Chapter 9

AN: Credit to Xomniac for the portion with Torchwick.

Velvet yawned, stretching her arms as she opened bleary eyes and sat up. The sun streaming in through the window told her that it was late morning, confirmed by a look at her - thankfully turned off - alarm clock. Glancing around the room, the rabbit faunus could see Fox sitting on his bed carving at a piece of wood, and Coco sitting on the couch, only the back of her head visible. From the sound of the shower running, Yatsuhashi was taking the opportunity to clean up.

Standing up, Velvet winced as pins and needles swept through her legs. She began hopping in place to try and make them go away, the action causing Coco to turn around and whistle appreciatively.

"Yeah, work those thighs!" she whooped enthusiastically.

Velvet sighed, but didn't stop hopping. "It is entirely too early in the morning for this, Coco."

"It's ten in the morning," Fox pointed.

"Like I said, too early."

"Oh, lighten up, Velvet," Coco admonished, leaning over the back of the couch. "We're supposed to be relaxing for a few days! Sit down and lounge!"

Velvet came to a stop, wiggling her right foot to get the last of the blood flowing, and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Coco… please tell me you're wearing pants or a skirt."

"What?" Coco snapped defensively. "This is what I usually wear on days like this!"

"That's the problem," Velvet muttered, pointedly not looking at her leader's breasts, which were not only barely restrained by the very loose tank top she was wearing, the couch underneath was doing… interesting things to them. It was a task made possible only by the fact that yes, this was standard loungewear for the fashionista. "But seriously, are you-"

"I'm wearing short shorts," Coco interrupted, rolling her eyes. "Those count."

'Barely. I've seen what you call short shorts.'

"Barely still counts," Coco smugly retorted.

"... goddamn it, I said that out loud, didn't I?" Velvet groaned.

"Yes, you did," Fox provided with a sigh. "God, how I envy the deaf..."

"I'm sorry for being a nag, Coco, I just don't want a repeat of Professor Goodwitch's first inspection." Velvet gave a full-body shudder. "That's something I don't ever want to go through ever again if I can help it..."

Coco and Fox mimicked the action, the former adding an unconscious hand over her breasts. "Yeah, okay, no argument there," the fashionista agreed. She stood up from the couch, revealing that yes, she was wearing shorts, albeit extremely small ones. "No chance of that happening today, though."

"Thank god..." Velvet breathed as Coco sat back down. "Anyway, what do we have planned today?"

Coco and Fox glanced at each other, before the latter shrugged. "We were kinda hoping to just lounge around all day."

"Not happening," Velvet said immediately. "I have a lot of misplaced-but-very-well-earned rage to work off."

"Not to mention," Yatsuhashi added as he stepped out of the shower, a towel hanging from his neck. "You're forcing yourself to keep from obsessing over what the White Fang is up to."

"Yeah…" Velvet agreed reluctantly, her fists clenched at her sides. "I know I should trust Ozpin and the authorities… but they're out there. Doing something. And it feels like we're doing nothing to stop them or find out what they're up to. Worse, I know this'll consume me if I let it." She looked at each of her teammates in turn. "So I need to do something to keep my mind off of this."

"Well, I say we compromise," Fox said as he reached under his bed. Coming up with him was a training dummy made of carved wood glued together. "We can lounge, and you can kick Buster here around all you want."

His teammates all stared at him with varying degrees of incredulity.

"What?"

"Fox…" Coco said slowly. "Where did you get that?"

"I made it." The incredulous stares didn't die down. "What, did you think I just threw away all the wood carvings I made?"

"Yes?" Yatsuhashi answered hesitantly.

"Well, I don't. So I made this guy!" Fox gave the dummy a proud pat on the shoulder. "He's also a lot more sturdy than wood-and-straw dummies the Academy uses. Buster here is 95% solid wood!"

"I don't know…" Velvet said hesitantly. "I don't think this is going to cut it."

"Psh, just give it a try! I'm sure you'll have all that anger worked out of your system in no time."

Giving Fox a skeptical glance, Velvet walked up to the dummy and gave it an experimental kick. It wobbled, but otherwise looked fine. Still frowning, Velvet gave it a series of six kicks, each increasing in speed and tempo.

"See?" Fox crowed. "You're doing-"

Velvet snapped out a side kick that sent Buster - and several splinters from his torso - flying into the wall, where it stuck, half in and half out.

"Never mind," Fox said in a slightly higher voice than usual. "Yeah, you do need something more strenuous."

The tense atmosphere was broken by a knock at the door.

"I'll get it," Coco announced, getting up to open the door.

"Coco, wait-"

The fashionista turned the knob and opened the door to see Jaune standing there, looking a little surprised.

"Uh, hey, Coco," he said nervously, pointedly looking her in the forehead. Pyrrha stood behind him, her eyes narrowed. "You, uh, you do know you have a wooden mannequin sticking out of your wall, right?"

"Yeah, we were just about to do something about that." Glancing over at Pyrrha, she winked. The other girl's gaze hardened further.

"Cool." Jaune nervously tugged at the collar of his shirt, still staring straight at her forehead. "I, uh, finally got that copy of Dust Wars I ordered, and I was wondering if any of you guys wanted to play."

"Hmm." Coco placed one arm under her breasts, pushing them up and also causing one of the straps of her top to slide off her shoulder. A finger tapped at her smooth lips in thought.

"I dunno…" she said slowly. "Velvet has some misplaced anger she needs to work out, and I'm not sure if Dust Wars would be…" Coco fluttered her eyelashes at him. "Intense enough."

Jaune gulped audibly as he attempted to compose a coherent response, which in turn raised Pyrrha's blood pressure another notch. "I-I, uh… well, that is… Uhhhhhh…" Needless to say, he failed.

"YES!" Velvet suddenly shouted, grabbing Coco by the shoulder and pulling her back into the room kicking and screaming. Which only brought attention to her bare legs and midriff. "We'll be there! Where and when?!"

"Uh, well, as soon as possible in the library, but-"

"Great! See you there!" Velvet hastily kicked the door shut before whirling on Coco. "What the blue blazes was that?!"

"Aww, it was just a little teasing," Coco pouted dismissively.

"Teasing, my foot!" Velvet snarled. "You were practically seducing him!"

"Psh," Coco snorted as she rolled her eyes. "You're overreacting."

"I agree with Velvet, actually, that was very close to over the line into inappropriate," Yatsuhashi cut in.

For a moment, Coco just stood there in surprise before sighing. "Okay, I'm sure I'm not the only who's noticed Pyrrha's little… infatuation with Blondie."

Fox, Velvet, and Yatsuhashi all glanced at each other. "Uh, actually, I'm pretty sure you are the only one who's noticed. At least, among us," Fox replied.

"Are you freaking-" Coco cut herself off, shaking her head. "Okay, look, fire-head out there looked about ready to gut me, and I don't think she's an active advocate for girl pride, so let's just assume it exists, okay?" Her teammates nodded. "Good. Now, obviously she hasn't done anything with it. Probably because she's waiting for him to ask her out first. But since Blondie's denser than a lead brick, he hasn't noticed. So, we need to push her to talk to him herself."

"And to do that, you decided to try and either seduce Jaune or make him die of blood loss via it all flowing south," Velvet deadpanned.

"You make that sound like a bad thing," Coco replied, sounding honestly confused.

"Just-Just get presentable, Coco," Velvet groaned, cradling her head in her hands. "I am not letting you wear that outside of our room."

As Coco marched off, grumbling, to put on some normal clothes, Velvet walked up to the door and opened it up again.

