AUTHOR'S NOTES: Yay, some dogfighting! This one was a lot of fun to write. Even YouTube cooperated by playing some badass fight music (such as Jigsaw's "Sky High," "Through the Fire" from the Top Gun soundtrack, and Hammerfall's "Hero's Return"-in case you're wondering what I like listening to when I write this stuff). Yang's dogfight is based on Giora Epstein's 11-1 battle over the Sinai in 1973, which I think I've used before, but not quite in this fashion.

Over Death Valley

California Dead Zone, United States of Canada

16 June 2001

Yang followed Shady at a respectable distance—which in the air, was about two miles. Her F-23 was in trail, following Shady's F-8 Crusader. Though Yang wasn't quite as much of an airplane nut as her sister, she had to admire the sleek lines of the old fighter. I bet what Raven did was grab all those birds sitting in California and refurbished them. Probably just a ton of them lying around after the war, and a lot of spare parts, too. Her admiration had limits, however: she kept the gunsight pipper centered on the tailpipe of the Crusader. Every time he slightly accelerated or decerelated, Yang matched his speed. She was at perfect Sidewinder parameters, and Shady knew it.

She thumbed the radio button on her throttle. "Yang to Shady. How much further?"

"We're pretty close. I've radioed for vectors."

Yang looked down at the map in one of her kneepads. That means either Edwards or Palmdale. That beast Raven flies needs a lot of runway, and those are the only two that make sense. She reached forward and switched on her radar for one sweep, and then shut it back down. It immediately painted six other contacts, approaching low and to the north, using the Sierra Nevadas to mask their radar signature. Against an older radar, it would've worked; the Black Widow's synthetic aperature radar, however, still picked them up. It helped that Yang anticipated an ambush: she'd noticed that, when they'd taken off from McCarran thirty minutes before, Shady had been alone. I bet they took off earlier. How dumb do you think I am, Shady? It must be because I'm a blonde.

"Shady to Yang. Listen, I'm going to fly up ahead a bit. Why don't you orbit here a bit and I'll lead you in when I've got clearance?"

Yang was suddenly tired of playing along. "How about I asshole you with a Sidewinder for leading me into an ambush instead, Shady?" She switched on her radar again; there was no point in leaving it off now.

The F-8 suddenly accelerated and began a hard break to the right. Yang broke to the left, circling around to give herself some room. Now she could see Shady's friends, specks against the drab valleys below. "I can't believe you were dumb enough to let me lead you here, Yang! I guess you really are a blonde!" the bandit laughed.

Yang rolled her eyes. Nailed it. "Let's see what we have here, Shady. Looks like you brought along a F-4, an A-4, a F-5, two A-7s, and…oh, nice, a Hunter." She noted that the Hunter was slightly ahead of the others. The bandit formation began to circle as well, cutting their speed, extending out so that they were now about fifteen miles apart. "That must be Bobbie Jo." She'd learned last night that the short woman was the actual flight leader; Shady was just the loudest mouth. "Is this everyone?"

"Yep, Goldilocks, that's it. Unless you count the whole tribe."

"So you're going to shoot me down? That should please Mom." Yang was starting to get tired of that, too. Raven Branwen was not her mother, other than being the womb she'd come out of.

"Nah. What you're going to do, Yang, is lower your gear, throttle back, and follow us down. Your course will be two-zero-zero." Yang glanced at her navigational display. 200? Palmdale. Heh. Makes sense. Raven's using the old Skunk Works factory. I remember Dad telling me about that place. "And when we get down, you're going to take your lumps. We're going to beat the shit out of you and drag you to your mommy. You're going to pay me back for this tooth." He laughed. "Seven to one odds, Goldilocks. You got the jump on me last time, sweetheart. But you really oughta think twice about fighting all—"

Yang locked onto the A-7 at the eastern edge of the formation and fired an AMRAAM. It crossed the distance in seconds and the attack fighter exploded in a fireball. She pushed the throttle forward and climbed, grabbing altitude in the perfect blue sky. She dipped the left wing and kept her eye on Shady's F-8, but although he had come back around to get in behind her, Yang's sudden attack had visibly unnerved him. The Crusader shot past well beneath her, and Yang put him out of her mind for now; it would take some time for him to get turned around. She rolled over and looked up to look down. The bandit formation was holding together, and they were climbing. Yang smiled beneath her oxygen mask, and shoved the stick forward. The Black Widow dived; she pointed the nose right at the Hunter as she rolled.

