"As I promised I save the best for last" Jaune opened the door to 'Tukson's Book Trade' and let the others enter before him. Team WNRR had thought the idea to have a trip to Vale was a good idea and Jaune had been more than happy to invite them along as only one member of their team was familiar with the city and Ruby wasn't exactly the best tour guide.
Everyone of the group with the exception of Nora was carrying a bag or two with their purchases from the day not that Nora had not bought anything it was more that Ren was silently holding the energetic girl's bags as well as his own purchases.
"Welcome," a loud voice from the rear of the shop greeted the group warmly. "are you in search of a particular book or just browsing today?" The shop keeper asked the group he had watched them enter together and wasn't sure who really to address.
"I think most the group is just going to browse, but this fine lady right here is a connoisseur of the fine literary arts she might have a few volumes in mind," Jaune said pulling Blake away from a shelf and deposited her firmly in front of the shopkeeper. "I think I saw an interesting book by the entrance I'm gonna go check it out you have fun, Blake!" Jaune vanished from the area in an instant leaving a confused Blake staring at an equally confused shopkeep.
"He's kind of an odd one, isn't he? Anyways, names Tukson, is what the young man said true to do perhaps have some books in mind for today?" Tukson watched the young man weave through the store as he turned to address the girl he had left behind.
"I'm not sure if he's odd or that's just his personality... but he's not wrong I have a, um... list of books I have been wishing to own for awhile." Blake hesitated for a second and then with a faint blush showed Tukson a list of books she was hoping to find. "I don't expect you to have these, of course, they are a bit niche." Blake said defensively when she watched the man's eyes go wide for an instant.
"Ha, lady you would be surprised what you can find in a bookstore if you are brave enough to ask, hold on a second I'll get your order ready I think I have everything on that list." Tukson smiled and vanished into the back of his store and proceeded to casually grab books and tuck them into a box eventually he returned from the back room with a box filled with the girl's niche literature. "So I have everything on your list, but are you sure you want to buy these all at once?" he casually waved his hand over the box it was packed neatly and held close to thirty books.
"I'm not sure, I don't think I have ever been to a shop that has ever had everything on my list without needing to place an order..." Blake looked at the box with desire, but she knew she could not afford the entire content's in one purchase.
"Wow, that's quite a few books there Blake!" Blake jumped and spun to face Jaune, she wasn't sure how he did or if he was even aware but he moved so silently that she was continually caught off guard by him.
"It is actually more than I can afford, I'm sorry Tukson I don't have the Lien to buy all these today, do you mind if I only take three or four for the time being?" Blake asked while eyeing the box with longing.
"Of course not take you time." Tukson pushed the box toward's Blake before turning to deal with her blonde friend who had returned to the counter. "Did you find everything you were looking for?" Tukson eyed the book the teen held in his hands.
"Oh this, no, this caught my eye and figured I would grab it, I'm actually looking for stationary, I sadly came ill equipped for Beacon and the apparent leader role I have earned and I need some extra materials for lessons." Jaune brought out a list of materials that he knew Tukson would have in stock from previous lives and after a few short minutes, Jaune had his arms full with his purchases.
"Having trouble making a decision Blake?" Jaune hefted his bags off the counter and moved to stand closer to Blake but also purposefully placing himself where he wouldn't see the content of the box either.
"No, no I think I have settled on these three for the time being!" Blake hugged the books to her chest making sure the titles were turned inwards though she doubted Jaune would have noticed, he wasn't even looking at her or the box behind her, instead he was holding one of his bags open and was fishing around in it for something.
"Sounds good I'm going to go gather the others and tell them we're done here if they want to buy anything." Jaune replied still looking into his bag and wandering away to give Blake some privacy. He knew team RWBY became aware of Blakes reading material fairly early on, no one ever seemed to care outside of Yang and that was only because it gave her more ammunition when making fun of her teammates.
"So anywhere else you guys want to go?" Jaune walked casually backward looking over his group like a tour guide would. One quick look at the group showed everyone in good spirits but ready to be done with their day of shopping so he wasn't surprised when the decision was unanimous to return to Beacon. "Alright back to Beacon, it is then!" Jaune turned to face forward and fell into step with Yang who was standing towards the back of the group by herself.
"So... how has your day been going?" Jaune asked casually due to their friends being nearby but he looked to Yang with a concerned expression since while Yang had been with the group all day she stuck more to Ruby or Pyrrha than anyone else.
