Blake P.O.V
I awoke in a hospital bed. When I opened my eyes, I saw two colors. Purple and yellow. It was her. Yang.
"Hello!" She said in a singsong voice, sitting back into her chair.
"Um. Hi," I responded hesitantly. "Why were you hovering over me like that?" She shrugged.
"I wanted to see if you were okay."
"But... Why were you there?"
"Oh. I was helping Weiss look for you and Ruby."
"You know Weiss?"
"Not before yesterday."
"So why were you helping her?"
"Because it's my job."
"Your job..." She must have seen my look of realization, because she nodded.
"I'm your guard." That made sense, she seemed like the brawler type. I looked at her again. She really was pretty. We sat for a moment, just looking at each other, before I spoke.
"What happened?"
"Well, I don't know much. But you and Ruby were in the building, along with Sun and Neptune. You guys found Ruby, obviously, and then the building was on fire, and Neptune teleported her out, and Sun leaped out a window. You were still inside the building, so I went in to get you. I didn't get burned because of my semblance, and I was able to pull you out."
"Your semblance?"
"Well, to put it simply, I catch on fire."
"I see." It all made sense now. I had found Ruby just as the fire reached the floor we had been on, so she hadn't had time to yell at me before a piece of the ceiling had nearly fallen on her. I had pushed her out of the way, but it had landed on me, trapping me. I had told them to go, get Ruby out of here, get help. And they did. A few minutes after, I had nearly fallen unconscious when I saw a part of the fire walking towards me. It picked me up, and I saw that it was Yang. But it couldn't be, Yang's eyes were purple...
"Your eyes, they were red." She shrugged again.
"Side effect of being on fire." That was when I noticed that I was bandaged up, on my arms and waist and legs. I lifted my arm up to inspect the wrapping.
"Yeah," Yang said. "You got burned pretty bad. Glad it wasn't your face, though, you're too pretty." I blushed. Weird. I didn't blush often, even when people hit on me, but here was Yang, making me do it in the second real conversation we had ever had. She chuckled. "You're cute when you blush. Anyways, you have to stay in bed, so I'll hang out here, keep you company." I nodded. I was used to being alone, but something about this blonde brawler intrigued me.
"So why'd this whole thing start? Why'd you run away?" I just shook my head.
"I don't want to talk about it." Yang nodded, changing the topic.
"Here's what I don't get. How did you become Ruby's pet? I could have sworn that was illegal. To tell you the truth, from the info Mr. Schnee gave me, I thought I was guarding the family cat. What a nice surprise to find out I get to spend my time with a beautiful Faunus girl." There she was, doing it again. I fiddled with the ribbons around my wrists.
"Well, this isn't the first time I've been in here." I gestured to the room we were in. "When Ruby found me I was curled in an alleyway, with a huge gash in my side. Her father lets her have anything she wants, and a Faunus pet wasn't all that big a request in his eyes. It would be embarrassing to him if I was found in his house, so I stay out of sight while people are over, and wear the bow in public. It's not as bad as you'd think. Weiss and Ruby treat me like sisters." Treated me like sisters anyways. I didn't know anymore. Yang nodded.
"Yeah, they both looked really distressed last I saw them. I mean, Ruby was unconscious, but Weiss was freaking out." I wondered whether that was because of me or Ruby's unconscious state or Ruby's anger. Or maybe she was angry too. I put my head in my hands.
"This is all my fault..." Yang patted me on the back, a little roughly.
"Hey. No it's not. I don't know why you ran, or why Ruby ran, or what happened. But you didn't light the fire, you didn't make Ruby run away, you saved her life, Blake." But what she didn't know was that I was the one who had ruined it in the first place.
Weiss P.O.V.
I didn't know what I was feeling. Whatever it was, it was making me sick. I mean, of course I was happy that everyone was okay, but I couldn't stop thinking about Blake and Ruby. I was a little bit angry at Blake, but she had saved my sister's life. I was unbelievably thankful for that, but I was tired of Blake's habit of leaping out the window, and I was slightly ticked off at her for not explaining. If I could, I would go make her explain everything, but I couldn't force myself to leave Ruby's side. And that was another thing. I wasn't sure how Ruby felt about Blake, if she was still angry, or thankful or as mixed up as I was. As I was thinking, the door opened and a familiar face topped by the goggles and bright blue spiked-up hair that only a certain rich playboy could pull off.
"Hey Weiss." Neptune said, sliding into the room. "How are you feeling?"
"Okay, I guess." I sighed. "Ruby still isn't conscious." He walked over and pushed a strand of hair out of her face. He was like an older cousin to her, but I still felt a small sense of jealousy at the movement. When Neptune sat back, he looked back at me for a moment. Then he brightened.
"Hey Weiss, come walk with me. Ruby will be fine, and it's a nice day."
I hesitated. What if she woke up and wasn't there? I looked at Neptune again. I had been crushing on him for a few months now, but I didn't see him much without Ruby or our parents around. Maybe now was my chance. I stood.
"Sure. Let's go. And by the way, you will be explaining how you became best friends with that monkey-tailed thief." He laughed.
"I bet you can guess. You've known me for a few years." I put my hand on my hip.
"Let's see... To piss off your parents?" He nodded.
"Yup. You guessed it. Of course, he's a cool guy and we've actually become good friends, but that was the original intent." I crossed my arms.
"Don't you think he'd be offended to find that out?" He chuckled. Again. Dusts, I loved it when he did that. He had the best laugh, smooth and confident.
