Chapter 11 – Setup: Plying Supplies

Soundtrack: Pretty Woman – Roy Orbison

Fifteen minutes after the meeting wrapped up, the hansom cab Weiss had booked arrived. The octet emerged from the house, galvanised by the task ahead of them and determined all the more to succeed. Keeping Myrtenaster and Gambol Shroud on their person, Blake and Weiss jumped into the latter's car, and Blake began to negotiate the quagmire that was daytime Greater London. Ruby and Jaune jumped into the hansom cab first, while Ren and Pyrrha hauled their coterie of weapons inside the cab before they boarded it and followed Weiss's vehicle.

As for Nora, she donned her earmuffs and driving goggles while Yang mounted her motorcycle and activated her rear handlebars.

"That's a neat trick," Nora confessed as Yang was readying her helmet.

"It sure is," the bastard replied. "Helps keep prying hands from fondling me if I'm taking a suspect to a police station."

"That happens?" Nora asked in disbelief.

Yang turned with a slight smile and emptied one of her duster's pockets, revealing a roll of electrical tape and her handcuffs. "Once. Not any more."

Nora cackled as she gripped the rear handlebars, while Yang jammed her helmet down and fired Bumblebee up. The motorcycle tore down Hornton Road, slipping right down Kensington High Street in all its finery. Nora, being the sort to enjoy and savour the scenery of her adopted home, was equally amazed and disoriented at the sight of the street whizzing past her in a blurry cavalcade of colours, lights and signage.

After a while, Yang spied the next turn to make, and zipped into the left lane. Her timing was impeccable, as the left-hand turn was given the green light. Turning left onto Warrick Road, Yang made quick time as she floored the bike down the stretch of arterial road, marked by factories on the western side and shops to the eastern side. Zipping into the right hand lane, Yang's luck was with her as she didn't need to wait before the final turn.

Going right onto West Cromwell Road, Bumblebee roared over the bridge that rose to accommodate the District line of the Underground. Even now, a tube train whizzed underneath while the motorcycle roared overhead. Leaving the bridge, the pair of huntresses entered an area that had only been built up in the last four years, being a curious blend of residential houses and industrial complexes. This mish-mash of conflicting architecture was even more disorienting to Nora, who felt the need for a glass brandy to calm herself down after this.

Finally coming to a stop near Baron's Court station, both the huntresses dismounted in perfect synchronisation. After sharing a laugh at sheer coincidence, Nora opened the gate behind the shop with her keys, and Yang led Bumblebee into the yard behind the building and parked it. Getting out of said yard and closing the gate, the two women walked around the corner towards the front door of Sea-King Repairs, only to be greeted by a sign taped on the door.

I'm out for lunch, but will be back at half past one. Apologies for the inconvenience. N.V.

"That's not like him," Yang started curiously. "He usually makes himself a sandwich to eat on the job."

"Then again," Nora pointed out, "there's a bakery in the station up ahead of us. Perhaps he wanted to try it out?"

"Good point," Yang conceded. She promptly took out a compact mirror and checked her appearance.

"Never took you to be a victim of vanity," Nora joked. To her surprise, Yang silently pulled out a tube of rose pink lipstick and applied it carefully. This hit Nora like a ton of bricks, and surprise was evident on her rather agape face as she realised what this meant.

"Do you – do you actually fancy Neptune?!", Nora exclaimed.

"Not so loud," Yang whisper-yelled. In a more sedate tone of voice, she continued. "But yes, I do."

Turning back to her compact and shaking her hair loose from the helmet-like shape it had assumed, Yang smiled at her reflection. "Hopefully, I'll come across as appealing, and not annealing."

Nora chuckled half a second later, having long since grasped the depths of Yang's wordplay skills.

"For your sake, I hope you do," Nora admitted. "You'd be a good match for Neptune."

"Thanks, Nora," Yang said with a gentle smile, before suddenly looking to her friend concernedly. "By the way, how should I broach this with him?", she asked. "I'm not sure if he'll say anything to me himself ..."

"Asking him out yourself would be the best move," the Irish lass instantly replied. "After all, I can tell he likes you, and you're right in guessing that he won't admit it on his own will."

"How can you tell?!", Yang asked in disbelief. "I mean, Neptune's been quiet for most of the time I've known him, but he's never said anything to me about being attractive!"

"Well, Neptune likes to give women complements based on appearance and the like, as you and I both know. However, he only ever does that because he likes to build up the self-esteem of the women he talks to. He always did it for Pyrrha before Jaune fell in love with her, but never for you."

"Of course," Yang realised. "He knew I already possessed a confident personality, so he never saw the need to pass remarks about me."

"That's true to a point," Nora conceded, "but there's more to it than that. You said he's usually timid around you, right? Well, I've worked with him long enough to know when he's feeling genuinely attracted to a woman; he gets insecure around her, and he tends to be quieter so as not to say anything that might cause offence."

Yang was silent as she registered this. Neptune's never made a pass for me in all the time I've given him business, the brawler realised. Just how long has that Hellenic man harboured feelings for me?! Gods, I feel like such a blockhead for not realising it sooner.

A commotion broke out at the bakery up the road, and Yang and Nora were summarily treated to the sight of Neptune getting slapped upside the head with an eclair, by a young woman in a grey business suit. The steel-eyed woman angrily stomped inside Baron's Court station, her maroon ponytail swinging wildly in the breeze as she stared daggers at the Greek blacksmith.

Neptune hung his head down as he trudged back to his shop, feeling a complete lack of dignity due to two of his regular customers loudly bellowing with laughter at his expense.

