Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY, it belongs to Rooster Teeth.
"No," Pyrhha said firmly into the silence of the courtyard, "Absolutely not. It's far too dangerous."
The first step of Team RWBY's new self-appointed quest was going about as well as could have been expected. Pyrrha, the stumbling block they all knew they would have to try and get past, was being as solid here as she was when defending against attacks in the ring.
"But Jaune is the only one of us here who could convincingly pull it off," Yang pleaded, "We need his help if we're going to do this."
"I vote yep," Nora raised her hand cheerfully. Blake had predicted that one perfectly, not that it was particularly difficult to see that Nora would pretty much leap at the chance to do something chaotic, dangerous, or better yet, both.
"And why do you need to do this?" Pyrrha rejoined, "Why not leave it for the authorities? We're students, we shouldn't be involving ourselves in this kind of thing."
"We've made a difference in stuff we weren't supposed to get involved with before," Yang said, crossing her arms, "Like the docks."
"Still voting yep over here."
"Several of you were lucky to escape the carnage at the docks with your lives," Pyrrha retorted, getting actively agitated for the first time since Blake had known the girl, "That sort of situation is too risky for anyone of us, never mind Jaune, he's not ready yet -" her rant was momentarily paused by Ren placing a hand on her shoulder.
"Perhaps," he said evenly, "We should let Jaune decide what he is and isn't ready to do?"
Pyrrha paused, calming down. "You're right," she turned to Jaune, "I'm sorry, Jaune. Please tell them what you think of this."
"I want to help them out," Jaune said after a moment.
"What?" Pyrrha looked dismayed, "Jaune, don't get me wrong, you've been improving by leaps and bounds since we started training, but this is something very real and very dangerous. If you are set on helping the world, that is fantastic, but I would recommend against getting involved in this sort of... mission," she seemingly had to grasp for an appropriate word to describe their impromptu quest, "For at least a few months while we work on your technique and find your semblance."
"Yeah, but," Jaune frowned, "They need the me that's sitting here now, not the me that would be sitting here after a few more months of training with you. The crappy Jaune," his eyes narrowed as the members of Team RWBY looked abashed, "Oh, come on. We're all thinking it and it's not wrong. Seriously, guys, I don't mind."
Pyrrha frowned. "Don't be harsh on yourself, Jaune. I don't think any of us are ready for this kind of thing, not just you..." Looking around at the rest of her team, it seemed she could see she was outvoted. She sighed. "I suppose this will happen whether I want it to or not, won't it?"
"At the same time, I would really rather the strongest person present was not going along with this unwillingly," Weiss spoke up. The heiress shared a look with Yang and Blake, who both nodded.
They all turned to Ruby. "Ruby, do the thing," Yang ordered.
Ruby scratched her head. "...what thing?"
"You know," Yang began to explain, "That thing you did when you convinced us all to go along with this, when we were all like 'nope' and you did the thing and then we were all like 'yep'."
"Uhm… do you mean talking?" Ruby blinked, looking confused.
"Yeah, that," Yang agreed, "Do it to Pyrrha."
"Okay?" Ruby agreed hesitantly, "So, er, Pyrrha..."
Five minutes later...
"So before they can take Jaune, I will intercept along with Blake and Ren, then we – wait, what am I doing again? What is this? And why do I feel so strongly about it?" Pyrrha's tone went from passionate enthusiasm to dazed confusion as she stared at the highly-detailed battle plan she had helped write down with a piece of chalk on the wall, complete with a diagram of a hypothetical street and angles of approach calculated down to the degree.
"I know, right?" Weiss gave her a commiserating pat on the shoulder as Yang gave Ruby a victorious thumbs up. "Don't worry. It happened to us, too."
"...You know, that was a whole lot of long, boring conversation that basically boiled down to 'Nora was right'," said girl pointed out, "This is more proof that things would work much better if people just agreed with me in the first place instead of having to think about it all the time! Right, Ren?"
