"I believe I've found him sir. Transmitting coordinates to you now." Jaune leaned back in his chair as he listened to Pyrrha talk to Handsome Jack. "There are grimm infesting the tunnels, the number of loaders I have requested is a rough estimation of the firepower I will need to breach the defenses."

"Huh." Jack said, taking a moment. "So… what happened to those other guys you had with you?"

"They died," was the bland reply.

"Oh, got 'em killed did you? Well, I guess they won't be getting that danger wage, then." Jack chuckled. "So, if I send you these loaders are you gonna get them killed, or disabled or destroyed, since machines can't die, whatever. Are you gonna get these loaders killed too? These thing aren't like the mercs, you know. They actually cost me money when I have to replace 'em."

"I am attempting to rescue the blonde one, the one that makes you the most money," replied Phyrra. "Furthermore, if he is not here, and we clear out a nest of grimm, you can claim publicity credit."

"Publicity with who? The local bandits? Please, those things aren't bothering anyone that matters. What's the local bandit clan there called anyway? Gut Humpers or whatever. Animals. Hmm… Alright, how's this? I'll send you down some survey bots and a couple of loaders, and if those caves come up positive for electronic signals, I'll drop a goddamn armada right on their heads. Does… four hundred loaders sound like enough? I think it does. Just fighting a bunch of those autistic Faunus guys, not like they'll be much of a problem for you."

"Well shit." Jaune pushed his chair away from the console and slide across to the other side of the small room. Grabbing the mic, he flicked on the intercom system, feedback blaring over the speakers as he quickly scrambled back. "Attention all faunus, attention all faunus, this is your fearless and handsome leader speaking. Yes, it's me, Jaune, no need to hold back your applause. Seriously. Anyways, turns out the one and only Vault Hunter, Pyrrha Nikos has discovered our little paradise and is preparing to drop four hundred loaders on our head. As much as I love you guys, you're not that good. Heck, I'm the best there is and I'm not that good. So, remember our drills and it's time to get the fuck out of here. Remember kids, stay calm, don't scream, and loot anything that's not tied down. Thank you."

"Hey Jaune? You still listening in?" Jack's voice came out of the headphones, barely audible from across the room.

Fuck.

"Yeah dad, what's up?" Jaune sat back down and deliberately threw his feet onto the console with a bang. And then he realised he forgot to turn the mic and camera on so he did that then threw his feet onto the console a second time.

Jack just smirked. "You think I didn't notice when all that pocket money I gave you disappeared? I'm pretty sure I told you not to spend it all in one place, but uh, there you go, buying yourself a private army of aspergers. Gotta admit, wasn't expecting you do to do that."

"I knew, you knew that I had done that," replied Jaune with a shrug. "Or at least, you think I had done that, but have I really done that? I dunno."

Jack actually burst out laughing. "God, you're so dumb. It's depressing my genes made this." He waved a hand at Jaune. "So, listen, Sonny. I can actually respect a little ambition. It takes some balls to try to do what you're doing, taking me on? It makes sense. Every kid has to try and pull one over their old man. I get it, really I do. So, I'm gonna cut you a deal that you're gonna wanna hear."

"Sure, why not, let's hear it. It'll be amusing at least," said Jaune.

"Okay, tell you what. If you surrender, right now- And I mean now, walk out of that dingy little cave and throw yourself on Pyrrha's mercy, this very minute, I promise that I won't kill your mother."

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh, how about a counter offer? Go fuck yourself."

"Okay, I can respect that." Jack nodded, before turning around in his swivel chair. Putting both hands over his mouth, he called out. "Hey, Blake!"

"Yes, Sir?" The gaunt, sallow man appeared.

"I need you to go to…" Jack took out a notepad and began writing something down. "This address, and pick up a lady named Miss Arc. Then, take her to the moonshot bay, and fire her at…" he glanced at the screen, before finishing writing. "These coordinates."

The man nodded and took the sticky note. "Right away, Sir."

Jack turned back to the screen, and smiled at Jaune.

"Thanks dad, mum was such a bitch."

