W/N: I apologize for the Massive Delay in this chapter. Back in September, I received some valid criticisms for my writing which made me want to make some edits to the final four chapters of this volume. That caused a major overhaul of said four chapters. I'm still not done changing and editing the final three chapters and ask for your patience.
Ruby felt like she was dreaming for a long time, walking in the darkness without anywhere to go. Murky shadows extended in every direction, creating a wide expanse with nothing at all in sight. She stretched out her arms on either side but found no walls or barriers to confine her. Just open air moving through the gaps between her fingers.
The ground was solid and smooth beneath her, like glass, a perfectly paved walkway with nothing on to hold on to. As she walked, the sounds of footsteps reverberated back to her in a steady echo.
(Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap)
Each drop of the foot was rhythmic and solid, but they were the sounds of a stranger. Ruby tried to match their stride, running blindly in what she hoped was the right direction, but no one appeared. The darkness consumed everything, including any sense of direction. Eventually, Ruby stopped walking altogether and the footsteps receded, growing further and further away as she remained rooted to her spot.
When the last of the footfalls faded, the darkness shattered, sprinkling down all around her to reveal a cloudy blue sky with fluffy clouds moving beyond the horizon. The glass beneath her feet was replaced with gravel and dirt. A field of grass and trees sprung up all around her, and just inches away from her fingers was the doorframe of a small cottage.
Ruby recognized it immediately.
Only five months had passed since she left Patch, but the sight of her house brought with it an unexpected amount of longing and homesickness. Ruby could only stare, waiting at the entrance for someone to come forward and welcome her home.
But no one came. The air felt cold and empty despite the bright sun shining overhead. Her house was strangely silent, utterly devoid of the generic sounds of everyday homelife.
Ruby took a tentative step through the threshold, expecting the house to be empty. However, she was immediately greeted with the sight of her dad and her Uncle Qrow sitting on the couch, sharing a bowl of chips between them as they watched TV. The two men spoke, ate, and even laughed, but nothing came out of their mouths. The scene was still deafeningly quiet.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Yang holding a freshly baked pie in the kitchen, and Ruby rushed to her side in relief, "Yang! I'm so glad you're here! What's going on?! Did Dad let Uncle Qrow back into the house? Why can't I hear anything?!"
But Yang didn't answer her questions. Her sister showed no indication she saw or heard Ruby at all. The older girl was smiling, laughing in that weird, soundless way like everyone else. But the most jarring thing about Yang was her eyes. They weren't scrunched together in anger or pride or challenge. The complete and utter lack of those things transformed her sister's face in a way Ruby could never have imagined. Yang looked…happy.
Purely and simply happy.
A second woman walked in on them, placing a small hand on Yang's shoulder as she asked her a question. The two women continued to talk, oblivious to Ruby's existence, but the young girl had forgotten how to breathe. The air had left her lungs as she struggled to understand just what she was looking at.
"Mom…?"
Ruby could no longer remember her mother's face without the photos hidden beneath Yang's bed. There weren't many, and most of them had faded with time, leaving the bulk of the details up to her imagination. In the past, she had tried to visualize a generic sort of face but very rarely did the distinct features come to mind. It was usually just a small woman with a little fog beneath the vibrant red hair.
But the woman in front of her was anything but hidden. Ruby could see every detail of her face, and it was alarmingly familiar. The short chin, unrefined cheekbones, and silver eyes were identical to her own. It would have been like looking into a mirror were it not for the button nose and the laugh lines around the older woman's eyes and mouth.
When she was a child, Ruby used to fantasize about her mother appearing at their door or walking through her doorway. It had seemed so easy back then. Their mother used to do it all the time. She would disappear for a few hours or even a few days, and then reappear again somewhere else around the house. Just like magic. But the years passed, and her mother never showed her face. Not even in her dreams. By the time Ruby had found the pictures, she had stopped thinking about her mother altogether.
But here she was. Her mom. Standing just a few feet away, laughing, smiling with Yang in their kitchen as if none of those lonely years had ever happened. As if her ghost hadn't haunted their family for the last decade.
