Chapter 20: Intervention

A/N: Yep, this is Blake's POV in third-person. This is where the next big part of the story will begin, the climax of the story as you can say.

And readers, if you have time, please vote on this story on Inkitt. Tomorrow's the deadline, so any support would be appreciated.

"Go, go, goooo!"

Ruby's battle cry began Blake's climb over a white edge. When her feet hit the deck, she rammed into all of the nearby WF soldiers with Semblance-made speed. When she reverted back to her tangible form, fading shadows and bodies littered the entire surface of the ship.

The Faunus raised her Scroll next to her ear. "My side is clear. How is everyone's?"

Different replies came from Ruby and Jaune. The Faunus looked over at the other ship parked in the water not too far from the one she was on. When she heard footsteps, the cat looked over to see her current team arrive to her spot. More explosions in the distance came from the warehouses that were on the nearby dock.

Jaune had his scroll next to his ear as he requested, "Nora, is everything okay?"

The phone blew out an explosive noise, an answer from the hammer-wielder who was busy doing her job. An insane laugh came after as, "We're okay, just breaking stuff here with Weiss, Neptune and Yang. Everything is getting blown into pieces!"

Nora's testament held true as a warehouse's roof blew up into pieces. Screams and shouts erupted like a volcano, making the current structure a hodgepodge of hell for those on the enemy side. Another explosion rocked from the neighboring boat likely caused by Sun, Pyrrha, and Ren.

"Alright, let's do a quick recap," Ruby announced as she placed Crescent Rose into its gun form. "Caelum told us these two ships have all of the prisoners onboard. It's our job to free them from the White Fang."

Blake nodded as she remembered the details given to everyone once they all gathered at the warehouse where they first met Caelum. It was then that she realized their mission to the docks was a treasure trove of the answers they were looking for regarding the White Fang activity. Prisoners acting as testimonies and informants were the start of something more into stopping the anti-Human group.

Jaune shared similar thoughts by adding, "Let's also find a room on the ship that will hold the soldiers. We need several of them so the right people can ask them questions about the White Fang."

"That sounds like the brig." Ruby covered an eye with one hand. "It sounds like we're going to be pirates today. That makes me the captain commandeering this ship."

"Then call me the King of the Pirates!"

The loud exclamation made everyone turn to see Caelum standing near them with a wide smile. Blake was the one to already ask, "What are you doing here? We already said you can't come because it's dangerous."

"That was before things got worse. Did you not see what happened over there?" The child aimed his finger at the dock's building that had walls burst into flames. The sounds of battle also carried on into another structure where cries of new victims began. "Your friends are getting a little out of hand, especially the one with blonde hair. She's way too hyper."

"That would be my awesome sister," Ruby admitted with a proud voice. "Her hype train is caused by the energy she gets from every damage that is dealt to her strong body."

Caelum didn't appear that impressed, more confused. "So the more she's hurt, the more power she has? I guess Aura works as defense, but what if Nullstone or Aura cancellation gets in the way?"

"We're low on time, so save the questions for later." Blake noticed the ship's entrance opened to let out several soldiers. Before she could act, Jaune slammed his sword down to let out a Luminous Shine that blew the bodies away and into unconsciousness. The Faunus noticed the Arc lad's eyes held both resolution and an unknown darkness.

"She's right. We need to move." With sword in both hands, Jaune looked over at Ruby and gave her a comforting smile. "Since you're in charge of commandeering, go on ahead and find the brig with Caelum. I'll find the control room with Blake, if she's okay with it."

The Faunus nodded as she figured the blond boy presented the best possible pairing. Ruby did the same and excitedly ran towards the entrance. "Come on, last one there is a rotten egg."

"There's no point when you're the speedy one!" Caelum suddenly ran when Ruby disappeared inside. "Wait, that's not fair! No Semblances allowed!"

Blake almost smiled as the young Faunus showed signs of his age. When she faced Jaune, all amusement went away as the lad's eyes were back to being narrow.

"Jaune, is everything alright?" The concerned question was answered by the boy's sudden run through the ship's iron door. This left the Faunus as the only one conscious on the deck.

