"So this is our new digs?" Felix said distastefully. "What a dump!"

Privately, Roman had to agree, the ruins were in an absolutely abysmal with absolutely everything covered in a thick lair of dust, and not the valuable kind either. But still, the ruins under mount Glenn were both large, and well hidden from the authorities, the two qualities he valued most in a hideout, so he wasn't going to be complaining anytime soon.

"Oh relax." Roman told Felix. "It might not be the best looking hide out in the world, but it'll get the job done."

Felix made a noise of descent. "Look all i'm saying is the last cave hideout I was in was much better than some dusty old ruins."

Currently the duo were standing overlooking the ruins themselves, watching as the White Fang loaded the more dust onto the train while other member of the White Fang guarded them from any Grimm attack, although there was a surprising lack of Grimm attacks as they all stayed a good distance away from their operation. It was very suspicious, but Torchwick wasn't about to look this particular horse in the mouth.

As the two men descended into silence, Roman wracked his brain for a decent conversation opener, as he needed more information about Felix, which was a goal dear Cinder herself had given Roman. as she knew practically nothing about the mercenary and wanted him to find out more while she was busy playing the student at Beacon.

"So... do your ever wonder why we're here?" Torchwick asked Felix, optioning for an oldie, but a goodie.

"Are you having memory loss or something? We're here because boss lady wants us to fill the train with dust and terrorist bomb the city." Felix informed roman before chuckling to himself. "Kinda reminds me about my days with the new republic, fun times."

"I meant philosophically."

"Oh." Felix paused. "In that case... no."

Torchwick leaned forward on his cane. "So you've never wondered about the great mysteries of life?"

"Nope, i'm a very simple man and only need to know one thing- whose that?" Felix asked in a complete different tone from the rest of his sentence, and the pointed directly to the bench behind them, where a very familiar woman with a very familiar umbrella was sitting.

The closest thing that he had ever had to a genuine smile appeared on Roman's face.

"She is my dear friend Neo, recently back from a mission if i'm not mistaken." He introduced the one and only person he trusted. "And Neo, this is our new business partner, Felix."

Neo go up from the bench and curtsied, a familiar smirk on her face.

Ah he'd missed that smirk these last few months, as Neo was forced to go on a mission to retrieve something from a contact in atlas called Dr Watts and bring it to cinder.

Felix held up a hand. "Wait, Neo as in the ice cream?"

Neo nodded, causing Felix to shake his head.

"Neo, Cinder, Ruby, Locus, Sharkface, Agents fucking Washington and Carolina. What on earth happened to normal fucking sounding names?" Felix yelled out to the the heavens.

At this Neo shook her head in mock despair, causing a grin to erupt on Roman's face.

"You know I think you hurt her feelings.' He told Felix drily.

"And what?"

"If you hurt her feelings, she can hurt your feelings, and your body, probably both at the same time I reckon." Roman said causally, causing Neo to look up like an exited puppy. "But unfortunately, Cinder specified that there was to be no violence between partners, sorry Neo."

Felix chuckled darkly. "No violence between partners huh? You know, for a second you sounded just like my last partner, voice and all."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" Torchwick asked curiously.

"Well, after he left me to die at the hands of idiots, I promised myself that the next time I see him, i'll kill him slowly, painfully and talking as much as I can. So take that as you will." Felix said with an air of faux casualness around him, while playing with a knife he seemed to have pulled from no where.

Choosing to take it as a complement, Roman changed the topic.

"So speaking of killing and murder... what exactly is the plan for dealing with those brats from Beacon when we're stuck up here?" Roman questioned. "I mean it is the whole reason we hired you after all, to deal with the kids and their 'powerful friends' you keep mentioning."

"Actually, thanks for the reminder." Felix thanked his partner. "After my we testing of their defences, I now know exactly how to break them."

"What do you have in mind?" He asked as Neo suddenly started to pay more attention, as she did when this type of thing came up.

"Well it's a little trick I learned from this asshole, called himself the Counsellor. Never really had an opportunity to use it, 'cause it requires a bit of prep to get going." Felix explained. "If i'm right it'll not only put one of these 'powerful' friends I mentioned down for the count, but also little red riding hood, if i'm right."

Now Roman was really intrigued, a way to take out little red who had been nothing but a pain in his side. Well, he only needed to ask one question.

"Will it be painful?"

Felix chuckled, "Extremely, not only will it hurt her and this friend, it will break them."

Well he was sold, and from the look on her face so was Neo. "Well what do you need to make this work?"

"All I need is a pen, and a piece of paper."

Miles away and miles away, unaware of schemes and plots to destroy her friends, Pyrrha Nikos was taking a night time stroll.

