RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth and created by the late Monty Oum.
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RWBY: Destiny of Remnant
Chapter 36: The Hunt Begins
After a few days of traveling into the more lush and green parts of Vacuo the members of Team Beacon had gotten a little tired of being cooped up in the train for hours on end, bar the occasional stop at a village. That morning Tom had told them they would arrive at their destination, the city of Preshia, sometime that afternoon and they had gotten a call from Beacon to hear from JNPR, Fox, and Sage to tell them how things were going at Beacon and how Jaune's training was coming along. While she was happy for her friends Ruby couldn't help but feel a little bored since she had nothing to do and had wished aloud that they had something exciting to pass the time with.
She got her wish in the form of Rail Pirates.
Ruby ducked the mighty swing of a large pirate's hammer before he was sent on his back by a blast to the chest from Yang.
"You okay Rubes?" Yang asked as she dodged a shot.
"I'm a-okay!" Ruby answered as she began using Crescent Rose on the pirate's engine, a huge diesel engine that had a large, rusty old claw coming out of its roof with a hold behind it that allowed for more rail pirates, both human and Faunus, male and female, to climb out and attack them. Behind it was a long line of coaches and boxcars used to house the pirates or carry their plunder and weapons with a few turrets attached to them and gates lined up along the sides of the trains roofs to prevent someone from falling off.
Currently Team RWBY, along with Penny, Qrow, Winter, Sun, Coco, Yatsuhashi, Velvet, and Scarlet were on top of the Allcroft family's train fighting off the attackers while Clara was in the caboose, using the turret to shoot at their attackers and Neptune waited in the train to protect Tom and Anna in case any pirates got past them and take shots at the ones who were shooting out of the engine's windows.
Velvet was using her camera to create giant copies of her friends swords to keep the crushing claw at bay, slamming the light-blades into it and parrying its strikes. So far it had gotten a few 'bites' out of them, large gashes now scarred the engine and the coaches with broken windows and cut open steel but Velvet was managing to keep it at bay.
"Ah!" the Rabbit Faunus cried as she slammed a copy of Corcea Mors at the claw's 'arm' to try and sever it but the claw's operator saw what she was trying to do and used the claw to grab the copy sword and keep her away. "Clever." Velvet muttered before she tore her copy away out of its strong grasp before parrying a strike, trying to keep it from grabbing the coach and pulling it off the tracks.
Qrow, Winter, Blake, Sun, and Scarlet had all jumped over to the pirate's train and were currently fighting off an entire swarm of the thieves but the two adults fought back to back while Clara used the turret to keep the heavy artillery off of them
"How many of them do you think there are?" Qrow asked as he slammed Reaper into one pirate so hard he was thrown over the railings and off the train, onto the ground, injured and left behind.
"Who cares? Keep fighting, we can count them once this mess is done." Winter replied as she kicked a female pirate into a large Dog Faunus and parried the strike of a sword before dodging a shot meant for her head.
Scarlet used his grappling hook to tie up the legs of a few pirates together, pulled them down, and drag them into another group of pirates, tripping them up and making crash into one big pile of bodies and Sun finished them off by having a clone elbow-slam down on them and exploding, the blast taking them all out of the fight.
"Thanks for the help man!" Scarlet said before blasting a pirate with his flintlock and finishing him off with a slash of his sword, not killing him but hurting him enough to knock him out cold.
"Don't mention it!" Sun replied as he pole-vaulted over to another car and slammed his feet into a pirate's face and using his tail to trip a skinny pirate and knocking him out with a slam of his bo-staff to the head. As Blake jumped behind him and shot down a Faunus pirate who tried to sneak up on her boyfriend Sun decided to make some conversation, "You know, I kinda thought that the rest of the trip would be kinda peaceful after what went down at home."
"And yet here we are." Blake deadpanned as she created a clone to take a shot meant for her, dodged, and ran forward to slam the hilt of Gambol Shroud into a pirate's gut, following it up with an uppercut. She had personally been thankful for the calm but knew it couldn't last for long, it never did in her life. She looked over to see a pirate about to sneak up on Weiss and yelled "Weiss, behind you!"
The youngest Schnee sister whirled around and created a glyph to quickly create some ice to freeze the ruffian in place.
"Serves you right." she muttered before parrying a strike from another pirate. "Ruby! You just had to say something, didn't you?!" she voiced irritably before striking the sword out of her attacker's hands and ducking so Ruby could shoot him down.
"What do you mean?! How is any of this my fault?" Ruby asked as she slammed into a Faunus pirate, sending him flying towards Yatsuhashi who finished him off with a simple punch.
