Interlude 3-3: Homefront, Part IV

Sienna Khan sat in a reserved box above the main seating of the amphitheater that — for today, at least — was hosting the Menagerie Ultimate Unarmed Championship. Her eyes glittered as she watched the reigning champion — one Gregor Doyle — saunter out onto the stage that would serve as the arena, arms raised as he greeted the cheers from the crowd.

She had a bit of a vested interest in this. While the White Fang could always use strong fighters elsewhere, taking the fight to the humans in Mistral and Atlas and wherever else racial injustice prevailed, it also had a need to maintain an image of strength here in Menagerie. It was good for recruitment and funding, after all.

Hence, Gregor. The young Huntsman was burly and brawny, with chiseled good looks and an aura of manliness that left more vapid women swooning, and as a licensed Huntsman, his presence also helped the White Fang's PR in Menagerie by protecting the settlements. The fact that the man was as charismatic as he was stupid made him even more useful, but also dangerous, with an ego that occasionally required a delicate touch. In short, he was the sort she preferred to keep close at hand and under control. Here in Menagerie, he would never run into any of the stronger other members of the White Fang who might prick his ego, and she could ensure he was surrounded by fawning women to feed that ego and keep him … pliable.

More than just the defending champion, he was the White Fang's poster boy in Menagerie, not as far removed as the leaders who had to spend a lot of time away from Menagerie's shores.

Her eyes narrowed as her gaze shifted to his challenger — once Sienna's protege, and now, her enemy — Blake Belladonna.

Blake, who had unleashed a scathing rebuke of the White Fang. It honestly astonished Sienna that she could still be so ignorant and naive, both about how the world worked and just how those who chose to join the White Fang felt. Resentment boiled over to rage, and rage turned to hatred. Any change in the organization's leadership or direction would just drive them elsewhere. Under Sienna, that rage could be controlled, directed, tamed into something … well, not productive, per se, but useful.

This match would be symbolic. There was no rational connection between the outcome of this match and the truth or falsehood of the competing narratives, but that didn't matter. People didn't think rationally unless they were forced to. They preferred to follow their emotions, and everyone loved a winner.

And between a licensed, experienced Huntsman and a half-trained Huntress who had spent most of a semester pretending to be dead? The outcome was obvious.

And if certain publications were hyping up this match? Well, that was just convenient.

Ghira and his ilk were trying to say it was just a sporting event. Idiots. Her old friends never really grew past the idea of treating politics like any other job. There were no days off in politics.

Which was why, of course, they wouldn't see the poison coming.

Only a fool played fair.

Nothing like a fair fight! Gregor thought cheerfully as he waved to the crowd chanting his name and especially to High Leader Khan in her special viewing box. He wouldn't let any of them down. They wanted a good, clean — and entertaining! — fight. And he was nothing, if not entertaining.

In a way, he was actually kind of sad. Blake was still very pretty, and on more than one occasion, he had tried to court her. Unfortunately, Adam Taurus had always foiled his attempts. Now, Adam was gone, and it seemed he might have had an opening to be with fair Blake, except that she had now betrayed the cause, even brought a human — two humans! — to Menagerie!

She had brought home to their beloved island a beast, a terrible monster, a Schnee. He hadn't actually looked too deeply into them before, but the things he had heard people say they had heard were vile. They were the worst of humans, the worst species on Remnant, and now, one of them was here in this very stadium.

He could see her now, a spot of luscious white hair glittering in the reflected lights of the arena. The beast — and she was definitely a beast — was sitting in the Chieftain's suite with the other Belladonnas, giggling cutely. It disgusted him how much their alleged leaders had opened their hearts to such a monster just because she bore the appearance of a beauty and the voice of an angel. It was revolting.

It was unsettling. It had almost wormed its way past his own defenses, after all. Luckily, he had ferreted out the truth.

He had to take his mind off of that beast though, and back onto the fight. He couldn't strain his eyes in search of that bewitching smile any longer. There would be time enough to plot a way to confront her once he was finished.

