Trailer IV: The Orator

"And as you can imagine, Grimm in the middle of our city is the last thing we want."

There was chuckle in the audience. For the average person of Vale, today was a day no different than any other. For a student planning to attend Beacon Academy, it was a mess; the Dust shops and custom tailors were busier than any other day of the year, and at least one accidental explosion had already occurred on the ports. It was the day of days: the day before Initiation Week.

But for Susana Tiagris, one of those students, the day was exceptionally important. It was the final competition of the Signal Debate Team which she would ever participate in, and she was intent on winning it.

This being a competition between schools, formal attire had been required. Of course, for most, that meant putting on a suit and tie. For Signal, it meant full combat uniform. In contrast to many of her fellow students, the fact that she was traditionally armored was quite apparent; her shoulders and legs were thickly armored, as was the chain shirt which could be seen through her orange tabard, upon which was sewn the image of a lily flower. A white belt wrapped about her waist, matching to the colors of her boots, pants, and long-sleeved undershirt.

Most importantly for this date, though, was her face, which portrayed a great deal of hardening uncharacteristic of youth. Her harsh features were accentuated by her straight, black hair; and her blue eyes, which darted between members of the audience and her competition as she spoke. Today, the bags which hung under them could be clearly noted.

"But that is where my opponent begins to err." she continued, looking over the crowd. "For this is a city defended by Huntsmen and Huntresses, and it has always been so. Indeed, to restrict that same defense to the city of Vale alone would ignore the rest of the kingdom, and the surrounding territories, which are just as well protected."

"So while mechanical drones are surely a wonderful idea, what good is a whole squadron of robotics, mowed down by a single enraged Ursa, when a dozen such beasts could be culled by a single well-trained Huntress?"

There was some clapping from the back as she closed her line. The proctor flopped over to her opposition; a well dressed boy, clearly from one of the wealthier private institutions of Vale, and with an almost foppish look about it. Adjusting his mic, he prepared his rebuttal.

"What is the most dangerous profession in Vale?" he asked rhetorically, looking around. Quickly, he answered it, saying, "To be a Hunter, of course. In this day and age, more Hunters die or go missing out in the wilderness than anyone raised within the walls should ever have to. And far too often, among those who die are those in training. These young boys and girls are trained as child soldiers, and their lives are thrown away far too easily."

"My opponent asks why we should turn to mechanoids? Because a dozen robots can be rebuilt. But a child's life can never be returned to them."

This, too, garnered a positive response; one perhaps too positive, considering the subject matter. A quick flare of the nose shot across Susana's face, though she quickly suppressed it. The proctor turned to her, throwing up a sign that it was time for her to give her final remark.

With a crack of her neck, she glanced quickly at her opponent, before snapping back to the audience and saying, "But what of the child who was never given a choice? The Grimm do not target Hunters out of any special hatred, or anger, towards their profession; they target them because they are readily available."

"Take away the Hunters, and the Grimm will simply adapt to their new, far less efficient rivals. In time, they may even grow bolder. And what do you think the more powerful Grimm will do in such a situation? The ones who require a full team of skilled combatants to bring them down? One such beast could devastate an army of such poorly-functioning mechanoids, and singlehandedly destroy entire villages before being stopped at the city walls."

"No. Each time a Hunstman or Huntress dies, they make a sacrifice for the greater good, to prevent this from happening. A sacrifice each student, upon entering into the Academies, has made it clear that they are willing to make. They are not children; they are men and women who, even in youth, have been distinguished above all others."

"For this reason, the transition to robotic soldiers is far from desirable, and should be avoided at all costs."

A quick battery of clapping in the audience. The proctor raised his hand to calm everyone down, before turning to her opponent. He cleared his throat, and began to speak...


"Dammit all!" Susana cried out, delivering a punch which left quite an impressive dent in the alley wall.

Leaning against the wall behind her stood another student, dressed in a rather casual attire, and dressed in brilliant blue and black clothes which contrasted her bright white hair. "You done?" the girl asked, with a smile forcibly curled into a frown.

"I'll be done when I feel like it, Gwen." Susana replied, giving a wave of dismissal and continuing down the path. Two more punches met the wall, inflicting further damage to it.

"Well, you might want to make that a pretty high priority. People tend to look unfavorably on those who damage their lovely walls."

"These are alley walls."

"Eh, someone probably thinks they're lovely." Gwen shrugged as she said this, before walking over and giving a quick pat on her friends back. "It can't be that hard. The crowd found you decent enough."

"I placed second!" she retaliated, turning back quickly. "Do you know what that means? After four years – four years! – on that damn team, and I've only gotten one gold trophy. Everything else? Useless silvers and bronze!"

"So? Braith's our resident 'Queen Bitch of the Academy', and she only got... what, only seven out of her eight events? School record or whatever. You're not too far off."

"You shut your damn mouth, Gwen, or I'll shut if for you." she replied.

