RWBY Through Worlds

80: The Poisoned Youth

The next day Shine filled everyone in further on her deal with Watts.

"But we're not really letting him go, right?" Ruby asked.

"Oh, no," Shine said. "We're going to let him think so, then when he escapes the plane, we'll pretend we didn't notice. Of course I'm going to tell him we caught onto his lead. I'm betting the first thing he'll do is find Victoria Kanap and try to beat us to the punch before we can capture her. She'll lay low, but it won't matter at all--we've already found her hideout. We just need a good reason to take it out. This should be perfect. And best of all, Theodore will have no clue that we did this on purpose."

They were finally at one of their new hangouts, but cordoned off from anyone else.

Mercury was not invited to the meeting, but he was in the bar. No one had thought he'd be safe if left at Shade alone--for them or himself.

"I think Watts'll just skip town," Qrow said. "If he can get away, why would he risk coming back to get caught? Salem already thinks he's dead."

"Ego, Qrow," Shine said, like it was easy. "Ego. Watts will never stand to be one-upped by Cinder. But he'll go back to Salem with proof of why he's indispensable and she's useless. And since he knows Cinder is not in Vacuo yet, thanks to me, he will never let this opportunity slip. Meanwhile, we can learn just how connected he is to this woman."

"I can't believe that Theo's been hiding the Maiden all this time because he's starry eyed," Qrow said. "Of all the selfish things to do..."

"It's sort of romantic though," Pyrrha said.

"That's BS," Qrow said. "It's plain stupid."

"That can't be all there is to it," Winter said. "He must realize, stupid as he is, that working with Salem will not make this woman safer."

"Yes, but the fastest way to learn about his plan is to let someone else learn about it," Shine said. "Neo, I hope you're all right with following them again."

Neo made an a-okay sign but then shrugged.

"We're depending on her a lot," Yang groaned. "When are you going to let the rest of us do anything important?"

"I let you guard Emerald two days ago, and you didn't even do that." Shine was angry about that, as it turned out. "So perhaps when you stop disappointing me, I'll think about it."

Yang glared at her.

"She's right," Weiss said, looking embarrassed. "We dropped the ball. We took our eyes off her way too long... It wasn't just Yang, though. It was all of us."

"Yes," Shine said. "And today, I think Emerald had better stick around Shade again... It's not really safe with all these students around, but Theo could hardly let them attack her there... The news that he may have planned that attack still bothers me."

"This is a direct insult," Winter said. "I can't believe we're letting it slide. The girl may be a criminal, but she came here under our protection, and he has crossed a line. I don't know why we don't just court-martial him now!" She banged the table.

Qrow said, "that's not how things are around here. You want all of Vacuo to kick us out of here? Do that. They're loyal to Theo. And the girl has very few sympathizers. They would never side with us."

"And it would expose Emerald more to the public to make an issue of it," Shine said. "We have to think of Mercury now also. And Hazel. We're not in Atlas anymore, Winter. One person will not decide the fate of everyone here...but one little mistake like that would."

Winter was stung.

"I'm fine with staying inside," Emerald said. "I've had enough of those knife happy morons. Besides, Mercury is kind of still on probation, right?"