King of Champions 14 (Patreon)

I don’t own Roosterteeth or HP.  If I did, one world would have made far more sense, and if I owned the other HP/HG would have been the OTP.

Howdy, all! This is the next chapter of King of Champions, as it says on the tin. HP-DG-AP-PN-RG-NR got it back to me really quickly, so I thought to use a day to Grammarly it after going over his changes.  I hope you enjoy it!

IN other news, I have decided to postpone the Making Waves Chapter. I am going to lose Saturday and Sunday (AGAIN) due to family time.  Lost of stuff going to arrive and work to be done over at the baby’s house (WHINEEEE).  That mean’s there’s no way I could get it out to my editors, and given its was intended to be a major character interaction/comedy driven ‘chapter’ I want to do that.  However, it will carry over into April, and I will instead put out the FULL chapter, not just the travel segment.  I will also attempt to finish ATP and at least post the revamped chapter here by Monday.  I’m sorry guys, but losing so many weekends, then Grammarly, then redoing segments of Stallion (51,000 words at this point) when Tomon got it back to me (HURRAY) have cost me a lot of days this month, more than normal.  It sucks, but there you are.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Chapter 14: A Cavalcade of Errors, Part 2

“Should we split up now or wait until we get to the SDC Tower?” Ruby asked as she led her team (plus the two boy-type hangers-on) out of the bullhead landing zone. Honestly, I get why we have to bring them along, but ugh, I’m getting lots of ‘flirty’ vibes from both of them, and that’s just weird.  Bring back my boyless, dramaless team, darn it.

Neither Ruby nor any of the others saw Harry and Tia following them as they exited the bullhead and then the adjoining building. Harry had to renew his Disillusion spell as they went, but that was easy enough. Since, however, this was a local rush hour, there were a lot of people around, forcing the pair to keep to a corner so as to not be in danger of people just walking into them. This forced Harry to use another spell in order to hear what the sextet was talking about.

“We should split up here, although I’m still not certain I need to bring you along with me at all, Rubes. The place I’m mostly likely to actually come up with some info isn’t someplace where you’re going to feel very comfortable, little sister,” Yang said, reaching over to poke Ruby in the cheek.

“Yang, I’m a big girl—" Ruby began, only for Yang to interrupt her.

“A big girl who still has a ten-thirty bedtime and drinks milk.” Yang was the one who made certain Ruby was in bed by ten thirty even now, but the blonde big sister wasn’t about to sweat the small stuff right now. Besides, it’s not like she’s ever argued... much. “This isn’t going to be a place where they serve milk unless it’s in a cocktail of some kind, which would be all kinds of gross.”

“-And it’s not as if I don’t know those kinds of places exist. I just haven’t been in one before. Besides, it’s a Sunday morning. There won’t be anything… too dirty going on,” Ruby argued back, as if her sister hadn’t interrupted her in the first place. “I want us all to go around in pairs, I don’t think there’s anything I could add to Weiss and Neptune’s investigations at the tower.”  Ruby smiled then, sidling over to Weiss. “Although if you’re volunteering to take Neptune with you, then I can stay with my BFF.”

“I think not,” Weiss said hastily, looking over at Neptune for a second and then away, resolutely not looking Ruby in the face, lest she be trapped by the dreaded Puppy Dog Eyes once more. “What we will be doing will be a lot of analysis work and not analysis on tactics, strategies or weapons. If it was, I would be the first to admit that you would have some insight, Ruby, but as it is, this is going to be datasheet and reading analysis type work.”

“And what I’ll be mostly doing on top of that is calling back to Haven and asking some of my friends who’re still there about any news on White Fang activities in Mistral,” Neptune added, also sending Weiss a glance.

“Oh joy, a choice between bringing along the so-called intellectual, who would probably stick out as much as a sore thumb, or my little sister to the bar. Decisions decisions. Figures the one guy who might fit in there would be the only one who can fit in even better with Blake where she’s going,” Yang grumbled before perking up noticeably, putting an arm around Ruby’s shoulders.  “Well, come on, little sister. We’re going to be going all over the city today, and that means we better take Bumblebee.”

Ruby’s face blanched noticeably to the two watchers, and she began to wave her arms wildly.  “Wait, wait, wait, I’m already regretting this! Help!”

“Oh, come on, you know you love it,” Yang laughed as she began to drag her sister off.

“What’s a Bumblebee?” Sun asked, snickering at the younger girl’s overacting. Or at least I hope it’s overacting.

“That’s what Yang calls her bike. Frankly, I don’t know which Yang cares about more, that bike or her hair,” Blake chuckled.  “My partner, everybody, the very definition of a party hard, live harder kind of girl.”

Weiss snorted. “Bah, that is a question in your mind only because you don’t have to fight Xiao-Long for time in the bathroom every morning. Her hair wins hands down.” She looked over at Blake, cautiously reaching out an arm to pull the black-haired cat girl into a sideways hug.  “Um, b, be careful, will you? I, um, I don’t have many real friends, and I don’t like the idea of you getting hurt. Going undercover is never a safe thing, even for people who can blend in easily as you hope to.”

“Did you get that from all those criminal dramas you watch?” Blake teased gently, not calling out Weiss on how stuttering and awkward that had sounded. Instead, Blake surprised herself by putting an arm around Weiss’s shoulders and hugging her back. Mind you, I wouldn’t be doing this out in public if I didn’t have my bow, considering what we’re going to be doing later, but baby steps.  “I’ll be fine, Weiss. We’re just going to be infiltrating a recruitment drive, eavesdropping on a few conversations. Nothing serious.”

“OH, she shouldn’t have said that,” Sun muttered to Neptune, the two boys watching as the two girls had their little moment, with the unseen pair of Arcs nodding along in agreement. “That’s just tempting fate, dawg.”

“Probably. But Blake’ll have you around to get her out of whatever trouble curiosity gets this particular cat into,” Neptune quipped.

The two men exchanged manly fist bumps, and the pairs broke up, with Harry and Tia watching from the sidelines, with Harry booing under his breath at the lame joke. When the two… couples? Harry wasn’t certain, although he knew Sun was definitely pursuing Blake, and Weiss and Neptune seemed interested in one another.  Regardless, Harry pointed to Blake and Sun, and the two of them moved after them for a bit until the pair took to the rooftops from an alleyway near the bullhead landing zone. 

Frowning, Harry thought about it then sighed. “Tia, go after them. I’ll stay here and wait for Pyrrha and the others to arrive. I’ll send Ren and Nora after the two sisters, and Pyrrha and I will track you down via your scroll.”

Harry and Tia routinely shared one another’s scroll locations between them, as they did with Arturia as well as Pyrrha these days. Now, Harry reflected for a second that he probably should also include Ren and Nora in that, especially after the battle on the docks. It would let us spread out like we might have to here much easier. As it is, I should probably stay here to explain to them more about what seems to be going on here… as well as my own thoughts about this, regardless. Because Harry did have some thoughts, and some instincts that were currently yelling at him.

Beyond that, since he and his sister had been jogging that morning when they had noticed the group of six heading towards the bullhead, neither he nor Tia had their weapons, and while Harry was in no way defenseless without his, someone had to stay here.

Tia, with her own Semblance and her aura lending itself to defense to the point where she could literally laugh at most weapons, was simply the better choice to trail after the pair of faunus. Well, more snicker or huff in amusement behind her scarf rather than laugh aloud, but that’s just Tia.  “Don’t be afraid to let out your monstrous side if you have to.”

Tia blinked, then drew back for a second from Harry. She was always a little leery about using her Semblance around other people, let alone in an urban environment like Vale, because of how her Semblance wore away at her mental faculties the more she gave herself over to it. Tia had been working on that issue far more regularly since Professor Goodwitch had realized how bad the problem was, meditating during combat class until she was called, always using it during her bouts instead of her weapons, and having sessions with Professor Easterton. Yet even so, Tia did not feel as if she was any closer to fully controlling herself when she gave into her Grimm Armor. Using it seemed a bit too much and too dangerous.

As usual between the two of them, Harry was almost able to read Tia’s thoughts from the emotions apparent in her eyes and leaned up, pulling her scarf down to kiss Tia gently. Or least, it meant to kiss her gently. Tia, surprising him, decided to take the initiative for once, deepening the kiss eagerly, pushing aside her worries about her Semblance.

The pair of them made out for a time before Harry pulled back, reminding Tia breathlessly of what they were in Vale to do.  “Go on, you’ll lose them if you don’t get going.  Just remember, my Haribel, while you might not always trust yourself, I do. Okay? You’ve never hurt anyone, no matter how far into your Semblance you’ve gone.  You’ve never gone entirely crazy and uncontrollable.  You’ve always let me in, and I’ll always be there for you when you need me, no matter how scary others might think you’ve become.”

At that, Tia let her scarf where it was for a few seconds longer, letting Harry see the small, infinitely warm smile she wore at his words.  “Okay.” Tia smiled down at Harry, reveling in the trust and warmth of the smile he gave her back in turn. “Love you.”

Harry grinned, leaned up and gave her another shorter kiss on the cheek lips again, then gestured her upwards with a laugh. “Get going, Love, or that stray cat might seriously get away.”

Tia, also smiling brightly behind her scarf, leaped upwards, grateful that their mother had taught them how to move over the rooftops like this. Unlike the two Faunus, Tia was not very light on her feet, but she still had been trained for this kind of movement.  The Arc Matriarch had always made her three Huntsman kids know how important parkour was in moving around a city. “For one thing, no one ever looks up,” Hazel had liked to say. “And for another, there’s no traffic, and you can travel in a straight line.”

Thankfully given the time Tia had spent with Harry, Blake and Sun were not moving all that quickly. Instead, they were taking the time to peer down as if searching for something. This let her keep them in sight, although she did have to dive into cover or go around occasionally when the faunus pair doubled back or paused in place, looking around them.

In this manner, the faunus and their follower crossed several blocks of the city, until Blake paused, then gestured down. As the two of them disappeared into an alleyway, Tia took the opportunity to close, trying to stay as silent as she could. Soon, Tia crouched down on the same rooftop where Blake and Sun had been a second ago, peering down into the alleyway between a series of three-story apartment buildings from behind a protective wall.

At one point, this little area might well have been some kind of communal zone, as there was what looked like a basketball court to one side and a few picnic tables and other things, which looked very odd to Tia’s farmgirl mentality on concrete, but it had long since fell into disrepair. Now lots of junk and even outright trash had taken over a large portion of it, leaving only a small area in the basketball court free.

She watched as Blake gestured to a mark on the concrete of the basketball court, a mark that looked to Tia like the White Fang logo, a simple white paw. I’ve always wondered if it’s supposed to be a bear, wolf or tiger claw? Those look very different, but this one looks like someone just made a generic claw.

But instead of being spray-painted there, or at least instead of just being spray-painted, someone had apparently carved it into the concrete. Or at least, that is what Tia supposed, judging by the fact that Blake was able to put a few fingers into a portion of the claw mark. At which point Blake seemed to say something to Sun, but Tia couldn’t hear it. 

Thankfully, Sun’s voice was a bit louder as he led the way back over to the nearest building. “Spooky, yet smart. So how many of these things do we have to find before we figure out where the recruitment drive is?”

“Two more. We triangulate between the markers,” Blake said, shaking her head as the pair of faunus leaped up onto the rooftop across from where Tia was hiding.  “Normally, faunus already looking to join up would know at least where two of them were, then would only need to find the last in order to triangulate the position, but…” She shrugged, and Sun nodded.  Within seconds, they moved off, heading in a different direction than previously.

Tia waited until they were several rooftops away before standing up and following after. This is kind of interesting, but I wonder why Harry thinks Ruby and Weiss’s little group might be in as much danger as Blake and Sun?  It can’t all be because he thinks Ruby might be a trouble magnet, but if it isn’t, I don’t understand why he couldn’t come with me to trail these two.  They are surely the ones most likely to run into trouble, right?

OOOOOOO

Actually, Harry wasn’t certain about that.  While he had at first thought that, yes, Blake and Sun might run into trouble with the White Fang, there were several other factors he had thought of on the bullhead ride into Vale, all of which meant they weren’t the only flashpoint possible in Vale right now. First and foremost, the attack on him the other night.  While Tia had seemingly forgotten about it after their run, Harry certainly hadn’t.  That attack might have been directed against Harry as an Arc, but he wasn’t certain about that. After a good night’s sleep, Harry had wondered if that might have been a red herring, or if not that, then simply a small part of a whole.

Thus, what he had mostly been doing on the bullhead (beyond cuddling under his invisibility charms with Tia) and returned to, now that Tia was gone, was researching what was going on in Vale.  In this, he had a secret leg up that he, as a freshman, shouldn’t have: Arturia’s Huntress ID code.  With that, he had been able to look at the internal police reports, the ones that they didn’t share with the public or anyone else until after a case was closed if that.

Digging in a bit, he had found out that, like the police had told him, the gangs that had attacked him had severe anti-faunus bias, so much so they’d been involved in several incidents against faunus. Beyond the large-scale, well-organized and planned attack on an SDC cargo ship recently, there had been several reprisals for attacks on faunus, on top of the continued smalltime dust thefts going on by the White Fang. 

The city wasn’t quite a powder keg, but… well… it was giving Harry flashbacks to his past life.  The White Fang might have a better manifesto than the Death Munchers and didn’t enjoy torture or rape, but beyond that, there were a lot of similarities, and their counterparts among humans were much the same.  The odd thing was both of them were getting armed at the same time.

Now, on the surface, that could simply be escalation. If one side got more weapons, the other side would be forced to do the same. There was a problem with that, though, and one police research paper Harry had access to thanks to knowing Arturia’s Huntress ID pointed it out in a paragraph buried deeply within its self-serving pomposity: while the White Fang were a heavily organized, world-spanning terrorist group, the local gangs were not.  The gangs whose members attacked Harry with a lot of high-end weapons should never have gotten their hands on them.  Sure, they might have contacts with true organized crime, but that was the thing about organized crime: they knew how far they could push and rarely trusted street punks and drug addicts with their toys.

Then there’s the fact Arturia being targeted by the White Fang is one thing, me by Anti-faunus street thugs another.  Plus, there’s the timing, the fact some of them were far better trained than others, and why I was there at the time.  No, someone tried to attack me as part of a larger scheme, Harry concluded. I don’t think it’s targeted at my family, not really, but at Vale.  Why, I don’t know, but someone is trying to build up tension between the faunus and regular humans. The police didn’t seem to think so because there didn’t seem to be any real goal for such an organization, and there wasn’t any connection between the anti-faunus gangs and Torchwick, but Harry felt that was a mistake.

Torchwick’s just a tool, Harry thought as he looked up at an incoming bullhead. He’s an excellent thief, probably a good planner and survivor, but none of what he’s done since the dust thefts began makes sense for Roman’s regular MO. The police are, either through their own biases or gross stupidity, concentrating too much on him and the White Fang. Whoever brought in the professionals who attacked me and that green-haired girl who fought on the docks, that’s the true mastermind. 

And really, the why doesn’t matter so much as what resources they might have on hand. And having enough Big Hammer on hand, just in case.  Although… huh, okay.  Harry shook his head with a wry smile as he stood up, looking not at Pyrrha, who had just exited the bullhead like a bullet out of a gun, but at the people here. 

Harry had just a second to recognize at least two other teams were with his own, and Sung-Sun before Nora crossed the intervening distance in a rush, racing past Pyrrha to practically tackle Harry before Harry was fully out of his chair. It was all Harry could do to make sure his arms weren’t pinned to his side before he found himself being whirled around by the Hammer wielder.  “Oh yes!!! Fearless leader, this is so awesome! I’m so happy you remembered to call us in for this new bit of craziness. It’s been so boring since the fight down at the docks, and that phrase that you used on the scroll to Pyr-Pyr, bring the hammer down, OOOOH, it gave me tingles!”

“Yes, a fight that nearly ended in my sister getting assassinated,” Harry growled, lightly twisting Nora’s ear for a moment until she let him go with a pout. “I trust I won’t need to repeat any admonitions about getting too full of ourselves here? And we’re going to be trying to keep the damage to the local environment to a minimum, Nora. Remember that, okay?”