"Oh, I know right?" He rolled his eyes. "Whenever we did it she'd always fake her orgasm like I actually gave a rats ass if she liked it. Also, son, next time you're trying to seem all… nonchalant and confident, make sure you get that nervous flop sweat under control. And uh, have you got something in your eye, there? 'Cause it kinda looks like you're about to cry." He gave a fond, almost paternal smile. "Greeeeaat talking to you. Peace out."

Then he hung up.

Jaune slumped down into his chest, wiping his brow with a sleeve and frowning. Damn it, that would have been so much cooler if he didn't sweat so much. Either way, he was now officially fucked. Here come the loaders, falling from the sky to rain fiery death on my head. Probably bringing down the mountain with it then Jack would carve his face into it. Whelp, time to go down fighting. He double checked his Jackobs revolver on his hip, the three incendiary cluster grenades, and the hunting knife strapped to his leg. No longer sweating, charming smile back in place and armor polished to perfection.

Taking a deep breath, he walked over to the door and kicked it open.

"Okay everyone, calm down, I'm here now, there's no need to panic." A dozen eyes stared back at him, while even more faunus kept walking at a leisurely pace, carrying various pieces of equipment. "Um… yes… keep doing what it is you're doing. Good job."

He watched as they carried on in their usual monotonous manner before sighing.

"Hey you! Where's Velvet? I need to talk to her."

The Faunus stopped, looking over at Jaune. "She's in the Echo room, talking with our leader." His eyes narrowed artificially. "Why?"

"Didn't you hear? Loaders, here, fiery death, Handsome Jack's face carved into the mountain. Nice chatting to ya, later babe." Charming smile, playful wink and he was gone. Perfect getaway. Now to find Echo room…

Jaune stared at the maze before him.

"It's down the hall, second on the left, then straight ahead and third on the right." One faunus carrying a box of something said as she walked past.

"I knew that!" Jaune followed the instructions, making sure to not bump into any of faunus carrying large crates and after a second of thought, pushed open the door without knocking. "Heeeeeey, don't mind me, just your friendly neighbourhood Hyperion dropping in. How's business, how's life? Got a girlfriend yet? No? That's a shame. So, fiery death, big crater, end of life as we know it and Handsome Jack's face carved into a continent. Suggestions, plans, and solutions. Hit me."

The base commander glanced across at him, but didn't even stop the conversation she was having with some creepy red-head in a mask. "-not all of the air fleet is in working condition, but it will be safer and faster than our road vehicle contingent."

Through the screen, the red-head scratched his chin, before saying, "Ember, if we were to scatter with at least a two kilometre distance between all vehicles, how much of our convoy would Jack be able to target?"

"Oh, that's a tricky one sweetie. Give me a moment…" Ember hmmed to herself, before coming up with an answer, "You'd lose thirty percent right out the gate, buuuut he'd have to realign his gun's further and further for each shot every minute you spend in movement… With your aerialforce, and maybe some decoys to start him shooting in the wrong direction, I predict you'd at worst lose half your forces. That's if Jack's lucky."

Adam nodded. "We have other Faunus elsewhere to make up the numbers, and none of the equipment is particularly valuable. No VIP's of particular note, either."

"Or we could triangulate Pyrrha's original call location, avoid that like the plague, use one of the other exits, preferably coming to the surface as far away from here as possible, toss in some decoys, some more fake recordings or two and bambuzal them into going in the wrong direction," said Jaune.

"Even assuming we do trick them initially, we'll still be moving in a large ground convoy that can be easily spotted and targeted with explosives from orbit." The man dismissed.

"There's something called bandits. You know, those smelly stupid people? We don't need to move everything as well. Kill the bandits, take over their camps, move out slowly."

"You don't have time to move slowly. Pyrrha Nikos with a force of four hundred loaders is about to assault your position within the next hour or two."

"Which is why we trick them initially to get time." Jaune rubbed his temples. "This ain't rocket science, you know."

"Clearly." Adam agreed with a snort. "We don't have time to argue over this. Velvet."

The bunny eared base commander gave a salute.

"Organise everyone into a staggered convey. Your main priority is to make sure no actionable intelligence is left behind. Use a decoy to throw Jack off initially, but don't rely on it. He's canny and ruthless if nothing else." With that the man's video feed cut.

"Seriously, your commander is an idiot," said Jaune.

Velvet looked at him, and said plainly, "Please ask one of my men to escort you to the vehicle bay."

