#bumblebee?

Yang has to be more honest with herself and with Blake...

“how!? how can this be?” Blake demanded of Weiss getting into her face, grabbing her by the collar, and swinging her arm behind her to capture the scene around them. 

“It’s not her fault Blake. You know that.” Yang replied solemnly from the side and Blake let go of Weiss collapsing on the ground.

“I do but... but this isn’t supposed to happen. We fought a war to stop this it was supposed to be over. I knew Atlas was one of the worst offenders in terms of how faunas were treated but this, this is out right slavery it’s illegal, it’s immoral, its’s… it’s not supposed to still be happening!” she cried.

Team RWBY had stumbled upon the dust mine mostly by accident. They had been passing through a tiny town, little more then an inn at a cross roads and a couple of houses, on their way back from a mission. When they stopped at the inn however it looked like a hurricane had blown through the place. When they asked the inn keeper about the mess, he told them about a band of ruffians who had arrived the night before. They had marched into the inn kicked out the locals, drank heavily and done all the damage RWBY saw then the next morning they left without paying a cent. Team RWBY wasn’t totally sure what to expected when they agreed to try and catch the offenders. The events didn’t match up with a typical bandit raid. Few bandit tribes would jave stopped at the inn most would have barged into every one of the buildings in the small town and taken everything small enough to carry. Besides, the number of ruffians the inn keeper reported would have made for a very small band of bandits. It was possible they were part of a larger group which had decided the small town wasn’t worth the whole tribes’ time, but a few decided to go cause some havoc, and have a good time while they were at it, since the band was passing through the area anyway. Or maybe it was just a bunch of armed jackasses traveling from one town to another who figured they could get away with something and no one would know. Those seemed like the most likely options and the team had agreed they had time to figure out which it was and put a stop to them. What none of them had expected was for the trail they found just outside of town to lead them to a dust mine being run by slave labor. There had actually been very little fighting. Whatever this was had clearly relied on the fact no one seemed to know it was happening for protection. The few dozen guards/overseers present had been woefully poor fighters clearly used to keeping their malnourished and abused prisoners in check and not fighting well-armed and trained huntsmen. They were spread out in small pockets all across the mine and not one of them had been watching their perimeter. Team RWBY had moved through them with ease directing the captives to a central location until they had made sure they had dealt with all of the perpetrators of this atrocity. Now with the mine cleared team RWBY found themselves in what appeared to be a sort of control center for the mine as they tried to deal with their discovery.

“We don’t really know what this is yet.” Yang said walking to Blakes side and trying to comfort her. Blake shot her a glare in reply “Ok I’ll admit whatever it is it’s pretty damn bad but this is, was a relatively small operation and I can’t imagine it’s been going on long they didn’t have anyone watching the outside of the mine and these people are clearly very unhappy it’s a grim attack waiting to happen, I’m glad we got here before it did because that would have been ugly and not just for the bastards who did this either” Yang had a point there Blake had to admit it didn’t really make the situation any better but she was probably right about the grim “Actually, for all we know at this point it might not really have anything to do with the faunas at all, not directly any way” now that Blake didn’t agree with

“What do you mean it doesn’t have to do with the faunas?! The only humans I saw out there were the ones with the weapons!” Blake shot back furiously

“I know, and I won’t be surprised if there isn’t a single human among the people, we saved in fact I will be surprised if there’s more then one or two” Yang answered placatingly “but think about it Blake you said it yourself faunas aren’t treated equally in Atlas so who do you think would be the easiest to make disappear for something like this. I’m not trying to say it isn’t horrible or wrong or even that this isn’t related to the problems the faunas face but this might not be someone trying to bring back faunas slave labor this might just be some upstart group of bandits who stumbled upon a forgotten mine and thought they’d force some locals to work it for them.”

