Blake stood outside the hospital room for what felt like days. She had no idea how she was going to tell her teammates about Slade. She didn't know how to convince them that they couldn't beat him.
She had just finished checking up on Jaune. She showed up while he was still out after being operated on. According to his teammates, he was hurt pretty badly, but not as badly as he should've been after being hit with a bullet the size of the one the doctors pulled out of him. His aura absorbed a huge amount of the force of impact. Luckily, his injuries won't hinder him in the future. The most permanent part will be the scar it'll leave.
Blake couldn't come up with anything good to say then either.
Having wasted enough time already, she pushed through the door. Weiss was asleep in the bed with several tubes hooked up to her pumping her full of drugs to fight the venom. Her muscles were no longer spasming. Her breathing was much slower and more normal than the last time Blake had seen her. It looked as if the worst of the poison's effects were past.
Ruby was sat in a chair next to Weiss while Yang stood next to the window, staring off as she did when she was cooling down from high levels of anger. As soon as Blake closed the door, Yang was on her. She rushed over and embraced her partner.
"We were worried," she said before letting go.
Ruby rushed forward. "You shouldn't have gone off alone. He could have killed you."
"I had the best chance out of any of us of making it back alive," Blake explained. She looked away from her teammates. "Besides, I had to know."
"Had to know what?" Ruby asked.
"I had to know if it was really him," Blake answered. "I wanted to be wrong so badly."
"You said you knew him," Yang said. "Who was he?"
"He was a mercenary named Slade Wilson. Apparently he's calling himself Deathstroke now. He and I share a history together. It's a long story." She looked back and saw Ruby and Yang's eyes begging to hear the whole thing.
Blake sighed and took a seat in an empty chair. Ruby returned to hers while Yang leaned against the wall. "Do you remember how I told you I was a part of the White Fang? Well, they weren't always violent radicals."
Ruby thought back to what she'd learned about the terrorist organization in the past months. "Yeah, I remember. They used to be a pacifist party until their leader changed."
Blake nodded in approval. "Yes. Well, when the new leader started to breed an army, all of his followers had far too little combat experience. Most had never even held a weapon before. So he looked for trainers for his militia. He turned to mercenaries who would do anything for money. His first choice was Slade Wilson."
Five years before…
Blake and the other recruits stood at attention as their leader entered the room.
"New recruits," he began. "Thank for joining me. Thank you for your willingness to follow me and do whatever it takes to reclaim our freedom from oppression and persecution."
And this was the part where Blake tuned him out. If nothing else could be said about the White Fang's new leader, let it be known that he knows how to monologue. The first couple of times you hear him, it's awe-inspiring. The tenth time, he's just ranting again. Yada, yada, yada, fighting against oppression. Something, something, the crimes of the humans. Blah, blah, blah, building a new world. What did he want us for again?
"-But if you are to follow the White Fang, you must be able to keep up. I have arranged a trainer for you to prepare you for the coming battles you all will face. I introduce to you: Slade Wilson."
As he said this, a white haired man donned in black and orange entered the room. No extra ears. No horns or tails. He was just a man. The entire room of recruits erupted in protest when the human walked in.
"Settle yourselves!" the leader ordered. "Mr. Wilson is here to teach you to fight. That is all. His loyalties are not to the rest of his kind. It is my order that you will follow his instruction and you will pay him the same respect as any of your other commanders. Recruits, From Shadows!"
"We'll Rise!" the recruits recited their pledge. Their leader then turned and left the room. Once he was gone, Slade paced in front of the group, inspected each and every one of them.
"From Shadows, We'll Rise," he finally spoke. "A catchy slogan. It summarizes the ideals the White Fang are being driven by. But what it really is, is a battle plan. In case you haven't noticed, the White Fang doesn't have nearly the funding, resources, or manpower of the militaries and private armies you will undoubtedly be put up against. And the people they do have, have next to no combat experience. In a straight up fight, you would last mere seconds. Some of you may last a whole minute. But you would all die. And your rebooted cause is too young to afford losing any soldiers. Which is why I will not be teaching you to be soldiers. Instead, I will be teaching you to be thieves, saboteurs, and assassins. Yes, you will rise from the shadows. But first, I will teach you to stay in the shadows and use them to your advantage. Stealth and finesse are far greater tools than any amount of guns or swords."