"You tempted fate! After Jaune's call you were all 'OMG, its so boring on this train, can't something exciting and epically awesome happen?' and when you say something like that if brings something like this about!" Weiss cried.
"I do NOT talk like that." Ruby said with a grumpy pout as swung the blade of Crescent Rose so hard it managed to cut two swords off their hilts.
"Yeah, that's more like how a pair of twins I know talk, Ruby's speech is a bit more like a sugar addicted ten year old." Yang said as she headbutted a thug.
Ruby growled in annoyance as she used her Semblance to launch herself in the air, landed in the middle of a group of pirates on the second coach where Penny, Coco, and Yatsuhashi were fighting. She quickly held up her arms with her weapon grasped firmly and she spun around like a red tornado, hitting them all with the blunt end of Crescent Rose and knocking them out and they hit the railings or the roof.
"Don't listen to them Ruby, they're just teasing." Penny assured her friend as she picked up a large pirate with both arms and threw him to Yang who finished him off with her robotic fist.
"Thanks Penny." Ruby said to her with a friendly smile.
Penny nodded before she whipped around and transformed her arm into its gun form and jabbed it into the face of another pirate.
"Ah fuck." he said in defeat.
"Please watch your language." Penny stated before she shot him, with her weapon at low power so she wouldn't hurt him too bad, just enough to knock him out.
"If only that would work on Uncle Qrow's foul language." remarked Yang.
"Never!" Qrow yelled from the other train.
Up in the engine cab Neptune did his best to help out his friends, shooting down pirates who were in the front of the enemy train and shooting at the engine's windows. He wondered just how long they could keep this fight up before they ran out of tracks or crashed into something.
"Hey Tom! Do you have a plan or something? I mean you know these tracks right? Anyway we could lose 'em?" Neptune asked.
"I'm working on it! Right now I'm trying to focus on keeping our speed up and..." he was cut off by the sound of the claw scrapping against the engine, "keep us from being cut up! Ann, have you made contact with anyone?"
Anna looked up at her little brother from a chair in front of a communications console and said "I've called the authorities of the nearest town, they'll try to send help but we're still like thirty miles out."
"Crud! What about any signal boxes? They could switch the tracks and get these creeps onto a different line, maybe even one that's a dead end." Tom suggested.
"I think there's one up ahead, I'll try the open frequency and see if they'll listen to us." Anna said quickly.
"Whatever you're gonna do, do it fast! Man I miss going more than a few days without someone trying to kill me." Neptune muttered as the window was smashed open by a pirate, who the bluenette quickly disposed of with a few well placed shots.
Back on the coaches Penny looked at the pirate's train to try and notice any potential weak spots they could exploit and her sensors picked something up in one of the boxcars towards the end, something she knew they could use to their advantage.
"Coco!" she cried, "The third boxcar from the end of their train, it contains a large amount of explosives!"
Coco looked at the robotic girl and smirked, "You got it!" she said, "Cove me Yatsu, I'm about to create quite the fireworks show."
Her large teammate nodded before grabbing a small pirate and throwing him off of the train and into a bush as they sped by.
Coco loaded up her gun and aimed it carefully at the boxcar Penny told her about.
"She's aiming for one of the weapon cars! Stop her!" shouted a pirate, but it was too late. Coco fired off her mighty minigun, sending a barrage of Dust bullets ripping into the boxcar and what was stored inside, only for it to set off a huge explosion that devastated the last few cars of the pirate's train.
"Oh crap! Unhook us! It'll drag us off the track and spread the fire to us!" cried the pirate captain, who currently fighting Winter and losing.
"Not a bad idea." Yatsuhashi said as Ruby ran up and took careful aim before shooting the couplings that held the cars together, separating the flaming one from the rest of the train. It fell backwards before derailing off the tracks, the pirates left behind ran for it before another explosion went off.
"Good idea Penny, thanks." Coco said to her friend before knocking a pirate out with her purse.
"You are welcome." Penny said cheerfully as she used her swords to protect the four from the pirate's gunfire.
Up towards the front Winter parried the captain's slash with ease. While the pirates might easily be a threat towards engine crews and passengers they found themselves outclassed by Hunters and a high ranking Atlas Specialist.
"Give it up, captain, you have already lost this battle." Winter said before she quickly opened up a series of strikes, driving him back.
"I don't think so! We may lose some of our numbers, weapons, and plunder, but if we can bring in two Schnees dead or alive to the White Fang I think we'll be compensated well enough." the pirate leader said as he just barley managed to block all of her attacks.
Winter allowed herself a smirk, which confused him but in the blink of an eye Winter jumped up and kicked him into the railings. She landed on her feet, threw her sword in the air, brought both of her fists up to slam two pirates in the face, grab her sword, slash another pirate down, and held her blade to the captain's chin before he could recover his own sword.
