If you are reading this, it means you wonderful person who has reached the second chapter of this story. Congratulations for that feat.

Also, the cover and profile picture systems of this site are messing with me. Don't mind if the pictures are in flux. It is just the Warp showing its favor in mysterious ways.


Chaos is the Prize Chapter 2

Azuhrius sat on a seat of the airship's observation deck, handling his scroll. Orchid sat next to him, head thrown back and arms wide, looking like he had passed out. Wait a minute, he was actually passed out, now that Azuhrius looked more closely. Must be the exposure of having so many females in the same space, he thought.

The two of them were the only ones on the deck that were sitting. All the other new beacon students seemed more or less too nervous to sit down. Even Azuhrius had to admit he felt a small amount of tension.

The bunch of youths around them were really varying fold. There were people who certainly looked seasoned fighters. Others... less so. His gaze stopped for a moment on a boy who was leaning against the wall for support and looked really nauseous. The clothing of many people also baffled Azuhrius slightly. He had always thought that Orchid dressed little too flagrantly, but he fit right into the crowd with the other students. It was Azuhrius who in fact stood out more of the two of them. Azuhrius did not like that at all. When it was told to them that they should arrive in their combat gear, Azuhrius had of course complied. But many of the young boys and girls around him were dressed in really... casually looking clothes. There were of course students that wore what Azuhrius considered combat gear like breastplates and things like that, but those consisted mostly of the minority of boys. Almost all the girls looked like they wearing their favorite or best looking clothes, and least half of the girls wore skirts.

"Combat skirts," Orchid had said instantly like it was normal, when Azuhrius had first mentioned it at the airship dock in Vale. Azuhrius thought that out of all the guys at Terra, he himself was most in contact with the outside world, but now that thought was faltering.

"You should go out more often," he heard Kaltrina's long ago said words, that he had scoffed off as nonsense, echo in his mind.

He returned his attention to the scroll in his hand. On the screen was incomplete list of all students that were going to enroll to the Academy this year. He had started collecting all the information of the students he could get well in advance, and now that the day had finally come, he had at least names of almost everybody. Information about some of the students was more difficult to find than others. Pyrrha Nikos was one of the students Azuhrius had most info of (she was famous after all), where as of people like Ciera Marsus and Blake Belladonna Azuhrius had nothing more than a name. And he had only acquired their names when he had stolen the passenger list of the ship they were on right now. He hoped that he would have an opportunity to gather more data before the Initiation.

A holographic view screen opposite of Azuhrius that had displayed a news broadcast suddenly disappeared and was replaced by projection of a blond woman with glasses. He knew who she was.

"Hello and welcome to beacon."

"Who's that?" a girl with a wild blond hair asked.

"My name Glynda Goodwitch," the girl received an answer.

Azuhrius listened as the teacher talked briefly about Beacon and why they were there.

"-and now it is our turn to provide you the knowledge and the training to protect our world."

Azuhrius smirked just so slightly as the hologram disappeared.

People were looking out of the windows. Some were looking at the view that their high altitude offered to the city, others were peering at the Academy that was apparently really close now.

Azuhrius closed the list and folded his scroll. He nudged Orchid next to him. It took less than a second for Orchid to surface from the depths of unconsciousness and open his eyes. He jerked from his slack position and looked at his comrade.

"Were are about to land."

"Good. For a moment I thought we would have to jump off again."

"As soon as we get out, I want you to run and follow me," Azuhrius said. "I want to be at the meeting place before anyone else. It will be faster if we don't follow the main road and just take a shortcut through the right side." he showed Orchid a barely palm sized map of the Academy. He drew a line with his finger to show the shortcut they would take.

"Why do you want to be there before anyone else?" Orchid asked slightly bewildered.

They rose from their seat and started heading for the exit, while the nauseous blond caused a small scene behind them.

"It is all to secure suitable teammates," Azuhrius replied.

"Can they be girls?" Orchid asked hopefully.

"I will take your wishes into consideration," he said smoothly, as if he really would.


"Hey Nox..."

"Yeah?"

"Have you ever wondered why we're here?"

He turned to look at Sangur. Nox was sitting in a shadow cast by one of the arches around the main entrance of the Beacon Academy, hiding from his mortal enemy: the sun.

For a couple of seconds Nox just looked at Sangur who was leaning against the arch that sheltered Nox from the cursed electromagnetic radiation. Then he opened his mouth to respond. "The fuck are you talking about? Ever? We have been here, like, two hours."

"I mean why are we out here... when we could be in the... thick of slaughter." Sangur's eyes flared momentarily as he seemed to lose the thought behind his words at the middle of his sentence.

