- RWBY Fables Chapter 9 : The Weekend Blitz ( Part 1 ) -

( A Diner in Vale )

"~This is delicious! Why didn't you tell us about this place earlier?"

The voice of a happy hyena can be heard through a certain diner in the city of Vale. It was the weekend for Team DARK and they are spending there first few minutes of the morning in a diner called "Grace's Diner Cafe". Apparently Duran was going to come alone to meet someone, however because Kira wanted to dig her nose in his business, the whole team came along.

It's not what Kira had thought, but she was enjoying herself with the meal, "I must say, I am surprised Duran. I had though that you was streets in the streets downtown."

Duran looked at the smart mouth sorceress with narrowed eyes. Her mouth had been running ever since her family weapon came in from Atlas. It had been getting on his nerves as of late and wanted to give her a piece of his mind, but before he could, a set of refilled cups hit the table. Carrying the tray of cups was Duran's care ward, The Shiba Inu Faunus, Grace Take-Ra.

Her large Shiba Inu tail wagged with excitement of her Duran's return to the diner, despite it took him two months to do it. But by her surprise, he brought friends with him, "Here your drinks. I must say I am surprised, I didn't think you'd bring such big company with you back home!"

Duran didn't intend to bring them at all, but seeing the person who took care of him while he was young smile the way she was, he could try to tolerate at. Heck, he might have found the a little hang out spot for them. He just smirks and tilts his head towards Ross who was next to him.

"If you're referring to Ross, I hope the kitchen staff was up for the challenge. I decided to stop by because we'll be starting missions next month and I wanted to stop by before than."

Grace smiled at the news with her tail wagging intensively and started waving her hand, "Oh I'm glad you did! And don't worry about your big friend over there. The staff needed some work anyway. I'm just glad you have friends to hang out with! I thank you all for putting up with Duran so long."

As Kira rolls her eyes, Alice laughs telling her it was no problem. They attention is eventually drawn to Ross as he watches the news, "What happened there?"

The gang turns to the television as the news reporter speaks of the latest robbery. A Dust Shop close by was attack just yesterday day and the only things that were stolen were pure Dust Crystals. Grace places a hand on her chin as she watched the news statement, familiar with these case of attacks.

"That would be the fourth one now. Hopefully they're not over working you father to hard."

( What... )

Duran raises an eye brow to Grace's statement about the attack on the Dust Shop, "How long has this been going on?"

Grace turns to Duran as he shows interest in the latest story. Normally she'd tell him not to worry about it, but now that he was a student huntsmen it is kind of his job to know these things let alone stop and prevent them. Her nods herself back into form and tells Duran and his team about the attacks.

"During these past two weeks, a gang calling themselves the Troika started to raid Dust Shops at night, strangely only stealing Dust Crystals. These attacks have been growing as of late and happening more quickly apparently since the last attack was just three days ago."

The team looks at each other for a bit upon hearing the story. Dust Crystal these days aren't cheap, that's true. But why would a gang steal so much of them. Alice is the first to speak, "We should go on a steak out."

Everyone drops their heads as Grace herself chuckles at the mere thought.

Kira adjusts her glasses as she processed to speak reason into her hyena friend, "Alice, that'd be way out of our current standing. And even if we wanted, we don't know where to store."

"Actually, for four Dust Shops to be robbed in a span of two weeks, they'd have to be close to each other. And if this one was robbed three days after the other one, then they are going for Dust Shops that should be streets apart.", they gang listens to Duran's logic into the Dust Raiding events transpiring. In truth, it's all sound to them, even Kira herself is surprised into Duran logic.

"To add to this, Dust Crystals are highly protected by stores that can afford the security. They're basically going for the stores that have the lesser protection and lacking security systems. Not to mention they basically rushed the latest one. They're getting sloppy."

As Kira heeded this outlook of Duran, she only pondered one sole thought to it all, "How could you possibly know all this?"

Duran makes full eye contact with Kira as he pleads his case. He may not look it, but unfortunately, Duran has had experience with the underground. He's learned how most things work and who to go and talk to, "I've had outside experience before hand."

