A Drunken Croc Bait Marriage Chapter 23, a rwby fanfic

"Ladies, gentlemen, boys, girls, and everyone else in between, this is the fight you have been waiting for! Pyrrha Nikos Versus Penny Polendina!" Professor Port went silent in anticipation of the crowd's cheers and he was quickly proven right. The crowd did start to cheer and that cheer only grew louder as videos of the fighters' previous matches were projected on multiple screens along with a countdown to the fight.

Once the crowd relaxed a little, Dr. oobleck picked up where his co-host had left off. "For once you are not overstating anything, this match is without a doubt the most anticipated match of the festival, and for good reasons! Representing her Academy of Beacon and her home Kingdom of Mistral we have Miss Nikos who was already a superstar whose well-deserved fame came from her shattering records with an undefeated win streak that saw her win the Mistral Junior League tournament four times in a row!"

"And now a dark horse has appeared in hopes of breaking that streak and this girl is nothing like the others who have tried and failed!"

Oobleck chuckled to himself, I never thought the day would come where I fully agree with Port on anything, and yet here we are! "You are correct my friend! In this age of information and connection, it is rare to see something fly underneath everyone's attention but that is just what Miss Polendia has managed to do!"

"Which is hard to believe given her incredible fighting style and weapons!" Port said, pointing to the video that was still playing Penny's previous fights through the festival, each one showing off how she would happily use her flying swords to attack and defend in a manner akin to a dance. Each image of her face featured a smile that lacked any hostility but instead was brimming with unashamed joy. But it wasn't the joy of fighting, Penny was just happy to be alive and wanted the world to know.

"Even stranger is how she arrived here without her team and in the company of General Ironwood who insisted that she'd be escorted by soldiers nearly everywhere she went!"

"Why Oobleck! I would have imagined you to be such a gossip!" Port gave his friend a playful shove.

"Hardly, all I have stated so far is what is already known by most people here. There are many words to describe the good General but subtle is not one of them but tight-lipped is. Despite being repeatedly asked, General Ironwood has declined to comment on the nature of his relationship with Miss Polendia, leading to some truly unusual and unsubstantiated rumors being passed around. There could have been serious consequences had the rumors not been so outlandish."

"Like the one that claims she's a robot designed as a part of a secret government project to create Huntsmen?"

"That is a perfect example of what I'm talking about! Sure it is easy to make a robot that looks like a person and it's easy to make an AI that acts like one but all of that is just an imitation and a poor one at that. Miss Polendina however, is clearly a person, maybe an eccentric one but still a person, the fact that she has Aura should have quelled that ridiculous rumor in its infancy." Oobleck gave out an exasperated sigh and took a long drink from his thermos.

Port was a little put off by his colleague's little outburst but he recovered very quickly, "Okay but about the rumor of her cutting a plane in half with a laser?"

"That one is true."

"Of course, when explain say it like that it sounds ridiculo- Wait, really!?"

"Yeah, it happened during the fight at the Docks last semester. According to the police-"

Emerald wasn't listening, she wasn't listening to Port or Oobleck or anyone in the entire stadium, she couldn't hear them. The sound of her heartbeat was so loud that it drowned out even the roar of the crowds sitting around her, I don't want to be here. The only thing her heartbeat couldn't silence was her own thoughts racing 1000 mph around her head trying to figure out how did things come to this. Is this a dream? Please, I want to wake up. I want to wake up. I want to wake up. Please someone, anyone, wake me up!

She wasn't dreaming.

She really was at a festival celebrating peace and unity with the order to murder Penny Polendina just to scare people, that's it. Cinder just wanted Penny dead just to warm up the crowd before delivering a speech that she prepared beforehand, That Was It. There was no greater reason behind this act of violence and that was something that didn't sit right with Emerald. Even worse was that it made her question the actions that she had already committed out of the belief that Cinder would make it right, that it would all be worth it in the end… but how was she supposed to justify this?

