[X] Blast and Piran wanted to do a training exercise, in which they take it in turns defending a room with help of automated defences.
[X] Uncle Qrow magically appears on the airship a few hours away from the city, and completely ignores the chance to annoy Winter.
"Ten minute rounds?" Blast asked. "It'll give us enough time to get our Aura back between rounds so we all get a chance to be the defender by the time we get back."
"Sound good." Piran confirmed.
"Fine by me." Yang confirmed. "Who's first, though?"
"I volunteer Blast." Piran suggested.
"That's not what volunteering means-"
"He needs to learn how to sit put and focus on an objective." Piran continued, ignoring Blast's objections.
"He does have a problem with that." Yang nodded.
"You guys are jerks." Blast complained, with a smile. "Right, so I'm first? Gimme a moment to get it set up."
Walking into the training room, Yang heard the whirring of gears as machines began to move.
"Just how much does this airship cost?" Yang wondered. "There's a big medical bay, enough rooms for a dozen people, a training room that's both huge and can be modified, a kitchen..."
"Well, Winter's a Schnee." Piran noted. "So if I had to guess? Picture what your parents make in a year. Multiply that by the longer estimates of a Hunter's life expectancy, discounting those killed in battle. You're now looking at what it'd cost to have the engines repaired."
"That might be going a bit far." Yang replied.
"You're right." Piran admitted. "But it's still-"
Yang interrupted him to finish her joke. "What my dad makes in a dozen decades is probably way too little to be on a Schnee's radar."
Piran paused, and looked at her. "Ha ha. Very funny."
"I try." Yang shrugged. "So, if Blast done in there yet?"
"Just a moment!" Blast shouted, as the whirring came to a stop. There was silence for a moment, before a muffled song started playing from within the room.
"What is he-"
Piran was interrupted by the door to the training room opening. "Get started."
The two went into the room, checking their weapons as they did so, and looked around.
"He made a maze." Piran noted. "I can't believe he actually made a maze."
Yang looked it over, an idea coming to her.
"You take the left wall, I take the right?" Piran suggested.
Yang held up a hand. "Hold on, I have an idea. This stuff's not as tough as the airship armour, right?"
"Rig-"
Yang didn't let him finish, running up to a wall and punching into it. As she did so, she fired her weapon, blasting a hole in the metal. The muffled music got slightly less muffled as she did so.
"Found him." Yang said, looking through the hole. "Looks like there's no real entrance to this area in here either."
"That took less time then expected." Blast called from beyond the wall, still muffled. "I was hoping the lack of defences would give it away that the maze was a fake."
Piran sighed. "I can't even find fault with this, it was clever."
Yang nodded, stepping through the hole on the wall, then immediately froze at a beeping sound.
"Oh good." Said Blast, as the song continues to play. "You found the landmines."
Yang considered it for a moment, the jumped back while shooting down, propelling herself back while the landmine detonated. The explosive force stung a little, but Yang dodged most of it.
As she landed, Yang cocked Ember Celica, and fired as fast as she could. Past the broken wall, the mines detonated as they were shot at.
Piran rushed in as the detonations stopped, stepping into the room past the wall. Yang followed, and they looked around.
Then up.
Suspended to the ceiling was a smaller room, transparent in nature, with Blast inside it, dancing.
"What is he doing?" Piran asked.
Continuing his dance, Blast twirled his gun and fired in a random direction. The bullet bounced around, before exiting out a small gap in the wall and hitting something behind Yang.
There was a beeping sound, and Yang looked back just in time to see a gun turret come online.
Rolling to the side as it opened fire, Yang returned fire, destroying the turret. As she did so, it exploded, shooting fire outwards to cover the room.
"How do we even get up there? Yang wondered. "He's probably set the walls to explode if we try to run up them."
In response, Piran looked up in consideration. "What was his Semblance again? Something about forcing him into fights but also letting him bullshit his way through them?"
"Something like that." Yang replied.
Nodding, Piran fired upwards at random, trying to hit one of the gaps in the wall. One bullet went through, just small enough to pass through, and expanding as it went through the gap. Blast continued dancing, his head ducking underneath the bullet as he did so.
"He's just showing off." Piran noted. "He heard me say this was to teach him how to focus on an objective and now he's not taking it seriously at all."
In response, Blast started echoing the song he was listening to. "Na na na na na na na na..."
"Do you recognise that song?" Yang asked, as she remembered it herself. She knew what the punchline to this joke was.
"Not really. Why?"
"-t up." Blast continued. "Baby, give it up."
Piran looked up at him.
"...Really?" He asked. "Isn't it a bit too soon to start with the mocking songs? You haven't even tried anything."
