A/N- This chapter needed a LOT of rewrites, which is why it's coming out a couple days later than advertised. Also I'm not on vacation anymore, so that didn't help. But here it is! My third chapter in a month! Before I slip back into my hibernating state of barely writing for a grand total of fifteen minutes a day. I hope you enjoy!
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'One hundred ninety one, one hundred ninety two, one hundred ninety three...'
With each count in her head, Ilia let out a quiet grunt as she pulled herself up over the horizontal metal bar affixed to the wall with her arms, her chin rising just above the piece, before she slowly lowered herself back to her starting position and repeated the process again.
'One ninety eight... one ninety nine... two hundred...'
After one final grunt, Ilia released the pull up bar, letting her feet fall to the floor. She gave her arms a quick shake before finally letting them plummet to her sides, collapsing like wet noodles as she caught her breath.
It was a good start, nowhere close to the kind of workout the young faunus was used to, but it was a step in the right direction for her getting back into the shape she used to be in. If she could keep up this progress, Ilia would be fit enough to travel in no time, and then she could get off this damned island.
Picking up the towel she'd left draped over a nearby weight set, the chameleon girl dabbed away the sweat on her face and neck as she made her way across the training room to the small duffle bag she'd brought.
The facility was empty, allowing the spotted girl some much appreciated privacy as she continued to work on getting herself back in shape. Although, maintaining the training room at their headquarters clearly hadn't been on the White Fang's list of priorities. Most of the equipment and machines were in disrepair, and looked as though they had been for quite some time, but not many of them had interested the ponytailed teen in the first place.
When it came to a workout, Ilia wasn't looking to set any records for deadlifting or anything, she preferred to keep things simple, but effective, which was about as much as the facilities here accommodated. Luckily, the weights were still heavy, and the pull up bar didn't fall off the wall when she tried to use it (yet), and that was all the chameleon faunus really needed. There was a treadmill in the corner that had caught her eye, but closer inspection revealed it was covered in dust and the control panel looked like it had been torn out, probably stripped for parts. That was a shame, Ilia loved to warm up with a run, but she preferred doing her running outside anyway, so it wasn't as great loss.
Satisfied with her progress for the moment, the spotted girl decided to take a quick break before getting back into it. Once arriving at her bag, Ilia bent over to grab the water bottle sticking out of the top. However, as she bent at the waist to grab it, the sudden movement caused the tight tank top she was wearing to ride up slightly, and the chameleon girl felt the sweat drenched fabric move across her back.
Ilia's entire body went rigid as she shot up straight and let out a loud involuntary gasp.
'Still intending to do things the hard way it seems...'
The ghostly whisper of Adam's voice in the young faunus' ear made her legs turn to jelly and she collapsed onto the floor. She spun her head around frantically, her eyes scanning every corner of the room, as if to confirm what a part of her already knew; that she was in fact alone.
Regardless, the panicked chameleon girl scooted herself backwards on her hands until she was pressed up against one of the wooden walls of the room, ensuring no one could sneak up on her. Ilia sat there, eyes wide, breathing heavy, with one hand brought up to her chest to try and quell her throbbing heartbeat.
'It's okay,' she tried to tell herself, 'you're okay, he's not here, he's not here...'
The spotted faunus bent her knees up and buried her head between them, wrapping her arms tightly around her shins as she tried to calm herself down.
How long was she going to have to deal with this? It'd been three months since she'd arrived here at Menagerie's White Fang headquarters, collapsing half dead on their front doorstep. Ilia had spent the next month and a half in bed, recovering from a nasty infection her wounds had picked up, probably during her delirious trudge through the jungles of the island. It had been touch and go for a while, but thanks to finally receiving half decent medical care, she'd managed to power through the pain... physically anyway.
However, it turned out that surviving her injuries had been the easy part, recovering was a different story. Much to no one's surprise, spending over a month bedridden wasn't the best way to maintain a strong physique. Honestly, it felt like Ilia had woken up in an entirely different body from her own. Her muscles felt weak, her motor skills were a mess, hell, she could barely walk a straight line that first week.
It had been an absolute nightmare, but Ilia never stopped trying to get back to normal- her normal, at least. Nothing would stand in her way, she had something she needed to do, and keeping that goal in mind was all that had gotten her through these hellish few months. And yet, despite all of her hard work, she just couldn't keep things together, and now here she was, falling apart again.
The chameleon girl finally lifted her head from between her legs and gave a long sigh, then took both hands and ran them across her sweat covered face. As she finished, she looked down at her palms as the last traces of the yellow that had no doubt just been covering her entire skin, disappeared.
This was ridiculous. It had been months, Adam was continents away, Ilia just couldn't understand why she was still so... haunted by him. Granted, what he'd done to her had been... traumatic to say the least, sure, fine, whatever, but why did it feel like... like she was still in that tent? Trapped, and at the mercy of a psychopath.
Why couldn't she just move past it? Bad things happened, she knew that more than most, but when they did, you moved past them, that was how you stayed alive. What made this so different?
As much as she didn't want to acknowledge it, Ilia was pretty sure she already knew the answer to that question. The chameleon girl reached up behind her head, and with a trembling hand, ran her fingers down her neck, eventually it coming to the upper part of her back. She only felt her own smooth- if still sweaty- skin at first, then a few of the rougher parts where her spots were, but then her wandering fingers grazed something else, something abrasive and ugly that had her quickly retracting her hand like she'd just touched a live wire.
That was the difference, that constant reminder that Ilia would carry with her for the rest of her days on Remnant. The chameleon girl grit her teeth, before slamming a fist down onto the matted floor beneath her.
Suddenly, the door to the training room swung open. Ilia hopped up to her feet, doing her best to hide evidence of her breakdown.
Through the doorway stepped a familiar pair of twin fox faunus. The two brothers were dressed identically, in white robes with red hoods. Corsac and Fennec Albain regarded Ilia with a small synchronized bow of their heads.
"Ah, Sister Ilia," the taller of the two brothers said, "you're up quite early."
"Couldn't sleep," The chameleon girl replied plainly, walking away from the pair of faunus, back over to her bag, finally completing her earlier trip to retrieve her water bottle.
That was a lie. She hadn't even tried to sleep. Too much time alone with her own thoughts was the last thing Ilia needed right now. Keeping busy was better for her, but she didn't necessarily need the Fennec brothers knowing any of that.
Sure, she owed Corsac and Fennec a lot- as they were always quick to remind her- but that didn't mean Ilia had to like them. If anything, the spotted faunus found them incredibly creepy. The way the two of them always seemed to be lurking around the White Fang's compound together, moving in perfect sync for some bizarre reason, it was unsettling, to Ilia at least.
Then again, they had saved her life, took her in, gotten her medical attention, and then allowed her to stay here for her recovery. It was a hell of a lot more than any of the other faunus coming and going from the headquarters had done. Apparently news of Ilia's "betrayal" of Adam had made its way to Menagerie- just as she'd assumed it would- and the rest of the White Fang seemed to want nothing to do with her, even more so than usual. All except Corsac and Fennec, they remained strangely invested in Ilia, which the paranoid chameleon girl surmised was because they thought she might still be "useful" to them, which did not help their creep factor.
"Regardless, it is good to see you up and about," Fennec said... or maybe it was Corsac? The one with the tail said it. Was Corsac the one with the tail? Ilia was still embarrassed at how often she mislabeled the two.
"Your recovery seems to be going quite well," The other Albain said, continuing his brothers sentence (yup, not at all creepy). "At this rate you'll be ready to rejoin our-"
"I already told you," Ilia interjected, looking back over her shoulder, "I'm not staying."
The tone of the spotted girls voice left no room for argument. Her mind was made up. There was something she needed to do, and Ilia couldn't do it here on Menagerie, especially not if she was stuck doing Brothers only know what the Albain's had planned for her.
"I... see," the shorter brother said, as he and his sibling clasped their hands in front of themselves, adopting their usual pose. "We respect your determination, even if it is misguided. Remnant is a big place, do you truly believe you have any chance of finding her on your own?"
