The Commission

by CV12Hornet

RWBY AU. At the flip of a coin, good can become evil... Right can become wrong... Light can turn to dark... And the mightiest of heroes... can become the greatest of villains... (Discontinued)

6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

AN: Credit to BlindingPhoenix over on Spacebattles for the design of the Quartermaster, and for letting us use that design. We will give you more screen time than he did, my dear.

"-yanked my fist out, covered in a black, organic sludge, prize in hand!" Port demonstrated with a furious yanking motion, causing the onlooking class to jerk back in shock. The professor smiled joyously as he straightened his uniform. "And that is the story of the time I dropped my wedding ring down the garbage disposal."

All eyes in the classroom flashed to the professor's hands, still on his uniform jacket, to the sight of no gold ring. Noticing their stares, Port chuckled jovially. "Oh, I only wear it at home. Too much of a risk of losing it if a Grimm took the finger, or the hand... or the arm. Remember, students, never wear into battle anything you aren't willing to lose! This includes necklaces, earrings, nose-rings, belt buckles..." He trailed off at the increasingly disturbed looks on his students' faces. "What? There is a high chance of disfigurement and dismemberment in this line of work! You all knew that coming in! Now then, where were we? Ah yes-!"

The students were spared any further elaboration when the end-of-class bell rang, sparking a flurry of activity as each student gathered up their materials into their bags.

"Bah, ah well. Anyways, remember, students, you have a joint ten-page essay due at the end of the week on tactics to use to take down a mixed pack of Beowolves and Ursa. And no newborns in the scenario, either! Remember, coordinate with your teammates, twenty percent of your grade depends on it!"

The stream of students flowing towards the door let out a few absent-minded acknowledgements, but were largely interested in getting out of class as fast as possible.

Coco, as usual, flowed through the crowd as if it wasn't there, Velvet following in her wake. Or perhaps shadow might have been a better word, considering how close the rabbit faunus was to her team leader's back.

It wasn't until the two were outside of the classroom, and thus the press of the crowd, that Velvet stepped out from behind Coco.

"One of these days you're not going to need me to help you get through that horde." Coco noted over her shoulder.

Velvet rolled her eyes. "I highly doubt I'll ever go to as many clearance sales as you have, Coco."

"Nonsense! One of these you'll get in the habit, you'll see!"

"That's what I'm dreading..."

"In fact, let's get some practice in this weekend!" Coco suddenly flung her arm around Velvet's shoulders before she could react, or more specifically, escape, a slightly manic gleam glinting off the fashionista's shades. "I know for a fact that the stores all run sales during the Vytal Festival, so it's the perfect time! And this time you're not getting lost halfway through like last time."

Velvet gulped, feeling sweat bead on her brow. "R-right, lost... uh, t-that sounds… exciting! Yes, exciting." Her eyes frantically flicked back and forth, looking for something that could distract her team leader. "S-so, uh-"

"Hey, Coco, Velvet! Can I, uh, talk to you guys for a minute?"

'Saved!' Velvet thought to herself. She didn't know why Jaune was here, but already she could see Coco's attention shifting to the blond. "Oh, hey, Jaune! What's up?"

"Uh, well, me and the rest of the team are heading down to the waterfront today, kinda take a break from all the training the we've been doing. Even Nora's getting worn down," he said, looking slightly confused, like he hadn't thought that was possible. "That, and Pyrrha's getting a bit antsy about the Vytal Tournament. She keeps muttering about 'scoping out the competition' and all that."

Coco slid her sunglasses down slightly to give a Jaune a flat stare. "And how do you have the free time to do that? Last I heard, you guys were still in the doghouse with Professor Goodwitch."

"We had another round of sparring in Professor Goodwitch's class," Jaune explained off-handedly. "We did a lot better, so she relaxed the restrictions she'd put on us. Anyway, do you guys want to come with us? It'll be like that Dust-shopping trip we went on back at the start of the semester," Jaune finished, a nervous grin on his face.

Coco slid her glasses back in place to hide the fact that she was seriously considering Jaune's offer. Still, despite the temptation, she was leaning towards no. They had too much to do, dammit, and she didn't just mean Port's essay.

A bony elbow digging into her back right below her shoulder blades shook Coco out of her thoughts. She spun around to give whoever did that a piece of her mind only to see- oh no.

"Can we go with them? Please?" Velvet pleaded, her voice and lower lip quivering and her eyes wide and watery.

'Shit, she's making the eyes. I can barely resist the eyes,' Coco groaned internally. 'At least she's not- oh god damn it Velvet!' Her eye twitched as Velvet reached up, grabbed the ends of her secondary ears and yanked them below her chin, topping it all off with a slight tilt to her head.

"Please?" she repeated softly, almost whispering.

Coco's entire body quivered furiously as she fought every last urge that was screaming at her to grab her partner and... well, at least half of her thoughts were rated PG, so that was a marked improvement. With a supreme effort of will, Coco collected her thoughts into one answer.

"Sorry, Velvet, but-!"

Almost instantly, Velvet's demeanor pulled a 180 as she dropped the cute act and put on a concerned expression. "Come on, Coco, we need this! I mean, look at last night!"

"What are you... oh." Coco winced as her mind flashed back to a normally innocuous event from the previous night: Fox sharpening his blades.

'Did he ever stop?' she wondered. It was with increasing concern that she realized that she couldn't remember when he had stopped, though given that he hadn't been sharpening them in the morning he had stopped at some point.

And that caused her to remember the last time he had done that: day fifteen in a snowed-in cabin in the middle of nowhere. Try as she might, though, she couldn't recall what happened after that. Probably for the best, if the repair bill was anything to go by.

"You know what, Velvet?" Coco said, mentally congratulating herself for keeping her voice steady. "You're right. We've been cooped up in that room long enough. So, Jaune, where and when are we meeting up for this trip?"

The blond blinked numbly, trying to get his mind in order. "Hu-wah?"

Rolling her eyes, Coco snapped her fingers in front of his face. "Hey, lover boy, she stopped doing it."

Jaune jerked and shook his head to banish the image of Velvet from his mind. "Uh, around three or so, at the landing pad. They're running flights into the city all day."

"Aren't the Mistral students arriving today?" Velvet whispered to her teammate.

"Yeah, they are, for the festival." Coco whispered back. "Must be what Pyrrha meant by scoping out the competition."

"Uh, what are you guys whispering about?" Jaune asked, frowning slightly.

"You'll see!" Coco replied in sing-song. "Anyway, we've got to change and get ready, and I'm sure you guys do, too, so we'll see you at the landing pad. Ta-ta!" And with that, the two set off down the hall back to their room, Velvet giving a goodbye wave over her shoulder.

"Uh... alright then?" Jaune blinked in confusion as he puzzled over the cryptic statement before shrugging it off. "Well... see you later then!" Jaune called as he set off down the hall in the other direction.

~o~

"So, remind me why we're bringing our weapons on a presumably peaceful trip to town?" Fox asked over the wind of the Bullhead's passage.

"Orders from Professor Goodwitch," Coco yelled back. "With all the robberies lately she wanted us all armed just in case. Which you would know if you hadn't had sharpening on your mind for the last two days!"

"Well, excuse me for being just a tad bored with sitting in our room all day," Fox muttered under his breath. Velvet's ear twitched in recognition, but she didn't break her animated conversation with Nora and Jaune about Magnhild.

"And one of the coolest features is that there's some gravity dust worked into the head to increase the mass right when it hits and decrease the mass when I swing. So I hit harder and faster! It's the perfect combo!"

"Wait, how do you control the timing?" Velvet wondered. "I mean, the timing on the weight change would have to be really, really precise."

"Maybe that's why it's got all those weird letters carved into it," Jaune pointed out. "They're probably some ancient language that helps with controlling the Aura flow. I mean, you are infusing Magnhild with your Aura, right?"

Velvet and Nora blinked at Jaune, the shorter girl recovering first. "Wow, your lessons with Pyrrha really are paying off, because you're absolutely right! Those are runes, and they do help control the gravity change. I don't know where they came from, but my family's been using them in our weapons for… for… a really long time!"

Velvet's eyes widened, staring at the other girl as she took that information in. "Nora," she breathed, her eyes boring into the other girl's grey ones. "Can I pick your brain on these 'runes' after this? It could really help me with a problem I have with my own weapon."

"Weeeellllll," Nora drew out, her customary grin turning a little sheepish. "I can't give you the whole alphabet - trade secrets and all that - but!" The smile returned full-force. "I'm sure that I can try and help you on whatever specific problem you're having."

"Thank you!" Velvet cried, embracing the orange-haired valkyrie. "Oh, I've been having so much trouble with the dust control mechanisms, you have no idea how much this might help. Thank you."

"No problem!" Nora replied cheerfully, giving a thumbs-up. "Anything for a friend!"

"I do believe we're coming in for landing," Ren interjected. "So you guys might want to buckle up again."

Indeed, the Bullhead was beginning to descend, the buildings of Vale flashing by through the windows. Everyone who had unbuckled hastily reached for the leather straps, pulling them tight and into their buckles.

Thankfully, the landing was a smooth one, with none of the usual nausea-inducing bumps. As both teams disembarked from the aircraft, they noticed something unusual.

"That is a lot of airships. A lot of big airships," Jaune gulped.

"Atlesian military," Coco mused, taking in the heavily-armed and armored aerial transports. "They're probably here to provide security. Though, this is a lot more than necessary for a festival and student tournament."

"Do you think all those robberies have anything to do with it?" Ren asked.

"This is a lot more than necessary for a string of robberies, too. Like letting off a grenade to kill a mosquito," Coco answered dismissively. "Though it could just be someone up top overreacted. Bah, this is way too serious a topic. We're here to have fun! Let's just head into town, see the sea, scope out the Mistral students. That sort of thing."

With nods all around, the eight students set off for the waterfront. Unfortunately, they didn't get two blocks before being confronted with the sight of a burnt and blackened pile of rubble where a large office building should have been.

"What happened here?" Pyrrha breathed, her hands flying to cover her mouth.

Yatsuhashi cocked an eyebrow at her.

Coco rolled her eyes. "She means how the fire started."

"Actually, I'm fairly sure this wasn't just a fire," Nora piped in. "If it was, the other buildings would be more damaged. This looks more like a controlled demolition. Or semi-controlled, at least. Or a controlled demolition that set off a lot of Dust, though that would probably level the entire block… hmm… hey, Velvet what do you think? Controlled or semi... Uhhh..." Nora trailed off as she turned to the rabbit faunus and found everyone except Ren staring at her in open-mouthed shock. "What?!"

"You… know a lot about explosives, Nora…" Jaune said, a nervous edge to his voice.

"Well, yeah, I want to be able to make my own custom grenades, and you gotta be certified to handle explosives like that, and that means a six-month course drilling every single safety precaution and then some into your head!" Nora panted heavily, her eyes wild. "One crossed wire, one wayward pinch of Burn Dust, one errant twitch, and kablooie!"

"I can confirm this," Ren added, raising his hand. "She blew herself up three times taking that course. And that was just the homework."

Silence descended upon the group as they all digested Nora's outburst. Coco, scanning the street, broke the silence when she spotted a bored-looking police officer standing in front of the yellow tape encircling the wreckage of the building.

"So, that was very informative, Nora, but I think I'm going to go ask that police officer about this. Okay? Okay." Without waiting for a reply, she marched over towards the policeman as fast as she could without looking like she was running, because people like her did not run. They merely... advanced in the direction opposite whatever was terrifying the shit out of them.