Perhaps that was the problem, she ignored every red flag and every wake-up call by justifying it all away with the blind belief that it would be worth it in the end. She should have refused to help Cinder ambush and wound the previous Fall Maiden but she did it anyway because she believed that Cinder needed and would use those powers for the sake of a better world. She should have turned a blind eye to Tuskon, who just wanted to leave the White Fang to pursue a quiet life selling books but instead, she helped kill him and justified it with the possibility that he could sell them out to the authorities. And speaking of the White Fang, she should have protested when Cinder went to recruit Adam Taurus but talked herself out of it by saying that they needed the manpower. And what are we using that manpower for? Nothing but acts of terror against innocents.

She sighed and took a moment to feel the obsidian ring on her finger, the prize she earned for finally waking up and standing up to Cinder only for it to go oh so horribly wrong. I've never seen her act that way before… did I really know her, or was she putting on an act for me from the very beginning? Emerald might have laughed if the truth didn't hurt so much and the truth was that she was a girl from the streets with the power to fool people… and she was played for a fool… but the worst part was the knowledge that she was being let off easy at least compared to Mercury.

The cheers of the crowds began to intensify and it soon reached a point where her heartbeat could no longer drown it out. For a moment she was confused and forgot where she was but soon the memories flooded back and she realized what was happening, The fight will be starting soon! What am I supposed to do? What can I do? Back then she and Mercury chose to remain defiant, they promised each other that they would figure something out… but now the moment of truth was dawning and she was trembling! Why am I so pathetic?

No matter how hard she tried she could only see two paths in front of her, one where she obeyed Cinder and murdered Penny setting the stage for the start of a new world war, aiding the murder of millions with her reward being possible survival… assuming she could trust Cinder which was a little difficult to do at the moment. And the other where she defied her mistress, triggering the ring and burning to death right in the stands… Unless I can take off the ring. Emerald shook her head as the memory of what happened to Mercury when he tried to take off the ring remerged, the sound of his screaming proved to be a good deterrent.

But at the same time, a part of her refused to let go of the idea. A part of her that saw how things were going to play out and was determined to survive, it was the part of her that was responsible for her surviving her days as an orphan street rat. A fat load of good it will do as long as that ring is still on my finger… so why not take it off? But how? The ring will just anchor itself to my finger and burn me, I'd have to cut off my fin-! She flinched at the idea but it continued to linger in her head along with a million questions of what to do afterward, It won't do me any good to do… that, and just get killed in the attack.

"I have to meet up with Mercury, it's our only chance," Emerald said as she took her scroll and got ready to call him but then she changed her mind, I wouldn't put it past Cinder to do something to our scrolls to monitor us… I better get rid of it.

Emerald stood up from her seat and walked away from the crowds, I don't have much time to act before Cinder notices something is wrong. She didn't have a plan, what she had was an inkling of an idea and the willingness to gamble, hopefully, it would be enough.

"Ma'am your scroll! You left your scroll behind!" Shouted the guy sitting next to her but she just ignored him.

"Ladies, gentlemen, boys, girls, and everyone else in between, this is the fight you have been waiting for! Pyrrha Nikos Versus Penny Polendina!" The crowds started to cheer and that cheer was so loud that it could even be heard in the locker room.

The noise reached Pyrrha Nikos's ears as she sat on a bench along with the rest of her Team engaging in conversation with them as she double-checked her equipment in preparation for her first match of the Singles and final portion of the Vytal Festival. If someone were to glance in her direction she would have come off as calm and confident but if someone was to take a longer harder look and knew the signs to watch out for, they would notice a small nervous jitter in her movements. It wasn't anything debilitating but it was still something that most would find shocking, most would imagine that all her previous tournament appearances would have cleared away any butterflies in her stomach but just because she got used to attention doesn't mean that those butterflies ever went away, she just got better at ignoring them. But it was harder to ignore them after it dawned on her just how big of a deal the Vytal Festival really was, to be blunt, none of her previous tournament appearances came anywhere closer to this level of global attention.

Soon she would be fighting again and while her teammates were standing alongside her now, they would not be walking onto the field by her side, they would not be there to share the spotlight and make the world fade into the background. This time all of Remnant's eyes would be squarely on her and that was not an exaggeration, Wow, I actually feel a little nervous, I haven't felt like this in a while. Is it because this is a Singles match that will be broadcasted to the entirety of the world… yeah, that's probably it. Luckily I got some time and help to relax and-, she quickly glanced around the room and spotted the other competitors also trying to mask their nervousness, -I'm far from the only one getting a little excited.

