Tactical alarmed.

It was completely unexpected. Penny was so used to being alone in Tower Four that she'd given Tactical the bare minimum of resources to stay running. For Tactical to be able to notice something even while that resource starved…

Penny pulled herself away from her torpor and looked at the source of the alarm. The window was rattling as if something was trying to push its way through.

The sound stopped. There was a click. To Penny's astonishment, the window opened, and a man slid in and entered her room.

It was Qrow Branwen.

"Nice place you got here," Qrow said as he closed the window behind him and latched it… which left Penny all the more confused as to how he'd gotten it open from the outside.

"Thank you," Penny said with programmed courtesy, "but I have many questions."

"Don't we all," said Qrow. He reached for his chest pocket and drew his flask, which he regarded, spinning it in his fingers. "What are your questions?"

"Are you here to see me? If so, how did you know I was here, and how did you get here?"

"Yeah," he said. "I am here to see you, actually. I know you're here because Oz knew you're here, and Oz and I are tight. As for how I got here, well," a fractional smile graced his lips, "I can't go telling all my secrets. Let's just say I'm a pro Huntsman and leave it at that."

"But if someone saw you coming up here," said Penny with increasing concern, "it would tell them there's something up here worth sneaking in to get, which would beg the question…"

"Don't sweat it," Qrow interrupted. "No one saw me, have a little faith. Such a worrywart." He took a deep drink from his flask. "Reminds me of someone, actually."

What choice did Penny have? "Very well, sir."

"Don't call me sir," Qrow said with only a little slurring. "'Sir' is a sign of respect, and I sure as hell don't deserve any of those."

Penny felt herself growing increasingly flustered. "What do you want from me?"

Qrow looked at his flask a bit longer, as if studying his reflection in its glossy face. Penny took the opportunity to study him herself. He seemed marginally more put-together than before. All the buttons on his shirt were properly aligned, for starters.

"I'm one of the most dangerous fighters on this planet," said Qrow. "No brag, just truth. It helps that I have no regard for personal safety. But, believe it or not, that's a secondary thing for me. My actual specialty is recon. Spying. Information gathering.

"So imagine how bizarre this must feel: there's something really important to me that I know nothing about."

Penny felt her foreboding growing. Qrow, if he truly was an associate of Ozpin, was no doubt privy to secrets Penny couldn't imagine. Even without counting that, he was in the neighborhood of forty years old, judging from when he had attended Beacon. That was an amount of living Penny couldn't comprehend, couldn't even imagine, like trying to conceptualize infinity.

The idea that she knew something he did not seemed incredible.

Despite her skepticism, he was in a roundabout way asking her for help, and Penny could never resist a call for help. "I'll try my best," she said.

He huffed in neutral tones, but he finally put down the flask and looked at her. His red eyes were bloodshot and surrounded by deep, dark bags, but they were similar enough to the pictures Penny had seen in Tai's photo album. Those eyes were pleading now.

"What's my niece like?" he said in a voice like spun glass, like a house of cards that might collapse if any pressure was put on it.

"Your niece?" said Penny.

"Ruby Rose," he rasped, the words barely escaping him. "My niece. I haven't seen her in 11 years. And those 11 years have been hard, hard years—I didn't think I had anything worth living for, and I made choices to match. I barely remember her, after all that. So... So please, tell me. Tell me what she's like."

Qrow didn't look like a Huntsman anymore. He barely even looked human anymore. His face was full of desperate longing. Thesaurus kept generating increasingly flowery language to try and match the raw emotion on display before her, but no words did justice to a man hanging on every second-hand word Penny might offer.

Penny hoped to never see a face like that again.

Her soul reacted to his desperation, and the words poured out. "She is brave," Penny said. "She is kind. She showed me kindness when she had no reason to, and saw me as more than I believed myself to be.

"She saw that people might be getting hurt and immediately went to help, like she couldn't stay away. She saw beauty and reached for it like she was starving for it. She put people before rules without a second thought.

"She makes me feel believed in. She makes me feel treasured. She makes me feel…" she hesitated, worried this might give away the game, but no other word fit. "She makes me feel alive."

