Disclaimer: I do not own any of the material appearing in this story. The OC's belong to their respective owners.

A Few Hours After Repairing Peach's Castle…

"Okay, I just texted them." Tai spoke up. "They should be coming soon."

"Great." Summer said softly, washing the mugs after they finished their hot chocolate. Two hands gently touched her shoulders.

"It's going to be alright…"

"I know… but I'm worried how Yang will take it." Summer said. "We all know she has Raven's stubbornness… and recklessness." She sighed.

"I get it, your conversation with Raven didn't exactly go swimmingly as you hoped, but to be fair, you didn't exactly help the situation either."

"You don't think I don't know that? Someone had to call her out… and if no one did, then who would?"

"That's fair." Tai agreed, then they heard the front door open as they turned their head to see Qrow walking in.

"Am I too late?"

"No, you're right on time. They should be here soon." Summer told him.

"Ah, good." Qrow nodded as he sat down on the chair. "So… how do you think this is going to go down?"

"Well… I know Ruby will be a bit confused, yet heartbroken." Tai said, watching Summer making some cookies, then he walked over to the couch and sat down. "It's Yang I'm worried about."

"Right… Yang's gonna be the one to watch out for." Qrow agreed, then watched Summer put the cookies in the oven… and right on cue, the Rose-Xiao Long sisters walked in.

"Sorry about the wait, we were just saying hi to Sora's friends." Yang said.

"Sora? You mean that spiky haired kid with the unintelligible duck and goofy dog friend?" Qrow asked.

"That's the one." Yang chuckled. "Kinda looks like Pit, but Ruby here doesn't think so."

"I, at least, can tell the difference between my boyfriend and someone who looks similar to him." Ruby said proudly.

"Riiiiight…" Yang rolled her eyes as she sat on the couch with Ruby as Zwei happily jumped up on their laps. "Soooo, what did you guys wanna talk about? The text seemed a bit urgent."

Summer took a deep breath. "Whatever happens… just… try not to freak out too much, okay?"

"Uh, sure…" Ruby nodded.

"Well… where do we begin…" Qrow folded his arms.

"Okay, so, you know how we were all celebrating after the universe was restored?" Summer spoke up.

"Of course!" Ruby smiled.

"Well… Qrow decided to take a little walk and, well… he ran into somebody." Summer said. "Someone familiar to all of us, someone who I saw that I'd never expect to see."

"Who was it?" Yang asked.

Summer looked to Yang. "…Your mother."

"My mother…" Yang quietly said before gasping. "My mother?!" She said excitedly. "Where is she?!"

"Easy there, firecracker. She's not here." Qrow said.

"Oh…" Yang looked down. "My bad…"

"Oh right… there was another mother." Ruby said. "I think she'd be my step-mother… no… wait, is that how it works? Would she be my aunt in this case…? I don't even know."

"I think it'd be best if you called her your aunt." Qrow said.

"Fair enough!"

"Raven and I had a little talk… and I wasn't expecting Ghostie over here to witness our conversation." Qrow said. "She left right after she came. Something about being worried over us after the universe imploded."

"And well, I couldn't stop thinking about Raven." Summer explained. "I tried to get my mind off of her… baking cookies, helping Ruby with her silver eyes, saving Weiss and Blake in Galar… but none of it was enough. Finally… I decided to bite the bullet and go find Raven. Qrow tagged along with me."

"You might not know it, but Raven and I used to be bandits back in the day." Qrow said.

"You were a bandit?!" The sisters said in surprise.

"Yup, I was pretty much a badass back in my day." Qrow said proudly.

"…Qrow, no offense, but I think you're too old to even be a bandit." Ruby said.

"Hey!" Qrow said, causing Tai and Summer to snicker at this. "Oh, laugh it up now… anyway, I decided to part ways with the tribe… I didn't think it was worth it anymore. Your mother, meanwhile, decides to become the leader of our tribe. I guess you could say that's what caused me to split… something about me being bossed around by my sister didn't sit well with me."

Yang snickered. "Yeah… that probably would get annoying. Kinda like how this doofus wanted to boss me around when she was younger."

"I wasn't that bad!" Ruby defended, playfully elbowing her sister.

