Note: Oh, hey. Neo is back in the story! That's fun. Fun...

In all fairness, Ruby should have seen this coming.

She tempted fate. She could admit that. What's the worst that could happen? She didn't believe in higher powers, but she was basically asking for the universe to ruin everything. And the universe loved ruining everything. If Team RWBY planned to go for a walk in the park on a beautiful, sunny day, it would somehow be raining when they arrived. That was how much the universe loved ruining her life. And like most times, she would just have to deal with it, one more authority to rebel against.

This authority was different, though. Neopolitan was a vicious, vindictive, and above all, petty woman. Ruby shouldn't have expected her to play fair. Walking into her club was akin to strolling into the lion's den, especially after what she did. But Ruby didn't think the night would go sour this quickly. She peered to her left toward the door. There were four large, armed men standing between her and freedom. Crescent Rose was lying on the ground behind the leather couch she sat upon. She could grab it quickly, maneuver around the guards and fight her way to freedom. Neo was currently unarmed, and with Yang by her side, the pair of sisters could probably battle their way out of the club and escape into the city. But Ruby knew she couldn't leave, not before she got what she came for. That meant staring down her captor, whose gaze had yet to break.

"I'm sorry," Ruby said immediately, catching Neo off-guard. "I'm sorry about what happened to Roman Torchwick. That's what this is about, isn't it?"

Neo's lips twisted into a thin scowl, and her hands started moving rapidly. Sun, kneeling next to his queen, tried his best to keep up.

"Uh… she says that she doesn't want your apology," he translated for her. "She thinks you're crazy for showing up here."

"Look, Roman attacked her. She defended herself," Yang said. She leaned forward off the couch, but the goons approached her and she pushed herself back down to seem calm. "Besides, Roman getting arrested put you in charge. Don't you like that?"

Neo flashed more sign language. "Roman was my friend," Sun continued hesitantly for her. "You cut his arm off. You are going to have to pay for that."

"Miss… Politan…" Ruby said awkwardly. "My sister and I don't want any trouble. We came here to ask you for a favor."

Neo silently laughed. "Trouble? You always bring trouble. Everywhere you go, you are trouble."

"We need your help finding someone," Yang explained. "That's all. We aren't asking for much."

"Your friend and I fought together," Neo signed, gesturing toward Yang. "I defeated Glass with her. Then, I see her on television. She gets all the credit for saving the city like a big hero. I helped her do that, and now you want another favor? You and your… something something."

Neo stopped and turned toward her translator, who nervously shook his head.

"Sorry," Sun said quickly. "I don't know what that means."

Neo carefully spelled out her mystery sign letter by letter. Sun gasped.

"I'm not gonna call her that!"

"Hey, we saved your life," Yang argued. "We could have left you in that forest, but we helped you even after you screwed us over. You should owe us a million favors."

"I'll owe you what you deserve," Neo signed back. "What Red deserves is to get her arm cut off."

A brief flash of Roman's severed limb on the ground reappeared in Ruby's mind, but she shook it away. No blood. Not now. Concentrate. She could outsmart Ironwood. She could certainly outsmart this little crook.

"Neo, please, hear me out," Ruby begged, trying to regain the criminal's sympathy. Her temperament was as short as her height, so Ruby knew that she had to tread carefully. However, she knew that there were parts of Neo that were reasonable. "I am sorry about what happened with Roman. I'm not going to pretend that I understand what you two had together. However, I am asking that you put that behind you for tonight for your own sake."

"My sake?" Neo challenged her. "How does helping you help me?"

"Because our friends know where they are," Ruby explained simply. "They know who to blame if anything happened to us, and I don't think you want the media attention from hurting two of the most famous Huntresses on the planet. We have friends in high places now, and we could get your entire operation shut down in a week if we wanted to. But we don't want to do that to you, because you kept your word and helped Blake when she asked, and we respect that. We respect you. We're hoping that you can work with us instead of against us. I never knew Roman, but something tells me that he wouldn't want you to destroy your empire because of a grudge."

While she would always adore Crescent Rose, the concept of mutually assured destruction had become Ruby's favorite weapon during her brief stay at Atlas. Those in power only understood others as threats or accomplices to their power, and it was the former that Ruby hoped to exploit. She saw the hesitation enter Neo's expression, seeing the gears turn within her mind as she contemplated the consequences of her actions. Sun stared at her impatiently, rocking back and forth on his knees, waiting for his master's next command. Ruby held her breath. Eventually, the Droog Mistress sneered and signed. Sun let out a relieved gasp and turned back to Ruby.

"She says you have five minutes," he translated. "Then she never wants to see you again."

