Chapter 16 – The White Fang

Swords bounced off one another as Zuko pressed against Blake. The girl backed off, quickly whipping out to try and catch him off guard yet he dodged it easy. Far too easy. Blake was not an easy opponent by any means and yet this fight certainly was. When she tried to hit him again, he grabbed the weapon from her hands, pulling it away as he kicked her at the same time. She landed roughly but managed to get back to her feet, swaying slightly. He threw her weapon away and dropped down, spinning out and unleashing a whirlwind of fire that swept her off her feet and out of the ring.

BZZZT

"Victory for Mr Lee due to Miss Belladonna's ring out." Professor Goodwitch stepped onto the stage as Blake staggered back up into the ring. "Though from aura levels, Mr Lee's victory was soon to come regardless. Today was an exceptionally poor showing on your part Miss Belladonna, I expect much better from you in combat."

"Yes Miss Goodwitch." Blake's response was as dull and muted as her fighting, leaving Zuko frowning in his victory.

"Mr Lee," Glynda turned to address Zuko, "your performance today was very good. Your semblance control remains excellent, however your aura control is still lacking. I would suggest you focus more on developing those abilities."

"Yes Miss Goodwitch." Zuko gave a bow in the traditional fire nation way, making his way off the stage with Blake as the teacher called up two other students to fight.

Zuko watched Blake carefully as they walked back to their desks. Far from looking disappointed in her performance, she looked entirely ambivalent. Mostly because she seemed to be paying only the barest attention to the class. She sat down and was completely zoned out of anything her team was saying to her.

"Blake? Blaaaake!" Yang poked her harder, eventually jabbing her in the cheek. Blake finally snapped her attention to her teammate, glaring at her.

"What?"

"Welcome back to Remnant kitty kat." Yang smiled proudly to herself, unaffected by Blake's continuing glowering. "What's up with you? I've never seen Zuko kick you ass like that before."

"I'm just having an off day is all."

"You were up all night Blake, there's no point lying." Weiss leaned in as well. "And don't say you were just reading, all your books were still between the beds. You said you wouldn't hide anything from us anymore, so explain yourself Blake Belladonna!"

"Ahem!" Glynda Goodwitch glared at her from the stage, Weiss shrinking in embarrassment before the teacher returned to focus on the match.

Blake sighed, pulling out her scroll and showing off some news stories that she'd been looking at. "I started looking into Torchwick and the stuff he's been doing. Do you realise just how many places he's robbed in the last few months alone? The police and the huntsmen aren't doing anything, but the White Fang are planning something. Something big."

"And you want to do something about it?" Zuko could already see where she was going with it. Blake was not the type to sit around and wait, something he could empathise with. "Well then, where do we start?"

"What?"

"Zuko's right." Ruby puffed up her chest, stepping into her team leader mode. "Team RWBYZ fights together! So let's hear it Blake, what's our first step?"

"I… I don't know." The team stared at her flatly, enthusiasm quickly dwindling away. "I mean, well, first we need to know more about what's happening right? All I've been able to do is look at some news reports but that doesn't tell me much."

Weiss sighed but nodded in acceptance. "Very well then. Our first step is to gather more information about how much Dust is being stolen, where, when, and how. Most of it will come from our company, so I can get a hold of our records. I'll just need to make a call."

"Ooh! Ooh! I want to see the CCT Tower!" Ruby was practically vibrating with excitement. "I'll come with you!"

"Really? I can just make the call from the library…"

"Ah but where's the fun in that? Come on partner, let's go to the tower!"

"Ugh, fine."

"I know an informant who could help us." Yang chimed in with a grin on her face. "He might not want to help us, but I can be pretty persuasive."

"Yang, you better not get yourself in trouble again. Dad heard about what happened last time at the club."

Yang quickly blanched at Ruby's reminder of her dad's reaction. "That-that wasn't my fault! Honest! Besides, I don't think I'll need to do anything like that this time. I think he's learned his lesson."