Qrow shuddered, each word out of Penny's mouth making him shake that much harder. By the time Penny finished he couldn't hold his head up, and instead let it droop. Penny registered water hitting the floor beneath him.

"I suppose that was a little much," Penny said, feeling awkward.

"It was just right," Qrow assured her. "I was scared, scared of how she might have turned out, of what all the… everything might have done to her. But if she's like that…"

He sniffed and wiped his face.

"She's all that and more," said Penny.

He made a noise that was laughter and crying at the same time. "There's more?"

"Yes," said Penny, and this time she was able to make her words more measured and less dramatic. "She is a faculty-level weapons expert. She gets overstimulated easily. She doesn't know how to dance."

There was no rhyme or reason to the order in which the observations came, only honest and bare reporting. "She can name every subspecies of Dust and every component for making weapons, but she can't name a single movie. She's creative, but even she couldn't weaponize Plant Dust. She threw herself into an investigation she had no idea how to conduct. She likes fireflies and the Aurora. She pops the letter 'p' when she says "nope" and "yep". She wants badly to help people, and fears only that she won't be enough to help everyone who needs her. She's bad with words, believes in her destiny, and trusts without worry.

"And she likes me very much. She is my super friend, and I hers."

There were more soft impacts of water against the floor. "It's funny," said Qrow.

"What is?"

"Ruby looks so much like her mother, like how I remember her mother. In my head, Ruby this age would be Summer. I didn't know who else she could be.

"And some of what you're saying does sound like Summer. I could almost force myself to think that's who she was. But... she isn't. There are things you said that aren't like Summer Rose at all. And you know what? I actually think that's pretty great."

"I do treasure individuality," said Penny. "Just as no two stars are the same, no two people are the same, and Ruby is no exception. There has never been a person quite like Ruby Rose, and there never will be again. Which is why I'm glad that I get to share my time on Remnant with her."

That was definitely sobbing coming from Qrow, but when he raised his face, he was somehow smiling beneath the tears. "You know what, Penny? I'm glad Ruby gets to share her time on Remnant with you, too."

It was one of the most generous things anyone had ever said to Penny. She put a hand over her chest, symbolically pulled the words close to her core.

They stayed like that for a full two minutes as the emotions washed through them.

"So that's Ruby Rose," said Qrow.

"Yes," said Penny.

Qrow chuckled; Penny was thirty percent sure it was forced. "I thought I'd be angrier, you know? Angrier at Jimmy for hiding her all this time, for keeping her as his pet project, but... there's not much room for anger. I'm just so, so happy she's alive at all. She's alive, and kinda-sorta okay. Nothing's more important than that."

He sniffed. "I hope... I hope one day I'll be able to spend time with her myself. But if I never do, I'll be glad I had this. I'll be glad I knew who Ruby is."

"I'm happy to help," said Penny.

Qrow wiped his face and tried to regain his composure. "So, do you think you'll see her again?"

"I hope so," said Penny. "I can't be sure. I suspect General Ironwood will be decisive in the whens and the hows."

"Of course he will," muttered Qrow. He stood to the sound of popping joints. "I'll have a word to Oz about that... just because I'm not angry now doesn't mean I won't be later... but anyway, if you do see her again soon, can you tell her... that her Uncle Qrow said hi?"

"I can give her as detailed a message as you desire," said Penny.

"No, no," he said, waving her down. "Not anything like that. Just... just hi for now."

"It would be trivial," said Penny.

"I'll keep that in mind for next time," said Qrow. He drew the flask from his pocket, but paused with it halfway to his lips. He held it before his eyes, as if considering it, and then replaced it untouched. "I'll see you around," he said.

"Perhaps," said Penny.

With no explanation, he walked to the window, opened the shutters, and heaved himself out.

No sound or visual reached Penny; there was no indication of what Qrow did afterwards or what his landing strategy might be. Penny wasn't worried. She was sure that someone who did that much field work would have their landing strategy refined to instinct.

Penny considered what she might say to Ruby about Qrow beyond just his message. She wondered if she should tell her how desperately Qrow wanted to meet Ruby.

