AUTHOR'S NOTES: Back from a week's vacation, and ready to get back to work. This chapter is another talky one without much action, and I had planned on it being a little longer...but at 6300 words, it's time to stop for the night. All the same, this sets up a lot of future plot threads.
Note that the Caesars' Palace in this story is based on the 1960s version, but even then, is a very skewed and darker version of the real thing. No copyright infringement is intended! I'm pretty damn sure the real hotel doesn't do these things...
EDIT: Changed the last paragraph. I didn't like the way that ended; it felt too sexualized, and unnecessary.
Caesars' Palace Hotel
Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of Canada (Provisionally)
22 April 2022
"Holy…crap," Ruby breathed. "I've heard stories about this place, but…wow."
Lieutenant Colonel Lonzo Wilkerson laughed. "If there's a place that screams Las Vegas, it's the Palace." He manuevered the unmarked SUV through the traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard—better known simply as the Strip—and managed to stop close to the main entrance. He had barely slowed to a stop before two things happened: people started honking their horns and yelling at him to keep moving, and a group of men dressed as Roman legionnaires double-timed to meet them. As soon as the legionnaires reached the car, the honking stopped. "All right, ladies, these guys will take care of you. Remember my briefing, and you should be okay." Wilkerson looked at Yang pointedly over the tops of his sunglasses. "Right, Captain?"
"Yes, sir, absolutely, sir." Yang got out of the driver's seat and opened the door for Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Riana. Her cheeks burned a little with embarrassment. The last time she had been in Las Vegas, she had accidentally almost started a fight with members of the Branwen Tribe…less than an hour after Wilkerson had told her expressly not to start a fight. It had worked out in the end, but had Flynt Coal, Neon Katt and a MH-53 Jolly Green crew not been there, Yang might have ended the night in jail, the hospital, or the morgue.
"Good luck, Ruby Flight," Wilkerson said. "Miss Arashikaze, I'll be in touch." He slid his sunglasses back up his nose, waited until the legionnaires got their sparse luggage out, and drove off. Still thunderstruck by the Palace, the five women followed them.
Caesars Palace was opulent, though that seemed too paltry of a word. The entranceway they followed the legionnaires down was deliberately reminiscent of the Appian Way, with pines lining either side and fountains in the middle, with reproductions of Roman statuary amid the fountains. Columned extensions of the main hotel extended outwards in a half-crescent, in a gaudy and poor taste parody of St. Peter's Square, while the main hotel rose fifteen stories behind it, flanked by two even higher hotel extensions, all done in faux Roman styling. It was at both magnificient and hopelessly kitschy at the same time. The white marble façade gleamed in the Nevada sun, which luckily was not as blazingly hot as Yang remembered. All five of them still wore their aviator sunglasses, and still wore their flight suits—none had been expecting this.
When they reached the entrance, the legionnaires stopped and came to loose attention, with Ruby Flight's and Riana's bags at their feet. A woman about Yang's height and build walked out, dressed in a gauzy toga that left very little to the imagination. She bowed to them; unsure of what to do, the five of them awkwardly bowed back. The woman smiled indulgently. "You are Ruby Rose, Yang Xiao Long, Blake Belladonna, Weiss Schnee, and Riana Urgano?" Several eyebrows went up at that, but Ruby supposed that Riana wouldn't travel under her real name. Assuming Arashikaze's even her real name, she wondered.
"That's us," Yang replied.
"Welcome. I am Hersilia. I am to escort you to the Empress' quarters."
"The what now?" Ruby asked.
"The Empress' quarters." Hersilia clasped her hands together. "Oh, perhaps you do not understand. You see, Domina Raven Branwen was awarded the Emperor's Package today. That entitles her and her guests to the royal treatment. You are her guests, and as long as she occupies the Emperor's quarters, she is the Empress of the Palace. I am but a humble servant of Rome." Given Hersilia's accent, Ruby thought, she was but a humble servant of Rome, Georgia. "I am to escort you to the Domina."
