Something About Silver Eyes (Niri)

[Maurelle Lacroix]

Austin, Texas
February 13th
17:05

Maurelle waited patiently for the airplane to arrive with her special guests for the weekend. Though they did not know it, they would be playing a key part in one of her associates activities for Valentines day. The trio of women would be part of an entertainment group that had been specially themed for the associates' company, that it fell on a holiday had merely been apparent fortune. It would prove quite well that two of the three were in a relationship together, so it was not as if she was separating them from celebrations, though the third was. However that relationship was strained more often than it was being celebrated.

Unlike some of the previous times she had agreed to provide entertainment for one of her associates, there would be no... extracurricular activities expected of them. Which was not to say that there would not be prior to the engagement, rather that the trio of ladies were merely there to perform a certain duty that Maurelle would reveal to them upon their arrival. It was times like this that it paid off being a mob boss and having near unlimited funds at her fingertips, it just took a few phone calls and the trio had been put on a private jet to be delivered to her.

It was going to be a mostly innocent endeavor all things considered, being cosplay girls at a local event center. They would each be cosplaying as one of the main leads from the web series RWBY by Rooster Teeth, with the finale of the current volume set to air for the public on Sunday. Helena had been the one who had turned Maurelle on to the series just a month prior, saying how the show had taken quite the dark turn. She had binged watched the series the following week before being approached for the offer.

Maurelle was not sure exactly how Helena had been able to do it but she had convinced her daughter in law and her girlfriend to travel with her to meet Maurelle. Once they arrived, Maurelle would explain why they had traveled across the country, with nice sum of money for compensation of their time. It was not as if Maurelle was going to be throwing them to the sharks either, as it was a four woman lead team, she to was going to be part of the entertainment as the party gathered to watch the volume's finale...

[Nireva Hale]

The world is on fire and you are here to stay and burn with me.
A funeral pyre and we are here to revel forevermore.
You're so goddamn frail, failing for a change.
You just had to know all about the world.
______________________________Ghost - Deus In Absentia

"Waaaaait, wait-wait-wait! Hold on."

For the past few weeks, not much outside the norm had actually happened in Nireva's world. Having finally left the holidays behind and celebrated the coming of another new year by getting drunk together at home, the time had come for both her and Jenna to get back into the swing of their normal life. Her girlfriend was still a dancer at the Plan B club while she was stuck juggling her university studies with her time at the Jung Facility. It was a precarious balancing act that kept them both in their apartment and, with Helena still paying for Nireva's tuition in its entirety, a lot of the financial stress had been plucked from their shoulders.

It afforded them opportunities to be frivolous from time to time, such as making their own cosplay costumes from scratch for Hallowe'en last year, and meant that they only had to worry about having enough money in their bank account to accomodate the bills at the end of the month. The phonecall from Helena had taken the two of them completely by surprise and, even when the both of them had been listening to Nireva's latest mother-in-law, the details had still been either vague or confusing. "Helena said to only pack enough stuff for a weekend, right?"

"Technically, yeah." A wealthy business associate of Helena's had mentioned that she had been asked to provide some visual entertainment on short notice. The event in question, from what they'd been told, was a high-profile preview screening at a large-scale venue near Austin and, as part of the myriad trappings being draped over the top of the whole affair, they had need of a few women to act as what Helena had dubbed 'brand ambassadors'. No matter how much the two of them had pushed and prodded, though mostly out of confusion than anything else, Helena hadn't given an inch, instead informing them that the three of them would all be met by the mystery person when they landed. "We're flying out to Austin now; or we're about to. Then we'll be getting ready and doing the event on Sunday and, once that's all done, we'll get another night in Texas before we fly back to LA on Monday."

As the car pulled to a stop, Jenna couldn't help but glance over her shoulder, though mostly at the trunk than the road behind her. "Right. Okay, that's good," she sighed, her gaze lingering on the rear of her car before turning back to face the road, just in time to see the lights turn green, allowing her to continue on towards the airport. "Is it gonna be a private jet again?" To Jenna, it seemed that, whenever she and Nireva were summoned anywhere by a member of her girlfriend's family, they had always foregone the usual drawbacks to air travel. With there being so many CEOs and high-ranking business officials among the immortal Rahal women and their respective paramours and associates, there was always going to be a private jet or chartered airliner going spare somewhere which could be diverted to meet someone with no real inconvenience.

"Apparently." Nireva was just as unfamiliar with this particular bit of luxury life as she was and, as their collective thoughts dwelled on the last time they'd been on board such an upmarket aircraft, she couldn't help but smile. "The jet picked Helena up in New York and it's gonna stop off in LA long enough to grab us before heading down to Texas." While it probably would have been slightly easier to have the two of them head to the Lone Star State on a separate jet and link up with Helena and her associate there, the itinerary had been drawn up in advance, ready for them to fill their places in it. It was too late to change anything now.

Just as had become the norm before, Nireva and Jenna knew precisely what to do and where to go upon arriving at the airport. Once they met with the representative of the private jet's crew, they were permitted to skip the monotonous check-in procedure and, once all of the legally-required data had been entered - mostly updates to their flight plan that showed the jet had stopped off in Los Angeles and was picking up two more passengers before moving on - the couple were escorted onto the plane where, sure enough, Helena was waiting, looking very comfortable in one of the leather reclining chairs.

From LA, the jet was only in the air for another ninety minutes before it touched down in Austin, during which time Helena still refused to disclose anything more than what they'd discussed over the phone. Before long, Nireva and Jenna had stopped trying to coax snippets of information from their travelling companion and had raided the on-board minibar. None of them were drunk by the the time they'd been reunited with their belongings at the airport, but Jenna at least was buzzed enough to be grinning more than usual when they filtered out from the crowd and spotted Maurelle in the airport lobby.

"Oh, you're Helena's business associate?" Nireva had needed a few seconds to realise that Maurelle had been someone she'd met before, albeit only in passing at a couple of her grandmother's parties. "It's nice to see you again! How are things?"

[Helena Rahal]

A new star is rising
Flaming light, shining bright
A new star is rising from the dark

Felicia was off somewhere that Helena did not know but she suspected that her hedonistic partner was likely finding intimate relations with some other person. The irony of that being the case and what the day was was hardly lost on her, perhaps that was why she had taken Maurelle's offer. Being a part of special screening of the volume 3 finale of RWBY would be a nice form of escapism from the traumas of domestic life. Would it be decades of war between her and Felicia, done in the most subtle but hurtful of ways until one of them finally broke?

The flight from New York to LA and then on to the Austin was one that Helena endured with silence and listening to the metal-history band of Sabaton. Despite the relentless prodding by Niri and Jenna, she refused to speak a word of what it was that they would be participating in. Both as a form of meditation and the truth of the matter was that she was not entirely sure what it was that they were to do. Maurelle had merely described it as being ancillary entertainers during the screening, which was frustratingly vague and could have many implications.

It was curious that to see how these two were fondly in love with one another when compared to how the rest of the Rahal clan acted. How immortality simply not had the same effect on Niri that it had on the rest of the clan or was she special in someway that Felicia and Ma had not realized. Of the half dozen or so of the clan that Helena had met, Niri seemed the far most rational and compassionate of the immortals. Though she was technically Helena's stepdaughter, she felt Niri was more a friend and confidant than even Felicia, especially since Sparrow's passing.

It was not long after their landing that they were able to collect their belongings and be found out by Maurelle. Whether by her own gifts or through the use of her litany agents, the woman always seemed to know when and where to be. It was no surprise that it had taken mere moments for the woman to find the trio in the crowded airport lobby, though it seemed that Niri realized she had in fact met Maurelle numerous times before.

"More her aunt's business associate truth be told, Helena's by proxy if we are to be technical. Helena however does not make my job for her aunt very easy, doubly so now that she is the head of one of the most hated government agencies. Though I suppose if things were easy then life would not be anywhere near as fun as it can be." Maurelle smirked as if she was a Ceshire cat, hiding her own personal frustration as well as the truth as to her actual relation to Helena. Being an out of sight guardian was not exactly easy with Helena being a part of and now the Director of the Company.

"Come now, I will take you to one of my properties and get you settled in so we can go over your duties for tomororw's function. Also to make sure that your costumes fit right, with Helena providing me your measurements I had them tailored to fit snugly. Would rather have to avoid any last minute adjustments but better tonight than tomorrow morning!"

"Oh here we go." Helena said under her breath and shaking her head. This was going to be another one of those wacky events she was not going to want to recall later to her children, she could feel it.

[Nireva Hale]

Our first stop is in Bogota to check Colombian fields.
The natives smile and pass along a sample of their yield.
Sweet Jamaican pipe dreams, golden Acapulco nights.
Then Morocco and the east. Fly by morning light!
______________________________Rush - A Passage To Bangkok

Just as with her mother-in-law on the plane, Maurelle was just as secretive when it came to the details of how Nireva and Jenna were going to be spending their weekend in Texas. No matter how hard she tried to read between the lines or glean anything from how either of them reacted to the ensuing conversation, Nireva was getting nothing out of them that they weren't already saying. "More her aunt's business associate, truth be told," Maurelle said, quick to correct the assessment she'd heard from the immortal's cheery greeting. "Helena, however, doesn't make my job for her aunt very easy, doubly so now that she's the head of one of the most hated government agencies..."

Nireva still had no idea what to make of the whole situation surrounding Helena's appointment as the latest director of the Company. Over the past seven years since arriving in Los Angeles, she'd heard rumour after rumour pertaining to the shadowy organisation; about how they were everything from a bunch of oversightless mad scientists experimenting on people with abilities to a government-run secret police that saw powered individuals - which the public had taken to colloquially calling evos - as dangerous timebombs. To know that a member of her family was running it was a mite unsettling for her, even if Nireva was able to safely exist in the knowledge that Helena would never send any of her lapdogs after her.

As enigmatic as the Rahal clan was, betrayal simply wasn't in their collective mindset. "It's always the satisfaction of getting the job done despite hardship and difficulty that makes life interesting." Nireva met Maurelle's grin with a brief smile of her own as the four of them made their way through the airport's colossal lobby. Like any other given day in just about every major city that had one, the airport was full of people going about their business. Occasionally, this made picking their way through the mass of obstructions difficult. Having commandeered a trolley for their belongings as opposed to carrying them, Jenna had volunteered herself for pushing duty while her girlfriend, Helena and Maurelle kept pace with her at the flanks, effectively guarding the cases they'd brought with them. "Take it from someone who's had a lot of both."