Ilia didn't respond, she merely took a big drink from her water bottle before capping it, returning it to her bag, and the slinging the whole thing over her shoulder. If all these two were going to do was spew out that same old sales pitch for what had to be around the millionth time now, then she'd just walk away, like she had the last million times they'd asked.
Call her selfish if your wanted to, but the White Fang's "mission" had kinda fallen out of her list of priorities ever since...
Well... you know.
The point was, Ilia didn't really care about 'redeeming herself in the eyes of her brothers and sisters,' as the Albain's had put it. She had a more important mission on her mind.
She didn't care how crazy it sounded, or how low her chances were, this was something she needed to do.
She needed to find Blake.
It had been all the young faunus could think about ever since she'd woken up in the Fang's medical facility. The fact that her friend was just... gone, it had been eating away at her for months, feeding that big empty hole the cat girl had left.
Was she safe? Was she hurt? Those were the questions that'd kept her awake at night. Although, both were possibly overshadowed by the most pressing one of all;
'Why did she leave me?'
Yes, Ilia wanted to know Blake was okay, obviously, she needed to, but she also needed answers. The two of them... they'd been through everything together. They were family, basically sisters in every way that mattered. Why would Blake just disappear overnight like that? How could she do that to Ilia?
Adam had said... that Blake abandoned her... but that was impossible. It had to be just another lie the bull faunus had told her, much like the entirety of their friendship apparently. There's no way she was just going to take his word for it.
No, her friend was out there somewhere, alone, in a world full of monsters, and Ilia wasn't just referring to the Grimm. She needed Ilia... and Ilia needed Blake, just like always. So she had to get out there and find her, as soon as possible.
And so Ilia went to leave the Albain brothers to their... whatever they did around here, practice finishing each other's sentences, probably. Unfortunately, the two fox faunus were standing in front of the only exit, and as Ilia approached, made it clear they had no intention of giving up so easily this time.
"We understand your... responsibility to track down Sister Blake, truly we do," the taller brother started.
"The safety of our dear chieftain's daughter is- and should be- a top priority," the other finished.
Ilia didn't bother trying to suppress her eye roll. In addition to finding these two creepy, the younger faunus trusted them about as far as she could throw them. Despite saving her life, she knew exactly where the brothers loyalties lay, or rather, with whom it lay.
If any part of Corsac and Fennec actually wanted to find Blake, it was for the exact same reasons Adam probably wanted to find her, and Ilia would be damned long before she did the dirty work of that man again.
But, for now, the two brothers had her trapped in the training room, and the spotted girl knew the only thing she could do at this point was let them talk until they were satisfied at the amount of oxygen they'd wasted trying to convince her.
"However, there's still so much good you could do for the faunus, Sister Ilia. Even just here, on Menagerie."
"That's why, before you prioritize one of our kind over all others,"
"We merely hope to perhaps... save you some time."
That got Ilia's attention. After weeks of trying to talk her into staying, suddenly these two were gonna help her? That definitely raised some red flags in the chameleon girls brain.
The taller brother reached up the sleeve of his long robes and pulled out a scroll, tapping at the screen while the other Albain gave an approving smirk.
An aggravated huff escaped the spotted girl's lips as she heard her own scroll chirp in her bag. She really didn't have the patience for games right now. Despite this however- and mainly just to move this whole thing along- Ilia retrieved her device, pulling it out of her duffle bag, and begrudgingly opening the attachment she'd just been sent.
It took a moment, apparently it was a rather large file, but eventually a collection of photos were displayed on her small, glowing screen. Ilia lackadaisically tapped one, making it zoom in so the picture took up the entirety of the display. Her eyes barely scanned the photo, not really taking in any of the details. It appeared to be a picture of a crowded dock, the nearby buildings in the shot, as well as the general color scheme, leading her to believe the photo had been taken in the kingdom of Vale, not that it mattered much to Ilia. She was only really doing this to appease these two and thereby had no intention of taking any of this seriously. The chameleon girl went to swipe her finger across the screen, eager to breeze through the entire collection she'd been sent and move on with her life, but at the last second she stopped as something caught her eye.
It didn't register right away, to most it would probably just appear to be an odd shape jutting out behind a figures back, but Ilia quickly recognized the hilt of a weapon, one she was all too familiar with.
... Gambol Shroud?...
The small detail caused the spotted girl's mind to refocus itself as it confirmed her suspicion, and it was like the rest of the photo suddenly came to clarity, as did the identity of the person who had the weapon clipped to her back, under a mass of long black hair.
Sure enough, it was Blake. The chameleon girl quickly began swiping through the rest of the photos she'd been sent, each and every one of them, they were of her missing friend.
There was a flare of anger in Ilia's chest, she had to restrain herself from lashing out at the fox brothers.
"How long have you known where she is?" the ponytailed faunus said through clenched teeth, not looking away from her- not necessarily long, but still lost- friends side profile in the picture.
"Not long," one of the Albain's casually replied. Ilia didn't exactly care which one it was.
The chameleon girl's head darted in Corsac and Fennec's direction, her eyes red with fury. "And when exactly were you planning on telling me?" she snarled out, somehow still managing to keep her voice low.
The other two faunus shared a look. "We... weren't sure how to break the news to you..."
What news? What was that supposed to mean? Whatever game these two were playing, Ilia was in no mood for it.
"Why don't you take another look at those photos, Sister Ilia."
The chameleon girl growled under her breath, but relented and continued swiping through the photos. There were literally dozens of them, all from different angles, all seemingly taken in Vale, all of Blake. Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary at first, but eventually Ilia was able to pick up on an odd detail, specifically one on top of her friends head. The cat girl was wearing by a black bow, one that Ilia had never seen her wear before.
The new accessory seemed relatively innocent and inconspicuous at first, but eventually the chameleon came to notice that the black piece of fabric served a purpose beyond fashion, that it also just so happened to cover the cat girls second set of ears, like she was hiding them or something...
Ilia gave the photo a confused look, was Blake... trying to hide that she was a faunus? That seemed like the logical conclusion, but for the life of her, the spotted girl couldn't figure out why her friend would do that. Blake had always told her that they should be proud of what they were, that trying to hide and pretend the faunus didn't exist was just playing into humanities warped desires. They needed to know we were here, and that no matter what, we weren't going anywhere. So then, why was her friend doing the exact opposite of what she'd always told Ilia she believed?
... Unless of course, she didn't want to be found...
The thought slipped so casually into the spotted girls mind she'd barely noticed it, but once it got there, it dug itself in deep and began to spread like a virus.
Ilia continued going through the photos, now in a more frantic way, and began noticing more and more things that just didn't make sense. For instance, in a few of the photos, Blake was wearing what looked like a school uniform, the academy for which the chameleon girl didn't quite recognize. However, what was much more distressing, was the other people in the photographs, whom at first Ilia had only registered as faceless shadows alongside her friend, eventually the spotted girl began to notice recurring faces in the photos.
Humans, wearing their own, matching uniforms in some of the pictures, and in others, different, more brightly colored outfits. They walked beside the missing cat girl, standing... surprisingly close, in Ilia's opinion anyway. In a few of the photos, they even appeared to be sitting down at some sort of an outdoor cafe together. Who were these humans? And why did Blake look so... comfortable and familiar with them?
"One of of our deep cover agents in Vale was the first to spot her..." one of the Albain's said, though his voice sounded so far away he might as well of been speaking to Ilia from the moon, "...after Sister Blake and some others disrupted a... dust reclamation operation our organization was partaking in. The others have been identified as students from a local Huntsmen Academy. One which we can assume young Miss Belladonna is now attending as well, If the photos are any indication."
Ilia didn't respond, her eyes were locked tightly on the scroll in her hand. This... none of this made sense. The photos, they had to be fake, another manipulation by Corsac and Fennec, or maybe even Adam, they had to be...
