A/N: This update is a bit later than usual - real-life reared it's ugly head and interrupted my writing this chapter, thankfully, all is now well, so enjoy (hopefully). Also, a big thanks to Zam of Spacebattles, who has graciously agreed to beta-read my chapters for me.
Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY. It belongs to Rooster Teeth.
Occasionally, throughout history, individuals arise from the masses who can be described as 'humble geniuses'. Those men, and women, who are unrivalled amongst their peers in their brilliance, and yet did not lord their intellectual supremacy over their fellows.
"Several weeks, and we haven't heard a thing from our furry friends. This is why I do the thinking around here. Who would ever think to look for us, this close to their old hideout? Nobody. Aren't you just glad you decided to join up with someone as clearly talented as I am?"
Roman Torchwick did not quite fit all of the requirements for this category.
Junior's organisation had neatly transitioned into one of the old warehouses in the industrial district – it was large, spacious, run-down, had offices for private meetings, and was hooked up to the power grid - everything a criminal organisation could possibly need. Roman had 'acquired' the paperwork through naturally unsavoury means, so it was even above board - or, at least, it had the initial appearance of being above board. Roman's reasoning had been sound at the time – the White Fang would presumably never expect them to do something as risky as to set up so close to their recently-vacated stomping ground, and thus far, he had been correct.
"Are you done?" Junior asked in irritation.
"If you mean, 'am I finished asserting my intellectual superiority'?" Roman asked lightly. "Then no, I'll never be done. If, however, you want to know if I'll take a temporary reprieve of reminding you all about it, then yes. On to the plan."
Junior, Melanie and Miltia, Neo, and a number of Junior's men were present in the main room of the warehouse.
"First of all, transport," Roman paused, "Junior. Tell us what we've got."
"We've got an eighteen-wheeler, and three large vans," Junior responded, "The truck will be enough to carry a hell of a lot of Dust, while the vans are enough to bring fifteen guys, plus us. They're painted over in company colours, different companies so things don't look suspicious."
"Good," Roman nodded, "That was the final piece in the puzzle. Now, we all know the basics. We're going in, we're stealing that shipment before the White Fang do, and we're pinning it on them. They're getting all of the blame, and none of the goodies. Is that part clear?"
Everyone nodded.
"Excellent... I wouldn't want to have to explain it again. Now, Junior and I will be overseeing the actual transfer of the goods from the cargo holders to the truck. You," he indicated to the men, "Will be with us. We don't go in until after the girls are finished. On that note," he indicated to Neo, Melanie and Miltia.
"You three are our muscle. Neo thinks you two have improved enough to be of use, here, so you'll be with her – there's private security around. Take them out, quick and quiet – but don't keep it clean, remember who we're pinning this on. If the White Fang or our mysterious friends show up, you fight or flee – fight if it's just the minions, or one of those kids, flee if it's Cinder. None of us can tangle with her, so if she shows up, we blow up what we can and bug out. Otherwise, we paint a couple of those nice little emblems the White Fang like to leave lying around before we leave. Everyone clear?"
Another round of nods followed his question. "Well, well, it seems you can learn," he remarked appraisingly, "Now then, get your gear and get those vehicles ready. We leave in ten and I want this to go as smoothly as possible."
With that, the men began scurrying around, busying themselves with last-minute preparations. Roman thought over the plan – it was basic, but solid, and if it went off without a hitch, it would hopefully deal a big blow to the White Fang and Cinder's operation.
In the event that it didn't go off without a hitch, on the other hand – he shared a meaningful look with Neo. They were fully prepared to ditch everyone in the event that something did go wrong.
It was, after all, the first rule of criminal activity: Always have a way out.
Blake's head perked up as she heard the roar of an engine.
She had made her way to the old industrial district overnight, in an attempt to potentially find a clue that would lead her to the White Fang. She knew from her former time as a member that there was a warehouse here where the White Fang would host regular faction meetings, mainly used to recruit new members. It wasn't the best starting point for an investigation, of course, but it was better than nothing.
At least, that's what she kept telling herself – so far, nothing was all she had found.
Still, there wasn't normally a lot of activity around this district, so the noise of a large engine was somewhat unusual. She quietly hopped off the roof she had previously been waiting on, and made her way over to another.
Sneaking forward, she reached the edge of the roof, and narrowed her eyes. A van was pulling out of a large, open warehouse door. Peering, she could see three other vehicles inside – two other vans and a huge truck. All in different company colours.
