9. A Little Birdie Told Me
"Okay," Roman commented at last. "That's…not good."
Yzma tapped her foot impatiently. "If you lied to us…"
"He didn't," Mozenrath said sternly. "This storeroom was full of Dust earlier. It's been moved."
"By WHO?" Roman was now livid. "I was the ONLY one who knew where this was!"
"What about that boss you keep bringing up?" Wuya asked.
Roman clenched his teeth. "Cinder. She shouldn't have CARED enough."
"Is Cinder the boss?" Mim asked.
Roman shook his head. "No. More like the second-in-command. Trust me, you don't want to know about the REAL boss."
"It looks like Cinder got the drop on us," Wuya hissed.
"Maybe," Roman mused. "Or…maybe not. There's one place we could go for information. I'm not sure if it survived the chaos, but if it did, SOMEONE there will know what we're looking for, and for the right price, we can get where all my Dust is out of them."
"Then lead the way," Mozenrath commanded. "And while you do, tell us more about this…Cinder."
"Oh, I'll tell you more about the whole outfit," Roman promised, turning to walk down the street. "Just keep to the sides and don't engage any of the Grimm. Even you, Skullface. I know they're just asking to be made into new helmets, but we don't need to attract attention."
A crow passed overhead: not a Nevermore, but an ordinary sized bird. As it cawed, Roman felt a sudden chill come on. This was frustrating. The last thing he needed was for that last Nevermore from his aerial battle in the Remnant skies to have given him a fear of something as silly as birds.
The crow landed on a rooftop, its shining eyes watching the motley group of villains pass through the streets. This was all wrong. Roman Torchwick was supposed to be dead. The Grimm were supposed to be the biggest threat left in Vale. If Roman was not only alive, but moving about and making schemes…that spelled trouble.
Maybe that girl shouldn't have left home after all, the crow thought. He would trail this group a while to make sure of his suspicions.
...
"So first of all," Roman explained as the eight paraded down a back alley, "there's Cinder Fall. See, unlike on Mozenrath's world, where sorcerers seem to be a dime a dozen, here, we only have four people who can actually use magic. One for each season. All women. Cinder wanted to be the Fall Maiden, but when she tried to kill the previous Fall Maiden for the power, she botched up the job and only got half of it. So a lot of what we were doing was trying to get her close enough to the girl to finish up and get the rest of it. You know what you get when you're the Fall Maiden, by the way? Fire. Lots and lots of fire. That was kind of Cinder's mode of operation. Now, I never saw if she did manage to get the rest of ol' Fall's powers. If she did…well, I'd say watch out, but I'm betting the eight of us could put the smackdown on her.
"Then there's Emerald Sustrai. More of a petty thief than anything. Her Semblance let her basically hack your mind and give you bad trips. She could make you think you were fighting your worst enemy when you were really standing in front of your best friend."
"Was she one of the Maidens?" Mozenrath asked.
"Nope," Roman replied.
"Then how could she use that kind of magic?" Mozenrath continued.
"Because Semblances aren't magic," Roman told him. "You didn't notice how I was able to get past the Cornerstone, but you weren't? Yours is magic. I just have Aura."
"And what does your Aura let you do?"
"Need to know basis, Righty. Need to know basis. But everybody's lets them do something a little different, and Green's – Emerald's – is for hacking minds. No idea what happened to her, either," Roman continued.
"Next, you've got Mercury Black. The most annoying little shit you'll ever meet. Way too many daddy issues, too. Apparently the guy cut off his legs to replace them with weapons. Or maybe Black did that himself. I didn't pay attention to his weepy backstory. Anyway, he doesn't hack minds or throw fireballs, but if he sees you, he will literally kick your ass.
"Finally, there's Adam Taurus. Didn't really know much about the guy. He ran with the White Fang. Y'know, the Faunus. Skull-Face, you'd hate this guy. First of all, I think he'd make your kill list. And second, he and the other White Fangers went around wearing masks shaped like skulls to scare everybody, and trust me, they didn't earn them through kills. You actually made doing that COOL. And there you have it." Roman thought it over. "Actually, wait. There was…one more.