And as she considered this, Analysis pinged with the solution to another problem.

It was time to leave Tower Four.

The small gym aboard KAS Magnanimous was equipped for non-Aura wielders, and could accommodate those with weak Auras and minimal training—up to Combat School-grade, say.

It was woefully inadequate for Ruby. She could lift the heaviest weights, run fast enough to send the treadmill spinning out of control, leap high enough to bash her head on the ceiling, all without breaking much of a sweat. She was having to take increasingly drastic measures to make the exercise useful.

Eventually she was doing overhead presses with fully-loaded barbells while running backwards on the treadmill, and still wondering if she was getting anything out of it past the activity.

"We have to burn the energy somehow."

Ruby stumbled in surprise, leapt clear of the treadmill before that could be disastrous, dropped the weights safely… and blushed furiously. "Sir, sorry for not noticing you, sir!"

"At ease," said the General. "We have equal claims to the gym, if nothing else."

The General was in shorts and a tank top, both bearing Atlas Academy symbols, attire that exposed the extensive cybernetics across his right torso and arm. All of it surprised Ruby. "Sir, if I can't make this gym a challenge for me, how could it possibly be a challenge for you?"

"It's not a challenge for all of me," the General said, clenching and unclenching his prosthetic hand, "so I concentrate my efforts on the parts of me I can challenge." He bent forward and, before Ruby's surprised eyes, went into a one-armed handstand on his left, flesh-and-blood arm. He even did five quick one-armed push-ups before returning to his feet.

"Oh," said Ruby. "That makes more sense."

"There are benefits to experience," said the General with a smile. "Actually… it is a little lucky we met here."

Ruby felt a crawling sensation on her spine. For some reason, she felt that luck had nothing to do with this.

The General walked past her and racked the weights she'd dropped. "You must have questions, after the past couple of days."

"A few," Ruby said queasily.

"Well," said the General as he mounted weights on a barbell, "now's your chance. We're in an informal setting, but a private one. Fire away."

…okay, now that he put it like that, she was bursting with questions. "Why do you want Penny back in the military so badly?"

"We'd know how to use her best," said the General. "We'd put her back together with you, like we'd designed from the start. Why," he said, looking back at her and catching her flat-footed, "don't you want to be with her more?"

"Well, yeah, of course!" Ruby said.

"That's what I thought," said the General.

"But…"

The General waved for her to go on.

"…she seems… happy, at Beacon," Ruby said weakly.

"I'm sure she is," said the General, looking at the weights again.

"Well, that matters, doesn't it?"

"Other things matter more," said the General.

Ruby couldn't look at him anymore. She studied the floor. "Like being the Great Hope of Atlas?"

"That's right. If we can't make you that, then nothing else matters."

"Nothing?"

"I know what I said."

"And…" Ruby swallowed. "And you'd do anything to make me that?"

The clangs of the General handling weights stopped. "Ruby, what's this really about?"

The words tumbled out like a landslide—fast but bumbling, all in their own way. "Did you… when I was a child… before I was at Home Base… my family… was it you-?"

The weights hit the deck with a deafening crash. "No," he said, turning to her violently; the motions dragged her eyes up to face him. "I didn't abduct you from your home. I didn't take you away from them. That wasn't me."

Ruby couldn't help but believe him—couldn't help but feel awful for having asked the question. "Right! Of course, yeah. S-sorry."

"Don't be," said the General. He wiped his brow. "It's a valid question. I knew it was possible you still had a family out there. Personally, I thought it more likely your family was dead. I was wrong," he admitted, "but my decision was correct, based on the information I had. I knew you'd been abducted, but I didn't know from where, and Watts left no trail for me to follow."

The General sighed. "I… almost wish you remembered more, but I can't imagine any of it was pleasant. I don't want to visit that pain on you again."

His words were frightening… but they made Ruby wonder. She'd never thought about 'before', not really. She'd never thought there'd be anything worth remembering back there.

Maybe she could try…?

The thought was so pressing she almost missed that the General was still talking. "It was left to me to do the best I could by you."

"Right," said Ruby. "Sure. Um…"

"Yes?"

