Weiss Schnee

Luckily we managed to find the bikes where we left them, minus one. We assume Illya took it. We end up having to leave one behind ourselves since Inu has to ride with Alan, being in no condition to drive herself. We do our best to cover it up so no one finds it though, hopefully Dawn will be able to send someone to get it later.

On the way back we really don't talk much. Not that we have much to talk about but..even if we did, we all feel far too ashamed and defeated. I grip the handlebars as I think about just how close we came. She was right there, if only that Gadriel girl hadn't gotten in our way! If only Illya hadn't set off the charges…let's just say for her sake I hope she wasn't dumb enough to go back to camp.

I am suddenly startled by the sound of a bird cawing in my ear. I turn to see what looks like some kind of black bird, a crow I think, flying right alongside me. I wonder what in the world it could be doing but as quickly as the question enters my head it flies away, only a couple of seconds after I turn to look at it.

What in the world was that about? The question lingers with me for a bit but eventually fades as we approach the camp. At first the guards are alerted when they see us but quickly realize we aren't the enemy, putting them at ease.

We leave the bikes with a Fang soldier who informs us that Dawn and the others are waiting for us in his tent. We walk over there as fast as we can. Well..Alan and I do anyway, with Inu riding on his back the whole way. As soon as we step inside everyone acts immediately happy and relieved to see us.

"Inu are you okay?" Yang asks, being the first to notice that she was being carried by Alan.

"Y-Yeah, a big rock fell on my leg but it's nothing serious." she says with a sad smile. Wanting to reassure Yang but not looking forward to having to address the elephant in the room.

"I'm glad to hear it but…" she looks around, her expression becoming filled with more and more concern. "W-where is Ruby?"

None of us can bring ourselves to answer. We all look away in shame, unable to even make eye contact. Finally I speak up.

"We...we couldn't get her, we managed to find her and a grimmiore named Gadriel but before we could do anything, Illya set off the bombs."

"She set off the bombs with you lot still inside?!" Dawn asks, his face showcasing a mixture of shock and anger. Yang just looks at her feet, her fists trembling.

"Yes...she slipped away while we were confronting Gadriel and by the time the bombs were exploding she was nowhere to be found."

"What in the hell was she thinking?"

"It doesn't matter what her reason was, she nearly got them killed...I shouldn't have suggested her for this mission, ever since we took authority from Adam I've been getting a weird feeling from her." Dusk says, grinding her teeth. "This is my fault."

"No it's mine...I have been getting the same feeling from her but I wanted to believe Adam didn't already have that firm a hold on her, as leader I should've pulled her from this mission."

"It doesn't matter whose fault it is!" Yang slams her fist into the table. "What matters is that my sister is still out there and we are standing around talking instead of trying to find her."

"Yang's right, Gadriel isn't gonna be able to get very far, especially before she manages to link up with Azael assuming he's still out there." Alan says, gently putting Inu down in a nearby chair. "That said, the sooner we can start tracking them the better, it'll be easier to follow their trail."

"I agree but…Inu is in no shape to go anywhere right now."

"No Weiss I'm fine really." she goes to try and stand but immediately falls back into the chair.

"You are NOT fine Inu." I walk over and place a hand on her shoulder.

"Don't worry, we'll keep a good eye on her here." Dawn reassures.

"If I stay though you will be down a person…"

"No they won't because I will be going with them." Blake says, surprising all of us. She turns to look at Dawn. "If that's okay with you sir."

"It wouldn't be right of me to deny a request like that." Dawn gives a half smile. I'm not sure but his expression seems to show pride. "Just be safe, I want my top soldier back after all."

"I will." Blake offers a smile of her own. It might be the first time I've seen her smile.

At first I'm not really sure why she offers to help us, she doesn't know us all that well and she doesn't know Ruby at all. She helped attack the bunker for sure but that was partially to help the White Fang and it was under orders.

