Enter Stage Right, Exit Stage Left

A/N: Surprise, surprise! This story's still alive! I won't try to come up with an excuse for the infrequent posting, because it really boils down to me needing to pick up the pace. But I'm starting to get back into the feel of it, and if I space my time properly from now on, I might just get back to regular posting (give or take a week or two). But hey, better than radio silence.

Onto the story!

"This is your last warning: drop your weapons or we will open fire – now!" the voice over the loudspeaker demanded as SK glanced over his shoulder at T.

"You gotta give me something to work with here." The rogue muttered. "If you even have a plan."

"Go low when I give the signal – take out the Ronins on your side and I'll take out the ones on mine." The hacker replied.

"Oh, yeah, great plan!" SK replied sarcastically as he felt his anxiety rising with each passing second. "I mean, it's not like there are three gunships locked onto us!"

"Just three…more…seconds," T stretched out the pauses between each word to stall for time before he suddenly raised his Scroll and tapped a button on the screen. The effect of whatever hack T pulled off was immediately visible; each of the gunships broke their steady hover as they dipped to one side or another, their flight patterns out of control. "Go, now!"

The rogue burst into action immediately as his form flickered until he vanished while sprinting across the walkway – back the way they came. Three of the five special forces soldiers let loose a spray of bullets in hopes that at least one of the rounds they fired would hit the invisible teen, but SK had used this style of fighting enough to know how to zig-zag between the shots as he closed the distance before striking out at the closest Ronin.

Pressing his offensive, the onyx-haired teen had a good initial start as he cut two of the Ronins down in quick succession, but quickly found himself overwhelmed as the three remaining soldiers used their melee weapons against him. Two of the Ronins wielded tachis and drew his focus as SK had to meet their strikes, while the third used a one-handed hammer and swung where the rogue was exposed.

Unintentionally, his mind kept going back to his final memories of Vacuo, and how he was unable to defeat the trio of Desert Raiders he so hastily demanded be brought forth. The memories worked to SK's disadvantage, however, as each flash of that eventful evening distracted him from the fight at hand.

Quickly the three wore down SK before a sharp blow to the back of his right knee by the hammer-wielder brought SK to his knees as his Aura finally gave out.

Before he had a chance to get back up, all three warriors were on him again. He managed to catch the blade of one of the sword-wielders with his falchion and caught the man with the hammer by the wrist, but was unable to defend himself from the Ronin that put his tachi to SK's neck.

Just like before, I guess. The rogue thought to himself as he defiantly pushed against the other two Ronins. Doubt I'll get out of this one, though. With a wind-up, the man was about to bring the blade back to decapitate him, only to be shot in the back twice and fall over.

The rogue only needed to take a momentary glance to see that T had been the one to fire the shots, holding his pistol in one hand while he had one of the Ronin's in a headlock, using the soldier as a human shield against the other Ronins.

Seeing an opening, SK snapped back to attention as he swept out his leg to trip up the hammer-wielder before focusing his attention on the second swordsman. He used both his falchion and his bracer to push the Ronin on the defensive before using his blade to nick the swordsman's wrist, causing him to lower his guard for SK to deliver a punch to the face that knocked him out.

Once the swordsman was dealt with, SK then dropped to one knee as he twisted around, changing Scorched Divide's weapon form to fire a beam of energy into the remaining Ronin's chest and knock him off the edge of the walkway.

With the Mistral special forces soldiers on his end of the walkway dealt with, the rogue turned to help T, but hesitated when he saw that they were in close-quarters combat – barely a couple centimetres apart from one another and constantly moving. His hesitation left him a second later when he remembered that he didn't really care if he hit T or not, hands moving to charge and fire his weapon.

Taking aim, SK fired two streams of energy that met their mark both times, knocking away two Ronins that had been flanking T from either side. This left the hacker free to dispatch the one he was facing head-on before putting two bullets into each of the remaining warriors.

The onyx-haired teen barely had time to breathe a sigh of relief when the roar of an airship's engines drew his attention to one of the gunships, which had managed to regain controls from T's hack. A second after its laser sights trailed up SK's body, the craft's twin machine guns spat forth a burst of bullets that the rogue first tried to deflect with his blade before realising the task was too arduous and taking off at a sprint.

