Still sick. It feels like my health is almost getting regular with its periods of ill-health. I guess this is a reality of growing older. Shorter chapter as a result but better a short one than no chapter at all.

Cover Art: Mystery White Flame

Chapter 8

It turned out that the headmaster of Beacon Academy could still fight despite his age.

Who could have guessed?

Oh, right.

She guessed it.

Easily!

Neo cursed Roman as a million different types of an idiot in her head as she parried one thrust of the cane and then dodged another, feeling the whoosh of displaced air over her left shoulder. She lunged with her sword but even while she was quicker, he was more skilled, twisting and deflecting her away with a fencer's grace before casually striking thrice into her chest. Her aura took the brunt as she staggered back but it was still three hits to zero against her, and Neo much preferred it the other way around.

But noooo. Start a fight with a retired veteran huntsman for his weapon. That makes sense. They couldn't just rob a weapons shop or something – it had to be a one-of-a-kind piece. Neo snarled and looked over to Roman, wondering why he wasn't helping her.

"—and I said that's no cat. That's a donkey!"

Lisa Lavender giggled and flashed Roman a smile. He was stood next to her, one elbow leaning over her head on a pillar and his face close to hers. The reporter was not shying away and had in fact positioned herself just a little closer so she could get an "interview" direct from the man of the hour.

Right then and there Neo considered stabbing him in the back of the head.

Or in the crotch.

Hard to tell where exactly his brain was sometimes.

"You know," said Ozpin. "You're a talented young lady. It's not too late to turn your life around."

Roman's head twitched. "Oi!" he shouted, abandoning Lisa. "That's my minion!"

Seriously. That was what got him to actually buckle up and join the fight? And what did he mean by minion? Neo fixed him with a thin glare, and Roman quickly amended his statement.

"I mean, that's my adopted daughter-slash-protégé. You can't steal her away from me. Don't you know that's a crime?" Roman sauntered over toward Ozpin, smirking confidently. "Why, I ought to—oof!"

He bent over Ozpin's cane.

You don't have a weapon, idiot!

Never had Neo longed for a voice as much as she did in that moment. Roman's cocksure image required he act in certain ways, up to and including like an arrogant buffoon at times. But walking up to a huntsman unarmed? That was a new low, even for him.

Ozpin tugged on the cane buried in Roman's stomach.

It didn't move.

"Ahem." Ozpin gave another sharp pull. This time, Roman came with it. "Let go."

"H—How about you let go," Roman grunted, sliding his hand further up the cane. "Let go of my weapon."

"Your weapon? I believe you'll find the Long Memory is my weapon."

"Stupid name. I'm going to call it Second Melody." Roman raised his head, a wild grin across his face. He pulled, yanking Ozpin forward a pace. "Now give it here!"

Ozpin pulled back. "Never!"

Roman dug his heels in and leaned back. Ozpin did the same. Soon, two famous men were playing tug-of-war in the middle of a museum, in front of an exhibit to King Ozma, grunting and scraping their heels across the floor as they fought over a glorified stick like a pair of children over the last bit of candy.

"Neo, now!" Roman shouted. "Attack!"

Neo raised her sword and looked between Ozpin and Roman.

"WHY ARE YOU ACTING LIKE YOU DON'T KNOW WHO TO ATTACK!?"

Why indeed. Why indeed...

Maybe it wasn't too late to turn a new leaf. Being a goody-two-shoes would be boring and sickening and all kinds of dumb, but hey, it couldn't be worse than nearly drowning in the ocean and being constantly mocked over being short.

"It looks like your friend's loyalty has come up short," said Ozpin. "Fitting, really."

Neo's eye twitched.

Never mind, then. Neo lunged.

Only to have a figure in red flash in front of her, wielding a ridiculously obnoxious scythe.

"Don't worry, sir!" shouted the young girl. "I've got you!"

"Miss Rose, I'd really rather you didn't `have me` as you put it. Please alert Glynda to—"

"Team RWBY to the rescue!"

That clued Neo into the fact there were more, giving her plenty of time to duck a fist coming in from behind and flip the blond girl over her shoulder at the smaller one in red. Something tickled under her feet, drawing her eyes down to a glyph forming with just enough time to leap off it. Ice shot up from the spot, but Neo landed off to the side in a crouch. A girl with black hair leapt at her, feet first, but she was airborne and it was trivial work to just walk two paces to the left and let her sail on by.