Ruby released her breath. Okay, that worked. Now, she had to get the job done.

"We are looking for a thief," Ruby said slowly. "A few days ago, she broke into Atlas Academy and stole classified information. We want to know who she is."

Neo shrugged. "I know lots of thieves. Not a lot of Atlasian ones."

"Well, maybe you'll recognize this one," Ruby hoped. She reached into the inner pocket of her coat and pulled out a carefully folded piece of scrap paper. As she unfolded the paper, she took a moment to appreciate her art skills. She had always been more talented at sketching the inner machinations of weaponry than at human features, but her drawing of the woman did resemble the face from her memories. She did her best to match the colors from the exact shade of her cheeks to her hair, and she hoped that the image would spur something within Neo that could be useful. One of the guards took the paper and crossed the distance between the couches, handing it to his boss. Neo only had to stare at the drawing for a moment before her face again turned sour. She tucked the paper underneath her arm so she could communicate, but it was actually Sun who spoke, his casual demeanor betraying Neo's intentions.

"Oh, hey. It's Emerald."

Neo shot him a deadly glare, but it was too late. Ruby's eyes lit up.

"You know her?" Ruby asked, unable to hide the excitement in her voice.

"I hate her." Ruby could feel the bitter weight behind every sign. "I can't believe you of all people are getting involved with her."

"Well, come on," Yang implored her. "Who is she?"

Sun opened his mouth, about to blabber away all of her secrets, but Neo stopped with a slap to the chest. She would let Ruby know nothing she didn't want them to.

"This woman," she signed carefully, "has been the second biggest pain in my ass in the past three months. The fact she roped you into this makes me hate her even more."

Sun stopped translating for a moment, appealing to his boss. "Come on, she isn't that bad."

Neo slapped him again, and though the blow didn't do any damage, he still shamefully bowed his head.

"Please," Ruby begged. "I need to know who she is. It's… it's very important to me."

"How important?" Neo asked.

Ruby was careful with her words. "Not… important enough to do anything illegal for you, if that's what you are thinking."

Some of the joy faded from Neo's features, and she took another long moment before continuing. She really didn't owe Team RWBY anything, and she was giving up a brilliant chance to exploit the most famous team of Huntresses in Remnant. However, her hatred for the pictured woman was more powerful than her meager need for revenge… and who knew? Maybe Team RWBY would do something terrible to her if they knew her identity. A woman could hope.

"Her name is Emerald Sustrai," Neo explained. "She's an expert hacker and thief that Roman used to work with regularly. She made a name for herself freelancing around Vale, stealing from various criminal organizations. The green hair is a wig, by the way. At least, I think so."

"Do you know anything about her Semblance?" Ruby said, skipping straight to the point. Neo threw her arms up in confusion.

"Hell if I know," she signed. "It makes a person see something messed up."

"You don't know the specifics?"

"I know that whoever gets on the receiving end of it has a mental breakdown. I was lucky enough to never get it used on me, and I never bothered asking. When she only uses it on your enemies, you don't really care. I used to not care, anyway…"

Ruby's hopes sank. A name was one thing, but without any confirmation on the Semblance, she was right back where she started. However, Yang picked up on an important detail and decided to press further.

"You said that Roman used to work with her… and that you don't like her anymore. What happened?"

Neo rolled her eyes, leaning back on the couch and crossing her legs as she let out her frustrations. "When Roman led the Droogs, he was very lenient with who he worked with. He believed that you could make friends with anyone, so he had no problem keeping a freelancer like Emerald around. Once he got taken out…" Neo shot Ruby another evil glare. "…I realized that I needed to run a tighter ship around here. It was a necessity. The Droogs cannot be seen as weak. We have to be able to stand on our own. I demanded that we only work with people in house, and since I'm so generous, I gave Emerald an opportunity to officially join." Neo sneered. "The bitch declined."

"You can't really blame her," Sun explained on his own. "She doesn't really like people bothering her."

"It sounds like you two were friends," Yang reasoned.

"Yeah! I mean… I don't know if she would call us that. But we were buds. Pals. Acquaintances?"

Neo signed. "She fucking hated you."

"You don't know that!"

"Okay, so what's the problem?" Yang asked earnestly. "She didn't want to join your gang. How is that problematic?"

"Because she still insisted on working on Droog turf," Neo countered. "She was taking jobs on my territory, from people who weren't me. You can understand why I would have a problem with that. So, I did what any reasonable person would—"

"Neo, you shot up her apartment," Sun cut her off before she could continue. She tried to argue back, but he refused to translate further, leaving Ruby and Yang in the dark. Their silent sign battle went back and forth for a few minutes until Yang was forced to interject again.