...But they didn't look fake, and there were so many of them as well... No matter what Ilia thought about her superiors right now, she just couldn't justify them going to such lengths to try and trick her. That left the chameleon girl with only one possible explanation...
"It appears to be just as Brother Adam said;"
"Sister Blake is a traitor to our cause, and has abandoned us."
That word, abandoned. Ilia wasn't sure which Albain had said it, but as soon as she heard it, the chameleon girl felt her grip instinctively tighten. The hard light dust that her scrolls screen was comprised of was supposed to be nigh indestructible by normal means, but Ilia could of sworn she felt the glowing display crack a little in her hand as she fingers clutched the device tighter and tighter.
She didn't want to believe it, she'd denied it for months and months, but as Ilia stared at the last picture in the set, looked down at Blake standing with a group of humans, the smallest hints of a smile on her face, she was forced to face the truth;
Her best friend had betrayed their organization, betrayed everything they had ever believed in, but more importantly, she'd betrayed Ilia, herself. And for what? To go off and play "hero" with bunch of... of humans? It was more than the chameleon girl could take, and she felt the cracks that had been forming being to grow in her mind.
Untethered, wild emotions surged in Ilia as she stood there. Anger, sadness, fear, disgust, they all tore her apart inside as she clenched her teeth and shut her eyes as tightly as she'd could. A rainbow of different colors began crawling up her arms and legs as she seethed quietly to herself. The cocktail of feelings was too much for Ilia, her body teetering on the brink of collapse, her legs wobbly beneath her.
Everything they'd been through together, years and years of being there for each other, all those promises they'd made, the friendship, the family they'd been, the love, Blake had thrown it all away to start a new life on her own, like none of it had ever even mattered to her.
Then, just as quickly as they appeared, the colors all vanished, and Ilia's skin returned to normal. An unsettling calm enveloping her, plastering over that frenzy on emotions hidden just beneath.
She opened her light blue colored eyes and scowled down at the photo on the scroll in her hand. She felt so much right now, so many things all at once, but what was the point? Why waste another moment caring about someone who'd abandoned her. After all, those feelings she'd had for Blake clearly hadn't meant much to her so called 'friend.' Why else would she have left so casually?
With a flick of her wrist, Ilia closed her scroll, and displaying an almost eerie level of calm, stuck it back in her bag. So Blake had abandoned her, so what? She didn't need Blake, or any of the Belladonnas, or anyone at all for that matter. She'd find her own way now, even if she had no idea where to start.
Ilia returned her attention to Corsac and Fennec, who'd remained quiet while she'd had her second breakdown of the day. They appeared to have grabbed a pair of packages from who knows where while the spotted girl was distracted and were now opening them. presenting their contents to the younger faunus with a matching set of sinister smiles.
One box contained her old outfit, the same sleeveless and legless sneaking suit she'd worn for years working for the White Fang. Her old one had been torn to shreds thanks to Adam, this one was brand new.
The other box contained a mask, in the same style as the one Sienna Khan had given her all those years ago. It was also brand new, the flickering fluorescent lights of the training room reflecting off it's smooth surface, as well as the pair of horns sticking out on each side.
Wordlessly, Ilia stared at the gifts, her expression cold and lifeless. Fighting for the Fang was the first thing she'd ever done with her life that had felt right, it had given her purpose, and that's what she needed, now more than ever.
After all, it was all she had left.
She lifted her head towards the Albain brothers, a look of steely determination in her eyes.
"What do you need me to do?"
The hotel room was dead silent in the wake of Blake's question.
Ilia went white as a ghost. Surely... surely she must have misheard what the cat faunus had just asked her.
"... Wh... what?" the spotted girl managed to croak out eventually with narrowed eyes.
All of Blake's body language screamed discomfort, as she began anxiously stroking her left wrist with her other hands thumb. In spite of this though, the raven haired faunus didn't back down and repeated her earlier, pulse stopping question;
"I want to talk about the scars you've been hiding, the ones on your back."
The perhaps overly optimistic thought that maybe Ilia had misheard Blake shattered in the chameleon girls heart. Then came the panic.
How had Blake found out about that?
Just as quickly as the question entered Ilia's brain, the only possible answer kicked it back out.
"Carmella."
The tone Ilia spoke the name was completely different from every other time the ponytailed faunus had said it. There was almost an edge to the sound of it, like the first half was comprised of the last remaining bits of disbelief and surprise, but by the end, the hurt and betrayal Ilia felt had narrowed it down to a fine tip, until all that was left was the razor sharp edge of the name, stinging as it was gently inserted into Ilia's heart.
Blake opened her mouth to reply, most likely to deny the other faunus' accusation, but the look Ilia gave her had the words die in her throat. It was a look that dared the cat girl to try and lie to her. In the end, Blake conceded to that look, letting out a quiet sigh as her triangle shaped ears laid flat on top of her head.
"She's just worried about you," the black haired faunus tried to reason, "we both are, Ilia."
Blake went on, but Ilia was no longer listening, the wave of anger and heartbreak that hit her washed away all of the sights and sounds around her.
The chameleon faunus couldn't believe this was happening to her again. She'd trusted Carmella with this secret and the rabbit girl had not only broken her promise to let this go, but she'd went and told that secret to the last person Ilia wanted to know about it.
Ilia had thought- after everything that had happened this last week- that Carmella was the kind of person she could rely on. Then again, she'd thought the same thing about Blake once... as well as Adam, so was she really so surprised that things had turned out this way? Maybe it was just time to admit she was a poor judge of character.
She'd thought Carm was different, that she was the kind of person that could help her get back on the right track, to help her learn to trust again, but it turns out she was just like the others.
Really? Are you that surprised she betrayed you?
Shut up, shut up, Ilia screamed internally as the little voice in her head that seemed to love to torture herself reared it's ugly head again.
Honestly, you've no one to blame but yourself.
Stop it.
First your friends at prep school, then Blake, Adam, even the Albain's were in a hurry to throw you under the bus first chance they got. Maybe you should be more surprised it took that sweet girl so long to finally turn on you?
No, she wouldn't, she-
All this time and you still don't understand? Still refuse to see the truth?
No...
You DESERVE this. You deserve to be all al-
"Get out."
The words sprung out of Ilia's mouth, cutting off whatever excuses Blake had been making for Carmella and herself.
The cat girl stared at her old friend in confusion for a moment. "...What?" she finally asked.
"I said, get out." the irate chameleon faunus said, her now burning red irises scorching a hole through the other girl.
It was all too much, Ilia couldn't do this right now, her emotions were flying a million different directions at once. She was afraid she'd do something she'd regret if she had to stare at Blake another second. The chameleon girl needed to be alone, to ride out this storm brewing inside herself, as well as to re-evaluate a few friendships of hers.
Unfortunately, after recovering from her surprise, Blake made no moves to exit the room. "Ilia, please, don't close yourself off like this, otherwise-"
"I SAID, GET OUT!" the spotted faunus yelled, lashing out and shoving the other teen back several feet towards the door.
Both girls stared at each other, both equally shocked by Ilia's actions, blotches of orange and red beginning to appear on the lizard faunus' arms, legs, and face. A look of regret and shame flashed across Ilia's face, but quickly morphed into frustration as she turned away and stepped further into the room.
"I'm not going to tell you again, Blake," the ponytailed faunus muttered, not bothering to turn and face the darker haired cat girl. "Leave."
"No," Blake's reply had Ilia's shoulders tensing up around her neck. "Ilia, do you really expect me to just walk away after what I've learned?"
The spotted girl didn't respond, her hands curling tightly into fists. Why was everyone always pushing her to talk about things like this? There was nothing to talk about anyway, she was fine just leaving the past where it was, but then people like Carmella and Blake had to come along and dig up ancient history like this. Then, when Ilia pushed back, suddenly she was the bad one? How was that fair? She just wanted to be left alone!
