[X] Junior manages to find the location Five was renting. Yang and her father investigate it and find some clues.
[X] Repairs Ember Celica. She did have a backup she could use if she didn't, but if she did proper repairs, she might be able to do some upgrades too.
[X] Finds Melanie's sister, Miltia. Her sister was the one who got hooked on addictive songs or whatever, she probably feels terrible too.

Standing by the table with a screwdriver in her hand, Yang slowly took apart her precious Ember Celica.

Yikes, that was a lot of damage. She was going to need to replace basically most of it.

Peeling away the plated metal covering the gauntlets, Yang reached for the ammo reel, and slowly removed it. Yep, busted. She'd need to pull the ammo out of that later, basically scrap the thing in order to get to it.

Reaching around, Yang pulled out a spare ammo loading mechanism, then paused.

Didn't Ruby mention having a few good ideas about tweaking Ember Celica?

Looking over the notes on the table, Yang looked for them, but then put the idea out of her mind for a moment. They weren't in easy reach, so she'd go look for whatever designs Ruby thought up after finding out all the problems Ember Celica had at that moment.

Prying into Ember Celica more, Yang removed the firing mechanism.

Hm. Not too bad. She'd need to unbolt it, replace some of the smaller parts, but most of it was fixable. Meanwhile, since she was pulling it out anyway, she may as well think improvements...

Reaching over to a draw, Yang pulled out a small case, and put it on the table next to her. Inside it, deconstructed and with theoretical design notes below it, was the gauntlet that the mercenary guy had almost killed her with back in the village.

She'd almost forgotten about it, but since she was upgrading her gauntlets anyway, perhaps she could take some inspiration. The firing mechanism, especially, Yang wanted to look into. It shouldn't be too hard to translate across. There were differences in design, but if Yang could get it working, well, that would be great. That gauntlet could shoot hard enough to send a projectile flying at immense velocity, and if Yang could get that working with Ember Celica, she'd be able to increase the power output of her shots by a lot.

Actually, hadn't one of Ruby's ideas been based on increasing the power of a shot? Something about unstable dust projectiles that could be used as a close-ranged power attack in addition to normal blows?

...Yeah, she definitely needed to look into Ruby's designs. She also mentioned more variety in shots, so maybe she could do that upgrade, and then set Ember Celica to fire in both ranged attacks, close ranged devastators, maybe a third choice for trick shots- Maybe she's actually remember to use those experimental ammo rounds she purchased before she left on the school trip- All sorts of things.

...Though that might be too many changed for now. For now, she should keep it simple. Replace the damaged parts, see if she could replicate the harpoon gauntlet's firing mechanism to work on more power shots...

Actually, she'd need to test it a bit first. Was the harpoon gauntlet's power type a version that would easily translate to dust projectiles like Yang's explosive shots? Or was it more designed on letting a long projectile like a harpoon travel faster, before the power of it could fade? Either way would be an improvement, but one of those was more useful for close-ranged power hits, while the other would be better if she tried to adapt it to longer ranged attacks...

Bah, needs some testing. She'll test the non-deconstructed gauntlet when she was done looking over everything else.

Turning Ember Celica around and removing the reloading mechanism to have a look behind it, Yang continued looking over Ember Celica for some time. It took her a while, but she was able to pinpoint everything she needed to fix, and got enough new parts to do so.

Nodding to herself as she stands up, Yang went over towards the far wall of the room. Somewhere in them, she'd find a list of notes and designs. Ruby probably would have written down any ideas she had while Yang was away but before she got kidnapped.

Pulling another draw open, Yang paused when she saw the designs stored in it. Slowly pulling out the sketches and designs.

It was a series of sketches of scythes, each with a bunch of little comments at the side. A few different ideas were dismissed here and there, leaving comments on what possible guns would be good with the scythe.

Ruby's weapon ideas. She was getting parts when Qrow had taken her out shopping, and she was very clearly excited about the idea of testing out what would work best for her. The notes were hurried, but obviously cheerful in tone. She'd been looking forward to it.

