FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

internal rage boiling*

hey guys, I lost 700 FUCKING PAGES of my story I was editing for the upcoming chapters but I lost it all so I'll have to take longer typing out and ENTIRELY new story from now on but this story will continue as scheduled but it'll take me longer now that I have to come up with new whole ideas

FUCK MY LIFE AND THIS BAD LUCK CHARM STREAK

two hours later Vale city docks*

"HOW THE HELL DID YOU LOSE HIM!"

A woman in casual wear screamed slamming her fists on the table accidentally melting through a layer or two and melting everything from the sand weights for the plans, the plans, loose plastic and burning papers all around her hands.

Seeing that much heat, roman sweat bullets under a calm and Stoic façade he was all too familiar with using to force himself not to shit bricks.

Roman was a great many things, a master thief? No doubt about it. Was he a talented fighter? You bet your ass he is. Was he a coward that would blindly follow this pyro manic bitch?…well, no but also yes, he was not in any sense of the word a coward, but it was abundantly clear to her that he had no choice, he had to work for her and a show of power from her to keep not one but two groups at her beckoned call.

Roman had decided to delay his response to her idiotic question to check on a sickly girl with pink and brown hair and matching eyes sleeping soundly, brushing hair away from her face he said, "he's not a threat cinder, he's just an oddity that you want under your thumb and in the all honesty" he paused to put a fresh cold wet rag on the girls head and tucked her in.

Normalcy was nonexistent with Roman's life for as long as he was alive, so when he was, he'd been protective of it to the point of looking possessive and more aggressive than need be.

"Stealing dust crystals, babysitting your….not too little pet teenagers, and hunting not eight but now nine children in one of the most heavily guarded areas aside from military bases, is kind of hard to do since even your people can't get in." turning his back to her to finish tending to the girl

"So either do all this yourself or shut your mouth and just stop bitching, cause I'm at the point where I don't care if I die but if you-" she cut his ranting off with a punch to the mouth and glared at him. "Do as I ask and your-" she stopped and looked around with a cocky smile and chuckled, "life can go back to what it once was"

"and you should remember that I'm not a fool cinder, I'm a dead man walking either way; Neo is all I care about, so forgive the circumstances if I don't care if you threaten me with something I'm already familiar with"

Roman stood up and nodded while walking over to a crudely built kitchen he whipped up in the warehouse and started prepping before cooking, as to prolong the conversation by shifting his gaze toward ember's two little minions.

"You two should follow your master, so I can cook in peace" he said, not taking his attention off his knife work.

"I don't think so Roman" she said opening the warehouse door "I need some alone time on this job, so these two are staying here, so I can ensure you don't scurry off, plus I'm sure you are capable of cooking for two more people"

Mercury sighed when he practically heard Emerald cry internally by the sad eyes she gave cinder. It's something that he actually found quite amusing, considering emerald's track record of kissing her ass and pretty much worshiping the ground she walked on.

Roman didn't spare a thought towards them when she left, so he just kept preparing a meal for two, but he wasn't lying if he'd said he pitied the two, yes he was a smart ass and a master thief, but he was still human and technically had the money to help them but in this world, it's a dog-eat-dog world. In the world of criminals and gangsters alike, you only trusted yourself.

"Look, Roman, we've got the money to buy food ourselves so-"

"Wasn't going to feed you vultures anyhow. Just don't kill anyone while you're getting whatever you need" he said, interrupting her brushing vegetables into a pot and turned on the flames to start cooking it.

To Mercury, it sounded genuine and uncharacteristically clear that he cared for them but was hiding it by being harsh on them, not like cinder one bit, but to Emerald, Roman was blatantly disregarding what cinder told him to do, and it made her angry.

'Why is she surprised by this anyway' mercury thought with a groan.

"Yeah, whatever old man, your cooking sucks anyway" she said before waking outside with mercury to hunt down a place to eat

Roman sighed before pressing a button on the counter next to the makeshift sink, activating a few security blast shutters over the glass portion of the warehouse that was his home.

"Don't worry Neo, I'll never leave you alone" he muttered with a sigh.

Both of them knew nothing about this new guy when cinder showed a picture of him on the internet killing a few platoons of atlesian knights with more lightning than what was usually possible for dust users and now that they need to learn about him, it got more stressful considering he just now turned up two years after the attack they orchestrated in vale's city center.

On the other hand, Mercury liked being told he didn't have to stay in there. After he and Emerald left the warehouse-turned-home, they both wandered through the city hunting down a place to grab their food and go back, but that thought was quickly tossed out the window when they spotted both teams RWBY and JNPR in a park.

