Ch 8 - Lady, this Deal is a Steal!
A/N: If you're smart, given the hints I've dropped earlier, and the title, I think you already know what's gonna happen in this chapter.
Also, just a reminder that the next chapter is available early on the Pat website that FFN (which I think has finally fixed its shit and started emailing notifications again) doesn't like. So you know, if you feel like giving me money, I won't say no. I'm not asking you to, and you'll get the content for free if you just wait, but the option is on the table…
Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Souls or RWBY. Dark Souls belongs to From Software and RWBY belonged to RoosterTeeth. I only own my OCs.
(Whitley)
This party is a farce, Whitley thought. "Raise money for Vale," they said. "Show that Father isn't the bad guy," they said. This entire event was nothing but an opportunity for Father to make a PR move and network with the other elite in Atlas, in order to gather funds for his bid for the council.
"That's exactly my point," Father said to yet another would-be sycophant. "We offer faunus the exact same wages we offer the rest of our mining staff. Their argument is completely invalid out the gate."
You neglect to mention that you pay your human miners the minimum wage as well, in addition to the fact that nearly all of the humans in the company manage to land jobs that don't involve being the person digging up volatile dust deposits. Whitley, with practiced ease, avoided rolling his eyes at the statement. He was the heir now. He had to be what Father wanted him to be. He didn't have any other choice. His musings and cynical mental commentary were interrupted, however, as he noticed movement by the door to the ballroom. It appeared to be a company messenger, arguing with the security. General Ironwood, who Whitley was sure only showed up because refusing to do so would be seen as rude, also noticed the disturbance, moving to investigate. He watched the general speak to the security guards at the door, then the messenger. Something the messenger said, evidently caused the general distress, because now he appeared to be demanding the messenger's scroll.
The Schnee heir waited for a lull in the conversation the adults were partaking in, before speaking up. "Father, there appears to be a minor altercation occurring at the east entrance. May I be excused to discern the problem so that you won't be interrupted?"
Father waved a hand, not even turning to look at him. "Yes, yes, Whitley. See to it. Now where was I…"
Whitley left the conversation, weaving through the crowd towards the east entrance. As he closed, he began to hear what was being said.
"Sir," the messenger stated. "I was instructed to deliver this message to Mr. Schnee only. While something of this magnitude will most likely warrant your attention, given that it was on SDC company property, you have no jurisdiction unless the company asks you for assistance."
"What seems to be the problem?" Whitley inquired as he finally reached the door. Ironwood, the messenger, and the two security guards looked over to him, the latter straightening up in his presence.
"Mr. Schnee, sir," the messenger hastily began. "I was instructed to deliver this message straight to your father. Security was giving me issues with my entry, but the general had convinced them to let me in. Unfortunately, now he's demanding to know what the message is."
Whitley weighed his options for a moment. "Father… is busy at the moment. Surely, you wouldn't want to interrupt him during this event. I am the heir to the SDC as well, so I'll be sure to pass whatever message you have directly to Father. This way, you don't have to come in, Father gets the message, and if it is important enough, Ironwood can hear what it is from me before I give it to Father. Everyone is satisfied."
The messenger swallowed, weighing his options, before nodding and handing a scroll to Whitley. "Thank you sir, have a wonderful night." Whitely gave an absentminded reply, opening the device to see what this news was.
He nearly dropped the scroll as his eyes bugged out. Just minutes ago, workers arriving for late night maintenance for a company warehouse in Mantle reported that they arrived to an empty building. Its entire stock was stolen, with no clues as to where over three hundred thousand lien worth of dust had disappeared to. Whitley dryly swallowed, sure that he'd just saved that messenger's career by preventing him from handing this to Father. His eyes flicked further through the report, widening when he found the only piece of evidence the criminals had left, before he dumbly passed the scroll to Ironwood, who skimmed through it even faster, cursing under his breath when he got to the same point Whitley had.
After all, Father was not going to be pleased to find out about the theft of a fully stocked warehouse to begin with, especially under the dust embargo. Doubly so, when the only evidence the thief had left behind was an entire wall stenciled with the jack-o-lantern emblem of Roman Torchwick.
