Chapter 37: The Cost of my Mistakes

Adam was never one for redemption. He knew when he made a mistake, and he bore the pain of the consequences to a fault. After the Fall of Beacon, after his encounter with Anton, he was given the chance to rethink his life. He did everything in his power to form what the White Fang used to be, a peaceful, nonviolent, revolution and not a Militia. He gathered all of his followers and gave them the choice to stay or go after he explained what was happening and why he was changing everything. Most had left after telling him the higher ups will kill him for this betrayal but none dared to strike at him, for they knew what he could do. Those that stayed, stayed because they too were tired, tired of the struggle and risking everything they had for just a small chance at peace. Through the years he gave his life to fight what has become of The White Fang, he knew the price he had to pay, but he never knew what he would have to pay after everything was over and done, but he didn't care. He was ready to pay whatever price he had to in order to bring honor back to his name and to reform The White Fang.

Adam found himself standing before the unlikely group that would help him do just that as they landed in New Vale. Ruby Rose, Nora Valkrie, Jaune Arc, and Lie Ren, little did Adam know that these four would be the ones to help him as he helps them. It was clear to everyone that Nora and Ren were an item now with how close they were, even when they didn't show so obviously. Jaune has spent his time morning, grieving, and moving on from Pyrrha, it was hard on him but Adam has done what he could to help the boy move forward with advice, sparring, or a night out drinking. Ruby though, she seemed angry, as if the whole universe was against her. If the Fall of Beacon had an impact on anyone so deep and scaring it was on her. Adam saw she tries to be a leader but she has one problem if any besides her anger. She never follows, she never listens, and she doesn't take orders. Adam tries to help all of them but he knows he can only do so much. With Anton MIA and the battle over there is nothing left but to finish his fight against his past and to move on with the world around him.

New Vale is where they are now. After The Fall and it's reconstruction the one thing that remained was The Grimm Dragon that stood frozen atop of Beacon Tower. The city was bright and brimming with life and people. The city shined like gold and it's streets built of obsidian, The Guard was replaced with Robots that became known as Emotional Xana Omnics or EXOs for short. This new series had humanlike emotions and feelings, they were friendly but they could put anyone in the hospital if they felt the need to. They were about as close to human as a Faunus was to a Human, they had their own souls and feelings, the only difference was what was shown on the outside.

Adam knew what he was doing in New Vale, but he didn't know why. He had received a message from Sun saying that he was needed in the city. He thought bringing Ruby and her crew with him would help them to ease themselves after everything that has happened. Ruby though, as Adam noticed, wasn't taking the trip all too well. She isolated herself from everyone, she didn't speak and she barely ate anything. Those rare moments she did come out of her assigned room in the airship she acted fierce and angry. It wasn't until now as they left the ship did a smile appear on her face. It wasn't because she was home though; in the distance walking towards the group they could see the feline that tamed the bull. Blake Belladonna, a face Adam did not expect to see ever again.

"BLAAAAAAAAAAKE!" Ruby yelled as she ran out to tackle her friend. Blake smiled as Ruby ran right into her shadow clone and tripped face first into the sidewalk.

"Ruby you really should pay more attention." Blake said as she helped her friend up and pulled her into a long hug. Ruby just smiled like a child as she embraced the hug.

"So I take it when Sun called about something urgent he meant you had something urgent?" Adam asked as the rest of the group walked up to them. Blake smiled as she locked eyes with Adam, or tried to anyways, he still never took that mask off, and for good reason. Who would want to see the face of a monster?

"Adam, yes I did, I'm sorry if it was too blank." Blake apologized as she and Ruby let go.

"Don't worry about it; we're here now so you can explain why we're here?" Adam asked.

Blake lowered her head and her bow floated down with her cat ears. She didn't know how to say what she needed to say, but she had to try for this matter was urgent.

"Adam we have some bad news; it'd best be explained at HQ." Blake said as she motioned everyone to follow her as she walked the city streets.

