chapter 1.
As Blake Belladonna dashed through the forest with Adam Taurus sprinting ahead of her, she promised herself that this would be her last job she did for the White Fang. She believed in making a difference, but not like this. Not by following in her compatriots footsteps and losing herself in the hate that drives this rebellion. After sliding down the hill and deftly landing on the train car, she watches as Adam performs the same action, albeit with much less grace, evidenced by him digging his blade into the roof of the car. While Blake had initially wondered if she could pull this off with minimum difficulty, her hopes were tarnished when the when the robotic security around the train begin to awaken.
"Looks like we're doing this the hard way." Adam states this plainly, his grip on his blade tightening slightly.
"Don't be so dramatic." Blake retorts, taking this time to asses her next move as the robots demand identification from them. they got their answer in the form of a sword's hilt colliding with the head of one of it's own before Adam deftly catches the blade and slashes the robot in half, sheathing his sword in one fluid motion. Blake takes this time to follow suit and spring into action, making short work of the knights in the cabin through use of her clones and her partner's assistance.
Their fight moves outside on a flatbed as more of the atlasian knights come flooding in from both sides. She moves in synch with her partner, all done with ease brought on by years of fighting side by side. It made her heart heavy to think that she would betray his trust like she was planning to, but she had already resolved to her choice. As the last one fell, they move on to the next car, which contains the shipment crates, all of which have the Schnee dust company crest labeled on them
"Perfect, move up to the next car, I've already set the charges." Adam states after checking the crates' contents. Blake stops at this, knowing and dreading the answer to her question already.
"What about the crew members?" She asked, hoping for one last chance to install doubt within Adam. However, even before she got the answer, Blake already knew what he was going to say, reaffirming that her choice tonight was going to be the right one.
"what about them?" the calloused man answered, with no time to argue or elaborate the car shook as a large four legged spider tank fell from the ceiling, now demanding their attention. Off put by such a large machine targeting them, Blake calls out Adam's name quitely. In response to this, the red-haired man rushed the machine with Blake right behind him. However, before any of them can make any real damage, she is almost immediately sent recoiling by the head of the machine while it also kicks Adam away from it.
As Adam flies past her, the leg that kicked Adam away was then poised to crush her. Still recoiling from the blow she endured, she had no time to react as the leg flew down to her, ready to smash her flat. However, just before this happened, Adam, who had recovered from the blow he endured rather quickly, proceeded to grab her and get Blake out of the mechanical leg's range.
"We need to get out of here." Blake tells Adam once she gets back up, motion towards the door behind them. However, it takes her another moment before she realizes something else has caught his attention. The spider-tank had planted it's legs and combined it's weapons to fire off one powerful and large attack towards them.
In response to this, the leader of the White Fang quickly stepped in front of Blake before drawing his sword. Blocking quickly, Adam's blade managed to take the brunt of the blow and leave them with little to no damage, albeit not without sending them both flying outside and onto the next flatbed. The robot quickly follows them outside only to be assaulted by Blake, now tasked with buying the swordsman time. Using her agility and clones in tandem, she does everything in her power to be a complete nuisance to her attacker, however, when it begins to charge up the same attack from before, she quickly leaps back behind Adam, whose posture is braced. When it finally fires, he uses the edge of his blade to capture the energy of the blast before immediately sheathing it, seemingly intending to capture it's power. Since it's energy shot failed, the tank proceeded to leap towards it's target, now intending to crush him. Taking this all in stride, Adam took the chance to draw and strike with his blade in one swift horizontal movement cleanly slicing the tank and two and causing the red trees to shake around him due to the power behind that strike.
However, Adam's concentration was thrown off when he felt Blake suddenly bump into him. Looking towards her, he was about to tell her to keep setting up the charges, but any words die in his mouth when he sees the cat faunus looking at something behind the wreckage of the robot with a look of unease on her face. Following her eyes, he sees that she was looking at a single man in an Atlas military uniform. Somehow, the man had been observing the entire fight with the robot without either of them noticing… Adam hadn't even sensed his presence until just now.
The man was dressed in atlas military issue garments from head to toe. White boots, white slacks, and a black long sleeved button up shirt underneath a white vest. Hanging off from the entire ensemble is a white military coat. His face was hidden as he hadn't turned to address them, though they were more concerned with his slicked back snow white hair, a known trait of the Schnee family, and the long O-katana held behind his back lazily, letting the yellow ribbon on it's sheath fly in the breeze.
'The report didn't say that there would be somebody guarding this train personally… this wasn't part of the plan.' Blake thought as she looked at the white-haired stranger with narrowed eyes, trying to think if she missed anything in the report they were given. Her gaze moves over to Adam who walks up and seems to see nothing but another foe to be cut down. Her hand on gambol shroud tightens as the man turns around, hands becoming unclasped as he brings his own weapon in front of him. She tenses slightly as her analytical Gold orbs meet cold blue ones. Adam breaks her out of her cautious approach by yelling to the man over the roar of the train.
"Well, this is a surprise. Since when has the Schnee's ever sent one of their own to protect their cargo?" He spat, sizing up their new opponent. In response, the man merely scoffed at Adam's words before turning back around, clearly not intimidated by the fellow swordsman.
