[X] Blake Gaiden: How Is This Justice?
It was no secret that Blake Belladonna had been having trouble sleeping recently. Between the White Fang's violent tendencies growing more and more prevalent, and her own increasing skill in combat, she had been ending up in the thick of combat more and more recently.
Which was perfectly fine when she was fighting robots. Harder when she has to fight a trained bodyguard to hold the line for a larger White Fang force to complete their objective.
The problem came when Adam arrived to finish the fight covered in blood.
On an academic level, she knew people were being hurt and dying before then. It's another thing to know people had been hurt, or been killed, because she'd stopped help from getting to them.
Adam had seemed to notice her distress, which was why Blake hadn't been asked to participate in any other schemes since then, even though she could hear the news every day afterwards.
It was to be expected. The White Fang don't make a statement like attacking a ball of the most powerful companies in Atlas and get away with it that easily. Everyone had seen the crackdown coming. They had been prepared for it.
Unable to get to sleep, Blake rolled off her bed, and went to go get a book.
Most of her belongings had been moved out of the apartment over the last few days. Atlas had found a few White Fang living quarters already, so she had to be prepared. The hotel she was staying in was owned by a White Fang sympathiser, and often got used as a base for the White Fang in Atlas. But if there was a crackdown, then Blake had to be ready for them to be sold out.
All that was in her apartment right now was a spare set of clothes, a few cheap books, and her gun. Everything else had been moved to a White Fang outpost outside the city, one that existed solely as an escape if things went too badly.
This had the unfortunate side effect of making things boring most of the time, leaving Blake with nothing but her thoughts. Which would always eventually lead to one of two places.
The first was that she'd hear the news of another member of the White Fang being caught out, being forced to flee their homes or ending up being arrested, a breakout failing, or whatever it was, and wondering if she could have turned it around if she had just been there.
And then she remembers Adam walking into the room covered in blood and wondering if someone would still be alive if she hadn't been there.
And of course someone was dead. Adam tried to avoid giving her an answer, saying that he'd let her know after she took some time off to get over it, but that's as good as saying that whoever was bleeding didn't walk away. Why dodge the question otherwise?
Flicking open the pages to her book, Blake took a moment to look at the cover and see which novel she had taken this time.
...Hm. The Silent Prince. Not one she'd read before. She was familiar with the author, though. He had a reputation for dark stories, but Blake had to admit, the romance in his last few books was rather good, even if it was just a side-thing.
Turning to the front page and admiring the artwork inside the cover of a swordsman standing before a dragon, Blake moved to sit down and read until she tired herself out. But as she walked back towards her bed, she saw something out of the window, in the corner of her eye. Curious, Blake turned towards the window to see what it was.
An airship was hovering in the air near the hotel. Usually, an airship in the middle of the city would be covered in lights, especially this low down. This one was dark, and not moving.
A sinking feeling in her chest, Blake looked down.
it was hard to see the road from this high up, but she was fairly sure there was an unusual amount of people walking around. And why would there be cars driving around this late? Especially that slow?
Something was going on here.
Putting the book back and quickly pulling out a scroll linked to the hotel's communication array, Blake opened up the contacts and dialled management.
Nothing. Communication error.
There was too much wrong with this situation. Putting the scroll down, Blake picked up Gambol Shroud, and holstered it. She needed to figure out what was going on, before something actually started going on.
As she stepped out of her apartment and into the hallway, Blake heard the elevator in the distance ding. Looking over at it as it opened, she saw several robots walk out, looking around.
The hotel was being raided. The White Fang had been sold out.
Dashing at the robots before they could see her, Blake opened fire. One robot went down quickly, and the others opened fire. Simply using her Semblance to dodge and leave a shadow replica to take the hit, Blake was able to close into close range in only a few moments.
Sliding on the floor, the Faunus swept her weapon on the floor in front of her, knocking down another robot, before creating another shadow replica to throw her into the air. From above the robots, Blake found it easy enough to swipe at them with Gambol Shroud.
A few bullets struck her side, but nothing able to break through he Aura. Blake hit the ground at the same time as the last part of the last robot, and the fight was over.
A moment passed, before another door in the corridor opened up. A woman's head poked through, with small pseudo-antlers poking out from the top of it, to see what was happening.
"...Blake?" The woman asked, and the cat Faunus suddenly felt bad at not knowing who the woman was. "What happened?"
"Robots sweeping the building." She said. "Airships and cars hanging around the building trying to avoid attention. Communications are done. We've been sold out."
The woman's eyes widened. "What? But... Who would have-"
"We can ask questions later." Blake interrupted. "Can you fight?"
The woman paused. "Yes." She said, eventually. "So can my husband. But our son's too young, and he's here too."
Blake winces. "...Does he know that you're-"
"No." The woman said.
