As Yang, Ash, and Blake hide inside a warehouse, they stalk the docks' many freighters waiting for the culprits to arrive. Sun, however, sneaks his way into the warehouse through a loose plate in the wall, joining the rest of the ragtag bunch on their stakeout. "Man, this is so boring. You'd think they'd have shown up by now.", Sun groans as he walks up to the group from behind.
Blake glares back at him and as feline eyes fall upon the apples in his arms, she growls, "Can you keep your voice down? This is a stakeout, so it's not meant to be all fun and games. Besides, where did you get those apples from?"
The monkey boy shoots her a quick smirk as he hands Blake one of the apples and says, "I found 'em."
"He stole them from the fruit stands down the street.", Ash stoically corrects the thief's lie as he keeps an eye of the guards patrolling the docks, each guard making his rounds in a timely manor.
Sun lets out a quick gasp at this as he holds his hands up to shield himself from Ash's claim, nervously replying with, "What? Me? Never! I'd never steal!"
"Can you stay focused for five minutes? Who knows when or even if these guys, whoever they are, will show up?", Blake whispers back to the monkey boy as she and her partner give him a quick glare.
Nodding in agreement with her partner, Yang turns her light gaze back to the nervous boy and adds, "Yeah, these kinds of things can take days, even weeks just to catch the slightest sign of suspicious movement."
"Wait, something's happening.", Ash suddenly announces, causing the others to look over in confusion. As they glance outside, they see the dock is being filled with some sort of purple gas, which causes all the guards to cough uncontrollably before each of them passes out.
"What's going on? Is that some sort of chemical attack or something?", Sun mutters to himself as he cautiously covers his mouth.
"They're here.", Ash sternly replies as his gaze shifts up to the sky to see three airships starting to descend from up above.
As the first two land, the gas is quickly blown away by the powerful engines as their landing docks extend out and a hoard of White Fang members walk out into the open, checking for any stragglers.
"Is that them?", Sun hesitantly asks as he sees the White Fang masks on the Faunus as they check the guards, stealing their weapons and other valuables from them.
Blake nervously looks at the Faunus as she notices one of them wearing a Lieutenant mask, and as she sees the red White Fang logo on their backs, she shakes her head no and says, "No, something...something's off... It can't be them..."
While Blake struggles to accept the fact that these thieves are actually members of the White Fang, the third airship starts to descend and they hear a cranky voice shout, "Come on, we don't have all night!" The four huntsmen all look to the source of the voice to see Roman as he stands at the airship's open cargo door, holding his hat with one hand as he points at the Faunus with his cane, growling, "We aren't exactly the most inconspicuous bunch of thieves, so if you could pick up the pace that'd be great!" The airship finally lands and as Roman walks off it, he approaches the taller Faunus wearing the Lieutenant mask and says, "Find the cargo. It should be in one of these damn freighters."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. As long as I get paid in the end, you'll have your damned contraption.", the Faunus growls back as he walks away from Roman, lifting a heavy anchor up and onto his shoulder as he turns away from the smooth criminal.
"Isn't that the same guy your sister helped put away before the beginning of the semester?", Ash whispers to Yang, to which the blonde nods with a scornful glare at the redhead.
"Yeah, and I'd like to know how he got out.", Yang growls under her breath, to which Blake nods.
The dusk colored girl swiftly draws her Gamble Shroud as she suggests, "Why don't we go have a chat with him then?"
As Blake speeds off, Yang reaches out to stop her as she quietly shouts, "Blake, wait!", but the cat girl is too fast for her to catch.
The shadowy ninja quickly sneaks up behind the master thief and as she places her blade against the criminal's neck, she shouts, "Nobody move!"
"Hey, hey, hey! Take it easy! This suit isn't exactly easy to clean you know!", Roman replies as he tenses up with the girl's cold blade pushed against his throat.
