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Chapter 32: White Fang
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After washing up and changing into the spare clothes in his locker, Robin went and sat on the bleachers to watch his friends spar. It turns out that they finished their matches right around that time.
After the group finished cleaning themselves up, they sat together and talked about their fights.
“So how did you guys do?” Robin asked.
“I fought Blake for my spar.” Ophelia said.
“It was pretty close. Not sure who won.”
“It was a complete win by me.” Blake explained to Robin.
“Hey!”
“I fought that Osagi kid and lost.” Conner grumbled.
“Really?” Ophelia had a shocked look on her face.
“You can be pretty sneaky with your traps. How did you lose?”
“He used his semblance I think. Some beam of light shone from his body and blinded me. I think it somehow let him see through the smokescreen and traps I placed.”
= Interesting. A blinding light that reveals location of traps and enemies. A rather more improved version of my Bloodlust, but the blinding has no effect on me. Bloodlust gives me a solid image of the enemy's body. =
At that moment, Adam walked over even more depressed than Conner. For the proud kid that he was, defeat must be hard to take.
“What's the matter, JES?” Ophelia looked at him. “Did you lose?”
“Don't call me JES,” he muttered. “Some girl completely toyed with me.”
“Oh? Who?” Robin asked.
Between the five of them, Blake was faster than Adam, but Adam was stronger than Blake. Robin reigned supreme over all of them in all aspects. Conner had surprise and traps that could impede the enemies while Ophelia had wide-area effect skills capable of controlling the fight. Each of them were strong in their own right. Who was good enough to toy with Adam?
“Some girl named Amy – a faunus. She kinda reminds me of you Conner.”
Whenever Conner wasn't being annoying, everyone called him by his first name. For some reason, it just felt natural to curse at him with his last name.
“How so?” Conner asked.
“She used illusions of some kind and played jokes on me the entire fight. The humiliation took any E-stacks I would gather. Ugh, just remembering is embarrassing.”
Ophelia patted his back. Their substitute instructor then addressed the entire class who had finally finished.
“That's all for training. You are now have free time. If you wish to leave the school grounds to get supplies or simply explore the kingdom, please visit the front desk and show her your status plate to sign out. You can also find out your room number at the front desk. Your luggage has already been moved to your dorms. Facilities are free for you to use until seven. Curfew is at nine, and you can either eat dinner here or outside. Dismissed.”
The group grabbed their battle gear and put them into their backpacks. They went to the front desk to find their rooms in the dormitory. There were four in each room. Conner, Adam, and Robin were rooming with the new guy Osagi while Ophelia and Blake were rooming with the previously mentioned Amy and Raven. They threw their stuff into the washing machine and began maintenance on their gear.
After finishing, the group met up at the front desk to sign out. Following the girls was a faunus girl they didn't know. Well everyone except for Adam, who was currently making a 'ヘ ' character with his mouth.
Identify
Amy Seraphine (Lvl 41)HP:1035/1035Aura:1255/1255
= Ah, so she's the one who beat Adam. =
Amy was extremely tall, matching Adam with a height of six feet. For Robin and Blake who stood at 5'8'' and 5'6'' respectively, they just had to move their eyes to see Amy's emerald green eyes. For Conner and Ophelia who were an entire feet shorter, they had to tilt their heads up to see her.
“Who's this?” Conner asked.
“This is Amy Seraphine, our roommate.”
“Hello.” Amy greeted them while smiling.
“Who's your other roommate?” Robin asked.
“It's Raven.” Blake answered with a not so happy expression.
“What's the matter?”
“Oh Robin,” Ophelia said. “You of all people should get why.”
“Huh?”
“..Or maybe not. I guess you do have a fault.”
“Oh?” Amy had a mischievous look on her face.
“Could it be..?”
Ophelia nodded. A mutual understanding passed between the girls.
“Poor Blake.” Amy said.
“What?” Robin asked.
“Nothing,” Ophelia waved it off. “Anyway, Amy wanted to come with us as we explored the city. Is that fine?”
The boys nodded. Adam was slightly hesitant, but nodded. The group left and began their exploration of Vale. For Robin and the gang, they explored Vale during the festival and rarely entered regular shops and restaurants. It was a pretty interesting experience to explore it all again during the other time of year. Many shops were reluctant to serve them. Some even kicked them out while saying it wasn't their policy to “feed animals”.
Adam, Robin, and Blake got pretty worked up about it. Surprisingly, despite Blake's more quiet nature, she seemed to hold a strong sense of pride of being a faunus. In order to calm down a bit, the group sat in an outdoor cafe and starting conversing.
“Did you dye the tips of your hair black, Amy?” Ophelia asked.
“No, they're naturally black and red. For some reason, it's like this. It runs in the family.”
“Speaking of which, you have more than one tail. Though they look like Conner's tail, why do you have more?”
“I'm a kitsune faunus,” she explained.
“At certain ages, our tails split and form new ones. I get my third tail when I'm twenty. They seem to stop increasing after the fifth one though.”
“So,” Adam entered the conversation. “why did you use those kinds of illusions?”
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“What's this? What kind of illusions did you use?”
