Loud music and flashing lights fill Yang's senses as she pushes through the doors leading into Junior's. It was a club located in the seedier side of Vale, owned and managed by the Xiong Family. It wasn't the type of place Yang would be found usually in, her dad would murder her if he found out. But desperate times call for desperate measures.
A week ago, it had been a relatively normal day. She and Ruby were at Signal, her dad was teaching there as always, then when classes ended they headed home for dinner. Simple right? Except that during then, her father got a call from Uncle Qrow.
He stepped away from the table to take the call, and then all colour on his face drained. He quickly rushes for the television remote, turning it on and tuning in to the news where they all heard the report;
"-the infamous leader of the group of bandits known at the Branwen Tribe has at least been eliminated. Mistral can sleep safely tonight knowing that with the death of the group's leader, Raven Branwen, as well as a majority of its members, the group is no longer a threat to even the smallest farming settlement."
"Oh come on, Simon. We both know what 'presumed dead' means. It's just a fancy way of saying, 'We don't know if she's actually dead. She can be hiding out in a cave in the mountains for all we know'! I ain't buying it unless we see a body."
"Really? You think a body's left after that? Just look at the mess! Their entire camp was levelled, covered in smoke, fire and ice crystals from who knows where? If there's a survivor from all that mess, I'd be impressed."
Her father stumbled back in shock at hearing that, almost collapsing if not for both Ruby and her catching him on time. The next week was some of the roughest slumps she'd ever seen him have, almost reminding her of how he had been when Summer Rose had died, almost shutting down. But it wasn't as long, pulling through in a matter of weeks, unlike the years it took. Qrow was there as well, visiting often to make sure he was alright.
It was at night when the two adults thought the kids were sleeping, sharing drinks together and chatting that she overheard their conversation.
"...I know that look in your eyes, Tai." Qrow mutters drunkenly, "You don't think she's dead either. There wasn't a body after all. Some folks are still looking for her if you catch my meaning… If you want to know anything-"
"I don't." Taiyang cuts him off, sounding pained, letting out a heavy sigh, "I just… I didn't know she still had this kinda hold over me. I thought I moved on… Raven left us to go play bandit queen, what was she thinking would happen?"
He takes a sip from the shot glass on the table before continuing, "I… I need to move on. The last time I couldn't I let down Yang and Ruby. I don't want to keep wondering… It's better to assume she's dead."
"...You got the eyes of a liar, Tai." Qrow mumbles before the two start drinking again.
That was why she was here in this seedy bar, she needed to find answers so her dad could really move on. And honestly, part of her wants to know the full story as well. Was the woman that gave birth to her truly dead? How did she die? And if not, where was she now?
And what better place to find information than here? After doing a bit of digging around she found this palace is often used by NEST mercenaries and Huntsmen for when they were looking for jobs that were a little grey in the legal area. Or in her case, they wanted to know information only the dark side of society would have access to.
She heads directly towards her target the moment she spots him, Junior Xion, owner of the club and current head of the Xiong Family. They have strong ties with the Mistral criminal underbelly, so if there was anyone in Vale who would know, it would be him.
Yang walks up the a large man in a vest and tie, leaning against the bar and chatting with a couple men in black suits, red sunglasses and fedoras. Once he notices her approach, he waves them off and glances at her,
"You lost or something, little lady? Because this place is for adults." he asks, "How old are you?"
"Old enough." Yang mimics him and leans on the bar, "But I didn't come here to drink, big guy. I heard around town that when you want to know something, you're the guy to talk to."
"Depends." Junior grabs a glass of bourbon, "On what do you want to know, and if you got the Lien to pay for it."
"Oh trust me, I can afford it," Yang smirks as she lies through her teeth. There was no way in hell her meagre allowance could afford to pay for information like this, but Junior didn't know that. Honestly, her plan was to ask, get her answers, and if they asked her to pay, beat the hell out of everyone and leave. It wasn't elegant but it works, she thinks. She counts a couple dozen Aura-less men, and maybe two or three Aura Users? She can work with that, she was the best hand-to-hand fighter in Signal after all.