Every few paces, Jenna was trying to ignore the slight inebriety she'd garnered over the course of the flight down to Texas, whether by blinking her eyes or by forcing herself to focus on Maurelle's voice. Having only had a few glasses of wine - once her girlfriend had pointed out the chilled bottles in the fridge - she knew that the alcohol in her system would flush itself out through her liver well before sundown. She'd been able to act (relatively) sober with more booze than this in her system and, as she listened to what Maurelle had to say, her mind was quietly racing. "I'll take you to one of my properties and get you settled in so we can go over your duties for tomorrow's function." Properties? As in more than one? Was she a real estate mogul as well as a businesswoman?

By the time Jenna had managed to rein in her own thoughts to pay attention to Maurelle again, she had made mention of costumes and measurements. "Costumes?", she inquired, pushing the trolley out into a Texas late-winter afternoon. Despite it being somewhat chilly outside - at least by relative standards in the state - the sun was clearly visible in the pale blue sky, a good distance away from and above the nearest cluster of clouds. "What kinda costumes?"

"Jen." Slowing her pace as the trolley rolled by, she gently slung an arm around her girlfriend's waist and smiled. "If Helena managed to last a whole airplane flight from LA to Texas without telling you anything, I doubt Maurelle will. At least, not until we get to where we're staying." Ahead of them lay one of the airport's numerous car parks and, as the four of them strode along the path, it became apparent that they were being led towards one of them in particular. "Besides, I think it's gonna be way more fun if there's a surprise at the end of all this."

[Helena Rahal]

And by what measure do we grow
But by the smallest of increments?

At least it seemed Niri and Jenna were taking everything Maurelle was saying in stride. Helena knew that sometimes Maurelle presumed that people followed her and her train of thought far better than what was actually the case. It seemed a common case for many people of business as well as high intellect, perhaps it was because they were accustomed to people of their own level being their associates. That was not to say Niri and Jenna were not smart, they certainly were, yet Helena knew just by the way she had to run herself ragged to keep up with the Company *and* Vital that Maurelle had to be quite talented to be running her massive organization.

Would the opinion of Maurelle change in the eyes of Niri and Jenna if they knew that the business woman was actually the head of criminal network? They had seemingly been fine with associating with the Johessmans before that clan went from mobsters to rulers. However Maurelle was something of an enigma, she had no aspirations for rulership like they had, she seemingly wanted nothing of substance. How did she put it, that she cared not for the machine but the means for its production?

Whatever the case, it was best for now to let the pair believe that Maurelle was simply a very well established business woman. Her displays of wealth gave off that impression well enough, with her use of private jets for guests, as well as the limousine that awaited the quartet once they had made it out of the airport. The chauffeur was quick to help Jenna and Niri with their bags while Helena rolled her eyes whilst making herself comfortable in the spacious passenger suit of the vehicle.

"I am sure whatever it is, Maurelle will be having a laugh at us. Don't let her demeanor fool you, she likes to humiliate, play with, and ogle anyone and everyone she can whenever she can. I am positive this event is just another excuse for her to stare at some eye candy." Helena said in a rather gruff tone. What would it be this time, booty shorts and ribbons for a top? It seemed something that Maurelle would come up for a costume and play to the crowd of what was likely going to contain wealthy nerds.

"I am offended my dear Helena! I am a married woman now!" Maurelle chuckled to herself and playfully displayed the ring upon her finger as if to show up her charge. "Though marriage does not mean one can not appreciate the offerings that the world is so kind to give us. If I can add a little bit of spice to that wonderful buffet for my palette to enjoy, then how can I not? Besides, if my sources are right, you're in need of a good romping since you and your wife have not spoiled many sheets as of late."

Helena gave Maurelle an angry look which the mobster returned with a coy grin before speaking once more. "Worry not, that's not what I called you down here for all, this time. I am actually on the up and up on this endeavor, a friend of mine adores RWBY and wanted to have a watching party. You'll all be there as guests but in costume, that's all."

"Right."

"You need to be more trusting my dear and for fucks sake, get laid or whatever it is that gets you off and away from being moody. It's not doing you or anyone who cares about you favors. Wouldn't you agree, girls?"

[Nireva Hale]

We run for our lives from our lives and everything's a gamble for us.
We don't know how or can't even choose heads or tails.
By explaining it away, we ordered hell on earth...
...and that's what we're gonna get.

______________________________Kotiteollisuus - Kruuna/Klaava (translated)

"Don't let her demeanour fool you." While Nireva and Jenna were somewhat enthusiastic about what was to come from what little they'd managed to infer from what the other women had - or hadn't - said, Helena had been rather more cynical about the whole affair since the flight over from Los Angeles to Texas. "She likes to humiliate, play with and ogle anyone and everyone she can, whenever she can. I'm positive this event is just another excuse for her to stare at some eye candy." She seemed reluctant to consider the weekend with Maurelle as a fun way to get out of the house and instead remained adamant that she was somehow being used.

But it was going to take rather a lot more than that to dampen her stepdaughter's good mood. A pensive noise accompanied the smile flickering across her lips as her gaze wandered to her girlfriend. "Sounds like Jen after a dozen drinks." The joking comment earned her a playful slap to the back of her shoulder for the trouble, the "scorned" party quick to voice her protest. "Hey!!" It wasn't hard for her to recall precisely which night to which Nireva was slyly referring, which was a stark contrast to the precise events of the night in question. She couldn't remember a thing and, annoyingly, her girlfriend had only given her knowing grins in response. "That only happened once, dammit! And we agreed you'd never mention it !"

"Nuh-uh." Settling right back into her languid stroll, Nireva continued to follow the procession towards the executive car park; a relatively secluded parking zone nestled around the eastern side of the airport's main terminal. It was a way by which important passengers and guests could gain easy egress to the airport and dodge the queues as they made their way to wherever they needed to go. While it would have been simpler for Maurelle to lead them out through the respective door, the roundabout route she'd elected to take afforded the party more time to talk. And her more time to eventually explain herself. "You agreed. I decided to just smile and never tell you what you got up to in the club that night. Let's just say you had a great night off."

"I'm offended, my dear Helena!" With a brief chuckle, Maurelle feigned offence in much the same way Jenna just did before extending one hand, showing off the extravagant wedding ring adorning her fourth finger. "I'm a married woman now! Though marriage doesn't mean one cannot appreciate the offerings that the world is so kind to give us. If I can add a little bit of spice to that wonderful buffet for my palate to enjoy, then how can I not?" It was abundantly clear that Maurelle and Helena knew each other as they bantered back and forth. Especially as their responses momentarily delved into slightly more personal matters. "Besides, if my sources are right, you're in need of a good romping since you and your wife haven't spoiled many sheets as of late..."

All of a sudden, it was Nireva's turn to look a little mortified. By poking fun at Helena's sex life, or lack thereof lately, it didn't take her long for her thoughts to dwell on who the cynical woman would, by all accounts, (not) be having sex with. "I don't need to hear about any romping other than my own, thank you..." Just as it didn't take long for Jenna to spot her girlfriend's reaction and laugh with palpable amusement. She loved it when Nireva got embarrassed, having a particular love for the way she always tried to hide the fact that she was blushing. Such mannerisms were one of the many ways the two couldn't think of themselves as anything but inseparable.

"Worry not. That's not what I called you down here for, this time." Like any other good businesswoman - or well-respected crime boss - Maurelle was quite adept at placating others, keeping their misgivings and inhibitions on the sidelines just long enough to get what she wanted, needed or felt was profitable. "I'm actually on the up-and-up on this endeavour. A friend of mine adores RWBY and wanted to have a watching party. You'll all be there as guests, but in costume. That's all."

Due to their weekend at the San Diego Comic-Con three years ago, both Nireva and Jenna were familiar with RWBY and a few of its main characters. To learn that the two of them - or three, if it turned out Helena was being roped into the costumes as well - would be attending a presumably high-maintenance screening party dressed as one of the titular team did a lot to elevate their anticipation. "Do we all get our own dressing rooms?" Dressing rooms were nothing new to either of them but, whenever she worked at the Plan B club, the only dressing room was a large-scale communal affair where all of the make-up and preparation for their respective evenings was done themselves. What Jenna wanted to experience was a Hollywood-esque squad of make-up artists tending to her every need, while she watched herself gradually get transformed into... whoever she'd be portraying.

Despite the reassurances, however, it did little to fix Helena's grouchy mood and the way Maurelle elected to respond only served to make Nireva blush even more. "You need to be more trusting, my dear!" The coy grin shaped her lips as she watched Helena exhale through her nose and roll her eyes. As good-looking in the eyes of her husband she was, the fact remained that she needed the assistance of the three women she'd collected from two states in order to make the arrangements in place at the party work. "And, for fuck's sake, get laid or whatever it is that gets you off and away from being moody. It's not doing you or anyone who cares about you any favours. Wouldn't you agree, girls?"

"I'll happily agree," Nireva sighed. By now, the quartet had caught sight of the expensive limousine which had been parked in a prime spot in the executive car park. Having spied them in one of the side mirrors, the driver had already pressed one of the numerous buttons on the dashboard console and, as if the vehicle itself was greeting them, the two rear doors slowly swung open on their own accord, shortly followed by the trunk hatch popping open. "If you continue like this, I think my cheeks will explode." Within minutes, Jenna had parked the trolley by the back of the elongated car and sprung into action, transferring the cases from it into the spacious storage bay before slamming the trunk shut. Traditionally, it was customary for the driver to get out and help, but Jenna simply hadn't given him a chance. "So, uh... how far is it to this party?"

"Jen, you are not raiding another minibar." With a smile in response to her girlfriend's dejected moan, Nireva clambered into the back of the limousine, shortly followed by Jenna cuddling up beside her, leaving Helena and Maurelle - rather worryingly - to sit beside one another on the seats opposite.

[Helena Rahal]

Mighty eagle rules alone
Liberator claims the throne

Helena's cheeks flushed in a mixture of embarrassment and anger at Maurelle's words. What was and was not happening inside her home was a matter between Helena and her wife, not for anyone else. Though part of her did like seeing Niri squirm a little as the implications of the words clicked inside her brain. All the same, that Maurelle had the gall to bring up her sex life and then to suggest that she go have an affair as if it was so utterly common and needed was absolute preposterous!

"I do not know what you think you might know Maurelle but I would suggest dropping the subject post haste. This is Niri's mother that you are talking about after all or do you simply not care about collateral damage in your attempts to provoke me?" However it seemed that her dearest step daughter in fact agreed with Maurelle that Helena needed to "get her rocks off". Great, now the entire limousine was filled with people who not only knew that she was having intimate issues but also advocated in extra martial activities to correct that course! She had agreed to come to get away from such issues, not have them slap her in the face!

"To my humble abode dear driver." Maurelle spoke into the intercom before releasing the button as the vehicle started up and began navigating its way out of the airport traffic. It would take approximately an hour to get to the property she had in Austin, with the airport out on the eastern outskirts of the city. Luckily they would be avoiding the traffic, still the drive would provide enough time to get everything out on the table for the trio and hopefully get Helena out of her perpetual poor mood.

