…
…
….
A young woman was blending in quite well with the streets of dark Vale. This was both good, and bad.
Yes, it wasn't far from her place, and yes, she was acting incredibly high strung, but she felt that she had at least a few logical reasons for feeling this way.
Firstly, darkness is -at the basest level- harder to navigate in. Blake knew this. After all, light sensitivity means that you suffer worse from sudden changes.
It is why she appeared to be just a young woman calmly walking with purpose to wherever her destination was. Occasionally, a light would momentarily dart in and cause a pause, but the overall increase in her visual acuity wouldn't be reduced by that.
However, she couldn't see everything.
Her pursuer also knew this.
Blake turned down a brighter boulevard that led into the more commercial streets of the city, quietly increasing her distance from the corner whenever a person went by, timing her changes with apologies and unaware pedestrians.
From her first glance, before the tail started isolating themselves to shadows, there were clearly unhidden ears in the silhouette.
"Fear tactics, most likely."
Blake glanced up the street ahead for a vehicle, and then looked down closely at the darker location she had unfortunately chosen to walk through earlier that night.
One old truck stopped for her, the man inside watching her for a moment, then drove off ahead with a loud groaning of an engine when she didn't start moving the moment he paused.
The hubbub was low, but constant, so she adjusted her bow, and walked across the street before following the other people towards the lights.
Blake made little sound, and soon was skirting through the streets without anything significantly in her path-
…
"Could I?"
"That's fine, lass."
-although it didn't stop her from checking.
…
…
"Is something wrong?"
She looked silently, debating what to share, taking up a seat as the crowd flowed past the bench.
…
"I think there's someone following me."
…
"What do they look like? Do you need help?"
…
… this was where it got hard. Explain the faunus following her, and risk the fallout? Or… find a different solution?
…
Other solutions were the clear choice.
"I… I don't know. It's been too dark."
She pulled out a shuddering breath and slowly turned to face the street she came from.
…
"Where are they?"
Blake stood and slowly looked in each direction, finding… nothing. People briefly glanced at her, but there were no people repeated in the crowd, or standing around monitoring her…
…
"I'll call the authorities to try to see if I can help you, okay?"
… "Thank you, sir."
A ringing came from near her, and people were distracted by the sound. The man, now talking loudly, would be a clear distraction. Blake started to walk behind a group of passer-by that had paused to look and thus embarked on leaving in one of the most obvious ways. Out of approximately three avenues of escape, alley, crowd, or somewhere in between, the most hidden or difficult for others to navigate was often best.
After all, nobody takes the obvious ways out. Especially not criminals.
Blake's pace kept a steady time, walking to the building where her current room was located.
I'll have to change it.
…
…
…
A crosswalk would allow her to reduce a few minutes off her time by turning to the darker left, so Blake continued forwards under the lamplights.
Roads were crossed, people were greeted with a silent wave, and that was that.
She had escaped. Her pursuer had been lost, and she was now safe for a night.
…
…
…
Her eyes flitted to the opposite ends of a road that would have to be crossed. It wasn't long, just two lanes and quite easy to get to a safe crossing point.
A light flickered in the distance to her left, so she watched for the vehicle for a moment.
It became larger rather fast, so she waited for a threshold to tell if it would turn to a side road, splitting into two before merging, or stay directly towards her, and grow into a pair of headlights.
…
…
She peered into the darkness, and started doubting herself. She hadn't expected to get the speed wrong. It should have the driver viewable in… about three seconds or so.
So… why wasn't it? Unless the vehicle was a snail, the lights should be distinct after-
…ck-clack.
…ck-clack.
A figure smoothly slid out of the greater, inky darkness. The twitching triangular ears faced her. A single white light came gleaming from the lesser blackness, resting in the centre of their forehead.
Blake could distinguish no features, and didn't want to get close enough to be able to. She ran across the road, and booked it to the corner for a means of escape as quickly as possible.
Upon reaching it, Blake spun around and checked her scroll with the edge of her vision to find out the time left to get home.
Her pursuer was gone.
Again.
Shit.
She had around two minutes until she reached her flat.
Two minutes until safety through violence or a deadbolt.
…
Could she get backup in two minutes? Unlikely, but they had gotten prepared for crazier things in less time than getting to her… right?
