Recruitment

I was relieved to get out of the vehicle, even if I had to walk a few more blocks than absolutely necessary, using a slightly tortuous route to keep my destination secret from a few noisy neighbors, at least it was a mostly faunus area, close but not too close to the slums in northern Vacuo so I was able to walk normally, neither looking like a beaten slave nor having to walk with his bare claws. I did have to ask for directions twice, just to go the opposite way as soon as I was out of sight, but frankly even in a milk run such as this it was better to practice the field craft I had been trained for. But finally after an hour long stroll he reached the old doctor's practice.

"Doctor Blanco? I came here to see someone about a broken spine." I said as soon as I saw the sheeplike old man in the small examination room.

"The only spine I have seen broken is from my copy of 'Medicinal Herbs of the Dark Lands'." He answered with the tone of the amateurs who think speaking in code is foolish. I don't disagree mind you, this kind of sloppy phrase attract more attention than a firm handshake and a reasonable excuse, but someone with that kind of mentality always makes the job harder.

"Good, I might not be able to mend bones, but I can do something for an old book." I say as I examine the appropriate book from a shelf, surprisingly enough its spine is slightly damaged and I think that I can at least give it a few more years of use with my sewing kit and a little time.

"You know? All this cloak and dagger stuff is not good for my old bones, and much less for my nerves."

I shrugged, "It is still necessary, the only way we can be safe from our foes is that we are always one step ahead from our foes, and then three more just to be sure."

"Three steps and the occasional pint of blood... And talking about new blood, she is right now resting upstairs." He lowered his voice as if she would hear him, which in this case was plausible.

I lowered my voice too and asked "What can you tell me about her?"

"Blake Noire, age seven, lost both parents eight months ago. Devout participant of rallies, sit-downs and collects, was caught ten days ago by a group of strikebreakers -brutish thugs- and ended with a thin fracture on her right arm and a smattering of bruises all around her body, frankly I think I could identify the boot of the grimmspawn who did it just by the marks, but I digress, right now her fracture is mostly fused although it still on a sling, and she still got most of her bruises."

Now that was impressive, not only a remarkable regen factor for an uninitiated but one already picky enough not to waste Aura in small stuff. "Does she often gets into fights?" After all those tricks the body only learned through practice.

"Don't know, she is not the type to come to me for every little scratch but it wouldn't surprise me, for such a quiet unassuming girl she can be quite passionate."

"And did she inherit that from her parents?" I asked, digging a little deeper, they weren't in the books but you never knew.

"Were they activists you mean? No, she was seamstress, he was a dockworker both died on a traffic accident while commuting from Blake's school, and before you ask both those standing and those lazy bastards sitting on their asses burned the same. Since then she has been under the care of the local shepherd."

For a moment I lamented the lost chance of blaming their deaths on one of the spiteful laws imposed on us, but before the idea was even half formed I felt a wave of shame at the very thought. "Can I talk to her?"

"Go on." He pointed a side door.

I opened the door towards what was obviously a repurposed guestroom, inside a small cat faunus was sitting on a chair by the window, trying to read one handed while at the same time catching as many sun rays as possible. Her broken arm was awkwardly resting on her lap while balancing on it the book. Despite the focus needed to change the pages with her left hand, and how immersed she seemed to be in her reading she immediately noticed my presence, raising her eyes just long enough to see I wasn't that interesting before going back to her book.

If I wanted I knew I could just take her without any explanation, the shepherd at the faunus orphanage had already assessed her potential and I could ship her straight to the training camp, but frankly I entered this live with both eyes open and was planning to offer the same courtesy to my recruits.

As I approached to begin my sales pitch I got a better look at her book, the black paperback looked a little too thick for someone so young and I curiously peeked at the tittle as she finally turned around to take a better look at my approaching figure…

"Ninjas of Love! Where did you get that book?"

"It was under the bed." Before she could open the book again I snatched it from her hands.

"This is not proper reading material for small kittens." She had almost reached chapter seven, a full third of the book, thankfully unlike most literature of its kind NoL didn't start with the graphic violence and raunchy scenes until the middle, a product of an actual plot and character development.

She wasn't obviously thrilled with the hasty and fortunate way I protected her innocence for a couple more years, and while she probably decided that might height plus her bad arm were enough to prevent her from tearing my sideburns from my face so she settled into an angry glare. As a compromise I got the book I had bought on my way from Mistral, but before I could even promote it as a better lecture she had a look at the colorful horses on the cover for her to sniff and turn around.

Way to go for a first impression. "Good afternoon Blake. How are you feeling?"

"Fine." She answered with an uninterested monosyllable but caught up the real matter quickly. "How do you know my name?"

