Checklist (Cont.)

Since Blake seemed to have had enough of us and probably did need the sleep, Adam and I swung by Tukson's place which had just opened. Tukson had evidently gotten a full night's rest and looked upbeat, which seemed to irritate Adam on general principle, but I did the talking and told him what we'd need and he said he'd ask around. He had a few books on hand that were worthwhile and gave them to me, though, so I absorbed them and headed into battle.

Well, that's what I'd like to say. Something that could get a bit jarring once you did away with sleep is the fact that everyone else in the world kept on doing it and steadfastly refused to conform their schedule to you connivance at all hours of the day or night. As such, we scoped out the field of battle and it was closed, so we sat in the parking lot awkwardly for a minute and then went to my place, where Adam himself went to sleep. For my part, I did what I always did when I found myself alone and with nothing to do and went back into the woods to train. I did my thing while the sun crawled through the sky, shifted through the email accounts Blake had gotten, sent a message to her scroll, went out to Tukson's sometime after noon when Tukson messaged my scroll and told me he'd found some, went back to training, and waited for it to be time.

But then, we rushed valiantly to the field of battle.

Which, admittedly, would have been more impressive if we hadn't done it in a kind of junky car the White Fang had supplied.

And if said field of battler hadn't been, well, a club.

"The Xiong family has a lot of power, here in Vale," Adam said calmly, for once without his mask. "The Mother and Father run the businesses—and the gang—but it's a family business of sorts and they've been providing their son with more and more responsibilities as of late."

"You know them?"

He shrugged.

"Somewhat, though mainly the older ones," He elaborated. "But they're fairly well known and the family doesn't have any issues with Faunus. Try and be polite and remember the rule."

"Which rule is that?" I asked. "There are a bunch of rules."

He pointed at me and spoke with a tone that was entirely serious, even as his lips twitched upwards.

"Sometimes the toes you step on today are connected to an ass you'll have to kiss tomorrow. The Xiong family has a lot of power, a lot of pull; if you find you need something, knowing how to ask could smooth things over. Give them cause to hate you, things could get more complicated in the future. Don't mess with them if you don't want to deal with it later and remember that there are three of them, each more dangerous than the last. They're like the Gruffs."

"Seriously?" I asked. "You're telling me that?"

Adam snorted.

"Just keep it in mind," He said. "It shouldn't be a problem for you one way or another given you're disguised, but it could cause the White Fang some trouble down the line."

I hummed my understanding, tugging at the collar of my borrowed shirt. Even beyond the theoretical risks of wearing my own clothes into such a place and possibly getting noticed somehow later, I just didn't really have a whole lot of dressy clothes. I'd given some money to Adam when it was my turn to take a shower, though, and he'd come back with a red shirt and black slacks pretty much exactly like his own—which I probably should have anticipated. They didn't fit right, either, but I shrugged and used my Equipment Screen to size them up and we'd headed out. More importantly then the clothing, it had confirmed the cash we'd gotten was, at the very least, not immediately recognizable as fake.

As for the rest of me, I was in a throw away disguise, with red hair and brown eyes. It was new, but easy to apply since I'd been grinding my Disguise skill constantly the last few days. Not only did it make my disguises better, but it reduced the time it took to apply them by a percentage—currently forty-seven percent—which was a godsend where using makeup and such was concerned. I had to wonder what would happen once, or if, the percentage reached one hundred, though.

"I got it. Anything else you want to tell me about before we go in there?" I asked.

"Drink responsibly," Adam replied immediately.

I snorted.

"I don't drink," I said. "I'm underage, remember? And driving."

"So?" Adam asked, opening the door and stepping outside before leaning down to look at me. "You could fake it easy enough and I'm a little doubtful Hei Xiong would care even if you couldn't. Besides, if we're talking about things you're not supposed to be doing, I think you have a few things you might want to worry about before you get down to 'drinking a year or two early,' not least of which being the fact that you're driving without a license. Besides, a week or two from now…"

I made a face at him as I followed him out of the car.

"I might be dead?" I asked. "To hell with that; I told you before that I wouldn't let that happen. We're all coming back fine—all of us—so I'm not going to start drinking out of some fear that this might be it or something. Don't start worrying about stupid stuff now, idiot."

He chuckled.

