Seeing Red Chapter 13, a rwby fanfic

Seeing Red

Chapter 13

Eve grimaced as her scroll once again vibrated in her pocket. She turned towards the other White Fang members who were helping her move the crate of weapons, then nodded to them.

"You three take over for a moment," she said. "I need to check something."

The others gave her a suspicious glance, but she didn't care. They'd all been suspicious of her ever since she'd returned to the White Fang, even after going on a few solo missions for them. Strangely, they didn't seem to suspect her of letting that one politician go, at least not yet; perhaps that meant they'd all truly bought her lie, or maybe they were simply putting on a good facade. Either way, it didn't matter – they weren't giving her grief over it, which was enough for her to consider it a small victory.

Now if only she could get Jaune to stop trying to call her.

Eve retreated to the shadows of the warehouse, pulling out her scroll to check it. The darkened screen briefly reflected her face, showing her just what she looked like while wearing the mask. And for the first time since returning to the White Fang, the image of herself clad in the Grimm mask gave her pause.

There was a part of her, however small, that was screaming that this was wrong. If she went down this road, people were going to die. Even if she wasn't pulling the trigger herself, the fact was that she'd be indirectly facilitating the deaths of innocents.

But as much as that thought now gave her pause, there was another part of her that was screaming that all of this was ultimately necessary.

Her people were still suffering, crushed under the boot of human supremacy and racism. For as much as the idea of hurting innocent people gave her pause, the knowledge that there were Faunus out there who were just as innocent and were already suffering in their own ways. She, herself, had been one of them, the scar over her eye a constant reminder of exactly what she'd been through. The thought made her gaze narrow.

Long ago, shortly after she'd received the SDC brand over her eye, she'd made a promise to herself to end the suffering of her people by any means necessary. If that resulted in the loss of a few innocent people, then so be it. Ultimately, this was war, and innocent people were always casualties when it came to any form of war.

Eve let out a tired sigh, finally powering on her scroll to check her messages. Naturally, Jaune had sent her a double-digit number of both voicemails and texts over the past few days, and she had yet to check any of them, for very good reason – the White Fang was operating on a very strict time table at this point, and she couldn't afford to be caught slacking by the others. Plus, part of her had hoped that Jaune would wise up and accept her silence as a reason to stay out of downtown Vale.

In retrospect, that was probably wishful thinking, given that it was Jaune. But it was at least worth a shot, she supposed.

"Let's see what this idiot wants…"

She opened his chain of messages, her eyes poring over each one as she took in his words.

J: Eve, please talk to me. What's going on?

J: You just told me to stay out of town – what is the WF planning? Can you tell me anything about it?

J: Please stop ignoring me. I'm not going to just go away, and you know it. So you might as well start talking.

J: Look, I know this isn't you, Eve. You're not like the others in your group. If you were, you'd have killed me already, just because I'm a human. I know you don't want what's about to happen. Please talk to me, we can work this out.

Her eyes stayed frozen on the last message. Even after everything, he still thought they could just work things out? The thought made her shake her head in disbelief. Jaune was a good man, sure, but he was still human, and that meant he was still ignorant to the reality of things. At this point, it wasn't possible for there to be a peaceful reconciliation between the humans and Faunus – the old White Fang had tried exactly that and gotten nowhere. Violence, on the other hand, was a universal language – even the humans who absolutely hated them understood that they were worth negotiating with after a car bomb or two went off in their neighborhoods, for example. Even if she was no longer a fan of the indiscriminate violence the other White Fang members often preached, that didn't make it unnecessary.

And so, for the first time in a number of days, Eve typed out a message to Jaune, then pocketed her scroll and went back to work.

Jaune was in class when his scroll suddenly buzzed against his thigh. He nearly jumped out of his chair when he felt it, his eyes widening in surprise. Without skipping a beat, he reached into his pocket and withdrew his scroll, hiding it under the desk so he could read the incoming message.

And as he read it, his brow furrowed.

