A/N: A couple things, number one, with italics like this most of the time it is going to be actions, however they are also going to be the train of thought for characters as they think to themselves as well as be narration for backstory, the following segment as well as the last chapter being prime examples of what I mean
#2 Reviews are very much expected and appreciated, I very much enjoy hearing the feedback of my readers.
#3 Yang may seem like a marry sue at first, she is not, she will make mistakes and come across difficult challenges. But remember, she gets stronger every time she fights, and this blond terror of a huntress has spent years on end in the front lines of the biggest, bloodiest, and most brutal/savage war to date spanning the entire planet, she has fought monsters and criminals and advanced war machines of complete terror and devastation that would make even the most battle hardened present day huntress or hunter shit themselves, and has spent a long ass time training, improving her skills, knowledge and her physical capabilities. For at least the beginning of this story, do not be surprised when Yang is pretty much a 1-woman weapon of mass destruction.
Chapter 2... Consolidation
Yang opened her eye... something she never thought she would do again, everything fucking HURT, like holy shit who decided to run her over with an Atlassian freight train?
She groaned and waited for her vision to come back to her, she was... warm, she had not felt pleasant warmth in a long time, the past few years of hell fighting Grimm, rouge Atlas military personnel and hunter grade crime bosses always happened in some god's forsaken frozen wasteland somewhere in the northern blizzard hell-scape that was Weiss's home continent.
She blinked away some of the blurry fog in her vision, slowly coming to, and looked around, it was dark out, very cloudy to be exact, was this Hell? No there was not any fire, Heaven on a rainy day? Nope, no angles or gods to be found. Purgatory?
Her stomach growled, she had no food.
Definitely Hell...
She got up, using a tree she had been sitting up against to support her as she stood, her whole body felt like shit, how did she even get here?
She pulled out her scroll on a whim, maybe there was a news feed or date that she could take a look at, the CCT had recovered roughly a year after they first went down and had been upgraded under the direct supervision of Ironwood himself, both in terms of their range and quality of connection along with, and this was the important one, Cyber-Security...
They did not need another Vytal incident... no sir.
She turned on her custom scroll, over the years she had taken to upgrading it whenever she could, it was important to always have it up to date, the device was black with gold trim and a silver heart that separated when the item extended and then came back together when closed up, the screen itself was always set to dark mode, easier on the eyes. It quickly logged in to the CCT...
Warning: Older transmission data detected, CCT is possibly out of order or has been infiltrated, proceed with uplink? (Y/N)
"The fuck? Ironwood you where supposed to take care of this shit..." She tapped "Y" to confirm the uplink and saw... something oddly familiar...
"These news reports are from years ago..." She then looked at the date and her eyes widened. If the date was correct... and she was actually hopeful it was... this date... it was just a couple weeks before she joined Beacon... with Ruby... and...
She went weak at the knees, there was no way in hell... no, it couldn't be... this was too good to be true, how-?
She stopped dead in her tracks with that line of thought. She knew exactly how, the gods needed balance, they needed a stable peace on remnant... with the loss of the greatest hero's and villains on both sides it would be a chaotic mess, people would scramble for power, societies would collapse into disorder, it would all fall apart and the human race along with the faunus would be sent back to the dark ages...
This was her shot... everyone wishes they had a second chance but they never get it, this was her real second shot... she was blessed with opportunity... she would not waste it... oh no, this was going to be a lot of work but she could feel in her bones that this was perfect...
She was strong, stronger than any other hunter or huntress that remnant had to offer, she had spent years fighting a war in her prime, slaughtering grimm, training, learning new ways to fight, building her aura reserves every time she got into battle and would always come out stronger than ever. She needed food... and sleep... oh gods yes, a nice warm bed... it has been far too long since she had one...
And then she would do her job... protect her friends, family, lovers, and the people of remnant...
And to do that, she needed to compile her black list...
Her singular eye narrowed, and she smiled cruelly under the mask covering her mouth and nose. Oh yes... this was going to be great... and her number one target right now was probably in Menargerie, completely oblivious to his impending doom.
It was a moment she would savor... seeing the life leave his eyes as she ripped it out of him... oh so many people to slaughter and so little time but that one? She would enjoy immensely.
Her stomach growled again, once again reminding her she had not eaten a good hot meal in forever... MRE's where as good as she got, or she used some of her spare time hunting wild game, which was often very limited and what she ate was normally cooked to ash and thus tasted like shit because diseases where running rampant and they could not afford infections.
She was going to find a restaurant, and she was gonna have the biggest, JUICIEST fucking steak they had, gods be damned if she didn't.
There was a fenced dirt road beside her, she checked her scroll again and opened up her GPS, checking where the nearest town was. She found it was 2 miles south, upon checking what public services it had she groaned when she saw all low quality bars and a few dust refill stations. There was however a small air taxi service... she was in Mistral right now, if she was lucky she could get a ride to the capital, get that mother fucking steak, a good night's rest...
And deal with that pussy, headmaster Lionheart... then take that question answering lamp thing, seriously that was a really bitchy artifact but necessary. She was lucky enough to have the Fall Maiden's powers... Raven... did not require them anymore... not in her time, and even now she could feel that power swell within her.
