Blood is Red Like Roses
The first thing they heard were the screams.
Sharp and almost deafening after so much time with the muted noise, they echoed throughout Beacon interspersed with the unmistakable report of gunfire and explosions. Tacet's fallen halves faded into wilting rose petals before they'd even struck the ground, whirling away in a silent storm of death befitting the assassin. Behind the cloud of petals, Ruby stood horrified, frozen with her eyes locked onto Adam's. Blood, hot and bright splashed across her, so vibrant against both her pale skin and the metal of her scythe before it, too, peeled away into petals and vanished away.
It was as if Tacet had never existed.
Adam's lips parted, but words refused to form. Ruby's horror was reflected in his own eyes, though for far different reasons. The arctic cold of reality sank in, and it became all too clear that even though he afforded himself rationality in his fury, it was not enough to think his actions through. This was not how it was supposed to go. It was so simple, at the time: a killing in self-defense would be neither as scarring nor as horrid as slaying him in cold blood no matter how much he deserved it. Ruby was not supposed to get so close. She wasn't meant to...
He caught himself just as his hand began to shake. No. He could not show weakness, not after what he had done. The blood on his blade long since faded, Adam slowly sheathed it and stood tall above Ruby. It was now that the source of the screams truly sank in: he was wrong about his former belief that it was an assassination attempt solely on him and his team. This was a greater assault... and yet, there was far less chaos than he would have anticipated.
"Ruby, find somewhere safe for Yang and Weiss." She had begun trembling, now, eyes shining bright and gleaming with the beginnings of tears while she tried to stumble back. His words were falling on deaf ears. Frowning, he stepped closer over their assailant's 'resting place' and grabbed Ruby's shoulder. "Ruby!" She jolted, eyes suddenly darting everywhere as if she had just regained her hearing, as well.
"Listen to me: you need to get Yang and Weiss somewhere they cannot be harmed. JNPR should be awake, now. Go to them, and remain out of sight."
"Y-yeah, alright. I'll bring them to JNPR and join back up with you."
"Wrong!" He snarled louder than he intended, and Ruby winced. "You've done enough, here. This was my mistake." Adam turned away and his aura pouring into his senses, searched for the closest battle.
"This is my fight too, Adam!" It only made Ruby's complaint louder. "It might be your old allies but this is our school!"
"But it will be your life at stake," He bit back.
"Don't you think I know that! I... I'm a Huntress-in-Training, and as team leader I think I can decide whether or not I want to do my own job." Adam turned back to reply, but Ruby already cut off his inevitable counter: "Even if I have to fight people who only want to kill us."
"... You're not ready." Adam's voice was as weak as his retort. Even so, the halfhearted response was enough to have Ruby's eyes burning with determination.
"I don't need to be protected." They were burning with tears, as well.
"I beg to differ—"
"This conversation is over!" Ruby's shout actually left Adam shocked into silence. As if it just clicked who she'd shouted down, Ruby fumbled with her words for a moment before continuing on: "We... we don't have the time to argue, a-and I am the leader. As the leader, I am ordering you to help bring Weiss and Yang inside, and then both of us will be helping Beacon!" She folded her scythe and carried it under her arm as she walked past Adam to pick Weiss up.
"A... a leader must be ready to defend their position if they want to keep it." Adam's grip on his blade tightened at Ruby's words. His mouth was drawn into a fine line, eyes narrowed at Ruby while he tried his hardest to make himself unreadable. "And if you're questioning me, then I'm not gonna leave anything left for you to question."
Though his mind roared at him not to listen, without a word, Adam relented and dragged Yang up. Normally, he would've been proud to have his words thrown back at him like this: for Ruby to learn what it meant to be a true leader. But, right now, he was the last person he wanted Ruby to learn from.
It was only as he and Ruby dispatched a third group of White Fang soldiers that they realized this was only the beginning of an even greater attack. The gunfire and shouting had escalated more until it felt like there was a full-on war inside of Beacon's borders, and one of three sides: Beacon's own students, the White Fang and, to Adam's surprise, his own class, bearing their black armbands proudly. Being faunus themselves, however, it made them appealing targets to the more spiteful of their human peers. Ruby had to prevent him from turning on the ones he was trying to protect more than once.