"That was funnier in my head." Blast admitted, still dancing. "I was thinking that you guys would be trying and failing when the music got to the chorus. Not sitting around like a bunch of lemons. Well, Plan B then."
Taking a step back, Blast fell down a hole in the floor of his platform, and fired upwards multiple times as he did so.
The bullets went back up into the room and ricocheted off the walls a few times, before hitting a panel on the roof. A moment later, as Yang closed in to punch him, she heard the mechanical whirring of the rooms walls around her.
A wall folded between Yang and Blast, and Yang tried to smash through it, only to find another wall behind it. Repeating the process twice more, Yang finally got through the walls, only for smoke to bellow out of the room.
"Oh, come on." Yang complained, as the smoke expanded and covered the room completely. "You know what, forget Blast, I'm going back to the roo-"
She looked upwards, and saw that the semi-transparent room up there was gone.
"...Of course." She sighed. "Piran, what are you doi-"
There was a wall where Piran used to be, and before Yang could approach it, the smoke covered her vision again. The whirring continued, as the walls once again moved around her.
Yang sighed. "Really? We're doing it like this? Fine then. You know what beats sneaking and confusion?"
Hitting her fists together, Yang fired both sides of Ember Celica at once, causing a small explosion and flaring her Aura at the same time. The flash of light didn't make anything in the smoke more visible, but she heard crumpling metal as the walls around her buckled under the impact.
"Can't hide if everything's on fire." Yang continued, flaring her Aura more to burn up anything around her she could.
There was the sound of a bullet hitting the roof, and the damaged metal moving wall next to Yang groaned, as the wall collapsed. Looking towards the sound, Yang fired upwards, hitting a hole through the wall and letting it fall around her.
Firing in the direction the wall used to be, Yang watched the light in the smoke fade, before another bullet fired and it exploded.
"Found you." Yang declared, running in that direction. Firing randomly as she twirled around, Yang heard metal crushing until she got to the furthest wall of the training area, made of metal she couldn't punch through.
She paused, and listened around. Above her was a track of sorts, and a moment after spotting it, Yang noticed a whirring of a machine. Firing at it, Yang watched the training turret fall, then frowned, looking around.
There was a sudden repetitive beeping from the roof, as the sprinklers turned on, extinguishing Yang's flames.
A moment later, there was a rush of wind, as Yang felt something suddenly smash into the wall next to her. The wind pushed the smoke away, and she saw a giant pillar next to her, which immediately began shrinking.
The smoke cleared enough for Yang to see Blast running on the shrinking pillar, right at Piran, before punching forward as Piran spun another pillar into him. The pillar shattered, partially, but enough of it remained that Blast was thrown into the wall.
By sheer coincidence, another gun turret was whizzing past on the track on the wall as this happened, catching on one of the belts Blast wore around his chest and pulling him out of the way of the pillar before it could trap him against the wall. He disappeared back into the smoke.
"New plan." Piran declared, before throwing a bunch of small sticks and expanding them all into pillars at once. The smoke cleared pretty much instantly, as the room suddenly filled with giant stone pillars.
Blast suddenly jumped up from behind a pillar, shot at Yang, then hid away before Yang could fire back. The girl with yellow chair chased him, into the pillars. She leaped from one pillar to another, bouncing the direction Blast had disappeared in, before suddenly being shot in the back.
Blast, clinging to the side of the pillar with his gun pointing besides him, laughed. Then he stopped, as his grip suddenly slipped just in time to fall out of the path of Yang's return fire. The pillar detonated, and as several fist-sized rocks fell at Blast, he pointed his gun at them, ready to pull his usual bullshit of firing into a storm of projectiles and deflecting all of them somehow.
Then an alarm went off, and Blast was surprised enough at it that he forgot to fire.
"Ow." He said, as a rock hit him in the face. "What the-"
A robotic voice spoke over the intercom of the room. "Room has been invaded. Attacker Victory."
Blast blinked. "What?"
The pillars started shrinking, one by one.
"You forgot to guard the room." Piran called. "You got distracted, so I went in and won."
"Damn it." Blast swore.
"If it helps, kid, that was an alright performance."
Everyone turned in shock at the voice, which was unfamiliar to all but Yang.
"Uncle Qrow?" Yang asked. "When did you get here? ...How did you get here?"
"There's a lot of questions we shouldn't think too hard about." Qrow dismissed, waving his hand. "We heard you were on the way back, and since you hadn't responded to the message yet,we assumed it didn't go through while you were outside the Kingdoms. Thought we should tell you in person."
"Tell me what in person?"
Qrow turned for the door. "Follow me, we'll get some privacy."
Frowning in confusion and feeling somewhat anxious as to what would be important enough that it couldn't wait for her to get home, Yang followed him, leaving Blast and Piran with the clean-up.
