Literally everywhere, everywhere, it was possible to hear the song of hundreds - or even thousands, it's hard to say exactly how many - of different voices without any problems. The song was momentous and calling for fight, sacrifice and change of the world, so the ideas that the being hearing all this identifies with basically no difficulty or doubt.
"Stand up, all victims of oppression
For the tyrants fear your might!
Don't cling so hard to your possessions
For you have nothing if you have no rights!
Let racist ignorance be ended
For respect makes the kingdoms fall!
Freedom is merely privilege extended
Unless enjoyed by one and all"
"So come brothers and sisters
For the struggle carries on
The Syndicalism
Unites the world in song
So comrades, come rally
For this is the time and place!
The Syndicalist ideal
Unites the Faunus race"
The song, although undoubtedly momentous and one that anyone wishing for freedom or justice Faunus would probably sing, nevertheless carried a rather dangerous idea in a direct way. It was the idea of revolution, i.e. a violent coup, the aim of which is to make a change as soon as possible and using all available means that only the party performing these actions has at its disposal.
One term that the individual himself coined for his revolutionary activity is worth mentioning, Syndicalism. In fact, people had this term earlier and its particular popularity falls on the period after the Great War, and refers to the poorest layers of society, often workers and peasants, who fought for their rights and numerous social privileges. In the case of Faunus, however, the ideology was to pursue a revolution with the goal of revolution, with the intention of ensuring the same economic and social rights as for Humans.
However, this did not matter to this individual, despite the fact that he himself wrote the lyrics to this song, and the song was composed by one of his friends from his early youth, who, following many years of various experiences and perturbations, had the opportunity to become a successful singer and an artist in general. At the same time, this Faunus was and is closely related to the organization to which this particular individual belonged.
However, since we are talking about the past and the present, everything around us began to spin after a certain moment, undergoing chaotic change. Initially, completely disorganized, without much logic or even the slightest order. It's as if the mind of this individual was a chaotic and illogical collection of completely random scenes from life, only with time it began to form a relatively complete and coherent whole. As the next minutes and seconds passed, everything began to fall into a logical sequence, which was a summarized version of the biography of this particular Faunus, and it was indeed an extremely interesting and unusual story that could inspire or terrify, depending on your views. Still, there was no denying this particular individual had accomplished great things and had a great will to power to exercise his own influence over everyone around and the world, given the circumstances.
The earliest memories this Faunus retained were of very early childhood, when he was only five years old. He quite well and quite accurately recalled that time when, being so young, his fascination with books and initially incomprehensible 'scribbles' resulted in learning to read very quickly and later to write, even though his handwriting left and still leaves much to be desired . Despite this, his parents were always proud of him and considered him one of the best things that could have happened to them. Also many of the most pleasant, if rather faint, memories come from this period, especially the pleasant moments when, in the evening, he and his father and mother would go with them to the seaside and together they would enjoy the day's farewell. Childish, but undoubtedly very appropriate for the situation of a small child.
Subsequent scenes from the life of this entity depicted him - young and still not even ten years old - Cat Faunus with black hair and amber eyes, in many situations either with his parents or with his younger sister. These were the times when he helped take care of her, when he helped her intellectual development - although he didn't know then that this was what he was doing - and he infected her with his love of books. The following years made him and his younger siblings only more and more inseparable, but for a while.
The first, and much more acute, memories were when the young entity reached the age of ten and began attending school on Menagerie - the continent inhabited by his kind - which was ruled by his father. However, it was only in school, where he had to attend with other children, that his true nature was fully manifested. Initially very energetic and eager to learn, over time he revealed his enormous introversion and certain traits that go hand in hand with it. Shyness and great difficulty in establishing relationships naturally. An almost complete withdrawal from social life and an unnaturally great fear of embarrassment, which led to him being quiet, at least for the vast majority of his time at school. No friends and only occasional cooperation on school projects, which, however, was a huge mental challenge for him, especially in the company of girls. Great perceptiveness and intelligence, which only isolated him even more from the rest of his classmates. Needless to say, no one saw in him even the slightest material for a warrior, let alone a leader, due to the apparent lack of leadership skills. Teachers or colleagues always perceived him as a fragile and not very strong intellectual, in addition with a weak will. If only they had known then what he would become in the years to come.