"Sorry about that," she apologized. "We'll be out in a few seconds."

"Hey, no problem," Jaune replied. "We… sometimes have similar problems."

"Nora?"

"Nora."

"Anyway, just one more thing." Velvet nervously poked her fingers together. "I, uh, haven't played in a while, so could you guys go easy on me?"

"Sure! Nora and Ren have never played, so I was planning to start easy anyway."

"Oh, good," Velvet sighed in relief.

~o~

"I take all of your artillery, flatten your last mobile forces with my air units, and then set fire to half of Vacuo!" Velvet roared furiously. She then proceeded to slam three more pieces onto the board and pulled three artillery cards out of her deck, setting them among the veritable farm of units on her side of the table.

Half of Team JNPR stared at the faunus in a combination of shock and horror.

Nora, on the other hand, stared at the board in numb shock for a few moments...

"BWAAAAAAAH! MY EMPIRE! MY GLORIOUS EMPI-HI-HIIIIIRE!"

Before throwing her head back and bawling miserably, sounding disturbingly like a wounded Grimm.

"There there..." Ren sighed as he cradled his inconsolable partner kindly. He then shot a glare at Velvet. "You monster."

Velvet blinked in confusion before her pupils shrank back to normal. "Ah..." She looked around hesitantly. "Too much?"

"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Coco suddenly roared out of the blue, flinging herself so far back in her seat that she fell backwards, the impact doing little to stop her cackling.

"Ahem... so... too bad about that artillery," Jaune winced as he drew his cards for the turn. "Still, you're pretty much supply-blocked now. Which means…"

The blond proceeded to dump most of his hand on the table, placing the pieces on the board with exquisite care. All were Huntsman teams.

"Good game, Coco."

"Heheheh… huh?" Coco hastily righted herself and glanced over the board, doing a double take and rubbing her eyes before staring at it some more. "Wait, what?"

"Yes, that is twelve Huntsman teams outside your capital," Jaune said with just a hint of smugness. Reaching out, he flicked the model of Mistral over, revealing one more game piece where the city used to be. "And one inside it."

"MOTHERFU-!"

Velvet simply drew up her cards, glanced over them, and placed one down. "A supply card to expand my headcount a bit, and then I redeploy in a defensive position," she said, shuffling her pieces around Atlas. "Oh, and I'll play this face-down."

"How?!" Coco demanded. "How did he do that?!"

"He played defensively, built up his macro, and then dumped everything he had saved up on elite units," Velvet replied. "That, and he knew we'd go for the new player first."

"Whhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyy…" Nora sobbed from underneath the table.

"I'll admit, I fell for that, but you didn't help by waiting so long to attack," Velvet added.

"But- my army! It was going to be perfect in another five turns!"

"'Perfect is the enemy of good enough'," Jaune quoted as he drew his cards, glancing over them. "Usually fast strategies are better. Usually. Anyway, I'll recall my huntsmen and add a couple AA defense cards."

"How did you get so good at this game, anyway?" Velvet asked as she started her turn.

"My sisters play me all the time," Jaune replied as he leaned back in his chair. "Played for the first time when I was five. I lost that game; haven't lost since."

Velvet quirked an eyebrow at that.

"Heheh, no, just against them," Jaune chuckled. "They're smart girls, but when you play someone that long they get predictable. And they're always too ready to turn on each other."

"Mm," Velvet grunted as she thought over her next move. Build up supply and wait on units? Go max units and attack immediately? She glanced over at Jaune, looking utterly unconcerned, then at his units. A thought struck her.

"I'll play another supply card," she said, adding it to the table - and then slapped another card down. "And I'm going to use 'Aerial Scan'."

The scan revealed a hidden Huntsman unit sitting right next to her supplies. It was promptly hemmed in and destroyed by a combination of robots and air power.

"Not bad," Jaune hummed as he started to draw. "Anyway, you guys've been cooped up in your room all morning, so I'm assuming you haven't heard the scuttlebutt on General Xiao Long?"

Velvet's ears perked up, and she looked up from the board. "No, we haven't. I'm not surprised there's gossip, though. That was quite the introduction."

"Well, there are a lot of opinions and theories, but they can be basically boiled down to two reactions." Jaune held up an index finger. "One, that she should be thrown out for blatantly disrespecting the Beacon staff."

"How do they know she did that?" Velvet asked, confused.

"I think the army she showed up with after getting thrown out had something to do with it," Jaune deadpanned. "Anyway, the other view is that she's a stick-it-to-the-man rebel badass that deserves all the support we can give her."

Velvet groaned and let her head thump on the table. "Ugh, idiots. That never leads anywhere good."

"Two supply cards and another artillery unit," Jaune said as he placed the necessary pieces and cards. "But yeah, I totally agree-YEEK!"

Jaune promptly flinched back as a pink blur shot towards him and was arrested only inches from his face. The blur resolved into Nora, looking downright murderous with her arms outstretched towards Jaune's throat, the only thing keeping her from wringing his neck being Ren's hand on her collar.

"Nora, behave," he said.

"Now you listen here, Jaune!" Nora said, instantly switching her clawed hands for a finger jabbed into the blond's face. "If she disrespected the Beacon staff, then they had it coming! This is the woman who took fifteen men against a pack of Goliaths and came out on top! The woman who stopped an entire Grimm incursion in Vacuo barely a month after she started! The woman who evacuated Green Thumb Island after it was put under siege by a school of Leviathans! She's the one who stops the White Fang from killing Weiss Schnee! She kills Grimm by punching them in the face for Pete's sake!"

"Geez, Nora, I'm just relaying what other people are saying!" Jaune said, frantically trying to ward off the angry blob of pink with his arms. "Could you please just let me play the game?"

Suddenly, as if the last few seconds hadn't happened, Nora was back to her usual self. "Sure!"

"Okaaaay…" Jaune shifted back into his seat, though not without a few nervous glances in Nora's direction. "Where were we?"

"I believe it was my turn-" Velvet began before Pyrrha interrupted.

"I'm sorry, Velvet, but could you look at this picture for me?" she asked, fishing it out of her belt. "Jaune and I weren't sure if it was legitimate or not."

Velvet took the photo and scanned it over curiously. One glance later, her eyes were narrowing and her ears were folded against her head. "Yeah, this actually happened," she answered darkly. Pyrrha's expression fell, and Jaune reached over to pat her arm-

"But it's also wrong."

Only to pull up short at Velvet's words.

"H-huh?" Pyrrha looked up in confusion and more than a little hope.

"The date on this photograph, it's wrong. See this guy?" Velvet pointed at one of the male faunus picking away at the rock. "He died… about ten years ago, I think. Way before the reforms Weiss Schnee enacted when she took over the company. Oh, and he died in the Xanadu mine in Mistral, not Shangri-La."

"Oh, thank goodness," Pyrrha breathed, slumping into her seat with tears shining in the corner of her eyes.

Jaune, on the other hand, was looking at Velvet in confusion. "How do you know all that?"

Velvet scowled as she slid the photo back over to Jaune. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"But-"

"Go- Gosh darn it, Jaune, I decided to join you guys exactly because I didn't want to think about this!" she snapped. "Now, I'd like to take my da- darn turn."

"Who says things like 'darn'?" Nora demanded. "Or 'gosh' for that matter."

Now visibly fuming, Velvet replied, "Someone who doesn't want crass vocabulary to reflect badly on them."

"Huh," Nora said, tapping her chin in thought. "That sounds familiar. Where did you hear that?"

