RWBY Through Worlds (End)

BC7: Bandit Diatribe (Raven & Co.)--2

The squad moved the caravan survivors towards Pan Animarum using the plane and what was left of the vehicles.

"Hey," Zapato said over the radio. "We're low on fuel. A lot of extra flight time. I'm gonna need to get some from the nearest city."

"Put it on Argus' tab," Raven said flatly.

"Roger. Also picking up some more grimm not that far away."

The grimm no doubt were following the distraught survivors.

"Maybe you could just get your minds off it for a short time," Yang suggested. "Just till we get to a city."

"It's hard to be cheerful when you just lost your family," one person said tersely.

"Will the bandits be long gone?" Neptune asked Raven.

"I should think so, that raid was a lot of loot. Unless they came back for the rest." Raven mused.

She shouldn't have said that, because like it was on cue, not two minutes later, they were suddenly surrounded by a group of people in dark clothes and wearing head coverings.

By now it was also nearing nightfall and the rain had finally slowed to a drizzle, but it was cold.

Neptune had rain falling around him but not on him, it was barely noticeable but he'd been getting some weird looks... he'd much rather have ridden in the plane, but he wasn't allowed.

Now the bandits surrounded them all.

"Where did they come from?" One person said, startled.

"Oh no!" Some of the people still on the ground, albeit in cars, cried, and ducked behind the dashboard.

Raven counted at least 40 bandits.

"The Baba tribe, I'm guessing," she said loudly.

"By the light of the shattered moon," one of them stepped a little forward, making everyone else tense. "Are you Raven Branwen? You match the description, but you look like a stuffy Atlesian prick."

"What's it to you?" Yang spoke up, unlocking her gauntlets.

"I wasn't expecting you to have reinforcements," the bandit, who was also a woman, said dryly. "But looks like we hit the jackpot, that fancy plane would be worth bank...and you all look important. I'm thinking ransom."

Some of the others cheered at that, or whistled.

"And I'm thinking you're all dead," Mercury said. "You don't look so tough."

"Black, stand down, I'll handle this," Raven snapped at him.

"Well, do something then," he grumbled.

Raven drew her sword.

"Let me explain something to you," she said. "You've got us surrounded and you're probably thinking you have the drop on us, right. Probably, you were planning to come back and claim the rest of the loot before anyone could find these people, and dodge the waves of grimm. But in reality, you're relying on faulty information."

The woman began using her weapon to rub her chin, not convinced.

"You don't know, for example, that all of us here are elite huntsmen," Raven said.

This was not true, Claw and Piper were not specialists, but she saw no reason to specify that.

"That we just took down a Nemean earlier in about 5 minutes, and that I can, at any time, call in reinforcements from Argus itself and they'll be here within seconds," she said firmly. "If that's not enough, that plane is carrying heavy weaponry and could blast you all to smithereens if you step one foot nearer to us."