Yang rubbed her face in frustration, in the process smearing a week's worth of collected grime. Nearly four days after arriving in the abandoned city, and she still had no idea where Blake was. She had checked their old dorm rooms and found some signs of habitation, but they were over a month old. Blake had been there, but there was no way to know if she still was even anywhere near the city. Yang was sat quietly on a rooftop, thinking about how to go about this. This wasn't just a needle in a haystack, it was a needle that was actively running away.
"Penny, have you gotten anything on that scanner of yours?"
"Nothing but grimm. I'm sorry Yang, but I don't think she's in this sector," with that Penny's hologram faded away.
"Well I guess it's time to move on then," This was the third scan Penny had done that turned up nothing. Yang didn't relish the idea of going from building to building, but at this rate she doubted she would manage to find Blake out in the open. Yang hopped up from her seat and dropped softly to the street. Two ursa raised their heads at the unexpected disturbance. The quicker of the two took a step for ward before Penny unceremoniously diced it into odd sized chunks. It's companion seemed to briefly reconsider its options as Penny's daggers coiled like a snake about to strike.
"Hold up, Penny. I'll take this one, if you keep hogging all the fun I'm gonna lose my edge," with that Yang jumped towards the ursa, firing her remaining Ember Celica to build speed. The ursa swiped futilely at her only to watch as she soared just above its outstretched claws, aiming directly for the ursa's head. Her blow landed like thunder, the ursa's skull flattening between her fist and the pavement. Yang dusted herself and began walking to the next sector. "You know Penny, at the very least it feels good to be back in the thick of it. You know what I mean?"
"Yang," said Penny as quietly as possible, "keep walking. I sensed movement on the rooftop to our right. It isn't a grimm, but I can't sense a heartbeat either. I'm going to hook us up there, be ready to fight." Yang nodded her understanding as Penny detached her daggers. Penny launched the blades to the hilt in the brick of the building , yanking them both up and over the lip of the rooftop. Once she landed, Yang looked up into the shocked eyes of Neo
"You!" Yang yelled, raising her fist to strike.
"87?!" Penny exclaimed. Neo looked in alarm at Penny, then quickly disappeared in a flash of light.
"Don't run you coward! Penny, where is she? Penn!" Yang's demands fell on deaf ears. She looked over at Penny as she pulled up a communication hologram.
"Father! Father!" Penny yelled at the screen projected from her wrist. Dr. Marcin whipped around, facing the screen inside his lab. He quickly waddled up until his face filled the screen.
"What is it, my dear? Are you and Yang in trouble?"
"Father, we've encountered Android 87, please advise." Dr. Marcin visibly jumped at the name.
"Wait what's going on?" Yang asked, irritated at being ignored.
"I'll fill you in in a moment," Penny snipped. "Father, please advise."
"Right. Capture and contain. Once she is detained, I will send a pickup module to retrieve her. I'm sending you her schematics now."
"Schematics received. Thank you father. I will retrieve her shortly." Penny shut down the display.
"Penny, what is going on?!" Yang barked, frustrated.
"It's a long story, and we can't lose her. I'll talk while you run. Right now she's a quarter mile on your left and moving fast. Get moving." Yang wasn't going to argue chasing down that girl, but she was shocked with Penny's brusque attitude.
"So you were saying?"
"In all scientific endeavors, there are a thousand failures before the first success. Whereas I was the first success, Android 87 was the last failure."
"That's putting it lightly."
"It's not her fault! Aura transfer is a delicate process, and all our aura had to come from somewhere. Aura transfer was started as a mere aura drain in order to manage criminals too difficult to keep in prison. The project that eventually created me was just a byproduct, an attempt to put aura's to use. She's taking a left up ahead." Yang corrected her course.
"Wait so they stole people's auras? That's awful."
"It is unfortunate, but it was the only option for these prisoners. It was either that or execution, there was no other way to contain them. At the loss of their auras they got to keep their life."
"So how does this come back to her?"
"87 was the first semi successful transfer. All previous droids had either fried or rapidly degraded under the stress of the aura."
"How can you say that so calmly! You're saying that they would have just as easily fried you! You just got lucky!"
"But I wasn't me. The blank droids are barely above Atlesian droids in terms of AI. It took the infusion of aura into our systems to grant us sentience. It implants hints of emotions, and almost acts like a soul."