"Dressing rooms, no, I am afraid not. Though there will be on staff make up artists as well hair stylists to help you pull off the look just right." It was all that would be needed to pull of an impeccable cosplay Maurelle figured, given that she already had the costumes custom tailored to the measurements of each of the women thanks to Helena's assistance. "Each of us four will be one of the main cast of the show, other than that you are merely to mingle and enjoy yourselves. No other obligations at all."

Helena rolled her eyes, not believing a single word that was coming out of the Frenchwoman's mouth and still being irked at the mention of her sex life. Maurelle merely shrugged and decided to keep her gaze on the girlfriends in front of her. "Jenna, you have been chosen to portray Yang Xiao Long, a busty firecracker who is a physical fighter and the older sister of Ruby Rose. Niri, you are to be the cat faunus Blake Belladonna, an introverted ninja catgirl. Helena is going to be Weiss Schnee, an ice cold heiress who actually is really kind once you get past that cold exterior, while leaving me to be Ruby Rose, the main protagonist of the show.

Any questions?

[Nireva Hale]

Seven in the afternoon, half asleep, count the cars.
All I think about is you, constantly; that's the hard part.
Static on the line! I hear it all the time! But I'm quiet when you make me fade.
Feel it comin' back. Watch it turn to black. But I'm brighter when you make me fade.
______________________________Vanic & K-Flay - Make Me Fade

No dressing rooms. It would have been nice to be treated like a celebrity for the duration of the party preparations, Jenna mused to herself but, with space, time and likely money at a premium, she was aware that not even wealthy businesswomen like Maurelle would be able to give her everything she dreamed of. But, with the revelation that there would be make-up artists and stylists on hand to help them through their respective transformations, she wasn't about to come to the conclusion that the compromise wouldn't suffice. "That'll do!", she chirped with a grin.

"See, what you've done now is told her that she's gonna get pampered." Nireva had taken to lounging in the back of the limousine, her arm around Jenna's shoulders as she did her best to relax during the journey. While far from the bitchy kind, Nireva knew - just as the other dancers at Plan B did - that Jenna was prone to being something of a diva, even if only a little bit. No-one in their right mind would turn down the opportunity to get pampered, whether in a dressing room or at a spa, but Nireva's girlfriend loved the whole experience more than most, enough to miss its absence were she deprived of it. "You'll be lucky to get her away from all those stylists. Luckily, I'm here to take care of that, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue. Should it, Jen?"

"No, ma'am." Leaning to her left, the side of her head came to rest atop Nireva's right shoulder as she seemed to settle down for the moment, her mind returning to the more important matters at hand. "So, this whole party's to celebrate someone's love of RWBY?" It wasn't all that odd to her. After all, every January or February, tens of millions of men and women across the country organised similar parties to watch twenty-two armoured men run around a field, tossing an hollow oval lump of cow hide around for an hour. Watching an animated show created by the internet wasn't all that strange in comparison.

Since the mention of costumes, it hadn't taken Jenna long to figure out just what would be happening. The conversation which had occurred afterwards had only confirmed her notion. "Now... I saw RWBY at Comic-Con once with Helena." Granted, Helena wasn't exactly "Helena" at the time, with it being so long ago, but the fact remained. "And the lead team's four girls. We have four girls in the back of this limo. Soooo... who's gonna be who?" Across from her, she could see that Helena was still a little grumpy, having just had a bit of her personal strife aired for them all to hear. Maurelle, on the other hand, was quietly smug, seemingly pleased at how well her guests were taking to her plan.

The more eager they all were to help her out and have fun, with no further obligations than to wear the costumes, the better. Having reiterated that very fact a couple of times now, and with her home only the better part of three miles away, she thought it prudent to answer the inquiry in a more definitive fashion. "Jenna, you've been chosen to portray Yang Xiao Long, a busty firecracker who's a physical fighter and the older sister of Ruby Rose." Nireva let out a short laugh at the rather apt description. With Yang arguably being the most well-endowed member of the quartet, it seemed only fitting to tailor the costume to the person who could best fill it out. While their breast sizes were equivalent to one another, Jenna's build gave the impression that those of her girlfriend were slightly smaller.

"Niri, you are to be the cat faunus Blake Belladonna, an introverted ninja catgirl." Nireva vaguely remembered someone remarking how she'd look quite attractive dressed up as Blake. As an added benefit, Maurelle's decision to have her play the ebon-haired faunus meant that wearing a wig was unnecessary. While wigs were preferred for how much easier they were to style - and keep styled - compared to real hair, the fact that she had a full head of black hair already would have made the effort somewhat superfluous. Jenna, of course, looked rather pleased with Maurelle's decision-making thus far. "Helena is going to be Weiss Schnee, an ice-cold heiress who is actually really kind once you get past the cold exterior..."

If there was a reaction - negative or otherwise - from Nireva's step-mother, it didn't register immediately. But, with three of the four core team members assigned, there were no prizes for guessing who Maurelle had left for herself. "...leaving me to be Ruby Rose, the main protagonist of the show. Any questions?"

"Nope," the couple said in unison. Everything had been explained to them more than well enough, leaving nothing much more for them to do once they'd arrived but meet the stylists and get into their costumes in time for the party. Other than mingling with guests, generally being social and perhaps watching an episode or two of the show their outfits would represent, the two of them couldn't think of anything else that would likely occur upon the arrival of the rest of the guests. It wasn't until the limousine slowed to a halt that Nireva and Jenna bothered to move, utilising a lot of willpower to avoid grabbing the door handle until the driver opened it for them as per tradition.

After disembarking, the two of them were finally able to look at Maurelle's home. A nice place, all things considered and definitely not the glorified apartment they were expecting. "Are the stylists waiting for us?", Nireva asked, waiting for Maurelle and Helena to join them and, more than likely, lead them inside.

[Helena Rahal]

Flames sprawled across the sky
A phoenix bursts across the darkness this night

Helena rolled her eyes as Maurelle spoke about the character that she was set to portray. While Helena did find the Weiss character quite fascinating, the description seemed to hit a little too close to home for her liking. If she knew that Maurelle was going to poke, prod, and mock the entire time that she was here, then Helena would have declined the invitation. She should have known, it was in Maurelle's nature to do so, however she must have been hoping for more empathy from the woman or was so blinded by her own brooding rage to think clearly.

Though that brought up an interesting question, costumes would be relatively easy to come by but the hair was another story. While Niri was well suited to Blake's midnight black hair with her own, the rest of the three were not remotely close to their chosen characters. Especially Helena, her brunette locks were in stark contrast to the snow white of Weiss. While wigs would be the simple answer, it would make the event a bit miserable given her experience with wigs in the past, hot and never one to stay in place for too long.

"I am afraid not, I did not know that you wanted a rehearsal before the showing tomorrow. I thought a nice dinner and then an early evening would be more apt, given that we'll need be awake at four for the stylists to get us prepared in time for us to make the event at nine." A few hours of make up and prosthetics as well as breakfast as hygiene, it was set to be quite the busy and early morning as far as Maurelle was concerned. Though at least it seemed two of her accomplices were enthusiastic about the event.

"You are lucky that I am used to eastern time, otherwise that four o'clock start would have likely resulted in less than favorable outcomes." Helena said dryly, stepping out of the limousine and stretching out. Cars felt so cramped these days, as she had become accustomed to the luxury of private jets and the amenities that they provided. Though teleporting was a far more efficient travel system yet it sometimes did not sit so well with her innards, perhaps that was the cost of convenience.

The property was impressive enough, the property line being gated with a long driveway that came to a roundabout. The house itself looked almost as if it came out of a gothic magazine, with it's black exterior and castlesque appearance. Helena surmised that it had to be at least two if not three stories and perhaps made out of ebony. Maurelle merely hummed to herself in a bit of amusement and beckoned the ladies forth as she strolled up the sidewalk and produced a keychain. After a few moments of going through set of keys, she pulled out one and entered it into the lock, gently turning it and opening the door.

Once past the threshold, the house continued its trip into yesteryear, with lighting provided mostly by large wax candles, though there were light fixtures. "I come here when I want to be alone but also feel as if I am a queen, a malevolent queen waiting to descend upon the world. A fantastical dream mind you, but it does wonders to alleviate ones stress!" Helena rolled her eyes, knowing full well it was closer to a reality than a dream as Maurelle would have her guests believe.

"Now I had the foresight to have a pair of pizzas prepared and waiting for us so that we could relax. I imagine you three are quite tired after the trip. So please, eat and make yourself at home."

[Nireva Hale]

Shock-shock, horror-horror! Shock-shock, horror!
I'll shout myself hoarse for your supernatural force!
The female of the species is more deadly than the male!
Oh, she deals in witchcraft and one kiss and I'm zapped!
Oh, how can heaven hold a place for me when a girl like you has cast a spell on me?

______________________________Space - The Female Of The Species

"I'm afraid not. I didn't know that you wanted a rehearsal before the showing tomorrow."

"Oh." Looking slightly crestfallen as she returned to her girlfriend's side, Jenna wasn't able to stop herself from looking a little disappointed at Maurelle's response. Between the flight and the limousine ride, she and Nireva had both forgotten that today was only intended to accommodate their trip out to Maurelle's gothic-inspired abode. With the external walls seemingly coated in a veneer of ebony, the archaic building seemed almost unfathomably expensive. "I thought a nice dinner and then an early evening would be more apt, given that we'll need to be awake at four for the stylists to get us prepared in time for us to make the event at nine."

"Four in the morning?!" In an instant, the trio of guests spanned the spectrum of possible responses to Maurelle's recitation of the weekend's detailed itinerary. Helena, with her affinity for the business life, seemed the most at ease with the early start the following morning, while Jenna seemed almost riddled with despair at the revelation. Nireva was somewhere near the middle; a little annoyed at having to intentionally go to sleep so early, but able to understand the need for doing so if the event Maurelle had organised was set to start a couple of hours after dawn. "Is it even possible to wake up that early?"

"I'll set the alarm on my phone, don't you worry." Slinging her arm around Jenna's shoulders with a grin, Nireva continued to follow Helena and Maurelle into the dark house. To further the apparent gothic look the businesswoman had chosen for the exterior of the building, just about everything inside the house was reminiscent of features the immortal recalled from at least a century past, back when she'd been living in western Europe. For the majority of time she'd spent in that part of the world, her view of luxurious abodes had been fleeting; glimpses caught through windows and various hand-drawn pictures from all manner of sources.