She gathered herself. "Well… now we know I did have a family before. And that they're not dead. And that they're… or at least some of them… are, well here."

The General nodded.

He was going to make her say it. Great. "So… I was thinking… maybe I could visit them?"

"We're in crisis," said the General, turning around and picking up the weights. "We can't afford that kind of distraction."

Ruby swallowed. She'd been rebuked for being too fearless in combat, for having too little regard for her own safety. This… would take a different kind of bravery.

She summoned up all her courage. "But this kind of distraction is okay?"

The General dropped the weights again; they thumped against the floor like the ringing of a forge god's hammer. Ruby flinched away.

"There are distractions that are harmless," he said without looking at her, "and distractions that are harmful."

"And you're the only person who knows which is which?"

He didn't move, but Ruby could feel him tightening his eyes.

"…sir?" she added.

"That's right," he said.

Ruby felt herself deflating. "Oh," she said with zero energy.

The silence that followed was so deep Ruby thought she could hear sweat dripping from their forms and hitting the deck.

The silence let a deeper thought crawl into Ruby's brain and take hold. It had been creeping up on her ever since that night in Ozpin's office, had grown stronger when the General had brought Penny aboard, and it was seizing her now.

"Sir," she said quietly, "if… if I was supposed to be teammates with Penny… does that mean I was never the Great Hope of Atlas?"

The General blinked in what Ruby hoped was surprise. "What?"

The words—stupid impossible things!—were getting twisted between Ruby's brain and her mouth. "It's just, if Penny and I together are the Great Hope of Atlas, then that means I'm not, right? You never actually believed I could save the world, if you thought I needed a partner…"

"Stop," said the General. "My trust in you has never wavered."

But Ruby, clumsy as she was at interpreting words that weren't orders, didn't know what that meant.

"Clean yourself up," the General said in his Giving Orders voice. "Then gear up. We're taking the fight to what's left of the Fang, and our scouts might find them at any moment. When they do, we'll be ready."

"Yes, sir," she said reflexively.

It was only afterwards she thought to wonder why, if the enemy might be found at any moment, he'd come to the gym in the first place.

"Hey, Dad. Do you… have a minute?"

"For my girl," said Ghira over his scroll, "I always do. Honestly, I was looking for an excuse to get out of that meeting, anyway."

"Glad to help," said Blake with something resembling humor.

"I'm serious, of course I want to talk to you more," said Ghira. "So, what earth-shattering problem are we tackling today?"

"It's nothing like that," said Blake. "And I'm sorry I… I only seemed to call over things so big. I was told I should call you when the stakes are lower, but I never seemed to…"

She laughed in self-derision. "I was about to say, 'I couldn't find the time', but it sounds so lame when I put it like that."

"Blake," said Ghira, "when you catch a fish, do you moan about how many times you didn't catch one?"

"No," said Blake. "Having the fish right then matters more."

"Exactly," said Ghira.

Blake was on audio alone, which was fortunate—it meant her dad wouldn't see her blushing. "Oh."

"I'm just happy you're calling now," Ghira said, in case the point had been lost on her. "So, what's on your mind?"

"Drama," Blake moaned.

"What, drama amongst a bunch of teenage girls?" said Ghira in mock-shock. "Never. Tell me it isn't so!"

"Da-ad!" protested Blake.

"Blake, there are stories in the Omnium that are driven by teenage drama. Drama is as old as people. You don't have to be embarrassed or anything about it. It's normal."

"Nothing about my team is normal," said Blake.

"I'm all ears," said Ghira.

Blake put her back against the wall of her favorite hiding place—behind the bushes in the garden space by the administration building, the place only Professor Ozpin had ever seen her in. "It's hard to even know where to start. We have girl problems, father problems, father problems causing girl problems, not to mention… what?"

"Nothing," said Ghira, though he sounded like he was half-laughing.

"Is this funny to you?" said Blake as her ears went flat to her skull.

"Oh, Blake. No, I'm not laughing at you. I'm just… so happy, you have no idea."

"Happy that we've got so many problems?"

