Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth. I own nothing but the laptop I typed this on.
It had been a boring couple of weeks for the White Fang observers keeping an eye on the area around Junior's former club. They had been tasked to keep an eye out for anyone who may be a part of the organisation showing back up at their former stomping grounds – which thus far had amounted to absolutely nobody. It was fantastically boring, and both found themselves wishing something exciting would happen regularly.
Their prayers were answered now – as a loud explosion rang out across the streets and alleys. Both stared in shock as a man in a white coat furiously ran into view – and were even more surprised when one of their priority targets stepped into view, pursuing him.
The first dived for the phone to call it in, as the second tried to follow the proceedings as much as possible.
"Command, we've got a priority target, designation 'Rainbow' in sight, pursuing and engaging an unknown man in a white coat and a black hat," the first member said into the phone. He listened to the reply, then briefly looked up to observe the fight.
"Gah!" Roman grunted as he was sent tumbling to the ground again. Desperately rolling to his left to avoid a kick, he tried to strike out with his cane – hitting nothing but air. He pulled himself to his feet, and warily eyed Neo – who wasn't pulling her punches at all.
Before he even had time to make an annoying quip, she was on him again – he frantically parried the first three blows with his cane, but the fourth slipped through and hit him clean in the gut – knocking him back and having the joint effect of doubling him over. His cane snapped up and fired off a shot, but Neo's ever-ubiquitous parasol unfolded in time to block it, his explosive round scattering harmlessly off the sides.
She shifted her parasol to sit against her shoulder and gave him a superior, and surprisingly chilling, smile. He tried to take the opportunity to shoot her again
He was immensely surprised when his shot actually connected with her body. Surprise quickly turned to a mixture of annoyance and dread when he heard the all-too-familiar sound of shattering glass, and Neo's image disappeared.
'Where is she?' he frantically looked around – and noticed the growing shadow at his feet, barely in time to stumble back out of the way.
The tip of Neo's parasol smashed into the ground, stabbing deep into the concrete surface and cracking up the road.
'That could have killed me!' Roman thought, sweating, 'Regretting this plan now! REALLY regretting-' his reconsideration was cut short, by the sole of a boot that had suddenly taken up residence on his face.
"...Yeah, she's definitely trying to kill him," the White Fang grunt confirmed, "You, er, may want to hurry. I can't see this lasting very long."
"Boss! We've got activity at the club, priority target 'Rainbow' is currently trying to kill a man in a white coat," one of the minions who handled communications poked his head into Cinder's office.
Her eyes narrowed. Then she stood up. "Mercury, Emerald," she spoke to the pair, "We will intervene. Get a bullhead up and running."
Roman attempted to stay on the defensive. He knew Neo well enough to know that taking the offensive against her was a near-enough guaranteed method to get a foot planted on your face, and he had already been re-introduced to that particular experience too many times tonight for his liking.
She began advancing on him, the stride every bit as controlled and graceful as anything else she did in a fight. He back-pedalled slightly, trying to keep his distance as much as possible, when she suddenly burst into action again. She shot forward, ducking neatly under the backhanded swing of his cane.
Which was exactly what he had expected her to do. While Roman was certainly no match for Neo in a straight fight, something which he was actively banking on, here, he had seen her fight enough times to know what her most common responses to certain movements and actions were. Her surprised face met his rising knee with satisfying force, and she found herself stumbling back from the hit.
He almost began laughing in celebration of this minor victory. That idea was quickly cut short when he saw the results of his clever move.
Neo stared blankly at him. Each steadily narrowing eye was now a solid shade of pink – not a combination he ever recalled seeing before. He sighed in resignation.
"Well, sh-" was all he managed to get out before the once-again folded parasol collided solidly with his face, yet again.
"We are almost there," Cinder announced from the cockpit, "Get ready to jump."
"Yes Ma'am!" Emerald replied.
"Got it," Mercury nodded.
The Bullhead's side doors opened.
Roman, once again, found himself contemplating the cost-to-benefit ratio of the plan he had cooked up as Neo planted him into the wall.
Now lacking the energy to try and fight back, he merely slumped down against the now quite damaged surface.
Neo strode steadily toward him, holding her parasol out horizontally in both hands. She then began to pull it apart – drawing the hidden blade within loose.
'You know, I completely forgot she had that,' Roman thought distantly, 'Huh.'
She held the blade aloft with a savage grin. However, before she could swing it down, she suddenly looked up in surprise and re-inserted the sword, before deflecting some surprisingly accurate gunfire.
Roman recognised one of the pair that had dropped out of the sky – it was the same Mercury guy who had smashed up Junior's club, the second time around. The green-haired, dark-skinned girl with him was a new face, however.
"Well, well," Mercury smirked, "Looks like I get a rematch with you sooner than I thought, don't I?"
The other girl raised an eyebrow. "So this is the girl that kicked your ass in the club?"
His smirk disappeared. "Yes, Emerald, this is the girl that got the drop on me in the club. This time, things are going to go a bit differently."
