The second they left Sun and Neptune's line of sight, Blake shoved her partner into the nearest closet, following close behind. Her amber eyes widened reflexively, easily catching Yang's ridiculous grin hidden in the darkness that fell as the door quietly clicked shut behind them.
"Hey, all right," the blinded brawler beamed, arms reaching out and just barely missing their target as Blake slipped past her, "Dare I ask why my lovely partner has dragged me into a dark closet?"
CLANK
"Son of a-" Yang hissed, holding her head where a metal grate had just dropped on her.
"Oops," Blake's voice came from above, smirk evident in her tone.
The dim light provided by small sparks coming from Yang's semblance illuminated the area just enough for her to see Blake's feet disappearing into an air vent just above her.
Brimming with curiosity, Yang followed, dragging herself up into the cramped space. "We're not actually going to find a professor at all, are we?"
"Of course not."
The brawler beamed at the mischievous undertone in her partner's reply. "And since when did you start voluntarily climbing into air vents?" A bright flash of amber glanced back at her.
"If I remember correctly, you were the one who informed me that mastery of the school's ventilation system was a must for a master prankster."
"…Marry me."
Blake rolled her eyes with a smile and shushed the brawler. "We're here," she whispered.
Keeping as quiet as possible - an incredible feat considering the close quarters - Yang did her best to crush herself up next to her partner. Together they peered through the vent before them, right down at Sun and Neptune, still hanging around Jaune's locker.
Neptune's arms were crossed as he regarded Sun. "So, if your aim is good enough, maybe you should try shooting the lock off? Your pistols are built for precision after all."
"Dude, my pistols are made for blasting Grimms' faces off," Sun tried to get his fingertips into the crack of the locker door so he could try to yank it open, "These lockers are crazy. What, did they make them out of weapon's grade steel even? Geez, talk about overkill. Unless someone's grenade launcher goes off in one, or something." He paused as the thought crossed his mind, "Which, given this school... has probably happened."
"Hey wait, did you mean get a professor to help us or did you have an appointment or…? Yang?" Ruby called from inside the locker, twisted almost sideways and standing tip-toe. "Where'd you go?"
Weiss sputtered, trying to see out around Ruby's head, "Did she leave? Did Blake and your sister just leave us here?!"
"I mean, I'm sure they'll be right back, right? Right, Sun?" Ruby got a face-full of the fencer's hair, "Weiss- blech!"
"Hey, yeah, no, she's gone," Sun kicked the base of the locker experimentally. "You want me to try to shoot you out? My bullets might just bounce off."
"Um, if they don't you'll be shooting us in the stomach at point-blank range," Ruby pointed out between spitting out strands of Weiss's hair and shuffling the junk at the bottom of the locker with her boots.
In addition to the container of sword polish, there were maybe some clothes and a couple of hard, clunky things. Maybe Jaune had a screwdriver, or something. Picking it up would be difficult, though. Weiss was still trying to see out without touching her partner which was impossible. Ruby wished she could wipe the sweat dripping into her eyes. It was getting way too hot.
"Someone go and find her," Weiss demanded through the vent, "Go find Yang right now. We're stuck in here because of her, so she should at least take responsibility for her actions instead of abandoning us here with- and Blake- they went together, didn't they? Yang you- you-" she tried to punch the door but there was no way to reach it.
"That's my sister and quit hitting me," Ruby got one arm partway up and started wrestling with the heiress again, shoving with her whole weight to get her to stop.
"Quit pushing me." Weiss snarled, pushing back, "I'm trying to get enough air to breathe."
"Okay guys, just chill," Sun peered in through the vent at the scuffle for a second before he leaned back to his blue-haired companion, "So now would really be a good idea for a plan, or something."
Still hidden up in the vents, Yang nudged Blake, leaning close to whisper in her ear. "Speaking of plans... what are we doing up here?" She waited for an answer as her partner simply smiled down at the spectacle below, amber eyes shining. "...You just wanted to watch the fireworks didn't you~" Blake's smile only widened, forcing the brawler to suppress a laugh. "Do you even have a plan?"
"I do," a few strands of raven hair fell into Yang's face as Blake tilted her head to the side, bringing them mere inches apart, "I was researching nice places for a romantic getaway, and found a lovely secluded park on the other side of Vale. If Sun and Neptune clear out, I plan on sending Weiss and Ruby on a small forced vacation, courtesy of one of those six digit launch codes."
Yang's face lit up with a grin. "Yeah Weiss could definitely use a vacation, she studies way too hard." She quirked an eyebrow. "Why were you looking at romantic getaways?"
