We're starting to move on to the events of Volume 2 now. The expedition to Draconys will be happening in parallel to what team RWBY's up to during this timeframe. What that means is that Bisman will not be interacting with anyone else from Beacon after chapter 17. I just wanted to say that I'm thrilled that this story's reached 51 favorites and 102 follows. As always, I hope I can continue with the quality and that you continue to enjoy it.
A Simple Cup- The requirements for it would be complex, as I said in my message to you. To put it simply, it would require a very powerful or skilled Dust Sage to put a great deal of effort into making a special automaton meant to become a flesh and blood body after the binding, find an intact soul, and have the soul be willing. On top of that, unless you plan to physically go to the person's grave and use a blue rose to call on them, you'd also need to have a strong connection to the person or they had to have recently died. While the second requirement (an intact soul) might sound strange, this will eventually come into play.
While doing a bit of reading, I realized that Goliaths are a type of Grimm. Since it would be confusing for this story, I decided that, in this story, the elephant Grimm will be called "Mammoths." I'm putting this in here so that everyone understands the difference.
Now then, let's start the chapter.
Chapter 16: Food Fight and Plans Begin
"A number of forts are being established in the Dragon's Talons to hold Sentinel and Goliath garrisons and hunting parties. As we have cleared the lands around Point Refuge and Jormungand's Plains, it can only be assumed that the source of the Grimm is in the northern half of Draconys. The Templar Vulcan has been deployed to oversee construction" -Aurelius, 370 years into the reign of the Second Triumvirate
Vale Streets
Mr. Campbell smiled happily as he stepped down from the ladder after hanging up a banner over his store's doorway. He was finally able to reopen his store after the incident with Roman Torchwick. He was about to unlock the door when he felt someone tap on his shoulder. "Excuse me, could you maybe help me out?"
The old man turned around to see a dark-skinned teen with red eyes and green hair. He smiled kindly at the girl. "Of course, what can I do for you?"
She scratched the back of her head before holding out a piece of paper and explaining the situation. "See, I'm not from around here and I was hoping you might be able to point me in the direction of this shop?"
Mr. Campbell looked at the address before smiling, pointing off behind her. "Just go straight ahead two blocks and turn right. It'll be the third building down on the left side of the street."
The girl smiled and nodded. "Got it, thanks." She started walking away, waving at the old man before bumping into a man in a business suit, using the opportunity to grab his wallet. She walked past an alleyway before a boy stepped out behind her.
"I knew you were lost Emerald," he said with a smug grin.
"Mercury, I will seriously pay you to shut up," the girl said, holding up the wallet.
"That's not your money," he said, shaking his head.
"No, but it could be yours, for five minutes of silence," she said, waving it in front of him while she suppressed a growl. "I refuse to let a paid killer judge me on where my money comes from!"
Mercury hummed for a moment before looking at her. "No deal." Emerald let out a growl before removing some Lien and throwing the wallet on the ground, pocking the rest as her partner followed her with a grin. "This place is so dull…" he muttered after a while before Emerald spoke up.
"I kind of like it. Tall buildings, diverse culture…"
"And nice, dopey people who are easy to pickpocket, right?"
Emerald stopped for a moment, hands on her hips. "That's every city."
Mercury turned around to face her, holding his hands up in an attempt to look scared. "Oh Emerald, Master Thief! Please don't take my money! I barely have enough to get by!" he mocked, getting a glare from Emerald before she moved past him.
"I hate people like him…" she growled to herself before opening the door to a bookstore. While Mercury went to search through the shelves, Emerald rang the bell.
"Be right there!" a man called out from the back before stepping out with a large stack of books. "Welcome to Tukson's Book Trade! Home to every book under the sun!" He glanced at the girl in front of him and paused. "How may I help you?"
Mercury spoke up from the front of the shop. "Just browsing." He slammed a book shut before putting it back on the shelf.
"Actually, I was wondering if you had a copy of "The Thief and the Butcher" by any chance," Emerald said, leaning against the desk.
"Y-yes I do. Would you like one?"
"No, just checking…" She sighed as she heard a book slam shut behind her. "Oh! What about "Violet's Garden" in paperback?"
"He's got it… Hardback too." Mercury said.