"Hey, Neptune," Nora called out. "I like the new make-up you're wearing!"

"Looks like you've suffered a bad case of pain à la Duchesse," Yang added as Neptune came up to them.

Nora cackled at Yang's culinary pun as Neptune groaned. "All I did was complement her appearance," the Greek expatriate groused.

"How so?", Yang replied in genuine curiosity.

"She seemed quite blue about something, so I approached her and asked her how she was feeling. She looked up at me with a withering gaze and said ''Nothing worth concerning yourself about. I just want to remain unnoticed at the moment.'' I then joked ''That's the first time I've heard a beautiful woman wish she was unsightly,'' and that's when the eclair came for my face."

Yang and Nora both doubled over in laughter as Neptune unlocked his shop's front door. After entering the shop while removing the sign, Neptune grabbed the nearest clean rag and wiped the chocolate from his face, before jumping behind the counter.

"So what can I do for the two of you today?"

Nora handed him a list. "We've been ordered to fetch these supplies for a huge mission. We can't afford to have them delivered any later than today either."

Neptune scanned the list of components and Dust powders, and both eyebrows shot skywards in surprise.

"This is a big ask," Neptune replied. "And I know for a fact I can't get all of this ready by myself."

"Oh, come on, Neptune," Yang whined sensually. "Don't leave me in the cold like some musty slag."

Nora almost choked on air as Neptune thought it over.

"If Nora and you help me forge the amount of bullet jackets we need and promise to reimburse my soon-to-be-exhausted Dust supplies, it's a deal. Though I'll need to charge full price for this one."

"Fair enough," Yang agreed. "Be sure to make a receipt to Weiss Schnee, will you?"

Neptune gasped. "She's employing you for this mission?!"

"Yeah," Nora admitted. "We should be able to convince her to send some Dust your way tomorrow as well."

Neptune smiled as he stretched his arms. "Well, be sure to tell me how well the legbreaking goes, because Weiss Schnee's patronage makes me feel much better about the whole thing. You two get aprons and safety masks on, while I prepare the receipt and the shipping box. We've got work to do."

Yang fist-pumped the air. "Alright! Time for action!"

Nora rubbed her hands together as Yang leapt over the counter. "You said it, Yang. Let's get cracking!"

While sparks began to fly at Sea-King Repairs, Ruby and the others finally arrived at the Rotherhithe Street safe-house, which straddled the gap between the former street and Salter Road east of the entrance to the Canada Docks. The former public house and tea rooms marked the border between the residential and industrial sections of the neighbourhood, facing north-east towards an uninterrupted view of the warehouse that Cinder was hiding in, amongst the others. The safe-house itself was unremarkable on the outside, but the assembly were quite surprised upon entry. Even Weiss was impressed with the facility's capacity, and therefore believed that this house had definitely seen use prior to now.

It was an unconventional design to say the least; the basement below the house contained a quintet of bedrooms on the southern third with two bathrooms and lavatories servicing all of them, and a sound-proofed workshop for weapon and vehicle storage and maintenance took up the rest of the space. The small garage attached to the ground floor was actually a large lift that lowered vehicles into the workshop for safe-keeping, with a roller door and brick walls obscuring this from the public. The ground floor itself had a laundry and a private office with a few Analytical Engines in the rear of the house, while the front two rooms were a conventional parlour and study that helped fool the casual onlooker.

The top floor of the house, meanwhile, had a lavatory in the northern side, while the kitchen sat in the middle of the floor by the stairwell, facing outwards. A large dining table and eight chairs made from dark oak sat on the southern side. The pack of cards atop the table indicated that little "pockets" of the table could be removed for playing poker, while the pool cues and billiard balls against the wall hinted that the whole table-top could be removed to reveal a pool table.

Ultimately, the whole top floor was unbound by interior walls, resulting in a near-perfect surveillance room. There were wooden folding chairs dotted around the walls that each had a kodak maker, a pair of binoculars and a notepad with pencils to aid the group in their endeavour. The walls of the two floors themselves were loaded with large, tinted windows that prevented anyone looking inside, yet allowed for unhindered monitoring of the area by the occupants. As a rather shocked Jaune involuntarily remarked upon completing a tour of the house, "When your father provides assistance, he doesn't do things half-arsed."

There was a painfully long silence after that, with Blake and Ruby struggling not to laugh at Jaune's clumsy choice of words as Weiss stared him down. "Quite," was her hushed response.

"Now as far as our tasks go," Ruby spoke up, "here's what I suggest we do. Blake and I will take the weapons downstairs to be cleaned and maintained; Pyrrha and Ren will start the first watch, and both Jaune and Weiss will make their phone calls. Does that sound good?"

Everyone else nodded in response. "Good," Ruby said, "now let's hop to it!" And the three groups saw to their tasks immediately.

A little under three hours later, Nora and Yang concluded their pilgrimage through London's West End, and were lowered into the garage. Ruby and Blake were about to place the group's weapons in the garage, when they saw their cohorts arrive with the Dust components tied around Nora's waist and the rear handlebars. The bizarre sight sent Ruby into a fit of involuntary giggling, and even Blake was chuckling at the two-woman parade.

A/N: Finally, I get the chance to tease Combat Goggles - my favourite crack pairing in the show.



Also, the woman that smacked Neptune with an eclair (which was originally called "pan de la Duchesse", hence the pun) will be appearing later.

Finally, there's a strong chance that I'll be going over to Melbourne in June, so I therefore plan to release chapters 11-15 before having a week or two off, then finish off the work.

Anyway, tune in next Friday for chapter 12. Feel free to review, follow and/or favourite the work!