The Faunus are all turn their undivided attention to her, their guns and other weapons aimed entirely on her as she glares at them all. To their surprise, she removes her bow with her free hand to reveal herself as a Faunus. A few of the Faunus seem to lower their weapons as she shouts, "Fellow Faunus, how could you aid this scum!? Don't you see what you're doing!? You're only giving people that hate us, people like HIM, more of a reason to discriminate us for being who we are!"
Hook, however, only chuckles at the sight before saying, "That's a good one, kitty cat, but I'm not in the mood to play this whole hostage game. How about we just fight instead?" He points his anchor at the two and it begins to transform before their eyes and Roman gets an irritated scowl on his face. It finishes its transformation and they see it's a large cannon, which he's surprisingly holding with only one hand, not seeming to struggle with the giant piece of metal in the slightest. He grins menacingly at the two before growling, "Let's have a god time~"
Before he can fire his cannon however, something hits the top of his head, bouncing off and hitting the ground in turn. Enraged, he glares down at the object to see it's an apple, causing him to raise an eyebrow at it. "An apple?", he thinks with a slightly confused glance before looking up to see Sun hanging from the nearby light post with another apple in his hand.
A sly grin comes across the monkey boy's face as he dangles from the light by his tail. Sun looks down at the wicked wolf with a warm smile before giving him a wave goodbye, causing the Faunus' brow to furrow even further in confusion.
Out of the corner of his eye, Hook sees a gleam of light rushing towards him and he moves his cannon to block it as it rushes towards him. To his surprise, Ash slashes at him with a powerful strike from his Dragoon, sending a shock wave through the air as the two weapons collide. A delighted smile comes across the wolf's face as he gleefully notes, "Ah, I like your style kid! Fight first, ask questions later! Let's dance~"
The wolf forces Ash's blade back with his raw power, pushing the swordsman back with his mighty cannon before its deadly end at the boy, following it up with a cannon shot aimed straight for the boy.
Ash manages to dodge the attack, leaping to his right to evade the giant projectile, but the cannonball continues hurdling towards Roman and Blake instead, causing the redhead to growl under his breath, "For the love of!" He quickly presses a button on his cane, causing the end of his cane to pop open, and with a quick pull of the trigger, Blake and Roman are engulfed by an explosion.
This causes the cannonball to detonate prematurely, leaving a giant crater in the concrete from its raw power. Roman and Blake are sent flying in separate directions from the master thief's attack, and both manage to stick their landings, Roman even managing to keep his hat on throughout the entire scuffle. "Well, fluffball, this is where we part ways. I can't have you ruining all my plans!", Roman confidently threatens the girl as he points his deadly cane at the girl before being hit in the face by an apple. He glares up to see Sun as the boy leaps down at the thief, holding his staff in both hands as he pulls back to come down on Roman as hard as he can.
Though Torchwich manages to block Sun's staff with his cane, Blake sprints in to take advantage of the opening. Roman sees this coming however and pushes Sun back before blocking Blake's blade, saving his life from the girl's deadly blade. Roman glares over at his Faunus workers and shouts, "Don't just stand there with your thumbs up your asses, do something!", causing most of them to raise their weapons in his defense.
They all seem to jump when they hear Yang say, "Aw, are you just gonna leave me to myself then?" And the group of hired goons look over to the blonde to see her slamming her fists together, she says, "That's pretty rude you know. You should treat a lady with some respect."
At Vale's airship dock, Ruby, Sapphire, Reginald, Persi, and Weiss are all getting off of the last airship of the night, and as they do so, Ruby looks down at her open scroll with a nervous glance. "Yang's starting to lose some of her aura... They must be fighting already.", Ruby notes as she sees Yang's aura meter going down, but not by much.
Sapphire nods to the smaller girl and as she looks down at her own scroll, she sees Ash's aura level has also gone down by a couple notches. "We need to hurry, if we don't get there in time they could all be in serious trouble.", Sapphire growls as she looks around for a means of transport.