Qrow walked down the hallway with uncharacteristic surety in his steps, the walk of a man who wasn't even remotely drunk. Yang followed him, until they got to an isolated room somewhere.
"What happened? Yang asked.
Qrow sighed. "I wish there was an easier way to break it to ya, kid. Ruby's gone missing."
Eyes widening, Yang gulped. "W-What?"
"It happened a few days ago." Qrow explained. "We were out shopping for weapon parts, I was showing her the best places in the mall, and we were wrapping up. I let her go to the usual cookie place, but she ran ahead a bit and then the crowd gathered and I lost sight of her."
"How's that lead to her going missing?" Yang asked. "You knew where she was going-"
"There was some sort of commotion at the cookie shop." Qrow continued. "Don't know what exactly. Nobody really noticed anything happening up until a certain point. When I got there, everything was fine, but then everything just kinda shattered a bit and Ruby was gone."
Yang stared for a moment, breathing heavily.
Ruby was missing? Something had happened, she wasn't there, and now Ruby was gone? She could be in danger, she could be hurt, and Yang wasn't anywhere nearby to stop it or help or-
"Calm down." Qrow said suddenly, putting a hand on Yang's shoulder. "We've got some leads, we just don't have her yet."
Yang tried to control her breathing.
This was fine. Everything would be fine.
"W-What do we know?" She stuttered out, trying to keep calm.
"Video surveillance cut out just before Ruby disappeared." Qrow said. "But before that, it caught something. Ruby was eating a cookie, then some kid knocked her aside and took it off her. Ruby objected and tried to get it back, the kid ran to some blonde woman, and then the camera's cut out. Everyone says the woman took the cookie off the kid and gave it to Ruby, but none of those three were there after the whole shattering thing happened."
Yang tried to keep her breathing calm, but it was still rather panicky. "How can Ruby just go missing without anyone knowing?"
"It has to be a Semblance of some sort." Qrow said. "Some sort of... I dunno, an illusion or something. I got in contact with some friends to find out more about blondie and the kid, and neither of them are in any official records. Given that they were inside the Kingdoms, that probably means they got in through less than legal means, so your father's been hunting down any criminal groups who could get people inside Vale and set them up without them appearing in the public record."
"Don't we know anything else?" Yang asked.
"I'm sorry." Qrow said. "That's all we have."
Ruby was missing, nobody knew what was going on, nobody knew who was responsible, nobody knew why-
"How'd you get here?" Yang asked, her voice quiet.
Qrow blinked at the sudden change of topic, but realised where she was going with it almost instantly. "It's not something I can teach to you before the airship gets back to Vale on it's own ti-"
"Then carry me when you go back, get us home so I can start looking for my siste-"
"It's not a multiple person thing!" Qrow objected. "Heck, the only reason I can carry my weapon during it is because of some loophole in the process, I can't take another person with me-"
Yang felt her hand curl into a fist, so she twirled around and punched the wall before she lost her temper. There was a thud, as a dent appeared in the airship's steel, and there was silence for a moment, broken only by Yang's breathing.
"...I'm sorry, Yang." Qrow said. "I really wish I could tell you more. I wish I could tell you why, at least. But don't worry. We'll find her-"
"How do I help?" Yang asked.
Qrow blinked. "Huh?"
"Don't try to leave me out of this. I don't care if I have to skip school for a while, I'm helping find Ruby and you can't stop me."
"I understand." Qrow replied.
"I said don't try t- Wait, wha?"
Qrow looked at her. "You'd just feel terrible if your father and I tried to make you ignore the problem, and then you'd sneak off and try to resolve it yourself anyway."
Yang breathed heavier for a moment.
"If she's hurt..." Yang muttered. "I wasn't there, and-"
"Don't." Qrow interrupted. "Whatever you're going to say, stop it. Ruby went missing on my watch, you not being there wouldn't have changed anything. I can't stop you being upset, but it's not your fault."
If only words worked so well, Yang thought to herself. She'd promised herself years ago, after nearly getting Ruby hurt looking for her mother, that she wouldn't let anything happen to Ruby again. And now Ruby was gone and she had no idea what she could even do to start fixing the problem.
Just because it wasn't her fault didn't make her feel less like she failed her sister.
The airship lands in time, and there's still hours in the day. What does Yang do before she grows too tired?
[X] Investigates the mall where Ruby disappeared. If she can find just one clue as to what was going on...
[X] Tried to distract herself by helping Two move the orphans and their belongings. Though Two might notice Yang acting depressed...
[X] Qrow offered to distract her by teaching her the start of a dangerous trick that he was going to save until she graduated from Beacon.