Another boring day walking—patrolling Mountain Glenn's abandoned city. The rising Sun shone less bright thanks to the remaining negativity from that tragic day staining the whole place to this day, making it grayer than it already was with all the dull and broken buildings of the failed expansion.

Whatever impact the visage held was lost when seeing it became part of the routine. Day by day passed, and even observing the soulless creatures got boring. As it turns out, not needing to eat or sleep made them do even less than animals in a zoo would even do, and if they didn't see you, they simply walked around the city like they did.

At least the Goliaths were still impressive to witness, being such enormous and ancient. Probably helped that they look you in the eye if they feel lingering eyes on them

Before Deery could think about the things she witnessed and experienced since their operation in Mt. Glenn started to entertain herself somewhat, she tripped over a small piece of debris.

"Oof!" She just managed to not hit her face by crossing her arms in front of her. Even with the bigger and metallic Grimm mask on, that hit would've hurt. "I'm starting to hate this place…"

"I think this is a nice change of pace," Perry unhelpfully said, walking towards her. "Also, you shouldn't let go of your gun Deery, they aren't cheap and if a Grimm were to show you would be easy picking."

He offered one hand to help her up, while still holding his gun with the other. She grabbed it quickly, pressing it as hard as she could. Perry didn't seem to be bothered at all. She gave up and simply rose with his help.

"Easy for you to say, you got to see some action at the main camp, putting our training to actual use."

Perry was unaffected by her bitter grunting, and replied nonchalantly. "It wasn't fun, Deery. Someone could've died, and we were lucky the robots didn't kill nobody before we destroyed them."

Deery was about to argue, but gave up, letting out a tired sigh instead. "I know… sorry."

Perry accepted the meek apology with a simple nod. They kept walking down the street, alongside a collapsed building and were about to turn it's corner-which was the roof.

A short atlesian soldier jumped in front of them, white rifle aiming in their direction.

"Ah!" Deery was startled, and threw her gun at the soldier while Perry shot immediately.

The soldier shattered with the bullet, Deery's rifle clattered uselessly on the pavement behind the shattered remains. Pink shards to be specific.

"Neo!"

Of course, it was Torchwick's little imp pulling this stunt on them, humiliating her in the process too. The ice cream colored midget appeared to their right, shoulders shacking and her left hand covering her mouth. The mute woman was clearly laughing. This was the fourth time this week.

"You just wait you bi-bully! The Elder will know about this."

Several growls could be heard from inside the fallen building. Neo simply smiled at her.

"After we deal with this." Neo walked and kicked the black bulky rifle towards her, making Deery stumble backwards. "… Thanks."

She aimed at the shadows in the windows, and looked at the little devil also waiting for the Grimm to come out. She probably wanted to fight them for her sick pleasure. No matter, that worked for their favor and wouldn't change her plans of talking to the Elder about Neo's behavior.

"Talk with Torchwick."

Their lieutenant, as it turned out, wasn't much help.

"...Do I have to?"

"Yes." The big man took a deep breath. "I don't like letting her bother my troops, but at least she's not maiming them." Deery grimaced. "That's the best deal I could get with her, because Torchwick at least acknowledges my authority and the need for able bodies. And she listens to him." He crossed his arms. "Most of the time at least."

Her shoulders dropped. That was it; she either talks to Torchwick or let his minion keep bothering her.

That was another thing that sucked about this whole operation. Torchwick was here twenty four seven, and the same was true for his henchwoman. Didn't help that he had as much authority as the Elder—thanks to Adam Taurus—so they had to swallow their pride, letting him order them around and endure the insults.

It didn't make sense to her, at all, that Taurus would give such a man that much power over them. Yet, that was the reality she lived in.

Returning to her duties of the day—with the Elder's dismissal, of course—, she tried not to think too much about her predicament and was thankful that Neo didn't target her for the rest of the day, and could go to sleep in peace. Their barracks for this operation were thankfully much safer than their tents in the main camp outside the kingdom, being metallic structures strong enough to give them time to act against an atlesian assault or a Grimm attack. So she could rest without any worries.

But unknown to her, someone wanted to be entertained even later at midnight, uncaring of the deer faunus desire for a good night sleep.

Everyone was asleep in the barracks.

Everyone but Deery.

Just because she was productive through the whole day didn't mean she wasn't bored about moving crates into the train, patrolling the zone, and guiding the pilots of the Paladins—because she couldn't pilot, for good reasons—to put the cars on the tracks. She expected more action than this; riots, kidnapping, maybe some industrial sabotage with explosives. But certainly not putting together a train and filling it with crates of Dust.

Hopefully this would all be worth it in the end, and would led to something more satisfying for her.

And with those last thoughts, she was finally drifting off to sleep. Until she felt a presence beside her, watching her and halting her rest.

She opened her eyes.

A Grimm like ghost was over her and staring at her.

She, of course, screamed. Snatching the handgun under her pillow to fire at it.

Thanks to the light and sound of the shoots, Deery didn't noticed how it shattered with the first hit and kept shooting and screaming in her panic until there were no more bullets in the mag. After pressing the trigger and hearing the 'click' of an empty gun, dare looked around after taking a deep breath to calm her racing heart.

The brothers and sisters of the White Fang were all looking at her, angry, confused and tired. But mostly angry.

"Why the fuck were you shooting?" was the oh-so-calm question made by one of the many faunus currently awake by her shooting indoors.

"There was a Grimm inside, I swear."

Perry—she just knew it was Perry—asked too. "What did it look like?"