"I ran with a little illusionist called Neo. She didn't hack minds, but she could still make you think you'd seen things when you hadn't. She was the one person out of all of them I actually liked. Too bad she's probably dead now. Last I saw her, she got thrown off the edge of an airship by somebody who claimed to be the hero of the story. Right into a flock of Nevermores. Then again, she always was able to claw her way out of near-death situations. Maybe she did it again. That'd be nice. She'd fit right in with this outfit, y'know."
"But what about the boss?" Yzma insisted.
"All you need to know is two things," Roman told her. "First of all, I'm not even sure the eight of us could take her. Second, her name is Salem. Now will you stop asking?"
Yzma nodded. "That sounds like enough."
They rounded a corner only to be greeted with the sight of a spined, bearlike Grimm roaring in their faces: an Ursa. The eight were taken aback only momentarily before Mozenrath pointed out, "Huntsman, I believe I owe you a kill."
"That you do." The Huntsman withdrew the huntstaff, shoving Roman aside to take the lead. He leapt into the air, driving the huntstaff down toward the Ursa's neck. As its head severed neatly from its body, several more Ursas rounded the corner into the back street, now alerted to the fact that there was prey there.
One of the Ursas was immediately felled by a dart from Yzma's atlatl lodging in its throat. Another was cleaved in two by Aghoul's scythe. Wuya leapt over both of them to deliver a spinning kick to the back of an Ursa, felling it with her superhuman strength, before she ripped a chunk of concrete out of the street telekinetically and crunched the Grimm beneath it. Mozenrath picked an entire Ursa up with the power of his gauntlet, magically ramming it into the wall over and over until a telltale "snap" was heard. Mim met the next Ursa in the form of an equally large bear, wrestling the creature just long enough to pin it down on its back and rip out its vitals with a pink claw and a mad giggle. The last Ursa in the pack charged Snatcher with full force; Snatcher gracefully sidestepped before launching his mallet at the Ursa's head, stunning it. Once the Grimm was down. Roman planted a foot and a Cudgel barrel on its head, delivering the coup de grace.
"And you think the eight of us couldn't take your old boss," Mozenrath remarked with a proud smirk as he looked over the carnage they'd left.
"Trust me," Roman replied, lighting a victory cigarette. "But we do stand a chance against your average Huntress."
"What was that?" the Huntsman asked.
Roman took a drag from his cigarette before removing it to explain: "This world's got its own version of Huntsmen. Not NEARLY as awesome as your version. They're out to get rid of the Grimm AND people like us. They're the types that like to play hero. I'm sure you're familiar."
"Too familiar," Mozenrath and Aghoul growled as one.
"We see any of them," Roman declared, "we pull a maneuver on them like we did on those Grimm. Enough said."
He took the lead of the group once more, leading them across the now bloodied ground. The crow that had been following them decided to take his leave. He'd seen and heard enough. Circumstances had changed greatly. He'd let someone go with his blessing because he'd thought the greater evil was elsewhere. But now it seemed more attention was needed here.
...
The rest of Remnant was not so gloomy gray as Vale. The sun shone quite brightly over a wooded trail. This was the road that Sora, Riku, and Kairi found themselves walking, looking about at the thick forestation.
"So this is Remnant," Sora announced.
"It seems peaceful," Kairi commented.
Riku shook his head. "It's not. The Darkness is strong here. I can sense it."
"Huh," Sora replied. "Have you ever felt that for a whole world before? I thought you could only sense it on certain people."
"I did too," Riku admitted. "But this place…it's covered in the scent of Darkness. I've never felt anything like it before."
Not too long down the path, they realized that there were four other people walking directly toward them. From what the trio could observe, they were, from left to right: a girl dressed all in red, with dark hair; a tall, blonde boy wearing a breastplate and blue jeans; a young man of raven hair wearing a green jacket; and a short young woman with bright orange hair, wearing a pink minidress. As the group approached, the girl in red put up a hand to wave: "Hellooooooo!"
Sora returned the gesture: "Helloooooooo!"
"Looks like Sora's already made a new friend," Riku muttered with a smile.
As the two groups came close, Sora asked, "Which way does this road go?"
"It goes to Patch," the girl in red explained. "And then to Vale."
"You might not wanna go to Vale right now, though," the girl in pink warned.
"Why not?" Sora asked.