"Well, I have heard a lot about you all the way to Mistral. Tell me how were you hurt?" I asked, sometimes the best way to deal with children is to let them talk.

"I was sharing pamphlets about the referendum on the Artist's Corridor, but I think I went a little too far from the safe side and two guys started chasing me. I almost gave them the slip when a shopkeeper nailed me with a bottle." She was saying that in a contemplative voice, with barely a hind of anger or fear, but I could see how she rubbed her bad arm and how tears were congregating in her eyes so I decided to steer the conversation to another direction.

"And pamphlets are not the only thing you o isn't it? You have been in three sit-ins and two pickets, thankfully non-violent, you have also volunteered to get food and signs to strikers. You have even been evicted from one march against the Vacuo Steel Company."

"Not fair, I got there early and everything. Why they kicked me out?"

"Good thing they did, 74 brothers and sisters were hurt in the fight. And they wouldn't have respected a little kitty like you." She was so crossed about the indignity of not allowed to participate and then the fate of her fellow protesters that she didn't even register the nickname. "And anyway your participation would mean that the number of injuries would have been 75 instead, not that it kept you from harm."

"Now tell me, how did we won the War?" For most of Remnant when they heard about the War they thought about the Great War, but for a faunus, especially one so immersed in the movement as this one, it could only mean the Civil Rights War eighty years ago.

The abrupt chance of topic ended her funk, instead getting her in an adorable thinking pose, with her ears flexing as she thought of an answer.

"Because our will to win was stronger." Classic answer, especially from a Movement brat.

"Umm, not a bad answer but a little incomplete; all the willpower in the world cannot protect against sticks and stones, just like might without strength of mind only gets thugs who would break if they even faced a third of the injuries you have been inflicted. And even those by themselves weren't the real key to our victory. No, what won us the war is that while their army of conscripts was expecting a barely armed mob we instead presented them with a disciplined, trained force that knew that failure would bring a slow death for our entire race."

"What most people don't know, not even our own, is that back then when we the sights of what the humans were planning for us weren't as evident we prepared an army in the most absolute secret to protect our families and legacy. And that while our cunning tactics and superior physical qualities gave us the final victory it was thanks to the cadre of elite warriors that we were able to hold back their larger, better armed armies for three years."

Now I had her full attention, which was inevitable considering that what I was telling her would in any other circumstance get me the personal attention of a Trigger Team that if I was lucky would kill me in the spot, and if not would torture me for the names of every other conspirator, real or imagined. And that was without taking into account what would the humans would do.

"Even after the war we kept the training and preparations in the darkness, ready to protect our people. And that's why I came all the way from Mistral, because we think that you got what is needed to protect and guide our people from the shadows."

"But why me?" Hesitation. Frankly this wasn't exactly normal; most children at her age would jump at the chance, especially one as unafraid and committed to the cause as Blake. It said a lot about her character to actually consider the magnitude of the proposal.

"Why? Maybe is because you are hardworking, maybe is because you're pretty smart for your age, or is because of your physical qualities, maybe is because your commitment for the cause is twice as much as faunus twice your age, but frankly is because you're brave. You have seen and experienced so many tribulations suffered both in body and spirit enormous abuse and yet keep going without hiding or cowing."

"It's not true, I was scared. I feel like I'm always scared and that I just want to run away."

"And yet you're still here, still fighting. Bravery is not about being fearless, but about overcoming those fears and to move forward, and you demonstrate true courage every time you refuse to back down from your ideals." She hesitantly nodded and I gave her a moment for her to think about it before continuing.

"And if you accept this responsibility you're going to need some of that courage. Training is going to be long and hard, you'll learn to fight and to survive, and then you'll have to fight to protect those amongst our people, sometimes even hurting those that are so willing to hurt us. And unlike what most people think causing pain to others, even for a good cause is hard for good people like you."

She was about to answer but abruptly stopped, her ears perking at a sound beyond my own hearing range at least until I heard the front door opening and a cry that the room's door barely muted. "Doc, I'm home. Where is that little bundle of joy?"

"Miss Hatchet, Doc Blanco's nurse. She always hugs too hard." Despite her distaste of her hugs she looked somewhat eager to greet her so I opened the door and gestured. "Go, just don't mention our little chat."

As she went to greet the boisterous woman I opened the doctor's book. I already had a perfectly done fake passport under the name Blake Tukson to get her to an airship as my niece but I knew that she wouldn't be able to keep neither that one nor her original surname once she reached the Camp. Fanning the pages at random, partly to prove how attached they were, I read the first plant in the page.

"Umm, Atropa Belladona…"