A/N: Okay, so uh... Wow. This took ages. I figure I at least owe an explanation, and it's pretty much that I have been hit very hard by a transition into a very different educational environment. TL;DR - I get a whole lot more work and it really doesn't help me focus on writing. I've got a special announcement to make at the end of the chapter so please read it.

As always, review responses will be there too!

Chapter 16

The scenery of Beacon was the perfect backdrop, at least as far as Torchwick was concerned, for a bit of good old-fashioned sadism.

The mesmerisingly beautiful carvings on every wall inspired images of widespread unemployment. The sight of warm rays of sunset splayed out across the myriad gardens cleared his head, allowing him to think of just the right inflation rate for a country on the brink of collapse. For every brat he saw walking out across the grounds, it was one hundred thousand more Lien out of the treasury.

Writing the Schnee's extra credit assignment - and making sure to make it as impossible as possible in the process - was proving to be even more entertaining than he'd first imagined.

"U-um, P-Professor…?"

Somewhere in the back of his head, a very small part of Torchwick tried to alert him to the fact that someone was talking to him - one that was roundly ignored in favour of listening to the thousands of other small parts that were currently putting an economic disaster the likes of which Remnant had never seen before down to paper.

"P-Professor!"

Torchwick briefly looked up from the table he was sat at in a small moment of clarity, and narrowed his eyes. The voice he was hearing was vaguely familiar, but that wasn't normally enough of a reason to care - no, what caught his attention was a matter much more pressing.

"P-Professor T-T-Torchwick!"

He turned around from the window, and into the plain-looking eyes of a clumsy, skittish, stuttering excuse of a staff member.

"P-Professor, I - I'm not sure if you've noticed, and if you know already I'm s-sorry, b-but -" she attempted to say, her tongue putting up a valiant effort to hold back the words stampeding toward the exit of her mouth into the open air, "B-b-but…"

B-b-but, unfortunately for her, whatever she was talking about couldn't have been important enough for Torchwick to give a shit.

"How'd you get into my room?" he asked plainly.

She went completely still, and in the place of any kind of actual response or explanation a frantic stream of random gibberish started spewing out of her mouth faster than one of his getaway vehicles would out of a crime scene. Needless to say, it got annoying quickly.

The stream of unintelligible stuttering was only cut off by a quick flick to her forehead.

"I'd rather have whatever you're saying in human speech, please."

She stood still for a moment, eyes wide as saucers and every limb frozen; before she coughed into her hand once, small amounts of pink dusting her cheeks.

She took a deep breath, then looked into his eyes.

And then immediately flinched as she realised - presumably - that she'd just made eye contact with another human being. Her gaze promptly fled straight to the floor in terror.

Torchwick struggled not to laugh out loud.

"W-well," she eventually blurted out, "I… I…"

For every second she was unable to say anything, Torchwick's eyebrow rose a little bit further up his forehead.

"... Your door was unlocked."

"Oh."

She began to tap her fingers together, lip quivering and foot grinding nervously against the floor.

"So, is that it?" Roman asked.

"W-w-well…"

He sighed, his hand coming to rest on his forehead.

"Look," he interrupted, "I'm a man with limited time."

Torchwick didn't miss the way the girl's face twisted in worry - and the palm pressed to his face helped to conceal the grin that sprouted at the sight.

"So," he continued, "I'm going to give you an allowance of thirty minutes -"

His grin widened as her eyes began to fill with hope at the prospect.

"- but the catch is that every time you fail to spit out a sentence properly, I'll deduct a minute."

That glimmer of optimism leaving her eyes was so satisfying it was almost cathartic.

"I-I-I…" she hesitated for a moment, biting her lip so hard it looked like her mouth would start spurting blood like a fountain.

"That's a minute gone."

She flinched.

"W-well, I d-don't know if you knew or n-not, and if you already d-did, I'm s-sorry, b-but I wanted t-to ask if you knew that you were b-being… B-being..."

"Being what?" Torchwick drawled, "The suspense is killing me - and you lost eight minutes there, bringing you down to twenty one."

"B-being f-f-fo -"

"That makes twenty."