Blake took a few steps forward, closing the distance between Ilia and herself. She slowly reached out towards the other faunus' shoulder. "Ilia, I know that what you went through was horrible, but I only want-"
The second Blake's fingers grazed the spotted girls skin the cat faunus had to leap back to dodge the fist that had been aimed squarely at her face.
But Ilia wasn't done yet, with a yell, she quickly followed up her surprise attack by lashing out with a viscous, lightning fast kick. The blow looked like it connected at first, but then the spotted girls leg seemed to pass through Blake's body as the shadow clone the cat girl had left behind vanished into thin air. Ilia stumbled a bit, having put a lot of her weight behind that attack, but caught herself before she could hit the ground.
"What are you doing!?" the ponytailed girl heard Blake ask from behind her, clearly shocked by her friends sudden assault.
Ilia thought that much was obvious, if everyone was going to treat her like she was the bad guy, then she might as well act like one. After all, that seemed like the only role anyone wanted her to play anymore. Maybe this was the only way people would finally get the hint that when she said she wanted to be left alone, she meant it.
Ilia quickly spun on her hands and feet and pounced toward the raven haired girl again, her fist raised to strike. Again, the blow didn't connect as the lizard girls attack seemed to pass right through Blake's wisp-like double, but this time, Ilia had planned for that. She knew how her friends semblance worked, that there was a moment, just as the clone the cat faunus created was disappearing, that was when Blake was vulnerable.
Moving through the other girls shadow copy, Ilia hopped up and pushed off the nightstand next to her bed with her foot and spun in the air, striking at Blake again with her leg in a savage kick.
The attack seemed to catch the other teen off guard, and the chameleon girl was able to actually make genuine contact, but Blake still managed to get both her forearms up in time to block the blow.
"Ilia, stop!" the cat girl pleaded, but Ilia wasn't listening. Anger had completely clouded any reason the spotted faunus had.
The agile chameleon girl was able to manage another spin in midair, pushing away Blake's arms and allowing Ilia to dish out one more strong kick, forcing the dark haired teen to back away to dodge. Unfortunately for Blake, the hotel room the two were in was pretty cramped, definitely not designed for this kind of activity, and soon she found her back hitting the wall, with a still irate Ilia hot on her tail.
The cat girl managed to just barely move her head to the side in time to avoid the other faunus' fist as it slammed into the wall. Ilia's hand cracked the cheap drywall as she quickly swung her body around in an attempt to hit Blake with her other forearm while the raven haired faunus was still pressed up against the wall. The other teen was too nimble though, and managed to duck as Ilia added another sizable hole to her hotel rooms decor.
This flurry of blows continued as Ilia forced Blake backwards along the wall towards the corner of the room, that was where the chameleon girl would trap her.
However, the darker haired faunus wasn't about to let herself get cornered so easily. Once the two of them were close enough, Blake suddenly spun around and leaps towards the wall behind her. She planted both her boots against the smooth surface, and with the help of her semblance, used one of her clones to launch herself back, sailing over Ilia and out of the spotted girls grasp... or so she thought.
Once again, Ilia was all too familiar with her friends fighting style. She knew that if she cut off Blake's path, the cat girl would have nowhere to go but up and over. So, as the other teen jumped through the air, Ilia charged the same wall Blake had just launched off of, performing a similar maneuver, but instead of going up, she shot herself right towards the cat eared girl as she landed.
Blake turned around just in time for Ilia to crash into her, sending both girls falling backwards onto the mattress behind her. The rickety bed creaked pathetically under the force of the collision, it's wobbly legs threatening to give out from under it.
The surprise blow knocked the wind out of Blake momentarily, and that was all the time Ilia needed to pin the other faunus down, straddling her hips and pinning her arms to her sides. If the chameleon girl had any presence of mind in that moment, she might have noticed the pose was very similar to the end of their last fight, in the burning Belladonna house, their positions reversed, obviously.
Ilia didn't care about any of that though. All that mattered in her eyes was that she'd finally managed to beat Blake. The chameleon girl released one of the cat girls wrists and pulled back her closed fist, ready to strike the defenseless faunus, ready to teach her what happened when she-
Wait. She beat Blake?
The chameleon girl paused, her arm still coiled back as something flashed in her eyes.
That had never happened before. Not once, in all the years they'd known each other had that ever happened. Even when they were kids, just roughhousing like most children their age did, to when they were older, training and sparring against one another on the road with the Fang, all the way to that night they'd fought each other as flames devoured their home, not once had Ilia come out on top, not once.
Blake was always just... better than her, in a lot of ways.
So then, how did they get here? How was Ilia winning?
The cat girl was still pinned under Ilia, one of her wrists still trapped at her side by the chameleon faunus' vice like grip, the other, the one that had been freed so Ilia could strike the decisive blow she had coiled and ready to strike, was free to fight back, but Blake wasn't doing that.
Instead, Blake just stared at Ilia, her amber colored eyes wide, but not fearful, not entirely anyway. There was a look in them, a look of pity and sadness, as well as a complete lack of recognition as to who the person attacking her was.
Ilia had won because Blake wasn't fighting back. She didn't want to hurt the spotted girl... and deep down Ilia knew that she didn't want to hurt her either, not really. So then, why was she doing this?
As the realization hit her, the chameleon faunus' fist began to shake as it hung in the air. Her mask of anger began to break into an expression matching her cat eared friend at the moment. She let out a growl of frustration, before rolling off of Blake, over to the edge of the bed, where she sat, gripping the crumpled sheets beneath with her still shaking hands.
The frame the mattress she was sitting on creaked slightly as Blake sat up, and again as she stood, but then the room went deadly silent. The moment stretched on and on as neither faunus said a word to one another, but Ilia could feel the cat girls eyes on her as she sat there, refusing to look back.
The chameleon girl had no idea what had just happened. One minute she'd been mildly surprised to see her friend show up at her door in the middle of the night, the next she was attacking Blake for reasons that seemed so stupid in retrospect. Why had she done that? Why had she just lashed out at one of the most important people in her life? Ilia honestly couldn't come up with an answer.
... What's wrong with me?
Why was she like this? Why was violence always her go to solution when things got tough? Whenever she got scared, or angry, or felt cornered, her first instinct was always to fight. Did she really have no other way to express herself? Ever since she was a kid, there'd always been that hotheaded part of herself that she just couldn't seem to escape, but over the last year or so that part seemed to get worse and worse. Sure, she could blame that on her trauma, or the White Fang, or Adam, or any of the thousand other things that had gone wrong in her life, but what if, at the core of it all, the real problem was just... her?
"... Ilia?" Blake's soft voice made the ponytailed faunus flinch. "Please, I just want to talk."
That didn't sound good to Ilia in all honesty. What was there even left to say at this point? 'Sorry I attacked you like some kind of crazy person. Here's the laundry list of reasons why I did that.'
Besides, despite the uncontrollable outburst the chameleon girl had just experienced, she'd be lying if she said it had helped calm her down at all. Ilia was still mad at Blake for barging in here to try and pick at old wounds, Carmella too for that matter. It would be best if she was alone right now, not because she necessarily wanted to be, it was just safer for everyone. The chances of a repeat of what had just transpired was still quite high, and Ilia really didn't need that.
"... Just leave," the miserable spotted faunus croaked out, her voice completely devoid of any of the aggression she'd just expressed. Ilia couldn't even muster the courage to turn to face Blake as she spoke, "... please."
"I can't just leave you like this, Ilia," the cat girl replied, her own voice starting to crack as well.
The spotted girl let out a short, humorless laugh, and reached up to wipe at her eyes with her wrist before turning her head a few degrees to respond,
"Why not? It wouldn't be the first time."
From the corner of her eye, Ilia could practically see the words impact against Blake, striking her directly in the heart. It was a low blow, but not an entirely underserved one in the ponytailed faunus' possibly biased opinion. What can she say? Ilia was just feeling petty at the moment.
The cat girl took a deep breath, steadying herself from the verbal blow. "Yeah, okay, I might've deserved that," she said, the triangle shaped ears on her head sagging down onto her dark colored hair. "I... don't really know what say other than I'm so, so sorry for what happened to you."