"Tell your crew to stand down." she demanded.
"Never." the captain said with a smirk before the metal 'arm' of the claw knocked into Winter from the side before Velvet could stop it.
"Winter!" Weiss cried. She quickly created a glyph and launched herself into the air and thanks to the speed of the engines being equally matched due to the long line of freight cars holding the more powerful engine the pirates possessed back she managed to land on the captain, boots to face. "Winter, are you okay?!" she asked frantically as she parried a strike from a large female pirate.
Winter got up as her aura healed the bleeding wound on the side of her head and helped her younger sister defeat the attacking pirate. "Injured, but I'll be fine. Believe me when I say I have had worse." Winter said to her little sister.
In the engine Tom desperately tried to keep his engine going as fast as it could, even though it wasn't meant to go this fast for this long.
"Yes! Oh thank you sir!" Anna cheered out loud.
"Tell me that's good news from that signalman!" Tom cried.
"It is, in about a minute they'll be at a switch track that leads to a siding with some buffers and they won't be able to stop in time! They'll crash!" Anna explained.
"Then we better get my friends off that train!" Neptune cried. He ran over to the window and looked out to see Velvet still fighting off the claw. "Velvet! Get Sun, Blake, and the others off that train! They're gonna switch off to another track!" he yelled as loudly as he could.
Velvet's ears, filled up with every noise the fight was making, managed to hear his warning. "Everyone! Get off the pirate train! They're going to crash!" the Rabbit Faunus called.
"What? How would she...?" Scarlet began before Sun grabbed his arm.
"You heard her! Jump!" his leader cried.
The two members of Team SSSN and Blake all jumped across to the safety of the Allcroft family train while Qrow, Weiss, and Winter were all kept busty by a crowd of pirates.
"They're surrounded, we gotta help 'em!" Ruby declared before she opened fire on the attackers, helped out by Yang, Penny, Blake, Sun, Scarlet, Coco, and Clara from the turret.
"Go!" Qrow ordered.
"What about you?" Winter inquired.
"I'll be fine, now go!" he barked.
Winter nodded, grabbed her sister's hand, created a glyph, and jumped up into the air and landed on the front coach.
"Are you two okay?" Ruby asked.
"All things considered we're okay." Weiss answered.
"Uncle Qrow come on! Clara and the rest of us will cover you!" Yang shouted as Neptune climbed up to join them.
"Come on! We're running out of time!" he added, he looked ahead and could see the switch track leading to the siding.
Qrow was about to jump over when he had to duck an attack by the claw. It reared up and snapped at him, threatening to tear him open with its sharp teeth.
Velvet growled as she gathered her strength and channeled more aura into the copy of Crocea Mors and swung managing to sever the claw off of the train, making it fall onto the roof with a loud clang and fall off and crash on the ground to be left behind.
"Thanks kid!" Qrow said as he jumped off just in time as the pirates' engine swerved violently off of the main line and into the siding. Despite the driver's best efforts he couldn't stop the train in time, it had simply been going too fast. It raced ahead, losing speed, and slammed through the buffers, demolished a few bushes and trees before coming to a stop in a pond, utterly wrecked.
Tom slammed on all of the brakes on his train, making it jerk to a violent stop, nearly throwing the ones of top off. He sat down and planted a kiss on the controls.
"Oh baby, I knew you could get us through this. Anna, call the cops and tell 'em where we are, let me get out there and expect the damage." he said to her.
"You got it little bro!" Anna said as he hopped out of the train.
Tom ran around the train as the present members of Team Beacon climbed off of the coaches. Come on, we need to make sure they don't get away." Qrow said.
Everyone nodded as Tom cried out "Aw man! This is gonna cost a fortune to repair! Windows busted, wall damaged, gashes in the steel, scrapped paint, dents! How are we ever gonna pay for this?"
"Don't worry Tom, we'll find a way. We always do." Clara assured him with a comforting hug.
Winter and Weiss looked at each other and the elder sister nodded. While Qrow led the others Winter stayed behind and said "Mr. Allcroft, I can see that your locomotive, and home, has taken severe damage because of these pirates, who you only ran into because you were transporting us. I think it would be the decent thing to compensate you for these damages."
"Y-you're serious?" he asked, shocked.
"Of course, I will contact my superiors in Atlas, I know they will agree to help you." she told him.
Tom grabbed her hand and shook it enthusiastically. "Oh thank you Miss Schnee! Thank you! I swear that if I ever hear someone badmouth your family name again I'll fight 'em!" he said.
"No need to go that far..." Winter said.
