RWBY A Day in the Life of Crime
Chapter 14: I Think we Missed Something...
"So this quarter we've made quite a bit of money," Cinder started the meeting, tapping together the stack of papers in her hands before fixing her glasses on her face. "According to our finances..." Cinder droned on with statistics and profit margins, the people at the table looking rather bored around her. Mercury's head was nodding up and down as he tried to prevent himself from falling asleep. Emerald was doodling on the packets that Cinder had handed out to everyone. Roman was actually sleeping, his hat on his face to cover his sleeping face, while a badly drawn version that was meant to be his 'real' face was tapped to it. Cinder could hear the snores coming from behind it, as the man leaned back in his seat, arms crossed behind his head as a makeshift pillow. Neo had taken to trying to build a house of cards and Ruby, who was seated right across from Cinder, at the head of the table, was looking under the table and laughing at something to herself.
Cinder frowned as she saw all this and clearing her throat, she spoke up. "I know this is boring, but would you at least try to look like you're paying attention?"
No one heard her, thinking she was still droning on. She cleared her throat once more, more aggressively.
"Guys!"
Emerald's pen ran off the paper, marking the table. Mercury's head snapped all the way up. Neo's house of cards fell down just as she had been about to place the last card on top and Ruby jerked out of her seat so violently that the phone she had been hiding in her lap came flying up and she had to fumble with it in midair for a bit before she caught it and hid it in her pocket, giving a little awkward laugh and checking to see if anyone saw that. The only one still not paying attention was Roman and Cinder indicated to Emerald. "Kick him under the table."
The green haired girl did as asked, the man jerking awake with a loud cry. His hat came off his face and fell with a plop on the table. "Wh-what did I miss?" He gave a confused look and gazed around bleary eyed.
Cinder sighed. "Would you all pay attention? This is imperative information that will help us run the gang more smoothly."
"That's right. Pay attention!" Ruby pointed an accusing finger at Roman who did not look pleased to be scolded on both ends.
"You're included in this Ruby," Cinder said.
"What!" the girl pointed at herself, clearly confused by this.
"You're the leader of the gang and you're not setting a good example by watching videos instead of listening during this meeting."
"Boo, finances are boring! Boring!" Ruby pouted at being caught and slammed her hands on the table top.
Cinder's eyebrow arched menacingly and Ruby sat back into her seat, shimmering down. "Let's start over this time. And I expect everyone to pay attention and take notes." Cinder gave the people at the table a long and sweeping look to make sure she had their attention. They all looked at her, albeit with varying degrees of disgruntled looks. Satisfied, she adjusted the glasses on her face.
"Good, let's start this over from the top." They all held back their groans at the idea of having to go over everything again.
Chapter 14: I Think we Missed Something...
"So this quarter we've made quite a bit of money," Cinder started, only to have an "um" pipe up somewhere from the audience.
She ignored it. "According to our finances, this means we can afford more equipment for our gang. Better weapons, better getaway cars and better muscle." There was another "um," which Cinder ignored as well.
"It's thanks to the bakeries that we have taken over. We now have an additional form of income other than us robbing banks, stealing from charities, bankrupting rich people, and smuggling dust products from the Schnee family."
There was third "um" one that Cinder could not ignore this time. She pulled the paper from in front of her face that she had been reading and arched a brow over the frame of her black glasses. "What is it Mercury?"
The gray haired man looked flustered, afraid to interrupt Cinder but needing to do so. "Uh, I don't really want to interrupt-"
"But you're interrupting. You know what that means. When you interrupt a meeting, you get a beating!" Ruby sang at Mercury who paled.
"Ruby, let the man speak," Cinder told her girlfriend. Ruby sat back down with a disgruntled whimper. She had been bored, and looking for any excuse to leave this meeting and do something else. Cinder wasn't going to let her.
"Well, uh, when we restarted the meeting, there was a caption that said the title of this chapter and what number it was...but it was, uh, wrong," Mercury said in a low voice.
Cinder furrowed her eyes. What was Mercury talking about? He took her look as one of anger and cowered in his seat as he hastened to move on from this topic. "Never mind then. It's not important."
