A/N: Alright, this chapter is not only really long but also might be a bit harder to make sense of as I experimented a bit while writing this heist and have only given it a quick read through while typing it up (AKA it might be really long and real terrible) but that's al I can really do at the moment. Anyways, here we have the final confrontation with Junior, as well as the last chapter before the South America Arc begins, so I had to cover a number of things. Either way I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.
As usual, thanks to those of you who follow/favourite this story and another big thanks to those who leave reviews as I love hearing your thoughts/predictions/comments on the story so far, and it motivates to keep writing and get better as well. Lastly, I can still be found on tumblr at vaguejester . tumbler . com
Now, without further ado, on to the show!
A little under a week after their meeting in New York, Weiss found herself sitting in a small house in suburban Ottawa, with a little blonde girl in her lap at a table with Red, Pyrrha, Blake, Yang, and the two police officers she had met last time she was in the Canadian capital. The table was littered with papers and files as they went over the last details of their plan while Sun's family relaxed on the couch on the other side of the living room enjoying some after-dinner television.
"Alright," Red declared, "any questions?"
"I've got one." Neptune said as he looked over the forged arrest warrants and doctored surveillance photos. "If we're gonna be moving our entire operation up weeks –if not months –to do this and provide cover while you rob Junior blind, do we at least get to her to know what you're stealing?"
"Nope." Red answered, her gaze fixed on the plans.
"Alright, just thought I'd ask."
"I have one." Pyrrha said. "With all these forged documents and tampered evidence, we're gonna need a lot of people on both sides of the law to lie or look the other way in order to pull this off. That's a lot of loyalty to expect, especially when we're not entirely sure who we can trust."
"Pyrrha's got a point." Yang added. "All it takes is one crooked cop spilling the beans, or one judge denying he signed a forged warrant, and this whole thing becomes a shit-show."
"That's why the only people I'm trusting to be loyal are sitting around this table." Red countered. She opened her computer and showed the others a file containing dozens of pictures of different people. "I'm sure I don't need to tell anyone sitting here about the value of discrepancy. I had to burn more than a few bridges as well as nearly bankrupting a small country, but every person that will be involved in this arrest has been bought off, blackmailed, or bullied to ensure everything goes according to plan."
Weiss's eyebrows rose as she scrolled through the list of names.
In just a week, Red had thought of everything from blackmailing a right-wing, married, Catholic, judge with evidence of his regular appointments with the twenty year old guy living next door at a club that catered to more… niche interests, to providing chemotherapy for some low-life's sick aunt who lived in Mississippi. It looked like Red had finally brought her vast network of contacts to bare and, in a feat of criminal prowess, somehow managed to bring a puppet-master level of control over the entire human element of their plan.
There were no more questions after that, so they decided to clean up and used the papers as fuel for a big bonfire in the backyard. All that was left to do was wait until tomorrow when they would finally take the first significant step towards catching up to Roman Torchwick and unravelling this mysterious plot they somehow got tangled up in.
*(OoO)*
"Alright Blake, you're up first." Ruby's voice crackled through the thief's earpiece.
"On it." Blake murmured as she pulled her black scarf over her face and backed up several meters before taking a running jump at the drainage pipe running the up the corner of the club.
"Don't forget: once you've shut down the security, the window for Weiss and Pyrrha to get in, take the files, and get out is gonna be tight, so try to time it as close as you can to the moment hell breaks loose when you take it down; that way we buy them as much time as possible."
"Good luck Babe!" Blake smiled and rolled her eyes at her girlfriend's antics as she vaulted herself over the edge of the roof. Her feet barely made contact with the concrete as she glided from cover to cover, making sure to keep to the blind spots of the, frankly, superfluous amount of cameras. A few minutes and a couple unconscious thugs later and she was slipping through a grate and landing gracefully on the lattice-work of grates and rafters that criss-crossed far above the club floor.
"I'm in." She said, unafraid of being seen or heard as the music and lights below her masked her presence perfectly.