Now, rose petals trailed behind them both as they raced across the rooftops of Beacon for more people to save.
"I don't get it, why are they doing this?" Ruby shouted as they paused on the edge of a building and scanned the area. The attacks were spread out far, where small trails of smoke rose up almost anywhere they turned. Adam narrowed his eyes and gripped his blade tighter. This happening immediately after taking down Torchwick, embarrassing the White Fang and stopping Cinder did not leave many possibilities.
"Retaliation. Cinder could not directly link our attacks to being against only her, not enough to make good on her threat without the risk of us having not actually been targeting her. That happens, it's war."
"Isn't it war, already?"
"Not the kind that she knows would've happened if she killed Blake without reason. It wouldn't be this clean." Muffled shouts came up from below them. Adam knelled down and placed his hand on the roof, stretching his aura out to its limits to pinpoint the sounds.
"It's a brawl. At least ten on one side... five on the other." A stifled cry was cut short. "Four. Go through the windows, I'll take the roof entrance!" He sprinted off towards the rooftop door, leaving Ruby to strike from around the side. Adam sliced the door down and barreled through it, bounding down the stairway three steps at a time. He came to a stop in front of a long, familiar hall: it was another dormitory, filled with the scent of blood. Ruby's shout echoed through the dorm's halls as the lights flickered, and the sounds of battle began anew beneath him.
"I thought they said there'd be no sound!" A woman's voice drew Adam's attention to one door in particular that looked like it was kicked down. He brought his hand to his hilt and crept closer, ready to strike down any Fang member who stepped out. Adam cared little for collateral, even less for assassination and destruction wrought down on those who oppressed the faunus... but, to come here and murder teenagers—students—in their beds? Even he drew a line, somewhere.
They would live if they were lucky.
Another student was thrown out of the room, crashing against the wall and leaving a streak of red as he slumped down, groaning. He wasn't dead, but, consciousness was slipping from him. Adam narrowed his eyes: he seemed familiar, somehow, yet he couldn't put his finger on it. However, when a broken, metal staff was haphazardly thrown at him and a girl with dual short swords stepped out from the door, he remembered.
Her cheetah ears twitched, and she turned to face the new intruder, the pale mask of the White Fang gleaming on her face.
Adam snorted. "Well, isn't this an unpleasant surprise." The girl was joined by two other new recruits: both, Adam could recognize from his class. They said nothing, only staring on. "What's wrong, cat got your tongue? Is there a reason why I find my 'students' assisting on an attack on their own?"
"They're not 'our own'!" The girl hissed. "Those humans are anything but, and tonight we're going to teach them and all of Vale just that!"
"By assaulting the..." The part of him that still sympathized with the revolution refused to let him call the human he saw getting ready to assault that very girl long ago 'innocent'. "Students of Beacon?"
"They knew what they came here for: if they want to die supporting a regime that oppresses the faunus, why wait until they graduate?"
Adam scoffed. "I taught you better than that, Chiffon."
"You taught us to stand up for ourselves!" Chiffon stomped her foot and motioned to her surroundings. "This is exactly what we're doing! We can finally do something without needing to go through this stupid academy training our enemies just as well as us." The girl let out a sigh and looked up with a saddened smile. "Maybe you can't understand because you're a human, but, we have to make our way as faunus somehow, even through fear."
She was an optimist, Adam could clearly see. Someone who was sick and tired of being stomped down by the human ruling class and decided to fight tooth and nail for the mere possibility of equality. It was something he still sympathized with and understood. He let out a mirthless chuckle and tapped his horns, so easy to see as merely dyed hair from afar.
"Human. Right."
The three recruits slowly lowered their weapons in shock. With a nervous laugh, the cheetah faunus walked towards him. "W-we just assumed... Ha! This... this is great! We would've told you if we knew you were one of us! Please, Adam, I'm sure Captain Almond could explain everything better than we could: you'd be invaluable to us!" Her steps slowed as she noticed his hand drifting towards the hilt of his blade.
"I know. I was one of its leaders." The three recruits froze. Adam snorted. "There is no point in trying to hide that fact from you or anyone else in the White Fang. Ask Captain Almond himself if you do not believe me. Ask him about Major Taurus." Though he could not see their eyes, Adam could feel their confusion and fear.