(Roman)
Hot damn, it feels good to be getting back into the swing of things, Roman thought. Breaking into the warehouse had been a breeze for a master thief of his skill, as had disabling any security measures that would have screwed him up. Honestly, the hardest part of the heist had been hiring a bunch of schmucks off the streets to move all the stuff to a different (abandoned) warehouse elsewhere in Mantle… and also give them a cut of the dust. But they'd been paid off, the money lost barely made a dent in Roman's illicitly acquired accounts, and it had been brought to Roman's attention that it wasn't faunus who were terrible minions for thievery, it was just White Fang grunts. It wasn't any skin off Roman's back, however, because even with the dust they'd taken, it had barely made a dent to the total stash. Though he could've done without that one guy who constantly babbled on about Robyn Hill and her bid for the open Council seat. Like I'd give a crap about the elections when I don't even have citizenship, he thought. On the other hand, hearing about her using Taurus' brand to decry Jackass Schnee's own campaign was pretty damn hilarious. But back to the point of his musings, at the end of the day, the people of Mantle got some dust, no one would squeal on him, he got to piss off the SDC and make a handsome profit; everyone wins. Except Jackass, but he was a rich bastard, so he didn't count. Now if only he could figure out what to do with around two-hundred and sixty thousand lien worth of dust. Granted, the twins and him would grab a generous helping for their own use at a later date, but that still left a literal warehouse full of dust that he had no idea what to do with.
"It would occur to me that I didn't think this part of the plan through," the hatted hoodlum muttered aloud. It was honestly quite the conundrum, and with a pang of melancholy, he realized that if Neo were here, she'd have definitely seen this coming and helped him come up with a plan.
"Think what through?" Melanie inquired.
"What I'm actually gonna do with all this dust. It'd take months to fence off with the current grand total of three people we got in the manpower department." The hatted hoodlum paused for a pair of seconds, before adding, "And if either of you joke that we should turn it into bombs and load them on a train, I will hack your scrolls and disable your CCT access."
Mel had opened her mouth, but quickly shut it, and Miltia just put a hand to her face while shaking her head. "Yeah," Mel conceded, "We aren't gonna be able to hire randos on a consistent basis. That's like, asking for something to go wrong."
"In hindsight, solving the manpower issue should have been something we did before we pulled off a dust heist that'll make the news across the entire continent," Miltia quietly added.
Roman was in the process of thinking up a witty reply to that when his instincts suddenly screamed there was danger afoot. Now, one did not get as far as he had in his field without learning to listen to their gut (and he specifically hadn't gotten as far as he had without getting lectured by the eon-old Patches who also espoused the importance of listening to one's instincts in combat), so he had already drawn Melodic Cudgel when he noticed movement in the corner of his eye. As such, he was able to move the cane to deflect the oncoming projectile, and the crossbow bolt harmlessly ricocheted into the floor. Now alerted, the twins managed to dodge a trio of bolts sent their way as well. From the rafters above, and the crates behind them, four women jumped down, and Roman took in the four opponents who'd just barged in.
He recognized Robyn Hill straight away, after all the crap he'd heard about her since arriving in Mantle. Which meant that he was dealing with a former top graduate of Atlas Academy, and her so-called Happy Huntresses, who trailed directly behind her in the huntsman institution. Fuuuuuck, he sighed in his head. Resisting the urge to make a cliche "You're shorter in person comment," he assessed the young woman with tanned skin and violet eyes. Her light-blond hair was tied in a ponytail, and there were two beauty marks on her face, one under her right eye and another on the left side under her mouth. Her black sleeveless coat with gray accents rested over a red double-breasted sleeveless vest, a brown high neck shirt, and a light gray short-sleeved shirt, the right short sleeved with a black cuff, and the left was longer. On her waist was a brown belted clincher, with matching brown pants tucked into black knee-high boots with dark brown cuffs. Wrapped about her neck was an olive-green scarf with tattered looking tails hanging behind her. Rounding out Robyn's outfit was a pair of black archery styled gloves, with the index finger missing from both. On her left arm was a wrist mounted crossbow.
To Robyn's right was a sheep faunus (with the animal in question's ears taking the place of human ones) with short and messy swept styled white hair and olive eyes. Her right ear had a small bell earring, and her left had a small hoop earring. Her attire consisted of an olive green sleeveless coat with dark brown lapels, a Happy Huntress brooch (a crossbow bolt with feathered wings) on its left lapel. Between it and her green long-sleeved shirt was a white-orange trimmed breastplate, and over the coat, an orange belt wrapped around her waist. On her legs were dark brown pants tucked into gray under-the-knee boots, with the tops folded over, revealing the white lining on their insides, the soles and toes of which were a darker gray. Her fingerless gloves were dark brown, and she had gray armored pads covering the base of her hands and forearms, the left going past the elbow while the right stopped before the joint.