"So what went wrong with her?"
"She had more than aura transfer into her systems. The felon's mind imprinted itself on her core systems and superseded her core AI. She was being transferred to my father for correcting when the shipment she was on was hijacked by Roman Torchwick. We assumed we had lost her for good. If 87 wants to disappear, very few people would ever be able to find her."
"Why is that? What makes her so special."
"Whereas I was designed as heavy artillery to compliment my auras destructive capability, 87 was designed completely for stealth. Her semblance allows her to refract light. She can do anything from turn herself invisible to leaving afterimages to cover her escape. That, combined with modern Atlesian stealth tech would have made her practically uncatchable. That's what makes this so important, we may never have a chance to save her again."
"I don't think she particularly wants to be saved."
" She isn't herself. My father can fix her. It saves 87 and eliminates a dangerous opponent from the field. No matter what you feel about her Yang, she deserves a chance. Wait! She's stopped moving. She's on the rooftop ahead of us, proceed with caution." With that, Penny disengaged her daggers, leaving them floating at the ready. Yang made the final leap to the roof, but saw nothing.
"There's nothing her-" Yang was interrupted as Neo appeared at her side, smashing Yang across the face with her parasol. Penny reacted just as quickly, managing to land a glancing blow on Neo's arm. Yang jumped and swung at her assailant, but her fist passed through thin air. She heard a rush of wind behind her which would have been followed by a crushing blow had Penny not blocked it. Yang flipped away and began to fire Ember Celica, but every shot seemed to be a second too late.
"You can't hit her like that, Yang! You aren't seeing the real her. You have to trust me with this one!"
"I can't do nothing!"
"I'm not saying do nothing," Penny blocked yet another strike as Neo continued her assault, "Just follow my lead." Yang breathed deep. She had to trust her partner, Penny was more than capable as long as Yang kept her cool. Yang closed her eyes and clenched her jaw. Penny began to issue orders up through her arm so that Yang could hear her inside her head.
"Low kick, three o'clock," Yang followed through and heard the satisfying sound of Neo retreating after a devastating gut shot. "I need to access her mainframe to shut her down, Yang. For that to happen I need you to hold her for a few seconds. I'll corral her towards you, but you need to catch her. Use everything you have and keep her pinned." Yang nodded subconsciously in agreement, and began to hear Penny's knives rapidly unwinding and Neo rapidly approaching from the side. "Now." Yang's aura flared bright and as Neo dove to avoid the ever present blades, she found herself caught with nowhere to run. Yang grabbed her by the face and brought her crashing to ground, her head sending spiderweb cracks across the roof for twenty meters every direction. Before Neo could regain herself, Yang lowered Penny to her temple. A small spike shot out of her palm and found an access point under Neo's synthetic skin. After a brief struggle, Neo went completely limp. Penny brought up her communication uplink.
"Father, the damaged AI has been compartmentalized. Please send the retrieval unit."
"Understood, the module will be there momentarily." Penny closed the communicator. Yang went to remove her palm from Neo's head, but Penny insisted on remaining connected.
"I need to scan her visual memory. Whatever she's seen lately may be of use to us." Penny scanned for a few moments in silence before abruptly ejecting from the access point. "Yang, she's seen Blake. You need to see this." Yang did not like the tone in Penny's voice. Penny pulled up a video marked as a day old, and what was on it chilled Yang to the bone. On the small monitor she watched from a rooftop as Adam knocked Blake unconscious. She saw as he bent down to lift the defenseless girl onto his shoulder and began to walk away. Yang's blood was boiling, she heard a rushing in her ears so loud that she almost didn't notice the retrieval module landing next to her.
"We need to go now, Penny," Yang whispered horsely. The video was already a day old, who knew what Blake had already endured?
"I agree," Penny said as she unceremoniously stuffed Android 87 into the retrieval module. with a few quick button presses with her daggers, she sent the damaged droid into the good care of her father. "I believe we were actually near that location before. It was in Sector 1." Yang made no motion to respond other than to begin running. She kept running all night, only stopping once at the scene in the video where she retrieved Gambol Shroud. Depending on what Yang found, the blade would either finds its way into Blake's hands or Adam's back.