A/N: Special thanks to Kadrag, who participated in a RWBY contest on Deviantart over a year ago, for winning a place in said contest and winning a one-shot from me! This was a fun idea!
"I've never tried online dating," Mercury explained to Emerald as they crowded around her scroll. In their deep, dark, dank evil lair shady warehouse lighting illuminated the two bad guys. Mercury had wanted to work on his legs in peace, but Emerald had just stolen a hefty sum and wanted to gamble apparently. And yet, next week she'd be complaining about having no money, and it would all start again.
"No duh, I'm not gonna bet my money on something you've done before," Emerald scoffed. "When have we ever had a government-funded, randomized match-making service based off of fighting prowess?"
"Never?" he had to admit.
"Exactly! So if you can rely on only romance to woo a girl over and then emotionally shank her in the back, you get an easy two hundred lien," Emerald conveniently summarized as she dabbled away at her scroll. "Aaand done, I've set up your date!"
"Do I have to be romantic?" he asked. Mercury was nothing if not lazy and efficient about getting stuff done. "Can't I just give her a handy and call it a night? They tend to like that."
"That's 'cause you only date casual," Emerald sighed before turning her attention away from Mercury's corner towards the main hall of their lair, which just so happened to let in fresh light as Cinder and Neo entered the scene. "Romance only. Make it real," she said more to herself than to him.
Mercury jolted as she slapped her hand on his back. "Whatever!" he called to her as she sauntered away. "No woman has ever said, 'No,' to me!"
Emerald didn't bother responding. She was gonna go dial up the charm on her sexy boss, and he wasn't going to be around for a week to cockblock her this time! Stupid dance, stupid Mercury, why'd they have to animate only hetero couples, she scowled. "Hi, Cinder!" she called out with a big, bright smile.
Nodding to Neo, Cinder continued, "I still don't agree with your views on trickle-down economics." Ignoring Emerald entirely, they walked by as the boss concluded, "But I now have a deeper understand your perspective on the issue, and I'm glad you feel comfortable enough to share your views with me. You mentioned an interesting perspective on foreign integration, and I would love to discuss it over dinner tonight, if you're free."
Neo gave her friend a psychotic grin with an ever-so-friendly nod of approval before shattering like a mirror, whisking herself away to wherever she needed to be, and Cinder immediately got on the phone with a young boy to discuss how to train her dragon.
The light in Emerald's soul dimmed a bit more.
Mercury looked back to the scroll. Whoever this person was, male or female, they'd be going on a date with the love master, PH.D, sexocologist.
Meanwhile, above ground level and in a more homey dorm filled with four girls who had not yet gone through a Grimm invasion of Beacon, Yang kept busy by doing push-ups. In addition, Weiss kept busy with recording a video on her scroll, Blake kept busy counting Yang's push-ups aloud whilst reading, and Ruby kept busy by resting on her sister's back.
Yang insisted on setting a new, personal record, that being beyond sixty-nine. Yet, every time she got up to sixty-nine, and Blake counted in that "I don't care, but I secretly do" tone of hers, she couldn't help but burst out laughing, causing her to collapse and send Ruby tumbling across the floor.
"It's still a sex thing!" she couldn't help but admire as she wheezed.
Sighing, Weiss bemoaned, "I could have seen a ballet tonight." Staring wistfully out the window she wondered how much better it would be, crammed into tiny seats next to pompous, fat, richer people and hearing the sweet classics of "Grimm Swan Lake".
Rolling onto her back, Ruby sprawled out into a snow angel and reminded her with a giggle, "Jaune asked you out!"
"And he spent his own money on those tickets," Blake added as she turned the page of her glossy textbook, causing the pages to make that scraping crinkle noise that pierces your eardrums. "Front row seats, too. Not corner boxes."
"And he's going to keep doing stuff like this," Yang warned her friend as she sprawled out on the floor. Feeling no fatigue for having done just sixty-nine push-ups, she was ready for more. "Unless you actually tell him to go suck an egg," she helpfully suggested for the millionth time. "Most people normally take "no" for an answer, but the people with thicker skulls need thicker responses."
"I can't just do that!" Weiss argued. Closing the curtains so that she wouldn't have to see the fun teams having fun in the setting sun she groaned, "I have an image to uphold! If people so much as see me being rude to a suitor I'll ruin my diplomatic standing with potential allies!"
"That's dumb," Yang decided. "If you don't want the dude's wares, go to a different store."
"Oh, like it's that easy to handle harassment," Weiss scoffed. Glaring at her partner, she wagered, "I bet you've never had to put up with a cringe-worthy guy."
Laughing at the poor, poor (but not actually poor) child's perception of herself, Yang fired back, "I don't bother! I just punch 'em if they don't respect my boundaries!"
"And you've never, ever tried diplomacy." Closing the camera on her scroll, Weiss began to access the wonderful world wide web. "Never relied on words. Never tried to resolve it peacefully."
"Sure, I haven't," Yang freely admitted. Sitting up, she gave her a wink with a grin. "But I could do it a lot better than you."
