[Marion Linette]

-Hey, thanks for coming along. This will be way easier with you on board. Else I would have needed to take some soldiers with me, but the fewer deaths on our side, the merrier, right?-

Idly commented Marion from their hiding spot, some tall bushes at the side of the road that years of neglect from the Council of Mistral had turned into a perfect place for ambushes. Beside her was Sinopia, who had agreed to help the blonde bandit acquire some important cargo she was planning to steal for the league.

Handling a pair of binoculars to her partner in crime. Marion pointed her finger to a small cloud in the distance, where soon enough, a small caravan of vehicles would make itself visible to the revolutionaries.

-Here they are... Glad my info was right about this... The main cargo should be on that truck in the back... And it looks armored. Welp. Seems like bringing you was a good idea after all-

Called out Marion with a satisfied sigh. The vehicle seemed pretty durable. It would probably take some heavy-duty explosive to crack it open. And that could easily damage the cargo rendering the whole operation pointless.

From what the faunus had been informed, Marion had prepared a distraction to momentarily stop the supply caravan. So her job would merely be to get inside the vehicle, take out the driver and open the door for Marion so they could make a clean getaway with the truck.

What was this fabled distraction? That was a mystery for the time being. But the bandit woman was clutching a small detonator with veiled expectation in her eyes.

-One minute from now... We begin- She said in a whisper, ducking low to avoid detection. Counting the seconds with a wristwatch before smiling quite creepily as she pushed the button. When the caravan was just a couple dozen meters away from them.

A small explosion could be heard, followed by a loud thumping sound as a tree fell down, blocking the middle of the road. Realizing something was amiss. The caravan stopped, and armed security officers poured outside of their vehicles. Standing in formation a couple meters ahead and ready to fire at anything that moved.

And soon, they find a very, very good target to direct their shoots towards. As the second explosion went off somewhere deep into the other side of the tree line. Just big enough to cut a chain and startle something that sounded very angry. And very not happy to be there.

-Here he comes! Feast your eyes, Sinopia! They said it was madness... But I bet they said the same thing about the dude who discovered electricity!- Marion said, like a small child showing her new toy to her friends.

The soldiers gasped in surprise when from behind the trees appeared a hulking figure, heavy and imposing as the mountain of muscle that it was. A big-ass Ursa mayor locked eyes with the soldiers immediately, running towards them and roaring in defiance as the bullets bounced harmlessly out of its armored body.

Sinopia would see how even the drivers and other civilians around grabbed firearms and spears with audible curse words and decided to face the Grimm head-on instead of backing off. As strong as the Ursae were, they were also pretty slow, so one could run circles around them while the rest of the crew slowly peeled the Grimm down with a haze of bullets...

This was the plan, at least until one of the defenders saw himself impaled by a long, white stinger. And slowly dragged towards the bear-Grimm. Only now the presents paid mind to a strange bulge on its back. From her position of safety, Sinipia had the best view of the whole thing.

It had no legs. Its antennae and wings had already been removed, leaving nothing but a trashing torso. But there was no doubt. There was a Lancer tied to the back of the Ursae, strong steel cables keeping it strapped to the bigger of the pair.

-I wanted to get three, so I could call myself goldilocks... But I guess Winnie-the-Pooh will have to do...-

Said Marion, all too proud of her little abomination. Humming and nodding in satisfaction as sharp claws caught a driver a little too unfortunate or a little too stunned to move away in time.

-You know, a bear and a bee... Honey... You get the drill. It's a work in progress- She shrugged as she prepared some daggers for herself to use in case things got hairy. -By the way, you should probably start moving, that thing is tough, but it will go down eventually-

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[Sinopia DeStellanova]

Sinopia had been dreading this operation ever since she first heard about it. The supplies were valuable, the target was as acceptable to steal from as was possible, and her skillset would make it a lot easier to do. There were plenty of reasons she knew she should go, but she still wasn't very happy about it. Banditry was difficult to avoid in their current situation, and they probably wouldn't have survived the year if they hadn't resorted to it, but it still didn't sit well with her. She just wasn't willing to sacrifice the people of Kerch for those feelings, so off she went.

The worst part of all this, and the thing that was driving her anxiety through the roof, was who she was going to be working with. She still had no idea why Alina was not only willing to work with the former bandit leader, but actually seemed to trust her and was letting her work closely with her. The person psychotic enough to unleash a Manticore and Apathy combo near a major population center. Marion was probably not even the worst person Alina had worked with, so she wasn't sure why she was surprised -- hell, the reason they were in Mistral in the first place was to join the fucking mafia of all things -- but it still irritated her. It was even worse that Marion was working extremely closely with Marion, largely taking on what her own role used to be so she could focus on other things.

She tried to keep their interactions brief when Alina wasn't around to do most of the talking. She did take the time to explain Alina's habits, likes, and a lot of the stuff she did to make Alina's life easier in excruciating detail because the odds that Alina wouldn't expect all of those things to be done still were small. Otherwise, she was polite, but didn't talk much and answered non-Alina questions as quickly as possible. There was no reason to insult Marion or be rude, but that didn't mean they had to be best friends either. Part of her was still suspicious of Marion, even outside the ways she clearly should be, but that was common for anyone that worked closely with Alina, so she didn't see any reason to act on it. Yet.

Despite her attempts to be cordial and polite, she couldn't hide how uncomfortable she was or how irritated she was to even be doing this. Her hands stayed in her pockets the whole time, and she kept this stony-faced glower on the entire trip. She wouldn't speak unless spoken to, and if Marion felt extra chatty, she'd excuse herself and say that she had to focus and prepare for the mission as an excuse to stop any further conversation and finish the trip in silence.