"Just sayin', take over a bunch of bandit camps, stash everything there, slowly convey everything out," said Jaune as he made to leave. "Plus, loader's aren't a threat, I have my own supply, albeit limited. As long as we avoid Pyrrha, we're fine."

"You would put an exhaustible supply of cannon fodder against an inexhaustible supply of the same? Based on the assumption that Pyrrha will be in an hours time exactly where she wa-"

"Pyrrha has had how long to look around this entire mountain complex? Considering for a minute that there are skitter nest right by us. She has found two, maybe three potential entrances, probably less time to survey them all and I know for a fact Hyperion doesn't really have any detailed maps of this place, 'cause if they did, you'd already be dead. Furthermore, all we need to do is make a feint with a small portion of my limited supply. I realise thinking may not be your strong point, but losing a battle to win the war is a sound tactical decision. Not only that, but how long do you think I'll be able to keep the loaders hidden from Handsome Jack? From the entire might of Hyperion? If we never use them, they may be lost before we can. It's better than sending men out to get slaughtered for absolutely zero reason."

"We have our orders," Velvet stated evenly. "If you wish to drop your loaders as part of our decoy, than you're welcome to by all means. Otherwise, please go to the vehicle bay and prepare to move out." Then she walked off, not glancing back.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the smartest commander you'll ever meet," said Jaune with a sigh. "Ugh, Ember, you there?"

"I'm here, baby." Came the slightly flirtatious answer. "Just finishing talking to Adam about a big old piece of heh, 'actionable intelligence' that's about to walk right into the City of Opportunity."

"Triangulate Pyrrha's location, overlay with a map of nearby entrances into the cave system, then highlight skitter nests and other dangerous monsters," said Jaune as he eased into the commander's seat, fingers flying over the keyboard. "Cross reference that with places of structural damage where we can cause cave ins. Lets see if we can redirect them towards monsters and slow 'em down a bit."

"I'll get right onto it." Ember chuckled for a moment. "Oh, didn't get a chance to tell you earlier, but I found your ice princess."

"Where?"

"Not sure where she is right now exactly, but I've got footage of her making it off the Hindentanic in an escape pod with some new friends. Heh, did you know she has combat training? Girl fights pretty well barefoot and in a formal dress."

"She's a Schnee," said Jaune. "Send the footage to my echo device, we need her so if you could find her quickly, that'd be great."

"Already on it, babe." There was a moment's pause. "The footage should be available... now."

"Thanks, I'll review it later when I'm not working with morons."

"Well I'll talk to you then." There was a click and she hung up.

"Surrounded. By. Idiots." Jaune glanced at his eco device, flicking through the various maps. "Alright, time to plant some explosives."

Where people staring at her? Weiss was pretty sure people were staring at her.

When she thought about it, she supposed that was fair enough. She doubted anyone who looked like she or Blake did right then usually had much business in the 'centre of civilisation on Pandora', but she still didn't like it.

She was currently armed with no less than three atlas assault rifles, two submachine guns, and a shotgun, her half of the loot collected from the soldiers. Blake had claimed both sniper rifles and a number of regular rifles for herself. Stranger still, Weiss was barefoot, none of the soldier's shoes being in her size or close enough to it that she didn't trip over herself while walking.

She huffed a sigh, glancing at her saviour/captor's back as she led the two of them through the city.

Blake was not Weiss's favourite person. Not by a long shot. In fact, Weiss was pretty sure she hated Blake, but it was undeniable that the Faunus had saved her life, even if she was partly responsible for putting it in danger in the first place.

Though her experience as a hostage had been horrible.

Weiss would demand recompense.

For now though, she just wanted a safe bed to sleep in, and Yang and Ruby's would have to do.

Blake found the address she'd written down, and approached the door. There was a doorbell, but it looked like someone had crushed it with hammer or maybe a particularly strong fist.

When Blake knocked, the door fell over, hitting the ground with a dull thud. A second later, Yang's voice floated across, "Come in!"

Weiss glanced at the steel door frame, then down at the thick plated door itself. They actually would have had to remove the door's hinges for that to happen. There was no way they rotted off in Opportunity of all places.

