Reunion


"N-now, wait, Adam, she explained that it's all one big misunderstanding and I tried to call you a bunch because she's scared but she's really a nice person and she likes books and—" Ruby's rapid-fire attempt to preemptively defend Blake fell on deaf ears. Adam was as still as a statue in the doorway, pale and with wide eyes. He could see Blake's lips moving, but couldn't hear a thing. Adam barely recognized that Yang nudged her way past him.

This didn't make any sense. Utter happiness and a returning anger battled in his heart, leaving only dread until one could reign victorious. She was never in Menagerie. She was in Mistral. His mind tried to come up with a reason why: perhaps she was trying to stop the White Fang's terrorist branch in Mistral first, instead of building a peaceful organization? Then why was she in a Haven Academy uniform?

It was a cover, his mind replied, to make sure she had reason to be there beyond being a rogue. But then why would she lie to him? Lie about her parents, lie about why she was there, who she talked to, every event, every tale, all just another lie. Why would she have not responded for over an entire semester unless she was planning to leave him entirely? It all came back to a single question, whether or not Blake had betrayed him at all.

Why was she here?

"Adam?" At some point in his daze, Blake had stepped closer, and it was then that it truly occurred to him that this was really happening. Blake was here. The amber eyes, the midnight-black hair, the faint scent of lavender perfume, that silly bow... and the sharp, black uniform of Haven Academy. He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding and looked up to Yang and Ruby.

"Leave us."

Ruby's eyes bounced from Blake, who'd turned her eyes down to the floor in shame or fear, to Adam, staring straight through her with a war of emotions raging in his mind.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Now." Ruby and Blake both flinched at the intensity of his demand. As Adam stepped inside, Ruby quietly shuffled out. Yang had no problem in snaking her way back out with her, suddenly glad to escape this increasingly awkward reunion. And then they were alone. Time ticked by, Adam still barely believing that she was standing before him. Her eyes were still focused on the ground, shoulders pulled tight to make herself as small as possible. He lifted his hand, instinct demanding he comfort her rather than be angry.

Adam clenched his fist and brought it back to his side. No. He couldn't let old memories trick him into letting Blake get away with this. Not now.

"What happened, Blake? Why weren't you in Menagerie?" he hissed.

"I-I was. Briefly. I'd taken the ship there, but when I got off and I could see my parents' house right there I just... I don't know, I ran back." Blake sounded tired and weak. When Adam looked closer, he could see bags beneath her eyes: she hadn't slept well in who knows how long. She was just like him. Perhaps tomorrow, he could let her—no! No! This needed to be answered today!

"So you went to Mistral? To Haven? Why did you lie and tell me you were in Menagerie, then? We could've adapted the plan around that: the more dangerous members of the White Fang are based there—"

"Adam, I didn't want to fight the White Fang!" Blake interrupted him, shoulders raised and arms crossed beneath her chest. "I wanted to be done! I just... I just wanted to live a normal life without this"—Blake motioned to her bow—"hanging over me for all of it!" she admitted.

His fingers bit into his palms even through his gloves, and he scowled enough to show teeth. So, it was true: from the very beginning, Blake hadn't meant a single word she'd said.

"You wanted to run from being a faunus? You really must be a coward!" The accusation tasted bitter on his tongue, so much unlike the smoothness and ease he expected the fury to flow with. The tears gathering in Blake's eyes as she continued to refuse to even look up at him did not escape his gaze. Try as he might, Adam could only stir the ashes of his anger vented out mere minutes ago. Perhaps that was fortunate for both of them. Had he still been holding back as much fury as he had even an hour or two ago, Adam did not know just how hurtful he would be. Nor how much he would regret it.

"Look at me," Adam commanded.

Blake refused and stayed silent.

"Look at me," he hissed and pulled Blake closer.

Her eyes, full of fear, turned up, expecting to meet crimson eyes filled with unfathomable rage. To her shock and confusion however, she found only a cold, solemn emerald, begging for answers.

