"Go on, Ghira. Enjoy your drink."
The steaming beverage taunted him. Ghira hated it. The sickly greenish-yellow tint of it, the cloying sweetness it gave the air. The way it made the hair on the back of his hands stand on end until he drank it. He drank it. He couldn't help it. Addictions are never really beaten, just managed. Living on another continent had managed it well for years. His mind fought to rationalize faltering regression.
It's been years since I had any.
It won't do any harm to the mission - I don't need my semblance, and my tolerance means they cannot use it to control me.
Tea is good for my health. The caffeine will wake me up properly after that rough time in the dungeon.
This is for the benefit of my people, all the ones counting on me. I have to make this personal sacrifice.
But the excuses were just that - excuses; he hated himself despite them as the tea trickled down his throat. It was a good thing Kali wasn't here to witness this. She'd spent so much time making sure nothing with honeywood made it past the docks of Menagerie.
"Not that it matters. You've probably kept that immunity you built up while you were Grandmother's."
Lord Plutony's words resonated strangely in Ghira's sensitive ears, echoing as the drug took effect. Ghira had, in fact, built up an immunity to the drug's ability to physiologically cage his mental faculties, but that did nothing to stop Ghira from wanting the damn nectar.
The young human sipped deeply from his own cup, ensuring his immunity to Ghira's semblance - not that Ghira had planned to stoop so low as to rely on it when he believed reasonable minds and peace could prevail to overcome whatever had started this sudden and brutal conflict betwixt their peoples. Plutony set his cup back down and stirred it idly with a tiny silver spoon - evidently made for that sole function, a ridiculous luxury in a riotous glut of such things. The interior of Fort Castle was a gilded fantasy: ornate steelwire facades, grandiose mosaic stained-glass windows that opened to reveal unparalleled ocean views, an army of servants and soldiers in neat dust-trimmed uniforms. The long table that separated Ghira from his host was intricately carved mahogany wood.
"Dear cousin Jupiter has declared dreadful war upon all of Menagerie, giving no explanation. Of course as acting governor it is my duty to comply with the will of the throne, though I did take it upon myself to determine the reasons. It turns out that there was a certain… video, yes, that is now making its rounds like wildfire through the subnetworks of the Empire, bouncing from outlaw antenna to antenna. Piter tried to stop the signal, but it is so hard to stop a signal. Scandalously starring you, of all folks." Plutony continued to stir the cup, relishing the slow pace with which he doled out the information Ghira had come back to the continent to learn. "Starring you… and Jupiter's own princess bride, dear cousin June."
If not for his ingrained social graces - and his addiction to the tea - he would have spat his tea out in surprise. Instead, Ghira's cheeks puffed out and his eyes bulged before he managed to swallow the last dregs of the cup. "That is impossible. I only saw his wife the one time, when she came in to whisper something to the Crown Prince before leaving again, during one of our meetings regarding the trade agreement and arrangements for the faunus travel logistics. You were present."
Plutony leaned forward to refill Ghira's cup, pantomiming the airs of a model host for his restrained guest. "I'll say that I've not managed to see the video myself, yet, but trusted sources I have closer to the city report it looks quite genuine." He returned to stirring his own teacup. "Atop that, there is a rising tide of evidence that Adam Taurus, whom we thought to be our mutual foe, is not dead. Instead, it seems he was roaming about through the city freely, before joining your little monkey boy and my other cousin in an ill-advised attack on the royal airship, resulting in significant property damages. I thought that far-fetched, too, but then here we are, with my citizens capturing you as you travelled under cover of night to my shore alongside a mysterious invalid with the most unseemly black horns poking up through a mess of bandages."
"As I told you before, that is not Adam, that is-"
"His twin brother, yes, and a very charming notion that is." Plutony smiled. "Which might even be true, if what I hear is to be believed. Not a friend to Mistral, that's to be sure. But… so long as I can't confirm his identity, I won't worry Jupiter with gossip about who I've got rotting away where." The acting governor tutted. "Regardless, whoever he is, he attacked Mistral military ships."
"Attacked airships as they were bombarding civilians!" Ghira nearly shouted, before managing to settle himself down. "They attacked us, unprovoked, without warning. The ships took cover on my order, the human crewmen having chosen to try to fire upwards in retaliation of their own volition. I desired - as I still desire - a peaceful, mutually beneficial relationship with Mistral. The loss of your soldiers in that situation, no matter the context, is a tragedy."
Ghira's face was a mask of regret and sorrow, hiding that he was a little elated to think about how no faunus lives had been lost in the debacle. No faunus lives so far, he reminded himself. The importance of this mission was that that statistic be kept at a round zero.
Plutony frowned. "Yes, a sore bit of business, that was. Not my call to make, and I'd like to say I'd have played it out a tad differently, but I'm not the commander-in-chief of Mistral's armed forces, now, am I?"
No, Ghira thought, you're just a tertiary heir of the imperial bloodline given control over the most economically rich region on the planet in the absence of your honourable father who was sent to the colonies in Sanus, granted wide authority to deal with me on account of your closeness with your more powerful princely cousin. With the lush jungles spotted with productive plantations, coastal reefs, and mineral-rich hills, southern Mistral was only less powerful than the capital region due to its smaller population and lack of modern industrial facilities.
"And if you were, how would you have done things?" Ghira asked, intending it to let the young human princeling voice any discontent with Piter's execution of his role.
Plutony shrugged noncommittally, not taking the verbal bait. "Who can say? This all seems very emotional. If I were to find you raping my own Pommy, perhaps I'd react in a similar fashion. Wouldn't take it well."
It was obvious that Ghira was being set-up, but by who? What party had anything to gain by fraying the relationship between Mistral and Menagerie? His mind branched out, suspecting the SDC and Atlas immediately. The thought that they'd actually pulled all of their agents out of Mistral after the attack on Vale was laughable - sure, the ones that work above-board, but they'd still have spies, saboteurs, and informants lurking in all levels of the Kingdom. Alternatively: the terrorists whose plot he'd helped foil, the ones Adam had been working with - perhaps they had something to do with it. Or he could accept Kali's assessment, that the most likely (and most distressing) suspects were fanatic holdouts of the old White Fang - perhaps not loyal to Adam any longer, but refusing to accept the return to the original purpose of the organization with Ghira's resumption of leadership. Kali had been adamant that Adam's scroll would - if unlocked - reveal who and where such war hawks lurked, or at least give clues to the scope of how fractured the White Fang had become. Every passenger on each exodus ship had been viewed by his wife as a potential fanatic. She'd remained highly suspicious of Salt, Lichen, and the other two women that had arrived with Dominic, refusing to let them see the man they (reluctantly) admitted had rescued them from a dire situation in the city.
All this talk of wives, these accusations of treachery, made him regret having left his behind on the ship where he had thought her safer. At least she could do good work in Menagerie… and wouldn't see him sipping desperately at an empty cup.