Blake didn't really react beyond waiting for the dust to settle before stepping over the threshold. Weiss followed along a few steps behind her, faintly disturbed by the way the ground felt sticky beneath the coating of dust. In the lounge room, they founddishware piled up on the table, a broken television, the skeleton of a dead cat with a miniature assault rifle and no person in sight.

Movement in the corner of the room caught both of their eyes, and what looked like an upturned bowl crawled across the ground towards them, mewling.

Blake snapped her pistol out of its holster and shot it.

Weiss made a promise to but herself shoes. Good, protective, hygienic shoes and that she would wash her feet thoroughly before putting them on.

In the background Weiss could hear an irregular thumping sound, and Blake led the two of them through the apartment towards it. Passing through a doorway that to Weiss smelled faintly of rotting meat, they came to a stop in what was easily the cleanest room of the house so far.

That's not to say it was actually livable, but there weren't insects skittering over most surfaces, nor were there food stains that seemed to writhe almost imperceptibly. In the middle of the room hung a worn looking boxing bag, which was the source of the thumping noise as they found Yang punching it and kicking it in what Weiss noticed as a slightly more nuanced kick boxing style than most gyms across the galaxy would teach.

Yang glanced over at them and came to a stop, stretched out her limbs slowly. "Hey! You're no longer kidnapped, deal fell through I take it? Yeah, you get used to that. There's no food in the fridge and I'm pretty certain the water pipes are bust too. We've got cash though! Some of those gun parts were apparently super nice or something."

Blake looked around. "Do you pay for use of this place?"

"Nope! Won it in a poker match."

Blake tilted her head. "Are you sure you won?"

Yang rolled her eyes. "But yeah, make yourselves at home, Ruby is finishing up her whatever so she'll be up later, if you need anything, just ask."

Weiss grimaced at the idea of making herself at home, and swore to get herself a hotel room because this was simply not fit living conditions. "Um… do you have an echo console, or did that… crawl off?"

"Yep! Ask Ruby, it's in her workshop. Downstairs, in the basement, don't open any magazines, seriously."

"...I'm hesitant to ask why."

"Then don't ask." Her foot slammed into the bag. "Anything else?"

Weiss gave a huff of disgust, before gingerly making her way out of the room.

Behind herself, she overhead Blake saying, "I have to decline your offer to stay here. Weiss and I will rent a hotel for the duration of our-"

Weiss didn't hear the rest as she passed down the stairs, but didn't mind overly much because she was sure Blake's feeling mirrored her own on the matter. The basement wasn't anywhere near as disgusting at the living room, lacking the congealed foodstuffs and undocumented life forms, but it was still a cluttered mess of discarded mechanical parts, metal shavings and wood chippings. Almost all of the more complex machinery seemed to be dumped in piles in the corners, and in a shocking display of poor firearm safety, there was a giant stack of filled magazines left right next to what looked like a soldering iron.

Shivering that anyone could live or work like this, Weiss stopped on the bottom step. The floor was a mess of rusty screws, splinters and disturbingly, several used hypos. There was no way Weiss was venturing across that mess barefoot.

"Ruby?!" She called, not really able to see past the stacks of shelves. "Are you here?"

"Yo!" came her voice from… somewhere.

"I need to use your echo console, but I don't have any, uh, shoes right now."

"By the door on the wall."

"Which door?"

"Living room door."

Grimacing at having to move through the biohazard zone, Weiss turned around and headed back up stairs. She found the console where Ruby had said it was, although there was a large mass of pizza boxes stacked in front of it. She shifted the boxes with the barrel of her gone, and her stomach lurched at the fleshy squelch they made when they hit the floor.

Dialing in the her the number of her father's secretary, and the wiping the grease that had coated the buttons off her fingers, she waited for someone to pick up on the other end.

A brown haired, blue eyed woman answered. "Mr Schnee's office, how can I help you?"

"Can you connect me to my father?" Weiss frowned at her through the screen.

She blinked. "Oh, yes. Right away Miss Schnee."

The screen went blank except for the Atlas corporation logo, while an inoffensive song played. She was on hold for a little over a minute, before her father answered.

"Ah, Weiss, I was so afraid when I got news of your kidnapping, but I knew my girl could handle herself," her father said as he leaned back in his plush chair.

"Is that why you didn't agree to pay ransom?" Weiss snapped, sounding a little more caustic than she'd intended. A little.

