Egrer would be lying if he said he didn't miss the Malachite twins' roasting and little jabs. It was their default way of communicating, and you build up an immunity to it pretty fast—you just have to tough it out for a bit and get to know them better.
But either Egrer had lost his touch, or the twins had leveled up their game. Because their digs had never been this vicious before! How could his simple desire to play music get dragged so hard? How could he get completely humiliated just for running away from his folks? If he didn't know this was just their twisted way of showing they were happy to see him, he'd definitely be pissed. But right now, he was just trying to grind his lost defensive skills back up, attempting to parry their attacks. And failing miserably.
"Oh, Eg, you've gotten sooo good at singing. I'm literally about to cry, there's just so much raw emotion!" Melanie wiped away fake tears with her fur scarf. Her habit of playing with her tone and pouring buckets of sarcasm over everything hadn't changed one bit. Hoping it would was way too optimistic.
"With all that time away, you could've learned a bit more. But yeah. Not bad," her sister, Miltia, added while dramatically painting her nails a bright, blood red—her favorite color, by the way. Looking at her outfit, you could easily guess she didn't have any other favorites. Then again, that ran in the family; Melanie never wore anything but white.
"Why does everything you two say sound like another insult?" Egrer grumbled.
From the dance floor came a few weak claps, and thank fuck they weren't clapping because of his allegedly terrible playing—which the twins were heavily hinting at—but simply because the club was dead empty. Even those few claps died instantly when the sisters turned around to glare at the brave souls. Nobody was allowed to interrupt their session of dunking Egrer in the trash; they hadn't done this in forever!
His songs—or rather, rock covers of tracks by Weiss Schnee, Red Callister, Melicenta Dunkel, and other popular artists he had agreed upon with Junior—were being listened to by a grand total of ten people. This massive crowd included: Egrer's pack, the snarky Malachite sisters, DJ Joe (who hated everything except dubstep), a pissed-off Junior, and two gangsters (who were the ones that clapped). The rest of the mobsters hadn't even noticed when he started singing; they were so used to the background noise that they just tuned it out.
"Less talking, more working!" Junior yelled, taking another swig of some cheap booze.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Yort protested, gesturing at the empty room. A bright disco ball spun cheerfully overhead, completely killing the vibe. "There's nobody here, man."
"I'm paying you to sing your damn songs, kid! So play the next one!"
Egrer knew the first hour of the shift would be slow, but he didn't expect it to be this dead! They'd been up here for forty minutes and not a single new customer had walked in. He was starting to suspect the club actually opened at midnight, and Junior had just screwed him over to get him off his back.
"Grumpy as my old man..." Egrer muttered.
"The fuck did you just say?!" Junior casually waved his scroll in the air—the one with the blackmail photo for the twins.
"I said, I'm playing the next track now." The leader looked at his pack. Everyone except Magenta looked exhausted. "Any requests from the audience?"
"Play 'Grimm's Belch'!" Melanie shouted.
"Fortunately, garbage like that isn't in my contract with Junior." Besides, Egrer didn't listen to trash. Music had to have meaning, and literally anyone could just burp into a mic.
"You're just out of touch, it's a breakthrough genre! A year from now, 'Belch' or 'Dump' will be blasting from every speaker."
"Miltia, do you have any sane requests?"
"You can't play the stuff I listen to," she replied, blowing on her fresh nails and slipping on her fingerless gloves.
As if waiting for this exact moment, Magenta started bouncing in place.
"Ooh! Let's do the song about the little spider!"
"No, we are not singing a children's lullaby. We didn't even rehearse it."
"But my mom used to sing it to me all the time!"
"Maybe next time." Magenta nodded happily, completely unaware that "next time" meant "never." "In that case, exercising my rights as leader, I declare the next track! 'Frozen Heart' by the infamous pop group Almond. May those pop sellouts burn in hell..."
He was already running out of the few good songs available, since only a handful of world-famous pop artists actually wrote decent lyrics. The rest was just basic pop trash, and Egrer hated it. It lacked any real depth, and if it did have meaning, it was usually cliché, trashy bullshit about someone dumping someone, someone crying about it, or the artist just flexing their wealth/beauty/talent. Although the flexing was mostly a rap problem, pop had its fair share too.
