Chapter 3: Rebirth


The deadbolt remained. Neopolitan watched her faunus partner consider it for a moment before punching through it. The reinforced door surrounding it splintered, and he grabbed the entire locking mechanism, tearing the construction off its hinges and out of the door frame before tossing it several metres out into the sand.

With a single hand.

She felt a twitch of pleasant surprise at his casual display of strength, making her wonder if he just wanted to show off.

"Maybe you should have gotten into locksmithing instead of terrorism."

Adam said nothing as he kicked away the remaining debris and stepped inside.

Neo would have been miffed about how rude he was being to her wonderful self, but to be fair, if she'd just come back from the grave after growing back half of her face, she couldn't say she'd know how to react to it. She hadn't been sure exactly how to break that part to him, on account of her being mute, so she'd only been able to watch on as he had finally managed to coordinate himself long enough to look at his reflection.

He hadn't said anything since.

It was kind of eerie, even by her standards. Was that how she came across to people?

The inside of the house smelled like stale rot and dust — definitely abandoned. Wood panelling covered the walls and the floor was an abused high-pile dirty lime green carpet that was easily tramped down beneath his boots. The rest of the interior design was similarly outdated. She drifted behind him as he navigated through the building. The front door had led him directly into the living room, with the rest of the house connected down a long hallway, which in just a few strides, he now stood at the entrance of.

Old wood creaked somewhere above, and he stopped dead in his tracks, hand going to the smaller of his swords. When he heard nothing, he continued to the first open door, sparing a glance behind him; no doubt to check she was still there.

She was keenly aware of how his eyes glowed in such total darkness, as was typical for most faunus, but she couldn't help but notice the entrancing mismatched lights that burned beautifully beneath the slits of his mask.

Neo had firmly made up her mind that she hated that mask.

He had refused to remove it since he'd woken up, keeping his head down for the most part as he'd found his way to his feet and stormed his way into the first house in the ghost town he could find inside. That part at least she didn't mind. B&E had always been a favourite of hers, though admittedly, he hadn't had as much mind for subtlety as Neo would have liked. But they could work on that later.

First though…

She pinned a glare at her new enemy, that was still sitting comfortably and firmly over the bridge of Taurus' nose, as if the heat of her annoyance would be enough to melt the material like wax under a wild flame. Neo wished more than anything that she still had a body, if only so she could rip that stupid thing off of his dum-dum face and crush it to powder under her four inch heels.

She'd read somewhere once that snakes could charm their prey by looking into their eyes and hypnotising them. And the first time she looked him in the eyes after his… resurrection, she found himself wondering if he was part serpent. The pronounced asymmetry of his face made her want to stare, drawn, like a moth to a flame Yet, the beguiling lights, much like the everlasting one outside, was a sight she simply couldn't bear to look at for long.

Not least because they were heterochromatic, too. Just like hers.

If Neo still had a heart, she was sure it would be racing in her chest about now; thought whether the cause was fear or lust, she certainly couldn't say. He had a fire in him, a constantly simmering ember that grew into an inferno as he came into his own.

It wasn't often that Trivia Vanille resurfaced in her head, long buried as the mousy little socialite had been in memories of bloody glory and phantom thievery, but now she wouldn't shut up, obsessing over his appearance, his dum-dum smirk, how strong he was, how tall he was, and how he was the only person she'd ever met who had eyes like hers. Unbidden, her ever active imagination began to conjure fantasies that bordered on the romantic.

She wasn't sure she'd survive this. Whatever this was. He was inside her like some kind of…virus.

Yes, she thought with renewed conviction, a virus. He'd infected her somehow. She could almost see outside herself and watch the ember of soul searing hunger that overcame her at the sight of him.

And she didn't have a clue what to do with it.

Well, that wasn't entirely true.

She had plenty of ideas.

Like tying him down with the best rope she could find and fucking him silly until she figured out how to have coherent thoughts again.

Or sitting in his lap and having him use that tongue of his to lick ice cream off her nipples until she screamed.

Or better yet, both at the same time.

Both. She decided. Both was good.

Of course, there were a few minor setbacks to work out in her genius master plan; the lack of rope, ice cream, and the most prominent one, being that she lacked a body to satiate her urges.

It would seem that her brilliant ideas would be little more than daydreams. For now.

With an inaudible sigh, Neo sulked, her eyes drawn to the subject of her thoughts, as he once again made his presence known. She noted, with no small degree of satisfaction, that his shirt was almost wholly unbuttoned, revealing a trail of pale skin to ogle at her leisure.

There was a scar that was raised a rather old on his upper chest and another, newer, still pinkish that trailed from mid-sternum to somewhere below the waistline. It emphasised a perfect chest and stomach. How many sit ups did it take to look like that, she wondered? How many crunches to put those perfect lines on his hips? To show every perfectly defined muscle in his stomach? His chest and shoulders were lean, strongly muscled; the biceps had pumped enough iron to show the right amount of steely muscle without being overwhelming.

Amused at her sheer feminine interest, she returned her gaze to his scars, her thoughts taking a slightly more bitter tone. He seemed to have quite the handy semblance. Definitely one she'd never seen before, and if her memories of the reports she'd read were still accurate, she wasn't alone in that assessment. It was almost admirable in a way. Having a semblance like that was something people would kill to get a hold of, and the fact he had managed to keep that power hidden was another mark in his favour. It certainly explained his renowned fearlessness in battle. What was there to fear from Atlesian bullets, bombs and blades, when no wound was enough to stop you? How could anything hope to overcome that?

She couldn't help but be a little jealous.

Neopolitan had always hoped that her death would be quick, painless. A bullet through the skull or a grenade ripping her apart in the blink of an eye. She had never held much hope for a long life; most of their kind didn't make it to retirement. She'd always thought she'd be fine with that. Live fast, die young, Hush in her hand, and hopefully dragging whatever or whoever had managed to do the deed into the burning depths of hell with her. Or failing that, she'd die via relentless repeated orgasm on a beach surrounded by a harem of muscular men, mountains of lien and ice cream.

But Neo had never expected to wind up as a ghost, or to not even remember how she died.

An unnatural chill fell over her at the thought.

The ever intrusive idea had been worming its way into her head of late, growing more pervasive with every passing hour. Just what had happened to her? And why?

There hadn't been any pain. No warning, no cue of any kind. Of that, she was sure. It was… easy to go over the last things she remembered. She'd struck out on her own for a few nights. Roman usually didn't care, so long as she was careful— Keeping your skills sharp is important, Neo —and she didn't even have to share her take, so long as she never got greedy. It was supposed to be so simple; something she'd done a thousand times before. It was supposed to be…

The same sequence of events kept running through her mind. Holding up that Dust store, disabling the silent alarm, and that clerk had been just about to fork over the money, and….

That was as far as it went.

There had been a white light, and that had been that. She hadn't even been able to find her own body….afterwards. Had it been turned into one of those things? In her heart, she didn't think so. She hadn't seen it back in the store anywhere, though admittedly she hadn't had much time to look before she'd left with Adam. In fact, there hadn't been… anything. Just blood and debris. She couldn't possibly be sure of who the former belonged to, but one of the perks of being so small was that her body, even her skeleton, would have stood out even among a mountain of corpses. The only thought of what could have happened was that it had been desecrated in such a way that even the very remains were no more. The implications were unpleasant.

To cast away the onset of her despair, she turned her thoughts elsewhere, to little avail.

She missed Roman.

He'd been her teacher, her mentor, and although she wasn't attracted to him, the man had an undeniable charisma. Born with a silver tongue in his mouth, he was a man who wanted the world, and knew exactly how to take it. He always had something to say, some winning charm to ply and raise her spirits. Maybe that was why she had felt drawn to Taurus? They shared the same overwhelming confidence, but by contrast, everything about the faunus screamed rough and feral, unrestrained and fierce, which, she was forced to admit, had its own allure. Or was it maybe the idea of taming that nature for herself that appealed to her?

Now that she really thought about it, she hadn't given much thought to faunus before.