Almost every single competitor left in the tournament was here, Mercury and Penny were the exceptions and it was only a matter of time before they arrived here as well. As for the ones who were already present, every single one of them was just like Pyrrha in two regards with the first being that they were all nervous and trying to hide it. Some like Yang were much better at hiding it than others but the way she kept checking her gauntlets even as she talked to her sister and friends gave away her true feelings. And the second was that none of them was alone, everyone was there with their own teammates who were there to cheer them on. It was only natural for their teammates to be here since they all entered the tournament together, they of course would want to finish together even if they could only do so in spirit.

"Alright Pyrrha! I know that Penny is a friend and because of that you may not want to hurt her but that's just ya gotta do!" Nora said, trying to help hype her comrade up for the fight. "She's my friend too but right now she's standing between mama and a, a, a…" A confused look came over Nora's face as her voice trailed off.

"Is there something wrong?" Pyrrha asked, wondering why Nora suddenly stopped.

"I just realized that I have no idea what we're competing for. Or even how we even got entered into this competition."

"Well to answer the first question we're fighting for… um," Pyrrha's eyes widened when she realized that she also had no idea what the prize for the Vytal Festival even was. "J- Jaune, do you know?"

"Well, I think we and everyone else were entered automatically without anyone asking if we wanted to enter which is kinda fucked up now that I say that out loud, and as for the prize… I- I, um, I think there's a trophy? Right, Ren?"

Ren racked his brain and drew a blank, "I'm not sure… we were all just sort of looking forward to the festival which makes sense, festivals are fun. But there is a big difference between visiting a festival as a guest and visiting as a challenger for a combat tournament. Especially when that tournament allows and encourages the use of real weapons including guns and explosives. Also, I don't think it was ever established why we entered or how or even when. And don't think we're the only ones in the dark." He then quickly glanced around the room and the others followed to see what he was talking about.

The others in the locker room had overheard their conversation and even though most were busy with their own discussions, the subject was one that was hard to ignore. Soon the entire locker room except for one person was caught up in one singular conversation, "I'm here to represent Atlas, what other reward do I need?" asked one finalist to another.

"Well if I'm going to add to my scars I'd rather get paid good money for it!"

The man chuckled, "Well, it sounds to me like you have a skill issue."

"Chicks dig scars."

"And now you're coping, looks like Atlas wins again!" The man placed his hands on his hips, a foot on the bench, puffed out his chest, smiled, and looked up at the ceiling while his teammates provided heroic lighting.

"Huh," The other guy was stunned by the display and was also slightly impressed by it. "How long have you been practicing that?"

The guy returned to the normal posture and sat down on the bench, "A really long time, the trick to find that sweet spot between arrogant and dork."

"Okay, but why?"

"I'm from Mantle, my parents are factory workers. Atlas may get all the fame and acclaim but they would freeze to death without the Dust that we're mining and refining for them… we do all the work and our reward is to live under the shadow of those who get to live off of our sweat."

"You're trying to be a hometown hero."

"Exactly. I want Atlas to offer me a spot in the military so I can turn it down to their face. I want to turn down every asshole up there just like Robyn Hill did and just like her, I'll go back to my roots and be there for those who need me the most."

"Dude…"

And then just as quickly as it began, it ended with the conversations drifting away from the topic of the tournament prize and its obscure registration policies. It wasn't that they didn't care about those things but rather they had all found more interesting stuff to talk about, subjects that they actually had a solid understanding of. But they didn't just forget about the original topic as they moved on to a different one, everyone made a mental note to ask their professors about how they were entered and what they were fighting for.

"Huh, I would have thought that this topic would have lasted longer," Pyrrha said as she observed everyone else moving on.

Jaune shrugged, "It's hard to talk about something we don't really know." He then noticed that the one person who hadn't joined in the conversation was now approaching them, a girl wearing a beanie that covered an eye. "But it seemed to have worked as a good icebreaker!" He then stepped forward and extended a hand to the stranger, "Jaune Arc, short, sweet, and the ladies love it."

The stranger took the hand and gave it a firm shake, "The name is May Zedong and I know that this may sound weird but do you know Mercury?"

"Yes, we do but not very well, but I think that Ruby knows him a little bit better. Would you like me to introduce you to her?"

