Hello! Here is another chapter, albeit shorter than usual. Sorry for the super long-ass delay. It's been very busy irl. That and my motivation for RWBY has been iffy. I didn't really like the direction they took for season 6 and that really sapped a lot of my interest for the series which had a domino effect on this amateur fanfic. That and the college work. Holy shit, having to take embryology and organic chemistry in the same semester is painful, and it will only get worse from now on... Anyhow, I did promise that I will see this through to the end or at the very least inform you guys if I am dropping this so... there's that. I hope you enjoy!
Team RWBY was sitting in a circle in the middle of the tent. Ruby was holding onto her favorite teddy bear as she spoke, "Okay. I now pronounce the beginning of the very first team cooperation and conflict meeting. The purpose of this meeting is to foster good relations between us and to help settle any grievances we may have with each other in a peaceful manner. Who would like to start?"
Weiss didn't skip a beat as she ripped the teddy bear from Ruby's hand and glared at Blake. "I would like our dear team member to explain THIS!"
Weiss then presented a blurry picture of Blake and an armored man facing off in a warehouse. The damning part of the picture was the corpses of what was obviously White Fang members. Blake started getting shifty, but Yang had a firm grip on Blake's shoulder to prevent her from escaping.
"Nuh-uh. You are not running away or I will have Weiss freeze your legs again." Blake clicked her tongue in annoyance. When Weiss was digging through the photos regarding Mr. H's crimes, she discovered a folder named White Fang Incidents. Within the folder, she saw Mr. H massacring White Fang members and someone who looked eerily similar to Blake. Blake tried to flee when confronted, but a quick use of Weiss's dust put a stop to her escape.
Afterward, the team RWBY began arguing and shouting over each other until Ruby put a stop to the fighting with a loud 'ENOUGH'. She then proposed a team meeting which was the current situation Blake found herself in. Knowing that the game was finally up, Blake decided to confess.
"Where do I even start?"
"At the beginning." The other three members of RWBY said at the same time.
"... So I am Blake Belladonna, daughter of Kalie Belladonna and Ghali Belladonna. My father is the chieftain of Menagerie." Blake paused as she looked over the faces of her teammate.
"Yeah. Yeah, I know. I've done background checks. Just move on with the story." Weiss interrupted.
"Weiss! Don't be so rude."
"Rude? Rude! Rude is hiding such..." Yang quickly blocked Weiss's mouth and stared at her.
"Enough." Yang turned to Blake. "Continue."
Ruby put her hands on Blake's lap and gave an encouraging squeeze. With a trembling voice, Blake recounted the early nonviolent days of the White Fang. How the demonstrations were brutally crushed. How all the passerby did not lift a finger to help. Even though the beatings were televised, nothing came. No protests, no movements. Only complaints of how the Faunus were 'disturbing the peace'. It was too much for many and the radicalization of the White Fang occurred. Her father tried to stop it, but in the end, it was futile.
The most prominent radical member and soon to be the leader of the White Fang was a mysterious bull faunus by the name of Adam Taurus. He led something of a crusade against the Schnee Dust company and was very successful. He would steal the dust to sell them on the black market with his prime customers being human mafia members. He then reinvested the money into the poor Faunus community. Soon his success drew in more and more until one day the White Fang was nothing more than another organized crime group.
At first, Blake was highly supportive of the change. They were actually accomplishing something. They were putting more food in the table of the impoverished Faunus. Faunus villages were now able to afford better housing so fewer children froze to death during the harsh winters. Menagerie was able to finally invest in better infrastructure and build a proper fishing industry. In addition, they were finally hitting back at the Schnee Dust Company the worst offender of the Faunus rights. Blake still shivered when she thought of the mines. How quickly the men could be strung up for looking at a human woman. How easy it was for a human male miner to rape a Faunus girl with no consequences. How due to the distance from the city, no Faunus equality laws were enforced.
Monty, she still remembered the tapping. During one of the missions, she had to infiltrate a dust mine to find out where the supply train depot was located. In the tunnels, she could always hear some sort of tapping noise over the whips of the human overseers. She managed to gain some insight into the tapping from a 12-year-old Faunus with eyes that have seen too much.
About three days ago, there was an explosion in the deeper part of the mines. Management was warned about the mismanagement of the explosives multiple times, but properly organizing the haphazardly stacked explosives would take time. TIme meant money. Thus, all reports and warnings were ignored. Then, the fated day happened. In the end, over 100 Faunus's were trapped in the deeper tunnels. Yet, humans did nothing to save them. No rescue attempts were made since any attempts would take time. Time meant money. Management simply deemed it more profitable to grab (kidnap) more Faunus from the slums instead. Any unauthorized rescue attempts were punished by whippings. Faunus was hanged for any repeat offenses and quickly replaced by other Faunus. Thus, the Faunus workers were forced to work in the mines with the tappings of their trapped comrades to haunt their nightmares.
