Red Moon Rising

by MasterofMasyaf9000

The beating of a butterfly's wings can lead to the whipping of a tornado. A world of bloody evolution is forever changed with the most minute of choices: What if Adam Taurus had never joined the White Fang?

3. A Different Kind Of Hunter

"From the crooked timber of humanity, a straight board cannot be hewn."

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Chapter 2: A Different Kind Of Hunter

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The afternoon daylight found Adam groggy and somewhat bewildered by his surroundings, as his brain sluggishly clawed its way into the land of the living. His body was drenched in sweat. He felt an uncanny and immediate surge of restlessness surging through his body but for some unfathomable reason, he also felt perfectly comfortable where he was. He wouldn't exactly call his slumber restful to be sure, the ever constant nightmares had been unusually intense that night, but his body seemed now to be paradoxically sluggish and unresponsive, despite the eager demand of his mind, that he rise and be about his day.

Eventually, however, he conceded, attempting to sit up with a stretch and a yawn. He shifted his arm in a vain attempt to block out the sunlight coming through the moth-eaten curtains, and was promptly further disabused of his ideas of comfort. Soreness lanced through every muscle in his body, as he raised himself from the lumpy mattress. 'Something tells me I would have been better off sleeping up on those roof tiles.'

His feet made it to the floor and he clenched his teeth as he pushed himself up through sheer force of will. He almost fell right back onto his haunches, but swallowed a groan, and gingerly rested his full weight on his leaden legs. 'One foot in front of the other, Taurus.' Moving was a lot harder than he thought it would be. He didn't understand why he was in so much pain. He hadn't taken any serious hits during his encounter with the gutter trash yesterday, and certainly not enough to warrant the current level of discomfort he was suffering. Everything felt so confused, like a jumbled set of a puzzle.

The events of the previous day were slowly coming back to him, slowly but surely. His stomach roared, demanding food, but with the current trivialities that were currently presented before him, he chose to ignore it.

A glint of glaring light caught his eye directly for an instant, the sudden flash nearly sending him staggering in surprise and alarm, before he corrected his gaze. Something was wrong. He tried to ignore it, but spots of light were swimming behind his vision as his memories fought through mud, trying to unravel the truth. And finally, he realized it. It was habit for him to wake before the sun rose. Adam's eye should have opened at exactly four fifty in the morning, the same as it usually did. The fifth hour was always the darkest, where most of his prey was most active and the best time to check his snares and traps. There shouldn't be any light. But he could not deny what was in front of his own nose.

He'd overslept.

His muscles were suddenly tensed and ready for action, mind sharp and alert. The window was still open, and immediately his thoughts went to the warning system he'd prepared the previous night. Fortunately, the salt was undisturbed, both in front of the door, and around the window, something that filled him with relief. He'd made sure to spread it in such a way that no intruder could have entered the room without doing so. Still, it was careless of him to stay asleep for so long. He'd been lucky today, but if recent experience proved anything, it would hardly last. It wasn't something he could allow to happen again.

Allowing himself to calm down, he took stock of his surroundings again, returning his attention to the unbearable glint that had been throwing off his vision. Upon closer inspection, he realized where it had come from; a mirror hanging on the back of the door. It must have reflected some of the light coming through the holes in the curtains that he'd been inadvertently blocking with his body, he mused.

He hadn't noticed it there yesterday, though, in all fairness, his mind had been far more concerned with rest than the particulars of his new surroundings. Another lesson learned about awareness, for certain.

The mirror was small and cheap, like everything else in the room. The shiny surface was fractured, and covered in greasy fingerprints but he was able to make out his reflection well enough, and began to examine his face, regarding the fractured sight of his reflection with a grim expression. The cloth strip he had been using as an eyepatch must have slipped off during his fitful sleep, because it wasn't on his face now, and he could say with absolute certainty that he'd been wearing it when he'd originally gone to bed the night before. That meant it had to be in the bed behind him somewhere.

Adam winced.

He was unexpectedly faced with the ever unpalatable view of the exposed remains of his ruined left eye; ugly patterns of cauterized flesh that would forever marr his youthful features. All at once, he felt dazed, filled with a new kind of pain, as the memories and phantoms of an unpleasant past came flowing back to him, leaving him holding onto the disintegrating brick of the surrounding wall in a bid to keep his balance.

Deliberately, gentle fingers followed his brow, sliding down and mapping the raised letters and the scar tissue keeping his eyelid shut. The uncovered flesh around the burns was paler that the rest of his skin; few had seen it uncovered as it was now. He'd always made it a point never to look at it whenever possible, having long since grown comfortable with the constant weight of the cloth strip wrapped around his head and closing his good eye on the rare occasion he had to change his coverings. His nostrils were filled with the scent of burning flesh, a child's screams faint in the distance, swallowed the cold and cruel laughter of faceless demons in the shadows.

It was some time before Adam became aware that his heart was hammering in his rib cage, his breath shallow, chest expanding and contracting with irregular rhythm as he found himself staring fixedly in front of him directly at his own savage mutilation for perhaps the first time in years. Through the myriad cracks his reflection was distorted, as if his face was made of thousands of little pieces, impossible to be placed together. Only the mirror knew what no one else ever would, the boy in the dark, shattered and broken where the image of the man he wore on the outside had buried him.

Ignominy crushed and constricted him like the vice grip of a python.

There was a silent fury growing behind his pupil, far more tangible, more potent than the subtle undercurrents of frustration and pique he had grown so familiar with in his travels. A devilish beast, deep within him, clawing for release. His fists clenched so tightly that his nails began to bite into the palms of his hands, his aura straining to keep them from breaking his skin. He stopped only when he came closest to actually breaching and drawing blood, cursing under his breath, as he tried to get his manic heart rate under control.

After a few moments of resting his hands and forehead against the wall, Adam forced his good eye to focus and ignore the aberration on his face, looking away and dismissing his errant thoughts on his own helplessness. He'd prove it to himself soon enough.

He'd never be that weak child again.

There was blood on his jacket and his trousers from last night, unsurprisingly, but he'd have to deal with it later. At least none of it wasn't his. For now, he was busy trying his best to look less bedraggled and wounded than he felt, which was enough of an exercise in itself. His hair looked a lot more like an unruly porcupine in his current state, and his horns seemed to have collected numerous large pieces of white lint from the pillow during his tempestuous sleep.

With a swift motion, he slicked his stray hair back into its usual windswept style, scowling at the image presented to him. He then began the process of making himself presentable, adjusting his clothes and removing the white cotton fragments and filaments stuck in his horns. Idly, as he did so, he made a small mental note that he really should consider cutting them soon. They were beginning to be a hassle, and the last thing he needed was them growing long enough to end up getting caught on things.

The horrifying unbidden mental image of him dangling helplessly in midair, his horns having hooked deeply into some invisible object above his head flashed in his mind.

'Ridiculous.'

Nonetheless he shuddered reflexively, the corners of his lips twitching into a tenuous smile. All absurdity aside, and proud as he was of his heritage, he would gladly take his sword to them before he allowed himself to be humiliated that way, or anything of the like nature.

'Wait..'

His sword!

And then he remembered. His damned semblance. From what he had surmised in his training, it involved absorbing kinetic energy, and using it to enhance his weapon by redirecting the absorbed energy into his blade and releasing it. But that didn't mean it was the only way for him to absorb energy. He'd never been all that interested in science, and had never really had the opportunity to be, bar the odd book he'd been able to grab in his younger years. But one line of text, from a time thought long forgotten stood out to him. 'Energy can't be destroyed.' So if he hadn't drawn his sword, and hadn't released any of the energy he absorbed… where else would - Ah.

The pieces began to fall into place.

It was an odd theory, nonsensical even, but it went a long way to explaining why his insides and muscles felt so scrambled. Despite everything, he was filled with a sense of elation as hope bloomed in his chest. That meant he hadn't lost his semblance, at least not completely. Broken it perhaps, and it was entirely possible it could be beyond repair, he cautioned himself, but it wasn't gone, not entirely. That was good news, although it was tempered by the pain that seemed to permeate his body head to toe and the fact that he still couldn't use the damned thing. It was an irritating caveat, he decided, beginning to trudge back across the room, to the bed. Yet, he had the fervent belief it could be overcome in time, as all weaknesses could. He'd just have to train harder.

Satisfied with his appearance, Adam leaned upright once more, doing his best to ignore the sudden twinge of pain as he did so, and the urge to do a final once over in the mirror.

"Yo, Hornhead!"

The new voice came from the other side of the door, muffled, but every bit as irritating as he imagined it would be.

Horror washing cold through his veins and adrenaline quickly swallowing the screaming of his muscles, he whipped his head away from the door, spotting the coveted bandage hanging precariously off the edge of the bed, trapped perilously between the ratty pillow, and the battered frame of the iron cot. In the flash of an eye, he bounded over to the other end of the room, seizing it firmly in hand.

But before he could gather the wherewithal to answer her, or tell her to wait, the door was pulled open behind him and Adam couldn't move away in time.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" He berated her, refusing to turn and expose his face. "Would knocking kill you?!"

"Morning to you too!" She bellowed jovially, shaking her head. "I come all this way and this is how I'm treated?"

"Uh huh…" he muttered with suspicion and disinterest, his attention focused squarely on securing the knot that obscured his ruined eye. Maybe if he ignored her long enough, she'd leave.

No such luck. Charlotte had pulled back in confusion, and she was staring at the katana he had just unearthed from the bed.

"You… sleep with that?"

"Hardly a bad idea to," he replied evenly, gesturing at his destroyed left eye beneath the bandage with his free hand. "Especially since some people don't seem to understand little concepts like privacy or personal space." He finished tying the makeshift eye patch around his head, and stood up straight. He couldn't work up the full extent of the irritation he supposed he ought to feel. The relief that she hadn't seen his wound exposed was palpable, and it was far easier for him to focus on that feeling than trade further barbs with his insufferable benefactor .

The pointed jab at her interruption was promptly ignored by his intruding companion regardless, who unceremoniously collapsed into the armchair to his immediate right. Adam idly noting it happened to be directly in his blind spot. He couldn't help but think that the move had been purposeful, as he was subsequently forced to turn his body fully to face her as the furniture croaked audibly under her sudden weight.

Charlotte was wearing an open beige, wide sleeved shirt, the open buttons revealing a lilac choker and an expansive trail of fair skin with a hint of cleavage at its end. A deep violet miniskirt hugged her waist and thighs, and long legs adorned with long boots had He averted his gaze hastily before she could notice his surreptitious staring, biting down on the insides of his cheek.

Her straight dark hair was long; stopping at the middle of her back with short bangs covering her forehead that barely cropped her eyebrows. Her make-up was liberally applied, he noted, giving her face a much paler appearance than the night prior, almost akin to a spectre now that he saw her in the light of day. Full lips curled into a smile as she caught him examining her attire and crossed an arm under her chest, framing her bust.

"So…" she drew out the word leisurely, crossing one leg over the other in a regal manner. "I've been doing some thinking." She purred, batting viridescent eyes playfully at him. As his cold gaze fell upon her, her coy attitude waned momentarily before she pressed on, seemingly invigorated by his state of irritation.

"Have you now?" He intonated trenchantly, picking up his sheathed blade from the bed. Settling it across his lap, he gave her his full attention, cognizant of the fact that she would be unlikely to allow him to go about his business in peace until he dealt with her demands on his time. He doubted Charlotte came up to start small talk, although he couldn't say for certain that she didn't just derive some form of twisted pleasure from making him uncomfortable.

"You're a bounty hunter, right?"

He raised an eyebrow. The question was rather forward, and he supposed that was the truth technically, although even so , he wasn't exactly sure he wanted it to be known as his profession. More to the point, he hadn't even collected his first bounty yet, so the point was rather moot at present. It sounded better than saying that he was a professional hermit at least.

Then another thought suddenly occurred to him; How did she-

She produced a yellowing piece of paper in answer to his silent query; the bounty sheet he'd removed from the board yesterday, he realized, and he swore silently. When had he dropped it? Cursing his own carelessness, Adam leaned forwards and took the paper from her outstretched hand, unfolding it and placing it at his side for the time being.

"I trust you have a point?"

"Yeah, actually. I was wondering if you had any leads."

