Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY, it belongs to the wonderful Rooster Teeth.
It was not the piece of news she had particularly wanted to wake up to.
The task was simple, and was there to ensure that they remained as mysterious as possible to the police and authorities. What actually happened was the opposite of that. The White Fang's infiltrator had apparently failed to kill even one of those hired goons in their cell without dying in the process – and having a member discovered murdering inmates had suddenly forced a lot of attention on the White Fang that they really didn't want right now.
Cinder Fall was furious. And she knew exactly who she wanted to take her ire out on.
"Adam," she said calmly to the man leaning against the wall of her office. His red hair was unkempt and messy, while the top half of his face was covered by a white mask reminiscent of the Grimm, "You told me your infiltrator could get the job done. This," she motioned to the article, "Does not look like getting the job done."
"They should have been able to do it," Adam Taurus grunted in return, folding his arms, "Obviously, something unexpectedly went wrong. One of my trained people should not have had any trouble killing an unarmed street thug."
"And yet, they did," Cinder said coldly, "I do not accept incompetence lightly, Adam."
He said nothing.
Cinder stood up from the desk she had been sitting at and began to pace. "This extra attention may set our plans back significantly," she mused in irritation, "But we must continue with our dust acquisition. You need to ensure that... productivity... is not disrupted by the additional attention."
"You'll have your Dust," he snorted as he began to leave, "Don't worry."
"I hope you don't fail again, Adam," she said sweetly, "The consequences of another failure would be quite severe."
He stopped. And turned around, slowly.
"Really, now?" he said evenly, taking a step towards her, "And which consequences would those be?"
Her eyes narrowed. The tension in the room suddenly rocketed up a notch.
"Save your threats for the people who actually fear you, little girl," Adam growled as he leaned in, "Because all they do to me is piss me off."
She took a deep breath, and forced herself to relax. She did not want to start a fight with Taurus in the middle of a base full of White Fang members.
"A slip of the tongue," she sighed, "Of course, a failure to achieve our goals would have significant consequences for both of us. I merely want to make sure we all get what we need," her voice turned reassuring, "That your people get the freedom they deserve."
He gave her a long look. "As I said," he grunted shortly, before turning to leave again, "You'll get your Dust."
Cinder began massaging her temples once he left. True to his name, Adam Taurus was like a raging bull – certainly useful if you could point him at your enemies, but extraordinarily difficult to control. If not for the fact that he was the biggest source of man-power available to her, she might have considered him too much trouble to deal with.
"I just saw our resident terrorist storming out of here looking even more pissed than usual," her musings were interrupted by the appearance of one of her own favoured underlings, "Was it the red dress again? I keep telling you, you shouldn't wear that around him. The colour? Makes him mad."
Mercury Black was a cocky, confident young man, more vibrant than his rather droll grey hair or grey and black attire would suggest. He was also a talented fighter with a unique style, good looking, and a smooth talker – very handy traits for someone like her to make use of.
"Taurus has his uses," she finally said, "More than anything, we need the people who follow him. On that topic, however, your timing is fortunate. I have a task for you."
Mercury folded his arms. "Oh?"
"I'm sure you're aware of the White Fang's... unfortunate failure," she stated.
"Oh, yeah," he nodded, "Their guy really messed up."
"Indeed," she frowned, "With the added, and unwanted, attention we're sure to receive from this incident, I believe we are going to require more in the way of man-power to meet our requirements."
"So you want me to go recruiting?" Mercury asked with a raised eyebrow.
"In a manner of speaking," Cinder nodded, "You remember the individual I hired those men from, correct?"
"That Junior guy," Mercury recalled, "Local information broker and go-to-guy for hired help."
"Head to his club, and get him on-board. He can provide us with more bodies, and his knowledge of the local crime world will prove useful to us," she explained.
"Okay," he nodded, "But the White Fang were just caught trying to kill one of his guys. I'm not sure he's going to be too happy to work with us after that – so what if he says no?"
"Oh, Mercury," Cinder said with a tempting smile, "You know how I feel about that word. If he refuses our offer..." She held out her palm. Mercury watched, silently, as a ball of flame appeared in her hand.
