I could see for the first time in what felt like forever, and everything was blurry. The light seared into my eyes with the force of a million angry bees, and it was all skin toned or dark giants and dancing shadows I couldn't quite make out. It was colors and colors and so many more damned colors, all mixed with blots of white and black and violent reds, I couldn't understand any differences between any of the shapes.

If seeing was bad, then the hearing was infinitely worse in a way that brooked no debate. The noise was completely, ridiculously deafening, and surrounded me, mercilessly pounding on my ears without fail or respite. What sounded like a really bad opera blared around me, sung in the voices of three or four different people. One of them was screaming, a woman it sounded like, and she sounded to be in absolute agony. It made my head heart and it terrified me. Another, younger voice sounded out, louder than the rest, as something happened.

It smelled like blood, the familiar rusty, irony tang surrounding me completely like a shroud and encompassing my entire world of senses until I couldn't understand anything at all through it, like a thick, coppery smelling mist. I felt myself being exchanged from one pair of titan hands to another, a pair of rough, calloused hands, and then there was a soft cooing sound, and then it clicked. I had just been reborn. I was a baby once again.

It wasn't a hallucination then, or a dream, or anything of the sort. The strange woman and the strange bar had been real, or I was insane. I felt exhaustion slam into me like a freight train as a tired feminine voice sounded out: "Shh… Go to sleep, my little girl… My precious little Luna..." Either way, my reality had changed without my thoughts controlling anything about it around me. And I would have to deal with it, one way or another.

-13 Years later-

Living on Earth and watching Rwby, we never had seen exactly what Remnant was like to Faunus. Or rather, not truly, through the rose tinted glasses that everyone viewed the universe through, like a child following a child in the world. The world of Remnant was nowhere near as child-friendly as RWBY was portrayed as, and living in Atlas for the first eight years of my life had honed that to a fine point in my mind, unfailingly and in totality.

In RWBY, though I had forgotten most of it in such a long time, Blake had mentioned that she had been practically born in the White Fang. Being an orphan probably caused that, now that I was able to consider it from my new perspective, and made sense now that that particular informational void was filled for me. Mom died first, a police force firing on peaceful protesters and killing a few of them, injuring countless more.

Dad, forced to take a second job to cover for us kids, started working in a SDC factory out of desperation. He died when a high-pressure steam valve broke, giving him third degree burns instantly and killing him as well. No one even bat an eye, all we ever saw from the bastards was a small, printed apology letter with the Schnee logo on the front. Very clean, very official, and completely impersonal as expected by then.

And then we were alone, in a world of monsters in more than one sense. Well, not really alone- Dad did have friends in the White Fang, and they folded us into their little community right beside countless others much like us. Eventually, though, two years afterwards at the ripe age of eight, we were evicted, our homes that we had built ourselves torn down to put in a new fashion store. Another travesty of justice, and another letter with another Schnee logo on it as an apology for the 'inconvenience' of losing everything we had.

Some of us went to Vale. And Vale was where, four years later, a simple faunus with simple dreams of raising a family in peace without fear of bigotry stepped down from his post of leading the White Fang and was replaced by a different man.

The first few shops were firebombed the next day, filed under 'Protests' by everyone that mattered in the world. And so everyone was forced to choose sides, suddenly and mercilessly, and no recourse was offered. Human and Faunus, everyone had to decide in those days who and what they were, what they would stand for.

Our choice was obvious, really. Loyalty to family and friends who had saved us countless times and cared for us when none other would. The way it had to be, in a world where everything hated us for what we were, and without any reason beyond that.

And now, here we are, with Blake picking a lock, me holding a large 'package', and both of us wearing masks I never thought I'd touch much less wear. And Blake was taking absolutely forever with picking the locks in the dark back alley, stressing us both out to no end and causing us to take even longer. Or for it to feel that way, at the least.

"Blake, if somebody walks by with a flashlight…" I whispered, gripping the silenced pistol hidden in my coat nervously.

"They won't." She dismissed easily, false confidence in either herself or the idea no one would show up. A few minutes passed, slowly and painfully with the dull clicks and murmured swears beside me, and then I sighed in relief as I heard a click. "Got the first one."

"It took you five minutes to pick a lock?!" I questioned lowly, aggravated more by the stress than by her.

"Not all of us have a semblance that'll let us do that." She whispered back angrily, likely for the same reason as myself, really.

"Fuck it." I hissed, and the sound of shattering glass broke the silence of the night, shockingly loud, yet muted at the same time by the pounding pulse in my ears and the rushing adrenaline in my veins. A click sounded out quietly, and I gave a triumphant grin as I opened the door at long last.

"Screw you too." Blake muttered, and the two of us entered the bookstore quietly, ignoring the previously noisy sounds of shattered glass. Grabbing a basket and throwing another to Blake, I grabbed a few Young Adult and Adult books, my eyes widening as I saw a very specific book. One every fan of the show knew, regardless of their opinions on what it meant or was about.

