This had been going on for an hour now.
Time after time Ruby struck out at the girl, and time after time she dodged it with ease. Yang had warned her about a tough opponent, but she had never imagined it being this hard.
Ruby was breathing heavily by this point – as legendary as her stamina was, an hour was an hour, and she was wearing out fast. Her opponent - she remembered Roman called her Neo, once? - seemed no worse for wear, but Ruby was pretty sure she'd slowed down as well. She could at least cling to that hope, and the fact that she was still relatively unharmed. Ruby was suffering some minor injuries, but she'd avoided the worst of Neo's attacks.
But still...
This was supposed to be an easy mission. A snap, Yang had said.
The idea behind it was simple : slip into the warehouse Roman had been spotted in, get some info, slip back out and go get an ice cream or some other corny, unnecessary celebration she'd come up with to celebrate their 'victory'.
'Hopefully it's going better for everyone else.' Ruby thought to herself, trying to stay optimistic. She herself had been spotted sneaking around by the girl she was currently fighting, and it'd be safe to say things weren't going too well.
Maybe now would be a good time to make a break for it.
Wincing as the Neo took another swing at her with the business end of the parasol, Ruby slid to the side and evaded the brunt of the hit. The sting in her shoulder let her know she hadn't avoided all of it, though.
She quickly activated her semblance and dashed for the nearest door, nearly slamming into it in her haste to get it opened. When she tried the handle, it was locked. Ruby bit her lip and looked around for some other exit – maybe that window could work? But how would she get to it? Maybe if she used a crate or something as her vantage point she could jump?
Before she got the chance to try it, she felt the rushing of air and quickly jerked out of the way of another strike from the girl.
"Oh, right…don't take your eyes off your opponent, Ruby…" She muttered to herself, once she had retreated a safe distance from the tricolored menace.
The opponent in question grinned widely and held a finger out as if to scold Ruby, wagging it back and forth. Ruby frowned at this, and Neo reached into a pocket to pull out a key - presumably one that would open the door – and hold it up for her to see before putting it back.
"Is that – is that a challenge?" Ruby asked, only unsure for a moment. Of course it was a challenge, what else would it be?
Confirming her thoughts, Neo nodded, keeping her ever-present grin in place.
For some reason Ruby felt the need to nod back, before she rushed her with Crescent Rose for what seemed like the hundredth time that night. As usual, the girl slipped out of the way of her scythe's wide arc with ease, even going as far as to feign a yawn before retaliating with her parasol.
Frustrated, Ruby tried her spin attack, holding Crescent Rose out and spinning around wildly like a top in hopes that her weapon would hit something.
Needless to say, it failed. Neo had once again avoided it, and this time was waiting and ready to slam Ruby upside the head with her parasol. She let out a brief cry before jumping back, trying to flee the follow-up hit.
It clipped her arm, and she grated her teeth but kept moving out of the way until she felt she was a safe distance from her enemy once again.
Huffing and trying to regain her breath, Ruby raised her good arm to wipe the area under her nose clean of blood and try to examine her situation again.
….There was no way she was getting that key.
Despite all her best attempts, the tricolored girl before Ruby remained unscathed. There was an eerie sort of perfection about her – down to the way her hair fell to the way she'd tilted her head just slightly and grinned like the Cheshire cat. Before Ruby could determine what it was that created this effect, she grew dizzy, and dropped to the floor.
The exhaustion must've finally caught up to her, that or the blow to the head did.
Neo walked towards her at a leisurely pace, and the last thing Ruby saw before she blacked out was her, raising a lone finger to her lips, still grinning as the silence she requested fell over the room.
"So what do we do now? Shoot her?" Roman asked incredulously, after Neo had dragged her capture into the more formal base of operations.
Her boss was the first to question Neo's bringing her there, and she tried to sign her response, but he held up a hand to stop her. "Look, if I told you once I've told you too many times, I'm not bothering to learn your finger gibberish. Write it down or something."
Neo scowled at the man and huffed loudly, crossing her arms. Fine, he could figure it out himself.
Evidently he wasn't in the mood to play charades, so Roman raised his cane to just off the girl – Neo was pretty sure she'd heard one of the other ones call her Ruby? – and be done with it.
Well, that wouldn't do.
She stepped in the way and shook her head disapprovingly. She had things to do with this one before anyone killed her – could Roman seriously not see a good piece of blackmail when he saw one?
From what Neo knew, this girl was the leader, and apparently a prodigy to boot, if she got accepted into Beacon so early. They could easily use her as a bargaining chip, or just plain hold her hostage for the sake of intimidation.
Roman grumbled something under his breath and skulked out of the room. "Cinder!" He called, like a child tattling on their sibling, "Get her to move out of the way, or see what she wants or whatever, would you?"
After a moment, Cinder sauntered into the room – Cinder never walked places, Neo had decided, Cinder was always swaying like she was on some kind of runway, so she was always sauntering – with Emerald and Mercury in tow.