With effort worthy of the great faunus heroes of old — or low-medium effort for him — Gregor turned his attention onto his opponent for the match. Blake Belladonna was waving out to the crowd herself, an average smile on her face. She was dressed in the standard uninteresting attire that all female fighters on the unarmed circuit wore: a humdrum sports brassiere, shorts, and hand protection.

Had she always been that plain? He remembered her being a real beauty. Perhaps that was what living amongst the humans for so long did to you. He shuddered at the thought. Who knew what other negative effects might be lurking, hidden unseen? There was a reason he had so quickly answered the High Leader's call for volunteers among the White Fang to come protect the faunus nation.

Ah, well. It would just make it easier to beat her to a bloody pulp before handing her off to the medics.

He shifted into a loose stance, rather than the powerful boxer's stance he usually favored for these bouts. They called Blake "The Untouchable Girl," after all. Landing a hit on her might actually pose a challenge.

Across the ring, Blake Belladonna was planning just such a thing.

"Remember, not getting hit isn't just your brand; it's also the only way you're getting through this," Joanna Huff told Blake with their faces very close together.

Blake nodded, her mind emptying out of everything but the fight. "I already know that. I knew Gregor years ago, and from the footage of his fights, he's only gotten better since then. Of course, like Pyrrha always says, the greater the challenge, the greater the victory."

Joanna smiled. "You got exactly the right head for this."

A bell sounded, and with just a brief pause to allow Joanna to back away, Blake leapt up and walked to the center of the ring where a referee in a lime green suit waited, both for her and for Gregor, who was headed in from the opposite corner.

"All right, you two should know the rules, but just in case, we're going to go over them again," the referee told them, his eyes darting between them. "Rounds will be three minutes long, one minute breaks between rounds, and a round limit of thirty. Victory may be achieved through knockout, aura break, immobilization, or ring out, with no-decision should the match go the distance. Strikes after the aura is broken are strictly forbidden and will result in disqualification. Lowering your own aura before being hit is strictly forbidden and will result in disqualification. If you wish to yield, speak to a referee between rounds. Do you have any questions or require clarification on any of these rules?"

"No," they both agreed.

"Then get ready. On the count of three…"

Blake looked up at the giant of the man's cleft chin; he really did seem roughly the size of a barge. Unfortunately, he was a barge of evil. He was the gigantic instrument of Sienna Khan's wicked will.

"One!"

Gregor looked down at Blake, wondering where it had gone so wrong for her. Had that snow-haired mink really ensnared her heart, or had it been the doing of Adam? He had always known that that nerdy little twerp with his ridiculous poses and whiny goat voice would hurt the women who clung to him, but they had all been too blinded by his trendy "bad boy" aesthetic to care that he was leading them ever closer to humanity.

"Two!"

Seriously, he was gigantic! How did any woman hope to get their hands around him? …Oh no, he was as big as her father. How did her mother deal with her father? No! No! She couldn't think about that. She just had to focus on the fight, and be very glad that Sun was her size.

"Three!"

Almost before the "three" finished leaving the referee's mouth, Gregor launched an explosively fast and powerful left straight aimed directly at Blake's face. Most people underestimated his speed. They saw his size and assumed he was slow, but while he did have more mass to move than most people, that mass was mostly muscle and more than compensated.

He was stronger, faster, had longer reach and more experience. It should have been easy.

From the way Blake leaned out of the way of the punch, though, it was clear she was just as fast and had the edge in flexibility.

He grinned. This was going to be fun!

This is fun! Blake realized as she felt the wind whipping past her left ears from another near miss. What other profession allows me to beat the snot out of my old suitors for money and glory? No wonder Pyrrha loved this!

She dodged left and right, a cocky smile that she had practiced in front of the mirror on her face. It was mostly punches that were being thrown her way, but she knew that there would soon be a kick incoming. When it came, she was ready.

