Her mother's arrival, as expected, had only made everything worse for Yang.

Nothing was different, the camp was still awkward and hostile, the only time she didn't feel someone's eyes glaring at her was when they were fighting the Grimm—a merciful opportunity to not only focus on something else but also to vent her frustration—but now they were in the kind of work that involved a lot more inspection and tracking than punching a Beowolf's skull in. Packs were less dangerous by a long shot when they were broken up but they weren't gone, and even a single stray Beowolf could seriously threaten civilians. Not to mention, they still had to sweep for the Grimm that were old and smart enough to stay hidden when real threats came by. So they were still working, still doing laborious, tedious work… just so much shittier because Yang could feel the eyes on her.

Idle fantasies danced in her head, thoughts of going to Weiss, seeing if she could somehow pull some strings with… her sister or someone or just throw some money around and just really bring the hammer down, or… or Uncle Qrow revealing that the VHA had a special task force for handling these kind of abuses, thoughts like this flared up in her mind… only to quickly sputter out as her rational mind slowly whittled it all down to size. Huntsmen were needed in the field. Maybe her formal complaint would be, if Weiss and Blake helped her, written well enough to get through the bureaucracy, maybe Uncle Qrow could give her some pointers about where to send it to really get it to who needed to see it, but the most they'd get is, if she was very lucky, would probably just be a record on their file. In her most optimistic projections, she was still at the same place. If she was phenomenally successful, maybe she could get the VHA to pull their license, or see if the Guild might yank their "Preferred" status, but even then, if it didn't take a weekend to get those reinstated, they'd still be aura-empowered Grimm slayers. They'd still get jobs, just for less pay and from more desperate towns where their abusive behavior would be even harder to counter or, as her dear old mother made a perfect example of, they'd just go bandit.

Some things couldn't be fixed so easily. Any thoughts of grabbing Blake and settling the score just brought up visions of her mother, grinning savagely as Yang affirmed her philosophy. And that cut deep—even more than hating how Chi and Violet and Finn would get away with it, she hated the idea of her mother getting a win even more. And those two forces pushed against her, leaving her in this middle state where she couldn't do shit—a fate worse than death for Yang.

Sitting around the campsite, Yang glanced to where Finn was fiddling with his pistols. She could see the traces of carelessness in this, the kind of work Ren would never tolerate with Stormflower. Hell, Yang had built her own weapon, she might not be as much a weaponsmith as her sister, but she knew when a spring was loose because someone was cutting corners on their maintenance. But of course, he never faced the consequences of it. Just made him less capable, less effective, but never so much that he had to face the consequences of his mediocrity. At least, he'd better hope so. Poorly maintained weapons failed when needed most, and he'd better hope his luck continued to carry him…

This was what Yang was reduced to. Watching and seething, hoping for chance to wreak the vengeance she knew she couldn't. She looked back down at the map in front of her, tracing the elevation as it rose and fell, trying to figure out where they might be missing, where Grimm could hide… and what climbs they'd have to make to get to the further reaches of the map.

It was frustrating work paired with frustrating thoughts, and also, one of her finger's servomotors was starting to act up. She'd already cleaned the damn thing twice now and yet she still felt like there was a fraction of a second hitch every time she closed her fist. Didn't reduce her combat effectiveness or even her fine motor skills, but it annoyed her and right now, the last thing Yang needed was something to an-

"We got action!"

Yang's eyes shot up to see Violet burst into the camp.

"The town's under attack!" Violet bellowed, "Black smoke, probably bandits, we gotta move now!"

The tensions within the group were momentarily forgotten as adrenaline kicked in and the group hauled ass to respond to the threat. They loaded into the truck and flew down the road, weapons ready and bracing themselves for a fight.

Bandits weren't stupid. Attacking a town was something that was planned in advance, and they would have noticed that a combat team of Huntsmen were active in the area, so if they were attacking now, they either screwed up royally, or more likely, they had aura-empowered combatants. Maybe even ex-Huntsmen who'd gone rogue, the kind of people who figured they could hold their own against a combat team… or at least knew how to go for the kill. This was dangerous, and as they saw the flames grow larger, the group braced themselves for what they'd find as they arrived at the scene.

