Here we go.

Cover Art: Mystery White Flame

Chapter 10

Mountain Glenn was a depressive place even without the whole dead team and past trauma thing to drag you down. It was cold, dark, dusty, and the shells of buildings tugged at the mind, reminding everyone that nothing lasted forever. The civilisation they had built could come down at any moment, and no one would care for your life or achievements once humanity was reduced to crumpled buildings and ghost towns.

"Bloody hell!" Roman cursed. "This place is making me melodramatic as hell!"

Neo rolled over laconically, the girl having taken to just lazing around on the floor. She shot him a pout and reached out with a grasping hand. Roman tugged his hip away from her, namely drawing the scroll in his pocket out her reach.

"Absolutely not. You've already drained the battery on yours and I'm not letting you drain mine too." Neo made a silent whine and shot him a longing pout, but he was immune to such things. "This is what you get for sitting around watching videos on your scroll all day."

He knew there wasn't much to do out here, but there also wasn't anywhere to charge up from, and she ought to have thought of that before distracting herself with binge watching cat videos. Or whatever it was the youth of today did.

Neo flopped onto her stomach and planted her hands under her chin, glaring at him.

"I'm bored too," he said, "but what do you want me to do about it? We're stuck here until the White Fang finish this stupid thing. Or until the local school field trip finds us," he added. "Which they really ought to have managed by now, for crying out loud!"

Neo made a wide motion with her hands.

"I get that Mountain Glenn is big, but you don't need to search all of it. Bart should be smart enough to know the only strategic value this place would have to the White Fang is the tunnels. What else would they be here for? The rubble?" Roman sighed and slumped in his seat. "Instead, they're gallivanting around like absolute morons. Ugh. I bet he's doing this on purpose. The asshole. Probably has it as some learning experience where he doesn't tell them what to do and lets them make their own decisions. But, of course, they're a bunch of ADHD brats distracted by a bright light. Like you."

Neo flipped him the bird.

Roman flipped it right back. "Stop bothering me if you're so bored. What about Perry? You had fun spooking him for a while."

Neo rolled her eyes and sighed in a way that suggested Perry was too easy to scare and had thus lost his charm. To be fair, Neo took jump scares to the next level with her Semblance. The neighbourhood had found that out the hard way a few Halloweens back when he hadn't explained the holiday properly and just told her you were meant to scare people for candy. Six armed break-ins and one heart attack later, they'd had to move to a new safehouse, lugging with them enough candy to kill an Ursa.

"You can always go kill some Grimm," he suggested, knowing she wouldn't enjoy it. Too much like hard work. Sure enough, Neo sighed and flopped onto her back again, spreading her arms and legs out like a starfish. "If you can find a pack of cards, we can— don't roll your eyes at me, young lady! I'm trying to help. And cards are not boring. You're just addicted to bright flashing lights and your stupid gambling games. You realise you're spending real money on an image file, don't you? Your digital husbands aren't real."

Gasping, Neo rolled back onto all fours and pointed a hand at him, mouthing a whole lot of silent expletives. He fired back by pointing out her pixellated boyfriends were vapid and boring. Not that he knew. Not that she even cared. They were just so bored that arguing with one another was more fun than sitting around.

"Honestly, if I hadn't found and adopted you then you'd be some unemployed bum living in someone's basement starting fights on forums about fake-boyfriend tier lists. Look how hard I've had to work to make something respectable out of you."

Neo lunged for him, hands aiming for his throat. He caught her by the scruff of her neck instead, and Neo was light enough that he absolutely could hoist her up off the floor. Better yet, the tiny munchkin had short arms and legs that couldn't reach him and just flailed angrily in the air. She assaulted him with illusions instead, but he knew to ignore those. The annoying part was that Neo then shifted to just bright flashes flicking on really fast, making him squint his eyes to avoid a headache.

"I'd feel threatened if I had epilepsy, my dear, but I don't. Also, for the love of everything do not do that on one of our heists. Can you just imagine some brat having a seizure? It'd be all over the news – and I'll be damned if some idiot steals my screentime!" Neo crossed her arms, still held in the air, and raised an eyebrow. "Oh, and yes, it would be very tragic. That too. But my screentime, Neo! Priorities!"

"Roman, sir!" Perry burst into the room of a broken ticket office Roman and Neo had taken as their own. He froze at seeing Neo held aloft. "S—Sir?"