Ruby's fingers trembled with emotion. Perhaps, all of it had been a dream and this was the reality. Maybe any moment now her mom would notice her. If only she could get a little closer…
"Wake up, child."
Ruby jumped away in shock, her back slamming soundlessly against the wall. The deep and somber voice had come out of nowhere; eerily loud between the peaceful scene playing out in front of her. She automatically reached for Crescent Rose to find the weapon missing from its magnetic clip.
Panic immediately flooded her system at the weapons disappearance.
"Who are you!? What do you want?!" Ruby screamed into the ether. Her family paid no mind to her outburst or the strange voice echoing throughout the house.
"Wake up, Ruby. You don't belong here."
A silver silhouette materialized by the door like a ghost. The small, hooded figure was not much taller than she was, made almost entirely of translucent light. The opening where the face should be was instead filled with tendrils of black ink sucking in the silver wisps floating around the top of the head and the area around the neck.
The being resembled her mother. Not the woman behind her but the woman she saw in her memories. Small and masked. Just an outline. A ghost.
Ruby tried to walk towards the enigmatic figure, but her feet seemed to float through the ground. The figure hung beside the entrance of her home, merely watching as Ruby tried to throw herself forward, walking and then running even though she remained obstinately in place.
A cold wave of air slid over Ruby's arm as her mother and sister brushed passed her to the couch. Along with her dad and Uncle Qrow, the four of them made a perfect picturesque family. A family in which Ruby had no part of.
Her attention pivoted back to the hooded figure floating by the door as the reality of her situation finally dawned on her, "None of this is real…is it?"
The figure didn't respond, nor did it move, but Ruby thought she could see the lines of the face incline. She tried again to move closer to her companion, but that peculiar ball of silver and black remained permanently out of reach. They remained by the door while she was forcibly stuck in the kitchen, separated by a mere few feet and the empty threshold between them.
"This is all a dream isn't it? And you…What—Who are you?" Ruby wanted to scream but she bit her lip in an attempt to keep herself sane, "What is this place? What are you trying to show me?"
The darkness seemed to spread, growing larger than before as it ate more and more of the silver threads swirling around the missing face.
"Say something!" Ruby yelled thickly. She swiveled to point an accusatory finger at her 'family', "What are you trying to prove by showing me all this?! I already know how much they all miss Mom! Dad never smiles anymore! Uncle Qrow isn't even allowed in the house. And Yang-"
Ruby cut herself off as she landed on her sister's name. They might have looked the same. They even dressed the same way. But Ruby didn't need to wonder. The girl sitting on their couch was nothing at all like her sister.
"…Yang hasn't been the same since…since- But I know… I know she's in a lot of pain…I'm not mad at her…."
The silver was almost entirely gone now, replaced by a swirling black mass of threads. It was still in the shape of a person, but it seemed taller than before. Wider. It no longer looked like the petite woman sitting beside her beloved sister.
Ruby's lungs burned. She forced herself to breathe, but her nose was clogged with phlegm. Every breath hurt, like someone was squeezing down on the space between her eyes and poking the inside of her nostrils with a tiny needle.
"Just say something!"
The last threads of silver disappeared as the black figure transformed once again, turning into a mesmerizing black hole surrounded by red. It looked like a mouth or an eye, spinning endlessly as it waited for an opportune moment.
Ruby stared at it for a few seconds, waiting for that deep voice from earlier to resurface, but it never came. The mass just kept swirling and swirling until, without any warning it sprung forward and swallowed her whole.
[-]
Ruby's eyes shot open, only to be blinded by a flash of bright white light. She was in an unfamiliar room, perfectly neat and pristine. It smelled like the cleaning stuff her dad kept under the kitchen sink. She tried to speak, but her throat felt dry and coarse. Her voice wouldn't come.
With some effort, she found that she could move her arms and fingers. There was a strange aching pain in the bones of her left wrist, but it was better than nothing. Her legs and toes fared much better, obeying her commands will little to no problems.