Blake began to back away. Her "It's About To Go Down" sense was tingling. Ruby tactically rolled out as her sister stood up to face down the heiress.
"Is that so," Weiss hummed as she accessed the wonderful world wide web and prepared a grand plan to show the girl just how wrong she was. "I would pay to see you in action."
Hopping up, Yang sauntered over and got personal about her business. "How much, princess?" she asked as she leaned in, hands on hips. "Two hundred?"
Weiss was already done signing Yang up for the hottest government-funded, fighting-oriented dating service. "My first album makes that look like chump change, but sure. Two hundred lien."
They shook hands on it, to which Yang set Fate in motion. "There's no way this could go wrong for me, Weiss."
The human element can always be so finicky in dating. People can be shallow, disillusioned, seeking a means to an end through dating, or all of the above. A simple, government-funded, bureaucratic algorithm can eliminate those issues.
Fanusluver69 was paired with Geta13gup, and their physical prowess, coupled with their overlapping interests, set them up on an ice skating date. Three to five PM, at the school's community mall.
"Attention residents, please evacuate the Beacon Academy Community Mall in a calm and orderly fashion," the part time janitor announced over the emergency speakers. His request fell on deaf ears, as panic and terror swept through the mall.
Mercury fought the chilling pain all over his body as he swam up to the ice rink's melted surface. Looking around the flames and collapsed balconies of the second and third floors, he spotted a non-firey section of the food court and promptly swam to safety. He thanked Atlas for making lightweight, polyplex legs for poor, honest disabled folk like him as he didn't sink to the bottom and actually made it to solid ground.
He hoisted himself up and shook his sexy hair out a bit. The rattling in his brain clouded his hearing. He turned his head back to the calm waters of the melted ice rink, swearing that he heard a splash. He saw nothing, so he began looking for a way out.
Mercury took one, full step before a blazing inferno erupted from the water behind him. He turn around just in time to feel the steam and a big burning fist on his face.
Yang sent him flying across the food court.
Mercury did, indeed, fly through the air to the other side, over the counter of a Burger Council and into the milkshake machine. Synthetic powders poured down onto him like a rainbow, sandy waterfall. Inhaling the flavors, he hacked and coughed as he got to his feet, just in time to catch Yang's wrist with his hands. The force jolted him into the machine again, dumping even more powder all over his normally tame color palette.
"You will pay for humiliating me," she scowled, retinas burning a hole into his soul.
Arms quivering against her unrelenting force, Mercury suggested, "Y'know, I just spent two hundred lien. How about you pay, and I'll owe you one?"
With a mighty roar, Yang lowered her right arm a bit and threw a left hook into his face.
The powder evaporated beyond ash from the heat, and Mercury went through the machine and the wall behind it. He was covered in a new layer of powder: dried plaster and other cheap building materials.
Yang strolled through the new entrance, only to be knocked off balance as Mercury used his shotgun greaves and blasted under her legs.
Screaming, Yang fell face-first onto the back room floor that had only been cleaned in hasty preparation for last month's health inspector.
Mercury went head-first through the fast food joint's counter, skidding to a halt in the food court. Spitting out floor food, he got to his feet just in time to see Yang barreling towards him. This time, he had a chance to react.
Yang lunged forward with an over-committed right hook, so Mercury lept back. As he slipped on some discarded banana peels Yang hopped forward and threw a left hook that connected with his stomach, knocking him back too far for another hook.
Mercury didn't have time to regain the initiative as he stumbled to keep his robotic footing, giving Yang enough time to come up with a leaping roundhouse kick to his jaw.
He fell flat on his rear, and Yang lept at him once more. Mercury rolled onto his back and pulled his knees up to his chin, aiming his greaves at the oncoming tank. Thrusting his legs straight out, he gave Yang both barrels and sent her flying into the fiery remains of the second floor.
Panting, he scrambled to his feet and wondered if he should try to crawl through the rubble of the Never Over Thirty clothing store on his left or try to hurdle through the fires roaring in the gimmick shop that never caught on.
A flaming hotdog came flying down, smashing into his face, molten ketchup splashing and sizzling through his hair. .
Shrieking, Mercury batted the smoking hot wiener out of his face. Burning his hands, he smeared the hot condiments contents out of his eyes enough to see Yang balancing on an exposed support beam, holding a massive stack of flaming hotdogs. Casually taking a bite out of one, she hurled it at him.
Awestruck at the woman's fierceness and unrelenting vengeance, Mercury barely managed to leap back to avoid the projectile, but he caught it in the leg, denting the metal just enough to expose vital wiring, into which the molten ketchup seeped.
Sparking, the leg began to smoke, prompting Mercury to hurriedly detach it. He collapsed to the ground when it gave out and humbly scooted across the floor as Yang Xiao Long smashed back down in front of him.
"I said you were gonna pay," she calmly told him as she sauntered forward, one last hotdog in hand.
Frantically backing up, Mercury caught himself as his hand went into icy water with a splash. "You wouldn't beat up a cripple, would you?" he offered with sharply declining resistance.