For one absurd moment, Adam considered ignoring her – claiming a tiny measure of power back by letting silence confirm otherwise and listening to her question him ineffectually. He quashed it. Spite earned him nothing here; it was better to just get this over with. What came out of his mouth on the other hand, was anything but.

"Fight him, drag him to wherever, and collect my lien. What's difficult about that?"

He stated his intentions as though there was no discussing the matter, and with such obvious confidence and conviction, that despite the absurd simplicity of the statement, for a single moment, Charlotte actually believed it. It was, however, brief, as her mind quickly caught on to the glaring flaw of his suggestion.

"And how- " she waved as if to underline her statement- "the hell do you expect to find this guy? Asking door to door?"

"Huh?" he jerked back a bit, not expecting her to say that.

And he froze, realization hitting him all at once. Adam's eye widened with sudden crystal clarity. Idiot that he was, he hadn't even realized—or if he had, he had dismissed the concept.

He hadn't even thought of that at all. He hadn't really thought of anything when he had somehow made the decision to hunt a bounty, other than the chance of earning some lien, venting weeks of frustration and bottled anger, and finally facing a challenge worthy of his time.

He was utterly stumped. Of all the hurdles that stood in the way of his current goal, he hadn't actually considered the most obvious factor of all. He didn't know the first thing about hunting people or tracking them down. All the combat acuity and talent in the world meant exactly squat if he couldn't actually find the target in question.

Her Cheshire smile grew wider. "Oh gods, that was your plan, wasn't it? Are you completely green? Or just stupid?"

An understatement, if he'd ever heard one, and it burned him to his core.

Adam almost wanted to strangle the annoying woman right there and then, agreement be damned. He wanted to do nothing more than to both punch himself and slam his head into a wall. Maybe that would get his brain cells running again and/or make this entirely unexpected problem go away, faced as he was by his own asininity.

A lesser man, after all he had endured in the scorn of the world, would have taken this as the final straw and given up, turned his attention to other means of earning or begging for lien. Worse yet, gone crawling back to Menagerie, and begging for forgiveness and shelter. But Evelyn Taurus hadn't raised a quitter, and if there was one thing Adam refused to part with, it was his pride. He'd made his decision, to pursue this, and for as much as the opprobrium of his ignorance weighed upon him now, a far greater shame and debasement would inevitably swallow him if he threw in the towel after enduring as he had until now.

His heart hardened and his eye narrowed. Cavitica would need more than a few ill placed taunts to deter him, and if she thought he had any intention of giving up, more the fool her. Her expression relaxed. There was the barest hint of a satisfied smile on her lips, if one looked closely and he could tell by the gleam in her eyes that she had further mischief on the mind.

"So. New question, Hornhead. Is that an economy sized letter opener, or can you actually use that thing?"

For the briefest of moments, outrage flared in him at the questioning of his skill, and the notion of giving her a first hand demonstration of his prowess grew rapidly more appealing before logic took centre stage. 'Bait', he realized, vexation rising like a nest of buzzing hornets in his mind, her smile only furthering the insult.

Adam tapped his foot impatiently. His fledgling plans had lasted less than twelve hours, and the menace responsible for dashing his ambitions with a cold dose of reality was openly deriding him. His composure was, in the most charitable of descriptions, frail, and he had no time for her games.

"You obviously have something else to say, so be out with it." He rumbled, crossing his arms in front of his chest, and contemplating the canine grin that met his narrow glare.

"Aren't you gonna ask nicely?"

Adam mentally began counting the cracks in the plaster on the ceiling, just to keep from reaching over and leisurely choking the life out of the Grimm in she-devil's clothing.

He had absolutely no desire to waste his time entertaining this conniving harpy any longer, and once more the desperate itching to reach for his blade returned with a vengeance, but he held himself in check. He had learned from yesterday's unmitigated disaster, and he had resolved to endeavor to be more pragmatic about his negotiations.

She would be unlikely to tell him anything useful if he further damaged her dwellings or her person, and from what Adam had seen of Cavitica's character, even if he had attempted to beat her within an inch of her life, she would still withhold the information he desired over his head simply out of pure spite. This was of course, working under the idea that she actually knew anything useful, a small voice in his brain reasoned. Nonetheless, it was a chance he would have to take, in lieu of any real alternatives.

Oddly enough, it was something about her he could respect, and it was that thought that cooled his temper somewhat, allowing him to think rationally once more. Sure, she was trying, (and succeeding) to irritate him, that much was obvious, but it was kind of refreshing to see someone being so… brazen about it. He almost smiled, notwithstanding the little suppressed voice in his head that envisioned his companion being violently defenestrated with extreme prejudice.

"Please." He uttered, in a passable facsimile of contrition and humility. He could ignore the smarting of his pride; at least for now, if it meant refusing to allow her the satisfaction of having known she'd gotten under his skin.

'Two can play at this game, woman.'

She frowned. She'd been expecting much more resistance from the prideful swordsman, and his new demure and affable demeanour was becoming quite boring. He wasn't even indulging in his biting sarcasm from last night, instead appearing to be the perfect picture of humility. He'd stripped all the fun out of needling him in one fell swoop by capitulating so easily. It didn't help that he looked so damned adorable when he was brooding.

She wouldn't lie, Charlotte had been initially slightly disappointed, upon his no doubt unintentional reveal of his inexperience in the world of bounty hunting, though it made sense given that he looked around her own age. Maybe a little younger. It was still of course, entirely possible that she had been wasting her time with him, but meeting his eye, her gut told her different.

Even her most skeptical side had to admit, there was still something about him there that had drawn her in, like a moth to a flame. In that single azure orb, there was a hot-blooded and viscous determination, tangled up with a hidden calculative intelligence, that made him quite unlike anyone she had met before. It was obvious too, that he was no country hick, and definitely no novice to violence. What he currently lacked in experience, he more than made up for in fire.

Perhaps he could help her after all.

Her smile began to return, a pernicious smile that the horned teenager was quickly becoming accustomed to. She straightened her posture in her seat, smile still sketched across her lips, and rubbed together hands clad in long velvet opera gloves.

"Well, since you were so nice about it," she said, clicking her tongue at him. "Who am I to deny you my wisdom?"

Adam was sorely tempted to remark that anyone who allowed a total, provenly violent stranger room and board in their home, solely on the basis of a whim, and assuming that doing so would be in any way to her benefit probably knew a lot less about wisdom than they thought, but he held his tongue, and even withheld his urge to arch an eyebrow in mockery or disdain.

Whilst he was somewhat wary of overplaying his new act, and thereby being mistaken for a cowed toadie, he was equally unwilling to forgo a potential solution to his current quandary simply because of his own verbal incontinence. He concluded then, that silence would be the best response for now.

He nodded impassively.

"So, if you're still sure about the job, it would probably be worth going to the government office in town for information. Last sightings, Known associates. Any of this ringing a bell?"

Now Adam laughed openly. As if the government of a Mistrali settlement was capable of even approaching that level of competence. He may have leapt without looking on his current endeavor, but he wasn't stupid.

Her suggestion rested almost entirely on, in the event that they were capable enough to even have anything worth knowing, assuming they were willing to offer more information to the likes of him, being little more than an 'uppity faunus' and didn't just throw him out on his ass, which he begrudgingly admitted, may be less likely than he thought, given how it was unlikely that they would put out a bounty so high, and then refuse to cooperate entirely with someone who wished to help them secure said fugitive.

On the other hand, he was in no real position to be the man to reproach anyone on the score of injudiciousness, given the stupidity of expecting rational thought or intelligence from people who had spent nearly two decades of his existence proving that they lacked both, in spades.

'Hmm.'

He shook his head, very much annoyed by the fact that he lacked even the beginnings of a good response to counter her proposal. She smothered a giggle as he ran a hand over his horns, cheeks colored with embarrassment and exhaling fiercely through his nostrils as he looked away. He despised the unknown to some degree, and now it apparently seemed as though he would be reduced to having to rely on the help of other strangers even more frequently, relying on feelings he was both unused to, and uncomfortable with displaying.

In any event, it wasn't as though he had many other alternative options regardless, and both of them knew it.

He scanned her face shrewdly. She watched the intelligence flash across his eye before he nodded.

"Fine."

There was no time like the present, after all.

---

When he'd left , Charlotte had finally returned downstairs to the bar, and the sounds of cracking wood and the steady sound of metal teeth dragging back and forth told him that she was attempting to replace the floorboards he had unceremoniously caved in the previous night. Stepping outside, a small breeze greeted him,stirring his hair around his horns. The pain he had been wracked with for most of the morning had finally begun to fade, and after a quick usage of Charlotte's shower, he was ready to be on his way.

She'd made some juvenile joke as he'd asked, asking in turn if he needed any help with 'polishing his sword' and cackled like the madwoman she evidently was at his involuntary blush. Knowing full well that any response he gave would only dig his proverbial grave deeper, he had once more been reduced to silence, disappearing into the bathroom and slamming the door, which only served to increase her amusement.

He'd used that time to make the attempt at rinsing the blood out of his clothes, with some decent success. After all, it certainly wouldn't do to appear in a government building with bloodstains on his clothes, or worse, have to answer any awkward questions from whatever passed for law enforcement around here or other inquiring busybodies. When he was ready, he thought about going downstairs and leaving through the front door, but that meant passing her, soinstead, he left through the window of the room he'd slept in. Adam looked at the open window, took a single step back, before launching himself into empty space, arms outstretched as he fell. The air whistled underneath him for only a matter of moments, before he tucked his knees, somersaulting once before landing with a roll onto the street.

Needlessly dramatic? Absolutely. Showing off? Without a doubt. Pointless? Probably. But he'd take all of those labels before wanting to deal with more of her nonsense; that he was sure of.

He was pulled out of his thoughts by the view of his immediate surroundings.

The city looked more inviting in daylight, at least in his opinion. The first thing he noticed, was how colorful it all was. The kaleidoscopic neon light fixtures had a glow to them even in daylight, and among the buildings were brilliant splashes of red or stark whites. Of course that was hardly the only reason for the cornucopia of colour that seemed to permeate the world around him.

" If you tried listening instead of brooding, you would've heard every single person in the city talking about it."

He'd since discovered that today was the second day of an annual celebration: the Festival of Serenity. It apparently revolved around those cherry trees he had seen, when he'd arrived in the city. When the blossoms came into being each year, their short lifespan was supposed to remind the festival's celebrants of the overwhelming beauty and brevity of life. A symbol of promise, to live life to the fullest, to spend time with the people you love, and most centrally, not to take the good things in life for granted.

The sentiments gave him pause to reflect for a few were admirable lessons, and ones he'd wished he'd understood… before it was too late.

The celebrations were due to last a whole week, no doubt to better keep the Grimm away, and had attracted numerous tourists, which in turn had explained the amount of people he had seen when he had entered the city the previous evening. Though if anything, there seemed to be even more people around than then, making his attempts at navigating his way through already unfamiliar territory twice as complicated as before.

He meandered down the tight, corridor like streets that surrounded the bar, a labyrinth of filth that eventually opened up into a section of the city with wider cobbled roads, where everything was on top of itself. The crowds around him moved as though they had a single life of their own, and the bull faunus caught glimpses in his eye of vibrant clothes and sequins sparkling in the morning light as people on all sides of him moving like schools of fish. The atmosphere surrounding him was one of elation, the cool air occasionally punctuated by whoops and hollers. It served only to irritate Adam more.

The witch had taken the time to give him directions, and to his credit, he'd listened, but hearing instructions and actually performing them were two very different things.

"My sense of direction isn't that awful ..." He said more to himself than anything. Adam hadn't had too much trouble retracing his steps from the day prior to the plaza, and according to Charlotte, from there, it was a straight shot to the north from there into the affluent Wadatsumi district, and the branch office. And yet despite this, he found himself instead at a tapering crossroads, with no clue of where to go next. She hadn't mentioned that in her instructions. Had he simply taken a wrong turn? He was beginning to wonder if she'd sensed his little ruse earlier and lied to him deliberately to raise his hackles and further waste his time.

Well, if the sole intent was to aggravate him, then she could rest assured, she had succeeded beyond all measure.

'Where was it she said to go from here? Left? Or was it right?'

