Towards Shadows


"Just because we're looking for Weiss doesn't mean were forgetting about any of this. Once we get her back, we're gonna have to do some thinking. Without you."

The day after Weiss' departure was one of the worst Adam could recall that didn't involve bloodshed.

Adam stared blankly up at Yang's bed. He'd never fixed those two holes in the bottom: Yang joked that maybe he did that as a reminder not to end up getting his horns stuck again.

"... You're worried. Right. Look, maybe you should just stay here for a while. I don't want you and Weiss getting into it out in public again."

That Saturday had reminded him just how much the tension had faded since he'd first arrived. Now there were no puns, no giggling, no jokes, no suggestions on what to do, no clubs. Adam, though his agility and intelligence, had never gotten himself in prison before, but he wondered if this was what it was like: a droll day and night of reading that was just an attempt to hold off the looming worry and growing anger.

With how important Weiss was to the world at large and how dangerous Vale was right now, they'd decided to search that day to search for Weiss. Without him. Then, they would judge his place. Without him. Then there was no doubt in his mind that they would continue on. Without him. At best, he would be given the option to disappear. At worst, they would inform the authorities, and he would be on the run yet again. Normally, this would not be a problem, he could always just regroup with Blake and assist her in Menagerie, but...

Adam lifted his Scroll up. No new messages. Briefly, he hovered his thumb over Velvet's contact, desperate for any reprieve from this situation, but he couldn't bring himself to. He couldn't open himself up to yet another back turned on him. Another back. He scowled as he stared at Blake's contact listing. He hadn't heard from Blake in months.

The Scroll shook in his hand. He wanted to shatter it. He wanted so much to be rid of the reminder of Blake's abandonment, but his heart just wouldn't let him. Have hope, it said. One day, it said. Frustration only growing louder, he gripped his Scroll tighter, roared and hurled it at the other side of the room, enjoying the satisfying crack it made against the wall before clacking down behind Weiss' bed and out of sight.

His heart only got him into trouble. He should have never listened to it in the first place: not here, and not with her. Images and memories of that fateful mission atop the train played themselves over and over in his head, each only highlighting every little detail he missed that was so obvious to him now. Blake being so closed off, asking about the passengers like she didn't already know the answer, the shifting of her eyes and flattening of ears.

Adam thought he was perfect at reading her: Blake was planning something as the two rode off on that train.

He should've known that she was planning on how to get away from him! Not a word Blake had said was true! Not about her desire to change the White Fang, not about how she thought there was hope in him after all, not in about how she wanted him to simply mingle with humans. It was all lies! Lies to get away from him!

The inevitable truth Adam tried to fend off so much came pressing down on him like a ten ton weight: Blake was never returning.

She was a coward. The dam built up for months, constructed of peaceful memories and optimistic thoughts of the future crumbled away. With it, came the waves of his hatred in full force.

You're a fool for letting yourself fall for it. Just like you're a fool for believing they care. He instinctively clutched his mask.

They're biding their time. Like another person altogether, his mind refused to stop chanting to him.

They outnumber you. They have friends. They have power. They won't just leave like Blake did. They will destroy you. His thoughts continued on into the night, even as Ruby and Yang silently arrived with no Weiss in tow. They did not even look at one another. Yang took Weiss' bed for tonight.

But his heart could not stand idly by. "It's only temporary. They're worried about you." It tried to soothe him. Even in his most doubtful hour, even when her loyalty to him was in question, it held Blake's voice.

It was too little, too late.

Listen to your instincts! You're a faunus! You know what you have to do to be safe. Adam could see every way this could go wrong, every way having the audacity to trust humans with his own fate would leave him wounded or dead. Unless he struck first.

"But is that what would make you happy?" His heart questioned and wrestled with his gut instincts.

It will keep you alive. They've betrayed you in all but name, just like she did. Don't give them the time to strike back. His hand tightened around Wilt. Were no one else there, he would have screamed. In rage. In frustration. Sadness. He didn't care, but he just needed to clear his mind.

"There is nowhere else I belong," Adam grumbled to himself, even as he slowly pushed himself up to his feet and walked to the window. A cold breeze cut through him.

And yet, his mind and his heart could agree on one thing.

"You're lying."

There was a place he'd belong, where he would always belong. He looked off at the two slumbering sisters. The wind sent the curtains fluttering once more. Things were more peaceful now that the two were asleep, yet that peace only left the growing weight in his pocket all the more prevalent.

