"How does this happen? It's as if they always exactly where to find us. I don't understand." Velvet cried, slamming her fist against the wooden wall of the small cabin that Hansel and herself had now occupied. She pulled back the curtains of the nearest window in an attempt to see if there were any sheriffs or deputies descending on their position through the darkness that had encapsulated the world of Remnant. A wave of paranoia had overtaken her as she tried to uncover how their pursuers could always manage to be one step ahead of them.

It's one thing to be this way in the cities, but this is just ridiculous. Even when we're totally isolated, the Atlesians know almost exactly where to find us. It's always just me, and…

Velvet's voice trailed as she looked over at Hansel, who was sitting cross-legged on the long, red, golden-tasseled carpet in the center of the room. He was holding a lighter to the wood located in the fireplace in front of him, trying desperately to ignite the dry kindling in the cavernous space surrounded by ornate marble, along with a metal frame on the inside for protection. The terrifying thought that Dorian had placed in her mind came to the front once more, and she was unable to push it away.

Why would she say that about him? What is it that she knows? Could he be working with them? Have they come up with some sort of deal that works in his favor?

Velvet allowed reason to take over once more, shaking her head of any such thoughts. She deduced that Dorian had likely told her that to make her feel the way she was now; paranoid, scared, distrusting of her companion. Dorian likely wished for her to become irrational, and make a small mistake that would eventually lead to their capture.

If anything, it's probably her who's been feeding the Atlesians information on our whereabouts. More than likely, she only told me what she did to throw me off of her scent and not question whether or not she has been continuing to follow us. I should've known that no Huntress would let us off that easy. I should've told Hansel about my encounter with her as soon as he was awake on that day. Rather, I made myself too easy to manipulate and am now probably paying the price for it. Nicely done, Velvet. Well, I suppose now is as good a time as any to come out with it

"Hansel. There's something that I need to tell you. It's about something that happened the other day while you were unconscious."

Hansel didn't immediately show that he had heard me. I patiently waited, crossing my arms over my chest. I locked my eyes on the back of Hansel's head as he continued to work with the wood and the lighter. The thought occurred to me of why Hansel didn't simply use his Fire Wheel, but I realized that the reaction may be stronger than required for a small fire to begin.

We don't need to die. We only need a fire. Think with reason, Velvet. You WANT to stay alive, remember?

I laughed away any apprehension that I had felt before, and patiently waited for Hansel to respond. Finally, after another brief moment of pause, he turned on his and knees to face me. Before responding, he arranged himself by placing his hands on his knees, looking up at me.

"Sure. What's on your mind, Velvet?" He said, that charming smile finding domain over the lower half of his face once more.

She blushed, and looked away from his gaze, as much as it pained her to do so. I was embarrassed by the action and the mixed feelings that they gave me that she couldn't help but remain looking away so that Hansel wouldn't see and become concerned for her own welfare.

"Velvet?" Hansel asked. "What's wrong?" He rose into a standing position and placed his large hands on her shoulders. He beckoned her to look up at him, and she did so.

She choked on her first attempt to get the words out, then succeeded on the second attempt. "I—I met a Huntress in the woods the other day. It was while you were unconscious."

Hansel's serene expression was unchanged, and this made Velvet feel even worse for having kept such a large secret under wraps for so long.

I hid a secret that could have gotten us captured, could have gotten us killed. All this, and he doesn't even appear to be upset in the slightest. How?

A smile, however small, cracked on his lips. His eyes closed as a small chuckle passed his lips. This was not the reaction that she had expected at all.

"Velvet." He began, pausing enough to have it click in Velvet's mind that he was pausing for a response.

"What is it, Hansel?" She said in a voice just above a whisper.

"I know. I've known for quite a while, in fact."

Velvet was shocked. She backed away from Hansel involuntarily. She felt as if a large electric shock had been thrust through her. Hansel's expression did not change in the slightest, to further her surprise. It was as if he was expecting this exact encounter to go down, and had already planned exactly what he would say. Once again, Velvet struggled to utter a response.

"H—How? How could you possibly know about that? You were unconscious. Were you faking? I don't understand."

"Velvet…have I ever told you what my Semblance was? What it was that made me so special?"

Velvet hesitated, sensing a trap, but not heeding those warnings. She allowed this to continue, curious of where it would lead.

"No. I had hoped to see it, but it never came to light, so I never asked. I didn't want to seem rude." Her voice wavered, the fear that she felt within becoming ever more evident.

"Oh, dear, Velvet. You already have seen it. It's been evident for quite some time, in fact."

"If it's been showing, then how come I haven't seen it yet?"

"Your answer is in the question."