"That's right, not important. Not at all!" Ruby piped up from her end of the table, her voice just a bit too squeaky. That meant she was hiding something.
"Ruby...what did you do?"
"Huh! Me? Whaaaaa, what are you talking about!" Ruby awkwardly laughed, ruffling up the back of her head and giving a wide smile.
Cinder was now certain that Ruby had done something. "I'm going to check the title again."
"Uh, don't do that!" Ruby rushed to get out of her chair, tripping over her own cloak which had gotten tangled in the wheels of the chair. She landed on the floor with a huff and when she picked herself up she found that Cinder had pulled down the title of this chapter from where it had been floating over her head.
"Hmmm, something is off about it. I just don't know what. What do you think it means?" Cinder asked the henchmen who all peered more closely at it, it being spread out on the table between them.
"It looks normal to me," Roman commented lackadaisically.
"It sounds a bit suspicious. It says something's missing...but what is?" Emerald voiced and Neo picked up a sign that said "Something important?" unhelpfully.
"Mercury, you said it was wrong. You were the first to notice. So what is the deal with the title?" Cinder turned to Mercury who blanched under her direct demand.
"I'm actually not sure, it just felt off," he said, wilting a little as he said this due to the glare that Cinder threw at him. What a bumbling fool, she thought. Why did he work for them again?
"Ah! Don't look at it!" Ruby ran her hands over the title, scrambling the letters so that no one could figure the truth out.
"Ruby! What's going on!" Cinder was getting just a tad annoyed with her girlfriend.
"It's bad luck!"
"Bad luck?" Roman arched a brow and pulled out a cigar, Neo out of habit leaning over the table to light it.
"Bad luck to talk about it!" Ruby pumped her fists up and down to try to convince the others.
"Bad luck?" Emerald echoed, giving Cinder a look, puzzled as to why their boss was acting like this.
A light bulb appeared over Neo's head at the words bad luck and she took to counting on her fingers, clearly having a grasp on some idea. When she reached thirteen in terms of counting, she scribbled something on her sign. Ruby and Cinder were still arguing.
"Ruby don't be ridiculous. Just tell us what's going on."
"Nope. Let's just forget about it and move on!" Ruby crossed her hands in the air, trying to get Cinder to move on, but the older woman was not budging. She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back into her chair. "How about you tell me? Or do I have to make you tell me?" There was a smirk to her voice at this as she imagined various sexual positions that would get Ruby to talk.
Neo finished writing on her sign and shoved it in Roman's face. The man looked it over, his eyes quickly absorbing what was written there. "Cinder, I think Neo's figured it out. This chapter is supposed to be chapter thirteen of the series, not counting the holiday special's, but it's labeled as fourteen."
"No!" Ruby made shushing motions at Roman who was confused by the panic he saw on the girl's face.
"Ruby! Why did you mislabel the chapter?" Cinder admonished the younger girl.
"It's...it's because thirteen is a bad luck number," Ruby's voice quieted down and she poked her pointer fingers against each other in bashfulness.
Cinder let out a sigh so deep that she could feel her lungs entirely deflate of air. "Ruby, really?"
Ruby stuck out her bottom lip and nodded her head slowly, looking up from under her lashes. "I didn't want to jinx the gang."
"Nothing like that will happen," Cinder reached out a hand and pulled the younger girl into her lap. "It's just a silly little tale told to scare kids. And you're not a little kid, are you?" Cinder batted her eyes innocently at Ruby, knowing that Ruby hated being compared to a little girl and so wouldn't stand for the slightest hint that she could be one. "I'm not a little girl! I'm grown!" Ruby crossed her arms over her chest.
"So then you should know that nothing will happen. I promise. Do you trust me?" Ruby nodded her head as Cinder placed a finger under her chin and made their eyes level with one another. "Good. Now fix the title."
Ruby got off Cinder's lap and dug deep into her pocket. With a show of effort she pulled out the original title. She held it above her head, and let go, the black print drifting up to the ceiling and hovering over Cinder's head. Everyone watched it.
