The pole of a scythe pounded its way through several troops in the passenger chamber of an airship. The close quarters made it difficult to wield a large weapon but the seatbelts the troops were forced to fiddle with made it harder to get out of the way of being knocked out. Ruby put down the grunts and moved on to the pilot's cabin, raising her polearm threateningly against the man who had to keep hold of the controls, "Put the ship down!"

"I can't do that!" The thug pilot shouted back!

"Put it down or I'll knock you out and do it myself!"

"Are you nuts?! You can't fly these things!"

"Do you wanna risk me crashing it with you still inside or do you wanna land safely?! Your choice bad guy!" The minion hesitated for a second before lowering the ship down into a landing spot just outside the warehouse. Ruby stood proud and then grabbed the goon's hands and cuffed them behind his seat, "Ok, now you wait here for the cops." The thug's head hung defeated and Ruby made her way out of the vessel and looked back up at the small fleet. The red hood put a hand to her ear, "Weiss, are you about done with that one? Over."

A jet of flame burst out of the crew compartment of one of the craft. "This one is nearly done Rose, but I still haven't found the leader. Over"

Ruby glanced around at the few airships still operating over the warehouse. She spied one which hadn't attempted to lower cables and seemed to merely hover at a slightly higher altitude, as though it were little more than a mere viewing platform. The Rose activated her comms again, "Weiss! The one in the middle over top of the others, do you see it? Over."

A short pause occurred before there was a response, "I see it Rose. You think that is where Torchwick is? Over."

"It's gotta be." Ruby answered, "He hasn't been on the ground and he's the leader. He probably wants to watch from up high. Think you can make it over to him from where you're at? Over."

Another pause occurred, "Yes, I'll have the pilot of this one fly me over to board it. Can you reach it from the ground? Over."

Ruby smirked, "Remnant is the heaviest thing there is, if I push against it I can jump as high as I want without using up much aura at all! Over."

"Very well Rose. I shall go in from the left, you jump in from the right. We will finally have him cornered. Over."

"Alright then, let's take this guy down. Over." Ruby propelled herself up atop the now deroofed wall of the warehouse, then adjusted her body's aim to be perfectly in line with the doors to the top airship's crew cab. With a blast of rose petals she rocketed forth to face the enemy she hoped to find in the sky.

Yang and Blake occupied the maze of containers they had jumped down into while faced off against Neo. Blake kept her focus on the right hand of Roman while addressing Yang, "Why are we just standing off down here now? I thought we were running away to try to lose her."

Yang cracked her knuckles and her neck, "Only way we can lose her is by making her lose, and she's so good that the only way to do that is to get every advantage we can over her."

"And exactly what advantages do we have down here?"

"We? None." Yang grinned, "You on the other hand have places to hide. You can't fight straight up and I can't do it dirty, so I'll have to be the bait and you'll have to be the hook."

"Could you maybe be more specific about this? Like where I should hide and when and how I should strike?"

"Nope!" Yang popped, "That's the best I've got, you'll need to figure out the rest on the fly! Now let's hit it!"

With that the golden mane rushed forward towards the right hand of Roman. Blake growled a bit but shook her head and looked around the battlefield for a proper vantage point to occupy as Yang had said. The black cat found what she was looking for and leapt into the shadows of the boxes. Yang herself engaged Neo as she had been before, but this time with her wolf grin at full bore. The aggressive punches kept being continuously dodged so Yang started going a bit experimental. First she threw a feint but her enemy didn't bother flinching at it before the two punch which was actually dodged. Yang thought back to Blake's analysis of Neo's style and began leaving some false openings, but her act was not subtle enough and Neo did not fall for it.

A small clash led to a backstep from Neo that put her out of Yang's reach, but Yang didn't press, rather she unleashed shotgun blasts from both fists towards the petite woman. The pink and brunette headed girl extended her parasol into a shield from the shots and Yang's wolf grin bared her fangs in what was nearly a pant for blood, "Now Blake!"