"Sure but let's first see if you can answer this; What's wrong with him?"

Pyrrha was the one to answer, "Wrong? Is that why he isn't here?"

"If I knew that I wouldn't be asking you!" May suddenly and angrily snapped at Pyrrha but then just as quickly apologized, "Sorry, you didn't deserve that. I'm just feeling really stressed and my team isn't here to distract me."

"Why not?" Ren asked.

"They're looking for Mercury, they… have something they want to tell him. They mean well but they're not very good at listening."

Nora walked up to May and wrapped an arm around her shoulders and slowly led her to the benches, "Lucky for you I am great at listening and keeping secrets so feel free to spill your heart out to me."

"While you're doing that I'll ask Ruby if she knows anything," Jaune offered.

"I would appreciate that a lot."

However Mercury didn't hear any of it, he couldn't hear anything, not even his own thoughts. He felt numb and utterly isolated, the fact that there was no one else in the hallway with him only furthered those feelings. The cool feel of the obsidian ring around his finger felt like a noose around his neck, a constant reminder that his life was now completely at someone else's discretion and she did not like him very much at the moment. His life was hanging by a thread and the only hope of salvation that she provided him came in the form of a special mission, one that he believed was a suicide mission.

In his other hand, he held a duffle bag filled with bombs, his job was to follow a route Cinder had marked on a map now uploaded into his scroll and place a bomb in every location. That wasn't unusual, they had already placed a few bombs in the stadium, bombs that were located in obscure places that no one had any reason to visit, bombs that existed solely to scare people rather than cause any real deaths or bodily harm but the ones in the bag were different. Those ones were all headed to locations that were deemed as too risky, places where people often walked through and were thus under constant surveillance… She wants me to get caught.

That was a realization that had left him frozen on the spot and far behind schedule. He was so far behind that he had yet to place a single bomb and that was a small blessing to his benefit.

It wasn't hard for him to imagine how things would play out if he had blindly obeyed, how Cinder wanted things to play out. He would get caught trying to plant the bombs and Ozpin would then use his authority to keep the incident out of public awareness in the name of public safety. But then Cinder would go ahead and reveal it anyway to sow deep distrust in the system before detonating the bombs that were already in place, along with the ones in the bag, causing enough negativity to trigger a Grimm Attack and causing the very war he wanted to avoid… And then she'd probably kill me anyway because why not?

"THIS IS SUCH BULLSHIT!" Mercury suddenly screamed while throwing the duffle bag at a nearby wall before going up to it and punching that wall with enough force to dent the steel plating, "FUCK!"

All at once the pent-up feelings inside him began to break free and he just didn't know how to handle it, he just didn't know what to do. He knew what he wanted to do, he wanted to take these bombs and throw them right in Cinder's face before walking away the same way he walked away from his father… but Cinder was smarter than dear old dad, and that frustrated Mercury to a point that he had never experienced until now. Even worse was the ever-present voice of his father repeating the "Lessons," he "Taught," Mercury so long ago. Don't ask questions, just obey. Men don't feel, they act. Real Men are fine by themselves, "friends" are just distractions. Don't feel, just obey…

"Shut Up!" Mercury screamed at no one except the memories in his head before leaning against the wall and letting himself slip to the floor. He never felt so utterly pathetic and defeated before and all it took to bring him this low was a small obsidian ring.

But inside his chest there still burned an ember of defiance, one that he knew still burned in his partner Emerald but… it meant nothing if they couldn't get rid of those damn rings and they tried. They tried so hard to figure out something but besides one extreme option, they couldn't think of anything that would work, it didn't help that they knew nothing about the magic in the rings. As far as I know, this ring could be transmitting my thoughts to her… magic is such bullshit. Seriously, Aura and Semblances have rules and limits, they can be measured, harnessed, and planned around but these Maiden powers… don't follow any of that and she's only got a portion of the power… Wait, a second! A thought popped into his head, a wild crazy idea based entirely on an assumption that had no real evidence to back it up. But it was also the only idea that he had and as far as he was concerned if was damned no matter what then he'd rather go out swinging than laying down. But this is not a decision that I can make on my own….

