Today was an exam. And honestly, if it wasn't for Magenta, the whole pack would have definitely flunked it. She was the only one in all of Beacon who had the idea to seriously prepare for the Health and Safety exam. Even the most notorious straight-A students in their year hadn't dared to do such a thing. Weiss certainly hadn't.
Someone might think, "To hell with it, it's Health and Safety, the subject is completely unimportant anyway!" and in a normal school for mere mortals, they'd be right. But here in a Huntsman academy, saying something like that could land you in detention, and the teachers would actually be in the right.
Health and Safety was a crucial subject for their profession. I mean, what's the point of combat prep if you can't bandage a civilian's wounds? What's the point of being in good physical shape if you don't know how to safely pull someone out from under a pile of rubble? A fresh corpse doesn't give a shit about your technique and fancy tricks; it needs a defibrillator, and you better not screw it up. Otherwise, you'll have to explain to the deceased's parents why you fried their kid's body.
According to the Health and Safety teacher, a seasoned seventy-year-old Huntress, that is a dubious pleasure.
"Surprise Nevermore attack!" And there she was, jumping from the ceiling onto her next victim. Jaune, who was enthusiastically wrapping his head in bandages, took a staff to the crown of his head. "You're dead. Get out of the classroom, F."
"But Mrs. Licht!"
"Zip it." She smacked him with her stick again, this time on the lips. "What do I hammer into your heads every lesson? You must always be ready for a surprise attack! Constant vigilance!"
The teacher had decided to spice up the routine a bit, so besides passing the actual exam itself, you also had to respond to her attack. Either manage to land the first strike, or at least dodge it, which Egrer had no problem with. She was holding back a lot anyway, yelling out the names of her attacks right before she actually attacked.
Plus, she was a cat Faunus with a cat tail. It was no trouble for him to jump away from her attack in time, because whenever she was near, his nose immediately started running and his lungs practically begged to jump out. For the first time in his life, Egrer found an upside to his allergy.
Where did this skinny old lady even get so much energy? She should be retired and babysitting grandkids, not working at Beacon.
Katie Licht leaped to the ceiling, and her powerful tail hooked onto a beam. A little effort, and she was walking on the ceiling again, looking for relaxed or inattentive students. Her bright green eyes shone with the thrill of the hunt.
Her classroom was the most bizarre of all. While Port's room was crammed with combat trophies and anatomical posters of Grimm, and Oobleck's with historical tomes and maps, this one didn't even have chairs or desks. Just soft pillows and rugs, which meant everyone had to leave their shoes at the door.
The windows were half-drawn with painted fabrics, and the sun striped the whole room with pronounced rays. It definitely gave off Vacuo vibes, and there was even a golden hookah standing off to the side. Decorative, as Mrs. Licht claimed, but she was definitely lying. After all, she constantly reeked of smoke, but no one had ever caught her with a cigarette.
In front of each student lay an expanded version of a first-aid kit and a list of what they had to treat on themselves. Some got lacerations on their sides and fractured feet, while others even got a torn-off arm.
And the Health and Safety teacher took her job very seriously. If you had a broken wrist, you couldn't use it, and she didn't give a damn about the complaints of the "lucky" ones missing arms or eyes. As she once said, "Life is an ass, and you can only accept how deep into it you've crawled. If you're unlucky, that's entirely your own problem."
Overall, her train of thought was understandable, but the fact that it was being applied during an official exam was slightly disheartening.
Fortunately, all Egrer had to do was stop the bleeding from a lacerated torso and apply a splint to a leg broken in three places. But his allergy made everything more complicated. Even when the teacher wasn't around, this classroom still belonged to her and exuded a certain "cat aura". It was hard to concentrate.
The rest of his pack was even less fortunate.
Magenta wanted to use a tourniquet to stop the bleeding in her left leg, but by some incredible twist of fate, she tied her own hands together and still couldn't break free. Only by sheer luck had she not received a staff to the head yet, even though Mrs. Licht had tried to attack her three times already.
Yort lacked the necessary finger dexterity and just couldn't manage to bandage his left arm with his right. He tried twisting this way and that, leaning against the wall and the floor, tried pulling with his teeth, but all his attempts were in vain. The bandage kept slipping and absolutely refused to press against the wound.
