15

Chapter Fourteen

Akelarre felt very warm.

It was probably the sun, she decided as she followed the white, brown and pink girl who was strutting ahead of her. She stared for a moment, then refocused on the back of the girl's head.

What had Roman called her? Her mind was a little scattered, more so than usual. It took her a moment to recall... Neo, it was Neo.

And it was Neo that used some sort of Stranger ability to create an illusion behind her and to mask the way they were walking away from the meeting, an illusion that neither Cinder nor Roman could see through.

Neo trampled across manicured grass and when they reached a fence between their lot and the next the diminutive girl took a running leap and grabbed the top of the brick wall. She placed one leg over the top and sat astride the fence, then extended a hand to Akelarre while one eyebrow rose in challenge.

Akelarre wondered if this is what it felt like when teenagers were offered drugs.

She grabbed Neo's hand and let the tiny, and surprisingly strong, girl pull her up. Her fall on the other side was not quite as dignified as Neo's almost dainty skip but she managed to stay on her feet.

The lawn here extended a ways towards a home that could only be described as a mansion.

As her Grimmsects and a swarm of local bugs scouted the inside of the mansion she started to realise just how opulent it was. "Who does that house belong to?" she asked.

Neo shrugged.

"So, what are we doing here?" she asked. It was a little strange for her to follow a complete stranger, especially a complete stranger that was walking right up to an empty house. A house with bedrooms. Bedrooms that had beds.

She swallowed and shook her head. Neo wasn't like that. Maybe. Probably. And if she was she could just say no with a dozen times Neo's weight in insects as emphasis.

Then Neo pulled out a set of lockpicks, bent over double before the front door, and started fiddling with the lock.

"Wait, are we robbing the place?" she asked, trying not to stare.

Neo paused and gave her a sort of 'what do you think' look before rolling her eyes and returning to her picking.

"Isn't that... wrong?" Akelarre asked.

Neo stopped again and gave her a flat stare.

"Not that I have the moral high ground here. I'm pretty sure you could steal every single item in Vale and you'd still be ahead of me," Akelarre said.

Raising a hand up to her face, Neo placed her index finger across her lips in the universal gesture for silence.

Akelarre stared at the much shorter girl, then at the mansion they were breaking into. "There's no one in there," she said. "You can make as much noise as you want."

Neo seemed to consider that for a moment. She pulled her picks from the door, slid them into her costume, then took a step back.

Her roundhouse kick tore the door out of its hinges and sent it clattering into the hallway beyond. She stepped next to the doorway, made a sweeping gesture with both arms, and invited Akelarre into the home.

"Thank you," she said as she stepped over the door and into the main hall. The door had broken one of the marble tiles, leaving a nasty mark on the ground, but otherwise the room was nice and intact, with pillars holding beautiful vases off to one side and oil paintings of important looking men on the wall across from them. It was the kind of place she could imagine Salem staying in, if they just added a few purple crystals and some wandering Grimm.

This felt... nostalgic, somehow, as though this wasn't the first robbery she'd participated in. If this was, in fact, a robbery. "So, we're here to rob the place, vandalise it, and send a message?" she paused. "Or are we looking for blackmail material?"

Neo tapped a finger to her chin in thought, then nodded before pushing a vase off of its platform.

It made a very satisfying crunch as it crashed to the ground.

"Okay. Any reason in particular why we're doing this?"

Neo shrugged. She was playing innocent, but there was a glint of mischief in her mismatched eyes.

"Is this how you make all your friends?"

Neo's grin could have lit up the sky in a storm. She nodded.

"Okay. Well, if we're going to be working together, then it's best we be friends, right?" Akelarre gestured and had one of her Grimmsects push a vase from where it hid behind a pillar and out of Neo's sight. The vase, this one made of brass, clunked to the ground.

She got a thumbs up for her effort.

***

Cinder smiled as she saw a single bead of sweat slowly trickle out from under Roman's stupid hat and along the side of his head before he wiped it away with a swipe.

She had him on the back foot. Already he was willing to agree to anything she said just to keep his head attached to his shoulders. Of course, that only meant that he would try to betray her later, but there were ways around that. She merely had to teach him the futility of trying to fight her.

She glanced to her side to where Akelarre was sitting and being a quiet threat.

Akelarre wasn't there.

Blinking, Cinder looked around and found a distinct lack of Grimm Princesses in her vicinity. Worse, Roman's little pet was gone too.

Roman locked eyes with her. "Oh shit," he said.

She agreed.

***

Neos arm twisted just-so to scoop up a perfect sphere of ice cream from the tub, which she slid into her mouth with all the slow, suggestive grace of a lady sipping wine.

"Hey," Hood protested next to her. "I want some too," she said.

Neo, being the generous soul that she was, looked at the seven tubs of ice-cream laid out all across the foot of the king-sized bed she was on and decided to be magnanimous. She flipped the scoop over and handed it to Hood who took it. She made a 'one' with her other hand, the message clear and obvious.

Hood could have one scoop.

Hood dipped the scoop into the tub, pulled out a chunk of ice cream with no grace at all, and stuffed it into her face. Half of it ended up smeared across her lips.

To say that Neo was unimpressed would have been an understatement.

The two of them were lounging on a king-sized bed, her boots leaving marks on the sheets and her tubs of ice cream staining it further. Next to her, Hood was leaned all the way back so that her back rested against the headboard. She had even removed her boots.