"It was just a joke," He replied, gesturing dismissively as he walked towards the club. "Or an excuse if you wanted. And maybe I just want to see you drunk as hell."

"You do realize that odds are good the first time I start drinking, I'll probably get some skill to resist the effects, right?" I pointed out sourly. "That's part of why I don't want to drink over something stupid."

"You'd rather celebrate?" He guessed.

I considered that before nodding slowly.

"Yeah," I said. "In fact, how about this—if you want to see me drunk, we'll come back after the mission to celebrate our victory. You, me, Blake, anyone who was involved and wants to come; we'll come here again to celebrate later, since this trip is for business."

"After we get back, we'll all need to lay low for a while," He said. "And it'll take time to integrate the…refugees into Vale."

"It doesn't have to be immediately," I shrugged. "But let's celebrate our victory at some point. It'll be fun; if you're lucky, maybe I'll let you bask in the brilliance of my killer dance moves."

"Another reason to stay alive, then," Adam snorted as we reached the club and entered. I felt the steady pulse of music almost before I heard it and saw lights flashing a moment later, and then we were walking down a staircase towards a tide of moving bodies and flashes. "I need to speak with Hei Xiong about a few things first so go do something."

"Like what?" I questioned skeptically, looking around.

"Even if you can't drink, you should at least be old enough to amuse yourself," He said, pushing me away. "Go work on your 'killer dance moves' or something."

"How many times do I have to tell you I'm an amazing dancer? My mom taught me," I shouted back over the music. It was hard to hear anything, but I'm pretty sure he laughed.

With my pride thusly wounded, I did go dancing just to show him, sliding deeper into the crowd until I found a place with some elbow room.

And then I started dancing and quickly felt eyes on me.

XxXXxX​

By the time Adam returned, the people on the dance floor had made a clearing around me and the poor fool who had decided to test me. By the time I noticed Adam's silent, expressionless presence at the edge of the circle, I was just wrapping things up. I slipped seamlessly from a series of windmills into one of flares, then air flares, before adding an extra hundred-eighty degrees to the turns to land on my shoulders instead of my hands, throwing myself back up into the air, before transitioning back into a normal air flare while using only one hand, before using it to throw myself fully into the air, spin, and land on my feet, just to be mean.

I walked away from my opponent without even looking back, staring hard at my friends.

"Hey," I said, nodding with a smile. "You finish what you needed?"

Adam frowned at me, seeming properly told as we followed one of Hei's men into the back of the club, but said nothing. I didn't look at him, but I was smiling smugly.

"I told you I could dance," I said, feeling superior. "I haven't had many chances to dance lately, but I could have gotten that skill any time. The books helped, I admit, as did the skill—and I probably couldn't have done that last bit without my improved stats—but I am an awesome dancer."

Adam shook his head before gesturing in concession.

"What was with the dance-off, though?" He asked.

"Uh…" I frowned and looked over my shoulder in the direction of the dance floor. "I honestly don't know. I think the guy was drunk and trying to impress a girl. Feel kind of bad for him, but if you step to an Arc on the dance floor, that's what you get. I will crush you and make you cry if you challenge me on the floor."

Because for a long time, it'd been the only thing I was good at, I left unsaid.

Adam let that statement wash over him, face expressionless as he gave me a flat look, and then shook his head.

"Yeah, okay," He said and kept walking. "I spoke to Hei Xiong and cleared everything for you. Do you think this will work?"

"Well," I hesitated. "Maybe? You figure if anything would, it'd be this. The real question is, 'if it does work, what will happen?'"

Adam grunted as we finally reached the back, passing through after the man we were following passed the guard something—and it was like walking into a completely different world. We crossed over the threshold and the music from the dance floor was shut out instantly the moment the door closed. The bright, flashing, multicolored lights of the front were gone and the room was well lit and easy on the eyes, with comfortable looking seats and a variety of tables, each with at least one of Hei Xiong's suited men at them.

There were cards on the tables and chips and wheels. Along one wall were set a series of slot machines, with several seats occupied and colored lights flashing. There was the presence of low chatter all throughout the room, though it wasn't anywhere near packed this early in the evening. I saw a few people glance our way, but then their eyes slide right over us and they went back to their games. Only the men who worked here seemed interested at all and even then it was only absently so.