Only Illmond had already finished and was sitting off to the side, all bandaged up.
Mrs. Licht had perfectly managed to recreate a standard situation in the Huntsman profession: "Aura broken, but you were lucky enough to survive? Well, now try not to kick the bucket from your wounds, and watch your back closely, the Grimm aren't sleeping!"
Egrer tried to keep an eye on the teacher from time to time and frequently craned his neck up, which distracted heavily from the exam itself. He had already bandaged his torso, but was afraid he wouldn't have time to put the splint on his leg.
He hadn't been in a situation like this before, but he naturally believed that this was exactly how cornered Huntsmen felt.
Get too carried away with licking your wounds—and you get eaten. Keep looking around too often and flinching at every rustle—and you bleed to death. The Health and Safety teacher often said that you need to find the golden mean in everything, and that this specific skill is the most important one in life.
She also constantly repeated that you had to be ready at any given second.
"Death Stalker stinger strike!" Mrs. Licht jumped from the ceiling, but Weiss somehow managed to dodge and avoid a bruise on her head. "Good job, kiddo."
The teacher's tail slapped her on the butt, and Weiss let out an indignant squeak. Satisfied with the prank, the Health and Safety teacher loudly declared:
"You have ten seconds left! Whoever isn't done—died a slow and agonizing death, and your rotting corpse just became a cozy home for thousands of flies and bugs! Plus, you'll get an F."
Mrs. Licht knew no other grades; for her, it was only A or F. An F if you didn't do your job, and an A if you did. She didn't accept any "almosts"; you're either a good boy or a corpse. In a way, there was a certain wisdom in her words...
Egrer clamped the bandage in his teeth and pulled with all his might. The final touch was done; just a little bit more and he would have flunked the exam.
Sighs of disappointment were heard from all sides, and about half the class got up from their pillows and trudged toward the exit. Among them was Yort, who was furiously tearing off his bandages and swearing in a whisper. Magenta, on the other hand, had finally freed herself and managed to get what she needed done in just a couple of seconds.
"Excellent, you all survived! Some of you even despite special difficulties." The teacher gave an approving nod to Ren and Blake, both of whom were missing an arm. "Now take all that off and we'll move on to the next test. I'm splitting you into pairs: the first will be the rescuer, the second the victim. The goal of the rescuer is to bandage the victim's wounds and protect them from a sudden Grimm attack, played by yours truly. And remember the rule of realism! The victim must pretend they're on death's door! Then you'll switch places."
Mrs. Licht tossed pieces of paper with their names into a bin and began blindly pulling them out two at a time.
"Yang Xiao Long and Andreas Blackwood."
The tattoo-covered meathead, who had once flown into the girls' showers, flinched under his partner's gaze. Yang cracked her knuckles, clearly intending to "accidentally" wrap the tourniquet around his neck.
"Egrer Peleni and Blake Belladonna."
Did she really have to pull out exactly that name out of the whole class? Talk about bad luck, Egrer thought defeatedly, already feeling the hostile glare of bright yellow eyes on his back.
"Cardin Winchester and Weiss Schnee."
I take my words back, I'm actually lucky as hell! Poor Weiss. For some reason, realizing that someone had it worse than him made him feel a little better. Truly, everything is relative!
"Illmond Kitse and Ruby Rose."
"Hey you, nerd!" Yang suddenly yelled, gripping a pair of medical scissors threateningly. "You try anything with her, and I'll break your arms, got it?"
"I'm not interested in 3D girls. 3D girls aren't needed, got it?" the shut-in replied with dignity, blowing his bangs out of his face. His eternally sleepy eyes examined Ruby with curiosity, and she took a step back. She had witnessed his raid on the girls' shower and had heard from her sister about his terrible deeds in the past, so her fear wasn't completely unfounded.
Having sorted the remaining pairs, Mrs. Licht handed out slips of paper with injuries using the same lottery method.
"A linear skull fracture, an acid burn from King Taijitu venom on the stomach, both legs bitten off up to the knees..." Blake read out loud. "I think a first-aid kit won't help with wounds like these."
