Author's Note: Okay folks, just a quick warning; this chapter's a bit more intense than usual, although I do hope that you enjoy nonetheless.

There were no chances to be taken tonight; Mina entered the premises of the shipyard with her Semblance active from the start, her field of awareness expanded the full thirty yards. There were cargo containers everywhere, several cranes loomed overhead and the partially deconstructed hulk of a decommissioned cargo ship could be noted in dry-dock on the edge of her awareness. Dry dock seemed to have been flooded, however. Here and there were clusters of fuel drums, stacks of pallets, and mountains of crates, and there was a forklift off to the left. Nadia Undine had brought her here to spring a trap, that much was obvious, but Mina had to give her credit; with so many good places to set the trap, it was difficult to predict what was innocuous and what was dangerous.

"I am here, Miss Undine," Mina called out to be heard throughout the area, "And I believe that we had a deal…"

At the sound of another set of footsteps, Mina's sightless gaze instinctively snapped to a cargo container up ahead on the left, "Don't get your panties in a twist Carfax, I'm here,"

"I freely admit that it would seem as though I have underestimated you, Miss Undine-,"

"You didn't think I'd follow through on my threats, whore?"

"No, I expected you to try," Mina shook her head, "But kidnapping… I certainly wasn't expecting you to have the stomach for anything of that sort. Take it from me; it isn't an easy thing to do. Although what impresses me most is that you were paying enough attention at 'that disgusting café' to mark Clara as a personal friend of mine. It seems that anger doesn't cloud your judgment to the extent that I had thought,"

"Oh, I'm angry, bitch, but a deal's a deal…"

"And where is Clara?" Mina demanded calmly, pulling out her scroll and hovering her thumb over Blake's speed-dial button, "I do believe those were the terms,"

"You can tell Belladonna to look in the condemned old parking garage a couple blocks north of here," Nadia Undine rolled her eyes, "Or she could leave the skank to her fate; I don't give a damn,"

Pressing the button on her scroll Mina relayed the location when Blake picked up, "Dearest, Clara is in a condemned parking garage north of the shipyard,"

"Got it, on my way," Blake's voice came back over the line, "And Mina… Be careful,"

"You make me sick," Nadia spat as Mina hung up, "You were two of the best – taking the fight to the humans, fighting for us – And now look at you! Ready to kill me to save some damned human!"

"I do believe that we have been over this Miss Undine," Mina said in a level tone as she put away her scroll and drew out one of her stakes, "Insult me all you like, but you will not make me angry,"

"You should be!" Nadia shouted, "People look down on us everywhere we go, and if it's not that, then their undressing you with their eyes! That should bother you! That should make you furious! How can you just keep taking it, day in, day out, knowing that the damned humans see the ears on your head or the gills on your throat and suddenly nothing else matters – that to them, you're and it, not a person like them? Well I for one am sick of it! I am sick and tired of having some passing jerk notice my gills or my fingers and point me out to all his dirtbag friends and laugh! And as if that weren't bad enough, I get so fucking embarrassed and pissed off that my hair starts to glow! Do you have any idea what people say then? The 'nicer' ones will walk away quickly and tell their kids not to stare, but most people just laugh! Hell, I even had one bastard yank a clump of my hair out to see if it would still glow! Do you have any idea how painful that is?" Nadia's breathing came in heavy gasps now, "And this wasn't some punk doped up on God-knows-what, this was some guy in a suit! He even had the gall to leave a business card! Apparently he worked for some kinda research firm – I didn't bother to remember which though... Why bother? I killed the bastard! I was thirteen years old! I was so angry and ashamed that I took my knife, stabbed him, grabbed my hair back, and left him there to bleed because he deserved it!"

Mina slid the stake into one of the metal rings on the inside of her right gauntlet, "And?"

"And? How the hell can you stand to live in a world where that happens? Or where 'businesses' like the Schnee Dust Company exploit us like slaves!?"

"Frankly Miss Undine, I care little and less for your self-loathing and rationalizations – although it is interesting that you should bring up the Schnee Dust Company…" Mina responded, menacing in her calm manner, "As it just so happens that my best friend is Weiss Schnee,"

Nadia simply gaped for a moment, but then snorted derisively, "Why not? What's one more betrayal?" She began to circle around to Mina's left, and Mina matched her, "I don't know why I didn't expect that by now,"

Mina paid careful attention to everything in her surroundings as she moved, particularly noting the crane-suspended cargo container that her moves to remain opposite Nadia were about to place her under, "It's curious though, wouldn't you say? Miss Schnee knows who I am and what I've done, and being a Schnee, she does have a certain conditioned antipathy towards our kind, yet the two of us are close personal friends regardless; why do you suppose that is, Miss Undine?"

