Decided my time off at Xmas. It'll begin Dec20th and I'll be back Jan3rd.

Cover Art: Kirire

Chapter 81

"I still think I should be down there with you."

Jaune's whinging voice came through the tiny earpiece in Blake's left faunus ear. It was clipped to the edge, the speaker angled inward, and her soft fur did an excellent job of hiding it. Say what you would about the inconvenience of her ears when she needed to wear a hat or the weather was cold, but they were very good at hiding things like that.

"That's because you're an idiot," she muttered out.

"I heard that!"

"Good."

Blake adjusted her collar so the mic wouldn't pick up every word. Vale was a busy place, but there were obviously parts of the city that were abandoned this late at night. When you had Grimm outside the walls, you couldn't afford to just have all your heavy industry outside the city. Big, loud, polluting factories had to be on the inside because it was better that way, but in order to grant some semblance of peace and quiet (and clean air) to the people of the city, they had strict rules on where they could be, what hours they could run and how much pollution they could cause. A distant section of the city was granted to them. Some called it the industrial district, but it didn't really have a name.

By virtue of being a place that closed up and quickly became abandoned, it was a haunt for criminal activity. The area was paradoxically the safest place in the city in the day and the most dangerous at night, with cars rarely stopping and hooded and cloaked people meeting between factories and warehouses to trade drugs or guns. Youths on the edges dared themselves to lounge within and look "cool", wrapped up tight in hoodies on their bicycles throwing abuse at passers-by to impress their friends, but further within you had people breaking into warehouses to make off with some produce or scrap metal to sell off.

In her black suit, trousers, expensive shoes and dark blue overcoat, Blake stuck out like a sore thumb and had been approached more than once already by people thinking they could try their luck. Some had wanted money, others had wanted to try and intimidate her for their own ego, and some had been looking for a "good time" with the pretty lady. A quick drawing back of her jacket to show Gambol Shroud had them all backing off with mumbled apologies.

She wasn't there for fun.

"I've alerted the Council as to potential anomalous activity tonight and that it might get violent," said Jaune. "They don't know about the anomalies we're meeting with or what's going on, but this way they'll hold the police back from intervening. We shouldn't have to worry about interruptions."

That was good. Worrying, too. If news of this leaked then there'd be no saving them. Blake wasn't sure if she should be angry at being saddled with Jaune's policies or not. It was hard to take the moral high ground when she functionally agreed with them.

But they were the only two in ARC Corp who did.

Everyone else wanted the anomalies dead.

"I'm approaching the warehouse. I'll not be responding for a bit. Can you hear everything clearly?"

"Well enough. Will you be okay?"

"I have my aura and my semblance." And, as anomalies, they couldn't have either. A single bullet would kill anyone she was facing. "I'll be fine."

"I still worry."

"I know. Going quiet."

Blake placed her hands on the door and slid the metal sideways. She'd been told in Mikael's text that it would be unlocked and she had her aura up and solid in case the place was rigged to blow. She'd survive it, but she'd be badly hurt and need to retreat. Burns, concussion, maybe even a broken bone. That was something the White Fang might have done, but she had to remind herself these people were only mimicking them. They lacked a lot of the experience and expertise the White Fang took for granted. It was impressive enough they'd found and been able to use a bomb on the airport, and she wondered if they shouldn't be looking into how they pulled that off. Then again, the police were probably already tracking that down and trying to find where it came from.

"Mikael?" she called out, stepping into the dark warehouse. It was gloomy, but her eyes could pick out the details most people would miss. The place was quite orderly and clean, with shrink-wrapped cardboard boxes stacked high on pallets waiting for a forklift to shift them into the back of a truck. It looked like a distribution centre. The logo she could just about make out on the boxes, behind layers of plastic wrap, was of a big red tomato. "Mikaeeeel. It's me, Blake. I'm here as promised. Are you in here?"

The metal door grated shut behind her.

Blake turned, aura flooding her, but it was just the one man. Mikael stood wearing a huge raincoat that covered his unusually shaped body. The front was open enough to let his metal orb see out, while he had a football of all things strapped atop his body, under the coat's hood, to make it look like he had a human head there. It was just one of the things the worse-off anomalies had to do to try and masquerade as human.

"You came," the anomaly grated out. "Where's Arc?"

