AUTHOR'S NOTES: And here we go! This is pretty much going to be all air battles from here to the end.

Mountain Glenn

Minnesota Dead Zone, United States of Canada

3 May 2001

Ilia Amitola ran for all she was worth, down the tunnel, yelling at the guards to leave the doors open; there was no point in shutting them now. Adam Taurus met her at the second gate. "What the hell is going on?"

"The Air Force found us, that's what!" She stopped only for a second. "Torchwick's getting the train started. We've got to get in the air! Where's Sienna?"

"Right here." Sienna came up to them. "Where's Perry?"

"With the train."

"Damn!" She took a deep breath. Perry was to lead the strike force against Beacon, but that assault was also supposed to happen at night. In broad daylight, it would never work. It was all coming apart. "They'll never make it to La Crosse."

"We still might." Adam took Ilia's shoulder. "Scramble everything we have, and put an umbrella over the train. Beacon isn't on combat alert; it will take them time to figure out what's going on. Inertia is something the humans have to overcome, not us. If the train can make it to La Crosse, the military will be dealing with fires and destruction to worry about a small force of helicopters slipping through. We can ground the strike force in the woods and still hit Beacon tonight." He saw Neo, out of breath as she came to a stop. "You, Neo, go with Ilia."

"Surprise?" Neo puffed out.

Adam smiled. "It's there, under the tarp next to Wilt. Go! Hurry!" The two women dashed off, Ilia grabbing anyone who was flight qualified on the way.

"You go too," Sienna told Adam. "I'll handle things here. Good luck."

He sketched a salute to her and ran off as well. Sienna turned and jogged back into the warren. "Everyone!" she yelled out. "Pack up what you have and load it into the helicopters! Anything too heavy gets left behind! I want as many of you as possible on that train! Hurry!" She fought her way through the press of Faunus her orders caused, and looked for Watts.

She found him in the central office, hunched over a laptop. "Watts, we have to go. The Americans found us."

"I'm aware of that," he said over his shoulder. "I've activated a broad-spectrum jammer. That should keep them from getting off a contact report." He didn't mention the strange Mona Lisa call.

"Good work." She ran a hand through her hair. "Maybe we can still pull this off…"

"Hopefully." Watts leaned back in his chair. "I am also bringing us some reinforcements. It will take them a little time to get here, but it will definitely distract the United States Armed Forces." He pointed at the laptop. "The jammer doesn't just jam communications. It also acts as a homing beacon."

"For what?"

Watts grinned up at her under his mustache, a grin so savage that even Sienna was intimidated. "GRIMM, my dear. It's going to attract every GRIMM within 200 miles."

Her eyes widened in shock and horror. "Are you out of your mind? They'll all come here!"

"Not so, High Leader. The GRIMM will home in on this signal, true…but they'll soon sight better prey, in the form of the very loud noises of explosions and the equally large numbers of targets. Beacon will be dealing with a veritable horde of GRIMM bearing down on La Crosse, and even if they blow the bridges, most will be able to cross the Mississippi."

Sienna thought for a moment. It wasn't exactly what they had planned, but certainly GRIMM would provide quite the distraction. "Good work, Dr. Watts. I am quite impressed. Now we just need to activate Black Queen."

Watts' grin faded. He glanced at his laptop for a moment, then returned his eyes to hers. "No."

"Pardon me?"

"No, Miss Khan. I will not activate Black Queen."

"I suppose I wasn't clear enough." Sienna reached behind her and pulled out a pistol. She leveled it between Watts' eyes. "I wasn't asking, Doctor."

"Yang? Yang?" Ruby tried the radio, and it was nothing but hissing static. Crescent Rose was above the overcast now. She turned and joined up with her sister, looked across at Yang, and pointed to her helmet. Yang shook her head; she couldn't hear either. Blake came up on the other side, and held up a whiteboard she had pulled from her kneepad. JAMMED? LOCATION?

"How the hell should I know?" Ruby said aloud, though there was no way Blake could hear her. All Ruby could do was shake her head and point downwards.

