Author's Notes:
-Hey guys, hope you're enjoying the story. Looks like with the inclusion of this chapter, there may be more than one reason I rated this fanfic M. Towards the middle of the first section, it gets... kinda dark. Don't say I didn't warn ya.
-Also, we're slowly getting closer to having the post volume 3 end. I hope to be done with the post volume three stuff within the next ten chapters, maybe more, maybe less. I'll just see how this works out.
Now then, on with the show!
Blake turned away from the window showing her a sloshing sea and sat back down on the bed. She rummaged through her bag and grabbed one of her books. She opened it and was about to start reading when suddenly her stomach churned. She had this strange, bad feeling stirring in her gut that came and went, each time getting stronger, but she couldn't tell what it was. Was it just restlessness? She had been active for the last several weeks, trying to find whereabouts to the location of Adam Taurus. Now she had not only his location, but a free one-way ticket to getting revenge. So why did she feel so uneasy? It wasn't seasickness, or any sickness at all, so what was it?
She shut the book and sighed. Believing it to be restlessness, she got out of her room and found herself roaming around below deck. The lower deck was comprised of three levels; the top lower deck, the middle deck, and the bottom, which everyone referred to as the basement. The top lower and middle decks were illuminated by lanterns, some being lit candle flames while others were lit by electric candles. The basement however, was said to have no lighting and no windows, which was why she was told not to go down there. As she roamed the top lower deck, she felt a cold chill creep up not just her spine, but her entire body very slowly.
As she roamed the halls, she mentally asked herself, What could they have to hide? Or are they even hiding anything?
The felt the coldness from the stairway. Going against her mind telling her to ignore her instincts, the secret catgirl went down the stairs to the basement. As she got to the basement, she opened a blue door with faded paint and went down a small series of wooden steps to the stores. When she finished descending the staircase, she gasped. Her eyes widened in shock and horror.
"No..."
In the darkness, the first thing she saw with her night vision was two faunus lying on the ground in a pool of blood. The first one had cat ears and was wearing a long dress. She had been stabbed right in the gut and was reaching her right arm out to the faunus beside her, a burly man in a big coat who's faunus trait was not easily seen in the darkness. She carefully stepped forward and examined the other victim, noticing his protractible claws, and he had been impaled in the head.
No... she thought to herself. This can't be... Is Corvina really...? Her train of thought was soon derailed as she thought she heard the softest sigh. Wait a second... Do I hear... breathing?
She looked around and in the upper right corner, saw a man shackled, his back slumped to the wall as his arms were hung up, as if he was a lifeless rag doll. The prisoner was a dark skinned faunus with a dark brown monkey tail. His black hair was messy and his face was covered in bruises and small cuts. He wore ripped jeans exposing his knees and a white buttoned up shirt with floral designs on it.
How long had he been here, comatose and suffering? She started to undo the chains, freeing his right arm, letting it fall beside his leg. She was about to undo the other one when she heard the sounds of loud footsteps against the wooden stairs. Fearing that she would be caught if she didn't take swift action, she quickly hid herself behind a barricade of barrels close to the wall as two guys, one holding a lantern with a big stick, entered the storage unit. She slightly poked her head out from behind the wall of barrels to continue spying on the sailors.
"I thought I heard something." the first one, who was holding the lantern, said to his acquaintance.
The second one frowned. "Doesn't matter. We might as well check on the prisoner while we're here."
The shackled monkey faunus began to wake up. "Ugh... Uh... Oh man..."
"Oh goody, he's alive." the first guy stated sarcastically. "That means we still have to kill him."
"Aw, are you kidding me?" The second guy smirked and snickered as he got out a dagger. "That's part of the fun!"
Blake raised her eyebrows in silent fear as the other one added, "He was supposed to have been dead days ago!"
"Well then, let's remedy this situation."
No, no... Please no... she silently pleaded.
The unnamed prisoner struggled against the chains, proclaiming, "You'll never get away with this! Never!"
