Alright, things continue to happen!
I'm sick at the moment, so my commentary is... well, worse than usual, and it's not even all that good usually.
Start Chapter 10
"Okay, so I'd like it to go on record that I was not just being paranoid." Jasmine raised a hand, and Ruby, as much as she wanted to argue back against that… really couldn't.
Jasmine was just saying things as they were.
Because stood in front of them, surrounding them on all sides, stood Cinder Fall, Leonardo Lionheart, Emerald, Mercury, and a really big guy who Ruby had never seen before in her life.
But he was tall. And scary.
So, she felt he counted.
Oscar took a step forward, his brow furrowed, his gaze hard.
"Tell me; why did things have to come to this, Leonardo?" Ozpin spoke through Oscar's form. "We were supposed to be allies, standing against the end of the world together. What could have possibly brought you so low!?"
"That's rich of you to say, Ozpin," Leonardo barked out, shaking his head. "But where have you been while Salem and her people continued to ravage my city, threaten my life, and the lives of my students!?"
"Is it truly your students' lives that matter to you, old friend?" Ozpin questioned; his eyes narrow, sharp. "Tell me; how many of your former students have you sent out to their deaths on missions you knew they would not be coming back from!? All to save your own skin!"
Leonardo's lips peeled back, and though it might've been a snarl, it read far more to Ruby like a look of fear. It looked like Lionheart wanted nothing more than to run away.
Perhaps he, too, was flanked on all sides. Or at least, he felt as such.
"You're immortal!" He screamed, spittle flying from his lips. "You have nothing to lose! For us … for the people of Remnant, our lives are all we have!"
"And that was true of every single person you indirectly killed, Leonardo. But you never factored that in, then, now did you? You shut your eyes, and pretended as if you didn't see!" Ozpin looked bitter. Bitter, but not shocked. Ruby wasn't sure what to make of that. "What happened to him, my friend? The man who once stood shoulder to shoulder with me against the darkness of the world?"
Leonardo's lips parted, but no sound came out. He tried again, but before he could say anything, Cinder had pushed her way in front of him.
"Oh, enough of this," Cinder growled out, her half-cape billowing behind her as she took center stage. "Kill them already. But leave the Silver-eyed girl for me. We have… business."
Ruby tensed, even as everyone around her prepared for the battle that was assuredly going to be kicking off any moment now. In that instant, Ruby imagined it would be a rather chaotic affair.
She had absolutely no idea how right she would come to be.
/
"How could you not tell me this earlier!?"
"I didn't think it would be relevant."
"HOW COULD AN ATTACK ON HAVEN NOT BE RELEVANT!?"
"Ma'am, please," one of the White Fang with them winced. "Our ears are far more sensitive to sound than your own."
Weiss' eye twitched, even as she took a deep breath, attempting to self-soothe.
It did not work.
"Fine! Where is this attack taking place!?"
"Our part of the attack was stationed in front of Haven. We were to create a diversion to draw Mistral's guardian force out, whilst Cinder's people took whatever it was that they wanted from within Haven itself."
"Right, because that's not ominous," Weiss groaned. "Fine, we'll make our way there! Adam, is this the entire force of soldiers that were going to be present for that attack?"
"More were supposed to be coming in from the mainland."
Well, that wasn't good. Weiss wasn't willing to bet on Adam being able to instantly sway an entire cohort of White Fang to his side through a rousing speech a second time… even if it wouldn't touch the top ten weirdest things that had happened to her in the last few days alone.
Just then, a bullhead flew by overhead, and Adam hummed under his breath casually. "That's probably them."
Weiss did her best not to scream, or kill somebody, but it was really starting to get difficult.
"Alright, fine, we'll worry about that later. For now, let's get to Haven and rescue my friends!"
"Right!" The entire band of White Fang called out for some reason, even though only half of them had had the evil sucked out of them, which meant that the other half were just following her calls. That made absolutely no sense, but Weiss was honestly just going with the flow at this point.
Weiss figured out one thing very quickly about Mistral.
It was big. Not in terms of length or width, but in height.
And they had to climb the whole way up.
…
Weiss refused.
