Amber was shivering. It wasn't cold. Menagerie was rarely cold. You could actually(and some did), dance naked through the streets. But she was shivering. It was a habit she had now. One she wished to grow out of, but it was hard. She'd…the others liked to talk about their experiences, and some of them had had it way worse than her, she'd admit, but they'd never been hooked up to those stupid machines.
To be fair, she was getting better. Back when she'd first gotten here, back when she'd first lost…she was lost. She had barely been aware. She had just sort of drifted through life for a month. Then she'd been asked about her power, and for just a moment, just one single second, she was back in that room, with that man, and she screamed, and suddenly the world darkened, everything stopped.
They knew, they'd known beforehand, but that demonstration for her…her doctors, she wanted to call them that. They weren't keepers or jailers, they were medical professionals, and they were trying to help. But it hurt to see them. So they'd left. So he'd come to her. She recognized him. He'd been the one to help her, the one Jaune trusted her to. He was a good man, the only good man, the only one besides her family she could trust.
He said words to her, told her about what her Brother had done for them, and what they in turn had done for them. He wanted that relationship to continue. Not into war…she was not a soldier, and he would not ask that of someone who had been through what she did. Someone who would have to force themselves to be a fighter. But she could be something greater, something almost holy.
A Ward. She could be the Grimm Ward. Her powers, everything they'd learned said it worked on Grimm, a fact she confirmed, remembering that horrid man and his monsters, dragged in, melting before her eyes. She'd almost let one eat her when she refused to turn on her powers, let the Ursa tear her throat out, she'd practically begged for it, and he'd killed it, spewing its dark splatter all over with the way he'd done it, showing her his own power.
Adam, that lovely man, didn't want to put her through that, not again, but she didn't have to fight. She just had to…be there. A Ward against the Grimm, for him, and for all the people of Menagerie. He hoped she'd do it. She'd said no, the first time, and he'd accepted it. She'd mouthed no, the second, and he'd accepted it. The third time he asked? She couldn't find it in her to say no anymore, and just nodded.
That very hour, she was on a bullhead, she was hovering, just above the treeline, above the waters. And everywhere they went, the forces of darkness died. She was…this was glorious, this was special, and she should have seen it as such. But it was a power that had hurt her before, she wanted it over and done with, and when she'd returned, to a crowd of people holding signs celebrating her name, calling her the Grimm Ward, she'd nearly gone catatonic.
That hadn't been the last celebration of her, but it was the last to be sprung on her so suddenly. The others were planned, were announced, and more importantly, were smaller. A few people, sometimes one old woman, or a young man, with gifts for her, telling her how grateful they, and all Faunus, were for her aid. One young girl gave her a crown of flowers, and she nearly cried at it, before hugging her, and thanking her.
Today, one of her off days, Saphron and Terra had convinced the rest of them to join them on a shopping trip. Lavender…well, she was young, she was bouncing back faster, and the others hadn't been able to say no. So here they were, walking through the market stalls, Amber wearing a mask to hide her face. Not that it helped, not with the escort of White Fang around them, keeping them safe.
They insisted on paying for what they took, the stall owners trying to refuse, but the Arc sisters were no mooches. Saphron even talked about her job, opening a café, like mom had always talked about, and the others were starting to work there too. Coffee, as it turned out, was just as addictive to faunus as humans, and they were making a killing, even if they suspected some of that was because of who they were.
It was a happy day. The sun was shining, the world was bright, but Amber shivered, and that lovely man hugged her when he noticed, told her it was alright, told her she was doing a great thing. He even made a joke about something, she wasn't sure what, but it made her smile, it sounded like something her brother would have said, and they slowly made their way to the center of the market.
Then it was fire. Explosions rocked the plaza, and people were panicking. The guards on her and her sisters closed ranks, that lovely man trying to herd them all into the center of a ring, only to be forced back as shots struck him. Nothing terrible, but with enough force to send him flying. At that same moment, a ship, not a bullhead, but something sleeker, slammed into the sky with enough speed and force that it caused a shockwave.
She was on the ground, her sisters all around her. They all had auras around them. They were all but screaming, the younger ones looking around. Then Lavender was grabbed, by what looked like one of their guards, but she reacted on instinct, her shoulder smashing into the chest, and causing the faunus to stumble backwards, his chest looking like glass that had been cracked.
Instantly, other faunus were on them, other White Fang, and Amber's eyes went white, then red. They were trying! They were trying to hurt her family! They were trying to take them back. The logo under the cracked armor of the White Fang…the false White Fang. It was the symbol of everything she hated, everything she wanted to burn, and with a roar, she leapt into it, slamming her body into the person.
Aura met Aura, at least for a moment, but Amber was not about to let this stand, with a scream, she pulled everything she had into herself, pulled her Aura tight against her skin, and then let it out, with a blast of rainbow colored light that then washed over everyone nearby like a wave. Suddenly, the fires turned to trickles, the flames, fed by dust, dying, and the false Fangs, the illusions ripped away from them, showing two had almost gotten away with Terra.
The ship in the sky, it wavered, then died, coming down, hard, into the earth below, the panicked crowds, already running from this horror, were nowhere on the ground, as Amber rose up, and saw those idiots, those foolish enough to try and hurt her family around her, and she picked up one of the sabers on the ground, and went to work, her body moving without anything but grim purpose.
Her aura flared, her power returned, but the False Fang…theirs didn't return. No one else had aura, and suddenly, Amber was a killer. She drove her weapon, one of their own, into the eye of one of the fools. When another tried to grab her, she grabbed him, and literally tore his arm off. This was someone with an aura, fighting those without, and that sort of fight…well, it never went well for those without.
It didn't take long, there were only ten, and they moved like molasses, their bodies slow enough that she could actually see the panic in their eyes, as the fire that they had set in her soul burned away any sense of cold. When it was over, when they were dead, that lovely man came back to her, and with a nod to the others, had them start clearing the plaza, and then he hugged her, holding her against his chest, as she began to sob.
It wasn't over…it would never BE over. Not until this world understood that it had erred, that the Grimm Ward was not to be trifled with. She asked him, bluntly, if this was what he felt, what her brother had been fighting against, and Adam nodded, and she smiled. So she was just like her brother then? That was alright with her, she wanted to be just like him. He'd killed the ones behind Mom and Dad's deaths, right? She wondered if she could find the ones behind this…and behind his death.