章 1869: 100
Chapter Text
"New recruits, keep to the right. Alain, good to see you! Brandy, nice to see you again!"
"Well, this is the place," Blake stated dryly, somewhat redundantly motioning over at the group of faunus entering the warehouse one by one, her other hand tracing over the three vertical chalk lines marked onto an adjacent wall- a telltale sign of the White Fang, if one knew where and when to look. She looked over at Ruby and Sun, both of them nodding seriously, then at Mercury… who sighed and rolled his neck as he hunched over slightly, crossed his arms, tousled his hair a little and…
Wow. It was almost like he was a completely different person now- and with his casual outfit concealing his weapons almost perfectly, he was almost entirely unidentifiable as a Beacon student.
"Okay, one more go-over," Ruby stated somewhat belatedly, her body shifting and changing as she completely warped her image from her normal self to… someone almost entirely unrecognizable, ears disappearing and tail vanishing into the dark morass of her sludgy form as a pair of large, pitch black Nevermore wings erupted from her back and she settled into the guise of a slightly taller, mature, red haired crow faunus with citrine colored eyes. "For now, I'm taking the name Corva. Blake is Leah, Sun is Hanu, and Mercury you're uh… Silver. Sure."
"Feeling the love, Rubathy," Mercury- or, Silver in his guise- deadpanned. "Whatever. Is everyone else ready?"
"Ready."
"Ready!"
"Ready!"
"Ready?"
Oh good, an all clear from Cinder, Yang, and Jaune… and a slightly more hesitant all clear from Scarlet. That meant they were well on track to getting everyone in the right places. More or less.
Ruby nodded and took a deep breath as her transformation finished, licking her lips as everyone's Aura meters synced to her scroll and registered an all clear. "Right. Plan is this: We're gonna get into the rally, Emerald will lead Ren, Sage, Weiss, Scarlet, Jaune, and Pyrrha to the back areas to try and get an idea of what their operations are and make sure that we can find where their main hideout is- I know Uncle Qrow said somewhere in Mountain Glenn, but if we can get an actual address instead of having to search the entire city, then that's better. Neo, Cinder, Neptune, Yang, Nora, and Penny are gonna hang by on the rooftops nearby in case things get ugly. We're gonna be in the middle and if we have an opportunity to take the shot, we will."
"... The shot as in-?"
"We'll fight and arrest the leaders if we can. I'm not letting Adam get away this time," Blake answered, narrowing her eyes and almost hissing as she turned and headed for the door. "Let's just go. The rally's gonna start soon."
"Right…"
Soon enough, the four of them had managed to enter the warehouse- Sun (or, Hanu) vouching for "Silver" as a friend of his who was willing to join the cause because they'd grown up in the same orphanage. The guys manning the door had taken that… somewhat uneasily, but Silver had just shrugged and stated that if he made any funny moves then they were free to shoot him dead. He still didn't get a mask, but he at least got a cool wristband with the White Fang logo on it.
And with that concerning note, the four of them entered, activated their local comms, and spread throughout the crowd in order to lower the possibility of them all being spotted in one place.
And then…
"Brothers and sisters of the White Fang! Thank you all for coming tonight!" the man on the stage spoke, lights dimming around the warehouse as a spotlight focused on the tall, muscular figure that seemed like the poster child of the White Fang. His mask- custom made and fully covering his face- gleamed in the light, drawing attention as he raised his arms as if welcoming the crowd. "For those of you who are joining us for the very first time, I welcome you! Your voices, your pleas, your problems have been heard, and we will address them! You are not alone in your plight, and the White Fang will liberate you from the boots of all of our oppressors! To the humans in the crowd that stand with us- I thank you for your contributions to our cause! Know that you are in the right, and that your actions will allow us- all of us- to have what is rightfully ours!"
The crowd roared in response, and Ruby- Corva- couldn't help but raise her fist along with the rest of those around her- not because she agreed, but because she needed to stay as inconspicuous as possible for as long as possible.
If it were under any other circumstances, maybe she would have agreed with the message… but with how much the man on stage seemed to be talking about fighting, taking things by force… it didn't sit well with her. Violence against other people never sat right with her, even if she had killed more than a few bandits in her youth, but… innocent people? People who wanted to live their lives, whose only crime was being human? Never.
