Southern Wilderness, Kingdom of Vale - 17:10
"Alright!" Nora shouted as she raced into the door at the bottom of the stairs.
Ruby and Weiss followed at a normal pace, stopping in the doorway to a large circular room that appeared to be lined with thick metal. In the center sat a cheap looking desk that had several large gashes in it as well as a cup of some greenish liquid sitting on one of the many rings that marred it's surface. Behind the desk was a tall backed office chair that slowly turned to show Nora relaxing in it while petting nothing other than a baby boarbatusk that was constantly nipping at her fingers.
"So you come to me in your hour of need." Nora spoke as Weiss and Ruby approached the desk.
"Ren might be in trouble." Ruby said shortly to help Nora cut her theatrics.
"Oh my god!" Nora exclaimed as she slammed her hands down on the desk while she jumped out of her seat. A loud crunch resonated off the metal walls, drawing everyone's attention to the now dead baby grimm that was unfortunate enough to have been under her hand.
"Fantastic." Weiss turned away, as the acrid smoke that had long been burned into her nose once again found its way into her system. She walked back to the doorway to get away from it as Nora once again shifted back to the matter at hand.
"So why do you need my help?"
"We need to find out exactly what we were all doing on January fourth in the second year of the third campaign." Ruby said as Nora jumped to open one of the many vault doors around the edge of the room. "Yang got some information off the assassin that tried to kill her."
"Ooh… sounds exciting. But this isn't like you Ruby!" Nora said as she entered the room that turned out to be filled with stacks of filing cabinets. She quickly jumped up a ladder and started opening drawers seemingly at random while looking for her files. "Normally you would just give us a heads up."
"Well… about that…" Ruby trailed off as Weiss came up behind her.
"One team has already been killed, and there is a chance that my encounter with these assassins may have turned out differently if not for Ruby as well."
"Oh, so you do care for us, you Weiss-icle, you!" Nora jumped off the ladder and almost tackled Weiss in a hug as she shoved a large file into Ruby's stomach, forcing the wind from her lungs.
"We've tried to kill each other before, Nora." Weiss reminded as Ruby went back to the table. The only evidence of the baby grimm left was a black stain and the sickly sweet smell of the smoke.
"So what does it say?" Nora asked as she guided Weiss up to the table, even as the CEO attempted to escape Nora's hug.
"That's what I thought. We were in Haven at the time." Ruby said as she flipped through the papers, coming to pages with only one or two visible words that hadn't been completely blacked out. "But all the details seem to have been classified."
"And you couldn't possibly have known that it would be classified before we came here?" Weiss asked with a sigh as she gave up on escaping Nora.
"Well, there was a chance it wasn't, but also this lets us get Nora as our getaway driver!" Ruby grinned at Weiss as Nora continued to squeeze the air from her lungs. "Alright Nora, that's enough."
"Okey dokely!" Nora let Weiss go and tapped her nose in her usual manner. "Boop!"
Weiss swatted her hand away and straightened her clothing as she turned back to Ruby. "Alright, definitely regretting the idea to come here at the moment. So what's our plan? We're either going to Mistral to find Ren, or we're going to the Outpost for the file."
"Well, as much as I'm concerned about Ren, we need to know more about what we're dealing with." Ruby thought aloud as her eyes stared off into space. Weiss couldn't help but grin at the look she'd seen so many times over the years adorn Ruby's face. "The Outpost will be full with hunters and huntresses that will definitely be able to kill us if they figure out who we are. But only if they know about the situation. And since we don't even know much, going to find Ren won't help much in the long term."
"In other words it depends on how public these hits are. I agree that we should go to the Outpost, but there's absolutely no way we're going to get in there alive." Weiss summarized as Nora started to bounce and fidget. "Any thoughts Nora?"
"I never thought I'd say this again, but I AM GETTING THE BEOWOLF!"
City of Vale, Kingdom of Vale - 10:30
"Okay, so I've gotten them to fuel up my private jet, but I don't think it's a good idea to fly it." Weiss said for the third time as they piled out of her car. With a glance back at Nora, she let out a sigh as she shook her head. "And must you hold that stuffed grimm like a baby?"