"..." Junior looks her up and down unimpressed. Folks that come for his business usually bring at least a lunch bag full of folded Lien, "Those must be some magic pockets then. What'cha want to know?"
Yang whips out her Scroll and shows a blurry picture of Raven Branwen caught on camera that she found in a couple newspapers, "This woman, recognise her?"
Junior leans closer to look and nods with a sigh, "Yeah, Raven Branwen. What are you, another merc? They get younger every day, don't they?"
"Hey, I'm asking the questions here, tough guy." Yang says annoyed, "Now have you seen her or what?"
"I'll tell you what I told the other mercs and Huntsmen who came by with the same question." Junior takes another sip from his glass, "Even if she was alive, there's just no trace. All her old associates have gone underground or haven't seen her. The rest of her tribe that did survive probably did the same."
"So you're saying she's dead?" Yang asks unsure what the tone that came out of her throat was.
"I'm saying that nobody in Mistral or here knows what happened to Raven Branwen," Junior says, sounding annoyed like he was repeating himself for the hundredth time, and before Yang could press the question they were both interrupted by someone sitting at the bar, drinking away his miseries.
"I know…" a man with dirty blonde hair wearing clothes that looked like they hadn't been washed in weeks spoke up. Both Yang and Junior look towards the guy as he takes a drink straight from a bottle, "I know what happened to Raven Branwen…"
"You do?" Yang asks as she turns her full attention to the blonde man, even Junior has his curiosity piqued, "Who are you? What do you know?"
"My name's Shay… Shay D. Mann…" he says softly, his eyes looking distant like he was looking at something far away, "And I was there that night… I was there when Raven died…"
"A farmer…" Raven Branwen mutters in disbelief as she stands over the wreck of the MT she just destroyed, limbs were sliced off and the cockpit was sliced open allowing her to stab the pilot inside, "Five raiders killed, by a single. Fucking. Farmer?"
"It- It wasn't our fault, ma'am." Shay pleads as they are surrounded by walls of flame, "That thing had a flamethrower for Brothers' sake! The scouts didn't mention a Security MT!"
"It wasn't for security." Raven points at the sprayer modified with a pilot light, "That 'flamethrower' is a modified farming tool, for spraying fertiliser and insecticide. And this," she points at the combine harvester on its other arm, "Another farming tool used to collect crops. And instead, he used it to tear our men to shreds. It wasn't a machine designed to protect against packs of Grimm or bandits. It was just… farming equipment."
She clicks her tongue. Ever since these MTs became widely prevalent in the Mistral frontier, towns and settlements that could afford them grew at exponential rates. This meant more loot for the Branwen Tribe of course, but also increased risks.
At first, she decides to not attack settlements with Security MTs, while she doesn't doubt her ability to slay them the same could not be said for her men. Excluding Vernal, none of them were Aura Users. Getting bandits armed with scrap weapons to fight an armoured war machine designed to repel Grimm packs was sending them to a meat grinder. A waste.
But now if even a single modified farming tool was enough to kill her men, this was no longer a profitable business venture. If they have to risk death just fighting simple farmers, morale would drop considerably. The Branwen Tribe would no longer be feared or respected, nor would any other bandits in the region, not unless they adapted to this new age.
"Where's Vernal?" Raven asks as a plan begins to form in her head. Confused, Shay points in the direction of the village,
"She's rounding up the villagers for execution, and organising the loot collection," Shay says.
"Tell her to hurry up. And when we return home, I want her to contact Lil' Miss Malachite. We need information." Raven says as she sheathes Omen, "I have a plan."
"A plan?" Shay asks unsure.
"Times are changing, and we must change with them." Raven gestures to the wrecked MT, "How do you think the tribe would look with a few of these?"
"Her plan was stealing from NEST?!" Junior exclaims in surprise at the idiocy of such a plan. Even he knew the mistakes of attempting to trifle with NEST, if they think they were slighted in any way they will not forget, and they will not show mercy. Just look at the dozens of bandit tribes that tried stealing from them before, their corpses left as a stern warning against all those that would attempt the same.