"Alright!" She shouted out as she ran entirely out of breath maybe half a kilometer into her many-kilometer journey to the top. "Screw this! Adam, you're riding with me atop my Lancer to the top! The rest of you can walk!"
"Hey!"
"No fair!"
"I don't want to walk!"
"She's right!" Adam's voice cut through the White Fang's complaints. "If we wait to arrive, we won't be able to do a thing to protect Haven. We must go there as quickly as possible."
Weiss was glad Adam was backing her up on this.
"The rest of you, catch up with us! We'll need your strength to truly hold Haven!"
"RIGHT!"
Adam nodded to her, and Weiss let out a grumbled 'thank you' under her breath as she summoned the Queen Lancer that had taken her out of the sky so many weeks ago. It hovered in front of her, waiting for Weiss to get on its back. Adam did the same, and they took to the air.
It wasn't a comfortable ride, to be clear. The Lancer's movements were erratic, and no number of orders from Weiss could change its base physiology. It was insectoid in overall makeup, and that meant it darted to and fro, not moving in a graceful manner at all.
Her stomach would hate her, but they'd get there quickly.
"There!" Adam pointed, and sure enough, she saw the dark campus of Haven occasionally being lit up by blasts of light. Someone was fighting inside the building. "Land in front, we'll move to assist."
They did just that, touching down just outside of Haven's grounds. Weiss drew Myrtenaster, and Adam drew Wilt and Blush. They made for an odd pairing, but Weiss didn't really have the time to be worried about that at the moment. They dashed forward, making their way towards the doors to the inside. Through the window, Weiss could see her allies, Ruby, Jasmine, Pyrrha, Ren, Nora… hell, even Yang was there! She felt her spirits soar at that, knowing the woman was up and fighting, having recovered from what had happened to her at the hands of…
Well, at the hands of the man standing beside her.
That was going to be awkward to explain.
"Lord Adam, sir!"
Weiss flinched, and turned around as quickly as she could. She'd expected to find new White Fang soldiers from Menagerie, who they'd have to fight off. Instead…
Instead, it was their people. Just… there, somehow.
"You made good time." Adam smiled. "Well done."
"It was nothing, sir!"
"Yeah, not a big deal!"
"How was it not a big deal!?" Weiss screamed, all semblance of calm lost. "How did you cover that much distance in… three minutes!?"
"Oh, we just rode the elevator."
Weiss entire face twitched.
"What– there–
"You didn't know either, huh?" One of the White Fang grunts looked her in the eye. "Yeah, turns out they installed a bunch of elevators a few years back so that people didn't have to walk the whole way up. Apparently, it's really improved Mistral's tourism."
Weiss just shook her head, refusing to even rise to the universe's blatant taunts.
"No, I didn't know. You can tell me more about that later, if you'd like. For now, let's just… get inside.
Adam and the others nodded, and Weiss went in first. She moved towards the door with an exhausted air hanging about her, pushed her way inside…
And was immediately met by her partner, Ruby Rose, being thrown at her at Mach speed.
"Gah!" Weiss didn't have the time to dodge, and tanked the Ruby-missile directly to the chest. The two of them bowled over, and came to rest on the ground on the very edge of the doorway into Haven.
"Ugh…" Ruby groaned. "That big, muscly guy hurts…"
"Ruby!" Weiss shook her partner's body. "Ruby, are you alright!?"
"Huh?" Ruby looked up at her, with her vision clearly spinning. "W…Weiss?"
"Yes," She let out, and she found that her voice was quivering, tears building in her eyes. "It's me, Ruby. It's me. I'm here."
"That's…" A smile began to gather on Ruby's face, before it was, all at once, taken from her. Her eyes widened, and she practically flew backwards, pointing directly at Weiss as she shouted, "WAH! ADAM TAURUS!"
Oh, right.
"Adam's here as…" Weiss looked back to him; he looked down at her. She gestured towards him, letting him decide what to say, but he just shrugged, clearly having no idea either. "A…"
Adam looked up at Ruby. "I have sworn to right my past wrongs by undoing as much of the damage that I have done as I possibly can. To that end, I come here tonight as an ally, and as a friend."