Qrow let out a chuckle. "And now, you two are in a team with the youngest being the leader… I honestly find that ironic."

"Ah, she's not bad!" Yang said, wrapping an arm around her sister and giving her a noogie.

"Ack! Hey! Ow!" Ruby giggled.

Summer giggled. "So anyway… we ran into Raven at her camp and well, she took one look at me and thought somebody was trying to steal my body so they could bring her down. Then next thing I know, I get impaled by her."

"She what?!" Yang and Ruby yelled in surprise.

"Yeah, somebody's still not used to being a ghost here, so she got impaled pretty good." Qrow said. "That said, she did slap her right after."

"In her defense, she wasn't really thinking straight these past few weeks, what with the universe being destroyed and all… that said, she didn't have to turn me into a shishkebob…" Summer mumbled.

"Did you even try to reason with her?" Ruby asked.

"We tried but, considering she was a bit sleep deprived, she wouldn't even hear it." Qrow shook his head.

"How would she be sleep deprived?" Yang wondered.

"You see… the bandits go by this rule: The weak die, the strong live." Qrow said. "Your mother lives through that pretty well. Of course, now she's having an existential crisis after that freak accident."

"…Wait, so that would mean…" Ruby turned to her mother with "weak die and strong live" in her head. She let out a scowl. "I don't like her very much…"

"If it helps, I called her out on that." Summer said.

"Good." Ruby nodded, leaning her head on her mother's shoulder.

"So… I guess you guys had an argument?" Yang asked.

"What I intended was inviting her to help us stop Dark Ruby for good… but instead, all I got was complete stubbornness." Summer said. "Sure, I will admit, I did kinda escalate the problem by yelling at her and calling her out for her BS, but…" She let out a sigh. "It had to be said… both of us were caught in the heat of the moment."

"I can't say I blame you." Tai spoke up. "Raven's… complicated."

That's one way to put it. Summer thought. "In the end… it wasn't worth it. I went in, knowing Raven would be a bit obstinate, but I was hoping she'd help out… and we came out empty handed. Raven… she's not the same teammate we once knew."

"Dare I ask… what she used to be?" Yang asked.

"Mind if I have this part?" Tai asked as both of them nodded. "Well, let's see, Yang, your mother was… complicated to say the least. But at the same time, she was great in so many ways. Her strength, her ambition, her dedication to whatever cause she thought was worth fighting for."

"Careful now, you're saying this in front of your dead wife." Qrow teased.

"I'm not one of the jealous types, thank you very much." Summer said. "…Besides, there's not much I can do considering I'm dead." She shrugged.

Tai smiled and then looked back at Yang. "I'm actually proud of how much of her I see in you."

Yang looked down. "Sorry I remind you so much of her…"

"Don't be… and besides, if it helps, I'm glad I don't see all of her in you."

"Why?"

"Well, like everyone else, she has her faults, but these faults in particular… it's what drove our team apart and… it did a real number on our family. Not to mention that both of you think the best way to tackle an obstacle is through it, that strength is all that matters in a fight… but if you just take a second look, then maybe you see… that there's a way around it as well." He grinned.

"I see…"

"Well, if it helps, you're starting to be calmer in fights and think things through." Tai pointed out. "You're not charging in ahead without thinking these days, you're thinking about what to do… plus, I've heard you got magic now from this Aerith girl, so there's that. So from what I can tell, you're nothing like Raven. She has her good qualities, those qualities having passed on to you. But like I said… everyone has their own faults, but I know you're trying to atone for those mistakes."

Yang clenched her fists. "So… my mother… she's nothing more than a deadbeat? She's a worse version of myself, she doesn't even care about anyone, she doesn't even care about her dead team leader and on top of that… she's complicated… which I'm honestly believing that's a massive understatement."

"Yeah… that's it alright." Qrow nodded.

Ding!

"Oh, I was wondering if I was smelling cookies." Ruby said.

Yang's eyes were covered in shadow. "I'm… gonna need a moment." She said as she got up and walked out the door.

"Yang, wait a minute!" Ruby reached for her sister… but the door closed behind Yang. "Yang…"

"Honey…" Summer whispered as she stood up. "Tai, can you go get the cookies out of the oven? I need to go check on Yang." She said as she walked after Yang.

