Chapter Text
Yang sighed as she stared at the flickering ember of her cigarette. When her new boss had offered her ‘exciting new opportunities to develop skills and make contacts in an up and coming organization’, she’d been hoping for something better than being lookout.
Yang had been doing that since she was thirteen.
She took another drag and tried very hard not to cough, and mostly succeeded. Then she washed it down with a swig of cheap beer and tried very hard not to gag, and mostly succeeded.
No, Yang wasn’t actually old enough to buy either alcohol or cigarettes, but she had a shiny new id card that said she was, courtesy of her new boss as a sign-on bonus.
And no, Yang didn’t actually enjoy either alcohol or cigarettes, but seeing as how she was ‘legally’ able to buy them now, she was determined to make herself enjoy the experience.
So that was one point in favour of her employer, at least, but the taste in her mouth and queasyness in her gut and itch in her throat and lungs were definite points against.
After flicking her near burnt out stub into the street, Yang took a glance around, but in a way that suggested casual people watching rather than her actual job of completely serious people watching. The streets were mostly empty, it being fairly late, but small smatterings of pedestrians and the occasional vehicle passed by. Despite the late hour, the street was well lit, by both lamp posts and the quarter-forged moon.
She was seated seated in a small outdoor patio section of an equally small bar. The patio was somewhat shielded from sight by a low shrub wall, but it didn’t block the critical sightlines she needed to know if someone- or a group of someones- was coming by to interrupt the ‘exciting new opportunity’ that was soon to be happening down the block.
Just as importantly, Yang herself was fairly inconspicuous. A few other patrons were seated on the patio so that she could blend in, at least as well as her massive blonde mane would let her, but not so many as to be distracting. Not that she was in any real risk, or that someone noticing her would actually mean anything, but still. It was the thought that counted, right? Someday Yang might be in a situation where getting spotted would matter, and practice made perfect. All in all she was fairly proud of herself for picking out the spot.
Yang was debating whether she wanted to light another cigarette (this one she promised herself she’d take more than two drags from) when she heard the tell-tale boisterous chatter of a group of young men. She did the first of her obligations immediately- her job.
There were three men, and although they weren’t obviously armed, they carried themselves in a self-assured, almost cocky manner that either meant gang members or worse, young Hunters-to-be. Yang recognized this walk because it was the almost the same as the walk that moved her from place to place, minus her practiced hip sway of course.
This could be trouble, she thought. Gang members would make things messy but would ultimately back down, but Hunters, even young and untrained ones, would most certainly result in a street brawl and that was no good for her boss, which meant it was no good for Yang. She pulled out her Scroll and found the contact labelled ‘work’- not her boss’ number, but someone who’d be with him. In the end though, Yang decided against calling or texting, as the three men were moving away from the location at a fairly brisk pace. Hunters or not, they’d be long gone soon enough.
Having satisfied her duty, Yang proceeded onto her second obligation- ogling. The seeming leader of the trio was handsome enough, in the utterly-generic tall, muscular, short-brown hair sort of way. The second’s long, swept back gunmetal-blue hair caught her eye, and the third… well, points for boldness, with that hairdo.
Yang sipped her drink and considered getting their attention. She was bored, and a young lady drinking alone was kind of odd, wasn’t it? Some company wouldn’t be amiss.
She shook her head, creating golden ripples in her hair. That was a weak rationalization, and she knew it. She was on the job, not here to socialize. They’d just be a distraction or a nuisance, and if they were potential threats, keeping them around would be pure stupidity.
Besides, they seemed like assholes.
Nothing of interest happened after that and time passed slowly. Yang found herself checking the time on her Scroll more and more. She nursed her half-full drink, but ordered a second anyway. She lit another cigarette and only took one hit off it but barely coughed at all so she counted it as a win. She tapped her feet and drummed her fingers and mentally ran through her list of shampoos and conditioners and other assorted beauty products and reminded herself which were running low. She didn’t consider leaving, but she sort of wished that she did.
It wasn’t that she was impatient, not really- she spent over an hour on her hair almost every day- it was just that she didn’t handle doing both nothing and waiting very well, especially since if everything went fine she wouldn’t even end up doing anything. That was the worst to her, to sit somewhere doing nothing while waiting and, in the best case scenario, continuing to do nothing. She was a woman of action, dammit, not a woman of lazing about, getting paid to sit on her ass.
But she’d learn how to be one, just in case.
Yang had a simple motto in life- be better. It wasn’t enough to know enough to just get by, and it wasn’t even enough to be really good at just a few things. She had ambitions. Not any sort of concrete goal, no, but she wanted to be… better. Better than what, she also didn’t know, but that was what she wanted, and she wasn’t about to let herself get held back because of some minor detail she’d neglected. That meant she had to learn everything.
Just in case she ever needed it.
Learn to fight. Learn to look great. Learn to fight while looking great. Learn to get noticed. Learn to evade attention. Learn math. Learn history. Learn to pick a lock. Learn to drink and smoke. Learn to be patient. Learn to smile. Learn to frown. Learn to drink while upside-down. Learn to rhyme, oh crap the time.
Yang checked her Scroll once more, while slipping ‘rhyming couplets’ into her mental category of ‘wordplay to learn’, along with puns and innuendos.
More like in your endos. Yang quirked a smirk at that thought, which turned into a full-blown grin when she registered the time.
Just a few minutes more, and she’d be done here. Maybe, just maybe, she might have to do something. Or maybe not, and she’d get the all-clear, meet up with her sister, grab some food (Ruby was always hungry and Yang wanted something settle her stomach), then hop on a late-night airship back to Patch. Either way, the waiting was over.
Yang was deciding if she’d rather have open-late pizza or open-early waffles when she heard the distinctive beat of an automatic rifle, punctuated occasionally by heavy, ringing gunshots.
Familiar ones.
Coming from the shop.
The shop that was supposed to be unguarded as her boss and his crew ransacked it.
The staccato gunshot bass backbeat was joined a second later in counter-point by the warbling electronic police siren.
And was that blast a firework, or a cannon, or both?
Yang sucked in a frustrated curse, instead settling for biting her lip. This was just about the worst-case scenario. Even if she didn’t particularly care about the loot herself, and she had faith that her boss would be fine and get away, there was a significant chance that a botched job would reflect poorly on her and all the ‘exciting new opportunities’ would slip through her fingers.
What if whatever was going on was her fault? Someone she had let slip through? Those douchebags from earlier? Yang knew there were other lookouts who might have messed up, or maybe someone had just been in the store, so probably it wasn’t her fault, but she didn’t know, and she had to know. She had to do something.
Yang knew what she was supposed to do- keep watch, and try to distract or slow down any cops who came by. Not violently, but in an ‘oh officer, I’m in such need of aid; it’s all just so terrifying’ damsel-in-distress kind of way.
On the one hand, a chance to practice her acting skills would be appreciated.
On the other, Yang wasn’t in distress and despite the hair, she wasn’t much of a damsel.
She took off running, towards the gunshots, her shotgun-gauntlets Ember Celica expanding and locking into place on her wrists, the unopened beer bottle and pack of cigarettes abandoned.
She arrived just in time to see Roman Torchwick, her bowler hat-clad, mascara-eyed employer, clamber off a rooftop onto a waiting Bullhead VTOL , while being pursued by Ruby Rose, her cloak-clad scythe-wielding sister.
Then the explosions started and Yang didn’t bother holding back her curse this time.