Reginald lets out a heavy sigh and sarcastically replies, "And how exactly do you plan on getting there, Ruby's semblance? I know the girl runs around with a giant scythe, but I doubt she could carry me, let alone Persi and the Princess here."
Ruby quickly snaps her fingers and suggests, "Why don't we take the bus!?"
"Public transportation? At this hour? Doubtful. Let's call a taxi.", Weiss replies with a disgruntled look as she pulls out her scroll to call a cab.
Persi shakes his head no and notes, "There's not enough time. We need to get there now!"
"Excuse me, but I don't see you coming up with a better idea.", Weiss shoots back with a slight glare at the bear.
Reginald looks around for an answer as the two continue to bicker before his gaze falls upon an old looking news van parked next to the news station. A sly grin comes across the boy's face as he starts walking over to the van while tugging on his gloves to make sure he's prepared to execute his plan.
"Reginald, what are you doing?", Sapphire asks him as she notices the boy walking away with a menacing grin.
He turns to her and confidently meets her worry, saying, "I think I just found our way to the docks."
When he gets close enough to the van, he unleashes his wires and Weiss asks, "That thing? Seriously? It's so...hideous."
"Well, so is your attitude, so shut up and let me work my magic.", Reginald fires back with a slight glare at the heiress, to which she gives a defeated pout. He uses his wires to sneak through the van's defenses, entering through the air vents and wrapping them around the lock before pulling up on them, unlocking the driver's side door. "Jackpot!", Reginald gleefully exclaims as he reels his wires back into his gloves. He opens the door and quickly drops down to look under the steering wheel, tearing off a plastic cover to expose a plethora of wires underneath. As the smooth criminal sifts through the many colorful wires inside, he growls under his breath, "Where are you, you little shit? Come on, come on..." "Gods damn it, this thing's from Vacuo. They never make their shit like anyone else. This'll take a few minutes to hotwire.", Reginald growls as he fiddles with the wires, trying to find the right ones to use.
To his surprise, Persi pulls him out with one arm and sternly tells him, "I'll do it, I have a bit more experience with this sort of stuff."
Reginald just chuckles at this and sarcastically replies, "Oh really? Then go right ahead! It's nothing like in the movies, you know. It's a lot harder than it looks.", as Persi ducks down under to inspect the wires.
Almost instantly, Persi pulls out the right wires and cuts them with his nails before connecting the two ends, causing the engine to turn over and the van to start. As the bear escapes the small area under the wheel, he turns around to see everyone giving him surprised glances and glares.
"How...exactly did you know how to do that?", Ruby hesitantly questions the Faunus as Sapphire opens up the side door to the van.
Persi lets out a reluctant sigh before replying with, "I ran with the wrong crowds back in Vacuo. Long story short, it's in the past and I'd rather not talk about it."
"Fair enough. Let's get moving.", Sapphire orders as she helps Weiss into the van, giving the girl her hand to help pull the heiress inside.
"Wait, who's driving then?", Weiss nervously asks with a panicked look on her face.
Reginald looks to the group with a wide grin before pointing to himself with his thumb and saying, "That'd be me, Snowflake."
"You know how to drive!?", Ruby frantically asks the boy with a surprised expression across her face, to which Reginald cheekily nods.
"Yep, vans, cars, motorbikes, and even a few airships. I can drive or fly my way across this whole planet if I wanted to.", Reginald happily replies as he jumps into the driver's seat.
Persi jumps in on the passenger's side as he adds, "I'm riding shotgun. If anything fucks up while I'm back there, I probably wouldn't make it in time before you crashed into something."
As Sapphire pulls Ruby into the back, she replies with, "That's fine. Let's just get moving. We don't know what kind of threat they're up against out there."
