It is currently too early in the morning for me to have thoughts.
So without further ado.
Chapter 25
Emerald was fairly certain that the next few weeks passed by quickly for most people. After all, it was quite the interesting season. There was talk of the dance coming up that had the entire student body jittering with both excitement and nerves. There was news of increased White Fang in the city – that Emerald definitely knew nothing about. And there were transfer students from all over remnant coming to attend Beacon academy for a time, before competing in the Vytal festival, yet another thing that had conversation buzzing.
Unfortunately, one of said transfer students was making Emerald's days rather slow.
"Friend Emerald!"
Her eyelid twitched ever so slightly as she turned around, seeing Penny Polendina – she'd learned the girls last name at some point or another, though now she couldn't remember when – and, alongside her, another member of their very regretful trio…
"Hey, Em!" Ruby Rose smiled over at her, waving with her free hand, the other of which hugged a stack of textbooks to her side. "Glad to see you could make it! Studying for Oobleck's quiz will be a lot easier with you around."
"You do realize we're in different grades, right?" Emerald said, eyeing the girl as she joined in on their little formation – she had long since learned that if she didn't, the both of these girls would get pissy about it, and it was best to keep them happy, lest they attempt to 'nice' her to death. "I don't even have a test coming up."
"Even better!" Rose exclaimed, jumping on the spot with just… just so much energy. How did she have so much energy all of the time!? "That means you can focus on just me!"
Emerald let out a low whine, which, at the very least, Rose giggled at. She had been kidding, which was a relief, even if it wasn't a shock.
That was something interesting that Emerald had learned about her newest… acquaintance? She'd expected Ruby to be the overly-happy, overly-airheaded type. Someone who was a bit ditzy, possessed next to no social skills, but had the combat skills to make up for it.
And while she may not have been all that adept at talking to others – though she certainly wasn't the worst conversationalist that Emerald knew, not counting Neo – She was sharp as a tack.
(some part of Emerald noted that she should refer to Neo as Mint now more than ever, especially since the girl would likely be out and about helping Torchwick with his recruitment drives in Vale, but so far nothing adverse had come of it, and so she decided to ignore that small worry for the time being)
Penny, however, was still Penny.
She had apparently, after getting Emerald held at gunpoint and verbally berated by General Ironwood, decided that the two of them were the closest of friends, and met up with Ruby in order for all of them to work on their homework together.
Because Emerald had said she could do her homework for her.
…She was beginning to believe that everything that had ever happened to her was somehow, someway, her own fault.
And that had sort of become the routine for the three of them over the last few weeks. It had been close to a month since the… incident – aka when Emerald had botched a date so hard, she'd gotten the General of Atlas involved somehow – and things were…
Well, they were hectic, that was what they were.
Emerald had actually also been studying with CFVY up until recently – and occasionally Ruby and Penny joined her against her will – but two weeks ago they had left on their mission with Professor Port, and had yet to come back. Apparently, they were somewhat behind schedule to return, and some people were worried, but Emerald was fairly sure that those people had never seen Coco's minigun.
Frankly, unless someone like Cinder went at her, Emerald wasn't sure there was anything that that monster couldn't mow down.
Regardless of Emerald's opinions, the fact was that it was just the three of them today. And, as Emerald had already informed Ruby, she herself didn't have much to do. The unique teachers to the second-year courses – and frankly, there weren't a ton of them – hadn't seen fit to assign any big tests or works, so Emerald herself simply sat and occasionally nudged Ruby in the right direction.
Not Penny, though. Honestly, with how smart the girl was, she was shocked she still attended these little study sessions. She was sharper than Emerald, she had no shame in admitting that. She was quick on the draw with bringing out information, and once she'd heard something, she had an almost eidetic ability to conjure up anything she'd previously been told.
It was a bit impressive, honestly.
Still, most of the focus of the lesson that day had been on Ruby herself. The girl was clearly smart, that wasn't really up for debate, but she was also two years behind where she should be in her knowledge.
Not exactly her fault, but it was still something they had to work around.
That day's study session didn't take too terribly long, if she were being honest. By the end of it, Emerald had reiterated a few key points that she'd picked up on, but really, Penny had done most of the work.
"And that is the entire history of the latter half of the reign of Malik the Sunderer!" Penny stated, smiling over at them as if being able to read off what might as well have been an entire article on the subject with nothing to go off of but her own memory was nothing impressive.
