So the long awaited (or not) story: Dynasty. It is my longest story not broken up by chapters, so I hope you enjoy.

Sky slashed through an entire pack of Beowulfs with the speed and grace of a wolf. Her bejeweled blades conducted her aura perfectly, and not even this pack's armor was no match for them.

Another pack came from behind, but she didn't get to them. Her father got there first. His claymore cut through them even fast than Sky's blades could.

"Sky!" her father said. "There are too many! Get the team to the dropship!"

Redell jumped off the face of an Ursa, and slashed its head off. "No! I can do this!" Redell said.

"Yeah, but can your team?" her father said.

Before one of them could answer, Redell replied, "They can do it."

And then another pack of Beowulfs came out from the brush.

Sky forced herself out of the memories of that battle, and back to the present.

Quickly remembering where she was, she chose to remain seated. The memory was from last year, when she and her father Norbert when on a mission with her brother Redell's team. He wasn't the leader, but she couldn't remember who it was. She was going back to Beacon for similar reasons; to let another team shadow her and her father.

Her father was an accomplished Huntsman, and she was a graduate of Beacon so they were both fully qualified to be shadowed.

The only reason they worked together instead of working alone was that they worked so well together. They were both skilled Hunters. Their strengths covered each other's weaknesses. And the fact that her father was a skilled warrior and a worrier.

While it was clear he had confidence in her ability to fight, it was also clear that he had his fear. Huntsmen and Huntresses didn't have a very long life expectancy, so his fear was founded. But with two, chances of survival double.

Hopefully this time would be different. Hopefully Redell wouldn't be the one who was shadowing them.

The dropship landed at Beacon with a shudder. She and her father stood up, and walked out of the ship. The sun hit her face, and she winced. They had been in that dropship so long that her eyes had gotten too adjusted to the poor light. The smell of the front courtyard in winter—or just the lack of such, since it was so cold—was familiar comfort. Some things don't change.

Soon a team would be coming out to go on their mission. Until then, she had nothing to do. "Do you wanna catch the end of Ozpin's speech?" her father asked.

"Nah. It's the same speech every year," Sky replied. "'Today we stand united. Mistral. Atlas. Vacuo. Vale. Blah, blah, blah.' Seriously, he needs to learn that it's only inspiring once or twice. When you say it six years in a row, it gets boring for everybody else."

"He could have some new material this year," his father suggested.

"That's what you said last year, dad."

"Yeah, I guess I did." And he didn't press it further.

They waited awhile. After half an hour, their waiting paid off.

A team walked towards the landing pad. From left to right was a woman with magnificent blue-green eyes, black hair, and a commanding walk about her; a white haired kid that wore an open blue coat, and his weapon—a rifle of some kind—very obviously strapped to his back; a fox Faunas that had one giant gauntlet; and a man who was a full head taller than everyone else, and had plate armor, and a sword strapped to his back. The woman with the blue-green eyes—seriously, they were kind of distracting—spoke up. "Hello, I am Athena Polias. These are my comrades, Wade, Lorna, and Hiro. We are team AWLH"

There was no way you could spell "owl" with those letters, Sky thought.

The dropship was nearing the location of the mission site—or so the pilot said. Their mission was to recover some artifacts from an archeological dig outside of Vale. Grimm attacked the dig, and the archeologists were forced to flee. They insisted that the artifacts were worth sending Hunters to retrieve; something about proving that ancient humans and Faunas did coexist peacefully before the kingdom of Vale was founded. All that mattered was getting there.

Hiro was trying to hit on Athena—unsuccessfully—when the dropship shook. "Pilot, what's going on?" Norbert asked, yelling to the cockpit.

There was no reply. Norbert went up to the cockpit to ask again. When he got there, though, he found the pilot with a Nevermore feather piercing right through his chest.

The dropship started going out of control. "We're gonna crash!" Norbert said. "Everyone out!"

They obeyed, and jumped out the side of the dropship. Norbert was the last to go. The wind whizzed past his head fast, and he landed on the ground with a thud. He turned around to see the dropship go out of control and crash into the trees in a fiery explosion.

