Gluttony

My most intense moments always start off so peacefully. It happened during one of my few off days. At the time, most of my time had been spent scouring the area for any signs of injustice or danger taking place. This meant that I would wander aimlessly for hours at a time with my senses on high alert. It's a life that many people wouldn't choose to willingly live. I do it because I feel that I must. I'm somebody who's been on the receiving end of discrimination while also witnessing what happens when victims become the oppressor. I am Blake Belladonna.

I was once part of an organization known as the White Fang. It started out as a grassroots protest group that grew in numbers as our voices became heard. It was a magical moment to see humans and faunus alike protesting for the same goals. I really felt like we were going to change the world for the better at the time. That all changed after a militant wing began to grow in popularity as well. Some of our more peaceful leaders were arrested or assassinated by the powers that be. Other faunus became frustrated and violently took out their frustrations. At first they only targeted government facilities and transportation rails, but they came to attack civilians as well over time. I couldn't bear to deal with it anymore and left. It's sad to see what the White Fang has become.

Since leaving, I've found myself always looking over my shoulder for an assassin. Leaving the White Fang nowadays is enough to have that happen to you. Every faunus I meet could either be a friend or an enemy. Dealing with this sort of problem really messes with your ability to trust others.

I thought that I could sort of make up for what I'd done as a White Fang member by helping out local communities. Sometimes my appearance would be met with hostility, and other times it'd be met with indifference. I eventually started to wear a bow that covered my ears. You can only deal with so many of the same questions or pointed accusations after a while.

This all brings me to one of the most significant stops I'd made. It was during one of my searches for signs of struggle. I found it in a small town that probably had a population of around fifty people. You could tell from the very first glimpse that the place had been struggling. The houses were spread apart and built from whatever they could find. One house looked like it'd been built from wood, plaster, and rocks. It was the strangest combination of building material I'd seen. My sympathies grew as I walked further in and saw malnourished people peeking from the cracks of their homes.

"Who are you?" One of them asked.

I looked and saw a frail man staring at me. The skin on his face looked like it was starting to melt off his skull. His sunken eyes stared at me, frenzied.

"I'm...a visitor," I said hesitantly. I knew I stood out from these people, even without being a faunus. I was better dressed and appeared healthier. It made me start to consider bringing some worn out clothes next time I entered a town like that.

The man continued looking at me. I could see his eyes scanning every part of me, searching for something.

"What happened here?" I asked.

The man curled his nose and stepped away from me. "Why do you want to know?" he asked. I could hear the strong distrust in his gravelly voice.

I looked over at the miserable looking homes and the emaciated people living in them. These people needed help. I just didn't know if it was the kind I could give.

"I want to help," I said.

The man's nose curled even more.

"Got any Lien?" he asked.

I looked down. I did have some, but it probably wasn't enough to make any difference.

"Thought so," said the man. "There's nothing you can do to help. Now go away."

He started to walk away before I gently tapped him on the shoulder.

"You trying to kill me?" He shouted, extending his arm to grab me.

I easily dodged his grab and held him back with my hand. His bony chest breathed in and out as I held my palm against it.

"Look," I said firmly. "I was just wondering if there were Grimm or something else threatening you. Maybe I could do something about it."

The man continued to struggle against my arm, gnarling his teeth at me as he attempted to overpower me. He soon gave up and took a deep sigh.

"Yeah," he said glumly. "There's a Grimm around here."

He looked up at me without lifting his head. "You a Huntress?"

"...No," I said weakly. I didn't have the certification that said I was one, but I felt that I had enough experience to be considered a rookie.

The man smirked at me. "You really need to get your prissy self out of here and stop bothering us."

I let go of him and he started walking away again.

"No!" I shouted, surprising the man and myself. "I can fight."

I reached behind my back and pulled out Gambol Shroud. Its blade was probably nothing special. I'd built it from pieces of scrap I'd found near an abandoned Schnee Dust Company facility. None of this mattered to the man, apparently. He looked at my weapon with admiration that I'd only seen on children.

"What is that?" he asked with his mouth hanging open.

"It's a weapon," I said bluntly.

"I can see that," he said, "but it's different from others I'd seen."

"That's the point. Gambol Shroud is a multi-purpose weapon."

The man nodded at my words and then looked back at me with much less admiration.

"So you think you can fight Preta with just that."

I put Gambol Shroud away. "Preta?" I asked.

"That's what we call it," said the man. "We were already struggling to survive out here. It only got worse once Preta came along. Damn near ate all our houses entirely, and it brought more Grimm with it. Other Huntsmen have come here and failed to win against it."

The man moved closer to me and took a more careful glance at my gear and clothing.

"You don't even look prepared," he said as his eye continued to stare at Gambol Shroud. "I think you'll be dead before you even get close to it."

I stared straight into his eyes. You could see just how strong his doubt was in them. This was someone who'd had all the hope and drive taken from him. All he had left was pessimism, and plenty of it to spare. I knew I was guilty of being quite pessimistic myself. It always seemed like things were only getting worse no matter what I did. I even told optimistic people that they were being silly, yet here I was thinking I could change a community by fighting Grimm.

