Professor Arc

Chapter 6: Just another criminal

Jaune looked around nervously as he made his way through the streets of Vale. Crowds of people were making their way back and forth as they enjoyed the early Saturday morning, but he couldn't discount the possibility of students coming down to explore the city on their first official weekend. Not that he was doing anything illegal of course... he was just meeting someone who was... yeah, okay never mind, it was probably illegal.

This is where I met him last time. Jaune thought to himself as he reserved a small table in the innocuous looking diner. It didn't escape his notice that the place was absolutely deserted of people. He said to come here and order a drink, and that someone would take me to him...

"Can I help you sir?" A suited man asked, looking pointedly overdressed for a simple waiter. Jaune wanted to weep at the general lack of subtlety.

"I'd like a latte." Jaune ordered with a sigh.

"We don't serve latte." The suited man replied back in annoyance. Jaune simply rolled his eyes, and repeated the order he had been told to give.

"I was told to ask for a latte... look is Roman here?"

"Uh, yeah sure he's in the back." The man grunted in slight confusion, jerking his thumb towards a door behind the counter. Sighing, Jaune climbed to his feet and walked to the door, wondering if the man would make any effort to stop him. Instead the suited goon just watched, with a vaguely confused expression on his face.

The door opened up not to a kitchen as might have been expected, but instead showed a flight of stairs leading down into the darkness. The last time he had been here they'd done their business at the entrance to these stairs. The man coming up to meet him just long enough to hand over the documents and enforce some simple tips Jaune would have to follow to make sure they worked. Now though, it looked like he was about to go down the rabbit hole.

Welp. No time for hesitation.

Despite the darkness suggesting a long descent, it was really nothing more than a hundred steps or so down into the basement. And as he entered through the small opening, he could see that they were now in some kind of underground warehouse. A number of maps, televisions and couches were strewn about the area by the stairs however, while suited men wandered around in the background like little ants in a hive.

It was an honest-to-goodness underground base. That was pretty cool.

"Hey kiddo!" A familiar voice called from the left, drawing Jaune's attention to an orange-haired man who was lounging on a wide couch, his feet propped up on a coffee table in front of him. One gloved hand waved at him as Jaune sighed and made his way closer. "Take a seat kid." The man gestured to the single-seater opposite him.

"Thanks for agreeing to help me Roman." Jaune greeted as he sat down, only to leap forwards in surprise as he felt his rear end connect with something definitely not made of leather.

"Bu-wha!?" Jaune stammered in shock as he looked behind him to see that he had almost sat on a petite girl who was in the seat... but it had been completely empty when he looked at it! It had totally been empty!

"Yeah, can you avoid crushing my partner, I kind of need her." The orange-haired man grinned, as Jaune quickly shuffled to a different seat and sat down. "Also kid, no need to thank me. This is going to be a business transaction after all."

"That's fine with me. What do you want?" Jaune asked as his attention drifted back to the girl he had almost sat on. Not only was she one of the most petite women he had ever met, but she also had the most incredible hair he'd ever seen. Three colours in total, a mixture of pink, brown and cream! She was also incredibly beautiful, in a frail sort of way.