Roman never liked them much, but then Roman didn't really like anyone much; unless they were working for him, or he was robbing them. Which was fair, she supposed; being a master thief didn't exactly bring you much in the way of friends. People tended not to like being liberated of all their valuables for a higher cause, said cause usually being her and Roman's bottom line.

Then again, it wasn't like the White Fang had been going to win any popularity contests anytime soon.

Her thoughts stopped at the sounds of running water.

She looked up to see that Adam had disappeared. For a brief moment, the ghost girl took the time to mull over what course of action to take. Moments later, the slamming of a door and the rumbling of the pipes in the walls told her he hadn't left the house, and almost without realising it, she started to relax again.

Something told her that her faunus needed his space, but a little, dastardly voice in her head, as sweet as honey, and as toxic as poison was telling her to follow him. Trivia might have nearly sputtered at the very thought of spying or quite even coming onto him in such a vulnerable, albeit tempting position, but Neo had no such compunctions, and for a few brief seconds, the thought was oddly...enticing, before she thought better of it.

The way the house seemed to thunder and shake had absolutely nothing to do with her decision.


No matter how much he looked at it, his reflection didn't change.

"Aaaaaaaaaarrrrghh!"

Adam punched the mirror in front of him. Glass and brick splintered and exploded outward from the force. He hit it again, and a third time. The frame of the mirror remained standing with a ragged hole crushed into the wall. He dug the claws of his two new fingers of his right hand into the soft skin of his temple, hoping the pain would be enough to finally rouse him from whatever nightmare his consciousness had sunken into. His shirt felt like it was trying to suffocate him. Leaning into the sink, he breathed hard through his teeth and tried to focus on what he needed to do.

Even though he was caked in dust and blood, it was still possible to make out that there was something wrong. Were it not for his mostly-intact facial features, eye notwithstanding, it would have been difficult to recognize him as the man he used to be.

He leaned into the mirror, both mesmerised and appalled at what had happened to his face. An inky blot of deep garnet was spreading across the upper half, not quite skin anymore, but almost as if another organism were consuming him. His eye had warped, changed into a slanted, ominously glowing thing in a depth of starless night. It was eerie, that half of his face no longer responded to human expression, instead being fixed in a permanent, if still vague scowl. The earth-coloured surface shimmered with an almost malevolent sheen.

Adam ran a finger over the skin around his new eye. He could be imagining things, but it felt…. Warmer to the touch? Like a coal stone that had fallen from a fading furnace. The smoothness of his new skin was equally disturbing, deprived of all the callouses and weathering that years of battle had given him.

The remains of the bathroom mirror fogged up as the shower's water heated and Adam looked away. He had glimpsed his changed appearance for a moment after crawling his way to the creek side and he still couldn't get over what he saw.

He had two eyes again!

It was a gift, part of him whispered. Why question it?

He could use his new organ well enough, though it had taken him a while to realise that he was seeing out of both eyes. The transition had been less than seamless, jarring even, and he was less preoccupied with waxing philosophical and more preoccupied with staying alive. It was hard to focus on your surroundings when your head was splitting and the only thing you wanted to do was vomit. But when the nausea had finally passed and he got his first look at something that wasn't his feet or sand, that was when he noticed the hundred little things that had been nagging his subconscious. The first were the new fingers. Looking down at his hand, he flexed them unconsciously. The flesh was discoloured, a gradient of raw scarlet, that stood out all the more against the pale skin of the rest of his hand. Yet, they did not sting the way the flesh rubbed raw did when exposed to foreign elements. The texture was all wrong. Instead, when he ran the fingertips of his other hand over the new skin, he felt something akin to…. scales?

The second and perhaps the biggest were his nails. Their shape had changed. He rotated his wrist, examining the new thick talons on each powerful finger, the pronounced tendons and veins on the back and in the wrist. And then there was the nightmare….

He couldn't remember much of it. It was all jumbled, and disjointed, like a half finished jigsaw puzzle, but there were parts that he couldn't wipe from his head, parts that would be engraved in his memory forever. The wrath, chief among them.

The sky hazy red, the heat distorting anything not immediately within crunch of skulls under his heel. Amitola had been first. He had snatched her still beating heart from her chest, prying apart her ribcage like a book with his bare hands. She'd died screaming. Sienna had followed. She made things simple. All he'd had to do was wrap that pretty little chain around her throat and pull, until he heard a …pop. The flames had done the rest. He'd watched her skin bubble and crack as they consumed his prey. And then there was her. She tried to speak but couldn't—it was too hot and too dry, as his hands closed around her neck. Claws tore the muscles from her bones, the stringy twang of gristle snapping like elastic as she tried to flee.

Even now, as he looked at his reflection, he could hear Blake's delicate neck bones snap audibly with a nauseous crunch as her head hit the ground at a right angle from her body. If there had been and pleas for mercy, Adam had been deaf to them. If she had screamed before she died, Adam hadn't heard it over the pounding of his own heart, over the visceral supernatural rage that burned in his breast. He remembered lifting the limp corpse up by its long hair, twisting it over his knuckles and smashing it back down over and over until dirty, dry pieces of bone were all that remained, unleashing a roar that shook the very atmosphere.

And it had felt so damned good.

It was just a dream, of course. His neurons firing uselessly as he lay dying on the sands of this strange world. Blake was dead already, as were the others, and not by his hand. He would have remembered if he had. (More was the pity with Amitola, the mewling little vermin.) But even if he truly became that monstrous, would he even notice the change now?

Adam blinked; colour and clarity had reentered the world at some point in the past few minutes. His newfound sight had started out a little fuzzy around the edges, but even that was clearing up. The left eye did feel tender, which made sense, given his circumstances, but otherwise, he hadn't felt much else. He supposed it didn't really matter.

What did matter was how he'd regrown it.

Even as he had the thought, he felt the warm blood from his new claws piercing into his skin streaming down the sides of his face and neck. Felt the skin close and sew itself shut, as though it had never been opened.

'How many faunus do you know with regeneration semblances? Fuck that, how many humans?'

The thought of Cinder instantly crossed his mind, and he felt something swell in his chest. Anger curled hot and unstoppable in his gut, like a blazing inferno that wanted to burn him from the inside out. Burning. It hit him like a missile to the chest, strong enough to stumble him mid-stride, and the impression of searing heat lasted long after the impact. He gripped the sides of the sink, coughing frantically and desperately trying to right himself, all but writhing in agony and rage.

After a while, he tried to think of nothing at all, then he tried to focus on how it was at least a little petulant having a breakdown here at the sight of his own face, not being hideously scarred by selfish humans and permanently impairing him for the rest of his natural life.

Somehow, that helped.

He stopped clenching the sink and stood there, almost cradling himself for a moment while he waited for his hate to subside. Finally, he managed to wrest ahold of himself again, and the burning stopped, leaving him panting.

There was no proof that she was responsible for his…. transformation.

Cinder Fall may be a twisted human being with a mysterious agenda, and looser morals, but he couldn't just blame her for all of his problems. No matter how… outlandish, said problems might be at the moment. And even if she was responsible… then the mission hadn't changed. He would still have to track her down for answers, and he would, to the ends of this cursed world if he had to. He was still alive. He was still (mostly) of sound mind. And he could still fight. And there was no point in getting mad about things when he could be focusing that energy on finding solutions. Even if constantly getting the runaround was getting a little old.

Still, he had to wonder.

What the hell had happened to him?

Had he unlocked some latent, secondary semblance? It seemed unlikely. Even if it were possible to have two semblances, he hadn't felt his aura being drained when that creature, that demon, had injured him. A fresh wave of intense anger and hatred at the memory of the loss pulsed in him. The urge to fight, to maim, of revenge, and the burning feeling that sizzled below one's skin pricked up the hair on his body, forcing Adam to try to remain calm. When it passed, he attempted to think back to that moment with what little imitation of calm he could muster. Perhaps he had summoned his aura in that desperate moment? He'd been pretty busy at the time; screaming in mortal agony, watching his life flash before his single eye, etc. He could forgive himself for not having the presence of mind to notice the finer details. Even so, part of him still doubted it. Which presently just left him with even more questions.