And despite all that, the masses ate that shit up, threw money at them, and idolized these performers, only to drop them the second a new star popped up. Classic rock, on the other hand, would never fade into history! But bands like The Jester King, Larisa,Southern Fleet, or Toxic Sector unfortunately weren't approved in the contract. So he was stuck singing shitty pop songs for an audience of ten. Well, everyone has to start somewhere...
Yort rhythmically hit the cymbals, Illmond plucked the strings of his bass, and Egrer struck a simple chord. Magenta waited for her cue; everything was going exactly as rehearsed. Man, their neighbors had screamed bloody murder during those practice sessions.
Egrer struck a badass pose, raised his hand high, and slammed the strings to Yort's accelerating beat. Sure, they were playing absolute garbage, but it was a rock cover of garbage! And rock can make even complete shit sound a little more presentable. At least to the ear. And so, the lyrics began:
"I'll neveeer beeeeee—!"
Suddenly, a deafening club track blasted through the speakers, causing Egrer to miss a note so badly that the end of his line turned into an incomprehensible screech. Just like the rest of his pack's music.
"Hey, hey, hey! What the fuck!?"
DJ Joe was flipping him the bird with one hand while scratching a vinyl record with the other. Apparently, he felt a little too safe up in his booth with a Dust turret right next to him. Egrer made a mental note to sic Yort on him later.
"We're playing here, excuse you!" Magenta yelled. She looked genuinely pissed and outraged, mostly because she hadn't even gotten to play her part yet.
"Your hour is up, beat it." Junior slapped his hand on the bar, leaving a few Lien bills on the counter.
His entire demeanor screamed that everyone was pissing him off and getting in his way. Apparently, Hei was just sleep-deprived, but that was a wildly optimistic assumption, implying Junior could ever be a pleasant person.
"Bravo!" Melanie clapped energetically from the floor, though no one else joined her. Miltia was ostentatiously brushing invisible dust off her red dress, and the two random gangsters just walked away. What an ungrateful audience this place had! How was he supposed to build a reputation as a legendary rocker if these were his only listeners? "Now come over here so we can have a real chat! Haven't seen you in years!"
"So you guys did miss me. Cute," Egrer remarked sarcastically.
"Oh, look who's talking! The minute you roll into town, you come running straight to us!" Melanie couldn't counter with facts, so she met sarcasm with sarcasm.
Honestly, it was actually pretty cute.
"Get off the stage," Junior ordered. "I won't kick you out of the club, but no more singing." He pointed a finger at DJ Joe's booth. "We have our own professionals."
"Alright, alright, don't get your panties in a twist." Egrer was about to help Yort pack up his drum kit, but was met with a nasty, warning glare. He smoothly pretended he was actually walking toward Magenta. "So, what's the plan, guys? Heading home, or chilling here a bit longer?"
"I'm gonna dance!" It wasn't hard to guess who said that.
"The less time I spend in that dump of an apartment, the better," the Vacuo thug grumbled.
"I think I'll bounce, actually," Illmond muttered. Zipping up his bass guitar case, he slung it over his shoulder. Adjusting his coat and pulling his hood down, he prepared to leave. But unfortunately for him, Egrer wasn't about to let his old friend go home and rot in isolation. The boy needed to socialize, damn it! So Egrer whispered into Magenta's ear:
"He's full of shit. He secretly really wants to dance."
"Ill! You want to dance!"
"Is that a question?" The hikikomori knew he didn't have a choice, but he decided to try and make an excuse anyway. "My head hurts and I think I'm getting a cough, have some pity. Cough, cough, see?"
"You want to dance!"
***
Junior loved flashy luxury and always tried to flex his wealth to impress VIP clients. Egrer was no expert on rare wood types or interior design trends; he sensed luxury through his own sixth sense—the stronger the urge to steal something, the more luxurious the room. This was likely because the owners of such opulent places were usually the victims of his family's heists, waking up to find themselves a few million Lien poorer. A thief's reflex, you could call it. It was nice to see that the VIP booths on the balconies hadn't changed a bit. Ah, stability... It's so rare in today's ever-changing world.
Being in this booth made Egrer a little jittery, just like it did years ago, but the burning desire to unscrew the gilded legs from the coffee table was gone. Progress!
"Eg, you call yourself a rocker?!" Melanie huffed. "You gotta look the part. Where's the mohawk? Where's the spiked leather jacket?"
He nearly fell off the plush sofa at her basic-bitch understanding of the rock phenomenon. But then again, what could you expect from someone with her musical tastes? Or rather, her total lack thereof? Egrer hastened to set the record straight.