In response, Neo raised her palm and made a gesture with her hand that really couldn't be interpreted as anything other than 'bring it'.
Mercury obliged. He shot forward like a rocket, leading with a blisteringly fast kick – Neo danced around it, her palm catching the back of his calf and lifting it up in a quick, but smooth motion. Mercury instantly lost his balance and tumbled over. To his credit, he recovered immediately, leaping up onto his feet into a fighting stance.
The new girl, Emerald, snickered. "Must have been quite the drop if she's still got it on you now."
Mercury scowled. "Oh, just shut up and we'll attack her together."
The pair charged at Neo from opposing directions. The girl quickly glanced between the two, and made a split-second decision. Opening her parasol, she held it in her left hand to block Mercury's kick, while her right hand drew the hidden sword from it and parried three attacks from Emerald's exotic-looking weapons – a pair of sickles.
Neo began back-pedalling, putting the two in front of her, parasol in her left hand held aloft like a shield and her sword in her right as she frantically blocked or deflected the barrage of attacks they unleashed upon her. The pair, despite their mocking banter, obviously worked very well together as fighters, and for the first time since he had met her, Neo was actively having visible difficulty stopping or deflecting all of their attacks.
Suddenly, Neo changed tactics. With a quick flourish, her sword rejoined her parasol and she held it open as she charged Emerald. Emerald, startled by the change of pace, was taken off-guard as Neo ran up onto her shoulders, spinning and flipping to disorientate her before grabbing her opponent's head with her legs – before throwing her with a strong flip. Emerald let out a startled cry as she flew towards the wall.
Mercury, having been unable to properly attack while the girl was on his comrade, moved the moment she was free – leaping into a blisteringly fast series of aerial kicks, that Neo blocked with her open parasol, being forced back in the process. She cartwheeled backwards to avoid a kick at head height, before using her folded parasol to parry another series of kicks.
Her eyes widened, and she unfolded her parasol to block a hail of gunfire from Emerald, who re-entered the fight with a vengeance. She charged at Neo, who was prepared to meet her – but that wasn't Emerald's intention. She stopped a few metres short, and swung, her bladed weapon extending outward on a chain and heading directly for Neo's face.
Surprised, Neo couldn't dodge the blow entirely, and her head turned to the side as the blade collided with her – aura prevented it from cutting, but it wouldn't do that for every hit.
Emerald pressed her new advantage, moving forward and swinging both chain-sickles in a controlled series of attacks that Neo was forced to frantically duck, jump, lean and cartwheel to avoid. Her situation was made worse by the shots flying in her direction from Mercury – which she also had to deflect or avoid, with less success. She took several hits as she was forced back towards the wall. When Emerald saw that her opponent had no further space to move back, she grinned in triumph as she swung again.
Neo's eyes narrowed as she took in the situation – then, suddenly, she smirked. In a flash, her sword was out of the sheath once more. As she ducked under the first swing, the thin blade lashed out, stabbing deeply into the wall – through one of the chain-links. Emerald's turning momentum jerked to a halt as the chain caught on the blade and hit its maximum length. Growling, she swung again with the second weapon, this one lower – Neo ran up the wall to avoid this one, flipping over, and, in an impressive display of acrobatic skill, grabbed the blade of Emerald's trapped weapon and pinned the other chain to the wall with it, as well, before landing on one knee.
"Damn!" Emerald hissed as she tried to pull her weapons free. Neo, seeing her opportunity, charged at the other girl, hoping to remove her from the fight as quickly as possible while she was unarmed. Mercury tried to stop her with a few well-placed shots, but found them blocked by the now-familiar defence that was her parasol. Emerald's eyes widened as her enemy closed in, but she was still unable to pull her weapons free.
She had just let them go and started to jump away when Neo was intercepted by a fireball. She intercepted it with her parasol, but unlike the gunfire of Mercury and Emerald, the force of the attack knocked her flying back towards the wall.
"That's enough," all eyes, including Roman's, looked up at the hovering drop-ship, where a black-haired young woman stood in the open side-door, glowing hand held aloft.
"Cinder!" Emerald cried in jubilation.
'Cinder', Roman thought, 'So that's your name.'
Neo, looking concerned, took in the situation. Mercury and Emerald were still on the field, and this new combatant apparently had some serious punch. Making her decision, she dashed back towards her sword, diving away from another fireball, and yanked it out of the wall, before disappearing in a blue flash.
Mercury and Emerald stopped to catch their breath.
"Damn it," Mercury groaned, "How the hell is one little girl so damn tough?"
"I'm sure our new friend here will be able to tell us," the new arrival replied with a narrow smile, "Get him into the Bullhead. We'll treat him for his injuries back at the base."
'First part of the plan is working', Roman thought to himself, shortly before passing out, 'But if this is what winning feels like, I think after this I'm gonna take up losing.'
Neo watched, hidden, as the dropship flew off. Really, how Roman expected her to be able to follow it on foot or even in a road vehicle was quite stupid. Fortunately, she wasn't stupid, so she had come prepared.