Ilia turned away again, not giving any response to her friends apology. So, Blake continued;
"I mean it, I had no idea Adam would react that way towards you. I mean, I knew he'd be angry, but to go so far as to..." the raven haired girl closed her eyes and shuddered slightly at the thought. "My point is, I know I can't take back what he did because of me, and I doubt you'll ever forgive me for that, but I need you to know that-"
"Gods, you're an idiot, you know that?"
Ilia's interjection cut off Blake's words and left her in a stunned silence. The chameleon faunus turned herself again, just enough so the cat girl could see the scowl she was giving her.
"Do you really think all this is about some stupid scars that asshole gave me?" Ilia said, aggravation creeping back into her tone. "I mean, I'm not gonna sit here and say that he didn't take my emotional stability down a few more notches, but I spent too long squirming under that psychos thumb, living in fear of him, just like you did. I'm done letting him live rent free in my head."
The chameleon girl stood up, turning to face Blake completely. "Adam isn't the problem here, and neither are the scars, its what they represent to me. It's what I feel every time I look at them in the mirror, every time something brushes up against them, every time someone asks me about them."
Ilia's voice was low, her brow furrowed, eyes narrowed as she stepped around the mattress separating that cat girl and herself. She stepped right up to Blake, the other faunus standing her ground, but still giving Ilia a confused expression.
"This isn't about Adam, or what he did, it's about me, having woken up one morning to find out my best friend had just upped and disappeared without a word."
The lost look on Blake's face evaporated into shock, and then quickly went to shame as her cat ears went flat and she cast her gaze downward.
"Do you have any idea what that's like? How scared I was? I spent months worrying about you, wondering whether or not you were safe, or hell, even alive. Then, when I'm finally well enough to try and track you down, I find out that not only are you perfectly fine, but apparently you've also started a new life in Vale, abandoning everything and everyone in your old one. How did you expect me to react to something like that exactly?"
Blake remained silent, looking away, with a painful looking regret etched into her face.
"I thought... I thought you cared about me, you were like a sister to me, more than that even. Hell, Blake, I was..." Ilia had to stop her tirade for a moment, swallowing the lump forming on her throat, "I loved you, and you just pushed me aside and made me feel like I was nothing."
There it was again, that was the second time Ilia had confessed her feelings to her longtime friend, and just like last time, there was no relief in the confession. She'd imagined confessing her crush to Blake about a million times in her head growing up, practiced what she'd say to herself in the mirror more than once when she was alone, yet somehow both times Ilia had revealed how she'd felt, it had been used as a taunt, as a way to hurt Blake like she'd hurt Ilia.
It wasn't supposed to be like that, as inexperienced as she was in matters of love, even Ilia knew that much. The emotions the spotted girl had kept concealed for years weren't supposed to make her feel disgusting and rotten as they emerged, like food poisoning. The chameleon girl had always imagined it was supposed to feel freeing, like a wellspring of light and happiness in your heart. Ilia looked at the guilt filled expression on Blake's face, it confirmed what she already knew; this wasn't love, and it never would be.
Swallowing a mouthful of bitterness, Ilia continued, "I mean, I guess I shouldn't be as surprised anymore that you just left, especially after talking to your friends from Beacon. I guess that's just who your are."
The near silent, whisper of a gasp from Blake tore through the hotel room like a wrecking ball, and Ilia knew she'd gone too far, the devastated look on her friends face a clear indication.
With that heartbreaking realization, the spotted girl felt the last bits of her pent up anger fizzle away into more cold, disgusting bitterness. She regretted her words, sure, but at the same time she couldn't deny the relief in finally getting the then out. Yes, she was still mad at Blake for leaving like she did, and after weeks of holding back, pretending things could just go back to normal now that she was back, this incident was what pushed Ilia over the edge. It was harsh, said out of spite, and undeniably insensitive, but that was how the chameleon girl felt, and hate her all you wanted for it, but a part of herself felt good to finally get it out.
The cat girl still wasn't saying anything, so Ilia took that as a sign this conversation was over. The reptilian faunus huffed out a long sigh, massaging her temple with her gloved hand.
"Look, I think we've both had a long day, so if you don't have anything else to say on the matter, then neither do I." She turned away from the devastated looking cat girl again. "You know the way out," she added over her shoulder, taking a few more steps away before stopping and crossing her arms, waiting for the other faunus to leave.
The room returned to silence as Ilia waited for the sound of Blake's footsteps exiting, but instead it was the raven haired girls soft voice that broke up the stagnation in the air.
"... I never wanted to leave you..."
Ilia just scoffed in response.
"What I mean by that is... that was never the plan."
That got the spotted girl to turn around at least, to give the cat girl a quizzical look.
Blake was still looking anywhere but Ilia, she shuffled a bit in place under the chameleon faunus' stare. She rubbed her right shoulder a bit before finally mustering the courage to meet Ilia's gaze as she spoke.
"Do you remember that night before I left? When I asked you to meet me away from camp on the rooftop of that abandoned building?"
Narrowing her eyes slightly at the still quite painful memory, Ilia nodded. It was kind of hard to forget the last good time she'd had together with Blake before the cat faunus had pulled the rug out from under her.
"Well, the reason I was asking all those questions, bringing up all those concerns I had about the White Fang changing was because... well..."
"Because you'd already decide you were leaving," Ilia interjected, arms still crossed, still looking at Blake, unimpressed, but also curious where she was going with this.
The cat girl shook her head. "It wasn't just that," Blake clarified, "Adam interrupted us before I could ask, but... what I was building up to asking you that night was..." the raven haired faunus took a quick breath to settle her cracking voice, before continuing, "I wanted you to come with me."
There was a beat of silence in the small hotel room. Ilia stared at Blake, blinking a few times as she tried to comprehend what she'd just heard.
"... What?" That was all the chameleon girl could manage to say at first, as her mind raced to catch up with this drastic turn of information.
She'd replayed her conversation with Blake that night a thousand different times in her head since it happened, usually as a reminder of her friends betrayal. It was an easy way to help harden her resolve when the chameleon girl was faced with a difficult decision, or forced to do something she didn't want to do for "the good of the faunus", as her handlers put it. However, at that moment, when she replayed the events that'd transpired, she began looking at things from a different angle.
The desperation in Blake's voice, the way she'd seemed so determined to convince Ilia that the once peaceful organization had strayed too far from its path. It had almost been like the cat girl was testing Ilia, gauging where she'd stood on the White Fang's newfound lack of morality. She remembered the fear behind her friends smile as Adam escorted her away, her back to camp. Why would she have been acting that way, unless...
And just like that, it became so obvious to her what the cat girl had been trying to express all those months ago.
"You... were going to ask me to come with you?" Ilia repeated, stupefied by the revelation.
Blake nodded shamefully.
The idea struck Ilia and reverberated through her entire being. Was that... was any of this even remotely possible? Of course, the idea that this could all be some elaborate lie by Blake entered the chameleon girls mind, but somehow she didn't think that was the case here. Ilia had known a lot of skilled liars and manipulators in her life, but Blake certainly wasn't one of them. Honestly, the cat girl was so bad at hiding the truth it was a marvel she'd been able to disguise herself amongst humans as long as she did. After all, Ilia could really only recall one time her friends had successfully lied to her, and it was that very lie that had brought the two of them here.
Maybe it was because Ilia had finally heard Blake's side of things, and seen the situation from the cat girls perspective, or maybe it was that the ponytailed faunus' faith in her friend hadn't completely been destroyed, whatever the reason, Ilia wasn't able to deny that the other teen was telling her the truth. That was a lot for the chameleon girl to process.
All at once, a thousand different possible timeline's played out in Ilia's head. What would she have done if Blake hadn't been cut off by Adam's sudden arrival? If she'd asked her to run with her?
Would she have turned on her friend? Outed her to the rest of the Fang as a potential deserter?... No, not in a million years. If Blake had asked her to choose between the organization she'd served loyally for years at that point, and her best friend, Ilia would have never even looked back.