"No… I mean, not exactly." Shay mutters drunkenly as he reaches for the bottle only to find it empty. But then Yang slides over some Lien notes which Junior accepts, pouring Shay another drink, "Thanks… who are you anyway? Why so interested in a buncha failed bandits like us?"
"Who knows?" Yang shrugs her shoulders, "All I know is that I'm the one buying you drinks as long as you keep talking. What did you guys do then?"
"Yeah, how did you plan on 'changing with the times'?" Junior asked as he leaned against the bar, he himself was also interested in the story, "How did that end with you massacred… No, the better question is how the hell did you survive?"
"I'll tell you… but it's best if you hear the whole story." Shay insists, "From beginning to end… We needed a better way to raid, so we figured the MTs were key. But if we attacked NEST Inc. we knew there would be retaliation. But Raven had a plan…"
"I can't believe we got away with this." A young soldier of the White Fang looks up at the cargo crates their Bullheads airlifted away. Right now they were in the middle of a large forest full of tall trees that would hide them from sight, and with camo tarps covering up the machinery it would be difficult to spot them at first glance.
"Get away with what? Robbing some third-party scrapyard holding a couple MTs?" another soldier asks while attempting to start a small fire, "We're lucky to get one rundown AC, and it's two Gens old! That's not gonna kill any Sentinels anytime soon."
"Not by itself." the first soldier replied optimistically, "Every AC counts, and a Sentinel can't kill dozens of us swarming them at once."
"No, but they can definitely try." the second soldier says cynically as he frustratedly scrapes flint against steel to spark some flames, "And they're never alone are they?"
"Come on man, be proud! We have the gear to fight back against the SDC now don't we?" the first soldier insists, trying to sound optimistic, sighing as he stares at a cargo container with a boxed-up MT inside, "I wonder if I can ride one of these things… Maybe I'll even get an AC. Become a Talon."
As he daydreams, he spots something in the darkness of the night, a raven on a branch of a tall tree looking down on them with red eyes. Instantly he feels elated and points it out,
"Hey look! A raven!" he gestures as the bird flies off and disappears, "You know NEST mercs say that seeing a raven on the field's a good omen for a pilot. Maybe this means I got a future as one?"
"Jared, for Brother's sake!" the White Fang soldier throws down his flint and steel frustratedly, "I want to start a fire. I want to eat a warm meal. And then I want to get as much shut-eye as I can get before we get our marching orders. So if you can please, for the love of gods, help me out then I will appreciate it!"
"Alright, alright, you don't need to rip me-?" Jared approaches and is about to help when a red blade slices through his neck, severing his head from his body.
"He was right. It is a good omen… for us I mean." Raven Branwen flicks the blood off her blade as the White Fang soldier fumbles while reaching for his gun. She kills him before he can flick the safety off.
All around the White Fang camp, her tribe ambushes the resting Fauni, slitting throats or shooting point blank at the heads. It was quick and brutal, like how their raids always were. And like always, there was a prize awaiting them.
She slices open the locks to another cargo container, finding parts of an old AC inside, "Vernal, what am I looking at?"
Vernal approaches, wiping the blood off her weapons before pointing her Scroll at the parts, "Looks like an old Atlas Vanguard, STRIKER model. Hard-hitting, reliable, customisable and low-maintenance. Perfect for you, don't you think?"
"It'll do." she says before slicing the air and manifesting the largest portal she could muster, jeeps and trucks exiting it and dropping off more of the tribe, "Get our engineers to work on the double, I want these crates towed by our trucks and into our camp as soon as possible."
"Erm, ma'am?" Shay sheepishly raises a hand as he walks up, prepared to hook the container to a truck, "Just out of curiosity, but how are we supposed to work these things? None of us know how to pilot them. And the maintenance, spare parts…"
He was in charge of the vehicles that the Branwen Tribe scraped together so he knew a thing or two, but war machines were beyond his scope. Raven Branwen merely rolled her eyes at him,
"Oh ye of little faith." she sighs, "Of course I have plans for this, Shay, do you think we're stumbling through this half-blind?"
