After living with the chill of Northern Anima, Tonks never thought the southern part of the continent would be so hot. Humid, and even the famous winds that supposedly swept down from the icy north dissipated and stagnated as they reached the south. Even in twilight, the heat was nearly unbearable.
Or maybe that was because she'd been running for nearly an hour now.
She flicked her hair out of her face as she raced through the trees, her Semblance hiding her from sight and sound.
But not from scent.
A shadow moved in the shade of a copse to challenge her intrusion and she quickly whistled one of the dozen birdcalls afforded to couriers of her specific designation. Urgent message to commander, assist at all cost.
The shadow fell back, no doubt to use his communication device to alert the rest of the lookouts on her way. She sped through the rest of the guard positions unchallenged.
She may not be as fast as some of her Faunus comrades with unlocked Aura but she could maintain a respectable speed for a respectable amount of time. She was the fastest human runner in the Revolution, and maybe in the top twenty overall if it came down to that.
It was another ten minutes before she entered the camp proper. She pushed aside the cloth that separated the command area from the rest of the tent. Well, it was more the command cave but details.
The leaders of the camp were already there with the camp chief. She dropped her Semblance and pulled down the cloth mask that stretched over the lower part of her face.
"Kazegami," the chief greeted, expectantly. Kazegami – the codename was given to her when she first started solo missions without Charlie.
She grinned at the familiar grumpy look on his face. The chief made a good show of constant irritability but he cared for the people who fought under his leadership. "Chief, howzit going?"
He grimaced at her. "Ya really want to know?"
"Let me brighten your day then." She reached into her pouch for the carefully stowed datachip. "A defector entered the Garwat Pass camp two days ago."
He turned over the datachip she offered in his fingers. "Oh?"
"He had what he says are the defense and architectural plans for Fort Castle."
The chief's eyes sharpened, the scales running down the side of his face flashing as the muscles of his eyes moved. "How good is this intelligence?"
"As far as we can tell, it's real. At least, tentative forays say yes. Obviously we couldn't test them extensively."
"Obviously," he murmured, slotting the datachip into his tablet, contemplating the mass of lines that bloomed on his screen. "And the defector? How believable is he?"
"He was accompanied by a faunus, Larta Saffron and a kid that looked like him and had her horns. It looks legit, chief."
He smirked at her. "Personal opinion?"
She shrugged. "I did a bit of skulking around."
One of the two leaders flanking the chief laughed. "You know, you do it almost better than any faunus I've seen."
Tonks gasped exaggeratedly and put a hand dramatically on her chest. "Be still my heart, a compliment. Is this the start of the forbidden fraternization in the ranks?"
"Forbidden? Do we look like human military?" grunted the other leader, who had ram horns curling around his ears.
"Are you enabling?" countered the other with a grin. "We could always invite dear Kazegami here to fun night."
"Shut your mouth, you."
Tonks and the chief, who was twice her age, snickered. Then Tonks put out a hand with an impish grin and the grumpy look returned to the chief's face. "Pay up, chief."
Advan pinkened, the color going all the way to the base of his curling horns and he valiantly tried to change the subject as their commander tossed a lien card goodnaturedly in Tonks' direction. "You had anything else?"
Tonks took pity on him, even if he was a bastard who didn't trust humans, and started talking. "Yeah, Verde's assault on the supply convoy near Fort Tyre really set them back. There's talk of reinforcements from Atlas coming in. Three to seven thousand troops and another general."
"Ho? They're finally taking us seriously, after all these years?" He eyed the architectural renderings of Fort Castle contemplatively. "They're gearing for a major offensive, possibly. Zhen, we're going to give it to them, get me some definite numbers on their forces and supplies. Advan, tell the others to build a line of camps closer to Fort Castle. Visible, as many people as possible without compromising us."
"You're going to bait them?"
"They just reinforced, they're well-fed and well-supplied. The new general will be wanting to be the one to end this war. Well, let's show them our 'weakness', eh? Coor, we need the new recruits combat ready sooner. They can hold the visible camps."
Coor made a sound of protest. "We can't just hand them guns and point them at the other side, chief."
"We're not Atlas military," smirked Tonks at Advan, who rolled his eyes at her unsubtle dare. He refrained from a favored, and famous around the barracks, rant about the other side being mostly cannon fodder.
"We also don't have the dust stores to make ammo for that many guns."
"That's not what I'm saying," sighed Chief Nyanza, chief-commander and primary coordinator for the revolutionaries in Southern Anima.
