A/N: Another day, another chapter! This one feels a little rushed to me as I opted to go for several short scenes instead of a few long ones. That being said, I needed to set up quite a few things, so I apologize for any decrease in quality. Anyway, the usual thanks goes out to those that follow my little tale, and an extra special one goes out to those of you who tell me what you think. Nothing makes you feel more fulfilled as a writer than knowing that your work makes people stop and think about what you're saying.

It was mid-afternoon when they docked just south of Paramaribo where Ren pointed them to a jeep parked behind some greenery, and after an hour of driving through the jungles, insects, and (much to Yang's consternation) humidity, they arrived at an open field with only a runway and a single hangar sitting in the center. Inside the hangar was a single Cessna Citation that Weiss was fairly certain had been shot down on more than one occasion.

"We're gonna be spending the next ten hours on that hunk of junk?" Yang griped upon seeing the plane's decrepit state.

"Don't judge a book by its cover, Yang. These are the Rolls Royce of airplanes." Red shot back. "'This isn't your father's plane.'"

"No, I'm pretty sure Dad's would've had working engines."

Weiss rolled her eyes at the sisters' bickering as she circled the plane to inspect it. The paint was scratched and there was couple dings here and there, but other than that she couldn't see any major problems with the craft. Once she was finished with her walk-around, she made her way back to the door and pulled it down to take a look inside. The inside of the plane was just as worn as the outside, but from the looks of the torn leather and rusty walls, it all seemed to be superficial. With her inspection complete, she stepped out of the plane, stood with her hands on her hips, and cleared her throat to her the attention of the arguing siblings. They both snapped their mouths shut and turned to look at her as she spoke.

"It'll fly, but I'd like to take advantage of the light so we should leave soon."

*(OoO)*

They landed in an airport near Rio de Janeiro sometime after midnight and were checked into a suite at the Sheraton by one o'clock. Weiss had fallen asleep the moment she hit her mattress, ten solid hours of flying dangerously close to the ground having completely exhausted her, Blake and Yang followed not long after, leaving Ruby and Pyrrha on one of the soft leather couches going over a selection of files.

"So what are we looking at?" Pyrrha asked when Ruby unrolled a set of blueprints on the coffee table.

"Floor plans for the Chinese embassy."

"And we're looking at them because?"

Ruby sighed and turned to face her oldest friend. "Look, I know it stung that I didn't tell you about the government here, and I'm sorry."

Pyrrha smiled and placed a hand on her arm. "You don't need to apologize. We get why you did it."

"Maybe, but you're my best friend and, in the case of what I'm about to tell you, you would probably be piecing it together already were you back in New York." Pyrrha raised an eyebrow curiously.

"This must be big if you don't want Yang hearing about it."

"I plan on talking to Yang about it later. You've always been the one I talked to about the information I come across." Ruby replied. "I guess I forgot about that when you became a more active member on this job."

Pyrrha smiled fondly and hugged the younger woman tightly. "We've been best friends for more than a decade, whatever you have to tell me goes with me to the grave. That being said, you don't have to tell me anything you don't think I need to know."

Ruby grinned and hugged her friend closer. "Thanks, Red."

Pyrrha laughed at the use of her old nickname. "You know, I'm not sure if I should be annoyed that the only nickname you, of all people, could think of had to do with my hair, or that you appropriated it for yourself."

Ruby laughed into her friend's shoulder before separating. "I told you I could steal something of yours without moving."

Pyrrha laughed fondly, her eyes filled with joyous nostalgia at the memory. "And I told you that metaphors don't count when you're betting two hundred dollars. Now," she sobered as she turned back to the floor plans before her, "what are we stealing from the Chinese embassy, and why?"

"It turns out your hunch was right." Ruby said as she opened some files on her laptop. "The files you stole from Junior contained documents that weren't included on his hard drive."

"So he was hiding something." Pyrrha reasoned.

"Oh yeah," Ruby replied, "and it doesn't look good. The bits and pieces I've been able to decrypt and read are all pointing to something big coming in the near future."

"How big?"

"We're talking on a global scale." Pyrrha's eyes widened at the implication.

"What can you tell me?"

"Our information is limited, until we find more the best I can do is read between the lines. I can tell that this thing doesn't end when we catch up to Torchwick. In fact, I'd wager it doesn't even start until we do."

"Any progress on that, by the way?"

"It doesn't look like he plans on leaving Brazil for a while, that's for sure."

"Alright, so that gives us time to plan." Pyrrha sighed and took a closer look at the floor plans. "Anything else?"

"All of this is connected to my mom, but until I know more I can't tell how or why." Ruby groaned and leaned back into the couch. "This all got really complicated, really fast."

"Good thing Gregorovitch is here as well then." Pyrrha offered. "Though something tells me that's not a coincidence."

"Is anything, ever?"

"You know the others will help if you ask them, right? They aren't just in this to for the money."

"I know." Ruby ran her hand over her face in exasperation. "But I'd like this to simply be about getting our money back for as long as I can. I don't want anybody worrying about the fate of the world until I have more than inference and speculation to go off of."

*(OoO)*

"So, you mind telling me why I'm helping you haul a bunch of copper mesh to your safe house while our girlfriends get to go shopping with Pyrrha?"

"Ooh! Red has a girlfriend?" Nora asked excitedly as she dropped her own spool of metal. "Tell me more!"

Ruby rolled her eyes, intent on not letting her sister's teasing get under her skin. "They aren't shopping. Pyrrha said she wanted help casing a place for a potential job."

Yang grunted as she tossed her own bundle of copper to the ground while Nora climbed up a ladder and began stapling it to the walls. "And the metal?"

