Chapter 11

"Ilia!" Perry's shout made her wince, an expression that turned into a full on grimace when he surged forward as if he was about to hug her. He seemed to recognize her body language at the last second, pulling up and awkwardly sticking a hand out instead. "Gods it's good to see you!"

"Good to see you too." She replied, more polite than honest. Thankfully more people began to trickle into Vale's warehouse headquarters, slipping between crates and smiling when they saw her waiting for them in casual jeans and a thin coat. "Tukson, Liam! Good to see you both as well."

The other two men seemed nearly as happy to see her as Perry. Sort of. Tukson looked more relieved than anything else, and he didn't even wait for the greetings to wrap up before asking, "Are you here to assist or are you being named Leader again?"

Perry's smile turned a bit wooden, and it didn't take a genius to figure out that the two hadn't been getting along in her absence. When he spoke again his voice had cooled considerably. "Come on Berg, we can talk business after Ilia meets the other recruits and gets some rest. She's probably been on the road for days."

"No, it's fine." She quickly interjected. "It's something we have to talk about right away, I can catch up on my sleep at my hotel later."

Even the wooden smile faded. "I'm being demoted?"

Ilia winced. While she wasn't a fan of Perry's obvious crush on her, or his attitudes at times, that didn't mean she wanted to cut him down like this. He was a good soldier and he'd taken well to her training the last time through. Even tried to defend her when Adam had started screaming at her. Sort of. "Liam? Could you make sure we're not interrupted? This is just for the three of us."

The pale man gave her a quick nod, fox tail curling a bit in agitation as he retreated. Ilia waited until she heard him pushing a few others back, telling them that the leaders were having a private conversation before she motioned for the two men to sit as she picked out an armchair.

Perry quickly grabbed another, while Tukson settled onto a nearby couch.

"I am demoted then." Perry said before she could speak, his small canine ears flat against his head.

She sighed. "Technically no."

"Technically?"

"Adam didn't have the authority to transfer me to begin with." She explained patiently. "You're not being demoted from Leader, you get to keep the title and some of the authority. I'm only taking direct command of the Vale cell by way of seniority."

He frowned a little, working on that. "Wait, he didn't? But he's the Vale Leader! He's got to have the right to appoint cell commanders."

"Yes, he does. And if he'd just demoted me it would have been fine. But he didn't, he transferred me."

"So?"

I forgot how slow on the uptake you can be at times.

"Perry, I'm not a regular agent. I'm a Hunter." Ilia spread her hands apart. "There's not enough of us in the White Fang to begin with, so our transfers have to be approved by the High Leader herself to make sure each cell has what they need. The last thing she wants is for someone to get rid of a Hunter because of a personality clash or lover's quarrel, then get an entire cell decimated by Grimm."

Tukson sighed. "She's right, and she's trying to help you save face."

Perry still didn't look very happy, so she spoke again with the better news. "I've got further orders from Sienna to reorganize the cell based on how the Argus and Mistral groups are running. One cell devoted to acting openly, going after racists, the SDC, that kind of thing. Perry? That will be yours."

He did seem to perk up a little at that. "So what I already focus on?"

A muscle in her cheek twitched. He could have at least made a token effort to hide the fact that he hadn't been bothering with the outreach side of things. "Yes, but you'll pick out three agents who will report directly to me. I'll be using them as my personal support when I go out on any priority assignments. That will include any future assassination missions. Those have to be done with care and as organized a team as possible."

"Me, Liam... and Lectrie then."

Don't snap at him. Don't. "Perry... you're a Leader. If I'm doing something on my own it's because you and Tukson are going to be busy with something else. And I do need your help with something like another Winchester assignment I can call you in then."

"Oh, right." His disappointment was palpable. "Nava then."

She nodded. "Thank you. Tukson? You're going to be handling the community outreach detachment."

The bookseller frowned. "Are we actually going to do that now?"