Weiss had figured it out as well. She flew over the rest of Ruby Flight. "DUST," she instructed. "Home on jam." The DUST system switched on the seeker heads in two of her AMRAAMs. The missiles were air-to-air, but they were able to lock onto sources of jamming. Under normal circumstances, this would mean aircraft with electronic countermeasure pods, but Weiss guessed it might work on ground sources as well. Her HUD showed the direction of the jamming. With no way of warning the others, she simply rolled and dived through the undercast. Ruby, seeing her wingmate, accelerated past Yang and Blake to follow Weiss down.

Oobleck, for his part, climbed. There was a possibility that the jamming might be less at higher altitude. He pushed the old F-106 to its ceiling before switching on his radio. "Pinetree, Oscar Oscar, come in." There was just the hint of a voice below the hissing of static, but not enough. Then he remembered the AWACS. "Regency, Oscar Oscar, come in."

"Osc…Rege…barely…status…" The radio popped and hissed, but it was better than nothing.

"Regency, if you can hear me, we have a situation at Mountain Glenn. Repeat, Mountain Glenn. How are you reading me?" To Oobleck's frustration, there was nothing but static.

Joint Base Beacon

Wisconsin, United States of Canada

3 May 2001

Ozpin rushed into the control tower, limping as he did so. "What's going on?"

The senior controller spun in his chair. "We're not sure, sir! We had some sort of weird radio call from Ruby Flight, inbound over Minnesota—"

"What kind of call?" Ozpin cut him off.

"Something about Mona Lisa. It was from Ruby Lead."

Mona Lisa didn't ring any bells for Ozpin. "How did she sound?"

The master sergeant hesitated. "Honestly? Scared shitless, sir." Ozpin's eyebrows went up in alarm. Ruby Rose did not scare easily. "There's massive broadband jamming from the Twin Cities area, and Colonel Goodwitch ordered us to scramble the alert five." He pointed to the runway, where Cardinal Flight was moving out to the runway. "We've got that, but we've heard nothing else from Ruby Flight. Juniper is moving north to help, but they're a ways off—"

"Scramble everything. Now. I don't want anything on the ground." It was a lesson learned time and time again, Ozpin told himself: never be caught on the ground.

The senior controller didn't hesitate. "Yes, sir." He pressed a red button on his console, and alarms went off across Beacon.

"And notify the 1st Armored. Just in case." Ozpin went off to find Ironwood.

"Active air scramble. This is no drill."

The loudspeakers blared the bland announcement, as if the warbling klaxons weren't enough. Cinder came out of her VOQ room, quickly joined by Emerald and Mercury. Emerald looked at Cinder in shock. "You don't think—"

"Something's going on," Mercury said, rather stating the obvious. "You think Sienna or Torchwick jumped the gun?"

"In broad daylight?" Emerald exclaimed. "She'd be insane. There's still five days to go."

"So? What do we do?" Mercury asked.

Another door burst open, and Ruth Lionheart burst out, zipping up her flight suit, her mane a fright wig, damp with water and a hint of shampoo. "Don't just stand there!" she shouted at the rest of them. "Get one up!"

Cinder watched the Faunus dash out of the VOQ. "She's right." She zipped up her own flight suit. "Let's go."

The dispersal area was utter pandemonium. Ground crews scrambled to load missiles and ammunition into gun drums; there was no way to know what the threat was, or if it was coming straight at them. They worked quickly and furiously: no one wanted to be caught with a tarmac full of aircraft loaded with fuel and weapons. Shouts and curses were drowned out as Cardinal Flight took off.

Coco Adel ran to her Mirage. Already there were Sidewinders on the wingtip rails. The crew chief threw her a quick salute. "Chief!" she shouted. "Do you have some time to load something?"

"Not much," the crew chief replied. "What did you need?"

"I saw a Pave Claw the other day. Can you load it on the centerline?" Coco had a hunch that she would be needing something against ground targets.

"Take us a minute to get it out of the bunker, but yeah."

"Do it. Hurry." The last was unnecessary, and the chief quickly sent two airmen headed for the underground storage bunker, where munitions were kept. "Yatsuhashi!" The big Japanese pilot turned. "Go on without me! I'll catch up! You're in command!"

"Hai, wakarimasu!" He ran towards his F-2.

Over Mountain Glenn

Minnesota Dead Zone, United States of Canada

3 May 2001

Weiss kept one eye on the ground and one eye on the threat display, trying to find where the jamming was coming from. She saw figures running across a bridge over the Mississippi, but ignored them; they were no threat. Out of the corner of one eye, she saw muzzle flashes from small arms, but ignored that as well.