Adjusting the rear view mirror to see perfectly out the back windows, Reginald lets out a hearty laugh before gleefully saying, "Hello passengers, this is your driver today. Make sure to buckle up because this is gonna be a bumpy ride!" Once he's finished setting up his mirrors, the boy quickly shifts the van into drive and slams down onto the pedal almost all the way, shooting the car forward with ridiculous speed and sending Weiss across the back of the van.
"Hey! Slow down! We won't be able to help Blake and Yang if we get arrested! SLOW DOWN!", Weiss shouts as she tries desperately to get back to her seat and buckle up.
Reginald only laughs at her though and shouts back, "I only have two speeds, Snowflake: Fast and Furious!", before putting the pedal to the floor, making the van go even faster!
While Ash confronts Hook and Blake and Sun fight off Torchwich, Yang is dealing with the small grunts that litter the docks. Three of the Faunus rush at Yang with their weapons raise, but she isn't phased in the slightest, punching one of them straight in the gut as he tries to drop his giant hammer on her. This sends the Faunus flying back as she fires a shot into him. In one fluid movement, she ducks under the other two Faunus' swords as they slice at her in unison and sweeps one Faunus' legs out from underneath them as she uppercuts the other. She quickly turns around after the uppercut and shatters the man's aura with a powerful punch on the grounded Faunus as the other one goes flying into the air.
Five more Faunus attack her this time, firing at her at a range in order to avoid her powerful fists. The blonde takes a few of their bullets, blocking the damage with her yellow aura before quickly firing off three shotgun rounds at them, bombarding the group with volleyball-sized explosions that send a few of the gunmen flying back.
Continuing on her rampage, Yang launches herself at the crowd of fake White Fang with two well-timed shots from her gauntlets. As she appears before them, they're left dazed and frightened by her speed, to which she grins happily before unleashing a wave of punches on the first guy to meet her eye.
Two more Faunus try to attack her from behind, but Yang blocks their attacks with one of her gauntlets before unloading a shot in one of the men and delivering a powerful heel kick to the other man's chin, sending him flying across the dock and into the water.
Four of the Faunus look to each other nodding to one another in agreement, two of them have rifles while the other two have machetes. The two machete Faunus rush Yang down as the other two Faunus provide covering fire, trying to divide the girl's attention. This fails quite miserably however as Yang simply tanks the bullets with her aura before flipping into the air and crushing one of the Faunus rushing her with a diving heel kick to the face. She follows this up with sweeping the other Faunus' legs out from under him with a sweeping kick right before crushing what aura he has with a dynamic punch, sending him crashing into the ground.
The rest of the fake White Fang groups up and starts unloading every round they have left in their weapons into Yang, but this time Yang bobs and weaves through their shots before leaping up towards a nearby crane. The girl uses the metal bars holding the crane up for cover for a moment before leaping off of them and uses the crane's hook to swing around them. With a sinister grin on her face, Yang goes for the unthinkable, an all out attack to knock them all out at once! When she finally lets go of the hook, she's right above the small group of Faunus with her fist raised high, leaving the group astonished at how she managed to avoid their onslaught of hellfire and position herself perfectly. And when she finally lands, she punches the ground with all her might, causing a ball of flames to surround her and knock the Faunus out cold.
Yang stands up in the middle of a ring of fire as she wipes the sweat from her brow, thinking, "Woah, that took a bit longer than expected. What are the others up to?" She glances over to Blake and Sun to see they're holding their own against Torchwich, but by no means is Roman losing.
The redhead quickly blocks a rapid combo of swings from Sun's nunchuck-shotguns, which the boy is firing as he swings them wildly at the criminal. As he blocks these attacks, he pushes the barrels of each shotgun away in such a way that he doesn't get hit by the blasts, and even ends in the perfect situation to fire a shot at Sun's feet, pushing the monkey boy back and making an opening for Blake to rush in and attack.
