Author's Notes:

-Hello... We got another chapter here... Over 400,000 words for the story so far... Okay, I.. I have a confession to make. Not only was this chapter hard to write, I really did not like writing this chapter. You could even make the argument that this is the darkest chapter of EL so far...

-If you see three X's, like this; XXX, this means that we're getting into a darker theme. Once you see the second XXX, the section ends. There may be more than one of those sections. We're going to be dealing with a heavy form of assault. I can't say much else because spoilers.

(shakes) Oh, I can't believe I've done this... Why did I do this?

(Salem snickers) Really? Do you have to laugh at the expense of...? (Salem glares at me) No, wait, what are you doing?! (gets blasted into the forth wall, breaking it) Aw man! I just fixed this fourth wall! (pouts, sighs) Oh well. If you need me, I'll be fixing the fourth wall (and getting ready to start another semester).

Well, Omake aside, I'm sorry in advance for the events about to occur. Hang on, this might get rough.

From the meeting room of Athena's fortress, Athena and Ares sat watching and listening closely to Adam's speech in a recorded video message.

"Brothers and Sisters of the Fang, today marks a tragic yet important day in our history. This is the day that our esteemed High Leader, Sienna Khan, has fallen." A few gasps were heard among the crowd before quieting down. "I know, it hurts me to say it, but it's true. We had no idea that such a tragedy would befall us. When me and my friends came here seeking answers to Maura's death, High Leader Khan had found us and asked for assistance in defeating Athena. We had agreed, but Athena was not one to give up easily. My closest friends, Hector, Douglas and Ilia had been taken hostage by her specialist agents, and I feared the worst would happen if we had failed to stop her. We confronted her on the rooftop, where she used her wings and the open air around her to her advantage.

"Just as we were about to finish her, a human huntsmen had entered the rooftop and ambushed us. In the process, he killed our esteemed leader and nearly killed us. Had it not been for the Nevermore that had eaten him, we might have met the same fate Sienna did. Athena ascended and defeated the Nevermore before it had the chance to devour us, and in the aftermath, we found only the Badge of Leadership had been left behind. Seeing the consequences of her martial actions, Athena realized the price for war of faunus against faunus. Because of this, we both agreed it was for the best that I lead in Khan's absence and we made an alliance in hopes of preventing future conflict. This war, the war between the Loyalists and the Revolutionists, has been going on for far too long.

"This war has caused us to forget our true enemies; the oppressive humans that have held us back, kept us living in fear, and have failed faunus time and time again. Sienna has made significant progress, but it's time for us to take the next step; dismantling the human dominated world, and creating one that truly benefits faunus. Athena had told me in the aftermath of the fight that she intends to rise above them, both literally and figuratively. We may not all have wings, but we too can rise above all this. I've heard and seen tales of racist, bigot cops who get away with murder and arson, faunus who have lost their loved ones in the name of human supremacy and even those who were sold into contemporary slavery for human profit. In addition, the Noire Armada, a malicious human supremacist group that sails the seas, is still active despite the fall of its founder and original leader Corvina Noire. These are the horrors and atrocities that we faunus have to face every day of our lives.

"No more. No more will this happen. No more will we be forced to live in fear. It is time for us to turn our attention to the real enemy, and to stop fighting amongst ourselves! Humans have abused and enslaved us for far too long, like we're at war everyday! But if it's war they want, it's a war they'll get!"

The video ended shortly after a round of cheers and applause.

"An interesting rhetoric." Athena noted. "Never telling the exact specifics unless it's necessary. A mixture of deliberate lying and omission. I wonder how long he spent working on that speech. Or if he just improvised it on the spot."

Ares asked her, "Did you write a speech for your acceptance as High Leader?"

"I did." She frowned. "Too bad I never got to read it for an actual audience."

He looked at his girlfriend curiously. "May I see it?"

The winged lady gave an indignant shrug. "Sure I suppose."

She handed him a folded stack of papers that contained her speech. After unfolding and a moment or two of silent reading, Ares looked at her with a proud smile. "This actually really good." he complimented her. "I'd say even better than Adam's."