On the other side, towards the crates of dust and facing down the twins, were the other two women. The first was a tall, tan skinned woman with masculine features. The word butch came to mind, and Roman shelved it as a possible candidate for a mocking nickname. Her short, dark-green hair was partially spiked, she had beige eyes, and there were tattoos on her nose and forehead. Her cocoa-brown coat bore dark-brown lapels, with white trim and hem detail, over a light beige long-sleeved top. On her hands were brown (and for once, not fingerless) gloves, and on her arms were artichoke-green and white armored pads with emerald-green straps. Her brown trousers tucked into black boots with emerald green cuffs, and on her chest was a light gray and pale green breastplate that sports the Happy Huntress' brooch emblem in the center.
The final assailant was a yellow-eyed, fair-skinned woman with blue hair of a middling-length, bar the ponytail wrapped in white bandage-like fabric that reached down to her hips. Her dusty brown coat had a small split in the rear, and dark-brown lapels, with the Happy Huntress' brooch emblem on the right one. Beneath it was a gray waistcoat and dark-brown top. Her dark-brown shorts matched her forearm-length gloves. Gray armor padding protected her forearms and the backs of her hands, and she wore a pair of gray thigh socks beneath dark-brown thigh-high boots, her neck covered by an orange scarf. She looked familiar for some reason...
The two groups stared each other down for a few long seconds, before Roman finally broke the silence brought on by the standoff. "Wow, I knew the ladies couldn't get enough of me, but this is a bit ridiculous." Butch- yeah, that's definitely the nickname I'm going with - narrowed her eyes and growled at him, while the woman next to her glared. Sheep-girl at least looked taken aback by the snark, which he counted as a victory in his book, but Robyn didn't even react.
"So terrorism in Vale wasn't enough for you, Roman Torchwick?" the would-be councilwoman asked. "Now you have to bring ruin upon Mantle as well?"
Roman blinked, expecting a negative reception, but more along the lines of his thievery, not his unwilling service under Cinder. Then he remembered the CCT was down, and that Iron-dick certainly wouldn't have bothered informing the people of his kingdom that a lowly criminal had stepped in to defend a nation when he couldn't. "Funnily enough, no. No nefarious plans for Mantle here," he shot back nonchalantly, spreading his hands wide in a grandiose gesture as he spoke.
"As if your word counts for anything," the blue-haired woman spat.
"I'm giving you and your accomplices one chance to surrender," Robyn said.
Roman sighed. "People these days. All business and no banter." He raised his cane, finger tightening on the trigger as the sight at the end of the barrel popped up. "Luckily for you, my transactions are rather explosive." He pulled the trigger, a flare firing and crashing into the chest of sheep-girl, sending her flying with a yelp and a boom.
"Fiona!" Robyn shouted, naming the woman he just blasted, before she turned to him with a grimace on her face and started firing bolts from that wrist mounted crossbow she had. Roman deflected two with Melodic Cudgel before Robyn started sprinting towards him. His instincts cried out again, and he barely sidestepped the next bolt, which a quick glance showed to house ice dust, since it froze the surface of the crate it impacted. At least unlike Red and her friends she's smart enough not to fire explosives towards crates of dust. Then Robyn was upon him, deploying metal fan blades resembling wings from the crossbow on her wrist. Three swipes from the blades met the metal of his own cane, before she went to flip over him. Swapping to a one-handed grip, he flipped his weapon, pressing a button on the bottom and firing the grappling hook built into its head, which caught Robyn's ankle, before letting go of the button to let it retract. She gasped in surprise as she was pulled out of her acrobatics, and sent tumbling to the floor. Roman flipped his grip on Melodic Cudgel once more, turning the seemingly innocuous rainbow of plastic between the head and shaft of the weapon until the blue strip lined up with the cane's sight. Two pulls of the trigger soaked Robyn thanks to the water dust he utilized, as well as knocking the wind out of her, and even as she heaved in air and scrambled to her feet and swiped at him again, he flipped his cane a third time, using the curve to catch the fan-blade, before his free hand reached out and grabbed her shoulder. The lightning dust within the glove activated, and she screamed as he suddenly electrocuted her.
