Beta read by Levi Ackermanlet
When the morning came, and Blake's bed remained empty, there was no question about whether or not they would look for her. Ruby had been the first to suggest it, with Yang, Blake, and Zuko all quickly agreeing. Weiss went along with it without protest, however she was clearly not as enthusiastic as the rest of them. She kept her complaints to a minimum…mostly.
None of them really knew if they would find Blake, or even if she had ran away into Vale to begin with. But they had to try, even if there wasn't any sign of her.
"Blaaaake!" Ruby yelled as they walked down the street, her sister joining in after her.
"Blaaaake!"
"Blaaaaaaaake! Where aaaare yoooouuuu!?"
"Blake!"
Zuko had refused to yell along with the sisters, instead he'd been taking the time to question any locals they passed by. After he'd finished with the most recent stranger, he walked back over to his team.
"Still nothing, no one's seen her."
Ruby rounded on the only noncontributing member of their team. "Weiiiiss, you're not helping!"
"Oh! You know what might be able to help? The police!"
"Ugh, Weiss..."
"It was just an idea!"
"Yeah, a bad one."
As they headed down a different street, Yang took it upon herself to try and calm things down somewhat. "Weiss, I think we should hear her side of the story before we jump to any conclusions."
"I think that when we hear it, you'll all realize I was right!"
"And I think Weiss' hair looks wonderful today!" The team jumped in surprise at the new voice, the four teenagers turning to see a familiar head of orange hair.
"Aaaah! Penny! Where did you come from!?"
"Hey guys! What are you up to?"
"Uhh..."
"We're looking for our friend Blake."
"Ooooh, you mean the Faunus girl!"
The team stared at Penny in surprise, an awkward silence growing as they each tried to process what they'd just heard.
"Wait, how did you know that?"
"Uhh, the cat ears?" Penny pointed to her head, confused as to why they were surprised.
Yang chuckled lightheartedly. "What cat ears? She wears a... boooohhh..."
The team was silent, having suddenly realized how obviously she had disguised herself. Zuko at least took comfort in the fact that he was still new to the whole 'different humans' thing. Ruby felt fairly embarrassed however.
"She does like tuna a lot..."
"So, where is she?"
"We don't know. She's been missing since Friday."
"That's terrible!" Penny walked straight up to Ruby and clapped her hands onto her shoulders. "Well, don't you worry Ruby, my friend! I won't rest until we find your teammate!"
"Uh, that's really nice of you, Penny, but we're okay! Really! Right, guys?"
She turned to her team for support, only to find that they had all rapidly ditched her in favor of their own survival.
~RWBYZ~
Zuko peeked carefully around the corner, his good eye barely visible as he put his sneaking skills to use. Finally, he saw Penny drag Ruby away down the road in the opposite direction of them.
"Alright, she's leaving. We're free."
Yang and Weiss breathed a dramatic sigh of relief.
"Thank god, there's no way I'm looking around town with her."
"Oh come on Weiss, you barely want to look around town anyway."
Weiss opened her mouth to argue the case with Yang, but Zuko cut her off before she could begin, if only for his own sanity rather than to save Yang.
"Do you think Ruby'll be angry?"
"Oh please, she's the one who said they were friends, so she can deal with her."
"Hey now, Zuko's right. I mean, Ruby's pretty forgiving, but maybe we should apologize later just so we don't burn any bridges. Eh?" Yang looked to both of her teammates for support, the growing silence doing little to wipe away the smug grin on her face.
After the stupidity of her joke had fully registered with him, Zuko turned and quickly walked away. "I'm not staying with her."
"What? It was funny."
Zuko ignored Weiss as she begged for him to come back, if only so that she could lump Yang's jokes onto somebody else. Zuko didn't stop however, and after a few turned corners and streets travelled, he was completely away from them.
'Well, at least I can think now.' The morning had been focused entirely on finding Blake, so he hadn't had much chance to truly think on her revelation the night before. The fact that she was a Faunus meant very little to Zuko, while he didn't know much about them, it didn't seem like they were too different from humans as far as personality went. No, what troubled him, was what else she had implied.