"No ma'am, no disrespect." he hurriedly assures, "Just… concerned."
Vernal steps up to him intimidatingly, "Like Raven said, have faith. Do your job, and all will work well. Now get back to work."
"Ma'am, yes ma'am." Shay half-heartedly salutes as he starts directing the men to retrieve the MTs and AC parts. This was going to be a long day, he could already tell.
"It wasn't hard to find a couple former pilots to train us, or engineers to teach us, and the black market kept our small mech squad operational as long as you had the connection and the Lien. Raven had both." Shay pauses to take another sip from the glass, all around his various patrons were beginning to crowd to hear his tale. Mercenary pilots, Huntsmen and the like looking on with fascination in their eyes, "And that's how it went. Raid after raid, we grew stronger. Started adding more salvaged MTs to our arsenal. People feared us like never before, nothing could stop us. Militiamen, soldiers, Huntsmen, even the occasional merc pilot. We were unstoppable. The Raven of Mistral, they called her… what a joke."
"...How many villages did you raid?" Yang finds herself asking, not knowing why. Maybe it was morbid curiosity, wanting to know how many innocent lives the woman that gave birth to her snuffed out.
Shay shrugs while staring into his glass, "How many dinners have you eaten in your life?"
This earned him plenty of looks of disgust from his listeners and a few neutral stares, but they all kept quiet. Nobody wanted to interrupt, they all wanted to hear how it all happened and ended. Maybe they had nothing better to do, Yang thought to herself.
"But then… we got too greedy. Raven thought it was finally time to hunt bigger game, so we went after NEST and the SDC." Shay continued, surprising his audience, "It was rough at first, lost a few people, but we got used to their tactics and response… until Lumina Hill."
"Hang on, Lumina Hill?!" a mercenary pilot with a NEST patch sounded angered and alarmed, "That was you?!"
"What's Lumina Hill?" Yang asks confused by the sudden reaction, one of the Huntsmen in the crowd explaining to her.
"There was a NEST Inc. factory built on top of Lumina Hill. Big town, about a thousand people." the Huntsmen answered, "A while back it was attacked by rogue MTs and an AC. But something went wrong, the Dust reactor powering the factory had a meltdown. There was a chain reaction and… only two dozen survivors I heard."
"Gods…" Yang covers her mouth in shock. Even Junior looked unnerved by the death toll.
"They were fighting too close to the factory." a pilot glares at Shay, "Shot went wild, and you can guess what happened next."
"We didn't fucking know!" Shay shouts angrily. Angry at being reminded, or perhaps angry at himself, "We didn't know… We've killed people, yeah I admit that, but never that many! And in a single shot…"
He takes a breath to recover as everyone waits for him, panting as he is poured another drink that someone paid for, "Maybe we deserved what happened, but not like that… Not like how he did it… hunted us, toyed with us, like we were fucking animals!"
"Who?" Yang asks.
"Who else?" the same pilot that spoke up earlier scoffed, "NEST always retaliates and with a case this big there's only one person they'd send. Him. "
"Where the hell do you think you're going?!" Raven shouts at the former pilot she had hired to train her tribe how to pilot the mechs, who was storming off as fast as he could with his lame leg in a cybernetic bracer, stuffing a briefcase full of Lien in the trunk along with other supplies.
"Leaving." the former pilot replied simply as he slams the trunk of the car shut, "Fuck… Do you know what you just did, you crazy bitch?! A thousand people! A thousand !"
The tribe flinches as they hear this. Not many can call Raven Branwen that and expect to live. Raven Branwen narrowed her eyes and there was fear in the former pilot, but the fear was not directed at her.
"A poor time to get cold feet isn't it?" she responds coldly, "We're making more Lien than ever before. Lumina Hill was a setback, one that we'll get through. We didn't even lose any men during the raid."
