Like the rest of Adam's Crew, Sage fell in with him in very much the same way, he was the first. The pair had been friends since kindergarten. Where one went, the other was there with him.

It all started when Adam, like the others before him, came to his aid in a fight against some bully. Unlike the others, Sage and Adam stood side by side as they fought. The enemy was a mod of white kids that had decided to beat the shit out of the one of the few "Colored" kid in the town. Sage wasn't going to take that shit sitting down and he fought back.

Four on one weren't great odd's which is why he was glad for Adam to help even the odds in their favor. Turns out those stuck up white kids weren't much for an even fight so they went running quick.

That was how they met, and they took the world by storm. One day at a time, one thrown punch, one battle after another. Soon Sage's life stopped being tracked in days or years, but in battered white shitheads he had laid out before him.

Over time the pair became a triad when they recruited a scared kid named Sun, a Quartet when they added the dangerously unhinged Scarlet to the band, and later on, they added the traitor in waiting for Neptune to the group.

They became the strongest gang in the area, no one could stand against them. Sun fought to become strong like Sun. Scarlet fought for the occasional fuck. Neptune fought for the fun of it all.

Sage fought because of his brother Adam. They may not have been brothers by blood, but they were brothers by fire.

If Adam asked him to jump off a bridge, he'd do so with a smile. If Adam asked him to kill, he'd ask who and when. Because he knew Adam would do the same for him.

Which leads us to now…


Mina Arc was relaxing in the living room with her five-month-old daughter who was playing on the ground on her play mat while Mina folded laundry. While she was laser-focused on her twin tasks of getting the laundry folded and making sure her daughter didn't try to eat the one thing that the vacuum missed as she was known to do, she couldn't shake the fear in the back of her mind.

There was a psychotic teenager that wanted to do the unthinkable to one of her son's friends, and her son was at that friend's house right now. Mina leaned back and sighed out as she watched her daughter lay on her back and swat at the toys that were dangling off an arch that was built into her play mat while her feet kicked frantically in excitement.

Alan walked in with a beer in hand to give to his wife before he sat down next to her. "He'll be okay you know that right?"

Mina held the cold can in her hands and sighed out "Yeah I know, no one is stupid enough to try anything with a police officer present. Let alone having the daughter of a police officer in the same house." Mina said as she held the cool can to her head "But that's my boy in here, and I'm being nice when I say he's bull-headed."

Alan sat leaned back while watching his daughter play. "He learned from the best hon," Alan said before letting out a light chuckle.

Alan's chuckle only grew when Mina smacked him in the arm. "Not funny Alan," Mina said with a look of mock anger on her face.

Baby Beth looked at her parents with a confused amusement and softly laughed at her parents.

"Aw does my little baby girl think mommy smacking daddy around is funny?" Mina said laughing as she watched her little girl stare at the pair.

"I'd be careful, I think that's the 'I just pooped in my diaper' Laugh," Alan said as he started to inhale to say something.

"Not it! I got the last one!" Mina shouted while tossing her hands up.

Alan started to get up as he heard a knocking on the door. He looked at Mina and asked, "Were we expecting anyone tonight?"

"I don't think we were, go ahead and get it since you're up and I'll change the baby," Mina said, reaching out and lightly smacking her husband's ass.

"Alright, alright hon!" Alan said with a smile as he walked through the kitchen to the entryway. Alan walked towards the doorway feeling a certain level of unease, they rarely if ever got visitors when his stepson was not in the house. As he reached out to open the door he looked at the person standing in his doorway.

Sage Ayana was standing in his doorway. He was a good kid on paper by Alan's standards. He was a smart kid that had potential but had largely squandered it. He had fallen in with a rough crowd.

And he was associated with Adam Taurus, which put Alan on guard…

Alan looked at Sage as he felt a surge of confusion, Sage looked down and seemed to have taken a deep breath.

"Sage? Hello is there something I can help you with?" Alan asked the youth as he tensed his muscles and found himself unintentionally bracing himself for anything.