"I didn't. I wouldn't. There-"
"The video would say otherwise." Plutony interrupted, "but justice isn't really what I care about. All that matters to me is keeping my cousin happy. For that, all I need to do is deliver you to him on a silver platter." The human snapped his fingers, and two guards came to lift Ghira up by the chair, carrying him down a hallway. They came to a landing platform, where a customized bullhead, polished so that it glittered silver-radiant in the light of dawn flittering across the jungles, waited. "My family's personal ship, to avoid the otherwise dreadful commute through the jungle." The name Chthonic Cornucopia was emblazoned in scrolling gold letters along the side of the ship. "Managed to keep it from being summoned by my cousin's levy of Mistral's forces to the city."
Ghira wanted to ask more about what would become of his companions, Ilia and Taurus, but the guards took him below decks on the ship as the engines began to thump.
DOMINIC
Thursday Afternoon, Day 15
Years of 'taking care of Blake', amongst the rest of his brethren in the Fang, had afforded Adam a respectable competency in meal preparation - but he wasn't going to slot himself into the role of being SSSN's team chef. Dammit, he thought, that would have probably been a better cover than 'carpentry'. Vale probably needed cooks, right? Maybe not as much as carpenters, though. No, my cover story was better as it is. In any event, the microwaved potato dinners weren't bad. He'd had worse.
After finishing his meal in the galley with Sage, Scarlet, and Cammy, Dominic went back to his cabin to inspect the seals on the pair of breach-holes. There was a slight trickle of moisture, but it wasn't pouring in enough to threaten their lives. The patches would hold, but, for caution of further intrusions, he decided to commit to spending more time on the upper deck. Better than any life-long free human, he knew the cost of the valuable dust he'd used. It would insult the faunus slaves who'd ferried it from the unforgiving depths of Solitas' cold ground for him to waste the ships' dust stores. He passed by Neptune, who, for a change, had apparently braved being within sight of the ocean waters, and was yelling at Sun as he stomped back down below. Dominic watched him pass, shrugged, and went towards Sun. "What was that about?"
"Ah, he's… he's just upset about Ilia. Did you really have to spill the beans on that one?"
"No," Dominic replied. Sun's question raised why Dominic had gone and told Neptune that little fact. After some thought, he decided upon his honest reasoning as the best response. "He's been helpful to me. I was due to return the favour." And it was funny.
Sun put his chin between two prongs of the wooden steering wheel, resting his entire head there. "Mmm-hmmm. I feel like we're all learning, despite not being in school. 'Neptune's been helpful' - is that how you see him?"
Dominic nodded quickly.
"You know he's more than a tool, right?" Sun said slowly. "He's a person. We're all people. That's sort of the point we're fighting for."
"Well, what you're fighting for." Dominic said. "I'll admit to being on the fence. The humans, as a species, have done little to engender my compassion through years of scorn."
"Oh, you've got compassion, now?"
Dominic tried to recall some good examples of his compassion.
His mind must have been elsewhere, as his memory came up blank. It was too busy trying not to dwell on examples of how humans had scorned and hurt him over the years. If he tried, he could relay examples of all the selfless, compassionate acts of heroism Adam Taurus had performed on behalf of the faunus populace over the years, but that would defeat the purpose of his disguise as 'Dominic'. And what a disguise it is: on one hand it is physically falling apart, while conversely I'm thinking of myself as Dominic rather than Adam.
So, with no actual examples to draw upon from his non-existent past as Dominic, he resorted to the tried-and-true response of jaded sarcasm. "Indeed. I do compassions all the time. It's practically my middle name. As the crowning jewel in my list of compassionate deeds, I've even compassionately deigned fit to keep a reckless mooch and his friends company - for almost no recompense!"
"Ah, and here I thought your middle name was shoots-fire-blast-into-hydrogen-balloon." Sun joked, turning around and catching the wheel with his tail before it went off-course and brought Scarlet's wrath up upon them. "It just rolls off the tongue. Now, what's this about recompense?"
"What, you thought my services came for free?" Dom feigned his best impersonation of the mercenary attitude of any capitalist Atlesian he'd ever had the misfortune of being oppressed by. "What are your feelings on exorbitant 'roaming charges?'"
Sun rolled his eyes. Hands went to his hip pockets and pulled the fabric inside-out. "Dude, I've got as much lien now as when you sprung for lunch. Besides, I didn't realize you charged for helping save folks from unwarranted government bombardments. Or, are you talking about your fees for creatively explosive, unrequested, airship detonations?"
Dominic put his arm around Sun's shoulders. "What? No, that was me doing that in my free time for the sheer joy of standing up to the man. I'm talking about all the carpentry fees this leaky tub is racking you up. Personally, I think 'Team Sink' is an appropriate name for your five."
Sun laughed deeply. "You make it sound like this boat is falling apart."
As if on cue, the central mast groaned and fell forward a few degrees - held up now only by what few lines of rigging hadn't been snipped by the grimm and a few determined splinters of wood.
Dominic smiled and removed his arm, letting Sun finish his meal.
"Any idea how far from Vacuo we are?" Dominic asked, "you've made the trip before, unlike the rest of us. Some of the damage to the boat is beyond even my carpentry skills."
Sun's face contorted as he thought about that. After a moment of looking upwards, he shrugged. "I came on a larger freighter ship last time, which was entirely engine-driven. This thing has sails, or, at least, it did until the wreckers got into them."
"Not like any of us but Scarlet were any use in making use of the sails." Dominic interrupted.
Sun gestured to some of the dials and controls near the steering wheel. "I think a lot of it was automated with onboard computers and gadgets. Olympic was designed to look old and stately, but it seems like Jupiter had as much nautical-know-how as you or I. Guess he didn't want that to interfere with his desire to feel like he was an old salt whenever he cruised this thing around the sheltered Mistral coves and bays."
"So, you're just going to agree with the others and say that we've got no idea how long this trip is going to take…"
Sun shrugged, not quite apologetically, without losing his stupid beaming smile. "It took me a week or so by freighter… which is a guess, because I wasn't really on the guest registry for that trip."
Dominic smirked - finally, a topic he could actually enjoy talking about with Sun: crimes and misdemeanours. "Oh, stowed away did you?"
Sun shot him a double thumbs-up with his hands as his tail took the wheel again. "You know it. Paying for stuff is for chumps! But being stuffed in the bilge is a hard way to keep track of the passage of time. It did let me see that the engines on that ship were… significantly larger than they are on Olympic."
"Did you pay for your passage to Menagerie while chasing Blake?"
"Nah, but after Blake and I defeated that sea monster grimm, the captain seemed to like having me aboard despite however I'd gotten there." Sun recalled, "Between you and I, we've made a solid case for travelling for free - look at all the fun times and good friends we've made by doing it our way!"
"I'm not sure if I'd say I've made…"
Sun didn't let him finish. "When I arrived in Vale as a stowaway, running from the dock police was how I met Blake - and through her, her team. Her friends. As for the boys - I think they're warming to you. Cammie I'm not sure about."