With a hurricane howl, one of Gregor's famous roundhouse kicks snapped off like a coiled spring. When it passed through where Blake had been, though, she just wasn't there. She was in the air, flying in a spinning flip that saw her sail above his kick and over his head to land in a crouch just after his giant leg hissed through that space.

It was time to take the offensive. Fingers pressed together into a point, she struck out, her arm moving like a striking serpent to hit him in his backside.

The crowd howled and groaned.

Gregor grunted at the blow and backed off. It barely shaved off a tiny sliver of his aura — in all honesty, he could barely feel the dip, once the sting of the impact itself had faded — but that wasn't what bothered him. So far, Blake was living up to her new moniker, and she had just scored first blood.

Blake discreetly flexed her fingers as the two circled each other warily. That had been an … uncomfortable reminder of just how solidly built Gregor was. She'd have to be more precise, strike his weak points.

Gregor came in with a series of punches that Blake dodged, but it was clear they were more to throw her off. He wasn't expending any effort; it was all just for show. It was a show that ended with the bell that signaled the end of the first round.

Blake went back to her side of the ring, where Joanna was waiting.

"Looks like you're working up a bit of a sweat," observed her manager, holding aloft a pair of items. "Need a towel or some water?"

The raven-haired woman shook her head. "No. I've got to pace myself. This is going to be a long fight. I can't take him down in one strike."

Joanna put away the towel and water to the side, out of sight. "All right, girl. Go get 'em! Just try not to take all night."

Sixteen rounds later, Sienna Khan felt like she was going to scream. The thirty-round limit on the championship match was based on, of all things, the Friday night programming schedule for a visual broadcast station that no longer existed. Since the championship match didn't score points, this, of course, meant that Gregor could just outlast his opponent to win, with a no-decision result maintaining the status quo, except that he still hadn't managed to land a hit, while Blake had struck him twenty-five times. It was infuriating, especially since no one had ever managed to go more than five rounds with Gregor before, and the one who did get that far was yet another White Fang member who was also as big as a battlemech.

That race traitor was winning, thumbing her nose at the White Fang, at Sienna, and getting away with it! That couldn't be allowed to continue. She needed to lose, she needed to lose quickly, and she needed to lose decisively. The more humiliating and injurious the defeat, the better, but at this point, any victory over her would do.

Fortunately, Sienna Khan had already made arrangements to take care of that.

Looking up from her seat, her eyes found the Belladonna family watching their daughter make a mockery of their entire species with what looked to be bright smiles, and there was none brighter than that disgusting Schnee.

Soon, Ghira, very soon indeed, I will make your family pay for this insult. Count on it.

Calm, calm, calm! Gregor repeated the mantra. This … this entire fiasco was … it was emasculating! He hadn't landed a blow even once! It was humiliating! But flying off the handle, losing his head wasn't going to help.

He balled his fists as he and Blake began warily circling each other, just out of arm's reach. His mind worked furiously at the problem. He had to change things up; his usual tactics of simply overwhelming his opponent just wasn't working.

With a roar, Gregor lurched into an offensive, but rather than direct all his blows at Blake, he also aimed around her, pressing forward by turning stompy North Mistrali kicks into great steps forward. His pressured advance forced her back, boxing her in. For her part, Blake continued to live up to her epithet, twisting and weaving to evade his blows, slowly giving ground rather than take a hit … and moving closer and closer to the edge of the ring.

The final combo began with a left straight, much like the match itself, and as Blake leaned to the side, a right hook came whistling in from the other side, forcing her to either jump — most likely out of the ring — or duck.

She ducked, and as she did, his knee came rocketing up, his leg unfolding in a lightning fast kick that struck her across the face. A grin of exultation crossed his face as she was flung back from the blow … only to flicker out of existence before she hit the ground outside the ring.

What?