She remained in place as a hidden observer as the first van exited the street – taking note of the direction it turned in.
Left.
After a short pause, a second Van pulled out, and headed out of the street.
Left again.
When the third van did the same, she made up her mind to follow the larger truck. If this was some kind of illicit operation, the truck would be the most important vehicle, and while she was no Ruby, she was certainly fast enough to follow a large, unwieldy vehicle like the one she was currently watching clumsily find its way out of the warehouse.
"All right," Adam addressed his troops, "I'll keep this short. We all know the plan. We all know what we're doing. We all know what success here means for us. If everything goes the way we think it will, there shouldn't be much in the way of trouble, but that doesn't mean you get complacent. Grab your gear, get into your vehicles, and let's do this."
A few minutes later, four Bullhead Dropships took to the sky – and headed in the direction of the docks.
The first van, this one in the guise of a cleaning company, pulled to a stop close to the docks. Neo, Melanie and Miltia hopped out of the back, and silently slipped in.
Neo signalled to the twins, who nodded, and split up. She then advanced further in, until she spotted her first guard. The man was wearing fairly comprehensive, grey armour, and was equipped with a rifle. Neo also spotted a baton at his hip.
Creeping up behind him, Neo's hand shot up and covered his mouth, dragging him down. Her arm clamped tightly around the frantically struggling man's neck, and stayed there, until, after about a minute or so, he stopped moving. Shuffling the body aside to keep it out of sight, she moved on.
She took out three more guards in a similar fashion over the course of the next few minutes, before she met up with Melanie and Miltia further into the Docks. She held up four fingers. Melanie held up three, while Miltia held up four, shooting her sister a victorious smug look, much to the other's annoyance.
Neo did a quick mental tally. Eleven. That was how many they had counted when they cased the place. Nodding, she typed out a quick message on her scroll.
Roman checked the message he had received from Neo. Done.
It was short, and to the point. Like the person who sent it, Roman idly mused.
"They're done in there," he said briefly, stepping out of the van, "Let's go."
Junior nodded, and left with him – his men swiftly following suit. The pair made their way over to the dock's driving bay – where their truck was just pulling in.
"All right, come on, you know the drill," Roman urged, "Get those Schnee containers open, and grab that Dust! We're burning daylight, here."
Briefly eying his scroll, he quickly typed out a response to Neo. Keep an eye out.
Blake felt oddly vindicated as she observed the clearly human group start loading Dust from the Schnee Dust Company cargo containers into the truck she had followed.
I knew it wasn't the White Fang, she thought, They don't need that much Dust. Now I just need to...
She paused. Her first instinct was to charge in and apprehend them immediately – but then her conversation last night sprang to mind.
"I don't think I have that any more," Blake said miserably.
"That's not what you just told me," Velvet pointed out gently.
She did still have her team, didn't she? And now that she had calmed down somewhat from last night, she was thinking a little more rationally.
Thinking it over furiously for a few moments, she pulled out her scroll with no small amount of trepidation.
Ruby had awoken that morning to a knock on the door to their room. Dazed from sleep for a moment, and taking a second to register Blake's empty bed, she shot to answer it, hoping it was their team-mate, returning.
Unfortunately, it was not the faunus girl she was hoping for. It turned out to be an apologetic-looking Velvet, who explained that she had caught Blake on the way out and spoken to her, but, while she did manage to calm her down somewhat, was unable to convince her not to leave.
She then told the three eagerly attentive members of team RWBY roughly where Blake was likely to be heading, before apologising that she couldn't help them look, due to team CFVY being pulled away for a mission. She looked genuinely crushed that she couldn't help them out more, but Ruby merely told her it was fine and thanked her for doing what she had.
From there, they hatched a plan – they would split up. Yang would head down toward the old industrial district, where Velvet believed Blake would have been heading last night, and look around there for her. Ruby, being the fastest, would stay near the centre of town, so she could more quickly make her way to either of the others if Blake turned up, or to Blake herself if she called. Weiss would stay at the school, in case Blake reappeared there. Ruby's partner didn't look particularly happy about this, seeming extremely eager to get out and help look, but grudgingly accepted the reasoning that someone needed to be on hand if Blake went straight back to Beacon.
It was now getting closer to noon, and there was still no sign of her team-mate, despite Ruby having been out for three hours. She wondered what she would actually say if she found her. Somehow, she didn't think 'Hey, Blake, I know you and Weiss just had a huge fight, and you ran away, but let's forget about all that and we can all be best friends again,' was going to cut it.