"Blake. I just want to know one thing. Why did you lie to me? Why did you abandon me here?"

The two were left to stare at one another, and just as Adam felt his confusion and pain begin to boil over, Blake took a deep breath.

"I'd meant what I said on that train, Adam: I didn't want to see what you'd become. I hid and waited, hoping one day you'd just... vanish. Maybe you'd join the White Fang again, maybe you'd get arrested, but either way, I could just live my life as far away from the Fang as possible." Seeing nothing more than a slight narrowing of Adam's eyes, Blake continued, panic slowly beginning to enter her voice. "I-I hoped you wouldn't! God knows I hoped you would be alright, but I couldn't just keep ignoring you day after day after day, so one day, I'd finally forced myself to call."

He had been right the entire time. Claim as Blake might that she had hope, Adam knew there was no such thing before that day. He couldn't blame her, of course: he was close to becoming a monster, but if Blake had so little hope for him then, could he even be sure that all of that was gone? Burnt out on anger already, all Adam felt was a growing sense of bitterness.

"Then I saw you and your... your human team! I didn't know what to do—I barely even expected to see you without the mask! So I just kept lying my way through the weeks, hoping one day maybe I could bring myself to tell you the truth, or tell you that I wanted to be alone." Blake had begun to tremble, her bow flattening as her ears tried to fold down. She'd expected more anger and rage, further demands and accusations. Getting nothing at all only left ice in her chest.

She started to ramble: being met with only silence pushed Blake's panic closer to hysteria. "T-then a few days ago, someone came after me, they... they killed my entire team, and when I knew it was the White Fang, I just ran away again! I don't even know if any of them made it, and it was all my fault! Another team had gotten attacked and lost one of theirs, so they offered to have me join them with my team missing, but then they wanted to go to the Vytal Tournament and I knew it was at Beacon and you would be there but I just couldn't bring myself to call you again and—"

Adam hugged her. After a few, silent moments, Blake shook her head. She finally let her tears fall.

"I don't get it... you should be angry, livid, shouting or..." Blake trailed off.

Adam let out a slow, deep sigh: that was a good point. Even burnt out like this, there were times when he could still muster up his rage, and those were incidents far less infuriating than learning his closest friend, his unofficial 'sister' and, at one point, lover, had lied to him and sent him away in the hopes they'd never meet again. So why didn't it hurt? Even though the bitterness still coiled in his chest? Deep down, Adam had the answer:

"I already knew." The first words he'd spoken since Blake had begun to explain herself at all.

It was denial. All the way from that brief moment of recognition when Blake had landed on the other train cart. Somewhere deep inside, he'd known just what Blake had wanted: freedom from the White Fang and freedom from him. There were two paths for him, then: follow her, or let Blake go. The latter had passed his mind for an ephemeral moment, but it was the former he chased after.

Even if it was in the back of his mind, scratching at him for months on end in the form of his doubt, Adam knew she still wanted to leave. Sometimes, he still found himself wondering what would have happened if he'd simply let her go in the first place. If he could've lived with himself.

"I think I just needed to hear it from you, myself." He was happy not only that he had these many months to think, but no anger to weigh him down, because it made it far easier to do what needed to be done.

"So I could tell you that I don't care."

For both her health and his, it needed to be let go.

"You're safe. You're here. That's all that matters, right now." It was a lie, but a white one: finding out what happened in Mistral could come later. Adam smiled down at Blake. "Just try to warn me, next time, alright?"

She stared at him, confused, then, with a short laugh born from utter disbelief, finally hugged him back.

"I did miss you, though..."

"I missed you, too."

"Awwww..." The two were not even sure if they needed to be faunus to have heard the squeaky coo of the eavesdropper just behind the door. Blake's ears flattened and in an instant, she was back to her easily-aggravated, stoic self.

"And just like that, any enjoyment I got out of this is gone." she mumbled more to herself than to Adam.

Agreeing wholeheartedly, Adam let Blake go, walked to the door and swung it open, letting Ruby and Yang flop face-first into the room.

