Hello again, friends. We have now comfortably broken the 1k viewer mark as our story reaches the midway point. Thanks to the 32 people that followed this or put this as their favorite, and thanks to the 9 people that left a review for me. Another short shoutout to that one guy from New Zealand that opened the story like 10 times. Talk about dedication.

『 Delivery 』

Chapter 4: Twists And Turns.

Ren was staring down the most notorious criminal in all of Vale, the only thing preventing a full-blown fight being his gun pointed towards a midnight black bowler hat. If the young Huntsman was honest, he couldn't sense any difference between the hat on the pedestal and those in the closet or on Torchwick's head. Black, one red strip, no traces of Dust. Yet it stopped Torchwick dead in his tracks.

"Look, kid, we both know you're not gonna shoot."

"We also know that you're not gonna move."

"So how about you put your gun down and I let you guys go? Sound fair?"

Ren squinted his eyes. Torchwick is stalling for time. He took a quick look through the room and reassessed his situation. Roman had his hands raised with his cane casually leaning on his right shoulder. Despite the high-pressure situation, he was completely free of tension. A relaxed body is a fast body. His eyes were watching Ren's every move, ready to react at any time. The burn marks on his coat meant that he already fought Port and somehow beat him.

Judging from the noise, the fighting down below still hasn't ceased. Given that Roman made it past the Professor, it was only a matter of time until the rest of the team were overrun by the White Fang. Negotiating for his friends' lives for a hat had very low chances of success. Torchwick stood in the doorway and blocked the only escape path. The only option left was to trust his team and proceed according to plan.

And the plan was to steal that damn hat.

Ren raised his right hand and pointed StormFlower at the closet.

The basics of confrontations.

Bullets ripped through the hinges. Ren didn't break eye-contact even once when he kicked the remains of the closet door across the room.

Assume a position of power.

A cocky smirk appeared on his face as he turned his head towards the collection of hats. They were neatly sorted, each with their own small shelf and a tag.

"This looks expensive. Is that what you spent all that stolen money on, or did you steal these too?"

Ren chuckled.

Assert dominance.

"Brown And Sons, hand-made, needle felt, reinforced hem", he read out aloud as he littered the hat with holes. "What a shame."

Throw off your opposition.

"Stop, you little-"

Abuse their mistakes.

The moment Torchwick lost his cool was the moment Ren struck. Two streams of bullets cut off Roman's path towards the hat in the glass box. Pressing his advantage, he spun around, piercing two hats with the blades on his StormFlower, twisting his body to send them flying towards his opponent. One landed on the Melodic Cudgel, preventing return fire, and the other flew towards the eyes, denying vision.

Praying Mantis.

In an instant, Ren closed the gap. His right blade moved the tip of the cane away from his body. His left hand came in from below, twisting up the Melodic Cudgel like a snake. Ren pulled back his left arm, intent on taking off Torchwick's wrist with the backside of his blade.

Roman was in a bad spot. Sensing the imminent danger, Torchwick immediately let go of his weapon. He found himself weaponless, breathless and hatless. He flung a hook with his left to create space and turned tail. A perfectly honorable tactic. A master thief prided himself on his stealth and speed, after all.

If you just beat down everyone between you and your loot, you aren't a thief, but a robber. Due to the limited time for his recent jobs, he had to resort to using thugs in a simple armed robbery, a plan that can be put into shambles by a single girl with a scythe. Few people have ever understood the beauty of a meticulously planned heist and a perfectly executed getaway. Running away is a work of art.

His tactical retreat right now lacked in elegance, but as long as his elegant face had no bullet holes, that would suffice. As he turned around behind the doorway, he was relieved and disappointed at the same time that he was in fact not being chased.

As much as he hated to admit it, without Melodic Cudgel, he was no match for the intruder. His prized hat was being stolen from right under his nose, but there was nothing he could do about that. He started walking back down with a brisk pace.

Torchwick furrowed his brow as he contemplated today's events. That guy with the knife-guns didn't try to chase after him, so they aren't trying to kill or capture him. The attack on the warehouse also had no backup, so this was very likely to be unrelated to his business with the White Fang. An act of revenge for blowing up Mercury and Cinder was a far-fetched motive, too. Their objective was clearly the hat as a bargaining tool, but he had no idea what they would want to negotiate for, and that was unnerving.

The only thing that came to mind was Port. He said the girl with the hammer had a "message" for him, and he would honestly prefer to get his hat back without finding out about this "message".

Emerald nearly dropped her binoculars in disbelief. The boy she met earlier today swiped the hat before she could do it. Impressive. This night was getting more interesting by the minute. Mercury broke down crying when he found out that the burned magazine was sold out, and Ren apparently outsmarted the self-confessed Master Thief.

We all know who the real Master Thief is. She pulled out a few vials with red Dust. Her habit of coming up with contingency plans has proven useful many times. Torchwick scoffed at any plan beyond Plan A, convinced that his plans could never fail. The few times where his plans actually didn't go too well, his penchant for improvisation got him out of sticky situations. Sloppy work is what I'd call that.