Rather than switch the lights on and off, Maurelle had elected to have most of the interior lighting catered for by a series of candles. While modern light fixtures were present, their lack of use was plain to see once Nireva had taken note of where the clusters of waxy spires had been placed. Just enough to augment the natural light streaming in through the windows while not crowding all of the available space. "I come here when I want to be alone," Maurelle explained. With how the building looked from afar, it wasn't difficult for Nireva to see why it was so effective as a way for her to enjoy a sense of solitude. Superman had his ice palace in the Arctic, Maurelle seemingly had this place. "But I also feel as if I'm a queen; a malevolent queen waiting to descend upon the world! A fantastical dream, mind you, but it does wonders to alleviate one's stress."

"I bet it does." With their agenda pretty much set in stone for the next thirty-odd hours, Nireva was well on her way to relaxing; something that wasn't entirely difficult for her with her girlfriend so close by. The pizzas which Maurelle had ordered and had delivered in advance served the same purpose; a way for them to recouperate after the flight and to also put them at ease for what was to come. Under the combined efforts of all four of them, the pizzas didn't last much more than half an hour and, before long, there wasn't much for them to do but exhaust what few conversation topics there were.

Even for an immortal, conversation could only last so long and, following both Maurelle's timetable and her advice, the guests were all escorted to their bedrooms. Nireva and Jenna eagerly offered to share a bed, leaving Helena and the hostess to have separate rooms elsewhere. "How the hell do you even sleep so early..?" Suitably undressed and in bed she might have been, but Jenna Delgado's eyes were still very much wide open. While her girlfriend was far more suited to rising early with her work at the Jung Facility and her university studies, Jenna had long since got into the routine of waking up with enough time to get ready for her evenings at Plan B. The earliest she usually needed to report to the club's backstage area along with the rest of the dancers was around four in the afternoon. She rarely, if ever, got up before eleven in the morning on the average working day.

"Shutting up would be a great start, missy." A kiss quickly followed her remark, leading to yet another embrace. "But, if that doesn't work and you need a hand..." She wasn't aware of how Maurelle would react if she learned that two of her guests had succumbed to the urge to get more than a little frisky in a bed she owned, but Nireva had lived more than long enough to know how to be subtle about it. There were more places than the bed where they could make good on their carnal urges. The floor? A bathroom? Even the garden, if they were that desperate. "...I've got two."

"So do I."

~-~-~-~

The alarm on Nireva's phone was soon accompanied by a series of quiet groans as, at a few minutes past four in the morning, Jenna found herself roused from her slumber. Try as she might, however, she could find no way to escape the rhythmic buzzing and the sounds of Russian nu-metal that was somehow on her girlfriend's phone. She didn't even speak Russian! Did she? "Noooo...." Rolling over to one side, she felt a sudden lifting of weight from elsewhere in the bed as Nireva hauled herself to her feet without complaint.

"Yes, Jen." Sounding a little less sleepy than her still prone counterpart, Nireva was slowly trudging her way towards the door, very much intent on being the first one to the bathroom. Still unfamiliar with the layout of the house, she needed to get going sooner rather than later if she was to cling to her hope of getting there before Maurelle. "C'mon. You've got a cute costume to get into later and we both need a shower. You wanna share?"

"Not Jen." Loathe to leave the warm confines of the bed, Jenna twisted herself around until her head was pointing towards the foot of the bed and, after a few seconds of shuffling, her face emerged from the covers at the opposite end, finally regarding her girlfriend with her still-blurry eyes. "I'm Yang now. Can you bring my fancy gloves in here?" Tugging open the door, Nireva let out a slightly irritated - but still amused - sigh. "How 'bout I give you some cuddles in the shower and I'll just owe you the gloves later? That way, Miss Xiao Long gets what she wants and I get what I want. Which is clean and awake. Deal?"

Thump. Slithering forward, Jenna's underwear-clad - but topless - body popped out from its bed cocoon and landed loudly on the floor below. The jolt was enough to wake her up and, in the space of ten seconds, she was up and heading for the door, her hands clasped over her chest. She might have been mostly devoid of shame when it came to her body, but the realisation that she was in someone else's house prompted her to at least show a little modesty. "Deal."

And off in search of the bathroom they went.

[Maurelle Lacroix]

I don't know what I should do now
With every strength I can take to break enemies

Maurelle was content to hum and meticulously plan events in her head as the quartet sat to have their dinner. She did shoot a look at Helena, who seemed to have the same cold and disinterested look on her face since she had from the moment she had gotten off the plane. Whatever it was that was disrupting her home life so much was clearly not being handled well if the once fun woman could not even break a smile for the love of pizza. Perhaps it was past time that Maurelle interfered on Helena's behalf, after all Marie had hired her to look after Helena...

Helena quietly ate her few slices of pizza while it left somewhat of an awkward conversation between only Jenna and Niri. Her mood was not in the place to be merry or sociable, maybe it would have been better to book a vacation to some place where she could have been alone for a week instead. There was always her family's ancestral home in the Netherlands, though her Dutch was very rusty and she did not want to run in with Marie. Her aunt would probably give her a slap on the ass and tell her to quit moping around.

Excusing herself from the table, Helena made her way to her room through the house. Though she had never been to this house before, it was not entirely difficult to find her room, as Maurelle's drive had been so kind as to place her suitcase in it. She imagined the man had done the same for Niri and Jenna that they might have found their rooms if Maurelle proved a bad hostess and did not show them the way herself.

Changing out of her business attire, Helena pulled on a magenta silk teddy and made herself comfortable in the bed. She doubted she would get much sleep on the night, if she did at all. There was too much on her mind, too much that was bothering to truly find that relaxing state needed to get the much needed rest. That she had neglected to bring sleeping pills with her also seemed to pose a challenge. She contented herself then to trying and find a zen state and meditate, hoping that even if she could not sleep, mental rest could still be had.

Meanwhile Maurelle waited for the others to finish their meal before guiding them to their quarters for the duration of their stay, even going so far as to playfully call Jenna "Tits McGee". That seemed to elicit a laugh from Niri it seemed, the two women having probably one of the healthiest relationships Maurelle had noticed among the Rahals and even her other associates. Healthy relationships were seemingly scarce these days, too much fear and doubt Maurelle thought, people had been hurt or been scared to be hurt too much to form relationships that did not somehow turn out abusive or one sided.

