A Fairly Reasonable Crashout (RWBY Adam SI) ch 8

+++

When it was over, there was nothing.

No applause. No mutters. No footsteps.

The smell of scorched flesh lingered.

Finally, Frick nodded, shaking his head. "Let this be a warning to you all. The SDC has been lenient—light. But justice comes, regardless. Do not follow his example. Do not talk to the White Fang. We are your employers. Not them."

He scanned the gathered crowd. Their faces were impassive, unreadable, as if they no longer knew how to feel. But Frick had always been good at reading people. And what he read now told him they weren't looking at him.

They were looking at Adam.

"Get him out of here. Someone tend to his wounds," Frick ordered.

The crowd parted, and Pasiphae stepped forward, a towel in hand.

Her face held nothing but pain.

She carried the towel with both hands—frayed, stained, still damp.

She didn't look at Frick. Didn't look at the guards.

Only at him.

Adam, still on his knees. Breathing shallow. The mark on his back red and raw—burnt meat.

She knelt beside him and draped the towel over his shoulders. Slowly. Like clothing a child. Like covering the dead.

He didn't flinch. And then, they stood—together.

She helped him down the steps, one at a time.

Defeated and broken, Frick thought. But as he watched, he noticed eyes in the crowd shift—away from Adam, away from her—and settle, cold and thoughtful, on him.

Something flickered there.

"Return to work," he said flatly.

He nodded to his men. The crowd began to thin, parting like smoke in a breeze. Frick descended the platform's steps and approached the waiting car of the foreman. A shadow looming behind him.

"Congratulations," Frick said. "Your town is now secure."

The foreman reached into the bag at his side and pulled out a bottle. He offered it without ceremony. "For your hard work."

Frick declined with a shake of his head. "No need."

He paused.

"Something wrong?" the foreman asked.

"No, nothing wrong," Frick replied. "Just thinking I've done what I came here to do."

"You thinking about leaving?" the foreman asked.

Frick nodded. "I found your White Fang operatives. They escaped, yes—but that's hardly my fault, now is it?"

The foreman stared. Then laughed. "Oh, you're serious?"

Frick didn't flinch.

"Listen, Frick. If you'd just taken them at night, none of this pageantry would've happened." He gestured toward the platform. "Now they've slipped through, and who knows if they'll come back?"

Frick glared. "I've done my task, Foreman. I have other places that need sniffing out."

"It's not like you can leave anyway," the foreman said, almost casually. "Blizzard's still howling up north. Transport's frozen solid—nothing coming in or out."

Frick clicked his tongue.

Damn it.

He closed his eyes. "Snow melts," he says. "Once it is done, I am going." 

​+++

"Dad, we're home."

Ercole stood in the doorway, waiting—watching—as she stumbled forward, Adam leaning heavily against her, his breath ragged and shallow.

His heart broke at the sight.

"My boy…" His lips trembled. His voice cracked as he hobbled forward. "Get him inside. Now."

Footsteps approached from behind. "Good Gods, Ercole," a neighbor muttered. "What happened to him?"

"It was my fault!" Pasiphae sobbed. "It was my fault!"

"Shush! Quiet now!" Ercole barked—not unkindly, but firm. "Inside—someone get cold water!"

He moved to Adam's other side, supporting him with the strength of a father holding up his son. Together, they shuffled toward the house, feet dragging. They stepped over the shattered remains of the dining table and made their way to Adam's room.

The neighbor lingered in the doorway, uncertain. "Should I call the doc?"

"Just get water!" Ercole snapped. The neighbor nodded and turned to leave.

They got Adam inside and onto the bed, carefully turning him onto his stomach. Ercole reached down and gently peeled back the towel Pasiphae had draped over him—and froze.

His heart sank.

There, burned into the flesh of Adam's back, was a Schnee snowflake. Branded. Deep. Red.

Ercole's chest heaved. A cough threatened to rip free, but he forced it down—swallowed it with sheer will and rage.