"Uh, okay," Yang said. She glanced at the the others. "So that's what Raven's note was all about." She sighed. "Great. Well, lead on, Citizen Hersilia…might as well get this over with."
Another bow, and Hersilia led the five of them, and the legionnaires, through the huge casino. They were instantly bombarded by the noise of slot machines, lights and neon in a rainbow blast of colors, and the sound of croupiers taking bets. Ruby blinked at one sign over a guarded doorway: SENATOR'S CLUB MINIMUM BID $50,000. The guard was dressed as a legionnaire as well, but he had a decidedly un-Roman pistol on his hip.
They reached the other side of the casino, and Hersilia keyed open a huge elevator, which could fit twenty people. The inside was mirrored and lined with gold; Ruby reached out and touched it. "It's real, Domina Rose," Hersilia smiled, and shut the elevator doors. They went up several floors, and Ruby realized it was going to the top. The doors opened, and Hersilia walked to two double doors—the only parts of a small foyer, aside from two statues of Julius Caesar—and politely knocked. There was no answer that any of them heard, but she slid a keycard through a reader, typed in a security code so fast no one could follow her fingers, and the doors slid open to either side.
It revealed a room larger than the Xiao Long-Rose house. She led them through another small landing with closets big enough to hold a rifle squad, down three steps covered in purple plush carpet, and into the main room. All of them stopped short of the stairs and took off their flight boots; it seemed sacrilege to wear dirty, dusty boots onto the carpet. The legionnaires busied themselves by filing past and stopping in front of three doors at the far end of the room. Hersilia once more turned to the pilots. "Which rooms would the dominas like?"
"Er…want to room together, sis?" Ruby hesitantly asked Yang.
"Sure." Yang quickly looked at Blake, who nodded.
"We'll take the one on the far left," Ruby said.
"I'll take the middle one on the right," Blake added, and Weiss took the last one. "Do you want to room with me, Riana?"
"No. I'm not staying in this whorehouse." Riana was fuming.
Hersilia's face was a mask of politeness. She pointed at the legionnaires, who as one opened the doors to the bedrooms and began to unpack their duffles—helped by the fact that the duffels all had their names stenciled on them. "This is the living room," she said, motioning at the couch, the dining table, the 70-inch plasma screen TV. The entire right side of the room was a picture window that gazed north over the Strip, the window placed so the Strip would be the only thing it could see, hiding the squalor of Las Vegas outside the hotels. There was a balcony outside the window. Hersilia opened a pair of double doors to one side of the television, revealing a "sports room," with weightlifting equipment, a foosball table, a billard table, a computerized golf driving range, and another huge television complete with computer for sports betting. "No kitchen?" Blake asked.
Hersilia looked shocked. "Of course not, Domina Belladonna! You simply order from the menu and the food will be brought to you. All food is included."
"Any longer on this mission," Yang observed, "and I'm gonna get fat."
Hersilia went up another three stairs towards the large doors in the middle. "And this—"
"—is the bathroom." The doors swung open and Raven Branwen strode out, dressed in a toga. Hersilia instantly bowed to her. They noticed that Raven carried a sheathed katana in her right hand. "Hey, girls. Glad you got my note." She grinned at them, though the grin faltered a little when she saw Riana. "Beats a clandestine meeting in a dark alley somewhere, huh?"
"Or a tent in Palmdale," Weiss said dryly.
Raven shrugged. "I suppose I deserve that."
"You deserve a lot worse." Riana motioned to the legionnaire who stopped, unsure, next to her bag and suitcase. "I won't stay in the same room as the bitch who murdered my aunt and uncle. Hersilia, I'd like my own room. I have an expense account; I don't want to be included in hers." She spit the last word.