She was so caught up in her musings that she didn't pay much attention to where she was going until it was too late.
She tumbled to the ground in a heap as she collided with someone unusually solid. Taking a moment to get her bearings, she then realised what had happened. "Ah! I'm sorry! Are you okay?" She asked frantically.
It was a girl, perhaps around her age, with orange hair, freckles and wearing a white and green dress. "Thank you for your concern, but I am wonderful!"
Ruby blinked. "Uh... okay. That's good." She pulled herself to her feet. After a moment, she realised that the other girl had not done the same. "Erm... are you sure you're okay? It's just... you're not getting up," she asked hesitantly.
In response, the other girl hopped to her feet. "My name is Penny! It is wonderful to meet you!"
"Hi Penny," Ruby replied, "I'm Ruby."
"It is wonderful to meet you!" Penny repeated.
Ruby mentally mused that this girl seemed to think a lot of things were wonderful. "Okay... uh, sorry for running into you, but I've got to go. See you, friend."
She turned to leave.
"What did you call me?"
Ruby's eyes widened as Penny approached her intently. "What?" she frantically went over the last brief conversation to see if she had said anything that could be seen as offensive.
"Do you really think I'm your friend?"
Ruby, put on the spot with no form of backup available, panicked. "...Sure?"
"Oh, wonderful!" Penny clapped her hands together, "I've never had a friend before!"
Ruby would later look back on this moment as the beginning of what was assuredly one of her oddest friendships. A quick conversation revealed that Penny was here to compete in the Vytal Festival, alongside the other schools. In return, Penny had asked what Ruby was doing.
"So your friends had a fight? I thought friends didn't fight," Penny sounded confused.
"Yeah... me too," Ruby replied despondently, "But Blake and Weiss... have really different opinions on a pretty important thing."
"Is it," Penny's voice dropped to a hushed whisper, "Boys?"
"No!" Ruby's face turned red, "Nothing like that! It was something more serious. But that's why we're out here looking for her, so we can fix things up." Somehow.
"Well, do not worry, friend Ruby!" Penny declared, "I will not rest until we have found your friend Blake!"
Ruby was oddly touched. "That's... really nice of you. Thanks, Penny."
At that moment, her scroll went off. Quickly pulling it out of her bag, she felt her heart skip a beat when she realised who was calling.
"Blake?! Is that you? Where are you!?" Ruby asked frantically.
"Yes, it's me," Blake's voice was hushed and she sounded hurried, "Look, I'm sorry for running away, and I promise I'll explain everything later, but I've found the people who are stealing the Dust, and I'm going to stop them. I might need help."
"Okay," Ruby realised she had responded without even thinking about it, "Where are you?"
"Wha- just like that?" she heard Blake give an indecipherable sigh on the other end of the phone, "Okay. I'm at the Docks. I need to stop them now, or they might get away."
"Don't do anything reckless," Ruby fretted, "We need you in one piece so Yang can chew you out for running away and worrying us all."
"I – right," Blake gave a self-depreciating chuckle, "Sorry Ruby, got to go now."
"See you soon," Ruby said belatedly, as Blake had already hung up. Ruby quickly dialled another number.
"Ruby?"
"Yang, she called me! She said she didn't have time to explain but she was down at the docks and was about to stop a robbery and might need our help, I'll see you there!"
"Wait, what?" Ruby mentally apologised to her sister as she ended the call and dialled Weiss.
"Ruby? Is there news?" Weiss asked quickly.
"Yes," Ruby replied quickly, "She called, she's at the docks, she said she found the Dust robbers and she's going to stop them, get there as quickly as you can!"
"Wait, are you seri-"
Ruby ended the call, wincing at the thought of the telling off she was going to get from Weiss when they next met up.
"Penny, I'm sorry, but I think my friend might be in trouble, so I need to go and help her," Ruby said apologetically.
"Then I will come with you and assist you, friend Ruby!" Penny responded, smiling widely, "I am combat ready!"
Ruby really didn't have the time to argue about this. "I – oh, fine, but I hope you can keep up!"
"Keep up? Oh!" Penny marvelled, pursuing Ruby as she raced off, "Is this a game? I've never played a game with a friend before!"
Roman watched in approval as the last of the containers was loaded onto the truck. "Good," he nodded, "That's the last of them."
