Rest in Peace 1 (RWBY)

Rest in Peace 1 Slate Silva Mantle was a shitshow. The floating island of Atlas loomed oppressively overhead. The dumb fucker who decided to

Rest in Peace 1

Slate Silva

Mantle was a shitshow. The floating island of Atlas loomed oppressively overhead. The dumb fucker who decided to use the Relic of Creation was a braindead fool. He couldn’t just park his fucking island a few miles out of city limits or something. So Mantle was, quite literally, a city shrouded in shadow.

It was also figuratively that, too. When Atlas rose into the sky, people claimed it would be a bastion of safety for humanity. With its new gravity tech, humans could be safe from all landwalking grimm. First Atlas, then Mantle, and then all of mankind could leave the earth behind, sailing the skies as if it were an ocean.

It was a laughable delusion. A flying citadel like Atlas had no farmland, no lumber mills, no manufacturing plants, and sure as shit no mines. The amount of logistical support it needed in the form of food, material, and dust was staggering, and that was before taking its skyfaring navy into account.

Of course, that was the reason provided for why no other landmass was ever uplifted. All good reasons, but I knew the truth: They couldn’t. Even if Atlas wasn’t full of self-important, elitist bastards, they physically couldn’t uplift another landmass because the gravity tech was a lie. No amount of gravity dust could produce that kind of power, not for long.

The Atlesians used the Relic of Creation. It was a divine artifact left behind by the Brother Gods. The gravity tech bullshit was a lie fed to the world, and its own populace, to keep them from finding out the truth.

I snorted derisively. Atlas didn’t turn itself into a beacon of progress and hope for humanity. All it did was breed resentment from Mantle and prove the Brother Gods right: Humans were selfish, ignorant bastards.

That was before my time, though. At this point, even if I could bring Atlas to the ground again, it’d do more harm than good.

Which led back to Mantle being the “city of shadows” thing.

Atlas cast long shadows over the city, but it was also the smoke and pollution that clogged the sky. There wasn’t much choice; Atlas needed a production center and it couldn’t be on the island so the manufacturing district was set beneath.

It all led to an abundance of crime and the development of an unofficial caste system. Men, both humans and faunus, lived harsh lives. Sure, some of the most dangerous jobs could be automated, but… but men needed paychecks. Manufacturing wasn’t easy, but at least it paid.

And that meant men sought any vice they could. Drugs, gambling, liquor, and whores were all on the table. In the end, Mantle became almost as seedy as the worst of Mistral’s underground. 

I let out a humorless chuckle as I slung Silence over my back. That was probably too introspective, especially for a man in the middle of a killing spree. It wasn’t like I was Mantlese; I grew up in Kuo Kuana like most other faunus.

Sienna would say my rambling mind was a sign of weakness, but fuck her. I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t like the average guard was much of a threat.

With the last of the guards dead, I moved to take the building, and my target. Normally, I preferred a bit more distance, Silence was a sniper rifle, but I wanted to make this kill personal. Callum LeCroix earned that much.

I moved soundlessly through the building, nearing the culmination of a two weeks long chase. He was a smuggler, the biggest importer of heroin and meth in Mantle. The authorities thought he was a major contributor to the sharp rise in hard drugs over the last four years.

That wasn’t why I was after him. I was just the guy getting paid. Truthfully, I didn’t even know who my employer was. A disgruntled cop. A rival smuggler who wanted to expand his business. A jilted lover. I didn’t care. The lien was good and the man was a piece of shit, an acceptable target. Someone else could worry about deeper consequences.

There were a few more guards inside that I couldn’t pick off with Silence, but none of them had aura. A simple tap on the neck was enough. Like so many others, LeCroix was a stingy bastard, the kind of arrogant fool who thought his reputation alone would be sufficient. He should’ve paid for better protection.

Then again, if he was the smart type, I supposed he would never have dragged this out so long. The moron got himself made by a cop in Mantle, sending him fleeing south until the heat died down. That was how I ended up having to follow his obese ass for two weeks.

The most frustrating part was that he didn’t even know I was after him. Had he known, I wondered if he’d have willingly gotten himself arrested. Prison beats death, surely.

I clicked my tongue in annoyance. Boring. I was doing it again. Boredom was my greatest enemy. A real birdbrain, my cute tigress would say, prone to thinking about what-ifs as if they mattered.

