Chapter Twelve
Blind
Beacon - Team SKBN - 1600
"What do you mean you're not going?" Bianca slowly repeated Summer's words back to her as she stared at the silver patch in her outstretched hand.
"I've been called to a meeting in the Capital Districts. Apparently, they don't like my appointment to the office of Commander and would like to ask me some questions." Summer monotone mirrored her boredom. "You'll be in charge of the Beacon fleet for tonight's operation."
"How long have you know about this meeting?" Bianca begrudgingly accepted the patch and affixed it her black clothing. Every member of SKBN wore all black, except for Summer, as she donned her usual everyday getup.
"This morning." Summer pulled out her scroll and showed the memo. "I have to show up to District One, and explain my appointment to the highest authority in the land."
"You are the highest authority." Nova replied, stretching out her muscles in preparation for the night op.
"They missed my memo then." Summer looked down at her own clothing. Kara's bow sat in its usual spot, tied around her neck as a choker. "How do I look?"
Like you're attending a movie, and not a meeting with the most powerful men and women in Vale. Kara looked no different; black was always her colour.
"Shows my respect for them." Her scythe sat attached to her back, the menacing blake glinting in the bright afternoon sun. "You need to leave soon, our window is rapidly shrinking."
"Try not to kill them." Bianca kissed Summer on her cheek, instilling some measure of comfort to Summer. Dealing with bureaucrats was every Hunter's worst nightmare.
"I'll claim self-defense."
"With that scythe?" Summer stared back blankly, causing Nova to laugh and chase after her wife. They each had separate bullheads to pilot but they'd spend anytime together they could until their takeoff.
Kara hugged Summer tightly, pressed a kiss to her cheek and touched their foreheads together. Summer's silver eye twinkled and a smile passed over her face. She startled as Kara pinched her ass and disappeared without a trace, leaving her holding an air Dust clone.
"You should get going too." Neo stood from her chair and presented herself before Summer. She was entirely decked in black, from her hair to her eyes. "Leave a mess in my name, and tell them I'll meet them at Menagerie."
Neo nodded and shattered, leaving Summer alone in her room. She brushed a hand through her hair and settled back into her seat, restarting the process of filling out paperwork.
The skies above her screamed with the sounds of Airships and Bullheads as they soared north, avoiding the major populated areas of Vale. They'd circle around Vale and head north across the sea.
In less than eight hours, the siege would begin.
'Siege' did their operation no justice.
The imposing figure of the High Commander demanded respect as she entered the Council House of District One. Even with how late in the day it was, there were still tens of people milling about the marble foyer.
With her knee high combat boots, tight black jeans, blood red tee, and her softly pulsing scythe, she couldn't look more out of place. People shifted out of the way for her, not willing to tangle with the woman with the frighteningly empty eye.
It absorbed all the stares of confusion, wonder, and fear as its owner approached the security checkpoint to the Council's Hall. She strode directly to the head of security, and without a word, retrieved her scroll and presented her identification.
Everyone in the foyer held their breaths as they waited for the head to call for his men and drag the lunatic out, but to their shock, he saluted and allowed her to pass, not bothering to confiscate her weaponry.
As much as Hunters avoided the Capital Districts, he still knew the protocols regarding the Hunter Commander. Ozpin never attended meetings here so the presence of any Hunters in these Districts was an extremely rare occurrence. People weren't used to how openly Hunters carried themselves and their weapons.
Summer's path didn't lead her to the Council Chambers, instead meandering to the kitchens tucked away from any prying eyes. She was going to make the pompous assholes wait for her if they dared threaten her with 'dire' consequences.
No one stopped the confident woman who suddenly appeared in the kitchens and rummaged about for supplies to make tea. She spent a few minutes reading from her book, a few staff members recognizing it as indecent literature, but she had a massive scythe and they didn't.
She left just as quickly as she appeared, the majority of time spent waiting for her tea to steep properly before she took her cup and coaster with her, leaving the kitchen staff wondering who the hell she was.
Summer was already late as it went, so another ten minutes would drive the screws in further and teach them to not to assume they held any bit of command over her.
She kicked the doors to the Council Chambers open, causing the 24 council members to jump in their seats at the abrupt intrusion. They watched as she took a seat at the other end of the table, taking off her scythe and resting it besides her. Her choice of seat forced most of them to turn their chairs to face their guest.
She had won the war the moment she walked into the room.
"You've kept us waiting Commander." Summer didn't react to the Chairman's greetings, stirring her tea with her finger as she crossed her legs to settle into her chair.
She extended the growing tension and silence in the room by lewdly sucking her finger clean of tea.
"And you've shown me disrespect by summoning me here without at least two days notice." Summer let the twinkle in her eye disappear, leaving the Chairman staring into the abyss. "I didn't like the threatening tone of the summons."
"We apologize the meeting had to be called so abruptly, but we'd already put it off to give you time to restore Beacon." Summer doubted any of his words were sincere. "You've been summoned to answer questions pertaining your appointment as the new Commander of Beacon."
Summer nodded.
"Care to explain Commander?"
"Following the failed invasion of Beacon and the routing of the White Fang, Ozpin decided it was time to step down from his long tenure of Commander and instated me in his place."
She enjoyed these word games as she hadn't been asked a direct question, but rather an explanatory one.
"We were wondering more as to why you were chosen among other Hunters. Ozpin's appointment has been in the coming for a few years, but we weren't expecting his replacement to be so… young." The councilmen finished his sentence with unease.
"I didn't receive this position because of any sexual favours councilman, but regardless if this was the intention of your comment, the fact remains I am young." The mentioned councilman sputtered in his reply, but Summer bulldozed it down. "I was one of the most experienced Hunters under Ozpin's command, starting training in Signal from the age of three and then training as the next Commander from the age of fifteen."
"Were you voted in or was the position passed on?"
"It was given, but I've yet to receive complaints about my command in the two weeks I've held it, but if my Hunters are dissatisfied with my performance, they know the protocols to remove me."
The Council had absolutely no influence in the assignment of Beacon's next assignment. Just as the Hunters conceded control of all but their district, the Council conceded the succession of Commanders to them.
"What are your plans for the terrorist group known as the White Fang?" Another councilmember asked. "You've declined our help, but we've authorised emergency funds anyhow."
"Is it common for politicians to commit career suicide, or is this instance of the Council simply being vacuous?" The Chairman and his Council sputtered briefly as Summer continue with her remarks. "It sounds like I should be grateful you're funneling funds into one of the most important parts of Vale's defence, but I'm sure I just misconstrued your words."