"This has been alright, I think? This is so weird for me I didn't really notice it initially with my freakout with Blake, but their all back and...and just so the same, but different also!" Yang felt life she was trying to explain something that had never before been explained and was struggling with the concept. "Everyone is how I remembered them even if the interactions are different, it all feels so... so alien like this is some weird dream that isn't quite happening." Yang smiled as she watched Ruby and Weiss argue quietly about Ruby wanting to make a quick stop at a bakery they had just passed that smelled of freshly baked cookies.
"That's a fairly apt way to describe it really, we change things and the interactions differ but as people, they are who we remember and trust me when I tell you the weird alien feeling your getting never really goes away you just learn to accept it." Jaune smiled as they passed another row of store's as he watched Nora drag Ren across the street a half dozen times to look in every window at least once.
"This has been a good day Jaune, the whole thing just felt natural and right. Is this what you meant by a perfect moment?"
"It could be, I have never had someone to ask me what a perfect moment is, I always found a moment I enjoyed and-well basked in it though I have to admit this right here today is a great moment one that we should cherish!" Jaune smiled as they approached the Bullhead platform and joined the queue of people waiting for a spare ship to take them to their desired location.
Yang looked around at the group her first real time taking everything in and understanding what Jaune was fighting for not just to keep his friends alive but to preserve moments like this where they could enjoy their lives and not have to deal with the horror's he knew would come too soon.
After a short wait their group entered a Bullhead that was headed to Beacon, as soon as they left the ground multiple monitors's sprung to life with daily Vale new's broadcasts. "Good Afternoon, I am Lisa Lavender, Today Vale has been struck again in another Bank robbery this makes the third one this month and authorities are struggling to Identify the culprits, video records of the robberies only show two suspects while reports from witness's of the robberies claim to have seen upwards of a dozen assailants, currently the Police are now working with the local huntsmen under the suspicions that the criminal is a person with both unlocked Aura and a visual manipulation Semblance. The police are also asking if you have any information that may lead to the resolution of these crimes to people contact XXX-XXXX"
That's not right! Jaune sent a quick glance to Yang to see if she had caught the broadcast but if she did she couldn't show it as she was engaged in a conversation with Pyrrha. That was clearly Emerald's Semblance but why are they robbing banks or for that matter risking exposing themselves so early? Also Bank Robberies and no mention of Dust thefts? Jaune took a deep breath to focus his mind. Okay stressing over this will not get me anywhere something has clearly happened that has made Cinder lack the Lien to do something this isn't the first time this has happened just normally I'm the direct cause of something like this... that is not as comforting a thought as I hoped it would be...
"You seem pretty distracted right now!" Weiss said as she made to sit down beside him.
"Yeah sorry I... uh, struggle with motion sickness, I'm normally pretty good but every so often I have a bad ride in one of these Bullheads." Jaune said trying to sound as casual as he could, he had long ago fixed his issue with Bullheads but relied on the easy excuse to explain is distracted/concerned expression.
"Oh," Weiss moved slightly farther away from Jaune but remained seated she clearly wanted to ask a question but now felt awkward.
"I'm fine Weiss I haven't had a bad experience in a long time so I should be good for a little conversation."
Weiss nodded her head. "I'm wondering how you have been handling your role as team leader, I... I have been having some difficulties, and was wondering if maybe they were just a normal thing?"
"So you want to compare note's, I can understand that. I'm not sure about issues my team has been having we seem to get along great... in most cases. There are some discrepancies but those I guess boil down to people's personalities." Jaune assumed Weiss was going to want to talk about the excess energy and lack of focus that both Nora and Ruby had in droves.
"That is in a way something I was curious about, I have trouble getting either Nora or Ruby to focus during class's both are prone to be distracted, honestly it feels quite frustrating!" Weiss clenched her fists over her skirt and held the position for a moment before relaxing.
"Well, I assume you have confronted them on this behavior?" Jaune knew the old Weiss would have done so immediately though the old Weiss normally has a more direct discussion with one of the Professors and not another student so he wasn't going to assume anything about what this one may or may not have done.
"I have not actually, I don't want to seem 'controlling' especially not to my friends." Weiss said with an earnest expression.
"I don't think confronting them about this would be the wrong idea but to be fair I doubt I'm the best example of proper classroom conduct." Jaune smiled as he eluded to multiple times during the first week where he had slept through entire lesson's, but somehow when a teacher tried to call on him he always had the perfect response to whatever question they tried to stump him with.
"Well, aside from your penchant for sleeping during class you seem to handle the lessons and assignments perfectly." Weiss had expected Jaune to have fairly low scores with the time he spent sleeping during class's only to learn after the first week that he had the highest academic score overall, while it was still early she had been shocked by that knowledge.