"That's debatable." Oh no, Blake thought. Shut up, Adam.
Slade spied the bull Faunus at the back of the room. "And you would be?"
"Adam Taurus," he replied.
"And how would you argue against my point?" the mercenary asked.
"Well, to put it simply, this is a coward's tactic," Adam claimed. "Hiding out of sight so no one knows you exist? That's exactly what the Faunus have been doing for centuries." As the angry recruit continued his rant, Slade silently made his way over to him. "The whole purpose of the White Fang is to rise up against the humans; not continue to hide in fear! Our words are too loud for us to protest in silence! When I swing my blade, I want my enemies to look me in the eyes and know that it was me that defied them!"
By this point Wilson was mere inches from Adam's face, glaring into his eyes. Adam glared back. Suddenly, a gunshot went off. Adam dropped to the floor and clutched his foot.
Slade announced to the rest of the group, "As you can see, Mister Taurus here was so intent on looking his foe in the eyes, he didn't notice me draw my gun until I had already shot him in the foot. Stealth isn't always about hiding in wait and being unseen. Simply drawing your opponent's attention away until there's nothing they can do to stop you is equally as effective, as I've just demonstrated. I'm not teaching you to fight a war and I'm not teaching you to run and hide. I'm teaching you how to survive. And you can survive a fight without your enemy even knowing the fight is happening." He then turned to Adam, who was still clutching his foot in pain. "Relax. It was only a practice round. Rubber bullets. But pull this self righteous crap in the field, and I won't think twice before using live ammunition." Adam glared back at the mercenary but said nothing.
Wilson turned and walked back to the front of the room. He stopped to inspect the youngest member of the group. "What's your name, kid?" He asked her.
"Blake. Blake Belladonna," she answered.
"How old are you, Blake?" the merc continued.
"I'm twelve," the little Faunus replied.
"You're a little young for this kind of thing, don't you think?"
"I've been here since the beginning. And I'm staying here until the end."
That brought a smile to his face. "Well then, looks like you've definitely got the spirit for it. Now how about we see how well you can fight?"
Two months later…
"The recruits are getting better," Slade informed his employer. "But they're still not ready for actual combat yet."
"I'm told that there are a select few that exceed past the rest. Tell me about them," the White Fang's leader demanded.
"There are some who learn faster than others," the mercenary explained. "Adam Taurus is particularly exceptional with a blade. He's fast and strong. He's started accepting my tactics and teachings, but he's still having trouble clearing his head while in combat. His rage is starting to cooled down to a simmer, but he's only a second away from boiling over. When he does, he's excellent at pushing the attack, but not so much at falling back and regrouping."
"Sounds useful. I could use someone like him," the leader noted.
Slade took a moment to digest his approval of Adam and his over-aggressiveness before continuing. "Probably the most notable is young Blake Belladonna. Her semblance only adds to her already impressive skills in CQC. Her reflexes are beyond those of the rest of her peers. And her smaller frame makes her an even more elusive foe. She's probably the member of the group that's come the farthest in the last two months."
"How would they do in an actual combat scenario?" his employer inquired.
"They're doing fairly well against the AK-130s you gave me, but most of them still aren't ready yet. Except for Taurus and Belladonna. They can take down a few androids and hold their own against a human opponent, but I still wouldn't be dropping them in the field on their own anytime soon."
"Alright. You'll go with them then."
Slade paused to make sure he'd heard correctly. "Wait. What?" he asked.
The White Fang leader handed him a folder. "Here's where you're going and what I want you to do there. Get what you need to be ready. You're leaving at dusk."
The mercenary opened the folder and saw their destination. "You want them to raid a Schnee Dust warehouse?"
"If we're to rise up against our human oppressors, we're going to need to strike somewhere; make ourselves known. The Schnee Dust Company is at the top of the list for their mistreatment of our kind. It only seems fitting to start with them."
"They're also the richest on your list. And you want to send in recruits with two months of training to take on their defenses?!"
"I've waited this long to take action. Justice can't wait any longer."
"Two months isn't enough to adequately prepare you for a combat situation," Slade argued back.
"You said yourself that they could handle security drones and live guards," the leader reminded him. "Smaller Schnee warehouses like this one are primarily guarded by Atlesian Knights with very few guards keeping control of them. I'm not putting them anywhere they shouldn't be able to handle."
