Chapter One: Red Trailer

Morgan Rubrum

He had been walking for hours. Walking through the snow and ice with nothing but a small miner's jumpsuit and a thin windbreaker. He himself was small and thin for his age but clearly strong and athletic if his pace and muscles were anything to go by. The boy was thirteen and around four feet nine inches tall and had unruly reddish-brown hair.

However, the boys most interesting features happened to be the pair of cat ears on the top of his head and the orange and black striped cat tail on his lower back. The ears were flattened against his head and the tail's fur was fluffed up against the wind.

The boy struggled in the blizzard for another minute before holding out his hand and lighting a small fireball in his palm. Come on. I'm almost there! Just another mile or so. the boy thought, referring to the lights he saw in the distance.

He assumed that those lights were a small mining town, similar to the one he left earlier in the day. It had gotten dark. Very dark. The boy guessed it was around seven in the evening but he wasn't able to tell without a clock due to how early and quickly the sun set in northern Atlas.

The boy put more power into the fireball in his palm, making it larger and hotter. He thought back to the previous morning and why he left his hometown. He remembered the explosion and the miners' screams. His parents' screams.

He shook his head to clear his mind of the awful memories. He had already grieved enough for now. All he had to do at this point was to make it to that cluster of lights in the distance. He would deal with the grief later.

For the next half hour, he trudged on, through the snow and ice, somehow not freezing to death in the frigid temperatures. His face was set determinedly and he trekked against the wind like it wasn't even there.

That was when he heard a low growling behind him. He turned around and saw two creatures of Grimm; a mid-sized Beowulf and a very large Ursa staring at him from a few meters away, their red eyes and markings glowing menacingly in the near dark.

He felt a wave of fear roll over him. He couldn't fight Grimm this powerful, not by a longshot. He didn't even have a weapon. He backed up slowly, hoping beyond hope that the two Grimm weren't interested in him.

His hopes were dashed when the Beowulf leapt forward and swung around to block his way backwards. He stopped. He glanced behind him over his shoulder. The Beowulf was pacing behind him and the cluster of lights was not a town, he found, but an airship and only twenty yards away. All he had to do was get past the dog like Grimm.

He looked towards the Ursa. It had walked up to him and was sniffing him curiously. The boy forced himself to stay still, knowing that if he moved, the Ursa would get spooked and attack anyway.

He took this time to examine the Ursa. It was large for its type and had numerous scars all along its body. This Ursa had clearly been in a lot of fights. It was also missing an ear and a few toes.

The Ursa looked up to meet his gaze. The creatures glowing, blood red gaze seemed to be staring into the boys very soul. He was frozen in place by fear. That was also when the boy realized that the Ursa was more intelligent than any Grimm he had ever heard of.

He backed up a step. The Ursa started growling. The boy stopped. Damn. I can't move or else this thing will tear me apart! he thought. The large bear like creature reared up on its hind legs and roared a terrible, echoing roar. It shook the boy to his soul.

He found his courage then. Using his natural talent for acrobatics, he jumped and backflipped over the Beowulf, using its head as a launching board. He twisted around in midair and hit the ground running.

He ran as fast as he could, getting closer and closer to the ship, hoping desperately he could get on and convince the pilot to take off before the Grimm could kill them both.

His hopes were dashed a second time when he felt a large clawed paw slam into him from the right side and send him crashing into the snow.

The boy staggered to his feet. He coughed once, twice. Blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away with a hand. He looked at the Ursa, which had been the one to hit him, dead in the eyes and said, "If you think I'm just gonna lay down and let you kill me, then you got another thing coming, you ugly bastard!" and flung his head back and roared his own roar up into the sky.

Yellow flames shot out from his hands and hair, lighting the cold winter wasteland with a warm glow. When he looked down, his irises had turned a harsh red and he was snarling like a wild animal.

The boy and the Ursa charged at each other, both roaring loudly. When the Ursa swiped at him, he dodged and punched it in the face as hard as he could with his flaming fist, sending it flying and leaving it with another scar.

