Relic of the Future: Chapter 102

Summer hated fighting people.

Grimm were easy. They were mindless beasts that came at you with all the world's evils in their minds and they went down and dissolved into black smoke. There was no doubt, no confusion and no weight to carry after the act, only a sense of satisfaction in a job well done.

People weren't the same. People bled, cried, sobbed and screamed at their last moments. They struggled, flailed and showed you with action and words that they were living, thinking beings that had so much more they wanted to do in life. It was why she'd chosen to be a huntress instead of, say, a police officer or a soldier. Things were just so much easier when your enemies were monsters.

Jaune didn't have that problem.

The first White Fang member to get in his way died before he could even make himself a threat. Jaune didn't shout for him to surrender, didn't even give him the chance. The door opened, the man turned and before he could even scream out a warning, Jaune's sword slammed through his ribcage with a sickening crack, erupting out his back in a spray of blood.

It scared her, though only for a second. Questions or not, training kicked in and Summer ducked a shot from the man's fellow, taking cover behind a crate and firing back. Her own shot struck the man's shoulder and brought him down, wounded but alive. It was no accident and the way she fought when she absolutely had to fight against people.

A second shot rang out and the man went still, mask cracked and blood leaking from the hole in the centre of it.

Summer stared at the now dead man.

"You must be getting rusty with all that teaching," Jaune said, holstering his handgun. He flicked a grin back her way, not a `ha ha I killed the person you tried to spare` grin, but one that said he genuinely thought her mercy had been accidental, and that he saw nothing wrong with his own actions.

—Relic of the Future: Chapter 102