Ruby just stared at Adam with her mouth hanging open. For a moment, Weiss wasn't quite sure what would happen.
And then, she pointed even harder, and shouted, "That guy in Weiss' mirror got Adam, too!"
"What!?" It was Weiss' turn to be shocked, now. "You know about Jaune?"
"The evil magic guy's name is Jaune!"
"I protest to that!" Jaune spat out from his position on Weiss' back. "Well, the evil part, mostly. I will accept 'magic guy'."
"HE TALKS!"
"Of course, I talk!"
Suddenly, they weren't alone anymore. Yang had broken off from the battle to make her way over, and though her eyes were red from combat, they softened at seeing Weiss again.
But only for a moment.
"Sis, what's– Wait, Adam Taurus!?"
Oh, yeah, there were the red eyes again.
"Yang, that evil guy in the mirror has both Weiss and Adam under his control!"
"Shit, seriously!?" Yang looked up, and though she grimaced, it was clear she believed that story. "I guess you're right; no other way that Weiss and Adam wouldn't be killing each other otherwise."
"Excuse me!?" Weiss huffed. "I'm not under anyone's control!"
"That's just what Weiss would say if she were under someone else's control!" Ruby yelled.
"Yeah!" Yang echoed.
One day, Weiss would like her life to not be quite this stupid. One day.
That day was evidently not today, however.
"Sir!" A shout came out from behind them, and Weiss risked looking away from Ruby and Yang to see one of the White Fang working with her walking up to Adam. "The White Fang from Menagerie are here! They're touching down just west of us!"
"Alright." Adam looked towards Weiss. "We'll leave those inside to you. I doubt your friends will listen to anything we say, anyhow. We'll stop those from Menagerie, and then rendezvous back with you."
"Right." She turned back around, knowing she wasn't going to be able to do much to assist there with how busy things were going to be in here. "Good luck."
"Appreciated."
Adam was gone without another word.
"So, you two are like… friends now, or?" Yang questioned, gesturing towards her robotic arm. "Because uh…"
"It's… complicated," Weiss hissed out. "But we're not friends. Adam is…"
"The mirror did something to him, right?" Ruby questioned, and as much as Weiss wanted to deny it, it was the truth.
"Jaune used his powers to sap the evil from out of Adam and some of the other White Fang members."
"Wait… what do you mean by sapped the evil out of them?"
"I mean he quite literally pulled the evil from out of them, rolled it up into a ball, and then we buried it in the middle of a forest."
Ruby and Yang looked at her like she was entirely crazy, and honestly, Weiss was annoyed that she couldn't really protest against that. She was feeling more and more crazy herself these days.
"Right… so, uh…" Ruby's tone indicated she didn't entirely think Weiss was all there at the moment. "We're just going to take that mirror from you now ok, Weiss?"
"I…" Weiss groaned. "I'm not under its control! It's not controlling me!"
"Yeah, sure, we totally believe you." Yang spoke gently, indicating that she did not at all believe her. "Just… hand over the mirror, Weiss. We don't have to fight."
"Why would we fight!?" Weiss yelled. "You're battling against Cinder and her goons, aren't you?"
"You're more important than them."
"Okay, first of all, that's very nice of you, but second of all, I think that Team JNPR is going to struggle a little bit all on their lonesome."
Yang and Ruby both turned back towards the battle raging behind them in time to see Jasmine get launched a good fifty feet into the air, bounce off the back wall, and land hard enough to kick up a cloud of dust and smoke, yelling out all the while.
"Eh." Yang shrugged.
"They'll probably be fine."
/
Outside Haven, Adam Taurus and the other White Fang members awaited the arrival of the band from Menagerie, who would be coming under orders to attack the school, and to cause as much chaos as they could.
Adam wasn't willing to allow that.
Too much blood was on his hands already, and he wasn't going to let anyone else make the same mistakes that he once had. For so long, he had been consumed by grief and hate. Now, finally, he could work to make amends.
He could stop others from being put in the same situation. He could help them.