His balance was off from the start, however, and the rogue tumbled into a roll after only a few steps. Bracing himself against the oncoming shower of bullets, SK was both surprised and relieved when a barrier suddenly sprang up from the floor of the walkway to protect him. He looked over to T to confirm his suspicion that the hacker had been the cause of it as another barrier came up to protect T just as he crouched down.

SK tapped the side of his glasses to activate their intercom function before shouting to be heard over the sound of bullets impacting the barrier in front of him. "Can you make it back to the Bullhead?"

"If you can keep it on you," T's voice crackled back over the comms. "But I won't be able to get her airborne fast enough to take out the gunship before it cuts you down."

"Just do that hacking thing again and shut it down!"

"It won't work; the system likely adapted to stop my signal from affecting it – and even if it didn't, the pilots know how to fix it this time. Faster than before."

"So then what? My Aura's down and I don't have any heavy firepower, so I can't cloak and I can't bring it down!"

"You'll just have to try." T's tone was neutral and calculated, giving SK the sense that there was no other option. "Those other two gunships will be back any second now, and then we'll all be done for."

Not for the first time that day, the rogue let out a long sigh as he checked the charge on Scorched Divide. "Fine, just draw its attention first so I can get a good shot on it."

There were a few seconds of silence over the communications line before the rogue heard T say, "On three."

SK counted down along with T, keeping his eyes on the hacker as T burst out of cover and made a beeline for the Bullhead. A couple of seconds later, the pilot of the gunship spotted T and rotated to fire on him, giving SK the opportunity he needed to prop his laser rifle on top of his cover and fire a beam of energy at the cockpit.

As the beam glanced across the cockpit's view-screen, it did little more than draw a trail of molten glass that warped the pilot's visibility slightly before the gunship's focus was back on SK. This time, instead of a shower of bullets, two missiles launched out of either side of the cockpit straight at SK's location.

What was I thinking? That glass has to be at least two and a half inches thick. Knowing that his cover would not stand up to that kind of firepower, the rogue dove the other way just as one of the missiles destroyed his shoulder-height barrier while the other passed just inches over his head.

While on his back, SK continued to fire streams of white-hot energy at one of the gunship's engines this time. The metal plating around the left engine was just beginning to glow red when another spray of bullets came his way – trailing along the walkway towards him. To save himself SK rolled to one side as the high-impact bullets hit the pathway right where he was a second ago before firing another laserbeam at the same engine.

Before the gunship was able to fire its guns again, the beam of energy from SK's laser rifle finally burnt through the outer casing protecting the engine, causing a venting failure which resulted in a chain reaction as the aircraft's left engine blew out before shutting off. The rogue let out a shout of success as the gunship veered off to one side and dipped down, just as a line of bullet hit the walkway in an arc a metre from him.

SK's relief was short-lived, however, as when he made to get up the other two gunships lifted into view on either side of him, their weapons primed and ready to take him down.

"Shit." He muttered under his breath while trying to summon up enough Aura to turn invisible – however much that would help. A pair of machineguns went off before he managed to find the strength within him, but – to his surprise – the guns that fired were not aimed at him, and were instead aimed at the wing of the gunship in front of him.

He dropped to the floor as the airship in front of him turned around, revealing that the shots had come from another airship behind it – a standard-issue Mistral Police search-ship that was still speeding towards the two gunship.

Under the combined firepower of two Ronin gunships, the boat-like aircraft was quickly battened by the oncoming barrage, damaging its sail-like wings, but not doing enough damage to stop its collision course with the first gunship.

As the two aircrafts collided, two figures jumped out of the police airship and landed on the walkway next to SK right before the two ships smacked into each other – creating a mid-air explosion. The rogue only needed one glance out of his peripheral vision to know that the two were Mason and Tanner, who continued to fire on the remaining gunship as soon as they landed, with minimal effect due to their limited firepower.

When Tanner's pistols ran out of ammunition, he holstered them before drawing two Dust crystals out of his pockets in one lightning-fast motion. With a crystal in each of his hands, the brunette channelled his Aura into the palms of his hands to charge the crystals before hurling them at the aircraft. The two crystals exploded when they made contact, but did little more than shake the whole airship.