Yang was the first one to look up with a wide, goofy grin. "Aw man, this isn't JNPR's dorm! Ha ha, silly us! Well, sorry for dropping in on you like that; we'll just make our way out!" She and Ruby scrambled up to their feet and backed away from the door under Adam and Blake's silent, watchful glares. Adam suddenly got the feeling that he was forgetting something important.

"Maybe if you'd listened to me, you two hooligans would not have found yourselves in that situation in the first place!" Weiss chastised them as she stepped out from behind the wall with a smug smile. Her icy eyes flicked over to Blake with interest: it had, in the end, been the first time she'd ever seen this mysterious girl. There was always some twist of fate that stopped her from getting a clear image.

Blake, on the other hand, was staring at Weiss with her mouth slightly agape and eyes wide as saucers. Her bow twitched a little from the shock: Weiss Schnee was here? The very heiress herself?

Not noticing or perhaps just being purposefully ignorant to Blake's confusion, Weiss smiled up to the girl. "Well! You must be this 'Blake' I've heard about. Any friend of my partner's is a friend of mine!" She paused. "Within reason." Weiss crossed her arms and tried to make herself look as tall and confident as possible, fitting for the Schnee name. That, of course, was the problem. Blake stepped forward, silently watched her for a moment longer...

And unceremoniously slammed the door in her face.

"What is she doing here?" Blake whispered to Adam through her teeth, twisting to face him with their previous conversation forgotten. She may not have been a terrorist like he was any longer, but Blake had left because of the violence the White Fang had chosen to use, not their reasons for doing so, and especially not because of their hatred for the family that had been at war with hers since the beginning.

Adam cleared his throat. "That would be the third member of my team I never got to speaking of: Weiss Schnee. My... partner," he admitted.

"You've had a Schnee with you this entire time and just 'never got to' speaking of it?" She wasn't believing a single word of that.

"I assure you, the situation is completely different than what you think."

"That you've been partnered up with the pampered heiress to the most despicable, racist, self-centered corporation in all of Remnant? Have you lost your mind! Did you forget Altebrucke?"

Adam grimaced, but his retort was cut off by the door opening and Weiss stomping her way inside.

"I can hear you two, you know!" Her arms crossed beneath her, Weiss glared up at Blake, leaving the two standing in a tense silence. Ruby and Yang leaned in from either side of the door, watching intently. "And whatever you may have heard, that's not me."

"But you're still one of them."

"No, she's not. Not anymore." Adam reassuringly placed a hand on Blake's shoulder.

Weiss glanced between Adam and Blake with more than a hint of apprehension.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Blake asked.

"It means I've spent more than enough time with her to know that she's nothing like Jacques. Do you think I could be so calm if she were?"

Weiss let out a small sigh of relief: she had feared he would spill the secrets of her familial trouble. The last thing she needed was granting someone leverage. Blake looked over Weiss a last time, then crossed her arms beneath her chest and huffed.

"Maybe we should all just... sit down and chat a little? That's how we all started getting along!" Ruby piped up from the doorway, grinning.

"Uh, actually, we just sort of beat each other up or beat someone else up," Yang commented and earned a sharp nudge to the side from her sister for her troubles. "I me~ean, what'cha like to do?" The two hopped inside.

Blake looked between the four and, realizing she really should have expected this to happen, sighed before answering, "I... read."

"Pfft, lame! You play any games?" Yang leaned over on one side of Blake. Ruby was busy gushing over the odd weapon she carried on her back: a pistol-blade of some kind with a sharpened cleaver-like sheath? Was that a handle on the sheath, too? Oooh, it was for duel wielding!

"Hey! Reading as a hobby is dying out in this age: it's good that there are still some intellectuals out there," Weiss entered the conversation, having gotten more than used to underlying hostility to try and chat casually with Blake.

