Chapter 29

A few days later, Ciel found herself taking some time to fix up some of Beacon's vehicles, humming a tune she'd heard playing on the Warthog's radio as she did. Once again, she considered herself grateful that Team CFVY had agreed to house her and Jean while they waited for some new potential teammates to show up. While part of her did hold out some hope that Rachael and Mikhail would return to aid them at some point, she had learned from her time stuck speaking only French not to put all her eggs in one basket. She was just lucky that it turned out a part of her did remember how to speak English, which meant that she was slowly, but surely, working her way back up to where everyone could understand her, not just Velvet and a few of the instructors.

Speaking of the rabbit Faunus, Velvet ran up to Ciel, showcasing a mixture of panic and relief on her face as she did. "Ciel: thank goodness you're safe. You know where everyone else is, right?"

Ciel blinked, a sheepish grin soon appearing on her face. "Yeeah, sorry: I've been so focused on making sure these vehicles were in working order, I might have tuned everything else out, though we can always call them if you're so worried about them."

She then paused. "Wait: 'thank goodness you're safe': that implies you thought I wouldn't be…"

Velvet shook her head. "It's not a slight against you: just that you should know as well as the rest of us how dangerous the Meta is."

Ciel paled. "Attendez une minute: le Meta est ici?! Je pensais qu'elle était morte! (Wait a minute: the Meta is here?! I thought she was dead!)"

Velvet nodded, knowing full well that despite the progress her friend had made at relearning English, she'd still slip into French every now and then. "Trust me: we're just as upset about this as you are, but right now we need to…" ...and that was as far as she got before her eyes widened, having spotted someone in the distance.

"Watch out!" She pushed Ciel down to the ground, the two of them just barely avoiding a blast from Cinder/the Meta as she did. "Son of a bitch!"

"Fils de pute!"

Velvet gained a steely expression even as she activated a homing device she was carrying. "Good thing I had a contingency in case this happened: Team CFVY and the others should be here soon. In the meantime, we don't have to win: we just need to hold her off until they arrive."

"Hey, guys!" Pyrrha waved as she walked up to the duo, who were already readying themselves for battle. "Raven wanted to check and see how you were…"

"We can worry about our progress report later, Pyrrha," Ciel somehow managed to growl out in spite of her growing fear/frustration/anger. "We're about to deal with my father's killer."

The "Invincible Girl's" eyes widened, before gaining a glare of her own. "Not without me you're not. Don't forget: she used me to kickstart the Battle of Beacon. In a sense, I'm the gun she used to help eventually bring about Beacon's destruction."

"Pyrrha, none of us blame you for what happened," Velvet declared. "Penny didn't blame you for what happened."

"Maybe not," Pyrrha said with a shake of her head."but that doesn't mean that I didn't play a part in everything. It's only right that I help to clean up the mess that I helped create."

"Even so, we can't let you take her on alone," Ciel argued.

"I'm not," Pyrrha declared with a grin. "I have you guys, don't I?"

Velvet couldn't help but snort. "Hard to argue with that."

Right as she said this Cinder/The Meta burst into the clearing...only to freeze in her tracks upon spotting one Pyrrha Nikos, growling as she did. "While Ruby is on the top of my kill list, you are certainly a close second," she declared as she directed the nastiest glare she could muster at the "Invincible Girl."

"Funny," Pyrrha angrily remarked as she readied her weapons. "I was hoping we'd get the chance at a rematch myself."

"And as for Ruby," Velvet declared as she summoned her own weapon, Anesidora, which created a hardlight copy of Coco's Gianduja for her to use. "You're going to have to go through us first."

The Meta let out an arrogant chuckle. "I was hoping you'd say that."

Ciel simply growled as she summoned her Chronal Assassin, quickly shifting it into it's pistol configuration. "Bonjour, je m'appelle Ciel Soleil. Tu as tué mon père: prépare-toi à mourir. (Hello, my name is Ciel Soleil. You killed my father: prepare to die.)"

"Toi en premier. (You first.)" Cinder said with a smug grin before she charged the group.