"Blake said she needed a few hours to get what you needed," Adam said and I nodded silently. I'd found must of what I needed in the emails but there were, as ever, a few fiddly bits. I'd been able to call up several employees and ask about some basic stuff like the scheduling, but Blake was out getting a few other things. "After that, she said she'd meet us here."

"Good," I said. "When she arrives, we'll start sketching out the basics of our plan. We have almost everything we need. I just figured…well, maybe there was one last thing we could use if we're gonna pull this off, just in case."

"A shitload of luck?" Adam supplied.

I shrugged, a tad embarrassed.

"Yeah, I guess," I answered.

He nodded.

"Little luck never hurts, but…" He glanced around, musing. "This could turn out to be a pretty expensive way to improve it, from what you told me. Sure you don't want to spend it on something a little more tangible?"

"I'm sure," I said, cracking my next. "Because if I get desperate and really need it, luck's the only thing I couldn't steal and pay back later."

He hummed in the back of his throat, conceding the point.

"Did you decide how you were going to do it, then?"

I turned to face him completely, hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. With my back shielding me from sight, I pulled up my status window.

I had nineteen points. If I set my current goal as the prerequisites for the White Tiger's Five Hundred Years, I still had a ways to go and there was a lot I needed to work on still, but…I could do this.

I put nine points in Intelligence, bring it up to sixty. I placed another five in Wisdom, raising it to match, fulfilling the requirements for both stats. I'd debated with myself at length about what, if anything, I should do with my points, and I'd decided on this early on. Not only had both stats served me well, both were also highly applicable and already high enough that it was unlikely I'd be able to improve them much any other way in the time I had left. With those two where I wanted them, I would be able to focus on getting my other stats high enough.

Which was why I put the five remaining points in Luck. My concerns remained—that luck, by its very nature, was unreliable. That I wouldn't be able to measure it the way I could most of my other stats, seeing a simple, obvious point-by-point improvement. That, in the context of my power, I couldn't be sure what Luck would even do. And, more than anything else, that if my power could, did, warp probability around me, then…

But…I had a chance here and all my concerns aside, it was a logical thing to invest in when I had a chance to do so. Hopefully a five point increase would give me a proper footing to work on improving it the hard way, as had been the case with Intelligence and my physical stats. Odd were it would set me back a level, in terms of reaching the White Tiger's Five Hundred Years, but I had to remember the basic rule of my power—that things were easier to improve at lower levels.

With the money I had and the edge I'd just given myself, it was possible—probable, even—that I could raise Luck twenty levels in the next week and a half, though I'd spend that same time struggling to get my physical abilities to forty. An improvement to my luck on that scale…it might be worth the setback.

If, ironically, I was lucky.

Adam slide back as I nodded to him, waiting by the door after putting on a pair of red shades he must have gotten from one of Hei's men while I walked over to the owner.

Little Black Bear

LV31

Hei Xiong

"If it isn't the dancing machine. You're Jian?" The man who more commonly went by 'Junior' asked when I stood before him, looking me up and down. I nodded silently. "I've gotta ask—what are you? The White Fang's dance instructor?"

"Something like that," I nodded with a smile. "I prefer to be known as the Lord of the Dance, though."

Junior snorted and gave me a grin in return.

"It's rare that Adam Taurus does favors for people, so I had to admit I was interested. But I've gotta say I'm confused. Why gamble if you're just going to give the house back anything you win and everything you lose?"

"I just want to see if I'm lucky, I suppose," I said, scratching the side of my head. It felt odd to have Crocea Mors off after having it on my arms so long. "And if I win a lot, I wouldn't want you to throw me out, right?"

"Oh?" Junior asked, raising an eyebrow. "Do you feel lucky?"

"No," I admitted. "Not yet."

XxXXxX​

Name: Jaune Arc

Class: The Gamer

Level: LV20

Title: The Tiger

HP: 1100/1100

MP: 1980/1980

STR: 32+19.8 (62%) = 50.8

VIT: 34+21.8 (62%) = 55

DEX: 31+19.2 (62%) = 50.2

INT: 60+37.2 (62%) = 97.2

WIS: 60+37.2 (62%) = 97.2

LUK: 15

Status: Metal Element Affinity 10, Air Element Affinity 10.

POINTS: 5

MONEY: 57100 Lien

XxXXxX