skipped a beat, my breath caught in my throat, and then I realized that no. It wasn't actually my imagination.

We both turned, watching to see if anything would fall, if we were in any actual danger, before the shaking subsided. Nothing had broken, nothing had fallen except for a sudden quiet. One that was very quickly broken by the return of distant gunfire, weapon clashes, and shouts.

"What the hell was that?" I asked out loud. It wasn't directed anywhere in particular, maybe to Remnant itself.

"I take it Vale doesn't get many earthquakes?" Taylor directed this at me.

I shrugged. "Maybe? I grew up on an island, remember?"

"Hmm." And that was that. She twirled the chess piece around before tucking it into a pouch on her belt, tucked just out of sight under her jacket.

"What do we do next?" I deferred on instinct. Didn't want to come on too strong, lest I scare off the one girl I'd actually made a good impression on at this stupid school.

She moved to lead us in a stalk deeper into the fake city. "Finish the test."
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Check out episode 6, Avoidant Attachment Style, on Patreon! I'm sure Blake is being really normal and sociable.

I'm currently funemployed so lets get this going.

 

[CalumTraveler]

Well, this is definitely an interesting take on the Initiation Test! The proctors here being Coco and Yatsu make for a great impactful "Wait where did they come from" moment, too. XD