He quickly found the others, and the Grimm surrounding them. He saw AWLH and Sky ready to fight for their lives. He would have been proud if his protective side didn't tell him to kill every last one of the Grimm. He drew his sword and slashed the first Beowulf he saw.

As he battled Grimm, he saw AWLH and their fighting styles. Athena had dual spears which she would spin for defense, and stab the offense—they could each also turn into a Gladius if she wanted it to. Wade had a musket with a bayonet which he used very skillfully. Lorna was a tricky fighter, and her weapon was a gauntlet with long metal claws. Hiro's heavy plate armor protected him as he swung his massive two-handed sword with great accuracy and strength. They were all very impressive.

Norbert's current opponent, a heavily armored Beowulf—which was probably the pack leader and the oldest among them—was proving difficult. The Grimm slashed with its claws to his left, and Norbert blocked with his left arm. It would have stung a lot had it not been for the heavy armor on that arm. Norbert then saw his opportunity and counterattacked, slicing the Grimm in half with his sword.

They quickly slaughtered the Beowulf pack. "Now, was that so terrible?" Norbert asked.

Sky shot him a look. He deserved it, maybe.

As Sky walked along with the students, she started talking to them, learning about them. They had a long way to go up this hill, and a lot of time to pass. She thought talking to this team would help them fight in battle better.

She had especially gotten to know the leader, Athena. She seemed a very cold individual, at first. And after talking to her enough, she learned that Athena really was that cold. All she wanted to talk about were battle strategies. When asked about her reason for doing this, Athena simply said "Because it is the only thing I'm good at. If I did anything else, I'd be terrible at it."

It disturbed Sky. Not only because it was a weak answer, but because it was almost an echo of herself. Her father and mother were both hunters, and so Sky inherited much of her parent's skills; her father's swordplay and her mother's agility both were incorporated into her style. But she did not bother too much with that.

She talked to Wade next. She learned he was a very odd one. But he was also very good at leading. Apparently, whenever Athena had trouble managing this lot, Wade would take command; admirable. She thought that her team leader could have used someone like that when they were in school.

Sky asked Wade about why he wants to be a Huntsman. He replied "I want to do this for my country." That was a common answer, as had she found. One of her cousins would have said that if you asked him.

She then talked to Lorna, the fox Faunas. She reminded Sky of herself very much. She had much energy, and had fun making jokes about using her gauntlet to… Okay, maybe she wasn't much like Sky.

But then she asked Lorna about her motivation. She expected a variation on the regular Faunas "because I'm a Faunas and I want to teach those dirty humans a lesson" rant. But then she surprised Sky. "I do this because of pain. I have endured pain from a hundred people, of a hundred kinds, from a hundred sources: my parents hated me and each other. They were murdered before my eyes and I was left injured to be found days later by a beggar and only got into a hospital after a dozen horrible things happened to me on the way. I was rejected by almost every combat school in Mistral except for Asylum, and the bad things don't stop there.

"But I don't want vengeance. I don't want justice. I want to give others the compassion, the justice, the vengeance, that I was denied. I do this for others, not myself." What do you say to that?

Sky talked to Hiro next, but he just seemed winy, so she let her father handle that one.

As they reached the top of the hill, Sky could see the entire archaeological dig. They were digging right into the top of the hill. Above the main dig were a series of tents, most likely used for living quarters and storage along with maybe identifying artifacts. On the ground were the tools used for the dig—brushes, shovels that sort of thing— and Grimm.

Sky drew her blades, ready for action. They had to clear out these Grimm. "Might I suggest a course of action?" Athena said.

"Go ahead; you're the leader," Norbert said.

"Alright. Wade, Lorna, Norbert, you three go for the artifacts," Athena said as she laid out her plans. "Hiro, Sky, and I will fight the Grimm, distracting them so that the others can carry out their part of the mission."

"Why am I always the one to charge the Grimm?" Hiro said. "Can't somebody else get horribly scarred by Grimm?"

