Olivia waited behind the container she was using for cover. A patrol was passing, two guards, guns at their hips, that would certainly shoot on sight if they saw her here. Olivia sunk into the shadows and waited for them to pass. This wasn't a kill mission. She needed to get into the main office and acquire the SDC's shipment plans without arousing suspicion. After the little trip with Jace two months ago, Olivia had made her intentions clear to Crim. She wasn't going to kill anymore. She wanted to be a better person, and to go to Sanctum.

As Jace had guessed, no one in the White Fang had held it against her. They'd all been happy, several of them ecstatic even. They had redoubled their efforts to teach her things. The training with Jace had gotten even more intense, and Widow had started stopping by more often, later in the day, to teach her more of her craft. How to become a shadow. Olivia may not have Widow's semblance, but there were things she could do with her own that others could not duplicate. It had been Widow that suggested she go on this mission alone. "She can handle it." Olivia had basked in the praise. It would likely be her last mission. Her letter from Sanctum had arrived in the mail earlier that day.

Olivia used her appendages to heft her higher than she could have reached otherwise, climbing up the stack of containers to the top. From here, she could see the entire room. No one thought to look up. The patrol that had passed her was one of many, as was this stack of cargo containers she had chosen to climb. None of their vantage points were high enough to see her as she slipped across the top of the containers, jumping from stack to stack silently on her way to the opposite side of the building. What she was looking for was a second story office, one that overlooked the rest of the enormous warehouse. She spotted it quickly enough, in the direction she was already headed. More patrols passed her by.

Olivia stopped at the edge of the final stack of containers. The room she was looking at was built into the side of the building, window open to overlook the rest of the warehouse. She would need to drop down to ground level to access it through the stairs. It was her best chance at entry without leaving a trace. If the SDC believed their shipment records were compromised, they would change them in a heartbeat.

With one last check of her senses to confirm no one was nearby, Olivia dropped back down to the ground like a ghost and made her way to the bottom of the stairs. Widow's training was working overtime. She felt outwards again with her senses for anyone nearby, towards the top. Satisfied, she ascended. The stairs curled along the side of the building, thankfully blocked off from prying eyes by the wall they were inclosed in. Olivia stepped up to the steel door at the top, locked behind a keypad that would required a keycard. She pulled out the one that Widow had swiped a few days before and inserted it. The small beep in response made Olivia tense, but it was too quiet for any of the humans to have heard.

The door swung open freely now, and Olivia walked inside, keeping low to avoid being spotted through the windows that lined the front. A long console stretched across the wall beneath the window, the one used to control all of the cranes that moved the dust containers from place to place. It was there that she went, to the screen in the center of it. The screen hummed to life, lighting up and displaying the Schnee logo across the front of it. Olivia inserted the keycard into the slot on the console. The screen changed, Olivia didn't bother to read the name it displayed and just waited for the files to appear. The desktop opened, and she quickly scanned the folders on it. 'Records, Personnel, Procedures,' Olivia's eyes lit up on, 'Transportation', and she brought her finger up to choose it.

Her senses suddenly alerted her to someone coming up the stairs, still at the bottom for the moment but certainly approaching. 'No, two people.' Olivia pulled out the keycard, screen going back to just the image of the company logo, and searched the room. It was relatively empty, except for the console and the table in the center of the room. It didn't have legs, but was packed with drawers and shelves that she could use to try and cut off line of sight. Olivia moved behind it right as the door opened, admitting the two guards that stepped inside.

"Man, did you hear that Cotton got to go on the raid? I was sure they would pick me!" one of the guards exclaimed as he stepped in, walking up to the console. Olivia edged her body behind the table as well as she could, keeping it between herself and the two guards.

"Whaaat? That guy is an idiot! I guess they didn't need many of us, though. Did you hear they hired seven pro huntsman to lead the raid?" 'A raid?' Olivia didn't like the sound of that.

"Seven!?" Damn it, I really wish I could have been there to see them in action. Those White Fang killed half my squad. Probably would have gotten me too if I'd been on duty that night."

"How'd they even find their hideout?" 'Shit! This sounds really bad! Screw the mission! If this is what I think it is, then I need to get back to the hideout. Right. Now!'

Olivia surged up from behind the table towards the two, slamming the both of them against the console in front of them, two appendages for each. They shouted in fear and surprise, bodies contorted awkwardly as they reached for their weapons. Olivia dragged them back and flung them across the floor before jabbing an appendage down on top of their chests. When their hands once again frantically reached for their weapons, she pinned those hands to the floor as well. All they could do was look up at her in terror as she stood above them both.

"Where and when is this raid?" Olivia said it in the most neutral tone she could, slowly pressing down on their chests so that they could feel the sharp point against their flesh.

They looked between each other, eyes wide. The expression on one firmed, "We aren't telling you any-!"