The sailor stabbed him in the chest, embedding the blade in him and repetitively slashing him, causing him to scream in agony. As Blake watched the unfolding event, her eyes reflected red, unable to bear the act of malice. She turned away and shut her eyes, silently shaking in terror and sorrow. Her ears (both cat and human) were bleeding, so she covered up her human ears and put her cat ears down, trying to drown out the sound of his scream, but it was no use. Her head began to ache as well as her heart. Cold chills crawled up her arms and her stomach revolted. How long would she have to endure this? Eventually, after what felt like half an eternity, the screams stopped, replaced by a choking and coughing sound, and then silence. She knew what the silence meant; the poor prisoner who she never even knew was dead. As she uncovered her ears and put her cat ears back up underneath the bow, she sat there, silently shaking and shivering. It took all of Blake's willpower not to gasp, scream or cry as the emotions of fear, anger and sadness flooded through her.
"So, all the faunus on this ship are dead. Three bodies to dispose of." The assassin looked at his coworker. "How are we going to do this?"
"We better ask the captain what to do from here."
The captain?! Blake bit her tongue. Corvina Noire... She really is a mass murderer of Faunus!
"Why can't we just throw them overboard immediately? Eventually, this place will smell like corpses if we don't get them out of here soon enough." he complained.
The guys began to ascend the stairs. "If the visitor finds out the truth about the Noire Armada, she will flip!" the lantern holder said.
"Don't worry, she'll never know the truth." the assassin affirmed.
Once the guys had gone back upstairs, she opened her eyes. Blake came out from her hiding place and gasped as she saw the damage they had done. The monkey was bleeding out all over, several open wounds on his chest, his flesh severed and even a few small pieces on the floor, his shirt torn, blood-stained and ripped to pieces. He looked like a lifeless rag doll when he was chained up and sleeping a few moments ago, and now he was a lifeless rag doll.
"No... no..." A few tears escaped from her eyes that fell onto his corpse. "I'm sorry... I couldn't... save you..."
I knew my gut feelings were bad, but I could never have foreseen this to be the truth!
Her eyes continued to spill tears as she heard footsteps on the wooden steps once again. Retreating back to her hiding place, the men had returned, this time with Corvina Noire present. The trio walked forward, her sailors in tow as the captain inspected the dead monkey faunus.
"Huh? That's strange."
The first one asked, "What's wrong, admiral?"
"One of his chains has been undone." She looked at the other chain, holding up his left arm. "Yet the lad didn't escape his imprisonment, nor his fate."
"Maybe it was his semblance?"
"But if it was his semblance, he would have broken out days ago. Also, I am skeptical that this guy is a huntsman in training. He wielded pepper-spray to try and defend himself as opposed to an actual weapon like me cutlass swords." Corvina elaborated to her underlings. "Either way, he's dead. So now the real focus is getting rid of the evidence."
"That's exactly why we brought you here. What do we do, Captain Noire?" the second one asked.
"So we have three prisoners. Three bodies to dispose of." She pondered to herself for a moment. "We will dispose of them immediately. If Miss Belladonna finds us in the act, we'll tell her the bodies are unfortunate sailors who died."
She watched in shock as Corvina carried the dead prisoner in her arms and the men put the other two bodies on the floor onto a lift up stretcher, carefully taking them up the steps. "Very well then, captain. Let's drag these guys up and prepare them for burial at sea."
As the men dragged them away, Corvina in tow with the poor dead monkey, Blake thought, So that's how she murders faunus and gets away with it! No one even knows how horrible she is! Suddenly she felt sick to her stomach. It took all her remaining willpower to not throw up. This is bad beyond belief. If nothing is done, she'll eventually murder all the faunus in the world, my parents, my friends, Sun... She clinched her fists. I have to do something! But what?!
Meanwhile, Sun Wukong was continuing the search for Blake. The young monkey faunus was still very much alive, but he was growing more weary by the minute. He not only had bags under his eyes, his eyes drooped and entire face just screamed 'I need a nap.' Not to mention that his arms hung loosely and he yawned at least once or twice a minute.
This is crazy... I've only slept nine hours in a timespan of 72 hours. Three days with hardly any sleep. I know I'm losing my mind. Oh wait, I already knew that. But every minute I continue this search, I am reminded of how my rational thought process has shut down. I'm insane. I'm a fool. Should I just go home?
