Interlude 2-4: New Sheriffs in Town
Yang didn't like it in the infirmary. There was too much sickness, too much death, too many broken dreams. She especially didn't like it when she was standing over the body of a close friend.
She had made the rounds, of course. She checked on the progress of all who she had rescued, and helped out where she could. She, admittedly, couldn't do much for them, especially those who had lost limbs like poor Ollie had, but she tried her best, even if it was just offering comfort where she could. Always, though, she came back to the side of her closest friend there.
Maple was sleeping at that moment, and it was clearly restless, as every minute, she would twitch or grimace. There was no wonder why, no wonder at all. That she could sleep at all was a triumph of modern medicine holding hands with a miracle from on high.
The beaver faunus's legs and hands were in casts, her tail was wrapped in bandages, there were assisted breathing tubes running into her nostrils, and though her hospital gown covered a lot, Yang knew that underneath it, her friend was in bad shape. Days of healing with aura and surgery had done her good, but… but the fact that she was still in such a shape after so much treatment and care? It only drove home how much she had been hurt.
"I'm sorry, Maple. I'm sorry," quietly wept Yang. "I promised I would protect you, and I failed."
They were familiar words and a familiar sentiment, but Yang couldn't help but repeat them. She couldn't imagine how Arcee felt. Keeping Maple safe had been the blue Autobot's mission. According to Ratchet, once she'd gotten out of critical condition, she'd been practically crawling up the walls, and only Optimus's orders had kept her from rushing out to check on Maple personally.
There was something else she wanted to say, something else that she felt Maple needed to know, but not now and not here. Yang needed to tell her that she was a member of the White Fang now too, but she didn't want to risk someone hearing… no, that wasn't right. What she was worried about was the thought that Maple wouldn't be able to take the stress of the revelation.
Maple was a kind soul, and she never wanted to be involved in the fight. Protests? Sure, she could fit that into her schedule somewhere. Boycotts? Plenty of other businesses out there. Passing out pamphlets? Freedom of speech was a cornerstone of Valish civilization. But fighting? Robbing and killing other people? No, no, she didn't have the heart for that, no matter who they were or what they had done.
The auburn haired beaver faunus liked to dress it up as being a coward, but she wasn't. No, she was a lot closer to Ruby than she ever would admit, pure of heart and totally unwilling to hurt people, just having taken a different path in life. It was probably one of the reasons why Ruby and their father got along with her so well, and it was definitely why Yang did... Well, that, and a desire to stay on her secret keeper's good side, and there was that time she and Maple had shared that big case of Apple family brand rakia, and they had gotten so drunk that Bumblebee had to go through a zany scheme to get her back in Beacon without anyone noticing.
Fun times and more flowed through Yang's mind, and she gave a sad smile.
"Don't worry, Maple," she said softly. "Doc says you're going to be A-OK eventually. Just need some time to heal up. He's going to treat you right too so… just hang in there."
Maybe she didn't need to be quiet. After all, Vix and the other White Fang operative who had been kidnapped had been allowed to go home by then, thanks to their comparatively light injuries. She still was quiet though, as she didn't want to… well, didn't want to do a lot of things. She just hoped everything worked out.
Suddenly, there was a flutter in Maple's face, and she began to stir. Thinking quickly, Yang dried her tears and sent a text message to the rest of her team that their friend was waking up. They wouldn't want to miss this, and the blonde didn't want to deny them the chance.
Maple let out a groan, and her eyes drifted open. "Yang?" a parched mouth asked. "What happened? Why are you here?"
Yang smiled a smile that contained far too many emotions to verbalize. "You're at the Beacon infirmary. You've been in a medically induced coma for… You know what? I'll just let the doctor explain things to you. Doc? Doc!"
Doctor Greer had just finished his examination and explanation when the rest of Team RWBY filed into the infirmary. Ruby almost dove at Maple, but stumbled to a halt a half-step later. "Maple!" she cried. "You're awake!"
The beaver faunus blinked at Ruby in confusion. "You... Ruby?" Her eyes widened. "Ruby! You- you have to-"
"Shh," Ruby said. "It's all right. Whatever it is can wait."
Behind Ruby, the other half of her eponymous team approached solemnly, walking up to the right side of Maple's bed on the side facing the window, away from the door. She looked at them curiously.
"I'm sorry!" they chorused in unison, then looked at each other in bafflement.
"I... this is my fault," Weiss whispered, her voice hoarse. "If- if I hadn't been poking around, this- this never would have happened."
"Don't you dare blame yourself for your father's actions," Blake said. "I'm the one who brought us all into this. If I hadn't-"
"It wasn't you," Maple said, interrupting the self-blame. "Either of you." Green eyes turned away from them and instead toward the sisters on her left.
Yang almost crumpled under the look, not accusing, per se, but the guilt crushed her anyway.
"They were after you, Ruby."
"M-me?" squeaked the young Huntress.
"Be careful," Maple warned, then shook her head the tiny amount she could in confusion. "They... the one in charge... she seems to think you're working with your mother on something."
Yang frowned. "Our mother is dead."
"I know," Maple agreed. "She was talking about Raven Branwen."
Yang felt her fingers curl. That... woman had to ruin everything, didn't she? Did giving life to Yang make her think she could just... just take everything from her that made it worth living?
Next to her, Ruby stared at Maple, horrified at the implications. Raven had saved her, so many times, and the SDC had figured it out. Or maybe the Decepticons had? And they'd dragged poor Maple into this mess.
Maple's gaze grew unfocused, and she shook her head in confusion again. "But... wait. Why would they think that?"
"Raven..." Ruby choked out. "Raven is Yang's mom."
Ruby jumped back in surprise when Yang whirled on her, a fury boiling in her red eyes that Ruby had never seen before.
"That... that woman is not my mother," Yang insisted, her voice low and hard. "She was my incubator. All she did was donate some genes and carry me to term. My mother's name is Summer Rose. She was the one who taught me, gave me advice. She was the one who was there when I needed her. She was the one who kept me safe. She is my mother."
Ruby flinched back with each point. There was something about Yang's words that bothered her on a level she didn't understand. She thought back, tried to remember who Yang was talking about. Tried to remember Summer Rose.
But instead of a hazy memory with silver eyes and a white hood... all that came to mind was the stark image of a white mask with a mane of black hair and a red sword. Instinctively, she shied away from the thought, from what it meant, what it could mean.
A heavy sigh drew her back to the present, and her sister gave her a contrite look. "Sorry, Rubes. I just... I don't like thinking about her if I can help it."
"I understand," replied Ruby, nodding.
"Ruby?" Blake asked. "How much time do we have before we have to meet Professor Greene for our mission?
She blinked and glanced down at her scroll. "A couple of hours," she said, looking back. "Enough time that we can stay here for a bit, if that's all right, Maple?"
As the Bullhead flew along, Ann Greene looked at her four cute students. This promised to be an... interesting excursion. While she didn't know what, exactly, Ozpin had Teams RWBY and JNPR doing, the fact that they were going on covert "extra credit" missions was an open secret among the faculty. Of course, it wasn't unheard of for Ozpin to send a team of students off on such covert missions, but two teams? And the last time - so far as anyone knew - he had done so had been with Team STRQ, back when Ann herself had been a student.
She had a feeling, however, that whatever skills Teams RWBY and JNPR had practiced and honed on those missions wouldn't be particularly applicable in emergency rescue.
"So, you know what you signed up for," she declared, "so I'll skip straight to telling you about my hometown, Griffin Rock. It's an island town founded a few hundred years ago." Her gaze shifted to the sisters, who were paying rapt attention. "Much like Patch, it being an island helps keep it safe from the Grimm, though there are still the occasional incursions. However, it's less rural than Patch, largely because, back during the Great War, the Kingdom of Vale moved a lot of their scientific community to Griffin Rock, away from the front in eastern Sanus, and built up the infrastructure in order to turn it into a research hub for the war effort."
Miss Xiao Long, the delinquent, raised her hand. "When you say 'less rural,' do you mean…?"
"That it actually has a central town, but the Chief of Police still knows everyone's name, yes," finished the teacher. "It also has a large population of robots, partly as a testing ground for companies like Starhead Industrial, partly to fill gaps in the labor force due to the town's demographic imbalance."
