Hey guys, I'm new to this whole gig and its been a long time since I've written anything. This chapter is pretty short but I hope to try and write longer parts in the future. There is a plot I plan to get to, I swear so bare with me. Please comment/review to tell me how I can improve.
It's just past 4AM and Cardin's hair was on fire. All things considered it was turning out to be a pretty horrible day. the panicked fighter dived behind a handy dumpster to quickly extinguish his head, after saving his short orange hair from behind singed beyond recognition he was finally given a moment to reflect and breathe. How in Remnant had he ended up in this awful mess? More importantly, why? Why him?
"Karma maybe? Hell, I deserve it at this point..." Cardin grunted as he pushed himself farther into the shadow of the dumpster, waiting until the flashing lights and sirens of a speeding police vehicle sped by. At least he had a few minutes until they got it in their heads to double back. Well, considering the vale police force's reputation, Cardin had a good bit more than a few minutes before such an idea came to his pursuers... if it did at all. It was painfully obvious even to outsiders that the police force leaned heavily on hunters and Huntresses for anything that actually required effort or thought. All things considered They would probably chase blindly around the city for a few hours before declaring that their criminal got away... At which point they would either privately hire a professional huntsman or ask Ozpin to send a team from the academy. The later being the cheaper, and therefore much more likely possibility.
A heavy sigh escaped the teen as he weakly slumped against the wall behind him. He may have time to rest right now, but in a few hours he would have a trained huntsman or a team of students with a vendetta against him on his tail. Neither option was good. Whatever the outcome, he seemed completely screwed, and it was all over something he didn't do. In hindsight, maybe sprinting off rather than attempting to plead his case was a poor choice of action... But what's done is done and for once in his life, it seemed Cardin was going to have to face the consequences head on with no way of weaseling his way out.
As he lay there, his mind drift back to the beginning of how all this began...
-
Fire and light exploded in the dim clearing as a howling Beowolf was sent flying backwards. The burning grim collided with the rest of its pack, causing them to scatter in panic. As the Beowolves ran about like scared dogs, Cardin Winchester felt a grin forming on his face as he placed his mace on his shoulder.
Man, either these Grim where a joke or he was just too good. Considering this pack of Beowolves had run off the other teams, Cardin was leaning towards the later. He was tossing these beasts around without hardly breaking a sweat.
"Is that it? I was hoping for a challenge!" Cardin called out to the remaining Grimm, who pulled themselves from their panic to turn and growl at the lone hunter. Cardin took up an attack stance as the Grimm charged at him, howling and snarling in a mad rush that would have terrified a lesser man.
Cardin, however, was un-phased and simply swung his mace in a wide arc, taking out two of the monsters and crushing their skulls. Cardin Laughed and jumped forward at the rest of the oncoming Grimm. Activating the fire dust built into his mace, causing the mace head to erupt into flames. With a victorious cry, he slammed the flaming mace into the ground. The impact of the mace created a huge blast wave of flames that threw the Grimm back a second time.
The beasts seemed to learn their lesson, whining and whimpering as they retreated into the emerald forest.
"Bunch of cowards" Cardin spat at them as they ran off... But something wasn't right. What should now be a silent clearing, still echoed with the sounds of leaves rustling and twigs cracking. Cardin glanced over his shoulder, catching a much larger Beowolf slinking up behind him... Well Cardin said he wanted a challenge.
Cardin was a bit too slow, by the time he was fully turned around, the beast had leaped at him. A brief flash of fear filled Cardin as he knew he wasn't fast enough to block the beast's attack. Mentally bracing himself for the hit, Cardin closed his eyes...
Instead of the sound of snarling and claws ripping into flesh, there was only a loud boom and a thud. The attack hadn't landed. Confused, Cardin opened his eyes, seeing the Beowolf laying on the ground, barely a Hare's breadth from his feet.
"Pretty close wasn't it?" Came a soft feminine voice, making Cardin smile when he recognized it.
"Eh, I think I could have handled it" Cardin quickly regained his composure as he watched a young woman step out from behind the smoldering Beowolf. She giggled, brushing some of her chocolate brown hair from her face to reveal beautiful eyes of the same color... Something about the sight made Cardin's heart skip a beat.
"If handle it means being a Grimm's chew toy then sure" the girl stepped up to Cardin, only barely coming up to his chest when next to him. She slowly ran a finger down his chest armor as he smiled down at her.
