Varying degrees of eagerness

"Can you believe that they expect us students to get onstage at some seedy club and strip naked for cash!?" Yang burst out to the rest of the Beacon girls as they filed out into the hallway. She did not look or sound the least bit offended at the thought, and indeed her eyes and voice shown with delight at the prospect.

"I know, right?" Blake asked back, a wicked grin spreading irrepressibly across her face, "I think this premise would beggar belief in even my sleaziest porn stories. And I read a LOT of very sleazy porn."

"Well, it's a good thing my singing career has prepared me for presenting myself on a pedestal to a horde of barely contained men all licking my body with their eyes," Weiss huffed, the smirk tugging on her lips completely betraying her attempt at pretend-indignation, "I don't know how well my sister will hold up though."

"Um, s-shouldn't you girls be less cavalier about this?" Pyrrha questioned, seemingly the only member of the group that wasn't excited by the prospect, "I mean, exposing yourself to a crowd in that kind of setting can't be taken back."

"Are you kidding!?" Coco crowed, "I've been working up to this kind of thing for years! Letting Velvet post nude pics of me online and undressing while Fox is in the room doesn't cut it anymore, I'm gonna bare it all where people can appreciate the sight up close and personal!" She exclaimed with relish.

Ruby gave a small smile, "I'm hoping that one of the clubs is for lesbians, or at least has a lesbian night. With a crowd of girls, you might be able to halfway imagine you're just goofing around in the girls' changing room." Ruby offered Pyrrha, neglecting to mention that she herself would be more than cognizant of making a spectacle of her blossoming body before a sapphic audience.

"Or maybe you could picture each john on the floor as a copy of Juane instead?" Velvet added, an uncharacteristically sly expression on her face as her lust started overcoming her.

"Ooh yeah, definitely!" Nora piped up, drawn from her own slight pensiveness about stripping before a crowd, "Heck, forgetting picturing it Pyrrha; we should just bring Juane and Ren along and have them stand front and center for us!" She cheered, the idea allowing her to get as fully behind the idea of being a stripper as the other girls.

"Um... m-maybe imagining them will work, but I doubt actually bringing them in would be a good idea," Pyrrha mumbled, secretly already thinking up ways of covertly directing Juane to one of her shows.

"So..." May Zedong hesitantly addressed the other foreign exchange girls, "how do you girls feel about that whole 'volunteer strippers' thing? B-because it sounds ridiculous."

"I dunno," Nebula Violette said with a smirk, "I could get behind it."

Behind her, Gwen Darcy just sighed at her leader's antics, "Well, if the captain is going to be part of this charade, I now feel obligated to join in."

"Well, if you're all gonna do it, I'm not gonna be left behind!" Reese Chloris chimed in.

"Reese, sweetie, don't be a dummy; stripping isn't a game or a sparring match, it's a very big deal to expose yourself like that and you need to be mature about doing it," Arslan Atlan admonished her teammate in an oddly mothering tone.

Reese puffed her cheeks defiantly in response, "I can totally handle just taking my clothes off! Just you wait, once you see my body, you'll have to admit I'm as grown up as you, boss!"

"I suppose that's something to look forward to," Arslan mused out loud to herself, a lecherous smile in her lips as she regarded her childishly-behaving partner.

"Hmph, I suppose it would be gracious of me to allow the people here to worship my body," Octavia Ember declared haughtily, "Though the privelge of touching me is still restricted to my team."

"Now Octy, don't be so hasty," Dew Gayle replied while looking at May, a predatory gleam in her eyes, "I'm sure there will be plenty of succulent fruits among our viewers and fellow performers worthy of being drawn into our circle." So saying, she licked her lips lasciviously, causing May to gulp with equal parts fear and desire.

"Count me in too," Neon Katt chimed in, "The club's my jam, and I got a major thing for streaking anyway. But hey, May, don't feel pressured into joining just because-"

"There's no pressure at all!" May insisted breathlessly, still staring at Dew, "I just wanted to hear everyone else's feelings on it."

"Oh, okay," Neon said, shrugging the whole inquiry off easily, "Well, not quite everyone. Where did those two squares from my school get to?"

"Cadet Ciel Soleil," Winter barked with as much dignity as she could muster under the circumstances, "Are you willing to accept this assignment?"

"Willing and Ready, Officer Schnee, Ma'am!"'Ciel crisply replied with a salute. Winter had to bite back a groan at the display.

"Very well, so long as you are sure," the eldest Scnee scion acknowledged, "Now please wait outside as Profesdor Goodwitch and I clear Miss Polendina physically for participation."