Then I see Yang walk up and throw an arm over Blakes shoulders, a big grin on her face.

"Thanks Blake, you are the best!"

"Y-Yang please." Blake half heartedly attempts to push her off. Her expression is one of annoyance on the surface but I look closer and see a faint blush on her cheeks. I can't be certain but I think I have a pretty good idea now, why she offered to come.

"I will radio my men in the armory to give you any dust you need, afterward you can borrow some bikes." he walks over and hands us what looks like a small radio.

"Thanks Dawn…all of the help you've given us already…it means a lot." I say.

"Don't mention it." he smiles. "Now you four should get going, time is vital right now."

"Right." We all grab our weapons and make for the exit. "Hopefully the next time you hear from us, we'll have Ruby in tow."

"Good luck…" Dawn says quietly, almost under his breath.

—-

Alan

The first thing we did after leaving the camp was make our way back to the outpost. Just as I suspected, it was completely abandoned aside from a few stragglers. They seemed to just be wandering around in hopes that someone would find them and tell them what to do next. Almost like mindless drones.

I didn't see any point in attacking them, they likely didn't know anything and besides, I sort of pity them. Instead I used my tracking abilities to look for some trace of Gadriel. She would have left some kind of trail no matter how faint. She never was that good at covering tracks, that's why that job usually fell to me when we were sent on missions together.

Blake and Yang split off from Weiss and I a little bit ago. Blake claims she is a pretty good tracker herself so she and Yang decided they would cover more ground.

"So…Alan?" Weiss asks.

"Yeah?" I reply as I continue to survey the area closely.

"We never really discussed it but that girl seemed to know you..pretty well actually, she even called you her boyfriend."

"That is…complicated to say the least."

"Well..we have time to talk, at least until we find Ruby."

"I..I'd rather not get too deep into it right now but to keep a long story short, we were on a team together and there were..feelings involved."

"I see.."

"Look I know we said we'd be more open from now on but this is a bit more personal so for now, can we not talk about it?"

"Sure, yeah." She decides to let it go for now. I probably should tell them eventually but unlike all of my other secrets, this one only really affects me so I don't feel the need to shout it to the world.

"There." I walk over to a nearby tree and see a bloodstain that is shaped in a way that implies someone brushed their hand against it, going in a specific direction.

"You think it's hers?"

"I can't say for sure but my gut tells me that it is, in that case it seems like she was heading that way." I point north, at the same time Blake and Yang return. Not being quite as lucky.

"Sorry to report we didn't find much, aside from some Grimm poking around." Blake says. "Anything on your end?"

I fill them in on what I found. We agree it's not much to go off but it's a better lead than none. We head north and don't find much for a while. We run across the occasional Grimm but not much else.

Eventually though, stuck on a nearby tree branch, I spotted a sliver of red. It's hard to tell at first but eventually I realize it's a piece of fabric.

"Guys look!" I run over to it and pull it off the branch. Weiss runs over to me and I hand it to her when she holds out her hand. She gently runs her fingers over it and a smile spreads across her face.

"This is a piece of Ruby's cape, they definitely came through here!" she exclaims.

"Huh, who knew that old thing would come in so handy." Yang smiles and puts her hand on her hip.

"It must have gotten snagged on the branch when they came through." Weiss says.

"No." Blake replies. "Look at the tear, it's too straight, it looks deliberate."

"So you think Ruby left this for us to find on purpose?" I ask.

"I don't know but it's a possibility."

"Well then let's not let her down, let's keep going!" Yang charges on ahead and we all follow shortly behind her, Weiss slipping the piece of Ruby's cape into her pouch.

Eventually, after walking a good while more, we come across what looks like a small abandoned cottage. There is no obvious sign from the outside whether or not anyone is actually inside the building but it's our best bet.

We all nod at each other and make our move. Yang and I take the lead while Weiss and Blake watch our six. I look around and notice that there are remnants of other buildings nearby, crumbled and forgotten. Maybe this was a village, once upon a time?