Well... now it was five on two.

Awkward.

"Neo, take care of the munchkins!" shouted Roman. "I've got this under control!"

"Have you really?" asked Ozpin. "Miss Rose, please heed my instructions and go tell Glynda—"

"Team RWBY! Bumblebee!"

Ozpin sighed. "Never mind, then..."

Neo cocked an eyebrow as the girls in yellow and black rushed her as one, the blonde being swung on the end of a black ribbon like a wrecking ball. It was, to put it lightly, a weird decision. Neo simply stepped forward inside the ribbon's length, meaning the wrecking ball sailed past behind her with a limp attempt to catch her. The blonde struck a pillar with a grunt.

"ICE FLOWER!"

Red and white charged in, the red one enhanced by white glyphs under her feet. The red one brought her scythe up and fired several shots at her, each having an ice effect on them. Which was, again, kind of redundant. If those bullets hit her at all, they'd hurt, and encasing them with ice wasn't going to make them hurt any more or less.

It also wasn't going to get her hit any more reliably, as Neo was already in quick motion, and weaved several sudden illusions to throw her aim off. The ice shots hit the back wall and caused ice to creep up over paintings worth several million lien, drawing a pained scream from someone in the audience. A masterwork cracked and fell off the wall, shattering into a million pieces.

An art critic in the crowd watching fainted with a dull thud.

"CHECKMATE!"

Chess. Black and white. Neo lunged at and stabbed her sword into the girl with the bow before she could actually reach her ally in white. The team were unprepared for it and the girl stumbled, slipping on the ice made from the last combo attack and falling flat on her butt. Neo didn't bother to finish her off since she knew it'd be a chore getting through the girl's aura. Instead, she placed her foot on the girl's body and pushed hard, sending her skidding off like a puck on an ice-rink, straight into a suit of armour lovingly restored by a historian. It collapsed atop the girl.

Much like said historian on the tour, collapsing as his work was so casually demolished.

"She's cracked our codes!" cried the girl in red, apparently stunned that Neo could decipher a coding system based solely on the colours of their outfits. "That's not possible!"

"Miss Rose!" growled Ozpin, wrestling on the floor with Roman. "Going to fetch Glynda is still a very real possibility with your speed—"

"We're going to have to rush her together! It's our only choice!"

"It's one of many choices!"

Neo felt an odd kinship with the angry old man in that moment.

"GET HER!"

Four on one was poor odds even when Neo was older and more experienced than these girls, but the odds were improved somewhat by a variety of factors.

Firstly, it was three on one as the girl in black was stumbling around with a knight's helmet stuck on her head; she walked into a wall and landed on her back with a groan. Secondly, the blonde was slipping and sliding on the ice from the earlier attack, gripping onto a pillar with both hands as her very non-ice-friendly boots struggled to find purchase.

Thirdly, they were in a cramped museum with a lot of obstacles to work around – and while Neo absolutely did not care about the safety of them, the girls did. Or they were meant to. Neo felt that point had probably been lost on them given the already impressive levels of collateral damage.

But beyond all that, beyond everything else, there was the simple fact that they were first-year students.

Kids.

And Neo was, despite her looks and height, not a seventeen year old kid.

Agilely sliding around the scythe's blade, she backhanded the one in red in the cheek, hopped up and vaulted off her back to escape the icicles and close in on the Schnee. The rapier came up, but Neo's umbrella came down, deflecting that with its reinforced lining and opening her up to a stab from the blade previously slid out its haft.

There were tricks to dealing with aura that kids their age didn't really know. Dirty tricks. Unless you had a Semblance for it, you weren't going to be cracking aura anytime soon – not without beating someone down first – but when you fought enough people with it, you learned little ways to deal with it. Case in point, Neo didn't aim her sword for the girl's throat or chest because that was meaningless to someone with aura. Instead, she aimed the blade into the girl's open mouth.

Naturally, it didn't tear out her insides or anything. Aura was aura.