"You're the one with the toughest armor," Wade said. "Besides, that last time you didn't wear armor."

"Because you dared me to," Hiro corrected.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to take dares?" Lorna said. Hiro glared at her.

"My decision is final," Athena resolved. "But next time you can go with Wade."

"Thank you."

Athena made a movement with her hand. Wade and Lorna headed to the tents to retrieve the artifacts. Her father followed them, trying to keep up with the youths.

She didn't know how that made her feel.

Athena drew a gladius, and it extended into a spear. She twirled it 180 degrees, and threw it. It soared through the air, and hit a Grimm dead on. The Grimm turned around, and charged them.

Sky drew her blades, and started cutting up Beowulfs left and right. There were some Ursa with them. Sky had trouble with Ursa, but not too much.

Sky stabbed an Ursa with her left blade. It was still alive—or whatever you could call the active state of Grimm—so she stabbed it with the other sword. They were stuck in the Ursa's back armor. While the Grimm would soon disintegrate, she didn't have that time.

Another Ursa rose to full height next to her. It was going to kill her if she didn't act fast. But she didn't; Athena did. Athen flew right through the back of the Ursa's head, and sliced through the Grimm's face. She landed on the other said of Sky. "Impressive," Sky said.

"Thanks, I worked hard on it."

She got her swords unstuck, and reentered the fray.

This lasted for a while. Finally, Athena told her that they were ready to get out of there.

"The others have the artifacts?" Sky asked.

"Yes, now we must retreat!" Athena replied.

"Sounds good." Sky ran out of there with Athena and Hiro, and met up with the others, Wade covering their retreat.

They made their way to a safe distance, where Sky's father began calling for an evac. Their own dropship gone, the best they could hope for was one that had just dropped their team off.

Lorna turned to Sky. "You know what's been bothering me?" Lorna said.

"No, what?"

"All this time and we don't even know your last name."

"I don't your last name either," Sky retorted.

"Good point. My name is Sionn; Lorna Sionn." Interesting name, she thought.

"And my name is Sky Sapphire."

"Oh, you're that Sky."

"Yep." Yes, that Sky. The one who'd gained some reputation, she imagined, fighting Grimm that had killed other Hunters. She was an avenger of sorts.

"Why do you do that?" Lorna asked.

"What?"

"Why do you avenge them?"

Sky sighed. "I had a friend who constantly talked about how her mom died from Grimm. She was a Huntress, and yet she died. So I eventually became a Huntress for my own reasons, but then I found a very distinctive Grimm. It had scars that could have only come from my friend's mother's weapon. So I killed it for her.

"It felt good, giving someone justice like that. So I decided to keep doing it; finding Grimm who had killed Hunters, and killing them."

"Alright, the dropship's on its way," her father said. "Anything I missed?"

"Nah, I just told her about why I avenge dead Hunters," Sky replied.

"Okay." He wandered over to talk to the others.

"Just one more question," Lorna said.

"Okay, go ahead," Sky replied.

"Do you have a family or anything?"

"Not of my own, but I've got a brother, Redell, and a bunch of cousins."

"What are their names, out of curiosity?"

"Well, Vermont's the oldest, and his younger sister Tress, they aren't Hunters. But my other two cousins are. Their names are Storm and Rain. They recently enrolled in Haven Academy."

"I think a friend of mine is own their team."

"Huh, small world."

So, do you wonder what AWLH's inspirations are? Here they are.

Athena - the Ancient Greek goddess Athena. Her character is heavily based off of the goddess of strategy, and I have done my research.

Wade - General George Washington, first President of the United States of America. His name is derived from what he did at the Delaware River. Do you know what happened?

Lorna - the fox, the trickster archetype of many a story told in both old and modern stories.

Hiro - the knight, the hero of many a fairy tale, for once he doesn't want to throw himself into danger.

If you're wondering about Sky and Norbert... I can't tell you. You'll just have to wait to find out that they aren't based off of anyone. Oops! Well, now you know that most of my characters are just supposed to be named for colors and not for any fictional character or real person. AWLH's just an exception.

Anyway, see ya!