Meanwhile, Yang, standing in front of a Mongoose - a specialized ATV brand that had recently arrived on site - felt the need to clear her throat. "Sooo, how do you feel?"

Penelope - currently controlling said vehicle - could only give a frustrated sigh in reply. "Honestly? Like running over each and every one of you."

Yang winced. "Yeah, sorry. Just try and remember this is only temporary. We're still working on getting you a proper body and Weiss didn't feel like getting any of us deep fried on the off-chance you lost your temper again."

Penelope just sighed. "You're right. I'm sorry."

Nora looked to her Team Leader. "You know, Jaune? I think I'll let you call 'Shotgun' on this one."

Jaune just shook his head. "Fuck that!" He then blinked, before giving Penelope a sheepish grin. "Uh, no offense, Penny."

Penelope, deciding to appear in her spiritual form on the Mongoose's windshield, just shrugged. "None taken. Not going to lie, though: this situation kind of sucks."

Yang just grinned. "Hey, look on the bright side: temporary or not, you've got your own body now."

Penelope could only give a glare in reply. "My own body? Yang, I'm a freaking ATV!"

Yang shrugged. "True, but hey: you can literally pick up your date now!" She then blinked. "Actually, I just realized: what sort of dates would you even be going on? I mean, Penny used to date Ruby before learning of their fake family ties, but did all of the Maiden fragments swing that way?"

Here, Penelope could only blink. "I...you know, I've never thought about that. I don't think any of us, with the exception of Penny, ever gave any serious thoughts towards pursuing any romantic interests that we may or may not have had. I mean, how many people do you know that would want to go on a date with a ghostly Terminator?"

Ruby just smiled. "You know, aside from the fact that we technically share a sibling bond, I'd totally go on a date with you if you'd ask." She smiled as Penelope gave a grateful blush...only to pause as she noticed something else. "Hey, what's this do?" She asked as she pressed something on the Mongoose's dashboard.

"HONK!" Penelope couldn't help but give Ruby an angry blush. "Ruby, I love you, but please stop messing with the dashboard of my temporary body."

Ruby could only give a sheepish blush of her own. "Sorry."

Meanwhile, Team CFVY, Ciel, and Pyrrha were now riding the Warthog trying to get away from the Meta. Fox turned to the blue-clad French girl. "Hey, Ciel!" He called. "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?!"

Ciel arched an eyebrow. "No, I do not want to sleep with you."

"Oh, sorry." Fox blushed. "It's hard to read French in Braille. What I meant to say was 'can you hand me a grenade from Coco's bag?'"

While touched by the fact that some of her friends were trying to learn French for her, Ciel put that aside for later as she reached into Coco's bag. She tossed him a grenade, and his blind eyes glared at the Meta as his equipment locked onto her heartbeat. "Hey, bitch! Take this!"

Everyone watched in astonishment as the grenade flew through the air until it struck Cinder right on the head. "Nice throw." Coco complimented, feeling slightly turned on.

"Yeah! Three points, ya dirty whore!" Fox shouted as the grenade went off.

Unfortunately, this only made Cinder angrier. Armed with her own grenade launcher, she fired at the Warthog and hit the tire. Velvet lost control of the steering and the vehicle crashed into a rock. Everyone fell out of the car except Pyrrha who tried to use the turret to kill Cinder.

"What're you waiting for?!" Yatsuhashi asked, noticing that she wasn't turning it towards her. "Shoot her!"

"I can't! It can still fire, but I can't get it to turn!" Pyrrha cried. "What should I do?!"

Ciel rolled her eyes, sarcastically. "Vous pouvez peut-être la convaincre de se tenir juste en face. (Maybe you can convince her to stand right in front of it.)"

"What did she say?" Coco asked, looking at Velvet.

"I don't know, I couldn't hear her." Velvet replied; she hadn't been paying attention as she tried to fix the turret.

"It's okay." Fox smiled. "She said 'maybe you can convince her to stand right in front of it.'"

"Well that's not going to work!" Coco scoffed. "C'mon, Ciel, try to think before you speak."