When Nora nodded dolefully, he looked around at the others, sending a small smile to his girlfriend before looking at the rest of the gathered hunters-to-be. 

“I would say that it is strange that you are simply taking it as a given that there will be trouble. Yet considering how you and Ruby apparently are in some kind of secret competition to be trouble magnets, I have to say, rather than jumping the gun, this seems to be a case of simply accepting an inevitability,” Pyrrha laughed quietly, leaning up to give Harry a kiss on the cheek. 

“Hey! I don’t go looking for trouble… most of the time,” Harry began, his voice fading out under Pyrrha’s jaundiced stare even as his arm wound around her waist.

“As funny as that bit of interaction was, is it true that ya were attacked last night while on a date?” Fen Greenfur asked one of Martina’s team members. He was a wolf faunus, one of only two faunus there, the other being Milla, whose presence Harry was somewhat surprised by.  “Was it by the White Fang?”

“It wasn’t a date, and it wasn’t by the White Fang, but yes. I was filling in for a friend of the store he had just sold. The new owner had gotten sick and wasn’t going to be able to keep the store open that day, and customers were coming in to pick up books they’d ordered,” Harry said, causing Fen to blink, even as Harry went on, moving past the lie mixed with truth quickly.  “If you’re asking that question to discern whether or not I really am a trouble magnet, the answer is probably, despite my words to the contrary. If you’re asking if that has any connection to what we might be doing today, the answer is probably no. I wasn’t attacked by White Fang, but what seemed to be regular street toughs paid to attack me because I’m an Arc.”

“Heh, ‘seemed to be’, is it?  A gang of street thugs attacking a Huntsman-in-training,” Fen stated deadpan. “I’ll also note none of that’s shown up in the news yet.”

“Indeed, I would think even drug-addled punks would know not to mess with a Huntsman.  Not unless the pay was very good… and Pyrrha mentioned to us how good some of their weapons were. You suspect something deeper, il mio capitano (my captain)?” Martina hummed thoughtfully even as she moved forward with her team and Tristan’s, the eight of them spreading around Harry and his own team as they all began to make their way out of the waiting area, but all of them bending their ears in interest towards Harry’s answer.

Martina was a brunette, somewhat built along the same lines as Sung-Sun, who always seemed incredibly poised, ready to move at a moment’s notice and had apparently been trained as a ballerina at one point. She was also an acquaintance with Weiss, the pair having met apparently while Weiss was moonlighting as an opera singer.

Her personal combat style was based on dodging, being in constant movement, and deception, and she used a saber, which went well with Martina’s typical Huntress outfit, which made her look somewhat like a pirate. Fen was one of her teammates, while her partner was named Lee.  While Fen provided long-range firepower, Lee was a fist fighter who had armor going from his fists up to his shoulders on both arms. His abilities were not quite up to that of Yang, but his style was more balanced, and, like Martina, his combat style was based on movement, although he also emphasized fighting an unusual terrain. The same could be said for their last partner, a beanpole of a girl who had low-scale TK abilities with her semblance, able to move multiple things under five pounds at once. In her case this meant daggers. Lots of thin, exceedingly sharp, flying daggers.

“And what are we after, exactly?” Martina asked, throwing an arm around Nora’s shoulders.  “Like our hammer girl here, I’m more than willing to look for trouble, but what specific trouble do you think Ruby and her team are searching for? And come to think of it, why their team?”

At that point, Harry explained what he and Tia had seen that morning to various mixed reactions. Mila and Fen groaned, hearing that it had something to do with the White Fang, but neither of them seemed to object to the idea of getting it stuck in with the terrorist group if it came to it, while Martina put the thoughts of the other freshmen into words.  “Ruby is an absolute darling, but she really needs to learn what is and isn’t allowed. If we were juniors or seniors, acting out like this would probably be allowed, but as it is, team Ruby is liable to lose privileges from this.”

“Heck, we might get in trouble for this,” the other team leader snorted. “Not that I’m complaining, just pointing it out.”

Tristan Flash was from Mistral, and he and Harry had worked together, along with suggestions from Arturia, to help his team mold together. With dirty brown hair and showing some signs of being the first in their class to need to shave regularly, Tristan was an extremely thoughtful young man who was the only one who hadn’t been trained to be a recon specialist on his team. While compatible personality-wise, they’d had to make a lot of changes, changes to their training styles, tactics, and even ongoing changes to their weapon types to be more rounded and not a team of one-trick ponies who literally couldn’t do anything beyond their specialty.

Those changes were only really beginning, especially to their weapons and combat skills, but Tristan had seen the problem immediately and wanted to get on top of it, coming to Harry for help once he saw how well he had led his team and the rest of the teens he fought alongside in the Initiation. Tristan wanted to be great and wanted his team to truly be one Beacon could be proud of in decades to come.

“Whereas Sun and Neptune probably won’t care,” Fen groused. “As students of Haven, there’s a limited amount of punishment that Beacon can actually give them.”

Tristan frowned a bit.  “But, Harry, calling us in like this, are you sure you’re not jumping at shadows? I can see why Blake might run into trouble, but enough that RWBY and their, heh, addons need help?  Or are you thinking there’s some kind of conspiracy?” The other team leader snickered, not noticing how Harry had twitched or how Pyrrha had cocked her head, staring at her lover speculatively. “Your attack doesn’t have anything to do with the White Fang, right?”

Snorting, he began to count on his fingers. Tristan came from a traditional Mistrali family of Huntsmen like Harry and Pyrrha and kept abreast of things going on back in Anima, so he knew that the Arcs and Evig Låga as a whole were getting some pushback lately due to the sudden expansion Evig Låga was experiencing. “The Council of Mistral deciding to remind the Arcs you’re all mortal, and some of you are vulnerable. A few of the Mistral Councilmen are ruthless like that. The Schnees paying to have any Arcs they can attacked as a sign to warn your family off meddling with their Atlas-allowed monopoly. Heck, some rich asshole who likes Pyrrha, no offense Pyrrha, paying to have you attacked just because you’re together. Oh, and let’s not forget that buffoon Cardin’s family trying to take out their frustrations on his so-called ‘rival’. There could be lots of reasons for the attack on you that has nothing to do with a larger problem.”

“While I don’t know anyone with a good word to say about Jacque Schnee’s general character, it’s a little too soon on the corporate war scale to have him pay street gangs to be on the lookout for any Arc. The same would hold true for the Mistral Council. Besides, Harry looks as if his asking his team to join him here in Vale has more to back it up than just a guess.  Let him talk, darling,” Tristan’s partner said, shaking her head, sending her long, straight blonde, silver and bronze hair to shivering from side to side, while the last two members of Tristan’s team stood silently behind her.

Her name was Beth Midnight, and despite being sneaky enough to give Ren a run for his money, in most ways, Beth reminded Harry of Lavender or Padma in her social skills and love of gossip. She was also a Vale native, like the majority of the teens of the two other teams. She was also the girl who had wanted to steal Ruby away from Yang after the incident in Forever Fall, and she, Martina and Yang often competed for who could be the flirtiest fem among the freshman.

“True,” Lee said, his voice heavily accented as he walked next to Ren. “While we are all here because we have come to trust Harry’s acumen, I hope you have more to go on than instinct?”

Taking his sword from Pyrrha, Harry nodded in thanks and as Harry belted it to his waist, laid out what he was thinking. He cited the police reports, not just his own opinions, then pointed out the weapons used against him, the weapons used by the White Fang, and more.  He made certain to point out to Fen and Mila both that he wasn’t certain who was behind it all, as it wasn’t the White Fang alone escalating things.

“Hmm… that… I can see why the police don’t think a single person could be behind it.” Tristan mused, playing devil’s advocate. “Roman working with the White Fang has always struck me as unusual, but if they’ve got the money to pay him, I can see Torchwick doing it. But then turning around and using small-time gangs? No, balancing both would be impossible for someone like Roman, especially given how both sides truly hate one another.”

“Yet the timing is off, darling,” Beth murmured. “It would be difficult for Roman, true, but someone strong enough to tug on his leash?”

Tristan still didn’t look convinced, while Fen scowled, exchanging glances with Mila.  “So, are we just going to wait nearby just in case the catty princess runs into trouble?”

Shaking his head at Fen’s sneer when he spoke of Blake, Harry shook his head.  “No. While Ruby and her team’s hearts might be in the right place, I have to wonder if their search for trouble isn’t going to, well… act like a lit match to a fire.”

“How big of a disaster are you thinking?” Martina scowled, shaking her head. “You surely can’t think the White Fang or these toughs have enough firepower or manpower even to cause as big a ruckus as Lady Arturia and the rest ran into?”

“I don’t know, but I want to be prepared for anything.  From an attempt to assassinate Weiss or me to the local gangsters deciding that Yang’s strongarm tactics aren’t funny any longer,” Harry answered before shrugging. “I will admit that I didn’t expect all of you to come along, but my instincts are telling me that, yeah, at least one of these groups is going to run into trouble.”

“Hah, well, when we heard that there might be something interesting going on from Nora, we couldn’t help but stick our noses in,” Tristan chuckled, with his team and Martina and her team all agreeing. It wasn’t talked about much, but all of them, and indeed most of the freshman class, looked to Harry and his team for leadership. Not so much they’d ignore directives from the professors, but no professor had tried to stop them from going into Vale, and at the back of their minds was the same desire to do something that drove Ruby.

Mila spoke up then, looking a little uncomfortable as she did.  “And… Well, not only is Roman Torchwick still out there, leading White Fang in attacks on dust stores, but um, on er, our… end…” she waved a weak hand towards Fen, who scowled. “UM, the few times I’ve been in town and talked with other faunus, there’s been a lot of racial tension as well. And there’s also been a feeling of, from some of them anyway, that the White Fang, on top of that attack on the SDC cargo ship, recently got a major boost in their numbers in the city from outside.”

“Yeah. I don’t run into much of that since my family and I are better off than most, but I actually had to deal with someone trying to recruit me the last time I was in Vale. I turned him down by kicking him in the head, but yeah, the White Fang is definitely got the numbers for something big. I can’t say anything about the other side, but does that matter?”

Tristan stared at Fen for a second, then shook his head. “No, it does not.  I still don’t think I believe this whole ‘shadow hand’ idea, but if the White Fang is really that strong, and the powers-that-be aren’t doing enough, then it doesn’t really matter. So, what is the plan now that we’re all onboard?”

Harry thought about it for a minute, as he had been telling the truth: having two more teams to play with like this was not something he had planned for. “Martina, why don’t you take your team and head to the SDC tower.”

“Ahem,” Sung-Sun gently gathered everyone’s attention. “One thing Harry said stuck with me: the weapons. I, as reluctant as I am to do so, might have a line of inquiry as to where those weapons come from that RWBY and company do not.” After all, being a crime boss’s daughter should count for something, she thought sardonically. “So, I believe I will head to the SDC tower and make use of their private rooms for a bit.”

“Sounds fine,” Harry nodded. “Tristan, could you send the twins with them?” the two silent members of Tristan’s teams were a pair of girls who were twins and always gave Harry more of a cat-like feel than even Blake, despite being human.  Siamese cats, specifically, the way they were always smirking as if they knew something you didn’t. “I don’t think if Blake runs into trouble, sniper rifles and long-range accuracy are going to be much help in close quarters.  Tristan, you and Beth should come with us for now. Mila, too, unless you’d rather go with your team leader?”

When Mila shook her head, Harry frowned. “Huh, where’s Apacci? I would’ve thought Apacci would jump at the chance to come down into Vale if only to see his girlfriend.”

“I don’t think that it be a good idea, and he wasn’t free to join us. Apacci’s serious about bringing up his grades and paid a sophomore to help him study today,” Mila said, shaking her head.  “I also think… well, he’s a bit of a chattermouth, and at one point, I would’ve said he had White Fang sympathies. That seems to have called down a lot since the first few weeks at school, but still.”

Harry nodded, and Mila and Fen both smiled as he, like their own team leaders, didn’t seem to even think about pressing the two of them about their own sympathies in that direction. Mila felt the White Fang were stupid and had taken the concept of fighting for faunus rights way too far, while Fen felt much like Harry did. The real enemy was the Grimm, not other people. He wasn’t a fan of how Vale seemed to be cozying up more and more to Atlas and trying to emulate some of their laws, but that wasn’t enough to make him sympathetic to the modern White Fang and their tactics, which he saw as terrorist actions rather than those of freedom fighters.

Harry blinked then as his scroll beeped at him. He pulled it out and saw a message from his sister, who’d apparently arrived at the international bullhead landing area that morning and gone straight to bed. The message said she had some personal things to take care of but asked if Harry was free that night.  With Martina’s words paramount in his mind, Harry smiled faintly and answered in the affirmative, holding up the message for Pyrrha to see.  If nothing else, it will be nice to see Arturia a little earlier than I would otherwise.

He wished the others well, then turned to his own team. “Well, come on, boys and girls. We have a Tia to catch up to and a curious cat to check on,” Harry ordered, too many boos and hisses at his lame joke from the departing teens as well as Nora guffawing. Yet they all still followed, heading up onto the rooftops.

OOOOOOO

While Yang and Ruby were going around town checking in with some of Yang’s ‘informers’ (Read, former friends and people she had done favors for) Weiss and Neptune had taken their time moving deeper into the city by foot. Not an hour and a half of walking and low-key flirting later, they entered the SDC Tower.

Schnee Dust Company Communication Towers were the central hubs of the international communications network. They served several different functions, but one of the biggest was secure communications, so secure that no one could break them. If you had a deal you wanted no one to know about, you made that deal in the tower rather than from a scroll. There had been hundreds of attempts to break into the secure lines SDC provided from one tower to another, but no one had ever succeeded. They also served as meeting places, where business of all sorts could be had behind closed doors so long as you paid for it since the computers and screens there were also far larger and of better quality than any scroll could be, allowing for more interactivity than the portable scrolls.

As a Schnee, Weiss did not need to pay either to enter or rent out two rooms. All she needed to do was show her ID. As she was doing so, both Weiss and Neptune missed the arrival of Martina and her team.  Alas, unlike the heiress, they would have had to pay to enter, so the group decided to spread out, with only Sung Sun entering. 

Once inside, Weiss led the way to the floor where the private, secure rooms were kept.  “This one is mine. The one across the hall is yours, Neptune.” While Weiss would be using her status as a Schnee to look into the White Fang’s thefts and various doings from the SDC’s perspective, Neptune was going to call back to Haven as well as to Vacuo, where, thanks to Sun, he had some contacts who would be willing to look into the White Fang. 

“Thank you for getting them to assign you a second room,” Neptune slipped his arm out from where he and Weiss had linked arms but caught her hand before they were fully apart. “While I could have paid for it, I would not have had enough money left to do much else. Um, including, if you would like, going out tonight?”

Blinking, Weiss blushed a bit, then smiled. “So long as we don’t end up going anywhere Xiao Long would approve of, I think I would like that. We can talk details later.”

Breathing a sigh of relief, Neptune nodded and, as Weiss watched, brought her hand up to kiss the back of before heading into the room.

Smile still on her face a moment later, Weiss sat down in the small room, inputting her personal identification card from her scroll into the computer.  It took her a moment to shift from her personal smile to her ‘pleasant public’ smile, but by the time the SDC operator of the main Atlas Tower, the woman who handled most of the communication for the Schnee Dust Corporation in its entirety, appeared in the holographic device in front of her, it was fully in place.

“Hello, how can I help direct you to… Oh, Ms. Schnee!” the woman’s professional patois stumbled to a halt as the ID code in front of her finished loading, and she continued quickly, already pulling up the most private line possible back to Atlas. “What can I do for you, miss? If you wish to talk to the director, I’m afraid he is in a meeting right now. Your brother is free, however.”

“Thank you, but I am not here in the tower for a family call,” Weiss answered, causing the woman to nod. “Instead, I wish to access some of SDC’s dust records and distribution analyses,” Weiss said, keeping her tone polite. While her friends might know about the difficulties she had with her father, at least to a certain extent, that wasn’t public knowledge, and she wanted to keep it that way.

“Of course, miss. Just a moment…” The woman on the other end frowned pensively, typing into her own computer before looking back up into the pickup, her face shifting into a slightly apprehensive one.  “Miss, might I ask what you need this information for?”