"Hey! Can we get involved with this?"

Neo pouted and crossed her arms over her chest, but Sun decided to go against his boss's wishes and continue the story anyway. "Sorry. The point is that Neo tried to drive Emerald off her turf, but Em really didn't like that. A few weeks ago, she broke into Neo's office and stole one of her umbrellas. Neo really didn't like that."

Neo signed something that Yang and Ruby assumed meant: I really fucking liked that umbrella.

"Yeah. We've managed to track her down since, but it's gotten… like, really complicated."

"How complicated?"

"Do you guys know SPIDER?" Neo's eyes went wide and she slapped Sun again. He winced in pain. "Hey, that one actually hurt!"

"SPIDER?" Ruby muttered. The name seemed familiar, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. However, Yang immediately nodded in understanding.

"The Mistran crime gang?"

Neo rolled her eyes so big that her whole head rolled with them, and she threw herself onto the couch, flabbergasted that her lackey would just spill everything at the drop of a hat. Ruby finally recognized the name. SPIDER: the largest organized crime syndicate in Mistral, possibly the whole world. The Droogs were crooks, and gangsters, preying on the weak and vulnerable, but SPIDER was professional, clean, and efficient. Smuggling, trafficking, drugs, assaults—Ruby heard of them all, operated and performed on a scale so wide that corporations would bristle at their success. SPIDER's name was spoken in harsh whispers on the news, an ever-looming presence whose web threatened to entangle anyone who fought against them. They were, though, firmly Mistran, and that made Neo's obsession with them all the stranger. At least, until Sun began running his mouth again.

"That's them," he explained. "So, I guess what happened is that Emerald got spooked and decided to flee the Kingdom. She went to SPIDER for protection, hoping to cross the ocean. The problem is that SPIDER's protection doesn't come cheap, so Emerald has been busy doing a bunch of jobs around the city these few months trying to save enough money for their services. If I had to guess, I'd say that's why she would be willing to steal from Atlas Academy. Someone offered her a lot of money to do so. I guess that must have been enough too because a few days ago, we got word that SPIDER forces were operating on Hennig Street out of Gotral—"

Neo kicked Sun in the gut, and that finally was enough to shut him up. The damage was already done, though. Yang and Ruby were keenly aware of the cold war brewing between the two criminal factions, and with Yang's social know-how and Ruby's intellect, they were able to piece together a reasonable picture of what was going down. It hadn't made sense that a mere umbrella robbery was causing Neo so much grief, but now that more information was present, the struggle was obvious.

Gotral—the Faunus district past the 6h Borough Cross. Droogs didn't like operating in non-Human zones. Too many local gangs and problematic race relations. That gave the region the perfect cover for a fugitive—say, with green hair—to lay low while she waited to get extradited to another Kingdom. With payments coming through from the result of her Atlas Academy robbery, she was finally ready to leave. Neo probably tracked the SPIDER forces through her network and may have even pinpointed Emerald's exact location within the district, but any action she took would ignite a full-blown war between two of the most dangerous criminal organizations in Remnant. Ruby didn't know who would win, but judging from Neo's angst, the Droog Mistress seemed convinced it wasn't her. She was forced to watch the thief get away, all because she couldn't bother to share.

Of course, Ruby had more questions. Who hired Emerald to steal from Atlas in the first place? How entrenched was SPIDER in those plans? But most crucially… if Neo didn't know what Emerald's Semblance truly was, then did that mean the only way to learn the truth…

Ruby didn't have time to contemplate that. She didn't have time for anything. As soon as the questions entered her mind, the door to Neo's office burst open, and one of Neo's guards haphazardly stumbled into the room, sweating and stammering.

"Boss! We got a problem downstairs!"

Neo huffed. "I'm in the middle of something."

"You're going to need to see this."

Neopolitan stood up from the couch and beckoned her henchmen to follow her. She stormed out of the room, not even bothering to order Ruby and Yang to be still. Without any orders, and eager to see what could cause a commotion big enough to warrant the Droog Mistress's attention. When they followed Neo down the stairs and onto the dance floor, they got their wish. It wasn't at all what they were expecting.

The trouble-making woman hadn't bothered to show the doorman her ID. She didn't care for his delays, and his unconscious body was now lying in the middle of the club. What was once a dancefloor full of drunk partiers had been emptied, with many of the guests scrambling for the closest exit. Spilled drinks and glasses were scattered everywhere, as were several more bodies of Droog guards, sprawled out on the ground and rolling in agony. The music was still pumping, overwhelming, and the strobe lights made it difficult to make out the exact figures. But through the haze and the thin glow, Ruby and Yang could see Junior, the club's large bartender, swinging his fists at a young woman. She easily ducked and dodged around his blows, gracefully battling his hands away. When he became overeager and whiffed another punch, the woman decked him hard in the stomach, causing him to crumple over. She casually picked him up over her head with one hand before tossing him aside. He spilled over the bar counter, out of sight and out of mind. The troublesome woman spoke politely, though Ruby could barely hear her over the music.

