Wow, the tower's even larger than I expected… Hannah thought, as she landed in front of the Shuttle that had just brought a fresh batch of students to Beacon. Many were looking curiously, some were just bluntly staring at her.
Hannah obviously knew why they were staring. She'd gotten used to it. It was her wings, of course. Unlike many thought, Hannah was not a Faunus. She was human. Her semblance was just, that a pair of large, white, feathered wings grew out of her back. Pretty useful, pretty hard to hide and sometimes quite cumbersome.
The human traffic continued slowly as the large mass of students in the front yard of Beacon started heading towards the school. Hannah stood at the cliff and admired the view over the city. It was so beautiful. An entire modern civilization, and she was standing at the peak of its combat prowess.
As she turned to leave, without looking, Hannah bumped into someone and lost her orientation for a moment. "Sorry, I didn't mean to bump into you -" She began, but stopped immediately, because to her surprise she couldn't find the face of whomever she'd just bumped into. All she initially saw, was abs.
Like a bare mountain range of muscle towering in her face. As she looked up, she saw the man's face. He really was a mountain. Easily three heads taller than her, with an emotionless face.
He had a lot of scars across his body, which were easily seen as he apparently didn't bother to wear a shirt or other kind of top. He had bright blonde hair, which seemed short, but the actually long hair was tied into a strong rope by bandages, which he wore as a scarf.
He looked down on her. She felt like he was about to crush her head with his bare hands, such power was emanating from his imposing figure.
Instead he didn't do anything. He didn't say anything either, he just looked at her. He moved his face closer to hers. Uncomfortably close, until their noses almost touched. What the hell is he doing? Hannah thought in fear.
His crystal blue eyes just stared deeply into hers. Then he looked over her shoulders and inspected her wings. After that he just looked her in the eyes one more time, turned away and left.
"Well isn't he a weirdo..." Hannah heard someone behind her say. She turned to see a young man, about her age with ridiculously colorful clothes, hair AND headphones. He was wearing a neon green sweater, pants of the same shades and neon yellow headphones over his bright blue hair.
"uhm... yeah..." She answered, not sure on how to respond to that, especially coming from him since he was easily just as weird.
"So. What's your name? You a first year too?"
"Yeah, I am. My name's Hannah. What's your name?"
"Wait, You're a first year and your name is Hannah? You were top of the year at Signal, weren't you?" Hannah was impressed that he knew that. She didn't really expect anyone to recognize her because of that. They'd started walking towards the School's main building.
"Wow. Didn't think anyone would recognize me because of that."
"Nailed it! Well, we're supposed to form teams, right? Best to do your homework when the big tests come up. Oh where are my manners, I'm Vybe. Vybe Berg."
"The amateur DJ?" "one and only" he said beaming a smile at her.
It seems as though he wasn't recognized by strangers on a regular basis either. "So who was the big guy? Was he bothering you?"
"No, not really... he was just..." "Weird?" "Yeah... I bumped into him and he just stared at me..."
"Well, to be fair you ARE quite the sight to see" Vybe said. Hannah ignored his comment and looked at her Scroll.
"We should head for the hall in beacon tower. I hear professor Ozpin will give us a speech."
Although Hannah tried to forget about this odd encounter, she ended up wondering multiple times about who the silent stranger was.
After the entrance ceremony, the second and third year students were directed to their classrooms, as the first years were asked to find themselves at beacon cliff.
Professor Ozpin was in the middle of explaining the rules. "And so the teaching staff and I have decided to make a slight adjustment to the education program of this institution. As many of you may already know we used to form teams of four by putting teams of two together based on decisions made in the forest, but this is no longer the case."
A lot of murmuring went around the crowd.
"Instead, you will now be partnered up with one individual, the first person you make eye contact with in the emerald forest, building an array of two-man or woman tag teams. You will proceed to the northern part of the forest, where you'll find an outpost of the school. Once there, you will enter your fingerprints as well as your partner's name and semblance into a computer terminal, to confirm your reaching the location. It is recommended that you exchange information about yourselves as well as confront the creatures of Grimm along the way to get a feeling for your individual fighting styles. When you return to the school, you will be asked questions about your partner's combat abilities and be assigned another tag team to form your team of four based on combat abilities entered by your partner in the outpost and answers given when you return to the school. That is all. Prepare your landing strategies," he quickly glanced over at Hannah, who'd already spread her wings. "or whatever you intend to do once we launch you" and adjusted his glasses.
Hannah was flying across the forest, keeping an eye out for other students. It was in her best interest not to walk, since flying was much faster and safer since the only real threat in the air was a Nevemore, of which she'd already disposed off a few.
They weren't Giant Nevermores, but still large enough to be a threat, though in aerial combat not much is a threat to Hannah. The only problem was that she also had to keep an eye out for a potential partner, but the canopy was too thick.
She was just beginning to think that she should maybe land and have a look around below the canopy, when her train of thought was so rudely interrupted: "WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" she heard Vybe shout as he shot past her at higher speed than she'd usually be comfortable with, standing atop what looked like a very complocatedly constructed mixture of electronic mixboard and hoverboard. Maybe I should avoid eye contact with him... he's nice but he seems too reckless...
At that moment hope was reignited in her heart, as she saw an explosion to the east of the Forest.
An explosion meant a fight. A fight meant a possible team mate.
