[hider=Oswald dun goof'd]It had been a simple operation. Shadow the idiotic gangster who'd lost his mask during an attack on the village's trading caravan, beat him bloody, get any info he could, and dump his half-dead body in the street 

Oswald hadn't thought of the possibility of an ambush. Apparently, he'd taken far too long watching the gangster instead of acting, since he'd been hit the moment he moved to strike. 

His side still hurt from the beating he'd been given. Groaning as he remembered how badly he'd screwed up, Oswald winced in pain. His armor and weapons had been taken, as well as his clothes. Only a low-quality white tee shirt and a pair of dull brown sweatpants covered his body.

“Hey, kid, shut it. I'm not here to listen to your complaining.” A man in his thirties with a grey coat on snapped at the captive. As he wasn't hiding his face, nor had any of his captors since he'd first woken up, Oswald assumed that he was not intended to survive this. 

“Suck my balls.” His responses had consisted of little else than that for the few days he'd been here. His instructors put him through worse torture during training than these punks had. It was obvious that they were trying not to kill him, and that was their first mistake: putting value into their hostage beyond what he could give them. 

The guard didn't even respond to his vulgarity, just shrugged and turned away. They'd gotten used to Oswald's mouth, and once or twice he noticed the other guards suppressing a smile at his more creative responses. 


After what had to have been a few days since his capture, Oswald was dragged somewhere with a bag on his head, with his hands and feet bound behind his back. When the bag was lifted, he was nearly blinded by a desk lamp placed in the center of a table aimed directly at his face. 

“Alright, kid, it's been three days, and you haven't said a word. We've taken it easy on you before, but it's clear that you're not going to talk unless we...really persuade you. Bryce?” The leader's voice was low, deep, and each word came out carefully, but with an irritated edge behind it.

“Got it, boss.” A slender man with a mustache brought forward a small knife, gently placing it next to Oswald's interrogator. It was only now that his vision was coming back that he could make any details of the 'boss' out. 

He was tall, that much was obvious. At least four to five inches taller than Oswald was, and he was heavyset. It looked to be a bit more muscle than fat, but he was far from a sculpture. In one hand was the knife Bryce had placed down. 

“His right hand, please.” Oswald felt the binding on his hands snap, and his right hand was jerked forward at an unnatural angle and slammed onto the table. “Make him watch.” Oswald's heart started beating faster as a disgustingly thin hand grabbed his skull and held it firmly so that he was forced to stare at his hand. 

The leader of the group smirked as he spun the small knife in his hand, stabbing it into the table a few inches from Oswald, who didn't even blink. “So, kid, you think you're tough? How tough will you be with nine fingers? Eight? Four?” He was clearly angry. Good.

Oswald just shrugged, awkward as it was. “Tougher than you.” That earned him a cut on the cheek, which his Aura refused to heal. The water they'd given him was clearly drugged, but after a day and a half without any food or drink, Oswald had given in. He was tough, but people could only survive for so long without water. 

As he felt a small rivulet of blood trickled down his face, Oswald blinked slowly. “That wasn't my finger.” 

His vision went white as pain overcame his senses. One of them, probably Bryce, had smashed his head into the table. “Speak only when spoken to.” His voice was raspy, as if he'd been smoking for a very, very long time. 

“Thank you, Bryce. No, kid, that wasn't your finger. That was my way of telling you to talk before we got to your fingers. Your Aura won't protect you, and I'm not afraid to hurt you.” Oswald laughed. 

“That's better. What do you want to know?” 

The leader scowled. “The same fucking thing we've been asking you for three days! Who sent you?”

“Oh, that. I told you, nobody.” As the man walked up to Oswald's side, he continued. “Alright, alright, no need for more of that. Nobody sent me, but your man screwed up.” 

That didn't come as a shock to his captor. “They always do, kid.”

“He lost his mask when he killed one of my people and stole twenty thousand Lien worth of goods from us. So I planned to beat him senseless and leave him for you to find.”

“That's it? A petty revenge plot for some morons too stupid to live inside the kingdoms?” His interrogator seemed incredulous. “You just wanted to beat my guy up? Why'd you spend a week following him, then?” As he finished his theory, his voice filled with what Oswald figured was a sense of pride. 

“I was trained to watch a target carefully, learn their patterns, before I strike. Besides, he's an idiot at best, I just needed to be sure he had some sort of identifiable pattern.” 

“I don't know who you are, kid, but you fucked up. My men may be stupid, but they're good at their jobs. And that job is to make sure, above all else, that I stay hidden.” 

“Then they really fucked up by bringing me here, dude.” This earned a laugh from everybody present.

“Kid, what do you think you're gonna do? We've got you right where we want you.” Smirking, the man nodded to himself gently, then stabbed downwards, missing Oswald's hand by less than an inch, before letting go of the knife and frowning at the lack of a response. “Who the fuck are you?” 

Smiling, Oswald grabbed the knife and disappeared. A moment later, a thud sounded from the corner of the room. When everybody turned to look, their comrade's rifle fired, sending two of the thugs blasting into the walls of the room. When the body fell, the knife sticking out of the back of its neck, Oswald stood where his victim had moments before. “My name is Oswald Connoly, and I'm a Huntsman.” 

As Bryce and the leader of the group reached for their weapons, Oswald blasted the former in the leg, knocking him to the floor. The latter hadn't even managed to draw before Oswald's fist broke his nose. Raising the rifle again, Oswald fired at Bryce's head, silencing the man before turning his attention to the ringleader, who was holding his face in pain. “Woah woah woah, kid, let's talk this through. Nobody's gotta die here.” 

Shrugging, Oswald gestured to Bryce, who had a pair of holes decorating his scalp. “Too late.” He dropped to the ground, plowing his elbow into the back of his enemy's neck, the sound of a sickening snap gracing his ears. 


Outside the hideout, a tired and fully-armored Oswald recounted his tale to the Vale Police Department. “Thank you, mister Connoly. Your assistance in this matter is greatly appreciated. We just had to know how this happened. Not every day that a Beacon student gets kidnapped. Your friends have been coming by every day since you vanished.” 

Oswald smiled at that revelation. He hadn't made many people he'd call friends, but it was good to know that there were people worried about his well-being. “Of course, officer. Anything to get those scum off the streets.” 

At that, the police officer frowned. “About that.....did you have to kill every last one of them? My chief was pissed when he heard the news...” 

“Sorry, but they killed someone from my hometown. And exile wasn't exactly within my authority. I just planned to beat the guy who did it up, and call you folks to collect him and his friends, but fate had other plans.” The officer's frown only deepened as an older woman, probably a detective, approached.

“While we're glad to have these guys off the streets, vigilantism isn't acceptable. Since you're a Huntsman-in-training, I get that you wanna protect the people and do good and all that, but leave this stuff to the professionals in the future, alright?” Oswald smiled at the detective and nodded. 

“Sure thing, ma'am. I'd rather not go through that again. I'm pretty damn hungry.”[/hider]