A/N: Hello, everyone! Yes, I'm not dead, and neither is this fic! I just happened to have an unfortunate writing slump at the worst possible time.
To make up for it, here, have a big one!
Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY or anything to do with RWBY, it all belongs to Rooster Teeth.
"...You are cleared to proceed to phase two."
"Boss,"
As his mind struggled for an answer he didn't have, Roman idly realised that he really should have taken the time to actually learn the names of some of his minions. At some point. Hell, the only one he remembered with any regularity at this point was Han, and that was only because killing him helped start this whole sorry mess off.
Refusing to let his mind wander back to old times (or relatively old, he liked to live in the moment, after all), he settled for an appropriate answer. "What?"
"I was saying, we still don't have any hits, boss. I think today's another write off."
Roman sighed, observing the map of vale. The digitised map had cost him a ton, and while it was pretty useful anyway, even then its' regular uses did not justify the price he'd paid for it. The only way this would turn into a solid investment would be if it actually got him a result on their kidnapping ring, and instead he was sitting, watching the road journey of a drug-addled, waster of an addict who they tagged at the charming little corner of Vale affectionately known by those unfortunate enough to be aware of it as the 'Junkie Junction'.
He blinked.
"Hold up," he pointed at the blip, "That one. That's the addict, right?"
"Yeah, boss."
"The one who we tagged on Tuesday. Who seemed to be permanently in possession of, at most, ten percent of his faculties."
"That's the one."
"So what's he doing in an automobile?" Roman asked with a raised eyebrow, "On a journey south, toward the agricultural district, even. I doubt someone like him is particularly interested in growing crops, at least, not the legal kind. On top of that, the drive looks like it was pretty smooth, so I doubt he's behind the wheel."
"Someone could be giving him a lift?" One of his men suggested.
"Or someone could have stuffed him into the back of a van," Roman responded, "Let's keep an eye on that one and see where it ends up."
Roman's interest was peaked even further when, after a good hour of movement, the dot finally came to a stop in a rather unlikely place.
"What do we know about that building," he ordered.
"It's an abandoned grain storage facility, Boss," one of his men said after taking a moment to check their scroll, "One of the ones meant to process food for the Mountain Glenn expansion."
"And when Mountain Glenn died, so did the reason to invest in the storage facility," Roman mused, "So it fell out of use, did it? No regular maintenance?"
His minion nodded.
"The perfect place to hide all kinds of interesting things... drugs, victims, bodies," Roman listed off., "We may have hit the jackpot."
He considered the possibility of contacting Qrow right there. However, this was, at best, currently a hunch and he really wanted more proof before he contacted the man who he really had to impress unless he wanted the metaphorical loop around his neck to get uncomfortably tight.
"Someone find Neo and some transportation," Roman decided, "We're going to scout this place out and make sure it's what we're looking for, first."
"What if it's just a bunch of junkies, Boss?"
"Then we kill them and dump the bodies outside the walls for the Grimm to eat," Roman said dispassionately, "I can think of a few things I could use a place like that for."
Jaune resisted the urge not to visibly gulp.
Sure, it had sounded like such a good idea at the time. 'All you have to do is be yourself, Jaune,' they said. 'Nothing will happen to you, we've got you covered' they said.
He mentally cursed his hero complex. And the fact that Ruby was so gosh-darn persuasive. Because it was ultimately a mixture of these two things that had gotten him in the situation he was in now; walking through the streets of Vale at night, jumping at every little noise he heard, both real and imagined.
As if to prove a point, a nearby bush rustled, making him nearly jump out of his skin. After a moment, when it was clear that no ambush would be emerging from the small speck of greenery to be found in this part of the urban landscape, he almost relaxed again. "Just the wind," he said aloud, "It was just the wind, Jaune."
He wondered what the others were doing.
Blake felt kind of bad, watching their impromptu bait meander through the streets like the first victim in a horror movie from her position atop a nearby building. If she was being frank, she felt that there was absolutely no way they'd see any kind of result today – the chances of the kidnappers stumbling across Jaune on their first night out were microscopic. Nontheless, as the stealthiest people in their group, it fell to her and Ren to watch Jaune and be the first to intercept the mysterious attackers if they took the bait.
Jaune was, of course, clearly absolutely terrified down there. Every time a rat scurried along an alleyway, he was practically a step away from screaming like a small child. It must have been rather nerve-wracking for him. Out here, like this, every noise must have sounded like impending doom, even the wind.
She paused. She then caught the eye of Ren, who was crouched next to her.
It's not windy tonight, she mouthed.
Ren blinked, then realisation set in, and he returned to his watch with even more focus than he was showing before.
Blake, on the other hand, narrowed her eyes as another faint 'crack' rang out – it could have been any manner of generic city noise, but what bothered her was the timing. It was starting to feel like the noises were almost… routine.
Realisation set in as she realised what she was hearing. Small, indiscriminate noises, repeatedly around the target, happening at set intervals. The target would get used to the pattern – at which point you deviated, and made two noises happen in short succession. The target would react to the anomaly in the pattern, and turn to face the odd noise out, allowing you to come in from another direction.