As Coco got closer, the officer focused his gaze on her but didn't say anything or wave her off, which she took as her cue to keep going. "So, officer, as a concerned citizen, you mind telling me what the heck happened here?"

The officer sighed, clearly torn between not revealing potentially sensitive information and sheer, utter boredom. Boredom won out. "Damn White Fang happened, that's what. They left their symbol on one of the buildings." His eyes flicked over to Velvet and her prominent ears. "When this gets out, things're probably gonna get pretty ugly for any faunus in the city. Last estimate I heard on the body count was north of a hundred. We're having a hard time identifying individuals in all of this."

"I can imagine," Coco deadpanned. "Let me try and predict the future for you: Some faunus catch heat for this, the people who gave them heat get strung up, then things die down again until the Fang strikes again. How am I doing so far?"

The officer slowly clapped his hands. "Give the woman a prize, she just described my next week in a few sentences." He fixed Coco with a slight glare. "Now get out of here. I don't want to get yelled at by the sergeant for letting you distract me."

Coco took the dismissal for what it was and made her way back to the group. More importantly, to a stony-faced Velvet.

She sighed wearily and readjusted her sunglasses. "You heard everything, didn't you." It was a statement, not a question.

"Not… everything," Velvet corrected flatly, her fists clenching and unclenching at her sides. "But enough. Enough to know exactly what those bastards did." There was a faint sound of grinding enamel. "Why? Why did they do this?"

Why… such a loaded question. Coco chose her next words very carefully. "The company that owned the building… they were one of the leading Dust manufacturers. Tended to compete on price, rather than quality. I guess they used faunus labor as a cost-cutting measure or something. Look," she said hastily at Velvet's skeptical glare. "I don't know the labor practices of every company on Remnant, okay? We can investigate them later."

Velvet clenched her fists one more time, before slowly relaxing them. She took a deep breath, then another. "Alright," she said, glancing at the rubble. "Let's get out of here before I do something I'll regret." She clenched her teeth murderously. "Or worse, something I don't." With that, she stalked off, Coco following close behind and the rest of the group trailing a little further.

"So, Velvet does not seem to like the White Fang," Ren stated bluntly.

"This seems a little stronger than dislike," Pyrrha corrected, anxiety tinging her voice. "This is more like outright hate."

"Oh, yeah, and then there was that thing with the Flock of Seagulls back at the cafeteria!" The orange-haired girl let out a melodramatic sob. "That poor table!"

"That's CRDL, Nora."

"I know what I said, silly!" Nora grinned, albeit with a somewhat bloodthirsty undertone.

"Uh, anyway," Pyrrha hastily interjected. "What happened between Velvet and the White Fang for her to hate them that strongly?"

Fox and Yatsuhashi glanced between themselves, then at Velvet and Coco's backs, and then back between each other.

"It's not our place to tell," Yatsuhashi rumbled.

"Yeah, you'll have to ask her," Fox added, shuddering slightly. "No telling what the girls would do to us if we blabbed. Heck, we don't even know the full story. Only Coco does, and we're not stupid enough to ask."

The members of Team JNPR glanced at each other, and seemed to come to a consensus. "We'll ask her tonight," Jaune announced, his voice firm. "Or maybe tomorrow, depending on how the timing works out, but we'll definitely ask her!"

"Heh, your funeral," Fox chuckled flippantly. Yatsuhashi, though, threw them a grateful look.

~o~

Vale's docks were one of the city's primary economic hubs, bringing in merchant ships not only from the other three Kingdoms, but also the many island states scattered throughout the oceans of Remnant. Generally, they were small and isolated enough that clearing out the land-based Grimm was actually feasible, though flying Grimm still necessitated some military presence, and thus they were key sources of food and minerals for the Kingdoms.

Today, in addition to the usual oceangoing and coastal cargo haulers was a mid-sized passenger ship flying the state flag of Mistral and bearing the students slated to participate in the Vytal Festival tournament. Teams JNPR and CFVY had arrived just in time to see the ship get tied up at the pier, and had parked themselves in a nearby coffee shop to watch the students disembark.

So far, they were not impressed.

"So, is it just me, or are most of these guys not that good?" Nora asked in between forkfuls of coffee cake.

"It's not just you," Pyrrha agreed, sipping her coffee. "I've fought some of them. They never lasted long. And they're the better fighters, usually."

"Well, we haven't seen everyone yet," Coco reminded them, tapping her cup of double espresso. "Let's at least wait until they've all disembarked." Suddenly, she pulled down her glasses and leaned forward towards the boat. "In fact, I think I just spotted some genuine competition."

There, just stepping onto the gangplank, were three young men that absolutely stood out from the crowd. Partly it was the colors, one blue-haired, one red-haired, and one green-haired and chocolate brown from head to toe. Partly it was the way they were carrying themselves, poised and confident. Mostly? It was the fact that, from a female perspective, all three were absolutely scrumptious.

Velvet was brought back to her senses when a drop of drool fell on her pants. Hastily wiping it away, she summoned up a supreme effort of will and turned away from the sight in front of her and towards Coco.

"You do know that attractiveness isn't a factor in combat ability, right?" The unspoken So you can stop looking now hung in the air.

Coco whirled around, her eyes ablaze. "Ex-cuse me?!"

"I have to agree with Coco here!" Nora piped up, zipping to the fashionista's side.

"Yes, attractiveness can be quite distracting, especially when it's used deliberately," Pyrrha added, stepping up to the fashionista's other side.

"Preach it sisters!" Coco grinned as she stuck out her hands, which Pyrrha and Nora slapped in response.

Velvet stared at them flatly before sighing wearily. "This is another attempt to get me to let you revamp my wardrobe, isn't it?"

"Plaid is not acceptable outside of school-uniform skirts, Velvet!" Coco snarled as she slammed her palms on the table furiously.

Team JNPR flinched back in shock, whereas Coco's teammates barely reacted.

"Uhh... should we...?" Jaune started slowly.

"Do you want to wind up in traction for a month?" Fox asked flatly.

"Withdrawn."

Groaning, Velvet turned back to the disembarking students. Anything to not have to deal with Coco on a fashion rampage. Again. Unfortunately, outside of the three hunks from earlier (who were sadly now out of sight), there wasn't anyone terribly interesting exiting the boat. At least, not that boat.

Tied up to another pier, tucked off to the side of the Mistral ferry, was a somewhat battered banana boat. Some sort of commotion was occuring onboard; she could hear shouting and the clanging of steel-toed boots on metal plate. Both sounds intensified until a blond-haired young man wearing jeans and an open shirt that displayed his oh-so-delicious abs jumped out of the cabin, a half-eaten banana in one hand.

As the other girls began drooling again - and Fox began making gagging sounds behind them - Velvet finally heard the captain of the boat.

"And stay off, ya no-good stowaway!"

Velvet barely had time to process that statement before a golden-furred monkey tail curled out from behind said stowaway's back.

'A faunus.' Unconsciously, Velvet's hands began to clench at her side again. 'Stowing away and stealing food.' Said faunus jumped off the boat as the irate owner came up on the deck, flipping in midair to snag the rung on a nearby lamppost.

"Hey, I'm a great stowaway!" He called back cheekily. "After all, you didn't find me until now, did ya?"

And that was when the two cops arrived.

'Please cooperate,' Velvet pleaded silently as the two officers approached him. 'Please cooperate, please cooperate!'

No such luck, as the faunus responded to the officers' calls to get down with a well-aimed banana peel to one of the officers' faces, followed by flipping past them onto the dock and dashing down the street.

Velvet could feel her face heating up in a way that had nothing to do with how attractive he was. Dimly, she could hear Coco trying to calm her down with platitudes. Calm? She was calm. As long as that damn monkey didn't do anything else, she could control herself.

Said monkey dashed right past the cafe and, upon noticing her, smiled roguishly.

Velvet tried to restrain herself, to act civil, she really did.

Then he winked at her.

'I'm going to skin him alive!' Was the thought running through Velvet's head as she snapped to her feet, and if the suddenly terrified expression the monkey faunus had was anything to go by, it was written all over her face as well. That, and he immediately turned tail and bolted even faster than he had from the cops.

"YOU-!" Velvet snarled. That was all that her team and Team JNPR managed to catch before she was halfway down the street after the other faunus.

"Dammit!" Coco snapped as she sprung to her feet as well, grabbing her handbag. "Fox, Yatsuhashi, we need to stop her!"

"Before she puts the poor guy in traction?" Fox asked.

"Before she ruins her shoes with his blood." Yatsuhashi grunted.

"Oh, right, of course, how could I possibly be so stupid."

Team CFY took off running in the same direction as the two faunus, leaving a thoroughly confused Team JNPR in their wake.

"What… just happened?" Jaune wondered aloud.

"I have no idea," Ren replied. He paused, seeming to collect his thoughts. "Should we go after them?"

"Well..." Pyrrha bit her lip uncomfortably. "It looked like Velvet was planning to commit cold-blooded murder, so we don't really have a choice, do we?"

"No, we don't," Jaune stated firmly as he stood up. "Pyrrha, could you pay for the drinks? Thanks. Ren, you're the most agile of us, so you'll have to take the lead."

Ren nodded, and immediately took off at a run in the direction Coco, Fox, and Yatsuhashi had gone, the rest of the team trailing some distance behind.

~o~

Sun Wukong landed on yet another flat Vale rooftop, tucking into a roll that took him well away from the edge. And a good thing, too, as a boot-clad heel slammed into the rooftop right where he had landed with an ominous crunch.

"Jeez, lady, what's your deal?" he snapped as he scrambled to his feet. "This is a little excessive for just a wink, dont'cha think?"

"Just… a wink?" Velvet ground out, her voice disturbingly even. "You think this is just about your stupid attempt at flirting?"

Sun looked at her warily, leaning onto the balls of his feet. "Uh, yeah? Can't think of anything else that would get a cute girl this mad at me. I should know, it's happened plenty of times before..."

"Oh, I'm sure it has." Velvet commented frigidly. "But trust me, it's not that. More like… you are almost everything I think a faunus should not be." And with that, she struck, snapping out a side kick.

Sun leaped over it, landing behind her. "Wait, is this about the whole stowing away thing?" he asked as she whirled around. "I just wanted to get here before everyone else!" A roundhouse kick was neatly avoided by a step back. "And in hindsight, Neptune and Scarlet were totally right about the speed of the boat. Kinda wish I wasn't so stubborn about it now when they told me that."

Velvet froze, her expression breaking into a rictus of fury. "You broke the law and disgraced our species for your stupid freaking pride!?"

She exploded into a veritable whirlwind of kicks, each one packing enough power to render concrete into gravel. And to her increasing frustration, not only did every kick miss, the other faunus just. Kept. Talking.

"Okay, seriously - whoa! - what are your standards - agh! - for faunus behavior? Because so far - yikes! - they're looking a little overly stri-not the face!"

Velvet tried to press the advantage, but Sun pushed off her foot to gain some distance. The rabbit faunus was on him almost immediately, but it bought him some time to regroup. "They have to be," Velvet snapped, her breathing heavy as her temper slowly flared into an inferno. "It's the only way we'll ever be respected! That we'll ever be better than everyone who's ever insulted us!"

A missed axe-kick sent her foot straight through the stone of the roof, but she immediately yanked it out.

"Better than everyone who's hurt us!"

Her heel passed mere inches from his nose, the slipstream nearly whirling Sun off his feet.

"We need to be good! We need to be perfect! We need to be better! And people like you are a stain on our name! Thieves!"