"B-being…"

"Nineteen."

She stood silent for a moment, clenching her fists and squeezing her eyes as tightly shut as possible. He was honestly surprised she hadn't curled up into a ball from the sheer frustration - or embarrassment. It was hard to tell.

… Being honest? It was probably the latter.

"N-n-n-never mind!" she blurted out.

And with that, she bursted out of the room so fast it almost looked like she'd vanished into thin air. Torchwick sat completely still for a moment, basking in the lingering amusement.

It was honestly hard to believe that was one of his coworkers; someone with a personality like that wouldn't survive a minute in the teaching profession even if they were teaching normal kids. It was harder still to believe someone like that would come to tell him something of her own accord.

Regardless, Torchwick couldn't find room to complain - after all, with the newfound quiet in his room, he could finally get back to business.

*X*

Pyrrha sighed as she placed her combat gear back into her locker, uniform pulled over her shoulders once again. Another combat lesson. Another victory. More praise was once again heaped upon her, and the opponent this time was one of the more polite ones - they accepted their loss, smiled, shook her hand and moved on.

She'd been paying no attention to any of it.

How could she? The only battle she could think about at the moment was one with a girl two thirds her size, unarmed, with the Team WNNR dorm room as her arena. A battle far easier than even the one she'd just walked away from, tenfold easier than any of the ones she had fought before, and yet one that her shaking more so than any other before.

Maybe it was that instead of Milo and Akouo, this was a battle she'd have to fight with her words. Maybe it was because this time she'd have to be on the attack.

You only have to do a little work yourself. Not too bad, right?

She shook her head. It wasn't doing her any good thinking about this - she couldn't bring herself to take a stand against her leader. That was all that counted in the end; whatever the cause of her fear might have been.

She took a step out into the hallway. The musky, steaming air of the locker room most likely wasn't doing any good for her mood, after all. Perhaps she could take another trip to the library to clear her head; or perhaps she could pay a visit to Yang and Ruby - they were, after all, her only real friends at Beacon. Just… Anywhere but her dorm room.

You're running away.

She pressed onward.

You being afraid is just an excuse.

Her teeth grit together painfully. She needed something to distract herself from her own disparaging thoughts, and quickly - no matter what it was.

And the loud crash that she'd just heard from behind her might have provided the perfect opportunity.

She turned around, and then watched as a clanging, blonde messy heap was sent flying like a ragdoll from some point around the corner by an unseen force. A moment later, she realised that the gangly mess was roughly the shape of one Jaune Arc from combat class - the leader of Yang and Ruby's team, if she remembered correctly.

And sauntering up to him was another boy - Cardin Winchester.

"Sorry, Arc." he said, "Didn't mean to trip you up there."

The smirk on his face told Pyrrha exactly the opposite, and she was much more inclined to trust it over what came out of the boy's mouth.

"It's… No problem, Cardin." the blonde replied, hauling himself to his feet and dusting his now messy jeans off. He tried to walk away, but was stopped dead in his tracks when Winchester's arm snaked over his shoulder.

"I don't know…" the boy drawled, a smirk beginning to worm its way across his face, "I wanna make it up to you, Arc. How about we hang out for a bit, huh?"

"I - I really don't have time today." the boy replied, "I'm looking for someone."

The other boy's arm only tightened around him.

"Oh come on, Jaune-y boy. You can always take a bit of time out for your ol' buddy Cardin!"

Pyrrha's fists clenched. The sight infuriated her, and it wasn't the way the gangly boy winced when Winchester clamped his arm tighter around him, nor the look of complete resignation on his face that did so.

He'd said today. This wasn't the first time this had happened.

How long had this been going on for? How hadn't she noticed?

She turned around and began to stride down the hallway. This was absolutely pathetic - for a student studying to be a huntsman, a protector of the people, at an academy as venerated as Beacon to be the type to bully those weaker than them was, to put it simply, unacceptable. Shameful, even.

Her teeth grit against each other painfully.

… But what could she do about it?

She ground to a halt instantly as she heard the pair's footsteps start coming down the hallway.

The solution to your problem is literally staring you in the face, Pyrrha.