"I don't give a damn," Nadia snarled.

"A pity," Mina sighed, sliding a stake into one of the loops on her left gauntlet, "We might have both been spared a considerable degree of unpleasantness if you did…"

As Mina came to a stop directly beneath the suspended cargo container, Nadia pulled out a scroll, "Unpleasantness? Oh, this is gonna be a lot more than unpleasant!"

Nadia tapped an icon on her scroll and a burn Dust charge ignited. To Mina's mild surprise however, the sound did not emanate from above, but behind. Out the open end of a cargo container behind her erupted a plume of fire that surged forward in a fiery blaze. Mina dove to the right to avoid the column fire projected solely in her direction by the confined nature of the space in which the explosion had detonated, rolling and springing back to her feet beside a half-dozen fuel drums. She didn't wait for Nadia to tap her scroll again though, and bolted headlong at her opponent just in time to avoid the blast triggered there as well. Mina had covered just a scant ten yards when the next explosion tore through the night, this time up above where Mina had expected the first threat to come from. Nadia had remote detonated several feet of primer cord wrapped about the crane cable overhead, severing it and letting the heavily loaded steel hulk fall precipitously towards terra-firma. Mina ground to a halt to avoid being crushed, slamming her eyes shut and clapping her hands over her bat ears to dampen the impending noise, but it did little good; the sound of the impact was thunderous, and the buckling of metal was like a thousand Beowolves howling at once. Mina staggered, dimly aware that she was feeling dozens of pieces of shrapnel repulsed by her aura, but caring little; the only place she felt pain was in her ears.

Clever girl… Mina thought somewhat bitterly as she regained her senses and projected her Semblance afresh. Soon she was also able to note the sound of rapid footfalls running away down and onto the pier. Clenching her teeth, Mina pursued readying a stake to throw, but you'll not do me in so easily…

Whatever else might be said of Nadia Undine, she was certainly fast – not fast enough to stay ahead of Mina forever – but fast enough to get down the length of the pier while staying well out of Mina's reach. As Mina closed the distance though, she slammed a third stake home into the second loop on her right wrist and slung the two weapons forward in a low arc, finally catching her quarry at the ankles a few yards short of the pier's edge. Nadia grunted in pain as she hit the ground, but managed to fumble a book of matches out of the pocket of her windbreaker and strike three at once as Mina closed the distance. As Mina yanked her up to her knees by the back of her collar, Nadia cast the three glowing matches to the side desperately, where one of them caught and ignited the lengths of fuses she'd wrapped around the nearest piling on the left that supported the pier over the water.

"Too late Carfax," Nadia muttered as the fuses rapidly burnt away, leading under the platform, "Just a little too late…"

"Oh really?" Mina asked, retracting the lines of razor chord and pressing the two stakes to Nadia's throat, "Then I suppose we can enjoy your next little trick together,"

"What, this?" Nadia gestured down at the pier, "I was hoping the crane might do it actually – this… this'll just knock you on your ass!"

As she said it, the lit fuse burnt down to the first fragment of burn Dust crystal that Nadia had fixed to the last half-dozen pilings, causing it to explode. The whole platform shook, and before balance could be recovered, the last two pilings on the right were likewise demolished almost simultaneously. Mina stumbled, dropping Nadia as the last piling on the right buckled, and fell herself once the end of the pier began to collapse, sinking end-first into the harbor. As both of them tumbled down the slope of the damaged pier towards the water, Nadia frantically reached for her scroll again and tapped another icon, this time detonating the buoy floating just beyond the edge of the damaged platform. Instead of fire though, this one exploded in a frigid chill, freezing a broad swath of the water's surface.

