YXL: [Laughs] 'Course you guys want to hear about the three guys who got dropped in Forever Fall. That's why we're all here to begin with, right?

JA: You're not wrong.

YXL: Well...where do I start? It was September 5th last year, I think, at around 11 pm. Forever Fall Park Rangers got a triple 187 call somewhere down Palm Drive from passing motorists. Now, Forever Fall was a big forest preserve, very secluded, so if you were gonna expect some crazy shit like a triple homicide, it would be there. Even then, a triple homicide on the side of the road was like a massacre to the Park Ranger yokels, so naturally, they handed it off to the Vale Kingdom Police Department. Blake and I were gonna be working with the Organized Crime Unit on this one.


It was a long drive from the VKPD headquarters in downtown Vale to the Forever Fall Forest Preserve. Yang spent about an hour and a half sitting in the black Crown Victoria, waiting in morning rush hour traffic just to get on the exit that'll take her to Palm Drive, the long, winding road slicing through the middle of the forest preserve.

Yang peeled her eyes off the twisting, fog-covered road in front of her to peer over to Blake on her right, who was still napping. Ever since the two had set out from the VKPD headquarters, Blake had been fast asleep. It was a new sight for Yang, as she never had an opportunity to catch Blake sleeping on the job.

Yang then gently placed her hand on Blake's shoulder and softly shook her awake.

"Blake. Blake!" Yang cried out.

Blake shot straight up in her seat, her eyes wide open in surprise.

"Where are we?" Blake asked, rubbing her eyes.

"We're in Forever Fall, about 10 minutes out from the scene," Yang said. "What's happening, Belladonna? You okay? You get enough sleep last night?"

Blake shakes her head.

"I'm fine," Blake groaned as she moved her seat back to the upright position. "Well...not really, I didn't get sleep last night."

"Why not?" Yang asked. "You know, they got sleeping pills if you can't sleep-"

"Tried 'em. Didn't work," Blake curtly replied. Yang gave Blake one last curious look before turning back to the road.

"Well, you need to get some sleep somehow, Belladonna," Yang said. "Need you firing on all cylinders on this one."

Yang could tell they were getting close to the crime scene from the sinister red glow of the fog ahead, caused by road flares laid down by park rangers. Yang slowed the car down as they saw the flashing red and blue lights atop squad cars down the road, and the horde of officers and park rangers currently milling about or patrolling the scene.

"That should be it, up there," Yang said. Yang pulled the car to the side of the road and threw the car into park before stepping out, Blake following suit a few seconds after. Yang watched as the white fog hanging low above the road engulfed around her feet.

"Fog is gonna be a pain," Blake said as she began stepping forward.

"Just watch out, don't accidentally step on any evidence," Yang said as she grabbed her bag of equipment from the backseat of the car.

As Yang and Blake strode closer to the crime scene, the aftermath became clearer to view through the fog. On the shoulder of the road were two bodies, splayed out on the cement. Off the side of the road was a white, Econoline-looking van, turned over on its side. The entire crime scene was already roped off with yellow police tape tied up to barricades and tables. Yang and Blake's arrival clearly piqued the interest of one of the officers, as one of the officers with a brunette faux hawk and Oakley sunglasses began walking up to the two.

"Ma'am, I'm Sergeant Cardin Winchester," the officer said as he walked up to Yang. "This is a VKPD crime scene, if you're with the park rangers-"

"Yo, Xiao Long!" cried out a voice from behind Officer Winchester, who then turned around to see where the voice was coming from. Through the fog, a slim figure was seen emerging: a blonde man with unruly blonde hair, a shabby olive suit and a yellow monkey tail trailing behind him.

"Sun, what's your goofy ass doing all the way out here?" Yang said with a smile before heartily shaking Sun's hand. Sun flashed his signature golden smile before turning to Blake. Sun, clearly curious at the new detective, gave a relaxed salute as a sly smile began to crawl across his face.