"They're not ready for this!"
"That is why you're going with them. You will be there to keep them alive and make sure the job gets done. If the recruits see that they're putting their training to use, they will believe they're actually making a difference and push themselves farther. That's good for us."
Slade stormed away to roll everything through his head. He knew the White Fang leader was an arrogant bastard, but he didn't realize he was this eager for the world's attention.
"You'll get a month's payment for each mission I send you and your recruits on," he offered the hired gun. "Consider it another contract." If Slade Wilson had one weakness, it was large sums of money. He'd dive into Hell and drag the Devil himself back out for the right price.
On his way out the door to gear up and gather his squad, Slade warned the man signing his paychecks, "You're going to get too many people killed with tactics like this."
The leader declared, "And their losses will be avenged in the coming storm."
The Bullhead was still about a mile out from their destination. Blake's nerves were going ballistic. She was on her first actual mission. She was finally going to put everything she'd learned to use.
It was her, Adam, and their instructor, Slade Wilson. Adam seemed very anxious to get out of the transport and get the mission started. Mister Wilson sat silently in his seat sliding a whetstone along the edge of his sword.
After a long and quiet flight, he resheathed his sword and stood up from his seat. "Alright, recruits, let's go over the mission. Our destination is a storage warehouse for the Schnee Dust Company on the outskirts of northern Vale. Know this. We're not here to steal Dust. We're not here to capture the warehouse. Your leader simply wants to send a message. He wants a demonstration of the White Fang's seriousness. Stealth is not important here. We want to be seen."
Adam's eyes filled with a little too much excitement at that last detail. "What kind of resistance are we expecting?"
"This isn't a hugely important facility to the Dust Company," their acting field commander informed them. "Their security is primarily composed of AK-130 androids. You two should be able to handle them by now. Just stay in close, take them out quickly, and don't let them group up on you. They're the most dangerous when they're synchronizing their attacks."
"Will there be any human guards?" Blake asked
"A few," Mr. Wilson answered her. "But don't worry about them. I'll take care of any live resistance. You just worry about the androids." He gave the two recruits a moment to take in the details they'd been told. "Now, tell me. Are you two ready to carry out the very first mission of the White Fang?"
The two looked to each other for a brief moment. Adam looked back at the mercenary. "Hell yeah." Blake nodded enthusiastically.
Slade couldn't help but smile. "Let's do it then." He pulled his mask over his face and turned to their pilot. "Take us in." The mission had officially begun.
The Bullhead flew in just over the warehouse. Slade dropped a sticky bomb on the roof of the facility and detonated it, creating their entrance. "Go!" he yelled as he jumped out of the ship and into the building.
Adam and Blake were close to follow. The instant she landed, she had to go into action. The Atlesian Knights were already closing on her. She drew her sword and rushed in like she'd been instructing, making quick, clean cuts and taking them down fast.
She was able to catch a glimpse of Adam during her deadly dance. He was a couple yards away in the middle of his own swarm of androids. He was hitting harder and showing more ferocity than Blake was. He was enjoying this arguably a little too much.
Slade was on the upper observation platforms taking on a group of four security guards. He was a force none of them could overcome, even with him only resorting to non-lethal blows.
Blake kept tally on how many Knights she'd taken down. She cut down her fifth one in time to see another eight charging her way. Not so sure about this, she thought as she readied herself for the fight.
Before she could attack, gunshots went off and five of the oncoming androids blew apart. In the blink of an eye, Slade charged in and split the remaining three to pieces. "Clear!" he called out as the last one few in half.
Blake looked around and, upon seeing no more drones, repeated, "Clear!"
The two waited for Adam to report, but heard nothing. "Taurus!" Slade called out as he looked around for the Faunus. They heard slightly muffled crashing and gunshots coming from the upper levels. Her teacher turned to Blake and told her, "Wait here," and ran upstairs.
Slade followed the sound of the commotion to the main office overlooking the warehouse, worried of what he would find. There was a scream and the noises ended.
His worries were proven accurate when he opened the door and was greeted with a grotesque display. There were the bodies of three guards lying around the room in pools of blood. Adam was stood over the mutilated corpse of the manager of the facility and resheathed his sword.
He turned to face the mercenary, wiped the blood off his face, and said, "Clear."