The caravan was right on time, which was both a relief and uncomfortable. It meant it was time to go and break into this car. That was straight-forward enough for her. She couldn't see inside the vehicle, but with how heavily guarded it was, she doubted there could be too many people inside of the vehicle itself. She could only see the driver through the windshield, and there were no additional guards around him, so she figured there would be one or two guards with the cargo at most. All she needed was a moment to run through the outer guard and phase through the walls of the vehicle to more or less disappear and hijack the vehicle. She didn't know what kind of distraction Marion had prepared, but she doubted that it would be anything too elaborate when all she really needed was something to briefly obscure their vision. Kicking up enough sand would do fine here.

"Yeah, I should be able to get in easily." She looked at Marion out of the corner of her eyes. "We should be able to limit any collateral damage."

Her voice was dispassionate and almost bored sounding. Her expression was much the same, right up until she saw what this distraction was. First, a warning about the explosions would have been nice because her ears were ringing, but before she could even berate Marion for that this abomination of a Grimm came out of nowhere. Her jaw dropped and her nose wrinkled. She didn't even hear the bad joke about Marion's 'creation,' and was only barely able to register that she was supposed to move now. Right, she had a mission to do. She could sort the rest of this out in her head later.

She was able to close the distance between the bushes and the armored vehicle in about a second, and was able to phase through the wall without a hitch. Arrogant morons didn't even have someone sitting with the cargo to guard it, and left the driver all alone. All she had to do was push him through the door with her semblance and then she was the driver. It wasn't like someone shouting was going to get any attention in this kind of chaos, so no one even looked in her direction. She floored it and swerved the vehicle towards the bush, somehow resisting the urge to just run over Marion right now and instead kicking the door open so Marion could jump into the passenger side.

Her grip on the steering wheel was hard enough that her knuckles were white under her gloves, and was strong enough that her arms were shaking. Her shoulders and neck were tense enough that her shoulders were touching her ears, and her jaw was tense so tightly that her teeth were showing and it looked like her jaw was fused in place. Every few seconds she glanced over her shoulder back at what was going on behind her with wide eyes as she considered what she should do here.

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[Marion Linette]

Marion couldn’t help but grin when she saw Sinopia charge straight into the action without a second thought. As much as she seemed to have a permanent stick up her ass, the bandit couldn’t deny that the faunus had always been quite capable when push comes to shove.

But that also meant it was time to say farewell to her latest creation. As Sinopia wouldn’t take more than a moment to hijack the vehicle if her estimations were correct.

Marion said goodbye to her baby with a mock salute and some good wishes, as it burned as bright as a shooting star... Both figuratively and literally. As one of the defenders had managed to hit the Ursae with some incendiary ammo of some sort, probably fire dust.

Not like that would immediately take down the Grimm, but it helped reassure Marion that her choice of making this a two-woman operation was a good one.

And would you look at that, Sinopia swiftly came to pick her up now a second after. Practically flinging herself inside the vehicle, Marion hastily closed the door as the faunus woman floored it and got them out of there.

-That’s it! Good job, Sinopia!- Marion said, cackling as she excitedly looked through one of the rear-view mirrors on the passenger’s door. Finally noticing that they were being robbed, some of the security personnel turned to shoot the vehicle. But most of the bullets only grazed it as they soon remembered between screams of terror why you shouldn’t take your eyes away from a Grimm. Least of all, a flaming one.

-Huh... That’s neat. Wonder if we could strap fire-dust to a Boarbatusk and use it as a flaming ram- She asked herself aloud, closing her eyes and leaning back on the seat with her hands locked behind her head.

Letting out a pleased breath. Marion turned a bit to take a look at her partner in crime, all hunched and gripping the wheel so hard, it looked like she was trying to fuse with it. After a couple moments, when it looked like they were relatively out of dodge, she spoke.

-Chillax. That should be it. I don’t think they will be very excited to chase us down after fighting the Grimm. And those the fight will attract... Not even to retake these medicines...-

Marion told Sinopia, pointing with her thumb to the precious cargo safely stored on the back of the truck, separated from them by a thick layer of metal.

The truck was supposed to go to Kuchinashi and handle a large cargo of medicine of all sorts they bought every now and then from a pharmaceutical located in Vale. But they were cheapskates, and instead of paying for bullhead transportation, they relied first on ships and then on transport by land.

So every now and then, it was expected that not all shipments would arrive at Mistral’s public hospitals. Just a certainty of life like the sun coming out each morning... And that was why Marion loved Mistral.

-Good thing we managed to hit this truck in time. That Lancer would not have lasted long after we took out all of its limbs...-

Marion kept going, in her bizarre interpretation of what small-talk was supposed to be, still stealing a couple looks in Sinopia’s direction every now and then.

-Then again... Beyond shock value, you really have to stop and consider how much work a single lancer is worth. I figure it can’t be much. But don’t ask me the science behind it- Sinopia liked science, right? At least from what Marion had been able to gather in her year of brief interactions with the woman. Maybe she’d be willing to make a chart of relative Grimm efficiency against the cost of getting them? Marion somehow doubted it, but one could always dream...

-Welp. What matters is that it got the job done. I take it the boss will be pretty happy to hear the kids at Kerch will be able to have their shots or whatever... Wonder if I will be able to get a little bonus out of her, tho...- Marion commented, scratching her chin with a smug expression as she imagined the possibilities.

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