"Options are nice, aren't they?" Mercury let out a grunt before lazily tossing the book back onto the shelf "What about… "Third Crusade?" Do you have that one?"
Tukson frowned suddenly. "Uh… I… Don't believe I have that one."
Mercury slammed another book shut as Emerald sighed. "I really wish he'd stop that…" "You're Tukson right?" When she got a nod, she continued. "So, I take it you're the one who came up with the catchphrase?" He nodded again.
"So, you claim to have every book under the sun when you don't?" Mercury chimed up from the front as he closed the blinds.
"It's just a catchphrase."
"It's false advertising!" Mercury said as he walked towards the counter, Emerald taking a step back.
"You really shouldn't make a promise you can't keep Tukson…" Emerald said. "I hear you're planning on leaving, moving all the way to Vacuo. Your brothers in the White Fang wouldn't be happy to hear about that… And neither are we." She glanced at Mercury. "You can take care of this, right?"
The boy rolled his eyes. "Yeah, sure. Just go keep watch." Emerald nodded before walking out and standing by the door, waiting for her partner to finish up. It didn't take long as she heard a muffled gunshot and Mercury walked out with a comic. "Wow, he mocks me when he steals from the dead?" She let out a sigh before heading back to the hideout.
Beacon Cafeteria
Yang glanced over to the side as Ruby sat down, looking at a notebook Blake was glancing through. "Whatcha doing?" She said with a smile, causing her partner to jump.
"N-nothing, just looking through notes from last semester," Blake responded before closing the notebook. "I can't let them know I'm looking into the White Fang…"
Yang rolled her eyes. "Lame," she said before opening her mouth, catching a grape Nora tossed across the lunch table. This continued until Ruby sat down with a plate of cookies, quickly taking a pill before she went to grab a cookie.
Weiss looked over and decided to speak up. "Hey, Ruby, I've been curious for a while, but what are the pills for?"
Ruby blinked before responding. "Oh, well, see, I'm a wolf faunus, which means I have to watch out for chocolate since it's normally toxic to dogs and wolf faunus like me, but when I was a kid my mom let me have some chocolate chip cookies with this medicine so I could eat them and it turns out I love chocolate chip cookies! So I have to get this medicine to counter the effect so I can eat them, because, you know, I might love chocolate but I like to breathe too, so-"
"Maybe you should try it some time," Weiss interrupted with a grin, causing the rest of her team to look at her before Yang burst out laughing and Ruby grinned at her, causing Weiss to blush a bit.
"Wow Weiss, first you let Ruby thaw that heart of yours, now you're copying her sense of humor! If I didn't know any better, I'd think the pup's rubbing off on you!"
Weiss scoffed looking away. "As if that could happen." She glanced down as a thought crossed her mind. "Although… Considering how compassionate and caring Ruby is, would that really be such a bad thing?" Ruby drew her attention back to the table.
"We really need to keep practicing for the Vytal Festival Tournament though," she said, avoiding mention of what she learned recently. "We need to make sure we can kick the tournament off with a bang and stay on top of everything!"
Yang smirked and Ruby let out a groan. "I don't know about you guys, but I'd rather kick it off with a Yang!" A tomato suddenly hit the girl in the face before anyone else could respond.
"Look, I know the tournament's only at the end of the school year and that seems like a long way off, but we can't just breeze through it like our sparring matches with team CRDL. If we want to show everyone what we're capable of, we can't slack off, right?"
"I don't know if I should be proud that you're taking it this seriously or scared of what you have planned Ruby," Weiss said as Yang tossed an apple across the room.
"I think I'm going to sit this out, sorry guys," Blake said, causing Weiss to look at her.
"Whatever we do, we should spend this last day before classes start back up as a team. Ruby's right, we should-" A pie smacked into the side of Weiss' head, causing Yang to flinch as Ruby glanced towards Nora with a glare.
Outside with Sun and Neptune
"I'm telling you, the people here are the coolest! No offense to you guys," Sun said, glancing at the blue-haired boy next to him.
"None taken," he said with a shrug.
"Okay, they're just in here. I'm really excited for you to meet them. Just be cool, okay? You're gonna be cool, right?"
"Dude, did you forget who you're talking to?" the other boy said with a grin.
