"You know... It's exactly as big as it looks; on the inside and out."
Mint watched, refusing to let her laughter escape as Weiss groaned and dropped her head into her hands. Amity Arena on opening day; she had to admit, things turned out pretty good. Cinder never specified an exact place to patrol or watch in the arena, and so she chose to relax with RWBY in the front row.
At that very moment, a few practice matches were under way. Nothing all that fancy or detrimental to lose, but the old huntsmen and huntresses who helped organize this whole shindig every year liked to get in on a little of the action themselves. The crowd hardly cared whether students or staff beat each other's asses in the arena, only that they fought.
On another note, Mint took great amusement in watching Professor Port and Doctor Oobleck get their rears handed to them by Professor Goodwitch. Good ol' Glynda seemed to enjoy catching them in far too many wacky traps for the sight to be anything but abnormal. Paired with Roman, something nobody saw coming and only a few openly questioned in the stands, the duo laid waste to their opponents.
In a few hours, the losing pair would commentate the actual fighters, that being the students, but for now the combination of Roman's positioning and field control mixed with Professor Goodwitch's ability to say "no" to whatever action anyone tried brought about a resounding cheer to sweep up the audience as the victors were called.
"They did pretty good for two people who hate each other," Ruby said as she tossed a kernel of popcorn into her mouth. Mint debated stealing a few, but held off; Ruby skipped breakfast earlier over her excitement to get to the arena and see how it's like being a spectator, so Mint didn't feel good about robbing her of breakfast.
"Professor Goodwitch's semblance is a bit much for anyone to handle." Blake had a book with her, but it laid closed in her lap. She tried to play off her intrigue, but Mint could see the way her bow flinched and flicked around whenever a blow landed during the battle below. Kitten had an analytical eye to her; Roman would be proud, had RWBY not actively got in his way before on countless occasions... or so he made it out to be.
Mint honestly couldn't tell, ever, whether his ire really burned, or his stress from all of Cinder's bullshit had blown over. Speaking of stress, she found it odd how Blake could still carry books around with her after the event from yesterday. Sun took it as well as he could, beating his own ass afterwards for saying something so raunchy in public, but Blake somehow blew it all off.
Or maybe she hadn't, because quickly the resident smut addict - according to Yang, and proven by Sun - stiffened when a certain voice called their attention.
"Yo!" Up rolled Sun himself, backed by Neptune who carried two bags of popcorn and a few drinks all on his lonesome. Monkey-boy's tail held onto a spare soda cup, which rounded to pass off its drink to Blake, whose body reacted more so out of habit to accept the offering. "How's it hanging?"
That single question resurrected their dear friend from her stupor, and she hummed to apparently regain her bearings.
"Alright." Blake scrutinized the cup, only to relent with a hearty sigh and give into the gift.
"Cool..." Sun fell into a seat beside her, and just like that his confidence chipped. "You're uh... You're not still mad about yesterday, are you?"
A smart man would have ignored the elephant in the room. Mint debated taking her leave momentarily. While she'd love to watch the awkward duo engage in the roundabout of questionably charged apologies and slippery back and forth, she didn't want to risk Blake remembering her presence with Sun and somehow connecting her to every major embarrassing moment Team RWBY experienced over the past week.
Besides, she had to go congratulate Roman on his victory.
.
.
Mercury rolled up to the CCT with about as much hurriedness as a man flopping out of bed on a Saturday morning. Cinder would surely bitch about keeping on schedule, but she wasn't here to do so. Right now, the mistress laid in wait back in the park beside that tree Neo always chose to sit under, and once he cleaned up here, he was meant to fuck off down to Vale where Emerald would join him.
He'd be honest, he didn't appreciate having to miss the festival this year; those celebrations were always damn fun.
But he had a job to do, and as he was being questioned by the lady running the front desk, he performed his duties with a casual flair.
"And will you be requiring more than a half hour for this call?"
"Nah." Mercury waved the thought away and drew up a smirk. "Probably five minutes. Just have to rub something in someone else's face."