"No. Happy that… well, that this is the kind of problem you're calling me over. I'm not saying that to belittle it, it's just… how do I put this…"

Blake huffed, but was also curious. For as much as her parents had lost track of her, had worried about the kind of person she might have become… she realized it'd been just as long that she hadn't talked with her parents, that she'd lost track of what they'd become.

"Almost from the moment I wake up in the morning," said Ghira, "I'm doing official business. I'm caught up in it. I spend so much of my life, sometimes it seems nearly all of it, being the Chieftain of Menagerie, or the prior head of the Fang, or the voice of the Faunus in one way or another. It's only in the evenings when I'm spending quiet time with your mother that I get to be… just a man. Just a person. The door of our bedroom is impervious to work, that's our rule—nothing follows us past that barrier. But, well, that's just not that much, or that long.

"Even the first time you called—not that I'm complaining, it was absolutely what I wanted and I treasure it… but it was still a sake-of-the-world type of discussion. It was work. I got to be your father then, partly, but I was also Chieftain and ex-High Leader.

"This time? This time, I get to just be a dad. That's it. Just your father. You have no idea how happy that makes me.

"I'm sorry if you thought I was laughing at you. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am bursting at the seams to help you out."

It did make sense, Blake supposed—she could relate to the pressure of always needing to be Team Leader for this craziest of teams. "I guess that when you signed up to be a dad you wanted to, you know, be a dad sometimes."

"Exactly, exactly," said Ghira. "So! Tell me all about your troubles, and let's see what we can do about them."

Blake smiled.

Penny's message was cautious and tentative. She knew what Yang had looked like when last they'd spoken, but Penny hadn't seen her since. There was no way to know what feelings ruled her now.

Even so, Penny had to try.

A message was less personal than a call and would let Yang respond at her own pace. Yes, this was the prudent approach.

It was less than a minute before Yang pinged back.

After a quick flurry of messages, the meeting was arranged. Penny at last descended from Tower Four.

She did so with great nervousness. This might be her last chance to salvage her first friendship, and those stakes weighed upon her more heavily than a blow from the gunship Geist. At the same time, being able to move forward and at least have a chance– to be active in deciding her own fate– was bracing and reassuring. As ever, motion suited her.

Penny had heard before that Huntresses were women of action. She'd thought this referred to their being fighters, but words' multiplicity of meanings had tricked her again. The phrase meant that Huntresses tended to be women who acted, who took charge of their situations and tried to address them.

Penny definitely met that definition.

Yang had requested a meeting in a classroom that was seldom used normally, and was grave-quiet now with so many teams out on mission. It would be private, isolated, and easy to flee from. Penny wondered which of those attributes Yang found most attractive.

Penny was there five minutes early. When the appointment time came and went, her apprehension grew with every ticking second - but Yang arrived only 93 seconds later. Penny would have been willing to wait ten minutes or more. This was fine.

"Hey," said Yang in a small voice.

"Salutations, Friend Yang," said Penny crisply. "I told you we needed to talk about a plan. I have been working on ways to get you up to the Air Fleet squadron over Vale, and I wanted to give you a chance to pick which one works best for you."

Yang's knees buckled; she kept herself standing only by supporting her weight on the doorknob. "Get up to the Air Fleet?" she repeated. "Why would I want to do that?"

"To go see Ruby, of course," said Penny. "To see your sister."

Yang staggered heavily over to a chair and barely got herself into it rather than hitting the floor. "You don't want to just go and see her yourself?"

"I desperately want to go and see her," Penny said… even as the memories of Qrow's face, starved for detail about his loved one, filled her consciousness. "But I have seen her seven times, and you haven't seen her in eleven years. She knows how to contact me, but not how to contact you. Your need is greater."

Yang's face was wrinkling, being taken over by emotion Penny couldn't identify. "Penny…"

"There will be time, I hope, for me to see Ruby again in the future," Penny continued, reciting words she'd planned well in advance, "but you should know your sister as more than a face in your memories or an outline in darkened woods."