For just a moment, Weiss debated on what kind of lie to give, then decided to keep it simple.  “I have been asked to do a… project for Headmaster Ozpin.  As a Schnee, I have a vested interest in things concerning the Dust trade, and… well, given recent events here in Vale, there are several issues that he has been asked to help deal with.”

“I see…” the woman’s tone said she didn’t really, but Ozpin’s namedrop seemed to have worked a bit. “But miss, this is important internal documentation of the SDC. And…” The woman looked a little worried and apologetic for a moment.  “I hate to say this, but there’s a notice here that says that you’re not to be allowed access to this or to your SDC bank account by order of the chairman.”

At that, Weiss had to fight to keep her eyes from widening a little. She had anticipated her father cutting her off from her bank account, the one that he knew about and was part of the larger group of family accounts when it became clear that she wasn’t willing to have anything to do with Evig Låga. But not this quickly. However, not being able to access SDC data? That was altogether something different.  It’s certainly a step beyond what my father would do to try and punish me for my disloyalty, or however, he attempts to justify threatening me to spy on Harry. UGH. As if that would have done anything!

Aloud, Weiss answered quickly, grateful for all the training that she’d had for thinking on her feet in awkward social moments, as well as keeping her face from showing her real thoughts.  “That is probably a holdover from an argument my father and I had before I came to Beacon. Yet, I am not trying to access my bank account, simply the data on the Dust distribution to Vale.”  She leaned into the pickup a little. “I doubt my father would object to that. Unless you think he would?”

The subtle threat and glare were enough to make the woman look nervous, and Weiss went on, softening the blow.  “I will allow you to encrypt the information so I can’t share it with anyone else, of course. Yet I know you won’t want to try to send it over a normal coms line, and getting back into Vale during the week is impossible for me. I will call my father tomorrow morning to clear this up. I realize you need to follow the letter of the law, but in this instance, I believe that you will find flexibility is more to your personal advantage than doing so.”

The implication was that she wasn’t going to be able to get back down to the tower anytime soon and that needing to do so to ask for that information again would be irritating in the extreme. So extreme that she would mention it to her father, who might have something to say to the woman who so inconvenienced his daughter. The woman on the other end of the line instantly picked up on it. She hastily turned her attention to her own computer, and within moments, the scroll that Weiss had put into the terminal in front of her began to beep with incoming data.  “Of course, miss. You should see the data on your scroll soon. Do you wish me to pass on a message to your father about a time indicating when you will call him?”

Weiss seemed to think about it for a moment, then decided to bite the bullet. I might be able to get some information out of him personally, and… if there is something in this data he’s trying to hide, then I might have more material to use against him even as he berates and takes me to task for not kowtowing to his whims. She smiled, nodding her head firmly, ignoring the feeling of her stomach starting to clench at the idea of the confrontation to come.  “Actually, since tomorrow is a Monday, I believe that his lunchtime and my breakfast time should link up quite well. If you could call him and tell him to expect my call at around twelve thirty Atlas time, that would be extremely welcome. Thank you.”

The woman seemed to breathe a little sigh of relief at having both fulfilled her obligations to the company and sidestepped any awkwardness from stepping into what seemed to be a spat between the rich folk. “Of course, miss. Was there anything else?”

Weiss looked at the date on her scroll for a second, noting that it was almost finished downloading, before shrugging and asking, “Well, since we have time before this download finishes, are there any rumors going about of White Fang activity back in Atlas or across borders that I might need to be aware of?  I know all about the large-scale activities here in Vale, but the Vale branch doesn’t seem to be targeting SDC personnel so much as the dust, hence my interest in it.”

Surprisingly, there were only a few ongoing incidents with the White Fang that the woman was aware of. Most were small-scale, although there had been a few flare-ups in Vacuo and one in Anima, where the White Fang had attacked local SDC-affiliated companies. Some of those had been bloody but seemed in retaliation to local anti-faunus practices.  There had been several more rallies against the SDC in Mantle and one outright assault on an SDC official, but that was just a regular month, frankly. 

Wiess then asked, “Do you know offhand if Schnee Corp Security is doing anything to follow up on the theft of the cargo liner?  I would assume my father would demand an investigation team be sent into Vale at least. I could act as a go-between them and Headmaster Ozpin if Huntsman resources are needed.”

“I… let me check, miss. SCS has its own internal communications, so…” The woman hummed for a moment, and Weiss allowed herself the thought that she hoped that, whether or not it had been done via simple overreach or deliberate action, she wouldn’t get in trouble with Weiss’s father for helping Weiss. The woman was just doing her best, after all.  Saying no to the daughter of the chairman and the current heiress to the company, is not something most can ever do.  Still, I have to wonder. My father is not the sort to overreach. I have to wonder, if I was the police, would I need a warrant to get this information? Or, in fact, anyone else here in Vale.

“Hmm… you’re right, miss. There should be something about at least a claim team heading to Vale to discuss what happened. But I don’t see any information on it.  I… odd. There is some information here about a team of our security forces being assigned to work with a group of Atlesian soldiers who are being sent to Mistral, but… perhaps they have some information as to where the White Fang are taking the cargo vessel?” the woman had begun with a moue of confusion, but now sported a little grin.  “That sounds like it, anyway.”

“It does indeed,” Weiss answered mechanically, her mind awhirl, as truly, it didn’t.  Weiss was not, as the woman seemed to be, unaware of how long it would take to get to any of the known ports on the continent of Anima from Vale and how many places a cargo vessel could go between the two city-states by water. Why would the White Fang go to Anima, braving the open sea with a ship they had no real use for? No, they would stop somewhere else. Whatever that team of investigators and, well, hired Huntsman-level mercenaries were up to, it had little to do with what was going on in Vale. Although it might be something, I need to pass on to Harry. 

“Alas, that doesn’t mean we will get our Dust back along with the ship,” Weiss continued before thanking the woman again. Seeing the download was done, she ended the conversation and disconnected, exiting it out into the hallway. She found Neptune waiting there, looking a little annoyed.  “I have the data, as well as several minor mysteries, but you don’t look as if you have had a good discussion.”

“Alas, your beautiful eyes do not deceive you, Snow Angel.  I’ve had a confusing discussion. When I asked questions about the White Fang in general, none of my friends back in Haven Academy or in Vacuo knew anything. One friend back in Haven told me that there’s a rumor that the anti-Evig Låga news is really just a smear campaign, while all the others seemed to believe it and said that Headmaster Lionheart should send some of our Huntsman teams out there to ‘sort them out. As if that would end well for anyone.”

Neptune held out his arm towards Weiss, who, smiling prettily, linked arms with him as they moved down the hallway, pleased as she had been throughout the day with the courtly gesture from the calm and collected young man.  “Beyond that, the only bit of information of any weight was that there had been a series of Murders down in Mistral that had yet to be solved, all of them by poison dagger of some kind. And that one of Haven’s senior teams apparently had been wiped out recently on what should’ve been a routine extermination mission. Neither of which is something you ever like to hear.”

Weiss nodded commiseratingly, then paused as a voice reached her ears from a nearby room. She held up a hand, then moved in that direction, curiosity overcoming her for a moment, a frame of mind that made her offer a mental apology to Blake.

“--Told you several times before this, general, I am not interested! Neither working for Atlas nor becoming part of your special, oh, so elite squad. Which, from our interactions before, are neither elite, nor special! I am not interested in money, power, or any leadership position you could possibly give me. Stop trying to recruit me!”

The voice of Arturia Arc was so haughty and cold that Weiss felt both a bit of fear and admiration go through her. She also sounded as if she was at her wit’s end, a fact that pushed through Weiss’s sudden shock at the realization of precisely who the other woman was talking to. General Ironwood himself has tried to recruit Arturia for the Ace Squad? Good grief! And not only has she said no, but she shows no interest? That’s… I don’t know if that is admirable or irritatingly arrogant.

Somehow, when Arturia spoke up again, her voice was even colder.  “And as for your offer to meet in person at a restaurant of my choice while you are in Vale, that sounds far too much like you’re asking me out on some kind of date. If that is the case, you are rather far too old for my tastes, setting aside all other considerations, of which there are many. You will not bother me again until you and the Atlas Council or whatever you call your current sock puppets have an actual job for me.”

Before Weiss could properly react to that bit of whatever it might be, there was the sound of someone smacking something else before the electric noise of a call ending. Weiss hastily raised herself from where she had been leaning against the wall next to the doorway, acting as if she had just been walking along by looping an arm with Neptune’s and moving the pair of them into the center of the hallway. Not a moment too soon, as the door to the private room opened, and Arthur walked out.

At first, she had both hands over her face, kneading at her temple and forehead as if she was in pain, but then she nearly bumped into the prospective couple. Pulling her hands away from her face, Arturia was about to apologize but then blinked in surprise at Weiss standing there with a boy she didn’t know. She cocked her head to one side, staring at Weiss.  “Weiss? Do tell me, please you were not trying to overhear my communications for some reason.  I would expect that from my youngest siblings, Ruby or Xiao-Long, who seemed to have the same level of maturity.”

Arturia was not one of nature’s paper pushers. However, there was no SDC Tower in Evig Låga and no sign whatsoever of there ever being one. Using the Tower in Mistral would have been foolish precisely because the locals might try to do what Arturia had just accused Weiss of. But Arturia, as a Huntress, could move around a lot more easily than Guld or any of the other members of Evig Låga’s ruling council, and some needed to be made in the most secure place possible.  Hence why she was here at Vale’s SDC Tower.  Coming on the heels of an already hard day’s work, Ironwood’s call had been the final straw.

Weiss stammered, flushing a little under that gaze, while Neptune tried to slick back his hair and act cool. That glare made him feel small and embarrassed, though, and he couldn’t quite throw off the feeling. As for Weiss, she had a bit of hero worship when it came to Arturia Arc or, as Yang had once teasingly put it, a girl crush. She always became a little flustered in Arthur’s presence, and that and attempting to hide the fact that she had been eavesdropping combined to overwhelm Weiss’s normal poise for a second.  “I, I, no! We, I, I was here to pick up some information on SDC losses here in Vale.”

“As you are looking both guilty and embarrassed, that demands a larger explanation. You have told me twice, at the very least, that you are not involved in your corporation’s business side of things, and now you are suddenly interested in their local losses? This has something to do with the theft of a whole cargo hauler, doesn’t it?” Arturia demanded, a faint frown on her austere expression. “Are you following in your teammate’s example of taking the law into your own hands?”

Not, Arturia thought wryly, that it seems to be in the hands of anyone else at present. 

Seeing no reason to keep why they were in Vale at the moment a secret from Arturia, especially considering that Arturia had already been involved with Blake’s one-girl jihad against the White Fang once already, Weiss hastily explained as the group walked towards the elevator.  Listening intently, Arturia felt a bit of annoyance for Blake rising inside of her, but not overmuch. She could understand why Ghira Belladonna’s daughter would feel a driving need to expunge whatever guilt she might feel of leaving the White Fang in the first place rather than staying in and trying to change its course.  However, as a mature adult, she had to say that there was something very annoying about youngsters believing that they could solve the world’s troubles. Although a part of that here in Vale seems to be that no one else is doing a good enough job at that same thing.

“Well, by all rights, I should allow you all, and Blake in particular, to leap into this hole you are all so eager to dig.  However, I will not, even if, on this occasion, I cannot bell the cat who has led you all down this road, as I do not know where Belladonna is. On the other hand, I rather do think I know where Yang and Ruby are off to. I will head there so as to at least stop some of you from breaking the law through violence,” Arturia decided. “Sticking your noses into things and fighting terrorists is one thing. Threatening a business, which may or may not be connected to organized crime, is another.”

“That sounds most logical,” Weiss agreed, relieved that Arturia didn’t seem angry at the idea of Team RWBY taking things into their own hands. 

Arthur acknowledged this with a nod of her head and turned away, muttering under her breath, “Besides, I rather would like to go to Hei Days in the future, and if Yang loses her temper again and destroys it again, I won’t be able to.”

The idea of someone like Arturia Arc going to a dance club had Weiss’s brain freezing in place for a second, while beside her, Neptune muttered ‘cool’ under his breath. However, besides that, the pair of them were silent as Arturia walked off, heading away from the tower. As the elevator doors closed, Neptune looked over at Weiss.  “You’re not going to try to bring up the conversation you overheard?”

“Heavens, no! That was awkward enough as it is,” Weiss stated firmly before a somewhat familiar voice spoke up from one side.

“My word, little Edelweiss, that sounds most fascinating. So, on top of taking the law into your own hands, you’ve been a voyeur~?”

Turning, Weiss groaned aloud at seeing Martina there, the only one who called her that, a nickname that several of the ballerinas and orchestra musicians she had worked with had given Weiss.  Astonishingly, I prefer Snow Angel, although I would never admit it, not even to Neptune. “Martina, what are you doing here? And when are you going to stop with that foolish nickname! You’re not that much taller than me.”

Martina smirked, one hand resting idly on her saber at her side. The Southern Mantle native, who Weiss had first met when she danced at the same theater Weiss had been learning to sing at, looked decidedly rakish for a moment. “Why would I ever stop, Edelweiss? Or are you denying that you are as pretty as a little flower? As for why we are here, my dear, our captain has decided that you and RWBY need some backup.”

“Which we shouldn’t talk about out here in the open in front of the entrance into the SDC Tower,” Fen warned, waving Neptune into silence when he opened his mouth to agree with Martina’s comment.  The wolf faunus nodded in Weiss’ direction, then jerked his head sideways, indicating they should move along.  “Come on, let’s head over into the park a bit.”

Scowling at the fact that Harry (who else would Martina call captain, after all?) had somehow overheard or seen her team leave Beacon without any of them noticing, even Blake, Weiss sighed, nodding.  She and Neptune moved with the others, and Wiess was unsurprised to see the other two members of Martina’s team waiting for them. “How did Harry know?”

“Apparently, he and Tia spotted you leaving, then followed you with his broken Semblance,” Martina shrugged.  “He also has a theory that there might be more going on than just the White Fang. Did you know he was attacked last night?”

“What, no!? Was it the White Fang?” Weiss asked, scowling.

“That is the interesting thing. It was not. And Harry has been doing some research,” Martina began.  By the time she was done, a scowling Sung-Sun had joined them.  The other, poised, refined young lady, who Weiss quite liked despite her… dubious upbringing, nodded to them all and sat down across from Wiess in the lone opening space at the picnic table they had taken over.

“I take it that you had no luck either,” Neptune asked, shaking his head. “My friends both in Vacuo and Mistral didn’t have anything on the White Fang to tell me or even anything strange.  I realized it was a forlorn hope, but it still annoys me.”

“Oh, no, I found out something. After dealing with nearly an hour of my father demanding I come home, my mother attempting to arrange marriage interviews, and my older brother laughing at my expense,” Sung-Sun shook her head. “However, what I did discover is interesting.  It appears that the White Fang here in Vale are not being armed through the normal channels.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Fen asked before anyone else could.

“While my family is only peripherally involved in the gun trade, we know who is and who holds the contract with the White Fang,” Sung-Sun answered, still scowling, although that had nothing to do with admitting her family was involved in organized crime. She’d come clean on that score a few days back to most of the freshman class, and no one had looked down on her or been bothered overmuch by it.

As Ruby had put it at the time, “Whatever your family might do, you’re here now, wanting to fight the good fight, so it doesn’t matter, does it?” a few of the freshmen had needed some time to convince, but all of them had come around to that point of view eventually.

“Through those connections, we know that there hasn’t been a single shipment of weapons into Vale. Not to the White Fang, not to anyone else.  Oddly, the one source of weapons seems to come from Atlas.”

Weiss stiffened at that, but Sung-Sun held up a hand.  “Not through the SDC, and even the information on that one source isn’t very credible. It certainly isn’t actionable.  But wherever the White Fang’s weapons came from that they used to take the SDC cargo liner, it didn’t come from the normal routes.  Which means the White Fang here in Vale is making their own deals.”

“…Which they shouldn’t be doing,” Weiss slowly stated. “An internal division of some kind?”

“Perhaps. It’s certainly something to think about and pass on to Harry and, through him, Arturia.”

