If you want to know what team RWBY's designs will look like in this story, I gave it my best shot over on my tumblr under the 'my art' tag. They're largely just palette swaps and reductions in the average number of belts and zippers per outfit.

Chapter 6: Karmic Injustice

Adam was, at Qrow's insistence, the first one over the threshold. The cold stole his breath away for a second—bound hands were not conducive to getting his jacket around more than just his shoulders—before adrenaline drowned it out. He splashed through the puddles dotting the alley, already angling himself for the turn onto the minor side street behind Pietro's shop.

"Go up!" Qrow ordered the instant they both cleared the corner.

"This would be easier without my hands bound!" Adam shot back.

At the first fire escape they came across, Adam pushed aura to his legs and leaped. He hooked his hands around a railing before he lost momentum, the metal's chill seeping through his gloves, and swung up another floor before he took the stairs three at a time.

Qrow was waiting for him at the top. Breathing hard, Adam tried to think back to the huntsman passing him but came up short.

"This way," Qrow said.

Most of the buildings around them were too tall to climb, but Qrow managed to find a path that stayed relatively level. Below them, squads of robots and soldiers cruised down the streets, all converging on Pietro's shop. Staying at ground level would have been suicide.

As they ran across Mantle's roofs, the wind picked up. It stole the jacket from Adam's shoulders, leaving him to brace against the bitter cold with nothing but a red t-shirt. It was luck rather than any kind of foresight that he had opted to belt his flag around his shirt when he woke up instead of trying to wrangle it around a jacket just hanging over him. Every breath he took cut through his lungs like knives.

"Do you even have a plan?" he ground out to the huntsman's back.

"Working on it," Qrow growled.

As exposed as they were on the rooftops, Adam witnessed a strange lack of air support for the chase on the ground. As their arrival in this kingdom had revealed, nearly all flying vehicles were stuck in Atlas—but once the city in the sky got word of Adam's flight from capture, they would get deployed in force. How long did they have before that point?

Qrow jumped at the edge of the next roof. Adam followed suit without thinking and hit the next rooftop—lower than expected—badly. He rolled to recover, gravel digging into his aura and leaving indents in his arms, and staggered to his feet with most of his momentum lost. Qrow had stopped at the far railing, one foot braced against it, one hand on the hilt of his weapon.

"Shit," he muttered. Adam didn't have to peer over the edge to know what had happened; the flashing lights reflecting off the nearby windows was enough.

After a quick glance around, Qrow broke left to an apparent weakness in the trap. With little other option, Adam followed.

Boot on the edge. Knee bent. Exhaling with the jump.

Textbook.

Until a bullet slammed into his side. Gasping from the force, he threw his hands out in a last-ditch effort as he slammed into the side of the building he'd intended to land on top of. His fingers caught on the lip and he strained to hold on against the weight of his own body. Qrow was leaning over a second later to haul Adam up, only for more bullets coming from behind him to make him reconsider. The robots had made it to the rooftops.

"New plan," Qrow grunted, pulling Adam's hands off the edge and, before Adam could get an incredulous word in edgewise, letting go. Gravity dragged Adam down, but he twisted in the air to avoid the hail of bullets descending over them from the robots closing in on either side. One bullet nearly shaved a line through the side of his head and a new idea struck. Eyeing the next wave of gunfire with the wind whistling in his ears, he raised his bound hands, adjusted, and then let a savage grin break over his face as the next bullet tore through his bindings.

His triumph lasted only for the instant before he hit the ground. Unlike the forest, where the frozen dirt had given a little on impact, this was hard asphalt. His head bounced against the ground and he saw stars while the air left him in a pained gasp. For several seconds, he tried to pull in air and couldn't.

Right as black crept into the edges of his vision, he finally forced air into his lungs. Coughing and gasping, he rolled onto his hands and knees and dragged in another breath through the pulsing ache in his chest. To his left, Qrow wasn't faring much better, though he had at least avoided landing squarely on his back. He offered a hand, but Adam slapped it away. He spat and then pushed himself to his feet, swayed, and steadied. Lights flashed from either end of the alley. They had seconds before the robots boxed them in. Qrow had a furrow between his brows while he searched their surroundings, but there was no easy way out. Adam's gaze slid right, over to the door a few paces away.

