AUTHOR'S NOTES: This was going to be the last chapter of "On RWBY Wings II," but it ended up running really long, due to Tai's conversation with Yang and Ruby. So one more after this. After all, we need to find out what happened to Cinder.

The books that Tai gives to Yang are real ones, and the people he references-Douglas Bader and Alexei Mareysev-were real fighter pilots. If you want some true stories of a pair of badasses that just would not quit, you could do worse than those two.

I feel I need to apologize for Rissa Arashikaze showing up more in this. Although my stock-in-trade is OCs (as anyone who's read my Battletech and Evangelion stories knows), I wanted to avoid them as much as possible in this, to avoid even hinting at a Mary Sue. However, given the nature of this AU, there needs to be someone to give Ruby and Juniper Flights their orders, so Arashikaze fits that bill. Basically, she's there to goose the story in the right direction...and to introduce a little bit of intrigue. After all, it's a trope that you never can quite trust a spymaster...

And yes, the last scene in this chapter is reference to Rooster Teeth's tribute to Monty Oum, who sure did create a fun universe to play in. "Flying west" is a fighter pilot term for when someone passes on, so that seemed appropriate.

The Xiao Long-Rose Residence

Patch, North Carolina, United States of Canada

22 May 2001

"Girls! Dinner!" Taiyang Xiao Long called out. He set the steaming plates of grilled cheese sandwiches and egg drop soup out on the table.

"Be right down!" Ruby called from upstairs. There was no response from Yang, but Taiyang was already becoming used to his oldest daughter's morose silence.

He fixed his own plate, paused, and sighed. Their home was a modest one, in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains; the nearest city was Asheville, forty miles to the southwest, and Tai's nearest neighbor was Mrs. Mallari, a half-mile away. Surrounding them were deep woods; behind the house, the terrain climbed to a limestone cliff. He'd built this house soon after he'd married Raven Branwen, when Strike Flight was assigned to Signal, on land left by his mother; after Raven had left him with a newborn baby, Summer Rose had begun visiting to help him. One thing led to another, and then they married as well. Three years after Ruby's birth, Summer had disappeared, leaving him alone to raise two daughters who didn't understand why Mommy was gone.

But they'd made the best of it. After Yang was born, Tai had resigned his commission and took on a job as a flight instructor at Asheville. Some of those years raising the girls had been lean ones, but they got by somehow: sometimes Qrow gave Tai money, and sometimes it just mysteriously appeared in his account; Tai suspected either Ozpin was quietly helping him, or maybe even Raven. He wasn't too proud to take it, though he could've eased their financial situation considerably had he simply accepted Summer's death benefits. He refused, and every year, when a USAF official came to the house to ask if he would change Summer's status from Missing in Action to Killed in Action, he would politely refuse again. Tai realized he was probably an idiot, but he just couldn't do it.

When Yang had graduated and gone off to college to become a fighter pilot, it had gotten only somewhat quieter—but after Ruby had left, it had gotten entirely too quiet. It had just been Tai and Zwei, until Ruby had been assigned to Signal, but even then, she'd only been home once or twice a month. The girls had both promised that, when Vytal Flag ended, they'd take leave and come home for awhile.

Now they were, and things were worse.

"Dad?"

Tai shook himself from his reverie. Ruby was staring at him. He turned and grinned. "Sorry about that, kiddo. Got lost in thought there for a bit. It happens when you get old."

"Gimme a break. You're barely over forty, Dad." Ruby sat down at the table.

"It's not the years, Ruby—"

"—it's the mileage. Yeah, I know." Ruby scooted her chair forward. "We waiting for Yang?"

Tai looked up at the ceiling. "No. You go ahead. I'll take Yang's food to her."

Ruby reluctantly began eating, and Tai picked up the plate and bowl and headed upstairs. The ground floor was a living room, kitchen and guest room that Tai had converted to an office, whereas the upstairs was three bedrooms and a bath. Yang's door was open. He walked in, and was not surprised to see her laying in bed again, flipping through one of Ruby's comic books. She had done nothing but that, aside from calls of nature and a shower, since they'd gotten home the day before. "Hey, pumpkin. Dinner."

