The Forever Falls was a beautiful place, the red trees and leaves perpetually in the prettiest part of fall if without some of the more pretty oranges and browns he preferred. The bright red is, still, incredibly beautiful.
The strangeness of the forever falls whenever he thought about it, was trying to think of however it came about. His first instinct was it being a fairy tale of some kind, maybe some piece of folk lore from a story the creators made, not that he could confirm that theory.
Then he thought about magical science, like it was some wacky property of nature dust deposits and iron in the ground being soaked up by the trees. Rusted leaves would be a strange idea, and make anyone who walked five feet in here filled to the brim with tetanus, but considering when he squished the normal feeling leaves in his hands and didn't come away full of dust or even much more than normal leaf gunk he disregarded it.
He eventually decided it was just some wacky function of this world, because there was no sudden dispersal of trees once you reached the edge. It was like walking through some sort of portal because suddenly almost in a perfect line you went from red to green trees. If the leaves weren't on the ground on both sides he could almost spot the border.
Like children, some were skipping across the line and laughing as the column was still always behind while the grimm that once populated the border were dust in the wind.
"Here, I think I have split eyes as my faunus trait."
"That so?"
"Yeah, when I look out one eye I see red, when I see through the other I see green!"
The chuckles were shared in good faith.
He, however, barely paid attention or shared in the humor of his men. It had been fourteen days since he woke up as the Lieutenant, five since Adam left, three since he was approached by Cinder. Three whole days of just numb acceptance of his place in life… Three days of just… Not thinking. It was blissful, to just ignore the entire meeting and just work through the days as they made for eastern Vale. Work, camp, sleep, repeat. Sometimes Grim, but that high didn't last nearly as long when he remembered how he was trying to ignore his problems. It was a comfort that he didn't need to try and use his brain for any plans so far with the White Fang on the move.
'Marinating ideas' if he wanted an excuse.
Honestly, he was just thankful his body was capable of maintaining it all. The Lieutenant was nothing if not fit in all the right places for hiking and combat both.
But the numbness was beginning to fade and he had to force himself out of that pattern of just
ignoring the problem. God only knew when he would have to actually work with Her or her people…
'God, why does it have to be me…' He groaned from the comforts of his own mind.
'I wish I was half the mastermind needed for this bullshit.'
The tree he was leaning on gave him enough shade to not be bothered by the wait he had to endure. He once again was at the head of the column, if separated for the moment, stopping at the edge of forever falls with the same men joking about the border as they waited for the column to catch up and making sure the scouts gave the all clear forward. They were starting to get to the more populated wooded regions of Vale; it wouldn't do to have their presence noted and fed back to the SDC as Perry put it.
It gave him time to think and just ponder… everything. Especially time to roll the conversation over in his head and what he knew would be coming. How the White Fang would be instrumental in destroying an entire kingdom.
This wasn't even a problem he could just dump onto Adam when the man returned, because if he did what was really going to change? He couldn't guess how Adam will be after talking it out with Blake, what if that made the nutjob even crazier? Doesn't help the man didn't seemingly care about what he was doing the first time around when it came to slaughtering the defenders of Beacon…
Didn't help Adam probably couldn't win in a fight against Cinder. Maybe he could have before, but after her getting some of the Fall Maiden, probably not… It would be the height of irony if he tried to kick Adam into a better future just for the man to die to Cinder and put him back in charge of the Fang. Hell, knowing the knot in his chest was concerning the Bull Faunus, it might see him try his damndest to avenge the man then and there. Perry surely wouldn't be that far behind either considering what he tried when they met the woman.
No, this wasn't a problem he could just solve with Adam's return and he had no illusions about his own ability to fight Cinder as it stood.
So… Where did that leave him…
'Ozpin.' He tasted the words on his unspeaking lips while he rolled the idea around in his head. Adam wasn't the magical fixer of the problem, so what about the literal wizard?