Ciel was furious. "Sérieusement?! De toutes les choses que je vous ai dites dans ma langue maternelle, c'est celle que vous avez comprise?! (Seriously?! Of all the things I've said to you people in my native language, that's the one you understood?!)"

The disgruntled French girl fell to the ground as the Meta fired a special kind of dust at her. Yatsuhashi picked her up and tried to wake her while Coco and Velvet opened fire. But the Meta activated a shield that deflected their blasts. Worse yet, the young huntresses soon ran out of ammunition. "Oh, no! We're dead!"

"Alright, that's enough, Cinder." A voice called. It was Qrow Branwen.

"Mr. Branwen!" Pyrrha cheered. "Thank goodness you're here-!" She was cut off by a sudden gunshot from Harbinger.

"Ugh…" Fox cupped his chest out of reflex, feeling something wet and sticky coating his fingers. He fell to the ground soon after.

"Fox!" Coco shouted as she reached for her handbag. "You son of a bitch, I'll kill you-!"

Yatsuhashi tried to shield Velvet with his body as they watched Coco get gunned down, but it was no good. Qrow stepped over the fallen Team CFVY and approached the dumbstruck Pyrrha Nikos, taking a place beside the Meta. The experimental aura-draining dust would insure that the upperclassmen would stay down.

"You…" Pyrrha teared up as she stared at the bloody bodies of her friends. "How could you? Ruby always said you were a man of honor, but I haven't seen any proof of it so far!"

"Oh, relax," Qrow declared, pointedly ignoring the way that comment made him want to vomit in favor of trying to complete the mission. "They aren't dead just yet. There's still plenty of time for your little medic friend to patch them up." As if to prove his point, Jean had already gotten to work trying to revitalize the group.

Agent Gray then placed his weapon's blade at Pyrrha's neck. "That said, I wouldn't talk about honor, considering how you…"

"We didn't forget!" Pyrrha barked out. "It simply took longer to repair Penelope then expected."

Qrow couldn't help but blink as he lowered his weapon a little. "Repair?"

"Ironwood didn't tell you?" Pyrrha snarked back. "Apparently, Jacques tortured the Maiden's memory to the point of amnesia after the two of you were separated. Ruby needed a bit of time to help her recover enough info to help us complete the mission you gave her. We were actually working on getting Penelope to the authorities when you showed up with her, traitor."

Despite still being committed to the mission, Qrow Branwen couldn't help but cringe a little, both at the way the "Invincible Girl" gave a not-so-subtle angry nod to Cinder - the woman who had tried to kill them all not so long ago - and at the realization that Ruby and company apparently hadn't betrayed him. "Remind me to have a talk with Jimmy later."

He then raised Harbinger back up to Pyrrha's neck. "Be that as it may, however, I have my orders, so here's how things are going to work."

Meanwhile, Penelope's head was finally attached to the rest of her body. "Thank you, Ruby! I feel much better, now! I've never had my own body before! If I had lips, I'd kiss you!"

"You're welcome, Penny!" Ruby beamed. "Oh, I can't wait for the others to see you again!"

"See who?" Everyone jumped in surprise.

"Mom? What're you doing here?" Yang asked. "I thought you were with Team CFVY."

"Well, I was. But then I decided I'd rather be anywhere but there." Raven replied. "So, I sent Pyrrha home and told her we'd be heading back to Beacon soon after. But please, by all means, let's come up with an excuse not to go back to those horny teenagers for a while."

"Beacon…?" Penelope rubbed her chin as her digital face showed an expression of deep thought. "I think I remember a school named Beacon. I think… I think the man with a mustache mentioned it a few times."

"Oh, no!" Ruby whispered to her girlfriend. "Weiss! If Penny remembers things too quickly, she could get really hurt! We need to distract her!"

Just then, Weiss' scroll rang; it was Pyrrha. Weiss answered the call and spoke as loudly as she could. "Oh, hello, Pyrrha!" She said, earning Penelope's attention. She put her scroll on speaker for everyone to hear. "Did you arrive at Beacon safely?"