Civilians were fleeing all around them but… they'd herded the Grimm too close to a settlement, there was a high risk that they'd flee only to find themselves beset by the last surviving stragglers of the Beowolf pack. Yang felt an icy pit of dread open in her stomach, the realization that she was about to face something she hadn't seen since she was a Freshman—what happened when the things she was so familiar with as a Huntress, the Grimm, the weapons, all of it was turned against people who didn't have aura to protect them.

As soon as they arrived on the same main drag where Finn had robbed a woman of her potatoes, the four of them sprang out, weapons ready, seeing bandits armed with swords, axes… weapons that suggested aura familiarity, but not the kind of danger Huntsmen had to be worried about. Nothing elite, nothing mechashift—the sort of goons Roman employed or the lesser members of the White Fang. The kind of people they could handle, so either they'd gotten lucky, or…

"Stand down, stand down, Huntsmen!" Chi bellowed as he brandished his bow. Yang sprang into action, but… so did the bandits. Nobody fired a shot yet, no one acted as both groups surveyed the other, but the stillness put a sickening feeling in Yang's gut.

Most opportunistic gangs would split at the arrival of Huntsmen, especially a full squad. They'd panic and run, or if they were the braver sort… they'd have opened fire already. But this was a disciplined pack, this was a group that knew to hold their fire and wait to understand what was going on. Much, much more dangerous, and as Yang stared them down, she got the sense that they were specifically prepared for Huntsmen to arrive.

These weren't ordinary bandits.

And that could only mean…

"Mom!" she gasped out, horrified at the sight of her mother, clad in that horrible Grimm-skull mask, sack of loot slung over her shoulder, and wreathed in flames as she strode forth from the burning general store "What- what the hell are you doing?"

"You know her?" Finn gasped out, but Yang ignored him. Nothing else mattered but her and her mother

"You said that you weren't getting involved!" Yang hissed, gripping Ember Celica tightly as she glared as hot as the flames, "You said- you said you were-"

"I said you were free to handle your own dispute with… these Huntsmen," Raven lazily replied, "This is a separate matter."

Her sword was still in its sheath, her stance was casual, and all her movements conveyed that she saw them as nothing more than nuisances. Yang could tell the uneasy feeling in her gut wasn't just her—there was the slightest tremble in Finn's hands as he kept up his pistols and even Chi seemed uncertain what to make of this woman wreathed in flames and utterly unconcerned by the squad of Huntsmen facing her. Yang was the only one who knew anything about her, and even she wasn't sure what to make of her—she knew she was dangerous, had heard it from Uncle Qrow and- and even dad had weighed in on it, telling Yang that her mother was a woman even experienced Huntsmen should be afraid to cross.

But right now, Yang was trying to figure out if she was a killer, and she very much didn't like having to think that.

"I'm not gonna go easy on you, mom," Yang said, hoping to keep her nerves at bay as she squared up on her, "You're up against Huntsmen. You want to fight, it'll be a real fight."

Raven just cocked her head to the side, almost utterly disinterested in the threat. "The strong do what they will—the weak endure what they must," she said, the flames crackling around her like she was stepping out of hell itself, "That goes for you, Yang, as much as anyone."

Yang felt her fists throb from how tightly she was clenching them, her vision blurring in a red haze as the anger inside her rose up higher and higher. "So all of this," she snarled, stepping forward, "was to teach me a lesson? You… miserable… BITCH!"

But Raven merely shrugged. "It's not always about you," she coolly replied, "The Tribe has needs that can only be met by raiding—I could hold them off, delay the strike or direct it elsewhere if I had a reason to, but… if you weren't interested in my help, then I had other duties to prioritize. Now…"

She drew her sword, a long, slow process as she demonstrated her utter lack of fear.

"You can run away now or you can face a foe you cannot defeat. And since you're my daughter, I graciously offer the same arrangement to your comrades. If you flee, I will not pursue."