He wiped the sweat from his brow and exhaled sharply. He'd gladly swallow his own blade and die before admitting he'd gotten himself hopelessly lost, and have to suffer more of Cavitica's infuriating smugness. The music floated on the warm breeze in the distance like the spring blossom petals; raining down from the cherry trees.

The irony that he had found a similar level of success, or lack thereof, in navigating the city in the dark, than in the midst of the daylight, was not entirely lost on him, though that hardly made his position any less frustrating.

Keeping a firm grip on his weapon, and maneuvering his way through the jungle of people, Adam sucked in a deep breath and took the junction to his left, and found himself on an avenue with wilting trees, their tiny white petals curled and trodden, the buildings towered on each side of him as he made his way through the streets. Food sellers weaved through the mass of onlookers and the aroma of their wares perfumed the air. Chatter between sellers and buyers at makeshift store fronts, assailed his senses, and he had some difficulty trying to maintain his current train of thought.

It almost reminded him of home.

'No.' He thought, an uncharacteristic spike of regret surfacing for the briefest of instances. 'Not home.' And it never would be again. Not like before. Not with…

Recollecting his thoughts, Adam clenched his teeth, mercifully pushing out the stubborn, dark thoughts that lingered so tenaciously in the shallows of his mind.

It began to take more and more effort to bottle his sense of claustrophobia inside his chest- another gift from his childhood of being stuffed into narrow crevices in the mines that he'd lost the receipt to return. The celebrating crowds constantly rubbed shoulders with him, never minding that their toes were often trodden on or that they were in closer proximity to strangers than they usually were to friends or even family.

He quickly decided if just one more person jostled into him, he was going to-

He was interrupted by a hard shove that very nearly sent him sprawling onto the hard ground, and his sword was nearly half way out of his sheath before he realized what he was doing, and let himself breathe.

He righted himself, and started walking again.

By the time he found the building, he was shocked to see that he'd arrived at the same towering pagoda he'd seen the previous night. The towering pagoda seemed far more imposing in the light of day, and if he were in more of a mind, he doubtless would have taken a moment to admire the architecture. But as it was, he was in neither the humour nor had the time to indulge in that.

The atrium, by contrast to the rest of the city, was quiet, and he was more than grateful for the room to finally breathe. With every step he could hear the footsteps as he laced towards the front desk. With paper walls holding together lattices of bamboo and natural wood floors, the building for all intents looked like a traditional Mistrali dwelling of old, almost totally incongruous with the surrounding area. That wasn't to say that there was no trace of modernity. He noted that several computer banks lined the wall, each, with the odd human attached to them and typing away. Everything was built on a regular, symmetrical grid, the very picture of order and stability.

An intricate stairway connected the floors, and large jade vases, branching coral, and other oddities and ink paintings were scattered across walls. If Adam had glanced upward, he would have noticed the ceiling's carved mural, a gauche piece that depicted dragons, light, and redemption. Yet his gaze remained straight ahead, and so he only saw the stares and sneers of his supposed betters.

The sweat of their fear smelled vinegar-sharp and foul. Humans were such infuriating little creatures.

Every so often, someone staring would inadvertently catch his eye then hurriedly look away. Their faces were etched with distaste, like it was somehow his fault they felt offended and cowardly in his presence. At least they had the good sense not to approach him, he mused.

Adam grit his teeth, keeping his opinions to himself and approached the front desk. He stopped, trying to contain everything inside him, his foot tapping hurriedly on the floor until he couldn't even stand that sound, so he went back to pacing.

"May I help you?" The receptionist, a sallow faced woman who resembled a ferret in countenance, drawled in a condescending manner. Her facial expression was one of absolute disdain. Adam could tell in an instant that she abhorred the mere idea of him. To her, he was less than the mud on her over-shined shoes.

The feeling was more than mutual.

A hint of wariness tightened her features as she noted the sword Adam held so casually at his hip.

"I'm here about a bounty. I have an appointme—"

"If that's all, then I'd advise taking that to a police station. Now if you're finished wasting my time, I have work to do."

His eye twitched.

Waste her time? He did not come all this way for nothing, and he certainly wasn't about to be brushed aside for- he paused, instantly realising that his fuse was beginning to rapidly hasten towards the ever volatile detonator. He had to calm down, and fast or he wouldn't be able to maintain control. And that could only lead to a disaster.

A Scroll buzzed on her desk, and she scrambled to answer it, turning away as she spoke in hushed tones. Adam simply dropped his hands into his pockets, an eyebrow raised as he waited.

After a few moments of watching her face pale, he was, in short order, directed to the third floor, with begrudging politeness that wasn't at all strained.

Confused, curious, yet irritated enough not to grant the insipid harridan with anything more than a decisive incline of his head, he strode towards the stairs, not sparing the receptionist a glance, his middle finger lifted over his shoulder in farewell. Whereupon the first thing he noticed was a large metal image of the Mistrali national insignia framed on the wall– Just in case you were an imbecile and walked up two flights of stairs without knowing whose building you were in.

His eye roved over the plush, opulent surroundings, and he was left vaguely wondering why so few people were going in and out. The reception area on this floor was quiet as the grave, with a crimson carpeted floor, three elevators to one side, (Wish he'd seen those before he decided to walk up the stairs.) and above the ornate wooden desk, a row of clocks showing the local time in each of the Four Kingdoms.

"You're Adam, right?"

The human woman who had spoken held herself like her upper spine was rubber, shoulders falling forwards in a way that would be more befitting a grandmother. She had cold black eyes and mid-length reddish-copper hair a few shades darker than his own, which waved, he noted as she drew closer but not in any natural pattern, more as though she'd used over-sized rollers.

The red haired faunus stopped in his tracks.

"That I am." He replied, after taking the time to analyze the new arrival. He was careful to mask his own sudden feelings of surprise and scorn, meeting her gaze with a look of clinical curiosity. She didn't look like she wanted to be here any more than he did.

It hadn't taken a genius to work out from that simple exchange that the witch had arranged this little meeting. After all, it had been she who had sent him to this place to begin with, and how else would this woman know his name? But every theory came with more questions.

He was suddenly and unpleasantly reminded that he knew very little if anything about his benefactor, aside from the facts that she knew precisely how to infuriate him, and that she was easy on the eyes. And that ultimately meant, as much as he might loathe the fact, that he was helpless, even more so now. Far better to play along. Until he did have some kind of upper hand. Until he did have information. Knowledge would give him the power to act.

"My name is Rouge. A pleasure."

It certainly didn't sound like it.

Nonetheless, Adam nodded in acknowledgement. That wasn't to say he wasn't shocked by the connections the she-devil apparently possessed. Adam found himself even more intrigued by his benefactor than wary.

Silently, he allowed her to lead him along an empty corridor, until they at last reached a door to their right.

Without looking back, Rouge made a slow come hither motion with her right hand. Adam took four precise strides , stopping in exactly in the centre of the softly lit room. With his body no longer impeding it's progress, the door swung slowly shut, sealing the two of them in with an audible click.

The office was painted grey, and it had only two small windows , both of which faced the main road. On the grey desk sat a desktop computer, a notebook lying open, and a stack of files and papers sitting under a heron-shaped paperweight. Late sunshine poured in through the blinds, not quite the burning orange of the afternoon but still a settling warmth bathed the room in an atmosphere that, under different circumstances, Adam would have found serene.

At another silent gesture, he took a seat in front of the desk as she took her place at the other side and began rifling "The festival's cleared out most of the building for the holidays. No one to overhear us here. All the same, it wouldn't do to make this more public than it needs to be, if you catch my drift. "

That explained the ghost town downstairs, as well as the crowded streets even if it did nothing to quell Adam's unease.

The woman finally found what she was looking for, withdrawing a thin malina file from the stack, and placed it centrefold on the desk. She brushed a stray tendril of hair behind her ear, gently brushing her high cheekbones as she did so. Finally, she began to speak, locking eyes with him as she pushed it with two fingers along the desk in his direction, before setting a small battered leather satchel with an equally battered buckle and strap.

"Let's make this quick. How much do you know?"

Adam took the file in hand and tugged gently on the satchel, drawing it across the table while keeping his eye firmly on both of hers, scrutinizing her reaction. He could see the sharpness behind her pupils and even under the dimness of the lights, he would be able to discern the slightest changes in dilation with ease. He didn't want to alienate her by accusing her of anything, at least, not yet, but he couldn't say for certain if he trusted this woman. Even so, he decided to tell her the truth. It wasn't as though he had anything to lose.

"Not a whole lot." He answered truthfully.

Her polite smile disappeared and she leaned forward subtly, steepling her fingers in front of her mouth. She sighed. Whether it was frustration, exhaustion, or exasperation, Adam couldn't tell. Though he supposed it wasn't as important as the quality of the contents of the file just yet.

"I do have one question, if you don't mind." Adam uttered, carefully choosing his words for once. It had been something that had been bothering him in the back of his head since he'd first seen the poster, but he hadn't been in the frame of mind to actually voice it, nor had he the opportunity to ask someone who may actually have a satisfying answer. "Why do you even need bounty hunters? Don't you have your own paid mindless drones for this kind of thing? Not that I'm complaining or anything…"

She snorted incredulously.

"You're kidding, right? Do you have any idea how much overtime this department doesn't have to pay on account of you guys? We just put out a bounty and instead of paying a whole precinct or worse, Huntsmen, time and a half to not see their families, only for most of them to be bought off or blackmailed by the syndicates and their middle men, one of you just shows up, deals with them directly without the messy red tape, and bureaucracy and dumps the evidence in our front yard. It's like New Moon's Eve, every day."

"What about the ones who get themselves killed?"

"Then that's more charges we can hit our guys with once we capture them. And if the bounty target ends up buying the farm? Much less paperwork, and no chance for syndicate lawyers to somehow keep them out of prison. Honestly, there's no way to lose."

"I...see."

It was callous, but surprisingly honest, Adam couldn't detect even a hint of deception in her words. His younger self would have been offended, angry even, by the idea that his life had no value to these people, but things were different now. He was less naive, for one. Less stupid about the world. Now he considered just about everyone an enemy, and knew that if he needed something done, then he had to rely on himself.

And so, he merely nodded.

She leaned forwards conspiratorially, as if afraid she might be overheard. Adam's paranoia flared. Hadn't she said the building was empty?

"Sometimes we put them out just to see what we get. It's like having a pack of hunting dogs that brings you guys with twenty, or thirty warrants for their arrest instead of dead birds or cats."

She laughed to herself, no doubt enjoying the confusion flashing over his expression.

"I'm not going to feed you any garbage, kid. This guy isn't your common Mistrali trash. The kills on the bounty poster aren't even half of what he's done. You go after Myst, and you're in for one hell of a fight." Her voice was accented now, and mentally, the faunus swordsman tried to place it. Valean? Native? Before he could, she spoke again, accent shifting back to its original inflection."He and his little family have all killed plenty of men, and plenty of mercs, too. You're not careful, you'll just add yourself to that count."

Adam nodded, filing away the accent slip mentally. While it was none of his business, there was always the chance it could serve him later. Satisfied with the information he'd been given he rose from his seat, satchel in hand..

"One more thing, if you do end up having to dispatch him. You want to be authorized for the full bounty, You'll need a recognizable head to confirm the kill. Too many jokers in the past have tried turning in mangled humps of flesh in hopes of a payday. That happens this time, my superiors will doubt, and we can't pay you in full. That means no headshots. She glanced at his sword. "Or decapitations, 'til after he's dead, and no damage to his face."

"Sure." It sounded simple enough.

"Oh, and Mr. Taurus?"

Her face was grave, and rigid, as if carved from granite.

"Do yourself a favour. Don't get distracted by her pretty face. Don't let

her in too close. She makes a show of being this reliable middleman, but as soon as she finds something that she wants, she'll turn on you faster than you can blink. Remember that. Girl's a viper. Through and through. Happy Hunting!"

---

'Well, that was enlightening.'

He ended up settling on a secluded bench in the shade of a large tree, paying no mind as the plaza filled up with people out on their afternoon celebrations.

There, he could better see the procession.