"Great." Ruby replied in what Yang had dubbed her 'Tactical Voice'. "There should be a door on the second floor that leads to a set of offices. The security office will be at the very end on the left. Junior's will be on the right."
"Be careful in that hallway, Blake." Pyrrha's voice chimed in. "The cameras are supposedly set up so there are no blind spots."
Every camera has blind spots. Blake thought to herself as she slowly climbed head-first down a grate overlooking her destination. The hallways had a separate ceiling also made of criss-crossing beams that prevented her climbing right down, forcing her to go through the door, though it did allow her to stop and study the movements of the cameras.
Ignoring the slight burn in her abs and arms, she watched as the guards switched shifts. She grinned to herself as the new arrival chose to lean against the railing, his eyes on the crowd below him; while his buddy went downstairs to join the party.
She watched the cameras for another minute, her muscles beginning to groan in protest as she memorized their patterns before continuing her descent from the rafters. She paused once again just above the door frame and waited until the thumping of the music reached its peak then hooked her feet in between the rafters so she could reach down and push open the door. She counted in her head as she imagined the cameras' oscillations and once she was sure one of them was facing her, she firmly gripped the door frame, unhooked her feet, and swung herself down, through the door, and up to hook them in the ceiling.
Making sure she was still concealed by the door, Blake used her momentum to swing the rest of her body up and grab the rafter. She nudged the door shut with her foot and half-crawled half-climbed along the hall above the cameras before coming to a stop above the door to the security office. She almost laughed when she realised the same trick with the door would get her in there as well.
"I'm outside the security office." She whispered.
"Alright," Ruby said, "Yang and I are almost at the garage. Stand by for now."
"Got it."
"Wow, Babe. Five minutes, twenty six seconds, that's almost a new record!" Yang cheered.
Blake smirked in an attempt to cover up the warm feeling the blonde's voice filled her with.
"The music distracted me."
*(OoO)*
"So… any particular reason you were willing to burn through so many of your resources on a con you could pull off in your sleep?"
"Simple, I told Junior that if he fucked with me, I'd burn him to the ground. Wouldn't you know, he fucked with me."
She heard Yang sigh from beside her and readjusted herself on the wall she was leaning against as they watched the club from the parking garage across the street.
"Aren't you at all worried that you're getting –I dunno –over-invested?"
"I have considered that possibility."
"And?"
Ruby didn't say anything as she fiddled with the police scanner on her phone.
"Look," Yang implored, "you and I both know that there's no one I'd trust more to know what they're doing than you, but I'm worried you're not thinking with a clear head."
"You're not just talking about the job are you?" Ruby asked lowly.
Yang reached up and tapped her ear so that her earpiece was no longer transmitting, and waited for Ruby to do the same before speaking.
"Katt called me, Rubes." She said anxiously. "You brought her to the garage? Don't you think that's a little risky?"
Ruby sighed and returned her phone to her pocket as turned to face her sister. "What do you want me to say, Yang? I've never done this before. I've worked and spent a lot of time with her and I feel like I can trust her."
"And as your sister, I couldn't be happier to see you opening up to someone."
"But as my partner in crime, you're worried I'm letting my feelings affect my judgement?" Ruby finished bitterly.
"We're not the only ones your actions affect, Ruby." Yang replied gently. "You're the one who said you wanted to help the people everyone else forgot."
"You think I don't know that?" Ruby snapped. "You think I don't realise that every day I don't get our money back is another day people I promised to help spend suffering? That I don't spend every waking moment second guessing myself because one wrong move could result in someone I care about getting hurt, or killed?"
Silence fell between them and tension filled the air as they stood facing one another, righteous silver burning into concerned lilac. They remained standing and silent for a long minute before Yang stepped forward and wrapped her sister in a tight embrace.
"I'm sorry," the blonde muttered, "I forget sometimes how much more you carry than us."
"It's fine," Ruby whispered as she took in her sister's much needed comfort, "I know it can be hard trusting me when I play everything so close to the chest."