Ren however stayed still for a moment as a chill went up his spine. He turned around to see a shadowy figure there for a moment but after a car drove by it was gone. He looked around as fast as he could and watched it run across the roof tops. Ren was about to go after the figure when Nora called for him.

"REN YOU COMING OR WHAT?" Nora yelled as the group left him behind.

Ren stopped to look back at the group, he almost just ran off when he turned back to see the figure had disappeared. Ultimately he shook it off and ran to catch up to them. The so called HQ ended up being the Sheriff's department in the Downtown district of New Vale. The department was like any other you'd see in any modern day city, neat organized desks, coffee machines at every corner next to every water dispenser and cops … … … lots of cops. Our group walked over to one desk in the center of the department that had a name plate that was all too familiar with an all too familiar monkey. Sun Wukong.

"Sun do you have the info?" Blake asked. Unfortunately however Sun was fast asleep and wasn't paying attention to the feline.

Blake was at her tipping point with the monkey, Her rage for his laziness was about as tall as Mount Glenn before a dragon came flying out of it. Her dragon was just about to come out of this one.

"HOW CAN YOU EXPECT TO BECOME THE GREATEST DETECTIVE WHEN ALL YOU DO IS SLEEP!" Blake yelled as she slapped him awake.

"GAH! I'M AWAKE SIR! … … …" The group just watched as the scene played out. "Wait Blake, I thought you and Jarvis were in the Catacombs, isn't that why you had me call Adam and Ruby?" Sun questioned.

"That was two days ago when you called them, my god what have you and Neptune been up to besides sleeping?" Blake retorted.

"Is that a hint of jealousy I hear, well Blake if you wanted to sleep with me all you had to do was ask." Sun cracked as he slouched back in his chair. That earned him another slap to the face.

"In your dream banana brain, anyway we've got company, and they need the info we have." Blake stressed as she leaned into his face looking serious. Sun just smiled and rolled his eyes.

"Alright take them to the back room code 3596, I'll be there with the folders after I finish one last report." Sun said.

"Which report?" Blake asked. Sun just stared into her golden eyes with a smile.

"The theft where your stole my heart, m' lady." Sun cracked making Blake smile a bit as she placed a hand on his cheek.

"You Jackass." Blake said as she gave him a quick yet passionate kiss.

Blake then motioned for the group to follow her as she walked towards the back wall and turned left. When they entered the hall off door and Sheriff offices it seemed that more cops began to fill the halls the deeper they got. It wasn't until when they reached a big black door when an officer asked for IDs. When Blake showed hers' he let the rest of them pass without question. Ruby has been taking notes whenever she saw something odd. The officer letting them pass, Sun and Blake in a relationship, but now more importantly an empty room filled with darkness, the only light being a small lamp that hung above a table with about ten chairs.

"So when did you and the monkey get together?" Adam asked as they began to sit down.

"Not long after The Fall, he found me trying to catch Cinder and her lackies, after that he convinced me to stay in the city or what was left of it anyways." Blake explained as the rest of them found a seat.

"Yeah we ran into her parents, lovely by the way, had an overseas trip, never doing that again, and well went from there." Sun said.

While they waited Ruby found this to be an opportunity to pull out Anton's Journal to read and hopefully find more clues while Adam, Jaune, Ren, Nora, and Blake held smaller conversations.

Day 55

Something isn't right, Wrekts and I have managed to find four of those stones, I already had The Eagle Stone and it turned out The Alaber stone was a fake. Now we have The Eagle, The Bear, The Lion, The Serpant, and we just recently found The Stone of Death. I don't know why but I can't help but feel like someone or something is playing a game with us. Samuel got in contact with us recently Him and Forest are with Silvaki and The Assassins helping us search for them. He said something about a dark figure following them lurking in the shadows, it's moments like this I wish Jarvis was with us. He'd probably pull out a dusty old book and have the knowledge right there. But that was the only thing Samuel told me He found an old Temple of sorts that for whatever reason scared off his men, even Silvaki suggested they stay away from it and that's unusual for him. Silvaki prefers to go in guns blazing with a nice bottle of Vodka or something with a strong Alcohol percentage. Well there's nothing I could do about it at the moment, we are currently heading in their direction via train. Shade has some nice neighboring towns and all but when duty calls there's no time for a vacation.

