Chapter 10: Twenty Six

Blake Belladonna

Gelap Nicola and Cahaya Bartolomeo, age 42 and 20 respectively. Both faunus from Menagerie, dog and cat archetype, also respectively. Blake's father confirmed that much, but a microstate of refugees doesn't keep the strongest records, nothing other than their names on a census count to prove they were ever alive before now. Vale's records were limited as well. Mr. Nicola had immigrated five years ago, Mr. Bartolomeo a mere six months. Mr. Nicola was a card carrying member of the Faunus Workers Union, one of the many political arms of the White Fang that have been severed from direct control and withered in modernity. Neither had an arrest record.

What they had was infinitely more damnating. A image displayed on every private scroll in Vale showed them both clearly, beneath a White Fang Battle flag, not illegal, but crate of plastic explosives, just like the one used on the tower bombing, rest beside them, open and visible for all to see as easily as the white scruff of Gelaps mustache. This "friend of humanity" the one who uses the same virus Cinder used to hijack broadcasts didn't decide to give Blake of the police at large the tip, she decided to give the entire country and now they might as well wear nooses in the station.

Blake wanted to know why exactly they were singled out, almost more than if they were guilty or not, they reeked of a spring loaded trap, not that she could use that as evidence of innocence. For now, it was interviews.

"Good Evening Mr. Nicola, Mr. Bartolomeo, I apologize for being late," Blake announced entering the room with them, after watching them alone through one way glass for over an hour. "Before we begin is there anything you need to ask?"

"Evening, I didn't think I'd ever see a Belladonna again since I left home. I feel much better," Cahaya started gave a grin that'd he'd likely seen some success with girls his age. Notably he spoke the Faunus dialect of Mangerie, one Blake was happy to speak in if it made them more amicable than the previous solo interviews she'd watched her team perform.

"Agreed, I miss home, do you? How do you like Vale?

"It's—"

Now Nicola entered with a raised arm, hushing his jail fellow. An interesting move considering they spent their hour together refusing to speak, Gelap would look at Cahaya, but Cahaya refused even a glance.

"Aren't we supposed to get a lawyer?"

"Before you go to court yes, but in terrorism cases Valen police are permitted to interview at our discretion." Blake didn't agree with such a draconian law, one of One Vale's many erosions of liberty since Cinder's attack. Still. It was useful, and maybe dipping in the unethical could do some good. She could help them, truly, if they were set up.

"I am not a terrorist, Mrs. Belladonna, I'm a taxi driver. I'm just trying to save some money for the trip to Roseland, ask my neighbors, my boss. I keep my head down," Cahaya pleaded, and Blake had. They said all the same. He worked, lived lean, his apartment lease was month to month, and his residency renewal hadn't even been started yet, so the Roseland trip seemed to fit.

"Not staying in Vale? Not to your liking?"

"Vale is good, but it's not as much like home. I hear Roseland has almost as many faunus as Menagerie. That and land gift is almost sickeningly good." A similar story. When they cleared out so much forest of grimm it needed cultivation, workers, something the SDC couldn't manage by themselves. A land gift to new settlers had attracted many future farmers earning Roseland tax revenue on trade and them fiscal independence.

"Vale is a sham, and so is Roseland. You're just a pair of arms to these people, soon as you try to have a soul, they'll strip you down to those arms. Should have stayed in Menagerie boy," Gelap lectured, his words crushing hopes like the gavel of a judge.

"Yet you stayed? You're politically active too. It would seem you're invested in Vale." He never bites Blake's bait, a silence following right after.

"So did you two meet during one of these White Fang events?" Blake had heard their conflicting stories. Cahaya said he went to one not really knowing what it was for, that he never noticed the explosives and heard no plans. Gelap claimed he was at a political rally, but the bombs and Cahaya weren't there. Edited into the picture he claimed. What they would say together Blake hoped would unravel some of the lie.

"No—"

"We'd never met before. Just like I told the other man. I don't know this Cahaya."

"I've never seen two people hate eachother so much despite having never met," Blake poked completely unable to resist the urge. "Cahaya, the night before the bombing," the night the bombs had to be placed, "Were you at another one of these meetings presumably not meeting Gelap?"

"No, I was out. I've only been the the meeting place once." Out wasn't a strong enough alibi for Cahaya, nor was the equally vague walking that he told Blake's second.

"The place in the photo?"

"Yes—"

"No," Galep again interrupted, again painting at least one of them as a liar.

"The two of you are being charged as terrorists, that comes with between life sentence and death, your answers necessitate someone is lying, even that is a crime. Assuming one of you is innocent, someone's going to have to show me how you are and why you're being set up. You know my family, I'm not looking to bury my people." Blake spoke to both but kept eye contact with Cahaya, Blake's personal bet.

