"So we're all clear on the plan?"
At the time of course, everyone had nodded their ascent, ready to get underway – albeit with differing measures of eagerness and reluctance. Yang would be taking Neptune – a friend of Sun's who'd accompanied him in eavesdropping on RWBY's planning session – to some club she knew of in one of the seedier districts of town. Weiss and Ruby would get in touch with the Schnee Dust Company and requisition any relevant information at the Cross-Continental Communication Tower – Weiss's half-hearted suggestions regarding a different arrangement of groups aside. Lastly came Blake, Mina, and Sun; the lot of them were going to 'attend' a White Fang faction meeting – Mina had known a few useful things, having left a fair bit later than Blake, but she'd never been the type to ask questions above her pay grade, so to speak – if they were going to get to the bottom of whatever it was that was going on, 'fresh intel' – as Ruby had so lightheartedly called it – would be critical. It was initially suggested that, since Mina worked in the same part of town and was also familiar with the club in question that she should go with Yang as well, but after a patent refusal to be separated from Blake for the mission, the matter was dropped.
The rational part of Blake's brain wanted to insist that Mina go with Yang, as this mission was going to be dangerous, and both of them going only increased the likelihood that they would be recognized, but she didn't have the heart to do it. Mina was still shaken up, and though the others couldn't tell for the most part – although Blake had seen Weiss cast her the occasional concerned look – Blake knew. It was subtle in in the Dorm, surrounded by people Mina knew and was comfortable with, and even in class or at lunch there was not all that much difference, but every now and again when some random student carelessly bumped shoulders with her in the hall Blake would notice it; Mina would recoil – just a bit – but recoil nonetheless. Even around Sun, Mina was visibly just a little bit tenser than usual. The fact that the boy had a 'thing' for Blake didn't help, of that Blake was sure, but he knew about their relationship and had disappointedly agreed to respect it, so no real issues had come of it, and Mina was polite – social even – on the airship down into Vale, even if her part in the conversation had seemed a little forced; but then, maybe that was just Blake's own anxiety talking.
"Yo, uh… you alright?"
Blake was drawn back to reality from her musings as Sun waved a hand in front of her, "You're kinda the one who knows where we're going…"
"Oh… right…" Blake took a deep breath as she scanned the mouths of the alleys on the street as the three of them passed by, "It's a few more blocks,"
"Actually – Mina, was it?" Sun asked, receiving a nod from Mina, "I'm kinda surprised that you don't know where we're going…"
"Mina was never much of an… activist…" Blake put it lightly, "Recruiting wasn't her thing…"
Sun raised an eyebrow to this, "Then what was her thing?"
"Arson, mostly," Mina answered calmly, "And the occasional bombing,"
"Right…" the boy blanched, "Sorry I asked…"
"It's this one," Blake interrupted, discreetly gesturing down an alley coming up on the left, "Follow me; Mina, you know the drill, Sun… just… don't blow our cover…"
As Blake handed him the Grimm mask though, he looked at it somewhat distastefully, "Is this really necessary?"
"Yes, Mr. Wukong," Mina answered flatly as she put on her own, "Setting aside the obvious necessity to conceal our identities, everyone else will be wearing one,"
"Doesn't exactly seem like something you do if you've got right on your side…" He commented dubiously.
"It's a symbol," Blake explained impatiently as she donned her mask, and then continued in a tone of recitation, "The humans wanted to make monsters out of us, so we decided to don the faces of monsters,"
"But seriously, Grimm masks? You gotta admit that's kinda dark…"
"Yeah, I know," Blake sighed as she watched several other masked Faunus around the corner of the alley ushered into the building by uniformed White Fang guards, "Just put it on,"
Mina activated her Semblance the instant that Blake had indicated which alley they were to enter so as to find the rally. It wouldn't do to have any unpleasant surprises. Still, it seemed the masks were enough to obfuscate their identity at a glance, judging by the way that the White Fang guards ushered Mr. Wukong, Mina, and her Dearest one inside. With all the other eager fools who did not fully appreciate what it was that they were signing up for. It was almost surprising really; inside there were hundreds of them – aspiring 'freedom fighters,' that was – but Mina cared little for any of them, as her attention was on the armed guards on the catwalks above. The whole place reminded her less of a forum for the frustrated than of a trap waiting to be sprung upon hundreds of foolish little mice.