"Our bodies are much more resilient than they seem," the teacher countered. "If everything is done correctly, you might even survive. Though, living without those wonderful legs would be absolute torture."
The Health and Safety teacher's tail slapped Blake on the butt, but her body dissolved into thin air. The real Blake stood slightly off to the side, looking judgmentally at the teacher. Out of the whole class, she was the only girl Mrs. Licht hadn't managed to grope.
"Sigh. Kid, give her legs a good feel for me."
Egrer didn't dare say anything in response. His partner didn't say anything either, but her gloomy glare made him sneeze. He understood perfectly well that if he went even a tiny bit further than what was required to help someone with legs bitten off up to the knees, he'd end up in intensive care.
Since there were no desks in the classroom, Blake had to lie down right on the floor on the carefully scattered pillows. Judging by her serious look, it was clear that she didn't know how to play a mortally wounded civilian and wasn't going to try.
"Dude!" unlike her, the others were happily fooling around. "Tell my wife I loved her..."
"Don't you dare die, dude, you're gonna tell her yourself! Nurse, administer two hundred ccs of alcohol orally!"
"What a circus," Egrer rolled his eyes. Blake was in complete agreement with him.
He decided to start with the safest point for his own life—the linear skull fracture. According to all the rules, he should have started with the bitten-off legs, which the teacher would definitely point out, but he decided to put that off for a bit.
"First, let's remove everything unnecessary." Egrer reached for the bow on the top of Blake's head, but she briskly grabbed his hand. "What is it?"
"Don't touch it."
"Then how am I supposed to pass the exam? I need to bandage your head."
"Bandage around it," she replied categorically.
Egrer shrugged indifferently and nodded, it made no difference to him. If Blake had some irrational fear of being without her bow, then what was needed here wasn't a first-aid kit, but a certified psychologist.
The bandages fit her head like a glove; Magenta hadn't made them practice this morning for nothing. As far as Egrer remembered from Mrs. Licht's lectures, a linear skull fracture was the safest type of fracture, the main thing here was just to immobilize the head and not let the patient move it quickly.
However, Blake kept flinching from his touch the whole time, and the "cat aura" of the classroom prevented him from focusing properly. If before it was more or less tolerable, now it felt as if Mrs. Licht was constantly standing right behind him. His eyes were watering, his nose was running like a river, and Egrer barely restrained himself from sneezing right in his patient's face.
"I'm not touching your bow, it's already under the bandages, stop fidgeting." She seemed like she was trying to bolt. Like a beaten animal backed into a corner. "Why do you keep flinching all the time? You're distracting me."
"I don't like being touched. Especially on the head. Especially by people I don't trust," the victim replied, articulating almost every syllable.
"I've never done anything bad to you, why wouldn't you trust me?"
"You haven't done anything good either." Blake squeezed her eyes shut for a moment as Egrer tied a knot on the top of her head. In the shape of a bow, which, unfortunately, she couldn't see.
The next stage was the acid burn on the stomach. Since Mrs. Licht demanded strict adherence to maximum realism in her lessons, the victim had to take off her school jacket and unbutton the lower buttons of her blouse.
They both tried not to think about this embarrassing situation, so they decided to distract themselves with conversation. This is just a Health and Safety lesson, after all.
"So, to you, everyone you meet is a suspicious character by default?" Egrer asked, applying a compress to her stomach.
"Yes. And you, apparently, would gladly jump into the arms of even a Grimm."
"Come on, no need to hyperbolize, you sound exactly like Weiss right now." At that comparison, Blake winced as if kicked in the kneecap. "Of course, if I met some shady dude in an alley, I wouldn't trust him. But at Beacon, everyone's one of us. Except Cardin," he quickly added.
"What a strange optimism for someone from the lowest rungs of society."
Egrer froze. A second later he blew his nose into a handkerchief and continued his work.
"How'd you know?"
"You're used to expecting a blow from any direction; your walk and your look give you away. Though you have worked on your manner of speaking."
"Been stalking me?"