"Madam," Sun said with a grin. Despite the fog, Yang could see a small blush growing on Blake's face as she nodded in return. Yang rolled her eyes as she stepped between Blake and Sun.

"Sun, this is Blake Belladonna, she's my new partner in the Robbery Homicide Division," Yang said. "Blake, this is Detective Sun Wukong, Organized Crime Unit."

"Hello," Blake offered as a greeting.

Cardin, who was clearly peeved from the frown on his face, turned to Sun.

"You know the Blonde?" Cardin asked.

"Yeah," Sun said. "They're VKPD detectives, pal. Robbery and Homicide. Meaning they outrank you, too."

Cardin then redirected his glare towards Yang.

"You two taking responsibility for this scene, then?" Cardin grumbled.

"Take a guess," Yang replied, her face cold as stone. Cardin simply muttered something under his breath and walked past Yang and Blake. Blake scowled back at Cardin as he walked off.

"C'mon. Let's walk and talk," Sun said. "The crime scene is just over there, I'll fill you in."


NV: So Detective Wukong was at the scene?

BB: Yeah, he was. You know him?

NV: Damn straight. Guy owes me 20 Lien from the bet he made me from the last football game.

BB: [Scoffs] Yeah, that sounds like Sun.


JA: Tell us a little more about how you knew Detective Sun Wukong.

YXL: Well, Sun and his partner, Neptune Vasilias, were part of the Organized Crime Unit, OCU. We'd worked a few cases together, mainly ones pertaining to the Salem crime family.

PN: How would you describe Det. Wukong's handling of the triple homicide case?

YXL: Well, he was the first to get the case before it got handed off to us. Other than that...he handled it all by the book, far as I could tell. [Laughs] Trust me, if you meet the guy, you'll probably write him off as some idiot, but he's a damn good detective as well. We would've been screwed on this case if Sun hadn't done such a good job preserving the scene.


"The 911 call went out last night around 2330," Sun said. "Park Rangers got a report from a passing minivan about bodies on the road and an overturned van off the side of the road. Forensics has already been here picking apart the scene, they think that the actual shooting probably went down a good 2-3 hours before the actual 911 call."

"No one heard the shots?" Blake asked.

"Nope," Sun said. "This is the only service road within a 25 mile radius, far off the beaten path. All around here is just trees and forest. Not a soul around to hear the shooting."

"So, I take it this is a Salem Mob job since you're here?" Yang asked as the trio walked down the road and past squad cars and officers rushing past. The three of them were busy slipping on blue latex gloves, while Yang silently slipped a toothpick from her jacket pocket into the corner of her mouth.

"No, actually," Sun said. "We don't have a clue who hit this van. But we do know who got hit, and that's why I'm here."

Sun then lifted up the police tape currently blocking off the wreckage and bodies for Blake and Yang. The two swiftly ducked under and approached the bodies, with Sun following suit.

Yang pulled out her flashlight and flicked it on, shining the light on the two bodies in front of the van. With the light now cutting through the fog, it became clear that the two bodies were Faunus from the tail on one, and fox ears on the others.

"Blake, Yang, meet Fennec and Corsac Albain," Sun proclaimed. "Officially, priests in the First Nature Brotherhood of Light. Unofficially, lieutenants in the White Fang's Vale outfit."

Yang could see the blood-stained robes of the two priests, their faces gnashed and contorted. Square in the middle of both their foreheads were gaping, crimson entrance wounds.

"Gunshot wounds. Headshots," Yang said.

"Looks execution-style," Blake said.

"Oh yeah?" Yang asked.

"Mm hm," Blake murmured. "Look…"

Blake then crouched next to the bodies.

"...Smudge marks on their pant legs, they were on their knees for a bit," Blake said. "Both their hands are laid out above their heads in almost the same pattern, and both of them were found on their backs. The small entrance wounds and the fact that they were both shot square in the middle of their foreheads make me think that they were executed close range."

"The cuts and bruises all over their bodies, though," Sun interjected, "How do you explain that?"

