This was it: their first summer vacation at Beacon. Team RWBY and Team JNPR felt quite ready and deserving of a long break, after their tumultuous first term at Vale's prestigious Huntsman and Huntress academy. They would like nothing better than to just chill out and take it easy, with what downtime they had earned that first wild, wild year.
But there can be no rest for the wicked, especially when that rest entails money. Weiss had been crunching the numbers for half-an-hour, hunched over her desk in Team RWBY's dorm room. It was the second day of summer vacation, and the students were allowed to occupy their dorms only if it was somehow unfeasible to head home for the summer. The rest of her team and Team JNPR sat around behind her, pensively waiting for what Weiss had to say concerning their prospects for the break from classes ahead of them.
When the Schnee heiress turned to look at them, she was a little paler than usual. "Ahem," she shakily cleared her throat. "Factoring in my father cutting me off, Pyrrha's own allowance running low by this point, and everyone else's respective financial situations, I have come to a conclusion concerning our prospects in Vale for this summer." Weiss looked like she was about to faint, as she broke the bad news to everyone: "We're going to be flat broke in two weeks." Everyone took in a gasp, steeped with dread at this untimely revelation. Flat broke? Seriously?
"We're doomed," Ruby cried out sorrowfully. "What am I going to do if I can't buy bullets for my darling Crescent Rose? What are we going to do if we can't get Blake her tuna fix? And we'll all be so screwed if Yang can't get any vibra — " Ruby was suddenly bowled over by a hip attack from Yang, who crossed her arms and huffed at her little sister. Ruby clamored her way out from between the beds, panting heavily and head spinning with tiny Nevermores. "The point is that we need money! I need to be able to shoot things! I need to be able to pig out on snacks! I NEED TO SHOOT SNACKS, WEISS!" The white-haired rich girl shook her head a little bit at Ruby. You really couldn't choose who you fell in love with.
After a little discussion about possibly getting jobs went south very quickly — no one needed to revisit the kind of disasters Yang could cause if she had to deal with idiots near explosive elements, like that poor gas station — Blake finally stood up to address the group. "Let's just get down to brass tacks," she broke up the meandering talk of getting a job. "Ruby knows how to shoot things or scythe things, and really not much else. Weiss has reminded us all extensively of her allergy to manual labor. Yang, I love you, but you make everything explode when you get angry." Yang blushed and smiled, taking that as a compliment. Blake continued, "I can't vouch for Team JNPR like I can Team RWBY, but I feel confident in saying that we…Can't really handle any jobs beside being Huntsmen and Huntresses." Murmurs of 'she's not wrong' rounded the room, before everyone focused intently on what Blake would suggest.
The brunette kitty girl paced up and down the room, obviously mulling intensely over her idea. It took her almost five minutes to resolve herself, and bring her idea to the others. "I just want you all to keep an open mind," Blake prefaced herself. "And it's okay if you all don't want to do it, but you all have to promise to give it some thought." Everyone nodded. "I mean it's just a suggestion, and it's okay to say no, just so long as you don't get hostile." Everyone nodded. "I mean I wouldn't suggest it in any situation but now, and it's not in any way something I've been planning to do on my own at any point, so I want you to keep that in mind when I say what I think we should do. Okay?" Everyone glanced at each other, then nodded. Taking a deep sigh to calm herself, fanning herself with her fingers, Blake finally just said it: "We should do a heist to get money." She closed her eyes, ears folding back under her bow as she anticipated the shouting.
Instead, everyone started to contemplate the idea. Ruby and Nora were even more excited than usual, Weiss had taken out a calculator from her patented Schnee Co. Hammerspace to start crunching the logistics, Jaune and Ren were doing their guy thing of not doing all that much when the girls were taking charge…And much to Blake's delight, Yang winked at her with a big smile of approval. Blake blushed a bright pink, wiggling her hips shyly at everyone taking a liking to their idea. At last, Pyrrha stood up to offer her input on the idea. "How very grand," Pyrrha beamed at Blake. Everyone was taken aback as she spoke. "I think that a little 'side-mission' of sorts might help keep our skills sharp! Not to mention that we'll all need money going into summer vacation, and next semester." Everyone was staring at Pyrrha in awe or disbelief, so she sat back down to let the planning begin. Jaune helpfully leaned over to let her know she had a piece of spinach in her teeth.
