Chapter 10:

Promises

It had started to snow when Yang and Spade made their way to the warehouse district. The last vestiges of winter fell from the sky and chilled the air around them, making their breath become fog as it drifted away into the night sky. Tiny crystal flakes landed on the streets and rooftops of Vale by the thousands. In a few hours, the entire city would be frosted white before the first warmth of spring came and melted it all away.

Yang intended to be long gone by then.

"Go careful, alright?" Spade said as Yang readied her gear in an alley a few blocks away from their target.

"I will. Just be ready to back me up."

"Got it." He replied and scrambled up a fire escape to the rooftops.

Sneaking alone through the hidden backways and deserted alleys, Yang idly remembered her younger days, wandering aimlessly about and causing trouble on these same streets.

Those days were long behind her now, along with everything and everyone else.

Pushing the thoughts of the past back once again, as she did time after time, Yang set out to complete her mission.

Torchwick or not, past or not, I have to keep moving forward.

I still have a job to do.

"Okay boys and girls, this is it." Qrow said into his Scroll to the teams spread out across the warehouse district. "We find Torchwick and end this crap tonight. Stay together and stay alive. I don't want to fill out any paperwork. Everyone got it?"

"Got it." They all responded.

Qrow hung up and turned to Pyrrha standing in the snow-swept alley behind him. He'd wanted to speak with her in private ever since the bombshell had been dropped the night before, so Qrow sent Jaune with Ruby and brought Pyrrha along with him to keep an eye on her. It hadn't been without protest from the father-to-be, but it was ultimately for the best.

"Look, I know you'd rather be up with the others, but it's better if you stayed back right now. It's not just your life on the line now."

"I know." Pyrrha said and gently rested a hand on her still-flat stomach. "Thank you, Qrow. I'll try not to do anything rash."

Nodding, Qrow wondered how in the world he was going to explain this little complication to Ozpin. Graduation was still months away, and soon Pyrrha wouldn't be able to do fighting of any kind as the pregnancy progressed. They would have to work something out.

Maybe Ozpin will bend the rules and make this mission their final exam or something. She's earned it. They all have.

That was tomorrow, however, and Qrow had to focus on tonight.

Qrow wasn't a fan of foreswearing himself, and he knew that his Semblance put Pyrrha and her unborn child in danger, but he was determined to do all he could to keep them both from harm. He silently vowed to himself that he would protect them, even if that meant just keeping her as far from the fighting as possible.

I'm not good with promises, but I have to try.

He just hoped that he hadn't made a promise he couldn't keep.

When she came upon the three-story warehouse, Yang found that it was crawling with guards. But after two years serving in Wintergreen's army, small and informal as that was, she knew professional soldiers when she saw them. The way the carried themselves on their patrol routes, the way the held their weapons, the distinct way they walked. All the clear result of countless hours of training and drill. Mercs. Well-armed ones, too.

Torchwick's upgraded his muscle. Must be making bank in the arms business.

Yang approached the perimeter fence that cut off the heavily guarded warehouse, made sure the coast was clear, and scrambled over. The frosted metal burned her left fingers, but she ignored the numbing pain and pressed on.

My hands will warm up when I start punching fools.

Well, hand.

Aside from her fists, Yang only had a suppressed pistol to do the deed of capping Torchwick. If a fight broke out, as it usually did, Yang would ditch the guns and do what she did best.

She'd lost a lot of weapons doing that.

Taking one last look around, Yang broke the lock on a door and stepped inside.

The warehouse interior was huge. She was in the main storage section, and the industrial grade shelves were three stories tall and filled to the brim with what looked like normal, perfectly legal goods. The occasional fluorescent light far above was the only illumination in the building, and there were plenty of dark spaces in between to sneak around in.

"I've lost track of you. Got your ears on?" Spade's voice said in her ear in all the glorious, static-filled sound quality of used military hardware.

"Loud and clear." Yang responded to the cheeky mike-check with a whisper into the transmitter in her jacket collar, which was wired to the earpiece wedged into her right eardrum. "I'm on the first floor. Anything going on outside?"

"Yeah, we've got company. Six Huntsmen moving in a sloppy search pattern around the block. I don't think they've pinpointed your building yet. Make it quick, would you?"

