Chapter 14: The Storm
If what I hear is true, and Adam is the new High Leader of the White Fang, then I simply cannot allow this to stand. He is still young, brash, and reckless. He will not-
Adam took the nearest thing he could find, which happened to be his weapon, and threw it at the nearby radio as hard as he could. It scared a few nearby White Fang members, who turned to look at him.
"What are you looking at?!" He snarled at them. They quickly backed away and left the room.
How dare Ghira think he wasn't worthy of leading the White Fang? How dare he speak about him like that? The absolute nerve of that idiot!
He hadn't heard anything from Tock or Ilia in a while. It was time to check up on them. Taking out his scroll, he phoned them.
"Hello? Adam love, is that you?"
"Don't call me love."
"Dear me, someone's in a bad mood."
"Have you found Trifa yet?"
"I believe we may have. The guy I spoke to a few days ago mentioned how she was with Roman Torchwick. I saw Roman Torchwick in a store recently. We think we know where there staying. We are heading to that apartment now."
"And you didn't attack him to make the retrieval of Trifa easier?" Adam's voice rose.
"Whoa, whoa, no need to raise your voice. He was in a public place Adam! We couldn't very well kill him in front of all those people."
Adam hadn't even thought of that. "Very well then. Remember, you must not kill her. You must bring her to me, alive."
"Of course. Is that all you want to pester me about?"
"That will be all Tock."
"Alright, later dear." She hung up.
Do what we do best
"I believe this may be the place." Ilia said as Tock put her scroll away.
"Let's hope it is."
"So, uh, do we just walk in and take her out then?"
"We need to do this as quickly and efficiently as possible. If we are too slow, we'll be caught."
Ilia nodded her head. "I understand."
"Good stuff. Come on, time to catch us a spider."
Do what we do best
"You have retractable spikes in your hat that come out when you throw it?" Trifa didn't believe him.
"Yep." Roman crossed his arms.
"No you do not, you wouldn't be able to wear it then! Prove it."
"I will." He stood up, took his hat off, and then threw it. Nothing happened. No spikes of doom came out. It just flew like a plain old hat, and came to a stop.
"I knew it."
"What's the first bit in my motto?"
"You have a motto?"
Roman blinked. "Have I not told you it?"
"I don't think so, no."
"Well, it's "Lie, steal, cheat, and survive."
"Oh, so you lied."
"Stating the obvious there." Roman said. "What was the White Fang's motto? Was it like "Kill all the humans? "Annihilate everything and everyone?"
"Hold on, you were in charge of the White Fang, you should know!"
Roman shrugged and lit a cigar. "Well, I don't. All I know is that during that time, they put up posters all over the underground with my face on it, and I'm pointing a finger and then it says "I want you for the White Fang."
"Yeah, because I'm sure your face would convince people to join the White Fang." Trifa said with a roll of the eyes.
"I have a very nice face, what's your point?"
Then, all of a sudden, there was a suspiciously loud creak in one of the air vents above, followed by someone cursing extremely loudly. Both Roman and Trifa looked up.
"Uh, what was that?" Trifa said.
"I have no idea."
"Is it broke or something?"
"Tock, is it really the best idea to be crawling through the air vents? It's awfully tight in here!" A voice said. Trifa backed up. She recognised that voice.
"Last time I checked, air vents don't speak." Roman commented. "Not that I've ever had the need to check to see if my air vents spoke or not, because why would I? Air vents don't speak."
"I'm telling you Ilia, this is going work! We knock out Torchwick, grab Trifa, get out of there, bring her back to Adam, I get my pay check, and everything is fine."
"No…" Trifa's voice was barely above a whisper. "Ilia?"
Roman backed up, and grabbed Melodic Cugel. Aiming it at the air vent, he fired it. It blew up, and Tock and Ilia came tumbling out, in a cloud of smoke and debris.
They both stood up, dusting themselves off. Ilia looked over at Trifa.
"Ilia? What are you doing here?"
"You know her?" Roman looked at Tock. "And dear me, those are some awfully sharp teeth you've got right there. Might want to see a dentist."
"I am not interested in hearing you opinion about my Faunus heritage." Tock said with a slight smile. "What I am interested in though, is her." She pointed one of her swords at Trifa.
"What do you want with her?"
"Personally, I don't want anything with her. However, Adam Taurus does." Tock grinned at Trifa. "To be precise, he wants her head on a silver platter."
"Adam?" Trifa looked down at the ground when Roman looked at her. "What does Adam-"
"She hasn't told you, has she? Little ole miss spider over here ran away from him at the Battle of Beacon, and needless to say, he wasn't very happy."
Ilia was staring down at her feet, refusing to meet Trifa's eyes.