"Yeah… yeah!" Ruby said, nodding her head, somehow also not finding this weird in the slightest. "Thank you, Penny! I think I finally got it! Oooh, just you wait, Dr. Oobleck, I'm gonna' knock your socks off on this one!"
Emerald shook her head as the two briefly conversed, content to sort of fade into the background as they spoke together, as she normally did. However, before she could do so, Ruby Rose had stood up, straightened out her outfit, and gathered her books.
"Sorry I can't stay long. My team and I actually have an outing planned for this evening."
Emerald just nodded, perfectly fine with not knowing anything else about this outing.
Penny, however, inquired, because of course she did.
"To where are you going out, exactly?"
And Ruby Rose froze.
Emerald had seen a lot of suspicious things in her life. She was, after all, a thief, thereby a criminal, and thereby someone who knew how someone who had something to hide acted.
It would've been obvious, even to someone without Emerald's expertise, that Ruby Rose had something to hide. Her entire body was projecting this fact so powerfully that she might as well have been holding up a sign with big neon letters.
Emerald, of course, still didn't care.
"Oh, y'know, just goin' out into Vale, the usual!" Ruby laughed. It was painfully forced. "So, y'know, gonna' go and uh… prepare my outfit now! …See you guys!"
And then she was a trail of rose petals.
Emerald watched her go with a completely neutral expression.
Penny seemed puzzled about something or other.
"Friend Emerald?"
"What's up?"
"I do not know if it was just me, but…" Penny turned towards her, her eyebrows downturned. "Did it seem like Ruby was hiding something."
…Okay, yeah, it was official.
If she couldn't even fool Penny – who had somehow not understood that General Ironwood hated Emerald more than perhaps any person on Remnant, and instead kept trying to invite her along to meet with him – then Emerald was fairly certain Ruby Rose was indisputably the worst liar to have ever lived.
And that was fairly impressive.
"Actually, friend, I had a proposition for you."
"Huh?" She turned to look, already preparing to turn down anything the girl could throw at her. Frankly, Emerald thought she had earned the right to do so after the shit Penny had pulled around a month ago.
"I was wondering if you would like to go out into Vale with me." Penny said, smiling.
Emerald did not, in fact, want to go out into Vale with Penny. This was a fact.
She was preparing to voice some rather rough-shod excuse in that very moment, in fact, before Penny continued speaking, her eyes lighting up somewhat.
"You see, I have recently learned of a rather curious confectionary." Penny began. "Ruby asked me what my favorite 'iced-cream flavor' was, and I informed her that I do not know what iced-cream is."
The fact that Penny pronounced ice-cream as 'iced-cream' every single time did something indescribable to Emerald.
"After that, Ruby became almost manic in her attempts to convince me to try it. Thusly, I have a desire to do so as soon as possible."
Emerald nodded, ready the moment the girl finished speaking to let her down as gently as she could.
"So, because I have never once tried ice-cream, I thought that perhaps the two of us could attempt to try it out together, as friends!"
"Well, I'd love to, Penny," She said, scratching the back of her neck awkwardly. "But I'm afraid I've got some business with my team tonight that's going to keep me indoors."
"Ah." Penny seemed… odd. "That… I see. I understand. This is fine."
"Good. I'm sorry I can't–"
And then, in front of her, Penny visibly wilted.
Emerald felt a tiny part of her creak ominously at that.
"Uh… Penny… you alright?"
"Ah… I am fine, it is just…" Penny wasn't looking at her, instead staring at the ground below. "I do not entirely know where to go to partake of this 'iced-cream'. Nor do I know what to order when I arrive.
Emerald felt her resolve slipping by the minute.
No! Some part of her screeched. Don't give up! Don't give in! Fight!
"And…" Penny continued. "I was hoping to spend time with my friend as well. I am simply disappointed. But it is not your fault. You had a prior engagement. I suppose I can go by myself."
Emerald felt like she had put up quite a good fight by that point. That she had done her very best to resist against Penny's words.
It was, however, time to throw in the towel now. Emerald was far too weak to fight any further.
We surrender. The rest of her sighed.
"I mean, yeah, I had something to do with my team, but uh…"
She looked away as she mumbled her next sentence.
"…But, y'know, I could probably reschedule."