'The man was more than capable of using all the knowledge I had of her plans. I could just run off to him after Adam returns and spill everything…' He mused to himself, warming up to the idea even as the guilt and anxious feeling swelled in his gut. It was the option he most wanted, to simply shove off whatever knowledge he had and then go stick his head in the sand, preferably somewhere he wouldn't be bothered by the results of…
'…Could Ozpin even stop Cinder?' It occurred to him. It would reduce whatever Cinder had now to hell in a handbasket, but how long would it delay her of all people? How far down the road would that kick the can? She wouldn't stop until she had the full power of the Maiden, it was all he knew for certain about her…
No… He couldn't just leave it all in Ozpin's hands, he didn't know just how well the man would handle it all. It would be a gamble if anything…
'I'll need to handle her… Permanently.' His thumb ran across the side of his chin as he came to the only conclusion he could think up…
'Let's just put the actual deed out of mind and think about how to do this first…' He sighed, kicking over a rock, the uneasiness of the idea sent away.
Then he felt his eyebrows narrow. Could he even do this? Not the whole killing Cinder thing, he hadn't even figured out step one, but the White Fang… Could he preserve it…?
…Did he want to preserve it? It's not as if he felt any personal loyalty to them, he was sympathetic to their cause but he was quite literally leading the fanatics of the entire thing… But then he felt that ball squish in his gut… It made him sick to even think about abandoning them. Lasting influence from the man he took over, the man clearly held some deep loyalty to the cause considering he was willing to crash an explosive train into Vale of all places and maybe die on impact…
'What did happen to him-' He shook his head,
'No, I'm getting side tracked.'
He sighed again, running a hand through his hair that turned into scratching before watching as the Column caught up at the same time as the Scouts came back, mental exhaustion taking hold… He would have to simply manipulate one of the most dangerous women in the world so he and the White Fang would come out on top…
'Why did I ever kick Adam after blake…'
There was a harsh truth that he's slowly coming to terms with in the White Fang, that there are no easy jobs. You had lax jobs, the cooks and camp sentries had it easy from where he stood, getting to spend hours over a stove to just cook meals or standing around for hours to make sure the Grim or some attacker didn't just destroy the camp while everyone slept. But that was also subjective wasn't it, because what he found lax or nicer wasn't what others would.
But the hard jobs had to be infiltrators and scouts, it was the only ones he could never see himself being good at. Sneaking ahead of the Fang, scouting out the target, not being found, then sneaking back to inform everyone about what was seen. God forbid they had to sneak into the place, like infiltrators had to do. He shuddered to imagine the hell you had to do when you did that, undercover cop style maybe? Can't think mines and hard labor were good for the body even in brief spurts.
He got to watch the laborers go to town with familiar looking chainsaws and not so familiar axes, the former cracking away at the still standing while the latter clearing branches off the fallen. A battlefield of dismembered limbs.
"Hehe… He."
He couldn't help the childish giggle from that line of thought. If only he could ignore the stare he got from the boar faunus that was, for some god known reason, appearing more and more in his life.
"Did you… See something, sir?"
He shook his head. "Don't worry about it, just a passing thought."
The ridge they were standing on each with a pair of binoculars let them watch the progress of the pair they sent to join up. Though, to be quite honest, he lost track of them. If he spots orange hair with deer antlers, he'll know they've made it in. For now, he just counted the half a dozen guards surrounding the work area and watched as faunus and maybe humans hacked away at the offending limbs like they were owed money. They probably were.
The lumber camp wasn't their main objective as they marched north east of Forever Falls, hell, they hadn't even planned to stop for it originally. He and Perry only stopped because of a less than stellar mention from one of the contacts they had, but evidently Perry wanted to simply scope it out for the time it took to camp for the night.
He was no expert, but just from the small map Perry had outlining these things, The SDC and other companies had thousands of these little encampments, little more than a wooden palisade from what he could tell–Wall is probably more correct, but Palisade is always the cooler word–and some temporary buildings hauled out and constructed. They were mainly just labor camps for people who really needed the money, the White Fang, from what he managed to catch when Perry was bringing it up, avoided them unless they were particularly bad.