He looked down at his tattered clothes. Dried blood, only some of it his own, stained every article of his clothing in ugly spatters, along with a more recent crust of dirt, sand and, upon his impromptu inspection, on his weapons too. He supposed that tended to happen when you spent gods knew how long lying in sand and your own life fluids, but it was still rather annoying. He stripped them off with half hearted abandon, noting with great dissatisfaction that several of his shirt's buttons were missing. He certainly wasn't about to run around outside searching for wherever they'd gone, so if he couldn't find a serviceable change of clothes, he'd have to go unbuttoned for the foreseeable future.

He removed Wilt and Blush from his belt, dropping it in the pile of fabric, before shrugging off the nameless nodachi strapped to his back, taking it into his hands for a brief moment,

Adam did wish to name the sword, as he had once done for Wilt. Master Raven had always taught him that a sword was little more than a sharp piece of metal, a tool meant to kill his enemies and nothing more. Still, he had named his tool, a name he gave it as a symbol of his rotting innocence and the death of the gullible naive fool he had once been. She had mocked him relentlessly for it, but he hadn't cared.

This sword, he decided, he would also name in time, if it didn't have one already, but something inside of him made him feel as if he was not yet ready. Even if he did, the blade would merely make him feel as if he were not worthy to call its name. For now, it would remain little more than merely a sharp piece of metal.

Another mystery he had no answers for. Even if it had saved his life.

He dropped it with the rest.

The shower water, despite everything, felt uncomfortably cold. That at least made sense; he doubted the boiler still worked properly, given the circumstances;, but the bathroom mirror had completely fogged up and he could feel the warm humidity of the air. He sighed and filed it under the growing list of "things to investigate" in his mind, then showered, becoming increasingly frustrated with how difficult it was to adapt to his altered depth perception.

The rush of water, the smoothing of steam, the way it spread across his scalp to wash away the dust composed of the remains of the city: there was still a tang of grief and spice of slow building rage, but it was becoming easier to compartmentalise, instead indulging on the feeling of numbness that would allow him to function long enough to see his goals through.

After about an half an hour, Adam successfully managed to wash a majority of the blood and grime off of himself and out of his hair. Since he didn't have a blowdryer, he did not bother drying his hair. There was nothing to be done for his clothes, the blood had long since dried and any attempts to wash out the bloodstains would only spread them. He wasn't too sure he had much time for laundry anyway. Even though he had done his best to clean off the blood, some still remained under his claws and fingernails where he didn't have enough water to scrub it all out, and he glared at them with rage so intense they trembled.

He dried himself off relatively quickly, unwilling to chance leaving the gremlin to her own devices for too long. She seemed the impatient type, and nothing good could come of giving her cause to come and search for him. The faunus shuddered. To say nothing of his modesty. The last thing he needed was to be parading himself in his birthday suit in front of someone as malevolently playful as Neo. The embarrassment might well have finished the job that Grimm, demons, constant battle, years of human oppression, and the SDC couldn't.

Keeping that harrowing thought in mind, it was probably for the best that he was only half dressed when one of his hands caught fire.

He didn't even notice it at first.

It had started so small, with an incessant itching at the edge of his palm, while he was attempting to re-buckle his belt. The itching spread and bloomed further as he reattached Wilt and Blush to their harness, beginning to cover the back of his hand like a sprouting rash. To his fingertips as he reached for his shirt with his other hand, intending to slip an arm through a torn and abused sleeve. A little discomfort was nothing to him. It was only when the fire crept his wrist did he begin to sense the burn, and see precisely what had brought it about. His pupils, new and old widened, his heart hammered against his ribcage, a thunderous beat that reverberated through his body, matching the rhythm of his escalating panic as he recoiled in horror, flailing his burning limb wildly.

The blaze would not be banished however, emboldened anew by his frenzied movement.

He considered for a fraction of a second— to smother them with his shirt, before throwing the idea aside just as quickly. No. That would just set the rest of his rags on fire, and then what would he wear? The cracked linoleum of the floor was equally of no help, and his muscles started to twitch frantically, his nerves registering the tongues of flame creeping up his forearm like a row of teeth, biting into his flesh.

Thinking quickly, he thrust his hand into the sink. He scrambled with his non burning hand for the tap, seconds before wrenching it with such force that it came off in his grip.

He regretted it almost immediately. Water practically fountained up from the pipes, blasting him square in the face; leaving him sputtering and coughing as he tried to step back and block the torrent. As the water collided with his skin, steam rose from the basin, his breath coming in jagged, uneven gasps, as if his lungs struggled to draw in air amidst the suffocating grip of fear and smoke, each inhalation a battle against his own panic. He sank slowly to the floor, sweat stinging his eyes as he checked his skin for burns. To his lasting shock, he found none, astonishment rising mostly from the burned meat smoke that rose from his skin and filled the small room. But even as the feverish heat faded, he became increasingly aware of a painful point on his chest; the same spot where he had first felt the world's worst case of acid reflux only a half hour prior.

Tentatively, he peered over the sink, almost childishly, as if in fear of what he would see.

The melting enamel at the bottom of the basin was doing little more than lazily oozing towards the drain, bubbles sizzling and popping with a dull orange glow. The hiss of steam rose rapidly from the sludge unceasingly, almost blinding him with its intensity.

Adam winced.

He took several deep breaths in preparation to stand. Then, with great care, stood, and steadied himself on the side of the sink as his pulse rattled his entire body and shook his vision. He shuffled over to the door, realization stopping him before he reached for the handle. The sudden increased heart rate from the hateful fire within him made him nauseous and he gripped the doorframe with both hands, eyes clamped shut, until it stopped.

By the time he'd slammed the door shut behind him, the room was thoroughly drenched. Water was trickling through the crack under the door, soaking into the carpet; as he hastily stepped away. To say nothing of the mysterious handprint that had seared itself into the tiles.

At least it wasn't his house.

Bundling his possessions under one arm, Adam used his teeth to tug his glove on, hoping that his two claws didn't rip through the delicate fabric. He rather liked them, and he didn't have great odds on paying for a new pair any time soon.

"Okay, Taurus," he told himself, feeling faintly like an idiot. He could practically hear Neo laughing at him, and resolved never to let her know what had just transpired. You know absolutely nothing about what just happened in there.

It wasn't far from the truth.

He looked down at his hands. He had been on fire. Fire! Even as he looked at his unblemished hand, he swore he could still see the air around his digits shimmer with heat and tiny sparks dancing in his palm. It sounded ridiculous to even think about, much less say. Coming up with any kind of rational explanation for what had just occurred was as futile as it got. And yet, he could not help but try to apply reason to the unreasonable.

Had he really done that?

How had he done it?

And what, in the name of all that was sacred to the Gods, was happening to him?!

His hand refused to unclench, and he could feel whatever power this was humming under his skin, barely containing itself. And no matter what he did, he didn't have a clue how to stop it.

The surge of terror that rose over him like a cresting tide was almost enough to bring him low again, before his conscious mind stepped in, angry at the idea of being afraid of anything. Stomach doing backflips, he stumbled back and covered his mouth, feeling suddenly nauseous. He turned his head away, unable to stand the sight any longer.

What the hell did that thing do to him?

Adam had no idea. The only thing he knew for sure was that he was out of his depth. Still shaking, he examined his jacket again, and swore. The tails were frayed and bloodied from battle and the painstaking scarlet embroidery that he had weaved into the edge so long ago had been all but ripped out, unwound thread sticking out of the ripped material. There was little to be done; he doubted he'd be able to find any decent thread any time soon, and that meant even if he knew where his buttons had gone, he had no means to replace them.

"Should have gone with a zip…." He grumbled for a moment, glaring as he lay his two swords against the wall so he could shrug his arm into his shirt, before thinking better of it. The last thing he needed was to set that aflame too. He pulled his limb back out, leaving him with a sleeve dangling uselessly in the air. The low jingle of metal rang out as he did so, muffled by folds of fabric of his jacket, and as he tried to determine its source, it fell out of his pocket on the ground in front of him with a thump.

He recognised it immediately.

