[X] She couldn't face Adam like this. She needed to get her thoughts in order first. In the meantime...
-[X] Maybe she could try conversing with the wolf Faunus girl. Someone closer to her own age might put things in perspective.
It was strange, riding in an airship. Blake would never get used to it. Sure, she'd been in one a few times, but it was always strange. There was always a slight movement that felt different to standing on the ground. Or maybe it was just that the airship the White Fang was using was an older one. The stabilisers were probably significantly below the peak condition. She'd never gotten a chance to fly in anything that wasn't outdated, so maybe it wasn't as much of a problem with those.
Some people seemed to have less of a problem with it than others. There were people walking the corridors of the airships easily enough, and Blake paused for a moment as she saw a bunch of kids running around the hallway.
...Some of the White Fang members in the hotel had families, didn't they? Kids, like this, who couldn't be left behind. What would have been waiting for them otherwise? If children had their parents fleeing the law, anything ties their parents had to society either also running or shunning them for terrorist links, likely forced to end up in some sort of foster home where they were all too likely to end up someplace terrible, what kind of conditions would they be in?
Not anything good, that was for sure.
But it wasn't much better now. Ripped away from any life they knew back in Atlas, on the run, and if there was any sort of resource issue, they'd be the ones the worst off.
Would they be in this situation if Adam hadn't escalated to murdering a member of the Schnee family? Would they be worse off back in Atlas if the White Fang never existed at all?
Why couldn't there be an easy answer to any of this?
As she wandered the airship, Blake happened to stumble across a familiar face.
"Oh!" Said a chirpy voice. "It's you!"
Blake turned to the voice, and came face to face with the teenage wolfgirl.
"It's..." The wolf trailed off. "Uh... The person from the hotel! Whose name... I didn't forget, I totally remember-"
"That's odd." Blake noted. "I never mentioned my name."
The wolf girl blinked. "...Of course! I knew that."
"My name is Blake." The cat Faunus supplied.
"Hi Blake!" She chirped. Then, she blinked. "...Wait, are you that girl who knows Mister Taurus?"
"I do know Adam, yes." Blake replied.
The girl seemed to sweat. "F-First name basis..." She stuttered. "I-I'm sorry if I was rude, ma'am! I didn't know, ma'am!"
Blake blinked at the suddenly saluting girl. "...You realise I'm not a high-rank member of the White Fang, right?"
The wolf girl looked confused. "...But you know Mister Taurus?"
"He won't kill you for using your first name." Blake noted.
"But he's scary." The wolf replied timidly.
This was going nowhere. "I don't think I caught your name."
The wolf girl blinked. "Ah! Right! My name's Sienna, can I ask yours?"
Blake looked at her for a moment.
"...Sorry, reflex."
Blake was very seriously considering going to talk to someone else about this. Like Adam. Or maybe she'd walk out of the airship, back to Atlas, and talk about her terrorism problems at great length with the first man in uniform she saw.
But no, she was being unfair. And someone like this might have an... Interesting... Perspective.
"So, Sienna." Blake said. "Can we talk for a bit?"
"Sure, boss lad-"
"I'm not your boss." Blake interrupted.
"Sorry." The wolf girl said again. "What did you want to talk about?"
"I wanted to know what you think of how the White Fang have been doing." Blake replied.
Sienna thought on that for a moment.
"Well, I'm not the smartest." She said. "And I know there's been a bit of arguing over it. But I think the White Fang is still doing the right thing?"
"Even though we're getting more violent?" Blake asked.
The wolf girl thought on that for a bit more. "Well... It's sad that people are dying in the fighting, but it's only fair, right? People talk about justice all the time, and the important thing is that it's fair. Humans cause the deaths of Faunus, and so Faunus cause the deaths of Humans."
Blake considered that for a moment. "Humans don't go out of their way to kill Faunus, though. Even if the conditions in, say, a Schnee mine are terrible on Faunus workers, it's not like they were designed to kill as many Faunus as possible."