“None of your business.” He curtly said.
“Hehe.. Here's what I did...”
Amy proceeded to whisper into Blake's and Ophelia's ear. As she continued, their faces got redder and redder.
“Oh my god. I didn't think you were into that kind of thing JES! Maybe I should call you Lewd JES from now on.”
“JES?” Amy tilted her head. “What's that?”
“Jackass Exhibitionist Samurai.” Ophelia explained.
“Ah.” She nodded in understanding.
“Explains how you fight.”
Adam slammed the table and stood up. Leaning forward he looked at them in disbelief.
“There is nothing wrong with the way I fight. Isn't that right, Blake?”
The person in question scooted near Robin to avoid his gaze. In spirit of the game, Robin said --
“Don't worry Blake. He wouldn't dare to do that in public.”
Robin had no idea what Adam saw in the illusion, but he guessed right when watching Adam's outrage.
“Why do you guys keep making fun of me like this? Is it that fun to step on my pride?”
“You make it too easy.” Amy shrugged. “Besides, watching people squirm and get angry because of pranks and jokes is pretty funny.”
“Thank you!” Conner raised his hands in the air. “Somebody gets it!”
“You like to prank people too?”
“My class is Jester.”
The two jokers smiled and held each other's hands.
“A comrade!” Amy exclaimed.
“Ok ok that's enough.” Ophelia tore the two of them apart.
“We have the rest of the kingdom to see. Lets go.”
The group paid their share and left. As they made their way through town, they ran into more people that made crude comments about their race. Blake was spared of it thanks to the bow on her head, but that made her feel guilty of letting her friends take the harassment alone.
“Why do they have to be so mean?” she asked. “I can't believe the racism is so strong outside the festival.”
“You guys have never been here outside the festival?” Amy asked.
They shook their heads.
“Ah, that explains it. I was born in Vacuo, but it was the same there too. I never let it get to me though. I had noticed it was a bit worse after moving here, but if you ignore it, you'll be fine.”
As they continued their stroll, they found themselves in a plaza filled with faunuses. They filled up the streets while carrying signs and posters. Some said “No More Rascim!” or “Equality for All!”
“What this?” Robin spoke up.
“Oh this is another civil rights protest.” Amy explained. “It's pretty common here. Look, there's the main people.”
Stepping on top of a podium, a wolf faunus with snow white hair spoke into the microphone.
“Brothers and sisters of the White Fang, I welcome you back to our gathering today to once again spread awareness about the injustice we must endure. For those of you who are here for the first time, allow me to introduce who we are.
My name is Alex Fexlar, leader of the White Fang. The White Fang is an group of faunuses that was created to be a symbol of unity between the humans and the faunus. The humans opened their doors to us, welcoming us. Promising us freedom and equality. But did they give us that?
No! Instead of treating us like equals, we were treated like dirt. Instead of serving us food like other customers, they kick us out of their shops! Instead of socializing with us, they discriminate, spread rumors, and do it to the point that many of us decide to leave the safety of the walls and be forced to live the rest of our lives as nomads!”
The crowd were getting riled up and so were the kids. Anger and frustration that was pent up had begun to release from within them. With every sentence --every word-- each faunus cheered and raised their signs into the air.
“Our children are bullied. Exiled from kids their own age. My closest friend was fired from a job he was diligently working at, and he was replaced by a newcomer who made even the most obvious of mistakes. And the ones at the head of all this discrimination is the Schnee Dust Company!”
Alex Fexlar pointed his head at the logo on the advertisement billboard. The billboard is the emblem of a snowflake, the sign of all Schnee Dust products.
“They hire us faunus who have been tossed away from our jobs at minimum wage. They force us to work in mines with conditions almost as dangerous as fighting the Grimm ourselves. The worst part of it all is they take deals with all the same people who are the main reasons we lost our jobs in the first place!!”
The man lowered his hands onto the podium and spoke with extreme sincerity.
“Brothers and sisters, are we so different from humans? Because we have an extra set of ears, eyes, tails, or even wings, does that make us monsters? The same kind of monsters of Grimm which lack no soul? No aura? No semblance? No! We are ALIVE. We breathe, we breed, we love, we kill, and we die all the same.
So we have a pair of wings. So what! So we have a set of horns. Who cares? Can we not breed with other faunus races all the same? Can we not breed WITH humans just the same? Do they not grow to be healthy children and live normal, happy lives?
Yes! We are no different from humans, so for the sake of not only for our lives, but for our children and grandchildren, I ask you – all of you, both human and faunus – to make this a better world, so that faunus can not only be FREE, but to be EQUAL. Thank you.”
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God I feel like MLK Jr. Yeah pump it up. Civil Rights Movement here we come! Robin is also a guy oblivious to women's feelings for obvious reasons. Next time Robin goes to jail and meets our old friend Roman! Rate, comment, enjoy! Thanks for reading!
Special thanks to Styx for creating the character Amy! I hope I made you proud with my presentation! I enjoy the feedback you guys give and I read everything so no worries guys!
Side Note: The number of boy/girls faunuses are equal!!!!!!! Just wanted to throw that out there. Take it how you will