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Chapter 15: Against Hopeless Odds
Cinder sat across from Lil Miss, and she wished she didn't have to. Aside from her previous history with the Spider boss, she wasn't exactly happy at admitting, let alone showing, weakness. But there the mature woman sat, across from her, drinking some of her Atlesian brandy.
"So to what do I owe the honor?" Little Miss asked in a cheeky, coy tone. It was clear, regardless of outcome, she was going to enjoy this.
"I require some assistance from you. Manpower to be precise. To be used at my discretion." Cinder answered, tapping her glass as a way to try and diffuse her nerves.
"That's quite the ask. What do I get out of this in return?" Little miss asked, her coy smile growing a hint wider.
"I will pay you your proper dues for the mission. In lien of course." Cinder reassured her.
"That's for people who are not directly competing with me in this little pond we find ourselves in. For rivals, I charge extra." Little Miss corrected.
"How much extra?" Cinder asked curiously.
"Triple the standard." Little Miss answered, before puffing a bit on a cigarette.
"Fine." The blind boss answered in a slight annoyed groan.
"Excellent. Now what assurances do I have of my men making it back?" Little Miss asked.
"That wasn't covered in the pay?" Cinder asked.
"That's my standard fare deary. If this is gonna be dangerous, then I need some assurances if my men are gonna be dying." Little miss explained
"Your collateral is control of the Vale underworld." Cinder answered, clearly not pleased with saying that.
Little Miss for her part was somewhat taken aback for a moment, but soon that melted away into a smirk. A single handshake, and it was sealed. Cinder now could move forward with her plans, but this time, the price of failure was too high. Failure was not an option.
Meanwhile, with Hazel
Hazel stood off in the distance, leaning against a tree. In the courtyard was Emerald doing homework with team CFVY. Normally he would be against shadowing a kid like this, but he had a good reason. Salem went after Neo to tie up loose ends. Aside from Cinder, and yours truly, Emerald was the only loose end unaccounted for. Hopefully by this point her options are so low, she'd have to do the deed herself. That would provide a golden opportunity to deal a lasting blow to her. Until then, business would continue like this.
Back to team RWBY
Out of the shadows stepped the figure of Watts. His boots practically sounded thunderous to the exhausted and pensive huntresses in training. Slowly clapping, his face curled into a wicked grin. In the moment, he brought back all the horrors of Tyrian.
"I must commend you all for getting this far. But unfortunately it's the end of the road for you and your little dog too." Watts said with a slight menacing chuckle.
"Anyone got any ideas…" Ruby asked as they started to back away.
"What options do we have?" Weiss asked.
Neo, having a light bulb moment, subtly types on her scroll and shows it to Ruby in such a way that Watts wouldn't see it.
"Okay everyone, follow our mascot's lead." Ruby whispered.
"What is it?" Blake whispered.
"Whatever the plan is, it better be a good one…" Yang whispered grimly.
"No it's a terrible one, but it's the only one we have. On Neo's cue, we run for it." Ruby whispered.
"We are all gonna die..." Weiss whispered.
"Probably." Ruby agreed grimly.
Suddenly the tension was cut by a scroll ringing. However, shocking everyone in the room, it wasn't Neo's… It was Watts'...
"Excuse me my dears, I have to take a call." He said, before whipping out his scroll.
The moment Watts turned his back, Neo gave a small thumbs up.
"Arthur Watts." Watts said curtly.
"Hello Arthur. I hope you're doing well." A horrifyingly familiar voice answered.
"Salem my queen… I didn't know you had a scroll…" Arthur nervously answered.
"How much of a backwater savage do you think I am?" Salem asked.
"Not at all my queen. I simply thought you'd have more important matters to attend to." Arthur replied.
"Oh I do. And they all involve you." Salem answered simply.
"Apologies, my liege. I simply was taking care of that loose end you wished eliminated." Arthur said.
"I thought you hired very credible huntsmen to deal with it?" Salem asked, a smile evident on her face through her tone.
"I wanted to ensure a quality job, so I am checking up on my employees." Arthur said turning around.
"This isn't like you to leave unannounced Arthur." Salem said observantly.
"Well that's strange." Arthur said thinking out loud. The five girls looked a bit odd, and he walked up to check on them. Touching Neo's forehead, causing them all to shatter like glass.
"Fuck!" Arthur yelled and hung up the phone in anger, in the moment not realizing what he just did.
Meanwhile with our colorful cast of heroines, they were making a breakneck pace trying to get out of the castle. The biggest problem, aside from Watt's murderous rage, was the sheer size of the damn thing. Not only that, Team RWBY hadn't paid the best attention to how they got into the thing, so they were now lost in the castle. Stopping in an unfamiliar hallway, they were frustrated to see that it split into three different paths.
"Damn it! Which one do we take?!" Yang snapped.
Soon a gunshot rang out dangerously close behind them, forcing Ruby to yell, "Don't matter which one! Pick one and let's go!"
"Come back here you brats and die like the good meatbags you are!" Watts roared in rage.
"The one on the left!" Yang said frantically.
"Move it, ice cream headache!" Weiss yelled, practically pushing Yang to get her to move faster.
"I'm going as fast as I can, Ice Queen! She's not exactly light when you don't have Aura, you know!" Yang snapped back.
"Neo, you're going on a diet if we get out of here alive!!" Ruby yelled.
Neo pouts, typing, 'I'm already dangerously underweight! If I lose more weight, there won't be nothin left!'