"Yang." Ruby glared at her in warning. Far from intimidating, it did make Yang feel suddenly very guilty.

"Ugh, fine. I'll be on my best behaviour, don't worry."

"Good. So, Blake and Zuko, what will you two do?"

Blake looked at Zuko questioningly. "I was thinking I could infiltrate a White Fang meet up. There's one happening tonight I found, in a warehouse by the industrial district."

"How did you find that?"

"There are message boards. I still remember how to access them."

Ruby rolled her eyes. "I hope they're better than the message boards I saw you on last time." She put her hands over her heart dramatically and dropped into a mocking voice. "Does anyone else think that Carnel from Ninja's of Love is just the dreamiest? That scene where he and Gray are laying under the night sky together is so romantic!"

"Shut up!" Blake clapped a hand over Ruby's mouth with a bright red blush on her face. Ruby made a muffled complaint before Blake abruptly pulled back with a disgusted expression. "You licked my hand!"

"Yeah, she does that." Yang drawled, remembering all the time's they had argued and Yang had failed to keep Ruby quiet. "Nobody can keep Ruby quiet when she doesn't want to be."

"I will not be silenced!"

"Miss Rose be quiet! If you wish to speak so much, you and your team can discuss what's so important with me after class."

Glynda's glare had Ruby shrinking in on herself meekly, muttering only a soft "yes miss" in response. When the teacher's attention returned to the stage, Zuko spoke up quietly.

"I can go with Blake. I can be stealthy when I need to be."

"Really?" Weiss looked at him in genuine surprise. "You don't exactly look like a Faunus, and fire isn't a stealthy attack."

"Don't forget our night vision." Blake cut in. "I don't know how much history you've been studying, but Faunus won't be limited by the dark."

"Don't worry, I'll be fine."

"If you're sure." Blake watched him to see if he was showing any signs of doubt, but Zuko held none. He had slipped into a military base right under Zhao's nose to release the Avatar, he could slip past some amateur locals no issue.

Still, he would need a new outfit.

~RWBYZ~

"Uncle! I need some clothes for sneaking."

In his uncle's bedroom, the man himself guffawed at Zuko's request.

"My dear nephew, I thought you had moved past sneaking around at night in your blue spirit costume?"

"It's not a costume!" He crossed his arms defensively. "Besides, I don't need the full costume, just some dark clothing."

"Well then, perhaps we had best go shopping? I don't keep anything like that with me I'm afraid." His uncle rose and began collecting a few items to bring with him.

"Don't you have work to do?"

"Not today, this is my day off." His uncle walked him out of the room, where they abruptly walked into Cinder.

"Oh, hello Zuko. It's good to see you."

Zuko glanced at his uncle nervously, already seeing the mans growing grin. "Hello Cinder, it's good to see you too."

"Ah, so this lovely young lady is Cinder?" His uncle reached out a hand and shook hers with a pleasant but teasing smile on his face. "I've heard so much about you. Zuko told me of your beauty, but I must say his words did not manage to do you justice."

"Thank you." Cinder smiled back, not blushing as she looked to Zuko's embarrassed face. Zuko had in fact, not described Cinder as beautiful, or any such kind of thing. It was of course, his uncle teasing him and trying to push him towards every woman he saw as had become typical. "I hope I'm not interrupting, were you leaving?"

"We were in fact," Zuko glared mildly at his uncle, "we need to go shopping in town."

"Oh really? Anything in particular?"

"Um… clothes, for… the Beacon dance."

He hadn't thought about the dance at all, but it was the best cover he could think of on such short notice.

"Interesting." Cinder smiled coyly. "I need to go shopping for a dress at some point myself actually. Thank you for the reminder Zuko. Best of luck with choosing your outfit."

She sauntered off with a farewell, and his uncle beamed at him until she had gone far enough around the corner. "Well Zuko, it certainly is good to see you making progress in a romantic perspective."

