RWBY Through Worlds (End)

BC35: Animal Instincts (Black Sun & Co.)-2

"She's weakened," Cinder noted, once she was out of earshot, hopefully.

Sun and Blake shrugged.

"The long term use of dust, even in mitigated form, appears to have its effects," Watts said regretfully. "Unlike Hazel, Victoria does not have a naturally high tolerance for damage. Still, he ought to feel the effects of it soon enough."

"Raven banned him from using it," Blake said. "In fact, she and Winter banned anyone who works for them from ingesting it, after what we saw it do."

"What does he fight with?" Watts asked.

"He doesn't fight much at all. He's into construction now," Blake said.

Hazel had branched out in the last year.

"I suppose we all have adjustments to make. What are you doing now, Cinder?" Watts asked meanly.

Cinder didn't answer him. She hoped he'd get bored if she ignored him.

"Oh dear, what could it be?" he persisted. "Do you know?"

"Not in detail," Sun said, cluelessly. "It's kind of a secret."

Blake elbowed him.

"What?" He rubbed his arm.

"It's just nothing you need to know," Blake told Watts. "Why would you care?"

"I suppose as long as it doesn't affect me. You know I've heard some air pirates surfaced in Mitral," Watts said. "Isn't that your cup of tea, Cinder?"

Cinder made a fist.

"Are you always such a prick?" Royal asked Watts, still terse.

"The person who came in here and punched me in the face for an accident is calling me a prick?" Watts said.

"Dude, that was his family," Sun said.

"It's not as if there weren't plenty of others." Watts rubbed his mustache. "I wonder if you would have gotten so worked up if it wasn't someone you knew."

Royal looked on the verge of answering--and then paused, like he wasn't sure.

"Yes, it's always more about you, isn't it?" Watts smiled thinly. "It's easy to overlook sins against people who you didn't know. Be more objective. Overall, it's not worse than anyone else who died there. And as I've already 'reformed' as they call it, why should I offer any specific apologies. Just ask Cinder--you didn't, did you?"

Cinder frowned at him.

"Or Tory, even. What's the use of trying to keep track now?" Watts said.

"It's one thing for us to say that in order to make peace," Blake said. "It's another for you to dismiss it because you don't care what you did wrong. The rest of us with checkered pasts--and I'm one of those people--have admitted we were wrong. Even Cinder, in her way. But you never have. And if it was up to you, you'd have died if we let you do what you wanted to do."

"You had nothing to do with it, Miss Belladonna," Watts said. "Your teacher outsmarted me, I admit, begrudgingly, but she's gone now. The rest of you don't interest me. You're unintelligent and uncreative, one-note huntsmen. You bore me."

Blake didn't know what to say to that.

"I think you were right about him," Royal said to Cinder thinly. "I'm not sure I care to listen to this anymore. I'll just be outside."

"Theo said to stay in here," Sun said.

"Theo can go screw himself," Royal said, oddly out of character.