A few minutes later the pirate leader woke up with a groan and shook his head, only to feel that he was surrounded by other people. His eyes opened up to find himself surrounded by his crew, all tied together by the strings attached to Penny's swords and a giant copy of Arslan's wire-dagger.
"Don't even think about trying to get away." Qrow said with a smirk on his face.
Ruby and Yang couldn't help but share the smirk as they heard police sirens in the distance getting closer.
After the police took the pirates into custody and a couple hours or so of questioning and the coaches being repaired via a repairman's Semblance the train took off again and despite the damages they managed to make good time, arriving to the city of Preshia just as the sun began to set.
Preshia was much larger than Hondyama and was located in a much better location; near the jungles of Vacuo and while it wasn't as big as Haven but it was just slightly bigger than Vale was. The buildings or stone or steal ranged from large and towering to cramped and diminutive with many spires standing up and shining like beacons in the sky. Streets ranged from dirty and best avoided to large and busy.
The Allcroft's engine pulled into the engine yard and came to a gentle stop and the members of Team Beacon disembarked from the first coach with their bags.
"Thanks for hiring us, and thank you for helping us out." said Anna happily.
"No problem, did you get paid enough?" Ruby asked, as a half an hour ago Qrow and Winter talked it over with Glynda and a financial representative from Atlas to pay the Allcroft family what was owed to them.
"Yep, sure did. All there nice and ready to be used." Clara said to the younger girl.
"So what about your engine? Can you get it repaired here or do you have to go all the way back to Brandofi with the damage?" asked Velvet.
"Nope, there's a fantastic workshop in this city that specializes in repairing engines of all kinds and even consults on building designs, they even helped out on that bridge that's being built to link Vale to Mistral. They can fix us up for the right price." Tom explained.
Winter nodded and said "Just give them the letter I wrote, that will be enough to make them consider. If it's not give them my number and I will have a check sent to them if they will fix your home."
"We will, and thank you again, so much Miss Schnee." Tom said gratefully.
"Well we better get moving into the city if we want to get this mission moving on. Thanks for the ride kid." Qrow said as he shook Tom's hand.
"No problem, we know this mission is gonna be dangerous if you're all goin' up against the White Fang, so good luck and give 'em a few hits for us." Tom said.
"We sure will." Sun agreed.
"It'll be easy." Yang stated.
"You've done very well for us, all three of you. I can recommend you to my father for future use so you can get some more high profile work." Weiss offered.
"That'd be sweet Miss, thank you all for traveling on our train." Tom said as he lifted off his cap to them.
Team Beacon said their goodbyes to the family of three and took off into the city.
"Okay Blake, refresh me; who are we looking for again?" Qrow asked as they came to a pedestrian bridge that overlooked a highway.
Blake nodded and began, "My contact could only tell me the coordinates of the prison they're keeping Claudandus in but he told me earlier that someone who knows more about the exact details like defense, troop numbers, advantages, would be a White Fang officer who was one of the first to join Adam in his crusade. He's a Lynx Faunus named Basil and once the White Fang became what it is now Adam sent him to cities like this as a recruitment agent and he was one of the best, still is from what I've been told."
"How can you be sure this Basil guy is here?" Scarlet asked.
"My informant told me he was here last month." Blake elaborated. "He usually sticks to the slums and the red light district, to find Faunus who harbor resentment towards humanity but he'll occasionally spy on the local academy to see if any Faunus students have any reason to defect. My informant sent me a picture of what he looks like now." she added before holding up her scroll to show a picture of a cocky looking Lynx Faunus with long pointed cat ears, dark eyes, tanned skin, a slight beard, with a dark green outfit.
"Good, I think I can find this guy soon enough." Qrow stated.
"In a city like this?" Yatsuhashi asked doubtfully.
"My sister was a better tracker than I was but I was still a good one, I'll find him." Qrow assured.
"Good, my informant told me where he goes some nights, a bar called 'Last Chance', not a nice place but it's a chance." Blake told them.
"Let me guess, a strip club?" Coco speculated.
"I think so." Blake confirmed with a nod.
"Then count Ruby out of going near it." Yang said firmly.
"Weiss too." added Winter.
"I'm not going there." Velvet voiced.
"And I don't think Penny should either." agreed Ruby.
"Um, what is so bad about a st..." Penny began only for Coco to cut her off.
"We'll tell you when you're older." she said quickly.
"Anything we can use against him? Something we can use to make him talk?" Winter inquired.
"I didn't know him that well but I remember he was afraid of heights." Blake answered.
"Okay, I'll scout out for him. Schnee, take Yang, Blake, and those two," Qrow said pointing to Coco and Sun, "and check out this 'last chance' joint. Ruby, take the others and find a really high place where we can bring this guy to make sure he answers our questions but make it one where he can't try to get help."
