A/N: To avoid the headache, conversations that are solely being spoken in Mando'a will be written as translated after the first few statements going forward to ease the writing process. If a character is speaking it among non-mando'a speakers, it will remain written as Mando'a, but this should simplify things for both myself and you guys reading this... also, I rolled dice to decide on what the New Mandalorian Accent will be, so from here forward any characters that were born or raised there will have a Scottish accent. As for the specific region, use whichever sounds best in your head... and yes, Ruby does have a Scottish accent here.
If you wanna know an exact voice claim for her, just picture anything she says going forward to basically just be in Korsica's voice from Hi Fi Rush.
As soon as she had her armor reequipped, Ruby stepped out of the police station and was greeted by the sight of her brother and the battlegroup of 24 he lead posted up in a protective posture around the front of the station. That being said, of course, her brother was much more casual about everything, holding his helmet loosely in one hand while he lazily rested his disruptor on his shoulder. A sly but toothy grin cracked over his face under greyish eyes and silvery hair as not a moment later, a small bout of boisterous laughter bellowed from his mouth while he dropped the rifle to hand onto him by only it's sling. Stepping forward to meet her up close, he slung an arm over her shoulders while turning to face the same direction she was and walking her down towards the gunship they'd landed in the street out front the police station, clogging up traffic as nobody wanted to risk pissing off the Mandos.
"Hahah! Ni ganar at sirbur, ibac was an nuhunla akaanir at ja'hailir! Bal olar vi an thought gar had a cinarin uram? Ahahaha!" Her brother laughed, drawing Ruby to roll her eyes as he matched her pace. Chuckling slightly herself, she let her brother guide her towards the gunship bound for home, but wasn't exactly without anything to say.
"Su cuy'gar, Mercury. Didn't realize you were in Vale. Had a jate oya'karir?" Ruby greeted him, drawing a short chuckle from her brother as they stepped aboard the gunship. It was a larger, more heavily armed and armored evolution of the LAAT/i gunship that saw widespread usage by her people that was armored in Beskar plating, used an energy shield for additional protection, and liberally employed a wide variety of weapons that could be swapped out for different purposes. The design was similar to the original, but was more angular, had much larger engines with afterburners, and had a larger capacity for both personnel or material storage. It was a very large aircraft with wings that rotated upwards to allow it to land in narrower spaces like it was now, and enough interior space to fill just about any role, from troop carrier to gunship to mobile command center. This specific one was the "Razorfang," a unique variant made specifically with Mercury's battlegroup in mind.
"Heh, you could say that." Mercury chuckled his response out before waving the rest of the group to fall in onto the gunship. In short order, their brethren had returned into the gunship via the side doors on either side, before shutting them and taking up their seats alongside the walls just beside the closing doors. Not a moment later, the sound of the Razorfang rising up into the air rattled throughout the inside of the cabin, a resounding roar from the engines flaring into life like that of a dragon's dominating the airspace around them. A beast this gunship may have been, but the Razorfang itself was most certainly NOT a stealth variant, and it showed by just how loud it actually was outside the cabin. A mighty roar from a pair of the strongest engines the Mando'ade could produce at it's size, a far cry from the majority that were at least relatively quiet. After just a few seconds, rising up into the air, the gunship had cleared the buildings and leveled out it's wings, before shooting off into the night sky like a comet, the craft's inertial dampeners being the only reason a normal occupant wouldn't be killed instantly.
"Well, rejorhaa'ir ni about gar oya'karir, eh?" Ruby nudged her brother, drawing a small smirk from her older brother as he slipped his helmet back on over his head and took a moment to recollect all the fine details.
"Heh. My battlegroup and I were following a lead on a human and faunas trafficking ring. Managed to positively ID the scum and surrounded and besieged the facility. Cut off all their escape vectors, blew a hole in the roof and dropped down into the heart of the place, guns blazing. Left nothing of the criminals but dust and gore, police weren't too happy that there weren't any prisoners to drag to prison but the girls being trafficked were certainly thankful, if shaken." Mercury described in short order, before nudging Ruby in the shoulder with his elbow as he gazed down into her visor with a cheeky grin behind his own. "I also held up some dusty old guy with a scythe that tried to pile in on your fight with that busty blonde chick. Good fighter, fought me to a standstill. Gimme another week of training, I'll get 'em next time."
