Fandom Shattered Hourglass [IC] [CLOSED]

[MidwayLives]

“You mean….someone like Sun?”
​

"..."
Tyrian narrowed his eyes, took out his scroll, looked up Sun's contact....

Whatever he typed to her, he sure as hell didn't let Cinder see. : |

He loved her dearly but, ugh, she could be a real pain in the ass.

“…Well, anyone with eyes could tell y’all cheated. Aura nullifying and scorpion venom ain’t exactly in the spirit of the thing, are they? Neon ended up on an IV drip.”

Seemingly giving his assent to the lie for now, he crossed to the sofa opposite Watts, leaning up against the armrest with arms crossed and swag on full display.

Tyrian clenched and unclenched his bandaged up hand.

"...Could have ended up even worse if I'd felt like it."

His eyes flared, and his stinger slinked dangerously over his shoulder.

"And what an awful shame that'd be...To have your health in the hands of someone else..."

Seemingly giving his assent to the lie for now, he crossed to the sofa opposite Watts, leaning up against the armrest with arms crossed and swag on full display.

“I wasn’t gonna say, but some folk been wonderin’ why you guys were pulled from the bracket this morning. Lotta folk, actually. But I guess that makes sense.”

He paused, never letting his eyes lead his fellow team leader’s for a second.

“Know what I don’t get? Why Penny was. Or why she’s hangin with y’all, minus her handlers, in the shadiest part of this low-rent kingdom.”

Despite the barb against Vale, an edge crept into his tone he only reserved for a particular subset of Atlesians, his eyes hard over the rims of his glasses as he repeated his question from earlier.

“What alarms?”

"I got a question of my own.."

Tyrian started to move up from his seat, his tail moving to wrap itself around his waist, the stinger nestling in so as not to poke or prick anyone.

"Why don't you go ahead and hit the trail?"

He folded his arms across his muscular and scarred chest.

"And mind your own fuckin business. Before things go on and get ugly..."

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"Meh. That's why we're here. Speaking of..." She grabbed one of the empty glasses, which was decidedly not hers because she had absolutely refrained from drinking anything at this place, but it would do regardless. "I think I need another drink. So uh, scuse me a sec." She commented as she moved to slide past and totally not leaving Arthur hung out to dry, dealing with that guy. As soon as she was out of sight, she put some more rush in her step as she went to go find Emerald because what. Crying???

'Thanks partner. Really in it together partner. REALLY FEELING THE PARTNERSHIP, PARTNER'

“Right...”

Cinder’s enthusiastic playing along appeared to rescue Watts from the long, dubious look Flynt was giving him, the trumpeter more adept than most at seeing through whatever his particular flavor of bullshit was. Raven got an even longer, more scrutinising stare, but while an eyebrow did arch at the sight of this old ass lady WTCH seemingly had hanging out with them it was unclear if there was any recognition in it.

“…Well, anyone with eyes could tell y’all cheated. Aura nullifying and scorpion venom ain’t exactly in the spirit of the thing, are they? Neon ended up on an IV drip.”

Seemingly giving his assent to the lie for now, he crossed to the sofa opposite Watts, leaning up against the armrest with arms crossed and swag on full display.

“I wasn’t gonna say, but some folk been wonderin’ why you guys were pulled from the bracket this morning. Lotta folk, actually. But I guess that makes sense.”

He paused, never letting his eyes lead his fellow team leader’s for a second.

“Know what I don’t get? Why Penny was. Or why she’s hangin with y’all, minus her handlers, in the shadiest part of this low-rent kingdom.”

Despite the barb against Vale, an edge crept into his tone he only reserved for a particular subset of Atlesians, his eyes hard over the rims of his glasses as he repeated his question from earlier.

“What alarms?”

Watts gave a noncommital hum in response, letting himself glance back down to whoever's scroll was in his hand to type out a message to the one person in the group who still had their scroll and the one member who did not require one.

'We may be made. Meet at the manta; we leave in fifteen or as soon as we're all there.'

Then he worked on something else as he talked.

"Can't say that I find myself agreeing with that assessment" he replied blithely to Flynt's appraisal, this part rolling far easier off the tongue because it wasn't really a lie. "We're all born with our own gifts, and Tyrian's happens to be the capacity for violence, which he graciously is training to point at grimm and criminals. Not that he doesn't need to learn more self control, but cheating is a bit of a bullshit read."

He snapped the scroll shut and pocketed it along with the others before he stood up with a thin smile.

" I shouldn't be telling you considering you've already made it clear you're not our biggest fans, but the alarms in Penny's current abode. Like you said, she's been stuck with handlers her entire time in Vale, and Atlas, and pretty much everywhere else her entire life. She wanted to explore on her own more, but it seems Ironwood's patience has finally cracked if he took her off the tournament bracket. Third strike and all that. We're trying to get her back without some armed military response. The General seems extra touchy these days." He said, unable to keep the drawl out of his tone.

He turned to walk for the door, motioning for Hazel and Tyrian to follow but paused halfway through to put one hand out in askance, the other resting in his pocket. "Can we go now, officer, or are you enjoying this conversation more than we are?"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“DANGER?!”

Her skates’ brakes squealed once more, and the excitable faunus’ rainbow track reversed its colour arrangement as she started skating backwards counterclockwise around the android’s rooted position instead. The look on her face seemed too cartoonishly gobsmacked to be disingenuous, her thumbs a whirlwind unto themselves as she scrambled to undo her error.

“YOU GOTTA BE KITTEN ME! I had nooooo idea! Are you being stalked? That kinda stuff happens to me ALL. THE TIME but I think it’s actually kinda fun, do you wanna give them my number and pretend it’s yours??? I just deleted EVERYTHING, don’t worry I put it on Close Friends and the only people who saw are Kobalt, Ivori, Miltia and Melanie, deadmau5, Roman, Emerald, team CRDL, Cookie the bouncer, team CFVY except for Yatsu he doesn’t like me (D: ) (pretty sure he wants me tho), Sun, Neptune that dude I know is down bad, team BRIR, Tukson, Prisma, Harriet from the Ace Ops it’s G she’s soooooo chill if you know what I mean, Professor Port, nurse Maple, professor Alyss, Lie Ren, that old guy who runs Dust til Dawn down by the waterfront, Lisa Lavender, and I swear that’s ALL! Hey, isn’t it cool how all those people wanna be my friend? Gasp we should throw a HUGE RAGER and invite them all, wouldn’t that be AWESOOOOME? Hey, do you want me to call Ciel? I have her on speeddial, chick keeps promising to hang out with me but then she disappears off the face of Remnant for like, EVER, like where does she go? Everyone says she’s kinda boring but I knoooowwwww she’s a party animal deep down—“

A Mercury who seemed to be increasingly hitting his stride in at least one respect sidled up then, having finally located the two on the fringes of the gyrating mass of bodies once he figured out to follow the rainbows. He coolly rested a hand not just on Penny’s shoulder, but Neon’s too, slut player that he was, though it was the former who had his majority focus.

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to by the way, we can just keep dancing.”

“OMG, HIIIIiiiiiiIIIIIIIIII handsome!”

“Sup. Real quick, what’s the vibe check on that ginormous list of names I arrived halfway through?”

He had a feeling he knew the answer, but a guy could dream. And ignore urgent developments around him for as long as was lucidly feasible.

The longer Neon talked, the more the smile that had been frozen on Penny's face fell, and by the time Mercury interjected whatever nervousness she might have possessed a minute ago had been replaced with a completely despondent frown. Her tone matched

"Hello again friend Mercury. I believe I may have made a grievous error. All of those people know I am here."

She let that sit in the air for a moment, before Watt's message came through to her (via Hazel's scroll) and she let out a deeply distressed whine as she turned to grip Mercury by both shoulders to make sure she had his attention.

"We are to meet at the manta in fifteen"

Then she dashed off, physically bowling her way through the crowd if necessary for the nearest person in their group she needed to inform next.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Neo's legs dangled from where she was sitting on the sink countertop in the bathroom, idly kicking her feet as she stared at a particular stall door with a worried frown of her own. She appreciated Emerald getting her out of that room, deeply, even if the why might not have sat well with her teammate; letting Roman see her like that would have been miserable. She didn't him to see her differently. He didn't need to see how she'd changed.

That had been at the back of her mind by the time they'd both been at the bar, however. She'd nicked a bottle from the shelf while Em and the bartender wasn't looking (i.e. she cheated with her semblance), and she'd had a mild buzz while she watched Emerald nurse her own drink with a modicum of concern. Not that she didn't get it; They'd come falling out of Vacuo, specifically the ruins of Em's hometown, and into Beacon But This Time We're War Criminals. Maybe that was all it was, or maybe something extra was nipping at Emerald's stress; THAT part Neo hadn't picked up on yet, but she'd sat patiently next to Emerald in case she wanted to talk.

Then she started crying over what looked a lot like a picture of Watts of all people, and now she was in here, and there was a stall door between them, and no amount of dear friendship that Neo was trying to do better this time on her end of not just being a dead weight on was going to make it not awkward if she just... snuck in there. And she couldn't talk through the door obviously so she just waited for now

 

[MidwayLives]

Roman's eyes darted nervously from side to side.

He didn't particularly have beef with, really, anyone that he could think of.

Well....there was the whole 'he died' angle to consider but he still didn't really wanna confront that. Honestly, he wasn't sure if he really EVER wanted to! Couldn't really write off as a bad dream as much he sincerely, ever so much, wished it was! Emerald and Neo had gone off and that was perfectly fine! Mercury was hanging out with Penny, shooting his shot, working his magic, or whatever you really wanted to call it. That was all, well, it wasn't good. He really wasn't sure how to judge that. He liked Penny well enough, kinda? She hadn't thrown HIM out a window, the other chick did that, and he didn't die.

Again, so.

Things were really looking up for him!

Watts gave a noncommital hum in response, letting himself glance back down to whoever's scroll was in his hand to type out a message to the one person in the group who still had their scroll and the one member who did not require one.

'We may be made. Meet at the manta; we leave in fifteen or as soon as we're all there.'

Oh...Ohhhhh boy that was NOT good. Not good at ALL.

"ummm...."

He stopped kicking his feet back and forth, LOUDLY and OBNOXIOUSLY slurped the last of his drink. Setting the empty glass down, he proceeded to stand up and hustle towards the women's restroom, his eyes CLOSED of course. He wasn't a pervert or anything, sheesh.

"Um?? Neo??? Emerald?? I REALLY hope this isn't a bad time! Personally, I mean! But it's looking like a bad time groupwise! As in we need to maybe, kinda, get out of here. NOW."

 

[MyrtenRose]

“She’s cryin in the bathroom now, if yer wonderin’.” The barmaid informed dully, snatching the money like she thought Cinder was going to make a try for it. : |

What the hell was that? You think I'm a thief??? Ugh Cinder to self, don't even bother with that, just go--

The young maiden just turned away and went as quickly as she could without legit running over to the bathroom.​

Neo's legs dangled from where she was sitting on the sink countertop in the bathroom, idly kicking her feet as she stared at a particular stall door with a worried frown of her own. She appreciated Emerald getting her out of that room, deeply, even if the why might not have sat well with her teammate; letting Roman see her like that would have been miserable. She didn't him to see her differently. He didn't need to see how she'd changed.