"Well, we got our answer right there," Blake said, pointing at the van. "They must've been in the van when it swerved off the road and hit the ditch."

Blake then grunted as she stood up.

"My guess? They walked out or got dragged out of the van after it crashed," Blake said. Whoever hit the van then moved them over here, on the shoulder of the road and had them on their knees before they popped 'em."

Sun nodded in agreement.

"Damn," Sun said. "You know your shit, Detective...uhh...sorry, what was your name again?"

A big, goofy grin crept across Sun's face. Blake blushed again.

"Belladonna," Blake said with a sly grin. "This isn't my first rodeo."

Yang then gestured with her head towards the overturned van.

"911 calls said there was a third body," Yang said. "Is it in there?"

"Yup," Sun said. "Driver's side."

Yang then began to set foot out towards the van, with Sun following closely behind. Yang felt the squelch of mud under her shoes as she stepped off the hard concrete of the road and towards the overturned wreckage.

The overturned van was milky white, an old-model Ford Econoline van. Yang pinched the toothpick out of her mouth and put it in her coat pocket, then hoisted herself up on top of the overturned left side of the van and peered down to inspect the wreckage. Marked on its left side, which was now facing upwards, were text decals.

"First Nature Brotherhood of Light," Yang muttered to herself, reading off the text decals.

"Hey, Sun," Yang called out. "First Nature is a mostly Faunus congregation, right?"

"Yeah, why?" Sun called back.

"You think this was a human supremacist attack?" Yang asked.

"Dunno," Sun said. "No group has claimed responsibility yet, if it is."

Yang silently nodded, before making her way to the driver's seat of the van. Yang quickly shone her flashlight down through the cracked driver's side window. Through the cracks, Yang could make the body out to be a male Faunus with bat wings, his face bloody and his eyes wide open. He looked like he couldn't be older than 30.

"You got a PID on this guy?" Yang called.

"Yeah," Sun called back. "Yuma Trifoli, 28. Truck driver from Vale. We've been tracking this son-of-a-bitch for a while now, he's for sure a White Fang foot soldier. Got busted for grand theft auto in '09."

Yang then bent down over the driver side door and struggled to pry it open. After the door finally swung open, Yang got a clearer picture of the body: there were bullet holes riddled throughout the victim's chest.

"Yo," Yang said, "This guy got shot too. Looks like 2, 3 to the torso, near the sternum."

"Yup," Sun said, "Hey, if you're done over there, come to the front of the van."

Yang then slid off the top of the van and walked over to Sun, who was currently crouched down and investigating the windshield of the van.

"Look at this," Sun said, pointing at the bullet holes within the cracked, splintered windshield.

"Huh," Yang muttered. "3, 4 shots through the windshield, tight grouping on all of them. Are there any more shots going through the front of the van, like on the grille or headlights?"

"Nada," Sun replied. "All the shots went straight through the windshield, and pretty much all the shots hit the driver."

Yang nodded in acknowledgement, then put the toothpick in her coat pocket back in her mouth.

"What type of bullet casings and shells have you picked up?" Yang asked.

"All 7.62 mm," Sun quickly replied. "Forensics picked up 2 casings near where the Albain brothers got dropped, plus 4 more casings out down the road, likely from the shots in the windshield."

"How far down the road?" Yang asked.

"About...40, 50 feet from where the van crashed," Sun said.

Yang grit her teeth as she rolled the toothpick around in her mouth. "If they put 3 rounds straight through the driver from 40 to 50 feet down the road, that means these guys are dead fuckin' accurate," Yang said.

"You think they're ex-Atlas military?" Sun asked.

"Maybe," Yang said. "Those are the only guys who can shoot that good."

Yang sighed, and then took the toothpick out of her mouth, and threw it off to the side, somewhere into the tallgrass.

"You took a look at the interior of the van yet?" Yang asked.

"Nah," Sun replied.

"Well, let's go have a look then," Yang said as she began walking around towards the rear doors, then grabbing ahold of the handles and swinging the doors open.