She felt herself gape in disbelief. She recognised this. Heck, she and Adam invented this. Were they genuinely lucky enough to strike gold on the first night?
She reflected that if they were pulling this move, this must have been one of the members that Adam trained personally. Which was fine – it meant she knew what was going to happen next. She nudged Ren.
Get ready to move on my signal, she mouthed. He merely nodded, looking tense. His level of focus and lack of unnecessary questions had impressed Blake, tonight. For a moment, she wondered where he had learned to sneak around, then remembered that he had known Nora for most of his life, and mentally filed it in the box marked 'things I probably don't want to know'.
She scanned the area, observing the potential angles of attack, considering where she would attack from, if it was her. Picking out the best potential spots for the distraction and the attack, she pointed Ren toward the latter – while he was surprisingly competent, she was still better at stealth, and for this trick, the one causing the distracting noise usually had to be the stealthiest of the pair, because they had to remain undetected while the target's attention was focused in their direction, so it was better for her to take that one.
Another crack rang out, followed swiftly by a rustle. Jaune whirled around.
Go!
Jaune didn't know what had happened. One minute, a rustling noise caught his attention, the next, there was a loud bang, a yell of pain, and the painful-sounding crunch of a body smacking against the floor.
He blinked as he realised he was looking at Ren, standing over an unconscious, dark-clothed hooded individual. One wearing a mask. Ren gave him a quiet nod.
Noises from behind him made him turn around, only to blink at the sight of Blake, kneeling on the back of another masked ambusher, Gambol Shroud at his throat.
"You know," Blake commented to her growling captive, sounding unusually amused, "If you're going to try and out-stealth me, you probably shouldn't try to do it using a trick Adam and I came up with when I was eight years old to steal cookies from the jar."
Before the man could respond, she smacked him over the head, knocking him out.
Several minutes later, the three of them, along with the other five members of their group, stood guard over their bound, gagged captives, an uncomfortable silence having set over them.
"So..." Weiss spoke up, "What do we do now?"
"Well," Ruby bit her lip, "We convince them to tell us what they know?"
One of the captured men snorted. Yang leaned down and pulled down his gag. "Something funny, pal?"
"Yeah," he chuckled, "You green-as-grass kids aren't going to get a damn thing out of us. We'll never talk to a bunch of huntsman wannabes."
Blake winced. He was right. She had seen how the White Fang got information out of people, just before the end. She didn't have the stomach for it. She doubted any of them did – aside from finding the enemy in the first place, this was always the part that she was sure would stump them.
"We'll make you talk," Yang said dangerously, clenching her fist, "I'm pretty damn good at getting information out of lowlives."
"Yang," Ruby stepped in firmly, "No. We're not beating information out of anyone who can't fight back."
"I could untie him first."
"That wouldn't change anything -"
"That's what I'm talking about," the White Fang member snorted, cutting off Ruby "Naive little brats. You don't have the guts to make us talk."
"Why you little -" Yang's reply was cut off again when Jaune stepped forward.
He sighed, and put a weary hand on Nora's shoulder. "Nora," he said gravely, "We need them sane enough to talk. Or," he corrected, "At least one of them."
The lively girl's answering grin sent a shiver up Blake's spine. "You've got it."
"What," the man rolled his eyes, "You think I'm scared of some little girl who looks like she's got a few screws loose? Wait, what are you doing?" He asked, slightly less confident as said girl bodily picked up him and his partner and hefted them over her shoulders.
"Jaune?" Ruby asked, confused.
"Don't worry," Jaune reassured her, "Nora's got this. No violence. Trust me."
"Okay..." the other team leader present agreed uncertainly.
"Come on, guys," Nora said happily, voice getting fainter as she skipped around the corner with her two now-struggling loads, "We're gonna be such good friends! Isn't that great? You can always use more friends, right? At least, that's what my grandma used to say, before that whole thing with the wood chipper and the neighbours dog! And his cat. And the neighbour..."
Around twenty minutes later, Nora came back with their captives, dumping them both at the feet of the assembled group. The one who hadn't trash-talked them was rocking back and forth, staring at nothing.
"Twenty-seventh verse… it can't be the same as the first," he said hauntedly, "It can't, can it? It can't. It can't. It just can't..."
"I'll talk," the other begged, "I'll talk, I'll tell you everything I know, even some shit I don't know, hell I'll fucking sing and dance as long as you just keep her away from me!"
"Okay," Yang replied in bemusement, "Tell us where you were supposed to take the kidnap victims."
"An abandoned grain storage facility in the eastern side of the agricultural district, not far across the river," he rattled off without preamble.
"Show us where on the map," Yang ordered, bringing up a map on her scroll. The terrified terrorist promptly pointed it out.
"That's quite the distance to travel holding a captive," Weiss frowned, "How were you supposed to get back?"
"We have a van! It's around the corner! We were supposed to stuff the victims in and drive there!"
"Keys," Yang declared, "Now."
"My left pocket!"
Sure enough, Yang fished out a set of keys for a small commercial vehicle. She gave the rest of them a grin. "Anyone up for a little road trip? I'm driving."
"Why don't we go on foot?" Ruby asked, "It's not too far."
"We're going into a fight, right?" Yang shrugged, "May as well save all that energy we'd use jogging and jumping over roofs."