Perhaps sheep was a better label though; here they stood, by their scores and dozens, bleating their grievances and their platitudes, eagerly – heedlessly – awaiting their chances to be guided to their own slaughter, so to speak. Mina didn't need good eyes to tell that most of them weren't dressed in rags; they all smelled clean, and none groaned from hunger – or if they did, their lamentations were lost beneath the mass of voices crying out for vengeance against the employer who called a certain antlered girl 'doe' or human girl who'd rejected a dull-sounding sod's advances 'because I'm a Faunus.' There were worthier complaints to be sure, Mina supposed, but on the whole, even those with a reason to be here did not sound as though they understood what it was to join the White Fang, but then, she hadn't either.
Yet Mina was without sympathy; she had followed Blake – her rescuer - into the White Fang when things had been altogether more civil, and as a child with no great abundance of comprehension or good judgment. Those gathered around her today, packed as they were into the warehouse space though, they were young adults to a man, capable of reasoning and rational judgment, if only they would bester themselves to it. It seemed instead that all of them preferred to gather together and stew in one another's anger. Mina would not begrudge or cast judgment upon any of them though, had she not known their type time and again during her own decade in the White Fang. These were the types who shouted loudest at the rallies and were first to step forward and swear their 'undying loyalty,' and that they would go to any lengths to attain the 'justice' they so desired. Had that been all there was to it, she would almost have respected them – if also failed to understand their capacity for self-delusion – but none of them were ever so committed as they wanted to be seen as being; these were also the types who hesitated to step forward when challenged to bomb a train or actually kill a human with their own two hands. All of these, to a man, would recoil from her upon hearing she needed to feed on blood. That was only natural though, and not something for which Mina would cast judgment either, were it not for the inherent hypocrisy. No, souls whose 'egalitarian' principles even withstood survival instinct were truly rare, like Blake…
Mina's expression darkened beneath her mask as a man in a sleeveless White Fang coat attempted to call the meeting to order, Like Nadia Undine…
Mina's bitter musings were interrupted, however, when whose voice but that of Roman Torchwick should sound out across the assembled mass of masked Faunus. At the sound, Mina instantly focused her attention and Semblance on the stage, What are they playing at?
As the Crime Lord went on about his pitch, relying heavily on a flair for charisma and showmanship to 'sell' himself to the arrayed mass of young Faunus whose first instinct was to call for his blood, Mina carefully focused on the handful who occupied the stage. There was the MC with the sleeveless jacket, Torchwick himself, a woman with what seemed to be a parasol, and, behind Torchwick, a large curtain hanging, obfuscating something from view. No curtain would have stymied her Semblance, but Mina couldn't get close enough to determine what was beyond the rather large drapery. Fortunately or unfortunately, it did not seem as though Torchwick meant to keep his audience in suspense.
"That's a big robot…" Sun commented weakly as the curtain was pulled away.
"Where did he get that?"
"Ladies and Gentlemen, as some of you might have herd, this is Atlas's newest line of defense against all the scary things in the world," Torchwick continued with a flourish to showcase what had been hidden behind the drapes, "And thanks to my employer, we've managed to snag a few before they… hit the shelves…"
For her part, Mina still couldn't get a good sense of it; her Semblance extended to the front of it – just barely – but all she could surmise from that was that it was big, "This is… disconcerting…" Mina remarked quietly to Blake, and then privately thought, Perhaps Mr. Torchwick was not so urgently in need of a way out after all…
Torchwick continued his oration, at the end of which the sleeveless man bid all 'new recruits' to step forward. This was of course to have been expected – and why all the armed guards facing inward were necessary – whether they knew it or not, all of the young Faunus in the building would sign on to 'the cause' if they wanted to walk out of the warehouse at all, lest anyone be allowed to get cold feet and let slip that the White Fang had somehow acquired Atlesian military technology. Unfortunately, that put Blake, Sun, and Mina herself in a bit of a tight spot; they couldn't just walk out, but going forward with the rest was like to expose them to the sort of scrutiny that would get them recognized.