"I'm exercising." Roman immediately began raising and lowering Neo. "Got to keep my strength up. Free weights." He brought Neo in front of him like the world's poutiest kettlebell and began to squat. "Problem, Perry? Let me guess. You've all fucked up somehow and those huntresses we know are in the ruins have found us."

Which would be ideal, honestly, as it'd mean mission failed but failed by the White Fang's incompetence. Perfect excuse to go home and not blow a pathway to Vale and get out of being blamed by Cinder at the same time.

"No!" Perry was just a little defensive. "We've actually captured one of them!"

"WHAT!?"

Such was his shock that he let go of Neo, who had half a nanosecond to widen her eyes and panic before gravity took hold and slammed her bodily into the floor. The girl twitched, small hands clenching into angry little fists as she pushed herself up and glared bloody murder at him. Not that he noticed.

The White Fang – idiots extraordinaire – had caught one of them.

"How!?" he cried. "Wait, do you mean they caught you?"

"Uh. No. We caught one."

"As in, captured? Or you've caught their trail?"

"Captured, sir. We have her tied up."

"How many of you died for this?"

"Um. None."

"Right. Because they're goody-two-shoes who wouldn't kill. How many are injured?"

Perry frowned. "None, sir. We captured her without anyone getting hurt."

The words simply did not compute. Oh, he knew huntresses and huntsmen weren't immortal – his own former team were proof of that – but tonnes of falling rock was a little more dangerous than a bunch of zealous civilians putting on masks and picking up weapons they didn't know how to use. They were students, sure, and first years from what he recalled, but that still meant they'd had at least six or seven years of hard training. And yet one had apparently been bested and captured with zero losses.

The mind boggled.

"Take me to her."

"Yes sir."

/-/

"You!" the huntress in red growled, tied to a chair with thick ropes. "I should have known!"

"You," groaned Roman, slapping a hand into his face. "I should have known as well."

Red. Of course it was Red. Why wouldn't it be Red? The little brat who had casually annihilated an entire team of Junior's thugs had somehow gotten herself captured by a bunch of untrained civilians. Did it make sense? No. Of course it didn't.

"For crying out loud, how? How!?"

He stormed toward her and grabbed the chair over her shoulders, rocking her. The girl looked nervous, obviously afraid he'd torture her. He was tempted to, if only to get an answer to his question.

"HOW IN THE HELL DID THEY CAPTURE YOU!?"

Ruby blinked. "Eh—?"

"You are a huntress!" he seethed, pressing his face close to hers. "You have aura, you have training, you have an over-sized farming implement—"

"A—Actually, I left Crescent Rose in camp. Ahah."

His fingers dug into the chair. "What?"

Red paled. "I... I was going to use the bathroom...? I wasn't going to be gone from camp long."

"This is a fallen city infested with Grimm!" He didn't snarl. Okay, maybe he did. Just a little. "What would possess you, or anyone, to leave their only weapon behind!?"

Her silver eyes glanced away. "Um. I... I won't tell you anything, you fiend?"

"Is that a question or a statement?"

Her lower jaw jutted out. "I won't tell you! Even if you interrogate me!"

"Way to dodge the question." Roman stood back up and ran a hand down his face. "And what could you possibly know that I'd want an answer to, anyway? I hate to break it to you, but you're not exactly important in the grand scheme of things."

"Hey!" Red pouted, cheeks puffed out. "I know all sorts of things!"

"Like?"

"I know that—" Her eyes widened. "No! Ah! You tricked me!"

"I really didn't—"

"You won't fool me again. My lips are sealed." Then, completely ruining that statement. "And nothing you do will change that."

"Adorable." Roman crossed his arms. "There's only one thing I care to know, Red, and that's how someone like you managed to get yourself captured by these morons. I mean, really. Look at him!" Roman pointed to Perry, who shifted uncomfortably. "He has zero training, zero experience, and probably close to zero conditioning. I mean, maybe he's been to a gym once or twice but he'd not someone who can run a marathon or lift weights."

Perry frowned unhappily. "Hey. I have a gym membership. I've been a member for over a year."

"How often do you go?"

"I mean..." Perry glanced away. "I went for the first month." Neo's eyebrow rose. "Well, the first week and a half. But I'm totally planning to go again."