A well-aimed elbow struck Sun's gut, but he managed to duck under the follow-up.

"Bigots!"

Which left him wide open for the knee that only missed hitting his nose by a well-timed jerk of his head. The impact with his cheek still managed to stagger him, though.

"Criminals!"

She pressed her advantage, the world going red as she felt her foot hit something.

"TERRORISTS! MONSTERS! BASTARDS! TRAITORS!" She shrieked, punctuating each word with a kick that was even harder than the last, each one strengthened with more and more Aura. Finally, she ran out of steam. Panting, sweat dripping from her brow, she drew her foot back from out of the ravaged chimney-

Wait, chimney?

"Wow," Sun whistled appreciatively as he inspected the devastated pile of brickwork. "Way to show that chimney who's boss. I don't think it'll ever discriminate against faunus again." He eyed Velvet warily. "So, have you gotten that out of your system? Or do I need to start dodging again?"

Velvet tried planting her foot, but the leg let out a painful spasm and she fell backwards onto her butt. Wincing, she rubbed at the sore hamstring, panting heavily. Her boot, she noticed with some relief, was intact, if scuffed up. Some good news, at least.

So focused was she on getting her breath back that she didn't notice the buzz of her scroll vibrating in her pocket.

~o~

"Come on… dammit, Velvet, pick up!" Coco snarled into her scroll. The phone rang a few more times, then with a click switched to voicemail.

"Hey, this is Velvet. I'm not available right now, so please leave a-"

"Grah!" Coco scowled, furiously ending the call and jabbing the button to start another one.

On a nearby rooftop, Fox and Ren touched down, scanning the surrounding cityscape.

"Do you sense anything, Fox?" Ren asked.

"No. Whatever she did to flare her Aura like that, it's over." He let out a weary sigh. "I don't suppose you see anything?"

Ren shook his head. "I'm afraid not. I think we're going to have to expand our search area."

"Oh. Goody." Fox snarked with a grimace.

Down below, Jaune, Pyrrha, Yatsuhashi, and Nora were combing the alleyways, more to stay out of Coco's way than anything else. Nobody said anything; Yatsuhashi was not a verbose man at the best of times, and the other three were busy thinking of ways to broach the subject on their minds without sounding insensitive.

Finally, Nora worked up the courage to speak. "So, uh, does this happen often?"

Pyrrha and Jaune immediately glared daggers in her direction, though Yatsuhashi didn't seem to mind. "Yes." He said. "Too often. Do you remember the waiter from L'Arbre D'Argent?" At the nods, he continued. "We found her not long after turning a dumpster into scrap metal."

"It's due to her pride as a Faunus," Coco stated from behind them, glaring at the screen as if she could get it to pick up Velvet's scroll with the power of her mind. When that didn't work, she jabbed the call button again and put the scroll to her ear.

"Wait, what do you you mean, 'pride as a Faunus'?" Pyrrha asked in bewilderment.

"Look, Pyrrha, now is not the time," Coco shot back, waving her free hand in a shooing motion. "If you want to help, go spread out and keep looking for Velvet."

"No, Coco, we need to hear this story now," Jaune countered, flinching as Coco turned her gaze on him.

"Jaune, seriously, it's not important right now. What is important is finding Velvet."

"I know that!" Jaune snapped as he hastily rallied his courage. "But the fact is that according to you, this is a regular thing! I... I'm responsible for my team! If you want us to keep looking for Velvet, then we need to know why we're looking for her in the first place!"

Coco opened her mouth to retort-

"I think he's right."

And promptly snapped it shut in favor of staring at Yatsuhashi, her scroll forgotten at her side. "Yatsu?" She breathed.

The giant sighed heavily and shook his head. "They're her friends," he stated solemnly. "They have a right to know."

Coco had no response to that. She slowly reached under her sunglasses to pinch the bridge of her nose. Finally, she snapped her scroll shut and shoved it in her pocket. "Fine." She groaned. "Get Ren down here too if you have to. This could take awhile..."

"Picture Velvet as a first-year student at Signal…"

~o~

"I was... different back then."

Velvet could feel her breath slowing, and her leg no longer felt like it was on fire. The white-hot anger that had been coursing through her veins had faded to numb apathy.

"Really?" Sun tilted his head in curiosity as he balanced on a chimney. "How different?"

Velvet bit her cheek as she hugged her knees. "Very different. Back then, I was... shy, timid, always folding my ears down whenever someone made fun of me for being a faunus. I went to Signal to be strong, but back then..." Her ears drooped downwards. "I didn't feel strong at all."

"Yeeeaaah, call me crazy, but I can't really see you reacting that way now," Sun chuckled. "So, what changed?"

Velvet's mood suddenly reversed subtly, her ears perking up a bit as a sad smile spread across her lips. "I... met someone…"

~o~

"It was one of those days back at Signal where students from Beacon would come to give us a talk. Mingle with the younger students, answer their questions, la di da."

"Oh!" Jaune exclaimed. "Like the soldiers giving enlistment speeches at the regular schools!"

Coco quirked an eyebrow. "Yeah, kinda like that," she agreed slowly. "Except with more crazy acrobatics and trick shots. We were all Hunters-in-training, after all." She gave Jaune an odd look before dismissing whatever thought was running through her head. "Anyways, Velvet was… not in a corner, at least, but definitely on the fringes of the crowd, when one of the Beacon students comes up to her."

"Now, I wasn't there myself," she warned. "So I don't know what was said between the two."

"Velvet never told you?" Pyrrha asked in surprise.

"Well, not the exact words," Coco hedged, wobbling one hand back and forth. "But the general gist of it was…"

~o~

"-that it didn't matter what others said about Faunus," Velvet recited, "That it was alright to have pride in my ears, that sort of thing." She let a content smile creep onto her face as she recalled the conversation. "She told me... that I was not lesser just because I was different."

Sun whistled appreciatively. "Words to live by. It sounds like you really admired her."

"I idolized her," Velvet corrected bluntly. "Her words that day changed my life. And yes, they are words to live by." She sighed wistfully. "After all, I still live by them today."

"I'm noticing a past tense on the whole idolization part…" Sun trailed off expectantly.

Velvet's mood fell instantly. "... It wasn't just that one time." She mumbled.

~o~

"They stayed in contact for years," Coco sighed, shaking her head. "Even after her mentor returned to Beacon, the two kept in touch. Emotional support, mostly, but also some combat training when they could spare the time."

"So, wait," Jaune interjected. "It sounds like they were best friends, right?

Coco nodded solemnly. "So close they might as well have been sisters."

"But then..." Nora tapped her chin in confusion. "How did it go bad?"

Coco grimaced as she rubbed the back of her head. "Well, you see..."

"Salutations!"

Coco did not nearly let out a shriek at the voice that suddenly rang out behind her. Shrieking was what plebeians did when they were terrified out of their minds. And she did not jump with fright. She merely… had an involuntary reaction to being surprised.

Jaune, on the other hand, did shriek. And jump in fright. And fall on his ass when he landed. Everyone else just flinched slightly.

Slowly, gingerly, Coco turned around to the distressingly mundane sight of an orange-haired girl with freckles wearing a green-and-grey dress. "Excuse me," she stated slowly as she readjusted her glasses. "You interrupted me."

"I apologize for the interruption," the girl chirped in a cheerful but flat voice. "My name is Penny. It is a pleasure to meet you!"

"It's, uh, nice to meet you too, Penny." Pyrrha replied tentatively. "Um, why did you jump in like that?"

Penny blinked blankly at the question for a minute, her smile never changing until she finally reacted. "Oh! I'm sorry, that was rude, yes? I apologize! It was just that you all looked like you were from Beacon Academy as well, and my curiosity overcame me. As such, I decided to introduce myself."

"Right," Coco drawled. "Well, sorry kid, but we were kind in the middle of-"

She froze as her brain finished processing Penny's statement. "Wait, did you just say 'as well'?!"

~o~

"And... that was it..." Velvet shrugged helplessly. "I never saw her again. And I don't want to see her again, at least, not unless it's on my terms. Because otherwise..." She clenched her hands violently. "I'm not sure what I'll do."

Sun whistled lowly. "That's… that's quite the story." He grinned sheepishly. "Uh, I... look, I'm sorry about the whole thing with the boat and the cops. In hindsight, it was a really dumb series of decisions, and not just because it got you all pissed off at me."

Velvet stared at him for a few seconds before bowing her head. "And I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't have lost my temper at you, especially not like this. I think…" She swallowed heavily, glancing at the pulverized chimney. "I think I might have been trying to kill you, at the end."

"That or cripple me for life. Either or." Sun chuckled.

"Not helping…" Velvet grumbled half-heartedly. Sore muscles straining in protest, she hauled herself back to her feet. "Well, I need to get back to my team. They're probably worried sick about me."

"Yeah, I should probably get back to my team, too," Sun agreed. "Of course, they'd never be worried sick about me, those-" He cut himself off when he saw Velvet standing stock still at the edge of the roof, staring down into an alleyway. "Uh, are you okay?" When there was no answer, he walked over to the ledge and looked down.

There, in plain clothes, were two faunus: one with antlers and the other with a bald, scaled head. Both of them had spray cans in their hands and were tagging the other building with some sort of graffiti.

"So a couple of faunus decided to do some street art at night, so… what…" Sun's words caught in his throat as Antlers stepped aside to reveal what he'd been finishing up: a blood-red, snarling wolf's head over a trio of claw marks.

The symbol of the White Fang.

Velvet's breathing slowly sped up as she stared down at the pair. "Those... bastards..." She hissed. The Huntress-in-training tensed up as the two started walking out of the alley, preparing to jump...

"Hold it!"

And snapped her head to Sun in confusion and fury when he grabbed her arm.

"Before you rip my head off, hear me out!" He pleaded hastily. "Those two are probably just grunts, right? Well, if they're doing something this blatant in broad daylight, it's probably because they're cocky, confident. I bet that there a lot more White Fang nearby. If we let these guys go and follow them-!"

"They'll lead us right back to the rest of the pack." Velvet growled, a furious sort of menace igniting in her eyes.

Sun nodded slowly as he smiled in agreement. "Yeah. So... you up for a little hunting trip?"

Velvet's response was to dash past him and leap to another rooftop, staying on the heels of the grunts.

Sun chuckled appreciatively. "Feisty."

And with that, he was hot on her heels, an excited grin on his face. This was going to be fun.

~o~

The island of Briar was, despite its name, nowhere near the island of Patch. An extinct volcano rising from the waves, Briar was dry and rocky, and largely unsuitable for settlement. However, a large, flat peninsula jutting from the shore, plus reasonable proximity to Vale, meant that it was selected for construction of a military base for housing aerial interceptors. The airfield gave forty years of good service before budget cuts and the further development of V/STOL interceptors that could be based near Vale itself caused its closure.

Naturally, it was closed for barely a year before the White Fang moved in.

While the airfield itself was almost never used - aside from a few lightweight civilian aircraft, the White Fang had almost no air presence - the abandoned base got considerable use pulling double duty as both a storage depot and training facility. Still, even at its busiest the base was only about half-full.

Today, though, the base was bustling. Half a dozen Bullheads in matte black were hooked up to the underground fuel tanks and being loaded up with crates of ammunition by uniformed White Fang soldiers. They were being directed by a female faunus with rainbow bird feathers instead of hair. Circular burn scars dotted her face, and an avian plague doctor's mask was held in one hand. More such soldiers were seated at the edges of the airfield, sharpening blades and running maintenance on their rifles. Among them was an absolute giant of a being, a Faunus despite his lack of bestial features, using a cloth to clean out the mechanisms of the massive chainsword on his lap, the chain set off to the side.