"'Demographic imbalance'?" queried Miss Schnee.
No surprise it was the snowcapped girl who asked. She'd gotten almost militant about faunus rights and diversity in recent months. Demographic studies would naturally be of interest at that point. Hopefully, this visit to Griffin Rock wouldn't be marred by an argument like the one Miss Schnee had gotten into with some Atlas student with multicolored hair shortly after the incident with Miss Fall.
"Mostly?" she answered. "People too smart for their own good... who also have a tendency to be really dumb at the same time." She paused, then added, "Like my brother, for instance."
To her disappointment, no one on Team RWBY took the bait.
"Does Griffin Rock suffer from many Griffon attacks?" Miss Rose asked curiously.
"Actually, no," answered Ann, shaking her head. "It was actually named for a rock formation that resembles them, rather than any local Grimm tendencies."
"I'm surprised I haven't heard of Griffin Rock before," mused Miss Schnee. "The SDC does deal quite a bit with robotics and other advanced technology."
"Two reasons for that," Ann said. "First, Griffin Rock likes to keep a low profile. And second, they don't like Atlesians much. A bit of a cultural holdover from the war, really; they see Atlesian scientists as competition."
"Is that... going to be a problem?" asked Blake, her voice tinged with the barest hint of concern, amber eyes flicking over to the other young heiress worriedly.
Ann had heard the phrase "opposites attract," but even if there wasn't any romance here, this was still taking it a bit far: black and white, faunus and human, Menagerite and Atlesian, Belladonna and Schnee, White Fang and SDC. At least they had kept to the odd Beacon tradition of going after oblivious blond idiots. Of course, that had led into the wonderful problem of dealing with the ripple effects of "double the STRQ, double the drama."
"Probably not," Ann assured her. "Miss Schnee may have been born in Atlas, but she's a Beacon student. That makes her one of ours."
Ann suppressed a grin when she noted the light blush coloring the snowcapped girl's cheeks.
She loved messing with her students. It made dealing with the aforementioned drama worth it. Oh, and teaching a new generation of Huntsmen and Huntresses, lighting a path for the future defenders of civilization, stuffing their brains with knowledge until it leaked out their ears, etc., etc. That too.
Seriously though, why was Team STRQ not a one-off?
"Five minutes!" called the pilot from the front.
Team RWBY and Ann got up and slung their kit bags over their shoulders, preparing for when the VTOL would land. The waiting could be a pain, and so they all occupied themselves doing what they could to amuse themselves. For their teacher, that meant continuing to watch them and examine them for any of the signs that they might not entirely be up to snuff.
Luckily, they managed not to embarass themselves by the time the VTOL hit the ground and opened the door.
"Hello there, and welcome to Griffin Rock!" called out a strong, mature voice as soon as they exited onto the tarmac of the airport. Strong... and familiar. It was hard to forget a man like Chief Charlie Burns. Though his hair and mustache had gotten a bit grayer since she last saw him, he still cut an imposing figure in his blue uniform.
"Though perhaps 'welcome back' would be more appropriate," the chief continued, sticking out his hand for her to shake, which she gladly did so. "It's great to see you again, Ann. I had a feeling they might send you."
"It's good to see you too, Chief," replied Ann with a genuine smile as she broke the handshake. "It feels like it's been ages."
"It hasn't even been a year," Chief Burns informed her. "You know, the Lobster and Technology Festival is coming up again. Thinking about attending this year?"
Ann shook her head. "No, no, I don't think so. At least, not now, anyway. I mean, the last time I was there for it, we had that whole incident with the flying lobsters, and I don't think anyone wants a repeat of that."
"Not even if Storm Shadow shows up again?" asked the chief with one silvery eyebrow raised.
"Don't tempt me," replied Ann coyly. "Besides, this isn't about me. It's about them."
Chief Burns stepped to the side and took a good, hard look at Team RWBY, who looked at him in turn. There was wariness deep inside Blake, but it was buried under a mountain of curiosity. Miss Xiao Long on the other hand? There was no doubt that she had issues with law enforcement, and it was clear that only being trapped by societal convention kept her from saying anything.
"Hmm, so these are the sisters and the heiresses?" he asked curiously. "They don't look half bad."
Miss Xiao Long blinked and raised an eyebrow. "'Heiresses'? Plural?"
Blake coughed into her fist. "It's, uh, sort of up in the air about whether I'll inherit anything, actually."
"Ah, family issues," muttered Miss Xiao Long, looking away in shame.
"Well, whatever your issues are, you can leave them here," ordered Chief Burns with one finger pointed at the ground. "You're here to shadow us while we do rescue work, not to stare into your own navel, contemplating your family issues. There's people in danger out there, and they need our help. That means when you're on the clock, you have to give a hundred and ten percent, no slippage. Do you understand?"
"Sir, yes, sir!" chirped Miss Rose.
"You won't see me slacking," quipped Miss Xiao Long.
"I understand perfectly," replied Miss Schnee.
"Yes, teacher," confirmed Blake with a slight bow at the waist.
Chief Burns smiled. "That's great to hear. We'll get you settled at the station, and then it's off to the races."
Checking the security perimeter of Griffin Crest had seemed a bit pointless. A simple wooden fence? What could possibly have such a flimsy defense and yet warrant regular check ups?
"It's a refuge," Chief Burns said, breaking the silence.
"Hmm?" Yang looked at him curiously.
"Ann told you about this town, right?" he asked. "The whole research hub thing?"
"Mmhmm."
"Yeah, well, that kept on going after the war until today," he narrated as they finished their perimeter check. "But shortly after the war, someone figured out all this new tech could be dangerous, so they set up Griffin Crest as a safe haven. There's a magnetic pulse generator, shuts down all electronics that cross the perimeter, so if anything went rogue, we could all run here and be safe. Well, from the runaway tech, at least."
Right. Because Grimm were always a threat, at least on Remnant.
"Cool," she said noncommittally. She actually meant it, though. That actually was pretty cool.
"You've been awfully quiet," observed Chief Burns as they climbed back into his police car.
"Just trying to focus on the job," replied Yang calmly, looking out the window as he began driving back to town.
Is this what Adam feels like all the time? No wonder he walks around like he has a stick up his butt, thought Yang anxiously. I'd be uptight too if I had to deal with this sort of stress all the time.
"According to your file, your semblance involves lighting yourself on fire and then dishing out twice as much damage as you take," observed Burns in a reasonable tone that reminded Yang of her father. "Statistically, semblances usually are reflective of the wielder's personality in some way. Now, either you're putting on the quiet girl act for me, or you are one seriously troubled young lady."
"Maybe it's both," quipped Yang as she looked back at him and screamed in her head. Ahh! I sound like the world's most stereotypical teenager!
"Maybe," allowed Chief Burns, never letting his eyes stray from their job looking for threats outside. "I think it's the first one though. There was a big hubbub in Vale recently about a series of kidnappings before that bomb took all the newsies' attention. But my cousin, Jack, he's high up in NEST, and he mentioned how the Huntsmen swooped in and saved everyone. My guess is that you were wrapped up in all that, and that more specifically, you were friends with one of the people kidnapped."
Yang could feel her heart hammering in her chest and forced herself to be calm. She'd been a hair's breadth away from being discovered, and she hadn't had any trouble there before. So why start now?
Well, Chief Burns was a cop, not her teammate. If it was revealed she was a member of the White Fang to her team, she was more worried about what would happen to them than what would happen to her. Weiss would probably be all for it, and Blake would go right along with whatever Weiss wanted, which meant that the only real trouble spot was Ruby, and they were sisters who would work things out in the end. But if it was found out that they had known she was a member of the White Fang and didn't say anything, then they were sure to have their careers ruined and their names added to an SDC list to have what happened to Maple happen to them.
If Chief Burns found out she was a member of the White Fang though? ...Well, she'd be immediately arrested, and then after a trial period, she would have the book thrown at her to let the rest of humanity know that supporting the White Fang was never a good idea. Then, of course, either she would be martyred for the cause, or the Autobots would break her out, and either way, things would get very complicated after that.