“Funny you should mention the Dark Queen. We just saw her a few minutes before Martina approached us,” Neptune said. “She’s heading out to… well, stop Yang from—”

“Being Yang,” Wiess interjected, rolling her eyes. “Still, that is interesting. I was able to procure some data from the SDC side of things.  I haven’t analyzed it yet.”

Martina nodded, looking at the last of her teammates, the quiet, knife-wielding Eliza. “Ellie, you and me are the best at analyzing stuff. Get over here and help Weiss.  I’ll go over the data Harry shared.  Just because we trust his instincts doesn’t mean I don’t want to make my own conclusions. Boys, if you could go and get us some ice cream or something?”

Fen and Lee nodded agreeably while Neptune volunteered to help Martina. With how small a scroll screen was, having more than one person working from information on a scroll was already troublesome.

With another pair of eyes in hand, Weiss elegantly crossed her legs, pulled out her scroll, and began to sift through the information. Martina looked over the information Harry had shared about the locations of the various Dust-related crimes, and Ellie helped, copying out some of the numbers from the spreadsheets that had popped up.

Eventually, she began to frown, and began to ask Weiss to manipulate the data a bit. Weiss, who had been concentrating on the cargo liner incident and wondering what her father had been hiding, blinked, then did so.  Soon, she too began to frown, a frown that disappeared as Lee sat beside her, holding out an ice cream cone with vanilla and chocolate sprinkles.  “Neptune said you might like this.”

Tentatively, Weiss took it, blushing a little as she thanked both boys before taking a bite. As she chewed, her eyes flicked back down to her scroll, her frown returning. 

“Why has a frown appeared on that pretty face of yours, my lady?” Neptune asked, holding up a hand to his forehead as if he was going to faint at the very idea of Weiss frowning at something.

The over-the-top acting caused Weiss’s frown to disappear again for a second, but then she shook her head, gesturing to her scroll and looking over at Ellie.  “Would you mind?”

As the others watched, Ellie began to take the numbers from one portion of the spreadsheet, adding them all together, then shifting them into a different format to get precisely how much dust had been stolen over the past few months before enlarging the number.  The answer shocked all of them, and Neptune whistled.  “Brothers, but that is a lot of dust.”

Ren nodded. He was not his team’s bursar, but he did have a decent grasp of how much dust his team used, and he estimated that the amount of dust that had been stolen would be enough to pay for several brigades of Huntsman for a month, or even several month-long campaigns in the wilderness.

Weiss slumped a little in her chair, “Thank the Brothers we stopped them from stealing even more from Norssken’s shipment, but even if you set aside their most recent attack on the SDC cargo ship, the trickle of smalltime thefts has resulted in a true dragon’s hoard worth of Dust! At least enough to fill up two cargo ships! Blake is right. The White Fang almost has to be up to something nefarious with all that dust.”

And why did my father not want me or anyone in Vale to have that information? What is going on with the distribution? We’re still shipping into Vale as per normal, without any more security taken, or any of the plans for those shipments and distribution unchanged. That’s not good business practice.  Has no one back in the SDC analyzed what is going on? Or is that why I wasn’t supposed to look at this data? And… and why don’t these numbers seem to make sense to me? I can’t figure it out, but I can almost feel as if they are lying to me! What are you up to, Father?

“Hmm… that’s a thought,” Martina mused.  “Doesn’t Dust need a lot of specialized equipment to store it properly?  Can we follow that angle?”

“I can’t imagine the police already haven’t followed that line of inquiry.  I also can’t believe the White Fang could store it in the city unless they broke it up into small allotments, the logistics of which would be crazy, as would the security aspect. No, if they did that, such caches would already have turned up.  Still… where else would they go?”

That was a good question that flummoxed them all before Martina shared the police reports and ordered the rest to help her look them over for anything the police might have missed. “Right now, that’s the best thing we can do. That, and be ready to act if the Bellabooty gets chewed on or Yang gets her hair in a knot.”

After the boos and hisses that these taunts deserved subsided, the group did just that. Right now, all they had was a lot of questions. It would hopefully fall to the others to come up with some answers.

OOOOOOO

Elsewhere in the city, Cinder, Roman and Tyrian touched down at a private bullhead landing zone. Ostensibly, the bullhead they were using was owned by a corporate mogul, but that individual would be very surprised to know both the bullhead and the landing spot were still in use, as he had dumped the mistress he had used both to meet with before several years ago.  As much as Cinder disliked Roman and knew she would eventually have to kill him, she had to admit, the man had a certain flair when it came to moving unobserved, as well as finding out secrets.

As they landed, Cinder was surprised to find her scroll beeping at her.  Not a live message, but a message left in a drop box for her from one of her own contacts in the city.  Reading it, her eyebrows rose in surprise. “Tyrian. Hold for a moment.”

“What is it, witch? I think I’ve spent more than enough time around you and this colorful buffoon,” the insane assassin growled.

“Buffoon? Colorful, I will grant you, but buffoon? I’m hurt… or I would be if those phrases weren’t coming from an attack dog whose insanity is only measured by how tight a rein someone has on your leash,” Roman snorted, staring back at Tyrian without fear.  He knew what Tyrian’s Semblance could do but could no more avoid taunting the man than Adam could avoid hating humans.

“Enough!” Cinder growled, her free hand lighting up in fury. “I had enough postering last night with Adam, I don’t need it from the two of you. Now, let me read and plan if you want to be actually useful rather than merely a scary presence in the background, Tyrian.”

Tyrian scowled but subsided while Roman moved away to prop up a wall, a sardonic eyebrow rising as he lit up a cigar. Cinder hadn’t allowed him to smoke while they were in the bullhead.

With her two companions quiet for now, Cinder pulled up the message, looked at it, checked the time, and planned.  “Arturia Arc is back in Vale.  She was seen walking around the city with no bullhead in sight.  I have a few agents following her, and she seems unaware of them for now.  Tyrian, link with up Mercury.  I will share my agent’s information with you. If you see a chance to attack, kill her.”

“I will warn you, that woman’s no slouch,” Roman warned. “She’s dangerous and powerful, and if you miss the first strike, her massive aura reserves and Semblance will make her deadly to anyone.”  Frankly, it seemed to him that Cinder was making the same mistake that she had made with Harry Arc the night before and, even worse, was throwing good money after bad,

“True, but she is a military asset for Ozpin we need to remove, if possible,” Cinder answered while Tyrian looked ecstatic. “I will contact several of the gangs we still have our hooks in.  The White Fang is the more important blade in our arsenal, we can afford to use a few more to help.  Mercury will handle that aspect, Tyrian; you just need to be able to do your part.”

“YESSS, I will slay, slay for my goddess!” Tyrian hissed, his tail uncoiling from around his waist.

“Roman, you have a White Fang rally to get to, correct?” Cinder stated instead of questioning. Something that Cinder and Adam had agreed on was there needed to be someone visible to explain the newest toys that Adam had brought in, and Roman fit that bill to a T. Cinder even had to admit the annoying ‘gentlemen thief’ knew how to work a crowd, so might even be good in that role.

Roman nodded. “Yeah, I should be meeting with Neo there in about two hours. Just in case something goes wrong.”

“Good.” Cinder thought for a moment, then nodded briskly. “Tyrian, I will be nearby, just in case.  If the gangs, yourself and Mercury start to have trouble, I will step in to help kill the Dark Queen.  She is too important a target to let live after a second attempt on her. If need be, we will call on you and the White Fang for even more grunts, Roman.”

Roman snorted. “Adam won’t like that~,” he caroled. Indeed, he was certain that Gerome or whoever was in charge of the rally would have orders to the contrary.

“Adam does not need to like it. He does not need to think, just like you,” Cinder scowled, reaching up to Roman’s face, watching as he flinched away from her superheated hand. “He and you only need to obey. Is that understood?”

Roman nodded, and Cinder whirled around, staring at Tyrian. “You’re still here?”

With a mad cackle, the insane scorpion faunus rushed out of the landing area and out into the city proper beyond. Roman soon followed, leaving Cinder alone. She enjoyed the silence for a moment, then smiled thinly as she moved after them. I might not have been able to take advantage of the randomness of Harry Arc being involved in getting a White Fang traitor out of Vale, but this time, I will. Whatever it takes, Ozpin’s resources need to be removed as much as possible before we can strike at Beacon itself.

OOOOOOO

Cinder was not the only one to have agents in Vale.  Nor was Arturia Arc the only target for assassination, at least not for Adam Taurus and the White Fang.  Pacing around his small office under Forever Fall, Adam scowled, finding himself in much the same position that Cinder had been in the night before: out of position to use most of his resources in order to achieve an objective: in this case, the murder of Weiss Schnee.

“Damn it… damn it!!!” Adam snarled.  “And our watchman’s certain they spotted Blake as well?”

“Positive when they landed. We know from Apacci that the Schnee and the traitor are on the same team.  Another agent later spotted the Atlesian cunt near her family’s monument to their own greed,” Greta Sakhan reported instantly, her tiger claws flexing in and out of their sheaths. “She was with another group of Huntsmen in training, but Belladonna and the Vacuan, Wukong, were gone.”

Adam grunted at that while Deitrich, the shark faunus, frowned, speaking up in his high-pitched, annoying voice. “Wukong…. Monkey faunus, a huge clan, run their own little settlement in the deserts of Vacuo, right? One of those…”

“Oases, yeah, that’s them,” Trifa, the spider faunus, sneered. “They don’t give a damn about faunus rights or anything beyond Grimm hunting. I’ve dealt with a few Wukongs in the past, and all of them are tricky little shits.”

“Still, the Schnee being in Vale gives us a target…” Adam mused, his hands clenching so hard you could hear the bones grinding against one another.

The cousin of Sienna Khan shook her head.  “Boss, I don’t think we should do anything too rash here.  Yeah, killing a Schnee right in the middle of Vale would have a huge impact, but we don’t have enough resources in position to make certain we’ll be able to. I think we should keep on with our initial plan.”

Trifa nodded firmly, even eagerly, which, considering her prominent role in that plan, was fair enough in Adam’s mind.  As for Greta, with Bonesaw off dealing with the crew of the SDC cargo ship they had stolen and the cargo ship itself, she had been left in command of the Mountain Glenn base and had to step up to be Adam’s second-in-command.  That meant occasionally telling him what he needed to hear, not what he wanted to.

Which this very much was, although Trifa and Deitrich disagreed with her conclusions.  “Lorgar’s there, and while Enrico’s not a good fighter on his own, he’s got the Paladin we assigned him.” Enrico was another one of Adam’s personal cadre. He wasn’t a fighter like Lorgar, a rhino faunus, or the rest of them were. Enrico was instead a whiz at supply and procurement.  Thieving, in other words, with a side order of espionage.

“That’s true, but… no.  No, going after the Schnee isn’t possible, not so suddenly.” For once, Adam was able to rein in his temper, although not just because what Greta had said was right, and he knew it. No, there was also another target for his anger. “Greta, contact Lorgar. Have him and a team of heavies meet up with Roman and Neo for the rally.”

“What? Gerome can handle the recruitment rally, boss.” Gerome Redgleam was the local head of the White Fang recruitment drive. “Hell, I don’t think we even need Roman there other than to paint a bigger target on his back.” Greta scowled, looking around the base. She’d not been in charge of the Mountain Glenn base for very long, but she already hated it and the woman who had made being out here possible even more than she had before. “If we can’t somehow do the same to that bitch without it getting back to us, anyway.”

“I know your concerns there, but Cinder’s a means to an end.  I won’t say it again,” Adam snarled, his own anger at Cinder threatening to override his current thoughts. 

Having that woman and her pet scorpion faunus assassin here in their base throwing her weight around had not been pleasant, to say nothing of how the Grimm reacted around her like trained attack dogs. But since the only one of his cadre who hadn’t been in the fight against Cinder when she first approached him and beat them all down, he knew that the regular troops wouldn’t have been any help against her. To say nothing of how the Grimm might react if we killed their… their controller? Their Mistress? Whatever she is to them, I’d wager any attack on her would have been bad. I’ve no desire to die out here.

“But you’re missing the point. The Schnee girl might be the more important target, but she’s not the only one. There’s Belladonna, too. We don’t know where she and Wukong went, but they might be sniffing around for some information, especially after our latest victories,” Adam continued.

“To think Belladonna would turn traitor, worried about what we might do rather than the new anti-faunus ordnance the Vale Council is trying to put into law,” Deitrich snorted. “I knew Ghira became too soft, but---”

Without even looking at the man, Adam’s hand shot out, grabbing the shark faunus around the gills.  “Stop talking.” He held the shorter man in the air for a few seconds before releasing him and going on.  “And if she sniffs around, she might show up at the rally.  Wukong and Belladonna alone will be a much easier target than going after the Schnee.  Better, they might come to us.”

“We cough, we could be back in Vale in less than an hour,” Deitrich pointed out, rubbing at his gills.

“No, remember we need to time our return for when one of Torchwick’s bought radar operators is on duty. That won’t be before midnight,” Adam disagreed.  “The whole operation here in Vale is too important for us to put into jeopardy like that, to say nothing of our existing plan to get to Schnee.”

He looked over at Trifa.  “That’s your show. Will you be ready?”

Trifa smiled, a truly horrible thing to see when contrasted with her coal-black, dead eyes.  “Oh, most definitely, Boss.”

OOOOOOO

“Ozpin!  And Hello, Glynda, you’re looking lovely today,” James Ironwood, General of the Atlesian Military, Headmaster of Atlas Academy and de-facto leader of Atlas, smiled at his old friend and the lovely blonde woman next to him as he walked into Ozpin’s office.

“Hello, James,” Glynda said, waving a hand very lightly, her tone bland, rolling her eyes lightly.  How many times do I have to say I’m not interested?

“You look a little frazzled, James. Is something the matter?” Ozpin asked, looking at his friend closely.

James snorted. “Oh, nothing much. I um… let’s just say that I was not as aware of my wording recently during an attempt to recruit someone to the ACEs as I should have been.” The looks on his friend’s face caused him to flush a bit and look away. “Ahem, I, I thought to kill two birds with one stone being here in Vale, and er, wanted to try to recruit Arturia Arc in person.  Only she took my wording the wrong way.”

Lips quirking behind his coffee mug, Ozpin nodded while Glynda had to bite her lip to keep back a snicker.  “I see.  She is a rather prideful young woman. I can well remember the many times she took umbrage at things when no offense was meant.  Although that does sound a bit beyond her normal reaction.”

“Hah! You never had to deal with her after a day spent writing an AAR, Ozpin.  I did.  If she had been doing any kind of paperwork before your discussion, Ms. Arc was already in a bad mood.”

“Hmm… well, considering she made the appointment to use the SDC Tower to talk to me, perhaps there is something to that,” James hummed. “Something to do with her family and Evig Låga’s recent activities, perhaps.” He smiled then. “I have to say, I’m not certain about all the logistical aspects of what they are doing, to say nothing of the social… issues, but if the Evig Låga Council is going to put Arturia in charge of their defenses, I can see why she turned down my offer.”

At that, Ozpin’s lips quirked downward, still hidden by his mug.  Ozpin still felt that Evig Låga’s attempt to expand would just get a lot of people killed, but it was out of his hands now. He also could not deny that opening Evig Låga up to so many faunus settlers, something he had discovered from his contacts in Mistral and might well be a sound move going forward. Yet all that remained to be seen.  Right now, I have bigger problems to try and solve.

For her part, Glynda was still having trouble not laughing at the idea that Arturia had reacted so strongly to the idea that James might have attempted to hit on her. But remembering that James had not come alone to Vale was enough to make her set aside her amusement quickly. “Well, I rather doubt that Arturia is the type to enjoy feeling pressured or to be impressed by the size of someone’s wallet… or fleet, as the case may be.”

“You know I didn’t mean, I, that’s not why I brought a fleet along,” James said, stumbling at first before finding his mental footing at the jab from the blonde he actually had a torch for rather than the young woman he’d given the wrong impression to.

“Then tell me, James, why did you feel the need to show up here with such a large force?”

“Ozpin, you know very well why.  Things are… perilous, and it all seems to be circling around Vale.  I merely offered Atlesian assistance, and the Council accepted.”