As she hit the ice and slid several more feet on her stomach, Mina was aware that Nadia had pulled her knife, even before recovering her footing, So she plans to fight me on the ice? Very well… It was true enough that the slick surface would reduce any ordinary knife fight to a contest more of luck than skill, and again Mina had to credit her foe's ingenuity if nothing else, But luck isn't quite everything…

When Nadia got to her feet to shamble over across the icy surface, which rocked precariously with the ebb and flow of the seawater, Mina remained on one knee for stability and returned the third of her stakes to eh pouch at her hip. She caught Nadia's knife with the edge of the stake in her right hand as she swung and, only now rising to her feet to add force to the strike, she slammed her fist into Nadia's solera-plexus, tearing a gash through her foe's windbreaker with her stake on the follow-through. Nadia reeled and fell backward, landing hard on her back and skidding away toward the edge of the frozen arena. Mina, for her part, returned to a knee and used the moment's respite to calm herself; rash haste led to mistakes, and it was always best to be the calmest one in a fight.

"I will give credit where it is due, Miss Undine; you are much more resourceful than I would have thought," Mina spoke between deep breaths as Nadia shook of her daze and got back to her unsteady feet again, "Although I have to wonder where you obtained all this Dust? Surely the White Fang's stockpile isn't shared out for personal vendettas such as this…"

"Shut up!" Nadia shouted, lurching forward to attack again.

In response, Mina slammed a stake into the ice, and using that as a point of stability, swept with her leg to knock Nadia's feet from under her, taking her back to the ice. In another instant, Mina was on top of her, one knee on the girl's stomach and her two hands restraining her wrists, "Do I have your attention now?"

"I have nothing to say to you!"

"On the contrary, it would seem that you have a great deal to say," Mina remarked, making an effort to look Nadia in the eyes for the psychological effect, "So I am going to give you a choice: Let go of the knife and behave yourself and I will take you back to Beacon with me; perhaps the Headmaster can offer you a similar arrangement to my own – assuming of course that you continue to behave…"

Nadia spat in her face, "Go to Hell!"

"I try so very hard to be a good girl, Miss Undine; I'd rather you not spoil it by forcing me to kill you…" Mina threatened in a low voice, "But I can hardly leave you here… Let it never be said that I did not give you the chance…"

As Mina released Nadia's empty hand and lifted the stake though, the pinned girl drew in a deep breath and screamed. Mina winced and recoiled from the sudden noise, and it provided just enough of an opening for the smaller Faunus to shove her off and scramble across the ice for the precarious ramp formed by the damaged end of the pier. When Mina recovered her wits, Nadia was bolting back up the pier. Teeth clenched, Mina slung a stake at the end of one of her wires to wrap about the nearest intact piling, and using that she pulled herself off of the ice and up the mangled wreckage that had once been the last dozen feet of the pier until she was able to recover the stake on solid ground. As she went, she could sense Nadia's frantic fumbling with her scroll, and now knowing what that meant, Mina picked up the pace, sprinting after her full-tilt, and not an instant too soon, as the other pilings supporting the pier began to blow out two by two in her wake. No sooner had she gotten off the pier though than another explosion tore through the night, this one blowing the side off of a cargo container on a raised platform and spilling tons of steel piping which rolled free and rained down from above. Mina managed to run and dive free of the impact zone, but the sound was as inescapable as it was excruciating, and she fell to hands and knees as the cacophonous clamor and ringing of metal on concrete hammered against her ears. Mina felt tears welling up in her eyes from the pain, but she resisted the urge to collapse. The job wasn't done.

"Not so tough now, are you!" Mina could vaguely hear Nadia shouting at her and walking back her way, "Too bad all that smug self-confidence can't block your ears!"

Mina gritted her teeth as she struggled up to one knee, almost snarling the words as she responded, "I am not dead yet Undine; don't tell me you've lost the stomach for it. I assure you that you'll never have a chance like this again…"

But the knife didn't come, and Nadia didn't come any closer; instead, she simply stood there, a lazy stone's throw away and began to cry despite her rage, "I respected you! Every one who took up arms and fought for our justice – they were heroes to me, but you especially! You came to the White Fang, and you were blind – weaker than any of us – and to top it all off, you have to feed on blood! Even most of the Faunus hated you for that, but that's what made you so God damned special! You, better than anyone, perfectly symbolize our struggle to be accepted! And when you of all people – blind, helpless Mina Carfax - got up on your own two feet and fought for our rights and our freedom… I was awed..."

Mina made no response as she got back to her feet.

"Suddenly I started to think that maybe I could be useful too!" Nadia was practically sobbing as she spoke, "Dammit Carfax! You inspired me to do whatever I could for the cause just like you! And now you expect me to believe that it was all just because you were just Blake Belladonna's devoted little whore? No! I won't accept that!"

