Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth. I own nothing but my imagination.
"A liason," Roman said sceptically.
He had known, when he took Ozpin's deal, that it was part deal, and equal part leash. He had only taken it due to a distinct lack of other options at the time – he really didn't have the firepower to take on Cinder himself, at least not unless someone major dropped into his lap, and if he was to make his bid for control over Vale's underworld, he needed the assurance of a heavy hitter or three in case Cinder came for him again, which was a fairly sure bet at some point.
On top of that, he severely doubted that he could change his tune and join Cinder's cause at this point, even if he wanted to. His mother always told him, 'Never get involved with a woman as crazy as me', and the flame-flinging femme-fatale made old Mama Torchwick look comparatively sane. When he then considered that he had gone out of his way to piss her off, foil her plans and make her look foolish for several weeks... well, that wasn't the sort of thing she would be willing to let go. How did he know? Simply put, because it wasn't the sort of thing he would be willing to let go.
But even then, why did the man holding said leash have to be this guy? The smell of alcohol was so thick around him that Roman didn't dare light up a cigar for fear of setting the air on fire.
"That's right," Qrow leaned back against the counter, "If you're going to be working with Ozpin on this whole 'saving the kingdoms' thing, you need a point of contact. And since old Ozzy isn't the type to get his hands dirty, and he's got no-one else on his side who's dealt with the shadier side of the world before," he paused, "Except for old Port. You wouldn't believe some of the stories that man could tell you… but even then, he's too old to blend in with your type, so I'm the babysitter."
Roman raised an eyebrow. "That's pretty honest of you, there. Are you sure you can blend in around 'my sort?'"
Qrow chuckled. "As if you didn't already know. Pal, you have no idea what kind of fight you got yourself into when you started this thing. These people? The things they've done, the things they're after? There won't be any kingdoms left if they're allowed to win. Which means none of us can afford to screw this up, including you."
"Yes," Roman deadpanned, "I've really been screwing it up so far. Only two terrorist leaders locked up because of me, I really shouldn't have taken my foot off the gas like that or I might have had three."
"Considering the biggest thing you contributed to the first one was getting your ass kicked by your midget," Neo scowled at the man's off-hand remark, "And you only shot the second in the back after my niece had knocked him around the docks, yeah, I do think you can screw up. One wrong move, that's all it takes, and they've got you cornered, with nobody else to do your fighting for you. Remember that."
"I do – wait, niece?" Roman's retort was stopped cold at the thought of this man having family, "Which one are you related to? Crazy Cat Lady: The Prequel or the overly enthusiastic gardener? I'm going to assume it's not the other one, considering it's definitely not motor oil you're pouring down your throat every two minutes."
"The second one," Qrow said with nauseatingly obvious pride, "I taught her how to use that scythe, too. Taught her everything she knows about fighting, about a hundredth of what I know, and I'd say about three times what you know."
"A-ha," Roman nodded sensibly, filing away that little tidbit for later, "It makes sense now. Crazy little girl spins a scythe the size of me around like a skipping rope? Of course her mentor was drunk."
"All the best things happen when you're drunk," Qrow shrugged, "That's why I stay drunk all the time. But enough bitching. It's time we put that little gossip machine of yours to use."
Roman sighed. "And now we come to the real reason why you decided to visit. Okay then... which grand, unspeakable mysteries of the world would you like Roman Torchwick to enlighten you on today?"
Blake was once again reminded of the foolishness of reading while you walked through a busy corridor on the way to class when she found herself stumbling after a rushing girl she didn't recognise bumped into her.
Her face snapped up, ready to berate the moron who interrupted her adventure into the mind of a cybernetic man – but her tirade fell short before it even began when she saw the girl was crying.
"Sorry," what must have been one of the upper-years mumbled as she started running again.
Blake watched her head down the corridor with a frown, before turning to her team-mates. "Any idea what that was about?"
"Yeah, I think," Yang said seriously, "That was Sierra Vivet, one of the upper years. Apparently, her parents Disappeared."
Blake's teeth clenched in anger. Disappeared. You could almost hear the capital 'D' when people said the word at this point.
It had started a couple of weeks after their fight at the docks – but nobody really noticed the problem until a bit later on. It started with a couple of random missing people, unfortunate but not unusual as people went missing all the time. Then, more vanished. People started to sit up and take notice. Then, even more people vanished. People would head out to the store to buy groceries and never come back, go out to walk their dogs only for the dog to be found later, alone and distressed. Young, old, male, female, human, faunus, it apparently didn't matter who you were, you could still vanish all the same. Now, people were warned not to go outside alone or at night, and to make sure they always locked their doors – and the most terrifying thing was, sometimes even that wasn't enough.
While the students at Beacon were quite safe, it didn't mean they couldn't be affected. Many of the students with family in more mundane walks of life were beginning to live in fear of getting called up to Professor Ozpin's office, only to be advised that one of their loved ones or family members had vanished from the face of Remnant.
Her team was fairly safe from any issues – Ruby and Yang's only family members were fully-fledged huntsmen, Weiss' only family member that she professed to care about was a Specialist in the Atlas military, and Blake's familial situation spoke for itself.
Well, she amended internally after glancing at their team leader, face set in a hard glare that looked surprisingly menacing on the usually up-beat and cheerful girl, We aren't completely unaffected.
Ruby was the definitive hero by personality, always willing to risk her life to save the day and protect the defenceless. Hearing about people disappearing from the streets of Vale when she was stuck in Beacon and utterly unable to do anything about it was particularly grating for her, and the topic tended to put her in a rather foul mood.
