Blake swung blindly through the all enveloping fog. Adam's laugh was his only response, and it seemed to come from everywhere. Blake felt an air current ripple behind her, but by the time she swung around there was only swirling mist. The plane they fought on became steadily darker, and the telltale signs of Adam came steadily closer to her.
"What are you looking for, my love?"
Blake jumped back in fear, leaving a statue in her place. By the time she had turned to look, Adam had vanished in a puff of smoke. Blake began to run, but the fog seemed to cling to her and make her feel like she was running through molasses. The plane continued to darken, other than that her running seemed to make no change. As long as she was running though, he couldn't catch her.
"Blaaake, why are you running?" Blake whipped her head back in fear, but saw nothing. She turned back to continue her flight, but was stopped by the sight of a beautiful blonde girl holding out her hand. Yang stood, waiting for Blake to take her aid. Blake was sure that if she just grabbed Yang's hand, she would get out of this place. She reached for the offered hand, but as she tried to reach it it went limp. She looked up at Yang and saw a blade sprouting from her mouth and blood leaking from her eyes. "You know you can't run from me, Blake."
"No!" Blake screamed, lurching from her bedroll. The campfire had burned down to little more than charcoal, and Yang was still sound asleep next to Blake. It had just been a dream. Blake went to wake the sleeping girl, but pulled her hand away at the last moment. This would be the third night in a row she would end up waking Yang about her night terrors. It wasn't fair to Yang to have her stay up all night because Blake couldn't keep her head on straight. Blake readjusted in her bedroll and prepared for a few hours of staring at the sky.
"Blake," Penny whispered, "is something wrong?" And then there was Penny. Blake had been shocked to find the chipper robot embedded in Yang's new arm, and she still wasn't really used to it. She hadn't really been friends with her at Beacon, and to see her reappear like this was… disconcerting.
"It's nothing Penny, go to sleep."
"Blake I can see something's bothering you, and I don't really sleep. Do you want me to wake up Yang?"
"No," Blake said simply, "She needs to rest anyway."
"Then talk to me, Blake. Like I said, I don't need to sleep." Blake considered, but Penny was kind of outside her comfort zone. She hadn't even really talked to Yang about any of it yet.
"Was it about that Adam guy?" Blake sighed in defeat, it wasn't like she planned on sleeping anyway. Maybe it would be better to talk to a stranger than to Yang anyway.
"Yeah," Blake began, "it was. He was hunting me again; I tried to run and," Blake couldn't bear to repeat what really happened, "He cut me down. I don't know why he's still here."
"Well, Yang says that Adam has been a part of your life for a long while," Penny mused, " I can't imagine just forgetting about the people who made me." Obviously Penny had meant in the literal sense, Her father had physically built her. But the wording stuck with Blake. In a way, Adam had made her. He had found her in a ditch when she was less than six years old, and ever sense then had taught her how to fight. She had lived the majority of her life as his right hand and confidant. What if he couldn't just be forgotten? As Blake silently wondered and worried, Penny silently woke Yang.
"Yang," Penny buzzed inside her skull, "don't move, but you may want to listen to this," Yang's only response was an almost unnoticeable growl deep in her throat, but it was enough. Penny turned her attention back to Blake.
"What if I can't bury memories of him?" Blake questioned.
"You may not be able to," Penny started sincerely, "People like that aren't so easy to forget."
"Let me ask you something, Penny," Blake changed the subject abruptly, "Why did Yang come after me?" Penny hadn't been prepared to answer that. To be honest, she wasn't entirely sure. Yang had often verbalized how angry she was at the faunus while she and Penny had made their way towards beacon. Penny had never really felt conviction in Yang's tone though. She didn't know the full story, but it seemed that Yang was harboring her own fears for her teammate. She had failed to save Blake the first time, and Penny imagined that that had weighed on Yang ever since. Then to finally find Blake, bound in mutilated, had in Yang's mind compounded her failure. Penny imagined that the two tears rolling down her face were confirmation of this line of thought.
"Well, she said it was because you were the only one in immediate danger. I think that's only part of the truth though. I think she wanted to know why you ran. She blamed herself for not being fast enough. I think part of her wanted if you blamed her too."
"That's ridiculous! I left to protect them from Adam."
"I imagine that's what she hoped, but she had to know for sure."
"Well, it wasn't because of her, it could never be because of her," Blake sat pensively for several minutes, her mind drifting to the day that Yang saved her. "I just didn't want her to get hurt again. I'm not worth it." Yang visibly tensed and her breathing changed from the natural rythm of sleep.
"That's ridiculous," Penny whispered in shock, "you're her partner, how could you say that?!"
"It's the truth. My whole life I've been a coward. I've run from my problems without a second thought. I left Adam at his weakest to be consumed by darkness," Penny was getting increasingly uncomfortable. She had neither the experience nor the programming to understand all this.
"Why would you blame yourself for Adam? He made his own choices!"
"If I had helped him through it, maybe he would have changed. If he had someone by him to steer him right, he could have been saved," Penny felt Yang getting restless but hoped that she could keep it together. She was shocked Blake had not heard Yang's breathing change, but supposed that Blake's current ear predicament had severely affected her hearing.
"You can't blame yourself for him, some people are irredeemable."
"That's even worse!" Blake whispered angrily, half sobbing. "He made me who I am. He was my only friend before Beacon, the only person who ever cared about me. Everything I ever knew I learned from him. In a lot of ways I hold similar views. What if I end up like him? What if time erodes me like it did to him? Adam has and always will be a part of me, how can I in good conscious stay with my team when I may have something like him brewing inside me?" Penny was unsure how to respond, but luckily she didn't have to. Yang could no longer lay motionless in the face of Blake's sadness in confusion. Before either of the other two girls could react, she had jumped from her bedroll and picked up Blake in a fierce bear hug.
"You complete idiot," Yang said, tears staining her face, "You aren't him, you're Blake." It was an incredibly silly statement, but it conveyed a sense of belonging that Blake hadn't felt since before the fall of Beacon. It didn't matter to her friends who made her or where she came from, she was just Blake. She was blake, and she had a new family that loved her for that. Blake dried her tears, and returned the hug of the crying Blonde beside her. She was where she belonged.