He didn't ask permission, not that he felt like sparing the breath to do so anyway. The door broke open from a single aura-boosted kick to reveal someone's first-floor dwelling beyond. A woman to his right shrieked and fell out of her kitchen chair, but Adam promptly dismissed her and darted through her apartment. There was no door into the alley on the other side, but there was a window and that was all he needed. He jumped and flipped to go through feet-first, arms over his head to shield his face.

Glass shattered under his boots and rained down around him as he landed with a roll that crunched several shards into powder against his waning aura. He'd barely gotten back to his feet when Qrow showed up next to him.

"Don't take off on your own," he said.

"Your 'plan' was falling apart."

Qrow sighed and ran a hand through his hair while he reassessed. "Yeah, maybe." He stilled, then glanced back at Adam. More specifically, at his hands.

"Stray shot," Adam lied.

"Sure. Okay, we need a new plan. They'll figure out where we went pretty soon."

"Let me go."

"What did I just say?"

"Give me my weapons and I can get away," Adam argued. "All you're doing is getting us both caught. How will that look on your record, huntsman?"

"You—" Qrow broke off with a frustrated growl.

"What do you want me to do? I can't prove my intentions, but I am only after Cinder right now. Isn't she your enemy too? Keeping me chained to you like this only hurts you."

"You don't get to enemy-of-my-enemy this situation."

The lights were getting brighter, the tromp of metal boots louder.

"Then either let me go or kill me," Adam snarled, "because I will not be made a slave again."

Qrow's eyes went wide. Adam froze, then scowled, looking away. Over the chorus of shouts and sirens, Qrow let out an aggravated sigh. Adam caught the dark shape flying at him on reflex, the sheath's familiar shape fitting easily into his hand.

"Look," said Qrow, "I don't trust you but you getting caught is going to be a headache. We'll say I was keeping you under guard and you gave me the slip. But," he grabbed Adam's shirt and yanked him closer, lips curling into a menacing snarl to surpass Adam's own, "if you target my nieces or any of us, or I hear about murders in Mantle or anything like that, I tell James and we hunt you down personally. Your only target is Cinder, right? Now's your chance to prove it."

Though they were his own words being thrown back at him, Adam still bristled. Qrow let him go. "So, kid, you got some kind of brilliant plan, or am I about to watch you try to fight your way out?"

As if the huntsman would stand by once Adam made it through the robot legions and started targeting the humans. No. Without a word, he knelt, yanked up the sewer cover that had been pressing against his boot, and dropped down. The cover boomed like thunder when it fell back into place, but not before Adam caught Qrow muttering, "Oh, that's just great."

He paused at the bottom, waiting for the huntsman to change his mind and pursue, but he got something different instead: Qrow covering for him. The huntsman's dry tone came through over the questions being hurled at him by some of the human squads. According to him, he'd lost sight of Adam after pursuing him through the building and suspected that Adam had gone through the next one too.

While Qrow ordered the morons above to move their perimeter, Adam's eyes finished adjusting to the dark and he took off at a sprint.

For two hours he traversed Mantle's underbelly. At one point he encountered a sabyr in the cramped tunnels, though that fight was over quickly once the creature made the mistake of trying to break his guard with Wilt through force. Still, his aura refused to recover because of the chill that permeated even the ground down here and the hours of heightened vigilance were taking their toll. He needed a break, and he wasn't about to take it down here.

Going aboveground landed him in a warehouse district. Though it was largely abandoned, he still took pains to avoid any cameras, active or not. This part of Mantle was stuck in Atlas's shadow and the lingering clouds from the rain of the previous night coated everything in a dreary gloom.

At one corner between warehouses, he found a familiar symbol. His fingers traced the claw marks gouged into the brick and he let his shoulders fall a fraction. If nothing else, it was a place to lay low.

The door creaked open. Exhausted, Adam dragged his eyes open and watch as a petite silhouette filled the doorway, backlit by the solitary functional streetlight on the other side. That pool of light spilled out over the grimy floor just far enough to reach his boots.