I found LeCroix in his warehouse office, poring over some papers beneath a desk lamp. He probably thought he could recover from the shitshow he stirred up in Mantle.

He didn’t hear me enter. Truthfully, if he had, I would have been damn impressed; I’d taught some of Sienna’s finest. Admittedly, I’d also murdered most of said finest before ditching Kuo Kuana, but that was besides the point.

I tapped my knuckles along the wall. A pair of blades sprouted from the rings I wore on the fourth and fifth fingers of each hand. They were the “talons of the owl,” as certain melodramatic people called them. Short, only two inches long, but oh so precise. I liked my other fingers free to grab and articulate, especially since my Semblance depended on it.

The clicking noise finally drew his attention. I saw his eyes widen as he spotted me in the shadowed corner. “Wha–”

Before he could utter a word, I moved across the room. My hand clamped over his mouth and his voice cut out.

Why are you here?
To kill you, duh.

Who sent you?
No clue.

What do you want? I can pay!
Sure, but I’m a utilitarian and killing you is a net positive for the world.

I’ll pay double!
You don’t understand. Your death is the point. The money’s a bonus.

I have friends in high places! They’ll get revenge!
There’s a good chance one of them hired me. And if not, I’m sure I’ll be looking for them eventually.

Please, I don’t want to die!
Neither did anyone else you fucked over. Really, Death isn’t so bad. She’s quite nice, actually.

At this point, I’d heard it all. A dozen different permutations of this conversation had played out across every continent save Vacuo. In the beginning, I used to let my targets talk, just to see if I’d hear anything useful, or if they might possibly change my mind. They never did. Now, I preferred to put them on mute. 

I stabbed him in the shoulder, that junction between the collarbone and the humerus. My talons raked down, twisting and slicing through the cartilage. It was exactly like deboning a chicken, that part when you traced your knife along the shoulder and popped the wings from the breast. I couldn’t pull his arm off with my little talons, but he’d never be using it again even if he survived this.

LeCroix opened his mouth to shriek, but no sound came out. He flailed like a dying pig. I might have shown a little more mercy had I not known he’d done worse to others. It wasn’t the drugs that brought me here. It was the kids he’d trafficked on the down-low. That, and the money.

My talons found his knee. I slung him around like a flail as they bit deep into the joint. Then, with a pop that I felt but not heard, I hurled him out of the office and onto the warehouse floor.

That was where my fun ended.

I heard a set of clicking footsteps, heels on cement that sounded so very familiar. I saw her before she stepped into the dim light, as she knew I would. She glared icily at LeCroix, and more uncertainly at me.

“Night Owl,” Winter Schnee said, hand on her saber. “Stand down. He belongs to Atlas.”

I sighed. “Ugh, really, Winter? I should’ve known you’d catch up at the most inconvenient time. This is what I get for playing with my food.”

“He’s not food! He’s a criminal who will stand trial for his crimes!”

“To you, maybe. To me, he’s prey to be eliminated. So basically food.”

“I will not debate morality with you again, Night Owl,” she said tersely. “I’m bringing him in.”

“And what’s with that ‘Night Owl’ shit?” I complained. It was a familiar routine by now. “Who even came up with that? Last I checked, there’s no such thing as a ‘day owl’ so it’s fucking redundant.”

“I don’t care. You should have provided an alias of your own choosing to the authorities.”

“Your ‘authorities’ can kiss my ass, snow bunny.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Oh, so pet names are only okay when you do it? Hypocrite.”

“Night Owl isn’t a pet na–” she took a deep breath and sniffed imperiously, in that way that made her button nose curl up adorably. She drew her sword. “Hmph, I suppose there is only one way this ends. You always were stubborn.”

“Pot. Kettle,” I replied with a smirk. My cape fluttered behind me. Silence wouldn’t be any use at this range, but I wasn’t without options. “You can just walk away, you know. Let me kill him and tell Ironwood you came too late. You know he deserves it.”

“What he deserves will be determined in a court of law. Walk away, Slate. Tell your employer that I got here first. Or… Or I’ll be forced to take you in as well.”

“My word is my law, snow bunny. You know I don’t back down from contracts. You said it best: Integrity and discipline are what separates men from beasts.”

She smiled. It was a bittersweet thing that barely crossed her lips. “So I do.”

We moved at an unspoken signal, two blurs that clashed violently in the middle. Winter slashed towards my throat, well aware that I could take it. 

I caught it on my bracer and stepped into her guard. My talons raked up towards her torso in a move that would disembowel a normal opponent.