There was a round of agreement at this.
"What do we do about him?" Blake pointed at the man who was trying, and failing, to edge away from Nora.
"Leave him tied up here and call in the police," Nora opined cheerfully, "He's learned that being a terrorist is a bad thing and he shouldn't do it any more! Haven't you, pal?"
"YES! I mean, yes! Bad! Very bad! I not do! Not any more, I'll turn myself in, I'll give to charity, I'll hold doors open in the street and pick up my litter and oh god don't let her get me," six members of the group (minus Nora and Ren, who looked rather unsurprised) stared in disbelief as what a few minutes ago had been a hardened terrorist broke down and sobbed on the floor.
"Well..." Ruby sighed, "I guess that's okay, then."
Blake joined the others in staring at Nora. She gave them all a thumbs up and a big grin.
It was at that point that Blake realised that her 'things I don't want to know about Nora' list had, somewhere down the line, become larger than the list of things she actually knew about Nora.
Suddenly, she felt her ears twitch. A sound. She turned around, eyes scanning the surrounding area.
"Blake?" Someone asked her, but she was focused on trying to find the source.
After a moment, she slowly relaxed, and turned to the one who had questioned her. "Sorry, Yang. I thought I heard something, but… looks like it was nothing."
She gave the buildings to their back one last suspicious glance, before turning to join the others.
Ruby and Pyrrha proceeded to grill the man relentlessly on everything he knew about the group of buildings, their inhabitants, the captives and the defences, before, after a few minutes, they were ready to jump in their newly-requisitioned vehicle and head out.
Or, at least, they thought they were ready.
"Okay, we're on foot from here."
Roman stretched his legs slightly upon leaving the car. It had been a while since he had to do any real sneaking around, and he was determined not to be rusty – they had to travel on foot for the last leg of the route toward the grain storage facility, as an approaching car in the dead of night would naturally raise some serious alarm bells for anyone with a brain, which was precisely what they were hoping to find.
"..." Neo shot him a concerned look.
"Nah," Roman shook his head, "There's only two people in our employ who are good enough at not getting caught for me to trust them with this, and they're both standing right here. It's too risky even for one of us, so it's gotta be the both of us."
"…?" Neo frowned.
"Of course I've taken precautions," Roman rolled his eyes, "I made sure the twins were both on separate jobs tonight, and they're the only ones with the muscle and the brains to try anything."
"..." Neo shrugged in acceptance.
"Well then," Roman smirked, "Let's go. Remember, we're in, confirming that it's what we came for, and we're out again. Just like old times."
"…" his colourful partner pointed out wryly.
"When you move up as quickly as we do, Neo," Roman shot back, "A few months is a pretty damn long time."
She conceded the point with a gracious nod as they began moving quietly toward their goal. The landscape was uncomfortably flat, but there was just enough by way of cover for them to do what Roman felt was a decent job of going unseen.
Finally, after a few short minutes that felt so much longer, their objective came into view. The run-down complex had several parts – dominating the skyline were several very large grain silos, while the middle of the facility was home to a large factory warehouse building. Next to that was a somewhat smaller, administrative building. The facility had no in-built defences apart from a surrounding metal wire fence, long since compromised by time and lack of maintenance.
More importantly, there were lights on, in both buildings.
Quite a few, in fact.
Roman considered the buildings. The silos would be a poor place to keep captives – they were too far away from the central buildings where the current tenants seemingly resided, there was the potential risk of an escape attempt. They were more likely to hold them in either the warehouse or the administration building. Of the two, he favoured the latter – blindfold someone and lead them to the one room in a warehouse and they could potentially find their way out if they managed to slip their bonds and blindfolds. Lead them through several corridors and rooms in a building and they would have a lot more trouble.
He indicated the second building to Neo, who simply nodded and took the lead. Slowly, but steadily, they began approaching the building, which was when they noticed their second, very telling lead. Sentries.
Specifically, White Fang sentries.
That was promising.
They were not ready. Nobody could ever be ready.
For Yang's driving, that was.
Blake was jealous of Ruby's apparent immunity. Their team leader seemed entirely unconcerned by the fact that the old van they were currently travelling in was shaking more than Nora after seven energy drinks. Or the fact that Yang's approach to driving a van was apparently the same as her approach to engaging in a fist-fight – lots and lots of ducking and weaving.
While the rest of them, sans Nora - who was currently screaming to go faster - and Ren, who once again seemed utterly unflappable, were currently curled up in balls and hoping not to die, Ruby was hard in thought as she considered the small map of the group of buildings they would soon be assaulting that she had obtained from their 'willing informant'.
Blake marshalled her bravery, and slowly shuffled over, steadying herself as the van took a harsh corner. "You're looking very focused."
Ruby glanced at her. "Just thinking about the best way to go in. It sounds like there's a lot of them there and they're really dug in."
Blake frowned, trying to ignore the urge to leap on the wall as another shuddering bump rocked the vehicle. Jaune was not so strong-willed, and would later deny that he screamed like a loud, small child. "What are you thinking?"
