The Games We Play

Unannounced

**See story description for disclaimer**

  As it turned out, Torchwick and his men were busy little bees. I suppose that wasn't surprising, truthfully; as secretive as Cinder might want to be, robbing all the Dust stores in a city—a city that, itself, ran on Dust—was hardly a minor project. Logistics had a tendency to complicate pretty much everything when you really got down to it, and when it came to stealing and transporting tons of valuable materials, that was especially true. Beyond the obvious need for transportation, targets would need to be scoped out ahead of time, dangers such as the police would need to be accounted for, and everything would need to be stored carefully, to prevent any particularly exciting accidents from happening with a material that was volatile at the best of times.

That itself led to a need for a place for storage—and one that was big enough to handle a massive quantity of Dust. Even so, there were obvious risks entailed in such a thing; though in shows and such, the criminals can just set everything up in an abandoned warehouse and never be discovered, the truth of the matter was that, while there were abandoned places, with space being such an issue with the Grimm all around us, it wasn't necessarily a good place to hide. People didn't just look at an abandoned building, shrug, and forever dismiss it from their thoughts, after all; odds were that someone was going to want to put it to use eventually. Add that to the dangers of the police driving by and wondering why the lights were on and, well...there were issues in running a major criminal movement out of such a thing.

Of course, actually buying a place large enough to suite your needs had its own issues. Things like that left paper trails and raised questions like 'What do you need a warehouse for?', "Why are all these strangely dressed people coming in and out of said warehouse at strange hours?', 'Why do you never seem to produce anything?', and the ever annoying 'Why do you look like that wanted criminal on the news?' To say nothing of the issues of regulations and building inspections and keeping up appearances.

Crime wasn't easy, especially when you wanted to make a life out of it. And the risks of failure were...well, worrying by anyone's standards. Really, it was no surprise that Cinder had chosen to delegate a task such as widespread Dust theft to someone else—and someone on another continent at that. Even then, I imagine that she probably spent a decent amount of time worrying about being exposed or betrayed; such was the nature of the game.

All of which meant that, instead of being some lush set up filled with a bunch of criminals relaxing and smoking cigars, Torchwick's place was full of people hard at work. Members of the White Fang were serving as muscle, transporting Dust in carefully sealed containers and storing them with exacting precision amidst other goods that would likely serve as a cover if they were could. To that same end, there were guards stationed around the surrounding neighborhood, though most of them didn't look that way. Instead of standing out by looking scary, there was a White Fang member working out of a bar nearby, a job Torchwick had presumably arranged for him, and he simply kept an eye on the streets as he worked, along with several of his fellows in similar jobs around the area. There were men in suits and marked trucks moving things through the city under the guise of what I assumed to be a real business, transporting goods both illegal and not. I wondered absently what ties Torchwick had to the actual business and how involved they were in these dealing. He certainly seemed to know a lot of people.

The long and short of which meant that they were busy.

So it took them all a while to notice me sitting on a chair, reading a book.

The first person to finally do so was a member of the White Fang who drifted close, either to see what I was doing or to tell me to get back to work. I didn't look up at him or speak, however, instead simply flicking my tail once to acknowledge his presence. He took one look at it, me, and the mask lying on the table beside me and then just walked away. When someone else tried to head towards me, however, he stopped them and spoke to them in quiet tones and, well, word traveled quickly from there, at least amongst the Faunus. Despite their present alliance—which had obviously gone past the stage of mere negotiations—none of them went to tell Torchwick yet.

Still, all of them kept a respectful distance from me and eyes were often on me as they worked. That nearly led to several accidents, including a dropped case of Dust, but I caught it with before it hit the ground, despite it being on the other side of the warehouse and handed it to the man who'd dropped it without even closing my book. After that, the warehouse quickly descended into murmurs, and that was what caught the man's attention.

"You," Torchwick said as he noticed me at last. Even with the amount of work he was no doubt handling with this operation, he probably knew better then to ignore it when everyone around him started whispering about something.

I smiled, closing my book at last as I looked up.

"Me," I agreed. "Hello, Mr. Torchwick. I don't believe we were ever formally introduced."

Will of the Torch
Level 57
Roman Torchwick

He looked at me for a moment, the corner of his jaw pulsing slightly as he watched me, and then nodded sharply as if deciding something.

"I suppose not," He agreed at last. "Though I can't say I much expected to see you here."

I chuckled slightly and nodded at that.

"I heard your employer wished to arrange a meeting with me," I stated. "But given her current situation, I thought it would rude of me to drop in unannounced."

Roman gave slight twitch at that and I figured he probably wanted to say something about how I'd chosen to drop in on him instead, but he reined it in with a quick breath and nodded again.

"Very well, then," He said. "Shall we take this to my office?"

