Chapter 18 – Reflection and Reception

Soundtrack: When The War Is Over – Cold Chisel

8th of September, 1890.

The next hour seemed like a blur to Weiss Schnee. Inspector Branwen and Superintendent Blackford herded the pirates and criminals into a trio of Black Marias for processing at the Yard, after General Ironwood had steered the Spring Maiden back to the South Greenland dock to reload its original cargo and crewmen.

After the ship departed, Weiss and the others returned to the safe-house in Rotherhithe, where Dr. Verhart was waiting to remove the machine guns from the sidecars. As he set about his work, the eight fighters dropped their weapons on the workbenches with their munitions and began to discuss how to spend the rest of their evening. Immediately, Jaune seized on an idea.

"There's a middle-class restaurant a few doors west of the bridge that I've been to before," the policeman had said. "They serve some decent Rieslings, their house beer is good, and their Italian food is exceptional. Shall we go there for supper and some celebration?"

Despite only eating at home or in the most exquisite establishments, Weiss couldn't find it in herself to disagree – the fight had taken most of it out of her.

So ten minutes later, Weiss found herself sitting in the private dining room of the restaurant, around a large square table of exquisite mahogany. Blake sat on her right, and Weiss felt the comforting warmth of Blake's left hand around her right hand beneath the table. On their left, Ruby was egging Yang on as she and Nora, seated on opposite sides of a corner, were arm-wrestling each other. Ren, on the group's behalf, had left his seat next to Nora vacant while ordering the food and drinks. And on Weiss and Blake's right side, Jaune and Pyrrha sat together, with Pyrrha leaning on top of Jaune's left arm with a tender smile upon her face.

This is lovely, Weiss realised suddenly. For once, I have friends, not associates – and I feel completely at ease. This feeling of tranquillity was alien to the magnate, but it was blissful – Weiss felt as though her soul was cocooned within a warm blanket on a winter's day. A quick glance at Blake's eyes reminded Weiss that none of this would've been possible without her paramour; after all, it had been Blake who'd contacted Ruby and Yang in the first place, then suggested that Weiss hire them on.

Ren, upon returning to the table, made Nora lose the arm-wrestling match by a kiss on the cheek. That and Nora's surprised squawk sent Ruby and Yang into a burst of laughter, and the rest of the table followed in a chain reaction. Even Weiss lost her composure as the waiter emerged with the drinks. Ruby and Blake both received ginger ale, while both men received a pint of beer and the remaining ladies got their choice of drinks – a glass of brandy for Pyrrha, a flute of champagne for Weiss, and a glass of Riesling each for Yang and Nora.

After thanking the waiter, Weiss stood up with her flute in hand. Noticing the cue, the others readied their drinks and stood up as well.

"Here's to our success," Weiss said while raising the glass, "and to us as a group of friends."

"Hear hear," the other seven responded, before clinking their drinks and taking a swig.

As they sat down, Weiss decided to make an offer to her new friends.

"As we all know, both Ruby and Yang work for me and Blake these days," Weiss continued. "After today's performance, I'd be more than willing to have all of you on my payroll, working with us."

"I appreciate the offer," Jaune said after a pause, "but my work in the police force is more important to me. However," he added, "I could help you by being your point of contact with the police. After all, should something socially damaging happen again, it'd help you considerably if I could arrange sting operations with the hunters on your payroll and smooth things over for the public."

Weiss nodded, impressed at Jaune's idea. "That's a fair call, Jaune. What about you, Pyrrha?"

"Well," Pyrrha started hesitantly, "I'm ... not going to be able to do it regularly. I'm now the lead curator at Exham, of course, and that takes up an awful amount of my time – had there been no robbery at Exham in the first place, I'd have been too swamped to help with this. Having said that, I can be a stand-by huntress – in case Ruby, Blake or Yang gets sick before a job or some other emergency arises, I'll do the work instead."

"That's a reasonable idea, I suppose," Weiss admitted. "What about you two?", she asked of Ren and Nora.

"I'm all for getting regular work, Weiss," Nora eagerly stated. "Working for you would make my money go a fair bit further than it usually does."

"And I'd like to do so as well, actually," Ren admitted. "I've been considering my future for a while now, and I do want to get into combat again. I even have an idea as to who could replace me as Pyrrha's butler once I start with you."

"Who did you have in mind?", Pyrrha enquired gently.

"Remember Mr. Daichi?"

Pyrrha's eyes lit up at that. "Of course; Yatsuhashi would be a good fit for the house. However, this does mean you'll need to move from the rooms next door as soon as you can."

"That's alright," Nora replied. "I'll have him live with me in Hammersmith."

"Good to hear," Pyrrha responded. At that moment, Jaune produced some envelopes.

"What's in those?", Ruby asked.

Jaune looked up as he passed the envelopes to their intended recipients. "These are invitations to our upcoming wedding."

"Nice," Yang drawled. "You finally settled on a date for it!"

"19th of November," Pyrrha replied. "I also have a few favours to ask of you all."

"Oh?!", Weiss and Blake asked in unison.

"Would any of you be interested in joining the bridal party?"

The response was an unanimous "Yes!", and Jaune and Pyrrha were on cloud nine for the rest of the evening. After having their first slice of pizza in their lives, everyone else in the room was in the same mood.