"Good point…" Sun opened the door and jumped back as several dozen students ran out screaming, clothes stained and soaked. Sun and Neptune glanced into the building as they heard a barking laugh, seeing Nora standing on top of a massive pile of tables with the rest of team JNPR around her. Sun grinned widely as Neptune nervously looked around.
"I'm queen of the castle!" Nora chanted before Ruby jumped up on a table on the other side of the room, pointing at the girl.
"Justice will be swift! Justice will be painful! It will be delicious!" she cried out as her team cheered, enjoying the moment to actually act like a normal girl her age. The members of team JNPR started flinging watermelons across the cafeteria. "Yang, turkeys!" she shouted before the blonde sprang forward, using a pair of turkeys as gloves to protect her hands as she shattered the first few before slamming her fists together, releasing a blast of flames that incinerated the rest as they got too close.
Blake leapt over her partner, grabbing a pair of baguettes as she did so while Yang flung the turkeys, hitting Jaune in the face and knocking him off his feet. While she did this, Blake jumped forward and tried to hit Pyrrha, who blocked the attack with a baguette of her own. The duo continued fighting for a while, Blake blinking away and leaving a copy of herself occasionally to distract Pyrrha before the redhead got a hit on her. Pyrrha used the opportunity to throw the baguette at Yang like a javelin, which the blonde blocked with a punch before another hit her in the stomach.
Ruby jumped up on the table, sliding across on a tray as her cloak disintegrated into petals. She ignored the baguette Pyrrha threw at her as it was blown to the side by her semblance, continuing on before she jumped off the table and pushed the redhead to the ground with the tray as her cloak reformed. Ren and Nora charged at her, causing her to step to the side as Weiss walked forward. The temperature dropped as a thin layer of ice coated the ground in front of the heiress, causing Ren to slip and slam into a group of tables while Nora jumped up into the air, breaking a pole off a wall and slamming one end into a watermelon.
Nora grinned as she moved to swing her makeshift hammer into Weiss, only for Ruby to jump in the way and take the hit, sending her flying while Weiss picked up a swordfish. The heiress charged Nora and quickly pushed her back before getting hit in the stomach, hurtling across the cafeteria and slamming into a pillar, causing it to collapse as she fell to the ground. Ruby let out a gasp and burst forward to grab the girl before she could be crushed. "Weiss! Weiss! Don't leave me!" she cried dramatically, trying to hide her genuine concern for the girl before she shouted a dramatic "No!"
Yang ran forward as Ren got up, grabbing a pair of leeks as he ran at the blonde. After a short fight, Yang sent him into the air with an uppercut before jumping up and punching him in the back of the head, sending him into the ground hard enough to crack the floor. She had barely touched the ground when Nora hit her with an underhand swing, sending her through the ceiling. Pyrrha, just recovering from the hit she took earlier, quickly used her semblance to lift all the soda cans in the cafeteria and fling them at Blake while she was distracted taking out Nora.
Ruby watched her fellow faunus get badly beaten with a growl before kneeling down, getting ready to charge. Just before she started moving, she fully activated Rose Storm. Her cloak disintegrated and she launched forward in a blur, everything she passed getting yanked off the ground by the vortex her Speed and Wind aspects created in her wake before her feet left the ground. She spun in the air momentarily before dissolving into a swirling mass of rose petals, yanking Ren and Jaune off the ground while Pyrrha desperately tried to stop any metallic debris from being dragged along.
"How is she able to do this? I can't even slow any of it down!" Pyrrha thought in a panic before she was yanked off her feet. Ruby reformed suddenly a few feet short of the back wall, the shockwave causing part of it to simply collapse. Once her cloak reformed, she sprinted to the side and out of the way as almost everything in the building was sucked out through the hole, including team JNPR.
Sun glanced at Neptune and grinned, ignoring the fact that the blue-haired boy was covered in about a dozen different flavors of soda. "See? I love these guys!"
The door opened up and Glynda walked in, growling, making Ruby whimper as her ears drooped. "O-oops?" the girl said meekly as the professor got to work repairing the damage, tables flying around the room before landing in orderly rows and the pieces of wall and floor melding together.
