Author's Note: Note about upload schedule at the bottom.
The new Diner wasn't anything special really, out in vale there would be countless just like it, but to the student body of Beacon it may as well have been the next wonder of the world. The surprisingly spacious restaurant was packed from wall to wall with students, something that was all the more surprising considering most had yet to return from their break. Thankfully, Coco had thought ahead and called for a table. The looks they received as they skipped the line were surprisingly amusing, considering it was only a dinner.
The hype would die down before too long, those at Beacon finding something else to focus on after they returned. In her time it had been the food fight, and she couldn't help but wonder if that would happen again. It had been a crazy thing to happen once, she honestly doubted it could happen again. Although, when Nora was involved, that kind of chaos wasn't exactly rare. She'd just have to wait and see, and maybe give Glynda a warning to have the cleaning staff ready for overtime that day.
"They make an excellent chicken alfredo." Pyrrha said, reading the menu for merely a second before setting it back down.
"Right," Coco sighed. "You've already been here, haven't you?"
Pyrrha chuckled and nodded softly. "Nora would drag us here every now and then when she got tired of the other 'pancake providers' on campus."
Coco blinked, looked down at the menu, then back up at her. "They don't serve pancakes."
"They will once Nora starts dining here." Pyrrha winced softly. "For their own survival."
"Noted." Coco nodded. "Think I'll try that alfredo then." Waving over the waitress, they placed their order; both settling for the same dish as in truth Pyrrha hadn't tired much else here.
She wasn't nearly as health driven now as she had been just a few weeks back, acknowledging Coco's words of her being able to eat for enjoyment rather than simply fuel for whatever exercise she was doing that day; that being said, she had never been one for excessively unhealthy food. Coco had ordered her a burger and milkshake when Team CFVY had first roped her into going out and, although she very much enjoyed it, she didn't plan on repeating that very often.
"Where are the others?" Pyrrha asked as the waitress finally stepped away. "I would have thought they'd want to come."
"They had some stuff to do." Coco shrugged. "Figured it could just be the two of us, you know?"
"What kind of stuff?" Pyrrha asked absentmindedly as the waitress returned with their drinks; water for herself and, predictably, coffee for her friend.
"Velvet had to pick up some mail from her father, something for Anesidora I think." Coco explained, cupping her mug in between her hands for a brief moment before she reached for the small rack of various ingredients on the table. Sugar and creamer, plenty enough to mask the entire taste of the coffee. "Yatsuhashi went with her, Fox is kicking about, no doubt trying to flirt with someone."
"Does that happen often?" Pyrrha couldn't help but ask. Fox, I mean. I haven't seen him try since I met him."
"That's because he already asked everyone who was at the school last year." Coco rolled her eyes. "Never panned out. Nothing dramatic really, a few did accept a date or two, it just wasn't meant to be." Coco shrugged. "It happens sometimes."
"So who's he got his eyes on this year?" Pyrrha realized her mistake the moment Coco's smile took on that familiar smirk. That look that said she was amused by something and that, if you didn't fix it right away, she was going to jump on it. "Who do you think he'll ask?"
Coco saw her flounder, that smirk and the gleam in her eyes made it clear, but she was in a gracious mood it seemed and she backed down. "No one you were close with, don't worry. I already warned him off of that potential drama."
The temptation was obvious, and after months spent with Coco, Pyrrha couldn't resist digging for more information; especially with how involved the team was with her own romantic endeavors. "Was he considering anyone specifically?"
"Xiao Long or that Belladonna chick that's been stalking you for the last couple days."
"What? Blake?" Pyrrha had to resist the urge to start looking around for her, only managing to do so by locking her eyes with Coco's. "And you're just now mentioning this?"
"I didn't say anything because I thought you knew." Coco folded her hands on the table awkwardly as Pyrrha fixed her with the most unimpressed look she could manage. "What? You're a Huntress and an Atlesian Specialist, not to mention you have to be used to the stalking fans by now. I thought you would have noticed. Besides, it didn't look like anything weird really, no stalking in the shadows or anything, just conveniently in the same place as you whenever we meet." She shrugged softly, seemingly diverting the blame entirely as she returned to her old self. "Besides, I didn't know for certain until we came here. No offense to her, but she doesn't exactly seem like the type to enjoy a lunch by herself in an overcrowded place like this."
Pyrrha crossed her arms indignantly. "Any clue what she wants?"
"You scroll number?" Coco squawked as Pyrrha tipped her water over onto her handbag. "Okay, sheesh, I'm sorry I didn't tell you about your stalker… ok, now that I say that out loud, I may be in the wrong here."