Blake was simply ecstatic to be able to strike back at the Schnee for their crimes. However, the seeds of doubt began to grow in Blake the higher she went up the hierarchy of the White Fang. Was the White Fang any better than the Schnees? She will never forget the massacre when the human mafia lined up rival gangs in front of the wall and mowed them down with the dust the Faunus sold them. Not even the children were spared, and Adam watched the entire execution with joy in his eyes.
However, she stayed because there were no other alternatives. What was she supposed to do? No one else would buy dust from Faunus, and in the end, the White Fang was the only one to bring about any positive changes. Yet that all changed in a few years. Ever since General Ironwood came into power, the Huntsmen began to actually enforce any of the Faunus equality laws. Villages were finally being properly taxed, and corrupt officials were removed from power. In exchange, there was a call for Faunus to lay down their arms, for the Faunus to come back to the negotiating table to discuss the issues instead of committing violent crimes. In addition, Headmaster Ozpin declared that he would be increasing the admission numbers for Faunus applicants to ease the disparity between human and Faunus huntsmen.
While Blake began to see the good in humanity once more, Adam thought differently. He refused to lay down his arms saying that human words could not be trusted. If anything, he wished to escalate the conflict. At first, Blake went along with his belief, but more and more it became clear to Blake that this fight was less about equality between Faunus and humans, but more of a personal vendetta, a crusade against humans regardless of the costs. Realizing this, Blake decided to flee and ended up in Beacon due to Ozpin's Faunus program.
Blake closed her eyes and waited for the response her team would give to her story. She braced for the cold looks and the bitter words of a coward. After all, that was what she was. Even though she knew something was wrong, she did nothing. In the very end, instead of confronting the problem, she ran away.
Blake snapped her eyes open in surprise when she felt a hug wrap around her. Expecting to see yellow or red, she was surprised to see white. Weiss of all people was hugging her. She watched stunned as Weiss pulled back and said, "Sorry about jumping to conclusions. I assumed the worst when I should have tried to say stay positive."
"No. It shouldn't be you who should apologize. It should be me. I lied to all of you. I was too much of a c-coward, and I ran away..." Blake broke down in tears, and Weiss quickly handed a handkerchief to Blake who noisily blew her nose into it before handing it back. Weiss gingerly held the cloth by the edge and quickly tossed it away.
"Look. I really shouldn't be in any position to judge you for your actions since.. well.. you could say that I too was a coward when I refused to confront my father. You could even say that me coming to this school was a way of running away. I could have easily gone to the school in Atlas you know. I just... I had a feeling, but... Hearing the extent of how far my father went for profits... I wish I did something, but what could I do? Report my father to the authorities. Hah. My father bought out all the judges a long time ago... I think I understand why you always gave me those stink eyes. Heck, I'm surprised you haven't stabbed me in my sleep yet." Tears began polling at the edges of Weiss's eyes as she was forced to confront the ugly truth behind her father's shady business practices.
Blake chuckled at Weiss's words. "I may be many things, but I'm not petty enough to blame you for your father's crimes. I know that you had nothing to do with it. Besides, me giving you the stick eye... It was just because of your... err..."
Weiss's eyes narrowed. "My what?"
"your... bitchiness?" Blake and Weiss stared at each other until Weiss broke the tension by laughing.
"You're right. I was pretty bitchy at the beginning, wasn't I?" At those words, all of the team RWBY laughed as the tension drained away.
"Let's take a ten-minute break before we discuss the next topic. All in favor?" Yang proposed. All four members raised their hands, and Yang nodded.
"Great. I need to go sniff the flowers for a bit." Yang stretched out her cramps before leaving the tent.
"I'm gonna go rummage through the snacks. I'm kinda famished." There was a rush of air as Ruby rushed out leaving Weiss and Blake by themselves.
Blake opened her mouth to say something, but Weiss put up her hand. "If you are going to apologize again, don't bother. I don't care anymore. You had the courage to notice something was wrong and leave. That's good enough for me."
Blake snapped her mouth shut and slowly nodded her head in thanks. Weiss then suddenly thought of something and stood up in a panic. "Did Ruby just say that she was gonna go rummage through our snacks by herself?"
"My tuna crackers..." The two girls quickly burst out of the tent to make sure Ruby wasn't going to eat all their snacks. Sure enough, Ruby was shoving candy bar after candy bar into her mouth.
"Ruby! Don't you dare touch my... no! Not the chocolates!" Weiss screamed as she pounced on Ruby to wrestle away the last of the Crispy Peanut Chocolates.
Blake upon noticing the empty boxes of Limited Edition Tuna Crisps collapsed on her knees with comically dead eyes. "No... My crackers."
Suddenly, Ruby who was wrestling with Weiss nearby quickly swallowed the chocolate in her mouth, and she took out a box from underneath her cloak with her free hand. The box had the words Limited Edition... Upon seeing the words, Blake's eyes grew feral, and she yanked Weiss off Ruby and started to grapple with Ruby for the control of the box.
