Part I

The Reasons Why

The four of them stood before Professor Ozpin. The other teams had already been assigned. They were the last of the ceremony. "Please," Ozpin began, "step forward." The four did so, practically in perfect unison. "Mar Ponce," he started again, "Noran Skane, Trevor Jost, and Yin Gao. It is my understanding that you all are perfect strangers, however, fate has determined that you will work as a team. And I am confident you will succeed as Team MNTY. Mr. Ponce, I trust you to lead this team."

Mar stood just slightly ahead of the other three. He was a large man, equally tall and muscular. His crew cut, light brown hair was interrupted on the left side of his hairline by a massive scar – three claw marks running from his forehead down to the middle of his cheek. Mar bowed his head in respect to Ozpin and replied, "I will do my best, sir."

"I know you will." The newly formed Team MNTY stepped off the stage. Ozpin began to speak again, "These are our newest teams of students to join us here at Beacon. May they serve Remnant in the greatest of ways!" From the audience came an uproar of applause. Ozpin proceeded to walk off the stage, indicating that this ceremony was over.

Mar turned to his teammates. The four stared at one another in a confused silence. Trevor was the first to speak, "Um, what should we do now?"

"Well," Mar started, "each team is assigned a room. So we should probably go find ours." There was no sound, but the others gave subtle nods of approval.

After wandering and searching through Beacon's campus for a while, the four finally found their room. "Here it is," Mar declared, using his key card to unlock the door.

"So, who wants top bunk?" Trevor joked.

"You all can get settled," Mar started, "but I want to ask you all a few questions."

"What do you mean?" Noran responded.

"I've been assigned as the team's leader. That means I call the shots when we're in a combat situation. Which means we all need to trust each other with our lives. I want us to know who we all are."

"That's fair." Noran answered. He strolled over to one of the desks in the right corner of the room, turned the chair around to face the room, and sat. Mar crossed to the opposite side of the room and leaned on a desk. Trevor lounged on one of the ground-level beds while Yin climbed atop the opposite top bunk.

"I can start," Noran spoke again. He was fairly normal looking, though he appeared abnormally pale. He had dark brown hair styled into a faux-hawk. The one striking feature, however, is that his right arm cuts off midway into the forearm and has been replaced with a prosthetic device. "So, what is it you want to know?"

"Well, first, what do you use for a weapon and what is your semblance?" Mar answered.

"Ah. Well, you see this here?" Noran lifts his prosthetic wrist and hand. "It detaches." Noran demonstrated by pulling off his fake hand, leaving only a flat, metal stump. "And here, I can attach a powerful dust operated cannon. You'd be surprised how handy it can be not having a hand."

"You don't seem much like the fighting type," Yin chimed in, noting his scrawny body.

Noran chuckled, "I let the dust do the work."

Yin shrugged, "Whatever works for you."

"How did you lose your hand?" Trevor questioned.

"If you don't mind telling us, that is," Mar jumped in, shooting Trevor a look.

"I don't mind. When I was eleven, I was attacked by some group of thugs. I was playing with some friends in the outskirts of Vale, near the woods. It started to get dark when they found us. They told us we shouldn't be playing so far from town. They said one of us might get hurt. They told us to get out of there. I think they were hiding something nearby. One of my friends, a loud-mouth, said they couldn't tell us what to do. That's when he got smacked so hard that he fell to the ground. I ran up to confront this guy. I told him that he couldn't just go around hitting kids and that I was going to tell the police. That's when we heard the howl. He said that I was brave standing up to him, but he wondered if I was brave enough to face a beowolf. He pulled out a pair of handcuffs from the back of his belt and cuffed me to a low branch. They walked away laughing. I saw the red eyes of the beowolf coming for me and my friends. I was crying now. My friends tried to get me out, but they couldn't. One of them had a knife. He tried cutting through the branch with it. But they couldn't get through. As the beast came closer, they ran off too. I looked up at the knife still wedged in the branch. I could reach it, but I didn't have the right angle to keep sawing. I took a deep breath. I pulled the knife from the branch and began sawing my own hand off to escape. As soon as it was off, I ran to the nearest hospital, and they did what they could, which was basically to just make the cut look cleaner and give me a fake hand."

Mar was the first to speak up. "I'm sorry," he said. "I know how vicious those creatures can be. They did this to me." As he said those last words, he moved his hand to point to his scar. "But back on topic: What is your semblance, Noran?"

"Ah, right," Noran began. "I forgot to mention. That day in the woods was when I discovered it. I learned that day, that while I can definitely feel fear and emotional pain, I can remove the experience of physical pain, temporarily at least, which is how I could keep calm as I amputated myself."

"So, you just can't feel pain?" Trevor asked.

