"Tawn, you awake?" Indigo's soothing voice asked nudging him slightly.

Light flooded Tawn's eyes as he sat up to see his room was filled with light. "Indigo? What's going on?"

Indigo sat by his bedside moving his his hair away from his forehead and clearing his vision. "You ready to start your training?"

"What?" He pushed himself up out of bed and rubbed his eyes. "What's going on? Training?"

"You said you wanted to be a huntsman now, right?" She asked, almost like she was baiting him for something.

"Oh… Yeah, it's just… What time is it?" He looked over at the clock and almost lost his mind. "It's five-thirty am?! I just went to bed like three hours ago."

"Yeah, well, work starts at five. I let you sleep in today." She stood up and started pulling out clothes from his dresser, throwing a pair of workout shorts and a shirt at Tawn.

"Why at five? Isn't the whole point of this to make me a huntsman, not to kill me?"

"Oh, don't blow it out of proportion. You shouldn't have stayed up late last night if you didn't want to wake up like this." She joked, heading for the door. "We'll be heading out in five minutes so get dressed quick."

Tawn sat up and scratched his head trying to wake himself up. It was so early and he was a wuss when it came to sleep. He managed to wake himself up enough to get moving and that he did.

After getting his clothes on, he walked out of his room and to the front door to put on his shoes. Instead of his old and beaten boots, he saw a pair of tennis shoes that had a note on them. He sat down and picked up the note to read it.

Hey, measured your feet while you were asleep so I knew what size to get. Also, I threw out your boots. They smelled like a locker room filled with moldy cabbage. DX

There was part of him that was thankful for Indigo and how nice she was being but the other part of him wanted to strangle her. Those were his boots, the only shoes he had for two years. Sure they were beaten up but at least they had sentimental value.

After getting the shoes on, he stepped outside and saw both Snow and Indigo waiting for him in their running gear. "This is a godless hour."

"That's the spirit!" Snow gave him a slap on the back, stepping down the stairs. "No gods here. Only a cat, a mutt, and a ferret… There is a joke in there somewhere."

"Ah, shut up ya' pussy." Indigo joked grabbing Tawn's hand and pulling him down the steps with them.

Snow coughed a bit but spoke between coughs. "I may be a pussy but I also was slamming yours pretty good last night."

Tawn stopped in horror of the image just put in his mind.

The ferret stopped and slapped Snow across the face. "Snow! Too much information in front of the minor!"

He rubbed his cheek, smiling to diffuse the tension. "Sorry, not used to him being here yet."

Indigo wrapped her arm around Tawn and headed toward the sidewalk. "C'mon Snow, let's keep the conversation on being a Hunter."

"Okay, so he'll ask you questions about risking your life and I'll just stay quiet and let you fill his brain with propaganda." He said, giving her a mock thumbs up.

"Propaganda? C'mon, I just want him get excited for his career path." She said, taking off and getting the two of them to pick up the pace.

"You say that, but all you're going to do is tell him how awesome it is. What about my side of the story?" He asked, letting out huffs of breath at every sentence.

"Okay, fine then." Indigo looked back at Tawn and pointed to Snow. "Guess he has something to tell you first."

Snow dropped back by Tawn and matched his pace. "I'm not a Huntsman, Tawn. I met Indigo while she was at Beacon. I'll be the first to admit that when I went there to visit her, it was breathtaking. Beacon is probably one of the most amazing places you will ever see and the atmosphere makes you feel like you can do anything."

"Then what's so bad about it?"

"It's not Beacon that's the bad part. It's what comes after." He let out a long breath and sucked a ton of air in, stoking a second wind. "Three nights a week, Indigo was called out to do a control action because Grimm would be trying to enter the city. Two of those nights would end with me picking her up from the hospital. The third, intensive care.. That was every week of the first three years. After that, she finally got promoted and got to go on undercover operations. On a good day, she only had minor lacerations."

Tawn's mouth got really dry at the thought of Indigo being that hurt and he gulped. "Is that true?"

