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 8
Finally having made it to the manor, Pale cocked the hammer of his revolver, and then looked at Blake. "Don't follow me." Pale said, as gunfire echoed from inside the house.
"That's my family, I can't just leave them!" Blake shouted, before Pale shook his head.
"Don't follow me… You ain't gonna like what you see." Pale said, pushing the front door open. 7 bodies, 5 targets, 2 friendlies. Identifying the biggest threats, Corsac and Fennec, Pale planned to disrupt their attack, while building semblance, to kill the grunts with penetration shots. Lining up his first shot, Pale hit Fennec in the chest, stunning him momentarily, then re-cocking and aiming at his brother, Pale did the same. Repeating the process for the White Fang member with a spear, Pale aimed high where his aura was likely to be the weakest, his eye just through his mask's slit. With luck or a low aura, the bullet blew through his mask and lodged in his skull. The second Fang, the one without a weapon, their strongest fighter, was next to be shot, a bullet hitting center of mass. The ball pierced his aura, and went clean through his chest cavity, dropping him dead. The last threat was a rifle user. Pale figured anywhere should do it, and sent his second to last shot through his chest, straight through an aura that wasn't there, blowing his heart up. With one last shot, Pale took aim again, this time at Corsac, who recovered from his stun.
The last of Pale's 6 bullets was batted away by Corsac's dagger, the round impacting the wall. There was a standoff now. Pale was empty, Sun and Ghira stood ready to fight, Corsac and Fennec were pissed that they'd been shot, and Blake stood horrified, as blood from the three dying Fang member's began to flow across the wood floor, surrounding Pale's boot and peg leg like a river, and flowing outside towards her. Pale looked at Sun and Ghira, then at the Albains. "I'll leave you to sort them out." Pale said, continuing through the house, reloading his revolver as he pushed past the foyer.
Blake was speechless. Pale had just killed three men and women in cold blood, and was going deeper into the house to find more White Fang member's to snuff out. Looking up at the door, Blake realized her mother was not with Sun and her father, and instantly took off after Pale to search the manor. He pushed into the main hallway, and so she followed. He looked right, and hearing gunfire, instead went left. "What are you doing?" Blake asked, Pale spit out his cigar.
"Getting the drop on these bastards." Came his quiet response. Walking into the living room, Pale spotted the chameleon on the second floor overhang, and sneered at her as he came to the center of the room, Blake hardening her gaze all the while. Pale looked at the door that would lead to the room full of Fang grunts he could kill, then up at Ilia who was staring down Blake. With a sigh, he turned to face the chameleon girl.
Ilia reached a hand back towards her whip, and hesitated. Pale eyed her, and with Guerrilla Warfare held low, asked her a question. "You gonna pull that piece, or you just gonna sit there whistlin' Dixie?"
Blake and Pale stood squarely against Ilia. "Did you come in here to hide?" Blake asked.
"I told you I didn't want this." Ilia spat.
"Doesn't seem to be stoppin' you." Pale said, tilting his nose up at her.
"I don't have a choice." Ilia said, looking at the door they came through to avoid perceived eye contact.
"Yes you do!" Blake said, before putting her weapon on her back. "Just stay out of my way." Blake turned to go find her mother, and that's when Ilia jumped, and drew her weapon on Blake. With Ilia moving too fast to shoot at and guarantee a kill with his semblance, Pale did the only other logical thing. Pale, perceiving Blake was about to be skewered, tried to tackle her out of danger, only to phase right through the girl, as Ilia landed behind him.
Rolling out of the way of a whip crack, Pale leveled his revolver and fanned off two shots from a kneeling position. Only for Ilia to whip two of them out of the air, the third aimed shot missing entirely, resetting his semblance's multiplied damage. Blake came up from behind, and swung at Ilia, but the chameleon girl backpedaled away, before lashing out at Blake. Getting to his foot and peg leg, Pale took his long rifle off his back, and fixed the bayonet. Trying to track a shot with iron sights that wouldn't also risk hitting Blake was incredibly difficult, and Pale cursed when the girl was kicked in the face. Finding his moment, Pale fired off a single shot, striking Ilia, casing her to fall on her back. The chameleon girl threw her weapon at the light switch, and the room became darkened, with only the moonlight sleeping through the shuttered windows. No doubt she retrieved her weapon and made her skin darker to avoid detection.