"Um, hello?" Young. High-pitched. Probably a woman. Either she was wearing an odd bit of headwear or she was a faunus. "If you're looking for the White Fang, you're not going to find them here. There's been a bit of a…falling-out in the leadership, and the Mantle branch scattered."

Even as exhausted as he was, Adam still found the strength to chuckle at that. "Is that what they're calling what I did?"

The person stepped into the room. "I'm sorry?" The door closed, and as the light balanced, Adam could finally get a good look at her.

The first thing of note was the weapon on her back: some kind of bladed staff. The second thing was the pair of sheep ears peeking out from her head of thick white hair, which answered his earlier confusion. But still, an armed faunus talking about the dissolution of the White Fang? Her clothes indicated no uniform, but the arm guards and weapon spoke to combat. Then he picked out the brooch on her lapel—a bird with spread wings. She was affiliated with something; were there more like her? Had they joined the hunt for him?

The final detail he picked out was the glimmering piece of jewelry dangling from her right ear that brought a scowl to his face.

As he conducted his examination of her, so too did she conduct her own of him. He got to his feet while under her scrutiny and brushed off some of the dust on his clothes.

"A bell earring," he scoffed, raising his gaze to hers as he leaned against the concrete pillar that had been his backrest. She couldn't seem to decide which eye of his to focus on with the blindfold in the way. "Don't you have any pride?"

"What?" Her face flushed red, easy to see against her pale skin, and she reached to touch the accessory on reflex. "I, um, I just think it's cute." Her brows furrowed. "What were you saying earlier? And," the furrow deepened, "do I know…" Her eyes went wide and fatal words fell from her tongue: "Are you Adam T—"

Wilt flashed in the low light and came to rest with its point just barely digging into her throat. She hadn't even gotten her aura up in time; he'd crossed the distance between them too quickly. When she swallowed, a single bead of blood welled up and dripped down the pale skin of her neck.

"It's rude to address me when you haven't even introduced yourself," he said. He raised Wilt, forcing her to tip her head back. "Who are you, and why are you searching through White Fang safehouses?"

"I'm Fiona Thyme," she stammered, leaning back as much as her own balance permitted. "I'm just—once a week, we look through old White Fang locations and try to help out the faunus we find."

He frowned. "Why?"

"Um, not too long ago, when faunus got desperate, they turned to the White Fang for help, right? Even though the organization has fallen apart, some people still try to find support where it used to be. We're trying to fill that gap."

"Who's we?"

His answer came in the form of the door swinging open and yet another person stepping through. "Fiona, you still in here? We won't make it back by sundown at this rate."

Blush was rifle-shifted and raised over Fiona's shoulder in an instant. The newcomer froze. Even if their eyes weren't adjusted to the dark after the door closed, the glimpse they'd gotten at the start would have been plenty to understand the danger.

Where the sheep girl was dressed mostly in green, this one was in a muddied orange, sporting blue hair and that same winged brooch on her right lapel.

"H-hi, May," said Fiona, turning her head to try to get a look at her ally. A nudge of Wilt's blade discouraged that.

"Who is this guy?" May growled. She started to reach for the weapon on her back—another bladed staff—but Adam's finger dropping from the trigger guard to the trigger and depressing it slightly, enough to make a noise, stopped her cold.

"Someone who didn't want to be disturbed," Adam said with a pointed look at Fiona. "Are there more of you coming?"

"If you keep this up?" said the blue-haired one. "Absolutely."

She was more angry than afraid in the face of his weapons, which he could respect. Maybe she'd even give him a straight answer. "What do you want?"

"We're just here to help the people of Mantle." Her gaze shifted pointedly to his horns. Not out of recognition of his identity, but rather acknowledgement that he was a faunus. "All of them, regardless of race."

His finger tightened on Blush's trigger, and Fiona nearly skewered herself on Wilt trying to get his attention.

"We do, honest! We're the Happy Huntresses. Haven't you—um, I guess probably not. But we're here to help! Not turn you in. We didn't even know you were here." Her ears drooped, and she shot a nervous look at her companion. "I'm…not sure why you are, though. After what happened."

"Turn him in? Fiona, what are you talking about?"

"It's complicated?"

"Don't phrase it like a question."

