Hello all! This chapter is starring Yang getting cold feet, a suspiciously polite Qrow Branwen, and sweet aerial maneuvers.

59. Scatter!

"Where the hell is Ruby?!"

Yang's feet jerked and kicked in empty space, while Specter whistled and listed heavily to one side or the other. Weiss leaned out, her head just barely poking over the edge of her saddle. "I didn't see!"

Fang sidled up next to them, flapping his wings in careful rhythm so that they didn't knock into Specter's. "Sssafe," he called out over the wind.

She opened her mouth to demand a much longer answer, but before she had a chance two enormous shadows loomed on either side of Specter. Dusk and Crucible circled the three of them like gigantic vultures, as Specter struggled to stay in the air.

A rush of heat. Wind whipping past her, Weiss' startled yelp. An agonized shriek Yang felt right down to her bones. Fang struggling, his tail caught in Dusk's jaws, Crucible looming over him.

Then a flurry of movement that Yang couldn't follow. Pepper was there, and then there was a splash, and she wasn't. The next thing she knew, Nymph roared and Specter dipped low over the lake beneath them. Yang couldn't help it—she let out a shriek that turned into a stream of curses, flailing her legs frantically and spraying droplets everywhere.

In her defense, Specter had just dipped her feet in ice water.

"Would you shut up?" Weiss shouted. "You'll distract him!"

"I can't feel my toes!"

"Do you want him to drop you?"

Yang glanced down at the now very frozen lake. Inkwell crashed into the layer of ice at full speed, leaving a sizable dent... but not a hole that she could crawl through. It was getting further away by the second. She continued to grumble—quietly, so that Specter wouldn't hear it over the wind.

Fang roared. He was almost directly underneath them now, and a glance to her left showed her that Pit had finally gotten away from the other pit dragons long enough to distract Kite. She had about half a second to feel Specter's claws slide out from under her arms, and an instant of free-fall. Then she was back in the saddle and swearing through gritted teeth.

Let it be known that falling onto dragonback hurt. Though not quite as much as it might have if it weren't for the saddle. Yang winced at the mental image and tucked her frozen feet against Fang's sides. Warmth leeched into them, and she stopped shivering. Much better.

She looked around, now that she wasn't so preoccupied with hanging half-frozen from a dragon's claws. Her brow furrowed. She counted dragons and came up very short. Pearl and Glory had dropped back from the chase and were already dwindling on the horizon. Ao Guang, Nymph, and Pepper were all missing. So were Freya and Zircon, and their riders. Not to mention Ruby and Storm.

This is a plan, she told herself. It has to be.

Yang really wished she knew whether it was their plan, or Cinder's.

Two jagged mountain ranges loomed in front of Nimbus. Two suns hung in the sky, and two sets of dragons flew with their wings pumping, desperate to outrace the pit dragons—and the fiery breath of twin Crucibles. He closed his misbehaving eye, and saw only one (very blurry) horizon.

With both Scarlet and Pyrrha on his back, his chest was heaving with the effort of keeping ahead of the pit dragons. Most of the pit dragons. Dusk went shrieking by overhead, her claws raking towards Huo. He rolled in midair to avoid them. When he righted himself, he was skimming just over the trees—still several hundred feet in front of Nimbus. He looked down and shouted, "Cave!"

Nimbus balked a little at the sudden shout. Pit, who was still cruising along with the aid of his powers, swerved closer to him. "Give Pyrrha to Twiggy!"

"What?" He glanced down. He could just make out a blurry green-and-brown blob that would probably look a bit more like Twiggy if he wasn't stressed and fleeing for his life. Not sure how else he was supposed to transfer Pyrrha, he flipped himself briefly upside-down—and since she wasn't strapped in, she slid right off his back. She let out a little yelp, grabbed for Scarlet's jacket, missed, and tumbled into Twiggy's waiting claws.

"Sssorry!" he called. Twiggy dropped like a stone the instant she grabbed Pyrrha. They vanished behind him. He tried to crane his neck to look, but all he saw were trees.

"Can you outfly Dusk?" Pit asked, still flying beside him.

Nimbus stared at him. "Well... um..."

"Try. If you can't, just come back around. We'll figure something else out."

He hesitated. Dusk was still dive-bombing Huo, who snapped at her in frustration. A blast of fire flew straight over her shoulders. Kite, meanwhile, had targeted Specter. She managed to rake her claws across one of his hind legs, making him screech like a teakettle.

Kite, as far as he knew, didn't have any physical problems at all—she'd been sent to the pits for behavioral problems. Dusk's shortened tail would make it harder to make sharp turns, but she was much bigger and stronger than he was. Dozens of painful crashes when he'd first learned to fly flashed before his eyes. He was good at flying, or at least he thought he was, but compared to them...

Scarlet's hand rested on his shoulder. He must have seen the muscles there tensing. Nimbus took a deep breath. He would trust his strengths, and he would trust his rider.