"Believe me, I get why you do it," Yang said as they separated, "but maybe you can at least trust your sister with the real reason you're so invested in taking Junior down, because I've seen you put less effort into toppling governments, and I doubt it has anything to do with him pissing you off, not to mention any new info he has on this Torchwick guy could probably be gotten without this much noise or complication."
Ruby sighed and checked the police scanner again before leaning back against the wall.
"I always found it strange that, for years, all around the world, there have been several different gangs who all go by some variation on the word Ashes, yet no matter how many connections existed between them, the job of taking them on rarely, if ever, fell upon federal law enforcement, let alone any international agencies. In spite of this, I never really paid it much thought, I just assumed it was another case of corruption.
"But then the whole fiasco in Miami happened, and when I had to go to Junior for information, he provided surprisingly little. I was happy leaving it there for the time being; we had info on where Torchwick was, Pyrrha had just given me info on a possible lead concerning my birth mom, and, admittedly I was distracted by the whole… whatever that's going on between me and Weiss."
"That's not necessarily a bad thing." Yang supplied with a hand on her shoulder.
Ruby smiled slightly and looked down at the club across the street. "I guess not." She replied. "But then I found out Junior met with Torchwick and Gregorovitch hired men from him, and I couldn't ignore the fact that these things all seem connected somehow."
"So what does taking Junior down have to do with that?"
"Neither Torchwick nor Gregorovitch seem like the people who would need to go to Junior for some extra muscle. Gregorovitch is already the head of his own cartel, and has access to a personal army. Not to mention he's, at least officially, moving from his citadel in the Mediterranean to his vacation home in Brazil…"
"So why would he come all the way up to Ottawa for some hired help?" Yang finished.
"Exactly. Add Augustus Schnee and a string of crimes being committed involving memory altering drugs, and I'm pretty sure something big is being planned by someone dangerous. Which means not only plenty of money to be made robbing them, but nothing this extensive and this secretive is ever good for the people in my care."
"So you want to take Junior down to throw a wrench in their plans."
"Sorta." Ruby replied.
"But why go to such lengths to make sure he goes down? Wouldn't it work just as well setting him up the usual way?"
"I wanna see who will react and how. Junior is their middleman, or one of the bigger ones, and putting him away should make some waves. Whatever it is we've stumbled upon is big, and I wanna poke it with a stick. See what happens."
"If these people are as powerful as you suspect, taking them on might not end well." Yang whispered. "For any of us."
"That's why I've been thinking that after this, I'm gonna hang Red up. For a while at least. Try living as just Ruby, maybe settle down somewhere nice."
Yang laughed loudly. "Please! You? Settle down? You'd go crazy within a week!"
"You have a point." Ruby laughed in agreement. "Though, I might be able to convince Weiss to go with me. Might not be so bad with company."
"I agree with ya there little sister. And retirement could be nice." Yang sighed wistfully. "Maybe Blake and I will join you."
"I'd like that." Ruby replied just as the scanner crackled to life, signaling it was time to go. "Come on."
*(OoO)*
Yang grinned to herself as she listened to Ruby grumble to herself about how stupid and annoying her blood-red stilettos were. It never failed to amuse the older woman that underneath the suave con woman, her little sister really was quite a dork.
Her grin faded as they walked toward the entrance to Junior's club and, just like that, her sister morphed from awkward dork to femme fatale. Their earlier conversation had been a much-needed reminder of how hard Ruby could be on herself, and Yang resolved to make sure she was there for her sister more in the coming months.
Of all the people Yang had met in her travels around the globe, she had never met someone with a heart as big as her sister's who thought so little of themselves. She could still remember one of their first big jobs together: she, their father, and an eleven year old Ruby had scammed a casino –all thanks to Ruby's incredible intelligence and quick math skills –and when their dad asked them both what they wanted to do with their cuts, Ruby had said she was going to build an orphanage so no more little kids ended up on the streets. Their father had told her that was a very noble thing to do, and Yang had jokingly referred to her sister as Robin Hood, but Ruby had simply shaken her head.