"You'd do that for me?" said Yang. "Even after what my mouth... even after I said…"

Was Yang feeling remorse for something she'd done? Impossible, Penny was sure; Yang was the injured party here, Penny the injurer, so it was up to Penny to show remorse and make amends. "You said that maybe I don't know how friends work after all," said Penny. "You may be right; how would I know? But I will keep trying to do my best by you, my first friend."

Yang's composure broke. A fat tear rolled down her face. She sniffed and said, "Why are you so good?"

Emotion Signifying had nothing to offer but blinks.

"I was rotten to you," said Yang. "I said such horrible things, I… I was feeling so much and I took it out on you and blamed you and, and you don't deserve that! I was awful... and here you are, worried about... about my feelings!" Her face fluttered in vague and unsuccessful attempts to smile. "It's not fair that you can be this good."

Penny latched onto the only part of Yang's words that she understood. "You're worried about my feelings when I was the one who hurt yours?"

Yang put a hand behind her head and bent forward bashfully. "I mean, yeah, I'm really pissed, but also… well, I called my dad, you see? Er… two or three times, we got kinda… you know."

"Emotional?"

"Hell yes. But he… he said something smart, somewhere in there. He told me he didn't know you that well, but he knew you'd never try to hurt me. And… he was right.

"It took me a while to get out of my own head and actually, you know, think a little. And after a while, I thought I could sorta see where you were coming from, it was just... I was so wound up in the moment I couldn't think straight, and it looked like you did want to hurt me and that's all wrong and… and…"

Words were failing the two of them, Penny knew, so it was time to go for a cruder but more honest form of communication, one she knew Yang to be ever open to.

Penny crossed the space between them and wrapped her friend up in a firm hug.

"I am sorry that I couldn't figure out a way to spare your feelings," said Penny. "I'm sorry that I didn't understand how to navigate this situation. But you being worried about having hurt me, when you were hurt yourself, shows you truly are the best friend that I could ever hope to have."

Yang fell to pieces in her arms.

Penny did her best to parse the mumbling that followed in between sobs, but she tended to lose the thread (if there ever was one). The words 'sorry' featured a lot, as did variations on 'I have a sister' and 'she's alive'.

Penny, as someone who lived the distinction between Thesaurus and higher consciousness, understood completely. Yang was so overwhelmed by emotion that her ability to form words was gone, and that was less an indictment of Yang's Thesaurus than an indication of how deep were the emotions Yang was feeling.

Eleven years of profound grief were being transformed in real time, relived and recontextualized. It was a wondrous thing to behold, and Penny could only be happy that she was there to help with it.

It might have taken all day for Yang to wring herself out like a sponge; it might have been thirty seconds. Penny could have consulted her chronometer, but subjective time seemed more meaningful during events like this. Either way, eventually Yang pulled herself together enough to look up at Penny. "Some friend I am, huh?" Yang said, and her expression made Penny 52% confident she was being sarcastic. "You wanted to apologize and here I made it all about me."

"It's allowed to be about you, sometimes," Penny said. "At times like this above all. You have your sister and you're going to be able to see her again."

"You... you think so?" said Yang.

"I will make it a priority," said Penny. She hit a button on her scroll to display a diagram of herself executing a sort of catapult maneuver nearby an Atlesian airship. "If nothing else, I believe I can get you aboard with something like this."

Yang managed to chuckle. "Your creativity knows no bounds," she said.

"I have always said you make a very good projectile," said Penny.

Yang genuinely laughed. "Coming from anyone else that would be a burn, but it's you, so I know better."

"Which I believe is how friendship works," said Penny.

"Damn right," said Yang. Her face flickered, the good humor disappearing and reappearing and disappearing again. "We're… good, right? We're okay as friends?"

"You are my best friend," said Penny simply.

Yang wiped her face, concealing it from Penny's eyes. "Okay, that had no right to hit as hard as it did." She sniffed and looked up. "You really think we can sneak aboard an airship?"

"That would be Plan B," said Penny, growing enthusiastic as she recognized what had been mended. The brokenness between them had healed. "Plan A is more like this…"

Three corpses were slowly cooling in Adam's wake. He almost regretted having killed them so quickly in the name of stealth. The anger surging through him, that could only be sated by bloodshed, demanded more. If those guards had seen him and fought, he would have had the chance to break them, and that was far more satisfying than a simple surprise slash and blood spray.

