A/N: Created 01 April 2015. It's RWBY Relationship Week on Tumblr; the challenge is to take two randomly-selected characters and explore their relationship, whether that be romantic, platonic, parental, mentor-apprentice, sibling, antagonistic, or what-have-you.

Happy Anniversary, Rooster Teeth!

Wednesday's Randomly-Generated Names: Velvet Scarlatina, Mercury Black

Talking Trash

Summary: Mercury is good at video games. Velvet is better.

Note: Once again I find myself faced with a combo that doesn't have an established name. I'm going with Bunboats.

Mercury Black smirked in the darkness of his room. Emerald and Cinder were out, and better yet, the latter had no plans for either of them this weekend. Being that they were fake students, the 'homework' they were 'sending back to Haven to be graded' was simply ignored, which meant Mercury had plenty of time over the next day to dedicate to a videogame he had discovered a little while back—just long enough back for Mercury to be the uncontested best Solipsis player of anyone he had ever seen.

Mercury liked being the best. He had few equals in the coliseum, and less still in a real fight where he didn't have to hold back. He was no slouch with traditional weapons, either—having hands as steady as his nerves did him no end of credit. Cinder was his boss for the time being, but working as a crime boss held no appeal to Mercury as any possible facet of being 'the best', and Cinder was understanding enough to ensure he didn't have to deal with people very much, so he found the benefits of continuing to work with her outweighing the annoyances of her imperious nature. In general, it ended up meaning more free time for him to play, which suited him because the nature of the competitive gameplay meant he could climb to the top of the scoreboard and be visibly the best for everyone playing to see. The impersonality of gaming online was also attractive—he didn't have to fake any tiresome emotions like he did when out among the plebs.

Sipping a beer Emerald had smuggled into the dorm, Mercury dismissed that train of thought. Entirely too contemplative for the occasion. Today was not a day for introspection. (Few were.) Today was a day for wrecking anyone who came into the match until they all gave up. Mercury's smirk became a feral grin. After all, what could be more fun for him than wrecking someone else's? He hadn't had the chance to play since they came to Beacon, and there were bound to be plenty of scrubs to beat down.

Loading in, Mercury joined an ongoing Massacre Match—meaning a free-for-all instead of the alternative Reapers Versus Butchers team matchup or the Hendentures capture-the-flag mode.

The first five minutes of the match went predictably: Mercury spent his time dominating everyone playing and gaining endless amusement from the frustration visible in the in-game text chat. The running list of notifications in the top-right was endless notifications that so-and-so had been slain by Argyria, Mercury's in-game alias.

The coast clear, Mercury took a moment to to stretch, only to jerk back around in surprise as the controller vibrated hard, in response to his in-game avatar's death. Hmph. Well, the scrubs were bound to get lucky once in a while. Slain by BurnoutHeart flashed across the screen, above a countdown to his next go, and Mercury made a point of memorizing the handle. Whoever BurnoutHeart was, they were going down Argyria-style. Since there was nothing to do while his character was dead except watch others play—and there was surely nothing more boring than that—Mercury pulled up the text chat and sent his own message.

‹Argyria› bad mistake
‹Argyria› im coming for u

Velvet blinked, then rolled her eyes. Honestly, the people who played this game were so childish.

She recognized the hypocrisy in that, but there was just something about it that was dreadfully fun. Velvet didn't get out much, unless she was with her team, and with Coco out mentoring and Fox at a regular appointment, there wasn't anyone to force her out into the open. She rubbed her ears gingerly; Winchester had been at her again until Yatsuhashi saved her, but she couldn't inconvenience him all the time. It was just as well she was staying in, and even enjoying herself playing a fun game to pass the time. Even if the majority of its fans tended to take it far too seriously.

Over the course of her next few lives, however, Velvet realized that this Argyria had been responsible for all of them. It was odd; she'd seen him walk into ambushes that he was plainly good enough to avoid, simply for the opportunity to kill her. It was as if he no longer cared about playing the game as long as he could ruin her playtime. Well, the joke was on him; Velvet may not have been a rabid fan, but she was more than competent enough. And…well, given the anonymity that playing behind a screen name offered…perhaps it wasn't any surprise that next time Argyria said something in the chat, she plucked up the nerve to reply.

She had just fallen victim to an energy-bomb that also took out Argyria himself when the chat sound effect played.

‹Argyria› u mad?

Velvet took hold of her courage and replied.

‹BurnoutHeart› No, but it sounds like you may be feeling a bit salty.

A moment later, the reply came in.

‹Argyria› sum1 is full of vinegar

At that moment, Velvet's character respawned, which meant Argyria must have as well. Which meant that she had an advantage; she knew where he was coming from and that he would be coming straight for her. Tactically, she had already won. Rather than charge straight ahead as Argyria was doing, she flanked the main path and picked him off at long range. Knowing it would be a few minutes before he returned again, she moved to a different vantage point, and sniped him again when he returned.

His chats became shorter, angrier, and altogether much less intelligible as the match proceeded until, with a minute to go, Velvet found herself at the top of the scoreboard and six points above Argyria due to the bonus she got for her streak of successful kills without dying in-between. Other players were ignoring those nearest them to search for her, but she eliminated them whenever they got close, always keeping an eye out for Argyria. Finally, the match ended, and the final tally recorded BurnoutHeart in a runaway first place, well ahead of Argyria's second.

Smiling at her success, Velvet felt a sort of daring seize her again, and used the post-game chat to deliver a boast her team leader would have been proud of.

‹BurnoutHeart› Maybe you should buy a blender
‹BurnoutHeart› So you can drink that down

Velvet's cheeks burned with embarrassment at her own audacity, and she was almost afraid to look back at the chat when she heard the sound effect again.

‹Argyria has left the game.›

A/N: Here's a bit of videogame-related silliness for Rooster Teeth's anniversary XD I tried to put in as many references as I could, but I've never played Halo or watched RvB so I was kinda scrambling. See if you can spot them (they're probably all very obvious and not nearly as clever as I think they are).

Mercury is a sore loser. Velvet is a silent assassin. Argyria comes from hydrargyrum, an old name for elemental mercury. BurnoutHeart references Velvet's insignia (a heart with stitches) and Devoré, a type of velvet (AKA "burnout velvet") which imprints a velvet pattern upon another type of fabric. Velvs isn't a casual gamer, she just really enjoys playing and doesn't take the game so seriously that she stops having fun. For Mercury though, it's all about winning.

Yeah, this is probably stretching it on the whole "relationship" part of the challenge, although this is certainly still adversarial. I blame my weird, weird rolls.