"She spends most of her time with your pirate." Dominic noted quickly. Of the five, Cammy was the least of his concerns. She was practically a civilian, even if she did have her aura unlocked now.
The two of them chuckled lightly. With their faunus hearing, they were more aware of certain things. Certain sounds late in the night that made Dominic regret not being more persuasive in his attempt to get Neo to come along with him. He could trust Neo as much as any of these guys, right? For Brazen's sake, I hope so…
"Even so, even Scarlet respects you. You're strong, but that's not important. What's important is that you're like us. You want to use that strength to protect people."
"Protect people?" Dominic frowned. "My brother and I protect the faunus. I came to help you on that airship. I came to help the faunus Jupiter threatened. I didn't do it for…" He looked quickly at the closed doorway that led below decks of the large private human ship. He rubbed his right hand against his eyepatch uneasily as his scar itched. I'm a Taurus. I don't protect humanity. It had just been an… unforeseen consequence of his actions - and Sun's directives to spare the soldiers' lives the ease of death on Wilt - that had somehow led to humans feeling like he'd 'protected' them.
Even so, his long-term plans of returning to Vale didn't outright demand human bloodshed. A wise leader - such as himself - would not cause undue harm to his second-class human citizens after establishing his new world-order. Humans will fear the faunus, humans will serve the faunus… but I can protect them all as anyone protects what belongs to him. He thought back to the faunus lost during the Breach of Vale. He remembered how he'd been willing to detonate Haven with all his fellows in the crossfire. He remembered how his forces had unleashed the painstakingly caged creatures of grimm into Amity Arena. The memory of his own treatment of himself and his people as expendable rankled more than the attack on human civilians, but both memories tasted bitter. He had to be better than he had been if he was going to be worthy of winning this war against humanity - if he was going to be the protector of Remnant's gentle masses, a saviour. Certainly it was better to be feared than loved, but it would be best to be both, no?
People love their protectors as much as they fear that protection being taken away.
Sun smirked knowingly, and Dominic's irritated frown deepened. The blonde had some preternatural awareness of how to stroke Dominic's ego just so at times towards his own outlook, slowly whittling away at his presumptions.
But that's why I'm here, with Sun - to learn… because what I was doing before was no longer working for me. Change was necessary, bloody evolution and such, no matter how much it rankled.
Dominic did not hate thinking of himself bearing the mantle of 'Protector'.
The ship lurched to the side as something careened into the hull. Dominic fought against the movement of the ship to cast himself above the railing on the side of the ship that teetered upwards so that he could peer down into the churning waters, where he saw a mass of tentacles trailing after the oval-shell of the chowder alpha-grimm as it passed under the ship. Like a mundane mollusk, it was using its valves to propel itself with water jets - but with its grimm constitution, size, and determination to cause harm, it moved at fantastic speed.
"What is it now?" Sun shouted, trying to sound agitated at something spoiling his turn at the helm, but Dominic noted the underlying notes of concern and worry in his voice. "Another reef?"
"The chowder caught up with us." Dominic said, racing to the other side of the yacht to watch as the thing jerkily moved through the water, opening and snapping its shells rapidly to propel itself after its prey. "It looks like it hasn't given up on killing us." It came about and struck the yacht again right under where Sun stood at the stern. The steering wheel shuddered, and arcs of lightning shot out from the ship, dissipating neatly into the ocean as the engine was destroyed.
Scarlet leapt through the door onto the deck. "Sun, what've you done with the-" He began to shout, then noticed Dominic at the side while Sun struggled to right the vessel. Scarlet bounded over to stand beside Dominic, saw the approaching beast, and swore some words that only a mariner could have come up with.
Such words were not found in the vocabulary of a mere international terrorist, and in calmer circumstances would have earned the human a stern rebuke. Certainly such words would not be fit to be transcribed into any literary form, not even the most debauched of fanfictions.
"Doesn't seem like it is going to let us outpace it." Dominic said, "what else can we do against it?"
"It feels like the thing just took out the propeller, so outpacing it isn't an option anymore, anyways." Scarlet shot a look past Sun at the approaching school of aquatic monstrosities that the alpha led. "This is looking bad!"
Sage came up through the door from below, drawing his sword.
"Looks like it regenerated its shell hinge!" Scarlet said at the sight of his partner. "We're dead in the water and it's coming around to attack again."
A massive geyser of water erupted from the chowder, flying overhead of where Dominic swayed unbalanced on the lurching deck. It had clearly learned its lesson last time about letting them get into melee with it, and was content now to simply fire jets of water at them in the hopes of knocking them overboard now that their propulsion was disabled.
"Taurus, watch out!" Someone shouted, but that was all he could hear as the groaning of the central mast overwhelmed any other noise. Dominic managed to roll to the side as the large pillar smashed down into the front of the ship, lancing out ahead of the rest of the ship like some sort of oversized ramming prod.
"It's shooting us apart!" Someone yelled.
Dominic got to his feet and saw Sage standing awkwardly on the deck, hapless with only a sword against an aquatic foe. Sun and Scarlet were on the other side of the ship firing at the armoured shell with their weapons, but their frustrated faces spoke volumes about how effective that was. The grimm's naturally hard carapace, complemented by the deflecting physics of water against projectiles, meant that even dust rounds would be of marginal usefulness at such range.
Dominic leapt in front of a jet of water, hoping to absorb the kinetic energy into Moonslice, but the bulk of the jet simply flowed around his sword and slammed him back until Sage swooped in to catch him from flying overboard. Dominic could feel that Moonslice had barely charged at all - damnable water! He pulled out Blush and unloaded a volley, but the water and the shell deflected his keenly aimed shots.
"Our shots are barely glancing it!"
"Well at least you have guns!"
Thinking through options, Dominic knew that their best recourse would be to somehow coerce - or convince - Neptune to be of service. His semblance, though he hated it, was perfectly suited to their situation. Dominic grit his teeth, trying not to be distracted at the thought of how bizarre it was that someone with a water-semblance could be afraid of the water. Semblances are supposed to be a reflection of the soul!
He looked at Sage. Ranged attacks were useless, and none of them were yet desperate enough to dive into the water to fight the monster in melee… I suppose I could just throw Sage into the water. The only problem with that plan was that the others aboard had a certain fondness for Sage. Throwing him overboard was certain to undo all the hard work he'd done so far - all the restraint he'd shown in being nice to the humans.
…He judged the distance. Assuming Sage didn't struggle that much, and kept himself somewhat aerodynamic, Dom felt like he could probably throw him far enough…
No! He scolded himself. If he threw the humans overboard now, Sun wouldn't forgive him for a long time - if ever.
"Our shots don't have enough umph to them!" Sun complained, looking at his complicated weapon with disappointment.