"He sees us..." Sun said nervously as Mina noted Torchwick was indeed looking their way.
"Steady, Mr. Wukong…"
"He can't see in the dark…" Blake drew Gambol shroud's pistol component and shot out the lights, "Now, go!"
All hell broke loose as the lights shattered and the emptied-out warehouse went dark. While Torchwick and perhaps the unfamiliar woman on stage would be the only one's truly encumbered by the sudden darkening of the premises, Torchwick was the only one they were presently worried about, and the sudden darkness would be disorienting to those who hadn't seen it coming, if nothing else. Seizing upon this opportunity, Blake used Gambol Shroud's ribbon and Mina used one of Sanguine Heart's wires to grapple onto the railing of the catwalk above, and each taking a somewhat startled Sun Wukong under one arm, they leapt and swung over the heads of dozens of startled Faunus before retracting their weapons and diving out the nearest window onto the roof.
"Y'know…" Sun shouted, pausing momentarily as they bounded across the top of the alley from which they'd entered the building, "Usually it's the hunky dude sweeping pretty girls of their feet…"
"Do not flatter yourself; it is unbecoming, my fair lady," Mina retorted dryly as she sprang across another gap in the rooftops.
As… irritating as Mr. Wukong was – if only because his interest in Blake, however abandoned, was more or less public knowledge – Mina couldn't help a little smile. Even if now running for her life, having now escaped the White Fang gathering, the whole atmosphere just seemed less oppressive somehow. The irony was not lost on her as she ran, but it certainly served to lighten her mood in spite of the circumstances.
"Hey! So not what I meant-!"
"I think we have bigger problems right now!" Blake interrupted the banter as out from one of the freight access bays of the warehouse behind them erupted the colossal mechanized Grimm-slayer known as the Atlesian Paladin.
"Yeah um… CALL FOR BACKUP!"
"Dial Weiss Schnee, Ruby Rose, and Yang Xiao Long," Mina calmly – well, as calmly as might be expected given the circumstances – ordered into her voice operated scroll as the headlong flight continued, "This is Mina, we seem to have-,"
"TORCHWICK'S GOT A GIANT ROBOT!"
Blake rolled her eyes as Mina sighed, "Yes... That…"
"We're heading down towards the freeway!" Blake called over so as to be registered by the device in Mina's hands as they ran, "We're on the rooftops, but he's closing on us from the street!"
No response came at first, but then, as they were beginning to run out of rooftops, Weiss's voice came over the line, "On my way, I've got your position on my scroll,"
Mina nodded gratefully to no one there to see, "Thank you Weiss, I-,"
"Keep your pants on! Me 'n Neptune are on our way!" Yang's voice interrupted Mina's response, shouted over what sounded like her motorcycle.
"Hang in there!" It was Ruby's voice to chime in last, "Think maybe you could lure him onto the freeway?"
Mina's brow furrowed, "I personally could not say, but would that not present greater danger to passing motorists? Admittedly ethics is not my subject but-,"
"Yes, Ruby, we can," Blake called over Mina's perplexity, then addressed Mina herself, "Just follow my lead; I think I know where she's going with this!"
"You'll have to forgive me-," Mina broke off her witticism as she leapt from the roof of one car to another, "Dearest, I fail to see how this minimizes harm to the populace…" Her remark was punctuated as a car was swatted out of the way by the pursuing Mecha, "Perhaps if Miss Rose were to elaborate on her plan…"
"No time! Just keep ahead! You saw how that thing threw Sun and Neptune!" Blake shouted back in exasperation before bounding ahead onto a different vehicle's roof to avoid Torchwick's closing behemoth.
"Yes… A rather underwhelming display of chivalry, to be frank… Even if I didn't see it as such…" Mina rejoined dryly.
Blake sighed as best she could whilst standing upon a speeding car, "Look, we've got the two of us, and Yang's keeping up behind him, but we can't fight him on the move, so we just have to wait for-,"
"I'm in position!"
