Ugh. Now I'm sick. Wtf. Stressful end of week into London trip into coming back late Saturday into limited sleep, I suppose. Feel awful today. But soon – soon – it will be over. Hopefully, anyway. If the business hasn't been sold or closed by Christmas and the New Year, I'll put thought into just quitting.

It's really eating away at me otherwise. I'm just constantly stressed and losing days that should be my own.

Cover Art: Solace O'Autumn

Chapter 45

Chaos reigned over Menagerie.

Adam normally thrived on it, the chaos that was, but it had never come to his home before. Normally, they unleashed it in Atlas or another kingdom, fighting the good fight, besting the Schnee, showing the world that faunus neither forgot nor forgive.

This was different.

Wilt sliced through the flesh of a faunus who screamed in agony and dropped his cleaver. The man had come at him roaring his fury, and Adam had assumed he had aura – why wouldn't he if he was charging a man down like that? He had not. The man, a butcher, landed on his back with his hands holding the nasty cut across his stomach. He whimpered, pain and fear replacing adrenaline, and looked up at Adam like he was seeing a monster.

Stop that, Adam wanted to say. You're the one who attacked me. I'm no monster.

He'd seen that in Blake's eyes, too. The memory was enough to have him grip tight to his weapon. Best to do as he'd been ordered and put this fanatic out his misery. Already, his most loyal were cutting through Albain's fools.

This would be a swift cleanup. A bloody cleanup.

"Please," the butcher begged. "Please don't…"

"Would you have afforded me the same mercy if our situations were reversed? I think not." Adam stepped forward. "You brought this on yourself for defying the White Fang. This is the fate of all traitors."

"M—Monster." The grown man wept like a child. "You monster!"

Adam raised his sword.

"Teary eyed, once gentle soul…I watched as you rotted away…"

The music swept out from an open window nearby, some bar, and, for some reason, it made Adam pause. Perhaps it was mimicry of his thoughts. Gentle? Tears? Crying never fixed the world. He'd cried once, when the cruel letters were branded into his face. His family had been gentle, as had he, but such was not enough to change the world.

Only strength could.

The old Adam was dead. He'd had to die for the White Fang to rise, to achieve their aims. Adam stared down on the terrified faunus and, in an instant, wondered what achievements those were.

It was supposed to be the humans afraid of them…

Not their fellow faunus.

Suddenly, Adam was aware of the blood spilt across him. Blood of his fellow faunus, of a citizen of Kuo Kuana, which he had sworn, alongside Blake, to protect with his life. Back when they'd both been naïve and idealistic. Before the old him rotted and died in the sun. Slowly, Adam tilted his sword so that he could see his reflection in the blood-red metal.

His mask and face were splashed with blood, his lips peeled back and his teeth bared. He looked closer to a beast than a man.

"Is this… Is this what Blake saw in me…?"

"The mirror says that I still remember hope…"

Hope…

Did he have that anymore…?

Adam stared down at the terrified faunus. Clenching his eyes shut, Adam forced himself to walk on, to leave the man, to turn his back and sheath his blade. His every instinct screamed at him to finish the job.

The haunting music continued to play.

/-/

Ilia felt powerless as she was, pinned to the deck of the ship under the weight of two larger faunus. Her eyes were locked onto Albain, tracking the gun that was wavering in the air. The man who had been so assured of murder was quivering.

And the reason why was obvious.

"Please die, little dreams. Kill the camelias in me. Wouldn't it be easier to give in…?"

Fennec whimpered. "N—No. I… I can't give in… how can I…? Corsac didn't…"

Salty tears fell to the deck.

It's just music, Ilia wanted to say.

Wanted.

But she was crying as well.

How? This doesn't make sense! It's… It's the music. It has to be. Not just as normal music, but something more. He's… The human is doing this. He's making us feel these things.

And it was "us" in this case because the men holding Ilia down were dripping their gross snot and tears into her hair. One of them was even pressing his face into Ilia's back for comfort as he wept.

I knew there was something up with him. His music is too good. It's unnatural.

Ilia dared to look at him.

He looked incredible. Ilia, confirmed lesbian, couldn't not say it. She loved Blake – perhaps even obsessed over her – but if she had to fall for a man, if fate decreed it, she wouldn't have found Jaune Arc unwelcome. That thought made her stomach flip because she could tell how unnatural it was for her.

Is this mind control…?

"Why are these hands chasing dreams outside my reach…?"