Hence, here they were, dully watching and waiting to see if they needed to intervene and save their fellow Terrorist.
He smiled at the idea of blowing up some lumber yard… Did Smokey exist in Remnant? Something to check if they ever got back into CCT range.
Regardless of that, he turned his mind back towards their end goal; The Dust Mines. Now, he was no expert when it came to things like the reasonable amount of guns needed to fend off Grim. Yet, when he stopped comparing it to the towns they didn't stop at and this lumber camp they did, He was convinced that they were not preparing to seize a dust mine but an entire fortress.
God only knew what was even- "I see them."
The voice brought him out of his thoughts to actually look at what he was seeing instead of staring into the middle distance. It didn't take him long to notice the petite woman helping haul a tree into the clearing and beginning to hack away at it with an axe she got from somewhere, the deer horns on her head being a bigger marker than the hair. It took him shamefully longer to notice the man with the silver dog tail across from her.
He grunted, shifting to lay on his side instead of his chest. "We'll watch until the end of the day, then we'll return to camp." He tuned out the resulting affirmative 'yes, Sir' from beside him, instead directing his attention back to watching Faunus work for their wages. If he had the energy, he would have patted himself on the back for not audibly sighing at the hardest job he's had so far in the White Fang.
Even as the sun went down and they watched for hours, he bemoaned the fact he wasn't trying to bash Knights or destroy a spider droid again as he struggled to stay awake.
When he said he wanted to come and do this, protection and swift response, he expected that he would be waiting and ready instead of being bored out of his mind. He wanted to escape all the thoughts and doubts and planning, instead he was laying in the dirt doing it anyhow…
He did consider the Chainsaw the ones felling trees were using, and the startling similarities they held to the one which lay at his side. Not as… Advanced is the wrong word, but they were clearly meant to be easily replaceable if they broke. They were old and worn, almost haphazardly kept together, yet they did their job with teeth as sharp as ever…
It was almost like his' was something altogether modified yet top of the line… The irony of Lieutenant trying to kill Weiss with her own company's equipment was morbidly humorous to him. Symbolism be damned, if nothing else.
Who was the Lieutenant whose body he took over, genuinely? Some Faunus laborer who came out and slaughtered some abusive lumber camp like some horrible slasher movie villain? A laborer who took one too many insults and decided to sink the blade into whatever guard was closest instead of a tree? He certainly didn't feel a murderous rage as he watched faunus handle their rapidly moving saws or cut down trees, not like he did when Adam was being insulted to his face…
Didn't that blind rage and loyalty scare him as well… It wasn't Him… Or at least, it wasn't his mind… Where the hell the Lieutenant went, whether that right hand man of Adam was persisting continued to bog down his thoughts sometimes. Too many strange occurrences, too many flukes or changes, hell the fact that he was so capable within this giant of a body with little adjustment…
It was past sunset when the Faunus finally stopped work for the day, setting out back to the safety of the walls. Why they didn't stop before, he could only assume night vision. Why bother when all your workers can see just fine after dark, or some such like that… 'Attribute not maliciousness where Greed could be?' Something like that, anyway.
He stood with the other Faunus following after, stretching after so many hours on his front and sides, the two of them set back out to the White Fang Camp. Now, it would only take time to see what their people found out.
And hopefully they could safely skip this place so he didn't have to possibly repeat what lead Lieutenant to the White Fang in the first place.
There is always an expectation of greatness when one gains animal traits, like that you'll receive something especially grand or staggeringly in its 'coolness' factor. People got tails, ears, hell, he saw some even with literal animal eyes that made him envious. He always liked Crocodiles, so he could imagine getting their slitted eyes, or maybe a reptile tail. Hell, even just hands or feet, just cool items like that.
Instead, he sat in the predawn air in front of his small fire as the camp came to life with the smell from the kitchen, glaring down at the eggs and sausage which once more plopped onto his plate. In a world where people have amazing animal features, he got stuck with some beast's teeth that did. Not. FIT. in a
human jaw. Two great canines and a smattering of other teeth saw him unable to wrap his lips far enough down, leaving them perpetually open. Hell, maybe he had two sets of teeth in his fucked up mouth. He sure as shit hadn't talked to a dentist since he woke up here.