A blur of shadow burst forth from the greater ones surrounding it and dove towards Neo like a black falcon from on high. A small gasp issued forth from the mute who drew the sword concealed in her umbrella to parry the incoming slash from a black ninjato, but as soon as her blade touched that of the cat ninja the entire girl vanished, only to reveal the blade of a black windmill flying in from right behind her. The cyclone of a shuriken struck right into the mismatched eyes of the minion which it would have sliced into had it not been for the shield of aura put up against it. As such though it was deflected away carrying a chunk of its target's aura with it as the target herself stumbled back a bit from the impact.

As the black star was reeled back to the darkness by a black ribbon the blonde bombshell rushed forth and skidded to a halt to intercept the stumble with a fist to the back of the secretary's head. Neo sensed the incoming strike and unlocked her knees to fall into a roll that ducked it and put her kneeling behind the golden mane. The right hand of Roman pointed the parasol in her left at the blonde's back and blasted shotgun pellets into it. This pushed Yang into her own forward roll which she used to quickly turn standing up with her face to her foe and a golden glow emanating from her body. Neo kept firing but Yang zigzagged forward dodging the shots faster than she had been before.

Yang closed with Neo and began her flurry of blows yet again, with them being dodged once more, but this time Neo began countering rather than purely avoiding and Yang was forced to parry some strikes with her vambraces. Yang's crimson eyes locked onto Neo's mismatched ones, "Finally quit toying around for the perfect opening and decided to start going for all of them, huh? Guess we finally got ourselves a real fight! Of course you'd better remember that even though it looks one on one you're actually outnumbered."

The mismatched eyes narrowed at Yang as a glint of yellow eyes shone briefly in the shadows behind her. Neo adjusted into a guard with her sword and parrying implement of an umbrella rather than returning to her previously casual and teasing stance. Yang's grin went wide and her aura's glow flared a bit before she shot in like a thunderbolt to engage the assistant boss yet again.

Jaune and Pyrrha emerged into the loading bay again having to fight through a few thugs along the way. They looked across the more open area and spied Ren and Nora over on the other side taking on thugs of their own. The white knight and the warrior princess held up their shields as mobile cover and ran over to the two other members of their team. Jaune ducked into the same cover Ren used as the jade dragon provided fire against the subgunners who fired at them, "Ren are you and Nora ok?"

The gunswordslinger kept his eyes on the situation and unleashed some retaliatory bursts intermittently from cover, "We dealt with one of the leaders but there are still many of them left. I'm already running low on ammunition. I'm not sure we can handle this many."

Jaune looked carefully out onto the battlefield and where the various gangsters were set up, "They're too well spread for Nora's grenades and I don't have anything ranged myself. But if we could get close they probably wouldn't be able to deal with us. Could you use your mist?"

Ren shook his head, "I don't have enough aura left for a cloud that large."

Jaune thought for another second, "Then we'll need to lure them in close. Team!" The rest of Team JNPR had their attention caught by Jaune, "We're gonna fall back into the containers and take guys out when they get close enough. There's not enough of us to do it by sticking together so we'll have to divide up and do it solo."

"What?!" Pyrrha said shocked, "Jaune you said we couldn't leave each other alone."

"There's too many Pyrrha, if we don't split up we'll get surrounded."

"I won't leave you alone Jaune." Pyrrha said with steel eyes.

"I'm not saying risk ourselves Pyrrha! If we lure them into the branching paths we can pick them off one by one when we get good openings and then immediately retreat again. It'll take a while but we might be able to mill through them like that without getting taken out." Pyrrha's gaze didn't become any softer at Jaune's tactical words and the paladin sighed, "I'll make sure to come find you or call for help if things get out of hand for me, ok?"

Pyrrha finally wavered, "I… Ok Jaune. I trust you, but you had better come back to me if it looks like you need even a little help."

Jaune put on a falsely confident grin, "Of course I will Pyrrha, so, is everyone ready?" Everyone nodded. "Alright then, meet back here once you all think you're done. Break!"

Jaune's team each went solo, running through the boxes and splitting along four paths with the now unsuppressed gang members storming in after them and splitting into smaller teams themselves. As some rounded corners they met the weapons that lurked right around them before striking and bounding away. Some who were bringing up the rear of their fireteam were struck down from behind and when the rest of their team turned at the sound they found nobody there. Some were shot from the shadows by well placed pistol and rifle rounds. In such a way were the forces of Roman whittled down slowly.