He looked between them. Though on guard—it would be pitiful if they weren't, considering the situation—they didn't seem like the type who would contract with Atlas, nor did they seem like lowly mercenaries just trying to get the bounty on his head. He lowered his weapons, and as they fell, the tension in the room fell with them. "I have unfinished business here."

"And what's that, exactly?" asked the blue-haired one. "I've never heard of a huntsman like you in Mantle before. Only Atlesians get to be armed that well."

He sheathed Wilt and hung Blush from his hip once more. "My business is none of your concern. Get out of my way and we won't have to meet again."

"Yeah, sorry if I'm not thrilled about the idea of the guy who pointed a gun in my face and cut my friend's neck just walking out of here. Who knows who else might accidentally 'get in your way.'"

"May," Fiona cautioned.

"That worried look on your face isn't helping."

If the human didn't recognize him, he saw no reason to jog her memory or encourage her to examine him closely. He sighed. "I don't have a quarrel with you. What happened earlier was…a misunderstanding."

May's eyes narrowed. "This business of yours. It wouldn't involve targeting anyone in particular, would it?"

"No one you care about." He cocked his head, gaze shifting to Fiona. "If you know where all of the White Fang safehouses are, then you must be very familiar with Mantle."

Still made nervous by the tension between Adam and May, Fiona clasped her hands in front of her and put up a very thin front of normalcy. She even managed a proud tilt to her lips. "We are! The Happy Huntresses have contacts all over Mantle. No one knows this city better than we do, except maybe the sanitation workers." She scratched behind her ear. "We're, um, still renegotiating our terms for our deal with them. And the groups that monitor the security grid, but they have an unfair advantage."

The security team was a non-starter for him. Any Atlesian soldier or close affiliate who had served in the last few years would never help him if he went to them directly. "Can you locate someone for me, or tell me if they ever arrive here?"

Fiona's eyes flicked to May, who promptly stepped forward. For whatever reason, she looked marginally less suspicious than she had before. "That's not our call. Nor is it a service we offer to hostile strangers."

"And if I'm no longer hostile?"

"It's still not our call."

"Whose call is it?" He took his hand off Wilt's hilt. "As I said, I don't have a quarrel with you. I merely need help locating someone."

Fiona got between them again with her hands held up placatingly. Her aura had already erased the mark Wilt had made on her neck. "I think we should help. We can at least take him to Robyn and she can decide."

For a long moment, May just frowned at her, but then she sighed. "If you're sure, Fi."

The Happy Huntresses knew their way around Mantle. They led Adam on a route that neatly avoided cameras with the throwaway explanation that, though they never did anything criminal, the less Atlas knew of their movements, the better. Even so, Adam felt like he was being watched. He couldn't explain why; there was no logic behind it. Just a sixth sense prickling at the back of his neck.

"Are you cold?" Fiona asked, dragging him from his thoughts.

"What?"

"I have a few coats stored away if you are. I don't think a t-shirt is enough, but if you're comfortable…"

"I'm fine," he said shortly. In truth, he could feel his barely replenished aura waning again. Though the warehouse had been warmer than the outside, it hadn't been by much.

"Leave him, Fi," May suggested. "If he wants to inconvenience himself, let him."

He frowned at her but she was unimpressed.

"No, it's cold. Especially around here." Fiona stopped and held out a hand to Adam. "We all know what it can do to people, and this is the whole reason we had that collection drive last year."

"For people like him?"

He ignored May and looked down at Fiona's hand with a raised eyebrow, ready to make a pithy comment about how Atlas's clothing technology had far surpassed his expectations when it came to camouflage, when a literal hole opened up in her palm.

Semblance, he realized as golden light poured out and manifested into a heavy black coat. It was lined in dark gray fur that spilled out around the collar and had snaps around both cuffs to tighten them. It was clearly a nice coat, albeit used, and even appeared to be his size. Probably someone's trash from Atlas that they'd tossed away without a second thought.

"This one should fit you," she said, unnecessarily in his opinion, while the hole in her hand closed up and vanished. "If it doesn't, we have more back in the crater. I only keep a small portion of the jackets with me when I'm walking around."