"But it is my baby!" Nora shot back as if Weiss was being stupid. Ruby just chuckled and waved the interaction off as she looked around the terminal.
"Alright, lets just go. We'll pick out a random craft on the way." Ruby spoke more quietly as she came around and swept her two friends up in each arm for a quick hug. It had been a long time since she'd been around even this many friends, and Ruby was admittedly having some fun.
The trio continued walking, passing security thanks to Weiss's status as one of the owners of the facility. They were led by a worker down a long stretch of hallways that opened into the area where people would wait for their flight. Weiss was given directions to the loading area that would have her jet docked, but also told it would take about twenty more minutes to finish fuelling it up. On their way Weiss bought a coffee and a breakfast sandwich for each of them, surprising nobody when Nora swallowed the sandwich in one bite and downed it with the entire cup of coffee a second later. Never once did her stuffed animal leave her arms.
Ruby thankfully ate at a more reasonable pace, actually matching her own before they sipped on their coffees while they leisurely walked around the terminal. Weiss only wished she hadn't let Ruby put five sugars in hers. They were getting older after all, and the sugar didn't work its way out as well as it used to.
"Hey guys, not sure if you noticed, but there's somebody following us." Nora whispered, her eyes turning as far as they could to the side as she kept her suspect in her sight.
"It's an air terminal, Nora. She's probably just going to another gate near ours." Weiss waved Nora off with a slight shake of her head. "Plus, everyone else has to go through security. I'm sort of a special case since a donation I made kept it from being privatized about fifteen years ago."
"Weiss is right, Nora. Nobody here is trying to kill us." Ruby shrugged off Nora's suspicion as they approached another attendant standing at their gate.
Weiss handed over her papers and the attendant entered some information into her terminal before smiling and nodding them into the waiting area that lay past the door behind her.
Weiss and Ruby walked through the door as Nora crouched to tie her shoe. Just behind them they could hear the woman Nora had thought was following them start to ask questions about where her gate was and Nora sprang up, holding a large .50 calibre hand cannon in one hand and the stuffed beowolf toy in her other.
"In the room!" Nora barked, almost throwing her suspect through the door as the terrified attendant ran into the room with tears already bubbling at her eyes.
Weiss closed the door behind them for some privacy and sighed. "Nora, put it down."
"She's got a camera! I just know it, they're watching us with their juicy wet eyeballs and they're going to kill us!" Nora ranted as she cocked her weapon's hammer.
"Nora, wait!" Ruby shouted, rushing in with her semblance and ripping the lady's purse off her shoulder. She ripped the zipper open and dumped everything onto the floor. "See? No camera."
Weiss opened the door as Nora lowered her weapon and cocked her head in confusion. The two hostages were both shaking in fear for their lives as Weiss quickly grabbed the attendant and pressed a thousand lien note into her hand. "Tell nobody about this, and leave. Now."
The attendant scurried away as the lady Nora had been pointing the weapon at kept shaking in fear.
"I said now!" Weiss barked, pushing the lady out of the door and locking it with her administrative code. "What the hell, Nora?"
"But she was following us, I don't understand… I swear she had a camera." Nora's confused mutter set a vein throbbing in Weiss's temple as she rubbed her head in frustration.
"Of course she had a camera, she'd heading to a resort." Ruby said as she picked up a pamphlet that dropped on the ground and shoved it into Nora's hand. "Now please don't try to kill civilians from here on out?"
"Fine… I still don't get it…" Nora mumbled more to herself than her companions as she replaced her weapon onto her hip and cuddled the stuffed animal to her chest.