Nox sighed, not even bothering to be annoyed. The lack of blood spilling was seemingly starting to affect Sangur. That and maybe the ever damned sunlight, Nox was sure of it. He hoped that the initiation would start soon. Sangur had not fulfilled his violent urges in over a week now, and if he would not be provided some Grimm soon, he might take it out on whoever was closest. And that would render their time at this school over before it even truly begun.

"Calm down. Just be patient for a little longer. There will be some big, strong and mean xenos for you to slay at the initiation, much better than what you have been restricted to recently. Just you wait," Nox lied. He had no idea what the initiation would like, except that there would be some kind of testing of fighting prowess. It was logical for a Hunter Academy to make the new students fight against creatures of Grimm as a initiation, or at least Nox hoped so.

"Yes. Soon." The glint in Sangur's eyes calmed down. "But why could we not just go do that right now anyway? I am sure the cane man would not mind if we just quickly-"

"No, Sangur. No. The new students are arriving any moment now and we must join them for all the formal shit. I have made the arrangements with the headmaster, you have your free weekends to go butcher things in Forever Fall, so for fuck sake just try to hold out right now."

Sangur huddled against the arc in disappointment. "I don't like this. I wish we could just do what we have always done."

"Welcome to a world of new solutions." Nox felt so damn vexed to say those words, but he had no really choice now that they had come here. He could totally understand how chained Sangur felt. He felt it too, and it annoyed him beyond measure. But this place required some additional discipline, and they would have to stay in check. Nox did not want to have another meeting with Ironwood.

"I think that might be them," Sangur said looking into the horizon.

Nox turned to look, and there certainly was airships approaching the Academy. After few more moments, one of the bigger airships pulled next to the big landing platform at the end of the cliff.

"I wonder what the deal is with that many ships," Nox said as one of the bullheads flied over them. "The students are coming on board the big ships, but why the hell do they need such an escort for a trip that short? Why do they need one in the first place?"

"Maybe there are some threatening or unstable new students on board," Sangur grunted, rising to stand against the arc.

"Nah, we are already here," Nox said as he got up too, just as the landed airship opened its side hatch, revealing a hurried blond haired boy who proceeded to vomit in a conveniently placed trash bin.

The students started to flow from the ship towards the academy. They were quite a varying bunch.

"They don't look like warriors to me," Sangur said as he and Nox leaned against the stone arch. They were in a position that the new students did not see them unless they turned to look behind them, but the two of them could watch after them as they passed by.

"Of course not. They are a bunch of feeble and dewy-eyed prats," Nox replied. He could not believe he would have to spent few next years with people like these. But maybe there was still some hope. Maybe they were not as big twats as they looked like.

"Hey, that one looks like a warrior," Sangur said, genuinely surprising Nox with the words.

He leaned so that he could see who Sangur was talking about. "Which one?"

Sangur nodded in the direction "The one with the round shield"

Nox looked and spotted the girl. Nox puffed a little by himself. He was sure that the red and bronze had nothing to do with Sangur's opinion.

"If you say so," he just said.


"I promise I make this up to you!" Ruby yelled after the white haired heiress.

The girl in white did nothing to imply she heard her and just continued to trample away along the big road.

Ruby sighed sadly and looked at the ground. "Guess I am not only one having a rough first day." She turned to the other girl she had just met. "So, what's..." She saw the black haired girl walking slowly away from her. She felt like like she could collapse just then and there. Could the situation get any worse.

Well, turned out it could! The storage case the heiress had taken from her apparently did not get closed properly, and as the men who Ruby assumed worked for Schnee started to collected the mess of luggage, the case opened and let some of its content fall out. Most of the bottles that spread out fortunately did not cause anything... except one containing bright orange dust. The bottle hit the ground, causing the cap to almost come of. Then the dust inside flashed dangerously.

Next thing Ruby knew the cap was disintegrated as the hole of the bottle flared up, shooting the container down the road like a firework. It zigzagged and shined brightly, but started fortunately soon lose its momentum.

Then it hit somebody in the head. Ruby could hear the clang all the way where she was standing.

The boy had just emerged behind one of the stone arcs around the Academy entrance, and had just at the wrong moment stepped into the path of the accidental missile.

Ruby held both of her hands in front of her open mouth and was peeking through her fingers. She was horrified. This can't be happening. Why was the world so cruel.

The boy who had been hit by the firework-bottle crossed the distance between him and Ruby extraordinary fast even though he was not running. Ruby was just about to break down from the panic when he finally stopped the in front of her.

"Is this yours?" he asked with a low but so threat filled voice that Ruby might have started cry if she had not been petrified by the horrendous situation. He was holding in his outreached hand the bottle that was now empty and seemed to smoke just a little

"I..." Ruby tried to speak. "It is... No it is not my... But it was... Kinda my fault...I am so sorry," she whimpered.

