Chapter Twelve: Dead Men

When the blindfold came off, Adam could feel Besh's stare without even having to look. Standing on his left, the fox faunus could easily see the scar marring nearly a third of his face. Like Besh, humans had permanently scarred Adam, and they had both been used for the humans' gain, but Adam didn't need to say any of that out loud; he was sure Besh could make the connection. Many of the origin stories about Adam mentioned SDC mines. It was just a much smaller number that resembled anything close to the truth.

"It was punishment for trying to escape," he began. "To them, I was property that needed to be reminded of my place. I would have died for my second attempt if the White Fang hadn't found me."

The blindfold's fabric stretched under his fingers as he squeezed it. "Everywhere I went, I saw human ignorance. Human callousness. Human cruelty. I never saw anything worth preserving during our inevitable revolution. There were no good humans." He let his grip relax. "Over years, that was how I came to see the world; it was all I needed to see. I never believed they could be redeemed."

Besh shifted. "And…that's changed?"

"I don't know." Adam narrowed his eyes. His left eye tugged at the scar tissue around it. "The humans that branded me still exist." He had never been able to track them down before being assigned to a different continent. "The humans that mutilated you still exist. Those Dust mines, the camps, all of those still exist. And yet, with them, there are humans that marry faunus. Humans that support faunus rights. Dust heiresses, who should be as cruel and uncaring and greedy as the worst of them, putting themselves at risk to help faunus. There wasn't room for that when I was in the Fang. Either the humans were in the way or they were out of range. Any human showing compassion was just acting to get mercy."

"Miss Annea and Miss Autumn weren't acting."

"Yes, I understand that now."

Overhead, the circling nevermores cawed in frustration that they weren't moving from under the forest cover.

"That doesn't really answer why you were traveling with us," said Besh carefully. "Everyone in Atlas heard you were dead."

So, that news had spread through the closed border with Blake's arrival in the city. Most likely it had been mixed in with rumors of the White Fang's fall. "You're right. I was leading the Vale branch, sowing the seeds of revolution. Then my closest partner abandoned me and I joined forces with a human group looking to..." attack wasn't the right word. Nor was overthrow. In retrospect, he wasn't even entirely sure what Cinder's objective had been. All he'd known was that she wanted something in Beacon, and to cover that up, she wanted the entire city to suffer. "Looking to sow chaos in Vale."

He didn't cut corners with the rest of his explanation. He also didn't linger on it. Stated succinctly, his downfall sounded pathetic, his susceptibility to false promises and blind ambition immature and weak. They probably were.

When he finished, having overviewed his recovery and subsequent plan to get to Vale in just a couple of sentences, Besh was quiet.

The nevermores cawed again, and Besh swallowed, finally pulling his gaze up from the graves. "So I guess we're both dead men."

Besh took another several minutes to pray. He hadn't seemed the religious type, but in a place like this, he couldn't be faulted for wanting any reassurance he could get. Adam gave him space; the kid deserved some privacy. Though he didn't personally believe in any of the religious ideology found around Remnant, he wouldn't begrudge Besh the comfort it could provide. In the meantime, he dealt with the nevermores that had been circling them for hours. They were all relatively small, and the largest was only as big as Adam was tall. Even as weak as he was, Wilt ripped through them without difficulty.

He was sheathing his weapon when Besh joined him.

"Ready?" he asked.

Besh nodded.

They were both in bad shape, and Adam suspected that they made quite the picture as they staggered their way back down the mountain. There were a handful of Grimm that ran across their path, but none that were particularly old, and there was no risk of anything like the overwhelming swarm that they had just escaped. Most of the time, his weapons were just acting as the world's most overqualified walking stick.

Roughly a third of the way down, after both Adam and Besh had taken falls that neither of them wanted to talk about and from which both had bruises, they came to a bare outcropping of rock. Adam took the lead, forcing his battered body up the sloped ground so he could see the valley beyond.

He stopped a couple feet from the edge and leaned on Blush. Halfway to the horizon, Vale gleamed in the midday sun. Even from this distance, though, he could see how its silhouette was marred: Beacon Tower no longer stood as a grand monument above it all. Instead, there was a dark smudge where its bright lights had once shone, impossible to make out at this distance. Beyond and around its Northern walls, he could see patches of Forever Fall, its fully laden red trees stark against the budding forests around them.

A part of him—a very pessimistic part—hadn't expected to make it this far. Just seeing the city was enough to make the weight in his stomach settle anew. It had been very easy to forget how difficult the path ahead was when the current one was so dangerous. In Vale, he knew it wouldn't be his survival that his circumstances called into question.