He ran at the Beowulf while charging a massive fireball, wide as he was tall and flung it at the wolf creature. The fireball detonated on impact and completely incinerated the Grimm. In his rage, the boy ignored the Beowulf's horrific dying cries.

He continued to run towards the ship and was nearly to the hatch when it opened, jolting him out of his fiery "Berserker Mode" as the flames on his hands and hair extinguished themselves.

A figure exited the hatch. It was illuminated from the back by the lights inside the ship but when it stepped past the boy, he saw that it was a woman. A beautiful woman, tall and lithe, perfectly built for graceful acrobatics. She wore a qipao tailored for combat in mind, with high-heeled dancing boots and a sash tied around the waist. She also had fiery orange hair tied into a tight bun on the top of her head and a ginger fox tail swished behind her.

She drew a fan from the sash and flicked it open. She faced the massive Ursa. "Hey. I'm not going to let you hurt that boy. Leave or face my wrath." she said in a calm Mistral accent, never once raising her voice or losing her temper.

However, the same could not be said of the Ursa. It seemed to be frustrated after losing its pack mate and its kill and was thirsty for blood. It roared at the woman and charged her.

The woman narrowed her eyes and dashed forward with a speed that the boy thought was impossible. She leapt and landed gently on the Ursa's head and launched herself into the air. She somersaulted through the air and dived at the bear like Grimm. She drew her hand back and slashed at the creature's neck with her fan as she hit the ground.

The creature's fur caught on fire and it incinerated itself as the flames engulfed its body.

The woman rose from her kneeling position and walked towards the boy. He had been knocked to his rear end at the sudden appearance of this woman and hadn't gotten up yet.

She extended a hand to help him up. He took it and she hoisted him up from the ground. "Who are you, anyway?" she asked.

"Name's Morgan Rubrum. Thanks for saving me." he answered. "Who are you, though?"

The woman laughed. "My name doesn't matter. What does is that you're safe. But I have to ask: What is a young boy like you doing out here in a frozen wasteland?" she questioned.

Morgan hesitated. He didn't know how to answer that without revealing everything."I couldn't stay in my hometown for… personal reasons. That's all I can say." he said eventually, which was the truth.

The woman looked as if she wasn't going to buy it but she left it alone. "Hmm. Ears and a tail. I've never seen that before. What happened?" she asked.

Morgan hesitated. The truth was that he didn't know how or why he had two animal traits. He just knew it was unusual. "I don't actually know. Mom and Dad never told me how or why. They just told me I was special."

The woman bent over, as if to inspect Morgan, and looked at him intently. He couldn't read her expression. Then: "Well, you alerted me to Grimm in the area and saved my ship and quite possibly my life so I believe I owe you a life debt. Anything you want or need, within reason, I shall provide."

To say that Morgan was shocked was an understatement. He didn't understand where the "life debt" thing came from. If she did owe him, that would have been canceled out when she saved him. But he decided to not say anything about it and just see where it would go. "I want you to take me to Vale." he finally said.

She cocked her head to the side. "Vale? Why Vale?"

"Well, I heard about the Huntsman academy there, Beacon Academy, and I've decided I want to be a Huntsman and be strong like you are." he answered.

"And why do you think I'm a Huntress? I could just be an honorable bandit."

"I have a gut feeling that you're a Huntress. Only Huntresses can do what you do. And my gut feelings are never wrong."

The fox woman again bent over to inspect Morgan. After a while, she stood at her full height and began laughing. "Ha ha ha! I guess you're right! I am a Huntress. I'll take you to Vale." she said as she began to lead him to the ship.

Morgan didn't know what would happen from here on out. He'd just have to wait for his story to unfold…

AN: Like with my other project, Dragon Ball Kohl, this has been rocking around in my head for a couple years.

Like I said there, put forth some feedback in the reviews please. I can't get better if you don't give advice!

So, who is this mysterious fox-tailed lady and why was she in the frozen wastes of northern Atlas? Post your theories in the reviews!