Zeffre woke up face down on the floor, a small puddle of drool next to her face. Everything hurt. Her chest, her stomach, her arms... Everything even with her enhanced healing. Opening her eyes a crack she was greeted with midmorning light streaming in through the curtains. Something in her jacket was ringing.
Groaning, not bothering to get up from the floor, Zeffre reached into her jacket pocket to retrieve the offending object. It was a Scroll, one that the masked man refused to buy. Making another pathetic sound she answered the call and put the phone on speaker as she still rested her head on the floor.
"Hello~" a male voice said in a singsong tone. "Am I speaking to the armored freak?"
"Uh huh," she grunted, eyes closed as she imagined herself drifting back to sleep.
"Excellent! No doubt you already know who I am, so I'm just going to cut to the chase."
"Mnhhhhhm"
"...Excuse me?"
"whmmm mnm mgnn."
"What? Also, wait, am I on speaker?"
"Shhh... my everything hurts. I said who are you?"
"... are you serious?"
"Uh huh," she whined, eyes still closed as she prayed this conversation was ending soon.
"... Roman Torchwick? The boss of the guys you've been harassing for the past two weeks," the man on the scroll, Roman, said.
"Never heard of you."
"Oh ho my friend, you see that is where I know you are lying. Now, I am calling because I am in a generous mood, and would like to offer you a deal. You tell me who it is you work for, and I don't send my men over to teach you a lesson," the guy said. God, everything hurts.
"What's my address?"
"What?"
"My address. You said you'll send your men over meaning you know my address. What is it," Zeffre said, wishing this conversation would just end.
"You listen here you little—" Roman started.
"You don't know." She let out a long sigh. "Fine. I'm up. Let me take a shower, brew some coffee, find something to eat and I'll call you back okay," she said, resigning herself to getting up off the floor.
"Uh..."
"Great, I'll call you back in like 30 minutes tops. Bye." she said before hanging up.
Pushing herself up off the floor Zeffre glanced down at the dried pool of blood that she would have to clean up. Later.
She was still gripping the hilt of her broken sword. 'That was fun,' she thought, thinking back to that man. Qrow. 'People here are wild.' With a smirk she made her way towards the bathroom, intent on taking a very long and very hot bath.
----
Entering her apartment after returning the plate to Ms. Nancy, Zeffre checked her scroll to find she had missed six calls.
'Who would be calling this... oh. Right.' Checking the time from the first call earlier that day she saw that it had been over three hours past the time she was supposed to call that guy, Romeo?, back.
Taking a pint of ice cream, chocolate flavor, her favorite, from the mini-fridge Zeffre took a seat on her mattress, turned on the TV, and called the guy back.
"Yellow fellow", she said, deciding to watch the cartoon on the TV.
"... It has been over three hours."
"Yeah, sorry about that. I kind of forgot about our conversation earlier and I had things to do. Anyway, I'm doing better now, thanks for asking. What's up Romeo", she asked, reclining on her bed to eat her ice cream in peace.
"My name is Roman Torchwick, and... ugh. You know what," he said before letting out a long shuddering breath. "Just... Just tell me who you work for, and we can get back to not knowing that each other existed," his voice full of resignation.
"mh nhmn hmnm."
"Are you eating?!" he all but shouted.
Zeffre swallowed the ice cream with a satisfied sigh. "Yep. Anyway, I said 'I'm not working for anybody'."
"Please, you mean to tell me that you have been hunting down my men, getting them caught by VPD, and you're not working with anybody," he asked.
"Yup. I mean, your guys are pretty distinctive, and they tend to carry a lot of good stuff on them. Not my fault they suck at their jobs. Tell them to be better."
"I'm not saying 'what' again."
"I mean", Zeffre was scraping the last bits of ice cream off the sides of the container, "your guys go into an open store wearing a distinctive outfit, in a group, and hold the owner at gunpoint. Like, the security at those stores isn't even that great. Just come back later at night, pick the lock, disable the security with a half competent hacker, and bam. Nobody's the wiser and you don't get caught. Honestly, I'm doing you guys a favor."
"I am not taking advice from some kid," he said, voice flat.
"Take my advice, don't take my advice, that's on you."
"You know what? Okay, sure. You're not working for anybody. Let's say I buy that for a second. That doesn't change the fact that you've been getting my men arrested and stealing from them. Stealing from me. You are going to pay for that."
"'Kay. I mean, your men are already trying to stop me," she said, sad that her ice cream was now gone. Reduced to a stain on her face and memories. "What more are they going to do, double try to stop me from kicking their asses?"
There was the distinct sound of a head slamming itself against a desk coming through the scroll's speakers.
"But hey, the good news is that since they're already failing it's only uphill from here, right? Silver linings and all that."
Another bang from the speakers.
"Well, it was an enlightening talk, Rozin. I'll call you later, bye," she said, hanging up content with watching cartoons on the TV cozy in her bed.
'I really need to go grocery shopping.'
YOU ARE READING
Starlight and Shadows
FanfictionOne night a girl wielding the power of Starlight appeared in Vale. To her, it was just another stop in an endless search for meaning. But when she crosses paths with Team RWBY at Beacon Academy, she never could have imagined how complicated her life...
