To say I received a verbal tongue lashing from Blake would be an understatement. Her entire speech had sort of melded together halfway through, a type of long, singular sentence that flowed through one ear and out the other, nonsensical in the way that it sort of just conglomerated together.

That being said, there were a few highlights!

I believe the words 'incorrigible dumbass who only thought with his dick' was mentioned. That, and 'perverted freak,' 'degenerative malcontent,' and 'panty peeking figurehead' may have also been thrown around. She could be creative when she wanted to be, and her tirade had gone on for a couple of minutes, no doubt informing half the staff that the Boss just got caught rutting with one of his employees. Yeah, my reputation amongst my own staff really took a blow on that front.

Moving on, however, and after Neo took the Plan B pill, I attempted to dress myself again, only to remember that Neo had clawed my shirt to ribbons, no doubt thanks to a certain girls feral way of fucking. Thanks, Neo.

That left only one choice; hide in my office until I could convince someone to bring me a fresh shirt.

I first attempted to appeal to Blake's sense of decency and camaraderie, asking her, appealing to the good of her heart, to go and find a whole shirt for me to use.

She told me to fuck off.

I then turned around to ask Neo, only for her to be soundly asleep, snoozing the day away without a care in the world, her eyes closed and breathing even. I didn't believe it for a moment.

Thankfully, Grover came in clutch like a true pal, handing over an oversized shirt with no questions asked. Though from his awful attempts to hide a smirk, I could tell that he found the situation much more amusing than I did. Still, since he helped me out I decided to let it go.

I had placed Neo's jacket over her sleeping body, and turned the heat up a little to stave off any chill. Cheeky bugger even had the nerve to sigh in contentment, snuggling into the jacket like a bug in a rug. A real buddy, she was.

Exiting my office, I received either sympathetic glances, admiring looks, or faux reproachful glares. From what I can tell, I was somewhat in trouble.

Entering the main foyer, I slowed my pace down, and observed the girl's rehearsal from afar. Currently Yang was on stage, twirling around the pole and practising the choreography, Glynda interjecting with comment every now and then, mostly constructive criticism. Most of the other girls, that being the Twin's, Blake, Neon, and Nebula, were all watching, making a joke or two at Yang's expense, giving their own, often lewd, comment. It seemed all in good fun though, Yang merely throwing a middle finger up at the peanut gallery, only to be immediately admonished by Glynda. She could be scary when she wanted to be.

Deciding to mingle with my workers, I pulled up a chair and watched with them.

"So how long has practice been?" I asked, resting my arm on the dinner table. Melanie shrugged, whereas it was actually Nebula who answered.

"About 25 minutes. So far I've had some time on the stage, and so has Neon. I think Glynda's practising with the newer girls for the moment, training some good habits into us while everything's still new." Hm, made sense.

"Mkay. And the strip performance, has she gone over them with you yet?" I questioned, receiving a shake of the head, this time Neon piping in.

"She went over the schedule with us, and told us that we'd begin practising as soon as she had our motor and dance skills up to snuff. She's been a real taskmaster about it, actually," she commented. I sighed, shrugging my shoulders.

"Well she can be like that at times. That being said, you'd be hard pressed to find someone who's as experienced or as wise as her. Just give it your all, and she'll work with you to bring you up the expected skill level. Long as you do that, you'll be fine," I assuaged them, the girls nodding at my sage words of advice. Indeed, Glynda could seem demanding, but at the end of the day she only demanded as much as you could give, and then gave you the instructions to move to another level of expertise. It was her way of being nice, actually. You just had to get used to it.

"Oh, here comes Yang, I guess her turn is up," I heard someone say. Stumbling over to us, the curvaceous blond seemed a little worn out, her face reddened by exertion.

"Oh, hi Boss. Come to watch our rehearsal huh?" She joked, sitting down with a groan, stretching and twisting her back to get out all the kinks.

"Militia, your turn dear. Hop onto the stage," Glynda instructed, the so-named Twin getting up and quick-walking over, knowing that the older woman wasn't someone you wanted to keep waiting. Trust me, I've made that mistake before.

"Break a leg," I called after her, receiving a thumbs up in response. Yeah, even in a business like this, saying 'good luck' was considered bad luck.

"I swear I've never had to exert this much energy in my life until I had to come to Vale," Yang groused, wiping some mildly damp strands of hair from her forehead, receiving nods or mumbles of agreement. I decided to keep my mouth shut on that front, knowing that, since I wasn't the one on the pole, any advice I give would technically be from an outsider's point of view.

"Hey Mr Eclair, I have a question," I heard Nebula ask. Raising an eyebrow, I gestured for her to continue.