"Well," Ruby scratched her head, "We know the prisoners are in this one," she pointed at the sketch indicating the smaller building, "But they keep their guns and most of their people in this one," she then pointed at the larger warehouse next to it. "I'm thinking we'll need to split the teams."
"RWBY and JNPR?" Blake asked.
"No," Ruby shook her head, "We need a distraction in the big one. Something loud and flashy with explosions."
"Sounds like the day I met you. Perhaps you could introduce yourself to them, too?" It was really quite impressive that Weiss was capable of throwing around verbal barbs even when scared for her life in the back of a wildly-careening van.
"Oh, ha ha," Ruby grumbled, "It wasn't my fault you shook dust up my nose and made me sneezplode."
"And yet, you're the one for whom we literally need to invent new verbs to describe a type of explosion," Weiss noted, before grimacing as she was thrown into Pyrrha by another reckless turn.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Pyrrha apologised politely, helping Weiss sit up.
"Anyway," Ruby continued, "I think if we need a group that'll get plenty of attention, it's Yang and Nora."
Blake shuddered in horror. "That makes sense."
"I know, right? Anyway, they'll go in the big building and, well, you know," she said awkwardly, "Be Yang and Nora. You and Ren are the sneakiest ones here, so you two should head into the other building and try to find the kidnap victims while Yang and Nora get their attention."
Blake nodded. It sounded good so far. "What about you four?"
"Two pairs," Ruby mused, "Me and Weiss,"
"Weiss and I," corrected the Heiress faintly from her position on the van floor.
"Me and Weiss," Ruby repeated with a small amount of vindictive joy, "Then Jaune and Pyrrha, since they're better at working together and so are we. We'll wait outside and head in depending on which of you need help," she paused, "Every good plan has reserves. Or at least, that's what Uncle Qrow said."
Blake nodded. It was a workable plan, but then again she didn't really expect anything less from the person who thought up basically all their team attacks. Only Ruby could, after hearing an off-hand comment about how Yang was a human wrecking ball, come up with a viable way to actually make it happen. Blake still felt the phantom pain in her arms from the long, gruelling hours of practice. 'Bumblebee' was far too cute a code-name for such an exercise in torture and misery.
Further thoughts were cut off as even Blake's exceptional sense of balance failed her due to Yang slamming on the brakes, sending everyone flying toward the front of the crew cab.
For a second or two, nothing could be heard but pained groans.
"Sorry!" Yang called over her shoulder cheerfully, "Thought I saw a dog crossing the road, but… false alarm!"
Ruby was, once again, forced to display her exceptional ability to talk people around by managing to convince everyone else in the back of the van not to murder Yang on the spot.
The upside of Yang's driving style, on the other hand, was that it cut the time spent on their journey down significantly. They were soon stopping the van a short distance away from the location that they knew held a group of White Fang members, as well as several kidnap victims.
"What's a car doing here?" Yang asked with a raised eyebrow as the rest of the group stumbled out of the back, glaring at her furiously. They took a moment to get their bearings.
"In the same place we're stopping the van?" Weiss frowned, one of the first to pull herself back together, "That can't be coincidence."
"Okay," Ruby gathered them all around, "If everyone's ready, I've got a plan..."
The large, corrugated door of the warehouse exploded inward with tremendous force, stunning the guards stood inside for a few moments and leaving a large hole, enough for several people to walk through, and easily enough for the two teenage girls who strutted inside.
"Knock knock!" Yang said with a grin.
"Ooh, ooh," Nora replied excitedly, "Who's there?"
"Wha?"
"Who's there," Nora repeated, "You said knock knock, I said who's there, ball's in your court now, Blondie!"
"...I wasn't really expecting someone to take me up on it like that," Yang admitted, "I've got nothing, sorry."
"Nothing? You shouldn't just throw out knock-knock jokes if you're not willing to go all the way -" Nora's stubborn retort was cut off as a hail of gunfire exploded toward them from the middle of the room, forcing them both to leap aside to avoid it.
The terrorists had taken the time granted by their small debate to scatter back to the other side of the huge room, taking up firing positions from behind cover and letting loose. Nora was the first to respond, Magnhild's grenade-launcher returning fire in it's typically room-shaking manner – the first shot landed on a group of three White Fang members, sending them all flying.
Yang also shot back with Ember Celica – and while her rounds were not quite as explosive as Nora's, they still packed a significant punch, as promptly experienced by the pair of gunmen who found themselves thrown to the ground by a close hit.
In response to this, the terrorists reacted – scattering into a looser formation to minimise how many would go down at once to each shot. Yang and Nora quickly realised that their enemy seemed to know what they were doing, and found themselves ducking behind cover themselves, with a large, open no-man's land between them and their enemy containing nothing but a series of metallic barrels of some kind, too small to give proper cover.
"Nora!" Yang announced, "Cover me! I'm closing the distance!"
She leaped over the metal box she had been ducking behind as a stream of grenades from Nora exploded over the heads of the shooters who would have otherwise been targeting her, allowing her a fairly clear run across the cover-less area. A couple of rounds hit her, but nowhere near enough to trouble her aura.