There it is. That tower, it has to be that, she told herself. It was thin and tall, and would be almost impossible to hit with her cannon, especially since her guns were calibrated for air targets, rather than ground. Still, she had to try. Weiss leveled out much lower than she would have liked, center the tower in her gunsight, and opened fire. The cannon shells kicked up divots from the ground and from atop the big warehouse, but she saw a few sparks that showed hits on the tower. Then she was past, barely clearing it. Weiss weaved and dropped flares, just in case someone on the ground had a shoulder-launched missile, and climbed away. She spotted the train pulling out, and dodged away as a lot more muzzle flashes lit up on the train.

"Are you going to pull the trigger or not?" Watts asked Sienna. He sounded bored.

"Turn on Black Queen," she snarled.

"For the second and last time: no. And if you kill me, you will never get to use it. I'm the only one who knows the activation code."

Sienna thought about shooting Watts anyway, out of spite, but lowered the pistol. "Go to hell."

"More than likely, but in the meantime, let me explain why." Watts pointed in the general direction of the surface. "Do you think Torchwick will get the train to La Crosse? Do you really think he's going to pull it off? Because I don't. I know a little about this Ozpin fellow, and he will throw everything Beacon has at that train. So will General Ironwood. By all means we can try, and perhaps some miracle will occur and the plan will work. But I believe it will fail, and I think you're smart enough, Sienna Khan, to realize the same thing."

"Damn," Sienna hissed, because she knew he was right.

"Relax," Watts said. "This still works to our advantage. Ozpin will think this was our main attack, while never suspecting that we can try again later, when their guard is down. Then I can activate Black Queen, and Beacon is ours for the taking."

Sienna slowly nodded, and holstered the pistol. "Very well, Doctor."

His laptop beeped, and Watts turned to face it. "Well, that's not exactly good." He pointed at the screen. "The jammer's been damaged. It's only jamming one channel." His smile remained. "Still, the GRIMM are still following the signal."

Neo, Ilia and Adam hit the asphalt on the bridge as the Typhoon roared over them, followed by the F-16. They half expected the fighter to strafe them as well, but it was past without firing. Several of the White Fang troops opened fire on it, with more enthusiasm than accuracy. They got to their feet. Adam looked up at a second pair of engine noises. Just under the undercast were the shapes of a F-15 and a F-14. In the weak sunlight, he could tell the F-15 was painted the standard dark gray, but the F-14 was painted black.

He smiled, though the smile was tempered by his right hand tightening on his sword hilt. "Hello, Blake." He jumped, however, when a hand slapped his rear end. He whirled on Neo, his sword halfway out of the scabbard. "Move your ass!" Neo shouted as she ran past.

Adam spared one more glance at the F-14 as it flew over, six thousand feet above him, and continued running. Ilia was far ahead, in an all out sprint. As he reached the opposite bank, the hangar doors rolled open and two MiG-21s rolled out, headed for the runway, followed by two more.
There were four hangars on what had been South St. Paul Municipal Airport. The fourth, the largest, was the one that Adam and Neo ran into. Inside were four more MiG-21s, Ilia's F-5, Adam's Moonslice, and the tarp covered "surprise." Ilia was supervising several White Fang troops in taking the tarp off.

It revealed a bright red F-22 Raptor.

Neo skidded to a stop, her mouth open. Adam couldn't help but laugh. "It's yours," he said. "A gift from your boyfriend. It is on loan, however." She turned at that. "It's Cinder Fall's, so she would probably appreciate it if you didn't scratch the paint."

"Mine?" Neo asked hesitantly.

"Mm-hm. For now."

Neo actually clapped her hands in happiness, and to Adam's distinct surprise, she gave him a quick hug. Already, another White Fang was running to Neo with her pink-trimmed brown flight suit and multicolored helmet. Adam went to help her get strapped in.

"I'll preflight Wilt!" Ilia yelled at him. Adam gave her a quick nod and continued to help with the F-22. Once he was occupied, Ilia faded partially from sight, her skin camouflaged against the black fuselage of the Moonslice. Quietly, she opened an inspection panel.

