42

Her job was supposed to be the easy one. While Adam starts fighting, she would sneak around and drag Roman away.

It would be boring but she didn't complain. At least not verbally. But he would definitely owe her a big time.

Taurus jumped in so it was now her time to go. Immediately, Neo ran into 2 problems.

One, he may have cut her dum-dum off from the little red but he was still stuck in the weird red thing.

Two, blondie wasn't feeling like letting go and while Adam was having a staring match with little red, she kicked bound Roman into the air towards the main group of brats.

/

If some goatman thinks he can get away with attacking MY little sister…

Yang nearly forgot about Torchwick, only briefly remembering about him and kickin him towards Weiss.

Sadly, a small girl intercepted Roman's flight and was now trying to cut away the swaths of petals that kept him immobilized.

She briefly looked at the rest of her team. Weiss Pyrrha and Penny were dealing with the bullheads and Ruby was keeping the bastard at bay.

Oh well, it seems like this one is mine. The gunfire that occasionally reached her was utterly pointless. For the attackers that is. For her it was a nice charge up.

/

I can't waste time with this brat. The fool is handled but if I take down the Schnee…

It took a while to charge up his semblance but two successfully blocked sniper rounds were all it took to get things going.

And it would be enough to end it.

Avoiding the swarms of razor sharp petals was somewhat annoying but they wouldn't provide any defense for the girl.

Aiming for the neck, Adam unleashed his semblance.

It was a clear hit. All people present could see it.

Yet there was no shouting. No cries of fear or outrage.

"Ghk?!" He barely blocked an attack from the large scythe.

What?

Petals swarmed around her neck and a second later she looked like the previous attack didn't happen.

/

"Four o'clock!" Penny called out and watched as a nevermore summon rushed the ship. Poor pilot freaked out and nearly crashed when it landed on top of the cockpit. Soon after, it crashed after the giant bird pecked out the hydraulics.

Penny was hesitant to use her laser, worrying that it might damage the infrastructure around. For now, she focused on covering Weiss, letting her use her summons to deal with the enemy.

Pyrrha had tried to ground one with her semblance but it wasn't strong enough.

Too big. Too heavy.

What if… The same as with paladin, she reached out for the insides.

Engines bent upward, wings partially folded. Crew lost their footing as the bullhead went into a sudden nosedive, the pilot desperately fighting for control as the UI was flashing with attitude warnings and control errors.

/

Annoying little shit! Yang punched out, only for her opponent to break into what looked like shards of glass. Immediately, she had to duck to avoid a parasol of all things going for her eyes.

The hits felt more like love taps but what was getting on Yang's nerves was that the girl was really, really nimble. She wasn't as fast as Ruby but her semblance made it very hard to keep track of her and she was probably even more agile than Blake while being about a foot shorter.

An elbow strike and once again she hit nothing. One, two. Yang flipped backwards and performed a scissor kick, a grin of satisfaction appearing on her face when she felt her leg connect with something. Once she landed after her flip she briefly looked over her shoulder and smirked as she saw the small girl trying to stand up. She was rubbing her ribs as her aura was flickering, barely staying active.

She was about to go retrieve the thief when one of three remaining bullheads decided that keeping her away with guns wasn't working and something heavier was needed.

For example the bullhead.

That was going full throttle towards Yang.

I who shall awaken.

A fist was pulled back.

/

Adam had to admit that he had the luck to end up against an opponent who might as well be immune to his fighting style.

He had shot her. The holes disappeared as soon as the bullet left the body.

He had cut off her arms, legs and even head. All of it was back within seconds and the girl only looked slightly more annoyed after the fact. Strangely, she never tried to block an attack with her scythe. A shame, at least he would be able to deal with part of the nuisance.

He also had to constantly shift his position, jumping and running all over the place unless he wanted to be swarmed by petals. He saw those things immobilize the thrice accursed paladin and the rotten thief still couldn't get out of his predicament. He would give her no chances.

He briefly felt a burst of warm air.

*Cr-boom*

Here goes another… He lamented the loss of his men and resources as the platform was rocked by an explosion.

On the bright side… The girls got distracted. He dashed towards Roman who was now only partially trapped and was trying to crawl away from the fighting.