"I never saw any bombs, but if you went to the place and they were still there, would it prove we didn't bomb anything?" Cahaya broke in the exact way one does without a lawyer to shut you up, and Blake rewarded him with a smile. "Not entirely, but if we could prove those weren't the bombs used with say the ones you had, that would help. So would cooperating."

"When they find nothing, because you don't know anything, it's going to look bad boy," Galep cut in, hasing a very long shut up as if Cahaya was still a child. Blake ignored it, focusing alone on the cat faunus.

"I was only there once, I wasn't involved, but I remember the street."

Dawn Bella-Long

Dawn's body leaned against the metal barricade of the downtown overpass, casually pretending to smoke with a lit cigarette she never inhaled. However, instead of glazed over eyes thinking about the driery dusk weather and the dark clouds above, her's would soon glow yellow in the dark as she stared into the industrial yard below, locked to the faunus who one by one filled into the factory yard. One she noticed, carried the flag of the White Fang.

"Not that you look bad doing it, but did you call me here to stare at your behind all day? This is one weird booty call you know!" Antimony Calfuray never failed to put a smile on Dawn's face. Such a bummer they weren't on a team together anymore.

"Antenna while it's not a no to the booty call, tonight I'm gonna need you to do one of those things were you just trust me, like our Signal Days," Dawn asked, admittedly too much of her after so many years, but Antimony's smile remained as always and her twin cowlicks seemed almost to perk up at the suggestion. "Your hair looks cute grown out by the way." Sugar on top always helped.

"Oh thank you~" she blushed, "But no, like not our Signal Days thank you very much you did not mysteriously call me to meet on an overpass in the middle of nowhere when we were thirteen."

"Granted," Dawn gave pressing out with her hands for emphasis. "But remember when we stuffed a paint bomb under the door of the headmaster's office? It's kind of like that, but they have the bombs." And Dawn only had a few hours to find out exactly what was up before the police come and storm the place judging from the chatter she heard off the radio she acquired from her mother.

"Those are the ones that bombed the CTC Tower?!"

"Your voice carries Antenna, and only maybe. I'm hoping to find that out tonight. How long can you split in two?" Dawn tried not to show how ridiculous the statement felt, but semblences are strange.

Antimony flexed and split apart into twin creatures born of light. It looked faintly like Uncle Sun's semblance, but with no original holding them together, that one shimmered brightly with a translucent orange with a smile to match, the second a dim almost invisible purple in the darkness of the coming night, this Antimony's lips twisted into a low gloom.

"As long as no one hurts us," the purple phantom mumbled.

"We can keep this up all day." The orange one punctuated with a thumbs up.

"Solid, I can work with this," Dawn considered, "Sunshine you keep watch with that ballista on your back. Grim, you follow from the shadows and just keep your ears open. If things go badly, well your big sticks for something.

"If you're sure."

"Rodger!"

"I'm glad you're so agreeable Antenna," Dawn remarked as she leaned herself over the guardrail, ready to drop down.

"Anything for you Dawn!" The orange one took a knee on the very same guardrail, turning it into a stabilizer for her ballista.

"It's our job to stop bad guys so we kind of have to." Purple stood at the edge and dropped fading out of site with a soft thud.

Perfect. Dawn noted as she flipped off the overpass and into the street below. Thirty minutes would do. Perking up her cat ears, hiding her gauntlets, she tried to stroll up like she belonged. A member of the growing crowd, though one that prefered a bit of distance, keeping to the shadow of the rod iron gate that broke up the work yard from the alley.

A passing scan from the dark and Dawn pieced together the good news she wasn't the only woman, a large bear faunus with a hell of a built set of arms that just happened to be standing by the oldest, a white haired lemur faunus. He wasn't the only white hair either. Dawn was definitely the youngest of the forming mass of about ten or so predominantly forty the fifty year old steel workers. Dawn couldn't help but feel a pang of not sadness, but that indifferent pitty one has towards a dead bug. These faded old faunus bowing before the flag of long past glories. While her mother did the real work fighting in politics, on the force, these bomb throws cling to an organization that could never shed it history of murder. What the hell did killing children who were training to save lives help the faunus?

This was a new age, and Dawn was going to leave these relics behind.

"You with the red eyes, aren't you a little young?" Red eyes? Shit. Dawn let herself get lost in her own internal anger. She shook her head and let the rage fall off her like raindrops.

"I'm here for the White Fang meeting. I saw what you guys did, I want in."

Dawn put on on a brave, hopeful face of a star acolyte, her eyes had return to amber gold and all that rage was falsified into enthusiasm.

"What we did?" the woman asked bunching her brow in a obvious sign of frustration.