"That?"
"That…"
Blake and Mina dove from their respective cars as Weiss dropped from the overpass, and no sooner had they gotten to their feet on the pavement than did Ruby's voice come over both of their scrolls, "Blake, Mina, get below; Weiss will get him down here!"
"Right!" Blake nodded, turning to Mina, "You ready?"
Mina winked driving one of her stakes into the asphalt at the edge of their own freeway overpass, "May I offer you al lift?"
Blake shook her head, for just that one instant forgetting the stakes of the situation as she wrapped her arms about Mina's shoulders – less a hug than a grip really – and responded with a wry smile, "Sweep me off my feet…"
Mina chuckled, and with her free hand took hold of Blake at the small of her back, "How I do enjoy these little thrills~"
Blake was about to mutter something along the lines of 'that makes one of us' but before she could get the words out, Mina did in fact lift her bodily, and holding Blake tight with one arm – the other attached to their spider-silk thin tether – Mina leapt over the edge. Blake fought the urge to object in surprise – this was moe or less what she'd expected Mina to do after all – but Mina really didn't have to be so sudden about it… As the two of them plummeted a hundred feet through the empty air, their hair whipped up in the wind as they fell, terra-firma rushed up to meet them at a startling pace. Thirty feet up from the ground though, their descent rapidly slowed back into control as the winch mechanism in Mina's gauntlet kicked in, until eventually Mina let Blake go and the two allowed themselves to drop the last six or so inches to land firmly upon solid ground.
"That was awesome!" Ruby cheered, coming up to join them as Mina sent a burst of Aura through her cord to agitate and dislodge her stake from the pavement above and retract the wire, "We've totally gotta go bungee jumping sometime!"
Before Blake could comment on that suggestion though, there was a loud crashing from overhead as Torchwick's Paladin skidded, crashed through the barrier on the side of the freeway above, and tumbled down to earth with less grace than Mina's wire had allowed. As the war machine was attempting to recover its bearings, a white glyph glimmered to life, Weiss dropping from above to land gently upon it, and Yang's motorcycle roared down a nearby off-ramp.
Weiss eyed the machine dubiously, "That thing seems rather heavily armed… I do hope you have a plan, now that we're stuck with it…"
Ruby nodded, deploying Crescent Rose, "Freezerburn!"
Mina cracked a little smile. Miss Rose's whimsy never did cease to amuse. Every time she got it in her head to concoct a new flashy maneuver, she of course had to give it a name, and if that maneuver chanced to involve two or more members of the team, its name would always be some manner of wordplay. In this case, Weiss would freeze the ground and Miss Xiao Long would flash-burn the ice away with her Dust cartridges, resulting in a rather dense cloud of steam to obscure the team's position – so Mina was told anyway; all Mina noticed was the added humidity – but the action served its purpose, as Team RWBY circled around the mechanized behemoth unharmed by its poorly directed canon fire.
"Checkmate!"
No sooner had the words issued from Ruby's lips than did Blake and Weiss break off from the circling evasive pattern to take the offensive. Mina noted that while Blake made the most obvious hazard of herself by way of numerous quick slashes at the armored suit's legs and joints, this was all so much misdirection as Weiss followed up, springing into the air with a glyph to disable the craft's primary canon with a thrust from Myrtenaster, and then conjured another to launch herself back and away from the giant steel fist raised to swat her away. Mina almost panicked though when Blake was left open to be tread upon by the steel colossus' foot, but she controlled herself, and was rewarded for her patience when her Dearest was swept from harm's way on another of Weis' glyphs, leaving Torchwick's steel soldier to stomp on empty ground in angry futility.
The Paladin was hardly disarmed however, as several mechanisms could be heard in motion even as the machine recovered from its failed attempt to crush Blake. As a salvo of missiles issued from the armor's shoulder-mounted batteries with Blake just restoring her bearings and Weiss still airborne, Mina heard the soft, almost musical sound that she'd learned to associate with Weiss's glyphs emanating from beneath Blake, lending her power even as the Heiress herself was struck from the sky. Mina bolted to catch her as she fell, trusting that Blake, presently between her and the war machine, could protect them as she loosed Gambol Shroud's blade to cut the rockets from the air, and with an effort Mina managed to cover the distance before her friend struck the ground, catching her with her feet spread in a wide stance so as not to fall herself.