His eyes widened, and he started to turn, only for a powerful blow to strike him in the small of the back. He took a half-step forward to maintain his balance as he turned, swinging blindly, more to give him some distance than in any hope of hitting, and glared at where Blake stood, bouncing on her feet.

It was like she wasn't even tiring!

She had concealed her semblance until the seventeenth round. Who did that? Well, Gregor did, but that was a special case. His semblance wasn't exactly something he could use in public.

At this point, he would do almost anything to win this match and wipe that smug smile off that human-loving harridelle's face.

The bell sounded again, and again, they had to go back to their corners of the ring.

Blake greedily gulped down a water bottle and reached for a second. The heat beating down on the arena was taking its toll on her, especially with the way she had to dance around her opponent. Over an hour into the match, and she could feel her stamina flagging. Had it not been for Storm Shadow-sensei's training, she probably would have dropped dead by now.

Tossing the second empty water bottle aside, she grabbed a third and emptied it over her head, closing her eyes and groaning in satisfaction as it washed the heat away. She grabbed a towel and wiped her face dry as the ref called them up for the next round.

Stepping back into the arena, she wiped at her eyes again. Her vision was still blurry for some reason. Was there water still in her eyes? She screwed her eyes shut and blinked a few more times.

Her vision remained blurry. And then it began to darken.

Gregor watched warily as Blake stood before him, seemingly unconcerned with the first few tentative feints he had thrown her way. Could she read him that easily?

He looked closer at her. He was furious, and he just wanted to reach out and break her back over his knee, but he knew he had to keep his head. His aura was still going strong despite her hits; it was his game to lose. He had to keep his … head…

Something was wrong with her eyes. They weren't focusing on anything, and they seemed to be darting around, looking for something. Her chest was also rapidly rising in time with heightened breathing, like she was scared out of her wits. With stunning clarity that washed away all previous anger, the coin dropped.

She was blind.

I can't see! Blake realized in terror. I can't see! Why can't I see?!

"You cannot see because you are holding back."

Out of the darkness stepped her sensei, Storm Shadow.

"Sensei, I … How is this possible?" stammered Blake.

Even without being able to fully see his expression, clothed as he always was in his sleeveless white gi and mouth-concealing hood, she could feel the disappointment in his gaze and voice. "Your words expose your inexperience. You have yet to fully center yourself and achieve inner peace, and so, without knowing yourself, you know nothing."

"Please, sensei, this is all so strange!" pleaded Blake.

She could see his hood move as he raised a single eyebrow.

"Well, okay, compared to some of the other things that have happened to me, this is actually pretty routine," admitted Blake sheepishly. "I'm probably just having a psychotic break as I try to remember my training."

A long and uncomfortable silence followed that.

"Well?" probed Storm Shadow after far too long.

"I've remembered my training!" insisted Blake. "How could I possibly have forgotten it?"

"Hmpf. Big words for the one who, in her own words, is having a psychotic break," noted Storm Shadow. "Perhaps a test is in order."

Her sensei walked towards her, peeling off to her right side, and as he did, another figure resolved herself from behind where he had stood. It was Sour Sweet! She was dressed in her Atlas uniform and looking very serious.

"It is not just your honor or the honor of your family at stake here," Storm Shadow informed her as he circled around behind her. "It is the honor of the entire Arashikage clan, or at least those left after my brother's treason."

A blink, and suddenly, Sour "Sakura" Sweet was in her combat outfit, with her eyes covered by a black ribbon.

"If you want to win, you're gonna have to go beyond," she said. "Always further beyond, Semper Plus Ultra!" She dropped into a fighting stance and brought up her fists. "I am the least of Snake Eyes's students," she declared. "If you can't defeat me, how can you possibly hope to defeat that studmuffin in the championship?"

Blake felt like she was going to hurl. "'Studmuffin'?!"

"What?!" asked Sakura. "He's an attractive guy!"

