II.

Two Steps Forward

When Qrow had informed him that he had found a potential prospect that was interested in attending Beacon, Ozpin wasn't quite sure what to expect.

That prospect being the son of the notorious assassin, Marcus Black, was definitely a surprise but not an unwelcome one. After all, Marcus Black was a terrifyingly skilled fighter that had claimed the lives of many huntsmen, so it wouldn't have been too far off to assume that the son had inherited some of those same skills. And since Qrow had personally vouched for his abilities, that meant he was correct in his assumption.

Mercury would be a useful asset to have on his side of the playing field.

There was always the threat that Mercury could pose to the other students, but had Qrow and Raven not been the same? A pair of twins that had been forced to grow up jaded in harsh situations, and now Qrow was his most trusted right-hand man. While things might have gone a tad sour with Raven, she wasn't an enemy, so he was still fine with the result in the end. The Branwen twins had been a calculated gamble, and it was one that had paid off in his eyes.

Mercury Black would simply be another one of those calculated gambles.

A child should not be judged for the sins of their parents anyway. That was a line of thought that Ozpin had always held firm in. If Mercury wanted out of that life, who was he to deny him?

Naturally, Glynda was furious with his decision. After all, Mercury Black wouldn't be the only potential threat that they were taking in for next semester. There was also the defector from the White Fang that they had to worry about. Ozpin could understand Glynda's frustrations, but he was not going to turn away people that had a desire to change.

And even if that was just a farce, he was not going to turn away a potential pawn that he could keep away from her side of the board. In the end, it was all simply a calculated risk, just as it had been with the Branwen twins. And that was exactly why he now found himself sitting across from Mercury Black in his office.

"Tell me, Mr. Black, why exactly does the son of an assassin wish to attend Beacon?"

It was subtle, but Ozpin couldn't help but notice a slight change in the boy's demeanor at the question.

"... I don't want anything to do with my old man." The boy eventually replied in a chipped tone. "That's it."

It was only for a moment, but there was a strange flicker in his eyes, one where Ozpin wasn't quite sure what to make of it, but it almost seemed like an intense hatred. Ozpin wasn't quite sure what the Black's family dynamic was, but the reports he had received of their estate being torched to the ground wasn't painting their family dynamics in a very good light.

"Just one more question then, Mr. Black." Ozpin stated as he clasped his hands together. "Your father was recently found dead and his house razed to the ground. Was this your doing?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it was." Mercury neutrally replied, without a hint of emotion.

Ozpin only closed his eyes and exhaled. It was as he had expected, but he had been hoping that he was wrong on this one. A child should never have to kill his own father after all. It was honestly a rather tragic situation.

"I see. The semester will be starting in September, I hope to see you there Mr. Black."

"... Yeah. Thanks." Mercury stiffly nodded. "... Later."

Ozpin just watched as Mercury Black stepped out of his office. He took a long sip from his coffee mug before he pulled out another stack of papers from the insides of his desk. A sticky note simply labeled as 'Belladonna' was attached to the top of it.

It was definitely going to be an interesting semester, to say the least.

Vale was a big city.

It was nothing like what he was used to. Mercury had always lived up in the mountains with Marcus after all. It had taken some time to get familiar with the inner city lifestyle, and finding a place to stay at, but he had managed in the end as he always did. The apartment he was staying at wasn't too expensive, but it was loads better than what he had been used to out in the frontier.

He chalked it up to some of the benefits of living in one of the bigger cities of the world.

Qrow had been true to his word and had gotten him accepted into the school. It was kind of surprising how easy it was to get into a 'prestigious academy' like Beacon, but he supposed that was what happened when one had 'friends' in high places. Aside from a strange meeting with the headmaster of the school, everything else had gone by rather smoothly. The semester didn't start for another two months, so he had mostly been biding his time while in Vale.

Mercury had spent a lot of time reflecting on things in the meantime.