Ever sense she had been a little girl, Pyrrha had loved the night, to her it was always a quiet peaceful time, a time where she could just relax and look at the stars alone with her thoughts.

And tonight she had a lot to think about, it had been two day's since her partner Ruby, had unveiled her completed robotic creation and to say Pyrrha had been impressed was an understatement.

Despite problems with the voice, the robot had quickly proved that it had a fantastic learning A.I and was well constructed as proven when Yang had accidentally sent it flying through a wall and it didn't break. An impressive feat considering how strong Yang was.

But something more important (well to Pyrrha anyway) had happened earlier that day.

She and Jaune had went on a second date.

Granted, it had been just a small Friday night dinner at a small out of the way restaurant, but Pyrrha had loved every second of it.

From the more fatty foods that she rarely got to have to the company of Jaune and the fact she wasn't accosted by a single reporter had made the date one that would be hard to top in her eyes.

And with the Beacon dance coming up at the end of next week, Pyrrha was looking forward to that as their third date.

Of course immediately after that, there would be their first ever missions, followed shortly by the winter break.

Still, Pyrrha was looking forward to the dance the most, it was a real chance to be normal.

With a content sigh, Pyrrha continued her nightly walk around Beacon, unconcerned by the cold air.

Then as she neared the cliffs in order to get a good view of Vale, she heard someone muttering to themselves.

Turning a corner she realised it was Ruby, still in her uniform from class and and muttering to herself while pacing back and forth.

Getting very concerned, very quickly, Pyrrha made a beeline for Ruby to see what was up with with her.

"Ruby?"

The mention of her name caused Ruby to jump out of surprise. "Oh! Pyrrha! What are you doing here?"

"I was just going for a nightly walk." Pyrrha said, before asking in a concerned voice. "What are you doing up so late?"

Ruby made a dismissive hand gesture and pulled out her scroll. "Oh it isn't that late, it's only...half eleven at night..." Ruby trailed off at seeing the time.

"Ruby it isn't like you to loose track of time like this, and I saw you pacing, whats wrong?" Pyrrha asked gently.

Ruby crossed her arms and looked down at the grassy ground. "It's...nothing I don't want to bother you with my problems."

"Ruby, you could never be a bother." Pyrrha told her genuinely.

"Yeah but i'm the team leader, I shouldn't be bothering you with my problems, I should be- uh, team leading." Ruby tried to push away Pyrrha's concern, but the Mistrallian was having none of it.

"You may be the team leader, but we're partners." Pyrrha emphasised. "So let me ask you again; what's wrong?"

Ruby's silver eyes looked up to Pyrrha's face and the younger girl sighed.

"Alright, i'll tell you but you absolutely cannot tell Yang or Blake, got it?"

Pyrrha nodded.

"Pinky swear!?" Ruby demanded, lifting her pinky finger.

Pyrrha took it and said. "I swear."

"Alright." Ruby sighed.

"Well, you see nothing is really wrong per say, it's just that well-" Ruby struggled with her words, "It's just that I, kinda sorta have a... I have a..."

"Would it be better if you whispered it?" Pyrrha asked.

Ruby nodded and went right up to Pyrrha's ear to whisper what exactly was wrong.

"I have a crush on Blake." Ruby whispered before pulling away, looking terrified at the thought.

A warm smile broke out over Pyrrha's face,

"What's so bad about that?"

"Everything! Blake's my friend, and Yang will tease me and and i'll ruin everything!" Ruby ranted hysterically.

Pyrrha put her hand on her partners shoulder. "Ruby, you're working yourself up into a state, think about it what is the worst that could happen?"

"I could try and ask her and and she'll laugh at me, then Yang'll laugh at me, then i'll be expelled and and the world would explode."

"That seems to be very unlikely."

"Uuugggghhhhhh!" Ruby collapsed onto her back onto the ground. "What should I do?"

With a small, but fond laugh, Pyrrhic laid down next to Ruby on the grass, and looked up to the stars in the heavens.

"Ruby, when did you first realise that you had a crush on Blake?" Pyrrha asked.

Ruby put her hands under her head. "Well it started... well I don't know exactly when, but lately when i'm near Blake got little butterflies in my stomach and my face got all red and I just couldn't help but taking quick looks at her." Ruby sighed. "But the breaking point, where I realised that I did have a crush on her was earlier today when she came up to me with one of her romance novels in her arm and she asked about the homework, but when I saw the title, Ninjas Of Love, that's when it clicked, so I ran away and was here ever since." Ruby finish quietly.