"If you're talking about the tower, you're in the wrong place young woman," the oldest took the lead with a tone that struck Dawn is not too similar to that of Grandpa Taiyang's lectures.

"But I thought Nicola and Bartolomeo were your brothers…" Dawn channeled a deep disappointment into her weakening jaw, the key was to let the muscles of the face just give up, collapse in a way. "I thought you were White Fang, Paragons of real action."

"And look what that got Gelap, and the poor kid, gods…"

"You're not old enough to remember but the White Fang is a vulnerable organisation. Action, sometimes strong when it needs to be, but that doesnt mean targeting random people," the old man start conveniently pretending Dawn didn't know they fed seventeen year old beacon students to ursas.

"It's not random, it's humans," Dawn pretended, "So Nicola and Bartolomeo are the only ones willing to put up a real fight now?"

"Kid, you're sounding dangerous," Dawn knew that. She also knew from the distant mirror on a left of cat that the glow of the orange Antimony remained behind her, and a dim purple shadow hung above them, watching where only Dawn knew to look.

"We never planned the towers, neither did Gelap."

"But the picture."

"It wasn't meant for the tower, and we've got someone putting an end to that stupidity as we speak. Gelap never should have had those explosives, but even he never meant to get anyone hurt. The White Fang aren't terrorists!" The old man's tail sagged with his eyes

"And neither are you," the bear woman spoke, her eyes sharped to skinning knives. Dawns mouth went a little dry, and she brought her hands to her back and let the aura flow. "Your hairs gold and black, with red eyes too, sometimes. I saw you a year ago in the Beacon entrance exams. My cousin's a hunter in training, your moms a human…" A growl started up in her voice,and around the fire pit looks were beginning to be exchanged. First confused, then angry. "And the other ones a Cop!"

Dawn laughed, but it's fake. Farthest thing from her mind. She's focused, deep into her memories while she channeled aura into her palms, ready to ignite. Her semblance lit aura and emotion like dust in a fire pit, so she had to find the right flavor. Sadness, blue and black, a smokey depression, thoughts that taste and feel like the ash of a burned down life. Those kind of thoughts could feed a dark azure, a smoggy flame.

Images, sounds. The dismal dust that lines the mostly empty halls of the SDS training camp. We all know you only got in because your mothers in charge. The sand that floats and chokes everyone in the Island of Menagerie. She doesn't even speak Faunus, I don't know why they give her even half the Belladonna name. The humid air that frizzes hair throughout Signal. No, I don't agree with them, you're not even like the rest, but if my parents found out I was dating a faunus, I need to end this, I'm sorry. The old DAWN dorm room, how perfect and beautiful it was, how great it was to run a team. I don't know why you need to ruin your life, but how about you stop destroying everyone else's along the way! Visiting home, only seeing one of them there. Dawn… why did you do it? Did I do something wrong?

Dawn could feel a tear that wants to drop out the corner of her eye, she hoped she didn't look scared. Not when the bear woman raised her first all cool, the others readied to leap into the frey. The Lemur, the one that knew what was up, already started to run. It was never about them. She just needed the smoke.

Painful blue flames, one in each hand, bellow smoke, and smashed together, the miasma is black and all encompassing in an instant. There is shouting, charging, but Dawn already had her aura up. The bear woman couldn't see Dawn dodge, much less the sharp strike of her right leg into the woman's rather normal stomach.

Dawn couldn't see the others, they couldn't see her, but she knew the only one that mattered was the Lemur man. She dove out of the smoke and into the inner yard. Behind her the heavy thud of a Kanabo splitting concrete Antimony, those fools were in for a nightmare.

The factor door was left open, and Dawn slide inside. She tried to shut the door, another faunus almost on her, but before he could get inside the immense arrow of a ballista, lined with force dust explosion behind him, sending the man painfully, but non-fatally into the wall.

"I'm not here to arrest you old man!" Dawn shouted and scanned the floor for signs of movement, something more than the white inert kind of dust, tossed off equipment and workers stations that see less and less people these days.

Having caught the trail, a thudding of feet in the distance, Dawn took off out one of the storage warehouses passed rows of weapon molds. Passed the door she preped an infernal left hook burning with all her frustration from chasing this idiot half way through a refinery.

"Got you-Azura!?" The punch went wide, Dawn diverting it before her cousin got a fist full of red flame, tinged with sudden suprised.

"Oh gods," Azura shouted as they dropped to the earth. "Is my cape on fire?!" No, Dawn had missed, not that the factory wall would appreciate being warped by the heat of a blast.

"No what are you doing here?"