The terrorists were not done yet, however. Several of them appeared upon a metallic scaffold walkway that ran across the upper side of the room, and let loose with their rifles – not at Yang, but at the barrels. For a moment, Yang braced herself, expecting explosives – but this was not the case. The barrels did explode when hit, but not with flame – liquid burst forth from them, splashing out in large waves and covering both Yang and the floor.
Trying her best to ignore her disgust and anger from the seemingly oily substance getting into her hair, Yang resumed her sprint toward the White Fang members who were now splitting their fire with surprising discipline to force Nora back under cover as well. She quickly found out what the oil was for as her foot slipped on the now-frictionless floor, sending her careening to the ground. She was a sitting duck.
Nora, however, was having none of it. Magnhild switched to hammer form, and she stood back, giving a mighty swing with her hammer to send the large, metallic box in front of her rocketing across the room. It was not, however, aimed at the White Fang. The large object flew dangerously close to Yang, landing neatly in front of her with a loud crash, and with a quick burst from Ember Celica, Yang skidded toward the cover that it provided.
"Thanks, Nora!"
"You're welcome! But I think we need a Plan B, here!" Nora called back.
Yang palmed her scroll, dialling Ruby's number. "We need backup, fast! We've got a couple dozen guys firing down and..."
Another Faunus died quietly as Neo slit his throat with her parasol blade, one hand clamped over his mouth like a vice.
"They never want to talk," Roman mused quietly, "And here I thought I made for great conversation."
Making it into the series of office buildings had been difficult, but doable. Night vision made for great sentries, but Roman and Neo were experts long-practiced at dealing with people who were meant to stop them from getting into places where they were not supposed to be.
"Okay, this is getting us nowhere," he sighed, "We don't have the time to interrogate these guys properly, we need to start covering more ground. The corridor up ahead has a split – you take the right, I'll take the left. If you don't find anything, double back to this spot and meet me here."
Neo nodded with a lazy salute, leaving the room promptly after listening at the door to confirm nobody was there. Roman waited for a moment before going after her, then taking his own route through another corridor.
There were three rooms on his left. The first contained nothing but a large desk, several chairs, and a large whiteboard, clearly some kind of meeting room. The sight of the whiteboard brought back memories of the time before Neo had gotten the hang of her 'expressing herself through body language' trick, when he had once made the drunken suggestion that she communicate with a little whiteboard – they both later agreed it was a fairly stupid idea.
The next room had desks and what was clearly supposed to be space for terminals. Possibly a training room of some sort, but still not what he was looking for. Entering the last room, he realised it was the rest-room, which was somehow still functional, and he walked in just as a shocked Faunus stepped out of one of the cubicles.
Roman reacted instantly, darting forward to grab the man by the back of the head before slamming Melodic Cudgel's hooked handle against the man's throat.
"I think you know what I'm looking for," he whispered, "You have five seconds to tell me where they are and you don't suffer the indignity of dying before you even got the chance to wash your hands."
The terrorist glared at him with a mixture of fear, defiance and frustration.
"Time's up." With a quick snap, the man fell to the ground with a broken neck. Roman shoved the body in the cubicle, and shut the door, before making his way back out.
He turned to his left and continued down a further corridor – this one apparently leading to what was the cafeteria of this place. That seemed promising, at least – if they were holding a large group of people, that's where he would do it. He went to proceed toward the door.
A black blade went toward his throat, only to meet the hard edge of Melodic Cudgel. With a quick motion, he pulled down, catching the sword with the handle and yanking it out of the hand of it's owner, before his elbow lashed out behind him, catching his would-be-attacker in the face and staggering them long enough to let him turn around and point his weapon at them.
"Fool me once," he grinned down at a grimacing face he certainly recognised, "Shame on you. Fool me twice… well, you're going to have to finish that one for me, because I never learned the rest of it. It didn't seem relevant, you see."
In response, Blake Belladonna glared up at him angrily from her position on the floor.
"Ozpin!"
Despite the fact that Glynda Goodwitch was one of the few people in the world who could interrupt a meeting between the headmasters of two Huntsman Academies without any kind of reprimand or issue, she still rarely did so without good reason.
This time, however, she had very good reason.
"Glynda," Ozpin looked up from the paperwork on his desk as General Ironwood regarded Beacon's combat trainer with concern, "What is it?"
"We've had word from Vale Police," she said without preamble, "They have taken a member of the White Fang into custody. This man has confirmed that the White Fang are behind the disappearances, and has also given the location of a holding area for several captives in the Agricultural district."
Both men stood up, giving her their full attention. "Another Belladonna case?" Ironwood asked, referring to the informal name given to White Fang members who had turned themselves in after the girl in question made her speech on the television.
"No, or possibly not," Glynda shook her head, "The man turned himself in after two encounters with our students. A quick check confirmed several of them are missing from their dorms – I'm sure you can guess who is missing. He also informed the police that our students were going to the location in question to try and rescue the captives themselves."
Ozpin's face became grave. "James, how soon can you have a rescue team ready to move?"
"Ozpin?" Glynda asked in surprise.
"Ordinarily, it would take at least an hour," Ironwood admitted, "Fortunately, however, one of our mobile forces built for rapid deployment is in the city, and due to their role operating beyond the walls, they are trained for search and rescue. I believe I can have them in the air in twenty minutes, maximum."