Fennec looked down at his hands.

And wept.

/-/

Ghira felt the surprise ripple through the crowd when the music began to play. He wasn't sure who thought it a good idea to interrupt tense negotiations, but it felt more like televisions and radios had come on all of their own, playing Albain's final, threatening words to Jaune Arc – and to Kali – before the song began.

No one had known what to do. How to react.

Ghira pushed on. "Don't do this!" he shouted to the hostage-takers. "These are your children, your neighbours, innocents! They have their own dreams, their own wishes. Don't take those from them just because you are unhappy!"

"What future is there?" screamed a woman among them. "Look at us! Trapped on an island, forgotten by Remnant. This was our last refuge, our last hope, and now you harbour some twisted inhuman demon!"

"He's a human!" Sienna shouted. "Stop spouting nonsense!"

"And you, Sienna. You're meant to be our protectors!"

"I can't protect you from your own insanity! Look at yourselves! You're worse than any Schnee right now!"

"We have to come together!" Ghira yelled, siding, for once, with Sienna. It was the first time they had ever lent their voices as one, and it was powerful. "We stand united as faunus of Menagerie, but if we fall on one another, we are nothing!"

"A united front!" Sienna echoed. "Against the Grimm, against Atlas, against the Schnee, against oppression!"

"Fly perfect wings, where have you been hiii-iiding…"

Ghira felt something inside him shift.

This felt… This felt right. It felt perfect. Himself and Sienna working in unison to protect, not to harm or to berate or to whip people into a frenzy, but to calm them. To bring peace. To save lives, and to protect the faunus.

As he once had, so long ago…

"Bring me to the mind that got us started…"

The start? Ghira could remember it. Him and Kali, young and passionate, stood upon soapboxes shouting out hopeful messages to faunus and human alike, not only to their own mistreated people but to the humans who came in support of them. Back then, the world had seemed so vast, and anything possible. They had felt, in their idealistic naivety, that they could change the world.

But they had given up once Sienna expressed her vision and people sided with her.

"Fly perfect wings, show them who I can be—"

What was the point?

His way had proven useless. His way had led to the birth of the White Fang. Ghira looked to Sienna bitterly, only to freeze.

Sienna was scared.

Helpless.

Unable to stop this tragedy. Sensing his gaze, she looked at him, and it wasn't with hate or dismissiveness. It was with a pleading wish for him to help her fix this disaster before it could cost the lives of innocent children.

"—for the one last time, if you will…"

Fire surged inside him.

Yes.

One last time.

Ghira strode forward.

"Back!" screamed a crazed woman, knife to the neck of her own son. "Stay back!"

The crowd watched in horror.

I will not back down, Ghira swore. I will fly once more.

"I AM A FATHER!" he boomed, his voice carrying with the strength of his first speeches. "I AM A FATHER WHO WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR HIS DAUGHTER. And you are a mother," he accused, in a quieter voice. The world was silent now. "What brings a mother to hold her own son hostage? What madness has overtaken you that you would do this to the child who has look up to you with nothing but love?"

He stepped toward her, ignoring the threat, and caught the woman by the wrist.

She looked up at him, shaken and lost.

"This isn't the way…"

/-/

The last notes faded and Jaune let the song end.

Had it worked? Had it done anything at all? Had he just made this man better at killing him somehow? He didn't know. All Jaune knew was that Fennec was shaking and crying, but neither of those things would prevent him pulling the trigger. He'd played his heart out, sung as well, but it was now up to Fennec as to what happened.

"Corsac…" the faunus whispered. "What would you do…? You were always the smarter one…"

"Sir," a faunus with a gun spoke up. "The song is over… Should… Should we shoot him…?"

Jaune swallowed.

Fennec took a deep breath. "I lied."

"What?"

"I LIED!" Fennec yelled. "I lied to you all, you idiots! Sea god? Monsters? Sacrifice?" He rounded on them with tears streaming down his cheeks. "It was all just to convince you to carry out my dirty work, you morons! I just wanted… I just wanted to avenge my brother…"

One of the faunus wouldn't believe it. "But the fish—"

"Did you really believe that garbage?" Fennec screamed. "Don't be idiots! It's just sailors being superstitious! Down your weapons!" he shouted, and his voice travelled through the systems he'd set up, so that all of Menagerie heard it. "Put them down! Surrender! No more bloodshed. Not because of me. This… This isn't what Corsac wanted. A dream of an ideal Menagerie, of a future without the cruelty humans bring."

