Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY. It belongs to those wonderful people over at Rooster Teeth.

As the four fighters stared each other down, Junior's men evacuated the building.

"Like, Melanie," the girl in the red dress drawled, "It looks like this guy really needs to learn who he's messing with."

"I know, Miltia," the white-dressed one replied, "And I've totally been wanting to beat something up since the other night, too."

Mercury had initially expected the pair of twins to split up and try to surround him. One would attract his attention by attacking head-on, while the other would hit him from the flank. It was the most obvious way to end a fight quickly and with minimal injury when you outnumbered your opponent - at least, in his opinion.

Unbeknownst to him, they had actually learned a thing or two from their previous fight with Yang Xiao Long: namely, that presenting individual targets was to be avoided as much as possible.

So when the pair both darted in to charge him head-on, he would admit to being slightly surprised. Melanie, the white-clad kicker, launched a high kick with her left leg. Whirling into action, Mercury blocked her at the shin with his own left – allowing him to bend his knee to drive back Miltia, the red-clad striker with a well-timed shot from his boot. To her credit, she managed to block it, but she had been forced back, and her initial attack had been stymied.

Mercury didn't stop moving for a moment. Using the recoil of the shot, he span into a powerful head-height kick that Melanie was forced to cartwheel backwards to avoid. He was given no time to breathe, however, as Miltia had already closed the distance again. His left foot touched the ground and his right left it a moment later, a strong roundhouse kick nearly catching her as she leapt back to avoid it.

'So that's your plan,' he thought appraisingly, 'Not bad.'

They weren't going to give him time to breathe. Miltia's presumably quick hand strikes would be awkward for a pure kicker like him to defend against – no matter how powerful your legs were, arms tended to be faster - so he had to be sure to keep her too far away to use them. However, Melanie was a kicker like him and so could almost match him for reach, so he couldn't let himself lose track of her, either. They were apparently hoping to pressure him together until he made a mistake and let one of them inside his guard.

And speaking of losing track... he jumped into a spin and burst into a furious series of kicked gunshots, intercepting the round of missiles that had been fired at him from Junior, still standing behind the bar.

'So I can't stay at range either,' he smirked, as Melanie and Miltia came in for another attack run, 'But you'll still have to do better than that.'

This time, when Melanie made her first kick, he didn't stay on his feet. In an impressive display of acrobatic skill, he hit the ground and began spinning on his palms, becoming a flurry of legs and feet that parried each of Miltia's strikes, while low, sweeping kicks kept Melanie at bay, the kicker mindful of having her legs swept out from under her.

'So you can't bottom-rock,' he thought in amusement, 'I didn't think so with that get-up.'

Spotting an opportunity, he suddenly pushed forward from his palms and onto one knee – before his boots went off, the recoil blasting him up into a powerful jumping knee-strike. Miltia barely got her arms up in time to block, but was still sent flying backwards by the impact. Hitting the ground, rolling then breaking into a run, he never stopped being in motion as he moved past Melanie – distracted by her twin's impromptu flight – and towards the surprised Junior.

Quickly approaching the bar, he leapt into a high kick, but Junior managed to raise his missile-launcher-club in time to block the strike.

'Hiding behind the bar limits how I can attack him,' Mercury thought in annoyance, 'Normally, I doubt he could keep up with me, but if he knows I'm going high and straight, he can block in time.'

Junior swung with all of his strength, throwing Mercury away from the bar and towards Melanie, who prepared to intercept his flight with a kick. He wasn't going to oblige her, however: he fired his shot-boots, the recoil sending him straight to the ground. Prepared for this, he managed to turn his sudden drop into a backwards roll, going directly under her sweeping high kick and coming to a stop directly behind her.

Head turning, her eyes widened as he leapt up from his crouched position.

'Got you!'

Unable to react in time, Melanie was caught painfully in the lower back by a rising kick from his left foot, lifting her up into the air. With a shout of exertion and another shot, he launched himself into a back-flip, his right foot colliding with the girl and launching her clean across the room.