"Then please, do what you need to make it happen. I have a call of my own to make as well," he grabbed his cane as he walked around his desk, "Glynda, please provide the details of the location."
Meanwhile, in a hiding place just outside the two largest buildings in the grain storage facility, a different meeting was taking place. The sound of explosions could be heard from inside the warehouse – fortunately, Ruby, Pyrrha and Weiss had already knocked out the few sentries outside.
Ruby was thinking quickly after hearing Yang explain their predicament. "Okay," she began, "Weiss, we're going in to back up Yang and Nora. We're better at range than Pyrrha and Jaune and it sounds like they're having a gun fight in there. Jaune," she turned to her fellow team leader as Weiss nodded in the affirmative, "You two stay here and be ready to help either us or Blake and Ren if we need it."
"Got it," Jaune gulped.
"Come on, Weiss, quick!" Ruby began moving, Weiss quickly following after her.
They came to a small door at the side of the larger building.
"What's the plan?" Weiss whispered.
"Skeleton key," Ruby replied back quietly.
Weiss, remembering the move in question, nodded.
With a quick gesture of Myrtenaster, small, saucer-sized glyphs appeared just in front of the door hinges, as well as the lock – a moment later, and the ice-dust infused glyphs activated, freezing the metal of the lock and hinges. A second, larger, black glyph, this one spanning the width of the door, appeared with another gesture, before the door was pulled out of the frame and outside by an unseen force, before landing on the ground with a clatter that was fortunately masked by the sound of the explosive firefight going on inside, which had gotten far louder with the door's unfortunate passing.
Ruby grinned victoriously.
Weiss, meanwhile, sighed. "Yes, okay," she muttered loudly enough to be heard, "You said it would work and it did. I'll note that it wouldn't have gone unnoticed in any other situation, however."
Ruby entered first, Crescent Rose in its gun state. Weiss followed immediately after. They found themselves in a fairly wide corridor just beyond the main chamber of the warehouse, which lay just around a corner to their left.
The two quickly made their way to the corner.
"Can you take a look?" Ruby asked her partner.
Another glyph formed, this time forming a small, circular sheet of pure ice, formed from ice dust for the highest possible albedo to create a reflective surface. Weiss crouched down, poked it around the corner near the floor and observed.
"They have two guns covering this corridor while the rest are firing at Yang and Nora," she relayed, "Most of them are on the scaffold up above. Yang is roughly in the middle of the room, Nora's at the other side. The floor of the main room is still covered in oil."
Ruby took all of this in. "Okay… these guys really seem to know what they're doing... what if we... yeah. Okay, Weiss, Trick Shots."
"Right," Weiss nodded. "Targets?"
"I need one aimed at the floor, two at the guards covering this corridor, and a few more in the general direction of the guys shooting at Yang and Nora," Ruby explained, before she pulled one of her specialised dust cartridges from her ammunition pack and loaded Crescent Rose.
Weiss focused on the mirror, turning it this way and that, looking back at Ruby several times as she did so - her mind churning through calculations and angles at a prodigious rate.
"Okay," she said after several seconds, "Now!"
With a gesture, multiple small glyphs, similar in size to the ones used to break the door, appeared at the far wall past the corner, each one angled slightly differently, all facing into the main room.
Before the gunmen watching the corridor could react to the sudden appearance of the small, circular objects, Ruby began firing at each glyph with mechanical precision. The dust rounds collided with the centre of the glyphs, and, as things tended to do when connecting with Weiss' repel glyphs, bounced back off with similar momentum.
The first round angled off and hit the ground a few meters away from Yang's impromptu cover. The ice dust promptly activated, freezing the oil around it – the drop in temperature of the liquid quickly spread along the ground, freezing the majority of the oil into solid ice.
The second and third rounds collided with the two watchmen, each one hitting them centre-mass and taking them out instantly.
The last few were not so precise, but they did not need to be – rounds flashed out toward the gunmen up above, forcing them to break and duck as bullets shot past their heads. One lucky shot hit another marksman and knocked him clean from his feet.
Ruby and Weiss wasted no time, advancing into the main room quickly, Ruby continuing the barrage with a constant stream of fire toward the gunners up top even as she yelled out another order.
"Nora!" she called out, "Hit the floor as hard as you can!"
Nora, as she usually tended to do when told to hit things very hard, promptly and eagerly complied. Leaping out of cover, she let loose a mighty roar as she swung Magnhild over her head and smashed it down onto the ice. The blow seemed to shake the building, and it had a notable effect on the ice – namely that the solid sheet had now become a floor full of small, cracked shards.
As anyone would know, walking on a pile of broken ice is a lot easier than walking on a solid block, or even slippery oil. Yang was, once again, able to get to her feet and move effectively. She immediately did so, leaping out of cover to rush toward the side of the room where her enemy was located.
"Well, well, well," Torchwick chuckled as he stared down at her, "I wonder, if you entered this building under your own power, do you still count as being something the cat dragged in? I'm thinking yes. Are you thinking yes? Glare angrily if you think yes," her face didn't change, "I'll take that as a yes."