I became perplexed, the anxiety spiking in me. The demeanor in his face remained serene, and still served to make me feel something that I had never previously felt before: fear. The omniscience that he displayed and his silent refusal to let her in on what she wished to know made Velvet terrified.

"What do you mean, Hansel? I don't understand."

"Of course you don't." He walked closer to Velvet, and placed one of his hands under her chin. "Oh, sweet, Naïve Velvet. You haven't been paying attention at all. That's what made this whole ordeal easier and, admittedly, a little amusing. Thank you for that. These past few…what's it been, weeks? I don't know. All I know is that you've been playing a losing game this entire time, and you've been clueless about what's been going on."

Velvet's heart began to beat faster with each passing second. She began to feel the feeling that she would get whenever someone would make her the target of a sadistic prank at Signal. Despite her every sense telling her otherwise, Velvet allowed the conversation to continue.

"And what has been going on?" Velvet inquired apprehensively. She heard several rustling noises from outside that served to make the hairs on her neck stand on end, but she ignored them so that she could focus on the larger problem that had presented itself in front of her.

Rather than immediately answering, Hansel lifted his collar to his mouth, and chuckled.

"You're about to find out." He said with a smirk. "Bloody Fang."

Velvet took a step back, and scrunched up her face to convey the confusion that his last phrase had elicited within her.

"What's 'Bloody Fan—?" Before Velvet could finish her question, a large series of bright flashes illuminated the night, sending several beams of light into the cabin through the windows. Velvet turned to look out at the source of the lights, when she felt a sharp pain erupt in the back of her head.

She fell to the ground in pain, and looked up at Hansel. His serene countenance had been since replaced by a sneer that was evidence of the dominance that flowed through Hansel's veins. He laughed heartily, and squatted down next to Velvet. She winced in pain, moving to rub the back of her head. Hansel must have mistaken this for a move to strike, because he primed his leg and slammed the end of his boot into Velvet's abdomen.

She cried out in pain, a small bit of spittle flying from her mouth. Her hands clutched the afflicted area, curling up into a defensive position. This was reason for Hansel to laugh even more, causing him to throw his head up into the air. Impulsively, Velvet began to crawl away to a location that she had not previously determined. Hansel laughed once more, and tightly gripped Velvet's ankle to impede on her advance.

"Not very smart, Velvet. Where are you even going to go, anyways? My friends have this place surrounded."

Velvet gasped at the sudden revelation that Dorian was sincere in her warnings that Hansel could not be trusted. The enemy was amongst her all along, and she had foolishly placed a large amount of trust into the enemy. It pained her to call him that, but it was true. The enemy was her closest companion; the enemy was Hansel.

"Why? Why would you do this to me? What have I done to you?" In actuality, Velvet did not care much for Hansel's motives. She was merely stalling so that she would be able to give herself an adequate amount of time to formulate some sort of plan of escape, or see if any sort of plan of action was even possible.

Hansel sighed and stood up, placing his hands on his hips. He looked down at me, then back up at the windows. "Not everything is about you, Velvet. I didn't do this to fulfill some sort of previously-unknown past vendetta that I had against you. No, nothing like that. Do you want to know why I did this? Why I struck a deal with the Kingdoms and abdicated the friendship that I pretended to have with you?" He looked down at Velvet once more.

His last question, more like the way that he worded it, stung Velvet. It hurt for her to realize that, not only were her emotions for Hansel not reciprocated, they were faked to look real. She held in the tears that threatened to run rampant on her cheeks. If anything, she would not allow Hansel to have the satisfaction of seeing her cry. She thought that he was waiting for another reply from Velvet, but his sigh and deep breath proved her wrong.

"The reason why was simply for my own. Now, it is a bit morally questionable, true, but frankly, I don't care. After I lost my spot in the tournament, I thought that was it. I knew that my father would disown me after such a failure, probably wouldn't even let me back into the house. I thought my life was over…until you came along. What happened there was perfect, and I knew that I could profit off of whatever came next, should I play my cards correctly. It was a gamble, and it sure paid off in my favor. All that I needed to do was meet you before you did the predictable and convince you to let me come with you. Of course, as planned, you let me, and phase one of my plan was complete. The rest was easy, and my Semblance helped me execute it beautifully. Oh, silly me, I forgot that I haven't told you what my Semblance is, have I?"

"I…don't believe you have."

