AN:
There's going to be two prefaces before I get into the actual story. I wanted to give a little bit of introduction to each of the four characters, sort of like the trailers, but each intro was too short for it's own chapter and it was too long to put all four together.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy, and meet the first half of Team BRVE!
Brooke
The pickup truck whirled to life as I stuck the key into the ignition. With a long sigh, I watched as I waited for the last security patrol to make it back to the house.
It was just another day, another day on the job. Wait for Dakota to get off patrol, head on off myself. Drive around the woods for eight hours. If I was lucky, there'd be a breakthrough, and I'd actually have something to fight, for once. That only ever happened around once a month, in a mixture of fortune and misfortune. I was glad, because that meant the safety of our workers was secure, but also sad, because I loved to fight. Any time a Grimm would dare show its face on our property, I was itching to kill the thing. Yet, a lack of action was fairly consistent in my life.
The headlights of a large pickup turned the corner of the dirt road in front of me. Branded on the side with the same "TimberWolf Lumber Co." logo as myself, the truck came slowly towards me, window rolling down. I reciprocated.
"Same old," the driver told me as he pulled up next to me. The driver, another wolf Faunus with short, brown hair topped by pointed brown ears, was my older brother, Dakota. I looked similar, except my ears were still floppy. Pointed ears were a sign of adulthood in a wolf Faunus. Dakota was only two years older than me, and we both lived fairly boring lives, so it didn't make much sense to me how his ears had pointed and mine hadn't yet.
"Yeah, not shocked. I'll see you at dinner." I gave my brother a nod as we rolled our windows back up and I began to drive off down the dirt road into the forest.
The dirt road was all too familiar to me. It was only four hours into my shift, and I was dreadfully bored, as usual. I had the radio cranking, and anytime I saw a logger, I would stop to make small talk, until they had to get back on the job. Between the music and the occasional small talk with the employees, I was able to stop myself from going insane, but that's about as far as it entertained me.
I glanced at the clock as it hit noon exactly. Pulling over to the side of the road, I pulled a sandwich out of the bag sitting on the passenger seat. Lunchtime.
I hopped out the driver's side door of the truck and around the back. Undoing the hatch, I hopped up into the truck bed, ready to enjoy my lunch in the shadows of the forest I knew so well. I unwrapped my sandwich and was about to take a bite when I noticed it. Silence. The forest was dead silent.
I placed the sandwich down, drawing my hand-axe from its belt loop hanging at my waist. Quiet forest was not good. There should be birds chirping. No birds meant Grimm. Grimm meant a breach. A breach meant actual work to do.
My stomach let out a long growl. This would happen for the first time in months when I'm having lunch. Why would the world let me exist otherwise? Nothing could ever be simple, not in my life anyways.
I listened very carefully, scanning the woods to absorb every single detail that I could. The world was moving slowly, as if in slow motion. I cursed under my breath. It was about to happen.
My scroll lit up. Incoming call from the loggers' break house. I answered immediately.
"Brooke, we've got a breach in sector 6. Grimm spotted. What's your position?" An older man's voice barked the question.
"Sector 5, edge of sector 6. I knew it was too quiet. On my way. Over and out." I shut my scroll and burst up from the truck of the bed, sprinting towards sector 6 as I expanded my axe into full form.
Eyes open, ears open, instincts up. You or them, Brooke. You or them. Thoughts flooded through my head as I dashed through the trees. A whirl of brown darting between the trees would confuse any Grimm before they had a chance to focus in on me. It was my starting strategy.
I traced my path to the outside wall, which consisted of tall wooden barriers. We were a wood farm, after all. It wasn't much to keep Grimm out, but for the most part, it worked for a couple months at a time.
Find the breach, find the Grimm. Kill the Grimm, fix the breach. The steps repeated themselves in my head as I ran along the border of sector 6. The longer it took me to get to the breach, the longer the Grimm had to spread throughout the woods.
That's when I stumbled across the hole. A huge rip in the wooden wall stood out like a sore thumb as I got closer. Running up to it, I glanced through. No Grimm around the outside. A hole this big had to be made by an Ursa. I let out a small groan. Just what I needed, an Ursa. I was happy for the fight, but not very happy about the fact that it was an Ursa. The largest, toughest Grimm around these parts. Took far too long to slaughter, in my opinion.
Found the breach. Now find the Grimm.
I glanced around the area near the hole. A series of claw marks were embedded into a nearby tree. I furrowed my brow. That was a damn good tree, worth a decent amount of money. Now it was ruined. It would probably die soon, unless we cut it down first, and salvaged the wood around the claw marks. I sighed, placing my axe down into the ground by its base, and pulled open my scroll. I sent a picture back to the loggers' base. Take care of this after the breach is fixed. I sent the message with the picture, and picked my axe back up, beginning tracking methods.
Tracks were easy enough to find. An Ursa's footsteps were huge and easy to predict. I kept an eye out for the trees, looking to see if there were any more claw marks chalking up our crops. One more clawed tree, another picture.
Rustling.