"I could maybe shave a few weeks off," Coor frowned. "Any more than that and the recruits would flounder. The human recruits especially. Unless we unlock their Aura..."
"We'd be swamped in Grimm every battle. We're losing too many people to the monsters as it is. We don't have the people to train them." The Chief leaned back on his chair. It was acceptable to unlock Auras of all their revolutionaries just a year and a half ago, when all they needed were smaller strike teams. But the war had escalated in the last year from small skirmishes within kingdom borders to needing actual battlefields. Now, they needed an army to combat the kingdoms' response.
Like the opposing armies, the only ones with unlocked Auras on the battlefield were those who already had trained control of their Aura before joining the war effort, which was mostly officers plus the Huntsmen and Huntresses who had joined the war.
People with unlocked Aura were more easily sensed by Grimm because emotions subconsciously filtered into a person's Auric field. Unless the person learned to control their Aura, the unconstrained emotions spiking around a battlefield, a place already susceptible to negative emotions, would make the area more dangerous that it already was. No one wanted to draw a horde of Grimm into a battlefield – an unspoken agreement between all factions.
Controlling one's Aura reliably took more than the three months of basic training every recruit was put into. Not to mention, even trained Aura users can lose control in a battlefield.
Tonks' Aura had unlocked upon her entry into the world, same with all her family. It was weird at first but the concept of directing internal energies to carry out your will was something not unfamiliar to them. Fleur made them learn the exercises that helped her get used to her Veela heritage, taught them all the little things her parents had patiently taught to her.
Tonks knew teaching them these things made Fleur happy, that others would know something of her history and childhood, so the world she left behind would not be forgotten. Tonks was familiar with the feeling of missing important things and people too, so she learned diligently beside the rest of them.
Those teachings made Charlie and Tonks two of the more valuable recruits of the revolution. They blew through training and were conveyed to the front lines just two months after they left Castelrose. A month or so after that, in a firefight where her squad was caught between a Mistrali protected convoy and a large pack of Beowolves, Tonks unlocked her Semblance. She called it 'cloak mode', as it made her invisible.
It helped her squad capture the convoy, with prisoners neatly knocked unconscious. It didn't help against the Grimm that had more senses than just sight though and she lost two comrades that day.
That had been nearly a year ago, and her superiors took the opportunity to train her in infiltration and spycraft. It was amusing and more than a little interesting, considering her last life. Faunus senses, when trained, could be used to detect deceptions somewhat reliably and her comrades gave a lot of helpful advice. Of course, there was also a lot of the less helpful hooting when they ferreted out the little things that made her disguises fail. She never thought about all the little things her former metamorphing ability simply did instinctively that made her an accomplished reconnaissance and infiltration specialist as an Auror. Tonks thought she was a good observer before; now, even without the evolved form of her Semblance which muffled the sounds she made as well, she was more stealthy than the great majority of humans and a lot of the faunus as well.
It was an odd thing to be known for (or not-known for, as her identity was known only to high command and if any faunus recognized her scent they had the good sense to keep it to themselves) seeing that she was formerly the clumsy Auror with the loudly colorful hair.
"What are you planning, chief?"
Tonks was brought back to the conversation with Coor's question.
Chief Nyanza smiled, teeth showing. The scales on his face caught the light and made it look like pieces of his coffee-colored face were gone. It reminded Tonks painfully of her old mentor, right down to the bloodthirsty grin. "I want that fort."
Tonks let out a startled laugh. "You think big, boss." Most of their tactics had been hit and run guerilla warfare. This was so far from the usual that both leaders were looking at him like he lost his mind.
He tapped the datachip on the table. "It isn't everyday an opportunity like this drops out of the sky."
"One might say never," offered Advan gruffly.
"A chance we have to take. Kazegami, you have a month at most. Head out tomorrow and bring me what you can."
"Yes, sir."
"Oh, and your cousin's squad made camp this morning."
Tonks looked startled. Then gleeful, if a bit concerned. Charlie wasn't supposed to be here until next week. Something must have happened. She was worried.
Charlie had been becoming more and more quiet as they were integrated into the Revolution. He laughed and joked still, which made her happy. But she knew he was not made for this and could not wait for the end of this war. This opportunity, as the chief had called it, may be the one chance they had at a decisive victory instead of pouring more and more blood into escalating conflicts. Maybe then they would be able to go home. "Thanks," she called back as she made a beeline for the exit, intent on the part of the cave system that housed the barracks.