'She said "we were tired of being pushed around", so she was likely in the White Fang at some point, probably recently… So, can I trust her?'
His gut reaction was to say no. If she used to be a 'terrorist' like Weiss had called the White Fang, then that meant she was an enemy of humans, of Zuko. She implied that she used to be however, which mean she wasn't any more.
'A change of heart, perhaps?'
Irrelevant. Faunus were treated like garbage and childhood trauma wasn't something someone could forget. If she had believed in them once then she could believe in them again, which made her a threat not only to himself, but to his uncle. He'd almost lost him once thanks to Azula, he wouldn't let that happen again. And when it really came down to it, what could he do to assure himself that she had changed?
He supposed he could trust in her, trust in her as a teammate and, he supposed, as a friend. That was a problem though. Zuko hadn't trusted anyone beyond his uncle for years, not even his crew. They were all failures of the Fire Navy, dumped under his command as a formality rather than a gift. His father had trusted him to capture the Avatar, but the soldiers and sailors who he ordered around had no such mission, simply being told to follow him for his rank as Crown Prince.
He would bring them as support like he did when he attacked the Southern Water Tribe or Kyoshi Island, but he wouldn't rely on them to bring him victory. He'd tried trusting them to put the Avatar in the brig and they couldn't even handle that! The brat was running around his ship just moments later. They'd ratted him out to Zhao and told him that the Avatar had returned. Worthless, each and every one of them.
He didn't hate them however, as much as they no doubt assumed he had. He wouldn't let a single man under his command die needlessly like some callous monster, not like Zhao would have. But he couldn't trust them, couldn't believe in them to have his back when he needed it. No, they were just as likely to put a knife in it or leave him. And none of them had any particular agenda against him.
And yet, Zuko found that he couldn't quite condemn Blake. It should have been as simple as that, that she was an enemy and he had to watch her or deal with her. But…he couldn't, and he didn't know why.
'Is it…is it because, I want to trust her?'
He did. He wanted to trust her, to believe that she was better than that, that maybe…they could be friends. It'd been so long since he'd had a friend, so many years that he'd spent alone that he just couldn't give up on her. This was his team. A group of people he would have to spend years working together with and damn it all he wanted it to be good.
So he could give her the benefit of the doubt, he could give her the chance to explain. But he was doing it for himself, not for her.
"Hey! Stop those thieves!"
The shout snapped Zuko out of his thoughts, and he turned to see a group of three men sprinting down the street towards him. Some old man was angrily waving his fist in the air from outside of his shop, his eyes locked with the small bag in one of the men's hands.
Zuko spotted the bag in his hands, as well as the gun in his other. It would kill him, a single bullet would end his life right there. The criminal running towards him seemed to think so too, as Zuko could see the gears turning in his mind as to whether to shoot the teenager in his way or try to get past him. Zuko didn't wait for him to decide, and a wave of fire washed over the man and sent him backwards onto the ground.
The effect was immediate, as his two comrades quickly faltered in fear. Another two blasts sent them to the ground as they hesitated and panicked. The difference between a master and an amateur, was that an amateur thought, while a master acted. Although, Zuko had perhaps a little too much experience in acting without thinking.
Zuko grabbed the unconscious bodies of the three criminals and laid them out as two police officers arrived. In a rather strange coincidence, it was actually the same two detectives he'd seen the day before chasing that Faunus.
"Thanks for the help citizen, we'll take it from here."
Zuko nodded and headed away down an alley.
"Did you just say 'citizen'?"
"What? It's a saying."
"Yeah, but how old are you?"
"Oh ha ha. Now, uh…which one of these guys had the money?"
~RWBYZ~
Zuko casually flicked through the various cards he'd helped himself to. He recognized some of them, mostly the ones that he'd seen before as being 'Lien'. There were a few other that he didn't recognize however, and so he tossed them away into a nearby dumpster.
