Prologue: A Shadow in the Wind
As a blizzard howled outside the walls of the Night Guard outpost, Captain Tang Everdeen leaned forward in his chair and took a sip from his coffee.
This was his 4th week of watch duty and the lonely box of his office was beginning to feel like a jail cell. Though, considering the many comforts this particular jail cell came with it was a very nice jail cell.
His chair was soft, padded with the latest fabric the paper pushers back at the capital had put together, and the glass, though he wasn't sure what it was made of, even now held back the biggest blizzard he'd seen in the last few decades.
The floor was carpeted, potted plants were placed on various pieces of furniture, and all around the room there were knickknacks and trophies of various types, kept safe in polished glass display cases. Heck, he even had a cup holder. Somewhere around here.
Tang stood up, coffee still in hand, and looked out into the storm. The night shifting in the roiling wind seemed to contain any multitude of monsters, waiting in the darkness.
Despite his coffee and the warm room, he shivered.
His outpost was situated at the top of a small hill at the edge of the Grimmlands of the Kingdom of Atlas. Looking below, even though the ground had been enveloped by a thick mist of ripping white snow, he could see lights, green and piercing through the dark. There were four in total, and if he could see the top of his own outpost, he'd see a fifth blinking in the darkness.
Things were calm now, but in times of danger those lights would change from green to red and he would be frantically notifying the capital of the oncoming peril. For they were the GrimmWatch, the frontline of humanity, a beacon to sound the alarm when the worst of our nightmares took form and stormed upon our safe havens, and he was their Captain. It was a tiring job indeed, to sit at the edges of civilization and lookout for monsters every night, and not for the first time Captain Tang Everdeen wondered if it wasn't high time he hauled his old bones back to the capital and shoved a resignation letter into the faces of a few choice acquaintances.
But, the lights below blinked on, and the captain stood still drinking his coffee, watching as each gust outside sent sheet upon sheet of white powder dancing around the calming green glow of each outpost.
Even the Grimm wouldn't test themselves against weather like this, right? Tang thought as he pulled away from the window, memories playing at the edges of his mind.
There'd been a time when a flame burned within him. He'd had dreams, had aspired to be a hero. Fate had seen to it that he was born in an age of reclamation, when Dust and Machinery paired together promised to beat back the Grimm and carve a place within the world where man may finally find sanctuary.
But the Grimm would never end, never stop when challenged. Kill one and a thousand more would take its place. Each victory wrested from the jaws of defeat would only be met with 10 more desperate battles. Each life saved meant a comrade's life was given away. Each thought of glory in battle was extinguished when met with the unending hordes of black hungering beasts. The path to sanctuary mankind had paved through the darkness was paved in gallons and gallons of blood.
How many times had he heard the terms "sacrifice" and "greater good"? More than enough to last him a lifetime. More friends than he could count were commanded to their deaths by men who've never held a sword in their lives. He'd rallied against them as he climbed through the ranks, against those he once believed to be his betters, but eventually, he would learn.
Passion couldn't save lives against a foe you couldn't defeat. Intelligence, shrewdness, and unending calculations did.
Although he could understand, he could not abide by the coldness with which his peers treated the people whom they were supposed to protect. So he left his position, to the delight of his enemies, freeing himself from the politics of the capital, and in time the fire within him was reined in and reduced to faded embers.
And now?
Well, he'd been working for a long time, longer than most had lived. Maybe it's time to call it quits. Settle down with a family somewhere at the edge of the capital. He'd always been so busy with work, and now he couldn't help but consider it.
What kind of life would that be?
He sighed, taking another moment to enjoy the aroma of the coffee in his hands, before setting it back down on a countertop beside him.
They couldn't find anyone good enough to replace him anyways.
As good a time as any to check on the troops. He thought as he turned to face a large black contraption standing to the left of the countertop, affixed with a multitude of speakers, lights, and buttons of various sizes.
"All stations, status report." He said as he pressed a violet button near the center of the machine.
"Station 1. Normal, Sir."
"Station 2. Normal. Sir."
"Station 3. Normal. Sir."
One by one, through crackling static, each of the stations sounded off and declared their status, with one exception.
"Station 4? Do you read?" Tang said again, frowning, he remembered the person manning that station. Charles Vulpes, a new face off of a recruitment program back home.
"Station 4, uh, C-Captain?" The static answered back with the voice of a nervous young man. "There's something out in there. I think it's… what if..."
Tang froze at the implications, and for a moment considered what the recruit had told him.
There was only one thing that his soldiers were stationed here to look for, the monsters of their namesake.
The Grim.
But, it couldn't be. The Grimm were monsters, plain and simple. They were creatures born of the fears of every man, woman, and child across Remnant. They were insatiable beasts, clad in black hide and white bone which sought for humanity's' extinction with every living breath they took. Yet, as powerful and frightening as they were, even the largest of them would have difficulty traversing through a storm as thick and as cruel as this one.