Pasiphae knelt beside the bed, clutching Adam's hand. Her sobs had quieted now, steady and low, like a prayer whispered too late.

The following days passed in a lull. The weather dampened slightly, the clouds a deep grey. They nursed him back to health, slowly. Pasiphae refused to eat, refused to sleep, refused to leave his side. She fed him, helped him drink, brushed the sweat from his brow. Her parents came by, helping where they could.

Today was one of those days.

"Ercole," Caestus Sol greeted him, his wife beside him, carrying a brown paper bag.

"Caestus," Ercole nodded.

"Sorry we're late. Our shift was... hectic," Atlanta added, brushing hair from her face.

"It's fine," Ercole replied, resting his hand on the newly repaired table. Atlanta and Caestus had offered to fix it, and did so quickly—Caestus, once a woodworker, made quick work of it.

"How is he?" Caestus asked, watching as Atlanta set the bag down.

"Stable, at least," Ercole answered. "He eats. He drinks. But he doesn't say a word."

The two Sols exchanged a look.

"And… the mark?" Caestus asked gently.

"He'll carry it the rest of his life," Ercole whispered. His fingers gripped the table's edge. The words were a lament.

Atlanta's eyes glistened.

Caestus closed his. Then looked to his wife. "Love, can you go check on him? And Phae?"

She nodded, wiping at her eyes, and stepped quietly down the hall, leaving the two men alone.

"Have… have I failed, Caestus?" Ercole asked, voice raw.

The doberman faunus turned. "Failed?"

Ercole nodded. His eyes were glassy. "As a father," he choked. "He wouldn't have been born into this life if I hadn't taken this job. If I hadn't brought us here. This… this is my fault. I did this to my boy."

He slumped forward, and wept.

Caestus sat with him in silence. No judgment. Just presence. Ercole's sobs came deep and shuddering. A harsh cough rose up again, and again he beat it down.

Caestus reached for a glass of water and offered it to him. Ercole took it and drank.

Inside, Atlanta stepped into the bedroom. Her ears drooped. Her tail sagged.

There, beside the bed, her daughter sat—hand clasped tightly around Adam's. Pasiphae turned at the sound of the door.

"Mom…" she whispered, voice hollow, eyes bloodshot and red. Her face looked carved from grief.

Atlanta's heart broke all over again.

She crossed the room in three steps and pulled her daughter into her arms. Pasiphae clung to her, sobbing into her chest.

"It's my fault," she cried. "My fault…"

Atlanta had been told everything.

​She could not refute that.

So she said nothing. Just held her daughter, steady and warm. When the sobs began to quiet, she planted a kiss on Pasiphae's forehead, and turned to Adam.

He lay on his side, shirtless. The snowflake had begun to scab over. They were treating it carefully, gently, but healing had its own pace.

"Adam?" Atlanta called softly.

He didn't answer.

She didn't expect him to.

She turned back to her daughter. "When did you last eat?"

Pasiphae said nothing.

"Phae… you need to eat. And drink. You can't keep this up."

"I don't want to," she muttered. "I have to be here. For him."

"You do," Atlanta said gently. "But you also have to be here for yourself. Please… eat. Drink."

Pasiphae looked down. Then back to Adam. She leaned toward him, brushing his hand with hers.

"Adam?" she whispered. "I… I'll be out for a second, okay?"

No reply.

Her lip quivered. Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment, before she reached out and took her mother's hand.

Atlanta said nothing. Just held it—and led her out of the room.

Pasiphae blandly ate from the quick meal Atlanta had whipped up—simple porridge with nuts and honey. She didn't taste it. She just chewed, swallowed, and repeated.

That was, until a knock came at the door.

Atlanta moved to answer it, wiping her hands on her apron. She opened the door and blinked in surprise.