"Just observations." In that case, Blake was the most observant person of anyone he knew. If you remember, she was the first one to figure out that Egrer smiles stupidly when he's hiding something.
"And as for optimism, I'll answer you with the words of my pop: 'People try to be good in the eyes of society, and therefore if there is a risk of exposing their scumminess to the world, they usually don't go for it.'"
"Your father has a very peculiar wisdom."
"He's a very peculiar guy himself... if we're keeping things within the bounds of decency." Suddenly the tickle in his throat became unbearable, and Egrer sneezed thunderously, nearly coughing up his lungs. Fortunately for Blake, he managed to cover his mouth with his hands.
"Turn away when you sneeze!"
"Sorry. I'm allergic to cats and, apparently, to our Health and Safety teacher."
"Is that so," Blake quickly subdued herself. "Curious."
Egrer's instincts screamed. He felt the gaze of a predator on his back, who had decided to take advantage of his momentary weakness.
"Surprise Shadow Ursa pounce!" Egrer did a forward somersault, and Blake ended up in Mrs. Licht's clutches.
"Kid, I don't think you understand," the teacher began when her victim dissolved into thin air. "You're supposed to protect the civilian, not run away."
"Umm..." Egrer started making up an excuse. "But if I died, that would be worse, wouldn't it? I mean, I could just go and save someone else. And anyway, I'm having a sneezing fit!"
He didn't dare to outright admit that he was allergic to the Health and Safety teacher herself. It felt a bit uncultured...
"You definitely didn't understand something." With a deft motion of her staff, she smacked Egrer on the forehead. "Your future job is to save lives. If you do it shittily, then you make a shitty Huntsman. There is not a single valid reason to let a soul leave this world and not cop a feel of those legs. You failed, F. Switch places."
Mrs. Licht tossed him the piece of paper with the list of wounds and leaped back to the ceiling.
"Laceration on the chest, third-degree burn on the left side, crushed right arm. Tsk, your task is going to be easier than mine." Egrer took off his jacket and shirt and lay down on the pillows. "I'm all yours."
He was trying to embarrass her, only because he himself felt very embarrassed.
But Blake didn't fall for his provocations and unperturbedly started doing her job. As for the failed exam, Egrer wasn't worried; he didn't care. Except that Magenta might start nagging him, and Weiss would definitely have something to say about his negative impact on the union's reputation... Overall, it probably would have been better to put in the effort and pass.
"Achoo!" Egrer turned away and sneezed a few more times. "God, something's really getting to me. Is there anything for allergies in this first-aid kit? A tincture or something like that?"
"I doubt there's room for such an unimportant thing here."
"It's a very important thing for me. I'm genuinely going to need medical assistance right now." Egrer wasn't joking in the slightest. The killer presence of a cat could be felt almost physically. "ACHOO!"
"There's a medical mask," she said after a brief search.
"That'll do, thanks."
Surprisingly, when Weiss wasn't around, Blake was quite a reasonable conversationalist. She didn't hiss, didn't spit, didn't act snarky like Illmond during a creative block, and even though she wasn't particularly talkative, she couldn't be called unsociable either. What the hell did Weiss do to her that her mere presence drove her crazy?
With at least some protection, he really did feel a tiny bit better, and while Blake was earning herself an A, Egrer watched the successes of those around him.
Magenta was paired with Nora, and instead of working on the exam, they wrapped their faces in bandages and played mummies. There was no doubt—they were going to flunk too.
Everything was going simply wonderfully for Illmond. He managed to combine first aid and shibari, and to stop Ruby from calling Yang, he taped her mouth shut with a dozen bandaids. All she could do was try to break free from the bandage bindings, while Illmond himself frantically sketched the composition into his Scroll.
Yang failed to notice the outrage happening nearby only because she was busy trying to kill her partner. With a bloodthirsty smirk, she wrapped bandages around the poor meathead's head so tightly and so much that he turned blue and was already barely conscious.
"Viper bite!" Mrs. Licht pounced on Ren, but he grabbed his patient just in time and rolled to the side. "Good job!"