Velvet opened her mouth to respond... then trailed off into silence, her eyes staring at something a thousand miles away.

"Uh-oh…" Coco said, slowly backing away from the rabbit faunus. "Yatsu, we need hugs, stat!"

Yatsuhashi quickly picked up his much smaller teammate from behind and wrapped her up in a tight hug. Velvet flinched, turning to look up at Yatsuhashi.

"Yatsu, what-"

Whatever she was saying was cut off by Coco and Fox joining in the hug. "Shh…" Coco said, gently stroking her ears. "We're here, you're fine."

Velvet's face scrunched up, and tears shone in the corners of her eyes. Giving one cute hiccup, she wiped her eyes and gave a light smile at her teammates.

"Thank you, guys. I don't know what I'd do without you…" she said gratefully.

A loud smack caught their attention, and they turned to Team JNPR's side of the table to see Nora rubbing the back of her head and looking plaintively at Ren.

"Owie, what was that for, Ren?" she whined.

"Nora," Jaune admonished. "Think about who would tell her something like that."

Nora cupped her chin in thought for a moment, before her eyes widened in realization. "Oh. Oh!" She grinned sheepishly at Velvet. "Eheheheh, sorry about that. I wasn't thinking."

"It's fine, it's fine," Velvet reassured her as she extricated herself from her teammates' arms. "Just… don't bring it up again, okay?"

"Bring what up?" Nora said innocently, prompting a round of chuckles from the group. Jaune and Velvet quickly sat back down at the table and set back to the task of trying to clobber the other. A few turns passed, each player building up their army, their teammates not infrequently adding in their own tactical advice. Or, in Nora's case, constantly looking at her Scroll and sighing happily.

Finally, after the fifth time this happened, Ren reached over and plucked her Scroll out of her hands.

"Hey!" Nora snapped, reaching futilely for the device.

"Sorry, but I think you've indulged in your obsession with General Xiao Long for long enough," Ren replied, tossing the Scroll to Yatsuhashi - and thus, out of the relatively short Nora's reach. "Besides, you're distracting the players."

Velvet and Jaune both glanced at each other. "Actually, it wasn't that dis-"

"'Sup, thundercunts!" Yang said as she poked her head around the bookcase. "Someone say my name?"

Both teams jumped in their seats at the sudden intrusion. Except Nora, who immediately tackle-glomped the blonde.

"General Yang!" she squealed. "What are you doing here?!"

"Well, y'know, not much out of the ordinary happening, so I shoved the paperwork off on my XO and decided to just wander." She glanced around the library, no one noticing her eyes narrowing slightly. "Ah, this brings back so many memories." Looking back down, she saw the game board and leaned over it. "Dust Wars, huh? It's actually pretty good for developing tactical skills, which is why it's always a feature of game nights."

"Y-Yeah," Velvet replied, looking slightly nervous in the company of the general. "W-We're about even right now, just waiting for the right moment to attack."

Yang scanned over the board for a moment before giving the faunus an unimpressed look. "Yeah, no. Velvet, was it? Yeah, you've hit Zugzwang."

Her only answer was a half-dozen blank stares. "Uh, bless you," Pyrrha said politely.

Coco sighed and rolled her eyes. "Honestly, have none of you played chess before? Don't answer that," she hastily added. "Anyway, Zugzwang is where any move you might take would screw you over. Think Morton's fork."

The assembled students let out a collective "Ooooh..." of understanding, while Yang nodded in agreement. "Beret here has it right. At this rate, unless Blondie here's a complete amateur, you've got three turns at most before he beats you."

Velvet turned back to the board and stared long and hard at it, her face scrunched up in concentration. Finally, she nodded and came to a conclusion. "Actually, I see a third option here."

Yang quirked an eyebrow. "Oh? And what's that?"

"Well…" Velvet drawled as she slowly shifted her legs beneath the table. "I'm going to take a page from Coco's book here."

Without any warning whatsoever, Velvet suddenly flexed her leg upwards, flipping the table and sending the game, board, cards, and all, flying. Jaune threw up his arms to shield himself from the flying pieces, while everyone else just watched in surprise.

Yang broke the silence by throwing back her head and laughing. "Gahahahahahaha! The 'I'm taking you with me!' option! Nice!" Grinning, the blonde gave Velvet a hearty slap on the back that nearly pitched her out of her chair. "I like you, kid. If you need a job when you graduate, give me a call."

"I thought Professor Port made it clear what our stance on recruiting students was, Ms. Xiao Long."

"General Xiao Long," Yang corrected automatically. "And, what, I'm not allowed to make job offers anymore?"

Yang felt a slight breeze brush her cheek, and glanced to the side to see one delicate lock of hair fall to the ground.

"Now that I have your attention," Glynda ground out as she tapped her riding crop in her hand. "I know you are aware of the rules regarding recruitment on campus, and if you continue to deliberately flout them…" She squeezed her weapon as though it were the General's neck, purple sparks swirling around its head menacingly. "Well. We can't go against a Council order, but we have ways of making things very difficult for you if we choose to."

The deputy headmistress resisted the urge to flinch as Yang turned a hard glare at her, the blonde's blue eyes now a blazing red.

"Nora," Yang said with very deliberate evenness. "Time to let go."

"Aww," she whined, even as she allowed Ren to pry her off.

The minute Nora was out of the blast radius, Yang let her Aura flare in bright yellow flame. Her red-eyed glare bored into Glynda's purple ones, this time causing the teacher to take an involuntary step back.

Then Yang took a deep breath, and her Aura winked out.

"Well," she said in that deliberately calm tone. "I should probably get back to HQ before Colonel Sanders gets really upset with me. I swear, that old rooster... sometimes it's hard to tell who's actually in command, him or me."

Turning to go, she shot one last goodbye over her shoulder. "It was good seeing you guys again! Feel free to pop into my office at any time!"

For a moment after she disappeared from sight, nobody dared move. Then Glynda turned her gaze on the mess left from flipping the table.

"I do hope you were planning to clean that up," she said sternly, prompting the students to start scrambling to do so. Nodding, she too turned to leave, mulling over the previous scene in her mind.

'The Yang Xiao Long I taught six years ago would have never had the self control to calm herself like that,' she thought furiously. 'Especially not regarding her hair. She's… calmer, more controlled. Why does that worry me? She'd have to be more controlled to control the Dust Devils like she does.'

Glynda's stride faltered ever so briefly as a thought occurred to her. 'Was she truly unable to restrain herself?' she wondered.

'Or… ' Glynda bit her thumb nervously as she considered the one option she prayed wasn't correct, so terrible were the connotations it held. 'Did she simply choose not to do so?"

~o~

"Um, what do you think of this one?"

Coco and Nora hummed thoughtfully as they looked over the dress Pyrrha was wearing. A dark forest green, it was long, sleeveless, and dotted with sequins at the fringes. A pair of opera gloves in the same color finished off the ensemble.

"Okay, contrasting colors really do not work with you," Nora decided.

"I agree. And the cut of the top just does not do your arms and shoulders any favors," Coco added. She glanced up towards Pyrrha's head. "And are you sure you want to stick with your, uh, tiara-thing?"

"If possible, yes," Pyrrha replied. "So, for the next one…"

"Something more complementary, color-wise," Nora decided after a moment's thought. "Red's probably your best bet."

"On the plus side," Coco added. "Those opera gloves were a very nice touch, find some of those, too."

As Pyrrha ducked into the changing room to hang up the dress and go find another, Coco and Nora turned to Velvet, who was browsing through the racks of clothing.