Next, Ruby tried to move her head. It was supposed to be a simple movement, but the nausea hit her throat immediately. Instinctively, her body threw itself over a the edges of her bed, coughing as she dry heaved over the strange railing keeping her penned in.
"Ruby!" Jaune rushed to her side with the rest of Team JNPR filing in behind him to her right. She hadn't noticed them before, but now the whole world was coming into focus. Weiss was sitting to her left with some homework and one of her textbooks open on her lap while Blake was sitting on the floor reading a book. Both girls started at the urgency in Jaune's voice.
Her friends were all rambling at the same time, screaming over their shoulder for Professor Peach and explaining a series of events she didn't understand. She only heard a few words repeated among them: aura, concussion, failing. None of it sounded the least bit reassuring.
As her friends continued to ramble, the events of that Friday night slowly drifted back to her like an old fairytale: The letter from her dad, the argument in their dorm room, and then the actual fight on the docks. She remembered the yelling and the tears, but everything afterward was a blur.
"You've been unconscious for almost four weeks," Jaune's voice rose over the din. His face was surprising calming despite the bruises beneath and around his eyes, "Professor Peach said you had a concussion… I—I'm sorry, Ruby. This is all my fault. If I hadn't tried to fight Yang that night, you wouldn't have needed to protect me and none of this would have happened. I-"
"Stop," Weiss interrupted, "This is not your fault. It's Yang's. She's the one who started the fight. She's the one who broke your aura. She's the one who gave Ruby a concussion!"
"Weiss!" Blake scolded with sharp double nod of her head. It sent a clear message. Not now. Not in front of her.
"It's okay…" Ruby whispered. She turned to Jaune. The man looked like he hadn't slept in days, "Weiss… is right. This isn't your fault. It's mine. Everything is my fault. I shouldn't have come here. I was never supposed to be a Huntress..."
"What-What are you saying?" Jaune spluttered.
"I'm going to drop out of Beacon."
Ruby's declaration brought with it a wave of shock, worry, and confusion. It was the last thing anyone had expected to hear. They had anticipated some tears, anger, maybe even self-deprecation, but not this. It was completely out of character.
Nora was the first to break the silence, "Maybe we should get Professor Peach? I think she hit her head too hard."
"No… I'm fine," Ruby stated firmly. She let her eyes close in defeat. The silver and black monstrosity from her nightmare still floated behind her eyelids, "I-I've been a terrible leader... And a terrible person. Yang was right. I should have just listened to my mom."
"What do you mean?" Blake asked.
"She never wanted me to be a Huntress," Ruby admitted softly, "I think…I think maybe if I had just listened to her, none of this would've happened. I think…If I drop out now, it's just better for everyone."
"Are you stupid?" Weiss snapped. Ruby turned to look at her with surprise. If there was anyone here, she had expected to support her decision; it was Weiss. But out of their mixed pool of reactions, she was the only one who appeared to be genuinely angry.
"What?"
"Are you stupid," Weiss repeated, "'Nobody wants you to be a Huntress, so you're just going to give up? What kind of lame excuse is that? You're supposed to be a leader. My leader! And that's what you decided to give me? Who cares what anyone else wants?! Don't you want to be a Huntress?"
"I do, but—"
"Then none of their opinions matter! It's your life! Not your mom's! Not Yang's! And certainly not your father's!"
"My dad has—"
"You signed up for this! This is your job! And you're just going to give up just because your family doesn't want you to fight?" Weiss said the word with venomous disgust, biting it out like a swear, "Don't you have any pride or—"
Under any other situation Ruby might have let her teammate just run out her tirade but on this particular day, she could feel the anger rising in her throat. She was in no mood for one of Weiss's self-righteous lectures, "You're just saying that because it's easy for you! You're a Schnee! You have all the money and power in the world to do whatever you want and—"
"You don't know anything about me!" Weiss screeched.
Ruby pulled back in alarm. It was the first time Weiss had ever truly lost her temper. Even when she had argued with Yang, she had always kept her cool. The Ice Queen had been condescending, fierce, annoyed, frustrated, but not once did ever descend into shouting. This sudden outburst took everyone by surprise, including Weiss herself.