"Ah, well, thanks for that. Not gonna lie though, I could've done without having an entire building raised and slammed down on me with enough force to reduce all of it to dust. Could've done without the semi-truck being slammed into me, too. Also could've done without being blown up several times too, come to think of it." Ruby mused idly, eliciting some gruff laughter from the other occupants in the cabin. While her armor was the lowest grade in the room, her aura was easily the largest by a massive margin. They were all fully fledged Mandalorians and so rightly donned full Beskar or Beskar alloy armor, but Ruby's outright mental aura training gave her a large enough aura to easily eclipse the combined aura reserves of entire fireteams of Hunters or her Mandalorian kin. After all, even her more basic attacks with her semblance would drain most Hunters completely dry after two or three uses, so she made up for this insane cost with an even more insane aura reserve.
The rest of the ride was more or less uneventful, with small-talk being the only noteworthy topic of mention, not that Ruby was really paying attention to it. No, her mind was starting to wander back to what she'd be doing shortly, and the gravity of the situation made her more than a little uncomfortable. She wouldn't voice these complaints, of course. After all, she'd rather not have the entirety of her family pitying her as soon as she got back home...
Another day of beatings under the guise of training, another day of grueling hardship in preparation for the fast approaching schoolyear at Beacon Academy. While she might not have lived in Vale, it was the most prestigious Hunter Academy in the world, it's reputation eclipsing even the academy in Atlas, her home. It wasn't like Atlas wasn't a good choice of academy, Beacon simply had a better reputation for producing the best, and as a Schnee she wouldn't be seen accepting anything less than that much, even if the unspoken requirements were absolutely unforgiving. There was a certain mentality that came with the learning and graduating from the place regarded as the very best among it's peers, a certain elitism and unspoken expectations of a warrior's skill and intelligence.
Though not raised as a warrior, she'd spent the last year learning from the best tutors money could buy in the Kingdom and had come a decent way in regards to progress, albeit insufficient to her elder sister's expectations, though that was to be expected. While all the instructors money could buy were hunters, Winter was an Atlas-Mandalorian War Veteran, and more importantly, a Veteran who'd survived direct combat with one. Sure, she hadn't any Mandalorian kills to her name, but there were very few in this world who could boast that they'd engaged a Mandalorian in battle and living to fight another day, even fewer that could boast they'd actually injured one. Sure, the Mando made her bleed a whole lot more than she'd made them but that didn't discredit the fact that she'd managed to stain her blades with their blood when they weren't holding anything back.
Anyone who could hold their own against a real Mandalorian in battle was in another league entirely among Hunters, and Winter had made a point of this by gathering up all previous instructors she'd had over the last nine months and brutally pummeling all of them into submission at once and only taking relatively minor aura damage in the process. It was honestly quite terrifying to her, if she was being perfectly honest. Her elder sister had changed almost unrecognizably after returning home from the war, having survived both the battlefield and the POW camp she was interred in for the last week of conflict. Though in regards to her treatment as a Prisoner of War she did often recount that outside of forced labor they weren't exactly treated poorly, receiving sustenance, shelter, medical care and clothing even if it was just the bare minimum and barely covered anything. She still had those prisoner garbs, according to her they served as a reminder of those times and motivation enough to keep up with her constant training.
These past three months Winter had taken to tutoring her personally, pulling her along into her own training regimen. To call it brutal would be an understatement, as whenever the training was done all she could focus on was the soreness and pain that sang it's silent song along every inch of her body. Sure, she was faster and stronger now, and she was now physically fit enough to be competitive at Beacon in terms of physique and not just skill, but hell if it wasn't a grueling process. However, with just a week left until the schoolyear began this was supposed to be the last day of serious training so she'd at least be in, as her sister had so eloquently called "passable condition," when it came time to conduct her initiation trial, whatever that might be. Until then, the only thing on the agenda for training was the bidaily 5 kilometer runs and the usual push-up, sit-up and pull-up circuits that followed them.
But today? Today was anything but easy. Awakened via air horn and screaming at midnight and pulled into a 10 kilometer run under load before dropping kit and rushing through another kilometer of obstacle course, climbing up a 100m cliff with no equipment save gloves and the clothes on her back, then battling her sister at the top in hand-to-hand combat where the older girl pummeled her face into the dirt so easily... and all that was just the morning. They never slowed down their pace or took any breaks until 5:30 PM when Winter finally said that what they'd already done was enough. She didn't do it then but she couldn't help but release a sigh of relief as soon as she was alone and in the shower, finally able to wash off all the mud and blood from training all day. The brutality of the training was to be expected, Winter wasn't just a Atlesian Military Specialist, but she'd also passed the Special Forces Selection Exam and following training of the still recuperating Special Operations Division after returning home and attending some behavioral therapy. She was as close to a Mandalorian as Atlas could produce, and that was no small feat on her end.
