Blake must have walked these streets a thousand times, but now the roads were as alien as the Moon to her…

Her feet slammed against the pavement as she raced through what had once been the southern edge of Vale's commercial district. Scarce weeks ago these streets had been teeming with life: the shops and boutiques abuzz with both local residents and tourists visiting for the Tournament. By day, the stores had promised mind-blowing sales and commemorative trinkets - 'get your own Mistral Tournament Champion plush doll!' By night, the streets had been filled with parties and celebrations, dancers and musicians and fireworks in endless abundance.

She spun around, Gambol Shroud raised before her, and squeezed the trigger thrice in short succession. The nearest Grimm collapsed to the pavement, but more were already racing to take its place, eager for their first hot meal in weeks. As satisfying as it would have been to tear the beasts limb from limb, Blake could scarcely afford to squander what little ammo and Dust she had left. She took off again.

On the other side of the river, far in the distance, Blake could make out the faint outline of Beacon Academy. From here it was little more than a blob, but she could still trace the silhouette of the colossal dragon that perched atop Beacon's highest tower. It hadn't moved since the night Beacon fell, frozen in place, though not a soul Blake had passed had had an answer as to why.

Not that she had passed many souls, of course. The Grimm had been driven out of most of the city but whole neighborhoods remained off-limits, quarantined until dedicated kill-teams could cleanse the districts block-by-block. But with the CCT down and the city besieged by Grimm on all sides every available Huntsman was already being taxed to their limit. They were spending every waking moment simply defending the perimeter around Vale, they had no reserves of manpower to go on the offensive.

Blake whipped around a corner, Gambol Shroud transforming in her hand as she did. She sprinted through a side entrance of one of Vale's larger shopping malls, using her weapon to swing herself over the debris piling up before her. Being devoid of inhabitants and left exposed to the elements for weeks was bad enough for tidiness, but now the Grimm had evidently learned how much cozier Vale's buildings were than their usual nests and dens.

She found herself in a large atrium, the light of the setting sun trickling in from a shattered skylight above. She forced more air into her lungs and continued running, ignoring the way her chest ached and her legs burned. With a boost from her Semblance, Blake made it to the second story, then the third. She expended a few more precious bullets finishing off the Grimm that still pursued her. She didn't stop running, though, not until she put the length and breadth of the department store between her and the monsters.

The Grimm, she mentally corrected herself. With a strange sense of tranquility she'd almost been able to stop hating them. They were soulless creatures, yes, hell-bent on destroying life wherever they found it. But the Grimm had never sworn to protect her, never offered her shelter and guidance and hope. The Grimm had never lied to her. Never betrayed her. Never singled her out for revenge and torment. For all the horrors the Grimm inflicted they never acted out of sadism.

Blake found a small maintenance corridor and ran into it, slamming the door shut behind her. Barricading the door with her body, she slouched down, exchanging Gambol's emptied magazine for a new one. It slid into place with a satisfying click. She waited for her breathing to slow, for the sound of her heart pounding in her ears to fade. It was a long minute until her body finally obeyed her mind, when she could confirm no sounds of Grimm eagerly tracking her scent or howling for their pack.

The Grimm had left her alone for now. The Monster was still out there.

She wouldn't say his name, not even in her head. She refused to. To grant him any concessions of humanity. The line along her stomach was still bright from where he'd plunged his blade into her, but her mind was scarred far worse than her flesh, the memories left far more grievous wounds. The words he'd uttered, the promises he'd made, the lives he'd shattered.

Blake stormed down the narrow corridor, illuminated only by emergency lighting that - by some miracle - still functioned. The world was red to her now. Crimson, even. The Monster still towered over her, a blade raised to her throat.

And for what? For vengeance? For spite? For some grotesque mockery of love? The thought sickened her to her very core.

Blake found an unmarked door, leading into what looked like a clothing store of sorts. She was hoping to find a food court, or anywhere that might have once sold food, really. After she scavenged enough for the night, she planned to retreat to the highest floor of the mall she could find, where Grimm were less-inclined to wander.

As long as the Monster couldn't find her, her friends were safe. Or so Blake hoped. She didn't pretend to understand who he was anymore, but she knew that he wanted to hurt her. Killing her friends would be pointless if he had no way of seeing her weep, of making her beg. Blake needed a plan, some way of striking back, whatever the cost or consequence. But until her plan was finalized she would live as a shadow - a ghost, unassailable in her solitude beyond the pale of civilization. The isolation was painful, but - even living amongst the Grimm - she was so much safer.

He was evil, and he needed to be stopped. It had been so long since Blake had seen the world in black and white, before her exodus from the White Fang had granted her a new appreciation for all of morality's murky grays. But there were no shades to the Monster. He had made a promise, a threat that would hang over the lives of countless innocents for as long as he roamed free and she drew breath. Whether it was a cell or a grave, she didn't particularly care where the Monster was consigned to. To label her thirst as 'vengeance' was a gross simplification of her motives, but calling them 'duty' would have been just as misleading. It was simply what needed to be done. It was the only thing she could think of, the only purpose in her life. She would allow herself no luxury, no indulgence, no distraction until-

Is that an Arctique Fabrics "Svalbard" tailed trench coat? The combat-coat?

Blake ground to a halt, momentarily stupefied. The coat, draped loosely over a mannequin, was all-white and seemed to radiate confidence, the fabric reflecting the few rays of the sun that still trickled in from the thoroughfare.