The normally haughty girl quickly took in the expressions of everyone else in the room, panic flitting over her features briefly before being replaced by a mask of cool indifference.
When Weiss next spoke, her voice was steady and controlled, "You have been nothing but a disappointment since the day we met."
"What I think Weiss means is-" Pyrrha started in a reconciliatorily manner.
"No. You do not speak for me," The Schnee heiress jumped to her feet. Her fists were pressed to her sides as they trembled with some unnamed emotion, "I could have made up for her incompetence as a leader. I could even understand if she didn't want to hurt her sister's feelings. But this? This is unacceptable. She has insulted me, Professor Ozpin, and quite possibly, every single Huntsman this school has ever produced!"
Pyrrha immediately shut up and Weiss turned her cold indifference back onto her true target, "You're right, Ruby. You don't belong here. I hope your Daddy's love is worth it."
Without another word, she shoved her textbook into her backpack and stormed out of the medical ward.
"Weiss! Weiss!", Blake shouted after her for several seconds before dropping her forehead into her hand, "Why does this keep happening…?"
All four members of Team JNPR glanced at another uncomfortably, clearly feeling out of place between Ruby and Weiss's fight. Everyone in the dorms had heard them arguing throughout the semester, but it was a wholly different experience to see it in person. Jaune cleared his throat awkwardly in an effort to break the tension, "Ruby… I know it's not really my place to say anything, but I don't think you should just quit. If you want to be a Huntress, then you should be."
"None of you understand…" She whimpered. Ruby pulled the blanket over her head so she could hide the tears pooling in her eyes, "I'm not like you... I only came to Beacon because the rest of my family did. I just wanted to make my mom and dad proud! But if they don't want me here then what's the point!"
"You're right," Blake placed one comforting hand on top of the covers just over the spot where Ruby's head was pressed against the fabric, "We don't understand how you feel, and I don't know what your mom or dad would have wanted. But your life isn't about them. Have you ever asked yourself what you want? Will quitting make you happy?"
Ruby didn't respond nor did she reappear from beneath the blanket.
Blake sighed in defeat before taking a small step away, "…While you were unconscious, Weiss came to visit you every day after class. This was after making you photocopies of her notes and asking around the school for Yang's whereabouts."
Ruby flinched as a ton of guilt dropped onto her chest.
"Coco Adel in Team CFVY gave us a list of places where Yang might be, and the two of us are planning on searching Vale this weekend to see if we can find her."
"And we've agreed to help," Jaune chipped in hopefully.
"We're going to find her, Ruby," Blake proclaimed softly, "And we're going to bring her home. Just wait for us to come back before you do anything drastic."
II
Over in a non-descript flat in the heart of Vale, Yang was watching a movie with both Roman and Neo on either side of her. It wasn't a particularly good movie, but her new friends made all the difference.
"You're tearing me apart, Lisa!", Roman mimed while on his knees in the middle of their living room. The vivacious man seemed to know the script by heart; his lips syncing in time with the main actor. His face was scrunched up with mock agony before he started hurling several plastic take-out spoons at the TV, "Spoons!"
Neo laughed silently, holding onto her ribs as she choked for air. The short girl was mute, but that didn't stop her from being extremely expressive. She laughed with her whole body, but the joy was evident in the curl of her eyes.
Yang threw a peanut at him as she cackled, "Stop. Please stop. Your acting is horrible."
"Better than this guy," Roman cocked his head toward the screen before winking, "Better looking too."
The two girls rolled their eyes but neither of them denied it, turning their attention back to the screen as their movie cut out abruptly to an image of Lisa Lavender standing in front of what appeared to be a Dust shop.
BREAKING NEWS. DUST SHOP ROBBED ON MAIN AND 12TH. 2ND ATTACK THIS WEEK AND 41ST OVER THE LAST SIX MONTHS.
Behind the news reporter were numerous fire fighters and police officers as they tried to push back curious spectators.