Boom. With a thunderous sound, she collided with the wall behind him as he landed neatly on his feet. He smirked, knowing immediately that she was out of the fight.

Miltia was keen to avenge her twin, however. She was already closing him down, which actually was something of a problem, as he was now keenly aware that he needed to reload. He tried to pedal back and put some distance between himself and the still-conscious twin, but she was too fast on her feet for that.

She then headed straight for him in a burst of speed – however, as he went to back-pedal further, a series of explosions went off directly behind him, stopping him from going further.

'That missile launcher!'

He was unable to step back, and Miltia was already inside his guard. He was forced to raise his arms in a block to defend himself – a series of quick, but surprisingly savage strikes slashed into his lower arms, making him grimace.

She went for another strike, but he had had just about enough of that - this time, he caught her by surprise. His hand reached out and grabbed her forearm, pulling her forward and off-balance. Twisting around her as she stumbled, his foot lashed into the back of her leg just below the knee – forcing it to buckle, and knocking her painfully to the floor. Before she could get up again, he took her out of the fight with a solid kick to the head.

He turned his eyes to the suddenly significantly more nervous Junior, who was trying to reload as quickly as possible while Mercury took the chance to reload his own shot-boots.

Fully-loaded once more, he broke out into a run directly towards the club owner. Like before, Junior ceased his attempts at loading more missiles and got ready to block it with his bat – however, Mercury wasn't about to make the same mistake twice. Instead of jumping straight over the bar, he jumped directly on to it, before twisting around to catch Junior, who had been prepared to block a frontal attack, with a kick from the right...

His foot connected, and Junior's image shattered like a damaged window.

'What the hell?'

The next thing he felt, aside from confusion, was something hooking around his leg and pulling it out from under him, sending him tumbling clean off the bar. Recovering with a cartwheel, he fired a burst of two shots off at his new opponent, only for them to ricochet from the surface of a parasol. As it folded back up, he got his first look at his new adversary.

It was another girl – this one a lot shorter, with a rather colourful appearance. While there were many eye-catching things about the girl's attire, such as the pink and dark brown hair, or white tail-coat, the first thing that drew Mercury's attention was the confident smirk on her face as she calmly strode towards him.

It irritated him. Just a little bit.

He launched himself at her, leading with a powerful kick – with almost insulting ease, she smoothly ducked under his leg and jabbed the back of his knee with her parasol. With a grin, she opened it up, pushing Mercury off balance and making him stumble backwards. As he tried to regain his equilibrium, she folded the parasol once more and cartwheeled forward, landing a powerful kick to his torso that floored him and sent him skidding across the ground.

'Whoever this girl is, they're on a whole different level to those others,' Mercury winced as he got to his feet, 'Who the hell is she?'

His eyes widened as his thoughts went back to something Junior had said in their earlier conversation.

"Seems to be the time of year for those."

Someone else had already approached Junior beforehand. This girl either was that person, or worked for that person - either way, it was something Cinder needed to know about, sooner rather than later.

With a kicking motion, he fired another pair of powered shots – this time at the ground in front of her- and broke into a sprint. She gracefully flipped back to avoid the detonations, but they were never intended to harm her. Landing cleanly, she merely watched silently as he kicked his way out of the nearest window.

The bewildered Junior dragged himself to his feet, only to see the smiling face of none other than the man who had just left his club not long before.

"Still don't think you need my help?" Roman Torchwick asked his fellow criminal smugly, "And for the record," he added, "If people keep expressing their opinion of your bar by wrecking the place? You might just want to consider some areas for improvement."

Junior glanced around at the wreckage of his bar as he tried to get his bearings. After a few moments, he spoke.

"Fifty-fifty?"

Roman, smirk still in place, nodded and held out his hand.

"You've got a deal, Torchwick," Junior said simply, as he shook it.