0:02 if they're already in the city. Better anything than nothing at all.
Belladonna: [
Need backup. Fang (?) after me. No attacks, just watching.
]
…
…
She started walking and did a sweep again, found no new sightings of her pursuer, and smiled imagining them beaten into a pulp by her team as soon as they arrived.
… New Message.
Blake increased to a jog and checked her scroll.
Her: [
Whr-ru? Taking Bee ovr.
OVER.
]
Ruby: [
On our way! …if we can get out fast enough. We're going to be on a boat soon.
]
…
Her: [
ICE QUEEN! YOU DEAD?
]
….
[ding]
[ding]
[dinglinglinglinhlingl]
"I'm going to have to restock after this…."
Weiss stood a few feet away from the encased person. The light was still glowing, but she was currently having the very enjoyable thought that it was not caused by a semblance, or Aura.
Why are they messaging so much?
Weiss Schnee: [
Hello, teammates. Wh-
]
She looked over the messages previously sent.
… Weiss quickly gave a reply, looking at the intruder she had shot a full clip of dust rounds into.
Weiss Schnee: [
I have met one if these people. They are currently encased in ice. I advise you to arm yourself then strike without mercy. They may dodge well, but I easily stopped their actions.
]
….
...
Weiss turned around to her captive and, after deftly removing a few small shards of the ice, calmly began speaking to this individual.
"What are you doing here, and what were your intentions to pursue my person?"
Ruby: [ Weiss?! You got attacked?!
]
That Girl: [
… Coming to help _?
]
I'm going to assume that meant Blake and broke for some reason, unless she was doing some egregious swearing.
…
The light tilted a full ninety degrees for a moment. Weiss pushed back a pangs of silent unnerving silence as she realised the captive was not unconscious, as she expected.
They were not meant to move that much while encased in ice.
"Do not stay quiet. I am going to get information from you, and I can do it in a very painful way if I so wish. Why are you here?"
Her captive only allowed minor movement of their head as a reply, albeit mostly covered, and chose continued their disrespectful behaviour.
…
"Are you White Fang?"
…
…
Weiss paused, weighing her options.
Firstly, she could say she froze a man in self defence.
Secondly, she can injure them, minorly, in self defence.
Thirdly… she could bury this man in as many legal ways she could.
…
It was hard to decide.
Weiss looked up upon hearing a noise snap her introspection.
Letting out a very surprised shout, she plunged Myrtenaster directly into the chest of her intruder, who had somehow managed to, in seconds, silently escape her impromptu prison.
…
…
It sat there and watched her as she hesitatingly extracted the blade.
They lightly tapped their head, upon which, after seeing it still and unobscured, Weiss noticed it was a glyph.
… probably. She wasn't looking closely, on account of beginning to step far back and try to stay as far away from it as possible.
Then, it slowly fell to the floor, and stood there on four…
… legs?
Legs?
They stood on their legs, of which they had four of them. Weiss slowly combined the legs, Faunus ears, and… tail that she saw stick up from the back that she somehow missed, and came to a very very unpleasant realisation.
Her intruder… was a dog.
A gleaming lit, quiet as….
…well, it's really quiet.
… A dog.
A DOG. A dog that had seconds ago stood on two legs, walked around like a human, dodged her attacks….
Weiss stood in complete denial.
"I…"
….
Weiss: [
I just wasted my Ice Dust to imprison this bitch.
]
Ruby: [
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo. T0T
]
That Girl: [
Why? (P.S. I win. lol)
]
Blake blinked and refreshed to make sure her scroll hadn't gone insane.
Ice Queen: [
It's a dog. Literally, a dog.
… more practically, the ice isn't further undamaged, and I stabbed this dog full on in the chest to no effect. This may just be a Semblance.
… this may be sleep deprivation, but I believe that freezing your hallucinations in ice is not normally possible.
…
On a good note, however, this infuriating dog is doing… nothing to me. As soon as it tapped its forehead, it has done nothing but…
]
Weiss continued to revolve around the animal, weapon at the ready.
…
It's just watching me.
Why?
Ice Queen: [
Blake, has it made any contact with you? Or is it just following you?
(Please tell me if you killed yours. I want to kill this thing so badly.)
]
Blake looked up and did another scan of the street.