"Stopping whoever the bad guy is! You're trying to capture him?" Azura never left the ground, the Fortuitous Druid was even easier to aim laying down. A simple swap to ice rounds would do, the highlights of their hair shifting to ice blue and force black.

"Yeah, behind me?" Dawn cause the old man in the distance turning just in time out of sight? "Damn it!"

"I got him!" A squeeze of a finger and that rifle sounds out the loudest pop of any of the team's weapons. The round spiralled out into a icey glow aimed straight as an arrow until the Schnee crest caught it on the side, ricocheting it down the alley and a crude yelp was heard by all. "So~?"

"Yeah great magic bullet kid," Dawn admitted and pulled Azura up by their cape, "Now why the hell are you here?"

"Well I've been feeling kind of sad lately."

"Yeah?"

"So I wanted to spend some time with you."

"Yeah?"

"But I know you don't like me-"

"You're my cousin, I love you, shut up, now please go on,"

"So I followed you for a bit waiting for the right time to ask, but by the time we got out here I realized it was a secret mission and I should just not….interrupt…" Azura's blue eyes shifted around before they eventually pulled the hood of their cape up to hide. A shy response considering they were strolling down the road to see how the man they just shot was doing. Dawn didn't want to be babysitter right now, especially not in the middle of a mission, but, Dawn couldn't help but be sympathetic to the itty bitty Rose.

"Alright so these are the bag guys, White Fang," Dawn explained as they rounded the corner, the old lemus man was there, groaning as he struggled against the Ice, doing not much good as he shivering.

"Should I call Summer?"

"We shouldn't need her. This lovely guy is going to explain to us what he meant about getting rid of those bombs and everything he knows about the Tower attack. Aren't you old man?" Dawn punctuated with a punch to her palm that sent sparks of flame.

"Please you don't understand, Gelap wasn't going to bomb the tower, or anywhere with people in it, the guys who sold us the bombs, they framed us and now we're just trying to get rid of the dust!" His pleas were a good start, Dawn noted, but she needed more, more on Gelap, more on where they got the bombs and how they intended to make this all disappear.

"Yeah," Azura mumbled, "I should call Summer."

"Get everything on record Azura, every word, and don't stop recording for anything," Dawn whispered from the dock yard light rafters. Her cousin kept their legs wrapped around the metal cage and gun strapped to the back this time. Switched a weapon for a scroll zoomed in on the scene below. Three Faunus, the eldest marked with the visible spots of a cheat on his rather oversized build that shouted construction work and easily lifted the same crate from the infamous video, to the top no doubt with unused munitions. Across from him stood Dawn's real target. A woman with the ivory scythe, the one, from the tower, it had to be. Even without the bunny ears, just her stance matched even if her now pink hair did not. Her from reminded Dawn of auntie Ruby's and that alone made her want to knock teeth away.

"What about helping?" Azura asked before waved to hush things down.

"Nah. Antenna's got it." After all with a friend like her, well it was effectively three against one. Even more so now that the scythe-wielding bitch's friend with those gun kicks seemed to be conveniently missing. Dawn gave a nod, and Azura returned it in kind.

"We just want it gone. You can keep the money. Gelap's in real trouble." The White Fang would be the easy part. Their backs were turned and Dawn could leap to them in one bound.

"You want to be ride half a ton of powdered fire dust, just like that? What about your friend? Your mission?" Her voice was distorted by the mask she wore, but it came out with a definite irritating raised pitch. She was farther out on the pier. Seemingly alone with only boardwalk and crates beside her. She was too far from anything to get the jump on her. Worse off, a ship anchored in the distance, had to be hers, especially given the puffs of its dust engine still running.

"Your human, what do you care?!" The man shouted, kicking the crate of dust and giving everyone with any sense a shiver. "You weren't alive to know what it was like when your people came after us for Beacon. All our rights vanished in the back of police cars. You think we'll be safe hiding that? Even with the best of behavior, Gelaps going to hang for something he didn't even do, and were next. Just get rid of it!"

"Didn't you use it up already?"

"We were going to hit an empty factor before his kid showed up, but its off, all of it, ever. Just please."

"The Boss said you'd chicken out, alright bring it over."

"Hey Bunny girl where'd your ears go!"

Not a damned chance Dawn was going to let them move it one millimeter. Her gauntlets activated, firing shots to propel her forward and turn her from one pissed of faunus girl into a meteor headed right to the pretty soon to be out cheetah boy.

He barely let out a yelp before a flaming drop kick to the chest collided, his body doing flips into the sea. The other two went from crate duty to sub-par boxing, the first tossing bad punches her way.

"Don't interrupt the adults." Dawn blocked a right hook gone too wide with ease and returned a series of rabbit punches from the man's navel up to the soft suddenly shattered cartilage of his nose. Normally she'd peper in smg rounds into every hit, but without aura this was painful enough.

