Hello there, friends! I've gotten generally favorable responses from you guys and, well, here we are again.
A few clarifications up front. Words in italic font are mainly for emphasis. Bold or UPPERCASE words show magnitude or volume, like someone shouting. Sentences written completely in italic font are thoughts. "Sentences with quotations marks are speech." 「Sentences with japanese brackets signify special properties: A robotic voice, use of speakers, a different language or anything else.」Although I haven't written stories in a very long time, these old habits just seem to stick. Just my style I guess. Horizontal lines represent a short timeskip or a new scene. Paragraphs with a switch in point of view always begin with the name of the character in question.
『 Delivery 』
Chapter 2: Watch and learn!
Roman Torchwick didn't have a good day. Crime is a tough business to be in. Cinder Fall ordered him to move all of the Dust he stole in the last few weeks. Despite him doing what he considered a damn good job (not like he expected anything else from himself anyways), she refused to tell him about any of her little plans.
If he was running this operation instead of her, he'd let even the lowest henchman know what he was planning. Hell, he would probably broadcast his plans in public. What fun is it to do everything secretly? What fun is it to trick the police force when they don't even know they're being outsmarted?
Cinder wants to destroy her opponents, but Torchwick played to win. And winning in style requires a loser. Roman has mostly avoided unnecessary killing in his career. Some people may enjoy watching people die, but in his opinion, blood was messy and hard to get out of your clothes. And now those kids just went and killed off Tukson, embarassing him before his employer, and that Emerald girl stole his favorite lighter.
Overseeing random thugs move boxes was boring. Roman decided that not even those Faunus could fuck this up and gave up on overseeing their actions. "Lieutenant! You're in charge until I get back! Neo, you're coming with me." Time to get some revenge on little Miss Sustrai. She asked for it.
Ren sighed. He has done that noticeably more often than usual ever since this mission started. Normally, putting up with Jaune's attempts at romance and Nora's general behaviour was a challenge, but this isn't the usual stupid...
This is advanced stupid.
Even with all the data Professor Port got on a short notice from Professor Ozpin and the Vale Police Force, there was no point in trying to find Torchwick. They had the locations of his heists and found some minor safehouses by chance, but that man didn't leave any traces when he does business.
"I think we're not getting any further with this. How about we just deliver the other letters?"
"Oh come oooon! You're such a party pooper Ren!"
"Nora, he could be anywhere right now. He could be sitting on a beach in Vacuo selling Dust. He could be planting a bomb in Atlas, or even right here in Beacon and we wouldn't be able to fi-"
A sudden explosion interrupted Ren's train of thought. Is this what I think it is?
「 Attention all students. An explosion occurred, *bzzt*, near the guest dorms, *bzzt*, and a fire has been detected. Please evacuate at once. Attention all students. ... 」
The automated transmissions resounded through the halls of the academy.
Ren didn't even have to look at his team to know what they were going to do.
"Let's go!"
As they approached the dormitories reserved for students visiting from other kingdoms, Ren saw another two people headed in the same direction as they were.
"Hey Emerald, Mercury! It's me, Jaune!"
Emerald seemed surprisingly calm about her dorm literally exploding. If anything, she seemed annoyed to Ren.
She rolled her eyes and made her way up the stairs, JNPR following her closely.
"Do you guys think it's that Torchwick guy?"
"Well uh, Jaune, was it? Let's just say I had a feeling something would happen..."
"That piece of shit better not touch my collection!"
This was the first time Ren had seen Mercury show any kind of emotion that is not feigned interest or open indifference. He didn't care less for the spreading fire as he seemed to pick up more speed with every step.
As soon as the door to his dorm room came in sight, Mercury made a leap and kicked down the door. Dramatic entrance, huh?
"Oh gee, the kindergarten is here!"
Roman was quite honestly not that surprised. Having any operation run without meddling teenagers has become quite rare in the last few weeks. Sometimes those meddlers just happened to be people he thought were on his side. Reliable goons are hard to come by these days. You gotta do everything yourself.
Neo glanced at the intruders and back at him.
"..."
"You heard the lady, I'm afraid this is where we have to part ways. Neo, do the thing."
As Neo did her little curtsey, Roman took the opportunity to jump out of the hole he blasted into the wall. The landing was a bit too rough for his tastes, but that tends to happen when he has to improvise. He dusted off his clothes as he watched Neo gently float towards him with her parasol. A quick brush through his hair, a few adjustments to his hat, and he was ready. The illusion up in the second floor shattered.
Roman struck a casual, yet elegant, pose.
"How the hell did he get down there?!"
Oh Roman, you still got it.
"Watch and learn, kid. I'm gonna do that again, so pay attention!"
"Get back up here you bastard!" Mercury was seething with rage as his face went through 50 shades of red.
Roman chuckled as he pulled out a certain limited edition X-Ray and Vav comic.
"Looking for this, kid?"
"Oh no, you wouldn't da-"
Mercury's smug grin was nearly impossible to recognize in this rage-distorted visage. The criminal mastermind laughed out loud as he pulled out his lighter.
"No."
Roman enjoyed every single moment when he pretended to slip. He 'accidentally' lit the magazine on fire in the process of lighting his cigar.
"Oh man, I really didn't mean for that to happen, but you jinxed it, kid. You can have my second-favorite lighter instead. No hard feelings?" Torchwick flicked his lighter towards Mercury and casually strode towards the parking lot. What a shame. I really liked that thing.
Emerald barely averted her eyes when she saw the lighter flash red. As she braced for impact, a dark figure blotted out the light from the explosion.