At least on three of such fronts. Jaune himself was in a bit more of a predicament. Neither stealth nor range was available to the armored paladin armed only with a sword and shield. And so the white knight fled through the boxes as he collected shots on his shield and breastplate. Jaune took careful cover behind a box only to have another team coming down a different route see him from a perfect angle to take fire upon him, causing him to need to continue fleeing once more. Jaune found a thin crevice as he fled and immediately slipped into the shadows within it.

Both teams of goons passed right by Jaune's hiding place without noticing him. Jaune breathed heavily and reached up towards the comm piece in his ear but paused. The swordsman lowered his hand and whispered at himself through gritted teeth, "If you ask for her help every time you'll never get good enough to be a real huntsman dammit."

Jaune tightened his grips, hopped nimbly up and down to warm up, and shot out of the crevice directly at those who had just passed him. The boot stomps that sounded like thunder behind the thugs immediately had them turn and unleash bursts of gunfire, but Jaune lucked out by being missed by those first sprays. The grunts adjusted their aim but Jaune's lack of even slight pause let him close with them and smash the first's face with his shield. The second bore a muzzle on him to meet with the pommel of his arming sword. The third swung a stock at the boy's side, smashing him in the breastplate and eliciting a somewhat pained grunt from him as his aura broke that led to a downing slash from crocea mors. The fourth unleashed fire at the full cyclic rate into the upraised shield of the paladin which continued charging forward until it toppled the fourth over and Jaune stomped his head with the heel of his boot.

The fifth's muzzle was batted back off target with a slash that spun him enough to leave his back open to receive a new scar. The sixth and seventh charged at the same time with their stocks poised to strike. The sixth's stock collided with a shield but the seventh's hit a blonde head that was knocked to the side. The blonde looked back at his strikers with a glare and gritted teeth as his mop seeped crimson liquid down into his right eye and they paused, a bit intimidated. Jaune capitalized on their freeze with a bash from his shield on the sixth and an overhead pommel to the seventh. The eighth looked in terror at the bloody knight and attempted to shoot only to hear a click. Jaune transitioned his sword and shield into their claymore mode, flipped the sword in the air and grasped it by its blade, and swung the pommel down in a ferocious mordhau, causing the criminal to crumble before him.

Jaune stood over the groaning and unconscious bodies as he inhaled and exhaled like a ragged hound. The boy caught his breath back and wiped blood from his eye before slowly walking back to his rendezvous point.

Torchwick himself stood up in the open doors of his observational airship gritting his teeth at the scene that played out below him. The thief brought a hand to his ear, "Dammit what's going on down there? Why haven't you dealt with them yet? Junior, Melanie, Miltia! Someone with an actual voice answer me already!"

At that precise moment a trail of rose petals appeared in the wake of a red blur that shot through the sky into Roman's crew compartment. Before the master thief stood the red hooded girl who pointed the muzzle of her rifle-scythe at him, "The jig is up Roman!"

All of a sudden another of Roman's vessels pulled up alongside the one he was in and from it into his leapt a woman in white. The owner of Roman's robbery target raised a rapier at him, "Put your ship down now Torchwick."

Roman glanced around at the two girls holding him at gun and sword point. The master thief started to grit his teeth a bit but quickly calmed and chuckled, "Well girls, looks like you got me dead to rights. Unfortunately though I can't really put this ship down, so I'll tell you what. Instead of putting the ship down, how about I put both of you down?!"

With that the criminal's downward pointed cane clicked and the crew compartment filled with a cloud of smoke. Ruby pulled her rifle's trigger immediately and shot a hole through the black cloud, only to take a blow to the head shortly after. The air current blowing through the vessel cleared the smoke for Weiss only for her to be shot with an explosive flare and knocked against one of the walls of the cabin. Ruby sprang to her feet only to have them knocked out from under her and her face slammed to the floor. Weiss got her back off the wall and thrust forward at the thief only for him to parry and close distance with her. Once inside her reach the rapier was useless since all its offense was carried in its point. The boss battered the heiress with several blows from the cane he now used two handed and close in.