She looked down at her open palm once again.

It wasn't shaking this time.

Time for Pyrrha Nikos to take action.

She turned around almost immediately, and then strode with newfound purpose back down the hallway. What could she do? Who was she kidding? She was the four-time champion of the Mistralian regional tournaments. She'd graduated top of her class in Sanctum with record-breaking results.

And she wasn't going to sit idly by and do nothing while someone else got bullied.

She rounded the corner, and then flinched a little when she was instantly met with the pair of them face to face.

"H-hello!" she said, smiling.

The Winchester only raised an eyebrow. The blonde sighed, but said nothing.

They then promptly walked straight past her.

She followed.

"So, um, what are you two doing?" she asked.

Moments passed, and then Winchester turned around to meet her eyes - and Pyrrha couldn't help but notice a slight twitch in his eyebrow. He clearly hadn't been expecting this.

"We're just two guys hanging out." he lied through his teeth, "And we don't need interruptions. Ain't that right, Jaune?"

"Sure." the blonde murmured, before a nervous chuckle escaped his lips.

Pyrrha's eyes narrowed immediately.

"Are you sure? I'm rather certain when two friends spend time together, one of them isn't supposed to look completely miserable."

The Winchester frowned, and his lips curled into a snarl.

"How me and my buddy here spend our time is none of your business."

He then turned around, pulling his hapless victim along with him.

Or, at least, he would have. But it was made much more difficult by Pyrrha's foot crashing into the side of his head hard enough to send him flying into the wall. He didn't even have enough time to bring his Aura up.

And now he was out cold.

Pyrrha blinked once. Twice. Three times.

She'd… Done it. She'd done it, it had been easy, and it felt surprisingly good - despite the fact that she may have just given the boy mild concussion.

"Um…" she just barely caught notice of a voice from behind her.

Pyrrha turned to the blonde that Winchester had, mere moments earlier, been harrassing.

"... You didn't need to do that." he murmured, eyes glued to the carpet and his hands clenched into fists.

She flinched.

It was a pose Pyrrha had seen all too often in the settling dust of an ending tournament match, the crowd cheering her name in the distance - the bunched fist and resentful glare of every opponent who'd taken their losses badly. A look of complete humiliation.

A familiar tug of guilt pulled on Pyrrha's stomach.

"I-I'm sorry - I didn't mean to -"

"I-it's fine."

"O-oh."

Any further conversation was promptly eaten whole by an all-consuming awkward silence. Pyrrha fumbled while looking desperately for something - anything to say. She had, after all, just made the boy seem to feel worse than he had been around Cardin!

"So... Um…" she reached for the last thing she could vaguely remember the boy talking about for a conversation topic. "You… Said you were looking for someone?"

The boy's eyes widened, and whatever spell had been holding him was gone in an instant.

"Oh, yeah! I should, uh, probably get back to that." he mumbled, before quickly turning tail and dashing off the corridor.

Pyrrha gave chase.

"So…" she began, walking right by his side, "Who is it you're looking for?"

The boy sighed, and began to try and walk a little faster.

She didn't relent.

"Are they someone on your team?"

The boy sighed.

"... Yeah. My partner." he muttered, the resignation in his voice clear.

"Blake Belladonna, right?"

"Wait, you know -?"

Pyrrha quirked an eyebrow.

"Of course I do. Yang and Ruby told me all about you both - although I, uh," Pyrrha scratched the back of her head, "Never really got the chance to talk to you in person."

The times she'd wanted to visit Yang's team played in her head - too many to count - but they all concluded with the image of her team leader dragging her away for some dull new task. Her teeth grit together at simply the thought of it.

"Wait, you know Yang and Ruby?" Jaune asked, "Does that mean you're, uh…"

"Yes?"

"Yang's friend?"

Pyrrha's lips relaxed into a smile.

"That's correct!"

"Nice to meet you, I guess." he said, stopping and extending a hand, "My name's Jaune Arc - although Yang's probably already told you that."

Pyrrha reached out and took it. And it held. For… A rather long time.

Her eyelid twitched.

"Jaune…?"

"What's yours?"

