Chapter Text
Paranoia pays off, far more often than not. Trust is important, but sometimes, one of the few people you thought you could trust kills you. For most people, once you’re dead, you’re dead. For Sienna, a carefully curated network of lies, half-truths, and her semblance mean that, if she’s careful, death isn’t permanent. A side effect of this is knowing all too well when her paranoia is proven right.
It would be nice for her paranoia to be unfounded for once in her life. But there are those that say that a semblance is an extension of one’s self, in a way. By that logic, it makes perfect sense that her semblance would be what it is: a way to undo anything, even her own death, if she’s paranoid enough to set the timer in advance.
Which of course she is. She always is, but this time… she should have been paranoid months ago, paranoid enough to avoid this before it got this bad. The list of people she knows she can trust, already painfully short, is down one. Maybe it has been for a long time. Maybe her old protege should never have made the list in the first place.
She reaches out with her aura, carefully feels around for that distinct sense of being watched. Nothing. No one else’s aura is nearby. No one is here.
Good.
She pushes herself up with her arms. They had laid her body on a makeshift stretcher, covered her with a blanket, and left her in a storage room full of large, wooden crates on pallets. They were, however, nice enough to leave Cerberus Whip nearby for burial with her.
Her burial must not have been as high on the list of priorities as starting the second war with humanity. How typical of Adam.
She should have seen this coming miles away. The first hint of his plans should not have been when her guards no longer listened. In retrospect, it wasn’t. Casualties are unavoidable in any revolution, but Adam always went out of his way to maximize those of the humans. It had seemed sometimes like her old protege wanted to kill humans more than he wanted to protect faunus.
Near the end, he became much worse at hiding it. This is as much a surprise as Ghira’s daughter leaving. Blake’s departure had seemed out of the blue when it happened. That, much like this, had been coming for a long time.
Sienna gets to her feet. She picks up her whip. She wraps the chain around her forearm, as it usually is when not in use. Obviously, she’s in no position to be able to relax, but now that she has her whip back, she can’t help but relax a little.
She’s alone. She knows she’s alone, but she checks again just to be safe. Safer, at least, nothing about this is safe. She leans back against a stack of crates, closes her eyes again, and focuses. Her current aura level is at just over half of full. More evidence that she died there, and that no one’s monitored her body since. It is heartening, at least, to know that if it comes to it she can escape death again. If she’s careful, it won’t come to that.
She activates her semblance once more, expending about ten percent of her aura to set a timer for an hour and a half. Visually, there’s no change. That done, she doesn’t hear anything nearby, she doesn’t see anything nearby, she doesn’t feel anything nearby… However, dealing with Adam will be significantly easier if she is believed dead. So, she really can’t be too careful. Or too paranoid.
She’s still alone. Good.
Current plan: escape, don’t be recognized, don’t let anyone figure out she’s alive from the notable lack of a body, deal with Adam and possibly an entire revolutionary force gone rogue. Not necessarily in that order. The middle two could be included under escape, though, and that’s her first priority. Then deal with whatever Adam had planned.
Assuming, of course, that for once in his life Adam has a plan. He’s never been much for the big picture. Especially if he wants to attack Haven Academy.
Why would he want to attack one Academy, never mind multiple? As of several years ago, all four secondary huntsmen academies were accepting both humans and faunus students. Atlas was the final one. She remembers that well, less because of the event itself and more because she had gone out with Ghira and Kali for drinks to celebrate. It had been one of the last times they would meet as friends.
Either Adam didn’t plan this at all, or someone else is pulling his strings and Sienna has an even bigger problem on her hands. From what she does remember, it’s seeming more and more like this was planned. Sneaking a human into her base of operations wouldn’t have been spontaneous. Neither was ensuring every guard on this particular shift was loyal to Adam and not her.
Ironically, she recalls the human being the least aggressive of the group. Rare, for a human. But Adam did mention the man having a powerful master.
She’ll have time to consider this later. Now is the time for escape, and she can think while she’s moving. Luck is on her side tonight, because the first crate she pulls open has spare uniforms inside. While the vest is very obviously White Fang attire, the pullover underneath it – essential in the chilly night air of Anima – is a simple, nondescript, dark grey hoodie.
She grabs that and a set of gloves, pulls them both on. Her scroll – Adam hadn’t taken it? It’s almost like he, and the rest of the White Fang, believe her semblance to be something else entirely – is tucked into her bag, and a few quick taps open the camera app.
She pulls up the hood, and looks herself over.
It won’t be enough to avoid close scrutiny, but it’s enough that nobody will look at her and immediately think Sienna Khan. As long as she doesn’t attract any attention, it should do for now.
Time to escape from her own base of operations. This is clearly what she wanted to do with her Friday night. Not that she could do much before, being a wanted criminal. But the point still stands: she needs to get out, without attracting much notice, and she needs a reason why her body will suddenly be missing.
Yellow eyes sweep the room. Her gaze finds the torch merrily blazing away near the entrance to this storage room, recalls the various crates full of clothing that certainly aren’t fireproof. She had been meaning to work on making the Mistral base of operations less flammable, but never got around to it. For all Adam’s ambition, he never sees the big picture. He never will. But, assuming that for once he did – he simply won’t have had enough time to deal with the possibility of a fire, nor the incentive to. He’ll have the incentive to once she’s gone.