Except the people who approached him were not exactly who he had been expecting. He'd assumed that the Albain Brothers would be the ones arriving from Menagerie, and that they would come with cohorts of soldiers to aid in their planned assault.
Instead…
Standing there at the head of the pack, with a scowl on her features and steel in her eyes, stood the former love of his life, Blake Belladonna.
She was also, perhaps, the person he'd hurt the most in all the world.
"Adam!" She called out to him, and her voice was steady despite the evident anger that hung at the back of it. "So, you really did come here."
"I have, although likely not for the reasons you think."
Blake barked out a laugh, but there was no humor or mirth within it. She sounded tired, in all honesty. Like she was gearing up to do something she'd already done so many times, even knowing there wasn't much point. If Adam was to guess, he'd bet she was going to attempt to talk him down.
Such wouldn't have worked on the old him. He'd been too lost in his desire to bring about chaos and death to actually look at himself in the mirror. But now…
"And what would those reasons be, Adam?" Blake shook her head with a pained sigh. "To bring the same pain that you felt from others and push it onto the rest of the world? To make the racists and the bigots of Remnant look justified in their opinions? To lead more innocent people to their deaths!?"
"You're awfully self-righteous, for someone who abandoned us!" One of the people behind Adam shouted out, and though Adam raised an arm to quiet them, Blake was not deterred by such.
"Abandoned you!? You abandoned yourselves!" Blake called out, and the crowd of faunus behind her, no more than civilians from Menagerie, a small militia she'd managed to drum up, all nodded along with her words. Adam was proud of her. She'd come far in her ability to give a rousing speech. "You abandoned the principles we founded the White Fang on!"
"You did the same thing!" Another shouted, and again, Adam motioned them down.
"I did." Blake admitted, looking down at the ground; her faunus ears wilting atop her head. "But you know what? Unlike you all, I was able to realize the mistakes I'd made. I was able to look at myself and know that I wasn't willing to walk that dark path any longer. Can you say the same!?"
"Uh… actually–"
Adam cut that person off, too. It was a somewhat selfish thing that ran through him, then, but…
Blake was someone he'd wronged so much.
He wanted to be the one to speak with her.
"You're right, Blake."
Blake's eyes widened. She took a step back, before shaking her head and moving forward once more, reclaiming her previous position. His words had caught her off guard. "I… what!?"
"I said that you are right. Everything you said. The White Fang has long since been walking the wrong path, towards the wrong ideals and goals. Under Sienna, and then under myself, we lost ourselves. It was only recently that I myself became aware of this truth. Only recently that I woke up from the long nightmare I'd lost myself in, and came to an epiphany."
Blake's entire expression was shocked, and she took another step back as Adam stepped forward. He raised Wilt and Blush, and then, in a singular motion, he sheathed the blade.
"My actions were only pushing the faunus further and further away from the dream we'd once sought. My actions were only creating a gulf between us and humanity. Worse; I wanted that. I didn't want that gap to close. I wanted humanity to be the evil force I pictured them as. I wanted to be justified in slaughtering them to a man. Because I felt pain. So assuredly, everyone else had to, as well."
"But I've come to realize that such was foolhardy. I now believe in one thing above all else; that there is no cause as just as working towards equality for the human and faunus races."
Blake's lips parted, and she seemed to make a few attempts to speak, but nothing was really coming. Eventually, she just nodded her head, slowly, and said, "Er… okay. That wasn't… quite what I was expecting."
Adam tilted his head. "Do you not believe the same, Blake?"
"W-What!? No! Of course, I believe in–"
"She said no, boss." One of the former White Fang members with Adam shook their head, "She's a racist."
Adam sighed, shaking his head as well. "It seems so."
"What!?" Blake shrieked out. "No! I'm not a racist!"
"The White Fang's propaganda got to even you, Blake. I'm sorry."
"What in all that is holy is happening right now?" Blake questioned, seeming to have an almost out of body experience.
"Don't worry. I had to go through the same myself." Adam told her, trying to offer comfort. "To realize the error of my ways."
"How– You–"
"Come. Sit and talk with me." Adam gestured towards the spot in front of him as he sat cross-legged on the grounds of Haven. "We can discuss your prejudices."
