It hadn't even been a day since Weiss and her crew pulled off the bank robbery, now they had some other business to attend to. It was time for her crew to return Neo to her father. Thankfully while the crew was busy with the job, Velvet had been able to contact some of her friends and enlist their help in keeping Neo under their protection, and from what Velvet said, the two of them were of tremendous help. Given how useful they had been with other work, Weiss thought of a way that she could utilize their skills once again.
Still, she had other things to consider at that moment, especially regarding the reason she was driving out that particular day, her meeting with Neo and Torchwick. She was riding in Ren's Fugitive with Ren and Velvet, her mind wondering what was going to happen. Would Torchwick just up and leave like she asked, or would he go down swinging? Weiss had to figure that Torchwick wouldn't do anything to hurt Neo, but who knows what he would do. Most if not all of his lieutenants were dead, only Junior remained and by association, the twins as well.
For Weiss though, this was the beginning of the end, at long last her crew would be the biggest and most dangerous crew around. Anyone who had half a brain cell would know not to mess with her, though they would have to find out who she was first. Thus came the benefits of owning and operating a legitimate business, she would often be doing her work with the company and leave the criminal work to Ren and Pyrrha leading the charge. She wouldn't have to worry about being apprehended, and anyone who tried to stop her crew would have to avoid those who were her closest associates in case they came after her.
There were times though when Weiss needed to take matters into her own hands. While she was the CEO and COO of her company, there was plenty of opportunity for her to deal with outside work, for those who worked under her knew that even when she wasn't around she was still in charge, and that she would expect them to operate as normal even if she wasn't around. The board of directors knew better than to question where Weiss was if she wasn't attending a meeting with them, and for all intents and purposes, she rarely needed to even show up to work if she wanted to.
Given that she had just pulled off an incredibly huge job, Weiss figured that she would be spending a decent amount of time in the office in order for her to lay low. She had made sure that everyone else went to lay low as well, and for the most part, they didn't have any heat on them specifically over what happened. Still, she had work to do and that wasn't something she could skip out on. So without even a day having gone by, Weiss showed up for a really important meeting with Torchwick, Lester's warehouse being the location of the meeting.
Once they parked, Ren made sure that she was able to walk, given that she had taken a bullet not even a full day ago. "You sure you're up to this Weiss?" Ren asked once she was out of the car.
"I know I was shot yesterday, but I can't be there for a meeting with Torchwick himself," Weiss replied. "Don't want him to think that I'm afraid of him, or that we are weak."
"Fine, just be careful alright," Ren said. "Once we get inside, I'll check on Neo while you check on Coco and Yatsuhashi with Velvet."
As they opened the doors, they were grateful that Torchwick hadn't shown up yet. Only Coco and Yatsuhashi were there with Neo sitting patiently and cooperatively in a seat that was designated for her. Coco and Yatsuhashi both were armed, both in case Neo tried to escape, and in case someone came after them, though the two were glad that it didn't come to that.
"Glad to see you guys again," Coco said once she saw everyone come in. "I take it whatever you guys needed to do got taken care of?"
"You could say that," Velvet replied. "Did you have too much trouble doing this?"
"Nope, none at all," Yatsuhashi replied. "She was very cooperative, didn't try to do anything reckless and when we said to do something, she did it without complaint."
"Well, that's a good sign then."
Weiss looked behind her to see that Lester had arrived to meet with them as well. "Glad you could make it," Weiss replied. "And I'm glad that things aren't too hot on us right now."
"Yeah, well the other good news is that the other aspect of this, the part with Ruby and Yang, we don't have to worry about that," Lester mentioned. "From what they tell me, she isn't going to be saying a thing because of their connection."
"Good, I'll have to thank her for keeping things quiet on her end," Weiss replied. Thinking back to something, she wanted to ask Coco about an acquisition that she was interested in making.
"Coco, might I speak with you for a moment?" Weiss asked, leading the brunette off to the side.
"What's up?" Coco asked once they had a moment of privacy.