The empty bed inside her own room did not bother Maurelle, there were bigger matters to trifle with than that. Her world was not so reliant on her fulfilling her base impulses or even a few of the deeper ones that it would cause her grief. Months and years of planning her ascent to power had taught her how to smother such inconveniences for the most part. Though she had not yet mastered how to avoid the need for rest and so she laid her head to rest once she had changed into a more comfortable sleeping garment.

~~~~~~~

Helena never did fall asleep and at a quarter till four, decided to pull herself out of her meditative state and head to the bathroom to shower. Showers always had a way of calming her down, perhaps the boiling hot water somehow melted away some of the icy barriers that were seemingly around her heart now. The hot water and soap washing away the filth and residue of what used to be, leaving the skin bare and made anew. The steam resonating that life was cyclical and that whatever troubles she had would pass, given time, or she would create new solutions.

Wrapping a towel around her and pulling her hair into a towel turban and headed back towards her room to get dressed enough to go deal with Maurelle's stylists or whatever they were. However as she rounded a corner, she crashed into someone, rather a pair of somethings as she ran straight into Jenna and her bare chest, nearly motorboating the woman.

"Watch where you're going boobs for days!" Helena grouchily sniped at Jenna while rubbing her own backside, as the collision had sent her to the ground. Only the awkwardly bent angle of her legs kept Jenna and Niri from getting an unexpected flash, Helena too concerned with her rear to notice.

[Nireva Hale]

We are the omen in the sky!
More than what you bargained for! Blacking out the sun to steal the light!
Everything you're running from and more! We are the omen in the sky!
______________________________CFO$ - Omen In The Sky

There wasn't a civilised place in the world that wasn't silent and devoid of life at four in the morning and, as Nireva and Jenna made their way along the corridor, it was abundantly apparent within seconds that Maurelle's house - or, more specifically, one of them - was no exception. "I don't care how fun this is." On a normal day, Jenna would have been, among other things, completely naked and still sound asleep in bed. When the couple weren't mandated to be elsewhere early in the morning, they often loved the freedom involved with staying up late. Had they refused Maurelle's offer, the two of them would only have been asleep for the better part of ninety minutes. "I don't wanna get up this early ever again."

"I share your pain." Although she'd been the first one out of bed, Nireva was now starting to feel the enormity of being awake in the middle of the night, coupled with having needed to go to bed so early. "You'll feel better once we have a shower. I know I probably will." With no light streaming in through the locked windows which periodically flanked them as their bare feet carried them forward and the lights all off, the gothic decor gave the slightly worrying impression that they'd suddenly walked onto the set of a Bela Lugosi-era horror movie. "'Course, we've gotta hope we're not actually dreaming and about to get jumped by Freddie..."

"Fuck you." With a grin as she countered her girlfriend's playful nudging with one of her own, Jenna eyed the somehow still mischievous Nireva as they approached a junction in the upstairs corridor. "You know I hate horror movies. If I'm gonna get a heart attack, I wanna get it much later on in my life like normal people." The conversation, as was often the case, dulled their awareness of their immediate surroundings; the small line of light spanning outward from a nearby bathroom door and a set of footsteps being the chief among them. "Seriously, one of these days, I'm gonna blindfold you and put you on a rollercoas-..."

Neither of them caught sight of the seemingly insomniac Helena as the trio rounded the same corner from opposite ends at the very same moment. Having somehow awoken before them and laid claim to the nearest bathroom for the purposes of showering, she - complete with pink dressing gown and a towel coiled around the space atop her head where her hair used to be - had been on her not-so-merry way back to her room when Jenna's chest had suddenly appeared in her path, casting her face-first into the younger woman's cleavage before the impact spilled her onto the floor.

"Watch where you're going, Boobs-For-Days!"

Grouchy griping it may have been, but Helena's mental state wasn't enough to stop Nireva from bursting into a mess of stifled giggles as she watched her step-mother accidentally motorboat her girlfriend. Felicia's wife she may have been, but there was a lot more to her relationship with Helena than marital circumstance. "Oh, I'm gonna have to make a note of that one," she remarked while Jenna, whose hands had quickly been hoisted up to start covering her chest again, shot her a pointed glare. "No way!" Slowly making her way around the temporarily grounded Helena, she rejoined her girlfriend at the opposite end of the bend in the house's layout. "Having Maurelle call me Tits McGee was more than enough, trust me."

"I bet she's just jealous," Nireva sighed with a small tilt of her head. Even without the upper half of her body on display, she couldn't really blame anyone for having a little breast envy. While their dress sizes and measurements were pretty much identical, the distribution of Jenna's body mass and the way it seemed to avoid her stomach gave her breasts an added boost. "I know I am. C'mon. Let's go find this bathroom. It can't be far." And, of course, it wasn't. By following the direction from which Helena had come, they managed to spot the slightly ajar bathroom door twenty metres from where they'd (literally) run into her, the lights still on presumably out of exhaustion-borne forgetfulness.

While the vast majority of the house was decked out in archaic furnishings, the bathroom was one place where Maurelle hadn't skimped on the modern comforts. With the shower cubicle more than large enough for two, even allowing one of them to sit down on a small recessed ledge, Nireva was able to make good on her half-hearted promise to her girlfriend and, after a moment to figure out how the appliance worked, the two of them were stripped and happily showering together. It was an intimate luxury which their apartment forbade them from enjoying but, with Maurelle's opulent wealth accomodating their desires quite nicely, they were going to make the most of it.

"Jen..?" By her reckoning, the event wasn't for another four and a half hours and, in order to allow the stylists enough time to arrive, get set up and turn the four of them into the leading cast of RWBY, she'd estimated that they could spend at least another hour in the shower if it took their fancy. Breakfast wasn't really a meal which took very long to get done, which left them both with a lot of wiggle room in more ways than one. They'd already snuck a few watery kisses into their cleaning routine and it was taking an awful lot of willpower from the both of them to leave the intimacy at that. "You, uh... wanna pass the strap-... shampoo over?"

With a small muttered curse amidst the rushing water as she spotted her mistake, it was finally Jenna's turn to burst out laughing. "Want me to pass the what over, Niri..?", she asked, getting the most out of the opportunity to tease the woman beside her.

"Pass me the strap-on, Jen," Nireva groaned, owning her own mistake with a roll of her eyes and a wry smile. The fact that the shampoo was contained within a rounded bottle really didn't seem to help matters. "How am I supposed to think straight when I've got Tits McGee here in the shower with me, anyway?" Upending the already opened bottle, she set about dispensing enough of the fruity-smelling liquid to adequately coat her long hair. "I'm under orders to behave myself and keep my lewdness in my head where it belongs and Maurelle invited you along with me. Y'know what this is?" The both of them needed a lot of shampoo whenever the time came to wash their hair. Thankfully, the viscous fluid tended to go a long way when used correctly. "Fucking entrapment, that's what."

"Yeah, yeah. Sure." Snatching the bottle from Nireva, Jenna took her own helping of the apple-scented shampoo and began to smother her hair with it. Before long, the formerly green substance was erupting into a stream of white bubbles, running out of their hair, down their already water-slicked bodies and into the drain by their feet. "Don't think I'm too tired to forget what you said, either." After sweeping the last of the bubbles away from her hairline, she shuffled up to her girlfriend and slid her way into an embrace. "You owe me cuddles, Missy."

"Right..."

~-~-~-~

By the time Nireva and Jenna were showered, dressed and had managed to work their way downstairs, Helena and Maurelle were already eating breakfast. The clock above the kitchen door revealed the time to be a little after ten-to-six in the morning; still far too early for the couple to think about waking up but cutting it pretty fine with regards to the day's events. Having grabbed a pair of identical dressing gowns from a laundry cupboard in the upstairs hall, the duo had both foregone wearing clothes beyond their underwear; a choice which, given what they would be undergoing, spoke of their desire for expedience.

"Ah, great! You're all here!" The unfamiliar voice belonged to a rugged and slightly-dishevelled looking man in his mid-twenties. His whole look seemed deliberate, screaming "west-coast hipster fashion" to all and sundry. But he was from bad-looking, so he had that going for him. "You two must be our Yang and Blake, right? I'm Mason." Mason Everett was, like the three companions who had accompanied him, a freelance theatre stylist based in California. He had numerous accolades and claims to fame to his name; more than enough to put him well above many of his peers when it came time to staffing a production.

He'd worked on movies, Broadway musicals, been asked to lend his considerable talents to productions on the London West End... but this? This struck him as odd. In any other circumstances, he would have flatly turned down the request, deeming it far from worth his time. Helping out with a few glorified cosplays far from his home base wasn't what he'd built his career on. Maurelle Lacroix, however, had levelled enough perks and money his way to twist his arm. She was a wealthy businesswoman and, from what he'd been told about the tightly-scheduled party, just about everyone who would be in attendance would be of equal measure to her.

She'd paid for his time and every conceivable travel expense for both him and the other three stylists the chartered jet had picked up along the way. Just seeing his fellow passengers was enough to tell him that Maurelle, whatever circle of business she happened to be in, definitely wasn't playing around. It helped that he already knew who and what RWBY were, making adherence to the reference sheets and briefing child's play. "That's right." In case it was still too early in the day for them to have been done, Nireva motioned her hand around the room, stopping at each of the women in the kitchen. "Presumably, you know who Maurelle is. This is Helena, my girlfriend Jenna... and I'm Niri."

"Great. Nice to finally meet you all in the same place at last." Grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl in the centre of the table, Mason rounded the room and leisurely made his way back towards the door through which he'd entered; after Helena, but before Nireva and Jenna. "Maurelle had a pre-recorded virtual tour on the flight over here, so getting set up wasn't too hard. Even if we did have to wake up early enough to get here by five. Anyway, we've got everything ready in the other room if you'd like to follow me?" With no comeback from Maurelle and only a moment's immobility from Helena, it didn't take long for the four women to make their way out into the hallway, shadowing Mason in single-file.

The "other room" in question was a large study-slash-library located at the far end of the ground floor. Having been granted permission to move the desks and other furniture in order to accomodate their equipment and everything else they'd need, the other stylists had busied themselves with partitioning the main body of the room into what were essentially quadrants. Flat-packed decorators tables had been erected in each, allowing the quartet to dole out their collection of styling implements equally between them and have a place to keep everything within easy reach of both themselves and their subjects.

But what caught the eyes of Jenna and Nireva most of all as they strode into the room behind Helena were the four dressing dummies. As well as each of them being fixed upon one of a quartet of fittingly-coloured wooden bases - red, black, white and yellow - the dummies had each been adorned with an impeccably tailored and show-accurate costume. A long-sleeved jet black dress with a crimson petticoat for Ruby, a brown midriff-showing bodice top with short puffballed sleeves for Yang, a silvery-white strapless corset dress with separate sleeves for Weiss and the mixture of body-hugging clothes and a low-slung halterneck waistcoat for Blake. All of the extra adornments, props and accessories were present and correct also, albeit located safely away from the rest of the chaos until they would be required.

"Now..!" Mason sighed, clasping his hands together as he strode into the centre of the styling set-up. "I thought I should tell the rest of you this, in case our gracious hostess has cunningly kept the particulars a surprise." A smirk popped onto his face as, encticed by finally seeing what they'd be wearing, Helena, Jenna and Nireva slowly made their way over to their respective dummies to get a look at the craftsmanship. "For this, uh... RWBY party that you're gonna be attending, Maurelle wants the four of us to transform the four of you into the RWBY team; from head to toe, no stone unturned and whatever other metaphors for thorough work you can think of."