She reacted before my hand ever had a chance to graze her uniform. Her offhand came down to slap my arm aside and her swordhand lashed out pommel-first towards my chin, better at this range than the blade. I redirected the blow, only for her to use that momentum to separate her swords.

That was her weapon, a saber as long as a longsword and a shorter, secondary weapon attached to the spine. Each contained a dust crystal along the pommel, ice and lightning this time. Where Weiss favored versatility with her revolving dust chamber attached to her rapier, her older sister preferred the economy of motion that dual-wielding allowed.

I stuck to her like glue because that was the best chance I had. We’d sung this song and danced this dance before, and we both knew who was the better close-range fighter. My talons were assassination weapons, good for finishing the job where Silence failed to pick off a target. Either I taunted her at a distance, or I desperately tried to escape from up close. There was little middle ground.

“You sure I can’t convince you to walk away, snow bunny?” I asked with a pained grunt. Her knee found my spleen, giving her the chance to take a step back and reassume her optimal range.

“No. For that matter, if you stick around, I’ll arrest you, too,” she shot back. She lunged forward with her main sword and I was suddenly on the backfoot.

I couldn’t even rush her to close the gap anymore. Her shortsword made that risky at best, suicidal depending on how upset she was with me. For all her ice queen persona, she was a surprisingly passionate woman. It just so happened that she expressed her feelings through deeds, usually the pointy kind.

I ducked a vicious swing for my eyes. Her sword sparked with brilliant arcs of violet light that left splotches in my vision. Annoying, but expected. By now, she knew exactly how to use my night vision against me.

“Yeesh, what’s the charge, officer? I thought we were cool!”

“Murder? Theft of Atlesian military property?”

“In my defense–” I yelped. Another dodge, another close miss. I was more agile, but she wasn’t exactly a slouch, either.

“Oh, this should be good.”

“You enjoyed yourself. Admit it.”

“You used me!”

“I seduced you,” I shot back. I tried to catch her sword, even if it meant taking a hit to my aura, but she was too fast. Only floating daggers of ice awaited my grasping fingers. “And what a pleasant distraction that was. Seriously, I wouldn’t mind a round two.”

“I am going to arrest you, take back Dr. Polendina’s creation, and redeem myself,” she growled. A glyph bloomed from her feet and I had a fraction of a second to react as she became a white blur.

I took the hit to my aura and allowed the impact to launch me away. My aura gathered around me as I activated my Semblance to “kill” the light. I became an inky blotch that faded into the surrounding shadows. At the same time, I pulled the wires hidden in my cloak and twelve, spinning blades shot out in all directions like the numbers of an analog clock.

Winter had no choice. From her point of view, I vanished into thin air, replaced by twelve blades that homed in on a target. Given she had aura, and she’d never been my target, it didn’t take a genius to guess my next move.

I appeared just above LeCroix, talons poised to take him out. My twelve blades closed in on him, guided on wires only I could sense.

But they never made it. Three pillars of ice arced towards the ceiling, thick and curved as if they were the ribs of some great beast. They caught every one of my blades along their surface. I still wasn’t great at controlling those. 

My own descent was intercepted by Winter. She ran along one of the ribs and, just when I thought she’d slip on her own ice, she used one of my embedded daggers as a foothold. She lunged for me with a stern scowl and I committed myself to another dance.

This time, I had the twelve blades from my Curtain Call spinning around. I’d remodeled the floating array I stole from Dr. Polendina, but I couldn’t say I was a master at it yet, not like Penny would be. Nor did they have integrated guns; that took too much finesse and funds I didn’t have to maintain.

“This isn’t like you,” she said as she ducked under a swipe and kicked at my groin. “You prefer to kill from afar. What changed? Why the personal visit?”

I stepped back to dodge the kick and launched myself over her head. She whirled to respond, but not quite fast enough. My talons grazed her cheek, sparking against her aura. “What can I say? He’s a smuggler.”

“Really? That’s it?”

“It is when he’s smuggling kids.”

“There are no records of that,” she pointed out. A spike of ice found the arch of my foot, making me grunt in pain. Dirty maybe, but highly practical. 

I sank to one knee and swept her legs out from under her, only for her to contort herself over a temporary brace of ice to kick me in the face. I rolled to my feet, just in time to catch her blades on my bracers again. Was this round three? Or four? 