And now she was missing, god knows where, and nobody knew where she was.

...Damn it, she went and made herself depressed again.

Sighing to herself, Yang put away Ruby's notes and went to go put Ember Celica back together.

Standing in front of the apartment door, Yang knocked.

For a long while, nothing happened. No surprise. What happened must have been hard on her.

A moment passed, and Miltia Malachite opened the door. Her expression was blank.

"Hey." Yang began, awkwardly. "How are you?"

"Did Junior send you?" Miltia asked, ignoring Yang's own question.

"No." Yang replied. "It's just... Given that happened, I thought it'd do you good if someone popped in to say hi?"

"...Come in." Miltia stated. "You won't go away otherwise, right?"

Stepping away from the door, Miltia went out of sight. Yang stepped in a moment later.

The apartment was a good size, with a clearly visible living room, kitchen, door to a bathroom, and two more doors leading to separate bedrooms. Miltia, upon letting Yang in, moved straight to the kitchen, and looked through a cupboard for a moment.

"So..." Yang began awkwardly. "Are you doing alright?"

Miltia turned to Yang and looked at her for a moment.

"My sister has been brainwashing into some giggling lunatic." Miltia replied, echoing Yang's words from last night. "How do you think I'm feeling?"

"Okay, badly phrased." Yang replied, backpedalling. "But, well, do you want to talk about it?"

"Not particularly, no." Miltia replied.

"I'm just saying, Five's got my sister too, so I kind of understand-"

"You can still have hope for your sister." Miltia interrupted. "She hasn't been seen, so we don't know if Five's been singing to her. Melanie's hers, and we don't know if that can be reversed."

"You think it's easy, hoping it'll work out?" Yang snapped. "You think it's easy assuming the best case scenario for me?"

"Apparently so, if you've kept yourself together enough to go bother other people." Miltia cut back.

Yang took a step forward and was ready to give her response, but thought twice about it. Breathing to calm herself, Yang sighed.

"Sorry." Yang changed topic. "I'm just making things worse. It's not easy, you know. It's just... I want to feel like I'm helping, somehow."

Miltia didn't reply for a moment.

"...I didn't even notice." She said, after a moment. "My sister gets controlled like that, and I don't even notice there's anything different with how she's acting. She mentioned hearing a nice song, but I didn't think anything of it. Would I have been able to help her, before she got to the point of throwing you out a building just for a chance to hear more?"

Yang winced at that.

She'd had similar thoughts, since Ruby went missing. Wondering if she could have stopped it somehow, had she not been out of Vale at the time, if she had just been there. It was irrational, it was dumb, she'd probably feel worse if she had been there and failed, and it didn't stop hurting any more just because she knew it was dumb.

"I'm not gonna pretend to be an expert." Yang said. "I'm still having trouble working through my own issues. But... Well, I know what it's like, feeling what you are. If you need a hand feeling better, let me know, and I'll see what I can do. If you need to punch something, I'm good for a spare, if you need to talk to someone, I can listen. Either way, I'm good."

Silence hung over the crowd for a moment, before Miltia spoke up a bit.

"...Thanks, I guess." She said. "Maybe I'll be in touch. But... I just need some time to think, okay?"

"That's fine." Yang replied. "Just give me a call on my scroll if you need to send a message, okay?"

Pulling it out of her pocket, Yang tapped her scroll against the one resting on the bench of the kitchen, and the two traded numbers.

"Alright." Miltia replied.

"Well, be seeing you, then." Yang waved goodbye, as she left.

...Was that it? She was expecting something more, but...

...Well, Miltia needed time. That was fine. Junior was probably keeping watch on her to make sure she didn't do anything dumb, so she should be fine.

Nodding to herself and hoping that she'd be able to convince herself she did good here, Yang walked away.

Looking up at the small house with a chimney in front of her, Yang turned to her father.

"Are you gonna go up the stairs and have a look?" She asked. "Or are we gonna just stand around and stair all day?

Taiyang smiled. "I like this spot. It's got a good view. Unless you want to get the door, ter."