He stared at the offered coat, unmoving, before raising his gaze to meet hers. "Why are you helping me?"

"Because you seemed like you needed it."

"Why me?"

"You needed it," she repeated, holding out the coat a bit farther.

He took it, if only to get it over with since she clearly wouldn't take no for an answer. It did fit him, though it was loose on the shoulders. With it on, his personal banner showed below its bottom edge much like it had with the black coat he'd favored in Vale, though now much more of it was exposed.

"That's it?" May challenged.

He finished zipping it up, looked to Fiona. Mustered the will to say words he hadn't spoken in ages. "Thank you."

She smiled bright and wide. "You're welcome."

As they resumed walking, though, he couldn't get her reasoning out of his head. She knew who he was and what he'd done, and yet she had spoken over her ally to help him and even gifted him a coat. Better people than her had taken one look at him and deemed death the only sensible option.

"Why?"

The question fell out of his mouth without his permission but there was no taking it back. Fiona and May had already faced him. He would have to elaborate.

"Why do you trust me? You know I could hurt you. I already did."

May rolled her eyes. "It's like you want us to turn our backs on you."

Everyone always did.

He shifted his gaze to Fiona, who had taken a little more time to consider her response. She offered him another smile, smaller but more reassuring than before. "If someone's in need, then it's my belief that I should try to help them."

"That could end badly."

"Everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt, even if it means I get hurt sometimes. I, I mean, every Happy Huntress, is strong enough to keep going when things go wrong." She placed a hand over her heart. "I never want to turn someone away when I could've been their last hope for help."

"What if you're wrong?"

"What if I'm right?"

Eyes wide and earnest but with a voice backed by steely conviction and, above all, experience. May's hard eyes and crossed arms next to her reminded him that Fiona wasn't some naïve idealist working alone. She was part of an organization, and she likely didn't carry that weapon on her back just for show.

He sighed and shook his head. "Talking about hypotheticals is pointless."

"Sometimes they're the only way we can understand ourselves and others."

His eyes snapped back to Fiona. He had clearly intended by tone and posture to let the conversation die, but there she was, dragging it back from the dark corner he'd consigned it to.

"That's why you're asking about all of this, right?" she continued. "Because you can't understand why I'm choosing to help you instead of, well, running away screaming."

"I hurt you."

May stepped forward. "Okay, now would be a really good time for either of you to explain to me exactly who you are, because it obviously matters."

"May—"

"No. You did your peacemaking back at the warehouse. Now I want answers."

Adam kept his hands firmly in his pockets. "Does the name Adam Taurus mean anything to you?"

One beat. Two.

May slid back a half step and wrapped one hand around her weapon. She didn't remove it from her back, but the tension holding her taut revealed how badly she wanted to. "You? You can't be serious. All our sources said you disappeared. Not even the faunus here knew."

He merely waited. May's eyes darted between him and Fiona. When no one made a move, she slowly drew her hand away from her staff and straightened, but gone was her irritated impatience from before. Now, he was a genuine threat.

He almost missed his anonymity. "I guess that's your answer, then." He focused on Fiona while May muttered something in Fiona's direction about degrees of complicated. "I don't need to be psychoanalyzed."

"Right, of course. But you should know that it isn't going to get any more complicated than 'because you needed it.'"

The difference between her and May was startling: one open and relatively relaxed, eyes meeting his and staying there; the other closed and still tense, gaze constantly switching from his face to the sword at his side. One experience that he was all too familiar with, another for which he couldn't even dredge up a memory.

"One of us was a bit like you," Fiona continued. "She got into fights a lot. Hurt people. She, um, she had a lot of anger and nowhere to put it, but Robyn was able to talk to her and even helped her get into Atlas Academy with the rest of us."

They were all graduates? The military had to be displeased with their current allegiances. "And you all decided to stay with this…Robyn. Even when you had the chance to stay in Atlas." Fiona, he could understand, but May?

Still, it was Fiona who answered. "I mean, I can't speak for everybody, but I stayed with Robyn and the Happy Huntresses because I knew I could do good with them."

"There was nothing for me in Atlas," May said shortly.

"You had to have your own reasons for joining the White Fang, right?"