Hannah rushed over as fast as her wings would carry her and landed a safe distance away. She quietly made her way through the thick trees to find a horrifying sight. The last person she wanted to meet alone in the rather dark Emerald Forest: The tall, blonde stranger. He was surrounded by at least twenty, maybe thirty Beowolves. And to make matters worse, he was unarmed.
Hannah was about to jump to his side to at least help him, when one of the Beowolves suddenly pounced at their intended prey. She did not expect to see what she saw and her eyes went wide as she watched this man smash a Beowolf's head into a dark, messy paste with nothing but his bare fist.
Wow... he really could have crushed my head with his bare hands.
Struck by awe, she just watched, as this man started decimating Grimm after Grimm with nothing but brute force. He fought fiercely, like a rabid animal. Without any regards to his own safety. Naturally he also took quite a bit of damage in turn, and not long after Hannah started watching this spectacle, she noticed that his Aura had depleted and he was now taking direct damage and sustaining injuries.
That was when Hannah noticed something strange about him: He was... changing. His skin... it was turning... scaly. She got a clear view of him: His skin was turning into scales, his nails into claws, his teeth into fangs and sprouting from his forehead was a pair of horns crowning his hairline towards the back of his head.
Reality caught up with Hannah, as in his fighting rage and a moment of missing focus the stranger was suddenly pinned by a large Alpha, holding down his arms. Hannah didn't hesitate, pulled out Shrike, her trusty lightning glaive. Shrike, as all Signal students' weapons was from her own design. Basically a large polearm – a glaive – that runs on electricity and lightning dust and can fire Lightning. Hannahrushed out of the brush to aid him, but again, she misjudged the situation.
The man opened his mouth wide and with a roar like rolling thunder his throat started swelling in a bright yellow light and within an instant the top half of the Alpha was incinerated by a destructive torrent of flame. But at that moment, he was not a man... he was an animal.
This was a bad idea. I better leave before he notices me. Hannah thought and went to turn and leave, when she heard a low growl behind her. She cursed herself for not keeping an eye out, as she turned around to have just enough time to dodge out of the way of an Ursa's heavy swing of its claws; jumping closer to the stranger.
She was in a bad spot. An obviously dangerous man to her one side, and an Ursa to the other. She traded a few blows with the Ursa. It was obviously the slower and therefore an easier to beat opponent, if she could kill it quickly.
That was until she made the mistake of trying to block an attack with Shrike instead of dodging, resulting in her Glaive being ripped from her hands. She heard a roar and saw the stranger, who'd now disposed of all the Beowolves turn towards her, fire in his eyes, fangs bared. Panic took Hannah.
Oh my god, what do I do... What do I do, what do I do? She was about to try and take off, Chances were slim, but maybe she could fly away from them, but it was already too late. She saw the Ursa reeling back for another heavy swing and the man pouncing at her. All hope lost, she started cowering in a final attempt at survival, and after what seemed like an eternity she heard the horrible sound of tearing flesh and the roars of this monster spouting more destructive fire.
No pain... no wounds... was she still alive? She opened her eyes to see: A dead Ursa, disintegrating underneath the bloody mess that was this person. He turned towards her again, but not menacingly. More... instinctual. Curious.
He walked up to Hannah, her panic slightly diminished, but she did her best to not make any sudden movements. He came dangerously close to her face again. He gently took her hand and held his against it... almost like he'd just made a huge discovery.
Hannah was just standing still to make sure he wouldn't eat her alive, until she mustered up the courage to say "uhm... hello? I- I'm Hannah" "Han-nah" he repeated slowly. Then he just turned, lay down amidst the bloody mess of corpses and fell asleep.
Before, Hannah had felt this need to run, but now... he didn't seem all that dangerous to her. Just confused. And after all, he did make pretty intense Eye-Contact with her, which technically meant that she'd have to be his partner. So for not wanting to break the rules, she decided to sit down next to him and wait for him to wake up.
Hannah closely observed his transformation progress. While asleep, he was slowly turning back into looking like a human. His horns, fangs and claws retracted and his scales shimmered and disappeared.
After a while he finally woke up. "Hello. Good to have you back", Hannah tried to start their conversation on the right foot. He looked her over "Earlier... The shuttle bay" He said. He had a very deep and strong voice, fitting of his gargantuan appearance.
"Yes, that's me. My name is Hannah. Who're you?" "Aldric" "Well, it's nice to meet you Aldric. I hope we make a good team", Hannah said unsurely. "So. What was with that fight? Was that your semblance?"
As she mentioned his semblance, he suddenly turned to her, grabbed her by the arms and asked with sudden panic: "My Semblance? It activated? Oh no! Are you alright?" "huh? uhm... yes. You killed quite a few Grimm and saved me from an Ursa. Thank you, by the way." "Welcome" He said in a relieved sigh.
"So that was your semblance. You're not a human are you?" "No." "You're a Faunus, right? A dragon Faunus" Hannah had heard stories about some very few who had the ancestry of Dragons. "Human, Faunus, no different. All the same to me."
They sat there a while, resting, waiting for Aldric to regain his strength. "So Aldric. Can you explain your semblance to me? You know we need to put in each other's information at the terminals."
He sighed and slowly began: "Awakening. The angrier I get, the stupider I become, my strength grows and my animal side takes over. Of course, once I'm already very angry, it's all the more easier to get even more angry."
"That does seem like a little bit of a setback." "hm." "Well, my semblance are my wings", Hannah said cheerfully, trying to chase away the thick gloom hanging in the air. "You're not Faunus?" "No, I get that a lot, though" "hm."