"The word touchy comes to mind." the girl replied with a smirk, deftly avoiding an attempted push by her friend. "But really, why bother? You're supposed to be a Huntress, not a debater."

"What's the difference? One's a duel of words, the other is with weapons. Either way, it's about putting an opponent in their place, and I obviously can't do it right!"

"If you go in with that attitude, Beacon's going to sorely disappoint you."

"Oh? This coming from the girl who barely got accepted?"

"Sometimes luck shines favorably upon you, and you just happen to get accepted into the least academically competitive year of new admits to date. Sure, other times you get gored by a Boarbatusk, but for the most part? It tends to bal-"

"You know, I bet those judges were biased against us." Susana suddenly interjected. "Yes, that would explain it. They've never much liked Signal in the first place, and I'm almost certain that Ms. Jardine works with Atlas to arm the robots. She probably just has a problem with Hunters..."

"Well that would be ironic." replied Gwen, with a bit of a smirk. She withdrew a butterfly knife, and began casually flicking it about her hand.

"Oh? In what way?"

"Didn't you hear? Her daughter's been accepted into Beacon."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. Actually ran into her while I was down at D-to-D yesterday. Never would have figured her, if she wasn't so vocal about announcing it."

"Well, that just proves it then! She was disappointed in her daughter, so she took it out on our whole team. This is an outrage! We'll need to talk about a re-match..."

"Mmhmm"

"You know, you could be just a little more supportive. Are you honestly telling me you can't see what I am?"

"Look, Sue, it doesn't really matter. What's the point of awards? We're going to be Huntresses. You don't get medals for that sort of thing."

"Well you damn well should! Anyone who takes the fight to those damn monsters deserves a lot better than people like that prick in the dress-suit give them."

"Don't take it personally. The kid probably didn't even believe what he was arguing. It's a debate competition, remember?"

"Passion is what wins debates. If you don't believe in what you're fighting for, you can't win! No, don't try pulling that one on me."

"I thought you just said unfair judging is what wins debates?" Once more, Gwen proved just nimble enough to, rather casually, avoid a quick shove. "In any case, I'm going to have to head out. I wanted to run some weapon maintenance before the big day."

"Yeah, I got you." Susana replied. "Keep safe until then, you hear me?"

"Mmhmm."

With that, Gwen nodded, and departed back down the alleyway they come from. Susana hung around for a while, before heading the opposite direction. She recalled there being a dust shop down that way which was offering some pretty heavy discounts; while fairly independent of it herself, a few spare vials couldn't hurt.

However, as she turned a corner into a sort of double-"L" bend, she heard a drop from behind her. It was a man, wearing full black clothing with a bandana around his face, and brandishing a rather large machete in the one hand. From the rooftops came more; after a few moments, there were a good seven men standing there, including a particularly large one with a red bandana who approached her. After sizing her up, his eyes widened a bit at the mace hanging at her waist; however, that look quickly faded.

"Well, look what we have here." he said. "It's another one of those Signal brats."

"Well, look what we have here." she replied, cutting off another of the group as they prepared to speak. "More punching bags."

Some of the group gave a nervous chuckle, backing away at that statement. The red bandana, unimpressed, stayed his ground, and said, "Now, girlie, there's no need to get rude. We're not here to fight. But, see, we overhead about you being a Huntress in training, and we figured we could use some help."

"Help?" she replied incredulously.

"Sorry to give you the wrong impression." he said, as he pulled out a scroll from his pocket. On it was a picture, apparently of the sewers under Vale. More important, though, were the bright red eyes which could be seen glowing in the darkness – Grimm eyes.

"This beast recently decided it would be fun and games to wipe out half of our little sewer club. There's bodies littering the place. Of course, that's bound to happen when your weapons are ineffective... but I'm sure you're... better equipped?"

After a few moments, she asked, "And just why were you in the sewers?"

"Why would anybody concealing their face hide in the sewers?" he replied, pulling out what was clearly a giant rat's tail wrapped within his pants. "Nowhere else to go."

The sewers were brighter than one might expect. Lights of maintenance ran across the ceiling, giving a dull visibility; more so than one would expect. From a hatch above, Susana dropped down, landing quite easily on a side walkway. The Faunus with the red bandana followed down the ladder, and was in turn followed by the rest of his group. While waiting on them, she surveyed the area quite thoroughly.

"Why the lights?" she asked, as she looked up. "I didn't remember sewers having such quality lighting."

"No sense living underground without a little bit of comfort." the leader replied. "Just a bit of rewiring."

"Ah." she replied, grabbing her mace and inspecting it. "That must have taken some work."

"It's all worth it, when quality of life is on the line. Why so concerned, anyways?"

As he said that, she turned rapidly, swinging her mace. As she did so, the shaft extended, along with the chain, transforming it into an extended flail. The ball struck one of the group square in the jaw, and she quickly pulled back, taking out another with a swift blow to the back of the head. Before the group could react any further, the chain retracted, and the weapon unfolded into the shape of a shotgun.