Chapter Thirteen: The Unlucky One
"There. That wasn't so hard. Now we can get this meeting back on track." Cinder straightened up her papers once more and cleared her throat to speak when the title fell down on her head, smacking her face into the table. Everyone's eyes went wide as they silently watched Cinder snap her neck back up right, the shattered letters lying around her, on the table, and in her lap, along with her broken glasses. She rubbed the top of her head where a bump was already growing.
"Cinder, are you okay? I told you it was bad luck!" Ruby rushed to hug Cinder.
"It's alright. It was just bad timing."
Then the lights went out in the room.
"Bad luck!" Ruby screeched out, shaking Cinder in her grip. Cinder not so gently pried her off of her so that she could maintain a semblance of calm.
"Oh no, are we going to be cursed now?" Mercury fretted as he pulled his legs up to his chest and took to biting on his nails.
"There must have been faulty wiring or something in the system," Cinder smoothly explained. "I'll call the technician up later." She turned to Neo. "Can you go and pull up the shades on the windows so as to let some sunlight in?"
Neo nodded her head and got up out of her chair, tripping over her own feet and falling down hard on her face. She shakily got back up to her feet, hand scrambling at the table surface to help her up, her nose dribbling blood down her chin. A sign in her hand said "ouch".
"Bad luck!" Ruby hissed. "Who else shall it strike!" She pointed crazily at each member.
As if invoked by Ruby's cry, a crack appeared in the ceiling over Emerald's head and water poured down on her. All of the people at the table just watched as Emerald was nearly drowned by the powerful and long stream of water that dropped. It went on for quite a while, the girl unable to move under it.
Just when they thought it was over, the water soaking the table and spreading towards Roman, who edged his hands back, another stream came down. And then another one. Emerald was left looking like a piece of wet seaweed and smelling like something fishy and dead from the ocean. She spat out a mouthful of water and then turned to look at Cinder.
"I..that was just bad plumbing?" Cinder shrugged.
"Bad luck! I tried to warn you all. To prevent it! But you said there was no such thing as bad luck!" Ruby pointed accusingly at Cinder.
"Ahhhh!" Mercury let out a panicked cry. "Whose going to be hit next by the bad luck? I don't want be next!"
"Stop your wailing, and grow a pair. There is no need to freak out about such trivial things," Roman growled out, flicking the embers from his cigar. Instead of going down they went up, instantly lighting the front part of his hat on fire. His eyes opened wide on this. "No! Not my hat! Anything but it!" He started running around the room in hopes to extinguish it, the breeze he made spreading the flames and fanning them around more instead. The shades on the windows he passed also caught on fire and heaving a sigh, Cinder span her wrist and the flames went out. It took Roman a moment more of screaming and running around before he realized that the fire was out.
"Oh." He took his hat off and dusted the ash on it off before he sat back down, straightening his collar as he tried to act nonchalantly once more, "Right, like I said. Stop freaking out, Mercury."
At that moment the door to the room burst open, revealing a swarm of black cats, attracted to this room by the smell coming from Emerald. They let out a mighty and terrifying screech before plunging into the room like an oil spill.
"See. I told you! Bad luck!" Ruby cried out as she clung to Cinder's chest as the cats began to crawl up the legs of the people in the room and climb up the table. "Just another coincidence!" Cinder managed past Ruby's tight hold on her, but even she had a hard time believing her own words. Mercury let out a cry as they climbed up onto his arms, sinking their claws in. Emerald jumped up on the table to avoid them and was trying to distract them with little balls made of the paper packets that she had crumpled up. Neo took to swatting some with a sign that said "This is a cat-astrophe!"
"Well, at least this beats the boring finance meeting," Roman said around his cigar before he pulled out his cane and began to use it to sweep the cats away from him.
Meanwhile, Blake, who was supposed to be tending to the many black cats that Adam kept as his pets, was surprised and displeased to find they were all suddenly missing, having chewed their way past the fence guarding them.
Sighing, for she would have to be the one to fetch them, she put down the fifteen pound bag of cat food she had lugged over her shoulder and went to find them hoping that not too much damage would be done.
What a stroke of bad luck.
A/N: So a kind of fourth wall break? I guess? I really wanted to do something for chapter thirteen that dealt with superstitions but this is all I could think of without deviating too far from a crime au.