That had been at the back of her mind by the time they'd both been at the bar, however. She'd nicked a bottle from the shelf while Em and the bartender wasn't looking (i.e. she cheated with her semblance), and she'd had a mild buzz while she watched Emerald nurse her own drink with a modicum of concern. Not that she didn't get it; They'd come falling out of Vacuo, specifically the ruins of Em's hometown, and into Beacon But This Time We're War Criminals. Maybe that was all it was, or maybe something extra was nipping at Emerald's stress; THAT part Neo hadn't picked up on yet, but she'd sat patiently next to Emerald in case she wanted to talk.

Then she started crying over what looked a lot like a picture of Watts of all people, and now she was in here, and there was a stall door between them, and no amount of dear friendship that Neo was trying to do better this time on her end of not just being a dead weight on was going to make it not awkward if she just... snuck in there. And she couldn't talk through the door obviously so she just waited for now

The door suddenly slammed open("sorry Roman"), Cinder standing there motionless for a moment before she locked eyes on Neo, just sitting on the sink countertop...and then immediately rushed over. "heyiheardemeraldwascryingforsomereasonoranotherwithsomemartinisinhandlikethat'shertypeofdrinkandithadtodowithsomethingonherscrollorwhateveriguessanywayspleaseexplain--" She fell silent in her rushed demand, following Neo's line of sight to the stall door... "ohsheisintherehuh....right." She paused for a moment before she also took a seat on the sink countertop. "Um.......wanna talk about it?" She asked through the door, before glancing back towards the bathroom entrance where Roman just was standing around.

"Preferably quickly."​

 

[MidwayLives]

The door suddenly slammed open("sorry Roman"), Cinder standing there motionless for a moment before she locked eyes on Neo, just sitting on the sink countertop...and then immediately rushed over. "heyiheardemeraldwascryingforsomereasonoranotherwithsomemartinisinhandlikethat'shertypeofdrinkandithadtodowithsomethingonherscrollorwhateveriguessanywayspleaseexplain--" She fell silent in her rushed demand, following Neo's line of sight to the stall door... "ohsheisintherehuh....right." She paused for a moment before she also took a seat on the sink countertop. "Um.......wanna talk about it?" She asked through the door.

"oh no, no, I'm fine. Just carry on."

Not like he'd just gotten bowled over by a MINI MAIDEN but, sure sure! Fine!

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

Oh...Ohhhhh boy that was NOT good. Not good at ALL.

"ummm...."

He stopped kicking his feet back and forth, LOUDLY and OBNOXIOUSLY slurped the last of his drink. Setting the empty glass down, he proceeded to stand up and hustle towards the women's restroom, his eyes CLOSED of course. He wasn't a pervert or anything, sheesh.

"Um?? Neo??? Emerald?? I REALLY hope this isn't a bad time! Personally, I mean! But it's looking like a bad time groupwise! As in we need to maybe, kinda, get out of here. NOW."

The door suddenly slammed open("sorry Roman"), Cinder standing there motionless for a moment before she locked eyes on Neo, just sitting on the sink countertop...and then immediately rushed over. "heyiheardemeraldwascryingforsomereasonoranotherwithsomemartinisinhandlikethat'shertypeofdrinkandithadtodowithsomethingonherscrollorwhateveriguessanywayspleaseexplain--" She fell silent in her rushed demand, following Neo's line of sight to the stall door... "ohsheisintherehuh....right." She paused for a moment before she also took a seat on the sink countertop. "Um.......wanna talk about it?" She asked through the door, before glancing back towards the bathroom entrance where Roman just was standing around.

"Preferably quickly."

Neo blinked in shock at Roman's sudden interjection, putting her hands up in askance of why, and then Cinder came barging in after receiving some psychic vision from the gods apparently about her teammate and wanted to discuss it now of all times.

She straight up bonked her over the head with hush and shook her head before she pointed at the door, little police siren lights appearing over her own head.

 

[MyrtenRose]

"..."
Tyrian narrowed his eyes, took out his scroll, looked up Sun's contact....

Whatever he typed to her, he sure as hell didn't let Cinder see. : |

He loved her dearly but, ugh, she could be a real pain in the ass.

She stared down at the scroll in her hand, her smile growing as she read Tyrian's message. The day was looking up after all! Getting the news about WTCH, MTEN, and Penny all being out of the tourney now had been a real bummer, like, who was even left that would be a worthwhile fight for her? What, that freaking stick in the mud with the blue beret? Some other random person she didn't know? Talk about meh-city. The final round of the Vytal festival and she couldn't even enjoy a good, fun fight. To make things worse, it had taken foreveeeeeeeer for her to ditch Neptune for at least a little while. They had their bro moments but damn, guy was like glue at the worst of times. Always using her as a test for whether his pick up lines were good ones, that is if he wasn't actually flirting with her himself.

But now? Now the day was looking up. First, a quite honestly adorable series of pics through slapchat. Neon, doing her awesome thing, chilling with Penny. That smile and peace sign...hilariously adorable. But that was just like, an appetizer. Icing on the cake for what came next. A call for adventure with WTCH! Or at least the guy who put the T in WTCH. Those had tended to be the most exciting moments she'd had in Vale so far, when she was hanging out with them or just getting there in time to watch their antics. Like, goddamn, that food fight had been spec-tac-ular! She was quick to type out a response.

You, me, WF? Hells yeah I'm in. ​

 

[MyrtenRose]

She straight up bonked her over the head with hush and shook her head before she pointed at the door, little police siren lights appearing over her own head.

"Ow!" She couldn't help but let that out in response to the bonk, one hand rubbing at her head. Getting dope slapped with a parasol was not fun. She didn't say anything about it though, accepting it as some kind of karma for leaving Arthur to that mess. She had practically felt his gaze burning into her back as she left that booth. Cinder nodded slowly at the police siren lights. "Right, right...message received." ​

 

[MidwayLives]

"What I MEANT to say before..." Roman gestured up to Cinder from where he was laying on the floor.

"I think Fylnt is causing trouble. If a fight breaks out, who knows what kinda attention it could bring. I'm thinking we ought to get while the getting's good." Roman explained before lightly shrugging. "...Or we can just hang around and see what happens. I just don't...wanna get hurt again..." He admitted, sheepishly rubbing at his left arm.

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"What I MEANT to say before..." Roman gestured up to Cinder from where he was laying on the floor.

"I think Fylnt is causing trouble. If a fight breaks out, who knows what kinda attention it could bring. I'm thinking we ought to get while the getting's good." Roman explained before lightly shrugging. "...Or we can just hang around and see what happens. I just don't...wanna get hurt again..." He admitted, sheepishly rubbing at his left arm.

Wait, deadass?

Neo put her hands out in exasperation and then pointed a finger into the air, moving it down the line as four images formed above it with arrows all pointing to the next.

Flynt's hat -> The symbol of Atlas -> a very small general ironwood with a very big hat -> a miniature version of Jr.s club briefly before it suddenly exploded, leaving a crater behind.

Then she swatted all of that out of the air and went to literally push Cinder and Torchwick out the door and back in the other direction, though she herself stayed behind for now just to make sure Emerald made it out.

 

[Gus Gungus]

Tyrian clenched and unclenched his bandaged up hand.

"...Could have ended up even worse if I'd felt like it."

His eyes flared, and his stinger slinked dangerously over his shoulder.

"And what an awful shame that'd be...To have your health in the hands of someone else..."

"I got a question of my own.."

Tyrian started to move up from his seat, his tail moving to wrap itself around his waist, the stinger nestling in so as not to poke or prick anyone.

"Why don't you go ahead and hit the trail?"

He folded his arms across his muscular and scarred chest.

"And mind your own fuckin business. Before things go on and get ugly..."​

"Heh heh heh heh."

Coal just laughed, shaking his head at Tyrian like he was a bum off the street.
​

"Can't say that I find myself agreeing with that assessment" he replied blithely to Flynt's appraisal, this part rolling far easier off the tongue because it wasn't really a lie. "We're all born with our own gifts, and Tyrian's happens to be the capacity for violence, which he graciously is training to point at grimm and criminals. Not that he doesn't need to learn more self control, but cheating is a bit of a bullshit read."​

Flynt upped the ante on those eyebrows, letting the first be joined up high by its pair and sliding his hands back in his pockets as he tilted his head to the opposite side it had leaned when Tyrian made with his threats, flipping the smirk they drew into more a lopsided grimace. He met Watts' retort with a humoring nod. "Uh huuuh. And which of those you think it is my team and I look like, exactly?"

Watts didn't see so much as feel his fellow huntsman-in-training's stare behind the shades as it held neutrally on the scroll he was apparently so focused on, to say nothing of the veritable stack of them he swept off the table into his coat.

"Cause I know which one you're acting like."

​

The General seems extra touchy these days." He said, unable to keep the drawl out of his tone.​

"Can't blame 'im. All kindsa suspicious characters around."

​

He turned to walk for the door, motioning for Hazel and Tyrian to follow but paused halfway through to put one hand out in askance, the other resting in his pocket. "Can we go now, officer, or are you enjoying this conversation more than we are?"​

"I never got you, y'know."

Flynt Coal, in marked contrast to most his classmates at some point or another throughout his stints at both Remnant's premiere huntsman academies, was someone Watts could never particularly recall being able to faze. Even the Mercurys and Emeralds of the world had their buttons he eventually learned to push, a code he eventually cracked; Flynt had frankly never seemed to take him seriously enough for any given jab he threw to land with any weight. It was as if he saw through him, somehow.

And whatever he saw, he was having none of it.

"Even back home. Look up and down campus, you won't find beef with Ironwood the stiff bigger than the one team FNKI has. But you?" He snorted. "Cat gave you waaaay too many chances, and you still barely lasted a month. Ain't no mystery why, either. Crowd knew it the second you walked out, top o' round 1."

His cadence was smooth as velvet, though it did little to cushion the severity of the words.

"You're not a huntsman. Never were, never will be—just a snake in the grass. And it don't matter how far away you move, how many shiny new toys you build yourself, or how much you chastize 'the man' like you aren't already gettin fitted for a stache and loafers yourself. 'Cause some stuff? Some stuff is in the soul. And brother..."

Readjusting his specs, he peered more deeply at Watts over the lenses, smirk building back into a leer.

"...somethin just ain't right with yours. I mean, 'less you can come up with an actual reason for how you ended up in a seedy alley like this on the wrong side of town, surrounded by a teammate who's wanted to snack on my jugular since I walked in here, a partner who just left you high and dry to chase some skirt, and whatever that freak's problem is; cuz I know he's got one from the way he keeps lookin at me."

He lazily flicked a thumb towards Hazel in the corner, shrugging his shoulders, but made no move to prevent them from leaving. Instead he slipped one hand back out of its pocket, scroll now in grasp, almost apathetically pulling up one of the first contacts available and bringing it to his ear.

"Be seein you around, Atlas."

​

The longer Neon talked, the more the smile that had been frozen on Penny's face fell, and by the time Mercury interjected whatever nervousness she might have possessed a minute ago had been replaced with a completely despondent frown. Her tone matched

"Hello again friend Mercury. I believe I may have made a grievous error. All of those people know I am here."

She let that sit in the air for a moment, before Watt's message came through to her (via Hazel's scroll) and she let out a deeply distressed whine as she turned to grip Mercury by both shoulders to make sure she had his attention.

"We are to meet at the manta in fifteen"

Then she dashed off, physically bowling her way through the crowd if necessary for the nearest person in their group she needed to inform next.​

"Yeah..."

"Whatever."

Not that she had a reason to ask his opinion, but... felt pretty real to him.





















