Unwelcome Guests
"Wait, so you're saying we should ignore the White Fang rally?!" Weiss spoke up suddenly.
"Hey could you keep it down a bit? We're supposed to be talking about things a little more discreetly." Yang pointed out, remembering their other close calls with Ozpin.
"Still though, it seems reckless to let it go unchecked."
"What's there to check, Weiss? We already know where their base of operations is." Blake pointed out. "Mountain Glenn's underground city."
"Right…" Ruby nodded. "I found it when I fell… You know, I'd like to not repeat that part."
"You won't if we find a proper entryway into that area." Blake assured.
"Still though-"
Blake cut Weiss off before she could say more. "We caused more damage fighting that paladin than helped, and Roman got away anyways. Sure we could try to apprehend him this time, or we apprehend him at the bigger incident. Besides, Neo knows we know the future too, she's likely expecting us at the rally."
A sly grin formed on Yang's face. "In that case, we could easily give Neo a taste of her own medicine. She'll probably run herself ragged trying to look for us in the crowd, only to be disappointed."
"I like the way you think, sis." Ruby nodded. "But we should still do something in the meantime."
"Like steer clear of Ironwood?" Weiss asked, pointing to the airships outside of Beacon.
"Oh… Yeah, that'd probably be a good start, all things considered."
The team all shuddered at the thought of how Ironwood would react to their future knowledge. It'd likely drive his already existing paranoia up to max, and this would be long before Salem's assault on Atlas, which would just leave Atlas in even more of a messy state.
"We're gonna need to do something about Ironwood sooner than later." Blake stood up and closed the blinds.
"How about we spy on Cinder's team?!" Ruby recommended. "They're gathering intel on us via me, so how about we do that even moreso, now that they're gonna be at our school tonight?"
"Sounds as good of a start as any." Yang nodded.
"I can help with that." Blake assured.
"Good. Then we've got our plan." Ruby looked at the time. "Let's give it another hour."
She had actually remembered when she was supposed to run into Cinder's team at Beacon for the first time, and while it wasn't their first encounter in this timeline, Ruby still wanted to know where their dorm room was, so she figured she'd just trail them there once they passed her team's room.
"How'd you even remember a detail that small?" Weiss asked.
"I remember because I forgot my board game, saw the time and panicked about the library closing with my stuff still in it."
"Makes sense." Weiss shrugged, noticing Blake peering through the peephole in the door.
It was as Ruby said, Emerald, Mercury, and Cinder were walking along the halls, scanning around each dorm room for some strange reason. "I see them, but they're doing something odd…"
Blake was watching them looking at their scrolls while walking down the hall at each door.
"So this is team JNPR's dorm room." Mercury noted. "They're not in currently, but they are here. I'm eager to learn Nikos's secrets."
"All in good time, Mercury." Cinder assured while walking up to Team RWBY's door while Blake backed away from it now, the second Cinder's yellow eye made eye contact with her's.
A knock came upon Team RWBY's dorm room…
Hesitantly, Ruby volunteered herself to open the door.
"Yes, hello, we were lost on our way to our dorm room." Emerald stated.
Cinder noted that Blake was reading a book on her bed, odd considering what she had just seen, but perhaps she was just curious about the footsteps outside.
"Oh um. I can lead ya guys there if ya want." Ruby insisted.
"You sure I can't do that sis?" Yang asked with a pout.
Ruby's eyebrow raised as she turned to face her sister. "You want to?"
An eye roll was Yang's only reaction as she shoved Ruby out of the way while she walked ahead of Cinder's team. "Yeah come on, I never get to do anything fun!"
"I like your attitude blondie." Mercury commented while following her closely.
"Don't flatter yourself." Yang flicked her hair.
"I wasn't flattering, just complimenting." Mercury shrugged as he stopped for a moment to see how his teammates were doing in their casing out of these dorm rooms.
If looks could kill, the look Yang would have given to any of them would have ended their current conflict at Beacon. She could have been leading a bunch of knives pointed at her back and felt more safe than she did at the current moment.
Yang just feigned silence before coming to a stop in front of their dorm room. "This is the number, right?"
Walking up to the door, Cinder put a hand to her chin. "Yep, looks like it. Thanks for the help." she waved.
Emerald and Mercury walked in after her and the door shut, giving her a moment to catch her breath. "Well we at least know the exact room…" With that, Yang turned around and began the walk back to Team RWBY's dorm room.
Neo stood with Roman behind a curtain as the White Fang Lieutenant was speaking. Roman made sure his hair was adjusted properly and his hat was centered properly. "Neo, I look fine, right?"
Remembering this exact conversation in the original timeline, Neo shot him a thumbs up as finally...
"I can assure you, he is the key to obtaining what we have fought for for so long!" The Lieutenant spoke as Roman stepped out, she followed closely behind him and began scanning around the crowd.
He was greeted with the gathered faunus yelling at him to get off and to leave. "Thank you thank you!" Roman began his speech.
He always was good at deflecting negative energy sent his way.