"...You know exactly what to do."
"Finally," Mercury smirked with anticipation as he turned to leave, "I've been waiting forever for you to let me have a little fun."
While not quite a treasure-trove of information, the White Fang assassin did provide Roman with some of the pieces he needed to make sense of his current problem. He found himself going over what he knew in his office the next day.
The enigmatic newcomer was in partnership with the White Fang, who were the ones behind all the Dust Robberies. They were stockpiling dust for some sort of ultimate end goal. He still didn't have a name for this mysterious woman – apparently she didn't interact all that much with the White Fang's grunts, which didn't surprise him at all.
Neo frowned. "..."
"I know," he said reluctantly, "This is getting pretty big."
"...?" She asked.
"Yes, perhaps even too big." He was good. Hell, at what he did? Profiting from the misery of other people? He liked to think he was the best. But taking on the White Fang? A powerful paramilitary organisation? That may have been beyond even his outstanding abilities.
And yet, if they kept this up, they would put him out of business. His options were limited; He could move out of Vale and start anew, making his local knowledge useless and losing nearly all of his contacts – not a very preferable option, but one he would certainly keep on the back-burner. He could also sit back and let things play out or perhaps even join them – but that wasn't looking like a very good option for him.
Even presuming the authorities didn't stop the newcomers and proceed to make criminal activity in Vale next to impossible in the ensuing clamp-down, whatever plan they had probably wasn't beneficial to his long-term bottom line. The list of things you would do with a massive stockpile of Dust was rather small. The obvious thought would be equipping an army, and wars weren't exactly known for leaving vast economic opportunities in their wake.
Another thought would be collapsing the Economy – as a man who make most of his profit from the Economy (albeit not legally), this didn't really appeal to him at all. Or, of course, being fanatical terrorists as they were, the White Fang may have just been planning to blow up the entire god damn city with it all. Again – not the best choice for his economic prospects.
He came to a conclusion – to continue with his preferred way of life, he had to take them down. And to do that...
"We need backup," Roman finally admitted.
Neo nodded reluctantly.
"And there's only one place we can go," the words tasted like ash in his mouth, "We have to go crawling back to that snivelling, idiotic fool-"
"Junior!" Roman greeted pleasantly as he sat down at the bar, "How good to see you again! Sorry to hear about your guy," he added solemnly, "A real tragedy."
"Torchwick," Junior rolled his eyes as he cleaned a glass, "What do you want?"
"Want is such a one-sided term," Roman complained, "What I'm here to discuss is a proposition that benefits both of us."
Junior sighed. "What kind of proposition?"
Roman clasped his fingers together as he leaned on his elbows. "One where you and I work together to solve a common problem."
Juniors' eyes flicked left and right to check if anyone was listening. Most of the men were milling around the club doing their assorted jobs, while Melanie and Miltia were sitting over in a side booth, chatting. They hadn't declared themselves open for business just yet, either, as they were still cleaning up the mess from that damn Blondie's rampage, so he didn't have patrons to worry about.
"You want me to help you take on the White Fang," he snorted, "You must be out of your damn mind, Torchwick."
"And you put the pieces together so quickly, too! Why, Junior, if I didn't know better I'd say that head of yours was filling up with something other than cocktail recipes and other peoples' business," Roman said appreciatively, before his tone turned more serious, "Look, I'll even give you this one for free – they're the ones behind the Dust robberies. They're taking in a lot of Dust for some kind of nefarious plan," he made quotation marks with his fingers, "Of your mysterious lady visitors' making, and, of course, they've killed one of your men already."
Junior's hand tightened around the glass.
"They've already proved that they're willing to trample over the likes of you and me," Roman pressed the point home, "Do you really think they're going to just let you be?"
"And how, exactly, would this 'arrangement' work?" Junior asked evenly.
