Prologue
As has been repeated since time immemorial, life is filled with twists and turns. Life is split between times of joy and times of sorrow. Most people see both in their lifetime. The outliers, of course, were those born with wealth, prodigal skill, or something else that kept them separate from everyone else, and the slightly larger group of those who either led very short lives, or were born into poverty, were born or became crippled early in life, or as happens often, were orphaned by Grimm, bandits, or natural disasters.
The man currently walking through the rainy streets of Arlene could definitely be counted as one of the less fortunate people in this world, though he would still count himself as seeing both, since he had survived all the obstacles thrown at him. He was about 6 and a half feet tall, and wore a hooded black trench coat with indigo highlights, with a black long sleeved shirt underneath, flexible black jeans, and metal-toed combat boots. What made him stand out at first glance, were the unconcealed weapons he carried. The most visible were the two sheathed daggers strapped to the side of his coat, with the 2nd most visible being the grips of two firearms that just barely peeked out from inside his coat, which from the little that was visible, seemed to be pistols or some other kind of smaller gun. The last 3 weapons were only visible to those who looked more carefully, with the outline of 2 swords on his back, and the outline of the final sword could be seen horizontally strapped to his back at the waist. The 2 swords on his back seemed to be modern mechashift weapons, with one having a seemingly simple black handle with an equally simple red crossguard, the only visible sign of it's mechashift capabilities being the slide positioned under one crossguard, and the segmented blade that seemed to jut out from a slit in the pommel. The second was a more easily noticed mechashift weapon, with a segmented indigo handle, a crossguard with one bar having a trigger underneath, and the other bar seemed to be a switch or lever, with a gun barrel taking the place of the pommel.
Of course, that just made people think he was a Hunter or something. He certainly looked the part given some of the other Hunters they'd seen pass through. One Huntsmen a while back wore a tattered cape everywhere and never seemed to be sober. It seemed this Hunter was looking to fix this as he pushed open the doors of the local tavern, prompting the gazes of its current residents to snap to him briefly before going back to their conversations, drinks, and jobs in the case of the barkeep and 2 waitresses. He walked up to the bar and knocked on the wooden counter, waiting for the barkeep to look up from the drink he was currently handing off to a waitress before speaking.
"I've heard there have been issues around here lately. Is it the kind of thing a guy could fix for a profit?" asked the man as he sat down on a stool in front of the bar.
"Unless you're able to take care of the White Fang encampment that popped up nearby as well as the Grimm that are popping up, no. Any drink, or you just wasting my time?" said the barkeep as he started to clean a glass with a ridiculously clean rag.
"For the second question, how about 10 bottles of your hardest liquor? For the first, that'll be easy enough. I can get it done within the day and be on my way."
"How about you give it a shot and IF you survive, I'll pay you 2500 Lien. The Grimm and White Fang are making business harder by cutting off trade and making it harder for people to pay to drink here. Any longer and I'd have to start accepting favors instead of cash. And if you really want 10 bottles, then that'll be 1500 Lien." the barkeep said as he turned around to grab the bottles.
"How about I just take 15 bottles for free before I go, and you get to essentially save 250 Lien? Seems fair enough to me."
"The hell kind of business do you think I'm running?! I'm not going to just trust that some nobody Hunter is going to survive against a horde of Grimm and a bunch of White Fang!" the barkeep exclaimed as he placed a small crate of 10 bottles of Mantle Ale on the counter, before glaring at the traveler. "Now pay up, get lost, or tell me which "bigshot Hunter" decided to grace Arlene with their presence." the barkeep scoffed.
"Who said I'm a Hunter? I'm more of what you'd call a mercenary. I don't much like Hunters either, so that's something we can agree on." smirked the Merc.
"How is that better? There're only a dozen or so Huntsman level bounty hunters or mercenaries, and only 3 of them stay in Vale for extended periods of time! All the rest stay the hell out of Vale unless they need to, and the best never goes to Vale. Ever. Beacon even tried to hire the guy for some reason, but he rejected the hell out of them."
