The loud sound of clogs was heard as Blake continued to run. She made her way through various corridors and large rooms, silently hoping she found Sun and not Adam.
Curse these loud shoes! Where is he? she asked. I know Sun's here, but where? Also, what the heck is Ilia doing here? Last I looked, she was assigned by Sienna to the Menagerie branch of the Fang. Is it possible she was reassigned? Did she bring herself here? If so, then why would she be here? Then again, I could ask Adam the same thing. That is, if I wasn't trying to escape him!
"Blake? Blake?!" a familiar voice called out.
She ran forth, turned right and soon found Sun and two people she never expected to see anytime in the near future; her parents.
"Mom? Dad?" she asked aloud.
They both turned to face her, but it was Kali who asked, "Blake?"
The catgirl took off her mask, revealing her identity and her eyes, on the verge of tears, to her loved ones.
Sun looked around in a mixture of shock, sorrow and a hint of regret.
Those were her parents? Aw crap... he internally cursed.
All of three of them gave her a hug.
"Are you alright?" Kali asked.
"What happened?" Ghira followed.
Sun looked at Blake's impromptu outfit. "What are you wearing?"
The embrace was broken before Ghira shot the monkey boy a glare. "Really? That's your first response?"
Blake told them all, "We have to get out of here!"
"But what about the mission?" Sun asked.
"Forget it! We don't stand a chance!" Blake blinked, tears falling from her face as she shook. "Adam told me that he has gained the authority of Athena's entire Revolutionist army. We have to go! Now!"
The faunus quartet started their mad dash and made their way past the guards just as they regained their senses.
"Why is Adam here? Shouldn't he be in Vale?" Kali asked worryingly.
"You didn't hear the recent news?" More tears fell from her left eye. "Adam's the High Leader of the White Fang."
Kali gasped, and nearly stopped, only to have Ghira take her by the wrist and lead her along. "No... This can't be..."
"They're getting away!" one of the soldiers in the front room called out.
"Stop them!" Douglas ordered.
The four of them ran out the doors. Only for Douglas and several other White Fang members to follow thereafter. Ilia and Hector soon followed.
Adam, lagging behind them, groaned and spoke to empty air, "Looks like I have to do everything here." He broke off into a run. "If Blake thinks she can escape me, then she is gravely mistaken!"
Meanwhile, somewhere in the outskirts of Mistral, Kiaran and Alva were shown cloaked, sitting at a small square table in the back of a bar. Standing in front of them were two different men.
The first man was a man with pale skin and hair white as snow. His eyes were red, the left one having a large visible scar over it. He wore red pants with button pockets. The buttons were black, along with his undershirt, barely visible under a crimson overshirt. At his left side was a longsword.
The second man had fair skin, forest green hair in buzz cut and grass green eyes. He wore a brown overcoat over a white blouse and brown dress pants. Upon his feet were matching socks and shoes. On his back was a sniper gun.
"Ah, Uriel, Wyatt, you have returned." Kiaran spoke. "How can we help you?"
The first man, Uriel, smiled as they acknowledged his presence. "I have come to you with important news. Wyatt is simply sticking around for safety in numbers."
"Hold up. Just as a security precaution, you'll have to show us your badges." Alva instructed.
Uriel pulled out a golden badge with the horse emblem of the Trojan Alliance.
The second man, Wyatt, looked down in shame. "I don't have mine. I lost it in a bar fight trying to escape from cops."
"Hmm. I see, very well then. To ensure you're not an imposter- What is the motto of the Trojan Alliance? The code known only to members?"
"The horse is a gift, yet also a trap. Take down the spartan with stealth, strength and surprise." he recited.
She handed him a new Trojan Alliance badge. "Welcome back, Mr. Forest." Alva put her hand to her hood and Kiaran did the same. They nodded in silent understanding and took down their hoods, revealing their faces to their allies. Alva continued, "Since you are true members of our alliance, you can be trusted with our partial identities. You may know us by our initials only; K.B and A.P."
The two men nodded in understanding.
Kiaran gave his old reliable ally a curious smile. "Now what is this news that you have for us, Uriel?"
"Ah yes, down to business." Uriel began. "More recently, I have discovered that Scarlatti's agents have defected from their original cause."
The woman called out semi-loudly as her face turned to anger, "What?!"
"I'm afraid so. Last I looked, Surya, Apollo and Atum were all seen doing voluntary construction work in a small village far to the east called Aletheia. Orville was not present with them, which seems to indicate one of the following options. One, that he either volunteered elsewhere. Two, he is too injured to help rebuild the city from the recent Grimm attack like many of their other remaining members. Or three, what I suspect to be most likely based on the tormented looks on their faces, Orville died when they confronted the villainous quintet and/or at the hands of Grimm during the Battle for Aletheia. Oddly enough Tyrian, their honorary fifth member, is also gone. I was unable to determine his whereabouts, so I suspect that he may have died."