Even Hersilia hesitated at the venom in Riana's voice. Blake was taken aback: the woman who had girlishly whooped and cheered during the pretend dogfight over the Gulf of Mexico now looked ready to kill Raven. "Ah…of course, Domina Uragano—"
"Knock it off. I'm not part of her Empress entourage." Riana stomped over and grabbed her luggage out of the legionnaire's hand. "Ruby Flight, I'll call you when I'm in my room, and let you know what I find out from my grandmother. I don't have to tell you not to trust the Bandit Queen there." With one last, murderous glance at Raven, she went back to the elevator. Hersilia hastily bowed, let them know to dial zero for anything they needed, and left with the legionnaires.
Raven sighed as the doors closed. "I suppose that's penance. I didn't even know that was Rick Tardor when my troops killed him. If I'd known killing him would be that much of a pain in the ass, I wouldn't have done it." She shrugged. "Anyway…it's good to see all of you."
"I'd like to say the same about you," Weiss said, "but what's all this?" She motioned around the room.
Raven's grin came back. "The Emperor's Package. Caesars' Palace is owned by the Mafia—specifically, Amoncio Glass. About two years ago, one of Glass' sons went out joyriding in their private jet, and got jumped by GRIMM. Lucky for the kid and me, I showed up, shot down the GRIMM, and escorted Kid Glass home. Don Amoncio was so happy that he told me he owed me an Emperor's Package at the Palace…and I finally collected. I figured if I was going to meet up with you, I might as well do it in style. Didn't expect Arashikaze's grandbrat to be along, but whatever." She threw her arms wide. "Mi casa es su casa. Call it repayment for my sins against Ruby Flight." She looked at Yang. "And against my daughter. I'm trying, anyway." Yang just stared back. Raven dropped her arms. "Fine. Anyhow, get those bags off, put on a toga, and do as the Romans do. There's a sauna in here the size of Tai's living room." She pointed to her ear with her left hand as she spoke, then made a twirling motion with her index finger. They understood her meaning: the room was bugged. "Let's hang out and do girl shit." Raven turned and walked back into the bathroom, leaving the doors open.
Weiss shrugged and unzipped her flight suit as she headed for her room. "When in Rome…"
There were togas in each bedroom, made of cotton so fine it felt almost like wearing nothing at all. All of them gasped as one when they walked into the bathroom. There was another picture window, facing west towards the mountains—this one did give a view of the favela, Ruby noted, but beneath it was a bath…or a circular pool, they weren't sure which. It would easily hold all of Ruby Flight, along with Ace Flight, Oscar, and about a dozen more friends. There was a separate jacuzzi, and a fake Japanese onsen to either side of the pool. The sauna took up one whole wall. Raven had been exaggerating, but not by much. The door was open, so the four of them went inside, Weiss shutting the door behind them. Inside were benches, smooth and polished, surrounding a pile of glowing rocks; the smell of eucalyptus enveloped them, along with the mist.
Raven sat nearest the rocks, naked, the toga to her left and the katana on her right. She motioned them in, and they found spots on the benches. Ruby felt strangely shy, but she was the only one; the other three—including Weiss, which surprised her—stripped down and sat nude as well. Ruby now felt more exposed than she did unclothed, so she shrugged to herself and took off the toga. Raven winked at her. Ruby noted in passing that Raven looked very fit for a woman in her forties, but being a fighter pilot tended to do that in any case. She also noted wryly that Yang had inherited her bust from her mother's side of the family.
"Sorry if this seems weird," Raven began, "but this is the best place to talk if we're going to share secrets. The steam tends to corrode bugs. Glass probably still has the sauna bugged, but we're a damn sight safer in here than out there." She motioned towards the living room. "Again, I guess we could've met in some dark alley somewhere, but I thought this would be more fun—and if we make Glass think that we're just a couple of girl fighter pilots taking time off and enjoying a few days at his hotel, that might make him let his guard down."
"Who is this Glass guy?" Ruby asked.
"Amoncio Glass," Raven answered. "He runs the Mafia in Vegas, so that makes him one of the more powerful guys here, along with the head of the Chinese tong and the oyabun of the yakuza, and whoever is the Mexican cartels' representative in town. He's a fat bastard, but nothing happens in Vegas that he doesn't know about. You can do business with him, though."