"Rock is a lifestyle, not a dress code! It's about breaking outdated rules, progress, turning shit upside down! It's about freedom, for fuck's sake. I want to wear a suit and tie, so I wear a suit and tie! I am a classy, intellectual rocker."
It was easy to tell Egrer was just fucking around, but deep down, he actually believed it. They all had a good laugh, and even Yort cracked a smile. But only for a second; he quickly reverted to his usual stoic scowl.
"This guy again." Miltia nudged her sister, who had begun leaning a bit too persistently toward Yort. She had apparently caught his fleeting smile and wanted to see what other emotions that stone-faced wall of muscle could produce.
But Yort couldn't give a rat's ass (or a drum beat, get it? That pun never gets old), because Melanie couldn't help him get stronger or return the true heir to the Vacuo throne... no, wait, Egrer was definitely mixing up his backstory with something else again.
"Melanie!"
"Chill, sis, baby Junior will chase him off himself."
Curious, Egrer glanced down to see who had pissed Hei off so much that he had to call in the Malachite twins. Trudging across the half-empty but rapidly filling dance floor was a lost-looking blond kid in a hoodie, with a sword strapped to his hip. Probably an Aura user, though openly carrying a weapon was a privilege reserved only for Huntsmen and Huntsman academy students. The Malachite sisters hadn't even graduated from prep school, so their weapons were concealed.
Egrer would have asked who the guy was, but decided against it; the amused sisters would likely twist even the most innocent question into an excuse to roast the shit out of him. Did he really miss these chimeras?
"Who's that?" Magenta asked innocently, and Egrer mentally thanked her.
She leaned far over the railing to get a closer look at the blond guy. Tactful Illmond, dropping his scroll, lunged forward just in time to catch her by her scarf. Honestly, even if she fell, an Aura user of her level wouldn't feel a thing—she'd just dust herself off and jump right back up.
"Nobody," Melanie replied, completely ignoring the fact that Magenta was currently dangling over the edge. Her eyes were fixed solely on Yort. And Yort was staring right back. Storms, explosions, raw emotions—their staring contest was filled with everything except romantic tension. It looked more like a lion and a tigress sizing each other up to see who could tear the other to pieces faster. "Just some squirt who's been showing up for the second week in a row, begging Junior to make him fake IDs for Beacon."
"And why is Junior refusing?" Egrer asked.
"The boy's broke," Miltia answered for her sister, sipping a cocktail. Unsurprisingly, the drink was red. "And he refuses to trade his sword for 'em."
"Speeeaaaking of which!" Melanie sang, suddenly pushing off from Yort and landing right next to Egrer. Even though they were strictly drinking non-alcoholic beverages (the sisters were on duty, and Junior had spitefully refused to comp the pack's drinks), Melanie was acting incredibly playful.
She threw her arm around Egrer's shoulders—though it felt more like a combat grapple—and booped his nose with a sharp talon. Having failed to get even a single dry sentence out of Yort, she decided to switch to an easier target. Melanie was like a cat: the more attention you paid her, the happier she was, but if you ignored her, she'd just walk away.
"So how did you guys manage to get into Beacon?"
"Forged our documents, obviously," Egrer admitted easily; there was no point hiding it from his own kind. "There was no other way. Ill is the only one of us who actually went to a Huntsman prep school."
"I can see the quality of his education from here," Miltia remarked. She was blushing furiously, looking intently at Illmond's dropped scroll.
The owner of said scroll snapped his head around so fast his neck cracked. Through his bangs, his eyes went wide with sheer terror. He never, under any circumstances, let anyone touch his scroll, and he went absolutely feral when people took it without asking. Without warning, Illmond lunged at the fascinated girl, giving her no time to react.
"Give it back!" They flipped over the sofa, wrestling for control of the largest repository of hentai in all of Remnant. Miltia jammed her heel into Illmond's face, while he reached desperately for his property with both hands. Driven by the animalistic fury of a misunderstood artist, he forced Miltia's leg to bend further, his hand inches from his scroll. "Stupid 3D thot!"
"Come on, sis, put that coomer in his place!"
Egrer facepalmed, hiding a nervous smile. This was an absolute embarrassment. His own pack had just handed the twins enough blackmail material to last a lifetime; moving to the ass end of civilization didn't seem like such a terrible idea anymore. The only one who hadn't managed to ruin anything yet was Yort, but he always stayed silent around people he didn't trust. The quirks of a former drug lord doing time... or whatever his backstory was.