"Thanks, Dad." Yang reached out—with her left arm; her right one lay next to her like a dead thing—and pulled a little table close to her. Tai set the food down. "You really should eat dinner with us," he told her.

"I will, Dad," Yang reassured him, though her voice wasn't very reassuring. "I promise. I just…I'm still adjusting, okay?"

"Okay." He leaned over and kissed her forehead. "Need anything, just yell." Yang merely nodded, and Tai left. He went back downstairs. "Be right back, Ruby. Need to grab the mail." Ruby also only nodded, but that was because her mouth was full. He really didn't need to grab the mail, but Yang's morose attitude had reminded him of something.

He stepped off the porch, Zwei at his heels before the corgi broke off to do his business against a tree. Tai walked down the gravel path to the dirt road that led a mile through the woods to the highway. He checked the sky. It had rained that afternoon, but the storm was blowing itself out, picking up its gray skirts and scudding over the mountains. The sun was fighting a successful battle to get through the clouds, promising a beautiful sunset.

Then he saw the car coming down the path. It was USAF blue, and Tai's heart jumped into his throat. It was the wrong time of year for the USAF to ask him about Summer's status, and the solitary official car usually meant someone had died. Oh God, Tai thought, grabbing the mailbox to steady himself, Qrow. Qrow Branwen was supposed to fly into Signal that evening and drive up in the morning, but accidents happened, even to the best pilots. He remembered a similar car pulling into the driveway, and disgorging Qrow, Summer's commanding officer, and the base chaplain, to tell him that Summer was gone.

Tai slammed a hand into the mailbox to break the spell. It had been a foolish thought: the car could be one of a hundred things. It could just as easily be orders for Ruby and Yang that the USAF didn't trust to a phone call. He steadied himself as it pulled up in front of him. The passenger side window rolled down, and a short woman he didn't recognize leaned across. "Excuse me!" she called out. "Is this the Xiao Long residence?"

"Xiao Long-Rose, yeah." Tai always insisted that Summer's name not be forgotten.

"Oh, thank God. I've been driving around for the past 20 minutes looking for this place. I'm here to see Lieutenant Ruby Rose and Captain Yang Xiao Long. You must be Taiyang, their father."

"I'd better be. And you are?"

"Rissa Arashikaze. Can I pull into your driveway?"

The name sounded dimly familiar. "Sure." He watched as she pulled in and stopped in front of the garage, then reached into the mailbox, and smiled. A thick package waited there; it had arrived. He pulled it out of the mailbox and met Arashikaze halfway. She was dressed in civilian clothes. "You're Air Force?"

She hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. "Well, I guess I can trust someone who used to be part of Strike Flight with this information. I'm the Deputy Director of Intelligence with the Central Intelligence Agency."

Oh shit, Tai thought. A spook. He'd never liked spies. Strike Flight's job caused them to occasionally work with them, usually from the CIA, and he hadn't come away impressed. It had been CIA intelligence that had gotten Summer—made Summer disappear, Tai corrected himself. He wondered if the person who had given those orders now stood in front of him.

"Don't like me, huh?" Arashikaze smiled. He was startled, and realized his emotions must have showed on his face. "That's all right, Mr. Xiao Long. I'm not here to be liked. I just would like a word with your daughters, and I'll be off."

Tai forced himself to be polite; Southern hospitality was not to be denied, even to a spy. "That's all right, Miss Arashikaze. Would you like something to eat? It's grilled cheese and soup, but if you're hungry…"

She didn't respond, but her stomach did, loudly. "Oh, all right. Sure. Thank you. But if I could speak with your daughters first? It's kind of urgent, and I'm afraid I need an answer quite soon."