"Robin Hood was a hero. I'm not. But that's okay, because if being a bad guy means I can help people and stop them from doing bad things, then I'll be the best bad guy ever."
Yang had always wondered what had to have happened for an eleven year old girl to think of herself as nothing more than a necessary evil. Of course, when they heard this, they had surrounded the girl in hugs and reassurances that she was a good person, and while the subject was never brought up again, Yang was pretty sure it had less to with her sister's perception if herself changing, and more to do with Ruby's fear at the time of being abandoned if she disagreed with her adoptive family.
"Look girlie, there are only two people who get to see Junior without an invite, and you and Tits McGee over there are not them."
The bouncer's deep baritone brought Yang back to the present, his barb at her assets putting her in the perfect mood for some violence.
No one makes fun of the girls! She thought angrily.
"You must be new." Ruby said calmly in her sophisticated Russian accent.
Clearly, we are friends with extremely different Russians.
"What's it to you?" The big man grunted. He was easily six and a half feet tall with arms that made Yang wonder if he ever had trouble scratching his neck or using the bathroom.
"Your buddies ever mention anyone by the name Yang Xiao Long?" Yang asked, cracking her knuckles.
"Yeah, some punk who trashed the club a couple years back, what of it?"
Both sisters held their silence while Yang stretched her arms, glad she was wearing a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and pants, as opposed to Ruby, who wore a gorgeous crimson gown that looked way too fancy for some crappy Ottawa night-club.
Not to mention Blakey can't resist me in a suit.
She grinned just as the bouncer's eyes widened in realisation, and like so many before him, his face twisted in laughter, but, also like his predecessors, before a single sound left his throat, Yang's fist rocketed into his adam's apple, crushing his wind pipe. His arms flew up to grab his throat and she lowered her fists to deliver two explosive punches to each side, breaking both his bottom ribs. By now he barely able to breathe again, and he tried to flail his tree trunk of an arm in a clumsy attempt at a cross, but she simply ducked beneath it and delivered a quick one-two to his kidney, putting him off balance. She quickly took advantage of his position and sent a crushing kick to his supporting leg, shattering his kneecap and bringing him to the ground. A light kick to the temple later, he was unconscious and they were making their way inside.
"What was my time?" Yang asked excitedly.
"Twenty-three seconds." Ruby muttered.
"Yes! New record!"
"Wait." Blake muttered through their earpieces. "Red, how tough was he?"
"Former army, probably two tours, drunk father, raised in Harlem. I'd say four, four-point-five out of ten."
"Oh, come on!" Yang exclaimed as they made their way toward the dance floor.
"You know the deal, Yang. It only counts if it's a six or higher." The fact that her girlfriend was currently hanging upside down from the rafters inside the security office only made her sound more smug to Yang.
"And we're just gonna use Red's cold-read of the guy to judge how tough he was?"
"Do I want to know what this deal is about?" Weiss asked.
"No, you don't." Ruby muttered.
"Also, just saying, in all the years we've known each other, I've never seen Red's cold-reads be anything short of perfect." Pyrrha added.
"Man, this is bullshit…" Yang grumbled. They were nearing the back of the club where Junior sat at his booth overlooking the rest of the club, including the staircase to the office hallway. She watched as he fearfully looked between her and Ruby before adjusting his tie and attempting to look unfazed and it filled her with a sadistic glee.
"Romanov," he grunted around a shot of tequila, "the hell you doing here?"
"Aw Junior, aren't you gonna greet me too?" Yang asked playfully. "I thought we were better friends than that."
Her grin grew when he drained the shot and leveled her with a withering glare. "If memory serves, Blondie, I told you that if I ever saw your face again, I'd kill you where you stood." Junior growled as he pulled a pistol from beneath the table.