"Well, it's an awfully kind offer," Chi dryly replied, any apprehension he had towards Raven checked by his experience as a Huntsman, "But I think you're forgetting that it's four on one. And you might be a big, scary bandit, but as your daughter said: we're Huntsmen. Veteran Huntsmen. We'll offer you the opportunity to surrender before things get violent."

Raven didn't go for it. Didn't raise her sword, didn't respond in any way but a slight tilt to her mask, as though cocking her head to the side in confusion. Yang thought about warning Chi that Raven was dangerous, but she didn't see the use of saying anything. Not that she'd be listened to, not that it would matter.

Instead, Raven broke the standoff, casually raising her hand and saying, "Well? Go ahead, then, Huntsmen. I won't surrender, so… show me you can take me down."

Chi didn't hesitate. He might have been a son of a bitch, but he was a son of a bitch who was good with a bow. Without a word, he pulled back his bowstring and loosed, his hand flying so fast Yang could barely track it as arrow after arrow of pure light streaked towards Raven. But while Chi was a veteran Huntsman, Raven was something else, her movements seeming almost lazy as she sidestepped the arrows, cutting two out of the sky with a casual flick of her blade. Finn tried to pepper her with bullets, forcing her to jerk right into where Violet was closing in, sickles raised high. A good tactic, against anyone else, but these two didn't have the fury her mother brought to a fight.

Raven didn't even use her sword, catching Violet with a sudden shoulder charge that jerked forward faster than she could react, her blades useless as Raven closed in like a flash then seized her by the neck to throw her to the side. Using her as a human shield, she forced Finn to stop firing… but Yang was already moving.

"CHI!" she bellowed, "With me! Finn, Violet, keep the bandits from taking advantage of this!"

Raven tossed Violet aside, who managed to rally as she caught herself in midair. Good, but Yang wasn't watching, not when Raven was going to take all of her attention. This wasn't just an emotionally vicious moment for her: Raven Branwen was an extremely deadly woman, and Yang wasn't going to bet on her maternal instincts holding her back.

Omen flashed, the red blade tearing towards Yang with a speed she almost couldn't sidestep, followed by another slash and then another. These weren't wild, berserk swings, either—Raven was a Beacon graduate, one who'd gotten damn good at using her sword while there. Yang took a swing of her own and her mother dodged back, swinging her blade hilt first only to be blocked by Ember Celica—but with enough force to send Yang skidding back.

Raven couldn't push the advantage, though: three shafts of pure light shot right towards her, hissing as Omen cut them down in midair. Yang sprang forward, firing her gauntlets behind her to gain speed. Raven dodged, but that was all in her plan: Yang spun in midair, planting her boots hard on the wall of the General Store before she fired her gauntlets again, rocketing towards Raven while, behind her, Chi loosed a few more shafts.

It should have been a perfect pincer, but Raven was no fool. She dropped flat, and Yang needed to blast herself off course to narrowly dodge Chi's arrows. But still, even if Yang had to break her attack, Chi was ready to close in, his bow splitting into a pair of long knives that could hack at Raven as she got back on her feet.

Chi might not have been at Beacon's level, but he was an experienced enough fighter to be given command of missions out on the frontier. Raven wasn't going to be able to pull the same maneuver she had with Violet, but still: as Yang closed in, there was no question that just because Raven wasn't toying with him, there was no question which of them had the advantage. Her blows came in hard and fast, and Chi's assault quickly shifted to the defensive as she brutally forced him back.

But Yang was closing in fast, and whatever bad blood Yang and Chi had between them, they had been fighting together for more than a week now. He took a risk, slashing at Raven in tandem with Yang closing in to strike. Raven narrowly dodged, finding herself now on the back foot. It made Yang wish her dear old mom wasn't wearing that stupid mask, because without it, Yang could have seen the look on her face as she learned that her daughter was a hell of a lot more skilled than the last time they tangled!

And yeah, there were a lot of things that Yang Xiao Long still had to learn. Had to learn about the hard realities of the world, the limits of rules, where her ideals clashed with laid back personal attitude and rulebreaking ways… but there were a few things she already knew damn well. And one of those things was fighting.