Not far from them, Weiss was constantly giving Cardin instructions on what he needed to do and how. The bully got tired of it and replied that her jaw had been torn off, and therefore, by the rule of realism, she couldn't give hints. This argument didn't stop her, so he simply wrapped her mouth shut.
"Give me the crushed arm," Blake requested. Egrer also decided not to play the dying man and just did as he was asked.
"You work fast. Studied for the exam?"
"The Health and Safety exam?" she scoffed. "No, this is experience."
Egrer decided not to ask where she got it; it probably wasn't a pleasant topic. Instead, he went back to complaining about the whims of fate.
"Achoo! Just my fucking luck... I can't even leave this classroom until the bell rings. Plus, the teacher banned wearing a gas mask. How exactly does it bother her?"
"Uh-huh." Blake wasn't interested in his problems at all; she wasn't even listening...
"I would never have thought I could be allergic to a human."
"To a Faunus." ...Or maybe she was.
"What's the difference, it's the same thing." Egrer waved his good hand dismissively. "As if it matters."
"It is important, and right now I'm not talking about anatomical differences, but about social inequality. Faunus are equal to humans in rights only in Menagerie, and by pretending there are no differences, you're just keeping silent about the problems." She pulled the bandage too tight, and Egrer hissed in pain. "And meanwhile they multiply, and everything just gets worse."
"I'm not arguing, it's just that personally for me, it's not important at all," the victim replied carefully. In his memory, Blake had never spoken this much at once. Usually, she communicated in choppy sentences strictly about business, but now...
"I'm just trying to say that this exact kind of indifference is the main problem. There aren't that many racists, but when they do something bad to Faunus, the crowd just gasps and stands judgmentally on the sidelines. If they all actually did something together, half the battle to eradicate racism would be won."
"If you're such a social activist, why didn't you join our union? We fight racism."
"I've seen how you fight," she snorted. "You talk, and then throw your hands up. That won't solve the problem."
"Don't exaggerate, that only happened once. And anyway, what do you suggest? Slit the throats of all the bad guys like the White Fang?"
Blake froze for a second. Her bright yellow eyes widened, and Mrs. Licht's staff suddenly flew straight through her head. The real Blake appeared a short distance away, and Egrer earned a lump on his head instead of her.
"You two are quite a match, I see," the Health and Safety teacher smirked.
"Blake, what the hell?" Egrer rubbed his bruised forehead.
"Reflexes," she shrugged.
"F for both of you. Get out of the classroom."
Outside the doors, all the eliminated students were gathered. Since it was technically still class time, wandering the halls was forbidden; otherwise, Chuckler would catch them and hand out detentions. No one even dared to talk; they all sat quietly and just waited for the bell.
Now nothing kept Egrer and Blake together, and with relief, they went their separate ways and stood far apart from each other.
The suffocating presence of the cat released him, his lungs could breathe normally, and soon the streams stopped flowing from his nose. How good it is to be alive!
A couple of minutes later, Yang walked out of the classroom, carrying the unconscious body of her partner over her shoulder. His head had turned into a large white ball with a small hole for the nose, and his limbs barely twitched as if in convulsions. She killed him after all... or at least crushed his skull. Ignoring the strange looks, she walked with a wide smile to the medical wing, which was located two floors up. This event didn't elicit even a whisper.
The appearance of Cardin and Weiss, however, shook the walls.
"You idiot! I failed the exam because of you!"
"What, the head nerd isn't so top-tier anymore?"
"I got an F for the first time in my life. And for what? For a degenerate partner! I wouldn't have missed Mrs. Licht's strike if you had shut up for even a second."
"You were fucking with my brain with all your advice, I just gave you a taste of your own medicine!"
"Watch your language when you're talking to me!"
"Go fuck yourself!" Cardin threw his hands up and simply walked away.
Weiss was so shocked by such insolence that she couldn't say a word. But when she snapped out of it, it was already too late. So she just leaned against the wall and began whispering every curse word she knew, nevertheless avoiding outright profanity.
Egrer suddenly felt uneasy. To his left sat a sharply frowning Blake, and to his right was Weiss, angry as a pack of Grimm. A conflict was inevitable, and he would definitely be caught in the crossfire. The only question was who would start it.