As if to punctuate Nadia Undine's sobbing defiance, another explosion rocked the night, but it was not in the shipyard. Off in the distance could be heard a thunderous detonation coming from due north, followed by the obvious sounds of a building collapse. Mina's eyes widened, That… It can't…

"Six refined Burn crystals…" Nadia sniffed, "And a liter and a half of Burn powder on the subterranean floor of the parking garage… detonated by the motion sensor built into your slutty maid friend's scroll…I'd say that's more than enough to bring the whole place down on Belladonna's head, wouldn't you?"

"Blake…"

"Well now the backstabbing bitch is gone!" Nadia shouted, "Don't you get it? She walked out on us – on you – because she's a selfish coward who isn't willing to fight for us! You should hate her as much as I do – More even! You were closer to her than anyone when she ran out on the White Fang! And now she's finally been punished!"

"…Dearest…" Mina stammered out, wholly ignoring Nadia's raging, "No…" Her fists clenched around her stakes as shock and disarray settled and gave way to first panic, and then finally resolved itself as Mina's gaze slowly drifted from the direction in which the explosion had been heard to Nadia, "It seems, Miss Undine, that I have underestimated you yet again…" Nadia froze, her hysterics not blinding her to the simmering wrath behind Mina's welling tears, and she hesitantly stepped back, "It seems that you can make me very angry…"

Any fool could have predicted Mina's next move, and Nadia Undine was nobody's fool. Her blood ran cold as she broke eye contact with Mina and bolted for the gangway onto the deck of the partially deconstructed ship floating in the flooded dry-dock; whenever she looked into a human's eyes she saw scorn and condescension, but Carfax's eyes held something else entirely: undisguised and undiluted hatred.

As she reached the top of the gangway, Nadia heard a loud clanging noise. She glanced to look, and saw to her horror that it was one of Carfax's Stakes wound around the railing on the side of the deck. In the next instant, Mina had half-winched, half jumped on deck beside Nadia, and before she could react, Mina's fist connected with Nadia's jaw. Nadia was knocked off her feet by the force of the blow, and as she toppled, her body slammed hard into the outer wall of the ship's wheelhouse. Her vision twinging red as she slumped to the deck, Nadia desperately fumbled for her scroll and frantically began tapping every icon she could, calling forth detonations all over the shipyard at random – mostly just hoping for more noise to play havoc with the furious and distraught bat Faunus's ears. A cargo container and a stack of pallets across the way exploded, a fuel stock pile on the next pier ignited, the supports for the crane buckled and the huge structure collapsed, taking a large portion of another pier with it, but none of it deterred Mina, whose approach was all the more terrifying for its slow and deliberate pace as she walked over from the railing one step at a time.

"Get up," Mina commanded, coming to a halt in front of her quarry, one stake held in a reverse grip. When Nadia remained frozen on the deck, Mina reached down to grab her by the collar and then slam her back into the wall by the throat, "I said get up!"

Nadia coughed and spluttered, fighting the urge to gag and vomit as she was unable to muster any words. Instead, she clamped her fingers down on the screen of her scroll and begged whatever god was listening for a miracle. Nadia's prayers were answered in the form of several detonations in the ship's lower hull, causing the deck to lurch and the whole gutted craft to list to the port side. Gasping for several choked breaths all the while, Nadia ran for the bow of the ship, stumbling as the slant of the deck grew more and more severe by the moment, but she used the various fixtures on the deck to keep from falling outright as she fled. Nadia's reprieve was to be momentary however, as Carfax was not far behind.

Closing to within arm's reach, Mina drew out three lengths of blade wire from her left gauntlet and slung it forward, catching Nadia at the neck and shoulders. Shouting out in her fury and grief Mina abruptly pivoted on one foot to face backward and dropped to one knee, the resulting jerk clotheslining Nadia and causing her to slip backward, collapsing to the deck. All semblance of pragmatism forgotten, Mina ignored the listing of the ship and the ever-steepening angle of the deck, paid no heed to the sirens that could faintly be heard in the distance, and paid least heed of all to the screaming pain in her ears. Nadia Undine wasn't dead – not yet – even her unpracticed aura spared her from the brunt of Mina's otherwise lethal maneuver, but as Mina turned back to look at her, she was most certainly still dazed and gasping.