Then what though? Where would the two of them have gone? Would they have seen through with Blake's plan to "infiltrate" the Huntsmen Academy of Vale as students? Could they have been classmates? Teammates even? A pair of faunus hiding in plain sight, trying to use the skills they'd developed for a "higher calling?" All the while working alongside humans? Did that mean Blake's friends could have become Ilia's as well? Would Ilia have been... happy doing that? Instead of the months of loneliness, regretful choices and the burning of what few bridges she had in her life?
Well, if she'd had Blake at her side, then yeah, the chameleon girl imagined there was a definite possibility that she might've been...
But that was all what could have been, not what had been, so Ilia quickly dismissed the idea. There was no point in dwelling on the other possible paths her life could have taken. This reality was hers, and she had to make due.
"... I wanted to try and find you before we left to intercept the train that next morning," Blake went on speaking to the still stunned Ilia, "but after Adam dragged me back to camp, he didn't let me out of his sight. He made me focus one hundred percent on our preparations, nothing else. I couldn't even use my scroll to message anyone, he took it so I wouldn't be 'distracted,' as he put it."
The cat girl wrapped her arms around herself tightly, giving a small shudder. "He was acting so acting more overbearing than usual, and I was..." the ears on Blake's head went flat again, "I was scared he might be on to me, that he'd figured out I was going to use the train heist as a means to escape. So I panicked, I knew that if I didn't go through with my plan I might never be able to get away from him, and that meant..."
Once more, Blake trailed off, looking like she was about to collapse into herself as she gripped the sleeves of her white duster tightly. It was okay though, she didn't need to finish the thought, Ilia could fill in the gaps from there.
"Why didn't you ever tell me about this?" Ilia asked, finally turning back to face Blake.
"Honestly?" the cat girl managed a small smile, "I was just so happy to have you back in my life, and you seemed happy too, I didn't want to ruin things by dragging up what had happened," the smile faded back into a shameful expression, "but... clearly I misread things."
"Yeah, seems like there was a lot of that going around." Ilia replied guiltily.
The two faunus stared at each other awkwardly. Ilia had no idea where things were supposed to go from here between them. She was still mad of course, Blake might not of meant to leave her behind, but she still did. One quick explanation didn't just wash away the abandonment and betrayal Ilia had endured in the face of her best friend disappearance. However, as mad as Ilia still was and deserved to be, she also knew that Blake was a victim in all this as well.
"All those years I saw him, standing over your shoulder, watching you like a hawk..." Ilia said, shifting her weight between feet, "and all I could think about was myself, what I wanted. I never noticed what you were going through- what he was putting you through. I... I get why you wanted out, and when I say that, I'm not just talking about the White Fang."
Hindsight was always twenty-twenty. Still though, it was frustrating to think back to all those moments Ilia had witnessed Adam and Blake together, back when she'd been too focused her own feelings for the cat faunus to really see the abuse taking place. The manipulations, the way he'd spoken down to Blake, his overprotective nature, always keeping her close, trying to isolate her from everyone else, and of course, there had been the almost volcanic outbursts of anger. The spotted girl had been blind to what was really going on for years, until she experienced the extent of Adam's ruthlessness first hand.
"I'm sorry I left you," Blake finally said, then let out a small, dry, humorless laugh. "Wow... I... just realized that in all the time I've been back, I've never actually said that to you, have I? That... kind of makes me the worst friend ever, doesn't it?"
In spite of the tense conversation that had just taken place, Ilia found a small smirk sneaking onto the edge of her lips. "Well... I mean, if it makes you feel any better, you've still got a ways to go to catch up to me on that front. Pretty sure I claimed that crown somewhere between stabbing one of your other friends and helping lead an attack on your- I mean, our home, so..."
Blake let out a hum of a laugh. "Maybe the throne is big enough for two?" she replied, giving her own smile, which made Ilia's grow fonder as well. It was a nice moment, short lived, but nice.
Things between the two faunus were just so... messy now. They'd each made mistakes, done and said the kinds of things that can't be undone or easily forgiven.
"We can never go back to how we were, can we?" Ilia said dejectedly.
It was tough for her to come to terms with after spending so much time trying to rekindle what was lost, but the truth was those two kids who had grown up together on Menagerie, running around and getting into trouble, they didn't exist anymore. Ilia and Blake were different people now. The "good old days" the chameleon girl remembered were getting further and further away with the relentless passage of time, and all they were left with was the fractured pieces of that old life, memories that tasted more bitter than sweet now.
The cat eared faunus looked a little surprised by Ilia's question at first, but then it turned to a melancholy expression that matched the chameleon girls.
"Maybe not," The cat girl admitted, "but... is that really a bad thing?"
Ilia gave her friend a confused look.
"I mean, what we had before, it was nice, but clearly it didn't work, we ended up at each other's throats because we weren't honest with each other," Blake clarified. "So, what if this whole mess gives us a chance to start over fresh, to make something new, something better, for both of us."
"So are you saying we should just forget about everything that happened?" Ilia asked incredulously.
"No, of course not. We shouldn't try to erase our mistakes, we need to learn from them," the cat girl explained. "And at the same time, we should still hold on to our good memories too, because they're what help give us a reason to try and be better. That's what I want anyway."
Blake brought a hand to her chest. "I don't want to be the one who runs away when things get hard anymore, I owe it to my friends -all of them, including you- to stick by them and face whatever comes, even if it scares me- especially when it scares me," The cat girl vowed solemnly.
Ilia somewhat reluctantly allowed the cat girls words to sink in, she wasn't sure she wanted to admit it, but maybe Blake had a point. The blind, unrequited infatuation the chameleon faunus had felt for her raven haired friend had bordered on unhealthy for many years of Ilia's life. They'd been like a ticking time bomb, and had nearly driven her mad when Ilia had been without Blake. Her love for the other faunus girl had been poisonous for the ponytailed teen, to both of them, if she honest. The relationship the two of them had wasn't working, so maybe Blake was right, maybe it was time to try something new instead.
Now, that didn't mean Ilia was necessarily "forgiving" Blake for what had happened, that would take time, a lot more time, but in actuality that wasn't what this was about, it was about what was best for both of them, as well as giving both faunus the chance for a normal (healthier) relationship. This wasn't a forgive and forget kind of solution, it was just... the two of them deciding to move past their poor decisions and try to do better, to move on whatever was next for Blake and Ilia, rather than being stuck hung up on the past. And who knows, maybe waiting at the end of whatever road this choice lead to, there might be a chance for forgiveness, not just for each other, but for themselves as well. Neither of them would know unless they tried.
"A fresh start, huh?" Ilia said, before heaving an enormous sigh, "I guess... maybe that's worth a shot."
The two faunus had a long way to go before they'd become who they wanted to be, and they'd been thrown so completely off their paths by their own bad choices. Ilia for one, wasn't sure she'd ever find her way at this point, but just hearing her friends vow to try and be a better person than she had been, knowing that she had managed to find her way, that was enough to give the young chameleon girl hope.
Blake smiled at Ilia's acceptance, then stepped forward, arms extended out for an embrace.
The spotted girl flinched away at the sudden approach, making the cat faunus pause mid step with a confused look on her face.
"S-sorry, I just..." Ilia started, looking away guiltily, "...don't like people touching my... you know... them."
"Oh..." was all the cat faunus said in response at first.
As soon as the woods passed her lips, Ilia could practically see Blake recollecting every time she had hugged her spotted friend since coming back as they reflected in her amber colored eyes.
"... right, sorry," Blake finished, still standing there, arms awkwardly hanging in the air.
With an amused scoff, Ilia rolled her blue eyes, before closing the remaining distance between the two of them. "Here, like this," she said, guiding Blake's arms up over her shoulders, and wrapping her own around the cat girls midsection. Eventually, the cat girls arms settled in place, coiling around Ilia, while also avoiding contact with her back.