As Yang's flashlight illuminated the interior of the van, it was a mess: large bundles and bags of cash were strewn everywhere. A thin white layer of powder covered some of the money in the van.

"Goddamn," Sun said.

"Well, at least now we know they weren't on no fuckin' church retreat," Yang sneered.

"That's gotta be at least Ⱡ10-15,000 right there," Sun motioned to the loose bills. "You think that white shit is narcotics?"

"Dunno," Yang said. "We can get forensics to confirm, but if I was a betting woman, I'd say yes."

In the corner of Yang's eye, a few manila envelopes were strewn on the now-overturned sidewall of the van. Yang reached out and grabbed ahold of it.

"What's that?" Sun asked as Yang opened the manila envelope and pulled out a coarse, pulpy piece of paper marked "Vale Kingdom Treasury" on top.

"Bearer bonds," Yang said, examining the paper. "Lots of money in them. They're untraceable, completely anonymous. Redeemable at any Vale treasury department, but all treasury agents are specifically told to red-flag anyone trying to cash in these types of bonds since 90% of these things are cashed in by crooks."

Sun cocked his head to get a better look at the bond. "Looks like this one is only for Ⱡ200," Sun muttered.

"Yup," Yang said. "I'm willing to guess the rest of the bonds are small denominations too."

"You thinking that whoever hit this van only took the larger-value bonds?" Sun asked.

"That's only if the White Fang were carrying higher-value bearer bonds in this van in the first place," Yang said.

"Yang!" a voice called out through the fog; a voice Yang instantly recognized as Blake's. "Come over here."

Sun and Yang turned to the sound of the voice and began trudging out of the ditch and towards the silhouette of Yang's partner, looming through the fog in the middle of the road.

"What you find, Blake?" Yang asked as she approached Blake, who was now crouched on the ground near where the Albain brothers' bodies lay and planting her right index favor onto the road underneath.

"Oil patch," Blake said as she rose her index finger to Yang to show it smudged with a black, greasy substance. "It's big enough where a car would be idling here for at least a little bit, but probably not too long. You think this is from the perps?"

"Maybe," Yang said, "If it would be from anyone's car, it definitely would have been from whoever hit this truck."

Blake rose up from the ground and turned to face Yang. "You got an idea of who hit this van?" Blake asked.

"Dunno yet," Yang replied. "Sun, you've been working the WF for a while now. You know anything about them moving money through church vans in forest preserves like this?"

"Very little," Sun said. "From what we got from wiretaps and phone conversations, we do know they got lots of loose cash and shit like the bearer bonds floating around, but we didn't know how or when they move their stuff. Even the lower-level White Fang guys seem like they aren't filled in either."

"Have the rangers found any other vehicles, weapons, clothing dumped around here that could've been used for the crime?" Yang asked.

"Nothing," Sun replied. "Looks like the perps haven't dumped their car or guns."

Yang nods and stares off, seemingly thinking.

"What'cha think, hoss?" Sun pried. "You got a better picture of who did this?"

"Well, we can rule human supremacists and lower-level street gangs off the list," Yang said. "First off, no one is going to come out to this middle-of-nowhere road unless they were specifically looking for something, in this case a White Fang caravan stocked with cash and bonds that they absolutely knew was going to be there. That means that whoever hit this van had some insider knowledge on White Fang operations, which is basically out of the realm of possibility for some racist human redneck the White Fang wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole."

Yang then motioned towards the van.

"Also, we don't know what was taken from that van, but we know that loose bills, drugs and small bonds were left in the back," Yang said. "If I was some jumped up street punk, I would've been shitting bricks at all of that, and I wouldn't have even paid attention to the bearer bonds. But the crew left most of the money, and maybe took the bonds instead, cause they knew that there might be some good money in there. That means they're smart. They're fuckin' good, brutal too. They didn't try signaling the van to stop or anything, they just put a 3 round burst through the driver to stop the van from 50 feet away, and then they popped whoever survived. They were not interested in leaving survivors."