Emerald would never admit that she found herself smiling just the slightest bit when Penny's expression practically reversed in an instant.
/
Cinder had not really been expecting a call until much later in the evening. It was, right now, only around seven or eight. She was supposed to receive a call in perhaps two or three hours. And it was not supposed to be from Mercury, who was currently calling her.
"Mercury," She answered curiously. "What is it?"
"Ah, uh… So… you know how I've been getting sort of chummy with Team RWBY, right?"
"Yes," Cinder said, sighing out, already feeling a bit annoyed as she remembered how one of her enforcers had basically been blowing her off for the past month to hang out with teenaged girls. "I am very much aware."
"Okay, good, so that's the first part of the explanation down."
"Mercury, is this building to something?"
"Yes, it's building to something."
"Okay…" Cinder sighed. "Continue, then."
"Alright, so, I was invited to Team RWBY's room earlier this evening–"
"You do not have to tell me about your personal life, Mercury, especially not your sexual–"
"Yeah, no. Basically, when I got there, I sort of expected to be doing, like, homework or some shit? Or, at the most entertaining, maybe playing a game or something."
"You're sure this is building to–"
"Okay, okay, I'll get to the point." Mercury sighed. "In a nutshell, the kids had a batshit idea."
Cinder frowned. "Explain what you mean by 'batshit idea'."
"Well… uh…" Cinder briefly heard some cheering through Mercury's microphone, and she wondered where he was. Perhaps an arena to watch a fight? Or a club of some kind? "I'm currently at the White Fang recruitment drive. Y'know, the one with the Paladin?"
Cinder raised an eyebrow. "Why? Did Roman ask you to work security without consulting me?
"Ah… no. I'm uh…"
And then there was a loud banging noise through the boy's microphone, followed by muffled shouting and what seemed to Cinder's ear to be gunshots.
"I believe I'm currently at the White Fang recruitment drive to stop the White Fang recruitment drive."
"…You what?"
"Yeah, frankly, you tell me."
/
Emerald really wondered if she just sort of attracted trouble naturally. Perhaps she was some sort of magnet for it? Somehow drew it without meaning to? Something had to give, in Emerald's mind, because frankly, all of this was beginning to be too much for her to believe it all coincidence.
The night had started off so normally, too. She and Penny had departed the airbus without much fuss, talking – or, well, Penny had talked at her, and she had done her best to follow along without wanting to shoot herself in the head – as they made their way towards a local ice cream parlor that Ruby Rose had, apparently, recommended.
Penny was incredibly excited.
"I am so curious as to what flavor iced-cream I will find myself enamored with!" Penny announced as they crossed the street. "Ruby Rose said that her favorite flavor is strawberry, but that a lot of people prefer chocolate." She then turned to Emerald. "What do you prefer?"
"Mint." She said, wondering how much longer it could possibly be before they reached the parlor. "Vanilla is alright too, I suppose."
"I will have to try both of these flavors as well!" Penny exclaimed with all the enthusiasm of a child. "Oh, I do believe we have arrived!"
And there it was. It was a rather small place, clearly not a chain, but a mom-and-pop joint. As they stepped inside, Emerald was immediately hit with the scent of sweets, of an overwhelming air of sugar. This place, it seemed, offered both ice cream and candy.
It was clear from the way Penny's eyes lit up that this was not at all an unwelcome surprise.
"I have never tried candy, either!" Penny said as the two of them passed by the ice-cream selection briefly, instead examining a wall of candy boxes, giant candy dispensers, and more specialty items that seemed to be sold as gifts. They were all rather expensive, but to Emerald, it was clear that because this place wasn't a chain, they had to price their work that highly.
Emerald was never one to really care about food quality. She had, after all, survived on the streets.
The picky eaters were rather quickly weeded out.
But recently, travelling with Cinder, visiting so many different places, she'd found her pallet expanding quite a bit. She found herself desiring to actually enjoy what she ate.
And she did, after all, have some lien to spare.
And they had a rather adorable chocolate carved into the shape of a bow and arrow, and she couldn't help thinking that Cinder would–
Emerald cut that thought off before it could grow any further. She did not need to be… considering such things right now.
Especially when Cinder was to attend the dance with Goodwitch in no time at all.
…It seemed the last month really had gone by too quickly, after all.
"Emerald?"
