I'm pulling the "acts of terrorism against Hunter academies gets you the death penalty" thing straight out of my ass, by the way. Its not an unreasonable assumption, given how vital the academies are to, well, the continued survival of all of Remnant and how steep society would therefore put the price on fucking with their operation, but nonetheless there's nothing to suggest that punishment in the actual series. Similarly, there's no evidence that Pyrrha's agents were anything but squeaky clean, but Torchwick's rundown of Mistral in the Roman Holiday novel makes it pretty clear that Mistral is kinda a perpetual redlight district, almost to a cartoonish degree. Mistral banks apparently don't even care about being robbed, it happens so often, and someone getting assaulted in a restaurant ("a disaster in the making") is just a regular Tuesday. Under those circumstances, her agents might resort to going under the table just to even the odds and make things fair again.
Also, technically we have no idea how old Neo is, since we don't know how far pre-canon Roman Holiday is. She's at least twenty, but how much OLDER she is than twenty is a shrug and a hand-wiggly motion.
Despite Neopolitan's two-word assurance, the air still crackled with hostility. Blake, as she retrieved her ribbon from its now-useless place stretched across the door, was eyeing Neopolitan in Ilia's image as though looking for where to sink Gambol Shroud, and Weiss had one hand on Myrtenaster's hilt, ready to draw it at any moment if danger threatened her partner. Yang already had Ember Celica deployed, and even Ruby found her hands frozen on Crescent Rose as her legs tensed, wondering where and how it would be best to leap off the bed in case she was attacked.
Neopolitan, apparently unimpressed with their reactions, rolled her eyes, strutting across the room without an ounce of fear. Weiss shifted herself so that she continued to stand between Ruby and Neopolitan as Yang took a few steps sideways to do the same. Neopolitan, still ignoring them, sat daintily on the opposite bed, most of her attention occupied on her Scroll as she typed something out. Probably realizing that it'd be a cold day in hell before any of them willingly got within arm's reach of her, Neopolitan held her Scroll flat when the message was completed, projecting it upwards.
To answer the inevitable interrogation: I didn't do anything to this person in order to take her image: it was just a convenient disguise. I have no proof this isn't a setup. And there's nothing that you can do to threaten me.
"Oh yeah? What about Tor-"
Yang's reply was cut off by a well-administered elbow from Weiss. She glared at the heiress, rubbing her side.
"I'd say that you needn't be so appallingly aggressive, but that would be a lie." Weiss said in reply to the look, unperturbed. "Still, if Neopolitan is with us, she's with us, and it doesn't do to aggravate allies."
"Not even when it's entirely their fault that all this is happening?" Yang asked, jabbing an accusatory at Neopolitan, who was still in the form of Ilia. "She stole the Lamp so Cinder could use it, she knocked me off the paths, and she's the reason you fell too, Ruby!"
All entirely true, and everyone glared at Neopolitan. It was a mark of her guilt that she actually looked annoyed for once, rather than smug or condescending. Glancing down for a moment, Neopolitan erased her prior message and started over again.
And this is a problem for you, how? Your friends are alive. Beacon's still functioning.
"That's only if any of this is real." It was Blake's turn to snap, taking her place between Neopolitan and the door. "We have no idea what happened to the space involved when we used the Staff to twist reality and create the portals. We have no idea what it might mean for us to fall, except that Ambrosius specifically warned us against doing so. Somehow, I doubt that things are as rosy as they seem."
"Yeah, when a magic being created by the gods calls something "dire," it's worth listening to." Yang said, crossing her arms firmly across her chest.
Neopolitan looked down in thought, frowning slightly. There was a long moment of silence, and the corner of Yang's eye twitched slightly, before she unfolded her arms with a long, terse sigh.
"Has anything "dire" happened to you?" Yang asked through audibly clenched teeth, trying to gather information on their mutual situation even if it killed her inside to do it. Neopolitan looked up and shook her head.
"Well, it's not like we'll be able to figure it out either way until we talk to Jinn, so we can just…leave it, for now." Ruby said gingerly. "I'm sure she'll explain, hallucination or not."
There was another long silence before Weiss, despite her better judgement, finally spoke up, having had her curiosity piqued.
"Doesn't your Scroll have a voice-to-speech function? Why bother showing us the words instead?" she asked, and Neopolitan/Ilia's lips drew back in a grimace of distaste as she quickly tapped something out and flashed the screen at them.
It makes me sound like a stupid robot.
"Ah. Fair enough." Weiss admitted, then took in and blew out a silent breath. "So…"
So…
"I, um, I'm grateful that you changed your mind." Ruby said, trying to ape Weiss at her most businesslike. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, sitting on it between Weiss and Yang as Blake slowly paced over to stand beside them. It presented a pretty us-vs-you picture, but, well, nobody was willing to cozy up with Neopolitan. She could be lying about being on their side, after all.
I thought things over. Neopolitan typed out and showed them. I could probably kill you. I wanted to kill you.
Oh, that was a great opener, Ruby thought, sweating nervously as her teammates all tensed up.
Whether it was you or Grimm, YOU were the one who got him killed last time. My first thought was that exterminating you would be a way to ensure that the whole situation never happened in the first place, but…
Neopolitan eyed Ruby's team with great disfavor.