"Maple," she replied honestly, an angry note starting to enter her voice. "Maple Tapper Bricks, the best friend I have outside the academy. The police wouldn't do a thing, not a dirty thing, to help find her or tell people that they were even trying to find her. And while they were twiddling their thumbs, the SDC was breaking hers. Her legs were crushed and her hands were pulverized. She's a mechanic; how on Remnant is she supposed to do her job without any limbs?!"
Chief Burns was quiet, his face as professional as ever. He didn't say anything, and neither did she. Soon her anger left her, and she looked away.
"I'm sorry, sir. That was wrong of me to blow up like that," apologized Yang, and genuinely too. "Your department isn't connected to Vale's at all. It's just... so frustrating. I'm the one who's supposed to be getting hurt, not her."
"Apology accepted," responded Burns. "Frankly, you won't get any pushback from me on how badly the Vale Police botched this. Missus Monotheer, one of the victims, she lives here, got nabbed while visiting her family in the city." He paused. "I don't think I'd qualify for jury duty if they ever manage to stumble into catching the perps, if you take my meaning."
Yang raised an eyebrow. "Whatever happened to the 'thin indigo line'?"
Chief Burns ignored the implied tribalistic stereotype and merely smiled. "Let's just say I have a foot in both camps."
He reached over and touched the big scroll mounted in the center console of the vehicle, and with only the tiniest fraction of attention spared, he was able to bring up a picture of his Huntsman license.
"I…" Yang worked her mind for an answer. "I don't know how to respond to that."
There was a chirp from the tab clipped to the chief's shirt collar. He reached up, pressed it, and a cavalcade of information was spat out. Yang was able to decipher it, but she needn't have bothered.
"Looks like some jokers have decided to rob the bakery with hover shoes," announced the chief. "Your head in the game for this?"
"Yes, sir," replied Yang, steeling herself for the upcoming conflict.
Just another day on the job for an Autobot special forces private.
She did wonder though if the rest of the team had managed to avoid the zaniness.
The garbage truck was on fire. That, by itself, would be a nightmare for Weiss, but it wasn't by itself. No, because the garbage truck was also a robot that was doing the cybernetic equivalent of panicking, it was also throwing its burning cargo everywhere while it howled through the town.
So, that was how Weiss ended up doing a ballerina twirl through the air over a general store while wearing a heavy firewoman's suit and encasing a flaming diaper in ice before it hit a pile of dry vegetation in someone's backyard.
About the only thing that could make it worse would have been if she was wearing a snowflake somewhere on her clothing.
"Hey, doing great, Weiss," encouraged Kade Burns from the comm clip the snowcapped girl was wearing as he drove the fire truck after the lit garbage bot.
Weiss stuck a graceful landing on the back of the truck before replying, "I'd be doing better if I could just freeze the thing."
"And get Mayor Luskey on our tails about destroying government property? Do you know many fluid lines in that thing you'd burst doing that?" Kade asked rhetorically. "No can do. You'll just have to put it out the old fashioned way: with the high pressure water hose while hanging on for dear life as we go round these corners."
Weiss grit her teeth as she continued to freeze the random pieces of burning trash being flung about while also using her glyphs to bring the hose up and anchor her feet to the top of the truck.
"Hey, Weiss, you're a famous singer, right?" Kade asked, breaking her focus briefly.
"So I've been told," she replied reflexively. Where did this come from?
"Cool. So, uh, could you go and sign a bunch of my stuff so that I could go and impress Haley?"
Weiss nearly dropped Myrtenaster as he took another hard turn, clutching at the fire truck's railing.
"No."
"Ah, well, can't blame a guy for trying."
Yes. Yes, I can. This is insane, thought Weiss as she sheathed her sword and then activated the hose… to immediately be hit by the recoil. I just hope Blake's keeping herself out of trouble.
"I thought you were a paramedic!" called out Blake over her shoulder and into her helmet's microphone to the VTOL's pilot as she hung onto the frame of the aircraft's side door and looked down upon part of the mountain that gave Griffin Rock its name.
"I am!" called back Danielle "Dani" Burns from the cockpit of the VTOL as she flew over the terrain. "I'm also the best qualified pilot on the island!"
Blake's eyes searched the area for the source of the emergency signal that had called them out here.
"Down there!" she called out.
"Good eyes!" Dani called back as she deftly maneuvered the VTOL to where they needed to be. "The ground's too rocky for us to land on, so you'll have to ride down with the gurney."
"Roger," confirmed Blake as she brought the emergency equipment out and began to lower herself down from the VTOL.
The target in this case was a man in a business suit wearing a helmet under his hat and some sort of rotorblade backpack. He was hanging on to a branch over a ledge close to a cliff, and his leg was bent at an odd angle. How he had managed to get onto the side of the mountain on the opposite of the island from where town was remained a mystery to Blake, though.
"Looks like Mister Harrison messed up his commute again," commented Dani. "He's really got to quit doing this."
As Blake reached the level of the distressed man, she couldn't help but find herself agreeing. He had been doing this more than once? Just how crazy was he?
"Please, save my backpack," pleaded Harrison desperately.
Very crazy, Blake decided.
"You know, if you had told me at the beginning of the semester that I'd be fixing a lawn mower as part of training to become a Huntress, I would have looked at you like 'whaaaaaaa?' 'Cause that's kind of crazy." chattered Ruby to her partner for the day.
"Everytime someone from Beacon comes here, they always say the same thing," chuckled Graham Burns as he tipped his hardhat. "People seem really surprised that there's more to do outside the cities than just kill Grimm, and engineering can help with so much of that."
"I get that now, believe me," said Ruby with a nod and a smile. "There's just one thing I don't get, though."
"Oh, what's that?" asked Graham cheerily.
Ruby gesticulated wildly at the mess in front of her. "How did a lawn mower cause all this?!"
They were on one of the paved roads cutting through the island's impressive coniferous forests, a forest which was now encroaching onto the road. Several trees, including one large one, had fallen on the road, blocking it off. The source of it was plain to see too, thanks to the car-sized outline in the treeline and the plentiful sawdust filling the air alongside the alluring scent of fresh cut wood.
"Well, you see," explained Graham, "lawn mowers are a bit different in Griffin Rock."
After two days of helping out around the surprisingly accident prone town, Team RWBY was finally in a situation where they could all be in the same spot and not be either sleeping or fighting some crazy emergency. Unfortunately, there was a catch. That catch was that they had to babysit young Cody Burns and Frankie Greene. That was no catch for some members of the team though.
"So you can light yourself on fire?" asked Frankie excitedly as they walked along the sidewalk.
Yang nodded with a confident grin. "Just like the sun."
"Noble!" cheered Cody. "Can we see?"
"Sure can!" replied Yang with a cocksure grin.
Blake recalled seeing Yang ablaze when pummelling those Ursai, way back during initiation before she'd made her own presence known. As far as semblances went, Blake had to admit that self-ignition seemed to fit Yang, regardless of how little she used it.
"She really is fitting into the caregiver role well," mused Weiss aloud as she and the other two present members of Team RRANNBWW stood back.
"Of course she is; she's Yang," said Ruby, as though that actually explained anything.
"Indeed," passively agreed Blake, not precisely agreeing with the sentiment but acquiescing to Ruby's longer held knowledge of the musclebound black sheep of the team.
Suddenly, her eyes caught sight of an old woman starting to walk across a crosswalk without looking both ways and with a speeding vehicle rushing towards her.
Blake had barely begun to yell before Yang was in action, firing her shot gauntlets to accelerate and launching herself into the path of the now braking vehicle. The blonde stopped, grabbed hold of the old woman, and then picked her up and carried her away. Meanwhile, Weiss was using her glyphs to slow down time around the oncoming wall of steel.
Yang got back to the sidewalk and placed the old lady on the ground, while Weiss allowed the glyphs to disappear. Blake and Ruby both rushed over, Ruby faster than Blake as always. The two kids seemed beside themselves with worry, but the old lady was in another world.
"Missus Monotheer! Are you alright?" pleaded Frankie.
"Oh, don't worry, child, just a little shook up," replied the woman cheerfully, and as she raised her hands, Blake resisted the urge to blanche at their bandages and far too few fingers. "Thanks for saving me again, Raven."