"Let me guess," Blake said. "He has a private army, and those 'legionnaires' were part of it."
"Not sure about the Roman guys or that Hersilia girl—they may be just staff," Raven replied. "But yeah. And his own mercenary air squadron, though they're pretty shitty."
"How do you know?"
"Because the men who run this town make sure to make Huntsmen and Huntresses very welcome here," Raven said. "If their private air force was any good, they wouldn't need us. So it's there for show, and to intimidate the other crimelords. Glass is the only boss with the capability of calling down airstrikes on his opponents." Raven gave a shrug. "He's immaterial. Let's talk business." She got up, filled a bowl with water, and tossed it on the rocks. The steam instantly hissed upwards, filling the room with mist to the point that Ruby could barely see the door to the sauna.
"Raven." Ruby noticed that Yang still refused to call her mother that, and smiled; Summer Rose would still always be the only mother to either of them. "What happened to you?" She pointed at the little finger on her left hand, which was mostly missing.
"Oh, that." Raven sat down. "That was Rissa Arashikaze's pound of flesh. I killed her nephew and niece, so in exchange for my life and the Spring Maiden, I had to cut off my fucking finger, yakuza-style." She rolled her eyes. "That woman's got a flair for the dramatic. Probably read it in some book somewhere." Yang thought to herself that Raven had some nerve calling Arashikaze dramatic, since she was carrying a katana in the year 2002.
"Did it hurt?" Ruby blurted, then instantly regretted saying something that stupid.
"What the fuck do you think?" Raven snapped. She used the toga to wipe off some of her sweat. "All right. I heard Florida got hit. Something tells me you four were in the middle of that, since Arashikaze wouldn't have reformed Ruby Flight otherwise."
"Actually," Blake spoke, "I'm more interested in how you knew we were coming out here."
"Oh, that? That was easy," Raven said casually. "I have people inside Luke Air Force Base, to tell me if anything unusual flew in. If all of a sudden there's a buildup of B-52s or something at Luke or Davis-Monthan, then I can assume that the US government's finally tired of either me or the Duke of San Fran and they're going to erase us. One of my people let me know last night that four aircraft with the callsign Ruby were due to arrive today, so I hopped in the Night Raven, flew up here, got my Emperor's Package, and called up the AWACS on the fly. They figured I was CIA. Arashitwat will probably be a little upset, but she'll get over it."
"Wait, Arashikaze doesn't know we're here?" Weiss exclaimed.
"She probably does by now. Riana went and tattled as soon as she got to her room, I bet." Raven leaned back on the bench and looked very self-satisfied. "What? You can leave for Luke tomorrow. Not my fault the AWACS crew thought I was legit."
"Oh my God…" Ruby wiped her face. They had been going on the belief that Arashikaze had ordered them to Las Vegas, only to fall for an assumption by the AWACS crew and a smooth-talking Raven. "She's going to be pissed…"
Raven waved it off. "Oh, she'll be torqued, but I imagine your orders included contacting me. So you're not disobeying orders." All of them wore a shocked expression at how much Raven knew. "Listen, kids," she explained, "I worked for Ozpin for the better part of a decade. He did shady shit like this. I know how the CIA works, and I think I know how that little bitch's mind works. She knows I won't talk to some random asshole, and she wasn't going to risk sending her granddaughter out here alone. So I hear Ruby Flight is back together and coming to Luke, and I tell myself, 'Self, that pint-sized spook sent Yang out here because she knows I'll trust her, and I'll do something stupid like fly to Luke, hopefully not get assholed by a lucky Patriot crew at the Colorado River Barrier, and go grovel for forgiveness from my spawn.' So I changed up the script a bit and had fun in the process." She motioned around the room. "So. Now that we've got all that out of the way, can we finally get down to brass tacks?"
"Proceed," Ruby said with weighty importance.
