Chapter 10: Capture - Part Two

"Ok, I used to be a member of the White Fang."

"W-what?"

"Yeah, I said I was proud of my race, I guess I took that too far."

"God, you're serious. I'm a Faunus and I know how terrible the White Fang is."

"Well I didn't see them for what they were until it was too late."

"But you left when it became violent, like Blake, right?" Rikov looked at Velvet with an unhappy expression.

"I wish."

"What are you saying?"

"I lead several violent protests and attacks in the name of the White Fang. I mostly ran heist jobs, I never wanted to kill an innocent person."

"When did you leave?"

"I left when I was ordered to slaughter an innocent child who just happened to witness an attack. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, Adam said she had to die."

"Did you-"

"No. I ran. I went into hiding for a while before winding up at Beacon." Rikov was on the verge of tears, the horrible memory, that poor child's eyes, everything that he had done in his years as a member of a terrorist organization.

"Please wake up... Please, please wake up." Rikov knew the voice, it was Velvet. She was crying. Rikov had to use all the energy he could muster to crack an eye open to look at the beautiful Faunus, only to fall back asleep before she saw him. The wolf Faunus caught a glimpse of the sunlight shining in from the window.

"Hey, you didn't do anything wrong, you refused to kill a child who had no reason to die. You did good."

"No, it isn't that. It's that I've done such horrible things and you're still so nice to me. I don't deserve to be with you." Velvet gently placed a kiss on Rikov's cheek.

"You do, you may have done wrong, but you see the error of your ways. That is more than most people can say."

Next time Rikov opened his eyes, it was night, his angel dressed in brown was still by his side, she was no longer crying, but the tears were still dripping from her cheeks.

"V-Velvet." The young beauty turned to him. "Velvet."

"Thank you, Velvet, for everything you have done for me. For training, for your friendship, for your forgiveness."

"Oh, god, I though I lost you!"

"Don't worry, Vel, I'm not goin' anywhere." Rikov's cardiac monitor beeped periodically, however much to slow to be healthy. He looked up to see the rabbit Faunus' face to be rather pale, her body seemed faint. "What happened to you? You look like you lost more blood than I did."

"Well, at this point, she just about has." A man in a white coat and glasses stepped in the room.

"What do you mean?"

"Faunus blood and human blood, of course, don't interchange, and we didn't have enough here at the hospital for you. We had to perform a blood transfusion, none of your other friends were a match, except Velvet. We took a dangerous amount, we said we couldn't take any more, but she made us keep going, it saved your life."

"I guess I owe ya one, Velvet."

"You owe me more than one." The brunette smiled before touching the bandages wrapped around Rikov's stomach and chest. "But I guess you saved me first, so we'll call it even." Velvet laughed, but her giggling turned into choking, she coughed violently before loosing the energy to stand. The wolf caught his angel before she hit the ground and pulled her up into the white hospital bed. "Thanks."

"I'm sorry you had to do this. It's my fault."

"No, I was the one that needed rescuing in the forest. If I hadn't been so carless, none of this would have happened."

"Don't blame yourself. I'm responsible." The young girl tried to hold back tears, she knew this whole ordeal was her fault, she alone caused her best friend to end up like this, broken and scared in a hospital bed.

"You should have let me-" Velvet was silenced by Rikov's lips firmly pressed against her own. The kiss caught her off guard causing her eyes to widen, but after a few seconds, she figured out what was going on and loosened up, her eyelids sank, and her energy faded. All she could do was return the passionate kiss, her body refused to do anything else.

The lovers would have sat there all day if not for a loud boom several floors above. The whole building shook, pieces of the ceiling fell, and a fire broke out down the hall. "Come on!" Rikov rolled off the bed and onto his feet, then, grabbing Velvet by the arm, he ran out the door and away from the fire. "We'll use the stairs." When they got to the stairwell, another loud boom shook the whole building, causing the next several floors' worth of steps to come crashing down in a flaming heap of metal and concrete. "Or not."

"The window!" The brunette ran to the shattered window, and looked out, careful not to touch any of the shards left in the pane. "What the f-"

Boom!

Velvet was knocked back several meters. The wolf Faunus helped her up and made sure she was alright. "There's a damned White Fang airship out there, but why is it here?"

"Hmmm." Rikov thought hard for a moment.

"Well, I saw Blake come in to visit Yang a few hours ago."

"They must be after her."

"We have to help."

"Not in your condition, you'll just get hurt. Let me go."

"With what weapon?"