Yang froze, and even Blake felt her blood run cold as the air itself seemed to chill.
"What?" asked Yang flatly as even the kids started to catch on to something being wrong.
"Oh, I apologize. I haven't touched base at all," said the woman, seemingly oblivious to what was going on. "Have you finally made your move on that boy you have your eye on? The sweet blond boy with the blue eyes. What was his name again? Rath? Soontir? Maarek? No, Tai! That's right, his name was Taiyang. How is he?"
"He's great!" cut in Ruby quickly. "He's doing fine, really. Hey, do you need some help?"
"Yeah! We can help you get home, Missus Monotheer," offered Cody, picking up on the atmosphere.
"Oh, such nice children," cooed the old woman as she was led away by Cody and Frankie.
"You okay now?" asked Ruby compassionately.
"Yeah, I'm made of sterner stuff," said Yang as they began to follow after the children and the old woman from a safe distance.
Blake wasn't sure how to touch on that. After all, it was the touchiest subject around. One did not just touch a subject such as that.
"I… I guess it's just hard to believe a person like her is really Dad's wife," said Ruby into the void.
Blake nearly tripped over herself as her brain processed that. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Ruby shrugged. "Dad never divorced Raven before he married Summer."
The black-haired woman felt bile start to raise from her gut as the implications sank in.
"Wait, so does that mean that he was married to two women at the same time for seven years?" asked Weiss, clearly feeling the same way her friend did.
Ruby stopped and turned to look at her with a curious expression. "That is what I said, stated differently, yes."
Blake felt the need to reply there: "That's..."
"Legal in Vale?" interrupted Ruby. "Also, technically, yes."
"'Revolting,' Ruby," cut in Yang before looking at the monochromatic half of the team. "They were going to say 'revolting,' right?"
Slowly Blake and Weiss both nodded. It was indeed an accurate summation of how they felt, even if they were both too polite to say anything. After all, when in Vale at least try to tolerate the Valish, as the saying went.
Yang pivoted to look at Ruby sternly. "And I agree with them. Dad should have divorced Raven when she ran out on him, and married mom with a clean slate. Not doing that was a mistake."
"Yeah, but Raven and Mom weren't exactly sharing a bed with him. She was gone into the wilderness that whole time," pointed out Ruby, looking down with a flushed face. "The whole 'legally married to two women' thing was just a legal fiction; it didn't actually exist. No harm, no foul, right?"
"Ceremonies have power, Ruby," insisted Yang, clearly about to begin another rant. "By not severing connections, Dad made it clear to Mom that his heart was in two places, and that wasn't right. It isn't right that he still, to this day, has not divorced her. It isn't right that if anything happens to him, that brigand will get his assets. It isn't right that she could waltz back into our lives at any time, and the only way we'd be able to save ourselves is to run away. It isn't right that to this day, on every legal document that asks for it, I have to list that monster as my mother and my actual mother as my stepmom like she's just some accessory tacked on to the family! She deserves better than that!"
It was a strange thought to have at that time, but Blake reflected on just how much damage losing a parent could do to a person. Yang had lost Summer, and it had clearly devastated her to the point where it was a constant wound that just seemed to keep getting picked at by circumstance. Seeing that terrible existence… well, it tempted her to see her two living parents again, no matter how shameful it would be.
"I'm sorry," whimpered Ruby, looking at the ground.
Yang's face fell and after another pause she went and embraced Ruby. "...No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let my temper get the better of me like that. I wish Dad would just get off his butt and file the paperwork, but it's something to be annoyed about, not angry. It's just my own fears that somehow, she's just going to walk through that door and into our lives again. We're safe though. You're safe."
Again, Ruby muttered more than spoke, "Yeah..."
Looking at their opposite and nodding, Blake and Weiss both silently agreed to catch up with the kids. The last thing they needed was to get dragged into the family drama of the little dragons. This was especially true because they had their own family drama to worry about.
Life was one of her mother's soap operas it seemed.
Griffin Rock had an extensive defense network, designed to fend off not just the Grimm, but also corporate spies and even other kingdoms' special forces. It boasted some of the most advanced technology in Vale, complete with a pair of giant sea serpent robots from Starhead Industrial Company. And yet, somehow, inevitably, the Grimm had breached them.
The good news? It was only one Grimm.
The bad news?
Kade shaded his eyes and craned his neck up to look at the Petra Gigas as it stomped its way toward the town.
"How the heck did that thing get past the doc's defense net?" he demanded.
"It's a Grimm," his father replied. "It's in its job description. The Geist probably smuggled itself in and assembled a new body on-site. How do you want to play this, Ann?"
"Let the kids handle it for now," the Beacon professor suggested. "If they still haven't killed it before it gets within, say, five hundred feet of town, we go in and mop up."
"Ooh," Kade said, wincing. "Mayor Luskey's not gonna like that. Not one bit."
"He's free to file a complaint with the headmaster," was her reply.
Ahead of them, Team RWBY approached the Petra Gigas. Ann raised a curious eyebrow as the team separated. Miss Xiao Long moved straight in, while the other three spread out to flank. It was a fairly basic approach, but something was off about their coordination.
When Miss Xiao Long charged the Petra Gigas, long before the rest of the team could possibly be in position, she revised that estimation. There wasn't anything wrong with their coordination. There was something wrong with her coordination with the others.
"Yang, wait!" Miss Rose called out desperately, but it was too late. The blonde was already striking the golem-like Grimm around the legs.
Caught off-guard, the rest of Team RWBY tried to engage. Miss Rose brought her sniper-scythe up and fired, likely trying to draw the Grimm's attention, while the other two shifted their momentum to draw themselves closer to the Petra Gigas, Miss Schnee with her glyph semblance and Miss Belladonna using her weapon as a grappling hook on the plentiful trees around.
Miss Xiao Long paid no heed to her teammates, however, somersaulting back as it punched down at her.
"Come on!" she called mockingly as she recoil-boosted back toward the Grimm and ran up its stony arm to give the Grimm's bony face - the only visible part that was truly part of the Grimm - a pair of blasts with her shot-gauntlets, letting the recoil push her away. The Petra Gigas stumbled back, swinging its arms wildly, but the blonde recoil boosted again, this time straight up.
No, not quite straight up, Ann realized as Miss Xiao Long began her descent toward the Petra Gigas, blasting at it on her way down.
She's still quite free with her ammunition, noted the professor. On the other hand, it is allowing her to maintain her maneuverability against a powerful enemy.
It was a bit of a surprise to see Miss Xiao Long take such an acrobatic approach. Against something with the size and strength of a Petra Gigas, maneuver warfare was certainly the appropriate tactic, but it still surprised Ann to see Miss Xiao Long adapt so quickly. In class, certainly, the girl had demonstrated little care for grace or subtlety, but it seemed that had been a lack of application, rather than a lack of ability.
Now I see underneath the underneath, she mused thoughtfully. So where did she pick up such talents?
Her gaze flicked over to Miss Rose, but the young prodigy seemed just as surprised. So, not something the team had trained and kept secret as an ace in the hole or something from back home.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Miss Belladonna and Miss Schnee, at that point, had caught up with the fight. Miss Schnee twirled her dust rapier, and with a flicker of aura and a precise application of dust, ice formed around the Petra Gigas's feet, pinning it in place. It twisted in confusion, allowing Miss Belladonna to wrap her weapon around its arm and slingshot herself up toward its head, firing repeatedly. She suddenly leaped back, activating her semblance and leaving a clone in her place, as the Petra Gigas tried to strike her, and the clone exploded, freezing the arm in place.
Ice dust channeled through her semblance, observed Ann clinically. Her protege was largely disinclined to use dust - it certainly got expensive over time, and its largest supplier was hardly someone a member of the White Fang, former or otherwise, would be inclined to offer patronage to - but apparently, her friendship with Miss Schnee had... loosened her stinginess somewhat.
It was certainly working well to immobilize the Grimm. Miss Rose recoil boosted into the air, lining up a shot... just as Miss Xiao Long spoiled the shot and delivered a devastating shotgun blast enhanced punch to the Grimm's bony face, shattering it. The rest of the Petra Gigas's golem-like body stood frozen for a moment... before, with the Grimm holding it together dead, it began to fall to the ground, piece by piece.