The other White Fang guy never even got to her, Dawn just turned and watched a rod of light from Antimony speed by and the boy flew into the waters with a painful screech. Perfect play.

The pink girl, so talkative before was silent aside from the whirling sound of her ivory scythe, spinning with the blinding speed of a baton twirler. Just like auntie, and if she really was half as good, Dawn thought she might be pretty fucking sore tonight.

"Love the hair, hope you don't mind a second date," Dawn pulled back her stance from low and aggressive into flexible and defensive. She'd be watching for bolts of gold sure, but if Dawn could get her a little farther back, her home girl had a really big bat that could give that thin ass scythe a run for its money.

"Sorry," the mask distorted before the rush. High spin could have cleaved Dawn's head of had she not flipped back. With inhuman dexterity the girl swapped stance and momentum for an uppercut with the blade. Dawn felt how paper thin and weightless it was when the scythes rasor cut the air where her whole upper body was before she'd stepped out of range.

"Nah, you don't need to apologize, it's cute on you maniac," Dawn harassed with rapid strikes to the air, each letting of a stream of excited orange flame and a few smg rounds for good measure.

She leapt over it of course, using the momentum to shift her whole body into a buzzsaw with that scythe. Not difficult to dodge, but so relentless it had Dawn on a knife's edge. She was a relentless offensive storm. Dawn was suddenly thrilled Azura had kept her busy in a sniper's duel last encounter.

"I like your twirls!" Dawn gave away her move, side stepped behind the scythe wielder and lead into a full break dance spiral with her kicks, the flames dancing of her body formed a perfect vortex to push Dawn's adversary towards the warehouse. So close.

A gold ballista round let out and just as expected with a spin this woman smacked the round off mark, sending it right through the boardwalk itself along with splinters of wood into the air. Dawn didn't let up the pressure. She unloaded with her SMG's forcing this woman into a full defensive twirl backwards, using the scythe to send those bullets rebounding all through the dockyard. No way Dawn could keep that up, but she didn't need to. She'd taken to many steps back, the girl was in range.

From the darkness of the rafters, a shadow krept up and then dove. The heaving mass of that alloy Kanabo was going to pulverize that bitch into the concrete. The next kick Dawn intended to deliver to this woman was gonna land on the stub of her head, just barely sticking out of the crater.

Was.

From that lonely vessel alone at port, a pop sounded out, the round dancing in air, likely the same kind of round these terrorists had hounded Azura with in the last battle pierced the air and struck shadow Antimony in the chest. Mid strike, unavoidable, the perfect counter plan.

They couldn't know how perfect that was. A bridge of light and dark pulled both halves of Antimony together, and collapsed her form onto the floor. Out just like that until the daze of her semblance wore off.

"You set up an ambush for me?" The figure asked, seeming weirdly surprised.

"So did you?!" Dawn remarked with a leap. She needed to keep crates behind her before more shells went off. Already on plan B.

"Wasn't meant for you," the woman groaned. Dawn couldn't even guess if that was sarcasm or a genuine feeling of betrayal.

Either way, she needed to signal. Something bright and hopeful.

The feeling of the Schnee order ribbon, We welcome you into the Knights order, The oath has changed, but the honor remains the same. The warmth of her first boyfriend's hug. I could spend every saturday like this. The taste on her last girlfriends lips, Mmmm cherry. The common scents of her mothers', Lilac and nightingale. I'm so proud Dawn

Joy is bright and gold as the dawn, and with her Aura a flash burst from her palm fines enough to drive all watching, and Dawn herself blind. Nothing at first, then the whiteness fades out while a rumbling engine fades in. Dawn's vision floods back just in time to see plan B.

Summer's bike roars past her, her cousin aboard. Sniper shots miss her wildly as she weaves through the assault. The scythe woman starts shaking off the daze, but it's too late. Summer's twisted something on her bike, one of the many gadgets included a towing grapple, fired out of the back and right into that woman's arm. It catched, and with a hard turn Summer sends her flying into a pile of crates.

Not missing one single beat, she already had Excalibur out, still turning her bike, dragging that poor woman with her, she aimed that charging dust rifle and fired it off like a mortar. it flew up and slowly dropped from the heavy shells she uses, before finally exploding on the top deck of that ship, illuminated with fire.

Dawn didn't know how the sniper faired, but no one was firing anymore for shots.

"Looking cool cousin!"

Summer ripped off her helmet, out of breath from that little move.

"What?"

"I said good move cousin."

She shone with that pale and arrogant Schnee grin, mouth shifting to speak, but never got there. A buzzing had cut her off along with the sickening crack of a whip against her head. Sparks flew against her aura and she went flying into a sea of creates.