Five female dancers dressed like flowers spun and twirled on the parade float and a young woman with a fancy white dress and a wide smile waved at the crowd. Several people were dressed up as jesters and harlequins, showmen practiced their fire breathing or acrobatics, tables were lined up for feasts and stages popped up everywhere, along with colorful tents and stalls.

He'd lost track of time just sitting there. Letting his thoughts chase one another.

The things he'd give to be able to relive those days, if not just to be able to forever relive that very moment in time and stay there. The things he'd give to be able to see that loving gaze again, to be able to hear her softly call his name again with such love and compassion, to be able to receive such things again...

Adam closed his eye and sharply forced his mind away from that line of thought. His face hardened as he deliberated his next move. A million questions bombarded his head, demanding answers from him that he couldn't give even if he was focused enough to draw an answer for himself. In the end, he supposed, it didn't matter, and he had to push the clamor back as he tried to decide whether or not this was a good idea.

A fresh surge of laughter bubbled in the air, along with a stray gust of wind, that had Adam scrambling to keep the file's contents from flying out of the satchel and into the crowd. His sharp cry of alarm and panic was almost lost amid the short sharp crackle of handheld firecrackers mixing with the variety of colored lights. It would probably have looked even better at night, he was sure of it. Children ran all around the crowded park, their laughter and joy mixing with the rest. Having caught the stray pieces of paper and stuffing their contents back into the safety of the satchel, Adam was momentarily distracted by the decorative pinwheels and colorful ribbons several of the passing children had spinning in their hands. Another group of children passed by moving from vendor to street vendor or stopping for a little while at a puppet theater.

The heady scent of adrenaline hit him like static, and his keen senses unerringly pinned the source; Two figures were strolling through the square. For a few moments, he wasn't sure what it was that had drawn his attention to them, other than the fact they were moving against the flow of the crowd.

Towards him.

Eager shouts blanketed the streets, and the muggy air was choked with the scent of fried food, alcohol, and sweat. Paper lanterns dyed the bustling road shades of red and orange. Strung lights swayed in the hot, dusty breeze, and bodies clogged the main road as they pushed past each other, their skin clammy beneath scanty clothes, as the promises of an unforgettable day were sung – unendingly – from nearly every building that lined the road and the very streets themselves.

A man and a woman caught his eye, if it weren't for their garish clothes, he would have assumed they were Guardsmen like those he'd seen at the gate yesterday; local militia volunteers that most settlements had to combat the Grimm in lieu of fully trained Huntsmen, were it not for the fact they wore uniforms. On the contrary, these two did not, and their attire seemed a little too fine for hard working volunteers anyway. His attention captured, he noticed one carried a lance on his back, and that the way they held themselves implied that they had at least half decent training- and both were talking quickly and excitedly, the man's eyes shining, as if he was passing on important news. It was impossible to hear what he was saying in the general hubbub of the celebrations, but even so Adam made an effort to sidle closer without leaving his seat, in the vain hope of picking up words over the chaos of the crowd. And that was when he noticed the tattoo. With so many people packed together blocking his view , the temperature had risen. The man was wearing a short-sleeved jacket. And there, on his arm, just where the material ended, was a large black spider. Adam had never seen anything quite like it. Almost, anyway.

It sat in a plain looking, generic web design, but that was it— no sign of anything that meant something to him, really. The design was similar, nearly identical in fact, to the one he'd seen on the bounty poster, sure, but still different; it was larger, almost outgrowing the web itself, and the positioning was different too— he certainly couldn't say definitively it was related. It could have been a cultural tattoo for all he knew, though even that, he couldn't definitively prove.

The man with the tattoo suddenly turned and saw Adam looking at him. It caught the faunus off guard, and Adam was annoyed with himself for not taking more care. The huntsman didn't stop his conversation with his friend, but he did shift his body so that the arm with the tattoo was away from Adam's view, turning his back and further taking advantage of the crowd to block Adam's line of sight. At the same time, he could just catch a glimpse of him covering the shoulder tattoo with his free hand.

It should have meant nothing.

But for the life of him, Adam couldn't shake the sensation that there was something strange about them. It was the most slender of connections but suddenly he was determined to find out more. Could they be connected?

The faunus got to his feet in a haze of his buzzing mind and through the turbulent currents of his thoughts, cutting them all down to only one possible reality. He was just going to have to follow them and find out. If he was wrong, he'd wasted his time, but he still had the file, and he could more than likely find what he needed to know from there. Worst case scenario, he'd have killed a few hours of boredom at least. But if he was right…..

Counting on the tenuous makings of a plan forming in his head, Adam decided against going back to Charlotte with the folder, abandoning the idea of trying to find his way back to the bar.

Following his instincts had always served him well, and he usually suffered when he ignored them. What could go wrong with a quick detour?

The two hunters turned right at the edge of the square, disappearing out of the city plaza.

Adam left the shaded nook, entering the sunlit square proper and keeping the corner of his eye firmly on the two huntsmen. His plan was a simple one. He'd use the parade as cover, move around it, and follow them from there. Maybe he'd learn something, maybe he wouldn't, but it was a good start. Unfortunately, the plan had but one snag. People. Or more specifically, the crowd that had conveniently decided to move in the opposite direction of him. He did his best to quicken his pace, battling the flow of the crowd as best he could, knowing first-hand how easy it would be to lose them in the tangle of lanes and alleyways that seemed to wind in on themselves with little care for rhyme or reason.

Not to mention that any pursuers would have a harder time finding them in the convoluted alleyways than in the middle of the streets, crowded as they were with people and parade floats. On the plus side, he didn't have to be too careful about being seen. Out in the wilds, any prey would have spotted him long ago, and would have either attacked or bolted, never to be seen again. But then, Adam thought to himself, that was people for you. Simple-minded sheep, without an original thought or concept to their names, desperately clutching for safety in "the herd". Most had terrible instincts, especially those that had always known safety.

It didn't do a lot to raise his opinion on Huntsmen either, that they hadn't noticed their tail. But then, they killed Grimm for a living and called it hard work. What was he expecting? Moreover, it was unlikely that, in a crowded city full of revelers and drunks, anyone would notice someone following them . And, in their defense, it was hardly as though he was having an easy time of that.

On the other side of the parade, there were stands serving snacks and drinks beneath wide, multicoloured umbrellas. He edged into it. The huntsman and huntress were now less than six metres away and here, Adam could make out a few more details of their appearances. The man was shoveling food into his mouth as if he hadn't eaten for a week. The other, the woman was talking quietly, urgently, waving her fist in the air to emphasize a point. With the noise of the crowd all around, Adam still couldn't make out a word any of them were saying. He tried to move closer, and it was here that some idiot not looking where they were going almost collided with him, letting loose a torrent of angry swearing in his direction.

He looked around.

They had gone.

Now, Adam was the one swearing.

He looked left and right. There were people crowding him even more now, in on him from all sides, pouring out of the shops and into the open-air restaurants that were still serving lunch. The smell of burning oil filled the air. He cursed himself for hanging back, for not daring to get any closer, and most of all allowing some jumped-up half wit to distract him.

The thought singed his nerves and he jerked his gaze away, batting people aside until he could reach somewhere with

Following them on the ground was a lost cause; he clearly didn't do crowds well.

There was only one other thing he could do. He swivelled round and retraced his steps, running as fast as he could. Two gaudily dressed women— part of a theatre troupe, he imagined— noticed him rush past them and shook their heads disapprovingly. He hadn't realized how hot it was. The sun seemed to be trapped in the narrow streets, and even in the shadows the heat lingered. Already sweating, he burst back out onto the street where he had begun.

Which way?

Suddenly every street and every corner looked the same. Relying on his sense of direction, Adam chose left and sprinted past a concession stand, a candle shop and an open-air restaurant. He came to a bend and there was an alleyway – so narrow he could cross it in five steps.

The space was taken up by trash. There were empty cardboard boxes, wooden pallets, a rusting cement mixer, bits of old fencing and broken down coffee vending machines, thrown out and left to rot. "Hmm..." He eyed the jutting maze of ventilation shafts, piping, and narrow balconies that seemed to sprawl between the buildings above him.

Now there was an idea.

He smirked and then kicked up into the air, shifting and folding his body easily into a rising somersault. Feeling his feet collide with a wall at an angle, he bounced off it, leaping backwards and gaining height with his arms stretched above his head. The moment he felt his palms hit something solid, he clenched down, using the abrupt change in momentum to bring his body into a handstand, and finally a crouch, perching on the edge of a balcony by the toes of his boots. It rocked with his weight and for a split second he thought he was going to fall. The surge of adrenaline jolted him, and he narrowly avoided knocking several flowerpots to the ground below in the process.

Once he'd straightened up, he released one hand, his body immediately shifting his balance to accommodate his centre of balance. In a second fluid motion, he smoothly and easily leapt another fifteen feet, bouncing between the walls in quick rapid succession: once, twice, three times, landing roughly on another narrow ledge. Moments later he was climbing up a downspout, hands becoming more and more reaccustomed to finding handholds as he went, even as the dry stone, wood, and cement crumbled under his fingers. In a matter of what felt like seconds, he'd reached the rooftops. Pulling himself quickly over the edge, he sprinted towards the opposite side of the roof, skidding to a halt between two deeply stained smokestacks and scanned the crowds. They couldn't have gone far, especially with how little room there was to move.

Adam retraced his steps a third time, running over the rooftops until he ran out of roof and spying his objective some twenty, thirty yards ahead, turned left, heading to a corner where the next building he wanted was closer and took a thoughtless leap, realizing at the last minute that the wind being against him affected the distance of his jump. He scrambled to adjust but couldn't in midair, instead flailing wildly before his hand found a rainspout. His body slammed against the wall hard and the shock of impact made him lightheaded with the sudden fire of nearly dying, and maybe even a glimmer of primal fear as the chasm of the street some eight storeys below loomed to meet him. Somehow, he hadn't been seen.

He was practically buzzing when he finally climbed up; his legs twitched under his weight and took almost a full minute to breathe and force his heart to go back to normal.

Damn. Sloppy. He used to be more careful. Flexing his legs, he hopped from roof to tree, back to roof to cross the especially wide roads or using narrow alleys as easy, swift jumps before he found what he was looking for. A child, playing with a pinwheel was standing under one of the blossoming trees. A shower of pink petals fell to the ground and she looked up, only to see a dark blur dart skyward from the branches, over a railing and out of sight.

The moment his feet touched down on the tiles, sprawling slightly, he was off again, a darting shadow among the chimney stacks and roof gardens under the scattered clouds. This was much better. No one would think to look up; question who he was, there was no one trying to start a conversation, or rub shoulders with him and unlike the main road, no one was trying to grab his attention. He smiled.

From on high, Adam peered out at the sprawling metropolis, lips pursed into a thin line, looking about. It really was crowded down there, wasn't it? The thick mass of bodies extended further than he had originally thought. The streets below were a lot fuller and narrower than the ones he was used to in Kuo Koana, and that made it so much harder to pick out those two blades of grass in the proverbial meadow of people. Eventually though, he got lucky , catching a glimpse of glinting metal in the sunlight; a lance hanging off the huntsman's back, and sure enough his partner was still with him.

Adam did his best to quell the thrill of his blood and adrenaline and walked slowly, keeping an eye on the streets; both to keep his own bearing and so as to not rush ahead of his targets and lose them a second time. As a final precaution, he made sure he kept himself positioned ahead of the sun, lest his shadow be cast over the ground and give them cause to look up.

Not that they ever did.

He kept half an eye on them as they shifted through the crowds. But a commotion below was already drawing his gaze away. A faunus on the edges of the crowds was stumbling up after what had to have been a beating. "You!' he cried through his bloody nose and blackened eye, "Get back here with my lien! Thieves!"

Adam narrowed his eyes. Something…, no, someone, was approaching his targets. An older man followed on foot. His hair was dark, but lines of age were carved into his face, and his ire was plainly marked in them. The bull faunus stayed at his perch, unseen to the crowds, and took a moment to focus. As if sensing the newcomer's intent, the crowd parted slightly, not unlike a shoal of fish, and Adam noticed that as the man's protests grew louder, more of them were beginning to give him notice. He decided, for once, to follow in the sheep's footsteps and do the same. He might learn something useful, and wasn't that the whole reason he was doing this? He may have been too far away to lipread, but that didn't leave him totally helpless. Cutting through the background noise and ceaseless hubbub, Adam gave his full attention to the unfolding confrontation.