"We need something heavier to throw at it." Dominic said, worried that, as the odd-man out on the boat, he would be voluntold to get thrown like a faunus torpedo at the beast. He began thinking of a case for why it should be Sage, rather than himself, who gets the boot.
"A spear!" Sage shouted out. "We need to get Neptune's spear!"
"Sage!" Sun shouted happily, "you're brilliant!"
Dominic felt relieved that his patience in not throwing Sage into a watery grave had so quickly paid off. They didn't need to throw Sage or rely on Neptune's semblance - they just needed his throwable weapon!
Sage ran down the stairs to fetch the weapon, passing by Cammy who was coming up.
"Are we going to survive?" She asked tentatively, her eyes shifting uneasily between the rocking movement of the boat, the dangling ropes that once held the sheet-like sails taut, and the mast that teetered over the front of the ship's bow.
"Working on it!" Sun replied over the report of his nunchuck's firing as he refocused his efforts on fending off the numerous wreckers that began to scuttle over the railing. "I'm sure we'll have this dealt with…soon."
"Don't worry, luv. We're trained professionals!" Scarlet added with a wink.
The ship rocked again as the creature blasted them again with a jet of water that hit them below the waterline.
"What can I do to help?"
"Dominic, Sun, Cammy - secure the mast to the deck so it stops rolling around." Scarlet commanded. Sun might be the leader of the team, but Scarlet was the seasoned sailor. Sun offered no counter to the orders, instead moving swiftly to aid Cammy and Dom as they held down the broken mast. "We can't afford to lose it overboard - Tides know what we'll end up needing for this crossing. Don't think any of us are gonna be able to fix the propeller, so we're probably going to be relying on whatever wind we can harness."
Scarlet took control of the steering wheel. He fiddled with it and muttered that he shouldn't have let landlubbers be responsible for his ship-prize.
Sun leapt up into the rigging and began untying ropes that were connected to nothing; he also helped Scarlet by shouting out the monster's position. The propeller might be bent out of shape, and the sails were flapping about like drying laundry, but the ship still had a bit of momentum and the rudder was still working, allowing Scarlet to steer them out of the worst of the battering. Cammy and Dominic used the freed ropes to secure the mast. After five ropes were tightened around it, it finally sat still. "I think we did it." Cammy shouted.
"Will it hold?" Sun asked.
Holding onto a secured line of rope, Dominic drew Wilt and ran out to the end of the mast, jumping up and down as he went to test its stability. When he got to the end of the mast, hanging precariously over the water, he replied to Sun that it seemed to be as stable as the rest of the ship.
"For whatever good that means!" Sage said as he returned to the deck, proudly wielding Neptune's weapon in its spear configuration.
"Dominic, watch out!" Sun warned, "it sees you out there!"
Thanks to Sun's timely warning, Dom sprung nimbly back to the deck of the ship, turning about to watch as a force of water shot where he'd just been.
"Sun, get one of those ropes from the ruined sails - one of the long ones - and tie it onto Tri-Hard." Scarlet commanded, "Mr Ayana: you'll have the honour of the harpoon. Pretty sure you're the strongest of us."
Dominic didn't contest that. Sage was a bit more buff, and without Moonslice to power him up, Dom came second-place to the man who hefted his massive sword, Pilgrim, with practiced ease.
Sage let Sun tie several knots, took aim, and then fired the harpoon directly into the creature's shell where it buried itself into the chitinous armour. Sun cheered, then began helping Dominic and Sage reel the line in. The grimm might be strong, but it couldn't get away from them now. It had nothing to grip onto out there, and even if it did, they could just as easily tug themselves towards it. Thankfully, the grimm was either unaware or too unintelligent to use its tentacles to sever the line.
"So, what's the plan for when we pull it up to the ship?" Dominic had the forethought to ask.
Sun frowned. He may not have thought the plan through that far.
Sage patted Pilgrim on his back. "Hit it 'til it dies!"
Sun smiled. "Yeah! Hit it 'til it dies!"
The chowder evidently didn't like the plan. It began resisting the tugs of the three men, shooting jets of water to try to extricate itself from the line. Dom, Sun, and Sage held fast, but the entire yacht began swerving to the side. Dominic hoped they wouldn't be pulled off-course.
All of this fighting was proving to be a hassle, an impediment to his glorious return to Vale and his waiting followers. He had to figure out a way to make short work of this stupid grimm.
As he pulled against the rope, an idea came to him. The grimm were drawn to negativity. The grimm wanted the Relic. "Think unhappy thoughts!" Dominic shouted, "lure it in!"
"Is that smart?" Cammy asked. Dominic had almost forgotten she was present; she'd been running around the deck kicking small wreckers overboard until Scarlet had lent her his pistol since he was preoccupied with the helm. "Won't that just overwhelm us with more grimm?"
Sage managed a slight shrug. "It's smarter than trying to reel it in like this." He grunted with the effort of keeping the chowder tethered. "And it's not like they're not already coming for us."
Dominic thought of everything he'd been shunting to the back of his mind for later, all the annoyances and irritations and frustrations and anger.
Bedlam chased off after Blake for nothing.
I was too late to protect Salt.
He felt his body itching. His scar. His middle finger. He drew the rope back a full length of his armspan. The creature was drawn to his hatred, to his doubt, but most of all to the Relic tied to his aura.
Adam Taurus was not what the faunus needed.
I'm working with humans.
My brothers could be dead.
I killed other faunus.
Will my followers in Vale still support me?
What lines haven't I crossed yet? What lines are left? Is there a line left that I won't choose to cross - is it even a choice?
"Dominic - your aura?" Sun called out, and Dom realized his eye had shut as his mind spiralled into the depths of his soul's gnawing scraps. With his eye snapping open, he saw what Sun was concerned about: his aura was flaring, but it looked different; it looked wrong. It roiled over him like immolation rather than a shield, flickering red that progressed to a pallid smoke-like green mist at the tipped flares. The rope in his hand was completely slack, and the chowder had stopped firing its water jet forward. Now it used it to jet forward towards the yacht. And though there was no way to be sure of it, he somehow knew that it was coming towards him.
Sage and Scarlet surged forward, swords in hand, to meet the creature as it rammed against the ship with its hard shell. The yacht groaned and there was a great spray of water that flowed over the deck, breaking Dom from his gloomy considerations. The shell opened up and the familiar multitude of undulating sharp tentacles came out to assault them. Sage got himself on top of the creature, taking the time to further embed Neptune's weapon in the chitin.
Dominic watched dispassionately as the creature rose out from the water to engulf him in its many rows of razor triangles, only for it to stop mid-leap and splash down into the water as Sun pulled it down by its line. The creature went into a frenzy, roiling the water as it tried to pump and pull itself back up to the deck. It rolled over, throwing Sage back onboard the ship as it realized it was harpooned.
Cammy and Sun threw more ropes through the creature's shell, holding it by the henge, and pulling it fast to the side of the yacht while Sage and Scarlet began methodically slicing off its various appendages.