…they would know. Blondie, at least, would know it was me, and if she isn't half as stupid as she looks-
"Hey!" Yang snapped as she read that bit.
-she'd figure out WHY I did it. Eventually.
Ruby was close enough to feel the temperature increase around Yang's hair as her eyes briefly flickered red. Neopolitan looked smug at garnering that reaction, her lips peeling up in a vicious smile before she glanced down and returned to typing.
In any case, as satisfying as it'd be, it probably wouldn't solve anything in the long run. Cinder would be Cinder. You brats would be out for revenge. Unless I was sure we could carry ourselves all the way to Salem's victory, it wouldn't be worth it.
"Plus there's the fact that she's trying to destroy the world." Blake said, her expression fearsomely deadpan. Neopolitan shrugged.
You could be lying out of your ass on that one. She pointed out. But there's one way to make sure. You're going to Haven –to the Relic, right?
"Ah, right." Ruby said when her team glanced expectantly at her.
I saw in Atlas, the Lamp answers questions honestly and completely even if she doesn't WANT to. Neopolitan continued. There's two questions left this century, aren't there? If you want me on your side, I get to use one of them.
Team RWBY exchanged uncertain looks.
"That's…" Blake began.
"Not necessarily a bad bargain." Weiss finished. The others looked at her in shock, and she glared back, straightening her shoulders a little. "What? Usually, trust is earned, not bought, but in this case we can make an exception. We've had months to plan, and we can still only think of one question. We've had our concerns about how to render the Relic inert should Salem or her forces manage to get their hands on it after we're done. The way I see it, if Neopolitan uses that final question to ensure our honesty, it solves two problems at once."
"Yeah, but what if she uses it to ask how to beat us, or help Salem win, or something?" Yang asked suspiciously.
"She doesn't need to: she's seen both sides in action, after all." Blake said with a shrug, making the others wince. "She knows how we think, she knows how Salem thinks. Suggesting strategy options based on that wouldn't be too hard, especially considering she has a much smaller cohort of people to convince than we do. It's what, Salem and Cinder, maybe Watts and Hazel if you want added muscle?"
Neopolitan waved breezily in response to Blake's pointed question.
"Whereas we've got to convince Ozpin, Ironwood, Qrow, and every other member of Ozpin's inner circle if we want to get anything done –not to mention soldiers and politicians and the gods only know who else, if we want to execute sweeping changes." Blake continued in disgust. "Somehow, I don't think she'll be asking strategy questions."
"Okay, so let's assume you do ask the Lamp –whatever, and she gives you what she wants." Ruby said, meeting and holding Neopolitan's eyes. "What does that mean for us?"
Neopolitan raised an eyebrow, looking slightly impressed, before she lowered her gaze and began to type something out.
Assuming you're not lying, I'll help you with whatever you want, as long as we get to walk away by the end of it.
"We being you and Roman Torchwick?" Weiss asked, and Neopolitan inclined her head in a nod.
Until then, I'll help with getting into Haven and opening the vault. I assume you have plans for that?
"We're going to Haven with Team JNPR." Ruby said, and very much did not mention the fact that Jaune had fallen with them and knew exactly who Neopolitan was. "They're friends of ours, and we plan to use them as backup. We pretty much told them about the Lamp beneath the school and needing Raven to open the Vault, but we used vague terms, so they don't know about Relics or Maidens or Salem. They'll be with us when we use our question, though."
"Before that, though, me and a few others will be going to Raven's camp to actually get her to help us." Yang said. "You know anything about her?"
Neopolitan shrugged flippantly.
"Well, you've seen her, back at the train crash we took into Vale." Yang continued brusquely. Neopolitan raised a catty eyebrow, clearly not missing on how Yang failed to mention how she'd been getting her ass kicked by Neopolitan at the time. "She's the leader of the Branwen Tribe, and if the last time I saw her was any indication, she's not going to help us break into Haven or use the Relic just because I'm her daughter."
Now the petite criminal looked excited, her fingers brushing over the stock of Ilia's lash, which everyone was fairly sure was her parasol in disguise.
"We don't necessarily plan to fight it out." Weiss said, making the excitement turn to disappointment. "Raven is powerful even without the Maiden abilities, and she has an entire tribe of bandits at her disposal. We intend, if we get any choice in the matter, to send Yang and a select few others to negotiate for her assistance."
Neopolitan crossed her arms, looking for all the world like she was pouting.
"Of course, Raven probably won't give us much of a choice." Yang scoffed, making Neopolitan perk up again. "The idea is to leverage the one life-saving favor I apparently get from her, or the fact that we know she's the Spring Maiden and she doesn't want anything to do with the whole Ozpin-Salem situation, to get her to do this one favor for us. Me, Ruby, Blake, and Pyrrha will be going to her camp, which'll hopefully be enough fighters to make her hesitate in taking us out on the spot, and the others will wait in Mistral to phone home if we don't come back."
Neopolitan cocked her head slightly, pointing to herself.