Heads turned as a door to the main barracks slammed open, Roman Torchwick stalking out with Blake Belladonna next to him. The latter was clad in an elaborate navy blue kimono trimmed at the edges with red and tied off with a twin obi, one sky blue and the other red. A white sash was tucked into the obi and went over the shoulder, occasionally flapping in the wind to expose a white flame symbol prominently displayed on the front of the kimono. Only her left arm had a sleeve, one that flared at the end to obscure her hand; the other merely had an armband and a fingerless glove. Her red geta sandals clacked rhythmically on the pavement as she walked. Finally, there was her mask: the white porcelain with red markings, stylized in the form of a cat, covered her annoyed scowl.

The two were having some sort of argument, judging from Roman's exaggerated arm movements and the subtle tension in Blake's stride. Everyone quickly turned back to their work; such arguments had become commonplace ever since the dapper thief had shown up.

"- you absolutely sure we have to do this in broad fucking daylight? Because I'd really be more comfortable-"

"Your objections," Blake snapped. "Have been heard and noted many times before, Torchwick. I've told you just as many times that this is as much a political statement as a heist, so it has to be done this way."

Roman let out a frustrated groan. "Fine. I'll shut up about it - 'it' being a completely and utterly insane manoeuvre, pretty much suicidal. Sure, sure."

Though he couldn't see it under the mask, Roman was pretty sure Blake had just rolled her eyes at him. "And that's why I'll be lurking in the shadows in case you get in over your pretty little head," she deadpanned. "Besides, you're in charge. I fully expect you to bug out on your own if things go bad."

"Thank goodness for small favors," the thief muttered under his breath. A signal from the feather-haired faunus caught his attention: the Bullheads were loaded and fueled. Nodding, he loudly rapped his cane on the hull of one of the transports, causing everyone to look at him.

"Alright, listen up, boys and girls!" he announced. "Quartermaster says we're good to go, so we'll be getting this show on the road shortly! I'm sure you all know the plan." The crowd nodded, except for one in the back, who frantically shook his head.

"Too bad!" Roman said, jabbing his cane in the soldier's direction. "I'm not going over it again. Ask your buddies during the flight. Now, I want to make this quick, and I want to make it as quiet as possible. Stick to the plan, and if in doubt listen to my lifters, and we should be golden. Got it? Good, because we're leaving now."

The moment of silence that accompanied the proclamation only served to infuriate him. "And I mean right goddamn NOW!" he roared.

That got the White Fang moving, grabbing their weapons and climbing into the Bullheads. The Quartermaster slipped her plague-doctor mask over her face and slid a long, thin sword onto her back as she mounted her vehicle, followed closely by the giant Faunus.

"Fucking animals…" Roman muttered around his cigar as he climbed into the lead craft, sitting down into the copilots' seat.

"What was that?" A shadowy facsimile of Belladonna's voice hissed in his ear, causing him to nearly swallow said cigar.

"Nothing," he grumbled. "Just... thinking about contingencies. Yes, in case something goes wrong."

The shadow stared at him for a few seconds before dispersing into smoke. Roman exhaled in a huff, leaning back in his seat as he willed his heart rate to go back to normal.

'Note to self,' he thought as the Bullhead took flight. 'Never assume Belladonna can't hear me.'

~o~

Velvet groaned. Now that the adrenaline had completely worn off, she felt wrung out, like a wet rag. Beyond the physical exhaustion, her sore leg and depleted aura, lying on her stomach staring at rather shady-looking bar for an hour had left her feeling mentally drained as well.

"Anything happen yet?" Velvet asked, rolling onto her back.

"Nope," Sun replied. "Though I think their beers are a little lower in their mugs."

Velvet sighed. "So, that's what, another fifteen minutes?"

"Yeah, probably. Maybe ten if they drink fast." Suddenly, Sun leaned more over the ledge, squinting at the dive below. "Ugh, what I wouldn't give for some binoculars right now."

"Why, what are you seeing?" Flopping back on her belly, Velvet crawled up to the edge and peered in. One of the Fang grunts was definitely fiddling with something, though what she couldn't tell. "Is that a Scroll? Some sort of remote detonator?"

"No idea." Inside, the two men suddenly grabbed their mugs and downed the contents in one shot. "Scratch that, it was probably some kind of signal." Both faunus ducked behind the ledge as the two White Fang exited the bar, swaying only slightly.

As the pair began to make their way down the street, Velvet and Sun followed on the rooftops. It wasn't long before both noticed that they were heading towards the docks. And the mystery only deepened as, barely a block from one of the farms of storage containers, the two White Fang grunts were met by a man and a woman in gray hoodies emblazoned with a red rose pattern.

"What the hell?" Velvet whispered from her vantage point on the rooftop. "Why would White Fang members be meeting with normal humans? For anything other violence against them, at least."

Sun jerked in sudden recognition. "Holy shit those are Crimson Thorn symbols!"

"That name sounds familiar..." Velvet said, trailing off uncertainly.

"They're a crime syndicate," Sun replied, his eyes narrowed. "A big-ass expansionist, incredibly brutal crime syndicate. They've been all over the news back in Mistral for a string of high-profile murders. I remember one expert saying they were based in Vale."

"Oh, yeah, now I remember!" Velvet exclaimed softly. "Yeah, they're definitely based in Vale. I remember hearing the news stories several years ago. Most of them involved mutilated bodies surrounded by rose petals." She dropped her head to the ledge in frustration. "But this makes even less sense! The Thorns should be the last human group the White Fang would team up with!"

"Wait, they're moving again." Indeed, the quartet was moving further into the docks. Docks which were still populated with workers getting the containers off the ships.

Moving more quickly, Sun and Velvet hopped onto the next rooftop, getting to the far edge in time to see a veritable swarm of White Fang and Crimson Thorn mooks moving onto the pier, rounding up the dockworkers and tying them up. With that finished, they moved onto the containers. Containers which, the two faunus realized with a start, were emblazoned with the stylized snowflake of the Schnee Dust Company.

"So that's what this is about," Velvet breathed.

"Steal a bunch of Dust for their own use and stick it to their most hated enemy in the process. That's a pretty good payoff," Sun said with grudging respect. His hand shot out, just barely managing to snag Velvet's shoulder as she rose. "Hang on!"

Velvet shot a glare in towards him. "They're right there! We know what they're doing! What do we need to wait for?"

"Those containers have got to weigh a full ton each, at least, right?" Sun prompted.

"Maybe, so what?"

"So... how are a few dozen goons going to transport them anywhere on their own?"

"They're… not." Velvet breathed as she realised what Sun was getting at.

"Exactly." Sun nodded in triumph. "You mentioned your teammates. We have time before these goons can get this all moved, so we have time to go get them and come back with a full team."

Suddenly, the roar of jet engines began to doppler onto the pier. Both Sun and Velvet looked skyward, seeing the squat black forms of a half-dozen Bullheads vectoring in for a landing.

For a moment, the two were silent. "Okay," Sun said weakly. "I wasn't expecting that." He glanced at Velvet. "You're not going to attack them, are you?"

"I'm not stupid," Velvet shot back with a glare. "Six Bullheads means, what, over a hundred troops? I can't fight that many people."

Settling back onto his stomach, Sun turned towards to the Bullheads even now coming in for landing. "Well, here's hoping your teammates get here soon."

~o~

Roman smirked as his Bullhead landed. He could see through the windscreen that the dockworkers had already been neutralized, and with no fatalities. Oh, how he loved it when subordinates did what he asked without reminders.

There was a light bump as the aircraft touched down. Roman immediately unbuckled his seatbelt and strode out of the cargo bay, followed by a dozen White Fang soldiers. He glanced around, taking in the sight of glorious organized chaos. The White Fang soldiers were already separating into fire teams and dispersing into the maze of containers, ready to respond to anyone investigating. The Quartermaster had rounded up the Fang and Thorn men already present, and had them strapping the first container to one of the Bullheads.

'Maybe this'll actually go off without a hitch,' he thought to himself. That feeling didn't last long, as another sweep of the pier revealed a flash of green landing on top of one of the nearby warehouses.

"Oh no you don't, kung-fu boy," Roman growled. Lifting Melodic Cudgel, he fired a high-power shot right at where he had seen the green spot. The explosion was satisfying, but was quickly replaced by disappointment as not one, but two shapes flipped away from the explosion and landed on the pier.

Turning to the Lieutenant, he jerked his head towards the two, one of whom was definitely the kid from the Dust shop. "Scenario 2C, if you will."

The mountain of a faunus grunted, swinging his massive sword off his back as he charged at the pair. Both dodged the overhead swing, and then had to keep dodging as the White Fang fire teams opened up with their rifles in a hail of bullets. Though the one or two hits didn't do much, the two were so focused on the hail that they almost didn't notice the Lieutenant trying to chop their legs off at the knee. Even better, it separated the two: kung-fu boy was kept under fire by the White Fang riflemen, while his dark-skinned companion was fighting one-on-one with the Lieutenant.

Satisfied that the situation on the pier was well in hand, Roman entered the maze of containers to make sure no one else had snuck past, whether to attack the riflemen or interfere with the Quartermaster's loading. A wise decision, he realized, as he heard rather panicked gunfire coming from one of the fire teams. He arrived at the spot he had heard the gunfire come from just as it petered out, and turned a corner to see two faunus - a rabbit and a monkey, from the ears and tail - standing over four White Fang soldiers and looking thoroughly surprised at the sight of him.

'Well, when opportunity presents itself...' Raising Melodic Cudgel again, he sent a shot downrange. The monkey managed to evade, but the rabbit took it full-force with a surprisingly weak flash of Aura as one of her legs seemed to seize up. She fell, smoking but still alive.

Roman, sadly, had no chance to rectify that as the monkey attacked him full force with, of all things, shotgun nunchucks. Fucking hunter trainees. Roman frantically weaved Melodic Cudgel to match each shotgun blast. Some buckshot slipped through, but the Aura loss was minimal, and the cane catching the monkey in the ribs managed to get the thief some breathing room.

"So," Roman said jovially as the fight paused. "Kind of a bit much for a first date, isn't it?" He pointed his cane at Velvet's still form. "I mean, your girlfriend there clearly couldn't handle it."

"You're going to wish you hadn't done that," was all the monkey said, an eerie calm in his voice. Belatedly, Roman realised that he might have misjudged his opponent a tad. Still, this time he was ready when his opponent shifted his weapon into a quarterstaff and attacked again.

~o~

Fox stepped back as the massive sword swooshed through the space where his stomach had been half a second prior. Once again, he managed to dash behind his opponent and unleash a withering barrage of strikes from his blades, before being forced back by a swung fist. It was a pattern they had been through nearly a half dozen times already.

On the one hand, the man was absurdly predictable. His movements were loud and easy to track, and the massive weight of his weapon limited the variety of strikes he could deliver.

On the other, he was absurdly strong and durable. Fox had heard concrete cracking with each overhead strike hitting the pier, and so far his slashes had barely caused any appreciable dip in his opponent's Aura levels.

Going to the Bullheads had seemed like such a good idea ten minutes ago. Who knew they would run into Roman fucking Torchwick of all people. Oh, and also a whole mess of White Fang, but honestly they were a secondary consideration.

'Alright, time to mix things up,' he decided. This time, as the chainsword came down, Fox didn't dodge. Instead, he crossed his arms to present the armor plates outward and anchored his stance. The sword crashed into his guard, and would have knocked Fox clean off his feet had he not jumped with the impact.