He spun in midair to collide with Kite just as she prepared to make another pass at Specter. The impact knocked her right out of the air, and she dropped several feet before she righted herself. He wheeled around, ready to defy all common sense by picking a fight with Dusk... and saw that she was already turning to face him.

Right. They were all being controlled by one person. Nimbus let out a little 'eep' and angled his wings into a steep dive. The two wind dragons, the only ones who had even a chance of catching him, both followed.

"Nimbus!" Scarlet's hands tightened on the reins. "Where are we going? The others are still—oh. Oh, that is not good!"

Dusk was gaining on them. She might not be as big as Crucible was, but her wingspan wasn't much smaller. Kite, meanwhile, started to fall behind. Nimbus slowed down, in case she—or whoever was behind all this—started getting ideas about going back to chasing his friends.

"Come on, sweetie," Scarlet urged him. "You can do this! Just a little faster!"

Nimbus flicked his ears. The encouragement was nice, even if Scarlet obviously had no idea what was going on. He let Dusk get very close, then tucked his wings and dropped. She flew straight over his head, banked hard, and stalled in midair. He swept between her outstretched claws and took the lead again. Kite pursued them both doggedly.

The second time Dusk 'caught' him, Nimbus' eye was acting up too badly for him to be totally sure where she was. He hesitated, his heart pounding, until he felt Scarlet's frantic tapping on his back. "Left! Bank left!"

He banked left. A cutting blast of wind he hadn't even seen Dusk aiming passed harmlessly under one of his outstretched wings. Scarlet squeaked. Nimbus sped up, and Kite started to fall behind again.

By Dusk's third attack, his heart rate started to go down, and the world came back into focus. Mostly. He flicked her nose with his tail, making her jerk her head to one side and go spiraling out of control. Kite actually passed her for a few seconds, before she could get her rhythm back. Scarlet let out a half-terrified, half-exhilarated whoop.

When he evaded her fourth attack with a tight barrel roll, Nimbus decided they were far enough away—and he stopped holding back. His head fully extended, the wind screaming in his ears, he darted through the air and caught a thermal straight up. Dusk tried to follow. She got close to catching him one last time, only for her teeth to snap shut on thin air when he turned on a dime. An instant later, she smashed into a tall pine tree and went down into the forest, thrashing the whole way. Kite dwindled into the distance.

"Oh gods." Scarlet's forehead came to rest against the back of his neck. "That was... too close."

Nimbus rumbled in amusement. It hadn't been, but he supposed that if his rider had bought it... maybe more of the pit dragons would fall for the same trick. He just had to loop back around and draw off a few more.

"We have to find the others," Scarlet said. "Northwest, I think."

They flew northwest. Then north. Then west, and southeast, and high into the air where they could survey the surrounding forest. There was no sign of the ongoing chase.

Oops.

The world lurched and spun. Pyrrha didn't even have time to panic before Twiggy snatched her out of the air, putting her pinwheeling fall to a stop almost as soon as it had started—and promptly dropped out of the sky.

Jaune's panicked shouting, the wind screaming past them as they plummeted, distant howls and roars from the pit dragons... Pyrrha squeezed her eyes shut. She was pressed against Twiggy's chest. She could feel her heartbeat.

Everything went dark. Her eyes snapped open—they hadn't hit the ground. Or rather, they'd gone past ground level. Rough stone rushed past them. Twiggy let go of her, and she landed in a mostly painless roll on the floor of a small cave.

Or rather, a small cave entrance. There were other openings near the back, ones that went even deeper. Before Pyrrha could move, Twiggy grabbed her by the back of her shirt and deposited her near the larger of the two. Jaune soon followed, once she'd nudged him into unstrapping his legs.

A heavy thump shook dust from the ceiling. Twiggy nudged the two humans further into the cave, glancing nervously over her shoulder. They moved in further, past a few twists and turns, into pitch darkness. Pyrrha reached out, found Jaune groping for her hand at the same time, and clasped them together. Her free hand she let slide along the wall to her left.

Footsteps in the cave behind them. Their gait was strange—Pyrrha suspected it might be the three-legged Tumbleweed. She swallowed hard and forged on, taking care to be as quiet as possible.

A whimper behind them. Pyrrha whirled around, briefly letting go of Jaune so that they could both check on Twiggy. She was nearly stuck, but with a little groping around in the dark they eventually got one of her hind legs through the gap. The other followed. Soon afterwards, she whimpered again. This time the cave had narrowed too much for her to fit her shoulders through.

The three of them waited there, in pitch darkness, listening to the three-legged shuffling coming closer and closer until the footsteps suddenly stopped. A snort. Rocks ground against one another. The foosteps inched closer. Stopped again. Snuffling, the scrape of claws on stone.

Pyrrha swept her hand from side to side until it brushed against Jaune's shoulder. She gripped it tightly. His head bumped against her arm.

Finally, Tumbleweed's steps faded away. There was a hefty thump. Then nothing.