Tai crossed his arms, consciously making himself a barrier between Arashikaze and his daughters. "My wife had that conversation, about 17 years ago."

"I had nothing to do with that, Mr. Xiao Long."

"Maybe not, but one of your bunch did. If you're going to send my daughters off on some suicide mission, Miss Arashikaze, you can turn your little ass around, get back in your car, and fuck right off."

Arashikaze stared up at him—Tai had at least a foot on her, possibly more—and then nodded. "That's fair. All right, Mr. Xiao Long. I'll tell you. I'm going to ask them if they want to help us find who's behind this. Track down Salem's whereabouts—" she held up a hand as he went red with rage "—by going to Japan. I have a lead there. Not the Sea of Japan, where your wife disappeared, but just Japan. Via Alaska."

The same route, Tai thought. Aren't these bastards ever going to have enough? "And if they say no?"

"Then I get my little ass back in my car, and I fuck right off," Arashikaze answered. "They get orders to their next duty assignment as usual, and nothing more is said anywhere, by anyone." She crossed her arms as well. "Look, Mr. Xiao Long. I don't particularly like doing this. Ozpin, by all rights, should be standing here, not me. But someone has attacked my country, killed a lot of my countrymen, and has caused a great deal of panic that it will take months to recover from. They will hit us again—you know that as well as I do. It so happens that Lieutenant Rose and Captain Xiao Long were already involved, and therefore that means I don't have to let more people I don't know anything about in on a few secrets—secrets that you already know yourself. And yes, I thought they might like a bit of old fashioned revenge." She stepped closer, not intimidated by his height. "Ozpin was my friend too, Mr. Xiao Long. And I lost him. And now I want to kill the fucking bitch who caused it. So this stops happening, and your children—and mine—can grow up without having to worry about the next GRIMM invasion."

Taiyang stared down at her. "Who else have you talked to about this?"

"Lieutenant Valkyrie, Captain Lie, and Major Nikos. They're going regardless…but they would feel better with the half of Ruby Flight that's still in country to help them."

Tai stood resolutely for a few moments, then closed his eyes and stepped out of the way. "All right. You can talk to them."

"Thank you—"

He grabbed her arm as she tried to move past. "Get them killed, Miss Arashikaze, and I will kill you with my own bare hands. Understand?"

She looked down at his hand. It easily fit around her slender bicep. "You've just threatened a high government official."

"And?"

She smiled. "And I don't blame you in the least."

They went inside. Introductions were made, and Tai served a plate to the CIA woman. She tried to avoid it, but hunger won over other considerations, and she quickly wolfed down the sandwich and the soup. Tai noticed she ate like someone who was used to eating fast and on the run. She finished, covered a belch with her napkin, then asked Tai, "So where is Captain Xiao Long?"

"Yang's upstairs. She's…not feeling well."

"May I speak with her?"

Tai hesitated. His first instinct was to say not just no, but hell no. Tempting with the same mission that had killed her mother was bad enough; he didn't want Yang to do the same thing. Not both of them ran through his head. Then again, the prospect of action just might be enough to jar Yang out of her depression.

Ruby made the decision for him. "Yang's really not up for it, Miss Arashikaze. She's…well, she needs some time. She went through something pretty traumatic. I can tell her later, if you like."

"I suppose that's fine." Arashikaze took a drink of sweet tea, and began. "Lieutenant Rose, I will do something that goes against every word in the CIA instruction manual: I'm going to tell you the truth, direct and ugly. I'll trust that it does not go beyond these walls, though your father already knows most of what I'm going to say.

"You've been briefed that the GRIMM are drones, which they are." Ruby nodded. "What you have not been told is that we actually do know who controls them. Her real name is immaterial, but her codename is Salem, for the witch trials. She has been controlling the GRIMM since they arrived on the scene in the 1960s."

Ruby sat back in her chair. "Holy shit. So there is something controlling them. Who is she?"