"Oh. Um… is Ercole in?" said the man standing outside. A faunus in miner's clothes—middle-aged, with a weathered face, brown beard, and a tray in hand that smelled faintly of apples.

"Who is it, honey?" Caestus called from the kitchen.

"Neighbor," came Ercole's cough from his chair. "Let him in."

Atlanta stepped aside, and the man entered, his eyes scanning the room until they landed on Ercole.

"Cletus," Ercole rasped.

"I brought a pie. The missus made it—for you, the boy, and the miss," Cletus said, setting it gently on the table.

"Thank you, Clete," Ercole said with a nod, grateful.

"'Course," Cletus replied. He paused, shifting awkwardly. "Ain't right, what they did. Ain't right at all."

"It was stupid!" Pasiphae burst out, slamming her fist against the table. Caestus quickly placed a hand on her shoulder, steadying her.

Cletus shook his head. "No, miss. No. That boy of yours was trying to save his dad. That, I understand. My old man—Dust Lung got him too."

Pasiphae's breath caught in her throat.

"He should've let me die," Ercole muttered. "Stupid boy. Should've taken his girl and run."

Cletus sighed. "Ah, but what can you do with a son who loves his father? I sent my daughter away when the mines started to eat at me. She didn't want to go—I had to threaten her."

"I should've threatened to break his balls," Ercole said, a weak chuckle escaping.

"Too late for that now," Caestus offered, trying to lighten the moment.

Another knock came, this time loud—measured and heavy.

"Adam Taurus!" a voice called out from the other side.

Atlanta rose and opened the door.

Standing there was a man dressed in crisp white—standard SDC attire. Behind him, a bored-looking guard slouched with arms crossed.

"Yes?" Atlanta asked, her tone frostbitten.

The man blinked, eyes flicking past her into the house. "Where are the Tauruses?"

"Busy. What do you want?"

"Adam and Ercole Taurus have been absent for three days," the man continued. "Where are they?"

Atlanta stared at him, incredulous. "Ercole has Dust Lung. His boy was branded in front of half the town. You're seriously asking that question?"

"Their absence has been noted," the man said, clearly some kind of clerk. "The longer they are away, the more dust output declines. They must return to work, or else they will—"

He stopped.

A shadow loomed in the doorway behind Atlanta.

Sweat beaded on the clerk's brow as Ercole stepped into view—towering, six-foot-five of muscle and iron, even hunched and coughing.

"We will what?" Ercole growled, voice like grinding stone.

The clerk swallowed hard. "...the SDC might have to… replace you," he finished, weakly.

The room stilled. Even the clatter of spoons stopped.

Ercole took another step forward, steadying himself on the doorframe as he loomed over the clerk, breath wheezing but eyes sharp—full of fire that hadn't dulled in decades.

"Replace me?" he said slowly, each word a threat. "Replace us?"

Behind him, Cletus shifted uncomfortably, instinctively placing himself between Pasiphae and the entrance.

The clerk, sweating more now, cleared his throat. "I—I only deliver the message, sir. Orders from higher up. They say if you're not back on-site by week's end, they'll send in temps to fill the quota."

Ercole let out a bitter laugh that turned into a cough. "Right, new blood to degenerate!"

The guard leaned slightly forward. "Sir, maybe it's best if we talk to—"

Ercole slammed his fist against the wall.

Everyone jumped. Pasiphae dropped her spoon.

"YOU MONSTERS BRANDED MY SON! MY SON!!" he roared, voice ragged with fury. 

Outside, neighbours stood to watch, passerbys staring. Their expressions, unfriendly. Not towards the yelling Ercole...but to the two SDC men.

"He's not fit to work," Atlanta said sharply, stepping in front of Ercole, arms crossed. "And neither is his father. They need rest. Not more whips."

Caestus stood too, calmly but deliberately. "You've made your point. Message received. Now leave."

The guard glanced at the clerk, who nodded quickly. "Right. We'll—uh—we'll report the situation as... noted. Good day."