That had been so long ago now. He actually had to take a second to remember those beginning days and the determined fire that had let him claim strength of his own. It was that same fire that had driven him to the edge and beyond. "I did," he eventually said. He started walking again, determined to this time end the conversation with finality. Fiona let him have his wish, but only a couple of blocks passed before May spoke up.

"Why are you here, in Mantle? The White Fang is gone. I would've thought Atlas would be the last kingdom you'd target."

He side-eyed her, then refocused on the road. "As I said, I'm searching for someone."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

Her skepticism grated on him, but she let it rest as they made their way to the Happy Huntresses' camp. It sat on the edge of the Mantle Crater, a massive canyon in the ground where the landmass of Atlas had once rested. Barrel fires dotted the stepped landscape while ramshackle houses covered the ground not occupied by aging and long-abandoned warehouses and factories. Only a handful seemed to still be in operation, one of which was a Schnee company building. It was a bit odd to see their logo on such an inconspicuous construction, but then again, this appeared to be a purely utilitarian enterprise. Not something they liked to show off to investors.

As for the camp, it was really just a section of the crater with more tents than the others. People clothed similarly to May and Fiona strolled between tents, sat around campfires, and helped with both new construction and repairs. Their voices and the voices of the local residents filled the air with a constant background hum.

It was…familiar. His camps in Vale had always been war camps, but in the early days, he had lived in any number of places like this. Places where the White Fang had been part of the local community and not some separate force.

More than a few people called out to Fiona and May. The former waved and called back, the latter mostly nodded. He earned himself a handful of curious glances, but the sheer improbability of Adam Taurus being alone in Atlas without his signature mask coupled with his more popular escorts was deflection enough.

They led him to the largest tent in the area, the entrance to which was watched over by a very tall woman, nearly as tall as him, with brown skin, blue hair, tattoos on her face, and sharp eyes. She had the same falcon symbol over her chest, and like the other two, had picked a main color for what he was now understanding was some kind of unofficial uniform. In her case, red.

"Joanna," Fiona greeted with a smile.

"You're back early. Something happen?"

"Yeah." May jerked a thumb at Adam. "He wants to talk to Robyn. Is she busy right now?"

"No, but she has a meeting with the white-hats soon."

"We'll keep it quick," promised Fiona, and Joanna reached over to pull aside the tent's entrance flap.

Adam, led by Fiona and trailed by May, ducked through. The interior of the tent was reminiscent of his White Fang command tents, with a central table bedecked in maps, charts, and documents. The walls supported more charts hanging above shelves and filing cabinets, more than a few of which were rusting. Probably salvaged from elsewhere in the crater.

There was only one person in the tent. She had both hands braced against the table and a frown on her face that eased when she glanced up to see Fiona and May. Her green scarf, light brown skin, purple eyes, and white hair rang bells in his memory, and a second of searching placed her: the woman from the election posters. A politician and a community activist? No, more likely, a community activist attempting politics. She had to be the leader of this Happy Huntress operation; that bird brooch likely symbolized allegiance to her much like how the masks or claw marks had symbolized allegiance to the White Fang.

Robyn stood straight. "Good to see you two back; I was actually about to call you. We're having some trouble with our usual Dust suppliers and talking through our scrolls hasn't been getting us anywhere. I'll be too busy to see them myself, but…" Her eyes drifted to him. "Who's our new friend? Find him on your rounds?"

"He was in an old warehouse in sector thirteen," May explained, crossing her arms. "He wants a favor, but he should introduce himself before anything else."

Robyn's eyes narrowed at her tone and she regarded Adam in a new light. "All the Atlesians in Mantle were up in arms this morning. They're still patrolling more than usual. Would you know anything about that, No-Eyes?"

Juvenile. "They were looking for Adam Taurus. Me."

To her credit, Robyn's reaction was mild. She did tense but didn't brandish the weapon on her arm and just glanced at her two associates, then refocused on Adam. "You." She crossed her arms and tipped up her chin. "And what can people like us do for someone like you? I'm tempted to throw you in jail just to make sure you don't cause problems for anyone here."

He opted against pointing out that any action like that would come with a body count. If he wanted her help, it had to be voluntary on her part. She was, in a sense, a leader like he had been: invested in her own organization's goals and extremely suspicious of outside requests for assistance—particularly when trouble was involved.