For the first time since she died, Sienna smiles.
As it turns out, it’s hard enough to travel when you’re a wanted criminal but have the resources of the White Fang on your side. Throw in having to avoid the White Fang and the authorities, the CCT network still being down, and being legally dead, and hard suddenly becomes damn near impossible.
Sienna hasn’t survived everything life threw at her to give up at near impossible. Public airships don’t run to Menagerie, and taking one of the White Fang’s has been out for a long time. Which is why she’s on a ferry.
Now, near impossible was still doable , but never ideal . There are worse ways to travel, like smaller boats. At least in a boat of this size, she doesn’t have to worry about being splashed.
That doesn’t keep her from staring down at the water, ears flicking irritably underneath her hood. It means she’s still on edge. This is her one opportunity to not be on edge, while the ship is out in the open ocean. Nobody in the White Fang would, in their right mind, take public transportation to Menagerie – not unless they had no other option.
Footsteps. Slow, deliberate, purposeful footsteps, not light or fast enough to be the rabbit-eared triplets dashing about earlier.
There should be no danger to her on this ship. Unless she was tailed, somehow. Quietly, subtly, she pulls up one of her hooded cloak’s sleeves.
“Traveling alone?”
Her hand finds her whip. One quick motion, one quick lashing out, and she’ll be able to deal with this before it becomes a problem. Adam shouldn’t have known. There should be nobody following her.
Maybe there isn’t. Maybe she’s just being paranoid.
“What’s it to you?” Sienna asks.
She turns, gives the man a cursory glance. It’s the captain of the ship, one of the few humans on board. Not long ago, she would have been suspicious because he was a human.
Now, she’s suspicious of him because he’s talking to her, not just because he’s a human. Anyone could have a connection to Adam, and he clearly no longer has any qualms about working with humans to get what he wants. Which is, apparently, a war with humanity.
Let it not be said that Adam Taurus ever had any sort of method to his madness.
“I’m just curious. I’ve found that passengers traveling alone tend to have the most interesting stories. Don’t suppose there’s any chance of getting yours?”
“Not a chance.”
Slowly, carefully, Sienna pulls her sleeve back down over her whip. Not a problem, just a particularly annoying human who doesn’t know how to mind his own business. Unfortunately, her action doesn’t go unnoticed by him.
“You a huntress?”
“Sure,” she says. Obviously she’s not licensed as one, but she can handle a few Grimm.
“Hm. You know, my last trip to Menagerie, I had a couple of kids who were training for that. I had a pretty similar conversation with one of them – nice girl, long black hair, cat ears, clearly running from something, don’t suppose you would know her?”
Sienna visibly stiffens. She looks back out at the ocean, and forces herself to relax. Even so, she can’t stop her brow from furrowing.
“Blake,” she murmurs under her breath.
That was an extremely accurate description of Ghira and Kali’s daughter, barring the ‘clearly running from something’ part. The last she’d seen of Blake Belladonna was shortly before she left. She’d been proud, and angry, but… conflicted, and nobody had known where she went.
Not even Adam, and he hadn’t reacted well at all. With that in mind, she has a bad feeling about what, or rather who, Blake was running from. If Blake is in Menagerie, she needs to be warned that Adam controls the White Fang now. And she deserves an apology for what Sienna should have seen sooner.
Sienna had taken this ship to Menagerie to warn her parents, because if Adam was willing to stage a coup against his High Leader, he would be more than willing to attack those he’d never liked in the first place. Now, with Blake in the mix…
Adam is going to go after her. It’s not a question of why, but when. He’ll use her family against her.
“How much longer until we arrive?” she asks.
“I’d say tomorrow morning, barring any Grimm attacks. Any particular reason why, or…?”
“There’s a reason.”
Sienna just isn’t going to tell some random human what it is, regardless of how much he clearly wants to ask. He opens his mouth to do so, Sienna prepares herself to continue deflecting until he gets bored, and–
“RED ALERT!” A crew member in the crow’s nest calls. An alarm sounds, and they yell, louder, “LANCERS STARBOARD!”
Sienna has literally never been so glad to see Grimm. She crosses to the other side of the ship, and – yeah, those are definitely lancers. She counts a swarm of eight, flying fast and buzzing angrily, and…
They’re coming too quickly. The ship’s guns shoot frantically, but most of the lancers easily dodge at this range. One is caught and is disintegrated midair, but the others are still coming too fast.
If the passengers have any sense, they’ll have gotten belowdecks. Except Sienna hears a muted whimper from behind her. She looks, sees three pairs of wide eyes staring back at her in terror. It’s the kids from earlier, the girls with brown hair and rabbit ears sticking up from them. Each of them is wearing a different colored bow in their hair, and they’re–
Terrified. Clearly. What kid wouldn’t be? Except they should be below with the rest of the passengers and not up here where they can get hurt.
Sienna might have been persuaded to help with the Grimm earlier, but now she has another reason to. She unwinds Cerberus Whip, and looks again to the lancers, then to the kids.
