Weiss had a long wait ahead of her, with paranoia driving her insane. She shut the blinds to every single window that she could, and made sure to avoid walking near them anyway. After she finished talking to Ruby, Weiss made sure to let everyone else know that she needed to meet with them immediately, stating that she will not tolerate no from anyone at this point. All that was left was to wait for everyone to show up, but she still felt like she was forgetting something. Once she heard the door open to one of the private rooms, she realized that her butler was still there. "Is there anything that I may do for you Miss Schnee?" He asked.
"I hate to do this Walter, but I'm gonna have to ask you to skip work for a couple of days. Something came up and I would rather you not be around, should anything untoward happen to you." Weiss said quickly.
"Is everything alright Ma'am?" He asked.
"Let's just say that if I said that things were fine, you wouldn't believe me." Weiss said back to him. She opened up a box that was hidden inside of the private room she walked into moments ago, and she took out some money, counting it out before handing some to her butler. "I don't want to leave you empty handed, so use this however you feel comfortable with. Consider it, paid administrative leave." Weiss said, easily thinking of a way to spin this into a good thing.
The butler nodded and put the money inside his coat pocket. "Of course, I suppose then that I should leave you to your business. But please, do be careful." He said. Weiss nodded back to him and gave the man a smile, then she watched him walk out of the apartment, only for Blake to take his place.
"Weiss, you ok?" Blake asked, immediately walking up to Weiss.
Weiss shook her head and walked down to her room, Blake following her quickly. "I got shot at in my own bedroom, and I found out I have a record setting bounty on my head, you tell me if I'm ok." Weiss said as she showed Blake the bullet hole in her window.
"Don't snap at me Weiss, you wouldn't have known if I didn't tell you." Blake said to her.
"I understand that, but right now, I'm not exactly in the most optimistic of moods right now, so just bear with it." Weiss said before she walked back up to the kitchen area. "Now, how did you find out about this bounty in the first place?" Weiss asked.
Blake pulled out the piece of paper that was quickly printed out and handed it to Weiss, who scanned it over for every single detail imaginable. "I found this on the body of one of the drug addicts in the L.S. River. I don't know if this means that you're in serious danger, but I'm sure that these guys would have wanted to get the chance at 5 million sooner or later." Blake said to Weiss as she looked up at her.
Weiss found no faults with the document, despite it being hastily printed, so how Lester didn't see it was something she was furious about. "I'm going to have a little chat with Lester to see why he didn't pick up on this sooner. Do me a favor and make sure no one disturbs me while I'm on the phone." Weiss said as she took a swig of whiskey. She then proceeded into the back room, but stopped just before going in. "And make sure that at least one or two people have some kind of gun on them. Pistol, rifle, shotgun I don't give a shit as long as someone has something." Weiss then walked into the room and got on the phone with Lester.
It didn't take long for Lester to pick up. "Why hello there, what can I do for-"
"How come you didn't tell me that I have a hit on me?!" Weiss said, clearly letting her frustrations get the better of her at that moment.
"Wait whoa whoa start over, did you just say you have a hit on you?" Lester said back to her, taking a moment to figure out what Weiss meant by that.
"I managed to have someone put a bounty on my head, and you didn't notice it." Weiss could feel the veins in her neck start to bulge from fury.
"What do you want me to tell you? Whoever put it out there must have known that I would see it, so maybe they spread it on an underground setup, I don't know."
"So you're telling me, that you don't know who put the bounty on my head, or how they managed to get it by you?! It's a fucking 5 million dollar bounty Lester, anybody should have seen it, even fucking timmy down the street!" Weiss had finally lost it.
"Hey! Don't go blaming me for having a power outage for a minute or two last night and not seeing..." Lester didn't finish what he was about to say, instead electing to say something different. "...dammit, why didn't I think of that already?"
"What are you talking about?" Weiss asked.
"I had a power outage yesterday, in fact my whole neighborhood did. I thought it was just someone knocking down the power lines, but I want to say that it was sabotage instead." Lester said.
"And I'm guessing you can figure out who it is that did it, am I right?" Weiss said, her fury starting to subside now that she was getting some answers.
"Only one other group really knows that we work together. Torchwick's gang. I'd bet my money that he and Junior got the twins to blow the transformer that caused the blackout. While I was focused on getting power back on, they must have posted the bounty listing then while I was in the dark." Lester said to Weiss.
It was around this time that Ruby and Velvet finally showed up. They came into Weiss' apartment and immediately saw Blake standing by the entrance to the back room. "Where's Weiss?" Ruby asked.
"She's on the phone right now, and told me to not let anyone bother her." Blake said back.
