AUTHOR'S NOTES: A short chapter this time, unfortunately. The next phase of the battle is going to be fairly involved and three-sided, so adding this chapter to that one would probably involve a huge post. So I'll go for this smaller one. I intend to work on this chapter a little more over the weekend, so if I get it done early, I'll post it early.

Ashiya Air Base

Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan

21 June 2001

Adam Taurus took off from Ashiya, Moonslice having been fitted out with missiles in record time. He climbed hard, popping flares just in case there was an enterprising JGSDF soldier on the ground with a shoulder-fired SAM. At about 5,000 feet, he leveled out, dipped a wing, and did a lazy circle over the base. He could pick out the White Fang below getting into position, but there were no indications of roadblocks, or any sort of defensive barricades, or much of anything. Ashiya was deserted.

He took the Moonslice up another ten thousand feet and headed southwest. The nearest other airfield was Fukuoka Airport, about ten miles away. As he flew in that direction, he saw the lights of police cars and fire trucks, and traffic jams of civilian cars south and east of Ashiya Air Base. No one was being allowed near the base.

Adam keyed his mike. "Moonslice to Deer Six. Hold position at the airfield."

Deery's voice came back unsure. "Moonslice, confirm? We have met no opposition."

"That's because this looks like a trap. Hold your positions." He unkeyed the mike before Deery could reply, and continued his flight.

Adam was over Fukuoka in less than five minutes. He maintained his altitude, but he could see the airport hadn't been evacuated. In fact, he could see the T-4s evacuated from Ashiya among the dozens of airliners parked there. He dropped down to get a better look. "Deer Six, Moonslice. Did anyone on the team see what airliners the Belladonnas hired? Type and livery."

"Wait one, Moonslice." Adam tapped his fingers impatiently on the throttle as he orbited Fukuoka. No airliners were landing or taking off. Other than the T-4s and a group of CH-47 Chinook transport helicopters, there were no military aircraft that he could see. He considered strafing the Chinooks, but held off; he might need his ammunition. Finally Deery came back online. "Moonslice, Deer Six. The Belladonnas hired two L-1011s from Oceanic Airlines."

"Blue fuselages?"

"Roger."

Adam got a little lower and made a knife-edge pass over the airport. The three-engined L-1011 was distinctive, and the two at Fukuoka both had blue fuselages. "Son of a bitch," he breathed, and immediately turned northeast, dropping back to five thousand feet. He found the main highway between Fukuoka and Ashiya, and what he expected to find: a military convoy of trucks, covered by armored personnel carriers. "God damn Ilia," he snarled. "That fucking whore sold us out." He hit the radio button again. "Deer Six, Moonslice. It's a trap. The Belladonnas beat us here. They're about five miles south of you." He did some quick mental figuring. "I'd say about 500 strength." It was larger than his force by a fair margin, and they would have the JGSDF backing them up.

"Understood." Deery was keeping herself under control. "Do we pull out?"

"Hold position," Adam ordered. The White Fang were outnumbered, but they could still do some damage. "Set the charges around the tank farm and the hangars, and barricade the roads. We'll see how long we can hold." He figured they could fight for three hours, which was long enough to do some real damage. The JASDF's fighters were still far to the north. "I'm going to even the odds a bit."

Adam climbed, turned, shed a little airspeed, and then did a quick sweep with his radar. He only picked up four contacts: two slow ones approaching from the northeast, and two faster ones coming from the southwest. The northeast contacts were about forty miles off, but he guessed they were probably C-130 transports bringing in JGDSF reinforcements, possibly paratroopers. He could take them out at his leisure. The two faster ones were probably fighters, but they were seventy miles out. He'd strafe the column once or twice, head north, destroy the transports, then turn and kill the fighters. A quick refuel and rearm at Ashiya, and back in the air. He smiled. They could still pull this off, even if Ilia—and possibly Salem—had sold them out.

Then his radar warning receiver lit up. He was being targeted. A warning shrilled in his helmet, and his eyes went to the threat display on the upper right of the instrument panel. RADAR burned red. He began jinking hard, dropping chaff in his wake, but the RWR showed the missile closing the distance rapidly. Finally, after a hard break that left him gasping, even with the G-suit, the RWR showed the missile had lost lock, and the threat display went dim. Seventy miles? he thought in confusion. There's nothing that has that kind of range! He glanced up and saw the missile curving well above him, leaving a thick white smoke trail. Wait. Except a Phoenix missile…but that means…

"Adam from Blake," his radio crackled in his helmet. "You wanted me so much. Here I am."