Omen came at her fast, but Yang had been practicing with Ruby since she was a kid. It was fast, she was faster. Raven's footwork was tricky, trying to fake Yang out, but Raven didn't have shit on Blake or Weiss. When her fist shot forward to catch Yang in the gut, it hurt, but three years of trading punches with Nora told Yang what it meant to get slugged in the gut. Her Semblance flared, her aura surged, and Yang started swinging. Her mother was a fucking psycho lunatic killer, but…

She sure as fuck wasn't Pyrrha.

Raven's anger and frustration built up, traits Yang hated to recognize across her mother's style, but she'd spent three years learning to recognize it in herself. She knew how rage could become a shortcut to strength, that it blinded her to what she needed to be paying attention to. Yang wasn't giving Raven the opportunities she was hoping for, wasn't falling for her feints, and all the while, Chi was making it hard for her to bring her strengths to bear. All around them, her bandit tribe was finding itself unprepared for real Huntsmen, Finn's pistols and Violet's sickles making it impossible for them to leverage their numerical advantage and come to their leader's aid. Evidently, they had expected Raven to either scare them off or kill them and they weren't prepared for a real fight—and Yang knew that was getting to her mom. Swings were coming faster, but too fast, committing Raven to a follow through Yang could exploit, but not yet. Blows clashed across her gauntlets, brutal strikes that carved off aura like nothing, but Yang knew that these hits were only making her stronger as her mother overcommitted. And once she had her chance…

Yang cracked her right across the face, the mask crumpling beneath her fist as the blow sent her mother sprawling. It was a good hit, not just in terms of technique, but in working out years of frustration and issues with abandonment, not to mention the frustration of the last few days, it was a damn good hit. Almost as good as the follow up as Yang's left caught her in the gut and spun her against her trajectory, raising Raven up in the air, off her feet… and then letting her drop, leaving her crumpled on the ground, with Yang in position over her, Ember Celica at the ready to make her regret any sudden moves.

"Yiel-"

But before Yang could finish her sentence, Raven raised her hand…

And time broke.

Yang felt it first. Or she saw the flash first, she wasn't sure. Blinding light and blinding pain seemed to somersault in her mind as she felt the surge of electricity explode across her chest and launch from Raven's fingers, one presumably before the other, but it didn't matter when she heard the explosion of thunder blow out her eardrums and drop her flat on her back. Or had it carried her up in the air?

What… what the hell just happened there…

Yang turned her head sluggishly to her ally, her ears ringing as her vision blurred, trying to put together… she knew Raven's Semblance, she'd seen the portals she could open, this- this wasn't… she smelled something burning, like… ozone?

But Yang wasn't the only one frozen in confusion, even if she was the only one who was now struck by a wave of explosive pain radiating out from her chest, hurting bad enough to make her think that she'd genuinely just had a hole blown through it. But even as she did her best to pull herself together, she knew the rest of her team weren't doing much better.

Chi froze, his lip trembling as his bow slipped from his hand, a single word vibrating on his lips.

"M-M-M-Maiden…" he moaned in dismay and disbelief, "You- you're a-"

"The Maiden of Spring," Raven said, rising into the air as her ruined mask sloughed off and a cold wind wrapped around her. "Go ahead," she said, nodding at Chi's fallen weapon, "Pick up your bow. Take a shot at the power of myth and legend. You've earned it."

But Chi was utterly frozen with fear, his eyes wide and his face pale. In fairness, Raven was levitating off the ground as… as fucking clouds swirled around her, crackling with-

She'd shot Yang with a bolt of fucking lightning. Not lightning dust, not an electrical charge, an actual bolt-from-the-fucking-blue, she'd shot her own daughter with a lightning bolt that psycho- that psycho fucking bitch!

But while Yang was mobilizing herself by way of blinding rage, Raven had restored herself to a state of superior dispassion, gazing down on the terrified Huntsmen who now had to face the kind of figure that only appeared in fairy tales.