I knew what the records said. I also knew what I saw in that warehouse while investigating. I didn’t back down from contracts, and that meant I had to make sure each contract was worth my time. 

I scoffed. “Faunus kids are so easy to overlook, aren’t they? Almost like they don’t exist. You might even call it a victimless crime.”

“I would never,” she spat back. And, to her credit, she wouldn’t. I truly did respect her, her unfortunate choice in career aside. “If that’s true, all the more reason to let us prosecute him.”

“Hmm, no. I’m a piece of shit, snow bunny. I kill. I steal. But I’m a principled piece of shit. I don’t have many lines, but the ones I have, I draw in blood.”

“And you say you’re nothing like the Fang,” she spat bitterly.

I scowled. I blurred forward, catching her off guard momentarily. Three swipes raked across her throat and armpit. “Low blow. You know they’ve got a kill-on-sight bounty out for me?”

“Four million lien, last I checked. That changes nothing. You’re both criminals.”

“Harsh. See? This is why we didn’t work out.”

“I thought that was because you stole proprietary military technology.”

“You really won’t let that go, will you?”

“I might when you return it.”

I called my whirling blades back and flared my cloak like a matador. The bladed hem could cut just as well as if they were in the air. The cape, made from heavy leather, could act as a suitable deflecting tool when necessary. It was barely enough to give me a bit of distance.

I didn’t like it, but it was pretty fucking clear who’d win a battle of attrition. I had more aura than her, but only slightly. She was dishing out way more damage, and a lot more consistently.

Really, the only reason I’d managed to keep up so far was thanks to the dim lighting. As an owl faunus, my hearing and vision were top notch, even among other faunus. Dipping in and out of the shadows to get a few glancing blows on Winter was my best bet, especially since I still wanted LeCroix dead.

Part of me considered leaving. I could maybe catch Winter off guard in a few days, mid-transport. But I knew better. I’d tried that before and truthfully, Winter was far too disciplined. She’d also make sure anyone she appointed was equally anal. If I let LeCroix go now, he’d be lost to me for good.

We engaged four more times. Winter couldn't chase me into the dark. Not only would she be at a laughable disadvantage, she couldn’t stray far from LeCroix, lest I take out Silence and make the shot. I used that to catch my breath; it was the main reason I was still in this fight at all.

On the fifth, she tried to summon a beowulf behind me. It almost worked, but I saw the subtle way the lighting changed from her glyph.

“You can’t seriously still be upset about this cape,” I complained, flipping through the air. “Dr. Polendina probably has a better model by now!”

“That’s not the point and you know it,” she said stubbornly. “Hmph, you’re using them better though.”

“W-What? Was that a compliment? From the Winter Schnee?”

“Shut up! And you wonder why I never say nice things about you!”

“Thank you,” I said more sincerely. “And congrats, by the way. Newly minted specialist, right? You make the uniform look good.”

For a moment, I saw a ghost of a smile flicker across her face. That was good. For all that we clashed, I liked to think we had a “Batman and Catwoman” type of relationship, serious maybe, but usually not malicious.

I felt a bright surge of aura. Really, it was excessive, especially for a medium-sized warehouse like this one.

It was also downright childish. Owls had great eyesight. Naturally, people tried to abuse that with a flashbang. And equally naturally, I was used to it. She knew this, which meant that wasn’t what she was doing.

“Oh, fuck me,” I grumbled as a whole flock of nevermore flew from her glyphs. “What the fuck, snow bunny?”

“Birds of a feather, Slate,” she shot back triumphantly. “You can only run for so long.”

Words died in my throat. I had to focus. Winter’s constructs were semi-autonomous, but my daggers were not. Controlling them all meant splitting my focus. I typically did this by assigning them into three “flocks,” so I only had to divide my attention four ways.

I soon found that my control over my flying daggers wasn’t anywhere near sufficient. I just couldn’t contest Winter in the air and she used my divided focus to kick me in the sternum.

“The number of daggers you use has increased, but that’s only made you sloppy, Slate,” she said imperiously. She stalked closer so she could loom over me in that smug, self-satisfied way all Schnee women seem to know how to do intuitively.

Annoying, but still somehow really endearing. I forced a teasing smirk on my face. “I thought you liked sloppy, snow bunny. And rough.”

“You really want to get beat up more, don’t you? Don’t tell me you’ve developed new tastes since we’ve been together.”

“Only if you bring out the fuzzy cuffs~” I received a kick to the gut for that. “Oof, did I ever tell you that you’ve got really nice legs?”