Yang was about to retort when she felt her sister touch her arm as she stepped passed her to sit down across from the burly man; a silent reminder that Ruby was the one who was supposed to be doing the talking.
"Yang is here because I asked her." Ruby said calmly.
"And why are you here?"
Ruby smiled condescendingly, as if the answer to his question was the most obvious thing in the world. "Junior, you and I have both been at this long enough to that if I ask for information on someone, you continue to provide it until I deem it sufficient."
"Is this about that Torchwick guy again?" Junior asked defensively. "Look, I already told you everything I know about him. I met him and he hired some of my guys for some job down south."
Ruby's smile grew ever so slightly and Yang could almost feel all the warmth in the immediate vicinity vanish. This wasn't her sister sitting next to her anymore, this was Red. Cold, calculating, and deadly.
"Oh Junior." She said quietly with a soft shake of her head. "When I came here tonight, I was merely irritated you weren't doing your job properly, but you just had to go and lie to me, didn't you?"
"I don't know what it is you're talking about, but whatever it is, it can wait until after she leaves." Junior snarled, waving his gun in Yang's direction.
She had to supress a chuckle when Red sighed dramatically and turned to face her. "Yang, we have known each other for quite a long time, yes?"
"I'd say so, yeah." Yang replied, wondering just where Red was taking this but playing along regardless.
"And, judging by his behaviour, would you agree with me when I say Junior is afraid of you?"
Yang couldn't help but grin at the mixture of fear, confusion, and irritation on Junior's face as they all but ignored him. "I think that's safe to say. Why?"
"Well, you see Yang," Red explained, "Junior here made it clear last time we saw each other that he puts quite a lot of faith in the power of fear. He seems to think that as long as the right people are bullied into submission, he'll remain untouchable." Red paused and fixed Junior with a glare, her normally shining silver eyes replaced with tempered steel, before continuing. "But last time I was here, he made a few mistakes. Two, in fact."
"And what would those be, Scarlette?" Yang asked. She had to hand it to her little sis: she really knew how to do the talking. Her obsession with movies, TV, and books of all kinds gave her a knack for dramatism and theatrics that while most found disconcerting or intimidating (especially once they realised that she was able to follow through on everything she said), those who knew the girl beneath the criminal found it to be anything but.
"Well, the first mistake he made was trying to threaten me and a friend of mind with the same schoolyard yerunda he uses on junkies and prostitutes."
"Oooh, not the smartest move J." Yang teased before turning back to her sister. "And the second one?"
"Well," Red began, "we know from his reaction to you, that Junior is not himself immune to fear. Therefore, his second mistake…" In a flash, the con woman's hands shot out to grab Junior's gun and a moment later a loud crack followed by a shrill yell from the beefy gentleman across the table could be heard by those nearby, the thumping of the music disguised it from the other club-goers, and Red was sitting back in her seat, Junior's gun casually trained on a space right in the middle of his forehead. "…would be not fearing me more."
"ARGH! You bitch!" Junior cried as he cradled his broken wrist.
"Uh… What did Red just do?" Weiss asked, concern lacing her voice.
"My guess would be disarming him, breaking his wrist in the process, followed by pointing his own gun in his face." Pyrrha replied.
"Wow," Blake whispered, "according to the security feeds, that's exactly what happened."
"What can I say, I know her."
"Do you get the idea now, Junior?" Red asked. "You might have the connections in this city to shoot someone and have no one ask any questions, but I can make you disappear and no one would even remember you ever existed."
"Alright! Alright, I get it." Junior grunted through his teeth. "You already gave me this spiel last time you were here, so what is it you really want?"
"First," Red explained, "I wanted you to properly understand what I mean when I say that you are thoroughly outclassed. That way you know that I'm not playing around when I tell you to give me every scrap of information and file you have on every business deal and meeting you've ever had your dirty sausage-fingers in."
"Are you out of your mind!?" Junior shouted in disbelief. He tried to rise to his feet in anger, but was quickly cowed when Red clicked off the safety on his pistol. "You've gotta be kidding if you think I'd give you anything."