She looked down the dirt road and it began to rain.
Her hair was getting wet, her beloved hair, she would need a shower, soon, and right now she really missed bumblebee, she would need a new bike and helmet now.
But until then, she would walk, she could use a good stretch anyways, she passed a hooded woman on the way down, not really noticing them as she was lost in thought and made her way down the winding dirt road.
Yang forgot how much she hated mud... Rain? She normally loved rain, and the fresh green grass after that, and the lightning.
But FUCK MUD!
She felt her boot nearly get stuck in the muck and she rolled her eye, ripping it out and sending the gook towards the forest, splattering the trees. Thankfully, she saw that town in the distance, she was not worried about how she would purchase the air taxi tickets, a hunter's scroll could operate as a private bank, if you had Lien, you would go to the bank, give them the cash and they would turn it into cyber currency and transfer it to your scroll, after that you could digitally transfer money to other scrolls or cash registers, all she had to do was transfer a few Lien from her small fortune (being a war-time huntress elite paid very well) and she would be on her merry way...
At least that was what she planned to do, but just as she was entering the town and looking around, she was reminded that it was important to take care of the most important things first. She WAS in Mistral right now, she could take care of Adam later... right now, she should be concentrating on the here and now, sweet vengeance could wait until after she was done with the problems here.
Mainly that stupid headmaster and the artifact.
She sighed in disappointment realizing she would not get to have her fun for a while, walking up to the ticket booth for the air taxi and leaning over the counter, ringing the little bell and waiting for service. A faunus woman greeted her, as made apparent by a pair of snake fangs with her teeth as she smiled.
"Hello there, I am sorry but the taxi is out of order... we are trying to get a shipment of new parts soon, ours are... not available at this time." The woman winced while giving Yang's arm a look over, that was something Yang would need to take care of soon, some sort of glove to cover up her metal appendage, but she did detect a stutter in the voice of the faunus, perhaps there was more to the story."What happened to your parts?" Yang inquired"I am sorry but I am not at liberty t-"
Yang planted her scroll on the counter and pressed a display button, causing the holographic projector on her scroll to display her Huntress ID and certification along with her license and official registration.
"O-OH! A HUNTRESS! What Luck! Listen, I am sorry but I cant just go around telling everyone, I think you can help me out with this though, scavenger bandits that live in the hills east of here stole them and said if I wanted them back I would have to pay the ransom... my principals dictate that I don't comply but I need those parts and if I order them for repairs it would cost 3 times more than the ransom. The police are also unable to leave town in search of them because of Grimm activity... Can you get them back for me? I can pay you fo-"
Yang held up her left arm and closed her eye, causing the girl to stop. "Don't worry, you've given me all I need to know, I will be back with the parts soon. If you want to pay me back, a free ride is all I need, I have to get to the capital and I am short on time."
The Faunus was very excited. "Wonderful! I will be waiting here for you, once you get back you can have a first-class seat all the way to the capital free of charge!"
Yang nodded, turning off her scroll and pocketing it before strolling away and looking to the nearby forested hills.
She grinned and cracked her knuckles. It was time for a little bit of a workout...
In said hills, the banditos in question where 100% unaware of the blond demi-godess that was on the hunt for them, the poor bastards.
Finding them was easy enough, they had a camp fire going in a small cave, the smoke and light where easy enough to pick out, these guys either had an accident or they where not at all professional. She approached the cave network with her eye narrowed and entered quietly, making sure each step was measured, precise, and quiet as could be, even if she did make a little noise, the rain, harsh winds and thunderclaps would most definitely mask her approach.
So low and behold, when she walked in, 3 of them where snoring by the camp fire, 1 was fishing around for a beer in a pile of coolers and bottles, and the last one, as far as she could tell with what she was hearing around the corner, was "Bleeding the snake" as it where.
She had grown used to professional, cold blooded killers that had to be put down, these guys where rank armatures, low end thieves at the worst, at least she would not need to draw blood on her first day back.
She rolled her eyes, walking up to them and bashing their heads together, dazing them and making them roll around on the ground, groaning in pain. The other bandit heard the commotion and turned around reaching for a baseball bat near the wall.
He never touched it however as he was suddenly grabbed by the neck with the silver metal arm of the elite huntress and found himself choking and gasping for air, she lifted him off the ground while he panicked, kicking out his legs trying to hit her somehow but his feet bounced right off of her aura shield.
"What the f-" The other bandit ran around the corner only to be body-slammed by the one Yang was previously holding in a death grip, hitting the wall and knocking them both out cold. She hummed a merry tune... one she remembered Summer singing a long time ago... and headed towards the back area, she safely assumed it was the closest thing to their loot storage, and she was correct, in a little "Room" at the end held a series of parts in a wagon, which she recognized as being ones for the engine block of a MZ-111 Sky-Whale, the modern Mistrilian air taxi. She took all of the Lien and ammo she found lying around and stuffed her pockets with it, she didn't need it, and didn't plan to keep it, she would give the ammo to the local police and the money to a charity, and these bums would learn that crime didn't pay...
And so she walked off, away from the scene of her work and back into town where her ride to bigger and better things awaited her.