"Well, yes, in a nutshell. But it really depends. If I'm physically exhausted, and my aura is weaker, I won't be able to use it so well, like with all semblances. And if a wound is bad enough, it'll only help the pain, not get rid of it." Noran looked at Mar. "Are those all the questions you have for me?"

"Actually, I do have one more. Why do you want to be a huntsman?"

"Well, it all goes back to the woods. I don't want anyone to have to feel as scared as I was then. No innocent person deserves that. I want to protect people."

Mar nodded. He turned to Trevor. Trevor was a faunus, made evident by the conspicuous ram horns on the side of his head. His skin was a bronze color, contrasted by his bright blond hair, with the occasional green highlight. Mar opened his mouth, but Trevor spoke first, "I guess I'm next to answer?"

"Yes. Please," Mar answered.

"Same questions?"

"Yes. Weapon, semblance, and reason."

"Weapon is an easy one. For the most part it's a sniper rifle."

"Just a sniper rifle?" Yin interrupted.

"Like I said, for the most part. I'm a faunus. I can see in the dark almost perfectly, so I almost never have a hard time getting my target. Or targets. Which brings me to why it's not like a sniper rifle. I can use a little dust to enhance it. With different types of dusts, I can make different types of shots. I can make the bullets split and hit multiple targets, I can make a shot explode, I could make it so a bullet leaves a trail of fire wherever it goes. And on top of that, just below the barrel is a sword blade. It's like a bayonet, but longer, so I can handle myself in a tight situation."

"Hmm. Very interesting," Came Mar's voice. "And your semblance?"

"Well there's another reason I chose a sniper rifle. I can blend in with my surroundings, for a certain time. It sounds and looks like invisibility, but it's not. If I could go invisible, I could blend in anywhere. But with this, I only mimic the colors of my surroundings. So I blend in, but I'm still very visible."

"I'm sure at night, that's very useful," Mar suggested.

"Yes. Yes it is."

"And why do you want to be a huntsman?"

"I assume you've all heard of the White Fang?"

"Yes, why?" Mar asked with suspicion.

"It's difficult to be a faunus. People make assumptions about you. And they lump you in with those criminals, as if being a faunus instantly makes you a member of a terrorist group. Well I'm sick of it. The White Fang are a disgrace to faunus everywhere. I want to be a huntsman so I can make a name for myself. So people would see that I'm not like them. I want to right the wrongs done by this horribly ignorant group of faunus."

"Very understandable, Trevor," Mar answered. He turned his gaze to Yin on the top bunk. Yin was a short, slender girl with a medium complexion. She had long black hair, the tips of which were a deep purple. "Now what about you, Yin? Weapon, semblance, and reason for being a huntress?"

"My weapons are a jagged, curved blade on a retractable chain and a revolver with a large under-barrel bayonet to the point that it functions as a knife in a tight situation. I do not use dust. My semblance allows me to enhance my reflexes to what some would call unnatural speeds. It doesn't help me run faster, but it's how I use my weapons. I can move my limbs in such a quick manner that few of my past foes have had time to react before they've died. As for the reason? I just figure this is how I earn my right to live here on Remnant," Yin answered, not allowing anyone to question her.

"And that's it? All you're telling us?" Mar questioned.

"That's all I need to tell you," Yin shot back. "And all you need to know is that so long as you all do the right thing, you'll have my unquestioned loyalty. So what about you, Mar? What's your story?"

"Hehe," Mar chuckled, "you act like I wasn't going to tell you."

"Go on."

"Well, my weapon is a mace. I'm a very physical fighter. It can use dust to create a powerful explosion at the head of the mace, if I need it to. My semblance is ice."

"Ice?" asked Noran.

"Yup. If it has water in it, I can freeze it. I usually channel it through my mace."

"Okay," Yin spoke up, "well why do you want to be a huntsman?"

"Like I told you before, I know what the creatures of Grimm can do. In fact, like Noran, it was also a beowolf that gave me my scars. There was an incident when I was a child where an abnormally large amount of Grimm got into Vale. The huntsman and huntresses were quick to respond, but for many, it was too late. I was in the streets that day. I got separated from my family in the commotion. One of the beowolves came right at me and tackled me to the ground. It raised its paw and swiped down at my face. It was my luck that a huntress charged at the beast right at that moment. Had she not done that, I'd be dead. But the beowolf lost its power and aim, so instead of killing me, it just gave me a scar and left me blind in my left eye. One thing's for certain though. After the chaos I saw that day, after seeing all the people running in fear, I decided that no one should feel so helpless, so unsafe, inside their own home. Maybe the huntress inspired me a bit too, but my reason for being here is to protect the denizens of Vale from whatever looming threats may exist."

"How noble of you," Yin mocked.

"Say what you want," Mar rebutted, "But that's my reason. And at the end of the day, we're all huntsmen and huntresses here. And I lead you. Mar, Noran, Trevor, and Yin. We are Team MNTY."