She eyed her scroll, which currently had a map of Vale and the surrounding area open – her attention was focused entirely on the small, bleeping dot that signified the tracking device she had hidden on Roman's person before they started fighting.
She winced a little as she massaged her upper arm – she had taken a lot more hits in that fight than she was used to. She knew she could have taken either of those two on their own, but together, they managed to cause her a lot of trouble, and neither had even utilised a semblance – as far as she could tell, at least.
Then that woman throwing the fireballs around – Neo knew she couldn't have fought her alone, never mind with the underlings backing her up. She hoped Roman had arranged for some serious fire-power to raid the base, or they were in real trouble.
She waited until the dot stopped moving – in one of the abandoned warehouses in the old industrial district. She zoomed in on the address, took the details, and sent it off in an email to the bizarre email address that Roman had previously given her, before setting out herself.
Ozpin blinked as he received a new email from the whistle blower. He scanned over the address, and immediately called Glynda.
"Yes, Ozpin?" her voice asked over the phone.
"We have a location," he informed her, "Ready your team and get ready to move out."
"I see," she nodded, "I will find them immediately."
Roman stirred. Everything still ached, but he was feeling a lot better than he had before Neo had worked him over. 'Sheesh. I really should watch what I tell that girl to do.'
He scanned his immediate surroundings, trying to get a feel for where he was and how long he'd been out, and was dismayed to find that he was in a cell.
"Ah, good. You're awake," a sultry, female voice spoke from nearby. Roman's eyes raised to see his 'saviour' – and resisted the urge to wolf-whistle.
'Junior, you've been wrong about a lot of things in your life,' he thought appreciatively, 'This is not one of them.'
"Yeah," he cracked his neck, "Thanks to you, I guess, beautiful. When you put the word out that you'd guarantee my safety if I came forward, I wasn't expecting you to deliver this quickly."
She smiled. "I do pride myself on being efficient. Of course, my motives aren't entirely selfless... I do wish to ask you a few little questions."
"Sure," he nodded, "Cinder, was it? I think I heard the green-haired girl shout that before I passed out."
"Yes," she nodded, "My name is Cinder Fall, and I am working on something... spectacular. For which, I have been recruiting talented individuals and groups to assist me... however, as you may know," her smile became decidedly less friendly, "There are disruptive elements within the city that have worked against me. It is, as you can imagine, in my best interest to find these elements, and... deal with them." The last sentence was accompanied by a fireball lighting up in her palm. The gesture made Roman more nervous than he would care to admit.
"Yeah, yeah, Junior's bunch of ne'erdowells, and the people backing them, right? You want to know all about them, don't you?" he asked.
"Actually," she corrected him, "I have a different question for you."
He blinked. "And what's that?"
Her smile turned savage. "Did you really think you were the only one to take us up on our little offer?" She clicked her fingers.
A man walked in, flanked by a pair of White Fang minions. A man he recognised.
One of Junior's men. He even had the nerve to shoot Roman an apologetic look.
If Roman's heart had gone any higher at that moment, it would have been wearing his hat. 'Oh, you little rat bastard traitor.'
"Li here was quite content to tell us all about you... Roman," Cinder continued, "You know, I'm actually disappointed. I had hoped that the mysterious enemy attempting to foil my plans truly was a part of something bigger, something challenging..." she gave him a disdainful look, "Instead, it was merely a petty crook, carried by the competence of his underachieving companion. How pathetic."
He sighed. No point hiding anything now. "Well, that's not the worst reason for an attractive woman to tell you you're disappointing, I suppose."
She rolled her eyes. "Cute."
"Not particularly something I'd want to hear from an attractive woman, either," he interrupted her before she could continue, "So what are we going to do now?"
"We? Well, you are going to wait in here," she waved around the cell, "Then, when your little friends come to raid the base to rescue you, we will take them as well. After that, we will have no opposition, aside from those fools in the Police and at Beacon, and they won't have any idea what will hit them until it's too late. Your entire little gamble here was for nothing."
"We know where your base is now," Roman pointed out, "Which was the main reason for this little escapade in the first place."
"No," she gave a quiet giggle, "You don't. Did you really think we'd lead you to our main headquarters? This is merely a side-base we had prepared in case we required it."
He winced. "Well... damn. There goes that part of the plan."
"No concern for your friends? I suppose as an honour-less thief, you wouldn't feel particularly bad about leading your comrades into an ambush, even inadvertently, would you?"
"On the contrary," he corrected her, "If you catch the rest of us in an ambush here, I'll be very disappointed."
"Oh?" she indulged him.
"Not out of any particular loyalty or friendship, or anything like that," he clarified, "It's just, if they turn up here, it would be completely against the plan."
Before she could ask him what he meant by that, a loud crashing noise rumbled through the base.
"Since we seem to be in the business of correcting misconceptions at the moment," he smirked, and decided to try and get the last word, "I don't know who it was that just knocked down your front door... but I seriously doubt they're any friends of mine."
A/N: I'm aware that Emerald's weapons are called Kusarigama - but Roman wasn't.