"Oh haha" Cardin ran his fingers through her silky smooth hair as they locked eyes. The mace user took a moment to gently rub his thumb over one of her more recognizable features as he explored the dark brown hair.
"still nice of you to come to the rescue... Now how about a kiss?" Cardin decided that he knew the answer and moved in anyways, to his pleasure, the girl responded in kind until their lips where barely an inch apart.
"Cardin..." She spoke in a breathy whisper, "aren't you forgetting something?"
"Hmm?" Forgetting? What could he be forgetting. Cardin attempted to bridge the gap between their lips... Only to be met with something very... Flat.
Pulling back in surprise, he found that the object of his affection had been replaced with a comically large pocket watch floating in mid air. Before Cardin could even so much as grunt in confusion, the watch began to violently vibrate and beep.
MREEP MREEP
MREEP MREEP
MREEP MREEP
MREEP MRE-
A shoe hit the offending digital clock, effectively silencing the horrible thing. The dorm room was then filled with the various grunts and groans of team CRDL as they where unwillingly dragged into consciousness.
The sounds that came from Cardin would make a good audio track for a zombie flick. The young hunter's hand slapped down upon his bedside table, groping blindly until he managed to find his scroll. Cardin, from where he still lay on the bed, lifted up and activated the scroll, squinting at the lock screen as his eyes slowly deciphered the obscure blurs into recognizable words. Upon seeing the time and date, Cardin was suddenly much more awake.
"... 6am... On a Saturday..." Cardin pulled himself into a sitting position, casting a murderous glare upon his teammates as they too became aware of the time and date, all equally as displeased as their leader.
"Okay spill it, who fucked with the alarm clock?" Cardin questioned, looking over his team to find the culprit.
"I don't even get up this early for school" Russel grunted, scratching the messy green mess that he called a Mohawk.
"Mph hmm mmrh" came Dove's response... If you could call it that, Dove frequently competed with Cardin for the 'biggest not a morning person' award whenever it was time to wake up. He currently was in the lead, having shoved his head under the blankets and attempting to tune everyone out.
"Hey, it wasn't me this time!" Sky defended himself from Cardin's accusatory gaze. "... Oh come on Cardin! stop looking at me like that. I swear, I accidentally reset the alarm our first week here and you guys still can't forget about it." Sky grumbled with a tone of annoyance, pulling himself out of bed and making his way over to the dresser. Once Sky was up, he was up. The closest thing the team had to a morning person, sky was the only person to start his daily routine willingly at this hour. Waking up this early was unpleasant, but it did give him a few more hours to enjoy a day off from school so it wasn't too terrible.
Cardin on the other hand, was still glaring bloody murder at the alarm clock. He finally grabbed the damn thing and began flicking through the settings...
"... What the hell?" Cardin mumbled under his breath, looking at the various preset alarms... None of which had been set to 6am. Weird. Normally to go off like that, someone would've had to have pre-set an alarm. Strange as it was, Cardin shrugged it off as the clock being busted and having gone off on its own... But why did it have to interrupt him when he was having such a good dream?
Speaking of his dream, the mystery girl he had thought up... She seemed familiar somehow, but he couldn't place it. Even now, memory recall of the dream was getting progressively more blurry. Many of the exact details where already lost to him... Something along the lines of brown hair and a nice ass. Bah, what did he care? A dream is a dream. Cardin knew better than to think dreams had any real connection to reality.
Whatever the reason for his unwanted wake up, Cardin was now too awake to just go back to bed. Cardin slowly pulled himself free of the inviting clutches of his warm bed and stood up to stretch.
"Ugh man, put a damn shirt on before you poke someone's eye out" Sky protested about Cardin's habit of sleeping shirtless.
"Yeah yeah" the tall red head waved off his teammate's protest as he took his time stretching his stuff muscles. After a good stretch and a satisfactory 'pop' from his back, Cardin felt good enough to get dressed.
Cardin knew that he, nor his team, had any variety of major plans or appointments to see to today, meaning that the day was free. Though Dove and Russell, from the looks of it, planned to sleep for a few more hours. Nothing wrong with that, Cardin would have done the same if that infernal alarm hadn't woken him up so early. Though as for what Cardin himself would do with his day off...