"Ah, um –if you want to come with us to the Branwen camp, that's cool." Ruby said, trying to be leaderlike with someone that she knew would probably still be happy to take her head off if the opportunity presented itself. "Honestly, the only reason Weiss is staying behind is that they tried to hold her for ransom once already."
"Tried and failed." Weiss said proudly, and Yang rolled her eyes a little. That'd been as much her as it had Weiss. Her father also might not have actually ransomed Weiss, if she had proved to be enough trouble. He was an asshat like that.
Neopolitan grinned, looking nothing short of gleeful. Ruby swallowed and then clapped her hands together, standing up.
"Okay, so." she said brightly, trying to maintain some form of good fellowship even when every time Neopolitan blinked too suddenly everyone else tensed or reached for their weapons. "Neopolitan, you're gonna come with us to the Branwen camp. If things get bad, you can use your illusions and stuff to cover our retreat. Once we've got Raven to agree with helping us, we'll go the rest of the way to Haven and meet back up with Team JNPR. Uh, how good are you at pickpocketing?"
Neopolitan raised an incredulous eyebrow. Are you kidding me? her affronted look seemed to say.
"Okay, sorry, but we've gotta be sure." Ruby said, cringing a little. "See, to get to J- the Lamp, we need to put something in a statue of her in the foyer, and its…something Leonardo Lionheart has."
The petite criminal raised an eyebrow and mimed slitting her throat.
"No!" Ruby yelped, more horrorstruck at the idea of killing someone for an object than she was about killing Lionheart specifically. "He's the headmaster of a school, and we're trying to be sneaky."
Neopolitan rolled her eyes skyward with a great huff of air, then started to type something out on her Scroll.
So just ask him for it?
"He's…kinda a traitor in league with Salem." Yang said wincingly. Neopolitan blinked, then looked aside, nodding slowly in apparent understanding.
Then she looked back at them and mimed slitting her throat again, with extra vehemence this time.
"Do all of your solutions end in murder?" Weiss deadpanned. "We can't let others know that we've accessed the Relic, for fear of changing the timeline of things beyond our recognition, so we must enter incognito from both sides. That means no murder, no mayhem, not even so much as a scratch on the walls of Haven.
Neopolitan heaved a great, dramatic sigh, and flopped backwards onto the bed. With one hand, she raised her Scroll so that they could see the screen a few seconds later.
Roman was right. You DO have a stick up your ass.
"I could have happily died without the knowledge that my rear was ever the subject of your discussions, thank you." Weiss huffed.
It was a past-life discussion if that makes you feel any better.
"Considering we haven't met in this timeline, I could only assume so."
Everybody knows the Schnee Heiress.
"Everyone knows a plastic figurine propped on a pedestal." Weiss spat with a venom that apparently surprised Neopolitan, who brought her head up a little. "Oh, don't give me that look. I know that the spoiled princess jokes were only a few moments away, and I'll thank you to dig a little deeper than that if you wish to insult me."
Neopolitan sat up a little more, propping herself up on one elbow as she pursed her lips thoughtfully and gave Weiss a very slow, long up-down. Then she typed something out and held it up so they could see.
How about overachieving, bossy, perfectionist brat?
"Erk." Weiss's eye twitched a little. "I suppose I may have walked into that one…"
"How old even are you, anyways?" Blake asked with a suspicious twitch of her ears. Neopolitan gave them a secretive smile.
A lady never tells.
"If you're a lady, I'm a member of the White Fang." Weiss sniffed. Neopolitan's grin flattened into a smug smirk.
I'll have you know I was a top graduate of Lady Browning's Preparatory Academy For Girls.
"Isn't that the preparatory school for hoity-toity rich bitches that got exposed for being part of a Mistral crime network?" Yang asked, raising an eyebrow.
Neopolitan winked and said –or rather, typed– nothing.
"Okay, okay…" Ruby said, trying to stall for time to avoid any bloodshed as she tentatively stepped between the members of her team and Neopolitan. Yang shifted so that she stood at Ruby's shoulder, her narrowed eyes making it very clear why as she glared at the petite criminal. "So, we're going to be meeting up with Team JNPR at the next stop. Neopolitan, we've told them that there's a conspiracy going on, that we overheard some bad guys talking about their plan to destabilize Beacon and how Lionheart gave them access to the festival to enact their schemes. Allegedly, that's what we were talking about at the docks, when I was holding a conversation with you: you're the one who told us how to get to the Relic and that it gave information."
Neopolitan raised a slightly incredulous eyebrow.
"Yeah, we know it's stupid that'd you'd give that much away, but they don't know you. Yet." Ruby said, folding her arms with a huff. "Maybe we just got super lucky."
Blake made an uncertain noise.
"Scarlet seemed like he didn't quite buy it, but he was willing to be convinced." she said. "If we ever give him evidence again, it's going to need to be bulletproof."
"So what you're saying is, Ruby's cover story was crap?" Yang asked with a wry smirk, making her sister growl and hit her arm.
"I know it was flimsy, but it's not like we could come up with anything better to explain what we know!" Ruby yelped. "And what about you, Neopolitan? Did you tell Torchwick anything about –about the future and stuff?"
What, that he gets eaten because of a try-hard pipsqueak and her oversized gardening tool? Neopolitan typed out, cocking an eyebrow at them. He'd never believe me. I said I was looking into something privately and he should expect me back in a week.