"She seems fine, what about A-", Yang begins to think as she turns her attention to Ash, stopping mid thought as she sees Ash fighting Hook as an airship is flying around them with a Faunus on board firing down at the boy with a mounted gatling gun. With a pump of her shotgun gauntlets, she unloads her expended clips of shotgun shells before quickly reloading her babies with fresh clips from her ammunition pouch as she shouts, "Just hold on, Ash! Backup's on the way!"
As Ash avoids the last of the hail of bullets being fired down at him, nimbly evading each bullet until they're forced to reload, but he's immediately faced with another problem as Hook swings down at him with an overhead strike from his anchor. The grey-eyed mummy goes to block the attack with his sheath, but the force behind the strike is too much for him to handle and nearly crushes him, seeming to shatter the ground below his feet from the raw force behind it.
Yang finally comes to the rescue however, landing in between the two fighters with a powerful punch to the ground that blows Hook and sends dust and dirt flying through the air to make a small smoke screen.
"Ah, so you want some too!? The more the merrier!", the wolf Faunus gleefully exclaims as he transforms his weapon into its cannon form. As he points the deadly weapon at the smoke screen, he growls, "Are you two hens done playing with yourselves yet? We have a battle going on down here."
"The gun's reloaded, waiting on your call, Boss.", a timid bird Faunus replies through the ear piece in his ear.
This causes a sly smirk to crawl across the wolf's face as he replies, "Alright, let's show these little pups what the real world's like! Open fire!" Much to his surprise, before he can even fire, Ash goes flying out of the smoke, but instead of heading for him, the boy is going straight for the airship. He quickly shifts his aim to follow the boy as he growls, "Tryna run away!? I don't think so!"
Yang, however, rushes him down to stop this, unleashing a combination of quick jabs and pokes, forcing the Faunus on the defensive. As Hook blocks the girl's furious punches with his cannon, Ash reaches the airship and stabs his blade into its windshield, frightening the pilot before quickly shooting his aura blades into the engines. With a twist of his blade, the glass shatters and the pilot nervously flinches as he looks directly into the boy's cold, remorseless eyes. Afraid for their lives, both the pilot and the gunman quickly abandon the crashing airship as it starts to spin out of control.
While Yang continues to fight Hook, she notices the airship is heading straight for them as Ash leaps away to safety, giving her a quick nod as a signal. She grins at the sudden danger and pretends to rush her opponent down with her fist drawn back, ready to unleash a powerful haymaker on him.
The battle-hungry wolf greedily smiles at this and goes to clash with her attack, using his anchor, but instead of throwing a punch at him, she leaps into the air and fires a powerful shot at the ground, launching herself away from the Faunus. With rage filling his eyes, he growls, "Where the hell do you think you're going, you tease!?" He looks up at the source of the loud noise nearby to see the airship crashing, and that it's aiming right for him. "Oh shi-", he barely manages to shout before taking the full force of the airship as it crashes into him. As the airship crashes down into the Faunus, it explodes, consuming the Faunus in a bath of flames.
Over with Blake and Sun, they're unleashing a plethora of combos on Torchwich, trying to best to criminal, but failing as he perfectly parries them at every turn. As Roman blocks Sun's quick nunchuck strikes, the monkey boy finally runs out of ammo as he goes to pull the triggers again, but nothing fires from his guns. Roman, being the sly devil he is, notices this and starts going on the offensive as he twirls his can around in one hand, unleashing strike after strike at Sun, who blocks the attacks with his nunchucks.
The master thief almost has the upper hand until Blake jumps back into the fight, having to take a minute to back out in order to reload her weapon properly. She quickly slashes at the man, forcing him to duck under her attack as she flips over him. Sun and Blake both rush in to take advantage of the situation to attack Roman, Sun reverting his weapon back to its staff form as Blake uses both her sword and sheath to attack.