"Ha!" Miss Xiao Long cheered as she landed. "That's gonna leave a mark."
"Yaaang!" Miss Rose complained as she too landed and sped toward her sister in a burst of flower petals. "You spoiled my shot!"
The blonde laughed good-naturedly. "Sorry about that, Rubes, but I saw an opening, so I took it."
Well, Ann decided, oddities aside, they performed quite well.
"And there they go," observed Weiss as Kade drove off with Yang and Ruby. The two girls were heading into town to do some shopping. Yang needed to replenish her supply of gravity dust shells, and Ruby... well, Ruby wanted to see what kind of crazy weapons they made in this town. Kade had said something about needing to pick up some stuff himself and offered to drive them.
Chief Burns was in his office, Graham was in his workshop, and Dani and Cody were watching TV, leaving the two maybe heiresses to their own devices.
Concerned amber eyes looked into ice blue. "Weiss," said Blake, "can we talk?"
"Of course."
Blake shook her head. "Not here. Our room." She turned to head for the stairs.
"Okay..." agreed Weiss warily as she followed.
A few minutes later, they entered the room Team RWBY was staying in, and Weiss sat on her bed. Blake closed the door behind them and leaned against it for a moment, locking it. Then, she wordlessly walked over to her own bed and sat down opposite Weiss. It had been remarkably easy to pick beds when they'd arrived; they'd just stuck with the same positions they had at Beacon, which conveniently meant that Blake and Weiss had the bottom bunks.
The snowcapped girl was the one to break the silence.
"What's wrong, Blake?"
"I'm not sure," admitted the raven-haired girl. "It's just... that fight against the Petra Gigas. Did anything seem... off to you? About Yang?"
Weiss tilted her head as she thought back to the battle, then shook her head. "Not really. I mean, we can't exactly expect her to coordinate properly with us, since she hasn't been with us on the Rainbow missions. She did surprisingly well, actually. Given her personality and usual performance in combat course, I would have expected her to take a hit here and there."
"She didn't allow it," Blake said. "She knew one solid hit would probably take her down. But she stayed in the air, stayed moving the whole time. Constant maneuvering coupled with explosive power. Same way she caught Sun way back when."
"So what's your point?"
"So... where'd she learn to fight like that? That's not how she fought during initiation. Remember the Giant Nevermore?"
Weiss thought back. Yang's tactics there had... not been subtle. Standing on the highest point to shoot at the enemy and then jumping into its mouth to blast it at point blank range was the opposite of subtle.
Granted, Ruby's plan had called for her to lure it down, but she'd started that before Ruby had even come up with the plan.
"What are you suggesting?"
"I... I don't know," admitted Blake again. "I just... something feels off, Weiss. Wrong. I can't put my finger on it, but... remember how Yang reacted when Maple brought up Raven Branwen? And when that old lady mistook her for her?"
"Yes?" Weiss confirmed, not sure where this was going. "I did some digging on Raven. Yang's reaction is perfectly understandable."
"Maybe..." allowed Blake, sounding unconvinced. "It's just... it's becoming a pattern, that flash of temper, followed by apologizing with some excuse because a certain topic set her off? It- it reminds me of Adam, any time I questioned him."
"Blake, I'm not sure if you're aware, but Raven Branwen is a bandit who literally murders people for fun and profit," Weiss reminded her. "As opposed to figuratively like my father. I imagine I'd react much the same in her shoes. And I'd say there's a difference between 'one topic' and 'any time someone disagreed.'"
"Yeah, but if there's one thing I learned from Sensei Storm Shadow, it's to trust my instincts," Blake persisted, "and my instincts are telling me that Yang's hiding something. Something dark, something like Adam."
Weiss scoffed. "We're all hiding something, Blake," she reminded her friend. "That doesn't make us your ex. In this line of business, that's inevitable." She stood up and crossed the distance between them, pulling Blake up into a hug... and reaching up to feel her forehead. "Are you sure you're okay?"
She was worried about her friend. Ever since she'd come back to Beacon, Blake had seemed obsessed with her ex. If she hadn't started dating Sun, Weiss would have been wondering just how over Adam she really was. In fact, Weiss still wondered that.
In her estimation, Blake was obsessing over Adam as much as Blake seemed to think Yang was obsessing over Raven.
Blake's bow flattened in irritation. "I'm not sick, Weiss. I'm just-"
"You're worried," Weiss finished, pulling her hand away and wrapping her arms around her friend, patting her on the back comfortingly. "I get that. But there's no point driving yourself crazy over it. She's Ruby's sister, she practically raised her from the way they talk. Do you think if something really were wrong, Ruby wouldn't notice?"
"Maybe she's too close to see it," insisted Blake.
"Or... maybe this whole thing is getting to you," Weiss countered. "You really don't know Yang very well - neither of us do - for all that we've roomed together for close to a year now. But you came straight to Beacon from the White Fang, and then from that into this whole situation with my father and the Decepticons... Blake, can't you see? For years, your life has been filled with fear and paranoia - warranted, obviously! - but it's coloring your vision."
Blake melted into the hug and sighed. "Maybe you're right."
"Of course I am," Weiss agreed haughtily. "After all, I'm me."
Blake pulled back and glared at her, flicking her nose. "Don't you start."
Weiss met her glare with a regal expression for a long moment before the two collapsed into giggles. After a moment, they returned to their respective beds.
"Speaking of my life," Blake mused curiously, laying on her bed and staring at the bottom of Yang's bunk, "I heard from Mister Xiao Long that I was in a news blurb a few years ago?"
"Oh!" Weiss cried, sitting up and grabbing her scroll, flicking through it. "I think I remember that from when I was researching…" She looked up. "You know, you were adorable when you were younger."
"A lot of children are adorable when they're small," deadpanned Blake, not bothering to look over. "I bet you were adorable when you were young too."
"Thank you. I tried."
Blake raised an eyebrow but didn't press. "Were there other pictures you found?"
"Yes, I even found videos… including a clip of your mother crying after you ran away. They thought you had been kidnapped."
Blake rolled over and buried her face in her pillow. "...I'm a terrible daughter."
"I mean… you're not alone there," Weiss pointed out. "I've been a terrible daughter too."
Blake lifted her head and craned her neck to look at her friend. "Weiss, your father is evil, and your mother is an abusive drunk. You being a terrible daughter is a mark in your favor, not against it."
Weiss opened her mouth, then closed it again, unsure how to respond to that. So she didn't. Instead, she decided to bring up a different topic.
"Do you ever think about them?" she asked softly. "I mean, do you ever think about writing them, letting them know what's going on?"
"All the time," Blake replied, sitting and pulling her knees up to her chest, staring at the bed, "but... I'm too ashamed. After the things I've done, the people I've hurt. I practically spat in their faces and called them cowards."
"From what I've learned about them, they'd forgive you in a heartbeat."
"I know," agreed Blake with an abbreviated nod, "but that's why I won't. Not until I can forgive myself." She snorted. "Besides, what would I even tell them? That I've quit the White Fang, joined Beacon? That I'm involved in a covert war against giant alien robots? That my best friend is Weiss Schnee, Heiress of the Schnee Dust Company?" She shook her head and laughed. "They'd never believe that. If I wrote them a letter saying that, they'd think it was a forgery."
Weiss gave a weak chuckle. "Right. I can see that."
As they got closer to their destination, Blake was starting to wonder if it had been a mistake to ask Professor Greene about her brother. She wasn't normally curious about her professors' family lives, and it was a question that would inevitably be seen as odd, to say the least, but with the mystery of Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, Blake hadn't seen another option. She had to figure out what had actually happened. Lives were literally on the line.
Besides, the curiosity was killing her.
That was what led to her sneaking out in the middle of the night to join Professor Greene, who was now driving them to her brother's lab.
It also gave her a bit of time to be alone and get some space. Ever since she'd returned from training with Storm Shadow, Weiss had been a bit... clingy. And worried. She wondered if this was karma - or perhaps revenge - for how she'd coddled the snowcapped girl previously.
She had a lot of karma to pay back, after all.