Roman looked back to Red as if to emphasize the point. Which it had. Red was turning red, blushing up to the roots of her hair as she realised just what she'd lost to. An idiot in a mask with a gun he didn't know how to use. Perry didn't even have the safety on. Hardly any of them did. The only reason Roman hadn't cared to correct them was because they were only a risk to themselves like that. Plus, it would have been funny if one of them shot their own foot. Neo wasn't the only one who had been bored silly.

"I didn't have my weapon..." the huntress mumbled.

"You can't fight hand-to-hand against complete amateurs?"

"Um. I was in a bad position. I'd slipped down and was on my hands and knees. And they kicked me in the face and knocked me out!"

"Why didn't you block it with your aura?"

Red cringed the cringe of someone who knew they'd monumentally screwed up but was determined not to acknowledge it. Roman knew it well, having seen it on Neo many times when they were starting out together. Red had the same stubborn streak as his apprentice. She stuck her jaw out and refused to answer.

"Isn't your Semblance literally speed? You were able to use it fast enough to dodge all kinds of attacks before."

The jaw trembled. Her face turned redder.

"You cannot be serious."

Red whined helplessly past clenched teeth.

"I'm not angry you're here, Red. I'm not even angry you've gotten in my way yet again." He sighed, holding his face with one hand. "I'm just disappointed."

Red shrank in her bindings, head dipping down to hunched shoulders and eyes fixing on the floor.

"I mean, you've ruined my plans in the past," he continued. "Don't you know what that means? It means you're my nemesis. And I'd have picked just about anyone else to be that if I could, believe me, but I don't get to pick. You've foiled one robbery and also intervened at the docks, and now this. That's three times, and do you think the media is going to ignore that? You're going to be trumped up as my lifelong enemy." Roman threw his hands down, shouting at her. "And you got yourself captured by these idiots!"

"I'm sorrrrry!" she wailed.

"Sorry doesn't cut it! I have a reputation to maintain! You're ruining it!"

"-orrrrryyyyyy!"

Roman couldn't stand to look at her, babbling and almost crying from the telling off. He turned his back on her, looking to his allies for support. Perry looked confused and Neo... Neo was giving him an unimpressed look. She didn't understand. Maybe one day, she'd earn herself a nemesis as well. Then she'd realise how important it was for said nemesis to have a good rep.

"A man is judged by the calibre of his enemies. A wise man once said that." Roman dodged the fact he couldn't remember the name with grace. "People will look at you and judge me. Especially after you foiled one of my robberies."

"I'll do better!" she cried. "I'll stop you next time!"

Roman sighed. "It's just not the same..."

Perry cleared his throat. "Sir," he said, sounding more than a little confused. "Is this really important?" He held his hands up when Roman looked ready to punch him. "Um. Okay, I can see this is important, but isn't the more immediate question what to do with her? Some of the others think we should make an example of her. We can record it. Banesaw has volunteered to be the one to do it. He says we should send her back to Beacon in pieces."

Red went still. And pale. Very pale.

"That's your plan?" asked Roman. "A video execution...?"

"Well... yes." Perry hesitated. "Is that a bad idea?"

Idiot. Roman sighed and walked behind Red, knelt, and cupped her chin with one hand, holding his face next to hers so they were cheek to cheek. "You tell me, genius. Look at her. Small, young, adorable—"

"Underage," said Red.

"You're not that adorable," he replied, with a roll of his eyes. "I have standards, and I don't just mean the standards of not being into children. I prefer my women graceful, full bodied, intelligent."

"I'm plenty smart!"

"See?" Roman pushed her mouth shut and looked at Perry. "Look how adorably stupid he is." He felt Red growl against his hand. "She's like one of those small puppies that can't stop picking fights with bigger dogs. Not to mention she's practically a child. What do you think the response will be if you torture and kill someone like this?"

"Fear...?"

"Try anger. Rage. Faunus-hating rage."

Which would be perfect for the White Fang. The truth about terrorist attacks was that they were meant to cause hatred. Their full purpose was to make people get angry and blame other faunus – or whatever minority the attack was caused by. They were fully banking on people's response being to discriminate against innocent people based on shared racial traits or ethnicity, because then those people would feel like they weren't welcome in Vale. They'd be forced out, angry and bitter, and the White Fang could then swoop in and pick them up.

Fresh recruits for the cause. The White Fang literally lived and died based on how much anti-faunus sentiment there was. Sure, they were waging this war of theirs to stop it, but they didn't want a peaceful resolution. They wanted to stop it by overthrowing humanity and putting themselves on top. So, by those standards, executing Red and making the world react with fury was ideal.