The commotion near the gate seemed to be related to Ren's coup. She silently moved into the building using the same window Ren used to enter. Too easy.

Pyrrha was ready to stand by Jaune's side in any battle, follow any of his orders. Despite his tremendous improvement, he was still not an outstanding combatant like the rest of Team JNPR. However, he made up for it with quick thinking and superb strategies. This was the very first time the red-haired Huntress thought about going against his orders in battle.

"Don't worry about me, this is for the best!"

"Jaune, you can't do this!"

"You're going to have to trust me, as I trust you guys."

Her objections did nothing to sway his mind. Jaune summoned the entire remainder of his Aura and charged into the enemy lines. His reckless attack tore through the frontline and cut a swath through the White Fang thugs.

"You heard him, Pyrrha." Nora walked backwards, carrying the paralyzed Professor on her shoulder, firing one grenade after another.

Pyrrha shook her head and steeled her resolve. She closed her eyes and concentrated. The rectangular metal gates were ripped off when they crashed into them with the car earlier. The doors began to float and flew shut at the entrance once again, creating a barricade. A magnetized blockade like this would hold long enough for Pyrrha, Nora and Port to escape as Jaune kept fighting inside.

It felt wrong, leaving him to hold them off while they fled the scene. This decision was not an easy one to make, but Jaune didn't hesitate one bit, when it was him that sacrificed himself. The only thing left was to carry on and proceed with the plan. She tapped her blinking scroll.

"I'm done." - Lie Ren.

Emerald cursed under her breath. She was stuck in a corner of a room, hidden behind boxes full of Dust.

For some reason, the fighting stopped almost immediately and the majority of Team JNPR escaped. She already knew they were going to try to flee, since Ren successfully stole the hat. What she didn't anticipate was Jaune doing something really, really stupid. Letting herself be seen by the White Fang was something she could not afford, especially if she was in the process of getting her revenge for Roman's revenge on her.

With seemingly every hallway and every room filling up with White Fang, Emerald had few choices in hiding spots. She was forced to go where none of the office workers and crate lifters worked, and incidentally, that was the prison area in the first floor. There were no immediate windows or exits, so her escape would have to wait. Just as she thought it couldn't get worse, a masked faunus entered the room, dragging a blond boy behind him.

"Perry, lock him up until I figure out what to do."

"Yes, sir."

Perry adjusted his glasses and tossed Jaune into the room, locking the door behind him.

"Ow! Wait, wait up! Let me out of here!"

Pathetic. This was truly not Emerald's day. In this small room, he's going to find me sooner or later.

She cleared her throat loudly. "You need some help with that door?"

"Emerald!"

"I'm here to help."

Emerald faked a smile and hated herself for it. She had to play the fellow student to maintain her cover at Beacon. Getting out without him noticing was impossible. The option of silencing him permanently seemed enticing, but that would bring a slew of other problems. Questions would come up. Torchwick was bound to find out about her little prank very soon, and if word got out about their little feud, the consequences would not be fun for either of them.

She sighed as she pulled out her favorite hairpin, Spare Key. Within seconds, the door was unlocked. Under her directions, the unlikely duo recovered Crocea Mors and began to make their way out of the warehouse.

Roman tried to suppress his laughter. Watching Emerald try to sneak out with the clumsy kid was hilarious.

Just moments ago, he was bursting with anger. The self-proclaimed Queen of Thieves had laced his cigars with explosive Fire Dust. It was a classic prank, flawlessly executed, and he hated it. All of that was forgotten when Emerald presented him a clear path to his stolen bowler hat. Jaune was going to regroup with his Team, and tracing him was about as easy as it gets. Even with Emerald trying to cover up after him, he left so many traces, it was unbelievable.

A quick Scroll message to the White Fang members told them to go about their business as usual.

"Ignore the fleeing idiot. Oh, and leave the guy with the shield alone." It was rare for Roman to extend a helping hand, but he felt generous today. That, of course, did not mean that he wouldn't get some revenge on Emerald once all this was over.

"Neo, we're going after them."

"...!"

"I already said I'm sorry our room got damaged."

"..."

"No, I totally beat the shit out of him."

"..."

"My cane lying around means I fucked him up with my bare hands."

"...~"

"Feeling sassy today, huh? Now shut up and get in the van."

"...?"

"Of course there is ice cream in the ice cream truck. We wouldn't want to appear suspicious, would we."

Hi there friends. The next chapter is going to mark the conclusion of this story. This entire thing ended up being much more action-heavy than I anticipated, which means I am absolute shit at planning out my stories properly. Reading up on the older chapters makes me question a lot of my decisions, so there is definitely room to improve. What was set to be a merry adventure turned out to be something entirely different. Also I found out midway that I like the idea of shipping Ren and Emerald. You wouldn't think that ships happen spontaneously, right?

As always, I'd appreciate reviews, favs and follows to inflate my ego. Tell me what was shit and what not so I can hopefully fix that in my next stories.