A few seconds was all Blake needed to finally register that Jaune just ditched her, an action too erratic for someone like him. With a mix of annoyance and worry, the cat quickly ran inside. When she found two hallways leading in different directions, she remembered Caelum noted the right one should have led to the control room.

After some venturing, she eventually found another corridor that had doors on its walls, all open to reveal there were nobody inside. The mess indicated the original occupants were in a rush to get out. The blood stains gave the second insight that aggression was involved.

Careful of her surroundings, Blake eventually heard the sound of battle in the distance. Within a few steps of approaching it, the noise abruptly stopped. The Faunus hastened her steps and hoped Jaune's reckless actions didn't get him killed.

"Hey…here!"

Blake heard a voice in her head, but couldn't ponder more on it when she made a new discover. This finding involved a hallway full of WF soldiers lying on the ground. Unconscious or groaning, all of them were alive. However, Faunus didn't expect Jaune to have made such progress in a short amount of time.

"Hello, right…Help!"

This time, Blake searched for the source of the voice as she stepped on a body.

"Right there! Can you hear me?!"

The Faunus got off of the groaning body. She followed a hunch and turned the soldier over to find a white necklace on the floor. She realized this was the same accessory that Jaune wore out of nowhere one day.

"Finally, you…me! Wait…me up!"

Despite the broken words, Blake understood the message. The moment she picked up the necklace by its string, she heard the same voice sigh with much more clarity than before.

"Much better. Now would you kindly deliver me to Jaune, who's gone batshit bonkers?!"

The Faunus frowned at the sudden use of profanity from this strange item. "And what exactly are you supposed to be? Or is the jewel being used as a medium for your voice?"

"Yeah, I'm a suicide hotline receiver giving advice on how you should live your life. If you know how to use it, you would do as I ask and send me to that dumbass!"

Blake dropped the necklace and walked on as she didn't have time to argue with a trinket.

"Wait…sorry…I'm…worried…Jaune!"

The Faunus sighed when she heard the broken apology. With slight regret, she quickly picked the necklace back up before making her way to the next hallway.

"Okay, good. Now, I'm sorry because things were a little rough between me and my stinking master. It doesn't help that he just chucked me to the ground after our little spat. By the way, we're also using telepathy for our conversation, so you could talk with your mind."

Blake felt uncertain about the part where she could talk to the necklace with her mind. This stopped when she entered a hall that had White Fang members gathered at one of the end. Every of those heads turned while their hands held guns that clacked at ready.

"Look, there's one. Take her down!"

Blake quickly gripped her blade and stepped back with help from Semblance. This created a clone of her image that was made of hard earth that blocked the incoming bullets. She quickly took cover behind the statue and from there, accurately fired to make every shot hit.

"Behind you, it's a camo bitch!"

Blake quickly kicked the statue towards the group to distract them so she could aim her back at that direction. She jumped away as a statue of flames took her place just as a shimmer slammed its blade into it. The fire clone exploded right as Blake finished off the gunners from earlier. The cat looked back to see that her assailant became visible right while the cape that cloaked him turned off from a malfunction with its camo function.

"Nice hustle. I shouldn't take favorites, but you're definitely one of my top five girls."

The Faunus tried not to feel irritated as she moved over the unconscious gunners so she could run down a flight of stairs. At the bottom, she found a gray, spacious room that was eerily empty. Her attention came upon the door at the room's end that had the sound of clanking metal and bumps coming from the other side. Several yelps served as the evidence that Blake needed to see she arrived at this destination after Jaune.

"So…I know who you are. Figures this is a good time for me to say my name is Lou, nice to meet you."

"You should explain more on how you know who I am and what your connection is with Jaune."

"Later because what you need to know is that Jaune's become a douchebag. The nerve of that prick after all I've done for him!"

Blake only rolled her eyes as she figured Lou was being intolerable. Despite the jewel's concern for the Arc boy, the Faunus didn't give any trust when a talking necklace was one of many bizarre elements she's seen in her life.