I lowered my posture to the ground, axe at the ready. The two blades reflected some of the sunlight peering through the trees, sending off a clear signal to that Ursa that I was here. My eyes scanned the area around me very carefully. We didn't have a lot of brush in our forest, as it was a wood farm above all, so I was confused as to where the gigantic bear Grimm could be hiding.
I stood carefully watching for about thirty seconds before I concluded that the Ursa could not be anywhere near me. Looking around for more tracks, I very carefully, and very alertly, began to follow them once more.
I stumbled upon a small clearing. This was where the loggers had been working who had heard the breach happening and spotted the Ursa through the trees. Their truck was long gone, but their materials left behind. Stumps littered the area, as well as a fallen tree, and many large pieces of expensive logging equipment. The latter was being torn apart by the Ursa, which, to my misfortune, was not just an Ursa. It was an Ursa Major, larger, tougher, and more deadly. This particular Ursa Major had realized my presence, and turned to face me, roaring into the air.
I let out a small smile as the Ursa Major charged towards me. Carefully calculating my movements, I leaped up into the air, using my axe as a propellant to push me high above the large spikes on the Grimm's back. Spinning midair, I slammed my axe into its back, in-between the cracks in its armor.
The Ursa Major let out a very painful sounding cry. Tearing my axe from its back, I landed on my feet behind the injured Grimm. It turned towards me once more, arm ready to swipe my head clean off my body.
Ducking out of the way, I aimed the blade of my axe directly at the palm of its paw too quickly for the Ursa Major to realize what I had done. As quickly as it had gone in, I yanked my axe out, rolling backwards and as far away from the Ursa Major as time would allow. Letting out another immense cry of pain, the Grimm charged towards me once more. As it charged, I spun my axe in the air, in what would appear to be nothing more than a flashy show of my control over my weapon. After a few very fast spins, I slammed the axe down into the ground, leaping up as it made impact. The force that the spinning had built up in the heavy weapon set tremors out into the area around us, shaking the Ursa Major's stance and forcing it to fall over.
Yanking up my axe as I charged forward towards the stunned bear Grimm, I spun my axe so it made a clean decapitation of the mighty Grimm. I landed next to the Ursa Major's severed neck, catching my breath as the adrenaline of the fight began to wear off.
"Well, that was something," an unfamiliar voice spoke, only a few feet away from me. Adrenaline and paranoia rushing back, I turned swiftly, axe ready to strike. A scruffy man with black hair, stubble, and resting a very large sword on his shoulder. "Woah, easy there. I'm not here to pick a fight."
I did not lower my axe. "Who are you?"
"The name's Qrow, Qrow Branwen, hunter. Would you like some help with that hole?" He jabbed his head towards the part of the wall with the huge gaping hole.
Slowly and unsurely, I lowered my axe. If he really was a hunter, he was no danger to me. "Sure."
Rocky
I'd just assumed it would be another normal night for me.
With my headphones on, I wandered the streets of Vale, searching for a shop open to look for some new records for my collection. Mom always hated when I wandered around this late at night, but I mean, no one's gonna mess with a mean looking kid with a green mohawk and a leather jacket with spikes. Most people would run away from me, not towards me.
Still, Mom had a decent enough reason to be worried. Vale had been victim to a string of dust robberies recently, which was enough reason for her to want me to stay home at night. It was also enough reason for me to want to go out, crossbow stored away in my backpack. Perhaps I was a little overzealous, but if I ever ran into whoever was behind the robberies, they wouldn't be able to escape one of my arrows.
At least, that's what I thought.
I found myself in the only shop I could find open, From Dust Until Dawn. It was partially a dust shop, partially a collector's shop, with everything from vinyl to comics to action figures. I pulled my headphones off of my ears and left them around my neck as I entered the shop. The shopkeeper, an old man I had known for several years, smiled when he saw me.
We exchanged a small nod, as I scanned around the store. It was empty, except for a small girl clad in red at the back of the store, thumbing through some comics, music coming from her headphones. This Will Be the Day. Good song. That girl had some good tastes.
I slid my headphones back onto my head, heading over to the music section. Scanning the genres, my eyes settled on what I was looking for. Punk rock. Perfect. I thumbed my way through the vinyl to see if anything new had come in. Losing myself in the music, I didn't hear the commotion going on behind me.
I felt a hand tap my shoulder. Jumping as I turned around, I came face to face with a man with a gun.
"I said, put your hands up, punk." The man barked, jabbing his gun at me.
I raised an eyebrow, glancing out of the corner of my eye. The same was happening to the young girl. Poor thing. I didn't know if I could get myself out of this without her getting hurt as well.
"You don't know what you're getting yourself into here," I glared at the man in front of me.
"Do I now, punk? What are you gonna do about it?"
There was a large crash coming from the other side of the store. The man whipped around to see what I had seen. A blur of red flashed as the man who had been holding up the girl crashed out the front window. Several more men in black suits and one man in a white suit stood around the front, sticking up the shop keeper.
"Get her!" the white suit barked.