As he got lost in his thoughts, he stepped on a crack, tripping and falling to the ground. He groaned and right in front of him saw a strange white device of some kind.
"What is this?"
He reached for the device with his right arm. Using the other arm to push himself up, he looked at the device. He skimmed over the buttons before turning to the backside seeing a 'W' in gold colored font. He turned it back to it's front side, looking at the buttons again. It looked kinda like a calculator, but it had a button for every letter in the alphabet and one button for every single digit number. The biggest button was the black one that read in white font, 'On/Off'. It had like a white a dome-shaped screen about two-thirds the size of a standard scroll. The upper right corner had a button that said 'Type'. He pressed the power button and typed the first word that came to his mind.
Sun
The screen turned blue and then said in green letters, 'Sun located' and a green arrow pointing directly at him.
So this is a GPS device of sorts. the monkey king thought.
Looking in the lower right corner, he saw a green button with the words 'Scan Pic'. An idea came to his head. He took out the photo of his crush, unfolded it and held it a few feet from the device. As the device scanned the picture, a red projection of light went up and down, taking in the details of the picture. Then it was finished as the screen went from 'Scanning' to...
Searching... Blake Belladonna.
Go three miles north to the port.
Sun smiled and internally leapt for joy. He had finally found a way to find Blake! But first, he really needed some sleep. He turned off the device and pocketed it for later. If he couldn't take care of himself, how was he to help Blake? Groggily dragging himself through the streets, he went to the nearest model and checked in. As soon as he got into his room, he fell face first onto the bed and was out like a light.
Blake got out from her hiding place as the stores once again became deserted. She slowly stood up, shaking with fear. Her heart was pounding out of her chest, her head spinning and her mind rapidly thinking a million thoughts at once.
This is bad! Bad, bad, BAD! I have to stop her! But what if I can't?! What if she discovers that I'm a faunus? What if she finds out that I was once a member of the White Fang? What if she murders me because of my cat ears?! What if she murders my family?! What if she murders Velvet? Or Mata? Or Neon? Or... what if she murders Sun?! No, no, I risked everything to keep him safe! What if...?!
Calm down! she screamed mentally to herself.
She forcefully dragged her hands to her chest and deeply breathed in through her nostrils. She slowly breathed out. After a few slow, deep breaths, she had managed to calm herself down. She continued roaming around the ship, silently musing to herself on what to do.
I have to stop her. If I don't stop Corvina from killing more innocent faunus, then I'm no better than the White Fang. But I'm far out at sea. There's no legal authority to report her to. The only way to stop her is to kill her. But if I outright assassinate her, everyone on the ship would know I killed her and I'd have to face everyone on board. Considering there's at least a hundred sailors on board, trying to face them all would not be very easy or desirable. And no one on the ship would dare betray the captain. I need to be sneaky. Hmm...
As she moved away from the underground dungeon she found a spare bunker with an empty made bed, all illuminated by a blue light lantern in the lower right corner. The room was very small, even smaller than her own temporary living space. She somehow doubted this was the captain's quarters, so why was this here? To the right of the bed was a bunch of wooden cabinets. Curiosity taking over, she opened the cabinets, seeing and found a small plant laying bare in the cabinet.
Wait a second. That wasn't just a plant. It was... belladonna. Her namesake. Then she remembered that belladonna translated to deadly poison. An idea formed in her head. She took the belladonna plant sprigs, closed the other cabinets and left the secret bunker as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, in Patch, Yang sat at her desk, looking at the two pieces of paper. On her right was Tangerine's letter, on her left, was her response. The former warrior looked down ruefully- her response was nowhere near done.
So far, her response said in somewhat sloppy writing,
Dear Tangerine,
You might be wondering why I'm addressing you by your full name as opposed to the nickname 'Tang' that I gave you. Well, in case you didn't know, Beacon has fallen. During the attack, I went up against an unknown
She didn't know how to phrase her thoughts from that statement. She took the pen and tried to cross out part of the sentence, but it slipped out of her hands and hit the wall before rolling under the desk. She groaned a few seconds before a knock was heard on her door. "Come in."