"They may as well have been." Sienna noted bitterly. "They just want money, they don't care about the people. They don't care when reports say that the mines are unsafe, because fixing it would cost money, and the miners go home and complain and their daughter overhears them complaining how someone's going to get hurt one day, and then one day they don't come back from work and the daughter turns on the television to see that there was a collapse in the mines and she doesn't remember if she ever got to say goodbye because her parents always left for work before she woke up and-"
Sienna paused, and Blake kept a concerned eye on her for a moment.
"Intent doesn't matter!" Sienna chirped again, suddenly shifting her vocal tone to be higher pitched. "Human doesn't care about Faunus, Faunus dies so Human can have what they want. Faunus doesn't care about Human, Human dies so that Faunus can get what they want. Fair's fair."
"...Okay..." Blake noted. She wasn't going to be touching that topic again without a twenty-foot pole.
"Why do you ask, Blake?" Sienna continued.
"I've just been thinking." The cat Faunus continued. "We've been getting more violent, and every time the White Fang escalates, I just feel a bit conflicted about it. I wanted to see if it was just me."
Sienna rested her hand on her chin in thought. "Hm... Well, you've seen all those old movies, right? With the lone renegade hero being handsome and charming while handsomely stopping a corrupt authority figure?"
"...Yes?" Blake asked, not sure where Sienna was going with it.
"Well, the hero's always the good guy there." Sienna said. "Even if he kills a lot of people. And I don't think it's just because the hero is shirtless and has abs. It's the same reason why people let prisons be a thing."
"There's a few trains of thought behind prisons that I've heard." Blake said. "Which one are you talking about?"
Sienna bit her lip. "Maybe I'm explaining this wrong... I think my dad once said there were four reasons people were locked up? Something like incapacitate, deterrence, retribution and rehabilitation? The fourth one doesn't really work here, but do you get what I mean?"
"I think so." Blake replied. "People in jail can't keep committing crimes, and the threat of jail stops people from committing crimes?"
"Yeah!" Sienna chirped. "We're doing the same thing! Just, uh, permanently. A dead person can't keep running a company with bad conditions for Faunus, and the threat of being killed has meant that some businesses have started making things better. Plus, you know, the revenge."
"Vengeance isn't justice, though." Blake objected.
"Isn't it?" Sienna asked. "I mean, that's one of the four reasons. Person did bad thing to society, so society makes them suffer. And that's, like, the main bit of justice. If you look back to old times, justice was basically you doing something bad to a person, so they made something bad happen to you. It's a lot more complicated now, though."
"What about innocent people?" Blake asked. "There's civilians caught up in attacks sometimes. Sometimes even Faunus."
"Same with courts." Sienna replied. "I mean, there are false positives all the time. People get a fine or thrown in jail, then a few years later someone finds more evidence proving they were innocent the whole time. It's like that. Just, uh, more permanent."
"So." Blake summed up. "You think that it's fair for the White Fang to be violent because our targets make people suffer, and it's okay that good people get hurt sometimes because the law hurts good people sometimes."
"Uh huh." Sienna nodded. "It's simple. In the end, justice is just when you see something bad being done to you and yours, and do bad to someone else to make up for it."
"That's a rather simple way of looking at things." Blake noted.
"The world's a rather simple place." Sienna replied. "People try to complicate it, but really, life's a lot easier if you just don't think too hard on it."
Blake nodded. "But-"
She was cut off, by a sudden alarm blaring. Red light shone from all the ceilings, flashing around as a siren called.
"What's going on?" Sienna asked, looking around.
Before there was a reply, an explosion rocked the airship. Blake heard screaming.
"Come on." The cat Faunus said. "That's the evacuation signal. Try and get to the ejection points."
Nodding, Sienna followed Blake as the cat Faunus broke into a run.
The airship shook at another explosion, and Blake was thrown into a wall. Getting to her feet, Blake moved to keep running, but another explosion knocked her back down. And then another. They came faster and faster, until there was a constant ringing of explosions all around.
