Roman blinked open his eyes as morning sunlight filtered through the large window of his luxurious hotel room in Sirenaka. As he slowly pulled himself upright in bed and stretched, the alarm he had set last night started beeping obnoxiously, shattering his brief peace.
"A lot of good you did me." He yawned as he reached across to turn the alarm off. He blindly hit the nightstand in search of the alarm while he rubbed his eyes with his other hand, before realizing that it wasn't where he thought it was.
Sighing, he looked across at the other nightstand on the opposite side of the bed where the alarm continued to bleat out it's incessant beeps.
Roman, mumbling something about how it was too early for this shit, stumbled out of the bed and walked around to the other nightstand before finally turning the alarm off.
As he walked over to the bathroom where the coffee maker sat, he never did understand why hotels did that, he reminded himself why he had to get up so early.
After yesterdays events, he had found that he still needed to stock up on supplies for the road to Mistral, but all of the stores he needed to visit had closed since it had been so late. That had meant he had to stay the night in Sirenaka.
Now of course, he had made sure to choose one of the nicest hotels in Sirenaka for his stay, but it truly mattered little to him. Today he had to gather supplies for the trip. Food, water, probably a tent. Either way, he was determined to be on his way as quickly as possible, so here he was, awake at 7:30 am and hating every second of it.
After a shower and a breakfast courtesy of room-service he decided it was time to try on this disguise.
He pulled on the black long-sleeve undershirt and the plain dark pants before reaching for the kimono. He took a moment to appreciate the silken white robe and the beautiful green flowering pattern that flowed down the kimono, before promptly putting it on and tying the ribbon-like belt around his waist to keep it in place. Next he plucked the long silken scarf off the bed. He wrapped the middle part around his neck once then let it drape over his shoulders.
Instinctively he reached for his bowler hat before pausing. That would not only ruin the point of a disguise, but it also just didn't go with the outfit.
Grumbling to himself, he stepped back and looked in the mirror.
His white kimono reached all the way down to his ankles, the green flower pattern adorning the garment. His black undershirt was visible where the kimono came together and left an open V neck. Wrapped around his neck was the gray middle part of the long scarf, while the red and white petaled ends draped over his shoulders, reaching all the way down past his elbows. And like always, his hair was swept over his right eye.
Judging the entire ensemble, he reached one conclusion.
"I need a hat."
Pushing his way through the throngs of people, Roman finally reached the door of the market and stumbled out, gasping for breath. "Why are there so many people out today?" He groaned.
Everywhere he looked, people walked back and forth throughout the streets of Sirenaka. Stores were crowded, little farmers markets were busy selling their fresh produce, and tourists mixed in with the crowds, meandering around and taking pictures while looking like complete idiots.
After having packed his belongings this morning, Roman had set out into town to pick up the supplies he needed. Unfortunately, it appeared that he had chosen the busiest day of the week to do so. He had spent over 2 hours just getting the food he needed for his journey, and had gotten a hiking pack to stuff the supplies into, but he still needed to find some camping supplies before he set out.
Well that and he still wanted to find a hat that went with his outfit. So far his new outfit was faring well. No one had recognized him, it was comfortable and he thought it looked pretty good on him as well. It just didn't feel quite right without a hat though, so he had made sure to keep his eyes open while shopping in case he saw one that suited his fancy.
" 'Course nothing has shown up yet" Roman grumbled to himself as he put his hand over his visible eye to shield it from the sun.
Scanning the bustling marketplace in front of him he decided now was a better time to start than any.
Delving into the throngs of people, he kept an eye on the stands as he made his way through the crowds. A bunch of cheap bead jewelry to sell to tourists here, some local produce stands over there, they even had a dust stand. Roman snorted at the sight of it. He wouldn't steal that stuff even if he was paid to. The nicest thing he could say about that stuff is "low quality". The best use for that stuff was maybe some old generator you didn't care that much about, try sticking that dust in any sort of weapon and it was liable to blow up in your face.
Making his way past yet another T-shirt stand, his eye caught on a local fruit stand. It wasn't a hat, but those apples did look good.
Making his way over to the fruit stand, he let himself fall into the old habit of scanning the crowd. He kept his focus on choosing a good apple, but jade eyes roamed around, watching faces. In reality it probably wasn't needed. He wasn't the premier crime lord of Vale anymore and all of the people he might have to worry about thought he was dead. However, some habits die hard. Getting in to the crime world required a lot more than just huntsmen training, though he could personally attest to the usefulness of such training in his rise to power. Those girls though, team RWBY, could hold their own in a fight just fine but had they tried to really enter the crime world they wouldn't have lasted long.