"Aim for the engines!" SK shouted to be heard over the gunfire. "These things can't stay in the air without both engines!"

"What the hell do you think I'm trying to do?" Tanner asked rhetorically while reloading his triple-barrelled pistol with both hands. "Are you waiting for a formal invitation or something? Fire on that thing!"

SK was about to reply when the gunship fired its both its missile launchers and machineguns simultaneously. All three of them were about to dodge in different directions when a wide barrier suddenly popped up from the floor in front of Mason. Halfway between either Tanner and SK, all three of them moved to get behind the barrier as a pair of missiles soared over their heads while another pair struck the barricade – doing some damage, but not enough to destroy it.

"Did you see that?" Mason yelled, though SK barely heard him over the deafening vibrations of machinegun bullets pelting the barrier he had his back pressed to. "That was freakin' awesome! We were all like, 'Ka ka ka ka', then when we smacked into the gunship it was all like, 'Phoosh'!"

"Yeah, awesome." SK exclaimed as he tried to muster the strength to use his Semblance. "Dying now, however, would not be awesome. So, who has a plan?"

"Why don't you stand up and draw its fire so we can make a break for it?" Tanner suggested, which earned him a glare from the rogue. "Hey, you asked!"

Before SK had a chance to reply, all three of their Scrolls began ringing simultaneously. Over the machinegun fire, the three only realised their Scrolls were ringing by the vibrations they made, but all three still picked up the line. "Head's up, three o'clock."

At the sound of T's voice, all three turned just as a pair of missiles streaked through the air and struck the gunship, blowing out its left side. As it spiralled out of control, T's Bullhead slowly repositioned itself to be parallel to the walkway before lowering down next to it. SK watched the gunship for a second as it plummeted towards the ground far below before turning his attention back to the Bullhead and the hatch on its side as it opened to reveal the hacker standing to one side.

"You couldn't have done that sooner?" Tanner asked as he vaulted over the barrier, a smirk directed at T.

"We're on the clock – get on." T stated as if it were a simple command. Mason and Tanner were the first ones to hop into the hatch before SK, who took a moment to make sure he stuck the landing.

As soon as his feet touched the floor, Tanner turned to the cockpit and shouted out, "Ok, we're all on – let's get the hell out of here!" A second later, the Bullhead began to pull away from the Mistral air-yard, doing a wide circle as T flew the ship into a good position to speed away. SK reached for the manual controls to shut the door on the side of the craft, but as he did he also spotted several more police airships coming their way.

"Head's up; company's coming!" he exclaimed while hitting the button to shut the door.

"Doesn't matter," T replied as SK found his grip on the handrail by the door. "-We're already gone." T didn't say anything after that as the airship's thrusters kicked in and put Mistral far behind them.

Present Day…

At this point, Tanner resorted to blowing puffs of air in order to burn time as he tried to think of something to say. He tried to come up with anything that could remedy or at least cushion the blow of what had just been revealed, but nothing came to mind that wouldn't solidify the point clearly on the minds of the other three in the room: his team had directly attacked Mistral.

There was no justifying the dozens of dead Mistrali officers and fighters that day; something the swordsman had learned from his time amongst the other three, and had come to begrudgingly accept.

As Tanner had predicted, Glynda was the first one to break the silence after the revelation. "Well, I hope you all realise that there is no way we can disregard the fact that you committed a capital offence against a Kingdom – never mind the fact that it was a foreign nation that we have no way of contacting."

"Oh, come on. You can't ignore the number of criminals we killed during that little 'incident' just because we had to kill a few policemen and soldiers." SK reasoned, but the blonde witch looked unconvinced. "Cinder and Roman Torchwick sent some of the best assassins and hitmen after us that day. They've got a long list of criminal deeds that sure as hell weigh up to more than what we did."

"That does not excuse you from the blatant act of terrorism committed that day! By right, all four of you are still on the Remnant-wide wanted list as the unknown terrorists responsible for that incident." Glynda continued.

"It was self-defence!" the rogue snapped back. "And this was hardly a terror attack – we were running for our lives! At least we tried to avoid getting civilians involved, but when someone fires an RPG at you, you either dodge out of the way, or take the hit and die."