In addition, the successive revelations of memories flashing more and more rapidly and revealing more and more secrets of this period of his life, made it more than clear that over time he came to regard learning as a necessity, so he was completely focused on this, on this and training for fighting, which however, he was not very good at it, and at first he was afraid to even pick up a sword or a spear. Added to all this was the fact that over the years he began to withdraw more and more even from family life, in which he was once very active and always admired his father. But learning about the world beyond Menagerie had shown him just how big, sinister, unforgiving, and dangerous the world was. Faunus, apart from this small - compared to the other five - continent, did not have an easy fate, to put it mildly. In particular, the disgust in
Despite being a rather withdrawn and clumsy teenager, it was at the age of fourteen that he decided to enlist in the White Fang. An organization created by his father, which was supposed to contribute to better treatment of the Faunus and provide them with a decent life in places where it was not the case, with very mediocre results. Young Cat Faunus was well aware that in all four Realms, as he himself preferred to call them, and more commonly called Realms, only Vacuo tolerated Faunus. More precisely, above all, the strongest, those who were able to survive the inhospitable climate and constant anarchy, which does not create safe living conditions. In Vale and Mistral, it was just as imperfect. In the first of the two, slavery was officially abolished, but the obvious racism was easy to see in ordinary Humans. Meanwhile, Mistral had a very long history of open and very brutal slavery of the Faunus, so they were not treated as people there, and despite the abolition of slavery or the prohibition of discrimination - as in the case of Vale - there was still social consent or even to violence, and groups of racist radicals were not uncommon there. Nevertheless, the young man learned that Atlas was the worst in this particular respect, and evidence of this was provided by the first of his true and lasting friends.
Adam Taurus, who survived the real hell of the Schnee Dust Company and the local mines, met Cat Faunus for the first time almost immediately after being admitted to the White Fang, specifically to the then security department, whose main task was to protect rallies and manifestations. Bull and Cat Faunus developed a friendly interaction with each other very quickly, due to both being extremely quiet and withdrawn at first, so they naturally met each other despite the initial and extremely awkward dynamic between the two.
The most vivid memory from that time was when Bull and Cat Faunus started learning how to fight. First, the basics, and their training - together with a group of other eighteen adepts - was supervised by Sienna Khan, then a little-known and quite loud critic of the methods of the black-haired father of Cat Faunus, who, however, unlocked his Aura. The first sparring between him and Adam ended in a fairly predictable way. Even though Cat Faunus inherited his father's rather tall height and potential for body training, Adam clearly had the advantage of experience and a much more trained body over him, so he defeated him in only a few moves, much to the amusement of everyone present and the chagrin of Sienna herself.
Their first really social interaction, which can be simply called friendly, took place after - as it later turned out - a mutually beneficial sparring. They met in a small but friendly - at least in terms of climate - tavern and Cat Faunus almost immediately expressed his somewhat over-energetic appreciation for Adam's skills, to which he expressed confusion and slight surprise that Silent Cat - because that was Cat Faunus's name - is at such a low skill level.
However, the real turning point came only after the next ones. Silent Cat and Adam exchanged a few more words, sentences, and perhaps the former said a few words too much, because that's why Bull Faunus's reaction was so expressive. Only then did he tell his interlocutor about his past in the SDC mines. Adam told him in full detail how people, intoxicated by their own and mostly conscious power, used him and all the other de facto slaves - at least slaves in everything but name - for backbreaking work in the extraction of Dust. He told him the details of the backbreaking work, about the famine among the Schnee family slaves, about the terrible hygienic conditions, about how those dead from exhaustion or killed by the underground Grimm were simply not buried but left among the mine shafts. Finally, Adam told him in brutal detail and honesty how those who, due to exhaustion, were unable to meet the daily quota of mining, received as a "reward" a birthmark with the SDC logo on their body. Then, Bull Faunus took off the blindfold from his left eye, and showed his memento of that period in full splendor.
Silent Cat was terrified at first, and memories clearly showed that for the first few minutes and even the next days, he didn't know what to say or even what to do. However, in this case it was like flowers that need time to mature and be able to show all their majesty. It wasn't until a whole month after Cat Faunus started learning how to fight - which he wasn't very good at - that he felt the fire of inspiration inside him. Only then did he fully understand how cruel the world and the second intelligent race in this world are, and that until now he had been hidden in the illusion of a perfect world.