With a smile, she posed a question of her own. "Are you sure you're not being biased because you love me?"

"Maybe."

She kissed him for a few seconds. "You're adorable. Now that we have our official story, it's time to gather my five specialist agents here to tell them the news. Once that's done, we'll tell the rest of the Revolutionists that the White Fang has a new High Leader."

"Are you sure that you can work with this turn of events?" Ares asked her.

Athena nodded once in confidence. "I'm sure, Ares. This just requires patience and flexibility. Now summon our closest friends here. We have a story to tell them."

The scene started with blackness.

The camera showed blurry eyes slowly opening up before turning to show Blake, her arms held above her with chains. She struggled against the chains without avail, then tried the same for her legs, only to realize she was chained by her ankles as well. She was no longer blindfolded or gagged by her mouth, but it did nothing to reassure her. Her weapon had already been removed from her person. She could see it, but it was still out of reach for her.

Where am I?! What's going on?! Blake thought.

The door opened, and she blinked trying to adjust her eyes from the light as Adam Taurus entered the room. "So the princess has finally woken from her slumber."

He shut the door behind him as Blake said calmly, "I'm not your princess."

In total darkness once again, the bull king turned to the catwoman with a malicious smirk. "And why would you say that, darling?"

She glared at her captor. "I'm not yours, and you're not mine."

Adam suddenly lost his cool, angrily shouting, "Is that the only reason you left?! Because you hate me?!"

"It wasn't the only reason I left!" Blake protested. "I saw the truth of the Fang. Your actions, and that of every member of the White Fang, were only hurting others!" A memory of Beacon's fall flashed in her mind. "And I refuse to aid in your acts of violence."

"We were supposed to be ruling the world together! You promised you would help me change the world!"

"That was before you started blaming me for things that went wrong during our missions and began manipulating me into staying with you. You know I wanted equality and peace!"

"You know that's impossible!" Adam got out his sword and stabbed her in the right arm, causing her to scream in pain. "This is war, princess. And in war, there are prices that must be paid for the greater good."

"Do you really think you're doing anyone any...?" Before she could finish, he stabbed her in the other arm. Another agonizing cry pierced the air before she groaned in pain once again.

I know he's not actually cutting my limbs off, but why does it feel like he wants to hack me to pieces?

She quickly realized that she was at his mercy. But why wasn't he killing her like she had expected? She was confused, but did not dare say anything, lest she lose her life. Or worse...

Instead she asked, "How did you fall so far?"

"You know the answer to that, my love." She looked down in shame, remembering the horrible truth. "Last I heard, you even befriended the heiress of the Schnee Dust Company, as well as a little girl in a red hood. Who are they, and where are they now?"

The prisoner stood defiant. "I'm not telling you that."

He stabbed her in gut, her agonizing cries filling the air. But they didn't travel too far.

"Let's try this again. Who are your teammates, and where did they run to?"

Blake continued to stand her ground, even chained to the wall. "I'll never say anything!"

He stabbed her in the gut, in the same place he had stabbed her all those months ago. She screamed aloud and tried to gather her thoughts, which was not an easy task in the midst of the agonizing blows to her stomach and earlier her arms. It was an awful paradox; the feeling kept her awake, but slowly exhausted her and her aura.

I have to get out of here, and the only way to do that is to trick him.

Trying to preserve what little aura she had left, she dropped her guard as Adam stabbed her again. A small river of blood fell from her abdomen, the wound likely to leave another scar. Her screams filled the air before fading into painful groans.

A moment of silence passed before Blake asked, "Why are you doing this?"

"Oh?" Adam asked mockingly. "And what do you mean by that, darling?"

"You killed Sienna because she stood in your way. You could have killed me back there, but instead you took me here, away from my friend, and away from the eyes of your subjects that would see me as a so-called war trophy."

Adam grinned. "You don't get it, do you my darling? I don't seek to kill you, and I don't wish for my new subjects to see you. It would raise too many questions after I just consolidated my power and gained the acknowledgement from two White Fang leaders."