"What did you do?" Slade asked the bull Faunus.
"I followed orders," he replied. "I think this'll send enough of a message."
Slade looked around at the boy's work. "This wasn't part of the plan. These deaths were unnecessary."
"Sometimes blood must be spilled so progress can be achieved." He sounded just like his leader.
Slade never told Blake about what actually happened in that room. The twelve-year old girl didn't need to know.
And this is how the next few months went. Slade was primarily responsible for training all of the White Fang's recruits. Their leader began to assemble a group of advisers and tacticians to aid in the planning process. Unfortunately, Slade remained the only one with any real military experience. He was still looked to for tactical advice, but this almost always turned into arguments that were brought to votes he had no chance of winning.
When an action was decided on, Wilson would be sent out on whatever mission he was assigned. He was almost always accompanied by Adam and Blake. They were the recruits with the highest degrees of success in the field, even with Adam's blood lust.
But those successful missions had consequences to them. Every time a plan went right, it would spark the leaders' arrogance even more. They would get cocky and be willing to take higher risks at the chance of higher rewards. Slade had a harder time trying to reel them back to the realm of sense and logic.
"They're a bunch of goddamn fools!" Slade shouted as he stormed out of the White Fang's "war room."
Blake was passing by just down the hall. She didn't know what was wrong, but was curious enough to go find out.
"What's the matter, Mister Wilson?" she asked the angered mercenary.
"What's the matter is your leader's going to get everyone who follows him killed!" he vented, not even trying to hide anything from the twelve-year-old girl. "He's so caught up in wanting to go down in history as a great revolutionary, he isn't thinking about his actions or what their outcomes will be if things go to shit."
"Well," Blake said, "he hasn't led us wrong so far. Look at everything we've done. All the people we've liberated from torment and hate."
Slade looked down at her. "Ah, Blake. Always so optimistic. You have no idea how many times he's almost screwed you. Every covert mission was almost a full on assault. Every scouting party was almost a bomb squad. Those liberated souls were almost acceptable casualties. You're lucky he ever listened to the tactical advice he's been paying me to give him."
"So as long as you're here to help, everything should be alright." Blake was still trying to point out the positives.
Slade sighed, bringing his anger down. "Well, kid, it seems everything will be less alright then. I'm done." Blake's positive outlook just got a lot more negative. "It seems my arguing was viewed as too disrespectful and proof of me being biased against your cause. I've been terminated. I will not be returning."
"You're leaving us?" the little Faunus girl asked him.
"Yes. And here's a piece of advice: do the same. The White Fang is not what you think. No good will come out of this militaristic approach. You'll be wanted as terrorists. You'll be hunted down and arrested. And that's if you don't get killed along the way in your leader's crusade."
Every word hurt Blake more and more. The man who taught her everything she knew, the one she looked up to, was telling her that the cause she had believed in for years was a corrupted one. All of this was piled on top of the fact that he was leaving them.
"You're wrong," she spoke up. All of Slade's attention was on her. "You're wrong about the White Fang. You're wrong about Adam. You're wrong about me. We aren't everything you say. The White Fang isn't the mind of the Faunus. It's the voice. The White Fang does what the Faunus want. We turn to violence because people notice. A protester with a speech and a sign gets ignored. If he's holding a sword, everyone listens." The tears started to flow. "You don't like it because you don't get it! You don't understand the struggles of the Faunus! You haven't had to live with it your whole life! If you had, you'd understand why we do what we do!"
Slade made no argument. Nothing could convince her. She was still too young and idealistic. He dropped down to one knee and put his hand on her shoulder. She refused to meet his eyes, feeling betrayed. Slade said to her, "I'm sorry, Blake." He stood up, turned, and walked away.
"And that was the last time I saw him," Blake finished telling her teammates. "And you know something? He was right. Everything he said about the White Fang was true."
"What happened after that?" Ruby asked.
"The White Fang kept hiring mercenaries as trainers, but paid them to only teach what they were told to teach. None of the rest were given nearly as much power and authority as Slade was. They were to make soldiers out of us and that's all."
"And Deathstroke?" Yang asked her. "They just let the guy who knew the most about the White Fang go free?"