As the heroes of the day returned to the safe-house for some well-earned rest that night, Emerald Sustrai wasn't taking Cinder's death well in her cell – let alone her own inevitable meeting with the gallows. Most who'd known the compulsive liar wouldn't have believed that Emerald could feel genuine grief for another living soul – but most didn't know how Emerald saw Cinder.

Emerald remembered when she first met Cinder; it was when she'd taken the name of Sustrai in deference to her profession of choice, and had been handed the reins of the Grimm Security forces in exchange for leaving her father alone years before. Soon enough, Emerald had corrupted the organisation's leadership. Mercury was easy to work with, being little more than a thug. Hazel was trickier, but convincing him to control the flow of crime rather than stop an endless tide did the trick.

But Cinder, she was something else. Emerald found it impossible to get into Cinder's head, because she was that good at manipulation as well. Emerald consequently began to see Cinder as an equal, and therefore decided to trust her completely – the only time she'd ever done so since her trust in her father was shattered by his abandonment. Eventually, this mutual respect grew into something stronger, and Emerald found herself wanting her love's warm embrace one last time before she died by the hangman's noose.

9th of September, 1890.

The following morning, Qrow and Raven oversaw the extraction of Cinder's body from the South Quay in Canary Wharf. The sight of the azure Dust ingestion turned Qrow's stomach, and he narrowly avoided throwing up at the state of Cinder's corpse. Raven, as usual, smirked at her brother's misfortune.

"I'd thought your alcohol habit would've rendered you immune to the pain of vomiting, Qrow," Raven started teasingly as the body was laid out on a gurney and covered with a sheet.

"Shut it, Rae," Qrow grumbled. "I'm just glad to get out of Ironwood's hair and forget about world-wrecking conspiracies."

"Fair enough," Raven replied. "Speaking of, how did you get on Ironwood's wrong side?"

Qrow blanched and let out a withering sigh. "Crashed a Black Maria with a blown tire into his town-house's greenhouse. He's never let up about it."

For the first time since getting embroiled with Cinder, Raven found it in herself to laugh freely.

"Incidentally," she eventually replied, "didn't you say earlier that Warren's looking for a new inspector in the department? I was thinking about applying for promotion."

Qrow nodded somberly. "Yeah. Turns out that Ramsey's retiring to ill health. Cirrhosis of the liver, as I recall."

Raven winced at that. "That's unfortunate."

At that moment, a pair of new arrivals emerged on the South Quay bridge where the pair of detectives were standing.

"Inspector Branwen?"

Qrow turned, and saw two of Weiss's heavies.

"Ruby and Yang, right?"

"That's us," Yang responded.

Qrow half-smiled at that. "What brings you two here today?"

"Well," Ruby started, "Weiss wanted to know if Cinder was dead or alive."

Qrow looked stricken. "She's dead alright. They're loading her into an ambulance for the morgue right now." He pointed to the western end of the bridge, where Ruby and Yang could see a white sheet with icy spurs jutting out at odd angles.

"That's … disturbing, but Weiss will be relieved," Yang remarked eventually.

"A pragmatic view, to be sure," Raven admitted. "Weiss will likely feel disappointed about not punishing Cinder personally, but she'll sleep easier without Cinder's designs weighing on her shoulders."

The others nodded. Suddenly, Qrow realised something.

"By the way, you're half-sisters aren't you?"

"Correct," Yang replied promptly. "Our father, Magnus Rose, had -"

"Wait, Magnus Rose is your father?!", Qrow exclaimed. "Me and Raven were friends with him as school kids!"

"I'd honestly thought he still lived in Hong Kong," Raven admitted, with an easy smile on her face. "Good to know he's still around, honestly."

"Would you like us to get him in touch with you two?", Ruby replied. "I can give you his business card if you like."

"Please do," Qrow responded kindly.

While Ruby and Yang left Marsh Wall a minute later, Weiss and Blake were entering the Schnee Tower, and were making their way to Ironwood's office for a mutual debriefing, with Myrtenaster and Gambol Shroud on their person. They'd have usually checked their weapons at the door, but Weiss decided that she wouldn't be taking chances today.

Upon arriving, Ilia quickly let them into Ironwood's office.

"Weiss Schnee and Blake Belladonna to see you sirs," she announced before opening the door fully.

Weiss and Blake quickly walked in, and saw Ironwood seated at his desk. However, Johannes Schnee stood behind Ironwood's right shoulder, a rare smile of approval plastered on his face. Weiss smiled with warmth back at him, with the message in his eyes received loud and clear. Well done, Weiss; you're a worthy successor to my line.

A/N: Early upload this week, because I've got a DnD session to run in roughly five minutes.

Here's where the main plotline comes to an end, folks. However, this isn't the end of the fic; there's two more chapters to go before that.

I will say that Ruby and Yang's father's full name in this setting - due to Yang's mother being Chinese and Raven being a different character altogether - is Magnus Apollo Drake Rose. Since his given names match "Taiyang Xiao Long" in terms of definition (i.e. Great Sun Dragon), I thought that was reasonable.

Stay tuned for the next chapter, where we see Weiss celebrate her birthday, and the eventful year that's been.