Gunshots and screams abruptly rumbled from the room. Fully alert, Blake had her gun in one hand while her second rotated the door's circular latch. She peeked inside to see she arrived into a grim situation.

In a white room full of large machines, Jaune was at one end with shield up as the floor below him was filled with bodies of WF soldiers except for one. This armed rogue at the other side had an arm wrapped around a crying woman who wore red clothes over her copper skin. The detail that made Blake furious was how this red-haired hostage had brown, dog ears, the same ones set near the spot that was targeted by the barrel of a gun.

"You better stay back or the bitch gets it!" The lone, masked enemy dug his gun deeper into the woman's temple. "If the two of you let me outside, then I'll let the lady go, so move it! All of you brats!"

"How could you lay a hand on your own kin?!" With her own gun up, Blake made slow steps around one machine to block any escape for the hostile soldier. "She's one of the people you're fighting to liberate. Using her like this goes against your mission!"

The man became frantic as he aimed his gun down to shoot a round into his captive's leg. This only made the woman cry harder as her leg ran with blood from its wound. Blake stopped in her tracks with every sense of her being telling her to kill the hypocritical asshole.

"You little shits are so stupid! My lady friend here is about to bleed out, so if you two don't move it, then there's no point in being the heroes, is there?!"

Blake knew this was the truth. However, she also knew the enemy would lose his sole protection, the one Faunus that held her back from tearing off all of what made the soldier both a Faunus and man.

"Okay, we'll do what you say." This surrender from Jaune surprised many, especially his fellow classmate. "Just drop her off at the door when you get there. My friend is going to move for you, so don't do anything rash."

Blake couldn't decide if the blond boy's decision was right. This changed when she heard Lou remark, "Jaune just asked for a recovery skill. He could restore her wounds and since you're the only one with a gun, it's better for you to take the shot. Capiece?"

The brunette didn't even need to ask as she took aim at the hostage's shoulder and fired. While this made the woman scream louder, the shot pierced through enough to hit the soldier behind her in the same area. The pain surprised the captor enough to lose his grip and drop his hostage.

Hurt and without his insurance, the WF member raised the gun that was on his good arm. With a defiant shout, he was about to fire until the sharp tip of Jaune's transparent sword made by Arc Save stabbed into him and disappeared. With no Aura, the soldier couldn't even scream as Blake appeared in the air above his hunched form and fell to slam her knees into his back.

On the floor after a loud crunch, Blake began her brutal beatdown. "You hypocrite, you don't deserve that mask if you turn your back on your own race!" Despite her fury, the girl did her best to only leave bruises as she remembered she was a Hunter before an avenger. With one more punch, she made sure the soldier was unconscious before she stood up and turned to find the hostage in Jaune's, glowing arms.

"Please talk some sense into this little puppy. Holy Dust, just because that bratty brother said what he said, Jaune thinks he needs to get himself hurt while playing the big bad hero."

"So Jaune's reckless behavior is coming from his talk with Caelum?" Blake's mouth remained shut as she kneeled down to see the wondrous sight of wounds closing from Jaune's procedure. "Was Caelum so harsh that Jaune feels an obligation to have this mission finish as soon as possible?"

"Harsh? The little bastard said he's okay with what happened!" Lou's revelation left the Faunus with questions she accidentally laid out in her mind for Lou to collect. "But you know what, you should ask him without mentioning you know about me. After he almost killed himself and wouldn't consider your help, he's shit out of luck asking anything more from me!"

Blake was almost convinced that Lou's anger was related to a wrong Jaune committed. She decided to find out herself by asking, "So how is she? Is she alright?"

"She's fine, just unconscious from the pain." With a despondent voice, Jaune laid down the woman whose body appeared better than before. "I'll go on ahead and see if Ruby and Caelum is okay. There might have been less guards down there, but it's always better to be careful."

Blake pulled on the boy's shoulder to make him stop. "No, we need to talk. So far, you've been displaying too much focus on working alone. Why couldn't you consider accepting my help and rushing through all of this? You should know better when you're the leader of a team."