Every time Hood moved it made the loops of golden necklaces around her neck jingle with a pleasant little noise. It was a sound Neo was intimately familiar with, the rustle of expensive things acquired through skill and determination and a little bit of breaking and entering.

She'd had... fun. Hood was a strange girl, made all the stranger because she trampled through Neo's hints like a clueless virgin on prom night.

That was probably not the best example to use. The only prom she'd ever been to was one she crashed to steal their punch.

"This is really good," Hood said as she licked the scoop clean. A few droplets of cream ended up on the stacks of paper she had placed on her corner of the bed. "You know, there's no ice cream where I'm from."

Neo's breath caught.

How? Was that why Hood was so off? Was that why Hood couldn't catch a clue when Neo hit her with all the subtlety of a freight train? How did Hood survive? Anyone could go a few days, maybe a week without ice cream, but to never have any?

She reached across the bed and patted Hood on the hand.

Hood, being the bumbling, clueless idiot she was, handed her the scoop back.

Well, Neo wasn't going to complain.

"This guy was sick," Hood said as she shifted through another page. She had found a loose floorboard, somehow, and when Neo pried it out it revealed a neat little stack of blackmail material that Hood seemed more than happy to dig through.

Political intrigue was boring. If you wanted something, just do it, is what Neo always said. Sorta.

She pulled one of the folders closer to her (It had been on her three-quarters of the bed) and flipped it open. She was greeted with candid pictures of a man with a hairy backside doing some rather improper things to a young lady. She felt her eyebrows climbing up into her hairline.

Flipping the picture up, she showed it to Hood who took one look and scrunched her nose. "Don't show me that, Neo, I'm still digesting."

Neo shrugged one shoulder and tossed the picture aside.

Hood closed her own folder and leaned back a little. "So, we broke in," Neo nodded. "We smashed some artwork," Neo nodded. "Drew mustaches on every painting," Neo nodded. "Emptied their freezer," Neo nodded. "And we found this guy's stash of dirty blackmail," Neo nodded. "Now what?"

Neo allowed a cat-like grin to cross her features. She flipped over and placed a hand on Hood's ankle.

Hood looked down, blinking at the contact just before Neo yanked her down so fast that Hood's head bounced on the pillows and the papers she'd had in hand went flying.

Twisting over, Neo moved up so that she was sitting on Hood, hips across the taller girl's stomach and arms on either side of Hood's quickly reddening face.

She wiggled her eyebrows.

Let's see you miss this clue.

"Ah, Neo, I, uh," Hood said.

Neo perked up one eyebrow, her grin growing feral.

"It's, well, we just met," she said as if that mattered. "And... and right here?."

Neo was pretty damned good at getting a message across with just her body, but even she was stumped on how to say 'we're literally on a bed,' without making a full production.

"Look, I'm flattered, really. You're a nice girl, and you're pretty," Hood said and Neo let her go on because flattery was always a good way to butter her up. "It's just that...."

Neo placed a delicate finger over Hood's mouth, then wiped the layer of melting ice cream that surrounded the girl's mouth off with the tip. She brought her hand back up and licked it clean.

"Ahhh." Hood's eyes went very, very wide and they darted towards the door. "Oh oh."

Neo turned, a hand on Hood's chest to help her look over her shoulder. Were the owners back? Was she going to have to deal with them? Would she tie them up and make them watch?

Then the door slammed open.

Roman moved in first, followed shortly after by the Cinder woman who was earning her namesake if the fire in her eyes was any indication. Both of them froze and for a moment the tableau held, everyone staring at everyone else.

Neo shifted around until both legs were off to one side, then she crossed one foot over the other and placed both hands on her knees in what was a perfectly dainty pose, even if she was still sitting on Hood's lap. She batted her eyelashes at the new guests.

Cinder's mouth opened, closed with a click, then opened again. "Akelarre," she said.

"Yes, Cinder?" Akelarre said.

"Did you just leave a meeting in order to..." Cinder paused as though searching for words, then looked around the room, paying particular attention to the piles of jewelry on the bed next to slowly melting tubs of ice cream.

"To go on a robbery date with your new friend?" Roman tried.

"Yes, quite."

"Ah," Hood, no, Akelarre--and wasn't that a pretty name--said. "No?"

Neo nodded.

"Neo!" Akelarre said. She started to wave her arms as if to deny everything. "It wasn't a date. We didn't do anything."

Cinder looked at her, then at the way Neo was still sitting on her lap. "I can see that. Did she trip and accidentally land in your lap?" There was a bit of a twitch in the corner of the woman's eye.

Neo shook her head. She raised both hands, pointed with her index finger, then made a circle with the thumb and forefinger of her other hand. The index finger dipped into the circle and back out while Neo's eyebrows wiggled.

Akelarre's squeak was adorable, as was the stunningly red shade her cheeks developed.

Cinder was not impressed.

"I, I got blackmail!" Akelarre shouted as if that would make everything better. She grabbed a file and flung it towards Cinder.

The bed was soon covered in pictures of hairy men in the buff.

Cinder was not impressed.

***

Big thank you to ChaoticSky and the filthy degenerates on the Raven's Nest Discord for the idea bouncing and encouragement, and CrazySith87 and eschwartz for doing word things! You're all completely insane (see note below), but I like you anyway.

NOTE: I would like to point out for everyone's edification that eschwartz is a completely rational and sane person and is in no way crazy, mad, insane, borked, or otherwise on the same level as the other members of the Raven's Nest Discord. We all hope to be as enlightened and stable as him when we finally grow up.