"Why are you always late!" Ferris whined as Roman sauntered up to their meeting place; a little park nestled between buildings.
Roman just chuckled as he stopped in front of Ferris. "Do you have everything?"
Ferris glanced around nervously, like usual. "Of course I do".
He handed Roman a gray rectangular case that had a simple handle on top, it was remarkably similar to the one's he used to store dust he got from robberies. Roman opened it up to check the contents while Ferris continued.
"Gravity dust, burn dust, spark dust, frost dust, $10,000 lien, and the information on everything we know about what the White Fang has been up to in this area, as well as what little we know of what they're up to in Mistral." Ferris listed off, looking much more confident now that he was discussing his area of expertise.
Roman closed the case and locked it before looking back to Ferris. "Good job kid! This is why your one of the best informants this side of Sanus! You even managed to get the dust and lien. I'm impressed!" Roman said as he grinned at Ferris.
"So am I done now?" Ferris whimpered as he nervously rubbed his hands.
"Yea yea, your free of your debts." Roman said with a hint of exasperation. "Anyways, I'll see ya around ki-"
Roman eyes widened in shock as a knife erupted from Ferris's throat. He immediately ducked into a roll as two more blades flew past where his head had just been.
Jumping up, Roman immediately brought up Melodic Cudgel to deflect a heavy strike from his unknown assailant. The masked figure stumbled back as Roman followed up the block with a heavy kick to their abdomen.
Roman briefly glanced down to where Ferris was gurgling and dying. "That was rude of you, I kinda liked that kid." Roman said as he composed himself and turned back to his assailant.
The figure definitely looked feminine. She was lithe and wielded a simple long-sword in one hand while multiple throwing knifes that were identical to the one protruding from Ferris's throat were strapped to her chest. Most notable however, was her White Fang mask and the wolf ears on her head.
"Roman Torchwick" She spat with venom as she brought herself back into a crouch.
"I'm pretty sure we both knew my name, darling. Don't wear it out." Roman said with nonchalance, "So what's a White Fang assassin doing all the way out here." He added as he calmly set down the case and twirled his cane, letting it come to a rest on his shoulder.
"You bastard! You don't even remember me!" The assassin said as she continued to slowly circle him like a panther preparing to leap.
"Should I?" Roman, despite his laid back looking stance, was watching the assassin carefully. Though he did raise an eyebrow, hoping to piss her off even more with his dismissive attitude.
She fell for it so easily that Roman couldn't suppress his smile.
"You fucker! You recruited us back in Vale at the rally, then left my brother to die in those tunnels at Mountain Glenn!" She snarled viciously "I'm going to tear you apart!"
"Hmm, can't say I remember either of you" Roman said with blatantly fake concern. "Did you file a complaint with Human resources? I'm sure they'd be willing to assist you with your problems."
He paused for a moment before continuing. "Hmm, now that I think of it, the White Fang wouldn't have HR. Maybe they have something like Animal Resources or something? Do they hand out dog treats and scratching posts? I wouldn't know. To be honest I never really bothered finding out what services the White Fang offered, never really held my interes-"
The assassin had clearly had enough of his taunting. She leaped at him with a furious screech, obviously hoping to take advantage of his relaxed posture.
Roman had been expecting this for some time now, and immediately swung his cane off his shoulder to deflect her flurry of strikes. Easily matching all her blows with his cane, he laughed as he knocked away a sloppy strike and deftly hooked his cane around her neck, pulling her directly into the fist of his other hand.
As she stumbled away from the blow, Roman changed his grip on his cane as he stalked towards her. Gripping his cane like a baseball bat now, he swung Melodic Cudgel like he was going for a home run, smacking the assassin away. Her weak aura shattered as she landed heavily on the ground a good dozen feet away.
As she struggled up on all fours, breathing heavily, Roman sauntered towards her in an almost casual manner. "Well that was pathetic." He chastised before slamming his foot into her side, knocking her another couple feet away.
The assassin was coughing up droplets of blood and yet again struggling to get up on her hands and knees. "Fuck you" she gasped between coughs.
"Sorry, that offer's not on the table" Roman said apathetically as he swaggered over to her.
Roman's footsteps stopped beside her, and she started to raise her head and speak at the same time "I swear to god I'll kill you for thi-" She cut off as she raised her head to look right into the end of Melodic Cudgel, and had scarcely a moment to register what she was seeing before her head and shoulders exploded.
"Somehow I doubt that" Roman said with a bored look on his face as the rest of her body flopped back onto the ground.
With a sigh he walked back over to the case, wiping a few specks of blood off his coat before picking it up.
Looking over at Ferris's body, he shook his head. Ferris was a good informant, it was a shame to lose him.
At least he had gotten his favors dealt with before the kid bit the dust.
'Well, now that I have everything I need, time to get out of town. I can finally ditch those damn kids!'
"What the fuck!" An all too familiar voice shouted in shock.
Roman groaned loudly. There went his plans, yet again.
"Oh, hi there Hazel!" He said, forcing a smile as he spun around to look at the girl who was staring in horror at the scene before her.
