Ruby Rose | Team RWBY (eyesofsilver) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2019-11-13 22:40:00 |
|
|||
Ruby enjoyed her job, she really did. And she liked a good adventure. Still, a bit more than a diamond emoji plus coordinates would have been nice to get from Natasha as she had no idea what that even meant which meant that she had no idea on what to expect.
It was just happenstance that Ruby had been on a reading picnic with Blake when the text came through, otherwise she probably would have just gone it alone. However, she knew that her friend was also part of the Agency and it did seem like an Agency directive so….
“I got a weird text from Natasha, want to come with me to check it out?”
Better to have backup after all.
Working with the Agency had been something not all that different from what Blake was used to doing in her Dreams. Being on a strike team, of a sort, that went out to deal with invasions was largely similar to fighting Grimm on a team, or fighting Adam’s White Fang, among other things.
Now, Blake had long since gotten in the habit of taking Gambol Shroud with her whenever she went anywhere. After all, invasions could strike at any time, and she’d much rather be prepared for a fight than have to navigate across town to get her weapon. Still, she hadn’t expected what Ruby said. Glancing up at her friend, Blake’s attention was focused on her and what, exactly, Natasha had texted Ruby.
“Sure, I’ll go with you. Though given your description of the text, I’m assuming we don’t have much information on what she wants checked out?”
Keeping her weapon on her at all times was sort of a given for Ruby. Which was why it was a good thing it had its compact mode so she could carry it around without anyone actually noticing. A bit hard to explain a sniper rifle scythe. Instead it was usually attached to her belt or in her bag.
But this was Orange County, so it was definitely necessary.
“I mean, unless you can make sense of a bunch of diamonds and coordinates?”
Because that was about all she had. And there was a reply.
“And a ‘highly agitated defender’.”
Either way, still not a lot to go off of.
It was a little harder to openly carry Gambol Shroud around when Orange County wasn’t being invaded, but Blake usually took a bag with her large enough to hold her weapon without it drawing too much attention. When in doubt, play it off as a gym bag, which it actually kind of was.
“Diamonds and coordinates. And an agitated defender. Not a lot of information to go off of, but given this is Natasha, it’s undoubtedly an Agency thing. So whatever it is is probably dangerous with someone guarding it who isn’t happy,” Blake inferred, though it also was the logical conclusion given the information at hand. Blake marked her place in her book and put it away and she started to gather her things.
“So what are the coordinates?” Blake wanted an idea of the landscape they were heading to. Would it be a warehouse? An open field? A house? This was useful information for helping to decide how to approach this. Though she was more than willing to approach it peacefully and not have to use her weapon at all. But given the ‘agitated defender,’ the chances of a peaceful encounter seemed to be small.
“That’s my thinking on it.” Because while Natasha liked to be cryptic, she had a feeling that it was somehow Agency related. Then again, most directives were, especially when they made no sense. Maybe it would make sense once they were where they needed to be. But until then? It was just going to see what Natasha wanted them to investigate and act accordingly.
Putting her own things away, Ruby looked up the coordinates on her phone.
“Um, looks to be on the other side of the park? At least that’s what Google Maps tells me.” But if it was inside a place, or was out in the open? That Ruby wasn’t sure about. Still, once Blake was ready, she led the way to where they were supposed to go. And once there?
“Katou?”
Natasha hadn’t mentioned sending him in and it didn’t look like he was there for the same reason…. And was that a rock in his hand? Okay. Ruby was definitely confused now.
Ever since Michael had tried to steal his rock, Katou had taken to bringing it everywhere with him. If he couldn’t trust Michael, the man he’d been dating for over a year, who exactly could he trust? No one, obviously. Definitely not Gwen, who had talked about the rock giving her a bad feeling.
He’d taken it to the park so that he could better admire it in the sunlight. Even if the dark, it glowed with it’s own inner light, as if a thousand stars resided inside, as if he could hold the entire universe in his hand. But in the sunlight, it was even more brilliant. So beautiful he could barely tear his eyes from it.
At least, he couldn’t until someone called his name, and he looked over at Ruby. “Little Red?” he asked, frowning. It was entirely possible that she and her friend were just here by coincidence, but Katou was having trouble believing anything could be a coincidence now. He put the stone away in his bag and climbed to his feet. “What are you doing here?” he asked suspiciously.