"Oh I'm hardly perfect I'm probably only middle of the pack, never was that great of a student." Jaune scoffed at Weiss's claim.
"Do you seriously not know that you are the highest marked in class? Our current combat and academic marks can be brought up on any scroll that has been added to the school's network." Weiss pulled out her own scroll to prove it and after a few quick gestures, she showed the academic rankings of all first-year students attending Beacon with one Jaune Arc being near perfect at the top.
Why am I still learning new stuff at this point, how has this never come up in the past either! "Huh, would you look at that..." Great now I can't just randomly start tanking class's either or that would be wildly inconsistent. "I honestly don't know how to explain that." Jaune shrugged his shoulders and looked at the floor of the Bullhead and rolled his eyes at how stupid he was.
"You know for someone who is supposedly well read and naturally intelligent you miss quite a few things it seems." Weiss stood as the intercom announced their impending arrival at Beacon and she went to gather her bags.
You don't know the half of what I miss...
"Your famous criminal's now 'Bravo'" Roman clapped as he walked past Emerald and Mercury. "Well, not so much famous, you kind of need to be known to be famous all you two have is an annoying guy who likes to run his mouth and a girl with a Semblance that does ninety-nine percent of the work." Roman twirled Melodic Cudgel casually as he walked the room. Roman Glanced at Mercury to see if the gray-haired teen would raise to the bait but sadly after the third beating he received from Roman he had become much more subdued.
"I hope that was the last one, the police have figured out that there are only two of us and that all the witness reports of more people are just people confused by my Semblance." Emerald was angry, Cinder had been very specific about keeping her abilities secret, but she had also stressed to point to not let the plans get derailed and unfortunately, recent events forced her hand.
The Smugglers bringing the Dust from Vacuo and Mistral were starting to arrive and they had run out of funds after the first delivery, no one knew when Cinder might return and they needed to be able to pay the smugglers when they arrived so she had taken it upon herself to get the funds needed, it had initially started with single items from jewelry stores that Roman would fence and while that had paid the second Smuggler off the third was close behind and they hadn't had the time for that sort of slow work.
She had wanted to rob the first bank but they didn't have the time for anything else, Roman had presented an easy target that had little security and was out of the way enough that police response would be slow, so she took Mercury with her and they concealed their identities and with ample use of her Semblance they made off with enough Lien to pay for the next delivery and she had repeated the process twice more to pay for the final two deliveries and she was glad to be done with the business though she inwardly cursed at information of her semblance being revealed, the only saving grace being that at least no one knew who it was that wielded it so she was still safe for the time being.
"So... anyone know what we are supposed to do next?" Roman sat down across from Cinder's minions and asked a question that no one had an answer too. Sending a glance their way when he got no response Roman let out a long deep sigh. "NEO!" Roman bellowed as he wasn't exactly sure where his diminutive partner was at the moment only to have her appear beside him moments after calling her name. "I need a drink and," Roman jerked his thumb in Emerald and Mercury's direction "they need to think of a good enough reason to keep us here after tonight." With that Roman and Neo made their way to the door.
"We don't need to think of a reason you will stay and do you job because Cinder told you too." Mercury had found his voice and shouted after them.
"You see the thing about Cinder's threats is they only work with her constant presence, she has been gone for almost three months now and I'm beginning to personally think that whatever job you guys left on you fucked up so hard that Cinder just abandoned the both of you with some pretty lie of going to see some mysterious important figure! You two have until I get back to think of a reason worth my time to stay in Vale otherwise the way I see it now that you have your Dust my work here is done and I'm free to go elsewhere!" With that last comment, the door to the warehouse slammed shut behind Roman as he and Neo left the premises.
"Good riddance I say!" Mercury eyed the door with distaste happy to see the arrogant criminal leave.
"Of course you would say that your lucky he hasn't killed you on any of the times you tried to fight him!" Emerald felt she needed to remind Mercury of the outcome of every fight the two had had with Roman being the clear victor.
"I already told you he's cheating somehow like he knows my moves before I even do them!" Mercury had made the same argument each time he woke up after failing to land a satisfactory hit on the man.
"And I told you I don't care about your damn bravado your probably half the reason he want's to bail at this point anyways."
"Hardly he has been looking for an excuse ever since we came back without Cinder and now that the Dust is all here he's using that as an excuse to bail and honestly he doesn't have a bad idea." He was forced to admit that as powerful and menacing as Cinder was, Roman was right about one thing the longer Cinder was away the less effective her threats or in his case promises were becoming on keeping him loyal.
"So you are thinking of leaving too!" Emerald glared at her partner in contempt she expected this from Roman but Mercury had been promised something much like she had.