"We interrupt your regular scheduled programming with breaking news. The city of Vale has once again been hit with another Dust robbery, the 41st since the epidemic started back in June. We are here right now with the owner of the Dust Shop who says he can describe the criminals who attacked him," The camera shifted to the right, zooming in a little closer onto an old man with balding hair, a green t-shirt and a red apron. His clothes were a little rumpled and an ugly bruise decorated his crown.
"Mr. Shopkey, we understand you've been through a terrible tragedy. Can you tell us exactly what happened here?"
"There were two men. They ran into my shop and knocked me out. They were so fast. When I woke up again, all my dust was gone!"
"And did you get to see their faces?" Lisa urged.
"No-No. They both wore hats and long coats. They had these whi-white masks that looked like bones. They—They looked like Grimm," He cried horrified.
The camera swiveled back to Lisa's forever vacant expression, "Grimm masks are the newest trademark of the White Fang, more proof that the notorious terror group is at the heart of this operation. As more tourists arrive in Vale for the Vytal Tournament, it is recommended that citizens are advised to be wary while traveling on their own. The Vale Council has issued travel warnings for Faunus. They will be searched and probed upon arrival at our ports. Citizens will be brought in and questioned. If you have any information or see any suspicious activity, please report it to your local authorities."
Yang moved closer to the TV, deliberately studying the store behind the news broadcaster, "Hey…Isn't this the shop down the street? Weren't the two of you over there earlier getting snacks? Did you see anything?"
Neo shrugged while rolling her eyes. The non-answers the tiny girl gave had been annoying at first, but after a few days, Yang had grown accustomed to the former's naturally flippant attitude.
"How could you have missed a dozen cops and a robbery?" Yang continued.
"The shop looked fine when we were shopping," Roman drawled. He lit one of his expensive cigars, inhaling it several times while a sugary sweet cloud of smoke started to fill the room, "Probably happened after we were long gone. Might not even be the same place."
"Poor guy," Yang murmured before turning back to the screen, "It must be hard for them."
"Who? The thieves? I'll say. It sounds incredibly tough to make a living with the cops on your tail," Roman quipped.
"Oh 'Haha'" Yang shot back, "You know I was talking about the old guy. Can't be easy running a business while these robberies are happening. I didn't know they had gotten this bad."
"Don't get much news up at the castle?" Roman continued with a scornful tone.
"Beacon isn't a castle," Yang argued defensively, "Our dorms weren't big enough for a TV, and honestly, we didn't have much time for it. Between class, homework, and combat practice, we barely get enough time to sleep, let alone watch the news."
"You make it sound so exciting, I think I might just die from jealousy," He drawled sarcastically, "Who wouldn't want to be worked to the bone all day? It's a good thing I didn't make it in or I might have shot myself from boredom."
While it sounded like a careless joke, Yang caught the connotation underneath, "Wait. You applied to Beacon?! Seriously?!"
Roman tried to grin, but there was something angry, maybe even dangerous beneath his playful expression, "What? Don't believe me? I wasn't always the suave evil genius I am now. Once upon a time, I used to be that naïve, innocent little schoolboy looking for the next grand adventure. Just like you are now, Blondie."
Yang rolled her eyes, "Yeah right. How come you didn't make it in?"
"I was inappropriately charming. Would have caused too much trouble with all those Huntresses around so they kept me out," Roman shrugged but it looked oddly stiff beneath his almost lackadaisical expression, "Doesn't really matter now. Life turned out way more fun as a nameless scoundrel."
"I'm serious," Yang tried not to laugh, "Tell me what happened."
But he just shrugged again, picking up the remote to change the channel. However, every network was playing the same broadcast with the same warning to its citizens.
Yang tried to carefully observe the man sitting beside her. She liked him. Not in any romantic sense, but he was funny and clever. Charming, even. He wasn't necessarily kind, but he had provided her with a home and support when she had had nothing.
Those first few days after she left Beacon had been hard. A torrid of emotions consumed her at every waking moment: Guilt, jealousy, fear. They just kept coming. Even in those pitiful hours when she was barely conscious, all she could think about was Ruby's broken form. Her little sister lying in a pitiful heap because Yang had put her there. The only person who still believed in her.
The only person who still loved her.
