Interlude
Vale, Sanus. Years Ago.
"GO, GO, GO!" Neo Politan shouted as she and Roman jumped into the van with two sacks full of dust. Their newest partners - Jerome Grey and Kyle Azul - fired at the huntsmen pursuing them while the driver floored the gas pedal. Chasing after them was Taiyang Xiao Long and Qrow Branwen, both of whom had been called away from their new teaching jobs at Signal Academy.
Just then, the thieves' tire blew out, forcing them to pull over. "Aw, shit!" Roman cursed as he kicked the back door to the van open. Luckily, he spotted two more cars parked on the curb. Acting quickly, he and Jerome broke into the vehicles and successfully hotwired both just as the huntsmen duo were closing in on them. Roman pushed Neo into the passenger seat and pointed to Kyle and Jerome. "You two! Take the dust back to the hideout and lay low! Neo and I will get those punks off our trail!"
With that, the thieves split up. As hoped, Taiyang and Qrow were now following Roman and Neo in their own pursuit vehicle. "Any ideas, love?" Roman turned to face his longtime partner in crime. "I'm open to suggestions."
Neo gained a cheshire grin as the gears in her mind started turning. "Just get around this corner and follow my lead!" She ordered. Moments later, Taiyang and Qrow rounded the bend, only to find that the car they were chasing after had vanished.
"Where'd they go?" Taiyang gawked. Suddenly, red and blue lights flashed from behind them, accompanied by a shrill siren. "Oh, great! How fast were you going?!"
"I don't know!" Qrow grumbled, bitterly. "There are no speed limits in a car chase!"
The huntsmen pulled over, unaware that they were about to be duped. Neo used her semblance to disguise herself and Roman as police officers as they approached the vehicle that they had been trying to avoid. "License and registration, please." Neo ordered.
"Is there a problem, officer?" Qrow asked just before Roman took a picture of the duo with his scroll.
"You two match the description of these men." He stated, showing them the picture.
"That's us!" Taiyang gasped.
"So, that's a positive I.D." Neo pretended to write something down in her notebook.
"And when did you last see yourselves?" Roman pressured.
"We're right here!" Taiyang spluttered.
"And when was that?" Neo squinted, suspiciously.
"Just now!" Qrow replied.
"So you couldn't have gotten far. Wait here while we run this." Roman and Neo returned to their vehicle, leaving the huntsman confused. Once they were out of sight, the partners in crime burst out laughing as they sped towards the docks.
A few hours later, Roman was counting the money and dividing up the shares while Jerome and Kyle sorted the stolen dust. Once the crooks finished their job, Neo returned from disposing of the getaway cars. "Keep up the good work, boys." She smirked.
"How come your boss always gives us the dirty work?" Kyle grumbled.
"Excuse me?"
"I said how come your boss always-?" Kyle was cut off by a parasol to the gut.
"Let's get something straight; I don't have a boss. Okay?" Neo sneered, coldly. "There's not a man on this planet who tells me what to do. Mr. Torchwick and I are partners. And don't you forget it." With that, the petite young woman sauntered over to her partner and sat in his lap. "Hey~"
"Just a minute, dear." Roman smirked as he finished counting. "... split four ways, minus the equipment cost, and adding your little bonus for a job well done, that gives you a total payday of four hundred thousand, six hundred and fifty-three lien." The crime lord chuckled as Neo graciously accepted the stack of bills. "Yeah, tuck that into your brassiere, ice cream girl."
Neo ignored the sour looks from Jerome and Kyle as she snuggled closer to her oldest friend. "You know, Roman, I get the feeling the thugs are envious about my bonuses."
"Well, when they do what you've done for me, they can get the same rewards." Their eyes closed as they leaned towards each other for a kiss…
… only to be interrupted by Roman's scroll vibrating on the nearby nightstand.
"I say we let it go to voicemail." Neo hissed.
"Sorry, my dear." Roman sighed, apologetically, as he lifted the scroll to answer. "It's her."
"Mr. Torchwick?" Dr. Watts beckoned over the other end of the call.