As Kira looked on, Alice calls for attention as she has her official lead, thanks to her best friend Duran, "Then we find the the Dust Store closest to that one! It can't be that hard!"

As Kira goes to make her claim, they are call forth by Ross who is still eating his burger, "Before we do anything, can I finish eating first?"

As the gang could only stare at Ross with Alice laughing, Grace could only chuckle at the people Duran had surrounded himself with. To her, it's been so long since Duran had let or allowed people into his life this way. If only 'she' was alive to see this.

( Sometime later in Vale )

"I can't believe you talked me into this."

Unfortunately for Kira, the team had decided to look into the robberies. Kira groans into the course of actions they are taking, as they approach the attacked Dust Shop which is being investigated at the moment. A city cop approaches them.

"Sorry, but this shop is closed for investigation."

Duran just looks past the cop in question, noticing a strange symbol on the building, he then looks back at the cop, "Really sherlock. What clued you in?"

The cop could just stare in awe as he caught the sound of Alice's snickering.

"Duran! Please excuse his lack of respect, but we're student Huntsmen and Huntress of New Beacon Academy. We would like to at least know what happened here."

The cop excused Duran's language as he explained the robbery, "While there's not much to explain. The shop keep left the shop and moments after the shop was raided. They broke through the window and only stole Dust Crystals."

"What's happening over here?"

The cop attention is drawn to Jaune, who happened to be in town. He walks over to the cop and notices Team DARK. This is first time seeing them in public, "You're Team DARK right? What are doing here?"

Before Kira could speak, Duran beats her to it and explains their reasons for being here, "This shop is close to my ward's Diner. I wanted to see what happened?"

Jaune nods at his statement, he of all people knows the feeling of protecting someone, "There was a robbery here and it's being looked into, apparently just as he said, they only stole pure dust crystals."

Duran cocks an eye brow at Jaune's statement into the matter at hand, "Pure Dust Crystals? What would a band of thugs want with those?"

Jaune waves a hand at the students before him, "Listen guys, I understand that you feel the need to get involved, but I suggest you guys just enjoy your weekend. It's all under control."

Before Duran could plead his case, he is stopped by Kira who has raised her hands and states defeat, "Well you heard Professor Arc, it's under control. There's no need for us to get involved any further."

With this, the team walks away from the scene. As they gain a certain distance from the professor, Duran states the obvious, "They're on borrowed time."

Kira looks at Duran after that statement, "Excuse me?"

Duran raises his hand and claims a possible chance to catch the robbers, "They're on borrowed time. With a renown huntsmen on the case, they're gonna have to pick up the pace of their raids. They're gonna make a mistake event eventually."

Don't get her wrong, she wanted to catch these guys, but not at the chance of getting in trouble. Kira is now annoyed with this idea of a quest to catch the band of thieves, "Did you not hear Professor Arc? He said he under everything under control."

"He has one building out of an entire city under control. A building that had already been robbed. That's not exactly having things under control. That's just being in one spot and not knowing where to go next. By the time they realize that, another store would have been robbed."

Kira could only drop her head in defeat in the truth of fact that Duran just explained to her. There was no telling which store would be next. The only clues they have is that the stores in question were close to each other and are getting closer with each raid, "Even if that's the case, we still don't know where the next attack would be?"

"~These stores are next to each other right? Let's just next few closest ones and see what happens.", Alice points out perhaps the only available option they have. Looking up on her scroll, there are two Dust Shops close to the one they just came from, there are several points between the two of which they can steak them out at the same time.

This is starting to be the few things Kira wasn't taught to be as a huntress.

( New Beacon Academy / Headmistress Office )

Weiss had just received the call on the server she had ordered for the communication tower. Upon it's arrival, she had decided to move the mission schedule to become active the next coming month. The reason for this was obvious. Though New Beacon Academy was fully restored, there are still parts inside as well as outside the capital of Vale that are still in need of aid as well as still in reconstruction.