Summer took a sip, waiting and watching as the councilors understood their blunder. If the people learned they withheld funds to the Hunters, who had successfully repelled the attack, then they would see themselves out of office come the next election term.
She had no such qualms as her position of the Hunters was guaranteed in perpetuity, and could only be rescinded by a motion of no confidence, retirement, or medical leave; the Council held no power to remove her.
"The Council and the people of Vale are ever so grateful the Hunters protect us against the Grimm, even if their battle now extends to the White Fang."
"Such a shame, but their existence can be attributed to this Council's continued refusal to grant the Faunus equal rights, a right which they should have received after the Great War. If they hadn't mounted their assault then we'd have no reason to retaliate."
They understood the unspoken caveat. The Hunters wouldn't have entered the conflict if they hadn't been attacked first, leaving Vale to deal with the terrorist threat by themselves, but as they had also used Grimm, it pulled Beacon in as a primary belligerent.
"The decision to not pass the Faunus Equal Rights addendum is a decision made by our constituents, not by this Council."
On paper, the Faunus did have equal rights since the Great War, but there were enough loopholes to the point where Faunus continued to live as second-class citizens.
"I understand completely." Summer replied, causing them to grimace in confusion at her suddenly agreeable nature. "After all, politicians are most concerned with retaining their positions as incumbents, and not the plight of the minorities living in Vale."
Summer, please stop. The author can't deal with this level of savagery, even with his jaded views on politics.
"A large majority of my Hunters are not satisfied with your refusal to amend the bill, including my wife who takes it as a personal insult to her heritage." She got a few sneers from the council members who wore their emotions on their sleeves. "But I rest assured any member of my forces won't get discriminated against, regardless of a few animal traits."
The trap snapped shut. Summer still had half of her tea remaining.
"No one would dare risk alienating our brave Hunters." Summer could tell the strain of having to respect the Faunus Hunters was about to tear the Chairman apart. "It'd be a great relief to the people if we could tell them the Hunters were working against the White Fang."
"With how decentralized their organization is, we have almost no information about their movements, and only have the name of their leader. While we have no action plan against them, we are working to gain information before we move against them."
"We could have the military intelligence casing for information." The Chairman offered.
"If the intelligence corp can keep their gathering discrete and out of view from the public, then please, go ahead and task them to help." Summer stared the Chairman down, before sweeping her gaze across the rest of them. "But the Fang are mine, and my Hunters' alone. They attacked an event we were assigned to guard and then attempted to destroy my Academy. If you formally declare a state of conflict, others will start seeing their cause as legitimate, when they did nothing more than surprise us at the force they gathered."
Summer paused, not entirely happy she would be allowing the Council to act anywhere close to this, but if she told them to not interfere, they would anyhow, so allowing them to help in this small measure kept them on a leash, especially if they'd be reporting to one of her Hunters.
"I doubt they can amass another attack anytime soon anywhere since they lost quite a number of personnel in their last one. Your intelligence members will report to my spymaster and they'll be able to coordinate information gathering from there." The Chairman and his peons nodded, thinking they scored a victory against the hostile Commander. There'd be a power struggle in the future when they each tried to remove the other, not legally of course.
Kara would have to be sent to deal with the less amicable councilmen, but after Qrow returned from wherever Winter had him locked up, she'd have less work to do with managing his networks and more time in the field.
The only problem with this route was the rest of the Council would start to suspect either the Hunters or the White Fang were behind their members going missing, and in order to paint the White Fang in a more negative light, they'd blame them.
The leash on the Council would have to be short and tight, but not enough to have them grovelling for freedom and attempting to bypass her restrictions. They possessed a military and Summer wouldn't risk plunging them into a civil war with them calling an active conflict against the Fang.
Once Menagerie took its place amongst the four Kingdoms, their new Faunus equality movement could begin to pull influence away from the White Fang and pressure the other city-states.
The other Kingdoms would start to see Menagerie as a threat which needed to be extinguished and would call it a White Fang plot to amass an army to threaten them. The new Academy, with support from the four Hunter factions would dissuade them quickly enough. They couldn't afford to run the Hunters from their countries. Against Grimm, even the most trained armies couldn't hold.
Politics was a hassle, but Kara was mute and a Faunus, and Nova didn't know what the word 'manipulations' meant. Bianca could've been sent in her stead, but it was Summer who held the position officially.
"Are we finished here or do you have anymore questions?" Her tea cup was nearly empty at this point.
"Not at this time Commander. Please do remember we're always ready to help the Hunters in any endeavor they seek to accomplish." Summer didn't buy his sincerity. "Whenever the Hunters feel the responsibilities of both fighting the White Fang and defending the people from Grimm are too much to bear, we'd be happy to lend our forces."
Whenever, not if.
Summer nearly broke the handle off of her cup.
She had lost the political bout.
The Council knew very well the Hunters numbered less than ten thousand and the Fang numbered in the possible millions, and while open warfare wasn't a tactic used anymore, they had the quantity to outsustain their quality. Her Hunters had to constantly split their duties from defending the people to chasing after the Fang, and the former always took priority.
She took her leave, kicking her scythe back up to its spot on her back. The scythe pulsed crimson ominously as she left the Chambers and she released a wave of Aura to keep the memory of her presence fresh in the the Council's minds.
She had another more important meeting to attend to before the night was done.
Her team would be furious with her when she made it back to Beacon to get their reports of the operation.
IF she made it back
Eastern Solitas (Undisclosed Coordinates) - Kara - 0000 AMT
It was almost terrifying how similar the two timelines were to each other, but in this instance, she was more than grateful they weren't.
Rather than the SDC operating eight labour camps, they only operated six, saving 20,000 people from the dredges of servitude.
Which left a slight problem as Summer and Winter had split up the camps between their two forces, and Summer had four S-ranks ready to take a crack at them, not counting herself.
Neo had been attached to Nova as the latter didn't have a semblance of stealth in her body.
Kara set her craft down in a gully a couple of klicks from her camp. A quarter of Beacon's assigned bullheads set down behind her, their pilots knowing their roles for the night. The Airships remained on the coast, idling and waiting for the short FM radio signal to drop into the camps.
The jammers had been thrown away from their plans as each required a frequency to jam which needed someone to get into the camps in the first place. Didn't stop Summer from giving her team one each.