The two young men seemed taken aback by this. "Don't you watch the news?" the blonde boy asked.
"Uh…no?" Sora supplied.
"We aren't from around here," Riku explained.
"But everyone in Remnant should know what happened to Vale," the boy in green pointed out. "Or at least that something happened to it."
"Well, where are you going?" Sora asked.
The orange-haired girl thrust a fist into the sky. "ROAD TRIP TO HAVEN!"
"What's in Haven?" Sora inquired.
The four travelers exchanged looks, wondering how much they should share with these three strangers. Finally, the girl in red said, "We think…something bad. And we're going there to try and stop it."
"Maybe we should go with you," Sora suggested. He looked from Riku to Kairi to see if they agreed.
"Stopping bad things is kind of what we do," Riku chimed in.
"If there's any way we can help," Kairi added.
"You wanna help us?" The blonde boy was perplexed. "We only just met."
"It doesn't matter," Sora replied. "If you need our help, then we should give it to you. Think of it as a favor between friends."
"We're already friends now?" The blonde boy was just becoming more and more confused.
The dark-haired boy and Riku became momentarily locked in a staring contest. Each was wondering if the other's group could be trusted. Why didn't this strange trio know about the catastrophe in Vale? Why were these four so eager to get away from that kingdom, and what part had they played in whatever tragedy had gripped it? But Riku couldn't sense any obvious darkness among these four, and the boy in green didn't really have a good reason to see the three travelers as dangerous, so they both relaxed their guard for the time being.
"Well…we might become friends," Sora suggested. "Whaddaya say? Room for three more?"
"I don't see why not!" the girl in red replied enthusiastically. She then looked to her own companions for approval: "Guys?"
"All right," the blonde boy relented. "We can stick together for a little while at least."
"The more, the merrier!" the orange-haired girl chirped.
The black-haired boy simply nodded.
Sora stepped forward, offering his right hand. "I'm Sora," he introduced. "What's your name?"
"Ruby Rose!" the girl in red replied eagerly, clasping his hand in her own and pumping it once.
"Riku," Riku introduced with a nod toward the black-haired boy and the girl in pink.
"Lie Ren," the boy responded with a similar nod.
"And I'm Nora Valkyrie!" Nora rushed forward, grabbing Riku's hand away from his side so she could shake it repeatedly with force. "Nice to meetcha, Riku!"
Kairi stepped forward to face the tallest boy. "I'm Kairi," she greeted, extending her own hand.
"Uh…" The boy got a very good look at Kairi for the first time; his gaze had mostly been directed toward Sora since the three had turned up. She wasn't just beautiful. That red hair and something in the way she carried herself reminded the young man of someone he had known not too long ago; someone he had once loved. And yet, for all she appeared the same, there was something different about her, a sparkle in her eye, the curve of her smile. He felt his face heating up just looking at her. "…Arc," he sputtered at last. "I'm Arc. Arc? JAUNE. My name is Jaune. Arc is my last name. Heheh…meet to nice you. NICE TO MEET YOU!" He gently took Kairi's hand (noting it was very soft) and shook it gingerly before letting go, hoping she wasn't taking notice of his obvious blush.
She just giggled. "Nice to meet you too, Jaune!"
"Well?" Sora offered. "Should we get going?" He, Riku, and Kairi did an about-face to fall in step alongside Ruby, Jaune, Ren, and Nora.
"Onward!" Ruby announced. "To Haven!"
As the seven set out, Kairi asked, "What happened in Vale, anyway? Is that your kingdom?"
"It was our kingdom," Ruby confirmed. "Right now, we still don't know exactly what happened. Everyone was all excited for the Vytal Festival and the tournament in Amity Coliseum, and everybody was having a great time, until…it all just suddenly went wrong."
"Enemies of our kingdom slipped in without us noticing," Ren clarified. "They set up schemes to cause the people of Vale to fall into a panic. They fixed matches of the tournament so that the people we trusted looked like they were hurting other people without reason. That's what caused the Grimm to overrun the kingdom."
"And they fixed it to look like Atlas was attacking us by having their robots go rogue!" Nora chimed in. "But we KNOW General Ironwood would never do that! The bad guys hacked the mainframe somehow!"
