Enforcer #5

Pyrrha Nikos was the proud, happy owner of a small café perhaps five minutes from one of the city's larger train statons. It was busy, but not so busy that she couldn't learn her customers' names. She loved to greet each of them with a smile, and being able to brighten their days with a perfectly brewed cup of coffee and a muffin or slice of cake was so much better than the life she'd left behind.

Well, the life she'd tried to leave behind.

One of the waitresses shouted an order, and Pyrrha froze. She knew that order. In her entire life, she'd only ever met one person who ordered hot chocolate with that much sugar in it along with that many chocolate chip and hazelnut cookies.

"Amy," she murmured. "Who ordered that?"

"It was a woman," Amy replied. "She seemed really excited to be here, boss. It was a bit weird actually." Amy shrugged. "She kept saying she hadn't eaten any of your cookies in ages, but you only opened up a few months ago, right?"

Pyrrha fought to keep her voice steady. "What did she look like?"

"That's the thing, boss. I don't think I've ever seen anyone with eyes quite like hers. She had sliver eyes."

X X X

Pyrrha waited until the morning rush was over before she ushered the rest of her staff out and closed the café. She told them something important had come up, and she promised to pay them for the day too. A few of them were curious, but she put a smile on her face and told them it would be okay. Besides, it was better if they weren't around. If things went wrong, she'd rather not have their deaths on her conscience.

With her face set in as neutral an expression as she could manage, she sat down on the other side of the table. Ruby, of course, was still nursing her hot chocolate and munching on a cookie. The pistol casually laid out on the table was hardly reassuring. She had no doubt that Ruby had at least another two on her person.

"It's been a while, Ruby."

The other woman smiled sunnily. "It really has been ages, Pyrrha, but your cookies still taste the same." Ruby scowled. "I get most of my cookies from the All-Night Bakery now, but yours are still better." Ruby tilted her head to one side. "It's funny… people say this café has been here for months, but you never told us you were still around."

Pyrrha paused to consider her next words very carefully. Once upon a time, she'd helped to turn Ruby into one of the deadliest people in the world. She knew better than anyone that Ruby was not entirely stable, and that she had enough abandonment and betrayal issues to fill a psychiatric ward. "I was turning over a new leaf."

"A new leaf, huh?" Ruby frowned and munched on another cookie. "You mean you don't kill people anymore?"

"No, Ruby, I don't."

"But you were so good at it," Ruby whined. It was, Pyrrha thought, not unlike listening to a little girl complaining about her favourite doll being taken away. "We used to have so much fun together! Why did you quit?"

"I… I was just sick of it all." Pyrrha looked at her hands. They looked so clean, but she knew better. "I've killed a lot of people, Ruby, far more than even you. I don't know exactly when, but I stopped being able to look at myself in the mirror."

"Mirrors are overrated," Ruby replied quietly. She put one hand up and dragged her fingers down across her cheek. "They never show you what you really need to see." She leaned forward. "I knew plenty of people who needed to die who could look at themselves just fine in the mirror. A few of them are still around, but I've already shown most of them what they really are." Ruby leaned back and smiled as she looked around at the café. "So… this is what you do now?"

"Yes."

"And you're happy doing this?" Ruby took another bite of her cookie. "You don't miss going out on missions with me and the others? Those were fun. We used to paint the town red."

"They were fun," Pyrrha admitted. As much as she hated it, there was a part of her that still craved the visceral thrill of combat. She had been the best in the world, an assassin and mercenary whose mere presence had often been enough to get all but the most elite of opponents to surrender on the spot. People had joked about her being a blonde whose hair had been stained red by all the blood she'd spilled, and she'd laughed about those jokes, smirked at the prestige they implied.

How many times had she risked death alongside Ruby and the others only to somehow emerge victorious? And how many bodies had she left in her wake? The answer to both questions was very simple: far, far too many.

"Weiss misses you too," Ruby said. "We were good together, the three of us. I mean, yeah, Weiss would always get crabby if someone got blood on her clothes, but she liked you. Weiss is a perfectionist, and you were… you were perfect, Pyrrha." There was a combination of envy, desire, and adulation in Ruby's voice and gaze. "We had good days back then, a lot of good days."

Pyrrha shivered as memories came into her mind unbidden. Weiss was… complicated. In many ways, Weiss was even less stable than Ruby. The civility and decorum she wore hid a core of raw, unbridled rage that burned bitterly cold. It had been fascinating – and intoxicating – to watch Weiss vent her fury and frustration on anyone stupid enough to get in her way.

