RWBY A Day in the Life of Crime
Chapter 17: Jaune's Buddy Cop Idea
"I still think Pyrrhic Pyrrha is a good name for you," Jaune argued around his glazed doughnut. Crumbs fell from his mouth as he spoke. He was seated in the passenger seat of the car that they were using for their stakeout. It was currently parked across the street from a club that the redhead cop had seen Neo go into. They had been waiting an hour for her to leave but she still hadn't exited the premises. "We can use it over the walkie talkies like they do in movies, so they won't understand our code."
"I don't think so," she stated simply for the third time, slowing getting annoyed with him. He had been blabbering non stop all the way on this ride and now while they waited. They were supposed to be quiet and attentive here but the boy simply paid more regard to his doughnut and to this stupid nickname conversation then to the club.
"And what's wrong with it? It's like from the Greek thing, Pyrrhic victory, meaning a good victory, since you're like a three time winner of the Vytal tournaments and stuff." Jaune shoved another bite of the pastry into his mouth, mumbling around it.
"Jaune, Pyrrhic victory doesn't mean that. It means a victory where the victor's loses are as great as the defeated party's."
"Oh," Jaune said quietly and he stopped talking for a good minute or two which the redhead was grateful for. It didn't last long, as the man had been thinking up more names in the time. "What about Nike? Like Pyrrha Nike? Since Nike is the goddess of victory and stuff."
She couldn't believe he was still doing the victory spiel. She flicked the ash from off her cigarette tip into the ash tray on the dashboard. "But if we're coming up with nicknames, then why use my real name in it? And besides, thanks for the flattery, but I haven't exactly been feeling victorious given the police forces efforts to thwart my crime fighting."
"Hmmmm, then what about Pretty?" Jaune suggested, scrunching up his nose in exertion of the extent of his mental skills.
With exasperation Pyrrha turned away from the driver's window where she had been staring at the club entrance. "Really?"
"But it's true!" Jaune stammered to explain before he realized what he was talking about and flushed a color close to that of the jelly center of his doughnut. "Sorry, I, that was awkward."
Pyrrha merely rolled her eyes at him and turned to the window. "How about you come up with the names. I'm not good at them." He suggested.
Figuring it would be better to just go with Jaune's silly demand just to get it over with, she quickly came up with some nicknames. "I could be Pumpkin and you could be Knight."
"Huh?" Pyrrha didn't have to turn around to know that he was doing that stupid confused face, the one where his brows went up and his mouth went comically slack. "Pumpkin for me since of my hair color, and because I was the spokesperson for Pumpkin Pete's for a long time. And then since your name is similar to a woman who cross-dressed as a man and saved her village, you're a knight, which is what she went in guise as. And no one should guess who we are from those names, since only we'll have the background info on why we're called this."
Jaune was silent a moment before, "Oh wow, that's very well thought out. The names have meanings and their just perfect." Jaune was gushing and Pyrrha couldn't help but cringe a little. Now that she and Jaune were working closely together she could see how much the boy truly admired her. He had just been too shy and afraid to do it before. He had confessed to her that seeing her disparaged by her coworkers made him realize she wasn't as scary as he first thought, that she was just human like the others.
So far they had been working together for a week. In that week Pyrrha had trained Jaune in his combat. Each morning from six to eight they were at the gym, her beating his ass while he pathetically tried to prevent said ass whopping. His form was horrid and his reflexes as well. But with her help she noticed he was slowly inching forward in improvement, although it wouldn't hurt to continue working on this for months. She was going to shape him up into a proper partner because that's what he wanted to be. He liked to pretend they were a buddy cop duo from those cheesy cop movies he watched. Pyrrha put up with only because it was impossible to stop him. It made him want to eat doughnuts and do stakeouts with her. To have silly nicknames, to have a sort of funny and witty banter with her as they fought crime. But he failed horribly to do all those things.
The redhead was grateful that she did have his support, no matter how much she internally bemoaned it, because while he was a hindrance more than a help in several fields (she had to dedicate time to train him to do things which took out free time from her schedule) he was really good at moral support. He knew how to cheer her up when she felt down and kept her well hydrated and fed whenever he could, telling her that it was important to be well fueled on missions. And he was a ridiculously good cook, which didn't make any sense to Pyrrha. She would think that being in a place with so many dangerous things like fire and knives would be a recipe for disaster but it was actually a recipe for really good food.