Another of his former mentor's gifts; a silver chain she had left him upon the completion of his training. It was a simple thing, not particularly ornate or fancy, which was rather surprising for a self described bandit in his opinion, but he had accepted nonetheless. He wasn't even sure why he'd kept it. Sentiment perhaps?

The thought of his one-time master struck him with an idea.

Minutes later, Adam examined himself, pleased. His trademark jacket was now drawn half cape-like over his shoulder in the style of a haori, with only his right arm through the sleeve; and secured comfortably by his silver chain and clasp. Similarly, his shirt sleeve was likewise half removed, leaving him with half of his chest and stomach exposed, but it was enough to keep him serviceable for the time being. The single button, he had used to keep his shirt from falling off, and he had tied the loose sleeve to his belt, which had thankfully survived intact.

He liked to think the Mistrilian style suited him, but if he was really honest, he was far more concerned with not wearing burning clothes. Or at the very least damaging the ones he had on any further than he had to.

Adam supposed he'd best go off in search of Neo.

He didn't have any luck with the living room, so he tried the next room, which appeared to be the kitchen. No sign of the gremlin here either, but by then a desperate hunger had settled firmly in his gut. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten anything, and he didn't know when he'd get a chance again.

The fridge was leaking water. It pooled on the laminate floor, making splashes as he made his way across the room.

He opened it, only to be overcome with a powerful stench of rot. There was were slices of meat in colors he knew meat wasn't supposed to be.

The freezer half of the fridge was practically empty , save a single box of ice cream sandwiches. He wasted no time, ripping the paper off, and devoured one in front of the fridge.

It had been an eternity since he had eaten anything, and the sweetness of the ice cream stung his taste buds with the first bite, making his mouth burn with an icy chill. He closed his eyes and savored it, the faint aroma of vanilla and chocolate amidst the stick of rotting food enveloping The cold refreshed him to such a degree that, for a moment, he almost forgot he was crouching in the dark in a stranger's kitchen.

And thus, when he finally looked up, he was met with the face of a glaring Neo, who adorably had her arms crossed under her bust.

"What?" He said, almost growling, refusing to even consider slowing down.

The moment hung there, in awkward silence, each of them waiting for the other to make a move.

"I'm not sharing. Besides, you're a ghost. You don't need to eat."

Adam tried not to smirk at her pout, as he picked up a stray can near his feet and rolled it in his palms.

"Best by, huh?"

He jammed a finger-claw into the top of the lid. Putrid juice and air pressure fizzed out around the gap, along with a smell that reeked to high hell and back. With a savage growl, he threw the can across the room, shattering the window.

He should have expected that, in all honesty. He should have also seen his companion struggling to contain one of her typically smug smiles, before he caught her staring at his hand and quickly turned away. He wasn't quite ready to have that conversation yet.

Without another word, Adam stood and left the room, wandering through the house's stuffy rooms again. Finally, he managed to find one with a bed. It certainly didn't look like much. In fact, it looked like a whirlwind went through it. The bedclothes were crumpled and torn, spread out over the carpet. The curtains had been ripped down, and one of the window panes was smashed. A bedside table lay on its side, with a lamp and alarm clock smashed and strewn over the floor. The entire space lay under a film of dust and ash, but there were no corpses to be found, and no monsters to kill, which made it more than suitable for his purposes. He shook the discarded light grey comforter out onto the floor, along with one of the pillows, and returned them to the bed.

The faunus stared at the ceiling above him and tracked the network of matted cobwebs, wondering where their spiders were—wondered where he was—before boredom finally brought sleep.

The last thing he remembered seeing were a pair of searching mismatched eyes looking down at him from the end of the bed.


The ride was mostly silent.

Adam couldn't help but be grateful; as he didn't have the energy to humour an extended dialogue with Neo at that moment; his sleep had been restless and fitful — he had woken and felt as tired as he had before he slept. It would seem that the water demon was as good as her word; the route to Beacon's bluffs was a straight line, another blessing that the faunus was more than willing not to look in the mouth.

As was the fact that the collapsing cliffs had formed an easier, if not perfect path to his destination, through the valley. The water near the launch had dried up into brackish puddles, leaving only a graveyard of Bullheads and mud to navigate through as he approached the mountain cliffs. Even the footpaths up the cliffs were partially unlocked to a point, but a particularly heavy landslide near the top had destroyed the stability of the structure, and had led him to an uncomfortable conclusion.

He was going to have to abandon the bike.

With a sigh, he dug his hands into the rock and hauled himself up.

Adam found himself clinging like an oversized spider to the underside of a jagged stone spur—a slanted outcropping —hanging above a drop deep enough to have been the gullet of the world itself. Below were only drifting clouds and a cracked canyon floor so far away it was all but invisible unless the light and the overcast collaborated just so. Fingers and the toes of his boots jammed into any available crevice, clutching with a tireless strength, Adam chose to stop peering down at a drop that might just kill even him, should he fumble but once.

Scuttling sideways until he reached the edge of the protruding stone, the faunus reached his left arm upward. He felt about until his questing fingers found a crevice on the spur's side that would hold his weight, sank his fingers as deep as they would go, and let go with his other hand and both feet. For an instant he dangled, his fingertip grip all that kept him from a dreadful plummet. Then, with a single flex, he hauled himself up until he could reach the fingers of his right hand up and over the stone. With one last exertion, he brought his left hand up again, so that he hung from the top of the outcropping, and lifted until he could just see over the edge.

The Academy had undoubtedly seen better days.

Much like the rest of Vale, what buildings he could see were actively crumbling. The wide paved avenue that he assumed led to the lecture halls and auditorium was cracked and weathered, as buried in sand and ash as everything else. The only reason he could even make it out at all was the sight of the skeletons of withered trees and broken lamp posts that marked its edges. The two aforementioned structures weren't doing any better. Even from a distance, he could see the roof of the auditorium had partially caved in, as if it had been struck by a colossal fist from the heavens, stone crumbling away with every stray gust of wind.

"Now what?"

But before he could assess precisely how much damage it had endured, or what his next move would be, he heard the steady click of footsteps marching towards him. Quickly, he shrugged, taking his nameless sword into his hand once more, just as a horde of sentries came around a corner and onto the avenue. Armed with two-edged battle axes and clad in ill fitting armour, they advanced on him with easy contempt.

Behind his mask, Adam growled—and leapt.

He could have reached any of the lower bridges or balconies of the crumbling towers with that leap, so deep had they sunk, but that would have meant coming up in the midst of a demon cluster. He'd be delivering himself into their hands before he could bring his own weapon to bear.

So instead, he leapt toward the wall opposite his goal.

The faunus swung his legs forward so that they struck the cracked stone first. His knees folded, absorbing the impact, thrust out again in a second jump straight from the wall itself and he plummeted down onto his targets from above. The startled demons thrashed about, moving to reorient themselves to face the unexpected attack, and succeeded mostly in getting in one another's way.

Adam tucked his legs tightly under him as he fell, so that they would not present the demons with potential targets before he could strike back. Blood and various ichors spattered in a series of short, swift geysers, followed by limbs and larger gobbets. His long blade had proved long enough to reach, and the tightly packed demons had left themselves no room to run. He almost laughed as he cut them down: it was so easy. So effortless. How hadn't he realised he had become so invincible? How hadn't he wondered what he had been missing? His world was like a blur. He was keeping up the pace with the creatures' swipes, while never once feeling the fatigue that came with so much sudden movement.

There was no graceful dance, there were no acrobatic stunts, all there was was a display of refined skill blended with bestial fury. Blood was spilled, flesh was cut, bodies fell, one after the other as Adam moved forward. Every one he cut down seemed to be replaced with two, and every two was replaced with four and so on. Seemed like the whole horde was focusing on him at the moment. Still he didn't stop, rather he kept his focus on cutting down the masses before him, until finally he stood alone, empty of any living being but Adam himself.

The wind pulled at his coat with fury and tenacity, a bellows for the fire burning at the centre of him. It spoke to much of what he had endured over the past few hours that, in the midst of the carnage and bloodshed, he could not muster the energy to be surprised by the sight of the demoness in the thick of it all.