Pyrrha got two things from Ruby's story. Firstly, Ruby was innocent enough to believe that Ninjas Of Love was a romance novel. Secondly, this was most likely Ruby's first major crush, so she should try and handle Ruby's situation delicately.

The two partners stayed in silence for a small while after Ruby's story, content to digest things and look at the stars.

"Ruby..." Pyrrha said after a while.

"Yeah?"

"If you'd like my advice, then I recommend you try and ask Blake to the Beacon dance next week."

"What!? But what if see says no?" Ruby cried out. "What if she laughs? What if...she hates me?"

"Now you're just being ridiculous, Blake could never hate you, just try and ask her to the dance." Pyrrha reasoned and comforted.

"But i'm scared that something will go wrong." Ruby said quietly.

"Well as the warrior king of Vale once said: 'Courage is not the absence of fear. It is acting in spite of it.' You need too have some courage Ruby." Pyrrha advised, slightly proud of herself for quoting one of the greatest inspirational speakers of all time.

"I don't think he actually said that." Ruby interjected. "And even if he did, he would have just been quoting another guy."

Pyrrha turned her head to face Ruby. "Then who would he have been quoting?"

"The great Donald Doyle, I don't actually know much about him, but i'm told he was a great man." Ruby explained. "But still... it's a good quote."

"And Pyrrha, I think I will try to ask Blake to the dance, after I get some more advice." Ruby paused. "Thank you for everything."

"No need to thank me, after all what are partners for?"

"What's the situation?" Ghira asked the guard, a wolf Faunus, situated outside the small hospital room in Menagerie general, named as such because it was the only hospital on the continent.

"We found him wondering the desert near our border." The guardsman reported. "We were first alerted to his presence when the lookout spotted him battling a giant deathstalker by himself."

"A large deathstalker by himself?" Ghira raised an eyebrow. "An impressive feat."

"Yes sir." The guard agreed. "He managed to kill it by himself using some form of sword and had collapsed by himself by time we got a team out."

Ghira nodded. "While that is interesting, I must confess that see why I was summoned here."

A single person being found out in the desert passed out after fighting Grimm was not uncommon after all.

"Well the thing is sir... he's human." The guard reported.

Now he could see why he was called.

As a safe haven for the Faunus there were rarely any humans on the island at any given time. In fact, the only human with permanent residence here was a female that came to Menagerie to raise a family with her Faunus husband.

"I see... bring me to him." Was all he said.

Nodding the guard unlocked the door and opened it to a fairly small hospital room, containing a bed with the unconscious human on it, restrained by cuffs tied to the bed, and opposite him a set of armour on top of a desk and small handle for something.

"Is this all that he was found with?" Ghira asked the guard as the chieftain studied the clearly custom armour.

"No sir, we also found him with some form of sniper rifle and a shotgun. But they were... odd sir." The guard reported.

"In what way?"

"They don't seem to use any dust sir."

That was odd, and practically suicide, especially for roaming the desert.

"What about this then?" Ghira asked as he held up the handle of something.

"Unknown."

Ghira gave a small grunt as he went over to the man himself, who was currently unconscious and most likely suffering dehydration.

The man had dark skin and a military buzz cut, he was also very well built. But what was most striking about him was the scar on his face. It was an X-shaped scar across his face in a manner similar to the markings on the helmet. He did not like this one bit.

"Keep up the good work." He told the guard as he started to leave the room. "And let me know the instant he's awake."

"Very good sir."

He would have to discuss this worrying development with Kali when he got home.

As the former leader of the white fang, he had gotten very good at telling what type of person someone is from looking at their face, it was why he never really liked his daughters association and relationship with Adam, his face was of a very dangerous and unhinged man.

And this human had the face of either a soldier or a monster.

And he needed to find out which the human was and fast.

Notes:

And that's the end of that chapter.

Here we have our introduction of Neo into the mix turning our villain duo into a trio, and we also have Felix scheming up a new plot to mess with our heroes. And interesting fact, for those that don't know, Torchwick and Locus share the same voice actor, which is part of the reason I paired them up into a duo.

We also have the start to the Ladybug part of the story! i hope that Ruby's confession that she had a crush on Blake was done right and that i managed to keep her in character her, The same with Pyrrha. But I did really enjoy writing this section of the story because it also gave me a change for having Ruby and Pyrrha interact with each other as partners and friends.

And finally, Locus is in Menagerie about to meet Blake's parents when he wakes up. Where will this go? You'll see.

As always thank you everyone for reading and extra thanks to those who comment/review.

Next time I have something very special planned, so stay tuned for that, till then i hope you all have a good day, and i'll catch ya'll on the flip flop.