Alright, so she can take care of herself. While the man who was holding up me was distracted, I yanked the crossbow out of my bag, and loaded it, ready to shoot the man. But he was already gone, chasing after the girl outside.
White suit still hadn't seen me, distracted by the fight between the girl and the men. I darted outside, armed and ready to fire.
As I looked out at the girl, my jaw dropped. The girl couldn't look older than fourteen, but she was wielding a scythe over twice her size. Alright, she can definitely take care of herself.
Two black suits were knocked out already, and there were three more to go. Two were trying to charge her at once, so I took the liberty of firing one of my arrows at one of them. It caught him in the shoulder, and he flew backwards far away from the girl. As the girl slammed another black suit far away, she looked at me.
"I come in peace. You good?" I asked, loading another arrow into my crossbow.
"Yeah I'm good. Name's Ruby. You?" The girl was doing something to her scythe. Reloading? Probably.
"Rocky. Let's kick some butt." I jumped to her side, standing back to back with Ruby.
The man who I had shot the arrow had pulled the arrow from his shoulder and got up, charging for us again. The other man who hadn't been attacked yet was also charging forward, getting ready to shoot.
"You should learn when to give up!" I yelled out, firing another arrow into the man who I had shot before, sending him flying backwards, this time slamming into the wall of the store.
I glanced over my shoulder as I effortlessly loaded in another arrow, watching Ruby's scythe collapse into some form of gun, something like a rifle. I didn't know a whole lot about guns, but I could put together a crossbow with some scrap metal. With a single shot, she fired at the final black suit, sending him flying, where he landed with a thud and did not move.
Our attention was averted to white coat, who was dropping his cigar and putting it out with his cane. With both of our weapons aimed directly at him, he maintained an odd sense of calm.
"Well… I think we can all say it's been an eventful evening, and as much as I'd love to stick around…" The man rose his cane, a small cross grid appearing, revealing its disguise as a rifle. Before I had a chance to react, he continued. "I' afraid this is where we part ways."
A red blast shot towards us. I leaped backwards, flipping in midair. When I landed on my feet again, I quickly looked around, getting a grasp on the situation. Ruby was fine, and the man in the white coat was climbing the ladder on a nearby building. The shopkeeper was standing, shocked, in the ruined front of his shop.
"You okay if we go after him?" Ruby called out to the shopkeeper, who gave a quick nod. In a blur, the girl dashed off, leaving a trail of rose petals behind her. I ran for the ladder as well. Speed semblance, okay. That explains the blur of red earlier.
I climbed, skipping rungs at a time, as I made my way to the top of the building as fast as I could. As I climbed onto the rooftop and pulled my crossbow back out, I saw white coat leaping onto an escape Bullhead. Ruby was standing, axe out, ready to fight, but it did not look like this would end well.
"End of the line, Red!" The man called out, throwing a red dust gem at her feet and firing his cane.
I leaped forward, preparing to shove Ruby out of the way from the explosion. This would not end easily for the both of us.
There was a blur of purple. Oh no. I shoved Ruby to the ground as a protective barrier formed around us. I turned to see a woman in a purple cape, casting the protection spell around us. Ruby and I stood up quickly, as the woman waved her weapon, a riding crop, and sent several streaks of purple at the craft.
I couldn't see much, but dread filled my stomach. Not her!
A woman in red, her face not able to be seen, appeared in the open Bullhead door, ready to fight the purple woman. Naturally, the purple Huntress blocked a burst of energy aimed directly at her. As the two carried on their fight, Ruby tugged at my sleeve.
"Is she… a huntress?" the girl whispered excitedly.
"Yeah." I spoke, scared for a second of the question I thought Ruby was going to ask.
I looked towards the red woman on the Bullhead. As much as I hated to admit it, I had a duty to help the woman. Aiming my crossbow in under a second, I fired at the woman, who instantly blocked it. I scowled.
Ruby fired her scythe/gun, even though it was still a scythe, with the edge dug into the rooftop. I decided not to attempt to understand the girl's weapon. The woman blocked the shots, and geared up a ton of energy.
I felt a force come over my body. Goddamn telekinesis. I hate when she does this. I found Ruby and myself shoved off to the side as the purple woman dove out of the way of a massive explosion.
Standing up once again, I dusted off my pants as I watched the Bullhead fly off into the distance. I picked up my crossbow and slid it back into my backpack.
"Ohmygod! You're a huntress!" Ruby squealed. "Can I have your autograph?"
The woman scowled. "You two, will be coming with me. And, you," she pointed her crop directly at me, as I took a step back, "you, young man, are in so much trouble."
"Sorry, Mom. I couldn't leave her on her own." I held my hands up in defense, knowing how much of a pain it would be to be at the receiving end of her stick.
The woman scowled. "We'll discuss this later, Richard."
"I thought you said your name is Rocky," Ruby whispered to me.
"It is," I whispered back, "only my mom calls me Richard."
It did not take a moment more before my mother dragged us by the collar of my jacket and the hood of Ruby's cloak, aiming to get us off of this roof, and out of the night.