"I'm not prejudiced!"
"Uh-huh." Another of the White Fang behind Adam forcefully coughed. "Sure."
/
"I am not normally one to ask such things, but I feel as if I must know."
Cinder Fall, decimator of Beacon Academy, wielder of the Fall Maiden's might, and strongest mortal on the face of Remnant, looked down at the children unfortunate enough to be called her prey. "How are you alive?"
"Huh?" Pyrrha Nikos tilted her head in confusion. "What do you mean?"
Cinder's right eyebrow rose. "I shot you through the heel with an arrow."
Pyrrha nodded her head slowly. "Yes."
"And yet you're walking just fine, now. Like nothing even happened."
"I went through a strict physical-therapy plan."
"Okay…" Cinder's eye twitched. "I also shot you through the chest with another arrow. Punctured straight through your lung. Ring any bells?"
"It missed my vital organs."
"Sure." Cinder growled as she forced herself not to engage in whatever asinine game this woman was playing. "Fine. How about when I disintegrated your auraless body?"
"I got better."
"Wha–" No. She gave up. "Y'know what? Fine. I'll just kill you again."
"Like hell you will!"
Cinder effortlessly dodged out of the way of Nikos' partners attack, which sailed right by her as the woman attempted to stab at her with a great sword. Not exactly the smartest method of attack, given a swing was still a perfectly viable option, and would've at least forced her to duck at an odd angle.
Eh, she wasn't going to start offering them tips.
/
"Weiss!"
"Yang!"
"Ruby!"
"Uh, sis, why did you call your own name?"
"I just felt like it fit."
Weiss wondered if her team had always been this dumb, or if this was a new phenomenon. Unfortunately, she had a feeling that she knew the answer to that question.
And that she was, likely, not nearly as exempt as she thought she was.
"So, can we fight the actual bad guys now?"
Yang blew some hair out of her face as she cracked her neck. "No-can-do, Weiss. We've gotta' get that mirror away from you."
"For the last time; I am not under anyone's control!"
"And again, we totally believe you." Ruby smiled her way. "We just think you should step away from the mirror for a bit… get some air, y'know?"
"I think I hate everyone." Weiss came to realize.
"Man, that guy in the mirror really does know just what Weiss would say!"
She just groaned under her breath as she drew up her blade, and prepared for the dumbest fight of her life.
Luckily for all of them, before they could start going at it, two figures landed next to them at flanking angles.
"Well, well, well," Mercury Black sneered as he stood to his full height, cracking his knuckles. "What do we have here? Team RWBY, minus the B. I guess that just makes you team Ru-w-y."
"I'd say it's probably pronounced more like R-Wuh-Y." Emerald cut in.
"It's a silent W, definitely."
"I don't think it is."
"Do you want to go, Em, 'cause it sounds like you want to go?"
Weiss gestured for Ruby and Yang to step back towards her, seeing as how if these two were going to start fighting over something even stupider than what had almost drawn Weiss, Ruby and Yang to blows, then power to them.
"Ah, shit, getting ahead of ourselves," Mercury seemingly realized his own idiocy. "So, we're going to kill you guys now."
"Well, at least thine foes are honest about their intentions." Jaune quipped from his position on Weiss' back.
Both Mercury and Emerald zeroed in on that sound, and they looked at the mirror slung around Weiss' shoulder with intrigue.
"Is that…"
"Yeah." Emerald confirmed, taking a battle stance. "That's what Cinder told us to look for. Talking magic mirror. Not that I have any clue how that's possible, but honestly, after that giant purple crystal castle in the ass-end of nowhere, I'm just kind of going with the flow at this point."
"Yeah, same." Mercury shrugged. "Alright, well, kids, we'll give you a choice here. Hand over the mirror, and you guys might actually get to live."
"I would appreciate it if thou did not do that." Jaune made his opinion clear.
"I don't know," Yang looked back towards Weiss. "I think it sounds like a pretty good plan."
"Yeah, I'm with them." Ruby nodded her head. "Why don't you give them the mirror, Weiss."