'Okay, bad idea!' he exclaimed in his head. 'Note to self: don't take any attacks. I think this guy might be able to one-shot me.'

Not for the first time, Fox lamented that his Semblance didn't work on himself. From the gunfire coming from behind him, Ren was too busy to help him. The mountain of a man in front of him would likely be able to wear him down from exertion alone. And to top it all off, they still hadn't found Velvet.

"C'mon, Coco, get here soon," Fox growled as he dodged another sword strike.

~o~

Coco ran at full speed towards where she had seen the explosion, Jaune, Pyrrha, Nora, and Yatsuhashi hot on her heels. That strange girl, Penny, trailed at the back. Coco didn't begrudge the girl following them; she had already gotten them very close to finding Velvet.

"You're a student at Beacon?!" Jaune exclaimed.

Penny blinked, then her mouth opened in an 'o' shape. "Apologies, I should have been more clear. By 'as well', I was not talking about myself. I was talking about the two students I saw running on the rooftops not long ago."

Coco's eyes widened, and she knew that the others had come to the same realization. "What direction were they going?!"

"I can do better than give you the direction," Penny replied, a slight hint of pride in her voice. "From the layout of the buildings and their last known trajectory, I can take you down the path they took."

Penny had been as good as her word. They had found a building with a wrecked chimney and footprints in its roof, all telltale signs of Velvet venting her frustrations. Unfortunately, the rabbit faunus had already left, forcing them to spread out to try and find her. It taken over an hour of fruitless searching before the explosion rising over the docks caught their attention.

'Please be safe, Velvet.'

The impromptu team rounded the last corner to the sight of an ongoing battle. Fox was fighting a massive mountain of a man, who had just shrugged off a kick the tended to send Ursas flying. Ren was getting shot at by an obscene number of guns. And Velvet was nowhere in sight.

"Nora! Yatsuhashi!" Coco barked, taking charge of the situation. "Go help Fox and Ren! I'm going to go find Velvet. Jaune, Pyrrha, I need you to-"

She cut herself off as she realised Jaune and Pyrrha were no longer there, instead sprinting into the maze of shipping containers.

"Huh. I guess their training is paying off," Coco mused as Yatsuhashi clashed blades with Mr. Buster-Blade, and Nora-

"What are you doing!" Coco snapped, wrenching the grenade launcher upwards. Thankfully, Nora had the presence of mind to not fire it.

Nora, for her part, shot Coco an indignant glare. "Hey, you said help Ren, and the best way to help him is to suppress those gunmen!"

Coco sighed. "Look, Nora, I get that you want to help, but your grenades are too indiscriminate for this work." As Nora opened her mouth to protest, Coco cut her off, pointing to one of the shipping containers.

"You see those symbols on the containers?" Coco asked. When Nora nodded, she continued. "That means those containers and everything in them are property of the Schnee Dust Company. Not only does this mean that any collateral damage is liable to get us all sued into oblivion, do you know what explosion plus lots of Dust equals?"

Nora's eyes widened and her skin paled. "Big boom?" She squeaked out.

"Yup," Coco nodded. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm not going to be able to shoot anything either." From Nora's pout, it didn't. Grinning, Coco gave Nora a hearty slap on the back. "Ren'll be fine. Jaune and Pyrrha should be clearing out those gunmen right now, so get in there and hammer that, uh, bear bastard in the face."

A bloodthirsty grin crept across Nora's face, and she immediately switched her weapon into hammer mode and charged into the fray, weapon ready to smash the Lieutenant's face in.

Chuckling, Coco tensed her legs to go around the fight and find Velvet, but felt a tapping at her shoulder. Turning around, she saw Penny, looking expectantly at her. "Oh, uh, hey Penny," she fumbled, having somewhat forgotten about the odd girl. "Could you stay here, out of the fighting?"

"Certainly!" Penny stated in that cheerful yet flat voice of hers. "But if you need my help, don't worry: I'm combat ready!"

Coco nodded distractedly. "Yeah, I'll keep that in mind." With that, she took off, skirting the fight with the Lieutenant and going among the shipping containers.

It didn't take much time among the metal boxes to find Velvet. On the downside, she also found Roman, who was holding up the faunus, his cane pressed into her torso.

"Now, I'm a reasonable man," he was saying to someone unseen. "Back off right now, and I'll leave her here for you to retrieve with no fuss. If you stay…" The orange-haired man chuckled. "Well, my finger is rather close to the trigger. If it were to slip…"

That was all Coco needed to hear. Dashing down the row, Roman had barely enough time to turn around before Coco's bag hit him upside the head. Being a few hundred pounds of rotary cannon packed into a space the size of a handbag, the impact sent Roman tumbling ass over teakettle into a nearby shipping container.

That had the consequence of letting Velvet fall out of Roman's hands, and Coco immediately dashed forward to grab her. The fashionista took in her unconscious state, her scorched clothes, and the minor burns dotting the exposed skin. Slowly, gently, she lowered Velvet against the side of another container.

She heard steps behind her, the clomp of heavy boots rather than the click of Roman's dress shoes.

"Hey, uh, thanks for the assist," Sun said hesitantly. "I didn't know what to do there. Can't let him go, but can't let him shoot her, y'know?"

"Of course," Coco noted idly as she stood up. "You protected her."

Sun sighed heavily. "Yeah, from herself, too. She certainly needed it a few times." He snorted. "Can't say I did a very good job."

Coco opened her mouth to respond, but was forced to duck under another explosive shot that scorched the container but didn't penetrate.

"Sorry to interrupt, but look what you did to my poor hat!" Roman said with a mock whine. And indeed, the felt bowler in his hand was badly crumpled, probably beyond repair. "You killed it! That was my favorite hat, and you killed it." His voice dropped, low and dangerous as he tossed it aside. "You're going to pay for that. And I don't mean with money."

"You can try," Coco rebutted. She turned to Sun. "Get me an opening. He can't have that much Aura left after that hit."

"No problem," Sun promised. "He'll be so distracted he won't even see you coming."

"I can hear you, you know!" Roman called out. "And you know what? I think you won't find it so easy this time." Twirling his cane, Roman grabbed it by the handle and swung it down towards Sun and Coco. The two both stepped back slightly, which meant they were both caught in the ensuing small explosion. Coco recovered first, swinging her bag in, only to be intercepted by Melodic Cudgel's tip, Roman immediately triggering a small explosion that swung the fashionista's arm out.

That gave Roman the opportunity to turn around and run deeper into the docks, Sun in hot pursuit. Coco didn't follow, trying to decide whether to join the chase or stay and guard Velvet. Wrapped up in thought, she almost missed the slight whimper as Velvet stirred in her unconsciousness. Smiling sadly, Coco relaxed, sitting down next to the rabbit faunus.

"Don't worry, Velvet," she whispered softly. "I'm right here. You're safe now."

The sound of jet engines washed over her, and she hastily stood up and looked into the sky to see a jet-black Bullhead fly overhead, partially obscured by a shipping container slung under the belly.

Coco grinned, like a shark that's spotted a bare behind. Her bag unfolded into the massive rotary cannon she normally fought with. "Well, I guess I can do something from here after all!"

~o~

The Lieutenant growled in frustration as he locked blades with the massive young man in front of him, and barely managed to suppress his surprise when his opponent wasn't even staggered by the force of the blow. That was a first for the massive faunus.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see his previous opponent, the fast one, trying to sneak into the containers. Well, that wouldn't do. The swordsman he was fighting did not expect the sudden knee to the chest, and he staggered back, letting the Lieutenant attack the other young man. The attack was dodged, of course, but it forced him to stay out in the open, where he could be engaged.

His instincts suddenly screamed at him, and the Lieutenant managed to get his sword up in time to block the cleaver-like blade. His opponent didn't let up, raining more blows on the Lieutenant's guard, sending him stepping back with each blow. One more blow came, and then the swordsman raised up his blade in an overhead chop.

'Powerful,' the Lieutenant judged. 'But very obvious. How-'

An Aura-boosted kick hit his sword arm, moving it just enough to throw his guard wide open. As he felt the fast one push off his arm, the cleaver blade was swung, aimed at his wide-open chest. There was no time to get a block up, and even for the Lieutenant the blow coming in was too strong to comfortably take on his Aura.

So he sidestepped.

The cleaver blade crashed into the concrete, shattering the slab like a cheap dinner plate. The swordsman, overextended, was unable to stop the kick that thundered into his Aura, sending him skidding back.

The Lieutenant warily eyed his opponents, the fast one landing next to the swordsman. They seemed content to wait for him to attack, which suited him just fine. He needed a new strategy; wearing them down was no longer an option, now that it was two-on-one.

"Damn, I was hoping he was one of those types who never bothered dodging."

Ah, so they were strategizing, too. Under his mask he could feel his ears flicking forward to capture the sound better.

"Why did you think that, Fox?" the swordsman replied, sounding puzzled.

"Because he didn't bother dodging anything I threw at him!" the newly named Fox yelled in apparent frustration. "Ugh, I hate the big, strong ones that fight smart."

"Well, don't worry," the swordsman said. "We'll be getting some help soon."

'Help?' the Lieutenant tensed. 'Where-'

His train of thought was promptly derailed by an impact to the side of his head. The Lieutenant tipped over, threatening to actually fall, before he planted his foot and caught himself. It also afforded him a view of his new opponent, a short girl wielding a hammer and dressed in so much pink it was a wonder she had actually snuck up on him. He made a mental note to talk to Belladonna about improving the peripheral vision of their masks.

The hammer blow seemed to be the cue for the other two to resume their attack. The Lieutenant was forced to steadily retreat, even taking a few blows from the hammer and Fox's blades. Then, suddenly, the attack stopped, his three opponents jumping back. The Lieutenant tensed again. What were they doing this time?

The sound of snapping chain above his head prompted him to look up to the sight of one of the massive shipping containers slipping out of the chains keeping it attached to one of the cranes. He also saw a flash of green leave the top of the container, which explained why it was falling on him in the first place.

Growling, he reached for a dial built into the base of his sword…

~o~

"Aw, yeah!" Nora whooped as the container came crashing to earth in a cloud of concrete dust, Ren landing next to her. "Great job, Ren! I don't think even Mister Buster Sword there will be able to fight after that!"

Fox let out a sigh of relief at the sight. "Seriously, thanks for the save, you guys. I'm not sure if we could've brought him down on our own."

"It's no problem," Nora said airily, waving her hand in dismissal. "We're friends, aren't we? You don't need to thank us for saving you, that's just what friends do!"

"Nonetheless, thank you," Yatsuhashi rumbled, bowing in the direction of Ren and Nora.

Ren opened his mouth to respond, but blinked, then started looking around. "Did you guys hear something?"

Suddenly, there was a whine of jet engines as a squat, black Bullhead lifted off from deeper into the docks, its climb rate sluggish due to the shipping crate slung under its belly.

"Was that what you heard, Ren?" Fox asked, frowning as Ren shook his head. "Then what did you-"

The sound of a mechanical growl echoed around the dock again before anyone could respond. Ren's eyes narrowed as he tried to pinpoint the sound. "It sounded like it came from…" His eyes widened in dawning comprehension. "Inside the…"

The roar of a massive chainsaw tore through the day, quickly followed by the shriek of tearing metal.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Fox groaned, slumping forward.

The four turned their eyes towards the container to see the tip of a chainsaw blade poking out of the top, sparks flying into the air. After a few small back-and-forth movements, the blade shot forward, neatly bisecting the container. The Lieutenant followed, revving chainsword in one hand and looking none worse for the wear aside from a fine film of concrete dust.