“No.” Weiss answered she hadn’t moved since before Blake grabbed her, she had been frozen by shock but now she moved quickly to a nearby filling cabinet and began angrily riffling through it as she continued speaking. “That” she said pointing at the small crate none of the rest of the team had realized she had been starring at while in her shocked state “is an SDC dust crate. Normally they have the Schnee family, my family, crest on the front but I recognize the design. Due mostly to aggressive campaigning by my father the dust mining industry has remained remarkably unregulated as a result there isn’t any sort of standardized procedure for storing or transporting dust from dust mines. The SDC uses a fairly robust standard crate as the scale of the company means they have to produce a large number of the containers anyway and retailers are willing to pay extra for the “premium safety measures” of the SDC. The reality however is the SDC crates don’t have any special safety designs in fact the only design that went into them is cosmetic they are meant to look different from anything else because almost every non-SDC dust mine is a small locally owned enterprise which just uses any type of cheap container it can get its hands on. Additionally, the SDC crates are very carefully controlled they are produced directly by the SDC and not sold to anyone else. It’s possible these were stolen but then they should still have the crest on it, every crate has them it’s part of the brand recognition.”

“Wait” Ruby said scratching her head “I don’t get it why is them not having the snowflake important”

“because it means they were made by the SDC specifically for this purpose.” Weiss answered

“ummm what?” Ruby answered totally confused

“the only reason to remove the crest is so my father can deny they came from him. If they stole these containers, why take the time to remove all the crests it doesn’t make any sense. At best it’s a waste of time and resources at worst it actually makes selling them harder on the other hand if my father gave them these crates and they are sending the dust they mine to the SDC all he has to do is slap the crests back on and they’d be indistinguishable from hundreds of others from perfectly legitimate mines but if we take these to the authority he’ll claim that since they don’t have the crest they are clearly knock-offs made by some competitor and that all it proves is that the Schnee crate design is superior.”

“but that isn’t what happened?” Ruby asked she had never realized how complicated this business stuff could be she always figured it was all just pulling stuff out of the ground and then selling it

Weiss managed not to roll her eyes at her younger partner reminding herself she had been raised learning to “play the great game” as her father called it and Ruby had not. “No. Like I said there’s no reason for any of the SDC’s competitors to do so the only thing “superior” about these crates is there unique look. All replicating them would do is waste a competitors resources in fact while it’s hard to tell for sure because of the propaganda machine my father has set up I’ve heard a few rumors suggesting the handful of competitors large enough to have dedicated crate production are using a design which is both safer and easier to handle then the SDC crate.”

Ruby just stared back at Weiss still trying to put everything she said together, and Yang chimed in “I don’t know Weiss, Ruby’s probably being a little dense right now, but this sounds pretty complicated even to me I mean it’s a lot to base on a few little crates.”

“It’s not based on a few little crates” Weiss replied “it’s based on years of watching my father operate, an intense familiarity with the SDC and it’s products and a few little crates. But you’re right my father, his lawyers and the small media empire he either directly or indirectly owns will dismiss the crates in a single news cycle which is why I’m looking through these files.”

“you think you can find proof the SDC owns this mine?” Blake asked almost hopeful after all that would do immeasurable damage to an organization, she had effectively been at war with for most of her life.

“No. In fact I’m sure it doesn’t.” Weiss answered “Actually, I’ll be shocked if there’s any paper evidence to suggest this mine has any kind of business relationship with the SDC at all. Yang was right this place was relying on secrecy for protection. If there was any paper trail from the SDC to it some one would have found this place and what they were doing eventually.”

“so what are you looking for?” Yang asked

Yang holds down a helicopter being driven by a brainwashed Blake with her bare hands.

Blake: *(looks down at Yang)*

Yang: *(holds the helicopter down in a way that shows off her muscles)*

Blake: Hm. *(Arousal 50%)*

Yang: *(somehow starts flexing while holding the helicopter)*

Blake: Hmmmmm. *(arousal 100%)*

Yang: *(kisses one of her bisecps)*