"How's it going, Vel?" Coco called out.

"I found something!" Velvet exclaimed, pulling out a short-sleeved cheongsam with a long skirt, a deep bronze brown highlighted on the edges and in the floral pattern with gold.

Nora whistled appreciatively, with Coco clapping lightly. "I see my fashion lessons are finally bearing fruit!" she crowed. "But try it on, we need to be sure that it works."

Nodding, Velvet ducked into the changing room, and stepped out wearing the dress.

Nora whistled once again, while Coco's jaw dropped slightly. The dress complemented her perfectly, both color-wise and in showing off the strengths of her figure: her legs. They seemed… endless. And so firm, especially in the thigh area...

"So? How does it look?" Velvet said, sounding a little nervous.

"W-What?" Coco exclaimed, shaking herself out of her stupor. "Oh, uh, it looks great! Uh, maybe add some stockings?"

"Oh, good idea!" Velvet said. "I'm gonna change out of this and go find those, okay? This store doesn't carry any."

"O-Okay," Coco said as Velvet ducked back into the changing room, pointedly ignoring the looks Nora and Pyrrha were giving her. She kept ignoring it while Velvet set the dress down with the ones she and Nora had already chosen, and only when Velvet was out of the store did she turn to the other two girls with a defensive "What?"

"Coco, we need to talk," Nora said with uncharacteristic grimness. "Girl-to-girl."

"We know you're head over heels for Velvet," Pyrrha bluntly stated. "And we also know that you're going to lose your chance if you don't do something about it soon."

Coco flinched for the briefest of moments before snorting contemptuously and gazing over her sunglasses in disbelief. "Right, this coming from the two who haven't said a word to either the blond boy wonder or pink-streak?"

"Th-That's not-!" Pyrrha stammered before Nora interrupted her with an elbow to her side.

"Ren and I cleared the air on each other a long time ago," she sniffed primly, or at least what she thought was primly if her over-exaggerated posture and tone were anything to go by. "We have an understanding, and that's all you need to know. Do us a favor: if you're going to try and change the subject, do it properly, and not like a pussy."

This time, Coco flinched for real, glancing away from Nora's intense gaze. "I just… it's my family," she finally admitted, slumping in defeat. "Ren can give you more details, but suffice to say they're a toxic, passive-aggressive, and overly traditional bunch of jackasses. And it's not that they wouldn't approve, oh no. My mother would be thrilled to find out that I'd actually be… 'bedding' Velvet." She gave a full-body shudder before moving on. "I'm just… I'm afraid to put Velvet in that snakepit. I'm afraid she'll turn into one of… them, when half the reason I like her so much is because she is absolutely nothing like my family."

Coco sat there, slumped on her stool, for a few moments before a comforting hand stroked her head.

"I think you're not giving Velvet enough credit," Nora replied softly. "Or maybe giving your family too much credit? No, wait, that would mean you thought they were actually good people, which they're not. So too afraid of them? But you mostly just seem annoyed by them, so that's not it either-"

"What Nora is trying to say," Pyrrha cut in. "Is that if you want any kind of a relationship with Velvet to work out, you need to trust Velvet to not be so weak-willed that your family could change her so easily."

Without so much as a second of warning, Coco suddenly snapped to her feet with a snarl and grabbed Pyrrha's collar, yanking her face-to-face. "Velvet is not only pure as snow, but she has a will of fucking iron!" she growled savagely. "My family couldn't so much as scratch her if they fired every bit of ammunition they've ever made at her!"

"Great!" Nora chirped, munching on a bag of microwave popcorn she suddenly had in her hands. "Then there shouldn't be a problem with you asking her out!"

Coco opened her mouth to respond, but her inability to actually say anything forced her to snap it shut, a scarlet blush painting her cheeks.

"Unless, of course..." Nora's smile took on an impish quality. "You're a little scaredy-cat, hmmmm?"

Coco twitched furiously as she stared at Nora for a moment... before finally releasing Pyrrha and slumping into a nearby chair. Her hand shaking furiously, she slowly slid her sunglasses off her face and stared at her fellow students with desperate eyes. "Help. Me."

For a moment, Pyrrha and Nora glanced at each other in surprise before Nora promptly snapped her hands up in surrender and stepped back. "Don't look at me, I was trying to trigger her Alpha Bitch instincts and get her to woman up, this is way out of my ballpark."

"And what makes you think I'd be any help?" Pyrrha retorted.

"...you're the only remotely girly one out of us?"

Pyrrha's eye twitched furiously for a moment before she let out an explosive sigh. "That's… honestly kind of sad. But no, as Coco pointed out, I can't work up the courage to talk to Jaune about this." She groaned and ground the heel of her palm into her forehead. "At least he's not chasing another girl, I don't know what I'd do if that happened."

The party fell into an awkward silence for a few minutes before Nora raised a finger to speak. "I might have some advice that I got from-"

"Those girly magazines you think we don't know you read?" Pyrrha interrupted, smirking in satisfaction as Nora stiffened and turned grey in shock. "Trust me, it's schlock. Miss Weiss showed me the writing process for those. It's not pretty, kind of like watching sausages get made."

Nora blushed furiously and let out a tiny squeak, desperately trying to distract herself with another bite of popcorn. Awkward silence descended on the group again, but this one was even worse. So when Coco's scroll buzzed, the gunner dove for it much like a man lost in the desert who's found an open spring.

Coco read over the message furiously before sagging in... relief? Despair? "Okay, so Velvet said that she needs new shoes and that we don't need to wait for her," Coco said once she finished.

"Great!" Nora said, standing up and grabbing her dress in her free hand. "Let's pay for these and start brainstorming ideas over ice cream!"

"Ugh, kill me…" Coco groaned as she did the same.

The only response she got was a rather predatory smirk from Pyrrha. "Later."

~o~

"Seriously, guys, trust me. This tailor does good work, and he doesn't overcharge."

Sun, Fox, and Ren all gave Jaune skeptical looks.

"Look, Jaune," Ren said soothingly. "We all trust that you know what you're talking about-"

"Speak for yourself," Fox cut in.

"But we'd very much like to know how you know a high-end tailor," Ren finished, shooting a glare at Fox for the interruption.

"He, uh, taught the sewing club I went to when I was finishing elementary school," Jaune replied, before jabbing a finger at Fox, his voice hardening. "And before you say anything, my sisters dragged me there against my will every time, that's my story, and that will be my story until the day I die."

"I wasn't going to say anything," Fox said innocently, his words belied by the smirk adorning his face.

"Well, what if some of us don't want to get a tailored suit just for a school dance?" Sun asked as they entered. "And why do you and Neptune not have to get fitted for one?"

"Sun…" Neptune ground out as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "We've been over this. Your usual outfit with the shirt buttoned up and a tie is not appropriate formalwear. Hell, it barely even counts as 'appropriate' for casual wear. And Jaune and I aren't getting fitted because we already have suitable clothes."

"But the ladies love it," Sun bragged in a faux-suave tone, leaning back with his arms crossed above his head. "I can get any girl I want, dressed like this."

"I don't believe you," Fox replied, hiding his smirk behind his hand. "Why don't you go and prove it? Step outside and ask for the number of the first girl you see."

"Hey, that's a good idea!" Sun said, snapping his fingers. "If I'm lucky, they'll be available for the dance; I still don't have a date." And with that, the monkey faunus stepped out onto the street.

"Ten lien says he gets shot down in flames," Fox said the instant he was out of earshot.

"Twenty says he doesn't," Neptune countered.