As its protective mass of black tentacles turned to smoke, Dominic's keen eye saw something glint in the creature's bilious core.
A gleaming, lustrous pearl-like orb, red shining-yellow like an exaggerated beowulf eye, and Dominic knew that that was the monster's heart. Without hesitation, with Wilt in hand, he dove into the convulsing maw, chasing after the glint as it disappeared into the tentacles. He was enveloped immediately by the writhing limbs, but they were too confused and distracted to crush him until it was too late; his faunus eyes adjusted to the dimness inside the partially open shell, and his gloved hand found purchase on the smooth surface of the orb. With a single burst of strength, he wrenched it out from the sinew and black-tissue of its berth, and the flurry of motion around him stopped as every single tentacle fell, defeated, unconnected. Water began to pour in around him, and he struggled to forge his way back out from the shell, coughing on the smoke and sputtering as the ocean tried to drown him, but he found a rope and crawled his way back up to the ship.
"So it did have a pearl!" Sun said.
Dominic shook his head. "Not quite."
Scarlet came up and looked at the thing. "It is the pearl."
"Oh." Sun said. Him and Sage looked disappointed, having both been thinking of selling the item for profit. "Oh!" Sun said, louder, realizing that that meant that the chowder was still alive. "We have a captive grimm!"
"That's a pretty rare thing to have - most academics would pay a large ransom for the chance to study something like that." Neptune shouted from the staircase leading below. "But I'm not sure we have the capacity to contain an alpha grimm aboard the ship. Besides the amount of water down here, so long as that thing is alive it will likely continue to control the local grimm to attack us with more precision and urgency. Also we don't know if it will regenerate again…"
Scarlet sighed deeply, frustrated. "He's right. Much as I'd like to add that to our fortune, we can't get paid if we can't get to shore."
"How far to Vacuo?" Sun asked his navigator partner.
Scarlet shook his head sadly. "Too far to manage like this. We need a break from these attacks to repair the ship. We can't fix the propeller, so we'll have to do it on sails alone. Which means getting that mast back up into place." He looked at Dominic. "Good thing we have a carpenter aboard."
Dominic stifled a desire to shrink away. Damned humans - I just took out an alpha, and now they want me to fix this leaky tub, too?
Where was the gratitude?
Where was the praise?
Cammy, to his surprise, came up behind him and patted him on the back. "Nice work catching it, but it sounds like we're gonna have to kill it." She pointed Scarlet's gun at the glowing orb in his hands and fired it, shattering the grimm's essence into one last, large burst of black smoke. After it dissipated and the pair of them finished coughing, she complained, "oh gods, that was so much grosser than I thought it would be it smelled even worse than the little ones like rotten fish and spoiled eggs and an entire highschool varsity team's socks." She punched Scarlet in his shoulder. "Why didn't you warn me the big ones smoke smells so bad?" She began coughing, which turned into retching as she puked over the side of the ship.
Dominic moved over to the mast and tried to figure out what he was going to do about fixing it. With a wide expanse of oceans spanning in every direction, glinting in the high sun, he had nowhere to retreat to. The listing ship now seemed like a floating prison; the expectations cultivated by his lies, his jailor.
He forced himself to think confidently. Carpentry couldn't be that hard. He just needed to put the big piece of wood back where it had been, smack some nails or spikes into it to keep it there, and call it a success.
BRAZEN
Friday Afternoon, Day 16
"A'ight new blood: rules are simple. Collars on your neck will shock you every minute or so from one of the ten embedded studs - makes sure those of you with that aura stuff don't get to use it. Just a light zap of varying intensity to make sure you stay out of trouble." The corpulent Mistral soldier shouted at the assembled faunus. "Just a little pinprick. I'll be turning that back on in a bit, but I need you focused on what I'm telling ya for now."
"Why can't you just fit us with gravity-dust suppressant cuffs?" Ilia complained.
The human guffawed. "You think we's gon' waste pricey things like that on you lot? That sort of premium gear is for criminal huntsmen, not animals such as yerselves. 'Sides, this gear ramps up if it doesn't get a signal from us every two days - so it makes sure you don't go getting all runny-rabbit on us in case you find a little sneak-hole out of the mines." He cracked the whip, letting the spiked tip make an explosion of parched dirt in front of Ilia. Brazen wasn't impressed by much of what he'd seen so far, but if nothing else he had to admit the soldier had a good handle on how to use his whip. The fact did not fill him with hope for Ghira's success. The slavery situation in the south was clearly worse than the White Fang had thought. "Rule number two: no work, no food. I don't care if you wanna sit around doing nothing but act like varmints all day long, but the Mistral government ain't gon waste food on such ne'er-do-wells. Days o' suckling at the tit o' Mistral society is over for y'all."
A familiar looking human some distance behind the soldiers looked uncomfortable, and Brazen started paying attention to him rather than to the bluster of the military man. Not as much as the faunus, but still to some degree, the non-soldier didn't want to be present for the introductory speech.
Where did I see him before?
After a minute of racking his brain for the answer, he realized it when the man shiftily took a flask out of his duster and had a swig.
The bar!
Brazen struggled to remember the human's name. He remembered the bartender saying that the guy had inherited a mine. Brazen surveyed the dismally kept shacks nearby. This place certainly seemed to fit the tone of an abandoned operation.
Funny, Brazen thought sourly, I distinctly recall the drunk promising fair wages, elated that faunus rights progressing in Mistral would get rid of the local SDC concerns' labour advantage.
Brazen squinted his good eye.
Farsigan - that was what his name was - didn't seem happy. In fact, he looked more than uncomfortable - he seemed anxious.
Brazen examined the soldiers and the slaves, deducing what had happened. Farsigan, excited to reclaim his family's claim, had come all the way here to his family's property with hopes and dreams, only for the military to decide his hopes and dreams were secondary to their need for a convenient faunus labour camp when war was declared. Faced with armed human soldiers bearing the royal declaration of war against Menagerie and faunus-kind, feeble Farsigan had caved to political pressure like any civilian would.
Brazen let a little smile of contentment flutter about his lips. Now he had two angles to work on: Ilia and Farsigan. Just because Ghira wasn't coming to his rescue didn't mean he'd be a prisoner for long. Not if I can have a word every now and again with those two.
He was so pleased at how this was all going, he cast his attention back on the bellowing obese soldier.
"Rule number twenty-six: every nine hours, you will be afforded a single, twenty-minute block of rest time to allow those of you who've earned meals to eat. Your rest time will start when we ring the bell, and will be timed so that you lazy freaks don't waste any of our time."
Ilia's fists were clenched in fury. "How're we supposed to remember all these rules?" She whispered out the side of her mouth at Brazen.
Brazen leaned over so that his mouth hovered nearer to her ear. "Easy. We don't."