Ruby shrugged noncommittally. "I don't trust the government, and copper's strangely cheap right now."

"You wanna be a bit more specific?" Nora inquired sarcastically.

"Not until you all work on your acting skills." Ruby countered vaguely as she helped set up the mesh. Yang sighed in defeat and grumbled something about her fists reciting Shakespeare as she stepped out to grab the rest of the copper.

"So Nora," Red asked casually, "how have you and Ren been handling things?"

"Ren told us things were getting a little choppy here." Yang added, throwing the rest of the mesh on the ground.

"Yeah… We've been to so many protests, I have trouble remembering which are about the impeachments and which are about the hike in transportation fares. I've barely had time to put in my hours at the hospital."

"Is it really that bad?"

Ruby sighed and nodded. "Yeah, it is. Three days ago, the Lower House voted to authorize the impeachment of President Roussef on the grounds of delaying payments to banks in order to make the state's finances look a little better and keep people investing. Except, according to the Brazilian Constitution, that's not an impeachable offense."

"I can see why that would divide the population." Yang observed.

"Yeah, there are a lot of people who want her out." Nora supplied.

"Problem is," Ruby continued, "though they claim they want her out to abolish corruption, all of the president's replacements are just as corrupt as they say she is. There's so much red tape and ongoing investigations that this could take months to solve –years if the Supreme Court gets involved. Meanwhile the economy's in need of serious help, food is getting more expensive, jobs are vanishing, and transportation fares are rising."

"Which means people are losing patience." Yang concluded.

"And it won't take much for the military to get involved, which will lead to another coup."

"We better hurry up and find Torchwick then." Yang said as she climbed up her own ladder. "I'm not in the mood to deal with a civil uprising."

*(OoO)*

It took Blake four days to secure Adam's location and Red three more after that to find out his every action for the last year and a half. When she wasn't working on their plan or holed up in her safe house pouring over her many sets of blueprints, she was escorting Weiss around the city, showing her everything from the beautiful tropic paradise advertised to tourists to the slums where those forgotten amidst the political strife resided. Now, it was the night before Red and Blake's meeting with Adam and their last night in the hotel before relocating to Red's safe house. Weiss came out of her bedroom that night to find her partner still on the couch, going over what looked like the final details of their plan, and smiled to herself.

"You should get some sleep." She murmured sleepily as she leaned over the couch and wrapped her arms around the other woman's neck. Red smiled and kissed the crook of her elbow.

"I will, I just want to finish going over these. Make sure I didn't miss anything." Weiss hummed against the top of her partner's head, inhaling the smell of strawberries and roses.

"You know you can't plan for everything, right?"

"'No plan can prevent a stupid person from doing the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time –but a good plan should keep a concentration from forming.'" Red replied as she stood and wrapped her arms around the driver's waist.

"Alright, Mr. Weston," Weiss teased, "but you know you can only go over it so many times before you start overthinking things."

"Alright, alright, I see your point." Red acquiesced. "What are you doing up anyway?"

Weiss blushed faintly and avoided the brunette's eyes. "Well, Pyrrha's with Ren and Nora at the veteran's hospital, and Yang took Blake out for one last night of 'fun'–"

"Aww, Princess, are you coming on to me?" Red teased.

"N-No! Of course not!" Weiss shrieked. "I-I just thought that, seeing how you and Blake are going to be risking your lives tomorrow… you might, I don't know, want some company, or something."

Red laughed and kissed the transporter passionately before pulling her down to lay on the couch together. "I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing."

They spent the night on that couch, exchanging kisses both soft and heated. Tomorrow they would return to navigating the sea of lies and danger, but for now, they would take refuge on the island of tranquility found in each other's arms.

*(OoO)*

"You ready?" Ruby asked as she and Blake stood outside the hotel pool.

Blake sighed deeply. "As ready as I'll ever be."

"Alright. Let's do this."

Together they opened the doors and entered the dimly lit swimming area. They barely made it two feet before a large Brazilian man stopped them with a rough, meaty hand and ran a metal detector over their bodies.

"Hello, my love." Ruby could feel the arrogance oozing off the voice coming from the other end of the room. "You'll forgive me if I take certain precautions concerning you and your friend."

Sitting at the other end of the dark waters beneath a single incandescent light sat a man with slicked-back, muddy brown hair and a smirk that said he knew he was the smartest one in the room. Ruby ignored the man confiscating Blake's gun and strutted around the pool as she looked her adversary over appraisingly. He wore a charcoal black suit that blended with the shadows around him and a pair of dark sunglasses that completely shielded his eyes from view.

"You mean like wearing a dark black suit in thirty-five degree weather to hide the fact we make you nervous?" She smirked internally at the way his mouth twitched in annoyance even as one of his goons grabbed her roughly and pushed her forcefully into a sturdy wooden chair sitting across from him before handcuffing her arms to the armrests. "You know, you're really lacking in the hospitality department." She quipped. "No wonder Blake left."

Adam smirked and turned to leer at her friend who was standing nearby, staring meekly at the floor.

"She never had any complaints. Did you my love?" He asked before turning back to face Ruby. "Now, Miss Reyes –or should I just call you Red? " Ruby's eyes widened in surprise as Adam pulled a gun out from his jacket. "Surprised? I would think so."

"How do you know her name?" Blake demanded shakily.

Adam smirked and kept staring Ruby down as he answered. "It seems your friend's aren't as good at keeping secrets as you would like to think. Now," he cocked the gun and Ruby suddenly became very aware of how precariously close she was seated to the edge of the pool, "I would like some time to speak to my darling in private. So, if you don't mind, we'll fetch you when we finish speaking –assuming you're still alive, that is."

"ADAM NO!"

BANG!

Splash!