The Boy was not that tall. He was pretty much same height as Yang, and Ruby's sister had, as a matter of fact, more imposing character thanks to her hair.

The boy's hair was black. But not as black as his eyes that Ruby could at that moment swear were the darkest black the she had ever seen. She could not separate between the iris and the pupil. The dark hair and eyes were a stark contrast to his unbelievably pale skin that was almost the same color as the recently departed heiress' hair.

He was wearing midnight blue hoodie of a kind and a black pants. He had gray shoulder pads with dim bronze trim. What was the most noticeable thing about him was his legs though. At first, Ruby thought that he was wearing armored leg guards and boots, but then he realized he was not wearing anything like that. His legs were metallic below the knees. His shins were covered by dark blue armor plate, and instead of legs and toes he had gunmetal gray talons that looked like that of a bird of prey.

The expression on his face made Ruby want to pull down her hood and vanish. The face was stern but the dark eyes radiated anger.

As Ruby trembled slightly, she noticed that boy was not alone. Standing just behind was another, over a head taller boy. He seemed to be a friend of the boy hit by the bottle.

His hair was dark brown and his dark red eyes spectated Ruby and the other boy with an expression like he was waiting a fight to break out... and was eager to see it happen.

His brown shirt was mostly covered by a hulking red breastplate. His left hand was bare and showed a toned, maybe even muscular hand, whereas his right hand was totally covered by shining bronze plate armor. He, fortunately, had just normal legs covered by blue pants and black combat boots at his feet.

"That was actually my fault," one of the Schnee servants said cautiously as he stepped next to Ruby. He was little nervous as he held his hands up in conciliation, and Ruby was glad he had stepped to help her. "I was handling the case too carelessly. It was my fault and I truly apologize."

"No, I am also at blame here," said Ruby quickly as she waved her hands. She felt is was not right for the man to take all the blame.

The pale boy squeezed the bottle in his hand as his eyes shifted between Ruby and the servant. Ruby did not like looking into those black eyes. They were so full of hate. Ruby did not believe she had ever seen eyes so full of hate and contempt. She truly believed at that moment that the boy wanted to hurt her. He wanted to let his anger out on the girl before her. But the feelings were caged somehow, like the boy had fought to keep himself in check because he knew he was not allowed to.

A moment passed and the boys eyes finally fixed on Ruby. "You have..." He said with a low voice that was not as threatening as it had been a moment ago. "Silver eyes," he finished as if Ruby's eye color had some meaning to him. "...I hate them."

Then he threw the bottle into the servant's arms rather hard and the man was set back a step as it impacted his chest and he reached to grab it. "Keep a better care of your junk," the pale boy said, turned and started to walk away.

The servant said a short apology to Ruby as well and then returned to his colleagues to help with the other cases.

That left Ruby alone with the tall, armor wearing boy who had been with the pale boy. He was just standing there, where he had remained through the whole scene. His face no longer looked like he was anticipating a violent melee.

"Hey," Ruby said awkwardly, not knowing what else to do.

The boy just stared before saying "You are wearing red. That is good." And then he just turned and followed after the pale boy.

As the boy's back got more and more further away, like too many backs that day, Ruby just could not take it anymore. Her legs gave away and she collapsed to lay on the road. "Welcome to beacon..." she said quietly to herself before he closed her eyes.

Then he heard steps as a pair of legs stopped next to her and a shadow was cast over her close eyes. She opened her lids to see a somewhat familiar blond boy standing next to her and offering his hand. "Hey. I'm Jaune," he said.

"Ruby," she replied as she took his hand.


"Oliver Magnolio," Azuhrius said quietly to himself as the said person walked it to the building that was the meeting place for all the new students. The girl that walked couple of steps behind Oliver Azuhrius was not able to connect to a name, so he quickly raised his scroll and snapped a picture. He saved the picture for later processing and moved to the next person to come in.

Almost all the new students had already arrived. Azuhrius and Orchid had been the first ones there, and therefore Azuhrius had managed to observe every new individual that stepped inside. Every Time when a person he was able to identify walked in, he marked that person as present in his scroll. He also recorded everyone he did not have previous data on, or those he could not link with a name. Sometimes he could deduce the identity of someone based on who they were accompanied with, as some of them were old friends from combat school or had some other previous connection.

Only few names on the list had yet to arrive, and Azuhrius had counted 6 individuals that were definitely missing from the list, and he would have to find out who they were soon.

Things were going rather nicely so far, even if they had only just arrived. Azuhrius was quite pleased and he allowed himself a little smirk.