"Well, since you're an arms dealer, and I wanted to know if there was a couple of 'items' that you would be able to bring to me," Weiss mentioned.
Thinking about things, Coco leaned against the wall while still staring down Weiss. "Depends on what it is, but I'd likely be able to do so without too much trouble. Maybe would have to call in a favor or two depending on what the items themselves are, but it shouldn't be too hard to do."
"Ok," Weiss replied. "I have a couple of items that I want to purchase, but they are some of the hardest big ticket items I can think of. So, if I were to give you a list, would you be able to acquire each piece, even if it was one at a time?"
"Doesn't seem like too much of a problem," Coco answered.
"Good, then I'll speak with Lester and have him send you the details," Weiss said. "Now come on, let's get back to the others, I have a feeling that Torchwick is going to show up soon."
Walking back to the rest of the crew, Weiss found out that she was right. Torchwick showed up almost immediately afterwards, along with Junior and the twins. The only two that were armed were the Malachite twins, while Coco and Yatsuhashi were definitely armed, and everyone else had at least a pistol on hand in case things went sour.
"I'm glad that you could make it today, Roman," Weiss said as she led everyone towards a table that had been set up beforehand. "I would offer refreshments, but I take it you aren't interested in the pleasantries today."
"Very astute of you, Miss Schnee," Roman replied. "Would you mind if I called you Weiss for the occasion?"
"Go right ahead," Weiss said as she sat down across from Roman. "Now, onto the business at hand."
"First things first, I want to be sure," Roman interrupted. "Neo, did they do anything to hurt you?"
"No, they've been very polite and went out of their way to keep me safe," Neo replied after her father addressed her. "They did ensure no harm came to me while I was in their care."
"Well then, that takes a load off of my back," Roman said. "Now, I take it that you have your terms lined up already, so lay them on me."
"Well then, first things first, we would appreciate it if you were to forfeit your assets to us," Weiss started to list. "Second, you take an early retirement and a considerable sum of money and enjoy the rest of your life living comfortably on a beach."
"And what makes you think I would do something like that?" Roman asked.
"In front of me I see the man who is in charge of the rivals of my gang," Weiss explained. "And behind him stand all that remains of his power structure, and any remaining pieces of his organization. You are in a weakened position and you have no means of making any major moves anymore. Like it or not you don't have the power to stand up to us, so this is your chance to walk away with your life."
The thought hadn't occurred to Ren that not only was Weiss forcing Roman to negotiate with Neo's life, but also Roman's own life. He knew that Roman was in a weakened position, but after considering all of what Weiss had said, he really hadn't thought about the fact that they could easily eliminate them right where they stood and be rid of them the hard way.
Roman sighed and pulled out a cigar. Lighting it up and taking a deep breath with it, Roman knew that he had been beaten. "Well, I guess this means the game is over. Looks like you win in the end," Roman said. "I don't have any other choice than to accept your terms. Now, how do we work out handing off the differing parts of our deal?"
"Simple, you and Neo leave this warehouse together, and in a few days time, Junior and the twins will be contacted by us so that we may oversee the hand off," Weiss said. "Should you renege on our deal, we kill Junior, the twins, take all of your belongings, and you lose that comfortable retirement you just bought yourself. That seem fair to you?"
"Fair enough," Roman replied. He stood up and Weiss motioned for Neo to be released. Watching as Neo walked over to her father and wrapped him in a hug, it was surprisingly pleasant to see the two of them in that light.
"Oh and Roman," Weiss said, pulling them from their moment. "You should know that we have agreed to help your daughter with a job that she needs doing, so I hope that helps you feel better about all of this."
"That certainly does help the matter," Roman said. With Neo's arm wrapped around his own, he tipped his hat to Weiss and took his leave. "It's been a pleasure doing business with you, and hopefully you enjoy the benefits of your victory." And with that, Roman Torchwick was no longer a threat to the L.S. Beacons.
