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Yang stared out the window, eye twitching.
“Just look at them all,” Blake muttered, hand on Yang’s shoulder. Her expression was neutral, but her ears were flat against her head, and her free hand was clenched.
“You’d think they’d have better things to do than this, right?” Ruby just looked confused.
Weiss just sighed. “Welcome to the real world, Ruby.”
As it happened, the four of them were looking out a coffee shop window in downtown Vale at a large number of trucks and camper vans festooned with Valean and (inexplicably) Atlesian flags, parked squarely outside the Council building. One truck was parked horizontally across the main intersection, completely cutting off traffic. Blake couldn’t help but notice that of the people gathered around the trucks, not a single one was a Faunus.
“So, what is it they’re protesting about again?” Ruby tilted her head.
“Vaccine mandates for shipping goods between Sanus and Solitas.”
“But… we’re in a global pandemic. Vaccine mandates are kind of necessary?”
Weiss laughed cynically. “Yes, they are, and most of the workers shipping goods across the border are vaccinated. The official trucker association of Vale denounced this protest.”
Blake covered her ears. “They keep honking. How is anyone supposed to work like this?”
Yang shrugged. “Aren’t these the same people who called the Faunus rights protest last year a riot?”
Blake nodded, squinting. “Yes, they are. And unlike that protest, I don’t see any police around.”
Ruby set her jaw. “Well, yeah, most of the police are on their side. They’ll put off having to actually deal with them as long as they can.”
“Velvet had to walk past them yesterday, and she said she’d never felt this unsafe in Vale before,” Blake said quietly.
“And… what do they want, exactly?”
“Their demands so far seem to be that all vaccine mandates, lockdowns, and restrictions end immediately, that the entire Vale Council be dissolved, and that Professor Ozpin go to jail.”
“Why are they waving Atlesian flags? They’re all Valean, otherwise they wouldn’t be here. Atlesian truckers have to be vaccinated to get in.”
Weiss groaned. “My father gave them money.”
“Of course he did. Ugh.” Yang cricked her neck. “What would happen if we just went and beat them up?”
“You mean aside from us going to jail?” Blake asked sarcastically, “They’d take it as a sign of aggression, and it’d be the people who live downtown who suffer for it.”
“Ugh,” Ruby groaned, “So we can’t do anything?”
“Most of them don’t own their trucks,” Weiss replied, “If we can get their license plate numbers, we can report their misuse to the insurance companies.”
“And as Huntresses, we can escort people who live and work around here so they won’t be harassed,” Blake added.
“Yeah, but,” Yang waved her hands around, “They were waving around the old supremacist flag from the Faunus War earlier. They’re fash.”
Blake growled softly. “I know, Yang. I want to kick their asses too. But our actions affect more people than just ourselves. If we beat them up, and they go and beat up some innocent person because of it…”
Yang nodded, and Blake sighed. “…It would sure be cathartic, though.”
For a brief moment, there was silence.
Then Blake sighed a second time. “Aw, fuck it. They’re shitty people, and they’re gonna keep being shitty people whether we do anything or not. The least we can do is deplatform them.”
Yang grinned. “Now you’re speaking my language, but… are you OK with it? The police’ll go way harder on you than on the three of us.”
Blake nodded resolutely. “I can work behind the scenes, without direct confrontation.”
Ruby grinned rather devilishly. “Let’s go bash some fash.”
The convoy sat outside the Council building, horns blaring, flags waving, as shouts of “Freedom!” filled the air, coming from men who had never faced a day of discrimination in their lives, but had been asked to perform their societal duty to keep people safe at the cost of wearing masks in public and receiving vaccinations, and had responded with a display of ignorance and hatred that ran almost as deeply as their hatred of Faunus. Nearly two years of this had coalesced into a convoy that blended anti-science sentiment, Faunophobia, toxic ultra-libertarianism, and sheer entitlement into a deadly mixture.
This mixture was about to meet its antithesis.
Seven teenagers, clad in all black with face masks and bandanas obscuring their identities, stalked towards the convoy, while an eighth sat in a nearby coffee shop, sipping a latte and watching quietly.
A woman was standing on a raised podium, speaking into a megaphone, when an egg flew through the air, and splatted right against the woman’s forehead, egg yolk dripping down her coat as the crowd goggled in disbelief. The woman’s face scrunched like a lemon as the yolk dripped, so she didn’t see the hail of eggs splattering against the trucks. Nor did she see when one of the teenagers clambered up on stage and ripped the megaphone from her hands, shoving her to the ground.
Nora raised the megaphone, and screamed into it, shoving all the vocal fry she could muster into the yell, “WHOSE STREETS?”
“OUR STREETS!” came the reply from the other teens, as the convoy slowly began to realize it was under attack.
Jaune and Pyrrha grabbed flags and signboards and tore them to shreds, throwing down signs and shoving aside anyone who tried to stop them. Weiss took particular vindictive pleasure in grabbing the nearest Atlesian flag and tearing it in two, then kicked the man who ran at her to stop her in the crotch. Ren threw more eggs, his aim pinpoint as he nailed the speaker, the trucks, the vans, and pretty much every other target he could find.
Ruby quickly darted forward and unhitched the trailer of the truck blocking the road, and Yang crouched by it, hands slipping beneath the trailer body. With a roar of exertion, she activated her Semblance, and with great effort, pushed the trailer over – onto the side of the road clear of people, of course. Metal slammed against pavement with a boom, and the seven teens quickly ran, throwing more eggs into the crowd as they retreated, taking the megaphone with them.
“WHOSE STREETS?”
“OUR STREETS!”
The group split up, ducking down different alleyways, and swapping their masks, bandanas, and black clothing for their normal attire. Blake exited the coffee shop, having caught the whole thing on her Scroll. She made her way back towards Beacon and met back up with the others on the airship.
“Well, that was fun!” Nora chirped, leaning in to watch the carnage on Blake’s Scroll.
Blake smiled. “I’ll edit out all your faces, and then we’ll post it. I think people will enjoy it.” She looked up at Yang, smirking. “Well, Xiao Long, you impressed me.”
Yang nodded. “And all in a way that doesn’t put you in harm’s way. You can honestly say you had nothing to do with it.”
Ruby grinned. “And if they try and start something with the downtown residents, or try and blame the Faunus for it…”
Yang punched her fists together. “We have more eggs.”
Weiss giggled, then started to laugh hysterically.
Ruby blinked. “You OK, Weiss?”
Weiss nodded. “Father would be furious if he ever found out I had anything to do with any of this.”
Ruby slowly grinned. “Well… that’s a bonus.”
Jaune nodded. “I know my mom would kill me slowly, but only for putting myself in danger. I bet she’d have egged them too.”
Pyrrha smiled. “Same here. Although, it would probably be the end of my brand deals if that came out…”
Yang shrugged. “Well, that’s why we’re editing out faces.”
Nora grinned from ear to ear. “Whose streets?”
“OUR STREETS!”
And the airship flew off into the glorious sunset.