She silently raised her eyebrows in alarm, processing the information. She choked out, "Then what do you want?"

"I want you to suffer the pain I've felt since you left and worse. I lost my love when you ran, so I intend to keep the promise I had made, and destroy everything you love. Yang and your monkey friend may have escaped death, but sooner or later, they will fall."

The catwoman glared at him, despite her captivity. "Leave them out of this! My parents, teammates and friends never did anything to you!"

"Can you really speak for all of them? Your parents deserted the White Fang years ago!"

"They left peacefully and with warning!" Blake bit back.

He looked at his prisoner questionably. "But yet you didn't? You're trying to defend them in a way you can't defend yourself. You're a liar and a hypocrite!"

Blake blinked in sorrow, trying to hold back tears. Is he right? I mean, I did run away... Her mind thought back to Yang, Weiss and Ruby. How she had left her team (and originally Sun) behind after Beacon fell to its knees. Even from the good things...

"You claim to want equality for faunus, but yet you're not even doing anything to help them, even in your human disguise! You don't deserve this bow!"

He quickly went up to her and yanked the white ribbon off.

"Ow!" She looked at the ribbon as Adam held it in his left hand. Upon seeing him place his right hand further down the ribbon, she realized what he was going to do, but couldn't stop him. She watched helplessly as he took the ribbon...

"No!"

And tore it into pieces. She looked at ruins of her white bow in horror. But she feared the worst was yet to come.

Back in Patch, Yang stood in the dead of night. She brought her left arm in front of her face and looked at the cuts on her left hand. There were a few diagonal cuts, one of them being in a slanted X shape, and one running straight down her entire hand. Further down on her wrist was a straight cut line that then slanted to the right.

Her mind trailed back to when she had punched the bathroom mirror with her left arm. The glass broke and flew everywhere. She had closed her eyes before punching the mirror, how she had bled all over.

Nearby on the sink was a small white pillow, used to suppress the sound of her screams. She looked up and saw the blood on backside of the pillow case and the tears of pain reflected in the mirror. The glass was all over the bathroom floor.

She suppressed another scream before the scene switched back to the present, briefly shaking.

My dreams and memories continue to torment me. Yang stood with her back to the wall and slowly let herself fall back against it to the ground. There's nothing left... Nothing. My birth mom, gone with the wind. The closest thing I ever had to a mom, died and never came back. My little half-sister. She gasped. My sister.

Her thoughts turned to Ruby. Her smile, her laugh... Her eyes that lit up the world. Her mind trailed back to a memory before Beacon. A laptop was shown in the living room, with Zwei napping in the corner. On the laptop was a notice via an email to inform her of her acceptance to Beacon Academy.

"Congratulations on being accepted into Beacon Academy, big sis!"

Yang just laughed it off. "It was no sweat."

Ruby smiled and gave her big sister a hug. "Isn't Beacon hard to get into?"

"All the huntsmen academies can be hard to get into." She waved her right hand forward. "But they do it to prove their students are capable, or something like that."

The young trainee looked at her sister with a curious smile. "Do you think I'll be capable of getting into Beacon Academy?"

She patted Ruby's shoulder. "Of course you will."

The scene returned to the present.

Ruby will never return home. Best case scenario, she'll be her living the life of an adventurer with her friends and doing some good in this fucked up world. Worst case scenario, she and/or her friends fall to the Grimm or criminals. No, that.. that can't happen. Please... not her...

As she shook in sadness for a few moments, her mind drifted elsewhere. To Weiss. Last time she had spoken with her was when the world around them was crumbling. Penny had just been destroyed, unintentionally torn apart by Mistral's champion, and the Grimm had followed soon thereafter.

Weiss? Also gone. She never made it to the shelter, but Qrow told me she had survived. Most likely she's still in Atlas, safe and sound in her ivory tower.

How she left her teammate to try and find Blake in the chaos.

Blake...

She imagined Blake, running away, jumping from one rooftop to another, with Sun trying to find her, only to hug a vanishing shadow clone and fall on the ground.