Eyes rolling, she spat back, “Do you ever stop flirting?”

I reached out and ran my hand along her boot. “Not when it’s such a wonderful distraction.”

And then, Winter went blind and my aura took a nosedive.

She squawked in surprise. Her heeled boots stomped where my head had been, but I’d already rolled away.

My aura was criminally low, but that was just how things went where my darling rival was involved. I either completed my mission flawlessly from a mile and a half away, or we dueled up close and I got my shit kicked in. Learning to use Curtain Call had closed the gap a bit, but she was still superior up close.

No matter. She’d yet to stop me from finishing a mission and she wouldn’t start now. Curtain Call flashed out again. The daggers whirled around her, wrapping her in their wires. As close as we were, I ended up tangled with her, attached by my cape to my… Truthfully, I wasn’t sure what we were.

We landed on the ground with a dull thud. For a moment, we squirmed against each other until I managed to roll on top.

“This is humiliating,” she muttered. “I thought you needed skin contact to do that.”

“I used to,” I confirmed. “I got better.”

“Is this the part where you brag about your Semblance?”

“Hmm, no. You know me better than that, Winter. I’m a profession-owl,” I replied with a cheeky grin she could hear.

“You’re a menace is what you are,” she huffed.

“Don’t act like you don’t li-Ow!” I yelped mid-banter. A nevermore, about the size of a macaw, landed on my back and began to peck away at my head. “Really?”

“Get off me and I’ll dismiss my birds,” she said with a smug smirk. She couldn’t see me, but that somehow didn’t detract from her pettiness.

“You’re such a bitch.”

“I can always summon bigger.”

“You would’ve done that already if you could. You’re just as low on aura as I am.”

“Hmph… So I am.”

“So…” I began.

“Is whatever comes out of your mouth next going to make me want to stab you?” she groaned.

“Absolutely.”

“Then shut up, you infuriating pigeon.”

“That’s racist.”

“You call me snow bunny.”

“You like it.” She said nothing, but I could see her cheeks pink a little. Then, before I could call her on it, electricity surged from her sword, shocking both of us. “Bondage and shock play? My, you’ve gotten adventu–”

Another bolt of electricity ran through us both. “Be silent.”

“You know, LeCroix really is a monster.”

“And that does not change the need for due process.”

I hadn’t just been chattering away. One hand kept the wires taut while the other detached one of the knives from the mesh. It had twelve blades; I could afford to lose one. “It doesn’t, but only one of us respects things like the rule of law.”

She felt what I was doing and began to thrash beneath me. “Slate! Don’t!”

“We both knew how this would end, snow bunny,” I replied, giving her a quick peck on the lips.

My knife spun through the air. Kneecapped as he was, bleeding profusely already, the fat bastard had nowhere to go. I was an owl, the feathered assassins of the world. I would have killed myself in shame if I missed a shot like that.

The dull, wet sound of metal slicing flesh filled the air. It was an eerie sound, unaccompanied by the customary begging or blubbering sobs of a dying man. Such was Nightfall, my Semblance.

He died, and I felt a bit of my aura return to me now that I had no need to suppress his voice.

“Slate!”

“For what it’s worth, Winter, I’m proud of you,” I told her earnestly. “You deserve the specialist’s medal and it’s about time Atlas recognized that.”

She jabbed her thumb into my ribs, about as much as we could do to each other from this position, then slumped in exhaustion. “Why? Why do you have to be a killer? Why do you have to be so earnest?”

“Because you deserve the praise. Atlas could use more people like you, snow bunny.”

“You could do so much more with us,” she whispered. “With me,” went unsaid.

“I’m an owl. I don’t do well in the light. You know that.”

“Just… Just go…”

“Until next time.”

Author’s Note

Yes, another one. No, I’m not apologizing.

Animal Fact: Imagine you’re a nine-banded armadillo. You’re a fucking paladin of the rainforest floor, the heavy knight in the strawweight class. You’re off to raid castles (anthills) or slay dragons (earthworms) or some shit. But you’ve been stymied by a river. What do you do?

Well, you have two options. You can either a) trust in your 7 minute breath, sink to the river floor, and claw your way across, or b) use your own entrails as pool noodles and paddle.

Yeah, I’m not fucking with you. Armadillos can inflate their own intestines and use that to improve their overall buoyancy. They do sometimes cross rivers this way.