"I'm sorry." Blake replied. "I'll try and delay people as long as I can, wake your family and try to spread the word."
The woman nodded, and Blake turned to the elevator. It had closed in the fight, most likely moving more robots to more floors. Pressing the button to call the elevator up, Blake leapt to the roof and lodged herself in place above the elevator.
A moment later, there was a ding, and the doors open. The robots took a few steps out, but then saw the wreckage on the ground, and stopped.
In that moment of confusion, Blake leapt down, demolishing all of those who had exited the elevator. The ones immediately behind them were too slow to respond to the sudden attack, and so Blake was able to start swiping at them, knocking bullets out of the air as they approached her and making short work of a second force.
It wasn't too strong, the groups being sent. But then, the police force was attacking in the middle of the night. They were probably keeping the forces to a minimum, to avoid over-expenditure of valuable assets until they knew that the White Fang forces in the hotel were aware of their presence. Capture as many suspects as possible with the minimum amount of force.
Blake noticed the elevator buttons to the right of the door, and how the ground floor button was lit. The doors closed, and the elevator began moving downward. Quickly, the Faunus went to it, and started pressing every button on the elevator.
The elevator stopped a moment later, three floors below where Blake had boarded, and the Faunus girl stepped out of it to confront the next force.
Either side of the elevator, from corner to corner, Blake saw nothing. After a moment, however, she heard a door opening. Quickly running to the left and rounding the corner, she saw a group of three robots standing in front of an open door. A moment passed, and then there was a crash from inside the apartment.
Lining up her shot, Blake took fire and shot down one of the robots. It fell, and before the others could turn to see her, Blake twisted back around and hid behind the corner.
There was silence for a moment, except for more crashing sounds inside the apartment, and then slow footsteps started approaching the corner. Holding her gun and aiming towards the wall where the robots would have to wait, Blake waited.
She saw motion, and fired. Another robot fell, and then she rounded the corner and kicked the third into a wall before it could react. Her blade came down on it, and the robotic head fell off.
Looking back to the apartment, Blake saw a fourth robot be thrown out of the door, through a wall. There was a stairway on the other side of that wall. The robot wouldn't be back up for a moment.
The robot was followed a moment later by a large man with the ears of a bear, who looked at the wall for a moment. Then, he looked around, and saw Blake.
"Oi." The bear man said. "You're that kid who Adam was training, weren't you? Blake or whatever?"
"That's me." The cat girl replied. "This is the third group of robots I've encountered. I don't think it's deniable that we're being busted."
"A police raid?" The bear man asked. "...Crap. I hadn't heard my human neighbours all night, and the robots just walked into my apartment like they knew they were finding an enemy within."
"We were sold out." Blake noted. "And those not in the White Fang were given time to get out of here. How did nobody notice?"
The bear man fumed for a moment. "Hey, Blake, right? Any reason the whole buildings not on alert?"
"I tried to give warning earlier." She said. "Communications were shut down."
"Figures." The bear man muttered. "Can't get a message out like this. Not unless the alarm is unguarded."
"Alarm?" Blake asked.
"In the penthouse." The bear man noted. "The fire alarm up there was rigged. If you flip it on and off again three times while there's no smoke around, it'll send an emergency message to anyone in the White Fang."
"So we just do that, and help starts coming?"
The bear man nodded.
"...Risky." Blake noted. "We'd be drawing more people into an ambush. We really need to be getting away. But, that might be hard if Atlas has the concentration of force and are blocking the exits..."
"I'm going down to the lobby." The bear man noted. "That's where most people would be trying to escape through, and it's where there's likely to be a force waiting to catch people. If I can be enough of a distraction to get others out..."
The man trailed off, cracking his neck. "Need to get my rapier..."
Blake watched him go inside, then turned and left, planning out her next move.
There were three options, in front of her. First was to go down to the lobby as well, cut off the robots in the elevator and stop more of the automata being sent in. Provide a distraction and a way out for people at the same time. But there were already robots in the hotel, and if left unattended, they'd end up capturing more sleeping people. Trying to warn as many people as possible, who could warn others and fight back as well, might be smart.
Or she could go and call for help. It'd take a while to arrive, but if, say, Adam turned up with a handful of the White Fang's top fighters, then any initial force was likely to be torn through. They'd need to flee before Atlas sent the big guns which could turn the tables, but anyone who evaded arrest for that long would be free to go.
Of course, that only really helped if the White Fang outside of the hotel hadn't already noticed that something was going on, which was entirely possible. It was possible that Blake would end up just wasting time that could be used helping people get away.
Thinking about it for a moment, Blake-
[X] Ran through the floors and ensured as many people as possible were aware of the threat.
[X] Took the elevator to the lobby and fought everyone there, to buy time.
[X] Made for the penthouse and the emergency button, even if it meant fighting whatever force was already up there.