They turned and left. The door slammed shut behind them.

For a moment, all was still again.

Then Ercole swayed and would've fallen if Caestus hadn't caught him.

"Chair—get him in a chair!" Atlanta barked, rushing in to help. They guided him to sit, lowering him gently as he gasped for air.

"Breathe, Ercole," Caestus said softly. "Just breathe."

Pasiphae stood frozen in the corner, fists clenched.

Cletus watched the exchange, his brows furrowed. 

He shook his head. He stepped forward, gently setting a hand on Pasiphae's shoulder.

"You'll be fine, girl," he slurred. "All of yous," 

"What do you mean?" Ercole coughed, turning to Cletus. 

"They brand a boy like that, they're not just marking him. They're threatening all of us." 

He looked around the room, meeting each set of eyes in turn.

"You won't stand alone. Not anymore. I'll talk to the others. Quietly. Carefully. Folks're scared, but they're angry too. You'd be surprised how far that goes when the right spark sets it off."

He looked back to Pasiphae, then to Ercole who heaved.

"What are you saying, man?" he coughed.

Cletus grinned. "We've already been feelin the strain, Cole. You ain't the only one getting squashed. This noon, 4 PM, town hall. We're having a meeting." 

Pasiphae looked up, eyes still wet, but something different now flickered behind them—something sharp. Hope, perhaps. Or resolve. Maybe both.

Ercole leaned back in his chair, chest rising and falling like bellows. He regarded Cletus for a long moment, then gave a slow, tired nod.

"A meeting, huh?" he rasped. "And what exactly are we meeting for, Clete?"

"They think they can brand one a-us, let a man rot, and we'll keep diggin'? Keep bowin' our heads? Nah. Nah, I say. Enough's enough."

Pasiphae straightened in her seat.

"Four o'clock," Cletus repeated. 

Ercole closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, they burned with something fierce—wounded, yes, but no longer broken.

"Then I'll be there," he said, voice like gravel and steel.

"And so will I," Pasiphae added.

+++

"They what?"

The Foreman's voice hit like a hammer, reverberating off the steel walls of his cramped office.

"Kicked me out, sir." The clerk fidgeted, twisting his cap between trembling hands. "They—they threatened me. The big one, Ercole—he came right to the door. Looked like he was ready to tear me apart."

The Foreman leaned back in his chair, pressing weathered fingers to his brow. A headache pulsed there, sharp and relentless. The office around him was a chaos of scattered papers, quota reports, and maps—an altar to the weight of his responsibilities, now crumbling under pressure.

"And the guard?"

"Didn't say a word. Looked just as spooked as me."

The Foreman let out a long, slow exhale through his nose, his frustration simmering. He reached for the intercom.

"Get Frick."

A crackle of static answered him. Then: "Yes, sir."

He shouldn't have listened to Frick. He should have overruled his hare-brained ideas and intercepted that girl himself. But now? Now the situation was slipping out of control.

Before the thought could settle, the door creaked open.

Frick stepped inside, his gait casual, his expression unreadable.

"You called?"

The Foreman's eyes narrowed. "I sent my man to remind the Tauruses about their job. They kicked him out."

Frick raised an eyebrow, almost amused. "So what do you want me to do about it?"

Before the Foreman could answer, the door burst open again.

A guard rushed in, face pale, voice cracking with urgency.

"Sir! Sir!"

Both men turned to him, tension thickening the air.

"The faunus!" the guard shouted. "They're organizing!"

For a moment, silence. The Foreman's grip tightened on the armrests of his chair, his knuckles whitening. His jaw clenched, and when he spoke, his voice was low and measured.

"Organizing?" he repeated, his tone laced with disbelief. Then, louder: "Of course they are." He slammed a hand on the desk, scattering papers to the floor. "I knew this would happen."

He shot a glare at Frick, his frustration boiling over. "This is your mess. You said you could handle them. You-"

He held his breath.