Fennec's voice cracked.

And the gun came up to his own temple.

"A dream I tarnished…"

Jaune clenched his eyes shut.

BANG!

His heart jumped.

"W—What…?" asked Fennec. "But… why…?"

Daring to open one eye, Jaune caught sight of the smoking gun aimed into the distance, Fennec's hand on it, and Kali's on his wrist to divert it. The middle-aged woman slid her other around the back of Fennec's head and, without warning, pulled his face down into her neck.

"Hush now," she whispered, stroking his hair. "Do you think this is what your brother would want either? If he is watching you now, do you truly think he wouldn't want you to live on?"

The gun slipped from his fingers. "But… But all I did…"

"It will not be forgotten, Fennec. But you can make amends. You can do better. For your brother's sake, if not your own. Don't let all the good you both did in life be washed away in one moment of grief."

Fennec slumped onto her, hands on her shoulders, weeping.

"Throw down your arms," Kali commanded the others. "Take us back home. Let us all take the first steps to putting this awful tragedy behind us. We are faunus, we are family, and family does not turn on one another like this."

It was her commanding air that did it. Lost and confused, faunus hurried to obey, scrambling around and divesting themselves of weapons and responsibility at the same time. They ignored Jaune, completely blanking him, as they turned the ship slowly around.

Collapsing on the edge of the ship, he stared down into the water.

"Pssst…" A shark's snout poked up. "Toss him in. It'll be funny."

"Piss off…"

"Rude."

The shark swam away.

Ilia walked up beside him. "You… You did something, didn't you? Your music – or is it the guitar? Some kinds of weapon that uses wavelengths to mess with emotions. Is that it? There's no way you just talked Fennec down by playing a pretty song."

"I have no idea what you mean," he lied.

Ilia didn't believe him. He wasn't sure how many would now, at least on Menagerie. This… This had been pretty damn overt, hadn't it? Anything before, he could write off as subtle, but he'd gone and used his Semblance on an entire island. It was ridiculous to assume no one noticed the oddity.

What would a terrorist group do with this kind of power? He could whip recruits into a frenzy, turn capable fighters into stellar warriors, and convince those on the fence to sign their lives away with a rousing song. Maybe it was arrogant to think it, but his Semblance could conquer the world – if it were utilised by someone with more means behind them.

Maybe that was why the Grimm wanted him.

I need to get off the island before someone decides to try and do just that…

/-/

Given the chaos caused by the civil war (of a sort) it wasn't strange that so many people chose to stay indoors and out of trouble. Wounded faunus were taken to hospitals and emergency services worked to put out fires and maintain order. Ghira and Kali, as leaders of Menagerie, were kept busy and away from their manor.

With Fennec submitting to arrest and his people disarmed, the White Fang were keeping the peace, standing guard at various parts of Kuo Kuana and keeping an eye out for people armed or moving in crowds. Any gatherings greater than five were swiftly approached and questioned, adding to the reasons so many were staying indoors and out of trouble.

Jaune should have, too.

Ghira and Kali had asked him to stay in their home where he'd be safe, but Jaune stepped onto the harbour with a borrowed raincoat covering himself. His guitar was in its case, and it ought to have given him away, but the White Fang were too worried looking for weapons and troublemakers. The clue as to who he was went unnoticed.

I'm not sure how long that will last. Ilia suspects me – and rightly so – and Sienna Khan will want to question me.

He'd already heard Ghira talk of the surge of strength he felt that let him talk down hostage-takers. Kali felt it as well, giving her the courage to stand up and confront Fennec. No doubt they'd hear of a lot of other examples in their meeting right now, and it wouldn't take a genius to piece together the common cause.

I can't become a weapon for a terrorist group. I need to get back to the mainland and get to Argus. I need to tell everyone I'm still alive.

And if the White Fang talked, well, who would listen to terrorists? It would all sound so fanciful to anyone who hadn't been here when he played his music anyway. It'd be fine. He could fade back into obscurity and his travels.

"Hey there." Jaune approached a quiet little bar open onto the harbour. A few people turned his way, and their eyes widened when he slipped his hood down. "I'm looking for someone who can take me to Mistral. Tonight, preferably."

Two captains scrambled to their feet.