Alva appeared puzzled. "But if Orville truly did die, wouldn't his teammates want to avenge their fallen friend, as he was likely killed at the hands of team JNPR-Ruby?"
Wyatt raised an eyebrow. "You think that they killed him?"
"Yes, I do." The smart lady put up an angry face. "considering that this is the same woman that murdered Penny Polendina and all of her friends, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case."
"What about the other members?" Kiaran asked.
"According to what I heard from the grapevine, many members of Scarlatti's Alliance were killed and/or went missing during the chaos." Uriel answered.
Kiaran and Alva looked at Uriel, the latter with a hint of concern. "Have you reported this to Ms. Scarlatti?"
The scarred huntsman sighed. "I have. She wants me to capture any remaining members and bring them all the way back to Aquarian to execute them in front of everyone." Uriel groaned. "Darn it, I'm a huntsman, not a miracle worker!"
"Have you considered hiring mercenaries to aid you?" Alva offered.
"I would, but honestly I fear that they may turn against me and the Trojan Alliance just like team SOLR and their remaining allies did. And that's not all- while traveling around eastern Sanus, I have discovered that team JNPR-Ruby have boarded a ship to the coastal village of Aslolis. They left slightly over a week ago and, provided there are no delays or bad events happening at sea, will be here in less than two months."
She smirked upon hearing the news. "Good to know."
"Wait a second." Wyatt began. "If they left a week ago, then how are you already here? There's no way a ship could travel that fast, air travel is still majorly down in Vale, and, last I looked, the CCT tower is still gone."
"You're obviously unfamiliar with Uriel's handy yet taxing semblance." Alva answered.
Wyatt turned back to the red-eyed man. "And might that be?"
"Light Travel." Uriel began answering. "Under the presence of direct light, I can directly teleport myself and others if I chose to. But this power is not without its limits. I can only teleport to places that I have physically been to. In addition, the aura cost can be taxing depending on where I am and where I am taking myself. Intercontinental travel is severely draining. Trying to transport people and/or very large objects drains it even more. If I'm not careful, I can burn out my aura or worse, fall unconscious after arrival."
Mr. Forest looked at him in worry. "Oh dear."
"Indeed. It is because of this semblance that I was able to spread rumors of Pyrrha's death to keep her true, final demise when it comes under the radar much, much quicker." Uriel grinned. "Once she finally does fall, the world will be none the wiser."
"So what are you going to do now?" Kiaran asked.
"Well since I teleported from Omega to Griamore Port days ago, and then made my way here, running into Mr. Forest along the way, my aura is back at full capacity and I can use my semblance again. Now the question is, where do I go from here? Do I grant Scarlatti's request and take down the traitors by going to Aletheia? Or, do I continue expanding our influence and trying to snatch those Nina News newspapers before more people find out Pyrrha is actually alive, or worse, believe the lie of her being innocent?"
"Hmm... A difficult quandary. Even if you were to go back to Aletheia to fulfill Scarlatti's request, you would have a lot of difficultly capturing team SOLR and the other traitors. But since we know that Pyrrha and her no-good friends are heading to Aslolis, we can plan ahead and spring a trap for them. In addition, it's one of the few Anima territories that have yet to see the light. With this, your task is made clear; you and Wyatt head to Aslolis at once and convince their leader to join us. After all, you outrank Scarlatti and we are your superiors."
"Right away, Ms. AP!" Uriel exclaimed in glee.
Wyatt simply nodded. "Understood."
The two huntsmen left, leaving the outlaws alone once alone.
"Uriel is quite eager to see Pyrrha taken down." Kiaran noted, before turning back to his partner in crime. "Do you think we can trust him with our secondary objective?"
Alva pursed her lips into a smile. "Perhaps. Even then, the second one may already be dead. After all, with no parents or his older sister, where would he go?"
Back in Wind Path, Blake and her allies were on a rooftop, with Kali and Ghira panting and Blake slightly out of breath. Sun was the only one not exhausted.
"Alright, I think we lost them." Blake spoke.
"Think again!"
Blake's blood went cold as she found Adam and an army of around fifty Revolutionists standing there.
"Aw come on!" Sun groaned.
The bull king ignored him and turned to Blake. "Thought you could escape, Blake? I'm afraid you're wrong."
"We can't... outrun... them..." Kali spoke as she gasped for air.
"But can we really face them?" Blake asked.
"I'm afraid you don't have a choice, love." Adam told her. "We have you cornered. You have nowhere to run to. You'll have to face all of us."
At that moment Ilia, Hector, and Douglas had arrived. "Ready to fight, High Leader." Ilia spoke.