"Speaking." Roman replied in affirmative.
"Mistress Salem will be with you in a moment. Please hold."
"Ugh." Roman groaned; he hated waiting for anyone. Reluctantly, he prompted Neo to get up so that he could take his call outside. Neo was now left alone to count her money, herself…
… while Jerome and Kyle slowly approached her.
Meanwhile, outside the warehouse, Roman Torchwick paced back and forth on the docks, waiting for the nigh-almighty witch to address him. At last, Salem's voice came. "Torchwick?"
"Yes, ma'am." Roman replied with his usual charming tone. "Always a pleasure to serve the mighty, and elegant-"
"I am sending you to Menagerie, Torchwick." Salem interrupted.
"Menagerie?" Roman echoed, confused. "As in, the Faunus sanctuary? Alright, you're the boss, but if you don't mind me asking, what do you want me to steal?"
"You're not stealing anything, Torchwick. All you have to do is drive the inhabitants off that island." Salem explained. "There's… something on the island that I've been searching for. Do this for me, and I will reward you, handsomely."
"Well, I certainly like handsome rewards." Roman replied. "But getting rid of an entire island's worth of people… that's gonna take a while, even for Neo and myself."
"Which is why you will be working with a partner." Salem clarified. "Someone who has been to Menagerie before, and knows exactly how to get rid of everyone on that island. He should be with you, shortly. Best of luck, Mr. Torchwick."
Roman simply groaned as he hung up. "Ugh, creepy little witch."
"You're lucky I don't plan on telling her you said that."
Roman blinked as a goat Faunus, wearing a mask and a sword at his waist, entered the room. "I know she said she'd send someone over, but I didn't think she meant you'd be here now."
"Yeah, she's fickle like that," the Faunus agreed, looking him over as he did. "So, you're Roman Torchwick."
"At your service." The legendary thief said with a mock bow. "And you would be?"
"Call me Adam Taurus. Long story short, I was requested by a third party - who for now shall remain anonymous - to divert some of my resources in your direction." the newly named Adam Taurus declared. "But upon closer inspection, I find that, as much as I hate to admit it, you and I need each other, even without the unwelcome intervention."
"Wait, back up, care to explain why you wish to work with me and my crew when, by your own admission, you don't even like any of us?" Roman couldn't help but ask.
"You mean besides how, like I just said, I've been… coerced into doing so by our soon to be mutual employer?" Adam remarked. "It's quite simple, really. You have something I want: access to classified information that will prove useful in future endeavors. And as luck should have it, I have something that would prove very useful to you, aside from basic combat skills that is: the ability to do reconiconsonce that you could only dream of achieving, and what I can't do, I happen know several people who can, all of whom deliver their information to me personally. For instance, I happen to know that two of your men are in the process of brutalizing your little lady friend even as we speak."
"Wait, what?!"
Adam couldn't help but blink in surprise; he had not known a normal human was capable of moving that fast. Roman sprinted back into the warehouse just in time to see Jerome holding a blood-soaked knife over a bruised and bloody Neo. Enraged, Roman used his weaponized cane to blow them off of her. Unfortunately for the treasonous crooks, they had never learned how to utilize their aura; Kyle lost an arm while Jerome lost a leg. "Faunus! Make yourself useful and keep Neo alive!" Roman ordered as he approached the screaming traitors. While keeping pressure on the woman's wound, Adam curiously observed his new partner torturing the other thieves.
"You have three seconds to explain yourselves!" Roman snarled.
"T-Torchwick, it's not what you think!" Jerome whimpered. "Th-that little bitch was gonna betray us! And we stopped her!"
"Excuse me?"
"Yeah, boss! Honest!" Jerome went on. "We overheard her talking to herself after you left! She's been planning this for months! She was gonna call the cops, kill us all, take the money and dust, and pin it all on us! But me and Kyle stopped her!"
"Okay…" Roman breathed as calmly as he could manage, but the rage in his eyes was still present. "Let me repeat what you just said, to make sure that I understand correctly. You're saying Miss Politan over here, whom I've known for many years, was planning to kill all of us, steal the dust, and get away before the police showed up? And not only did you two somehow manage to overpower her - which I find highly unlikely - but you also conveniently cut her throat in a way that she couldn't deny your claim. That's your side of the story?"
