Quick AN: I went back and found a few grammatical and spelling mistakes in the first chapter.
Disclaimer again: I don't own RWBY, but you know if I did, there'd be more Neo all the time.
Several months have passed since Neo and her family moved to Mountain Glen. True to their word, Choco's former friends pulled some strings and put their family on the top of the list to be moved to Mountain Glen. Unfortunately for them, many citizens also the promise for a better future and clamored to apply for housing, leaving them with a house near the gated community that was meant for the Faunus. Although they were finally able to move away from the slums of Vale, across the street held a constant reminder of the life that they used to have. The houses resembled their old shack, little to no streetlights and lack of paved roads. The worst part of it all was the around the clock patrol of Atlassian Knights and military around the border of the Faunus community, as if they were caged animals that weren't allowed to interact with the humans. Within the several months of colonizing Mountain Glen, the Faunus constantly cried out against the injustice that was happening towards them but were only met by force in return. The media had been kept in the dark about the abuse that was taking place, the inhumane hours that took place to excavate the mines beneath the city and refine the Dust gathered from mining. As time passed, the Faunus community separated from the rest of the city began turning to violence in order for their voices to be heard. It started with small acts of vandalism, graffiti on the walls, breaking into shops near the border, but eventually they moved to larger scale acts, destroying Atlassian Knights on patrol, sabotaging Dust mining and even as far as mounting an attack against a Dust refinery. General Ironwood and his forces reacted quickly and quelled the rebellion, and immediately strengthened the amount of military presence in Mountain Glen.
It was also around this time that Grimm attacks began to be more prominent. At first, only scattered attacks along the walls had occurred. This was not unnatural as the city itself was in the middle of a large forest covering the entire wildlife. But as time went on and social unrest grew within the city, so the did the scale of the attacks. Multiple packs of Beowolves, Ursai, and Nevermore began to attack the walls, with determined coordination. Older and more powerful Grimm counterparts began to appear as well, and seemed to be leading younger Grimm in tactical groups, searching for a weak spot to exploit. Time and time again, Ironwood repelled the attacks, but with each passing victory, more and more of his units were being killed or severely injured.
City Council of Vale, Top Floor
"What's your opinion General? The amount of Dust deposits in those mines are too invaluable for us to abandon the city."
"Sir, the main reason Grimm are attacking the city is due to the Faunus, their hatred towards their treatment continue to attract the Grimm and its only growing more each day."
"So we get rid of the Faunus living there, we've already rid of most of the trash in the city, I'm sure no one will notice if they go missing in Mountain Glen."
"No, I need those workers, as much as it pains me to defend those animals, they're willing to do the work that humans are not."
"Mister Schnee has a point. The only reason why we've been able to retrieve so much Dust is due to the Faunus labor, their night vision had been a tremendous help as well. Their exploration of the darkest parts of the mines paved way for our engineers to set up tracks and continue excavation. Deaths are part of any workplace, and we hope to continue to minimize human deaths within the mines."
"Well then what do we do? If we don't come up with a plan soon enough, the city will fall from either the Faunus from the inside or the Grimm from the outside."
"Rest assured, Councilman. My forces will continue to suppress this rebellion and keep the city safe from Grimm. Not to mention we now have those gullible hunters and huntress from Beacon Academy to help clear the wave after wave of Grimm."
"For your sake, I hope you can keep that promise General, it isn't just your ass on the line."
"Yes, sir."
"You're so slow Neo! Try to keep up!" Cyan yelled as she sprinted towards the finish line. Looking back, she saw her friend desperately trying to catch up to her but with no luck.
"Cy... stop... running... so fast!" *Gasp* Neo greedily took in air as her lung screamed its necessity. "It's not fair, you're taller than me!" It was true, Cyan was a squirrel Faunus, one of the few who were not penned like cattle. Her family was wealthy enough and had influence in the political community as her father served as councilman and able to land a comfortable home in Mountain Glen. Despite her Faunus background, the two became good friends when they met in Poynting Academy, perhaps it was Neo's parents extensive background that she saw people for who they were, not what they were. Cyan, on the other hand, used to view humanity as horrible beings, out to destroy her and family. The fact that her father was elected as a council member left much disdain within the Vale community and the family constantly received death threats, and hated by the public eye. At first, Cyan hated Neo, she saw the girl as another human, pretending to be her friend only to betray her in the end, she'd had enough experience not to trust anyone so easily. What turned her around was an incident with a couple of upperclassmen from their school.
~A few weeks ago~
"Well, well, what do we have here? A lost little rat that needs to make its way back to the gutters." Two boys, twins named Ned and Ted sneer as they walk up to Cyan who was reading a book underneath a tree. The twins hit their growth spurt earlier than the rest of their classmates and are a head taller than everyone else, they were especially mean towards girls and even worse to the few Faunus that attended their school.
Cyan tried to ignore them, this started once the school year began, and it was mostly harmless bullying, or so she thought. The twins leered over the small Faunus girl and began to pull on her ears perched atop her head.
"Ow, please stop, don't you two have better things to do," Cyan snapped. Her passive nature never let her raise her hand against anyone, but she'd be damned if she let people walk all over her.
"Do you hear that bro? The trash is talking, let's take to where it belongs, the air is starting to reek here." The two boys snickered as they stop menacingly in front of Cyan. Ted aggressively grabbed Cyan's tail that was curled around her legs and pulled, hard.
"OW, stop it! That hurts!" cried Cyan.
This only encouraged the boys to continue, cursing at the Faunus for her existence. Cyan was now in the verge of tears, desperately wishing for help, but knowing full well that it wouldn't come.