They robbed and destroyed my stand," he shouted to the crowd. "I demand compensation!"

"Here you go, then," The huntsmen replied, taking his lance and ramming the shaft harshly into his gut. His voice did not carry as well as his victim's, but Adam could hear it as plainly as day. Grunting and doubling over, the civilian growled, "I'll report you to the Council!" The detractor's face was rapidly shifting from red to purple, in spite of his obvious pain and he took several steps forward.

They'd be his last.

The huntress met him halfway and kicked the man's kneecap, shattering the bone and forcing it to bend backward. As the poor man shrieked in agony the other leg was pulled out by her partner so that it could be deformed in a similar nature. The two appendages quickly swelled and bruised, faster than Adam had ever seen before; they hung loosely on the ground, mutilated, and useless.

"Good luck with that," the woman said with a sneer.

There wasn't even a brief moment of silence. An exhale of shock, a cry of outrage. The crowd could have been told that a mosquito had just been swatted. As the two made to leave, the crowd simply closed around them, and rendered the screaming man invisible to Adam's sight.

Moments later, it was though it had never happened.

It didn't escape the bull faunus' notice that this part of the crowd was also made predominantly of faunus.

Adam's first instinct was to brush it off, to say it was none of his concern, but some part of him wanted to tell himself that it wasn't true, and the bull faunus could not ignore it. Even though he knew it shouldn't have, The… the casualness of it all still struck him right to the core, in a place he tried and tried to bury. The part of him that was his mother warred against his true self while he looked on, even as every fiber of his being needed to move, get help, kill the bastards, something, before having its throat slit by the darker residue of Adam's past.

He knew the true nature of his self-named brethren intimately: insincere malignant parasites that they were. None of them would ever really fight for anyone, trusting that others would so that they could better take advantage of the generosity and kindness of their betters. They'd sacrifice anyone and anything for the pretence that they were better than they were. Even their own children. They were cockroaches; selfish scheming rats without principle who weren't worth the oxygen they sucked down.

This was yet another example; the old man had just learned a lesson that Adam had branded into his soul before he had been old enough to reach puberty. A lesson he had been reacquainted with only a few weeks ago. Even so, looking at it, part of him just couldn't understand. He knew full well why he hadn't intervened. But these were supposed to be "better" people. "Innocents." "Good." The baseless and unjustified savagery just occurred and no one bothered to stop it or stand up for it or... or… how did anyone stand it? How? His vision began to swim. Disgust, and an endless swell of rage, bubbled up in him like a blast furnace, as that old scent of burning flesh consumed his senses; he couldn't move his arms, his voice was hoarse and all he could see was that piece of glowing metal growing ever larger and-

Then he blinked and hissed. Pain seared through his head, his blood roared in his ears, rendering him near deaf. That had given him a headache. Useful as his hearing was, straining it like that hurt. There was a reason canine and feline faunus had two sets of ears after all; it took half as much effort for them to process information. He rubbed his temples briefly before straightening again, Since they were already at the edge of the crowds, Adam spied his targets easily, still rubbing at his headache.

He turned his mind firmly to the work in hand, a look of steel crossing his face. His heart grew cold, frost and ice crystals setting over soft muscle like a Solitasian blizzard. They didn't deserve his help or his mercy. If they couldn't fight for themselves, that was their problem. After all… it wasn't as though they'd ever fought for him.

The trip down memory lane was the furthest thing from his mind now.

He kept his gaze firmly on the crowd, until the huntsmen departed from it proper, slinking away through a quiet looking alleyway. They were heading north east, and without hesitation, he made to follow. The shapes of the more traditional structures and sloping roof tiles were still new to his feet, and keeping his balance was difficult, but Adam was able to keep up his pursuit. The alleyway looked thin and disgusting, as all side-streets in the infamous city apparently were, and he wrinkled his nose at the heavy scent of bile and booze. The air even up here tasted sour, but he ignored it because the scents were far more manageable than on the main road. While all Faunus had enhanced senses of smell well beyond that of the average human, Adam was fortunate, or unfortunate depending on how you looked at it, that he wasn't able to track by smell, because the scent was certainly enough to make him question giving up the chase. They turned west and traveled down a main thoroughfare, and Adam steadily grew more impatient until finally, they halted.

The roof of the building they finally stopped at was flat and almost completely surrounded by other higher roofs; making an isolated nook that was almost completely hidden from the street, but it allowed for a complete view of the partygoers below.

Going through the front door wasn't a good idea; the entrance was all but a stone's throw away from a heavily congested thoroughfare, and he'd be seen almost immediately, if not when he tried to climb down, but when he entered the building itself. He pondered his options for a moment, before catching sight of a small skylight affixed to the roof. It was a grand looking thing, but closer inspection made him realize that the hinges that held the structure together were saturated with auburn flecks of rust. With years of disuse, it was easy for Adam to simply pry the entire frame, pane and all, away from the hinge with a low whine of metallic protest. After setting it down gently, careful not to drop and shatter it to pieces, he dropped down through the hole into the building below.

Inside, the structure was no more than an ugly skeleton of columns and prefabricated stone and concrete slabs. The noise; music,and celebrations of the crowds and rattling of the windows from the open skylight would drown out the sound of his entrance, a theory quickly proven as Adam dropped down softly onto a moulding violet carpet.

His vision took a brief moment to adjust to the darkness, in contrast to the glaring sunlight he had known moments earlier, and once he could see, he stepped forward, alert and at the ready. Looking around and taking stock of his new surroundings, he found himself on a third floor mezzanine, opposite a staircase on the opposite side of a lobby.

Once satisfied with his cursory examination of the lobby's plan, he took a step towards the edge of the broken balusters and felt something soggy under his boot.

"Moonlight Melodies: Symphonic Orchestra Live in Concert."

The name of the director was displayed below, but the flyer was falling apart, and the ink had long since become illegible. So this was some kind of concert hall in the distant past? Not what he'd envisioned he'd be led to, he'd gladly admit that, but at least these people had a taste for aesthetics, if nothing else.

Distracted by the potential uses his prey could have had for such a run down building, he very nearly missed the echoing of voices below him; boots that met soggy fabric with a series of wet sounding squelches. Adam quickly glanced up. The gap where he'd removed the window left a large square of sunlight, one of the few light sources in the entire lobby. If they came in here, their eyes would naturally be drawn to it, they'd see him, and he'd have wasted the last hour and change. He needed to hide. It wrinkled him something fierce— the idea of avoiding an approaching fight— and he had no intention of making a habit of it, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't see the wisdom in it. Those instincts had worked then, but they wouldn't work here. "Later." He promised himself.

Moving into an alcove and leaving the impromptu spotlight he'd created for himself,, much of the light disappeared, and his dark clothes blended him perfectly into the darkest shadows.

He could just about see them, the people he'd trailed, and voices were identifiable, but drowned out by the background noise from above him. Adam dared not move closer to hear what they were saying. He could at least see them though, and they paid the light no mind as they passed underneath him past a broken down ticket booth and into what he could only assume was the auditorium.

He doubted they were here for a concerto.

If he was going to hear more, he'd have to get inside. Once again, he couldn't go through the front. Common sense said they'd probably be watching the door they themselves entered through: one generally didn't go to clandestine meetings without some level of paranoia. But then it hit him. This was an auditorium. There was bound to be more than one way into the room. He doubted the musicians used the same doors as the patrons. And sure enough, he could see directions to a service entrance on the second floor….that was blocked up by rubble.

Using every curse word he knew, and when that wasn't enough, several ones he invented, Adam cast his gaze again, mind racing.

Beyond the balusters was half-hung scaffolding that he reasoned could just take his weight. If he was agile enough he could use them to reach the other side of the lobby. He hopped and leapt and swung through a series of i-beams before taking a leap up to a support bridge that had been lowered temporarily, climbing its slats. He was starting to get into the rhythm of it now, he thought. He was on the other side of the mezzanine now, and...yes. As he suspected. Another door, this one marked "Stagehands Only". It didn't make sense to build a third floor that led to nowhere after all.

Whatever leaks had happened that required renovations, there was clearly water damage along the exposed brickwork surrounding the door, leaving a crack to see through, and just to be sure, Adam knelt down to take a look. The view would have been pitch black for a human, but in spite of the narrow field of vision, he could see a walkway behind the door, littered with more equipment and tools. The door itself was facing in the same direction as the auditorium, and that was more than enough.

Gently but forcefully pushing open the door a crack, Adam slipped through the gap and upon stepping through it, realized where he was. He had somehow found his way onto the catwalks above the stage and seating arrangements of the hall: judging from what looked like private boxes immediately below him on what must have been the second floor.. Here was where much of the renovation appeared to be happening, if the workmans' tools left scattered over them told him anything. It seemed that whoever owned the place was expanding, as well as repairing leaks from the roof.

As Adam moved on silent feet, he noticed a clump of bodies near the stage. The woman was laughing and jostling her friend. "Did you see the look on that face?"

They laughed.

"Priceless! Did you hear that voice? I thought he'd pass out! Prick barely had any spine!"

"Trash belongs in the gutter," the huntsmen replied, Adam catching a hint of teeth in his smile.

The other chuckled, waving what looked to be several bundles of lien. "Well, seeing as how I came into some money, what's say drinks are on me tonight?"

The other guffawed. "You? Never!"

"We're huntsmen aren't we? Gallant defenders of humanity? It's the least they owe us."

"Here, here! Say, when is the Chief coming in? I wanna get out of here."

"Quiet, you two! The chief'll be here soon."

He looked down at the auditorium below. Four men; two men in dark hazel uniforms, plus the one's he'd trailed here. The room was large, easily able to fit thirty times the number of goons occupying it with space to spare. Either someone was really confident no one would ever find this place or they thought that the celebrations outside would be enough to stop anyone that managed to get past the condemned building they considered a clandestine meeting spot.

Adam didn't know a lot about them, but Huntsmen, as he understood it, did not make a habit of lurking in grubby-looking buildings, or abandoned concert houses. They did not continuously reference 'the boss' or plans' as they argued with each other in hushed undertones, unaware of the eavesdropper perched high above them cloaked in shadow , his feet perfectly balancing his weight on the rafters. So Adam doubted he was dealing with "honest" affairs.

He was still fairly high up and it wouldn't do to fall and expose himself. Fortunately, the thick and heavy drapes provided the cover he needed. Having properly surveyed the ground, however, his next stop was crossing the catwalks, and with the way sound carried in the auditorium, he'd need to be careful.

Adam began to venture further, making his way across; the last thing he needed was for something to fall on someone's head and cause them to look up. The wind was paradoxically, louder inside than out, and the low heavy thrum of the crowds and celebrations throughout the city beyond the crumbling walls covered any noises Adam had made, but by the same token, it also meant he had to strain to hear the words of his targets, which was only slightly alleviated by the way that the auditorium was naturally designed to carry sound.

"…Don't know about all this, . Seems like we're the one taking all the risk here…"

"Yeah, but you'll be made men in this city. Trust me. You do this, and you earn the undying good will of a grateful police population… and a free pass to start up your own side operation in Kuchinashi without you-know-who around to dip his fingers into your pockets. Sounds like a sweet deal, right?

"Not sure… still on the fence about too convenient."

"Come on! What's he paying you guys to look the other way on his little enterprises? Peanuts probably. Besides, word on the grapevine from Mistral says he's on his way out with Malachite anyway. He's a sinking ship, no matter how you look at it."

"Well, if he is, he's still got deep pockets, and as long as he's got 'em, we'll cope. The rest of the team and a few others had him somewhere on the Dragon's Pass. Making sure no other upstanding citizens decide to claim his bounty. He's supposed to be on his way back any day now, hopefully with word from the Capital and a whole mountain of cash."

Adam narrowly restrained the urge to hiss. While it was a start, It really wasn't much of one. He recognised that name from the map of Mistral he picked up. The Dragon's Pass was a fourteen thousand mile long wall with fortifications that stretched halfway along Western Anima, from Kuchinashi to Windpath; a relic of the Old Kingdom of Mistral back when they had a standing military. History debated on whether it was a measure against the Grimm, or, more likely, a measure to keep the likes of Vale from staging a land invasion from the western coast, but what was agreed on was what it was now; a popular tourist sight, and one of Mistral's key trade routes.