Arashikaze folded her hands in front of her. "We don't know everything about her, but she's a former Russian official. It's conventional wisdom that the Soviet Union was completely wiped out in the nuclear exchange of 1962. That is not true. Millions of Russians survived. Some were able to flee. Others were killed by the GRIMM. Some still hold on in pockets of civilization here and there—Leningrad, for instance, and in the Caucasus. But many—millions—simply disappeared. We think they joined Salem, either willingly or not so willingly."

"Then the GRIMM come from Russia?"

"It would be a mistake to blame the GRIMM on a nation that's long dead, or a people who had nothing to do with the war in the first place. The GRIMM attack all humans and Faunus, no matter their nationality. They're remarkably equal in that respect." She smiled grimly. "We've never been able to find where she is, or where the GRIMM are manufactured, or how she controls them, if indeed she does. But oddly enough, the fall of Beacon has given us a clue. We were able to backtrack the Wyvern from when it crossed the Pacific Barrier. It crossed into the Pacific north of Japan. From there, clues point to Siberia." She shrugged, spread her hands. "Of course, Siberia is gigantic, and Salem could be anywhere in there, so we can't exactly call in the B-52s if we don't know where she is."

"I'm not sure that's much of a clue," Tai put in. "There's been suspicion that the GRIMM are coming out of Russia's dead zones for years."

"Very true. But this is different. Salem's always relied on GRIMM hordes before. This time, she had people of a bit more fleshy variety helping her."

"Cinder Fall." Ruby's hands clenched into fists.

"The same."

"But Cinder's dead, right? I mean, I rammed her F-22. No one saw her bail out." Ruby thought of something. "Unless Pyrrha did."

"Major Nikos was already in the trees by the time you rammed the F-22. She didn't see either of you bail out. She only knew you'd survived when the pararescuemen saw you dangling from a tree." Arashikaze finished her tea. "The seat was gone from the F-22, and we found Cinder's parachute. But no body."

"Then she's still alive somewhere."

"We have a policy at the CIA: if you don't identify a body, assume the person you're after is still alive." She looked at Ruby squarely. "Emerald Sustrai and Mercury Black were also never found, and witnesses placed both of them in the confusion when Beacon was evacuated. We have to assume all three are alive. But they give us the clue: they came from somewhere. They were given aliases, fake backstories. Whoever gave them those backstories knows something. Of course, we don't know who that is…but we know someone who might know who that is. Someone quite eager to help us, since it's almost a certainty that Cinder Fall was behind Ruth Lionheart's murder."

"Leonardo Lionheart?" Tai asked.

"Forgive my flair for the dramatic," Rissa admitted. "It's a personal failing of spies."

"Last I heard, old Leo had retired from the RAF." Both women were now looking at him. "We met Leo a few times when Strike Flight was in Europe. He was one of the old gang along with Ironwood, Glynda Goodwitch, and Ozpin."

"I spoke with Air Commodore Lionheart briefly when I was in the UK a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, he's no longer in Britain, so it's not as simple as just sending you across the pond. Officially, he's come out of retirement and accepted a temporary job as air attache to Japan—a favor the RAF did for him, obstensibly because he wants to stay busy so he's not dwelling on an empty house and a family he no longer has." Tai winced at that; he knew the feeling. "While that is undoubtedly part of the reason," Arashikaze continued, "there is another, more important one. You see, Creamer Flight was vetted personally by Lionheart. They were passed on to him. He's tracked down who passed that to him, all the way back to Japan."

"That's a lot of work," Tai said.

"He's had some time on his hands…and a very good reason. Lionheart wants to find the people who murdered his daughter. Ironwood told me you knew about that already, so it's no surprise." Ruby nodded sadly. "He's requested we send him trained Huntsmen and Huntresses. I told him I knew of five that qualify, all of whom knew Ruth Lionheart and would be happy to help."

"Five?" Ruby asked.

"Yourself, your sister, Lieutenant Nora Valkyrie, Captain Lie Ren, and Major Pyrrha Nikos. Major Nikos told me she's more than ready to return to duty. I have my suspicions, but she would be a valuable asset."