Blake paused, amber eyes slowly travelling over to meet amethyst.
A sharp metallic knocking drew both gazes back through the vents.
Neptune had his ear to the locker, tapping along its edge, listening for changes in pitch. "Aha. There's one..." He drew his rifle and placed its muzzle directly on the locker door, angling it almost completely sideways. "Don't even worry, you guys. I've got this. I'm going to try shooting out one of the dead bolts - cover your ears!"
A deafening blast rang through the locker room, white-blue energy ricocheting from Weiss and Ruby's prison at a wide angle and blasting a chunk out of the opposite wall.
The locker stood untouched.
"Aw, what? A point blank shot would have worked!" Neptune frowned, bending down to examine where he'd shot. "I'm thinking you're right Sun, these are totally weapons grade... steel..." Neptune paled visibly. The locker and its door had melted together. "Uh... huh."
"Told you," Sun ran his hand over his slightly singed hair.
Ruby didn't realize she'd smashed Weiss into the back of the locker and was clinging to her sleeves and ducking over her protectively till the girl made a small, whimpering sound; and she didn't realize that her ears were ringing till she pulled back and the whimpering turned out to be Weiss screaming her head off at a certain unfortunate 'intellectual'.
"How could you- did you actually fire your weapon at us?!" The fencer was so angry she could barely see straight, not that there was much to see in the confines of the locker. She forced Ruby back against the door so she could tear into Neptune through the vent, "Of all the suggestions to listen to, you seriously picked the one that could've blown us in half? We might have been- you could have had pieces of us all over the locker room! You could have vaporized us! I can't believe you would even consider-"
Ruby surged away from the section of metal Neptune had blasted, yelping "Ouch, still hot, still hot!"
"Yeah, uh, so you guys know anyone with a blowtorch?" Sun perched on one of the benches, tail curled up behind him for balance, "Like a kind that won't roast you alive if you're inside the thing that needs blowtorching? 'Cause the door's kind of melted shut now."
Inside the locker, everything stopped. Ruby was keenly aware both of the smell of singed cotton and of the veritable calm before Weiss's storm. She tried to put some distance between herself and her partner without burning her shoulder.
The heiress took a deep breath, enunciating every word. "Did you say melted shut?"
Still staring in awe at his unfortunate handiwork, Neptune finally snapped to attention at the waves of cold fury radiating from within the locker. He pressed his face to the vent, hoping that somehow his winning smile would be visible through the thin slits. "Don't you worry about a thing, snow angel, it's all part of the plan. Now that we have extreme heat, all we need is a little extreme cold, and voila! Stress fractures!"
"Um, cold sounds good," sweat trickled down Ruby's nose while she tried to figure out if Neptune was attempting to make a joke about her partner's frosty disposition.
Meanwhile, the heiress in question had gone quiet and still.
"... you okay, Weiss?" Ruby gave a nervous laugh, cringing a little in anticipation of getting yelled at, but no yelling came. She swallowed, blinking sweat from her eyes. It was hot and they were both cramped and gross and Weiss. Wasn't. Yelling.
That was a bad sign. A really bad sign.
The fencer had two types of quiet: resigned-quiet and thinking-quiet. And this was not resigned-quiet. Far from it. If Ruby could have seen her face better, she was pretty sure she'd be able to see gears turning. Well, if Weiss's brain had gears.
In reality, it was probably more like a computer- quick, sophisticated, cold as ice—and more than capable of recalling people who occasionally made scrap work of weapons-grade steel.
"Ruby," she said at last. "You have Yang's scroll contact information, correct?"
"Yyyyes?" the scythe-wielder twisted her hand down to the scroll in her pocket, but fumbled the device. Clunk. It joined the rest of the junk on the floor of Jaune's locker. "Um. I have it memorized."
"Give it to Neptune," Weiss struggled to lean past Ruby's shoulder, "Neptune, call Yang. Tell her if she doesn't get back here and get us out right now, Ruby and I aren't going to follow her 'rules'."
Heat began to pour from the air vents above as Yang's eyes flashed crimson at the heiress's bold declaration of war, so distracted by sudden bloodlust that she nearly missed Blake's hand slipping into her pocket. Nimble fingers working quickly, Blake took her partner's scroll, opened it up, set it to silent, then handed it back with a knowing smile as a burning hand slid over to grip her arm.
"Blake. I'm going to kill her."
"She's bluffing." Amber eyes sparkled with a strange delight.
Yang paused, then relaxed visibly. "...yeah? You think so?" Her scroll began to flash - a call was coming through.
Blake nodded, her expression silently asking for her partner's trust.