The thief skillfully dodges and parries their combination of attacks, ducking under Sun's staff swing with a crouch as he blocks Blake's blade with his cane. Blake goes to strike him down with her sheath, but Roman quickly grabs his hat with his free hand and with the press of a button on the inside of the cap, a razor sharp circular blade jets out from the hat's rim. Surprisingly, Roman is able to block Blake's sheath with this over-the-top weapon, causing Blake's and Sun's eyes to widen in disbelief.
The skilled hatter forces the girl back with his hat-blade and cane before pointing the end of his cane at Sun and firing. As he does this, he throws his round hat at Blake, causing the blade to spin at a remarkable rate, the hat zooming by the girl's face as it cuts manages to cut into her aura. With his hat starting to boomerang back his way, Roman growls, "I have plenty more tricks where that came from kiddos, so you'd better not underestimate a professional."
The ginger quickly catches his hat and manages to take a second to glance over at the raging fire that engulfed Hook, growling under his breath, "Bunch of useless animals, every single one of you. It seems if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself." The devil's stern glare then falls upon Blake and Sun as he shouts, "Well then? I'm waiting! What are you two fleebags doing just standing around, huh!? If you wanna fight, let's go! I'm not holding back anymore!"
To his surprise, instead of charging at him, Blake, Sun, Ash and Yang surround the thief, blocking any hopes for escape. "It's over Torchwich, it's just you now, so you don't stand a chance.", Yang growls as she points one of her shotgun gauntlets at him.
Roman only chuckles at the girl's failed attempt at a threat before glancing around at the four huntsmen-in-training surrounding him. "These kids, they're so smug, but they're right. I'm in a bit of a pickle here. I even had to use that old hat trick. I'll have to-", he begins to think before hearing the faint sound of an airship engine in the distance. The sound brings a warm smile to his face before he tries to think of something to stall for time, leading to him glancing over at Yang and saying, "Ah, you're the girl that trashed Junior's night club a few months ago! I knew I was remembering that annoying voice from somewhere. Well, I got out of there early enough last time and it seems like I'm going to get out of this little situation as well."
The observant thief notices the blonde tighten her fist and chooses to push her even further, saying, "You know I'm surprised you didn't get any jail time for that. What'd you do? Give the officers a little kiss? Or maybe you gave them something else? Hm? I knew the pigs here in Vale were easy to bribe, but I didn't know they'd take used goods."
Yang is beyond embarrassed, her cheeks turning a bright red at his comments while she growls at the man in her fury. The blonde takes a step towards Roman, ready to unleash her wrath upon him, but Ash blocks her path with his sheath. The blonde glares over at the boy with rage filling her crimson eyes, but before she can ask him why he's stopping her, Ash asks everyone, "Do you hear that?", causing the other huntsmen's ears to perk up.
Suddenly, an airship zooms in and a girl glides down from the ship, using an umbrella to slow her descent to the ground before finally landing next to Roman. The girl has long hair with brown on one side and pink with some white streaks on the other, a right brown eye and a pink left one, and is wearing white jacket with a pink interior over a brown corset, along with brown pants, black gloves, and black and white boots with very high heels which work well with her pale skin and many necklaces.
The seemingly young girl smiles over at Roman and he gives her a kind glance before joking telling her, "Took ya long enough, Neo."
"A partner?", Sun asks with a curious look at the short girl.
Roman rubs the back of his head with his free hand and adds, "But, I have to admit, you were right about those fleebags. They were nothing more than useless grunts."
Blake grits her teeth at his belittling comment and quickly transforms Gamble Shroud into its gun form, unloading five shots at the man as she shouts, "Stop belittling them, you scum!"
Neo swiftly reacts to this attack however and blocks the oncoming fire with her open umbrella. As the short girl closes her oddly strong umbrella and rests it to her shoulder, she glares silently at the cat girl as the Faunus grits her teeth in frustration. Roman and Neo both smile happily at one another as Roman asks her, "Why don't we show these kiddos what real teamwork looks like?", to which the mute girl nods.