She turned her gaze from the corpses and looked at Roman. "What did you do." She said with a sudden intensity.
"Well, unfortunately this piece of shit White Fang assassin ambushed my friend over there", he said with a nod to Ferris's body, "and then she went after me."
He paused and glanced over at her body, "Yea, that didn't work out too well for her." He said with a shrug.
Hazel was clearly trying to calm down, but she still looked horrified. "So you killed her?!"
"Um, yea. I told you, she killed my friend here and tried to kill me." Roman said with a bit of genuine confusion.
She struggled with her words for a moment, she obviously wanted to argue but couldn't think straight enough to form the words. Suddenly she stopped and refocused on Roman and what was in his hand.
"What were you even doing out here? And what's that in your hand?" She asked with a undisguised suspicion.
Roman honestly didn't know how to deal with this unexpected set of circumstances, so he just continued to wing it, though he still looked as calm as ever. "Well, like I said. I was meeting my friend here, and he gave me some dust he found at a good price" Roman said holding up the case for emphasis.
Before Hazel could say anything else, her scroll rang. Roman could hear the conversation from where he was standing. "Hazel! We did some digging on him like you asked and you'll never believe what we found!" Henry spoke quickly, like he was trying to get a lot of important information out quickly.
"Well don't keep me waiting" Hazel said, never taking her eyes off Roman.
"His full name is Roman Torchwick. From what locals know off television, he was the most wanted man in Vale, with an extensive criminal history. Apparently about a year ago, he started popping up everywhere. Stealing massive amounts of dust and running the entire kingdom low. Then not too long ago, he apparently partnered up with the White Fang and led an attack on Vale. They led a large number of Grimm into the city through an explosive train under the city, luckily the Atlas military and a bunch of huntsmen were able to dampen the blow and stop the attack. He was captured and held in prison on one of Ironwood's ships to make sure they kept an eye on him. A huntsmen we found from Vale said that during the big attack on Vale, Ironwood's flagship blew up the rest of the fleet, then the robotic soldiers turned on the huntsmen and attacked them. Though at some point towards the end of the battle, the flagship went down as well. He was presumed dead along with the rest of Atlas's fleet. We need to find him right now Hazel."
Roman had stood still, the whole time, his face having turned into a smirk.
Hazel eyes had gone wide, she then responded simply to Henry's explanation. "Guys, get here fast. I found him" She then quickly hung up and extended her clawed gauntlets, still glaring at Roman.
"Well, seems like you investigated my past, Hazel. I'm hurt that you didn't trust me." Roman spoke up, his smirk turning into a grin.
"You fucker, you lied to us!"
"Did I? I seem to recall you guys asking my name, where I came from, where I was going, and what happened in Vale. All of which I answered with the truth, or at least mostly the truth." Roman responded breezily.
Hazel was getting progressively angrier, but hadn't attacked yet. "What are you up to Torchwick?!"
She received a simple shrug in response.
"You're coming with us." she spat, getting even angrier as Roman kept up his nonchalant expression and posture.
"Hmm, tempting offer. Truly the pinnacle of negotiation! Alas, I still think I'll have to decline." Roman retorted. Suddenly Melodic Cudgel snapped up and fired off a bright red flare.
Hazel's eyes widened and she hastily dived out of the way as the flare exploded before her. Scrambling to her feet, she cursed when she saw that Roman was gone. Looking around frantically, she spotted his signature coat disappearing over the crest of a nearby roof. Cursing again, she quickly scaled the building with her claws before dashing after Roman. She could still see him, but he had a pretty good head start.
As she was running she called up her teammates. "Where are you!?" Flannery's voice sounded in her ear. "He's heading east on Marshall Street! Get in a vehicle or something and catch up with him, I'm following him on foot!" Hazel gasped between breaths as she ran.
Roman had a plan. It was sudden, and not very good, but he was on a strict time schedule. Earlier this evening when he saw Blake at the docks and found the boat he was supposed to take tomorrow, he remembered seeing one of the boats was leaving tonight in a few minutes from now. It wouldn't take him exactly where he wanted to go, but it would take him to the right continent and he didn't have time to be picky. Beggars can't be choosers.
As he continued to sprint along the rooftops of Port Sanus, he looked back and saw that Hazel was still following him, but he had a decent lead on her.
'This won't be too hard, she's pretty far back' Roman thought, pleased that things were in his favor for once.
Suddenly something flew right by his face, not even 3 inches from his nose. Jerking his head back, he looked down to see a truck flying down the road that ran parallel to him, the other 3 members of FHHN driving it. Henry was driving, Flannery and Noah were in the back and he saw Noah trying to line up another shot with his halberd/rifle.
"Of course! Nothing can ever be simple, can it!?" Roman shouted to no one in particular as he ducked underneath another one of Noah's shots.
"JUST GIVE UP TORCHWICK!" Flannery shouted at him from the street below.
Instead of responding, Roman started firing shots from Melodic Cudgel down at the kid's truck.