Blake? My partner and best friend at Beacon? Gone. She broke her promise. Blake's almost certainly dead by now. Everyone that has ever mattered is gone. Maybe... maybe I should end this. I'm not really living, but not really dying either. What's the point in going on when nothing's left?

XXX

Blake had just watched as her ribbon was torn to pieces. But just as she suspected, the worst was fear from over. Adam took his blade and sliced off the lower part of her cloak. Using his bare strength, he ripped off the jacket part of the cloak, exposing her arms to the cold air inside the closet. She shivered- both from the cold, and from fear.

"Wait, what are you doing?!"

A montage began of Adam continuing his assault. Soon after taking and destroying her cloak, he carefully placed Wilt in between the straps of her purple top and cut it off, slapping her across the face as he did so. A cry of pain was heard as he slapped her, the diamond pattern of her shirt destroyed, leaving a purple collar around her neck and the reminder of her top barely covering her chest.

He continued by taking his hand and choking her. She gasped for air, groaning, "No..."

It was not enough to completely suffocate her, but enough to hurt her. The bull king then ripped off the purple cloth collar as she gasped for air, violently coughing for a moment before Adam smirked again.

She screamed in protest again, but to no avail. The captor then followed by ripping off the reminder of her top, leaving only a white strapless bra.

The beast smirked at his prey, taking a few moments to revel in her torment.

"You broke every promise you ever made... You promised you'd never hurt me. But yet... here we are." she spoke weakly.

How long can I keep this up? Blake silently asked herself.

"Did I, Blake? Did I?" Adam countered. Not even looking at her, he started to remove her belt. Blake gasped as she looked down and saw Adam removing it. "You promised you'd never leave me. You promised that you would help me change the world." After tossing the belt aside, he started tearing away at her trousers with his bare hands. "I promised to love you forever! You were my world! My life! You and your family were the only ones to ever show me any kindness in life! And what did you do?! You ran away and broke my heart!"

"Stop it!" Blake protested over him. "Stop!"

Don't fall for his words. He's only trying to guilt-trip you. she reminded herself.

"You broke me into pieces." Adam stated almost too calmly. "Well now I will break you."

Oh no... No, no, no!

XXX

Meanwhile, Sun, Kali and Ghira had found the building where Adam had taken Blake.

"Well, this is it." Sun put the G.P.S down and held it to his left side. "Who wants to go first?"

"Wait." Ghira told him. "There may be guards at the entrance."

Sun raised an eyebrow. "Couldn't we take them?"

"We could, but they could alert Adam and he could get away with Blake again. We need to be sneaky." He gestured for Kali and the monkey to follow him. "Come on, there should be a back entrance."

They found around the side and found the back entrance with no guards, much to their delight. Ghira got out a flashlight and shined it in front of them.

"What's with the flashlight? We're all faunus here." Sun whispered.

"You know how when you exit a dark movie theater and your eyes have to suddenly adjust to having light in the room again, and how seeing sunlight temporarily blinds humans? And how faunus have an even harder time adjusting their eyes to sudden light due to their night vision ability?" Ghira posed. "We're going to flash blind these soldiers with light and stun them."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Everyone here can see in the dark. We'll never get around in the darkness."

The monkey faunus bit back a loud sigh and exhaled a softer one. "Fine. But it's not like we can shine flashlights on every White Fang soldier we see."

"There should be a power grid here somewhere. If we can turn it back on, we should be able to flash-blind everyone long enough to find Blake."

"That could take forever to find. We need to move now!" Sun whispered urgently.

Kali's ears flapped up. "Uh, guys..." she tried to say.

"You don't understand the need for stealth here." Ghira told the monkey faunus.

"We know where Blake is, we shouldn't be stalling." Sun bit back, his voice slightly above a whisper.

Kali was getting even more worried and started to tense up. "Guys..."

"Also, since Blake's a faunus, wouldn't this idea hurt her eyes as well and make it harder for her to escape? I'm going, with or without you." Sun told him firmly.

He started running away from Ghira.

"No wait!" Kali called out in alarm.

"Intruders!" a foreign voice called out.