When the Arc lad didn't say anything, the Faunus decided she had to take a different route. "And I'm not blind, Jaune. This happened right after you told Caelum about Aqua's death. Did he push you into action?"

"No, he didn't." With a heavy sigh, the blond teenager got up and walked away towards the door. As Blake followed, she heard, "But what he said did give me a reason to move. Really, how can anyone think it's normal for a kid to say he was okay knowing his sister might never come back? He even said it with a straight face...he even said she would never have blame me for this."

Outside in the huge, spacious room, Blake recognized the despair in Jaune's words. "So this isn't about any blames, but forgiveness? What reason do you have to be reckless then if it would only trouble everyone who's concerned for you?"

"I did it because I just realized we're not saving enough people! If anyone knew how to do things right, none of this would have happened in the first place!"

Jaune's face suddenly became enraged in a way that shocked even Blake. This expression only remained for a moment before it changed into sadness. Unfortunately, the anger was still present as the boy's hands were shaking because of his imprisoned indignation, the rage that was slowly consuming his soul.

Only the Faunus could have believed this as there was someone else who lived with such a dangerous emotion. To explore her observation, she remained firm when gently asking, "So you're taking it upon yourself to end this quickly, even if it means placing yourself at risk?"

"No, because I still need you and everyone else to do this right." Back to being calm, Jaune glanced back at the room that had the unconscious woman there. "But we rescued them way after Aqua did her thing. This happened way after Caelum accepted that he may never see his only family again. This happened…when I couldn't do anything about the riots back when all of us were still on that playground together."

Blake noticed Jaune raise an open hand. With palm facing up, a small ball of white Aura formed. Unlike the demonstration she's seen back before Jaune gained his fame, this one had a more solidified look to it with lines crisscrossing all over its surface.

"Aqua's death…Caelum's lost love had me realize if I'm going to save more people like them, I need to get more experience and power. The only way to get them is not to rely on those stupid simulations at school. The real lessons can only come from fights like the one we had."

Jaune gave an eerie smile that sent chills down Blake's spine, one that was simple, yet underlined a crooked soul. "And it's great that I found a way to unlock my potential. When I'm fighting with this power to take out the threats, I grow stronger every time. This could really help me…get rid of the world's evil. Nobody would ever have to be sad anymore."

Blake frowned as this moment showed her why she felt the need to console with Jaune about his emotions in the earlier part of the day. It wasn't just because of sympathy and a naïve wish to see innocence remain in the boy. It was more related to the fact that she wanted to rid the factors that would make the boy become similar to someone she knew.

While the difference was as night and day, Blake could see over Jaune a faint image of the crimson flower painted on the back of the black coat belonging to Adam Taurus. She didn't care much for the physical details, more of how her former mentor and Jaune were two beings shaped by the most troubling, convoluted times that would have broken normal people.

Blake's former mentor; however, was a man set in his ways. The worst part was how the Arc lad could also become a living embodiment of rage that relied on violence as an answer for every conflict.

"Blake…I kind of changed my mind. Can you try and see if you can get that anger out of him in a way I couldn't? didn't see it before until now, but the kid's…broken from everything. You can at least find some sympathy to consider helping him, can't you?"

Blake did along with the uncertainty that she could reach out to the boy this time. In fact, the thought of dealing with another Adam was intimidating because the older Faunus was always the stronger influence.

Yet, this didn't stop the Faunus from stepping towards the boy as he made his Aura ball vanish. When close, she raised her hand to have its flat end strike Jaune's face.

"Ouch, what was that for?!" The Arc lad complained as he took several steps back.

For Blake's part, she felt her own hand sting as Jaune's Aura unconsciously came up to deflect some pain of her attack. Keeping in mind of this reflex for later, the cat crossed her arms to show her annoyance. "That was for being a selfish bastard, Jaune. You're clearing trying to act like a man when you're really no better than a child."

As the brunette's words confused the blond boy, Lou cried, "Oh yeah, give it to him girl! You slapped the bitch, now force the bitch out of him!"

"I'm…sorry? I thought that's what we're supposed to do as Hunters." Jaune scratched his head with a hand as if he was trying to understand. "What I said is just part of growing up stage."