A new contender had strolled up with a saunter as if Dawn should know who he was. The man dressed in black and silver military grade armor, grey hair, chrome mask. Nothing colorful about him until he seemed to stick something in his leg. All of a sudden highlights flared a dim green along his leg, chest and mask.

"Unit GK, Retreat."

None of that mattered, this creeper was the one to knock out summer, his weapons folding from these buzzing whips into chain swords alive with sparks.

"Can you fuck off dude," Dawn barked, feeling anger rise in her. She wanted to be done, one powerful shot to destroy this fool. Anger was hot and red. Anger burned so hot and quick like nothing else. She didn't need deep thoughts to turn her eyes red like blood. Summer on the ground, Antimony still out, that scythe woman standing back up and dragging herself and the bombs away, all that pissed her off so much. That was read hot. Hateful like the power of dusk pooled into her firsts.

"We didn't expect you to look for us so soon," the man had his own changer to hide behind, Good Dawn thought, he'd be use to it when she melted it to his face.

"Looks like hide and go seeks over!" Dawn started forward, a slow pace to start, but speeding up with every few strides.

"Then come," he remarked. His swords split back into whips and spin as he might it did little but delay beyond a few seconds. His moves were sloppy, samey. A quick scan and Dawn found her opening. Another second and her firsts were burning red.

She dived in through the air of buzzing chain whips, landing unscathed and right in point blank range. He was a fool to stand up to the dawn, she would bring the full force of the sun into one strike, but fists holding thoughts of wasted time and her friends and family lying in pain.

The result, it could melt steel. A dangerous amount of aura burst through his body like a blow torch smashes through tissues, The wave of flame burrows into crates behind him, and his body turns to ash.

Not ash, to nothing. Literal nothing. One second he's there, next hot air. Nothing and small changes. The cuts his chains made in the earth around her, gone. The ship in port? Several feet into the bay, still burning but moving off now, and out of her view. All that flame and what? A fever dream? Dawn just stood. Confused before a melted metal crate and none one at all.

"Dawn!" Azura shouted.

"What…"

"Why did you let him get away?"

"Get away?" Dawn whined finally focusing on Azura who dragged Summer to her feet still grumbling.

"Yeah the dude in black. You looked at him for a second, I thought you two were going to fight, but he just sorta walked away, cut the woman loose and left! You were just standing there, talking to someone, and then boom. Started doing flips and blowing a hole in the crates."

"I…" Dawn moaned again, looking off at the ship sailing unmolested even as police sirens could be heard coming from mainstreet. "I just let him go…"

"Yeah I would have helped," Azura added, tossing her her scroll in the air, "But I was busy recording just like you said!"

Blake Belladonna

Free. Or at least Cahaya Bartolomeo was. The story was clear from the security footage outside of Mantle Core's weapon factory from the night of the bomb planting. Galep was planning to destroy the place, but at night in a factory that used only automated workers. Cahaya had stopped him. Why? He was his son, apparently. Either one could have given themselves an alibi at the cost of something. Cahaya would have to sell out his father, or Gelap his White Fang brothers. Two more were in the footage. Conspiracy wasn't a slap on the wrist. There would be jail, a lot of it. Cahaya would likely be deported, but neither, neither would hang. Cahaya went home, Gelap would be moved to jail holding.

The mysteries piled up, nothing was solved, but two lives were saved. Somehow Blake didn't feel even a touch of ease.

"Picking me up first?"

"I assumed we should pick her up together?" Blake nearly whimpered as she switched her car into drive. Yang having just took her seat in the passenger side.

"And here I thought you wanted some alone time, I'm heartbroken," Yang teased at the rift between them. Blake didn't find it funny, but if Yang was laughing, maybe that meant the wound was smaller than it felt.

"I always do, I'm just not good at showing it," Blake admitted as she started off towards the road to Beacon. "I've not been good at a lot of things."

"This has got you riled up? We did the same thing with Dawn's age." That's why they had decided not to yell at her. They'd take her out to dinner instead, show her they're proud… if concerned.

"Because we had no adults we could trust," Blake lemented, "She has two parents, who are there, she's not alone, why didn't she trust enough to leave it to us?"

"It's not about trust, she wants you to be proud of her."

"I am proud of her? Does she not think I'm proud of her?"

"It's a drug with you, she can never get enough," Yang gripped Blake's hand, rattling the clutch, with a still loving squeeze. "But it'll be good to remind her, that we are when she's not trying to take down terrorist. God I sound like such an old lady, I never had a mom as a teen is this how it goes?"

Blake laughed while two different tears dropped.

"I don't know, I'm the only one with both parents around to give a shit and here I am the worst mother out of the four." Yang's hand gripped harder.