"Anyone will do," Jaune said. "I can't pay with money; I don't have any—"

"My niece was one of the hostages taken by Fennec's lot," said one of the captains, in a raspy, angry voice. "You saved her life." It was enough to have the other captain nodding and taking a seat. "And truth be, my lord, I need to be out to sea as is. My temper won't do my family any good. I'm liable to storm the White Fang and demand the Albain's head at this rate."

"That'd be bad." Jaune smiled weakly. "Can I trust you all not to tell people I'm leaving…?"

"Course," said one.

"Obvious enough, ain't it?" asked another. "I'd leave if I nearly got killed."

"You won't be blaming us for that, will ya?" asked the man tending the bar. "It was some rotten apples, not all of us, and we need fish—"

The superstition. Jaune smiled. "I hold no one here responsible. Don't worry."

"And the fishing will still be good…?"

"I won't do anything to jeopardise it." He couldn't promise it to make the fishing any better than it already was, not when he wouldn't be around, but he could at least try and strike a deal with the sharks. "Tell you what. If you can get me to Mistral in one piece, I'll see about arranging something to help the fishing here. But, in return, you need to…" Jaune sighed. "You will need to make offerings of meat to the waters. Normal meat. Not human, not sacrifices. Just meat and offal and leftovers."

"It will be done!"

"Meat for full nets? Hells yes!"

The captain who had volunteered himself clasped a hand to his heart. "I will see you safe to Mistral if I have to kill every Grimm in the ocean myself! Captain Moustaff is at your service! My crew will be ready to sail within the hour! Ahab!" he barked. "Rouse them! Tell them what it is we're doing and swear them to secrecy. Double pay for all ready to push off within sixty minutes. Triple if they're here in thirty!"

"Aye-aye!"

The pay must have been good because everyone was there in twenty-five, bags hastily packed and some eating street food with one hand, just stuffing their faces as they lined up in front of the fishing trawler. Captain Moustaff gave them the rundown while Jaune waited in worry, waiting either for a White Fang officer to appear or – perhaps worse – a new quest to pop up. One telling him to flee Menagerie before the White Fang waged some ethnic cleansing war on the mainland.

Neither came.

"Everyone on board!" Moustaff barked. "Prepare to depart. Our destination is Mistral, and we'll be coming back nets full. Eyes on the waves, lads. If any Grimm appear, I want men on the harpoon launchers before I can draw breath! We have a VIP today, gents, and I'll personally drown any one of you that lets him down after what he's done for our fair island."

"Yes captain!" they chorused.

It was time to leave Menagerie. He hadn't spent much time on the island, and it hadn't all been bad, but it was too much of a risk with the White Fang here. Hopefully, Ghira and Kali would understand why he had to leave.

The White Fang was just too much of a risk.

/-/

"Do you see now how fear only leads to disaster?"

Ghira was in fine form, and Kali hadn't seen him so animated – nor so handsome – in over a decade. His presence commanded the attention of everyone in the room, and his words caused vibrations that demanded silence.

"You would have the White Fang make the people afraid of humans to boost your recruitment," he said to Sienna and her various subcommanders. "But that same fear leaves them open to abuse by the likes of Fennec. It's good for getting people on your side but they're only loyal to you so long as they're afraid – the moment they fear something more, you've lost."

Sienna sighed. "I see that now. But your methods didn't work either, Ghira. Words and hope. That's all you ever were – never any action!" Her accusation had many of her supporters nodding, Taurus included.

Kali could admit she wasn't entirely wrong. She and Ghira had tried to change the world with peaceful protest and they had failed.

"You have failed with terrorism as well!" Ghira said. "You make humans fear us, but that does nothing other than push them into the hands of those who stand against you. It gives Atlas and the SDC power. If you can't change the nature of our own people through fear, what makes you think others will change if you terrorise them?"

"It was our only option," Adam said. He sounded… less sure than normal. Less angry. "If we had the strength to fight Atlas in an open battle, we would have. We didn't. Our only choice was to fight from the shadows. We were forced to terrorism because open conflict was impossible."

"Exactly." Ghira strode before them and stopped before Sienna. "You settled for the best of a group of terrible options, instead of seeking the best of a greater group. The White Fang that you have created today is flawed."

Sienna couldn't take that sitting down. She pushed to her feet. "The White Fang of old was flawed as well!"

"Yes." Ghira surprised them all by agreeing. "Yes, it was. We were young and hoped the world could change if we asked it nicely enough." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "You were right to question us, Sienna. You were right to say we were not doing enough."

The admission stunned Sienna so much she fell back into her seat.

