Author's Note: Welp, I guess I'm really doing this again. I'm too embarrassed to look back at my old mtg fics, but seeing as I was writing this for myself anyways I might as well upload it. This was pretty much just a story of my and my friends if we went to beacon, but as I kept writing it and planning it out I started to try and make the characters more interesting and eventually went 'fuck it' and gave everyone a cool backstory. I'll try and upload weekly seeing as I have around fifteen chapters as of now. A little bit about the fic: I decided that if I was writing again I would need some practice using first person, seeing as all my old stories used third. Eventually beacon and all your favorite characters will be a part of this but for now we're exploring the mc's backstory, which is in Vacuo. Oh, and if you're the one person who follows manipulated don't worry, I haven't abandoned it. Enjoy!
Prologue:
I've never been good at opening up to people. Telling people my life's story always seems hard. Where do I start? So much has happened over my life, but so little has been good. I suppose I'll start where everyone starts, at the beginning. When I was born my sister, Katie was almost two years older than me, having been born in August. I was born in April, eighteen months after her. My parents were simple folk who lived in Vacuo. My mother was a teacher, my father was a mailman. We had a yellow house in a suburb not far from a preliminary combat academy. As far back as I can remember, there was nothing I wanted more than go to that academy, to be a huntsman. It seemed heroic. It was a childish phase I grew out of, however before that day came my father did me a favor. He taught me how to shoot. Nothing fancy, no aura weapons, and not a single modern gun. But plenty of old long range small caliber rifles and some time at the shooting range made me a good shot. A skill that would serve useful later. Life was simple. Wake up, go to school, do some shooting on the first Sunday of each month, repeat. And then one day, it wasn't. My parents left for work, and never came back. We were young, and stupid, and we thought that if we waited they would come back. They didn't. So, we thought if we waited someone would come and get us. They didn't. And eventually, we thought someone would come by the house to make sure that we were alright, or to collect the house payment, or something. Unfortunately, we were right. We still didn't know what had happened to our parents, but some unsavory characters had figured it out. The yellow house in the vacuo suburbs was empty, and ripe for the taking. I didn't know what was going on at first. I remember the smashing waking me, my sister pushing me out the window. I remember landing, her grabbing my hand and telling me to run. Everything that happened over the next year however, I remember vividly. Two more kids on the streets wasn't exactly an uncommon sight in Vacuo. The first time we got mugged the other kids who mugged us kicked our ass, just because we didn't have anything worth taking. Then someone else would empty our pockets taking everything we had managed to beg or steal from the trash. Again, and again, we got beat up, mugged, stolen from. Eventually, we had enough. I didn't know what an aura was, much less a semblance, but the day four more young kids tried to steal from us for the hundredth time, we found out. My sister flew into a rage. Eyes smoking red, mad with bloodthirst, she became stronger, faster, and more ruthless than anyone I had ever seen before. She broke a lot of bones, and bloodied a lot of lips, but for the first time since we had had to flee our home we had full bellies, and no one was willing to mess with us. I guess that's what led us to our next scheme. We'd sit on the sidewalk and wait for someone to come by who looked rich. Katie would follow from behind. I would go onto the other side of the buildings that lined the street and wait. And when the moneybag would turn down a dark alley or a secluded street, Katie would follow behind, and I would pop out in front, scaring or beating what Lien we could out of the poor soul. Only twice did someone fight back. Once, a rich dust merchant who almost blew himself up trying to fight back. The second time, well I guess that's where things really went to shit.