Her attention was called back towards Penny, who was already paying for a veritable mountain of sweets, ranging from chocolates to fruity candies to spiced cinnamon ones. Emerald raised an eyebrow.
"Are you sure you should be having that many?"
"I don't see why not?" Penny said as she slid the pile towards a rather happy looking woman, who Emerald guessed was the shop-owner, and the reason for her happiness was very evident as the total on the cash register quickly climbed into the triple digits.
"I just mean… you might struggle to stay fit, or, y'know, have problems with your teeth?"
Penny tilted her head to the side, before smiling.
"That will not be a problem!"
Emerald just stared.
"…Right, sure."
It was around fifteen minutes later that the two of them departed the parlor, each of them with a bag under their arms and a cone of ice-cream in their other hand. The size of both the ice-cream and the bag was radically different between the two of them, however, with Penny sporting a quintuple scoop cone that she somehow managed to balance without issue – each of the scoops were a different flavor, and again, this bothered Emerald greatly – and Emerald having gone for two scoops, which cost no extra charge.
Alongside that was Penny's bag being at least ten times the size of hers, if not reasonably more, and it couldn't have weighed any less than fifteen or twenty pounds.
Which, really, seemed overkill in terms of candy, but then again, Emerald supposed it was Penny's life to live.
She herself had gone for some fruity candy that she'd found herself liking, a mint patty wrapped in dark chocolate that she utterly adored, and…
She bit down on her bottom lip as she felt around for the profile of the bow and arrow chocolate, and felt it within her bag, atop her other items.
…Emerald felt weak. Pathetic and weak.
And then, of course, the night kicked off in earnest.
Which, naturally, was the sound of an explosion.
Emerald was really, really getting tired of things exploding.
Her eyes widened, as did Penny's – though she noted that her pupils dilated in an odd way, as if they'd quite literally narrowed down to pinpricks – as the both of them turned towards the sound. The entire street around them seemed to be doing similar, with some people shouting, or whispering worriedly to one another. A few seconds later, a rather large percentage began moving away from the sound, and idly, Emerald found she couldn't quite blame them.
"Any idea what's going on, Penny?"
"No." She said, turning back towards Emerald. "I'm afraid General Ironwood has not informed me of any incidents at the moment, though I imagine he will soon."
At the very least, that confirmed a theory that Emerald had had in her mind for the last little while. It seemed Penny was, at the very least, in direct contact with Ironwood. Then again, that probably should've been obvious, given how he'd thrown a hissy-fit over his 'daughters' supposed lost chastity.
Emerald decided to try and gather information the old-fashioned way.
She stepped towards a noodle stand – named 'A Simple Wok' manned by a rather old looking fellow with a balding head and gray hair. He had a nametag on, although it simply referred to him as 'Shopkeep'.
It was capitalized like a proper name.
Weird.
"Hey," She spoke up as she leant on the counter, looking over at the man. "You hear anything about that explosion."
"You mean you didn't?" The man seemed perplexed, before turning an old television towards her. "It's all over the news right now. Apparently, a bunch of kids got involved in some new-fangled… mech fight on the freeway."
"Mech fight?" Emerald's eyes narrowed as she tried to see what was on the screen a little better.
It was a view from a bullhead or a helicopter, though Emerald couldn't really be sure which. Whatever this 'mech' was, it was white and moving, with a few other dots firing blasts that occasionally glowed a few different colors. Honestly, though, Emerald couldn't make out enough about anything going on to
"That is abnormal." Penny commented, as if seeing a mech fighting children on the highway could be anything but. "For there to be a mechanized warrior. I would know nothing about this. And have no experience in dealing with it, either."
The girl hiccupped.
"…Sure, right."
Okay, so that robot probably belonged to Atlas, then.
…
Hey, wait a second, she knew that robot.
…
Oh shit, she knew that robot.
Okay… okay, it was fine. She… she wasn't involved, and she didn't need to be. So maybe their meeting had gotten busted, that wasn't her–
"We must go and assist!" Penny suddenly shouted out from beside her, damned near scaring Emerald half to death.
"…Must we?" She eked out under her breath.
"Yes! Ruby could be in danger!"
Emerald's eyes narrowed. "How do you know Ruby is even one of those idiots fighting!?"
Penny went silent for a moment.
"I have a feeling."
"…Right. So, you got an update from Ironwood?"
Penny paused for a moment.