It got its name partly for the the long and winding design of the wall itself; it twisted and turned over mountains and hills in order to be as impenetrable as possible, but chiefly, and perhaps far more obviously, each end of the wall was fashioned to look like an ancient dragon's head and maw, the latter of which housed the very entrances to the structure at both the northern and southern ends respectively.

Adam had actually considered visiting on his travels; it was one of the great wonders of Remnant according to the map, and it had sounded like somewhere he'd be interested in going, if only for the novelty value of it.

History lesson aside, fourteen thousand miles, and two other settlements, one of which being the kingdom's capital, was an awfully large space for a single criminal to hide, and being one of the busiest trade routes in the country, it wasn't as though he could pick him out of a crowded line up. He'd need only look at what had happened moments earlier to see how that would go.

As he watched bundles of lien change hands, the idea that he might drop down and have Wilt "encourage" the group to elaborate did cross his mind, but that was offset by the risk of exposing himself and tipping his hand. If one of them escaped, there'd be no telling when Myst would come out of his hole. Irritatingly, the conversation turned, and they wouldn't say anything more for nearly a full twenty minutes. "Why is it," Adam thought to himself, ready to tear his horns off, "that whenever I try to eavesdrop on someone, they always seem to change the subject just before they tell me what I actually need to hear?"

He was about a second from dropping down and committing to his first anyway when he caught the other set of footsteps. His prey wasn't alone anymore, and neither was he.

"Speed it up, Rookie. Dispatch wants us at… What's that over there?" A deeper male voice spoke, a newcomer. Adam swore. He didn't think to look for anyone else. Stupid. Inexperienced. Amateur. Had they seen him? How had he missed them? He tensed, preparing to jump. The huntsmen glanced in his direction and Adam ducked away, wary that he had drawn attention to himself, before assessing the situation from his perch.

They were annoyingly professional; keeping enough distance between each other that if he took one, the others would have him dead to rights.

"Anyone between those containers, come out with your hands above your head!"

"There's no one there, you stupid prick. Just the wind whistling in the space between your ears."

Adam raised an eyebrow.

Containers?

He didn't see any. They must be somewhere below him, which meant they must not be talking about him. Still, he couldn't shake the unease he felt watching them point weapons towards the space underneath him.

He could try it anyway; three of them quick and dirty before they knew what was happening, and try interrogating the fourth. None of them were faunus; they couldn't see in the dark. The advantage was his. But there was always the chance they could get a shot off; the police officers definitely had guns, and while he could dodge bullets relatively easily, it could end with him taking a stray bullet, or worse alerting any backup they had.

Or he could make a break for it; regroup and try to make sense of what he'd learned… which wasn't much, but it was something more than he knew at least.

Caution won out. No sense in wasting his advantage. It was time he made his exit. Sneaking back the way he came, he was across the scaffolding and back out through the skylight onto the roof with the Huntsmen and cops none the wiser. He ran across it and up to a roof, sliding on the stone tiles, spying an empty flat roof that held some kind of sky garden, filled with metal tables and chairs.

He shook his head, opening the satchel and rifling through the papers and photos. He picked up the stack of photos and looked over them quickly. Photos of guys in suits he didn't recognize doing all sorts of stuff the law should have been interested in. Smuggling drugs, passing out lien to police officers and even mayoral elects, if the accompanying notes were to be believed. He even recognised the two Hunters; they were in one of the pictures, though he couldn't read their names—they were handwritten in chicken scratch and the ink had clearly been blotting, because black uneven dots seemed to obscure parts of the text.

He continued to scan the pictures till the last one nearly made him drop the stack. Despite himself, his breath caught in his throat and his muscles twitched involuntarily.

The victims.

Even in black and white, their remains were, to put it frankly, horrific. Corpses with limbs so shattered that there was barely bone left. One missing half a chest cavity. There was even one with its head burst open like a pomegranate, its left arm missing entirely from the shoulder. Their deaths had clearly not been quick. What had happened earlier had probably been a mercy, considering.

It felt like he stayed there for an eternity, trying to piece together what he'd learned. Money changing hands. Dragon's Pass. Malachite. Corrupt Huntsmen. How did all those pieces fit together?

It was after sunset when he finally left, still without answers, and he was almost caught by the attendants who came to pack up for the day. The shadows of early nighttime easily hid his jaunt across rooftops as he put more and more distance between himself and the concert hall. When it was clear that he was starting to grow tired, Adam took to the streets again. He deliberately took a winding path, hoping that, if people were looking for him, they would be baffled by his backtracking. It would be another hour before he realized that no one was following him, and another after that, to realize that all he'd done was get himself lost, and now had less than no idea how to get back to Charlotte's. Hedging his bets, he wandered, almost aimlessly, working through the wellspring of emotions that had been plaguing him since he came to the city yesterday, trying to get them out of his body before he lost control of his own mind.

The streets were starting to empty, just a little, making it easier to get through, and faster.

"Hold it!"

Outwardly, the faunus snorted dismissively, keeping his stride, pretending to look away and watching out the corner of one eye as the man bristled. Inwardly, Adam's blood chilled.

He recognised that voice.

The newcomer. The one who'd mentioned the containers. That wasn't good.

"And just where are you off too, Mutt?"

The man responded again, taking large strides over to Adam. Seeing him up close was really something. He balanced a night-stick on his shoulder, a lop-sided and unclean grin on his features. The suit he wore looked like it hadn't seen a wash in months. His dark hair was slicked back and oily and his smile only looked worse. He was adorned with medals; Adam didn't recognize any of them, but was almost positive the man had not earned. On his right lapel was pinned a silver badge, and he didn't need both eyes to put together what he was looking at.

Once again, people in the street cleared as the man approached, burying themselves into buildings and alleys like mice, scared of an approaching rat. It was difficult for him to read the reaction to the officer in any other way.

"Just walking." Adam replied simply. An honest answer, but broad enough that he wouldn't give anything away. He'd never been a particularly gifted liar—anyone who even halfway knew what they were doing could pick apart a story of his in seconds— so his best play was that he stuck with monosyllabic answers. Unfortunately, Adam's ability to read body language was quite the opposite tale. Body language, the speech pattern in one's voice, and the eyes could all reveal deception. If the person is nervous or under pressure, the eyes may waiver, or the pitch in the voice may change. More of his mother's lessons rushed to his mind. Someone with a stronger mind would speak vaguely, but truthfully, and yet will omit certain truths to keep you in the dark. The ability to read the intentions of others through their stances; their posture, was an essential skill of combat, and as soon as Adam spoke, he knew the other man would not be satisfied with it. He knew the type too well. He was just looking for an excuse.

"Glad you can do that. But it still ain't tellin' me where you're walkin' to." He raised and lowered the night-stick on his shoulder, in a way that would have been threatening, if he weren't so relaxed as he did so. Adam subconsciously took careful note of his positioning. Judging by the fact the revolver on his hip was still holstered, he was keeping things non-lethal, unless lethal was his intention and he planned on trying to beat Adam to death.

It was difficult to tell, with the way he was tapping it against his shoulder. The auditorium had been dark. There was no recognition in the man's eyes, and he had not heard Adam's voice. Which begged the question; what did he want?

"A bar, if I can find one." the faunus remarked causally.

"Hmm. that's real funny," the officer replied, framing his grin with a burly hand. Adam kept his own neutral, eyes forward. "Cause for someone like you to be lookin' in this part a town for a bar, it'd mean one of two things."

The swordsman didn't miss the implication of 'you'. More evidence towards the fact that he was looking for an excuse to pick a fight with a faunus and he was the lucky customer. That was clear now. He had to improvise some way to leave before the situation got worse and Adam lost his temper. Adam wouldn't lose if there was a fight and indeed, the impulse to do just that was just under his skin, the desire to swat this buzzing fly already itching to be unleashed. But he wouldn't gain anything. He needed to keep control.

"One, you're lookin' for a bar that's just a bar on the side." From his tone, Adam guessed he was implying illegal activities, or at least, illegal by the Mistrali government's standards, what little of them there were by most accounts. Part of him wanted to laugh. It was fairly difficult to visualize the idea of the man in front of him actually enforcing that kind of thing, especially with what he'd seen earlier from his two associates. "Or two, you're lookin' for someone at said bar. He stepped closer, entering Adam's personal space. "Am I in the ballpark there? Or did you just get lost on the way back to the farm?"

"No," Adam replied coldly, ignoring his look of disgust and attempts at being menacing, and suppressing his desire to return one of his own. It was exaggerated, painfully so at that, but that was all it was; hot air. "Excuse me." Clamping his hand around his wrist with just enough force to demonstrate his strength, he removed the man's clammy hand from his shoulder, yanking him out of his path.

"Hey now, I never said you could go," the officer tried to assert himself, moving to block his way again. Adam stilled.

"Now that wasn't very nice at all. I should book you for that. Maybe you're new here— at least, I don't think I've seen your mug around before, so here's a friendly tip." The man's voice was anything but friendly "My word is good for the Gods themselves, if ya catch my drift. It'd be a shame if something happened to you just because you stepped out of line and all…" Adam narrowed his gaze. If there was one way to enrage him, it was trying to order him around, and already his hackles were raised. Something about him, even by his standards, and Adam hated most people, made his skin crawl. Maybe it was the cowardice of his tactics, or Adam's own natural aversion to anyone, particularly a human, attempting to exert authority over him.

Maybe the man saw him as a clear foreigner to the city, someone different enough, outside enough, to exploit. It was a common tactic of his ilk to attack those few in number. It was just what a human would do.

But if he thought that Adam would simply roll over, he was dangerously delusional.

"Now if we're gonna do this right, why don't you take a step back? Your activities are way past suspicious, and I'm not doin' my due diligence if I don't check you out. Unless of course, you give me a reason not to? Maybe a donation for my generous services?" Money, of course. Typical greedy swine. Adam remained still, staring down the officer, who didn't seem at all unnerved by the fact that the faunus towered over him in height by a good few inches. The man was a weasel; he could smell it, and even if Adam had the money to give him, he'd sooner crawl over melting glass that put a single lien in his hand on principle alone.

The nightstick in the over-weight officer's hand motioned towards his head. Adam surreptitiously raised a hand to his hilt, grabbing it fiercely in a crushing grip. He was unarmed, save for his blade. The officer had a gun and one baton. At close quarters, he would be no problem. The baton was designed for bruising and bludgeoning. His blade was designed for piercing and slicing. There was no question which of them was better armed.

But there was the matter of the gun.

He would need to distract and disarm first, or else risk being shot. His aura could probably tank the bullet at close range, but he couldn't be sure of the weapon's stopping power. And his aura wasn't exactly reliable these days...

"Look, Mutt, I'm losin' my patience. I got places to be and other donations to collect. So hurry it up or I'll just streamline your arrest." He jabbed a finger at Adam's face with the last word, and he had to restrain himself from lashing out and maiming the man then and there.

He was confident it would take him less than half a second to cut him down, but he could have backup hidden somewhere, and he'd have to subdue or outrun them. He didn't know the city well enough to flee reliably, and that would only get more dangerous when there was a crowd about to slow him down.

But he was running out of options.

"There you are!"

Adam barely had a moment to compose himself before Charlotte flounced onto the scene, arms tight at her side before locking Adam's sword arm in hers with deceptive speed. To the onlookers, it might have seemed like she was genuinely angry, and she sold the part well, Adam gave her that, though perhaps that wasn't accurate. There was anger there, in the way she squeezed his limb. Not visible, concealed, but present. He could feel it, instincts telling him it was too likely to ignore. But with the way her eyes kept flicking towards the man he'd been ready to maim, Adam begun to get an idea of just where it was directed.

"You're over an hour late for work! I swear, Adrian, why I haven't fired you is anyone's guess!"

Adam opened his mouth to object—That was not his name, damn it—when she turned to face him, giving him a surreptitious meaningful look. What did she want with him? He hoped he wasn't making a mistake by taking the out she offered. "Yeah… I am. Sorry."