Perry flushed badly enough that she felt the need to speak before he could. "Yes. I want charity works, online activity, and connections in faunus neighborhoods. An old faunus lady wants to cross the street? I want her helped. Kids need an escort to school? Handle it. Vandals messing with faunus homes? Get their addresses to Perry. I want every faunus in Vale to have a positive opinion of us to the point where any of their homes is a potential safehouse."

Tukson nodded slowly. "What about in the wider community?"

"The Human community." Perry muttered. "Who cares what they think?"

"All of us." The bigger man snapped back. "There's a hell of a lot more of them than faunus in this city."

Ilia slammed a fist on the armrest of her chair, the thump more muffled than she'd have liked but enough to get their attention. "Enough! Both of you!"

They broke eye contact, focusing on her as she continued. "Perry, you need to reign in that temper. I don't like Humans anymore than you do, practically all of them either abuse us or just stand by and watch. But that doesn't mean Tukson is wrong. There's too damned many to just ignore them."

Perry swallowed and looked away. "...yes ma'am."

"And to answer your question Tukson," She went on. "That's going to be my job. When I'm not coordinating your activities or helping train recruits, I'm going back to being a burglar. But this time I'm not going for lien, I'm going for information. Letters, messages, journals, records, whatever I can grab that will make the Humans hate their own kind the most. If what we find is bad enough... we'll consider elimination, but the main goal is try and force the Humans to clean up some of their own problems for once."

Another nod from Tukson was followed by a third, more energetic one. "I like it. Air their dirty laundry, make us look like freedom fighters instead of terrorists."

She pointed a finger at him. "Exactly. And if any of them double-down on being racists bastards they'll be a priority target. I'll handle single individuals if it comes to that. Perry will make sure there's not a single business in town that doesn't regret treating us like slaves."

That last seemed to perk Perry up a bit, even if he still didn't look exactly happy with the new order of things. Still he was content enough to go round everyone else up to come and greet her, to be told how things would be working moving forwards. The question and answer sessions that followed took several hours, and she was more than a little wrung out by the time she called it a day.

Perry had promised to get the upstairs office cleaned up for her by tomorrow, and to pick out the people he wanted transferred to his cell. Well, he'd more or less made it clear that he was going to take anyone even vaguely competent and leave Tukson with the dregs.

"He's going to be a problem." Tukson rumbled as the two of them slipped outside, walking for the man's car. "I think he wanted to murder me when I offered to drive you back to your hotel."

Her lips twisted. "I'd really hoped he'd be done with his crush by now. I've been gone for nearly two months."

And her return to Mountain Glenn hadn't been pretty. If Sienna hadn't sent Trifa with her she was sure that Adam would have simply kicked her right back out again, and even then he'd quickly found the loophole to get her out of his hair. Just as she'd told Perry, he'd never bothered to officially fire her as the Leader of the Vale Cell, and he was well within his rights to tell her to get back to her job.

Not that she really minded. Her attempts to talk to Blake had resulted in the younger woman vanishing on sight, and in the end she'd had to leave Ghira's letter in her room. Trifa had promised to keep an eye on her when she wasn't busy watching Adam like a hawk, and she'd have far better luck in that than Ilia would. Adam would have found any way he could to get rid of her, to send her out on dead-end assignments as far from him and Blake as possible.

At least in Vale she could exert some kind of control over what was going on. Try and get things back on track, back to what Sienna's vision was. And if Adam sent orders that she didn't like, she'd have access to a mini-CCT transmitter to confirm with Sienna about what she should and should not be doing.

"How bad has it gotten?" She asked as they got to his old truck. "Adam's reports weren't exactly detailed."

He grunted as they pulled open the doors, sliding inside. "It's bad. Police put out a notice that there's a shoot-on-sight order for anyone in a White Fang mask. That was last week. They already gunned down one of us, plus two teenagers who were trying to impress us enough to join up."

Ilia's spots flared red. "Dammit. Those idiots were running around attacking anyone they felt like weren't they?"