Ruby got up again and hooked her scythe's blade between Roman and Weiss, preparing for a rake slash, but Roman reacted by catching the rear pulled blade on the middle of his fore and aft gripped cane and pushing forward. Roman's strength was greater than Ruby's and the girl's face was yanked forward into the elbow the master thief sent to his rear. Weiss back stepped and thrust again at this opportunity only for her thrust to be dodged and Roman to hook her by the ankle and trip her. Once the heiress was down Roman stomped at her, but she rolled out of the way and blasted a bolt of ice towards him. Roman caught the bolt on the end of his cane and brought the newly created frost mace down on the ice queen's head, shattering both the crystalized water and the aura of the one named after it.

Roman flipped his cane in hand and aimed the muzzle of its gun at the heiress' head. Weiss looked up wide eyed at the lethal shot now poised upon her. Roman grinned like a wolf, "Looks like it's the end of the line Ice Queen!"

Ruby saw the execution that was about to take place and went wide eyed herself, "Weiss!"

The red hood shot herself forward in a storm of rose petals and pushed Weiss out of the way of the shotgun blast Roman unleashed, taking it to herself instead. The blast destroyed her aura and sent her rolling off the edge of the cabin which she gripped onto with a single hand. Roman looked askance at the dangling maiden and laughed at her, "Trying to cut in line, are we pipsqueak? Well alright then! I'll just take you out first!"

Weiss remained wide eyed at the now imperilled girl she saw hanging from the ship and whispered, "Rose you idiot…" Roman aimed his stick down at the defenseless rose but as he pulled the trigger a silver blur deflected it upwards, causing it to miss Ruby. Weiss' steel eyes looked into Roman's, "I will never accept giving up my spot in line to someone like her. You will deal with me first."

Roman smirked, "You've got nothing left Ice Queen. Your aura and semblance is gone and with all those ships I saw flashes coming out of and the fact you only used one shot on me I'll bet your dust is too. I'd say a witch without any spells left is probably pretty easy to deal with, especially since I've still got plenty of rounds of my own."

"With my skill I don't need anything to deal with lowly scum like you!" Weiss charged into Roman and batted away the gun as it aimed at her, leading its next shot to miss. The white witch wove pierce after pierce between parry after parry against the criminal's cane as he was put surprisingly on the back foot. Ruby managed to sling her scythe and get her other hand gripped on the edge, securing her position a bit more.

Meanwhile Roman continued his backpedal against the now far more aggressive Ice Queen whose poise and grace had been replaced with poison and grit. The thief's orange aura was caught by some of the strikes and began being whittled down. Meanwhile his own face was incredulous at the aura spent girl being somehow able to put him on the defensive, "I had you beat dammit! How the hell can you come back like this?"

"My reason?" Weiss asked furiously as she struck in the same way, "It's my hatred of debt! Since I now owe the Rose girl my life I intend to pay it back as soon as possible!"

"Well you can pay it back to her when you're both dead!" Roman struck forward with his cane and the white clad heiress parried it, only for it to snake around her guard. The ice queen adjusted in the bind to wind a shot within it herself, but the master thief capitalized on the predictable reaction by grasping her rapier's blade and twisting it against his cane to leverage it free from her grip. The disarmament put a smirk on Roman's face but Weiss smirked as well and rushed within the thief's inner reach to aim a kick at his right knee with her heel, from the bottom of which a spike of silver flicked out.

The spike shattered Roman's aura and pierced into his knee, drawing blood from it and making him collapse to the deck. Weiss put her opposite foot beneath Myrtenaster's blade on the floor and kicked it up into her hand where she then held its point at Roman's throat. Weiss looked down on the criminal mastermind proudly, "It is over Torchwick. You will rot in a cell for stealing from my family."

Roman gritted his teeth at the person who stood over him and spoke in a low growl, "I'll never go back there… Never do you hear me!" With that the criminal rolled out the side of the aircraft and fell, screaming, "Neo!"