"Yes, Tawn. It's true." Indigo said, keeping her pace ahead of them. "But that didn't stop me from doing it."

"No, it just left me sitting at home and worrying about whether or not the love of my life was gonna be brought back to me in a body bag." Snow didn't look at Indigo with hate, anger, or even annoyance. The look he stared at her was something that Tawn couldn't quite describe.

The way Snow looked at Indigo was like she was the most important thing in the world to him. He looked at her like she was the only thing keeping him going. No, that wasn't it, like she was the only thing that mattered to him.

"I made my choice when I started at Beacon, Snow. You said you accepted that when we started dating." Indigo said, stopping and turning to him.

Snow and Tawn both stopped and he looked over at Tawn. "I know, but I want him to know what it will be like if he ever gets a girlfriend… Or boyfriend. No judging, Tawn."

"He's not gay, Snow. Trust me, I catch him staring at me enough to prove that."

Tawn got really embarrassed and he covered his face unable to stop it from reddening. "Can we stop talking about all this for a bit? Please?"

He felt a pair of arms wrap around him and he moved two of his fingers to see Indigo was hugging him. "Look, Snow is worried about you and I should admit that I am too. I don't know if your reason for becoming a Huntsman is your own or if I pushed you into this and you took the first reason that came to your mind."

Tawn dropped his arms and looked at Snow who was standing with his hand on Indigo's shoulder with a worried look on his face. "Tawn, if you have a real fighting spirit… A fire that says you need to do this. Then the two of us will be your biggest fans and help you to get there."

"But you just said-"

"I was informing you, not trying to dissuade you too much. The question is now, are you sure you want to do this?"

He rubs the back of his head thinking about Indigo's speech at the mall. How passionate she was about being a huntress and compared that to how he felt right now. Scared didn't describe the half of it, no he was insanely scared of what was to come. To say Snow scared him wasn't even the half of it. It wasn't that he didn't want to have someone worried about hit, it was that he didn't have anyone to be worried.

That thought rang through his head but started to be drowned out by something else. It was a sound that made his blood boil and his hands clench tight. All the laughter he had ever faced and the thought that he couldn't do something overpowered everything else. All together it formed a symphony of doubt that he could even become a huntsman. To top that off, his mother's face crowned it to make it even clearer that he wasn't welcome to what he wanted.

"I don't know…" Tawn answered looking at the ground. "There are so many things that feel against me. What if I fail?"

"What if you don't?" Snow answered Tawn's question with one of his own.

Tawn looked Snow in his red eyes and saw that they weren't joking. "I said, do you want to do this?"

"I don't believe I can…" He answered, biting his lip.

"What if I do?"

The boy's eyes grew in surprise. "What?"

"Tawn, I wanted you to know what it will be like for the other person. I never said that you weren't going to make it. In fact, I believe you can."

"But… Why do you believe in me?" His eyes darted to Indigo for a second and noticed that she was smiling.

"Because Tawn, we're a lot alike." The cat stood up and put his hands on his hips. "We are souls that are held down by life. We don't get happy endings unless we really work for them."

"So, you're going to help me?"

"I already told you that I would teach you how to box." He put his hands up in a defensive stance and smirked. "If you'll let me, that is."

Snow's promise to train him and confession to believing in him lit something inside Tawn. "Yeah, I want your help."

"Alright, then let's keep going." He said, standing up and nodding to Indigo. "Ready to keep running?"

"First one around the route gets to choose who makes breakfast." She said, taking off ahead of the two boys.

"Oh, crap!" The cat took off after her leaving Tawn in the dust to sprint and attempt to keep up.

He started sprinting to catch up to the two of them but was still a few paces behind. As they ran, he saw the two of them start messing around without even losing a step. Snow reached over and tagged Indigo with his hand pushing her slightly to get her attention.

Indigo looked at him with the devil in her eyes and she knocked into him with her shoulder before taking off ahead. He didn't let that slow him down though and grabbed her by the back of her shorts and pulled back. Her hands flew back and covered it so Tawn didn't see anything but she was forced to slow down and fall behind Snow.