"Let's… Let's just get started with the fitting, okay?" Jaune sighed, stepping up to the counter.

A few minutes later, with Yatsuhashi getting measured in the fitting room behind them room, Sun strutted back in, grinning.

"Guess who just got the number of a green-haired chick who's smokin' hot?" Sun sing-songed as he sat down with the group. "This guy!"

"The actual number or it didn't happen," Fox deadpanned.

"Yeah, she wrote it down on a piece of paper," Sun replied, as he reached into the pocket of his jeans. "I put it in my pocket so- wait." The rummaging intensified, the monkey faunus frowning as he dug through his other pocket before gaining a panicked expression. "Son of a- it's gone! And so's my wallet!"

Fox hastily stifled a bark of laughter, while Neptune just smirked knowingly.

"Wait," Sun said, holding up his hand while the other pressed against his temple. "You'd be surprised by how often this happens, so I'm prepared!"

"You get pickpocketed often?" Jaune asked in confusion.

Sun's eye twitched as he fought to keep his cool. "No, I often lose the numbers of cute girls!"

"Right," Neptune scoffed, arcing his fingers in air quotes. "You 'lose' them."

Sun snorted and jabbed his finger at his teammate. "Do you want to know what her number was or not?" he snapped, pulling out his Scroll. "And just to prove that the number is real, I'm gonna call her."

"How do you recover the numbers, exactly?" Yatsuhashi asked from the fitting room.

"Easy! I lose numbers quickly, so in order to keep from falling out of contact with the lovely ladies whom I grace with my presence-" Sun rolled his eyes as Neptune fought to keep his laughter hidden behind his fist. "I have developed the power to very quickly memorize Scroll numbers."

Before anyone could respond, he jabbed the nine-digit number into his Scroll, pressed the speaker button, and held out the device with a smug grin on his face.

A smug grin that started wobbling with each ring before it picked up. "Hey, sorry for calling so soon, but-!"

"Welcome to the Rejection Call Line!"

Sun's face froze. "Wha-?"

"The reason you are hearing this recorded greeting is because the person who gave you this phone number wants nothing to do with you. To speak with a specialist who will guide you through this hard time of heartache and pain, press 1. To wallow in your own misery to angsty rock music, press 2."

Neptune snorted, then fell into full-on laughter; even Ren and Jaune were grinning like mad.

"You know what, Yatsu?" Fox wistfully called out to his teammate. "I was wrong. I don't envy the deaf. I envy those who can see. Why? Because I would give anything to see the look on his face right now."

"Oh, yeah, that reminds me!" Pulling out his own Scroll, Neptune quickly snapped a photo of Sun, which served to jolt him out of his stupor. "And now it has been immortalized forever. Oh, how I love the internet."

"Neptune, you-!"

"Sun Wukong?" the tailor called out as Yatsuhashi exited the fitting room. "You're up."

Grumbling darkly, Sun stormed off for the back, but not without shooting a glare at his teammate.

"You and I are gonna have words about this later," he vowed, the effect somewhat ruined by the monkey faunus ducking behind the brightly-colored curtain to the fitting room.

"So, uh, who won the bet?" Jaune said almost immediately afterward.

"Well, he got the number, but got shot down anyway…" Neptune mused. "Honestly, I gotta say Fox won this." Sighing, he pulled out his wallet and removed a twenty Lien note, handing it over to Fox.

"Thank you, thank you," Fox said, bowing as he took the bill. "And now, to the other key item on our agenda here: helping Jaune and Ren-"

"Already worked it out way back when, leave me out of this trainwreck."

"Just Jaune then, to finally grow a pair and ask Pyrrha out to the dance. Or to dinner or to... basically anything, really, just do something already."

For a moment, Jaune just sat there in stunned disbelief. "But I'm- She's-"

"Got a massive flaming crush on you," Neptune stated bluntly. "And I've seen her less than a half-dozen times. How you've missed it this whole time is beyond me."

"You haven't seen his homework assignments before Pyrrha and I are through with them," Ren dryly informed him.

"That- That can't be right," Jaune stated numbly. "She- She could get literally anyone else and she has a crush on me? I'm sorry, but I don't believe you."

"Frankly, whether she has a crush on you or not is irrelevant," Fox cut in. "Ask yourself this: what's the worst that happens if you do ask her out?"

"She… says no?" Jaune answered hesitantly.

"Exactly," Fox said, nodding. "And honestly, it won't that bad if it happens. It's kind of like ripping off a band-aid: really painful at first, but once that passes you realize it feels really good to get it off."

"Also, Jaune, Pyrrha isn't going to stop being your friend even if she doesn't want to date you," Ren added. "As your teammate, please just trust me on that."

"I thought you wanted to be left out of this?" Neptune asked in curiosity.

"Just because I don't want to be dragged into it doesn't mean I can't chime in with my own opinions," Ren sniffed. "Plus, I have to live with them."

"And you get half of the betting pool if they hook up at the dance," Yatsuhashi added.

"And I get half of the betting pool..." Ren sighed in agreement.

"Look, we're getting off topic," Fox interrupted. "The point is, you lose very little and stand to gain a hell of a lot if you just ask. So, are you going to ask her?"

"I-I'll think about it?" Jaune hedged, only to flinch as a hand beaned him upside the head.

"Wrong answer," Fox said flatly. "Let's try this again. Are you going to ask her?"

"Uh, y-yes. Yes, I will."

"Good." Fox paused briefly before continuing. "One more thing. Don't make a big production out of it. Just talk to her after class or lunch or something. No poems, no songs, no flowers - actually, flowers may be a good idea, but nothing else!"

"I… thanks, Fox," Jaune said, shooting him a grateful smile. "Though… how do you know all this?"

Fox winced and placed a hand on Jaune's shoulder. "Let's just say I've been in your shoes and leave it at that, okay? I'm not proud of that time of my life."

"Got it," Jaune nodded. His face then scrunched up as a thought occurred to him. "Come to think of it, why are you helping me out with this? Not that I'm ungrateful or anything…"

Fox winced, hemming and hawing as he tried to formulate the words. "Well… you see, ah…"

"The house wants its cut while the getting's still good," Ren deadpanned.

"Yeah…" Fox said, slumping over in shame.

"Lie Ren?" the tailor called out as Sun stalked out, looking stupendously grumpy.

"What crawled up your butt and died?" Neptune asked as Ren headed into the fitting room.

The glare he got in return was practically smoldering. "Do you know how many needles he had in arm's reach?"

Neptune sighed, standing up and heading for the door. "Look, that chick probably just dropped your wallet somewhere. If I go find it, will you turn down the sulk a notch or two?"

Sun noticeably perked up at that. "Yeah, I would. Thanks, Neptune."

"Hey, we're bros, aren't we?" Neptune asked rhetorically. "And bros look out for each other."

'I'm so cool,' he thought to himself as he stepped out of the door.

And promptly froze as he noticed he was about two inches from stepping into a puddle. Frantically windmilling his arms, he managed to adjust his trajectory so that his foot landed on a patch of raised asphalt in the middle. Neptune breathed a sigh of relief, and looked around to find no one in sight.

'... still cool.'

Surprisingly, finding the wallet was easy. Whoever the girl was, she had left it tucked into the arms of a nearby lamppost. Naturally, the cash was gone, but the cards were still there, as well as a note tucked into the billfold. Pulling it out, Neptune chuckled at the sketch drawing of the girl and the lines demanding more of a challenge.