Four quick shots, and the rest of the group was down, leaving on the bandana wearing leader, who began looking about frantically as she approached him. Once she closed in, she answered, "Because real Faunus have night-vision."

With a quick motion, she reached back and pulled at the supposed rat's tail; it came out quite easily, more like a rope than an appendage. With a smirk, she punched him in the gut, causing him to keel over, and fall to the ground.

"So, what was the plan then? Lure me further in to more of your men?"

"We're all there is..." he said, with a cough. "And sure, we might have wanted to rob you, but we needed you! I wasn't lying to you about the Grimm!"

"Yeah, giant Grimm in the sewers. How dumb do you think I am?" she asked, this time kneeing the man. "The only thing that lives in the sewers is rats, like you lot... hell, you're more like the rats than the actual Faunus are. Isn't that a sad thought?"

There was gasp from one of the better off members of the group. The others began turning, as he pointed, though Susana, thinking this must be a desperate trick, only frowned. "Really? I'm not turning my back on you that easily."

Well, whatever the trick was, they were committed. Many of the would-be-thieves, once recovering slowly, were now running down the sewers at full speed. The leader scrambled away from her, carefully at first, but then stood up and broke into a full blown sprint.

As they departed, Susana fired a few shots just past them, shouting, "Don't try this again!"

Then came the breath. Upon feeling it, she turned, and saw what could only be descried as a living nightmare. It was a massive rat, with a white mask marking it as none other than a real, living Grimm. She could see behind it a large, armor plated tail; coming out from all over its body were huge, white spikes, which contrasted its black fur.

Before she could react, the beast lunged, attempting to bite her. However, just before it snapped down, an orange ring wrapped around her; from it emerged the form of a roaring, brillian orange tiger, which struck the Grimm and forced it to recoil, with a great slash now cut across its face; at the same time, she was thrown backwards, and had to quickly stabilize herself.

Just as she recovered, the great beast charged, forcing her to dive to the side – directly into the sewer waste. It turned quickly facing her, as she wiped a glob of unidentified substance off of her face.

"Well, now I'm officially pissed." she said, lifting her shotgun and firing at the rat beast. A volley of strong blasts knocked the creature back as she approached, managing to knock off a few spikes, but overall only causing a limited amount of harm. As she closed in, a faint orange glow began to emanate from her body, causing the filth which covered her body to slide off.

Apparently adapting to the blasts, the Grimm once more lunged forwards. This time, Susana quickly unfolded her weapon into it's form of a mace; the shaft extended to accommodate two hands, as her swing came in from the side. With one heavy blow, she slammed the great beasts head into the wall, generating a sickening thud.

To her surprise, though, as she pulled the mace back, the beast was still alive. It's collapsed face began re-shaping right before her eyes as it backed away, its bladed tail raising high as it stared at her. Before she could do anything else, it opened its mouth wide, releasing an ear-splitting, squeak-like sound which forced her to immediately cover her ears and step back.

As its opponent was dazed, the Grimm once more charged. Susana quickly caused her mace to fold, returning to a one-handed form, as she jumped over the moving creature. Its tail swung at her as she did so, but she was quick enough to grab it along the mid section; as she did so, she flipped her mace around in the other hand. The opposite end had a blade of its own, which she used to deliver a swift cut, and slice the tail in two.

She landed, then, with the end of the tail in one hand, and her mace in the other. The Grimm let out a loud cry as it turned around towards her; however, this time it was her turn to charge. Raising the tail high, she stabbed downward with the Grimm's own bladed appendage, shoving the tail through the creatures eye. With that, she stepped back; the creature raised its small paws, and began furiously attempting to pull the tail from its eye.

While her adversary waited, Susana took hold of her mace with both hands. Once more, she allowed the head to drop, transforming the weapon into a flail with chain. Then, she began to spin it. As she kept doing so, the flail head began firing shots, which continued to generate greater speed in the circle. The Grimm finally succeed in its goal, pulling its tail out of its face. However, there would be no time for celebration; as it recovered, the young Huntress in training swung. This time, the Grimm's entire head was pulverized; all that remained was small fragments of its mask.

After a few moments of admiring her handiwork, Susana ascended the initial shaft, making her way once more into the surface world. She brushed herself off, and then looked down the alleyway, to her initial destination. Coming from that path was another student she recognized from Signal; one clad in red and white.

Clancey laughed as he approached, saying, "You know, I don't think that's what the professors meant when they said your essays needed to be deeper."

"Oh, blow off." she replied. "I was fighting Grimm, not that it matters to you."

"What sort of Grimm lives in the sewers?" he asked. "It's nothing but rats and thieves down there."

"Sure. And now there's less."


A/N (2/24): I keep going over this and I swear there's still something wrong with it. There's been a few revisions to fix things, but I'm almost worried that they might have made news problems.

The actual "Chapter 1" is getting a few more prettying touches, and then it'll be posted. My schedule's starting to clear up, which means more time for writing, which means content actually getting posted. So once more, thanks for reading, and to a hopeful future.