"Thanks…" the Heiress acknowledged the service whilst brushing dust from her sleeves as Mina set her down, "That could have been more painful…"
Mina nodded, "Regrettably I cannot work those glyphs of yours to furnish a softer landing…"
"I just got hit by a missile Mina; don't worry, I couldn't either…" Weiss rejoined dryly.
"Ladybug!" Ruby called out now, rushing into the fray herself to aid Blake. From the side, Miss Xiao long hammered the mechanical titan with shell after shell as Blake and Ruby used a combination of recoil and sheer athleticism to ascent their armored foe and fall upon it again from above in a flurry of blows, Miss Rose even going so far as to sever an arm with Crescent Rose as she fell back to earth.
As the two of them disengaged from their attack run and faded from Torchwick's view back into the persistent mist, Ruby called out again, "Night Shade!"
Mina smiled; this one was her favorite. Blake sprinted back across Torchwick's field of view, luring his attention as could clearly be surmised when the Paladin's mechanical fist slammed into the ground a yard behind Blake as she ran, but that was only the beginning. This particular maneuver was named in tribute to both Blake's last name and Mina's assumed one that she used at work – Nachtschatten – and appropriately enough called for her to collaborate with her Dearest. Moving to fill her role in the scheme, Mina positioned herself directly beneath the freeway above, slotting three stakes through the loops of her right gauntlet and driving them into the side of a concrete support pylon. After circling the shaft once, she sprinted across to the next nearest pylon and similarly wound the metal cords about it before calling to Blake. Hearing Mina's signal, Blake turned in her direction and continued her headlong 'retreat' using her semblance periodically to escape the occasional missile that Torchwick had in reserve, or simply to confuse the Crime Lord's eyes. Frustrating bait though she was, he took it all the same, and Mina braced herself as the giant machine thundered after Blake as she rolled beneath the arrayed wires. When Miss Rose had first proposed this plan in training, it had been intended for Grimm, larger ones, granted, but nothing larger or heavier than an Ursa Major. Even next to that though, the Paladin was another matter entirely.
Mina grimaced as the Paladin's leading foot snagged on the wires and her arm was abruptly yanked. Like as not she would have lost it had she not taken the precaution of winding both sides around the columns to mitigate the strain, but it was a mighty force nonetheless. Mighty, but not insurmountable. with a groaning and buckling noise, the war machine began to tip forward, and at that, Miss Rose signaled for herself, Weiss, and Miss Xiao Long to open fire and deliver that last push needed. Under the combined forces of Mina's wires, fire from behind, and its own sheer weight, the Paladin fell forward and crashed to the ground.
Seeing her opportunity, Miss Xiao Long rushed forward to leap over the wires and onto the Paladin's back, hammering away with blow after blow and buying Mina time to unwind and Blake a much-needed respite from three consecutive maneuvers. Even despite Yang's persistent fire and all force of her blows though, the machine began to leverage its one remaining arm to struggle back to its feet, reached over its shoulder to take hold of Yang, and threw her to the ground a dozen yards away.
"Yang!" Blake called out in worry. Perplexingly though, Ruby didn't seem to share her concern.
"Frost bite!"
Nodding, Mina made a beeline for the lumbering target, having now disentangled herself from the columns, and not four yards into her approach she heard Weiss's glyphs humming to life under her feet and felt herself gaining altitude. Two stakes in each hand, she armed the driving charges on the end, making ready to throw. The glyphs followed her feet as she ran, circling around the armored suit, rising with each step. Once behind her foe and at shoulder level, Mina lunged at the behemoth flinging first one, then another stake at its remaining intact shoulder joint, the driving charges detonating on impact, the force of which wresting the arm free to collapse in a heap on the ground. The second pair of stakes impacted on the target's upper and lower back, respectively, and the Mecha stumbled. Her task complete, Mina felt herself land on another glyph which drifted back down to earth, allowing her to break into a run to put some distance between herself and the critically damaged Paladin as Ruby called out the final two moves.