Ilia looked like she wanted to complain about how they had to be 'good little emissaries for Ghira' or some similar line of drivel. Then the soldier started talking about rule twenty-seven, which pertained to the use of bathroom facilities.
The soldier gestured behind him, to a little pit that looked like it had been dug a few days before. There were three filthy buckets scattered beside the pit.
"And at the end of every week, on Friday, the three faunus who produce the lowest total yield will have the reward of being responsible for using the buckets to empty the pit by carrying it out to the river - which is down the hill, about a kilometer. Last week was short, and with so many of y'all deciding ya didn't want to partake of the faunus kibble, bucket duty was relatively light… but we've got some able-looking fresh bodies amongst you lot, so I'd keep track of your yields - and those of your peers - to make sure your off-shift time isn't spent hauling your fetid shit down the mountainside for six hours instead of sleeping!"
Ilia no longer looked like she cared as much about playing 'nice'.
"Ghira wouldn't mind if we broke his teeth…" Brazen heard her mutter under her breath.
Good girl.
Her time in Menagerie, her time with Blake, had spoiled her. Softened her. But the foundation of human-hatred was still strong. Deep in her heart, she was still just like him.
I'm sure she'll get along with Neopolitan, though.
As he was goaded towards a communal lodge by the remaining guards' spears, he looked back and forth between Ilia and Farsigan. He had to come up with some clever way of getting Ilia back to openly hating humans, but without having her hate Farsigan - who would be instrumental to their egress from captivity, if Brazen's nascent schemes bore fruit. With a relationship like that as a springboard, it would open Ilia's mind to accepting his other alliances with certain humans of his preference. Neopolitan. Cinder.
Salem, whatever she counted as being.
The collar heated up, as the guards had promised, now that the lengthy description of rules was concluded. Brazen forced his aura to stay dormant; the jolt of electric pain smarted, but he didn't mind. He had a plan, he had a purpose. He saw Ilia's hand snap up to scratch at her own collar, clawing at it as the energy began to itch. She instinctively brought up what little fragments of aura she had, which fizzled as the surge of electricity the heat had foretold hit her.
Brazen frowned at the sight of that. Had Ilia never learned to control her aura? Adam had, in the mines of Mantle, long ago learned to simply accept the pain to retain his aura. He'd figured it was an easy enough trick to figure out, and the benefits were obvious: with an unbroken aura, his younger self had been stronger, faster. The SDC hadn't known his aura was unlocked, so they never found it strange that it wasn't constantly breaking. With aura boosting him to superfaunus levels, he'd managed to easily make his quotas, leaving more time for finding his eventual way out… his escape to freedom from the mines. Adam had assumed most people knew about that flaw with the SDC model of shock collar. He'd never spent much time, after his own escape, with people wearing the collars - he had had a tendency to remove them.
Who actually had figured out the flaw in the collar design besides me?, he was left to wonder. Certainly huntsmen would know about the workaround, hence the need for gravity-dust suppressants to arrest them.
It occurred to him that maybe Ilia didn't know, and her aura was acting on its base instinct to protect her from the immediate pain. She never worked in the mines. Ilia had led a comfortable existence - much in part due to the hard work of Adam Taurus over the years!
Until Ilia was back on his side, he'd hold off on telling her about the flaw. She'd be more… he hated to say 'desperate', but it was suitable. In desperation, she'd cast aside her foolish moral high-ground and optimism that Ghira had instilled in her. For now, her aura would impede his mission.
If he was going to teach her to be strong, he needed to let her realize how weak she was.
He wasn't a bad person.
It wasn't like he was taking joy in his comrade's suffering.
The way she'd gloated at him on the boat, been all gung-ho to have him walk the plank, he could have found some delight in the quick karma, but he didn't.
Even after her betrayal of the cause, her betrayal of him, she was still faunus. He still wanted to help her.
This is for the faunus. It wasn't for his personal enjoyment. It was for her education.
Brazen wandered over to the entrance to the domicile. The guards had gone away. Brazen started to think that the guards didn't know about the flaw, either. Maybe they just thought that the faunus, being 'animals', weren't smart enough to learn to control their aura well enough, weren't cunning enough to accept the imposition of random electric shocks for the sake of strength. Which means they don't expect us to be able to fight back. Just like the SDC mining bosses, they could feel secure with the thought that, should any prisoner become rowdy, they could hit them with a harder shot of juice. He would still have to have his collar removed, but even while being shocked he could probably fight for a minute or so with a full aura bar absorbing the electrocution. It was a shame there was no way for him to charge Moonslice with the shock collar, but a minute was still plenty of time for him to kill a fair number of these human fools.
As much as Brazen wanted to get back to Neopolitan, to find Cinder, there was a certain fondness in his heart for these interactions with stupid humans. It made him regret that such stupidity tended to result in their deaths.
But he didn't regret it much.
NEOPOLITAN
Saturday
She waited at the door of the warehouse.
"Look at you. Sitting there like some house pet. Like a little puppy." The image of Roman mouthed at her with disdain. He'd have - he hated - to see her like this. "Sort of pathetic, isn't it?"
Neo looked at the door, hoping that, despite the negligible odds, Adam would choose that moment to stride through back into the warehouse and back into her life.
"She's an adorable little doggy!" Trivia cooed.
Neo agreed, and conjured herself some big floppy dog ears. If Adam came in now and saw that, he'd certainly be impressed and intrigued at her faunus impersonation. I can be your loyal hound, your pretty puppy, your naughty little bi-
"What if he's turned off or upset by us appropriating faunus culture?" Trivia wondered.
"That's not a problem. The mongrels don't really have a culture, so it is safe to say there is nothing there to appropriate, which is appropriate."
Neo wondered if she was racist. She wasn't stupid, just lonely. She knew that the memory of Trivia and Roman that haunted her were just reflections of her own psyche, but without her real friend around, they were all she had; and it was marginally better than talking to herself. If she could talk to herself like normal people could… In any case, she didn't feel like she was racist. Calling faunus 'mongrels' was a bit over the line, though. No. No, that was just her memory of Roman, because that is something Roman had said once about the faunus. Roman was just being genuine. If he stopped being genuine, then she'd remember that he was-
"Don't start crying," Trivia warned. "Men don't like crying women. They're attracted to strength and independence. Signs of good breeding, just like Lady Browning always instructed."
"There's so much more you could be doing today." Roman sighed. "Though from what we know of Adam, the kid does have a bit of a saviour complex going on. If he did walk in here to find Neo distraught, in shambles on the floor with mascara running down her face because she missed him so much, he'd probably feel good knowing that he could 'save' you." Roman paused, then added, "of course, he's the sort of saviour that wants to be celebrated for his valour and such, so he'd expect to be rewarded."
Neo had no issue with the idea of rewarding Adam immediately upon his return. She was ready. She'd been ready, and the readiness was starting to wear on her patience.
"So, what, we just whip up a batch of little puppies for Adam?" Trivia asked, "I mean, what happened to playing hard to get?"