"Oh, he already knows. In fact, that's how we became friends. I caught him snooping around my place, and he straight up asked me 'you're the rebellious kid right?' And I was like 'yeah' and he was like 'well what's more rebellious than hanging out with a crazy faunus thief like myself?' And the more I considered it, the more sense it made. And now he lives with me." Lives with him? Huh.
"Where did he live before he met you?" He shrugged. We made small talk for a while, and walked around the garden. Eventually I saw one of the nurses.
"Miss Schnee, mister Vasilias, I just thought you might want to know. Blake is awake, and ready to see visitors. I mean, she's been awake for awhile, but she told me to keep people out of her room except her guard, but she told me you could come in now, if you want. Follow me." Neptune and I looked at each other. He shrugged.
"Let's go. I'm curious to see how she's doing." We began following the nurse, who was already a few meters ahead of us.
When we got to Blake's room, she was laughing quietly at something.
Yang was doubled over, clutching he stomach. She stood up when we came in, and Blake stopped laughing. She looked... Afraid. Was she worried I'd be angry with her? That must be it.
"Um." Yang said, calming down. "Miss Schnee. Hi." She looked at Neptune. He gave a little wave. "Hello. I'm Neptune Vasilias." He put his hand out, and she shook it.
"Nice to meet you, mr. Vasilias." He laughed.
"That's my dad's name. Call me Neptune." She nodded. I pushed through them and stood by Blake's bed.
"Blake."
"Weiss, I just wanted to let you know, I-"
"Stop." I put my hand out. "I'm not angry. You saved my sister's life. I can't thank you enough. But I don't know about how Ruby will feel when she wakes up." Blake sighed in relief.
"Well, let me explain myself anyways. Maybe you can help me with Ruby."
I sat on her bed and nodded.
"You do owe me an explanation. You need to stop springing stuff on us and leaping out the window like a rabbit." She brushed a loose strand of her hair out of her face, looking remarkably catlike even for a Faunus, then nodded.
"Alright. Here goes."
Blake's story; her P.O.V.
As I walked down the hallway I fiddled with the wondered what Adam wanted. He had sent a soldier to tell me to meet him in the room with the hostages. A test of some sort, I assumed. Adam liked to set those up for me. I hadn't had the most normal childhood, even before he took control of the White Fang. As I entered the room, I heard whimpers coming from the captives and I averted my eyes, looking straight ahead and wishing I had chosen to wear one of the Grimm masks popular among the Faunus of the White Fang, so they wouldn't see my face. However, one woman caught my eye. She had medium-length dark red hair that was tied up in a high ponytail. I didn't pay much attention to what she was wearing, but I noticed that she had a large white cloak with a red inside draped over her shoulders, with a hood on the back. Her clothes were torn and dirty, but her eyes were pure silver. Apparently that was rare, but not unheard of. She caught my attention because she didn't glare at me, or yell at me, or struggle. She just sat there, looking at me, with... Was that pity? She was the captive here, why was she pitying me? I realized I had slowed down as I met her eyes, so I sped back up and kept walking. I met up with Adam at the end of the hallway. He was facing away from me.
"Blake," he said, without turning around. "Do you know why I called you here?" What? How would I?
"No. Enlighten me." He turned to face me.
"I bet you can guess." I tried my earlier hypothesis.
"Another trial?" He nodded.
"The last one. If you succeed, I will allow you to become my apprentice. I will groom you to take my place at the head of the White Fang." I looked into his mask, startled. I couldn't see his eyes.
"What is the test?" He gestured at the humans.
"Choose one. Kill it." Simple sounding, but it made my throat wrench. These were innocent humans we'd captured in one of the stores we'd taken down, one of the ones who refused to serve Faunus. I don't know what made me do it, I could have refused the offer. but I chose a large, angry looking man who was sitting right next to the woman with silver eyes. He was growling at me. He was an animal, a monster that needed to be put down. From the looks he was giving me, he'd probably been the kind of guy who would drag a kid into the alleyway and beat them up just for having a tail. That made me feel a little bit better about what I was doing. I took Gambol Shroud off my back and activated it, turning it into a gun. I took careful aim, and fired twice. But I never killed the man. Before I knew what she was doing, I saw the silver eyed woman laying in the man's lap, still tied up, but bleeding. She'd taken both bullets for him, a man she barely knew. The last thing she said was
"My daughters... I'm sorry." once I recovered from the shock, I realized what had happened and turned to face Adam. "It's done. I killed one of the humans."
"Not the one you chose," he pointed out. I began to worry. Would he make me kill the man? Make the woman's sacrifice in vain? "But it will have to do. She put up a fight when we captured them, but she couldn't protect them all. I'm glad you killed the little nuisance." I nearly sighed in relief. I put away Gambol, and kneeled before him as a soldier handed him a Grimm mask. This one was similar to Adam's, but the red patters on it were different. I remembered our last mission, when we had boarded a Schnee train filled with dust and planted bombs on it. The mission had been a success, even with the intrusion of a large spider droid. I had refused to wear a mask up until now, but now that I was officially training under Adam I was bound by White Fang law to do what he said. So from then on, I wore the mask. Until the day he tried to kill me for refusing to murder another Faunus, the day he left me to die, the day I met Ruby, and the day I discovered that my father wasn't a Faunus. He was a monster.
EDIT: Whoops, forgot to put a little message for this one. By the way, I just realized this story is slightly inspired by Childish War. watch?v=0nK-JqwBUrU XD I guess thats why I made Weiss and Ruby siblings. Anyways, thanks for reading, reviews are welcome!