Pyrrha hummed softly, but didn't acknowledge it further. "Any guess as to what it might be about?"
Coco, though still glaring at her over her handbag, shook her head. "You'd know her better than I would. What's she usually like?"
What was Blake Belladonna usually like? That was a difficult question to answer, mostly because she could be so damn conflicting sometimes. It didn't help that Pyrrha and her had never been very close. In truth, the only people on Team RWBY she had been real friends with had been Ruby and Yang; the latter being more in the sense of competitors than outright friends.
That being said, she knew one thing about Blake. One thing that, admittedly, everyone in Beacon, and probably Remnant, could have figured out within the first month of knowing her.
"The White Fang." Pyrrha sighed.
"Oh, right. She used to be a member." Coco nodded, remembering what Pyrrha had probably mentioned about the girl in passing. "Is that an issue, I mean, you could probably just tell her to-"
Pyrrha sagged in her seat, her head crashing onto the table.
"Guessing she won't take no for an answer?" Coco asked. Pyrrha could only groan in response, although that was response enough it seemed. "Why's she so interested?"
"Because I'm the Huntress who took down the White Fang." Pyrrha rolled her eyes. "At least, that's how the media have presented it. She'll either want to know how, why, or if she can come along on another mission. When I tell her no, she'll try to follow along anyways."
"Ha." Coco laughed softly. "Sounds stubborn, not too different from a certain Huntress I know."
Pyrrha glared back at her. "I am not stubborn." Coco's smirk returned, driving her own glare into something that felt a lot more like a pout. "I'm… driven."
"And that's what we love about you." Coco patted her hand as one might a child they were comforting. "But for real, are you going to deal with it or let her just follow you around?"
"I can't approach her directly, or she'll panic." Pyrrha replied. "That kind of straightforward argument caused a lot of issues for the team she was on last year."
"Ah, and you don't want to make life difficult for Ren and Nora."
"Or Yang." Pyrrha defended herself. It wasn't all about her former teammates' benefit. "Blake's responses had a habit of being a bit… extreme." Pyrrha winced softly at the memories. Team discovers you're a Faunus and that you're a former terrorist? Run away without explanation to try and prove the group you fought for weren't actually terrorist. Find out they are? Should you go to the police or Headmaster with what you know so that they can investigate them easier? No, clearly the obvious solution was to go on a personal crusade that put your team in serious danger.
It was only after she noticed Coco's shocked expression that she realized she might have actually said it out loud.
"Wow." Coco was stunned, even if this had all been information she had known before, laying it out like that didn't paint Blake in the best of light. "Ok, so, is it a good idea to leave her to herself then? She won't like, plant a fake bomb in our room or anything, right?"
"No." Pyrrha dismissed the idea easily. "She's obsessed, not homicidal."
"That's… not as comforting as I was hoping."
Pyrrha shrugged softly, it was the truth. Yang had hit that nail on the head. "I don't know the specifics, but I know she was with the White Fang for a long time… and that it wasn't easy for her to leave."
"So we just ignore her?" Coco asked, earning a hesitant nod from her. "Kinda kills the mood, but all right."
"I'll make it up to you." Pyrrha smiled softly. "We can-"
Her scroll beeped, drawing both of their attention as it showed a number she didn't recognize. Coco smiled politely and nodded, doing her best to hide the fact that she was annoyed by the interruption.
With a silent apology for her friend, she answered the scroll; panicking a moment later before slamming the button to turn off the video portion of the call as she moved it to her ear.
"Am I supposed to be your bashful little secret now?" Roman Torchwick's voice taunted her from the other side of the call.
"What do you want?" Pyrrha asked coldly, causing Coco to sit up a bit more as she noticed the shift in tone.
"Believe me, if this were my choice, I wouldn't call you either." Roman replied. "But that dictator of yours is too busy to help valuable little me. Bastard." Her scroll beeped as a message came through. "Call him, he'll tell you the same. Meet me at those coordinates."
The call cut out as quickly as it had started, to both her relief and annoyance.
"What was that abo-" Coco was cut off once more, as another call came through Pyrrha's scroll; this time on a number she recognized.
"General Ironwood." Pyrrha nodded.
"Judging by the look on your face, he's already called you." Ironwood assumed correctly, though she didn't know if that meant he had just been on a call with Torchwick as well, or if it was simply that obvious from the expression on her face. The background behind the General was odd however, and despite her annoyance at the call prior to this one, she couldn't help but ask.
"Are you standing in a mop closet?"
General Ironwood, commander of all of Atlas' military and Headmaster of Atlas Academy, currently standing in a janitorial space used for storing cleaning supplies, nodded once at her accusation. "I was in a meeting with the Vale Council when he called. I had to move to a secure location before relaying anything information."