He took out his scroll, dialed Emerald's number, and waited, the line was ringing but she was taking an oddly long time to answer, and then the call went to voicemail. Maybe she didn't hear it? She is after all in the stadium and that place is going to be incredibly noisy, nothing is wrong. He didn't believe that but trying in vain to convince himself that everything was okay was objectively better than assuming the worst and doing something stupid, so he hung up and called again and again it went to voicemail.

His heart was starting to beat rapidly as his mind started to run through the possible reason why Emerald wasn't answering her scroll. Each scenario he imagined was quickly replaced with another often darker one and soon his mind was in a rather morbid place as he made one final call.

Unlike the first two calls, this one was answered but the voice was that of a confused man, "Um, hello?"

"Who are you and why do you have Emerald's scroll?" Mercury's voice was even and technically calm but there was a coldness in it that would send a fearful shiver through most who heard it.

"I- I- don't think I should tell you."

"If you have harmed her in any way then I will-"

"I- I didn't do anything! She just got up on her own and left her scroll behind! I swear!"

"Wait, really!?" Mercury's voice went back to normal and even had a happy undertone to it. "Well that's fine, that's great actually! She's probably looking for me.

"Yeah… um, I'm going to hang up now," The naturally confused man said nervously as though he was asking for permission to hang up.

"Before you do I want you to go and…-," For a moment Mercury was tempted to tell the man to call the police. This idea was nothing sort of naive and Mercury was too smart to put any faith in it, more importantly, was that it might cause Cinder to do something in retaliation. No, I can't ask this guy to help. He'll likely do something stupid and ruin everything. "-Just have a great day."

"Uh okay?" The man hung up.

Mercury sighed and leaned against the wall, "Okay, let's think things through, Emerald is almost certainly looking for me so I should meet up with her but what to do after that." He raised his hand and looked at the obsidian ring, "How to get rid of you?"

Many ideas went through his head, the vast majority were ideas that he and emerald had already discussed and ruled out for one reason or another. The big problem was that magic was not something that they had any real knowledge about, Cinder never explained her powers and now Mercury wondered if she had purposely left them in the dark just in case they ever turned on her, It would fit her M.O… This would be so much easier if we could just destroy the rings but as far as we know, the pieces would just stick to our fingers and burn us to death.

"Well at least I'm sure that they are not transmitting our thoughts to her, otherwise she would have pulled the trigger on both of us right now…" He said to himself to make himself feel better and it did help just a little.

He then turned his attention to the duffel bag and wondered what he should do about the bombs contained within, I can't just leave them here, someone might come by. Maybe I could call someone… no. There is no way that Cinder won't notice something like that, she'll just detonate the bombs and start the attack. I have to get rid of them but how? For a moment he considered disarming the bombs, it was something that he knew how to do thanks to his father and Cinder had given him plenty of opportunities to practice but disarming all those bombs would take time, too much time. Even if he started right here and now, the best-case scenario would be him getting discovered and arrested before the bombs blew up in his face.

He then considered grabbing the bag, running off the side of Vytal, and throwing the bombs overboard but that also would take too much time and make it harder for Emerald to find him. But maybe there is a way to get rid of the bombs, there are places here that only have maintenance bots, and there is also the underside of the arena which is more than tough enough to take an explosion and shouldn't have anyone inside… but how do I get there in time? There's another option, a really stupid option but one that I do have enough time for… whelp, beggars can't be choosers.

He walked over to the duffel bag, picked it up, opened it, and pulled out one single bomb before closing it again. He had an idea, an idea that was really really dumb but if it worked and that was a big if. It would also be the single most satisfying thing that he had ever accomplished up till now, it would be better than the day he lost his virginity and even better than the day he killed his dad. But before he could even ponder how he would pull this idea off, he had to somehow pull off the ring.

Maybe Emerald will have an idea, she wouldn't go against Cindy's orders unless she had something up her slee-... wait, Emerald doesn't like sleeves. Um, something stuffed in her bra? No, no, that doesn't work, how about… Mercury was purposely filling his mind with nonsense, he had to because if he let himself stop and really think about what was doing, what he was going to do… he might try and talk himself out of it. He might even convince himself that he ought to go along with Cinder's plan and hope for the best, after all, if he demonstrated that he knew his place, that he was still useful… Then maybe she won't kill me?