"I'm pretty sure she just made it clear she wasn't." Yang supplied smugly. Normally she wasn't a fan of directly helping Red with her cons –she hated having to pat careful attention to what to say, how to say it, and when to say it just to get someone else to say something back –but she could never say no to being her usual brash, brawling self in order to intimidate some punk.
"Those files go back years." Junior said. "Even if I could get them all together on such short notice, I give them to you and I'm as good as dead."
Red rolled her eyes as she casually checked her watch and smiled smugly. "Well, the way I see it, you have three choices. One: you give me that hard drive you always carry around with you that happens to contain exactly what I asked for. Two: you let the police take it as well as the files on your personal computer in your office when they raid this place."
"Weiss, Pyrrha. Get ready. The party's going to start in about seventy seconds." Blake announced.
"Please, the cops would never be stupid enough to try to arrest me." Junior interrupted.
"Once again, you overestimate yourself." Red replied calmly.
"What do you mean?" Junior asked suspiciously.
"Tell me, those lady friends of yours that were taken in recently, have you seen much of them recently?"
"And… now."
Junior barely had a moment to gape at them stupidly before the doors burst open with loud shouts of "FREEZE! POLICE!" just as he was reaching for his phone. He nearly made it to his feet, but Red wiggled the gun in her hand, reminding him that escape was impossible so long as she was holding him at gunpoint.
"You're behind this, I know it!" He shouted angrily.
"I will admit, I could have stopped it," Red drawled, "but you have something I want. Not to mention, I don't like you very much."
"That's not good." Yang tensed as she heard Weiss mutter through the earpiece and had to resist the impulse to ask what was happening.
"How do you want to handle him?" She heard Pyrrha ask.
"You two have four and a half minutes before the security starts back up." Blake informed them. "Whatever you plan on doing, do it now." Yang tried to ignore the adrenaline pumping through her veins and focus on the conversation in front of her. They had to keep Junior distracted for a little while more, get the hard drive from him, and get out soon or things were going to get a lot more complicated.
"Come on Romanov. I'll tell you anything you want, just let me go." Junior plead as he watched various people get arrested while others took advantage of the chaos to flee.
"And this brings us to choice number three: you try to get away. Well, tovarishch, we both know you need those files, not just to keep your little operation running, but also to keep a number of powerful individuals happy; thus, the hard drive. Unfortunately, you try running, and I will fire three shots. The first will be in your leg, preventing you from getting to your office without being caught, the other two will be at the hard drive sitting in your jacket. So, if you do manage to get away, it means leaving the files in your office, which will undoubtedly make certain very powerful, very dangerous people very unhappy with you."
"You little bitch!" Junior shouted. Cops were making their way through the building, arresting anyone they could catch, as they worked their way closer and closer to them.
"What will it be Junior?" Red asked. "Give me the hard drive and trust that I will make sure you can keep breathing, let the police get both copies of the files and probably not live to see next week, or take a bullet and maybe get away while the police still get the files?"
"Goddammit!" Junior roared as he hurled his shot glass across the dance floor. Once he had calmed down a bit, he reached inside his jacket, pulled out the hard drive, and slid it across the table with a snarl of anger.
"Spasibo." Red said as she stood up and put both the hard drive and gun in her purse.
Yang followed suit let Red lead them right past various cops, including some who were carrying kilograms of the drugs they had made sure to plant in the clubs basement. She turned her head for one last look and couldn't help grinning as she watched Sun slam Junior's face into the table and pull out a pair of handcuffs. "Pleasure doing business with you!" She shouted before jogging out the door and walking next to her sister.
Red, for her part, kept up her stern mask until they were back in the parking garage, standing outside their car, at which point it was like flipping a switch. One moment she was looking at Red, all straight-backed and scary, the next Ruby was back, slouching and making funny grunting sounds as she hopped around trying to rid herself of her heels.