"Do you know how Vale even got to be, well, like this," she questioned, gesturing to the general area around us, meaning the city at large. A couple of the other girls muttered at that, seemingly wondering the same thing, now that it was brought up.

"Didn't it have to do with the council decriminalising prostitution and strip clubs a few decades ago?" Blake interjected. There was a low chorus of conjecture and guessing after that, the girls coming up with their own little theory as to why Vale was the City of Sin. I had to give a couple claps, focusing their attention back onto me.

"Ok, let's calm down! Alright, so it's a fair question. I guess the best way to start is with two words; Great War," I began, eyeing each girl to make sure I had their focus. Thankfully, I did.

"Obviously we know about the Great War, it was only the biggest conflict in Remnant's age. So skipping that I'll explain Vale; to start with, Vale was a contender in the Great War with Mistral, Vacuo and Atlas. Originally, the Leaders of Vale assumed that Vacuo would be their biggest worry, what with sharing a landmass with them. But it was actually Mistral who caused a majority of the trouble." A few 'oh's of surprise all around, the girls watching with rapt attention.

"So, I dunno how this started, but Vale started being used as a test dummy for all new weapons development. I'm sure you all know about Dust, and how it's incredibly rare nowadays right? Well Mistral and Atlas are kind of why; they bombarded the whole Kingdom with dust powered weaponry, so much so that we still haven't replenished the used stock 90 years later."

There were low whistles of surprise and shock at that. And I didn't blame them, 90 years was a long time, so for the world wide stock to still be less than it was before the Great War was shocking at the least. I continued, voice dropping to a serious tone.

"What really screwed Vale over however, was Mistral's use of espionage and sabotage. They burned huge tracts of agricultural land, poisoning the soil to keep anything from ever growing again. Spies and agents were sent in, and began attacking the infrastructure of the Kingdom. Power Plants being bombed, transport systems derailed, weapon defence systems torn apart, factories burned to the ground, and of course, political assassinations; taking out the leadership, essentially crippling the head of the Kingdom, I'm sure you can imagine how damaging that all was," I asked them, receiving shocked and horrified looks as I continued.

"Anyway, this continued on for a majority of the Great War. By the end, although there was no official victor, pretty much everyone agreed that Vale was the biggest loser. No farming, no transport, Mistralian agents had even brought in huge quantities of gold, silver and other precious metals, flooding the market and hitting the economy. All in all, Vale accounted for a third of the total casualty count. The Kingdom was broke, almost completely defenceless, and didn't have any way to bring money in to repair everything."

The girls shivered, rightfully horrified by the sheer damage that could be applied to a whole Kingdom. I'm pretty sure I saw a few security guards wince at the explanation as well. The absolute breadth and depth of damage done to Vale back in those years was outstanding, and not in a good way.

"So, how does all that awful shit lead to Vale being the sex capital of the world?" Melanie asked, the others wondering similarly. I held up a hand, gesturing for them to calm down.

"I'm getting to that. So, you have a Kingdom on its last legs, not even half its leaders remaining, and a huge portion of the population dead. The men, who worked a majority of the jobs that kept a city running; plumbing, power, construction, so and so, were gone, or likely crippled. So, the Valean leaders of the time were desperate, and turned to the one thing they had an abundance of; women. They decriminalised prostitution, set up government sanctioned brothels, and spent what little money they could on advertisement. 'Come to Vale, where any man may enjoy the finest things in life; beautiful women and the nights spent with them.' It was a long shot to end all long shots, but, somehow, it worked. Not immediately, Vale went through a huge depression first, but a few decades ago, the Kingdom started to experience tourism once more," I explained.

"And Vale just had to keep rolling with it, because it was all that was generating revenue," Blake guessed, her voice scratchy and filled with the awful realisation of just how badly things got fucked up for Vale. I nodded, and gestured to the building around them.

"Vale went hard into this new lot in life. Sex work and similar businesses there of were essentially legitimised. You could essentially work it like any normal company; there's tax returns, business expenses, the whole lot. The finances I manage are done so in an almost indistinguishable fashion from any average company," I told them. They blinked at that, likely assuming that I had to run a few under the table numbers to help manage our accounts but no, I didn't. Firstly, that was tax fraud, and I wasn't doing any of that. That's how they nabbed Capone.

And secondly, I didn't need to. In every lawful precedent, this place was completely legal. Even Winter, with a stick up the ass in the shape of an Atlas Detective Agency logo, didn't give a shit about this place. Just other stuff.