"You got it Uncle Qrow!" Ruby said with a nod.
"You really want me to take your niece to such a filthy establishment?" Winter inquired.
"Trust me, I've been in worse. Heh, that guy's crotch probably still hurts." mused Yang to herself.
"Nice to know blondie, now let's move out." Qrow stated.
"Remember, you need to take Basil without being noticed, if they think we got him they might change security or move Claudandus so be careful with him." Blake reminded everyone else.
They all nodded and Qrow said "You heard her, now let's move."
Once they had all walked away from each other Qrow had snuck off into an alleyway (one thankfully devoid of homeless people) and transformed into his avian form and took off into the sky to find his target. Without any scent it would be rather difficult but he had pretty good eyesight, especially in bird form so he knew he could find this Basil character with some effort.
Some forty minutes later Qrow landed on top of a building on the edge of a slum to look over a small group of Faunus conversing in the alley.
He looked at one of them and despite a hood covering his head he got a good look at the guy's face and knew it belonged to the Faunus known as Basil. He looked to his target's belt to see a deadly shotgun hitched to it, he could take it but it would cause a scene and if those other White Fang punks saw him attack Basil they'd alert Adam and even though he could beat all of them he knew that if they went missing for long Taurus would know something was up.
"I know it inconvenient guys, but Adam wants me to do it." Basil said.
"Why you? Can't he just send that big lieutenant of his?" asked a Faunus with a stumpy tail.
"I don't know and I don't ask, I don't ask becasue Taurus kinda doesn't like his troops questioning his orders. Trust me, it'll be fine. Just make sure the cops keep away from the storage house until I get back, I'm sure you can do decent jobs while I'm away." Basil told them.
"I still think its damn weird to send you out into the desert to an old..." began another Faunus.
"It is, but I can live with it and you can too. Just don't fuck up too badly while I'm gone. Now if you'll excuse me, I got a hot human bitch to see." Basil stated.
"That girl at Last Chance? What would Adam do if he found out you've had sex with human girls?" asked the second Faunus.
"Hey, sex is sex." Basil answered before taking off.
Qrow smirked and took off again before landing behind a billboard a block away. Once he was sure that he wasn't being observed he transformed back into human and got out his scroll to call Winter.
"Schnee, I've spotted Basil." he said.
"Good where is he?" she asked.
"Heading into the red light distract, right to that bar Blake mentioned. I don't think I can jump him without making a scene, I know this part of town has more than a few White Fang sympathizers." Qrow reported.
"Understood, keep following him but leave his capture up to us." Winter said.
"Right." Qrow agreed. They ended the call and he quickly transformed back into a crow before taking off into the twilight sky.
Basil strolled down the dirty streets of Preshia's red light district. He looked up to the darkening sky and was surprised to see a bird, a crow or a raven or something like that, flying overhead. Weird, he didn't think birds like that were out this late. He shook his head and shrugged it off as his favorite small time, but good as hell, strip club bar appeared at the end of the street, highlighted in the dark by neon lights.
He thought about the mission Adam had given him; go out to some old base from the last human-Faunus war in the middle of the desert aka the middle of nowhere and set it to self destruct after wiping the hard drives and making sure it would burn itself to the ground. He didn't know why but what was weirder was that Adam had been incredibly explicit in instructing him to simply go to the control room and stay away from all of the other rooms, install the virus that would wipe the all of the data and then activate the self destruct sequence, get out of the base, let it burn. Why he wanted him to do it was a secret to Basil but he wouldn't question it as long as Adam and the White Fang kept him living a relatively good life.
He made it to the doors of Last Chance and pushed them open before paying the small entry fee. It was early in the night so there weren't many people there; a few early drinkers at the bar, a Faunus couple in the back, a woman eating some food at one of the tables, an old bum asleep in a booth, the usual.
He walked up to the counter and said "Yo Darla! Tell Midori I'm here and I wanna see her."
Darla the barkeeper, a portly middle aged woman glanced at the Faunus and nodded. "You never come when she's not here."
"That's cause she's the only girl you got worth a damn." Basil stated, Midori was a nice enough human girl, kinda shy, wasn't very smart but had one hell of a body.
Darla went to the back to announce over the building's speaker system that one of her girls had a customer then she came back up and tossed him the keys and he opened up the door that revealed the stair case, which led to the upstairs rooms where sexual acts were preformed nightly. He walked in, allowed Darla to lock the door behind him, and headed up the stairs.