It worked. Bobbie Jo, fearing a collision, broke hard to the right, and the other bandits, who had been forming on their flight leader, went to pieces. They broke in a flurry of directions. Yang stepped hard on the left rudder pedal and snapped the stick in the same direction. The F-23 skidded as it came out of the dive, Yang sacrificing airspeed for letting the Hunter edge out in front. Then she engaged the afterburner for a precious few seconds to catch up. A quick look around showed that the bandits were still trying to figure themselves out: they were expecting to be surrounding and escorting a humiliated opponent into Palmdale, not fighting for their lives. The remaining A-7 was trying to get in behind her, but he could wait for a moment. Yang returned her attention to the Hunter, and closed the distance. She switched to guns and fired, but Bobbie Jo evaded.

Yang had to give the bandit flight leader some credit. She'd fought a Hunter before—Reese Chloris' FGA.9 at Vytal Flag—and knew it was still a good fighter in the hands of a good pilot. Bobbie Jo was evidently indeed a good pilot: she made hard breaks to force Yang into impossible deflection shots, climbed into the sun to defeat Sidewinder shots, all the time trying to lead her opponent back into her formation. Yang was having a tough time following her, and constant glances behind the F-23's twin tails showed that the bandits were starting to get their act together; the A-7 in particular was angling towards her. Though the stubby Corsair II was an attack aircraft, a mud mover, it was also surprisingly nimble, and Yang had a feeling Raven had modified hers.

Okay, asshole. You're beginning to annoy me. Yang saw the A-7 begin to set up for a gun pass, and suddenly broke off her pursuit of the Hunter and turned into the A-7. She held down the trigger, her cannon shells sparking off the nose and going down the aircraft's huge intake. Smoke and flames burst from the tail as the engine was shredded, and Yang quickly rolled away, avoiding a collision by mere feet, enough that her fighter bounced in the A-7's jetwash. She leveled out for a moment, then turned back towards the Hunter; the A-7 was going down in a terminal dive, trailing fire.

The F-23's radar beeped and went to continuous tone: it had locked onto the Hunter. Yang quickly switched back to AMRAAMs, the weapons bay door opening just long enough to eject the missile into the airstream. The rocket motor ignited a half-second later, and it shot forward, eagerly seeking its prey. To Yang's surprise, the Hunter executed a perfect split-S, breaking the missile's lock; it went sailing merrily into the desert. Yang dived after Bobbie Jo, but then brought the nose up again when she checked her altimeter: the dogfight had caused both fighters to lose altitude, and they were at seven thousand feet above the dry lakebeds and desert floor of the Panamint Valley. 7000 feet AGL? Oh, you done goofed, Bobbie Jo. You are way too low.

Instead of the expected fireball as the Hunter dived vertically into the desert, however, Yang watched in amazement as the fighter's nose came up and it pulled out of the dive, clearing the ground by less than twenty feet. Dust and dirt flew up behind it as the Hunter hung on its Avon engine…and then it slowly began to climb. "That's fucking amazing," Yang said aloud, closed the distance, and opened fire with her cannon, not really feeling chivalrous. The 20 millimeter shells ripped into the rear fuselage and wings; the Hunter, with almost no airspeed, was a perfect, spreadeagled target. As Yang shot past, she saw it almost stopped in midair; the canopy came off and the pilot ejected. If she gets a good swing of her 'chute, she might make it, Yang thought as she climbed and turned back into the fight. I'll put in a good word for her with Raven.

Of course, Yang reflected, she might be soon joining Bobbie Jo in the desert. The other bandits and Shady were now back in formation, and all of them were coming after her. She broke right as the F-4 fired two Sparrows at her, dropping chaff in her wake; the missiles failed to guide, but that spoiled her own attack, and now all four were behind her. Yang did not panic, hearing her father's voice, and Major Oum's at Weapons School training: even at long odds, you still have an advantage, as only one of your opponents can get behind you at once. She was flying a fourth-generation fighter, and was an experienced fighter pilot with Vytal Flag and Beacon behind her; the bandits were used to flying against GRIMM and slow targets. Yang didn't even notice her artificial arm: she was in the zone where everything was narrowed down to simply fighting and flying.