Over the Sea of Japan

Near Nishinoshima, Japan

21 June 2001

Ruby firewalled the throttle, broke off from Emerald, and climbed. "Ruby to Catseye! Weiss is down! Scramble SAR, repeat, scramble SAR!" She radioed the position, then rolled inverted. We've got to get control of this.

She made a quick scan of the sky. Cinder's aircraft was curving away from the smoke trail that was the funeral pyre of Weiss' F-20, but there was no guarantee she might not come back and strafe Weiss in her parachute—after all, she'd tried to do that to Pyrrha. Speaking of which… "Pyrrha, Ruby, cover Weiss!"

"But—"

"That's an order!" Ruby shouted. Technically, Pyrrha outranked her, but she had to get the Greek woman's head back in the game. Pyrrha had been so consumed with rage and the desire for revenge that she'd lost control of herself, and her flight.

Next Ruby found Oscar. He'd climbed out of his fight with the GRIMM, who were descending to join the others that Ren was trying to fend off. Nora and the A-9—Ruby wished she had time for a closer inspection of that rarity—were in a low-speed knife fight, while Qrow and Raven were also stalemated: Raven wouldn't allow herself to get drawn into a turning fight with the F-117, while Qrow refused to engage her in the vertical. By the crisscross of missile trails, they'd expended several shots at each other, but both designs were stealthy and had defeated radar shots. Yang and Mercury were having trouble as well: the nimble little A-4 was giving Yang fits, but he couldn't keep up with the F-23. Vernal's F-5 was orbiting, looking for a target.

We've got to break this, somehow. Ruby knew what she had to do. "Pyrrha, cover Weiss," she repeated. "Oscar, join up with Ren against the Beowolves. Yang, I'm coming down. Qrow, keep Raven occupied."

"More the merrier, sis," Yang replied. Ruby dived Crescent Rose back into the fight.

Raven had come to the same conclusion. She'd fired three missiles at Qrow, and none had guided, unable to get enough of a return off the F-117's design, or spoofed by Qrow. Raven had to admit that her brother had actually gotten better since she'd left Strike Flight. Then again, so had she.

As much as she wanted to finally rid herself of her brother—and all the memories he brought—Raven knew that wasn't what they were there for, and fuel was a concern: the Night Raven burned a lot of it. "Cinder, Vernal," she radioed. "Join up on me. We need to go for the objective, not deal with these idiots."

"Understood," Cinder replied, which surprised Raven a little. "Mercury, Hazel, Emerald: stay here and hold them off with the GRIMM. When we've secured the objective, bug out for home. Kill them all if you can."

"Roger that!" Mercury acknowledged for all of them.

Raven shot past Qrow, slammed to the throttle to the stops, and accelerated away. In less than fifteen seconds, she was supersonic; thirty seconds after that, she'd surpassed Mach 2. Cinder growled to herself and took off in pursuit, while Vernal struggled to keep up.

Ruby and Yang joined up. Almost as if they'd agreed to it, Mercury and Emerald had done the same. Here we go, Ruby thought to herself. There would be no quarter asked and none given. "Bandits, twelve o'clock level," Ruby called out, a little unnecessarily.

"I got 'em, Ruby. Mercury's passing between us!" Ruby saw the Mirage break away and down, but Mercury flashed between the F-16 and F-23, too fast for anyone to get a shot. Ruby craned her head, trying to keep him in sight.

"Ruby, check nine!" Her head swiveled back as Emerald popped up—or at least one of her did, since there were three Mirages now. But only one of them fired, and a Sidewinder headed her way…for half a second. Then it suddenly climbed, its seeker head malfunctioning as it optimistically but hopelessly engaged the sun. The Mirages went past, but Ruby marked the one that had fired. Got you now. "Yang, cover me!" She racked the F-16 into a punishing 8-g turn, skidding and praying Mercury was still out of position. Ruby swore; Emerald had anticipated the turn to the left, and was already curving away into a dive, ruining Ruby's sight picture.

And then Ruby realized her opponent had made a mistake. "Yang, the rightmost Mirage is the real one! Swat her!"

"Roger!" Yang took a quick glance behind her tail—Mercury was coming in, but he wouldn't be a threat for another second or two—and dived after Mercury. The heavier F-23 quickly caught up. The hologram Mirages suddenly vanished, then reappeared, and now Yang wasn't quite sure which was which.