Mercury shook his head and berated himself for even letting such a naive thought enter his head, If she had any intention of letting me live then she wouldn't have handed me a bag of bombs and a map. Well, I'm not going to be her convenient little suicide bomber, I'm going to survive this. Emerald and I are going to make it out of here, May is going to make it out of here as well! I don't know how but I do know that's it going to happen, I'll make sure it happens!

"Ladies, gentlemen, boys, girls, and everyone else in between, this is the fight you have been waiting for! Pyrrha Nikos Versus Penny Polendina!"

Ozpin clapped along with the cheering crowds as did his companions, Glynda his ever-faithful Right Hand, and James Ironwood his friend and confidant. However, unlike the vast majority of people present they weren't there for the fight but rather to discuss the fighters. This discussion wasn't just limited to Pyrrha or Penny, rather it involved every single female fighter that was present for the Vytal Festival and their future on the global stage.

"So she rejected the offer, did she say why?" James asked when the cheering died down.

Ozpin groaned as this was a topic that he knew was coming but had hoped to avoid for just a little bit longer, "Miss Nikos said that she appreciated the opportunity but that it went against her very reasons for coming to Beacon in the first place. She then pointed out that there were others that she felt would be much better candidates."

James sighed, "So who talked her out of it?"

"She claims that she got advice from her Aunt and before you ask, no Pyrrha did not talk about any of the things we asked her to keep silent about."

"What about the security cam footage showing that she had talked to Tock before calling her Aunt?"

Glynda was the one who answered, "Stop. We are not going to accomplish anything by looking for someone to blame. But since I know you're going to ask anyway, no, Tock doesn't know anything about the Fall Maiden."

"Amber," Ozpin suddenly said.

"Excuse me?"

"The Fall Maiden has a name and it's Amber."

There was a brief pause that was broken when Glynda placed a hand on Ozpin's shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze, "You have a lot on your mind, don't you?"

"How can I not? So many things have happened these past few months and most of them were things that I could have never predicted! I feel lost, and that's a feeling I haven't felt in such a long long time."

James understood that feeling well, "People in our line of work are not used to a lack of control. We are not used to uncertainty and we often don't like to be reminded of just how little the world cares about our machinations… in times like this, I find it helpful to focus on what I can control. We can't do anything but respect Miss Nikos's wishes but we can look into other candidates."

"You're talking about Penny," Glynda quickly pointed out his intentions.

"She is my first choice, there are others that I would accept but none compare to her."

"No offense old friend but I'm not nearly as convinced as you," Opzin said. "There are just too many unknowns for me to be as eager about her as you are. For example, how do we know that the Maiden powers will even accept a girl of her… unique circumstances as a candidate? Not to mention that I don't think it is wise to have two maidens in the same Kingdom, that's just too much of a tempting target."

"Then she can enroll in Beacon, she has friends here and her father already gave his approval. As for the other thing, she has Aura."

Ozpin shook his head, "Animals technically have Aura as well and some even have it unlocked. But there has never been a single case of an animal gaining Maidenhood, I've checked thoroughly." And repeatedly.

Ironwood frowned, "Penny is hardly comparable to an animal."

"That's not what I meant and you know that."

"Alright, stop it. Both of you!" Glynda suddenly interjected, surprising both men. "And don't either one of you dare tell me that you were not just about to get into another argument! I've seen enough to know a bald-faced lie when I see it!"

There was a tiny window of silence that was shattered with Ironwood jokingly saying, "Yes, mommy."

Glynda sighed, "Not now James. We've got important work to do, all of us." Her tone of voice made it clear that she was not playing hard to get, she had every intention of dealing with this issue and dealing with it now.

"Alright, I'm sorry." Ironwood was quick to apologize and just as quick to reorient his mind toward possible candidates, "I'm assuming that Miss Valkyrie and Xiao Long are off the table."

"Unfortunately yes," answered Ozpin. "Silver Eyes and Maiden Powers on the same Team looks at first to be a brilliant combination but in practice, it is easily beaten. Worse is that it puts a massive target on their back, historically the most successful pair lasted only half a decade before Salem's people killed the Silver-Eyed warrior, sending the Maiden into hiding for the next 30 years."