"...Am I being ignored?" Adam growls, his hand on the hilt of his blade, ready to slice this man up for his blatant disrespect. However, before he could make the first move, Blake's hand on his shoulder stops him.
"Adam, let's just go, this wasn't part of the plan." She whispered to him quietly, her yellow eyes never leaving the white haired man. In response, Adam merely brushes her hand off his shoulders before stepping forward. "Change of plans Blake, assassinating this Schnee bastard is our top priority now." And with that declaration of war, he sets off at a breakneck speed towards the white-haired man.
The moment Adam passes the man; he draws his sword, hoping to end this confrontation in one swift strike. However, the sound of metal cutting metal resonating through the air leaves Adam shocked for a split-second before hoping back two steps.
The man says nothing, does nothing but stand there; his katana now unsheathed. It seemed that the moment Adam executed his strike; his opponent performed a similar move to counter him. Now facing them, the man took a deep and calm breath as he sheathed the blade, now taking a good look at the red head's mask before he looked towards Blake. Taking advantage of his momentary distraction, Adam rushes towards the man once again, signaling for Blake to back him up.
Blake pulls up Gambol shroud and peppers the air with gunfire. The man draws his sword once more, spinning it like a propeller and deflecting the rounds that Blake fired to Cover Adam's approach. As he gets within swinging distance, he draws wilt and swings it faster than the eye can follow before the deafening sound of blade clashing with blade rings out through the area. Somehow, the man managed to track and deflect Adam's blow like it was nothing before sheathing his katana and adopting a similar stance to his opponent. Blake's eyes widen and she instinctively flips backwards to dodge the blade of the man, who in a split-second managed to decrease the distance between them.
Upon realizing this, Adam turns around quickly and rushes forward all the while, giving a nod to Blake, whose eyes narrowed in response. Understanding her partner's silent request, she throws her weapon into the air, swinging it in large arcs that forces their opponent to back up and duck to dodge, unknowingly bringing himself directly into Adam's range. Stoic as ever, the redhead draws wilt once more to slay their adversary, only to be stopped when the man, his eyes narrowed in annoyance, suddenly kicks onto the hilt of the blade, forcing it back into it's sheath. However, Adam counters this by pulling the trigger on blush, launching the sword from it's sheath and sending the man flying to the other side of the train cart. However, the enigmatic swordsman takes this all in stride, regaining his balance mid-flight and landing on his feet, his back to his opponents.
"We need an opening…" Adam thinks aloud, staring down the white-haired swordsman, who has sheathed his katana once again, his posture confident and proud. However, Blake, who still feels this entire encounter is unnecessary, takes this opportunity to speak up.
"Adam, we accomplished what we came here for, let's just go already." She states, however, it's clear that her words fell upon deaf ears when the look on Adam's face clearly indicates he already came up with an idea. He pulls his blade close and prepares for one more moonslice. "On my signal…blow the charges."
Blake's eyes widen in shock for a moment before narrowing "You'd kill all those people just to kill him?"
"Those people are the enemy, and I'd kill all of them for a chance to kill a Shnee." He looks at her from the corner of his eye behind his mask, still focusing his semblance while their opponent waits patiently. As Blake holds the detonator she thinks if this is the last one… that if she does this, then she can be free from all this and repent for what she's done… she truly wants to make this right, but to do that, she needs to leave. Did she really believe that she owed the fang, that she owed Adam that much?
Her hesitation gives Adam all the time he needs. Now glowing with his condensed power, he readies himself before reaching over to Blake's hand and looking in her eyes. Blake silently thanks him for comforting her and understanding that this was difficult for her.
However, it's only just after this thought goes through her head that it's immediately proven to not be the case. with a squeeze of her hand over the detonator, a click resounds throughout the train as the charges spin up and his hand whips back to his sword, eyes locked on his victim.
Blake's eyes widen in horror as the next few moments slow down for her, the explosion rocking the train cars behind the Atlesian, him being thrown off balance from the sudden explosion. Adam uses this to advantage and strikes, with the swordsman only able to raise his arms in defense. As soon as the redhead strikes, a shimmer of aura appears over the man's chest for a split-second before blood begins to spill out of his arms and chest and he's sent flying into the wreckage of flaming carts behind him. Satisfied with his work, Adam turns back to Blake, only to be shocked into silence by what he sees.
Standing on the next cart is Blake with tears running down her face. Before Adam can even attempt to stop her, she shakes her head and raises gambol shroud.
"Goodbye…" And with that tearful farewell, Blake slices the coupling in half, allowing the part of the train she's standing on to keep going and effectively separating her from Adam. The redhead can only watch as his former teammate escapes from view around the mountain blend. So full of anger and hurt from what he just witnessed, he is none the wiser of the bloodied and burnt figure climbing out of the burning wreckage behind him and walking away from the stopped train carts.
The man grumbled to himself as he walked deeper into the red forest. With his current outfit now ruined and his previous means of transportation now gone with that girl, it becomes apparent that he's in for a very long walk from here on out…
((Hope you liked it!))