Sage muttered something Alan couldn't quite catch. "I'm sorry Sage I didn't hear what you-"

Sage reached behind his long coat pulling out a hatchet, the kind you could pick up at a hardware store and swing it down at Alan. Alan quickly swatted the hatchet aside with one hand before he stepped in and delivered a painful elbow strike to the side of Sage's head causing sage to stumble.

"That was a mistake, Mr. Ayana, I might be still rusty, but a Marine never forgets where he came from,'' Alan said with a smirk. "The 1st Marines taught me well, you might want to strongly reconsider this."

Sage twirled the hatchet around in his hand and took up a classic brawler's stance. Alan took. Alan slid one foot back and put both arms up to his face and waited for Sage to try something.

Sage didn't disappoint as he closed in and feigned a swing of his Hatchet to sneak a gut punch at Alan, Alan blocked it, he also managed to block the swing that came after by striking his swinging arm.

Sage, however, had youth and speed on his side and grabbed Alan by his hair and kneed him hard in the guts knocking the wind out his lungs. That did little to slow Alan down as he snapped his head back catching Sage's chin with it before he grabbed Sage's head with both sides and drove his knee into his nose.

Sage managed to lift Alan and slammed him into the wall of the narrow entryway they were fighting in before Sage delivered a series of brutal strikes to Alan's kidneys. With his free hand.

Mina wandered around the corner and screamed when she saw the fight that had broken out "ALAN!"

Alan Forced Sage's head Aside and punched him in the ear to force him back before he grabbed his side and shouted: "Call the police Mina, I'll hold him off!"

Alan straightened out, he could feel the telltale side of a fractured rib which was going to slow him down, the taste of copper in his mouth didn't help either.

Sage rushed in swinging his Hatchet wide as Alan slapped it aside before he delivered a series of body blows with his fists.

Sage finally wised up and realized that Alan wasn't fighting much with kicks and delivered a kick to the side of his leg causing him to lose balance. That's when Sage struck catching him on his right shoulder. Alan shouted out in pain as the Hatchet dug in deep into his shoulder and cracked his right Clavicle bone.

When Sage tore the Axe from Alan's shoulder, Alan shouted in pain again, his right arm held loose at his side as blood began to pour freely from the deep wound. It would scar, and it would need immediate surgery to keep him from bleeding to death. When sage tried to finish Alan off by bringing the Hatchet down on his neck Alan swatted the arm aside and shoulder checked him into the open doorway.

When Sage tried to push off the door frame he got a kick in the gut sending him back. Alan then swung the door into Sage's face further unbalancing him. When Alan saw that Sage's arm was in the path of the door he threw his full force into a kick against the door.

The door slammed into Sage's wrist with enough force to cause the wood to splinter and a loud crack to be heard from where Sage's wrist broke. Sage Screamed out in agony and desperately forced his hand to hold tight around the hatchet as he swung a few times at Alan to keep him back.

Alan coughed onto his arm and saw sparkles of blood on his arm. He started to feel faint as he saw blood dripping from the fingertips of his crippled arm.

He was losing. He was fighting to buy time to protect his wife and daughter, and he was losing.

Sage stepped forward and kicked Alan hard in the gut pushing him back into the Wall. Alan leaned against the wall for a moment as he weighed his options. As Sage took a precious moment to howl out about his wrist.

Once sage attacked swinging his hatchet at Alan, aiming for his side Alan did the only thing he could at the moment and stepped in to block the swing. After it was blocked he locked sage's arm in place by wrapping his good arm around it and started to head-butt Sage in an attempt to bash his face into submission.

It didn't work, Sage headbutted back into Alan's wounded shoulder causing him to howl in pain and lost his grip just enough for Alan to fall back into the wall and hit the ground. A couple more hard kicks to Alan's fractured Ribs would be all that was needed to put Alan out of the fight.

Sage howled victoriously and grabbed and readied himself for the killing blow when a gunshot rang out striking the floor by Sage's feet.

"Drop the Axe asshole!" Shouted an African American Adam's county sheriff's deputy that had his sidearm trained directly at Sage.

Sage compiled and dropped the hatchet and held his arms up. "Fucking race traitor pig!"