"Just remember, Miss Belladonna," Professor Greene said as she pulled the car to a stop, "around here, common sense isn't, especially among eggheads like my brother."
Blake stared up at the lab, an orange building with large windows and... peculiar architectural choices. With the car locked up, Professor Greene joined her, and they walked up the steps to the front doors, which slid open as they approached.
Standing there, hands on his hips and a broad smile on his lips was a man with dark skin and dreadlocks wearing black gloves and boots and a white lab coat over a disheveled-looking purple dress shirt and blue pants, an eye-searing polka dot tie hanging loose around his neck.
"Well, well, sis," he greeted her cheerfully. "Good to see you! Surprised you had time to come by, what with your students and all."
"Hey, bro," Professor Greene said. She glanced over at Blake. "This is actually one of my students, Blake Belladonna. She's top of the class. By which I mean she's already at least two years ahead of the rest of her classmates. Miss Belladonna, this is my brother, Doctor Ezra Greene."
"A pleasure to meet you, sir," Blake greeted. Her gaze flicked over to Professor Greene, with her fair skin, red hair, and green eyes, then back to Dr. Greene, with his dark brown skin and black hair graying at the temples. She idly wondered which one was the adopted one - assuming it wasn't a half-sibling thing like Ruby and Yang - but that didn't really matter, so she shelved the thought as the three of them entered the lab and took seats around a coffee table.
"Either of you want anything to drink? A snack?" he offered. "I can have Dither get you something, if you like?"
Both of them declined.
"So, top of the class, huh?" Dr. Greene said, eyes glittering with interest. "Must be something pretty special for her to bring you here, Miss Belladonna."
"She was actually wanting to know about our old friend, Storm Shadow," explained Professor Greene.
"Oh, wow," Dr. Greene exclaimed with a chuckle. "That was an interesting day. Let me tell you, anti-gravity infused lobsters? Bad idea." He leaned back. "Storm Shadow... he's not a talkative man. Very intense, very professional."
"Did he... ever say anything about his past?" Blake asked tentatively.
Dr. Greene shook his head. "Nope. Totally closed-mouth on that. I kind of got the impression it was a touchy subject for him."
Well, there went that line of inquiry.
"How's that new danger room you've been working on?" Professor Greene asked.
"It's not a 'danger room,'" he protested. "It's the Digital Analytic Neuroresponsive Graded Engagement Room.".
Wait, Blake thought. Doesn't that spell...
"So calling it the DANGER room would be a tautology," he added. "And for your information, it's just about ready for live testing. Why?"
Professor Greene looked over at Blake. "What do you say, Miss Belladonna? Care to take a shot at the latest and greatest in training equipment? I daresay even Miss Schnee or your friend Miss Nikos have never had an opportunity to train with technology like this."
Blake perked up at that, then frowned. "Is that... safe?"
"There's nothing to worry about!" assured Dr. Greene as he got up and started leading them deeper into the lab. "Follow me. I'll get the recording equipment set up so I can get some baselines down."
As they followed, Professor Greene leaned over to Blake and whispered, "Probably. Ezra's experiments tend to get out of hand, but they're generally not lethal."
"That's... comforting."
This, Skywarp thought as he approached the island under cover of night, is ridiculous.
Barricade had been digging through local history and records in search of his grand Autobot conspiracy, and he'd found hints of some sort of technology that he was certain could be a threat to the Decepticon cause. His cranial bolts were clearly coming loose, but Starscream had ordered Skywarp to investigate anyway.
What technological secrets could some old human facility possibly be harboring?
He flew low and slow, dangerously close to his alt-mode's stall speed, before kicking in the anti-gravity generators to slow down even further. This was supposed to be a discreet reconnaissance mission, after all; no point in announcing his presence with a sonic boom. That was more Thundercracker's schtick. He idly wondered how the other Seeker was doing these days, bonded with that human creation, surrounded by humans, not even able to transform out of his alt-mode for cycles upon cycles at a time...
He shuddered at the thought.
He remembered what it felt like to be restrained by a mode lock, back before the war. Teleportation had made theft so easy back on Cybertron, but CySec had eventually caught up to him. After the war started, it had proven useful, both in combat and in allowing him to penetrate secured locations, even if he'd proven completely hopeless at any real special operations training.
On a planet like this, though, where everything was so small... well, it was a little hard to teleport into a secure facility when you didn't fit in the hallways.
With his anti-gravity generators, Skywarp hovered in place outside Griffin Crest for a moment before transforming. He looked around, noting with amusement the primitive wooden fence barring the way - it was short enough he could easily step over it if he were inclined - and the many signs warning about loss of scroll signal flanking the road. Withdrawing the magnetic resonance meter Starscream had issued him, he began scanning.
He frowned, glancing up at the spot demarcated by the wooden fence, then back down to the magres meter.
"This thing must be busted," he mused aloud. Still...
Cautiously, he reached out an arm and poked a finger through the air over the wooden fence...
...and froze, his systems locking up briefly, until he fell back and out of the field.
"Slag it," he cursed. "Barricade's never gonna shut up about this."
There was definitely some sort of magpulse generator at work here, rendering the area an electronic dead zone... and a paralytic to transformers. Barricade was convinced it was a measure to protect Vale's ultra top secret research from espionage, that there was a section in the center of the dead zone where the field was neutralized in order to allow the most volatile, most secret research to be conducted, contained should they go wrong and impossible to spy on electronically.
Reluctantly, Skywarp had to admit that Barricade actually might be onto something here.
Of course, investigating further meant finding and disabling the magpulse generator somehow.
Yang was awoken from her slumber by a slight pulsing in the outwardly fabric bracelet she'd taken to wearing just in case of a situation just like this: alone at night, surrounded by her team, and with duty calling.
She opened her eyes and checked around, finding Blake missing and Weiss and Ruby still fast asleep in the fire station's barracks. Carefully and silently, she left her bed and padded over to her bag to fish out her work scroll. She'd finally taken the plunge and switched out her old burner scroll for something a bit more Cybertronian, complete with a whole suite of security features so that not only would no one be able to open it, but she would be able to find out the identities of everyone who tried.
She collected the scroll and carefully padded out of the room to find a secure place to receive the message. Luckily she found it in the bathroom. Typical, absolutely typical.
"Sunfire here," she whispered into the scroll when she had gotten secure.
"Sunfire, this is Optimus Prime," said a comfortingly familiar voice over the line. "Are you still on Griffin Rock Island?"
"Yes, Optimus," she answered easily. "Do I need to get off it for a mission?"
That would be tricky, but she thought she could manage it.
"No, just the opposite," replied Optimus Prime. "Sensors detected a single Seeker heading towards the island not long ago. It might already be there. Purpose: unknown."
"Whatever it is, it can't be good," reasoned Yang as she put together the likely places for a Decepticon to target. "Can I expect reinforcements?"
"Not at the moment," admitted Optimus Prime. "Most of our forces are otherwise occupied, but myself and Silverbolt were on the mainland nearby when we got the information. We are en route now. Stand by to receive enemy approach vector."
Yang glanced at her scroll's screen, and her eyes widened slightly.
"Optimus, that path leads directly to an active magnetic pulse generator. Any electronics past the fence get disabled," she informed her leader.
"Then it seems you are our best hope for finding out the truth of this matter," reasoned Optimus. "Good luck, Sunfire."
Dressing while her team slept was surprisingly routine, as was slipping out of the fire station. She had gotten plenty of practice with the rest of her team, after all. It wasn't until she got out into the forest that she changed up the routine.
From a pouch she produced two cases, not unlike those used for sunglasses, but while one did contain devices similar to those, the other was of a more clandestine purpose. The first case she unpacked was for a pair of glasses that she put over her eyes, which were soon illuminated by the hidden light of her heads-up display. The second case contained the White Fang mask that Adam had given her about a week ago, and it was something she placed over her optics with great care.
She really did feel more at ease once her guise of Sunfire was truly complete.
A few minutes of running through the forest and over crevasses later, Yang found herself on the dead end road that led to the safe zone. Safe, ironically, more to this threat than the normal Grimm incursions that everywhere else on Remnant faced.
Seriously, Griffin Rock was just plain weird.