With that weight lifted off of her shoulders, Weiss let out a sigh of relief. "Well, we did it," Weiss said. "We finally drove them out of Los Santos."
Ren walked up and gave Weiss a pat on the shoulder. "If only Pyrrha were here right now, she would love to have been here for this moment," He said to Weiss.
"She'll be back on her feet in a few weeks," Weiss mentioned. "I'm thinking we need a bit of a break after all that's happened recently, hell Velvet has barely been around for a month and she gets thrown right into the fire. She deserves a break, in fact, we all do."
"Oh?" Ren said. "What brought this on all of a sudden?"
"We're in a position where we are injured," Weiss said. "Since we just came off of a series of events that we barely managed to get through, so now we need a chance to sit back and recover."
"Fair enough, do you want me to call a meeting together?" Ren asked.
"Sure, that sounds fair," Weiss mentioned. Almost immediately, Weiss felt her phone sound off. Looking down she didn't know the number, but it was better to answer than not because of the potential from said number. "Hello?"
"Miss Schnee?" A woman spoke on the other end. "I was told to contact you with an update on your friend Penny Polendina?"
"How is she?" Weiss asked, much calmer than usual. "The last thing I heard she was starting to recover."
"Well, we just wanted to let you know that she woke up this morning," The lady mentioned to Weiss. "Unfortunately we can't allow you to see her just yet, but we wanted to at least give you some good news regarding that."
"That is a huge relief ma'am, you have no idea," Weiss mentioned. "Is there anything else you can tell me?"
"Nothing at the moment," The lady said. "If anything changes we'll let you know, but fortunately, it looks like Penny will make a full recovery given enough time."
"Thank you for letting me know about that then," Weiss mentioned before hanging up the phone and turning to Ren. "Penny's going to be ok, apparently she woke up earlier today but the doctors are still keeping an eye on her just in case."
"That's great," Ren said. "Now, onto more pressing issues, we still have a meeting to set up and we need to get you back to your apartment. Come on, no point in waiting around here anymore."
"I guess this is where we part ways?" Yatsuhashi asked.
"For now, as I told Coco, I plan on getting in contact with you soon with an order," Weiss mentioned. "The payout for this will be very substantial so I hope you two are up to the challenge."
"Sure thing," Coco mentioned. "We'll wait for your call."
Turning around and walking out of the warehouse, Ren started to drive the three back to Weiss' apartment. "Want to explain this deal?"
"Nothing to worry about yet," Weiss mentioned. "Once I come up with a list of gear for them to pick up for us, I plan on having Lester send them a copy so that they can try and get it for us. Don't think we'll have to worry about it for now though, so let's just focus on the here and now."
"You have some kind of plan going on in your head, I can just tell," Ren hinted. "Well, let's just make sure that this turns out to work in our favor."
Ruby was nervous to say the least.
Despite having a wonderful evening with Blake, Yang, and her mother at Weiss' apartment last night, Ruby was worried that her mother wouldn't entirely approve of what she was doing for a living. Granted they did things in a certain way that ensured that no one who was innocent was killed, most of the cops in Los Santos were corrupt beyond anything and everyone knew that, but who knows if Summer would understand.
Still, she needed to spend some time and explain everything to her mother, if not for her own sake, for the sake of their relationship. She was grateful that she had the chance though, since until yesterday she doubted that chance would ever come about again.
Part of Ruby wanted to just tell her mother that if she wanted to never see her again, then that would be fine, but if Ruby were to be honest, she really missed having her mother around. Ruby needed to fix things between them, even if her mother never really thought highly of what she did for a living.
Knocking on the door to her apartment, Ruby took a moment to calm down so that she didn't appear nervous in front of her mother. It wasn't long before Ruby heard the door unlock and her mother open the door for her. "Ruby, I wasn't expecting to see you so soon."