He decided not to wait for this terrible event and quietly slid over to Yort. Unfortunately, his movements attracted the attention of these two chimeras, and then their own eyes met.
Egrer accidentally became the trigger...
"Flunked?" Blake inquired with feigned interest.
"Because of that idiot Cardin... And why are you here? I doubt you have a valid excuse."
"Are you saying yours is valid? Do you want to blame all your failures on someone no one will even stand up for?"
Egrer broke out in a cold sweat with a sense of impending doom. He had only been present for their arguments a couple of times, and once he even managed to take Weiss's side, but right now, more than ever, it seemed like they were about to tear each other's throats out.
He asked Yort about the probability of such an outcome. The answer wasn't the least bit comforting.
The chance that one would kill the other was three percent. It seemed like a little... but a whole three percent! Were they really ready to commit murder over some philosophical differences?!
The bell rang, and everyone left in the classroom began to file out. Apparently, only a few students passed the exam, among them Nora, Magenta, Pyrrha, and Illmond. Among them walked Ruby, red as a tomato, who, upon spotting her arguing teammates, immediately set about trying to reconcile them.
"Weiss, hi. Are you busy today? How about taking a walk through Vale with the whole team? We can check out the fairs, ride some roller coasters."
"Unfortunately, I have a lot of things to do today." There was no regret felt in her words at all. Spotting Egrer, she quickly added. "Today is the union meeting."
"Really?" asked the bewildered Secretary to the General Secretary, who was already rushing to distance himself from the escalating conflict. He had to spend a few seconds deciphering the murderous glare directed at him. "O-or rather, yes, of course, how could I forget? We won't have a minute to breathe all day!"
"That's a shame. Well... We'll just go the three of us then, right Blake?" Ruby dragged the second arguer by the hand. She didn't resist. This time the fight ended before it even started, but who knew when these two would clash again? "Weiss, if you happen to change your mind, text me. Okay?"
Weiss didn't dignify her with an answer. Poor, poor girl. Ruby tries so hard to make friends with her, but she doesn't even give her a chance. Just glares coldly at her attempts, barely holding back curses.
"You shouldn't be like that," Egrer told her quietly. "You still have to command them later, so you need to build relationships. The way things are, you're only pushing them away. Very short-sighted decision, if you ask me."
"That won't matter at all once I become the leader. Whether they want to or not, they'll have to obey."
"That sounded kind of tyrannical."
"Of course I won't become a tyrant," she assured him, sincerely believing her own words. "Everything I do in the leader's position will be aimed primarily at the good of the group. Or do you think it's in my interests to incite them to mutiny? It might take some time, but they will definitely understand that I'm better than Ruby."
The former leader of the Order of the Backstabbers highly doubted this, but kept his opinion to himself. Besides, the other members of Team Majesty had already approached them, clearly intending to drag Egrer away for another walk around the city. He had promised Magenta that this time everything would go smoothly.
"I can't believe you actually forgot about the meeting," Weiss said deliberately loud, as if they had been discussing Enversion's affairs the whole time.
Egrer felt embarrassed; he just hadn't had the time for it. Right now, he wasn't worried about the revival of the music club, but about much more serious matters.
"Weiss, forgive me, of course, but I'm also going into the city with my team today. So you'll have to do without me."
"But—" she was about to protest but stopped herself. "I see. Have a nice day then."
"You can come with us, if you want."
"No, no, I don't want to get in your way." And with that, they said their goodbyes. But the moment Weiss left, Ruby appeared from around the corner again.
"Eg, help!" she pleaded. "Weiss doesn't want to connect at all, I've already tried everything! What should I do?"
"How should I know?"
"You don't have any ideas at all? Do you guys?" Ruby looked hopefully at his pack.
"Punch her," Yort advised. "A good one, so the bone cracks. Then she'll become as soft as silk."
"No fighting!" Magenta chimed in. "You just need to talk to her. Tell her about your worries, I'm sure that together you can find a solution to your differences."
Illmond stayed silent. With his tongue sticking out from the tension, he was furiously drawing something on his Scroll, clearly having caught the muse and chained her to the radiator in the basement. Ruby tried not to even look at him.