She kicked the tail around a little as she came out of her turn, to see Shady's F-8 and the F-4 closing in. Both fired Sidewinders, and Yang broke to the left; the Sidewinders could not get enough of a heat signature off the stealthy Black Widow, and both went over Yang's head, leaving white smoke in their path. Her break had brought her into gun range of the A-4 and the F-5, and she dodged the cannon shells from them, sending her back like a pinball towards Shady and the Phantom. They're trying to box me in. Okay, try this, bitches.

Yang continued her right break, tightened it into an 8-g turn that neither the F-8 or the F-4 could match, and as they overshot, she climbed, rolled, slapped back the throttle to kill some of her airspeed, and forced both out ahead of her. She shed more speed, let the Phantom edge out a little more, and fired her third AMRAAM. It was a little closer than she'd like, on the edge of the AIM-120's parameters, but it guided nonetheless. The F-4 somersaulted as if it had been kicked from behind, and as the fighter tumbled into a fireball, Yang saw one parachute.

Now there were three left. As Yang leveled out and pushed the throttle forward to get her airspeed back, she could see the bandits were beginning to panic. They had started out with seven to one odds, and their opponent had shot down four of them in as many minutes. Now their only thought was to get away from her. The F-5 climbed and Yang followed him; she deployed her speedbrake for a moment, skidded the tail, switched back to her guns, and gave the fighter a short burst. The shells hit the canopy, and the F-5 continued its climb, before stalling and falling into a flat spin. Killed the pilot, Yang thought in passing as she shoved the F-23's nose back down. She'd just killed another human being, several probably, but those thoughts would have to wait for later.

Now the panic was complete. The A-4 and F-8 were in full retreat, diving for the desert floor. Yang kept up her speed: the Black Widow didn't need its afterburner to cross the speed of sound. Her sonic boom was lost behind her as she closed in. She fired her last AMRAAM and the A-4 turned into a fireball; she rolled and was now back behind Shady. She locked on her last Sidewinder on his glowing tailpipe. "Hey, Shady," she radioed. "All your friends are dead. Come out of 'burner, drop you gear, and fly straight and level, or I swear I'll blow your ass away too." She slowed down; she didn't want to overshoot him.

So did Shady, and she saw his landing gear come down, the universal sign of surrender. "You really are Raven's daughter," he sent back.

It took about fifteen minutes, but Shady this time was true to his word. Sure enough, it was Palmdale. A nice long runway, Yang confirmed to herself. They used to test the SR-71 here. Perfect for Raven's bird. On approach, she noticed several large hangars to her right, but they looked ruined; for that matter, the runway looked pitted and cratered. The control tower was still standing, but she could not see hardly anyone on the ground. For that matter, the entire airport looked like it had been worked over by heavy bombers.

Shady's F-8 landed without incident, and Yang realized what she was looking at. I'll be damned. It's paint. They painted the runways to look like they're unusable. It wouldn't hold up under hard scrutiny, Yang thought, but it would fool someone who was searching for an operational base. Once the F-8 taxied off the runway, Yang followed it down and made a smooth landing. As she began to slow down, she checked her fuel gauge. The five minute dogfight had used about half of her fuel; she would have to stop somewhere or, more likely, find a tanker for the trip to Hawaii. Assuming Raven let her leave. Yang knew she was taking chance after chance: by coming here in the first place, intending to more or less threaten her birth mother into giving up Weiss and Rick Tardor. Starting the fight with Shady's friends was also a risk; Yang was hoping Raven would be more impressed with a show of strength rather than be angry that her daughter had just shot down and possibly killed six of her pilots. Raven might be so impressed that she would just hand over Weiss and Tardor without further negotiation.

Or she might just shoot all three of them.