"Yes. That is definitely the reason."
She then hiccupped.
Emerald could really only sigh.
/
They left their chocolate in the shop, promising to come pick it up later, and though Emerald had doubts that the two of them were going to make it back there anytime this evening – purely because she knew how her life worked by now – she was far too quickly distracted from worrying about such things.
Namely by a missile flying towards her face.
"FUCK!"
She managed to duck underneath the thing just in time, letting it sail over her head and impact against a nearby railing, which caused an explosion that sent pieces of the guard rail plummeting into traffic below.
Judging by the sounds of honking horns and whirring tires, this was a rather not good thing.
The two of them had made good time. Frighteningly good time, really. Penny had stopped a nearby Atlesian guard, asked him to borrow his bike, and…
He'd just sort of done so? Without any further questions?
Emerald was honestly just rolling with it at this point. Sure, Penny apparently had a license to procure vehicles if she ever needed them. Sure, there was a giant mech-fight on the middle of what had once been a busy highway.
Sure, her teammate Mercury was currently competing in said giant mech-fight, and said giant mech was being piloted by Roman Torchwick, a man who was both annoying and also technically their ally.
…Okay, admittedly, it was getting harder and harder to just roll with it, no matter how hard Emerald tried.
"Care to explain what the fuck is going on here!?" She spat Mercury's way as the two of them dodged very lazily aimed machine-gun fire.
"Yeah, I'm kinda' tryin' to work that out myself here!" Mercury fired back, swearing as the mech reared up, and slammed a hand into the highway they all stood upon, causing the reinforced concrete to crack.
At the very least, Torchwick wasn't stupid. He'd recognized them and wasn't shooting to kill. Or, well, technically he was, but he was doing so in such an obvious way that the both of them, rather experienced fighters, had more than enough time to dodge out of the way.
"Okay, so… PLAN!?" She asked rather helplessly.
"I've been trying to get RWBY to back off, saying this is too much for us to handle." Mercury said, then, he mimed shooting himself in the head. "I've been running into problems on that front, however, on account of–"
"HIYAAAH!"
"Well on account of the situation not being too much for us to handle."
A red blur shot across the freeway, impacting against the mech – Emerald was fairly sure it was called a Paladin, actually, and that it had been stolen from Atlas some time ago – and sending it staggering back. In the next second, a half dozen blades did the same, coming from Penny, who had joined in on the fight without hesitation.
"And who the hell is the red-head!?"
"Not the time, Merc!"
Another second, and two more figures blitzed into the Paladin's guard. Black and White, the Faunus and the Schnee. They hit less hard, but more times, fraying at the legs of the Paladin and trying to knock it off balance.
They looked to be close to succeeding.
"So… what are we doing?"
"Well, we need to bail out Torchwick."
"Okay, good starting point. Thoughts on how we do that!?"
The Paladin rumbled, clearly having seen better days, as a black liquid began to leak out of the bottom of it. In the next instant, a blonde fireball sent one of its arms spiraling off, landing with a sickening crack as it broke upon the concrete.
"Look, I'm doin' my best here, Em."
"Yeah, I can see that, and as usual, your best isn't doing jack–"
Unfortunately, operation bail out Torchwick failed pretty much the moment it started, given that the Paladin mech gave out a horrible screech, before another blow from Yang Xiao-Long shattered the outer frame entirely, spilling one Roman Torchwick out onto the pavement.
Immediately, Penny was upon him, moving right in with her hovering blades, but before they could make contact, and further incapacitate him, the strings on each were severed by a short blade.
And then in came Neopolitan, dressed in her normal white, cream, and pink outfit, with her hair colored to match. It was almost odd, for Emerald, to see her out of her Mint persona for the first time in roughly four months.
She'd sort of forgotten what the girl looked like, to be honest.
"Thank you very much, Neo," Torchwick spoke as Penny took a needed step back away from the new assailant. "Though I really feel you could've showed up before I got laid out on my ass."
Neo just smirked.
"Well, kids, it's been quite the night," Torchwick spoke as he took off his bowler hat, and spun it around one finger. "I can't say you've all made a very good impression, some of you," He rather pointedly glared in Emerald and Mercury's direction. "More than others. But unfortunately, I really do have somewhere to be. You all know how it is, it's a busy time of year."