And, at the moment, he was trouble.

"Just talking to you here would knock me out of the election in a heartbeat if people found out about it," Robyn pointed out into the silence. "You're about out of time to convince me that this is worth it."

"All I need from you is help locating someone," he said. "Your…organization is the most influential and far-reaching in Mantle outside of Atlas's security."

"Oh, are they not taking your calls these days?"

He scowled. "Can you help or can't you? If not, then I'll leave and we can both pretend this never happened."

She let his words go unaddressed for a handful of aggravating seconds, but he kept his annoyance shoved deep. Clearly, he was being assessed, and the constant glances being thrown among the women around him showed that there was at least one other conversation happening beneath the one being spoken. So he stood there, holding Robyn's unwavering gaze, and waited.

Finally, she sighed. "Yeah, we might be able to do that. But this—helping you—is risky. I need your word that you won't hurt anyone here."

His word. How quaint. "I can promise you that my only target now is the woman I'm hunting."

She stuck out her hand, lips twisting into a cocky smirk. "Prove it. Take my hand."

He raised an eyebrow.

"My semblance lets me tell whether someone is telling the truth or not. If you genuinely believe what you just said, we won't have a problem."

"And if I don't?"

Her smile thinned to show teeth. Behind him, May and Fiona both shifted, and he was acutely aware that he was quite literally in the middle of their camp. Even if he could fight his way out through that many people, it would draw far too many eyes to him—not to mention a certain huntsman's wrath.

He stepped forward and took her hand. His glove wasn't an issue; the moment they clasped hands, a pale lilac glow not unlike the shifting pattern of visible aura surrounded their hands. The glow went about halfway up his forearm, but he didn't actually feel anything. Her grip was firm without attempting to be domineering.

"Who are you targeting in this city?" she asked.

"Cinder Fall."

The glow shifted to green. Robyn drew breath for another question and it faded back to purple.

"Are you only targeting her?"

He eyed the glow. "Yes."

Green again.

Huh. Apparently, his desire to focus on the Schnees "later" wasn't significant enough for it to impact the sincerity of his answer. Robyn released his hand and he stepped back once more, sparing an amused look at Fiona's and May's weapons, which they now held in their hands. At least they weren't wholly foolish, though if they had really thought he would try anything against their leader, they should have disarmed him.

"I won't lie," Robyn mused, looking at her hand, "that was reassuring. But what I said earlier stands: you gotta give me something really good in exchange."

He didn't have much to offer, but he had been turning over his limited assets ever since Fiona had agreed to bring him here. At no point had he expected Robyn to aid him for free, and so he was left with only one viable option. "I have contacts in Atlas Academy."

Blake and her friends, per Qrow's mutterings, had been housed there by none other than Ironwood himself. From there, they would be able to gain access to all kinds of military secrets and even Mantle security plans, something the Happy Huntresses had to be interested in.

"So do I," Robyn said. "We all went there for years, after all. You'll have to do better than that."

"Do your contacts tend to meet with Ironwood himself?"

She narrowed her eyes. After a beat, she stuck out her hand again. He grinned, took it, and grinned wider when he answered her question and her semblance shone green. Did he know exactly where Qrow was or how to contact any of their merry band? No. But he genuinely believed, apparently, that he could figure it out.

"All right," Robyn said, crossing her arms while he stepped away. "We'll help you. In return, I need you to tap those contacts of yours and tell me what the wall patrol schedules look like for the next month." She scowled at the floor. "Even though we're just trying to keep people safe, they only want to work over us, not with us."

"Fair enough," Adam said. When he contacted Qrow, he could also see about using Robyn's ability to assuage his fears too. It would be the fastest way to earn all of their trust.

"So, this woman you're looking for. Her name is Cinder Fall?"

"Yes." He described her as best he could, though there was no telling how she'd changed since he saw her last. It had really just been a brief glimpse of her through Haven's doors while his subordinates set the charges. Robyn nodded when he finished.