Seven days. Ruby ran those numbers in her head. Now that the trains weren't down due to Vale becoming a Grimm hotspot, it shouldn't take long at all for them to get to Haven. Given as this was an overnight boat-train and they'd be boarding the earliest one after they met back up with JNPR, they should be able to arrive at the station they'd scouted out as best to find Raven's camp from sometime in the afternoon tomorrow. That gave them about a day of wiggle room to convince Raven, then get everyone to Haven and sneak their way into the Vault.
"Right, well, a-anyways, after we loop back to Haven and steal that thing from Lionheart, we'll use it to open the passage to the Vault and head down with all of us –that means us and you and Team JNPR." Ruby said, feeling her grip relax a little on Crescent Rose. Neopolitan didn't seem like the misdirecting type- okay, she totally seemed like the person to misdirect before striking, but she wouldn't be giving them this many helpful (if acerbic) solutions if she wasn't willing to actually help out. "Since Raven is connected to Yang via her Semblance, we can have her portal right in to open the Vault, and then we can grab the Lamp and ask our questions. We plan to wait for Raven to leave before we ask 'em, though, if only because we don't want her to ask any questions to spoil our chances."
Question. Neopolitan asked, holding up her Scroll. What about the crack at the bottom of the Vault?
Everyone blinked.
"The- what?" Blake asked, and Neopolitan raised a highly amused –and slightly condescending– eyebrow at them.
Have any of you actually BEEN to the Vault?
"I have." Yang answered, her eyes slightly narrowed. "I didn't see a crack."
It's down at the bottom, at the base of the mountain. Erosion or something opened a fault, and Cinder cracked it all the way open on her way out after the Battle at Haven. She took me back to look at the Vault afterwards, so I'm sure I could pick it out for you, if we want to be that sneaky about, you know, making our way into the Vault. We won't even have to risk stealing from the headmaster.
The corner of Weiss's eye twitched again.
"That's-" She began, then exhaled shortly. "Fine. Wonderful. It's not like we wasted months learning how to pickpocket each other. Thank you for your wonderful contribution."
Under the clipped tone, everyone could hear her teeth grinding, and Neopolitan's smug grin became almost feral.
Poor little novices. You're lost without me.
"S-SHUT UP!"
Good new, Team RWBY made it to their stop.
Bad news, they weren't alone.
Tolerable(?) news, the person accompanying them was, apparently, the very same mole they had hoped to convince. Whoever it was, they looked just like Ilia, right down to the pores, and Pyrrha felt sure that she wasn't the only one who felt a chill as they were all introduced to this "Neopolitan," shaking hands all around as this person grinned with a distinctly un-Ilia expression. Pyrrha had known the chameleon Faunus for only a few days, but she knew that Ilia was an earnest soul who didn't make such…predatory…expressions.
Pyrrha and the rest of JNPR were treated to a flash of her real self as the group retreated to a discreet corner and Team RWBY made a concentrated effort to stand between the lookalike and any passersby, as well as the security cameras overlooking the station. Short, slim, with modest curves and a deceptively cherubic face –Pyrrha would have mistaken her as someone their age, if not for the glint of vast experience in the woman's eyes. Pyrrha was a champion fighter, and she knew trouble when she saw it. The lazy grin that flitted on and off Neopolitan's face did not disguise her aura of great danger.
Ruby explained as they waited for their next train that this woman's Semblance was physical illusions, ones that shattered on impact, and Pyrrha was uncomfortably reminded of how Jaune had reacted –how he had panicked– when he thought that someone with an illusionary Semblance was following them on their date. Was this woman who he'd been afraid of? She could only commend his instincts if that was the case: Neopolitan oozed threat without even trying.
Still, when she glanced aside to her leader, Jaune seemed calm enough, checking over Crocea Mors and making sure it wouldn't snag in the sheathe when he drew it. Part of her baulked at the idea of splitting their team up, but intellectually Pyrrha knew it was a good idea. Her own prodigious skills aside, Weiss was a member of one of the most obscenely wealthy families on Remnant, to say nothing of the further connections and wealth she provided by being heir to the Schnee Dust Cooperation. As a kidnapping or a ransom target, she represented an almost irresistible mark, especially considering that her only guards would be a team of first-year Huntresses. Having her continue onwards with the rest of Team JNPR was the wiser course, as was trading Pyrrha out in her place to serve as backup.
Strangely, despite the fact that she was being placed on the team solely for her fighting skills, her reputation as a formidable champion, Pyrrha wasn't upset. Perhaps it was simply because these were her friends, but Pyrrha thought she had a deeper reason. True, her position had been assigned due to her status, but it was because they wanted to make use of her fighting skills, not merely display them or flaunt them. She was on this mission because she was, arguably, the strongest and most experienced fighter among the whole counter-conspiracy, and if negotiations went south, the others would need her strength and her skills. They would need her, in a harsh and deeply practical way, to cut a line through the enemy to their retreat or to be a bastion of support as they clawed their way to Raven Branwen. She wasn't just there for show or for reputation.