Before Ruby could respond, she heard Weiss start screaming again. "I don't care how you do it, just take care of this fucking problem Lester!" Weiss barged out of the room and saw Ruby and Velvet standing there, shocked at what they just heard. She didn't say anything, instead electing to walk over to the whiskey and drink another glass. Ruby tried to walk over to her, but when she got closer, Weiss finally said something to her. "Not now Ruby. I'm too furious and I don't want to yell at you, when all you're trying to do is help. Just let me calm down, and explain to everyone what's going on." Weiss said, not turning to face Ruby.
Ruby nodded, despite knowing it was better that way, Ruby still didn't like it. "Just let me know if you need anything from me." Ruby said to her, electing to sit at the bar and wait.
Weiss knew that she needed to get her mind off of things before she completely lost her mind, and before the meeting started. "Velvet, Ruby, Blake come over here." Weiss called. Ruby turned herself around on the bar stool so that she was facing Weiss, and Velvet and Blake stood in front of her. "From what I briefly heard, the job went well."
"Yeah, everything worked out where none of us really got shot at. Me and Ruby barely had to fire off any rounds." Blake said to Weiss. "Velvet did a damn good job with sniping them out."
Weiss nodded, suddenly having an idea pop up in her head. "Well then, let me officially welcome you into the crew Velvet. Everyone else should be on their way over and we'll soon be able to get this meeting underway." Weiss stated to the three of them.
Almost on cue, Yang, Pyrrha and Jaune arrived. Pyrrha noticed that Velvet was with them, and so she immediately walked over to her. "Hello again Velvet. I take it your job today went well?" She asked.
"You could say that." Velvet said.
As they continued to talk, Yang walked over to Ruby to talk to her. "Heya Rubes, how you feelin'?" Yang asked. Ruby's only response was a heavy sigh. "Yikes, it sounds like someone stole the bacon from you."
"Oh it's just..." Ruby looked over to Weiss, whom she noticed was walking over to her table and gathering some documents together. Ruby leaned in closer to Yang so that she didn't have to talk to loudly. "...I had plans for dinner tonight with Weiss, but-"
"Wait what?! You had dinner plans with Weiss? When were you going to tell me that you had a thing for her?" Yang said, jumping straight towards that conclusion.
"Yang, not now ok?" Yang raised her hands defensively and elected to take things more seriously for the moment. "Look, right now I'm not in a good mood. Like I said I had plans with Weiss for a nice dinner tonight, but then she called to cancel it, and then pulled me into this damn meeting. Something bad is going on and she won't tell me anything and it's making me really, really concerned right now. And when I try to go and help her, she tells me to leave her alone so that she doesn't yell at me."
Yang nodded then patted Ruby on the back. "Well, from what I could tell, the reason Weiss told you to leave her be was so that she didn't hurt your feelings. I can only imagine that whatever is goin' on is causing her to be extremely stressed and she doesn't want to upset you if she accidentally snaps on you." Yang said to Ruby.
Ruby nodded, noting that Yang had a point. "I know, but I still don't like this whole thing." Yang turned to see Ren, Nora and Sun walk into the room. Then she noticed that Sun was carrying his shotgun with him, and that Ren and Blake both had their Auto Pistols out. Even Jaune had a pump shotgun that he was sporting. "Whoa, whatever is going on though, it must be really bad if Weiss has people armed inside her own apartment." Ruby turned to see exactly what was going on, her face shocked when she saw the guns being carried.
Before she could do anything else, Weiss started to walk towards the back room. "Follow me everyone." She called, leading the group into her back room. Seating was tight, but they all managed to squeeze into the room. "Sun, you and Jaune stay by the door." She said to the two of them, before turning her attention towards the group.
"Sorry for calling everyone together on short notice, but we have a huge problem on our hands." Weiss said to start it off. "Before we get into that however, I do want to welcome Velvet Scarlatina into the crew, and after seeing her skills myself, as Pyrrha, Sun, Ruby and Blake can all attest to, she should fit in just fine with us." She said, gesturing to Velvet, who stood up for a second to acknowledge everyone. "Unfortunately we don't have time for a formal introduction, because we have a major problem."
Blake was standing near the front, already knowing how bad things were. Weiss then handed the paper off to Ren, who when he looked at it, his face looked shocked. "A 5 million dollar bounty on your head Weiss?!" He shouted. Pyrrha snatched the paper out of his hands and looked at it herself, letting it fall down onto the ground once she saw it. She fell back into her seat, the look on her face showing grave fear.
Yang was taking a sip of water when Ren shouted, causing her to spit out the contents of her drink violently. Even Sun, Velvet, Jaune, and Nora were shocked when they heard, each of them turning to look at the others to see if they were as shocked as them. But the one who was surprised the most was Ruby. She was mortified at what she heard, her mind completely blocking out anything else that was going on at the time. She now realized why Weiss was as stressed as she was, the thought of someone putting a price on her head scaring Ruby terribly.
