RWBY Through Worlds

93: Save Me Just In Time

Shine laid out what she wanted Watts to do--and Hazel and Neo...and she made one more addition to the squad:

Little, the mouse.

Little had stayed out of all this drama and hidden in Shade, rather than go around with the humans the last few days--and it took a lot of explaining to get her to even remotely understand the problem.

But when Ruby expressed that Yang was in trouble, Little said that she would help her friend out.

"What is a mouse going to do?" Whitley asked.

He'd returned hours ago, pretty mad that they'd all forgotten to pick him up--in their defense, at least they'd had a real crisis this time to distract them.

Weiss apologized at least, but Whitley let it go, surprisingly, once he heard someone had been kidnapped. Maybe he was secretly glad it wasn't him.

Libby had come with him again and this time just stuck around rather than walk home in the dark. But they'd hardly noticed her.

"You never know," Shine said. "Have you ever heard the fable of the lion and the mouse?"

No one had.

"Isn't that the one story about the lion who doesn't eat a mouse?" Wally had read some kids' book with it once.

"Yes, and the lion takes pity on it, so the mouse offers to do the lion a favor in return. The lion thinks it's silly, but then later he gets caught in a trap, and the mouse nibbles through the net and frees him," Shine said. "The point is, no matter how small you are, you can do something. Who would suspect a mouse? She'll stay with Neo."

"The mouse can't read," Blake objected. "How will Neo communicate with it?"

Neo flipped her off.

"It's a fair question." Blake frowned.

Little seemed to prefer Neo to the two tall, scary looking men and hopped onto her hat obligingly.

"All right, Team Bait And Switch, I suppose it's time for you to go," Shine said.

"I hate that name," Watts said. "How about Team Doctor Watts And His Guards?"

"How about we just go and get the girl," Hazel said.

"And Raven," Shine said.

"If we must," Watts sighed. "Why do you want her back so badly? It's not like you can trust her."

"Oh, don't try to be too clever, Watts," Shine said mockingly. "Just go."

"Excuse me," Penny interrupted. "But I understand that my new friend was behind this."

Everyone glanced at her awkwardly.

"I feel bad," Penny said. "This is partially my fault. Perhaps I should help."

"No, no," Pietro said. "You mustn't. I remember this Franklin woman. She's a fanatic. Till you all told me the story, it had quite gone out of my mind, but I should have known that only she and her husband could have designed that boy. Clunkier than Penny, but functional. That's how they were."

"Oh, you must have known Derek Kanap then," Shine said.

"Only briefly," Pietro said. "We went into different departments. The point is, I don't trust them. They shouldn't get ahold of Penny."

"But, Father, if I hadn't brought Kip here, it might not have happened," Penny argued.

"You can't blame yourself for that. We had no way of knowing the young scoundrel would take one of our own," Pietro said.