"What are you doing here," Blake hissed in reply, frustrated that the tables were turned on her so unexpectedly. She and Ren had been quietly making their way through the base, noting the bodies of several fallen guards, and she had been surprised and very suspicious to see the man from the docks she later found out was notorious criminal-turned 'upstanding bar owner' Roman Torchwick present in a White Fang base. Blake's immediate instinct was to grab him and question him. Unfortunately, this instinct had led her into a rather tight spot.
"Well, I'm browsing, of course," Torchwick explained, before giving a dramatic gasp at her momentary look of confusion, "What, you mean this isn't the pet store? I thought they were having an open day, what with them letting you all out of your cages like this!"
Blake twitched, desperately wanting to attack him for that remark, but thought better of it as the business end of his cane pressed against her head. She couldn't make any sudden moves, here.
"Careful, now, little miss T.V. personality of the year. Let's not do anything stupid, shall we?" Torchwick said, voice turning deadly, "Curiosity may be a vicious old gal, but I guarantee that I've killed more cats than she has tonight."
"Are you working with the White Fang?" Blake questioned him, trying her best to ignore the bigotry in favour of collecting information. She was pretty sure he wasn't, given the bodies they had found on the way here, but if she asked him an obvious question first he might let something slip.
He sighed audibly. "Okay, let's think back to the last time we had a little chat like this. What was I doing back then? Rhetorical question, don't answer," he quickly cut off her reply, "That's right, I was helping the city with it's pest control problem! So do you really think that I'm going to be working with the pests now?"
Somehow, Blake managed to find it in herself to glare at him even harder. "Good point. I don't think the White Fang could be in the same room as someone as discriminatory as you without killing you, never mind actually working with you."
"Discriminatory? Me?" Torchwick snorted, "Please. You Faunus have pretty flattering opinions of yourselves if you think I'd somehow not hate you if not for the night vision and extra body parts."
"Okay, not discriminatory," she snapped back, "Just a jerk. If you're here to stop the White Fang, I'm sure you won't mind explaining that to the police when they get here!"
"Actually, I really, really would," Torchwick corrected her, "I don't have the best relationship with the cops, you see -" he paused as explosions began echoing from outside, "What the hell is that? It's not coming from in here. Friends of yours?"
"Only some of them."
Torchwick stiffened and Blake felt relief as two hammers cocked. Ren approached from behind the criminal, Stormflower levelled at his back.
"Oh, great," the older man groaned, "And now we've got a nice stand-off going here. We just need the tumble-weed and a bell tower, don't we?"
"I've already contacted Pyrrha and Jaune," Ren explained, "They'll be here to help with this shortly and to get the prisoners out."
"How many of you damn kids are there?" the criminal asked in frustration, "And how do you know where the prisoners are? Hell, how did you even know about this place?"
"We used a decoy, grabbed the people that showed up to take him, and got it from them," Ren explained simply.
Torchwick furrowed his brow. "...that's it? How long have you been at this?"
"This was the first night," Ren replied with a shrug.
Torchwick's face went blank.
"What."
The life bled out of the woman's eyes as Neo's heel crushed her throat against the ground. This was the seventh one so far – it had become mark-ably more difficult to avoid detection once the explosions had started and kicked the White Fang up into a frenzy.
Unfortunately, she hadn't found anything worth commenting on – no hoard of hidden hostages, leadership figures, nothing – and she had at least glanced in every room on the way.
Sighing silently, she decided to make her way back to the meeting spot. If Roman was there, they could make their way out while whatever was going on next-door happened – if he wasn't, she'd have to go in and find him.
"Who are yoaaaargh!" with a shattering of glass, the sudden appearance from a side-corridor, and challenge, of another White Fang grunt soon became a scream of terror with an abrupt stop as Neo looped the hook of her parasol around his neck and yanked him straight through the second-story window behind her.
As she continued to make her way out, she hoped Roman was having more luck than she was. The only thing she had achieved so far was a body-count, and while killing White Fang morons was always a net positive, they had banked a lot on actually finding some hostages with this play of theirs.
Soon enough, she found herself approaching the meeting area. There was no sign of Roman.
But someone else was there.
Neo blinked, knowing that there was something familiar about one of the two. The blonde boy with the sword and shield looked hopeless, the redhead girl with the same weaponry in a different style seemed a bit more impressive – as evidenced by the fact that she noticed Neo first.
It suddenly came to her. She'd seen this girl on the television, before. Pyrrha Nikos, the supposed tournament prodigy, famously nick-named 'The Invincible Girl'.
But why on earth would she be here, alongside some other kid who looked like he would find his own shoelaces to be a uniquely challenging opponent?
Neo didn't let these thoughts trouble her as she continued her advance. This must have been related to why everything seemed to be exploding. She had to find Roman and get out of here, or at least find out what was going on, and some rookie and a pampered princess who'd never been in a fight without the training wheels on weren't going to be a problem.
The redhead barked out a warning for the blonde. It wouldn't save him. Neo wouldn't kill them, of course – that could draw some really bad attention down on their heads if these were some of Ozpin's pupils – leaving them unconscious would be enough. Maybe she'd even be kind enough to dump them outside.