"I was actually thinking about how Qrow and Taiyang might react to us trying to get both of their daughters deeper into this mess than they already are," Ironwood said as though it should have been obvious. "As for Miss Valkyrie, I'd imagine that Miss Nikos would have a few choice words for us about trying to go after her teammate after she turned us down."

"That's also a good point. Both of them."

Glynda then made her own suggestion, "How about Coco Adel? She's got a great Team, she's got a good head on her shoulders, has no plans to settle down any time soon, and we still have plenty of time to fix her deficiency in melee combat."

"She's also a womanizer," Ozpin quickly pointed out. "I don't think I need to explain how Salem would take advantage of that."

"Then how about her partner Velvet? Her semblance and weapon would prove to be a frightfully powerful combination."

Ozpin nodded, "She's a little too shy for my liking but we can work on that. Also, add Penny to the list of potential candidates."

Ironwood was confused, "Penny? You were against her just a minute ago."

"And I am still against it but… beggars can't be choosers. If something does happen, we need to be ready and willing to take a gamble."

The cheers were so loud that most people in the Area would have been deafened by the volume but the VIP booths came with special noise-damping equipment. When the noise reached a certain volume that could be adjusted by the guests inside the booth, the machines will activate and eliminate all sounds that went over that threshold while allowing everything else to pass under. This was just one of the many ways that the VIP booths gave the people inside the "Full," arena experience but without the negatives.

But Cinder didn't care about any of that. Her reason for having a private VIP booth was for purely practical reasons. To be specific there were three primary reasons, the first was a matter of privacy which was very important when plotting a terrorist attack. The second reason was about the view, the booth was a fantastic vantage point that allowed her a clear line of sight of two potential maidens and of Ozpin who was sitting in his booth. That line of sight also tied to the third reason which was the VIP-only areas which were full of potential shortcuts provided you had the firepower to break through steel walls and that was firepower she had in spades.

What she didn't have in spades was trust, specifically trust in her allies. How could she trust them when the two of them somehow grew a conscience out of the blue or maybe it was something that had been going on for a while just beneath her notice? Either option didn't matter, she made sure of that and her only regret was that she didn't do it sooner. She had worked far too hard, far too long, and had put up with too much shit to just let it all go to waste, and if that meant making deals with people she couldn't stand, then that was just the price she'd have to pay.

*ding*

Cinder looked at her scroll and immediately her mood began to improve when she saw that there was a text from Neo that read, "I'm ready."

Cinder was quick to reply, "Good, wait for the signal."

"Why can't I go now? I can bust them out easy!"

Cinder sighed, Neo may be an adult but she acted like a child and had the patience of one as well, But she does have skills and a frightfully powerful Semblance, I shudder to think what she'd be capable of if she were to ever become a maiden. Fortunately, she's infatuated with Roman, which makes her easy to manipulate.

Cinder then typed back, "I know you can. But stick to the plan. That will give you both the opening you need to take over the ship. Get the Lost Boys to help you."

"Why those dummies?"

"They've already been paid. No sense letting them walk away with a free lunch."

Neo then sent back a smiley emoji that Cinder was going to assume was her way of agreeing to the plan, I don't trust her but I can trust that she would never risk Roman. Now to check on Adam… this is going to suck. She took a moment to brace herself and then quickly dialed before she could talk herself out of it.

"Hello Cinder, I assume that you're calling about my forces."

"Yes, are they ready.?"

"Yes they are and they are eager, also I want to thank you for sending your friend here to help."

Cinder frowned, "Friend? What friend? I didn't send anyone!"

"Really? Then who is this Tyrian guy and why is he calling himself your co-worker?"

"Tyrian?! Do you mean Tyrian Callows? Are you talking about a tall psychopath who is really playing into the scorpion aesthetic?"

"It's not that bad, he only has a ponytail that matches his tail, and his weapons just look like pinchers, it's all rather subtle in my opinion," Adam said with a voice that lacked any of his usual forced edginess.

Cinder groaned and for a moment wondered if Adam was fucking with her and then decided that it wasn't worth trying to find out, "Can you put Tyrian on?"

"Sure," Adam used his hand to cover the scroll's microphone but his voice could still be heard from the speaker, "Hey, Tyrian! Cindy wants to talk to you!" He then took his hand off the microphone, "He's coming."

"You know I hate being called Cindy."