"Excellent. Everyone's here."
"Well, almost." Hector corrected. "I'm afraid Wungeng is MIA."
The bull king groaned quite loudly. "Where the hell is he?!"
"Right here." a voice answered.
The camera turned to a figure no longer cloaked. Wungeng was a chubby, tall, tanned skin man. His hair was still in its auburn fohawk, while his eyes were shown to be pink. He was a pig-based faunus with a tail the same color as his eyes. He wore a pink bandana with long tails. Parts of the bandana were permanently stained with mud. He wore ripped jeans exposing his knees and the upper part of his left leg. The lower part of right leg was permanently stained with mud like his bandana. Around his left ankle was a faux pearl anklet on a light pink chain. He wore a red shirt with none of the buttons done, showing off his flabby chest.
He soon realized he forgot his mask and put it on with his right hand. He wore black cotton dress shoes and a big red silk purse strapped over his chest from the left side upward.
So that's what Vacuo's White Fang leader looks like... Blake silently thought.
In the pig's hands was a paper plate with three cheese covered crackers.
"Really? You're eating now?" Adam asked in exasperation.
The pig glared at his boss. "You interrupted me in the middle of my mid-evening snack!"
He ate another one as Adam ordered, "Well stuff your appetite and get to work!" He turned to address his subjects. "Now get them!"
As the fight began, the pig shoved the rest of the food into his mouth and tossed the plate aside, with Sun gasping as the glutton swallowed his food. "No... This can't be!" Sun asked in horror, "Zhu?!"
Zhu/Wungeng smirked before greeting his opponent. "Hello... little brother."
In the background, Ghira and Kali were fighting White Fang soldiers. Adam slowly approached Blake.
Sun tried to gather his thoughts. "What?! How... how are you alive?!" He burst out. "You ran away years ago! We all thought you were dead!"
"That's what I wanted you to think." Zhu smirked. "I will admit, it wasn't easy making it to Coquina from the middle of nowhere, but once I did find one of the few permanent settlements in that miserable forsaken desert, I became a thief, and gained more than I ever did as a nomadic traveler. It worked well for me. So much so that it attracted the attention of the previous Vacuan White Fang leader, on his deathbed and looking for a successor. He recruited me to join the Fang, and prepared me for leadership, both of which gave me more than I could have imagined."
Sun looked at him in horror. "Then... Ganglie..."
"Was me." Wungeng told him.
Sun felt chills crawl over him as his blood slowly began to boil. "How could you?! You... you TRAITOR!"
His voice broke as he broke into angry, sad tears. Sun swung his staff down, trying to beat him, but Zhu stood with his hands behind his back, and dodged every move like it was nothing.
"Seems you've gotten sloppy since I left. Let's see you face the wrath of Lightning's Avalanche!"
The pig tailed faunus pulled out a nine toothed metal rake with electric dust named Lightning's Avalanche. The wooden part of the rake was painted gold and some of the paint had been worn away by time. The pig then attempted to bring it down on the monkey, only for his opponent to dodge by jumping back.
"You are the worst!" Sun rebuked as he continued dodging. "You told us that you would become a huntsman!" He spun his staff around to deflect the electric dust waves heading towards him. "You're a liar, a deceiver and a deserter! You don't know a thing about loyalty!"
The Vacuan Fang leader briefly stopped and scowled at his long-lost relative. "You're a hypocrite! I don't see your teammates here!"
"They understood my mission, and I warned them ahead of time! But you?! You left without reason and without warning!"
Sun dodged an electric dust wave from the rake and fired fire dust shots at Zhu as the latter retaliated, "I have my reasons! You just never understood them!"
As the two continued to fight, Blake quickly dashed to the side again and again. Terrified she was even quicker than ever, but she knew she couldn't keep this up forever. Sooner or later she would have to attack.
Oh Gods help me, how can I fight him?! she internally panicked. Wait a minute. Maybe I can hurt him with words. It's a longshot, but it might be my only shot to turn the tables in my favor!
"Do you really think you'll win? You can't keep the truth from them forever!" Blake taunted.
Adam looked at her with a smirk, "And what do you mean by that, my darling?"
She was tempted to roll her eyes, but instead she answered, "I know that you killed her! You killed Sienna so you could get your greedy little hands on the Badge of Leadership and take over the White Fang! And Athena Bruna helped you to do it!"
"Are you daft?" Hector countered while firing his gun at Ghira, to no avail. "She was murdered by a human huntsman!"
"Not to mention, Adam was against Athena before Sienna's downfall! You lie!" Douglas told her from afar.
"We faced Athena's forces ourselves! They could've killed us! How dare you!" Ilia retaliated.