"........Are YOU the STALKER?!?!!?!?!????????"

"SHE SAID THAT?!"

​

Neo's legs dangled from where she was sitting on the sink countertop in the bathroom, idly kicking her feet as she stared at a particular stall door with a worried frown of her own. She appreciated Emerald getting her out of that room, deeply, even if the why might not have sat well with her teammate; letting Roman see her like that would have been miserable. She didn't him to see her differently. He didn't need to see how she'd changed.

That had been at the back of her mind by the time they'd both been at the bar, however. She'd nicked a bottle from the shelf while Em and the bartender wasn't looking (i.e. she cheated with her semblance), and she'd had a mild buzz while she watched Emerald nurse her own drink with a modicum of concern. Not that she didn't get it; They'd come falling out of Vacuo, specifically the ruins of Em's hometown, and into Beacon But This Time We're War Criminals. Maybe that was all it was, or maybe something extra was nipping at Emerald's stress; THAT part Neo hadn't picked up on yet, but she'd sat patiently next to Emerald in case she wanted to talk.

Then she started crying over what looked a lot like a picture of Watts of all people, and now she was in here, and there was a stall door between them, and no amount of dear friendship that Neo was trying to do better this time on her end of not just being a dead weight on was going to make it not awkward if she just... snuck in there. And she couldn't talk through the door obviously so she just waited for now

Oh...Ohhhhh boy that was NOT good. Not good at ALL.

"ummm...."

He stopped kicking his feet back and forth, LOUDLY and OBNOXIOUSLY slurped the last of his drink. Setting the empty glass down, he proceeded to stand up and hustle towards the women's restroom, his eyes CLOSED of course. He wasn't a pervert or anything, sheesh.

"Um?? Neo??? Emerald?? I REALLY hope this isn't a bad time! Personally, I mean! But it's looking like a bad time groupwise! As in we need to maybe, kinda, get out of here. NOW."

The door suddenly slammed open("sorry Roman"), Cinder standing there motionless for a moment before she locked eyes on Neo, just sitting on the sink countertop...and then immediately rushed over. "heyiheardemeraldwascryingforsomereasonoranotherwithsomemartinisinhandlikethat'shertypeofdrinkandithadtodowithsomethingonherscrollorwhateveriguessanywayspleaseexplain--" She fell silent in her rushed demand, following Neo's line of sight to the stall door... "ohsheisintherehuh....right." She paused for a moment before she also took a seat on the sink countertop. "Um.......wanna talk about it?" She asked through the door, before glancing back towards the bathroom entrance where Roman just was standing around.

"Preferably quickly."

"oh no, no, I'm fine. Just carry on."

Not like he'd just gotten bowled over by a MINI MAIDEN but, sure sure! Fine!

Neo blinked in shock at Roman's sudden interjection, putting her hands up in askance of why, and then Cinder came barging in after receiving some psychic vision from the gods apparently about her teammate and wanted to discuss it now of all times.

She straight up bonked her over the head with hush and shook her head before she pointed at the door, little police siren lights appearing over her own head.

"Ow!" She couldn't help but let that out in response to the bonk, one hand rubbing at her head. Getting dope slapped with a parasol was not fun. She didn't say anything about it though, accepting it as some kind of karma for leaving Arthur to that mess. She had practically felt his gaze burning into her back as she left that booth. Cinder nodded slowly at the police siren lights. "Right, right...message received." ​

"What I MEANT to say before..." Roman gestured up to Cinder from where he was laying on the floor.

"I think Fylnt is causing trouble. If a fight breaks out, who knows what kinda attention it could bring. I'm thinking we ought to get while the getting's good." Roman explained before lightly shrugging. "...Or we can just hang around and see what happens. I just don't...wanna get hurt again..." He admitted, sheepishly rubbing at his left arm.

Wait, deadass?

Neo put her hands out in exasperation and then pointed a finger into the air, moving it down the line as four images formed above it with arrows all pointing to the next.

Flynt's hat -> The symbol of Atlas -> a very small general ironwood with a very big hat -> a miniature version of Jr.s club briefly before it suddenly exploded, leaving a crater behind.

Then she swatted all of that out of the air and went to literally push Cinder and Torchwick out the door and back in the other direction, though she herself stayed behind for now just to make sure Emerald made it out.

Emerald wasn't really a crier at the best of times.

She wasn't a loud crier at the worst of times.

But she did know how to externalize dismay with the best of them, and at a certain point during the fuckery whatever occasional quiet sniffle Neo had been privy to from the other side of the stall—Having cut off within a fraction of a nanosecond when the door to the bathroom first swung open—was replaced by a deep, soulless, protracted sigh.

The door swung open hard shortly after, revealing an Emerald seemingly untroubled outside of the frankly disgusted look she shot Roman.

"What's the big deal about martinis?"

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first to arrive found the manta handily enough using the directions Emerald had sent, slightly further towards the outskirts of town and seemingly undisturbed where it had been concealed in the mouth of an alley under a tarp. Where she got the tarp didn't matter, except to the shopkeep who was gonna wake up to find his patio submersed in rainwater tomorrow morning.​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"I never got you, y'know."

Flynt Coal, in marked contrast to most his classmates at some point or another throughout his stints at both Remnant's premiere huntsman academies, was someone Watts could never particularly recall being able to faze. Even the Mercurys and Emeralds of the world had their buttons he eventually learned to push, a code he eventually cracked; Flynt had frankly never seemed to take him seriously enough for any given jab he threw to land with any weight. It was as if he saw through him, somehow.

And whatever he saw, he was having none of it.

"Even back home. Look up and down campus, you won't find beef with Ironwood the stiff bigger than the one team FNKI has. But you?" He snorted. "Cat gave you waaaay too many chances, and you still barely lasted a month. Ain't no mystery why, either. Crowd knew it the second you walked out, top o' round 1."

His cadence was smooth as velvet, though it did little to cushion the severity of the words.

"You're not a huntsman. Never were, never will be—just a snake in the grass. And it don't matter how far away you move, how many shiny new toys you build yourself, or how much you chastize 'the man' like you aren't already gettin fitted for a stache and loafers yourself. 'Cause some stuff? Some stuff is in the soul. And brother..."

Readjusting his specs, he peered more deeply at Watts over the lenses, smirk building back into a leer.

"...somethin just ain't right with yours. I mean, 'less you can come up with an actual reason for how you ended up in a seedy alley like this on the wrong side of town, surrounded by a teammate who's wanted to snack on my jugular since I walked in here, a partner who just left you high and dry to chase some skirt, and whatever that freak's problem is; cuz I know he's got one from the way he keeps lookin at me."

He lazily flicked a thumb towards Hazel in the corner, shrugging his shoulders, but made no move to prevent them from leaving. Instead he slipped one back out of its pocket, scroll now in grasp, almost lazily pulling up one of the first contacts available and bringing it to his ear.

"Be seein you around, Atlas."

Watts had already waved Tyrian and Hazel through the door, and was in the frame himself by the time Flynt stopped talking, but he found himself standing there a moment longer, his hands balled into fists at his sides with his back to his fellow Atlesian.

Not exactly a ball of rhetoric he hadn't heard before. He barely passed the entrance exams, both times. His parents were, perhaps not distraught, but certainly confused as to why their son had chosen such a dangerous profession. He had no combat semblance, no real natural aptitude for this. For some that was enough, though. Just trying hard, and doing your best in what you chose to do. Watts didn't begrudge those people, particularly once who chose such a dangerous life. There was bravery in that. Not everyone was a prodigy.

Except he was.

Just not at this.

His ego in his particular field of expertise wasn't unfounded; As irritating as it was to anyone who had to hear him talk about it, his mind really was that sharp when it came to technology, programming, all of that. He could've ignored the academies entirely, gotten a job as Schnee corp or some other Atlas monstrosity, and been set for life. Worked on technology that could have someday touched all four corners of Remnant. Likely even shown up the parents he seemed to hold so much disdain for. But instead he chose to train to go out into the depths of Nowhere, Remnant, to fight monsters without a circuit in them.

No one really got it.

"Thats the thing, Coal" He said throwing one last sneer of a smirk over his shoulder.

"Any of you 'getting me' was never the point. Enjoy your scroll call"

He strode the rest of the way out the door to catch up with Tyrian and Hazel, twirling his hand up as his rings lit and he finished what he started on Hazel's scroll.

The volume on Flynt's call was louder than he swore he had set it when it answered after a few rings.

"Buskon's Wholesale Chicken, we fry em you buy em! This 'bout the order you just placed? Eighty-seven birds? You sure you want those goin to a dorm room? these babies got volume, really not sure they're all gonna fit-"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Watts, Tyrian, and Hazel arrived to the manta to find Penny already there, along with a kidnapped from the bar Gretchen who's clothes and hair looked... wind tousled. The android was going through the pre flight checks, her eyes alight as she interfaced directly with the Manta through a finger port, various buttons and levers activating themselves of their own accord. She turned as they entered and gave them a mournful frown. Watts sighed as he jogged the last bit up the ramp.

"Apologies Penny, didn't mean to cut your fun short, but I've never been good at handling Flynt-" "I am so so sorry everyone, If I had realized that Neon had the intent of recording me-"

They both blinked, before Watts cleared his throat and waved his hand. "As long the others make it here shortly, it shouldn't matter. Get ready to move"

 

[MyrtenRose]

Wait, deadass?

Neo put her hands out in exasperation and then pointed a finger into the air, moving it down the line as four images formed above it with arrows all pointing to the next.

Flynt's hat -> The symbol of Atlas -> a very small general ironwood with a very big hat -> a miniature version of Jr.s club briefly before it suddenly exploded, leaving a crater behind.

Then she swatted all of that out of the air and went to literally push Cinder and Torchwick out the door and back in the other direction, though she herself stayed behind for now just to make sure Emerald made it out.

"Yep, that was about my train of thought als--" She didn't manage to finish before she got shoved out. "Message received times two." Cinder muttered to herself, briefly glancing at Roman and considering before she shook her head and made sure she took point.​

The door swung open hard shortly after, revealing an Emerald seemingly untroubled outside of the frankly disgusted look she shot Roman.

"What's the big deal about martinis?"

She did glance back over her shoulder briefly once she heard Emerald exit and the sound of her voice. She didn't look particularly sad, and that would have been a plus...except well, that scathing stare she was currently giving Roman. There was part of her that thought to ask what had troubled her, but seeing that face now...well. She had long since figured out getting answers out of Emerald on stuff like this, once she had composed herself, wasn't impossible but it was almost certainly more trouble than it was worth. It seemed relatively minor compared to the craziness of earlier today, anyway, so she decided not to bother.

"No big deal, just hadn't pegged you for the type. Guess my pegging sense is off." Cinder commented.​

Watts, Tyrian, and Hazel arrived to the manta to find Penny already there, along with a kidnapped from the bar Gretchen who's clothes and hair looked... wind tousled. The android was going through the pre flight checks, her eyes alight as she interfaced directly with the Manta through a finger port, various buttons and levers activating themselves of their own accord. She turned as they entered and gave them a mournful frown. Watts sighed as he jogged the last bit up the ramp.

