Before anything else, I own nothing but the original characters, and content therein related to them. RWBY is owned by RT, and any mentioned creator's work belongs to them, and them alone. Rest in peace Monty, your vision lives on in us all.
VOLUME 2
CHAPTER 1
With the passage of time, the school year drove on into it's second semester. The first years were enjoying a few weeks off, and both Clayton and Yang turned 18 over the break. Well technically nobody knew Clayton's real birthday, but July 4th was the day they celebrated it. At present they were crowding the cafeteria. Nora was tossing grapes to Yang who caught them with her mouth, while Ruby had taken the time to come up with a plan of activities for the last day of their break to bring their still on edge teams together. Per her and Pale's agreement, Blake had kept her ears uncovered, and though she seriously considered paying for his replacement prosthetic, she was assured it was "Just meant to sound badass."
Team SPGL as it happened was in the cafeteria like most other first years… When all Hell broke loose. "I'm queen of the castle I'm queen of the castle!" Nora shouted, from atop a pile of tables, after having flipped most of them in preperation for their food fight. Team JNPR was with her 100% and before them stood Team RWBY. Divided, was Team SPGL. Pale had chosen to side with JNPR, as Ruby had hit him in the face with a milk carton, an act which warranted retribution in the form of grapes slingshoted by an industrial strength rubber band. Halcyone as well stood atop the tower of tables, a day old foot long sausage acting as a replacement for her machete. With Team RWBY stood the two known faunus of SPGL. Clayton had pledged his fidelity to his reaping mistress, and pounded his chest, carrying a fully cooked pig leg as a weapon. Siniy had no real stake in the fight, however he had been bribed by Weiss with promises of corn dogs for his loyalty.
Clayton propped his foot up on the nearest table, cocked his tricorn to the side, and smeared strawberry jelly across his face, as he looked upon his reaping mistress's warriors. "Run and you'll live — at least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!" Clayton yelled, turning and leading the charge down the cafeteria.
As you can imagine thing's got pretty wild. Nora sent Yang into the roof, Ren got knocked down, Jaune was "team-tagged" by Pale, who shrugged, before being tossed into a vending machine by Siniy. Said vending machine became Siniy's primary weapon, ejecting soda cans as a high volume of fire, all while protecting Weiss, his mage who kept the accursed machine operating with her endless pockets of magic… Money.
But when Weiss split away as the machine ran dry, Weiss found herself to be no match for Nora's brute strength and was actually knocked unconscious. Siniy rushed to her aid, making sure the table that had been sent flying into the air didn't crush her while she didn't have her aura up. Breaking the piece of oak furniture in two, Siniy scooped up Weiss, and carried her to a few upturned tables on the sideline, where Halcyone was flinging eggs from. The two enemies gave each other a mutual nod, and hunkered down. "This is getting out of hand." Siniy said, only for Jaune to be struck in the balls by a flung tray table.
"Great, now there's two injured people." Halcyone said.
"Truce?" Siniy offered.
"Better idea. We take control." Halcyone said, as Pale slid behind cover with them.
"Ruby's throwing broken dishes like ninja stars now, we should probably call it quits." He said.
"No. We are ending this." Siniy said.
Pale nodded. "Right… How?" He asked. Siniy smiled.
Clayton was approached by Siniy who was carrying Pale over his shoulder. "I've brought a prisoner." Siniy said, placing Pale on the ground.
Across the cafeteria, Halcyone dragged Weiss to Queen Nora's feet. "I have brought us the spoils of war."
Both leaders smirked, and in a flash Siniy and Halcyone struck true, their corn dogs smearing ketchup on the uniforms of both Nora and Clayton. "Et tu, Siniy? Then fall Sanguis." Clayton said, falling down. As Nora clutched at her fake injury, tumbling off the edge of the tower she'd built.
With the war brought to an end by internal forces from both sides, the battle-scarred nations were not prepared to be invaded by a third party. Glynda Goodwitch burst through the cafeteria doors, and stomped about a quarter of the way inside, before she began rearranging the entire room with her telekinesis. She was livid, absolutely fuming with rage… Then she pushed up her glasses, and gave a gentle scolding. "Children please… Do not play with your food."
Yang finally fell out of the ceiling, and in the most undignified way possible came crashing down on top of one of her friends. Said friend happened to be Halcyone. Though she'd put her pants wearing friend through the table, Halcyone didn't seem too hurt by the impact. "Sorry about that." Yang said, as she got up… That was weird, Yang could have sworn Halcyone giggled at being nearly crushed.
Across the kingdom and several hours later. Roman stood in front of his improvised desk. The Fang had been diligently sourcing every bit of dust from every corner of Vale they could, and in one case, the majority of what filled the room in fact, sourced beyond it. The dock heist failure was a setback, but being patient and calling out to friends had more than made up for it. He was sitting on more dust than he knew what to do with. Turning around he saw his employer's underlings. "Oh look, she brought the kids again." Roman said, before walking behind them and hugging their shoulders in mock affection. "This is turning out just like the divorce." He said with an eye roll.
"Spare us the thought of you procreating." The mint haired girl of 17 said.