Blake crawled to get her weapon, and Pale began the process of reloading his rifle. He didn't have the same night sight that Blake had, and instead opted to keep his focus on the corners of his vision. Knowing Ilia was somewhere in the room, Pale started whistling the first few notes of Dixie to draw the faunus girl's ire. Moving to the center of the room with Blake, Pale kept his eye trained on the shadows, Blake was looking in the wrong place. She was checking high, up on the banister, when Ilia was still likely on the ground floor with them. There was a flash of light, and Pale leveled his rifle at it, and fired, only for the tip of Ilia's whip to sling out at him. Blake turned around, and fired off a few shots from Gamble Shroud.
"Why couldn't you just leave?!" Ilia asked, and after he'd reloaded, Pale used blakes shoulder as a rest for the forestock of his weapon, and fired off a second shot at the sound, the muzzle blast momentarily blinding both Blake and him.
"Because I've done enough running away." Blake said, spinning and now standing back to back with Pale. Deciding they needed a source of light, right then and there, Pale grabbed a marked magazine from Blake's back pocket, causing the faunus girl to tense up at being grabbed. Pale pulled a single round out of the borrowed mag, pried the fire dust crystal out of the cartridge with his teeth, and while seemingly stupid, front loaded it with his normal .45 cartridge.
"Sorry about the friskin'." Pale said, before aiming up at the dry vegetation lining the upper half of the room. "Oh and the house." The shot rang out, and the incendiary nature of the dust lit the ring of plants around the room, causing a bright orange glow to encircle them, revealing Ilia to the black and white duo.
The girl charged from the last recesses of darkness, and attacked Blake first. The lashings and traded sword clashes rang out, as Pale turned around and attempted to thrust his bayonet at the chameleon. She parried the cumbersome attack away just as Pale pulled the trigger, the weapon being torn from his grip and thrown, as Blake backed off. Pale drew Guerrilla Warfare, and spun it in his hand so the handle could act as a club. Getting one good strike to the head on Ilia forced her to stumble back, as Blake fired on her from the side. Ilia didn't even flinch as the round's whizzed past her. "Stop taking pot shots and fight like you mean it!" Ilia shouted, losing track of the fact Pale was still there.
"Careful what you wish for." Pale said, as he performed a road agent's spin to grip the handle of his revolver, then cocked and fired a single bullet. Ilia split the round in half, and rushed at Pale, slicing the two more rounds he fired out of the air, and once closed in, whipped his good leg, causing it to tense up as electricity ran through the muscle. Off balance without his leg, Pale fell to the floor, and tried to shoot Ilia in the gut, only to remember through all the electric pain that he was completely out of bullets.
"You're empty…" Ilia said, planting a boot on his chest, before looking up at where Blake had jumped to. "You used to see thing's the way I did. The way Adam did… And now, you're working with this human, this scum, the enemy?!" Ilia punctuated her question by pressing the tip of her weapon into Pale's shooting arm, causing it to go numb with pain as he was shocked again. "If no one is going to do anything to stop the humans that attack us, then the only thing we can do is fight back!" Ilia dug the blade into Pale's shoulder, testing the limits of his aura, as Blake showed herself, gun pointed at her former friend.
"You're wrong. There is another way. You're a good person, but you are making all the wrong choices." Blake said, before Ilia finally broke the last of Pale's aura, digging the sharp edge of her whip sword into his shoulder. At first Pale let out a scream, then reduced his volume to a grunt, as he wrapped his left hand around the weapon to prevent it from sinking any deeper, shocking his hand in the process.
"Shut up!" Ilia shouted down at Blake. "I don't have a choice! I didn't know what to do, and I don't have the power to change the decisions of our leaders… If it could be any other way, I would advocate for it…" Ilia looked down at Pale, and took off her mask, tossing it to the side. "So I'm going to do what needs to be done…" Ilia said, pulling the blade out of Pale's shoulder, and pointing it at his throat. "No." Blake muttered, fearful she would be the reason for another needless death. Pale swallowed before speaking to Ilia.
"Go on… Do it then… I've made my peace with Jehovah… I'm ready to die… I've tried and failed attonin' for my sins, and when I greet God, it will be as blasted soul cursed to forever be torched in Hellfire… But when you go, when it's your turn to die… Can you say you were ready to meet your maker… To be faced by all the people you hurt?" Pale asked. Ilia felt the beginnings of hesitation creep in as she allowed the human his last words. "Because I know that look in your eye, I used to have it as a boy… You's afraid… You talk big about having to act as bad as us humans, but you're scared of turning into us… So go on, do what we do, murder in the name of hate… I won't be the one that judges you." Pale said, letting his revolver drop out of his hand.