She blinked as Advan fell into step beside her. Shouldn't he be with Coor, trying to talk the chief out of ordering a siege? She bit back a snarky line and went for polite instead. She was too tired to cross wits with the faunus leader. "Sir."
"Why do you fight for us?"
That was unexpected. "Er, probably the same reason most humans in the revolution fight."
"Many balk at the thought of fighting their own race, content with supporting the cause away from the bloodshed. You do not. You trust your self so easily to my people."
Most people probably didn't fight and live beside goblins, centaurs, and house elves in another life, she thought. Most people didn't watch as their friend and cousin frayed at the edges while wholly committing himself into a war he did not want. All she could do to help him was commit herself to the cause right beside him.
"You know three of my cousins are faunus, right?" She still wondered why there were not four, since Fleur should have been some kind of bird even without an animagus form. Also, why was the faunus asking her this now? She had been assigned to this command months ago.
"They have been raised in human towns as humans and are unknowing of their people's custom."
Oh, that was true. There had been a few kerfuffles due to cultural difference in the first month, until she and Charlie learned the basics. Their explanation was that they weren't raised by faunus and people understood. A number pitied them enough to teach them things faunus kids learned at their Elder's knees.
A good deal of the culture was pragmatic, near-mercenary, tempered by an odd honor. Faunus senses meant that few things were kept secret in any group and most kinds of politeness involved willfully ignoring things that weren't specifically brought up in conversation as long as it didn't adversely affect effectiveness. Conversely, the lack of secrecy made the faunus somewhat more open with more things that humans generally kept to themselves.
In a military camp where most kinds of politeness were left on the wayside in return for practicality, things could get really annoying. She had to personally beat down a lot of her fellow recruits before they knew her enough to respect her.
If it worked, it worked. If you had to do something, it must be done with some sort of skill and for not-wasteful reasons – it might save you an asskicking. Do as you will if you want but if you're stupid, you deserve the asskicking.
There was a lot of asskicking involved.
It made for interesting gambling nights.
She peered at her ram-horned companion. He wasn't being a bastard for once, so she answered.
"I had a husband once," she said conversationally, as if the words did not tear away at a scabbed-over rip inside her. "He was older, a scholar, he loved to read. What he called his 'wolf' made him wary of what he could do to me. I had to pursue him, you know, the idiot."
Advan stared at her. She stared back. They had stopped in the middle of the corridor. Her eyes showed all the desolation she felt as she met his gaze. "I had a husband once, and a child. I fight so that no children would be raised in fear of the world."
For Remus, who was a werewolf bitten as a child. For herself, who was a metamorphmagus. For Harry, who was placed with bigots. For Dobby, who had been taught to compulsively hurt himself. For Flitwick, born part-goblin in a community of wizards. All children who grew up hiding the truth of themselves because the world would have poked and prodded and jeered cruelly. And while her Teddy was not a werewolf, being known as the son of one wasn't an easy life.
She started walking again, uncaring that there were other ears in the corridor or that she looked too young to have married. Her truth was what it was. Advan stared at her back for a moment, then jogged to walk beside her in a silence that, while not entirely comfortable, was less tense than their usual encounters.
AN: When were scrolls invented anyway? This is around 30 years before canon start. I get the Chief to use tablets because it's a possible precursor of the scroll. I wanted to call them 'datapads' but that's too Star Wars and there are no space aliens in RWBY. Unless the Grimm were an alien virus that spread when a meteorite struck the moon and broke it or something. Also, revolutions don't get cutting-edge tech.
Anyway, viva la revolucion overtones. Canon says Fort Castle happened three years into the war. Is that three years of battles or three years since the 'unrest' started making news? They must have backers or else how could they could supply and field a three-year war? Fairly sure it has been brewing for some time either way, so it starts with streetfights, then bombings, then strike teams, mostly within kingdom borders before it spills out to battlefields. In this fic, they've been mostly playing hide and seek until the kingdoms started actually fielding armies, which happened some months after Charlie and Tonks enlisted.
This is set in Mistral because I wanted a venue other than Vale. Setting it in Atlas would be a headache. Brainfreeze in other words. And Vacuoans are too 'let live or let die' to want prolonged conflict that would mess with practical everyday business too much. If someone starts something in Vacuo there's gonna be shotgun-fire and 'Git off mah sand-lawn! Yer agitatin' mah chicken-snakes!' or something like that.