"Uh, yes!" Pyrrha replied. "I'm fine!"

"Pyrrha? Is everything okay? It sounds choppy."

"Oh, sorry about that!" Pyrrha apologized. "The reception here isn't working very well, so we had to use one of Beacon's radios! But it hasn't been working well either. I've been trying to fix it myself, but it's been murder. So, when are you guys coming back?"

"Not long from now, Pyrrha." Ruby smiled as she looked at Penelope. "Oh, tell Team CFVY I've got a surprise for them!"

"Uh, okay! See you guys later!" With that, Pyrrha ended the call.

"Alright. That's that." Yang shrugged.

"Team CFVY and Ciel are dead - or at least very nearly so - and Pyrrha's being held hostage by Qrow and Cinder." Raven corrected.

"What?" Yang blinked in surprise at such a wild declaration. "Mom, how could you possibly know that?"

"Simple…" Raven cracked her knuckles as she elaborated. "In the first place, while I don't speak French, I do understand the natural language of habits. Pyrrha said that the radio wasn't working properly. When has Ciel ever allowed anything to fall into disrepair?"

"... huh." Ruby's brow furrowed as she considered the facts. "That does make sense."

"And secondly; my watch is still set on Vale's timezone, and it says it's 6:30 P.M. Which we all, unfortunately, know is…"

"Team CFVY's daily food play time!" Weiss gasped.

"Right!" Raven nodded. "I didn't hear any whipped cream being sprayed or chocolate sauce bottles being squeezed. Next, Pyrrha distinctly described trying to fix the radio herself as 'murder.' And as we all know, a murder is the literary term for a flock of… crows!"

"We do?" Jaune asked before clearing his throat. "Uh, I mean, yeah! We do!"

"And lastly, who does Qrow know who is better than anyone at murdering people? Cinder!"

"Oh, my gods! We have to go save Pyrrha!" Jaune demanded.

"Relax, Vomit boy." Raven unsheathed her katana with a confident grin. "I've got a plan. Do exactly as I say, and we'll save Pyrrha and Jean, no sweat."

"Wait, Jean?" Yang scratched her head. "How'd you know Jean was there?"

"Oh, come on, Yang." Raven scoffed as if the answer was obvious. "I'm not going to insult your intelligence by explaining everything to you."

"Uh… right."

Back at Beacon, Qrow blasted the radio to pieces once the message was over. "Was that really necessary?" Pyrrha shuddered.

"Shut up." Qrow snapped. "Cinder, go down to the basement and see if we can find the last Summer Maiden fragment in Ozpin's files. And maybe there's some records of the Winter Maiden."

"Wait, so all those A.I. fragments were actually pieces of Penny?" Jean looked back at Pyrrha with an amused smile. "Hey, Pyrrha? Remember that one who was inside my head for a while?" Without warning, the Meta grabbed Jean by the neck and hoisted her into the air. "Ah! What'd I say?!"

"What are you doing?!" Pyrrha shrieked, feeling helpless.

"Shut up!" Qrow snapped again before aiming Harbinger at the medical student's face. "You bonded to a fragment of the Summer Maiden? Which one?"

"Uh, I-I-I-I don't know!" Jean choked. "T-the mean one! Paulette!"

Cinder growled, bitterly, and dropped Jean to the ground. Qrow put away his weapon with an equally disappointed grunt. "Well, she's accounted for." Just then, the former Guardsman spotted a familiar raven landing just outside the school's campus. "Cinder, I'll be back."

The Meta grunted as she watched Qrow march away to deal with the trespasser. With their captor distracted, Pyrrha leaned over to Jean. "Hey, Jean… does your medical tool have a defibrillator function?"

"What? Yeah, why?"

"Because I think we have a chance to escape." Pyrrha smiled. "I can rewire it to overload and give the Meta a little jolt."

Meanwhile, just as Qrow expected, Raven was trying to sneak along the school's safety walls. "Hold it right there, Rae." He warned. "You must be losing your touch. You're not as sneaky as you used to be."

"Age gets the best of us all, Qrow." Raven sneered. "How could you do this to Ruby? And what would Summer and Tai say if they saw you now?"