"Manipulation. I can twist someone's way of thinking to my liking, make them feel the way I want them to feel. It worked wonders here because, whenever I felt that you were getting suspicious of me, I would simply put some other sort of thought in your head. Your damn Huntress friend didn't make things any easier. It took all of my tricks to try to put those thoughts out of your mind, but by the gods, I did it!" Hansel chuckles and seemed to revel in his own sense of superiority. "I managed to become your 'traveling companion', and had you string this along for a prolonged amount of time. After you fell asleep on the first day, I contacted the Kingdoms and informed them of my…situation. They were most accommodating to me in return for my cooperation. After the second or third day, I met up with them to wear a wire, should you have any attack of conscience and admit that your actions were terrorist-motivated."

"They weren't that way, though and you know that."

"Oh, come off it, Velvet. You and I both know that you are associated with the White Fang. All Faunus are. It makes sense that you'd do that to strike a blow straight to the heart of one of the highest officials in the 4 Kingdoms."

Velvet gasped and scowled at his insensitive comment. Velvet began to rise up and deflect any attempts of Hansel's to keep me on the ground. Concern filled his countenance as he realized that he no longer possessed the advantage of raw strength.

"How dare you? How dare you think that I would associate myself with their kind, simply because we are of the same race? You insensitive trash!" Velvet fully stood and punched Hansel across the jaw, sending him flying to the ground. He looked up from the ground with a mix of anger and shock.

"What the hell are you going to do, Velvet? Kill me? Where would that get you? There's nowhere for you to go anyway. As I said before, they have this building surrounded."

"I'm not going to kill you, Hansel. You're not worth going to prison or receiving the death penalty over. I've done nothing that merits me dying, and it certainly won't be you."

"I may be not, but you are. You won't get this out, even if no one will believe you."

Hansel reached inside of his shirt and flipped off the mic of his wire. He looked up at Velvet and sneered, pulling one of his Wind-and-Fire Wheels to the front of his person, brandishing it towards Velvet. She moved with fear and the interest of staying from harm in mind. "I'm gonna say that you attacked me, that I was forced to resort to lethal measures. I'm going to silence you before anyone has a chance to listen to what you have to say, and it will work. Do you know why? Because no one will question the violent habits of some dirty Faunus who's said to be a part of the White Fang, or any dirty Faunus in general."

"No. You won't silence me. I won't let you. I won't let anyone push me around!"

"Oh. You won't let me? Velvet, I hold all the cards here. There's no way that you can win. Accept your destin—"Hansel was cut off by an entity that Velvet didn't immediately see, but felt.

Velvet felt a swell of anger flow through her. She moved to punch Hansel, but a familiar feeling coursed as she moved to lay a punch against Hansel's chest. Both of them looked down at his bleeding chest, and the turquoise blade that had ran him through. Hansel laughed, and began to spit blood upon Velvet as she could only look on in abject terror, trying to comprehend the immensity of what she had just done. She raised her gaze to look at Hansel once more. The two locked eyes as Hansel trailed blood from the corner of his mouth and off the edge of his chin. He ceased laughing, then replaced it with a mere smile of confidence.

"Con—congratulations, Velvet." Hansel said, coughing in the middle of his statement.

"For what, Hansel?" Velvet asked, trying desperately to keep her composure. She decided against dissolving the sword out of fear that Hansel's mortal wound would become direr with the gaping hold that would be left by the sword. Instead, she resolved to ensure that Hansel would remain awake, clinging to the false hope that he could still be saved.

"I wasn't sure if you were a criminal before. You truly seemed like you were an innocent girl who simply made a mistake. But you did the impossible. You proved me wrong."

Velvet knew the answer to her next question, but for the sake of keeping Hansel awake, she asked anyway.

"How did I do that, Hansel?" Velvet asked.

"You showed that you could be ruthless. That deep down, you really are like them. If you weren't a cold-blooded criminal before, then you certainly are now. Congratulations, Velvet. Now you'll always have my death on your conscience. Nice job, Velvet." With that, Hansel let out his last breath and leaned back, now only being held up by the blade that Velvet still held within him. She made the blade disappear, and he fell onto the ground. Velvet gasped and looked out at the people awaiting the signal to proceed with her apprehension.

This looks bad. What do I do? They'll surely kill me when they catch sight of Hansel dead on the floor. It was in self-defense, but they won't believe me. They'll likely kill me before they give me a chance to speak. I must flee. Now.

Velvet began to try to formulate a plan in the full of her mind, seeking desperately to find a means of escape. She looked around, taking care to keep clear of the windows, but could find nothing that would serve in aiding her. The situation became even graver by the second, and Velvet knew that every next second could be the one that would encase her demise. After several more seconds of thinking and brainstorming, she could only think of one option that would favor her survival.