Taiyang squinted in the bright sunshine as he and Qrow stepped off the airship. A dry breeze picked up, ruffling his hair and getting sand in his eyes. Everything he looked at blurred and wobbled in the heat. He grinned. It had been too long since he'd last been to Vacuo.

Qrow groaned and put a hand over his eyes. "We want the Albatross. It's a bar near the station, but not the fun kind. Lots of white trim." His face wrinkled in disgust. "Glad we're not buying anything. Only thing worse than cheap swill is expensive swill."

They stopped to wait for their dragons as they shuffled out of the ship's hold. Neither were fond of flying in airships, but speed was of the essence here. Tai cracked his knuckles and said, "Alright. Lead the way."

Eventually Qrow managed to open his eyes enough to actually see, though he still grumbled and shot irritated looks at the cloudless blue sky. He circled around streets lined with open market stalls and led them through a twisting labyrinth of alleyways. The neighborhood they ended up in was nice. Suspiciously nice. Tai had no idea why Qrow knew an area like this one so well, and he soon decided that he didn't want to know, either.

Winter was outside. Back straight, hands clasped behind her back. Steele stood by her shoulder. Both were as motionless as statues. The moment she spotted them, her eyes narrowed. "You're late."

Tai winced. He got the sense that she hadn't taken Qrow's advice to get some sleep before they got to Vacuo. Of course, he hadn't either, so he couldn't really judge.

"The ship ran into Grimm on the way," Qrow said.

Winter glowered at him, then apparently decided to let it go. "Communicators," she snapped, and handed two each to Qrow and Tai. "Radio signal, battery-operated."

"Nice." Tai tucked them in his pouch.

Qrow glanced at him and cringed. "I still can't believe you brought a fanny pack."

"It's practical."

"It's ridiculous."

Tai rested a hand on his belt. He imagined what Yang would say when she saw it, and smiled. "Yeah."

"Are you two done wasting time, or is there something else we need to do before we move out?" Winter spoke through gritted teeth.

Qrow jerked his head northward. "Let's go."

Tai moved towards the saddle, but Qrow grabbed his arm. "Remember. We can't fly until we're out of the city."

"But—"

"The Vacuan flight squad watches their airspace," Winter explained. "If they see three unauthorized dragons flying over the city, just after a wide-scale attack on their academy no less, they will ask questions we don't want to answer."

"Or they might shoot first and ask never," added Qrow. Tai shot a last, longing look at the sky and nodded. It wouldn't be much of a rescue mission if half Vacuo's flight squad was chasing them.

So they mounted up, and their dragons alternated between a walk and a brisk trot. Tai made sure to stay in between Qrow and Winter. Probably a position he was going to get very familiar with over the next few days. He sighed. Any backup is good backup, he told himself. Even if together they're pains in my ass.

Hoping to keep the conversation on logistics, and away from an argument, Tai gestured to Quake. "Left saddlebag is full of food. I figured the kids will be hungry when we find them. Right has water, first aid kit, matches, all that good stuff. Salty's carrying all the camping gear, tents and sleeping bags mostly."

Winter eyed Qrow warily. "How very practical."

"There's a spare for you." Qrow gave her a friendly smile that Tai was immediately suspicious of. "In case you went haring off without stopping to pack."

"That won't be necessary," she snapped.

He raised his hands innocently. "Alright! I'm just offering."

"Qrow," Tai sighed, putting a hand to his forehead. "Don't needle her."

"I'm not needling!"

He turned to stare at his longtime friend. Qrow stared back, indignant. "Oh," he said, a bit startled. "Okay, uh..."

"What? I can't be helpful?"

Tai folded his arms and let the moment stretch. He was sure Qrow was remembering the same things he was—namely, the long and illustrious Branwen family tradition of pissing people off for sport.

"I don't need camping supplies." Winter was glaring daggers at both of them, now. "It will take more than just Steele and I to deal with these criminals, and that is all. If you aren't capable of taking this seriously then I will gladly make do without you."

Qrow bristled. "You think I'm not taking it seriously?"

"You never have before."

"Listen, Ice Queen—"

Winter jabbed a finger at him. "I don't care! I don't care what you think. As long as you stay focused, I don't care what you do either—but if you start messing around and get my sister hurt, I will end you."

Qrow sat very still in Salty's saddle. Seething. "I will never fuck around with these kids' lives on the line. If you knew a single goddamned thing about me, you'd know that."

Tai sensed his cue. "We're all here because we'd do anything to help them," he said. "And anything is gonna have to include dropping the arguments for a few days. You two can drive each other up the wall to your hearts' content after we're done, 'kay?"

They grumbled at him, but neither of them started anything. Winter seemed slightly chagrined by Qrow's outburst, and he was busy looking anywhere except her or Steele. Ah, yes, the other ancient Branwen tradition—in case of accidental emotional honesty, just pretend it didn't happen and hope it goes away.

Tai was calling it good. If nothing else, he'd managed to get them both to agree that he deserved a dirty look.