"You bastard, I said no doing any of that stuff!"

"All's fair in love and breakfast, darling!" He called back, taking off as fast as he could go.

"Oh, that's the way you want to play it then?" She took off past him in a dead sprint that he quickly matched, leaving Tawn back in the dust.

"Wait… up?" He tried to call but they were gone before he could speak the end of the first word. "Ah, son of a bitch."

Tawn ran for about thirty minutes before he finally had to stop and lean on a nearby tree. He was definitely tired at this point and part of him bet that they turned a corner at some point instead of just running straight like he had been. in the midst of kicking himself, he took a seat by a tree and felt his eyes start to droop. It was so early and he felt so serene leaning against the tree. Without a real chance to fight it, he dozed off falling asleep where he sat.

Rain pelted Tawn's face as he stood his ground on top of the mountain. Everything he had trained for his entire life had lead to this. Back-breaking work and many blisters had forged his body into an armored chassis that could take any punishment and deal it back tenfold. He gripped the sword and shield tight. With what felt like the weight of the world on his shoulders, he marched toward the doors of the fortress. As he approached, the guards lining the walls kept their guns trained on him.

They didn't matter, though; through the doors were his friends, family, and love. Everything he held dear had been taken away, but he wouldn't let it stand for much longer. The doors were towering, but didn't daunt him in the least. This was it, the moment of truth. He raised his foot and kicked the doors where they met, swinging them both open; one hit the wall with a bang and bounced.

The corridor, a long carpeted path, was lined with the most heinous traps ever conceived: dog kennels. Each kennel held someone important to Tawn, from his mother to his best friend, Indigo. The face of his mother, vibrant and healthy, seem to not quite meet his own with its expression of regret, and brought about a nagging feeling of longing that was quickly snuffed out in favor of focusing on the current mission. Everyone was here to watch, which meant that the Dog Catcher was here as well. The limp dog ears on Tawn's head stood a bit higher as he took on an attack stance.

Tawn locked eyes with Him at the end of the path, brandishing a net and dog leash. "So, you've finally come, Tawn? Here to watch as I put your family to sleep forever?"

Tawn grasped the open front of his coat only to let his arms drop again. "Wait a second…"

The Catcher looked back and forth for a second, confused. "Uh, what?"

He looked around, almost hyper-aware of his surroundings. "This isn't… This isn't where I was."

"Of course it is." He raised his net to the ceiling and the ring grew ten times it's size. "Now prepare to be caught."

Tawn turned away from him and looked over at his mother. Her face was kind and worried as she looked onto him with worry. That immediately told him that this wasn't real. The sheer joy he felt to see her looking at him wasn't real.

He backed away from her kennel and noticed that her ears weren't even on the top of her head. "If only this was how you saw-"

Tawn got hit in the cheek hard and went flying across the room, losing the jacket he wore in the process.

"We aren't done,Tawn!" The Catcher flipped his net around and it transformed into a giant axe. "Now, get ready doggy. I'm about to put you to sleep."

Tawn ducked the axe swing and stood back up looking at the guy. "Shut the hell up. You're not real and you can't do anything to me."

He didn't stop moving and took another swing at Tawn, this time slashing his chest with the axe. "You don't get to decide what hurts you in here!"

The gash on his chest started leaking a copious amount of blood sending Tawn into a panic. "What the hell!? I feel this!"

The Catcher spun around and clocked him in the face, hard enough to send him into a wall. The pain, if this was a dream then why was he feeling so much pain. Worry crossed his mind as he thought that maybe he was literally killing himself. He had to fight or something; he couldn't just accept death as an outcome.

Or maybe I can… No one will miss me if I die right here. Tawn started to close his eyes to hide from his impending death but something stopped him from fully closing them. That same force pushed him out of the hole in the wall and he stood up looking at the Catcher. All the pain was gone and a hand was on his shoulder.