The day he chose his place in the grand scheme of things marked the beginning of the end for the shy and clumsy boy and the beginning of the man. From that day on, he began to put in physical and combat training in general, learning to use more advanced technology, which, because of his previous love of books, especially those in the fields of math, engineering, and physics - which distinguished him from his younger sister, who preferred fairy tales or fiction in general - was not much of a problem.
Memories of three years of daily training under the watchful eye of Sienna and with the assistance of his partner, Adam, made it clear how much heart Cat Faunus put into all this. All these sparring with Adam himself, or later with the other members of their group, led to the mastery of his weapon skills, which at that time was for him a metal lance, ideal for thrusting or charging at the opponent, and thus was very limiting. Regardless, however, after a while, he also began to feel obligated to assist and advise his teammates in battle, which was initially met with confusion on their part. Everyone knew him as Silent Cat, a boy who was at least shy, withdrawn from social life or even afraid to talk to girls. Thus, after a first and entirely natural wave of confusion among his groupmates, this eventually turned into his great popularity, although he still remained quite shy and seemingly lacking in leadership skills.
Everything changed, however, when Silent Cat turned seventeen and together with the rest of the group, he also finished his combat training and they were formed into one compact unit, whose main task was to discreetly protect rallies and manifestations of the Faunus. However, Sienna herself, thanks to her natural ability to persuade people, managed to convince Father of the Faunus Cat to go on a mission in the Atlas to liberate slaves from one of the mines. The trip north was a truly unique experience for Silent Cat, not because of the opportunity to go beyond the Menagerie or see the frozen Land, but because only then could he fully discover his potential as a commander and organizer.
While Sienna did not regard him as leader material, she had ordered him to plan the details of their retreat from the SDC mines, the preparation of supplies for the journey south, and means of transport. Silent Cat coped with this task as well as it could, organizing twenty 'requisitioned' trucks adapted for rough terrain, supplies for many weeks of traveling south, and even personally scouting four men assigned to him, thanks to which they assigned most convenient escape routes. However, that was not what determined his fate as a member of the White Fang.
During this particular and first action, despite the initial successes, there were quite a lot of complications in the middle. Although the infiltration of the mine itself and the bloodless overpowering of the security guards went according to plan, it turned out that an entire mechanized company of the Atlas Military was stationed nearby, equipped with many armored personnel carriers, which came to the aid of the 'slave overseer' - as Silent Cat and Adam used to to call the employees of the SDC, especially those employed in the mines - so a retreat with dozens of 'miners' held there turned out to be simply impossible, at least not until a certain point.
Seeing how much fire Atlesians armored personnel carriers Alsatian-type, with a turret with heavy machine guns of quite a caliber, are firing, not to mention dozens of infantrymen in blue and white armor, Silent Cat made a decision that was one of those who dares wines. So, on the spur of the moment and in a completely improvised manner, Cat Faunus and four subordinates infiltrated the enemy's rear, where they then first attacked the armored personnel carriers in pairs, and after stunning the crew, directed their fire towards the enemy infantrymen.
Although he himself tried not to injure anyone mortally and shot on the ground in such a way that the shrapnel and the wire itself incapacitated the opponents, the lack of a clear effect made it necessary to fire directly at Humans. Looking at it from the perspective of time, he could not clearly indicate who was the first Human killed by him, but it did not matter, because soon the entire square in front of the mine was strewn with dozens of corpses. Meanwhile, the confused crews of the other eight transporters didn't even have time to react properly and recover from the shock before Silent Cat fired on them as well. More than half of the remaining transporters had exploded, while the rest had holes in them like cheese, and even some villages after the Great War and the Grimm's capture looked much better.
Silent Cat and his subordinates were extremely lucky that the commander of the Company of Atlas Military was apparently either incompetent and unimaginative - which was unlikely given the very high quality of this Realm - or underestimated Faunus, for she sent all her infantry and machines to lines of fire, without leaving even a few men behind as a rear guard. In this particular instance, his prejudices had a disastrous effect on those serving under him.