Raven smiled. "You even sound like Summer sometimes…all right." Her smile faded. "We got hit, same day as Phoenix, about an hour earlier. Nowhere near as many stealth GRIMM—twenty, maybe thirty."
"Kobolds," Blake informed her. "We've nicknamed them Kobolds."
"No shit. Yeah, that does make it easier," Raven continued. "So we get hit by Kobolds. No warning. Our radar didn't pick them up at Palmdale. They were all over us. Most of our stuff is underground, so they missed that, but they flattened the hangars, killed about a hundred of us. I managed to get in the air with them nipping at my ass, along with four of the Tribe. We lost two of them—Doc and Rob. Good men. We shot half of them down, and I noticed the rest just dived into the other hangars and kamikazed themselves. I picked up fifty, sixty more headed towards Phoenix and I broke radio silence to give them a warning. Used my last two missiles and the gun to get three more at the Colorado River, then I had to RTB because I was almost out of fuel." Raven, to their surprise, almost seemed like she was about to cry. "A hundred of the Tribe. My people. Mine…and I didn't protect them. I couldn't."
Ruby, despite herself, couldn't help but reach out and touch the older woman's knee. "There's nothing you could've done, Raven. That warning you sent out saved hundreds of people in Phoenix, maybe thousands."
"Yeah? I don't know them. I know the Tribe, Ruby." Raven took a deep, shuddering breath. "But hell, they're stealthy, right? Anyway, we loaded up everything and moved—to Palm Springs, if you need to know." That predatory smile was suddenly back. "But we got something else along the way. We captured a GRIMM. I know that sounds weird as fuck, but we did."
Ruby wasn't sure if Raven needed to know the CIA already had pieces of a Kobold, but decided to be open, remembering her admonition to Arashikaze about half-truths and lies. We screwed that up with Ironwood. Let's not do it again. "We got what was left of one from the ocean off Jacksonville."
"In pieces?" Raven asked. They nodded. "Ours is damn near intact. Hell, with a little bit of repair, we might could even get it flying again. Pretty surprised to find a canopy and flight controls." They all exchanged looks of shock about that.
"So they don't have a self-destruct," Blake observed.
"Nope. Or this one didn't have it installed. We found a lot of pieces around Palmdale, too. You rarely find pieces of GRIMM larger than your fist, but we had enough scrap to use ourselves."
Weiss had been quiet up to this point, but suddenly she spoke up. "Raven, correct me if I'm wrong, because you were around then, but didn't the North Vietnamese remove the self-destruct devices from their SAM missiles to get more range out of them during the Vietnam War? Because it saved weight?"
Raven didn't look pleased to be reminded of her age, but she nodded. "Yeah, I think I remember Ozpin talking about that. I was just a teenager then; not flying yet. At least not for the Air Force."
Weiss was silent for a moment, then got up and walked to the frosted door of the sauna. The mist had cleared enough that they could see it. The window was steamed up from the sauna, so she sketched a map of Nevada, California and Arizona with a finger in the condensation. "We think the last attack came from Cuba, right?"
"Yeah," Yang answered.
"Okay, so the distance between Cuba and Jacksonville is about 600 miles. Assuming that the GRIMM were right at the edge of their range, that gives them, say, 650 miles of total range or so. Maybe less. No return trip, of course. So…" She spaced out ranges using her fingers as dividers, and traced roughly 600 miles from Phoenix to Nevada. Ruby, in passing, thought that a naked Weiss giving a briefing in a sauna was at least the third weirdest thing she had seen in her short career. "That puts their western launch site around here, somewhere. Assuming that they were going around Las Vegas to hit Phoenix, which would explain why some of them peeled off to hit Palmdale and put the Branwen Tribe out of the game."
Raven stared at the ersatz map while Weiss, who suddenly realized that she was giving that briefing in the nude, turned red and returned to her seat. Raven had no such inhibitions, and got up to look more closely at it. "My guess would've been the old Reno airport. That's nothing but ruins up there, way too close to the Nevada-Oregon Strike Zones."
