Before anything else, I own nothing but the original characters, and content therein related to them. RWBY is owned by RT, and any mentioned creator's work belongs to them, and them alone. Rest in peace Monty, your vision lives on in us all.
CHAPTER 4
Pale stood in front of a bathroom mirror in the Belladonna manor. Contemplating his purpose in life. Adam Tarus was alive, the fang was becoming more of a problem than ever, and he wanted both to stop being true… But to save the white fang from themselves? What good would that do? Shaking his head, he decided to shave the short beard he'd grown out. He was in a new place, he needed a new face. If he did end up helping Blake with her goal to reform the White Fang, he'd look presentable doing it.
Finished in the bathroom, Pale went out on the edge of the back balcony of the Belladonna manor, freshly shaved, and showered. With his jacket top and button up in the wash, he was left in just his boots, pants and suspenders, which was a comfort, given Menageries late summer nights were humid and warm. Leaning over the rail, hat in his hand, and smoking a cigarillo, Pale could feel the one security guard posted at the door drilling a hole into the back of his head with her eyes. It was obvious without his hat or jacket that he wasn't a faunus. He heard the sliding door open, and turned to see Blake come outside. Looking back off into the surrounding jungle, Pale pulled the cigarillo out of his mouth, and smothered the butt under his boot. The guard went inside, leaving the faunus and the white sniper alone.
"If you're here to berate me about skipping out on that confrontation with the Albains, I told you they would deny everything, and we should have just strung them up." Pale said, as he turned around to face Blake, sitting against the balcony railing.
"That's not how we do things here, Pale… The Albains might be guilty, but we have to prove it first." Blake said.
"No you don't, you just need a jury to find them guilty, and a decent orator to sway the crowd." Pale said, before he snapped his attention, and the muzzle of Guerrilla Warfare, up to the right, as he heard a branch rustling. His paranoia had been correct that there was someone stalking him, but they were running away now. "Your damn spy's back." Pale said, holstering his revolver, and placing his hat on his head.
"I know… She's taking the fall for Fennec and Corsac. Everything on her scroll, the plans, the contact with Adam… They're using her as a scapegoat to avoid tarnishing the White Fang's image." Blake said. Pale shook his head and prodded at the inside of his teeth.
"You're still hellbent on saving it?" Pale asked. Blake nodded.
"When the information goes public tomorrow the faunus of Menagerie aren't going to see the White Fang in the same light as they used to. They'll want to see it reformed, or it's leadership changed." She said. Pale snorted at that.
"Still don't know why you don't want to just burn it down. Be a lot easier." Pale stated.
Blake looked up at Pale again, her anger rising. "If the White fang is destroyed, the Faunus's only serious hope for equality on Remnant is destroyed with it." Pale shook his head at that.
"You say that like it won't be infested with the remains of the radicals who'd rather see humanity gone or enslaved." Pale said.
"You're missing the point." Blake said, putting her foot down. "Where does the violence end? At what point does the White Fang and Humanity draw the line and say there's been enough bloodshed between us? After you've killed all the Faunus in a position of power or influence because they might be a threat? After the dissidents are removed? After we're extinct? You can't just gaslight 40% of Remnant's population and claim you've done them a favor because you killed their angry friends and family, then continue trampling on their rights as people, which is what caused the problem to begin with." Blake said, her tone getting harsher.
Pale's face scrunched up. "There wouldn't be a problem if you just acted civil in the first place!" Pale shouted.
"Our ancestors at the dawn of Remnant were culled in the millions, hunted down like wild animals, and enslaved in the thousands when we didn't fight back!" Blake said, taking a step closer to Pale.
"Your kind sold their own for profit." Pale said countering the slavery point Blake had made.
"And the genocide?!" Blake spat back.
"Oh please. Humans and faunus were both no different than animals at the dawn of history. We were killin' each other with rocks and sticks. You think any of us had the moral compass to decide if it was wrong to kill off a threat. We were just better at it, until we went soft." Pale said, pushing off the railing.
"Soft?! Do you even hear yourself? Don't you remember what Siniy told us? What Atlas is doing to the faunus right now? Have you even changed since we met? Don't you care about what happens to the people you called friends?!" Blake shouted at him.
"Don't you dare bring them into this! Clayton, Siniy, and Halcyone are some of the best damn faunus I ever met, because they stuck by my side when shit got serious!" Pale said, pointing at the deck to emphasize his point. Blake took that personally.
"And what about me? You called me your friend after everything that happened between us! So either you lied, or you relapsed back into the same racist asshole you started out as!" Blake shouted, getting in Pale's face.
"I never lied, and I never changed." Pale said through grit teeth. Blake could smell the smoke on his breath, but remained undeterred from proving her point.
"What about the faunus of Sakkura?" Blake asked, before she felt herself forcefully pushed up against the exterior wall of the manor by her neck. Though he wasn't lifting her off the ground, or squeezing her throat closed, Blake's heart rate kicked up, as she felt Pale apply a familiar pressure to her neck for only a second. The young man's lip was quivering in anger.