Very quickly, all the adrenaline of the action wore off. Silent Cat was initially almost terrified and paralyzed by how many people he had killed the first time. He looked at all these corpses and burnt wrecks, not knowing how to relate to it properly, and one of the people assigned to him, Dog Faunus Hermenegild Lakai, who later became one of his closest associates within the White Fang, snapped him out of this state. But what first gave him a huge boost of confidence was seeing his old classmates and all those saved people cheering for him. Adam was extremely pleased to see him for the first time as a leader leading a team of people subordinate to him. Sienna was also extremely impressed with his ability to improvise, and has kept him close ever since. As a bonus to this, the Atlassian Military has taken quite a bit of gear and armor, which was proposed by Silent Cat himself - still with a bit of awkwardness - seeing it as a potential to buff all the groups that would hit the SDC mines and liberate their brothers and sisters .
Although the individual's memories made it clear that it was an extremely special experience for him, there was also a second bottom to it. Specifically, upon returning to the Menagerie, the teen's father was horrified by the number of deaths of the Humans and chastised his son for it. Initially, Silent Cat felt ashamed of such an action, but later came to the logical conclusion, after much analysis, that he simply had no other option and made the most logical decision at the time, which ultimately only resulted in the death of the Humans, not none of the Faunus.
This event was significant for two more reasons, which were confirmed in all his memoirs. The first was to become Sienna's right-hand man from that moment on and Silent Cat did all the logistic and organizational work. So as soon as his father relinquished leadership of White Fang to Sienna Khan, Silent Cat became her de facto deputy and continued as head quartermaster. The second and perhaps even more important reason was that he took logic, rationalism and pragmatism as the most important. Since that incident, he has done literally everything in his life to have a clear view of every situation, even the most intimate or personal.
It was only a matter of time before what was presented by the memories. Increasingly, he began to distance himself from his family and neglected his relationship with both his parents - who disapproved of his methods - and his younger sister, who at the age of fourteen - like him - joined the White Fang. Even so, even though it allowed him to spend much more time with her than before, he preferred to leave her training to Adam, as he was very much aware that he was more than capable of training Blake in the martial arts.
Besides, the separation of the siblings from their parents was not the most pleasant, to put it mildly. Memories of a very confrontational conversation between the two were more than clear. Although their father and mother tried to dissuade Blake from doing so, it was Silent Cat whose words prevailed.
He started with an ominous and unlike him cackle, then looked at his parents practically down and with his head up. Looking at the two as if it was the most disgusting sight for him. Only after he had their full attention did he speak.
"You're pathetic, both of you." The words were then spoken with venom and narrowed eyes on his part, while the siblings' mother practically started crying and their father glared at the eldest threateningly. "Cowards who settle for this so-called peace, repugnant status quo. You could have created me and Blake, but we definitely didn't inherit our traits from someone like you, thankfully."
His father, Ghira Belladonna, in a state of almost utter and mindless rage, was ready to grab his son by the collar and engage him in heated arguments, but Blake, who defended his brother and agreed with him, prevented him. It was the last time he and his sister saw their parents.
Memories of the following years were not so clear, because they were more repetitive. First of all, Silent Cat dealt mainly with logistics and organization of supplies for individual White Fang Divisions. On this occasion, it is worth briefly mentioning the organization of the White Fang, because apart from the Main Division, or simply the Main Branch - both versions are correct - there were Divisions for each kingdom. Vacuo Division, the smallest and focused primarily on gathering supplies, ammunition or recruits or other types of equipment and sending them to other Divisions. The Vale and Mistral divisions, which were primarily focused on fighting local authorities - particularly in Mistral where racism was at its worst - training recruits sent from Vacuo, or alternatively Menagerie, and raiding SDC trains transporting Dust to Atlas. The latter was quite a recent idea of Silent Cat himself, who, in the face of failures resulting from all these kidnapping operations, ransoms or even public executions of high-ranking employees or board members of the Schnee Dust Company, decided to focus their efforts on collecting what was mined in the Dust mines. Suffice it to say that Sienna herself was pleased with the extremely profitable loot gained in the process, with usually no losses of her own.
There were also Two Divisions, which were supplied by Silent Cat. The first was the Atlas Division, which was strictly conspiratorial and purely espionage with a focus on gathering as much information as possible about both the Schnee Dust Company and the Atlesian Military. Although it used to be different and Silent Cat himself applied for a change, arguing everything logically.