The alcohol helped and it didn't. Seconds. Minutes. Hours. Days. They all slipped by like sand. Fast and forgettable. That was a blessing. But the bottle also brought dreams of her mom. The smell of her pies in the kitchen and the sound of her voice when she was telling Yang a secret. Just the two of them hunched over under the covers as they giggled over some inconsequential detail Yang no longer remembered.
She woke up every morning with the taste of salt on her lips and the smell of sweat on her back.
But neither Roman nor Neo had ever begrudged her for the alcoholism. They didn't ask her any questions, nor did they ever comment on her disgraceful lifestyle. She had wasted away in their home for days without an ounce of complaint from either of them.
In fact, they were more than accommodating: Inviting her to activities. Bringing her food. Talking to her through the closed door of her room. It had been meaningless drivel, but Yang felt herself hanging onto every word like a lifeline.
Their patience won out in the end. Yang had wanted to wallow in her misery forever, but after a week of being a potato, her body demanded her to move. To do something. And her new friends had been there to pick her back up.
They took her to the movies. Introduced her to new restaurants. Bars. Dancing. Every day was a little better than the last. She didn't forget, but she was getting closer and closer back to her old self. She drank less. Ate a little more. And as time went on, her life at Beacon felt more and more like a bad dream.
The fact that no one had come to arrest her meant Ruby was probably okay. She had gotten dozens of messages from Weiss asking where she was and demanding her to explain what had happened on those docks, but nothing accusing her of any crime. Nothing to indicate Ruby was seriously hurt.
Blake had called a lot. There had been a few messages too. Mostly urging her to go home. But she didn't want to go back. Not anymore.
What she wanted now was a fresh start. And that was exactly what Roman and Neo gave her.
They didn't know anything about her past or her baggage. They didn't know about Ruby or her mom, and she didn't know anything about them. She didn't know where they came from, why they were in Vale or how long they were staying.
She wasn't even sure if Roman Torchwick and Neapolitan were their real names. In fact, she was almost sure those weren't their real names.
And that was fine.
Or, it was fine.
Because now Roman had shared something personal with her. Something deeper than his favorite movie or the fact that he didn't like tomatoes. Here was something personal and maybe even authentic about a man who had made it seem like his entire life was a joke and Yang didn't want to let that go. He had once tried and failed to make it into Beacon's combat program. Perhaps that failure had been, and still was, a sore spot.
But she didn't get the chance to dive any further into this possible line of inquiry.
"Enough about me Blondie. Let's talk more about you. Why are you so curious about these robberies? Wanna be the hero and catch the bad guy?" Roman leaned forward so he could rest his elbows on his thighs.
"Maybe," Yang answered with a shrug, "But doesn't everyone want to be the hero?"
"Nah. It's more fun to be the villain. We don't need to play by the rules," Roman's smirk showed plenty of teeth, but it held no warmth. It was a challenge. It demanded her to answer the question she, herself was asking.
"Besides, why would I want to protect people who don't want me around?"
Not for the first time, Yang had the uncomfortable feeling that Roman could read minds. It was just the way he spoke, with that weird quirk of the eyebrow and that twitching smile. As if he already knew the answers to all of his horribly probing questions. Answers that she herself weren't ready to face.
But thankfully, Yang was saved from answering him when her scroll suddenly vibrated with a loud buzz.
A new message popped up on the collapsible holographic screen. The banner at the top immediately told Yang the message was from Blake, but it was inside a new group chat that included the rest of her teammates and all the members of Team JNPR.
Ruby says she's going to drop out of Beacon because she thinks that will make you happier. We need you here to change her mind. Please just come home.
It was the first time since her departure that anyone had bothered to directly mention Ruby's condition and Yang couldn't quite make sense of the words she was reading.
Ruby, the sister she had beaten to a broken pulp was alive. The text didn't say how she was doing, but Yang could only imagine she was doing well. She wasn't mad, clearly. But she wanted to drop out of Beacon….? Why? That didn't make any sense.
She read the text again. And again. And again, as if she could ram the answer to her questions into her brain.
