It did not take long for Summer to realize that working triple duty as a huntress, mother, and professional army trainer wouldn't do, and that she'd need an extra pair of hands. It was a cool winter night, a mere four weeks since they'd brought Ruby home, but within their small house on the island of Patch, the temperature was anything but cool, what with the veteran huntress pacing back and forth angrily in stubborn thought.
"Damnit!" Summer roared, punching the wall and leaving a large indentation of her fist in it. "If I'd put a little more thought into it, I would've refused to train this army... an Army! I already had my hands full with my job as a huntress, bringing Ruby into the world already has me a little overworked, but training an ARMY?!. I'm. So. Stupid!" She growled out, banging her head against the wall.
"Summer, relax. Breathe." Came the calmer, far less agitated voice of her lover. "The solution is pretty simple, just don't accept any more contracts until you've got the other problems sorted out. There! Problem solved!" He stated enthusiastically, though only receiving a long, drawn out sigh from the woman of topic.
"If it were that easy, I'd have done that already, Tai! I've already contracts lined up through to the end of next year accepted!"
"Well... why not ask-"
"Tai, you know she wouldn't listen to me." Summer interrupted, plopping down in the most dramatic way possible into a large, comfy reclining chair.
"She owes you, Sum. Besides, it's not like you can't be charming if push comes to shove." Tai replied carefully, taking a seat next to his exhausted wife. "Or... y'know... bring their whole camp down on top of them..."
She sighed, running a hand through her dark hair and looking out the window into the endless night sky. Spending several minutes in silent contemplation as she weighed her options. It would be too easy to just drop the contracts, but would have rather far-reaching consequences, maybe not for her, but for the people she'd accepted the contracts from. Many would most certainly die if she were to simply drop the contracts. The only real alternative would be to transfer the contracts to another hunter, and with Qrow and Taiyang already preoccupied, she would have to go to her one teammate who she'd hoped she'd never need interact with again...
A long, defeated sigh passed through her lips, followed by the girl allowing her head to droop down and her shoulders to slump. "Can you hold down the fort then, Tai? I'd hate for this all to be a burden on you."
"Of course, don't worry about me! You just go and do what you need to do." Taiyang affirmed, a wide smile cracking across his face.
After a moment of idle contemplation, Summer stood once more, and started heading for the door. Grabbing her sword and it's scabbard, and donning her snow-white cloak, she opened the door to the snow before her and looked back, taking in the sight of their humble little living room, with Taiyang smiling fondly at her in one corner, a fireplace going against the wall to her left, and Ruby's cradle along the wall to her right. Truth be told, she felt rather guilty about pressing her problems onto someone else, and about taking a leave of her family so soon... but she was up past her neck here, and she desperately needed someone to lighten the load...
It did not take long for her to arrive at the little fortress-camp that was the Branwen bandit clan's home, courtesy of the speeds that her jetbike allowed her to reach. Large, spiked wooden beam posts made up the walls of the camp, with sentries lining the walls every dozen or so meters. The two gate guards had their pikes aimed directly at her as she dismounted her jetbike, and grinned mischievously under the shadow of her hood as she realized that these fools had no idea who she was. Laughing quietly to herself, she began to saunter towards the gate, towards the hapless gate-guards...
"HALT!" the one to her right yelled. "Better empty your pockets and clear out, girlie, before I decide we want somethin' else outta ya!" His statement was met with several guffaws from his nearby comrades. Summer merely rolled her eyes, and placed a hand on the pommel of her sword.
"I'm here to speak to Raven. You will take me to her." She declared, only to be met with further guffaws from the fools before her.
"Girlie, dunno WHO you're talkin' about, but sounds to me like you're lookin' for a real beat down, now... or goin' down some way else!" the man stated towards her, making a lewd gesture with his unoccupied hand. Sighing, Summer decided that a peaceful solution was more or less impossible.
Drawing her sword out of her scabbard, the gate guards backed up a step as she drew forth the black blade. Donning a more sadistic grin, the lady in white thumbed the activation rune on the hilt of her blade, sheathing the blade in a field of cackling silver lightning.
Without warning, Summer darted forward faster than any of her opponents could react, and plunged her blade through the speaker's heart, twisting the blade and pivoting her body around to more easily remove the blade, and followed the movement with a blindingly fast horizontal slash, decapitating the other effortlessly. Looking back up to see the other bandits, she watched as they started to bunch together, forming a tight defensive line. With a quiet chuckle, she darted forward, meeting the defensive line head-on.
A dozen pikes darted forward to meet her, but she paid them no mind as she easily ducked under them and delivered a vicious upward slash to one of the defenders in the first line, severing his arm and and leaving a deep gash running up from his thigh and splitting his head in twain, completely ignoring his aura. Laughing more audibly, she kicked the corpse back into the second line of defenders, before sweeping her blade in a wide arch around her, decapitating or bisecting any unfortunate enough to be close enough for her blade to touch.
Ducking under an incoming cleaver, she backpedaled to avoid the drop of an incoming warhammer, swinging her blade out around her as she passed, cutting the man with a cleaver in two across his abdomen. Quicker than the second attacker could comprehend, Summer gracefully rolled under his second swing and sheathed her blade in his chest. Heaving the body's weight up, she pivoted it around to block an incoming stab from a poleaxe, following with spinning the blade out of her impromptu meat-shield as it was stabbed and decapitating her newest assailant in a single, graceful movement...
The sentry ran as fast as he possibly could to Raven's tent, knowing for sure their leader must be able to stop this juggernaut. Slamming open the flap doors of her tent, she entered with a panicked look etched across his face, heaving and huffing as he fell to his knees after sprinting harder than he ever had in his life, being made further panicked by the intense glare and obvious annoyance of his chief...