Well, that was convenient that they were close to whatever it was that Natasha wanted Ruby to investigate. Blake kept her eyes open, looking for anything suspicious, but instead they found one of Ruby’s friends. Under other circumstances, she’d probably make some quip about what Katou called Ruby, but at the moment, she didn’t.
The fact that he’d put the rock in his bag and seemed suspicious of Ruby’s approach told Blake he was on edge. Which must be the ‘agitated defender’ Natasha mentioned. But what was so special about the rock?
“We were just on the other side of the park, enjoying the company,” Blake began. She didn’t know Katou, so she wasn’t going to make an attempt to antagonize him if they could diffuse the situation by just talking. She kept her distance, careful to not get too close to him or make it seem like she was going to make a move against him. Which she wouldn’t unless he attacked first.
While she usually associated being called Red or Little Red with Torchwick, Ruby had gotten used to it from Katou so it didn’t bother her anymore. It had never made sense to try and say something since he didn’t seem the type that would have listened and would have just found something else to call her, or just tease her.
Ruby had no idea about what was special about the rock but Katou was being weird, even for him. She wouldn’t consider a rock to be synonymous with a diamond, but…
“Basically what Blake said.” Which was good, because Ruby wasn’t good at lying and it was the truth. Just a major part being left out, like Natasha having sent them the coordinates to investigate something.
“What were you looking at?” But she’d ask. It was hard to know just what to do. So all they could do was try.
Ruby was right about that; if she told Katou to cut it out he would have done nothing more than bring the teasing up a notch. He did, generally, like Ruby, even if he had a strange way of showing it.
But right now, he didn’t like much of anyone, and it was just too suspicious having Ruby there. He didn’t want to have to fight them if Natasha had sent them, but he would if that was the only choice he had. “It’s mine,” Katou snapped in response to Ruby’s question, and turned to her friend again. “You two should probably go enjoy your company at the other end of the park again.”
At least Ruby had gone along with Blake’s response. But this was a delicate situation. Katou clearly had some attachment to the rock. He was agitated and would probably fight them if they tried to take it away from him. The best outcome would be for him to give it to them willingly, but that required a deft touch.
“Is it dangerous?” Blake took a slightly more direct approach in conversation. But she hoped that instead of trying to push a more aggressive line of questioning, she could try to appeal to his better judgement. Blake was just going to hope that he had better judgement on the topic.
Ruby was used to Katou being, well, Katou. Sometimes gruff, usually teasing, things like that. So the way he snapped at her when she asked about the rock? That definitely was different and she almost stepped back in shock but didn’t. She’d gone up against Grimm. Being startled by someone’s attitude wasn’t the biggest of things.
It just meant that Katou was definitely the ‘agitated defender’ that Natasha had mentioned. So while Blake decided to try a more direct approach and appeal to Katou’s better judgment, Ruby was running scenarios in her head. Katou’s strengths and weaknesses that she had learned just by being on a field team with him, her and Blake’s own strengths as possible attack combinations, the area they were in and how best to utilize it should it become necessary.
“No,” Katou snapped. “I’ve already tested it.” And by tested it, he meant he hit it a few times to see if it blew up, muttered any nonsense magic words he could think of at it, ran his astral power through it, and put it through a few other mundane tests to see if it would blow up. Why Zatanna had given him her job when she’d left when Katou had no real magical experience or knowledge, he would never understand, but he was pretty much the entirety of the Occult Division had so he was the one who was stuck with these things.
“So did the boss lady.” Or, at least, she had sent over that one chick from the science division to test it for radiation. “Now I’m telling you to go back to your little picnic or whatever the hell it was you were doing and leave me alone.”
Yes, Katou definitely did seem like he was the ‘agitated defender’ Natasha had mentioned. Still, it might’ve been nice for the ‘boss lady’ to have given them a little more detail on the situation. Nevertheless, Blake wasn’t going to simply give up. Not when Katou seemed to be a ticking time bomb, hopefully not literally, and people could be in danger.
“That is reassuring that it’s not an active threat. But Natasha seems to have reason to be concerned about this object.” Blake sort of wished that she knew Katou, or at least knew how he typically acted. What if this thing was controlling his mind? Or maybe it was otherwise altering his perception in some way that hadn’t been detected by any tests? Knowing if Katou was acting any different than normal would be something Ruby might have better knowledge of than herself.
More information from Natasha really would have been nice. Though Ruby had to wonder if even Natasha knew much more than the fact that the rock was apparently strange and that Katou would be agitated. No matter. She’d just go with what happened and see what happened from there.