"His pick-up lines are ridiculously corny, he's an idiot who wouldn't understand sophistication if it bit him on the nose, and, oh yeah, he's a flaming racist!" ranted Blake. "Granted, I only started caring about that last year — or was it two years ago? — but it's still repugnant!"

"Yeah, but he's hot," reasoned Sakura succinctly.

Blake ground her teeth and growled.

"Hey, do you think if I beat you, he'd go out on a date with me?" mused Sakura with a hand to her lips. "Just asking questions here."

Blake let out an angry huff. "That's it. I'm going to beat some sense into you, one way or— Hey!"

Storm Shadow had untied her friendship bow, brought it over her eyes, and quickly tied it in place.

"No cheating," he lectured her.

Blake exhaled. "Okay, I've done this before, and I'll do it again."

Her mind slipping back to the many training sessions in the warehouse, she heard Sakura swinging her fist out into the dark, and knew just the right place to grab her in an overhead throw … NOW!

Something had happened to her. Gregor had heard of people spontaneously becoming blind before, but he had never actually seen it himself, nor seen anyone who had actually been affected by it, nor seen any medical things on the subject, but he had heard it from a fellow brother of the White Fang, and that was the most reliable source there was. Besides, it was clearly happening to Blake right in front of him.

And … as humiliating as it would be to beat Blake by round limit, it would be even more humiliating to beat her when she was blind and helpless. The maidens would never look him in the eye again, and the men who admired him would instead scorn him as a brute. The only thing that would make it even more humiliating would be if he somehow lost to a blind girl.

He started to raise his hand to call for the ref … and felt himself flying end over end in the ring to land just inside it. He stuck the landing, and looked up to see Blake shaking her arms loose. Her eyes were still dead to the world, but her sightless gaze was locked straight on him.

What—?

She was off like a shot, rushing straight towards him and unleashing a maelstrom of strikes.

How is she doing this?!

Gregor jumped back from a hurricane of punches that went so fast it seemed like Blake had grown eight fists, and his mind raced to find a way to turn this around.

She's blind! he thought in disbelief. Has she really been holding back this entire time? How is she doing this?!

He didn't have time to consider things before she was on him again. She dodged his punch by ducking down, and then when his kick came in, it hit only smoke. With a crack, her own kick came in and hit his leg just behind his kneecap.

Gregor backed away again, weathering a few more blows, but he couldn't do that forever. He dropped his shoulder and charged. Blake evaded, but he stopped short, having bought himself the breathing room he needed. Now standing in the center of the ring, he watched Blake warily, then lifted his right foot and stomped down hard, channeling his aura into his foot. The blow shattered the concrete floor of the ring and sent the sand in the arena flying.

There wasn't any rule about damaging the arena after all, and maybe the unstable footing might trip her up, get her to stay still for a while.

The sand flowed out like water in a pond that had just had a boulder thrown into it. A tsunami of silica rushed out in all directions. Compassed around them, the audience screamed and cheered in equal measure as the animated dune fell upon them and a terrific cloud of dust filled the air.

Gregor grinned as it looked like, for a moment, that he had thrown Blake clear of the arena. Then the air started to clear, and in sparkling motes of quartz hanging in the aether, she stood. She stood solidly, glittering like a gem, with her blind eyes screwed shut and her hands clasped in front of her in some sort of bizarre sign.

Glancing at the match monitor, Gregor realized with a shock that Blake's aura had barely gone down at all, like all she had done was use her semblance. He also saw that there were 63 seconds left in the round. Hopefully, that would give him some kind of reprieve.

A blink, and suddenly, the only thing remaining of Blake was a three-dimensional shell made of specks of sand where her body used to be. It was all the warning he got before he felt the wind get knocked out of his gut by a black blur. Looking down, he saw the top of Blake's head, and he grinned.

"I have you now!" he declared, reaching down to grab her.

Blake reacted suddenly again, unleashing an absolute storm of punches into his gut. He was ready this time, though, and so by bracing himself, he was able withstand the hundreds of punches from her tiny little fists. All she had done was make herself vulnerable to his devastating counterattack.