E: You don't seem to understand, Jaune. This isn't something I necessarily want to do, but it's something that needs to happen.

Jaune stared at the text in disbelief. He didn't even need to think about his reply.

J: The first message in a number of days since you told me to stay out of town, and it's to tell me that hurting innocent people is somehow necessary? Do you hear what you sound like right now – how insane that is?

Her response came just a few seconds later.

E: I don't like it any more than you do, but we have no choice. This is the only way we can make sure our voices are being heard. Everything else has led us nowhere.

He grit his teeth as he typed out yet another reply.

J: Listen to yourself! If your cause has led you to this point, then maybe it's time to re-evaluate what you're doing and if it's really worth continuing down this path.

E: I can't.

That was it. That was her only response. Jaune just stopped and stared at the screen in disbelief. Two simple words, and yet they had him completely stunned.

Somehow, he was at a complete loss at this point. She wasn't willing to listen to his side of the argument at all, for reasons he couldn't understand. He took a moment to recover, then sent another message.

J: Look, please just talk to me. Clearly, this is important enough for you to kill over. Can you explain why?

He let out a heavy sigh, though it only lasted for a moment before her next message came in.

E: You wouldn't understand. I don't mean that as an indictment of you personally, it's just that you have no idea what it's like living as a Faunus in a world dominated and controlled by humans. You have no idea the kind of mistreatment we have to face every day, purely because of who we are.

His brow furrowed as he read her message.

J: You're right, I don't understand that. I can't, because I'm not a Faunus. But I do understand one thing – violence begets violence. If you do this, are you truly prepared to face the consequences afterwards?

He stared at his scroll as the message went through. It arrived a short while later, the little symbol next to the message popping up to indicate she'd read it, but to his dismay, there was nothing there to indicate that she was typing out a response. He continued to stare at his scroll for several minutes, hoping that she would send him something, but he received nothing but silence. With a heavy heart, he pocketed his scroll and turned his attention back to Professor Oobleck's lecture.

"Jaune?"

Or at least, he tried to focus on the lecture, until Pyrrha whispered in his ear. He turned towards her, confused, and found her looking at him with concern.

"Is everything alright?" she asked. "You seem upset."

Jaune hesitated. He'd promised Pyrrha he wouldn't lie to her anymore, not after the incident with Cardin and his team… but at the same time, he couldn't betray Eve's by telling Pyrrha everything either.

He didn't condone what Eve may have been planning to do, but she was still his friend, and if there was a chance he could talk her off the ledge before things escalated, then he wanted to at least try that first.

"…Sorry," he muttered. "It's… a personal thing. You remember that friend of mine?"

"Of course."

"There's something going on with her."

"Oh. Is it bad?"

Slowly, Jaune nodded. "Yeah, it's bad. I can't talk about it too much right now – I'd be betraying her trust if I did, and I want to at least try to reach out to her more first. I don't mean to keep things from you, but-"

Pyrrha stopped him by raising a hand, then shaking her head. "Don't be sorry," she said gently. "You need to help your friend with something personal. I can respect that. Just… promise me that you won't hide anything from us like you did when you were being bullied."

Jaune gave her another nod. "Sure. Just give me one day to talk to her. If I can't get through to her by then…"

He trailed off, but his meaning was clear enough. Pyrrha nodded in understanding, and Jaune let out a sigh of relief.

One day. It was a tight time frame, but he had to make it work regardless.

Anything longer and it would be too late, both for Eve and for the people of Vale.

Eve stared at Jaune's final message to her, the words rolling through her mind over and over. She'd had to sneak away from the other White Fang members in the warehouse in order to chat with him, and she knew they were probably going to start getting suspicious if she was away for much longer, but she didn't care.

The last part of his message had her completely stunned.

If you do this, are you truly prepared to face the consequences afterwards?

It was such a simple question, but it was also one she had no answer to. In the past, she would have emphatically answered yes to it. After all, no consequence was too much for her if it meant securing a proper future for her people.