"The what? I'm sorry; I don't know that one," Blake said.
"Back in the late 60s, President Nixon set off a bunch of tacnukes along the old Nevada-Oregon border." To their surprise, it was Ruby that answered. She remembered this from the safety briefing at Hill. "Dirty bombs. The idea was that the rads would disrupt the GRIMM guidance systems. It kind of worked." It had also deposited several tons of irradiated soil across eastern Oregon and Washington, but those states were being already being evacuated.
"The rads have died down by now," Raven told them. "But there's nothing in Reno. Nobody lives there. Just abandoned ruins."
"Perfect place for a GRIMM factory," Yang smiled.
"Yeah, but the problem is that the Kobolds couldn't fly from there, bypass Vegas, and hit Phoenix. They would've run out of fuel." Raven touched central Nevada. "Maybe out here on the old Nellis Ranges…there's some old airfields out there. No infrastructure though, not enough that you could fly GRIMM there." She erased the map with a wipe of her arm. "But maybe they ferried them down from old Oregon or something, refueled them on one of the dry lakes out there."
"It's a start," Blake said. "We can start looking there, anyway." She blew out her breath. "And I think I need to get out of here before I pass out." Her ears looked wilted.
"Right. Let's get some food." Raven grabbed her toga and her katana and left the sauna.
After they dressed, all of them sprawled on the couch. "Y'know," Yang grinned, "if our cover is just a bunch of wild and crazy girls, maybe we should go clubbing, Blake."
Blake laughed and put up her hands. "Ohh, no. I'm terrible at dancing, Yang, you know that."
"Aw! You just need more lessons."
Weiss yawned. "Well, I wouldn't mind taking more money off of all of you if we want to do karaoke again." She was met with a chorus of boos and one thrown pillow. "That's only jealousy." She settled back in the very comfortable couch. "Luckily for all of you, after dinner, I'm going to bed. I'm exhausted."
"You going to call Marrow?" Yang sang the Faunus' name, putting her hands up next to her face in prayer and fluttering her eyes. "'Oh, Marrow! I miss watching your tail wag as you do me doggy style! I miss your handsome face and your squeezable butt and your big Canadian tool and your stupid-looking man bun!'" Ruby and Blake exploded in laughter.
Weiss rolled her eyes, though she was clearly fighting back a smile. "Yang, really. Yes, I was going to call him and let him know I was all right." She paused. "And if he was, ahem, doing me doggy, how would I be able to see his tail?"
"Well?" Ruby said as Yang made a show of thinking about it.
"Well what?" Weiss asked, confused.
"Does it wag when you're, y'know, doing it?"
Yang's eyes were huge, Blake's ears went back, and Weiss was genuinely shocked. "Ruby!" Yang burst out. "Did you…did you just make a sex joke?"
Ruby folded her arms over her chest and stuck her nose in the air. "So what if I did? I'm a grown woman. I can talk about big girl things."
Raven watched from the recliner set to one side of the couch. She smiled at the laughter and the ribald talk, but didn't join in. She didn't belong with them, and knew it. And understood it. Of the four younger women, only Ruby seemed to make an effort to do more than be reluctantly neutral around her. Blake didn't know her, but knew about her. Weiss only remembered Palmdale and Japan. Yang, of course, hated her still. They had an armistice, nothing more. Raven wished she could do something about that, but the gulf between mother and daughter was still too wide. You warned me, Sum, Raven thought. You warned me that I'd regret it forever. You were right, as usual. She still couldn't help but smile a little more. But at least Tai and me made a beautiful baby, and you, Summer, you did too. And you raised them, you and Tai, far better than I would've. I would've left, sooner or later. Still… Raven wondered if it really would have been that bad. She loved Tai then; she still did. How much of abandoning Yang had been just fear that she wasn't good enough, mixed in with genuine worry for the Tribe that raised her, and an unhealthy dose of postpartum depression? If she'd powered through it, like Raven usually did with her problems, would she have grown to love Yang instead of resent her? Would she have become a mother, a true one? She could see herself, standing in the kitchen of the home at Patch, pregnant again, with a little pigtailed Yang hesitantly touching her mother's belly while Tai looked on proudly.