She switched back into the woods and crouched down to sneak up. She could hear him then, the Seeker, clomping around. He was making an awful racket for someone who had snuck in so well.
Well, not quite as well as he thought he did, clearly.
"Hmm… how to get in?" wondered aloud the purple and grey Deception. "Think, Skywarp, think! There's supposed to be an abandoned lead mine on this island. Maybe if I went and got some of that, I could make an electromagnetic shield?"
Yang crept out of the woods slowly, her whole body coiling like a spring while her arms went out.
"I'd look ridiculous," contemplated Skywarp. "But then again who's going to see it but me?"
The blonde fired Ember Celica, twisted in mid air, and fired again to bring her feet slamming into the back of Skywarp's knee.
"Oh, no, not again!" screamed Skywarp as he toppled towards the fence that divided the land into places that were and weren't covered in a distorting magnetic field.
A split second before he hit, though, he managed to teleport away, only to appear behind Yang. Yang spun to see him leveling his arm-mounted cannons at her... then hesitate before switching gears and stomping at her with his foot.
She smirked as she dove aside. "What's the matter?" she taunted. "'Discharge failure'? Happens to everyone, I hear."
The Decepticon growled. "I don't think either of us really want an audience, do we?"
Yang tilted her head at that and couldn't exactly disagree. As crazy as it was, Griffin Rock was a nice little town, and she didn't want to think what would happen if word of the Decepticons - or the White Fang, for that matter - being here got out.
"Okay then, I can play by those rules," said Yang as she deployed her blades from Ember Celica and took up a stance she'd seen Optimus Prime use and that Bumblebee had taught her.
Skywarp winced. "Can't you just repeatedly punch me in the brain module like you did to Barricade? My fingers still hurt from when that Raven lady and her lackey cut them."
With a crack and a blink of the eye, Yang was in the Decepticon's face. "How do you know that name?!"
Skywarp teleported away again and grabbed a tree that he ripped out of the ground and held up like a staff. "Hey, she just formed a temporary alliance with Starscream, got betrayed by him, and then foiled his plans. What's the big deal? We've all done it."
Yang leapt again and cut the makeshift staff's leafiest third off with a hideous roar. "The big deal is that you Decepticons have actually managed to stoop even so low as to be associated with that monster."
Skywarp backed up and shifted his grip on the tree from that of a staff into that of a sword. "This is... not the direction I thought this conversation would go."
"How did you think it was going to go?" she growled as she advanced on him.
"I don't know." Skywarp shrugged. "You're Sunfire right? I expected a bit of banter and brain module damage, not a lecture on how not all humans who wear Grimm masks are the same."
"Faunus," corrected Yang automatically, echoing Adam. "The White Fang are majority faunus."
Skywarp swung the tree down and tried to hit Yang while she dodged out of the way. "Yeah, no. I've heard about this, and I'm calling titan scrap on it. You people are just trying to gaslight us with the whole faunus thing."
Yang stumbled as she dodged another swing. "You can't be serious."
"Faunus. Don't. Exist," clarified Skywarp as he dodged a swing from the little human's blades. "They're a myth, made up, a fantasy, and I ain't falling for it. Barricade might have been right about there being a secret laboratory inside that magnetic field, but that he thinks faunus are real just proves how crazy he is."
"Wait, that's why you're here?" asked Yang with a puzzled expression visible on her mouth beneath the mask.
"Of course," confirmed Skywarp. "I'm going to steal all this island's valuable secrets and then bring them back to Lord Megatron so I can get assigned to someplace with fewer crazy people."
"I'll take that as a confession."
Yang froze as Chief Charlie Burns stepped out of the treeline, rifle in hand. He seemed… perturbed. Considering how calm he usually was, that was terrifying.
Skywarp turned to guard himself against both humans. "Who are you?"
"Chief Charlie Burns, Griffin Rock Police," the law enforcement Huntsman introduced himself. "And you just confessed to attempting to steal government property, which is a crime. Therefore, I'm obligated to bring you in."
"Oh no, you're not getting me back in the clink, copper!" declared Skywarp threateningly. "I'm out, and I'm staying out!"
Skywarp tossed the tree at them, and they were forced to dodge. The log crashed into the treeline, and the Decepticon leapt up into the air to fire his blasters down at them. They dodged those, and Burns began to fire his rifle up at his opponent while Yang fired off multiple recoil boosts to fly up and deliver another punch to his leg.
She stayed on, firing her shot gauntlets into him, before Skywarp vanished from her grip, teleporting a short distance away and leaving her in freefall. She then redirected her descent and fired off a plethora of micro missiles while dropping into position to cover the chief if he needed it.
"You know, assaulting an officer of the law is another crime," quipped Burns in between bursts from his rifle. "As is resisting arrest."
"Oh please, do you really expect me to submit myself to your laws?" asked Skywarp sarcastically as he came down onto the ground.
Burns paused and raised an eyebrow. "How many criminals do?"
"Well, there was this one bot I met back before the war who… no! You won't distract me!" declared Skywarp as he once more aimed his arm cannons. "I will destroy you and Sunfire!"
A truck horn blast, clear and invigorating, split the air, and Skywarp's expression fell.
"Ah, scrap, I'm not getting paid nearly enough to fight a Prime," admitted the Decepticon before leaping into the air again and transforming into a knockoff Skystriker. "We'll call it a draw!"
With a roar, the jet flew away, and Yang was left alone with the chief of police. The mask might have been enough to fool Skywarp, but she'd spent days with every member of the Burns family, and she wasn't exactly covering up her hair or using a voice modulator. The jig really was up.
A voice came through her earpiece. "Sunfire, be advised, the Seeker has left the area. I'm sending Silverbolt to pursue, and I'm heading to the original coordinates."
She couldn't reply, but she kicked the transmitter onto maximum sensitivity anyway, hoping that Optimus would hear what was going on and not approach.
"Yang, care to explain to me exactly what is going on?" asked Chief Burns seriously, turning to her but keeping his distance and his rifle ready.
"I think you already know," she answered in a somber tone.
Burns raised an eyebrow. "You've been on this island for nearly a week, and you think I would be able to come up with a single lone explanation for all of this?"
Yang opened her mouth and raised a finger, about to reply, closed it, and lowered her hand. "Okay, that's a good point. Still, I'm not exactly cleared to tell you or anyone else what's going on."
"Well, what are you cleared to tell me?" asked the chief. "Because it sounded to me like you and Mister Two-Bit Crook back there had history, and part of that history involved you being a member of the White Fang. Thing is, I know enough about the White Fang to know they don't admit humans into their ranks, not anymore. So, that means you're either playing a bit, in which case you are far stupider than anyone could have possibly imagined, or something's changed, and you really are a member of a faunus supremacist terrorist organization."
The blonde raised an eyebrow of her own that didn't get past her mask, even as her heart thudded in her chest and sweat began to come down her body like she was standing in a shower. "That fights giant alien robots bent on galactic domination. There's a lot more going on here than meets the eye. Things have changed."
She had decided long ago that if it came down to it and she was forced into just this position, she would have to admit to being a member of the White Fang before admitting to being an Autobot. It wasn't that she wanted to throw the White Fang under the bus, but they were already a known quantity, and if people thought she was only a member of that organization they wouldn't look further and discover her friends from out of town. If they were discovered because of her… well, Yang would never be able to forgive herself. The fate of the Autobot cause hung in the balance, and her every word counted.
"Not that much," countered Chief Burns. "If you really are, somehow, a member of the White Fang, then I'm going to have to arrest you for supplying material support and resources to a designated terrorist organization under the Valean Kingdom Legal Code. I'm given a lot of leeway, but I'm not going to use it to protect a terrorist who's been sleeping under the same roof as me and my family. That… honestly, Yang, just how on Remnant can you possibly think this is a good idea?"
"What, joining the Fang?" she asked rhetorically. "Why not? The Vale White Fang has turned itself around; I'm helping them turn themselves around. We're fighting the good fight, not firebombing restaurants."
"Do you have any idea how naive you sound?" he demanded in anger, his eyes boring into hers even through the mask and screens. "That you, one person, could turn a whole organization around? That's just pure unmitigated hubris. The thing I want to know is if the rest of your team is in on this."
