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 5
Pale was caught in his own little world. He'd heard the important details of Ghira's speech the day following the confrontation with the Albains. White Fang, 2 months away, attack on Haven academy, all that good stuff… But, he was fantasizing… Daydreaming. Fennec and Corsac were right there. Right in front of him. He could draw, shoot Corsac, and then Fennec before his brother even hit the ground. If he was fast enough the only indicator he'd shot them would be the plume of smoke… Blake stepped forward to tell the story of Beacon's fall, and Pale snapped back to reality. The second he blinked and looked up, there was a shout from the crowd.
"Traitor!" Pale's hand moved to his hip, half pulling Guerrilla Warfare out of it's holster, to draw on the chameleon girl before Sun grabbed his arm.
"The Hell you doing?" Pale asked, shrugging him off, and drawing his gun. Lining up a shot, only for Blake to put herself between him and his target.
"No… Let her speak." Blake gave Pale a pleading look, and with a sneer, he de-cocked the pistol, though kept it in hand at his side.
"Cowards. After everything the humans have done to us, everything they put us through, you're asking us to help them?!" Ilia shouted at Ghira. "Where was their help when the dust companies treated our people like slaves?! When kingdoms hunted faunus for sport?! Where was my help, when my parents were killed in a dust mine?! Where?!" Ilia continued as she stepped forward. Pale raised his revolver again and stepped down from the platform in front of the Belladonna manor.
"Where was your help when Beacon fell?!" Pale shouted. "Where was your help when the White Fang released grimm into Vale?!" Pale continued, stepping closer to Ilia. "Where were you when Adam and his goons burned everyone in my village alive?!" Ilia looked taken back by the questions, until she grit her teeth at Pale. "Because I was there. For all of it. I had to watch people die… Human and faunus…" Pale gave a look to the crowd. "Do you want to know why you should help Haven? Because there's innocent people, your own people, faunus, that are gonna' die! And standin' by and lettin' it happen, when you have the curse of knowledge and the blessing of power to do something about it, makes you worse than the people who'd see to commit such evil…" Pale lowered his revolver. "You want to be seen as equals? Then stop acting like humans are the cause of all your problems. Oust the ones that give y'all a bad name… Don't treat them like the messiah." Pale put his revolver in it's holster. "You wanna see humans die so bad you'd let faunus get caught in the mix? Go ahead and kill me… See how many of your own get caught in the crossfire when my people come looking to string you up." Pale said, holding his arms out wide and deactivating his aura, waiting for Ilia to strike him down. When Ilia hesitated, Pale smirked. Ilia turned away and ran.
Author's note. This was an incredibly short chapter, not even worthy of the title, but here we get to see Pale using the racism to destroy the racism. This mostly came from a desire I had to begin Pale's transition away from simply being a single minded faunus murderer, into a more healed man with the help of being surrounded by what he hates and seeing them as no different than he is, much like at Beacon with his friends. He's still a short fused, and angry little asshole, but he's getting better.