"Fuck. I mean, I've been living here my whole life and never wondered why Vale was the way it was, and now I'm not sure what to do with that information. Imagine getting fucked over so bad, on a country-wide level, that you have to turn to the worlds oldest profession just to get by," Melanie wondered, absolutely godsmacked at the prospect.

"Shit. Fuck Mistral kinda. Like I know it's been decades, but damn, that shit's fucking crazy," Yang muttered, receiving a chorus of agreement.

"What's crazy, Miss Xiao-Long," another voice interjected. Turning, we all saw Glynda and Militia standing near us, likely only catching the tail end of the conversation as they approached.

"I'm telling them about how Vale became the city we all know and love today," I explained as Militia took a seat next to her sister. She turned to Melanie with a raised eyebrow, having missed the impromptu lecture.

"What's the boss talking about, I missed everything," she wondered, her sister patting her arm.

"I'll explain later, it's messed up."

The older woman sighed, and took a seat of her own, removing her glasses to pinch the bridge of her nose.

"Ah yes, that. Well, without having heard what Mr Eclair said, I'm going to say it was likely true. Vale was beaten into the dirt by Mistral, essentially, and to come back up they had to wear that dirtiness on their sleeve to survive. It's all awful to hear about, especially the years immediately following after the War," she added. Neon raised a hand, seeming to have a question. For some reason I felt like a school teacher now.

"Yes Neon?" I asked her.

"Did Vale ever try to get reparations? Like did they try demanding payments from the other kingdoms for damages done to the city?" She asked. It was a fair question, and caused every eye to slide over to focus on me. I sighed, holding my hands behind my head and leaning back.

"Oh yes, they tried alright. Even attempted to place charges of war crimes against Mistral as a whole, not to mention a few agents they had captured during the whole escapade. They received practically nothing in return. Believe it or not, one of the few things they got was Patch, the island," I told them, causing Yang to blink in surprise. I nodded at their confused expressions. "Yep. Patch used to be an Atlesian Naval Base called Crosspatch, however it was so damaged by the War that it basically amounted to nothing. And that was just one of multiple 'gifts' given to Vale to help 'ease the hardships of the Kingdom.' And no, none of the other proffered gifts were any better."

That certainly dampened the mood. Many of the girls lowered their heads, most likely needing a moment to soak in the information given to them. That Vale, their home whether or not they were born here, was in such a state because it got fucking reamed by Mistral.

I stood, clapping a few times to return their attention to me.

"I know, I know, it's all rather depressing. But look, it's been too many years for it to matter anymore. Let's all just keep our eyes to the future, and not get so stuck in the past. That's how you go loco," I quipped, but received only half hearted smiles in response. Ignoring that, I continued on, "Anyways, how about we take a break, and get some food, okay? You'll feel better on a full stomach."

That seemed to please them. After a day of practice and rehearsal, most of the girls had gotten hungry ages ago. Everyone clammered to speak their order, and I internally cried at the foolishness of offering to take their orders on my own. Yeah, that was my bad.

"And hello to you too Neo. Enjoy your little nap?" I heard Blake sarcastically quip, turning to see the ice cream haired mute stumbling over to the tables, yawning. She casually flipped Blake off, before slumping down into a chair, and tilted her head at us, her way of asking what we were doing.

"We're ordering some food. Care to join?" Nebula asked, receiving an excited nod in response. Yeah, I figured as much.

"Oh hey, boss, shouldn't you text Ciel or something, ask if she wants to swing around and have some food with us?" Yang asked, everyone sounding an agreement.

"Okay, fair. I'll text her right now and give her a few minutes to respond," I told them, the twins and Yang quipping with a 'You better!' as I texted our missing member.

E: Hey Ciel, this is Franc. The rest of the girls and I are ordering some lunch, and it seemed only right to ask you if you wanted to join in. You up for it?

Thankfully, Ciel seemed a diligent texted, and responded almost immediately.

C: Thank you Mr Eclair. I think I would like to join you, if that's alright.

E: Sure, swing on by the House whenever you're ready, and we'll start ordering then.

C: Thank you. I'll just be 15 minutes.

"Ciel says she'll just be 15 minutes everyone. You all figured out your orders?" I questioned, receiving a plethora of 'yeah's in answer. Awesome.

Just as she said, Ciel entered the House 15 minutes later, waving hello when being greeted by everyone. After sitting, and us having a little chat amongst each other for a while, she ordered, and the food was on its way. Neon gasped, causing the others to raise an eyebrow, but instead of explaining herself, she jogged off, saying something about doing something.

Confused for a moment, our unasked questions were answered when a funky beat started playing over the sound system. We cheered, and applauded Neon's return, who took a bow, much like a different sort of performer.