"But generally speaking," Egrer dragged out, "I think, if we use a little cunning... yeah, I have a plan."
Yort sighed heavily at this.
"You always say that, and then it all goes down..." he cast a quick glance at Magenta, "...the toilet because of some tiny detail."
"This time I'll think EVERYTHING through. It'll take a little time, but I promise, by this evening Weiss will be in your hands, Ruby."
"But what about our walk in Vale?" Magenta suddenly protested.
"Oh, right, almost forgot... Sorry, Ruby, you'll have to wait a day. But tomorrow she will definitely be in your hands!"
***
Today, Egrer truly tried to push all unnecessary thoughts out of his head. And if last time he considered everything unrelated to Torchwick and the White Fang to be unnecessary thoughts, now it was exactly the opposite. Although, to be honest, it wasn't working out very well. But this time at least he didn't snap at his pack over trifles. He kept himself in check, even though almost a whole week without proper sleep and food clearly hadn't done his nervous system any good.
It was hard to relax. However, Magenta had learned from her mistakes, which in itself was surprising, and this time their walk wasn't a chaotic wandering through the streets. So they had something to do.
Their brave leader led her team to a festival where representatives of various cultures played their music, told folk tales, danced, and showed what made them different from others.
The Vytal Festival—a celebration of peace and unity. The most important date in world history, when bloody internecine wars, revolutions, and coups were replaced by an era of peace. On this very day, several decades ago, the heads of the four kingdoms decided that peace was preferable to war. And since then, soldiers no longer shed each other's blood, focusing on a common enemy—the Grimm.
Why they hadn't arrived at this simple idea earlier and why a world war with two revolutions was needed, Egrer didn't understand. Maybe back then it didn't seem so obvious.
For this event, the Vale council had given up the entire main city square and even the adjacent streets. To get to the very center and see the most amazing things, they first had to walk down a long, long street covered by a translucent canopy.
And that was exactly where they lingered the most.
Yort froze dead in his tracks upon hearing a certain flute melody. The people walking behind bumped into his back, but he didn't care in the slightest that he had parked his massive body right in the middle of a continuous stream of people. He was listening. Listening with his eyes closed, because he was afraid that otherwise, tears would start flowing.
An old man with a pirate eyepatch and a luxuriously embroidered caftan was playing something traditionally Vacuan on his musical instrument. He sat on pillows, which lay on a large carpet, around which almost no listeners had gathered.
After all, the majority were attracted by the bright performances of acrobats from Mistral or the demonstration of the latest technologies from Atlas. Give them bread and circuses: tamed tigers, jugglers on stilts, something big and significant. What did they care about an ordinary old man playing something on his flute?
But it is precisely in such little things that true national heritage lies.
"Something familiar?" Magenta asked.
"Yeah. Let's stand here a bit." There was something in Yort's voice. Something so uncharacteristic of him that for a moment the word for it slipped Egrer's mind.
Yearning.
Yort missed his homeland. He missed it so much that upon hearing this melody he couldn't help but listen to it a little longer. In his friends' memory, there had never been a moment when he looked so vulnerable. The always composed and paranoid-of-everything mistrustful guy was now unacceptably relaxed. And this effect was achieved simply by a single melody. Undeniably beautiful, but how is that even possible?
Egrer couldn't understand his friend's feelings, as he wasn't quite as patriotic. He didn't love Mistral, but he didn't hate it either. He was simply born there, lived there for a bit, and then wandered the world. Folk songs didn't evoke such an emotional uplift in him, and the sights of familiar outfits didn't differ from others, in his opinion. Perhaps Egrer had simply lived too little within the walls of his native city to become so deeply attached to it and all its quirks.
When the old man from Vacuo took a breather, Yort seemingly came back to life. He gathered himself and looked at the pack with an almost apologetic look. Which was even more uncharacteristic of him.
"You guys go on without me. I'll wander around here a bit more."
"Alright," Magenta smiled and led the rest of her team further on.
Further down, the street started to look more like a bazaar. Small stalls on wheels offered various souvenirs from the other end of the world, luring visitors with the promise of fully experiencing the spirituality of other cultures, and numerous tickets, menus, and posters carpeted the ground. There was a lot of garbage.