As ever, the mission came first. His fellow White Fang, those not securing the mansion's perimeter at least, followed behind him. They gave a few gratuitous kicks at the guards' bodies. Adam felt a smile come upon his face. He wasn't the only one with frustrations to work out, it seemed.

They were to the master bedroom now. It was nothing like Adam would have seen at Schnee Manor (and wasn't that a pilgrimage he wanted to make one day with these same bloody intentions!), but it was grandiose enough, given that it was built on labor profiteering.

Auric Vanderbilt, just another human bigwig, had mortared his home with Faunus blood. Now it would be consecrated with human blood.

With the guards out of the way, and with the Fang upon Auric's position, stealth had served its purpose. Adam didn't need to be quiet anymore. He cut open the door with a single Aura-powered swing and kicked his way in.

The man within jerked to wakefulness in his opulent bed, but that just sent him writhing and cursing. His leg was propped up on cushions as a concession to his gout.

Gout, Adam sought bitterly. A disease of overindulgence. How appropriate.

The human was blabbering words of alarm and surprise, but his words meant nothing to Adam now. Only his blood meant anything. Adam raised his sword between them as he closed the distance, watched the fat cat's eyes become fixated on the crimson blade, watched him panic as he realized what was coming.

More words, even more meaningless than the ones before. Pathetic. Adam's anger crescendoed.

Anger was power; power was tempered with focus, concentrated on the edge of his blade.

He struck.

The man's lifeless body slumped back in the sheets.

One more blow struck in the name of the Faunus.

"We're done here," said Adam, even though he'd admit to a certain lack of satisfaction. As he turned to leave, that maniac, Tyrian, appeared right in his face with an ugly leer.

"Is that it?" Tyrian said with disappointment. "With all that he did to hurt the Faunus, you're satisfied with one quick blow? Surely he deserves more."

"He's already dead, there's no point," said Adam. "He can't suffer anymore."

"Ah, but you said this is about more than one man," said Tyrian, his leer widening. "You said this was about sending a message to other abusers."

"That's right," said Adam, though the words sounded different coming from Tyrian.

"I agree! We want high emotions. We want to be evocative! We want to shock and appall and impress! We want to jolt our enemies from their comfort and our allies from their complacency! This is more than a killing. This is art." Tyrian's rabid eyes turned on the dead man's corpse. "This will be our canvas."

"Like in painting?" said Adam as uncertainty grew within him.

"So you do have some culture!" said Tyrian with a giggle. Tyrian slipped towards the bed as blades clicked into place on the outside of his wrists. "Let us paint a picture of Faunus rage, of righteous anger! Our friend here has supplied the pigment."

And Tyrian whipped about with a flash of his blades.

There was a sickening sound and a splatter.

"Oh, a good start," said Tyrian, admiring his own work, "but this man didn't just abuse the Faunus once."

Slash.

"He did it again and again and again."

Slash slash.

"His whole life was built on inflicting pain on others for his benefit!"

More slashes that Adam forced himself to watch. He could feel his subordinates behind him shrinking away, and one of them making sounds like wretching. But Adam... he could withstand anything. He felt nothing as he watched Tyrian work, nothing that mattered as much as the burning in his own heart.

The unspent anger in his chest roared like a furnace.

Tyrian turned to Adam with blood dripping from his blades and splatter across his face. "Surely that makes you at least as upset as it makes me," said Tyrian as madness danced in his eyes.

Adam looked past the psychopath. At the macabre display beyond.

"Why don't you add your signature to our masterpiece?" said Tyrian.

Adam did, though he wouldn't have been able to tell someone why. He did at last feel his bloodlust cooling, though.

"Oh, excellent!" said Tyrian. "I do like the cut of your jib."

"Shut up," said Adam, wiping his sword on those too-expensive sheets. "Now we're done here. Our message is delivered."

Tyrian let out a happy sigh as he looked at the grotesque display he and Adam had created. "Oh, yes," he crooned. "Delivered indeed."

Next time: The Girl and the General