"You think it's an inside job from the White Fang?" Blake said. "It matches the MO that the WF uses. Their shooters certainly don't like to create witnesses."

"Maybe," Yang said, nodding. "It would explain how they knew about the caravan, too. It could also be one of the smaller robbery crews-one that has enough money for a getaway vehicle and a 7.62 mm rifle-but not enough money to dump them and piss money down the drain. Either way, we know they're professional, and if they took the bonds, we know they're connected."

"How so?" Sun asked. "I thought you said those bearer bonds were untraceable, no owners."

"Sure they are," Yang continued, "But they're hot. If this crew is worth half the shit that I think they are, they know they can't just walk into the bank and cash this in. They'd have to know a fence, or someone in the mob. They might be the only people who can have enough sway in the treasury to turn the bonds into cash without getting the attention of the Treasury Department."

"We got any fences who could flip these bonds?" Blake asked.

"The only ones I know big enough to do so are Roman Torchwick and his crew, or Junior Xiong," Sun said. "The Salem mob might have a few people, but we'll be on them like white on rice through the wiretaps."

Blake nodded before turning to Yang. "So, what's the move?" Blake asked.

"We'll notify the treasury department ASAP," Yang said. "If we're lucky, the perps'll be dumb enough to try to cash the bonds themselves. Otherwise, we gotta hope they'll go to a fence. Blake, tomorrow you and I'll talk to Roman Torchwick. He has pretty much all the fences in Vale's commercial district in his pocket, so he'll likely know who stole those bonds, but he's going to play hard to get. Afterwards, we'll talk to Junior. Got it?"

Blake silently nodded.


LR: Tell me, Blake. What did you know about Yang Xiao Long at the point you two were assigned to the case?

BB: I've heard some stories.

NV: Elaborate. What stories exactly?

BB: Well, I knew she was top of her class from Beacon Academy, quickly rose up the ranks, and she was one of the youngest to become detective at 21. She had a good number of cases under her belt. She was building a reputation as a prodigy in the department and someone to watch out for on the street. Everyone said she was the one who took down Shay D. Mann's crew in that botched armored car robbery downtown, and that she was the one who blew away Mann himself.

LR: What did you find out about Yang firsthand?

BB: What do you mean-

NV: Come on, detective. Says here in your Mountain Glenn evaluations that you were the department's most proficient profiler, and you didn't start to build a profile on Yang herself?

BB: Well-[sigh]-when we worked cases, I did start to notice things about her. She occasionally broke protocol when investigating, going to parts of the crime scene she shouldn't have been to, talking to informants or perpetrators that were out of her pocket. I pegged her as someone who wasn't going to bureaucratic red tape tie her down. She was also street-smart, and she knew all the ins and outs of Vale. But really, the main thing I saw with Yang...she was resilient. I've seen her work. All the gangsters, criminals, liars and cheats we were constantly dealing with-she never let them get the best of her. If they came swinging at her, she swung back harder.


Sun took out a pack of cigarettes and slipped one into his mouth, before reaching into his coat pocket and taking out a small lighter, flicking it on and bringing the tiny flame to the end of the cigarette. He took a long drag before taking it out of his mouth and exhaling.

"Smoke?" Sun asked as he turned to Yang, standing to his right.

"Nah, I quit," Yang said. "Trying to be more healthy this year."

"Oh, good for you!" Sun said, smiling. "So, uh, how are things with you? How's you and Weiss doing?"

"Eh," Yang said while shrugging. "Well...Weiss is pissed at me."

"Really?" Sun said before his face began to drop. "What happened?"

"It's her fuckin' father again," Yang said. "I mean, if you saw the news recently, he's been ripping into Weiss about the Faunus school bussing rights case she's representing."

"What'd he say?" Sun asked before bringing the cigarette back up to his mouth.

"I'm not gonna repeat it," Yang said as her face began to harden. "All I'm gonna say is that he said some shit that you should never say about your own fuckin' daughter."

"So...why is she mad at you?" Sun asked.