"This is a waste of time. Go. Go and stop them. They have to go back to work." 

+++

Someone had to stay behind to watch over Adam. Caestus volunteered, offering a silent nod as the others departed.

Ercole limped toward the old Town Hall, flanked on either side by Pasiphae and Atlanta—his crutches in all but name. 

The Hall loomed ahead. Once a proud edifice of red brick and carved stone, its grandeur had long since faded. Ivy still clung to its frame, but the windows were clouded with grime, the paint flaking like dead skin, and cracks spiderwebbed across its aging face. What had once been a symbol of civic pride now looked as weathered and weary as the people who still believed in it.

And in front of it—a wall.

A long, unbroken line of SDC security officers stood in gleaming white armor, faceless beneath their helmets, gripping black truncheons with the quiet menace of seasoned suppression.

Opposite them, the crowd of faunus swelled, a roiling sea of voices and fury. Years of hardship had turned into shouting. Their signs were hand-painted, some held together with tape and hope. The air buzzed with the weight of a hundred stolen paychecks and unanswered cries.

"Return to your jobs!" a voice barked over a loudspeaker—tinny and cold, more machine than man. "Return to your jobs immediately!"

"We're going into our town hall, you fucks!" a faunus shouted back, voice raw with rage. "This is our right!"

"Let's stay off to the side," he muttered.

Pasiphae and Atlanta guided him toward the edge of the square, easing him against the wall near a rusting lamppost. There, they could watch without drawing attention.

The line didn't move.

Ercole's gaze narrowed. From his vantage, he could see the officers' grips tightening, knuckles pale beneath white gloves. 

"Ercole!" a voice cried out.

He turned to see Cletus marching up. 

"Clete," Ercole greeted, his voice steady despite the turmoil around them. "What's all this?"

Cletus gestured toward the guards. "They showed up all at once, blocked the entrance. Said we're not allowed inside. Called it illegal."

"Can they even do that?" Atlanta asked, her tone sharp.

Cletus snorted bitterly. "The town hall ain't illegal. It's ours. But you know the SDC—they don't give a damn about laws unless they wrote them."

Ercole's lips pressed into a thin line. He glanced back toward the guards, the tension in the square rising like a swelling tide. Pasiphae watched as a familiar figure walked up.

Frick.

"Disperse!" He roared, snatching the microphone away from his man. "Disperse, now!" 

Frick bit his lip, tasting copper from where he'd chewed it raw in thought. His eyes swept the square—the shouting crowd

He expected some pushback, some resistance. While many would get cowed, some would be enraged. This was not what he was expecting.

He turned slightly, just enough to speak to the security lead behind him without taking his eyes off the assembly.

"Do not escalate without my command. Hold the line."

The lead nodded.

Frick took another breath and raised the mic again, but this time his voice cracked a little. Not fear—no, he'd never admit that—but unease. Doubt.

"This is your final warning!" he called, though the words rang hollow.

Ercole's eyes scanned the line of guards again. Something had changed.

He felt it—not just in their posture, but in the sudden stillness that had gripped them. The faint hum of anticipation. The kind that coils in the gut just before something breaks. The officers were no longer just standing—they were bracing.

"Stay close," Ercole murmured to Atlanta and Pasiphae. His voice was quiet, but firm.

Then it happened.

A rock—jagged, fist-sized—cut through the air like a missile. It sailed high over the crowd and struck a guard's helmet with a dull thunk. The man stumbled, hand flying to his head. A gasp rippled through the protestors.

And Frick saw red.

His hand shot up, finger stabbing the air like a dagger.

"That's it!" he roared into the mic, voice booming through the square. "CRACKDOWN! Engage crowd control—now!"

The order hit like a match to dry brush.

The line of guards surged forward in unison, shields raised, truncheons drawn. Boots thundered against the cracked stone of the square as they charged.

Frick's voice cut through the chaos like a blade.