Once more, Xiao-Long shot forward, a fist rocketing towards Neo's form. There was a small sound, then, one that Emerald knew was Neo's illusion taking hold, and Emerald let out a small sigh of relief.
At the very least, Roman hadn't been caught – or worse – on their watch.
Neopolitan and her boss shattered into shards of glass, and the confusion gave more than enough time for the Bullhead carrying the two of them away and into the night to get beyond the range of any of the marksman among their number.
As the ship blazed off into the distance, Ruby Rose let out a little whine as sirens began to blare, seeming to be very rapidly growing louder.
"So, uh…" She scratched the back of her neck. "What's our excuse?"
"I do not believe there is an excuse efficient enough to cover this level of property damage, friend Ruby." Penny said in an entirely too-cheery voice, completely oblivious to the way every single member of Team RWBY sunk slightly.
The police were not entirely pleased with the lot of them, and frankly, as Emerald looked out amongst the destruction around them, she couldn't exactly find fault in that. She imagined that there was a very real possibility that there had been damage to the very infrastructure of Vale, the kind of thing that took a good few million lien to fix, and that was not exactly becoming of a hunter.
And just as Emerald was planning to make her way away, a hand found itself on her shoulder. Emerald bit back on years of instinct, preventing her from rearing back, and sending whoever had just grabbed her from behind sailing over her shoulder.
Instead, she turned around and saw the gruff face of an officer staring right at her.
"You two, you're coming with us as well."
Emerald's eyes widened.
Because really, they'd done approximately nothing to warrant that.
Or, well, maybe Mercury had, but she'd just kind of showed up.
"I'm not really involved in this." Emerald said, trying to explain away the situation.
"Not involved, huh?" One of the officers laughed. "Yeah, sure. If you're not involved, care to ask why your profile comes up on this list of dubious figures?"
They held up a tablet, where, sure enough, Emerald's name was listed, and so was a picture of her face. Said picture looked to be her Beacon ID.
"…Where did you–"
"This database was created by General Ironwood himself!" The man said, looking awful proud. "And if you think that man is anything but upstanding, you're a foolish naysayer!"
Emerald felt her left eye twitch, though she wasn't entirely sure with what. Rage, perhaps? Genuine, true hate?
Maybe just utter done-ness, which was certainly not a word, but seemed to be just about the only thing she could think of to describe any of this.
In some last, hopeless bid to get out of this without having her entire night wasted, Emerald tried to speak again.
"I was only passing by–"
"Friend Emerald!" Penny called out, waving directly at her as she was placed into a police car. "What are you waiting for?"
She took a deep, steadying breath as the officer, whom she was trying to convince of her innocence, rounded back on her with an unimpressed look.
Emerald didn't even bother complaining as he escorted her into the back of another squad car.
Even if she really wanted to.
And yet again, Penny continued to be the bane of her existence.
/
Cinder had not known what to make of a sudden summons to Headmaster Ozpin's office – or to Ozma's cradle of power, whichever one preferred – but she had a feeling it was probably not a good sign. She'd girded herself for combat, prepared the Maiden's flames to erupt from within her without the slightest hesitation, and then…
"My teammates were… what?"
"They were arrested, technically." Headmaster Ozpin said with complete and utter nonchalance, taking a sip of what Cinder presumed was coffee from out of the mug at his side. "Although Beacon will not allow them to be charged criminally. They, along with Team RWBY, will, however, serve quite the number of detentions, and remedial lessons in deescalating a scenario. Your teammates will not be getting this lesson to quite the same degree as Team RWBY, given that this is only their first offense."
The man seemed rather blasé in referring to lighting up a populated highway with active combat as a 'first offense', but then again, Cinder wasn't about to look a proverbial gift horse in its proverbial mouth.
"I understand, sir." She bowed, ignoring the way her pride tried to rage against the motion. "I would like to apologize on their behalf. Neither of them told me what they were doing with their evenings–"
"You are not in trouble, Ms. Fall, although your willingness to take on the mistakes of your teammates speaks well to your character." The man smiled at her, and Cinder felt there was more to his gaze than she could easily discern. "You may go. I merely wished to inform you why you may not see your teammates until later this evening, is all."
She had stood up, and was making her way away from the table, when a question drew itself to the tip of her tongue, and she found herself turning back around.
"What are they doing now?"