Whilst Pyrrha rubbed at her front teeth to try and get the spinach out, Ren raised his hand like he was asking a question in class. "I'm not exactly opposed to the idea," he told Blake and the rest, "but I feel like there are some questions that need to be asked before we get ourselves going." His pink eyes glanced over at Ruby and Nora, who had paused in mid-preparation of their respective weapons. Both of them collapsed their weapons into gun form and hid them behind their backs, whistling in a cartoonish attempt to look innocent. Unfazed, Ren turned back to Blake and asked, "Do we already have a location picked out? Do we have a plan to get in and get out safely? How much do we plan to steal? Is there a certain time we all need to be ready? How much time will we have to prepare before it's time to start?" All very reasonable questions, as had come to be expected of Ren. If only he got more screen time to ask the big questions like that.
Not missing a beat, Blake went over to one of her book shelves. "Well, I had something of a game plan ready for this kind of occasion," Blake hesitantly admitted. She went through five books seemingly at random, removing slips of paper from each one. She carried them over to the bulletin board Team RWBY never used, leading to the others shuffling over to follow her. Blake unfolded each paper in turn, smoothing them out on the bulletin board and pinning them there so that there were as few distracting overlaps as possible. Most of the bulletin board was dominated by a map of the city of Vale, with there being a set of three small floor maps for an unknown building, as well as what looked like a pair of schedule sheets. Apparently, Blake's recent lack of screen time had been a direct result of planning for this heist!
"Our target is the 6th/4th bank," Blake explained, uncapping a marker to circle a building on the corner of 6th street and 4th avenue near the city docks. "They handle a lot of the money that comes into the city through the port, and there's reason to believe they've been doing dealings with criminals like Torchwick on the side. The paper trail just doesn't add up, considering how much money that just doesn't ever make it out of their vault." Everyone leaned in, fascinated by the idea of hitting Torchwick where it really would hurt: his wallet. "Whether they're with Torchwick or they're not," Blake continued, "they're our best bet for a heist, going by their schedule."
The cat faunus indicated the schedules to the side. "They have a state-of-the-art security system, but their schedule is their weakness," Blake explained. "From the hours of 6 PM to 9 PM, their security guards slowly change shifts based on who's available and who's got prior obligations. If it's common criminals, all they really need is their security technology, and the guards are mostly just there to keep the lights on. They're more like technicians to handle the security system." Blake gave everyone a sly smile. "They're probably not equipped to handle Huntsmen and Huntresses, though." Team RWBY all returned Blake's smirk, as did Pyrrha.
Next, Blake pointed to the floor plan of the building. "The building has three floors with very different layouts," Blake explained the three separate pages. "Two floors are aboveground, with the first floor handling transactions for depositing or withdrawing money, and the second floor handling the management of the security system and things like that. The basement is where they keep the money, and that's where we want to go. We'll need to get someone on the top floor to knock out the security system, but I can handle that." After that, Blake turned back to the city map to elaborate on her plan.
"There's a police station just up the street from the bank," Blake drew a shield over one building. "That means we need to get in and get out as quickly as possible, and be prepared to book it. We don't want to draw this out into a fight, we want to get the money and get lost until we're in the clear. We also need to make sure we have disguises, and to not leave any witnesses who might recognize us." Nobody had to ask what they'd do with the witnesses, although it made Ruby and Jaune give pause for thought.
Blake just kept on explaining, capping the marker again. "We'll need to case the joint so I can explain the plan in more detail," Blake told them. "If no one has any questions, let's go take care of that." And just like that, Teams RWBY and JNPR had embarked upon their most perilous mission yet: to pull off a heist and start getting paper.
Yet if they had known what was in store for them, they would have just gotten jobs.