"Go on, 'Huntsman,' take your shot," she said, her voice rich with mocking disinterest, "Take your shot or run away. It's your choice—I won't pursue once my Tribe has taken what we need."

Yang saw the twitch in his leg. Saw the instinct that was starting to take over, the fight or flight response, but in the milliseconds that whirled in Yang's mind, she was starting to put something together. Something that was adding up to her, pieces of what she knew about Raven, what she'd put so much time thinking about on the subject of her mother, and with it…

She thought she might actually win.

"Yer not," Yang wheezed, doing her best to pull herself upright even as her body suggested that was quite impossible, "Yer not- We're not running!"

"Yang, what the fuck?" Violet cried.

"If you wanna die-"

"Shut the- fuck up, Finn!" Yang snapped, "No one- none of us are running. C-cause my dear old mom… didn't count on a few things!"

She looked up at Raven with hate in her eyes, but she knew that was what Raven knew how to handle. Raven knew her daughter hated her. It didn't change a damn thing in how she acted. But right now… Yang had a feeling she had something much, much scarier to put up. She could look at Raven… and understand her. And grin.

"We can't win!" Violet yelled, "Chi- Chi, order her to-"

But he was still frozen with fear, just like Violet and Finn, the three of them held in place by the terror of a Maiden… and the shame of running while Yang stood her ground. That's why Violet needed Chi to give the order. They… they weren't strong. Not where it counted. They were facing something bigger than them and had to face their ideals, their real ideals, the ones they told themselves made them different, made them better, was caught up against a petrifying fear. And Yang… Yang knew they weren't the only ones like that.

"The strong-"

"You're not strong!" Yang barked, her lungs burning as she pulled herself back up onto her feet. Funniest damn thing, she had been hit by a bolt of gods-damned lightning and she was thinking about how it was playing hell on her hair. All the servos in her arm seemed to be shot now, or it had just switched off when it got so much electricity passing through it all at once. Either way, it wasn't helping her get up. She could hear the static crackle as she moved… or maybe that was her ribs crackling, but either way, this was a bad, bad place for her to be.

"It ain't…" she said, struggling to stay upright as she wheezed for air, "Gonna be that easy… you bitch. Think you- c-can cheat me… heh, n-not that easy. Not after- not after just one shot. You want me to s-stay down? Gotta… gotta put me down."

The one thing Yang could say about this was that she, at the very least, got to see Raven's eyes go wide at the sight of her standing there, surely half-incoherent, the electricity still playing hell on her nerves and making fine motor skills a real bitch. But she was standing up, on her own two feet, not giving in. She threw her one good arm wide and signaled for that bitch to take another shot. The real shot. No sucker punch. The final shot. And Yang had started to piece together that that… was something her mother couldn't deal with.

"You can't win this fight, Yang."

Yang threw back her head in a harsh laugh. "Neither can you!" she cried, a wild, maniacal grin coming to her face as she stared down those red eyes, eyes that betrayed no secrets, conveyed no love… Yang had searched those eyes enough time to know that, but that meant she knew that what she was seeing right now, what was staring back at her… was fear. Fear of a gambit Yang knew she could play.

"Yeah, if I fought you… couldn't win. But if I fought you, like I am fighting you, what'd you do? You have to… hah… you have to kill your own daughter or else, in front of your own Tribe, you'll be weak. And that…" Yang broke into a wild, incoherent giggle as she shook her head, "You can't do that! Go ahead! T-take yer shot, mom!"

Silence.

Yang's grin grew wider.

"But you can't… can't kill me. You can't… could never… face me, Raven. Face the daughter you fled from when she was only a child, a newborn. Now…"

Maybe this was all bravado. Maybe she was wrong as hell. But Yang was sick and fucking tired of being pushed around and made to feel helpless because doing anything was futile. If she couldn't face Raven because Raven would kill her, she'd just have to make Raven fucking kill her! She cracked her neck to the left, then the right, shaking out her arms, the comparably good one and the one that hung limp at her side. She hurt, hot damn, she hurt, but she wasn't beaten. And that was all that mattered.