Speaking of other kingdoms we were recently in Atlas, it was for The Lion Stone and it was supposed to be a simple extraction but we ran into a complication. The Stone was in Atlas' museum of wonders. We were about to rob the place when non other then the great Weiss Schnee Heiress to the Schnee Dust Company walked right in on us. Oh boy was she furious with us when she caught us, lucky for us though she was lenient and let us slip by with The Stone. I would say it was nice to see her again, but I could tell she wasn't happy with our escape plan.

Ruby wanted to read more but she was interrupted by the sounds of boxes slamming on the table. She looked up from Anton's Journal to find Sun opening a boxed with the word EVIDENCE written on every side as he pulled out small black files and folders and passing them around.

"Alright everyone, over the past few months we've been looking hard into this and so far we've come up with nothing until very recently." Sun said as Ruby picked up her folder. She opened it to find a picture of a blurry figure with what looked like wings.

"Why is this picture blurry, can't we get a clearer image?" Ren asked, placing his folder back on the table.

"Unfortunately we can't the traffic cams in the city won't get updated until Atlas decides to actually help out." That earned Sun yet another slap to the shoulder from Blake.

"Hey you know as well as I do that Ironwood is doing everything he can to get Vale the help it needs." Blake said.

"If that we're true lass, then we would've heard from him by now." Jarvis interjected as he entered the room.

"Well look at who decided to show up, how are the Catacombs Jarvis, find anything in there?" Sun asked as Jarvis sat down next to Ruby.

"I did in fact, I believe I found the last stop in which they would go, once they have found all the gems." Jarvis said.

"Which comes back to where we were before I was so rudely interrupted." Sun said. Blake rolled her eyes as she sat back down.

"The gems, we know Anton has The Eagle Stone which he got from Adam which he got from Cinder. So what are they and where are they are the questions people have been asking, and by people I mean every council in every kingdom." Sun started.

"Well we know that there are seven of these gems each one representing something from where they came from." Jarvis said.

"If that's true then how come Cinder found The Eagle Stone in a dust mine?" Adam asked.

"That would be my fault actually, see before I was a priest in a cathedral, I was just a wanderer, I was supposed to carry The Eagle Stone to Vale and drop it off with an old man, an Immortal like myself, Dolackbar, he's the keeper of these gems and hid them across Remnant to keep them safe. But I was attacked on my mission and I must have dropped it in those mines." Jarvis explained.

Ruby flinched at the mention of Dolackbar. He was an Immortal like Jarvis, but Jarvis was barely over nine hundred, so how old was Dolackbar? What was Jarvis' mission with the gems to Dolackbar, and why was it his mission? Ruby had so many questions but she just couldn't answer them, not yet anyways.

"Then what's with this picture you passed out?" Nora asked.

"Ah right of course, well this is our only proof that the lad has come home." Jarvis said.

"Wait you mean Anton is here, in Vale?" Jaune asked.

It was then the room became silent. If Anton was really back that could mean only one thing, something big was about to happen. What it was no one knew, and no one really wanted to know what it was. Our group took it upon themselves to start the search. The group decided to work in pairs for this mission, Jaune and Ruby would take the Downtown area, Ren and Nora would look in the upper districts, Blake and Sun would stay at The Precinct and poke around for anything on traffic cams, meanwhile Adam and Jarvis would look around The Catacombs.

"I see, so business time what's this bad news you had?" Adam asked.

Blake looked to Sun who nodded in response.

"Sienna Kahn and Grey Chartreuse have declared war against you and your followers." Blake said.

"And he called you out to a duel, he said something about Gahantra or something like that." Sun added.