Mason strode over to the table which had been erected in "the Yang Corner" and, after rummaging around in the packaging which housed all of the accoutrements which hadn't been draped onto the dummy, produced what looked like a tight-fitting and bright yellow set of bikini bottoms, one side of which had been partially shrouded in what appeared to be writhing black flames in much the same way as the bright yellow bandeau which served as Yang's bra of choice. "Which is why she asked that sets of themed underwear like this be made along with the costumes. Each of you are gonna be wearing them underneath your costumes - and, don't worry, they got your measurements in that deparment there, too - by the time we're done. So, as potentially lawsuit-creating as this may sound, you will all have to start by stripping naked. To, uh... give us a blank canvas, so to speak."

"Wait, what?" Even Jenna was a little surprised at the request; one which had succeeded in making Mason blush ever so slightly. Nevertheless, the quartet eventually acquiesced to the demand. Having fully expected the requirement due to having devised it, Maurelle was the first to ditch whatever clothing she'd managed to dress in before eating breakfast. "Oh, whatever. When in Rome, right?" Jenna was next, throwing off her dressing gown and hoisting her panties down with an uncharacteristic caution. Once she had taken the plunge, it wasn't long before Nireva did the same. Stripping, like many other things, weren't even close to unfamiliar to a four-hundred and fifty-ish year old immortal and, within moments, she was handing over her gown and underwear to the nearest stylist with a pair of free hands.

Surprising nobody in the least, Helena was last in line to obey. Nobody was spared her icy glare of annoyance as she eventually relented and began to strip out of her pink dressing gown. Before long, the four of them were standing in the middle of the rearranged library, completely naked and ready for their respective transformations to begin in earnest. It wasn't long before their gazes started to wander, whether out of curiosity (Jenna's breasts really were the biggest! Who knew?) or simple impatience. "Great! Now, if you'd all like to stand in your areas, we can get started. I'm pretty sure you all know which outfit's which by now, but your characters' initials all match up with the colour; red for Ruby and so on."

With all four of them having either seen the show, researched it beforehand or simply seen pictures on the internet, the costumed characters-to-be were standing in the right places within seconds and, as they approached the dummies situated in each, a member of Mason's team was there to meet them, politely guiding them into the perfect spot while they dealt with the quiet introductions. Mason, not wanting to impose himself on anyone, decided to stick with Maurelle. They'd been in contact on the phone before during the lengthy set-up process for the event, meaning they were at least familiar with one another.

~-~-~-~

Maurelle

SPOILER: Click to show

"So, you've... already got your own Crescent Rose scythe?" With the central theme of the party - and reason for organising it - being RWBY, Maurelle had expressed the lack of requirement for the people she'd commissioned to make all of the costumes and props to bother making the collapsible scythe wielded by the protagonist. While an unwieldy weapon for the purposes of personal defence, her fully working version of Ruby's weapon - which she'd playfully dubbed the Widowmaker - hadn't seen much use beyond as a display piece after mercenaries had attempted to lay siege to one of her office buildings down in Texas.

In hindsight, things hadn't panned out all that badly. Ryan had been with her at the time, which had made dispatching the strike team deposited onto the roof all the more a simplistic affair. "Of course," came the short, business-like response. With Mason taking it upon himself to deal with the make-up and dressing of his employer, the two of them had developed something of a rapport during their brief time in each other's company. Like his colleagues, he'd started by getting the facial make-up out of the way and allowing it to fully set before worrying about the more complex components of the ensemble.

As a result, Maurelle's responses were kept very short or, preferably, non-verbal. The less she moved her face and lips, the better. Like Jenna, the crime boss had opted to wear the ash coloured contact lenses to transform her eyes along with the rest of her but, unlike Nireva's girlfriend, she made rather less fuss about the act of putting them in. To her, it was almost trivial, like administering eye drops and, after a few blinks of her eyes, they had shifted into the correct position, ready to complement the subtle eyeliner treatment Mason was currently giving her. Like David had done with Jenna, Mason had also added a subtle blush to Maurelle's cheeks before setting the accumulated layers of facial cosmetics.

"I dread how much it cost you to make, especially if you made the whole thing collapsible too," Mason mused as he turned his attention back to the table. Compared to Nireva and Jenna's costumes, there simply wasn't as much in the way of complexity to the outfit Maurelle had chosen to wear. Ruby's wig - as well as her actual hair - were both noticeably shorter than the others while, including the stockings and dark gray belt-slash-bandolier, the entirety of the costume comprised of only half a dozen components, with the jet black blouse and skirt having been combined into a single long-sleeved dress in order to save time.

Like her companions, Maurelle had been "issued" a set of Ruby Rose-themed underwear which would match the rest of her outfit. With a bright crimson lace trim sewn onto the edges of the black fabric, the bra and panties were otherwise non-descript and rather ordinary; an easy thing for her to put on. "Looks like you and Helena're gonna get dressed and done a lot quicker than your friends. Where'd you find 'em, anyway?" Mason, while keeping in touch with his sense of propriety, also liked to keep things not-entirely-formal in order to help put both himself and his subjects at ease.

Mason handed over the bundle of clothes - the dress, belt, cloak, stockings, a small bag filled with the silver rose-shaped brooch and a handful of replica .50-caliber sniper rifle rounds and a pair of boots - to Maurelle, leaving her to get dressed while he went to fetch the wig and a nylon mesh cap for her hair. "Through Helena, funnily enough." Making her way over to the table, she began to get herself dressed, starting with the stockings. "Niri - who I think will make quite the convincing Blake today - is her step-daughter. Through marriage, of course. She and her girlfriend Jenna both live in California; Los Angeles, if I'm not mistaken."

"Guess it's lucky they're both into cosplay." With the stockings on, Maurelle slipped herself into the dress, though not before slipping her nylon-coated legs through the centre of a thick petticoat made from garish crimson material. With the petticoat in place, the dress' skirt fell onto it as opposed to simply being dragged down by gravity and appeared to billow outwards more than it otherwise would. After clipping the brooch to one side of the belt and slotting the bullets into the small, yet just wide enough bandolier hoops, she slung the whole thing around her waist and, after a few seconds, managed to find the fastening mechanism.

After that, all she needed to do in order to complete her transformation was to shove her feet into the boots and hide her captured hair underneath the short wig of black hair. She would fetch her own Crescent Rose before the guests arrived. "Thank you very much, Mason," she sighed with a smile. There may not have been a mirror in sight, but the man's reputation preceded him. "Excellent work, I'm sure."

~-~-~-~

Helena

SPOILER: Click to show

Helena's mood hadn't really improved all that much after running into Jenna on her way out of the bathroom earlier that morning. Even now, after eating breakfast and seeing the costumes she and her companions would be wearing, she was still levelling her grouchy, acrid glare at the young stylist who had unknowingly drawn the short straw. "How are those contacts? They feeling okay?" The fact that she technically had the same name as the woman she'd dubbed Boobs-For-Days - albeit Jennifer rather than Jenna - really didn't help matters all that much.

Nor had the fact she'd been commanded to strip naked as part of this whole dress-up ritual. "Yeah." Still blunt as ever, Helena sounded pretty weary as she blinked her eyes a few times, just making sure that the false irises - tinted in an icy pale blue colour - were lining up with her real ones. "They're fine." Were she to be asked, fine would likely be the way she'd describe the underwear she'd been given. Rather than be white or silvery-blue like the rest of the costume she'd already seen, the themed underwear the tailors had sent intended for Weiss had been black, with the midpoint of the bra arching upward in a widening fashion in order to help create the small black hemisphere visible between the cups of her strapless dress.

Like with certain elements of just about everyone else's costumes, the tailors had employed little tricks here and there in order to get the garments as close to screen-accurate as possible while also keeping them practical and easy to wear; no easy task given the habits of many character designers. But, with her new underwear on and her make-up just about finished, Jennifer could finally move on to her favourite part of the process: getting the model dressed up in the clothes.

"You're gonna look incredible once everything's on," she chirped, doing her best to lift Helena's spirits as she gathered up the clothes from the dummy. Sure, Weiss may have been teasingly referred to as the Ice Queen in the show, but that was no reason for her to share her character's disposition. "Apparently, Weiss is the favourite team member for a lot of people." Sure, she might have been a Yang girl herself, but Helena didn't need to know that.

Unlike Maurelle and Nireva, Helena had no stockings to wear. Instead, her zip-up wedge boots would be shielded from her feet with a normal pair of socks and, rather than have her rush upstairs and grab some of her own, the tailors had thrown in a couple of pairs for Helena to use. With nothing needing to rise up from her feet in order to wear beyond a small petticoat, the strapless thigh-length dress complete with an elaborate lace trim was next. With just about all of Weiss' clothes, the colour scheme was the same. Starting out white, the dying had been skilfully done in stages in order to allow the sleeves and skirt to slowly gradiate towards an icy silver-blue colour.

Around her waist, sat a belt made from sturdy white cloth, to the back of which a small bag reminiscent of a clutch purse had been clipped. There was nothing special about it beyond that and, within moments, Helena had moved onto the high-collared bolero jacket. Complete with a red inner lining and the large snowflake which comprised the Schnee family crest emblazoned on the back. After putting on the clip-on earrings and a silver necklace before trapping her blonde hair beneath a wig cap, Jennifer handed her the large wig she'd be wearing. Unlike the wigs for the other characters, Weiss' was rather more problematic.

As well as ponytails being infuriating at the best of times due to the hair making the wigs back-heavy, Weiss' ponytail was also located off-centre, bunched up at the right-hand side of the rear hemisphere of her skull. It was at least three attempts before Helena managed to get the wig to stay on and, even then, she'd needed Jennifer's help and a couple of wig clips gripping between the cap and the wig's underside in order to force it to comply with their wishes. "It may not be sharp but, uh... you can still give people a poke in the leg with this if they piss you off." Painted from tip to pommel in silver and with its handguard enshrouding what appeared to be the chamber from a revolver, the Myrtenaster rapier was Weiss' weapon of choice and, therefore, the object which would never be too far from Helena's hand for the next few hours. What Helena herself would make of this development, however, was something only she'd know.

"Thanks," she said, making an effort to give the stylist a polite smile as she took the prop sword from her.

~-~-~-~

Nireva

SPOILER: Click to show

"Oookay." The last of the four stylists to be invited along, Melissa Kim was a Korean-American woman who had taken a passion for cosplaying - and often being the go-to girl for help with make-up among her friends - and turned it into a professional enterprise. While she had nowhere near the amount of star power Mason did, she had become quite well known in her particular niche. Whenever big companies had models at their trade shows, dressing up as characters to advertise a new video game or an anime, they called in the services of people like her. Where Mason had Broadway shows under his belt, she had multiple years at E3, GamesCom and even the Tokyo GameShow under hers. "First things first: you a fan of contact lenses?"

With each of the four characters in the RWBY team having oddly-coloured eyes, ranging from Blake's feline-inspired amber to Ruby's ashen silver, the stylists had thought to cover each and every one of the bases. Non-medical contact lenses were a popular method by which cosplayers capped off the make-up, wig and other accessories adorning them above the neck. But, of course, wearing them was definitely an acquired taste. Some people simply didn't enjoy pinning their eyelids open and willingly prodding a wafer-thin piece of plastic against their eyeball. "Ugh... not really." Nireva was definitely content that her eyesight hadn't seen fit to fail her in four and a half centuries.

"Ah, it's okay." A quiet snapping noise accompanied the tiny case which harboured the contact lenses being shut. "I kinda doubt anyone here'll wear 'em, but we thought it'd be best to have them around, just in case. Besides, if there's any kind of professional photography going on, they can just Photoshop your irises afterwards." With the first inquiry out of the way, Melissa could then move onto the fun part: actually turning Nireva into Blake. "Anyway, enough about your eyes." Picking up the set of themed underwear from the table in one hand and a small make-up palette in the other, she finally made her way over to Nireva. "Put these on, then I'll make a start on that nice face of yours."

In an unusual contrast to her name, the set of underwear that had been made for Blake in conjunction with her screen-accurate costume was a pale silver, giving the impression that some of the underclothes and accessories had been mixed up with those intended for Weiss. But, as Nireva shot a momentary glance towards the dressing dummy where the rest of her costume sat, she quickly saw the reason for the oddity. Beneath her stockings and midriff-focused top, were another layer of white clothes; a sleeveless crop-top and what appeared to be some form of short leggings; perhaps a disguise for whatever garter belt was keeping the stockings in place. Having dark underwear on beneath them would have rendered them distractingly visible.