"Gas! Launch!"

A series of dull thunk-thunk-thunk sounds echoed across the square as canisters flew from launchers, arcing high into the air like flaming meteors—except what they carried wasn't fire, but poison.

The first canister struck near the front line of the crowd, cracking open with a hiss. Thick, choking clouds of white smoke billowed outward, curling around protestors' legs and rising to burn their eyes and throats. More followed, raining down like judgment.

"Let's get out of here..." Ercole urged his Atlanta and Pasiphae, who nodded, hobbling away from the melee. 

Behind them, pandemonium erupted.

Faunus men and women screamed as they stumbled away from the fog, clutching at their faces. Some fell, disoriented, others dragged them toward safety. A child wailed somewhere nearby. One of the signs dropped in the fray smoldered from a stray spark, curling up in ash and flame.

​The SDC men surged forward. 

+++

The tent flaps rippled open, ushering in a bitter gust of wind that bit at the air. Inside, the space felt less like the heart of a protest and more like the war room of an old-world general. Maps lined the walls, their edges curled and smudged from handling. Papers towered in precarious stacks across the desk, and radios hummed faintly in the corners, their static a constant undercurrent. Everything here served a purpose.

Sienna Khan ran her operations differently than most. This wasn't some chaotic camp of slogans and chants. It was a command center—sharp, efficient, and unrelenting. A place of precision, strategy, and leverage.

The snow-dusted figure that stumbled through the entrance was a stark contrast to the room's calculated order. A faunus, bloodied and breathless, his shoulders hunched as though the storm outside had followed him in.

"Blizzard," Sienna greeted, her voice calm and steady, cutting through the low hum of the radios. "How was Nicolasburg?"

Her amber eyes narrowed as she noticed the absence of another.

"Where is Marianne?"

Blizzard staggered toward the table, snatched a glass, and downed its contents in desperate, gulping swallows. For a moment, the only sound was the clink of glass against wood as he set it down.

"Getting cleaned up," he said, his voice rough with exhaustion. "We had to crawl through sewage, garbage, and dodge a gauntlet of SDC floozies just to get out."

Sienna's gaze darkened. "You were captured?"

Blizzard nodded grimly, lines hardening across his face. "Yeah. Frick was there. That bastard."

He leaned forward, his hands gripping the edge of the table as though it might hold him upright.

"Sienna…" His voice dropped, heavy with what he was about to say. "The mines—it's worse than we thought. Way worse."

Her expression didn't shift, but her silence pressed him to continue.

"No running water. No insulation. The cold's killing them faster than the labor."

Sienna closed her eyes for a brief moment, as if steadying something deep within herself. When she opened them, her voice was low, tightly controlled. "The other teams said similar. What else?"

Blizzard's jaw tightened, his bitterness spilling into his words. "You hear about the wage cuts?"

She gave a slow, deliberate nod. "They're practically begging for a riot." She paused, her tone sharpening. "In fact…"

It was almost absurd how cartoonishly evil the SDC had become. But then again, Jacques Schnee had always been the blueprint for greed.

"So now what?" Blizzard asked, his voice raw with frustration.

Sienna's gaze shifted past him, past the tent flaps, to the snow-laden hills beyond. The mines loomed there, hidden beneath layers of frost and ash, their suffering buried deep but not forgotten.

"We—"

A sudden shout broke through the room, cutting her off.

"Sienna!"

One of the radio operators stood abruptly, his hand clutching his headset. His voice was tense, frantic.

Her head snapped toward him. "What is it?"

"I'm getting panicked reports from the SDC!" he stammered.

"Go on," Sienna said, her tone sharp and impatient.

"There's… something happening in one of the towns," he said, his voice faltering. "A riot."

A pin dropped. 

"Then we must go and assist them, post-haste." 

​+++

A/N: Begun, the Dust Wars has.

ALLLL ABOARD THE MURDER TRAINNNN