In an odd sort of way, Pyrrha was glowing with happiness. This was her very first proper mission as a Huntress-in-training, and it was a needful, practical task, exactly the sort of thing she had imagined in her most wistful daydreams as she made her way to Vale. She was almost giddy. This was real work, real consequences, and a mission to rescue the academies from deception and so help save all of Remnant by protecting its future generations of Hunters. Who could ever ask for more?
And she was doing it with her friends, too. Pyrrha's heart was warm in her chest as she let her eyes roam over the group, seeing Yang bickering companionably with Weiss about the train schedule, Ruby nervously rattling on and on next to her not-quite-captive audience as she tried to make a connection with Neopolitan, who was being watched by the ever-practical Blake sitting beside her on the bench. Jaune was occupied with acting as a screen between Neopolitan and a camera, standing as though including himself in Ruby's conversation, and Nora was babbling excitedly beside him to help further that illusion, expositing another of her crazy stories. Or theories. It was sometimes hard to tell the difference between the two.
Ren was off a bit farther, keeping an eye on the tracks and the announcement boards, and he gave Pyrrha a friendly –if slight– nod when her gaze moved over him and their eyes met for a moment. Pyrrha beamed back at him, before her eyes flickered back to Neopolitan. She trusted Ruby, and she trusted Ruby's judgement, but Pyrrha wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of sleeping next to such a criminal on the train. After all, even if she wanted out, Neopolitan was embroiled in a conspiracy to bring down at least one of the Hunter academies, which was a threat grave enough to warrant the death penalty.
It argued three things.
Firstly, Neopolitan didn't care enough about the wellbeing of other people or society as a whole.
Secondly, Neopolitan had little to no fear of the government and its reprisals.
Thirdly, Neopolitan was confident enough in her own skills to not worry if she was caught.
Together, those three things spelled trouble, and Pyrrha knew that she and the others just didn't have the experience in double-crossing and triple-dealing that criminals did. Pyrrha had grown up in Mistral, and while crime was rampant there, her family had done their best to shelter her from it…which meant that Pyrrha got an eyeful of bribery, extortion, and what she was fairly certain were at least a few active uses of criminal favors as her agents battered their way towards the ever-more-glorious fighting rings with her in tow. You know, instead of anything more dangerous, like robbery and murder.
She sighed lightly.
Really, people in Vale didn't know how lucky they had it, but at least everyone was being sensible for their trip. After they hit Haven, they'd go to visit Argus, then loop back towards Vale on a weeks-long camping excursion that followed the rough line of the western coast until they hit the station for the boat that'd take them across the sea back to Sanus. Avoiding towns and relying on their Hunter skills, they should be able to avoid getting robbed or pickpocketed on their way back as long as they stayed in a group. Even a group of bandits might hesitate in taking on two armed teams of Hunters, even trainees like them.
Still, if Neopolitan was with them only temporarily, if she had plans to betray them at some point…Pyrrha would need to watch out for that, and make plans to deal with it. If Neopolitan's Semblance involved illusions, then her fighting style was probably full of misdirects and feints. If she was threatened, she'd throw up an illusion to flee or attack, and so if Pyrrha wanted to stop her…a general, area-of-attack barrage with Miló's rifle form should be enough to do something. Failing that, if Pyrrha was worried about friendly fire, she could seize the metal in the area and drag it back. Thanks to Jaune's efforts at training her Semblance for accuracy and versatility, she had become somewhat always aware of the metal in her vicinity, and could thus use it to pinpoint Neopolitan's rough location via her weapon and freeze it with her Semblance. In that startled, jerked-to-a-halt moment, Pyrrha would have time to bring up Miló and pick off a few sniper shots.
If Neopolitan thought she would get away with betraying Pyrrha's friends, Pyrrha would be there to show her otherwise.
That thought lingered in the back of her head as another train pulled in again and they all gathered up their things, Neopolitan's form rippling with a cascade of pink Aura shards as she changed back into Ilia and stood with them. They boarded the train again, finding another sleeper car and packing their bags away. She would say that they settled down, but no one was really settled, always keeping half an eye on the criminal in their midst as they moved to read or play Scroll games, look out the window or do weapon maintenance. Nobody really knew what to do, here. None of them were old enough or experienced enough in handling a criminal to be sure of anything but the fact that they didn't entirely trust her. Neopolitan, of course, was a liar by trade and if she was so inclined, could run circles around the rest of them in terms of deception and double-crossing.
Pyrrha firmed her jaw and bore down on the edge of Miló, scraping her whetstone along the blade over and over again as she did her best not to stare too obviously, not to look as though she was searching for the weak spots to pick apart as Neopolitan lounged like a cat on a tilted-back chair against the wall, smug and dismissive of everyone else's jumpiness, kicking one booted foot in the air as she bobbed her crossed leg over the other, picking out some sort of complicated embroidery design on a ribbon. She seemed to be paying to the complicated design to the exclusion of all else, but Pyrrha caught her eyes flicking up every so often, and crinkling at the corners as Neopolitan saw how jumpy everyone else still was.
Pyrrha narrowed her eyes and rasped the whetstone harder as the train chugged onwards, pulling through Vale, through Anima, heading inevitably towards the coast as night fell.