"Like, some kind of ghost. It had one eye." Deery looked around seeing everyone get glaring at her harder. "… Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Deery…" started Perry. "That sounds like a Geist."

She didn't get it. "And…?"

"Deery," continued Perry, speaking slowly and carefully, as if talking to a child. "There are no Geist in Mountain Glenn."

Half a minute passed, and her brain was still processing the new info.

"Excuse me, what?"

"There are no-"

"I heard you the first time!" Deery interrupted. "I'm just trying to—uh?" She looked down, seeing small pink shards like glass slowly fading away into nothing. It was her, Neo. Because of course it was!

"Are you okay?" asked Perry, sounding a bit worried for her.

Deery took a deep breath and tried not to scream in anger. "Yes. I'm fine," said Deery, gritting her teeth and not looking fine at all if her scowl was to go by. But Perry didn't pry and was content to leave it at that.

"Okay then… Goodnight Deery." Perry and everyone else went to rest, putting their weapons close to grabifan actual attack happened.

"Night…" Deery tried to sleep, Neo's prank already put her on high alert. So she lay there, eyes closed but unable to sleep until the Sun rose once again and she had to do her given duties.

Deery had no choice but to move crates in the cars of the train, lips shut tight to hide gritting teeth, and mask thankfully hiding her bloodshot eyes that glared at everyone and everything. Her duty felt more like a chore, and that only made her feel her irritation grow into anger.

She was so angry, she didn't see a small rock in her way. Falling face first and crate spilling on the ground, Deery simply clenched her teeth .

"You should be more careful with that stuff Deery, you could've blown yourself up," Perry said, just in time to see her like this.

Deery growled into the ground. "I didn't ask for your advice!—uh?"

"What?"

When she had look up to shout at Perry, she saw him carrying a cup of coffee and a bowl of ice cream.

"How did you get that?

"There's a coffee machine close-"

"Not that! The ice cream you dumb-" she held off her tongue. It wasn't fair to take her anger on Perry. "… you."

"The ice cream? I made it."

Deery was dumbfounded. It took her a minute before she spoke again. "… How?"

"Torchwick gave me the ingredients, and I did this yesterday."

"Why."

"For Neo of course."

Deery thought that the ridiculousness of her current situation was washing her anger away, but the mere mention of Neo angered her, and it didn't help that she would get to eat ice cream here while all of them ate MREs. It was dumb, it wasn't fair and she couldn't take it anymore.

"Would you mind if came with you to them?" Deery asked in a sickly sweet tone that was so fake and filled with negativity, a Grimm would've come straight for her if it wasn't for Mt. Glenn hiding their presence.

Perry simply choose to play along, and spoke with enthusiasm that was more natural than it should've been. "Of course."

After walking for a few minutes, they reached a tent close to the tracks, currently occupied by the Elder, Torchwick and Neo. The two men probably were discussing about the plans of the train over an old map of the tracks hat were on a simply wooded table. She let Perry reach them first.

"Here's your coffee boss."

"Thanks Perry, you're my favorite minion." The lieutenant scoffed while Roman took a sip. "Mmm, cold and bitter, just like the world we live in." Torchwick took another sip from the metal cup. "Not what I wanted, but I need the caffeine, so it'll do."

You're not the only one…

Anger got Deery to this point, even if her eyes wanted to close and her mind to drift off into dreamland. Seeing Perry offer the bowl of neopolitan to Neo just gave her strength to continue. Maybe during the break she would get some shut-eye, but not now that she had something to say—because she couldn't actually do much against Neo, physically speaking.

"Torchwick."

Roman didn't acknowledge her presence.

She huffed, rolled her eyes and tried again. "Boss,"Deery managed to grunt out.

Roman looked up, clearly satisfied and with a smug smile. "Yes, Deery?"

"Could you please get Neo off my back? It's bad enough to be here in this damn place, but do I don't deserve being the target of her pranks."

"You might not be deserving, but you're worthy."

What the fuck does that mean?!

"… Excuse me?"

"You're excused."

"Wha-? No! Forget it." Deery grabbed at the temple of her mask. "Just... please, make her stop bothering me."

Torchwick look at Neo, and Neo looked at him. "Neo, can you leave our Deery dearest alone?"

Neo rested her head on her fist, keeping the bowl safe with her other hand. After a moment of thinking, she simply shrugged, and nodded.

Roman looked at Deery. "Done, no off you go. The grown ups are talking."

"Wait, really?!"

"Yes, really. Now go, please."

That's all it took. It was really that simple.

"… Thanks." Deery walked away slowly, feeling numb.

They all watched her go away, until she blended with the rest of the uniformed faunus. Perry then looked at Neo. "What's the catch?"

Neo pointed at him, then down at the bowl of ice cream, and finally to her.

Perry just shrugged. "Sure, I don't mind bringing you ice cream."

And with that, everything was boring again at Mountain Glenn.

For now at least.

Not quite the April Fools worthy-chapter, but still a more laid back chapter compared to the others ones to get on the mood. I just didn't feel like uploading a crack-chapter, at least not for this fic (I do have a draft though). Even if it wasn't a funny chapter, I hope it was good enough to read trough. I'm not happy with my portrayal of Neo here, but I think it was decent enough (that, and I didn't want to take more time from updating), so criticismn about her would be appreciated (I do want to be able to write her well after all, because it's Neo).

And sorry by the time it took for another chapter to be uploaded, but be reassured, the next one won't take so long.

As always, leave your reviews and thoughts if you want. Until next time.