"Apologies Penny, didn't mean to cut your fun short, but I've never been good at handling Flynt-" "I am so so sorry everyone, If I had realized that Neon had the intent of recording me-"

They both blinked, before Watts cleared his throat and waved his hand. "As long the others make it here shortly, it shouldn't matter. Get ready to move"

Once she got there, she likewise jogged up the ramp, stopping at the top to look back and make sure the other three got in as well. "Hey, were we the las--" Her question fell short as her gaze locked squarely on the bird that had just landed on the ramp. That gaze remained steady on it all the way as it casually, if slowly by human standards, walked up the ramp and into the ship, stopping right in front of a seat. A quick flap of the wings lifted it up to land comfortably on said seat, and only then did Raven change back, revealing another bottle in hand.

"I dunno if I will ever get used to that magic."

Cinder shook her head once more and continued on from seconds before. "Hey, we were the last ones, right?" She called out into the ship. "Unless we got reinforcements..." Or pursuers, she left unsaid.​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"Depends" watts answered "Is Mercury invisible?"

The question was less sarcastic than it might've been as he snapped his gaze over to Neo and Emerald, the shorter of the two putting her hands up and shaking her head

 

[MidwayLives]

Tyrian exhaled and huffed, raising his shoulders up, and standing well...As close to 'shoulder-to-shoulder' as he could get given how big of a fella Hazel was.

"Could have wrecked him, his team, all by my damn self." The faunus proclaimed, confidence just dripping off his words.

Of course he knew that wouldn't have solved anything. Getting mixed up in a brawl, however much he have PERSONALLY loved it, would have only brought more trouble down on their heads. If someone got hurt (i.e Roman} then it would have been Tyrian's fault for being a fight happy goof. So, in the end he just clappd Watts on the back as the three moved out for the manta. "Hey. I'm proud of how you handled things back there. I would have had your back if things got any uglier. Would have smashed him right through the nearest table. But you handled things pretty damn well..." Tyrian sighed. "Still wish I'd gotten a punch in."

Roman, on the other hand, went about as smooth as you could in a situation like this.

Which is to say he booked it for the Manta with such speed you'd have thought he'd left an afterimage behind.

He also may or may not have 'VWOOMPED' a couple of glasses that looked half-full(probably discarded/forgotten about or just hadn't been picked up yet by the server} and dumped them from varying angles, all on Flynt. The asshole would never really know for sure, nobody but Roman's buds knew he'd even unlocked his semblance. He swung Melodic Cudgel from side to side and quickly followed the others out with a little bit of pep in his step. When at the Manta itself, he glanced over to Neo and Emerald. "You doin okay, Em?" He really wasn't the best motivational speaker. Really, he wasn't much of a speaker! But, he could still show support and care for his team damn it! In the abscence of Mercury, he'd silently nominated himself vice-leader!

Wait....that didn't sound right....

Yeah, vice leader sounded too lame.

Co-leader! There you had it, much better.

No, that wasn't it either....Wait!

"Mercury!!"

 

[Gus Gungus]

"Thats the thing, Coal" He said throwing one last sneer of a smirk over his shoulder.

"Any of you 'getting me' was never the point. Enjoy your scroll call"

He strode the rest of the way out the door to catch up with Tyrian and Hazel, twirling his hand up as his rings lit and he finished what he started on Hazel's scroll.

The volume on Flynt's call was louder than he swore he had set it when it answered after a few rings.

"Buskon's Wholesale Chicken, we fry em you buy em! This 'bout the order you just placed? Eighty-seven birds? You sure you want those goin to a dorm room? these babies got volume, really not sure they're all gonna fit-"

Roman, on the other hand, went about as smooth as you could in a situation like this.

Which is to say he booked it for the Manta with such speed you'd have thought he'd left an afterimage behind.

He also may or may not have 'VWOOMPED' a couple of glasses that looked half-full(probably discarded/forgotten about or just hadn't been picked up yet by the server} and dumped them from varying angles, all on Flynt.

“What the hell?!”

His bewilderment veered far too deeply into out-and-out confused territory to truly taste like victory to Watts, but he couldn’t help but get the sense he had just found a way to insult Flynt in a way no one had ever thought to stoop to before.

Totally proved him right.

And as for Torchwick’s bit, he didn’t even know what he could say about all that. Classy. Real classy.
​

"I dunno if I will ever get used to that magic."

Cinder shook her head once more and continued on from seconds before. "Hey, we were the last ones, right?" She called out into the ship. "Unless we got reinforcements..." Or pursuers, she left unsaid.

"Depends" watts answered "Is Mercury invisible?"

The question was less sarcastic than it might've been as he snapped his gaze over to Neo and Emerald, the shorter of the two putting her hands up and shaking her head

Emerald, who as far as anyone looking was concerned was now the shorter of the two after swapping their heights and color pallets for her personal amusement, made essentially the exact same pose at the exact same time where she was hovering by Neo in the cabin, the two far too used to those types of accusations from anyone who got to know them to take offence.

“Uh, does anyone else hear jazz?”

She wrinkled her nose on instinct as she peered out the window, unaware of Flynt’s presence but just not really liking the idea of having to listen to jazz.

Unfortunately, they did.

Far more concerning was everything else they heard.



Mercury exploded around the corner about two blocks over, riding a wave of propulsion not entirely of his own making as both boots ejected their payload to keep his momentum under control and sent him handspringing over the hood of a car that swerved dangerously off onto the sidewalk to avoid flipping when two of its wheels left the tarmac. He landed on the hood of the truck coming up behind, and the cause of his urgent entrance was clarified as he rolled over and jumped to keep ahead of the rainbow trail bearing Neon towing no less than four copies of Flynt hooked onto her back in a sort of frenetic conga line that stayed hot on his heels. The full quartet were blaring their trumpets one-handed, fingers dancing across the valves with an expert’s precision to fire off a crisscross of soundwaves that vollied off into the night, Mercury using their visible reluctance to cause a significant traffic pile-up to his advantage as he sprinted from hood to hood in oncoming traffic towards the manta—

—A whip snagged his ankle, and the only thing that kept him from getting wrenched off the back of the semitruck he’d alighted on and reduced to a humanoid speedbump under the increasingly frenzied flow of traffic was the handhold he had the wherewithal to grab on his way down. Another gunshot tactically angled to careen off uselessly into the night spun his momentum around like a rocket, and the wielder of the whip leaping off the neighboring row of buildings to join the pursuit found himself swung around and slammed into his blue-tinged partner swinging in from the back of the truck’s trailer; the duo somewhat recognisable as team FNKI’s other half ploughing into the side in a tangled heap, nearly being ejected from the chase as suddenly as they made their entrance if not for a well-timed blast of fanfare from a trumpet that saved them. They reoriented, Ivori snapping his weapon of choice around a corner lamp to start swinging after the truck street light to street light, while the more martial oriented Kobalt touched down on the truck bed at the same time Mercury swung himself up, the two warriors locking eyes and assuming a stance as one.

Their macho highway fight wasn’t to be as a glow stick clobbered him over the back of the skull, followed by another to the face that sent him falling into a backwards handstand off the edge of the truck as Kobalt threw his hands up in askance.

“We don’t have tiiiiiii-IIIIIII-iiiiiiime!” Neon sang in sync with whatever rhythm she was listening to, flashing the universal hand signal for ‘I have headphones on’ as she ramped off the side of the trailer in turn. Mercury was already two to three vehicles away, clinging to the underside of a pickup and surreptitiously peeking out to—

—Almost have his eye taken out by a pointed stiletto brought down by Melanie freaking Malachite being flanked by her sister for whatever reason, his twist to avoid it seeing him regret his particular choice of escape technique as he lost his grip and the earlier prophecy was fulfilled when the back two wheels of the truck drove over him with a sickening badthump that saw his aura flare bright silver as if to say ‘bro’. He rolled with the momentum, lungs low on breath by way of constrictive force as much as fatigue by this point, and just about kept himself from going through a shop window by planting both heels against the pane of glass and shattering it with echoing twin blams to go soaring up, over the twins, and high into the night instead, unable to keep himself from using the last of his air to bellow out a pitched whoop of elation as he held his arms out straight and sailed into a graceful backflip; perfectly calculated to carry him the rest of the way to the manta his buddies awaited him in. He did it. He freaking did it. That was the most badass shit any of them ever pulled in their life. He was untouchable. He was the chosen one.



He was snatched out of the air and spiked back down to earth by an absolute baseball glove of a hand that reached down from the roof edge to close over his entire face, the final component of his pursuers revealing themselves just as the strangest sense of deja vu overtook him at the manoeuver too brutally straightforward to really counter with any of his technical bullshit; a split second before he crashed into the dumpster by the manta like a miniature comet. His aura sparks drifted up weakly from the interior in response, and although Emerald stiffened briefly the tension unwound itself when Mercury nigh immediately popped back up with a banana peel on his head.



“There’s been a terrible misunderstanding.”

“Wow, that was pointless.” Emerald droned, sticking her head out of the manta to gaze out across the trail of absolute carnage leading all the way back to Junior’s club. Yea this dude was still lowkey high. “Why didn’t you just call us?”

“Someone swiped my scroll!” He said defensively, apparently forgetting he had given it to Watts entirely of his own volition. “Bet it’s whichever jerk has my nunchucks.”

She just rolled her eyes, resolving to tune him back out of existence for now and watching with a tremulous frown as the shitty Avengers rolled up with Neon at the forefront.



“PENNYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!” The raver trilled in that unique octave of hers the moment she saw her through the windshield, inducing an immediate migraine in Emerald at bare minimum as she clucked her tongue and shot Ironwood’s pet project a dark look over her shoulder. Of course.

She started skating happy figure eights, tail swishing in earnest relief for their fellow Atlesian’s continued safety. Unaware of her true nature though the general student body may have been, Penny’s unique idiosyncrasies among the rest of the Academy had been explained by the general in a formal assembly on her enrolment, with the simple blurring of the truth that she was a girl of exceptional power and a unique way of viewing the world that others might try to exploit if given the opportunity proving sufficient for most. With that in mind it was hard to interpret their concern for her as anything but sincere, with the excitable tangent the faunus launched into doing little to dissuade that notion.

“I AM SUCH. A DITZ I didn’t have a CLUE you were getting straight up KIDNAPPED, sweetie!! Like, ya-DOY, Neon!!! Were you trying to speak in code and I just didn’t get it??? Ohmigosh, you just reminded me I took a test for that when I was little and I forget what it said, but basically my brain just doesn’t vibe with that stuff at all and my mom thinks that’s why I was excluded grades four through six, and so that’s why I pick up on stuff better when it’s LOUD AND OBVIOUS like me, anyway after we talked I called Ciel who called General Ironwood and then the three of us were on the line together, and that was weird, then your DAD(!!!) joined and I was like what is going on, and basically they said time was of the essence which I get but then they explained the whole deal and I was like NO WAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!” She glowered. “Penny, these punks are TOTALLY MANIPULATING YOU! Everyone is SOOOOOO worried, I’ve NEVER heard Ironwood sound like that! And I’ve never heard your dad at all before today but trust me when I say he is FREAKING. OUTTTTTT!“

“In a nutshell…” Came a much-needed voice of clarity, Flynt merged back into his singular self for the time being as he paced around Neon’s left side with the rest of the team assuming strategic positions up high. “You’re a sweet kid, Polendina. Better not to get twisted up in the wrong scene. Lotta cats out there lookin to take advantage, times bein what they are… and present company bein what it is.”

His eyes never left Watts and Tyrian wherever they ended up in this brewing fiasco, musician’s hands poised across his trumpet in case either so much as wiggled a finger at them. Or stinger.