"You ruined my clothes!" Roman shouted at Roman after he swiftly cut him out of the cocoon. And the lower half of his white suit.

If it wasn't for the mask Roman might have pissed himself from the glare Adam shot him.

"Shut up." He spat. "We need to leave. Now." They already wasted enough time and with their bullheads falling out of the sky they needed to go. Thankfully the last explosion covered the battlefield in smoke and dust and gave them a much needed opportunity.

/

"Oh no, you don't!" Ruby pulled out a small vial of lightning dust and started mixing it with her semblance.

She didn't have her special spikes but a straight slightly singed piece of pipe would do. After getting sharpened a bit, of course.

Penny took a step back after her sensors started being affected by the static field Ruby was generating.

A modestly sized tube of swirling petals and occasional discharge of electricity was aimed towards the escaping ship.

*Boom*

The pipe-spike flew away, breaking the sound barrier.

/

Even with his mask Roman and Neo could still see his emotions.

First was surprise. Adam guessed the intent of shooting them down and intercepted the attack with his sword. And now he was staring at its hilt and only about half-foot of the blade.

Second was confusion, as he looked down at the red shards falling into darkness below.

And last was anger. A furious snarl on his face as he glared at the person who broke his weapon. Now it was personal.

And she was running towards the edge of the damaged platform, still persistent in catching them.

/

"I'm going after them!" Ruby called out as they all saw Roman and the other two fighters try to escape. Taking a running start she became akin to a twisting spear of petals and launched herself into the air after the bullhead.

A box was thrown at her from the open side door. Then it exploded right into Ruby's face, setting the small storm of petals on fire.

The girls didn't know what to think. On one hand Ruby was clearly stronger than they expected but getting a facefull of fire dust would definitely hurt. A moment later Ruby reformed at the edge she jumped off and let her shoulders fall.

Mission failed…

"Ruby! Are you okay?" Pyrrha rushed up to her and grabbed her by the shoulders.

"I'm fine." She answered before giving her reassuring smile. "I had to deal with worse from Yang."

Before they could start thinking about what to do with all the damages, arrested White Fang members and downed pieces of Atlassian tech, the sirens could be heard from above.

Ugh… not this again. At least Penny managed to get a copy of the data out of the paladin's black box.

-BBW-

Damages were tallied, reports sent and prisoners interrogated.

All that was left was to get any sort of statement from the people responsible.

Despite the incident being on every news outlet in Vale, Ozpin made a brilliant decision to let them have a night of rest before all of them would assemble in his office to give a full report.

And now, nine in the morning they stood opposite each other. Penny, Sun, Neptune, team R_PY and BL_N on one side and Ozpin, Ironwood and Glynda on the other.

"Miss Rose, I had hoped that we would be able to hear the story from all sides." Ozpin pointed out the absence of two people.

Ruby stepped forward and put a flash drive on the table. "Weiss and Ilia spend the night compiling the report, we decided that they should catch up on their sleep." What she didn't tell was that Penny also helped with looking into the paladin data but she didn't really need sleep. And she didn't want to give out her secret in that way, because the girl would have to be awake for over 24 hours without showing any signs of tiredness. It would be too suspicious.

Ozpin slowly nodded and passed over the report to Glynda. She would check it out while he would deal with the overenthusiastic students.

Nothing new in his tenure. Frankly, Ruby and Yang had it in their blood. Qrow and Raven had almost started a turf war. To this day he had no idea why or how. Raven said it was an accident. Qrow said that their birthday party went out of control. How Summer and Tai got involved was also beyond him.

"Now, would you please tell us what you were initially doing and how exactly it all spilled out onto the highway?" Ozpin spoke in a calm, pleasant tone. While they caused quite a big mess it wasn't anything too big. Considering the involvement of two whole teams, plus three extras from different kingdoms, the amount of chaos was minimal.

What followed was a somewhat disjointed retelling of the events, involving a failed infiltration of a White Fang rally, failure of which was solely blamed on Sun and his abs, poking around Vale's underbelly, which Oz already knew didn't have the answers and strongarming SDC into providing as much information as possible.

James had tried to interrupt the story at several points. The stolen paladin and why did they choose immediate counterattack as the first option? How did Penny get involved?

"And why did you children decide that it was your responsibility to deal with White Fang?" Ozpin asked, regretting that he only made a single cup of coffee before the debriefing.