She left her craft and mentally prepared for the mission ahead. Around her, the rest of the bullheads slowly coordinated landing in the pitch black darkness. Any lights and signals had been ordered off, with the entire flight into Solitas flown in radio silence and NGV.
Choosing capable enough pilots in itself had left Vale with the bare minimum necessary Hunters on its borders. Summer could be deployed anywhere within two hours at most in case of an emergency, but she was busy pampering to the sycophants in District One.
Kara's Hunters barely noticed as she disappeared to the north, seamlessly blending with the shadows from the canopies of the trees under the waxing gibbous. She'd have preferred to operate under a new moon, but this was one of the better nights from the next week of predicted storms, and the best window they had between check-ins.
She had a natural disadvantage to scouting out the camp as she was approaching it from lower ground, but the guards were more interested in keeping their prisoners inside rather than protecting them from outside threats. Ones who shouldn't know where the camps were located in the first place.
Didn't make the traps surrounding the camps any easier to navigate. They were just as effective as keeping in as keeping out.
Bleak barracks stood protected by a double layer of barbed electric fences which were nestled further behind a bed of mines.
Technology had long since upgraded from these types of prisons, but nothing screamed more lethal than electricity and explosives. Then there were the guard towers spaced equally along the perimeter, the tens of spotlights roaming the area around her, and the machine guns in those towers.
Fun.
The thermographic scopes with alarms added another type of challenge entirely. The SDC Knights seemed more overkill than anything at this point.
Thankfully, this wouldn't be her first time dealing with those annoyances. She drew ice dust from her reserves within Gambol's sheath and let it spread across her form, masking her internal temperature from the cameras. The ice clone sat on the precipice of being created, acting as a second skin.
At best, they'd detect a blue blur moving within their range and not a bright red blur instead.
Timing a gap in between the spotlights and the guard sweeps, she took a running leap and began threading the minefield, keeping her Faunus instincts fully spread out. Trusting her gut feeling for whenever a foot or hand came to close to danger as she pirouetted towards the fence.
This was going to hurt.
She took a deep breath and walked into the electric fence.
Bianca
She snorted and spawned a glyph in front of her body, anchoring it to move with her while she moved across a series of tiny glyphs just barely above the ground. The bright white nature of the glyphs was replaced with a muted black, keeping her presence hidden.
It was a trick avoiding all the spotlights, but as long as the first glyph blocked the view of the IR camera then she'd make it to the fence eventually.
Leaping up onto the side of a tower and sticking to it with another multipurpose glyph, she peered over the lip to see three guards sitting around a table, playing cards. Their weapons rested against their legs and their NGVs sat on top of their heads, unneeded in the brightly lit compartment.
A glyph spawned at the mid waist of them, spanning the diameter of the room, startling the guards, but they knew no more as it severed their spinal cords. Their top halves slid onto the floor, blood running freely from the major cut arteries, the shock killing them before the blood loss.
One tower down, more than a dozen to go.
Neo
An illusion of a guard took down its copy before he could do so much as squawk. It was probably a nice surprise to the guard to look into his own eyes before he died. Another guard sat slumped against the wall with his throat slashed open.
Completely silent takedowns as both guards had been facing away from the centre of the room when Neo created a copy to infiltrate the tower.
She was left with a tenth of her reserves after just one usage of her Semblance. Corporeal illusions were incredibly difficult to sustain, and at over half a kilometer away, the cost was exponential.
Giving mental commands to illusions through binoculars wasn't particularly easy when she had no clear point of view sightlines from her position.
The fake began to slowly sweep the IR camera in one direction, letting Neo cartwheel across the minefield without a care in the world. As if she'd let pressure sensitive mines kill her when she probably didn't weigh more than a feather, but now she had the problem of the electric fences, and any Aura boosted jump would disturb the soil enough to detonate a mine.
Being small had its advantages.
Bianca
This was disheartening.
Beyond disheartening.
These people were less than prisoners, all crammed into tight living conditions with limited amenities, and forced to work devastatingly long and arduous hours in dangerous conditions with no pay.
Mining Dust was inherently dangerous due to its highly reactive properties. Fire and Lightning Dust were among to most volatile Dust and took more lives on accident than anything else, and due to the nature of underground mining, any explosion caused cave-ins and more deaths.
Let's not get into Gravity Dust.
She turned a corner, following two guards as they continued on their patrol route. The temporary dye prevented her lustrous white hair from glinting in the low moonlight. They were down before they could react to the hands on their necks as Bianca spawned tiny glyphs at the base of their skulls, painlessly severing the spinal cord.
It was better than they deserved. These were about the seventieth ones she had had to dispose of, and the process was starting to get dull. Find, eliminate, dispose, repeat, and once she got rid of their main command complex, all she had to do was get rid of the patrols.
She dragged the bodies into one of the buildings and would've moved to continue with clearing the camp out if she didn't notice a small figure reaching a hand out through the grate of a cell.
Her eyes widened in disbelief.
There were children here.
Kara
Water may be a purely nonconductive material, but she still felt the electrical shock of the fence pass through her as she discarded her ice clone and passed to the other side.
Great for avoiding pain and getting through semi-permeable walls, except if electricity was in play. It screwed with Aura the most, interfering all the way down to the level of neurons.
But she was in the camp and moving rapidly towards the command complex. A few clouds in the air guaranteed her almost undetectable appearance as she meandered to the camp center.
Her forward progress was slowed to a halt as she avoided patrol after patrol, not willing to risk roof hopping in case the tower guards saw anything.
Shifting Gambol into its pistol form, she switched grip onto her ribbons and tossed it onto the roof, latching it onto the lip. A quick check of her surroundings and she clambered up onto the roof. Picking up her weapon, she used it this time to jimmie open the ventilation and slip inside.
Crawling forward at an agonizingly slow pace to reduce noise, she made it to the area above the main security area.
She removed the suppressor from her leg pouch and screwed it onto Gambol.
Neo
This was almost disheartening easy.
Not one patrol bothered stopping her as she and a guard duplicate make their way to the security complex.
She was, of course, disguised as a guard as well.
The stolen credentials from a guard allowed her access to any door and she was at the inner sanctum within minutes.
Another swipe of the card and she was in a room with seemingly hundreds of displays monitoring everything from resource production to external security.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Victim #1 asked her as she and her clone strode into the room.
An unfamiliar face smiled back at him before she lifted her stolen weaponry and fired a shot into his skull.
Let chaos ensue.