She got within striking distance of the blonde, and blurred into action. A quick kick to the temple would knock him out, and leave her in a perfect position to follow through with a leaping roundhouse kick to the head that would quickly incapacitate the girl.
Yes, as soon as she got up from her position lying down on the floor, she would do exactly that.
'...wait, what?'
Alarm bells rang as Neo burst into a backwards roll to avoid the shield that slammed down on her former resting spot. How the hell had that happened? The redhead had actually moved fast enough to intercept her initial kick with that round shield and redirected her momentum to send her crashing to the ground.
She got to her feet and regarded her opponent more warily.
"I'm sorry, I don't know who you are," the girl said firmly, "But I would appreciate it if you didn't try to attack my partner."
Well.
It seemed this would be a bit more difficult than she first assumed.
"Are you going to say anything?" the other girl asked her.
It was probably more sensible to leave. But no way was she letting this girl put her on the ground without paying her back in kind.
Neo smirked. "..."
At this, her opponent simply adjusted her stance. "I see. Jaune, stay back. I will try to end this as quickly as I can."
Neo felt her eyes flash pink at the insinuation that she was going to lose, here. Yes, she had underestimated the girl like a fool, but she wouldn't do so again. She took a step forward, eyeing her opponent cautiously. The tourney champ had no openings that she could see.
It looked like she would have to make her own.
There was a moment of silence, broken only by the blonde boy's loud gulp. Then, at the same instant, both girls exploded into motion.
Yang had just managed to make it to the White Fang's side of the warehouse, passing between two large metal crates, when one of the terrorists up top activated a switch. Two smaller explosions rang out from either side of her, as some kind of thick netting burst from the containers in front of Yang.
True to form, Yang attempted to go through it – which was apparently a bad idea. The netting was some kind of elastic material, probably stolen military-grade given that it didn't snap immediately when Yang decided she wanted it to, and it stretched back significantly from her charge, before springing back into place and launching Yang away like a slingshot, sending her skidding across the floor.
The fire that otherwise would have rained down on her was paused temporarily as Nora had reloaded and began bombarding the gunmen's positions with gusto.
Ruby thought frantically, eyes scanning the room. They needed to do something about the heavy weight of fire coming from up there, and they needed to do it quick, while they had these few seconds.
The answer came to her quickly.
"I have a plan! Freezerburn!" she called out, before she made a run for it toward the end of the room furthest away from the terrorists.
Their many hours of practice kicked in, before Weiss, with her usual twirling grace, activated a glyph on the ground. Yang launched herself up in the air in Weiss' direction with a shot from Ember Celica, before slamming down upon the marked target with impressive precision and a fist wreathed in flame.
The effect was instantaneous, throwing up a thick mist throughout the room, cutting out visibility entirely.
Nora's fire ended, and scattered gunshots rang out in their direction, but without the ability to focus fire and aim, they were quite ineffective.
Ruby steadied herself in a sprinter's start position. "Everyone get ready to charge when I do this!"
With a yell, she propelled herself forward as fast as she could toward the opposite side of the room. The world slowed down as she felt the familiar feeling of weightlessness she had come to associate with using her semblance, heard the muffled sound of the sonic boom she created with her instant acceleration to supersonic speed.
Meanwhile, her move had the desired effect, as the mist on their side of the room was easily dragged forward toward the White Fang's side of the room by the force of her wake. The water thickened until it became a hail of thick droplets of rain and oil that bore down on the White Fang like a cloud of watery bullets.
Weiss, Yang and Nora found themselves able to see a precious few moments before the White Fang could, and thanks to the prewarning, they were able to used these moments to their full potential. Nora launched herself on Magnhild, Weiss threw herself from a glyph, and Yang pelted herself into the air with Ember Celica.
With some effort, Ruby managed to stop herself just before she hit the wall, the force of her sudden braking slamming into the wall and sending cracks up it. This had the side effect of shaking the scaffolding above, throwing the White Fang off-balance even further.
By the time the White Fang had gotten over both the sudden comeback of visibility, the hail of high-speed water droplets and the shaking, it was too late. Three angry huntresses-to-be were already upon them. Given their attempts to keep the Huntresses at range for the entire fight, Ruby guessed that they wouldn't be a match up close, and she was right.
Yang slammed into them with vindictive glee, given that she was the one to take most of the punishment tonight, Ruby couldn't blame her. Her fists slammed one man into another even as a leg swept another woman's legs out from underneath her.
Nora took out several with one swing, while Weiss darted between them at speed, bouncing from glyph to glyph and taking out individuals. It was over in less than a minute – of over a dozen terrorists who were upon the large scaffold, all were unconscious.
After a moment, when it became clear that there was no more gunfire or other combat-related noises that were left to appear, Ruby allowed herself to relax.
And then the wall exploded.
"Did someone call for the cavalry, because trust me, it's never looked this goo..."
Ruby, Weiss, Nora and Yang stared in confusion as their classmates appeared in the warehouses' new entrance.
"Ah," Coco Adel had frozen in what was clearly supposed to be her heroic entrance pose, the rest of Team CFVY behind her observing the soaking, shattered, partially-frozen interior of the warehouse and the unconscious forms of the White Fang scattered across it with a mixture of shock and bemusement, "Well, this is awkward."