Pyrrha's entire body froze from end to end.

"What do you mean?"

Jaune chuckled nervously.

"I mean, y'know, your name. I thought you'd want to introduce yourself."

Pyrrha's eyes widened.

"Wait… You don't know who I am?"

"Well, I know you know Yang and Ruby pretty well, and they spend a lot of time with you - and I also know you're a pretty great fighter, you're on the ice queen's team and I think your name was…" his voice trailed off for a moment, and his eyebrow furrowed in thought.

"... Pyre… Nickel?"

The paralysis broke. In its wake, Pyrrha soon found herself laughing. When a slight blush emerged on Jaune's cheeks, the laughter only grew louder.

"It's Pyrrha. Pyrrha Nikos."

"It's nice to meet you, um," the boy coughed, "Pyrrha."

"You too, Jaune," she replied, her smile growing by the second.

The two shortly went off through the hallways in search of a missing partner, laughing along the way.

*X*

Glynda's eyes groggily parted.

It took every ounce of will to not smash the alarm clock into the wall the moment she felt it drilling through her eardrums. If Glynda had to list the thousands of mentally strenuous exercises she took on a near daily basis, that would likely have been chief among them.

Until, that was, the recent addition of having to talk to Torchwick became a part of her typical routine. That man was just about irritating enough to top the list, despite the fact she'd only had the displeasure of working with him for -

She clapped her hands to her head to try and squeeze the constant fretting out - and, as she'd expected, it didn't work. Barely a minute into a new working day and she was already stressing herself out with thoughts of that insufferable man.

The covers flew off of her in an instant, hitting the cupboards with a muffled thump. The mattress twisted, and she - along with her seven pillows - promptly spilt out across her carpeted floor. The pillows then slipped underneath her, before lifting her to her feet like velvety hands, leaving her staring directly into her bedside mirror.

Something that vaguely resembled Glynda Goodwitch stared back at her.

The blurry image came into focus as her glasses flew onto her nose.

Something that vaguely resembled Glynda Goodwitch stared back at her.

… Something in dire need of a coffee. Or three. Or maybe seven.

Perhaps twelve.

She stumbled out of her room, the front door opening as she stepped through. As she walked away, it clicked shut almost silently - it wouldn't do to wake up any students with ghastly noises at a conspicuously early hour of the morning. She really did try her best not to be Port, after all.

The hallways were almost completely dark as she crept her way through them - the morning sun peeking through the windows barely providing enough light to see her way forward. It didn't help that her vision was constantly blocked by her own eyes trying to force themselves shut.

No. Now was not the time for sleeping. Now was the time for caffeine, and then it would be the time for work.

The haze of fatigue still settled firmly in her skull, she stepped into the staff room. She reached out in the direction she vaguely remembered the light switch being in. Her hand, of course, met nothing.

… Where was that confounded switch, again?

She stepped through the room, the intrusive arms of her sleeplessness constantly shaking her legs in a vain attempt to pull her to the floor, the complete darkness forcing her to navigate the room with her hands.

Click!

Glynda's eyelids weren't quick enough to shut out the blinding light that had abruptly filled the room - meaning her arms had to rise to the occasion and shield her face in their stead. Which, unfortunately, left her all too unprepared when a cylinder of cool metal pressed into the back of her neck.

"Don't move an inch,"

Her face reflexively set into a scowl at the sound of the depressingly familiar voice.

"Professor, what exactly are you doing?" she asked, turning around to the sarcastic drivel's source.

Roman Torchwick stared right back at her, smirking.

"Oh, that's you, Purple?" he said, pointing the broom he'd just been levelling at her neck back down at the floor. "Pardon, I just mistook you for a shambling corpse."

Glynda sighed, walking over to the coffee machine, a fresh mug in hand.

"Something tells me even if I were dead I'd still be doing this job," Glynda mumbled as the machine whirred to life.

"... A night of the working dead." Torchwick chuckled to himself, leaning on the broom's handle. "Wouldn't that be something?"

"It would. You'd probably use the ensuing chaos as an opportunity to escape."

Torchwick's eyes narrowed.