Bianca
She flicked the lights on for the barracks and was treated to a view of a large holding cell filled with family after family huddled into tight knit groups, wincing as the bright light stung her eyes.
The little boy, who had initially gotten her attention, startled at the image of a person in all black standing amongst the two guard corpses.
Bianca left just as quickly as she had entered the building, leaving the lights on and the room's inhabitants to wonder what was going on.
Only a few more guards to go until she could automatically release all of them from the console room and call in the Airships.
And she'd win the bet for fastest silent liberation time.
Kara
The sound of Kara kicking in the grate ripped the guards' attention from the monitors. They only had moments to take in the form of a tall and elegant Faunus before six precise and silenced shots left her as the only one standing.
Their bodies dropped almost comically to the floor, eyes wide as they realised their deaths had been caused by an object of their scorn.
Moments later, the entire security system was deactivated except for the guard tower spotlights. The Faunus would remain in their cells until it was safe to release them; until Kara finished with the rest of the guards, and they were now isolated in their towers, without central comms.
She and Neo were at a distinct disadvantage when compared to Bianca's near omnipotent Semblance, and there was no way she was losing a bet with the highest stakes they'd ever played with.
Neo
The first guard fell in a shower of blood and bone as the bullet shattered his skull and splattered grey matter behind him.
She moved before the first bullet hit the guard, crossing the room in a single bound to plant a kick into another guard's chest, the strength behind it caving in the cavity and crushing his heart and lungs, throwing him against the wall monitors.
The gun left her hand with tremendous speed and flew at yet another guard, causing a traumatic brain hemorrhage. He collapsed before he could get his handgun up in defence.
Her parasol snapped open, the structured polymer composite canopy deflecting the bullets sent her way from a pair of guards on the far side of the room. She commanded the copy of the guard to charge at the pair, drawing brief fire before it shattered, giving Neo enough time to pull the carbon fibre knives from her boots and throw them at their throats. Blood poured out from between their fingers as they tried to staunch the flow, but they succumbed to the suffocating grip of the crimson as their lungs lost the ability to process oxygen, the alveoli clogged from the coagulant.
She retrieved her knives, janking them out firmly and causing a spray of blood to shoot up and paint her body. The warmth of it permeated her clothing.
Grabbing a whole arsenal of weaponry from the dead, she set about to find the big, red, and surely obvious alarm button. After all, she shouldn't deny the other guards the fun of dancing with her.
Nova
She knew Neo would never abide by the silent runnings of the operation, and sighed when several loud klaxons started going off around the camp. She held back the rest of her Hunters as they looked angsty and ready to deploy at the slightest hint of action, but a quick reminder of their duties had them back to squatting in their respective ships.
The sounds of gunfire ripped through the valley, interrupted by the screams of men. Hopefully Neo had taken out the transmitting array or the team in charge of it, or they'd be fending off swarms of SDC personnel and potentially the Atlesian armada.
Most of the guard towers were abandoned as more and more personnel were pulled away from defending the camp borders to whichever area Neo was calling them to. The localized alarm was usually used to call guards to an area of Faunus unrest, but Neo was using it to corral everyone she needed to one place.
Which left Nova the ability to walk across the minefield, tripping them whenever her foot landed on top of one. The first mine exploded the area around her, triggering a few surrounding ones, which in turn caused a chain reaction until the last couldn't reach the next.
She couldn't feel the drop in Aura as mine after mine detonated on her way forward, the only indication of the ground ordinance was the pressure blast of warm air up her legs and the sight of dirt. Behind her lay a path devoid of mines, but the Faunus wouldn't be leaving this way anyhow.
The fences' supporting struts didn't last long against her fortified limbs as she pulled them down, careful to avoid touching the electrified wire. There were no guards left to stop her on her rampage as she ripped towers and fences apart, drawing some guards after her.
Her warpath enticed scores of guards from wherever they were congregated. Not as many as she'd like, but if she grabbed any from Neo's pile then they'd either end up in a brawl in the middle of the camp with prisoner casualties, or they'd both end up in a frenzy and end up with more casualties.
Bianca wouldn't forgive her since she wasn't there to indulge in the heated aftermath.
Summer
The rooftop of the Council House was a lush and abundant garden, spanning the entire building, eventually sloping down and meeting the ground. At this time of the evening, there was absolutely no one with her and she'd have it no other way.
Not even her team could be here for this.
Two cups of tea sat slowly cooling in front of her in the breeze, forgotten as Summer meditated, ignoring the sounds of the city in the far background. Her Aura pulsed in steady rhythm, but she kept a firm hold of the potency behind it, only letting her signature reach out into the world.
At the broadcast strength, she'd still ping on any sensor within 200 kilometers, but she wasn't after anyone within Vale.
When Neo and her had fought next to the mountains in their first bout, their Auras had resonated off one another, boosting their terrifying presence.
It'd only have worked if they had the exact same Aura patterns to create constructive interference. Even if their Aura was the smallest percentage off, their Auras would've fought each other in repeated cascades.
She stretched her Aura out to reach the one sensor she knew was looking for her, but had no reference point to find her. She knew nothing about how her Aura felt, but she knew what Neo's felt.
A presence latched onto her Aura and Summer smiled truly. Her request for an audience had been granted and the pull intensified as a being dragged itself into the real world.
A black and red portal appeared in the seat across from her as the pull on her core abated, relinquishing the crushing feeling of a hand around her heart. The Aura the being grabbed corrupted under the corrosive presence and she was forced to sacrifice it to the goddess in front of her.
Summer moved the second cup of tea over to her guest.
"Salem."
Her red eyes stared at Summer's heterochromatic ones, alit in curiosity and bemusement.
Bianca
The last guard fell just as silently as the rest of them had, collapsing next to his fallen partner.
It had been messy work, moving across the camp in the shadows to strike from behind or above. Then she'd hide the bodies and continue on, coming across scared and terrified Faunus in each and every barrack. She didn't give them any words, keeping her mouth shut until the deed was done.
If she wore her white clothing, then they'd be completely pristine. All of her assassinations had been achieved by cutting their spinal cords internally. The less isolated kills were achieved from long range, spawning glyphs to guards and then maiming them with the impossibly thin edge.
She backtracked to the first barracks, confident the entire camp's security forces had been disabled. The first two guards were still slumped in the corridor containing the cells, but the families in them were crowded as far away from the bars as they could, afraid they'd be blamed for their deaths.
The little boy she saw earlier sat nestled in his mother's arms, which tightened around her son as Bianca made her presence known, nudging the corpses aside to stand in front of the cell.