"Argh... I really hope my body stops aching before I leave for Beacon. I get that Winter wants me to be prepared for hardship and combat, but I don't think she's realized quite yet that I'm not training to fight Mandos." The girl groaned as she rolled her shoulders, sore and challenging to move as they were. She was grateful for the training and physical conditioning, but she couldn't help but feel that Winter's methods were far too excessive for the intended purposes. Nevertheless, as soon as her muscles healed up rightly, she'd be in the best physical condition she'd ever been in, and she'd be more than ready for the physical demands of Beacon. It was an experience she was looking forward to, an opportunity to redeem her family name that her father had tarnished so.
"Miss Weiss? Dinner should be ready on the hour, do you need anything in the meantime?" She heard her family butler call her name through the door, his voice rising just over the hum of the shower she was still using to clean up. A small chuckle escaped her as she considered the request, before shaking her head and responding, just loud enough to be clearly legible over the rushing water and the through the door.
"No, thank you Klein. I'll be along shortly, how long do I have?"
"About ten minutes, Miss Schnee. I see you've already laid a more casual set of clothes on your bed, so I'll just leave you be for now." The closing of the door was almost more prominent than his voice as he took his leave, leaving Weiss alone once more with only just enough time to dry off, flick her hair back into a loose ponytail and change into the lingerie, basketball shorts and tanktop she'd laid on her bed. Nothing for it now as she felt she'd spent more than enough time showering, Weiss killed the stream of water and dried off, slipping into the clothing she'd prepared and tying her hair back before stepping into her slippers and beginning to make way for the dining room.
Her father wasn't present, neither was her mother, but she was fine with that. She could've done without Whitley's presence but Winter being there eased up the atmosphere a little. A quick look at her elder sister showed her to be wearing athletic clothes a little more liberal than her own, but given immediately after their training she'd seen fit to lift weights instead of cleaning up she was hardly surprised by this. The more revealing clothes left all her scars from the war on display to see for anyone who might turn their eyes her direction. Burns, stab marks, slashes, bullet and shrapnel wounds, a little bit of everything was observable from a quick glance, though it had all faded fairly well thanks to the medical aid the Mandalorians had provided, and her face was left mostly untouched outside of a small diagonal scar on her left cheekbone from some shrapnel grazing her following a nearby mortar strike.
"Hello Winter, Whitley." Weiss began, drawing both sets of eyes to herself. A soft smile and a small nod from Winter as she regarded her, and a quizzical expression from her brother, most likely regarding her current choice of apparel. The responses she'd come to expect from both, though seeing Winter so... informal, was still something she wasn't quite used to five years later. The war with the Mandalorians had mellowed her out considerably, but she could still be strict if the situation demanded it. Regardless, they mostly ate in silence, nobody really had anything to say, anyways. Everyone had too much on their own minds that couldn't relate to the others that talking wouldn't really serve any purpose for the time being, so everyone simply chose to refrain.
As soon as she'd finished her meal, Weiss excused herself and made way for her room, intent on changing into her usual nightgown and calling it in a little early. She'd had a long day, and all she wanted now was to go to bed for a bit. She didn't have any hard hit times for the week until her departure, though she'd need some time to pack everything. She ultimately surmised that she'd pack gradually over the week, as she had quite a list to pack and bring with her. It would be her new home for the next four years, so naturally she'd wanna be able to get comfortable.
"I wonder who my team will be..." Weiss idly spoke to herself, flopping down onto her bed after changing clothes and staring up at the ceiling, hands folded behind her head as she allowed herself to decompress from the long day. "I've heard Pyrrha Nikos will be attending. Some say she's as skilled as a Mandalorian, but Winter said after watching her fight that a real Mando would... how did she say, "curbstomp her?" I believe that's how she phrased it."
Her idle musings carried on for some time, until eventually she tired enough of her own voice and killed the lights, burying herself under her covers shortly after and falling so easily into a deep slumber...
