Chapter 59

The cool breeze welcomed Adam as he stepped out into the morning sun. Today would be his last day in Mistral for a while. In a few hours, they would be heading down to take a train north towards Argus and then Atlas. He was worried about it if he was honest, but with the others there he knew it would work out. Somehow.

Wilt clicked free of his scabbard. He brought it up to the light and sighed. The once bright crimson blade had grown dull in colour. My Semblance takes a lot out of it. The Dust is being expended at an accelerated rate. I'll need to have it reforged but that'll cost me. Dust is expensive after all. Adam groaned. Atlas might do it for me, but with how much Ironwood hates me…

He sheathed his blade with a defeated sigh. This was going to be a tough journey, simply because the destination was somewhere he would prefer to avoid. But they needed to get this Relic thing to safety and Atlas has a massive military. It made sense, which is why he wasn't making a fuss. Besides, it wasn't his place.

He'd only just joined this whole ordeal after all.

Hm? Someone else had come outside to the balcony area. Yang. His Aura sense recognised her form. He would have to force himself not to focus on her new arm. She walked up to him but hesitated just behind him. After a second of thought, she walked to his right side, despite having been going to his left. He smiled at that.

"Morning."

"Mornin'," Yang replied with a yawn. "How'd you sleep?"

"Alright."

"Really? Even with… everything?"

"You mean with learning there are gods, magical relics, a reincarnating headmaster and a queen of all the Grimm? Yeah pretty well." He shrugged.

"You don't sound very shocked by it all."

"Hm. It makes sense to me. Especially Salem. I feel we're missing some pieces of this puzzle, especially in regards to Cinder and her fellows, but I'm sure we'll figure it out."

"What kinda things do you think we're missing?" Yang leaned onto the railing and looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Well for one why do Cinder and her friends work for Salem? For the Queen of the Grimm, she has a few Human allies. Either she has some goal in mind they can get behind, or she's good at manipulating people. Though they don't seem that hard to manipulate honestly. A madman who calls her a goddess, a revenge obsessed fool and a power-hungry bitch." Adam shook his head.

"True. Still, she got Lionheart to betray Oz."

"Yeah. Hopefully, he can give us some good intel." His eye drifted to Yang's yellow and black robotic arm.

"Hopefully. Qrow said he'll catch us up to what they learned from him last night. He'll probably do it on the train."

"Probably…" Adam trailed off as he started to rub his hands together. Yang eyed them for a moment.

"You good there?"

"I…" He looked down and pulled his hands apart. They were soaked in red… no they aren't… My gloves are black. He swallowed. "I'm fine. Just tired still."

"Uh-huh." She didn't believe him at all. How could I explain this? He held back a sigh. It was obvious to him where that image came from. The reason was right next to him after all and now coloured gold and black.

The red was long gone from her, but he could still see it.

Yang sighed. "If you don't want to tell me that's fine. Come on, Weiss wanted to see if we can do something about that scar of yours. Jaune and the others are getting breakfast ready so we should hurry along."

"Right." Adam followed her back inside, trying and likely failing to hide his gaze falling to her arm.

Weiss was waiting with a large kit filled with makeup supplies. Adam internally groaned as he realised exactly what Yang meant by 'doing something'. Outwardly he sighed and sat down on the couch, reluctantly taking his eyepatch off.

"Well, at least you understand quickly." Weiss muttered. "Yang, let's get to work."

The pair came over and started to examine his brand in detail, muttering to themselves about what they could use to hide it or at least make it less obvious. Adam shifted uncomfortably, unused to letting people stare at his scar.

"Ugh. It'll be a really tough job I think." Yang groaned.

"Yes. It's quite large and we have to navigate around the eye as well. Speaking of, it looks swollen and damaged." Weiss sighed.

"I can see fine through it. It's worse compared to my other eye, but not by much." Adam explained.

"That's good but I can't see us being able to do very much with just makeup…" Weiss swallowed and frowned. "I suppose while we're in Atlas we can have a look to see how that's progressed…" She started muttering to herself again.

"Weiss~." Yang poked the heiress in the forehead. Weiss huffed and crossed her arms.

"Fine. The Atlas elite are obsessed with appearances as much as they are profit. But of course, some people are born with… less desirable appearances." She rolled her eyes. "So they've been funding an effort to innovate and develop technology to allow for surgery to be able to get rid of said 'undesirable traits'. It was progressing steadily some time ago so we might be able to use it to get rid of your scar. It won't fix your eye but we can still remove the worst part. Hopefully."

Adam perked up. A way to get rid of this horrid brand? He could scarcely believe it! However… "We have to rely on Atlesian Elites for it though…"

"Well, yes. We need to gather enough funds and hope that the technology has advanced enough for it. But we have an advantage."

"Really?" Adam and Yang asked at the same time. A smirk crept into his face as she blushed slightly, growled and looked away. Weiss sighed and shook her head before turning back to him.

"The advantage is very simple. My father, through incompetence or stupidity, allowed for you to be branded and didn't do anything to smooth it over. We can use that. Threaten to go to the media and we can have him in the palm of our hands. Asking him to fund your surgery would be easy. He'd want you to get it too as we would lose most of our evidence."