"Impressive."
She looked as out of place in the alleyway as Azula would in a daycare. The red dress may have accentuated her beauty, but it made her very difficult to forget, which its purpose probably was.
"…Thanks."
She had seen him take the stolen money for himself, Zuko had no doubts about that, but the fact that she wasn't mentioning it meant she was clearly after something.
"It's not every day you see someone who can use fire. It's very interesting." She walked closer to him, her high heels clinking like glass, and her hips swaying seductively. "And yet, you didn't burn them."
"I'm very careful."
"So I see." She walked around him, looking him up and down as if he was being inspected. She seemed pleased when she stopped in front of him. "I never caught your name."
"…Zuko."
"Zuko." She seemed to purr with approval, setting his hairs on edge. "So what does a man like yourself need with stolen money?"
"New clothes." She eyed the hole in his robe that he'd gotten a week ago and smirked.
"Follow me then." She turned and began to leave the alleyway, Zuko's feet hesitating for but a moment before he followed after her. It was bizarre, like he felt compelled to follow her, to see just what she wanted with him.
"I never caught your name."
Zuko didn't need to see it to know that she was grinning, almost as if she were proud of him. "No, you didn't. But tell me, where exactly did you learn such fire control?"
'Uncle.' "Beacon."
"A huntsman in training then. It's so very rare to find one who would, help himself to another's belongings."
"I needed it more than he did."
"Hm." She wasn't scolding him, that much was clear even to Zuko. Instead, it seemed like she was far more interested in just why he had done it.
She didn't ask him any more questions after that, and Zuko kept his mouth shut to make sure he didn't let anything slip. She was watching him. Watching how he moved, what he saw.
'She's studying me.' Just why, Zuko didn't know, but he certainly wasn't going to ask. If she wanted something, then she would be the one to say it.
When she stopped, they were outside a store which looked like any of the others he had passed without a second glance, but she clearly knew something more about it.
"This is the best store in Vale, whatever you need, he'll make it for you." She waved lazily at the door before turning to face him. One eye covered by her dark locks, the other memorizing every little detail about him. "I would love to know more about you, Zuko, one day. Until then." She turned and left with her head held high, and Zuko felt as if he had just been dismissed by his father. By someone who was far more powerful than him.
He took a few hesitant steps inside the store, paranoia screaming to him that it was some kind of trap.
"Can I help you?"
He wasn't particularly old, but the man who greeted him held years of experience in his gaze.
"I need some new clothes."
"Clearly. Custom made or are you buying off the shelf?"
A thought flashed across his mind. "Custom."
"Alright. You pay up-front and you can come back in a few hours after I take your measurements. What sort of thing are you looking for?"
It was dark when Zuko finally left the store, clad snugly in a new set of red and gold robes. Fire Nation robes. He burned the Earth Kingdom rags in his hands to ashes. No more would he have to wear that garbage, instead he had something that fitted him. It felt like being home again.
Zuko put his spare clothes into his new bag and slung it over his shoulder. In the hours he'd had to wait on his clothes to be made, Zuko had gone on his own little shopping spree. Only for the essentials of course, a sword sharpening kit and two Scrolls were among his main purchases. One for him, and one for his uncle, then he could speak to him far more often than he had been of late. The downside of sharing a room with four girls on a different floor from him.
He put those thoughts aside for later however, and readied himself mentally for a night of searching. He'd been waiting for night to come so that he could find Blake, since it was pointless to search during the day. Faunus could see at night, so that's when Blake would have moved. He and his team had been looking around during the day, when Blake would hide.
Now however, he could put his sneaking skills to good use. At night and over the rooftops was the best time and way to move. Nobody looked up, and even if they did they'd be hard pressed to see anything. But for someone with experience, who knew what they were looking for, Zuko would spot her the moment she moved.
An explosion caught his attention, and a close one at that. He could spy the smoke cresting up into the sky only a short distance away. It was close, very close, and just at the docks if he remembered correctly.
'Found you, Blake.'