A small glyph, infused with ice Dust, appeared within the locking mechanism and a well placed strike shattered it, opening the cell door. Suspicious of a trap, the mother tried their best to press herself against the wall.
Bianca stood their, hand outstretched, waiting for the boy to realise she wasn't there to hurt or punish him or his family. He peeked out through his black bangs, nervous but unheeding of his mother's arms, and reached out to her hand.
She pulled her face mask down as his hand met hers and she stood from her crouch, pulling the boy with her. He didn't flinch when she revealed her gruesome scar, but his mother refused to let her son go with this stranger.
"Come on." She extended her other hand to the mother and smiled, trying to instill some measure of trust. "You're being moved."
The mother didn't meet her eyes, keeping her head down, but still followed Bianca's orders, reminding the High Commander these people were prisoners and followed orders or were punished.
"This camp, along with the other five operated by the SDC, are being shut down and destroyed for the illegal detainment of the sentient humanoid beings known as Faunus, and being relocated to the sovereign nation of Menagerie." Bianca recited her official orders from memory, but neither of the two reacted to how she thought they would, keeping their heads bowed. "Please move to the main square, along with any belongings you have with you."
They had nothing more than the clothes on their backs and each other as Bianca led them out, keeping the boy's hand in her own. Others in their cells began to stir as they noticed something was happening that wasn't in the norm.
Bianca pulled the lever at the entrance to the barracks and released every cell door at once, flicking a number of switches to get both the lights and the morning alarm working. She briefly stopped and turned to the Faunus staggering out of their prisons, the boy smiling at her side.
"In accordance with our evacuation protocols, please line-up with your belongings while you're loaded and transported away." They all eyed her shiftily, believing this to be a trap to get them punished if they tried to escape, but there were going to be punished if they didn't listen.
The guards never used requests to get them moving, only orders and threats of violence to get them to comply. It gave the Faunus courage to step out of their cells to see a figure in black along with two Faunus, and two guards slumped over against the wall next to them.
Bianca discreetly dragged them behind her and flicked the corpses off to the side to clear up the escape route. They wisely chose to follow this mysterious stranger's directions, weighing the options of escape over any form of punishment from the warden and his guards.
Kara
She was a blur as she sprinted across the camp, trailing a line of black petals behind her as she rushed to make up time for her long and tedious journey through the minefields, fences, and the ducts of the command complex.
The security building was a massacre as she executed any personnel she could find with all falling to precise gunfire or a knife to the throat when she ran out of ammunition. The doors leading to any important room were jammed with a well placed kick in case she missed someone.
She spent just a couple seconds ripping apart the guards in the towers before leaping into the next, dispatching her judgement onto the souls within.
No matter how quickly she moved from tower to tower, her frenzied killing attracted attention. Even in the dark, the camp's security forces were starting to realise sometime was happening when they could no longer communicate with the central hub. Her kills had been silent, but sight traveled faster than she could.
There were no doubt a couple of personnel moving from the border to check on the inner camp workings when their short range FM radios weren't able to get responses from almost any tower or patrol group they came across.
Neova
She found her partner for this mission panting heavily, drenched in blood, and standing on a massive pile of corpses.
Compared to the trail of bodies she left behind in her wake, Neo had definitely come up on the win. Her boots sloshed through the muddy and bloody ground, kicking about and ruining the leather permanently.
She'd chosen the evacuation spot to perform her debut, the exact spot they had asked her not to bring people to, but Nova was just satisfied she hadn't demolished any buildings in her slaughterfest. They would have to use one of the major pathways instead.
If Nova was a better person, she'd have flinched or grimaced as Neo stepped off the corpses, eliciting cracks from their mangled bodies as her Aura enhanced steps broke bone and cartilage.
How Neo managed to so perfectly arrange a mountain of bodies was her own secret since the guards all carried ranged weapons and didn't need to engage her in close quarter combat, but she was an absolute menace with her illusions.
Neo needed this outlet much more than Summer. The last proper conflict she'd been a part of was the Faunus Rights Revolution, and that was nearing twenty years ago, and they'd rather Neo keep the slumbering demon within her quiet, satisfied, and chained up.
Summer's remained placant from their last defence of Vale, and before that, the destruction of Vacuo.
The Morality Clause had been one of the few laws Summer had brought over from their dimension and immediately implemented with her Hunters as part of her appointment. The Hunters now had a duty to disobey any and all unlawful or unethical orders from their superiors as long as they could document the reason.
Never again would Summer again ask Bianca and Nova to wipe the map of Vacuo, but the law set a precedent for the next Commanders down the line, both in the military and the Hunters. However much of the original Ruby Rose survived in Summer, there was a small part telling her the deaths of hundreds of millions was an impulsive mistake.
Never again.
District One - Council House Rooftop Garden
"Thank you." Salem took the offered cup, not bothering to check for any poisons and not suspecting any foul play from the gift. She had been called here, not the other way around. "You're not the person I expected to see when I answered the call of your Aura."
"Would you mind dropping the disguise?" If Salem was surprised Summer knew about her altered appearance, she didn't show it. Her deathly pallor brightened into a more healthy tan, and the purple and red veins on her skin disappeared.
Summer let the facade she wore disperse, letting Salem see into the depths of her fractured soul.
Negotiations were all about compromise.
"Neo and I share nearly identical Aura signatures, enough to be mistaken by even the best sensors when we pulse our Auras. You might have felt us resonating a couple of weeks ago when we sparred."
"You two caused quite a stir in my Grimm. Her Aura alone causes enough confusion when they realise they can't feed off of it. Her reconnaissance in Beacon didn't go unnoticed, I take it?"
"Hard to hide when our Auras rather enjoy being in the presence of one another."
"You knew Neo would be in Beacon to investigate your appearance, knew you'd be able to locate her, and knew your Auras were similar enough to draw my attention. You called me here, knowing full well I would answer the call. Why?"
"Are you not at all interested in the woman you supposedly killed?" Salem's eyes narrowed dangerously, staring directly at Summer's silver eye before moving her gaze to stare at the empty eye socket.
Not empty, but void.
"Summer Rose died more than a decade ago at my hands and was the last Silvereye in Remnant. I was sure of it until her daughter made an appearance at the Vytal Festival." Summer nodded along with her observation. "With your unique Aura signature, you wouldn't be able to hide from me."
"So who am I, goddess?"