Following her receiving the news of her sister's survival and apparent upbringing as a Mandalorian, Yang was left with her emotions being more than a little mixed on the whole matter. On one hand, she was glad that Ruby was truly alive and seemingly quite happy, but on the other, she was a Mandalorian, and the adoptive daughter of one of the most infamous men on the planet. She wished she'd only felt joy upon learning of Ruby being alive, but it just wasn't that simple.
She was a Mandalorian at the end of the day, and while she didn't bear any personal grudges against them, positive things were something she rarely heard about them, at least in the news and online. Warmongers, conquerors, villains, terrorists, war criminals, traitors, renegades, thieving magpies, among a long laundry list of other things were the usual descriptors the media used for them, as well as most of her friends at Signal. Not all of them, however, as those outside the city usually had the opposite opinion of them, curious as it was.
Nevertheless she'd seen the footage of Ruby fighting the criminals and later Vice Headmistress Goodwitch, and while the news that had picked up the story tried to paint Ruby as the aggressor in the situation, she noted that they'd left a large amount of context out of the story. Anything to push their narrative, she guessed, but that didn't change the fact that Ruby had kicked Ms. Goodwitch's ass rather handily, and durable didn't even begin to describe the girl's aura strength. She tanked an utterly cataclysmic amount of damage that would've shredded most pros and just shrugged most of it off, including having an entire building reduced to dust from the impact on her. Sure, it was finally broken through that but the young redhead only had a small limp that lasted a few seconds before she started recovering at a wicked pace.
On her own end she might've been able to tank an explosion or two, but anything more than that? Doubtful, and even then from the magnitude of the explosions Yang surmised that even just tanking two would likely knock her out of commission for the rest of the battle. Being able to shrug off that much damage without the slightest issue, she wondered if Ruby might actually be stronger than herself in terms of raw physical strength too. It was certainly a possibility, but she supposed she'd just have to wait and see when they finally met at Beacon.
Learning she'd be attending Beacon was an even bigger surprise somehow than her still being alive, but she wasn't opposed to it, if anything she was looking forward to the opportunity to rekindle their relationship as siblings... or at least something close to that. She really didn't know what to expect the girl to be like, after all she herself had never met a real Mandalorian. Sure she knew them to be peerless warriors, honorable yet brutal in equal measure, but beyond that she really had no idea. Was she still similar to the girl her memories remembered, or had she changed in some way she wouldn't recognize? Would she even remember her anymore?
They weren't particularly pleasant questions to have in her mind, but she'd long since learned to ground her hopes with realistic if occasionally cynical expectations. Nevertheless, all she could really hope for now was that she'd end up on the same team as her long lost sister, and that the girl both still remembered her, and still held at least shreds of the person she used to know in her after so long apart...
A dozen surrounded her, all of their guns at the ready, fingers on the trigger and sights aligned upon her. Varying distances and elevations, the shooters would move about around her as they saw fit, their sole objective being to score as many hits on her as possible. The opposite to her own objective of evading, deflecting and blocking every attack she could. Not standard training, but her training was far more unorthodox in comparison to most of her peers, having a much greater focus on aura training above all else, not that she was deficient in any combat-related kills.
This, however, wasn't aura-training, and neither was it specifically combat-training. Another skill in her arsenal, one not taught to her by one of her peers, but from a living legend outside their ranks who'd once been intimate with her mother, and was today a friend of the Mando'ade. Though she shared no blood with this man, she considered him family nonetheless. Not as close as Midnight or Marcus, but he'd passed a certain skill onto her than neither knew themselves, at least to her knowledge, and it was a skill that she utilized perhaps more than any other in her repertoire. A skill that allowed her greater awareness of the world around her, sharper and more precise than Aura Sense as well, when it came to battle there was no other skill she preferred to use more.
"The way others look at you, their breathing, their smell, the motions of their muscles, and that vague sense of their presence. Learning to subconsciously read all that is a skill I picked up a loooong time ago, kiddo, and it's saved my ass plenty of times. I know you've in a way copied it from seeing me work, but nows about the time I finally explained things to you, so you can actually do it right. Until now you've been using a cheap, imperfect version of what I use, but that changes today, we'll practice until you get it right, not that I think it'll take long." A low, gritty and harsh-sounding voice emerged from above, their arms crossed as they looked down upon her with a focused expression remaining steadfast over his face. A long brown leather duster, faded but fine boot-cut jeans, old but true cowboy boots and a black cowboy hat were all his primary his most notable pieces of apparel to most, however to her and her kin the pure Beskar breastplate and gauntlets were far more noticeable. As he was the only outsider to be permitted to wear Beskar, and the only one to be given a few pieces of pure beskar armor as a gift from the Mand'alor himself, he was viewed with a certain reverence from most Mandalorians, and recognized by them just as much as he was by the rest of the world as a living legend.
