AN: Posting today because I work the weekend.

Chapter 2

Blood red leaves fell upon the northern fringes of the Forever Fall Forest, though it was early January. Tucked away in the hills of the red countryside, an assortment of tents camouflage with leaves from the falling trees were arranged in a circle, with barbed wire laid out in a protective ring around them. In the center tent stood several figures, of varying shapes and sizes, their features near human, though coloured with traits and parts one might find more fitting the fauna of the world. Forming a loose box around the folding table in the tent, the masked members of the international terror group known as the White Fang awaited the arrival of their cell leader.

The flap of the tent opened, and a tall, thin young man of 21, with the forward facing horns of a bull, and cloven hooves slipped his bone white eye mask on, his black and red suit blending in with the tent's shadows, and the sheathed sword held at his side projecting a threatening aura through the room.

"Brothers…" Adam Tarus said, before a black haired girl entered the tent behind him. She was no more than 16, her cat ears attentively upright, and tail gently swaying behind her. In the tent's darkness her pupils widened reflexively from the slits they'd been while she was outside, and her golden irises receded. Black boots, and baggy purple pants that gradually became black towards the waist clashed with her white blouse, though the black vest, and ribbon wrapped around her forearms covered most of it. She pulled her black silk scarf up over her mouth, as she put on her black eye mask. Her sword sat in it's scabbed over her shoulder, held in place by a magnetic plate.

"Sisters…" Adam continued. "As our partner cell in Atlas prepares to strike at the heart of the Schnee family once again, we have a much more logistically important target. For the sake of confidentiality the mission was ordered by the rest of the Round Table to be kept secret until now. In three hours a Schnee Heavy Industries owned freight train will be moving 15 train cars worth of solid crystallized Patetium, or Patatium air crystals for those of you from Atlas… And 30 cars worth of solid Rubrumium. Raw fire crystals. The perfect one to two mixture to synthesize combustion dust in bulk quantities." Adam said.

"Holy shit!…" Lieutenant Banesaw said, his white full face mask hiding his surprise. "That's a lot of Pink Mist… I'm not an explosive's guy, but isn't that much dust, even separated, an accident waiting to happen?"

"That's exactly why this is going to be a quiet operation. No gunfire, no guards on the train raising any alarms." The black haired girl said.

"I'm talking about after we steal it, and I wasn't talking to you Blake." LT Banesaw said. "I was talking to your boyfriend. You know SHI's gonna want this much dust back, right cap?" He asked Adam.

Blake Belladonna narrowed her eyes at Banesaw through her mask, before Adam continued. "Which is why we're going to be moving it to a safe location after we've taken the train. Our personnel for this mission are, Blake…" Adam swept his free right hand out behind him, earning an unseen rolled set of eyes from most of the room. "Sergeant Nomad…" The black hooded and full face masked man nodded silently, as he held his body arms in his hands. "Corporal Slag…" The man in the back with a metal and trauma glass blast visor helmet in an otherwise normal White Fang uniform jacket gave a swift salute. "And Myself." Adam said, holding his hand to his chest. "We leave for this jumping point in 30 minutes." He said, pointing at an X marked on the topographical map of the valley. "Make your necessary preparations. More details will follow once we've taken the train."

Hours had passed, and the four person team had moved to their infiltration point, where Nomad and Slag began work on the team's rappelling line. Their cable was set around a sturdy tree at the top of the cliff face overlooking the SHI line that ran south from Vytal to Vale. Slag gave a thumbs up to both Blake and Adam as he clipped into his rappelling harness.

Together the four looked north, where the black train could be seen weaving down the tracks through the valley, honking it's horn twice as it came around the bend. Adam held his hand up, before dropping it, and one after the other, the four took off nearly sprinting down the cliff face, as below the train pulled up below them.

One by one the four insurgents landed undetected on the cars filled with dust, and started making their way towards the flatbeds and engine nearer the front.

Reaching the last three cars on the train, the team came to a halt, finding that SHI private security was occupying the first flatbed on the train's trip south. One of the gray shirted guards looked up from his newspapers, and his eyes widened as he saw the masked White Fang members.

"Well so much for doing things quietly." Adam said, as the humans all began to take notice and call out for their targets to drop their weapons, pulling up their SHI contracted 9mm SMGs, a few with collapsing or folding stocks flicking them out with a bit of flair, and two with their bolts locked to the rear slapped the charging handles to chamber a round. "But I'd be lying if I said I don't enjoy the bloodshed."

Adam was the first to engage, Blake following shortly behind him. While Nomad and Slag were content to provide covering fire from above with their suppressed carbines, the two sword wielders jumped into the fray. Their fighting prowess was unmatched within the White Fang, making the difference between a man with controle of his aura, and one without, as obvious as night and day.

As the private soldiers opened fire, Adam and Blake dropped down onto the train car, swatting lead out of the air. The bull charged forward, and drew his metallic red straight blade, Blush, from it's gun scabbard, Wilt, slicing a soldier in two from hip to shoulder, ripping through his kevlar vest and ceramic plates, before bolting to the left, and hemisecting another just below the ribs. Deflecting gunfire with his blade, Adam sent several 9mm bullets to his right, causing one of his human opponents to inadvertently shoot his partner, before jumping forward, and decapitating the man shooting at him.

Blake for her part, had rushed past Adam, and ducked into a roll first, pulling her sword and it's metal cleaver scabbard off her shoulder as she went. On the draw, her weapon's thicker half Gambol, chopped through a soldier's thigh, before she drew Shroud from it. In a flash the black curved wakizashi sliced through another man's throat when she ran by him. As Slag and Nomad picked off the next two opponents in front of her, Blake pounced across the gap in the two flat beds to the last man, as he tried retreating, impaling through the heart. Pulling her sword free from his back, both she and Adam flourished their blades to loose the blood coating them. Before Adam could join her on the next flatbed, as Slag and Nomad came down from the box car, a gunshot rang out, and Slag's head exploded inside of his helmet, as he dropped his aura after the fight was seemingly over, his inexperience proving fatal.