Regardless, that left him to struggle to eat his food every meal. Having to tilt his head like an actual animal to chew without losing it to the wind.
He angrily shoved his fork once more into the platter, bitterly having to fight through this routine every meal in one of the few times his body didn't idly follow muscle memory. Relearning how to EAT wasn't on his bucket list.
If it was just that, he might be tempted to go and actually eat with the rest of the White Fang, he sure as shit wasn't immune to the growing sense of loneliness stirring in the back of his mind. God knows he hasn't hugged anyone in weeks, touch starvation only adding to the feeling of isolation. No, there was another glaringly obvious problem with having teeth that did not sit nicely in one's jaw-
"Lieutenant-"
"What?!" He snapped, glaring over his shoulder at- At some white fang he didn't recognize. Not a particularly rare thing, but the way they flinched back at his words saw his anger bubble away. A smidge, but progress and all that… He clenched his eyes shut as he turned back, mentally counting down. His hand came up to rub his eyes as he forced himself to inhale and exhale, before grunting. "What is it." Much more calm.
Even as he glared at the plate like it offended him. Because it did. Or at least the contents did.
The smell of fresh breakfast hit his nose and he turned to see the poor sap was half a step away from bolting, the plate in their hand shaking. It was like a nervous- 'No.' He mentally corrected himself 'Lets not start that…'
Turning away, he sighed again, idly picking through breakfast to try and not feel as guilty as he did, before just shoving another bite through the maze of teeth. "What did you need?" Through a mouthful of food that spat onto the ground and fire- Hence why he didn't usually sit with others… Every word, every forgetful swallowing of his own spit, saw it escape out through his lips like he was some damned toddler. He was a Grown man! It was enough to shame him into this stupid isolation, then when he did have his mask on he was so damn intimidating no one fucking approached besides Perry.
God, why is daily life even a problem- That should be Cinder or the Murderous Fanatics surrounding him!
It actually surprised him when the grunt sat down, not directly but a 'healthy' distance to his left and out of arm's length, he was deep enough in his thoughts he didn't even notice the faunus' approach. Instead of calling them out on it, he looked them up and down. From the nervous seated shuffle, the way they didn't even look in his direction, even the way they picked at their food- didn't need to be fully socially aware to notice the nerves of it all.
He was wondering if putting his mask on would help or hurt the situation, yet had barely started to think about it when the White Fang blurted "Did Blake leave?!" The masked man tensed up, as if they were expecting to get beat for even asking that.
It would be a stretch to say his jaw dropped, for all that his lips couldn't close, he had enough self control to not spill what he had out willingly. Instead, he slowly finished chewing the bite he had, watching the grunt beside him very slowly over the course of a few moments relax and actually look in his direction. Now he was just wondering if his reputation was that bad or he was king of the fanatical hill that hurled the hacked up remnants of challengers down to the ground.
It was only after he swallowed, his eyes not looking away from the man he responded to the increasingly uncomfortable man. "Why are you asking." The command was followed by another bite of breakfast, since he didn't have the luxury of knowing when he was going to have to run off and kick down the gates to a lumber camp.
His words caught the man more off guard, for all the mask hid whatever expression the guy had, it didn't hide how they moved like HE was getting ready to jump and snap their spine.
Now he was really curious what his reputation was, if he's being treated like a rabid animal. Especially since he saw nothing of that on the train or marching.
"W-Well…" The guy piped up, moving his breakfast around the plate, "No one's seen her and with Adam Gone…"
He took another bite while they looked for words.