I shake myself back into the moment. This is no time to get distracted. Yang and I station ourselves on either side of the door. We nod to each other, confirming that we are ready for whatever is on the other side.

I begin a countdown with my fingers and when the final finger drops, I kick open the door, Yang and I both stepping inside with our weapons drawn. No sign of Gadriel but in the middle of the floor, curled in the fetal position and hands tied behind her back was

"Ruby!" Yang immediately goes to run for her but before she can take more than a single step, someone swings down from the ceiling and kicks us both out the door with enough force to knock us on our backs.

"Yang are you okay?!" Blake calls out.

"Yeah, I'm good!" she says between coughing and quickly getting to her feet. I must have taken a slightly harder hit because I struggle a bit to get any further than taking a knee.

"She might be for now" At the sound of our assailant's voice I force myself to get on my feet and point my guns right at the door. Out of the shadows, steps Gadriel. She looks less than pleased to put it mildly, even more so than back at the bunker. "She won't be for long though."

"Give us Ruby back!" I shout.

"I'd worry less about her and more about your other little friends." she motions toward Blake and Weiss. At first I think she is just trying to distract me but then-

"Blake!" Weiss shouts, causing both Yang and I to turn and find out what is going on. What I see makes me silently curse under my breath, it's Azael and he has that Blake girl in his grasp. He must have caught her off guard, we weren't expecting them to link up so fast after all.

"Let her go!" Yang turns, aiming one gauntlet at Azael while keeping the other aimed at Gadriel.

"I'm afraid you will have to make me." he replies. Yang turns to look at me, an almost pleading look. I can tell she really wants to help Blake. I signal for her to go and she immediately bolts toward him.

Gadriel unleashes her weapons secret mode, a red razor thin wire extends out and almost ensnares Yang. I manage to stop it by shooting at her and causing her to lose her focus enough that she just misses Yang.

"This is between you and me Gadriel."

"That's fine by me…I have to teach you a very painful lesson after all."

Yang collides with Azael who blocks her attack without much effort. Afterward he leaps backward into the tree line and Yang follows after without any hesitation. Weiss almost follows them as well but I call out to her.

"Weiss!" she stops and turns to look at me. "Go make sure Ruby is okay!"

"Are you sure they don't need help and what about you?"

"We'll just have to put our faith in them and as for me, I've got this, I can handle Gadriel." Gadriel replies with a pissed off sneer. "Go!"

She does as I say and runs for the building where Ruby lay unconscious. Gadriel attempts to stop her but I charge her, forcing her to dodge.

"I told you that this is between us!" I look to make sure Weiss made it inside which it appears she did and I let out a small sigh of relief before turning my attention to my pisses off ex.

"You are going to regret this Sariel…" she says through gritted teeth.

"We'll see about that."

—-

Yang Xiao Long

I am not stupid, I know this big guy is just trying to separate me and Blake from the others! To hurt our chances but I can't just let him take Blake! She is only here because of us!

Out of nowhere a large piece of a tree trunk comes flying at me, I barely manage to dodge it and before I can even react a massive metallic fist makes contact. It knocks the air out of me and sends me flying back into a tree so hard that it cracks. This guy is nuts…I don't know if it's more his own strength or his gauntlets but he's almost as strong as that other big guy Dawn and Dusk took down. What's worse is that he's definitely smarter.

"You should stay down, I was ordered to get you away from your friends, nothing more." He says in a strangely calm voice. "If you don't give me a reason then neither of you has to get hurt any further."

"You must be lacking in the smarts department, you really think I'd let you bastards get away taking my baby sister and hurting my friends?" I get to my feet but stumble a little.

"Yang don't worry about me, you should go back to the others." Blake says, all I can do is chuckle in response.

"No can do, you're one of my friends too now after all." I get into a fighting stance and the big guy just responds with a sigh.