After slipping the panties up her legs, Nireva tried her best to keep her head level as she began to put on the bra. "That's it, try your best to hold your head still for me." Melissa placed a finger against the underside of her model's chin as she set about applying the first layer of make-up. Deciding to wait with the intricate stuff until she was certain that Nireva wouldn't be moving, she had elected to start with blending BB cream into her nose, forehead and cheekbones to help smooth out her skintone. "Now, 'cause you've got black hair..." Melissa's voice eventually piped up again as she brought the make-up palette to bear on the immortal before her. Next on the agenda was the facial contouring; not so much altering her features as showing them off with subtly-tinted bronzers and the like. "...you've actually got a choice to make."

The mention of her hair caused Nireva's eyes to wander. Sure enough, at the end of the table, balanced atop a polystyrene head which had had a set of yellow eyes drawn on with a Sharpie, was a wig of long, black hair. The only things which marked the specially crafted Blake Belladonna wig out from Nireva's actual hair were what had been added to the top. Sewn in amidst the hair were a set of black-and-gray cat ears; the extraneous appendages which marked Blake out as a faunus; a humanoid race possessing a single outward physical trait from an animal. Sitting beside the large wig was a black headband, generously sized in order to fit the wearer's head plus the wig for which it was intended. Atop the headband, sat a black bow which had been situated over a hollow wire armature to both give it its shape and allow it to slide over the ears, concealing them just as Blake did. "You can either wear the wig, which'd involve a lot less work..." Having finished the facial contouring, Melissa had returned her attention to Nireva's eyes, closely following the close-up picture of Blake's face as she daubed violet eyeshadow onto them. "...or I can style your hair to match it. Though you wouldn't have any cat ears. We don't have any on a headband, so you'd just have to wear the bow and never take it off."

The prospect of inaccuracy was enough to slightly irk Nireva. Having got into cosplaying relatively recently, she prided herself on getting her outfits as close to the "real" thing as possible. She may not have seen RWBY beyond the screening at Comic-Con with Helena and Jenna, but she knew enough that a faunus without their relevant animal appendage simply wouldn't have been as good as one which included them. "I'll wear the wig."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Might need two wig caps to help pack my hair down, but it's doable." Nireva shrugged her shoulders. It was a shame to waste so much of Melissa's work by leaving the wig unworn. Unlike her, however, the rest of the group largely had no choice in the matter. Not a single one of them had a head of hair which matched that of their chosen character. The caps Nireva had asked for looked like misshapen stockings; tubes of nylon which, once stretched over her head, would pin down her real hair and help to hide it when the wig was placed onto her head. Having long hair made gathering it all up above her neck a lengthy process but, with Melissa on hand to catch any stray hairs which had escaped her clutches, she managed to use the pair of wig caps to flatten her hair down.

With Melissa's assistance, Nireva then lowered the large wig onto her head. For all the layers and extra sewing which had been done in order to make the wig look like Blake's hair and include her ears, the wig itself wasn't that much heavier than the others she'd worn before. "Here, try this on." After another trip to the table, Melissa returned with the enlarged headband which carried the black fabric bow Nireva's character perpetually wore. "It's gonna take you a few attempts to make it sit right, but the bow's actually hollow. The, uh... the sides of the bow will slip on over your faunus ears. I left a extra piece of soft material on the bottom of each of them so you should be able to feel roughly where they're sitting."

"Uh-huh." Although the Alice band on which the bow was sitting did help her put it on, its assistance only lasted up to a certain point and, to actually get the bow to sit over Blake's faunus ears, Nireva had to fiddle around for a couple of moments until she located the edge of one of the ears. From there, it was a case of lining up the rest of the headband. Thankfully, Melissa had been proficient enough to sew the ears to the wig with a degree of symmetry. The sound of a sharply opening zipper signalled the next piece of the elaborate puzzle. "Now it's time for your first layer!"

The white sleeveless top fell down to a point just above Nireva's navel and, as Melissa had soon proved, had been furnished with a zipper on the back which opened the whole garment out into a single flat piece of material rather than exist as a pull-on shirt. The shorts were white until the midpoint of the thigh, where they quickly gradiated to black. Another tradeoff away from accuracy in favour of expedience. Just as Nireva had silently surmised, the shorts had an integrated garter belt, with the set of clips up near the trim of the garment only just visible at a distance, made as they were from clear plastic. "The pants look weird, but once you've got the stockings on, no-one'll see it."

Splitting the duty between them, Nireva slipped the shorts on over her underwear while Melissa held the shirt out for her to eventually slip her arms through before scurrying around and zipping the whole thing up behind her. As each piece of clothing went on, the process soon started to speed up, with the remaining tasks getting easier and easier as they went along. The separate sleeves, much like the ones Helena was wearing as part of her Weiss costume, were more akin to a set of decorative pieces, with the fabric cleanly tattered and full of holes around the wrists. One stretched as far as her upper arm like an opera glove, while the other made it as far as the end of her forearm, requiring the tattered motif and not much else. "The long glove goes on your left arm, short one on the right," Melissa chirped, quickly relaying the correct way to wear them before rushing back to the table.

The black darted waistcoat/jacket sat around her stomach, subtly rubbered on the inside near the upper trim in order to give it some extra sticking power in much the same manner as some strapless bras. Despite this, a set of thin shoulder straps ran up and over her arms before meeting the garment again at the back, where a silver backplate made from what looked like painted thermoplastic had been attached. Above, the ensemble was coupled with a slender hoop scarf which sat around her neck while, atop the sheer black stockings which gradiated out into a shimmering shade of purple at the bottom, Nireva had been given a set of ankle-length, chunky-heeled boots which, mercifully, were also the right size.

"Okay, now you're looking great." With the transformation complete as far as the clothing was concerned, Melissa had only one task left before she could let Nireva show herself off to her companions. "Got one more thing for you, though! Hold still." Amongst all of the equipment and other supplies she'd brought along with her, was a dark gray rectangular box, measuring just under four feet long. At one end - something which Nireva could more clearly see as Melissa picked the whole thing up - she could see that there was a rectangular hole in the main body of the box and, at the point where the box seemed to end, she saw a slender handle which looked like a cross between a sword hilt and the grip of a handgun.

It was only when Melissa placed the whole thing against the backplate on her top with a tiny muffled thunk that Nireva realised that the handle was, in fact, both. Blake's weapon was a katana with both an adjustable blade and the mechanism for a working handgun mounted in the handguard and hilt, with the magazine inserted where the pommel would normally be. The scabbard, in addition to having its own carrying handle for when the sword was elsewhere, had its own cutting edge on the bottom end. "Can't have a Blake without her Gambol Shroud now, can we?"

"Nope," came the response. The grin was something she'd have to work on hiding once the guests arrived. Blake wasn't known for smiling. "I guess not."

~-~-~-~

Jenna

SPOILER: Click to show

"Nyyrrr...!" The awkward groaning rose from Jenna's throat as she quickly started to regret her decision. "Fuck, that feels so weird..." It was only now that she realised the precise reason for her girlfriend's aversion to contact lenses. Unlike Nireva, she had decided to try on the lenses which had been delivered to Maurelle's house as part of the question she'd be wearing for the event. Crafted to offer no vision correction whatsoever in order to be used for costumes, the lenses were vibrant enough to turn the wearer's irises a bright shade of lilac.

"You'll get used to 'em soon, trust me." David Yarrow, like Mason, was a theatrical make-up artist by trade. While not as experienced and well-travelled as his elder colleague, David had spent a few years working in smaller productions and had been known as something of a styling prodigy. Both attending the event at Maurelle's behest and learning that he was going to be working alongside Mason were among the chief reasons why he'd taken up the offer. As an added bonus, his responsibilities stretched only as far as transforming the woman standing before him. Having walked her through the method by which contact lenses were applied, he'd stood by to watch her closely, ready to help if things went wrong. "And, once I'm done with the rest of your make-up, you'll look just like Yang. It's best if you don't think about the contacts while they're in but, if your eyes start feeling itchy or sore, make sure you tell me and we'll get them out."

"Okay." Jenna's eyes rapidly blinked, her hand moving away from her right eye. With both of the lenses in, all that remained was to shift them into the right spot. As the false iris aligned with her real one, her vision quickly cleared and, before long, the compulsion to keep batting an eyelid went away. "What's next on the list, Dave?"

"It's gonna be your make-up next." Just as he presumed his colleagues had done, he'd brought enough supplies with him to create the perfect Yang look, having referred to a picture he'd been sent of the character he'd be creating and the model he'd be working on. He'd thought of just about every eventuality that sprang to mind - skin conditions, allergies and the like - and, as he grabbed a small bundle of creams and powders from the table, he rattled off the rest of the list. "The trick is putting each part of the costume in place without disturbing the one before. So, once your make-up's set, we'll get you dressed up in the clothes and put the wig on last. Speaking of which, are you able to put on your underwear without movin' your head?"

"I think so, yeah." It would have been a lot easier to accomplish the challenge with a mirror for her to look into, but not impossible otherwise. The response caused David to stop in his tracks and return to the table. With his make-up supplies in one hand, he grabbed the themed underwear for the Yang costume - the pair of bright yellow bikini bottoms that Mason had shown off earlier and a matching bandeau with a prominent black symbol in the shape of a burning heart on the front - and handed them over to his model. "Great. What I want you to do is keep your head as still as possible while I do your make-up. It shouldn't take me very long, but feel free to wait with the underwear if it gets a little too fiddly."

"Fair enough!" Deciding to seize the opportunity before David could get started with the make-up, Jenna quickly fed her legs through the bikini bottoms one by one and slid the slender piece of underwear up onto her hips. With the risk of falling over now abated, she levelled out her head and kept it still, allowing David to work while she used her peripheral vision and sense of touch in order to make sense of the bandeau top she'd been given. Part bra, part crop-top, it was an easy way of combining the two functions into one garment and, in this case, speeding up the dressing process.

Rather than a set of hooks and eyes as many bras possessed, the bandeau had instead been fitted with a camouflaged zipper. Arching her back and pushing her breasts forward might not have been the most helpful way to get the unzipped bandeau around her chest but, by keeping her movements slow, both Jenna and David were able to complete their respective tasks. "Looks like they snuck in some padding." Although subtle, David's proximity to Jenna's body allowed him to spot the convex padding the tailors had sewn into the layers of yellow material. Presumably, no mention had been made of Jenna's cup size and, with only the circumference of her chest to go on, the people who had been comissioned to make the high-quality costumes had elected to cover all their bases.

As he gently drew the highlights under Jenna's eyelids in preparation for the eyeshadow and mascara above, his eyes didn't have to wander very far to see how much the addition of the bandeau was making Jenna's breasts bulge. Imagining her naked wasn't on his mind. Instead, David was imagining how they would look once the tan-coloured midriff-revealing top was on. With it being tight around the lower ribs, it would likely act like a push-up bra as the rest of her chest effectively sat atop the tighter fabric. As a result, he surmised that her chest would assume the illusion of looking almost a full cup size larger than it really was. "You think?" Jenna was tempted to glance down and look for herself, but with an eyeliner pencil so close to her skin, the shifting of her neck would have caused the vaguely blunt tip to spear her eye.

"Not that you need it. Then again, I guess they wanted to make sure you looked as busty as Yang does in these clothes." After tending to her eyes, adding a very slight blush to her cheeks and flattening out the imperfections on her skin, David then led the half-naked Jenna over towards the dressing dummy and, after gently taking the short-sleeved top off it, handed her the rest of Yang's clothes, one by one. "Anyway, clothes next." The collar of the top tapered out so early on Yang's shirt that, once worn, it almost looked as though the garment had a deliberate cutaway starting just beneath the breasts. The puffball-like short sleeves quickly gathered inward near the elbow and terminated in a set of jet black cuffs, each adorned with a pair of buttons which, due to their non-functioning nature, had been represented by a set of brass press-studs.