It's because of me.
The truth hit her like a truck. In her innocent, child-like way, Ruby had truly believed all those horrible things Yang had said that night. Those things she had said out of hatred, and jealousy and spite. She could still feel those emotions bubbling beneath the surface as her fingers strained with the force she used to grip her scroll.
Before Yang could even think about responding, hthe damn thing vibrated again, this time with a message from Weiss:
Make it easier on us and just come back on your own.
And then Jaune:
Ruby and I don't plan on telling Ozpin or Glynda what happened. You can come back at any time.
She could still imagine that self-righteous pity in his eyes as he watched her in that hangar. Pity for a poor girl who would always live in her sister's shadow. All at once, the emotions she had kept in check spilled over into her fingers and her hands shook with rage. She threw her scroll against the wall, splintering the paint and breaking the outer shell of the small device as it smashed against the plaster.
Both Roman and Neo's expressions were blank as they watched her tantrum. Neither of them moved a muscle, simply staring at her as if they were watching that boring movie from earlier.
Without quite meaning to, Yang turned her rage on them next, "What are you looking at?! Are you feeling sorry for me too?!"
Roman broke into a low cackle, the left side of his face cracking into a devilish grin, "Why would I ever feel sorry for you? Look at you. You have the rack of a 32-year-old soccer mom and the legs of a model. I'm just wondering which poor sucker pissed you off."
Meanwhile, Neo bounced the ten feet to the wall to pick up what was left of Yang's scroll, waving it over her head like a flag. The communication device was now a mess, the plastic cover cracked open to reveal the colored wiring and plates inside. Even the holographic screen was destroyed, the mesh bunched up unnaturally.
Roman whistled slowly at the sight, "We're going to need to buy you a new one."
"Don't bother," Yang answered bitterly, "I don't have the money."
Roman didn't immediately respond. He was watching her with that same all-knowing expression from earlier and Yang suddenly felt as if she were standing naked in front of a stranger. Luckily, his inspection didn't last very long, "Neo and I have a job coming up this weekend. You should come with us."
"…What?" The suggestion had caught her off-guard. Despite their first meeting being about a job, neither of her new friends had ever mentioned what they did for a living. The pair would disappear for a few hours every now and again, but not once did they ever ask Yang to join them.
Even Neo seemed surprised by his suggestion.
Roman turned to the smaller girl first, "Don't worry. We need someone like her for the job anyway. If she trained at Beacon, she can't be much worse than you or me."
Neo still seemed unsure, her eyes darting between them quickly. The sight of her unease felt like a challenge and Yang rushed to prove herself, "Whatever it is, I can handle it."
But Neo shook her head defiantly, glaring at Roman as if that would get her point across.
Roman aggressively cut in between them, pulling Neo back against his chest so he could whisper into her hair, "Listen, kid. I know what I'm doing. This is why she's here. It's why we asked her to join us in the first place, remember? We finish this job, and we can go wherever you want. Just trust me on this one."
Neo pushed him away, her cheeks puffed up in anger before storming back to her room.
Yang watched the interaction with the uncomfortable feeling she had seen something private, "Is she going to be okay?"
Roman sighed before taking another long drag of his cigar, "Yeah. She'll be fine in a couple'a hours."
He stared at the locked door for another minute before moving his full attention back to Yang. It was perhaps the most serious, she had ever seen him, "I'll come grab you on Saturday night. Dress sharp."
A trickle of unease was beginning to settle in now that Neo had backed out of the discussion. How much did she really know her knew friends? Not a lot. How much did she really trust them? More than she should.
"Why does it matter how I dress? What are we going to do?"
Roman's dark green eyes gleamed with delight, "You want to be the hero, right? Well, we're going to steal some Dust."
W/N: The irony of this chapter's title is not lost on me. On a more serious note, I am determined to finish this volume before the end of the year. I would like to finish all three chapters before I post again to ensure the quality of each chapter. However, please let me know if you just want the chapters as I finish them. They might not be as good, but they'll be out much sooner. If there's anyone who is still reading, please let me know what you prefer. Thanks for the support.