Ren and jaune were setting up tables with Weiss and yang while Pyrrha and Ruby were cooking but unfortunately nora was left with Blake both of whom were busy with drinks, the former talking up a storm while the latter was building a pyramid of cups with a jug of water containing diced watermelon, blueberries, lemons, and some ginger root slices, all were floating in the top of the jug. Which is why the spigot was faced downward over the pyramid of cups. "Well they certainly aren't taking last year seriously, considering the damage the city suffered from last time they were out in public" Emerald said walking toward a fast food place with Mercury in tow, who whipped to the side and growled,

"you obviously need to stop trying so damn hard to mirror cinder" he said, pushing past her through the door. "it's annoying the hell outta me"

Emerald was caught somewhat off guard at his behavior toward her but remained quiet when she remembered that his life was far, far worse than hers was.

"We're supposed to be tearing beacon down two weeks from now but instead cinder wants to stretch the time-out because of this Cole guy, and his potential to the coming war on ozpin and his allies- it doesn't make any sense, Cole is a nobody." Emerald said, but was shut up by a harsh smack to the back of her head courtesy of mercury. This much blatant disregard of secrecy was really not the best for her well-being if she knew what was good for her.

"Why don't you just tell the whole damn world about the white fang's plans too, ooh how's about you tell em about Salem while you're at it dumbass" he angrily whispered.

"im just sayin….besides I'm willing to bet cinder is going to get rid of us the moment Cole is on our side, so I think-" she yet again was cut short when Mercury hit her in the head with a ball of paper and said "think about nothing except the 38 lien you owe me for dinner"

"Hit me again and ill throw your pale white ass through the ceiling" she replied angrily.

"Says the girl who lost a fight to jaune arc nine times in a row a few months ago" me said taking a bite of his food with a smile on his face.

She scowled at him and growled as she began eating herself and in her opinion Mercury chose some good dinner since she wasn't exactly paying attention to anything else outside of world ending plans, finally getting what she wants, and pleasing cinder.

But after they got her the maiden's powers, she just seemed to want more (that genuinely looked tame when cinder was controlling it compared to the brunette they killed in the wilds)

"You gonna order, or am I choosing that for you too?" Mercury asked boredly staring at her drinking his soda.

"Oh sorry, I'll try the raspberry parfait and a chicken salad" Emerald said, clearly embarrassed by her thoughts.

When the waitress left, Mercury looked at her and sighed, "just so you know…"

"What?"

"If you seriously still believe cinder cares about you then you're dumber than a white girl with blonde hair" somewhere at the park a certain blonde bombshell let loose one of the loudest most powerful sneezes in her life causing her to knock over the pyramid of cups spilling out the water. Everyone laughed at her as Ren shook his head and put a new jug next to the half empty one with kiwis, cherries, strawberries, cantelop and oranges.

Emerald stared at him with shock and disbelief, not realizing he had just said that and yet, it was abundantly clear that he had said it and cared very little if at all for how hurt she'd been by those words. Desperation drawn across her face is all it took for people to look at her with pity and made her uncomfortable before glaring at Mercury with threats in the future.

Midnight at an undisclosed location*

The city was as asleep as it could get so cinder decided to fill her time waiting on news of her latest meet up was busy making phone calls and putting their plans in action but was a bit disappointed to learn that the white fang leader weren't responding to her calls or texts…well Adam's branch of the white fang ignored her.

"This is single-handedly the most annoying day I've ever had" she sneered at the missed call icons that had a glaring red 47 next to it.

First Roman loses a dozen of her men in a botched dust robbery at a refinery run by the SDC, the ENTIRE kingdom went on an all out search of them for half a year, and now she's barely getting word that ozpin had found a kid with the ability to use a semblance without an aura, but when she came back to discover that she now would have to deal with a mysterious girl showing up in 'her' warehouse sick as a dog, dirty from gods only knew, smelled as bad as hot garbage and looked just as young as Ruby give or take a year or two.

Her thought process was interrupted when a white fang member with dog ears ran up to her, "cinder, I have bad news" he said sweating bullets and shook with fear.

She let out a low growl and turned to the Faunas and said, "what is it, mutt"

"uh- um….uhh, well first of all w-we lost ah-a few shipping con-conainers last night, and…uh almost 3/4ths of our forces have resigned from their position under you uhm also Adam is-"

Red and orange flashed around him all around their spot so all he could've let out was a strangled choking sound as pain and burning filled his throat and spread to his head turning it to scorched bone, dropping him to the ground twitching and smoldering.

"If I continue losing more of my forces I am going to burn everything to the god-damned ground!" she said angrily walking towards the car and told the driver to get her back to the warehouses.