In addition to the striking shirt, David handed over an orange infinity scarf which looked similar to the one Nireva would be wearing as part of her Blake costume only baggier, a large pouch-ridden belt with an extra strip of leather dangling at one side emblazoned with the same "burning heart" emblem as her bandeau, a pair of slightly pleated black hot pants with a white back skirt sewn onto the hem, a pair of orange socks, some fingerless black gloves, a small gray bandana and a set of brown zip-up platform boots. "Right, I remembered the order for all this, as it got a little complicated from the waist down." David sighed, dropping the last of the outfit into Jenna's waiting arms. "The shirt's first, obviously. Then, it goes: shorts, belt, socks, then tie the bandana around your, uh... left leg - just below the knee - before putting on the boots. I'd leave the gloves until dead last, 'cause otherwise, you won't have as good a grip on everything with them on."

"Uh-huh. Got it." Pulling the shirt on over her head, Jenna started to recite the order in her head like a mantra as she started to get dressed. The order David had dictated was quite a logical one, allowing for each cluster of clothing to sit correctly and be layered properly as the wearer got dressed. As she put each piece of clothing on, she became increasingly impressed that whoever had made the costume had got her measurements exactly right. Nothing felt tighter than it should or felt like it would slip down at any moment and, as she leaned against the table to put on the boots, she watched as David pulled the gargantuan blonde wig off its polystyrene head. Everything had been gelled and sprayed to create just the right amount of messy curls, wayward fronds and the rebellious little cowlick rising up from the crown of the skull.

After pointing out the wig caps he'd brought along, Jenna grabbed a bundle of them and, like her girlfriend, ended up needing to use two of them to capture all of her dark hair before David moved in and plonked the large wig down onto her head, twisting it one way and the other until he felt the two small tabs sitting just in front of Jenna's ears; the easiest way of telling when a wig was on straight. "There we go. Your, uh... Ember, uh... shit. I forgot." Yang's weapons of choice partly shared their name with a car. But, in the midst of rushing around to get to Maurelle's place on time, the correct name had slipped his mind. "Your shotgun gloves are just over there. All you've gotta do is slip them on like bracelets. Easy!"

And by the time the top of the next hour rolled around - seven o'clock in the morning, to the dismay of at least one member of the group - the four women who had been standing naked in the library...

Maurelle...

...Helena...

...Nireva...

...and Jenna...

...had simply vanished, now shrouded beneath the skilful handiwork of some unknown tailors and Mason's team of stylists in order to create a stunning replica of the eponymous Team RWBY.

[Maurelle Lacroix]

Why don't you ever try?
Certainity is within your gasp.
I'll be waiting for you until the break of dawn.

The ordeal was far from the most pleasant thing she ever had been through in her life but it was far from the most distressing. After all, she had been the one who had given the stylist team to take whatever measures necessary to properly replicate the characters from the show from the collected women. So while stripping down and having to coordinate her undergarments was far from what she had desired to do, she had followed along accordingly and the first to do so. If she wasn't willing to play along with the stylists, then the other three sure were not going to follow suit, Helena especially.

Her outfit was rather simple, comparatively at least to Jen's and Niri's, though it was rather fit and snug in all the right places. That the dress was accentuated by a corset that tightened in her waist and supported her bust certainly augmented such feelings, as well as the layers of petticoats. However she was aware of such necessity, with RWBY being notorious within the anime community of being the most panty-shot proof anime known to man. At least she was not burdened with heels as part of her outfit like Niri and Helena had been, to that she was glad for Ruby's goth boots.

Helena maintained an icy glare for everyone, one that likely would have sent a few lives through the River Styx if looks could kill. Fortunately for the stylists and Maurelle, Helena was not gifted with such an ability, although she could have just as easily given any of those in the room a blood clot. That would have been terribly unprofessional of her though and would have necessitated a cover up, though Maurelle would have not have had any trouble in that regard.

On the plus side, she did have a replica... saber? It was a sword of some kind and it felt like a saber, perhaps it was more of a rapier, her knowledge of swords was not extensive though she was certain that it was a type of fencing weapon. The show had not exactly gone out of its way to clarify what sort of sword it was either, perhaps if she had looked at the wiki she would have know. Yet the wiki was a dangerous place full of spoilers and theorycrafting, the latter of which she would lose herself in if she so much as gave her three minutes to indulge.

"Come now ladies, team RWBY need depart the dormitories if they are not to be late for their very important appointment!" Maurelle said a bit giddy and gestured for the other three to follow her, as the door was held open for them to leave the residence and indeed into the limousine that was to be their transportation once more. "It shouldn't be long now, just a half hour if traffic is good and that should give us a half an hour to settle in before guests start arriving. Everyone exciting?"

"Absolutely rearing to go." Helena said, her voice oozing with sarcasm and a look that made Maurelle punch her shoulder. Helena rolled her eyes and leaned back into the leather seating, trying to make herself comfortable and not flash everyone her own undergarments. What the bloody hell was a combat skirt anyways?!

[Nireva Hale]

I've got the sense of speed! She knows what I would need!
The fastest hardware on this earth! We're hunters on the road!
We leave a blood-red rose! We're wreaking havoc in our mirth!

______________________________Kazuhiro Nishimatsu - Bloodbath Highway

With their collective work complete, the stylists were left to pack up their belongings while the quartet of costumed guests of honour were finally able to admire the new aesthetics of their peers. Predictably, Jenna had quickly gravitated towards her girlfriend, the contrast between the gleeful, bubbly Yang and the broody Blake a rather stark one before anyone had even thought to adopt the mannerisms of their characters. "You see?!", she chirped, grinning. Caught up in the fun of it all, Jenna didn't really need much else in order to become Yang. "I told/i] you you'd make an awesome Blake!"

"Yeah, I guess I do." Reaching a hand behind her, it took a couple of attempts to slide the two sets of magnets apart and retrieve the prop weapon she'd been given. While it was likely that the Gambol Shroud would remain stuck to her back for the majority of the party itself, Nireva realised that, were she to sit down, there was the distinct possibility that the meticulously-made set of props would come to some sort of accidental harm; definitely not something she could allow if she could help it. With the party apparently being located elsewhere, she quickly surmised that another automotive journey was in order; one which, if Maurelle's habits were anything to go by, would likely be as luxurious as the trips which had got them all to this point.

"But, from the looks of things..." With a smirk, Nireva gave Jenna's chest a brief prod. With how the underwear and clothing had been tailored, her girlfriend's Yang outfit had given her chest a noticeable push upward; nothing something she really needed, but something the tailors had done just in case. "...I think you're not the only one who's getting something great outta this. We've gotta get some pictures of us later on." The four of them looked just as good as, if not a little better than, the RWBY models they'd seen at San Diego Comic-Con three years ago. Some pictures to commemorate the occasion - or more to prove that Nireva's stepmother had indeed gone along with the whole scheme - would have been the icing on an already appealing cake.

"Come now, ladies!" Even Maurelle was giving in to the fun, sounding rather more giddy than her businesslike demeanour would have had people otherwise believe. Her black-and-red skirt, which looked about as gothic as the exterior of the house she was stood in, fluttered with her every move as she gestured towards the door. "Team RWBY need to depart the dormitories if they are not to be late for their very important appointment!" Sure enough, as the four of them strode out into the gradually brightening daylight, the limousine which had ferried them there from the airport was waiting.

"It shouldn't be long now." Having spotted them as they emerged, the driver had already pressed the corresponding button on the dashboard. In order to protect him and his clothes in case it was raining - and to add yet more convenience to a vehicle built for little else - the limo had been fitted with a hydraulic override for the rear doors. Although it could only be activated when the vehicle was stationary, it allowed him to open either or both of the passenger-specific doors. "Just a half-hour if traffic's good. And that should give us half an hour to settle in before guests start arriving. Everyone excited?"

"Absolutely raring to go." Helena's sigh was dripping with sarcasm as she clambered her way into the limousine, flashing her host an infuriated look and earning herself a swift punch to the shoulder for the trouble. Silenced for the moment, she sat herself down and did her best to have her "combat skirt" conceal her modesty. "Helena, I think I'm meant to be the broody one." Nireva was next to board the limousine. While Weiss was sometimes dubbed the Ice Queen in the show, her persona was more the aloof mannerisms of a wealthy heiress than actual grumpy distance. As far as she knew, that was Blake's job. Sitting down on the seats opposite - precisely where she'd been the day before - she waited for Jenna to sit herself down with her prop weapon safely sitting in her lap.

With the quartet assembled once more - and Jenna having pulled the door closed behind her - the driver took his cue and set the limousine in motion. Like Maurelle, he knew precisely where to go and where his passengers were needed next. All he had to do in order to get paid was drive and make sure nothing untoward happened. The party venue was an expensive-looking condo on the outskirts of town; a modern-looking single floor affair that wouldn't have looked out of place overlooking a California beach. Here, however, it sat atop a hill and overlooked an expanse of mostly flat and empty land. It was the sort of reclusive hideaway that a wealthy CEO type would have called home after a hard day's work.

Maybe that was who the party was for, Nireva thought to herself. Like many things about today, Maurelle had been infuriatingly light on the details. While things had mostly turned out well for her and Jenna - such as getting the opportunity to become Yang and Blake for the day - there were things she wished would have been different. Nobody should have to have been forced to get up at four in the morning. Four in the morning was more the time when party animals fell asleep, at least according to her girlfriend. Even to her, it was an impractical time for a person to wake; a time which would have spelled disaster to one's sleeping pattern.

Disembarking the limousine at the front of the condo and allowing the driver to find somewhere to park once they were all clear, Nireva and Jenna were the first to the door. Knowing that Maurelle and her costumed entourage were scheduled to arrive first, the owners - whoever they might have been - had left a spare key in a secret location which, given how speedily Maurelle found it and let herself in, they had relayed to her in secret days before. Inside, the modern dwelling had been fully prepared in anticipation of both their arrival and the arrival of the guests to come. According to the numerous post-it notes dotted around the rooms, the food and drinks had been sequestered away in a larger "second fridge" located in the laundry room at the rear. The open-plan living room which also incorporated a full kitchen and dining area, more than large enough to accomodate more than two dozen people, had been set out with a single purpose in mind: to watch however many episodes of RWBY the organisers had planned.

"Niri! Come look at this!" Her interest piqued by the numerous notes, Jenna had set off exploring and, having located the supply of food intended for the guests, had called out for her girlfriend. In amongst the mountain of expensive finger food and chilled cases of generic beer, they were able to see a series of small-scale watercooler bottles, capped off at one end in preparation for eventual installation. In each, according to the labels, the organisers had dreamt up a quartet of themed cocktails for the event and, at presumably tremendous expense, had mixed batches of each of them in bulk.

Despite the labels only showing a themed name for the beverage and a list of the ingredients, it was clear from their colour that each of them corresponded to a member of the titular team. The Shotgun Slammer had centered mostly around orange-flavoured ingredients and resulted in around a gallon of a garish yellow fluid. Even a cursory examination of the contents by the couple and their relative inexperience with alcoholic mixing was enough to tell them that a few glasses of any of them would be enough to knock a lightweight flat. Presumably, that was why the organisers had bought in a larger quantity of beer. "That's a lot of booze for nine in the morning," Nireva sighed. She wasn't one to shy away from a drink but, like many things, right now was simply too early. "We'd better not have to carry these people outta here."