Suddenly, Yort stood up, bumping his knees against the table and nearly flipping it. At first, Egrer feared his worst nightmare had come true and he'd finally met someone who could read minds, but the reality was much worse.
"Where's Madge?!" Yort was staring at the spot where she had been standing recently... or rather, dangling... right before Illmond let go of her...
Egrer grabbed his head and groaned loudly.
How many times are they gonna fuck everything up?!
The twins were going to eat him alive after this shitshow! He hadn't seen the Malachite sisters in ages, and this was the new impression he was leaving them with? That he'd befriended a rude, sociopathic pervert, a mentally unstable weird girl, and a suspicious, mute block of muscle? It was as if his pack was actively trying to sabotage their leader by burying the sisters in embarrassing situations. He needed to find Magenta ASAP before she caused a real disaster!
Even Melanie looked surprised by their sudden panic and awkwardly scooched away from Egrer, smoothing out her white dress.
"Ill, stop fighting, we have a fucking problem!" Egrer yelled, jumping to his feet. But Illmond completely ignored his leader. "We have an emergency! Miltia, give the scroll back! I'll send you a link to his artwork later!"
"Wait, he drew all this?!" the girl shrieked, looking at the miserable artist who was literally crawling over her. "Eeeek!!! Get the fuck off me, you perv!"
Goddammit, now they know Illmond draws hentai. This day literally cannot get any worse!
"I have zero interest in your three-dimensional body! Give me the scroll!" A nervous smile cracked Egrer's face, and his eye began to twitch.
"Useless piece of shit," Yort hissed. He grabbed Illmond by the scruff of his neck, yanked him off, and tossed him into an armchair. Ripping the scroll from Miltia's hands—nearly taking her fingers with it—he chucked it directly at its owner's head. Illmond caught it mid-air and hugged it to his chest. "I'm going after Madge."
The rugged Vacuo bandit hopped over the balcony railing and dropped down to the first floor, leaving Egrer and the sisters in mild shock.
"He is," Miltia started, struggling to find a sophisticated enough word for the situation, "quite... blunt and uncompromising."
"Something like that," Egrer mumbled. "Alright, I'm going after him—I mean, after her, after Madge!"
He didn't bother imitating Yort's dramatic balcony drop; he'd drawn enough unwanted attention for one night. Instead, he just took the stairs.
"Ill, make yourself useful and look for Madge from up here," Egrer ordered. The misunderstood artist glared at Miltia and tucked his scroll safely into his coat's inner pocket.
"Fine." He pulled on a pair of futuristic gloves and slotted a vial of black liquid into a port on his wrist. A soft whirring sound followed, and a second later, threads of Gravity Dust sprouted from his fingertips, bending to his will. He wrapped them around his palms and literally crawled up the wall toward the ceiling.
"What's the big panic about anyway?" Melanie asked, following Egrer downstairs. "What could your Madge possibly do?"
"That's exactly the problem—nobody knows. She might be planting a bomb right now, thinking she's helping squirrels hide their nuts."
"There are no squirrels in the city," Miltia noted, deciding to flex her trivia knowledge. "Dense urban infrastructure only leaves room for rats and pigeons."
"You try explaining that to her."
Yort's massive frame stood out like a sore thumb among the teenagers filling the club, although there were plenty of adults who barely reached the Vacuo thug's chest. Quickly catching up to him, they split the search zones. Egrer took the bar and the surrounding area.
White fog—or maybe smoke, some contraption of DJ Joe's—erupted from the floor. The patrons immediately cheered up, and the DJ swapped his record for a high-energy track, violently bobbing his plush bear head as if having a seizure. Egrer had never understood this kind of music, nor the people who listened to it; it was just tasteless garbage. Why couldn't they listen to something with meaning, double or triple meanings, something that actually grabs your soul?!
Walking along the wall around the dance floor, he reached the bar and addressed Junior first. As the boss, Junior always kept an eye on things: making sure his boys weren't slacking off, and ensuring that hyped-up teenagers didn't start doing shameless shit right in the middle of the room. He always claimed he ran a respectable establishment, and he tried to live up to that.
"Hei, have you seen Madge?"
"Nope. Should I be expecting trouble from her?"