"No way…" One of the admittedly minor things I remembered about RWBY was, in particular, this book. Ninjas of Love. And there were two of them, too, which was lucky for us. Well, more than two, but the rest were going to be kindling, sadly enough, so they hardly counted. The first two were the important ones, and the only ones that would survive as a result. Of course, I grabbed them both alongside an instruction manual for sword styles and a few magazines, on a whim more than anything.

"Here, have a present." I said, handing the basket to Blake as I set the package on the floor, knowing deep down she'd thank me later and unwrapping the string binding it together and opening the brown paper as quietly as possible, though it felt impossibly loud to me. Funny how that seemed to work.

It was a square boxlike object, four differently colored chemicals in tanks in the corners, shining brightly in the dark. I turned the chemical dial, a few air bubbles appearing as one of the chemicals started to get sucked into the center of the bomb. A timer appeared, and with a few clicks I had set the fire bomb to explode in both one and five minutes, first a fire, then a detonation to spread it even further, quicker.

"Bomb's set, Blake. Let's go!" I smiled proudly, hoping it would work like it should, and the two of us tossed our masks aside, leaving them to burn in the fire, as I took my basket and we left how we came. "Hang on a tick," I said, grabbing Blake's arm halfway down the street," I wanna see if it goes off."

Of course, it did in fact go off, and the flames reached high into the sky within minutes as the books were set ablaze by the admittedly small flames. The bomb's secondary was set off to go when either two things happened- the flames got too hot or the timer ran down. And a few minutes after the flames licked the skyline itself, a second explosion, not muted as the other was, went off, the explosion blowing out the windows entirely and tossing ash and ember high into the sky as we smiled in satisfaction.

Of course, with dozens of cops and response teams all over the place, we couldn't exactly get picked up or anything, so we went to an apartment another White Fang member had to stay for the night, and which had been offered up for this exact purpose when news spread of the impending attacks. So Blake and I spent some time alone partaking of our shared favorite hobby.

Reading, pretty much any kind of books. I simply sat on the floor in the empty apartment, my back against my sister's, and smiled knowingly whenever she giggled perversely. I would read my version of it later, when she had gone to bed.

Eventually, and I didn't exactly know when it happened, we both fell asleep where we sat, in the bare and cool apartment. I only woke up when I heard the lock in the door turning and it opening, jumping to my feet warily with my sister mirroring the action. We both relaxed when Adam stepped through the door, smiling slightly at us from behind his white mask.

"You've done well, impressively so and beyond honest expectation. The authorities have no idea who bombed the building last night, and our contacts are keeping an ear out for it." He nodded in respect, "Good work, both of you. There's a car outside that'll take us home. Nice, quiet area, no windows or unwanted observers. Perfect for us."

"Alright then. Let's go back home." I said easily, popping my shoulder as I helped Blake up, ignoring the dull ache of a back that slept uncomfortably.

The ride home was a lengthy enough one, in stages, as they didn't live inside the walls. The village itself was relatively small, enough so that it couldn't be officially recognized as anything other than a village at all, reliant nearly entirely on mercenaries, Hunters and fortune for protection.

This was the deception, rather, which would now come to serve the White Fang beautifully, hopefully for a very long time. No military oversight, few Hunters coming through - and fewer still ones which owed loyalty to anyone problematic like Ozpin or the Council of Vale - and an ever-present need for reliable defenders meant that the White Fang could easily take over as protectors of the almost entirely Faunus village with nary an opponent.

And this was where, after nearly a day of travel and quiet conversation or book reading, the trio came to rest.

-2 Years Later-

Luna gave a silent yawn as she stared through the scope of her borrowed White-Fang-camoed AMR waiting for the target to appear. It had been a couple years since their first bombing in Vale, and the duo had been trained a good bit in that time. While Blake, as Luna had known all along, had grown to favor her Gambol Shroud almost as soon as she found it. Luna herself had instead found a talent with rifles, which surprised even her as she didn't like them overmuch. She much preferred swords, like the one hanging off her waist right now.

The duo had been sent together, as usual, on a job to hit a Schnee factory that was one of many to give the Schnees their name as Faunus slavers. So while Blake went in to loot the place and help out anyone she could, Luna had a... Slightly different job altogether.

Namely the pale haired aristocratic looking woman walking with an equally pale headed young girl outside the factory, talking about something. Luna frowned, glancing the girl over, and shook her head when she didn't recognize her. Poor kid would probably have nightmares, but Luna knew dozens of kids having them thanks to Schnees.

Luna sighed, going onto the radio.

"Sir, The target's with her daughter."

"Sergeant, you have your orders. The girl is at your discretion."

"Yes sir…" Luna said, turning off her radio and gripping her rifle.

"Sorry about this…" Luna said, a hint of sorrow in her voice as she loaded the single round into the AMR and took aim. "I have my orders..." Luna fired, the rifle bucking against her shoulder.