"I think you already know." Blake gave him a hard look. Maybe they should have been more respectful but she already spent almost two hours of her day being questioned over something that should have been done months ago.

Ironwood shot Oz a curious glance. Everyone knew about the badly hidden faunus features but he was never told that there might have been something more to it.

"And the rest simply agreed to join?" Ozpin's gaze panned over the assembled students.

"Blake was adamant in pursuing this and we simply decided to cover all bases in case something went wrong." Ruby replied. That was the reason why their two teams went along. Sun went in because of Ilia and simply dragged Neptune along. Penny joined because it was simply the right thing to do.

"So despite knowing the risks you still decided to play adults and intervene yourself instead of letting professionals handle it." General remarked.

"Like you've done any bet-" Nora was about to give them a piece of her mind but Blake interrupted her with a nudge and a hard glare.

"With all respect." Blake turned back to the adults. And none of them thought that her respect was genuine. "We have brought in more people in two missions than your army did in the last month while having less manpower and information." Which was true. Tukson still had his contacts in the Fang and all the army was able to accomplish was busting down one small rally and catching a couple of street recruiters.

"My men have more important things to deal with than going after individuals." Ironwood briskly answered. "One man is less dangerous than an entire base."

"Like a base worth of manpower that came flying at us as their back-up?" Yang chimed in and smirked at the general. "I'm actually starting to think that they are Vale's new army with how easily they are flying around…"

Rage briefly crossed his face but he quickly schooled himself before taking a step towards the blonde. "I'm sure you think yourself all mighty right now but you should think before speaking to your superiors like th-"

"You are not." Ruby interrupted, frowning at the much larger man. Sure, Yang could be an ass sometimes…most of the time but that didn't mean anybody could just be mean to her. "We are in Vale. Here you are just a foreign official. You have no say in what we do, our headmaster does." And considering how little Ozpin seemed to care about what was happening they might as well do whatever they felt right.

"Quite." Ozpin spoke, once again in the spotlight. "Now, I think we have already spent enough time here. You may go, I'm sure that one night of rest wasn't enough after the ordeal." He gave them a warm smile. "We will take a look at what you've found. You will be contacted if we have more questions."

/

"You are letting them go with a pat on the back after all of this?" James slammed his hands on Ozpin's desk.

Beacon's headmaster sighed and promptly ignored the outburst. "Glynda, have you found anything of use?"

"Quite a bit actually, it's rather detailed so it will take more time to go over it but the girls might have had some luck in their escapade all things considered." Glynda put her scroll on the table, the report still opened. She then glared at Oz. "Why didn't you tell them about the casualties?" She asked in an icy tone.

Ozpin hummed. "I think that they don't need to worry about it right now. Those were accidents and I didn't want to burden them more than they are now."

"You can't be serious!" She cried out in outrage. When Ozpin showed barely any reaction she looked to the general for help.

"Honestly, my issues are not with the operation itself. If anything, they handled themselves better than some of my fresh graduates. Their conduct on the other hand…"

It was an hour later that they finished reading the report. Each one being interested in different parts of it.

Ozpin focused on the small note left by Yang, stating that Torchwick and White Fang were sharing a leader. A young female capable of throwing copious amounts of fire without the use of dust. He already had his suspicions that somebody from Salem's circle was pulling the string but now he had a confirmation. It was time to give Qrow an update. The presumably locations of White Fang bases were James' problem as well as the amount of equipment Weiss calculated that they might have at their disposal. And the girls' abilities? Restraining a mech or destroying a bullhead with one punch? Nothing new. There were always people who were lucky in that way.

A boy and a girl about two centuries ago. The girl's semblance allowed her to control blood. In her own body and if even a drop of her blood got mixed with someone else's she could control that as well. Add in enhanced regeneration and she was nearly unkillable. Only the time itself put her down. And the boy… Ozpin saw the solar panels in Atlas. His semblance worked in a somewhat similar fashion. Only hundred times more efficient and with lasers.

Then there was a tortoise faunus almost a millennia ago. His semblance wasn't anything extraordinary but his faunus trait… he had the longevity of his animal counterpart. From what he knew he lived up to be almost six hundred. And he spent most of this time with Salem in her castle.