"No, what? No, not at all." Egrer's cheeks instantly stretched into a goofy smile. Junior frowned; he knew exactly what that meant.
"If anything happens to my club, I will rip your fucking head off." And with that, he casually went back to mixing drinks for his clients.
"Have you seen the blond kid? The one begging you for fake IDs." Magenta could have easily taken an interest in him, which meant they might be together. Egrer really didn't like the idea of her mingling with some shady guy, so he had to hurry.
"I turned him down, and he wandered off. I don't know where. Probably sitting around here somewhere; he doesn't exactly stand out in a crowd."
Getting his answer, Egrer stepped back to get a better view of the room. Between the darkness, the laser show, and the disco ball, the whole place was a swirling mess of bright, colored spots. And the guests themselves mercilessly tortured their hair, dyeing it the most toxic, neon shades imaginable. In this epileptic nightmare, finding Magenta's multicolored hair was practically impossible. His only option was to wander around and hope to physically bump into her.
His scroll buzzed with a message from Illmond.
«She's by the sofas near the west wall. Your bitches are heading there too.»
Breathing a sigh of relief, Egrer headed toward the specified location. Tucked slightly away from the general madness, small booths were set into the walls, occupied by solidly dressed folks having private conversations. This area was mostly for wealthier clients who didn't quite make the cut for Junior's inner circle.
"Eg!" Magenta bounded over the moment she saw her leader, grabbing him and dragging him somewhere. "You have to help him!"
"Help who?"
"Him!" She pushed Egrer toward the blond guy, who had already been teased to the point of turning bright red by the Malachite sisters. He was nervously fiddling with his sword scabbard, not knowing where to look to avoid Melanie and Miltia, who had him surrounded.
He looked so flustered, the picture of pure innocence. An outsider might think, "Wow, lucky bastard!" but that outsider didn't know the Malachites.
"Sorry, Madge, but once the twins lock onto a victim, not even the Twin Gods can save them." Egrer chuckled at his own pun. Hopefully, the Gods wouldn't smite him for it. "Don't worry, once they get bored playing with their food, they'll leave him alone."
"That's not what I mean!" She shoved Egrer onto the sofa across from the poor guy, who immediately started blabbering:
"You're Egrer, right?" Straight to business, then.
"Let's assume I am..."
"Please, make it so I can get into Beacon!" Egrer raised an eyebrow, not quite believing what he was hearing.
"Aww, he's so cute when he begs," Melanie whispered to her sister.
"Like a little puppy," Miltia agreed.
"The fuck kind of ask is that?! Do I look like a freaking wizard to you?!"
"Oh, Eeeeeg!" Magenta whined, on the verge of tears. "If someone desires to go to Beacon with all their heart, you can't stand in their way! You have to help him!"
"Do you realize you're asking me to break the law? Forging documents gets you jail time, you know." He addressed both of them simultaneously. While the butterfly Faunus's reaction was expected, the blond guy didn't look crazy.
"Please," he chimed in, eliciting even more delight from the Malachites. "I can't go back home empty-handed. I was told you managed to forge documents to get into Beacon."
"Who?! Whose tongue do I need to cut out?!" Egrer instantly glared at the sisters, but they wouldn't have blabbed.
They were gossips and menaces, sure, but they wouldn't spill highly confidential information to a stranger even at gunpoint. They were reliable in that regard; their boss was an info broker, after all, and he wouldn't tolerate loose lips in his gang.
But who wasn't reliable was Magenta, who had suddenly become fascinated by the disco ball's light patterns. Egrer sighed heavily.
"If you get caught, you'll be looking at five years in a maximum-security prison. Also 'empty-handed'." The blond's jaw tightened, but he remained resolute. The steely determination in his eyes was unmistakable.
"And if it works?"
"Can't argue with that, fine." He belatedly realized he hadn't even introduced himself. After all, if they were going to be schoolmates, the guy should at least know the name of the person to whom he owed his enrollment. "Egrer Peleni."
"Jaune Arc." They shook hands, and the blond winced in pain. It wasn't that Egrer squeezed particularly hard; this poor Huntsman-wannabe just clearly had pathetic Aura reserves.
"What's your budget?"
"Umm... I have enough."
"That's a very flexible concept," Egrer noted.
"A thousand Lien."
The Malachite sisters exchanged a synchronized look, mouthed "No way," waved goodbye, and walked off. They knew he wasn't rich, but that broke?! Jaune looked as if his heart had just been shattered. He had no idea how lucky he truly was.