The chameleon faunus let out a slow, relaxed breath while in her friends embrace. Things were still far from perfect between them, but for the first time in a long time, the air between the two girls felt a little lighter.
"Hey, look at that," Blake said over Ilia's shoulder, "we're already being more honest with each other."
A tired sounding laugh escaped Ilia and she smirked. It was a start, she supposed.
And yet, despite the beginnings of a reconciliation being formed, something felt... off to Ilia. It was the kind of thing someone could only notice after spending years with a person, getting to know there mannerisms and when they were still hiding something. It was a very similar to what Ilia had felt that night back in Forever Fall.
"Maybe it's your turn to try?" Ilia asked, pulling herself back, away from Blake so she could look into the cat girls eyes. "What's bothering you?"
"Sometimes I worry you know me a little too well," the darker haired faunus replied with a lackluster grin, before sitting down on the edge of the bed behind the two of them. The cat girl reclined back onto her elbows and stared up at the ceiling with a troubled look.
She remained quiet for a few more seconds, seemingly trying to find her words, before finally getting them off her chest,
"I'm... leaving for Argus in two weeks, with the rest of team RWBY, as well as the others I'm staying with.
"Oh..." was all Ilia could manage to say. She sat down on the mattress beside Blake, resting her forearms on her knees and slouching forward.
"What happened at Beacon, and then what almost happened here at Haven, we think the other academies might be in danger, so... we're taking the train to the northern coastline, and then we're going to find a transport to Atlas."
The cat girl sat up straight slowly, staring at her friends hunched over form. She placed a hand on the other faunus' spotted shoulder.
"I only found out a couple days ago," The cat girl continued, "I wanted to tell you when the time was right, but... I guess I was just using that as an excuse to put it off. I'm sorry."
Ilia sat up as well, looking off into space a while longer before turning her head, first to the cat girls hand on her shoulder, and then to Blake herself.
"It's okay." The words surprised even Ilia herself as she spoke them.
"Really?" Blake asked with a tilt of her head.
One would think that Ilia would be more upset by this, at least she certainly did, especially considering her reaction to the last time she'd parted ways with her friend, but there were worlds of differences between that situation and this one.
"Yeah... I mean, it's nice to have a little notice this time," she shot Blake a glare that was really more playful at this point, but still made the cat girl look guilty, "but I get it, this is something you have to do, and I know you well enough to not try and talk you out of it. At least this time I know where you're going and why. Plus... you'll be with... people you trust and whatever..."
The last part of the sentence trailed off. As much as Ilia was hesitant to admit it, the girls Blake had familiarized herself with while she was away seemed to genuinely care for the cat faunus, and didn't seem as bad as the kinds of humans Ilia had spent her life fighting. The few interactions the chameleon girl had with them were pleasant enough, she'd even go as far as to say they seemed like decent people... she'd never admit that to their faces or anything, but still.
Blake looked a little surprised by her friends sudden approval of her teammates, But eventually her expression settled into a satisfied grin.
"You could always come with us," Blake suggested, sounding hopeful, but at the same time already knowing the answer.
The chameleon girl shook her head. "I'm... just not ready to go back to Atlas yet, or Mantle. Sorry," she said.
Someday she might be able to face the ghosts she'd left back in her old home, but not right now, at least not until she got her head on straight.
"You don't have to apologize, I know it was a lot to ask of you. It's a shame though, I do miss traveling with you."
Ilia appreciated the understanding, and she smiled and replied; "Same here." Those had been good times, dangerous times, but still good. "I'd tell you to stay out of trouble without me there, but I have a feeling you'll go looking for some anyway. I guess you'll have your friends with you, so I don't have to worry too much." The chameleon girls gaze drifted away from Blake, sinking down towards the floor, to her boots as she anxiously trapped her heels together.
"I guess I'd be more worried about me without you around to keep me on the stage and narrow." Ilia mumbled aloud.
It wasn't the first time this thought had run through the ponytailed faunus' mind, it was the first time she'd voiced the concerns though.
Blake had really pulled her back from the edge when she came crashing back into Ilia's life, it was easy to forget about that with all the pent up resentment the ponytailed teen had been feeling these last weeks, but it was true. The path she'd been going down was a dark one for sure, one too many other faunus in the White Fang had lost themselves to. Ilia had been lucky, but only because Blake and her family hadn't given up on her. Who's to say she wouldn't fall back into old habits without the cat girl around?
"I'm not worried," Blake suddenly said, pulling Ilia out of her troubled thoughts.
She looked at the darker haired girl incredulously. "Really? Because I'm pretty sure the last time we separated I nearly turned into a supervillain."
Blake shook her head. "That's not who you are, Ilia, it never was."
Ilia didn't look convinced. The cat eared girl looked thoughtful for a second, before her eyes lit up.
"Do you know what word I think you personify, Ilia?"
"Uh, what?" That was probably the oddest question Ilia could ever imagine being asked, within reason, of course.
"Conviction," Blake said, answering her own query, seemingly unfazed by the confused look her spotted friend was giving her. "I think you embody conviction. In all the time I've known you, whenever you believed in something, you always went for it with everything you had."
While still being mostly lost, Ilia did her best to consider what the other girl was saying, and the conclusion came to with was... less than positive. After all, she new firsthand what people are capable of with a little "conviction."
"Yeah, and look how that turned out," the chameleon faunus replied with a deadpan expression. "Pretty sure I've done more harm than good thanks to those 'convictions' of mine."
"Maybe, but I don't think those were ever your convictions in the first place."
Ilia gave the cat girl another strange look.
"Those beliefs you were following belonged to people like Sienna Khan, or Corsac and Fennec, or Adam. You only followed them because you didn't know what else to do. You saw our people suffering, you'd experienced too much of it for yourself, and all you wanted was to make a change for the better, so you decided to follow the kind of people who you saw as capable of creating change, but it wasn't the same kind that you wanted."
Ilia really didn't know what to say to any of that, her friend calling out what was arguably the spotted faunus' biggest character flaw. She wasn't necessarily angry about this, more surprised than anything. She'd always been able to read Blake like a book, it was just rare to see the cat girl doing the same to her.
"You've always had conviction, Ilia, but I don't think you've ever taken the time to really focus it on something you want to do, the way you want to do it. All you need to do is find your calling in life, and then, using all that determination I know you have, go for it with all your might. I know if you can do that, then you won't even need someone like me around to keep you on the right path, you'll have found it all on your own."
Something I want to do... the way I want to do it... It was a novel concept for Ilia.
Blake was right, in the wake of her parents untimely demise, during those first months helping the White Fang, she'd been so desperate for change, she didn't care how it happened, and that had allowed others to manipulate her perceptions of right and wrong. Perhaps only now, after she'd fallen so far, did the young chameleon faunus possess the perspective to see how things had gotten so out of hand.
So then, that raised the million lien question; What did Ilia Amitola want?
Easy enough to answer, she wanted the same thing she always wanted; to help her people, to make sure what happened to Kroma and Iris Amitola -as well as their daughter- never happened to anyone else.
Okay, so how did she want to do that? Not as easy to answer.
For years Ilia had thought she'd been doing just that, fighting back against her oppressors, making them understand her pain, hurting the humans just like they'd hurt her, but she'd been wrong, not to mention delusional.
Fear didn't stomp out hate, Ilia knew that now. It might extinguish it for a bit, but the embers that remained from said hate would always drift off through the air until it found another place to burn, where it would reignite all over again.
What was the solution then? How would Ilia stand up for what she believed in without having to resort to her old ways? The chameleon girl just didn't know the answer, or where to even start looking.
... Well... She might know where to start...
Kali and Ghira.
They'd preached conversation over violence for years, not just in their work for the Fang, but in Ilia's personal life as well. The chameleon girl thought back to the offer her surrogate parents had made to join their "New Brotherhood," was that where she belonged?
But what if I just make the same mistakes again?
That was what it all came down to, Ilia just didn't trust herself to make the right choices anymore. Somewhere along the way she'd just lost faith in herself, or her ability to place her faith in others.