Slowly, Adam drew out his mask and held it into the open air, seeing faint glimmers of the sky through the four slits: the first time he'd peered through it even this much in months.

The next decision was the easiest one he'd ever made in his life.


"Thank you for walking with me, Weiss!" Penny all but shouted as she walked alongside Weiss that morning into a coffee shop. She stopped at the door and stared up at the logo.

Weiss stopped with the door half-open and sighed. "Yes, Penny?"

She nearly collapsed from how hard Penny grabbed onto her shoulder.

"You appear to be very low on sleep, Weiss! Coffee is counter-intuitive to sleeping!" Penny dutifully informed her, smile never faltering. Weiss opened her mouth to speak, but only shook her head and walked inside anyway. Or, at least, tried to with Penny's hand being nothing short of a vice on her shoulder. She let out a quiet growl.

"Oh! Sorry!" Penny snapped her hand back to her side, and Weiss was free to get the strongest thing they had. She couldn't sleep, not with all of this weighing on her mind, but she still needed to think. Weiss all but collapsed into a chair, Penny soon taking a seat across from her. The two sat there like that for a while, Weiss sipping at her well-needed source of caffeine, Penny staring straight ahead with that cheery smile that never left her face for more than three seconds. She'd counted.

"... Thank you, by the way, for keeping me company at the hotel, yesterday. I really don't want to be alone, right now," Weiss admitted.

Penny's smile grew just a little more. The girl was an odd one, but after she followed Weiss around, she turned out to be... at least someone to talk to. Enough for her to be comfortable—though, maybe 'desperate' was the right word—enough to invite her for an impromptu sleepover. Really, it was just her not wanting to be alone with her thoughts and not having anyone else she could talk to, but still, it was something. They hadn't talked much: Penny just stared at the television as if it were the most interesting thing she'd ever seen. Weiss guessed she must've had her nose in a book for most of her life.

"That's a-okay, Weiss!" Though, something was bothering her...

Weiss raised an eyebrow. "Say, Penny, why were you out, that late, anyway?"

Penny stared at Weiss for just a second too long. "I was lost!" She hiccuped and gave a more strained grin.

Weiss raised her other eyebrow. "I... see. I hope I wasn't keeping you from anything."

"It's a-okay, Weiss! I already alerted my team to where I would be!" She hiccuped again.

"Your... team? As in, Huntress team?"

Penny nodded and gave Weiss a sharp salute. "I am combat ready!"

Weiss wasn't exactly convinced. "You don't exactly look the part."

Penny's eyes slowly defocused, then she snapped back to reality with a goofy grin. "... I am combat ready!" she repeated.

"Right." A little weirded out, Weiss was content to finish her coffee, right up until she noticed that Penny had gone from staring blankly ahead to staring directly at her.

"Say, Weiss"—she got the weird impression that Penny was copying her—"if you didn't want to be alone, why didn't you visit your team?" Weiss winced, and for the first time since she'd seen the odd girl, Penny frowned.

"Are you okay, Weiss?" When Weiss only silently stared down at her coffee, Penny slowly lowered herself down and leaned forward until she was back in her sight.

"I am... 'all ears'!" She sounded proud, like it took effort to remember that. Weiss felt unsure: could she really trust her? Oh, who was she kidding, Huntress or not, Penny looked more harmless than Ruby after a nap.

She threw back the rest of her coffee, took a deep breath, and told Penny everything.

At first, Weiss didn't expect it to be truly everything, yet before she knew it the words were tumbling from her lips. The terrible things her family had done, how she was finding less and less common ground with her father every passing week, how she wanted to change things in her corporation but karma had swung back in the creation of the White Fang, meaning giving any freedoms was considered negotiating with terrorists. How much the White Fang had taken from her, her family and her business that she could barely see faunus without linking them with the organization, and how much she hated that she was becoming her father by doing so.

She admitted the real reason she wanted to become a Huntress was so that she could not only defend herself, but her company.

She went on about how, as luck would have it, she wound up with not just a faunus teammate, but one who hated her family and, thus, probably her. How she found herself trapped between these two super-happy sisters so close she couldn't even imagine a close connection forming and this brooding faunus who couldn't decide whether or not he was a friend or foe. Not like she wasn't guilty of the same thing: some days she felt like he couldn't be trusted, and other days things were fine. But it wasn't like she liked any of this: this huge back and forth of friendliness and venom between them.

All it did was make her feel more alone in her team than she ever was when she was physically alone.