"My brother wouldn't have given you command of his legacy unless you could prove to him you deserved it. As this is the first time I sensed you, your affliction is new, and Oz would never stop down for you. Which means you've proven you can handle it. Summer Rose is dead, and for her death, I'm sorry... Ruby."
"If Oz gave me his legacy, then I'd currently sit as the reigning monarch of Vale, not just the Commander of the Hunters. I assume you recognize my weapon as her daughter's?"
"Not many are capable of wielding such a large scythe, and Summer wielded kusarigamas."
"Are you really sorry for my mother's death or is this a ploy? I just got out of a meeting with the Council and I can't quite tell over the amount of political bullshit they tried to lay on me."
"I'm sorry I took away your mother, but I'm not sorry for her death. My brother's legacy was a mistake I needed to rectify it, but she had a daughter I missed. Does she remain ignorant of her heritage?"
"Oz has hinted in the past, but not anything explicit. Our history was wiped long before the Great War."
"If she discovers how to use it correctly, I'll kill her, personally." Salem pointed to the abyss Summer had instead of a functioning eye. "You, on the other hand, have already used it to the point of sacrificing one of your eyes."
"So kill me." Summer looked completely detached to the idea of her death.
"I should. Not only did Oz break the rules of interdimensional travel by bringing you here, making you an anomaly, he brought over someone who's used his gift to humanity before. I've spent more than enough time hunting his children down to continue adhering to our rules."
"Ozpin had nothing to do with my appearance in this dimension. My teammate possesses a frightening intellect, and my team as a whole combined our Semblances to break through the dimensional barriers."
"I knew, eventually, Semblances would cause problems, but nothing at this level of chaos. Do refrain from breaking the rules of reality."
"Sure Grandma." Salem sputtered through her tea, wiping it from her face with dignity.
"Please don't remind me I had a hand in creating your species. It's bad enough my brother sends me annoying postcards on Mother's Day."
"You have your Grimm, styled after yourself, and he has humankind, styled after himself."
"The perfect two species to remain locked in an everlasting war of attrition. My Grimm kill some humans, and then your Hunters kill some on my children."
"A tentative balance."
"Except Ozpin broke the balance with his direct sires." Summer listened astutely, absorbing this information. "He shouldn't have been surprised I'd retaliate at some point."
"You eradicated the Silvereyes. They pose no threat to you."
"That's not the point child. He's an impudent little brother who gets away with anything he wants because I love him, but he has to grow up at some point, learn his creations aren't permanent. It hurts whenever I lose one of my Grimm, yet I understand that's the cycle."
"So you use the White Fang to do your dirty work, reminding him his creations harm themselves more than your creations ever could."
"Precisely."
"You ever think about talking to him?"
"Just like now, with you and me?" Salem threw her head back and laughed for a good few seconds. "He'd never answer my call. He believes me too evil to work with."
"Yet here we are. Two leaders of opposing sides in the everlasting war. I wasn't expecting the history lesson. All I want is the White Fang and Cinder to go away."
"I'll cut my support for them once I ensure the Relics are safe, either in my hands or in their Vaults. He can keep Choice and Creation, but Knowledge and Destruction are mine."
"I'll see what I can do." Summer understood asking Salem for more than she had was pushing it. She'd already stopped her from taking Ruby's life prematurely. "They aren't my Relics to give. Beacon holds Choice."
"I've already interfered enough for the while. No doubt Oz's planning his next moves against me, but I'm sure you'll work it out."
"How do I know anything you've told and tell me is true?" Summer never had the chance to questions Salem like she had tonight.
"You don't, but unlike my brother, you understand life isn't perfect and sometimes, we can't always get what we want. I have no doubt Ozpin will tell you a different story if you ask him."
"You've given me much to think about Grandmother." Salem twitched at her new nickname. "Would you care to hear my story?"
Salem nodded.
"You won in my dimension. Ozpin went missing during the White Fang assault on Beacon and never reappeared again. The Fang successfully provoked a war between Vale and Atlas, and your Grimm thrived from it, eventually overwhelming the city-states."
"My brother isn't one to leave without a plan. He has a nasty habit of asking others to use their bodies." She set her drink down. "The world is a balancing act, and war always tips it to one side. I can't control how my Grimm spawn, but at some point, I assume my Grimm overran the planet?"
"I lost my eye taking down one of your Armageddon Grimm, flying beings three kilometers in length. We jumped to this dimension after realising we were screwed and couldn't defeat them."
"The balance resets when there's nothing to weigh down either side. Except for Neo, she survives just about everything you can throw at her."
"Neo is special. She's old, possibly older than both Ozpin or I. Terrifying as an opponent, and even more so as an ally, she slinks through history as a shade, influencing events whenever Oz or I need her to, and keeps us on our toes whenever she acts on her own."
"She's under the impression you're a malevolent and vengeful goddess out to destroy the world. I'm inclined to agree."
"Destruction is the opposite of creation, yet neither can be classified as good nor evil. She's right on both counts."
"Will you leave Beacon alone if I help you get your Relics?"
"Attacking Beacon was nothing more than a showcase against Ozpin. It never meant to spiral towards the war of your dimension. If Ozpin couldn't defend his Relic then by what right does he have to keep it?"
"You gave Cinder control of a drake to destroy the CCTS tower." Summer replied in boredom, making Salem wonder if she cared at all about anything.
"She has her own crusade against the Maidens, just as the White Fang have their own. Do I care whether the Academy gets destroyed? No. Do I care if the Fang harass your Hunters? No. Do I care if they incite a war? Still no, because the end result is balance. Grimm can't exist without humanity, yet humanity need them to keep itself in check."
"Most people would call you evil." Summer started. "I believe you're a necessary force in the world, just as Ozpin is. I can work with you, but I still have a job to do. I'm still the Commander of Beacon, and you understand what that entails, just as I understand Grimm are a manifestation of negative emotions."
"Then we have an accord. I'll withdraw my support from Cinder and the Fang, if you help me get my Relics back."
"Half of the Fall Maiden's powers rests in one of my Hunters. As much as I want you to stop interfering, I can't have you or Cinder going after one of mine."
"If Cinder wants to kill herself going after one of your Hunters, that's her choice, not mine, nor anyone else's. I won't help her, but neither will I stop her. It's your job to ensure she doesn't get the Relics, not mine.
"Done. I also want your assurance you won't go after Ruby, or supply your Grimm to either the White Fang or Cinder for their operations."