…
…ah.
…
"Hello, uh… dog?"
She cringed. That sounds so bad. Just… ugh.
It stood a few feet in front of her apartment, looking at her window.
"You… are a dog?"
Better yet…
"You… are not a Grimm?"
It tilted its head, looking at her silently and shook it once.
"You understand speech. You are a dog, walking like a person, that can understand speech."
A nod of affirmation.
"Isn't this the same thing as talking to a mute wolf Faunus?"
Blake took a slow step away from it. The… dog-thing-creature stayed where it was, which was slightly comforting.
"Are you going to hurt my teammate? … the other one of you, that is."
…
…
Blake fell into a guard to be combat ready, waiting for the creature's reply.
It shook in a horizontal line twice, and reached up a…
…paw? Hand? Now that she was closer to it, and it wasn't shrouded in darkness, she started to notice some… unusual features on the figure. It was blurred slightly around the edges, like a rather bad image, and it quivered like heat haze.
The thing reached a limb up to touch its forehead, directing her gaze to the symbol.
…
She took a guess at what it meant.
"That's your emblem, isn't it?"
"It's like if I went around showing people my ID whenever I met someone new, so they know I'm a hunter."
…
Or… raising your hands to show you're unarmed.
"Show of peace? Is that it? You're not going to do anything wrong?"
It watched her back away with each pause to breathe.
The… dog fell down to the ground, looked towards her domicile, shook its head sharply in a nod, and vanished.
H… Ah, fun. It can vanish.
… Blake took the chance and ran away to her door as fast as she coul-
…
Ck-clack.
Ck-clack.
Ckkk.
Blake whirled around and saw the dog, standing on the sidewalk, watching her. It shook a paw at her apartment, looking up at the building and breathed out in a huff.
… "Okay, dog. Listen up. This is my home, and if you come here ever again, and try to do any kind of thing like this ever again….. I'm going to throw you into the oce-"
… The dog had stuck around, shaking its head in satisfaction for a few seconds, and she assumed it would just start watching her all night. However, before she even got to chance to add further curses of bodily violence, it turned to face her dead on, nodded once, and vanished.
….
…
..
.
She was not going to sleep well tonight.
….
Black.
Sights.
Death.
Hound.
Black.
Sights.
Death.
Hound.
Black.
Sights.
Death.
Hound.
Black.
Sights.
"Enough. We have accomplished the task. Everyone, give me positions and return."
…
That worked?
"It's offensive that you think it wouldn't."
She adjusted her mask and focused on the small glimmering lights that blazed to life, still flickered amidst the darkness that grew around her. A misty hand reached up and touched one of the flames, causing the spots to shift and fly towards her as the light grew in size and intensity.
Paige flew like an over dramatic ship re-entering the atmosphere, stripping away the fog surrounding her to leave it spreading into the void.
Reaching her destination, she slid along the now existent earth with significant skid marks in her wake. The skull looked up and saw a tall stone wall that appeared to have recently closed.
Paige's hair blackened as she returned to a more human limit.
… what colors are my eyes?
Grey and brown.
Eh, close enough. That's not too weird, right?
We saw gold, grey, green, brown, and all sorts of eyes, so it's probably not too weird.
She looked up at the top and shouted softly. "Ho! All well in the night?"
… Paige heard a voice call out and footsteps running.
"What? There's another person out? Damn-"
A light appeared at the top of the wall and cursed quietly upon moving closer to her.
"You escaping those dogs as well?"
"I'm just a traveler. Don't open the gates, just stay safe tonight," she said.
…
She waited for the light to move away from the wall and reached her hand out, grasping the thin air before anyone would notice her leaving.
…
The bone white figure gleamed in the darkness and emerged from the undergrowth, silently glancing over their campfire.
"Hmm."
The three people were sleeping, but the fire was still burning. It would result in an obvious realisation for any reasonable person to assume.
…
"Is anyone awake?" the arrival whispered.
They turned as a quiet metallic sound came behind them.
As they would.
He removed his harpoon and flicked the fire dust gutter running through the base into the activation state.
Mismatched eyes were suddenly watching him.
"All quiet?" the figure whispered.
"Get. Out. This is a harpoon prepared to shoot you straight in the chest and give it a bone reaching wound."