"This isn't going to end well for you, you must see the power gap between us and with your friend currently…disposed as it were, you don't stand a chance."

"Probably not..but ask anyone, I'm pretty stubborn."

I launch myself at him and before I can even land a hit, he knocks me back down. It hurt even worse that time, my aura levels were lower than before. I struggle to get back up this time, way more than the first time.

I throw myself at him again and this time I manage to hit him but it doesn't do much, it scoots him back a little bit. He throws another punch and I manage to block this one but then he just quickly grabs my arm and lifts me up into the air before kicking me in the stomach, knocking me down again and lowering my aura levels even more.

"Yang please, just stop it." Blake pleads. She sounds legitimately worried now, guess she cares even more than she lets on. Then again I could already kind of tell.

"Are you kidding?" I ask with a cocky smile. I slowly get to my feet which takes way more effort than I'd like to admit. "I have him on the ropes."

"Are you serious?!" she shouts.

"You should listen to her, she speaks sense."

"Of course she does, it's the type of person she is." I get back into a fighting stance. "Unfortunately I'm not that kind of person, especially when the people I care about are in trouble."

"I fear that is going to cost you dearly." he says. He prepares to attack again, this time though he charges his gauntlets up, preparing for a massive punch. I smirk and fire a shot behind me, flying at him as fast as I can and prepare to throw a punch at his dumb face. It nearly makes contact but just before it does, his fist collides with my side and sends me flying so hard I smash through two trees.

"Yang no!" Blake shouts out to me. I barely manage to hear it through the ringing in my ears. This time when I stand it takes so much effort I nearly collapse back down to the ground. I taste blood in my mouth and I'm pretty sure I have a couple of broken bones.

"I'll admit, I'm impressed that you can still get back to your feet." He charges up his gauntlet again. "We both know that you can't take another hit like that though, so what is it going to be?"

I look at Yang who actually looks like she has tears in the corners of her eyes. She gently shakes her head no but I still taunt him anyway. Spitting the blood out of my mouth and making a 'bring it on' gesture. He responds with another sad sigh and he looks…almost regretful.

"What a pity." he walks toward me and raises his fist. "Such a waste."

At the moment he throws his fist toward me, I feel a massive surge of energy. I wasn't sure I'd be able to pull it off but I think I finally learned how to activate my semblance on command and I have a metric ton of built up energy to throw back!

I swing my fist into his and upon impact my punch carries enough energy to not only knock his fist back but damage his gauntlet. Before he can recover from the shock I use what is left of the stored up energy to plant a punch directly into his gut.

It makes the hit I delivered to that other big guy look like nothing. I knew I couldn't take him in a normal head to head fight, even with his one hand preoccupied with restraining Blake. So I let him give me a bit of a thrashing, until I couldn't take anymore and threw it all right back at him and then some.

I guess it worked because it was enough to send him flying and loosen his grip on Blake who falls to the ground next to me. He smashes through at least a dozen trees and lays on the ground about ten feet away.

I give one last smirk before I feel all the energy drain from me at once and I fall to the ground.

"Yang!" Blake manages to catch me before my head hits the ground and holds me, a little closely I might add but I'm too tired to think about it too much. I look up and see her eyes full of concern and tears just barely being held back. "Are you okay?"

"Told you I had him on the ropes." I chuckle before realizing it kinda hurts to laugh. Her eyes still look worried but a small smile forms on her lips and I could swear I hear a small giggle.

"You are mental, you know that right?"

"I have been told."

Suddenly our little moment is interrupted by what sounds like the big guys gauntlets whirring up. We both look over where I sent him flying, well I try at least and see that even though he is worse for wear, he is nearly back on his feet.

"No…" Blake replies.

"I'll admit, I haven't been hit that hard in a really long time." he starts walking toward us. "It was very impressive, but it took all you had and now it's finished."

"Blake, you need to run."

"You can't be serious?" she pulls out her sword and hovers over me defensively.