He unlocked the door to the room Midori lived in and saw her 'clients' in and locked it behind him. "Midori! Yo baby! Basil here, and this wild cat is gonna rock your world yet again." he announced, only to find the decently sized room empty with a chair in the center of the floor and the bed in front of the window hidden behind the curtain that would cover them in case anyone came in, but he could see a very feminine shape behind the white drape.
"Midori? You ready girl?" he asked.
"Oh I'm ready alright." said an unfamiliar female voice.
"What the...?" A hand grabbed the curtain and drew it back to reveal a drop dead sexy pale human girl with brunette hair with a single bang that was a lighter color, she appeared to be about seventeen to nineteen years old, and she was wearing a very revealing belly dancer or harem girl outfit. He looked at her right in the eyes and saw a pair of beautiful chocolate brown eyes that looked at him mischievously.
"Wha... who...?" he stuttered out.
"Midori took the night off, I'm the new girl. Tonight they want to see how good I am and they say you're one of the best customers, so you'll help me out, right?" she asked innocently.
Basil was about to say something but got distracted by the very generous view of her cleavage, which looked very inviting. She walked closer to him, her hips swaying to and fro seductively. "Umm... s-sure... I'm... how old are you?" he asked, he was guilty for a lot of things but didn't want to be a sex offender if this girl was underaged.
"I'm old enough, trust me. Sit down, unless you're uninterested." she said before tossing her loose bang behind her head.
"No, I'm interested, just a little put off by this, I mean it's weird for Midori to let someone else take me up." he said as he sat down on the wooden chair.
"Well, I'm sure she and I can make it up to you next time." she said with a suggestive wink before she whipped around, allowing him to get a brief view of the side of her butt. She walked over to the bed, making sure to sway her hips around, and picked up a black handbag and opened it up before smirking, leaning down to give him a better view of her cleavage and ask "Do you want me?"
"Oh yeah..." he said eagerly.
The girl smirked and her purse transformed into a large, powerful gun, pointing it right at him. "Bend over." she quipped.
"Wh... wha?" Basil tried to voice before he felt something metal on the back of his head.
"Do us a favor and keep quiet." said a woman's voice. With a single punch to the back of the head Basil was out like a light.
Yang, Winter, and Coco stood over the unconscious Faunus, "Good work, now all we have to do is sneak him out of the building." Winter stated. It was simple to take Midori's place, with a small bribe of fifty lien and the promise to make sure Basil wouldn't bother her ever again and the bar keeper promised to keep her mouth shut over the incident after Winter paid her and to tell any White Fang operatives that came looking for Basil to tell them he had simply been arrested for hurting one of the girls.
Yang and Coco nodded before the former said "Blake and Sun are making sure we won't be noticed, they'll find a perfect escape route." She looked over to Coco and remarked "You know what? You do look good in that."
Coco smirked again, put her hands on her hips and said "I make everything look good."
Winter sighed and said "Get changed before we leave."
Coco nodded and drew the curtain back to cover herself but before she changed back she held up her scroll and took a picture of herself and sent it to Fox. "Enjoy."
Basil moaned as he began to awaken, he remembered the slut that replaced his regular slut only for her bag to transform into a massive gun like something a Hunter would use. He opened his eyes only to find himself being held upside down atop of the highest buildings in the city. He could see cars moving about like ants between the buildings, if he were to fall from his height he would be dead for sure.
"WHOA!" he screamed loudly, struggling in the air, only to find himself held firmly in place by the hand of a very large man with tanned skin and short black hair.
"I suggest you not move, a fall from this height wouldn't be a pleasant thing." said Yatsuhashi.
"What the fuck?! Who are you?" Basil demanded.
"We're the good guys, and you're the bad guy." answered the voice of Qrow. Basil looked over to see most of Team Beacon sitting or standing not too far away and sure enough he recognized a few of them, one Faunus member in particular.
"Belladonna! You traitor! What do you want?!" he demanded.
"We want to know where Adam has Claudandus, we know you know so spill it." Blake stated bluntly.
"That old cat? Yeah, I know where Adam has him stowed away but what makes you think I'll tell? The thing about Adam is that I know he'll go to some dark places, do some scary things but you Blake? You don't have the guts to really interrogate me, that's why you ran!" Basil snapped.
Weiss sighed and rolled her eyes when Coco, who had changed back to her mission outfit, said "You do realize that she's not the only one here, right?"
Basil glared at the Huntress and said "You! I'll get you for tricking me, you little..."
He was silence by Yatsuhashi tightening his grip on Basil's leg and snarling out "Quiet."