While Roman continued on his speech, Neo just focused on scanning around the crowd, remembering that Roman had seen Belladonna and the Monkey twerp.
As she continued scanning, dozens of thoughts flooded into her mind.
What if they're waiting till we're done to attack?!
What if they're going at us from a different angle?
What if they've tipped off the proper authorities already and they're actually boxed in without even knowing?!
Neo was already scanning around the area for potential exits and getaway locations.
"Neo, we're done here." Roman spoke up as she snapped back to reality. His speech had already concluded and the faunus were filing out of the building to sign up properly to become a White Fang member.
She looked at him confused.
"Yeah, I know… You were expecting some trouble, but none came. Maybe those kids finally learned to stop poking their heads into adult matters?" Roman chuckled, patting Neo's shoulder.
As they left, Neo was still looking for any signs of attack before another thought finally dawned on her… Had those brats just done to her what she did to them?! Thinking back, they had no reason to go to the rally since they knew where they'd need to go. Gritting her teeth, Neo stepped into her and Roman's parked bullhead.
Clever play, runts…
It was yet again time for sparring class, and Pyrrha had just made short work of Team CRDL all by herself.
A smirk formed on Mercury's face as he raised his hand to volunteer for the next match.
"Mr. Black." Glynda nodded. "Who will you be facing?"
"Her." he pointed at Pyrrha.
"But Miss Nikos just went." Glynda shook her head.
Remembering what the others told her about who Mercury actually was, Pyrrha simply shook her head. "Maybe another time, Mercury, she politely nodded before walking off.
Internally cursing himself, Mercury scanned around the room, unsure of who else to challenge.
"Is there anyone else you want to challenge, Mr. Black? Or would you rather I pick?" Glynda asked.
"Give me a minute." Mercury furrowed his eyebrows while scanning around the room before his eyes met those of Penny Polendina. "Her." he pointed.
"Miss Polendina?" Glynda seemed perplexed.
Ruby, glanced over her shoulder at Yang who was right behind her with a worried look, Yang merely gave her a thumbs up, almost assuring her that Penny would be fine in such a controlled environment.
"I'll need to ask if I'm allowed to fight first. My father and General Ironwood are pretty strict on what I do, I'm afraid." Penny stood up and took her scroll out and texted for a few short moments. After a few moments of a short text exchange, Penny smiled. "I'm Combat Ready!" she saluted.
"Good luck out there, Penny!" Ruby cheered.
"This Isn't that big of a deal, friend Ruby." Penny assured her. "But the cheering is appreciated."
With everything in place, Penny now was out on the Amphitheater floor standing wide across from Mercury. Her floating array swords emerged from her backpack and floated right behind her in what seemed like a wing formation almost.
Mercury nodded, impressed with what he was seeing, this girl was friends with that Ruby girl? In all honesty, he felt almost jealous that Emerald got to interact with her, but her abilities were almost certainly of interest to Cinder given what Emerald's initial report on her strengths were. Now it was time to find some weaknesses…
The timer hit 0.
Two floating array swords came Mercury's way that he kicked off course with ease before rushing straight for her, sliding forward to avoid a ring of the 4 other swords she sent his way.
Looking up as he slid, Mercury spotted something peculiar… Wires attached to each sword. As he finally neared her, his boots sparked while he then threw an upward kick at Penny's chin, only to strike another sword while the ring began to circle back and the only unaccounted sword swung his way next.
He took the hit directly, and fell onto his back before backflipping several times away from her, landing firmly on his feet.
Nodding, Mercury then charged Penny again, deflecting and dodging lasers that were fired out of a couple of her swords. The laser he dodged nearly grazed his hair as he flipped right over it.
Throwing out another kick, he glared while striking her swords and lowering his leg again.
This time he was prepared for the swords reeling back in for him. With a well-timed backflip, Mercury landed atop the two swords that came his way and fired shots off from his boots, resulting in the swords stabbing into the ground, which made Penny stumble forward while he landed right behind her.
Quickly, spinning around, Penny readied to fire two more lasers at him.
"I quit." he stated immediately, which got Penny to stop what she was doing.
"Pardon me?" Penny tilted her head.
"I forfeit our fight. I clearly was in over my head when I challenged the girl that needed permission from General Ironwood to fight." he shook his head. "Is he like your Dad or something?"
"A friend of his who-" she stopped herself from saying too much. "Nevermind."
"Well the point is, you won. Congrats." he clapped while walking off, earning a glare from Glynda and a smirk from both Cinder and Emerald.
As the class ended and everyone flooded out Mercury immediately approached his teammates. "Her swords are attached by a wire that's attached to more than just her backpack. Could make a pretty nasty mess if she's not careful." Mercury snidely remarked.
Ruby was leaning behind a wall and overheard this, balling her hand up into a fist as Penny approached her from behind. "Salutations, friend Ruby!" she smiled.
"Oh uh… Salutations to you too, Penny." Ruby returned with a salute, forgetting that her hand was still balled up into a fist, but then quickly correcting that.
"So what did you think of my match?" she asked.