"And you know that I hate humans but I'm mature enough to work with them if it helps my goals." There was a barely veiled condescending tone to his voice that was mixed with the sound of laughter from the people around him. Adam smiled as he heard CInder trying her damndest to hold back a growl, She does that a lot. I'm not even sure that she realizes that she's doing it but I suppose that's appropriate for someone as unhinged as her. Either way, I'll just pass the scroll to Tyrian before she can start ranting.

"Adam, I am not interested in listening to you-"

"Sorry, but you're talking to Tyrian right now. Would you like me to pass it back to Adam?"

Cinder took a deep breath, "No, no it's better this way. So why are you here?"

Tyrian chuckled in a way that sounded both sinister and playful which only made it sound even more sinister, "I'm here because the goddess knows how hard you've been working and wanted to make things a little easier for you. That's all!"

"Really? Then why didn't she tell me you were coming?"

"Because I wanted it to be a surprise! Surprise!" Tyrian could hear Cinder groaning and had to fight back the urge to laugh. She just makes this so easy and so much fun!

"Okay, since you're here to help me then that's exactly what I'm going to make you do. I'm sending you a list of targets, every one of them is a pain in the ass that wasn't supposed to be here!"

"Can I assume that Tock is on that list?"

"She's the number one priority… why?"

"Because she's a fellow predator, someone who in a different life would very likely be a colleague of mine. Perhaps even holding a position much like mine in her majesty's council."

"A deranged psychopath?"

"Tyrian dramatically placed his hand on his chest, "You wound me with your words, Madam, how could you be so cruel? Being a psychopath is only half of my charm!"

"And the other half?"

"Is that I'm good at what I do, really really good."

"That doesn't explain why you're interested in fighting Tock."

"Is it not normal for a young virile man like me to be excited over the thought of getting to dance with a woman like her?"

"She's married."

There was a pause as Tyrian used his scroll to log on to his socials and check Tock's status, "Huh, she has her status marked as: Complicated… there are also a lot of pictures of her next to a guy with a hook hand."

"First off, have you been stalking her on her socials? And secondly, that guy is Jaune Arc, that's her husband."

"To answer the first, no. The two of us go back a bit but I haven't been online in a while. I decided to take a break after Salem made me realize that I was becoming way too invested in online drama so I took a break for the sake of my mental health. Understand?"

"Sure." Since when do you care about mental health!? You're a psychopath! A lack of mental health is your entire deal!

"And as for the boy, I am going to find him and properly congratulate him. Then I'm going to kill him.

"He isn't on the list, keep your envy under control and focus on your targets."

"Envy? Cinder, I may be a crazy murderous asshole but I'm not a jealous one. I'm not killing him because he managed to land Tock, I'm going to kill him to reunite them both in the afterlife. See? I'm doing them a favor!"

Cinder replied with open sarcasm, "I'm sure they will appreciate it. Just don't forget to take out the others on that list, I know that it probably won't be possible but the more you kill the easier things will be for us in the long run. Understand?"

"Understood."

Author's Notes: So for this chapter I was hoping to create a juxtaposition between the cast that is unaware of what's about to happen and the cast that does know. To help emphasize this I repeated Port's opening line over and over again to show that everything was happening around the same time.

As for the little detour about the Festival Prize and Registration, it was based on the fact that neither the show nor this story ever established what the prize was or why or how any of the characters entered. Granted it really isn't all that important in the grand scheme of things but it is still odd and I thought that it would be funny to point out.

Finally, there were a lot of different ways that these scenes could have played out, I had an overabundance of ideas and it was difficult to decide which ones to go with. For example, I originally planned for Mercury to be found by someone but I couldn't make my mind up on who should find him (May, Emerald, and even Ann Greene were candidates) or how that encounter should play out. Soon I began to wonder if there should even be an encounter and as I kept writing it eventually became apparent that I couldn't write an encounter without making him the focus of the chapter or making more rewrites to have it all play out believably.

So I axed the idea along with other ones that I had.

Whether or not that was the right call is something that only hindsight can tell me.

P.S.

While writing this I discovered a manga called Undead Unluck… it is shockingly underrated. If you haven't read it, give it a try. It gets good rather quickly and only gets better both in terms of its action and its emotional impact.