Soon a shot rang across their heads as Watts made it into the same hallway, and was reloading his weapon on the move for more Dust to be sent down range. The girls made a run for it as they tried to stay ahead of the gun toting mad scientist, Blake turning Gambol Shroud into gun form to fire on Watts in an attempt to slow him down. As they kept running, Blake shot down a heavy chandelier behind them in an attempt to slow Watts down.
"That won't stop him for long!" Yang told her partner.
"You think I don't know that! Pick a path and keep going! I'll keep trying to slow him down!" Blake yelled back.
"Try right! Maybe it'll give us a place to hide!" Ruby yelled.
"Run and hide all you like! I have all day and all the Dust in the world!" Watts yelled back.
Thinking on her feet, Yang launched a shot of Fire Dust at the hallway where Watts was, hoping to use smoke from the flames to obscure his vision.
Neo, who was on a roll that day, had yet another lightbulb moment. Neo climbed down, and used her semblance to create copies of them and hide their position, she opened a door near them, pressing play and tossing her scroll in, slamming the door.
"Good thinking, Neo…!" Yang whispered, getting the shorter girl's plan.
As soon as Watts was able to clear the fire and smoke, he saw the girls make a hard turn into a room. Muffled over the flames he could vaguely hear them talking. He smirked and rushed over, before jumping into the doorway, letting loose a hail of Dust fire at them. When the smoke from the multitude of charges subsided, all he saw was a shattered scroll on the cobblestone flooring.
"Those fucking brats!" Watts roared before turning out towards the hallway. He kept running in the hallway, before finding an open window.
By the time he made it to the window, he saw the girls running to their rental car. Glaring at them, he took aim and started firing, trying to gun them down with physical rounds rather than wasting his few Dust rounds. Meanwhile, the girls tried desperately to make it to the car.
"Move it, move it, move it!" Yang called out frantically, carrying Neo over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes so that she wouldn't slow them down.
"What do you think we are doing!?" Weiss yelled as they thankfully made it to the car.
Throwing Neo into the shotgun seat, Yang swiftly began to turn the key to the car. However it wasn't fast enough as a round went through the back windshield and through the front, but thankfully missing their heads. As Yang got the thing out of park, her driver side mirror was shattered by another round.
"We are not getting that deposit back!" Ruby yelled.
"Didn't plan on it anyway!" Yang yelled as she slapped the pedal to the floor.
With a sudden lurch and squealing of rubber the car made it off like a bat out of hell. Another round lodged itself through the trunk for good measure as they made it back down the switchback road. Once back on the main road, all eyes turned to Neo.
"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING NEO!?" Ruby roared at the team mascot.
"YOU COULD'VE GOTTEN YOURSELF KILLED!" Yang yelled, in full Momma Bear Mode at this point.
Neo, not wanting to be yelled at, swiped Yang's scroll, and typed, 'If Ruby hadn't made me think it was my fault, I wouldn't have felt guilty enough to run away! A simple hug would've stopped me from doing this!'
"Don't you try and get out of this! You think I didn't have things to work out after that!?" Ruby yelled back.
Neo, in tears, typed, 'And you never ONCE considered my feelings! I cried myself to sleep every night because of how you isolated me!'
"Why did you do that, Ruby!?" Blake asked.
"It's bad enough Zwei died!" Weiss agreed.
"If you guys are so concerned, why didn't you guys comfort her!? Why do I have to do everything around here!?" Ruby roared.
"It was your idea to give her a second chance in the first place, sis! That makes her as much your responsibility as any of ours if not more so!" Yang snapped back.
"Oh, so after all I did to help get her out of this, all of a sudden I'm the bad guy!?" Ruby asked
"If you hadn't isolated her, we would not be in this situation in the first place!" Weiss yelled.
"Yang, stop the car! I know when I'm not wanted!" Ruby yelled.
"I am not stopping this fucking car, Ruby! Not until we're a safe distance away!" Yang snapped out.
Neo, scared, typed, 'Mommy, Daddy, please stop fighting…'
"Who the hell is the dad in this situation?" Blake asked.
"Doesn't matter! Shut up or we don't stop for McDoogers!" Yang snapped back authoritatively.
Neo, scared, types, 'sorry, daddy…'
Yang glared at Neo for a moment at that. "Okay, now be quiet and let daddy concentrate on driving!"
"You can't be…" Ruby tried to say, before being cut off.
"I SAID SHUT UP AND LET ME DRIVE!" Yang roared out.
Soon a deafening silence gripped the car as Yang was finally able to put some distance between and the gun toting Watts. This gave everyone time to breathe, relax a little, and collect their thoughts. No one needed that more than Ruby. Soon however she broke that silence.
"I'm sorry for that Neo… I'm just glad you're safe, and you're in so much trouble when we get out of this mess." Ruby said with a deep sigh.
Neo sighed as she typed, 'I think we all need some therapy after this before we even think about tossing blame.'
Ruby smiled at that and hugged Neo from behind the seat. Soon Weiss and Blake joined in the best they could. Yang added her right hand to Neo's shoulder as they drove off down the road, hopefully to safety. After a hour however, a thought reared its ugly head.
"What are we going to do for sleeping arrangements? Neo got abducted from a hotel." Weiss asked.
Neo shrugged as she typed, 'camping in a storm drain?'
"You know what? Screw it. I'm game." Yang stated in frustration.