"He's covering for all the anomalies and convincing his family that this was just a regular old terrorist attack. Otherwise, we'd have the entirety of ARC Corp sweeping through Vale exterminating every anomaly they can find. Including the ones living peacefully at Alistair's."

Mikael wasn't satisfied. "He should be here. You said he'd be here."

He was listening in, but Blake drew out her scroll and pretended he wasn't. "I can get him on the line if you want to say something but you have to understand this is a crisis situation and we're only two people. We can't afford to—"

Blake's ears twitched at the sound of feet on the metal railings above her. Had she not fully expected the ambush, she might have been surprised by it. As she was, she sighed instead. Even as lights clicked on and illuminated the warehouse in an obnoxiously bright white light, revealing the people – anomalies – stood on the railings with guns in hand aimed at her, she stayed still, arms crossed over her chest facing Mikael.

"Oh no," she said. "I've been ambushed. I'm so surprised."

Mikael flung himself away from her. "She came alone!" he shrieked. "He isn't here!"

"Doesn't matter!" shouted someone from above. "We got a hostage now!"

"Do they have a hostage?" Jaune asked, worried.

"They're referring to me," she replied.

"Oh."

"Yeah." Blake rolled her eyes. "Talk about awkward. Should I surrender and play along? See if they'll tell me their big plans?"

"They're not going to— Actually, they might. I guess most of them will have never seen a spy thriller before. You could try it."

Blame snorted under her breath. She wasn't sure if the idea amused or annoyed her, but she definitely felt a little cringy as she raised her hands over her head. "You've beaten me," she said, voice flat. "But please, if I'm going to die, won't you tell me how you outsmarted me and what's going to happen?"

"Ha!" Mikael came stomping over to her. "You wanna know? We outsmarted you, that's what, and it's only going to get worse for ARC Corp when we—"

"Stop! Stop, stop, stop!" It was a man's voice that called out. Smooth and faintly exasperated. Familiar, too, though Blake's eyes creased as she tried to place it. "Really, my friends, you need to watch some movies at some point. One does not explain their evil scheme to their defeated foe. It's the oldest mistake in the book."

"They're new to this, brother," said another. Two figures strode out onto a balcony, garbed in black and grey with red, pointed hoods. "And they were wise enough to reach out to us for aid. Ahhh, is that Blake Belladonna? It has been a while, hasn't it? I see you're not overly torn up about murdering your former best friend."

Blake groaned.

"What is it? Who is it?" asked Jaune.

"Corsac and Fennec Albain." Blake said it to Jaune as well as to them. "What on Remnant are you doing here? Don't tell me the White Fang are actually involved in this." The irony of her and Jaune using them as an excuse and then finding they were actually here was almost too much. "Why? How? When?"

"Far be it for us to explain our own grand plans but I suppose we can give you the old one," said Corsac. "Seeing as how that's woefully outdated and no longer relevant. It involved a rather odd alliance between Adam and a certain woman."

Blake took a stab in the dark. "Cinder."

"Indeed! They had plans, you see, and we supported them from afar, but then Adam died and Cinder vanished and Roman Torchwick realised he was in possession of a lot of stolen dust in the middle of a dust shortage, and now here we are without the plans we were originally banking on, without the alliance we had, without the dust we had stolen, and with our allegedly loyal thief friend off sunning it on a beach in Mistral with all the lien he made selling off the dust we stole."

"Heh." Blake couldn't quite help her grin. "I mean, you did trust your dust to a literal thief. I'm not sure what you expected."

"Don't blame that on us," said Fennec, resting his arms on the railing. "It wasn't our choice."

"That plan is gone now anyways – we were going to destroy Beacon and set off bombs at the Vytal Festival." He waved his hand at her horrified expression. "Yes, yes, you can warn them all if you like. That's not happening now. Not with the amount of dust we don't have. We'd hardly be telling you these plans if they were still in action. No. Adam is dead, our plans in tatters, and all rather before my brother and I even arrived. A little bit awkward if I do say so myself. But then we met these lovely gentlemen. I don't mind admitting we were terribly surprised about them and their appearances, but the White Fang knows better than to judge."

And, from there, the anomalies had told the White Fang everything. Bloody hell, this was a disaster. The public wouldn't believe them if they came out with all this, not when it'd sound so unbelievable, but this was still several hundred or thousand more people who were suddenly aware of anomalies.