“You know, my dad—“

“Sheesh, Flynt, can’t you stay on topic?” She pulled a face at him amidst a graceful pirouette, drawing little more than a rueful groan and shake of the head. “ANYWAY, Penpen, Ironwood said you don’t have to fight in the tournament or stay enlisted or do ANYthing you don’t wanna do anymore! You’re not even in trouble, isn’t that crazyyyyyyyy? He says he just wants you to go home with your dad and be a normal girl now! He’s already on a special transport direct from Atlas, and WE rounded up a posse to come extract you in the meantime!!! Look, the BOUNCERS are here!!!!!!”

“Hi.” “Hi.”

Emerald’s eyes started to glaze over somewhere in the middle of all that when she realised she just didn’t care, and she instead occupied herself doing a quick headcount of exactly who it was Neon had managed to muster up inside of fifteen minutes. Team FNKI, the Malachites, team CFVY— ಠ_ಠ

She stuck her head out the window. “What’s your damage, bitch? You go to our school!”

“We just hate you guys!” Coco yelled back down from the rooftop overlooking the alley they were all pretending not to pose on, cupping her mouth.

“Damn. Fair enough.”

“I like Cinder and Hazel! Sorta,” muttered a hangdog figure who hovered just out of view, with the exception of two bunny ears peeking up over the ever-stoic Yatsuhashi’s shoulder.​

 

[Indolent]

"I axedya for yer tip, notcha life story toots."

"Didja really just order a twoferwun drinks special then wait til I was finished makin 'em before changin yer mind?" The barmaid asked in tones as sweet as honey, a marked contrast to the pair of bowie knives she produced from under the counter and started sharpening together. At the second part of Gretchen's musings, though, the blades froze mid-scrape, tanuki ears twitching in dangerous fashion as Gretchen thought she heard the following over a peak in the DJ's current track. Of course, she couldn't be sure.

"Well, let's assume I wantcha ta assume. Let's say the oddsa me GUTTIN YA shoot way down if ya do."




Far more unambiguous was the way the barmaid's eyes lit up at the stack of lien, a well-timed cha-ching soundbite booming through the speakers in the midst of whatever remix Deft Funk were dropping in response to the renewed energy Mercury and Penny's contrasting styles brought to the dancefloor. In a flurry of motion she snatched the notes up, gracelessly stuffed them down her shirt, tipped what must've been about a third of a bottle of what looked to be pure grain alcohol into the Strawberry Sunrises and promptly lit them both ablaze with a spray of sparks from the bowie knives, downing half of what appeared to have been claimed as hers in one go.

"Aight, boo. Let's talk bidness. First order: I wanna know just who you know's bin moseyin around with MY clan semblance."

It proved a most enlightening conversation for them both.​

Wow jeez, this chick was hardcore. Gretchen could come to like that if she deigned to actually form a friendship beyond their fleeting material exchange of lien and drinks. Or in this case, information as she had been angling. That said, there was something indescribably familiar about this faunus, in the vaguest sense possible, that really only hammered home the fact that she kinda sorta thought the person she thought of was connected to this person before her.

They really didn't brook any nonsense and they were the fuck around and find out sort. That said...

She inhaled her drink across from the barmaid when she'd taken the drink, Gretchen content to let her do so before starting in on dishing the deets and receiving a mixture of the two back in turn.

Watts, Tyrian, and Hazel arrived to the manta to find Penny already there, along with a kidnapped from the bar Gretchen who's clothes and hair looked... wind tousled. The android was going through the pre flight checks, her eyes alight as she interfaced directly with the Manta through a finger port, various buttons and levers activating themselves of their own accord. She turned as they entered and gave them a mournful frown. Watts sighed as he jogged the last bit up the ramp.

"Oh my god, is that what flying is like for you?" Gretchen whispered, standing by Penny with a strange mix of shellshock from the sudden experience of hurtling through the sky and a clamoring glee to her face. "... Can we do it again?" She asked, leaning forward to be within Penny's peripheral and maintained her position there, eyes fixed on the android with a beaming expectant grin.

"Wait. Is that what it's like for you too, Cinder? Man... seriously envious..."

Meanwhile her scarf was absolutely quivering, a series of scared squeaks muffled entirely by the scarf, a terrestial creature that'd been shunted into a state of existence entirely at ends with everything Brosel understood, before returning to the earth one more.

Gretchen finally broke herself free from the starry-eyed stupor she found herself in and consoled the stoat apologetically, chuckling and muttering to him before she fixed eyes on Watts, her features growing serious.

"I was able to get information that might help us out what with the White.... the..."

View attachment 1101333

“What the hell?!”

His bewilderment veered far too deeply into out-and-out confused territory to truly taste like victory to Watts, but he couldn’t help but get the sense he had just found a way to insult Flynt in a way no one had ever thought to stoop to before.

Totally proved him right.

And as for Torchwick’s bit, he didn’t even know what he could say about all that. Classy. Real classy.





Emerald, who as far as anyone looking was concerned was now the shorter of the two after swapping their heights and color pallets for her personal amusement, made essentially the exact same pose at the exact same time where she was hovering by Neo in the cabin, the two far too used to those types of accusations from anyone who got to know them to take offence.

“Uh, does anyone else hear jazz?”

She wrinkled her nose on instinct as she peered out the window, unaware of Flynt’s presence but just not really liking the idea of having to listen to jazz.

Unfortunately, they did.

Far more concerning was everything else they heard.



Mercury exploded around the corner about two blocks over, riding a wave of propulsion not entirely of his own making as both boots ejected their payload to keep his momentum under control and sent him handspringing over the hood of a car that swerved dangerously off onto the sidewalk to avoid flipping when two of its wheels left the tarmac. He landed on the hood of the truck coming up behind, and the cause of his urgent entrance was clarified as he rolled over and jumped to keep ahead of the rainbow trail bearing Neon towing no less than four copies of Flynt hooked onto her back in a sort of frenetic conga line that stayed hot on his heels. The full quartet were blaring their trumpets one-handed, fingers dancing across the valves with an expert’s precision to fire off a crisscross of soundwaves that vollied off into the night, Mercury using their visible reluctance to cause a significant traffic pile-up to his advantage as he sprinted from hood to hood in oncoming traffic towards the manta—

—A whip snagged his ankle, and the only thing that kept him from getting wrenched off the back of the semitruck he’d alighted on and reduced to a humanoid speedbump under the increasingly frenzied flow of traffic was the handhold he had the wherewithal to grab on his way down. Another gunshot tactically angled to careen off uselessly into the night spun his momentum around like a rocket, and the wielder of the whip leaping off the neighboring row of buildings to join the pursuit found himself swung around and slammed into his blue-tinged partner swinging in from the back of the truck’s trailer; the duo somewhat recognisable as team FNKI’s other half ploughing into the side in a tangled heap, nearly being ejected from the chase as suddenly as they made their entrance if not for a well-timed blast of fanfare from a trumpet that saved them. They reoriented, Ivori snapping his weapon of choice around a corner lamp to start swinging after the truck street light to street light, while the more martial oriented Kobalt touched down on the truck bed at the same time Mercury swung himself up, the two warriors locking eyes and assuming a stance as one.

Their macho highway fight wasn’t to be as a glow stick clobbered him over the back of the skull, followed by another to the face that sent him falling into a backwards handstand off the edge of the truck as Kobalt threw his hands up in askance.

“We don’t have tiiiiiii-IIIIIII-iiiiiiime!” Neon sang in sync with whatever rhythm she was listening to, flashing the universal hand signal for ‘I have headphones on’ as she ramped off the side of the trailer in turn. Mercury was already two to three vehicles away, clinging to the underside of a pickup and surreptitiously peeking out to—

—Almost have his eye taken out by a pointed stiletto brought down by Melanie freaking Malachite being flanked by her sister for whatever reason, his twist to avoid it seeing him regret his particular choice of escape technique as he lost his grip and the earlier prophecy was fulfilled when the back two wheels of the truck drove over him with a sickening badthump that saw his aura flare bright silver as if to say ‘bro’. He rolled with the momentum, lungs low on breath by way of constrictive force as much as fatigue by this point, and just about kept himself from going through a shop window by planting both heels against the pane of glass and shattering it with echoing twin blams to go soaring up, over the twins, and high into the night instead, unable to keep himself from using the last of his air to bellow out a pitched whoop of elation as he held his arms out straight and sailed into a graceful backflip; perfectly calculated to carry him the rest of the way to the manta his buddies awaited him in. He did it. He freaking did it. That was the most badass shit any of them ever pulled in their life. He was untouchable. He was the chosen one.

View attachment 1101381

He was snatched out of the air and spiked back down to earth by an absolute baseball glove of a hand that reached down from the roof edge to close over his entire face, the final component of his pursuers revealing themselves just as the strangest sense of deja vu overtook him at the manoeuver too brutally straightforward to really counter with any of his technical bullshit; a split second before he crashed into the dumpster by the manta like a miniature comet. His aura sparks drifted up weakly from the interior in response, and although Emerald stiffened briefly the tension unwound itself when Mercury nigh immediately popped back up with a banana peel on his head.

View attachment 1101385

“There’s been a terrible misunderstanding.”

“Wow, that was pointless.” Emerald droned, sticking her head out of the manta to gaze out across the trail of absolute carnage leading all the way back to Junior’s club. Yea this dude was still lowkey high. “Why didn’t you just call us?”

“Someone swiped my scroll!” He said defensively, apparently forgetting he had given it to Watts entirely of his own volition. “Bet it’s whichever jerk has my nunchucks.”

She just rolled her eyes, resolving to tune him back out of existence for now and watching with a tremulous frown as the shitty Avengers rolled up with Neon at the forefront.

View attachment 1101394

“PENNYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!” The raver trilled in that unique octave of hers the moment she saw her through the windshield, inducing an immediate migraine in Emerald at bare minimum as she clucked her tongue and shot Ironwood’s pet project a dark look over her shoulder. Of course.

She started skating happy figure eights, tail swishing in earnest relief for their fellow Atlesian’s continued safety. Unaware of her true nature though the general student body may have been, Penny’s unique idiosyncrasies among the rest of the Academy had been explained by the general in a formal assembly on her enrolment, with the simple blurring of the truth that she was a girl of exceptional power and a unique way of viewing the world that others might try to exploit if given the opportunity proving sufficient for most. With that in mind it was hard to interpret their concern for her as anything but sincere, with the excitable tangent the faunus launched into doing little to dissuade that notion.

“I AM SUCH. A DITZ I didn’t have a CLUE you were getting straight up KIDNAPPED, sweetie!! Like, ya-DOY, Neon!!! Were you trying to speak in code and I just didn’t get it??? Ohmigosh, you just reminded me I took a test for that when I was little and I forget what it said, but basically my brain just doesn’t vibe with that stuff at all and my mom thinks that’s why I was excluded grades four through six, and so that’s why I pick up on stuff better when it’s LOUD AND OBVIOUS like me, anyway after we talked I called Ciel who called General Ironwood and then the three of us were on the line together, and that was weird, then your DAD(!!!) joined and I was like what is going on, and basically they said time was of the essence which I get but then they explained the whole deal and I was like NO WAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!” She glowered. “Penny, these punks are TOTALLY MANIPULATING YOU! Everyone is SOOOOOO worried, I’ve NEVER heard Ironwood sound like that! And I’ve never heard your dad at all before today but trust me when I say he is FREAKING. OUTTTTTT!“

“In a nutshell…” Came a much-needed voice of clarity, Flynt merged back into his singular self for the time being as he paced around Neon’s left side with the rest of the team assuming strategic positions up high. “You’re a sweet kid, Polendina. Better not to get twisted up in the wrong scene. Lotta cats out there lookin to take advantage, times bein what they are… and present company bein what it is.”