"I probably shouldn't show this to Sun," he said, shaking his head ruefully as he pocketed both the note and the wallet. A splash of brown in the corner of Neptune's eye caught his attention, and he turned to see Velvet beckoning him from an alleyway.

"What's up?" he asked casually as he walked up to the girl. Velvet, for her part, looked him up and down before nodding, as if confirming something.

"I… need your help with something," she pleaded, putting as much desperation as she could into the words.

~o~

Weiss took in a deep breath, and then let it out. She repeated this exercise three more times before the elevator slowed to a stop at the Vale penthouse.

It only helped a little.

"Yang Xiao Long, what in the name of everything did you do to make Ozpin defenestrate you?!" she snapped, marching imperiously over to the couch containing Yang's distinctive blonde hair. "And don't even get me started on that show you put on with the Dust Devils. We do not need Beacon's antagonism at this stage of the plan, and your little stunt might have ruined all that! Furthermore, I-!" Weiss frowned at the lack of response, glaring at the golden head of hair. "Hey, are you even listening to me?!"

Stomping the remaining distance to the couch, she grabbed the blonde figure by the shoulder and whirled her around... only to see that she was buffing her nails.

Weiss blinked, then sighed in exasperation as she ground the heel of her palm into her forehead. "Okay, I probably should have seen this coming. She's in the freezer?"

Not-Yang looked up and gave Weiss a beatific -and decidedly Non-Yangish - smile and nod.

"Thanks," Weiss said, releasing the false woman's shoulder. Schooling her expression, she made her way over to the kitchen and the large metal door set into the back.

Weiss told guests that the freezers she had in her apartments were to store the ingredients for her large and rather frequent dinner parties, and that was true. Ruby and Blake usually told their subordinates that the freezers were for more... grim usages, no pun intended, which was also true. However, the industrial-grade freezers that all of the Strategos made standard in their bases also served another, far more critical purpose.

Grasping the door, Weiss swung it open, quirking an eyebrow at the blast of steamy hot air that shot out. Stepping in and gingerly skirting around a few small puddles, she reached up to one of the hanging slabs of meat - a rack of beef, in this case - grasped it, and gave a hard yank. The portion tore off with only a little resistance.

"Hey, Weiss," Yang said from the far end of the freezer, where she was sitting cross-legged in shorts and a sports bra. Her fists were held up before her chest, white knuckles pressed tightly together. "I'd ask if you thought it was hot in here, but we both know it's just me."

"Yes, this does seem like an especially bad one," Weiss commented as she took in the soggy cardboard and steamed everything, with water beading and dripping from every surface. "Usually you just warm things up, not cook them outright."

Yang twitched slightly, but ultimately bowed her head with a fire-laced sigh. "Look, if you're gonna yell at me, just get it over with. I know I screwed up yesterday, okay? It's just…" The air around her started to shimmer slightly, just as the water on the ground started to hiss and bubble. "Being in Beacon again… seeing that bastard's face again… Oh, and you'll be happy to know that Glynda's still a tight-assed bitch."

"Quite," Weiss drawled, before smiling softly at the blonde. "Look, you seem to have this… mostly under control, so why don't you go get cleaned up? I'll arrange for the food to be disposed of-"

"Actually, I'm pretty sure that-"

"We are not eating your aura-cooked food, Xiao Long. Do I make myself clear?"

"...yes ma'am."

"Good, now as I was saying, I'll have the food disposed of, probably to one of the soup kitchens in the city. And then once that's all taken care of, we are going to sit down and you are going to finally tell me, and by extension Blake - in detail - just what in the world happened on December sixth that made you accelerate our timetable."

Yang flinched slightly before looking at her friend pleadingly. "Weiss-"

"You dropped out in our second year, Yang!" Weiss growled, cutting off the plea she'd heard and relented to countless times before. "That was a year ahead of our projected schedule! I had to tap so many sources, we had to drain so much of our funds to get you your startup capital! You nearly jeopardized everything! Why!?"

"Alright, alright!" Yang barked, holding up her hands. "I'll tell you, okay? Just… okay, if I take more than half an hour to clean up, you have permission to haul my ass out of there by force."

Weiss smiled. It was not a nice smile. "Deal."

Twenty-nine minutes later, the food had been shipped off, Yang's doppelganger had moved on to her toenails, and Weiss and Yang were sitting at the island set off from the kitchen, the former looking expectant and the latter fidgeting.

"Okay…" Yang mumbled as she tapped her fingers on the countertop. "Where to start…"

"Maybe when we first got to Beacon?" Weiss started. "I'm assuming this didn't happen out of the blue."

"No, you're right," Yang replied with a grimace before sighing and schooling her features. "Okay... you know how I wasn't a very good student?"

"That's a bit like saying the Grimm are numerous, but yes," Weiss drawled.

Yang half-heartedly stuck her tongue out at the white-haired woman before continuing. "Well, between that and my, uh, general authority issues and overdoing it in spars and all that, I was called in for a consultation. With Ozpin."

"Right, I remember that, too," Weiss nodded. "Though I'm not seeing how that led to you dropping out early. Usually, your first visit is to let you know you're on your last chance, not to expel you."

"They didn't expel me, I left!" Yang snapped instinctively before flinching as she realized that the onyx beneath her fingers was starting to glow. "Sorry about that... A-Anyway, that wasn't the only factor. There was also the meeting we'd had in the library the day before. You know, the one where Ruby told us about Ozpin's little shadow cabal. The one that's supposed to be protecting the world."

"Yes, and we all decided that he was doing a piss-poor job of it," Weiss replied, leaning back in her chair. "As I recall, that was when we really got invested in the plan. Well..." She tilted her head thoughtfully. "Moreso than we already were, at any rate. Were you still upset about that when you went to Ozpin's office?"

Yang chuckled humorlessly before shaking her head. "Ruby's an idealist. You and Blake saw bad things happening and decided to do something about it. Me? This is personal." The blonde pierced Weiss with a determined glare before continuing. "They failed us, they failed me. Upset doesn't even begin to cover it."

Weiss' eyes were wide as she processed Yang's short rant. "I didn't realize…"

"Not your fault," Yang replied as she waved her hand dismissively. "I like to think I did a good job hiding that fact. Ruby noticed something, but even she didn't realize all of it, and she's my sister. Don't beat yourself up."

"You're telling Blake personally once this is all over," Weiss ordered her frankly.

"I'm telling Blake personally," Yang repeated solemnly as she nodded her head in agreement.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before Weiss clapped her hands firmly. "So," she continued. "You came into that meeting royally pissed off at the world in general and Ozpin in particular. I take it ended badly?"

"Oh, you have no idea…"

~o~

Yang lounged in front of Ozpin's desk, not looking into the headmaster's piercing eyes. Or, well, as much as she could lounge in a hard wooden chair.

"Do you know why you're here, Miss Xiao Long?" he asked, breaking the silence.

Yang didn't reply, choosing instead to idly twirl a lock of blonde hair.

"Very well. Sitting in a file cabinet two floors down is a file. Contained within is every complaint and writeup, disciplinary and academic, you've accumulated in your time here at Beacon." He paused, taking a deep sip of coffee. "It is quite a large file. Most imminent graduates have ones half the size of yours."

"So?" Yang finally said, still looking anywhere but at Ozpin. "I get passing grades. I only occasionally get detention. What's the problem?"

"Well, the problem, Miss Xiao Long, or rather one of two, is that it's not just faculty writing these complaints. That would be serious, but I've seen enough brilliant students who simply don't fit within the traditional school structure to know that it's a manageable issue. But when I start getting complaints from students-"

This time Yang's gaze did dart to Ozpin's. "Who sent those in?" she growled, standing and looming over Ozpin's desk. "I want names, because clearly I have some people to talk to."