Maybe.

If they were lucky, it'd just be the White Fang here and Sienna who knew, and Sienna would have decided to keep it to herself until they had more concrete proof. She'd have to convince her own people this was real and not some ridiculous fever dream from the Albain brothers.

"You're the ones who provided them the bombs," she realised. "You're the ones who taught them how to bomb the airport!"

"Guilty as charged. They had the spirit, you see, but not the experience. And after hearing their dismal story and the non-lives they're allowed to live, how could we not sympathise with them? They may not be faunus, but they are brothers and sisters in shackles. Just like we were. They are mistreated and maligned by an old and powerful family. We have so much in common that we simply couldn't stand by and not offer our assistance."

"Are they grandstanding...?"

"They're grandstanding..."

"Is that Mr Arc himself?" asked Fennec, wise enough to spot her talking under her breath. "Do feel free to put him on speaker. We're happy to answer any questions he might have."

"He's listening!?" shouted Mikael.

"Of course he is!" laughed the faunus. "You have to learn to expect these things. There's simply no way they trusted this wasn't an ambush, so of course they'd send their most capable person here while the other hangs back. You may as well rest your weapons, friends. Blake isn't overly intimidated by them and you're more likely to catch dear Mikael when a shot ricochets off her aura."

Mikael backed away nervously.

This was all rather annoying. Things had been going their way, looking to Blake like they might be able to wrap up everyone here. She could still try, but now with the Albain brothers here and knowing that they were involved, she knew it wouldn't be so easy.

It wasn't that they were strong – they weren't – or that they were a particular threat to her. It was the fact that they knew their limitations and were more worldly about all this. That meant even if she fought, captured or killed everyone here, it wouldn't be the end of things. Before, she might have genuinely believed the anomalous terrorists would commit to this and get themselves all caught or killed in an ill-advised ambush.

Now knowing the Albain brothers were advising them, that wasn't about to happen. For one, the leader of the group would no longer be here. You didn't put your leader into a position where they could be caught or killed. Secondly, the White Fang elements would know what she could do and would have prepared for it. They'd be expecting aura, and even expecting a violent confrontation, which meant she was now forced to ask herself what their plans were for that, and how she should adapt her own to them.

Were there cameras recording her? They could threaten to expose her and the anomalous if she didn't back off. Was the place rigged to blow? What else were they doing while she was occupied here? Suddenly, this wasn't a bunch of naïve anomalies fighting the good fight. Now, this was a group of dangerous anomalies with leadership and support from experienced terrorists.

This had just gotten a whole lot more complicated.

And they were talking to her.

"What is it you want?" she asked them. "There's no reason you'd be here putting yourselves at risk to talk to me if you weren't either supremely confident or didn't have some other plan. And after what I did to Adam, I doubt it's the former."

"We don't truly know what you did to Adam at all," said Fennec. "We assume he's dead, of course, but he vanished off the face of Remnant. No survivors." He grimaced. "I didn't expect that of you, Blake Belladonna. What would your parents think? They didn't like Adam by any means, but to brutally kill him like that...?"

"He came after us first. Attacked our office."

"Did he now? We hadn't been told." Fennec glanced at an anomaly, eyebrow raised. "We should apologise for that, then. You see, this is really more of a meeting than an attack."

"I thought we were taking her hostage!" shouted Mikael.

"Mikael, my friend, she would have no real difficulty escaping if we tried, and she'd certainly kill you and several others on the way out."

"But—"

"You'll have to forgive him, Blake," Corsac interrupted the anomaly. "His heart and spirit are in the right place but he's rather new to this. They all are. And why wouldn't they be? These poor anomalies have been offered no support, no help, and little education. You haven't even attempted to integrate them into normal society."

"You don't understand everything that's going on," she said. "This isn't like faunus and humans. These are sentient anomalies, but there are so many more that are just bloodthirsty, alien creatures or objects. There's a reason we have to keep knowledge of them suppressed." Blake took a deep breath. "And if you attempt to expose them then we'll have no choice but to hunt the White Fang down. Not just Jaune and I, but the rest of his family, every government on Remnant and—"

"The White Fang will claim responsibility for the airport."

Blake paused, stunned.

"What!?" asked Jaune.

"What?" she parroted.