Mina grabbed Nadia by the shredded lapels of her windbreaker, hefted her from the deck and slammed her back down, driving the air from Undines lungs again. "You want to hate me? Fine!" Mina shouted, "You want to kill me?" Mina took hold of Nadia's wrist – she'd somehow managed to retain her grip, only now she wished that she hadn't – and Mina pressed Nadia's blade to her own throat at the same time as she returned the favor with one of her stakes, "Fine! But I'll have to insist that you come along! Or are you too afraid to die for your precious 'cause?'"

No! She can't! Nadia screamed inside her own head, That damned Belladonna traitor can't have corrupted her so much that she'd rather die than… than-,

She didn't get to finish the panic stricken thought though, as the ship lurched again, suddenly listing at thirty degrees all at once. In that instant, Nadia put all she had into freeing herself and tore her wrist free of Mina's momentarily weakened grip, nicking the sightless Faunus's neck in the process, and then thrust again, embedding the blade in Mina's forearm. Mina shouted in agony as Nadia scrambled to back away, but she got back to her feet, grabbed the front of Nadia's shirt with her uninjured arm, and hurled her against the railing at the bow of the vessel, provoking a pained cry from Nadia as Mina only then pulled out the knife, her eyes cringing shut as the pain seared through her whole arm.

Nadia was seeing double as she struggled to brace herself against the railing, but of one thing she was sure: Carfax was holding her knife, which meant that she was defenseless. She laughed bitterly at the circumstances; Carfax had been right the whole time, she was in way over her head. What the hell had made her think that she stood a chance? She made a stupid decision and now she was going to pay for it with her life. Idly she spared a glance down at herself as she waited for the end to come. Her windbreaker was in shreds, and her shirt wasn't doing much better after she'd been picked up and thrown by the front of it. I must look like some kinda slut trapesing around a public place with my shirt such a wreck… But Nadia's delirium was pierced by a hot lance of pain as the blade of her own knife sank into Nadia's thigh, causing her to double over. The disruption was temporary though.

I guess this is what it's like to know that you're gonna die… She thought, all the pain seemingly separate – a curiosity to be reflected upon in the third person, I wonder… do I have any regrets? Maybe one… Nadia couldn't help wincing again as Mina pulled the knife out and grabbed the ruins of her collar, It can't be good to take even one regret to your grave though… she gave a little chuckle with delirious mirth, not even if they'll all just float away 'cause there's so much water in it…

Mina pressed the knife to Nadia's throat with her injured arm – it screamed in protest, but she could manage this much, and besides, she needed the other to hold Undine up at eye level, and as she spoke, her voice dripped with venom, "Final words Undine? You'll not be given another chance…"

Nadia lolled her head back lazily to look into Mina's eyes. They were bloodshot, and oh so very angry-looking. Why bother getting so angry? None of this mattered after all… Well, nothing except maybe one thing… Without warning or heed for the knife pressed to her jugular, What was left of Nadia Undine abruptly leaned forward, earning herself a nick on the throat to match Mina's as she placed a light kiss on Mina's startled lips and whispered the words, "My hero~" before letting out a wretchedly misplaced little giggle as she tipped back over the railing, well look at that… I did it…

Mina dropped the knife as Nadia fell, shocked once more into silence. For a long moment she simply stared off into the night as the structure continued deteriorating beneath her. Only when the hull buckled and she could no longer maintain a stable footing did she shake herself loose of her stupor, dashing down the length of the deck as the hull collided with dry dock and she leapt to safety. She treaded aimlessly onward for a few brief moments as she processed Undine's last words, before summarily dismissing it all – the fight, the shipyard, Nadia Undine – as irrelevant. Mina collapsed to her knees, choked up and her tears flowing freely now. Both her arm and the immense migraine were utterly meaningless, "Blake…"

Mina wasn't sure how long she just sat there on her knees as the world seemingly burned around her – she'd stopped caring – but eventually voices could be heard approaching, not that she cared, "Holy shit! Sis! I found her!"

"Where!?"

To what was said after that though, Mina didn't bother listening…

Author's Note: Well then… I'd say that's enough explosions, violence, and shattering psyches for one evening, wouldn't you? I do apologize for the cliffhanger, but I did have to end the chapter somewhere… At any rate, as always I do hope that you enjoyed, and Favs, Follows, Reviews, suggestions, and even wild speculation are always appreciated; until next time though, have a good one.