"What?" His eyes widened and his hand went to his heart. "Weiss, darling, I paid the ransom! All three million of it, did they try to kill you? Did they harm you? Those ruffians, I knew I should never have trusted them, but my heart couldn't bare the thought of you being all alone on Pandora. Afraid, and scared."

The part that hurt the most, was that Weiss knew her father was an excellent liar. It's just that this time it didn't seem like he could be bothered even trying to make her believe him. "I know they weren't just asking for money, Father. Skintilt was already a billionaire."

"I do not know who was pulling the strings or what they were after Princess, I only dealt with those filthy bandits."

Weiss frowned. "What bandits? Blake was working with the Crimson Lance."

"I do not know, they didn't wear anything obvious," he replied with a shrug. "But enough talk about all that horribleness, I'm just glad you're safe and sound."

Weiss glanced at the room behind her, noticing the way the soggy pizza boxes were leaking a grey puddle on the floor. "Relatively."

"Come home and let's put this all behind us."

"Why? So you can marry me off to someone marginally less disgusting than Jaune?" Weiss crossed her arms over her chest. "Let's not forget why you sent me to this… this place originally."

"Princess, if you disagreed so much, you could have just told me." He held up a hand. "I know, I know, you complained in the past, but you hadn't even met the boy."

"Of course I didn't complain after meeting him! When would I have gotten a chance?" Weiss's eyes narrowed. "People started trying to kill me shortly before the end of our first… Ugh, I can only call it a date but I wish there was another word for it."

"So how was he?" he asked in that infuriating tone only father's could produce. "I hear he's a gentleman."

"At best he's a boorish failure of one. He was exactly what I expected him to be, full of himself and so unbelievably stupid." Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose and cringed at the memory of some of the things he'd said while trying to be suave.

"First date jitters, we all get them," he dismissed with a flick of his fingers.

"You already have another marriage lined up for me, don't you?"

"Of course not Princess, just planning a vacation for you once you get back. Some peace and relaxation from your ordeal." He glanced out the corner of the screen and sighed. "Sorry dear, but it seems someone needs to talk to me and it's urgent." And with that, the call was terminated.

He didn't even stay online long enough to find out where I was. Weiss thought bitterly. After a few moments hesitation, Weiss dialled another number.

"Hello, Bank of Olympus."

"My name is Weiss Schnee, I want to see my family account's transaction history."

"Okay. We're going to need to do a facial recognition scan, and get the account password."

Once Weiss passed all the relevant security checks, she looked over their payment history, and found no sign of three million dollars being moved out of it since yesterday, though her sister had seemingly spent a hundred thousand dollars at a shoe shop.

Weiss had already assumed her father didn't pay the ransom, so she wasn't exactly surprised when she confirmed it, but… well, there's no way to find out exactly how much your father isn't willing to pay to save your life and not be disappointed. With a sigh, she turned off the console and took a step back.

Only to immediately regret it when something squelched under foot.

Weiss breathed air in through her nose, trying to calm herself. "That's. it." She growled, turning the echo machine back on. She scrolled through the local directory, before coming to the number she was after.

"Hello, Opportunity House Cleaning Services." The woman on the other end answered. "Where racial cleansing is second only to you home's."

"Hi, I need a house cleaned at…" She paused, before checking the local directory again. "Thirty One Heroism Avenue, downtown."

"Okay, the nearest appointment is… next month."

"How much would it cost to get you down here immediately?"

"Uh... " The woman blinked, before saying. "A million dollars?" Half jokingly.

"DONE." Weiss wired the money to the woman from her family's shared account.

Hanging up, she stalked across the squelching carpet and into the gym where she found Yang abusing another punching bag, and Blake reading a book about stealing cars of all things.

"I've hired a cleaner for your house." Weiss told Yang, folding her arms. "You're welcome."

"The last cleaner entered Ruby's workshop and was never seen again," said Yang as she ducked under some invisible blow and countered with a hook punch.

"Well this one just won't go into the basement then." Weiss snapped back. "Now, I'm hungry, I smell only marginally better than this place does, and refuse to walk around for a second longer than I have to without shoes. Who's taking me to the shops?"