Sleeping arrangements tonight were going to be…interesting.
Neo sighed silently through her nose, staring up at the ceiling above her bed as the train rattled softly, the steady movement creating a hum in her bones. She was holding herself as still as she could, knowing that the slightest rustle from her direction would have at least one person jumping out of their bed, ready to start a fight. Team RWBY –introductions had gone around, so Neo actually knew her onetime-enemies by name and face now– were the jumpiest, obviously, but their team of little friends would bear watching too. Neo hadn't lived as long as she had by not judging her opponents, and the champion spelled trouble.
She could see it in those steady, focused green eyes, feel it in the steady, practiced way that the redhead handled her weapon and always kept it close by her side. Pyrrha Nikos was already preparing a strategy for if Neo caused trouble, already methodically setting down her plans for what to do if Neo betrayed them all. Of course, Neo didn't care all that much: maybe Nikos was a talented fighter, maybe she had skills, but as the Vytal Festival had proved, she was naïve and inexperienced outside the ring. A few dirty tricks would be all that it took to eliminate her as a threat and take her out of a fight.
Nora Valkyrie and Lie Ren –easy. They were both tied up in each other, so kill one, and the other would lose it. Killing someone while they were panicked and grieving was a walk in the park.
Their leader, Jaune Arc…he wasn't quite so easy. Neo saw the way he looked and moved around Nikos, so that was a vulnerability to exploit, but he didn't have any other glaring weaknesses and Nikos was a problem all on her own when it came to combat. Saving him for last would probably be best, because he was a leader nominated by Beacon, which meant that he cared for his team. Seeing them slain, knowing his inadequacy in his role as leader, that would throw him enough off of his game that taking him out would be easy. He was a teenager, they always clung to the roles assigned to them by their mentors.
Team RWBY was the real sticking point. They weren't first-year trainees, they were graduated Huntresses who knew Neo and knew how she moved.
Ruby was soft-hearted, but ruthless when push came to shove. That unpredictability made her dangerous: her first impulse was to come towards someone with her hand out, to be the hero and save the world, which was pretty much the textbook definition of a naïve, open-minded idiot, but…but if you slapped that hand away, if she saw you as a threat to other people, all that childish innocence would drop on the spot and she'd reach for her scythe. Neo had heard at Salem's cohort that she'd been personally trained by Qrow Branwen, one of the most legendary Huntsmen on Remnant. Despite her sweet little face and sweeter nature, Ruby Rose bore close watching.
Her top-heavy sister was a bit more predictable. Fiery, passionate, kindhearted –she was a protector, a big sister to the core. Like the Arc boy, lash out at her teammates and her younger sister and she'd quickly become angry, predictable, sloppy. Like on those golden pathways all those many months ago, she'd launch herself in front of them first and ask questions later, leave herself open if it meant protecting them. She'd gotten better at controlling her temper in a fight since that time on the train, but with two years to improve, Neo could only have expected that. Still, that temper was still there, so if she was careful, she might be able to tweak and tease it out and lead the blonde into making a fatal mistake.
The Schnee was a bit of an unknown. Neo had underestimated her twice, once on the pathways, and once here, when she'd banked on the brats showing up to thwart Roman at the docks and stowed along to help. Her Semblance was frighteningly versatile, and she was experienced as a support unit and as a melee fighter in her own right. She could switch between the two mediums on a dime, more of an all-rounder than someone with a specific skillset, and from what Neo had seen and remembered, she integrated well with her teammates. Still, everyone had a weakness…the Schnee's might be that she was too precise. Area-of-effect glyphs seemed to take time to create and direct, and her weapon was a rapier, slender and piercing. She worked best as a cog in the machinery of her team, or, if a single fighter, as someone who understood their opponent well and could use her Semblance and her sword in quick, efficient strikes. Destabilize that, and she'd be quick to fall.
Blake Belladonna, the Faunus girl, was another foe to be cautious of. Ex-White Fang, she had real-world experience even before she had come to Beacon, and she'd been partnered with Adam Taurus. Neo had met with the man a few times, accompanying Roman or otherwise hanging out at the White Fang bases during the wait for the Vytal Festival to gear up, and what he had in sheer personal unpleasantness, he made up for in raw skill. Trained by him and his trusted equal in some ways, Blake Belladonna was someone to be wary of.
Still, if worst came to worst, Neo had her plan. If she were to betray them, they all expected her to go for Little Red, for the girl who'd been responsible for Roman's death in another timeline –the shock of her moving to pierce Lie Ren or Nora Valkyrie with Hush would give her more than enough time to have them bleeding out. Their partner down, the other would instantly engage her in a fury, moving too close and too fast for the others to help unless they risked hitting the survivor with friendly fire. She could eliminate the temporary survivor of the pair then.
Two of their teammates down, Nikos and the Arc boy would be destabilized, and she could hook her grip under Nikos's ankle and yank her down or otherwise cheat her way into a win. His entire team killed, the Arc boy would be distraught, and in no condition to stop her killing him as well.