"Save it, because I'm about to read you your rights and it will be held against you kid." Sage said as he slammed Sage against the wall and started to cuff him "Don't worry mister Ozpin, we got paramedics on the way, your going to be fine okay?"

Alan nodded as the pain finally overwhelmed him causing him to faint…


Minutes later Sage was in the back of a police cruiser and Alan was being loaded into an ambulance. Neo had come over and watching Bethany for Mina so she could talk to the officer

"Um, Deputy…." Mina said fighting back tears

"Marrow ma'am" Marrow said to Mina

"My husband, he'll be okay right?" Mina asked as she was fighting feelings of shock and horror.

"I've seen some pretty vicious injuries in my time ma'am, your husband will be just fine I'm sure, I won't lie if we were only a few minutes later though…" Marrow said before he saw Mina's face turn pale. "I mean, it's best to not dwell on the what if's…"

Mina nodded and wrapped her arms around herself "Right, yeah… How did... how did you get here so fast, were you in the area? I had only called a couple minutes before."

Marrow looked off to the side. "Look, the truth is, you were not the only call we were responding to. One of Adam Taurus's gang members dropped his colors and called in where his gang was going to hit, your house was the closest to our station."

Mina put a hand to her face "Who else?"

"Ma'am I'm not sure I-" Marrow started to speak

"Who the fuck else! My son is out there right now!" Mina shouted

Marrow sighed and said, "We know that two attacks on the Polldena and Branwen homes were stopped…" Marrow paused. "A couple kids at the Branwen house were taken in for injuries, I don't know how bad. The attacker was killed… I can't say more."

"We have two deputies on their way to the House of Winter Schnee to stop an attack there, hopefully before it happens…" Marrow said.

Mina slumped to the ground. "Oh my god, all of these homes are friends of my son…"

Marrow kneeled down next to her "I didn't want to bother you ma'am, but if your son is out there, we'll do our best to protect him."

"I… I know, he's at the Belladonna home right now… I'm sure he'll be okay… but his friends…" Mina said as the tears started to fall from her eyes in sobs.

"We'll get there first ma'am. Don't worry…" Marrow said with a reassuring smile…

Meanwhile at the home of winter and Weiss Schnee. A heavy pair of boots stepped out of the half-broken front door of the home. Adam stood there looking into the night having made his move almost a half-hour before he told the others to start their plans. As he wiped the blood off his knife on his sleeve he looked down the road.

"One down…" Adam said with a wide and half-crazed grin. "One to go…"

As Adam started walking he whistled a pleasant almost serene song to himself.


One of my favorite comic villains is the character Ozymandias from the Alan Moore Comic, "Watchmen" I think we just demonstrated why that is.

This fight was a brutal one to write to be sure, I had to pretty carefully weigh how a character who's 50 years old but was a former Marine in good shape, would hold his own against a 16 to 17 year old character who had been street fighting for most of his life.

Clearly Alan was at a sharp, excuse the pun, disadvantage here, moreso as Sage was armed. Still Alan was not going to go down without a fight and he put up one hell of one.

This also isn't the most brutal fight I have planed for this Arc... I have had up to this point in the story weighed the advantages and disadvantages of a character I had pair off into a fight, from Jaune whooping a bully's ass way back in the Pyrrha flashbacks to now, I don't want to say i'm "Death Battling" it here but I have a sort of internal tier list as to who would win in what situation. That's why Neptune and Yang lost as hard as they did against Scarlet last chapter, neither have a background of training to fight, or just getting into a lot of fights in general. A clear departure from the Canon yes, but an expected one.

Dragon lord, it's always good to see you pop in, and yeah it was very satisfying to write Qrow blasting Scarlet in the face. MasterScarcity I talk to you all the time in Discord so i'll see you there later.

Calamk, I am doing a lot better but now my wife has my cold and we just started working from home, so that's fun.

EmperorCookies, I like to think I ramped up the stakes quite a bit here with this chapter, I hope you enjoy it.

Chinaluv, I won't pretend the state is doing is doing great, but my house is doing decent right now. I appreciate you all asking.

As for everyone else, as allways, I do hope your all well and washing your hands. and I hope you all have a great rest of your day till next time.