"Ugh, Ruby won't budge from her workshop until she's finished whatever it is she's working on so I suppose I will." Yang gave one last punch before turning and yelling down a hole in the floor, "Yo Ruby, want skag again for dinner?"

"Sure!" came the muffled reply.

"Sweet. Let's go." Yang turned to Blake. "You coming?"

Wordlessly, Blake stood but didn't look up from her book.

For some reason this grated on Weiss's nerves. "I can't describe how much I hate you."

"Loath, detest, despise, abhor, execrate." Blake said, turning a page. "All are suitable synonyms for hate."

"Whatever." Weiss spat, before turning around and stalking out.

There was a couple of Japanese style public bath houses scattered throughout the city, all of which would allow Weiss to clean herself at a fiscally sensible price range. Weiss walked straight past them to the gaudy, spa and massage parlor where just an hour of the most basic back rub cost more than Yang and Ruby's house was worth.

Weiss went way beyond that to order a mud bath, seaweed wrap, full body massage, and a range of winter frost scented bath salts for all three of them. Only adding to the cost was the separate room she got for herself so she didn't have worry about being seen naked by either Yang or Blake.

The shoe shop was her next stop, where she stayed for just as long as it took to buy every single shoe in the store. Ranging from absolutely gorgeous high heeled stilettos to smaller shoes intended for young children and larger ones presumably for some kind of big footed, hypothetical, gorilla women.

Then of course she had to hire a truck because she couldn't carry all her purchases and a local moving company to pack all her new purchases in the back of a truck.

Next was a five a star restaurant, the sort where all the food servings were arranged decoratively in the centre of the plate, and arrayed neatly like some artist had been paid to make each meal look at small and pretentious as possible. There was gold work in all the plates, and the band playing for ambience was fantastic. After reserving every table in the house she then went to buy every item on the menu, before deciding better of it and just purchased the entire restaurant.

Staring at her brand new property, truck, and shoes, Weiss idly wondered at what point her father would cut off access to her family's account. All in all, her entire day's spendings was just a little over two million dollars. Small peanuts in the larger scale of things, sure but certainly more than any of this was really worth.

It was only when Weiss went to purchase four litres of lighter fluid and a book of matches that her father finally cut her off.

"I'm sorry, Miss, but your card's been cancelled." The cashier said.

Weiss stared at her, her fist clenched and her knuckles turning white. She grit her jaw, and furiously scrubbed at the tears welling in corner of her eyes.

Turning to Yang, she said, "Can I borrow some money?"

"What money?" said Yang.

Fighting the urge to slap her, Weiss turned to Blake. "Give me a hundred dollars."

Blake looked up from her book and tilted her head. Without a word, she handed over two, fifty dollar notes.

With her final purchases for the day, Weiss approached the giant truck of shoes and tore the caps off all four bottles, and upended their contents into the back of the vehicle. With a final growl, she lit a match and flicked it onto the pile.

Weiss found a bench a twenty metres away, and sat down to watch the column of black smoke spiral up into the sky. She was there for the next five minutes until someone called the fire department who came to put the blaze out.

"Ya know, we could have used them for target practice," said Yang, handing over a bottle of rakk whisky. "Got some fire guns back home."

Weiss took one sniff, before deciding better of it and handed the bottle back. "It smells like someone peed in the bottle."

"Yeah, a rakk." She cracked open a second bottle. "Good stuff though."

"I prefer fermented spike fruit." Blake commented idly from the other side, finally closing her book and tucking it under her arm.

"Chevreux, vintage 2026." Weiss muttered dully. "Finest wine ever made."

"Those things have no kick," said Yang.

"Well, not all of us are inbred Pandoran hicks." Weiss replied.

"I can attest that my parents are unrelated, as were their grand parents." Blake agreed.

"Not even from Pandora," added Yang.

Weiss snorted. "Could have fooled me. Where are you two from anyway?"

"Eden-5." Yang shrugged. "Place always suited Ruby more than me."

"Persiphron." Blake replied.

"Ha! Fellow slave, I like it." Yang raised her bottle before downing half the thing in one gulp. "Almost as bad as my prison."

"I was a servant slave," Blake said. "So I would assume your prison was more traumatic."

"You have no fucking idea."