But Perry didn't know that. He and his band of exposable idiots had been fed the usual idealistic tripe about defending their fellow faunus, protecting those who were discriminated against, and fighting the good fight. Naturally, anything that to them would endanger faunus was going to look bad. Sure enough, Perry was nodding.

"You're right. Wow. That would have been a bad idea. Killing a child. Yikes. Is it weird that I think it would have been okay if she was an ugly man...?"

"That's the way the world works," Roman said, standing up and letting go of the girl. "People say it's what matters on the inside that counts but put two people in a room and ask an audience which of them is smarter, and they'll pick the better looking one. Attractive people earn more on average, are more likely to get better jobs, and are less likely to serve long prison sentences." He sighed and ran a hand through his orange hair. "It's not all sunshine and rainbows, though. It can be hard keeping up looks like these."

"Uh..." Perry smiled awkwardly. "Sure... I'll... I'll just go tell Banesaw the execution is off, shall I?"

"You do that."

Perry sprinted out. Thank goodness that nonsense was over and done with. Obviously, Roman didn't give a hoot about the White Fang, but the same lessons applied to himself. Roman Torchwick was a name on people's lips, and he'd been careful to keep that positive even if he was a criminal. Being involved in child murder was not on his to-do list. Not to mention he'd be painting a big fat bullseye on his back for the various huntsmen and huntresses of Beacon.

Also, brats like these tended to have parents. Powerful parents. Huntsmen parents. He really didn't need some avenging huntsman or huntress dedicating their life to hunting him down and killing him.

"You won't get away with this," said Red.

"Get away with that? Preventing you from being executed? I just did get away with it."

She blushed. "Not that! But thank you," she whispered. "I meant the other thing!"

"What thing?"

"The thing you're... you know, the thing you're doing here!"

Roman smirked and planted his hands on his hips. "And what thing would that be?"

"I... I don't know." Her blush intensified as she realised she'd been brought here unconscious, and so hadn't actually learned anything. "But you're doing something here and we're going to stop it! My team will find me."

"And get knocked out by a civilian with a boot?"

"One time!" she cried. "It's happened one time! Let it go!"

"Well, we're probably about to be rumbled anyway," he said. "I bet they didn't even think to turn the tracker on her scroll off." Roman reached for her skirt and hesitated. He knew for a fact combat skirts had hidden pouches and pockets, but it was still a skirt. "Neo, I need you to get her scroll off her!"

Red wriggled but couldn't stop Neo sticking a hand under her skirt and finding it. Whomsoever created combat skirts needed a good talking to in Roman's opinion. The inclusion of pockets and such practical things was, obviously, a good thing, but huntresses should just wear trousers instead! They were more practical in every way. The creator of combat skirts had solved a problem that didn't need to exist, all so teenagers could feel pretty. He caught the scroll Neo tossed him.

The fact that Bart and the team would know where she was kept was a bonus. Every scroll had a tracker built in that could be activated to transmit your location to your team, and it was common to have that on when you were on a mission together. Ideally, you weren't supposed to split up at all, but stuff happened and everyone had to adapt. Sometimes you had to defend several locations at once, or you had to split up to chase down the suicidal lemmings that were civilians running away from Grimm.

Either way, Red's friends would know where this camp was and would be on their way, just in time to foil his plans and allow him to retreat back to Vale without blowing a big hole into it and getting himself labelled a terrorist. Ah, but it was nice when a plan came together.

"And here we have your tracker— Why is your tracker turned off?" Roman pushed it in her face. "Why didn't you turn your tracker on when you left camp!?"

Red sulked. "I was only going to the bathroom..."

"What if you fell down a hole? What if Grimm found you? What if you got lost?" He was close to pulling his hair out. This idiot! "You always put your tracker on when you leave camp!" he snarled. "They teach this in the last year of every combat school!"

"Ah!" Red's eyes widened and she smiled. "That's why I didn't know! I skipped ahead two years."

Roman stared at her. "You're fifteen...?"

"Yep."

"My nemesis is fifteen...?"

Red hesitated. "Yes...?"

"Please excuse me one moment." Roman walked outside, took a deep breath.

And screamed.

He also turned Red's tracker on because someone had to have a brain around here. With any luck, Bart would think she'd managed to subtly do it herself without him or anyone noticing. It was what might be expected of a huntress with at least a modicum of skill, so, obviously, it was beyond her capabilities, but they could all pretend she'd gotten lucky.