Adams face shot up to Sun. though his eyes were covered by his mask his expression of shock and worry was clear.

"Gahantra, as in Gahantra Livande?" Adam asked.

"Yes." Blake said as she lowered her head.

"Hold on who's Gahantra Livande?" Jaune asked.

"Not who, what." Ren said.

"In ancient Faunus culture, Gahantra Livande was a duel to the death by two tribe leaders, the winner claims right to the fallen people and land." Blake explained.

"The winner also get's to claim the lover, children, and house of the fallen to himself to do as he pleases." Jarvis added. Blake flinched at his addition.

"Does that include ex-lovers?" Nora asked.

"Yes, let me put it this way to keep this rated PG, anything the fallen owns or used to own can be claimed by the victor." Jarvis mentioned.

"Can we just get to work before we lose any chance of finding Anton." Blake said as she left the room.

Everyone looked around at Sun who just sighed as he rested his hands on the table.

"Ruby could you go talk to her, please?" Sun requested.

"Um… … … shouldn't you, you're her boyfriend?" Ruby questioned.

"Just trust me, please." Sun said as he sat back down.

Adam looked at Ruby and waved his head as to say 'Let's go' and walked out the door. Ruby then stood and walked out with him. They began walking around Downtown District looking for Blake, while all the while she was long gone into the Main District. She sat at a bench on a bus stop staring at the ground deep in thought. She couldn't help herself but shed a small tear as she looked back at all of her mistakes that she could not take back.

"Well now isn't this a turn of events." Blake looked up to the sounds of a familiar voice to find none other than Yang Xio Long herself in front of her. "What up kitty cat?" Yang said as she winked at her friend.

"Yang!" Blake cried out as she leaped up and embrace the Blonde Bomb.

"Whoa, careful there I'm still waiting on my arm from Atlas, so my grabbing skills aren't the same, haven't been for three years now that I think about it." Yang mentioned as she returned the gesture.

"What are you doing here; I thought you stayed home at Patch with your dad." Blake questioned as she shoved herself out of the embrace.

"I was town so I thought, hey why not pay a visit to my friends if I can, but why did you storm out of the police department back there, did Sun hurt you, oh if he did he better run then."

"No Yang, Sun didn't do anything, Adam is in town and so is your sister and everyone else." Blake said bluntly. Yang cocked her head in curiousness.

"Okay isn't that a good thing … … … well minus Adam, I still got arm him for last time." This right here, this sorry excuse for a pun was all Blake needed to smile again and laugh.

"What I'm serious, he still owes me and I'm going to make him pay one way or another." Yang declared.

"No I know you but that has to be one of the worst puns you made." Blake said as she wiped her tears away. Yang chuckled a smile as she looked out to the sunset.

"Yeah I'm pretty out of it aren't I?" Yang asked herself.

Blake smiled as she looked to the sunset with her friend. It was nice to have most of the original crew back, they were still missing a few, but those who were here was enough for her. She looked down and began to remember everything that went right in their time together. But as she did this her thoughts drifted back to her mistakes. No doubt Adam himself was thinking about those same mistakes as he and Ruby walked the streets of New Vale. He found himself a drift as they walked away from the sunset into Central District where they found a fountain with a statue of Ozpin standing above the water. Though his mask hid it he was crying all the way as they walked, and Ruby though she could not seem him crying noticed something was wrong.

"What's up?" She asked as they stood in front of Ozpin's statue.

"It's nothing." He said. "I just need to sit down for a bit." He stated as he sat down on a bench in front of the fountain.

Ruby however walked to the fountain and clamped her hands together. She lowered her head and closed her eyes as if she was praying. Adam watched her stand there and he found himself thinking back to every mission he and Blake went on, every moment they spent together was like heaven to him. But now he found himself full of regret being here, regretting everything that he has done that lead up to the fall of Beacon.

"Ruby." Adam said gaining the girl's attention.

"Have you done anything you regret?" Adam asked.