Ducking behind the nearest source of cover, Nomad shouted in surprise, as both Adam and Blake turned to face the man standing on the train engine above them, carrying a bolt action rifle meant to punch holes in tanks and planes. Only he wasn't just a man… Perched atop his head, was a set of wolf ears, and his upper body, bare of any clothing, was covered in gray fur.

"He's… A faunus?" Blake asked, as the sniper wolf worked the bolt of his rifle and took aim again.

"Blake, get down!" Adam shouted, before Blake rolled behind a crate, the bullet fired at her skipping off the floor and putting a hole through the tuff box Nomad had used as cover, the man's body armor doing little to save him, as the contents of the box became shrapnel blown out by the sniper's bullet.

In response to the threat Adam rushed forward, and as the sniper rechambered, took aim, and fired. Though Adam couldn't change the flight path of the heavy round, he was able to slide it in two, causing equal halves to harmlessly fly off to either side of his head.

Jumping into the air, Adam quickly sheathed his sword, before drawing it again, unleashing all the kinetic energy he was able to siphon from the attacks he'd deflected, which allowed him to cut clean through the receiver of the man's weapon of wood and steel, and blow through his aura, creating a shallow cut across his bare torso. In shock, the sniper wolf fell over, and Adam put his cloven hoof on the man's chest, only to hear a cry from behind him.

"Adam!" Blake shouted. Turning to face her, the bull looked back. "What are you doing? We don't kill our own kind!" She said, her eyes turning to slits behind her mask.

Adam looked down at the wolfman. "He's a blood traitor." Before Blake could move to reach her boyfriend of three years, Adam had simply pointed Wilt at the man's head, and put a bullet in him.

Blake came skidding to a halt, having watched her partner execute a fellow faunus. Adam turned and dropped down to the flatbed again. "Come on, we still need to take control of the train." He said, sheathing his sword.

"No, Adam." Blake said firmly, as she held Gambol and Shroud up defensively. "You just murdered a faunus, one of our kin. We don't do that! We're better than that! We're better than the humans!"

Adam cocked his head at Blake. "Any faunus that stands in the way of the White Fang, stands in the way of their own liberation… And any faunus that stands in the way of their own liberation, is a Pet… At best they ignorantly serve humanity, at worst, they're no better than humans themselves."

"No, no, this isn't the way!" Blake said, shaking her head. "I won't let you just kill our brothers and sisters. They need to be shown the light!"

"It sounds like you think we should show mercy to humans then too?" Adam asked rhetorically, as he held his hand out in front of Blush's handle. "I suppose next you think we should let mongrel's join the organization?"

"They're just as much faunus as we are." Blake said.

"And just as much human as our enemy…" Adam said.

Blake grit her teeth, and bolted forward, as Adam pulled the trigger on Wilt, sending his sword flying into his hand, the two's blade's colliding, before Blake swept Gambol at Adam.

Breaking their bind, Adam leaned away from Blake's second attack, and kicked her in the gut hard enough to send her sliding back to the second flatbed car. Her righting reflex working as she fell, Blake landed on her feet, and steadied herself. She flicked Shroud forward, the weapon shifting from sword to sickle and the pistol in the hilt. Firing her entire magazine at Adam as she ran at him again, the bull deflected the shots away harmlessly. Now within range, Blake threw her gun-sickle, and held onto the ribbon, sending a flying blade at Adam.

He swatted the attack out of the air, and Blake Pulled her ribbon back towards her, catching the weapon as she jumped, converting it back into a sword, as she prepared to bring both Gambol and Shroud down on Adam. The three blades clashed, and Adam looked at her through his mask.

"You believe that we shouldn't kill our own, yet here you are attacking me for it." Adam said, before forcing Blake away with a shove. "You always have been hypocritical, Blake."

"I'm doing this because you've gone too far Adam!" Blake said, slicing at him again, only for Adam to deflect the strike away.

"And who are you to decide that?" Adam asked, landing a glancing blow on Blake's shoulder, her aura holding. "Your father isn't here to echo your ideas."

At the mention of her father, Blake jumped forward in a rage, as Adam sheathed Blush, and held his right hand out to catch the blade. He smirked, and pulled the trigger, sending the sword into his hand. Cutting upwards at Blake, Adam restrained himself and struck metal. Blake rolled in the air, landing on her feet behind him, holding her left wrist up to her face. Though she was not bloodied, her aura had been beaten near to submission, and Blake's eye mask had been split in half, the two pieces laying on the flatbed between the quarreling lovers.

Adam approached her, sword still drawn, as she backed away to the edge of the flatbed. Looking over her shoulder, Blake saw the side of the hill that the train sped along, and nearly stepped off the edge. She looked back at Adam, who she was sure had narrowed his eyes at her behind his mask. "Come on Blake. Don't act so naive. We've been over this... The moral high ground means nothing in the face of our oppressors. It's just a weakness they exploit. If we want freedom, we need to make compromises, and killing a mongrel, or a blood traitor is an acceptable compromise. You know the Round Table's in agreement with me." He said.

Blake scowled at him. "No, Adam. Killing our own is no better than betraying what the White Fang was created to put an end to... And if the Round Table's just as lost as you... Then I'm sorry Adam..." She turned, and jumped down the side of the hill, disappearing into the wilds of Forever Fall Forest, as Adam stood on the flatbed, surrounded by corpses, his blade still drawn…