"I see..." She, expectedly, didn't appreciate the extra information, and predictably cut out a lot of the extra bullshit she really should have asked. He liked that about people: come off the right way and you could speed past all the filler. "Well, we do have two terminals free at the moment. Here." She handed him a small card with a number on it. "Your terminal is around the front left from the elevator; it'll match the number on your card. Swipe it in your station to unlock the system, and from there you will be free to call whoever you like."
"Ooh~" He whistled nice and sharp as he looked over the little slab of plastic. "I don't remember these a few weeks ago."
"There's apparently been an incident which required a bump in security." The desk jockey herself bit back a groan. "If you have any complaints, please bring them up with Atlas."
"Ahh, I get it." He slipped the card away and winked. "Our visitor friends are getting pushy."
"Next!" She called past him, her eyes telling him to scram. Mercury shrugged and obeyed just as discreetly. He didn't blame her; heck, he'd probably be a little tuckered out too.
Up the lift and on the floor, at which point Mercury fell into place easily. However the second he stepped into the array filled with people going their separate ways and chatting loudly with whoever everywhere, he spied an interesting figure looking ready to take his leave. Until, that was, they locked eyes for a second.
General James Ironwood paused briefly, and too long he lingered. Mercury waved, sensing opportunity. Sure, he had no orders looming over his shoulder that told him to distract the big man, but when life gave you lemons, who wouldn't shred those zingers and stuff their juicy mush down a rival's socks?
"Hey there." Mercury made sure to slowly come to a stop; hands in his pockets like it was just another day. "You're that Atlas general guy everyone's bitching about, right? General... Iron-something."
"Ironwood. General James Ironwood." Old man crossed his arms, although his bark didn't quite hold up to stuff. As Mercury could tell the second he called out, the general carried in his inflection a small hint of wonder, like he found it confusing a student had called out to him.
Or perhaps being addressed by Mercury explicitly had piqued his interest; after all, they believed Cinder had ties to the White Fang, and so that lumped the rest of the team in with the terrorists too.
"Right right." Mercury rolled his shoulders, arms slouched but eyes darted and sharpened to a fine edge and ready to split the very seams. "I heard we got these things now." He held up his card, numbered with 5, and twirled it around between his fingers. "They're saying you had to install some stuff because of something else they for some reason never explain."
"It's a simple security measure. There's been talk of rampant White Fang activity over the past few months, and so Vale commissioned some extra steps surrounding the celebration to ensure things run smoothly." The general kept up a perfect poker-face, and each word swam casually from his throat under seemingly no obstruction. Guy could talk, which made things pretty damn interesting. No wonder Cinder worried so much. Any man who could sound at ease when staring down an enemy could just as easily snap them in two from any and all corners.
"That's neat." Mercury sent a look back along the rows of terminals, and pointed out something that interested him. "Although it's looking kind of weird."
"How so?"
Mercury explicitly motioned to the terminal far left and back against the window.
"That one's marked 1, but the one across from it." He moved their attention to the terminal just right of number 1. "Says 6, and the one after that goes 11."
"The tags descend in columns." Mercury enjoyed the sweet swell of victory in his chest as the general broke into explanation. While simple, it proved him just as malleable as anyone else. "1 through 5, and from left to right. Although I can see how someone might go in expecting rows instead."
"Neat. So that means number 5 should be sitting right there." He tossed his eyes over to the free space, as if he hadn't immediately seen the blatant 5 plastered like a flag affixed to the desk itself with a single steel pole.
"Correct." The general, unveiling and maybe even testing his limits to an extent, presented a seemingly innocent and actively useless question. "I suppose you're one of the few who want to get a word back home."
"You bet!" Mercury strolled over, but continued to talk as to actively draw the general over. It would be rude and a little strange not to finish their conversation, and the both of them knew it, which had General Ironwood standing cutely beside Mercury as he sat down to swipe his card. "I've got a friend back home who didn't think I had it in me to actually come to the festival this year. We made a bet, and he lost. He's in for a real surprise when I call him up to pay his tab."