"What. Do. You. Want?" Raven asked with obvious annoyance, a glare playing across her face.
"T-t-t-terribly s-sorry for b-b-bothering you, M-ma'am, b-but some butcher, she ju-just, she ju-"
"SPIT IT OUT ALREADY!" Raven roared, gripping him by the throat and heaving his weight as though he weren't even there.
"She's killing everyone! Everyone! We can't stop her, She's ignoring our Aura!" He swiftly worked out, afraid for his life as Raven's eyes widened in horror and she threw him aside.
"YOU IDIOTS!" She screamed, darting out of her tent to meet the assailant...
Summer laughed as she slashed out the knees of another warrior, before deftly sidestepping an attack and switching to an underhand grip, letting the attacker's blade bury itself into his comrade's shoulder and cut right through his heart, before a blade black as night buried itself through his back, and the last thing he saw was the blade exiting out the front of his chest. Kicking the corpse off her blade, Summer ducked under another attack, delivering a savage uppercut to the next assailant with her free hand, and swinging around to decapi-
"STOP!" cried a voice, halting her blade from drawing any closer to the helpless bandit's neck. Looking to the source, she saw it was none other than Raven herself, and gave a more cool, relaxed grin towards her old teammate.
"Stop fighting, everyone! There's no point in it." She continued, and Summer watched, somewhat impressed by the response of the bandits as they all broke off from trying to attack her.
"Well, if only it were that simple when I was your team leader!" Summer exclaimed, sheathing her blade.
"What do you want, Summer?" Raven growled, but didn't dare take another step forward. She knew Summer could easily raze their entire camp, and she also knew that Summer had her grossly outclassed in combative skill.
"I need your help, that's what. Got too much on my plate, need someone to lighten the load."
"You've never needed my help before, why the hell would you need my help now?" The more gruff lady questioned, leading Summer to merely wave her finger back and forth.
"You'll learn, but... away from prying ears. Lets go in your tent, we can discuss things there." Summer declared, leading the way as she side-stepped around Raven into her own tent. The black bird named woman pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration and grumbled under her breath, before turning 180 degrees, and following the woman into the tent...
"...I see..." Raven sighed, before resting her head in her hand as she braced her elbows on the table that separated the two women.
"Well? Whadaya say?" Summer pressed, trying to use her most innocent and cutesy voice like she hadn't just slaughtered a third of Raven's entire clan effortlessly.
"I do... owe you..." she accepted as she slowly growled out the latter words. "But I want compensation for you slaughtering so many of my clansmen!" She turned and demanded, pointing a finger at the white-clad, innocent looking little butcher.
"Don't worry about it, I got it covered... hows a hundred fifty thousand lien sound?" If Raven had been drinking anything, she'd have spat it out all over her old team leader simply out of shock. Instead, the elbow keeping her head up simply gave way and she face-planted on the table before she could recollect herself...
"One hundred fifty THOUSAND!?. What the actual hell, where did you get that kinda money?!." She exclaimed, standing with back erect.
"Atlesian military is paying me for being the donor of the clones, and for training them." Summer answered nonchalantly, shrugging her shoulders as she did so.
Raven slowly nodded her head, before turning to face Summer with her back, resting her hands on her hips as she contemplated what this meant for Remnant, and what it meant for her as a bandit chieftain. A clone army, cloned from and trained personally by Summer Rose... and the Atlesian Military was calling for six million. That would be far larger than any army ever amassed in Remnant's history, hailing from the era of Emperor Hoots at a massive one million souls. If they just assigned a single legion, apparently being a whole hundred thousand clones, to this continent, her days as a bandit chieftain would be done, and that's not even taking into account the type of firepower they'll be packing, what with them being backed by the Schnee Dust Company...
"Alright," Raven started once more, "If even half of what you've told me is even half-true, then Remnant's about to enter a new age, one without the threat of Grimm, and without the threat of bandits... and I don't wanna be a bandit in that age."
"Wait, what are you saying?" Summer inquired, a confused look dominating her features.
"I'm saying, that when I've finished these contracts, I WILL be one of the trainers for this clone army! YOU owe ME that much, Summer Rose!" Raven declared, poking Summer's nose and making the woman lean back a bit. "The strong survive, the weak die, and with the introduction of such a massive army, trained by YOU of all people, Bandits will most certainly become the weak, and I refuse to be of the weak!"
The woman who's nose was being poked simply laughed nervously, raising her hands defensively as she backed up. She nodded as she did so, extending her hand back outward to shake Raven's hand, though was promptly slapped away.
"Don't think we're friends again, Summer! I'm doing this to survive! Nothing more, nothing less." She growled, pushing away from the table and grabbing her scroll from her bed. "Just transfer the contracts to me, and once I've finished them all, YOU'RE going to bring me to Astra City!"
After their brief, but successful conversation, Summer left with a somewhat relieved feeling. Raven leaving the team had affected her more than she cared to admit to her comrades, but now that she was coming back... sort of, she felt as though she'd repaired the fracture within her team, or had at least begun the process. It was an enlightening feeling, but short-lived as she skipped out of the compound, avoiding the many corpses she'd left in her wake and ignoring the hateful and fearful glares being sent her way by the Branwen clansmen. They were irrelevant, of course, and she kinda wished that Raven hadn't stopped her so soon, but what was done was done.
With a triumphant smirk plastered across her face, she hopped on her jetbike, before giving a loud "Tally-Ho!" and a mock salute to the clan glaring daggers at her, before speeding off into the horizon...