"I think I can manage to pull a surprise or two," I said while walking past the man. "I've been in many situation that you would probably call impossible."

The man scoffed at me. "Every kid with some fight in them thinks they can beat the impossible. You just happened to be a little more lucky than the others."

I looked back at him with a smirk. This guy was surprisingly witty, given his limited living conditions.

"I'm not going to jump in there and fight it now," I said. "Every attack needs a strategy behind it."

"Sure you will," the man chuckled.

I ignored him and made my way over to the area past the cluster of homes. It looked like there was a lot of barren land beyond them that remained untouched. I didn't know for sure, but my intuition told me that the Grimm were most likely settling there. These people were probably afraid to move beyond the area because of it. I knew that getting rid of it wouldn't solve all the problems they had, but it would certainly be a good first step. I took a deep breathe and ran to the untouched area. My thoughts wandered to my past whenever I went on one of these investigations. They usually went towards a Faunus by the name of Adam. I met Adam when he was younger and less cynical. At the time, Adam had been inspired by tales of former White Fang members who had organized strikes that forced local governments to pass legislation aiding the Faunus. He wanted the same results and began his own group known as the "Black Claw." They were mostly composed of younger faunus who engaged in protests and catchy slogans.

Adam's optimism came to a halt when one of his closest friends turned out to be an informant. There were speculations that Adam was going to merge the "Black Claw" with another prominent faunus group at the time, and that concerned the authorities. They bribed the informant with lien and a position in their ranks. He took the bribe and turned on his friend and mentor. The next day, Adam found himself attacked by armed authorities. They snuck into the place he'd been staying in as he slept. They killed two of his comrades and managed to catch Adam unprepared and unarmed in his bed. He managed to fend them off, but not without sustaining serious injuries. There was an awful gash in his head that exposed part of his skull.

I spent hours healing him up as best I could, wondering if he'd even live.

"Why do you do this?" I asked him while wiping the blood off of him. "Is getting killed worth all this?"

Adam silently turned his head and looked at me.

"Because I wanted a better tomorrow," he said. He struggled to speak and strained every word he said. "That's what I thought, anyway."

I wasn't sure what he meant by that at time time. I should have known that those words were the start of his gradual shift. Time went on and Adam became increasingly cynical and paranoid. He made it an obsessive habit to kill anyone who left the White Fang, believing that they were government spies sent to assassinate him. It hurt to see him lash out at people who trusted him, just because he felt they were turning on him. I was victim to a number of these outbursts, though I told nobody about it. It's funny how you can see yourself as strong while struggling to face the problems in your life. The scariest part about all this was that I could see myself reflecting some of his own behavior. Sometimes I wondered if it would be a matter of time before I ended up like him.

I stopped my train of thought as soon as I reached a checkpoint in my investigation. There was an awful stench that made my eyes water. Being a faunus means that my senses are particularly sensitive to certain things, and that includes smell. The stench was awful. I could feel my stomach turning with every step I took closer to it.

This had to be where the Grimm lived. No human could produce something so foul and gut-wrenching. I took more steps to the area and that's when I found it.

The Grimm resembled a very large human, probably would have stood to be seven meters tall if it hadn't been lying on its stomach. I quietly walked closer to it, finding its smell harder to take in.

It had long and stringy arms that looked like they'd been torn open. In fact, most of its body looked like it'd been torn open. Sometimes the Grimm would moan loudly, and Grimm that resembled giant flies would emerge from those holes. I couldn't take the smell from it anymore and turned around to throw up. It felt kind of relieving to feel all the disgust pouring out of my body as I felt it flow through my throat and out of my mouth.

There was a shifting sound behind me. The Grimm had noticed me. It raised one of its skinny arms and then the next, using both to pull itself up. I stepped back even more as it stood at full height, towering over me. Chunks of food fell from its torn stomach as it looked down at me. The face on this Grimm was probably the most human I'd seen. You would have probably considered it human if it hadn't been for the bony Grimm patterns that covered half its face.

I knew that fighting this thing head on wouldn't get me very far. Gambol Shroud came out just in case, and I immediately began to run away. I heard a loud moan behind me and the sound of obnoxious buzzing. It'd unleashed more of those fly Grimm. They were flying above while making that awful sound. I had no choice but to briefly turn around and attack one of them. There was a ribbon I had wrapped around my arm just for this kind of incident. I tied it around the trigger of Gambol Shroud and let it go wild against those hideous Grimm. One of them burst open and spilled yellow pus out of its body before evaporating. I felt some of it land on my head and almost fainted from the overwhelming stench it emitted.

The other fly Grimm turned around after seeing my cut its companion open. I probably ran for three minutes, but it felt more like thirty. I'd seen some unusual Grimm during my time with the White Fang, but this was one of the most grotesque and unusual. It certainly posed more of a challenge than the occasional Beowolf did. I looked back at the distant area where the Grimm had been and then back at the town. These people probably lived similarly to me, experiencing a life where they couldn't be too sure if they would even live the next day. Knowing this made me more determined to do something about the Grimm. The only question was whether or not I even had a chance against it.