He typed out a quick message to Neo. Any sign of trouble?
The response came quickly. No.
"Well, Junior, I think it's time for the boys to do a little... decorating, and then get out of here and enjoy the products of a hard-won... well, a victory," Roman said, before Junior's eyes widened and Roman became keenly aware of the blade being held to his throat, "I just had to say it, didn't I? For f-"
"Don't. Move." The voice was fairly young, and female. Who'd be stupid enough to try and take on a large group of criminals? A trainee huntress, perhaps? His mind flicked back to the trainee huntresses who had poked their nose into the underworld's affairs before.
"Look, kid," he began, "Whatever you think is going on here, you're probably very wrong."
"I know exactly what's going on," she retorted sharply, "You're going to steal this Dust, and frame the White Fang for it."
"See? You don't... wait, what?" Roman paused.
"You're the ones who have been stealing all the Dust around town and making everyone think it was the White Fang," she hissed.
Roman's mind nearly went blank. Of all the times this could happen, it happened now, when he was actually guilty of doing exactly that? "I don't think I've ever heard anyone be so correct and yet so completely wrong at the same time," he said in disbelief, "Look, girlie. I'm doing this to stop the White Fang from getting their hands on all of this Dust. They're the ones who have been stealing the stuff like it's running out. Which, incidentally, thanks to them, it is," he mused idly, "So really, you're working against the greater good, here. I'm doing this to strike a blow against the White Fang."
"Really?" she replied dryly, "And I should believe you... why?"
"Well..." Roman's eyes shot up as a familiar sound came from overhead, "There's always that."
Roman felt his heart drop as four drop-ships, similar to the one he had seen back at the White Fang base, descended from the sky. They could still salvage this, however – they just had to get the hell out of here, now. "Junior!" he snapped at the man, who had been watching his exchange with Roman's unknown captor cautiously.
"Yeah, about that," Junior replied simply, "I guess I forgot to tell you, Torchwick. There's been a change of plans."
Neo's eyes narrowed as she saw the four drop-ships close in on Roman's position. She began making her way over – but paused, as Melanie and Miltia moved to stand in her way.
"Yeah, about that 'saving him' thing," Melanie began.
"You probably want to re-think that," Miltia continued.
"You see, we really want him dead, and if you try to interfere, you're going with him," they both finished.
Neo sighed in exasperation, and gave them a look as if to say 'really?'
Roman's thoughts were racing. "What are you talking about now, Junior?"
"When you think about it, Torchwick," Junior continued, "This entire situation is just one big opportunity, isn't it? I mean, think about it, you, destitute-"
"-detained," Melanie added,
"Or dead," Miltia finished.
Neo silently decided that if Torchwick survived this situation, she would murder him herself.
"Yeah, you should really be careful about what you say in a car my boys have worked on," Junior grinned smugly, "There's a reason they do such a thorough job."
"Son of a bitch," Roman said, almost approvingly, despite his unfortunate position, "And you couldn't even be polite enough to wait until I'd betrayed you first."
"It's just like they say," a new voice interrupted, and Roman heard a gasp from behind him, "There's no honour among thieves."
It was a tall young man in a tribal-patterned black coat – the upper half of his face was covered by a white mask, that lay underneath a head of spiked, red hair. He gave the appearance of someone who was rather important among the White Fang – which Roman presumed he belonged to. He looked at Junior.
"You've come through on your end of our bargain," he said shortly, "That's good. Any treachery and I would have had to kill you all."
Junior nodded with a gulp.
Roman's attention was then drawn to the truck – which the drop-ships were currently hovering over. Two devices dropped from each on a long, metallic cord – rappels, perhaps? Then they attached to the long cargo-container on the truck, and Roman realised what they were.
Clamps. We gathered everything for them in a nice little box to carry home, he thought with grudging respect, Damn, have I been outplayed.
"If you're hoping your little psycho friend will save you," Junior informed him, cutting into his musings, "She's being held up by the girls."
Roman snorted. "You really think those two can hold up Neo?"
"Now they've found their semblances, they can."
Roman internally grimaced at that particularly unwelcome bit of news, but decided to try and keep them talking. "So... what happens now?"
The young man ignored him, and instead turned to look behind him. "Blake. Don't get involved in this. Walk away now and leave, and I'll forget that I ever saw you here."
The sword at his throat fell away, and Roman felt his curiosity, and with it, his hope, perk up once again.