Ruby stood there for a moment thinking about her life, every decision she's made, every outcome she's caused, she found herself scouring her memories only to find one thing she regrets.

"Yes." Was all she said as she walked over to Adam and sat next to him.

"If you could would you go back and change it, knowing that it could change what is currently known as now?" Adam asked.

"Yes." Ruby answered. "Because he would at least be here and things would have been different." Adam sighed as he slouched forward and clamped his hands.

"Unfortunately we cannot, we have to live with the actions we cause by our choices and with every life that passes and leaves, all we can do at that point is move forward and go on, no matter how hard it is." Adam stated like he knew what he was talking about yet somehow didn't.

"Adam, moving forward and going on, can only happen when we forgive what has happened, forgive ourselves, and more importantly forgive those who wronged us most. Forgiveness is the only thing that can truly heal any wound, but just because we forgive doesn't mean the scars aren't there, because they're there, they happened, but we just have to let go, forgive, and move on. I may not have that many regrets but this is something I learned from Anton." Ruby explained.

Forgiveness, that's what Anton has been trying to tell Adam back at The Fall. Something Adam has never been able to do is forgive those who wronged him and his kind. Only now is he realizing where that has got him, what the cost of his mistakes are, and what it'll take to win against Sienna Kahn and Grey. Forgiveness was something Blake already knew, but she could never forgive herself for joining The White Fang when it became the monster that it is, she never could forgive herself for never being able to save Adam and everyone else he's killed and harmed, for running away when she was needed the most.

"Yang." She said gaining the Blonde Bomb's attention.

"Yeah?" She asked back. Blake just gripped Yang into an embrace of sorrow as she cried once more.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry for running away and I'm sorry I couldn't protect you when I should've, I just … I'm just." Yang stopped her right there by patter her head.

"What's this I thought cats were the dominate ones, not the submitting ones." Yang joked as she smiled to her friend.

"But I… I."

"No stop right there little missy, I get it, you ran for whatever reason you had, at this point I really don't care anymore, You're back and you're not going to run away when danger shows it face again right?" Yang asked. Blake just shook her head.

"Good then that means you learned a lot in your time away and you got stronger. So you don't need to hear me say 'I forgive you' because I do." Yang stated.

"Yang I … I." Blake couldn't finish she just cried in her friends arm as the sun set and day turned to night. It took her this long to find solitude, no not solitude, closure; she could now forgive herself for everything she's done and move on forward to whatever life had to throw at her next.

But little did anyone know that what was next was coming very soon, and she lurked in the deepest and darkest parts of Remnant living in the pools of blood from her fallen enemies and using that to create her army of Grimm. She smiled as her army grew every day by the hundreds. Only did she stop gazing when she heard a knock on her door.

"Enter." She stated and the crystal door to her observing room swung open to a handsome man in elegant clothing and a mustache that would Professor Port run for his money.

"What is it Dr. Watts?" Salem asked as Watts walked in.

"I was just wondering what are we to do with the traitors?" Watts asked.

"Bring Cinder to me, leave her pets with Ozpin." She commanded and at the snap of her finger another man that was bigger and grimmer looking walked in carrying Cinder by her hair and dropped her on the floor in front of Salem.

"Leave us." Salem demanded and the two men left the room and closed the door behind them.

Salem walked around Cinder as she stood up before stopping at a small desk.

"You do realize why you're still alive right?" Salem asked as she opened a drawer.

"I don't care, you can't beat him or bait him to join." Cinder said as Salem pulled out a small curved knife.

"No I can't, not yet, but none the less I need him, he needs to pay for what he did to me all those years ago." Salem stated as she stabbed the knifed straight into Cinder.

"You're alive because I like to keep my toys around, that and I need you to get to him so that you can lure him here and I can make him pay." Salem said as she twisted the knife. Cinder let out a cry of pain as she tried to get away but found herself frozen in place.

"Do you now realize the cost of your mistakes?"