"Your thinking of staying, why? Roman's not wrong, as much as I hate the guy, but what if we fucked up so badly when we didn't finish that girl off that day that Cinder just decided it was easier to abandon us then keep us around. Besides your Semblance is blown even if your identity isn't any weird occurrences that happen will be scrutinized more thoroughly than before which means it's only a matter of time until you are figured out which means whatever plan Cinder had for you just became a helluva lot harder."
"So that's it? you think we should just leave and go back to our lives of me struggling to survive on the streets and you, what would you even do you lived in some backwoods cabin your whole life being abused by a drunk assassin. No, I'm better off waiting for Cinder to return and whether you believe it or not so are you!" Emerald turned from her partner wandered into the deep recesses of the warehouse wanting to be alone to think of a reason to keep Roman in Vale.
I might have no purpose but at least I'm not blindly following the first person to show me a small bit of compassion... no Cinder has no compassion at least any that is sincere! Mercury slumped back into one of the couch's and decided to wait for the next meeting to decide which way his life would go from now on.
"Would you please stop giving me that look!" Roman spoke without looking at his diminutive partner knowing without having to see it what Neo was doing as soon as they left the presence of Mercury and Emerald. "I have already told you we are being paid quite handsomely to interfere with Cinder and her stooges," Roman glanced over and saw that Neo had done nothing but cross her arms and continue walking beside him, but was at least glad she didn't suspect he was lying.
"It's not that simple you saw what happened the day we confronted them, They nearly killed me and honestly if that Huntsman hadn't shown up when he did do you think any of us, you, me or that girl would have made it off that road alive?" Roman watched as Neo unfolded her arms and pointed to herself.
"Yeah, point taken you would have escaped, and you would have been set for a couple years but what after that? We need each other and as tough as you act you know that." Roman smiled when that got a response he was happy with as Neo held up two fingers and pointed to a nearby confectionery to which he immediately altered his course and the two entered and left in short order both holding an ice cream cone.
"Either way unless those two think of a good reason by the time we return tonight then we are leaving and before we do I think we are owed a little revenge for the beating we... I took back then!" Roman corrected himself when Neo had raised an eyebrow at the implication she had lost a fight.
He had only been six or seven lick's into his cone when he felt it vanish from his hand, he didn't even make mention of this, he knew that Neo would appropriate his cone after she devoured her own and personally he was glad as he never much cared for the sugary taste of his partners favorite treat. Arriving at their destination Roman entered the club and promptly spotted the owner.
"Bourbon and one of Neo's usual's," Roman said as he sat in front of Junior the Bartender/Owner of the club only nodded his head as one of the other men behind the bar went about filling Romans order and returned with his drink and Neo's concoction of Ice cream, Soda and a splash of some sweet form of alcohol.
"It's rare that I see you in here and actually order something aside from my goon's." Junior finally deigned to acknowledge his presence mainly on the fact that Roman was one of the few brave enough to sit in the normally always vacant chairs in front of where he stood at his bar.
"I needed something a bit stronger than one of your goon's tonight." Roman lifted his glass high in a small toast to Junior and a jab at the man's 'Help'.
Junior smirked at that comment and slid a familiar envelope to Roman the same one that Neo had delivered before she left to Vacuo. "The answer is no if your wondering."
Figured that would be the case, though that doesn't narrow down which one is the cause of this little adventure. "Thanks." Roman grabbed the envelope and with a quick flick of his lighter set the envelope on fire and dropped it in one of the many ashtrays that dotted the countertop.
"Why would you think she might have come in that here that night anyways?"
"Just a hunch, but she didn't and really that's all I needed to be answered." Roman stared into his glass trying to figure out his next move.
It had been so easy up to this point. Mess with the bitch's plans enough that she doesn't get Neo killed during the Vytal festival, but why does it feel the more time that goes by that something bigger than Cinders plans are taking place. Would have been so much easier if I knew before where her strength came from after the road I know she isn't as strong as she once was but now she's not even around to finish my revenge!"
"I should have paid more attention to the little things!"
Well, their you have it for all of you who guessed it we have a third-time traveler with a pretty malleable accomplice to boot.
Roman got carried along with Jaune's Semblance as well and it look's like Roman is a little disenfranchised with Cinders plan because of it being a direct result of Neo's death.
Roman's reasons for working against Cinder instead of just taking Neo and bolting will be explained later.
Well this chapter was an effort to write and actually most of it is from a third rewrite and I'm still not 100% happy with it but I felt delaying any further wouldn't get me a better result so I bit the bullet, Enjoy!