"No, it's not," Blake said as she furiously shook her head. "You only told me about a desire that could take you down a dangerous road. It's fine to be strong, but you can't have it centered around violence."

It was Jaune's turn to show anger, but not in the manner that resembled Adam's. "That doesn't make sense. How else do we get better? The Grimm is definitely not our main problem right now. Beacon isn't even teaching us how to handle situations like this, only teaching us how to fight a bunch of stupid beasts in a talking lecture."

"Those lectures might not be as good, but they're still building our foundations so we could be great in morals as we are in strength!" Speaking in a volume equal to Jaune's, Blake didn't falter in maintaining a sad, yet peaceful face. "What you don't see is that you're trying to make a perfect result from all of this."

Jaune shook his head as if to deny what he heard. "I'm not trying to be perfect, I'm trying to help everyone…I'm just trying to become a hero."

"And that is the fallacy, Jaune. Heroes are expected to be perfect. When you add this with an impossible mission like becoming the people's salvation, you'll only make things too difficult to where only the result matters more than the process."

The Arc lad suddenly presented the same face that made Blake see Adam once again. Even his voice was the same growl as he asked, "And what if the result matters more? What if I end up right and you're the one who's in the wrong? You can't say that when…when you're not me."

Blake instantly appeared in front of the boy with a shadow. She used a single hand to caress the boy at his cheek with her eyes staring into his. Despite known as a romantic gesture, this was common amongst those of the Faunus culture to give relief for those embroiled in an intense emotion like the one Jaune was in.

"I know because I've seen this happen. A man I admired for being strong became a monster worse than the Grimm." The cat pulled Jaune in so she could end her cultural gesture with a full hug. "His sadness became his reason to become angry at the world. When it's happening again with a friend…all I want to do is end the hatred."

"A friend…you're really calling me a friend?"

Blake almost smiled as she remembered Velvet asked Jaune the same question days ago. Spending time with the Arc lad had her realize she really did care to where she tried to help him. This reason might alos coincide with the fact that she wanted to succeed in where she failed when Adam was with her.

Pulling back, the Faunus said, "I can say that because while you're still eccentric, there's goodness and maturity in you. Maybe it's fine for you to be goofy as well since it is a part of you."

"I guess it has been a while since I've been like that." Jaune's nervous laughter showed he was calming back down to a more lax behavior. "And…maybe I was overdoing it. Gosh, I feel like such a jerk. Can you forgive me?"

When Blake nodded, she inwardly sighed to see her talk somehow brought the old Jaune back. However, she was slightly worried that there was a piece of Adam that could be found in the boy. She was wary of how often this persona would turn up when she is and isn't there.

"Nice, thanks for being such a pal, Blake. Now, I heard your culture has this thing where a really strong person gets to have several partners. Is that true in this century? I know the White Fang is doing it for the stupid reasons, but you seem like-."

"Here Jaune, you dropped this on the way in." Blake immediately presented the Arc boy with the necklace that was Lou.

"Oh, thanks." When Jaune took back his heirloom, the Faunus realized there was no voice inside her head. She kept it in mind that placing some distance from the jewelry was the only way of keeping her inner thoughts safe from Lou.

Suddenly, loud footsteps rang across the huge floor. Blake and Jaune reached for their weapons as they noticed the sound was coming from a large person. This newcomer wore a ship captain's uniform lined with the muscles of a bodybuilder.

"So you two lovemates were the ones making all this ruckus on the S.S. Wild. It looks like it's up to me to finish the job here."

The newcomer's body began to grow in size. Even as Blake fired her gun, the bullets bounced off the target that eventually had its shadow cover the teenagers. The young Hunters prepared for the coming battle just as their new enemy spoke in a way that could have mistaken him for a giant.

"As the captain of this ship, it's my job to throw your corpses overboard for trespassing. Once that's done, we'll be happy to take any capable hands as our new slaves!"

A/N: This is where a lot of things will happen. Hope everyone gets excited for the next chapter that will not come as fast, but will definitely not take more than two weeks (since I have a life as well).