As Adam masked his sigh of relief that this hadn't turned out to be a complete disaster, he dropped down onto his bed and flicked his hat aside to run a hand through his hair. It was strange, watching the rest of his team chatting with—though, from how they had Blake almost surrounded, 'mobbing' was a more fitting term—Blake.

Something about the four together just felt... right.


"So, since she's safe, what're we gonna do about our little... situation?" Yang eventually asked from her bed. Ruby had managed to pester Blake enough to let her look—but not touch—Gambol Shroud on the floor beside her. It had taken some convincing, but Adam managed to get Blake to believe that yes, the rest of his group knew about his past, and no, he wasn't joking that Weiss Schnee was really his partner.

"My new team said they know a few people who can keep the White Fang off of our trail here," Blake suggested from beside Adam.

Her former partner shook his head. "There's something beyond that. One of the most powerful figures in the criminal underworld, Roman Torchwick, has been working with the White Fang. They've been draining the Dust of the city dry, but it doesn't even look like their underlings know that Torchwick is working with them."

"Torchwick..." Blake mulled over the name, then narrowed her eyes. "He's a human: that's impossible."

"That's what I thought as well, and that must be exactly why no one but the higher-ups and those directly involved were told."

"How can the White Fang be involved with that scum? They betrayed their values"—she tried to ignore Weiss' scoff—"just for some extra Dust and money?"

Adam shrugged. "I don't know. I don't understand what Almond is thinking, either: he should have slain Torchwick on sight."

"I believe we shouldn't bother." Weiss' suggestion brought all eyes on her. "We have an entire city's worth of police and Huntsmen who are handling this situation: even if they couldn't handle it, what makes you think we can?"

"They don't know the White Fang like we do!" Blake motioned to herself and Adam. "We're the only ones who can stop them."

"You're also students," Adam countered. "All of you. Investigation of this level is not something that just any Huntsman can do, let alone Huntresses-in-training: they are men and women who are ready to kill, and officers with power that can rival my own."

"Pssh, we can handle that!" Ruby proudly proclaimed and bounced up to her feet. "We're going to be Huntresses saving the world soon enough, this is just a head start!"

"What do you mean, all of us, Adam? I've fought alongside you for years!" Blake protested.

Yang rolled her shoulders. "Like a few thugs with masks are gonna be able to stop us—"

"Enough!" And the room was quiet. Adam rose to his feet. Authority laced his every word. "You are too young. All of you. If you were to go down this path, it would not be just a night or two of stopping grunts, or even a single attack on the scale of the docks. It would be far more dangerous, and I will not allow you—even you, Blake—to put yourselves in that much danger."

"Thank you!" Weiss said. "We are not ready for this level of conflict. We're teenagers!" Weiss glanced at Adam. "Mostly. We cannot just run off willy-nilly trying to apprehend these ne'er-do-wells believing it will be the same as hunting Grimm. These are real people who are real threats."

"We may never get to be ready!" Blake countered. "They aren't just going to wait until graduation to attack! If they're out there planning their next move and we don't do anything, we'll be caught by surprise, and then what?"

Ruby stepped in once more on Blake's side. "We can't just sit and let people get hurt and robbed when we know we can stop them, too! What kind of hero does that?"

"The smart ones. The ones who slow down, wait, and don't get themselves killed." Adam's retort was swift and sharp.

Yang chuckled. "Aww, you really did listen!"

Blake, however, snarled. "You're the one who agreed to help me take down the White Fang in the first place! How can you turn around now and try to do this alone?"

"Because you didn't want to do so in the first place."

Blake flinched.

"You want to be normal, and I am going to make sure you can be."

"Okay, okay, okay!" Ruby stepped between them. "New idea: we'll put it to a vote!" With a quick hop, she jumped atop a desk and stood tall above the rest of the team. "All those in favor of being the youngest Huntresses—and Huntsman—to singlehandedly take down a corrupt organization conspiring against the Kingdom of Vale, say 'aye'!" She pointed to herself. "Aye!" Then to Blake.