At any point in this, of course, Team RWBY could and would pile on, and Neo would have to pick her targets. If she killed the Ren-Valkyrie combo, that would motivate their surviving team members to attack her recklessly as Team RWBY attacked her with all the skill of Huntresses, so Neo could actually afford to let them stew for a while. The Schnee would be her best first attack for that team –take out a piece of their harmony, prevent her precision from working into the gaps as Neo worked with taking down multiple Hunters and used their inability to hurt each other against them.
Three down, the remaining members of the two teams would go ballistic. Yang would probably move to cover and support her sister as Little Red used her Semblance to try and dart around to find an opening –Blake Belladonna would engage her, try to use her skills to pin Neo down. Leaving an illusion and darting out between the cracks would be an excellent chance to whittle Team JNPR down by another member, whichever one was less prepared for it. Take them down, and the other would freeze in horror for an infinitesimal second, stricken by being the last survivor, and Neo could finish off the team. The bonds Hunter teams formed could be two-edged –relying that much on other people, bonding that much with them, left you shellshocked and temporarily unable to react when they were gone.
Neo knew that better than anybody.
Three of Team RWBY left, Neo would have to pick and choose her targets carefully. A lot of it would depend on who was positioned where in the melee, where they had all been when it had started, why it had started. Neo would have to remember where and how they were positioned, when they got the Lamp and asked their questions.
The Faunus, Blake, would be her ideal next target. Her feature manifested in cat ears: even with Neo's Semblance and practice at walking quietly, she might be able to hear her behind the illusions. She'd have to throw up several illusions quickly to distract her teammates, then go in for the kill herself. It'd have to be fast, to keep Blake disoriented, to keep her from shattering Neo's illusions with gunshots while her friends danced after glass copies of Neo herself.
Once the Faunus was dead, she could drop them, save her Aura while the last two were confronted with the sight of their teammate's bleeding body. The shock and horror should be enough for Neo to take care of Yang Xiao Long, Hush sweeping in for a deadly lungs-piercing thrust. If Little Red zipped in with her Semblance and got in the way, well and good, Neo could flip over her blade and wrap her thighs around the little brat's neck. Gymnastics was good for more than just flexibility, and trying to break someone's neck through Aura just took a bit more effort.
If Little Red didn't get there in time, well and good, her sister would be dead and Neo could be free to take down the very last of the group of pesky do-gooders, and sate herself with the knowledge that Little Red had seen all her friends and loved ones die before her.
Petty? No, Neo wasn't petty at all.
Still staring up at the dark ceiling, Neo gave herself a decisive nod. If it needed doing, that was how she would get it done. She didn't know if it would be, but having a game plan before the fight even started was more than half the battle. It meant you acted, rather than reacted, to the combat situation as it unfolded. She'd bet a decent stack of Lien that even though at least half of the brats were probably wringing their hands on what to do with her if she welched on their deal, none of them were probably planning out their reaction. Not down to the exact moves and timing, not like she was.
There was a reason Neo hadn't used her Semblance to make her words appear in the air before her as they'd had that conversation, disregarding the use of her Scroll. Doing that wasted her Aura when Team RWBY might still attack her, and if that was the case, she'd need every scrap of it she had.
Still…it wasn't implausible that they were telling the truth. If they wanted to corrupt someone on Salem's side with an outright lie, they could get Mercury or Emerald, naïve brats pretending to be cynical who didn't have a clue of what was coming. Brothers, they could get Cinder herself, if they played her right. The fact that they came to her, Neo, rather than anyone else…it said that they needed someone who knew what was coming. They needed someone who had seen what would happen, if Salem enacted her plans unopposed. After all, Emerald had already defected in their timeline, so she would be the natural choice for an ally, if they were just looking for a mole in Salem's operations.
But Emerald, so far as Neo knew, hadn't fallen with the rest of them. She hadn't been there on the pathways, so Neo could only assume that Emerald had gone through before Cinder and herself showed up. Emerald wouldn't know the consequences of her actions now, would have to rely on the mere words of Little Red and her friends as they tried to convince her of what the future would hold.
So they thought that there would be proof of what they said in the future, irrevocable proof. Neo had spent a good length of time thinking on that before the docks, biting her lip and curled up on the couch of her apartment. Sure, maybe she and she alone had fallen (along with Blondie and some meaningless Atlas/Mantle civilians), but even if she killed the dreamy-eyed pipsqueak who still had no notion of what her silver eyes meant, of what all this that Neo had found herself involved with was, it wouldn't change the end result: Cinder would bring down Beacon, and she and Roman would help.
Salem promised a better future, a world that she restructured around herself and her loyal pawns. So why not declare that openly, why not give the people of Remnant a person to flock around as she claimed the shattered remnants of Vale and Beacon for her own? The school had essentially become a non-factor at that point. Salem could set herself up, declare herself the Queen of Grimm, extend her banner and let whatever bottom-feeding sycophants that wanted to flock to it. She could've made a kingdom in Vale, swept aside the tattered remains of Beacon's staff and Hunters like so much straw.
So why hadn't she?
Why had she crushed the school, crippled the kingdom, and then moved on, concentrating her forces only on keeping and holding Beacon?
So far as Neo saw things, Salem didn't need the Relics to be able to bring down a kingdom. She'd all but done it at Haven, she'd certainly done it in Atlas. Why focus so much time and energy on collecting Relics she didn't even need?