Watching Ruby Flight brought up other memories, better ones, almost like she was seeing herself twenty years ago. Yang was her, no question: the way she lounged against the back of the couch, her feet up on the coffee table with a don't-give-a-shit casualness that was Raven. Of course, Ruby was Summer to the life: even her mannerisms, the way she put the emphasis on "yep" and "nope," the expressive silver eyes—it was enough to make Raven want to burst into tears in sorrow over her best friend. She saw the fireball again over the dark snows of Siberia, felt the anguish knowing that Summer was dead, the horrible reflection that she hoped Summer was dead.
As for Weiss and Blake, the latter was her mother too—Kali Radpoor, who snorted when she laughed too hard, whose ears were always so reflective of her mood. Raven had not known Kali well, but they had flown together in the lead-up to the Norway Mission. Weiss, Raven supposed, was like Glynda Goodwitch—the same haughtiness, the same no-nonsense attitude, which disappeared once one got past the icy armor to find the raucous, baggy-pantsed comic within. Raven now fought off a snicker as she remembered the night in Menagerie where Glynda, drunk on scotch, had sung some of the filthiest fighter pilot songs anyone had known, threatened to take her clothes off if someone didn't pay for the next round, then punched James Ironwood when he came to carry her out of the bar. Ironwood, Raven mused. Another one of the old bunch, gone. Ironwood, Summer, Oz…damn, there's not many of us left. Salem…what in God's name was I thinking, working with her? I planned to betray the bitch, but still…She watched Ruby nearly fall off the couch in mirth as Blake told a story about Terri Suul accidentally telling the executive officer of the Reagan to blow himself, and the tears almost came again, because Raven was back in that Scottish pub, listening to Summer, Kali, and Glynda nearly collapsing in laughter when Qrow came out in a dress, thinking it was a kilt.
Before Raven could give in to the melancholy, the door chimed. "Food's here," she said, grateful for the opportunity to do something and cover her sorrow, unaware that Yang had been surreptitiously watching her mother the whole time.
The food was delivered by a troop of toga-dressed girls, all of them wearing the almost see-through outfits Hersilia had been. The platters were set down on the coffee table—Yang quickly moved her feet—and the plates and drinks carefully guided to their owners by a black-haired cat Faunus with Asian features. Raven resumed her seat on the recliner, and noticed that the Faunus kept looking at Blake. She didn't seem to notice the Faunus, too busy salivating at the trout platter in front of her. The waitresses marched out once everything was served, but the Faunus glanced back at Blake one last time as she left, as if trying to place her.
Yang was doing a bit of salivating herself, at the steak that sizzled in front of her, nearly rare and drowned in Worchestershire sauce. She cut off a piece of steak and ate it. "Ohf muh Gawf," she mumbled, chewed, then swallowed. "Holy shit, that's almost as good as sex." Ruby tore into her hamburger and fries, while Weiss not so daintily attacked her weinerschnitzel. After another two bites of the steak, Yang turned towards Raven, who was working on orange chicken. "Hey, Raven."
"Huh?" Raven was caught with a chicken wing nearly on her lips.
"You know any good war stories? Funny ones?"
Raven put the chicken down. "Of course, but…"
"Tell us some. Y'know, about Strike Flight."
Raven's face darkened in anger, at first thinking that Yang was deliberately dredging up bad memories to throw at her, forcing her to remember things Raven didn't want to—a husband she had left, a brother she despised, and a best friend she watched die. Then she saw something in Yang's eyes, something that told her her daughter was being serious, was trying to include her in the circle. She was reaching out, taking a very tentative step towards Raven, without being obvious about it. Raven grinned, popped the chicken in her mouth, then began.