"It wasn't 'hacking the mainframe,'" Ren corrected.
"Atlas was framed!" Nora went on. "IRONWOOD WAS FRAMED!"
"And after all this, we still don't know what they want," Ruby concluded. "They managed to fill Vale up with invading Grimm. But why? What do they get out of all of it? The only person I could ask said it wasn't about gaining anything, and he was just trying to survive because the real world wasn't fair. He said he joined the other bad guys because he didn't have a choice. And for a person like him to think there's no other choice or a way to survive because of those other people? What does that even mean?" She had to pause then, blinking hard so no tears would escape. Sora glanced over at Ruby, and he could tell there was an extreme grief embedded in her heart. Riku looked to her as well, and without even asking, he knew that somehow, she'd been struck more personally than just her hometown being invaded and pillaged. Something had happened to leave a great scar across her, and she was doing her best to keep her chin up in spite of it.
"That's awful," Sora told Ruby. "Just…one thing, though. What are Grimm?"
That caused the four travelers from Vale to stop dead in their tracks. "How do you not know what GRIMM are?" Nora asked in awe.
"There are Grimm all over the world," Jaune added.
"What," Nora went on, "do you come from another WORLD or something?"
Sora, Riku, and Kairi were silent for a while. Then, at last, Sora answered, "Well…about that…what if I said yes?"
"OH MY GOSH YOU'RE FROM ANOTHER WORLD!" Nora pointed at Sora in awe, her arm shaking with excitement.
"Really?" Ruby had her doubts. "That's a little…"
"Far-fetched," Jaune supplied.
"Though it would explain how you didn't know what happened to Vale," Ren realized.
"I know it's a little hard to believe," Riku said, "but there's a lot more out there than most people know."
"Hmm." Ruby thought it over. She looked from Sora to Riku to Kairi. Then, after much deliberation, she announced, "I believe you."
"Why?" Jaune asked her.
"There's just…something about them," Ruby replied. "They seem honest."
Ruby had thought that about Emerald Sustrai and Mercury Black once upon a time, Jaune recalled, but he knew better than to play that card. He did have to admit that they seemed genuine enough. And while the idea of other worlds sounded preposterous at first, he didn't have absolute proof that they didn't exist somewhere out there. Only time would tell. And deep down, he hoped that Kairi most of all wasn't a liar. "Okay," he relented. "I won't argue. So do you just go around to other worlds saving people who need help?"
"Basically, yeah," Sora confirmed. "That's what Keybearers do. Well, it's what they're SUPPOSED to do, anyway."
"What do you mean 'Keybearer'?" Ren asked.
Sora, Riku, and Kairi extended their hands, and three Keyblades appeared in synchrony. "This is what we mean," Riku explained.
"I've never seen swords like those before!" Ruby's eyes sparkled.
"They're not just any swords," Sora told her. "They're keys to the hearts of worlds. We can do stuff with them that you can't just do with ordinary swords."
"SO COOL!" Ruby squeaked.
"Thank you!" Kairi laughed.
The loud caw of a crow echoed through the sky, and the attention of the seven was drawn upward. They saw the dark bird wheel through the air and come to land somewhere in the adjacent forest. What they didn't see was that when the crow landed, he transformed, hidden by the cover of the woods. He became a human: a lanky man dressed in gray and black, with a red cape, cropped dark hair, and a good bit of scruff on his chin.
"Tell us more about the kingdoms of this world," Riku demanded as the seven set up their walk again. "You mentioned another one called Atlas."
"We've already told you about Vale," Ren answered.
"Atlas is a kingdom with a strong military," Jaune added. "They sent their ships to Vale to try and protect it. But, like Nora said, somebody took over their technology to make it look like they were attacking Vale. They were already suspicious, anyway. Everybody wondered what was with all the soldiers and guns they were bringing."
"But Atlas isn't bad," Ruby insisted. "I have a…a friend who lives there now."
"Now, Mistral, on the other hand," Nora picked up, "is where you'll find Haven Academy. That's where we're going because we got a tip that the bad guys were there!"
"It wasn't much of a tip," Jaune went on, "but it's all we have."
"Not exactly," a gruff voice sounded from behind the group. The seven turned to see the red-caped man standing behind them, giving them a stern look.