Ruby dived after her, ignoring Mercury, and squinted. Dimly, barely she could see the shadow of the Mirage against the water. The holograms didn't give off shadows. "Yang, center!" was all she had time to yell. Behind her, Mercury's A-4 closed in. She kept her attention on the Mirage, knowing the enemy behind her was setting up for a Sidewinder shot, but determined not to let Emerald get away again.

Yang blinked as sweat ran into her eyes. Her infrared sensor was growling, indicating she could fire a Sidewinder of her own, but she had no idea which Mirage it was seeing; like Gambol Shroud's decoys, each hologram had a flare on the end of a thin cable. "Fine," she mused to herself. A quick switch action went to AMRAAMs, and Yang fired.

Emerald, who was trying to keep track of a battle in four dimensions, was now trying to level out just above the water, hoping that Yang would get target fixated and fly into the sea. Out of the corner of one eye, she saw the flash of a missile launch, let loose a horrible Spanish oath, and broke right. Abruptly, she realized that her RWR had not gone off: Yang had fired the AMRAAM ballistically. By breaking, she'd slowed down—and now Yang was in gun range.

"Oh shit," Emerald said.

"Gotcha." Yang opened fire. The M61 gatling cannon spit over a hundred shells in under ten seconds, chewing through the Mirage's right wingroot, then into the rear fuselage. Flame erupted from the latter. Emerald hauled the aircraft into a climb, braced herself, and ejected a second before the right wing tore away from the Mirage. It did not explode, but spun into the water. Emerald's parachute deployed, she got one good swing, and then she was in the ocean. Yang avoided a similar fate by mere feet, her engines leaving wakes on the surface.

Then Mercury fired. He'd actually overshot a little, and realizing he was too close for missiles, he'd switched to guns. Ruby dodged, enough to change Mercury's target picture from a guaranteed kill to only a potential one. Three cannon shells hit Crescent Rose's left wing, tearing off the wingtip missile rail, holing a flap, and leaving another shot through the wing itself. Mercury only sighed, and stayed with Ruby through the turn; his A-4 could nearly match the F-16 in turn radius.

Then Mercury himself became a target. Pyrrha had orbited Weiss' descending parachute, but could sit on the sidelines no longer. She broke off, crossed the distance in seconds, and dropped in behind the A-4. "Shit!" Mercury yelled, as tracers zipped past his aircraft. He dodged, ruining his attack on Ruby, but then saw Yang's F-23 climbing towards him. "Fuck this!" he yelled and dived for the water, pulling out just above the waves and heading north.

"Let him go!" Ruby ordered. "Yang, Pyrrha—go after Raven and Cinder! We'll clean up here!"

"I've got the lead!" Yang called out, and headed south in afterburner. After a second's hesitation, Pyrrha followed.

Emerald bobbed in her lifejacket and watched Mercury fly off. She really couldn't blame him; three against one when two of the three were two fighter generations newer was a prescription for getting shot down. Like me, she sighed to herself. Luckily they had made provisions for this before they'd taken off from Vladivostok: the Malachite Gang would send out helicopters to retrieve her. Assuming they got here before the JASDF.

She shivered. The water was cold, though not the killing cold it would've been in winter. As long as she wasn't in it for longer than an hour, she should be all right. At least she didn't have to worry about sharks…she hoped.

Then she saw a flash of white in the water. She bobbed up on a small wave and saw it was Weiss Schnee; it wasn't her hair, but her helmet. There was red in the water around her, and Emerald saw her slowly turn over on her side. Her lifejacket hadn't fully inflated, and all it was doing now was drowning her.

Emerald hesitated. There was no reason to help Weiss Schnee. She was an enemy, someone who deserved to die. Cinder or Mercury would swim over just to hold her head under. It would be one less person to face in the future.

"Dammit!" Emerald turned over onto her chest and swam for Weiss just as the other woman's head dipped beneath the waves. She quickly grabbed her and pulled her head above the water, then tucked her arms beneath Weiss' shoulders to keep her upright. Weiss coughed out seawater and her eyes fluttered. "Whozzit?"

"Me," was all Emerald could think to say.

"Oh, okay." Weiss smiled dreamily. She was clearly in shock. Emerald thought the legs out in front of her didn't look right; one was bent at an odd angle. "Thanks," she murmured.

"Um…don't mention it." Emerald shook her head. She wondered why she was even doing this, even if it did feel strangely like the right thing.

Near Kuroshima, Tsushima

Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan

21 June 2001

Cinder and Raven had slowed down to let Vernal catch up; it would do no good to reach the JINN vault if there was no Maiden around who knew the code. Cinder had invited Vernal to take the lead, then dropped in slightly to the right and behind the F-5. Not surprisingly, the Night Raven had taken up exactly the same position behind the Su-27.

