Life on Remnant wasn't easy. Confronted with a seemingly unstoppable enemy in the form of the Grimm and their unbridled thirst for the destruction of Mankind, the majority of people were forced to retreat to the safety of four Kingdoms. Life outside these Kingdoms was hard. Towns, settlements, and villages rose and fell like the tide as people attempted to gather together for safety, only for their congregation to attract more of the monstrous horde than their meager defenses could handle. Many saw this as a reason to stay within the safety of the Kingdoms, where walls and soldiers could provide a measure of security - at least, from the threats of the Grimm. Others, particularly those with the necessary skills to protect themselves, simply chose to live in solitude, or small numbers, so as not to attract the Grimm. Some, however, saw an opportunity amidst the destruction. Those who lived outside the Kingdoms, who spurned society and had no honest means of sustaining themselves, who turned to thievery and murder for any number of reasons - people like Shad Taupher, bandit extraordinaire - did not flee the sound of people screaming and monsters snarling; they followed them.

It was fairly simple, really: rather than go through the work of robbing people on the roads, and making sure their bodies were properly mangled so as to look like the work of Grimm and not him and his boys, he could just let the monsters actually do it for him. Grimm didn't care about supplies, or money, or Dust, they only cared about killing. So long as the raccoon-Faunus and his little troupe of cohorts kept made sure to get out before the creatures arrived, they could pillage wherever they wanted and let the Grimm clean up. Then, once the last of the screams had died down, they could grab anything they missed and be off without drawing the ire of Ghira Belladonna should some heartbroken loved one decide to keep digging into the death of someone who had died walking along the roads between villages.

Belladonna was strong, and had access to resources, but to Shad, and many other Faunus, the man's refusal to do what needed to be done was a weakness. The Faunus were a strong and noble people. Respect had to be earned, and while Belladonna's strength had originally won him the respect and position of High Leader, that renown was waning, quickly, as he seemingly turned his back on their culture, and act in a manner the humans found civil. Luckily, the White Fang understood them. They knew that there simply wasn't enough space or resources on Menagerie to accommodate everyone, no matter how many pretty words or grand speeches the Cheiftain made, and so, rightfully, the strong had to take what they needed.

In fact, Shad, and all of his boys, had spent time with the Fang, helping with missions and sharing the occasional resource or information, at one point or another. In fact, he had actually gotten his Aura unlocked while helping them burn down a Schnee warehouse a few years back, the boost in power and protection helping him maintain his position as top dog among his boys. Even their newest recruit - some gimpy Horse-Faunus with a bum leg - had just left a job with the Fang, and had even come bearing information of where their next target would be.

Smirking as he cut down a man who thought his little stand in the square was worth throwing his life away, Shad caught the flutter of the curtains in one of the town hall's upper windows. Undoubtedly, the mayor of this town was too cowardly to defend his people. Shad was going to have to drag him out of his little timber palace before the Grimm got here, as he might have some sort of panic room or escape tunnel in there.

At the moment, though, he was distracted by two distinct sounds: the first was a gasp of fear coming from the new guy - Gerald, or something - and the second was the distinct sound of metal piercing flesh.

"Y-You..." Jerry muttered, and Shad turned around just in time to see him trip on his bad leg as he looked up at another of his boys.

Cobe stood over the old horse with an expression of surprise on his face, a wet, spluttering gasp choking past his lips as the blade sticking out of his chest withdrew and he sank to his knees, before, in one swift move, the sword flashed through the air in a deadly crescent of bloodstained ivory, its soft hum interrupted only by the momentary squelching tear of Cobe's head being removed from his shoulders.

He was tall, maybe six and a half feet, with messy blond hair and hard, blue eyes. His cheeks were gaunt, like most people outside the Kingdoms, with stubble growing over them, but they didn't quite hide how young he was. The sun glinted off the dented metal woven into the leather jacket he wore over a ratty hoodie, and Shad couldn't Cobe had been stupid enough to allow what looked like a beggar with a blade to sneak up on him. Much less a human one. "Go home," he said, barely glancing at the Horse-Faunus on the ground. His voice wasn't deep, but it rumbled with a threatening growl that scratched at Shad's instincts, rather than the usual cracking he'd expect from a teenager.

"So, you must be the human I've been hearing so much about," Shad snarked, a wicked smirk on his face as he and his boys prepared their weapons. "It'll feel good removing your stink from our home."

The human didn't say anything as Shad nodded and one of his boys readied his crossbow with a Dust-tipped bolt and fired it as another ran forward, his machete at the ready. The human shifted his weight and raised his left arm, a massive shield springing forth just before the bolt made impact, glancing off it and flying into a nearby stall at the edge of the market where it exploded. Maintaining momentum, he twirled around the man with the machete, slicing his leg before punching the massive shield into his head once he fell to the ground, crushing his skull with a wet crunch.