Adapting to the constantly shaking airship, Blake ran through the corridor, jumping up on a wall to run along it as she noticed more people running around close by. Sienna followed her, but immediately slipped off the wall and struggled to keep her footing.
Letting her fall behind, Blake continued running ahead, trying to get to the launch pods nearby. Once she got to them, she'd be able to make sure as many people got away as possible, and hopefully get away herself.
A sudden melodic tone filled the sky, almost soothing despite the situation, and there was a sudden sound of tearing metal near the escape pods.
As Blake rounded the corner and came to where the path to the escape pods should be, there was nothing. Molten steel dripped from the first part of the path, but it was as if a large segment of the airship had just been torn away.
Visible in the blue sky past the molten metal was a black shape in the distance, flying ahead of the airship amongst attempts of suppresive fire, but it was already rounding back.
It's angle was such that it wouldn't be long before it hit the other escape pods.
More and more guns started firing at the flying black thing, and it changed course slightly, going for the cannons over the people evacuating. But if it had already gone after one, it wouldn't be long before the attacker came around again.
Turning, Blake started running towards the other side of the airship.
"Blake?" Asked Sienna, as the cat Faunus ran past. "What about-"
"They're gone." Blake interrupted. "We need to get to the other side before it's attacked too."
Sienna looked at Blake, then nodded. Turning towards the wall, the wolf Faunus took out her dagger and used it to cut her palm.
Then, with a sudden shout, Sienna started sprinting, the bloodstained tip of her dagger held before her. As she ran, the dagger extended, increasing in size significantly until it hit the wall. As the blood at the tip was forced through, the wall expanded just enough to allow Sienna to pass, and Blake immedately dashed after her. Just in time, as it turns out, as the wall sealed itself again just as Sienna passed, and Blake barely got through in time.
The hallway was conspicuously empty as the two ran through. But naturally it was. By this point, people had probably gotten to the closest escape pod, and anyone who had run to the escape pods back on the other side of the ship would have been...
Blake forced the thought out of her mind, as she continued sprinting to keep pace with Sienna. Suddenly, a larger explosion rocked the ship, and the two were flung to the side. Sienna's dagger shrunk back down to it's normal size, and the airship started tilting.
A voice started shouting over the intercom.
"Mayday, mayday!" It screamed. "Engine has taken heavy damage! Abandon ship! Repeat, Abando-"
Another explosion rang out, and the intercom cut out, replaced by static.
"W-What's happening?" Sienna asked.
Blake didn't look t her, as she adjusted her footing to fit with how the airship was now at an angle. "I don't know."
Now running on the walls, which were rather diagonal but now closer to being horizontal than the floor used to be, the two girls continued running. Blake looked around, trying to remember the path, then ran at what was now closer to being a wall and ran up it, jumping to the other 'wall' after a few moments to keep up the momentum.
A scraping sound echoed through the hall, and Blake ran on, reaching where the side of the ship should have been. There was still a significant run to where the escape pods where, but-
But this area of the ship was burning.
The sky was distantly visible through several walls, all of which had gaping holes in them left by the echoing explosions that continued to ring out. Blake watched for a moment in mute horror, noticing how the smell of burning flesh filled the air in this room, but continued running.
Dashing through, Blake pulled out Gambol Shroud, tightened the ribbon on her arm, and threw it.
"Hold on." Blake shouted, pausing for a moment to let Sienna grab her, before she jumped. Pulling on Gambol Shroud as she did so, Blake propelled the two of them to just under where the weapon has caught, at which point running up the wall was trivial.
Whoever was manning the controls must have been fighting the damaged engines to keep the airship under control, because the orientation was slowly shifting back into something normal. Still tilted heavily, reflecting the ship going down, but under control.
"Anyone else here?" A voice screamed in the distance.
"We are!" Sienna replied. "Hold on!"
