Shattered Tomorrow | Blake Belladonna

RWBY AU continued. Previously, Ruby and Weiss. Thanks for all the likes and reblogs! Keep Reading to continue. Disclaimer: A lot of the story here will be based on the new info I gathered from Volume 3 Episode 7: Beginning of the End, so if you haven’t watched that episode yet, do it now!

About

The disaster began at Vale. Large swarms of Grimm attacked the city yet again, this time much larger than the Breach incident 2-3 years ago, leaving Cinder and group to escape amidst the chaos. While Ruby decides to stay at Vale and help, and Weiss goes back to aid Atlas, Blake goes on a mission of her own.

The White Fang are currently undergoing a hidden schism. After seeing Cinder’s incredibly good track record, slowly subjugating the Kingdoms to her will, the White Fang saw it a good idea to pledge their allegiance to her indefinitely – some out of admiration, some out of fear. However, a small group doesn’t like how she’s using the White Fang as her own private army and want to take her down.

That small group belongs to Adam Taurus. Only problem is, he doesn’t know how with the small numbers he has that agree with him. The rest all think he’s a suicidal lunatic.

Cut back to a time before all of this. Prior to Cinder’s major disaster (maybe at the end of the girls’ first year or their second year at Beacon), Adam met Blake again while the White Fang were operating in Vale. Needless to say, it wasn’t a pleasant reunion.

Long story short, they confronted each other about Blake’s departure that day, Adam believing she had left their cause and betrayed them just to fall into the Kingdoms’ neat little institutions. It took a lot of effort for Blake to get her side of the story in. A lot of effort meaning a lot of fighting. Adam survived the bout and escapes, forced to leave part of his weapon, Wilt, behind.

Cut to the present. Blake is on her way to the supposedly abandoned continent of Menagerie, where the humans tried to push all the Faunus into all those years ago. She believes that it’s where the White Fang’s true stronghold is located. That group always did have a liking for cruel irony, and putting their stronghold where once was the great symbol of Faunus oppression seemed appropriate.

The mission is first and foremost a stealth mission, and she knows she can’t go in with guns blazing (yet, anyway) if it’s true the entire country is full of White Fang. Luckily she has the help of some allies: Velvet Scarlatina, Scarlet David (his [presumably good at this time of writing] navigation skills at high seas was pretty useful for the long ride to Menagerie) and… Bartholomew Oobleck. He got really separated from the other teachers.

Character: Blake Belladonna

The world looks dark right now, but that’s why we’re here. Right, Ruby? To be the future this world needs.

Blake was pretty fine with her time at Beacon and with her team… until she and Adam had that confrontation. Adam believed Blake had betrayed him and the White Fang cause. Though Blake insisted that she was not going to take the harsh lengths they wanted her to, Adam had only this to say.

“I thought you were stronger than this.”



(Disclaimer: Fan speculation of Blake and Adam’s relationship incoming! Skip if you need to.)

When Blake witnessed the transition of the White Fang from its peaceful roots to its current violent form, she knew something in her protested, but decided to follow through because it was the only right thing she knew. Back then. the White Fang was all she knew. It was them against the whole world.

After this transition, she along with many children like her were trained in combat for the new cause. Excelling over the others and showing great passion for the freedom of Faunuskind, Adam took a liking to her and decided to train her himself. From then on he became her trusted mentor and leader.

But as time went on, Blake’s conscience kept clawing within her, and whatever point it stopped her at, Adam always was more than ready to cross it, and it began to eat away at her trust of him - slowly but surely. This came to its peak during the Schnee train heist, where Blake decides enough is enough and literally cuts off all ties to her past, hoping this would finally take the weight of her sins off her.

Initially, it didn’t, and she pushed herself in her early time at Beacon by doing as much good as possible as a Huntress to tip the balance of her good and bad deeds, consumed by the memories of her past misdeeds. But after spending time with her trusted team, she learns that this destructive way of thinking cannot last, and she lets go of her mistakes she was bound to, while also acknowledging who she was cannot be changed, but who she is can still be.

After this epiphany, she removes her ribbon and reveals herself as a Faunus to Beacon and the world, ad well as her past as a White Fang member. With the help and support of her team, along with Ozpin vouching for her, she was able to push through and enter this new stage of her life. She now wears her ribbon on her right arm, proudly displayed as a badge instead of a disguise.

This didn’t mean she didn’t care for Adam even while she was in Beacon all that time. Blake thought the world of him, and time did nothing to diminish that. He had a drive and steadfast, unshaking principles that would have been so pure and righteous, had he fought for a different cause. He always drove her to be more than her internal limits dictate. To stop running away. To be brave to fight for what she believes. To not be ashamed of who she was.