Sun skidded to a stop and the Belladonna parents turned to find two male Revolutionist soldiers. One pointed at them, and the other made their way to a nearby alarm button on the wall. He pressed it and soon an alarm went off, bringing everyone's attention to the intruders.

Ghira glared at the monkey and sarcastically stated, "Nice going!"

"We need to move fast!" Sun told them.

Sun quickly ran past the soldiers, leaving Ghira to throw them aside as he and Kali tried to catch up.

XXX

Adam smirked as he had Blake right where he had wanted her. Nearly all of her clothes, save for her under garments, had been torn into pieces. Even her boots had been taken and slashed into pieces.

"Why must you hurt me, my love?"

"I'm not..." she coughed. "your love. That's ancient history, Adam."

"When will you learn? You're my prisoner. You're mine and mine alone!"

He looked at her hungrily and she tensed as she realized what he was going to do. The beast approached her...

"No, no! NO!"

At that moment, the alarm went off, much to his confusion. "What?! Interference?! You have to be fucking kidding me!" Blake quietly held her breath as he groaned heavily. "I will deal with these intruders and then you will get what you deserve."

He quickly left, and Blake breathed out a sigh of relief.

XXX

Alright, Adam has finally left. Now I can stage my escape.

Using what little aura she had left, she formed a shadow clone that undid the locks on her hands and her ankles before vanishing. Blake breathed a sigh of relief.

Now I need to get out of here, and find some clothes... She looked at the clothes Adam had torn off of her. The ribbon and most of my clothes are in tatters. Fortunately my bra and underwear are still intact. She shivered as she gathered her weapon and other belongings. Brr... I need to find some clothes. But where am I going to find clothing in a White Fang base?

The catwoman exited the room, carefully checking the coast for White Fang goons. Turning her head as she put her back to the wall, she saw Addie, one of the Revolutionist messengers, and formed an idea.

As the messenger walked by, Blake quickly grabbed her arm, covering her mouth. As she dragged her away, sounds of struggling were heard off-screen.

The dark hallways were lit by Scroll-light as Sun tried to make sure his eyes were ready when the power went back on.

Come on, where is Blake? I need to find her! And warn her of the flash-blinding to stun the White Fang soldiers...

Sometime later, Blake was shown wearing the clothes of Addie. In addition to the standard White Fang uniform, she held up an owl-feathered mask and shakenly put it on her face. She quickly looked over her uniform, looking at her stomach, her legs and her arms, feeling the loose fabric against her skin.

Alright, it's a little bit big for me, but it'll have to do. Now I just need to get out of here before Adam...

A Revolutionist soldier came up to her. "What are you doing?! We got intruders to catch!"

Blake ran alongside him in the back of, trying to gather her thoughts. Intruders? Is Sun here? No, wait, that can't be possible. Sun's working alone and they said intruders, as in plural. But who is here? Human cops? A new question came to her mind. Did Sun call the authorities here? I need to get out of this crowd and get out of here.

Suddenly her scroll buzzed. I have to fall behind. She made herself trip and fall to let the mob run forth without her. Once she was sure was alone, she checked her scroll.

February 28th

6:23pm

Sun- If you're reading this be prepared for the power to come back on (Just now)

She pressed a button and spoke to type her text, letting the scroll light slowly sink in. "Thanks for the warning. I managed to escape my chains, but Adam could still find me. Where are you?"

After speaking her dialogue and physically putting in the proper punctuation marks, she sent her text. Quickly pocketing her scroll, she silently prayed no one noticed her actions, only to find standing there was...

"Ilia?"

Ilia looked at her in shock, a million thoughts going through her head. But before she could say anything to her ex-best friend or vice-versa, the lights came on. Blake looked down in the nick of time to avoid getting the full impact of the flash. Ilia cried out in pain as the light overwhelmed her. The soldiers in the distance groaned in pain, many cries heard. Blake looked at Ilia, her eyes being quicker to adjust to the light flash.

Under better circumstances, I would ask her what's wrong, but I need to escape. Sorry Ilia.

Without a word, Blake ran off, hoping to find her real friend that was here.