"I hope the authorities have an idea about who or what could be doing this," Weiss frowned, eyeing Ruby worriedly, "Things can't continue like they are."
"But who could it even be?" Blake mused, not for the first time, "I mean, most people's first choice of suspects would be the White Fang for something like this, but… Faunus have been kidnapped as well, and that really doesn't fit their M.O."
"They could be trying to throw people off the trail," Yang offered.
"Maybe, but I don't think so," surprisingly, it was Weiss who answered, "Given the public relations hit they took not long ago, kidnapping Faunus would surely do them more harm than good."
"That depends on what they want the people for," Ruby said quietly.
That comment threw Blake and the others. Ruby was right – they had been so focused on speculating about who was doing it that they hadn't stopped to consider why they were doing it. What need could an organisation possibly have for kidnapping a fairly large number of people?
If the people were even being kidnapped at all.
The rest of the walk to Sparring practice went by in silence.
"Of course. The 'Disappearances'," Roman sighed, "Should have known that would have the headmaster's glasses steamed up."
"Not just him," Qrow said gruffly, "Just about everyone wants to know what the hell is causing it. I'll put good money on it being our mutual little problem and her gang, but we can't be sure unless we can link them to it."
"All right," Roman leaned forward on the bar, "Believe it or not, these disappearances have been concerning me as well. Police on the streets, curfew, suspicious characters, in particular the suspicious characters I employ, getting stopped by the authorities for no reason then busted for what they were actually doing… it's bad for the bottom line. So I've had people looking into it. Finding out whatever they could. Come with me," he said simply as he stood straight, then began walking into a back office, Qrow finishing his glass before standing to follow him.
They entered a small room, dominated by a large board showing a map of vale. Pins were dotted all over the map, showing small photographs of people with names and ages attached.
"This is every disappearance that I'm aware of at the moment," Roman began, "All the ones the authorities know about, and quite a few more after that. Homeless, criminals, beggars, the sort of people who don't show up on records. When you look at that board," he indicated to it, "What do you see?"
Qrow stared at it for a moment, trying to piece some kind of hidden pattern or secret together. After a couple of minutes, he apparently gave up, and turned to Roman. "All right. You've got me. I've got nothing."
"Exactly," Roman tapped the board, "Nothing. There's no link, no connection, no trend, no pattern, nothing they have in common."
The criminal began to pace. "There's a few reasons that someone might want to stage a kidnapping," he started to explain, "The most obvious one is to try and get a ransom for them. But there are quite a few people on this list with no rich family members, or even no family at all, so the chances of getting a ransom of any kind of substance for them is about as likely as me teaching at Beacon."
Qrow snorted, clearly having considered the prospect of Roman teaching children. "Right. What other reasons?"
"One that's been tried a couple of times down the years is breeding programs," Roman said dispassionately, "You'll know that there are, sometimes, hereditary semblances – there have been people in the past who tried to take anyone related to someone with a hereditary semblance and breed them to try and get control of a powerful or useful ability, or even taken someone related to a huntsman with a strong ability to try and make it hereditary. Never got into that game myself, even I have standards... but again," he indicated the board, "Some of these people don't have a huntsman in their family tree for generations. It doesn't fit. And if you're going to do something like that, you want a certain split of male and female guests and all of them need to be fairly young," he shook his head, "Which they haven't done. Some of the victims are even older than your cape."
Qrow looked so disgusted that he seemed to have completely missed the jab at his rather tattered accessory. "People actually did that – no, not important now. What else?"
"Making demands," Roman shrugged, "Terrorists or armies will take hostages and threaten to execute them until they get what they want. Normally, this would have been my first pick, given that the White Fang, well, exists... except for the fact that Faunus are vanishing as well, and let me tell you, 'making Faunus disappear' is definitely not on the White Fang manifesto. I should know, I actually read the damn thing. The ideas after that are each more far-fetched than the last."
"So we've got nothing," Qrow looked unimpressed.
"We've got nothing yet," Roman corrected, "I'm still looking into it. I've got a few ideas, plans I can set in motion to try and catch our shadowy cartel of kidnappers in the act, but it'll take time to pull them off."
"How much time?" Qrow demanded, "If you think we can just sit around and wait forever when people are disappearing from their beds, your head's about as hollow as half your furniture."
"As long as it takes," Roman said, carefully hiding his irritation that the huntsman had coined on to one of his traps so easily with exasperation about the question, "Rush the miracle worker, you get shoddy miracles. Look, at the moment, I'm the only one with anything resembling an idea of how to get on top of this. Not the huntsmen, not the police, and not even Ozpin. Unless you've got something up your sleeve that's likely to change that particular statistic, I'd recommend you stand back and let me do my thing."
Qrow considered him for a moment. "Okay, hot-shot. Listen up," he took a step toward Roman. "I don't like you. I don't like what you do. I sure as hell don't like the idea that you're getting away with doing whatever the hell you want." He took a deep breath. "But… I trust Ozpin. And for some reason? He seems to think you're worth keeping. So, for now, I'll give you your space, under one condition: You keep me in the loop. And if I catch even a hint that you're crossing a line, taking things too far... well, that leash? It's gonna get a lot tighter. Understood?"
Roman nodded. "Capiché."
"Good," Qrow said flatly, "Now get me a goddamn drink."
As the huntsman stormed out of the room to inhale yet another glass of whatever the bartender could put in front of him, Roman found himself actually feeling rather thankful for the almost blind obedience Ozpin seemed to command from his people.
It was definitely something he could be able to take advantage of in the future. He set that thought aside, in favour of dealing with his current problem.
Now... how was he going to engineer the perfect kidnapping victim?