... But what about Kali and Ghira? She trusted them, right? Of course she did, they'd basically raised her, tried to teach her right from wrong, and just like Blake, they had never given up on her. They'd had nothing to gain from it, no reason to take in some random stray, or to keep said chameleon girl around when she became a handful, they'd just done it because it was the right thing to do.
The Belladonna's had faith in Ilia, maybe that'd earned them a little in return? At least until the spotted girl could figure out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.
Blake, who'd been patiently waiting while Ilia processed all of this, gave the chameleon girl another smile, but this one felt more mischievous than comforting.
"I mean, if you're still worried, you could always find someone else to keep an eye on you..." The cat girl said in a voice that already had the other teen nervous for whatever was coming out of her mouth next, "maybe a certain rabbit eared faunus might be interested in the job."
Ilia tried her best to scowl at Blake, to give a look that said; 'Really? You're bringing that up now?' But the rosy color rising to the spots on her cheeks ruined any attempts to discourage the teasing.
"I'm just saying, Carmella seems pretty interested in you, and if what my mom's been telling me is true, the two of you have been spending an awful lot of time together this last week or so."
Damnit Kali, you gossipy-
With a huff, Ilia looked away, crossing her arms tightly around her chest. She knew Blake was only messing with her, but all the cat girl had really done was remind the ponytailed faunus of the fact that Carmella had gone behind her back by telling Blake about what had happened earlier, the breach of trust that had started all of this.
"... Hey," Blake said, giving her friends shoulders playful shove, "she really cares about you, it's obvious just from how she talks about you. Like I said, she was just concerned is all, so try not to be too mad at her, okay?"
Ilia's brow furrowed, a bit of red crawling up her arms. She was still angry... but maybe... just maybe, she was partially responsible for Carm doing what she did. What happened at the mall, Ilia freaking out like she did over her scars being revealed, that must have really worried the rabbit girl. Not to mention Carmella's semblance probably made the experience about a thousand times worse for her. Plus, Ilia, being the emotional brick wall she usually was, hadn't helped, so she sort of understood why the long eared faunus went to someone else for answers.
At the same time though... Ilia was still nervous she might be misreading things, and with a walking, talking representation of her past romantic failures standing in the room with her right now, those fears were at an all time high.
"I don't know..." Ilia said quietly, nervousness twisting her stomach into knots.
She cared about Carmella too, she hoped that was obvious to the rabbit faunus, and there'd been undeniable "moments" between them, but neither girl had overtly come out and admitted any feelings for the other. Maybe Carm just wanted things to stay the way they were, just the two of them spending time together. The thought of ruining what they'd built was too much for the chameleon girl to bear, even if it wasn't exactly what she wanted deep down.
So what then? Was Ilia just supposed to keep the things she felt buried deep down, spend day after day with Carmella until eventually she was forced to watch her new friend fall into the arms of someone else? Did she really want to put herself through that again? Of course not.
She wanted this. More than she'd wanted anything in a long time. Gods, even just admitting that much to herself was mortifying for the repressed spotted faunus. So what was she supposed to do?
"It's worth trying at least, right?" Blake chimed in optimistically, seeming to sense her friends hesitation. "I think you'd make each other really happy, and that's all I've ever wanted for you, Ilia."
The chameleon girl let out a snort of a laugh, shooting her friend a small grin. "It sounds to me like someone's been overdoing it on the cheesy romance novels again."
"I-I've just had a lot of time on my hands this past week, that's all," Blake fired back defensively, "besides, this isn't about me," she added, looking off to the side bashfully.
The display provided Ilia with some much needed levity, allowing the chameleon girl to realize that (again) her friend probably had a point.
The spotted faunus thought back to what Blake had just told her, about Ilia embodying "conviction." The cat faunus had been right about her, when she believed in something, nothing would stop her from seeing it through, why should this be any different? Don't get her wrong, Ilia wasn't thinking about marching up to Carmella and passionately tackling her to the ground or anything, Gods no, but at the very least she could test the waters, better than doing nothing and spending the rest of her days wondering what could have been at least. She did not need a repeat of that agony.
"You're right," Ilia finally admitted, "I have to talk with her," she noticed the cat girls eyes light up slightly, "about everything that happened today!" The spotted faunus quickly clarified, before mumbling; "and... you know, maybe all that other stuff too..."
Blake gave the other girl a knowing smirk that made Ilia's face heat up.
All this was a lot for Ilia, not to mention still really embarrassing to talk about, even without her friends teasing, but still, she knew she had to try. Anything was better than doing nothing and letting history repeat itself.
"Guess I better send her a message," the spotted girl said with slight resignation.
"Now?" Blake asked with a raised eyebrow, "it's pretty late, Ilia."
The chameleon girl shook her head and gave a tired sigh. "No, no, I need to do this as soon as possible," she said, "less of a chance of me losing my nerve if I just get it over with."
Blake nodded in understanding. "Well, in that case, I guess I'll get out of your hair for now," she said, pulling Ilia back in for one more hug, knowing enough to avoid touching her back this time. "I'm glad we talked, maybe we could do this again sometime? Over lunch or something? I really do miss seeing you, Ilia."
The other faunus returned the embrace. "Yeah, I'd like that," she said, giving the other girl one more squeeze before letting go.
There was no denying the change in atmosphere between the two faunus. Gone were the eggshells they'd both been walking on around each other. The conversation has been a tough, uncomfortable one, for both of them, but it was one that needed to happen, and Blake and Ilia were better for it. Things were unmistakably different now, the beginnings of a promising new understanding for one another has been planted, now all they could do was see if it took root.
"I'm glad we were finally able to be honest with each other," Ilia continued.
There was a strange look in Blake's eyes as she heard that. "Right... honest," the cat girl said looking conflicted and thoughtful for a moment.
Then, the raven haired faunus stepped away from Ilia towards the door of the hotel room. The chameleon girl thought her friend was leaving, but instead Blake opened the door and peered up and down the hall outside the room, much like Ilia had upon the other faunus' arrival, to make sure she was alone. Then, the cat eared girl shut the door, locked it, and took a long deep breath before turning back to the spotted faunus and striding over to her.
"There's something else I need to tell you," Blake said in a hushed tone, looking very serious. "It has to do with the reason me and the others are going to Atlas."
"Um... okay?" Ilia said in confusion. She thought they'd already covered this. "What is it?"
"I told you the Huntsmen Academies are in danger, but that's only part of it..." Blake seemed to hesitate a moment before continuing, "I want to be honest with you about why I can't stay, why what I have to do is so important, why my friends just so happened to be at Haven the night the White Fang attacked, and what they were really fighting to prevent, but first I need you to swear on everything you hold dear that your won't share what I'm about to tell you with anyone else, understand?"
Ilia saw the fear behind her friends eyes. An uneasy feeling seemed to fill the room, making the tiny hairs on the back of the ponytailed faunus' neck stand up straight.
The chameleon girl nodded. "Okay, I promise, Blake," Ilia swore, "What's going on? You're kinda scaring me a little right now..."
The cat girl exhale slowly again, the sudden tension in the air practically suffocating them both, and she began to explain.
And that was the night Ilia Amitola learned about Salem.
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A/N- DUN! DUN! DUUUUUUUUNNN!!!
For the record, the idea that Blake would tell Ilia about the thing she was told to keep quiet about is just a little headcannon I had, but we were already playing pretty fast and loose with canon here in this story, so hopefully nobody cares too much.
So yeah, hopefully out won't be almost a year before i I see any of you again. Wish I could keep up this kind of pace with uploads, but like most people my age, I'm tired and sad most of the time! Ha ha. Also work.
But I promise to keep pecking away at this! We are getting into some good stuff now. The stuff I imagined when first envisioning this story and honestly never thought I'd her to share! Sorry for all the angst, but we'll be getting back into that cute fluffy stuff again next chapter! Promise!
Reviews are nice! I'm just saying...
Bye now!