"We're prepared to publicly accept responsibility for that," repeated Corsac. "No one need know of the anomalous elements to it. We're even prepared to keep your dirty little secret about them." He leaned over the railing, smiling. "For a price."

"Damn it—"

"We may not have much choice," said Jaune, quietly. "They've got us by the balls here, Blake. Even if you can take them, I bet they have video or some other feed stashed elsewhere. This isn't just a threat to expose the anomalous to the world, but to expose you and me to the rest of ARC Corp."

To expose them for harbouring anomalies in Vale and get them killed.

This had just gotten so much more complicated.

"Talk to them. Find out what they want."

"Jaune, are we really—?"

"I don't want to deal with them either, Blake, but you need to remember there's more than just us involved here. There's Alistair and all the other anomalies, and then there are all the people across the world who might be in danger if the truth got out. Imagine it. People hunting for anomalies out of greed or lust for power, and anomalies fighting back. It's no exaggeration to say it could cause wars."i

Blake bit her lip.

"Finished conferring?" asked Fennec. "What's the consensus?"

"We'll listen..."

"Excellent. We won't even ask him to come down in person. This really is more of a diplomatic arrangement. And here it is! The White Fang are willing to help in covering for your little slip up here in Vale, and we're even willing to keep the secret once we leave!"

"And you're leaving...?"

"Our plans are scuppered and once we take responsibility for the airport, security in the city will increase tenfold. You know as well as we do when it's best to pull out." He wasn't wrong. "So, yes. We'll back out of Vale and focus our activities elsewhere. Atlas has ever been our main focus, and now that the SDC are dismantled, well, they've never been weaker. The White Fang and the Containments Office of ARC Corp can walk away and never have to deal with one another again."

"Too good to be true," said Jaune. "Push him."

"And what do you demand in exchange?" she asked. "We won't give up any of our anomalies."

"From what we're told, they're too dangerous for us to feel safe having in the first place."

"They are. And it's wise of you to recognise it."

Fennec shrugged. "Not all of us are as obstinate as Adam. We hear the Schnee liked to sell some of them, and anything the Schnee would give away isn't something to be trusted as far as we're concerned. You can keep your deadly anomalies. We've no desire to send Menagerie to the bottom of the ocean or unleash a plague on the innocent faunus there. No. Instead, we shall be taking the other anomalies."

He spread his hands out to indicate the anomalies in the warehouse.

Blake's stomach dropped.

"What...?"

"Your terrorists. Your problems. The thorns in your sides. We're content to take them away and give them a place to live on Menagerie. A place where they can be themselves and where they won't have to live by the cruel rules you have set upon them."

A place where they could be trained into fresh recruits for the White Fang, they meant. Blake wasn't stupid. They wanted to bolster their numbers, and anomalies didn't come with aura, but they could have other esoteric abilities the White Fang might be able to make use of. A disgusting part of Blake whispered in her ear that at least then they wouldn't be her and Jaune's problems. They'd be problems for the rest of ARC Corp in other kingdoms.

Jaune was silent on the line.

"That's... That is... How would you even accomplish that?" she asked.

"They'll be given land and a home on Menagerie, and they'll be allowed to roam freely. We'll simply state that they are faunus who have been cruelly experimented upon." He waved a hand. "See? We won't risk exposing your dirty secrets. There's no office of yours on Menagerie and no reason for ARC Corp to get involved. Why, they need not ever know this deal even happened."

"And if the anomalies make themselves public?"

"They won't feel the need to. We've already discussed this with their leader, you see, and they're prepared to peacefully leave to Menagerie."

"Why?" she spat. "We offered them the chance to leave Vale and they refused!"

"Ah, that's because to leave at your whims would be to accept defeat. Come now, Blake. You know this. To be told to leave and then do so is to surrender, but to fight for your freedom is another matter entirely. Besides, you'd have them flee into the forests to live wild lives. We're offering them a home on Menagerie that they can call their own. A village to belong to them, where they can walk in public and live by their own rules."

It sounded great.

Little wonder the Albain brothers found fertile soil for the idea.

The anomalies would owe a great debt to the White Fang for that, and they'd come and preach their ideas and let them sink in. If rumours spread, more anomalies might go to Menagerie as well, seeing it as a safe haven. Yet more potential recruits for the White Fang.