"This isn't about Lien!" the former pilot screams as to the tribe's horror, he jabs a finger at Raven Branwen's chest, "This isn't even about morals or whatever! Do you know why the White Fang hasn't been wiped off the face of the planet? It's because they're careful. Third-party retailers, scrap yards, salvage, and most of all, nobody dies. So to NEST, they aren't a problem. But you didn't just ruffle the nest, you kicked it off the damn tree! And now they're sending him after us!"
Raven's eyes narrow at the former pilot, "It's just one man. And I recommend you calm down. You are a valued member of the tribe but-"
"But nothing!" he limps towards the car's driver seat and opens the door, "I'm getting out while I still can, and you all should too. Split up, change your names, change your faces if you can. I know I-"
Before he could finish, Raven stabs him through the chest with Omen before flicking the blood off and sheathing it. The former pilot could only grasp at his wound as he slumped against the car, glaring at the bandit tribe leader.
"Bitch… I hope he kills you… you'll know what I'm talking about soon…" he mutters his last words before the light leaves his eyes, "Then you'll realise… these skies don't belong to you. They belong to him …"
The tribe quiets at this ominous warning, and sensing this Raven Branwen speaks up,
"Our tribe has no use for weaklings that cower at a single man." she says loudly and clearly for them all, "We are the Branwen Tribe. We survived where few could. We took what we wanted and needed because it was our right as the strong. If a suicidal mercenary wants to take from us, let him come. But we certainly won't be waiting for him."
"She got to an info broker and paid for how the merc was gonna arrive on Mistral. A NEST Inc. shuttle was supposed to pass through Lake Matsu carrying him, and we thought it was the perfect ambush. So Raven gathered ten of her best pilots, including Vernal. I was there too with the other MTs, and we joked about how this was going to make us famous… We were wrong."
"Does everyone have eyes on the target?" Raven asks from her STRIKER AC, currently powered down and hiding on one of the floating islands of Lake Matsu. All her best pilots were scattered through them, using the gravity anomalies and their low power mode to hide from sensors as the large shuttle passed beneath them.
"We got it, Raven." Vernal nods as she waits in her own AC, the only two the Branwen Tribe has access to. It was an older ZEPHYR model with a flight pack that she barely used, but it does the job of raiding well, "All pilots, lock and load. And don't miss, we might never get a chance like this again. On your signal…"
"Now! Take him down!" Raven orders as the MTs begin activating, launching themselves with jump-packs from floating island to floating island, downwards to the shuttle carrying their adversity.
"Haha! Get him, boys!" one of the bandit pilots yells as they fire their machine gun downwards at the shuttle. To its credit, it does a good job avoiding the first few volleys before they start hitting its wings. Then when the MT armed with a rocket launcher fired, it was over.
The bandits cheer as they watch the fiery explosion as Raven Branwen and Vernal circle at a distance, eying it suspiciously. This was… too easy. Perhaps his reputation had been inflated somewhat, but even then it was too easy.
"We got him!" another bandit cheers, "Best merc in the world my ass! The guy's nothing without an AC!"
"No…" Raven mutters, "The hull, it split apart before the rocket hit it."
"But why would it do that?" Vernal asks confused before suddenly realising the same time Raven Branwen did, "Unless-?!"
"Warning. Unknown AC signature detected.", their on-board AIs screamed as a linear rifle shot was heard, a magnetically accelerated rifle round blasting through the smoke and into the MT carrying the rocket launcher, killing the pilot instantly.
An AC in pitch black with red lights flew out of the flaming wreck, the shuttle acted like decoy flares to throw the rocket off its mark, revealing the AC hidden inside, wielding a linear rifle in one hand and a pilebunker in the other. This wasn't an ambush by the Branwen Tribe on an unsuspecting mercenary.
It was a trap.
"Branwen Tribe…" all of them heard through their private channel, scaring some of the less disciplined bandits, "This is Raven… NEST Inc. Head of Security… Land your mechs and deactivate them, you have thirty seconds to comply…"
Despite outnumbering and surrounding him, the bandits except for Vernal and Raven Branwen began reacting with fear and panic.
"There will be no second offer…"