"You're asking for quite more than I'm willing to offer. Ruby will be left alone, unless she learns to use her heritage, and agrees to never reproduce. Her line will die with her. I won't supply the White Fang and Cinder with Grimm anymore, but keep in mind they are competent enough to capture them for their own use."
"What do you want?"
"I like you. I don't know why, but I do, but you're also an able threat which wouldn't exist if Ozpin didn't have a soft spot."
Summer held out her hand, already knowing what she wanted. Less than a month ago, she had seen the absolute power Ozpin's gift had granted her as she stared down a manifestation of hate and misunderstanding. "Take it."
"You understand what you're giving up?" Summer nodded and Salem took her hand. "You're better than most of your species, willing to sacrifice yourself for your people."
Summer tried to thank her, but only managed a grunt as Salem invaded her Aura, searching for the sliver of her brother within. She latched onto it once she found it, tearing it from Summer's core, causing an implosion as it violently reacted to the action.
"You're taking this better than I imagined." Salem remarked as Summer's remaining silver iris faded, replaced by another empty void, completing the matching set.
"It's a small price to pay for the brief safety of my people. I'll talk to Ruby when I get back to Beacon, and I'll let you know whether or not she agrees to your terms."
"The same conditions apply to you. I don't enjoy hunting children and I won't leave another orphan just because you refused to not reproduce."
"I was sterilized as part of my torture regime in my dimension. It's why Neo's and my Aura are so similar."
"I can heal your body, save for your ovaries, of course." Salem offered. "I'm more surprised Oz hasn't. I took something away, now you get something back."
"Take the brand off my shoulder blade and I'll call it even." A burning feeling appeared at the same spot of the White Fang brand, searing it from her back. Another stab of pain lanced up her left arm. "What did you do?"
"You gave up an immensely powerful gift for a temporary armistice with my children. You're helping restore the balance my brother upset, and for that, I gave you a gift in return."
A small fluffy canine coalesced from the darkness and sat on Summer's lap, red eyes blinking as it gained sentience, shaking its body as it gained feeling. Summer's hands automatically reached down to it and began stroking its fur.
"It doesn't have a name yet, but it's yours. Treat it well or I'll invent a new Grimm to permanently haunt you in your dreams." Summer blinked back, reminding her of her other condition. "Right, I'll invent a new one to haunt your Hunters."
"I'm surprised one doesn't already exist."
"The human mind is a complicated mess of emotions and chemicals. Give me enough drive or reason and I'll figure it out, so don't tempt me."
"My Hunters might take offense to this little guy, but as long as he remains this size and can follow orders, I can protect him."
"There's a small black diamond on the back of your hand which lets you give basic commands to it."
"I wish our language had a gender neutral pronoun. Her name is Rei, short for Re'iyah. And please move the diamond to my back. I'd rather not have to explain why I have black veins stretching up my arm."
"Grimm don't have genders; they manifest as beings." Summer felt the black diamond disappear along with the veins, only for it to reappear at the center of her back, right over her heart, black veins stretching from the back of her shoulders down to her hips. "There. Now you have a larger one to show off whenever you want."
Summer wiped the blood dripping from her left eye and removed the ribbon from around her neck, tying it around her eyes, hiding the ends under her hair.
"I'll contact you through Rei or the diamond when I talk to the Hunter with the Fall Maiden power, but won't giving me the diamond violate the balance just as Ozpin's gift did?"
"In a way, yes, but neither is it hereditary, nor do you have control over any Grimm other than Re'iyah here. She'll only feed if you let her, also letting you control her size along with giving you the ability to store her."
"Interesting, but back to the topic of Relics. I still haven't agreed to help you retrieve yours, and I won't until you explain what they are and why you should have them."
"Did the other Salem not go after the Relics?"
"She probably did, but my team and I didn't care enough to stop you. Something about the next Great War being a much greater threat than the potential of artifacts of the distant past."
"They're not artifacts; they're aspects of power we locked away to give this instance of the world a chance to thrive. Every Relic corresponds to how the world was shaped, and locking them prevented either of us from interfering, to a point. Oz still managed to find loopholes."
"My team won't agree to giving you two of the Relics. They'll want to destroy all of them when they get the chance."
"Fine by me. Destroy all of them. They're containers, not the actual attributes. Think of them as seals to prevent either of us reaching out for them, specifically crafted from Knowledge and Creation to hide. Either way, I'll get them back, with or without your help."
"Hmm. You've given me even more to think about." Summer finished off the rest of her tea. "Any way you can teleport me back to Beacon? Can't exactly pilot a craft anymore."
"I can. Neo hasn't realized yet I would send her anywhere she wanted if all she did was ask."
"She's mute." Summer deadpanned.
"Exactly." Summer was engulfed in a miasma of red as Salem sent her away. If Salem truly wanted nothing more than to keep the Relics safe, and presumably out of humanity's hands, then why did she give Cinder control over a drake?
Neo.
Salem knew Neo would tell Ozpin about the imminent attack, and if Ozpin successfully defended against it, then it was his right to keep the Relic within Beacon. It was nothing more than a test, a game between the two. If Cinder did retrieve the Relic, then Salem would be there to take it back, but Cinder seemed more interested in the power behind the Maidens, not the Relics themselves.
Why couldn't they just have a slugfest like a normal, semi-functional family?
Summer blinked as she appeared, she assumed, somewhere in Beacon. A small weight impacted her head, and by the shifting about of paws, she deduced it was Rei getting comfortable in her hair. She was small enough to lay down without risk of falling off.
Everything she learned from Salem could've been a carefully crafted manipulation to not only leave Beacon's new Commander crippled, but also give Salem a spy in the form of Rei.
Protecting Ruby in the long run paled in comparison to letting Salem literally disable her. She'd neutralized the help the White Fang and Cinder would receive but didn't get a guarantee those were the only factions she was helping.
Salem had been right in concluding humanity was its own biggest threat rather than her Grimm. To those who knew the Relics existed, they beckoned, just as the Maidens did.
Neither of the two meetings she had gone through today had gone in any direction she wanted. The initial Council meeting had Summer leading them where she wanted them to, but they had wrested control from her at the last moment.
With Salem, she had expected anger and smiting, but had instead been received cordially. She had been a surprisingly amicable person/being/goddess to talk and discuss the current battle climate. She reminded her of a more devious Ozpin.
She'd been open about information and the history of the Relics, along with her own plans and designs on them, willing to either keep them safe or destroy them as safeguards against humanity. She'd never once implied or hinted that Cinder knew about the Relics.