Besh stopped next to him. "Is that Vale?"

"Yes."

"I thought it would be closer."

Adam couldn't stop his weary chuckle, but he did manage to abstain from commenting. Instead, as he surveyed the tree-covered and slowly reviving Spring landscape, a thought struck. If his scroll hadn't died days ago, he could probably have used it to signal a huntsman patrol. This close to Vale, scroll-to-scroll local networks covered a vast majority of the valley. Those networks had been a huge part of White Fang communication; keeping the traffic off the CCT network had made them that much harder to track. No doubt Vale had set something similar up in the CCT's absence, unless everyone in charge there was completely brainless—though the news reports he had read while recovering in Argus suggested otherwise.

"Mister Taurus—"

"Adam."

"Adam," Besh corrected, sounding almost relieved at the dropped title, "why don't you signal some huntsman? Atlas has patrols in the local regions. Doesn't Vale?"

"Is your scroll incapable?" asked Adam mildly.

"I wasn't allowed to have one. The one Miss Autumn gave me in secret is in Atlas."

Ah. He really should have seen that coming. "Mine is dead. I wouldn't even if we could."

"Why?"

"I don't know if news of my death has reached Vale. Even if it has, the people who would have been tasked with looking for me will still be patrolling. Seeing a bull faunus with as many traits in common with a supposedly dead man would be too suspicious for them to just ignore it.

"Besides," Adam finished bitterly, "even if I was not identified, two faunus emerging from the forest claiming that they're the only survivors of a crash involving tens of thousands of lien worth of Dust—now disappeared—and two valuable heiresses—also conveniently disappeared—will not be received well. The guards would need to be blind to miss us walking into the city. At best, we'd be given treatment while in custody. At worst, no treatment at all while they decided how best to deal with us. It doesn't matter that the White Fang has splintered and there's no one to take the Dust or anyone who could demand a ransom from Atlas's closed borders; humans don't change their assumptions that quickly."

"Then…how are you going to get into the city?"

A fair question. Adam considered his options. As he'd pointed out, his features were just too recognizable, and he didn't even have so much as a hat anymore to cover his horns. The main gate was out of the question.

Fortunately, the White Fang had rarely made use of that gate. It—and the subterfuge using it required—only came into play with supply and equipment shipments. Most often, they had used the docks to smuggle things into the city. Obviously, he didn't have a boat, and he was in no condition to swim. That left one option.

"The tunnels."

"Tunnels? I didn't realize Vale used things like that."

"They're not aware they do."

"Oh." Besh furrowed his brows. "Is that safe?"

"It used to be." No telling how it was now. If the Fang had failed to properly close those routes before everything imploded, the Grimm would have found them. And once the tunnels became a source for Grimm, they would be systematically closed down. He was going to be relying on his tenuous new luck to find an intact route under the walls. "Let's keep moving. We should be able to make it into the city before nightfall."

He started back down to the rough path, but Besh hesitated. "We?"

"Of course. Did you think I would just abandon you at the city gates? I will get you into Vale. What you do after that is your choice."

"What I do after," Besh repeated under his breath. After another beat, he began to follow.

As they walked, Adam considered the tunnel situation. There were many of them, at least six as of the last time he'd checked. He could guess which ones were more likely to be compromised by Grimm—those farther from the water and near where the Grimm had actually breached the walls. That eliminated three, or at least pushed those three to the last places in the list.

Of the ones remaining…there was a chance some, if not all, were being used by the factions currently waging a cold war over Vale's streets. While nothing of what he had read in Argus had mentioned the tunnels or anything like that, if any of the factions had forces outside the walls, the tunnels were all but required to funnel weapons and other supplies in and out of the city. As they got closer to Vale and began exploring their tunnel options, then, he and Besh would need to be very wary of running into anyone else. Adam was already on high alert for any huntsman patrols; theoretically, a bunch of faunus would be easier to spot.

And though exposing the fact that he was alive to any faunus they came across would play out very differently than doing the same to a huntsman patrol or city guard, the end result would be the same. The patrol or guards would take him in immediately. The faunus would spread news of his resurrection, Vale would go on high alert, and he would end up captured or similarly hamstrung by the increased attention anyway.

Best to be discreet. Stealth and infiltration weren't his forte, but he could manage living under the radar for a while. It would be tricky, especially the first week while he sought shelter and food with no disguise and obvious injuries, but he would find a way.

"Adam?"