"I'm a Huntress."

She stared down her mother as she put up her fist. Her feet were unsteady, her lungs were screaming at her to go down, but Yang knew that she could do this because she knew that Raven couldn't. If she had it in her… Yang would be dead already. But instead, Raven just stood there, frozen in indecision, knowing that Yang was right.

Go on. Yang silently said, Kill me. Cut your own daughter down, prove you're the baddest bitch in the woods. Sever all ties with me and prove that only strength matters.

And in her mother's eyes, she saw her answer.

In a flash, the portal behind her opened…

And Raven fled.

This was a mess.

Without Raven leading them, the Branwen Tribe flew into an immediate panic—something to make her leave had to be something absolutely terrifying. Which meant that Chi, Finn, and Violet were able to chase them off as they scattered, leaving them the victors of the battle. The Branwen Tribe… when it came down to it, they really didn't have what it took to stand up to a real fight.

It was something Yang had learned… she'd learned it from Cardin of all people. She'd seen him talking with Ruby and Yang had seen red, wanting to put a halt to whatever was going on there. But instead, he was actually being a proper Team Leader for the first time in his damn life, asking for advice from someone he openly admitted was doing better than him. Because… because Ruby, unlike him, could get the best out of her teammates while Cardin was dimly coming to realize that CRDL was getting weaker under his management.

The kind of absolute leadership Cardin had been using with CRDL… it didn't work. Beating the rest of his team in line and making sure his every word was obeyed had made his team useless when he wasn't there to keep things together, and if it hadn't been for Beacon, he never would have had to see just how much better teams like RWBY and JNPR functioned. He'd have turned out like Raven, relying on his own power to bully others into compliance… and at the first sign of weakness, the whole system would go to hell. Just like the Branwen Tribe, no sense of self reliance or self-assertion, so without Raven looming over them, they fell to pieces.

Still, it wasn't a great win. They should have been pursuing, should have been taking in as many of Raven's gang as they could before they could get to the woods. They didn't know if Raven had moved the Tribe to Vale or if this was only a small team brought together because Raven wanted to… mess with her daughter, they didn't know. And they wouldn't know, cause they hadn't done much more than chase the bandits off.

But Yang didn't have anything to do with that. She'd collapsed pretty much immediately after Raven fled, which was pretty good considering she'd been hit with a point-blank lightning bolt. She'd been going in and out of consciousness as panicked civilians tried to treat her and… and she was pretty sure she a familiar old woman standing over her, clasping her hand, telling her to hold on… but then she blinked and time skipped, saw a Bullhead over her, medical team coming down... then it all got dark.

She'd come to in a hospital bed, one that was, judging from the quality of the room, still in the ass end of nowhere, but one that at least had an IV and a little beepy machine telling her she wasn't dead. And clean sheets. She was so glad that they had clean linens here. She'd seen places… but she went through the usual routine of stretching her limbs and trying to get out of the painkiller fog as aura slowly started doing its job. Wasn't her first time waking up in a hospital and having to remember she only had the one arm and wouldn't be the last. That… that was real Huntsman shit.

Nurses had come by as she'd come to, and thank the Brothers for that. Just about as soon as she could shake off a bit of the fog, she realized just how thirsty she was. There was some talking at her while she sipped water for her insanely parched mouth, "deep tissue" this, "ash residue" that, things that would make aura regeneration not enough for the hit she took, but it was mostly just words to her. Made Yang realize how fucked up it was that her own mother had shot her in the chest with a bolt of lightning, but… she already knew how fucked up Raven was. This was just confirmation of what she already knew.

But while eating her little cup of hospital applesauce and wishing to the Brothers that his room had a TV, Yang heard someone clear their throat, bringing her attention to the door. Chi stood there, shame-faced and struggling for his words. Good. Served him right.

"Hey, Yang," he said, "I… felt I should come by and, uh, make sure you knew all your mission paperwork's in order. I took care of it. Um, recommended you for a commendation, actually. VHA and Guild, so… expect to hear more about that."