"Wha?" Rikov put a hand on his back as to reach for his crossbow, but felt nothing but air, the hospital staff must have taken it.

"I have my bow."

"Before either of us does anything, we should get to the ground before we get roasted." The fire was getting closer and closer to the young hunters. "Any ideas?"

"I think getting away from this fire is the least of our worries, Rikov." The rabbit Faunus spotted four armed men sweeping the building for survivors.

"Goddamn it." Rikov and Velvet took off running to another room, seeing how never of them were in fighting shape, they needed to hide. They took cover in what appeared to be a surgical operations room, and looked for someplace they would remain hidden. "Quickly, they're almost here." Realizing that the room was big and empty except for a few tables and a bed, And that they were out of time, the wolf Faunus made the decision to fight, regardless of his greatly reduced combat skills.

Velvet knocked an arrow and drew it back before aiming at the door, while Rikov grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall and used it to try and break the natural barricade of fallen debris on the other side of their exit. The large metal door, from which the hunters entered, swung open, and in poured all four attackers, each with White Fang insignias on their jackets. Velvet released the silver tipped arrow right into the center of one of the men's chests, then another and another. She was fast, but not fast enough to take down all four of her assailants in the time it took them to run a few meters; the final White Fang member knocked the bow from the Faunus' grasp, then shoving her up against the wall. The man pulled a pistol off of his belt and pressed it hard against Velvet's temple.

The attacker suddenly froze in place, then spat quite a bit of blood right in Velvet's face. His grip loosened and the gun dropped to the floor. The man fell down, dead. The Faunus looked down to see a surgeon's scalpel jammed in the back of his neck.

"Don't you touch her, asshole."

"Oh god, I've never killed anyone before."

"It was their lives or ours, you did the right thing. Now come on, I don't want to stick around to see how many more of those bastards are in the building."

"Uh, right." And with that, the two Faunus ran out and looked for another way down.

"I think I found something." Rikov said, reading the label on a large wooden door. "Patient Storage."

"Your arrow gun thingy is probably in there."

"Only one way to find out." Rikov raised a foot and drove it into the door hard, shattering the wood around the lock into a hundred tiny splinters, leaving them with a half destroyed, but wide open doorway.

"It wasn't locked. You could have just opened it the normal way."

"Where's the fun in that?" They walked inside to find what looked like a gym locker room, locked blue compartments lining the walls. "What was my room number?"

"How should I know? All I remember is that it started with a thirteen."

"Then we'll just have to check all the 'thirteen' lockers." Rikov walked over to a long row of blue, metal doors, each marked a four digit number, beginning with a one and a three. "Stand back." The redheaded boy drew back his fist and slammed it into the center locker, the force knocking all of the others wide open.

"Hmpf, your punch just might be a match for Yang's." Velvet said, a hint of shock in her voice.

"Here she is." Rikov found his Tribolt Straightbow in locker "thirteen-fourteen" with the arrows still loaded.

"Alright, now let's-" Suddenly, there was a loud explosion, followed by a scream that had both the Faunus' attention. "What was that?"

"It sounds like the White Fang found what they're looking for."

"It came from upstairs."

"I want to fight too, Velvet, but neither of us are at what most would call 'in fighting shape.'"

"Fine."

"Let's go." Rikov said as he walked over to a window and smashed out the glass. He readied a grappling arrow and aimed at the building across the street when he looked up to a blonde girl holding on the roof by her fingertips. "Yang?" The wolf pulled the trigger and brought Velvet to the long cable that now connected this building with the one parallel to it. "Go hand over hand, I'll be right behind you."

"Right." Due to her fear of heights, the brunette shut her eyes tight, it wasn't until she had kicked in the glass window and jumped inside the the office building that she reopened them. She turned around only to find that her lover had not followed her, but instead lied and was now detaching the metal line between them. "What are you doing?!" She yelled, her question was answered when she saw Rikov launch another cable straight up to the top of the hospital. "Damn him."

Rikov pulled himself onto the rooftop, but he was too late, Blake was unconscious and Yang was nowhere to be seen. "Shit!" He spotted a large airship with the red skull and caws. "I'm coming." He sent another cable, it was just barely long enough to hit the ship. When he pulled in, Rikov was met by seven White Fang combatants, all armed and dangerous, and in the corner, was Yang, bound and blindfolded. "Hold on Yang!" Rikov punched one man clean off the massive, flying vehicle, and slammed another into the wall, but the rest were large, strong men who caught him off balance and knocked him to the edge. "No, no, no-"

He fell.