Happy Friday everyone! This week, Pyrrha climbs a tree.

66. Search Parties

Pyrrha was disappointed to find that when Jaune's nose finally stopped bleeding, it still wasn't a pretty sight. He'd ended up with two black eyes to match the broken (and very swollen) nose, and it turned out he was prone to some pretty magnificent bruises. She counted at least five or six different colors.

She kissed him anyway.

They walked for a while, alternating between riding on Twiggy's back and hiking along beside her. Sometimes one of them would spot a dragon overhead, and they'd have seconds to find someplace to hide. Then, minutes later, they'd stand up with their legs cramping and their hearts still racing.

Eventually, it became routine. Hike until Twiggy was tired. Dismount. Hike until they were tired. Mount up. Hide. Keep walking... Until a mighty roar shattered the stillness of the forest, sending small animals skittering out of the bushes in a panic.

All three of them stopped. "Is that a pit dragon?" Jaune asked, frowning—or trying to, it was a bit difficult with his face so swollen.

"I don't think so..." The only times Tumbleweed had roared during their fight was when he was startled or hurt—like when she'd hit him with a rock. She felt a guilty twinge at that, and resolved to give him a treat when all of this was over. To Jaune she said, "Stay here."

There was only one way to find out, after all. She clambered up the nearest tree until her head broke through the canopy. Risky—she was sure her hair would stand out in this sea of green.

She spotted the source of the noise immediately. A clump of dragons, silhouetted against bright blue sky, all dipping and diving at one another. It was hard to tell how many there were with how fast they were moving, but she thought she counted five or six.

Before Pyrrha could climb down, the fight veered closer. Squinting, she could pick out Glory, Granite, and Kite... and two fully grown dragons that she didn't recognize in the slightest. Thrown, she perched in the tree for a long moment, frozen, trying to work out why they looked so familiar when they definitely weren't any of the professors' dragons...

Yule!

In an instant, it clicked. She couldn't recall the dragons' names, but she did distinctly remember a friendly blond man who had insisted that they call him Tai.

Pyrrha slid to the ground much faster than was safe. "Jaune! It's Ruby and Yang's father!" And probably their uncle, too, if she were to guess. "They're fighting the pit dragons!"

He scrambled into the saddle. "Let's go!"

She bit her lip. "Jaune... you're going to need to fly."

Twiggy's ears went back.

"But—" he blurted.

"I'll follow you, but we need to let them know we're here."

Jaune hesitated another moment, then reluctantly nodded. He picked up the reins.

Twiggy balked. She whined and said, "Rruh! Nno!"

Earr-rah!

"Go on," she urged them, forcing a smile. "I'll be fine." They didn't have much of a choice—it wasn't like they could miss the chance to meet up with reinforcements like this. They went.

Suddenly the forest was very, very quiet. Pyrrha broke into a brisk jog, following the trail of trampled undergrowth that Twiggy had left in her wake. Trying to ignore the ache she'd just been reminded of.

Pit dragons, Salty had just discovered, fought dirty.

He and Quake were outnumbered, which didn't help, and they didn't want to hurt their opponents, which really didn't help... but even then, he hadn't thought it would be this difficult.

Then the fire dragon blew a cloud of smoke into his face, latched onto his belly—which would have hurt a lot more if she hadn't been missing her claws—and clung there with her scales scorching him. Quake was too busy with the enemy earth dragon to help, and Salty couldn't get her off while the wind dragon kept trying to scratch out his eyes.

He tried not to notice how young they were, or that they'd obviously had a lot of practice fighting dragons that were much bigger than them.

"Stop," he grunted, aiming a jet of water at the wind dragon. It knocked her off balance, and she fell about halfway to the ground before she could get her wings open again. That let him pry the fire dragon off himself, which finally gave him a moment to breathe.

"Land," Qrow advised him. "We're gonna have to pin 'em."

Salty obliged. As he dove towards the wind dragon, he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. Another dragon—he just wasn't sure if it was friend or foe. He really hoped they wouldn't have to fight any more of the pit dragons. As it was, he thought they could probably stop them without hurting them, but at some point that would become too risky for their riders.