"And she wants revenge for Jaune Arc," Tai added.

"Quite." Arashikaze let out a long sigh. "That's the mission, Lieutenant. As a carrot, you'll be assigned a F-16—a new one, a Block 32, whatever that is—to replace your old one. The least the Air Force can do." Ruby nodded, unable to keep the avarice off her face. A new and improved Crescent Rose was plenty of incentive. "But here's the stick." She glanced at Tai. "This mission is quite similar to the one that your mother died attempting, 17 years ago. My understanding, from your uncle, is that there is an empty grave just up the hill from this house. Granted, we have better equipment, better intelligence, and you won't be going in alone, as Summer Rose did. However, Salem has managed to kill every person we've ever sent out against her personally. If her lair is in Siberia, you're going to be very close to her. And we have no idea just how much she may have penetrated the world's intelligence organizations. That's why I'm here, instead of sending someone else, and why I'm telling you this instead of General Ironwood. He's too recognizable. No one knows who Rissa Arashikaze is, mainly because officially—" she smiled "-I'm not here and don't exist."

Tai shifted uncomfortably from where he was leaning against the sink, a movement Arashikaze noticed. She reached across and, to Ruby's surprise, took the younger woman's hands in her own. "I want you to think about this, Ruby Rose. Think about it overnight. Tell your sister, if you want. But I want you to think about it, because there's a very good chance if you take the mission, you might have an empty grave on that hill too. Your father does not need that."

"Then why are you even offering?" Ruby wanted to know.

"Because I wanted to give you the choice." Arashikaze let go and stood. "Again, think it over. If you refuse, nothing more will be said. It will not reflect on your career. You'll still be assigned the new F-16, and the Air Force will send you somewhere—I imagine, with your record now, you can ask for any place you want. That will be the end of it. Valkyrie, Lie, and Nikos have already accepted, but they don't have families. You do. You have a sister who needs you, even if she doesn't seem to, and a father who, I'm sure, is tired of watching his daughters leave."

"You sound like you don't want her to go," Tai observed.

"As I said, Mr. Xiao Long, I'm offering her the choice. That's all."

"But you could order her." Ruby turned at the steel in her father's voice.

"Not personally—"

"Don't give me that. The CIA can fix things like that. I know. They did it to us plenty of times," Tai snapped.

"I could," Arashikaze admitted. "But I won't." She reached into a pocket and handed Ruby a card. "That's my phone number. Call it anytime. A car will be here in an hour or less to pick you up and take you to Signal, where you'll meet the others. If I don't hear from you in 24 hours, I'll assume that you've decided not to go. If your sister chooses to come along, my offer extends to her as well." The CIA woman smiled again, this time more warmly. "And I'm sure we can find a F-15 lying around for her."

"She's not ready to fly yet," Tai warned. "Nowhere near."

"Of course. My apologies. But when she is ready…" Arashikaze let the question hang in the air. "All right. Lieutenant, your father very much wants to punch me in the face, and as strong as he is, he would probably do me permanent damage. I'm going to leave. Think it over, and get back to me. Or not, as the case may be." She gave a small bow to Tai. "Thank you for dinner. Reminds me of my grandmother's cooking." Tai did not respond, only glared at her. She nodded in understanding, and walked towards the door.

"Wait!" Ruby called out. When Arashikaze stopped, Ruby asked, "What about Weiss and Blake?"

Arashikaze did not bother keeping the sadness off her face. "Hauptmann Schnee—she got promoted—has been assigned as military liasion to Schnee GmbH. There's nothing I can do."

"And Blake?"

Another pause. "Captain Belladonna has been given a new assignment. I talked with her this morning. She…requested that I not divulge where she went. I can tell you that she is safe, but other than that…I feel I have to keep the Captain's confidence."

Ruby nodded. "Okay. Thanks."