Without hesitation, Velvet grabbed a log that was protruding from the fireplace, and took care to not burn herself on the burning end. She swiftly ran through the house, taking the positions of the windows into note once more. The various curtains and wooden apparatus located through the house were sent bursting into flame, the same decoy that she had envisioned minutes earlier. If her gamble paid off, Velvet surmised that the Atlesians would assume that she was trying to kill herself, and rush in to prevent such an impediment to her capture and swift execution. After the house was effectively set ablaze, Velvet stood in the center of the house, primed to put the second part of her plan into motion.

A Hard-Light Copy of Coco's Minigun formed by her side, sending a light glow to combat the floodlights outside the house. She strained to raise the weapon as high as she could, high enough so that the barrel was pointed towards the roof of the cabin. Once it was in the desired positioning, Velvet pulled the trigger. The small section of the roof burst into splinters, creating a hole large enough for the third part of her plan to come into play.

She waited for the brief few seconds in which the Atlesians took to kick in the door, rifles raised. Velvet quickly summoned Icarina's wings once more and soared upwards, as the soldiers looked on. Small pieces of wood on the rim of the hold struck her during her ascent, but she paid no mind to the pain. She flew through the air, avoiding the bullets that soared around her that came from the soldiers on the ground. This was not like last time, however, and she was able to escape unscathed. It was not totally easy for Velvet, however. Tears had begun to well up in her eyes, with the combination of her most recent betrayal and the horrible crime that it had led to her committing. Her vision became impaired, and she was unable to see clearly.

There was no immediate threat, evidenced by the distance that was put between herself and the Atlesian troops' voices. Velvet was drained by the overexertion of her mind and of her abilities after a time, she could not go on with flying. She hastily landed and quickly curled up in a ball next to a tree, where she began to sob uncontrollably. Her emotions were so twisted, and she had never felt as awful as she had in the moment.

Velvet questioned how much of her life was a lie, whether anything was real. She began to curse at anything that came to mind. This list did not exclude the subject of her father's death, her village's intolerance of her, Icarina and the trouble that their fight had inadvertently placed on her life as of recent. She cried for ages, a compilation of all the agony that she had felt for so long, long before she was forced to run.

The agony, as she had forgotten in that moment, served to attract the Grimm, one in particular. A pair of Ursas roared in the distance, loud enough for Velvet to cease her sobbing and rise to her weary feet. She did not wish to fight, nor did she have the will to. After all that had happened, the Ursas seemed like a convenient way out for her. Velvet wished no longer to fight, yet she did not want the public ridicule that her execution by the Kingdoms bring on her home village.

I have nothing left to fight for. If they want me, they can have me.

Velvet heard the Ursas getting ever closer, and her nerves spiked. The thought of how it felt to die crossed her mind, and she welcomed such a notion with entertaining arms. She forced herself to hold her ground in light of the impending beasts, her eyes finally catching sight of them barreling through the trees. Velvet closed her eyes, and waited for the feeling of being battered to death, or, less swiftly, being consumed. Either way, she was certain that her trial would soon be over, and she would see her father in the afterlife.

Should the gods forgive me for what I've done. She thought to herself with much chagrin in her mental tone. This thought was one of the few that had not been prevalent before. However, in what she thought were her final moments, she silently prayed that a peaceful afterlife awaited her.

The Ursas, as she could clearly hear, were right on top of her. A mere few meters away, Velvet thought, one last time, of the image of her father, of Coco, and all that she would leave behind. She thought of the gods that she had spent all her short life worshipping, and did nothing short of beg for forgiveness one last time.

May they all forgive me, may they all not hold my transgressions against me. I'm sorry. She thought, the tears streaming from her face even more feverently than before.

However, what happened next was not what Velvet expected at all. Cries of pain rang out through the air, but they were not her own. The cries were accompanied by large flashes of heat from directly in front of her, sharp cutting noise that were of none other than a blade, and the unmistakable sounds of someone, a human, engaged in combat. She opened her eyes and saw that her would-be assailants were dead, standing between them a man ( No. He's a Faunus. I can feel it. Velvet thought to herself, quietly pleased to meet someone like her again.) with a long, red blade ("Hey, they sounds like mine!" Rojo chimed in. Velvet chuckled. "Yes, but you…you're different from him. He was not the most pleasant of individuals.") drawn. His hair was in a spiked mess of the same color as his blade, with black accents at the ends. His outfit was totally black, save for a large red flower covering another white design on his back, to which he was turned towards me. He had on a mask that imitated the faces of the Grimm, a mask Velvet recognized as that of belonging to the White Fang. He turned his head towards her, and said nothing.

"Who—who are you?" She asked, thinking of nothing better to say.

Turning and pointing his blade tip at Velvet, the stranger replied. "Who I am does not matter. It's your answer to that question that will determine whether I feel you are worth keeping alive."