Weiss elaborated on fight after fight after fight with Adam, the last being so bad she just tried to make nice for good. And where did that get her? In the biggest fight yet and now he's told her he wasn't who he says he was. That he'd done terrible things.

She crushed the styrofoam cup in her hand as she recalled how when she was rightfully angry, her so-called 'friends' took his side over her.

She admitted that she didn't want to feel that alone ever again.

And she admitted that she still missed them.

It was evening by the time Weiss had finished ranting. Penny had sat perfectly still, politely listening and not so much as saying a word until Weiss was just left breathing heavily and feeling more tired than when she'd walked in.

"Wow! That was a long story! Did you talk to them about it?" Penny asked as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Weiss furrowed her brow. "... What do you mean?"

"I don't have friends, but if I did, I'd want them to talk to me about things! This sounds like an important thing!" Weiss' mouth hung open. Had she tried that? She swore she had, but... besides the 'truce'—if that could really be called talking—there had just been a lot of shouting. Something else clicked in her mind.

"W-wait, what do you mean, 'you don't have friends'? What about your team?"

"Oh! They are ordered to spend time with me!"

Weiss blanched: that sounded terrible! Almost as terrible as how she could say that with a smile!

"Well, Penny, you shouldn't lie."

Penny stared at Weiss, confused. "But I..."

"Because you do have a friend, right here!" From Penny's positively ecstatic gasp and how wide her eyes became, Weiss wondered if in her sleep-deprived state she'd accidentally proposed to her, instead. Even so, she smiled: she needed this.

Putting off the inevitable return to her team? Just a bonus benefit.


Not even a block away, a door to a simple bookshop opened and a bell rang. The owner was quick to step out from his office, a greeting said hundreds of times before coming to his lips on instinct. Those words withered to ash on his tongue upon seeing his visitor.

"Good evening, Mister Tukson."

Cold, emerald eyes bored through him.

"I'm looking for The Third Crusade."


"I look sensational!" Penny bounced on her heels in front of the mirror in a nearby clothes shop. This girl had gone from being awkward yet always happy to making Ruby look depressed in comparison. She spun around to face Weiss with a sparkling grin. One of the first things Weiss took Penny to do was get her new clothes: she couldn't even believe that she only had a single outfit! Ten outfits of the same thing, according to her!

Sure, Weiss only really wore her favorite outfit too, but she still had others just in case! Like... like... only the ones Coco got her. That she'd never worn, yet.

... Maybe she could pick up this one nice white peacoat and skirt she saw, too.

"What do you think, friend?"

Weiss had to hold back a giggle; Penny's eyes were still lighting up every time she said that. She placed her hands on her hips and let her pride show.

"Well, I am the one who helped picked them out." Her white blouse had been changed out for a black, ruffled one with a high collar, and while she couldn't find a dress with the same... interesting strap design—while cute to some, Weiss thought she looked like she came from a farm with that look—for a brighter waist cincher and skirt the same shade as her eyes with a black stripe running along the bottom and her waist. Weiss hadn't had a clue where Penny even managed to get those black stocking... pants... thing, so, simple, black stockings had to do.

All in all, bar slight alterations, it was more a change in color than appearance, but Weiss wouldn't let any new friend of hers walk around in the same outfit 24/7!

One swipe of her card later and the two were off under the darkening, twilight skies of Vale with bags in tow. With it being late on a Sunday and close to the Vytal Festival, crowds of people from not just Vale but all over the world were walking through the streets. She knew she would have to figure this whole thing out by tomorrow but, for now, Weiss just enjoyed the day. The thoughts of her team, or Adam, or being alone had finally left her head.

"Hey, Weiss, is that your friend?" Penny pointed off into the crowd at an all-too-familiar mane of golden hair bobbing through the masses. Weiss took a sharp breath and started trying to tug Penny the other way. She had no such luck: how was this girl so heavy!

"Penny, we should really think about going back—"

"Sal-u-tations, Weiss' friend!" she called out into the crowd. Sure enough, Yang sprung out, distressed and looking like she'd gotten just as much sleep as she had. So much for a day without thinking about this.

Weiss sighed and forced a smile. "Hello, Yang..."

"Weiss! We were so worried about you! Where'd you go? We've been looking for you for hours! You're coming back, right? Who..." Her flurry of questions slowed as she noticed who was standing next to Weiss. "Isn't that the weird girl from a couple days ago?"

"Hello, I'm Penny!"

"Yes, she's my new friend, and really, I'm flattered by the concern, but I'll have you know that I'm fine and—you're calling Ruby over, aren't you," Weiss grumbled, for Yang had already pulled her scroll out before she was even half-finished.