"Sounds like a preliminary victory, in a sense. However, and in case you're unaware: money cannot be transferred over CCT calls. And I wouldn't recommend trading details over such either." The general's eyes hardened just a smidge; a clear attempt at warning, and perhaps even a veiled threat. "Every call is recorded."
"Sounds like whoever works those recordings isn't exactly trustworthy." Mercury slowly punched in the very number he was meant to call, unbothered by the general's small huff which nobody unsuspecting would recognise as fake.
"The staff aren't the ones I'd worry about."
"You saying the CCT of Beacon Academy is easy for baddies to hack?"
"Perhaps not, but I'd be careful anyways. You never know who may find their way into places they shouldn't."
Now that brought a smile to his face; too bad he couldn't show it off. Two dudes who knew exactly whose presence they stood within, simmering in place. Granted, Mercury himself shouldn't have known they were on to him, and this was most likely the Atlas Military Leader's attempt to provoke a response which would justify immediate arrest.
Or maybe Ironwood just wanted to fuck with him; neither mattered.
"I'll keep that in mind," Mercury said casually as he hit call.
Immediately everything went red, and Ironwood thus raised a brow.
"What did you do?"
"Beats me." Mercury squinted for affect, before he tossed a glance over, seemingly lost from an outsider's perspective. "Does this always happen when you call?"
Like a good boy he stood, just as a few people began to fill in, drawn by the light. Watts always had a flair for the spectacular, and as Ironwood scowled and righted his back, Mercury watched from a little ways back, just far enough to see the slight widening of the man's eyes and the stretch of skin around his jaw tighten. Several people shied away from the grit glare, but Ironwood wouldn't spot him, for Mercury himself had filled in the elevator with a few passing students, obscured by their bodies as the doors firmly shut.
They wouldn't find him in Beacon, but his face called for newscast as he began his trip towards Vale, where a special seat awaited him in leading a sect of killers. And the best part?
He didn't have to do a thing other than show up.
.
.
Mint clutched the wall tightly, her legs nearly slipping on spilled soda from the group who tumbled next to her.
She had merely a second to wonder what the dust just hit them, only to feel the entirety of Amity Arena sway to the left. Down the halls a stream of bodies rolled, every one of them a little too loud and clumped into little hills. Gravity did its duty and pulled all but the agile into a slant. Everyone both felt what could be classified as a boom, but barely any nose escaped its origin below - or, at least she thought it came from below.
Amity Arena had some kick-ass sound suppression, which kept the battles in its core from becoming too loud, and the fan cheering from reaching levels of intrusive distraction for the fighters. Too bad it seemed to mask the severity of whatever just popped. On the bright side, the darkness died to a soft orange glow: emergency lights, she presumed.
Her trip to congratulate Roman wound up fulfilled either way, as alongside Professor Goodwitch the losers of the fight roughly ten minutes prior rounded the corner ahead of her. Port and Oobleck spoke in steady, thundering pitches for people to stay calm, never repeating and swift of foot. Roman spotted her first, but said nothing overt and simply led her from one wall to the next.
"This side, kid."
She questioned what had happened, through a simple shrug and mask, and Roman never got the chance to speak before Glynda yelled over them in a bid to address everyone.
"Remain where you are. We've gotten word one of the arena's stabilizers is experiencing a few issues. Backups will kick in shortly. Remain in one place unless specified."
Mint gave Roman a look, and he barely shook his head. In his eyes she saw utter bafflement, and knew then the other teachers shared his same outlook. Nobody had a clue as to what the hell happened, but Mint? She had some ideas, and all of them wore the same name tag.
Cinder.
Mint obeyed the request... up until the quartet fled to presumably pass the word to whoever else they came across. Everyone huddled against each other, not at all as calm as they should be, but they appeared to know that panic wouldn't exactly aid them. Then again, it was kind of hard to panic when you were flattened against the walls at a forty-five degree angle.