Adam chuckled. "I like this plan. I get to scare Jacques and get rid of this scar? I approve."

"Well, this assumes it's possible at the moment. If it isn't, we can't really do much of anything." Weiss shrugged.

"Still. With you, we actually have a chance to get things out there and have them be believed. The White Fang was always disregarded. Nobody cared about what we said because they didn't have any reason to believe us. As long as we have you helping out though it'll actually seem real to people. Of course with all this Salem business we probably won't have time…"

"That's true…" Weiss agreed with a sigh.

After a moment of contemplative silence, Jaune bellowed through the house. "Breakfast is ready!"

They pushed aside their thoughts for later and went to enjoy their last meal in Mistral.

An explosion sounded. It was far away. Another. Closer. A third. Even closer.

Do I dare to hope? Sienna Khan wondered as she sat up within her cell. She considered for a moment before making her move. The cell bars were too strong for her to simply break, but she didn't need to.

"Guard! What's going on!"

"Shut up!" The guard, a bear Faunus, replied. He wasn't very smart and followed his orders to the letter. He had been told to wack her if she was loud, so he walked over. She smiled as he entered her range.

The moment he did she lashed out, her arms wrapping around his throat. He threw his Aura to the forefront to protect his throat but despite his lineage, he wasn't strong enough to throw her off immediately. That was a death sentence. His Aura lowered. Just a few points on a meter. That was all she needed.

Her Semblance activated and she felt stronger. It let her keep hold and hurt his Aura more. That fed back and increased her strength. It was a cycle that only ended when he fell unconscious. She pulled him closer, grabbed the keys from his belt and let him go.

The door opened and she was finally free. She grabbed his baton and exited the room. A battle was ongoing in the building. Sienna decided to find out what was going on, so she headed towards the fight.

Barging into the guard barracks revealed something shocking.

Ghira Belladonna threw a guard into the wall, where another man slammed the blunt end of a spear into his head and knocked him out. Over a dozen of the Menagerie guards were there, beating the White Fang guards and taking over.

"What the…" Sienna's eyes were wide.

"Ah, Sienna! Perfect! We've come to free you and any others trapped here." Ghira said with a grin.

"You have? Why?"

"Why? Because we're taking the White Fang down. They have spoken for the Faunus for too long."

"And you want… me?" Sienna was baffled. Why would they need or want her? She'd betrayed Ghira and practically forced him out of his role as leader!

"We do. You understand that my daughter has gone off the deep end. We can't allow her to make things harder for every Faunus. We may not have agreed on very much, but we both know we won't win another war. Will you help me make things better?"

Sienna thought for a moment as Ghira's forces spread throughout the prison facility. Join him? Stop the White Fang? Get revenge? Maybe. I failed to realise things had gotten so bad. Maybe… maybe we need to combine Ghira and me? If we work together I could make up for my mistakes…

"Alright, Ghira. You've got a deal. Let's stop the White Fang."

"Thank you." Ghira smiled and stepped deeper into the building but turned before exiting the room. "Oh, and Adam says that he's sorry."

What? Sienna paused for a moment and Ghira was gone. What the… Adam? Why would he… Her thoughts swirled through her head.

She knew she was partially responsible for how things had turned out. She'd praised his violent methods time and again. He went mad because of it, and Blake went along with him. He might have gone on to change, but her actions haunted her in the form of Blake. But if it was her fault, then what would she do about it?

Ending the White Fang, the group she had corrupted, would make for a fine start. After that…

Well if Adam can change then why couldn't she?

A/N: So here we have the last of the aftermath/set up for V6. Adam sees the consequences of his Semblance, basically just using up the Dust in his blade at a much faster rate. Plus he, Weiss and Yang basically talk about plastic surgery. Or a version of it. I don't really think Remnant would have had a chance to invent it until recently in the timeline. Oh and Weiss comes up with an alright plan on how to get it done. I mean if the Weiss Schnee came out saying that Jacques basically made the SDC's worst enemy because he allowed someone to brand a living person it would be really, really bad. Adam or the White Fang? Who cares, they're terrorists and will say anything. But Weiss? Former Heiress? That's the juicy stuff people will eat up online.

Meanwhile, Sienna is freed and resolves to deal with the White Fang with Ghira. Pretty much the end of that plotline for a while. Not gonna be forgotten, but it's not as relevant especially with Blake and Ilia on the run after Adam. Next up we'll have V6 beginning with everyone's favourite train ride! Which means several things for team RSTY... but they will have to wait to find out about all of that good stuff. I'm sure it will work out great!

Now, this next space imma use to shill for Bo Burnham's new Netflix special! It's absolutely amazing and everyone should watch it. I'm not just saying that because he's inspired me either. It's legitimately amazing and really encapsulates a lot of what life has been like over the last year with lockdown and such. It's great. Go watch it. Or at least the part he put up on Youtube. Welcome to the Internet is a brilliant song and definitely my favourite from the special.

Anyone now that I've finished shilling for my favourite comedian, I hope you all enjoyed and I'll see you next time!