A ground crewman held up two light wands, and she followed him towards a hangar. It looked disused, with actual holes in the roof, but to Yang's surprise, she saw a ramp leading down into an underground hangar. She followed the yellow line painted on the ramp, taxied down into the hangar, and was directed by another ground crewman to a revetment. As she shut off the engine and raised the canopy, she saw the ramp being raised up until the outside world disappeared. Huge fans drew the exhaust fumes out of the underground chamber. Guess it won't be too easy to escape. Well, I kinda figured.

Yang took off her helmet after she unstrapped, waited until a ladder was placed, and then climbed down. Besides the ground personnel, three people were waiting with guns, along with Shady. His arrogance was gone now; he looked pale and shaken. Yang only smiled at him. "Follow you guys?" she asked, but the gunmen were silent. Then she saw why. Advancing towards them, wearing her black and red-trimmed flight suit, sword at her side and a short woman with close-cropped hair in tow, was Raven Branwen. She motioned the gunmen to one side, and mother and daughter regarded each other. The family resemblance visibly stunned the other bandits.

Yang smiled humorlessly. "Mom." Her left hand began to tremble again, so she put both hands behind her back.

Raven smiled back in exactly the same fashion. "Yang. After all this time, you finally came to visit me."

"I wouldn't have had to…if you hadn't left."

Though Raven flinched a little at that, she only rested a hand on her sword hilt. "Did you have to be so rough with my people?"

"I didn't want a fight, but I damn sure wasn't going to be humiliated like that. For all I knew, this fucker was taking me to some lonely airstrip to rape me and steal my aircraft."

Raven chuckled. "Well, it was a damn impressive fight, I'll give you that. You've definitely proven yourself." She motioned the guards to holster their weapons. "You can stay with us tonight. I'll have the cooks whip up whatever you like. Food's not a problem for us at the moment."

"Thanks," Yang replied, "but that's not why I'm here."

Raven's eyebrows rose. "Oh?"

"I'm not here for you, Mom. I'm here for your two prisoners—Weiss Schnee and Rick Tardor. I need you to release them."

Raven moved past her, and ran a hand across the Black Widow's wing. She ducked under it to look at the fuselage for a second, then straightened up. "The YF-23. I'd heard of this." She gently tapped the wing. "Where are you going to stuff them, the missile bays?"

Yang shrugged. "I was thinking you could fly them over to Tijuana."

"I suppose you'd want me to top off your fuel tanks, too," Raven said sarcastically. "Maybe load you up with a full load of missiles?"

"Sure, if you're being generous."

Raven laughed, and the other bandits snickered as well. "A shame you aren't my son, Yang, then I could remark on your incredible balls. Why in the hell would I do any of that?"

"Because we're family."

That brought another peal of laughter. "We've seen each other once since you were little, and that's when we talked at Beacon, after I saved your ass over Mountain Glenn a few months ago. And now we're family?"

"But that wasn't the only time, was it, Mom?" Yang emphasized the last word. "Dad is pretty damn certain you were at my graduation from high school and flight school. And while I was home, convalescing from this—" she held up the artificial hand "—I looked through some old pictures of Summer Rose's funeral. You were there too. Way in the back, doing your best to hide, but you were there." She took a step forward. Guns raised in her direction. Yang ignored them. "Did you know that I've been looking for you for most of my life? When I was little, not long after Mo—Summer died, I loaded up Ruby in our little red wagon and thought I could walk and find you. I thought you were up in the mountains someplace." Yang snorted. "Of course, all that got me and Ruby was a case of hypothermia. But if you wanted a family, Mom, you could've come back."

"This is not the place for this conversation," Raven warned.

"No, it isn't. Someday, Mom, we're going to have that conversation," Yang told her. "But right now, I just want Weiss and this Tardor guy and then I'm out of here."

"To Japan, to join Ruby and Qrow?" Raven smirked at the look of shock on Yang's face. "It wasn't hard. I ran into your uncle in Alaska. I knew where he was going, and Ruby too." She leaned against the wing. "Like I said, it takes some big brass ones, girl or no, to march into my camp and make demands. Especially when I could just shoot you and take this rather nice airplane. You're trading a lot on being my daughter, Yang—especially when you insisted, quite forcefully as I recall, that Summer was your real mother, and not me." The bandit leader shrugged. "Still, I'm impressed. Though I wouldn't go to Japan if I were you. If Ruby's with Qrow, then she's already a lost cause."

