Prologue: White, Black and somewhere in-between.

Vale: One day, you will learn the truth.

It was a cold night in Vale and the docks were colder still, was it the sea breeze, the constant bickering of management, or the aura of mistrust in the air? Perhaps it was all three. Whatever the reason, the three dockhands didn't care enough to find out, it was coming to the end of their shift. The youngest of the three, a streetwise boy by the name of Slate was shivering with a small disposable cup of something warm in his hands, which were red and raw from a long day of manual labour.

"Busy day today huh? Never knew it could be this bad." He remarked, he was new to the job, barely a fortnight in and still unaccustomed to the harsh reality of life at the docks. An older man in his fifties chuckled.

"You think this was bad? Ha! You soft-handies make me chuckle" He scratched his grey stubble with a single dirty and bitten fingernail.
"You ain't seen nothing yet kid, the Vytal festival makes this job hell."

"Well Grif, I at least think they should up our pay for this time of year!" Slate huffed; in his early twenties he was still naive to the world's harsh realities. Something that Grif was eager to jump on.

"Increase our pay? With comments like those we'll make a true dock'and outta you yet lad!" He laughed whilst wiping a none-existent tear from his eye with a calloused hand.

"I've bin stuck on the same lousy salary for thirty odd years! No bonus, no overtime and don't even talk about promotion!" He raised his voice to the young boy, who stood there miffed, before talking to the quieter dockhand, diligently working on the ropes.

"What about you Ropes?" The quiet third dockhand just glared at the boy, a mute man, he didn't really have much to say to anyone even before a Beowulf got his tongue when he was but eighteen. Now Ropes had the pleasure, at thirty two years of age, of being the only mute man on the docks.

They wasted time away as dockhands do, getting the supplies and ordering them into the correct areas. This happened for another hour or so until Slate, once again bored, spoke up.

"Never see no Faunus working these docks do ya'?" He scowled, young human working class Valians never really got along well with the other race.

"Why do think you got this job kid? Incident a couple of months back with that White Fang meant that all the Faunus here got fired." Grif himself scowled, he had a couple of Faunus drinking buddies who got the shift, went by the names 'Li'l Simms' and 'The Captain'.

"That damn company's takin' over the world, no need for decent folks to get the shift; that crap at the docks was just the excuse the fuckers needed!" Grif wasn't done ranting.

"And do you know what's worse? I heard the Schnee bitch was at the dock when it all went down, fishy crap if you ask me." Grif vented, the human working class and the Schnee Dust Company were often at odds, even if they weren't the source of the company's ire.

"I heard that the company got really harsh after those two kids went missing some three years back." Slate spoke up again, now done with his cup he dropped it into the bin behind him.

"The two Schnee boys? The company just needed an excuse kid, this was a dream come true for them."

"What I mean is that, if your kids got abducted by Faunus, you'd be a bit harsher right?" Slate was just playing Devil's Advocate now, trying to get a rise out of Grif, hiding a big grin behind his arm.

"One of them wasn't even his kid, he was his nephew! Papers say that he didn't even like his son very much, now that boy's twin sister, the one at the docks, is one who is gonna inherit it all!"

Rain began to pour and their fire went out.

"Oh this is just great" Slate piped up.

"The only way today could get any worse was if it started to rain and look what happened!" Slate was, to say the least, unimpressed. He still had an hour to go in his shift and now life just got a whole lot crueller; it will get crueller still.

Ropes was just about done with his shift, he needed a strong drink after dealing with this kid and Grif, he couldn't stand to see them any longer. He was about to leave when he noticed a tall figure, shadowed by the darkness and form covered by rain. What he could make out was that they were dragging one leg behind the other and that they were bowing their head, a light emanating from what must have been a head-mounted light under a hood.

Ropes gestured to the figure, as they slowly made their way towards the trio, when they failed he turned and gestured to his companions, but they were now in yet another heated argument. Turning back to face the figure, Ropes saw a masculine frame on the person limping towards him. He walked over to help the staggering figure, as weaker folks didn't do too well in the rain. That all changed when he lifted his head.

He faced a monster, or at least the mask of one. This mask resembled the ones the White Fang used, but this man's was different than the ones in the papers or on television; there were no holes for the man to see through, but instead thick harsh ice-blue lines, emanating a harsh cold blue light, it was clear whatever was under there could see through them. Unlike other Grimm masks, this one covered his entire face and was very sharp, in the shape of a kite shield that the Atlasian Knights used to wield. But what was most notable was the singular thick line, in the shape of an insane, sadistic smile, almost triangular as it stretched from one side of the mask to another. A smile contorted into one of pain, that itself had a blue glow.

Ropes was dead before he could scream. A hand shot out from under the robe and found Ropes' neck before he could let out any noise: there was no glove, yet the hand was black, it was cold, metallic and wouldn't let go. Ropes died quickly as the single hand around his neck twisted, breaking his neck with a loud crack, it was then that the others turned around. They tried to run, they too were silenced. Dead.

Rain dominated the night as the lone killer limped into the warehouse. His entrance to the city of Vale, whilst not flashy, was vital to the operation. He began to mend his leg.

Author

Once again unto the breach for me. I am looking for someone to preview my story before I post it (to find inconsistencies/ Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar), it has been an effort putting these here three chapters out. GCSEs, who would've guessed that they take up your time?