She stood (if it could be called that) patiently in the midst of Beacon's courtyard before a large statue featuring two figures. The male stood in a cliche heroic pose, raised in a seemingly triumphant gesture. It probably would have had the intended effect if it hadn't been missing its sword arm. The female, sans head, had a double-edged battle-ax in her left. Below the two figures was a Beowolf, underfoot, with a shattered mask.

Storming down the shattered avenue, Adam approached the figure, fire blazing in his eyes. It would either surrender the answers he desired, or he would rip them from its hide.

But as he and Neo drew closer, it took notice of him, and he got the sense it was… pleased? "Welcome," the creature said, offering him a small bow. The gesture was enough to take Adam off guard, but before he could open his mouth, it spoke again, seemingly knowing what he desired before his tongue began to move. "My name is not important, but you may call me Nimue if that makes you more comfortable." She spoke in a calm and even tone, entirely unaffected by Adam's hostility. "It has come to my mistress' attention that you, who once lived as a mortal, must be wandering this world without any understanding. To show you my appreciation for humouring us, my mistress has permitted me to share with you my knowledge of events, events that you would otherwise be unable to glean for yourself."

The faunus blinked, not expecting such a forthcoming response. He turned to Neo, who gave him a simple shrug. These things could very well be half-truths or even outright lies. But it would cost him nothing to listen and consider her tales against everything else. "Ok. Let's start simple." He waved his arm across the expanse. "What happened?"

He regretted the question almost as soon as it had been asked. As the final words left his lips, he could practically taste the amusement flowing from the creature, as if he had told a particularly amusing joke. "A rather trite question, don't you think? Not to mention awfully vague. Perhaps you'd care to be more specific?"

His muscles grew tense as his body temperature rose, and Adam could almost feel his blood boiling in his veins.

"You know full well what I'm talking about." There was a gravel in his tone that he wasn't used to, a ferality that seemed to spook both the creature, and apparently Neo, who Adam barely sensed moving further out of the corner of his eye. The fire in his throat wanted to escape, and the smoke of its monstrous wrath began obscuring the edge of his thoughts.

Before he could dwell on the matter for any extended period however, the former quickly regained her composure.

"Incidentally, did you not encounter a large number of souls in this realm? Ghosts like your… acquaintance here?"

A little startled, Adam thought back to the procession of souls he had seen, roaming the skies on his journey, before relaying a slow nod.

Nimue continued.

"They are the memories of humanity in your former world who were purified by death. Even after drifting with their doomed world into the farthest reaches of Limbo, they still cannot let go of the past. A great many of them were involved with a woman that you have met...a woman by the name of Cinder Fall. As you have correctly suspected, she is the one who led your world to destruction. You stand here as the result of her acts in the former world. As you have proven your strength to my mistress, I wish to tell you something that you would not otherwise have learned...about her past, and what caused your current predicament."

The faunus nodded at her to continue.

"Firstly, you should know about an ancient cult that long operated in secret in your old world," Nimue said, fixing her full attention to Adam. "The Cult of Gaea were devoted to finding enlightenment through Chaos. By keeping an open mind to all existing doctrines and studying them in depth, they sought to divine the ultimate truths in the universe. The pursuit of that goal naturally came to include obtaining knowledge from those who reside in planes beyond your own and, eventually, striving for partnership and ultimately, power. Nearly every summoner, few as they were, in your world had at least tenuous connections to Gaea, as that is, or rather was, the main way they had to study and practise their arts."

"Summoners?" He managed to laugh a little, but whatever sounds came out sound more like ragged gasps and choking noises. Adam found that difficult to believe, and it seemed that Nimue realized it, because her tone shifted dramatically.

"You find it bizarre. And that is the way the Gaeans would have it. Can you imagine the consequences if those who once governed you learned to summon and command beings of such power? You yourself have tasted the power of but one of the weaker beings that hail from our plane. There are those among us whose mere presence can rend stars, unwind the very fabric of reality, who can drive minds to madness merely by beholding them. The results of such privilege being gifted to the unworthy, or even merely the knowledge of it, would be…"

"Catastrophic, " Adam finished, his eyes hardening at the thought. "But you're going off topic."

Nimue glared back, before continuing.

"Fall, when she first arrived in Vale, was bidden by her own mistress to seek out their vast library of knowledge. She had been tasked with the search of powerful relics, you see, and her mistress, a witch by the name of Salem, believed that the Gaean libraries would tell her more of their locations, and how they might be accessed. With their custodians seemingly long dead, they believed it would be simplicity itself to find what they sought."

"Thus, Fall was very much surprised to find the Gaeans alive and well. The feeling was not shared. Despite their vast knowledge and powers, they were taken by surprise, and could not hold her at bay. And so, in exchange for not revealing their secrets, they gave her access to their treasured archives, and it was in their tomes, that Fall discovered a text that had been written by an obscure figure, who had discovered the mechanisms of world rebirth. The scripture told of how Remnant would die and be reborn ad nauseam, leaving a shell of itself behind to create an egg for the next age's birth. But in order to gain the power to do so, she needed the blessing of a demonic sponsor. A pact, if you will. "

Neo's expression spoke for them both.

"So you mean to tell me that she actually summoned a demon?" The faunus exclaimed. It was the world's least amusing joke. The thought of Nimue's earlier words rattled around his head on an endless loop. Beings that could rend stars, and drive minds to madness. All of that power in the hands of someone as vain and greedy as Cinder, who was out in the wasteland doing who knows what…

But Nimue, entirely heedless of the great, world shattering revelation she had revealed, merely continued on despite her audience's disbelief.

"Seeing the means with which to supplant her mistress, and having acquired a sponsor, Fall then spent several months and a small fortune in order to trigger the process of world rebirth in a way that favoured her, with neither the Gaeans nor Salem any the wiser. What she did not realise was that the group she had infiltrated had enemies of its own. An opposing cult known as the Church of the Messiah had somehow been alerted to her deeds. The Mesian Knights organised a raid to stop her once and for all. Instead of being concerned about this, Fall attempted to turn her enemies against one another, using the very Gaeans who had lent her aid as mere sacrifices to her agenda."

Adam frowned. Something about that seemed odd. If the first cult were hiding deep enough to be suspected extinct, how had the others found out? Unless… "She was the one who tipped them off."

Nimue nodded. "Exactly that. But she did not merely rely on chance alone; she released her own demon into the gathering to slay both sides. That gave her just enough sacrifices to trigger the Cataclysm event. While that last day you spent on Remnant may have seemed peaceful, the truth is that from the moment the last corpse ceased to draw breath, the world you knew had been struck a mortal blow. That night, that battle, hidden from the eyes of men, was the last chance anyone had to stop these events unfolding."

"I see." He didn't, not really. There was a lot of information to process there, but he had asked for answers. There was no sense in lashing out at the ones he got. He took a few steps back and put a hand to Wilt contemplatively, the only sounds to be heard the crunch of gravel under his feet. "Second question." Adam said finally, drawing Nimue's attention. "What are you? Demons, that is?"

The response was as rehearsed as it was confusing, as though she had been asked the question a thousand times before. "Demons are, to put it in the simplest possible terms, the physical manifestations of humanity's thoughts, desires and ideas."

Adam and Neo somehow mirrored each other, studying her with the precise same tilt of their heads."You've lost me."

He could almost see the thinning patience in Nimue's many eyes as they narrowed. Even without a mouth, a sigh forming on non-existent lips.

"Consider for an instant, the historical development of what you call religion." She started slowly. "A caveman sees a thunderbolt hurtling across the sky, and decides in his head that there must be a figure beyond the clouds throwing it. Or that the reason he feels fear from the sight is because some unearthly monster is influencing him to make it so. From a result of that type of mortal perception, our kind are birthed into existence."

Slowly, a horrid thought crept into his brain. He felt his neck hairs stand on end, the hand that was still on Wilt beginning to twitch.

"Like the Grimm then?"

"Just so. In fact, the creatures you called Grimm are… shall we say, lesser cousins to ourselves. While they are formed specifically from humanity's endless fears and prejudices, we are beholden to more….productive emotions. Hence why no one in all creation has ever to meet one of those bottom- feeding weaklings capable of a civilised conversation."