Fighting Grimm was so much less complicated.

The wind dragon tried to intercept him on his way down. She managed to get her claws into his shoulder, but he wrapped a forepaw around her that kept her from doing too much damage. They fell together, right up until they ripped through the upper branches. Then he dropped her and let her hit the ground—not too hard, but it was enough to stun her for a few seconds.

Salty looked up just in time to see the fire dragon smash through the canopy and launch herself at his face. He ducked, then dodged when she aimed a blast of fire at Qrow. She lunged at him again, almost latching onto his foreleg with her teeth.

They were a lot more effective in close quarters—but they weren't very good at working together. Salty suspected this was because all their experience had come from the pits. He considered maneuvering between them so that they couldn't hurt him without hurting each other... then thought better of it. Whoever was controlling them wouldn't care.

He avoided another burst of fire, and dug his paws in so that a wing gust from the wind dragon didn't knock him over. Twigs snapped overhead. Salty leaped out of the way, just in time to watch Quake and the other earth dragon slam into the ground.

Quake landed hard on his side, and the enemy earth dragon promptly tried to pin him. Salty hesitated—he could try to grab her, but if he did the fire dragon might be able to hit Qrow.

Before he had the chance to decide, a third—and much smaller—earth dragon dropped through the trees. Salty recognized Twiggy, one of the student dragons they were there to save. She didn't even hesitate before she jumped on the wind dragon, warbling defiantly.

In other circumstances Salty might have tried to persuade her not to... but instead he opted to take care of the fire dragon before one of her blasts set the woods on fire. Now that he only had to contend with one at a time, it was easy enough to pin her down and hold her mouth closed with one paw. Smoke billowed from her nostrils, and her eyes rolled back in her skull as she tried to glare at him.

What to do now... Salty tried to grab the metal plate on her head in his teeth. He couldn't even scratch the outside, and no matter how hard he pulled, nothing happened. The heat of her scales started to burn the bottoms of his paws. Not sure what else to do, he pressed down as gently as he dared until she stopped fighting him.

"Sorry, youngling," he murmured, licking her brow. Her breathing was steady, which meant they should finish this up soon. She wouldn't be out for long.

Quake had finally managed to get the upper hand on his rival earth dragon. Salty helped knock several sturdy trees down, to pin her there until they could get away. That left only Twiggy's opponent, who had managed to leave a nasty-looking scratch on the tip of her nose.

It only took a few seconds for Quake and Salty to wrestle her away from the smaller dragon. Then Quake buried her up to her belly with his powers. "Come on," he told Twiggy. "We'd better get out of here before—"

"No!" she protested. "We have to get Pyrrha!"

Their riders finished having a similar exchange about half a second later, and they went to find Pyrrha. It wasn't difficult—she was less than a mile away. Quake crouched down so that she could climb into his saddle, and they were off.

Salty was, admittedly, a bit less confident about flying than he had been that morning. There were fourteen pit dragons, some of them much more dangerous than the ones they'd just fought. But they didn't have much of a choice, when it came down to it. Combing the whole forest on foot would take weeks that they didn't have.

They flew. And, not even ten minutes later, he spotted a new dragon on the horizon. Hopefully friendly... but he doubted any of the students would be flying alone, right now.

There wasn't a cloud in the sky. Normally Sage liked that kind of weather. Normally, he wasn't depending on cloud cover to help him and Zircon avoid mind controlled pit dragons. But here they were.

He and Scarlet landed on a cliffside long enough to decide that it would be better for Zircon to stay under tree cover where enemies would be less likely to spot him. Nimbus, meanwhile, could fly overhead, keep watch for pit dragons, and lead them away if they showed up.

Sage tried to argue with that idea, but Scarlet just grinned at him. "Don't worry about us," he said, patting Nimbus on the shoulder. "We can outfly any of them." His proud smile and the way his dragon's ears perked warmed Sage all the way down to his toes.