“Thereby ratcheting tensions higher among the faunus community, possibly driving more faunus into the arms of the white Fang,” Glynda growled. “The Vale Council was already getting a lot of flak for a new law they were thinking about initiating, now this? It will look to the public like they are expecting trouble and know they can’t handle it without outside assistance.”

“I will give a public broadcast as to my reasons for bringing the fleet. The sighting of several Goliaths during the Remembrance in Mountain Glenn, the sighting of a Leviathan out to sea, and so forth. The public will accept that, and I can further state that my men and I are here to keep the peace and not to interfere in any way with—" James began, but Glynda interrupted him with an angry flick of her riding crop.

“Do you think the public will really accept that if the Council truly tries to push the changes to faunus IDs? The news has been full of it these past few days, and the fact that its very much like one Atlas has for its citizens!” Glynda scowled, shaking her head. “No, James, you weren’t thinking at all about perception. You saw there was a problem, and like anyone with a hammer, you decided the problem was a nail when it’s time for a scalpel.”

If that,” Ozpin added mildly, gently waving a hand to quiet Glynda before she could continue. “Rather, it is time for more eyes, more subtle gathering of information and the setting of traps, of waiting for an enemy to make a move, and thus, a mistake.” He took a sip of his coffee, then shook his head firmly. “Precisely the things your troopers would be useless for. Unless, of course, we include young Penny in that description. She did rather well down at the docks and even better in disappearing later.”

James scowled. “Penny isn’t ready for that kind of thing.  In fact, she shouldn’t have been involved there at all.”  He sighed faintly.  “I won’t send my forces back to Atlas, Ozpin. The Vale Council accepted my offer to help, and the White Fang is far too active for my tastes. But I won’t go haring off or do anything without a target. We’ll even keep my troops here in Beacon rather than in Vale proper.  Will that do?”

“Hmm… that can be nuanced a bit better, I think, but the overall idea is acceptable.” Ozpin set his mug down for the first time in the conversation, letting James see his smile as he waved James into a chair. “I do not deny the need for a hammer, James; I just wish to use it only once the nail has been correctly identified. But come, we have a lot to discuss.”

James chuckled and nodded, taking a chair while Glynda did the same, and Ozpin returned to his own.  “Alright, to start with, there hasn’t been any change in Amber’s status.  I wish it could be otherwise, but there hasn’t. However, as my message to you said, one of her attackers was identified…”

From there, Ozpin described what had been happening, with James nodding along.  He had gotten a description of the green-haired girl, and had used his own resources to try and find her, but the only record of her existing at all was a record of a thief in a former mining city in eastern Mantle.  “It is one of those places where, once the mines went dry, things went south very quickly.  We don’t even know her age, her parentage, or anything else.  However, Qrow finally got around to sending me a description of some of the tactics he saw the trio use…”

Ozpin chuckled at James’ glare his way but waved the man to continue.  James and Qrow both provided unique insights and skills to the Inner Circle, and Ozpin refused to take sides in their little rivalry.

Sighing, James continued. “And I think the other person is Marcus Black. He’s an assassin of some repute.  Known to use kicks and short-range weapons, possibly to the extent that, like myself, one or more of his limbs are artificial.” James tapped his right arm, which was a cyborg construct from his shoulder down.  “He’s good. Very good, almost to my own level in terms of lethality.”

He sighed then. “But setting aside the two of them and the unknown leader, we… Ozpin, has this ever happened before? Salem using human quislings, and using them so well?”

“No. Oh, to be sure, Salem had several mad, murderous individuals come into her sphere of influence before. But she has never been able to use such as more than blunt objects.  This team, their skill set, the mind-altering ability of the green-haired woman’s Semblance and how they have gone to such lengths to hide their identities, they add a new and worrisome dimension to our war,” Ozpin admitted, something he would never have done to anyone but someone beyond the Inner Circle. “Stealing a Maiden’s power is also a worrisome new wrinkle.”

James scowled. “That’s not good. And it isn’t like we can do the opposite. Even Geppetto can’t create a robot that can go undetected among Grimm.” Shaking his head, James changed the subject. “But, and I know this is a painful subject, but have you decided on whether or not to go through with the Aura Transfer operation?”

Glynda stiffened, her face settling into a disapproving, even uncomfortable look for a moment, while Ozpin sighed. He was also somewhat… uncomfortable about this concept but had long understood the necessity. Indeed, he’d reconciled the need to transfer Amber’s Maiden power to someone else months back, despite it being o experimental, the impact on the new Maiden unknown.  Instead of worrying about that, Ozpin had been thinking about who to use for the transfer.  “I have. For most of the time since I made that decision, I had thought that Pyrrha Nikos would be a perfect candidate.”

“I can see why,” James whistled, shaking his head. “If she can fight on a level with Arturia at such a young age, she has the drive and combat skills to be an excellent Maiden.  However, I am sensing a ‘but’ at the moment.”

“You are. Ms. Nikos is in a long-term relationship with Harry Arc and, more than that, has given him a rather old Mistralian oath, the oath of the Shield Follower.  As such, she would never accept, or if she did, Ms. Nikos would have disturbingly divided loyalties,” Ozpin explained.

“Ha, another Arc,” James chuckled, shaking his head.  “Jacque Schnee is trying to convince the Atlesian government to take some kind of action against Evig Låga’s Dust distribution company, and I know he’s been trying to get them under SDC control.  I’ve decided to not get involved in that morass, though I have to say there’s been some information lately about certain moves Evig Låga’s made...” James shook his head.  “Well, regardless, So Pyrrha is no longer a good option.  What about young Weiss Schnee?”

“I think not. Ms. Schnee doesn’t have the Aura reserves or endurance for it.  The Maiden powers would be forever stunted in her.  Others have the Aura reserves but lack the character I would look for in a prospective maiden,” Ozpin shook his head. It was very hard to find a young woman who was both pliable enough to be convinced to follow Ozpin’s orders (and take part in an experimental medical procedure based on Aura transfer) and determined enough to master her skills and become a bulwark against Salem.  “I have thought about three others, but all three come with caveats.”

“Please don’t tell me one of them is Arturia? That would be… odd and rather wrong on many levels,” James quipped.

“Hah. No, not Arturia, nor her sister, Tia.  Oh, both Arcs have the reserves to use the Maiden powers well enough, more than Amber, in all likelihood, but there, we run into the divided loyalties issue again.”  To say nothing of the fact they are not remotely as biddable as I had assumed Ms. Nikos would be before seeing the young woman around Mr. Arc.  “The same goes for most of the ladies in our Senior, Junior and Sophomore classes.  Ms. Adel is one candidate, but her attitude is not the best, and her existing Semblance… well, if it merged with the Maiden powers, it might be a little too powerful.”

“No such thing.  Still, that’s one. What are the other two?”

“Yang Xiao Long and her sister, Ruby Rose. Ms. Xiao-Long’s Semblance could be truly amazing, backed by the powers of a maiden, but her attitude, her lack of respect for authority, and, although it is not the fairest reason, what happened with Raven means that she would be the last option I would go to if I am forced to make a choice.  As for Ruby, she is both younger,” And thus more malleable, “and more respectful toward authority and her motivation is based on simply wanting to do the best she can to make the world a better place.  Yet she also has the Silver Eyes, and no Silver-eyed warrior has ever had the Maiden powers before.  It could make her too big a target for Salem, one she would sacrifice anything to snuff out.”

Glynda looked disturbed at that, an expression that deepened as James nodded slowly before adding, “Yet that could mean Ms. Rose would be an amazing anti-Salem weapon.”

“Indeed, although I do not like speaking of our young charges in such a manner,” Ozpin said, scowling himself.

“Well, if her age is bothering you, and I agree, Ruby Rose is only, what, sixteen? Then perhaps, while Penny herself is already slated to gain the Winter Maiden’s powers, perhaps her partner? I can vouch for Ciel Soliel’s character and Aura reserves.”

“Oh yes, and wouldn’t that be a fantastic idea, putting two maidens under your command?” Glynda shook her head.

“Glynda!” Ozpin barked. “James might enjoy the grand gesture a little too much, but that kind of subtle accusation is going too far.”

Glynda scowled but nodded, and James nodded back in acceptance of her apology, if such it was. Although deep down, even Ozpin wasn’t certain he would like James to have two Maidens under his command.  Sometimes, James’s Semblance, Mettle, seemed to erode his sense of empathy and morality in favor of expediency.  And Atlas already was far too powerful militarily in any event.

“It is not an easy decision, to say the least.” Shaking his head, Ozpin cut in before the argument could continue, deciding to turn the discussion to other matters. “Let us table that discussion for now. I would like to know more about what you discovered of Marcus Black, and then, while Glynda and I do not like how you arrived, perhaps among those ships of yours, you have certain technological devices that might be of help to find our errant nail.”

OOOOOOO

Tia crouched behind a small protective wall on the roof of a factory, peering over the edge down towards another factory. They were two of many in this area, a zone of Vale that was basically the equivalent of an industrial sector and currently rundown low-income apartment complexes. The entire area was no longer in use and had yet to be repurposed because the money to do it and a plan for the area hadn’t yet been found. 

When Tia had first entered the area, she had been almost astonished at how such a large area wasn’t being used as it seemed a waste, but even with the population of Vale being in the hundreds of thousands, there was still a lot of territory within its natural defenses for people to spread out.  That was why there weren’t many buildings in the city more than fifteen stories tall, unlike in Atlas or Vacuo, where people didn’t have area to spare and thus built really tall buildings, or like in Mistral, where there was a literally stratified culture. In Vale, the only real nod towards a need for space was the use of mostly foot-traffic style roads and the highway being set up above most of the city.

Being run-down, this area of Vale didn’t see much traffic at the best of times. However, this afternoon, there was quite a bit of traffic on the streets below. More than a hundred faunus had moved through this area in groups of ones and twos since Tia had arrived around forty minutes ago. Many had entered the building that Tia was observing.  At the door was a pair of guards, while a few other guards were posted around the area.  None of them were very good at their job, though, being on the ground rather than the rooftops, and while armed, none seemed very well trained. Instead of being on the lookout for trouble, they spent most of their time talking to the faunus who passed them by, handing out White Fang-style Grimm masks.

(Tia always had to hold back a sneer at those things. The idea the White Fang needed to wear Grimm masks to hide their identities was just weird to her, as if they felt they needed to become monsters, leaving behind their humanity to fight for their basic human rights. And frankly, given what Harribel did to her mind, Tia felt they were a bit insulting to true monsters.)

Blake and Sun were down there, waiting for their chance to enter the building. Both of them wore White Fang masks that Sun had taken from one of the outer perimeter guards. Between when Tia had first begun to trail them, Sun had gotten his blonde hair changed into brown, while Blake had covered her cat ears (which Tia thought were cute) with a new hairstyle that bunched her hair up on top of her head.  To Tia, it looked funny, but that and a fake monkey tail from a joke shop seemed to pass muster after a bit of flirting.

How, I don’t know. Blake doesn’t move like a monkey faunus at all and still has yellow eyes.  Unless Blake did something to them, and I just can’t tell from here?

A light tap on her shoulder had Tia turning around quickly from where she had been crouched on a rooftop, staring down at a nearby factory, but seeing who it was, she smiled.  “Ren.”  Sneaky ninja, I didn’t hear anything, and I should have even over the sound of the faunus below.  

He nodded, then gestured wordlessly to a more distant rooftop, one that was part of an office building/closed restaurant set in between several decrepit-looking five-story apartment buildings.  Decrepit, in this case, meant all of them were missing large chunks of their walls and ceiling and didn’t have power, much like most of the other buildings around. 

Tia nodded, and the two of them silently moved in that direction, with Ren not making a single noise as he moved either across the rooftops or bouncing between them. Tia wasn’t nearly as graceful, but they were still able to avoid notice by the faunus below, as most of the outer perimeter guards were now moving inward towards the factory where the other faunus had entered already.

She smiled at Harry, then over at Mila, the expression more a motion of the eyes than anything else given her long scarf, but Mila had spent enough time around her team member to at least pick out the fact that she was pleased.  She held out Tia’s weapon to her, who took it, still smiling as she put her sheath and built over her chest, which was somewhat odd considering that, unlike the rest of the group from Beacon, she and Harry were still in their exercise togs.

She nodded toward Tristan and Beth but made no sign she was interested or surprised at their presence. They were there. That was all that mattered.

“I’m sorry, we forgot that you and Harry wouldn’t be wearing your Huntsman outfits,” Pyrrha apologized in a whisper before directing her attention back towards the vestiges of the crowd of faunus entering the factory that, from here was around two blocks away.  “There must’ve been twenty or so faunus that arrived since we got here, and far more entered that factory with who knows how many more inside. Are the White Fang really… really that popular?”

“Not really, not all the time, and certainly not historically here in Vale. Vale isn’t as equal opportunity as Vacuo or many of the communities on Anima, but it doesn’t have many laws on the books that dehumanize faunus like Atlas and so many of Mantle’s smaller towns do,” Milla said, sounding somewhat depressed as she too peered towards the distant figures of her fellow faunus. “It’s just that sometimes, the idea of fighting back when you think the world’s against you, that can seem attractive. I don’t think more than one in ten faunus down there really understand what they’ll be signing up for, but yeah, getting your own back from The Man? That’s the kind of slogan a lot of people will rally around if only to see what it’s all about.”

“Even more than equality?” Harry demanded tartly, frowning a little.  “That’s kind of gone out of their slogans since the White Fang started to become more violent.”

“And that violence won us some respect for a lot of people. That’s how a lot of faunus see it, anyway,” Mila answered almost defiantly as she looked over at Harry, but Harry simply shrugged his shoulders.

“I’ve never denied that fighting for your freedom is often necessary, but I have always said that the new version of the White Fang takes it too far. Remember that first conversation we had during the dinner I cooked for the teams and for Professor Goodwitch? It’s the difference between attacking a strip mine and freeing the miners who have been forced to work in horrible conditions and planting a bomb that assassinates not only the mine director but also his entire family.”

“Look at the theft of the SDC cargo vessel. They could’ve gotten away with it cleanly, let the Coast Guard think that it had simply been a sudden Grimm attack.  Those’re known to happen, and why ships crossing the ocean are so well-defended,” Beth agreed, shaking her head.  “Instead, they let the bodies of the entire security force assigned to the ship behind, along with several of the actual crewmen. Just… floating in the water when the coast guard got out there.”

“The news reported that some of them were marked out with the White Fang symbol to boot. That’s a terror tactic.” Tristan added while frowning thoughtfully before posing a question that, although he and Harry didn’t know it, Weiss had already begun to answer elsewhere in the city.  “Actually, come to think of it, why are the White Fang stealing Dust? It feels as if we’ve been asking about why the White Fang has been working with Roman and why the White Fang are attacking so often, without really thinking about why they would go after Dust of all things.”

Tia just shrugged her shoulders at that, while Harry nodded thoughtfully, and Mila grunted.  “The princess and that monkey boy are about to enter the factory.” She paused then, as Beth stood up, gesturing the others to follow her down to the ground, looking back over to Tia. “Why a factory?”

Harry looked at her quizzically before moving after Beth, the rest following. The group moved off, dropping down from the alleyways between the factories, with Beth in the lead, her semblance, color change, active, letting her blend into the background before signaling the rest of them to move forward with hand gestures.

Thus, it was a few minutes and several factories later before Tia actually answered Mila’s question. Although that answer wasn’t all that useful.  “I don’t know.” When Harry looked at her, Tia sighed and elaborated, her voice as always muffled by her scarf.  “Blake went around the city and found places where the White Fang mark had been left, where apparently, they leave some kind of message embedded into the mark that only faunus can figure out. It led to here.”

“Is it strange for them to use a factory?” Harry asked Mila.

“From what little I understand about it, most of the White Fang recruitment is small-scale, friend-of-a-friend kind of thing. These big rallies happen only occasionally and normally are held in movie theaters. Kind of skullduggery, you know? Buy a specific ticket to a movie showing on a screen that’s shut down for the day to humans. Or large meetings in clubs during the day. Warehouses near the dockyard area are also normal meeting places. Places where a lot of people can come and go without drawing attention.”