"Talk, or 'talk'?" Ozpin questioned frigidly.

Yang froze as her words caught up to her. "Ah..."

"Sit down, Miss Xiao Long," Ozpin ordered sternly. "It was hard enough getting those few to come forward with their stories. I will not have you making it harder."

Yang audibly gritted her teeth, but she complied.

"Good. Now, the other problem is your grades. Or rather, your appalling lack of effort. I've seen you work, Miss Xiao Long. Some students are simply physically gifted but poor at schoolwork, and you're not one of them. You simply don't care."

Yang's eyes slowly widened, her mouth open and her fists clenched. "You're… watching us? Often enough to build a picture of how well we study?!"

"Yes, I do," Ozpin replied evenly. "I am training the next generation of Huntsmen, of the defenders of humanity. Surveillance is an unfortunate necessity to ensure that my students reach their full potential. And don't think I monitor just you, Miss Xiao Long."

The blonde Huntress fought to keep from tensing as a thrill of fear ran through her, and not the good kind.

"In any case, I urge you to put more focus into your studies and into not actively antagonizing the whole staff," Ozpin continued. "Because as it is, I'm afraid your father would be quite disappointed in you were he still alive."

For a moment, everything froze.

The air, time, Ozpin... Yang in particular was stricken, her eyes glazing over and staring a million miles away.

Then... then things became hot.

~o~

"He didn't," Weiss flatly stated. "How could he have not seen-"

"I can't believe I'm saying this," Yang cut in. "But in all fairness to Ozpin, it probably would've worked had he tried it a week earlier. Or, at least, it wouldn't have blown up in his face. On that day, though... well, pissed of at the world and Ozpin in particular and all that. Invoking my dad just made it worse. I… might have smashed his desk in two and chucked it out the window."

"So that's where that came from!" Weiss exclaimed, pointing a finger at Yang. "The whole school was abuzz about that, I'm pretty sure it's a school legend now."

"Eheheheh…" Yang chuckled, embarrassed. "I could check? I mean, I go there every day. But, yeah, that's the story. You guys know the rest."

Weiss hummed thoughtfully and leaned back in her chair. "Well…" she finally said. "That is a fairly good reason. But!" She once again jabbed a finger in Yang's face. "You will keep your temper under control while you're at Beacon. The plan hinges quite heavily on you successfully not pissing Ozpin off enough to get him to throw you out." Dropping the finger, Weiss sighed and shook her head. "And quite frankly? That terrifies me."

"Trust me, Ice Queen, I know. It scares me, too."

For a moment the two simply sat there in silence before Weiss shook her head and changed the subject. "So! What kind of reception have the soldiers gotten?"

"Oh, the students love 'em!" Yang quickly replied, snapping back to her usual exuberant self. "They've been on their... relatively best behavior, and some of them are sharing their tricks with the students. The staff are still watching like hawks for any recruitment pitches, but I've made it very clear that they're not to try any of that shit... where anybody can see or hear them, at any rate."

"Well, there's that, at least," Weiss said, breathing a sigh of relief. "Anyway, Ruby should be recruiting the last two members of the Vytal team right now, so we should be good to go on that front."

Yang grinned at that news. "Ah, so we're going with that plan, huh? Neo's gonna like that."

At the mention of her name, the Yang clone on the couch perked up and turned around.

"Hey, Neo, how much do you want to mess with the heads of an entire stadium?" Yang asked.

Her doppelganger blinked slowly as she processed the statement. Her mouth then split into a massive grin as she and three new duplicates held up sign cards with 10s emblazoned on them, cheers and applause roaring throughout the room.

"I'll take that as a yes," Weiss summarized dryly.

The other doppelgangers evaporated as the original gave the ice queen a flat look that screamed 'no duh'.

~o~

Hei Xiong, alias Junior, hastily threw another wad of cash into the large suitcase sitting on a shelf in his club's back room. It was soon followed up by a stack of critical files, and then plenty of clothes. A thumb drive was attached to the computer in the back, downloading critical electronic information. And sitting in a backpack were several fake IDs, at least three for each kingdom.

As he hastily zipped up the suitcase and began stacking the remaining files in a pile in the corner to burn when he got the chance, making sure that he'd gotten all of them, his mind whirled with plans and ideas, discarding most of them. For, you see, Hei Xiong, alias Junior, had done fucked up. And being the career criminal he was, he knew that he had to get the hell out of Dodge ASAP, and to the only major kingdom that was even remotely safe: Mistral.

As he double-checked the files to be disposed of and pocketed the thumb drive, running a magnet over his computer's hard drive with his other hand, he came to a dispiriting conclusion: he didn't have all of them.

"Yo, Benny!" he shouted towards the door as he double-checked to make sure the computer was wiped. "Where the hell did you guys put the files on the Omerta business?"

The distinct lack of an answer caused him to frown and look up from the computer. "Oh, for fuck's sake…" he spat, walking up to the door to the main bar area. "Benny, I realize that making bombs is hard, but wiring our liquor stock into a firebomb isn't that-"

The words died in his throat as he opened the doors that led out onto the dance floor. Scattered across the plastic tiles were his men, all unconscious… or dead. Not that the distinction was important, though. Not compared to the person sitting at the bar.

The long red cloak, the shoulder-length dark brown hair with red tips, the airy, black-and-red flowing skirt that came down to her shins... oh, and of course the massive red sniper-scythe that was taller than he was.

Yes indeed, Junior had done fucked up in a most spectacular manner, for sitting at his bar was the Bloody Rose herself. And he was one of the few people in the world who knew her name.

"Man, Sniper and Engineer really trashed this place, didn't they?" Ruby Rose sighed wistfully. "Which sucks, 'cause I kinda liked it here." She paused, and then turned towards him as if she had just noticed his presence. Junior knew better; she'd known where he was the instant she'd walked in the door. "Ah, Junior, just the person I was looking for." She patted one of the bar stools next to her. "Sit down. We have a lot to talk about."

Sweating profusely, Junior nervously tugged at his collar. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Miltiades and Melanie laying on the dance floor. One could assume that they were unconscious, but if the way they were tensing up was anything to go by, they were probably just faking it. At that moment, Junior would have given anything to trade places with them.

For a moment, he chanced glancing at one of the emergency exits-

BANG!

-and promptly withheld a whimper of pain and terror as the very tip of his ear burned.

"Sit. Down," Ruby emphasized sweetly, Crescent Rose still pointing at Junior's head as she supported it with one arm without so much as a glance in his direction. "You won't like me if I have to ask you again."

He sat.

"Good, good," Ruby said, folding up Crescent Rose and leaning it against the bar. "Now, I'm not going to bore you with the whole 'You done fucked up!' speech, because judging from the tickets to Mistral you bought you know that already."

Junior made a sound not unlike a goose with the flu getting stepped on by an elephant.

"By the way, while Mistral isn't a bad choice, you could've done much better," she added airily as she swirled the straw in her drink. "I know the word on the street is that we're not there, but in truth... well, it's kind of true, but we're trying! It'd only be a matter of time. You'd still be a dead man walking."

"W-What do I have to do… to live to tomorrow?" Junior croaked.

"Now we're getting somewhere!" Ruby chirped, clapping her hands. "Well, for starters... Hmm..." Ruby hummed lightly as she tapped her chin in thought before clapping her hands with a grin. "Oh, I know!" She jabbed her thumb over her shoulder at his girls' prone forms. "I'll take those twins of yours."

