Our story begins on the trail to the city of Vale, in an obscure tavern that nobody really memorizes too much, if you don't count the few staff members living there and some drifters who just so happen to end up there while coming back from another amazing "voyage". It was the kind of place where music was minimal, drinks were borderline mundane, chairs were relatively comfortable to sit on and the conversation was what would stand out. Always loud, few clients of the tavern had anything to hide and the slightly drunken voices of its clients' majority would cause just the right amount of noise across the hall of the place itself. That day, however...things were about to change drastically.
Earlier that day it was already noisy. A group of people started banging on the door to the tavern. Once they finally entered, it was clear that they were in terrible shapes. Ragged clothes, dirt, some of them were even slightly injured or already had scars. Some of them were limping so hard they needed support from their less wounded companions. Of course, the staff provided them the help they could offer, even a few clients volunteered. Once the visitors were patched up, given food, water and temporary shelter, they've found the courage to reveal to their waiter that they've escaped the nearby city of Vale due to a Grimm invasion during Vytal Tournament. They sounded really heartbroken as they told the staff what happened to them, as if their whole worlds shattered, not just their city.
That same day, from the opposite direction to where the trail led to Vale, there was a motorcycle speeding across. Not much could be said about it, except that it was a chopper and that it was silent enough to hear heavy music coming from it. The driver was slowing down right by the tavern and was parking the vehicle on the almost empty parking lot. Soon the staff heard as the door slowly opens (as they didn't close it after the refugees from Vale came) and an unknown figure walks inside. Something didn't seem quite right about it...
Because the music was still coming from the chopper parked outside. Worse, it wasn't the heavy stuff everyone heard as the driver was closing in, but practically a mainstream track. The driver was surprised at first but a quick push of a button on the keys did the trick and stopped the music completely. Now everyone could focus their attention on something else while the figure started to walk towards the bar stool. Ultimately it sat next to one of the refugees, an elderly man who was gently sipping a shot of something strong, probably Atlesian vodka. Then the newcomer started to uncover their face.
It was a girl with long, beautifully combed dark brown hair. It really was very long because once she removed her cowboy hat and pulled her dark green bandana off her nose and lips, it was practically reaching halfway through her back. Aside from that she wore aviator sunglasses, leather gloves with a few shiny studs in the knuckles area, a long black trench coat, army pants and bovver boots with shoe buckles instead of shoelaces. She took off her gloves, but didn't even move her hand towards the glasses. The man sitting next to her, however, got slightly confused, because she seemed to be wearing her clothes in masculine sizes. Also, she seemed young. Way too young to be in this kind of place. 'Don't you think you're a little young for a place like this, lady?' the older man asked. But what he heard in response shocked him so greatly he drooled his vodka right back into the shot glass. 'Oh, that's rich. All these clothes obviously no girl would ever wear and I still look like one' responded the...boy. That wasn't a girl that walked into the tavern after parking the chopper, but a guy so androgynous anyone would mistake him for a girl, even if he didn't put effort. He walked in the neutral way in the entrance and his chest was completely flat but his hands seemed way too refined in their movements as well as his...waistline and legs. He was slim, almost skinny, but his hips and thighs still managed to make his rear stand out and catch the eye of all those poor saps in the tavern who didn't know yet that they're whistling at an actual trap with legs that even had feminine calves. This guy could disguise himself as a woman and would probably do it better than some actual female spies. Those were the thoughts going through the first person to learn the "terrible truth". The deceiving guy clearly seemed amused enough to let out a chuckle. At least there wasn't anything feminine about his voice and expressions.