Ruby moved to the closed door that would lead to their aircraft if it had been docked and opened the door with the manual override. She looked down at the shipping crates below them where they were waiting to be loaded onto a cargo plane. The huge docking magnets next to the door were folded back and unpowered. She gave Weiss a nod and she summoned a glyph that the three stepped on before they glided swiftly down to the ground between the stacks of shipping containers. Weiss knew she'd now have to wait for Ruby to find an aircraft that they'd end up stealing to make their trip. At the far end of the shipping crates they'd find the hangers with the smaller jets that would still be able to make the trip but would need refuelling when they arrived.
"Guys, something's not right." Nora complained as she looked over her shoulder at the empty corridor between the crates. "This way!"
She took a sharp left down another corridor before a right into yet another as she almost started jogging. Weiss and Ruby kept up, following the slightly insane member of their ragtag team both trying to argue with her to explain that nothing was wrong.
Nora stopped suddenly and Weiss found herself catching her breath next to Ruby who was doing only slightly better. In front of them was nothing but empty pavement and a few dozen stacks of shipping containers containing who knows what.
"Nora, stop this ridiculousness!" Weiss said as she stood up. "Nobody is following us, nobody is watching us. Nothing is wrong!"
"Weiss!" Ruby yanked on her arm hard as a burst of bullets struck concrete around them as they ducked behind containers on opposite sides of the isle.
"That's right, old bitch!" A voice shouted from farther down the isle they'd been in.
Nora peeked her head around the corner and ducked as another hail of bullets hit the container next to her. "It's the same chick you let go! And old bitch?"
"No respect!" Weiss and Ruby both replied with varying degrees of disdain.
"Can I kill her now?" Nora rolled her eyes as Weiss gave her a nod.
Together the three came around the corner, Ruby having pulled a small pistol from her belt and Weiss having drawn her rapier. They took a couple steps forward, sticking close to the sides of the alleyway as they looked for their assailant who was now gone.
A group of gunshots rang out from above them and they rushed down the nearest corridor as bullets kept hitting the containers around them.
"She called me an old bitch…" Nora complained, waving her hand cannon around the corner toward where she'd last seen the woman who'd insulted them.
"Give me the beowolf." Ruby said as she snatched the stuffed animal from Nora and flipped it belly up.
"Finally!" Nora cheered as Ruby dug her fingers into the animal and tore it open to reveal Nora's old weapon which was quickly put back together into it's grenade launcher form. She stepped out of cover and fired three shells that arced through the air and detonated, killing the three people who'd been shooting at them from atop the crates.
The three kept moving to the next intersection of crates as Weiss looked for more assailants. On the top of a larger stack she spotted another man in black.
"Grenade!" She shouted as he threw a small black rock at them. Ruby was already aiming her sidearm as Nora pushed her into Weiss before transforming her grenade launcher into her hammer and hitting the grenade as it bounced off the pavement next to them. It took flight like a golf ball before exploding next to the thrower's head, killing him and sending his burned and twisted body to the ground three shipping containers below.
"Guys!" Ruby shouted, pulling at Weiss again as the three ducked behind yet another container as they felt the wind off a rocket propelled grenade that rushed past and ripped a pair of containers open as it detonated. The shrapnel rained down on the trio for a moment as they regained their footing. "Is everyone okay?"
"Fine." Weiss nodded as Nora pushed her grenade launcher into her arms. "Nora, what are you doing?"
No answer was given as Nora pulled the hand cannon back off her waist and walked out to the isle. The woman who'd insulted her earlier was already aiming a second launcher at her. Nora raised her weapon and they both fired, Nora's bullet hitting the grenade directly on its tip, detonating it and igniting the concentrated exhaust in the launcher. The woman was dead before the flame of the explosion disappeared.
"Who's an old bitch now?" Nora shouted at the body.
"Still you, but at least you're alive." Ruby laughed as they joined Nora.
"Ruby, there." Weiss pointed above them at some kind of drone. Ruby took Nora's hand cannon and shot the drone out of the sky with a single shot before returning the weapon to her crazy friend.
"Alright guys, time to get a plane." Ruby said as she led them out of the shipping containers and toward the hangar. This was starting to get interesting.
A/N:
This story is still on hiatus, but felt it was getting a bit stale. Hope you enjoyed it!