"Is he part Ursa?" Nora breathed, shakily raising her hammer into a guard stance.

"Panda, actually."

Nora, Ren, Fox, and Yatsuhashi all froze in shock, the thought 'Wait, panda?!' in a melee a trois with 'How is he not damaged?!' and 'He can talk?!' for primary brainpower. Which meant the four barely noticed the Lieutenant swing his sword down on them in time to dodge the blade.

They didn't dodge the resulting shockwave and spray of shrapnel. Yatsuhashi managed to stay standing, and got the Lieutenant slamming the chainsword into a hastily-raised guard for his trouble. The other three went tumbling, though not far, their Aura depleted further.

Ren scrambled to his feet and immediately re-entered the fight, circling around the two combatants and spraying the Lieutenant with gunfire. It didn't seem to do much other than annoy him, but that was enough to ease the pressure on Yatsuhashi.

"Fox, boost!" Nora called out as she got back up. Nodding, he clapped a hand on her shoulder, sending Aura into her body. Nora could feel the strength building in her limbs, and as soon as Fox's hand left her shoulder, she charged straight at the Lieutenant. The massive faunus brought his sword up to guard against the upward swing, but it didn't help, Magnhild barging right through his guard and sending him flying.

His upward motion was promptly arrested by the now container-less crane, leaving a massive dent in the metal arm and sending him downward at high speeds. He hit the pier and bounced several feet in the air, leaving the concrete cracked, then landed again and half-skidded, half-tumbled until he hit the wall of a warehouse on the other side of the pier, several hundred feet away. It was hard to tell what damage he had taken from so far away, but he wasn't moving

"Okay... stay down this time... you bastard…" Fox panted from the massive aura expenditure, resting his hands on his knees.

The rest of the group wasn't in much better shape. Yatsuhashi was using his sword as a crutch, his armor littered with deep gouges and a minor cut on his cheek. Nora was flat on her back, panting even harder than Fox, Magnhild lying on the ground next to her. Only Ren looked to be in anything close to good shape, and even he was somewhat out of breath.

Suddenly, Ren recoiled in shock, his eyes wide. "How does someone like that even exist?" he breathed.

Fox, Yatsuhashi, and Nora all wearily looked up to see the Lieutenant pulling himself to his feet. Blood could be seen dripping slowly out from under his mask, and the back of his shirt was practically gone, several nasty-looking scrapes oozing more blood. And yet, the man was upright and not wobbling, his sword still clenched in one hand.

"Okay, that's just not fair," Fox deadpanned, though there was a note of fear in his voice. Around him, the rest of the group were shakily getting ready for round five as the Lieutenant began to advance towards them.

~o~

As Jaune and Pyrrha entered the maze of shipping containers, Jaune took point, shield raised and sword out, with Pyrrha behind him ready to attack once they ran into any White Fang soldiers.

It didn't take long for them to find the first group of riflemen, still unloading a hail of fire towards Ren.

"Okay, should we be sneaky or fast here?" Jaune whispered to Pyrrha behind the corner of one of the containers.

The redhead risked a glance around the corner at the four riflemen, who were very intensely focused on their fire.

"Sneaky," Pyrrha decided as she pulled back. "They probably won't notice us. Be ready to charge, though."

Jaune nodded, and padded around the corner in a crouch, Pyrrha following immediately behind. Closer and closer they crept, the White Fang soldiers still not noticing them, until Jaune brought Crocea Mors down on the shoulder of the rearmost mook. The faunus' collarbone snapped with a sickening crack, and with a grunt of pain bhe fell down clutching his shoulder. A pommel strike to the back of the head sent him into blissful unconsciousness.

Jaune looked up to find two more soldiers unconscious and Pyrrha about to strike the fourth, who was holding some sort of handheld radio. One quick flip and slam onto the pavement and he was down for the count, too, the radio falling out of limp fingers.

Curious, Jaune walked over to the body and picked up the radio, giving it a quick look-over. "A walkie-talkie!" he exclaimed in surprise. "Wow, where did they get these? These were old technology when I was a kid!"

"I suppose it makes sense that the White Fang would use older technology," Pyrrha mused. "Hang on to that, it might come in handy later. In the meantime, we need to finish clearing out the rest of these fireteams."

"Right," Jaune said, slipping the handheld into one of the pockets of his jacket. "So, speed from now on?"

"We have to assume the rest know something is up, so yes," Pyrrha replied as they set out, Jaune jogging in front of Pyrrha again.

The two quickly fell into a simple pattern. Jaune would take fire from the soldiers watching the backs of the fireteams, allowing Pyrrha to attack, whether with Milo's rifle form, a thrown shield, or a simple charge into melee. Either way, the fights were over quickly and cleanly.

Finally, they finished the last group, Pyrrha's shield bouncing off four heads in one throw.

Jaune whistled as he watched his partner take out four armed men in as many seconds. "Pyrrha, have I ever mentioned how much I love your Semblance?" he said as she retrieved her shield. "Because I seriously do. It's so versatile!"

Pyrrha blushed slightly at the compliment. "Thank you, Jaune." She glanced over the prone forms of the four White Fang soldiers. "Do you think this was the last of them?"

The whine of jet engines filled the air as a black Bullhead sluggishly lifted off from deeper within the docks. As Jaune and Pyrrha watched, the Bullhead rose high enough to clear the nearby obstructions, and began to surge forward with its cargo underbelly. Passing by further down the rows of containers, it began to loop out towards the ocean shortly after it was over the town, headed to an unknown destination.

"Well, that answers that question," Jaune deadpanned. He squinted in the general direction of the liftoff point. "I think I know how to get there, but…"

"Don't worry, I can take point," Pyrrha replied, flashing him a friendly smile.

Three dead ends and several minutes later found the two peeking around the side of another container to see large numbers of White Fang soldiers and several dozen people in gray hooded sweatshirts busily strapping a shipping container to the belly attachment of one of the Bullheads.

More concerning was the cowled person directing the work. The avian beak of some sort of mask poked out from under their hood, and the attached cloak hid even their gender.

"Who are those guys in the grey sweatshirts?" Jaune whispered to Pyrrha.

"I'm not sure," she replied. She pointed to a woman in one of the sweatshirts, or more specifically, a red rose on the sweatshirt. "That symbol seems vaguely familiar for some reason, but I can't- Look out!"

Jaune let out the air in his lungs with a whoosh as Pyrrha tackled him, something smacking into the container behind them. Facing forward, Jaune was able to see that the chain… whip… sword thingy, was not only buried into the metal shipping container, but also emitting arcs of electricity.

The two landed and quickly untangled themselves from each other, only to dive away as the whipsword landed between them. Now, though, they could see their attacker, and it was clear that she was a woman. The plague doctor's mask was pretty creepy, though.

Jaune shivered as the woman's gaze slid over him, then bored in on Pyrrha with laser focus. "You are a nuisance," she said, her voice flat and icy. "Begone."

The whipsword shot towards Pyrrha, who raised a hand to redirect it. To her shock, only a few of the shards making up the sword were redirected, and she was unable to raise her shield in time. The sword swiped her shoulder, delivering an electrical shock. Luckily, her Aura stopped both, but it was a close thing and shaved a large chunk off her reserves.

The Quartermaster drew the shards of her sword back together, Pyrrha's lapse in concentration allowing her to gather all of them, then angled the sword perpendicular to Pyrrha, one hand bracing the sword on its other side. This time, Pyrrha didn't wait for her opponent to attack, and launched an attack of her own, shield raised and Milo in short spear form.

Before Pyrrha could deliver her attack, though, the Quartermaster launched her own, her sword breaking into its constituent pieces in a spray of electrified metal. Five were caught on her shield; five more were deflected by Milo or Pyrrha's Semblance; and two hit, one on her forehead and one on her thigh. Unfortunately, that left all the shards surrounding her, which was driven home by the Quartermaster flicking the hilt to have the shards make a bubble around the redhead, each ready to discharge their electricity. Realizing the predicament she was in, and knowing she couldn't knock all of them away, Pyrrha braced herself for the attack.

"PYRRHA!"

An attack that never came. Jaune had popped up right behind the Quartermaster, sword raised high to hit her shoulder. While he wasn't fast enough to complete the strike before the Quartermaster was able to recall her sword shards and block, it did interrupt the attack against Pyrrha, though the links nicked her on the way back.

Unfortunately for Jaune, only three shards were needed to block Crocea Mors. Two looped to either side of him and dumped several hundred thousand volts into him, causing him to stagger back, smoking lightly. The remaining seven reformed into a short sword that blocked Milo, depleting more of Pyrrha's Aura by electrical charge.

It did nothing for the shield bash that hit her straight in the face.

The Quartermaster was knocked backwards, then pushed off the ground with her hands into a graceful flip that brought her even further away from Jaune and Pyrrha. For their part, the two took the opportunity to regroup, and were painfully aware that the other woman badly outranged them.

'Come on, brain!' Jaune frantically thought to himself. 'There's gotta be a way to negate that range advantage!' He paled slightly as an idea came to him. 'Really, brain? There's gotta be a better idea.' When no better answer was forthcoming, he sighed.

"Pyrrha, I have an idea," he whispered. "It's absolutely crazy, but it might just work."

The whipsword came screaming in again, both partners frantically dodging the razor-sharp blade. It promptly burst into shards again, three going against Jaune and the rest going for Pyrrha. The next few minutes were spent frantically dodging, with more than a few rolls to get out of sparking shells of sword shards. To her consternation, Pyrrha was unable to control more than a few of the shards, and never for very long before their opponent was able to wrest them back to her control.

Finally, Pyrrha managed to wrest control of a shard and actually hold it. The Quartermaster, for her part, was still linked to the shard and trying to pull it back.

"Okay, Jaune, what's your idea?" she grunted, trying to maintain the tug-of-war.

He told her.

Pyrrha looked askance at Jaune, only for her control to slip slightly, causing the shard to move three feet towards the Quartermaster. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" she asked.

"Pyrrha, I've got a lot of Aura left, and we both know mine is well suited to defense." He flashed her a smile that was supposed to be reassuring, but came across as nervous. "I'll be fine. Mostly. I hope."

The redhead opened her mouth to retort, but she could feel her concentration about to waver again, so she just nodded. And then let go of the shard.

The unexpected release of tension made the shard fly towards the Quartermaster at much higher speeds than she expected, forcing her to duck. The shard embedded itself in a shipping container, and more importantly, the Quartermaster was distracted.

Reaching out with her magnetism, Pyrrha grabbed onto Jaune's breastplate, lifting him into the air. Jaune, for his part, tucked his arms to his sides, Crocea Mors pointed forward. Brows drawn together in concentration, Pyrrha adjusted the polarity of her grips on Jaune to point towards the Quartermaster, who was still trying to yank her embedded sword shard out of the shipping container.

Pulling her arm back, Pyrrha hurled Jaune like a very large javelin, giving him an extra magnetic boost for more speed.

The Quartermaster only just managed to see it coming, and almost dodged Jaune completely. Almost. He just clipped her with his sword, carving a gouge in her side, before slamming sword-first into the shipping container, ending up embedded up to his waist in the metal box. The Quartermaster slumped to her knees, hand darting to the gash in her side. Distracted, she was unable to stop Pyrrha from magnetically yanking the sword hilt from out of her hand.

Not done, Pyrrha grabbed the now-inert sword shards, and used two to pin the Quartermaster to the shipping container by her cloak. "I suggest you stay here," Pyrrha said, fixing the Quartermaster with a hard glare. "The police will be here to pick you up any minute now, but I can't be watching you the whole time."