Mila gestured around them. “If Vale’s police were actually on the ball, they would’ve noticed so many people entering an area of the city that’s so run down like this. It makes it more suspicious, not less, you follow?”

“True,” Harry mused as they came close enough to view the activities around the factory. In turn, they were hidden in the shadows of an abandoned steel factory that had lost a wall at some point, the rubble of which hid them from the White Fang, where they were less than a block away now.  “It makes me wonder if there’s something to this particular rally that forced them to use a factory.”

“Hehehe, maybe the White Fang’re showing off all the Dust they stole?” Nora asked with a giggle.  “If I knew I had unlimited access to Dust rounds and so forth, that would be a major selling point to me for sure.”

“Nora, no, no joining the terrorists,” Ren ordered, although he wasn’t the only one who shivered at the idea of Nora having unlimited access to Dust. Thanks to a lifetime of being inured to Nora’s brand of crazy, he could ignore the horror with ease. “They could be showing off the weapons they’ve been bringing in. Hiding their weapons caches here would be an efficacious idea... although somewhat obvious.  How corrupt or incompetent are the police? I would assume they send large-scale random sweeps through this area.”

“You would be very wrong. Oh, the police do send a few foot patrols into the areas where squatters have put up small shanty towns, but those groups normally police themselves. Moreover, gun-type violence has never been a large issue in the poorer sections of Vale, given how harsh the laws are against such,” Beth stated, shaking her head and looking over at her partner.

Tristan had been mostly quiet since they’d taken to the rooftops, a part of him still not really believing that they should all be there and basically hoping for trouble to his way of thinking. However, looking towards the last group of prospective White Fang members entering the factory, he had to acknowledge the facts.  “I don’t like any of this, but I particularly don’t like how many faunus seem at least willing to hear what the White Fang has to say at this point. And I also don’t like the fact that the White Fang look as if they’re not only looking for trouble but prepared for it.”

Harry looked to where Tristan was pointing and saw what looked like an extremely well-camouflaged little bunker in another pile of rubble set to one side of the occupied factory, covering the door with what had to be some kind of gun barrel. From here, he couldn’t make out any details about it, but it was clearly a large caliber gun of some kind, perhaps large enough that only Tia and Mila would have enough physical strength to lift it.

“That can’t be normal, can it?” Tristan continued looking over to Milla, who was also staring at what he’d just pointed out.

“No, I’ve never seen a gun like that, for one thing.  And having that level of security at a rally feels weird to me, too. The outer watchers, sure, but a major gun like that, which looks military grade? Weird and worrisome,” Mila whispered, staring around. With her heightened eyesight, she was able to notice a few things that the others had missed and pointed them out to the group.  “There are also guards at the windows of that factory and two of the others on the other side of that gun emplacement.  I can barely make them out through the grimy windows, but they’re there.”

Mila paused, counting the shadows she could see barely through the extremely dirty glass of the windows on the second story of the factory.  “There’s at least twenty of them up there. I could almost say that’s a good size for guards assigned to a rally this size, but not with that huge gun and the outer watchers mixed in.”

Harry and Tristan exchanged a glance.  “Trap?” Tristan guessed, pulling out his rifle-sword, a Mecha shift weapon that was about the size of a claymore. 

“Trap,” Harry agreed.  “Or, if not a trap, more of a show of force and coercion than I would assume most recruitment drives are supposed to be. ‘Look at all our new toys, oh and if you’re not with us, you’re against us’ kind of thing.”

“I… can all too easily see the modern White Fang act like that. Dammit,” Mila muttered. “I’ve never been among their believers, but that kind of coercion, that’s not as bad as killing other faunus for traitors, but it’s up there.”

Tristan and Harry exchanged another glance, and Tristan asked, “Containment or escape, which is our priority here? And should we call in the authorities?”

“Hmm… if I had a better opinion of the Vale police, I would say yes.  As it is?” Harry shook his head, and Beth, a Vale native, nodded firm agreement despite the joke being made at her sister’s expense. “And if it was only Tia and I, I’d say escape, but with the rest of my team, you, Beth and Mila?” Harry shrugged, and the look he was giving the other young man changed into a near-challenge.

The other team leader grinned. Gone was his concern over the group of freshman Hunters-in-training jumping the gun. With a battle to come, he was locked in and eager, pulling back the cloak he wore to reveal the heavy chest plate underneath.  While he was a close to mid-range combat specialist, his Aura only lent itself equally to defense.  “TB of Team Timbre ready for action. Although maybe calling back to Beacon might be a good idea?”

“Good.” Harry took a brief glance at the area around the target factory. The outer perimeter watchmen had all come in by this point, joining the last two dozen possible recruits, but it wouldn’t take them long to funnel into the factory’s small entrance. “Pyrrha, shift around to where you’re right behind that gun emplacement.  I’m going to fall back and toss up some walls.  We want to limit how they can escape but still leave the non-combatants a way to run. Mila, I might need you to be upfront and center, shouting at the White Fang to let down their arms and such, so move to where you can shout at people coming out of the main entrance.”

Mila grimaced but nodded, and Harry went on quickly. “Nora, Ren, I’ll want you to stay here for now. Tia, move to our left flank. Tristan, move further in that direction around the factory.  We want to encircle it. Beth, pull back and find a sniper position for yourself to cover as much of the area around the factory as you can.”

Beth nodded.  Like the twins Rachel and Erica, she had spent most of her life training as a scout and skirmisher, and while she’d begun to branch out at Beacon to make TBRE a more rounded team, her weapon was still a long-range sniper rifle. She had a bit more flexibility than Crescent Rose did as a sniper rifle, though, because she made more use of Dust-loaded rounds, and the gun’s caliber was a size larger. Yet getting close was not something she was trained or armed for.

“You got it, Cap!” Beth enthused, giving Tristan a kiss on the lips before racing off, her Semblance, Shadow, turning her into nothing more than a shadow, easily missed among the shadows cast by the various buildings.  Tristan nodded, mumbled, ‘Sound strategy,’ and then he was off, taking a much sharper curve around the factory they were observing.  Tia followed with a final hidden smile Harry’s way, and Harry pulled straight back.

Harry waited until he was out of sight from the target factory, then began to use his transfiguration powers on the ground, merging several mounds of rubble into one to block the road there and fill in a few holes. There were still going to be smaller holes, of course. In Remnant Harry couldn’t conjure things into being from nothing, not even non-sentient material, although he could transfigure non-living material pretty well.

Honestly, I might be more inclined to call Beacon for some more backup if not for two things, Harry thought as he worked. One, I still have to wonder why the hell Ozpin’s not been proactive about going after the White Fang and whoever might be backing them.  I might be jumping at shadows about the whole mastermind playing both sides thing, but even so, the White Fang has proven both resilient and well-funded, and the Vale police can’t handle more than their basic grunts if that.

And second, I don’t know if I can trust the Vale police to not just throw every faunus in there into a prison, treating all of them like hardened terrorists. Instead of poor, angry folk frustrated with the current political climate and their lot in life looking to strike out at someone. 

Shaking those thoughts off, Harry made his way around the target factory, putting up further walls or creating wide ditches in the ground with his cutting spells. He didn’t use any loud spells for fear of warning the White Fang they were being trapped. 

The plan Harry had come up with to encircle the factory and the White Fang within was a good, if hasty, plan. However, it meant Harry himself was out of position when shit hit the fan far faster than he anticipated.

OOOOOOO

“Oh fuck me, there goes any hope of this not going pear-shaped.” Mila groaned as the noise within the factory reached her, speaking into her coms. Thank god that Pyrrha thought of bringing those along and that Sung-Sun and the rest of the team leaders all followed Harry’s example with the things.  “Mila to all points, be advised, we got trouble in the factory. Sounds like gunfire and--”

Before she could say anything else, Blake blasted her way out of the window, followed a second later by Sun. They were followed by several dozen bullets flashing through the same window frame. As Mila watched in stunned shock at how quickly things had escalated, the gun emplacement also began to open up on them, a full burst of heavy caliber bullets flashing towards the two faunus before the wall was smashed out of the way by a… “Is that a fucking ATLAS PALADIN!?”

The robot that had just smashed its way through the side of the factory was large, around two stories tall, a mech that had several weapons pods on its back, shoulders and forearms of cannons, rockets and machine guns with fully prehensile fists, and an armored canopy with a slit for a viewport, which itself was covered by a thick layer of bulletproof glass. It was a recent creation of Atlas’ military that was designed to stand up to the larger land-based Grimm out there and looked, at present, almost like a bull in a China shop despite the heavy concrete and brick construction of the buildings around it. This impression was worsened a moment later by another Paladin following it out of the hole. The only saving grace at present was that neither were using their machine guns, presumably due to needing to husband their ammunition.

“I’m out of position, moving in now to back up Pyrrha’s position,” Harry shouted.  “Tristan, call it!”

Eyes widening at the sudden, Tristan stared at the dodging and dancing forms of Sun and Blake before the gun emplacement cut off, and more Faunus boiled out of the factory.  Dozens were running away, but a lot were armed and firing, and among them were what Tristan instantly termed the real terrorists among them, armed, armored and moving faster, moving with purpose than the rest of the faunus. 

One of them, in particular, roared out of the hole with the Paladins, shouting, “Belladonna! You can’t run anymore, you cunt! I’m gonna gut you like a fish, traitor!” The speaker was a rhino faunus so large that even from nearly a block away, he looked about as big as Yatsuhashi, the sophomore who was easily the largest person at Beacon at present. 

Blake apparently begged to differ as she leaped up onto a rooftop. But a second later the Paladin in the lead opened fire for the first time, blasting the edge of the roof with a cannon. This caused her to fall back and off the roof toward where she had been standing a moment before. 

That was the soft option, though, as a second later as, a missile from the second paladin slammed home into the top of the building several meters ahead of her. The entire thing exploded, making Tristan shake his head and wonder how far the noises of this fight could spread.

Sun caught her mid-fall, rolling, and came up, running away, while the White Fang spread out, taking the pair of them under fire and forcing them back into cover despite their aura.

Several of those rounds went wild, coming towards where Harry and the others were crouching, but Tristan ignored them, taking in the scene quickly.  “FUCK…. All Hunters, engage, repeat, engage! Pyrrha, take out that gun. Nora and Tia, close and engage the paladins. Ren, help plow the road, then shift to flanking. Harry, slot in at the front of the factory. Most of the White Fang are coming out there.” From what Tristan could see from where he was around the side of the building facing toward the two paladins, it looked as if most of the faunus who weren’t armed were fleeing the opposite direction, skirting around the battle, if it could be called that.

“Hehehe, what about wanting to not damage public property, Fearless Leader?” Nora caroled as she began to fire Dust rounds, a moment before Pyrrha’s power grabbed at the gun emplacement. 

Having been waiting for the call, she now reached out and wrenched the heavy, double-barreled gun out, smashing it into several White Fang members before hurling it into a mass of grunts. The next second, she appeared through a hole in a small warehouse’s second-story window, landing in among a group of White Fang who had been racing to get around Blake and Sun.  Milo and Akuo struck, and White Fang flew away from the redheaded champion.

“Not now, Nora,” Ren said, his voice calm even as he began to fire into the White Fang grunts, halting them from attempting to encircle Blake and Sun.  “Beat the enemy first. Tease Harry about his silliness later.”

“SHIT! We got Huntsman!” “Fuck it’s the Man!” It’s a trap!” came a shout from some of the White Fang, while Blake, who had just jumped out of Sun’s arms, shouted, “Pyrrha!?” the redhead being the only one of her rescuers she could see at the moment.

The two of them were not the only ones to notice Pyrrha’s sudden arrival, and knowing precisely whose team Pyrrha was on, Roman hissed in fury around his cigar.  Flicking a control in the paladin he was currently piloting, he opened a coms channel to a specific radio.  “CINDER, get over here! Harry Arc and his team are here, and it looked like they were ready for us! I don’t know if even Neo’s power’s going to be enough to get us out of here!” 

Tristan charged forward closer to the action, hurling a grenade ahead of him.  The grenade, a mix of of Fire Dust and canister, exploded against the pavement, scorching the pavement and shredding several White Fang regardless of their armor.  Only a few seemed to have Aura, but even they were knocked off their feet.  The next second, he was in a position to lay down cover fire with his mecha-shift rifle-claymore.

Then Tia leaped down from one of the surrounding rooftops towards one of the paladins which had just turned in his direction. Two missiles slammed into Tia, but she had already given herself over into Harribel, and the explosions barely did anything, the impact only serving to halt her forward momentum.

Behind Tristan, Beth began to lay down fire on the White Fang along with her team leader. The mix of fire caused several of the White Fang around the paladins to duck and cover, with one of Tristan’s shots taking the arm off of one of them while Mila roared forward. Like Pyrrha, she had been placed nearer the front of the factory, and now she roared in, her huge mace smashing aside two of the grunts before it hammered into the armored form of a veteran, causing him to stumble backward. “Fucking Terrorists! Lay down your arms, or else!”

Once more, Roman hissed, then flashed his thrusters, pushing his Paladin up into the air. “God dammit, why are there always more of these kids around than you expect!?” He snarled as he fired off several more missiles, mostly unaimed, simply hurling them down into the tumult below.

Two missiles were shot out of the air, followed by a third, then someone down below had the great idea of intercepting the fourth missile with what looked like a grenade of their own. The resulting explosion lit up the evening sky like a fireworks display, and Roman twitched, snarling even as down below, Enrico piloted his Paladin away from the bestial-looking blonde wielding a massive sword.

Mila swung again at another man but blinked in shock as the man’s form shattered like glass, disappearing a second later, causing her blow to pull Mila off balance. A thin needlelike sword stabbed into her side, striking through her Aura, but before it could do more than nick her side, a spell from Harry grabbed Neo and flung her away, hurling her away.  She disappeared midair into another illusion, but Mila, recovering, saw another White Fang grunt suddenly going to his knees for no reason she could see.

The sudden attacks from the expanded squad of Hunters had caught the White Fang by surprise. However, they had the numbers to absorb the shock of the attack and came back quickly, with more of them firing from the interior of the factory at the Huntsmen just as Harry reached Blake and Sun, who had been retreating around the edge of the factory away from the two paladins.

“Hey, you two, quite a lovely day to be out and about, if you don’t count the need to dodge bullets, of course,” Harry growled, staring hard at Blake, before erecting a shield around the trio. He then began to lash out with spell after spell, ducking into cover a second later as his shield failed under the cascade of heavy fire coming their way.

Having done the same nearby, Blake scowled back at Harry.  “This isn’t anything to do with you, we--” she began, only for Sun to interrupt her.

“Thanks for the save, Harry. This almost makes us even for you getting me arrested,” he quipped. Finally able to do more than run and dodge, Sun pulled out his weapons and fired back, the shotguns installed on either end of his mecha-shift staff/nunchaku flattening two of the new White Fang members while others, instead of running away from the violence, fired back at them or the other Hunters around the cordon.

However, Sun and Blake’s fire was not aimed at the right target, as a second later, the rhino faunus charged after them around the corner of the factory, an area of the wall that had basically collapsed bar a single steel girder.  “You’re not fucking getting away, Blake!” the rhino roared. “Adam wants you to pay!”

He was a truly huge man, just as Tristan had noticed before.  He was broader in the shoulders than anyone Harry had yet to meet in this life and stood about as tall as Hagrid had in his last one. His faunus heritage was also visible in the form of a large horn that fired from his forehead. He was wielding a monstrously large warhammer that looked like even Yatsuhashi would have trouble lifting it, and he seemed to ignore the fire coming his way just like Tia, Arturia, or, if he wanted, Harry could.

“Fuck you, Lorgar!” Blake shrieked back, firing Gambol Shroud’s machine gun at the man, her voice and actions showing she knew the man.

As the man smashed through the half-wall that he and Blake were hiding behind, Sun lashed out with his staff, only for his blow to bounce off the rhino faunus’ head like he wasn’t doing anything. Sun was able to duck to the side when Lorgar reached for him, but even a staff strike to the side of the man’s body didn’t do anything.  “FUCK, how much Aura do you have, dude!?”

“Way more than you, brat!” Lorgar roared bringing his hammer down, the head of it so large it looked like it could literally squish Sun like a pancake. “You both might’ve brought backup, but I’m still gonna drag the kitty back to Adam before this is over!”