Ren, seemingly imagining such a world, shuddered in horror.
Meanwhile, from an open window some distance above them, two pairs of ears twitched, and a palm met its accompanying forehead in a display of silent exasperation.
The clock ticked five in the afternoon, causing a general outpouring of relief in the office. Jennifer Derais was among them as she got up from her desk and went over to grab her jacket from the coat stand.
She blinked when she realised it was not there. She went to move closer, to make sure it hadn't fell to the ground, but was stopped by a tap on the shoulder.
"Hey, Jenny," she turned to see one of her co-workers holding up her jacket, "Is this yours? I think someone put it on one of the other coat stands by mistake, I almost thought it was mine as it looked really similar."
She glanced at the jacket, seeing the tell-tale symbol she'd had stitched into the sleeve. "It is, yes. Thank you, Gwen."
"No problem," the other woman waved her off, "See you on monday!"
"Yes, see you then," Jennifer nodded. She never noticed the tiny device that had been planted on the inside of the collar.
As the rest of her fellow workers left the office, Gwen made a discreet call. "Hello? Yes, it's me. I'm just calling to make sure you know that the package should be on the way, so keep an eye out for it."
"That is good," the indistinct voice replied over the phone, "Your able service in this matter has been noted. You will find the recompense we have previously discussed delivered to your home shortly."
"Okay," the woman agreed, "I'll keep an eye out."
She didn't know who the hell her co-worker had pissed off, and she didn't really care. The pay-off she was getting for nothing more than putting a tiny little machine on the inside of a jacket collar was frankly too good to ask awkward questions.
It was later that evening that Jennifer got a call.
"Miss Derais," the familiar, gravelly voice sounded over the phone, "We need to talk."
"Griswold?" she bit her lip warily, "Why are you calling me now? My next payment isn't due for another week."
"Indeed, and you have always endeavoured to make all payments on schedule," her debtor responded with his usual cold, unfeeling demeanour, "However, there has been a change in our agreement. Specifically, in who owns your debt to me."
"What?" her blood went cold, "What does that mean?"
"It means that someone has bought up your debt," Griswold replied, "They advised me they will be changing your schedule, and will be coming to retrieve the first payment from you tonight. In cash, as per our previous agreement."
"What?! But they can't – why did you sell it? I was making every payment," she asked desperately.
"The man who bought your debt is not a man someone like me can simply refuse," Griswold replied dispassionately, "I saw fit to call you to advise you of the change in circumstance, but I'm afraid our interactions, charming though they have been, are at an end. I wish you luck in all of your endeavours."
The call ended, leaving a shell-shocked woman holding the phone.
She ran into the living room to check her purse. Opening it and doing a quick count, she realised she was a whole two hundred short for the next payment. She considered asking whoever was coming for more time – but Griswold had been cold, hard and unforgiving when it came to making any kind of change in the schedule, and anyone who he was afraid to say no to was not likely to be any more lenient.
She would have to go out to the nearest cash point and get more money.
A very dangerous thing, given current events, but she knew what could happen if she missed a payment…
Minutes later, she was leaving her front door. Drawing her jacket tightly around herself, she walked as quickly as she could.
The nearest cash point was outside the local corner store – about a five minute walk from her home. It was the most terrifying five minutes of her life – twitching and almost jumping at every noise, no matter how distant, constantly thinking that the next thing she would hear would be something jumping out of the shadows to get her.
She reached the cash point, and quickly withdrew the money she needed, looking over her shoulder the entire time.
The journey back was no less fraught with potential terror – but she made it as far as her street with nothing happening. There were not many people out on the streets at this time – even she shouldn't have been, really, given the curfew, but needs must.
She twitched as she caught a faint noise from behind her. Whirling around, she saw nothing, but another sound had her turning toward the entrance to the alley behind her street.