The engine rumbled to life when he turned the key, "Yeah. It gets worse. Perry learned a bit from you and from Taurus, but he wasn't ready for taking command. He's sloppy about code names, covering his tracks, and a dozen other things. We've lost people."

Oh good. I know where this is going. "How many? Dead? Captured? Missing?"

"Four of our better fighters are in jail, they were all in the same car and got caught speeding a half hour after shooting up a diner." She let her head fall back as he pulled out onto the street, driving slowly through the afternoon traffic. "Police found the masks and guns in the trunk because they didn't even bother to try and hide or ditch them. Candy and Robin are both dead. We got low on cash, Perry sent them to stick up a bank in the rough part of town."

"Cops?"

"It was a cartel bank. They killed them both, tracked us down, and then shot up Mazon in the security booth. Left a note on his body that they'd do worse if we ever did business in their territory again."

...dammit.

"Those were some of our best recruits." She sighed. "Did he at least recover the bodies?"

His voice was low, angry, and that told her all she needed to know. "Can you get rid of him?"

"Not without Adam's approval, and Adam likes Perry. Thinks he's got potential."

"Because they're both bloodthirsty morons who can't even-"

Ilia hissed, eyes blazing scarlet and yellow. "Tukson! Too far."

The fingers he had on the wheel flexed, claws emerging to dig into the leather. "...just calling it like I see it, Leader."

She inhaled slowly, then let it out. "He's a good fighter, and he's personable enough that everyone seems to like him. Apart from you... and me when he forgets that I'm both gay and not interested in him. We put him in the combat cell and do our best to make sure he only goes after approved targets, and knows to keep the collateral damage down."

Tukson grunted. Not so much agreeing she thought, so much as acknowledging that she'd spoken. There wasn't going to be any love lost between her subordinates that was for sure.

"I'm going to have to spend a lot of time looking over his shoulder, and hopefully making sure he doesn't get the wrong idea about our relationship." She continued. "I'm going to trust you to mostly run your team on your own."

That earned her a more positive sounding grunt as they stopped at a red light. "Do I get a budget?"

"Anything we get that doesn't go to supplies or medical treatment is yours."

"Perry won't like that. He's been giving out combat bonuses out of what little money we can scrape together."

"He'll survive." Or they'd have to have another long talk... And now I feel the need to make sure he wasn't giving himself any of those bonuses.

Of course the reminder of funding brought up exactly why she'd had to leave Vale the first time around. "Any encounters with Torchwick since I left?"

"Surprisingly not. Guess he was happy that you left." He paused. "Then again, without you none of us were really all that good at burglary, beyond what bits we grabbed during raids. We've been relying on donations and those have been drying up as things have gotten worse. Of course he might not be happy that you're back. You have a plan for him?"

She grimaced and felt herself turn a bit green. "Yeah. Find out what his territory is and try to avoid it if I can."

"Smart. Pretty sure Perry will call you a coward."

Her groan was pure frustration. "I get it, I get it. Enough for today all right?"

Tukson shook his head, gently accelerating with the traffic around them. When he spoke again it was to move on. "This division of labor thing. Mixing attacks and activism... is it actually working in Mistral?"

"According to Sienna it's working perfectly." She felt herself smiling. "Text book of what she wants done. Lot of stores and corporations are getting boycotted when their hiring policies are revealed, the ones that bring in scabs are getting torched to wild applause, and no one shed any tears when a judge who let his rapist nephew off with a warning was found dead."

"The nephew go after faunus only?"

"Mostly. I think there were a few Humans in there." She frowned then got where he was going, remembering a similar conversation in his truck before she'd left. "Oh, right, the laws thing. Yeah, you can work with and help Humans if you have to. Just make sure the main effort is on faunus."

He nodded sharply. "Thanks, and you know me. I believe in the cause, I'm just not fond of the patriots around me."

Ilia thought of Adam... Blake... Perry... and could only silently agree.

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