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Chicken Soup

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For all the weapons and strategies ever devised,

Among its collection of techniques and diverse range of arsenals,

There may be no force as great,

Nor as tried and true,

As the one called Revenge.

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Rain pelted across every surface of the trainyard and harbor. Metal banged in a low cacophony like countless steel drums. The distant rumbling of thunder followed splashes of lightning among the cloudy skies.

Bodies of several White Fang members littered the trainyard's graveled grounds. Some of their masks cracked in two, while some were beaten into their face. None of them dead; however, but clearly unconscious.

The ones responsible paid no attention to the defeated. Emerald, Neo, and Mercury only watched quietly from atop a steel container to the duel commencing below.

There, Yang and Adam squared off. A pair of alighted warriors, amber and crimson, testing their might. Life would crown the victor, and death, the loser.

Though their fight had gone on for some time now, the two combatants brushed only a sparse four encounters. Each exchange lasted a single moment, before retreating to their respective distances thirty paces apart. Then, wind and thunder filled the break between.

It was the type of match Adam was fond of.

Quick, brief, and decisive. And in between moments of sudden intensity, was the war of patience and psychology. No room for Yang to build momentum. No opportunity for her to pull the duel into a brawl. She barely activated a fraction of her Semblance, before it dissipated.

The rain continued to pour. Her allies stayed from the fight, out of some condition arranged beforehand. Before they even knew Adam and his followers would be the ones to accept Junior's shipment.

Lightning cracked the sky above, signaling the start of the next bout.

In the flashing radiance, Yang and Adam closed the distance in an instant. Adam drew his sword from its sheathe and Yang's gauntlet let out a bang from its firing chamber.

When the thunder passed, the duelists had switched positions. The swordsman resheathed his katana and prepared for the next strike. The boxer did the same, her hair glowing from the brief activation of her Semblance.

An electric crackle hissed from Yang's Ember Celica, which prompted her attention downwards.

A deep groove stretched across her right forearm. The prosthetic remained functional, but she risked its structural integrity if she took another attack like the previous. Then, Yang's arm would be severed for a second time.

Adam knew this.

Not only was the damage plain to see, but he felt the feedback from his sword. If it had been flesh, the limb would have been parted clean off. For a moment, he entertained the idea of aiming for Yang's left, but banished the thought. Playing with his meals was a bad habit of his. One that needed reining on more than one occasion.

Adam marked her neck instead and sought an to end the match.

The swordsman brimmed with confidence as he waited for Yang's hair to lose its glow. The red lines in Adam's mask and coat illuminated as its polar opposite.

He felt his Aura course through, the Dust as its catalyst. His fingers tightened around his katana.

Blake ran away from the White Fang for this weakling? How did she fool herself into believing Humans like her are worth saving?

Adam made a quiet promise that Yang's head would fly the next second. He envisioned the exchange play out in his mind. Every detail of his step and every motion mapped. His Semblance activated to outline Yang's vulnerabilities.

This time, with no signal of any kind, Adam made the dash forward. It may have been his imagination, but he thought he caught a glimpse of Yang's smirk.

Suddenly, a great portal of red and black ripped open the space between them, interrupting their duel. The thing pulsed like a beating heart. It reeked of dark energies, and mist poured from it, as if it were an open wound.

With a slow and purposed gait, the figure of a vagrant warrior appeared from its void. Every step made her armor and adornments give a pleasant clink. Threat exuded from her breath. Bloodthirst within the eye slits of her mask.

Although, the atmosphere was electrified just a moment ago, it dwarfed in the wake of the woman's arrival. Her Grimm mask turned to Yang first and then Adam, who barked at her.

"Raven! What are you doing here?!"

"Why, saving your life, Adam," came a deep and strong-bearing voice.

"Ridiculous! Don't pretend like you're not here for your daughter. You think I'll believe such an obvious lie?!"

"Believe what you like. Although you may think I'm lying…" she gestured with a nod of her head to the sidelines.

There, Adam saw them.