When Pyrrha had questioned this, after the third time she had come over to Jaune's place so they could work late on some files for the side missions, he had explained that he had many sisters and it was his job as the oldest sibling to feed them. So he perfected the craft over the years. She had been impressed by his wide repertoire of dishes and actually looked forward to the nights they would spend working at his place because of the food he made. He had even begun to show her how to make a few of the dishes which she greatly appreciated since she'd never really had to make her own food before, everything had been provided to her due to her sponsorship when she was younger.
"There!" Pyrrha exclaimed, coming out from her thoughts as she saw the dual hair colored girl exiting the club. "Let's follow her."
She watched as the girl entered a black van and took off. Pyrrha pulled the car out of parking, Jaune practically vibrating in energy next to her. "This is it! The chase! The scene in the movies where we have to race like maniacs through the streets, avoiding obstacles and outsmarting the enemy before cutting them off!"
"Let's hope not," Pyrrha grumbled out, keeping a safe distance from the van.
"Man, that chase was boring," Jaune pouted as him and Pyrrha were crouched down by a pair of trash cans.
"What did you expect? Those things only happen in movies," Pyrrha pointed out, making a silencing motion to shush Jaune, "Now be quiet, their close by." She was referring to Neo, who had exited the car and entered an alleyway no doubt to sell the drugs she had picked up at the club. The two cops had exited the car to follow her and were huddled not too far from her. They had been listening in on the deal, but admittedly with Neo, there wasn't much conversation to be gleamed. Now she was done and heading their way.
"Is it just me or is something moving in this trash?" Jaune asked with a hint of unease in his voice. Pyrrha ignored it. "Stay here, I'll take care of this," Pyrrha said and timing her entrance just right, she rose up from behind her hiding spot and held out her police badge just as Neo was coming down the alley.
"Stop, Vale Law Enforcement!" she cried out, stopping the girl in her tracks. Neo arched a brow at her, surprised at her sudden appearance. "You have the right to-"
There was a loud crash behind her followed by a scream and curse. "Ah shit! Help, help!" Both girls turned to see that Jaune had jumped out from the hiding spot and there was a giant, fat, rat on his leg, crawling up his pants. He was shaking it wildly, trying to get it off, hopping around on his other leg.
"Jaune, I told you to stay put!" Pyrrha scolded.
"But there was a giant rat and now it's on me!" Jaune's voice was barely coherent, mostly made of screams and such.
Sighing, Pyrrha used her semblance to pick up a trash can lid and use it to smack the rat off. But the rat was smarter than it looked. Every time the lid came closer to hitting it, it moved so that the metal clanged painfully on Jaune's flesh instead. "Ah! That hurt!" he cried out.
"Sorry," Pyrrha grimaced. "Just hold still will you. Then I could get it right," she squinted as she tried to aim more on target but the rat was now scrambling up over Jaune's shirt and his arm and then his neck and suddenly it was on his face. This made Jaune pause completely as he was paralyzed by fear. "Get...it...off," he pleaded in a tiny voice.
"Alright, just don't breathe," Pyrrha warned.
"Trust me, I'm not," the blonde assured. The metal lid hung in the air in front of the rat. Pyrrha held her arms out steady, willing her semblance to respond to the most minute of her movements, hoping this time it would be accurate.
The rat was tittering on Jaune's face, it's fat tail lashing around. Pyrrha took this moment to strike and the rat jumped off, scampering somewhere into the trash bags once more while the lid hit Jaune square in the face with a tremendous ringing noise.
"Jaune!" Pyrrha let her hands come up to her face in horror.
"I'm good!" the blonde haired boy gave her a thumbs up, his voice a bit muffled by the lid, before he fell over backwards.
"That's just great," Pyrrha sighed, placing her hands on her hips and shaking her head. What was she going to do about him now? Should she drag his body back to the car? Then she realized-Neo! She turned around but the girl was already gone. All that was left in her place was a sign that said "haha", laughing at her and Jaune's antics. The girl had silently disappeared and Pyrrha had no idea where to. "Well, that's even better!" she threw her hands up in the air.