"Blake, it's okay, you're overwhelmed. Come back to me." Yang whispered as Blake felt her vision begin to collapse into a tunnel of lights and movement so fast she could barely keep up.

"What mother make her little girl feel like she has to fight terrorist for me?"

"She's eighteen now, we did the same thing at he-"

"She's not suppose to be like me!" Blake slammed into park pulling to the side of the road before she tunneled right into another car and made Dawn an orphan on top of a paranoid lost faunus just like her. "I was abused, I was broken, obsessed, and if she's just like me— god I wanted her to never know any of this. I almost watched a man get his son executed thanks to that kind of mad drive, what are we even doing all this for?"

Then warmth, Warmth in gold curls and strong arms. Warmth despite the chill of yellow painted steel brushing her back. A faint lilac smell. All things Yang, but most importantly that small voice that told her to shush, that it's okay. Blake leaned into that hug and shuttered a gasping cry months in the making, ones cut off by a gentle kiss.

"It's okay. We're fighting for a better world, but so were my parents, so will our kid. You didn't think we'd win just like that did you?" Yang smiles voice chiding with a sweet tinge.

"No, but… I wanted to—"

"Not leave her out eight? Too bad, we'll just have to fight it with her, just like your old man and mom."

"I seem like such a baby don't I?" Blake choked in a sob fused with a laugh.

"Do you have any idea how much I wish my mom cried over me?"

"At least I'm not a Raven," Blake giggled.

"No you've managed to pass that bar, way to go champ."

They both laughed then, pulling apart, giggling in their seats and connected by a thin mesh of intertwined fingers on the parking brake. Dinner reservations were up, Dawn was waiting, but it had felt good just laugh and be a couple again even while crying.

And then a ring,

"What...Why am I hearing this now? What do you mean...both of them?"

Yang looked into her eyes and she knew. Dinner wasn't happening. Blake the crying mother was shelved. The chief was present. Gelap and Cahaya went missing, they went missing and no one told Blake. Not till they showed up again.

On top of the SDC building with nooses around their necks.

The stage is set in the evening, when the clock on the SDC tower hits eight and the last of its officer works have fled home and only the tourist and shoppers scan center city square, series of connected two story red roofs ending an occasional titans of concrete, like the office itself. This titan bared a massive jumbo screen of LEDs. They had been hacked, shining a sigil of a skull and a bold M. The police scrolls, scanners, radios, all were unhacked since they had long since been removed from the public network, but Blake's private scroll displayed the same screen. She could close it, the virus lacking the potency it once had, but no one, not a single person in the see of onlooking shoppers wasn't looking, and most importantly listening.

"We provided the police everything they needed to do justice. We prayed they would defend us, but they have failed. Today befitting the myth that the White Fang are harmless, that things are under control. Blake Belladonna, former agent herself, simply let the guilty go.

"You know why, I know why, because it does not fit the myth they present. That all there is nothing to fear beside the Grimm only they can fight— that so long as we give up our will to the Hunters they will keep us safe.

"Be powerless and obey."

Every word carried weight as the screen played images of Bartolomeo going home free, next to the screen shots of Azura's video, showing more faunus meeting their provider in the doc, mostly showing a man with ears next to explosives was enough. This was a stage play, nothing more than a magic trick. Harmless, except for two men, both innocent or mostly innocent standing at the top of the tower, flood lights placed on them so all could see the main act. The two phiras, faunus brought to the literal edge, stood at the precipice of a great fall. A wind could have blown them down, but a man held them steady with chains around their neck as black as his uniform. It carried no marks aside from a slight green highlight to the LEDs on his augmented leg— beyond which he was devoid of color, a chrome skull mask framed in grey hair, and the unpainted plates of armor sat efficiently over that emblemless uniform.

"I call on you Vale," this distorted voice, with only the lightest touch suggested something more feminine than the one holding the hostages, "Accept your agency. You've seen the footage. Decide the fate of these terrorist. Guilty of Innocent. It's for all of us to decide."

Every private scroll, even Blakes flashed open a simple app. Three buttons, Guilty, Innocent, or Decline. An execution poll.

"We have thirty seconds, can you get a clear shot?" Blake begged of her sniper, a huntress on the far tower. Blake herself had skipped the mass of spectators bellow, at that point likely voting on the spectacle at hand. She and her best charged up the stairwell floor by floor.

"No I can't get a clear shot, my god," Olive, the sharp shooter of the gasped more shaken than Blake had ever heard her.

"What's wrong?" They had fifteen seconds left that was what's wrong.

"He hostages… Kids Blake."