Yang just stared at him. Did he think he could try and patch things over with an award? Thought she'd be impressed that he had the guts to show his face? Whatever he'd been thinking, Yang was content to let him keep thinking it—she wasn't gonna say anything. Let him stew in the awkwardness just like she had to in the camp. Fuck… her mom's attack had taken her mind off of the other shit from this trip, but now that Chi was right in front of her, it was testing her to not glare at him. Visiting her in the damn hospital to try and make himself out to be a good guy?

"Hey," he said, breaking the silence, "I- Yang, I know things didn't go with us, uh, putting our best foot forward, but you saved us out there. I don't buy for a second she was actually gonna let us run, not- not if we knew she could do that, so… so you saved our lives. And I owe you, um, you-"

"Save it," Yang snapped.

"Still," he said, "You did-"

"I said save it!"

She shot him a coldly livid glare. She didn't want to talk. Didn't even want to hear him apologize or grovel, didn't want to give him closure on his terms. She just jerked her head towards the door, and he grasped her silent command as he turned to leave, shoulders slumped.

"You wanna know something?" she asked him, making him turn around in the doorframe.

He stood for a moment as Yang coughed. It was what the nurses had told her, that she had burns in her lungs that were going to give her the worst cough she'd ever had as aura healed the lungs, but left a load of dead, burnt flesh inside her that had to be slowly coughed out.

"You told me… 'You're a proper Huntress. Nobody doubts that,'" she said, affecting an imitation of his voice, "And you know what Chi? You- you could be a proper Huntsman, too. If you really wanted to be… you could. But only if you want to be."

He looked surprised, unable to think of what to say to that. But in lieu of words, he gave a slow, sad nod of recognition, then a short, humble salute. And with that, he turned and left.

But that meant that Yang was now alone in a quiet room, only hospital noise to break the silence. He didn't get closure, but she really didn't either. Should have yelled at him more. Bitched him out the way she'd imagined doing it while in camp… only from a hospital bed instead of an empaneled committee to review the standing of Chi Xuanya's license, but… she'd have taken it.

Well, maybe it was better that way. High road and all. If Chi had the real stuff, maybe he'd change, maybe he'd step up and be what a Huntsman was supposed to be. Someone who knew what they stood for, knew why they followed the rules… maybe he'd seen what happens when people decide they're beyond rules. What they become.

But Yang knew she'd never get closure on that. Just like with her mother, she couldn't control what was going to happen next. Maybe she'd never see either of them again. With Chi, she could almost be certain of that. He'd keep taking jobs and maybe they'd find themselves in the same broad circles, but Vale was a big Kingdom, and there were a lot of Huntsmen. If she thought she'd get a day where all of this got vindicated for her… just like with her mom, she just had to accept that it probably wasn't ever gonna happen. And she just had to learn to live with that.

She had to focus on the things that really mattered. Had to focus on… had to focus on the people she cared about. And cared about her.

Getting her scroll out, Yang appreciated having a signal again as she went to her contacts and found the name she was looking for. Just a few rings later, the ever-punctual other end of the scroll had picked up and Yang saw the face she'd been thinking of a lot the last few weeks.

"Hey Weiss," she said.

"Yang?" she asked in confusion, "What are you- Holy! What- what happened-"

"I won," she answered, cracking a grin as she remembered she still looked like she'd been hit by lightning, "But I wanted to call you, wanted… wanted to talk to you."

"About- Yang, are you in a hospital? What happened, should- should I get Ruby, Yang what-"

"No, no," she laughed, shaking her head, "I don't wanna worry her. I'm good now, real good, but… I just wanted to call you. Something… something I wanna tell you."

Weiss blinked. "You- you wanted to call me? I'm, um, Y-Yang, I'm dating Jaune, and I really can't-"

Now Yang really laughed. "No, no, it's not that, I just… just wanted to tell you…"

Yang cracked a grin, half disbelieving she was saying this.

"I did things your way. And it…" she cracked a small smile.

"It turned out alright."

Thanks to Renarde for feedback on this work, and thanks again to GummiGamer for giving me character names for the OCs!