"You do not get to speak of them." Pale said quietly, hardly an inch from her face.
"Why, because they joined the White Fang like I did?" Blake asked with some venom to her question, only for Pale's fingers to tense slightly.
"Because I buried them…" Pale said, his finger's relaxing. Blake's anger faded with that revelation.
"You… Killed them?" She asked, her anger fading into dread.
"Some. The ones I caught up to in Anima on my way to Vale, the ones that joined Tarus, I put a bullet in each of 'em." Pale said, taking out his revolver, and placing the muzzle to the wound Adam had given Blake at Beacon, causing her to flinch. "But the rest? The ones who were good people, the ones that stayed, didn't adhere to Tarus's with or against philosophy? The ones he rounded up and burned alive? I sifted through mounds of ash and dug their mass graves with one leg, because I saw them as my family…" Pale let the gun slip from his fingers and fall to the deck. "My father might not have, but at the time I did… The Argiope family were some of the kindest, most honest people I ever knew, tailors and fishers that never asked for more than a bargain at the market… The Geminis were good hosts that I ate supper with every Sunday after worship… The Amontillados made the town's communion wine… People I knew, people I cared about… So you do not get to talk about them, not when your partner was the one that killed them." Pale said, his anger fading into a look of depression.
Blake was nearly moved to tears. Every time she got into a heated argument with the young sniper she was quickly reminded that he was a broken man on the inside, held together by grief, mourning, hatred, and an obsession with a revenge he could never fully extract… What was worse, was the fact that like Adam, he was intoxicating… And Blake hated that. It was like staring at a human version of the bull faunus… An equal opposite… Someone she felt bad for, and wanted to fix… Only this time the broken man seemed to want nothing to do with her, or at least so she hoped… One romantic mistake was bad enough, two was worse, three would be a pattern…
"I'm sorry." Blake said, a single tear falling from her eye.
"Don't be… I'm the one who was about to kill you again." Pale said, as he let Blake go, and bent down to pick up his revolver. "You know those foxes are going to try and silence us right?" Pale asked, as he went and sat on the couch off to his left. Blake hesitantly sat down beside him.
"It's a possibility we have to accept when dealing with radicals." She said, before a small smile crept onto her face. "But I have a feeling you wouldn't let them hurt us. We're some of the good ones, aren't we?" Blake asked, poking fun at his way of labeling faunus he knew as good or bad. Pale rolled his eyes as he lit up a fresh cigarillo.
"Blake I swear to god, I'm gonna smack you." Pale said with a chuckle.
"That wouldn't be the worst thing you've done to me." She said, suppressing a snicker.
"If you'd prefer it, I could try shooting you again." Pale said, exhaling a smoke cloud. Blake's laughter stopped... Pale sighed. "Are we square?" He asked. "On good terms I mean? I know you probably still hate me, shit, I was about to kill you, and I'm still unsure where to put you in my mind… But we want the same thing, an end to innocent people dying, we just got different ways going about how to get there. So… Friends again I guess?" Pale asked, before he felt Blake hug him from the side. Looking down in confusion, he just let it happen.
"Sometimes people… Your friends need a hug… Even if they don't know it… It's something Ruby and Yang taught me." Blake said, eyes closed. She hated him. He hated her. They were friends. Friends hugged. Even if it was super weird that he was shirtless, the previous conversation had a slight air of sexual tension, and an assault surrounding it. Pale pushed all that aside, and accepted he probably needed the affection more than he'd admit.
"Alright, fine… This is… Nice." Pale sighed in defeat.
Out of nowhere the sliding door fell outward, this time the two people behind it avoided taking a tumble with the screen. "Oh gee, would you look at that, the door fell again. You should really get that fixed Mrs. Belladonna." Sun said, rubbing the back of his head, as Kali faked an innocent look.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, I was just coming to tell you that uh… Dinner was ready, yeah." Kali said.
"MOM!" Blake shouted, quickly shoving Pale away, and standing up from the couch. Pale let his head rock back and hit the edge of the couch...
Author's note. Ladies and Gentlemen, I think we all know where this is going. Let me make something clear here. The pair hinting that I just did will be justifiable in the future. Right now, Blake and Pale are in a weird state of being friends by circumstance, and still hate each other as complete and total opposites. But as we all know from cannon, which is kicked up to 11 in my version of the story, Blake has a complex towards toxicity, and possibly Stockholm Syndrome.
Adam's spiteful little shit lord attitude and everything negative that came with him is essentially what Pale is right now. If Pale was a faunus fighting against the White Fang for the greater good, Blake would probably already have started showing legitimate attraction, but since Pale is a racist who's only real concern is killing what he sees as a threat to humanity's survival, Blake's actively stopping herself from falling into the same trapping that led her to Adam. Pale for the most part just hates Blake outright still, and he's not truly interested in her (even if she's hot) because he's repulsed by the fact she's a faunus, a sentiment born from when Sakkura burned. If you know your background character names well enough to have caught an important one, good on you.