And when the food arrived, the excitement escalated 9 fold. It was a hodgepodge of a feast, with chicken dishes, stews, pasta and good ol' pizza laid out on the tables, with everyone slinking in between each table and picking out a little bit of everything.

There was a spicy dish of some sort too, and currently Yang, Nebula and the Twins were in the throes of an epic battle, each girl red faced and panting, the spice causing them to tear up a little. I wondered who would win. I knew Yang and the Twin's were stubborn, and though I didn't know Nebula so well, something told me she was similar. Better keep some milk on standby.

Looking elsewhere, I saw Blake and Ciel chatting about something, but from how excitedly animated they were getting, I assumed it was a topic they both had an interest in. Maybe reading. Blake was a bookworm and Ciel seemed similar, but that was just an assumption. For all I knew they were both excitedly talking about their favourite knitting techniques. Ah, whatever. As long as they were getting along.

Biting into a slice of pizza, I was content to sit there and people watch for a bit, when I felt a hand tap my shoulder. Turning, I saw Grover standing behind me, silently gesturing that he needed to talk about something.

Putting my plate down, I lead the way to my office, Grover following after.

"Alright Grover, we've got some space now. There an issue that needs handling?" I asked, grabbing a glass from the mini bar and mixing myself a drink, offering one to Grover out of politeness, though he declined.

"Nothing bad sir. I bring news about that man you're looking for, Torchwick," he explained. I stopped making the drink, and turned to face him, seeing that he was holding a folder in one hand.

My drink forgotten, I take the proffered folder and open it. There were a few pictures and a slip of paper with an address, a date from 3 days ago scratched next to the address.

The photos showed a red haired man, dressed in a black hoodie and grey pants, a face mask covering the lower half of his face.

"A convenience store on Trike Avenue. He was seen here 3 days ago?" I questioned, Grover nodding his ascent. I hummed in thought, inspecting the photos closely. Roman Torchwick, thief of Vale, hadn't been seen in the public eye for close to 3 months. And from what Neo's explained to me, that's about as long since she saw him as well. Said something about a business opportunity that he didn't return from.

Odd.

But still, these photos only gave so much information. It might not even be Roman, just some red haired guy. He matched the build, yes, but again, that wasn't anything certain. I should still inform Neo, however.

"Grover, go and retrieve Neo for me would you? She'll wanna see this," I instructed, the large man nodding and stepping out to the dining room. Turning back to my mini bar, I finished making my drink, a Tom Collins, and sipped at the chilled glasses with a sigh. Benefits of being a bar owner as well as a bordello manager, you can afford the good stuff for making really fine cocktails.

Rechecking the photos, I grimaced. It wasn't a hell of a lot to go on. 3 days ago these photos were taken, by semi-grainy security cameras, of a guy who could maybe-possibly be the man I'm looking for, in a city with a population of millions. Maybe I underestimated just how much work this would be.

"Neo here boss. Will that be all?" I heard Grover ask. Telling him no, and thanking him, I let him go back to his station. Neo, no doubt having an idea of what this was about, seemed to shimmy in place, impatient. Instead of merely explaining everything, I gave the folder over for her perusal.

Her face splitting into an excited grin, she took the folder and observed the photos, her smiling slowly fading as she saw the complete lack of any proper information. Turning to me, she held the folder out and shook it, no doubt wondering if this was it. Sighing, I nodded my head.

"I know, it's not much. We can maybe check the area around the store, but I'm not sure if that will help too much," I told her, deciding to be honest about the situation. Neo sighed, bowing her head in defeat. I gently took the folder from her hands and placed it on my desk, placing a hand on her shoulder.

She would deny this until the day she dies, I'm sure, and I wouldn't be the one to tell anyone this, but I heard Neo let out a few sniffles, her eyes downcast. This must have been affecting her more than I originally realised.

"Listen sweetie. Do you need a day off or something? Maybe just some time to hang around here and calm down?" I asked her. She seemed to take a moment to think about it, before raising her eyes up to look at me, shaking her head no. I raised an eyebrow, but she waved off my concern, wiping her eyes dry with a watery smile. I made a mental note to keep an eye on her, just in case.

After fully drying her eyes, Neo straightened her posture and strutted her way out, dragging me behind her, leaving my poor drink to go to waste. The others didn't seem to notice anything off with her behaviour, Neo playing the part of her usual self to a T, sitting herself down and crossing one leg over the other, snatching a bit of food from Neon, causing the other girl to exclaim indignantly.

I myself continued eating in relative silence.