"Three people died when that rocket hit the bank behind you," Jay snapped. "-Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

Everyone knew the figures of the incident in Mistral; it was all over the news back when it had happened. Tanner had read the after-action reports from both the media and from Overwatch, but it only occurred to him then that what they did could have serious consequences if they were in the wrong place.

SK's reply, however, was cold and serious. "Yes, it does mean something to me," his composure didn't waver as he spoke. "-But better them than me."

Jay looked like he was going to say something snarky back at the rogue when Qrow raised his hand. "Enough." He stated, directing his words at the blonde. "You can't judge the weight of your actions against the actions of others." Qrow shot towards SK. "And from where I'm sitting, what you did was no less wrong that any of those assassins you killed that day."

"It had to be done." Mason stated with a calm resolve, which was very unlike of him. "The bounty hunters that came after us sucked as they were, but the police? The police were terribly coordinated, poorly armed and were more concerned with the people than catching us." He listed off on one hand. "TBH if we were in somewhere like Atlas or Vacuo, they might've caught us."

"Ok, we're not here to take swings at the MPD, so can you get to the part that's useful?" Jay asked, the irritation at this interrogation dragging on clear in his voice.

Mason, however, immediately responded with a maniacal laughter while slamming his fist on the table as he got control of his laughing fit. Looking up at the disturbed expressions of the three sitting across from him, the redhead wiped a tear from his eye before responding. "Is he serious right now?" when he received no reply, he continued with his arms raised to either side of him. "Come on, admit it; we're not only here because you wanna know what led up to this. We're here because we've been fighting Vale and Mistral and Atlas and practically everyone for, like, half a year and you want to know how we did it."

"I don't think you understand your position ri-"

"We literally kicked the asses of everyone we've come across – including yours! So now you wanna know why you sucked, and what you can do to un-suck." Mason finished, interrupting Jay's comeback and effectively leaving him stunned silent.

Tanner was surprised by Mason's perspective of the situation, after taking a moment to figure out what the redhead was trying to say. To him, this was merely an interrogation to understand how deeply MSTT's connection with Cinder ran for Qrow and the others to decide on a punishment for them.

The swordsman – for all his experience with mafias and gangsters – hadn't considered that they were trying to learn from them.

"That's…one of the things we were hoping you'd help us out with – yes." Qrow's admittance drew everyone's attention back to the matter at hand. "But we'll come around to that later. As you can't tell, we can't exactly send your 'feedback' to Mistral, nor can we for the foreseeable future, so why don't you four tell me what happened with this 'Codename: Trojan'?"

After a quick "Boom, ten points," from the berserker, T let out an annoyed sigh when he thought back to the incident they were being asked to call to mind. "There's not much to say; we wouldn't be here right now if it had worked."

"Yes, but we want to know why it didn't work." Glynda stressed her words, conveying her frustration that they were dodging the question through her tone. "What went wrong; did they predict you were going to make a move? Was your informant compromised?"

"There was no informant." SK stated with a slight raise in his tone, drawing everyone's attention to him. "Trojan was a bust – nothing more than a trap set up to lure us in while they cut off our escape."

"By Cinder?" Qrow asked with a raised eyebrow. "I would've thought you'd be able to tell if she was laying out a trap for you."

"Yeah, that's uh," Tanner began as he searched for the right words to describe what had happened. "-it's a little tricky to explain what happened here, but it explains why T didn't immediately call it off on the off-chance it was a trap." He looked over to the hacker expectantly. "T, I think you're better at explaining this."

A few seconds passed as T fiddled with his damaged Scroll without saying a word before he looked back up at the three sitting across from him and began his explanation. "The risk I took with pursuing Trojan was calculated. The chance of Trojan being real, and the possibilities the information he might have provided us would have opened up, far outweighed the consequences of if it were a trap." He paused as he touched the table, causing lines of light to appear on it as he interfaced with the table using his arm. "When it all went down, well, I suppose it all made sense in hindsight, but Trojan caught us – me – off-guard because of something I couldn't have predicted."

"And what was that?" Jay asked, his eyebrows furrowing together in curiosity.

"Well, I suppose it's a funny story, looking back on it." Tanner added with a chuckle. "You wanna tell it, T?"