"Well, that makes two surprises." he murmured, "One: that you're playing along with a joke, and two: that you seriously think I wouldn't be staying right where I am. If there are corpses wandering the streets, where's safer than the building with an army on campus?"

"One: I don't have the strength of will not to at the moment," Glynda explained, "And two… I suppose I shouldn't be surprised."

"Now, what does that mean, I wonder?"

Glynda didn't humour him with an answer - the ding of the coffee machine fulfilling its duty told her that she had other, far more pressing priorities.

She took a sip from the steaming mug of coffee she'd just made, and then breathed a sigh of relief as her surroundings - and her own thoughts - finally came into focus. Including what she'd just realised the criminal was carrying in his hands.

"Professor, why are you carrying a broomstick?"

"Why do you think?"

Glynda's brow furrowed, examining the broom itself more carefully.

"... You don't seriously think I'm using this to try anything shady, do you?" Torchwick asked, expression completely deadpan.

Her eyelid twitched slightly.

Of course I do!

"Of course not. That would be ridiculous."

Torchwick's blank expression soon transformed into a knowing grin.

"... Sure."

"So, what are you using it for?"

"Cleaning."

Glynda had to catch her mug with her Semblance to prevent it from crashing into the floor.

"... Cleaning?"

"Did I stutter?"

"You didn't, but you never stutter. Even when you're lying."

"Does this room look like I'm lying?"

It… Didn't. The tables and chairs that would usually be strewn about the room randomly, littered with mountains of Oobleck's half-finished paperwork, were spotless and arranged neatly next to each of the room's tables - which, for once, weren't slathered in stains from all the times Peaches had let a coffee cup slip through her fingers.

The cobwebs above the cupboards, typically thicker than the undergrowth in the Emerald Forest, were little more than a memory. The cracks in the floor from Port walking around a little too excitedly had disappeared too.

… It even looked like he'd given the room a new paint job.

She could hear her breath hiss as it passed through her clenched teeth - followed by Torchwick's laughter when, presumably, he heard it too.

"... Why? What purpose does cleaning the staff room serve?"

Torchwick raised an eyebrow.

"Why'd I clean this room?" he laughed once again, as if he'd just told the most funny joke in the world, "Because it was a pigsty so nasty even Beacon's remarkable cleaning team couldn't be bothered to fix it up."

His laughter gradually began to die out, perhaps as he began to realise that Glynda had gone entirely silent.

"What are you planning, Torchwick?"

It was only once the criminal's eyes widened in surprise that she realised the question lingering at the forefront of her mind had somehow managed to slip out across her tongue.

"Gee, I wonder." Torchwick drawled, grinning and tapping his chin to his finger in mock thought, "What if I told you... That I didn't have a plan at all?"

Glynda scoffed.

"Forget I even asked."

She turned, making straight for the door and her escape to Torchwick's irritating company.

"You honestly think I'm lying, don't you?"

Glynda's hand paused, hovering ever so slightly over the doorknob. She then turned around, staring the criminal in the face. It, as ever, was still plastered with that migraine-inducing smile.

"Of course I do," she replied, the little patience she had left for subtlety flying out of her all at once, "Because you simply can't be trusted, professor."

"I earn your boss's favour, become the student favourite, make nice with your colleagues and you still don't trust me?" Torchwick cried, theatrically clutching his hand to his heart, "I'm wounded, Purple!"

"That's right. You were a criminal who was plucked from prison that immediately became an asset to the school. Beloved by students and colleagues alike. You even…" Glynda took another resentful look around the staff room, "... Clean. Voluntarily. It's, quite frankly, too good to be true. And I'd be failing at my own job if I were to treat it any other way."

Torchwick's expression was something almost reminiscent of a pout.

"I mean, if failing at your job means you actually have a little fun for once in your life, maybe you should give it a try. It's not like Ozpin would provide any sincere consequences for it."

Glynda was about to respond, but shortly cut herself off. She hated to admit it, but he was right. At least about the latter part.

"It's not about whether or not the Headmaster chooses to reprimand me for performing poorly, it's about the standards I set myself."

"You spend every minute of every day stressing about something, right?"

Glynda tensed.