"Ow, what the hell!" exclaimed Ned as a small rock hit the back of his head. The two turned around to find a smaller girl standing a few feet away from them with a few more rocks in her hands.
"Why don't you leave her alone," Neo stated.
"And who's going to make us? You? I hear you couldn't even unlock your semblance, even though the rest of our class already has theirs." Neo flinched, it was true, she had a hard time maintaining her limited aura pool and what's worse was her semblance was nowhere near her grasp. To make matters worse, Neo only trained in defensive fighting, due to her miniature size, there was no way she would be able to take them on.
"You two only pick on girls, I'm sure you're nothing more than cowards, I'm more than enough for you." Neo mustered all of her courage and tried not to stutter through her empty threat. Cyan shrank back into a ball, tending to her tail and ears, watching and listening intently to the small girl defending her.
Ned and Ted had forgotten about the female Faunus and now fully turned their attention to Neo, with eyes burning with anger at her statement. Within seconds the two flared their auras and a orange glow of light encompassed Ted and icy white glow emanated from Ned.
"You're going to regret that," Ted growled as he formed a small ball of fire in his palm, while Ned had a decent sized spear in his own.
Neo's eyes widened and flared her own aura. The gentle glow that surrounded her body was less definitive than her opponents. Ted began to throw fireball after fireball at Neo while Ned used the reach of his spear to attack from another angle. Neo's aura began to flicker and parts of her flesh started to singed or cut from the relentless attacks of the twins.
Finally, the inevitable happened, Neo's aura was completely depleted and the glow dissipated from her body.
The boys sneered and moved in closer to the cut and bruised Neo.
"See, should've minded your own business, there's no point in trying to stand up for an animal like her."
"Heh," Neo gave a weak smile, "the only animals here are you two."
Looks of anger flashed over the twins' face and both raised their weapons with a killing intent.
Neo looked over at the Faunus girl, pleading for help. Cyan, too shocked or too scared to move, met her gaze and was instantly overcome with guilt. She broke the contact immediately, choosing to bury her face in her knees instead.
Neo's heart dropped as Cyan dropped her head into her body, curling further into herself. Well I guess I did get myself into this mess, she thought. She never asked her my help and look where it got me, I just wanted a friend…
Neo braced herself for a painful impact, but moments passed and it never came. She dared to open one of her eyes and saw that there was another boy between her and her aggressors.
Cyan fought through her guilt and opened her eyes, hoping that her body would do something, anything! She saw the twins swing down their semblance made weapons and tried to cry out.
"NO!" is what she would have yelled, but nothing more than a weak moan came out instead. But the attacks never reached Neo. Within an instant, Ted's had was deflected upwards, causing the ball of fire to scorch the tree above and Ned's spear was parried by a cane. Standing in between them was a boy, with orange hair styled in a comb over and covering his right eye. The blue tie he wore with his school uniform indicated he was four grades above Neo and Cyan and about to graduate from Poynting Academy.
"You two are pathetic," he said in a calm voice. "Do everyone a favor and leave."
Neo barely had time to hear the boy speak before the entire world turned black.
When Neo regained her consciousness, she found herself laying on top of a bed with curtains pulled around her. The nurses office? Ow. Neo tried to sit upright only to feel stings of pain all over her body. Something rustled out of the corner of her eye and the curtain was pulled open.
"You're finally awake," Cyan stated. Her eyes were red and heavy from exhaustion.
Had she been crying? "Thanks, how long was I out?" Neo asked.
"Six hours, the school called your parents so that they wouldn't worry, the twins are getting detention for what they did to you, but its not enough, they'll just come back worse than this time."
"Well thats okay, you're safe from them, right?" Neo replied.
"NO! I'm not! Why did you have to do that? I could've handled it on my own! Why would you risk your life for a Faunus you don't even know?!"
Neo was shocked. Why is she angry at me?! Her face turned into a scowl. "I'm sorry I tried to help! I couldn't just stand around and watch a person be bullied, that's not what being a huntress is about! But you know what, if this is the sort of thanks I get for trying to help you, then I'll just leave you alone next time!"
The rest of Neo's statements were muffled once Cyan heard the word 'person'.
"Do you really think of me as a person…? I'm not just a Faunus to you..?" Cyan wondered. All of her anger diffused from the possibility of acceptance, a friend.
"Well yeah, you're living here and now aren't you? Just because you've got a bushy tail doesn't mean anything. My parents always told me to look past appearances. I've seen you around school, you're the nicest person here, and I wanted to be your friend." Neo's anger also dissipated as she lay out her true intentions to the Faunus girl.
Cyan smiled and tears began to fall from her eyes again. She moved closer to the smaller girl and wrapped herself around her in a large, warm hug.
"Thank you."
~Present Day~
Ever since the incident with the twins, Neo and Cyan have been inseparable. Neo's association with a Faunus gained her negative attention from the rest of her classmates who hated Faunus presence in their school, but she didn't care. She had a best friend to share everything with, and she wasn't going to give it up for anything.
"Come on slowpoke, you're the one who wanted to race back to your house! I didn't think I'd have to stop every block for you," Cyan teased.
"Yeah but you're cheating! I saw you activate your semblance when I was catching up to you!" Neo whined.
"Hey, whatever it takes to win." The pair smiled at each other and began to walk towards Neo's home. "I'm excited for today, I think you'll really like the birthday present I got for you."
"If it isn't ice cream, then I don't want it."
"Oh really? Well I'll take it then, it was pretty expensive you know."
"Really? WHAT IS IT?"
"We'll have to wait and find out."