"Simple, really," Roman leaned back, "You've got the man-power and the word on the street, I've got the brains," he tapped his skull, "And the brawn," he motioned to Neo, who was once again happily sipping on an ice-cream sundae Vodka mixer – this one with actual Neopolitan ice-cream. Roman honestly thought he'd heard her audibly squeal in delight when it was put in front of her. "Between us? We could deal with this, no problem. And, of course, there'll be some profit to be made from it too," the thief smirked, "When we get our hands on all of that stockpiled Dust they've taken so far, and split the proceeds fifty-fifty."
Junior was silent for a moment. "It's a big risk you're asking me to take here, Torchwick," he finally grunted, "I need to think about this. I'll call you once I've made up my mind."
Roman frowned, but supposed this was the best he was going to get. "Fine," he stood up, "Just remember what I said, Junior. This is a problem for both of us. I know you'll come to your senses eventually."
"Just buy a drink or get out of my damn club," Junior rolled his eyes.
"Well then, Neo," Roman motioned to his partner, "Let's be on our way."
As they walked out of the building, Neo still occupied with her drink, Roman pondered how he was going to fix things up to swing Junior's opinion his way. The obvious choice would be to frame the White Fang for something... but what?
"Nice hat," a grey-haired young man complimented as he entered the club.
"I know," Roman replied absently, lost in thought.
The young man strolled in, full of confidence, and made his way straight to the bar. Junior eyed him with a frown – then made eye contact with the Twins. They nodded, and got up – making their way over as well. If he was getting in, he'd either fought, talked or sneaked his way past the two doormen. Junior honestly didn't know which option was more dangerous.
The new face sat down – he was the pretty-boy type, but Junior wasn't in the business of underestimating anyone since his last unknown visitor. Melanie and Miltia sat down on either side of him - which did not go unnoticed, but he didn't seem concerned.
"Well, well, Miltia," Melanie drawled, "This one's pretty cute."
"I know, Melanie," Miltia giggled in reply, "Let's hope we can keep him that way."
"What will you be having?" Junior asked, deciding to be amicable - at least at first.
"A conversation," he replied, "You see, Junior, I've got a proposition that you really want to hear."
"Oh?" Junior put down another glass, "Seems to be the time of year for those. What kind of proposition are we talking about, here, kid?"
"Oh, please," he replied easily, "Call me Mercury."
"Fine then, Mercury," the bartender grunted, "You didn't answer my question."
"Well, you see, I work for an individual who has hired your people in the past," Mercury began delicately, "And she found your services to be more than adequate. She would like to make a more... permanent, deal."
"More than adequate, huh," Junior snorted, "I'm sure that's why one of my boys is lying dead in a police morgue with one of your attack dogs' teeth in his throat."
Mercury frowned. "A regrettable misunderstanding," he sighed, "One of our allies mistook our instructions to take care of your men. This is the kind of problem you can face when you work with a group like the White Fang, which is why we've turned to..." he looked around, "A better class of hired help."
"Oh, really," Junior narrowed his eyes. This one was definitely smooth, he'd give him that. "And what, exactly, is stopping another 'regrettable misunderstanding' from happening?"
"Oh, if you decide to work with us, we'll make sure it never happens again," Mercury said lightly, as he put his feet up on the bar, much to Junior's ire, "We'll also make sure you're well rewarded for your services. If you decide not to join us, however..." he trailed off, "Well, I can't guarantee there won't be any more... misunderstandings."
Junior gave him an unreadable look. "Huan was an idiot," he grunted, "He was naïve, stupid and ignorant. He'd open his mouth and say stupid things that annoyed the hell out of me, and he'd do it all the god damn time. But do you know what else he was?" he leaned forward, "One of my men."
He glared at Mercury. "Now get the hell out of my bar."
Mercury sighed theatrically. "Well, well," he said absently, "It looks like negotiations have failed..."
Without warning, a shot flew from his boot, knocking Junior back against the drinks cabinet behind him. Mercury used the recoil to lean into a backwards flip from his stool, narrowly avoiding the claw and bladed shoe that sliced through his former position at the bar a moment later. Landing on his feet, he put some more distance between himself and the twins with a pair of backwards cartwheels in an impressive display of acrobatic ability, before settling into a loose fighting stance.
He gave the three a confident smirk as Melanie and Miltia settled into stances of their own.
"So how about we have a misunderstanding?"