The two girls in question immediately shot to their feet and bolted for the door.

As they reached the threshold, it seemed like they'd actually manage to get away, for a single, brief, shining moment.

THWACK!

"GAH!"

Until a rod of metal swung out from behind the doorframe and rammed into them both, sending them tumbling.

"Hey there, Junior!"

Junior's heart sank at the sickeningly familiar voice that greeted him. "Oh no... not him."

"Oh yes, me!" Torchwick crowed as he stepped into the club, his arms spread wide in greeting. "Long time no see you little brat! Ah, this brings back so many memories... you know what?" Torchwick's grin widened to truly maniacal proportions. "I'm so happy I think I'm not only gonna dance... I'm gonna sing."

He leered at the Malachite twins as they scrambled to their feet, staring at him in terror. "Care to join me for a song, ladies?"

The twins' response was to charge him in desperation, splitting up in an effort to surround him.

Torchwick chuckled as he swapped his gaze between the two before finally moving, twisting to ram his Melodic Cudgel's barrel into the red-clad twin's unguarded throat, all while ramming his elbow into the white one's face. "I'm siiiiingin' in the rain!"

Torchwick strode up to Miltiades as she stumbled back away from him, massaging her neck. "Just siiiiingin' in the rain!" he sang as he flipped his cane in his hand and used the hook to yank the girl's leg out from under her, sending her tumbling to the floor. He then stepped to the side and swung his cane back, catching Melanie in her midsection as she tried to ambush him and flipping her around the metal before slamming her into the floor as well.

"You see, me and some... associates I'm currently working with need a team in the Vytal Tournament," Ruby explained to Junior, who was watching the battle with wide eyes. "But, well, normally we'd tap into our respective pools of minions, except this time they're all either too weak or too visible. Torchwick here falls into the latter category, for instance."

Torchwick's smirk was sadistic as he stalked around the pained twins, watching them struggle to get back to their feet. "What a glorious feeeelin'!" he crooned as he snapped his cane out and knocked the twins' hands out from under them. "I'm happy again!" That he punctuated by snapping a kick into Melanie's side, causing the air to rush out of her.

He then proceeded to flip Miltiades over and bring his foot down on her stomach, causing her to curl up and clutch at the body part. "I'm lau-ghing at clouds!"

"Well, all but three, but you need four for the tournament," Ruby continued. "So that's where the girls come in. We need them to fill out the spots. Well!" Ruby tilted her head thoughtfully. "Not them, per se, just people who are not only reasonably skilled but plausibly unaffiliated with us. They just happen to fit our criteria and are the most convenient choices available."

Torchwick snickered as he spun Melodic Cudgel around in his hand. "So dark up above!" He jumped and clicked his heels gleefully before landing squarely on Melanie's heel, revelling in both her scream and the sound of snapping cartilage. "The sun's in my heart!" He snapped Melodic Cudgel out and unloaded a round point blank into Miltiades' foot, blasting a hole clean through it and laughing gleefully as she shrieked in pain.

"Though really now, if we're being honest…" Ruby said, shrugging helplessly. "We only really need one of them."

Torchwick's grin was truly demonic as he leveled his cane's barrel at Melanie's face. "And I'm ready..." he leered darkly. "For love..."

"NO!" Miltiades shrieked desperately.

For a moment, Junior sat rooted in his seat before he frantically jumped to his feet. "Alright, alright!" he pleaded. "Alright, you can have them! For… whatever! Just-just stop, damn it!"

"Good choice," Ruby replied with a satisfied nod as she flicked her hand up. "How are they, Torchwick?"

"Weeeell, they're not completely hopeless, which is high praise from me," he drawled as he pulled up his cane and tapped its length on his shoulder. "We probably have enough time to get them to the point where the brats can carry them through the four-on-fours."

The Malachite twins breathed identical sighs of relief, before something Torchwick had said registered. "Wait, 'we'?"

Everyone except Ruby and Torchwick flinched as a short young woman literally shattered into existence next to bowler-clad gangster, a pink streak in her hair and a parasol and ice cream cone in her hands. The woman grinned, then gave the ice cream a seductive lick.

It was at this point that someone finally, inevitably did something stupid. And not the regular kind of stupid, the kind where you forget your glasses because they're on your face, oh no. This is the kind of stupid that compels people to climb into tiger pens at the zoo, to go fishing with dynamite. One of the goons, his sunglasses hanging uselessly from one ear and a massive bruise spreading over his face, staggered over to the group, grabbed Neo by the shoulder and pressed a gun to her head.

For a second, nobody moved, before Neo shot a questioning glance at first Ruby, then Torchwick. And when they didn't respond, she looked at Junior. For his part, the criminal simply sighed and hung his head in despair. "Joe, you fucking idiot."

"Wha-" was all he got out before the ice cream cone made first contact with his left eye and rapidly converted it to hysterical screaming. Joe fell to the ground, screaming and clutching his eye, allowing Neo to straddle him and keep stabbing. Once, twice, thrice, more, the stabbing kept going, accompanied by more screaming and blood and... fluids flying everywhere. The Malachite twins stared in horror, Junior stared in despair, and Torchwick merely eyed the drops of blood flying out, idly sidestepping the few that got too close.

Finally, long after Joe's pained screams had died down into a wet gurgle, the only sound was the cone stabbing into the slab of meat that had once been a person. Satisfied, Neo stood up, splattered in blood, and nodded at her handiwork with pride.

"So she's been treating you well, huh?" Torchwick deadpanned.

The heterochromatic young woman glanced at her old employer before shifting her gaze over to the Malachite twins and giving them her best ear-to-ear toothy smile. She then opened her mouth and bit down on the last of her cone with an audible crunch.

The twins flinched and stepped back involuntarily. "... Can't you just kill us now?" Miltiades whimpered fearfully, Melanie nodding desperately in agreement.

"Sorry, girls, but that would be too kind," Roman drawled, insincerity dripping from every word. "C'mon. If we're gonna whip you two into shape, and I do mean that very literally, we gotta start now. And that means patching up your feet, otherwise you'll just die. And that would be... annoying."

And with that, Roman clamped down on the twins' arms and started dragging them towards the entrance, Neo trailing behind and making a game of stepping down on as many skulls as she possibly could as she went. That left Junior and Ruby relatively alone in the now liberally bloodstained bar.

"Well, that went well!" Ruby chirped. "I do love when I only have to make one stop. Now, what am I gonna do with you…"

Junior gulped audibly as Ruby turned a gaze on him that was far more predatory than anything else she'd done. "I, uh, I was hoping I could still get to Mistral," he said nervously. "Did pay a lot for those tickets, heh heh…"

"Hey, now there's an idea," Ruby said thoughtfully, grinning. Reaching out, she slapped him on the shoulder. "You do that. You go to Mistral, you set up shop..."

For a brief, shining moment, Junior felt hope.

"And you wait for my call."

And just like that, it all came crashing down. "...what?" Junior whispered weakly.

Sliding off the bar stool, Ruby sashayed out of the wrecked club. "Welcome to the Crimson Thorns, Junior," she called over her shoulder, before stepping onto the street and vanishing in a flurry of rose petals.

Finally, with the Bloody Rose gone, Junior let the stress of the last fifteen minutes set in, and slumped to the floor, hanging his head on his knees. It took him another half hour of just sitting there before he could look at his right sleeve. And the red, thorny rose pressed into the cloth.