He payed for his apple of choice and turned around, still watching the crowd. As his teeth met the apple his eyes caught someone that arose his suspicion. The man looked normal enough, short brown hair with a hint of gray, a cup of coffee in one hand and a newspaper in the other. A totally normal man sitting at a bench. Yet Roman still felt that there was something off about this guy. He looked familiar, and Roman was pretty sure he had seen him around Sirenaka a couple times since he had arrived. That and his position just so happened to be the place with the best view over the market place. Those were just small things though. What really set his alarms off was that the man's eyes weren't focused on the newspaper in front of him. His eyes were doing the same Roman's had just been doing. Scanning the crowd, roving back and forth over faces. Looking for someone.
Suddenly their eyes met. Green met blue and soon both of them knew. The man stood up, tucked the newspaper under his arm and started off away from Roman at a brisk pace.
Roman smirked. So this was how they were going to play it? Alright then.
Roman took off after the man, pushing his way through the crowd. People shouted as he pushed past them, but he wasn't worried about being inconspicuous at the moment. As he made his way out of the crowd he caught sight of the man rounding a corner just ahead of him.
Roman chuckled to himself, it was like this guy actually expected him to not realize this was a trap. The chances of Roman just so happening to see the this guy rounding a corner when he had that much of a head start could only be chocked up to a coincidence. Too bad Roman didn't believe in coincidence.
Still, it wasn't like he had a choice. He couldn't just let this spy go free, and so he followed.
Rounding the corner, Roman just caught sight of his target turn into an abandoned building.
"What convenient timing again" Roman thought with a smirk.
Well, no point in rushing now. He knew where the ambush would be. Taking his time, Roman walked towards the building casually, as if this were a daily occurrence.
This guy was clearly desperate if he was trying to pull this after being caught spying, it was like a cornered rat. Still, cornered animals were dangerous.
Reaching the door, Roman went to grab Melodic Cudgel off his belt loop from under his kimono.
After fiddling with the the kimono for a minute, damn thing was harder to get around than he thought, he pulled out his cane.
After pushing open the door and stepping in, the first thing he noticed was that it was dark, especially when he let the door close behind him. The only light filtered in through a few grimy skylights on the roof, giving the place abysmal lighting. It seemed like the place was some sort of warehouse. Large wooden crates were stacked in stacks between two and four crates high, and narrow spaces allowed someone to walk between them and get to the farther reaches of the warehouse. Roman was standing in a clear space a few feet from the door, a good 10 feet between him and the start of the crates.
Looking around the place, Roman huffed before hooking his cane over his forearm, pulling out a cigar and his lighter. Putting the cigar in his mouth, he clicked the lighter a few times trying to catch a spark. Soon a flame burst from the lighter and caught the tip of cigar. Putting the lighter away, he puffed the cigar a couple of times, letting it glow in the dim lighting.
After a moment, Roman spoke up, his voice echoing in the warehouse. "You know, I had been pretty damn sure you would attack while I was lighting up that cigar. At least, that's what I would have don-"
A swish of air cut him off as he snapped his cane up to deflect a blade and push back his assailant a few feet.
"Don't you know that it's rude to interrupt someone when they're talking?" Roman snarked.
The other man held a large dagger in his hand, the blade curved slightly at the end and looked extremely sharp, but otherwise didn't seem to have and other fancy components or contraptions. He held himself in a stiff combat pose and said nothing to Roman's quip, simply keeping his hard blue glare on Roman.
"Yeesh, and you don't respond when directly spoken to? Your mother certainly wasn't big on teaching manners was she?" Spinning his cane around, Roman watched the man's eyes as they fixated on his cane.
Hmm. Well that was something to test.
Letting his cane stop spinning and rest on his shoulder, Roman smiled at the man. Without warning his cane shot out towards the man in a quick thrust but was parried away by the dagger. The man retaliated with a quick swipe that Roman dodged with ease and stepped back.
Still smirking, Roman took a few slow paces around the man, still out of reach. Suddenly he flicked his cane down in overhead blow, but feinted back and swung low instead.
The man's eyes never left Melodic Cudgel and he easily called the feint, ignoring it completely and going low to deflect the actual attack. He quickly pushed the advantage and stepped forward in a flurry of swipes. Roman backpedaled, deflecting each swipe with an easy twirl or flick of his cane and laughing the whole time.
The man quickly recognized that his attack wasn't going to pan out and jumped back before Roman could capitalize on a mistake.
Roman grinned as the man reset back to his original fighting stance and waited for Roman to make a move. He slowly walked towards the man, tossing melodic back and forth between his hands the whole time. The man's eyes frantically watched the weapon as it moved between Roman's hands, tensely waiting for an attack. Suddenly Roman tossed Melodic Cudgel into the air, and the man's eyes instinctively followed the weapon for a moment before they widened in realization. He pulled up his weapon and started to look back down at Roman, but only managed to catch a glimpse of a gloved fist before it met his nose.
Roman followed though with his punch then followed it up with an elbow to the chest before grabbing the man's head and slamming into Roman's rising knee. As the man staggered back he took a wild swing with his dagger, but Roman easily slapped it away with back of his hand before grabbing the man's wrist and twisting it around quickly. As the dagger fell from his hands Roman swept the man's legs out from under him and pulled him over Roman's shoulder by his arm, swinging him overhead before slamming him head first into the ground.
