RWBY Through Worlds (End)

BC62: Twisted (Heroes and Villains)-1

Emerald wanted to strangle him but was afraid she'd make it worse if she argued now. She just looked nervously at the spies.

Miss Malachite sized Mercury up.

Her henchmen still had their guns out, even if they weren't up.

"Briggs, tell these fine people why you were watching them," Miss Malachite finally said, pretty nonchalantly considering she was basically giving in.

Briggs looked surprised at her, but then he said suddenly, "I was just walking around and I spotted Fall. She attacked one of us a few days ago, which I bet you knew."

"Yeah, you already stirred up trouble with us," the other girl said, tightly. 

Emerald, a bit more attentive than Mercury was to people's expressions, slowly realized they were scared.

Sure, Miss Malachite might rule this city as far as crime went, but the full force of the huntsmen would still be a problem for her if they busted her ring. They had better weapons and better fighters. Her whole key to business success was not ever doing anything bad enough to get the attention of the council. If that changed, well, they already knew where to find her.

But that might make her do something desperate if they pushed her buttons.

Slowly, she came up and grabbed Mercury's shoulder.

"All right, let him go," she said.

"Why?" Mercury asked her.

"They lowered their weapons. Come on, just do it," Emerald said.

He stepped back from Briggs, sourly.

"We're not here for you," Emerald told Miss Malachite. "And we didn't know about the other thing till later. I'm sorry about that. Cinder is...still inclined to use methods that are a little rougher, but they never meant to really hurt that woman. They just wanted info."

"Yes, it didn't show the most trust," Miss Malachite said.

"You sold her out once before," Mercury said, frowning. "Seems to me you're just mad she might have learned not to take your promises at face value."

Her henchmen glared at him hostilely.

Miss Malachite laughed. It was not a nice laugh. "Indeed, how clever.... So what do you expect us to do now? You don't just attack my employees."

"Didn't you almost kill our friend? That's not enough for you?" Mercury said.

"Look, we're sorry about that," Emerald said.

"Who cares about apologies?" the woman henchgirl said.

Miss Malachite gave her a warning look not to speak out of turn.

Emerald thought fast. She needed to find a way to get them to drop their guard.

She reached slowly into her belt pouch, though they tensed.

"Here," she said, pulling out a stack of lien. "Take this for the trouble, or whatever."

She tossed it at the henchgirl, who caught it and then glanced at it then handed it to Miss Malachite questioningly.

"My, my, that's a lot of lien," Miss Malachite said. "They pay you well in Argus."

"I don't spend a lot of my salary." Emerald shrugged. "If it helps, I don't mind."

"Don't be such a pushover," Mercury hissed at her. "You're basically saying they can walk all over us."

"We hurt one of them when we were trying to use their help. We can't just ignore that," Emerald replied.