"That was a joke…" Roman said, holding up the note he'd taken out of her pocket. "And this just might tell me where you two have been all day." Roman said with a smirk, as the little thief patted herself down.
"How did you do that?" She asked.
"Oh Emerald you have so much to learn." Roman thought. "I'm a professional sweetheart… Now why do you have this address?" He asked. Before tossing the card over his shoulder.
"Wouldn't you like to know." Emerald said.
Roman exhaled through his nose. "Yeah I would actually. You two have been gone all day doing what exactly?"
The silver haired boy got in his face. "Cleaning up your problems."
Roman again exhaled through his nose. "Of course, Mercury went and killed his messenger… Now every ex member of the Fang in Vale's going to be on the run or tattling on us." He thought. "I had that under control." Roman said, restraining his anger.
"Two packed bags and an airship ticket to Vacuo says otherwise." Mercury said with a smirk.
Roman clenched his hand around his cane. "Listen you little punk, that runaway was more valuable to us alive than dead. Now if you two do-" Roman started before his employer spoke from the catwalk above.
"Do what, Roman?" Cinder asked, descending from the platform on a freight elevator. Roman held his breath for a second. "Didn't I tell you to take care of the runaway?" Cinder asked.
"I did. Just not in the traditional way. I made a deal. He could run, but in return he had to deliver a package to an associate of mine in Vacuo. The one that made half of this endeavor possible. He was going to be killed the minute the package was delivered… Your kids ruined that however, and now our operation may very well be in jeopardy." Roman said.
Cinder rounded on her underlings. "Was there a bag of cash in his belongings?"
"It… Yes ma'am." Emerald said sheepishly.
"In either case I did specifically order you to keep your hands clean while you were in Vale." Cinder said before turning back to Roman. "You convinced a man to deliver the payment for his own execution?" Cinder asked. "Clever boy."
From the roll down door behind them a new voice spoke up. A deep raspy voice. "And when the package failed to arrive I began having my doubts about this entire ordeal." Everyone looked over, and sure enough a skull masked man stood in the door, his hat dipped low.
"Ah, Black. I wasn't expecting you." Roman said with a smile.
"Nobody ever does… I see you're putting the dust I started allowing in from Vacuo to good use." Black said, coming into the warehouse, his spurs rattling as he walked.
Cinder grew furious. "You let an outsider into our base of operations?" Cinder asked, conjuring a fireball. Black stopped walking, and looked at Roman.
"Aww, and you didn't tell them I was invited to the family reunion?" Black asked, continuing on as Cinder tossed the fireball at Black, only for him to blink out of existence from where he stood, and reappear directly behind everyone, existing in one place then the next. "I wouldn't recommend doing that." Black said, as he took a seat on a dust crate.
"Roman, who is this?" Cinder asked.
"He is my associate from Vacuo." Roman said, tipping his at at his friend.
"Black Rattler." Black said, holding out a hand for Cinder to shake. She cringed at his gesture, then felt a hand on her shoulder. Cinder's vision darted to the corner of her eyes as she started turning around, finding Black to have appeared behind her. "Awfully rude not to accept a shake in greeting." Black said, as she backed up a pace and looked at him, then back at the dust crate he was on, finding him to be sitting on it again, his hand still outstretched. Looking back over her shoulder, she found he was gone from where he stood. Turning back to the dust crate she saw he was still there.
"Emerald, what did you just see?" Cinder asked, trying to decipher what was going on.
"He… Just stopped existing from every place you stopped looking at him." Emerald said, also confused by what she saw.
"But his hand was on my shoulder when he was on the crate." Cinder said in confusion.
"It's his semblance, sweetheart." Roman said, with a smug grin.
"Don't think about it too hard, it tends to hurt the mind." Black said, as he stood up.
Cinder huffed. "In any case, Roman why have you let this unknown person in on our operation?" She asked.
Roman shook his head, before gesturing to all the dust containers in the room. "Black is the only reason we even have as much dust as we do. I figured it was time he knew the resources he's been contributing were doing jack, and shit, in a warehouse for two weeks." Roman said.
"That was not your decision to make." Cinder said through clenched teeth.
"It became my decision when our opposition stepped up their game, and brought a furry walking tank onto the field." Roman said. "Speaking of which. If you wouldn't mind cuing me in on your grand master plan, it might make my next string of robberies go a little smoother." Roman shot back at Cinder.
"Oh Roman, you'll know what you need, when you need to know." Cinder said, stepping closer, and warming his face with a gentle caress from the back of her hand. Roman remained stoic. Her fire was nothing compared to the heatwave he'd experienced fighting that white haired abomination. "Besides, we're done with dust… Have the White Fang prepared to move everything. I'll send you coordinates and details later… The plan's preceding to phase two." Cinder said, walking away with her underlings.
Roman went to retrieve the vape pen he'd switched to after the fight at the docks, only to feel it was missing from his pocket. Emerald smirked to herself digging into her pocket and holding up Roman's vape, only for it to feel absent from her fingers. The moment her hand slipped out of the fabric it disappeared. Looking over to Roman and Black, she saw the masked man holding the e-cigarette in his hands. An almost inaudible chuckle escaped from Black's mask. When Emerald blinked, the vape pen was in Roman's hands, and Black was gone.