As she turned again, Adam saw the man smile in a way that didn't quite reach his eyes. He almost grabbed for his sword again on instinct before he remembered his situation and again stopped himself. Still, it was getting harder and harder to rationalize not calling it quits and going with his instincts. It would've been so easy to reach out and snap the bastard's neck, cut him in two, rip out his throat and even still, his mind was providing him a series of ways to get past Charlotte and do precisely that. He forced himself to remain calm

"You know this guy, Charlie?"

"Yes." Charlotte expertly slipped between the two men and smiled, "A new temp I hired. I've had a few clients who think that they can get away with not paying their dues, and I aim to prove them wrong."

"You know if you wanted you could've called me for help. I'm sure the boys would be happy to help come down and keep things clean." The officer laughed, twirling his baton.

"You could have. But then I'd owe you, wouldn't I? If I want people to respect me on my own terms, I have to do these things myself, you know?" She pushed away playfully, crossing her arms and looked up at him without a hint of fear. Unnoticed by both of them, Adam's eye narrowed. The cop hadn't seen it yet, but he had. Her movements, mannerisms were...rehearsed, if that was the right word. She was trying to put his guard down, make it seem like she was relaxed, but her movements were too methodical. Everything was too precise; her laugh was too stiff to be natural. As if to prove his point, she giggled again, but he could see the way she just barely shifted from side to side; it spelled her agitation as clear as daylight. "Sorry to cut things short, but I really do need to put Adrian here to work. He's behind as is, and he's completely hopeless without me."

"Much as I enjoy your company, I'm afraid we should. I'm sure your man here has plenty to do." He smirked at her; the expression could best be described as greasy. "But you can look me up again any time you want." He winked, unaware that he'd been completely outfoxed at his own game. The officer let his index finger run lazily up and down the back of her arm. His hot, rank breath caressed her skin and made her stomach churn with acid. She hid her discomfort well, and Adam was honestly impressed that she managed not to vomit.

Only he saw the look of hate and revulsion in Charlotte's eyes. The hands at her sides shook and the contact lasted for only a matter of seconds before he pulled back still smirking, and walked away into the crowds.

That was not how he'd expected this situation to end.

Charlotte watched him go, dark emerald green still teeming with disgust. Their outlines were stark, but it was difficult for Adam to tell if that was the product of her anger, eyeliner or just the deep shadows of the evening. Eventually she turned to him, one eyebrow raised. The outlines stayed – definitely eyeliner, Adam decided.

Thankfully, his conflicted mess of thoughts somehow managed to cough up a coherent sentence. "Why?"

Well. Not a sentence persay, but given his circumstances, he felt he should be commended for that at least.

Charlotte shrugged. "You looked like you needed an alibi."

Adam was nonplussed, irritated, and still not entirely sure that running away and fleeing was a bad idea… until he realized all of his belongings were still upstairs at her bar. He sighed. "…Thanks?" It sounded to his ears much more akin to a question than a statement.

She wiped her hand down her arm as if to wash away slime with the back of her hand, barely holding back a sneer, before fixing her face into a smile. Without another word, she threaded an arm through one of his, and marched him off in the opposite direction. Normally, he wouldn't have allowed her to touch him so freely, but she'd given him a place to sleep, and stopped him from causing an incident. It was only fair that he avoided ripping her arm off. They walked together in silence, her grin a near perfect mask, and strode together for a time. Adam soon began to recognize particular landmarks shifting to ones he was slightly more familiar with; the wide thoroughfares having long given way to tighter alleyways and more filth, until finally, they were back at the bar.

Once the door locked, the smile dropped into a scowl worthy of his own, naked rage dripping across her features like a kind of corrosive acid. Adam couldn't help but feel a bizarre kind of kinship for a few brief moments, before swallowing it down. The building itself was empty and dark with the only light being the fluorescent ones on the shelves that housed rows of liquor; maybe she'd closed for the whole day, he thought to himself, as Charlotte stormed behind the bar, grabbing two large bottles before taking a seat on the other side in silence.

"I take it that wasn't a friend of yours?" He asked quietly, just heard over the buzz of the lights.

"That model of human society back there," She spat, "was Captain Harris, from Kuchinashi's Vice Squad."

Adam would have to have been deaf to miss the venom all but dripping from her tongue as the name crossed her lips.

"His entire career as a cop, he's spent as either a hatchet man for the old captain, or a syndicate sock puppet. Shaking down small-time crooks, collecting "donations" from the ringleaders so they can keep their "business licenses" for our fair city…."

"If he was that bad, then why stop me?"

"Because if you killed him, there'd be another six of him tomorrow!" She snapped, finally losing her temper and nearly dropping the bottle before turning away, taking a few steps to compose herself. "Sorry . I'm just…." She trailed off.

A long silence stretched between them, made conspicuous by the hum of the lights and the ever present noise of their surroundings as they sat in silence.

Eventually Charlotte continued.

"You name a law, and I promise he's broken it to keep himself and his friends in the green. And like every other prick with a badge and a single shred of tenuous power, he rules like a sadistic prince… bringing around any cops entertaining the idea of actual honesty or integrity to the Kuchinashi point of view with a baton, and a snub nosed revolver." She laughed hollowly. "But I guess you saw that part. Course, the fucker still finds the time to skim a few pieces here and there for himself, of course, namely from people like me, because gods forbid he actually earn his damn keep. Apparently he's been thinking ahead to his twenty and retirement."

Adam remembered how the man had touched her, her reaction to him, and grimaced.

"...He doesn't just ask for a cut of your profits, does he?"

Her silence was as telling as any answer she could have given.

"I'm starting to see why you didn't send me to the station."

"Thought you might." She answered curtly.

She unscrewed a bottle, downing half the contents before wiping her mouth with her sleeve.

"Still. I'm sorry you had to see that."

"What you do on your own time is none of my business." He remarked coldly. It was the truth, after all, though seeing it was more than enough to sour his mood further. Even so despite his best efforts, he couldn't help the spasms of pity he felt for her. He knew that anger. Someone had wronged her, just as they had wronged him, though he'd understood by now that much like him, she wouldn't have appreciated it if he dared to pry. It wasn't his place, and he owed her that much.

She had… not saved him; he was more than capable of carving his own pound of flesh from the overweight hog in a far more literal sense than the man would have been comfortable with, but done him a favor and averted a potentially messy situation, twice now, which meant he should be… grateful, under normal circumstances, which these definitely, were not.

On the other hand, she was cunning enough to have an ulterior motive, so there was the school of thought which said he'd be a fool to take her at her word. He'd already seen where blindly trusting faunus got him after all.

In any case, the woman had surprised him with her shrewdness – perhaps even impressed him, though that wasn't really saying much. She held his gaze with hers, smiling a little more genuinely as she drained the rest of her second glass. The burn was instant, and the fog around her thickened and choked, blinding her in its warm fuzziness. She emitted a quiet grumble as he continued to watch her, and she leaned over to grab the bottle again.

"He's disgusting." She poured herself a glass of bourbon and sat at the bar, her legs crossed. Adam wasn't about to disagree. He did, however, do his best not to stare at the long swathes of exposed flesh. The last thing he needed was to play the idiot now, and despite his lack of his social skills, he was at least self aware of how his ogling might be interpreted. "But if you want to operate in this city, you have to deal with him eventually. Just… play careful with him, ok?"

Adam rolled his eye, but otherwise remained silent, allowing the hum of the lights to fill the silence before speaking again.

"So what was that about work then?"

It was a half-witted attempt to change the subject, but it worked; it took her a few moments but she seemed to remember what he was talking about, and her expression seemed to transform into the brighter one he remembered. She was silent for a few seconds – then her eyebrows popped up like springs and she resumed with all prior speed.

"Right….that, Adrian. I've rethought our arrangement."

"Of course you have." He said flatly, refusing to rise to the barb.

She cracked another grin at his short response.

"I was thinking that since you're broke, and since you're probably not going to come into money until your bounty comes around, you might need some money in the meantime."

"How would you know I'm broke?"

She gasped.

"Oh pardon me, Your Grace! I never should have assumed that because you ordered the cheapest drink on the bar menu, immediately lit up like a firework the second you sniffed a bounty poster in several figures, and had nowhere to stay last night, you must be drowning in lien! I'm sure you have three carriages of golden bullion awaiting your command!"

Her sarcasm was thick and exaggerated, accompanied with wild hand motions and a falsetto regal tone. "Get it? Bullion? Because…" she awkwardly mimed a gesture of horns. It was enough to almost make him laugh. Almost.

"...No." He growled out, ignoring her triumphant smile.

Pouring him a glass of whiskey, she offered it to Adam, still grinning, who took it hesitantly.

"I thought so. Also, you just told me you were with that question. Here. On the house."

"Thanks..." He swirled the mixture but made no attempt to drink it. He had a feeling he'd have to go to the bathroom if he did.

"What's wrong? Worried I'm going to poison you?" she asked, her alto voice smooth and sultry. Adam simply gave her a flat stare in response, before wordlessly downing his drink in one gulp. It burned like lava, and he very nearly choked, but it helped him ignore that annoying smile of hers, so he swallowed his cough, growling instead to keep his composure.

"So what's your plan now?" Charlotte asked, pulling out a cigarette and hunting around under the bar for a lighter. "Track down his friends? Make them talk? Doesn't seem too hard." Her fingers closed around the cold metal lighter, and she grabbed it and lit her cigarette, taking a long drag and blowing a tendril of smoke up towards the metal fan.

"Hmm?"

"You gonna let me in on your master plan or what?" Her voice rattled in Adam's ear.

"I don't have a master plan. The plan I have is the plan you know."

"Well, no offense, but it's not a very good one. "Your guy's got syndicate protection. Wherever he is now, he's got twenty four seven muscle around him, and I'm sure it's amped up since the charges." She pulled out a newspaper clipping and shoved it under his nose triumphantly. "Sounds like you could use some help."

"Help?"

"I may or may not have a few connections I could sweet talk into feeding me information about his syndicate." She leaned over to him, catching his eyes with a mischievous grin. "Information that might help you find him and get paid."

"And I take it, you want a cut?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Is that a problem?"

"No." Adam looked distinctly unrepentant. "But I usually don't work with people." He said dismissively. " Besides. I have it on good authority that sticks tend to go a damn sight further than carrots."

"That," she jabbed a finger in his direction for emphasis, "is exactly what I'm talking about. Intimidation has its time and place, and you make a really good 'big stick' even if you definitely suck at the 'speak softly' half of it, but… this isn't the Great War. I mean, I know you probably know that, but I don't think you really get it. It's..." She groped for the right words.

"People are snakes out here. Law's kind of an on-off thing; most of the time, it's easier to take things into your own hands. I get it. I'm not saying intimidation's never gonna work. But sometimes they're just gonna hit back at you, no matter how scary you are."

In response, Adam looked up, and gave a chill smirk, almost barely revealing his teeth.

"Let them."

She did a double take. "Huh?"

"Who says that's not what I want? Maybe I want them to see me coming."

He ran his fingers over Wilt's leather wrapped handle, the way a man might run his hands to a woman's hair. To her credit, Charlotte didn't so much as blink. His respect for the woman went up several notches. As powerless as she may have been, last night wasn't a one off; she had a backbone, and that was rare for her kind. He might think little of people, but he wasn't above giving credit where credit was due.

"You're a special kind of crazy, you know that?" She laughed, raising her glass in mock salute. "I honestly can't tell if your cavalier attitude is reassuring or disturbing at this point, but I think this just might be the start of a beautiful partnership. Cheers, Hornhead!"

Her casual dismissal and backhanded compliments were beginning to grate against his nerves. "I have a name." he said.

Charlotte's eyes glinted in the dim room, brimming with the fire of a challenge. "So earn it...Hornhead."

---

She had come to accept that she wasn't going to get any sleep.

She had been staring up at the ceiling in the dark, for at least an hour now, as the sallow glow of the bedside lamp on her desk glared into her eyes, humming softly with power. Blake would never admit it, but part of her was worried. She hadn't heard from Adam once since their argument. No one had seen him for weeks. She had asked Ilia yesterday if she had seen him and asked her to keep an eye out for him, if only to ease her peace of mind.