"If being normal means I have to watch my brothers and sisters sink into corruption, then I'll gladly cast it aside." Two out of five, and with Yang, it'd be an easy victory for them!

Assured in her victory, Ruby turned to her sister with a shining grin.

Yang nervously ran her hand through hair and looked up at Ruby with guilty eyes. "I... kinda agree with Adam and Weiss..."

"What? Come on, you were saying yes a second ago!"

"But maybe they've got a point! If anyone would know how dangerous the White Fang are, it's probably going to be their former leader. You've never even fought another person for real."

"That you know of," Ruby said.

Yang looked at Adam. Adam looked away.

Ruby cleared her throat. "Besides! This is what we're training to be Huntresses for!"

"But what if something happens to you? Or me? Or any of us! If we know the White Fang, maybe it's better to just slip that information to the cops and let them handle it! Win-win, see?" Yang flashed a nervous smile. "White Fang gets people on their tails—pun intended—and we're safe and sound! Look, I don't... I don't want to risk losing any of you."

Blake, formerly so gung-ho, suddenly became quiet. She was getting carried away and fast, back to the old fervor that fueled her in the White Fang itself... but, back then, she didn't have that many friends.

"We'll be fine, Yang, really! Right, Blake?" Ruby turned to Blake, but she didn't respond. "... Blake?"

"... No. Yang's right." Her eyes stayed on the ground. "I lost my team because the White Fang just wanted to tie up loose ends. If you do this, you'll all be in danger. Sorry."

"I'm not saying that you should stop and ignore this," Adam clarified. "Nor am I saying to forget this ever happened. But if you rush in too deep, you'll get hurt. If you wish to find information, save Dust and beat up grunts, I will not stop you from doing so, but you're not ready to take on the core of the Vale branch. They would want nothing more than to see you all dead. Taking down the source... is my responsibility alone." The silence that fell over the room now was not tense, simply solemn. Reality had set in. Even Ruby just sighed and plopped down onto the desk.

"Yeah, I guess so..." she mumbled.

Adam almost felt guilty for murdering the mood. "Blake, do you still remember how to play Remnant?"

Blake perked up. The two of them were fond of the game when they were younger, but as time went on, they simply had neither the time nor enough interested people—even friends—to continue playing.

Ruby perked up. "Oops! I think I left it in the library. I'll be right back!" She zoomed out of the door, and they immediately heard her yelp as she slammed into someone else.

"Are you new?" Adam could faintly hear Ruby ask. Admittedly curious, he stood up and tried to listen closer, his faunus hearing picking up the voices even over the idle conversation between Blake and Yang.

"Visiting from Haven, actually." A smooth, almost haunting voice of a woman struck his ears. Adam paused. That voice sounded familiar, and not in a good way. Not at all. Memories were stirred up from before even Beacon.

"Ooooh, you must be here for the festival! Oh, but exchange students have their own dormitory!"

"We must've gotten turned around." Something scratched at the back of his mind as a callous, casual man replied. That voice. He'd heard it before, hadn't he? Something told Adam to hurry, and he strode towards the door.

"We were looking for our partner, actually. Have you seen her?" His eyes widened. Another girl's voice, but there was no mistaking her: she was the one who he'd overheard on Blake's Scroll. The conversations of the other three girls faded away. Adam stepped out into the hall, and his blood froze in his veins.

"Uuuh... maybe! What's her name?" Ruby asked the trio.

Three Haven students. A gray-haired boy, tallest of the three, with an apathetic, if not faintly smug look permanently etched onto his face and a stance that spoke he was ready to attack at a moment's notice no matter how much he tried to hide it. A darker woman with short, minty-green hair, young and innocent looking even with those bright-red eyes, like she never belonged in the group at all. He recognized them, now.

Just like he recognized her. Her coal-black hair was longer than he remembered, but everything about her from her amber, sharp eyes to that eternal, confident smirk had remained the same. Amber eyes met emerald, and for a brief moment, he was certain that infernal smirk actually grew.

"Blake Belladonna."

Cinder Fall.