"Get him!" Shad screamed, raising his own pistol-knife and firing at the bastard alongside Raldo, a Hawk-Faunus with a feather mohawk and the crossbow, while the others readied clubs, blades, and axes and charged the human.

With barely a grunt, the boy lifted the body still wedged on his shield by its imploded skull, using it to shield him from Shad and Raldo's bullets before hurling it at the rest of them, knocking down the ones in front before engaging the rest in a whirling dance of death. Rather than fight how he expected most shield-bearers to: standing his ground and blocking before retaliating, the kid never stayed still. In only a couple of steps, he had twirled around the four men he had knocked down with the corpse of another, his blade pointed down as it quickly drew a line across each of their throats, while the closest man still standing swung his axe, aiming to split his head like a log. The human shifted once more, barely lifting his shield as the screech of metal on metal tore through the air - the axe glancing off it and its wielder thrown off balance as his swing kept going before the sword came up under his armpit and separated his bicep from his shoulder. An instant later, the blade cleaved into the gut of the next man, and he twisted so the poor bastard's skull was directly in the path of the another's mace. The sword slipped out and he slithered around a stab from the man behind, bashing him with his shield and forcing his long-knife into the chest of the mace-wielder while the human simply continued to spin and stab his blade into the knife-wielder's head - piercing one ear and exiting through the other.

Pulling his blade from the man's skull, he swiped it through the air, sending blood flying from its surface as he charged forward. Shad watched in stupified horror as Raldo cried out, blinded by the crimson fluid in his eyes before being cut straight through from his left hip to his right shoulder. By the time he shook off the paralyzing fear gripping him, the boy's sword had already reached him. He tried to flare use his Aura, but it felt stunted and weak before shattering underneath the blade's edge, not even slowing it down as it removed his arm from the elbow down. His scream was cut short almost before it started as the sword came back on the backswing. The last thing he saw was a glowing silver arc of death, a gentle humming making him feel strangely calm as his head was removed from his shoulders, ending the tale of Shad, Bandit Extraordinaire.

*(OoO)*

"He's a monster!" Yet another voice shouted from her father's office. "No better than the Grimm he claims to fight!"

It had taken very little time for word of what Jaune did in the middle of Ma'Ula to spread. People all over Menagerie were hearing rumors of the human terror who had carved through bodies in the town square, and any goodwill he seemed to have garnered during his stay had seemed to evaporate as the people of Ma'Ula chased him out, hurling insults and stones alike.

"How can you seem so unaffected?" Blake demanded as she sat in the library with Jaune one evening. Even she was slightly disturbed by the description of what he had done, if not by the details themselves, then how Jaune didn't seem concerned with correcting them or what he had supposedly done. Even when a brick had hit him above the eyebrow on his walk back through Kuo Kuana, he did nothing to defend himself. He simply marched through the door of the mansion, ignoring the guards, informed her father that Ma'Ula was safe for the time being, and to let him know if there was any other work he had for him.

"What do you mean?" Jaune asked. Even now, gently rubbing rubbing his equipment down with a rag, coating them in what she guessed must have been some sort of floral-scented polish, almost every aspect of the loveable goofball she had met a little under a year ago having been replaced with this calm pillar of serenity, his features hard as they were sad, she couldn't imagine him holding the same darkness she did. That same evil all of the higher ranked members of the White Fang had possessed.

"Jaune," she said seriously, worried that he might not feel anything having taken the life of someone else. Or worse, that he had enjoyed it. Like Adam. "The people are moments away from forming a mob and lynching you. They think you're some kind of monster."

"And what do you think?" He asked, throwing her off guard.

"I... I think that you slaughtered eleven people, and you don't seem to be showing a shred of remorse," Blake stated. He turned and fixed her with a hard look. She hated the part of her that wanted to shrink back under that gaze, forcing herself to stand up to him, despite her instincts telling her otherwise.

Jaune didn't say anything as he sat there and stared at her for several long moments. His eyes glinted in the firelight, and Blake could see a flash of something in them. Something predatory. Once again she thought of Adam, of the mad gleam in his eye she had taken too long to identify. It was similar to what she was seeing in Jaune's as he stood up slowly. Both men had startlingly blue eyes, but where Adam's burned with fires of his hatred for Humanity, Jaune's were calm. There was no anger or rage in him, just danger.

The two of them were interrupted by a light knocking on the door, turning almost at once to see Blake's mother standing in the doorframe, a sad smile on her face. "Could you two please join us in Ghira's office? We need to speak to you."