"At once Ma'am!" Ciel stated loudly before exiting the door. Glynda and Winter sighed as they turned to Penny.

"Do you think you can handle this?" Glynda asked the little gynoid.

"I believe so miss," Penny replied, "There are no bare patches on my chassis, and the seams of my compartments blend quite well into my synthetic skin."

"No Penny, we mean emotionally equipped," Winter clarified patiently.

"Oh!" Penny blinked at the consideration, "Worry not, though I have an intellectual understanding of the nudity taboo, I have no psychological hang-ups about it. These prospects register merely as novel to me."

"Well then," Winter sighed, "I suppose all that's left then is to have you turn in and get ready for it then. You're excused."

The two older women watched the robot girl leave. Once the door closed behind her, Winter leaned against the desk, "God, but I am not looking forward to this weekend."

"You don't have to be part of this," Glynda said, a slight pained expression on her face, "I'm the only own they're making do this, to make up at least a little for not containing the initial problem."

"Don't be daft Goodwitch," Winter responded, straightening up, "You don't deserve the sole blame in any of this. If I can't spare you this indignity, I can at least take some of the burden off you."

"Still though," Winter admitted with chagrin, "Much as I know it's wrong of me, I find myself hoping that all or at least most of these girls agree to this farce, if only so that we are not saddled with this humiliation by ourselves or for too long."

—-

"I can't believe the sheer gall of those Beacon pigs!" Emerald spat, before turning to Cinder sycophantically, "Miss Cinder, I know how integral the tournament was to your plans; I swear to take on this crude display myself so that you don't have to-"

"We are all taking part in this, girl." Cinder snarled at Emerald, eyes staying forward.

Emerald, for her part, gasped in shock, "Ma'am, you can't mean to-"

"The Vytal festival tournament was and is the lynchpin to my plans," Cinder continued with gritted teeth, "There is no other way to accomplish our goal besides it. It must be resumed, and if accomplishing that takes me showing my naked body to a host of drooling males that will literally throw money at my feet to pay for their coming destruction, then so be it."

Throughout this back and forth, Neopolitan tapped idly on her scroll, only to stop and turn to wave at someone on the side street. Cinder noticed and turned.

"What are you holding us up for?" She hissed irritably. The diminutive assassin pointed to the newcomers.

"Hey," Melanie Malachite drawled out as she approached the three villainesses, "You're that Cinder chick that Roman started running with right? 'Course you are; Neo's trotting around town with you."

"Our boss is friends with Roman," Militia Malachite picked up where her sister left off, "And he's a pretty big deal in this town. He owns a couple of bars and clubs, one of them is signed up for that fundraising thing. So we'll be helping you out with that."

"And speaking of Torchwick," Melanie resumed talking, "Look at what the cats you got him herding sent our way." And with a little flourish, she stepped aside to reveal two Faunus girls in rather unique White Fang uniforms; one a short, tanned, and spotty girl in a short-sleeved onesie scowling fiercely, the other a pale girl with discovered hands and veins with her top partly unzipped.

"Look, I don't like this whole thing" Ilia Amitola blurted out rudely as she stepped forward, "But if the bosses say that teaming up with some batshit humans like you is what it takes to take out the Kingdoms, might as well put up for now.”

Trifa stepped up then, just as obviously dissatisfied but more composed about it “So what's this you were talking about raising funds? Is it for the Vytal Festival? What do we need to do?"

Cinder just stood and stared at the confrontational chameleon girl and the aloof spider girl, sizing up their bodies and temperaments, and slowly smirked. "Who wants to tell them?" She asked with malicious mirth, as it dawned on the two Faunus girls that they were utterly in over their heads with this woman.

———

On a random roof in downtown Vale, a portal suddenly opened in the air, and through it stepped out a masked and armored figure. The figure strode to the edge of the roof with heavy steps and gazed down at the city stolidly, before scoffing and pulling off the mask, revealing a red-eyed, womanly face.

“Finally got one of your perverted proposals taken seriously, eh brother dear?” Raven Branwen asked the air humorously, “Bet you were the most scandalized of all when it actually happened. Still, freelance stripping is far from the scummiest way I ever earned a quick buck, and I guess it wouldn’t be fair to Summer’s little hellspawn to not give her a leg-up after her sister got one.”

Still talking out loud to herself, she jumped lightly down to street level and took up a prowling gait to scope out each of the notes establishments.

“Who knows, maybe I can find some more... “enriching” fun while I’m at it.”