But suddenly finding yourself deepthroating a sword was not, to most people, a pleasant experience. The Schnee dropped her rapier in absolute shock and staggered back, grasping Neo's sword and trying to remove it from between her teeth before she choked on it. Neo let her go with a kick to the sternum to knock her back and another kick to the rapier, sending it into the crowd of people to make it hard to get it back. Were this a one-on-one, she might have kept going and killed the girl, but she still had others to deal with.

"LADYBUG!"

A ladybug was a red insect with black spots. Neo rolled her eyes and slashed at the shorter girl in red, cutting her off from her ally before the "combo" could ever take off. They really needed to shorten to just letters like "LB" or, better yet, stop shouting out their team names so she had time to react to them in the first place.

"Yang! Help already!"

"Easier said than done! Do something about your ice, Weiss!"

"I'm trying! Excuse me! Excuse me!" Weiss fought her way through the crowd of onlookers. "Has anyone seen my weapon? Why are you all just standing here anyway? This is an active battle. Leave!"

Yeah, good luck on that one. Neo had been a criminal long enough to know the one thing you could trust was the public to stand around recording on their scrolls and being stupid. Smirking, she wielded her umbrella in two hands and smashed it into the girl in red, sending her shuttling across the ice into the blonde who had only just managed to find her footing before her sister whipped her legs out from under her. They landed in a heap by the wall, another expensive painting coming off the wall and down to commit suicide on the curve of the brunette's scythe.

"Won't someone think of the artwork!?" cried a man in the crowd.

Well, that was her opponents dealt with. Now it was time to see how Roman was faring—

"I'm afraid we appear to have reached an impasse," said Ozpin, hauling a bruised Roman up off the floor. Damn it, Roman. You had one job. "You appear to have bested my students and I appear to have bested your... adoptive father? Mentor?"

Neo made a "so-so" gesture with her hand.

"Lover—?"

Neo jerked her thumb down aggressively and stuck her tongue out.

"Ah, I do apologise."

"What's with that reaction?" Roman demanded, remarkably blasé for being defeated and held hostage. "I'll have you know I came in a list of the top ten most desirable bachelors in Vale!"

Neo rolled her eyes.

"That was ten years ago," Lisa chimed in helpfully from the audience.

"IT STILL COUNTS!"

"Regardless," said Ozpin. "I think the two of you have caused quite enough damage here today. Now, I encourage you to lay down your weapon, young lady." Neo rolled her eyes and set her sword down. "And the umbrella."

Gasping, she laid it over her shoulder and twirled it like an old lady might.

"Miss, I am a huntsman. I'm well aware of what is and what isn't a weapon. Set the umbrella down."

Poo. Neo hated competent people. She knelt and placed the umbrella on the ground, only to grin as she heard feet racing up behind her.

"I've got it, sir!"

The one in red stooped to grab the umbrella from her.

And Neo hooked an arm around her neck and hoisted her up, holding her hostage just as Ozpin was Roman.

The old man sighed. "Miss Rose, while I really do applaud your enthusiasm, I must ask you to stop being so helpful. It's making this rather difficult." He sighed again. "I presume this is a hostage exchange situation, then?"

Neo nodded.

"Very well. In order to minimise the damage here, how about we take out hostages outside, hm? That way you and Mr Torchwick will have an easier time escaping."

Sure, and it would give more time for the old man's help to arrive. Actual, competent help – like the Glynda person he kept trying to get the kids to bring. Neo only knew of one Glynda, and that was Glynda Goodwitch, who was said to have been one of the most accomplished huntresses in the kingdom when she semi-retired to become a teacher at Beacon. That woman could handle her almost as effortlessly as Neo handled this team of idiots.

"Better idea," said Roman, acting for all the world like he was somehow a part of the negotiations. "You give me your weapon and I'll have Neo give you the girl. Or are you saying you value a tool over the life of one of your students?"

"That's not—"

Ozpin paused, eyes switching to the right.

Toward the many cameras recording this and the large crowd watching with breath held. They were just civilians with no idea of what was really going on here. They were probably terrified for the sake of these poor girls – children in their eyes – caught in a battle with which their one trustworthy adult had wrestled some control.

But now that adult was forced to choose between his weapon and the life of his student.

In reality, it was an easy choice. The weapon. The girl in Neo's arms wasn't going to die anytime soon thanks to her aura. Neo could jerk her neck fifty times without breaking it, and there'd be plenty of time for Ozpin to rescue her, or Glynda Goodwitch to arrive, or just for the girl's team to get back on their feet and save her.