They ate while she talked, and nearly choked a few times when she told funny things, which Raven confined her stories to. Tonight was not a night for sadness, for stories about friends long gone, but stories about the crazy things associated with being a fighter pilot, or just being friends. She told them the story of Qrow and the dress, which Yang knew but the others didn't. She told them about Glynda's drunken night of debauchery. She told them about the night she and Summer had drunkenly entered a mud wrestling contest on an ill-advised dare from Tai. She told them about the other night she and Summer had gotten very drunk, and had been singing Blondie at the top of their lungs as they took the width of the pavement in London, screaming at the police to come fight them as they were trailed by an embarrassed Tai and Qrow. She told them of the night that they had been at Eielson, and Summer had gotten up to use the bathroom, only to literally run into a grizzly bear that had wandered in through an open door. The stories were funnier because all of them were true.
About two hours later, the Faunus girl returned with her bevy of toga-clad waitresses to clear up the plates. She watched as the plates were cleared off, and the others left. Then she bowed deeply to them. "Dominas," she intoned, "it is late, but not too late. Would you like anything else tonight? The drink cabinets are fully stocked, but if you would like something else, I can provide it, free of charge."
"I think we're good," Yang told her.
"Of course." The Faunus bowed again. "Please allow me to clean the table." She produced a rag from somewhere in her costume—they wondered exactly where—and began wiping down the table. Once she was finished, she put the rag back, then nonchalantly handed Blake a note, almost as if it was the bill. Mystified, Blake opened the note. It had two words: HELP ME. She instantly looked at the Faunus, who gave a minute shake of the head. Yang gave a start; she had read the note over Blake's shoulder. "Will there be anything else, Dominas?"
"As a matter of fact, yes," Blake said smoothly. "I think the toilet in my bathroom hasn't been shutting off. Would you mind taking a look at it? I know that's kind of a thing for hotel maintenance, but maybe it's something simple I don't have to bother them with."
The Faunus wore an expression of utter relief. "Certainly, Domina Belladonna." Ruby, Raven and Weiss looked confused, but Blake quickly held up her hand. As she led the Faunus to her room, Yang flashed the note to the others.
The two of them went into the bathroom; it was as palatial as the rest of the suite, all porcelain tile and gold trim. Blake went to the toilet. "Here, I'll show you." She flushed the toilet, then quickly looked up at the Faunus.
She leaned closer. "My name is Lynn Mikado. I need your help. I recognized you from the White Fang."
"I'm not part of that anymore," Blake whispered. Her words would not be heard by human ears.
"I know, but all the same…" Her voice trailed off as the toilet ceased filling. Mikado raised her voice. "I don't see the problem, Domina."
"Let me try it again," Blake said, then flushed it again.
"The White Fang was founded to help Faunus, and we need help!" Mikado said quickly.
"Who's we?"
"The Faunus of Las Vegas!"
"What's the problem?"
Mikado stole a frightened glance at the door and lowered her voice to the point that Blake could barely hear her. "We're disappearing!"
AUTHOR'S OTHER NOTES: Uh oh. Looks like Raven isn't the only one with past ghosts coming back to haunt her.
Again, this is of course not the Las Vegas that I or anyone else has visited. In this world, the Mafia's hold on Las Vegas was never broken, and with the withdrawal of government authority from Las Vegas in the wake of World War III and the GRIMM, Vegas became a hotbed of organized crime far worse than even in Bugsy Siegel's day. So Amoncio Glass can get away with literally everything. Glass, of course, shows up in RWBY Arrowfell, and so will a few others from there too. Kind of a lot of sex in here too, but the sauna really is the best place to defeat bugs, and Mikado acting like she's prostituting herself was the quickest way to get her close enough to Blake.
Oh, and the story about Summer running into the grizzly bear in Alaska while trying to go to the bathroom? That story is true-it happened to a friend of my dad's at Sparrevohn, Alaska, and it was a polar bear, not a griz.
Next time there will be some air action. Maybe it's Las Vegas' turn...