Yang sighed.

"I told her father to fuck off," Yang said.

Sun looked at Yang with wide eyes and a gaping mouth, before he burst out with gasping laughter.

"You told Jacques Schnee to fuck off?" Sun said, bewildered.

"Yeah," Yang said. "Why?"

"You know that guy is going to be president, right?" Sun said. "And you just told him to fuck off."

"I don't care," Yang said, grimacing. "Weiss is out there, making a difference, and her father wants to be petty. She has to say nothing and just take it, or she can speak out against her father and become the bad guy. I'm not gonna let her be put in either situation."

Sun shrugged. "I don't know, man. This is Jacques Schnee we're talking about."

"I don't care, Sun!" Yang said with a bewildered scoff. "He's a motherfucking crook. He can do whatever he wants, but if he's gonna come after Weiss and I, he better come heavy, cause I am most certainly not going to hold back if he does. If Weiss wants to be mad at me for that, so be it, but her father is not going to get away with this."

Sun simply shrugged and brought his cigarette back up to his mouth for another drag.

"Well, that's how my life is going," Yang said before taking off her sunglasses and rubbing her eyes. "Hey, where's boy blue?"

"Huh? Nep?" Sun asked, before he paused, and his face suddenly crept into a smug grin. "Oh, yeah. You're gonna love this."

"What happened?" Yang said, a small grin growing on her face from her own curiosity.

"So, on record, Detective Neptune Vasilias is back at the Forever Fall Park Ranger station about 17 miles down the road, coordinating with Park Rangers to secure this scene," Sun said. "You know what he's really doing? He's probably laying on the sofa in the station, clutching his stomach and crying, all because the dumbass decided to eat the poké bowl from A Simple Wok."

"Really?" Yang said with a slight chuckle. "I thought that place shut down for health code violations."

"Not yet!" Sun said with a smile. "Didn't stop Nep and I from going there, but I told the guy, 'Don't get the poké bowl here, man, they probably use stinking, rotten fish from last year.'"

Yang shook her head with a smile. "Damn, I hate to be you, saddled up with that dumbass."

Sun laughed. "Eh, the guy isn't half bad, when he isn't sidelined with violent bowel movement."

Both snickered, before in the corner of Yang's eye, she saw Blake, still crouched over the dead bodies of the Albain brothers. Sun followed Yang's gaze and spotted Blake too.

"She's been studying the dead guys for a while now, huh?" Sun said.

"Yeah," Yang said with a silent nod. "She, uh, she's real detail oriented."

"Really?" Sun asked.

"Mm hm," Yang said. "She's spent hours at crime scenes before. Now, I've known detectives who spend hours at crime scenes, just like her, but the difference between her and them is that she actually finds shit. Things I never would've seen."

Sun finished the last of his cigarette, then dropped it to the ground and put it out under his shoe.

"Other than that, what do you think of her?" Sun asked.

Yang paused, her face unmoving, before she opened her mouth to speak.

"I don't know," Yang said. "You know, outside of the job, we don't really talk, you know?"

Sun nodded. Blake must've felt the eyes on the back of her head, as she turned her head towards Yang and Sun, then grabbed her clipboard and stood up, beginning to walk towards the two.

"All finished?" Yang asked.

"Got all I need," Blake responded.

Yang nodded, and then turned to Sun.

"Alright, we gotta go back to the station, make a few phone calls," Yang said. "You got it over here?"

"Yeah, I'll just be working with the rangers to clean up the site, then I'll get my guys to watch the wiretaps. Yang, I'll see you later, and Ms. Belladonna...a great pleasure to meet you," Sun said, winking.

"Alright, slow your roll, hotshot," Yang teased as she escorted Blake back to their car.

The walk back was in complete silence, simply the clicking of shoes on the asphalt as Yang and Blake marched through the fog at their ankles back to where they had left their car. Yang had entered the car and started the engine, while Blake entered next. Yang noticed instantly that Blake looked gaunt and pale.

"Hey, you okay?" Yang asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Blake replied.