"Ki, it's more formally called. Use all of your senses, and sense with your whole body. You can't just rely on your eyes and ears, they'll deceive you just as often as they're true. Think of it as something halfway between instinct and prediction, master reading Ki and you'll have a great many advantages over anything the battlefield or any assassin could throw at you." He continued to explain while his gaze remained steadfast upon the scene below him, casually pacing back and forth just to keep the blood flowing rightly. "Your father uses an unrefined and imperfect version of this technique, yours will be better by the time we finish training today, Ruby, just like Mercury was when I finished training him on the basics of this when he was your age three years ago. Now... begin."
She flourished her aura blade into a ready stance as Nero announced for the training to begin, shutting her eyes for a brief minute as she steadily exhaled and allowed herself to do a sort of soft reset of her senses. Sight, sound, taste, smell, touch, and aura all mingled together to form a clearer picture of the world around her, a more refined one than what her eyes alone could see. That feeling of presence Nero had described, that abstract something, she could almost visualize in her head as those around her continued to shift positions as quietly as possible. They were using cloaking units, but early, more imperfect ones that distorted the light around them somewhat as opposed to the perfect camouflage that was currently used by the Mando'ade, still nearly invisible to the naked eye and nearly impossible to make out at a distance or with just a quick glance, and there was still some interference from the cool air bellowing out from the vents above and around them. Deception of sight and sound, as Nero had described, and yet while she couldn't form a crystal clear image of the world around her, she felt the presence of her sparring partners, each of them like a different colored flame in the rough shape of a human being.
As she opened her eyes, she could no longer see that mental image she'd made for herself before yet felt more alert of her surroundings, and better felt the presence of those around her. To her five at an eighty degree angle to her she felt the first of her cloaked kin squeeze the trigger, and with a flick of her wrist she moved her blade into position to intercept the incoming bolt just as it left the barrel of the blaster, deflecting it back at the shooter while she pivoted her body to the right to evade a second bolt from what was previously her ten o'clock. Like a sudden storm on a clear day, a dozen blasters began to let rip upon her, their target maintaining her awareness of their presence, locations and how they'd aligned their weapons.
Flipping over her side, she aligned the swing of her blade to deflect three incoming bolts with one slash, pivoting her body midair to evade a separate trio of bolts from different directions she couldn't yet intercept. Two of the three bolts she aimed to deflect were redirected back to different shooters while the third was handily dodged with a tilt of the head, though she couldn't help but grit her teeth as one of the three other bolts halfway grazed the left side of her abdomen just before her feet could return to the ground. Dropping back and rolling over her shoulder, she kicked off as she returned to her feet into the air, batting away another bolt and pivoting midair to strike a wrist rocket off course with her heel, deflecting it to detonate in a small pop against the wall a ways from her. Another swipe of the blade three knee missiles blown up against the flat of her blade as fourth slipped through her defenses, just barely dodged as it whizzed by her head cocked over her left shoulder.
Landing on her feet, Ruby kicked off around the outskirts of the arena, locking her focus in on the fight as best she could. It was a struggle reading so many opponents at once, and if she were being honest she only sort-of understood this concept, but for a novice she supposed she understood enough from the explanation provided. Only she was confined to the arena radius, as her opponents could move as freely as they desired, making actually chasing any of them down impossible. She only had her Aura Blade and clothing in here today, so the only thing she could use to fight back were the attacks she reflected back at her opponents, and her semblance... a much more limited arsenal than she preferred to have, but important for this training. Blade cloaked in a black inferno that darkened the world around it, Ruby swept her blade back and forth in controlled, precise and lightning-fast arcs, deflecting and blocking what she could and evading what she couldn't, only rarely getting the chance to send a slash of black energy towards an opponent.