Originally, the Atlas Division was no different from the Vale and Mistral Divisions, and like them, was focused on combat, training recruits in battle, and including rescuing slaves from the SDC mines. However, all attempts to build a long-term paramilitary structure, even outside city walls and in the countryside, were doomed to failure in the long run. Atlas had a very well developed and equally paid police force, not to mention the criminal division or, in particular, the Altesian Specialist. The latter hit Silent Cat hard when he came north to the frozen Land on a mission to raid one of the military transports that was supposed to be carrying new supplies for one of the larger bases in the southeast. Very quickly it turned out that this was a decoy prepared by Atlas intelligence, and Silent Cat and Bloody Bull - as Adam came to be called after some time due to his very high number of killed enemies - as well as about forty accompanying White Fang brothers fell into almost perfectly in ambush. There were infantry and numerous robots in the supposedly transported vehicles, and to top it all off, the entire ambush was led by Winter Schnee herself, then only a very young Specialist.
A ferocious battle then ensued, but the Faunus, due to their natural superiority in instincts and other physical qualities, were able to stabilize the situation with ease until everything reached a stalemate. Only after some time did this skirmish reach its decisive point. When Ice Queen and Silent Cat crossed their sabers and lances. Although they did not exchange a word, the fight between them was fierce, in the midst of a snowy and dense forest. Neither of the combatants wanted to let go and both he and she were constantly looking for some weak points of the opponent that could be used to gain an advantage and end the fight. Finally, there was a turning point in the fight when Silent's Cat lance once again hit the sabers, both weapons damaged. Winter's Swords snapped almost perfectly in half, while Silent's Cat lance snapped from the inside out, and the metal shards of both weapons spattered enough to pierce the Auras of both combatants and leave them a memento of that fight. Cat Faunus received a fairly large scar around the collarbone and biceps, stretching crookedly from right to left. While Winter also received a scar, only running vertically down her left eye and face. As it turned out later, in her case it was something absolutely ironic.
Only when everyone around focused on their skirmish and seemingly the whole fight froze, Silent Cat was able to fully focus on the battlefield, where despite the natural advantage on the side of representatives of his kind, Humans were able to effectively defend and fight, thus compensating generic deficiencies due to technology alone. With this in mind, and as commander of the operation, he made the decision to retreat immediately - further motivated by the large group of Grimm approaching - but drew conclusions which were presented to the High Leader. Meanwhile, she entrusted him with the task of reorganizing the entire division in response, and once again, Silent Cat fulfilled the task completely, which only strengthened his position at Sienna's side, or rather cemented it. Almost all warriors or guerrillas were sent to Mistral or Vale, and all guerrilla activities against the Atlesian Military. Instead, he directed the entirety of the local White Fang Division, strictly for intelligence, information acquisition, technology and infiltration of Kingdom structures. There was some potential for this, as local members already had some experience dealing with Atlas' police and counter-intelligence services.
The results, as subsequent memories showed, exceeded the wildest expectations of the High Leader, who since then trusted and basically gave him full autonomy in making decisions regarding White Fang's subordinate departments, or solving crises. Another step on the way to almost full power within the organization.
However, one more White Fang Division was mentioned previously, although it did not have such a name. Silent Cat was personally involved in the formation of this branch and for him it was a de facto private army with great infiltration capabilities, flexible defense and ambush. Death Fang, a personal force at the behest of this particular Faunus Cat, which however was not as numerous as the rest of the White Fang Division, even the shrunken and reformed Atlas Division, but could thus be elite and extremely versatile in terms of missions, and even had its own team hackers. It is superfluous to add that this force, at the personal behest of the Silent Cat, only increased his personal power and influence within the organization.
He himself led indirectly on purpose to a situation in which the power over the White Fang was held by the so-called triumvirate. Silent Cat himself, Sienna as the Highleader, and Adam as the commander of the White Fang's largest branch, the Vale Division. Everything, the entire machinery and structure of the White Fang, was prepared and focused by these trio for one ultimate goal, which was to ensure their kind was prosperous, respected and treated with dignity. Although two childhood friends, they actually had a slightly different and much more specific ultimate goal.
"Perun!" His sister's unmistakable voice suddenly resounded, and a certain realization came to him at that moment.
"I almost forgot, my name is Perun Belladonna, First Secretary of the High Leader and her de facto right-hand man." He thought with a rare smile, then the land of his memories containing all the history of life faded into the past, and all of it gave way to reality.
AN: Leave reviews with constructive criticism and see you soon