"They sent a team after him, but none of them returned. They took his right eye, but, as we could see, that didn't exactly hinder him much. But Slade's a gun for hire. He's bound by a code to never reveal information about his contractors. It's not good practice."
"So we're not figuring out who's paying him to kill us then, are we?" Yang concluded.
"Doubtful," Blake said. "All I could get out of him was that it was someone we angered enough for them to offer a lot of money for us out of the way. Torchwick was the first one I thought of, but he's still in jail." She looked up to see her teammates giving guilty looks and refusing to make eye contact with her. "What?"
"Professor Ozpin came over before you got here," Ruby explained. "And… well… he told us that… apparently Torchwick… um… broke out."
Blake paused to make sure she heard right the first time. "What?!" she finally broke. "He got out?! How?!"
"Ozpin said there was a jailbreak," Yang explained to her enraged teammate. "Most of the inmates were recaptured before they could escape. But a few of them managed to get loose and are still missing."
"And Torchwick happens to be one of those few," her sister finished for her. "The professor thinks that he may have hired the assassin to go after us to get revenge for what happened at Mountain Glenn… and the freeway… and the docks… and maybe that Dust shop, too."
"Yeah," Yang added, "we're probably pretty close to the top of their shit-list."
"Great!" Blake snapped. "We know who's paying to have us gone. But that doesn't help the fact that the greatest assassin in Remnant is after our heads unless we surrender to him and agree to stand by as Torchwick and whoever else he's working with destroy society as we know it! And if we refuse to surrender or try to make any moves against them before their plans are done, we're dead!" All of this was rough on Blake, but learning that Torchwick, the criminal she devoted arguably too much of her focus into stopping, was back out on the streets again pushed her over the edge. Once again, he was bringing out the worst in her. "What are we supposed to do now?!"
"We stop them."
Everyone turned in surprise to who said that. At some point, Weiss had woken up from her drug-induced sleep. Everyone's stress levels were so high, her team didn't even notice.
"We stop them like we always do," she said confidently.
"It's not that simple anymore," Blake assured her. "Deathstroke is more than we can handle."
"Nonsense," the heiress wrote it off. "I thought the White Fang was more than we could handle, but look at the last few months."
"This is different," the cat-eared girl continued to argue. "He's a professional assassin. He kills for a living. He's practically perfected it!"
"And we're huntresses! We're not trained to give up as soon as things seem too hard. We find a way to win. We did it with the Grimm in the forest. We did it with Torchwick and the White Fang. We'll do it with Deathstroke."
"I'm with Weiss on this," Yang jumped in. "And he caught us when we weren't ready. Now that we know he's after us and who we're dealing with, we can be a bit more prepared."
"He didn't exactly make it easy for us to fight back, either," Ruby pointed out. "I love her to death, but Crescent Rose isn't the best when it comes to cramped quarters and small platforms."
"Not a whole lotta room for four huntresses and a very large man on those catwalks, either," her sister added. "Our numbers became a weakness up there."
"If we're going to face him again," Weiss said, "we're going to have to do it on our terms."
"Yeah. Make him come to us," Yang agreed with her.
"But how do we do that?" Ruby asked. "He's more likely to just shoot at us from far away like at the stadium. We need to take him on face-to-face."
Blake was about to try and convince everyone that it was still hopeless again, but then an idea appeared in her head. "What if we get him when he least expects it?" Everyone gave her their attention. "What if we take up his offer? We agree to stand down. We meet him in person to negotiate surrender and spring an ambush. We take him then. We'll catch him off guard."
Weiss was the first to speak up. "I say we do it."
"There's only one problem, though. Slade only gave us a twenty four hour window to contact him."
Ruby's eyes filled with worry. "There's no way Weiss will be ready to fight by then."
"And I don't think she should be left here alone," Yang noted. "I think Ruby should stay here just in case."
Ruby whined, "But I wanted to help fight."
"Ruby, think about it," her sister told her. "We don't know if there's anyone else after us. If we all go and leave Weiss here by herself, she'll be a sitting duck."
Ruby thought about her sister's reasoning for a moment and nodded her head. "Alright. I'll do it."
"So Ruby will stay here with Weiss just in case while Blake and I go bust some heads."
"Are you sure about this, Yang?" her partner asked. "You and me against Deathstroke?"
"Come on, Blakey. We don't wanna be too unfair to the guy."