With that, the man's aura shattered and he laid groaning on the ground. Roman kicked up the dagger off the floor and caught it. "You know, you should really focus on the enemy and not the weapon." He drawled before walking over to where his cane had fallen to the floor. He tossed the dagger into an open crate before picking up Melodic Cudgel, and as he started back towards the man groaning on the floor he started his questioning.
"So it's clear you're not much of a fighter, and certainly not a hunter, because that was laughably pathetic. I mean, did you really think you'd kill someone like me with that?"
The man groaned once again before answering. "I know who you are Torchwick, you won't get shit out of me. They'll be sending a specialist after you soon enough."
The tip of a cane came down hard on one of the spy's hands, and a loud crunch followed. To the man's credit, he didn't cry out, just merely grunted in pain. Still, that wouldn't change the fact that his hand was now completely useless.
"Atlas then, eh? So how'd you idiots find out that I was alive?" Roman said with a small smirk.
"Some young team of hunters found one of our specialists and told her. Ironwood said it was worth checking out so here we are."
"Damn kids causing trouble, like usual. So much for not getting anything out of you then, I haven't even done much to you and your already singing."
The spy just laughed. "Not like it'll matter. You'll be dead within a week or two and that info wasn't important anyways."
Roman just shrugged, before putting a knee on the man's back and pulling the handle of his cane out, revealing the long metal wire of his grappling hook. "Well, guess that makes two of us then."
With that he wrapped the metal wire around the man's neck and pulled it tight, one hand around the main section of Melodic Cudgel, the other holding onto the handle.
The spy started to gurgle and make choking sounds as Roman slowly tightened the wire. "Oh C'mon, I'm trying to make this a clean ordeal so the good people of Sirenaka don't have to clean up too much, the least you could do is be quiet!"
Click!
Roman had barely finished speaking when a bright light flashed in his eyes for a moment. Looking down from his brief rant, he saw the soon-to-be corpse holding a scroll in his only functioning hand.
Roman quickly transferred the handle of his cane to his other hand and pulled back to keep the pressure on the spy's neck. Then, using his now free hand, he snatched the scroll out of the man's hand.
"Now now, trying to snap a picture for your friends? We can't have you ruining my disguise now can we?" Roman tsked as he waved the scroll about in emphasis.
"Sorry pal, not gunna happen. Nice try though." Roman frowned for a moment before continuing "Shouldn't you be dead by now? Usually people die by now."
Suddenly a pleasant female voice echoed out from the scroll. "Message sent."
Roman froze. Looking at the scroll he saw a picture of him in his kimono standing above the spy and strangling him with the grappling hook wire. The recipient was some random number with no title.
He must have accidentally thumbed the send button while he was holding the scroll.
It would take awhile for the message to get back to Atlas since the CCT was down and the spy that the message likely sent to would need to send it through a series of other spy's all the way back to Atlas, but that didn't change the fact that he had just ruined his disguise AND alerted Atlas that he was onto them, all because he had been careless in handling the scroll.
Roman's eye twitched.
The spy started making a strangled huffing sound that resembled laughing as he came to the same conclusion.
Roman snarled at the spy before stomping his foot onto the man's back and jerking sharply back on the grappling hook wire. With that, a brutal snapping sound echoed through the warehouse as the man's head lolled limply to the side.
Reeling in the wire and returning his cane to it's normal state, Roman started going through what had just happened in his head.
He had decided to toy around with the spy and strangle him instead of dealing with him quickly, and because of that the man had gotten a picture of him in his brand new disguise.
Then, on top of that, he had accidentally sent said picture to Atlas. He had done that, no one else was to blame. Now Atlas was aware that he was on to them and would likely push up any plans to send a specialist after him.
And his brand fucking new disguise, that he had just gotten yesterday was now completely useless.
So basically, he had fucked up everything he had going for him in the span of approximately 2 minutes.
"...Son of a bitch."
Alright guys, long time no see! I've got a longer chapter for you today.
I can't begin to explain how sorry I am for the delay, but it couldn't be helped. Right after the last chapter came out, I had to kick it into high gear and was pulling 19 hour work days, 7 days a week for nearly 6 weeks. Then immediately after that I had to spend 3 weeks fixing my roof with a couple of friends and family. I finished all that roughly 5 days ago and since then I've just been catching up on sleep and trying to get over a bit of writers block.
But anyways, I'm back now. I don't foresee any more problems in the near future but just know that if I ever take a long time to update it's not because I've given up on this story. I have this story planned out, and I intend to finish it no matter what, so anytime it takes a long time to update it means I've run into a heap of problem in daily life. Well, that or I'm dead.
Anyways, probably not the best chapter because part of it was written 2 months ago and so things don't always tend to flow great after a gap like that, but I hope you guys enjoy regardless.