"They will each be grilled rather heavily, just to establish the fact that what they've done is wrong, and that they all should've handled their situations better." Ozpin explained, and Cinder supposed she engaged in something similar, making very clear to her subordinates when they'd failed her. "The ringleader, who I believe was Ms. Belladonna, I will be speaking to personally."
"And Emerald and Mercury?"
"The latter Dr. Oobleck will likely handle." The very thought of Mercury being made to feel guilt by Professor Oobleck of all people was almost enough to make Cinder snort. "The former, though, was requested by someone specifically."
Cinder's brow drew down. "And who was that, exactly?"
Ozpin's own brow followed suit, and he stared across his desk at her with a knowing look in his eyes.
"Do you not already have a guess?"
/
Emerald had committed quite a few crimes in her lifetime, and this was, surprisingly, the first time she'd ever actually gotten caught for one of them, which felt a bit unfair, given this had been the single time she would've technically been acting on the side of righteousness.
The saying always went that 'evil didn't pay', but Emerald had always felt like the opposite was true in her experience.
She'd currently gone through just about all of the normal procedures that watching cop shows on her scroll – a guilty pleasure that she really needed to kick – had prepared her for. She'd been sent into an examination room – and they hadn't tagged her fingerprint, which was good – and left her to stew in what she assumed was probably supposed to be guilt.
She, of course, did not have said guilt. No, she only felt unyielding rage.
When she saw Penny again, she was going to… she was going to…
Emerald sighed, knowing that the next time she saw Penny, they'd likely study as if nothing had happened, because she was, again, not enough of a bitch to make Penny sad.
She was just… too pure. Too good for this world. It would've felt wrong to bring a frown to her face.
No sooner had she thought that, then did the door at the back of the room give a sound, and Emerald looked up to see a figure step into the room.
…A figure who she had been trying to avoid for the last several weeks, and had, so far, been doing a good job of it.
It appeared that streak would be ending today.
"…Emerald." The woman spoke.
"…Ms. Goodwitch." She murmured back.
Okay, scratch what she'd said before, she had a few choice words for Penny when she saw her next.
/
Jaune Arc was, at this point, surprisingly used to his friends getting in trouble for blowing stuff up.
Honestly, it was starting to seem like a Team RWBY specialty.
Still, as he was contacted by Ruby – who had been the first out of the apparent 'interrogations' that apparently just doubled as scolding's designed to make them feel bad – and it had apparently been very effective, enough to make Ruby break down in tears and be escorted out with a veritable pat on the back – he found himself reading over the information she'd sent to him, most of it interesting, but not terribly useful.
Nora, on the other hand, still wanted to know.
"What'd she say!?" The girl bounced up and down in front of his bed, and directly in front of him, who was sat down upon the edge of it. "What'd she say!? C'mon, don't keep me in suspense!"
"She said that the White Fang rally was in some old warehouse." Jaune said, reading from the small paragraph he'd been sent. "Blake located it using methods she learned in the White Fang. Uh… skipping ahead a bit, there was a giant mech, and Roman Torchwick was piloting it. They busted it up, and apparently Atlas isn't sure whether to be mad or thank them. Oh, also, Roman Torchwick had a new companion. He called her 'Neo'." He closed his scroll, shrugging. "That's about it, honestly."
Nora frowned. "Really? But that's so boring! They fought a mech and that's the best story Ruby could come up with!?"
"I believe Ruby is more of a fighter than a writer." Pyrrha spoke, sounding awfully proud of her play on words.
"Indeed." Ren agreed. "Now, Nora, calm down. It's ten o'clock."
"I don't need to calm down! I need footage of the mech fight, and all the news networks somehow missed it! How could they miss the mech fight, Ren!? How could theeeeey!?"
Ren stared at his… Girlfriend? Best friend? Teammate? All of the above?
"…Nora, would you like me to go get your melatonin?"
"Actually yeah." Nora said, letting out an awkward laugh. "That'd be good."
And so, Ren left to go get what Nora referred to as her 'night vitamin'. Pyrrha yawned and leaned back into her mattress, and Jaune himself followed suit, turning off his personal light. He'd leave it to Ren and Nora to turn off the main light once they went to bed.
And yet, as he laid his head down, he found himself unable to shake the oddest little spark that kept nibbling at the back of his head.
…Where had Jaune heard the name 'Neo' before?
End Chapter 25
Still too early for thoughts.
See you next week!