Blake watched as Weiss and Ruby climbed away. She saw the train moving below, but there was so much forest hanging over the track, it would be impossible to hit it. Much like a hunter, she would have to wait for it to break cover. And then what? Blake asked herself. They were configured for air to air fighting.

Mainly out of frustration, she reached forward and switched radio frequencies. To her surprise, the static faded once she was on Guard channel. "Weiss did it," she breathed, then rocked her wings to get Yang's attention. Once she did, she scrawled SWITCH GUARD on her kneeboard and held it up to the canopy. Yang nodded, and a second later, her voice came up on the radio. "Blake, Yang, how are you reading me on Guard?"

"Five-by, Yang. Catch up with Ruby and Weiss and let them know."

"Roger." The F-15 accelerated to meet up with the other two aircraft, which had begun to circle. Blake began to turn as well, but then caught movement on the ground. She leveled out, switched on the TCS beneath her nose, and zoomed in. "Oh shit," she said, then activated her mike. "Regency, this is Ruby Four, are you receiving me?"

The relief in the AWACS controller's voice was palpable. "Yeah, we receive you, Ruby Four. Situation?"

"We've got a train full of bad guys heading southwest, but that may not be our biggest problem. I've got one…no…shit," Blake cursed. "Two Death Stalkers, at my two o'clock low. Heading southeast."

"A lot of that going around, Ruby Four," Regency told her. "Juniper Flight is on the way to your position, but Juniper Two reported spotting six Goliaths, also heading west. We've also got two Nevermores and possibly a King Taijitu."

Blake swallowed. "Not good."

"Roger tha—" The AWACS controller interrupted himself. "Ruby Four, warning, warning—bogeys taking off from your six o'clock low. Repeat, bogeys at your six."

Blake immediately threw the Tomcat into a climb, and leveled out upside down just below the undercast. Against the river, she saw four MiG-21s taking off from the airfield that she thought had been deserted. "Sienna, you bitch," she hissed without transmitting. "You were there all along." Then she hit the radio button. "Regency, be advised, bogeys are four Fishbeds. Classify as bandits."

"Blake, Yang." Blake rolled out and saw Yang heading towards her, Weiss and Ruby in tow. "We're on the same channel. What's going on?"

"Bandits, eleven o'clock low. Four MiGs."

"More than that," Ruby radioed. "Looks like we've got four more rolling out, and a F-5, and…what the hell?"

Blake circled around to look. The MiG's arrowhead shape was distinctive, as was the thin silhouette of the F-5. Rolling out behind the latter was a bright red F-22. "That's a Raptor!"

"It's the same one that shot at me and Goodwitch over Ohio!" Ruby yelled.

"Oscar Oscar to Ruby Flight." Oobleck had finally found the right channel; Blake felt herself blushing a little, because she had completely forgotten about their superior. "Yang, Weiss, I'll help you engage the fighters. Ruby, Blake, try to slow down the train. Maintain contact; we can't afford to lose it. Beacon's scrambling everything; Cardinal should be here in five minutes. Understood? Don't worry about the GRIMM for now."

"Roger that." Blake and Ruby turned south, the F-14's wings raking back as it picked up speed. Oobleck, descending through the overcast, saw the aircraft on the runways below, and the four MiG-21s, headed for the train. "I have the MiGs to the south."

"I'll take the F-5 and these MiGs here," Weiss said.

"Then the F-22's mine," Yang finished. Beneath her oxygen mask, the blonde smiled. She'd always knew she could take a Raptor; now she was going to find out.

Adam watched Ilia's F-5 and Neo's F-22 leave the hangar. With the taxiway clear, he started up the Moonslice. It was based off of the F-5, but very little remained of the original airframe aside from most of the fuselage. A single engine, taken from the F-16, replaced the twin engines of the F-5, and instead of a single tail, there were two, angled outwards. The nose was slightly larger, to house the same radar as the F-16. Two twenty millimeter cannon stuck out over the nose, same as the Tiger II, but the cockpit was that of the newest F-15. The pirates and White Fang were short on AMRAAMs, so Adam contented himself with six Sidewinders. And finally, of course, were the forward-swept wings that gave the Moonslice unbeatable low-speed handling; the light airframe made it more maneuverable than anything that flew, short of the F-22—and possibly even then.