The whine of jet engines behind her caused Pyrrha to whirl around, to the sight of the second Bullhead lifting off with its own cargo.

"As you can see-" Pyrrha turned around only to find the Quartermaster gone, the two shards still keeping her cloak attached to the container. "Oh."

She turned back to the workers loading the Bullheads as she contemplated her next move. Go after them first, or help Jaune out of his predicament? A ruthless person would have gone after the loaders first. Pyrrha was not a ruthless person, and so she went to pull Jaune out of the container.

As it turned out, Jaune was stuck in tightly enough that she needed to make the hole bigger to get him out. Still, that was fairly easy. Gently lowering him to the ground, she checked him over for injury. Bruises, some minor burns, and what seemed to be a mild concussion. She smiled ruefully and shook her head. 'I'll be fine indeed.'

Satisfied that Jaune was fine, mostly, Pyrrha stood, ready to take on the people loading the Bullheads. She took a step forward-

And suddenly a black-and-blue blur zipped by her, leaving behind a hazy shadow shaped like a person. And then another. And another. In the time it took Pyrrha to blink, there were a dozen such shadows standing around her. By the time she got over her shock, there were thirty. And by the time they actually attacked, there were fifty.

It was a surreal experience for Pyrrha. The clones dissipated in one hit, and barely did any damage with their attacks. But there were a lot of them, and she couldn't avoid getting hit. So she didn't even try, going on the offensive in a whirlwind of blade, shield, and foot.

When the shadows cleared, Pyrrha saw only two Bullheads left, unladen and beginning to take off. Though it galled her to admit it, Pyrrha had no real way of stopping them. She didn't have enough destructive power at her disposal, and a Bullhead was well past the upper limit of her magnetism. She could only watch as the two Bullheads began to lift off.

And then a green energy beam reduced the trailing Bullhead to cinders.

~o~

Sun leapt over another explosive shot from Roman Torchwick's cane, wincing as the action stretched bruised ribs. And those weren't the only injuries he was nursing. His face was dotted with bruises and a split lip, his right forearm was badly scorched from blocking an explosive shot, and the rest of his body was covered with a litany of minor injuries.

Still, the monkey faunus could take comfort in the fact that Torchwick was in just as bad a shape. His once-immaculate clothes were battered and torn, concealing what had to be a variety of body injuries. His face, too, was a map of bruising, and Sun swore he could see a lump under that head of hair.

"You are a persistent little monkey, I'll give you that," Torchwick snarked, ignoring how he was currently favoring his left leg. "If sunglasses girl had joined you, you might have actually been able to beat me. Pity she abandoned you like that."

Sun kept grinning, despite how that pulled at the bruises. "If you're trying to get me mad at her, it ain't gonna work." Honestly, it made sense for one of them to stay with Velvet, just in case. "I gotta congratulate you, though. Somehow, you manage to look better with all the bruising and torn clothes."

"Very funny, kid," Torchwick drawled. "Trying to rile me up won't work, because I've already won."

As if to punctuate his point, the whine of jet engines filled the air. Sun glanced to his side to see a heavily laden Bullhead fly by, the second one today.

"See, I only need to keep you busy until we finish loading everything up," Torchwick explained. "And I know my guys; once the first two are done the next four will follow soon after."

Sun snorted, then burst into full-on laughter. "Hahahahahahahaha! Do you really think I care about what you're stealing?" He grinned back at Torchwick, though the smile didn't reach his eyes. "All I care about is kicking your ass for what you did to Velvet."

All signs of mirth vanished from the two as they prepared to go at it again, falling back into fighting stances.

And then a black and blue blur landed between them.

Sun barely caught a glimpse of a white mask before the blur vanished again, leaving behind a black person-shaped shadow. Another blur, another shadow. As more shadows began appearing, he saw Torchwick's face morph into a shit-eating grin.

"Well, it was nice playing with you, little monkey," Roman drawled without a trace of sincerity. "But this is my cue to go."

"Wait!" Sun yelled as Torchwick hopped off the shipping container they were on. "Get back here and- dammit!"

Swinging his staff in wide arcs allowed Sun to quickly clear the shadows away, though their agility still made it tricky. By the time they were gone Roman had vanished, two more Bullheads were dots on the horizon, and two more were taking off.

A glow from one of the distant shipping containers caught Sun's attention, but he had only just turned his eyes on it when it erupted into a massive beam of green energy that plowed into one of the nearby Bullheads and neatly disintegrated it.

Sun let out a low whistle. "Damn."

~o~

The fight on the pier was winding down, not due to any kind of decisive decision, but simply due to the accumulated exhaustion and injury of the participants. Fox and Nora were practically dead on their feet from fatigue. Yatsuhashi, though still upright, had expanded his collection of cuts and armor gouges, and the blood loss was beginning to affect him. Ren was, miraculously, still uninjured, though he was beginning to slow down.

And the Lieutenant was a mess of injuries large and small, from severe internal bleeding to a cut on his palm that kept getting aggravated by holding his chainsword.

The two sides had broken into one of their frequent pauses, pauses that had become more frequent as the fight wore on. Then, the Lieutenant hauled himself to his feet, pulling his sword above and behind his head, one foot forward. An all-or-nothing attack that devastated what it hit but left the user wide open if it failed.

The four students wearily hauled themselves to their feet to meet the attack. Who would he attack? Could they react in time?

For a minute, the combatants held position, waiting for the right time to attack. The Lieutenant tensed to move-

And then a black and blue blur dove between them, disgorging nearly a dozen black, human-shaped shadows that obscured any view of the Lieutenant. It took less than a minute for Ren to clear them, but when he did, the Lieutenant was gone.

Fox and Nora each immediately collapsed into a boneless heap, too tired to move. Yatsuhashi was marginally more graceful, merely sitting down, while Ren walked over to look over his injuries.

"These are mostly superficial," Ren decided after a quick examination. "The blood loss is problematic, but I think that's at least partially due to you moving around so much. If you stay still, you should be fine until someone can look over you."

"Oh, good," Fox panted, too tired to say any more.

"Yay…" Nora added with a distinct lack of cheer.

The roar of jet engines washed over the pier, prompting Ren and Yatsuhashi to look up. They barely had time to see the two Bullheads before a green energy beam struck the trailing craft, disintegrating it aside from a few pieces, one of which landed near them.

"Reeeeeennnn…" Nora whined.

"What is it, Nora?"

"Could you go grab that? I want a souvenir…"

Ren sighed wearily. "Sure, Nora."

~o~

After making sure Velvet was still mostly fine, Coco had made her way on top of one of the nearby shipping containers. They offered a much better vantage point from which to swat down Bullheads.

Unfortunately, for a while there hadn't been any Bullheads, nor any enemies, and that had left Coco quite bored. She had briefly considered lending some fire support to the team fighting the Lieutenant, but two things stopped her. The first was that they were handling themselves just fine. The second, and more important, was that with two people frequently in melee against the Lieutenant, her rotary gun was entirely too indiscriminate for the task.

So when she heard the sound of jet engines again she was ecstatic. Grabbing her rotary gun, she pointed it towards the ascending Bullhead, eyeballing its course and speed. Finally, satisfied that she had a proper deflection shot, she squeezed the trigger-

"Miss Coco, allow me to help!"

"Gah!"

And shot a spray of bullets that went nowhere near the Bullhead.

"Oh for-" Coco snapped, whirling around to glare at Penny. "You don't sneak up on people like that! You completely threw my aim off." Turning her attention back to the sky, she groaned in frustration. "And now the Bullhead's completely out of range. Great."

Sighing, she turned back to Penny, who was still staring intently at her. "Look, kid, I appreciate that you want to help, but I don't know what you can do, so I don't know where you'd be the most helpful. Hell, I don't even know if you can fight."

"Don't worry, Miss Coco. Remember, I'm combat ready!" Penny stated, putting her arms up in a strongman pose. It was also, Coco admitted to at least herself, utterly adorable. "Tell me who to fight, and I can beat them."

"Oh. Right." Coco said, still distracted by the utter adorability of Penny. She had said that, hadn't she? Shaking her head, she mentally shoved those thoughts into a box in her mind to revisit. Later. "Well, why don't you start with-"

The roar of jet engines filled the air again. Coco whirled around, spotting two Bullheads slowly ascending out over the water, rather than over the docks like the last two. The fashionista eyeballed the distance; too long for her rotary gun.

"Penny, you wouldn't happen to have a ranged attack capable of taking down a Bullhead?"

Penny squinted into the distance at the Bullheads, before shaking her head. "I'm sorry, but not at that range." She hiccupped, then hastily covered her mouth in embarrassment.

"Rats," Coco muttered. "Well, I guess we wait."

Luckily, they didn't need to wait long as another two Bullheads began ascending, and these ones over the docks. Unfortunately, they were also unladen, and thus much faster and more maneuverable.

Once again, Coco eyed the speed and distance. "I'm not sure I'll be able to make this shot. Penny, can you-"

Coco started in surprise at the swords Penny had pulled from… somewhere and aligned into a faux-tube, a ball of green energy coalescing before their tips as they spun into a blur. And then- she released the energy.

A ravening green beam of energy leapt from the tips of the swords, near-instantly crossing the distance to the trailing Bullhead. The Bullhead, hit by the beam, didn't so much explode as outright disintegrate. A few scraps maybe the size of a dinner plate fell down in small fireballs, but that was it.

Coco couldn't help it. She gaped in naked awe at the demonstration of destructive power. Beside her, Penny fidgeted nervously, rocking back and forth on her heels. "So, uh, what do you think?" she said.

"That… was FUCKING AWESOME!" Coco whooped, grabbing her beret and throwing it on the shipping container they were on. "Hot damn, those Atlas R&D guys come up with the best stuff!" Still grinning widely, she clapped Penny on the back. "Okay, color me impressed. Where did you get your Hunter training?"

"I…" Penny trailed off, looking uncomfortable for a moment before going back to studied neutrality. "I trained with the Atlas military. My father is a researcher for them, you see." She paused, then continued. "Actually, I'm here to participate in the Vytal Festival tournament."

Coco smirked, then clapped the smaller girl on her back again. "Well, I guess we'll see each other again soon! Good luck with the tournament." Coco frowned in thought as something occurred to her. "Uh, does anyone know you're here? I assume you came here with a guardian of some kind."

Penny's eyes widened in comical surprise. The girl started shifting and glancing around nervously as she wrung her hands. "Um... I, er, that is to say..." Suddenly, she snapped a hand into her skirt pocket, whipped something out and threw it on the floor. "SMOKEBOMB!"

Coco blinked in confusion. "Wait, wha-?"

FWOOMPH!

"GAH!" She jerked in shock when a cloud of smoke obscured her vision. By the time the smoke cleared, Penny was nowhere to be seen. "What the heck?"

Coco glanced around, just to make sure that Penny was really gone. She wasn't on the pier, the nearby rooftops, the containers, or on the ground nearby. However, while she didn't see Penny, she did see Fox and company on the pier with no enemy in sight.

"I guess the fight's over," she muttered to herself. Sighing, she picked up her beret and hopped off the shipping container she was on. Making her way over to the still-unconscious Velvet, she picked her up in a bridal carry before setting out to the pier.

It wasn't long before the four on the pier noticed her.

"Velvet!" Fox yelled, moving to get up before immediately sitting back down clutching his leg. "Ow, okay, never mind."