Kids? Blake moved, maternal overdrive kicked her into gear and ahead of her team. For the first time she wished one of the military airships was available, but Coco had to have a war game today of all days. Maybe that's why…

"What do you mean he has 'kids'?" Blake shouted, the sight of five more flights had her jumping rather than running up stairs. Less than ten seconds.

"He has kids, strapped with bombs, I can see them, gods damn it look at the camera!"

Blake Reached the door, but hesitated, just a second too long. What about the kids in—

There are no kids, that last second on the clock, Blake wasted double checking the feed on her police scroll. Not a child in sight just those two and a man in black.

One second left.

Her private scroll buzzed, the app popped open. Forty-Eight declined to vote. Twenty-Five voted innocent. Twenty Six people chose guilty.

"And now," the distorted voice called out from a million scrolls, "you have a voice. Guilty."

"Fire!"

Nothing. Where a gunshot should have been, there was a gasp, the crowd outside. The monitor showed the dissent, only a second or two with those chains around them. She heard the buzz, just a moment of sparks and blood, the chain, her brain processed too slowly, a hunters chainsaw whip. One second was all all it took. The windows would be painted, the inflatable mat below cought a body parts instead, a pair with nothing to send them off with but a twenty percent guilty crowd of gasps and one snipers cold "I'm so sorry, I thought..."

"Move!" Blake kicked open the roof access in time to see that black figure fall from the edge himself and make a crash through glass below. Blake followed. Her own Gambol making a fine repel down.

The crunch of the glass as she landed was matched by the thudding of feet. The man took a hard right away from the stairs. He predicted her team would be here in seconds, he was right.

Blake gave chase sliding after him, gun ready and fury in her feet. She would not hesitate. This man had to be the key. An actor in this farce would know the director.

But like any good actor, he lead her right into a scene.

"Mom," Blake heard Dawn wimper. Her gun coming face to face with her daughter. Strapped to an office chair she struggled against the binds until the chain around her neck went tight. The man's weapon, twin whips of sorts, segmented in what looked like bits of a sword speckled with blood. A flick of his weapon, and they would come to life like buzz saws. Dawn would die.

"Chief Belladonna," the man stood in shadows, and spoke with a voice distinctly hollow with age, "drop the weapon and I swear to leave your daughter unharmed. She's done nothing wrong."

"Shut the fuck up and let the weapon go!" Blake screamed the order, her hand gun tight in her hands, the barrel lined perfectly for his neck, between the plates and his skull mask. There was no good quick one shot kill option open, all his vitals but his neck were covered, a slow death even if he didn't have aura. Too slow for Dawn. Too slow for her baby girl. "Back up from my daughter!"

"I don't intend to hurt her Blake." A crash of glass. The team? Please, anyone, someone. "We don't need to do this today."

"Let go!" Her voice was horse and animalistic. She didn't think didn't have a play. Not with Dawn whimpering, gods she had never seen her whimper,

And with a sigh, the man played his hand and the sounds of a buzz saw rang out.

Blake vomited in her mouth and at the same moment she pulled the trigger. Though she felt every part of her body shut down, and her mind reduce to an ever present screech of pain, she never stopped firing, into his neck his head, his chest, shoulders. Into the sores of his unbleeding wounds that broke apart into mist. Killing Dawn would have ended him even as it ended Blake.

When the smoke cleared, and Blake's team came in, there was nothing in the room. No man, no Dawn, Not even the chair. It wasn't even a room. Just one hallway with the world's most idiotic mother holding an empty gun. A hallway to a dead in break room with a man sized hole in the glass.

A/N: So first thing. "Is the Dude in black Emerald/Does he just have the same semblance as Emerald? To the first one I'll just say obviously not, and to the second, I promise it's not that lame, He has a difference semblance. I'm happy to show antimony now, she's Cats OC and a great addition to HROC. I'm also happy to start showing off our villains, you've met Green Knight before, but they're really ganna make a bigger splash now.

I'm out of an editor for Summer's Vale so if anyone's interested let me know~ I'm a bad writer and need oneeeee!

Lore bit for this issue One Vale, One Vale was the leading party after cinders attack. Lead by an unlikely union of military mined nationalist, and security focused hunters, it's a party that promotes national security, a rise in Valen independence and has lead to most government positions being headed by retired Hunters. Domestically, they are caught in an identity crisis between whether to treat faunus with conservative disinterest or liberal strengthening, as well as how to handle global issues such as Roseland and deepening relationships with either rapidly liberalizing but still imperialist Atlas or traditionally loyal but politically turbulent Vacuo. As of late the party has been losing more ground to far right and far left parties represented by Blake Belladonna on the left and Pyrite on the Right. However, with all current Councillors members of the party, One Vale still grasped control of the frightened and still shell shocked nation.