"So… mop closet?"
"Yes. Hence the mop closet." James winced softly, so subtly in fact that she nearly missed it. "I trust he has sent you the details?" Pyrrha looked at the message Torchiwck had sent her, an address and nothing else. Ironwood sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose before continuing. "It's an extraction operation. The address is the location of his last safe house, which is where you will meet him and his associate. You are then to take the two of them to my flagship and keep them under guard. Am I understood?"
"Yes sir." Pyrrha nodded.
"Winter and Qrow are unfortunately occupied at the moment, and Clover is securing your escape vector as we speak, but you are hereby authorized to take command of all available forces currently stationed at Beacon Academy." The General relayed the information as if it were routine, either ignorant of the fact he had never commanded someone before or, and far more likely, simply out of options. "Take whoever is available and go, the window for our operation is dangerously small."
"Understood, sir."
"Good luck, Specialist. Out." The call cut to black before he had even finished the word.
Pyrrha was on her feet a moment later, Coco stopping only long enough to throw some Lien on the table before following after her. She waited until they were far enough away from anyone else to ask for specifics. When she finally did, Pyrrha held nothing back.
"We're going with you." She already had her scroll in hand, but Pyrrha managed to stop her from calling anyone.
"Call Ozpin and requisition a Bullhead for Team CFVY." Pyrrha sent his number directly to her scroll just in case she didn't already have it. "I'll take Winter's men ahead and you guys can be on standby."
Coco nodded, breaking off as they went their separate directions. By the time she made it to the landing pad those who would be joining her were already in the process of loading up. By the time her locker arrived, they were ready to take off. In the span of only ten minutes, they had mobilized a team of some of Atlas' finest, secured transportation to the city, and were already in contact with Clover on Ironwood's flagship about where they would need to drop them off. Despite technically being in command, Pyrrha did little commanding. The soldiers knew what to do, what checks to make and how to prepare. She simply observed it all, waiting with bated breath as their Bullheads shot towards the city.
The flight couldn't have been longer than the time it took them to take off, and yet it felt like it. The Bullhead had laws it had to adhere to and, despite the emergency, they could only bend those so much. Speed still had to be held back somewhat or else they risked a mid air collision, not to mention that it was considered poor manners to break the sound barrier above an urban center. It did thankfully give her the time to go over the frankly massive information dump that had been sent to the on board terminal.
The majority of the information she couldn't make heads or tails of, as it went on and on with references to other documents and procedures. Thankfully, there were a few glimpses of information that did actually help. The address was to the older part of town, to a building that had once been home to the Vale Stock Exchange but had seen many different businesses over the years. Now it served as a hideout for Vale's most wanted; although there wasn't any mention of how Roman had come into ownership of it.
"Anything good in there Ma'am?" One of Winter's soldiers, Lieutenant Meadows as she recalled, asked.
"Mostly empty part of town, non residential area." Pyrrha relayed the summarized sections towards the top of the document.
"Minimal civilian presence." The Lieutenant nodded. "That's good, it means we can keep our birds circling above. Anything else?"
"Apparently the actual safe house is located underground, but that's all it says." Pyrrha kept looking for more, but there was little reference to it as the document instead broke down into rules of engagement and potential risks to local populations.
"Well, the mission was pretty last minute." Another soldier she recognized from the assault on Fort Malik said. After a couple minutes of thinking she managed to recall her name as Fairfire, thankfully her rank was emblazoned on the side of her uniform.
"Last minute reports are pretty much as useless as tits on a snake anyways."
"Thank you, Winters, for your insightful commentary." The Lieutenant spoke up, drawing the small fireteams attention onto himself. "Keep in mind where we are. This isn't Atlas, the locals aren't used to seeing this kind of response, so tread lightly, watch your six, and pick your targets carefully. At least until we are underground. Last thing we need is a stray round punching through a damn window and hitting something important, or worse, someone. If things go loud, Yu's running the back up team. We've also got a Huntsman team on standby."
"Isn't this supposed to be an extraction?" Pyrrha asked, looking back at the document. "If everything goes well, we don't need to shoot at anything."
"You'll catch on soon enough, Ma'am." Sergeant Fairfire said bitterly. "Shit never goes as planned."
"Landing in sixty!" The pilot called over the intercom.
"Get tactical!" Meadows called out, each soldier reaching for the helmets and weapons. It was only then that they weren't wearing standard Atlesian Gear. Their uniforms were gray, lightweight, laden with storage pouches for ammunition and dust grenades. Their weapons were similarly compact, a far cry from the heavy and bulky Atlesian Rifle or Machine Gun.