His hands shot out, intending to grab her, but again, she used her semblance. She didn't set herself up behind him for another attack like she had before though; he'd be ready for that. Instead, she took up position at the end of the ring, where she was running her hands over the broken concrete that had been exposed by his shockwave attack.

Technically, they weren't supposed to use weapons in the match — or rather, they weren't allowed to bring weapons into the match — but technically, they weren't barred from hurling pieces of the arena at each other either. It was a rule that was almost certain to change after this.

With an enraged cry, he launched himself at her just as she picked up one piece and threw it with shocking accuracy at him. She wouldn't get the chance to hit him a second time. He could see it now: she would use her semblance to get away, and then she would hit him in the back to make him stumble out of the arena, but he was prepared for that. Even as he reached her, he was slowing down, and as he sent out a kick, it predictably began to pass through a shadow clone, so he started to pull back so that when she…

The strike came to his leg from the side; it was a sweep with her own supporting leg that sent him off his feet. Yet, even as he was maneuvering in the air to right himself, she appeared again on the other side, right where the first shadow clone was, and she grabbed hold of his leg. Like an obsidian lever, she pitched him end over end.

He hit the edge of the platform the ring was on with a painful wheeze, and just to add extra humiliation to the event, the bell for the round end sounded a microsecond before his nose hit the floor outside the ring.

The crowd went wild.

"WHAT?!" shouted High Leader Sienna Khan in disbelief and rage, an indulgence she allowed herself because nothing in that arena could be heard save for the cheering.

"Eight-Lives Blake! Eight-Lives Blake! Eight-Lives Blake!" shouted the sand-covered sycophants who dared to proclaim the name of that race traitor with anything other than hatred.

Looking out, Sienna could even see some humans in the crowd, holding aloft signs decorated with Blake's emblem and name. It disgusted her. The only reason any human should be allowed to set foot on Menagerie would be to be worked to a painful death as a slave, just recompense for the untold centuries of them daring to imply that their faunus superiors should be slaves. Yet here they were, celebrating as if they were normal people.

The High Leader moved to angrily sip her drink, and then, with the cold water of disappointment, realized that, in her rage, she had crushed her drink container in her hand.

She sighed dejectedly.

"Accursed humans…"

Gregor had left the arena in a huff, dodging as many reporters as he could. He didn't say anything, just storming out into the wilds. It was only when he was sure he was alone and surrounded by nothing but trees and animals did he let out a roar of hatred and wrath.

"RRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAGH! A hundred curses upon Blake Belladonna! A thousand!" he shouted into the air, his hands gesticulating in time with everything that he declared. "May that whole misbegotten family drown in the bile of their own arrogance!"

He stalked deeper into the forest, his booted feet making the ground shake in his passing.

"She denied my love, chose that Adam, and now throws our entire species away by siding with the humans! Against High Leader Khan!" he ranted and raved with increasing fury. "She truly is the worst of people! She insulted Gregor's very being, and Gregor will have his revenge!"

His monologue was cut short by the sound of hissing from the ground.

Gregor looked down to find a male western hognose snake looking up at him with those big round eyes, his tongue flicking out inquisitively.

"Why yes, it is that bad," Gregor told the snake.

The snake hissed again, and it was joined this time by a white tree frog, which was really green, chirping at him from the trunk of a nearby palm tree.

"No. No, I don't think you can help," he huffed.

A chorus of birds joined in the chatter, and Gregor threw up his hands. "Fine! You win!"

He stomped over to a nearby log that had been conveniently left by the side of the path, and sat down on it. Before he had finished putting his posterior on the log, a pair of quolls rushed a mat of soft moss under him. It was a bit damp, but Gregor didn't want to complain about that, not to his little friends.

All around him, the birds and the frogs and the snakes and the quolls and all manner of other creatures began to gather. They babbled softly to him, except to him, it wasn't babbling, not really. He could understand everything they said perfectly, and they, in turn, could understand everything he said.