"After him, lads!"
So many surprises. Professor Port was much faster than she had anticipated. He shielded the blast with his own body and it didn't leave a single scratch. The amount of Aura to pull of something like that was immense, to say the least.
Cinder was right in not trusting Torchwick. He isn't the type to follow orders or rules. If he knew about the plan, he would be running all of this on his own. Torchwick was about as dangerous as he was narcissistic.
As she absent-mindedly followed the little group heading for Port's safari truck, she went through the mental list of her belongings in the dorm room. All of her important stuff was still at the headquarters. Even Torchwick wasn't dumb enough to steal from Cinder. Well, actually, he might do it if she wasn't his employer.
Emerald barely made the jump onto the vehicle as Peter Port started driving. That boy in green handed the cute blond guy a plastic bag he found in the back-seat as the fat professor was in hot pursuit of Torchwick's Limousine.
"Do we really have to do this?"
Jaune was desperately trying to fight his nausea, but he resigned himself to his fate as he saw Torchwick do a complete U-turn in the middle of an intersection. Port violently turned the steering wheel as Jaune dropped his spaghetti.
"Ew, gross, can't you do something about this?" Emerald pressed her back towards Mercury, away from Jaune. Her teammate didn't seem to notice as he was still grieving at the loss of some comic. Childish ambitions.
She let her eyes wander for a moment. That red-haired girl was holding onto Jaune much too tightly for some reason, while the other girl just wouldn't stop giggling. Simpletons, she thought, before her eyes met his.
Time slowed down for a moment as she made eye-contact with Ren. The impression of a viper staring down a cobra flickered through her mind as she forced herself to smile. He's a calculating type like me. She hated him already.
"Why was Torchwick in your room?"
The gentle tone belied his nature. She shook her head and checked the situation briefly; luckily everyone else was too caught up in the hectic car chase to notice their conversation.
"I don't know." Her response sounded simple, but it was far from that. It was the perfect lie. A phrase she had practiced for years. Without breaking eye-contact, not even a slight waver in her voice, no sweating, no twitching her ears, no turning red, no hand movements. Her body, in unison with her voice, screamed at Ren.
She saw his eyes narrow and widen again as he broke eye-contact. The tension slipped off of her as she silently breathed out.
"What do you know about him then?"
"He is an arrogant prick." Shit. The words slipped out before she realized it herself. It was such a simple bait - and she took it. She prepared herself mentally as she scrambled to invent an excuse. She wasn't supposed to even know about Torchwick.
However, before Ren could interrogate her to confirm his suspicions, the car chase came to an abrupt end.
Roman felt good about himself. This hit was much more his style than Cinder and her extreme secrecy. He absolutely loved it when heists turn into car chases. Stuff like this wakes up the entire neighborhood, and it was magnificent.
"Hey Neo, how much time do we have left?"
"..."
"Man, I just started enjoying this."
"..."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Let's lose 'em."
Neo grinned at him after she threw a Dust grenade at the pursuing truck.
"Good work as always, Neo."
"..."
"What? No, you won't be getting ice cream for this."
"..." Neo pouted and turned around on her seat.
"There's no arguing with you, huh? Well I guess I'm in a generous mood today. Do the thing."
Neo beamed at him, barely eclipsed by the explosion behind them. Roman jerked the wheel and drove into one of Vale's many lesser known back alleys. He heard the screeching as the meddlers tried to brake, only to see an illusory obstacle shatter before their eyes.
Roman would have loved to watch their dumbfounded faces when they realized that they fell for the same trick twice, even with him telling them about it beforehand. Sadly, extending the cat-and-mouse chase would cut into his schedule, as he now had an appointment in a certain ice cream café to meet.
Emerald inspected the damage in her dorm room. She and Mercury said their good byes to Port after the fruitless race through the town. Partly out of gratefulness for shielding her from the Dust-infused lighter bomb, partly out of spite for Roman, she slipped a map into his pocket, detailing the location of Roman's personal safehouse.
He's going to get in trouble for this with Cinder, and maybe she will finally dispose of him. Most of the dust should have been cleared out by now, so there should be minimal risk to the operation. Even if some Dust was to be reclaimed, they had much more than enough for their plans. Emerald hated herself for it, but she had to admit that Roman was good at what he does. Let's hope I can break any connections to him before that Ren guy becomes a problem.
As she went through her closet, she noticed an empty drawer. All her underwear, bras, panties, stockings, gone.
Very fucking mature, Torchdick.
Hey there. This concludes the second chapter of my story, and as you might have noticed, the plot is progressing at a very fast rate. I intend to finish this in 5 chapters, at somewhere around 10k words. I intended this to be a longer adventure thing, but university is much more stressful than anticipated and I will probably be writing short fiction and one-shots exclusively. If you have any suggestions on what you want to see, leave a review or pm me.
You might have noticed that I changed up my style of writing. More descriptions, less dialogue, changes in point of view. Let me know if you liked this better than the first chapter or the other way around, so I can continue to write stuff that's fun for you to read. This is all still very experimental to me, so critique is appreciated.
Another thing that you may have noticed is some fanons I am applying to the characters. Most extra fluff I use comes from /RWBYg/ on 4chan, and that currently includes Emerald idolizing Cinder and hating Roman's guts, Neo being mute and only Torchwick understanding her, her obsession with ice cream, and Roman's general awesomeness.
I will try to get the next chapter up sooner this time, so expect it by Tuesday if everything goes according to plan. See you in the next installment of Delivery!