… The people who were bigoted jerks and made life harder for everyone could go suck an egg though.
"Tonight, we have a special comrade I am honored to introduce to you all! Commander Adam Taurus, leader of the Vale White Fang!"
Oh. Uh oh.
"Thank you, Lieutenant," Adam fucking Taurus strode onto stage as though nothing had ever happened to him, as if Ruby hadn't mauled him to with an inch of his life, as if he'd never had his weapon stolen or his arm taken or his entire torso ripped into by teeth that were the size of steak knives. She could sense his pain and anger, though, and even more she could sense the corruption oozing out of his left side. Grimm. All of it. She tried not to shudder too much at that revelation. "It truly is an honor to be back in the field after my… time away… and it warms my heart to see you all here- truly. I'd like to start off tonight by saying that the last year has been… rough. I apologize for that. Sacrifices have to be made on the altar of progress, and although it hurts me to take the livelihood of the innocent and the undeserving, the Dust we took will be used for a good cause- to put the power back into the hands of faunus, to shake off the chains of the oppressors, and to destroy those who would cast us down and make us their slaves! To that end, the strength of our hands and our weapons and our wills has proven… unfortunately inadequate. We've made great strides in the last few years, I know we all have- faunus rights are better than before, when we were treated as little more than animals, but still we are ostracized and cast out, treated as lesser, given less pay, less work, less food- and although we have gained much, we stand to gain so much more. Allow me to introduce to you all… our ally in our current ventures."
"Shit- that's Torchwick!" Blake hissed into her comm, startling Ruby out of her slight daze as the roaring swell of emotions rushed over her- the sheer amount of people in the area making it hard to sense much of anything, even her friends and family, who she could normally sense so well. It was intense, the euphoria of believing in a cause, the malice in the hearts of the White Fang members who just wanted to lash out and hurt the people that had caused them pain, the heady rush of excitement and the dizzying morass of confusion all hitting her at once.
"Torchwick!? The fuck is he doing here? Junior said he went to ground!" Yang's voice cut through the haze slightly, grounding Ruby in the moment as she did her best to keep her body together, grimacing a bit as she forced her rising grimm traits back under the surface before they could start to form properly.
"Whatever the case is, we need to act soon- Emerald, what's your status?"
"I'm starting to think bringing a group this big was a bad idea- I'm pretty sure we're about thirty seconds away from being sniffed out by someone- wait, who the hell? Shit!"
Ruby blinked, feeling a sudden spike of panic jolt through the group that had gone through the back, Emerald's signal cutting off in an instant as everyone's Auras suddenly dipped .
Wh- what happened!? Something was wrong- were they found out!? Torchwick stopped talking too- wait was that a Paladin!? Why was there a Paladin behind that curtain!?
"Blake I think we need to go! Emerald's team is under attack and they have two paladins up there and there's people moving around whose emotions are all weird and samey and I don't know what's going on! Get Sun and Mercury we need to go now!" Ruby whispered frantically into her comm, pushing her way through the crowd and ducking down so she could quickly shift back to her real self, grimacing as she melted down even further to become a shadow on the floor.
"On it! Wait shit- Adam saw me! We've been made!"
"Oh I knew this was a bad idea- what do we do!?"
"I got it!"
A deafening gunshot rang out then, scattering the crowd in a panic as Mercury leapt into the air and fired a shot directly into the electrical box mounted to the wall. In an instant, the lights went out, the crowd started running, and Torchwick and Adam started shouting orders.
Ruby did the same, leaping out of the ground and towards the back of the building, sending the panic alert to everyone stationed outside and gritting her teeth as she all but bulldozed through the door keeping her from helping her friends and-
"RUBY! GET OUT OF HERE!"
Skidded to a halt before the sight of four people in concealing black robes, two of them crackling with lightning and frost as they hovered in the air above her friends- all of whom were arrayed around the back room of the building in various states of wear and tear, dizzy and confused and-
"Hello Ruby Rose. It's so good to see you again. It's been too long."
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