"Yikes. How do you even survive?"
"I'm staying with a relative."
"Let's help him, Eg! A friend in need is a friend indeed."
"I'm not giving him money. Technically, he should be paying me for my help. And since when are we friends? We literally just met."
"Oh, Eg, please!"
"No, our own finances are a disaster. And now I'm gonna have to sweet-talk Sarah into doing this on credit." Magenta puffed out her cheeks, crossed her arms, and turned away. Egrer focused his attention on the blond. "Sarah is an acquaintance of mine; she's the one who forged my papers. I'll try to talk her into it, but I can't guarantee results."
Why not make another friend at Beacon? Egrer just hoped Jaune didn't have the same level of crazy baggage as the rest of his pack.
"Really? Thank you so much! I'll definitely pay you back!"
"I'm helping you for free, but you're gonna have to pay her." Egrer dialed his contact's number. It was currently around lunchtime in Mistral, so he wasn't worried about waking her up.
Calling a different continent from a scroll was a terrible idea. Usually, you'd book a comm session at a CCT tower, but none of them had the money for that. Intercontinental calls were expensive; the Atlas engineers kept their trade secrets tight and raked in massive profits for maintaining the towers. The free scroll network used the CCTs as relays, but it was notoriously glitchy. Calls dropped randomly, and there was terrible audio lag. Only texting worked without driving you insane.
The ringing finally stopped, and a voice came through the static. "Hello?"
"Hey, Sarah, how are things? How's life?" It would be rude to jump straight to business; you had to make a little small talk first. He put it on speaker so Jaune and Magenta could hear her too.
"So you call a poor old woman just to ask how she's doing?" The brisk voice from the other continent crackled and hissed. "Don't make my late husband's Dust spin in its urn. The rates are the same. What exactly do you need?"
"Ah..." He was thrown off for a second but quickly recovered. "I need documents for Beacon, like the ones you did for me. For another friend."
"Look at you, pulling a stunt like that! Is the Headmaster blind over there? If he...[loud static] ...doesn't read the papers at all?"
"He has his own criteria for letting people into the academy. He busted Yort, Madge, and me, but he still accepted us. Maybe Ozpin just takes the paperwork for formality's sake. Why reject an applicant if you see potential in them?"
"Oy, you don't need to sweet-talk me, I'm already on board! Thirty grand transferred to my card, and I'll mail it out in a week."
At the quoted price, Jaune hiccupped and went pale.
"That's even more than Junior asked for. Where am I going to get that kind of money?"
"You see," Egrer started tapping his finger nervously on the table, "he doesn't have the cash right now, but I promise, as soon as he gets it, my friend will pay you back!"
"Eggy-boy, my heart bleeds for your misfortune, but take pity on me too! I'm too old for scandals."
"Sarah, please, the money will come." Egrer shot Jaune a look that clearly said 'Do we raise the bid?' and the blond gave a defeated nod. "Why take thirty grand now, when you could have forty grand later?"
"Eh? How much? I can't hear you!"
"Forty grand, I said!"
"Why would I want forty grand later when I get diddly-squat right now? Stop trying to play the stock market with my finances, you're no banker!"
Egrer shrugged, communicating, 'I did everything I could.' But then Jaune leaned closer to the scroll.
"What if we make it fifty?"
"Young man, I have no guarantees that you won't pull a fast one on me! I don't know the first thing about you!"
"How about sixty?" Egrer stared at the blond in shock, but Jaune wasn't backing down.
"Oh, what is he doing, what is he doing! The boy knows how to make an old heart flutter. Seventy grand, and we have a deal."
"Deal."
"I'm holding you responsible for this, Eggy-boy!" Before he could object, the call dropped.
"You're insane," Egrer summarized, tossing his scroll on the table. He pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned back into the sofa. "You just signed yourself into debt slavery. And made me your warden."
"But he'll be in Beacon! That's the main thing, the most important thing of all!" Magenta cheered, and Jaune agreed wholeheartedly.
"I'll earn the money somehow. I don't even know how to thank you guys..."
"Like I said—don't sweat it. Let's head to the bar, I'll introduce you to the rest of the crew, maybe we'll get a drink."
"Alcohol?" The blond looked uncomfortable.
"No, Junior doesn't serve minors, and definitely not me."