He still wasn't sure if he was making the right choice or not. It still wasn't too late to back out now and just go back to scrounging around on the frontier, but what was the point of that? Was he just going to wander around taking odd Grimm hunting jobs here and there until he eventually kicked the bucket?

No, ever since he had declined that woman's offer, this had been the only real choice that he had been presented with. It wasn't as if the skills that Marcus had beaten into him were useful for anything else besides fighting and killing anyway. If he was going to be hunting Grimm for a living, better to do it in an official capacity for better pay and benefits. It made sense, at least logically, in his eyes.

Who would have thought though, that the son of a bastard like Marcus Black would be trying to become a huntsman of all things? It was almost laughable, honestly.

Mercury just scoffed to himself and took a look out the window.

The sun was starting to set, and that meant that his shift was going to be starting soon. The money that he had made hunting Grimm out in the frontier wasn't going to last forever, so he had found a gig acting as a bodyguard at some kind of shady nightclub over by the industrial district for the meantime. The pay wasn't much, but it paid the bills and it was only a temporary thing anyway since he was going to be heading off to Beacon in the coming months.

It didn't take him long to make it to Junior's Club.

Mercury didn't live that far from the place after all. Rent was cheap in the shady areas of town like this, so he had naturally gravitated towards finding a place nearby. The doors soon opened and he was greeted with the same obnoxiously loud music that he had grown all too accustomed to in the last couple of weeks. It was still a bit early, so the place was practically empty aside from the employees and a few regulars.

His boss, Junior Xiong, greeted him with a nod, which Mercury returned as he headed towards his post for the night. A pair of twins, his coworkers, stood nearby typing away at their scrolls as usual.

"Hey Merc." Melanie greeted him with a wave as he approached. "You're early today."

Mercury didn't know much about the twins, but since they were working the same gig as him, he assumed that they knew their way around a fight. It wasn't like he had any reason to find out though, nothing serious ever really went down in the club. Hell, he had spent most of his time just sitting around trying to look for ways to pass the time faster more than anything.

"What can I say ladies, I just love my job."

Both the twins just snorted in unison.

"Whatever you say Merc." Miltia replied for the duo before they both walked off towards the bar. "You want something to drink?" She called back.

"Nah, I'm good."

Mercury didn't think he'd ever drink, not after his experiences.

When Mercury had said that nothing ever happened at the nightclub, it didn't mean that he actually wanted something to go down during his shift.

Unfortunately, some crazy blonde haired chick didn't seem to get the memo. To be honest, though, it had been pretty funny watching Junior get thrown across his own bar table. Being the model employee that he was, he was about to step in but the twins had said they would 'take care of it'. And then they both proceeded to get the stuffing beat out of them by blondie.

This time, he couldn't help but chuckle a bit.

"Merc! What the hell am I paying you for?" Junior shouted from behind the bar table. "Do something!"

Mercury just rolled his eyes.

"Aye aye, boss man." He mock saluted as he casually stepped over a groaning Miltia towards the mysterious intruder. "Sup, blondie?"

"Sup, 'Merc'." The blonde replied in the same casual demeanor. He noticed that she never dropped her guard, however.

"As funny as it was watching you beat the stuffing out of my coworkers, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to return the favor now." Mercury smirked as he got into a fighting stance. "You know how it is, got to earn my keep around here."

"Yeah? Let's see what you got then, tough guy." She smirked back before she rushed in with a powerful right hook.

Mercury had always been an analytical type of fighter. He had been paying a good deal of attention to the blonde's fight with the twins and he couldn't help but think that they were pretty similar when it came to fighting. The only main difference was that she relied on her fists and he preferred to use his legs. They were both hand-to-hand fighters, however, and while she was pretty skilled, he didn't think that she was better than Marcus.

Safe to say, he was pretty confident in his chances.

A fist came flying at his face, which he dodged by tilting his head to the side. He responded in kind with an upper-kick to the neck. To her credit, the girl blocked it pretty cleanly with her gauntlets. They traded blows like that for a while, him with his kicks and her with her punches, but neither of them managed to land any substantial hits during the bout.