From her place up against the golden mane Neo heard the yell, saw the falling thief wide eyed, and immediately sprang up to catch him. Yang fired a shotgun blast at the pair and Blake leapt from the shadows and threw her black windmill to shear the sky towards them. However, as soon as they struck the duo shattered into a million pieces which then dissolved. Yang gritted her teeth, "Dammit! Quick Blake they can't have gone far we gotta go after them!"

Yang started to dash but Blake grabbed her. Yang looked back at the ninja tabby with a crimson glare and Blake merely shook her head, "I can't sense them at all Yang and I have no idea which direction they went. It's useless to try searching for them."

Yang gritted her teeth at the black cat but then turned away to look back at the dissolving shards of glass. The berserker maiden clinched her fists and stomped a foot, "Dammit!"

The upwardly weak Ruby tried desperately to clamber her way back into the airship but she was having trouble with it. She managed to get her right elbow over the edge only to see a pale hand lowered before her face. The red hood looked up to see the serious faced ice queen and grabbed the extended hand to be pulled up. Ruby panted a bit as she sprawled out on the floor, "Thanks Weiss, I owe you one."

"Nothing of the sort Rose." Weiss said aloof, "You saved me and I saved you. There is no debt left between us."

Ruby sat up, "You had to let Roman go to stay here and pull me back up. I promised to help you catch him and I'm the one who made you let him go…"

Weiss looked down at the head bent red hood and some concern crossed her face for the other girl, "It is not that big of an issue Ru-Rose. My whole goal was not to arrest him, merely to keep the SDC from being robbed and it seems we have succeeded at that. I am sure the others have nearly dealt with his gang of cronies down there. Once we clean this place up and deliver them to the police we will have eliminated all of his personnel. I doubt he will ever amass an army like this ever again and without one my company is safe." Weiss knelt down before the sitting Ruby and extended her hand once more with a slight smile on her face, "Your promise to me has been fulfilled Ro…" Weiss paused for a bit before looking at her leader caringly, "Ruby."

Ruby looked up at the heiress with a bit of water in her silver eyes. The red hood ignored the extended hand and sprang forward embracing the ice queen in a hug, "Oh Weiss!"

Weiss' entire body went rigid for a moment but she relaxed and patted Ruby's back a couple of times before pushing the team leader off herself, "Ahem, yes, well, let's put this ship down and see to it the rest of the gang is arrested properly."

Ruby smiled gleefully at the heiress, "You got it new friend!"

Weiss' glared flatly back at Ruby, "No."

"Ah, right, sure… gotta keep it professional on the job and all! My bad uh… teammate?"

Weiss groaned, stood, and made her way to the cockpit while Ruby softly giggled at her newfound friendship.

Jaune headed wearily back towards the loading bays, his massive aura and his muscles having both been exhausted. He stepped out into the open bays and looked around, spying Pyrrha there as well. The redhead caught sight of the blonde boy and rushed over to him grabbing him in a hug, "You're back!" The warrior princess then held out the paladin at arm's length, "And you're worn out and bleeding! Jaune I told you to call me if you needed help!"

"I didn't need help Pyrrha," the white knight waved off, "It was just normal hard work, back on the farm I'd look like this at the end of every day, well, minus the blood anyway." Out from around a corner ran Ren and Nora and Jaune walked over to them, "You guys done mopping up?"

Ren nodded and Nora put her maul upon her shoulders and let out an exhale, "I tell you Jaune, dealing with all these guys like you said wasn't easy. Me and Ren work way better when we stick together."

"I know Nora," the white knight responded, "this was a one time thing, hopefully I never need to risk us like that again."

At that moment Team JNPR heard sirens blaring and saw blue and red lights flashing outside in the night. Airships with their own red and blue lights shone white ones down on the gathered team. A loud voice came out at the team gathered below, "This is the VPD! You are under arrest! Put your hands up!"

Nora looked confused at Jaune, "Uh… They do know we're the ones that stopped the robbery right?"

A squad of black armored policemen rushed in through the loading bay doors and surrounded team JNPR with rifles aimed at them. Jaune's face fell flat and he raised his arms leading the rest of his team to do the same, "You know Nora, somehow I doubt that."