"T-That's preposterous."

Torchwick simply stared at her, and she found herself completely unable to meet his eyes.

"... Sure."

Glynda took a deep breath, and forced her shoulders to relax. Getting any more frustrated would only prove him right.

"Unless you've got any further criticisms of the way I do my job, I think I'll take my leave."

It was just as she was twisting the door knob that Torchwick decided to butt in once again.

"Actually," he said, "I do have one complaint."

Glynda had been hoping he didn't have anything left to say - although she should probably have realised by now that a day when Torchwick had nothing left to say would be the day he was dead.

Either way, she couldn't just walk out on him now. That would be handing him a victory her pride wouldn't allow her to give away.

"... What is it?" she asked,

"You really shouldn't get that stutter girl to pass on any messages for you." Torchwick drawled.

Glynda flinched.

"Wait, how did you know -"

She cursed internally the moment the words left her mouth - and the moment Torchwick burst out into peals of laughter.

"Y'know," he wheezed, "That was more or less a completely blind guess."

A long, pained groan left Glynda's chest.

"Look, professor, I hardly think it's unprofessional to ask someone else to -"

"She wasn't able to finish a single sentence properly!" he wheezed, "Not a single one!"

He was now clutching his sides, hunched over with his shoulder . Her fist clenched in an attempt to quell the irritation slowly beginning to claw its way through her ironclad discipline.

"If Peaches was unable to match my expectations of her, then that's -"

"She actually got embarrassed and bolted from the room before she could even tell me what she was supposed to!"

That was it. This was enough. This was, to put it simply, more than she could handle. Every notion of upholding her image fell away, and -

Glynda Goodwitch burst out laughing.

"Serves me right, I suppose," she muttered, "That really does sound like something that Peaches would do."

Torchwick's laughter had stopped dead. He was now staring at her in brazen, wide-eyed shock. She took a moment to collect herself, before, against all odds, a grin began to emerge on her face.

"What?" she asked, "Is seeing me laugh enough to finally leave you lost for words?"

"Yes." he replied bluntly, without so much as an instant of hesitation, "I'm surprised to find out you even can."

She chuckled slightly, reaching for the door and taking one final sip of her coffee.

"So, are you going to tell me what you were supposed to or not?"

She turned to him just as she was stepping through the opened door.

"A student's been following you in-between classes." she explained, "Blake Belladonna. She's missing her lessons, so you might want to address it."

"Oh, that?" he murmured, as his grin began to reappear, "I already knew. And don't worry, I fully intend to do something about it."

Of course. Glynda rolled her eyes, closing the door on her way out. All of that drama and theatrics for information the professor had known the whole time - and she couldn't even find the strength to be mildly irritated.

After all, at this point it was more or less to be expected from the criminal.

However, she couldn't help but smile. It was only for a brief moment, but laughing for once had actually gotten Torchwick to shut up.

… Perhaps she should laugh more often.

Super Special Announcement Thingie

So, this is a little difficult to say just as this fic hits 200 favs and 300 follows...

As much as I enjoy writing this fic, and as much as I enjoy seeing you all react to each new chapter I put out, it gets sorta grating writing nothing but Lawbreaker when ideas for other stuff are flying around my head. Specifically, a fic I put out a lil while back named 'Little Cinder' - so I'm probably going to be focusing on that story for a bit. Make no mistake, LtL will return, and with the amount of time I'll have to figure out just what I want to do with it, it'll be better than ever!

If the whole idea of a miniature, chuunibyou Cinder who wants direly to be the evil-est person in Remnant strikes your fancy, I'd advise checking Little Cinder out.

Lastly - the people have spoken. I'll be releasing Roman & Peaches at some point in the future - although whether the near or far future may be up in the air for quite a while.

Review Responses:

LeoneHaxor: W-Woah. The whole prospect of this fic getting a TVTropes page is kind of a surreal one, but I guess that's understandable? It's definitely great to hear you feel this way about the story, though! I hope future updates will be able to meet your expectations.

TheHolyBlade: That headcanon is certainly... An elaborate one. It's also one I can neither confirm nor deny, unfortunately.