His eyes never left Watts and Tyrian wherever they ended up in this brewing fiasco, musician’s hands poised across his trumpet in case either so much as wiggled a finger at them. Or stinger.

“You know, my dad—“

“Sheesh, Flynt, can’t you stay on topic?” She pulled a face at him amidst a graceful pirouette, drawing little more than a rueful groan and shake of the head. “ANYWAY, Penpen, Ironwood said you don’t have to fight in the tournament or stay enlisted or do ANYthing you don’t wanna do anymore! You’re not even in trouble, isn’t that crazyyyyyyyy? He says he just wants you to go home with your dad and be a normal girl now! He’s already on a special transport direct from Atlas, and WE rounded up a posse to come extract you in the meantime!!! Look, the BOUNCERS are here!!!!!!”

“Hi.” “Hi.”

Emerald’s eyes started to glaze over somewhere in the middle of all that when she realised she just didn’t care, and she instead occupied herself doing a quick headcount of exactly who it was Neon had managed to muster up inside of fifteen minutes. Team FNKI, the Malachites, team CFVY— ಠ_ಠ

She stuck her head out the window. “What’s your damage, bitch? You go to our school!”

“We just hate you guys!” Coco yelled back down from the rooftop overlooking the alley they were all pretending not to pose on, cupping her mouth.

“Damn. Fair enough.”

“I like Cinder and Hazel! Sorta,” muttered a hangdog figure who hovered just out of view, with the exception of two bunny ears peeking up over the ever-stoic Yatsuhashi’s shoulder.​

Yeah. Yeah, that. Everything.

"... white claw mix recipe I was going on about earlier! We'll talk later right."

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"Oh my god, is that what flying is like for you?" Gretchen whispered, standing by Penny with a strange mix of shellshock from the sudden experience of hurtling through the sky and a clamoring glee to her face. "... Can we do it again?" She asked, leaning forward to be within Penny's peripheral and maintained her position there, eyes fixed on the android with a beaming expectant grin.

"Wait. Is that what it's like for you too, Cinder? Man... seriously envious..."

Meanwhile her scarf was absolutely quivering, a series of scared squeaks muffled entirely by the scarf, a terrestial creature that'd been shunted into a state of existence entirely at ends with everything Brosel understood, before returning to the earth one more.

That got a bright smile out of Penny despite everything as the others fell into discussion about their sole missing member. "Of course! It is one of my favorite things to do for fun, I am so glad you enjoyed it despite the circumstances! perhaps once we are en route I could show you- Are you aware there is a small mammal is your scarf?" Penny asked after seeing it move and her eyes briefly glowing, to this point having not spent more than five minutes in the same room as Gretchen and just not noticing her constant companion.

Mercury exploded around the corner about two blocks over, riding a wave of propulsion not entirely of his own making as both boots ejected their payload to keep his momentum under control and sent him handspringing over the hood of a car that swerved dangerously off onto the sidewalk to avoid flipping when two of its wheels left the tarmac. He landed on the hood of the truck coming up behind, and the cause of his urgent entrance was clarified as he rolled over and jumped to keep ahead of the rainbow trail bearing Neon towing no less than four copies of Flynt hooked onto her back in a sort of frenetic conga line that stayed hot on his heels. The full quartet were blaring their trumpets one-handed, fingers dancing across the valves with an expert’s precision to fire off a crisscross of soundwaves that vollied off into the night, Mercury using their visible reluctance to cause a significant traffic pile-up to his advantage as he sprinted from hood to hood in oncoming traffic towards the manta—

—A whip snagged his ankle, and the only thing that kept him from getting wrenched off the back of the semitruck he’d alighted on and reduced to a humanoid speedbump under the increasingly frenzied flow of traffic was the handhold he had the wherewithal to grab on his way down. Another gunshot tactically angled to careen off uselessly into the night spun his momentum around like a rocket, and the wielder of the whip leaping off the neighboring row of buildings to join the pursuit found himself swung around and slammed into his blue-tinged partner swinging in from the back of the truck’s trailer; the duo somewhat recognisable as team FNKI’s other half ploughing into the side in a tangled heap, nearly being ejected from the chase as suddenly as they made their entrance if not for a well-timed blast of fanfare from a trumpet that saved them. They reoriented, Ivori snapping his weapon of choice around a corner lamp to start swinging after the truck street light to street light, while the more martial oriented Kobalt touched down on the truck bed at the same time Mercury swung himself up, the two warriors locking eyes and assuming a stance as one.

Their macho highway fight wasn’t to be as a glow stick clobbered him over the back of the skull, followed by another to the face that sent him falling into a backwards handstand off the edge of the truck as Kobalt threw his hands up in askance.

“We don’t have tiiiiiii-IIIIIII-iiiiiiime!” Neon sang in sync with whatever rhythm she was listening to, flashing the universal hand signal for ‘I have headphones on’ as she ramped off the side of the trailer in turn. Mercury was already two to three vehicles away, clinging to the underside of a pickup and surreptitiously peeking out to—

—Almost have his eye taken out by a pointed stiletto brought down by Melanie freaking Malachite being flanked by her sister for whatever reason, his twist to avoid it seeing him regret his particular choice of escape technique as he lost his grip and the earlier prophecy was fulfilled when the back two wheels of the truck drove over him with a sickening badthump that saw his aura flare bright silver as if to say ‘bro’. He rolled with the momentum, lungs low on breath by way of constrictive force as much as fatigue by this point, and just about kept himself from going through a shop window by planting both heels against the pane of glass and shattering it with echoing twin blams to go soaring up, over the twins, and high into the night instead, unable to keep himself from using the last of his air to bellow out a pitched whoop of elation as he held his arms out straight and sailed into a graceful backflip; perfectly calculated to carry him the rest of the way to the manta his buddies awaited him in. He did it. He freaking did it. That was the most badass shit any of them ever pulled in their life. He was untouchable. He was the chosen one.

He was snatched out of the air and spiked back down to earth by an absolute baseball glove of a hand that reached down from the roof edge to close over his entire face, the final component of his pursuers revealing themselves just as the strangest sense of deja vu overtook him at the manoeuver too brutally straightforward to really counter with any of his technical bullshit; a split second before he crashed into the dumpster by the manta like a miniature comet. His aura sparks drifted up weakly from the interior in response, and although Emerald stiffened briefly the tension unwound itself when Mercury nigh immediately popped back up with a banana peel on his head.

“There’s been a terrible misunderstanding.”

“Wow, that was pointless.” Emerald droned, sticking her head out of the manta to gaze out across the trail of absolute carnage leading all the way back to Junior’s club. Yea this dude was still lowkey high. “Why didn’t you just call us?”

“Someone swiped my scroll!” He said defensively, apparently forgetting he had given it to Watts entirely of his own volition. “Bet it’s whichever jerk has my nunchucks.”

She just rolled her eyes, resolving to tune him back out of existence for now and watching with a tremulous frown as the shitty Avengers rolled up with Neon at the forefront.

The answer to that question would have to wait, as Penny gasped, genuinely distraught as her recent dance partner was suddenly sent into the dumpster at mach 3.4, standing up from her seat in the pilot's chair with both hands pressed against her mouth. She breathed a sigh of relief when he rose out of it, and turned to meet Neon's address

for her as anything but sincere, with the excitable tangent the faunus launched into doing little to dissuade that notion.

“I AM SUCH. A DITZ I didn’t have a CLUE you were getting straight up KIDNAPPED, sweetie!! Like, ya-DOY, Neon!!! Were you trying to speak in code and I just didn’t get it??? Ohmigosh, you just reminded me I took a test for that when I was little and I forget what it said, but basically my brain just doesn’t vibe with that stuff at all and my mom thinks that’s why I was excluded grades four through six, and so that’s why I pick up on stuff better when it’s LOUD AND OBVIOUS like me, anyway after we talked I called Ciel who called General Ironwood and then the three of us were on the line together, and that was weird, then your DAD(!!!) joined and I was like what is going on, and basically they said time was of the essence which I get but then they explained the whole deal and I was like NO WAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!” She glowered. “Penny, these punks are TOTALLY MANIPULATING YOU! Everyone is SOOOOOO worried, I’ve NEVER heard Ironwood sound like that! And I’ve never heard your dad at all before today but trust me when I say he is FREAKING. OUTTTTTT!“

“In a nutshell…” Came a much-needed voice of clarity, Flynt merged back into his singular self for the time being as he paced around Neon’s left side with the rest of the team assuming strategic positions up high. “You’re a sweet kid, Polendina. Better not to get twisted up in the wrong scene. Lotta cats out there lookin to take advantage, times bein what they are… and present company bein what it is.”

His eyes never left Watts and Tyrian wherever they ended up in this brewing fiasco, musician’s hands poised across his trumpet in case either so much as wiggled a finger at them. Or stinger.

“You know, my dad—“

“Sheesh, Flynt, can’t you stay on topic?” She pulled a face at him amidst a graceful pirouette, drawing little more than a rueful groan and shake of the head. “ANYWAY, Penpen, Ironwood said you don’t have to fight in the tournament or stay enlisted or do ANYthing you don’t wanna do anymore! You’re not even in trouble, isn’t that crazyyyyyyyy? He says he just wants you to go home with your dad and be a normal girl now! He’s already on a special transport direct from Atlas, and WE rounded up a posse to come extract you in the meantime!!! Look, the BOUNCERS are here!!!!!!”

“Hi.” “Hi.”

Emerald’s eyes started to glaze over somewhere in the middle of all that when she realised she just didn’t care, and she instead occupied herself doing a quick headcount of exactly who it was Neon had managed to muster up inside of fifteen minutes. Team FNKI, the Malachites, team CFVY— ಠ_ಠ

She stuck her head out the window. “What’s your damage, bitch? You go to our school!”

“We just hate you guys!” Coco yelled back down from the rooftop overlooking the alley they were all pretending not to pose on, cupping her mouth.

“Damn. Fair enough.”

“I like Cinder and Hazel! Sorta,” muttered a hangdog figure who hovered just out of view, with the exception of two bunny ears peeking up over the ever-stoic Yatsuhashi’s shoulder.

Watts was meeting Flynt's accusatory stare with a placid one of his own, arms crossed and not in any hurry to kick off any hostilities outside of a quick nudge with his elbow into Tyrian and a quiet "Do not". He was about to speak, but Penny beat him to the punch.

"General Ironwood is not in a place to be granting me forgiveness."

Her words came out firm; There was a brief moment of shame at Emerald's glance, the idea that she had once again pulled danger on top of Cinder and her friends heavy on her mind, but that was wiped out by a distraught, terrified frown at the mention of Pietro. What had Ironwood told him? What did he think she had done? What was Ironwood going to do when he got here?

Then she realized that the very fact she had to ask that question was why she could not go back. Not yet. Her father had raised her better than that. She opened the pilot's door, and Watts frown and started to step towards her. He wasn't particulary interested in a fight, but nor was he a strong believer that any sort of bleeding heart to heart was going to get them anywhere here. "Penny-"

"Please, arthur. Allow me to speak to them first."

That got a thin frown from him, as he narrowed his eyes back down at Flynt. "You'd be wasting your time. They're not the sort to give a shit about the other side of the story."