He looked over and didn't see anyone there, yet he still felt a presence supporting him. It gave him confidence and told him that no one wanted to see him lose. Looking over from his shoulder, he saw Indigo in her own kennel with a look of determination in her eyes. A look he quickly reflected back at the Catcher. He reached to his back and pulled the sword and shield from it like he usually did.

"Hey, bastard!" He held his sword at the Catcher. "Sorry, I forgot to tell you. It's about to become a nightly ritual that I beat your ass!"

"Oh, will you now?" The Catcher's axe appeared in his hands, and he twisted it into a new mace-like shape.

The two charged at each other, weapons raised to attack.. Tawn's sword swung up, but the Catcher's mace came down in retort, blocking the move before it could do any damage. Sparks flew from their clash, illuminating the Catcher's face in a burning hellfire.. He twirled his mace around, swinging the handle at Tawn while using the ball as a counterweight.

Ducking beneath the Catcher's swing, Tawn spun around, slicing across the Catcher's chest.. "I'm done losing to you!"

The Catcher laughed at Tawn's attempt at bravado, only to further fuel the fire behind the pup's swings. Everyone was going to respect Tawn, starting with this monster from his dreams. His blade caught the Catcher's leg, slicing clean through it and silencing his mocking.

The Catcher's eyes widened as he dodged backwards, now short a leg. His hand twitched and his mace changed form again, this time into a huge scythe. If the kid gloves were on in this battle, they had certainly been shed now.

Tawn did not care what new weapons the Catcher could produce, so far beyond rational thought he was. In fact, he looked less like the pup everyone mocked and more like the rabid dog everyone feared. With a roar, he threw his sword at the Catcher, forcing him to deflect the blade before impact. This move left him open for Tawn to rush him, catching him in the face with an electrically-charged punch. The sheer force of the blow knocked him across the corridor, but he still managed to land more or less upright..

"No no no no no no no no no!" The Catcher turned his scythe around and leaped forward. "You've been my bitch since you were three years old!"

Tawn removed his shield, knocking the Catcher out of the air and pinning him to the ground by his shoulder. "No, I'm done being afraid of you."

The Catcher's weapon slipped from his grip with a thud, while he raised his free arm across his body. He coughed, each breath appearing to drain more of his strength than the last. "Stop… Don't… kill… me…"

"I'm not going to kill you." Tawn walked over to his sword, retrieving it from where it was knocked. "I'm just done being afraid of you."

He turned to face his foe only to find the Catcher had vanished, leaving Tawn's shield lodged in the floor. Collecting the shield as well, he slung them both across his back and looked around, a feeling of success washing over him. All of his fears - his old fears of being captured - seemed to have evaporated, just like the Catcher, freeing him to continue onwards.

Before he could relish his victory too much, a cold hand wrapped around the back of his neck, an equally-chilling voice manifesting in his ear. "Just because you beat the fears you had as a child does not mean you are going to beat those you have now."

Tawn's eyes shot open and he gasped for breath trying to take in what just happened. He reached over to his shoulder and where the hand hand been and found something. It was sticky note with writing on it.

Hey sleepy head,

Falling asleep in the middle of a run is considered bad manners or if they aren't, I'm going to start. However, I know how hard you worked to keep up with Snow and I before we blew past you and left you in the dust. So, I've decided you only get a light punishment this time. Have fun walking without your new shoes.

-Indigo :3

Biting back a silent curse, he stood up onto the wet ground and sighed. Day one and he already was having a tough time even keeping his energy up for the day. He started walking back to the house, each step stinging with rocks and cold that his socks quickly took up. Still, his dream had made a difference in him. A little of his fear for the future melted away but Leech's shadow seemed a little darker now.

Sorry this is late guys, I recently got Metal Gear Solid 5 and that punched me in the face with inproductivity. Still, it's been a fun ride thus far and it gave me some ideas for this story, though nothing as ego stroking as what Kojima puts into his games. Anyway, I'll address the review from last week.

Guest: I have a beta reader who understands grammar and punctuation way better than you do.