Adam struggled to keep his features neutral as he pondered what the creature had imparted. The way her tone had shifted was of interest. It had been one of aberrant disgust when he had mentioned the Grimm, before slowly becoming one of superiority as time passed… the faunus filed that information away for later use. It was then that a certain fact that she had mentioned reared a new query in his mind.

"So hold on. You said that Cinder did all this to recreate the world in her image?"

A simple nod was all he received.

Adam chuckled.

"And how exactly did she mean to do that? Create a new world out of this? I mean, I might be the only other living person around to notice, but…" With a flick of his foot, he kicked a stone into the air, barely skimming Nimue's head. The rock bounced off the statue behind her, taking off the crumbling head of the Huntsman as it practically dissolved into dust on impact. " The place has really gone to hell."

Nimue pointed a long crooked finger to the white sun high above them.

"Do you see something shining in the centre of this world? That is Deus. That is what is holding this ruined amalgamation together, and that is also what provides power to the inhabitants of this world. Created by the gods for a singular purpose, It is the light whose sole purpose is to empower the one who will oversee creation. Creation is the act of bringing a new world into existence, made possible by the annihilation of the old world. Deus will allow a life form of its choosing to determine the course of the new world. Of all who may have survived your world's ruination, there must be those who yearn to be chosen, in order to realise their reality. For the shape of the world to come depends on who is chosen...and what their Ideal is. Over the course of mortal history, Deus has risen, matured, and fallen countless times. There are millions-no, billions of incarnations of Remnant that you have passed through, and have yet been unaware of, a part of the endless cycle of death and rebirth."

She cast her many eyes back at the pair.

"It should come as no surprise to you that Fall would seek to defeat Deus and prove herself worthy to shape creation as she sees fit. Of course, should you wish it, that avenue is open to you as well. The choice is yours."

"Final question." Adam asked, his voice taking a cold timbre, with only the merest hint of his true thoughts. "Why did you give me this sword? And what the hell did you do to me?!"

In response, Nimue tilted her head

"That's two questions. And whatever do you mean?"

"Do you have any idea" he hissed with withering contempt. "How irritating you are?"

"As the truth so often is. Slay the one that rules here, and I shall be permitted to reveal more."

And then, she was gone.

He'd already been sure that Fall wasn't someone to take lightly. But this put it into sharp perspective. He was no fool. He had spent near a half decade leading a private army and outwitting some of the greatest military strategists in the Kingdoms, but she had manipulated two ancient cults and an honest to goodness mythical witch at once, and had the backing of at least one exceptionally powerful and cunning demon. And now she sought to become a god, and if Adam had gained anything useful from Nimue's tales, it is that Cinder Fall would do anything for the sake of power. If he could manage it, avoiding her for now would have seemed the best option.

But he couldn't do that, could he?

He had to know why. He had to know what his part in all of this was. Adam knew he only had half the story, and it was enough to tear him apart inside. He needed to know what was happening to him. Why he'd been given the sword. Why he could seemingly now heal his wounds in seconds. Why no one would give him a fucking straight answer. And the flames….That fire burning, burning. Part of Adam just wanted to rip it out of himself, it seared his body more than any bullet, sword or brand ever could. He clenched his fists. Embers crackled in his now loose hair. The searing anger again, so soon, was already reaching a boiling point and already craved new violence. His world went yellow, as if he was seeing the world through an inferno, and he grabbed his head in both hands.

Adam recoiled, staring in horror as his glove started smoking, smoldering — he tried to rip it off, but the fabric was already too hot for his other hand to touch. All he could do was grip his right elbow, breathing hard as his hand burned right through the glove. It just disintegrated, ash crumbling to the wind as he watched on in horror. He knew subconsciously he was only making it worse, his panic getting the better of him but Adam's excuse was kind of a good one:

What the hell is happening?

He watched his hand clench, and although it was just an instinctual reaction to the idea that he should feel pain, it felt even more unnatural in a way he couldn't completely describe. Like a bad case of pins and needles. Barely controlling the urge to punch the already broken statue, his teeth bared, and it was only Neo reminding him of her presence that drew him back to reality as he stared out into space through the curtain of his hair, until slowly the hate began to subside.

Choking that fire back down had not gotten any easier, and it felt like the outbursts were happening more frequently. He took a deep breath, feeling a little more at ease with himself.

"I'm fine, Neo." Adam breathed deeply again, hiding his hand behind his back and trying to smile, but falling just short. "Just a little frustrated at the runaround." He adjusted his mask, a finger catching on the ugly crack beneath the eyehole. Absently, he wondered just how long he had before it shattered for good, if it didn't melt first. How resistant was it to heat? A question for another time, he decided. He returned his attention to the ghost.

"Neo?"

She looked pissed enough for the both of them. Lips pursed by suppressed fury, she stood, her fists clenched by their sides, and rolled her shoulders back, glaring at the space the demon had once occupied. Granted, In her defence, she was still doing a better job of keeping a cool head than him, given his recent emotional incontinence. For a moment, he pondered what might be wrong with her. Had she seen him just now? What was with that reaction? Admittedly, Adam was never the analytical type. He was in every sense, a man of action; impulsive and, in the worst situations, reckless. Nevertheless, he had always been more than capable of analysing his surroundings and thinking logically; but even he had been unprepared for what came next.

"That bitch!"

The words, indignant and outraged, was far louder than either of them had been expecting and the tone was garbled, but that was of little consequence. Adam's jaw dropped, eyes widening in disbelief, as if a sudden jolt of electricity had coursed through his veins leaving him momentarily stunned.

Because the voice hadn't come from him.

The ghost simmered with fury, her corporeal body shimmering like a desert heat haze as the faunus looked on, stunned into silence.

"That stupid, evil—"

As quickly as the tirade had begun, Adam found, as the rage continued to twist her face, that Neo was so furious that she could no longer produce coherent words. She instead chose to settle for releasing some extremely angry sounds that merely imitated words, though he could only catch perhaps every fifth one. With surprising eloquence too, had she just been pretending to be mute? It was certainly a commitment to the bit, he'd give her that.

The sentiment however, was one he entirely aligned with. Well, almost entirely.

Adam looked down, already lamenting the loss of his glove. The changes to his psyche, since his apparent resurrection were undeniable, as much if not more so than the ones to his body. Since his apparent resurrection, he'd been, for lack of a better term, erratic, bordering on irrational. Most notably he seemed even quicker to anger, ready to lash out at anyone and everything, and, far more disturbingly, he didn't really know why. Even his nightmares weren't safe. But while that was worrying, the confirmation of what he had long suspected had been enough that it almost seemed of secondary concern.

"Of all the Saturday morning cartoon supervillain shit to—"

He tuned out Neo's ramblings, deep in his own thoughts.

What Nimue had said hadn't been enough to fully know what was going on. She'd confirmed again what he'd been seeing before, but again, it didn't even touch why this all was happening.

What motives could Cinder possibly have to wipe the world clean of humanity? What did she have to gain?

On the one hand, he could hardly be the one to throw stones from a glass house. Adam could write a treatise for all of the reasons that humans as a species deserved extinction. He knew well that the natural proclivity of humanity was towards selfishness, apathy and sin. Only a select few of them ever managed, or even attempted to rise above their base nature to become something better, but a few grains of wheat could never justify an ocean of chaff.

The world as he had known it, was sick and diseased in every aspect.

And the cause of the disease was the same as it always was.

Humans.

Yet how could anyone hope to treat a disease that no one ever acknowledged?

And no matter how he had tried to open his people's eyes to that truth, they remained ignorant, most frustratingly by choice. 'Morality!' They cried. 'Turn the other cheek!', they repeated ad astra, while starving and licking the boots of their oppressors. So often had he felt like a shepherd, desperately trying to warn his flock of the wolf's slavering jaws, but they kept running into them anyway, to "not be like their enemy."