"Is it really that shocking that an old thief can pick up some new tricks?" he snarked, before his instincts called out to him a third time that night, and he kicked Robyn away before grabbing one end of his cane with each hand, raising it overhead to block the dual-crossbow staff Fiona had attempted to strike him with. He regarded the hateful glare on her face for half a second, before noting that Robyn was taking a while to get up, which meant that he could spare a second to check how the other half of the fight was going. Suffice to say, it was going poorly. Considering that Blondie had kicked the brat's asses once upon a time, and that instead of a (admittedly above-average) student huntress, they were facing two professionals who'd graduated at the top of Atlas Academy, it was honestly amazing that they'd held on as long as they had. Even as he watched, the crossbow-staff blue-hair had intercepted a kick from Melanie, before it was used to yank her off balance, followed by pinning her to the floor by her throat. Miltia had seemed to get a few licks in, even now landing a pair of shots from her claws on her own opponent, but Butch didn't seem to give a crap, leg-sweeping the younger twin and whacking her head with an audible thunk on the way down, breaking her aura. Turning again to see Robyn now getting to her feet, and realizing the situation was rapidly turning against him, he decided to use his brain, and get some leverage. Namely, the girl whose weapon was still locked with his. Roman took a step to the left, shifting Melodic Cudgel so that Fiona's crossbow-staff suddenly slid down and off the barrel of the cane. Suddenly unbalanced, she lurched forwards, and Roman grabbed one of her wrists, shocking her into dropping her weapon. He holstered his cane, his other hand then rising to grab the back of her head and shock her further, causing her to scream in pain. He locked his left arm over her throat, getting behind her and making sure he was facing the other three Happy Huntresses as he started backing up, his right hand remaining on the back of her head, though he stopped using the lighting dust. He shifted his other arm so that his left hand rested on the front of Fiona's shoulder, even as Robyn and Butch squared off against him.
"Alright, I know I shot first, but I honestly didn't want to start this fight," Roman started. "So how about we all talk this out like civilized people?"
"Let. Her. Go." Robyn ordered.
"And lose my leverage?" he questioned, twitching the glove on Fiona's shoulder, ready to start shocking his hostage at a moment's notice. "You're gonna have to try a bit harder if you wanna con a conman."
"What do you want?" Blue hair barked.
"Just to chat," Roman said with a grin, "Like I said, I don't have any plans for messing with Mantle."
Robyn retracted the fan blades on her crossbow, lowering her weapon arm and raising the other hand towards him, taking a step forwards. "Then take my hand and prove it."
"Huh?" Roman asked, confused. "What does that have to do with-"
"If you want to prove that you don't have any ill intent towards Mantle," Robyn interrupted, "take my hand, and say it again," she said, as the proffered limb began to glow with a purple aura.
Roman blinked a few times, before it suddenly clicked. "Ooooh! You got a semblance that lets you tell if people are lying." A pause, before he muttered aloud, "That's just wonderful. Fucking semblances..." At the confused look from Butch, he added, "I've been around the block more than enough to infer things from context, Butch." Blue hair grabbed her shoulder and held her back when she went to step forwards. Roman gave a solitary chuckle at his petty victory, before looking back to Robyn, and removing the hand on the back of Fiona's head, reaching it out. "Take the crossbow off and toss it behind me first," he countered.
Robyn narrowed her eyes, but still did as asked, and then she walked forwards, taking Roman's outstretched hand with her own. "Why are you in Mantle?"
Roman smirked. That one was easy enough to tell the truth for. "I just wanna steal stuff from the SDC." The aura on their clasped hands changed from purple to a light green, and Robyn's eyes widened, evidently caught off guard by the fact that he wasn't lying.
"Why?" she further questioned.
"To annoy a rich asshole, for my own amusement, and to turn a nice profit." The aura began to shift back to purple, and Robyn narrowed her eyes, before Roman sighed, begrudgingly adding, "And to fix my street cred after getting defeated by a bunch of kids from Beacon." The aura went back to green, and when Fiona began to snicker, he said, "I can still shock you, you know." That shut her up, and now it was Roman's turn to grin.
"And you have no ill intent towards Mantle, or any civilians in Mantle or Atlas?"