They have about twenty seconds before the lancers get here. Sienna doesn’t waste any more of them. Instead, she says, urgently, “You need to get below. Now.”
One of the girls, the one with a red bow, looks at her with even wider eyes. “Are you a huntress?”
“Why does everyone–” She sighs. “Technically, no, but I don’t think the Grimm know the difference. I can take them, but you need to get below with everyone else. On the… count of three. Alright?”
The girl with the red bow nods, and grabs her sisters’ hands. There’s a resolve in her eyes now that almost reminds Sienna of her own, long ago. It’s seeing this resolve that lets her turn back to the lancers.
“One,” she says.
Deep breath. In and out. Fighting Grimm isn’t like fighting humans. They’re more predictable, and they’re attracted to strong negative emotions. Which is why she thinks of Adam, lets her hatred and spite and bitterness surge to the forefront of her mind.
Adam could have been a hero for faunus everywhere. He could have been a good leader, not the kind who would backstab the people who helped him rise in the first place. Instead, he chose the path of betrayal and anger.
Sienna may have been leading a revolutionary force widely considered to be a terrorist group, but she knows how to use her anger, to direct it at those who deserve it, and she knows when enough is enough. Adam clearly never has.
“Two.”
The lancers focus on her. They charge, and so does she. Sienna reaches the side of the ferry first. She jumps up onto the railing, whip at the ready.
“THREE!”
The kids run, and she leaps into action. A flick of her wrist sends Cerberus Whip lashing out. The chain wraps itself around the leading lancer’s abdomen. One of the darts on the end digs in, giving her all the hold she needs. She swings up underneath the lancer, and yanks down.
The lancer dissolves into black dust. Six left.
A shot rings out behind her, and another lancer evaporates in midair. Five left. Seems the ship’s crew isn’t entirely useless. With that in mind, Sienna pulls her whip to a specific angle, and fires.
The ice dart misses its target entirely, as darts fired from the end of a length of chain called a whip often do. The force of its firing, however, does propel Sienna backwards enough that she can return to the ship’s railing and attack from there.
She lashes out again, and pulls again. Four left. Then three, and two, and the last one is too far away for her to just hit it with the whip. So she grabs a spare dart out of her pouch, aims carefully, and throws.
Sienna hadn’t bothered to check which kind of dust this particular one was loaded with, because any kind could do the job. Ice dust would freeze it solid. Fire dust would set it aflame, not that it would burn for very long. In the end, it turns out to be lightning dust, because the air crackles with electricity so potent Sienna can feel it from the ship.
The last lancer falls. Hits the waves below with an oddly satisfying sploosh. And Sienna lets out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Her heart’s pounding away in her chest as she slides up the sleeve of her cloak. She rewraps her whip around her forearm, pulls the sleeve back down.
Footsteps again. Probably the captain of the boat. Again. She doesn’t bother looking at him this time, either.
“You’re welcome,” she says.
“Thank you.” He comes up to the railing, leans on it, looks out at the now clear skies. “So, it seems I was mistaken in assuming you were a huntress. I would, however, like to know what the High Leader of the White Fang is doing on my boat.”
Sienna realizes, far too late, that she can feel the wind in her hair. Her hood fell down, at some point during the fight.
She maybe could have thought that through better. But it’s clearly too late now. She reaches for her hood, pulls it back up. Useless though it may be.
“Going to Menagerie, same as everybody else,” Sienna says. “You seem to be taking that rather well for a human.”
He shrugs. “My stepmom is faunus. Even if she wasn’t, you did save my ship.”
“Fair enough.” She puts a hand on the railing, tries not to grip it too hard. “Who else knows?”
“First Mate Skye, they’re on shift in the crow’s nest. I sent all other hands below when the lancers arrived.”
Sienna looks at him this time. “That was you shooting? Not bad.”
He laughs. “Could have been better. I’m glad you were here. So are three little girls that might not have made it below without you, and their family.”
A human? Glad she’s here? That’s a first.
“The trips are getting more and more dangerous, truth be told,” he continues. “On the last one, there was some kind of sea dragon. Sea Feilong was what one of the kids last trip told me. Nice boy, outgoing, he did help save the ship so I pretended not to notice he didn’t actually have a ticket. It’s… getting to the point where I’d hire huntsmen, if I could.”
“But there’s too many that are just as bad as the rest of the humans,” Sienna guesses. “If I could, I’d send some of the White Fang to help. Some of our members are as skilled as licensed huntsmen, if not more so.”
“What’s stopping you?”
Sienna isn’t about to tell him. It’s not like it’s hard to guess.
“If you were the leader of the White Fang,” Sienna mutters, “what would make you flee to Menagerie and do everything you can to not be recognized?”
He looks at her. Doesn’t seem to get it. And then, all of a sudden, he does.
“I remember now. There was a report that you’d died,” he says. “On this ship’s last voyage to Menagerie, there was a huntress in training with black hair and cat ears. You reacted when I mentioned her earlier. Is she an enemy of the White Fang too?”
“She wasn’t. But considering who just killed me and took charge? She will be.”