Thrusting her wiener into Mercury, Yang destroyed his other leg.
"What?! I got nothing!" he explained as she grabbed him by the collar.
Leaning him over the water, Yang recalled, "I fought a mech you guys had. Got anymore of those?" She put him under for a few seconds to emphasize her request before pulling him back up.
Gasping for air, he happily nodded.
Hoisting him over her shoulder, Yang headed for what remained of the restrooms.
Triple-checking the sharpness of her blades, Emerald beamed with pride as she tidied up her field kit for Cinder's nightly inspection. She couldn't wait for that wonderful, life-changing woman to come into her humble abode and declare, "Why, Emerald darling, these blades are about as sharp as your witty sense of humor!"
Her joy went out the window as Adam came through the door. "Inspection," he gruffly informed her. She appreciated his emo fashion, but the guy just tried too hard for her tastes.
"Where's Cinder?" she asked a little too quickly as Adam glanced at her tidy bunk and opened her tidy locker to find everything neat and tidy.
"With Mercury," he answered as he unlocked her pistol blades and examined their sharpness.
"Why him?" she asked. His inspection wasn't due 'til tomorrow.
"He needed to shower, and she's getting his report on his battle. These need to be sharpened more," he told her as he thrust them back into her hands.
"Wait- yes, but- wait, what?!" she demanded as he turned his back to her. "Why is she with him? Why is he naked? Why is she watching him bathe?!" she asked as she followed him out of her room.
"You'll have to ask him yourself, but there's not enough room for three in a stall," he told her with a hidden smirk on his lips, sensing her temper exploding.
"And then I gave him a chocolate swirly," Yang finally finished with a gleam on her face.
Ruby lay on top of her bed, Weiss leaned back into her chair at their fold-out table, and Blake stood in the doorway to their bathroom with a wet towel wrapped around her damp figure. Their jaws hung open, and they had forgotten to breathe.
"I guess a lot of people were using the toilets when I exploded, 'cause there was plenty of 'brown paint'!" she laughed.
Blake went back into the bathroom, calmly shutting the door behind her. Her teammates could hear her opening the toilet lid whilst making gagging noises like their upstairs neighbor, Mavin Enslaved.
Weiss threw her hands out, frantically shaking them back and forth as she shrieked, "Ack! No more! Yang, stop talking this instant!"
Ruby giggled while groaning, "Eeew!"
Yang took a prideful bow, tucking her right arm under her chest and extending her left arm out, parallel to the floor. "I'll do more than just that!" she gallantly decided. Stepping forward to Weiss, Yang bowed before her like a young princess ready to receive the crown with full honors.
Reaching in between her boobs, Yang pulled out what looked like a cheapo five petabyte storage drive. She presented it to Weiss like a valuable jewel. "To you, my ice queen, a vehicle as cold as your heart."
"Is this more of your maya porn?" Weiss wondered as she hesitantly took the drive into her hands.
Shaking her head, Yang reached into her boobs once more and pulled out her scroll. Opening up her photo archive, she presented it to Weiss as well. "That's a digi-key, and it goes to this bad girl."
Ruby hopped over to Weiss' side and looked on with her. She ogled the screen and had to ask, "He gave you a robot?!"
Blake rejoined the party upon hearing that tidbit, and though she was still in need of a change of clothes she also gasped at Yang's new acquisition. "He gave you a robot?!"
"And then I hung him by the collar on a lamp post in the parking lot!" Yang finally finished. "I'm sure the cops got him. I think. I didn't stick around; I had to go find the mech and move it to campus parking, which was its own adventure, lemme tell ya."
Weiss leaned back, turning the key over in her hands several times, pondering.
Sprawling out on the floor, Yang was content. Sighing, she popped the kinks out of her back and decided, "It's a good day for justice, girls. You can't go wrong with a little property damage."
"I'm sure that dealt a blow to the White Fang," Blake had to admit as she finally moved to the closet.
Chuckling, Ruby gave Weiss a hug. "Now you can fight with style, Weiss!"
Shaking her head, Weiss explained to Yang, "I can't sell a stolen mech in the open market, Yang."
Sitting up, Yang asked, "Why would you want to-" she frantically caught the key as Weiss threw it back to her.
"You owe me two hundred lien, and I can't get that with a giant, fighting robot," Weiss huffed. "When you ask for some apples, you won't be happy with oranges."
"I don't want apples when I already have two, huge melons," Yang shot back with a frown.
"Get me my money," Weiss commanded, turning her attention back to her long-neglected textbook.
Groaning, Yang went over to JNPR's room and let herself in. She found Nora riding a blowup doll that seemed familiar.
Nora stopped. Staring at Yang, she asked, "Come... in?"
"Blake's not in the mood," Yang said. Holding up the key, she asked, "Wanna buy a giant, fighting robot?"
Nora slouched and thought about it for a moment. "I could give you a thousand for it."
Across the hall, Yang heard Weiss scream, "Confound it, Yang!"