Fiery Orange

I, Silva Branwen, feel tired and annoyed at how things have turned out. I was this close to sending the White Fang away peacefully, but Adam Taurus brought up the old grievances that made most faunus here want to use violence in the first place to get what they wanted. He is charismatic. I will give him that much, and clearly, he has no intention of changing his ways, so I feel sure that Blake Belladonna will leave him in the end. Sienna Kahn, Ilia Amitola, and the bull faunus drew their weapons out and aimed them at me.

The annoying part about all this is that I not only don't want to kill them, except Adam, of course, but I can't either. The reason being that their deaths would make them martyrs, which would galvanize the White Fang's change in policy to use more extreme measures to have their voice heard. I sighed and muttered to myself.

" I need a vacation."

I really do; I am getting sick and tired of Atlas's idiocy, and going to the Menagerie to get away from the bigotry I have to deal with during my stay sounds pretty nice right now. Some sun and fun, tropical climate, and taking the girls out to a nice private beach away from civilization are calling my soul, but enough whining for now. I drew out my Earth gunpowder hand cannon, which was identical to my Aura-powered one, and red ax to start my confrontation. I concentrated my Aura into my ears to protect them and fired the fire shots at Adam. One thing Dust-based gunpowder has over Earth's gunpowder is that it's far quieter by several decimals.

Firing a gun indoors has a chance of causing damage to one's eardrums because it's so loud, which is why people on Earth usually use suppressors or noise-canceling headphones to help prevent such damage. Needless to say, several faunus were stunned by the loud gunfire, especially those with animal ears plus factor in the metal hallways, which helped further transmit the sounds of my hand cannon, and made things easier for me. Sienna covered her tiger ears by reflex, and the other two weren't much better.

I swung the back of my ax at the Bengal tiger woman and knocked her back. Mental note to self, outfit the axes to be better blunt weapons to use non-lethally. Adam swung his sword at me in retaliation, and his blade met with the thermal cutting edge of my ax, which cut his sword Blush in half. Without his sword to take damage for him, the bull faunus is less of a threat now, too easy. I might have made my weapons a bit too effective in killing efficiency, which is good, but now I need to make a non-lethal weapon to use for sparing and capturing people alive. Still, this is why I wanted to do some field testing for my weapons, so I could learn what I needed to improve and adjust.

Ilia sent her electric whip sword at me, and it got sliced by my red ax like Adam's sword. Sienna then got up and charged at me while whirling her whip, which launched two blade projectiles which I dodged effortlessly. I then swung my ax at her, and she held her chain whip with both hands to block my strike, but like before, I cut through her weapon. I looked at the three before me with their respective weapons destroyed and felt a bit smug at disarming them so easily. I quickly suppressed my feelings as I wasn't done yet.

I fired my gunpowder hand cannon at Adam first; he dodged the first shot, but I landed the rest of the four bullets I had left. Unfortunately, I didn't make more Earth-based gunpowder bullets as they were mainly a test of whether or not I could successfully reproduce Earth's gunpowder. I holstered my hand cannon and took out my blue ax. The three stared at me with their broken weapons with gritted teeth as if they weren't going to surrender despite how easily I got the upper hand.

I decided to end this quickly. Without warning, I fired off a dark energy blast which filled the whole corridor, making it unavoidable, and after the blast cleared, I saw Adam's aura flicker and then shatter. He lost consciousness and fell to the ground. From the looks of it, Ilia and Sienna were not far off from exhausting their Aura, either. The Bengal tiger woman then demanded with fury.

" WITH ALL THAT POWER, WHY FIGHT AGAINST US?! YOU ARE A FAUNUS, TOO; SURELY YOU HAVE SEEN AND FELT HOW THE HUMANS TREAT YOU AND OUR KIND?"

I sighed and humored her by answering her question.

" You crossed my bottom line, nothing more, nothing less. When you sent a team to wipe out the Schnee family, you were committed to murdering children whose only crime is their last name, and everything I told you before is true. So I am not going to tolerate your foolishness as you clearly underestimate how easy it is to turn fear into hatred. If the humans hate the faunus enough, then all the work from those who came before us would have been for nothing as we would be deemed a dangerous animal that needs to be put down on sight."

The Bengal tiger woman had no retort to my answer as clearly; she knew that if the faunus started another war with the humans, they, we would lose or, at best, have a pyrrhic victory. I hope I don't regret what I am about to do.

" I am giving you one last chance to retreat with your men before Atlas gets itself back together enough to launch a counter-offensive."

In all honesty, I like Sienna; she has more than enough reasons to be like Adam and seek not equality but vengeance but acts with restraint and with the good of the faunus first. Plus, Ilia is also here, and she is a friend of Blake's, and I don't want to antagonize my favorite ninja cat girl without good reason. Although I am tempted to end Adam here and now, I will let him drive Blake away from the White Fang first before putting him down. Call me arrogant, but I feel some things are certain to play out regardless of my butterfly effects or influence. Like Adam digging his own grave with his relationship with Blake, Yang attending Beacon, or Weiss going outside Atlas to broaden her views. Of course, I could be wrong, but what happens, happens.

Sienna looks into my eyes for a few moments, then orders.

" White Fang, we are leaving!"

" But high leader-!"

" Enough! If we continue to go forward, we will accomplish nothing."

The White Fang grunts grumbled but obeyed and left after picking up Adam. The Bengal tiger woman then said to me.

" I want you to prove to me what you said about your controlling the SDC is true."

" How?"

I asked as I wasn't sure of the best way to do that, but Ilia chipped in.

" I have an idea..."

Hearing Ilia's idea, it wasn't a big deal, especially since it was something that Willow and I had already planned to do since our partnership had gotten stronger, but Sienna approved. As they retreated, I wondered how the aftermath would turn out in the end. I can only hope for the best.