Although her temper was prone to flare, it had its moments where she felt she was capable of leveling the entire kingdom of Vale, but unfortunately, she needed to keep it together and stay calm for when she talked to Roman about what she had planned next.

Cinder inwardly groaned when she saw him basically leave her behind to walk to the warehouses and while she'd be elated to walk, today just wasn't a day she felt was going her way and that needed to change.

While she thought of ways to make this day go exactly how she wanted but nothing was seemingly good or would work since Roman, Adam and now this kid Cole whom was the most unpredictable person she'd ever seen.

What surprised her was that the only other time she'd heard of him was a week after the failed breach happened Adam elaborated on a flash of fiery orange-gold lightning to dissolve several Grimm and, by his account, swore his skin was deathly pale, his hair was white and disheveled but long enough to reach his lower back. His clothes were torn and soaked in sweat, with mysterious stains all over his shirt and pants. At the time he was just some guy; he wasn't anything special, so she had ordered mercury and Emerald to leave him alone, and since then, she hadn't seen him…that is until a few days ago a kid with his description popped back up in ozpin's systems but not his full name.

By the time she got back to the warehouse, it was nearly nighttime and practically itching to blow up something. This new piece in her meticulous game of chess with ozpin had thoroughly changed her whole series of plans and tossed her already complex plans in a sack and shook it like a hornet's nest then set them on fire, entering the smaller door concealed behind a fridge near the back end of the warehouse cinder saw that everyone was asleep or would be if not for the bi-colored girl puking in a can and Roman being roman he was making a more earthy and rich stew.

"You're back a lot later than usual" Roman said from his makeshift kitchen stove, which in hindsight was a bad move on her part in thinking he'd be asleep.

"I could say the same to you" she replied, hiding her embarrassment with her hair in her face.

Roman smirked to himself as he made three bowls ready and said nothing since all her frustration was most likely coming from losing more cannon fodder, her hunger, or her tiredness from walking around all afternoon or something along those lines it all seemed to be getting to her.

"Long day or is it something you might kill me if you tell me?" he asked, handing her a bowl of food that kind of resembled a type of meat stew that smelled quite nice. Taking a cautious sip of the broth, she involuntarily sighed.

"Sorry, I'm just being polite, I don't actually care kno-"

"it doesn't matter, we lost the white fangs support and junior doesn't have any capable men or women to do what we need them for, and now I have a bigger problem now that-"

"Cinder, for once would you just listen to someone when they say they don't actually care?!" Roman angrily hissed in a whisper, walking from where the bicolored girl sat happily eating her food in her crudely built bed.

As quickly as possible he grabbed her by her shoulders and brought her near the doors away from their conversation, and realizing what he did he let her go and sighed "look Cindy, I just got the good news that her fever broke, and I filled four containers of food, water, dust -raw and purified- and medical supplies today. I've even gotten word that we gained a few new mercenaries, so good they can hide in plain sight, take out whole cities without anyone knowing; didn't get any names and I didn't ask, but they did give me half a million lien…" while he kept talking his voice began to fade out when she lost herself in her head.

She wasn't sure if what she heard was true, but it was mind-boggling to believe that despite losing thousands she gained what potentially were more valuable than what they paid for, but it sounded more like they were hired help instead of the other way around which sounded -in her opinion- like she no longer had control over everything she worked for and THIS is what she got after months upon months of planning: replaced by someone else.

"Now if you'll excuse me I need to make a call, just let me know if you still need me or something".

Watching him walk away without so much as a shred of fear, that he pretty much told her that she wasn't in charge of him or his operation anymore. She went from being responsible for two armies to overseeing two useless teens,

Roman hung up the phone and turned to let cinder know the good news, but froze when he saw her attitude had turned very sour. "H-hey cinder, we uh…got a job at beacon; our associates are prepping as we speak, so we should hurry" he said with a smiling façade that even she seemed to buy with the way her aura receding and fading out bit by bit. "Look I don't like this either but if you want this to go off the way you want it to, this needs more quality than quantity, and I know how it would make you feel, so I got you a gift" he said grabbing a box the size of a lamp shade and walked off to tend to Neo.

Opening the box, her lips curved upward into a smirk and muttered something to herself and walked into a shipping container with her name melted on the side of it.

"Did she like your little gift?" a voice asked from behind him

As soon as he heard the question, he whipped around pointing his cane at the person and stopped dead in his tracks "the hell are you doing here." he threw his arms out wide and slumped, "I thought you were at beacon?"

