Chapter 7: Let's Hear The CRME Update

Hey mister! I'm mad author. It's so COOOOOLLLL! Sonuvabitch. Ahem, sorry about that. I've just been marathoning Steins:Gate again for like, the fifth time, I think. If you're thinking about watching it, go do that right now, and forget about this story. Now that you're back, or if you've seen it before, wasn't that a great story, or what? But, you're here about RWBY, not the Future Gadget Lab. Maybe I'll get around to a story about that someday. Just read this chapter already. I want to go back to watching the show.

xxx

The next day, in Vale City…

Roman Torchwick sighed as he walked up to the warehouse's makeshift conference room. Not that the room itself was bad, but what was inside was what annoyed him. You see, that was the usual hangout of Mystery-MILF and Her Merry Gang of Shit-Kids. In other words, that's where Cinder, Mercury, and Emerald usually hung out whenever they weren't doing something that annoyed the shit out of Roman.

About an hour ago, he got a message on his scroll to meet them to give an update on the whole "terrorist bomb-making" thing. And, with it, today's password to say when he got to the meeting room's door.

Roman rolled his eyes at the thought of having to use a secret password. This was a criminal operation, not some god damned treehouse. Plus, the passwords were always some nerdy thing that he didn't want to be even remotely associated with. How could be possibly keep up his reputation as a man of wealth and taste if he kept on saying canned movie and anime quotes? It was preposterous!

Well, the time was at hand now. Roman faced the conference room door, prepping himself to deal with whatever bullshit he had to hear from the Batshit Brigade this time around. He resigned himself to his destiny, and knocked on the door.

"A Contact," was Mercury's muffled voice on the other side of the door. That was the challenge, now it was up to Roman to say the right comeback.

"C'mon, it's me. Open up," Roman replied, completely ignoring what he was supposed to do. He REALLY didn't want to have to say some stupid code phrase.

"Say the password," Mercury ordered.

Roman sighed again. "Be Invoked," was his begrudging answer.

There was a pause, before a series of locks and latches snapped open on the other side of the door. As the overabundant security was being taken off of the door, Roman allowed himself an eye roll before going in there. "Nobody else has to go through this crap. Why should I?" he thought to himself. Maybe they were doing this specifically to mess with him. Roman wouldn't put it past those shit-kids.

Before long, Mercury had undone all the locks on the door and swung the door open. Looking inside, Roman saw Cinder and Emerald waiting at the conference table that they had rigged from a few collapsible tables, while Mercury stood guard by the door.

Roman twirled his cane as he walked in. Plopping down into one of the folding chairs near the waiting others, he asked, "What now? I've got work to do, you know."

"Pfft. Right. Because hiding in your office is work," Mercury dryly remarked as he sat across from Roman.

"At least I'm not dicking around town, like some certain people I know," retorted Roman.

"Hey, those are important—" Mercury tried to get in edgewise, before being cut off by Cinder.

"Enough, you two. Honestly, at least be considerate, like Emerald here," she chided the pair.

That comment made Emerald light up brighter than a tissue paper, gasoline, and firewood factory that was just lit on fire. "Wow, thank you! I've been working really hard on being a good—"

"Hush, child," interrupted Cinder. Then, turning her attention to Roman, she said, "I trust you haven't run into any… issues in getting our first strike ready?"

"Well, to put it in normal terms, yeah. In fact, that bomb guy loves your little furry convention you've got around here. He'll be here with the goods in a day or two," Roman reported.

"Good, good…" Cinder mused, leaning back in her chair. After a moment of silent contemplation, she then said, "I want you to take some of the supplies with you."

Roman raised an eyebrow. "Like what? Like, the crates of guns that we have just lying around, or something?"

"I was think more along the lines of…" Cinder trailed off as she gestured her eyes to the spare mech parts lying over in a corner of the room.

Roman picked up on this, and inwardly balked. Outwardly, he scoffed, "You can't be serious. How the hell am I supposed to get those things down there without anyone noticing?"

"With the abandoned rail system," Cinder replied, as if she was calmly ordering coffee to go along with her pie.

"…Okay, I think we've just skipped a few steps here," Roman replied in disbelief.

"It shouldn't be hard for a MASTER thief like you," Emerald dryly remarked, beating Mercury to the punch.

"Okay, first of all Greenie, I think you don't really know how much trouble it was to get that shit IN here. Secondly, and more importantly, how exactly am I supposed to get a bunch of pets off their leashes to NOT screw up somewhere along the line?" sneered Roman.

"The White Fang are more than suitable as pawns," said Cinder.

"Those fleabags barely even know how those mechs work! If they can't even handle dust properly, how the hell do you think they can keep the goods up to snuff?" Roman retorted.

"Roman, if you—" Cinder began to explain, before being interrupted by a familiar song.

"You are the Dancing Queen, young and sweet, only seventeen/Dancing Queen, feel the beat from the tambourine"

The frustration levels of the room shot up to unbearable degrees. "You've gotta be shittin' me…" Mercury grumbled, facepalming.

"You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life/See that girl, watch that scene, digging the Dancing Queen"

Sighing to himself, Roman pulled out his scroll. On the screen was a number he wasn't looking forward to seeing: the number of his lawyer.

"Yeah, Goldman, what now?" Roman asked into the receiver.

Cinder kept a cool look on her face that hid her inner frustrations well. On the other hand, Emerald and Mercury were glaring daggers at Roman. Noticing this, Roman briefly rolled his eyes at the two while he listened to his attorney.

"That's bullshit, Saul!" Roman suddenly growled into the scroll. "What'd you mean she's filing for a DNA test?! That runt's not mine!"