In her anger, she dropped her guard and was soon hit in the head with a frying pan. The pan was lowered to show Kali holding in her right hand with delight. "Well, frying pans? Who knew?"
With Kali continuing into the fray, more cries and chants jeering Blake came forth.
"Nice try Blake, but they believe me, not you." Adam told her as he swung his sword diagonally. "Also, why would they listen to a traitor?"
Blake's fear and sorrow turned to unbridled anger. "Traitor?! I'm not going to stand here and listen to your hypocrisy!"
She got out her weapon and engaged in a sword fight with the bull king. As Blake made her stand against Adam, Sun took his weapon and converted it into its nunchucku-shotgun form. He fired a barrage of shots at Zhu, who managed to dodge them successfully until he lost his footing. He nearly tripped, trying to prevent his fall, only to be knocked down with a fire dust gunshot. As his back hit the ground, Sun advanced, only for Zhu to curl into a ball and roll back. He left his rake aside on purpose, hoping Sun would step on it, but he jumped over it and proceeded with a direct attack.
The Vacuan Fang leader dashed around him and retrieved his weapon. Sun spun his shotguns around, hoping to catch him off guard and knock him down, but Zhu spun his rake around, flaring with surges of electricity as he deflected each shot away from him. Soon he deflected a shot heading towards his opponent. Sun, realizing his plan was backfiring (quite literally), stopped firing and ran to his right, letting the Revolutionists nearby take the attack.
Wungeng rushed towards Sun trying to strike him on the head with Lightning's Avalanche, but Sun knew to avoid the teeth. Not to mention that Zhu was slower than his opponent.
"Don't tell me you're running out of steam already?" Sun taunted.
"In your dreams, you blind monkey-sheep!"
The monkeyman looked at his surroundings and formed an idea. He took a shot at Wungeng, then ran across the rooftop, cutting a path through Revolutionists soldiers by punching them in the face. Wungeng ran after him, tossing a few soldiers off the side. Once he caught up, Sun spun his nunchucks around, and the third spin chucked Zhu in the jaw. Groaning in pain, he held his face with his left hand and Sun kicked him into the wall of the rooftop entrance hut, knocking him out.
Sun glared at him as he asked, "Who's dreaming now?"
All the while Blake had her sword interlocking with Adam's. Blake tried to shove her way forward and knock him down, but Adam was not one for giving in.
"I have to say, your attempts to stop me are oddly cute." the bull king spoke.
The catwoman just glared at her opponent. "You think you're going to get away with this?! You're just a lying little coward! You're just running away from your problems, but you can't escape the truth!" she proclaimed, pushing his sword back.
"Run away? When have I ever ran away from my problems?" Adam retaliated, dodging Blake's swing. "The innocent never run." Another horizontal slash. "You on the other hand, you're always running away from someone or something." Blake began to falter. "When we were at Kuchinashi all those months ago, facing our foes, you ran. When we hijacked the Schnee Dust Company train in the Forever Fall forest, you ran. When your teammates found out the truth about you and your past, you ran. When your friend Yang lost her arm and Beacon fell to its knees, you ran. You've always been on the run, hiding in the shadows. You think that by deserting the White Fang and attempting to become a huntress that you're a hero, but you know what you really are? You're a coward! A cold-blooded coward who can't face reality! You need to wake up, Sleeping Beauty, because I have news for you; you can't run anymore." He approached her, her hands trembling. "You've reached the end. You have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. You want to know the truth?" He put his hand on her shoulder and whispered into her ear, "You can't escape from the White Fang, or from me."
She gasped in shock and horror, dropping her weapon as Adam backed away before knocking her against the wall. Her aura broke in a flash of purple.
"Blake!" Kali called out.
Unfortunately, Kali and Ghira were soon ambushed by White Fang goons and could do nothing to aid her as Adam sheathed his sword and threw her to the ground. Emotionally shattered, physically exhausted and out of aura, Blake laid face down as he placed his boot on her back. "Beacon fell, and so will Haven. So tell me, how does it feel knowing that you can't stop me?" No answer. She moaned in pain. "You're not so innocent, are you, you pussycat?"
"Leave her alone." a voice said venomously.
He turned to find the monkey king standing there, giving him the most heinous glare he had ever seen, but it wasn't enough to faze him. Adam removed his foot from Blake's back, put it down and simply just smirked. "Do you really think you have a chance against me, little prince?"
The monkey king held up his fists. "I said, 'Leave her alone!'"
Adam looked at his challenger with an indignant frown. "Do you have a death wish?"
Sun got out his shot-gun nunchucks. "If you won't leave her alone, I will make you regret what you've done to her!"
His smirk returned. "It would appear to be so; wish granted."
"No... don't..." Blake pleaded.
Her plea went unheard. Adam unsheathed his sword as Sun growled and ran towards the Beast...