Three bright pairs of eyes gleaming in his direction. Never blinking, never for a moment looking away. Focused so intently on the swordsman, he sensed their murderous intent through the heavy rainfall.

"One step away from the final blow, and those three little demons would have ended you. I thought I taught you to think things more thoroughly than that."

"I'm not your apprentice anymore!"

"So, you aren't," Raven glanced at Emerald, Mercury, and Neo. "Therefore, my courtesy ends here. If you're in such a rush to die, then it can't be helped. I haven't been ordered to specifically save you, after all."

Adam grit his teeth in frustration.

He knew she spoke the truth. Taking on the three of them would have been impossible, especially if he failed to finish off Yang. After a thought, if Raven hadn't interceded the duel, it was likely they would have.

"And now? We should knowingly let them enter Mistral?" Adam continued. "Don't forget the promises you've made! If anything, you're obligated to help me fight them— "

Raven's long sword spanned the distance without notice. The point of her blade nestled against Adam's Adam's apple, causing the young man to gulp.

"Quiet, pup. Accept that your part in this is over."

Sweat beat down from Adam's mask.

"The cargo…!"

"Seems to be in good hands. I believe they were in the middle of delivering it? Until you interrupted them, that is."

A thousand thoughts raced through Adam's mind, followed by a string of profanity hanging on the edge of his tongue. But he chose to bite down his words instead.

Adam lifted his hand from the hilt of his katana and stood straight. After sparing another moment, he walked away.

"No hard feelings, eh, Adam?" Emerald waved.

"It was great seeing you again," Mercury added. "I love that guy. He and I are best friends, you know."

Adam growled.

As he left, he caught one last, fleeting glimpse of Yang. Her burning eyes bore into him. Something dangerous lurked there.

But what was most disturbing was the girl didn't seem angry in the way he expected.

A mad kind of glow played about her. Like she savored every second up to this point, even if she was on the losing end of the duel.

Then, Adam wondered if he was really winning the fight in the first place. The match seemed too easy in retrospect…

At that, he looked back at Yang once more.

She revealed a wicked grin, as if reading Adam's exact thoughts.

The grudge between them would find another day.

Destiny dictated it.

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X

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With Adam's departure, the night's rain lessened from a monsoon to a softer drizzle.

Emerald hopped down from her spectator's seat and approached Yang and Raven. Neo and Mercury remained where they were, ready to provide backup at a moment's notice. Otherwise, agreeing to let Emerald do the talking.

"Raven," she greeted.

"Emerald. Gathering what I can from the situation, I think I can figure what your motives were."

"Great! Saves us a lot on explanations."

"And the conclusion was—you were using Yang to get to me." Raven leveled the tip of her blade at Emerald's chest. "How did you think I was going to take that?"

With an unperturbed gaze, Emerald raised her hand to wave Neo and Mercury off from attacking.

"We thought you'd be grateful, to be honest."

"Cinder hasn't taught you as well as I thought."

"Well enough. We're here now, aren't we?"

"Mom."

Raven heard a small voice at her side and a prosthetic hand grabbed her sword.

Yang gently forced the blade away from Emerald.

"We need to talk."

Raven sighed.

"…Yes. I suppose we do."

The woman sheathed her sword and began walking to the edge of the harbor, where the dock met the water. Emerald gave Yang a measuring look before crossing her arms. A sign that she would wait, but not long.

Yang followed after her mother alone and reached Raven's side.

"Your new friends were ready to let you die."

"…"

"You assumed they were going to make their move at the last moment and save you?"

"…"

"I know Emerald. And I know the extent of Adam's abilities. Whatever arrangements you made beforehand, I guarantee, they weren't going to uphold it."

"…I guess, not. I wanted them to stay out of my fight with Adam, but I think they were going to jump in anyway." Yang picked up an empty bottle sitting on the dock and chucked it into the sea.

"That's a naïve way of looking at things."

"It's the truth."

"You're poorly misplacing your trust, Yang."

"Who says I trust them that much? I do just enough. And they've gotten me this far."

"And you shouldn't be here in the first place," Raven said with a stern tone.