"I thought you did great." Ruby gave her a thumbs up.
"That's good to know. But why did Mercury end the match sooner? Surely it wasn't because of what he said, right?" Penny seemed bothered by that.
"Don't trust Mercury." Ruby firmly stated. "He's…" thinking for a moment of a reason that wouldn't immediately tip her hat; she finally came up with one. "He's trying to gather intel on tournament fighters. You don't wanna give him an unfair advantage against you later on, do you?"
"Fair point. I will exercise caution in how I conduct myself in Beacon sanctioned sparring matches from now on!" Penny smiled before looking down the hall. "Oh, It's my time to get going. I'll talk to you later, Ruby!-"
"Oh and Penny?" Ruby stopped her for a moment. "Ever thought of any potential upgrades for your weapon?" she asked. "I'd be happy to help. I think the wires you use could be risky due to the way they're attached."
"That's something I'm afraid I can only have my father do for me." Penny frowned. "He's very protective of me. So I'll let you know what he has to say about your upgrade proposal."
With that, Penny finally left and Ruby let out a sigh of relief as Blake approached. "So, you overheard what Cinder's team had to say about Penny?"
"Yeah. I'm not letting them hurt her again." Ruby affirmed.
Despite all the other changes they made, one part of their day that couldn't change was the announcement of control over the dance falling into Team RWBY's hands. "Well I think we all have an idea on how our dance setup's gonna be." Yang grinned.
"Fog machines might make it harder to keep track of Cinder's team." Weiss pointed out.
"Oh come on! I want my fog machines now!" Yang huffed.
"Fog machines might make it easier to keep watch of them." Blake countered Weiss's argument.
"Let's just focus on watching them. The dance is when the CCT is broken into." Ruby stated.
"Oh right… I remember that. Did you ever figure out who that mysterious lady was?" Yang asked.
"I have my suspicions it was Cinder herself." Ruby reasoned. "She fought with glass, just like Cinder."
"Sounds like a risky encounter." Weiss admitted.
"We should still stop her from doing whatever it is that she's gonna do to the CCT!" Ruby argued.
"If that even happens. How do we know, Neo hasn't already tipped everyone off and that our whole idea for things is already messed up?" Weiss questioned.
Looking at the whiteboard, Ruby let out a sigh. "It's still worth a chance, after all, it's the only time Cinder would have any time to tamper with the CCT, when there's only a few stationed guards in the area. It's our best bet of potentially stopping her."
"Maybe we should call her out." Yang suggested.
"And tell her that we know her cover? Sounds like a really dumb idea." Blake shook her head. "We'll only unmask her if we win against her. Agreed?"
"Sure thing." Ruby nodded. "Which I mean, a win in our case is stopping whatever she's doing there from happening. On another note, I'm wearing flats to the dance this time."
"Aww, why not heels? You'd look great in them!" Yang pouted.
"I'm gonna be fighting and I can't fight like Weiss!" the red reaper argued with her sister.
Looking out the window, Jaune took a deep breath, he was going to ask Pyrrha to the dance this time and make sure he got it right with her. "No more Mr. Blind Jaune."
"You were oblivious to her feelings?" Nora asked with a bemused look on her face.
"I was oblivious to a lot of things." Jaune admitted. "But not here, not anymore. I'm going to tell Pyrrha exactly what she wants to hear from me!"
With that air of confidence Jaune stepped out…
Only to immediately be shot down by her.
"It's nothing personal, Jaune, I just don't think I really want to dance this year." Pyrrha seemed troubled.
"It's alright. I mean I'm sure hearing about how I die would definitely take a lot of wind out of me as well…" he confessed with a sigh. "But come on, we're gonna prevent that from happening!"
"And what if it's meant to happen, Jaune? What if there's no way around that event? What if Pyrrha Nikos has to die defending Beacon? What then?" she asked, looking him in the eyes.
He now avoided eye contact with her. "I know you believe in destiny. But come on, you're not a slave to fate." he then took her hand suddenly. "I want to fight fate with you, Pyrrha. I want you to come along with me on many more adventures. This is a second chance I'm not about to give up on. I know I'm a far cry from that clueless Jaune you'd probably prefer hanging out with right now but-"
A smile formed on Pyrrha's face before she leaned over and kissed his cheek. "I'd love to dance with you, Jaune."
His face heated up as he put his hand over where she kissed him, giving a look like he was blessed by a goddess or something. "Glad to hear, Pyrrha. Please, I just want to not waste this second chance."
Once he finally left, Pyrrha let out a sigh and stared down at Beacon's courtyard longingly. "Maybe I should make the most of our time here if destiny is something set in stone." Her whole belief on destiny was being challenged right now, and for some reason, she definitely felt a desire to be wrong for once.
Commentary: Fun fact about this chapter, it was originally supposed to be 2. Yeah, I decided to condense it into 1 just to keep the story pace moving a little faster. Next chapter we will get a major event with the dance.
Also thinking on some other ideas I'm wanting to explore as the story progresses. But more on that when we get there.