"I know, but there was something that I wanted to talk with you about," Ruby said as she walked into the apartment. "I wanted to apologize to you, for leaving all that time ago." Ruby took a seat on the couch in the small apartment that Summer called home. "It wasn't fair of me to leave the way I did, not even bothering to say goodbye to you, I just felt like I had to leave."
"Ruby," Summer said, sitting down next to her daughter on the couch. "You don't need to apologize for anything. In fact, I should be apologizing to you. You were just mad at me for not being around when you needed me to be. I know that I can't make up for that, but that doesn't mean you should feel sorry for what I did that caused you to do what you did in return."
"Mom, I'm really sorry," Ruby said, tears starting to form in her eyes. "I was just tired of hearing how you would be around, only for you to be off at work every day. I get that it was a very important job and that what you do is a way to bring the world to a better place, but I felt like I was getting left behind because of it."
Summer took Ruby and wrapped her arms around her daughter. "I've failed you, haven't I?"
"Mom," Ruby whispered. "Don't say that you did, because despite everything, I still turned out to be a great loving person. Even if my current job isn't the most glorious, or one that you could consider a good job, I still feel like this is my calling. I know you haven't been around long to know about some of these things, but there are a lot of problems with Los Santos, between the gangs, the corrupt cops, the private military organization, everything around her is just riddled with scum and villainy, you could say myself included actually."
"I don't feel like I have the right to judge you, given how I feel like I failed you as a mother," Summer said, despite Ruby telling her the exact opposite belief. "I only want to know why you do this? Why do you go and deal in things that appear to be so evil?"
Ruby sighed and looked away from her mother. "Because there's nothing else that I'm good at," Ruby said after a few seconds. "Like it or not there's nothing else that I could do now, and if you don't like that then I'm sorry, but I can't and won't change that. This is who I am, I'm Ruby Rose, the criminal that is a part of an organization that does some of the most hated things, yet we're the most incredible people ever. Even though we're bad people, we have a way of doing things, a way that prevents innocent people from being hurt because that's not something we stand for."
"Ruby, I don't want to lose you," Summer said after a moment. "If that means that I have to accept that you're in this line of work, then at least do me a favor and let me be around so that when you have wounds that need to be healed, physical or not, you'll give me the chance to do so. You and your friends if whoever is in charge will allow it of course."
"I'd like that actually," Ruby said, smiling for her mother. Right at that moment though, Ruby felt her phone go off, a message from Weiss appearing on the screen.
"Everyone meet me at my apartment for a quick meeting. Just something I want to announce so there is no need to worry about anything being wrong.-Weiss"
"Mom, I got to go," Ruby said. "My boss is calling me for something, so that means we gotta be there." Hugging her mother, Ruby was glad that she was able to at least repair some of the damage in their relationship. "It really is great to have you back mom."
"Same to you, my little rosebud," Summer replied. Letting her mother go, Ruby walked out of the apartment and down to her car, eager to see what this meeting was all about.
Weiss was surprised when she saw that there were already a few people waiting for her to enter her apartment. Both, Nora, Jaune and Pyrrha were there, waiting in the back by the parking lot. Weiss was surprised when she saw that Jaune was driving a new car. "Well, I guess that means you guys got my message quick enough. New car Jaune?"
Jaune was driving a Black Imponte Phoenix with Yellow Racing stripes and his car happened to have a yellow neon underglow. "You know, up until recently, I was only eyeballing this car. After what happened to Pyrrha, I felt like I didn't want to take any chances with maybes and just go for it."
"You've done that in more ways than one already, Jaune," Pyrrha mentioned. Raising her left hand, Pyrrha showed everyone around the diamond ring she now had with her. "Jaune proposed to me last night after I got out of the hospital."
"Congratulations to the both of you then," Weiss said, truly excited for Jaune and Pyrrha and all that came with their happy lives to come. "I hope you guys plan on inviting us all to your wedding of course."
"Why wouldn't we?" Pyrrha said before rubbing at her side. "Can we get inside though, I need to sit down soon."