Olivia pierced down through his chest, sinking her appendage half a foot into the floor beneath him. He gave one final gasp before his eyes went dull, body limp. She hurled him against the wall to her left, blood splattering across the room as he tumbled back to the ground. Olivia turned her attention to the other that was now looking at her, completely horrified. 'Good.'

"That'll be you in a second if you don't tell me what I want to know. Now!"

The guard threw his free hand up, "Th-there's an attack planned on a Wh-White Fang hideout near the slums! Some faunus told us where they were! The company hired a bunch of huntsman for it! It-It's tonight!"

Olivia paled, 'Tonight!?' She ripped her scroll from her pocket and dialed Crim's number. The call connected, ringing into the silence left over between her and the guard. It kept ringing.

"Come on Crim, pick up!" There was no answer. Olivia was trying to dial Jace's number when she felt more guards running up the stairs. She turned back to the guard she had pinned, "Congratulations. You answered my questions. You may live." The tension in his body lowered for a moment, right before Olivia's appendage slammed against the side of his head, knocking him unconscious. 'You friends between me and the exit, however…?'

The first to the door was the first to die. Olivia could sense him directly on the other side, inserting his keycard. She didn't bother waiting. With one heave, she stabbed through the metal door and through the man's chest, then whipped him back and forth to shake him off as she withdrew the appendage back into the room.

The guards on the other side screamed in outrage and panic at the sudden death of their comrade. Gun fire blasted into the door as they tried to fire through the hole. Olivia wasn't dumb enough to stand in the way of it. With three of her appendages, she cracked them like a whip against the door all at once. It was ripped off its hinges and sent flying into the guards, knocking them all down the stairs in a tangled heap.

Olivia flew down the stairs after them, in a dead sprint. One stumbled to his feet near the bottom, and was cut down before he could reclaim his gun. Her appendage slashed across his throat with its edge. Blood poured down his chest as he toppled backwards out of her way. Another reached for her foot to grab her, so Olivia cut his arm off. His screams were the last thing she heard as she ran out of the building, attention set on only one thing.

Get back to base.

Olivia blew through the deserted streets in the dark of the night, path set on one destination. Her breath came out ragged with every other step. She had attached an appendage to each leg, and was using their strength to increase her speed to heights she had not known she could reach. Even still, the Schnee warehouse had been on the opposite side of the district from where they were. The twisting, winding roads between all the unmarked warehouses was slowing her progress as well. She had never been good at finding her way through them.

Eyes darting from side to side, she finally spotted a familiar road and turned down it. 'I'm close!' A flash of red and blue lights caught her attention. Olivia tensed her ears. She could not hear any fighting. No steel against steel, no gunshots. 'Am I too late!?'

Olivia felt a familiar presence off to her right, on top of the building across the street from the base. 'Widow!' She quickly scaled the building, out of sight of the police parked in front of the hideout. With one final heave, she landed on top of the roof, rolling back to her feet to see Widow. She stood at the edge of the building, overlooking the hideout.

"We were too late, little spider," Widow said sadly, turning back to Olivia with a somber expression.

"No, no we can still fight!" Olivia whispered, moving to also peek over the edge at the scene below. There was no fighting. There was no shouting. The bodies of White Fang and huntsman alike were strewn across the street. Smoke billowed up from the building itself, a fire somewhere inside that no one was in a rush to put out. The remaining SDC and huntsman were retrieving the bodies of their own fallen. Olivia could see her friends, her family, her comrades.

'Jace!'

Olivia fell to her knees at the sight of her… her brother. His chest had been slashed open, blood pooling beneath him. Crim lay next to him, neck twisted in a way that it was never meant to be. She spotted July… her eyes darted to each body. They were all dead. Every single one.

She flinched as Widow's hand fell on her shoulder, and looked up into the older woman's eyes. Olivia could see the pain behind them, but also sympathy. Sympathy for Olivia. "This is not the end, Olivia. We can come back from this. We will make them regret the day they ever took up arms against the White Fang," Widow whispered it to her with certainty, a cold steel forming behind her eyes that bore into Olivia's own.

Olivia looked down once again, her eyes now taking in the huntsman. She etched every single face she saw into her memory. She would not forget them. Never.

"Let's go, Olivia. There's nothing we can do here."

'Olivia? No. That was a dead girl's name. One that had been living off borrowed time from the moment her semblance activated. One that had been wasting that time by not doing what needed to be done. She was looking down on the proof of that. How naive she had been, to think anything could ever change between the faunus and the humans. Fighting for equality?'

'...She would kill for peace.'

"Lotus," she whispered, still refusing to stand. Her eyes burned with a deep hatred that would not be quenched until blood was spilled.

"What?" Widow asked, turning back around.

"Olivia died with them... Call me Lotus."

"...As you wish, little spider."

A smile that Olivia would never see curled across Widow's lips.