But that was then, and this was now. Now there was something tangible attached to those consequences – namely, Jaune himself. The thought almost made her give a derisive laugh. Somehow, she'd grown attached to him. She wasn't sure why; maybe it was his innocence, or the fact that he was a genuinely good person even to her. Hell, she'd just heavily implied to him that she was going to be involved in an attack on Vale – he'd had every right to alert the authorities and tell them everything he knew about what was going on, and yet he hadn't, and she could only assume his friendship with her was the reason why.

The White Fang were planning to launch a massive offensive against the city of Vale and its people, and somehow it seemed that all he could think about was how to save her from herself.

It was sweet, she had to admit, but it was also futile. She'd made her decision, and now she'd have to live with it, consequences or not.

Her scroll began to ring, and without a moment's hesitation, she sent the incoming call straight to voicemail, then pocketed her scroll and turned and began to walk back to the others.

She was going to miss Jaune, but between him and her people, it wasn't a hard choice to make.

And so, she continued on her way back to the others, trying her best to push the feelings of heartache away as she did so.

"Come on, come on…"

Jaune grit his teeth as the call once again went straight to voicemail. With a heavy sigh, he threw his scroll down onto the bed, then collapsed onto it himself, burying his face in his pillow.

She'd gone from no contact at all to a few short text replies to no contact once again. Somehow, he'd made negative progress over the past day. It would have been funny if innocent lives didn't hang in the balance, and also if it wasn't one of his friends who he was worried about. But as it stood now, it was incredibly stressful and frustrating.

He turned his attention to the nearby digital clock, which was a few minutes away from eleven at night. The others were still up, but barely – Nora and Ren were doing homework, while Pyrrha had her headphones on and was listening to music. Jaune hesitated for a moment, then stood up.

It hadn't quite been a whole day yet, but it had been close enough. He'd asked for time the day before, a Wednesday, and now it was just a short time away from Friday. He couldn't wait any longer; if Eve wasn't going to reply to him, then he had no choice but to go against her.

Softly, he muttered a quick apology even as he approached Pyrrha and tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention. She pulled off her headphones and turned to him, her head tilted. Jaune couldn't help but swallow nervously.

"Let's talk," was all he said.

This time, they went to the roof together. It was right over Cardin's dorm, he knew, but also knew that Cardin and his team were likely not going to be a problem anymore, under threat of Eve coming back and disemboweling them or something. And besides that, the roof was the most convenient spot for the two of them to talk in private at such a late hour.

Jaune stepped over to the railing, leaning against it and peering out into the night. Off in the distance, Vale glimmered under the moonlight, the small streaks of electric and neon shining through the darkness like a beacon. It was beautiful, even to a country boy like him, but at the same time, it was bitter.

Because on Friday night, it was all going to be shattered in an instant.

With that thought in mind, Jaune sucked in a breath and turned towards Pyrrha, who had her arms crossed over her chest.

"Talk to me," she implored. "What's going on?"

"It's… my friend," he offered. His mouth suddenly felt dry, but he did his best to press on regardless. "Sorry… it's not easy to discuss."

"Why is that, Jaune? What's happening?"

"She's in the White Fang, Pyrrha."

Pyrrha froze, staring at him with wide eyes. After a moment, she recovered, focusing on him again. "...How long have you known?"

"Pretty much from the start," Jaune admitted. "She hasn't told me the specifics – never even openly admitted she was actually in the White Fang. But she's dropped plenty of hints, and even I'm not that dense. She's definitely in the White Fang, that much I know for certain. I don't know what role she has or anything like that, but she's in it."

Slowly, Pyrrha nodded. "Okay. So why tell me this now?"

"Because she reached out to me a few days ago, when we came back from the camping trip." Jaune sighed, lowering his gaze to the floor. "Something is going to happen in Vale tomorrow night. I don't know what, but all I know is that it must be pretty bad if she reached out to me. Specifically, she warned me to stay away. So I know it must be something pretty big."

Pyrrha nodded again. "And you didn't bring this up earlier?"

