AN: Fair warning that this is from Adam's POV, and Goatman is his own warning. No actual content warnings are earned here, but it's definitely unpleasant inside his head.


Day 5: Jealousy

Red Rag to a Bull

Adam knew where Blake had run long before he saw her in the Vytal tournament's broadcast. She hadn't hidden herself terribly well, only covering her faunus trait with a bow to pass as a mere human. She hadn't bothered to get fake ID, enrolling at Beacon under her real name. She'd even kept her combat outfit. Did she think him an idiot? Of course he'd find her. Unless this meant she wanted him to? Was he supposed to fight for their love, to win her back? No. He'd done nothing wrong. She was the traitor. He was in control here, and he refused to dance to her tune. His darling would learn her place.

As soon as he learned where she was, he'd almost given into the temptation to break into her dorm and wait for her there. Beacon's pitiful excuse for security couldn't keep him out. He could punish her for her betrayal by killing her new team one by one, right in front of her. Adam would find grim satisfaction in exacting some very personal vengeance on the Schnee heiress. An eye for an eye. But his spies reported the dorms were clustered together. If Blake's new friends made too much noise, he might find more student huntsmen swarming him than even he could deal with. And if the professors intervened…

No, best to be patient and wait for Cinder to carry out her plan. Beacon would fall, and that would be the perfect time for Blake to learn her lesson. He'd make her run again, this time from her team.

Adam unrolled his scroll. He pulled up the videos recorded by his spies. He shouldn't rewatch them again, shouldn't have rewatched them at all. But he couldn't help himself. He wanted to see Blake. Needed to see her. Even if it meant tormenting himself in the process.

He started with the first, stolen footage from the hidden cameras in the Emerald Forest, recording the initiation of Beacon first years. Adam knew what to look for, easily spotting Blake shadowing different students. Picking her partner, not leaving it to chance. Choosing his replacement. He tasted blood. He'd bitten his lip too hard. Blake's doing. She'd promised to stay by his side. The liar had chosen a human to be with for the next four years. Not that they'd really have that long. Adam would make sure of it.

Blake would pay for smiling at this human. He knew her smiles. She hadn't faked it, a human made her smile for real after they just met. Worse, the human made her smile more than he had for weeks before she left him. What did this Yang have that he didn't? Nothing! She was nothing, less than the dirt under his boots. The only thing she had was her looks, and the combination of unusual eyes, big bust and long legs shouldn't do anything for Blake. Yet Adam saw Blake's eyes wander when her new partner wasn't looking. Had he really known Blake at all? Had she always liked girls as well? Should he have been worried about how close Ilia was to Blake? But Ilia wasn't the problem now.

Adam had ordered his spies to find out as much as they could about Blake's new partner. None of them dared question him, but he could tell they didn't understand. Any human he demanded knowledge about usually died within a week, yet Yang Xiao Long still breathed months later. His White Fang really didn't understand why Weiss Schnee hadn't been assassinated yet either. Their time would come. Soon.

He played the next videos. His teeth clenched hard enough that only his aura prevented his teeth from cracking. Adam hated seeing Blake and Yang grow closer, Blake going from keeping an aloof distance to being within a human's personal space, their body language far too comfortable. What did Blake even see in her partner? Was it as simple as shallow physical attraction? Yang seemed nothing more than a loud and obnoxious stereotypical dumb blonde, at least at first. Adam's spies unearthed her academic scores, rivalling the Schnee's, yet Yang put in nowhere near as much work. She wasn't making her friends do it either, he'd checked, and got some odd looks from his spies for it. They'd better not think he was interested in stealing Blake's pet human. The thought sickened him. Humans belonged in mass graves, unworthy of fraternising with faunus.

The blond monkey faunus appeared on screen, flirting with Blake. Sun Wukong was definitely a pest, getting involved with fights against Adam's White Fang. Blake's eyes also lingered on Sun enough to show some interest, but only enough for Adam to wonder if she had a type and if he himself had been an exception to it. The blonde who concerned him was Blake's partner. They spent far too much time together, and were far too close for his comfort.