"Alright," Weiss said. "But where are you going to lure him to? He caught us in a tight spot last time. I would suggest someplace more open with no one around to get hurt. Maybe a construction site or something."
"Wow, Weiss," Yang criticized her, "Do you think you could pick something any more cliche? How 'bout an abandoned cathedral?"
"Don't worry," Blake assured her. "I know just the place."
With that being said, Blake pulled out the communicator she'd been given and made the call. "Slade!"
It didn't take long to hear a response. "You convinced your friends facing me is suicide?"
"We give up, Slade. Tell your employers they win."
"Excellent. But it's not quite that easy. They're going to want to be convinced a little more. And for them to be convinced, we're going to have to meet again. In person."
Team RWBY looked at each other with concerned looks. They didn't have to convince him to see them at all.
"Alright," Blake agreed. "Noon. The old Schnee Dust warehouse outside of north Vale."
They heard Slade chuckle a little. "Going for sentimental value, I see. I'll be there. See you soon, Blake." He ended the call.
Blake set the communicator down. The team sat in silence for a moment.
"Well," Ruby broke the silence, "one way or another, this is going to end tomorrow. One way being that you guys are going to totally kick his butt! Another way being that he will see the error in his ways and we can convince him to turn against his dark masters and join us and be the fifth greatest huntsman ever! You know, after me, then Yang, then Blake, and then Weiss."
"Please," Weiss spoke out against her placement on Ruby's list, "I'm obviously far superior to you." The other two just laughed a bit at the two's petty argument.
Then she remembered. With everything that's happened, she had almost forgotten. "By the way, Weiss," Blake said as she picked up the bag she'd dropped upon Yang's bear hug as she first entered the room, "on my way here, I found your stuff by security where you left it." She handed the heiress a bag containing her overpriced merchandise.
"Well," Weiss said as she took it, "at least we've got the important things." She then proceeded to open the bag, pull out one of the shirts, and put it on. "Alright, I can die happy now," she joked.
Everyone laughed as Weiss took out the rest of her purchases and started passing them around. She tossed Blake the hat, and the sisters each a shirt. While everyone put their distributed gear on, she took out her Gavin bobblehead and set on the table next to her. She plucked its nose and smiled as it head bounced around.
"Hey, guys," Yang called to her teammates, "I think we've got a problem."
Everyone looked to their blonde companion to see what was the matter. The shirt she'd been given was stuck. She couldn't pull it down any farther. Turns out the Ice Queen's clothing wasn't exactly compatible with a girl of Yang's… proportions. She looked up to her team with her arms being held up by the tiny sleeves and the rest of the shirt bunched up and sitting on top of her boobs. "Anyone wanna trade?"
With those words, the room burst into laughter. Regardless of what tomorrow would bring, tonight was going out on a high note.
Deathstroke ended the call with Blake and set his communicator down. He then reached to his earpiece to make another call. "Rose, have you found them?"
Rose Wilson, AKA Ravager, responded, "I have. I'm on the rooftop directly across from their hospital room. I'll move in."
"No. Hold your position for now," he commanded.
"I can take them!" she argued back.
"Rose, that's an order! Three huntresses is still out of your league. I will be meeting with Misses Belladonna and Xiao Long in the morning to 'discuss' a surrender. They will not be giving up quietly. I will deal with them. With her teammate still hospitalized, little Miss Ruby Rose will be the only one left to put up a fight. You should be able to handle her. But wait for my signal before engaging."
"You sure about all this?" she asked doubtfully. "How do you know that one of them is staying?"
"I'm a professional, Rose. I'm not going to just blindly trust my enemies not to retaliate. Blake was foolish for not assuming the communicator I gave her contained a listening or tracking device. I heard everything."
"Fine. I'll hold here until your command."
"Good. And, Rose, remember. Keep collateral damage as low as possible. Our employer doesn't want more attention drawn to this than is necessary. Get in, take out the targets, and get out as quickly as possible."
Slade heard his daughter groan. "I understand, Father."
A/N: And thus concludes the longest chapter in Contract. (Just barely longer than the next one.) Simultaneously the most difficult and most fun to write.
The next chapter is it. The final confrontation. Prepare yourselves.
Also, if you want to get more details about Torchwick's escape from prison, check out my companion piece, RWBY: Jailbreak, tomorrow.