The next second, Blake was in his face, trying to fire point-blank into his eyes, which were covered by a large, thick helmet. But Lorgar had already turned away, taking the rounds on his nose and head, before lashing back up and into Blake with the butt of his warhammer, forcing her to use her semblance, swiftly shifting places with a shadow clone, then and again a second later as the rhino’s horn gouged into where she had been a second earlier.

Beth once more found the range, and several of the White Fang’s heavy assault group behind Lorgar went well-aimed shots that slammed into their gorget, underarms, and the sides of their knees. Harry also shredded or exploded several of them. Those who had aura among the group hit by his spells didn’t have as much as Lorgar and went down only a little slower than the grunts without bar a few who wore better armor.  Those survived to get into cover with their fellows, adding their fire to the amount flashing through the evening light.

The return fire flayed the entire area where Harry was hiding, forcing him to fort up as further away, missiles from the second paladin slammed into where Beth had been firing from.  “Beth, you alright!?”

“I am, got out of there just in time.  Firing now,” Beth hissed.

A moment later, her firing resumed while Harry snarled, crouching down behind his shield as the fire tore apart the rubble he’d been hiding behind. “So much for being worried they’d try to run.  We severely underestimated the amount of fire the White Fang had on hand.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think they’ve got the ammo to sustain this for very long,” Tristan answered through the comms, grunting as he pushed himself up and fired before ducking back into cover.  “I’m seeing a lot more faunus running than have stayed to fight, too.”

“Good to know.  Nora, where are you?” Harry growled as another missile went off in front of him, shattering his shield and hurling the nearby Sun off his feet. Sun rolled away from a stomp from Lorgar, but had his weapon smashed out of his arms a second later by another kick while Lorgar’s weapon nearly slammed into Blake again.

Checking his fire on the energy shield around Harry Arc, Roman had to yank his Paladin away from another young teen who had just charged out of the smoke that had begun to swirl over the battlefield. This one he vaguely recognized from the dockyard fight, and a second later, she flung herself up and through the air, riding a wave of explosions, before flipping herself up and over her weapon. The weapon shifted from a long-shafted warhammer into a short-shafted one as she brought it down. “Here’s Nora!”

Hastily raising one of his paladin’s arms, Roman blinked in shock as it shattered under the strike. Worse, the momentum of the hit overcame the paladin’s thrusters.  “Dammit, shoddy Atlesian construction.”

From his shoulder, a canon opened fire, blasting Nora out of the air, but thanks to her aura, doing no real damage.  “Fuck, I should have used my gatling gun!”

A missile strike landing near where Blake and Sun were still fighting Lorgar once more hurled both of them away from one another, crashing them into separate buildings just as Sun had regained his weapon. But without the fire from Roman’s paladin and many of the White Fang also having shifted fire away from him to where Pyrrha was busy carving them all into tripe alongside Mila, Harry was able to concentrate more on offense.

A quick Bombarda lifted Lorgar off of his feet and hurled him sideways into Enrico, smashing him off of his feet just as a point-blank missile strike had knocked Tia off of her own feet.  Tia was then forced to deal with Neo, who seemed to be everywhere at once, delighting in the carnage to cover her movements, stabbing first Mila, then Tia, only injuring Mila while Tia’s Aura and armor easily absorbed the strike.

A second later, she was gone from there, tripping Nora up and then bouncing away, the sound of shattering glass lost in the tumult. A moment later, she appeared next to Pyrrha, only for the champion to twist around from finishing off another White Fang.  Milo directed Neo’s blow wide, and Neo gasped as a front kick took her in the chest, driving the air out of her and hurling her away.   She was able to cover herself in illusion again, just as more of the second Paladin’s missiles struck throughout the battlefield on both sides of the factory, uncaring of their allies, a sight that had a wounded Mila howling in fury.

Into this bedlam, Roman continued to fire, forcing Nora into cover. However, he had not seen Ren.

Glaring angrily at the giant mecha, Ren jumped from dealing with several of the White Fang who had tried to get behind Nora and Tia.  Landing on a portion of a currently burning building, he raced along until he was behind and to one side of the Paladin and then jumped down on top of it. The daggers of Twin Flowers stabbed deeply into the glass eye slit protecting the controller, and Roman gaped up at them in shock. 

“How the hell are you better at sneaking up on people than that blasted kitten!?” That was better than her attempt to take me captive.

“Blake only thinks she knows the way of the shinobi,” Ren stated simply before pulling out the dagger portion of Twin Flowers and beginning to fire the two small submachine guns into the glass at that point with both of them, further cracking the nominally bulletproof glass.

“That glass is supposed to withstand an explosion, not just some dagger stabbing into it. Damn it, if I had actually paid for this thing, I would want my money back,” Roman snarled, powering his Paladin forward and into the side of the building. Ren was forced to leap away lest he be skewered on the rubble.

As he charged forward, Roman flipped the coms switch again, sending out another message to Cinder. “Damn it, fire girl, if you don’t get here, both Neo and I might not be able to get away, to say nothing of a large chunk of our firepower and the damn animals!”

Even as he slammed into the rubble of the building, Roman flicked that coms signal off again. Twisting the controls of the Paladin around a second later, he lashed out with a roundhouse blow that caught Ren in the air, hurling through the air. Or it should have anyway, because before it hit, a shield encapsulated Ren, taking the hit. It popped a second later but saved Ren from any harm.

A second later, he rolled along the ground, then swiftly spun away from another series of gunshots from the rest of the White Fang.  He returned fire, putting one of them down but taking several shots himself, grimacing as he fell into cover behind the rubble. But he had served his purpose as Nora roared back into close combat with Roman’s paladin while Tia closed again with the second one.

With one of the Paladins concentrating now on Nora and the other on Tia in close combat, missiles were no longer an issue. Yet closer to hand, Harry saw that the massive rhino enforcer was still hurling Blake and Sun around like they were children. But for a moment, Harry had to help Pyrrha and Mila with the rest of the White Fang to do much. The troopers weren’t much of a threat on their own, but there were a lot of them, and then there was Neo.  With her glass illusion spells and the amount of smoke and fire everywhere, she was able to move around the battlefield with near impunity. 

Harry ducked aside from a shotgun blast from one of the White Fang enforcers, his sword coming up and around to slam into and through the barrel of the gun before it could fire off a second round. That didn’t stop the user of said gun from pulling the trigger, and a second later, the gun exploded, the Dust round going off inside the barrel, hurling the two men away from one another several steps. That was enough for Harry to twist around, bringing up Caliburn to block the downward stroke of a halberd from one of the other White Fang enforcers with one hand, redirecting the blow to the side even as he lashed out with a cutting spell to the shotgun wielder, slicing him in half despite the man’s Aura flickering around him like a shield for a second.

What a cluster fuck. Heh, but look at it this way, old boy, Harry thought to himself, even as he ducked under a blow from Lorgar as he turned away from Blake for a second. At least out here, there’s not going to be any civilian casualties! Even if this is far more hectic than I had hoped it would be!

With that, Harry slammed his hands down onto the ground, raising a temporary hill underneath himself, then leaped up onto a crumbling wall. From there, Harry jumped onto a nearby factory rooftop, moving along away from Lorgar for a second, continuing to rain fire down on him and the other White Fang.

A second later, he whistled as a large number of weapons were suddenly floating in midair. Torn from the hands of dead terrorists, they were then hurled towards Lorgar and the others, smashing many of them off their feet.  A moment later, by more luck than planning, Harry caught Neo just as she came out of an illusion behind Pyrrha.  The low-scale Bombarda sent Neo sideways, although the attention to his partner cost Harry as a missile from the second paladin exploded against his body, sending him hurtling backward off the roof with a cry of pain.

“HARRY!?” Pyrrha shouted, firing towards Neo, who disappeared again into an illusion.  Another missile came towards Pyrrha, but she dodged it adroitly, then danced through several more White Fang guns, slicing, stabbing and smacking them out of her way.

“I’m alright, love.  That blast probably took around a quarter of my aura, though,” Harry grumbled, pushing himself to his feet and then rolling away from Neo, who appeared above him, Hush cocked back and ready to stab. “And fuck you too, you murderous little midget!”

Neo seemed to smile at that appellation before a spike of earth rose, and the illusion shattered. Harry was already moving, rolling to the side, making the stab from his side miss as he nearly took Neo’s legs out from under her. She jumped into the air and then was blasted away from another spell, her mouth open in a cry of pain as she was tossed backward away from Harry.  She disappeared into a bit of shadow, and then Harry had to dodge and shield himself from more fire from the White Fang enforcers.

Snarling in anger at her lover being tossed aside like that, Pyrrha ducked into cover for a moment. Ignoring the fire from the White Fang enforcers, who had continued to spread out away from the factory, she held up one of her hands towards the nearest Paladins, the one that Tia had engaged. A scowl, a wrench with her hand sideways and the Paladin was scent stumbling into the rhino, burying him under the weight of the machine for a second.

Tia, who had been somewhat sidelined and kept under wraps up to this point, instantly took advantage.  Within a second, she was on top of it, her sword stabbing down into its armored shoulder, pinning one of its arms to the ground.

This didn’t stop the other arm from coming up and trying to smack her away, but Pyrrha did, holding the thing in place. Yet this concentration on that cost her, and several Dust rounds slammed into her from behind as the White fang flanked her position, causing her to curse, lose her concentration, and roll to engage them in turn, her Akuo coming up and blocking the attacks. The next second, Pyrrha hurled her shield forward, where it slammed into heads one after another before returning to her side.

By this point, Harry had gotten back into the fight, finding himself coming in from the opposite side of the factory from where the two Paladins had smashed their way out of it. Here, he could see the last trickles of the prospective recruits rushing away but let them go.  None were armed, from what he could see. It seemed as if the violence and death had turned off most of the crowd despite the anger at The Man that had brought them here in the first place.   “Beth, concentrate fire on the rhino faunus.  Ren, remain close in with Nora. Mila, pull back and around to support Tia.  Pyrrha and I will hold this flank.  The rhino, Neo and the two Paladins are the only remaining real threats. I want a few prisoners for the police and us to question, but that doesn’t have to be Neo or her partner!”

Beth instantly moved forward from her more distant position, moving around the defensive bulwark that Harry had created earlier before the battle had started. There, she switched her sniper rifle to rapid fire, and between her and Tristan, the battle slowly turned into two separate fights, separated by about a block.  On one side was a battle of maneuver and attrition between Harry, Pyrrha and the White Fang, with Neo supporting the White Fang.

While in the other, it was a slogfest between the now somewhat injured rhino, Blake, Sun, the two Paladins and the rest of the squad.

Taking a break for a second from sending cutting spells at the White Fang, Harry found himself in a position to see through the carnage to most of the battlefield, thanks to how many walls had been smashed down by this point.  He could see that Tia had her battle well in hand, yet Nora had seemingly taken too many hits to her Aura. She was too busy dodging to really take the fight to him. The Rhino faunus was still absorbing every attack that came his way but seemed to be slowing down facing the two incredibly mobile fighters.  Ren was nowhere to be seen, although Beth and Tristan were both in sight now, trading fire with the last twenty or so White Fang members. 

Similarly, Mila had pulled back, laying down cover fire with her shotgun-mace. She looked more than a little battered around the edges but was still in fighting shape. It still stuns me how few White Fang veterans have their Aura unlocked. At this point, I’d put an Arturia-led militia against these people… sans the two paladins, anyway.

In contrast, Pyrrha looked completely fresh.  Worse for their enemies, thanks to Polarity, Neo’s Hush meant that Pyrrha could feel her coming, something Harry saw another example of a second after he took in the rest of the battle. Pyrrha ducked under a strike from behind, a mule kick slamming into Neo hip and side, sending her stumbling.  This time, Neo was a little too slow to retreat, and a slice from Pyrrha’s blade nearly took her across the chest, causing Neo’s eyed to widen and for her to turn a backward lunge into a series of flips away from the redhead, before she disappeared under another illusion. 

“Pyrrha, I’m moving to assist Nora and Ren. Mila and Tristan, direct fire to cover Pyrrha.  Beth, continue to support Sun and Blake.”

“GO!” Pyrrha nearly laughed, her voice a vicious alloy of combat adrenaline and fierce delight. “I have this, love!”

Ducking, dodging and moving through the battlefield was difficult, given how much fire was still being put out by the two Paladins and the White Fang. This held Harry up so much that by the time he got into range to do anything to Roman’s Paladin, Ren had been battered aside, and Nora was on the ground at the Paladin’s feet, one foot rising to stomp on her.

“Oh no you don’t, brat!” Roman scowled. Missiles flew in Harry’s direction, causing his first spells to go wide as he dodged and shielded himself while yet another building collapsed. The next second, an explosion from behind him made Harry realize that some of those missiles had been set on timers. They hurled him to the ground, but Harry still had eyes on Nora, and a lightning blast raced out from him, impacting the girl.

“There’s that sweet juice, baby!” Nora howled, raising her hands and grabbing the foot as it descended. Empowered by her Semblance, Nora held it there, then lifted the Paladin up into the air entirely, hurling it back into several of the White Fang enforcers, crushing them. Cackling, Nora charged after it, covering the few yards in a near eyeblink.

Harry would have followed if not for suddenly appearing with a crackle of glass stabbing toward him. FUCK! Neo’s sword met his aura, carving into it again a second, but stopped short of his side, and his sword came up in a wide arc as she used her Semblance once more to evade him.

Moments later, she was standing or at least apparently was standing anyway, with illusions you could never tell, on the shoulder of Roman’s Paladin as it pushed itself to its feet. The thing’s gatling gun kept Nora at range she was forced to duck into cover. Unlike Tia, she simply couldn’t absorb that kind of firepower and keep on moving.

But Harry didn’t believe the lies in his eyes.  There’s too much space between here and there, and I… hmmm… With a wave of his hands, Harry used the equivalent of an overpowered Lumos, causing many of the Faunus, even Mila, to cry out in pain across the battlefield.  The next second, this was followed by a Stench spell, the equivalent of a dung bomb in spell form, a spell Harry had rarely used in this life but which the twins had taught him in his last.

That spell worked, and more than one of the Faunus gagged, going to their knees.  So did Neo, appearing out of nowhere as her Semblance failed her for a second.  “Got Ya!” Harry hissed, aiming towards where she was to one side of Roman’s Paladin, which had just taken a hit from Nora again.

The next second, a tongue of flame appeared, causing Mila and Pyrrha to shriek in surprise as something or someone else arrived on the battlefield.

OOOOOOO

Cinder had not wanted to get involved in this mess. She really, really hadn’t. While she was more than willing to try and strike at targets of opportunity given how hard her long-term plans had been damaged to this point, revealing herself in yet another fight here to back up Roman as she had to several months back was not something she wanted unless she could make certain there were no witnesses, and even with Neo’s power helping, that was a near impossibility.

However, having arrived on the scene and seen the walls that Arc had raised she had decided to stay in place.  Now, when Cinder saw Neo go down, blindly clawing at her eyes, then her nose, her power dispelling instantly, Cinder knew that she had to act. Above and beyond the paladins, above and beyond the White Fang members who were slowly being ground down to the group of Huntsman-in-training, Neopolitan’s powers were too important to waste. 

She lashed out with both hands, sending a fireball toward Harry Arc, Nikos, and the bear faunus. Harry quickly ducked behind a makeshift shield, allowing Cinder to turn her attention to the others, nearly catching Pyrrha Nikos in another burst of fire.  “Re-group on me,” Cinder snarled, her voice nearly unheard through the tumult, even as she sent more fire at the Huntsmen, grateful that her mask, which was a full face-covering version of the White Fang mask, came complete with a voice changer.  “Regroup on me!”

A shield flashed across the battlefield toward Cinder, who ducked, barely able to get her head under it, watching as it sailed past and into the wall behind her, smacking off the wall and then returned to Pyrrha’s arm as she charged forwards, her spear lashing out.