Of course, she hadn’t anticipated that Blake would say that Natasha was worried. Which maybe she should have. Especially given the more subtle way wasn’t exactly working. Though given how defensive and possessive Katou already seemed? How he told them to just go along with what they’d already been doing?
“Maybe we should take it in, just to make sure that it hasn’t turned into an active threat.” After all, things could change. And well, it was at least an opening for Katou to maybe see reason? Hopefully?
‘Reason’ was the furthest thing from Katou’s mind. He hadn’t brought Shiranui with him, but he was beginning to wish he had. He did have the knives that Ruby had made for him, the ones that would come back to him once he threw them, and he had his arm. He knew Ruby was a skilled fighter, though he didn’t know much about the other one. It didn’t matter though. The rock was his, and it was his to protect, and even if he was outmatched he wasn’t going to just give it up without a fight.
“I’m so fucking sick of people trying to steal what’s mine,” Katou growled, and even if the glamour he wore made his left arm look human, there was nothing human about the blades that suddenly emerged from his finger tips. “I don’t wanna fight you, but if you don’t piss off I ain’t gonna have a choice.”
The subtle way hadn’t worked, but Blake had hoped that by stating the truth of them being there, it would help cut the tension. Though that seemed to not be the case. Blake didn’t want to fight Katou, though stopping that from happening seemed to be getting more improbable as time went on. So there was clearly something up with this. Or at least Blake felt like there was. She couldn’t speak to how Katou normally acted, but his behavior currently wasn’t reassuring that he was in his right mind.
“We don’t want to fight you either. That’s not why we’re here. We’re here because something’s clearly happening that’s not right.” Blake explained, holding her hands up to show she wasn’t armed and that she wasn’t reaching for any weapons. She wasn’t going to make the first move, but if Katou attacked her, she’d use her Semblance to dodge the blow.
Thankfully her Semblance tended to be useful when she didn’t want to actively fight someone that was trying to fight her. She didn’t need a weapon, and she didn’t intend to draw one, even if Katou had blades on his arm.
The one good thing in all of this was that they were away from people, meaning that any fight that might (okay, at this point? probably) breakout wouldn’t be witnessed by anyone and no one would get hurt. Even so, Ruby was definitely a fan of avoiding fighting even as it was clear Katou was ready to fight.
Like Blake, the shorter woman also held up her hands - away from Crescent Rose - in order to show that they game in peace and that fighting was the last thing on her mind. Even if she was having to go through different strategies even as they tried to keep this civil.
“We’re worried.”
Because while Natasha might have sent them? Ruby was definitely worried about Katou. She wouldn’t make the first move but if she had to, it would be tag team time. A new move - a combination of Ladybug and Bumblebee to utilize the speed of Ladybug and the double use of Gambol Shroud that Bumblebee did. It would be a first time using it but well...no time like the present? Especially with only Blake and Ruby there. But it would in theory keep Katou from being injured even if they had to tie him up with the ribbon that was attached.
“There ain’t nothing to worry about,” Katou snapped. He looked between them, taking half a step back and taking a stance that would make it easier to move how he wanted to. He didn’t want to fight them. For the most part, he like Little Red, and hurting her wasn’t high on his list of priorities. But he wasn’t about to give up his stone for them anyway, and a quiet, sibilant voice in the back of his head was telling him that the only way to keep it was to stop them from taking it.
Well, there were healers around. All he had to do was hurt them a bit and they’d back off. He definitely wasn’t going to kill them, whatever happened. He’d seen Ruby in action, and, for the most part, he knew what to expect. She was fast, faster than Katou, but he could probably hold his own. He didn’t know what to expect from her brunette friend though, so the logical option was to take her out first. And so, without much warning, he lunged himself at Blake, his claws raking through her torso. Not fatal, but definitely a wound that would force them to go get medical attention instead of bothering him and his stone.
Yeah, that definitely was not going to be a thing. Ruby wasn't going to lose a friend. Not on her watch. With speed on her side, she burst into rose petals and then she and Blake seemed to be a red and black petal formation until they were behind Katou. With a look to her partner, a variation of the Ladybug move was used. Both speed and each with the end Gambol Shroud to tie Katou up and immobilize him.
"Sorry, Katou. You'll thank us later."
She hoped. For now though it was securing the Arkenstone to get it to the Agency and to get Katou help.
So much for a peaceful reading picnic.