Chapter 106

Chapter is tentative for now, may change it after sleeping on it.

****

I walked back into the waiting area, the place much quieter than when I left. The stares this time weren’t filled with contempt, perhaps something bordering hesitance and respect.

I guess wherever you go, people respect strength.

“Wilhelm!” Rufus called out, walking towards me. “That was amazing, how did you do that?” He excitedly smiled.

“Little bit of skill, nothing worth mentioning.”

He wasn’t the only one, a woman in a more traditional marital artist garb followed. “I thought you were just a clown, but you're actually very skilled.” She crossed her arms, not as all intimidated by what happened. “I look forward to fighting you at the end.” She stated.

“Arslan, was it?” I looked the woman over. “Aren’t you fighting Pyrrha next?”

She just snorted. “I’ll beat her this time, you just better be ready.”

“Well, I’ll wait for you then.” I grinned. I liked her enthusiasm. Honestly, I really liked the drive that all the people here had. It gave off a completely different vibe than on Earth.

I thought I would be bored after a while. I got most of the data I would need, some very interesting things I witnessed regarding aura and Semblances, but I was genuinely having fun. Well, the tournament, I couldn’t much care for, it was the people that made it worth continuing.

Curious if this girl would beat Pyrrha, she did mention it being a close fight.

Who knows?

“Wilhelm Schweinorg?” I turned around to see a handful of people walking right towards me.

“Yes?” I looked at them skeptically.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions.” He took a badge out of his pocket, flashing it at me.

Some kind of police?

“Sure.” I simply answered.

“What’s your relationship with Roman Torchwick?”

I sucked in a breath of air. “Dammit Roman, what did you do?” I couldn’t help but facepalm.

Another spoke up. “Kid, we need to know where he’s at, if you got any information….”

“Sorry, I have no idea.” I glanced around the room as everyone was staring.

“Look, kid.” He stepped forward. “I don’t think you understand what’s going on here. Roman Torchwick is wanted by the Mistralian Government. Now, we don’t think you had anything to do with his crimes, but we need you to tell us everything you know.”

“I really have no idea where he is.” I reiterated.

The man just sighed. “If you’re not going to cooperate, we’ll have to do this the hard way. Wilhelm Schweinorg, you’re being placed under arrest, please put your hands above your head.”

“For what?” I narrowed my eyes, this seemed really suspicious.

“Accessory to grand larceny.” He said sternly, taking a pair of handcuffs out of his pocket.

Grand Larceny….that means he successful robbed that gang boss. But why would they be here trying to grab me if he robbed another criminal? I doubt she would have called the police, unless they’re on her payroll.

Fuck it.

With a frown, I grabbed his hands as he tried to put cuffs on me. “No.” Leaning forward, I grabbed his arm and twist it, making him drop the handcuffs.

“You made a mistake brat!” One of the guys standing in the rear rushed towards me, a weapon drawn from his coat looked like brass knuckles, but they crackled with electricity.

The man tried to punch at me, I deflected his fist with the back of my hand and kneed him in the chest, only to be caught by his aura. Letting go of the cop I had in a hold, I pulled the aura-user by the arm and flipped him over my shoulder, throwing him onto the ground.

“TARGET IS HOSTILE, I REPEAT, TARGET IS HOSTILE.” The one nursing a hurt hand started shouting into his scroll.

The others began to move and I gripped my sword tight. They were way to quick to resort to this kind of reaction.

Something lit a fire under these guys, and I am very much in the dark right now.

Another dozen or so people burst in through the doors, following behind the ones who moved on me.

“PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPON, AND GET ON THE GROUND.” The new guys shouted, by the ones closest to me still moved.

I flashed my sword out, hitting the closest in the face, his aura shuttered, but he still felt a small impact, stuttering.

Another retrieved a gun from his holster, but I stepped forward, grabbing hit and twisting it out of his grip, tossing it to the side and chucking him into the nearby wall.

The other contestants just looked on, dumbstruck by what they were seeing. Rufus, who was closest to me just seemed utterly horrified by what he was watch.

Seems like I can’t finish the tournament now…

I didn’t feel good about killing them either….who knows what’s actually going on right now. I decided to just leg it, turning around and looking towards the only exist that wasn’t swarming with people wanting me in handcuffs.

So, I moved towards the doors that went to the arena.

Bursting through the open doors, I wasn’t the immediate focus of attention, there was a match going on between two people who I didn’t really care to remember. They were in the heat of it as I ignored them and continue onwards, except, some people began to notice me and even more so when people started running in after me.

I guess they weren’t really worried about showing up on camera.

Something was definitely wrong here.

Well, I just had to go to the other side, there was another exist and I –

Another dozen people burst through that door too as I slid to a stop…..they must really want to catch me.

What the fuck did Roman do!?

The two fighting in the arena paused, the Announcer looked on utterly confused at the spectacle.

Many of the police took out their weapons and aimed at me, a barrage of projectiles coming me way without any warning.

I didn’t expect kiddy gloves after I downed a few of their number, but they were certainly ready to turn to this kind of response in order to incapacitate me. I allowed my Aura to flare, blocking all of them, and it was an interesting experience to see my Aura get impacted like that.

Data to mull over for later.

“END OF THE LINE, KID.” A familiar voice boomed. It was the man that I had incapacitated first, his arm looking fine. “THROW YOUR SWORD TO THE SIDE AND GET ON THE GROUND.