"Because I wanted to try and talk her down. She's White Fang, sure, but she's still my friend, and I wanted to give her a chance. But she isn't responding to me anymore, and I figure that I'm running out of time to actually do something to stop this. I want to help her, but between her and the rest of Vale… it's not a hard choice to make."

Pyrrha's expression softened. "I understand, Jaune. Thanks for telling me."

"Hey, you said no secrets anymore, and I intend to stick to that rule. Of course, the only question now is, what can we do to-"

Off in the distance, something suddenly cut him off – a bright flash, bigger than any of the sources of light in downtown Vale he'd seen so far. He turned and stared at it in confusion, unsure of what to make of it.
A second later, the sound and concussion wave hit.

Jaune's blood ran cold as it washed over him, and the reality of the situation sank in. Off in the distance, Beacon's clock tower shifted to show 12:01, and he knew what had happened.

He'd gotten the timeframe wrong. The attack had started early in the morning rather than late at night.

He barely had time to register what was happening before a loud alarm began to blare throughout Beacon's campus. Pyrrha grabbed him by the hand and began to drag him back through to their dorm, and Jaune followed after her, completely numb.

Eve had made her choice, and now he was going to have to stop her.

Special thanks to Ickbard for all the help with this story.

Sorry about the somewhat shorter chapter this time, my dudes. I'll be honest - I'm not doing well right now. Won't go into too much detail with you all because I already heap enough of that shit onto my boys as-is, but safe to say, things ain't going great for me in pretty much any aspect of life right now, and it's affecting my fanfic writing quite a bit. I don't want to stop completely because at this point writing in general is the only thing keeping me going, but it does get pretty hard from time to time. At the very least, I've got some people in my corner who know what's up, which is more than what a lot of guys get, but still. I've been feeling pretty fucking down these past few weeks and I don't see it getting any better any time soon. Still gonna keep writing as much as I possibly can, but if updates slow down or the chapters for everything get a bit shorter than what you're all used to, that's the reason why.

Anyway, I don't have a whole lot else to say at this point. The next few chapters ought to be more eventful and longer than this one was. Got some new originals I've started releasing. I'll be turning 28 on Thursday, which is a fancy way of saying that all I want for my birthday is for some of you guys to give those new originals a chance. You don't have to like 'em or even read 'em if you don't want to, but I'd sincerely appreciate it if you at least checked out the few chapters that are already up. Each story currently has two up, and I'll be adding two more to each this week as well, plus another two to each for the "P" "atreon".

Oh, yeah - I'm launching a "P" "atreon" for these stories, too. Ten bucks a month gets you 24 advance chapters total, 12 for each story. I won't beg for money or anything, but if you want to support the stories monetarily and help me recoup the cost of the cover art in exchange for some extra original story content, that's available to you as well. Shameless plug/shill session below; I hope at least a few of you will check the new stories out. Thanks again for reading the chapter, listening to me bitch and moan about how shit my life is and how miserable I am, and also reading this little shameless plug, I appreciate y'all more than you might think. Love you guys, hope you all stay safe, and I'll see you next time.

I have recently launched two new original web serials, Ballistic Coefficient and The Vampire's Apprentice. Both can be read at the following links; if you're a fan of mine, I'd really appreciate it if you would check them out. Both are on r/HFY, Spacebattles, and Royal Road under the same name I use for FFN, or if you'd prefer a direct link to them, that can be found here (remove the spaces):

ww w . royalroad fiction / 84568 / ballistic-coefficient

ww w . royalroad fiction / 84566 / the-vampires-apprentice

In addition, I have also launched a "P" "Atr eon" for these stories, which can be found at the link below. If you want to support me and also get a little something in exchange for your money, ten bucks a month will get you twelve additional chapters for both of these original stories - that's 24 chapters total, or 6 weeks of additional content each for these stories. That link can be found here (again, remove the spaces):

ww w. p atr eon user / posts?u=112496374

Thanks so much, and I hope you enjoy the stories!