"Stupid lady-stilts." The younger woman grunted in frustration as she finally pulled the dastardly shoe off her foot. Yang watched her fondly, and kept doing so when Ruby paused opening the door to look up and meet her gaze with a raised eyebrow.
"What?"
Yang chuckled and shook her head as she climbed into the car and started the engine.
"No, seriously," Ruby asked as she joined her in the passenger seat, "what's so funny?"
Yang turned to face her little sister: the girl who went from dangerous Russian socialite to dorky twenty year old girl in a heartbeat.
"I just love you, you dork."
*(OoO)*
"Also, just saying, in all the years we've known each other, I've never seen Red's cold-reads be anything short of perfect."
"Cold-reads?" Weiss asked, ignoring the sound of Yang grumbling in her ear.
She and Pyrrha were waiting by a door outside the club that they found opened into a pitch-black hallway not twenty feet from the staircase up to the office floor. They would crack the door an inch or so every few minutes to check on the thug guarding the landing every few minutes, but really they were just waiting for Blake to give them the go-ahead before moving in.
"Yeah," Pyrrha replied, "have you ever seen someone that just, sorta, seemed like you could tell their whole life story just from looking at them?"
"I guess so." Weiss answered skeptically.
"Well Red can do that with pretty much anyone. She can look at how they walk, how they talk, how they act, and understand what kind of person they are and how to easily get them to do whatever she wants." Pyrrha paused and looked up nostalgically at the few stars that could be seen through the city's light pollution. "Even as a little kid, she was unnaturally good at deducing the kind of person she was dealing with, and how best to manipulate them. Add several years of practice and meeting pretty much every kind of person under the sun, and she can basically figure out your social security number from your signature and your yearly salary from how you drink your coffee."
Weiss was reminded of her first meeting with the mysterious con woman what seemed like a lifetime ago, and remembered how the younger woman had called her out.
Now how about instead of complaining about it Ms. Moneybags, we get down to business and you tell me what my job is.
She could hardly believe how much things had changed since that fateful day in a crappy coffee shop.
"Red actually did a cold-read of me when we first met." Weiss revealed. "Despite my best efforts to hide it, she could tell I came from money as soon as she saw me."
"I don't think she really does it consciously anymore." Pyrrha said quietly, almost to herself.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, Red's been on the street almost her whole life. Odds are she honed that skill as more of a survival instinct than anything."
"I guess a little girl on the streets wouldn't have the easiest time." Weiss agreed. "She must have been so lonely."
Pyrrha smiled gently. "I thought the same thing when I first met her."
Weiss let out a bark of laughter as recollections of her time in New York with Red swam blurrily by her mind's eye. "I didn't! I'm pretty sure I flat out told her that I wasn't going to allow a child to run a job that could get me thrown in jail for life."
"Yikes," Pyrrha chuckled, "that's harsh."
"Don't remind me." Weiss groaned dramatically. "I was an absolute bitch to her on several occasions when, really, I should be thanking her for giving me so many things I had never experienced before."
"I think you've more than made up for it to her."
Weiss turned to face the other woman incredulously. "How so?"
"You can always tell when she's thinking about you because she gets this dopey little grin that I've never seen on her before."
"I never really noticed." Weiss muttered, more to herself than Pyrrha, as her chest filled with a blissful warmth.
"Contrary to popular belief, when it comes to talking about herself, or anything she really cares about, Red can be a woman of surprisingly few words." Pyrrha stated as she opened the door to check on the guard.
"I guess I could see why." Weiss replied thoughtfully. "I mean, she probably knows better than most how unreliable words can be."
Pyrrha opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off when a faint crack followed by voices crackled through their earpieces.
"ARGH!You bitch!"
"Uh… What did Red just do?" Weiss asked. That had sounded an awful lot like Junior, and he did not sound too happy.
"My guess would be disarming him, breaking his wrist in the process, followed by pointing his own gun in his face." Pyrrha replied nonchalantly.