Strangely, Salem had barely made any moves at that time frame.

Strange indeed.

He didn't feel jealous at all.

-BBW-

"Well… this was a waste of time." Nora summarized the last couple of hours.

"At least we could give them the intel we found. Maybe they will actually do something about it this time." Blake gave her own opinion, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

In all honesty she was worried sick after the battle ended.

Ruby fought Adam.

She spent half an hour right there on the highway looking her over just to make sure the younger girl was alright. And receiving plenty of reassuring hugs from her.

Then, after they told her how their fight looked, she broke down laughing at how terribly Ruby's semblance countered Adam's.

"Yeah! We stopped the bad guys and didn't even get chewed on." Sun joked.

"Yet." Neptune dryly opposed, not feeling as optimistic as his teammate. "I'm going to the dorms, if something goes wrong, please, don't get me involved." He sarcastically quipped and bid them farewell.

Penny left shortly after, saying that she didn't really explain where she was to Jaune and he might start to panic if left alone for too long.

Sun also followed after Neptune. As the team leader he had to at least give his boys a proper welcome to Vale.

/

"Do you think the two of them are up already?" Pyrrha asked when they reached the dorms.

"Unfortunately." Came a muffled grumble from inside team RWPY's dorm. Shortly after the door opened and they were greeted by a rather grumpy Weiss dressed in a fluffy bathrobe and a mug of coffee in hand. "So, how did it go?"

Blake briefly checked on Ilia, who was still in her bed asleep, then turned to Weiss. "Well, none of were expelled-"

"I dare him to try." Weiss grumbled. "If SDC lawyers can keep my father out of prison then they definitely would be able to keep us enrolled."

The statement was followed by uncomfortable giggles.

"Anyway," Ruby picked up the previous train of thoughts. "Everything went better than I had expected. We've got in a bit of a verbal spar with General Ironwood and Goodwitch…well, she didn't say anything but she looked really angry."

"Verbal spar?" Weiss asked with a raised eyebrow, already expecting that it was most likely something more heated. "You do realize that my sister is his personal assistant?" She gave a pointed look to Yang. "I hope you weren't…your usual self."

Yang just gave her an innocent smile.

Weiss sighed. "Regardless, now that this is over, are there any other plans for today?"

"Have some rest." Blake tiredly replied. "I think we all had enough adventures for at least a week." She would still try to keep an eye on things, just make sure that somebody was putting their efforts to use.

"Sounds like a good idea." Ruby nodded along. "I've looked through some of the stuff from that paladin and I-"

"Nope!" Yang bopped her sister on the head. "The rest applies to you too so no locking up in the smithy."

"Actually, maybe we could do something together?" Pyrrha asked Ruby, who was now split between pouting at Yang and moping over not being able to enjoy her hobby.

"Let me change and we'll leave the dorm to you." Weiss said with a small smile.

Yang slightly frowned. "About that… I'm still without my bike." She was about to turn to Blake when-

"Yeah, yeah. I know, I owe you one."

Weiss chuckled at the interaction. "I don't mind." She slowly started to prepare her outdoor clothing. "I think I had my fill of excitement. Your driving would go over my limits." She finished with a teasing smile, earning herself a raspberry from Yang.

-BBW-

"Stop squirming already!" Roman raged, trying to figure out his way with the bandages.

*smack* A small but deceptively strong hand landed on his head.

"I'm trying to help!" He pleaded only receiving a mismatched glare.

Stupid blond bitch… He wasn't exactly angry at her for fighting them. Different sides and all that. Everything was fair game. Frankly, after seeing what happened to the bullhead that tried to run her down he was glad she went easy on Neo. Now if only he didn't have to tend to her bruised and cracked ribs…

"Torchwick." A voice, filled with barely restrained anger, called out.

"What is it, bully boy? I'm kinda in the middle of something." Where the hell did I put that lotion for bruises.

A standard machete was stabbed into the floor right next to his head. "Listen here, you worthless petty thief." Adam kneeled down so that he could look Roman in the eyes. "You've lost ten bullheads and over fifty of my men during your last two missions. Now, you will tell me who did you piss off or I will decide to simply cut our losses."

Roman let Neo limp away to her bunk before turning to Adam. "Have you heard of Scorchers?"