She eyed Ruby on the floor distastefully, and then looked to Neo. "When did you get a hostage?"
'Just now.' She signed quickly. Everyone looked to Mercury – he was the only one who'd bothered to learn sign language. Unfortunately he was also one of Neo's least favorite people there, but beggars can't be choosers, can they?
He heaved a deep sigh, mumbling something about not getting paid enough to be a portable translator. "Just now, apparently."
Cinder nodded. "Obviously. What do you want with the kid if you're not killing her?" She asked dubiously. "I doubt she'd be very willing to help our cause."
Neo shook her head and faced Mercury again to sign a response. 'You idiots really need to learn the value of a hostage. We can use her to scare them. Or for blackmail.' She had to slow down a few times to make sure Mercury got it all, but eventually he did, nodding and making his usual self-satisfied smirk.
"She's clever. We have a hostage now, and plenty of ways to exploit that fact. They'll be willing to do a lot to retrieve her, not to mention her team will probably break down while she's away – it's a good plan." He said decidedly.
While Neo was irritated that he hadn't bothered to translate exactly – he never did – she was still pleased with herself, and allowed herself a little gloating as Cinder smiled and silently approved of the plan.
"That sounds…perfect." The woman said decidedly. " Since Neo captured her, she's in charge of handling the brat, and, Emerald, Mercury – you two help her announce her capture. I'll be back upstairs if there are no more…" - she glared at Roman – "…disturbances."
Emerald nodded, though she cast a scathing look at Neo shortly after. Neo tried not to laugh. Emerald always wanted to be Cinder's favorite, so seeing someone else get praise must've pissed her off a little.
Mercury seemed indifferent to the assignment, and Roman made some sarcastic remark about 'no respect' before skulking off to boss the White Fang grunts around some more.
Well, they'd better get started.
Neo glanced down at the captive and smiled. She could have some fun with her job.
A grave silence had settled over the remainders of team RWBY back on their way to the dorm at Beacon.
Weiss was the only one to attempt to break it. "…Look, we had to leave if we were going to report this to actual hunters and huntresses, and you know it. Ruby will be fine, right?"
Yang refused to acknowledge Weiss' statement, but her face soured a little at the mention of what had just happened.
They left. Without. Her sister.
Weiss had convinced Blake that it was necessary, and in turn Blake had talked down her partner until, suddenly, all three of them were heading back to Beacon with no leader and no important information to show for their mission, either.
But most importantly, no leader.
"We waited two hours. If she could've gotten out on her own, she would've. So going and getting more experienced people to help her out is the best plan – even if it feels shitty." Blake reasoned, nudging Yang a bit at the last statement. "The professors will know what to do."
"They'd better." She retorted harshly. Blake and Weiss both took a step back, and silence settled over the group again.
They walked down towards their dorm room first to grab some things, but Blake spotted something in front of the door and rushed past her teammates to inspect it.
Crescent Rose sat there, folded up, and on top of it was a small memory chip. Blake grabbed it and clipped it into her scroll quickly, as Yang and Weiss jogged over to investigate as well. She held it out so they could see too just as a video had started to display on the screen, and they all watched with interest.
It displayed an image of Ruby, blindfolded and stirring around as if just waking up. A tricolored girl they recognized as Neo walked in and stood next to her, grinning sickly sweet. She held up a card, and whoever was filming zoomed in on it dramatically. It read, "Missing something?" with alternating colors, the same three Neo was wearing. The i's had been dotted with hearts and Neo looked pretty smug about holding it up.
"Stop dicking around and get to the point." A male voice from behind the camera came in, and a hand covered the lens before he went on. "You've got five days. I think you can figure out what happens if you don't get here before then. We'll be leaving little updates on the brat every now and then, for however long it takes you to do anything. " He said in a monotonous voice, before a girl chimed in.
"This'll teach you to nose around in our business, hopefully. Talk to you later!" The hand was removed from the lens and Ruby was back in view, now sitting up and trying to look around.
"…Where..?"
The video went out with a resounding 'click'.
If at all possible, Weiss paled, and Blake grimaced. Yang just stared at the scroll like she didn't know what to feel.
There was yet another brief, stunned silence. Yang broke it, gripping the scroll like she was tempted to rip it in half.
"Get the teachers. Right now."
There was something about the strained tone in her voice that made Blake and Weiss feel that stalling or arguing would be a mistake. They rushed off to locate a teacher.
-Day one: hour zero -
-Time remaining: 120 hours -
I love a dramatic chapter ending, don't you? So yeah, uh, if you notice the little hour count under the end of the chapter, I'll be doing that every time I line break from now on, so, look out for that! It'll be running for the rest of the story, and it'll help you know how time is passing and such when I switch perspectives. I don't have an update schedule, but I am going to continue this as soon as possible 'cause it'd be mean to just leave you at this for like a month. You can probably expect an update around Friday or Saturday. If you've got any criticism or comments I'd love to hear it, 'cause I'm not too sure how well I'm writing some of these characters in, heheh. Thank you for reading this!