"Yo Sky, I was thinking about heading into Vale today, you in?" Cardin asked his teammate as he pulled a black t-shirt over his head, pulling it down to fit over his muscular chest.
"Nah man, normally I would, but I just downloaded this awesome new DLC for War of Remnant. I've been waiting to test it out. As part of it I get this awesome new weapon set that does bonus damage an-" Sky's explanation was cut off by Cardin holding his hand up to silence his friend's nerdy ravings.
"Stop stop stop, I don't care... So I'm going to take that as a no to hitting up the town then?" Cardin asked, answered by a sigh and a nod from Sky. Satisfied with that answer, Cardin returned to getting dressed. He would have liked company, but Cardin didn't mind going out alone. Naturally, all of Beacon's teachings that a hunter in training should never be alone had been dutifully ignored by Cardin's stubborn nature. It wasn't like it was the first time Cardin's team had left him alone...
After stepping into a pair of jeans Cardin was satisfied with his appearance. The young hunter bid the conscious members of his team goodbye as he stepped out of the door.
"If I hurry I can catch the 6:30 airship" Cardin mumbled to himself as he flicked through various screens on his scroll. As much as he didn't like rushing to go anywhere, he liked sitting at the station for an hour even less... But then again he could just eat breakfast here instead of getting it in town, which means he could wait and catch the later ship an-
"OOF... Hey! Watch where you're going..." Cardin had collided with someone due to watching his scroll instead of the Path he was walking. So, technically he was equally at fault, but it was way easier to blame someone else than to take responsibility for his actions. Having already been woken up early, Cardin was still in a considerably bad mood. He was more than ready to chew someone a new asshole, but trailed off when he saw who it was.
Velvet Scarlatina was on her knees, scrambling to pick up her books that had fallen during the collision. Due to the fact that the sound of her mumbled apologies where not laced with fear, the Faunus clearly had yet to realize who she bumped into.
Cardin watched the rabbit eared Faunus for a moment, attempting to repress the growing feeling of distaste in his stomach that was either his hate for Faunus or last night's chicken enchiladas. Normally, Cardin would have taken his sweet time in teaching this animal to watch where she was going... But Cardin was a man interested in his own safety. After learning that Velvet was a second year and part of team CFVY, Cardin and company had sworn off messing with her... Especially after a personal threat from the team's rightly feared leader, Coco Pommel. Out of every one in this school, Coco was one of the few people he had learned to genuinely fear... Which meant one of his previously favorite objects of ridicule was forever off the menu.
Cardin knelled down and grabbed one of the many books that Velvet had yet to rescue (the girl had been walking with a decent sized stack that she seemed to be attempting to organize)
Examining the cover of the small novel, he saw the title 'Violet's Garden'. Despite not having read it, Cardin remembered the book from one of professor Oobleck's lectures. It was supposed to be an account of a Faunus girl's experiences from the aftermath of the Faunus Rights Revolution. One of those books that are supposed to open people's eyes to the problems Faunus face and blah blah. It was certainly something Cardin would never pull off a self willingly.
A sudden nervous squeak caught his attention, looking up from the hardback Cardin briefly locked eyes with the chocolate brown orbs of Velvet Scarlatina.
"C-c-Cardin!" She managed, inching away slightly now that she finally put together that she had bumped into the man who used to terrorize her.
"Oh hey" Cardin looked the trembling rabbit girl over quickly, unsure of what to say. Saying something polite was difficult, but saying something rude would result in the C, F, and Y of Velvet's team to hunting him down.
"Just try and keep an eye out next time" he said standing up
Velvet, apparently remembering that Cardin wouldn't do anything other for fear of her team, decided that she best get away before Cardin wanted to push his luck.
"Okaysorrybye" velvet scooped up her stack of books and speed away in a blur of words, catching Cardin by surprise.
"HEY! You left your book!" Cardin attempted to call back to her, waving the hard back in her direction, but to no avail. Velvet was already too far gone for her to hear, that or she wasn't listening. Cardin sighed, giving another glance at the book, then in the direction velvet ran off. Stupid Faunus, leaving him with her stuff... Should he run this back to her dorm or something? Wait. Run. Running. Running late.
"Oh crap!" Cardin quickly checked the time on his scroll, seeing he only had ten minutes to get to the station to catch the airship. The ginger automatically began to sprint for the station, not thinking about the small novel he still held in his hand.