There had been one incident – Pyrrha would never forget it – when Weiss had finally tracked down one of the White Fang members she'd been searching for. It had taken both Pyrrha and Ruby to drag her off the Faunus before she could kill him, and even then Weiss had still managed to break both his legs and most of his ribs. The laughter that had bubbled out of Weiss had been nothing short of hysterical, and Pyrrha had suggested that perhaps it would be better to leave the interrogation to Winter since Weiss was likely to kill him before he could reveal anything useful.

Weiss had agreed, but then she'd turned to Pyrrha, grabbed her by the chin and warned her to never, ever interfere when it came to the White Fang again. After that, Pyrrha had joined Ruby in escorting Weiss back to her apartment, but the Schnee had rounded on her, eyes blazing with rage, lips pulled back into a snarl, and hands already tugging at Pyrrha's clothes.

Pyrrha had woken up the next morning beside Weiss and Ruby, their limbs entwined, wondering if she was finally going insane. Of course, that hadn't been the last time she'd woken up with Weiss and Ruby. Both of them could be very persuasive, and there was something… intoxicating about being in the midst of passion so intense it verged on madness.

"Are you mad?" Pyrrha asked quietly.

Ruby took a long sip of her hot chocolate. Her eyes gleamed. "I was really, really mad for a while. You're my friend – or I thought you were – and friends don't just disappear." Her eyes narrowed, and Pyrrha almost reached for one of the concealed knives she carried. At this range, she should be able to strike before Ruby could shoot, but it would be very, very close. "But then Yang reminded me about something. Back when we used to work for Junior, we weren't the only kids he had working for him."

"Is that so?" Ruby rarely talked about her past. As far as Pyrrha could tell, it wasn't something she liked to dwell on. In many ways, Ruby's past only began after she and Yang had met Junior. Everything before that was off limits.

"Yeah. Some of them were like us. They kept on working for Junior. But there were others that found normal jobs. Junior just let them go. I asked him if he was mad, you know, because he'd done so much for them and they were just leaving, but he said to me that not everybody could do the things we do. Maybe there's something wrong with us, or maybe there's something wrong with them, but that's just how it is." Ruby looked down into her hot chocolate. "People change, Junior said. And maybe that's okay. If they're really your friends, you should be happy for them. At least they're not dead." Ruby shrugged. "I don't know if he's right, but Junior is pretty smart. He's lasted a long time."

Pyrrha winced. "I should have said something before I left, but I just wanted to leave all of it behind. That's why I moved around so much and then came here. I wanted to… to start somewhere else."

Ruby looked at her for a long time before smiling. It was not a nice smile. It was the same smile Ruby had worn the very first time Pyrrha had shown her the best ways to cut someone up without killing them. "Junior also said something else to me. I think it's something you should know." She stood and looked down at Pyrrha. "He said… the blood never comes off. You can wash your hands as much as you like, but it never comes off." Her gaze drifted around the café. "This is a nice place, Pyrrha. I hope you get to keep it, but I came here to warn you. The White Fang are in town. They're going to make noise, and you've got plenty of their blood on your hands. When they find you…"

"I'll do what I have to." Pyrrha stood as well. Once, she had been much taller than Ruby. Now, they were far closer in height. "Thank you for stopping by. Say hello to Weiss for me, but tell her that I'm done. I'm out."

Ruby giggled. "Oh, Pyrrha. None of us are ever getting out."

X X X

Jaune smiled and handed Pyrrha the burger he'd bought from that place she liked around the corner. He liked to drop by after work, so they could go home together. Besides, her café had a nice, cosy atmosphere to it.

"What's wrong?" Jaune asked. Pyrrha was about to close up for the night, so the two of them were the only ones there.

Pyrrha pursed her lips. "I… met an old friend today."

"Did it not go well?" Jaune asked.

"Not exactly. I… we didn't have an argument, not exactly, but she brought up some old memories. Not all of them were good."

"Oh." He patted her hand. "I'm sure it'll be fine. Do you want to talk about it? And I know you don't like to talk about your past, but if you're in trouble…" As one of the rising stars in the city's police department, he could pull a few strings if he needed to.

"It's nothing like that." Pyrrha leaned over and kissed him. "I'm sure it'll be fine, and thank you for offering –"

The front window of the café shattered. Something clattered to the ground nearby. Her eyes widened.

Grenade.

Pyrrha grabbed Jaune and threw the two of them to the ground as she kicked the table over to shield them from the blast. An instant later, the grenade exploded. The blast sent her, Jaune, and the table flying. Ears ringing, she was vaguely aware of people charging into the café to finish what they'd started.

White Fang.

Moving on instinct, she scrambled for Jaune's gun, which had been jolted out of his holster. The blond was down, and he wasn't moving. For a split-second, she almost panicked before the part of her that had danced with death a thousand times came to the fore.