To her, though? The angle harkened back to musky dirty pantries, where digging up the night's meal after her scheduled slop became duty.
Handrails matched pipes which carried contaminated water which just barely fit the label of drinkable. Steps bathed in an unnatural dawn were easier to cling to than the shadowed cubbies who held the real meat which barely anyone was allowed. The slippery tiles had a few breaks to make grappling easier, but she'd clung to ceilings whenever shadows broke under open doors during the nights where the watch would notice an empty bed.
But eventually, and only when she drew close to the outside itself did the whole of Amity begin to dip.
They didn't exactly fall, but the lowering added a short-lived weightlessness to her stride, and she skated fluidly along once the tilt started to even out. Those backup systems must have kicked in, she mused, knowing Cinder probably planned for a larger distraction. If there was ever a time to search for something in Beacon, then now would be it: while everyone laid eyes on the descent of Amity.
However, Midway through the flow and maybe a hallway or two from her destination, Mint came across a curious sight.
Emerald Sustrai, her "teammate," stuck to deeper shadows and sprinted at a quicker pace. But she didn't flee for safety or towards the bleachers like Mint had been going for. No no, Emmi moved in the opposite direction, towards the outside ring where ships would land and raise and carry people to and from the site of the action.
She'd never seen Emerald earlier. Heck, she hadn't recalled Cinder giving any orders to this particular pet. Sure, there was a chance Emerald had been assigned to the arena too... but then why would she flee? And that face: so pointed and full of purpose. Those eyes of hers had a destination in mind, and while Mint had half a mind to ignore it and let the duo scamper off into whatever trouble they sought, a little part of her worried.
Mint rode the tail cast by her intrigue of the moment, careful to avoid all noise and to dip into new darkness whenever cautious eyes chanced a peek back. Emerald had a quick wit about her, but it paled to the one who'd spent far too long watching every conceivable deadly outcome claim countless Neos. Poor things didn't deserve their demise, but nothing could be done unfortunately.
Remnant simply hated Neo.
On the topic of hate, Mint despised having to follow Emmi all the way out onto the docking back, where several White Fang greeted li'l greenie. From behind a trashcan of all things, she spied the group of brutes saluting Cinder's footstool as if she actually mattered; they showed genuine respect. Amidst the small scatter of corpses belonging to those who predated the grimm-masked murderers, Emerald paid no mind to the Fang who lopped them off the ledge into the forest below.
Having heard no noise or gunfire before, she had to assume they'd organized a clean sweep exclusively of the outside, and her questions as to why they hadn't entered the arena proper or how the alarm hadn't been raised by anyone on security duty were thus revealed by Emerald.
"Don't go in. Let everyone come to you. All their systems should be out."
"The arena's still flying," one mentioned, and Emerald brushed him off.
"A small oversight. Treat everything as if it played out how it was supposed to."
"There are no ruins to pillage."
"Then ruin everyone who tries to leave." Emerald scoffed, irritation on her tongue. "They're running on backup power. The blast alone took out nearly every screen; they'll check that first. You're about to be faced with an army of angry huntsmen, so consider this your final stand before martyrdom."
"Didn't expect to die a hero so soon. Must be my lucky day."
"Then take hold of your blessings; they are few and far between. Now, I believe I'm needed elsewhere."
"They await your command." The killer stepped aside. "Give them a show worthy of memory."
"Of that..." Emerald fell into a saucy tone; bitch chose to mimic her obsession to a t. "You can be sure~"
Author's note
...
Still sick, but powered through this one well enough.
Mercury had a tiny run in with the general, who was in the CCT for some unspoken reason. Amity Arena's dipped, dropping even, and Emerald as well as the Merc himself are on their way to Vale. But what of Cinder? And what about everyone else at Beacon?
At least Roman and Glynda got to put on a show.
And so comes the plot, where things seem to be picking up in pace.
Get ready.
Until next time.