RWBY Through Worlds

97: The Soldier, Civilian

The rest of that day passed in kind of a blur with no real change.

Only Mercury had any business worth mentioning.

He managed to sneak in to converse with Watts, who had been moved to a private room to avoid any more fighting with him and Ironwood or Jacques.

"Did you get anything?" Mercury asked him.

He'd succeeded in talking to him before Watts left and explained what Tyrian wanted. Watts was mad that his cover had been blown but accepted it with resignation.

Watts shrugged. "I wasn't given much of a chance to get anything, but I have learned quite a bit about what dear Tory has accomplished in the last 10 years. I believe we could set our trap nicely. If only we knew where the Maiden was."

"I know now," Mercury said. "At least, I did...but she's run for it."

"Well, that puts a chink in our plans." Watts frowned.

"Look, either lover boy will find her, or these fools will," Mercury said. "Either way, we just wait for her to pop up again, and then we get her. Plus we have two other Maidens to use as bait, if you want Cinder to come here. But how will it help us?"

"It would be easy if Victoria actually clears the difficulty of transferring magic," Watts said. "But then there's always Plan B. Doing it James' way. No one would miss her."

"Yeah, but she'd never allow that," Mercury said.

"I understand Victoria can subdue a Maiden. That's all we need," Watts said. "But Salem might not want any Maiden who wasn't under her control...unless there were ones we could easily keep under control...and that is where Victoria comes in. I believe she holds the key to win this fight."

"Oh, I get it," Mercury nodded. "None of them would be a problem anymore."

"The one trick is getting her to help us," Watts said. "She'll be pretty sore after that failure, but now that's she tasted the Maiden power, I'm sure she'll be hungry for more. A desperate person will do anything. We just need to lure the rest of those Maidens to her. Salem will want them all. Cinder will want to kill the two we don't need, no doubt, and then we only have to take the Relic and kill the Summer woman also...and then dear Cinder will never know what hit her."

"So your strategy is giving Salem everyone she wants, then using Cinder to get the last Relic, then killing her," Mercury said.

"Genius, isn't it?" Watts said. "But the trouble is they're watching me. I can't get away with any of this, but you could."

"Yeah, but I'm working for Tyrian," Mercury said.

"That's only because I wasn't available." Watts was probably right about that. "I'll arrange everything. But as a peace offering, we'd better have that Summer Maiden first. She's alone now, vulnerable. This is the perfect time to catch her. The question is how."

"I don't know. We don't have any leverage," Mercury said.

"Well, use your head, boy," Watts said. "There has to be something that she'd be afraid of."

Mercury thought, then he said, "She did seem attached to that flying kid, Kip. Maybe she'd listen to him."

"Hmm...not a bad idea," Watts said. "Victoria would have to set that up... Well, I think I know what we should do. Write this down."

* * *

Shine and Wally had another long talk.

"Once we tell them our intentions, they'll have to make a choice," Shine said. "And I'm not sure they're ready. We've only just begun to make progress with them, but we have little choice. At this point, we know that Salem will be here soon, and either it's our way or not, because there's no time to change course in the middle of it."