"Uncle Qrow?" Ruby said by way of confused greeting.
"So this is where you've been all this time." Qrow's stern expression softened. "Shoulda known you wouldn't just lie back and wait for something to happen. Taiyang's probably having a fit wondering where you are, y'know."
"I left a note," Ruby said meekly. "Are you here to take me back home?"
"We were all going to take good care of her!" Nora insisted.
"Take you back home?" Qrow repeated. "That depends. See, your dad would probably think it's too dangerous for you to go out looking for trouble. But I kinda find it admirable. You remind me of a real smart kid I used to know. Tough, too."
"You're talking about yourself, aren't you?" Ruby teased.
"How'd you guess?" Qrow replied. "Anyway, if this is what you think is right, then you can keep going. If you want to stay SAFE, you can turn around and go right back to your homes and families. But there's something else I thought you should know about. The enemy MIGHT be in Mistral. But one of our enemies DEFINITELY turned back up in Vale, and he's got company."
"What are you talking about?" Jaune asked.
"I don't know how," Qrow informed the group, "but it turns out Roman Torchwick isn't dead after all."
This news settled over Ruby, Jaune, Ren, and Nora like a heavy rain cloud. "But…I saw him get eaten by a Grimm that blew up," Ruby said softly.
"Who's Roman Torchwick?" Sora asked.
"One of the baddest of the bad guys," Nora answered. "He's a thief, a murderer, a vandal, and all-around nasty!"
"Did he find Neo?" Ruby asked. "Or did he join back up with Mercury or Emerald?"
Qrow shook his head. "He's got a new team now. Seven people I've never seen before. All I know is that they can take out a pack of Ursas in about ten minutes, and they wouldn't hesitate to do the same to any Huntress or Huntsman they came across."
"Hang on," Sora realized. "That makes eight. We came here looking for four bad guys who were messing with our friends, but that was right after we fought four different bad guys. We didn't know if they were related, but what if they're all working together?"
"They're bad news," Qrow went on. "I wouldn't want you to take 'em on and lose. But knowing you…I knew you wouldn't want something like that to pass by without you realizing it."
"Do you know what they're after?" Ruby asked.
"Dust," Qrow answered. "They found the same store we did, and it's only a matter of time before they figure out where we confiscated it. Now that you know, I guess you have a decision to make."
Ruby nodded. "I think I know what I want to do. And it's probably not what you want me to do."
"I want you to do what you think is right," Qrow reminded her. "Just so long as you keep moving forward and never stop thinking."
"Is that all you came here to tell me?" Ruby asked.
"Well…there is one more thing," Qrow responded, stepping closer to Ruby. "I wanted to let you know that whatever happens…" He ruffled his niece-in-law's hair. "I love ya, kid."
"I love you too, Uncle Qrow," Ruby replied.
"AAAWWWW!" Sora and Nora cooed.
"So. You made up your mind?" Qrow asked.
Ruby turned to look at her six traveling companions. "I want to go back to Vale," she announced. "Haven was a lead, but we weren't sure it was the right one. We KNOW what's going on in Vale now. And we can't just let Torchwick run around taking what he wants."
"Wherever you go," Ren told Ruby, "we're right beside you."
"And so are we," Riku added.
Sora turned to speak to Qrow: "Hey, thanks for letting us know about – "
But by then, Qrow was gone. The caw of a bird echoed through the air.
"Okaaaaaaaay," Sora sighed.
"He does that sometimes," Ruby told him. "It used to weird us out when we were kids."
"'Us'?" Kairi repeated.
"My sister and me," Ruby answered solemnly. "We should really get going."
Riku figured that whatever had happened to Ruby back in Vale, it had involved her sister. That was the only explanation for her quick change of subject.
As the seven did an about-face, Kairi noticed Jaune lagging behind. She fell into step beside him. "This is still a little weird for you, isn't it?"
"The whole 'people from other worlds' thing was weird enough," Jaune told her. "Now apparently there's a dead guy running around alive."
"It can take some time to get used to," Kairi told him. "I always wanted to know about other worlds. All three of us did. But it didn't really become…real until we had everything shown to us. When we got the Keyblades. I thought I was ready to see what was out there, but I didn't have any idea of what it was like until Sora and Riku showed me. You do get used to it, though."