Cinder irritably rubbed her eyelids. Blinking at Roman, she said in a stern voice, "Roman, if you'd PLEASE…"

Roman didn't pay attention to her in the slightest. Instead, he got angrier at his lawyer. "No, I'm NOT going to take the damn test! Isn't there some, I don't know, LEGAL shit you can do to save my ass?!"

Mercury kneeled down to turn the safety's off of his gun-greaves. One quick kick and blast, and neither Roman nor his pointless legal tie-ups wouldn't be a problem. But, Cinder noticed this out of the corner of her vision and signaled at him to stop. Begrudgingly, Mercury complied and stood up. She'd probably figure out some punishment for the douche arguing on his scroll.

"No, just NO, Saul! Look, what the fuck am I paying you for if I have to get called in for family court?! Fix this shit already! …Oh, don't give me that sob story! Look, am I going to have to come down there and teach you how to do your fucking job? No? That's what I thought. Look, if you can stall that wench in court shit, I'll make it good for you. Just do it already!"

At that, Roman finally stopped yelling into his scroll. With an angry huff, he shoved hit back into his coat pocket and looked back at the group.

Before anyone could get in a word in edgewise, Roman glared at the group and made a simple demand: "If you're going to make me take those mechs, then my price is going up. An extra 20000 for every one of them."

"You're full of shit, Roman," Mercury hissed, edging closer to him.

"Final offer," Roman said, crossing his arms.

After a tense moment of silence, Cinder relented. "You'll get your money. Just… make sure everything arrives in good condition."

"Cinder!" Emerald and Mercury exclaimed at one.

"It's fine. Plans are meant to be… flexible," Cinder said coolly.

"Great…" Roman muttered, getting out of his seat. As he walked towards the door, he waved at the group without looking back. "Make it in notes. I hate checks.". At that, Roman exited the makeshift meeting room.

Once the door closed shut, Emerald and Mercury turned to Cinder, who was disinterestedly examining her fingernails. "What was all that about?!" questioned Emerald.

Mercury added, "Yeah, why'd you agree to that shit?!"

Picking at a nail, Cinder replied, "He's not getting a single lien. Roman's getting to the end of his usefulness, so I see no real reason to pay him. After all, he'll be turned in by a nice, law-abiding citizen. Really, it's a shame that he'll be revealed anonymously."

Mercury and Emerald understood the implied threat. At least now they had clear orders on how to dispose of that nuisance. Once the time came, of course. He had to at least accomplish their first real strike. Then, he was nothing but a pointless pawn, ready to be sacrificed.

xxx

Meanwhile, said pawn was walking towards his car. Roman had enough of this shit today, even though it wasn't even noon yet. Yet again, this warehouse wasn't his official place of work. A professional thief didn't need an office or a workplace. He just went where the money was.

Plus, he needed to figure out how to transport a dozen mech suits to an abandoned section of the subway system. And then, after that absurdly hard part was accomplished, he then had to think of a way to get them over to Mountain Glen without any of the White Fang fucking up on the way over. Now that was a tall order. It was taller than most professional basketball players, in fact.

Roman removed his hat and checked his hair in the driver-side mirror. Yep, still orange. And yep, still roguishly dashing. Satisfied with his appearance, Roman tipped his hat back on and climbed into his car.

What Roman didn't notice was a certain someone asleep in the backseat. So, when he started up the engine, he suddenly found a stiletto pressed up against his neck. Fortunately, Roman was able to tell who it belonged to.

"Neo, what're you doing in my car? I told you, taking naps in here ruins the upholstery," he said.

Immediately, the blade was lowered and returned to its parasol sheathe. Climbing across the console, Neo plopped into the passenger's seat, a smile on her face. It was almost as if she just didn't threaten to kill her partner at all. In response to Roman's slight scowl, she cocked her head to the side innocently.

Roman didn't buy it at all. "Look, there's a perfectly good cot in storage. Just sleep on that," he scolded.

Neo pursed her lips together and vigorously shook her head. "…!" she protested. She then added a small shiver to accentuate her point.

"Look, mice aren't that scary. Seriously, how are they threatening at all?" Roman groaned.

Clicking her tongue, Neo replied "…"

"Whatever…. Let's just get home. I need a drink," Roman sighed putting the car into drive. As he pulled out of the warehouse area, all he could think about was getting into his nice terrycloth robe and drinking some finely aged scotch. That was a good way to was away the bullshit that he dealt with on a daily basis.

Neo pondered a similar thing as the car took them onto a main street. The only real difference being that instead of booze, she was daydreaming about a finely chilled bowl of ice cream. She was in a strawberry flavor mood today. After all, it was sweet, it was tasty, and the red strawberry syrup she usually added on the top reminded her of freshly spilled blood. Now that she thought about it, Neo wondered how blood would taste on top of strawberry ice cream. Probably not very good. That coppery taste just wouldn't mesh well with the sweet berry taste. After all, she had tasted enough blood to know.

And so, the unlikely criminal duo headed home, with their vices waiting for them. They were going to get paid, they were about to relax, everything was fine.

For now, anyway.

xxx

Poor Roman. Or, not poor Roman. It depends on whether or not you think he deserves to get drowned in legal and child support fees. Yes, no, maybe. It's all I need to hear from you. Well, to be less ambiguous, I want to hear your thoughts, in the form of reviews. They help me write better, you know? It's like mana from the heavens, olives from the gods, or roast beef sandwiches from the local hofbrau. Man, I'm hungry. I think I'm going to get something to eat. A roast beef sandwich sounds nice.

So, this is The Draigg, signing off for now to get some grub!