"Got it."

Just my luck. Huntsmen show up right when we do. This place'll be crawling with cops soon.

What if it's…?

Yang shook the thought aside. She had to find Torchwick.

As she moved swiftly and silently through the warehouse, Yang heard voices that got louder the deeper in she got. Turning a corner, Yang found that the center area had been cleared of shelving and was piled high with military crates of various sizes, ready to ship out through the truck loading docks further on. Some of the crates were opened for inspection. Lots of guns. Thousands upon thousands of Dust rounds. Ordnance, everything from artillery shells to aircraft missiles.

And in the middle of the massive cache of explosive contraband stood Yang's target.

"I asked for four million Lien in advance for your order." Roman Torchwick said into the Scroll he held away from his mouth with one hand while he leaned on his cane with the other. "My bank account is looking a little empty. Would you care to explain?"

"We sent you a case of cash that should cover your fees." A deep, gravelly voice responded over speaker. Yang didn't recognize it, and didn't really care who it was anyways.

"A case with four million Lien in it! Not one. Not two. Not three. Four million. What am I supposed to do with an empty case!"

"We're warriors, not merchants."

"But you can still count! Let me make this clear. Zero Lien, zero crates!" Torchwick hung up and grumbled to himself. "And here I was thinking the White Fang was bad. These dumb mercs will be the death of me!"

It was at that moment the alarms went off.

"Speaking of which." Torchwick groaned and called out into the darkness of the warehouse. "Would someone please go deal with whatever that is!"

Yang, seeing the opportunity and grateful for the distraction, stepped out of the shadows and into the light. She had to close in for the kill now, before whatever was happening outside came crashing in. If Torchwick got away, or was captured by the Huntsmen, there would never be another opportunity to get him. He'd probably just escape from prison again anyway.

But why didn't Spade warn me?

Just as she stalked forward, pulled the pistol from her jacket pocket, and raised it to aim at Torchwick's head, Yang felt a thin, razor-sharp blade materialize across her throat.

I fucking knew it!

At the end of it, standing to her left, was Neo. The petite pink and brown-haired girl was staring at her with a smug, amused grin. Still holding her weaponized umbrella to Yang's neck, Neo raised her free hand and loudly snapped her gloved fingers.

"Woah!" Torchwick snapped around, genuine surprise on his face. "How did you get in here!?"

Then he finally recognized the would-be assassin standing before him.

"Hello, Blondie." He said with a twirl of his cane. "We really gotta' stop meeting like this. People are gonna' to talk."

Yang considered shooting Torchwick then and there, consequences be damned, but she knew that Neo would take her head off before she could even get her finger around the trigger. Her captor made a mute dropping motion with her hand, and having no other choice but to comply, Yang let go of her gun. Neo then kicked it away from her feet, and the handgun clattered away across the concrete floor.

"Thank you, Neo." Torchwick put his hands behind his back and sauntered forward. "Now, where have you been all this time? Things go bad after that little incident during the Vytal Festival?"

"Like I'd tell you?" Yang replied, keeping her anger in check.

"Sweetheart, I don't know if you noticed, but I'm in control right now."

"Oh really? Doesn't sound like it outside." Yang observed, still wondering why Spade hadn't tried to call in. Was he fighting the Huntsmen? She couldn't hear anything over the klaxons this deep inside the warehouse.

"Now that you mention it, I don't expect the guards to be of any help." Torchwick replied with an exacerbated sigh. "So, I think it's time for me to make my grand escape. And as much as I'd love to stay and chat, not to mention thank you for killing that silver-haired brat Mercury, this is where we must part ways. Neo, if you please."

Just as Neo was about to behead Yang with a single fluid flick of the wrist, the outside wall exploded behind her.

Spade knew how to make an entrance.

His face and clothes were blackened from the explosion, and brought his rifle down to break Neo and Yang apart with the shovel-like blade usually hidden in the butt-stock. Spade often only used Broken Shovel's melee mode as an entrenching tool, they'd had to dig a lot of trenches over the years, but it could become a lethal combat "spear" if he needed it to be.