"Children please…" Professor Goodwitch said, pushing her glasses up. "Do not play with your food." The two teams stood meekly in the middle of the room as Ruby quickly tried to catch her breath and Weiss walked next to Yang as soon as she fell through the ceiling, trying desperately to get rid of the chill going through her.
Ozpin walked up to Goodwitch and put a hand on her shoulder. "Let it go…"
"They're supposed to be the defenders of the world."
"They will be, but for now, they're still children. So why not let them enjoy their innocence while they can?"
Later that night, RWBY's dorm room
Ruby sat at her desk, headphones on as she listened to the recordings from the day. It hadn't been easy, but she'd managed to get the radio equipment set up without much question from the rest of her team. She hummed as she used the speed aspect of her semblance to keep up with the accelerated playback, going through an hour's worth of audio in six minutes. Eventually it slowed down, causing her to deactivate her semblance as she listened in on what was being said. She let out a sigh as she realized the bug wasn't good enough to easily tell who she was hearing, but it was the best she could get on such short notice. "So, maybe three or four people, I think… I guess I should be lucky he didn't notice the bug yet though…"
White Fang Hideout, with Torchwick, Emerald, and Mercury
Emerald and Mercury walked past the group of White Fang agents that were unloading a bullhead, causing Torchwick to glance at them. "Oh look, she sent the kids again! This is turning out just like the divorce," he said sarcastically as he wrapped his arms around their shoulders. Mercury shuddered before Emerald spoke up.
"Spare us the thought of you Procreating."
"That was a joke. And this-" He held up a note as he turned around, causing Emerald to go wide-eyed. "-just might tell me where you two have been all day." Emerald gasped and went to check her pocket in confusion. "I'm a professional, sweetheart. Pay attention and you might learn something." He glanced at the paper before glaring at them. "Why do you have this address?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Emerald asked as he walked back up to them.
"Yeah, I would. Now, where have you been all day?"
"Cleaning up your problems," Mercury said as he stepped forward. "One of them, at least."
Torchwick growled before he responded. "I had that under control!"
"Two packed bags and a ticket out of Vale said otherwise."
"Listen, punk, if it were up to me, I would take you and your little friend here and I would-"
"Do what, exactly, Roman?" Torchwick let out a whimper as a woman in a red dress stepped out of the shadows, walking up to him.
"I-I would… not kill them?" he said nervously. "God, why did I have to get caught up in these nuts? I could have just passed up this job and been happy with what I had…"
"Cinder!" Emerald called out with a smile as she walked over to the other girl's side.
"I thought I made it clear that you were to eliminate the would-be runaway," Cinder said as she looked at Torchwick.
"I was going to!"
"He was going to escape to Vacuo! Mercury and I decided to take it upon ourselves to kill the rat."
"I think he was some sort of cat actually," Mercury chimed in before Roman spoke up.
"My plan was to wait until he left the city. Kill him, get rid of the body, make it seem like he was the victim of a Grimm attack. That way people wouldn't notice a shift from Dust theft to murder and start to get worried!"
"Quiet, all of you," Cinder said before glancing at Emerald and Mercury. "Didn't I specifically instruct you two to keep your hands clean while in Vale?"
"I just thought-" Emerald said nervously before Cinder continued.
"Don't think. Obey." Cinder growled.
"Y-yes ma'am. It won't happen again."
Cinder turned to Torchwick. "And you." He let out a whimper before she continued. "Why wasn't this your top priority?"
Torchwick let out a series of exasperated grunts as he gestured wildly around the warehouse. "Excuse me if I was too busy stealing every speck of Dust in Vale like you asked!"
"You're an inspiration to every punk with a gun and a ski-mask," Mercury said sarcastically, causing Roman to growl as Emerald rolled her eyes.
"Look around kid, I've got this town running scared. Police camping out at every corner, Dust prices through the roof, and we're sitting in the middle of a warehouse with more Dust crystals, vials, and rounds that we could ever know what to do with! Besides, like I said, with how alert people were before I was told to take care of that Tukson guy, I couldn't send anyone after him until he left the city walls or else it'd be traced back to me and, by extension, your little group. It wouldn't be good for people to freak out about dust thieves going around killing people, now would it?"
Emerald looked down and let out a sigh. "I hate to admit it, but he's right." Cinder and Mercury looked at her while Torchwick blinked. After a moment, he continued speaking.