Blake nodded and they both followed her mother without a word towards her father's office. They arrived just as Oryx was leaving. The mayor of Ma'Ula took one look at Jaune and spat on the ground at his feet before trying to shove his way past. Jaune was much larger than the man, though, so it only succeeded in making him bounce off his side, barely budging him as he stood impassively behind her mother. With Oryx behind them, the three of them entered her father's office, where he sat at his desk with his fingers laced together and his chin resting on them.

"You certainly know how to give people a headache, Mister Arc," her father greeted as they entered.

Jaune's expression finally broke, a sheepish grin appearing as he scratched the back of his head. "Sorry about that, I guess."

Her father sighed, leaning back in his chair. "You understand what we have to do next, don't you?"

Blake lifted an eyebrow as Jaune nodded, expression serious once more, and looked between the two men. "Dad? What are you talking about?"

"Half the island is calling for Jaune's arrest," her dad explained slowly.

"And the other half just want us to kill him and get it over with," her mother finished sourly. "Unfortunately, there aren't many grounds on which to do either, and if other Huntsmen hear that a major leader like your father did something to someone he hired..." She took a deep breath. "So we have to salvage the situation before people conflate your father hiring Jaune with him ordering what transpired. Show them that we're still on their side."

"When are the White Fang coming to collect me?" Jaune asked, making Blake shoot up from her seat.

"You're giving him to the Fang?!" She screamed. "What Jaune did was bad, I get it, but they'll tear him apart."

"Blake." The steely tone was one Blake had never heard before. One look at the hard glint in his eyes told her she wasn't speaking to her father at the moment, or even Ghira Belladonna, Chieftain of Menagerie. She was looking at the man who had been High Leader of their people in the fight for their freedom and equality. "We won't be giving Jaune to the White Fang. You will."

*(OoO)*

He was standing just outside the gates to a castle. It should have been abandoned years ago, yet word had reached him that someone had once more taken up residence within its halls...

"This is wrong," he said, fists clenched as he looked into the eyes of a stranger claiming to be a friend.

"You speak as if it were my choice," the stranger replied in his friend's voice...

The scene shifted. The castle became a dark and sinister thing, twisted to match the monsters that roamed its halls.

"I will see him crushed before me..." the voice was soft, but the undercurrents of power flowing through it pulled at him like the riptide.

"By your will, Milady. He will fall to my sword."

She scoffed. "Killing him isn't enough. Like the child whose body he stole, we must take away his toys..."

"Sacrifices need to be made..." His friend's voice, spoken from another's mouth. This time they were standing together at the top of a massive clocktower.

"And who gave you the right?!" He shouted, unable to control his anger.

"I'm fighting for your very survival!"

"No! WE ARE!"

He was pulled back to the present by the feeling of the boat stopping. Jaune had spent the last two weeks in a small cell at the bottom of a boat headed for Anima. He spent his time counting the seconds between when the next guard would come in to have their turn trying to beat the ever-living stuffing out of him, meditating, and fighting down the familiar feeling of motion sickness. The beatings made good training for his pain tolerance and Aura control, as he had knew that if he kept his Aura activated, he would not only waste it, but the guards, happy to finally take out their hatred for Humanity on someone would simply try harder. Instead, he focused on protecting himself from serious internal damage, allowing them to cut and bruise him.

He took pride in the fact that he never broke. Not once did he beg, or plead for the beatings to stop. He had plenty of weaknesses, he knew that, but the night Beacon fell had been the last time that he would allow his body to be one of them. Unfortunately, that only seemed to make his captors angrier, his silence seeming to be a bigger insult than any he could come up with. Blake never visited, and, honestly, not only couldn't he blame her, he was actually thankful for it. He could see she carried a lot of guilt with her from her time in the Fang, and seeing him bloodied, bruised, and with the word MENACE carved on his back, and SCUM on his chest would just make her feel worse.

"You should feel honoured, Human." Jaune kept his eyes closed as the Ablain brothers approached his cell. He could feel their disgust and contempt swirling through their Auras, mixing with their ambition and greed into a slick, oily thing that nearly made him grimace.

"I doubt you even know what that word means," Jaune snarked, his voice scratchy as he maintained his position on the floor.

One of the brothers growled and took a step forward, only to be stopped by the other with a hand on his shoulder. "History is about to be made, Human," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "The second Great Revolution is nigh, and it is thanks to you that it will be made possible."

A/N: Not happy with the pacing of this chapter, but this was my fifth time re-writing the entire thing, and I just wanted it over with. That aside, hopefully you enjoyed it. The fight at the start was fun, as I haven't written Jaune against any humans yet, and I needed to figure out how he would fight them and the massive difference between someone with training and a thug who just picked up a weapon, especially when it came to Aura. I figured that, if Jaune didn't even know what it was at the beginning, then odds are that most people - even bandits - probably don't have theirs unlocked. It also made it easier for people to spin what happened against him, as it looked like he just flat-out butchered a bunch of people, as opposed to defending the town.