Magenta was particularly interested in the Atlesian holograms telling about the newest weapons against the Grimm. General James Ironwood himself, commander of the Atlas armed forces and headmaster of the Atlas Huntsman Academy, spoke about new developments in robotics and the creation of the ultimate weapon—the Paladin. Or rather, not him personally, it was just his hologram standing nearby.
"So cool!" Magenta squeaked when an illusion of a huge robot, packed to the brim with all sorts of weaponry, appeared before her. She especially liked the flamethrowers.
But Illmond and Egrer couldn't find anything that would interest them. Even when they reached the central square, where theoretically all the most interesting stuff was located, nothing caught their eye. The former basically wasn't interested in anything besides his social anxiety, constantly shying away from passersby, and the latter had already seen almost everything the other countries had to offer.
The final chord of that day was a performance in a huge tent. It was a project of all four kingdoms—a massive holotheater showing the act of signing the peace treaty, as well as its beneficial consequences. The event was more historical and educational than entertaining, so it didn't gather much hype. But Egrer personally found it interesting to see this historical moment almost live. That was when the world took the path it still follows today.
Picking up Yort on their way back, the pack headed back to Beacon, sharing their impressions of the evening. Everyone had something to say, except Illmond, who mostly kept silent. He only noted that he expected something more interesting from a holiday of such significance. Egrer reminded him that the real fun would start when the Amity Colosseum arrived in Vale, and right now it was just a prelude.
Magenta had spent almost her entire life in a hospital, so she fell into delight over every little thing. She talked tirelessly about everything, resembling a hyperactive Nora. But most of all, of course, she singled out the military developments of Atlas and the coolness of the Paladin she had seen.
Yort looked incredibly peaceful and rested, as if he had visited a health spa. Even his speech had temporarily lost its usual rough edge and uncultured expressions. Around his neck hung some kind of pendant made of large white beads and thick red threads woven into a bizarre pattern.
"An amulet," he explained. "These beads have sand from our desert in them. There's a superstition in Vacuo that if you leave your homeland for a long time, your strength will slowly slip away. This necklace is supposed to delay death and give you one last chance to return."
"Creepy," Magenta fretted.
"It's just a stupid superstition. I don't even know why I wasted money on it." For the first time, Yort looked embarrassed. He probably thinks being overly sentimental is a weakness.
"I've been to Vacuo a couple of times," shared Egrer, walking at the head of their procession. "And I noticed that many locals deeply revere their land and customs. You shouldn't be ashamed of something you should be proud of. I don't have anything like that; I spent almost my whole life on the road. I have as much Mistralian spirit in me as Atlas, Vale, or Vacuo."
"But at the same time, you follow Mistralian street codes," Yort noted with a smirk.
"What can I do, some habits just won't die. Maybe there's still a tiny bit more Mistralian in me than the rest."
"Well, that's fine then. You're not ashamed that you're only a quarter of your own people, right? You're trying to comfort me, while crying into your pillow at night yourself."
"Maybe just a tiny bit. I've never seen the overriding importance of national identity. I mean, what difference does it make what race, nation, or religion you are?"
They had never spoken so openly before. Every conversation they'd had prior to this was like a battle, where Egrer, acting as the attacker, wanted to get more information about the ever-secretive Yort, and Yort defended himself to the last. But now no one had to be forced; he was completely unopposed to their heart-to-heart talk.
"Hold on. And how did we end up here?" Egrer instantly recognized the smell of machine oil and fish. Screaming seagulls flew overhead, perched on a non-working port crane.
"I don't know," Magenta scratched the back of her head, "I was just following you out of habit."
About fifty hours, flashed automatically through his head. Two more days until the planned raid on this place. In two days, Egrer will know for sure whether the Malachite sisters' words are true or if they are mistaken. To wait that long...
Fifty hours, he reminded himself again. He couldn't afford to miss this chance, because it was unknown when and where the next robbery would be.
"Let's just find a map on the extranet and use it to find the airport. Before I lead us somewhere else. We still need to help Ruby..."