Screw that! That's no fun at all.
"And what if they're not all puppies?" Roman cautioned, "we know how he feels about humans. Doubt he'd want to father any. Isn't there a fifty-fifty chance of interspecies romances producing either species?"
Neo hadn't considered that at all. Or, if she had, she'd pushed the thought deep down into the recesses of her brain so that it could only come out through her figmentary friend. Is that why he keeps using the condom? Not because he wants me to receive all the pleasure of his semblance, but simply to avoid spawning any human offspring? Neo wasn't super ready to become a mother, certainly the entire notion was all just a hypothetical issue for the time being, but what if it was Adam who turned out to be the barrier to them being a happy family?
I'll… I'll just make sure they're faunus! They didn't even have to be cute little puppies. Any kind of faunus would be fine. Anything to sink her claws into Adam for good, to keep him around, to prevent him from leaving her alone like this again! She wanted fun, all the time, and this was no fun at all.
"I think you're just getting a bit pent-up. Maybe try getting one out, get your mind thinking straight again?" Roman suggested uninterestedly, clearly preferring that to further obsession with Adam. "Then maybe we can go back to the club to listen around for news of Cinder from Lil' Miss' goons?"
That hasn't worked since I got back to the city! Neo seethed petulantly, I! Want! My! Adam! She stomped her feet to punctuate each not-word.
"You'd think after being raised by Mother and Father, you'd be used to not getting what you want all the time." Trivia said.
The reason I'm not living with Mother and Father anymore is so that I can get whatever I want whenever I want without anyone telling me 'no'!
"So how are you going to 'make sure they're faunus', Neo?" Roman asked.
Neo scratched her chin. She didn't know. She checked her scroll. It was still completely down, the local network was kaput. She had access to no external data.
I'll go to the library! At the school! I'll research there! Where there was a will there had to be a way - academia had to be good for that much!
The library was useless. Thousands of books, but there was a complete lack of material pertaining to faunus biology. All she could find were snippets of news articles detailing how the former headmaster had expunged the library's collection of biology texts on the grounds that they were 'outdated', 'racist', 'propaganda that propagated stereotypes', leading to a disturbing lack of information on subjects such as 'when do faunus traits manifest: in the womb, during infancy, or later on?' and 'how to ensure mixed race pregnancies result in faunus babies so that your racial supremacist partner doesn't regard you with disfavour and withhold lovemaking from you and in so doing prevent you from enjoying his delightful semblance?'. Those questions were completely unanswered by the stupid library.
What were all these poindexters even doing up in their ivory towers, if they couldn't even answer the simplest questions Neo had?
She looked over at a desk, the very one where Adam had sat while she'd played lookout. She remembered how he'd refused her advances then. It had been so easy for him! Unimaginable!
If he could resist my charms then, then I'm at a total disadvantage! The scales are so uneven!
She marched back to the warehouse, easily using her semblance to bypass the lockdown barricades and checkpoints erected in Mistral Above after martial law had been declared. She didn't care. It hadn't stopped her, and it had made sure she'd had the whole library to herself.
"We should probably look into this whole martial law and war-against-the-faunus business." Roman said as they passed by the final checkpoint before they made it back to Mistral Below, where the laws weren't enforced as much - if at all.
Screw that, I need a drink. I'm going to the club.
Roman nodded. "Well, at least if we're there we might overhear something from the Spyders."
ROVER
Fuzzy memories eluded him, of a time before. He remembered being upset. Highly emotional. Worried. He couldn't remember why. All that mattered now was the show.
Rover lay strapped to a wall - that had seemed uncomfortable before, but now it was fine. He was watching the show. He was vaguely aware of other people nearby. Some of them, like him, silently enjoyed the show. Others murmured, others muttered, but none of them were vocal enough to interrupt the show. Not anymore.
When Rover had been training to be a huntsman, in the city for the first time, he'd become aware of the old show. It had been produced, his teammates had told him, for little kids back in the Empress' youthful heydey. He'd ignored it and focused on his training. Such a shame. It was such a good show. It was a bit of an acquired taste, and seasons four and five were a tad slow-going, but now he was totally invested in the characters. The first time watching it through he hadn't gotten it; but now, on his eleventh - or is this the twelfth? - marathon run through the series, he had come to fully appreciate all of its nuances.
Live for Mistral, Mistral Magnificent!
Everyone loves the largest Kingdom,
All revere the Empress,
Revel in luxuries extravagant!
Rover waited eagerly as the opening credits played through, taking a moment to suck on the straw stuck in his mouth that dripped some sort of sweet nutrient brine. Even though he knew exactly what would happen in this episode - Captain Strong would lead his team of ragtag Mistralian heroes on a special assignment to garner the attention of the beautiful princess (aka best girl) that would lead to them inevitably stumbling into a nest of particularly foul grimm - Rover was still excited to see it again. The dialogue! The production value of the animation! It was all so good! Even if it was made for children before he was born.
Fight for Mistral with your friends,
Wearing the latest fashion trends,
Strength not insignificant -
Glorious Mistral, Mistral Magnificent!
"Today's adventure is Volume Six, Episode Thirteen: Faunus Follies!" Narrated the cartoon character of Tanger, who was responsible for briefing the team on their mission of the day. The scene opened to the briefing room, a brightly lit office-type place with a pot of coffee bubbling on a table underneath a bunch of vague maps and charts. "The faunus are a servile, degenerate offshoot of humanity. It is our duty to ensure that their indolence and natural aggression are channelled towards protecting society - all of Mistral's brave citizens - from the evil grimm! Your mission is to rescue a group of faunus captured by bandits, so that they can return to their jobs as miners."
One of the other audience members nearby began to grunt and whimper, straining restlessly against their bindings.
Rover ignored them, focusing instead on the characters as they sought out the faunus, only to find that they'd been radicalized by the bandits and no longer wanted to return to their old lives, preferring to live out in the woods like savages with the bandits. It wasn't until the bandits and radicalized faunus were attacked by a terrifying grimm that they saw the error of their ways; once Captain Strong and the rest defeated the monsters, the faunus willingly returned to their jobs and all was well. As it should be.
Rover loved the show. He would do anything for Mistral. Having not watched the show before, he didn't realize that Volume Six had only had twelve episodes. Some of his fellow inmates might have known, but at this point they were all too brainwashed to notice even the slight differences between the original episodes' voice actors and animation style compared to episode thirteen.
ILIA AMITOLA
The days passed slowly, catching her between the fear of going into the mine caves and the fear of what awaited her when she managed to crawl out. The human soldiers delighted in tormenting the enslaved faunus. She wasn't sure what the faunus kibble was, but it was disgusting. Adam ate it without complaint, so she assumed it must be vegetarian. It tasted somewhat like bran flakes, crumpled up into little clumps and leeched of any sweetness. Pure fiber. Which meant that the communal outdoor bathroom was rarely used. It was so dark and confusing in the caverns that, on two occasions in twice as many days, Ilia hadn't been able to get to the surface to use what the rest of the faunus called 'the poop pit'. The caves were extensive enough that nobody should happen upon what she'd done, crouched down in a secluded crevice.