"I guess I'm just nervous…" The man admitted "With the Mine raid coming up… Blake was probably the best of us when it came to sneaking around and inspiring workers…" There was a blush across the man's cheeks as admiration came out in droves, who pointedly looked everywhere but at him. "She was the reason I joined- And with both her and Adam missing, I'm worried about the upcoming raids…"
He swallowed whatever was left of his meal and dropped his fork to the plate, as he leaned back in his seat, rubbing his chin at the awkwardness of this all…
'God, I have to manage personal feelings
because that's part of morale… God only knows how many others are distraught about Blake's disappearance alongside Adam… How many knew? That Blake was actually gone…'
He paused at that thought, and tried to think back… But he couldn't recall Adam really telling anyone or that anyone besides him and Perry knew the particulars… If Perry did, it's not like they discussed it since Adam left… Shaking himself from his own thoughts, he didn't really know what to say to it all, so instead he grunted as he grabbed his mask from his lap to affix to his face.
"Adam left after Blake." He admitted easily enough, which saw the grunt's attention return to him. "They are off to settle something, it sounded personal." He shrugged "It wasn't my business," It absolutely was "but Adam said it would take two, three months at most. I imagine she'll return then."
The Fang perked up at his words, "R-really? Lieu-" "Lieutenant!"
Another voice cut in, seeing him look to find another member running up. "The infiltrators returned, sir! They're waiting for you in the command tent!"
He grunted, standing and handing his plate to the seated white fang. "If you're thankful, take this and inform whoever else is asking about Blake." With the ease of experience in mind and body that was swiftly becoming section nature, his chainsaw was hauled up and readied.
He didn't look back to the White Fang who shouted 'Yes, Sir' and 'Thank you, Sir!' to his back as he marched off with the messenger.
No he couldn't really imagine Blake returning in the slightest. But he didn't need to, with Adam here they could at least minimize whatever faith was lost with Adam's own brand of confidence.
It was enough once for the White Fang, it'll be more than enough this time too.
…But how many of his problems can genuinely be solved with Adam's return…
The dawn was only just now starting to peak over the edge of the horizon, and the time for them to make a decision about how they'll be planning to handle the lumber camp was quickly coming across. Outside, the camp came to life as the White Fang were strapping on boots and eating breakfast and they would need to decide whether to go and assault the camp or march off to the Mine before they finished.
He stood at the planning table with his arms crossed as the silver tailed infiltrator began drawing a rough sketch of what they were looking at, which wasn't much. A wooden wall surrounding several buildings, marked helpfully as 'Officers, Workers, Clinic, Workshop, Mess'.
He had to hand it to the guy, for all the exhaustion that was clearly weighing them down, they had immaculate drawing ability. Guess he knew what artists in the White Fang did for the cause. But what he most watched was the faces of the antlered orange girl and the silver dog guy, because it felt so strange to actually see someone's face instead of the White Fang mask he was so used to. Sure there was Cinder and her lot, but this was still a real moment he realized how little he's seen people's faces.
It was only after the map was fully drawn that the Orange headed woman spoke up. "It wasn't as bad as we thought initially, there were plenty of disgusting work hours, but nothing outright deadly. Half of the workers are awake during the day where they haul down trees and transport them to the Workshop where the other workers go work through the night." Deerly took the pen from the other infiltrator to write down some rough estimates of worker numbers.
"It's bad, but there are much worse and far more predatory camps out there." She continued, handing the pen back who proceeded to draw guard rotations and times they saw over the night. "To be honest, the bunks weren't good but they worked, the plumbing was fine, Workers had to pay to use the chainsaws which wasn't out of the ordinary for the money sucking companies but beyond that nothing stood out. Everything is definitely below what they should be, more greedy than malicious, but faunus camp and all that..."
There was a round of scowls from everyone involved at the words alone. Except him strangely enough, but that was probably because he didn't know what the borderline actually was. Times like this he was thankful he had a full face mask.
"We were near enough to crack into the Officer's building to see what we could in there when I went into the clinic…" The deer faunus' school expression cracked, almost like she was enduring physical pain and for the first time hesitated. She and silver shared a look between them silently arguing.