Qrow smirked and knelt down to look Basil in the eye. "Look, we have your foot tied to a length of powerful strings, so if we let you go and fall a little we can still catch you... but the string can run out. So do yourself a favor and tell us about the prison, its location, its defenses, number of guards, how powerful their firepower is, security weaknesses we can exploit, the good stuff. Now if you're a good boy I'm pretty sure we can place you in a nice, cozy little cell in some Atlas prison where Taurus can't get to you. Deal?"
Basil looked a bit nervous but snarled at Qrow, "No deal! Do whatever you want to me, I won't talk!" He reached for his find gun only to find that it was no longer there.
"Looking for this?" Winter asked as she held up the gun before letting it drop.
"Let him go." Qrow said to Yatsuhashi, who nodded and dropped the Faunus.
Basil fell, screaming for about a hundred feet or so when Yatsuhashi grabbed the string, keeping him from falling any further but accidentally banging him against the concrete wall of the skyscraper.
"You got him Penny?" Ruby asked in a low whisper.
"Easily." Penny answered. The string they were using to hold Basil was, in fact, an upgrade Penny had received when she was rebuilt; a long thread of string that would be used in case any of her strings were severed, that way she could tie them back to the sword, even in a battle, it was powerful and could easily hold a man of Basil's weight but they didn't need to tell him that.
"Oh did we drop you? Sorry about that. The big guy here can be a bit clumsy sometimes." Qrow called.
"Very." Yatsuhashi added in a deadpan voice.
"Just tell us what we want to know and this will all be over." Blake called.
"Yeah right, I'll give you something you want you little bit... AHH!" he screamed as Yatsuhashi let him fall some more.
"Some people can be so rude." Penny observed.
"Like you wouldn't believe." Yang told her.
Qrow looked down at the Faunus and called "You know, the string doesn't have much to go..."
"You wouldn't! You wouldn't dare! You're not supposed to cross that line!" screamed Basil, utterly terrified.
"The White Fang weren't either, look what happened." Blake said angrily. "In fact, I bet that's what some of Adam's victims said before he had them killed."
"Okay, okay! I'll talk! I'll talk! Just don't let me fall! Please!" he begged desperately.
"We'll pull you up, but first you talk." Qrow said firmly.
About an hour later Qrow and Winter stood in front of the holograms of General Ironwood, Goodwitch, and Ozpin in the city's police headquarters.
"What did he tell you?" Ironwood asked.
"He has told us enough information for us to infiltrate the prison. It is located by a Vacuo village by the mountains called Oro, it has about seventy-five guards altogether, including officers and other staff with human and Faunus prisoners. Mr. Pirici is kept under heavy guard but if we infiltrate it carefully we'll be able to defeat them and get him out of there before we're noticed, though there might be a few skirmishes. If we time it just right we can make it out into the forests and have a ship evac us." Winter said to them.
"And we can't just attack them head on because of the village, innocents would be caught in the crossfire. A clever placement I must admit." Ozpin stated.
"What of your unwilling informant?" asked Glynda.
"The cops are keeping him here in solitary confinement but we want him transferred to Atlas so he can't break out or warn his buddies." Qrow told her.
"Easily done." Ironwood said with a nod. "Do you want back up?"
"No, I think this would be better suited for a small task force like us, we could have the Vacuo Rangers and our own military attack but..." Winter began.
"The innocent villagers would be caught in the crossfire. Clever of them." Glynda admitted, but didn't approve of such an underhanded tactic.
"Exactly, so this calls for subtly." Winter stated.
"I can have a stealth ship flyby when your ready, just call me the day before and I'll send it over to your location, but it will stay at a safe distance before you're ready for extraction." Ironwood said.
"How do you plan to infiltrate the prison? Only three of you are Faunus and most of you will probably be recognized." Ozpin pointed out.
"Trust me Oz, we got that covered. Yang's gonna call an old friend to help us out with that." Qrow said before he remembered something, "Oh, Jimmy I nearly forgot. He told us something else; Taurus wanted Basil to go to some old base from the last Faunus war in the middle of the desert and destroy it."
"Destroy it?" Ironwood repeated.
"Yeah, Basil doesn't know what for and what's in there but its something Taurus doesn't want getting out and if he wants to hide something we could use it to our advantage. Here are the coordinates." Qrow said as he typed them into the computer.
Ironwood looked at them and hummed, "I'll have Chamberlain and his troops check it out. It might not be anything but a lead is a lead."
Ozpin nodded before looking to Qrow and Winter to ask "Now, who exactly are you going to contact to help you disguise yourselves?"
In a decent hotel in south Mistral a petite girl with an odd combination of pink, brown, and white colors for clothes, hair, and even eyes, sat on a nice couch, sipping from a drink.
She had been avoiding the cops for months and had only done a few jobs here and there to keep money in her pocket and pay for places like this. It wasn't as good as the old days she had with Roman, but it would do for now.