"Unfortunately, I wasn't made aware of this, until someone shot at me from across the street while I was in my bedroom." Weiss said, which scared Ruby even more. "I can only imagine that this was Torchwick's doing, and so we're gonna make him regret that decision." She said to them.
"How the fuck do you expect to make them regret the decision with a price on your head?" Yang called out.
Weiss shook her head. "I'm not going to be doing anything except for hiding. I want you, Blake, Ren and Nora to do anything and everything you can to ensure that they regret the decision. Kill their people, destroy their hideouts I don't care, just hit them where it hurts."
"And what about you?" Ren said to Weiss. "What are you gonna be doing while you still have the price on your head?"
"I'll be in hiding, staying with one of you guys until this whole thing blows over. I made sure that Lester knows to get this bounty off of my head, and so it should only be a matter of time before I'll be free to return home." Weiss said. "The only question is, who I stay with."
Ruby stood up and didn't even bother to let anyone else get a say. "Stay with me Weiss." She said. Weiss was surprised at first, her mind working on a thousand different thoughts, making her unable to show any emotion other than confusion. "My place is out of the way, no one really knows that I live there anyway, and while it doesn't seem like a good thing on a normal day, but the police station is actually almost right across the street from me, which in this case is good."
Weiss felt torn, on one hand, she wanted to spend the time with Ruby, but she also felt like Ruby would get hurt if she was around her. Before Weiss could say anything, Ren spoke up instead. "I agree with Ruby. She seems to have the best place to stay in the mean time."
"I have to say that Ruby does have the right idea. Having seen her place myself, I was a bit surprised that she was living there, but I don't see why it wouldn't work." Pyrrha cut in as well.
Weiss reluctantly had to agree that it seemed like the best course of action. "Alright then, I'll be staying with Ruby in the meantime. If anyone needs to get a hold of me, contact Ruby instead. I plan on leaving my phone here, so I won't be in touch with anyone, and so no one can track me through my phone." Weiss stated. "Anyone who isn't wreaking havoc on Torchwick's gang, find anyone who is looking to try and claim this bounty and show them why it's a bad choice. Now, Ren, I need to talk to you before you go, but everyone else, you're dismissed."
Weiss watched as everyone walked out, including Ruby, leaving only her and Ren left in the room. "So what is it that you need to talk with me about?" Ren asked.
"I'm going to be quick with this, so bear with me if things still seem out of place. Given what we have right now, I think that we can finally hit it." Weiss said to Ren.
"Hit what?" Weiss looked to Ren, a malicious smile crossing her face, and soon Ren realized what she was talking about. "You mean, you think we can pull that off? Remember how we said that if we were to attempt something like that, we would need a sniper and a chopper pilot, of which you are the expert on both." Ren stated.
"Now that Velvet is in, we have a second sniper. I've seen her in action Ren, something like that would be easy for her." Weiss stated to Ren.
"Even if we have everything we needed for this job, I still think it would take weeks, maybe even a few months to plan this thing out." Ren said, standing up and facing Weiss.
"Well then, I guess I have some work to do in this unexpected downtime that I've unfortunately been given." Weiss stated. "Regardless, we can't do anything for her until this bounty is cleared from my head. I can't have some wannabe hitman screw up the breakout all because of some stupid bounty." Weiss stated as she walked towards the door. "The sooner we get that clear, the sooner we can plan for that." Weiss and Ren walked out of the room and Weiss saw Ruby waiting for her.
It was just the two of them left in the apartment, and Weiss knew that she had been treating Ruby unfairly. "Ruby I-"
"We can talk about it once we're at my place ok? I'm more concerned about you being safe than any of that right now ok?" Ruby said to Weiss.
"Still, I do want to apologize for my behavior to you earlier. It was unfair of me to do that, when you were only trying to help out." Weiss said.
Ruby walked over and placed her hand on Weiss' shoulder. "Apology accepted. Now come on, you need to get everything together." Ruby and Weiss walked down to pack up a couple changes of clothes, something to keep Weiss entertained when she wasn't working, and finally Weiss grabbed the documents she needed to plan out the job she was talking about with Ren. "I'll get the car, you just wait by the entrance where there are lots of people around." Ruby said as she quickly ran around back to pick up Velvet's Gauntlet.
Once she got around to the front, Ruby quickly helped Weiss load up her stuff and then the two of them took off to get to safety.
AN: So this chapter was written within the span of an hour and a half, because I couldn't fall asleep. I will promise that White Rose will be the major point of next chapter, even while Weiss is planning out the next big job. So short AN short, things are looking good. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter.