Harmony; Part One
Before the Great War Mistral was the seat of a prosperous continent spanning empire, however since then the once great kingdom has been faulting. In the months and years following the conflict the kingdom lost territory to the Grimm as they were unable to fend off the nightmarish hordes as they once had been able to. While the kingdom still does hold more territory than the other three kingdoms and Menagerie, they are but a shadow of their former self. In the eighty-sixth year of the Vytal Era a civil war broke out in the kingdom, not one of succession or one to overthrow the government, but one between the two peoples who called the kingdom home, Humanity and the Faunus. It was the first major war since the Faunus Rights Revolution and many people were displaced, Humans and Faunus who just wanted to live their lives fled the kingdom in a search for peace and harmony.
A mob was gathered outside an upper-class looking house just outside the Mistral city limits, between them and the house were a handful of soldiers from the Mistralese Self Defense Forces. The civil war in Mistral had been raging for about a year and the Mistral council took it upon themselves to dispatch the MSDF to protect anyone trying to escape the war-torn kingdom, however this particular person they were protecting was more than a mere civilian.
The mob was raging like a storm, they were shouting at the soldiers and waving weapons around, both improvised and not. The soldiers were on their toes, knowing the mob could rush their position at any moment and they weren't sure they could hold it back for long if it did.
"If you don't hand over those filthy Faunus right now it ain't gonna be pretty for ya!" A man in the mob shouted out at the soldiers.
The commander of the soldiers pulled his megaphone to his face to address the crowd, "this is an unlawful assembly, disperse immediately or we will use deadly force to break you up!"
The crowd outside the home began to get restless and the persons inside could hear their shouts of rage, anger, and hatred as they hurried to leave the area and escape the angry mob.
Out behind the home, and away from the crowd was a landing pad with a large airship on it. Inside the airship were the belongings of the family who called the besieged house home. Boxes full of precious items stacked next to furniture and other belongings.
A Faunus man with long jet-black hair arranged in a braid and a wolf tail of matching color set down a large box to the side of the entrance, leaving enough room to board the transport. The man possessed an athletic frame and stood around six foot-two. He wore a long white and black vertically buttoned tailcoat, similar in style to that of a long-sleeved changshan, his pants were solid black slacks that possessed a neat crease down the front of each leg, and his shoes were simple black slip-ons. His eyes were very light blue, like that of the sky and were a nice contrast to his dark hair and pale skin. Finally, on the man's back was a Dao broadsword that rested in a black sheath, it had a beautiful red hilt with a circular hollow pommel, and a red piece of cloth tied to the pommel.
As the man turned and left the airship, a woman walked out of the large house carrying a small box full of what looked to be family pictures. The woman was also a Faunus, she possessed dark gray hair and a set of wolf ears. The woman possessed a petite figure and was about half a foot shorter than the man. She had a similar skin tone to him, just slightly darker, and possessed vibrant jade eyes. She wore a green kimono adorned with imagery of a white and black wolf running through a field.
"Lan, is that the last box?" The man asked.
"Yes Bai, it is," she replied.
"Good, I'm going to grab Yin, we're leaving now," Bai stated.
Lan nodded as she and Bai passed one another and went on with their tasks.
Bai entered the house, and headed up stairs to a room, he passed by the outlines of where pictures once hung and tables once stood, the home was nearly empty save for one thing.
Bai entered a room, in it was a single thing, an old spare crib, and a small sleeping child in it. The child was a boy, he possessed white hair, a matching wolf tail, and jade eyes like Lan, this child was there three-week old baby, Yin.
Bai carefully picked up Yin as to try and not wake him, when he did so the child let out a groan of displeasure but did not wake, much to Bai's relief.
"Shh, stay asleep my little pup, there's nothing to worry about," Bai whispered as he carefully walked down the stairs while holding his son in his arms.
As Bai reached the bottom of the stairs he heard the distinct sound of gunshots from outside his front door, followed by screams of pain and anger.
The rapid fire of the weapons and the shouts of combat awoke Yin who began to shriek uncontrollably as babies do when they are disturbed.
Bai then began to quickly head to the back of the house as the front door flew open and a pair of soldiers burst through, firing into the mob as they charged forward.
"Mr. Okami! Run!" One of the men shouted as he continued to fire his weapon.
Before Bai could turn and run, he watched in horror as one of the soldiers was run through with a pitchfork and the other was swarmed by the mob.
Bai turned and ran, clutching his sun in his arms, as the angry mob pursued him. As he neared the back exit of the house, he ran into his wife, Lan, who rushed in to see what the shooting and screaming was about.
"Here take Yin, get to the airship," Bai commanded.
Without question Lan did as her husband said and took their son and ran towards the airship to escape the mob.
Bai drew the sword from his back and engaged the first of his pursuers, cutting them down with ease.
The trained huntsman was more than a match for a few angry civilians armed with improvised weapons, but there were dozens of them, possibly close to a hundred people storming and burning his home.
After fending off the first few waves of attackers, Bai was forced to make a fighting retreat towards the landing pad in the back of his home.
Several gunshots ringed past Bai's head as he made his retreat, he turned quickly and managed to parry a few more of the rounds as they flew at him.
Bai continued to run as his pursuers continued to chase him while shouting things like "Get back here you dog!" and "kill the Faunus, kill em' all!"
Bai finally reached the rear exit of his home and quickly shut the door behind him, but with no time to stop and lock the door or bar it with something, it didn't hold back the mob for long.
The airship was beginning its take off as Bai sprinted towards it as fast as he could.
Several of the people chasing Bai stopped to shoot at the airship with their guns and bows, some even hurled spears at it.
As Bai got closer to the airship, Lan opened the door and stuck out her hand to grab his, and pull him into the airship.
A few bullets ringed past Lan's head as she reached for her husband, but she was able to dodge them.
Bai leapt into the air and grabbed his wife's hand as the airship pulled away from the landing pad, and she pulled him in.
The airship flew away as fast as it could after Bai entered it while the mob below continued to shoot at it as it fled the scene.
Bai and Lan stood at one of the windows of the airship as they watched their former home be burnt to the ground, but their sorrow soon turned to relief as the heard the infantile noises of their baby boy.
Lan had placed Yin in a car seat that had been strapped to one of the seats on the airship, when his noises gained the attention of his parents, they turned to see the infant child smiling, blissfully ignorant of the situation both he and his parents were in.
The two of them walked up to Yin and removed him from the car seat, Bai held his son in a light embrace as Lan stood next to him, hanging off her husband's shoulder.
"At least we're all safe," Bai said as he looked down at his son and then to his wife, "as long as we're together as a family I couldn't care about anything else," he continued.
"Honey, you never said where we will be going," Lan stated.
"To find a home for our family and harmony for us to live in, wherever that may be," Bai replied.
2 years later…
Far to the south of Shade Academy, across the Vacuo Desert and a bay in Southwestern Sanus is a chain of five islands, known collectively as the Southern Isles. Nowhere on Remnant is totally safe from the Grimm, this was shown during the Attack on Vale and the Battle of Beacon in the year 80 V.E, but some are safer than others. Everyone knows the major safe havens from the Grimm, the four kingdoms of Vale, Vacuo, Atlas, and Mistral, all have some kind of natural defense against the Grimm, like Vale's large eastern mountain range, or Atlas' cold climate. Many of the people that settle outside the kingdoms don't do so for very long, the small towns, villages, and minor City-States that dot Remnat's surface are far less safe than the kingdoms and disappear as fast as they pop up. The Southern Isles however are one of the few truly safe havens from the Grimm and they have been for more than one thousand years, but that's all about to change.
Three people were running through the dense koa forest in the west of Kamehameha Island, the largest of the five islands that make up the Southern Isles. The three people were running, no sprinting as fast as they could from something, the looks on their faces were full of terror.
One of the people running was a woman, she possessed a petite, yet somewhat muscular figure, caramel colored skin, brown eyes, and hair to match. Her hair was shaved on the sides, but the middle and rear were left long, stretching halfway down her back. She wore an orange chest wrap, a similarly colored lava-lava skirt adorned with white hibiscus flowers over the top of black spandex shorts, and a brown kukui nut lei around her neck, indicating she was a member of the Kamehameha Royal Family. Finally, she possessed a set of tribal tattoos, one on each forearm, extending from elbow to wrist and another on her lower lip and chin that was only as wide as her mouth. These tattoos indicated that she was more than just a member of the royal family, but that she was also a warrior.
The men the woman was running with were much larger than her, both were taller, by more than a foot and very muscular. They also possessed tribal tattoos, but neither wore a kukui nut lei, or a lei of any kind.
As they were running one of the men tripped and fell, as he moved to get back up something grabbed him by the leg and drug him away screaming. Soon after the sounds of death and gore permeated the air and were followed by a series of terrifying howls.
One of the men stopped and turned as he drew a pair of daggers, they were made of steel like all modern weapons are, but they resembled the ancient koa and shark tooth weapons his ancestors used centuries ago.
"Kekoa what are you doing?!" The woman shouted at the man as she saw him stop running.
"Your highness… Princess Nani, please run, get back to the chief and tell him what has happened, I'll hold them off," Kekoa said and then readied himself for battle.
Nani hesitated to leave for a moment, but then she turned and kept running, as the lone warrior stayed behind to fight.
"Kia mate toa!" Kekoa shouted as he charged into the darkened forest, towards the ferocious growls and howls.
As Nani ran, she heard the sounds of combat echoed through the forest behind her and were quickly followed by pained roars and screams.
She continued to run, dipping, ducking, and diving through the thick underbrush of the forest floor as she did so. Soon however, she was forced to stop, as a large beast stood in her way. The beast was nearly three times her size, it had jet black fur, and thick white boney plates and spikes all around its body, its face was like that of a canine skull, the beast that had cut her off was an Alpha Beowolf.
Nani took a step back, and reached for the weapon on her back, once she drew it, it unfolded and showed itself to be a double tipped koa spear.
As Nani drew her weapon, half a dozen Beowolves emerged from the trees and surrounded her. She twirled the spear above her head and then presented one of the spear points towards the Alpha, she then pressed a button that caused the serrated blades to spin like that of a chainsaw.
The Alpha and the other Beowolves pounced on Nani as she closed her eyes for a moment, when the beasts got close she opened her eyes and her aura lit up around her body, it was like that of an orange flame.
With a loud battle cry Nani charged the Alpha as it and the other beasts continued to bear down upon her.
Nani blocked the swipe of the Alpha and then struck it across the face with her weapon, but the blade glanced off its thick boney armor, she then struck the beast in the belly with a swift kick, knocking it back.
Two of the half-dozen other Beowolves pounced on Nani once they reached her, but with a quick spin of her spear, she bisected one of the beasts and then planted the serrated spear tip into the other's mouth.
She spun around once more and thrust her spear through the abdomen of another one of the beasts, before she was struck across the head by a large set of claws.
Nani's aura pulsated as it absorbed the blow, and she quickly regained her composure before then running her spear through the beast that struck her.
The Alpha then caught Nani by surprise and slapped her down with a powerful swipe of its boney paw.
Nani hit the ground quite hard, this combined with the blow from the Alpha shattered her aura.
The remaining two Beowolves pounced on her as she was on the ground, she kicked the first in the face and snapped its neck, and then rolled to the side, thus dodging the second beast.
Nani made short work of the last Beowolf, she revved the chainsaw blades of her spear and thrust it deep into the beast's chest before then cutting her weapon out and nearly bisecting the beast.
Nani held herself up with her weapon, she was incredibly tired from the running and fighting, but she wasn't out of the woods just yet.
As Nani caught her breath the Alpha stood there, mere feet from her, watching her with bestial intrigue. It then crawled down on all fours and prepared to pounce on its fatigued prey.
Nani saw the beast pounce and she quickly pulled her spear from the ground and leapt at the beast while letting out a courageous battle cry.
Back in the Royal Palace in the capital city of Kamehameha Island, the Chieftain of the island; Keahi Koa and his two sons; Royal Prince Hau Koa and Prince Akamu Kaimana awaited the return of Princess Nani and the warriors who were sent with her.
"Where are they, they should have been back by now," Royal Prince Hau stated as he paced back and forth with a stressful look on his face.
"Brother, I'm sure they are fine, I understand how stressed you are, but your daughter can handle herself, and not to mention we sent two dozen warriors with her to investigate the disturbance," Prince Akamu stated as he tried to calm Hau.
The Royal Prince stopped and turned to address his father who had been sitting stoically in his throne the entire time, "father, I request permission to lead a search party to find my daughter," he said.
"Very well, take ten Royal Guards and…" the Chieftain was cut off by one of the doors to the throne room being slammed open.
Princess Nani limped her way inside the throne room, while supporting herself with her spear and clutching her bloodied left side. She took a few steps into the room before collapsing on the ground.
Both Princes ran too her, while the Chieftain leapt to his feet. The Royal Prince picked up his daughter and held her as the light faded from her eyes.
Prince Akamu stood over them for a moment before turning to a pair of Royal Guards who were watching the scene unfold, "don't just stand there! Get the court healer!" He shouted.
Both Royal Guards quickly rushed out of the throne room as quickly as they could.
"Nani! Nani, what happened out there?" Hau asked frantically as he held his dying daughter.
She picked her head up and said only one phrase, "ua hoi mai na daimonio," she then let out her last breath and her body went limp.
Royal Prince Hau was too overcome with grief to be affected by his dead daughter's last words and he continued to weep over her body, but Prince Akamu went white in the face out of fear.
"My son, what is it, what did she say?" The Chieftain asked with urgency, noticing his son's reaction to Nani's last words.
"Ua hoi mai na daimonio… The demons have returned," Prince Akamu replied.
A look of sheer disbelief came over the Chieftain's face as he collapsed back into his throne. He sat there for a few minutes, dumbstruck, but he soon composed himself.
"My son, send a message to the kingdoms… we need huntsmen, urgently," Chieftain Keahi said.
With upmost haste Prince Akamu sprinted out of the throne room and over to the CCT communications room to get into contact with the huntsman academies.