All of a sudden her scroll beeped and she picked it up to see who was calling her, only to see that it was a text from none other than Yang Xiao Long. She opened it up and saw what it said.
"Hey, this is Yang obviously, hope you're doing okay. We're in Vacuo on a mission and we need to sneak into a prison controlled by the White Fang. We need your help to disguise ourselves so we can sneak in. Are you up for it?"
She smirked and sent a small, simple text that said "Yeah, where shall we meet?"
It felt odd to be so eager but Neo couldn't help but feel excited for another little adventure with these crazy kids.
Violet Arc pulled up her hoodie so she wouldn't be recognized, just in case anyone was watching, as she strolled through one of the less savory parts of Cadia. Despite how nice of a town it was it was obviously not perfect and it had its fair share of crime and trouble, though nowhere near the extent of Haven, Vale, or many major cities in Vacuo.
As she kept walking towards her destination a rather skinny girl in a punk outfit passed her by, making a flirtatious face and gesture as she did so.
"In your dreams sister, keep walking." Violet said.
"Your loss." the punk girl said with a shrug as she walked away from Violet.
The Arc girl sighed and muttered "No one, man or woman, tries to hit on me when I'm in uniform."
She wondered if she should have brought her police outfit but she knew that cops weren't welcome in this part of town, except if they were female, pretty, and alone and she currently fit the bill on all three of those. She had thought about bringing back up but knew her informant only trusted her and would freak and run if he saw someone else. Snitches only stayed alive if they were paranoid, after all.
She made it to her destination, an old alleyway between two empty buildings; old boxes, scattered planks of wood, bits of litter, old newspapers all laid scattered about the ground, trampled under her boots as she walked into the alley.
She whispered the safe word to let him know it was her "Long live snitches, I'm here."
She heard a noise and her head jolted up to see the figure of a skinny man emerging from one of the windows above.
"Hi there pretty cop, good to see you." the informant greeted.
"You too." Violet said, she didn't know his real name and he didn't know hers but it was better that way, safer for both of them. But then again she could know his real name, the first ten or so meetings he revealed a different 'real' name to her each time before he agreed he wasn't comfortable with sharing his identity but for all she knew one of those names was legit. "What do you got for me?" she asked as she leaned behind a dumpster to give herself cover.
"I've heard something about a meeting going on in the old water treatment plant, you know, the one under renovation. Anyway it's between Ben Bressi and some big name crime lord from Vacuo." the informant said to her.
Violet considered this and nodded, but inside she was a little excited; if this tip led to the arrest of one of the few big criminals left in Haven it could make her a hero.
"Who's the guy from Vacuo?" she asked.
"No idea... but I heard something about... Grimm." he revealed.
"Grimm? What are they having pit fights?" Violet inquired. It was a possibility, underground pit fighting was a nasty and highly illegal sport where fighters high on Dust enhanced drugs fought Grimm to the death with their bare hands and a lot of people who were either criminals or had criminal ties bet on these terrible events.
"Could be but I didn't really hear the rest. I was hiding in the old vent two blocks down when I heard a couple of thugs mention it. All the same I wouldn't go alone if I were you pretty cop, take at least five or six others with you if your gonna bust 'em. I don't know who this Vacuo guy is but I know its probably dangerous." the informant said.
"Trust me bud, I faced something way, way worse a few months back. Me and a squad of good cops locked and loaded can handle a few underworld mooks. Thanks for the tip. Go get some real food tonight." she said as she handed him thirty lien.
"Th-thanks, good luck." the informant said before he went down the other side of the alley and disappeared around a corner.
Violet smiled and began to job back where she parked her car. When she got home she had a few calls to make with her superior officers.
Deep down she had a feeling that told her this was going to be something big.
Next Time: Atlas discovers something... not right.
Okay, as I said October will be pretty empty on updates but you will get one more this month so be prepared for something a little... spooky.
This chapter might be a little weak since I wasn't really sure of what to do with it but I feel that it turned out okay. Plus it turns out the belly dancer outfit didn't exist just for fanservice... kinda.
Originally Neo wasn't going to come back so soon but I decided that they needed to disguise themselves convincingly and they couldn't do that without someone with a Semblance like Neo's so I hope some of you are happy that she's back.
If you enjoyed this chapter on Fanfiction . Net then please review, follow, and favorite it you liked it and if you're on An Archive of Our Own then leave a kudos and comment and possibly even bookmark it. Please guys give me some feedback, as it keeps me and this story going and if possible at all mention this story on the RWBY Reddit. Please guys, help me out here, let me know if you enjoy this story, what's good and bad about it, I work really hard to make this story good so please give me some feedback.