The figure laughed softly.
"Don't try it."
…
…
"Would you believe it if I said I came in peace? If not, I'll just go anyway."
He raised his arms higher, and glanced around in case of more trouble.
It didn't stop him from getting to see the intruder vanishing in a blurring of white.
…
…
….
The black haired woman flitted through the night, dancing into the denouement scenes of various lives, watching for their safety, occasionally asking a question or two, and flowing away with the white mist.
Sometimes, it wasn't as simple as just a question.
….
…
…
"Please, you're safe."
The skull emerged from the spot where they had just seen a person dead.
…
I… have seen a great many things in my life… but your attack dog murdered a man with ease.
…
It looked around at the contents of the alley, reaching down to touch a small shard.
"I apologise if my subordinate's actions disturbed you. It was all in your self interest," it said, the inhuman voice twisting in pitch to become a woman's voice, her hands raising in a placating gesture. The effect was ruined by the mask only showing empty black sockets with glistening abnormal colors mocking an eye.
She reached up to remove her hood, then waited for a second. "Hold on, don't look yet." she muttered, and turned away, fiddling with something on her face.
"There."
She pulled off her hood and turned around to show a woman with a mess of black hair, greying in sections.
Her eyes matched the silver of her greying hair, and she watched him hesitantly.
… The elderly man's eyes tightened in confusion.
"Have we… met before? I know you from somewhere."
…
…
"Uh…."
She looked away awkwardly, and he went closer.
"I have work to do, I'm sorry, but I can't help your remembering. I have to go."
She turned, and looked up into the darkness. He watched her turn, and was momentarily distracted by her weapon, held at the side of her cloak.
Ah.
… He hesitated briefly, before speaking. "You're looking quite well for your age, Mrs. …Do… you mind not being so… eh… violent the third time?"
…
…
"If we meet again, then sure." she said, before vanishing in a cloud of white.
…
He prepared to take his leave. This… was all in all turning into a very strange night.
Quite unusual.
He looked back at where she vanished, and realised he forgot to thank her. He really should do something about that. Where was she from again?
…. Ah, my memory's really been broke. How could I forget that?
Vale.
…
…
….
Blake got the message, probably at the same time as the rest of her team.
Ice Queen: [
I am heading, while armed, to a centralised location to you three. Please converge on my location.
]
She was then sent a little pinned message showing a street in Vale that was not very far from where she was.
…
She was in Vale. That… makes sense?
Blake quickly ran across a street and currently found nothing to harry her from sprinting directly to the suggested location.
…Wait. How does Weiss know where I live?
She glanced to her sides, and started checking for anyone tailing her.
..
Her eyes widened in surprise, and a significant amount of fear.
A second person was outside her current home, seemingly appearing out of nowhere she could see, unless rooftop running was becoming a craze.
Blake fought instincts to run, and began walking away with grace and calm steps.
…
…
Glancing back, she found that the second pursuer was just watching her apartment, their head moving around while they fruitlessly searched for something she could comfortably say wasn't there.
Black hair.
White mask over the eyes.
…
"White Fang."
Just a low level member of the White Fang.
She continued heading towards the street the team planned to converge on.
Blake also significantly and quietly increased her speed.
….
"White Fang."
"I beg your pardon, Miss?"
She straightened up, and glanced over to her right to look at the woman talking next to her. She wandered over the empty sidewalk and frowned in confusion at the lack of an offended person.
Strange. I'll leave her to her night, then.
…
….
Yang… was not being an excellent night driver.
Her skills were earned, but they were hampered by having to deal with the significant pedestrian traffic here, and she currently had a rather important task to do.
… The backseat driving wasn't helping her either.
"Rooftops! Rooftops! Rooftops!"
"Do you really," she began, slipping through a pause in the crowds standing right in the middle of the road and glancing for somewhere easier to navigate, "think that I could get enough traction to drive, and jump without crashing, in this visibility… across a rooftop?"
… "What would you do if I said yes?"
Aw, that's sweet you believe in me so much, Rubes.
A red hand flashed out behind her as she looked where it gestured amidst the lights and people.
"Side path detected! Let's go go go!"
Yang smiled and veered towards the small road leading into the lesser lit roads, quickly gaining momentum as their duo charged along the road into the darkness.
