"This is your fault, Blake." Adam's voice echoed in her head as she sat up and looked around, breathing heavily before looking around the room and realizing she was home. She laid back down and just looked at the ceiling before checking her scroll. It was already past noon. She forced herself out of bed and quickly put her coat back on.
She walked out into the dining room where her father was reading something on his scroll before he looked up towards her. "Ah, Blake, good to see you're awake." he smiled and pat the spot next to him. "Your mother made you some breakfast."
Blake looked to the table to see a bowl of oatmeal and pouted.
"Look, I may be the Chieftan of Menagerie, but that doesn't mean I can't let my daughter miss out on some much needed fiber." he chuckled as Blake sat down and started eating. "You used to pout just like that when you were little."
"Dad..." Blake was feeling embarrassed now.
"What? I mean I could have easily spoken about this to your friend." Ghira took a sip from his tea.
"Where is Sun anyway?" Blake asked as she poured herself a cup of tea.
"He went to get groceries with your mother. He seemed really eager to prove himself to me." Ghira explained as he stood up. "I suppose I have been a little harsh on him. But I mean isn't it my job as your father?"
Blake let out a sigh. before standing up and walking over to her father and hugging him suddenly. "I'm sorry."
"Blake..."
"I'm so very sorry, Dad." she apologized. "I'm sorry I left home, and I'm sorry I was mad with you and I'm sorry I never even called back home when I left the White Fang." she sobbed into his shoulder as he hugged her back.
Ghira took a deep breath and hugged her back. "It's alright. Why don't we talk about it? I'm sure the village officials won't be too grumpy if we use the lounge for just a little while." he lead her along with him now as she wiped her face dry.
Sun and Kali were wandering about the market and Sun was notably holding a crate that Kali was just filling to the brim with things. "Oh! I almost forgot!" Kali grabbed a couple of large tuna fish and added them to the crate. "It's for Blake's favorite dish!" she smiled as Sun finally fell over with the crate, thankfully not tipping it over as Kali then picked it up with relative ease.
"And here I thought you were a hunky strong man that wanted to be with Blake." Kali chuckled.
"W-What?! N-No, it's nothing like that Mrs. B!" Sun assured.
"It's okay, you don't have to hide it." she shook a hand with a chuckle.
"It really isn't though." Sun scratched the back of his head. "I just figured Blake needed a friend to look out for her, ya know?" he then looked and saw a White Fang recruitment poster on a wall and ripped it off of the wall. "Is this for real?"
"The White Fang serves as the guard here in Menagerie. Think of it like Atlas's Military." Kali explained. "We almost had our own academy established here, but we unfortunately didn't get the support nor the proper resources to construct it."
"I see..." Sun looked down.
"Most of us here on Menagerie just want to live peaceful carefree lives. We don't want conflict here. It's actually rather nice than being out in the rest of Remnant." Kali looked at a few things a fruit stand had.
"Even if it's really crowded to the point of not having elbow room?" Sun asked as a couple of children shoved past him and as he attempted to lower his arms a man brushed past him. "S-Sorry!" Sun apologized as the man huffed.
"Yeah, even then. It's still more peaceful here than any other Kingdom." Kali reasoned as she then saw something that caught her eye. "Heads up!" she tossed the crate back into Sun's hands as he again struggled to hold it.
"H-How does she do this?!" Sun lamented as he could have sworn out of the corner of his eye he saw the glint of something, but it wasn't clear enough for him to make out.
In a nearby dark corner stood Ilia, camouflaged and taking pictures with her scroll.
Blake and Ghira sat in the town hall's lounge where there were several couches, a coffee table and various decorations hanging from the wall. On the coffee table was the tea tray that Ghira had brought from the dining room.
"Blake, you can continue wherever you feel like. The day you left us, the day you left the White Fang or the day you joined up at Beacon." Ghira assured her as he put a hand on her shoulder.
Blake took a deep breath as she looked to the cup of tea she brought with her. "Well. I suppose I should just tell you that everything you think you know about what the White Fang is up to now, is probably wrong."
"I'm inclined to believe you, sweetie." Ghira assured her.