And the hilarious part, was that the self same humans with power used "morality " as a cudgel to hamstring and decry their own enemies, thus proving that morality did not make the world go around as much as short-sighted idiots who had never known strife would have others believe either due to faith, justice, or both or even neither would preach. In the very depths of his heart, he found humanity sickening, Every last one of them: useless, a boil on the ass of creation.

"And all my gods damned stuff was there and now I can't even—"

He closed his eyes and shook his head before reopening them. He supposed he was just cynical. The product of a lifetime being fed the lies of freedom and liberty while being demanded to sit down, shut-up, and told he was a lesser being simply for daring to desire the same immutable rights others had. It had all been a laughable waste in his honest opinion, an endless wheel of futility. And it was all too fitting, that of all the things to lay those wicked creatures low, it had been the ambitions of one of their own.

In objective truth, their destruction was perhaps the best thing that could have happened for all, even for themselves.

Adam cast a look over to the irate Neo. Of course, he also suspected that his companion wouldn't be as enlightened as himself, but that was no bother.

Where his rage sprouted from was the idea that his people had once again paid the price for humanity's iniquity. Even if there were those who had been too stupid or too naive to see it, they had, in one way or another, spent their lives under humanity's heel, forced to eke out existence as lesser beings. Even as traitors like Belladonna sought to perpetuate their servitude, so desperate as he was to be liked by the humans that he cared not how many men, women or children died in the process—so long as they were not his own of course— Adam could not say with confidence that he deserved death. Even if his family's collective stupidity was largely indistinguishable from malice, they were still part of the people he had sworn to protect.

And they, along with every faunus in existence, had been killed, murdered by human greed.

The idea disgusted him. Angered him beyond any natural measurement.

That now everything he had gone through, everything he had done, everything he sacrificed - all of it, for nothing.

It was the only thing that made sense.

At least, that had to be it.

Didn't it?

And it was in that uncomfortable moment of self reflection, that he had an epiphany: the flames. When he lost his temper, or got agitated, he would feel like he was burning…. He held up his bare hand to the light, examining his normal looking palm.

"Could I harness that fire?"

Now that he was a freak with mismatched skin that burned from the inside out when he got angry, his little suggestion, should it be correct, had a way of opening up new, yet completely unknown possibilities. It would certainly make killing Fall for her… indiscretion much easier, if it were so.

However….

He pushed his hair back with a swift motion, smoothing the loose strands away from his eyes.

There was a matter to attend to first.

"Neo."

His voice was calm, yet stern, cutting through the air like hot steel and instantly drawing her attention. Inwardly he gave himself a pat on the back, for having the wherewithal to use his "command" voice that he had once employed for rebellious recruits. Granted, this human ghost, no matter how attractive, wasn't nearly worthy enough to be under his authority, but it was good to know he held such power all the same.

"I'm as angry as you are. No. I'm even more so. If you want to rant, that's fine. I'll even join you, if you like. But before we indulge that luxury, there's work I have to do. Finding and slaughtering Cinder, preferably before she gains god-like powers and makes herself supreme ruler of all creation." He met her eyes as her glare narrowed. "So? What do you want to do? Hang around here, or watch me flay Cinder alive?"

It seemed as if she'd had enough of talking, choosing instead to glare haughtily at him, before rapidly signing.

"Used up our word quota, have we?" He remarked snidely. Ordinarily he would have held a grudge for the deception of making him believe her mute, but his heart wasn't in it. Even more so, he had noticed that she didn't seem comfortable in speaking. Her tone had seemed… off? Maybe there was a language barrier at play here, and that was why she hadn't felt comfortable speaking to him? With a nod, his eyes carefully followed her finger movements, and when he had deciphered them, he snorted with disdain.

"Do I think I can?" The mirth in his voice could not be understated. "I don't know how often you watched the news before all this, but I understand my talents in the craft of violent, improvisational murder have been fairly well publicised over the years."

It had been.

The Atlas News Networks had been running glorified highlight reels about his works since he was seventeen. Not that he was bragging or anything…

He met the challenge of her self-satisfied smile with one of his own. His had a sharper cast to it, his face grown too used to cruel taunts to quite manage harmless play. He leaned toward her just enough to give the unnerving impression of looming.

"You know what I want, do you?" The spectre almost whispered as she lifted her chin, her face only brightening with the opportunity for defiance.

"Well, the angry shouting kind of gave me a hunch."

Neo seemed to understand. There wasn't a whole lot that the faunus could read from her expressions, but she wasn't moving at all, or giving any real indication that she had anything else to say. Adam would have thought she hadn't heard him at all, were it not for the fact that her eyes were trained firmly on his mask while he spoke. His mind was too tired to really think about that much at all; too many things that wanted and needed to be processed that he lacked the energy to deal with.

Is there something else you wish to ask, human?"

Her features seemed to shift, jumbling with a noise like the crunch of glass underfoot.

And he found himself looking at his own face. Her semblance? He supposed that tracked. Semblances were powered by the soul, and what were ghosts but souls? Still, seeing himself with breasts was a… uncomfortable sight. He made to turn away, if only so she couldn't see him blush.

Suddenly, the meaning of the gesture dawned on him.

"You want me to take off my mask?"

The ghost nodded resolutely, still wearing his unmasked face in a smile that didn't quite suit it, albeit with Neo's diminutive stature, which Adam had to admit, was just as unsettling.

And he laughed. He couldn't not laugh at her. The strange part was that it felt ok to laugh. He'd been afraid, for a while, that he couldn't laugh anymore. It turned out he could, and it felt pretty good to do it.

Finally, he obliged her.

Reaching up to his hairline with his unblemished hand, he pulled the mask from his face, smoothing back the fallen strands of hair that fell loose with the motion. He raised a brow, as if to question if he met with the girl's approval.

"Satisfied?"

Rather than provide him with something even resembling an answer, the diminutive woman seemed content to stare, almost in a daze, at his new eye. Adam could certainly understand the feeling— he could barely believe it himself. Even so, he watched her carefully as she drew closer, tracing a small phantom finger over his regrown skin. For the briefest moment, he could have sworn to himself that he actually felt her cool touch against his cheek…before she attempted to flick him on the nose, only for said digit to pass through the barrier of his flesh to no avail.

"Very funny, Neil."

Flashing him a grin, Neo stuck her tongue out at him and batted her eyelashes, an oddly bizarre gesture to see performed with his own face, even more so on her distinctively feminine figure. Nonetheless, he rolled his eyes, oddly amused, perhaps even pleased by her response.

It was nice to know at least one person who didn't think he looked like a freak; even if she was the ghost of an annoying human.

He placed his mask carefully back over his face.

It was time to continue onward.

If the faunus had to guess, they were near the base section of Beacon Tower, the most prominent part of Beacon Academy that, incidentally, also doubled as the headmaster's office. If Fall had indeed been here, then that was the first place to look for a trail. The building itself was an enormous cylindrical structure supported by four flying buttresses, that seemed anything but stable, to say nothing of the building itself. Half the building had collapsed and the other half had large cracks in the wall. But on checking around, Adam located a set of large metal doors at the bottom of some stairs. CCT in yellow letters stood out there. There was an electronic lock on it; a Scroll was half-buried in the sand at the bottom of the steps. Adam flicked it open.

Embossed on its cover was a snowflake insignia that he'd know anywhere.

"Schnee, huh?"

He allowed himself the time to smirk at the idea that the Schnee the scroll had belonged to was more than likely demon food, as he doubted money could buy them mercy from them any more than it could him. The mental image of the Schnee in question attempting to bribe one of the creatures with bits of plastic while having their legs chewed off was an amusing one, he had to admit.

With a sure stride and a firm resolve, Adam began exploring.

The room he found himself in consisted largely of a single chamber, far greater in height than in width. Roughly thirty paces across, it was more than six times that in depth. Balconies, bridges, and retractable gantries protruded from the walls at seemingly random heights, presumably to house the colossal databanks, screens, and signal arrays that once allowed the denizens of Vale to communicate across the Kingdoms. Open archways led from those protrusions into the steel walls, allowing access to whatever rooms and passages made up the remainder of the facility.