As soon as the back end was inside the empty road's entryway, she was ready and turning as fast as she was able to talk herself into a fistfight.
A loud engine split the night.
….
…
One flame left.
It was weird how quickly it went by.
Paige looked up one more time at whoever was peacefully at their home, and reached out to the light.
The darkness slid up for the final time, and the sunken eyes gleamed as the fire beckoned them.
..
..
..
She appeared in the shadows of a building, and calmly stepped out into the night streets.
-wait-
This is the same city.
The architecture matched, the night was the same level of dimness, and the air contained the same quivering hubbub of a crowd roaming about at night.
An engine somewhere was running, the aftershock still somewhere in a merely passed memory.
…
The light was not gone.
Did I… misfire?
Is that even possible, Paige? Wouldn't magic prevent that or something along those lines?
Paige lifted up her mask and started slowly walking in the direction of the flame. "I most likely just made a mistake with the technicalities. I can probably just… revoke it from here, and check the scene personally."
Paige raised her hand and pulled at the air for the last time.
Return.
…
And lo, there soon lurked the fog.
The misty breeze slowly crept towards her as it slunk from a less populated street. It was just as well lit as the street she had been on, but there were only a handful of people there.
Paige glanced all around, and tried to find anyone that could have been in contact with the hound. Nobody was running, especially injured, or under a serious sign of duress.
… Was she done already?
The basic rule was to always confirm the body, but in this case, she was prepared to break the structure. After all, she's not in Atlas anymore.
"Oh well. Guess that's the end of the night," she said, brushing off her hands and priding herself on a job relatively well done. Paige took out the Lens, slipped it away in her breast pocket, and blinked away the tears before walking down the street.
Paige. Your eyes are… well… they're shifting between black and orange now. You're trying to be unsuspicious. Can you go back to your original eye colouring, or is that not going to work too well?
… "I can do that easily."
Her eyes faded to a set of two dark greys, before lightening to a more natural hue. Good?
Much better. Why don't you stick with this?
"It got tiring when I kept having it turn to my birth color away from black in the middle of the woods."
Huh. That makes some sense.
… You need to get rid of the skull mask though.
Fine.
…
ck-ck.
A young woman halted along the street and slowly turned around to fully face in the direction Paige was standing in where she was messing about with her mask, about 8 buildings or so down.
The person, dressed in a white coat, looked around in every angle, and even turned her head to watch the rooftops. While doing this, she pulled out a reflective sword and held it in a fencing guard position.
… Do regular people in problematic situations carry swords with them?
…
No? Paige? Hello?
We found our contacted, Brandon.
They seem to be able to protect themselves. Let's not get into their situation and make it any worse than it already is.
Paige turned to leave, crossing the street and replying with an agreement-
-vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv-
Car.
Paige sped across the road, feet thudding and figure wheeling around to try to locate the vehicle that should be soon approaching from her left.
…
…
…
She straightened her cloak and looked over in the opposite direction. She could have just been facing the wrong way, after all. She had been distracted.
… This isn't that comfortable anymore. How about I just go hood down, ditch the mask?
Paige stared at the hood over her head and poked around with the hood until she lifted the mask back into the roof of the cloak hood. Now skull-less, she started walking down the street.
.. It turned out she was facing the wrong way. A motor vehicle charged out of the distance behind her and slid itself onto a curb's edge before smugly parking a few feet from the armed whitecoat.
Not her, the other one, with the ashen white hair and the bladed weapon.
… Huh. That's annoying to think about.
Paige. Stop thinking about telling you apart from a girl that looks very similarly to you.
… What do I call her the-
Call her Biancu.
"What?"
Biancu Montoya.
She whipped off her hood and watched.
…
…
"-beautiful! Need a ride?"
…
Paige silently walked towards the arrivals. She needed to know if this person was safe, after all.
Brandon. You're a genius, and I hate you for it.
…
…
The white coat, Montoya, looked behind themselves and cried out in an anxious voice. "It's gone!"
… "What? The bitch after you? Isn't that a good thing?"
The cycle's second passenger chimed in, a low conversation beginning to start up. "You're safe, though? You're not hurt?"
…
"Suggestions?" Paige whispered.
Friends of the contacted?
"Ah. That makes sense," she mused.