Arashikaze opened the door. "You know, as the philosopher Steven Perry once said, don't stop believing." She nodded once more to both of them, and was gone.

Tai and Ruby remained in the kitchen a long time, even after Arashikaze drove off. Neither said anything, lost in their thoughts.
"Dad?" Ruby finally said. "I'm going to talk this over with Mom, okay?"

Despite himself, Tai smiled. When Ruby was confronted with a tough decision, she went to talk it over with Summer. Or rather, Summer's gravestone. It always helped. "Okay. I think I'll talk to your sister."

She got up from the table, and hugged him tight. "I love you, Dad. I love you. Please don't worry."

He kissed her hair. "I love you too, Ruby. Whatever you decide, I will always love you and Yang more than anything."

She squeezed him, then let go, and walked out the front door. Tai watched her go, then leaned over the sink, trembling, trying to get control of himself, trying to hold back the tears. He knew Ruby had already made her decision.

Yang, despite not wanting to eat, had lost the battle to hunger. The soup was gone, and half of the sandwich by the time Tai walked in with the package he'd gotten out of the mailbox under one arm. Despite his worries over Ruby, Tai turned his mind to the battle at hand. "Hey there. Hungry after all, huh?"

"I guess."

"Got something for you." He set the package down on the bed, and unwrapped it for her. It was two books. "Since you're going to be in bed a lot, I figured I'd get you something to read."

She reached over and picked up the books with her left hand, one at a time. "Reach for the Sky? The Story of a Real Man?"

"Yep. I read both of these when I was in flight school. Good stuff. Lots of air action. And true stories. Well, Reach for the Sky is. The Story of a Real Man is fiction based on fact," Tai amended.

"I don't get it," Yang said.

"Reach for the Sky is about Douglas Bader. The Story of a Real Man is based on Alexei Mareysev. Both of them lost their legs in air crashes, but got back into the cockpit and finished World War II as aces. Thought that, given your present predicament, you might find them interesting." He motioned at her arm.

Yang tossed the books aside. "I appreciate it, Dad, but I'm not getting back into a cockpit again. Ever."

"And why's that?"

She lifted the prosthetic, with her left hand. "Um, duh?"

"And? These guys lost their legs above and below the knee. And they got back into it. You've got a limb ahead on both of them."

Yang fixed her father with a lilac glare. "Dad. Don't start. I don't want to fly again."

He smiled back. "Bullshit. Total, unadulterated, pasteurized bullshit. You tell me that, but you're staring at the sky all the time since you got shot down." He sat on the bed. "Yang, I'll be straight with you. I'd love it if you took a medical retirement, stayed here with your old dad, and helped him putter around in the garden. But you wouldn't. Every time you saw something fly over, you'd remember being up there in the deep blue, and you'd miss it. It would tear you up worse than anything that son of a bitch who shot you down did to you. And eventually you'd probably either be fighting to get back into the Air Force, or you'd kill yourself. I'd be highly disappointed if you did the latter, by the way. I've lost enough people in my life." He thought of Ruby and just barely kept the smile on his face. Yang didn't need to know that. Not yet.

"Dad…please…"

Tai was relentless. He hated doing it. He was hurting his oldest daughter, his little sun dragon, and it tore him up inside as well. But he had to. "You lost an arm, Yang. Not your life. What you need to do is get up, move around, get some fresh air, and start learning how to use that arm rather than pretending it's not there. You need to quit feeling sorry for yourself, get off your ass, and get back up there." He pointed at the ceiling, then at the books. "These men didn't quit, Yang. And I will be damned if I allow a daughter of mine to do the same."

"Leave me alone," Yang snapped.

Tai shook his head. "Not gonna happen, pumpkin. You can rest now, if you like. But I'm coming in here at 0800 tomorrow morning and rousting your ass out of bed, and we're going over to Mrs. Mallari's to muck out her barn. And I will drag you there if I have to."