Roman took a second to make sure he properly worded his answer, because a simple yes would definitely constitute a lie. "Besides the SDC? None at all. But… if the opportunity presents itself, I definitely wouldn't pass the opportunity to rob another rich asshole upstairs," he said, jerking his head up towards the ceiling, and Atlas above it. When the aura stayed green, Robyn genuinely seemed at a loss, so Roman took a few seconds to kick his scheming mind into overdrive, trying to figure out how he could turn this situation to his advantage. And then he suddenly had a eureka moment.
"Hey," Roman slyly began, "while you still got your semblance working, I got a proposition for ya."
"And what would that be?" Robyn warily asked.
"While I was… procuring all the dust in this warehouse, one of the guys I hired off the streets in the poorer districts kept going on and on and on and on about how you were helping Mantle, and how much you loved to do so. I will admit, I can offload some of this dust and turn a nice profit, take a bit more for myself and the twins, but most of it? I got no idea what to do with it! But what if I was to give it to you?"
"And what would you want out of this?" Blue hair asked.
"Very good question, young lady," Roman said with his best teacher impression, relishing in the annoyed look the woman gave. "Obviously, I'd want you all to leave me be, since I don't intend to be bothering the city you want to protect while I'm here, but why stop there? You wanna help Mantle. I wanna hurt rich assholes in Atlas. Me doing that happens to have the side effect of helping Mantle, because all the extra stuff I steal that I can't use I'll just offload on Mantle." And now that he offered the bait, it was time to reel it in. "But, ah, I have a little manpower problem when it comes to my plans. So how about this? I steal stuff from the SDC and Atlas. Your people help me move stuff. The twins and I take a small cut and make a profit. The majority of the stuff I take goes to Mantle. I don't steal from anyone you say is helping Mantle, and I'll even steal from other targets you want me to hit every now and then. Everyone here gets what they want." The aura on their hands stayed green the entire time, and Roman's grin widened.
Robyn stared at him impassively, and Roman made damn well sure that he wouldn't blink first. Surprisingly, Butch was the first one to speak up. "We were talking about using less-than-legal means to help Mantle, Robyn."
"Hey, it just so happens that I'm the best when it comes to less-than-legal stuff," Roman remarked.
Robyn looked at Butch for a few seconds, before turning back to Roman. Finally, her expression softened. "Fine. But only because I know you're telling the truth. Joanna," she said, addressing Butch- oh yeah, I'm gonna have to start calling her by that name now. Damn, insulting nicknames are way more fun - as she let go of Roman's hand, "help up the girl in red, and May-" and now I have a name for the fourth one "-you can stop pinning cyan to the floor."
"Like, my name's Melanie," Mel mouthed off as the staff was lifted from her throat.
Roman rolled his eyes, finally letting Fiona go, who stumbled away from him as quickly as she could. "Hey, no hard feelings, right?" The sheep faunus looked at him incredulously, and he sighed. Addressing everyone, he said, "All right, all right, we've gotten off to a really rough start, so how about we have a do-over?" Putting on his best roguish smile, he used his cane as a balance to tip off his hat and take a deep bow. "Roman Torchwick, master thief, and current owner of two hundred and sixty thousand lien worth of dust, at your service." He motioned to the Malachite twins, "And these two lovely" and he made sure to layer on the sarcasm with that word, "ladies that I'm currently watching over for a friend are Melanie and Miltiades-" "Call me Miltia" "- Malachite."
Robyn gave him a deadpan stare. "Robyn Hill," she said in an annoyed tone.
"Fiona Thyme," the sheep faunus supplied, still eying Roman warily.
"Joanna Greenleaf," Butch said as she yanked Miltia to her feet.
"May Marigold," the last girl introduced herself. Though the surname sounded familiar.
"Marigold… where have I heard that name before?" Roman muttered. He snapped his fingers. "Oh yeah, there was a scandal with the Marigold family involving them disowning their son because he wanted to help Mantle that made the news a couple years back." May narrowed her eyes at him, and Roman had the sudden realization that the scandal had involved a male Marigold, yet there was a female Marigold in front of him. Once again, his street sense put the facts together. "I'm just gonna hazard a guess here, because I swear I saw an Adam's Apple when your scarf slipped for a second during that fight. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I take it you transitioned?"
"Is that a problem?"
Roman raised his hands placatingly. "No no! Your gender identity is all you! You wanna be a woman, that's perfectly fine by me. I don't judge by appearance, only by capability. Why, just earlier today, I learned that it wasn't faunus who were terrible at stealing stuff, just White Fang grunts. And I just felt soooo terrible for making assumptions based on race, that I made sure to give just a bit more dust to the faunus I hired for stealing everything in here."