The maligned living with the maligned, and both finding common cause in hating the human world.

"And if we say no?"

"Then this meeting turns violent. We flee. Perhaps we escape and perhaps we do not. The White Fang does not declare responsibility for the attack. Instead, the anomalies do, releasing video showing them behind it." He shrugged. "The world probably doesn't believe it, but ARC Corp does. They know the truth. They come to you with uncomfortable questions that you don't have answers to. The anomalous community here faces a purge. Perhaps you do, too. Vale burns. The White Fang live on, down only a few members, and not really responsible for anything that goes on here."

"So, yes," he continued. "You have your options. Agree to our deal and let us smuggle the anomalies who wish for freedom out of Vale. We shall cover for you. Or refuse and attack us. Make us expose you and the truth, and we shall all watch this house of cards come tumbling down." Corsac leaned back on the railings. "Your choice, Blake." He smiled. "And Jaune."

"We'll need a moment to confer."

"By all means. We have time."

Blake turned away from them, though she kept her aura up. "Jaune?"

"I'm thinking. This is bad, make no mistake, but they've thought this through. It's an out for us and them – them being the anomalies who orchestrated the attack. The worst part is that the White Fang doesn't suffer either way. Worst case is they get nothing, best case is they get a whole community of anomalies loyal to them."

That was true, though it was less "genius" on the Albain's parts and more convenient timing. They'd come at a time when the anomalies were rebelling. It wouldn't surprise her if a few of them had reached out to White Fang websites for help and somehow got put in touch with the brothers.

"I want to say no on principal. You know how I feel about the White Fang."

"I know. But if they reveal what we did, then even if the world at large doesn't believe it, my father will. They'll come here demanding answers, find the other anomalies, and it'll be a bloodbath. And I've no idea what would happen to us."

"Liar. You know full well what they'd do to you."

He let out a breath. "I know I'd die, but they might reassign you. There's a lot of evidence this happened before you joined. They'd accept you didn't have a say if you told them."

As if she would. If they made an attempt on Jaune's life then she'd respond, and then it would be the both of them against ARC Corp. That wasn't a fight they could win. The safest bet, as much as it galled her, was to accept the Albain's offer and let them take the anomalies away.

It felt like a loss.

And she didn't want to lose to them.

If I attack now, I could probably reach them. Blake tracked the railings. But they know that. And technically speaking, Fennec and Corsac Albain haven't committed any crimes here in Vale. They probably have every right to be in the city right now. They'd walk out of a police station in a matter of days.

And if she killed them?

They'll still have plans in place, won't they? Not all the anomalies are here and it's sensible to assume now all the White Fang are here, either. Some are being kept back so they can carry out their threats even if I put them down.

Blake growled under her breath.

"Take the offer," said Jaune.

"Jaune—"

"We don't have a choice. We wanted the anomalies off our hands. The White Fang are offering to do that. Just make sure they know they can't come back here."

Blake scowled. "A decision has been made," she shouted. "We'll accept your offer—" Damn their smug expressions. "But you'll have to agree not to return to Vale. That includes bringing the anomalies back here as guests, visitors, or anything else."

"Agreed!" said Corsac. "And gladly so. It is a double-edged sword, no? If we expose you, you expose us. We'll be hunted down and killed right after you are by ARC Corp as a whole, so we both have a vested interest in keeping the anomalous quiet.

Blake didn't believe that. "And what of dangerous ones that appear on Menagerie?"

"If they are truly dangerous then we will not be above contacting you," said Fennec. "But if they are merely misunderstood or abused, well, the White Fang are happy to offer them a home and look after them."

Of course they were. The same would go for any anomalous items they found, and they'd be on the lookout now that they knew the truth. ARC Corp had gotten rid of the SDC and the Schnee family, but now they'd gone and replaced them with another organisation that would be tracking down any anomalies it could.

"Come back to the office," said Jaune. "We're going to need to discuss this."

No one stopped her leaving the warehouse. Blake almost wished they would have tried. It would have given her an excuse to vent her anger.

Even dead, Adam continued to be a pain in her backside.

Next Chapter: 11th December

Like my work? Please consider supporting me, even if it's only a little a month or even for a whole year, so I can keep writing so many stories as often as I do. Even a little means a lot and helps me dedicate more time and resources to my work.

P a treon . com (slash) Coeur