Their landing was rough, the Bullhead lurching heavily as the wheels slammed into the ground. When the door opened they were greeted by an empty parking lot and a large open space in between them and the building that they had to move to. Standing at the entrance was a man she didn't recognize dressed as if he were about to go out to a club or fancy dinner. She wasn't the only one to see him of course and, judging by the way the Lieutenant hesitated briefly, she wasn't the only one to think his presence was odd.
The team disembarked quickly however, their secondary Bullhead hovering only a few dozen feet above them as they moved over towards the building. The man greeted them as one might expect a nervous butler or doorman.
When they finally approached, she was able to see just how young the guy was. She had expected any associates of Torchwick to be of the older, more experienced variety, but this man could barely be called one. If anything, he looked shockingly close to her own age. "Boss is down below, said I'm supposed to take you there."
Pyrrha wanted to ask why he wasn't already up there waiting for them, but bit it back as Winter's team started moving after the man. The Bullhead that had dropped them off was now circling around the building in the direction they were heading as the other landed and let its own squad out. As they finally entered the building through what appeared to be an entrance to a parking garage, Pyrrha was met with a very unexpected sight. When she'd heard the term "safehouse" she had anticipated something a bit subtle as to blend in, but still fortified. What she did not expect was a colossal set of steel doors that would give even the most extravagant bank vault a run for their money.
The impressive security seemed entirely out of place, as did the small army of people rushing to and from trucks parked just outside that large door, carrying boxes of every kind of valuable, luxury, contraband, and stolen goods she could think of. Fine art, wine, cigars, Dust of all kinds, and of course the almighty Lien.
"If you drop that I swear on your mothers life, you will regret it!" She recognized that arrogant tone before she saw him. Roman Torchwick turned to regard them as the woman he had been yelling at scurried off. "About damn time! What, did you get caught in traffic? My boys could've made it here in half that time!" He waved his hand, wafting cigar smoke through the air as he shook his head. "It doesn't matter, we're just about done." He turned to step through the doors, drawing a pointed cough from the Lieutenant.
"Our mission is to extract you, nothing more."
"I'm not leaving all of this behind for some mangy homicidal mutt to destroy." Torchwick gestured towards a man carrying a small box of jewels that looked suspiciously familiar, as though she'd seen them in a museum before. "Do you have any idea how much some of this stuff is worth? There's a lot of stuff here that cannot be replaced with any amount of money, you know!"
Meadows rolled his eyes at the criminal mastermind. "It won't mean much if you die."
"That's why I've got you lot!" His voice took on a sarcastic tone as he smiled brightly. "Atlas themselves rolling out the red carpet just for me, how kind! Ten minutes, that's all I need, and then you can escort Neo and I to that eyesore your boss calls a flagship."
The Lieutenant scowled even more than he already had been. "Our orders are to take only you-"
"Neo comes." Torchwick said flatly. "That's not negotiable. It's that, or I take my chances on my own, and trust me, you'll want what I've got."
"And what is that exactly?" Pyrrha interrupted the Lieutenant before he could respond.
"A scroll with a certain little virus on it." Torchwick's cocky smile would have usually annoyed her, but just this once, it felt like it wasn't so much aimed at her, but rather their mutual enemy.
The realization nearly stole her breath away. "Cinder gave you a copy?"
"Original plan was to have me activate the virus at a date to be determined." Roman gestured vaguely upwards with both of his hands. "Said plan isn't exactly viable anymore, but I still have a copy of it. To my knowledge, the only copy."
Pyrrha glared at him, then turned towards the Lieutenant. "Can we make space for one more?"
Though he clearly wasn't happy about it, the man nodded. "Yes Ma'am."
"Good." Torchwick turned, stepping through the large doors into a chamber with another set of large doors. "Twenty minutes. That's all I need."
Pyrrha winced. He made it sound so simple, but given everything she had learned and been told, that was plenty of time for things to go wrong. Hopefully, just this once, things wouldn't take a turn for the worst.
Author's Note: This chapter might feel a bit shorter than normal, due to the fact it's one long segment, but it's actually a little longer then the standard upload for this story; sitting just shy of 4k. Could have been longer but I elected to save the good stuff for the next chapter to avoid bloat.
Also, an update on upload schedule. From here until mid December I'm gonna switch to every other week for upload. Then there will be no upload for two or so weeks while I go on leave. Then everything should be back to normal come mid January. I don't wanna completely stop because I don't like taking long breaks, but I do wanna slow down for a bit and relax. I'm sure you all understand.
Hope you enjoyed the chapter and as always don't forget to review.
Sincerely, SE