A Man of Honor.

Chapter 43: Jaune's Personal Monster.

"You must know, then, that there are two methods of fighting, the one by law, the other by force: the first method is that of men, the second of beasts; but as the first method is often insufficient, one must have recourse to the second. It is therefore necessary to know well how to use both the beast and the man." ~ Niccolo Machiavelli from his transcript The Prince 1532.

It was fucking pandamonium when those bastards busted in. The earpiece I was wearing to communicate with the security of the warehouse erupted with all kinds of noise but I couldn't make out any of it. I couldn't make out anything useful.

I was on the stage when those flashbang grenades and the teargas canisters shattered through the windows. I watched as the packed crowd of people started to panic in all the darkness and confusion.

I lost sight of Jaune in the darkness. My first instinct was to bulldoze my way right into that crowd and smash anyone in my path and pull Jaune out, carrying him if I had to. But I knew what I was supposed to do in the event of an emergency.

"Open the bay doors now!" I screamed into my earpiece hoping that someone would hear me over all the traffic going across the channel. I don't know if they heard me but various people started hitting the controls for the bay doors for the crowd and everyone to rush out just as we had planned.

Seeing that done I tried to move into the crowd. The tear gas stung my eyes and tears and snot flowed down my face. I grabbed Executioner from my belt and tried making my way through the crowd to get to Jaune. I had no idea what was going on. Was Blake still there? What the fuck was she even doing there? Did Roman follow her in that Paladin?

I had all kinds of questions but I buried them as I tried to get to Jaune through the crowd. It was a dumb mistake. they hit me like a tidal wave as everyone panicked and rushed trampling over one another. I tried wading through them like a linebacker.

I slammed one of the faunus away from me and pulled my jacket over my mouth and nose trying not to breathe in the noxious gas. It didn't last as a hail of gunfire cut down several of the faunus and hit me. I tried looking through the darkness for the shooter and saw them entering with flashlights on their guns shooting at anyone and everyone. Others tackled people down and were cuffing them with plastic flex cuffs or beating and shocking them with their batons. I saw another flashbang go off illuminating Emerald for a moment before the packed crowd seemed to trample over her lost in the sea of panic.

The hit to my aura was no joke and I ducked down as best I could as everyone rushed around me. I spotted Jaune, despite the dark and the gas he was putting up a fight. I saw him stab one of the masked gunmen. He was fighting well, a clear improvement to how he'd once been, but he was going to get overwhelmed and the fact that they didn't just gun him down meant they were trying to capture him, and if I didn't hurry they would.

That was un-fucking-acceptable!

I rose and knocked another one of the panicking faunus away. It was fucking pathetic, they were supposed to be here to fight for the White Fang, fight for equality and better rights and the moment an enemy shows up they start running and panicking.

I knocked one of them to the ground and stepped over his body. Keeping low and barreling through the crowd. Several of the men in gas masks spotted me and raised their weapons towards me and fired.

Both rubber rounds and lead bullets struck me. I felt my aura fail, one of those rounds hit my kevlar lined suit bruising me. One even tore through my shoulder. One of the rubber rounds struck my face, bruising me and cracking my cheekbone. I kept moving, clearing away from the crowd and ready to unleash hot fury upon them.

Then a flashbang rolled by my feet and detonated. My vision went out like a light and I became a wobbly dizzy mess. I felt more rounds hit me and I couldn't stay upright and went down to the ground.