So he and Zircon walked. Nimbus passed in and out of sight through the leaves overhead, and Sage watched the slowly changing angle of the sunbeams filtering in through the canopy. It was almost pleasant, and almost boring, both of which were a relief after the past few days. Weeks, really.

Of course it wouldn't last. Sage stiffened in the saddle when he heard Nimbus call out, and squinted uselessly at the treetops. It was impossible to see what was going on. Then another call, this one much deeper. Zircon's ears perked.

Sage frowned. The pit dragons didn't seem to be able to talk, now. Which meant...

"Wake?" Zircon cocked his head to one side, confused but not frightened. If his dragon was calm, that probably meant there was nothing to worry about.

A few minutes later, Nimbus alighted on a nearby tree and barked in excitement. "Reinforcements have arrived!" Scarlet announced. Then, to Zircon, "Let's get you in the air, sweetie."

That didn't take long—they'd been traveling up and down low ridges for the better part of the day. All it took was a quick run up one, and he could see the reinforcements Scarlet had mentioned. Twiggy, Jaune, and Pyrrha, and two men that were very familiar but who he couldn't quite place. Then he saw the blond man's face, and the family resemblance jogged his memory. Right. Yang and Ruby got a message to their uncle.

"What about the others?" Sage shouted to Scarlet. Then, when he didn't hear, he coaxed Zircon to fly a little closer and repeated the question.

"No idea! Haven't talked to them!"

Sage had to wait until they stopped for a quick break to ask. Then the blond man, Tai, pulled out several squashed sandwiches that the four students fell on like starving wolves, and he forgot he even had questions until he was finished.

While he was eating, he noticed that Jaune had an impressive pair of black eyes, and Twiggy sported a series of long scratches across her shoulders. Pyrrha looked mostly unhurt. When Scarlet wondered aloud what had happened to them, Jaune just winced and said, "Tumbleweed."

Finally, Sage asked after everyone else.

"We've found almost everyone," Tai told him. "Weiss and Blake are still somewhere north of us, we think."

"Are they okay?" Scarlet asked.

Qrow gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Weiss' sister is with us. She went on ahead, in case they're flying. For all we know they're already with her and Steele."

"Yeah..." Scarlet didn't sound particularly convinced.

Sage wasn't either.

Winter was beginning to regret letting Ilia come along.

It had seemed like a simple decision at the time—she would have gone looking for Blake no matter what Winter had done, and it seemed better to have her nearby where she could keep an eye on her. And yet...

Justice was incredibly aggressive, even for a fire dragon. He'd gotten into a fight with Fang and Huo within seconds of meeting them. His rider was strangely reluctant to talk about her time at Beacon. Both had shown up out of nowhere, in the middle of the Vacuan forest.

She might just be acting paranoid, with Weiss still nowhere to be seen. She might not.

Winter shook herself. It was done—there was no point letting herself be distracted by what-ifs. She scanned the trees below. Still nothing. How far north were they? Were they still together, as Ilia seemed to think, or had they been separated after Yang and Sun left the chase? Had they passed them?

Steele hummed. She couldn't hear it, but she felt the vibration through her gloves and relaxed slightly. If they did pass overhead, Weiss would get their attention. Unless she didn't see them, or didn't recognize them, in which case Qrow and Tai would be making a more thorough search.

Somehow the idea of Qrow being responsible for finding her little sister failed to reassure her.

Winter forced herself to focus. She scanned the horizon. Nothing but blue. Nothing to block her view, except for a rugged mountain peak off to the northwest.

A dark speck darted out from behind it. And another, instants later.

Before Winter had time to wonder if that was them, or more of the pit dragons, another dragon followed, and another and another, until she could see a whole train of them. She tried to count, got nine the first time and ten the second.

Winter angled Steele on an interception course, and loosened her pistol in its holster. The anxiety of the wait fell away now that it was time for action—replaced by alertness and a surge of adrenaline.

She didn't bother checking to see if Ilia was following. Either she would, or she wouldn't—it didn't matter. Winter allowed herself a wolfish smile. Steele would be enough. He always was.