"Is she alright?" Yatsuhashi asked. Coco noted, with some dismay, several small cuts on his arms and face beginning to scab over. Not to mention the battered armor.

"I think so," Coco hedged as she set down Velvet next to Fox and Yatsuhashi. "I'd like to get her to a doctor soon, but I don't think she's going to keel over in the next hour or so." Her eyes flicked to Nora, and a brow arched up in surprise. "What's Nora holding, there?"

"A piece of the Bullhead that got destroyed," Ren answered. Indeed, Nora, still flat on her back, was hugging a twisted piece of black-painted metal to her chest. "She said she wanted a souvenir."

"Okay…" Coco trailed off uncertainly. "Anyway, has someone called the police yet?"

Everyone tensed as the sound of footsteps echoed around the pier. Coco whirled around, then relaxed when she saw Pyrrha holding Jaune in a fireman's carry and a battered Sun, who seemed to be favoring his left side.

"Oh, hey Pyrrha," Coco called out to the younger girl. "What happened to Jaune?"

"He got thrown into one of the shipping containers," Pyrrha explained, setting Jaune down on the ground next to Velvet. "I think he has a mild concussion."

"Well, that's not too bad. Aside from the week of headaches."

"What am I, chopped liver?" Sun grumbled as he limped over.

"You did start this whole mess, monkey-boy," Coco pointed out. "But, since you did stick with Velvet the whole time, I'm willing to start over." Shifting her bag to her left hand, she stuck out her right hand. "Nice to meet you, my name's Coco Adel."

Sun looked at the offered hand for a moment before grasping it and shaking. "Sun Wukong. Nice to meet you, too."

Coco grinned as the two ended the handshake. "Great! So, now that we know each other, can someone please call the-"

The sound of sirens caught their attention as several police cars drove out onto the pier, fanning out to give the following cars space. Hot on the heels of the cars were a trio of armored vans that promptly disgorged several squads of armed and armored riot police, as well as Headmaster Ozpin. Rounding out the convoy were a pair of ambulances.

"Okay." Coco chuckled nervously. "I guess we don't need to call the police."

~o~

The police had promptly hustled everyone into the ambulances and sent them off to the nearest station, while the officers themselves untied the dock workers and made sure that the White Fang were actually gone.

Velvet and Jaune had both been examined, revived, and pronounced mostly all right. In fact, the most anyone needed was some patching up and rest and, in the cases of Jaune and Sun, a stern admonition to not exert themselves too much over the next week.

Once the doctors finished, it was time for the debriefing by the police, complicated by the fact that everyone had pieces of the situation but no one had the whole picture. Well, that and Ozpin casually leaning on the wall sipping coffee during each interview. Occasional, he would interject with a question, but otherwise kept silent.

Finally, near dinnertime, all nine students were released. The small party took a quick walk to the nearest landing pad, CFVY and JNPR to take a flight back to Beacon, and Sun to pick up his own ride.

"Mr. Wukong, I've contacted the head of the Mistral party, and you'll be happy to know that they're sending transportation in light of your ribs."

Ozpin took another sip of his coffee while the students stared at him in bewildered shock.

"What- How did- You were standing there the whole time!" Sun sputtered, his arms waving about. "C'mon, guys back me up here! He was standing there the whole time! He didn't have time to call anybody!"

"Sun…" Velvet said solemnly, clapping her hands on his shoulders. "It's Ozpin. Don't question it."

"But-!"

Velvet pulled him in close, staring him dead in the eyes. "Don't. Question. It."

Sun gulped. "R-Right." Gently pulling himself out of Velvet's grasp, he composed himself as a car pulled up. A handwritten sign saying "Sun Wukong" in a messy script was visible from one window.

"That's my ride, I guess," Sun said. He started to walk for the car, but stopped and turned around. "It was a blast being with you guys today! I'll make sure to drop by Beacon later!"

JNPR and CFVY all waved goodbye as Sun got into the car and drove off. Well, all but Nora. She was picking away at the paint on her souvenir.

The flight back to Beacon was uneventful, largely because everyone was too worn out to do much. As such, they were intensely grateful when the Bullhead landed.

"I had the kitchen staff prepare food for you," Ozpin said as they all unbuckled. "It should be in your rooms by the time you get there."

Nora immediately let out a massive yawn as she stepped out, arching her arms over her head. "Well, I don't know about you guys, but I just wanna get something to eat and then sleep for a week."

"That sounds like an absolutely fantastic idea," Fox agreed with yawn of his own.

"We are bringing them in on our plan, right?" Velvet whispered to Coco from just behind Fox and Nora.

"Yeah, I think they're ready," she whispered back. "Besides, I don't think we're going to be able to keep it from them any longer."

"Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow."

Behind Coco and Velvet, another whispered conversation was taking place.

"So, we are going to ask them about what they plan to do about the White Fang, right?" Ren whispered to Jaune.

"Yeah. They're planning something. I know Velvet's not going to take this without doing something about it," Jaune whispered back.

"Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow."

Plans made, the teams waved each other goodbye and split up for their respective dorm rooms.

~o~

"- for breaking news. A large-scale raid by the White Fang on the Vale docks was halted today in a running battle with an unknown but large number of Beacon students. A police investigation is ongoing, and though the motive of the raid was quite clearly the large shipment of Dust from the Schnee Dust Company, there is only speculation as to what triggered this massive escalation in White Fang activities. Never before has the faunus supremacy organization operated on such a large scale in the open, and there are worries that-"

Weiss Schnee jabbed the power button on the remote, shutting off the television.

"Well, that was a disaster." She summarized blandly.

"Yeeeaaah, it could have gone better, huh?" Yang's wince was obvious in her voice as it came over the phone.

"Hence my use of the word disaster." Weiss scowled furiously.

A click from the speaker confirmed the arrival of a new caller.

"Well, look who just joined the party!" Yang crowed.

"That was supposed to be an open-and-shut broad daylight raid." Blake snarled irately. "NOT a nine-ring circus! What. Just. Happened!?"

"Honestly, we were kinda hoping you could tell us that.'"Yang said with uncharacteristic seriousness. "You were there, while all we have are these crappy news broadcasts. Plus, Xavier and Noland aren't responding to my hails for some reason..."

"They were carbonized. Along with their ship and passengers." Blake intoned darkly.

"WHAT!?" Yang squawked. "By who!?"

"BY YOUR PET PROJECT, THAT'S WHO!" Blake roared. "What was she even doing out there? Do you even have people watching her?!"

Yang's line went dead for a moment, then came back to life with the tell-tale roar of flames. "Son of a BITCH! I swear to Remnant, whoever let her slip away like that is getting my boot shoved so far up their ass that they'll be tasting shoe leather! And then they're fired!"

"Figuratively or literally?" Weiss drawled.

"BOTH!"

"I thought as much," Weiss replied. "Now, if you two are quite done being righteously angry-" She paused as both Yang and Blake let out indignant squawks. "We need solutions here. Now, obviously we need to step up the recruitment or elimination of those students. I know the saying states that it's only enemy action with the third instance, but this is the second time they've interfered in our operations, and this time they came very close to causing us substantial problems. As such, I, for one, do not wish to see what a third time might look like."

For a moment the lines were silent. Then Yang spoke up thoughtfully. "Well, you know the Valkyrie girl practically worships the ground I walk on, so if I can talk to her I could do something, but I fully expect the Beacon staff to cockblock any attempts I make. At least, on campus. I'll have a better shot during the Vytal Festival."

"And since I'm going to be attending, you'll definitely have an excuse to be there." Weiss nodded. "Good. Not ideal, but good. Blake, what about you?"

Blake sighed wearily. "I already told you, recruiting Velvet would be a longshot of a longshot. I'll try, but I warn you that it will be a purely token effort. I already know the answer she'll give."

Weiss let out a heavy sigh. Why couldn't things ever be easy? "Well, that's all I ask. If it doesn't work out, then I'll try hiring them. After that, we kill them. Simple enough."

"And what about our other problem?" Blake asked. "In case you'd forgotten, I lost over two metric tons of cargo and two dozen men."

"And I lost a Bullhead and two pilots! Neither of those are cheap!" Yang added.

"The only thing I can think of is to go through her programming with a fine-toothed comb to see what possessed her to pull a stunt like that." Groaning, Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose. "Ugh, I can see the sleepless nights already. That, and before you plant your boot up their asses, Yang, we need to interrogate her handlers and find out how the hell they lost her. Or she lost them."

A click on the speaker signalled another new caller. And there was only one other person with access to this line.

"Morning, Sleeping Beauty!" Yang called enthusiastically. And loudly.

"Shut up, I was up all night drafting some modifications for Crescent Rose and running through the plan with Torchwick," Ruby mumbled sleepily. "So, how'd it go?"

"Terrible." Blake spat.

"What happened?" Ruby demanded, all trace of sleepiness gone in an instant.

"Operations were interrupted by the students and Penny got loose and destroyed a Bullhead." Weiss summarized. "I'm going to have Emerald and Mercury interrogate her programmers right away."

Ruby contemplated this for a moment before responding.

"Mm...Nah."

"What."

"I said nah. That'll take too long. I've got a better idea."

"What?"

"Hang on, lemme connect the lines. And… there we go! Hello, Penny!"

"Er... hello..."

"...hello, Penny." Weiss finally ground out.

"Penny, could you please tell us where you are and what happened earlier this morning?" Ruby asked kindly.

"Yes. Please. Tell us." Blake concurred not-so-kindly.

"Well, uh, right now I'm heading back to where the airships are. I'm trying to find a cab, it would definitely facilitate the process." Penny paused for a moment. "That's not what you wanted me to start with, is it?"

"Brilliant deduction." Yang drawled. "Okay, let's cut the bullshit. Why'd ya blow up one of my Bullheads, Penny?"

"Those were your Bullheads?!" Penny exclaimed. "I'm so sorry! I had no idea they were yours, Yang! I thought Blake had stolen them or something! And I had no idea it was one of Blake's operations until she started using her shadows! I would never have interfered otherwise."

"She's telling the truth…" Weiss muttered inaudibly.

"Penny…" Ruby said softly. "Did you become friends with those students you met?"

There was a heavy pause on the other end of the line. "... Yes." There was another pause. "Is that a bad thing, Ruby?"

"No, of course not, Penny." Ruby reassured the gynoid. "Though, slipping past your handlers was very naughty of you. Now, since this is the first time you've been out of the lab, if you tell us how you slipped by your handlers I won't punish you or anything. That sound good?"

"Sure!" Penny said, her voice audibly perking up. "I just waited until they were distracted by a pretty lady and slipped into a nearby alley."

There was a beat, then all four Strategos simultaneously groaned and slapped their foreheads.

"Forget tasting my boot leather," Yang ground out. "They're going to be tasting my belt buckle by the time I make certain they're receiving unemployment checks!"

"I… don't think that's anatomically possible, Yang," Penny stated.

Yang snickered, then burst into full-on laughter, Ruby joining in soon after. Weiss merely shook her head, though a few snickers came over Blake's line.

"That was another metaphor, wasn't it." Penny sighed.

"Y-Yeah, it was," Ruby wheezed. "Sorry, Penny, but that was just too funny."

"Glad to be of service, Ruby. I'm sure you have lots of plans to talk about, so I'll be going now."

Yang finally got her laughter under control as Penny dropped out of the call. "Well, as amusing as that was, we should probably talk about our next operation."

The mood in the room immediately sobered. This was it. After this operation, there would be no turning back.

"Blake?" Weiss asked.

"Mountain Glenn should be ready on schedule." Blake confirmed.