Adam smiled at her.
He knew. She didn't know how, but she knew he knew what she'd done. He was always watching her, unlike the human guards who relied more on the threat of their collars shocking them if they tried to run than on constant observation. The humans went down a little bit into the tunnels, but not very far, and mostly just loitered around near the entrance waiting for faunus to occasionally return to the light with a load of minerals. Adam probably justified his constant stalking of her as watching over her. His attention made her squirm as much as the attention of the human who'd gotten the drop on her at the shoreline. She knew he was up to something, but there was no way for her to figure out what it was.
Adam dived into the caverns eagerly, despite his lingering bandaged wounds, emerging with bounties of minerals that outpaced the rest of the captives put together - or so the other captives said. She'd met him topside once or twice, and he certainly had brought up substantially more than her unpracticed hands had found. Each morning when they were sent into the darkness, he moved with easy confidence while others tarried, hesitating to return into the gloomy depths with flickering lights and picks that wouldn't protect them if they ran into anything nasty. Only their empty stomachs and the jeers of the human soldiers were enough to motivate most captives to brave the dark depths.
When Ilia was in the caves, she could hear the occasional growls and sobbing cries of her fellow captives. She never saw Adam in the caves, though, but she always felt like he knew where she was.
He'd grown up in the mines. He might not be proud of it, but he was good at the job. He was in his element. It actually made her wonder if the SDC had put a bounty on him to stop him from committing terrorist attacks on their facilities or if they'd just really wanted him back on the job.
At the end of the workday, the bell sounded, the faunus were all counted up and sent to a set of picnic tables where they were fed dinner - which, thankfully, was real food, unlike their morning and lunchbreak kibble. It wasn't much, but it was something to look forward to. Ilia ate a bruised pear with hidden joy, even though she'd had much better food throughout her life, and even though the meal was given to them as a 'reward' for making their quota. She hadn't thought she'd meet quota, but when her bin was counted at the end of the day it had been full. More full than she'd thought it should be. The other faunus had had similar fortune, eerily surprised at how efficient they'd apparently been all day. Even the ones who Ilia had spotted sleeping in hidden rocky alcoves all day.
Adam! He was, for some inexplicable reason unfathomable to Ilia, dumping his haul into other people's bins. Maybe he's just too stupid to know which one is his? Almost as jarring to her was how little the human soldiers cared that he'd done it. Of course they don't care whose bin he puts his load into. All they care about is our docility and our output quantity.
On the third day of their stay at the mine, one of the other captives hadn't reported in at end of day. One of the whiskered kids that had been on the busload they'd come in with. Without pause, Adam had turned and gone right back into the cave, emerging an hour later, with the terrified child carried in his hand, before nonchalantly eating a cold soup beside the child as the boy's parents fussed over him and whispered quiet praise to Adam.
Despite only being allotted six hours for sleep and rest, none of the faunus had gone to sleep until the Adam had emerged with the boy.
That's when Ilia saw what was happening. The other faunus started to congregate around Adam. They started relying on his strength, seeing him as a leader.
Shit. This is the White Fang all over again, Ilia realized. Things were getting out of hand, fast. Where is Ghira? She wasn't equipped to deal with this! She wasn't confident in her ability to stand up to Adam one-on-one, much less if he garnered the support of the other faunus. She wasn't a strong public speaker. The most public speaking she'd ever done had been to instigate a riot when Blake and her father had denounced the White Fang in Menagerie a couple months ago. Which… hadn't even really gone over that well. So yeah, it's not like I can just get up on a pulpit and start preaching against Adam. What was she going to do? Snitch on him to the guards? The human slaver guards?
She tried to figure out a way to persevere, to triumph over Adam in this squalid little game of power and control he'd started here, but she was all about stealth and finesse - fat lot of good that did her when she couldn't even keep up with him in the caverns!
On top of all of that - the way he excelled at excavating, the way he was starting to be beloved by the other faunus (who had begun whispering about rumours of his true identity as the Adam Taurus), and his infuriating mask of contentedness as he went through the motions of being a good little slave (Ilia knew he hated being captured even more than she did, but he smiled anyways) - there was one other mystery she needed to get to the bottom of.
Adam, for whatever reason, didn't seem to sleep.
Who the fuck doesn't sleep?
It wasn't natural!
She hadn't noticed at first. She'd been so tired after hauling rocks around all day she'd passed out at the first opportunity, proud that she'd made it through the day without - as some other faunus had - falling asleep in the caves. It wasn't until the fifth day that the sudden need to use the poop pit in the middle of the night had gotten her out of her cot only for her to notice that Adam's was empty. Her first concern was that she'd find him at the pit, so she'd held it in for as long as she could in the hope that he'd come back and let her have some privacy. Or, at least, as much privacy as the guards on watch would afford her.
But he hadn't come back, and she'd finally given up and gone out. Expecting to see him crouched over the pit, fighting the fibre, she was surprised - and slightly relieved - to see that he was not there. As she relieved herself further, she became suspicious. If he wasn't at the pit, and he wasn't asleep, then where was he?
The guards on watch didn't seem to be acting differently, so either he wasn't up to anything troublesome or they hadn't raised an alarm, yet.
Did he go back into the caves?
She had thought that, perhaps growing up in such a situation, Adam was just more comfortable sleeping in a cave than he was in a cot. His room at the White Fang Headquarters had always been particularly spartan.
She looked around at the rest of the mining camp. The nightshift human guardtowers shone bright spotlights around in erratic patterns, though they avoided pointing the lenses towards the pit where Ilia squatted. Besides those bright lights, there was only one other light on. Ilia focused on that, and realized that it belonged to the small cottage the mine owner had retained after the military appropriation of his operation. Farsigan's house, Ilia thought, having been told the name by Adam. Somehow, Adam had known the human's name. She'd been too tired at the time to question how he had, but now… now, it seemed like the only place Adam could be, if he wasn't down in a cave, was having a late-night rendezvous with Farsigan.
Six days after they had arrived at the mine, Ilia began to seriously consider the prospect that Ghira wasn't coming to save her. Which left two options: resign herself, and all of these other innocent faunus, to a life of abject suffering and servitude with no proper training for careers as miners, or…
Adam's wounds were healed, but he kept wearing most of the bandages. Over the course of the past few days, some of them had fallen off or been caught on sharp rocks underground, but there was still enough cloth to cover his bits and his brand.
The other faunus were already rallying to him.
If he had a plan to get them out of here, it made sense for Ilia to lend her aid - if only to make sure that someone was a voice for peace, for avoiding an international incident. Even if he'd been quagmired elsewhere, Ghira - not to mention Blake - were depending on Ilia to keep Adam from setting faunus-human relations back a century.