"Hey! Stop!"
Voices yelled down the black alley as a red haired boy ran past. He clutched a package to his chest, knocking down trashcans and garbage lined along the alleyway as two rather bulky men were on his tail. They clutched their faces trying to keep the smell of putrefying meat and rotten milk from their noses. But that was something the boy was used to. He had lived among those smells for a long time. Frantic footsteps echoed off the grimy brick walls and anyone who was listening could tell somebody was starting to win.
"Think you can steal from people like that, huh? You're dead, kid!"
But the voices were getting more and more winded. Panting and gasps broke through. Then the other footsteps slowed down as the men doubled over in exhaustion, gulping down air and trying to sate the burning in their lungs. Sweat trickled down their faces in the heat of a summer's night in Vale.
"Ah, damn it." he spit on the ground.
His partner shook his head. "Forget about it. Let him have it. Not like it's valuable or anything."
The boy kept running as fast as he could. Not so much because he was afraid. There was not a chance that those fat bastards could ever have caught him. But it just felt damn good.
Coming to a park, he slowed down, breath coming out controlled and shirt sticking to his back. But it was worth it because he had a meal. Taking the package in his hands, he tore off the brown paper covering revealing a various assortment of breads. Sweet, sour, white, and wheat all packed in little rolls. He took a bite and kept walking down the pathway, illuminated by yellow lamps and the night sky aglow with city lights.
###
Night in Vale was never really quiet. It depended on where you went. The noise in the city was sometimes too much to take. Those in the streets couldn't sleep with all the blaring horns and the groups of young rich partygoers screaming and laughing, drunk off the elixir of youth. Everywhere there could be the Vale Police, looking out for anyone loitering around private property. The parks were always a better place to be.
She was sleeping in the bushes near the bench where he sat down to finish his meal. Her ears flicked up at the approaching footsteps and glowing, amber eyes immediately widened. She glanced immediately at the approaching boy and tried to shrink into the bushes even further, flattening the furry black ears atop her head. He sat down on the bench and being busying himself with something. That was when the smell hit her nostrils, and she couldn't stop her mouth from watering.
It was delicious. Absolutely the most comforting scent. It reminded her of something. Not the nursery. That place with it's white walls and pale green linoleum was too sterilized to have any smell. This was something else. It was warm. It almost made her remember a time before the nursery. Time that she could have spent with those people that she could have called her parents. But now they were like the phantoms of a dream that was always out of reach. She kept a hand over her mouth trying to be quiet. But she couldn't do anything about her stomach. A growling noise came out and she clutched her stomach, shocked at its betrayal and trying to shut it up. The boy stopped eating and perked his ears. His head moved just an inch towards her.
"I've already heard you so there's no point in hiding."
She winced and slowly crawled out. He looked her up and down.
"You look terrible. Where are your parents?"
She looked up at him indignantly and for the first time got a clear look at him. He wore a black shirt that was worn with the edges torn and fraying. His pants were thicker and a shade of brown. The knees on them were worn and pale skin poked through. The hems were frayed at the heel, evidence of long times spent without any shoes. His hair was dirty and shoddily swept back showing eyes that were a deep red. Two small horns stuck out of his head. He wasn't too different from her. Just a bit older. So what did he get off on asking her that?
"Where are yours?" she shot back.
He raised an eyebrow. "I asked you first."
"I don't know."
She glared at him, eyes a molten amber. He looked at her for a moment before shrugging.
"Well join the club. I don't know about mine either."
She looked at the food in his hands. "Where'd you get that?"
"This? I stole it."
"You're not supposed to do that."
He narrowed his eyes. "Well who's going to stop me? You, kid? Come on, no one's going to hand me a meal, so I gotta find it and hand it to myself."
He glanced at her clothes. That shirt had seen much better days. It must have been white before but now it was as gray as the city pavement with streaks of brown from the ground. And her shorts were torn in small patches. Her knees were covered in small scrapes and scabs. There were bits of soil and leaves still stuck on them.
"I'm guessing you haven't been living out here like this for a while if you haven't even stolen some food before."
She balled her hands into fists. "Or maybe I'm not going to be a criminal."
"Oh you think you're not a criminal?" he scoffed. "You know you're not supposed to be sleeping in a place like this, right?"
Her eyes widened a fraction before she got even angrier. "That's different! I'm not hurting people!"
"And who said I hurt someone? I didn't touch anyone to steal this bread. And from the look of that baker, he could use a little extra food going into his stomach."
He continued to eat. Pausing before eating the last one, he offered it out to the girl. She glanced at the roll in his hand and back at him. His mouth was set in indifference. Her stomach growled again and she winced at how loud it seemed in the empty park. Giving up, she meekly reached for the bread and took it.
It was more delicious than she had dared to hope. After so much time going hungry, even without anything to eat it with, this was easily the best meal she had ever had. She shoved the last of it into her mouth and wiped off any crumbs. Looking up at the boy, he was already staring ahead on the path.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"I dunno. Somewhere. Someplace I can relax. Where I can eat. Where this doesn't matter." He pointed towards the horns on top of his head. "Someplace normal."
She unconsciously flattened her own ears. The ones the children always tugged on in the nursery.
"And I guess you'd like that too?"
She perked up. "What?"
"You want that too, right? I haven't met a Faunus that doesn't."
She'd never thought about that too much in truth. Until a few days ago, it had just been the nursery. That was her home. But it wasn't right. There was something wrong, and she ran before things could get worse. What did she want? The warm feeling. Some people she could call parents. Or no it was not just that. Some people she could call family. Where she could laugh and play like the other kids. She looked at the boy and nodded.
"All right then. Well why don't you just come along? We need to get you some better clothes. And keep looking for more food." He looked at her, as if making sure that she was up for it.
She narrowed her eyes. "But no hurting people."
He gave a small smile and held his hands up. "All right, all right."
She relaxed. "I'm Blake."
"Adam."
"So Adam," she said looking to the city, "where do we start"?
###
Memories had a funny way of coming back. Looking at the back of his head, she remembered seeing those horns for the first time. A lot of things had changed since then. They both had grown in different ways and maybe a lot faster than they should have. She remembered seeing his eyes for the first time. They weren't shown to anyone now behind that white mask. There was nothing on his face. A permanent indifference. The White Fang's Red Beast.
They stood atop a mountain overlooking railroad tracks, scouting out the location for the next operation. The forest that surrounded them was blood red. The black train coming through was guarded by a few regiments of some twenty androids each. Cheap, last-gen military hardware that the SDC was just too lazy to replace. Adam folded the visors into his pocket and gripped the sword at his side. He looked to her and wordlessly nodded before jumping down. She let loose a breath and fixed a mask to her own face.
She slid down the side, leaping and landing on the black train barreling down the tracks. Reaching for the sword on her back, she silently drew it. The black blade's luster briefly glinted. Gripping the sword underhand, she was then gone in a haze of black violet. Leaping to the nearest android, she stabbed down neck, grinding the servos and snapping the wires. She ripped the sword through it's chest. Blake looked down to see the android's face sparking and giving off smoke. She looked into the reflective metal, seeing her masked face.
Wearing the guise of monsters, she thought. The monsters that this society hates and fears. But we're still the same underneath. We're still kids looking for a home. It was just a mask.
Isn't it? Adam?
A/N: Well that was a thing. This initially began as a look into the backstories for an AU but I decided to switch it to canon to keep things simple. Thank you for reading and, if you could, please leave some comments and criticism!