"Why did you leave?"
"Someone close to me made me realize I was leading it down a path of destruction and hatred." Silence filled the gaps, interspersed with short bursts of activity and shouting from below as Ruby's fight came to an end. They were running out of time.
"... Hypocrite," One of the faunus beside Chiffon whispered. When Adam's eyes fell upon him, rather than be cowed, he gained more courage. "You're a hypocrite! How could you teach us to stand up for ourselves as faunus while you ran from your own revolution and hid under that damned hat! You tell us to fight for what's right, and then try to stop us from our joining our only chance at equality while you pretend to be human? While you hide from what we face every day! Why should we listen to a word you say!" He shouted. As the last grunts and thumps of unconscious soldiers echoed through the floor, Adam stared down the snarling, livid new recruit of the White Fang, and realized something.
He was right. As much as he wanted to pretend that, in time, he and Blake would return to change the White Fang, that objective felt further and further away with each day. The White Fang would be all they'd have... no, is all they have: there would be no way for them to return to Beacon, now. Not with witnesses of their attacks. Adam looked down at his sheathed blade.
He'd surrendered his own authority over the faunus when he abandoned them.
"I taught you to use your strength, not fear, to force humanity to treat you as equals. Perhaps, you will learn why I told you that." He clicked his blade open and drew from his own aura to build up his Semblance and create a crimson glow around him. The recruits shakily rose their weapons.
"But, right now, you are all dead." Wilt lashed out in an instant, drowning their sight in red. He sheathed his weapon just as quickly, as not the recruits, but the wall beside them collapsed into rose petals, and the world returned to normal. "I have now killed you," Adam spoke casually to the shocked trio and began walking towards them.
"I will inform the Headmaster of your unfortunate demise at my hands. You will be free to do what you wish," Stunned and confused, they shakily stepped out of Adam's way as he walked past them. "But, you must promise me this: if the White Fang has sunken to the level of humans, you will leave immediately." They blearily nodded. Optimists, all three: they likely had not even the slightest clue what path they were on. "Good. Now, escape. You don't have much time."
The three had barely escaped through the ruined wall when Ruby threw open the door at the far end of the hall. He'd been so willing to sit back and watch the White Fang, yet besides just stopping their schemes, he never tried to take them back. He never tried to give the faunus another way out... and while he hid under the mask of a human, no less. Foolishness.
Once this was over, there would need to be changes made to his morning class...
High above the miniature war in Beacon, Headmaster Ozpin glared hatefully down at the plumes of smoke and heat outside the windows of Beacon Tower. Glynda was already dispatched to fix this horrid mess, but, he had believed that was enough when this was only one attack, not many. Exactly how the White Fang managed to get this far without him so much as hearing a single crack of gunfire, Ozpin did not know. Right now, that didn't matter. His students, his people were dying because he could not keep them safe.
He flipped his grip on his cane's silver, embellished handle so that he could hold it like a rapier, its secondary handle curling over his fingers perfectly to be a guard. Ozpin gave it a test swing out once in front of him, and looked back out towards his academy. The White Fang needed to be reminded why he was the Headmaster, here.
Ozpin slipped his fingers over the trigger guard and pressed it down.
Ruby and Adam had just made their way back up to the room when a blinding light erupted from Beacon Tower. Waves of light and aura emanated from the tower, stretching out across the sky and dyeing the heavens a brilliant emerald. The clouds darkened and began to swirl above the tower itself, turning it into the eye of a storm. Lightning crackled and jumped between the clouds before Ozpin's voice boomed out from all directions.
"I am Ozpin, Headmaster of Beacon! You, White Fang, dare to assault my academy? You will abandon your futile assault and surrender at once!" Even this far away, aura crashed down onto Ruby and Adam, the former bringing her hands up to her ears, and the latter resisting the sudden urge to kneel from the pressure. The voice, so commanding and filled with a barely-hidden fury, sounded only faintly familiar to the two. It was nothing like the headmaster that they knew.
"Is that really the headmaster?!" Ruby called over the roar of air and thunder: both had noticed that the fighting had come to a very abrupt halt.