Yang took a moment to process the daughter/door-ter pun before smiling. "Alright then, why don't you stand there while I give you some free punning lessons, on the house?"

Her father chuckled. "More seriously, though, look at the house again. What's wrong with the image?"

Yang looked up for a moment, following her father's gaze.

"...There's smoke coming out of the chimney." She noticed. "Which means people were in there recently."

"Good eye." Taiyang noted. "But at the same time, Melanie must have told people we were coming for them by now. And if this was an ambush, then they wouldn't have left the fireplace on like that. It's suspicious. Which is why I'm going to ask once if you'll stay in the car-"

"No."

"-And when that fails, ask you to stick close to me. If this is a trap, it'd be best if we spring it while we're together. More force, easier to help each other."

Yang shrugged. "Alright. I guess I could use meatshield."

Taiyang shook his head. "Kids these days. No respect. Probably hanging out with that old man Qrow all day, picking up his bad habits."

"He tells me stories." Yang confirmed. "Like how you used to be cool. What happened?"

"He was lying, even at my coolest he always called me a dork. And then your mother would beat me up and take my lunch money."

"My mum was awesome."

With a faked long-suffering sigh, Taiyang went up the stairs, and unlocked the door with a key that Junior had given them. Yang followed him, as they entered the building.

Beyond the cackling of flame, it was silent. Yang and her father kept that silence, as they looked around.

The house looked like a lot of stuff in it had been removed in a hurry. There were marks on the floor, from where furniture had been dragged or dropped. There was scraps of paper here and there, which Taiyang looked at before shaking his head. Over in the corner, Yang saw a book cover, for Ninjas of Love, in the corner with no book inside it.

There were rose petals scattered around, here and there.

"Ruby was here." Yang confirmed.

Taiyang lead the two of them into a room with a fireplace, where the fire was burning. Above the fireplace, there was a letter taped to the wall.

"Someone wanted to send us a message." Taiyang noted.

Yang stepped for it, but Taiyang caught her shoulder.

"Hold on." He said. "It could be a trap. Give me a moment to clear it, look elsewhere until then."

"Alright, then." Yang shrugged, scanning the rest of the room.

There was a collection of photos on an abandoned desk, in the building. Yang looked at them, wondering if any of them would be of use.

None of them had images that could incriminate someone. Rather, the pictures all seemed to be of a small town, one that looked like one inside the Kingdoms rather than one outside of it, and an old print-off of a photo Yang recognised. It was the Monster of Lake Pangxie, a thought mythical beast that hadn't been proven to exist since the photo was taken seventy years ago.

...Maybe a lead? I this Five person thought that a giant crab was a thing that was real, and the comments scrawled on the picture questioning how it tasted was any indication, then she might be leading there at some point.

Or it could be a false lead. Someone had left a message here, after all.

"Yang." Her father called, and Yang looked back to him holding a letter in his hand. "Got it."

"What's it say?"

Taiyang opened the pink envelope, and pulled the white paper out. Yang saw the brown writing for a moment, before he flipped it so he could see the words.

"Someone wants to meet us." He said. "Or, well, you, I guess. Too scared of me, I guess?"

He passed the letter to Yang, and she read it.

Yang Xiao Long. If you want to know where your sister is, meet me at the train station in two days, at 11. Come alone. When I see you, I will give you your ticket. If you do not come alone, I will not be able to help you, and you will never see Ruby Rose again.
-A Concerned Citizen.

"It's a trap." Yang decided immediately.

"Totally a trap." Taiyang agreed.

A complete obvious trap, one a child could spot. Getting her alone, somewhere where people could get her out of anywhere people could help her. Who'd fall for that?

You'd need to be desperate to fall for that. Desperate, stupid, and willing to do anything.

...Fuck.

[X] Walk into the trap. Her father wouldn't approve of it, so sneak out when he's not watching and get there before him.
[X] Ignore it. You'll find Ruby without springing the obvious trap. Even if it means missing a potential opportunity.