That wasn't how it looked to the average civilian, though.

And choosing to preserve his weapon would see him labelled as a callous monster more concerned with his personal effects than the safety of a young woman trusted into his care. How could parents trust this man to protect their children if he'd trade their lives away for a stick? It'd be the most controversial story of the year. Lisa Lavender was practically salivating, sensing a media win for her whether Ozpin won this or not.

Ozpin disgraced vs Roman Torchwick escapes yet again.

Her story was guaranteed either way.

"I refuse to believe you planned this," Ozpin hissed. "I simply refuse to believe you came here planning to lose and blackmail me into a situation like this."

Good on him, because Roman definitely had not planned this.

"Of course I did!" Roman lied as easily as he breathed. "This was all part of my ultimate plan to trap you! Ha ha ha!"

What a filthy hack. He was just taking advantage of the opening she'd made. Neo felt like picking up the girl she was holding hostage and launching her at Roman like a missile. With any luck, she'd explode and take everyone out with her and spare Neo the indignity.

"So, Oz." Roman smirked. "What is it to be? Your student or your stick?"

There really wasn't much of a choice, but Ozpin wasn't going to give Roman the weapon. He tossed it onto the ground in front of Neo instead, challenging her to release her hostage and pick it up. Galling as it was, she knew her best odds of getting away with Roman was to show some level of cooperation, so Neo gave the girl a shove and sent her on her way, then darted forward to grab the stupid cane.

It wasn't even very pretty. The clockwork gimmick was so old-fashioned.

Nodding, Ozpin released Roman, giving the man a far less gentle shove and sending him tumbling toward Neo, who, instead of catching him, simply stepped aside and left him to slip on the Schnee's ice and land on his back.

Such a shame.

He scrambled to his feet quickly and clamped a hand on his hat so he wouldn't lose it. "Good to be doing business with you!" he said to Ozpin. "And I am of course a man of my word, so I'll guarantee no harm shall come to the good people here or your students. You've made the right choice today, Ozpin."

The old man clearly did not agree but he also couldn't be seen to start a fight when there were so many innocents around. Not to mention the damage already done to the exhibit. He must have been thinking it would be easier to let them go and hunt them down later to reclaim the weapon. This was a man who could bring the likes of Qrow Branwen down on them, so it was very much a possible outcome. Yet more work thanks to Roman's stupid plan.

"To everyone else, I encourage you to enjoy the exhibit!" Roman glanced at Team RWBY. "Or what's left of it. Farewell!"

If they still had Melodic Cudgel, he'd have fired a grappling hook upward and ripped them into the air via that for a quick and aesthetically pleasing exit. Lacking that, he simply sprinted off to the side, into the crowd, leaving Neo to follow.

/-/

Ozpin watched the duo escape with a calm expression that was not mirrored on the inside.

Minutes later, Glynda appeared. "Ozpin! I got word. What's wrong?"

"Your timing is impeccable, Glynda. And by impeccable I mean impeccably bad. My cane has been stolen—"

"Is that really the priority here, sir?"

"Yes! Yes, it is!"

"And Team RWBY?"

"In need of a few detentions, I expect." Ozpin sighed morosely and looked to the four girls, who were peeling priceless artwork off themselves. "Somehow," he groaned, "I know this is going to be my fault."

"Well, you did bend the rules to let Miss Rose join early."

"Don't remind me. I need to get in touch with Qrow. Torchwick is playing with forces he does not understand and I need my weapon back quickly. I'll turn the city upside down and inside out if necessary."

"Please don't cause a scene, sir."

"But Glynda!" Ozpin gestured down toward his legs. He was favouring one, his whole posture crooked. "My cane!"

"I'll buy you a walking stick, sir."

"It won't be the same," he lamented. "It just won't be the same..."

/-/

"Well, that went off without a hitch! My excellent planning wins out once more!" Roman planted his hands on his hips and burst into laughter. "And not only did I outsmart Ozpin, but I had it broadcast across the city. Let's see the haters find a way to twist this one against me."

Neo's teeth grated together.

"Anyway, give me the cane."

Oh, Neo gave it to him.

Right down atop his head with a two-handed grip.

Cane get.

Next Chapter: 27th February

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