He uncrossed his arms and leaned on the table. "And what," His voice broke their staring contest, landing both eyes firmly on him "Did you find." He felt the eyes of the rest of the White Fang involved–Perry and a few other sargents and the like– Locked onto him for a few moments, waiting with a baited breath as the tension in the room ratched up, sending goosebumps down his back, before sliding onto the two infiltrators.
Ironically, he watched the deer faunus look onto his masks' eyeholes, before sliding onto the chainsaw that leaned against the table beside him. She visibly swallowed down her nerves before she explained what they found.
There are worlds ruled by regulations, where the people care so much that their work force continues to work and make sure they went home with everything they arrived with and the ability to come back the next day and put their back into producing quality work. He would know, it was how he understood the workforce of his previous life where serious dedication and work went into making sure corners weren't being cut. OSHA irritation or anger be damned.
Fingers, toes, equipment breaking regularly detaching pieces of workers without the blood even drying before slapping new parts on to continue with the wounded hauled off to medical to maybe reattach the piece. Beyond that, trees falling and hurting people, limbs breaking off of trees and knocking workers unconscious, splinters and sawdust were so plentiful on laborers they could have rebuilt several trees with those alone.
With every listed grievance, the blood pressure of the room went up, leaving him alone in standing there slack jawed and wondering what Bond villain was going to come out of the shadows of a balcony and monologue at him. It was so cartoonishly evil in a world of robots and magic he was wondering who was pulling a prank on him. The corner cutting was so sharp it was literally cutting people to pieces.
The distinct lack of diseases ravaging the camp despite the conditions gave him some flicker of hope. They at least keep everyone clean and healthy, so long as you count 'in multiple pieces' as healthy.
He mulled it over, even as questions were shouted from the people around him, leaning back on his heels to cross his arms. Perry was asking of the logistics beyond what was told, some of the others he vaguely recognized from the train were demanding answers to defenses the camp holds, yet he mostly tried to coast by for the moment…
'Dust is one thing, it's what literally runs the world and helps fight the grim off, I can understand the idea of some pragmatically cynical robber baron being a prick and bribing the world into turning the other cheek, horrible, but I can wrap my head around something justifiably horrible, but… Lumber camps? Being this bad?!'
It was a concept he was struggling to wrap his head around, discrimination and predatory laws regardless, he honestly thought Slaves would get treated better than…
This. He desperately wanted this to be some massive joke, if just for the sake of his sanity.
When he zoned back into the conversation, the whole of the tent was looking at him for some reason or another. He actually gave a few more moments to try and figure out what they had talked about but came up blank, so instead he grunted. "How many guards."
"Two dozen and a half guards, if that." The deer quickly belted out.
He stopped dead at the sentence, his mind trying to do mental math of that- He could feel the headache forming.
'Two dozen and a half…? How fuckin' many is- I'm going to have a conniption- WHY NOT JUST SAY THIRTY?!' He exhaled loudly through his nose, which saw Perry and the one on his right lean away from him before he realized how that might have come off as angry.
The deer faunus looked scared again and he couldn't guess why she'd thought it was aimed at her before he turned to look at Perry, to the audible relief of the girl. "How long until we need to be at the mine?"
"Three days if our contacts are correct. If we assault the camp today, we would be cutting it close." Perry responded as if he had the answer ready. "That's IF we choose to continue with the plan we made and the information is good, we have no reason to suspect either has changed."
He contemplated that for a few moments, vaguely agreeing with a "Hrmmm." Three days to make it there to get their plan established for the assault on the Mine, else they would need to go back to the drawing board and that would set them back further…
"Hraa," he growled angrily "Send someone with a banner and offer the Camp to surrender." That sent a wave of angry sputters and shouts that he silenced them all with a glare through his mask. "We don't have the time to properly assault the camp if we want to keep our time table and still get out of this part of Vale before the SDC responds in force and reinforces their holdings. We've hit two trains, one more than we already should have, and if we want to get to that mine and clear it we need to do so
fast."
He swept the tent with his head, showing them all he was challenging them all, daring anyone disagree with him, though none did.