The clattering of loose stone was loud in the echoing silence. Nerves still on edge, the faunus turned, weapons in hand, in time to see a small shape frozen among the debris. Though its details were hidden behind the mechanisms and rubble, Adam felt eyes locked with his own far above. A single heartbeat passed before the figure bolted like a startled animal. Not wanting to risk what was potentially a scout escape to bring the horde down upon him again, Adam bounded after it, moving fluidly over the debris-covered ground, swiftly gaining. His own ease contrasted greatly with his prey who seemed to lack the alien animalistic grace of the fallen horde; in fact, it moved with ungainly desperation, tripping over cracks and stray rubble, just barely maintaining its footing. Strange.

Something metallic scattered against his heel, scraping against the stone floor.

As his night vision adjusted to the dimly lit room, he looked around again. There were bloodstains on the floors and walls. Some boxes on a cart had been cut open with a blade, spilling their contents. It was mostly papers and styrofoam pellets. From that, he could believe terrible and violent things had happened here, but it wasn't his only sign.

The shield under his boot was white with a gold trim, a heater shield, if he wasn't mistaken. He didn't like to think of what had happened to its owner. Especially with it being caked in dried blood.

Sniffing the air, he got a whiff of flesh, bile, and things he couldn't identify; he winced trying not to gag at it. He held his breath and listened, smelling human fear and the rapid heartbeat behind it. Sensing these things in his current state brought him to the edge. The corpses of the creatures around him had once been human, if the scraps of clothing they still wore were anything to identify them as. Stunted wings, vestigial and useless, dangled morosely from their backs. Their heads were misshapen, their mouths fanged; they were, in purpose and nature, not even individuals but weapons, no less so than the weapons they carried. No doubt these had been Huntsmen.

Even so, there was one among them that stood out.

The girl was lying on the floor, obviously dead. Something—some sort of beast had torn into her face and neck. There were hideous red gashes in her skin, and her long, vibrant red hair was long since matted with blood. Her eyes were bulging vacantly, and her mouth had been forced open in what looked like a last attempt at a scream. Her hands, still gripping a weapon, had twisted fingers, as if she had been attempting to ward something off. Her legs had been bent under her in such a way that even Adam could see they were broken at just a cursory glance.

A rather pitiful end for a Huntress.

But what really stuck out to him, aside from her more…normal appearance, was that, despite the corpse being at least somewhat old, the blood seemed… fresh. Relatively anyway. It wasn't the bright red of flesh blood, more of a dirty crimson, but he could see fresher tracks leading from the body further into the chamber. A survivor? Or a well fed demon?

It was enough to elicit a frown— he should have smelled that long before he saw it.

Perhaps he'd overlooked it?

He supposed it didn't matter.

He tracked the footprints carefully as he walked to the elevator. The door at the end of the hall was different, a heavy steel door made for security, but opened smoothly at the press of a button. Seeing that they led inside, he thought nothing at first upon stepping inside, and as the door closed. Seemingly of its own volition the elevator lurched into motion, before rattling upwards on steel cables that vibrated with an almost musical resonance.

It wasn't until the elevator stopped that he realised what was wrong. It was something so simple, so elementary even a child could have predicted, and it was probably about to get him killed.

The lift hadn't called itself. He certainly hadn't. Neo hadn't. And everyone else was dead. Which meant that someone else on a different floor had—

The door opened with a gentle chime, the attack swift and sudden, as Adam felt the cold steel tear through his flesh. The blade sliced into his side and up towards his heart, before bursting through the back of his shirt. His chest ripped, ribs broke, as he stumbled forward onto the arming sword. He gasped, his eyes bulging in disbelief. From his open mouth came gurgling, sputtering sounds. He took a difficult step forwards, digging to stay in control, to drag himself away.

And then the flames took over.

Horrible primal instinct took over as he lunged across the room and ripped the sword out of the boy's hands, sharp claws ripping parts of the hand itself in the process, The boy screamed and gripped his bloody hand close to his chest. Adam bared his canines, grabbing him by the breastplate and threw him out of the doorway to the elevator and into the office within.

The impact knocked the wind out of his assailant and he writhed on the ground before Adam in pain, fear, and in an attempt to breathe. Before he could rise, Adam had crossed the distance in a blink and wrapped both hands around his scrawny neck. Exhaled heat brought tears to the boy's eyes as he tried, in vain, to pull the hands off him.

"What…are… you?!"

Adam saw the movements of the human's mouth—the barest hint of blonde stubble around it and the deep pores of his face in grotesque adrenaline clarity—and failed to decipher the meaning of his gasped words. The struggling boy's grip grew weaker and he clamped his eyes shut against the heat emanating from the faunus, tears squeezed down the sides of his face. The tears brought Adam back. Terror had frozen the blonde into inaction; he sagged in his grip, hyperventilating, eyes wide, no spirit left to resist. "I'm… I'm not..," the sensation of being forced into the backseat of his own mind, and the exhilaration of the carnage was almost too much for the faunus to bear.

What would killing this human even accomplish? Momentary satisfaction for another weight added to whatever lingering regrets he still possessed? Or finishing the job that Cinder Fall had started. The thought was enough to bring to his senses. He despised humanity. It would be so easy to put an end to this one too, for daring to strike him, for even having the temerity to breathe his air. But there were too many questions, and it wasn't as if the brat had done any genuine damage, in spite of his best efforts. Already he could feel the wound healing, bone sprouting anew, skin sprouting over sinews. It felt like a particularly uncomfortable itch.

"Put me down." The boy seemed to recover from his shock and was now staring with an expression that bordered profoundly on annoyance.

His eyes, a light watery blue, were flinty just as much as they were frightened, tempered like steel. They were the eyes of a survivor.

"I hardly think you're in any position to be making demands," he replied, fighting back the temptation to tighten his grip on his throat again. The blonde's gaze darted to the gap between the ground and his feet, across the room, and then back at him.

"Well, are you gonna kill me, or not?" The boy shifted uncomfortably, doing his best to keep his breastplate from digging into his throat, "Cause if you're not, then I'd appreciate it if you put me down."

He yelped as he was unexpectedly dropped from Adam's fingers and landed ungainly on his backside. Feeling his eyes on him, the boy rose and backed away slowly

"Who are you?" Adam asked with a steely stare. "Why are you here?"

"Jaune…" The blonde wheezed out, still gasping for breath."Jaune Arc."

As he opened his mouth to say something else, the air grew thick, heavy, not as though it were choked with some sort of fume, but rather with a growing pressure. Something loomed from a direction that had nothing at all to do with north or south, east or west, depth or breadth or height. Something pressed against the walls through which Adam and the blonde had so easily stepped, and it, too, wanted in.

"Oh Gods…" The boy whimpered quietly, the faunus' sharp hearing only just catching his words. "It's here!"

Adam cocked his head in confusion.

"What's here?"

"It's been following me for weeks! It killed Pyrrha! It—"

"Slow down and—"

Something ripped in the air above him—no, it was the air itself that tore—revealing a ragged hole, black as a human soul, and reeking of brimstone. It fell away, a tunnel of nothing that led to a pit of liquid fire.

And something stepped out.

Though perhaps stepped was the wrong word. It seemed to fill the room, on and on, until it seemed even the huge chamber could not contain its oozing mass.

Not as a descriptor; this was no humanoid creature that happened to be obese. It literally was….fat. Ripples, rolls, bulges, and slabs of fat formed something vaguely the shape of a torso, with smaller columns or protrusions that might be arms and legs. It seemed to have no structure, no bones; it bent where it needed to bend, compressed where it needed to compress. The demon walked with a horrid, lurching gait, dragging itself forward with thick, gummy tentacles .

And the head … Nearly as broad as the creature's shoulders, it sat on a long stump of a neck, and it, too, was fat. No hair, no features, just more folds, stacked and rumpling where the face should have been. And…. Adam would have laughed at this if it wasn't so absurd; shaped like a phallus. Only when the thing let loose a feral scream, could he see that one of those folds concealed a mouth. Several mouths, ringed with jagged teeth—the only other visible part of the demon with any rigidity—it proved nearly as wide as the head itself.

Jaune screamed.

Adam squinted. "Which Schnee were you again? "