"You know, uh...I know what happened here today is some fucked up shit," Yang said. "It's okay if you're still shocked from it-"

"No, no, it's not that," Blake said. "It's just…"

"What's up?" Yang asked.

"It's, uh…" Blake got out before trailing off again. "It's the two bodies, on the road, you know…"

"What about them?" Yang asked.

"Those two, the Albain brothers...they were the priests at the church I went to, growing up in Mountain Glenn," Blake said.

Yang stared at Blake for a good 5 seconds before she turned her head forward, shocked.

"You knew those bodies on the road?" Yang inquired.

"Yeah," Blake replied. "From my childhood."

There was another pause as Yang opened her mouth, and then shut it again, clearly at a loss for what to say.

"I...uh...I had no idea," Yang said. "Shit, I'm sorry, I-"

"Don't be," Blake said, shaking her head. "It's not a big deal."

Yang gave Blake one last concerned look before she nodded in acknowledgement and then put the car into drive and began driving down Palm Drive back to Vale.


Blake and Yang were in and out of the department HQ by the time they got back at 4:55 pm. Blake had already collected her personal belongings and left the office by the time Yang came lumbering out of the office. Yang was bone-tired from standing on asphalt and muddy ditches on the side of the road, and she wanted nothing but to return home, but she knew that she promised someone a phone call beforehand.

Standing on the entrance stairway to the main floor of the VKPD headquarters, Yang slipped out her phone and punched in a number, waiting for the dial-tone to run before Yang put the phone to her ear.

"Hello?" Weiss's voice crackled from the other end of the phone.

"Hey, it's me," Yang said, instantly greeted with silence. Yang sighed, before she knew she should say something.

"Look, I wanna say I'm sorry," Yang said in a broken voice. "I know I shouldn't have done what I did. I let my emotions get the better of me again, like you said. I just...I hate seeing you being put in that situation by your own father, and I can't do anything to fix it."

Yang paused, before she heard sniffling on the other line.

"Do you know the shit I had to go through today because of what you said?" Weiss whimpered with a quavering voice. "They want to yank me from my case because they're afraid I can't separate my personal connection to it."

"Weiss, I-"

"Jesus, you're so damn bull-headed sometimes, you know that?" Weiss said. "Why can't you trust that I can handle my relationship with my own father, Yang?"

"Weiss, I'm sorry-"

"Yang, I need you to tell me you won't do this again, okay?" Weiss pleaded. "Please. Please, just trust me, alright? Can you do that?"

Yang sighed.

"Baby, I...I'm so sorry-" Yang said.

"No, Yang," Weiss said, her voice hardening. "Don't tell me you're sorry. Tell me you won't do this again."

Yang paused, feeling her own throat drying up and quivering, before she opened her mouth to speak.

"I promise I won't do it again," Yang said.

Weiss sighed on the other line, before her voice began crackling through again.

"Thank you, Yang," Weiss said. "I, uh...I forgive you. Look...I understand you're just trying to help. And I appreciate it, I really do. But I have to handle this one on my own."

"No, no, you're right," Yang said. "I was in the wrong. Look, thank you for understanding. I just got off work 10 minutes ago, I'll be heading over soon. I know you're busy working on the case, so I'll pick you up some food-"

"Oh, no, Yang, you don't have to do that-"

"Come on, princess, I insist," Yang said, some humor returning to her voice. "I insist, it's my treat."

Weiss sniffled on the other end of the line.

"Okay, uh...How about that Thai place, can you pick up some of the coconut curry rice?" Weiss asked, her voice lightening as well.

"You always get the same damn dish there," Yang said, eliciting a laugh from Weiss. "Okay, you got it, I'll pick up some coconut curry rice and bring it right over. Hey...I love you, okay?"

Weiss sighed.

"I love you too," Weiss said in a soft tone, before hanging up.

Yang exhaled a sigh of relief, then walked over to her motorcycle, slipped on her helmet, and then revved the bike's engine and sped out into the street.