It was his curse, his burden to bear, the thing that made him a freak of nature. The animals never judged him, though, not like other faunus would and the humans without question would. Just as faunus were better than humans, so were the animals better than faunus. The life that others dismissed was his secret sanctuary.

He didn't know what to say to them, or even what to sing. He did that sometimes, when he couldn't find the words; he would just jump into song and let the music take him wherever he needed to go. The animals would join in too when that happened, and together, they would create something beautiful.

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, the cassowary who had turned up asked him how the fight went.

"It did not exactly develop as I would have wished," Gregor said vaguely, rotating his hand in a dismissive manner. Then his head — and his voice — dropped in shame. "In fact, it went terribly. I lost."

The animals all cried out at that, some in horror, some in disbelief, some in declarations to beat up his opponent, most in sympathy. The lady tailor bird put her wings out in an approximation of a hug, while her husband rushed off into the gloom to find someone. The cassowary himself looked almost ashamed of having asked.

"Please, it's not any of your faults," he pleaded with them. "If it's the fault of anyone, it's that dastard, Blake."

The hognose snake from before asked if that was who he had been monologuing about.

"I was not monologuing!" he declared indignantly.

The animals that had been nearby at that time gave him varying expressions of incredulity.

"Well, maybe a little," Gregor admitted sheepishly. "But I have good reason to! Ever since she returned to the island, Blake has been nothing but trouble."

One of the quolls asked if she was the female he had tried to woo years ago.

"Yes. I thought I could sway her with my charms, but that lout Adam got to her instead," he groused. "Now she's back, she's turned her back on the White Fang, and she now is actively talking against the cause. She even brought a human to the island."

The animals all gasped, or their equivalent expression, at that. They had all heard about humans from him, and those who had the misfortune to meet the few on Menagerie agreed that they weren't the most pleasant of characters. To hear that one of the White Fang would bring a human to the island just showed how much she had changed.

One dunnart managed to raise his voice up enough to be heard, in the quiet of a gap in the conversation, and ask who she was.

"They call her Firebrand," explained Gregor. "She's petite and fair. Her hair is white like the snow on the mountains, and her eyes are blue like the ocean. She seems humble and kind, and when she smiles, there's this glow around her face. She's been spending most of her time taking missions as a Huntress, never resting or sleeping until the job is done."

The tailor bird lady, as sweet as she was, clearly lost her senses when she asked if he cared about her romantically.

"No!" Gregor said swiftly. "Didn't you hear me? She only seems to be all those things, but it's all an act. She's not just any human; she's the worst of humans; she's a Schnee. You can't trust a Schnee, because their hearts are as black as pitch, and the only things they care about are hurting faunus, and animals too."

The tailor bird wasn't backing down, though, and asked him if he had ever met a Schnee before Firebrand.

"Well, no, but I didn't need to. My brothers and sisters in the White Fang met them before, and they wouldn't lie to me, so that's all I need to know," Gregor reasoned aloud, his words seeming perfectly logical to him. "Besides, Firebrand is friends with Blake, and she revealed herself to be naturally deceptive tonight."

The obvious question of how came from a few mouths, and he supposed that he really had to answer.

"Blake's become a prize fighter, like Gregor, but unlike me, she's got a persona besides just winning. They call her 'the Untouchable Girl,' and it's said that no one has ever laid a hand on her in a fight," he lectured with surprising calmness, probably borne out of a desire not to upset his animal friends. "So far, that's held true, but I thought I could be different. Turns out, she has a semblance that allows her to leave a copy of herself behind to take a hit, and she went even beyond that in the fight. She faked being blind to get an advantage, and then she completely switched her fighting style. She took me apart before I could even land a hit, but it wasn't very sporting of her!"