She managed a small smile. "Not everyone from Atlas is Ironwood."

She stepped out and let her boosters carry her to alight gently on the nose of the ship, her hands loosely grasped in front of her as she talked to Flynt and Neon.

"What the General has told you about my friends is wrong. What the general has done is wrong. I promise that I am not being duped by my presence here. It is extremely important that you let us go."

Watts rubbed at his temple with a discontent hum as Penny led with that, already ready to mark this particular attempt down as a failure as he mouthed quietly to one side to Gretchen while Penny continued. "White claws aside; you were giving Torchwick advice earlier, on flying this thing. Any chance that means you're capable of piloting it in a more... combat heavy scenario?"

Genuinely felt like a weird question to be asking Hazel's little sister, but beggars and choosers and all that.

--------------------------

Neo was quite simply Not There Anymore

 

[MyrtenRose]

"Depends" watts answered "Is Mercury invisible?"

"Unless he got his semblance back somehow and that happens to be it, no, don't think so."​

“Uh, does anyone else hear jazz?”

She wrinkled her nose on instinct as she peered out the window, unaware of Flynt’s presence but just not really liking the idea of having to listen to jazz.

Unfortunately, they did.

Far more concerning was everything else they heard.

Is it bad if I kinda like it?

Probably for the best that she didn't ask that out loud. "Yeah." She said instead, confirming that she did in fact, hear jazz. That music was the least of what she heard though. And saw. Mercury, flipping and jumping around traffic, just barely managing to stay ahead of Vale's most intense barbershop quartet being pulled around by the rainbow on wheels herself. And not only them, but the rest of their team too, and then some! Those twin bouncers, out of nowhere, barely missing him and resulting in him literally getting run over...but he shook it off like a champ! Cinder could only watch in awe as he shot through the air, backflipping with grace right into...not their ship. Rather, someone's giant ass hand. Awe quickly turned to dread on her face as Mercury got yeeted towards the dumpster. Welp. A for effort.​

“I AM SUCH. A DITZ I didn’t have a CLUE you were getting straight up KIDNAPPED, sweetie!! Like, ya-DOY, Neon!!! Were you trying to speak in code and I just didn’t get it??? Ohmigosh, you just reminded me I took a test for that when I was little and I forget what it said, but basically my brain just doesn’t vibe with that stuff at all and my mom thinks that’s why I was excluded grades four through six, and so that’s why I pick up on stuff better when it’s LOUD AND OBVIOUS like me, anyway after we talked I called Ciel who called General Ironwood and then the three of us were on the line together, and that was weird, then your DAD(!!!) joined and I was like what is going on, and basically they said time was of the essence which I get but then they explained the whole deal and I was like NO WAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!” She glowered. “Penny, these punks are TOTALLY MANIPULATING YOU! Everyone is SOOOOOO worried, I’ve NEVER heard Ironwood sound like that! And I’ve never heard your dad at all before today but trust me when I say he is FREAKING. OUTTTTTT!“

“In a nutshell…” Came a much-needed voice of clarity, Flynt merged back into his singular self for the time being as he paced around Neon’s left side with the rest of the team assuming strategic positions up high. “You’re a sweet kid, Polendina. Better not to get twisted up in the wrong scene. Lotta cats out there lookin to take advantage, times bein what they are… and present company bein what it is.”

"Kidnapped? Manipulated?? Taking advantage of???"

That's not at all what had happened. The freaking nerve Ironwood had to lie so blatantly, and rope Penny's dad into it too! An angry look simmered on Cinder's face then, but she was making no immediate moves as she also gauged how many people had been dragged into this by Neon and her partner. Their team, the twins, CFVY...and probably more to follow since Ironwood was in the know. Wonderful. ​

She stuck her head out the window. “What’s your damage, bitch? You go to our school!”

“We just hate you guys!” Coco yelled back down from the rooftop overlooking the alley they were all pretending not to pose on, cupping her mouth.

"Well can't you just go hate on somebody else, bitch?! I bet Cardin's free! Because right now, in this moment, I kinda hate you too!" ​

“I like Cinder and Hazel! Sorta,” muttered a hangdog figure who hovered just out of view, with the exception of two bunny ears peeking up over the ever-stoic Yatsuhashi’s shoulder.

"No offense, Velvet!" She was quick to add that part after replying to the bunny's team leader.​

Watts was meeting Flynt's accusatory stare with a placid one of his own, arms crossed and not in any hurry to kick off any hostilities outside of a quick nudge with his elbow into Tyrian and a quiet "Do not". He was about to speak, but Penny beat him to the punch.

"General Ironwood is not in a place to be granting me forgiveness."

Her words came out firm; There was a brief moment of shame at Emerald's glance, the idea that she had once again pulled danger on top of Cinder and her friends heavy on her mind, but that was wiped out by a distraught, terrified frown at the mention of Pietro. What had Ironwood told him? What did he think she had done? What was Ironwood going to do when he got here?

Then she realized that the very fact she had to ask that question was why she could not go back. Not yet. Her father had raised her better than that. She opened the pilot's door, and Watts frown and started to step towards her. He wasn't particulary interested in a fight, but nor was he a strong believer that any sort of bleeding heart to heart was going to get them anywhere here. "Penny-"

"Please, arthur. Allow me to speak to them first."

That got a thin frown from him, as he narrowed his eyes back down at Flynt. "You'd be wasting your time. They're not the sort to give a shit about the other side of the story."

She managed a small smile. "Not everyone from Atlas is Ironwood."

She stepped out and let her boosters carry her to alight gently on the nose of the ship, her hands loosely grasped in front of her as she talked to Flynt and Neon.

"What the General has told you about my friends is wrong. What the general has done is wrong. I promise that I am not being duped by my presence here. It is extremely important that you let us go."

She still refrained from making any sudden, direct moves as she stood still, fully expecting Watts to speak in that typical smarmy run his mouth kind of way. Instead, Penny spoke up, to her surprise, and Cinder was as silent as she was unmoving as her friend spoke. It was not until Penny was done that Cinder chimed in with a thoroughly unnecessary: "Yeah, what she said!"

Raven, for her part, just sat there and took a sip from the bottle. A long sip.​

 

[MidwayLives]

Watts was meeting Flynt's accusatory stare with a placid one of his own, arms crossed and not in any hurry to kick off any hostilities outside of a quick nudge with his elbow into Tyrian and a quiet "Do not". He was about to speak, but Penny beat him to the punch.

Tyrian huffed, puffed out his chest, even went as far as baring his teeth but he'd obey.
Violence had it's place and while he would have been more than thrilled to unleash it here and now? Confident as he was in his own skills, he didn't really favor his odds in a 1vEveryone and their mothers. Arthur may not have been a muscleman and he never needed to be. Teammates like Hazel and himself made up for Arthur's 'flaws' in that area. But he did have intelligence, more so than Tyrian did on a regular basis anyhow, and so the faunus held himself back although it was very clear from his body language alone that he was poised to strike at a moment's notice.
All he needed was the nod.

Emerald’s eyes started to glaze over somewhere in the middle of all that when she realised she just didn’t care, and she instead occupied herself doing a quick headcount of exactly who it was Neon had managed to muster up inside of fifteen minutes. Team FNKI, the Malachites, team CFVY— ಠ_ಠ

She stuck her head out the window. “What’s your damage, bitch? You go to our school!”

“We just hate you guys!” Coco yelled back down from the rooftop overlooking the alley they were all pretending not to pose on, cupping her mouth.

“Damn. Fair enough.”

“I like Cinder and Hazel! Sorta,” muttered a hangdog figure who hovered just out of view, with the exception of two bunny ears peeking up over the ever-stoic Yatsuhashi’s shoulder.

Knowing himself well enough that if a fight DID break out, which given all the variety of personalities involved didn't even come CLOSE to sounding farfetched, he'd only end up as something of a liability, Roman instead hustled and bustled his ass over to the controls.

There were two schools of thought currently holding session inside his head right now.

One was of the mind that Roman was doubting himself far too much. Okay, sure, he was probably never going to be a 'Mercury' level fighter but he could always aspire to do his own thing, to find his own niche. It'd just take a little bit more time was all. How much? What was he? A philosopher?? It'd happen when it happened! Sheesh! Hearing all the commotion out there almost made him want to un-VWOOMP his fairly acquired nunchucks and go out and kick some ass!

The other consideration mostly rested it's laurels on the argument that staying away/staying low was MUCH better. Less chance of getting hurt and perhaps suffering an equally terrible fate in the process.

Roman despite his better judgement was leaning more towards the latter. Though, that didn't make him a coward. At least not in his own eyes. Hell no! He'd already DIED once! He slung himself into the pilot's seat and moved towards the controls. He may not have been able to carry a fight but he'd sure as hell make sure all of them got AWAY from one that they just couldn't win.

 

[Gus Gungus]

“H-huh?”



So crestfallen was Neon, so wholeheartedly assured in her own ability to handle that the way she went about it, that she slipped.

Not only from the physical rainbow, the wheels of her skates going up, out, and over from under her, but from the metaphysical, emotional one as well; her heart itself what skipped the beat this time as she skidded off the rainbow road of good vibes she lived her life atop and plunged headlong into the deep, dark, solitary abyss of rejection.

“No waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy!!! But we have so much in coooooommmmmmmoooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnn—!“

THUD

Somehow, it was one of the most visceral sounds any of them had ever heard.





Featuring backing tracks by Flynt Coal.

He spared her no more than a second’s worth of a pitying look where she lay, vanquished, shaking his head and taking it as his cue to step in.

“Took the wrong read from all that, kid. Forgiveness ain’t part of the package. S’never really been Ironwood’s style, anyhow.” He tweaked his shades, lenses gleaming in the midday sun. “What he’s offering you is a pass. Maybe yall didn’t notice down here in the land of peaches and cream, but everywhere else Remnant’s just about gone to hell. Guy’s had his head in a hydraulic press just tryin to hold this show together. Got four kingdoms plus change dumping their problems in one man’s shiny metal lap; Fang, crooks and cults from the east, wannabe revolutionaries in the west, cartels and assassin networks makin all kinds of waves down here. And some of the Grimm crawlin outta the glaciers back home… the way they’ve been acting… well, you were shipped off to boarding school too soon to see ‘em, Polendina. That’s a good thing, don’t get it twisted. Then there’s everything Hill and her Happy Hoodlums been doing to Mantle; Everything that junk they peddle has done all over.”

He spat at that, eyes searing over the peak of his glasses, a personal note to his voice rendering that last indictment more scathing than the others.

“Look, ain’t a lot to be gained beatin around the bush. Whatever Ironwood saw in you, it gave him hope. Enough to field you in the starting lineup a little earlier than he maybe should’ve. You stepped up to the plate. You weren’t ready. You choked. It happens.” He flicked his fedora to the other side of his crown, letting his head cock with it, but when his shades slid down the bridge of his nose the look beneath was bereft of its typical dauntless swag.

“…We all wish we could live in a world where hope sells. Fact is, no one’s buyin anymore. He needs results. So, now he’s moving ahead with other options. This whole ‘Penny Project’, whatever that was… it’s shelved. Tabled. And brass tacks for you is you’re done. Discharged. Whatever you wanna call it; word your boy over there might use is expelled.”

He pitched that one Watts’ way like one might lob a sucker punch to the back of the skull, but didn’t spare him anything more than a sniff of disdain where he stood inside the cockpit otherwise as he kept his attention on the android.