He spared Besh a glance to let him know he'd heard. With the terrain sloped down—sloped steeply, in some places—he couldn't afford more than that. More often than not, he was using trees as support poles, not trusting his own legs or his sheath to keep him balanced.

"What exactly are you going to Vale to do?"

A loose rock wobbled under his left foot. His ankle twinged, but he was able to avoid rolling it with a last-second stumble to more solid ground. "I said I was making things right."

"Well, yes, but—but how? I mean, Miss Autumn and Miss Annea—" his voice only wavered a little when saying their names—"had an entire shipment of Dust with them. You…don't, and if you're trying not to be discovered, what can you do?"

"Beyond discouraging the obvious bias the reconstruction efforts have shown over the years, I will be dealing with the faunus."

"Dealing with?"

He didn't need to sound so wary about it. "Vale's faunus are split into two factions: the Loyalists and the Reformists. Right now, they're fighting over supplies and hamstringing recovery efforts. I'll find out who the leaders are, figure out what they want, and make a plan from there. I don't need to reveal myself to do that much."

"Oh."

They had made it a fair way down the mountain when Besh next spoke. "Adam?"

Adam resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. Raising his arm that high would just agitate his wounds. "I'm the only other person here, Besh. You don't need to get my attention every time."

"Sorry."

"It's fine. What do you need?"

"Can I go with you?"

That drew him up short. Adam stopped and turned. "What do you mean, go with me? I already said I'd get you into Vale."

"I know. I meant after that."

Maybe it was the exhaustion, maybe it was the pain, but Adam couldn't process Besh's words. "What?"

Besh shifted and bit his lip. "I mean, I don't really have anywhere to go. I don't have any money. You're the only person I know, and what you said. I want to help with that." He swallowed. "I can't go back to Atlas. I can't—I can't bring them back. I don't know how much I'll be worth to you, but I want to help the faunus in Vale."

His expression was borderline resolute even as the breeze blew his hair over his eyes. His rigid, soldier-like posture faltered while he dealt with that situation, giving Adam the time he needed to think his words through. His first response? A clarification.

"You'll be in danger," he warned. "Plenty of people in Vale will want me dead if they find out I'm alive. If you help me, you'll be in that line of fire. Are you sure?"

Besh nodded, but it wasn't enough.

"Really? You understand what you're asking, don't you? Do you really know the man you want to help?"

Hair sorted, Besh gave Adam a steely look that defied his age. "I've been traveling with you for weeks. I know what I've heard. I also know what I've seen. I don't think you're the same man that upended the White Fang. And, again, I really, really don't have anywhere else to go. If I can find a way to help instead of getting stuck back on the streets in a city I've never been to before, then that's what I want to do."

For several seconds, it was all Adam could do to keep his thoughts from his face. His first instinct was a quick and cutting refusal. This was his mission, his alone. Besh was some lost kid he'd run into by chance, not a partner. Not a subordinate—certainly not a subordinate, because Adam knew exactly what happened when he had subordinates.

But, if he looked at Besh as something else, as a partner, as an ally…he could entertain the idea. Besh appeared to trust him, and for what it was worth, Adam believed his earlier story. Just as it would have been insane for Adam to plan and execute a plot involving the planting of Grimm along the ship's route, so too would it be insane for Besh to be some kind of double agent planted weeks, if not months, ahead of time in anticipation of Adam's return from the dead. Besh was also good in a fight, loyal, and invested in the faunus cause. He would have made a good White Fang recruit, if Adam was being honest.

Plus, the addition of a second person would make his citywide mission far easier.

"You're sure," he said, giving Besh one last way out.

"I'm sure."

Letting out a breath, Adam closed his eyes, nodded once, and then met Besh's gaze. "I'll work with you."

Besh's eyes widened a fraction, and then he smiled. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet."

Though their trek resumed, Adam's thoughts continued to swirl. In all his planning, he had never considered having an ally. And as the walls of Vale inched ever closer, he found that he rather enjoyed the prospect.

And so we've reached the end of this installment. I'm very impressed by how many of you have stuck around despite Adam being surrounded by OCs. Sorry this was late - I've been playing a lot of Destiny 2.

The sequel and final story in the trilogy, Ultimatum, is currently 100% outlined and maybe 15% written. I can't give a real time estimate, but I'd say at least a month and most likely not until next year. I'll keep my profile's progress reports updated for the curious among you. Like I did with Deus Ex Machina, I'll add an epilogue/teaser-type chapter to this story once I start posting Ultimatum so you don't have to clog up your notifications following me or take up brain space on some random writer's update schedule.

Until next time,

RoR