…All's well that ends well, though? Ready to head on home to take a rest?
I'm up for that, Brandon.
The duo relaxed, and walked on the other side of the road past the now conversing trio as they stood on the sidewalk talking about their nights. Paige struck up a low smile. Now that all that was over, she could go on her merry way back to bed and do some well earned sleep.
…
PTOFFF.
That was, until she inadvertently ran into a young woman running around the city at night.
She looked at the young girl who was trying to regain her balance. "Hello. Is something wrong? Are you okay?"
Paige blinked as the girl leapt back and stared at her, before glancing towards the people behind her on the other side of the road.
Wait. We know this girl, right?
… Yes.
She did not, apparently, seem to recognise Paige as a teacher, so Paige wondered where she knew the girl. The girl did not apologise, and instead ran full tilt towards the parked motorcycle, sliding to a halt as the other three people already there called out to them.
…
The girl slipped into a spot, making the trio into a group of four young women.
… That… was one of our students.
Paige lifted her hood onto her face, obscuring the lamps, and lowered it, letting the light shine on her face, repeating this a few times to check her lighting wasn't off, and watched the group of girls talking.
Crimson….
Ash white….
Black….
Brown….
They're all our students.
So….
"So… that means they're going to be fine. If they can kick my ass… they can probably handle any two bit thug that comes their way tonight."
She smiled in smug satisfaction at completing the job so well, and brought up her souls to enhance the run back to her bedroom. A few small lights flickered from their side of the road, so she assumed they were starting up that cycle to head off to their respective homes as well.
The white mists blew into existence, and she blurred away in the direction of the academy as the mist slowly floated along the currents she left and faded away into the thin air.
….
...
...
The girls were obviously looking at the person. Who followed random girls around at night?
"So, Weiss, who was that?"
Weiss was continuing to stare at the white cloaked figure that had just disappeared from the other side of the street. "A hunter?"
"Huntress, or Fang. They were outside my apartment." Blake muttered, glancing at her photos. "Same outfit, no Fang mask. I should see if it's a variant of an offshoot uniform, or just someone else that was here at a really bad time."
…
"I'm doubting the last one; though," she said.
"When was this 'outside your apartment' thing? You chose to not mention something like that? You didn't mention this ever happening?!"
… "Because it happened maybe a minute or two ago. I was trying to get here fast."
…
…
…
…
"Should we go after them?"
"I don't know. Ruby, can you try… subtly running after them? We can try to follow you on…"
Weiss slowed and looked at the machine they had been converged around.
"Bumblebee." Yang said proudly.
"I was planning on asking the vehicle model to know the top speeds," Weiss replied in a stern look.
Yang thought for a second, then grinned widely.
"It depends! If you're asking for breaking the sound barrier, you're going to need to come back in a few months. Anything less is judged by going across Patch in less than a day, or blitzing across a city in three minutes flat while never dropping 20 through a crowded festival day…."
…
…
…
She smiled stiltedly. Did I just hear you say that?
"You get the idea." Yang said.
…
…
"Blake! Weiss! Get on the bike! We got white cloaked hyper fast ass to kick!"
"Okay! Guess we aren't waiting two months!"
The team, which sadly included Weiss right now, much to her chagrin, started their gold gleaming comet ride barrelling through the dark streets, led by the frantic flurries of red petals that fronted the breakneck cycle as they flew along pavement to their destination.
Roses and white mist floated in eddies in their wake, until they halted at the edge of the city borders and looked into the wider forest stretching out into the distance.
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASP!
Ruby spun about giddily and fell into the ground.
"Wooooooooooooooooooooooo BOY. That was incredible."
"Scroll? We need to check you."
Ruby flopped around and eeeeeh-ed her scroll to her teammates.
…
…
…
…
Or she tried to. Yang could tell by her wide eyed exertion that she was trying her best in a bad situation, but couldn't quiiiite manage i-
"I can't move my body." she grumbled.
… "Your Aura's red, Rubes."
"Cursessersssss!" she cried out, mumbling her words slightly.
Yang's eyes slit, and a small buzzing vibration shook the scroll in her hand.
Yang silently glanced at the screen and frowned.
They had lost the trail, since Ruby couldn't keep up anymore, and trying to ride a motor vehicle carrying four hunters in training through a forest….