There was a piece missing from this picture. Was it the piece that Little Red and her friends offered, the piece that said these Relics could destroy the whole world if brought together while humanity was still squabbling, and that's why Salem was content to cripple and maim but never exterminate, always moving on, greedy to snatch another gold bauble from underneath the schools?
Maybe.
Maybe.
Neo fully intended to find out, though, and if she did, when she did…well, she had a choice to make. Was she really willing to throw her lot in with these sickeningly nice, heroic Huntresses and Huntsmen? No, not really. It wasn't her style to be noble, and she'd had more than enough skill to apply as a Huntress herself, as Roman had remarked after they blew up her parents' estate. Helping people wasn't Neo's thing. Being nice wasn't Neo's thing.
But Roman was. He was her best friend, her partner-in-crime, and the first and the only person to truly understand her. If it meant keeping him alive, Neo would swallow her bile and help people, go along with the motions no matter how much they made her teeth hurt, acting as a hero alongside Team RWBY and the other brats. It wasn't like they were asking her to save an orphanage or donate her time to charity. They needed her as one more warm body to throw at Salem, one more mind on their side as they tried to outthink her and Cinder and all the rest of the immortal bitch's minions.
Still, being allies didn't mean they trusted each other. Neo had fibbed a bit, earlier, when she blew off whether or not she'd told Roman about the whole future thing. She hadn't told him anything, not yet, but if she did…he wouldn't blow it off. Roman knew her better than anyone else in the world. If Neo looked him in the eyes and said something was a threat, he listened. He might dismiss the fact that he couldn't handle the threat, as he had when she'd started trying to nudge him out of the deal with Cinder back when it was still fresh, back when the shock of having him back hadn't quite worn off, but he certainly hadn't dismissed the warning that they were in danger.
If Neo told him that she was from the future, a future where he was dead, Roman would nod a little and listen. Maybe not believe her, not 100%, but he'd listen and by all the gods, he would act on the advice she gave. He didn't need to believe her in order to trust her, to take her word at face value, and Roman trusted Neo with his life. He'd start taking the steps she suggested in order to help save his life whether he believed her or not, and that was something their onetime enemies didn't need to know.
Trust, trust, trust.
They'd need to build that if they were ever to work together, and they'd all pinned their hopes on the Relic. Neo couldn't lie, there was a tingle of worry for herself when she'd heard Team RWBY explain what the Staff spirit had told them when they were making the portals –a dire warning, he'd said, and what about this situation was dire? Things were going normally on her front, even if they'd failed to snatch the Dust at the docks. Cinder's plans were progressing no faster and no slower than they had been the first time around. There were no upheavals in the wilderness to signal Salem making moves. Ozpin and his allies were quiet.
It had been disconcerting on both sides to hear that nothing dire had happened. The Schnee had called the spirit –Ambrosius– "literal-minded and eccentrically playful," but admitted that he was serious about his work, if nothing else. There was no reason for him to joke, no sign of jollity on his face, according to Team RWBY. He had no reason to lie to them.
So why was this dire? Was it because time and space had twisted and something had happened to the greater threads of the universe, that laws that none of them could comprehend had been twisted irreversibly out of shape and it was only a matter of time before reality itself crumpled in and destroyed them all?
Neo didn't know. She hated the not-knowing, and so even if Team RWBY hadn't suggested this little jaunt, she would've tried to figure out a way to get her hands on the Lamp regardless. She knew that the Maiden was in the Branwen camp, she knew a way in that didn't involve the headmaster –she could've done it.
Still, being able to do something alone was no reason not to do it with allies, as she had learned from Roman. At the very least, she could use them as meat shields.
She could do this.
She had to do this, if she wanted her partner to stay alive. Neo would swallow her pride and work with this brats, and in case things didn't work out, in case they betrayed her or she failed to kill them all off before her Aura wore down…she'd left a message. Not electronic, nothing Watts could find and hack, but a series of written pages she'd hastily scrawled and left in a locked box buried under a rock at her parents' old estate. If she didn't come back by the end of the week, a message would automatically be texted to Roman's Scrolls –all of them– that told him to look at her old home. Even if Neo didn't survive this deal, he, at least, would know what was coming, and be able to prepare for it.
Roman was resilient. That was what had first drawn her to him the moment they met, when he'd been thrown out onto the street and kept his cool, when he'd been surrounded by Spider cars and the Malachite sisters and had only that momentary flicker of doubt, right before his jaw tensed and he got ready to go down swinging. Neo had admired that.
Given time to plan and someone to temper his eccentricities (because a Doom Cannon, really?) Roman could be an absolute menace, even to stronger opponents. Neo needed to leave something behind so that he would know what to plan around, and if she…if she didn't come back, he'd be more than serious enough to drop any hint of frivolity. She had her insurance in place, now she just needed to go through with this, and see whether the option Little Red and her team offered was gold or dross.
Neo shook her head a little and rolled over, putting her back to the wall as she closed her eyes again. Their tenuous truce would hold strong for now –she needed to get some rest before they had to wake up and take the boat to Anima.
She needed to be ready for whatever would happen.
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