"Screw you," Fionna muttered.
Roman sighed. "So I don't suppose that after we get all this dust out to Mantle, that you'd be willing to train the twins? I mean, I've been doing it myself, but I kinda hate them, and as you've just seen, their skills can use…quite a bit of work, and you did happen to graduate at the top of your class from huntsman academy."
"Hey!" Mel shouted indignantly.
"Like, he's not wrong," Mil told her sister. Mel just went from glaring to skulking.
Robyn just deadpanned at him.
Roman sighed again, pulling out and lighting a (tobacco-free, because he was willing to take the hit in quality if it meant not sucking on cancer sticks… and also because Neo would stab him if she found out he was using real ones) cigar, before sticking it in his mouth. "Yeah, this is gonna be a rough week," he muttered to himself.
()
A/N: As far as I can tell, the Happy Huntresses consists of the team of Robyn, Fiona, Joanna, and May. But the wiki also says they amassed a following. Nothing I read or remember from V7 and 8 indicates that there aren't more members to the Happy Huntresses, just that the core is the four of them. So, even though this is RWBY, in the interest of a more entertaining story, for making sense when you try to think about how only four women would be helping the entirety of Mantle to the point that the people there would love them and en masse support Robyn's run for the Council seat, and to play into the fact that they're based off Robin Hood and his Merry Men, I'm going to invoke the Dark Souls Clause. Since I was unable to find anything explicitly saying that there aren't more than just the four of them in the group, I'm gonna have the Happy Huntresses have a few dozen more members, with auras unlocked but significantly less trained than the "top graduate" level of skill that Robyn and her team are at. Of course, they're still all armed with the crossbow-staffs, but still, this solved the issue of Roman lacking manpower for taking on the SDC, while still allowing me to put him and Robyn in an unlikely alliance without having to come up with a third allied group from scratch. And if it turns out something is out there that does contradict it… well, this is a crossover to begin with, so it's not like I haven't thrown canon out the proverbial window before.
Anyways, Roman pays attention to the news, and remembers obscure stuff, which is why he puts together May being trans four volumes before its revealed in canon. Also, the visible Adam's Apple is kind of a giveaway. Additionally, Roman points it out specifically because it's rude. It's not that he's a transphobe, he just enjoys pissing people off. And that just happened to be a really easy way to piss May off. Of course, this has no bearing on the story, and I have nothing against LGBTQ+. Who you are and who you like is entirely your prerogative. I won't judge. Unless you like scat (the fetish, not the music). Then I'll judge you with extreme prejudice. Because you're a degenerate. And before you go to look it up if you aren't aware of what scat is, I'll do you a favor and tell you NOT TO. Seriously, if you don't know, you are better off continuing to not know.
Anyways, I have an endgame planned out for this plot now, but I've still got a lot more to blindly stumble through before I get there. But Roman is awesome, and I'm pretty sure I'm the first person to have these characters interact, so I'm pretty excited about this plot going forwards. Edit: There's another fic on AO3 that has Roman interact with Robyn, but I first wrote this chapter before that was published, so I still get 1st place by technicality.
This chapter was first written about four months before Roman Holiday was released. At the time, I just thought it would be funny, but as it turns out, spray-painting a giant stencil of his personal emblem in a warehouse he robs dry is absolutely something Roman Torchwick would do. The man literally robbed a bank for the publicity alone (okay, the money was an incentive, and he was kinda broke at the time, but the notoriety was the top priority), and on his way to do it, picked like a dozen people's pockets, while leaving a calling card in the place of their wallets saying that they'd been robbed by Roman Torchwick. The man sent Lisa Lavender flowers for reporting about him on the news. He doesn't steal because he's greedy. He does it because he finds it fun. It started as survival, but eventually, the spectacle and reputation that came with it started to be just as important to him. And on a side note, Lisa thanking him for the flowers later on in the book legitimately had me laughing out loud.
And lastly, Roman is an asshole to everyone because he enjoys getting a rise out of people he annoys. It's not that he's racist, it's that saying racist stuff is the quickest way to piss off a faunus, and he had every reason to want to piss off the White Fang he was forced to work with (and Blake and Sun). At least, that's my interpretation from having watched RWBY and having read Roman Holiday. And that's what I'm going with in this series.
Tune in next week for when Vyliria gets a rematch with a certain scorpion faunus.