He always believed there was a hidden strength in her. He always pushed her during training because he wanted to bring out the strength he saw in her. He even told her once,

“Blake, do you know what you are? You are power, in chains.”

Adam was hurt as well by Blake’s departure that day. When he first found her when she was a child, she was just a timid girl, but when she holds up her sign at the protests, there was a fire within her that was unmatched by any other. She shouted and held her sign so high it’s like it would never matter if she was the only one there. That was why Adam chose her. He had seen the signs of Blake’s hesitation over the White Fang and his own decisions as time went on, and had many chances to address it, but foolishly, he thought, he wanted to believe that Blake would be loyal no matter what.

During that confrontation, all of those emotions were let out. Even in between bouts, Blake tearfully yelled at how she still wants to do what was right. At how she still thinks the world of him, even now. She cried out, “You were always the one who gave me strength, but now, I have to stand my own feet! I have to decide my path!”

“And you will not! Stop ME!”



In that moment, Adam finally saw it. He saw it in her eyes when she lunged at him with a readied strike. That same intense need for justice, that same unbridled strength when he first saw her during the protests, holding up a sign larger than she was, frustratingly kept hidden whenever he trained her – but now he finally saw it, and it wasn’t even by his own hand. For all that he did, he couldn’t coax that passion out of Blake… but Beacon, and her Huntress teammates did.

What… What did I do wrong… All this time? was all that ran through his mind, his staunch worldview clouded for the very first time.

That moment of hesitation was all that Blake needed, and in a decisive strike, she defeats Adam, breaking part of his rifle, Blush, in the process, seriously injuring him as well.

As Adam collapsed to the ground, he spoke to Blake, his voice weak and raspy, and he actually smiled saying it.

“I don’t… I don’t understand, Blake…



“You’ve become strong. You’ve broken your chains.”

In the aftermath of that incident, Blake secretly nursed Adam back to care. She couldn’t bear to keep it a secret from her team, so she told them. Now understanding her situation more, they agree to help, against their better judgment, keeping it a secret from the rest of Beacon the best they could.

Time passed, and although his body was healing Blake didn’t see him regain consciousness. Then one day, Adam disappears. Blake came to find his bed empty, save for the fragments of Blush lying on top of it that was broken in their fight.

Blake decides to take it and uses the pieces to be fused to her Gambol Shroud, which she now renames as Vive la Vie – Long Live, Life.

Design Process

When I started to work on Blake, I imagined the possibility of her using a new weapon, since Monty actually mentioned it in a tweet before. I imagined a sort of Gambol Shroud/Wilt&Blush fusion, and got hyped about designing it. Lemme tell you this:

Designing weapons on the level of creativity and finesse Monty had is tough. He really knew what he was doing, and I really admire him for it. Because I was redesigning/fusing both Blake and Adam’s weapons, I had to analyse them by pictures and footage, and my goodness, they’re both very, very well-designed, graceful and practical in the simplest way.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t capture that simple effectiveness in my redesign for Blake’s weapon, Vive la Vie. The only thing I really liked about it is the name actually, chich kinda came randomly because Blake’s last name was in French and was based on Belle, a French character. =p It’s a decent design, but believe me when I say that it’s nowhere near the level of expertise in Gambol Shroud’s design.

Gambol Shroud, as complicated as it was, was not only a great, sleek design, but it was also pretty much perfect for Blake. It was graceful, acrobatic, sharp – it was so… Blake-y. I’ll definitely have to revisit Vive la Vie’s design and mechanics just so it’ll be worthy of replacing one of Monty’s creations, and for such a great character like Blake.

Anyways, enough gushing about guns and more about Blake. Since I focused so much of the sketching process on the new weapon design, Blake’s final redesign ended up pretty straightforward, and very similar to her normal design, only combined with the look of her pants and boots of her Intruder outfit from Volume 2.

It’s not really noticeable in the pictures, but Blake’s hair and her coat are lopsided, meaning her hair is shorter at the ends on her left side than the right, and she remade her coat to reflect that. This was because of what transpired during her fight with Adam: he executed his Semblance move on her, but she narrowly dodged it, the attack vaporising a large part of her hair as it missed her. She kept it that way as a reminder of what had happened between her and Adam that day when they finally met each other since she left, and in the hope that she will again in the future.

Thanks for reading through if you did. If not – hey, there’s pretty pictures!