"Please, move aside. I am here to see my friends."

Ruby couldn't believe it. Even through the strobe lights, she could make out key details of the woman's face. Round and innocent, freckled and warm. Her small bob of red hair lit up whenever a light danced across it. Her uniform was as neat and tidy as any other day in the Academy. Her face was solemn until she noticed Ruby and Yang standing by the back entrance, surrounded by goons. She waved politely.

"Oh, there you are, Ruby! I've been looking for—"

Neo didn't wait for answers. The short tyrant pushed her way to the front of the pack and reached into her back pocket. She removed another handgun from its shackles, and before Ruby had time to panic, Neo emptied the chamber at the woman who dared to disrupt her services. The girl was unphased; her metal arm unfurled, a great shield raised, and the bullets harmlessly bounced off, leaving the young woman without a scratch. She lowered the shield, her smile unburdened, and Neo scowled, desperate to reload her gun. Before she could, a burst of rose petals appeared in front of her, and Ruby blocked her path, defending the honor of the seemingly lost Atlasian honor student.

"Whoa! Everyone just calm down!" she cried frantically, her voice struggling to reach over the music. Penny simply cocked her head, amused.

"Are you all right, Ruby? Is this woman holding you captive?"

"No! We're fine! Everyone is fine!"

Neo signed furiously. Unfortunately, Sun was too distracted twirling around his nunchakus to bother translating, so Ruby just had to guess what she was saying.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what she's doing here. We swear, we didn't plan this!"

Penny shook her head. "Ruby, if these people are hurting you, it would be perfectly acceptable for you to kill them."

No. Wrong thing to say. Bad Penny.

"She doesn't mean that!"

Neo didn't really accept Ruby's answer. She had now seen three uninvited guests today, and one of them caused a significant amount of damage to her club. She was seriously not in the mood for this shit, and she considered just murdering all three of them right here and now to get rid of them. That would be reasonable, since this strange redhead just openly said to kill them. However, the thin specter of Ruby's threat still hung over her, and it may have taken the very last of her patience, but she used her gun to point toward the exit—a gesture that everyone clearly understood.

Yang hurriedly sprinted to Ruby's side, grabbing her sister by the arm. "Uh, Ruby, I think we should go."

Yes. Yes, they should go. They should go very, very far away from here. Ruby and Yang didn't wait for Penny's approval before they both grabbed her and pulled her back toward the entrance to the club, taking care not to stumble over any of the prone bodies and chaos the Atlasian cadet left in her wake.

"Hey, what are you doing? Was my rescue mission successful?" Penny's confused voice rose over the thumping music. Ruby did not know how to answer that question.

They didn't feel safe until they were a dozen blocks away. Vale Public Park was a quiet place most nights, and the chirping birds and gentle snow normally served as a reprieve from chaotic city life. It was also a place with a lot of lights, and a lot of cameras, which meant that Ruby felt sure she wasn't going to get sneak attacked by a gang of Droogs in case Neo changed her mind. What was clear though was that the park was no longer serene, as Yang was busy screaming at Penny, chewing out the poor woman who sat calmly on a bench as if she did nothing wrong.

"What the hell are you doing here, Penny?" Yang bellowed. "How the fuck did you find us?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Penny shrugged. "When you spoke to Professor Ozpin, he thought it was suspicious that you would leave the Academy so soon after asking about the thief. He assumed that you were going to search for her, and he asked me to follow you."

"Why you?" Yang asked pointedly. "Why not anyone else?"

"He said it would be a good training exercise for me. He believed that I had the capabilities to stealthily follow you around the city." Penny, somewhat embarrassed, smiled. "Boy, he really messed that one up, didn't he?"

Ruby groaned, facepalming as she considered the obvious. Of course, her meeting with Ozpin would arouse suspicion. She should have known it was a mistake from the start. He was going to find the identity of the thief by any means necessary, and if he thought they would lead him to her, he wouldn't just let them wander out of sight. It was especially cruel dragging Penny into this, though. She clearly understood nothing about this, and the longer Ruby studied her, the more she was convinced she understood nothing about anything.

"So, you followed us all the way from Atlas," Ruby sighed. "And then you… decided to crash Neo's club."