Vernal consulted the navigation display, which was far more advanced than on a normal F-5. "Kuroshima ahead. We'll turn northwest at the island, cross the Mitsumashima Peninsula and Toyotamachi Bay, and land at Watatsumi airfield. Cinder, concur?"

Cinder had provided the location of JINN, through Lionheart, and consulted her own map. "Concur. You have the lead." She paused. "Are you nervous? I think you're the first Maiden holder to ever open this vault. Probably the first human being since Ozpin. Quite exciting. Don't you feel honored?"

"I don't care," Vernal answered. "All I care about is my tribe. This is a burden, not an honor."

"Stay focused, both of you," Raven snapped. She kept scanning the sky, as much as she could through the limited visibility of the Night Raven's cockpit, and the rearward facing camera. "Something tells me Qrow's bunch hasn't given up." She knew Qrow's F-117 was strictly subsonic, and would never catch up in time. Pyrrha Nikos' F-22 was another matter, and so was her daughter's F-23, if they got past Cinder's unit.

"Oh, come on, Raven," Cinder chided. "Let her enjoy this. It's a once in a lifetime experience."

They flew over the green, craggy island and over the bay. "Target in sight," Vernal reported. There was an observatory ahead and below, on Mount Eboshi. The vault was just below it. Vernal dropped her flaps to slow down. "We'll have to circle around and land from the west."

"You know," Cinder said casually, "I've heard so much about you, Raven. They say you're a superb fighter pilot, and a great leader—cunning and smart."

"You can kiss my ass on the ground," Raven snarled back.

"It's not that," Cinder said. "It's just a shame they're wrong."

Too late, Raven realized the Su-27 had slowed as well. A flare dropped from the large boat-tail between the engines and ignited nearly in Raven's face. She screamed in pain and instinctively turned to the right, blinking to try and clear the spots from her vision.

Cinder noted the movement. Vernal was reacting, the flaps coming up, but she was too slow. Cinder raised the speedbrake on the back of the Su-27, slowing her aircraft even more and letting the F-5 edge ahead. Then she opened fire with the 30 millimeter cannon, tracking the shells into the engines first, then marching them up the fuselage. The F-5 turned into a torch, breaking up even as Vernal tried to climb, then exploded. Cinder broke away to dodge the falling wreckage, closing the speedbrake, and to her surprise, saw an ejection seat rocket out of the fireball. It rose on a high trajectory, then the seat separated from the pilot; the parachute streamed, then opened. As Cinder flew a bit closer, she could tell Vernal was hanging limply from the 'chute. She extended out a little, then flew back, setting the crosshairs in the HUD on Vernal's body. "Sorry. Nothing personal."

Her RWR went off. Cinder saw the missile heading towards her, broke off her attack, and dived. The RWR went off; it had been a hasty missile shot. Cinder rolled and leveled out; above her the Night Raven flew past the parachute. From the way it was flying, Cinder could tell that Raven was still at least partially blinded; she remembered that the Night Raven had a primitive version of DUST, in that the pilot could verbally order the aircraft to fire. "Not bad," Cinder complimented her, as she climbed and turned. "I thought I'd have time to kill Vernal before finishing you off."

"You're a fucking idiot," Raven replied, her voice pained. "Now you can't get into the vault, you stupid ass."

"The idiot is you," Cinder laughed. "Watts lied. You don't need both codes. Only one."

"A goddamn trap," Raven said bitterly. "You never needed us. You just wanted to eliminate the Spring Maiden from play."

"We can't use the Fall Maiden as of yet," Cinder replied, "but Salem wanted to make sure that the Spring Maiden wasn't in the hands of a small-time air pirate. So after I kill you, I'll land, get JINN, and leave. The Spring Maiden won't be in anyone's hands, which is satisfactory to Salem. After all, the Maidens were built to stop her, and that would leave only two left." She paused. "Or will it? I suppose I'm being too hasty to gun Vernal in her parachute. Her bracelet might still work. Given that she was nice enough to eject and knock herself out in the process." She tightened the turn, knowing the Night Raven could not turn with the Su-27.

"Pretty good plan," Raven told her. "I'm going to point out the flaw in it, though."

"Oh? Please do."

"Vernal never controlled the Spring Maiden." Raven suddenly accelerated, faster than Cinder could follow, then climbed, rolled out, and dived again so she was meeting the Su-27 head on. "I do!"