Ilia felt a single tear build, before she raised her blade up to force it through Pale's throat, only to be knocked off her feet, as bits of wood splinters came from the wall that had been blown inward. Ghira had thrown Corsac and Fennec through the wall. The large man and Sun entered shortly after, and held off the Fox brother's as Blake jumped down to make sure Pale was alright. He sat up on his own, and picked up his revolver. "The Hell you checkin' on me for?" Pale asked, as he holstered his revolver, and then pushed himself to his feet, to grab his rifle, the only weapon with munitions available. Ilia had gotten back up, and raised her whip, prepared to strike the wounded man down once more, before Pale clocked her in the head with the stock, and prepared to impale her with the bayonet.
"STOP IT!" Blake yelled as loud as she could.
Pale halted his attack, just an inch away from Ilia's chest, her aura was so low it was shimmering. Surely with his weight put behind the thrust, she would be injured if not killed… So why did he listen? Maybe because Ilia mattered to Blake.
"AAAAAAAAAAAH!" Turning his weapon to the incoming shout, Pale felt his blade sink into the abdomen of Fennec Albain, and watched as the expression of shock replaced one of anger. The white sniper, unable to kick the man off of his weapon, or dislodge him off the serrated bayonet that stuck out of his back, swiftly put a fresh round into his rifle, let Fennec fall to his knees, and then fired. Letting the force of recoil yank the blade free, and blowing a hole in the dying man, expediting the process. With his weapon free, Pale reloaded, and looked over at Corsac, feeling his aura start to come back, and heal his injury.
The remaining brother looked at Pale and snarled. Depleted of aura, without a weapon, in a room full of armed enemies, one willing to kill, and his only other ally on the floor, dying, he saw no other option. A death spent killing his foes would be more than enough to make up for his failure as a member of the new White Fang's inner circle. Corsac charged at Pale, only to collapse, Ilia's electric whip knocking him unconscious from the sidelines.
Everyone looked at the chameleon girl, as she broke down crying. She'd seen enough death for one day. Corsac ending his own life was not something she could bear to witness, and to save him, she attacked him, much to the shock of everyone around her. Not a moment later, Kali Belladonna came through the door that led to the tea room, dragging Yuma the bat faunus behind her. Blake immediately ran to her mother, hugging the older woman, as the home burned around them. Pale pulled his bayonet off his rifle, and flicked the blood off of it, wiping what was left off on his pant leg, before stowing it in it's sheath. Pale was the first to start moving, earning a gaze from Blake. "What are you doing?" She asked, before he grabbed Corsac by the ankle and dragged him over to Yuma, then cuffed the two's feet together. "My job…" Pale said, as he began to drag the two surviving White Fang members outside.
Once everyone had come outside, the fire brigade had shown up, along with almost half the population of the city. Corsac was taken away with Yuma by the guards, and Ilia was "being detained momentarily" by Pale, who saw fit to let Blake look at her shamefully. Leaning up against the front door, Pale lit a cigarillo, and waited for the next move to be made. Blake looked at Pale, then out to the crowd. She'd just watched Pale, a killer of an unknown number of faunus, spare Ilia, and save two White Fang members from a fire that he'd set… And she'd also seen Ilia spare him. It was now or never. With a sigh, Blake went to the bottom of the front steps, and addressed the people of Menagerie.
There was a rousing speech. Blake pointed out everything Pale had. About how the worst of the faunus were the ones that spoke for them, about how baseless hate wasn't going to get them anywhere, and when she asked who would go with her. Ilia was the first to offer her aid. The guard Pale had ordered to keep an eye on her, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her away from Blake. "You're not going anywhere." He said, and with that, Pale pushed off the front door.
"Yes she is…" Pale said, catching the attention of the crowd.
"Uhh- Sheriff, are you sure about this?" The guard asked. Pale nodded, and spat out what remained of his cigarillo.
"Ilia's done enough harm, it's about time she did some good… I think a second chance like that might be what she needs…" Pale said, as the guard let her go. Looking out at the people of Menagerie, Pale limped down the steps to stand beside Blake, Ilia close behind. "I stand by Blake Belladonna. If innocent people are going to die, then I can't let her try to save them on her own… Faunus or human." Pale said. Before glancing over the crowd. "Who's with us?" The resounding chorus of people who came to shout their commitment started off slow at first. Before the crowd steadily grew into a roar of people offering their support. It brought a smile to Pale's face, and he looked back at Ghira. "You wanted an army Chief… Well now you got one."
Ghira walked down to the end of the steps to stand beside his daughter and her friends. "We have about four weeks before Adam leads his attack on Haven. We'll need to put together weapons, more training, and transportation." Ghira said, listing off what they'd need. Pale looked at Blake, then Sun, and smirked.
"You get the guns, I can teach half these folks to nick a tick off a dog's ass at 200 yards, in 5 days." Pale said.
Blake grew a smirk of her own. "And I think I know a ship captain who owes us a favor."