Then two boys walked in who made the smirk on his face disappear faster than a sense of hygiene of someone worshipping the Plague Lord. He had to stop himself from cursing out loud.

The appearances of the boys practically screamed out their identity to Azuhrius. The shorter one, wearing midnight clad and skin pale as only possible to the progeny of the VIIIth. The other one was wearing blood red and bronze, and he even had the mark of the Blood God on his breast plate. This one was of the XIIth.

They were like him. Like Azuhrius himself. They were from Terra.

"Orchid..." Azuhrius almost whispered as he tried to think how the hell was it possible for the that pair to be here, in the Beacon Academy. "I want you to listen to me. Listen to me very carefully and you absolutely must remain calm after hearing what I have to say. Is that understood? Whatever it is I am going to say to you now, you must not do anything radical or foolish."

"When have I ever done something like that?" Orchid answered lazily as he was leaning against one of the walls. "Just tell me. No need to fuss about, whatever it is."

Azuhrius swallowed before continuing. "Adaptus Venatores. Two of them just walked in. Two of our cousins. One of the VIIIth and on of the XIIth..."

Azuhrius could almost hear it when blood suddenly rushed in Orchid's veins. In a time it took to blink, the relaxed and indifferent feeling of the boy next to him disappeared. It was replaced with tensed muscles and hyperactive vigilance. The mist that had clouded the pink eyes vanished in an instant as Orchid purged the chemicals with sedative effect from his system with an unnatural speed. The eyes were sharp. They hungered, endlessly so. They thirsted for battle.

Orchid's gaze locked to the to boys that Azuhrius had pointed out. His right hand reached for his weapon, and his left hand approached the controls that were hidden in his clothes just by the neck, in intent of releasing "combat stims" (more drugs) into his bloodstream from the storage of his small backpack apparatus. There was a silent hiss and a slightly higher pitch in his voice when he spoke. "A savage brute of the Blood God!" he said with hostility.

Azuhrius could sense what was going on in his companion's head. He could feel the want, the need to rush right in and strike down the follower of the Dark Prince's enemy. Venators from third and twelfth legions were dedicated to opposing powers of the great pantheon, and as so did not get really along. Now Orchid saw a worshipper of a god he hated, and in very strange circumstances. There were not suppose to be any of the XIIth alive, and as so Orchid probably thought this one was some kind of turncoat. A perfect excuse for the him to attack. Azuhrius would have to contain the situation before it escalated out of hand.

"Remember what I said. Remain calm. Do you hear me?" Azuhrius reached out and grabbed Orchid's chin. He forced his head to turn to look Azuhrius in the eyes. "You will do nothing. If you do anything stupid now and here, all will be ruined. You. Will. Stand. Down."

Azuhrius did not often talk this way to Orchid, but he could not let Orchid ruin everything. So he had to take firm hold of the situation. He needed to pull the leash. Orchid needed his guidance. "Calm... Down..."

Orchid tried to turn his head, tried to look the other way, but Azuhrius did not let go. Then he stopped resisting and focused on Azuhrius' eyes, completely silent.

Azuhrius could see the conflict in the pink eyes. The urge that tried to break out. "I will find the best way to deal with this," Azuhrius said softly but firmly. "We cannot do as we please here. Remember when we talked about that? We must remain-"

"Subtle..." Orchid finished.

"Exactly..."

Orchid relaxed. He touched his clothes by the neck and the haze returned to his eyes. The tension vanished. No other person on the planet probably could have done what Azuhrius just had done. He would have to hope that he could also do it in the future. He was not too sure he could.

"What do we do?" Orchid asked when a moment had passed.

Azuhrius did not answer immediately. What would they do? This sudden twist had to be dealt with. This posed a danger to the whole infiltration.

But... This might also be good thing. A very good thing, now that Azuhrius thought about it with a clear mind. So good thing and such a coincidence, that Azuhrius wondered if there had been some divine influence from the Architect of Fate. He had thought that there were no mature progeny of the IIIVth or the XIIth alive. He had thought they had all been killed during the last breach. But somehow this pair had survived, and for some reason, chosen to leave Terra behind and let their cousins think they had perished. The Legions were weak, and every asset mattered. Now more than ever. Azuhrius would have to find a way to return these newly rediscovered cousins to the service of Terra.

Azuhrius smirked, moderately widely now. He might have just found some especially suitable teammates.


Things are proceeding rather nicely, don't you think? Now you know what Nox and Sangur look like, and the other two are not too far ahead.

What do you speculate the future will hold? Please tell me, I am curious.

Again, if you have any questions just ask me.

Leave a review to tell me what you think, if you feel it in your heart.