Running towards the voice, Blake and Sienna suddenly felt heat behind them as another explosion went off. The two of them were thrown to the floor by the explosive force, and Blake could feel super heated shrapnel bouncing off her Aura. Looking up, she saw a brief vision of the attacking beast ripping into steel, tearing away at the ship, before another melodic song went out. The airship near the beast froze, and when the beast tore away, much more of the airship was torn off than it's size and grip would have implied.
"We have to go." Blake said to Sienna, helping the wolf Faunus to her feet. Sienna briefly looked back at the falling metal.
"Sienna, let's go-"
"They're screaming, Blake." The wolf girl said. Blake listened closely for a moment, and could hear distant screams, but tuned them out as fast as she heard them.
"We can't do anything for them." Blake insisted. "Let's get out of here, worry about other people later."
"But-"
"Just listen to me." Blake insisted. "Whatever that thing is, it's been tearing through the airship metal like crazy. This thing was salvaged from the Atlas military, and even if it's outdated, the material is the same. This is the sort of metal made to withstand hours of bombardment from Grimm and rogue ships, and that thing is tearing through it like it's nothing. We can't do anything."
Sienna looked at Blake, starting to tear up. "But..."
Blake closed her eyes. "Don't think about them." Blake advised. "Things are so much easier when you don't think, right?"
Sienna nodded, trying to hold back a sob. Blake tugged at her hand and pulled her forward, continuing a run.
What the hell was that thing? Some unknown type of Grimm? A new Atlas weapon? A wyvern? Something else?
Running through the falling airship some more, Blake and Sienna came across a familiar man with the ears of a bear.
"You two." He said, not bothering with introductions. "Look, here."
The man held his hand in front of them, and clicked his fingers.
"My Semblance is Illusions." He said. "Not personal ones, but ones that affect everything except the people I put them on. There's an pod bay up ahead, I had to hide it so the beast didn't get it, but it's still looking. Have you seen anyone else?"
"No." Sienna replied softly.
"Then we need to move." He said. "None of the escape pods have launched yet, because that'll break the illusion. Get in one, and we can get these people out of here. You hear me?"
"Yes." Sienna replied.
"Try to split up." The man continued. "If things go wrong, being in the same pod means more people die in a malfunction. Now go!"
Blake nodded, running along. Sienna's hand fell out of hers as they ran to where the escape pods where, and they split up when they each identified an empty one.
"I'll see you soon, Blake." Sienna tried to be cheerful, but the morose tone ruined it.
"We're making it out of here." Blake insisted, as she went into her escape pod.
It was small, circular, and without any real means of propulsion. It was heavily armoured and design to get to the ground without causing harm to the ones inside. The doors were treated glass, as hard as steel but transparent, and in the case of the doors landing wrong the escape pods were designed to collapse so that any part of it could be exited.
A moment passed after Blake got in hers, before it dropped. Looking out the window, she saw all of them dropping at the same time, leaving the airship behind.
They were close to the ground, Blake noted. The airship had fallen a lot. It was lucky she had found it when she had, if Blake had waited much longer, the burning airship would have crashed and she would have been trapped within it-
An explosion erupted throughout the sky, tearing it asunder, and Blake saw one of the escape pods in the distance disappear in a ball of flame. Her eyes wide, she immediately reached for the doors on her, even as she saw a burning corpse fall from the destroyed escape pod, and another laund pod went up in flames as Blake tried to pry hers open.
A third went up by the time Blake had gotten hers open, all of them growing closer over time. Climbing out of hers, Blake looked around, looking for a place she could jump to and land with minimal harm.
A second too late, she saw the fireball approaching, and even as she jumped away, she felt the explosion tear through her Aura and send her to the ground.
For a moment, there was only pain.
Of course, Blake Belladonna survives this, but it will take her a moment to regain consciousness. What's the first thing she notices when she does so?
[X] A crying child, desperately begging her to wake up.
[X] Sienna's scream in the distance.
[X] A dark shadow covering her momentarily, and a mighty gust of wind as it shifted.