Adam didn't like seeing Blake with Sun, but Yang was clearly the real threat. The footage of Blake at the Vytal dance proved it. Adam never danced with Blake while she was with him, they didn't have time to waste like that. He hadn't cared until seeing Blake in Yang's arms, laughing together as they swayed to the music. He promised himself that Yang would pay for those hands on Blake before he was done with her. No quick death for Yang. He'd let Wilt taste her blood. Soon.

He knew from the rest of the video that Blake only danced once with Yang, spending the rest of her time dancing with Sun. But her eyes kept finding Yang and lingering on her. Adam wished he could have stained the human's white dress crimson with her blood. If Blake still couldn't keep her eyes off Yang, she could watch her die.

"Brother Adam? The traitor's pet human is about to fight again."

Adam switched to the live broadcast of the Vytal tournament. He watched Yang fight against one of Cinder's underlings, the boy with grey hair. Blake's team must have put Yang forward for both doubles and singles rounds because she was the strongest they had. Adam would be sure to break that strength. She was nothing compared to him.

Cinder's boy didn't seem to use his semblance in combat, instead relying on kicks and what appeared to be Wind Dust fired from his boots. Maybe it was a passive semblance. Adam didn't really care, unless Cinder turned on him and he had to fight her and her disciples. Perhaps he should have his spies look into… What was he called? The Vytal broadcast provided it: Mercury Black.

Adam frowned at his scroll. Mercury had turned his back on Yang, acting like he'd won the fight with a barrage of Dust projectiles, but hadn't bothered to check his opponent's aura level. Yang hadn't actually passed the threshold yet. She was close to it, but… He leaned forward, watching intently. Her eyes had turned red before in combat, something Adam assumed was linked to her semblance. But he didn't recall seeing her hair glow like molten gold with flames dancing from it before.

Yang launched herself at Mercury, battering her way through his aura with a flurry of punches. Either she'd been holding back, or… Her semblance. It had to be. Torchwick had whined about her punching his Atlesian battle mech into scrap metal. One of the Paladins supposed to be for the White Fang. Adam had assumed the crook had been exaggerating. But then Mercury's aura shattered, taken from above the threshold to nothing with a final punch. Something that shouldn't be possible, going by the strength of his aura up until then.

Adam touched Wilt's hilt. His own strikes became exponentially stronger if he absorbed enough hits first, feeding energy striking his sword to his semblance. That Yang's punches did the same, combined with the showy effects with her eyes and hair… Her semblance was similar to his, although Moonslice was superior. She clearly had to take damage to charge hers up, dangerously draining her aura before she could even use it. Adam's admittedly consumed aura when he unleashed it, but charging it didn't. She was a one trick pony going by what he'd just seen. Adam wasn't. He could use Moonslice multiple times before his aura broke. He couldn't even remember the last time it shattered.

He'd show Blake that Yang couldn't protect her. He'd remind her that Moonslice cut through aura. Another way his semblance was better than Yang's. He'd very literally disarm her without empowering her damp squib of a semblance with the devastating hit.

Adam watched the aftermath of the match, as Yang turned on Mercury and broke his leg, seemingly unprovoked. Cinder's handiwork through her other minion. He'd witnessed the girl with green hair manipulate minds before, messing with his White Fang. Whatever she'd made Yang see was some compensation for that. Especially considering it left her arrested and surely disqualified. But hopefully not expelled from Beacon. Adam wanted to find her when it fell. Preferably all of Blake's team, but he'd be satisfied with just Blake and the one she'd replaced him with.

He delighted in the shouts of dismay from the audience before they cut the cameras, and closed the scroll. That sort of mass negative emotion would draw Grimm. Maybe enough for Cinder to call on him to enact their plan. Adam had to be ready. It was time to load up the captive Grimm onto the stolen airships.

At least his suffering through watching so much of Yang gave him an idea of how to approach fighting her. Adam was sure he could take her in a fair fight, but she didn't deserve one. Her doubles fight with the garish cat faunus exposed Yang's vulnerability to her own temper. All he needed to do was provoke her in the right way and she would be at his mercy. Not that he had any for humans. Or faunus who betrayed their kind, like Blake.

He was going to enjoy making them pay.


AN: Writing Adam's POV is pretty uncomfortable. Too bad it couldn't have been one of the Bees with a more lighthearted case of the proverbial green eyed monster, but my muse apparently hates me.