"It's either we quickly get the camp to capitulate and we move in to assist, or we spend the whole day assaulting the camp and possibly miss our chance to deal another blow to the SDC before they move to reinforce everything this side of Mount Glenn." That sent a grumble through the faunus in the tent, but he shrugged and brushed them all off. "If they reject, then we can still strike and simply risk the mine, or they accept and we'll be gone by noon all feeling better that we helped more Faunus."
If anyone there disagreed with him, they didn't show it. No, no one spoke up in the slightest, even the two infiltrators who had the 'pleasure' to go and see the insides of that camp, though the deer looked angry about it. He couldn't really blame her, he imagined the Foreman of the camp as some piece of Garbage.
He looked towards Perry, who nodded. "I'll get sorted, Sir. Normal terms?"
He grunted his assent, fully unaware of what that meant, before turning towards the rest. "Get the White Fang ready to move out. Either to assault or March, I want this camp ready to move regardless." He looked to the two infiltrators and nodded "Get some rest, we'll need you for the Mine."
Silently the rest of the camp left, leaving him to sigh and shake a hand through the stubble he had called hair. The buzz cut did nothing besides keep his head cool and hair out of the way.
"I've decided I hate leadership."
"HA!" Perry laughed, seeing him jerk in surprise that the smaller man hadn't left yet. "If nothing else, you handled intimating the rest to back down. They wouldn't have done that if I tried."
He snorted. "Not when they saw me holding a chainsaw behind you." He sighed, shaking and rolling his shoulders. "So, what's the likelihood we'll be gone by Noon?" The likelihood of the camp accepting surrendering.
Perry shrugged. "We'll have to see how much of a coward the Foreman is."
He could only grunt at that.
He stood to the side of the gate, Chainsaw resting on his shoulder as the workforce of the camp drove off back to civilization on the trucks used to transport lumber and workers. The White Fang medics had the beds scrubbed down so there wasn't anymore wood or sawdust on them, an impossibility from what he last saw, but the wounded were far better off on the truck beds then in the clinic as it turned out.
Saw what you will about the Terrorist shtick, the White Fang had doctors in all but name hanging around ready to patch someone up. The several dozen stitchings and limbs being reattached probably helped more lives than anything else he's done.
With the Guards, quite literally little better than hired militia, disarmed and already gone alongside the Foreman who was surprisingly ANGRIER than the White Fang about the living conditions in the camp despite being stonewalled for months apparently on the state of its equipment. The faunus heritage showed through when the man showed off his claws. That was another contact made and one who was quite happy to give all the dirt the White Fang wanted on the living conditions here that went against several labor and racial laws…
He just felt happy he didn't have to murder someone.
So he stood alongside much of the White Fang, as the Workers were paid out of our own pockets with any lien the Foreman couldn't offer up at the moment from the Camp's discretionary funds. Then, they were leaving on trucks, with so many different expressions towards the watching Fangs he couldn't be sure they were all happy to go… Human or Faunus, mixed camp.
He did know one thing he would follow up on… "Mark the name down." He murmured to Perry. "We'll be having a deep discussion with whoever runs Ashford's Lumber the next time we're in Vale."
AN:
Bleh. BLEH. I fucking hated so much of this chapter. I had a different outline for this chapter I tossed away because I felt like I lost too much momentum. I had that outline done like... A week? After the last chapter, then got distracted doing writing obligations I had elsewhere- It hurt to put this down as well lemme tell you- then I got stuck trying to make a new outline- Everything outside that first section suuuuucked man. Some days I literally wrote 20 words, not even two sentences man.
BLEH, Sorry for how this chapter reads. I have half the outline for the next one ready still, but damn if it don't hurt.
Join this
Server! Where you can yell at me in real time how much you love or hated this fic. Trying to get my own channel so discussing the fic there helps.
Also looking for a Beta, assuming this goes the Distance.
EDIT:
Forgot to mention before I sent this off like a monkey with a Type Writer, its my birthday in like, a Month, so I'll probably make a poll for a 'What this story almost was' omake in like ehhhh, four days. Depending on God's offense to my existence.