Soon the bartender approached the new guest, but somehow he noticed it was a guy. 'What can I get you, sir?' he asked. The newcomer chuckled again, this time knowing the bartender just overheard his response to the older man. 'A glass of whiskey, please. With two ice cubes.' The stranger ordered, emphasizing about the ice. It didn't take long for the bartender to soon come back with a specific glass of slightly darker, copper liquid. The newcomer took a first sip and started looking around, mostly because the amount of people who seemed freshly wounded seemed a little uncommon to him. He decided to strike up a conversation with the man sitting next to him as he took another sip of whiskey. 'Seems like there's more injured people in here than usual.' He thought out loud. 'And for a reason, partner. These folks lost homes, families, limbs, hell, the whole darn city, to these monsters' the old man responded. 'City? Where you from, old man? Aren't you feeling a little too confident about your village?' the stranger responded and took a sip of his whiskey, making an obnoxious slurp with it just so that the older man doesn't get his eyes off him. And he didn't. He gave him a sharper look with the only eye he had left and clearly seemed offended. 'I'd watch my yapper if I were ya, lady boy. These folks are just seeking shelter because the city of Vale, where they thought huntsmen and huntresses could protect them, was crumbling as hives of living nightmares were ruining their lives. Who are you to judge them?' the old man responded with genuine sorrow in his voice. The "lady boy" felt bad and stopped slurping. Instead, he emptied the glass of whiskey he had and dropped a few dimes required to pay for the drink. 'If what you're saying is true, partner, then you've just convinced me to pay a visit to the beautiful city that's going through a temporary crisis. And it just so happens that I'm, as you said, a huntsman, but not entirely. One thing I do have in common with them is that I love killing me some fucking Grimm stains. That destroyed city isn't just a tragedy, but also an opportunity to show these slimy turds we will not yield so easily. So I'll head there and prove to all y'all that the Grimm are not living nightmares, but spoiled meat you need to toss in the trash. Now, if you would excuse me, I'm about to take my leave.' The guy responded and started putting back on his hat, gloves and the bandanna. Right before he left, the now touched by his speech old man asked him one last thing.
'Who exactly are you, lady boy?'
'I'm the guy that cleans up the mess Gods made a long time ago.'
And after that, he just sat back on his chopper, roared the engine a few times and drove off the parking lot right in the direction of what was once the city of Vale. The old man's remaining eye looked as the chopper was disappearing in the distance. He felt filled with hope, but also with worry...
The man on the chopper soon drove up to the hill, from which he could see the city of Vale in the distance as well as what seemed to be the remains of Beacon Academy looking at the ruins of its protégés from above. Everything was devoid of life from the distance, all that could be heard were occasional gusts of wind and chilling sounds let out by swarms of Grimm roaming around and in the desolated city. The man watched from the hill, feeling a bit uneasy about his crazy plan of driving into the city and killing as many Grimm as he possibly can. But in his mind, he secretly knew why he wanted to dive into these ruins. What he told the old man was only partially true. As he was looking at this horrifying landscape before him, he noticed something on what was left of Beacon Tower. The hill he stood on showed most of what was once the huntsman academy but the tower was, for some reason, blurry. The man only knew there was a black shape in all this blur. That gave him another excuse to go into the ruins...
When suddenly he heard snarling of a Beowolf behind him. He didn't turn back, not wanting the monster to change its tactics, waiting for it to attack him in a "sneaky" way. When the Beowolf finally lunged at the man he swiftly dodged and a sound of a deflected fatal blow could've been heard. When the Grimm realized what's happened, it noticed that the man wasn't standing in front of it anymore, but a little more to the right because of that dodge. The man held a shiny 40 and a half inch sword with a thin and narrow blade and a bizarre handle. That was how the prey of the Beowolf blocked the attack. After that, shockingly, the blade reduced to just its handle and disappeared in the sleeve of the guy's trench coat. He smirked at the Beowolf, slowly taking steps away from it with his hand sticking out towards it as if he wanted to calm the Grimm down. 'I know what you think, cute puppy reject. And I know, I know, I'm in your territory and you have the right to kill me. But you're forgetting that I'm very well aware that I'm in the middle of your kind's country.' And after that some other object appeared in his hand he stuck out. This time it looked like a gold plated handgun. It aimed directly at the forehead of the lurking Beowolf. 'Everybody's got guns where the Grimm are dwelling in these times...and the only reason you eat is because some never pulled a trigger before.' After saying these words the guy squeezed the trigger a couple of times and, just as expected, put a number of holes in the Grimm's head. It yelped and dropped on the ground, slowly dissolving into smoke and the stains of black slime. The guy hid the pistol back in his sleeve, just like he did with the sword, and smirked as he heard muffled Beowolf howling in the distance. 'Too late for that, pieces of filth. Your menace has arrived...and it bears the name of Nicholas Van Thorne.' As he said that to himself he started his chopper again and, this time without hesitation due to the adrenaline building up inside him, the androgynous hater of Grimm drove off the hill and started speeding through the meadow filled with the natural enemy of mankind marching, towards the ruins of Vale, towards what would soon turn out to be a...well, turning point in his life so far. And even though he seemed to go there just to crack some skulls for the sheer idea of murdering monsters, there were other reasons. The Grimm grew more cautious that day, knowing they can no longer feel safe when a chopper's engine and heavy metal music roars in the distance...