Yang slammed her hand down onto the small table, upending it and sending soup bowl, plate, and half-eaten sandwich everywhere. "I said leave me alone!" Then she realized she'd used the prosthetic hand.

Tai stood up. Silently, he walked over and picked up the bowl, plate and the sandwich. He moved the table aside. Then he stood over his daughter, whose eyes were misty. "Good," he said. "A little old fashioned, pissed-off rage. That's an improvement." Then he left the room, hating himself, wondering if he'd saved Yang or destroyed her.

Yang wiped her eyes, slammed the artificial hand into the bed, then rolled over on her side. She lay in silence for awhile, then picked up Reach for the Sky, and started reading.

Ruby was sitting down next to the gravestone when Tai got to her. Summer Rose's empty grave was beautifully placed, at the side of a cliff. Beyond was the majesty of the Great Smokies and the Blue Ridge, and the unending carpet of forest stretching off into the distance. He stopped and looked down. It was a simple granite slab, reading Summer Rose, Major, USAF. Thus kindly I scatter. The latter was a line from Summer's favorite poem. Above the words was Summer's personal symbol, a rose that seemed to be burning, and an etched pair of pilot wings. Ruby had adopted the burning rose as her own, and it had been painted on the tail of the last Cresent Rose.

He sat down next to her. "You two have a good talk?" Tai asked Ruby.

"Yeah. She thinks I'm nuts. I told her I come by it naturally."

Tai sighed. "You've decided. I figured you would. You decided the moment Arashikaze made the offer."

Ruby nodded. "Yep."

"I figured. You're our daughter. Stubborn, crazy, and never willing to back up from a fight." Tai put an arm around her. "Think I pissed Yang off. I hated to do it, but I figure if she gets mad, she'll start moving around, if for no other reason than to spite her old man."

Ruby leaned into her father. "She'll be okay, Dad. She just needs some time. It's not just the arm, you know."

"She lost a fight. That's tough, especially for someone like Yang."

"She also lost a friend. Blake…they were close. Friends as well as wingpeople. Or whatever we're calling it these days. And Blake ran away. Doesn't even want to talk to us. I mean, I know Blake—she probably just needs time, too. And who knows what the Marines have her doing. Weiss is gone too, but I doubt that assignment was at Weiss' request. She hates her dad, and the feeling's mutual." Tai shook his head. Children were precious; he could never imagine hating a child. He hoped Yang wouldn't hate him. "That's really tough. But Yang will bounce back, Dad. I know it."

"You sure you don't want to stay and help her bounce back?" It was a desperate attempt to keep Ruby there, and both of them knew it.

"I can't, Dad. It's not about revenge. I don't know who this Salem chick is, and I don't care. But if I don't go, and Juniper gets wiped out, I'm always gonna wonder if I could've prevented it. And if I don't go, Arashikaze's going to find some other poor bastard. Juniper can't be down a person."

Tai looked down, and slowly gave her a nod. It was duty, then, and that made so much more sense. Ruby was going because she cared for her friends, and was not going to quit on them. He'd raised her with that. Summer would have as well. And in the end, that was what it was all about: each other. He'd felt the same way about Strike Flight, and it would be selfish to assume that Ruby would not feel that way about her people.

Tai looked at his daughter. Ruby Rose had grown up. She would never again be the little terror that slid down the bannisters, who tackled him when he came home from work, who begged him to sew up her stuffed animals, and who came into his bedroom, sniffling that she'd had a bad dream. She would always be his daughter, but the child was gone. In her place stood a woman, one tempered in the fire of combat, who had come out steel. In his mind's eye, he could see another gravestone next to Summer's—Ruby Rose, 1st Lieutenant, USAF. The Last Rose of Summer. But he knew he could not prevent it. The little bird was no longer little: she had left the nest, and she would fly on her own.

Tai suddenly began crying. "Please, God," he whispered. "Please, God." Ruby understood, and tightened her grip on him.

In the distance, a flock of birds rose from the woods, circled, and flew west.