"But being right about that does not mean you didn't fall into the same trap." Ghira's eyes opened once more. "You sought to be better than me, and instead became the same as me – only on a different spectrum. Neither of us truly succeeded. We just failed in different ways. Today has evidenced that. You as leader of the White Fang, and myself as Chieftain of Menagerie, and it took a visiting human to fix this over us."

"…" Sienna sighed. "Yes. Yes, it did. Either of us should have been enough to force order, and yet neither of us were. Fennec almost plunged the island into turmoil and we were helpless to stop it. I'll admit as much, Ghira. I've failed today."

"No, Sienna. We failed. Antagonistic as we have been to one another, allowing our feelings to get in the way of what should be done. I – we – hated you for taking the White Fang from us. And you, for taking Blake." He looked to Adam. "I apologise to you both."

"I as well," said Kali, rising to stand beside her husband. "Adam, we… It was Blake who chose you, and to follow you. It was wrong of us to say the things we did."

Adam huffed. He reached up to his mask and removed it, revealing a young man who looked exhausted with life. "How wrong were you really? You called me a monster. Blake sees me as such. It's hard to argue with it."

Kali felt for him.

"You're no monster, Adam. You're a young man who cares so much that you've done things I can see you regret, all to protect others. At worst, you have made mistakes – but look at Ghira and I. Haven't we made just as many?"

"I've killed."

"You've also saved," Ghira said, his voice a deep rumble. "For every human you've killed, a faunus speaks your name with awe. And just because we say violence isn't the way, that doesn't mean we believe it off limits. There are cruel people out there who can only be stopped by force." Ghira clapped a hand on Adam's shoulder. "Only, it is not the sole method. It cannot be. We have tried both extremes and seen that now."

"We have," Sienna agreed. "What now, then? What do we do now?"

Ghira stood tall. "The White Fang must disband—"

Sienna's commanders tensed.

"—and a new group must rise from its ashes. One untainted by the bad reputations of the former – both from how you have led it, and from how I have. One legacy too timid to make change, another too violent. The name was kept in both cases but it carries with it too much baggage."

"Agreed." Sienna offered a rare smile. "But a rebranding won't undo all we've done. And we'll need a new leader. One that is untainted by our reputations. The human, do you think? Or am I speaking nonsense here."

"Jaune is a good man," Kali said, smiling at the cooperation she was witnessing. Not even Adam spoke up to decry it. "We could ask him. If not him, I can't think of many others. I am associated with Ghira, Blake has left, Adam is too well-known for violence and Fennec is imprisoned. Ilia, perhaps…?"

"Ilia has no skills," Adam said, bluntly. "There's nothing that would make her fit for it. But…" he added, his eyes slowly closing. "She also has no reputation to hold her back, and skill can be taught. Leadership can be trained into her, if the two of you worked together to instruct her."

"Will she want to?" asked Sienna. "I don't mind it, but volunteering her without asking her seems a little… well…"

"Just tell her how reforming the White Fang will wow Blake," Adam said, with an amused snort. "Ilia will agree before she realises what she's agreeing to."

Everyone laughed, though Kali knew they wouldn't trick the poor girl like that.

"It's agreed, then?" Ghira asked and offered his hand. "The White Fang shall be terrorists no more."

"We shall disband." Sienna clasped hers to it. "And a new group shall form, to combine the ideals of both and strike out in a new way. Hope," she said, tasting the word. "I always thought you an idealistic fool when you said it."

"I was," Ghira admitted. "I was a fool back then. Now, I am older. Wiser."

"Hope…" Adam muttered, turning away from them. He looked down at his hand, curling his fingers. "Does that still exist in me after all…? How… How strange."

Looking at his mask in the other, Adam Taurus snorted and discarded it, stamping a boot down on the ceramic to make it shatter.

/-/

.

QUEST COMPLETE!

Hope for the people: The White Fang have discovered a new way, and the people of Menagerie have learned to hope.

Success: EXP. Title: Faunus Friend. Rep Belladonna family.

You have gained 1 level. You have 5 attribute points remaining.

You have earned a new title.

Faunus Friend – Faunus will subconsciously favour you and see you as an ally. Members and former members of the White Fang will come to your aid.

.

"Huh." Jaune looked back to where Menagerie was fading into the distance. "But I didn't even do anything…"

"You say something, sir?" asked a sailor.

"No. No, it's nothing. Just thinking how happy I'll be to make it back home."

Next Chapter: 27th October

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