"So, we were tasked with hunting her down and bringing her to him. Now then Mister Wick-"
Mister Wick? What kind of name is that? Roman knew he didn't have time to ponder over that.
"-I am going to give you two choices. You can either hand her over, and we'll leave you alone. Or, you can refuse to hand her over, and that's when things will have to get ugly." Her grip tightened on her weapons.
Roman looked to Trifa and then back to Tock. He took a step towards Tock.
"I'll hand her over." He said. Tock smiled.
"Seems like your smarter than you look."
Roman turned and walked back to Trifa. "Roman, no, please don't-"
Roman put her arms around her, to look like he was giving her a hug. He dropped his voice to a whisper.
"Whenever I say "Archane" you need to duck. Got it?"
"What, why-"
"Just do it." He let go of her, praying to the gods she would do what he said. He turned her around, and gently pushed her towards Tock, who grabbed her roughly by the arm.
"Come on then spider girl. Let's head out."
"Hey, hold on a second" Roman held up a hand. "Is your name Ilia?" He pointed to her.
"Well, uh, yeah."
"What did you call Trifa while she was in the White Fang?"
"What, what do you mean?"
"Did you like, give her nickname, or did you just call her by her own name?"
"I just, called her by her name. Why would I call her anything else?"
"You people are all so boring. Personally, I like to call her…" He looked straight at Trifa and winked. "Archane."
Trifa wrenched herself free from Tock's grip, and then Roman fired a shot. It struck Tock square in the chest, sending her flying straight out the window. Ilia loudly gasped, and looked at the two of them.
"Ilia, please-" Trifa reached her hand out towards her. "Just-" Tock suddenly leapt back into the room, but she didn't go for them. Instead, she pulled out her large stopwatch.
"You've done it now. I gave you a chance-" She pointed to Roman. "And you blew it. So, have the pleasure of knowing that these-"
Roman and Trifa both watched as Tock set the stopwatch to a minute. A feeling of immediate dread settled over the both of them.
"-are the last sixty seconds of your life."
Do what we do best
"Now remember Jaune, exactly as we practiced-"
Jaune swung his sword as Pyrrah's video played on his scroll screen. He had managed to convince the others to get some rest, and had promised them that he would keep an eye on Neo. Qrow hadn't been too happy with the idea, but Ruby had managed to convince him. Neo was currently tied down with some rope they had managed to snag, and the rope was looped around two rocks either side of him, ensuring she couldn't move. The bowler hat which she had been wearing was placed neatly on a rock next to him.
Come on, come on! Why doesn't it feel like I'm improving?
He had certainly gotten better thanks to Pyrrah, but he was still nowhere near the level of any of his teammates.
It's so unfair!
In a moment of frustration, he hurled his sword at a rock, making a loud clanging noise, and sat down on a nearby tree trunk, putting his head in his hands.
Why Pyrrah, why did you have to die on me… I need you.
He turned and went to grab his sword and try again, but then he realised that the noise had woken Neo up. She fixed her eyes on him, and then started struggling to break the rope.
"There's no point in doing that, your just going to hurt yourself." She spat at him, and continued to struggle. He sighed, deciding to just ignore her, and continue training. Picking his sword back up, he put the video back on and continued to practice.
He swung, again and again, and again, and again, and again…
This was what he was going to have to do if he was going to get better. He would not let Pyrrah's death be in vain. He would continue to improve, he would get better, he would become a warrior like his friends.
Then, the loud sound of sobbing broke his concentration. He looked around, confused, and then realised Neo was crying. He looked at her, and immediately felt a pang of sympathy flow through him. He was reminded of one of his younger sisters, and wanted nothing more than to put his arms around her, and tell her it was going to be okay.
Stop it Jaune. She's trying to trick you, trying to get you to unbind her, so then she can kill you.
It was a very simple trick, and he wasn't going to fall for it. But then he realised, she wasn't even looking at him. He followed her gaze, and realised she was looking at the bowler hat. Then she fixed her tear stained eyes on him, and tried to push herself off the ground. She didn't get very far.
"Please… give me…. it." She then immediately fell back, like talking had been too much for her to handle.
The hat? She wants the hat? Okay…
It was only a hat, not much to it right? Inwardly shrugging, he picked it up and brought it over to her, and she motioned to the top of her head. He leaned down and gently set it on. Standing back up, he flicked through more of Pyrrah's videos.
He set his scroll back down, and continued to practice under the moonlight, while Neo silently continued to weep.
Do what we do best
Heartbreaking stuff. Also, I somehow got 119 views last chapter. Whoa, that's impressive. Thanks a lot everyone!
Anyway, thanks for reading and have a good day!