Blondie was a rather aggressive fighter, however, and she never let up on the attack. It was becoming rather apparent though that she was getting a bit annoyed at not being able to land a clean hit on him. He traded blows with her every now and then but had spent a majority of the time evading. It was just something that he liked to do, get a good grasp on his opponent's fighting style before going in for the kill shot.

"Would you stop running already!?" Blondie growled out, before discharging a salvo of buckshot rounds from her gauntlets.

Mercury had jumped out of the way, of course, as the bullets flew past him, shattering a bunch of different wine glasses at the bar table behind him. Blondie didn't really seem too deterred, however, as she just kept on firing. Bullets were flying past him in a multitude of different angles as he ran away the nightclub dodging left and right. Unfortunately for the club, more glasses of wine and even some of Junior's favorite LED's ended up on the receiving end.

"Wait, wait stop!" Junior yelled from behind the bar table. "You're destroying my club!"

Mercury didn't really want to waste Dust rounds for just a random scrap in a club, but if Blondie was just going to keep firing off from a distance like that, he was going to respond in kind. Clicking his heel against the safety on his other greave, Mercury fired off a couple off shots from his greaves in response. Blondie's eyes widened for a moment before she held her gauntlets up in response.

The dust rounds impacted against her gauntlets and created a whirlwind of wind and smoke.

"Stop damn it!" His boss roared. "Stop fighting! I'll tell you whatever you want to hear, alright Blondie?! Just stop blowing up my club!"

The gunshots finally stopped and as the smoke from his dust rounds finally cleared, Mercury could see Blondie stroll up to the bar table with a smug grin on her face.

"Music to my ears!" Blondie happily chirped out. "That's all you had to say, Junior."

Mercury just snorted in response.

"Look Merc, go make yourself useful and help with the cleanup or something." Junior grumbled as he wiped off some debris from the bar table. "I'll take care of Blondie."

"Whatever you say, boss." Mercury dully replied. He was a bit disappointed in not being able to finish his fight, but that's how things go sometimes.

Mercury was a bit curious about what Blondie wanted to ask Junior if she was willing to go this far for. But then again, it wasn't any of his business and he had his own job to do. Mercury would be the first person to admit that he was a bit of a prick, but he still prided himself on being a professional while at work. So instead of eavesdropping, he walked away and took a seat over at one of the few tables that hadn't been destroyed from Blondie's shotgun shells.

Blondie and Junior didn't talk for long from what he could see, maybe only ten minutes at the most.

The frown on her face as she walked over towards his table told him all he needed to know about how the conversation went. Whatever it was that she wanted from Junior, the answer that she had received wasn't what she wanted. As to why Blondie was walking over to him though? Mercury didn't have the slightest clue.

"Hey 'Merc'." She said when she finally made her way over. "You're pretty good."

"Yeah, I know."

The girl just rolled her eyes in response. "You know, normally people would say something like, 'Oh thanks, you're pretty good too!' or something like that."

Mercury just shrugged in response.

"Guess I'm not normal then, Blondie."

She crossed her arms over her chest. "It's Yang."

Mercury raised an eyebrow.

"My name." She continued. "It's not Blondie, it's Yang."

He wasn't really sure how to respond to that, because it wasn't like he had asked or anything like that. Nor did he really care, for that matter.

"Mercury." He eventually decided to respond, out of obligation more than anything.

"You know I would've won that fight though, right?" Yang began, as she took a seat at the chair across from him.

Now that actually got a laugh out of him. "Yeah, in your dreams Blondie."

"You know I'm right." She smugly replied. "I had you on the ropes the whole time."

"Right." He sarcastically answered. "You definitely messed me up real good."

"All you did was run away the whole time!" A buzzing sound coming from her pockets drew her attention away before she could go on. "Ah, shoot. I gotta get going." She replied, before putting her scroll away. "Well it's been fun, but I'll see you around Mercury."

Considering that he was going to be out of Vale soon, he highly doubted that.

"Yeah, see you around."