"I'm sorry; are you insinuating that handing over an indestructible mirror containing the last figure on Remnant who can freely utilize magic to our enemy is a good plan!?"
"Oh." Yang remarked. "I didn't think about that."
"Yes." Weiss opined.
"No one seems to be doing much thinking at all today."
/
"So, Blake, why don't you start; how did these feelings arise within you?"
Blake Belladonna, who'd just finished staging a revolt on the island of Menagerie, finally freeing her childhood home from the clutches of the White Fang, couldn't help but feel like the universe was fucking with her a little bit.
"I don't have feelings!" She yelled, and everyone was looking at her like she was the bad guy here – hell, even some of the people she'd brought from Menagerie were looking at her like that!
"That's terrible." Adam sounded genuinely pained. "When did you find yourself losing the ability to feel?"
"No, I meant–" She knew what it was like to be tongue-tied, but this… this was like her tongue had been removed, flipped upside down, and then placed back inside her mouth. "You're the one who lost their ability to feel!"
"I confess that you're correct." Adam nodded his head. "For the longest time I had lost my way; I had become a twisted echo of myself. But I have, after far too long, seen the error of my ways. And you can do the same, Blake."
"I–" Blake felt like if this kept going for much longer, she was going to stab someone. Likely Adam. "Okay, listen… what happened? You cut off Yang's arm, you demolished Beacon, you killed Sienna… that last one wasn't any more than a few months ago!"
Adam let loose a pained sigh. "Again, you are correct. I admit that the circumstances behind my sudden changed mindset are unknown to me as well. I simply feel as if… for the first time in a long while, my head is clear, and my heart is steady. I am not constantly festering with rage, and anger, and envy for humanity. I feel… as if perhaps the world might be able to be made a better place."
"…That…" Blake looked away, biting down on her bottom lip. Things were… complicated, in a word. "What am I supposed to feel about that, Adam? Because I have no idea."
"I'm not terribly sure myself." The man admitted, and it was somehow only in that moment that Blake realized that, for their entire conversation, he'd not had his mask on his face. Where it was, she did not know, but it was not strapped to his belt.
For all she knew, it had been discarded; thrown away.
No longer necessary.
And then, of course, something exploded off to Blake's right. She turned and saw that the thing that had exploded was the door, and the thing that had caused it to explode was Yang's body, which had been propelled outwards by some manner of explosive. She was alright, looking only minorly perturbed, in all honesty, but she was frazzled.
But…
Blake had not seen her in so long.
So, without thinking, she called out to her.
"Yang!"
It sounded… well, it sounded a bit desperate, if she were being honest. She wasn't proud of the fact that she sounded desperate as all get out just to see Yang again – she might have had a crush, but that… frankly, it was nothing worth talking about – but she was even less happy a moment later, when Yang turned towards her.
Because what Yang saw and what was actually happening were very obviously disparate things.
She had heard Blake call out to her with seeming desperation. Had heard Blake's voice crack on the final syllable, and likely thought her in trouble.
And then she saw Adam.
So, really, Blake felt Yang couldn't be entirely blamed for the fact that her vision went red, her hair caught on fire, and she launched herself towards them.
"W-Wait!"
"Ah," Adam, somehow not sensing danger, stood from off of the ground. "I'm afraid there's been a misunderstanding–
And then Yang's fist struck Adam across the jaw.
Things really kind of spiraled out of control from there.
End Chapter 10
Alright, that was chapter 10!
Like I said I'm sick. So skipping any postword here. See you next week!
If you want to support me, and get access to the next THREE chapters of this story right now, far sooner than they'll release on FF or AO3, then consider checking out my Patron! There's an e in there after the r and before the o. I assume you know what I'm talking about, but FF and AO3 don't like me typing that. It's just website dot com /Deferonz! NO EXCLUSIVE CONTENT WILL EVER BE POSTED THERE, this is only early access, just to be clear!
Want to support me without signing up for a monthly payment? Check out my Kofi! just website dot com /Deferonz!
You could also add me on Discord if you wanted to talk commissions, since ff dm's are being very unreliable for me at the moment. I'm still just Deferonz!