She grabbed Jaune's gun and rolled out of cover. Moments later, four of the White Fang were dead. A flick of her wrist brought one of her knives into her hands, and she gutted a fifth before kicking a pieces of debris into the face of a sixth. As he stumbled back, she stabbed him in the throat and yanked his rifle out of his grasp. A seventh lunged at her from behind, and she twisted to drive the butt of the rifle into his face. He toppled back, and she stomped down on his throat.

Outside, a van rushed to pull away from the kerb, and she lifted the rifle to her shoulder and opened fire. Her first several shots shattered the windows before her next four punctured one of the rear wheels. The van lost control, spun, and then went headlong into a truck coming in the opposite direction. The truck crushed the van before ploughing into a row of parked cars and bursting into flame.

"Jaune!" Pyrrha ran back into her ruined café. The blond still wasn't moving, and she checked for a pulse. There was one, but it was weak. She used his phone to call an ambulance and waited until she could hear its sirens before she grabbed a few things from the small safe she kept in her office and ran. The police would have questions – questions she couldn't answer, not yet, at least.

X X X

Ruby yawned and reached for her phone. In her arms, Weiss made a whining sound and bit her.

"Turn that off this instant," Weiss growled. She was still angry about Pyrrha not coming back. Had it been someone else, she might have sent someone to retrieve her, but Pyrrha was not just someone else. Even now, Ruby wasn't sure she could beat her.

"It's Pyrrha," Ruby said.

"What?" Weiss sat up. "Give me the phone!" She ran one hand through her hair. "Pyrrha?"

"The White Fang just blew up my café. Jaune… my… my boyfriend… he's in hospital."

"I see." Weiss took a deep breath. "And I assume you want us to help you retaliate."

"Yes." Pyrrha's voice was cold. Ruby smiled. This was the voice she'd heard so many times during her training, the one that still sent a shiver up her spine. She'd almost been afraid that Pyrrha had gone soft, but she couldn't have, not if she could still sound like this.

"And what do you intend to do if we help you?"

"I'm going to kill them all."

"Well, that I can support." Weiss paused for a moment, deep in thought. She was fairly short of assets at the moment, given her family's other endeavours. However, she was not about to pass up a chance to strike at the White Fang. "I shall send some people to help you. I trust you will not object to my family setting up businesses in exchange."

"That is acceptable." Pyrrha's voice hardened. "You can continue to reach me at this number." She hung up.

Ruby looked at Weiss. Her eyes narrowed. "You know, Weiss, this all seems awfully convenient."

"If you're wondering if I set Pyrrha up, I didn't." Weiss scowled. "As much as I would appreciate having her once again, there are limits to my perfidy. She is not someone I would willingly antagonise. If I wanted to get rid of her boyfriend and bring her back to us, there are far subtler and less idiotic ways to go about it. Still, the fact that they attacked her so soon after we learned of her… I may have to speak to Blake. We have a traitor in our midst."

X X X

"You're playing a dangerous game," Roman drawled. He would never have adopted such a flippant tone with Cinder if not for the comforting presence of his most reliable partner in crime.

"And you're being paid very well not to question orders." Cinder glared. She took a step toward him only to pause as a stiletto knife appeared in Neo's hands. She and the knife were such little things, but both of them were exceedingly deadly. "Besides, our… links to the White Fang are only temporary. Once Pyrrha begins her counter attack, most likely with Schnee backing, I doubt there will be any of them left alive. It will give us a perfect opportunity to take over their territory in this city."

"You can have their territory," Roman replied. "But leave me and Neo out of this little war of yours. We're being paid to provide weapons, equipment, and transport. We'll leave the fighting to you. And how sure are you that the White Fang doesn't realise you're setting them up?"

Cinder laughed haughtily. "Those beasts? They set themselves up. I barely had to do anything. I merely mentioned that I knew Pyrrha's location, something any good ally would do, and they decided to go after her themselves. I can hardly be blamed for their stupidity."

"You'd better hope Pyrrha never finds out you were involved and that the Schnees don't make that source of yours talk."

"That source has already been dealt with." Cinder chuckled. "He has officially outlived his usefulness, and Emerald and Mercury are wonderful at tying up loose ends."

"Well, good luck." Roman turned to leave. "You'll need it. Come on, Neo. Let's get going. We've got another shipment coming up tomorrow, and you know how Adam gets if we keep him waiting."

X X X

Author's Notes

As always, I do not own RWBY, and I am not making any money off of this.

Things continue to get dicey. Pyrrha is going to go on a rampage, the White Fang have basically started a war, and who knows what Cinder is really up to.

As always, I appreciate feedback. Reviews and comments are welcome.