"Mmm… I was afraid of this…" Qrow mumbled quietly.

Outside…

"Honey? Honey! Where are you?" Summer callled out to her.

"Hraaah! Yah!"

Summer turned her head, approaching the source of the voice and watching Yang beating the crap out of a punching bag that Tai had installed outside just in case. Summer cautiously approached the firecracker and noticed Apollo watching her.

"Pew…" Apollo said quietly.

"Yang…" Summer said, watching her pummel hard. "I'm sorry…"

"No, you know what? This works out better than I thought." Yang said. "Someone once told me that trying to search for Raven was going to lead to heartbreak… and you know what? Hearing all that made me realize that they were right… I can't remember who told me that. It definitely wasn't Samus, that's for sure…"

"Yang, it's all right to be angry… trust me, Raven can bring out the worst in anyone."

"Why should I be mad? I've heard everything I needed to know about her." She said, continuing to punch it.

"Well, you're definitely beating the crap out of that-"

"I just wish I didn't waste my time looking for her all this time…"

"I'm sorry… I wish things turned out differently with he-"

"You don't have to be sorry aboutanything." She stopped punching the bag and turned to Summer.

BGM: Family Part 1 (RWBY Volume 4)

"It's not like I'm still a little girl, twiddling my thumbs and asking my dad "When's mom coming home" or "when is mom coming back" or anything. No, who needs her? She wasn't there teaching me how to do hand to hand… but hey, I learned, didn't I? Learned from my old man! I got pretty damn good at it too!"

"Yeah, you sure did."

"Got through my first day without her, I learned how to ride a bike, learned how to control my semblance, learned how to fight without her…" Her hair started sizzling and her eyes turned red. "I had several good birthdays without her and she didn't even bother sending me a card once! So you know what?" Her hair caught on fire and turned around, her fist catching ablaze.

"TO HELL WITH HER!" She screamed, her voice breaking while Firaga Punching the punching bag hard enough to make it snap off its chains and sent it straight to a tree. "…I didn't need her then and I don't need her now." Yang said as she walked past Summer, her hair still on fire.

"Look, Yang-"

"No, you know what, mom?" Yang turned to her. "I'm gonna get through Beacon without her, I'm gonna do more adventures with the Mario Bros without her, I'm gonna marry Claude later on and have a few kids with him… I'm gonna be a better mother than Raven would EVER be and I SURE AS HELL don't need Raven for that cause there's not a damn thing she could teach me about how to love my kids! Hell, I'm already doing a swell job with Apollo and I'm gonna continue being a loving mother to him WITHOUT HER!"

"Hah… hah…" Yang's hair sizzled out and her eyes changed back to violet and stood there panting, looking at Summer before tears started forming in her eyes before streaking down her cheeks. "How… how come she didn't want me…" She whispered. "Was it something I did when I was little? Was it something I said… was it something dad did? How come… how come she left all of us…"

Summer instinctively hugged Yang, the latter burying herself in her shoulder. "You didn't do anything, sweetheart… none of you did. Raven made her choice." She said, softly caressing her hair while Yang continued to sob into her shoulder.

Just then, Apollo hopped up on Yang's shoulder and gently nuzzled against her neck, then arms wrapped around Yang from behind as it belong to Tai, and then Ruby and Qrow came in and hugged Yang as well in comfort.

"Thank you…" Yang whispered, sniffing as they parted from the hug. "Mom… you… you're a better mother than Raven would ever be…"

Summer gave her a soft sad smile. "Come on… let's go back in. Those cookies aren't going to eat themselves." She said, giving Yang a soft kiss on the forehead.

"Assuming Ruby didn't eat them all?"

"Hey… I'm right here." Ruby said, causing Summer to let out a soft giggle as they all walked back into the house… all of them unaware of a raven haired woman emerging from a tree. She watched them all go inside the house, closing her eyes as Yang's words echoed in her head.

"TO HELL WITH HER! I didn't need her then… and I don't need her now."

"Yang…" She quietly said, some tears shedding as she turned around and disappeared into the woods, where a raven would burst out of the trees and fly off into the distance.

Hoo, this Gaiden got emotional in the second half... thanks Jacob for the idea!

Also, apparently there's gonna be a Sonic Presentation in a few days...