"How is a pair of mercs involved?" Of course he did. Hell, they had worked for them on some slave owner busting.

"Yeah, remember that blond chick?" His face morphing into his usual confident smirk. "I'm not sure who exactly she is to them. Either a messenger, or that's how she introduced herself, or some sort of apprentice."

Adam mulled the new information for a moment. "And why exactly are they going after you?" From what he understood, those two didn't really do 'people' missions. With a few exceptions they had done only grimm extermination. Ridiculous large scale purges but still just grimm missions.

"They are not really after me…" Roman nervously admitted. Adam raised an eyebrow behind his mask and gestured for Roman to continue. "I don't know the whys and hows but they are gunning for Cinder. And well… somehow they apparently figured out that i work for her and now-"

"And now they are sending their brat to test the waters before going in full force." Adam finished the thought. That was rather troubling. While there was no information on how good fighters they were when it came to people, the amount of destruction caused by them when purging a grimm nest was infamous.

"Take your partner and go to the main base. You staying here is costing us too much so you can hide there until we are ready to proceed to the next phase." Adam told him after some time of deliberation. "Don't fail again."

-BBW-

"Popcorn?"

"Here!" Blake replied and sat down on Ruby's left.

"Soda?"

"Got it!" Pyrrha plopped down at the right side.

Fifteen minutes later they managed to figure out the most comfortable way to cuddle up. Two mattresses were thrown on the floor, one blanket on top. Good enough. Ruby would make a few more with her semblance if necessary.

/

The movie was about to end and Ruby was getting way too hot. She thought that growing up with Yang would make her immune to it but being sandwiched between Blake and Pyrrha was making her temperature rise quite a lot.

Logical choice was to lose some layers of clothing, at least that was what she would do when Yang was creating a sauna in their living room.

Didn't help at all! It made things even worse! And staying like that between Pyrrha and Blake was making her feel… weird. Not in a wrong way but.

She also forgot what the movie was about. At some point Pyrrha had reached over her head and started scratching her faunus ears. Which led to Blake purring tight into Ruby's ear.

It was rather soothing.

With that in mind Ruby relaxed into something very soft under her. At that point she realized that Blake had the same idea about being too hot and ditched her yukata. And she clearly didn't have the upper part of her underwear on.

Pyrrha had gone in with a loose crop top and shorts. Briefly, ruby had wondered whether those were still on.

Bad thoughts! Ugh…work! Killing grimm! Big Weapons!

Unfortunately, these thoughts made her even more excited. That was when she heard a low slurping sound behind her. As well as quiet moaning.

That's it! I want some of that too!

-BBW-

It took them almost a month to admit that there was no ground base when it came to their target. The only thing they had found was the small abandoned place on Patch.

Nothing else.

Not on the island and not on the coastline.

Which led the patchwork team of Tai, Winter and Marrow back to Patch. Namely, the docks. Because if the lab wasn't on the ground, a big enough ship would also serve the purpose.

Which led to them looking through hundreds of ships that passed around the island during the time of the incident.

So far they had about a dozen freight carriers that were under suspicion. There were many more ships with obviously shady paperwork but those were all too small and frankly not their problem at the moment. Winter would have liked to deal with them too but if they were to chase every wrong deed they could find they would probably die of old age before leaving the small settlement.

There was one yacht that somewhat stood out due to it occasionally circling between Vale and Patch but Winter and marrow agreed that it was too small to be their target.

Despite Tai telling them that those things can be modified. He was tired of chasing ghosts. At least now he was on the island and could enjoy his own bed.

-BBW-

On Monday afternoon, Ruby had called a team meeting after the classes. It came as a surprise considering that they all had their own things to do at the time and agreed to see each other later.

Also, Ruby had sounded rather angry.

Yang was the last to arrive, barking out a laugh at seeing Weiss and Pyrrha standing in front of the dorm, too nervous to enter on their own.

So it was up to the Big Sis™ to handle their upset team leader.

In the room they saw Ruby pacing from one end to the other. When she noticed that they entered she stopped and fixed them with a glare. It wasn't angry, maybe only a little bit. It was filled with disappointment and sadness.

That's when they noticed the scroll in her hand.

None got the chance to ask any question when Ruby presented the scroll with an open article.

White Fang strikes again! 9 people killed in a counterattack.