So it couldn't be them.
It couldn't be. But...
But if it was there would be nothing left to do. A quiet whisper of doubt slipped through Tang's mind. If the Grimm were already here, with an army large enough to weather this storm then there were would be no response. There wasn't enough time. It would be impossible for the capital to organize a defense so fast against a horde which was already knocking on their doorsteps.
The country would be ground to dust.
…
No.
Those fears were baseless and he knew it. Before the storm had hit, his men would've noticed a collection of Grimm as large and as dangerous as the one he had imagined. Tang knew what it was like to have his eyes play tricks on him in the middle of a long night. Charles had probably seen the same thing. At least, that's what Tang hoped was true.
"Calm down." He said, as much to himself as to his recruit. "Tell me what you see."
There was a pause on the other side of the static, no doubt the recruit had taken a moment to steady his nerves as well.
"Yes, sir, Captain Everdeen… sir." He replied. "There's a shadow out there. I can barely make it out in the storm, but it looks like it's coming closer to us."
A shadow? Only one?
A scout? Tang considered, rationally this time. Or perhaps just a lone Beowulf who got separated from the pack?
"Wait, I think I can make something out… I think... it's a person out there! Captain!"
"What?"
"Captain! He's collapsed in the snow"
Captain Tang Everdeen and Charles Vulpes sat across from each other. Between them lay the sleeping form of a young boy, who must have been no older than sixteen.
When the morning light finally found its way into the medical bay it was Charles who spoke first, fidgeting with a helmet he still wore from the night before.
"Captain… is he going to be alright?"
"Hm, looks like it." Tang answered across the bed, fingers tapping over a scroll. "The medic said that there's no real danger, he's just resting for now."
"Um, alright then, sir, uh, if you don't need me anymore-"
"Isn't it strange Soldier?" Tang interrupted, his eyes wandering the room.
"Um, sir?"
Hidden from Charles, in the display of Tang's scroll, was a picture of remarkable likeness to his recruit. With one key difference. The picture sat at the corner of an old Mistral citizenship card and in it his recruit wore a dirtied hoodie and sported a second set of ears.
Fox ears.
Faunus ears.
The card was under a different name, and the boy in the picture was a lot younger than the man in front of him now, but Tang couldn't mistake it. It was him.
"How was it that someone so young could make it all the way to the Atlas watch line, without us noticing?" Tang continued, drawing out his words. "Makes me think this kind of thing could've happened before."
In front of him Charles stiffened.
"M-Maybe he's from one of the l-local villages? And got lost in the storm?" Charles replied, stutter just a little worse than before.
"Ah, but you see his Aura's unlocked. And there have been no records of any Huntmen-in-Training coming from any of the villages nearby." Tang mused, his eyes suddenly turning to look Charles dead on. "Besides, it begs the question, why did he come here of all places? Do you have any ideas, Soldier?"
Nothing betrayed the tension Charles must've been feeling save for the whitened knuckles he placed his lap.
Good poker face. Tang noted. Makes sense, considering how far he's made it.
"M-Maybe he was just doing his best to survive out there?" Charles said, eyes cast downwards, away from his captain's piercing stare. Obviously, he wasn't talking about the boy anymore. "M-Maybe he caught up with a few monsters out in the dark and had to get away from everything, in case they hurt the people around him? He probably didn't even expect to end up here. It's a tough world out there, so this kind of thing happens pretty often, or so I've heard. Captain."
"Hm, sounds like a likely story as any." Tang murmured, for a moment his tone dangerously low, eyes narrowing on the faunus before him.
For the first time in this conversation, Charles eyes flickered to something fastened at his Captain's hips. It was a simple wooden sheath, curved, containing inside cold and unforgiving steel.
Then, as quickly as it had come Tang's expression softened, replaced by a smile.
"Well, as long as he doesn't cause any trouble I'll let him stick around, for now."
Though it may not have been obvious, relief poured over Charles' features. Creases at the corners of his eyes loosened, along with his tightened knuckles.
Good poker face. Tang noted again. But not great.
"Hah, alright." Tang laughed as he stood up, Charles rising clumsily to meet him. "I've taken up enough of your time Soldier. You may go."
As Charles left the room Tang closed the door behind him.
"Alright, kid." He said as he turned to the bed. "How long have you been awake?"
Instead of a response, Tang's eyes were met with a blinding flash of light, and in an instant, he felt the presence of a young man behind him.
And cold steel pressed against his throat.
In later years, the people of Remnant would speak in whispers of the storm which brought a strange boy hurtling through the lands of the Kingdom of Mantle. Untouched despite traveling through lands riddled with Grim. Echoes of great power, and an even greater destiny which seemed to surround the boy would pour across the 4 continents. Some of which would be true, some of which were fiction…
But one thing is for sure.
The world will remember Oscar Ozpin.