"Now then, if you guys wouldn't mind filling me in on your grand-master plan, it might actually make my next string of robberies go a little smoother!"
"Oh Roman, have a little faith…" Cinder said as she stepped forward, causing Torchwick to take a nervous step back. "You'll know what you need when you need to know it." He let out a grunt as she continued. "Besides, we're done with Dust."
"Okaay, then, what now?"
"We're moving. Have the White Fang clear out this building. I'll send you details and coordinates soon."
"…Coordinates?"
"We're proceeding with phase two." Roman let out a grunt as he watched the trio walk away, looking for his lighter before he saw Emerald hold it up. "Got to hand it to her, she might be a kid, but I'm impressed she could snag that off me while I was picking her pocket at the same time…"
RWBY's Dorm Room
Ruby let out a sigh as she took off the headphones. "Great, so Torchwick doesn't know anything that's going on. All I learned is that they're Somewhere within the walls right now, but that they're probably moving out into the wilderness or some abandoned settlement. Other than that, it sounds like whatever they're up to needed them to kill a White Fang deserter and the Dust is just part of their plan… I think I heard someone mention a "Cinder" but that's a pretty common name, so that's no help either… It sounded like Torchwick was scared of her though, I'm not sure what that means exactly…" Ruby glanced down at her notepad before closing it up and turning off the equipment, letting out a sigh. "I guess all I can do is give this to Professor Ozpin tomorrow morning…"
Okay, this chapter is done now. Yes, Ruby is listening in on Torchwick, but because she got the bug on a whim with short notice it isn't good enough for her to actually recognize any voices she hears on it as a result of recording quality, the distance that it's transmitting over, and the fact that it's in Roman's pocket. This means that unless she gets a full name or the name of a location she can't do much about what she hears, and even then, it requires Roman to be in the room when it's said. If she could get ahold of the bug she might be able to get a slightly better-quality playback with the range factor no longer being an issue.
Now then, let's talk about Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury. In this story, pre-Volume 4 Cinder is driven by only two things: a hunger for power and desire for control. Her possession of part of the Fall Maiden's power makes her a valid threat to members of the Rose family, but puts her in stark contrast against Dr. Watts. While both of them can make plans, Cinder's plans don't consider unknown variables (such as Qrow's presence during the attack on Amber or the possibility of Ruby awakening the power of her eyes) into account. On top of this, while Watts prefers to rely on his skill and wits in a fight against a Rose, Cinder will often attempt to rely on sheer power to take one of them down, leaving her much more vulnerable in a fight. Watts views Cinder with disdain for her failure in accounting for the possibility that someone would be protecting the Fall Maiden and considers her an amateur, while Cinder views him as too narcissistic and arrogant. After the Battle of Beacon, she'll obviously be driven by revenge and have learned from her mistakes, naturally.
Emerald's character in this story is more fun for me to write: If you watch the first episode of Volume 2, you'll notice that she doesn't take all the money from the wallet and later episodes reveal that she seems to prefer only targeting people who can afford to lose money, as well as her somewhat horrified reaction to the destruction during the Battle of Beacon. This led me to write her as, possibly, the only character that's part of Salem's group that has a working and proper moral compass: she might be a thief and driven initially by wealth, but she won't steal for the poor, the dead, or the elderly simply out of respect or (in the case of the poor) because they need it more. While she's willing to help out with Cinder's schemes, she isn't aware of the end goal and is strongly against hurting others more than she has to, especially killing innocents. Her part in the Battle of Beacon may come back to haunt her afterwards, leaving her driven more by her own shame and guilt from abandoning her own values, even unintentionally. This puts her in stark contrast to Mercury.
Mercury, like Emerald, is driven by greed, he has no moral compass except for one aspect: he considers theft to be pathetic and the work of weaklings or cowards. For him, the only money and wealth that matters is what you earn. On top of that, being raised by an assassin leaves him with no qualms against murder. As a result, he's perfectly fine with being paid to kill someone and steal whatever they have because, in his mind, he can take whatever he wants from someone once he kills them. This also means that Emerald is disgusted by the thought of robbing him because she knows he's killed for everything he has. If she ever did steal from him, expect that whatever she got would appear in some donation box somewhere instead of her own pocket.