"Don't judge me!" Qrow snapped. "Especially when you've been such a shitty parent to your own kid! Spring Maiden or not, it doesn't excuse you for abandoning your own family! Now, are you going to cooperate, or am I going to have to get the Meta to come put you in your place?"

"What? The Meta's here, too?" Raven asked, feigning ignorance.

"That's right." Qrow smirked. "And she's looking forward to repaying you for all the trouble you've caused her."

"I seem to recall you giving her some trouble, yourself."

"Things have changed. I struck a deal. Now, give me your weapons." Qrow held out his free hand while the other continued to grip Harbinger.

Raven sighed as she handed over her prized weapon, Omen. "Just so you know, I'm gonna get that back."

"I said all of your weapons." Qrow repeated, firmly, looking at his sister's scabbard.

"All of my weapons?" Raven asked, trying to buy more time. "Maybe I could just hold on to the scabbard. After all, dust is no good on its own most of the time."

"Hand it over. Now."

"Well, that's what people say." Raven muttered, handing it over to him.

With his twin completely disarmed, Qrow lightly poked her in the belly with Harbinger. "Now, get moving. I still have a lot of work to get done, but I'm not letting you out of my sight. You're coming with us."

"Qrow…" Raven's eyes narrowed, menacingly. "I don't have the Spring Maiden's powers anymore. So you can insult me, you can ambush me, you can even judge my ability as a parent, but if you think for one second that I'm going anywhere near that monster without my KATANA, then you must not know who you're dealing with!"

"I said move!" Qrow repeated, poking her again.

Raven's eyes darted over to the wall before looking back at her brother. A few nervous beads of sweat rolled down her forehead. "Uh… and I said KATANA!"

Qrow was bemused. "Yes. I have your katana."

"N-no, no! KATANA!"

"What is this? You think I'm gonna give you your katana if you ask?"

"I said KATANA!" Dropping the act, entirely, Raven stamped her foot and turned to the wall, angrily. "KATANA, dammit!"

"Oh, right! 'Katana!' That's our cue!" A muffled voice said behind the wall.

"Wait… what're you up to?" Qrow suspiciously turned his attention towards the same spot on the wall Raven had been speaking to. Suddenly, he heard a low rumbling noise that was growing louder and louder. "What's that noise? Do I hear a…"

Raven managed to duck out of the way just in time. Ren drove the Warthog through the wall with Nora manning the minigun turret and Jaune riding shotgun. Qrow was frozen in place as his entire world seemed to slow down. As the grill got closer to his face, he finally managed to utter a single word. "CAAAAAAAR?!"

The Warthog hit the huntsman dead on, but Ren didn't let up. Thinking that he had run his enemy over, he dared to lean over the side. "How's my bumper taste, asshole?!" He mocked. But his excitement quickly disappeared once he saw Qrow climbing off of the grill and onto the hood of the vehicle. "Uh, oh!" He squeaked.

Qrow managed to fire off a few shots, but Team JNPR managed to dodge the blasts. Ren finally found the brakes and sent the former Guardsman flying through the air, causing him to lose his grip on Harbinger. Reaching for Omen, he flew past Raven who grabbed the weapon away from him with a smug smile. "See? I told you I'd get it back."

Ren slowly drove up to the tribe woman and invited her aboard. "How about next time we choose a code word, we pick something less obvious?"

"Just drive, numbnuts."

Qrow landed in a stack of oil barrels, much to his shock. Even worse, the Warthog drove up, and Raven unsheathed a fire dust blade. "Eat shit, Qrow!" With a slash of Omen, the oil barrels exploded.

Said explosion drew the attention of Cinder, giving Pyrrha and Jean the opportunity they were looking for. "Okay, Jean! She's distracted, now fire!"

"Uh, why can't you do it?" Jean asked, nervously.

In that moment of hesitation, Cinder turned around and growled in fury. Jean was frozen in place while Pyrrha fearfully backed away. "Oh, shit! The plan's ruined! Improvise! Improvise!"

To Be Continued.