Ilia had been upset at that request. She and Adam had never gotten along, since that stupid fight with Yuma when they were kids, but that didn't really matter to her. Not now.

It had hit her later, that she had no idea where Adam lived. In all the years they had known each other, she had never once visited his home. He had always come to her whenever she asked. She'd never known, or seen him with any other friends, so it was difficult to find anyone to ask who knew his whereabouts. His loyalty was something that could have always been counted on. Like a pet almost.

He'd always been there. Always at her side, always her confidant. And then he'd just… changed.

A seed of childish jealousy grew rapidly within the young girl. Maybe he'd found someone else? She bristled as unbidden thoughts of Adam with someone who wasn't her jumped to the forefront of her mind and practically growled in disdain. But that couldn't be it. The only other women that she had ever seen him with were Mrs Taurus and Sienna; one being out for obvious reasons, and the other, while being far more likely, having no idea where he was either. Her book, another volume of Ninjas of Love, lay next to her, forgotten as she recalled the words that had consumed her thoughts for days on end. The words on the pages had all but bled together into nonsense as she fought to be able to focus on the story.

'You'll be doing it alone. I need to do what's best for me.'

She slammed a fist into her pillow. "Why doesn't he get it?!" There was a momentary flare of anger in her heart that twisted and burned as the words kept repeating.

Why did he have to be so… stupid?

She remembered the kindness that once was burning strong in his heart; whenever she closed her eyes, she caught a precious glimpse of the boy who used to read her geography books describing the world outside Menagerie, the boy who she'd made promise to take her there someday, the boy who loved to spend time with her. The one she'd had a crush on for the better part of forever, not that he'd ever bothered to notice. And worst of all , her mother wouldn't even tell her where he lived so she could yell at him!

Couldn't he just—

A heavy knock on her door startled her, and she quickly dived under the cover, sending her book clattering onto the floor.

"Blake?"

Kali Belladonna stepped into the darkened room, and tentatively approached her bed. Blake's ears flattened, as she caught the worried look on his face. Had something happened? A weight settled near the end of her bed, though she was careful not to give herself away by twitching.

"Are you going to talk to me?"

Of course she could tell when she was awake. Grumbling, Blake slowly raised herself up on her elbows and sat up. "I'm fine, Mom." Evidently, she wasn't convincing, because all it gained her was a raised eyebrow and a frown. Her lips parted once more to speak, but she remained silent.

Kali smiled.

"Should I be worried?"

"i was just coming up to tell you your father's going to be away for a few months."

Oh, right. The upcoming rally in Mantle. She had almost forgotten him talking about it these past few days. Blake frowned. Actually, now that she thought about it, no. That wasn't true at all. He had been remarkably tight-lipped about whatever was going on in the rallies lately. She'd noticed his conversations were getting shorter and distant – little more than confirmations of life.

It scared her a little. They were all indications that something big was happening with the resistance to human oppression. Something big that he was trying to keep her out of and keep secret from her. And whatever it was, it was most likely dangerous. She wasn't a child anymore and she knew how to take care of herself in a fight.

She took her chance.

"Mom? Can you tell me where Adam lives now? I really need to talk to him." Kali sat where she was, frozen in place, her easy smile looking considerably less natural than before. It must have shown, because Blake's ears dropped and he noticed her fidgeting at the sudden awkward silence between them.

"It wasn't his fault. You have to know tha-"

"Don't."

She could never forget how she recoiled at the new venom in his voice.

"Don't defend him. Please. I.. can't hear that now. Not—"

He pulled away, blinking lashes heavy with tears, that he would later blame on the rain. She could only stand and watch at his back as he struggled to reestablish his composure, all his defences having washed away in those raw tears.

When he at last turned his face to her , wiping his visible eye, he was a picture of grief and anguish. His eyepatch had begun to drip with moisture, and she couldn't tell whether it was the rain, or more tears. But what wounded her the most, was how his shutters had come down, his emotions walled off behind a wall of ice. She'd reached out to him then, a desire to help put the pieces of it together, but he had pushed her hand away roughly, choosing to stand outside of her arm's reach.

He hadn't spoken a word to her, or to anyone since, until that day. She'd watched him from afar, catching glimpses of red and black in the open air markets, when he'd be far too busy to notice her. She'd even tried to check on him at home, but he'd refused to answer the door, holing himself up in the dark for days at a time, alone.

And then he'd shown up on her doorstep, for what she knew now to be the final time.

While she'd been overjoyed at first, she'd been too optimistic. Too blind. He hadn't shed his grief, he'd allowed it to fester into blind an all-encompassing rage. She could barely hide the pain etched onto her face at the thought, wrought not by any physical conditions, but by the boy's decision. It was the grief of a mentor, of a dear friend, of a mother who knew that his mind could not be changed. And it sounded so angry, so bitter.

Now, he had not only cast her aside, he had burnt every bridge he had. Alienating her, Sienna, Blake... He hated them all. A single look at his eye had told her that without words.

And since, she hadn't been able to shake the feeling that maybe…. maybe part of him was right to. She'd warned Ghira about the risks, and as always, he'd ignored her, playing off her concerns about his idealism and borderline recklessness as her being just a worry wart. Because the truth was, Kali knew that her husband was not as fearless as he claimed to be, nor as brave as their followers believed he was. Not in matters of the heart.

Kali had told herself a hundred times since that day that the deaths that day, that Evelyn's death wasn't his fault. That he was mortal, and fallible, and that he shouldn't blame himself for failing to stop her murder. To think of those he saved, rather than those he had failed. Her soul told her differently. The look of hatred that Adam had given her, the things she'd heard him say the day he'd entered her home for the last time, the pain that he carried, and the broken despair she'd beheld with her own eyes when he'd gone to inform Blake of his departure whispered far more treacherous thoughts that were becoming harder and harder to justify to herself.

It was his fault. He'd been careless, gotten their friends killed through his hubris, and orphaned one of her few friend's only child. How could she possibly look their own daughter in the eye and explain that? She could not bear to see Blake's view of her father as her hero changed.

Even if her own faith had begun to form its cracks.

---

"We need to talk, Ghira."

"It will only be for a couple of months, Kali," Ghira sighed, looking through legislation and travel documents.

"Only a couple of months?!" Kali huffed. "That's not the point and you know it."

"Kali~" Ghira smiled, "You and I both know that the island takes care of itself, and even if something major comes up, you are more than capable enough to deal with it."

"That. Is Not. The Point. Ghira." She snarled, looking up at him.

"Kali darling-"

"This is about you! You constantly ignore my input, and you think you know better than everyone else, and it has to stop!"

Ghira rubbed at his temples. "Kali… I don't think… I've never thought…"

"I told you that the political climate in Mistral was too dangerous for a rally! I told you that it would be better to wait, or choose somewhere more neutral until we could build a proper support base for a protest. And I definitely told you, that the idea of having nobody armed in a region that's consistently polled as the most faunus hostile region in the southern hemisphere, as some kind of political stunt, was borderline suicidal!"

"It made a statement! That we wouldn't rely on violence, no matter what humans did to us! Think about what that might mean for our people! We always knew there'd be losses, and I grieve them, but—"

His wife raised a hand, cutting him off. It was then that he noticed her ears were pinned back, twitching intermittently with the hairs that covered them, each standing on end. When she met his eyes, her pupils had contracted, and her tone shook with emotion.

"Ghira. You're my husband, and I love you dearly. But I swear, if anything even approaching the words 'Look at the bigger picture' comes anywhere near this conversation, I'm liable to break my tea tray over the back of your head."

Wisely, he kept his mouth shut, allowing her to continue.

"I knew coming in that it wouldn't be easy, that we'd lose people in our fight for equality. But the point is, we should be trying to avoid it, not facilitate it! You didn't give them a choice. Neither of us did. Even if I agreed, a third of the people we lost after that were killed by Grimm, and they died defenseless, because of your ego. It wasn't you that had to tell their families what happened. Why they'd never see their loved ones again. It wasn't you that had to go to the funerals. It can't happen again, Ghira. I won't be a part of that."

---

The argument had been long and fierce, but they'd made up, as they always did, and he'd sworn to her that he wouldn't gamble so recklessly with their supporters' lives again.

KalI had meant every word of what she said, even more so after Adam's final visit. He'd been like a second child to her, and watching him fall apart had hurt her in a way that few things had in life. She knew her husband meant well, he always did. But she also knew how much Ghira enjoyed being at the centre of the cult of personality their grass roots movement had become over the years. She'd tried to ignore the way part of him had always preened at the idea of being a savior to their race, of being the one to do what generations of wars and faunus deaths at the hands of humanity couldn't do.

In his defense, it was an intoxicating one; to see faunus across Remnant finally free of hundreds of years of institutionalized human cruelty. That was the dream they had both started out with. The dream they'd still believed in when they said 'I do'. But things had been starting to change, for a while now, and while her husband may have missed that, she had not. She heard the rumors of discontent among the ranks, that they weren't doing enough. That they were power hungry politicians, sucking at the "oppression" teat for political and financial gain. She'd even heard someone in their own administration question privately that 'since discrimination was the political issue was what had got the Belladonnas elected and kept them in power, why would they ever want it solved?'

That had broken her heart, and made her sick to her stomach. She hoped that wasn't true of herself, but truthfully she'd never given it thought. She was repulsed by the idea that she'd thrown away her ideals for a mansion of opulence and fawning praise. And there was once a time she could have said the same about her husband, without question.

But now?

"Mom?"

Kali blinked, noticing Blake tugging on her arm, concern clouding her features. And so, she did something that, from the day she first held her precious daughter in her arms, she swore she would never do.

She smiled. And lied.

"Do you remember the Mistral Rally a few weeks ago?"

Blake nodded. She had remembered it well. She hadn't been allowed to go, and her mother had insisted she stay home with her, but she had helped her with making signs for the protests. She'd seen the news report when the rioting broke out. She remembered being afraid, and calling Adam and Ilia over to comfort her. Though what she didn't understand, was what it had to do with Adam, just yet.

"Adam…. lost his mother recently." she started slowly, choosing his words very carefully. "She was on the frontlines of the rally."

"Oh."

Blake didn't know what to say to that. It had explained his…. difficult behavior lately. She had a sneaking suspicion of where the conversation was going, and she wasn't sure she liked it.

Kali continued with a grave inflection to his tone. "She chose to sacrifice her life, so we could escape."

The lie was vinegar in her mouth, because she knew full well that her husband had left her with no choice at all, but she knew it was too late to take it back now. "I'm sure he's having a hard time dealing with her loss. He believes he's alone in the world now; he has no other family, and we both know he never has made friends easily. Being in that place… maybe it makes it easy to release frustrations. It's best to give him some space to grieve."

Unbeknownst to Kali, the revelation served only to confuse Blake , rather than set her mind at ease. For hours into the night, long after her mother had kissed her goodnight and gone to bed, she turned his words over, again and again, trying to connect the puzzle that was Adam Taurus that had been laid before her.

His own mother had chosen to die for the cause. So why wouldn't he honor her sacrifice?

Humans had killed his family. Didn't he see that? That he belonged here?

Had she lost him? He couldn't have really abandoned her, could he?

The fear came back to her then. A deep, intense and irrational fear that pricked her eyes and crushed her chest.

It would be fine. Adam was just overreacting out of grief. Her father would come back, Adam would apologize, and they'd all change the world together.

She ignored the tiny treacherous voice of doubt that laughed at her as she tried to go back to sleep.

---

Author's note; Hi! Fun fact, I've actually never written one of these before. First time for everything, I guess. Anyways, I hope you're all enjoying the fic. Just wanted to reply to some comments before we go further. Unfortunately, some of the reviews are from Guests, so I couldn't send PM responses to your reviews. So in no particular order...

Anonymous (Guest): Thank you! I actually am an aspiring author, and I am very much glad that you enjoy my work. Also, I'm thinking you may be right about the long chapters, though for the first few chapters That might be a little late. Still, I hope you stick around! This'll be a long fic.

Tyler Regis (Guest): Thanks for the compliment! And I really wouldn't worry about that. I assure you, I plan on going DEEP into the roots of Adam's anti faunus sentiment. Think of Chapter 1 more as the straw that broke the camel's back, rather than the root cause. Hopefully you'll be satisfied by the later chapters.