''So much for easy' Roman growled to himself as he continued to fire down at them. 'Damn kids'
(-)
Henry was continuously swerving past cars and Roman's shots alike, but it wasn't easy. "CAN YOU HURRY UP AND STOP HIM!" Henry shouted back at the other two as he swung a left past a small car before immediately having to swerve right, barely avoiding Torchwick's flare that blew a hole in the street a few feet from their truck.
"TRYING!" Noah shouted back.
Flannery had a few dust-fused throwing knives at the ready, but was having trouble lining up a shot between Roman running and jumping along the roof, and their truck swerving all over the place.
"Why is this so difficult!" She whined as she struggled to stay standing in the back of the truck, arm's flailing in an attempt to retain her balance.
Suddenly Henry swerved again and Flannery fell onto her butt, facing the front of the truck.
"Ohhhhhhhhh that's not good. HENRY, WATCH OUT!" Flannery shouted up at him.
Henry, hearing her warning, lowered his head closer to the steering wheel so he could see farther up. Once he saw it, his eye widened and he slammed on the brakes.
Roman watched from the corner of his eye as the construction crane that he had just shot down fell across the street, crushing a few cars under it. Collateral damage was unavoidable sometimes.
More importantly though, the crane had blocked the kids truck. He saw them skid to a halt in front of the crane and grinned.
Now he just needed to get away from Hazel. He glanced back as he continued his run along the top of the buildings and saw that she had gained some ground while he had been trading shots with her team.
Looking up ahead, he saw that his path was soon coming to an end. Up ahead the buildings started to get farther apart and shorter in height as they neared the docks.
He skidded to a stop at the last roof before the buildings grew further apart and quickly grabbed some gravity dust rounds out of the case he still carried. Closing it back up, he looked back to see that Hazel was only about two buildings behind him.
He quickly jumped off the roof and used his aura to absorb the force of dropping 2 stories. As soon as his feet touched the ground he took off in another sprint, running through the sparse crowds at the docks.
As he neared the edge of the docks he saw his ride, "The Voyager"pulling away from the docks.
Behind him Hazel was shouting "STOP ROMAN, THERE'S NOWHERE TO GO!"
Instead, Roman pushed himself to run even faster. As he hit the end of the docks he jumped and fired a gravity round at the dock at the same time, launching himself into the air over the sea. As he started falling back towards the water he fired his grappling hook out, latching onto the edge of "The Voyager" before quickly clicking a button and reeling himself rapidly towards the ship. He slammed into the side of a ship with a grunt, before pulling himself up onto the deck.
He stood up, fixed his hat, and looked back towards the docks while trying to catch his breath.
Hazel had skidded to a halt at the edge of the docks, and screamed angrily at him as her team jogged up behind her.
Roman grinned widely as he gave them a casual and mocking salute. Noah fired off one last desperate shot, but Roman and the ship were too far off for him to be accurate. Roman laughed loudly as he watched the dust round fly harmlessly off into the distance, easily missing him by a dozen feet.
As the kids grew smaller and smaller in the distance, Roman turned around and set off to find a spare room to break into for the trip. The ship was decent sized and clearly meant to provide a comfortable trip for it's passengers. Not exactly what he had expected, but he was definitely not going to complain. He set off along the deck, smiling to himself the whole way.
"Fuck fuck fuck!" Hazel screamed as she stomped around on the edge of the docks, watching the ship fade into a small black dot in the distance.
Noah stood still with a deep frown on his face, while Henry gritted his teeth.
"He played us" Flannery said flatly as she watched the ship fade into the horizon.
As Hazel continued to stomp around and throw a fit, Noah noticed a piece of paper about the size of a playing card stuck in the one of the wooden posts that were placed evenly across the dock. Pulling it out, he called the others over and they looked at it together.
Better luck next time kids. Next time, try not to be so gullible. It would be just horrible if someone were to take advantage of your hospitality.
Oh and Hazel, I left your journal at the hotel. You know you should really tell Noah how you feel sometime, if you bottle that up anymore I'm pretty sure you'll explode ;)
At the bottom of the paper was Roman's emblem, a grinning Jack O' lantern.
Noah looked over to Hazel after reading the card and the girl was a dark shade of red and, true to the note, looked like she might explode.
"I'M GOING TO FUKING KILL THAT BASTARD!" Hazel screamed at no one in particular as she stomped the dock, deliberately avoiding Noah's questioning gaze.
"Whelp, looks like we're going on a manhunt to Mistral." Flannery commented as she watched Hazel stalk away and Noah try to find enough words to form a question for her.
Henry just watched his team and shook his head. He wasn't sure exactly what would happen next, but he did know that this was going to be one hell of a ride.
Hey guys, longest chapter yet! Woo!
Had a tad of trouble writing this one, so I'm not sure how well it turned out, but I did what I could. As for chapter length, I don't really have a set length. They'll just be however long I feel they need to be.
If you guys see anything that could use improving, be sure to let me know! I'm always open to constructive criticism, and encourage it!
Until next time, see you guys!