Some of the animals nodded along, but before things could really get going, the tailor bird returned with a pair of tawny frogmouths flying in on his tail. They landed in a free spot ahead of Gregor, and as they did so, that chattery tailor bird husband began to recite how the frogmouths had seen it all and that they had something to say to him. Though their owl-like friends actually getting a word in seemed a bit difficult.

"Please, please, slow down," asked Gregor calmly, and the tailor bird stopped chattering for a moment. "Now, what is it that our nocturnal friends have to say?"

The tawny frogmouths told them all how they had seen the whole match from start to finish. Well, mostly. The match had gone on for a long time, and so, there was a definite need for food and drink. They had left to go drink from one of the fountains nearby, and perhaps snag a mouse or hot dog — no offense intended, of course — when they had passed by the booth reserved for the leader of the White Fang. There, they had heard Sienna Khan talking about how the match was running too long and ordering those under her to move forward with poisoning Blake.

Gregor felt the ground fall out from under him. "No, that can't be; you must have misheard."

The frogmouths told him that they hadn't, and even if they had, they saw just a few minutes later, when no one else was looking, one of Sienna Khan's flunkies replacing one of the water bottles that Blake was using. She had been poisoned, no doubt about that. They didn't say anything at the time because they assumed that this would work in Gregor's favor, and in any case, he had told them not to talk to him where other faunus could hear.

"No, no," repeated Gregor. "What about what she did after?"

Those little brown birds looked so dejected as they told him they had overheard Blake and her agent speaking after the match. Apparently, Blake was a ninja, or training to be one. So when she lost her sight, her training for blindfighting kicked in, and she just worked on automatic.

Gregor didn't know what to say, didn't want to believe what he was hearing. The White Fang didn't lie to each other; it wasn't in their nature. They just couldn't do it. It just didn't happen … and yet, his animal friends were telling him that it did.

And if there was one thing he had learned in life, it was that animals were better than people.

"—can't believe this! I thought I'd left all this malarkey behind in the Mistrali circuit!" ranted Joanna.

"It's fine, Joanna," Blake said, swiveling her head to face the blurry vertical blob pacing the room — a private changing room that had been set aside for her for this event — in front of her. "I'm pretty sure my eyesight's coming back anyway." She paused and squinted. "Are you wearing that tacky pink blouse again?"

"I would be wearing my previous outfit if it hadn't gotten covered in sand," was the testy reply. "It must have been something in the water you washed your face with," she concluded. "But with the sand getting everywhere, any possible sample we could test would be contaminated."

"I'm just glad it seems to be temporary," Blake said, blinking her eyes repeatedly. Yes, her vision was definitely getting clearer.

"Yes, temporary enough that when we finally get a doctor to get free of their backlog to take a look at you, you'll have already lost all the poison," Joanna hissed. "Classic Mistrali move. Ugh! I should have seen this coming!"

They were interrupted by a knock on the door, and Joanna wheeled around and stormed toward it.

"Who is it?!" she demanded.

"It's me, Weiss," came the familiar voice from the other side.

At that, Joanna deflated and opened the door.

Blake smiled. "Hey, Weiss," she said with a wave. "I didn't see you earlier."

Weiss sniffed and replied primly, "This place is large, and I am not."

Joanna looked down at the little snowcapped girl and shrugged. "Story checks out."

Author's Note 1 (Cyclone):

And there, we have one of the more entertaining fight scenes we've written. Entertaining to write, I mean. Gregor is such a big ham, he's just so much to write.

Author's Note 2 (Cody MacArthur Fett):

That was a fun chapter to read out, but man it took a while to write. It was one of the big hold-outs for the chapter before it got split up.

I am honestly looking forward to seeing speculation on the various scenes and what they could mean, or even just the revelations for certain characters.

Also, while Gregor is basically Gaston, he's also got a twist. That twist can be summed up as, "What if Gaston was a Disney princess?" It's not just a fun character to write, it's also a very intriguing one.

The next chapter was fun to write too, though for entirely different reasons.