Leading Pyrrha inside, Weiss and the rest of the people that were there piled into the apartment and waited for everyone else to show up. It didn't take much time before everyone was there, the last person to arrive actually being Ruby for once.
"Well, now that everyone is here, I just wanted to say a few things," Weiss said once she had everyone's attention. "First of all, I wanted to congratulate everyone on a job well done this past week, and in the recent weeks before this as well. You guys all have done spectacularly and that's why I wanted to let everyone know that for the next week, everyone is on vacation. No jobs that need to be done, so everyone go enjoy yourselves as best you can."
"Sweet, get to spend some time on the beach," Sun mentioned. "Anyone care to join?"
"I wouldn't mind going," Velvet chimed in.
"Well, you can all plan this later, because there are still a few things that I need to mention," Weiss cut in, bringing the meeting back to where it needed to be. "Second thing I want to address, quick congratulations to Pyrrha and Jaune on getting engaged last night."
"YOU GOT ENGAGED?!" Yang shouted. "THAT'S AWESOME, OH MY GOD CONGRATULATIONS!"
"Thank you very much, Yang, and to everyone else since I know you guys all want to say it," Pyrrha said, laughing at Yang's overabundant excitement. "I'm sure Weiss still has more to go over so let her speak so we can chat afterwards."
"Right, now there are two pieces of good news for us," Weiss began to say. "First, after meeting with Torchwick today, we struck a deal that pushed him into early retirement. So his gang is no longer a part of the L.S. community."
"Oh my god," Pyrrha said. "Really? I wish I was there."
"Ren and I knew you would say that," Weiss mentioned. "Once our vacation is over, we'll need some people to go over and take a log of all the assets that Torchwick handed over to us as a part of our deal. But the last thing I wanted to mention, was that I found out that Penny woke up earlier today, and that it appears as though she'll be making a full recovery."
"Oh my god that's incredible," Blake said.
"Indeed it is," Weiss mentioned. "Anyway, I just wanted to thank you again for really pulling through for us when we needed you the most, all of you. Enjoy the week off, it's back to the normal work once vacation is over."
With that, people started to slowly file out of Weiss' apartment, small little conversations going on between everyone as they left. The only one left was Ruby once everyone was out. Weiss sat down on the couch looking out at the horizon, with Ruby joining her afterwards.
"This has certainly been a day," Ruby mentioned.
"You ain't kidding," Weiss agreed. "So what did you do all day?"
"I went to visit my mom," Ruby said. "Things turned out better than I thought, but for now I'm just glad where we are."
Weiss leaned into Ruby as they watched the sun start to set. "I'm glad that I get to spend some time with you without having to worry about anything. I'll still have to go into the office for my quote 'actual job' end quote."
"Are we gonna have time to move me into your apartment?"
"Of course, I'll help you with that," Weiss said. "Afterwards, we need to get you a better car. Does that sound good?"
"I wouldn't mind that actually," Ruby said. "I wouldn't mind that at all."
AN: Happy New Year!
I hope you guys had a great holiday season, and believe me when I say this, we're not done yet. I have one final major heist for the story, and it's going to be the biggest and best one yet. It's so big, I'm actually going to be bringing in some help for the action.
Anyway, I wanted to say that there are some things that you should check out. First, my Victory Rose fic titled The Other Side. It's incredible and honestly, one of my best works thus far. So go check that out.
Second and more importantly, I'm working on a collaboration with some incredibly talented writers. The story is called Room 205, and I'm working on it alongside: GhostPhoenix113, angelsixtwofive, Phoenix Commander, TheDarkenedRose, BurningPeace, lymle300-2, Shadow Nightblade, and my fiancee SylverLining. Go check that out and while you're at it, check out each of their own stories, all of which are worthwhile reads.
Thank you guys for bringing this up to almost 700 follows, and almost 500 favorites. My expectations for this have been shot well out of the water and I can only hope that it gets' better from here
I hope you enjoyed this update and I can't wait for more to come. Feel free to review, favorite, follow, and thank you for reading this story!