"Wow," they heard Blake whisper, "according to the security feeds, that is exactly what happened."
Pyrrha smirked and shrugged her shoulders. "What can I say, I know her."
They shared a soft laugh before settling into a comfortable silence until Blake's voice appeared in their ears once more. "Weiss, Pyrrha. Get ready. The party's going to start in about seventy seconds."
Both women nodded to each other and slipped through the door, making sure to hug the shadows as they watched the guard lean against the railing overlooking the whole dance floor.
"And… now."
"FREEZE!"
"POLICE!"
"You're behind this, I know it!"
Weiss had used the term all hell breaks loose before, but as she pushed and fought her way through the crowd of fleeing partygoers, she found she had a new appreciation for the saying. Slowly, they made their way toward and up the stairs only to run into a setback.
"That's not good." Weiss muttered.
They had been banking on the guard panicking and fleeing, leaving the door unguarded. Instead, while he did look panicked, he was rooted in place, crouched and gripping the guard rail as he fearfully watched the throngs of people below run for the nearest exit.
"How do you want to handle him?" Pyrrha asked quietly.
"You two have four and a half minutes before the security starts back up. Whatever you plan on doing, do it now."
Weiss closed her eyes and swallowed the lump of nerves in her throat then turned to Pyrrha. "Follow me." She said with all the false confidence she had learned over the years.
Carefully, they both crawled up the stairs, hugging the walls as they went. Once they reached the top, Weiss gently crept up behind the panicking guard. She took a moment to block out the sounds of shouting partiers being arrested by shouting police officers, Junior shouting in her ear followed by the shattering of glass, and focus on making as little noise as possible while inching closer to the man. By the time she was a mere two feet away, it didn't matter anyway as the furious pounding of her heart was the only thing she could hear.
Finally coming to a stop, she took a deep breath before reaching out, grabbing a fistful of the thug's greasy hair, and slamming his skull against the railing as hard as she could. She didn't have time to wonder whether she had felt or actually heard his skull cracking, and as soon as she was sure he was unconscious she turned away, opting instead to focus on the task at hand.
"Nice job." Pyrrha said as she opened the door for them.
"Thanks."
It was remarkably quiet in the hallway as they jogged past the other doors toward their destination.
"There you are." Blake said as they rounded the corner. "Door's open. You've got about three minutes to get in, install Red's virus, and get out. There's a fire exit on the other hall, I'm gonna go get it open for us and meet you there."
They both nodded and Weiss watched the raven-haired woman slink off down the hall while Pyrrha entered the office.
"Alright Weiss, keep watch while I install the virus."
"Last time we did this, I just had to plug the drive in and go." Weiss observed as she watched the other doors for any of Junior's thugs. "What's so different this time?"
"This is a more powerful version of that virus." Pyrrha replied. "It's far more extensive, but it also needs a little bit of human support to get everything."
"How long should it take?" Weiss looked down and checked her watch. Two minutes, eight seconds left.
"I'm almost done." Pyrrha's eyes never left the monitor as her fingers danced across the keyboard.
One minute and twenty-six seconds of tense silence later, Pyrrha stood up, yanked the drive out of the computer and lead the way toward the fire exit. It took them thirty-three seconds to join Blake outside where they both threw up their black hoods and dropped their heads as they walked calmly toward the street. Meanwhile, the all-black, scarf-wearing, cat-burglar simply ran at the wall, quickly scaling it before leaping toward another building nearby and disappearing into the night.
Weiss and Pyrrha kept walking for several blocks until they came across a plain, dark blue Kia sitting abandoned behind a Tim Horton's. A minute or so later, the car was unlocked and hotwired –courtesy of Pyrrha –and Weiss was alternating between casually weaving from street to street, to blazing down stretches of straight road.
Finally, once she was confident they weren't being followed, and the blaring of sirens was far behind them, she turned onto the 401 and they made their way west, where they would meet the others in Toronto.
"You know all in all," Pyrrha remarked, "I'd say that went really well."