"Adam isn't the man I thought he was. You were right about him." Blake leaned back on the couch. "He was clearly just hungry for power... Though it felt like more than that when I encountered him at Beacon." she shook her head. "He wanted nothing more than to make me suffer. He... He even threatened to destroy everything and everyone I love. That's why I ran." Blake confessed. "It's my fault my teammate Yang lost her arm, it's my fault Adam even went down this path, and it's my fault that I didn't listen to you."
"Blake. We all make mistakes." Ghira looked to her. "But it's when we learn from those mistakes that we grow. I don't believe you made the wrong choices. Sure you made some mis-steps along the way. But your heart was always in the right place and your mother and I don't blame you for running off."
"But Adam and everything he did." Blake wiped more tears from her eyes.
"Adam was an interesting case." Ghira took a deep breath. "When he joined us, he was hurt and in all honesty he never stopped hurting. But the day he killed his first human, something in him awoken that I tried to quell. Sienna however, encouraged it and eventually self defense turned to intentional murder. It's what made me step down from the White Fang. Sienna was winning favor and taking influence with her more violent methods. She actually was getting results too and I couldn't fault them."
"Dad, you didn't have to quit though." Blake put a hand on his shoulder.
"Believe me, I didn't want to give up on the White Fang. But the moment Sienna took over from me, I knew that I had no support. When she had the most support, I was threatened to step down and being the pacifist I am, I stepped down." he confessed.
"So that's why you left."
"Yes. It had nothing to do with me not believing in the cause anymore, but rather Sienna's ideology, and if what you're telling me about Adam is true then he's taken her ideology to it's most extreme and it's only a matter of time before he does permanent damage..." Ghira stood up.
"The White Fang was also just heavily involved in Beacon. It wasn't just a splinter group, it was practically the entire Vale Branch." Blake added.
"So it isn't just a splinter group like the Albains said. This is bad." Ghira shook his head. "How could I be so complacent." he rubbed his temples.
"Dad, don't beat yourself up." Blake insisted.
"Why shouldn't I though? I've become the very thing that I swore I wouldn't, I've become a coward."
"Dad, if anyone here's a coward, it's me." she pressed. "I ran away from all I had at Beacon and ran right to you. I... I probably brought all the danger to your door as well." her ears flattened against her head before suddenly the door opened suddenly and in the room entered Sun and Kali.
"C-Can someone please help... Grocery crate... Heavy..." Sun was about to fall over but, Blake immediately rushed over to help him get the crate into the residential section of the town hall.
Ghira looked over to Kali with a serious expression. She looked back to him and sighed. "I see you had a talk with her too."
After putting the groceries away, preparing and having dinner, the two younger faunus stepped out onto the Balcony out by the back of the town hall as the sun was setting now.
"You know Blake it's ridiculous that your parents can only use so little of the space here as their home." Sun crossed his arms.
"Well, my parents are modest like that." Blake admitted. "They wouldn't want to have the biggest house on the street while everyone else lives packed together. I mean relatively speaking they still have more living space, but they still try and live like everyone else."
"They do remind me a lot of you in that sense, Blake." Sun chuckled.
"Oh? How so?" Blake crossed her arms.
"Well I mean apart from the obvious stuff like appearance, they can be reserved like you, are very informative and can be scary when provoked, even unintentionally."
"What's that supposed to mean?!" she glared at him now as he chuckled nervously.
"Y-Yeah, like that." Sun took a step away but then Blake chuckled a little.
"You know, Sun there was a reason I ran away from everyone at Beacon." she looked down.
"Why's that?" he asked as his eyes scanned around the scenery, things were getting rather dark.
"It was because of what Adam said, because-" Blake was cut short as Sun suddenly pulled her downwards and put a finger to his lips telling her to quiet down.
"What is it?" Blake asked.
"Can't you hear it?" Sun pointed to one of her ears as she then listened in. Blake could make out whispering.
"I've lost eye contact with the target." a voice stated from the distance.
"Sun, this is bad." Blake noted as Kali stepped outside and saw the two huddled up under the deck she had a tray of tea with her as well.
"Oh? What's going on you two?" Kali asked.
