The red of Adam's blade mirrored the fire around him in what used to be a grand hall. The flame swooned as the great sword whistled through the air. The heat intensified as Adam cleaved single-handed through the defense of the lone Huntsman, like the applause of a watching crowd. The search for sustenance paused as blood flowed free, and the scent of the roast showed the fire's pleasure at their champion's offering of death.
It is as it should be, Adam thought as he flicked the blood off his sword and watched the Huntsman, a tall male in a white uniform, burn. But when the flames, never satisfied, inched closer to Adam. He swept the flame back with a furious slash of his sword across the floor.
As if I would let you so much as touch me! Adam thought, be content with the scum, and know your place!
But as the fire's feast reached his climax, Adam saw the image of a woman. With the hair of the abyss, dressed in the fire's iridescence, and ambition's emptiness in gold for her eyes. A reminder. To feed the fire, or be consumed by it.
Know your place, Adam Taurus.
A presence. Familiar. A shadow turned to steel. Followed by a slash from Adam's blind side to his left. As she was taught. A cut that would expose the throat of a lesser opponent when he flinches.
But Adam was a Faunus, and Faunus do not flinch.
Like a bull Adam turned his horns into the cut. The blade's tip whistled past his head and scraped a chip off the bull's horns peeking through his red hair. Adam's response came in wide and ended in a hug.
"Blake, thank the Gods you're here!"
The brief feeling of warmth. The sense of comfort from a good memory. It faded as all good memories do. In a cloud of black smoke, followed by reality crashing down on everything.
"What have you done?!"
Adam turned towards the voice. Towards Blake Belladonna, standing behind him with her blade pointed at the black breast of his suit. A little taller then Adam remembered. The raw edge of youth, rounded by a maturity which created the feeling of innocence tempered with a wisdom that Adam could not give.
"What we vowed to do, a long time ago." Adam said, "but none of that now, Blake. Please, I need your help."
The sound of debris being kicked across the flame-blackened floor mirrored the derision in Blake's voice.
"My help?!" Blake said, "You're a murderer, Taurus!"
Adam stepped forward. Blake retreated. The distance between the two was just a step, but to Adam, it felt like Blake was getting farther away.
"Humans are the murderers, Belladonna!" Adam said, " the blood of our brothers and sisters are on their hands!"
"Not on every human's hands!"
"And you're siding with those that watched, hands in their pockets, as our kin were slaughtered! If not by the sword, if not by the bullet, then by inaction and cowardice. Are they guiltless, then? Are their hands clean of our blood?!"
Blake advanced. But Adam's sword. Longer and steadier, knocked aside Blake's sword with a casual flick of his wrist. A warning. One did not see Adam's swordplay unless he let them.
"Our kin, our brothers and sisters, were murdered by humans," Adam said, "More will be murdered if you do not help me save them!"
Blake walked closer, and Adam lowered his blade so that he wouldn't mar the pale tapestry of Blake's skin with blood.
"You brought the Faunus here!" Blake said, "You put them in a fight they did not need to fight. Because of what you are doing," Blake placed her hand on Adam's sword, "Faunus are being shot, and stabbed, and hurt."
"It is not by choice that I'm here," Adam said while he pulled his hand away from Blake's, "But it is by choice that I'm speaking to you. The White Fang, your people, are under the control of someone evil. Someone I cannot name right now. I'm trapped, but you could reach out and get help. For the Faunus."
Blake's eyes were gold, just like the woman in the fire. But there was no emptiness there, just a brilliant belief that could never be shaken from what was right. But when Blake reached up to Adam's face, and Adam flinched away, that brilliance dimmed. As if a cloud had covered the sun, and denied Adam any hope from it.
"I won't fight you, Adam," Blake said, "but I won't help you. If you really think the Faunus need help, then surrender."
Blake turned away. But before she could leave, Adam's hand gripped Blake's arm.
"Belladonna! You can't turn your back on your own kind!"
Someone screamed. Incoherent. Furious. Adam pushed Blake aside as he turned towards the sound, leading with his blade. No one see's Adam's swordplay unless he lets them. Not even Adam himself, at times.
"Yang? YANG!"
Blake was running now. Running toward a tangled mess of gold hair and limbs, out of which a mangled bloody arm Blake grasped in her hands as she started to sob. Another human had fallen to Adam's blade, but what was the point?
With a growl, Adam stabbed his sword into the closest fire before he tore the huge black bow from Blake's hair. As black as the woman in the fire's, but it was the black the twilight instead of the depths of oblivion. Dragging his sword from the flames, Adam then kicked Blake away and shoved the gleaming blade onto the cuts on this 'Yang's' arm.
Once again there was the scent of searing flesh. Nauseating and oily. But as Adam tied Blake's bow around the cauterized wounds, Adam felt like he had taken a step somewhere. He was not sure where, but when Blake's terror gave way to relief when she saw the bandaged wounds, Adam was certain that Blake was the only one who could help him.
"Adam," Blake said as he turned to leave, "why?"
Adam didn't look back as he said.
"I brought this to you, Blake. My hands are not clean."