The .50 BMG bullet flew out of the barrel, a sonic trail following its long and deadly journey. It sliced through the air easily enough, headed towards the woman's pale flesh just below her neck, and within moments slammed into it. Amid the blood, bone and flesh turned to mist it continued its journey, smashing into and through the wall behind the falling body and through it into a Dust storage container's coolant tank, rupturing it most dangerously indeed.

Weiss Schnee looked up at her Mom as she smiled, looking at her. "Weiss, Eventually, the SDC will belong to you. When you're the CEO, I will be there, cheering you on. But first, we need to show you one of the fac-"

Weiss's teeth bit down sharply as the echoes a gunshot reverberated through her skull, simultaneous with a large section of her Mom's chest turning to pasty red mist and a splash of warmth on both the factory wall and Weiss's face. Weiss blinked as her Mom took a step forward and fell down, a large chunk missing. But she was still holding her….

Weiss screamed as everything registered, ignoring the severed arm she was still holding and flailing it towards the now-corpse, just as a Dust container inside the building dangerously close exploded violently.

"You are unbelievable!" Blake hissed furiously when I got back, looking at the news reports blaring out already from the news. "You shot her, in front of her daughter! What the actual hell was that!?"

"That was me doing my job, sis." I shrugged nonchalantly, sighing tiredly," Mine was just… Messier, that's all. Besides, the kid wasn't supposed to be there, but I had to take the shot and kill the Schnee."

But I had still shot her...

"No, you didn't! You could have let the kid keep her mom, Luna. No one had to die, and you know it." Blake nearly snarled, backing down after a second and taking a step back in the small apartment, another like the one they'd stayed in so many times since their first," You're… Ruthless. I… Don't like this, at all."

"Blake… I don't either, but Years from now, this will be seen as a sad necessity." I sighed, sadly, and leaned against the window tiredly," We tried the nice ways, they didn't work at all, remember?"

Blake didn't say anything, instead simply sighing angrily, or perhaps sadly, it was sometimes hard to tell now, and opened her book to read it yet again, the crimson lettering faded by now.

Odd, in the show it looked new…

I opened my own book, beginning to read, and about half an hour later, I stood up impatiently, adrenaline coursing through me from nowhere and for no reason. I couldn't stop thinking about that shot. The pull of the trigger, the bullet hitting her, the recoil of the gun bucking in my hand, the noise of the wind it broke and the dull, wet smack she'd made when she finally fell... The piercing scream of a young girl beside her dead mother, pleading for help.

"You okay, Luna?" Blake asked, looking up from her book worriedly after a moment of the fox sister's panic.

"Yeah… Yeah, I'm fine." I said easily, the sound of the explosion echoing in my ears distantly, the scream always following on its heels. Lying, then. Oh well.

"You don't look okay…" Blake observed coolly, a hint of concern in her voice, despite her attempts to hide it and her talent in doing so. They were sisters, after all.

"I'm fine!" I snapped, as the screams of a little girl echoed in my mind yet again. "Just fine. See?" I smiled thinly, obviously forced, and saw her raised a thin brow at me disbelievingly.

"I see I was right to be concerned then." Adam said easily, and I whirled to face him, having neither heard him enter the apartment or approach me. A major lapse in attention, for me at least.

"A-adam! When did you arrive?" I asked, flustered, tired, and worried over what he'd think. He couldn't think I was weak, or he wouldn't let me fight as I needed. as we all needed.

"Midway through your first episode. Sit down, Luna." He said shortly, gesturing at a stool against the wall.

"I'm fine, really." I said, as he forced me down on the seat and I met his concerned gaze, evident even through the mask he always wore.

"Please. I want to help you." He said gently as he took a seat. "I don't want you to get hurt. I've had squadmates who've dealt with issues like you're having. I don't want you to end up like they did."

"I'm fine." I insisted, though it felt weak even to me and obviously didn't convince either of the other two Faunus in the room.

"Fine then. What round did you use in that mission?" He asked gruffly, shaking his head and taking a step back.

".50 BM-" The bullet tore through her like tissue paper, painting the wall and ground with her blood. Her body made a soft squelch as it-.

"Luna. LUNA!" Adam interrupted, looking concerned.

"Maybe I do have a problem…"

-Two Years Later-

"The mission's simple. There's a Dust Train coming by, according to one of our informants. On the other side, there's a SDC board member who is inspecting the refinery. We're going to steal a few small crates of Dust, then blow the train and the factory sky high." I said, looking at my Scroll idly and making notes.

"And Blake?" Adam asked gruffly, checking his sword absentmindedly and rolling his shoulders to loosen up.

"Blake's here as extra hands, in case we run into any resistance anywhere. She… wanted to help." She sighed, letting out a nervous breath and smiled shyly, almost, as she spoke again. "At least it's an unmanned train…"

"Yeah. It took you a month before you recovered from your first kill. Surprisingly quickly, but you always did bounce back from things like that." Adam said, looking up at her.

"Alright then. Five minutes. Tell Blake it's time." Luna said quietly, and he nodded quickly in reply.

"Roger." Adam said simply, turning to stride into the forest like she'd asked.