And yet, this wasn't like fighting the amateur warriors of the Kingdoms or the Wardroids of Atlas. Even if she hadn't suffered any direct hits yet, every other bombardment of blaster bolts saw another bolt or two slip through her guard. Another bolt grazed the front of her thigh as she landed in a crouch, singing the skin as it disintegrated the fabric where it'd passed, forcing Ruby to grit her teeth as she threw herself to the left, rolling over a shoulder before bounding away just as she came to her feet, flipping over another burst of blaster bolts and coming into melee range with the closest of her kin who'd landed in the arena. However, feeling a trio of her kin behind her align their weapons and squeeze the triggers of their blasters, she was forced to drop back and roll over her shoulder and up to her feet before she could strike her kin with the blade in her hands.
A third bolt struck her from the side, grazing the outside of her right forearm as she just barely missed it with her blade, eliciting a small grimace from the girl as the fabric over her forearm was disintegrated. However, just a she'd planted her feet firmly back down and prepared herself to bat away or evade the next volley, a loud buzzer rang out from overhead, prompting all her opponents to halt, and just a moment later, disengage their cloaking units, safe and lower their blasters, and shift into a more relaxed posture. It brought a small sigh of relief from her, as the short but intense training session had ultimately left her somewhat winded. Sure, Ruby hadn't suffered any major aura damage, but that didn't make the training any less tiring.
"Three hits... Not bad, not great either, at least for a first run. I could feel you were doing it properly, you just need to train with it more. Drink some water and stretch as needed, we run it again in sixty seconds." The voice of her uncle called from above, bringing out both a sigh and a grin from the girl as she acted as instructed. As much as this training was exhilarating, it also calmed her nerves and eased her mind in much the same way developing new technologies did. It forced her to shift her thoughts onto the present and off the future, helped to stall feelings of nervousness, anxiety, anger, sorrow, anything that might've dampened her mood in the here and now.
Despite the hardship and exhaustion from training and creation, it was relaxing to her, almost cathartic. It calmed her nerves and eased her mind, made anything that'd normally set her off that much more bearable, at least for awhile. It was her normal routine for years now, it comforted her more than just laying down and resting the days away ever could. Helped her from overthinking incoming situations or from getting stuck in her own head. A coping mechanism before anything else, it was important for her, especially with the massive amount of anxiety and stress she was feeling over attending Beacon Academy. She was hardly worried about combat with any of the so-called "peers" she'd have, but it would be the first time in ten years she'd ever be actually interacting in any social way with people who weren't Mandalorians, and if she were being perfectly honest, that much was terrifying to her, making this training both important to get her mind off the upcoming storm, and to help cope with the inevitable hardships that'd come with leaving her home and family for so long to walk among complete strangers.
She took a moment to level her breathing back out, forcing herself to do the same sensory reset she'd done at the beginning of the last round, and began walking back towards the center of the arena. The less time she spent in her own head, the better, and it didn't take long for that to happen in the first place. So, with a steady hand and even, deliberate breaths, Ruby readied her blade, and prepared herself for the coming rounds once more...
The dawn was only just breaking when they'd made their assault, but it didn't take more than five minutes for the entire operation to fall apart. What should've been a relatively routine raid on a Schnee Dust Company train shipment had taken every twist and turn for the worse. It started with the Mandalorians descending upon the train just moments after their raiding party had cleared the cabin of the AK-130 combat droids, and unfortunately not ending just with the Raid Leader revealing the indiscriminate nature of their objective. If only it really were so easy, but now she was alone. No supplies, nobody to fall back on for support, with only a vague idea of where she was in relation to any nearby towns or cities.
If it was only Mandalorian interference it wouldn't have been fine, but they still could've completed their mission, albeit with high casualties as per the norm, something she could've lived with... but the mission, at least the details that had been omitted, were ultimately what forced her to run. Could she have even lived with herself, having so much innocent blood on her hands? The question answered itself in her head, it just wasn't what she was fighting for. She could hijack a large amount of dust from a company that exploited her people without issue, but to blow up a whole train of innocent people who only worked for the company to provide for their families? She couldn't do such a thing with a clear conscious, couldn't live with so much innocent blood on her hands, having played a leading part in such an atrocity.
So now here she was, no supplies, nobody to call for support, no idea what to do next, and a bunch of explosives sitting on the train cart that she'd disconnected, still just gradually slowing to a halt long since separated from the rest of the train that held passengers. A few lifeless bodies of her comrades littered the cart, but most of their raid party had been reduced to dust or crushed to a bloody pulp leaving only a crimson stain where they'd died behind, the unmistakable work of Mandalorian disruptors and graviton weapons. It didn't matter, not anymore at least. Only she and her now ex-lover remained, and he was on the other part of the train she'd cut off from, leaving her with the explosives and the Mandalorians.
