Team SHDW Information

Short Story: Ancestry

Felix Scout was many things. He had also been many former things. Titles and descriptions he was not proud of and still seem to haunt him to this day. A racist, a manipulator, a devious liar, and others. However, the opposite was true for many different titles. A genius, a master strategist, a tech wizard, a leader, a devious liar, and others. And now, he had one more description to be proud of: a member of Black Claw. It's because of his past that he is all he is today.

But some things are harder to drop than others.

Though this was one personality trait he, unapologetically, was not going to let go of. When meeting or learning of a new person, he had the urge to learn everything about them, friend and foe alike. This was why he personally volunteered to be Black Claw's archivist, a job in which he would transcribe the people and actions of the new organization. And while the recruitment rate of members was increasing, Felix had no problems keeping up.

What he enjoyed most, however, was the freedom he got to look up who the ancestors to the members were. A person's ancestry can tell you a lot about what makes them tick, especially in this day and age. Bomani Niflheim, for example, had a grandfather who had been a soldier in the Faunus War, and further back, there was a major general in the Great War, who had many successful battles against Mantle and Mistral. Then there were the others...

"What on Remnant are you doing?"

Felix's thought process was interrupted when his teammate, Scarlett Justine, walked into the room to look at what he was doing, "Oh, nothing much. Just prying into ancestries, no big deal."

Scarlett glared at him, an action the cobra Faunus seemed to do a lot, especially ever since Felix got his team roped up in Black Claw, "I still don't understand how you don't see the moral ambiguity of invading other people's privacy."

Felix shrugged and leaned back in his chair, "I am to be a politician someday. Moral ambiguity comes with the territory. It's not that I don't see it, it's just that I don't necessarily care."

"You talk big game, but what about your past? If you have no problems digging up others', surely you'll be fine with others digging up yours."

Felix merely shrugged again, "They're free to it. I'll even point them in the right direction. Wanna know how my family got so rich?"

He pointed to one particular book, titled 'Vacuan Myths and Legends', that was just sitting on his desk, "Turn to page seven."

Scarlett raised an eyebrow, but did as he asked. She flipped through the pages, reading as she went along, her eyes narrowing and widening at random. She, at last, finished the section and looked at her leader incredulously.

"Are you seriously trying to tell me that this supposed 'Greatest Thief' was not only your ancestor, but got his gold from a dragon?"

Felix waved her off, "Believe what you will. Just know that one of my ancestors matches the thief's description and just so happened to gain a large amount of gold one day. Just seems a bit too coincidental. Now..."

He then turned to face her and grinned, "Would you like to know your ancestry, Scarlett? Or would you rather be ignorant?"

She glared at him, but sighed, "No. I am my own person. My family lineage doesn't matter."

Felix groaned, "You are just so boring sometimes, you know that?"

"You dragged us into all of this, Felix," she retorted, a small smirk appearing on her face, "So don't go complaining when we start smack-talking you over it."

"Yeah yeah yeah," Felix waved her off, "Just go away to baby Ava some more or masking your liking of Hayden with violence already, would you?"

A bit of red showed on her face out of embarrassment before she scoffed and walked out of the room, "Whatever."

Felix smirked in victory before turning back to his computer. Of course, archiving wasn't the only job that Black Claw had given to him, but rather just a voluntary bonus. The two jobs he was given had at least one thing in common: information gathering.

The leader of Team FSHA had never been one for direct combat. He wasn't bad, certainly, but he would admit without shame that his teammates had to carry him when it came to fighting, thus why they usually didn't qualify for the Vytal Festival Tournament. No, his skills laid elsewhere. His strategies for taking down opponents were often long term and rarely applied to the battlefield.

Like previously implied, he loved to see how people ticked, why they acted the way they do and what choices they would likely make in a given situation. It made them predictable, easy to manipulate in his favor. And since he now had a side to be on, he now knew who his enemies exactly were and could research to his heart's content.

Adam Taurus was the first and obvious option, but Felix personally found him rather... cliche. He was practically enslaved by the Schnee Dust Company at an early age, had a missing eye to prove it, and thus went on a vengeance-filled path against mankind. Typical extremist, though not without depth. If anything, his previous relationship to one Blake Belladonna was perhaps the most interesting part about him to Felix. He seemed to genuinely care for her, but her leaving the organization caused him to metaphorically break a bit. The one person he thought he could trust betrayed him. Fascinating.

However, as said before, Adam wasn't interesting Felix, so he looked further and found out about a nonaggression pact between Adam's White Fang and a certain Nathan Bourbon's Eclipse Syndicate. They would certainly prove to be quite the issue in the future. What fun!

And one certain member was proving to be particularly challenging. Felix did as much research as he could, but other than his Atlas Academy entry papers, this person was akin to a ghost. No birth record, no family members, no connections, nothing. Absolutely nothing. He had seemingly never existed until he entered Atlas Academy. But if there was one thing Felix liked, it was a challenge.

"Just who are you... Tracy Smith?"

TO BE CONTINUED IN
TEAM SHDW VOLUME 3

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And there we go! Certainly not the longest thing I've ever written, but I finished it at long last, so shouldn't that count at the end of the day? Team SHDW Volume 1 Rewritten still isn't close to being done, so we still got quite the wait for Team SHDW Volume 3, but I hope the wait will be worth it. Now off to work on My Death Battles Season 1. Till next time guys!