"Ice Flowers! Bumblebee!"
As Mina got well out of reach, Ruby took a knee, aiming with her scythe to fire upon the damaged hulk, Weiss adding to the force and effect of each shot with her Dust, which further slowed the armored suit down. Meanwhile, it was for Blake and Yang to deliver the final blow. Miss Xiao Long, seemingly fueled by the force of the damage which she herself had sustained, was the hammer, and Blake was the arm to swing it. Propelled in part by Blake swinging her at the end of her ribbon and partly by discharges from Ember Celica, Miss Xiao Long flew through the air and slammed, fist-first into the front of the crippled machine, utterly devastating what was left of it. As the wreck toppled backward and shattered upon the ground Roman Torchwick emerged from the scrap, huffing irritably.
"I just got this thing cleaned…" The man griped, seemingly without regard for the circumstances, as though it had all been a friendly – or at least sportsmanlike – game rather than a life-or-death struggle. Her blood still boiling, Yang drew back a fist and then launched it forward, firing off an incendiary round. Before the ballistic shell could connect though, between her and Roman appeared the woman whose silhouette Mina recognized from the rally earlier, shielding Torchwick with her parasol of all things.
"Always a pleasure ladies…" Torchwick spoke with a smug smirk. Then, in a little gesture that no one else noticed – Mina only 'saw' it thanks to the sensitivity of her Semblance, Torchwick tipped his hat her way as if to say 'Well played, but not yet,' before he actually spoke again, to the interloper this time, "Neo, if you would?"
Yang rushed forward, no doubt to strike the smugness from Torchwick's face, but again the woman came between the brawler and her target. Perplexingly though, both she and Torchwick simply seemed to shatter – there was no other way to describe it. Whatever the woman had done as Miss Xiao Long had struck her Parasol, neither she nor Torchwick remained when the brief spectacle had ended.
Mina's eyes narrowed, Perhaps we'll not so soon be chatting again, Mr. Torchwick…
"Tch… Looks like he got a new henchman…" Yang griped, though she was starting to calm down even as she watched in frustration, Torchwick's getaway craft pulling away.
"Indeed…" Mina added vaguely.
"I suppose this really did… fall apart on us…?"
Blake sighed, rolling her eyes, "Weiss… He got away… save the jokes…"
"Wha-!"
"You kinda suck at em anyway…" Yang added, starting for her motorcycle.
"Good grief! Now you're drawing the line on a little levity? Really?"
"So uh…" Ruby piped up hesitantly, interrupting the petty dispute, "What did happen to Sun and Neptune…?"
Mina shrugged, "I lost track of them when they were swatted off of the freeway…"
"Oh…"
Author's Note: Okay, so before we conclude, yes, I realize that this chapter bears remarkable similarity to episode 4 of Volume 2 – Blake and Sun's part of it anyway – I just thought it would be interesting to give Mina's take on being back in the White Fang atmosphere again, (and maybe because I wanted to take a crack at that fight scene); I felt it was necessary because this is kind of plot central, and while this is an AU on account of the OC elements, I'm trying to minimize the AU element. That said, I'm going to try and limit overlaps like this in the future – there will be a dance for example, in the not too distant future, but the events will, of necessity, play out differently to an extent. With that said, I would like to thank ScarletWolfx for helping me brainstorm the name for the 'Nightshade' game plan (you wouldn't believe how long I spent trying to think of something that would fit into the scene) I really appreciate the help. Since the distance of time between episodes 4 and 5 is unclear, however, I'm going to take a chapter or two before a write a take on canon events again. You might also notice that the dialogue, while similar to certain parts of the episode, has in a fair few cases been changed; this was done to (in my opinion) better fit the characterizations of the characters as I have developed them up to now in this story, so hopefully it sounds a bit more natural (not to mention marginally less lazy) than were I to have simply copy-pasted all of the dialogue I could. In any event, I hope you like my take on that, and feel free to leave any feedback; I always appreciate it.