"No," answered Yang instantly, truthfully. "I want to keep them out of this. You must have heard Ruby this week talk about how much she hates the White Fang, and I don't want to hurt Weiss. That she's a Schnee doesn't change that."
"And Blake's family history means she would hate the White Fang too, as if her saying as much to my face wasn't confirmation enough," finished Chief Burns. "So, you're secretly moonlighting as a White Fang agent, and while I don't want to sound like a broken record, I want to impress upon you just how monumentally stupid this all is. Just by one measure, when - not if - your team finds out, your relationship with them is going to be destroyed. Is this 'good fight' of yours worth making your sister look at you in disgust for the rest of her life?"
"She'll have a life, so yes," replied Yang with conviction.
Chief Burns closed his eyes and sighed. "Am I really going to have to do this, Yang?"
"Take me in?" she asked in turn. "I guess so. I won't fight you."
"And why's that?" asked the chief, his eyes open.
Before Yang could reply, the silence was interrupted by a red truck cab coming up the dirt road at great speed. It came up and, before their eyes, transformed into the familiar and comforting vistage of Optimus Prime. Yang resisted the urge to curse at that.
"And who are you?" asked Chief Burns, remarkably calm.
"My name is Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, and Private Yang Xiao Long's commanding officer," the big red bot introduced himself with that fatherly rumble. "If you have quarrel with her, I beg clemency, for all that has happened has been under my orders. I am responsible and culpable, not her."
What made her think that Optimus wouldn't do something stupid and heroic? What in all the time she had known him made her think that? Of course he was going to roll to the rescue.
"All right," allowed Chief Burns. "Since you've clearly got clearance to tell me what in the world is going on, please do so."
Yang winced. This was going to end badly…
"I can't believe that worked," Yang said aloud in clear disbelief.
"You've said that three times already," pointed out Chief Burns with a chuckle as they once more drove down the road to the town with him in the driver's seat and her in the passenger seat next to him.
"And I'll keep on saying it, because it's true," declared Yang, her tone not changing.
"Heh, teenagers, always making a mountain out of a molehill," said Chief Burns with a shake of his head. At her shocked stare he continued, "It's simple, once me and Optimus were able to sit down and discuss things in an open and honest way like rational adults, we were able to see that we were both on the same side and that there was no need for fighting. No fuss, no muss."
"I..." Yang stumbled for the words. "I suppose I should be grateful."
"But you're in shock right now," finished Chief Burns in a caring tone. "That's okay. Perfectly understandable, really. You're gonna wanna shake it off though before we get back, or that's just going to raise questions."
"Yeah, yeah… yeah!" repeated Yang as her gaze shifted once more to what was going on outside the police car, or at least what the headlights and street lamps illuminated. She had already stowed her gear away, and so couldn't see in the dark like she normally could.
After a brief silence, Chief Burns spoke again, "You know, sooner or later, you're going to have to have to come to a decision about where your loyalties lie, and I speak from experience about these things. Now, you have three possibilities. Number one: You choose to either go all in as Sunfire and give up life at Beacon or give up the ten million year war and live at Beacon full time. Number two: You have a frank discussion with your team where you tell them what's going on, and you come to an agreeable compromise. Number three: You keep on the path you're on right now, and the secrets and lies catch you in a snare that you'll have to cut your own legs off to get out of. There's nothing wrong about what you're doing, Yang, but this ambiguity, this dual identity stuff, that's going to bite you where it hurts, especially when you have a foot in two opposing camps and neither knows where your other foot is."
"...I understand," allowed Yang.
"You don't have to decide right now, but you do have to decide, and decide soon," clarified Burns.
Yang didn't have much to say after that, and soon after, they came into the fire station. Surprisingly enough, they weren't the only ones. Professor Greene was pulling in too, and Blake was with her.
All parties got out of their vehicles, and Blake advanced on them. "Hey, what were you doing out this late?" she asked, amber eyes glittering with curiosity and a hint of suspicion.
Before Yang could reply, Chief Burns spoke up.
"We saw something moving about in the woods and decided to check it out," said the chief easily. "Turns out, some joker was trying to get into Griffin Crest, but he went running when we showed up."
"Ugh, again?" complained Professor Greene. "People have got to stop trying to do that."
"Well, the attempts have dropped off significantly since you moved away," countered the chief.
The two shared a laugh and then motioned towards the door.
"Come on, girls, you've got another big day ahead of you," said Chief Burns with a smile, and as they went in, he gave Yang a brief wink.
Silently, Yang sent up a little prayer of thanks. After all, she'd dodged a bullet today. A lot of bullets, really. She'd have to pay Chief Burns back someday by following through on his advice.
Later, though. At that moment, she just wanted to get some uninterrupted sleep.
After such an exhausting time running from emergency to emergency in Griffin Rock, Team RWBY was glad to be hauling themselves back to the landing pad for the flight back to Beacon. It had definitely been a learning experience, one that had shown them a completely different side to being a Huntress than fighting Grimm or Decepticons.
It was also... unexpectedly fulfilling. It was one thing to fight Grimm and save lives that way, but helping people who weren't too scared out of their wits to show gratitude... there was something immensely satisfying about it.
Just as they were about to board the Bullhead, a man with rectangular-framed glasses and wearing a red three-piece suit over a white shirt and blue tie rushed up to them, microphone in hand, hover-camera floating behind him.
"Team Ruby?" he called, and they turned. "Huxley Prescott. Is it true that you're a team from Beacon?"
"Uh, yes?" Ruby confirmed, confused.
"Then is it possible then that you know the great hero General James Ironwood, savior of Vale?" he asked.
The four Huntresses looked at each other in confusion at the question, and Ruby's eyes lingered briefly on her sister before she turned to Mr. Prescott.
"Well, we've met," she allowed.
"Wonderful!" he said. "What about the legendary Team Juniper?"
Ruby winced. Pyrrha was not going to like that. "Wait. Legendary Team Juniper?"
"Of course!" he confirmed. "With their recent actions in uncovering the truth behind the fall of Mountain Glenn, they've certainly earned it!"
Ruby blinked.
"What."
What on Remnant had they missed while they were in Griffin Rock?
Author's Note 1 (Cyclone):
For the record, Starhead Industrial is from a partial (two chapters only) fan translation of RWBY: The Session I found. If anyone knows what actually happens in the rest of that light novel, please enlighten us.
Griffin Rock and most of the new characters in this show are from Transformers: Rescue Bots, though obviously, Rescue Force Sigma-17 isn't around. Yet, at least.
Author's Note 2 (Cody MacArthur Fett):
Are we still allowed to have characters talk about polygamy and be against it, or is that verboten now? I think it's okay for the moment at least. In any case, I don't think any of the characters have seriously given it a deep philosophical think either: Ruby's supportive of it, but that's because she subconsciously wants Raven to still be in the family; Yang's against it, but that's because she consciously wants to throw Raven out of the family; and Blake and Weiss are both disgusted by it, but those are immediate gut reactions that they haven't given much consideration to.
As for the rest of the chapter, it might be sniffing our own gas, but it does look really great. Which, of course, means that no one else will. That's the game we play though.
Seriously though, as much as I like this chapter, I'm so glad to put this interlude behind us so we can move on to volume three, the volume that . . . well, either people will be mildly satisfied with it, or we will get a flood of people on every social media site going on and on and on and on and on about how terrible we are. Actually, I'm surprised that isn't already the case. I mean, my friend Shinzakura has someone dedicated to tearing his stuff apart on 4chan. Why don't we? . . . Oh wait, we have that guy on TV Tropes who hasn't read the fic badmouthing it, but it's just not the same as a line by line summary and take down. You know, like something a nemesis would do.
Also, thanks to go to another of my friends, BlueBastard, for this chapter. He's the one who pushed the Griffin Rock setting, and the one who got me to watch Transformers: Rescue Bots. I'm glad he did too, as it's pretty good. Definitely worth a watch, in my opinion.
Speaking of the show, this chapter neatly fills in a plot hole from the first episode of it that never got filled to the best of my knowledge. Mainly, how does Chief Burns know Optimus Prime? Wiki doesn't say, and Netflix doesn't have that many episodes.
Anywho, that's it for the past, and time for the future