Storming back inside, he shoved it into one of her ammo pouches on her hip. "Be better!" he hissed. "You're a pain in my ass when I don't want you to be, and then a pain in my ass when I do! I swear, if we get back to Vale alive then I'm going to make your life a living hell via the medium of a training montage! You're too useless otherwise!"

Red pouted. "My dad says I'm talented..."

"Yes, well, you're not talented enough to stop our plan to drive a train filled with explosives to Vale and blow a hole between it and Mountain Glenn letting in a horde of Grimm!"

Red blinked. "What...?"

"And you're not talented enough to de-couple the carriages so the bombs detonate safely in the tunnels, either. Nor to destroy the many stolen Atlas mechs hidden in the middle train cars so that the White Fang can't use them to cause damage in the city!"

"Mechs...?"

"Even if you managed all that, there's no way you'd be able to figure out that I'd never willingly work with the White Fang, and that there must therefore be someone above me pulling the strings on this whole operation."

Red peered at him awkwardly. "Is there someone...?"

"FIGURE IT OUT!"

"Ah! I'm sorry! I'm smart! I'll figure it out! Don't call me a bad nemesis!"

/-/

It still took about four hours for the brat's team to find her. Maybe it was less and Bart was using his damn brain for once and doing some scouting, but Roman wasn't prepared to delay any longer. Not when the White Fang were worryingly close to finishing things up. It was just his luck that the most incompetent group to have ever existed on Vale (other than the Valean Government) were for once in their lives ahead of schedule, and when he needed the to be at their worst.

When the explosion happened, Roman wasn't all too surprised to see three brats and Bart racing out and toward them. The dog did surprise him, though. Cute thing. He hoped it didn't fall off the racing train and get turned into a smear of blood.

He was a criminal, but he had standards.

And one did not kill a dog intentionally. Never. He doubted even Cinder would be so needlessly evil, though he wasn't willing to test that.

"Start the train!" he shouted. "We're leaving now!"

He aimed his cane back and pulled the trigger, only to realise Melodic Cudgel was sleeping with the angels now, and Ozpin's stupid cane didn't have a canon built into it. Weak. He pointed a little longer anyway, just so anyone watching would think it was him taunting them, and not him making a silly mistake before he smirked and ran back to the train.

"The girl is escaping!" said Perry, already waiting for him. "Someone shoot her!"

Red had finally managed to loosen the ropes he'd frayed and was running back to her teammates to collect her weapon. The White Fang opened fire on her, but she had for once remembered that she a) had aura and b) had a Semblance that made weaving left and right remarkably easy. Their shots never went anywhere near her, and it wasn't like he could chip in to help.

"Forget her!" Roman shouted. As loudly as he possibly could. "Are the bombs in position?"

Perry winced at his volume. "Yes, sir!"

"Are the mech suits ready to be used?"

"Sir, I'm right here. You don't need to shout."

True, but his former teammate was getting on in his years and teaching idiots in a school now, so perhaps his hearing had failed him. Snorting, Roman pushed past Perry and made his way to the front of the train where Neo was waiting for him.

"Run interference," he told her. "Play around with them if you want but don't take any risks. And remember, we want to get out of this in one piece. Don't be afraid to get in some friendly fire, either. These fanatics aren't our allies."

Neo's grin turned feral and she vanished with a flicker, rendering herself invisible. Her heels clicking on the metal floor didn't exactly leave a lot to the imagination, however. Roman rolled his eyes and turned to the engine, flicking it on and sounding the horn – both as a warning to the faunus to get on, but also a heads-up to the huntresses to get their collective behinds moving. By now, Red should have filled them in on the danger and told them the importance of getting on the train.

"This is your conductor speaking," he said into the PA system. "We are about to begin our journey from Grimm Station to Vale. If you'll all take your seats, I am to remind you that our lovely terrorists we'll be coming down the carriages with refreshments and snacks. Please keep your heads, arms, and animal parts inside the train at all times." He blew the horn again and relieved the brakes, causing the wheels to chug and spin. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have motion!"

Ruby, please. Roman is counting on you.

Next Chapter: 9th April

Like my work? Please consider supporting me, even if it's only a little a month or even for a whole year, so I can keep writing so many stories as often as I do. Even a little means a lot and helps me dedicate more time and resources to my work.

P a treon . com (slash) Coeur