"Shh." Blake put a finger to her lips and pointed to her ear and out back, signaling for her Mom to listen in as well out in the direction she pointed.
"Mrs. Belladonna has stepped outside, she's stopped for some reason. Has she spotted me? Should I fall back?" the voice asked as Kali then turned away from Blake and Sun. "I'll get your weapon, Blake."
Sun and Blake stood up and looked to each other before Sun briefly glanced over in the direction of the voice, finally spotting the camouflaged figure standing in the shadow of a palm tree, right on top of a shorter one.
The figure stood up now, realizing she was spotted.
"We have to go now." Blake insisted, jumping over the balcony.
"But your weapon!" Sun pointed out.
"No time!" Blake looked up towards him. "You have your's don't you?!"
"Well, yes." Sun let out a sigh and followed after her in pursuit of the camouflaged figure, removing his staff from where it was holstered up his shirt.
Blake jumped and bounded off one of her own shadow clones, now pursuing the figure onto a roof as they then took out a weapon from their belt and slashed out with it, the weapon being an electric whip.
Blake had a clone take one of this figure's hits before trying to close the distance as the figure then slashed out at a pipe on the roof, in front of Blake and blinding her with a mist while Sun, with his staff in hand charged in and hit her, slamming her back into another pipe as Blake then stepped out of the fog.
Her mask fell off her face, shattering on the ground and revealing it to be someone all too familiar to Blake. "Ilia." she glared as Ilia then aimed her rapier-Whip out at her before feeling around her pocket for her scroll.
"Looking for this?" Sun smirked, holding it up.
"Give that back!" she demanded now as Sun then threw it to Blake, who caught it while Ilia lashed out her whip at him. Sun blocked it with a spin of his staff and made an attempt to attack her again, however she instead dodged and aimed for Blake.
Blake rolled out of the way of one attack and uppercutted Ilia, knocking her backwards as Sun then attempted to poke her with one of the ends of his staff that she rolled back from to dodge before standing herself up again.
Blake put the scroll away into her pocket as Ilia grit her teeth in anger. "You should never have come back here Blake. We know you're here and soon Adam will."
"Since when did you take orders from Adam?" Blake stepped forward.
"Since he became the new high leader." Ilia smirked. "Of course that isn't public knowledge yet. But when it is the people of Menagerie will be turning to him."
"When did Sienna Khan step down?!" Blake demanded to know as Ilia took some steps forward.
"She didn't step down, Blake. A human huntsman killed her!" she lashed her whip out at Blake, hitting her and electrocuting her as she fell back to the ground, the scroll slipping out of her pocket.
Ilia picked it up with a smirk as Sun glared and rushed forward again. Ilia dodged Sun's attack quickly and threw the scroll up into the air while backflipping away from a downward swipe at her feet. She swung her weapon's whip form out again and hit Sun, knocking him to the side before catching the scroll.
"Adam will change things for the better." Ilia argued before suddenly two bright colored clones of Sun threw themselves at her and tackled her to the ground.
"How could you agree with him, Ilia?" Blake argued as she stood herself up.
"Because he knows! He knows what it was like! What my parents went through in the mines!" she yelled as she then stabbed through one of Sun's clones while the other vanished at the same time Sun's aura shattered and he fell to one knee.
"Ilia..." Blake stood up as she looked to the scroll in her hand.
"We're done here." she stated as she took a step back from Blake.
"No..." Sun leaned on his staff. "You're not getting away with-" he raised his staff up to attack but suddenly his heart would be struck by Ilia's weapon extending out as he then fell over to the ground, motionless.
"SUN!" Blake screamed out, rushing to his side as she then glared up at Ilia.
"Goodbye Blake." Ilia stabbed her weapon into a pipe that cloaked her escape in a mist.
Blake turned her attention to Sun. "Please not again... Please..." she held his hand up as she took out her scroll to dial for help when she realized that the scroll that she had wasn't her's. "Ilia's scroll..." she took a deep breath but then dialed for help with it.
Commentary: So this chapter wen't a bit differently, namely in that combat exchange but also the talks Blake had this chapter. Don't worry, she's not gonna be as dismissive or rude to Sun as she was in the original.