"You don't owe us anything, I mean you only met us a couple days ago."

"You're one to talk…well unfortunately for you, I think I've grown fairly fond of you Yang Xiao Long." My heart swells slightly, especially when she looks back at me for a brief moment and smiles reassuringly.

As he gets a little too close for comfort Blake turns her attention back to him, staring daggers at him. He doesn't immediately raise his hand to attack, for some reason he seems to hesitate. Even after taking a major hit like that.

After what seems like forever, every second growing more and more tense, a new sound catches our attention. It's a very familiar sound but by the time I manage to place it, someone new appears between us and him, forcing the big guy to jump back and away from us.

"Wh-Who are you?" Blake asks.

He turns to look at us and I lean up as much as I can to get a better look. When I finally realize who it is I can hardly believe it.

"Uncle Qrow?" I ask, wondering why in the heck he would even be out here.

"Hey kiddo." he says with a comforting smile. I almost want to cry I'm so relieved to see him.

"Did you say Uncle?" Blake asks.

"Yup, I'm Yang's Uncle and you are?" he asks in return.

"I-I'm Blake." she seems caught off guard at how nonchalant he is but I'm used to it.

"Nice to meetcha." he says before kneeling next to me. "You hanging in there firecracker?"

"I'll be okay, just a little worn out." I reply and he chuckles.

"Well I have plenty of questions for you kids later but for now you can rest up okay." he gets back to his feet and hoists his sword over his shoulder. "As for you, where do you get off beating on my niece."

"I gave her the opportunity to retreat, she refused."

"I see so you gave her the choice of getting thrashed or running away while her friends got hurt, doesn't seem like an opportunity to me."

"I follow the orders I am given and she stood in the way of that, it's that simple."

"Well I'm gonna give you a simple choice right now, as much as I'd like to beat you into a pulp for hurting her I don't have time." he points his sword at him. "So you can either leave now or I'll have to indulge myself."

The two of them engage in a standoff. I think the big guy knows that Uncle Qrow is on a whole other level, he wouldn't be beaten nearly as easily. Especially after I delivered that nasty punch, he's not exactly running on full right now.

Suddenly we hear a faint buzzing and the big guy reaches up to touch his ear.

"Understood." he turns away from us. "It looks like it doesn't matter anymore, I have been ordered to retreat."

"Good then it all works out." Uncle Qrow hoists his sword back over his shoulder. "Just keep in mind though, if I see you get near either of my nieces or their friends again, you are going to wish you never had."

The big guy just scoffs and bolts away from us, getting smaller and smaller as he disappears into the distance.

"Uncle Qrow…"

"What is kiddo?"

"You need to go help Alan and Weiss, they found Ruby but there is another person like that guy in their way and I get the feeling she is even more dangerous than him." I try to sit up but the pain is too much. Blake puts her hand on my chest and gets me to stay down.

"I'm heading there now but given that Tai is probably there by now, they should be okay."

"Dad is here too?"

"Yep and we brought even more help too." He says with a smirk and the tears of relief just start pouring out now.

"Blake was it?" he asks, looking at Blake.

"Y-Yes sir."

"No need for the sir kid, could you do me a favor?"

"Sure."

"Could you take Yang and head that way?" he points south.

"Y-Yeah but what's in that direction?"

"There should be a few airships in that direction, one of them should be able to take her to Veil for medical treatment."

"You got it." She tries to pick me up as gently as she can but pain was pretty unavoidable.

"Thanks, don't worry the others won't be far behind." he gives a fake salute before running off in the direction of Ruby and the others.

"Alright…let's get you some help." Blake starts running in the direction Uncle Qrow told us to go.

"Well, aren't you my knight in shining armor." I joke. "I'll have to reward you somehow."

"Oh shut up you." she says, a small giggle escaping her lips.

It's crazy, despite the crazy amount of pain I'm in and the draining exhaustion…I haven't felt this good in awhile.