He didn't want the help to hear us talk, which heavily implied that they didn't know what was really going on. I'd assumed as much, but it was always good to confirm who knows what.

Although, I thought as I glanced around without moving my eyes, it was also possible that he just didn't like being surrounded by people who would take my side in a fight over his, not that it really mattered.

"Certainly," I agreed amiably before turning my head and smiling widely. "Will your friend be joining us?"

Beneath her illusion of invisibility, I saw the small girl's eyes widen, shift color, and then narrow. Her illusion fell away in the process, leaving her standing amidst the crowd of the White Fang who immediately drew back in surprise and began to go for their various weapons until I lifted a hand to forestall violence. Besides, they wouldn't like it if they tried.

"There's no need for that, my friends," I assured in an amused tone. "She is an associate of Mr. Torchwick. Hello, Ms. Neopolitan."

A Spoonful of Sugar
LV 94
Neopolitan

She didn't reply, but I took the chance to glance her over again. Even if nothing else came from this meeting, I would consider it a win to identify the name, location, and appearance of Cinder's illusionist, as well as confirming that I could see through her attempts to hide—that was one thing off my mind, at least. And, quite frankly, with that out of the way I didn't have to worry about not being able to notice her, what with three-colored hair, shifting eye-color, and her choice of wardrobe; she kind of stood out.

"Neo?" Roman asked without so much as looking her way, but he might have been able to see her nod her head in his periphery vision. After she did, he was silent for a moment before tilting his head towards one of the side rooms. "Over here."

I rose from the chair I'd returned to and followed without a word. I didn't bother looking around, either, if mainly because I'd already memorized the place thoroughly. Once inside, I waited patiently for him to lock the door before taking several steps to return the book I'd borrowed to its proper place on his bookshelf. Torchwick's eyes bored into me for a moment at that.

"So," He said after a moment of silence. "You're Jian Bing, then."

"Indeed," I answered, turning my head slightly so he could see the edge of my smile before I allowed it to fade and looked at him seriously. "I suppose I should apologize for that matter with the White Whale. You must have had big plans for it."

"Something like that," He answered, though he didn't sound quite as annoyed as I would have expected. Given the reprogrammed robots, the assault in broad daylight, and the assault on a place that had been full of Hunters, I'd have thought he'd had a lot riding on it.

But perhaps it hadn't been his plan? If he'd been working as an intermediary for Cinder even back then, then he might have been steeling it on her orders and she would have been the one with big plans. The question was, how much of those plans was Torchwick privy to? I already knew that Cinder wasn't the chatty sort when it came to revealing her secrets, but...

No, it was definitely possible he didn't know. In fact, it was even likely. Should I press that and see what I found? I'd need to be careful not to give away how much I knew, but—

I chuckled as I turned around and gave him a slight smile.

"She isn't one to explain things, is she?" I said and though Torchwick merely grunted, I knew I was right from the agreement I felt from him. "In that case, shall we let bygones be bygones? It would seem that we are working together for the time being, after all."

As I spoke, I took a seat on the edge of his desk while they remained with their backs to the door and stock-still for a moment before Torchwick relaxed and cracked his neck with a sigh.

"Fair enough," He said after a moment, reaching up to grasp his cigar. "I suppose I don't have much room to hold a grudge. It's like being outraged after breaking into someone's house and finding someone else making off with all the good bits. What ever happened to that ship, anyway?"

"The White Whale?" I asked pointlessly, heaving a sigh of my own. "Alas, the encounter with Ziz was rather hard on it. By the end, it was no longer flightworthy and there was significant damage throughout the entire ship. I repaired what I could, but as we crash-landed on a deserted island, my options were limited."

"Oh?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. "From what I heard, you managed to fly it all the way to Atlas and back."

I gestured dismissively.

"I was forced to lift it with my own power," I answered, floating up from the desk. "It was a rather tiresome exercise, however. Between that and the amount of repairs that would be required to return it to its prior condition, to say nothing of the amount of attention repairing it could risk drawing, I decided it wasn't worth the bother, so I simply stashed it somewhere safe and left it."

"Unfortunate," He said with a click of his tongue, eyebrows furrowing as he probably went over how much he could sell each part of the ship for. After a moment, however, he sighed, probably also realizing the risks if someone from Atlas recognized anything. "But perhaps for the best. To business, then?"

"Please," I replied, smiling slightly.

"You mentioned my employer," He began. "But of course, I can hardly just accept that at face value—"

"Cinder Fall," I interrupted. "She's in Mistral at the moment, working out of Haven along with those two children. Emerald and Mercury, was it?"

Roman frowned, looking annoyed, but not really by the interruption.

"Maybe," He said after a minute. "Honestly, I just try to pretend those two don't exist. Fair enough, though. What did you have in mind?"