"Ruby. Can you give me an approximate range of where this person was running to? I don't want to waste too much fuel on a bad trip."
Ruby pointed up and gestured to the east. "I couldn't catch them all the way, but I saw enough to know that they kept trying to head towards Beacon."
Yang nodded briefly and they started slowly driving back into the city, moving at a pace slightly faster than a quick jog.
"You caught them? Why didn't you trip them or herd them into a dead end so we could corner them?"
"I didn't catch them. Have you tried running after someone secretly by having to stamina boost your bunny hopping while also perfectly timing down slopes with z-axis shifting to keep up your inhuman momentum without crashing your precise i-frame Roman cancelled sprinting skill?"
The other three girls silently sat on the cycle as Ruby huffed in annoyance.
…
…
…
"Please explain that." Weiss suggested.
"Eh? What do you mean! That was obviously a rhetorical question." She cried out.
"I'm going to have to look up every term in that sentence for their definitions, Ruby. We understood none of that," Blake said.
…
"But I made sure to use the proper context!" Ruby pointed out. "Back me up here, Yang. You understood that, right?"
Blake, Weiss, and Ruby all looked ahead to face the driver.
She was being… unusually quiet.
…
…
…
"Yang."
"Yes?"
"You understood that?"
… "Eh? Sure…."
… Ruby narrowed her eyes and stretched herself up to glare at her sister. This action led to her being pulled off balance when the cycle suddenly stopped and pulled over to the side of the street.
"You're looking at my scroll! You bi-"
"Allllll right! Everybody off! Ruby, get your little self over here."
The three passengers stepped off, Yang continuing to speak the entire time.
"You had your scroll on silent. It makes sense, since you were trying to be stealthy, but that meant that, since you never told me, I never knew you had done it and so I never had the chance to turn it back on."
…
"What's this all about?" Ruby said, slowly.
Yang stepped off the vehicle and put on a grim face, handing over the scroll and pulling out her own.
She tapped hers on, slid around the applications and options, and then pressed it once and held it up to her head, gesturing at her sister as the younger paled.
"Dad. What's up?" Yang asked cheerfully.
"Hi Dad."
{"Where are you?"}
"wwwwwssssiiiiiiii"
"We're in Vale. Before you ask why… it's a very simple explanation!"
{"…"}
Yang waved around her hand and looked at her team, her face dropping slowly. "We…. Uh…. took Bumblebee on a ride through the city and lost track of the time."
…
…
…
…
{"Then why is Ruby saying that you, instead of calling anyone to help, decided to not come home, tell me nothing, and preform a rescue attempt to help your partners from… ahem… 'an intangible bitch.'"}
Yang darted to watch Ruby's frantic attempt to hide her scroll, looking directly in her face the entire time.
"Uh…. because… we did exactly that."
…
…
…
…
The scroll stopped making any noise.
"Ruby. Are you messaging Dad as I'm trying to tell Dad an excuse to get us out of an eternal grounding from him finding out everything?"
…
…
{"You know I can still hear you, Yang?"}
… Yang slowly looked down at the scroll in her hand. "Y….eeeeee…."
{"You have 30 minutes to get all your body on a boat or a bullhead heading over here."}
Yang opened her mouth to argue, then… paused.
"I'm going to need extra time to drop our teammates back at-"
{"Bring them here."}
Ruby opened her eyes wide and stared at them all, completely casting aside such petty things as lack of stamina, low Aura levels, and tiredness from running across an entire damn city.
There's sleepovers to be had.
"RUBY! NO!"
Ruby had sped towards the front seat of the cycle and was quickly grabbed by her sister as she flipped the scroll into the air, picked up the frenzied red girl, set her down in a less important position, and slid into the front of the cycle.
Her hand reached out to catch her scroll; Yang calmly pushed off the curb and started the ignition before smoothly responding.
"We'll be there."
… She turned the scroll off, put it into a pocket, and looked at the other two.
"Get on, please? There's things I'd like to actually get done outside of a house this summer."
They all sat themselves on the vehicle and rode off into the city.
There were many things that were not good to invoke. Giving Yang a significant and valid reason to hold a long term grudge was one of them.
... by extension, it appeared sleepovers were an equally bad invocation as well.
,
….