"What does that mean?" Yang snapped.

Raven gave her a pitying look. "You don't want to get mixed up in all of that, Yang. Ozpin is dead, and even if he wasn't, he wasn't the man you think he was. Qrow was a fool to trust him—and I should know; I trusted that old bastard too. Once."

"I don't really care."

"Your choice is your own," Raven sighed. "All I'm suggesting is that, instead of getting wrapped up in the same thing that cost you your arm, that maybe you take a look around and see if you're already where you belong." She motioned around the hangar.

"Oh yeah—you want me to join your merry band," Yang replied derisively. "Well, Raven, you can spout off whatever bullshit you want, but I'm getting what I want, and then I'm finding Rubes."

Raven smiled. "My, aren't we stubborn."

"I get it from my mother's side."

"And your father's." Another sigh. "All right. The least you can do is have dinner with me." She motioned to the short-haired woman. "This is Vernal. She'll show you to where you can grab a shower, then you and your friend Weiss can join me in my headquarters."

"What about Rick Tardor?"

"I don't know who that is," Raven answered. "We only recovered one survivor from the An-12. There weren't any from the 737 the GRIMM downed, or the two Navy birds."

"That you shot down," Yang couldn't resist adding.

"That I shot down," Raven confirmed without so much as batting an eye.

"There was one other person at the An-12," Vernal said. "Guy with the M4 and the Colts." She patted the holster at her side, where Yang could see the ivory grips of a M1911. "We shot him and threw him into the water."

"Oh, yes, him." Raven shrugged again. "Why's he important? I get the Schnee bitch, but I didn't even know his name until just now."

"He was the head of the CIA's nephew." Yang got the satisfaction of seeing Raven taken aback at that. "Yeah, she's pissed. Pissed enough to blow this place off the fucking map. There's three carrier battlegroups out there, just waiting for the go order. Which, by the way, they'll get if I don't report in at Hickam in 24 hours." The last part was a bit of a bluff; Arashikaze hadn't really put a time limit on Yang's mission. Yang raised her voice all the same, so that everyone in the hangar heard her.

"The President wouldn't dare," Vernal said. "We've—" Raven waved her to silence.

"Who said anything about the President?" Yang taunted. "You think the CIA gives a flying fuck about what the President thinks?"

"Enough. This Tardor character is dead, whoever he was related to." Raven pointed at Yang. "Watch your mouth. If I've got nothing to lose, I might just blow Miss Schnee's brains out in front of you to make a point. You are trying my patience, daughter, and if you don't stop, I'm going to forget you're mine." Her expression softened a bit, to Yang's surprise. "Though there's no question about that, is there?" She nodded towards Vernal. "Follow Vernal, get cleaned up, and we'll have dinner. And you may be interested to hear what I 'spout off,' Yang."

Yang reluctantly followed Vernal. Raven motioned Shady forward. "I'm so sorry, Chieftess," he said, almost in a whine. "I didn't know she was that good."

"You should have. You knew she was my daughter." She regarded Shady. "Did you and Bobbie Jo cook up your little ambush?" He slowly nodded. "And didn't even tell me."

"Well, we figured she wouldn't fight—"

"And you figured wrong. Now I'm out eight pilots and six aircraft. Not to mention a shit ton of missiles, fuel and ammunition."

"Eight?" Shady asked. "But I got back—"

Raven's sword came free of its sheath in a blur; she slashed outwards, spun the blade, and resheathed it, all in the same motion. Shady took a step back in shock, then the pain hit. His hands went to his slashed throat, vainly trying to stop the red fountain that soaked his flight suit. He collapsed backwards onto the concrete, thrashed twice, and then was limp and still. She motioned to two of the ground crew. "Get that out of here. Throw it in the dump."

One of the gunmen joined her as Raven began walking towards the back of the hangar. "What about Bobbie Jo, Chieftess? Her and Howie Wang managed to punch out. We sent out SAR to pick them up."

"They were all in Vegas last night, which means they all agreed to this." Raven thought for a moment. "Wang's a F-4 backseater. I suppose we can't spare him. Go ahead and pick him up."

"And Bobbie Jo? She came down in Death Valley."

"Leave her there," Raven said casually, and kept walking.