Adam switched on the power—and Wilt died. Not entirely—the instrument panel came on, the engine spooled up as smoothly as usual, but his inertial navigation system flickered and went out. The rudder pedals gave no resistance, which meant that the fly-by-wire microprocessors that kept advanced aircraft aloft were out. He switched off the engine, powered down, and then tried it again, with the same result.

He yelled over the engine noise at the White Fang that was his crew chief. "Something's wrong!" The chief gave him a thumbs up, gathered more of his men, and frantically began looking over the aircraft, even as the hangar shook with the rest of the Fang's fighters taking off.

Ruby dashed ahead with Blake, just under the speed of sound; neither used their afterburner, and both were watching the fuel gauge. The aircraft had been refueled at Hector, but air combat could drain fuel tanks in seconds.

"There it is," Blake radioed. "Eleven o'clock low. It's over the bridge."

Ruby flew over the train. There were twelve cars and the two locomotives—the last three were tank cars, but the rest were a mix of boxcars and larger container cars. There were also plenty of White Fang: she could see them on the roof. A smoke trail came from one of them. Ruby dodged, instinctively dropping a flare, and the missile sailed past. "Blake, just looks like they have small arms and some RPGs."

"That wasn't an RPG, Ruby!" Blake warned. "It chased you for a second. I'd say it was a Stinger or a Strela. Whoever fired it didn't have a lock."

Shit, Ruby thought. Both the American-made FIM-92 Stinger and the older Eastern Bloc SA-7 Strela were shoulder-fired heat-seeking missiles. They were more of a danger to helicopters than her, but could still kill her if she wasn't careful. Now some of the White Fang were shooting their rifles, and small arms, in enough volume, could be just as lethal—or even just one lucky shot through the canopy could end her life as easily and as quickly as the red Raptor.

Ruby climbed while she considered the best way to crack this nut. The train was beginning to wind its way through dense forest, and ahead rose the cliffs and limestone ridges of the Upper Mississippi Valley. The train was easily doing seventy miles an hour, and looked to be accelerating.

"Cardinal Lead to Ruby Lead. Hi, girls!" Ruby never thought she'd be happy to hear Cardin Winchester's voice. "Alpha check."

"Cardin, Ruby! We're pursuing a train headed southeast, over, ah, we just passed Hastings!" It wasn't the best directions, but Ruby was rapidly becoming busy.

Luckily, the AWACS was on the ball. "Cardinal Lead, Ruby is at fifteen miles, bearing one-one-zero, angels eight."

Blake broke in. "Cardin, suggest you split your flight. Oobleck is taking on four bandits at twenty miles, same bearing."

For once Cardin didn't argue—mainly because helping Oobleck meant kills, and Cardin wanted kills, badly. "Roger. Russel, Sky, join up with Ruby; Dove, follow me. Zone five." Both Cardin's F-15 and Dove's F-18 went supersonic as they flew over the river; they were a blur past Ruby, there and gone.

"Sky here. Target in sight. Making a run on the locos—what the hell—" Suddenly Sky's voice rose several octaves. "I'm spiked! I'm spiked!"

"Sky, break right! Break right!" Russel screamed. Ruby tried to break in, but hitting the radio button only produced a squealing noise—with only one channel, too many voices were overriding each other.

"Oh shit!" Sky yelled. Finally Ruby saw him as she cleared one of the ridges—the Hawk, trailing flame and smoke, climbing away from the river. "Get out of it, Sky!" she yelled. "You're on fire!"

Sky Lark did not argue. The Hawk leveled out, the canopy came away, and Sky rocketed free of the doomed fighter. It pitched up and exploded, the remains falling into the Mississippi. Ruby held her breath, then saw a parachute billow out over the tiny figure of the pilot. She made a slight course adjustment and flew past the parachute. Sky saw her and held both arms up over his head with clapsed hands. He's okay. Whew. Thank God. Ruby tried to radio any rescue forces as Sky steered his 'chute towards the Wisconsin shore, but the channel was blocked by a combination of Sky's rescue beeper—which gave out a whooping sound—and a panicked Russel, who kept screaming "Sky's down! Sky's down!"

What the hell got Sky? Ruby asked herself. Then she saw Blake suddenly climb, roll and dive. Ruby followed where the Tomcat was pointed, and saw a white and pink Sea Harrier suddenly appear from behind a ridge.