Cinder raised her glass-based weapon, Midnight, barely blocking the blow but managing to kick out, although her kick went wide as Pyrrha twisted around it, her shield smacking Cinder’s leg to the side and carrying it further, causing Cinder to overbalance. She moved with it, though, lashing out with another blow from her weapon at the same time, causing Pyrrha to twitch away, her spear shifting into its sword mode to block the blow, the redhead’s eyes narrowing as she stared at the new combatant.

In another lifetime, this battle would be occurring on the top of Ozpin’s tower after Cinder had finally claimed the last of the maiden power for herself, and she would face a Pyrrha who was desperate, who had fought for a goodly while already against Grimm and other opponents during the Vytal Festival. This was not that fight. And Cinder began to feel herself pressed backward and more by the champion in front of her before Roman’s paladin, able to get away from Nora landed beside her, Gatling Gun flaring.

“Move!” Cinder hissed, and the two of them, with Neo moving to join them as the gatling gun laid down so much fire it forced nearly every Hunter into cover.  “The White Fang are lost; we need to get out of here!”

“Oh hell no,” Harry grumbled.  “They are not getting away from us! Pyrrha, Tia, on me. Beth, cover us as well as you can.  Tristan, make sure that…” He paused as Blake launched herself forward along the rooftops, racing after the retreating robot just as Sun got smashed out of his latest hiding place by Lorgar.  “Fuck.  Tristan, you’re in charge here. Prisoners, and especially the Rhino.  Nora, break his kneecaps!”

With that, Harry raced after the retreating robot and its two fellows, while behind him, Tia howled, fully in the grips of Harribel, yet still responding to Harry’s voice. Must follow, must protect! Tia snarled in the depths of bestial madness. She left Tiburon buried in the center of the second Paladin’s chest, pinning it in place before leaping up and racing along on all fours after Pyrrha, who was following Harry in turn, another howl coming from her Grimm-like armored mouth. 

Behind them, Nora howled gleefully. Still riding the lightning, she crashed into Lorgar, bringing her hammer around to smash into his.  “Hell yeah, let’s see which hammer wielder’s the better, big guy!”

Shaking his head, Tristan put down another White Fang member. “Oh sure, leave me here to clean up, why don’t you?”

“Meh, love, that bitch who just arrived was hurling out fireballs.  I rather think Harry and co. got the short end of this stick,” Beth quipped, even as she kept trying to range on the fleeing woman in black.  “To say nothing of the illusionist and the paladin.”

“You know what, yeah, I’ll stop complaining,” Tristan stated as the last of the White Fang went down bar the hammer wielder.  “Pile on boys and girls. Bring that bruiser down!”

OOOOOOO

None of this action was apparent just yet to Vale as a whole just yet.  News of it had certainly yet to reach the area of the city where Yang and Ruby currently were.

Ruby groaned, fighting the urge to facepalm as Yang smashed open the door of the club with the body of the enforcer who had tried to stop her from entering.  “Yang, come on, all he said was he didn’t want any trouble.” She hesitated a bit, then mumbled, “Okay, he might have called you a bad name, but still, that’s no reason to punt him.”

“You didn’t see the hand gesture that came with it, sis,” Yang grumbled. “Ugh, seriously, the guys here should know not to do that kind of shit.”

Ruby pouted but, Yang stepped into the doorway, only to pause as she and Ruby found themselves facing several dozen men pointing guns in the direction. The half circle of gunmen was backed by Melanie and Miltia, who stood on either side of Junior, the trio wearing identical scowls.  “Dammit, Blondie! What are you doing back here?”

While Ruby surreptitiously tried to reach where Crescent Rose hung under her cloak, Yang simply marched forward, smirking slightly, her stance loose, ignoring all the guns pointed their way.  “You owe me a drink.”

The bearded man’s eyes crossed, but whatever he was about to say went unsaid as from behind Ruby, footsteps sounded. Junior and the others all looked on as Ruby turned, but Yang was just a bit too slow.  The next second, Ruby’s eyes widened as Arturia stepped past her, reached out and grabbed Yang by the ear, yanking her around. “That is about enough out of you, Yang Xiao Long!”

“Ow, w, what the, Arturia! I didn’t know you were owww, could you let go of my, ow!” Yang gabbled as Arthur twisted her ear, much to the amusement of the watching toughs.  “Wwoooooww, what are you doing…”

“Stopping you from breaking the law again. I believe Professor Goodwitch spoke to you about your actions here in Hei Days once before. You can’t just go around roughing people up. That is what criminals do.” Arturia drawled, shaking her head.

“Eh?! T, that’s not true. It’s for a good cause!”

“Yang…” Ruby groaned, shaking her head. “What’ve I been saying, honestly?”

“That’s what all the terrorists say!” Miltia pounced.

“I know, and she was so violent before just because the boss wouldn’t answer her questions,” Melanie sighed, shaking her head theatrically, both of them greatly enjoying the sight of the Dark Queen putting the blonde menace in her place.

Yes, the twins were very well aware of who Arturia Arc was. Most of the people who followed Huntsmen would have heard her name before, although she didn’t have the celebrity status among the common public as Pyrrha did. But considering that Arturia had gone on a several-week-long binge of destroying their Mama Malachite’s crime syndicate in Mistral, the twins knew enough to put a face to the name.

“Oh, come on! They’re criminals! This whole place is used as a front for criminal activity, and I’m a huntress-in-training…”

“Are you even listening to yourself?”: Arthur asked darkly, shaking Yang again, then releasing her even as she propelled Yang towards the door.  “Enough of this. While a part of me admires the team unity that brought the two of you out here along with Weiss and Blake, the rest of me is simply annoyed. Fighting White Fang if you discover them is one thing. Shaking down gangsters for information and not incidentally causing a firefight to break out in a club I wish to go to, which is actually a legitimate business, is another.”

Junior blinked, as did many of his people, while Melanie and Miltia exchanged a high-five.  “Hell yeah, our club’s so good that even the Dark Queen wants to come here.”

“I think you left a little bit of your own personal feelings out there, Arturia,” Yang grumbled but didn’t fight Arturia as she pushed her towards Ruby.  “Still, all of the other contacts I had in town didn’t tell me jack squat. How else are we supposed to get information?”

“By paying for it! And not with knuckle sandwiches either,” Junior said firmly, causing Arturia to look his way.  “Since you all know already, I’m willing to admit that I’m a bit of an information broker, but I only will answer questions if you pay. Not like the last time when you just barged in here and demanded an answer as to who that bitch in the mask was.”

“Hey! You recognized her, so I knew you had the information,” Yang shot back.

“Yet you’re not exactly arguing with the fact that you weren’t able to pay,” Arturia drawled, shaking her head.  “And who is this person in the mask you were searching for? Some White Fang member? That is the first I’ve heard of Blake looking for specific people.”

Yang clammed up at that point, looking away, but Ruby shook her head, moving to give Yang a bear hug.  “Oh, Yang. Is that how you knew this place might have information for us? You came here before to look for information on, on Raven?”

“Don’t say her name!” Junior hissed, looking towards the shadows in the dance club first ship second as if just mentioning that name would summon the person they were talking about.  “Like I told you then, kid, I don’t know any specifics about her. Only that she’s bad news.”

“Who is Raven?” Arturia asked, frowning a little as the conversation seemed to get derailed for a second, uncaring of the flinch this caused from Junior and the twins. 

As Yang moved forward, making hushing noises at Ruby, Ruby replied, shrugging her shoulders.  “Raven’s Yang’s real mom. She was with my dad before my dad was with my mom, and then she left. Yang’s been searching for reasons why for years.”

That evinced some sympathy from the twins and Arturia, and even as Yang grabbed Ruby and pulled her into a hug in turn, Arturia shook her head.  “That is indeed quite harsh, and I can understand a child searching for his or her parent. I certainly would’ve done so had anything happened to mine, or indeed, if any of my siblings went missing. However, that is a far cry from using violence to get your way. Now, how much do you charge for your answers?” She asked, turning back to Junior.

Junior smiled thinly.  “Depends on the question. I can give you an estimate, depending on where the individual or the information in question is supposed to be.”

“That makes sense. And I have no interest in discovering information on the White Fang per se.” At that, Yang and Ruby both stopped hugging one another, turning to look at Arturia in confusion. This was mirrored in Junior’s face, but she sharply shrugged her shoulders. “The White Fang as a whole is not important.”

“Hey! They’re terrorists, and they’ve ruined people’s livelihoods and killed people! We should be doing everything we can to find them,” Ruby said, looking horrified at Arturia’s blasé tone.

“It is their resources which make the White Fang dangerous. Hence, why I have no need to pose questions on the White Fang themselves, rather, where those resources are coming from. And where in the city they could possibly store the amount of Dust they’ve taken. Most of those weapons couldn’t possibly be manufactured here in Vale without someone noticing. Those are more pertinent questions than just about the White Fang in general or where they are meeting or hiding, as there will always be more such places. Those, as well as who is waving around a lot of money.” Arturia turned back to look at Junior, shaking her head.  “I no more believe that Roman Torchwick, the Dapper Thief, is the one pulling the strings than I would believe he could tap dance on a thimble.”

“Actually, I wouldn’t put it past him to try something like that if he was drunk,” Junior murmured before shaking his head. “So, are you asking me for information on those points? They’ll be expensive, even if we’re only talking about information available through my sources here in Vale. Using those resources against someone strong enough to maybe make Roman do his bidding is a tall order and liable to get some of my contacts killed.”

Ruby flinched at that and seemed to have second thoughts while Yang scowled, understanding now that perhaps she should have thought about how someone like Junior got his information before this.

“But you agree that someone could be manipulating him?” Arturia questioned.

“I’m not saying anything like that. I think that maybe, just maybe, someone could be. Is not the same thing as knowing for certain,” Junior shot back.  “And I don’t have any information on who that person or people could be. Not for any price. I prefer to charge for specific questions. You’re giving me generalities.”

“True. But we come back to the Dust issue. Moving all of that Dust and storing it would be incredibly difficult. So how about this. What would it cost you to find out if or where the White Fang are storing Dust within Vale?”

Frowning, Junior named a figure and then added another thirty million to it.  “To put up with the carnage that Blondie over there caused the first time she came around.”

“A most sensible idea.” Without batting an eye, Arturia pulled out a scroll, waving it at Junior. “Do you take direct transfer? I’m afraid I don’t carry all that much cash on me.”

Anyone else might have bargained or something or perhaps threatened Junior with going to the authorities now that he had admitted to an officially accredited Huntress that he was involved in criminal activity. However, Arturia did not. For one thing, she felt there were more important things to worry about. For another, Arturia never haggled, believing that doing so was beneath her dignity.

Even Junior was surprised at how quickly Arturia had agreed to his price. “It, it will take a while. But I can already tell you, if they are storing Dust in a single location, it won’t be anywhere in Vale.”

“Then perhaps another question poses itself. Specifically, who among Vale’s radar operators or station chiefs might be bribable, or have already taken bribes?” Arturia questioned. “If you cannot answer one question at the price I have given, perhaps you can answer another.”

“Done,” Junior said instantly. That was information he could easily acquire, and he even knew who among those people were connected to Torchwick. While he in no way wanted to get involved with whatever Roman was doing, or whoever was directing him, this information he could at least discover and pass off to someone who could do so. Then maybe things in Vale would settle back into normal. It’s been too tense and annoying lately.  “I will have those answers for you by the end of the week.”

“Excellent. In that case, if you take reservations for your club here, make a reservation for two this Saturday at nine,” Arturia ordered.

“We’ll be happy to have you,” Melanie said with a grin. 

“If you can dance at all like your siblings can, having you here will be great fun,” Miltia added.

“Who do you think taught Harry how to dance in the first place?” Arturia said, before turning towards the door and shooing the two sisters out, with Yang still grumbling.

“That was way too easy, and didn’t give us any information we can act on now,” Yang said, shaking her head with a scowl. 

“Perhaps not, but we will have information in the future. Further, Junior will feel less indisposed towards us as well. That is no small consideration.”

“Still annoying though!” Yang subsided for a moment, while Ruby happily filled in the silence with questions for Arturia as to how she had become involved, how she knew they were there, and everything else. Yang had finally worked up the courage to ask a question.  “Hey, um, I don’t suppose, I don’t suppose you’d be willing to pay Junior for information on, um, well my mother like we talked about a moment ago. I just, I need…”

“Closure. I understand,” Arturia said, before smirking very slightly.  “Indeed, I assume that Glynda also understood, or else your little incident in Hei Days she told me about would probably have cost you your application to Bacon.” Yang’s eyes widened at that as did Ruby’s, with Ruby glomping onto her sister again, her eyes wide and horrified. The very idea of going to beacon without her sister there was a terrifying one to the young introvert, while Yang was realizing that maybe, just maybe she’d been playing a little too fast and loose with the law and her future at times.

“But I would need to know more about the individual in question. I’m certainly not going to pay a fortune for you to learn more about your mother. I’m sorry, but those are my own funds I’m currently using, rather than my clan’s, and that isn’t a well that is without end,” Arturia half-warned, half-demanded.

Sighing, Yang nodded, and pulled out a photo, the only photo of her mother she had, and when she did, Arturia stiffened, staring at it. Specifically, she was looking at the markings around the woman’s collar, the cut of her clothing and the bones and bird feathers.  To someone like Arturia, who hailed from the continent of Anima, those told a story, in this case one she had seen before, specifically in security cameras.

“Branwen!?”

“Wait, you know her!?” Yang asked, her eyes widening. If it is been anyone else, she might’ve reached over and tried to grab and shake answers out of them, but Arturia Arc was not someone you did that too.

None of the trio noticed someone watching from a nearby roof, or how he talked into a scroll for a moment. “We’ll go with Plan Loud Mercury-boy. The target’s got two other possible targets with her.  Let’s go for a clean sweep!”

Arturia shook her head in the negative, her voice so frosty it was a wonder the two siblings didn’t become frozen. “I do not know her, but I know those markings, the outfit she’s currently wearing, the specific manner that she wears those beads, feathers and so forth. Do you have another picture, of her wearing a Grimm-like mask, perhaps? One that is more stylized and personal looking like those generic ones the White Fang use?”

While Ruby shivered a little at Arturia’s tone, remarking mentally that Weiss had nothing on Arturia when she wanted to seem cold, Yang nodded. Staring at Arthur in wonder.  “I do! But why… or how do you know her?”

“I say again, I do not know her. I know the clan she is part of. A bandit clan.”

Yang’s elation at finding out about her mother fell apart at those last few words as she stared at Arturia in shock.  “Bandit clan?”

“The bandit clans live out beyond the settlements on Anima, mostly in the hot equator area. The jungles there are more hospitable than further north, where my hometown resides. They are stains on life. They attack small villages and towns, get them good and afraid, frightened enough to draw in the Grimm, then they retreat, waiting until the Grimm are beaten off before attacking again. Sometimes, they even release groups of captured Grimm directly into the targeted town, instead of attacking themselves. It’s a kind of symbiotic relationship you might say. They try to work with the Grimm, to ‘accept’ them,” Arturia explained, scowling furiously.

“One of my first missions after graduating Beacon was to a town that had been so assaulted. We tried for weeks to find them afterward, but we never did. In fact, my team broke up barely two missions later. That was the only mission I’d failed in then or since. It stuck in my memory.”

Yang blanched, staring at Arturia. “I… siccing Grimm on people? Wh…”

“That’s so wrong!” Ruby exclaimed.

Arturia looked back at her, then at Ruby, ruffling the younger and shorter girl’s hair. “I do not know your specific circumstances, Yang. I do not know that woman. Yet if she is part of the Branwen clan, perhaps she left you behind because she did not want you to be a part of that life? Perhaps the life you live now is a far better one than you would have if she had taken you away?”

At those words, Yang slowly nodded, then pulled Ruby into another hug, snuffling a little into her hair. Ruby would normally have rolled her eyes at this point but instead hugged Yang back. Watching this, Arturia smiled at the siblings before turning and leading the way down the street again.

It only occurred to her a few moments later that there weren’t very many people around, and there should have been at this point. Hei Days wasn’t actually all that far off the beaten path, but there wasn’t anyone around.

Arturia stared all around her and slowly pulled Rhongomyniad over her shoulder. This had Yang and Ruby moving away from one another, their own weapons coming up. Just in time as fire erupted from both sides and in front of them.

End Chapter