“Your dad’s comin, alright. He’s comin to drive you home. Whatever happens after that, it’s between you and him. What it won’t be is Academy business, or military for that matter. Ironwood regrets the spot he put you in enough to give you the chance to get in that car yourself, but that’s all you get; one chance. One free pass. One opportunity to come back from all this. Past that…”

He sighed, though contrary to his barbs towards Watts he appeared to take no pleasure in his next statement as he raised his trumpet to his lips.

“We do what we gotta do.”
​

"Well can't you just go hate on somebody else, bitch?! I bet Cardin's free! Because right now, in this moment, I kinda hate you too!" ​

Cinder somehow got a look even sourer than the one she’d given Penny as she mirrored her use of the B-bomb, Emerald lightly chiding her with a huff where she still had her head out the window. “Cinder. Don’t stoop to her level.”

“It’s our influence on her,” Mercury declared from the dumpster like a proud older brother.

“I know, dipshit, that’s the problem.”

​

Neo was quite simply Not There Anymore​

Wherever Neo Actually Was, she found herself dealing with the always—even moreso for her—uncanny experience of having a brick quite simply whipped at her head with pinpoint accuracy, impacting her dead in the nose with such vicious crunchiness it shattered her right out of her illusion state and drew gasps from Mercury and Emerald in unison.



“Please let’s not start with all that.”

At least five sets of eyes all swivelled towards CFVY’s most elusive member as one, and while two of those sets were already planning some bloody revenge or another the team around him erupted in applause.

“You go, Fox!”

“Thank you,” came Yatsuhashi’s rumbling approval, the giant having not taken his eyes off WTCH’s own from the moment his team revealed their presence on the roof.

“I have gotten a bit fed up of how often I have to doubt my eyes around those four, to tell the truth.”

Her pokerface was, as ever, impeccable, but Emerald broke out in a cold sweat just then, unable to shake the feeling Neo had just taken a bullet with her name on it.
​

It was not until Penny was done that Cinder chimed in with a thoroughly unnecessary: "Yeah, what she said!" ​

“Who are you?” Inquired Ivori, the whip guy. He was a man of few words, and it appeared they were all starting to size up their opposite numbers among their roughly equal forces in the event push came to shove. Perhaps this was his.



“Hey Cinder! When’d you go from having main character syndrome to minor character energy?” Coco yelled down again like a boujee chick yelling at a nightclub bouncer as she sped away in her Porsche, seeing her opportunity for a potshot and taking it.

“I know you guys all think I’m a bitch but you have no idea what I’ve been shielding you from socially.”

Ivori looked sad.​

 

[MyrtenRose]

Cinder somehow got a look even sourer than the one she’d given Penny as she mirrored her use of the B-bomb, Emerald lightly chiding her with a huff where she still had her head out the window. “Cinder. Don’t stoop to her level.”

“It’s our influence on her,” Mercury declared from the dumpster like a proud older brother.

“I know, dipshit, that’s the problem.”

"What? She asked for it!" Cinder responded. She neither confirmed or denied that it was, in fact, their influence on her that had her use that specific word. But she sure didn't regret using it, just judging from the smile that was briefly on her face, despite the situation. It had felt good to call the older student out.

Then Neo got hit in the face with a brick.

Even hidden behind her illusion, it hit so spot-on...and the sound of it got Cinder to wince. It really sounded bad. If it weren't for aura, the maiden figured that would have probably most definitely have been a broken nose. She'd been there before. Broken noses sucked. While the rest of CFVY cheered, her own gaze joined the several others as she glared at the man responsible. A fierce, dangerous look that she so very much wished that the target could see, if only to get across that if this escalated into a fight, he would sorely regret--​

“Who are you?” Inquired Ivori, the whip guy. He was a man of few words, and it appeared they were all starting to size up their opposite numbers among their roughly equal forces in the event push came to shove. Perhaps this was his.

Her focus on Fox was thoroughly ripped away by that question. "Who am I? Who am I??" She repeated in utter disbelief, her eyes quickly shifting from incredulity to incredibly offended, and even her body language clearly spelled out 'what the hell, bro' as she stared down this freaking guy. Who the heck did this guy think he was? She was Cinder Fall, the only one to get into the prestigious Beacon academy two years early because she was just that good. Like, okay, that was a lie. Just a cover story for explaining her early admittance to Beacon because she had been given the maiden powers at random, and Salem wanted to keep a close eye over her once they found her. But the general public didn't know that! So this guy had a whole lotta nerve to even ask that, even if he hadn't watched her kick major butt in the whole team round up in the floating Amity.​

“Hey Cinder, when’d you go from having main character syndrome to minor character energy?” Coco yelled down again like a boujee chick yelling at a nightclub bouncer as she sped away in her Porsche, seeing her opportunity for a potshot and taking it.

"........" Already more than frustrated by Ivori and everything else, that cheap insult hit her even harder. If Coco wanted to go there, she'd go there.

"Oh look at me, I'm Coco, I dress myself in the highest end, most luxurious clothes so I can look like I'm the best around and try to mask the fact that I'm actually pretty freaking mid as a person! Oh, what's that, you broke my expensive shades in the middle of a fight? Yeah, I hate you now. So much so that I'm going to go against my classmates and join up with the dude who decided it was necessary to take like half his freaking army to what's basically a sporting event, even though things are so, so apparently super awful everywhere that it would've been better if most of them got stationed elsewhere! Yeah, that's the guy to trust right there. He says somebody got kidnapped, manipulated? That's enough for me. One little lie, some bending of the truth and I'm going to go out there and hunt down my fellow Beacon academy students, because I'm Coco, and I'm so great, and I look fabulous, and look at my glasses! See them? Cool, right? These awesome shades I'm wearing that don't let me see how much of a douchey tool I'm being right now!!!"​

 

[Indolent]

That got a bright smile out of Penny despite everything as the others fell into discussion about their sole missing member. "Of course! It is one of my favorite things to do for fun, I am so glad you enjoyed it despite the circumstances! perhaps once we are en route I could show you- Are you aware there is a small mammal is your scarf?" Penny asked after seeing it move and her eyes briefly glowing, to this point having not spent more than five minutes in the same room as Gretchen and just not noticing her constant companion.

"Brosel!" Gretch kindly informed Penny just as everything happened and before she stepped off the Manta. Because it was of the utmost importance and relevance that her personal emotional support slash violent rodent friend's name was shared and known.

She managed a small smile. "Not everyone from Atlas is Ironwood."

She stepped out and let her boosters carry her to alight gently on the nose of the ship, her hands loosely grasped in front of her as she talked to Flynt and Neon.

"That gal's gonna go places with that moxie and sense of justice." She murmured, in appreciation of Penny's genuine her verve for doing the right thing in the face of the gathered masses and quite literally going against one father figure of her own and his entire army of tin soldiers.

That said, holy fricking shit? Dead ass?

Every one of these clowns that came stomping down to rescue Penny from them under the guise of her having been kidnapped and the way they just talked to her. Flynt. Neon. How utterly patronizing???

"I'm compelled go out and start blasting!!!"

Watts rubbed at his temple with a discontent hum as Penny led with that, already ready to mark this particular attempt down as a failure as he mouthed quietly to one side to Gretchen while Penny continued. "White claws aside; you were giving Torchwick advice earlier, on flying this thing. Any chance that means you're capable of piloting it in a more... combat heavy scenario?"

Genuinely felt like a weird question to be asking Hazel's little sister, but beggars and choosers and all that.

The minuscule Rainart craned her head towards Watts, her mouth moving to formed a lopsided O in Watts's direction: "Yeah. Yeah I can. Only if you don't ask how and if you keep Hazy off my butt bout it."

That said...

"I'm leaving him here though, in case you need muscle." And with a sidestep, Gretchen almost affected a blur for the cockpit with the only remainder of her having been where she was aside Watts was... a stoat rubbing his eyes awake and yawning with a sidelong glance up to WTCH's team leader.

If Watts could even tell, Brosel was more than displeased that he was going to be mid-air again.

Roman despite his better judgement was leaning more towards the latter. Though, that didn't make him a coward. At least not in his own eyes. Hell no! He'd already DIED once! He slung himself into the pilot's seat and moved towards the controls. He may not have been able to carry a fight but he'd sure as hell make sure all of them got AWAY from one that they just couldn't win.

Gretchen came into the cockpit and gripped the overhead compartments to swing around to the side of the seat and hip-check Roman out of the way, a sincere "Sorry!" thrown his way as she went through systems check and the start up sequence for the manta, hands moving to throw switches and more.

 

[Indolent]

“Hi.” “Hi.”

"Hi. No hard feelings from before?" Hazel threw towards the twins, referencing an incident from a while ago, "We bought drinks. You should leave. This has nothing to do with you."

Otherwise the same outcome that happened the first time was going to again here, if he had anything to say bout it. If it came to that...

“We just hate you guys!” Coco yelled back down from the rooftop overlooking the alley they were all pretending not to pose on, cupping her mouth.

“Damn. Fair enough.”

“I like Cinder and Hazel! Sorta,” muttered a hangdog figure who hovered just out of view, with the exception of two bunny ears peeking up over the ever-stoic Yatsuhashi’s shoulder.

"The feeling is mutual but it is diminished by your decision to stand on the wrong side, Velvet. Please reconsider."

Wherever Neo Actually Was, she found herself dealing with the always—And even moreso for her—uncanny experience of having a brick quite simply whipped at her head with pinpoint accuracy, impacting her dead in the nose with such vicious crunchiness it shattered her right out of her illusion state and drew gasps from Mercury and Emerald in unison.

“Please let’s not start with all that.”

At least five sets of eyes all swivelled towards CFVY’s most elusive member as one, and while two of those sets were already planning some bloody revenge or another the team around him erupted in applause.

“You go, Fox!”

“Thank you,” came Yatsuhashi’s rumbling approval, the giant having not taken his eyes off WTCH’s own from the moment his team revealed their presence on the roof.

“I have gotten a bit fed up of how often I have to doubt my eyes around those four, to tell the truth.”

Her pokerface was, as ever, impeccable, but Emerald broke out in a cold sweat just then, unable to shake the feeling Neo had just taken a bullet with her name on it.

"..." He also affected a stoic air as he returned the stare from Yatsuhashi, but it was broken by the sickening crunch of the brick that Neo received, his gaze going towards wherever she was. There was almost an impulse that'd been successful in driving all three hundred pounds of his mass forward to try to assist her.

More the matter, it was the impulsion to retaliate for a friend's injury. Refraining from that in part, there was still a percolating thought in the back of his mind. Even if they were able to take off in the Manta, what if there were further reinforcements beyond these ready to detain them? Even then, they themselves might've been able to disable the manta before it took flight. There was a strong possibility there was a need for a distraction. Even if that seemed infeasible with the fact that Fox was also there to disrupt and coordinate with the rest.

"If she needs it, I'm going to help." The tone of his delivery made it precisely clear who amongst the others it was intended for.

 

[MyrtenRose]

"Hi. No hard feelings from before?" Hazel threw towards the twins, referencing an incident from a while ago, "We bought drinks. You should leave. This has nothing to do with you."

Otherwise the same outcome that happened the first time was going to again here, if he had anything to say bout it. If it came to that...

"Nope."

"Well, maybe a little. We get paid a little less every time you guys come around."

"So no, we aren't leaving."

"Plus, I want to see how this plays out."

"That too."​