"I hope so," Jaune told her. "It seems like every time I have anything figured out nowadays, it changes."
"Same here," Kairi admitted. "Maybe one of these days, we'll get it right."
"Yeah," Jaune agreed. "Maybe we will."
...
Hei "Junior" Xiong didn't know, sometimes, why he still kept up maintenance on the club. No one ever seemed to drop by anymore, and for good reason. Who wanted to drink, dance, be merry, and swap information when the streets were filled with rampaging Grimm? Most of his staff had even left for better opportunities. The Malachite twins still stuck around, thank goodness. But Junior's regular DJ had made for the hills, and the music was now in the hands of pretty much the only regular patron Junior's establishment had left. He looked up to where the woman was on the turntables, filling the cavernous room with haunting sounds before leaving the table to dance to her own choice of tune.
There was a time, Junior lamented, that he'd actually been one of the most powerful men in Vale. Even the likes of Roman Torchwick came to him looking for hired guns and tip-offs. The money and influence came rolling into Junior's hands without him ever having to get them dirty. But now, he was lucky if somebody came along just looking to order a blooming onion. At least if the blonde came back, she wouldn't have that much of his property left to ruin, but he'd heard through the grapevine that she was in no mood to come ruin his day anyway.
The doors parted, and Junior's attention was drawn to the door to see who was striding in. When he saw who was at the lead of the group, he dropped and shattered a glass. There were many people he had expected never to see cross his threshold again, but one in particular who he thought physically couldn't. And here he was, Cudgel in hand, confident as could be as he approached the counter.
"Been a while, hasn't it?" Roman Torchwick greeted. "Man, has this place ever gone to the dogs."
"You're…you're dead," Junior sputtered.
"Am I?" Roman retorted.
Junior's eyes then flickered over the seven others who had entered right after Roman. He'd never seen any of them before, and had absolutely no idea what to make of Mozenrath, Snatcher, Mim, Yzma, Aghoul, Wuya, or the Huntsman. "I see you're running with a new crowd these days," he managed at last.
"They're competent AND tolerable," Roman informed Junior. "So I won't be needing any more of your services in the henchman department."
Junior didn't want to let on how glad he was of that. He didn't have any muscle left to rent out; the Malachites wouldn't lower themselves to taking orders from Torchwick, and there was literally no one else in Junior's employ.
The impromptu DJ was frozen in place, watching the scene play out. Was it true? Her eyes had to be playing tricks on her. Maybe Emerald had found her way to this club and was making her see things that weren't there. It was a distinct possibility, after all; no one had kept tabs on where the hallucination-inducing woman had gone after the upheaval. The woman at the turntable desperately hoped she wasn't seeing things. The news that Roman Torchwick was dead hadn't broken her, but it had brought her down for a while. Did she really have him back?
She vaulted over the turntable, making a mad dash. Before Roman and Junior could exchange another word, she practically tackled Roman, wrapping her arms around his waist tightly.
Taken off guard by the sudden embrace, Roman, believing himself under assault, twisted out of the grip of his assailant, grabbing her wrist to put it up behind her back in a hold. Her wrist fluidly snapped out of his grip, and she danced out of his way before he could make another move, giving him enough time to really look at who she was: her short stature; her tri-colored hair of pink, white, and deep brown; her clothing choice of a matching palette; her mismatched irises. Roman's face immediately lit up as he recognized his former partner in crime: "NEO!"
Neo bounced on the balls of her feet, giving a coy little wave.
Roman turned back to his cohorts, gesturing toward Neo. "This is Neo, the little freak I told you about," he introduced.
Behind his back, Neo stuck out her tongue.
Roman turned back to Neo, and back into her mouth her tongue went. "So I see YOU survived," he remarked.
She nodded, then pointed to Roman.
"Yeah, me too," he confirmed. "Well, technically, died and came back to life. I'm guessing you skipped the 'died' part."
Neo nodded. She didn't quite understand how Roman was able to come back from the dead, but she would run with it for the time being.
"You hear anything from Green, Black, or Ashes?" Roman asked.
Neo shook her head.
"So you're not working with them."
She shook her head again.
Roman was practically giddy. "How would you like to come work with US? My new pals are mean on the battlefield AND the dancefloor."