At this point she was more willing to believe the Relics were chotskies meant as bait to draw out the worst of humanity as they fought and killed each other over the mythos of unimaginable power.
To get all four Relics would require conflict stretching across the globe as a single entity would need to not only lay siege to each Academy, but its surrounding country. Something the White Fang were ever so slowly doing.
Except their reward would be a big 'fuck you' when they retrieved all four. She could imagine the shit-eating grin on Salem's face if that was the case, proving once and for all Ozpin was wrong.
Rei padded restlessly against her head, ushering her to move forward. A small weight materialised hanging off her leg pouch and Summer snatched it up, feeling it and determining they were a pair of sunglasses. She removed the ribbon, placing it back around her neck and put on the shades.
At first glance, no one could tell she was blind, but the first test would be whether Team RWBY could tell when she took them to Menagerie.
Neo had tried to teach her how to sense Auras, but she had had the hereditary gift and intrinsically found it easy, even with the chaotic nature of her Aura. Summer had failed spectacularly, but one part of her training had involved pulsing Aura in regular intervals and reading the echoes of return bounces, an altered form of echolocation.
She did precisely that, sending out a pulse in all direction. The most obvious return was the ground around her, along with the sharp drop off of it ten meters in almost all directions. Salem had dropped her on the landing pads hanging off Beacon's cliffs.
Figures she'd innocently try to kill her as she tried to figure out how to navigate.
The another pulse of Aura tried to map out the area again, but failed to get any further than the ramp leading off the pad. It forced Summer to not only memorise the pattern of returned Aura but also repeat the process several times a second if she wanted to apply the same method in combat.
Even Nova would struggle to maintain the output needed to extend the range and pulse domes of Aura without rest.
Rei.
Salem had given her to her directly after Summer had sacrificed the last of her silver eyes. Not before as a sign of goodwill, and not after Summer had listened to everything she had to say, but after she'd been blinded.
She called it a gift, and she knew Salem was an intelligent goddess.
Channeling her Aura into the diamond, she resisted the urge to contact Salem and instead focused on the little Beowolf sitting on her head. She perked up upon sensing Summer's Aura and opened her eyes from her impromptu nap. Rei wasn't even an hour old and Summer hadn't fed her yet; her primitive mind was a blank of everything except the loyalty commands to both Salem and Summer.
She was going to borrow Rei's eyes.
Healing her eyes was an irreparable task to Salem so she'd given her another way to see. Replacing them would have been another option, but she didn't have human eyes at her disposal, and replacing them with a Grimm creation wasn't a boon Summer would've thought to ask.
She had no doubt Bianca would donated her an eye once her team found out she was blind and couldn't find a different way to see. Gesture of goodwill from Salem, indeed.
Her vision exploded in shades of muted colours as she succeeded in funneling her Aura into Rei. It was a substantially less intensive task than the Aura pulses were. She could see again, in much greater clarity than her birth vision. Remnant's moon little light in this phase, but she could still make out individual blades of grass along with the colours of the flowers lining the path to the school.
She tried moving forward, but quickly found she merged too much of her Aura into Rei as she ended up moving Rei's back paw instead of her own, still feeling the light collision as the paw met her head.
Concentrating on pulling the vast majority of her Aura from Rei, she managed to maintain the sight link and regain control of her body. She had no idea if Rei lost her own sight while they were connected like this, but she hadn't made a fuss.
Carefully taking her first steps forward, she felt slightly disoriented as her sight came from just above her head instead of from her sockets. Must be how Neo felt all the bloody time.
It was still better than being completely blind or relying on the rough outlines created from the Aura pulses.
The walk to the dorms was enlightening as she got used to new hues of colour. In a few hours, around midnight, the supporting Hunters would take off to Menagerie. Winter's Hunters had allowed Summer to cut the manpower needed by half, but they would still be supplying the supporting units until Menagerie could get the Academy up and running properly. She still had to choose the five teams who'd be teaching.
Team RWBY was going as a supporting unit, giving them vital experience in crisis management along with a crash courses in first aid. If Menagerie got on its feet in time, they might be able to attend the next Vytal Festival.
She was surprised the Council hadn't brought the subject up during their meeting, but the Festival was under governance of them and not her. She only failed to provide the necessary security.
The knock on Team RWBY's door was answered almost immediately by a hyperactive Ruby ready and raring to go. Yang perked up when Ruby opened the door, but reverted back to sulking as she'd been told Summer would come clean about the irregularities in her persona.
Their secrets were starting to pile up and at some point, they'd find out. It just mattered whether SKBN controlled the circumstances or not.
Re'iyah started growling at the presence of the purifying effects of Ruby's silver eyes, shifting about restlessly, which prompted the ever elusive Zwei to jump in front of Ruby and growl back, prompting her to pick him up and calm him down.
"You four ready to go?" Summer tried not to react to the pup nestled in her hair.
"You have a Beowolf sitting on your head." Ruby pointed out, unsure of the protocol associated with this scenario.
"I do?" Summer betrayed nothing, patting her hair and feigning surprise as she scratched the nape of Rei's neck, causing her to calm down and resume her vigil. "Rei, how did you get up there?"
Rei yipped back, enjoying the attention lavished on her. Of course, this was all done with Summer having to act with her altered vision perspective.
"She can't harm anyone...probably. Now do you have your go-bags, or am I going to have to have you run laps in the dark?" She left them in the room, slowly meandering her way to the hangars. Team RWBY was on her heels before she rounded the corner into the stairwell.
AN: How high am I? 5'11" Welcome to the wonderful world of politics and betrayals. Is Salem lying or does she honestly want to keep the Relics safe? Is Oz permanently hyped up on cocoa? What is his family dynamic? Is Neo older than both Oz and Salem? Why doesn't Salem care about the Maidens? Will she use Rei to spy on Beacon? Will RWBY learn about Summer's condition? Will Yang ever learn about Summer's true persona? What will SKBN do once they find out about Summer's alliance?
Re'iyah: Meaning 'sight' or 'vision' in Hebrew
Find out next time on Butterflies: Chapter 13: Penance.
I completely forgot this story was suppose to be slightly cracked with an overtone of realism. Yes, Neo is an edgelord, but she's terrifying enough as it is to justify it.
As always, drop a review. I always appreciate criticism.
PS: To those wondering why an update notification went to their inboxes, it's because I noticed Chapter 6 wasn't properly formatted. Should be fixed.