"You have been led astray and brought into a battle that you can never win! Lay down your weapons, and you will be shown mercy!" Ozpin chastised them. The very air itself began to grow green with power exuded. Mutterings and cries of alarm began to spread across the campus, yet, somewhere, they heard shots fired once more. Without warning, a explosion of green energy lit up the night from that direction, leaving sparks and pops of light even after it vanished. All was quiet once more.
"Do not mistake my mercy for weakness! You have two minutes to make your decision."
Above, Bullheads of both Vale and Atlas crossed the emerald clouds as black splotches of paint and pale streaks of white against the sky. The gunfire stopped completely. It was unlikely that the assailants wouldn't run and simply allow themselves to be captured, but this skirmish, this Battle of Beacon, was over. Just like that. To see such influence and presence used to halt an entire battle was surreal, and utterly unimaginable. Somewhere in Adam's heart, however, he felt dread at the fighting finally being over.
Adam looked over to his side, where Ruby was staring solemnly off in the direction of their dorms, no doubt thinking the exact same thing. She trembled.
Now, they had to face the aftermath.
Ozpin released the handle, and the skies began to fade. He sighed softly to himself and flipped his cane back down to support him. Trembling slightly from exertion, he needed it, even on the short walk over to his chair. The skies had just begun to lose their color when Ozpin dropped down into his chair, and the elevator doors opened.
"I don't know what kind of defenses you think you have, Ozpin," General Ironwood was shouting before he even got one foot out of the door. "But it's clearly not enough! That is twice, now, Ozpin. Twice! Two days in a row where our security has been compromised by her forces!" He stormed towards Ozpin's desk, seemingly determined to outdo his own performance a few minutes prior in sheer anger.
"I have things under control, Ironwood," Ozpin tried to reassure him, but to no avail.
"Under control? We are being made fools of. It is clear that if we do not show her what we are capable of then she will continue to walk all over us! Maybe you are content with having your Academy be seen as weak but I brought my army here for security."
Ozpin gritted his teeth and bit down a much more spiteful retort. It was all too easy to burn bridges after getting a rush of power like that one: he ha to make sure it did not get to his head. "If we act too quickly, the only thing we will be capable of is frightening the city of Vale, and I think you know what that will bring."
"With all due respect, Ozpin, it's clear that she doesn't need the Grimm to threaten us. She still has the faunus, just as she always has."
"And with all due respect, Ironwood, the Grimm are and always will be her main weapon. Let us not waste countless lives from 'collateral damage' by instilling fear when we can instead better discern her true plan. Even the pawns cannot be sacrificed haphazardly."
Ironwood opened his mouth to reply, but his Scroll suddenly rang. Frowning, he looked down at Ozpin and, upon getting a nod of permission, answered it. Seconds passed, and he began to pale.
"What? Missing?!" He whispered and walked off towards the elevators. In the brief times Ozpin could see Ironwood's face as he paced to and fro, it'd looked like he had just been told one of his bases was attacked without a single survivor. The headmaster frowned, wondering just what was worrying him so greatly. He got his answer when Ironwood turned back to face him, all emotion wiped clean from his face.
"Tomorrow, I will be sending the Atlesian military to Mountain Glenn," He stated as fact. "We will eliminate the tendrils she's spread there and show her who the leaders of this world are."
"I don't believe our populace would take hearing of a military expedition stomping around our territory particularly well."
Ironwood grit his teeth and walked forward until he stood just at Ozpin's desk. "I have served you faithfully for years, Ozpin... so, just once, I expect you to trust me."
He cocked an eyebrow. "Ironwood, is there something else that I need to know?"
"What you need to know, Ozpin," Ironwood hissed, "Is that your students were not the only ones assaulted by these faunus terrorists. You can sacrifice all your pieces here at the Academy, but, when one of my students are harmed, I will stop at nothing to fix what is wrong."
Ozpin tapped his fingers against his desk a few times, then sighed. He could not, in good conscience, either let one of Ironwood's students suffer for his mistakes or allow him to shatter the trust between their two kingdoms so easily. "And just who is this student?"
"Penny Poledina. She's been kidnapped by the White Fang."
A/N: Admittedly a slower, smaller chapter, but, I just could not think of much to fill it without dipping heavily into the next chapter. This one will unfortunately have to suffice as a resolution and a little bit of the buildup of the next one.
Comment and criticism always welcome.