Yang came out of the woods to see her sister fighting with her teammates over the crackers. Her mouth clenched into an ugly smirk as she quickly realized what happened, and flames flickered on her hair. "Ruby."
The three girls froze to see the face of a Yang with the face of an ogre. "Did you eat my crisps?"
Ruby with a mouth full of snacks shook her head in denial. Suddenly, an empty tube that had the big words "Crisps" fell out of Ruby's cape.
Yang looked at the incriminating evidence and smiled. Ruby tried to escape, but her two other teammates held her down. "Let's have some fun. Shall we?"
Ruby had no regrets as she found herself being dragged off into the woods. Her friends needed a distraction from the heavy stories they just heard, and Ruby would gladly sacrifice herself to be that distraction... And thus, 30 minutes later, the team walks back into the tent with Ruby completely drenched from being thrown into the lake.
"Jeez. I said I was sorry. It's that Blake's depressing story made me all hungry."
"That's no excuse to go eat half of our snacks." Weiss snapped.
"I thought we agreed first come, first served!"
"It's called limiting ourselves to a couple of snacks every day to stretch out our supply,, Ruby!" This time it was Blake that answered Ruby.
"Look. Let's just put this behind us and focus on our next subject." Yang looked down at the picture that was on Weiss's scroll. "Anything you can tell us about him, Blake. Out of all four of us, you are the only one who knew about his past."
"I don't know a lot. All I know was that one day Weiss's father got sick of Faunus continuously liberating his goods so he hired him. Ever since that day, White Fang casualties skyrocketed, and after seeing how Adam was so... cold to our comrades' deaths... It helped solidify my decision to leave. If anything, Weiss would probably know more."
Weiss held up her hands in defeat. "I don't know much more than he is a- uhh what's the best way to say this- legally questionable mercenary for legally questionable work. I didn't realize the extent of how illegal his work was until now. I tried looking up more, but not even my father has much information on him other than how he mysteriously appeared about a year ago and how he is the confirmed inventor of the fireworks and suspected inventor of a new metal alloy that has Atlas's military in a flurry to replicate."
"Is that seriously all the Schnee family managed to obtain?" Blake inquired.
"I'm telling you that there are no records of him. Nada. Zilch." Weiss then proceeded to explain the severe lack of information regarding the man. Everything document regarding his past was forged or a straight-up lie. "What about the White Fang. I highly doubt you guys didn't do any digging."
"We did. Nothing much. He ran a couple of brothels as a side business... But other than that, we got nothing."
"So, he was actually telling the truth about that, huh.." Yang said. The other members gave her a look of surprise. She held her hands and said, "In my defense, he was the one who brought it up..."
"So back to square one." Ruby sighed as she collapsed down onto the ground and stared at the tent ceiling. Yang leaned her head back and sighed deeply.
Blake suddenly remembered a conversation she had with Mr. H. "Wait. I think Pyrrha would know something."
"What does Pyrrha have to do with this?" Ruby asked.
"I remember a conversation with him about how he came to Beacon to watch over someone. You've seen how close Pyrrha is with him. I bet a couple hundred lien that they share some history." Weiss got curious about this new revelation so she decided to look over any records about Pyrrha. Perhaps there might be some clues that could help with this mystery.
"But when? How? Besides, I find it difficult to believe that Pyrrha would get along with a murderer." Weiss countered not looking up from her scroll.
"I think it's very possible that it was Mr. H who trained Pyrrha in the past. Maybe he wasn't alway like this." Ruby exclaimed.
"That may have been the smartest thing you have said since your induction as team leader." Weiss sarcastically applauded before her hands returned to scrolling down an interesting news article. Lich... Why did that name seem so familiar?
"Hey!" Ruby pouted. "Anyway, I think we should do sneak into his house and scout around for some clues like some of those detective movies."
"I take back my compliment." Weiss disapproved. "I am not breaking into the house of a friend who is also a suspected murderer."
"But... but... It would be so cool going all detective mode and just going hwa and then swoosh..." Weiss stared at Ruby with a cold stare and repeated her refusal in a clearer way.
"No." Ruby's shoulders drooped at the refusal.
"But..." Weiss continued. "I am open to it after we exhaust all other options."
"What other options?"
"Pyrrha. I'm positive they have some history together. Look I found something interesting." Weiss pointed at a special article a couple of years ago describing how a local girl was lost during a freak Grimm attack in the mountains. She was later found, and the girl credited her survival to a man named Lich.
"So?" Yang was confused at what this meant.
"I feel really stupid for not realizing this sooner. What's H'Cil Mai backward?"
Yang paused as she thought it through. "Iam Lic'h... I am Lich... Oh. Wow I feel stupid."
"Yeah. I know. This is too much to be a coincidence so let's have a talk with Pyrrha before taking more... drastic measures. BUT! Let's try to enjoy this camping trip first. We need to clear our minds before we tackle whatever shit storm this will turn out to be. Now, let's go cook some s'mores." Weiss stood up and stretched her limbs before going outside. She turned to her teammates before asking, "You guys helping or not?"