She giggled with a bowl of his stew in her hand and pushed the weapon away from her face "I told you before, I don't need to be there to get him out of that place; this is delicious by the way" Roman sighed realizing she wasn't a threat and sat down rubbing his face before turning to his food to think about his side plan in case the shit hit the fan.

"Look kit, I have a plan you helped cook up, a girl I have to take care of, a house to prepare and a boss to ditch, so I'm in no mood for this right now"

The woman chuckled and walked out flaunting her tails walking out the back door wearing a pair of boots, black and white pants and a brown shirt with a pair of pistol hatchets on her waist with four clips to each hatchet.

"Are you alright, Roman?" Emerald asked, taking a bite of a sandwich.

He gave her a quizzical look turning to finish his meal and thought to himself 'I need to ditch them before they get me killed' but before he could stand up to take care of the dirty dishes the girl threw a stack of lien at him with a note taped to it that read: take care of your end and Neo lives with both eyes intact.

His eyes went wide with dread as he told Neo, "go pack up anything you cannot dispense with and make sure to keep it as light as possible"

She smiled and hugged him before doing as asked while he hurriedly grabbed a ring of keys and piled as much lien, dust crystals, and food as he could in a nearby truck.

"Hey Bryce, so uhm… I need you and your crew to rig a series of untraceable explosives all over every container not marked with my crest on it."

"Why the hell would I cross cinder and blow her cache, you asshat?"

"Because I need mine shipped out to my warehouses in Mistral you asshat; I'll pay you double your rates just get it done at the same time as always" he replied in a hurry helping Neo pack her stuff.

"Fine, just make sure your stuff is gone by the end of the week; how's that little girl doin?"

"Yeah, she's with me, why?"

"Just making sure the meds worked the magic" he replied, hiding his smile.

"Thank you for the meds, but before you ask that's kinda why your pay is doubled" he hung up and loaded her and his stuff into the bed of a truck fired up said truck and drove into the city to take care of his problem.

"I just hope it's not too soon" he sighed as he took a long drink from a bottle of water

next day midday*

Cinder stopped at a nearby hotel and called Emerald and said, "get the room ready in two minutes, we've got work to do" ignoring her response she ended the call and kept walking 'I need some peace and quiet after today' she muttered, feeling like crap after the day she had.

Around the hotel she noticed how little people paid attention to anything around them since she walked through a building without a disguise, and she was so surprised she almost walked into a white haired man wearing a pair of swimming shorts and a button-up shirt, but what she noticed the most were the color of his eyes red and orange.

"Sorry about that, I must have been distracted by the birds" he said moving out of her way with a wink and walked off leaving her to blush fairly deeply, and that didn't happen often -or at all- but she had a lot of work to do so flirting with men was out of the question. "Sorry about that, I must have been distracted by the birds" he said, moving out of her way.

Walking past him, she failed to notice a white dot latched on the side of her thigh

When she got to the room, she noticed the lights were off and the door was locked. Muffled voices made is clear something was going on, and she was not happy secrets were being kept from her. She controlled secrets, and she was practically fuming at the audacity of the two of them to do that and keep her out of the room passed her off all the more.

Mercury chuckled and replied, "you do realize that the timing would be perfect and we both know that ozpin wouldn't even see it coming.

Cinder smirked and decided to barge in at that moment and asked "see what is coming?" causing both teens to flinch at her eccentric entrance.

"I-it's nothing cinder, just idiotic ramblings of a dope head" she said angrily through her teeth. "Emerald, I want to hear his plan for once"

Emerald slowly backed away from mercury and let him speak, and cinder gingerly listened with mild interest. "….and that's how we'll get him out of there, all we need is a reason for him to willingly leave with us" when he finished his explanation, cinder gently pat him on the shoulder with a growing smile of genuine respect.

"For once I think that your plan might work, we'll work on getting the two ships we require in position, and we'll go from there."

With a wide grin she helped put on his face was stuck there for days and Emerald was genuinely pissed about it. Although she thought he was the most annoying person in her life next to Roman and Neo, she felt more and more like she'd never leave his side if he needed her there.

"Roman has a plan that can work in conjunction to this one, so it's perfect; make sure to plan this out well before enacting anything special" cinder said putting in a pair of ear buds and left to go sun bathing. 'This is starting to look even better and easier now that I have reliable services now more than a month ago.

sorry I took so long...oh who am I kidding no one's reading this story, I'll keep writing till I give up or run out of ideas.

I'm writing song fics to help with my writing problems so it'll give me more to do on my downtime.

next chapter will take time but it'll be good...I hope so anyway.

also this chapter is longer to make up for being a month late on my shit

Comment anything you think could be worked on at:

H6pp1n355_in_misery.

Criticism is appreciated