It was a miracle that Vale had recovered as fast as it did, but it still didn't have the same level of man power it had since the Battle of Beacon. Heck, most of their aid came from the other kingdoms as well as the student bodies. But to escort a technician to a radio tower that is slowly over run by Grimm at the moment to fix the sever, she couldn't just send in any team.

Her train of thought is disturbed as Blake enters the room, receiving the notice about the early mission movements, "This is earlier than last years. What's the occasion?"

Weiss just rolls her eyes at Blake's idea of humor, "I just received notice of the sever I order for the radio tower. Since we lack to professional huntsmen power, I've decided to have a student team both protect and escort the technician while shadowing a huntsmen."

Blake crosses her arms at Weiss's reason. She could have easily sent Blake to complete the task, but she'd rather send students instead. Granted Blake knew that they were still struggling on man power, since most of Beacon's Finest were Instructors or retired, but to send student and a shadowing huntsmen on the task. Blake felt like she was taking another page out of Ozpin's books.

However, Blake decided to allow it, on one condition, "I'm shadowing."

"Blake..."

Blake raises her to silence the Headmistress, she was going to allow this, but she had to make sure the shadowing students were well protected, "This idea is sound, but my decision still stands. I'm shadowing them or I go alone."

Weiss can only sigh in a form of defeat. Training to become a Headmistress had prepared her for many things as well as improve on her skills. But if there was one thing she hadn't improve of, it was winning ONE argument with Blake.

There are times when she admired her stubbornness...and there were times when it goes gave her a freaking headache. She just rubs the bridge of her eyes, seeing no way out of the deal.

"Alright Blake, you win. But I decide which team you go with." Blake nods at the terms and pulls out her tablet files, starting to state her list of received possible missions.

In the middle of her report, Weiss receives a call from Velvet from her office phone. She picks up the phone after excusing herself from Blake. Whatever that call was, Blake could tell that Weiss wasn't to happy about it. She politely places the phone back and rubs her eyes before looking at Blake.

"Blake...when was the last time you heard ANYTHING from Team DARK?"

( Later in Vale )

"Guys, it's starting to get dark. There hasn't been anything out of the ordinary yet, let's just call at quits tonight and stay at a motel."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot to remind you to bring you night light."

"LISTEN HERE YOU!"

On top of one of the buildings in Vale watching over one of the chosen Dust Shops, you hear Team DARK's Duran and Kira do their daily argument, while on steak out. It is late night and after much examination of the town Dust Shops, they eventually decided to steak out the "Tango Dust Main".

Alice chuckles at the little spat while watching over the shop while Ross separates them for the sixth time. After much observation for four hours and basically missing their flight back to Beacon, they were stuck in town much to Kira's dismay. All she could do is stand with her team and await whatever punishment comes in the morning back at school.

"Listen Duran, all I'm saying is that we try again another day. We've been here for hours and nothing has happen yet-"

"The reason nothing had happened yet is because it was still daylight. The moon has just raised and these attacks been stated to happen at night. We staked out early that way we're as ready here before hand that way when the attack does happen, we're already here."

...Kira couldn't disagree with him on that one, though now the important question remained. Are they prepared?

"~ Hey guys! That's something important, right?"

The two approach Alice as they look onward to the Dust Shop, noticing a group of individuals arriving in what's basically several armed vans. There had to be at least two or three van full of rough looking people. And Duran is already rough looking. Alice tries to wiggle her ears to get some focus on whatever conversation they might or could be having, not getting much of anything from them.

She knows as a Faunus that her senses are indeed higher than most, but sometimes she has a habit of overestimating herself. The team admires that about her as she is willing to push herself into being a great teammate, but sometimes it's just not necessary.

"~ They don't look like they work here."

Duran watches as they gang of individuals start taking out items and bags, it's clear to someone like him that this is a form of robbery. He eventually reaches behind him and readies his weapon for whatever comes next, "That's because they don't."

Kira observes as the gang breaks into the store in question. She's glad that they were here when it happened, but in a form of honesty she was slightly upset that she was about to use her re-furnished weapon on a bunch of gang members. But she knows now that as a huntress, she had to adjust to things like this. She braces herself as she rises to the occasion as she follows her team to deal with the Shop Raiders.