Yang went silent.

Not once did her mother look at her since they started talking. She focused on Raven's face covered by the Grimm mask. She wanted with every angry impulse to shatter it, and force her mother's attention her way.

Perhaps reading that, Raven lifted the helmet from her head.

"How long have your eyes been like that?" Raven suddenly asked.

"Like what?"

"That color. They aren't usually like that, right?"

"What does it matter?"

"It matters a lot actually."

Yang was off put by the question, but tried to recall. It wasn't long after joining her new team that she woke up to find her irises had lost their violet hue.

"Um…they've stayed red for a while now. A couple weeks? I don't really remember."

"…I see." After pondering it a while, Raven spoke again. "This isn't the life for you."

"…"

"I can guess what you're here for, and I'm telling you now, you won't find it. Turn around and go back to Tai. It's where you belong."

"Are you kidding me?!"

"At this rate, you're going to be dragged into this war. It's nothing you ever trained for, Yang. And nothing near what you'll be able to handle."

"I don't care!"

"You won't be fighting Grimm. You'll be fighting people—actual people. Not mindless monsters. Can you do that? Can you kill someone, step over their corpse, and move to the next?"

"…"

"Go back to Patch. You went on this trip to get to me. You've got me. You want me to visit? I can do that. You want me to write letters? I'll write you letters. You can leave Cinder's people to me. But you shouldn't be out here, not with Remnant like it is. And not anywhere close to where I am."

"I said, I don't care!"

...

Raven narrowed her brow.

"What do you want? You're willing to fight a war you don't even care about, just so you can better understand a mother who abandoned you?"

"MAYBE, I AM! Maybe, I'm tired of not knowing who you are and watching dad and Qrow shut up whenever you're mentioned! MAYBE, I just want to be with you?! To actually know you! Is that so wrong?!"

Raven shook her head, still refusing to turn her way. "This is ridiculous. If we didn't share the same blood, you would be trying to take me down like any other criminal."

"But you're not. You're my mom."

"If you want to know about me, I'll tell you. Qrow and Tai will tell you. Especially since you've proven you're willing to run away if they don't."

"I'll only get lies and half-truths."

"…"

"I need to see everything myself, or I won't find the answers I'm looking for. If words were enough, I would've been okay with ignoring everything. But I'm not—I want to stand at your side."

"Summer was your mother. Not me."

"She was!" Yang shuddered. "And then, I found out about you! And after that, EVERYTIME I heard the word 'mother', YOUR face was all I could think about! Your name and your face!"

In the wake of the young girl's outburst, Raven's stoic expression showed signs of collapse. Her eyes finally met her daughter's and she couldn't break away. The girl, who she wanted to remember as only a baby, was staring at her with eyes mirroring her own. The same tinge of deep red that dyed with a depth of unflinching conviction.

"You're more like me than I would have ever wanted." Raven took a deep breath. "I'd never wish any part of me on you, Yang. Not a single thread. But now you're like this."

"…"

Raven smiled sadly to herself.

"Summer thought differently. She said it wouldn't be bad at all if you grew up to be like me. 'I love you both', she would say." Raven walked in front of her daughter. "The answers you find, won't be the ones you're looking for—about me and about yourself. The truth can be a horrible thing. Do you understand?"

"…I came here knowing that."

"Even if you join me, I doubt I'll ever treat you properly, or the way you want."

"I don't mind that."

"I'm taking advantage of you. I have certain ambitions, so I'll use you to those ends."

"I don't care if you do."

"It's what an abusive parent does."

"I don't care if you abuse me."

"Yang…" Raven's voice trailed off.

She'll do whatever she wants, anyway. Whether I send her home or not.

At least this way….

After a moment, she allowed herself an expression that could have held a semblance of pride to it.

It quickly faded, and was replaced by stone. She made her decision. They both did. Each with their own ulterior motives.

Raven did not know, but her few words of consent would later affect not solely Yang and herself, but all of Remnant.

"Welcome to the White Fang, Yang Xiao Long.

I hope you will serve me well."