"There's nothing between Cinder and I." Zuko resumed their walk to leave Beacon.

"There could be." When Zuko said nothing back, his uncle stopped him and looked at him seriously. "I mean it Zuko. This is a new life for you, and a bit of romance would be good for you."

"With Cinder?"

"With anyone. I've seen the way people look at you, heard the way they talk about you, you're not without fans."

"Uncle…" Zuko began to blush. Yes, he knew he was someone that people found attractive. He was mature, refined, in good shape, and he had his mothers long flowing locks of dark hair. He was not unaware of a few people who had spied on him doing his kata's in the morning with his shirt off. He had no shame in that, but that was of course all very different to romance. "Uncle I'm not exactly ready for a relationship. There's a lot about this worlds culture I don't understand, and I know even less about this world's technology. What if I embarrass myself?"

"Then life will go on." A wistful look crossed Iroh's expression. "Why, I embarrassed myself many times in front of my wife when we were first meeting one another. We still made it work."

"You two were betrothed uncle. Dating royalty isn't exactly the same."

"She could have said no my dear nephew, don't doubt that. But she, like any good woman, was understanding. I was new to the romantic life, and so was she. We were young and immature. All I see around here are young men and women, also immature and new to love."

Zuko begrudgingly had to admit that. He had seen Jaune Arc's desperate attempts to woo Weiss, in spite of her obvious and repeated disinterest. If he was what passed for a suitor in this world, then perhaps he wouldn't stick out too badly.

"Besides," his uncle continued, "if need be, you could always ask your team for assistance. You have four young ladies who are all close companions of yours now. I'm sure that they would be happy to help."

At the thought of bringing up his romantic troubles to his team in detail, Zuko blanched. He had already seen some of what Yang had experienced, and the idea of having her make him take notes was not something he wanted. However, it was probably also inevitable. If she and her sister were helping their father be with someone else again, then they did at least know something.

Weiss would perhaps be most familiar with the more refined aspects of courting in this world, and Blake had all of those romance books that she kept hidden away where she thought nobody could find them. Given that he had seen Ruby use one to smash a fly, she needed a new hiding place.

"I'll consider it uncle."

He relented, and his uncle smiled delighted at his progress. He had no specific plans on pursuing Cinder, or anyone on his team, or anyone at all really. But perhaps he should give some serious thought to pursuing someone.

~RWBYZ~

Darkness began to fall, and Blake and Zuko made their way towards the industrial district discreetly. They spoke little, though there was plenty of noise as Blake's scroll buzzed repeatedly.

"Is that Sun again?"

"Yeah." Blake looked at the screen and swiped away another message from him, deciding she would read it later. "Apparently, he came by earlier and was looking for us with Neptune. I think we missed him because we were in detention."

Zuko nodded but didn't pay it too much mind. He knew very little about this Sun and Neptune person and didn't care to learn much more. Call it paranoia, but he'd prefer to keep any sleuthing entirely with his teammates. Speaking of…

"Is that the place?"

Zuko nodded towards a warehouse where a few Faunus could be seen entering. Most were on their own, but a few came in pairs which he assumed was for support. None of those present he saw entering seemed very confident, and many were skittishly looking around. A few Faunus were standing guard at the entrance, reassuring those who showed interest and waving them inside. He saw that some of those who had come were wearing White Fang masks already, but most were being given them by the guards.

"This is it." Blake donned a mask of her own and looked back at him. "Are you sure about this?"

Zuko took a quick moment to limber and pulled his own mask up. He had foregone trying to find anything like his blue spirit mask, instead going much simpler with some dark wrappings. Pulling his hood up there was only a narrow slit visible around his eyes, and with the black face paint he'd donned it blended in well.

To a human he would be near invisible, to a Faunus it would only help. He would just need to avoid being seen in the first place.