Her father, Taiyang, slowly opened the door and saw Yang sitting there frustrated. "Hey Yang." He picked up the pen and handed it to her. "It's good to see that you're out of bed."
"Hey dad." She I've been trying to write a letter to my pen pal, but I'm worried that she won't be able to read it. Can you recite what I've got so far?"
"Sure thing." He picked up Yang's unfinished letter. "Let's see... 'Dear Tangerine, You might be pondering why I'm a dressing? you by your dull name as opposed to the nickname 'Tang' that I gave you. Well, sin case you didn't know, Beacon has fallen. During the attack, I went up against an unknown...'"
Yang sighed. "I can't send her this. My writing looks like it was done by a five year old!"
"And this is your first draft?"
She sulked. "Third actually."
Taiyang looked down ruefully, saying nothing because he didn't know what to say.
Blake took the belladonna plant sprigs she found and put it in a small plastic bag in her room. She snuck around the ship, being sure to avoid being seen by anyone, in three consecutive trips, grabbed a mortar and pestle, two wine glasses, a small bowl, two bottles of wine, one normal sized and one mini bottle, a wooden spoon, some corks and a corkscrew before returning to her room once again. She set the last three supplies down on the bed quickly before shutting the door. She looked at the bed to be sure she had everything she needed, breathed a sigh of relief and got to work, first by setting all the supplies on a desk. Then she took out the bag of belladonna and some disposable plastic gloves from her backpack.
As she put the gloves on, she thought to herself, I know from that book on poisonous plants that the most poisonous part of the plant is the leaves and berries. But it also there's varying amounts of poison in all parts. The more I can use, the better.
She took the sprigs out of the bag and separated the berries from the rest of the plant by placing them in the smaller bowl. She then proceeded to take the leaves and flowers and put them into the mortar. Taking the pestle, she crushed the flowers and leaves together until they were all broken up into small, tiny pieces, all the while focusing her rage on Corvina. As she stopped grinding the components together, she breathed in heavily, looking at her hands and how they slightly strained from the effort she had put into crushing the plant. Her eyes widened as she stood there, her palms sweating.
Should I even be doing this? a voice in her head asked her. She stopped what she was doing. This is murder. This is mutiny. And she is helping me find Adam...
No! the darker side of her screamed. She murdered those innocent faunus! If you don't stop her, she could come after your parents, your friends and neighbors, and even your crush, Sun Wukong!
Sun... She felt her heart grieve and break a little. Who knew her heart could break so much and still be intact? But by now, he was long gone. Back at Haven. She would never see him again. Her sorrow then turned back to anger as she thought of Corvina Noire again.
Corvina may be helping you find the despicable Adam Taurus, but that does not excuse her from her crimes!
The black bowed beauty believed could justify herself and her actions, so she continued making the toxic concoction. She then took the berries and ground them until they were a thin, dark blue, blackish colored juice. As she picked up the remaining stalks and the root attached to it, she was wondering how she was supposed to use it, if at all. She wouldn't be able to break it into smaller pieces like the leaves and flowers, and there was no way she could add it into the mini bottle of wine without it being noticed. She had to be sure she would die from the poison; she only had one shot! Thinking that there would be a way to get the toxins, she took the leaf and flower mixture and put it into the crushed berry juice and then proceeded to break the root and stem apart, seeing if she could get any liquid. And she did. Not much, but enough to fill the bottom layer of the bowl.
She added it to the mortar and stirred it up with a wooden spoon. She set the brew aside and reached for one of the wine bottles. Using the corkscrew she swiped earlier, she opened the mini bottle and began to drink straight from it. It tasted better than she thought it was going to be, but she didn't do it for the taste; she needed the space for the poison. Once she drank most of the wine, she added the poison to the bottle, put a cork on it and shook it to evenly mix the poison with the remaining wine.
The stray cat woman then took out a black marker from her backpack and labeled the mini bottle with the initials C.N. After cleaning up, she removed her gloves and disposed them along with the remaining parts of the plant. She put away the glasses and wine bottles for later use.
Now all I have to do is wait for the right moment.