"Well doesn't that just take the thunder out of my righteous anger." Weiss muttered. "I grew up on Olympus, in the cloud district. Right in the lap of luxury with everything I ever could have wanted handed to me on a silver platter."

"Boooooooooooooooooooooooooring." Yang flopped down onto the ground.

Weiss shrugged. "Not my fault my parents decided to ignore me rather than send me to prison or sell me into slavery."

"Should have made 'em."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "So, poor people, how does it feel to witness a privileged and rich heiress spend over two million dollars on things she doesn't need and then set it all on fire?"

"Spend ten thousand next time, and go for those super ugly paintings, like the one with the guy on the bridge, but his face is all wavey like his body," said Yang.

"I have no strong feelings on the subject."

Weiss ignored them both. "Does it strike either of you as all that relevant that my father refused to pay a ransom for my safety?"

"He's a bitch," replied Yang with a shrug.

"I wouldn't have paid that much to save you, either." Blake added.

"Figures." Weiss snorted. "I just… I just thought that even if we weren't close, we were family and… that that meant something, you know?"

Pause.

"Naaaaaaaaaaah, I mean, have you seen Handsome Jack and his 'family'?" said Yang.

"Ugh." Weiss shuddered. "My father intended to marry me to one of those cretins."

"The pretty one?" asked Yang. "If so, totally worth it."

"I don't know which one is supposedly the pretty one. His name was Jaune, and I could barely stand him."

"Then you marry him, steal all the money then kill 'em," said Yang.

"Didn't you see how much I wasted this afternoon?" Weiss gave Yang an annoyed look. "I don't need money. I don't get why my father who's already a trillionaire and owns three percent of all wealth in the known universe gives a damn about getting even more money, or why I should have to be a part of that."

"Whelp, if you ever want help getting payback, I'm willing to go ten percent on the loot," said Yang. "Blake, ten percent of three trillion is still a lot, you want in?"

"It has been a vague ambition of mine for some time to purchase a moon and then digistruct its surface entirely into cheese."

"What kind of cheese?"

"A variety would be best. At least one ocean would have to be camembert and another triple bree."

"...Are you telling a joke?" Weiss frowned at the girl.

"I was attempting absurdism, or 'random' humor. As neither of you seemed to have found it funny, I suspect I will have to try again."

"Please don't." Weiss looked back ahead. "And no, I don't want revenge on my father."

"But the loot! The loot!"

"She makes a compelling argument." Blake agreed.

"Savages." Weiss muttered. "Yang, would you kill Ruby if you felt like she'd betrayed you?"

"Except she wouldn't betray me." Yang gasped and her eyes widened, her third bottle hitting the ground. "Unless it was because Blake turned the moon into different types of cheese and a cheese-pocalypse was on us with molten streams of cheddar flowing through the mountains, making the entire place smell like old socks! Or was that blue cheese that smells like old socks?"

Blake tilted her head. "That joke wasn't funny the first time."

"Gah, you're both useless." Weiss grumbled, standing up and dusting herself off. "Let's go see if the cleaning service is done with your house."

"Of course! They can clean up the cheese! Brilliant!"

"I hate you."

Yang laughed and stuck her tongue out. "Okay, twenty percent of the trillion dollar loot."

"You're not getting any of my family's fortune." Weiss replied, leading the three of them back towards the sister's home. "Even if I did kill my father, his wealth would be divided among my siblings as well."

"What's another murder or two between friends!" Yang threw an arm around Weiss' shoulders while holding yet another bottle of beer. "Cheers!"

"It strikes me that I wasn't at all surprised when I learned you'd been to prison." Weiss answered, throwing the arm off.

"Ooof! Hey now, not cool missy, not cool. And I didn't go to prison, I was… um… something, something, something?" Yang nudged Blake. "Help me out here."

Blake looked at her. "How?"

"Be my alibi," hissed Yang not at all subtly.

"Oh." Blake turned to Weiss. "She was with me the entire time."

Weiss raised an eyebrow. "While you were in prison?"

Blake paused, before glancing at Yang for confirmation.

"Yes."

She looked back to Weiss. "Yes."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Well aren't you two just chummy."

Blake paused. "I did not think that we were either raw fish and brine used as bait, nor did I think we were friends."

"Blake? Shut up and enjoy your drink."