"I swear to you on my dead mother's grave!" Jerome whimpered, desperately trying to stop his bleeding. "That's what happened, boss! That bitch is the traitor! Not us!"
Roman sneered as his grip on the cane grew tighter. "The woman you just mutilated escaped from prison, recently." He remarked, aiming the barrel of his cane at his would-be mutineers. "And not just any prison; Cordovin's Prison in Atlas. You ever heard the stories about that place? They're sweet and innocent fairy tales compared to what really happens in there. Neo was unfortunate enough to be caught during a heist in Atlas a few years ago and we were forced to leave her behind. But lucky for her, Cordovin's superiors had been after me, instead, and they offered her a deal. All she had to do was say my name, and she would've walked away scot free. But no. She kept her mouth shut and spent two years suffering in silence in that prison to keep my operation safe until I broke her out. So you really expect me to believe that after going through all that for me… now that I'm finally rewarding her for her loyalty… SHE'S JUST GONNA DECIDE OUT OF THE FUCKING BLUE TO RIP ME OFF?!"
Jerome and Kyle trembled under the weight of Roman's fury. Neither of the crooks said a word, realizing that there was nothing they could say that would let them leave the warehouse alive. Neo, while still in pain from her bleeding throat, couldn't help but smile. Roman, however, was not satisfied by the cowards' silence. "Now, why don't you cut the bullshit… and tell us what really happened?"
"Why bother?" Adam snorted as he finished patching Neo's wound. "It'd just be more lies."
Roman simply nodded in agreement. "I'll make a deal with you… Adam, was it? Make these two punks suffer and the first job we do together, 'mutual boss' or not, will be free of charge."
Adam merely gave a dark chuckle as he allowed Roman to take his place in looking after the now mute girl. "With pleasure."
Needless to say, Neo was glad that Roman covered her eyes: she wasn't sure she wanted to see what the Bull Faunus had done, given the screams she heard.
Now, Menagerie
"Been a while since I've seen you." Roman declared as he approached his fellow troublemaker, holding out a hand as he did.
"Indeed it has." Adam remarked as he accepted the handshake. "After all, not counting the Battle of Beacon - where our respective men were off doing their own thing, so I really don't - it's been what? Three years since we've seen each other? How is Neo recovering from her ordeal, by the way?""
"She's doing alright." The "Gentleman Thief" said with a nod. "Making leaps and bounds in learning sign language, though I'm surprised you care, seeing how I don't recall you liking humans all that much."
"That doesn't mean that I can't sympathize with her," Adam answered with a shrug, a hand reaching for his left eye. "Being permanently scarred like that while not being able to fight back...I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy."
"That reminds me: you've heard the latest news?" Roman asked with a raised eyebrow. "Seems that your ex has been busy: helped Little Red and her friends take down Jacques Schnee."
"Really now?" Adam declared with a bitter chuckle. "That is interesting."
"But it may be trouble for us." Roman reasoned. "Now that they've been absolved of their 'crimes,' we have fewer options available to us."
"True, very true," Adam said with a nod, "but it doesn't mean we're out of options. In fact, I happen to have an idea that just might be able to work."
Sometime later, a tall, black-haired panther Faunus found himself frowning at the newcomer who appeared before him, unable to shake the feeling that he might have seen him somewhere before, but keeping his curiosity to himself for the moment. "So what was it you wanted to talk to me about, Mr…?"
"Why, hello, Mr. Belladonna." Adam struggled against his urge to smirk. "My name is Toro. And I'm here to help the New Republic defend the government of Menagerie."
Meanwhile, on the other side of the island, General Leo Lionheart greeted his advisors. "Mr. Torchwick! Ms. Politan! Thank you so much for coming! Those rebels are up to no good again! Please, tell me you have a plan?"
"Oh, don't worry, general." Roman shared a smirk with his partner. "We have a few ideas."
To Be Continued