"I'll go up above. Let the others know we're going in, in case something goes wrong."

Blake sent off a quick message and he passed her his Scroll. She did something with it to connect their Scrolls and passed him an earpiece which he popped into place. A little testing showed it was working, though Zuko still felt uncomfortable. Slipping through the shadows with naught but his wits and a disguise, that felt natural.

"Good luck Zuko."

"You too Blake."

Blake took the lead, and he waited for her to be well on her way before he made his move. He slipped through the shadows and between containers, making his way to the side of the warehouse where he quickly climbed up. Finding hand holds was a little more difficult in this world's infrastructure, there was much less brick with gaps in the mortar and more smooth metal. Still, a drainpipe worked well enough, and he reached the top without issue.

"I'm at the roof, are you inside?"

"I'm in. I can't talk much or people will notice. There's a lot of people here."

Zuko didn't answer Blake's response, careful not to risk drawing attention to her. He made his way across the roof without a sound, almost gliding across the smooth material until he reached the open skylight. There were several, but only a few were open. Taking a peek inside, he noted the crowd of Faunus who were all waiting anxiously, with a stage in front of them and a big curtain hanging up behind it. A quick scan of the crowd didn't let him see Blake, but he knew she was there somewhere. More importantly, from his position on the roof he could peak over the curtain and see what was there.

A great big metal… thing. Unfortunately, just because Zuko could see it, didn't mean he knew what it was. Once again, he bemoaned the oddities of this world and his lack of knowledge about it.

"There's some big metal thing behind the curtain, something they're going to show off."

"A big metal… is it a mech? Wasn't there an Atlesian mech stolen?"

"I don't know what a mech is."

He heard Blake scoff and groan from the other end, and despite his annoyance he couldn't blame her. He was getting more and more frustrated What he did see was two humans preparing themselves to go up and speak, one of which he recognised from the docks.

"Torchwick is here."

"What!?"

He winced at her suddenly loud voice in his ear. He heard a small scuffle on her end and assumed that she must have been trying to cover for her mistake.

"Make sure he doesn't see you. I'll a closer look."

He needed to get inside. Slipping through the crack he swung himself over and onto the ledge, flexing with each movement to make himself as quiet as possible before crawling along. The benefit of the large crowd was that there was plenty of noise to mask his approach, the downside of course that there were plenty of eyes that may randomly decide to look up. From his experience however, people generally didn't.

He made his way onto a catwalk and crept along, noting that Torchwick was beginning to make his speech.

When he crossed behind the curtain, he could move a little quicker. There were far less people behind the stage, mostly a few people on guard or working on a big truck that must have been used to move the big metal thing. He slipped his way down, using the "mech" as cover to avoid being seen.

As he reached the ground however, the curtain suddenly dropped and stage lights bathed the machine. From his position gripping carefully to the underside of the truck bed, Zuko carefully slowed his breathing.

"As some of you may have heard, this right here is Atlas' newest defence against all the scary things in the world."

That had been very close. Zuko tuned out the rest of the speech as he shuffled slightly. With the curtain down, he didn't have any chance of sneaking out under the truck bed. The Faunus wouldn't need night vision to see him, he would be as clear as day to see.

And so he waited. The speech continued, ended, and they made the call for volunteers. Holding himself to the underside of the truck bed was beginning to get straining, as Zuko constantly altered his position to rest his muscles.

"Zuko, where are you? They're wrapping up."

He had noticed. More and more pairs of feet were milling around the area, and he heard the noises of people packing up. There was however, still no sign of an opening for him to move.

"I'm stuck, I can't move. There's too many-!" An engine revved into life, and suddenly the whole vehicle was vibrating. "I think they're leaving."

"That's what I said. Where are you? I'll meet you."

The truck began to pull away, Zuko seeing the concrete beneath him moving as the vehicle left the warehouse. "I'm under the truck. Looks like I'm leaving too."

"You're what!?"