Neo backflipped away onto a nearby crate, and came up with her head cocked and an eyebrow raised at the man who'd just attacked her with a strange looking shovel.

"How we doing?" He asked Yang, never taking his eyes of Neo for a second.

As if in response, about a dozen guards came rushing into view with guns raised.

"Same as always." Yang replied wryly and raised her fists.

"That bad huh?"

Yang and Spade stood back to back, as they had in Junior's club and plenty of other fights before, staring down the room full of armed mercenaries and the sociopathic two-toned bitch who'd nearly killed Yang twice before.

"Somebody kill them!" Torchwick ordered and raised his cane to fire at them.

Game on.

Just as the first guard opened fire, Yang sprang forward, grabbed the gun from his hand, and slammed it right back into his face before throwing it forcefully at the guy next to him. Then she lept from soldier to soldier, punching wildly and with impunity as she went. Spade whirled Broken Spade around in his hand and swiftly shot down five of his guys from the hip. Then Neo jumped on him from out of nowhere, but Spade, thanks to his Semblance and sharp reflexes, saw her coming and immediately turned to face her.

After firing his first, and only, shot into the melee, Torchwick was running for the stairs at the end of the warehouse.

"Go!" Spade shouted as he effortlessly dodged a slash from Neo's blade.

Seeing that they were pretty evenly matched, Yang dropped the last guard standing and ran after Torchwick. She wished she had Ember Celica so she could just blast her way to the top rather than chase him up the stairs. On the third-floor catwalk suspended above the cleared center section, just as Yang climbed the last flight of stairs, Torchwick disappeared into the smoke filled gloom between the lights.

What the…?

The floodlights of a previously concealed Bullhead dropship blazed to life, blinding Yang for a second as the craft's engines spun up. She just barely dodged the twin missiles that streaked past her and blew yet another hole in the side of the building.

Take a girl for a ride, eh?

Yang didn't have a second to lose.

The dropship accelerated toward the new opening, and she grabbed the tail-fin with one hand and hung on tight as they thundered out and up into the cold black sky.

"Umm, Qrow?" Pyrrha said, pointing to the orange tinged column of smoke against the sky emerging from a few buildings away and the unmistakable silhouette of a Bullhead dropship against the cracked moon.

"Yeah, I see it." Qrow replied. He felt his Scroll vibrate in his pocket, and he pulled it out to see Ruby was calling him.

"Ruby, what the hell's going on!"

"I don't know! Some guy busted into a building me and Jaune were about to check out, and then the whole place exploded!" His niece explained between shots from Crescent Rose in the background. "The others are here with us and we're fighting the guards. I think there's someone still fighting inside."

"Okay, I'll go after that Bullhead. Stay safe kiddo."

"You too, Uncle Qrow."

Qrow hung up and rammed the Scroll into his pocket.

"Stay here." He said to Pyrrha standing behind him. Qrow didn't want to leave her, but someone had to chase down that dropship, which no doubt had Torchwick aboard. If he escaped, then he'd go to ground and they'd never catch him again. It was now or never.

"But I can help!" Pyrrha protested. "I'm pregnant, not useless!"

"A one pound bird can't carry a one-sixty pound girl. I mean it! Stay put."

He didn't hear exactly what she said next, though it might have been something about the approximation of her weight. Qrow transformed into a crow, pumped his wings as hard as he could, and flew with all the speed he could muster after the escaping Bullhead.

As Qrow closed the distance, he could barely make out the shape of someone hanging off the side of the dropship with his sharper avian eyes. They seemed to be punching away at whatever was in reach, and pieces started falling away with each hit. In his surprise, he gave them points for creativity, if not for sheer bullheaded determination.

Who the hell'd be crazy enough to take on a dropship with their bare hands?

Eventually, after taking one hell of a very literal pounding, one of the engines on the wingtip started smoking and sputtering. The craft began to loose altitude and quickly descend toward the ground in a sort of half-gliding freefall.

I can't believe that actually worked.

Qrow was about to follow it down, but then something, like a swift moving shadow against the cold black of night, caught his eye. He almost didn't see what it, or who, it was until they were far too close to evade.

It was a raven.

The larger black bird slammed into him, sending them both into their own violent descent.