Something stirred in the shadows. She stood, paralysed by fear as a shape became visible…
...And breathed a sigh made up of equal parts relief and self-admonishment when she saw it was one of the neighbour's cats.
Not wasting any more time, she quickly hurried down the street, and entered her home.
"So? Where are we, minions?"
Roman sat patiently as one of his employees observed a holographic screen – on the screen was a map of Vale, and a small, blinking dot could be seen, currently stationary.
"Looks like this one was a miss, boss," the underling replied, "She got home and dry."
Roman sighed. "Tell the boys we send to collect that payment to pick up the tracker on her jacket, too," he ordered, "There's no use wasting good money."
"That was one of the ones from the stolen shipment, boss."
"Then there's no use wasting the fruit of our hard, illicit labours," Roman groaned, "Just... get it done, will you?"
"Got it, boss."
"..." Neo tilted her head.
"Well, no, I didn't really expect to catch them with the first attempt," Roman admitted, calming down, "But it would have been ironic, wouldn't it? Still, to use your strange little fish-related metaphors, there are plenty of fish in the sea. We'll keep doing this until we get one on the hook."
Neo nodded. The plan was fairly simple, the mark of most plans which were likely to succeed. They would have trackers planted on people who they knew they could pull strings on, and pull said strings to force those people into making trips outside in the night. Not just debts, of course, if they kept doing doing the same thing over and over, they would end up leaving a pattern, which Roman would rather have avoided if at all possible.
But there were plenty of other levers available to Vale's premier crime lord and information broker. Roman had blackmail on hundreds of members of society both grand and humble, he had a leash on every remotely major dealer and half the junkies from the shopping district to the docks, crooked cops on speed-dial waiting to pick up their brown envelopes, and others… all people who could be pushed into making late-night trips alone, give the right incentive, threat or powerful hallucinogenic intoxicant.
And in doing so, all would be potentially tempting targets for their mysterious kidnapping cartel. No, the first try was never going to be a success, but the fifth? The tenth? The twentieth? Those were potentially far more promising.
"We'll find them eventually," Roman stated firmly, eyes fixated on the large screen, "What we need more solid plans in place for is what's going to happen when we do."
Neo raised a curious eyebrow. "..."
"'No, 'just send you in' isn't a viable plan any more," Roman rolled his eyes at her sarcasm, "Really, Neo. You think I don't know that we're playing in a different ball park, here? I only wish we were back in the old days, when you could tear apart pretty much anything that got in our way with a hand tied behind your back."
Neo nodded soberly. So far, they had only met four people who she knew she couldn't handle in a fight – Ozpin, Cinder, the blonde-haired teacher from Beacon who went toe-to-toe with Cinder at the warehouse, and Qrow - but four was still many more than they ever would have met when they were running small-time thieving gigs.
Looking into Qrow Branwen a bit more deeply was a particularly sobering experience. Shortly after meeting the man for the first time, both Roman and Neo both felt like they had heard his name before, and the former decided to dig up some information about their new 'liason' from their network of contacts.
It turned out they had heard his name before.
On a list of names for bad people to run away from, really fast. Near the top, for that matter. Which was probably a part of the reason why Ozpin had 'assigned' him to them.
Their initial instincts about the man were right on the money. Branwen was a terror of a huntsman, and probably one of the most individually dangerous people in the world. He had carved his way through monstrously powerful Grimm, rogue huntsmen and entire criminal organisations in his time as a warrior, and apparently did all of this both while drunk and also finding the time to teach kids how to be as potentially terrifying as he was.
A small part of Neo couldn't help but wonder how many more people like that they were likely to meet before this was all done. A larger part of Neo, on the other hand, was pondering over a different dilemma – how to reach that level herself.
After all, all the most successful life forms could adapt to their surroundings… and when faced with a bigger pond, the only way to stay alive?
Was to become a bigger fish.
And Neo, overachiever that she was, intended to become a goddamn shark.