Neo nodded with enthusiasm, looking over the group.
"Does that girl even know what she's getting into?" Wuya asked.
"Do we know what we're getting into with her?" Aghoul replied.
Snatcher wondered exactly what the relationship between these two was. They seemed incredibly close, given the teasing. He bet they were lovers. That would be just his luck, but certainly not the first time it had happened to him regarding someone he felt for.
"You are not gonna regret this," Roman told the others. "Neo has two specialties: illusions and killing things."
"I like that already," Mozenrath remarked with a wicked grin.
"I've never wanted children," Mim mused, "but if I had one, I would want her to be described exactly that way."
"So." Roman turned back to Neo. "Any idea what happened to our Dust stash?"
Neo shook her head. She then pointed to Junior and gave a shrug.
"Yo. Junior." Roman turned his attention to where Junior was cleaning glasses behind the bar. "I've got something I wanna know. And I think you just might know it. Whaddaya say? A little info trade, like old times?"
Junior grinned. It had been a while since one of these. "Just so you know," he informed Roman, "my rates have gone up."
"Hmmm…" Roman mulled it over, looking over to his cohorts. "Now, I'm not entirely sure about that. I think they just might have gone down."
One moment, Junior had just set his glass on the table, looking up to Roman and wondering what he meant by that. Was that a threat? Junior was pretty sure he could take Roman one-on-one. Before he had time to finish that thought, he was suddenly pinned to the far wall by magic; it felt as though a solid brick wall was pressing against him. Mozenrath held his gauntlet out, palm to Junior, keeping him suspended there. As Junior gasped for air against the magical force that squeezed his lungs, he watched as Mim knocked several glasses off the counter in a melodic tinkling. Wuya directed the shards into the air, commanding them to fly around Junior, threatening to stab his skin a thousand times over.
"Okay, okay!" Junior sputtered. "I'll talk! Just let me down first!"
"The information first," Snatcher countered.
"Ozpin's old lackeys," Junior coughed. "The blonde huntress with the specs and the drunk guy. They found the Dust stash. They weren't sure what to do with it or where it came from, so they moved it somewhere they thought was safe until they could figure it out."
"And where did they think it was safe, Mr…?" Snatcher faltered.
"Xiong," Roman supplied. "I mean, most of us just call him 'Junior,' but I can tell you need to do the last name thing."
"Mr. Xiong," Snatcher reiterated. "WHERE did these thieves deem 'safe' for our Dust?"
"Beacon," Junior sputtered. Was it his imagination, or were the glass shards getting closer? "The crates got taken to Beacon."
"Some of us are new to the area," Mozenrath pointed out. "What's at Beacon that we need to watch out for?"
"Like I said, Ozpin's lackeys go there to check up on things," Junior coughed. "The giant Grimm is still there, but it's frozen."
"Wait, wait, wait." Roman shook his head. "You're gonna need to clarify."
The invisible force seemed to tighten, and Junior wondered whether he'd simply suffocate instead of being ripped to shreds by glass. "The giant Grimm that escaped! The one that looked like a dragon! The Rose girl did something weird with her Aura at the top of the school, and now it's frozen there! Nobody can explain it better than that! But it hasn't moved since then, so it shouldn't be dangerous!"
And with that, Junior collapsed to the floor. The glass shards jingled down harmlessly around him, surrounding him in a prismatic arc.
"Awwww, why didn't you stab him?" Mim pouted. Aghoul and Neo seemed equally disappointed.
"Because if we don't leave some of them alive," Wuya pointed out, "they're going to start catching on that our threats are empty. Besides, he might come in handy later if he knows so much."
Junior thanked everything he knew to thank for that.
Roman gave a sigh of frustration. "Looks like we're going on a little road trip," he announced.
"To Beacon it is," Mozenrath resolved.
Snatcher gestured to the doorway. "Lead on, Mr. Torchwick."
Giving a tip of the hat to Snatcher, Roman did just that. As Snatcher, Mozenrath, Yzma, Wuya, the Huntsman, Mim, and Aghoul followed, Neo now skipped along behind them.
As soon as the lot were gone, Junior hastily poured himself a stiff drink and emptied the glass in three swallows.