"I didn't plan on crashing anything," Penny defended herself. "I tried to follow you inside, but the man at the door wouldn't let me in. I couldn't just abandon my mission. So, unfortunately, I had to… what is that term again? Make a scene?"

"Yeah, and you almost got us killed," Yang complained. "We were negotiating with a dangerous criminal. You can't just go in and start smashing everything. Not with Neo. Trust me on that."

"I don't think you should be negotiating with dangerous criminals in the first place," Penny reasoned. "However, since you did negotiate, were you able to ascertain any information about the thief? It is our top priority to learn as much as possible."

Yang and Ruby exchanged cautious glances.

"Can you give Yang and me a minute?" Ruby asked politely. Penny nodded and waited patiently on the park bench as the two sisters marched several yards away through the snow, wandering out of earshot. Ruby tucked her hands into her coat pockets. Despite the wind chill not nearly being as bad as in Atlas Academy, it was still too frigid for her liking. "So… what do you want to do?"

"What do you mean?" Yang asked. "You're not seriously considering telling her anything, are you?"

"Of course not. Not if she's reporting to Ozpin," Ruby sighed. "But I mean… what should we do? We have a name, a street, and a Borough. Gotral isn't far away. If this Emerald woman is still in the city…"

Yang had to do a double take, and she gritted her teeth to stop her words from being carried by the wind. "Ruby, you can't be serious."

"Here me out."

"We are not doing something else. We almost died tonight. Remember when you said Weiss would kill you if you did anything reckless?"

"This could be our one chance to find her before SPIDER takes her," Ruby explained. "Once she's in Mistral, she is gone. Our leads are over. Neo didn't know anything about her Semblance, but if we could just get to Hennig Street and ask her—"

"Ruby, listen to yourself," Yang pleaded, lightly cupping her sister's face. "I know that this means a lot to you. It's Mom. I get that. I want to know what happened too. But solving this vision isn't worth losing my sister. We have gotten in more danger tonight than I ever wanted to get to, and I don't want to take any more risks. I don't want to risk our credibility by doing something illegal, I don't want to risk getting involved in a huge crime syndicate, and I really, really don't want to risk you. We are hanging on by a thread already, and Penny is here now, and it's… look, I know that we kicked a Grimm's ass, and we could probably kick SPIDER's ass. But we should play this safe. That's what you're always preaching, right? You need to take your own advice, because you are a lot smarter than I am. You got that?"

The passion in Yang's voice gut through to Ruby. She had come here for a simple task, and the idea that she would lose out on the one lead to her mother was more than she could bear. Yet, deep down, she knew that Yang was right. They had already skirted the edge of the knife, and the last thing they needed was to fall off. No matter how much it pained her, Ruby knew the most reasonable thing to do was retreat back to the hotel, wait for Blake's speech tomorrow, then fly back to Atlas away from the Droogs. She could investigate Emerald Sustrai later. She didn't know how, but she would just have to figure it out. She hoped that the nightmares subsided before then.

Something else caught her attention, though, and she couldn't help but note it as she removed Yang's hands from her face. "Did… did you just talk me out of doing something impulsively?"

Yang opened her mouth to respond, but when it hit her, she found that she was speechless. Maybe more had changed about them than they thought.

"So… you're searching for a woman named Emerald on Hennig Street in Gotral."

Ruby and Yang jumped back, their stomachs churning. They didn't notice when Penny started standing behind them, or when she had started listening in to their conversation. But they noticed her now, smiling innocently, having finally discovered the truth.

"Penny, you weren't—"

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Penny asked bluntly.

What? What was she…

Oh no…

"Penny, you can't be—"

"Hennig Street isn't very far. It won't take very long for me to locate a hub of organized criminal activity there. You said it was SPIDER? I'm sure that won't be a problem."

Shit. No. Penny. Penny.

"Penny, I don't think that's a very good idea," Yang tried to explain, but before she could get the sentence fully out, Penny had already started walking away from them.

"I'll get a headstart and scout the area. You can point the Emerald woman out to me when you arrive." Penny looked over her shoulder and beamed at them. "I'll save some of the bad guys for you."

Ruby and Yang saw the green flames ignite beneath Penny's heels, and they were powerless to stop the cadet before she blasted off into the sky, disappearing behind the trees. They watched Penny sail south, toward the 6th Borough Cross, toward the thief she was ordered to apprehend, toward the danger Ruby just swore she would avoid, toward an enemy far more dangerous than any of them were prepared for. Penny, in all her confidence and ignorance, had just thrown herself deep into the spider's web, and it dawned on Ruby with great horror that anything that happened to the young woman was going to be her fault.

She looked up at the sky in horror, and a thin gasp escaped her lips. "Oh… fuck…"