Those are… incredibly expensive. Even Weiss paused when she saw the catalogue…

Not that Blake cared much about fashion, of course. She was a pragmatic woman, street-savvy, too concerned about terrorists and conspiracies to worry about such frivolities. Obviously. She just… had happened to share a room with two, maybe three, teenage women who cared about such things significantly more than her. And had a habit of leaving fashion magazines in the bathroom, where Blake typically forgot to bring her own reading material.

She sized up the coat, running her fingers along the sleeves. It was a fine material, and despite its smoothness to her skin, she knew it was waterproof and durable. Even Atlesian fashionwear was made to withstand its winters. In Atlas, we see no conflict between beauty and strength, Weiss had once said, waiting expectantly for Blake to draw her own parallels.

Blake's own outfit was tattered in more than a few places: sleet and snow and a dozen run-ins with the Grimm having stretched it to its limits. The soles of her shoes were worn-down, her tights torn, her vest sporting countless rips and tears. She'd have discarded them all long ago had she any other clothes to replace them with. But her own comfort had been the last thing on her mind these days.

Damn, that coat is beautiful.

She remembered a day when they'd all been together in the cafeteria when - an involuntary shudder coursed through Blake's body as her mind returned to the vision of the Monster, of what he'd done to her and Yang in that hall, but she forced herself past it. She would not let him color every memory of her time at Beacon. She would not allow his shadow to loom over her most treasured moments.

Fingers digging into palms, she forced herself not to abandon her train-of-thought. They were in the cafeteria, a few days into the Tournament. Weiss seated to her left, Coco Adel across from her, still smarting from her upset defeat. In what was as close to comforting as Weiss could get, the heiress had shown Coco a yet-unpublished magazine article on the season's latest haute couture, with a few not-particularly-subtle insinuations that her elder sister may have been something of a trendsetter. CFVY's leader might not have voiced her thoughts, but there was no mistaking the appreciative glint in her eye when she'd sized up the "Svalbard" coat. Immediately after that lunch, Weiss had pre-ordered four.

Blake lifted the coat off the display without even thinking, pausing only as she prepared to drape it over her shoulders. She glanced around furtively, reflexively. Even in a derelict shopping mall in a neighborhood overrun by Grimm she couldn't shake the feeling that someone was about to call her out as a thief, that she was doing something wrong.

Well - you are stealing a coat, said a chiding voice in Blake's head.

Just trying it on.

She found a full-length mirror a few feet away, and even in the dim light, she cut an imposing figure. It was sharp, almost martial, with a high collar and split-tails and clover lapels. From the front it looked almost like a vest, though tougher and sharper than her own, with sleeves coming down to her wrists. She even liked the color.

I mean, is it really theft if I found it in an abandoned store?

Blake slid Gambol Shroud from its holster, letting it rest in front of her. A trench coat and a gun. She was halfway to becoming the protagonist of every trashy, hardboiled detective fic ever written. The kind of stories where a down-on-their-luck hero could defeat any challenge with enough grit and resolve and weariness about the world. The kind of stories she'd indulged in as a guilty pleasure, blazing through cheap prose on quiet evenings in a dorm room filled with friends.

Her partner no doubt would have teased her mercilessly had she been privy to Blake's thoughts. At the way she stood up a little straighter at the sight of herself in a mirror, emboldened by her own image. Like she was a kid donning a costume and calling herself a superhero. But silly as it was Blake knew she'd need every ounce of courage she could gin up, whatever the source. Every night, in the quiet moments after the sun had set, she replayed her fight with the Monster, how she'd crumbled beneath his mask and his words. She'd barely survived, let alone fought back - paralyzed and petrified before the man who'd been everything to her. Who was she to challenge him, to defy him, to defeat him? A washed-out first year student at Beacon? Half her days she'd barely considered herself the equal of her teammates, had breathed a sigh of relief that she'd been passed over for the doubles round. She ran: that's what she'd always been good at.

But maybe, just maybe, she could change that. Bit by bit. Remake her self-image with the help of a new wardrobe. Pyrrha had once confided in her of how much more confident she felt wearing her armor. And Weiss had lectured Ruby a thousand times about 'dressing for success'…

Would the Monster mistake her for Schnee? The one thing he hated, perhaps, even more than her? A small smile - the first in weeks - curled around her lips. 'I should have known they'd send a Specialist', he'd growl, drawing his blade. But then he'd see her pistol transform, and a fleeting expression of confusion would flash across his face. She'd still catch it. Then she'd stand tall and ready her blade, the coat's tails fluttering softly in the breeze behind her.

The fantasy was the final piece of justification Blake needed to loot the coat, to pass over the stores selling the mountaineering attire and survival gear that the hyper-pragmatic part of her mind was screaming for. It may have lost points on utility, but when she walked - newly attired - out of the store, she was unbowed and unafraid.

Nope, you definitely did not just steal a coat because it makes you feel like a badass.

Her stomach rumbled, and Blake banished the treacherous thought from her head, returning to the task-at-handing: finding enough non-perishable foods to make something resembling a dinner. She'd spotted one or two vending machines which she might very well need to resort to, but she was at least going to give the food court a once-over first.

She made it perhaps thirty feet before another storefront caught her eye. A shoe store. A shoe store prominently displaying of a pair of thigh-high boots in a venomous shade of purple.

'No, wait, please-' he'd beg, as the heel of her boot was raised over his face, preparing to shatter his mask…

Maybe she could make a second detour.