"I'll put the word out. How should I…" she trailed off, brows furrowing, eyes shifting skyward. Adam heard it too: faint droning, growing louder by the second. Between one breath and the next he was able to feel vibrations in his chest and the tent was flapping in a sudden wind.

Joanna threw open the entrance. "We've got mantas!"

All eyes fell on him. His hand fell to Wilt.

Then Robyn took charge. "Fi, May, get him out of here. Use the old drainage pipes." So she hadn't done this. Had he been followed? "I'll keep them busy."

Her help was unexpected. Then again, she was in the same position that Qrow had occupied: getting caught freely associating with Adam would ruin her reputation. The two subordinates nodded and strode towards the back of the tent while Robyn pushed her bangs out of her face, straightened her shoulders, and headed for the front. As Adam followed them out the back, he heard Robyn yelling towards the descending ships:

"You think you guys can just land wherever you want without warning?"

"This way," said Fiona, tugging his arm to drag his eyes forward and to the tunnel access door buried in the rock face ahead. May produced a key to unlock the rusted padlock and then shouldered the door open. Its old hinges screamed in protest, making Adam and Fiona wince. On the inside, the air was stagnant and carried the faint scent of mildew. Fiona flipped a switch and old-fashioned lights lining one wall flickered to life with a distinct buzz while May shoved the door shut.

"They used these to clear out the water that flooded in when Atlas was first raised up," Fiona explained while she led the way at a swift pace. "They're everywhere in the crater and they all have pumps on the far ends to get the water back into the ocean."

Thrilling. It was at least a step up from the sewers. "And your plan?"

"There's a fork a half-mile in," May said. "From there, it's like a maze with outlets all over the crater as long as you don't end up in the ocean."

As the floor angled downward even more, he could see ahead that the lights along the walls abruptly stopped. Something was broken judging from how the actual fixtures continued. As faunus, he and Fiona would be fine, but May? Or perhaps this was where they could part ways; they didn't need to escort him all the way to the fork when there was only one path leading up to it. As they reached into the growing dark, though, a different sound reached Adam's ears: footsteps. He'd thought them an echo before, but now they were too disjointed—

A wire pressed against his back. In the same instant, another dug into his ankles and the weights on either end of both cords had already swung around him before he could get his hands in the way. His legs were yanked together, and with his arms pinned to his body, he fell hard. One of his horns cracked against a loose rock despite his aura doing its best to lessen the shock as he skidded for several feet.

Spitting out blood from where he had bitten his own tongue, he sat up to see one shadow taking up the light. Four more joined it seconds later.

Fiona and May had about-faced and now put themselves between him and the danger, but neither could turn their backs on the new threats to help him. There were too many of them for one person to hold off alone. He tried to loosen the bindings—they were very reminiscent of what he'd woken up to on the manta—but they didn't budge. He tried harder, snarling, only to freeze when the weights lit up with a warning whine.

"Yeah, I'd stay still," said the leader of the attackers. He stepped forward and rested his weapon, which looked strangely like a fishing rod, over one shoulder. He had his other hand on his hip because of course he didn't even view the Happy Huntresses as a threat. "Those can get nasty if you try to force your way out."

"Hey, hold on," said May, stepping forward with crossed arms. "What do you think you're doing? We're going to inspect the tunnels. We got word that Grimm were attacking the pumps and—"

"Sorry, but we know exactly who he is." The leader stared Adam down with nothing but calm confidence in his eyes. "We've been tracking him ever since he showed up here. Hasn't been easy, but when you people showed up in one of his suspected locations, the investigation proved…fruitful. Keep standing in our way and we might start to think you've been helping him."

"They're not helping me," Adam said before May or Fiona could get a word out. He awkwardly shifted so he was on his knees instead of being seated. "Stop playing nice and get it over with."

"Oh, don't worry," spoke up a short black woman with a blond streak in her hair. "We'll get there."

He narrowed his eyes and started to stand to preserve what little dignity he had left, only to see a blur of electricity. A storm of sparks erupted in his eyes when something slammed into his temple. He hit the floor with a grunt, aura flickering, before hands gripped his arms and yanked him up. Head pounding, he tried to focus his eyes, only for another strike to plunge him into the dark.

Even the Ace-Ops won't take risks with someone as dangerous as Adam.

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