I raised my eyebrow. “Which sword are you talking about?” I asked, not giving him time to answer as l had my other swords flew out of my ring and hovered around me.

They moved with a thought, shooting towards both end of the stadium where the police blocked my exits. Piercing through defenses, chopping off significant chunks of aura until some fell to the ground, blood dripping from wounds.

These people didn’t seem very well training in combat. I think a trained huntsman would fair better than this. This was more like, they just awakened the aura of a standard police officer, they lacked the true experience of a fighter.

They fell to the ground at the stunned silence of every spectator who had yet to start evacuating in the ensuing fight, a long with the competitors themselves who followed behind to watch the show.

My swords came back, floating to me gently like they hadn’t just taken out an entire platoon of police.

Dawnbreaker flashed to the side, deflecting a bronze-looking shield that was thrown at me. I turned to look at who threw it.

“Pyrrha?” I was surprised to find her looking at me.

“W-Wilhelm, what are you going, what did you do?” She looked rather confused, and distressed. Her arm trembled slightly, extended to have just thrown her shield.

Yeah, this didn’t really paint the prettiest picture for me. And Pyrrha was a straight arrow kind of girl, she must be having several thoughts about me right now. “I guess we won’t be fighting in the tournament.” I gave out a small laugh.

“Why are you doing this?” Her tone honestly made me wince.

“Well, that’s a bit of a long answer…”

“Please stop.”

Oof.

“That’s not much of an option at this point.” I gestured around to the unconscious and beaten bodies of many police and government authorities. “Sorry, Red. But I think we need to part ways here.”

“This is just a misunderstanding we can clear this up.” She stated, a small bit of hope in her voice.

I couldn’t help but sigh at her attitude. “Doesn’t matter at this point, the damage has been done. I need to leave, Red.”

Just as I said that, I turned around I felt something approach me. The space behind me shattered in a familiar way, a petite hand grabbed onto my sleeve. “Neo?” I asked in surprise, her looks clearly different, most likely to hide herself from all the eyes currently on us.

She looked at me with concern in her eyes. She pulled on me and gestured at the exited, quite explicitly.

“What the hell is going on!?”

She just quickly gestured; anxiety written on her face. I realized I wouldn’t be getting an in-depth explanation from her.

“Stop! I won’t let you go!” Pyrrha took a step forward, reaching her hand out, her shield shot across the distance returning to her embrace.

I blinked in surprise at what she just did. Some kind of telekinesis?

Impressive.

“Sorry, Red.” I muttered as Neo activated her semblance again as we disappeared from her sight.

***

“Kid, you’re alive!” Roman peeked out of a truck window, hands on the ignition, clearly antsy.

“Yeah, apparently no thanks to you.” I narrowed my eyes. “What the fuck, Roman?”

“Okay, that’s fair. But it isn’t my fault.” He retorted as both me and Neo got in the truck.

“How is it not your fault, this entire thing was your plan!?”

“I didn’t expect the bitch to have stolen Atlas tech!” He threw his arms up.

“Wait, what?”

“I didn’t even notice until after we took it. The schematics for Atlas’s latest Mechs and weaponry. I heard this shit was stolen months ago, I didn’t think it’d end up in her hands. Do you have any idea what the Atlas Military will do when they find out someone has this?”

“Why not just ditch it?”

“Too late. Too many people know I took it now, better to keep for a bargaining chip.” He took out a cigar, lighting it up. “Maybe I can give it to old Irondick so he won’t sick his dogs after me.” He sighed. “Fuck, this was supposed to be an easy job.”

“Wait, if you stole it from that gang-lady, why did the government come after me?”

“Oh, she was going to sell it to them.” He turned the key, letting the truck start. “They were negotiating a price, and since there wasn’t much of a rush, they were taking it slow.” He pulled out a stack of papers. “Bitch always did keep detailed records.” He said, tossing them to the side.

“And now you lit a damn fire under them because if Atlas finds out they were trying to acquire this stuff, they would come down on Mistral hard.”

“Welcome to politics.” He waived his hand flippantly. “They didn’t even care about kicking up a fuss during the tournament to grab you even though they probably thought you were just a patsy.”

Suddenly, all of our scrolls started beeping. “ALERT, PLEASE BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR THE FOLLOWING.” An automated message rang out, both me and Roman’s headshots shown with a ‘dangerous criminal, exercise extreme caution.’

“Fuck.” I cursed. I didn’t want this world to be burnt for me, I like a lot of things here.

“It’s not as bad as it looks.” Roman tried to reassure me as the Truck visible changed, Neo focusing her semblance to display a different appearance. It looked like we were in a police car now.

“This seems pretty fucking bad.”

“Okay, it’s bad if we stayed in Mistral, luckily, we live in Vale.”

“That’s….fair.” I mulled it over. “Will Vale also throw a hissy fit?”

“Probably.” Roman nodded.

“The fuck, Roman?”

“Calm your tits, kid. They’ll just do the bare minimum to support Mistral. Don’t expect any kind of response like we’re getting here.” He tossed his cigar out the window. “Just relax, and lets slip out before anyone notices—”

*CRAAASSSHHHHH*

A sudden weightlessness came over me before gravity reasserted itself. The truck went tumbling, rolling on the ground before coming to a stop, something having hit us at extreme speeds.

We were all fine, the benefits of Aura on their part. Only perhaps a bit jumbled from the sudden jerking sensations.

“You were saying?” I gave Roman a glare.