Not like she was particularly concerned, anyways. The Mandalorians didn't kill those who'd already given up, and when they saw her throw away the detonator without ever having primed the explosives, had opted to just leave her alone. A few gave her some sideways glances and glares, most called her a coward, but since she couldn't blow up the bombs and was just sitting against a pallet of dust crates, weapon sheathed and all fight lost from her presence, they'd left her alone nonetheless, simply taking the Beskar and leaving without another word.
The cart was still crawling along ever so slowly, but it would stop within the next few seconds or minutes, she presumed. A thought with no real value or importance, but what else did she have to do now? The White Fang was all she'd ever known, and now she'd deserted it, leaving her aimless. The quiet she normally so enjoyed was almost suffocating now, as she curled up against a crate of dust and buried her face between her knees, hugging them in and shutting her eyes as she tried to consolidate her thoughts into something more coherent that she could make sense of.
"The White Fang is no longer an option, Adam has seen to that much... but I can't stop trying to do good in the world, or stop trying to end the inequality my people face... but how to do that now, I wonder..." She spoke to herself, squeezing her eyelids more harshly down as she tried to think of her next move, foot idly tapping against the cart as she considered her options. "I could just act on my own... but I doubt I'd ultimately ever get much done like that, so that's out of the picture... c'mon, Blake, think..."
Her first thought shifted towards the Mandalorians, but that thought shot itself down faster than even returning to the White Fang. Sure they were SUPPOSEDLY noble, honorable and didn't care about one's race or species, they even had the means to conquer the entire planet with relative ease she reckoned from what her limited view of their arsenal and numbers told her, but in her eyes they were warmongering, ruthless, merciless to those who opposed them and utterly relentless. She didn't believe what those who did like them said about them being noble or honorable one bit, even if they had just spared her she assumed it must've been more out of pity than any actual respect for life or their opponent, not one bit.
Joining the military was also a hard pass for her. Even if Atlas had a foreign legion, she'd never have the kind of freedom she'd need to make any sort of positive change in the world unless it became their mission, and if they hadn't already done that, she highly doubted they'd start just because she joined. not to mention, being in any kind of organized militant force risked direct confrontation with the Mandalorians, and that was just a death sentence with extra steps. Hard pass, indeed, so that left only one logically theoretical answer to her question.
She wanted to play a direct role in the causation of change in this world, and she knew merely speaking out and protesting was ineffectual from firsthand experience. A faceless mob of protestors didn't garner sympathy or make any change, it only instilled scorn from any they "oh so inconvenienced..." but a renowned Hunter? Their voice held greater influence, their actions held greater weight than any normal person, and they had the luxury of personal freedom to enact their will on the world as they saw fit... and Beacon Academy, the Hunter Academy closest to her now, had yet to start the schoolyear and was also still accepting applications. If she could just pass the entrance exam, which would be a rather trifling matter for one of her own education and combative skill, then she'd be able to start over her life in earnest... make up for the mistakes she'd made these last few years in the White Fang.
A slight smirk crossed Blake's face as she slowly raised her head, freshly opened eyes turned towards the approximate direction of Beacon Academy. The question once thought so difficult ultimately held such a simple answer, providing her with an immediate objective quite handily as well. Pushing herself upright, Blake approached the edge of the train closest to Beacon, notably being in the opposite direction it was rolling, and hopped off, dropping to a knee as she landed and rising back up without any issue. If she maintained a half-hearted jog she'd be able to reach Vale in about a day, maybe two if she stopped for rest a couple times along the way, giving her a window of a few days to get to Beacon and enroll in person. A generous timeline.
Shaking any doubts off, she began her trek back to Vale, her mind laser-focused on her goal and both determined and motivated to make it happen. She wouldn't let anything stop her now, not even a Mandalorian even if she highly doubted they'd have any quarrel with her joining Beacon...
A/N: Yeah, I know, it's a sloppy and messy chapter. Best I can do right now, I'm sorry if it's disappointing to anyone. If anyone's wondering, no, I'm not okay yet, and I'm sure as hell not recovered yet... I just felt kinda guilty having not updated in so long.