She smiled sheepishly in return. Weiss just glanced aside and shifted uncomfortably: she still had no plan as to what to do.

"Alright! One down, one to go!" She threw an arm around Weiss, who grimaced.

"Wait, what do you mean, 'one to go'? You didn't manage to lose Ruby already, did you?"

Yang looked around nervously and let out a hollow laugh. "Well, ya see, uh... Adam's... kind of gone missing, too."

"Really?" Weiss had little time to say any more, for Ruby skid to a halt just in front of them, rose petals trailing behind her.

"Awesome job, Yang! We'll have the whole team back together in no time at all! Hi, Penny!"

"Hi, Ruby!" Penny was happy to be noticed.

"Don't we, already?" Weiss asked as an implicit warning: she did not need him looming over this day any longer. Ruby and Yang looked uneasily between another.

"... Not... really," Ruby began, shrinking under Weiss' immediate glare.

Yang decided to finish it, for her. "Adam's gone."

"So?"

"Gone, gone, Weiss. His bag, his weapon, everything."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Good! That's less trouble for us, you know."

"Come on, Weiss..." Ruby started to complain, only for Weiss to cut her off immediately:

"No! Don't 'come on', me!"

Yang snickered.

"Oh, grow up! I think I'm doing quite a favor by not just going to the you-know-who about the you-know-what." Weiss crossed her arms under her chest, leering at the two of them.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, but he's still our teammate! We can't just leave him alone like that in the middle of Vale."

"I'm sure he has plenty of friends, out here." Weiss wanted out of this. It wasn't as bad a meeting as she'd thought, but, she began to wonder if their sleeplessness was from her missing or from him. "But... fine. I'll look for him to the west, you girls cover the east. We fan out from here."

"Penny, wait for me at the room. I'll be there soon."

"Okay, friend!" Penny cheerily exclaimed and skipped away. Not wanting to give Ruby and Yang any time to figure her out, Weiss shuffled off into the crowds just as the streetlights began to flicker on. She needed a place or a person that was truly quiet, somewhere she could think. But for now, all she could do is wander.


Funny. Weiss didn't expect to find herself all the way back at the docks, let alone the shipyard. It was something, at least: now that it was getting late, it was bound to be empty. Her eyes followed the smudges and scratches along the side of a warehouse as she strolled along it. Perhaps it was a little bit dirty, but, she could always stay here and just make up a story. Then, maybe she could try to get what she was sure would be the first of many good nights' sleep, now that Adam was gone. Her expression grew solemn.

Where is that fool? Weiss told herself she was just worried about him returning to the White Fang, or maybe sleep was trying to pick at her common sense. Considering how sleeping outside against a rusty warehouse sounded like a good idea, she decided it was the latter. She shook her head: she just wanted a little longer before she had to face the tense mess she called her team. And right here, where there was just the ambient noise of the city behind her, the soft sound of sea ahead, and unmarked, armed Bullheads towing off precious Schnee Dust Company cargo under the cover of night above, was a perfect place to do so.

... Wait.


As little more than a White Fang grunt, life was often simple, especially in giant operations like these where you were only a single cog in the machine of revolution. In this case, it was one of his simplest missions yet: get out of the Bullhead, hook up a cable, and make sure the police weren't sneaking up on them the entire time.

Easy money for him, easy food for his kid, easy mission for his record, and most importantly, easy publicity for the White Fang as they orchestrated their biggest dust raid yet. Thank the gods, his team was placed as far away from that bastard Torchwick as possible, though. Sometimes he wondered if he was hiding a rat tail somewhere in that jacket, no offense to his actual rat brethren.

His ears were finally spared the incessant whine of the Bullhead's turbines once it landed. He and his three subordinates stepped out with him in the lead. He sighed, made sure his mask was on straight, and turned around to face his team.

"Alright, you heard the boss." He resisted the urge to spit. "Let's get these cables hooked up. We're trying to get at least twelve containers out of here before the police are alerted: that'll be two trips minimum for us, so make it quick!"

No response. Curious, he stepped forward.

"Hello? Anyone awake in there? It's not that late, so get your heads in the game! The Captain will have your head on a platter if we ruin something this simple!" He leaned back. They were pale. One's mouth was hanging open, one was even trembling. Instincts suddenly screaming that something was wrong, he reached down towards his waist, then snapped around in an instant, blade drawn and ready.

It clattered to the ground.

"M-Major Taurus?"