"That's me, though I wouldn't say I'm the best. I only have a bit over a decade of experience after all. You can call me Epizon Akónito, it's the alias I use for pretty much everything."
"Show me your face then. That guy may never have come here, but I do know the look of his face. Drunk Hunter named Crow or something gave me a picture of the guy a while back."
Epizon quickly flipped his hood down, revealing what would look like a normal clean shaven, guy in his early 20s or late teens, except for the scar that ran across his neck, another that ran close to his right eye, dark, nearly black indigo eyes, and blood red hair with streaks of the same color as his eyes tied into a long ponytail that disappeared into the depths of his trench coat, before quickly asking "What did he want?"
The barkeep blinked, once, and then again before saying "Just wanted to know if I'd seen hi-you pass through. I told him no. He left. From what I heard he seemed to be going towards Mistral."
"Thanks for the information. I'll be sure to stop by if I'm ever in the area and in need of a drink or ten." said Epizon as he stood up, picked up the crate and walked out of the tavern, the doors swinging closed behind him.
All was fine at the newly established White Fang outpost of Arlene, situated within a nearby forest. That is, until today, when it was destroyed, leaving the only two surviving members to scramble out into the snow. "Shit shit shit shit shit. What the HELL was that thing?! I took out everyone else like they were nothing!"
"I don't know, but we need to call in reinforcements from Commander Adam or Lt. Banesaw! We need help and we need it fast or we're dead meat to either the Grimm in there or the Grimm out here!" yelled the senior member as he got out his radio, and pushed the button to call assistance and evac. Or at least, he would have if the radio wasn't now on the ground broken, along with some parts of his hand.
"FUCK! We need to run Captain! Leave your hand and let's run before it catches us!" the junior member yelled as he turns to run, before seeing slitted indigo eyes in front of him.
"Boo motherfucker." said Epizon, indigo eyes now slitted in the faint moonlight shining between the trees.
"What the hell? How'd you survive that thing? Nevermind, we need to get out of here with the Captain!"
"I'm afraid you misunderstand three things."
"What the hell is there to misunderstand? We need to get out of here!"
"One, your Captain is already dead. Two, your encampment was taken out by a Faunus, not a Grimm. Three, I'm not on your side, I'm here to kill you."
"Wh-URGH" the White Fang member choked out as he was lifted by the throat by Epizon's right arm.
"Any last words, because I need to head to Vale and you're really holding me up here." smirked Epizon.
"Why the hell did you do this? You're a Faunus like us? Why aren't you on our side?!" choked out the Faunus.
"It's quite simple really. I got a job to get rid of you jackasses, and I came and did it. Nothing personal, just business."
"The Grimm will get you though! You let the negative emotions of us spread, and now you'll die for it!" shrieked the White Fang member as he clawed at Epizon's arm.
"The Grimm are already gone. Wasn't that hard, so I decided to finish you guys off and then head to Vale to see the fireworks. Now I'd love to stay and chat, but you've got a ride to catch, and I've got some walking to do."
"I'm not going anywhere with you race trait-URK!"
"Good, because the ride was death. I've heard good things about it." Epizon snorted as he tossed down the now dead White Fang member, whose head seemed to bounce a bit more than it should as it hit the ground. "Snapped necks get you free peanuts from what I've heard."
Epizón then started to walk off, picking up the crate that peeked out of some bushes nearby before heading East.
As business in the tavern slowed down, the barkeep glanced at the clock more and more often, before announcing at 10 on the dot "We're closing early today folks, got some finances and shit to look over." A very unpopular but equally obeyed announcement, that resulted in an empty bar, and slightly less anxiety for the barkeep. As soon as the last patron of the tavern left, the barkeep locked the doors and windows, before heading to the backroom, turning on the lights, locking the door behind him, and heading farther in until he reached a small table and chair at the back where an older model of the PS. He quickly booted it up and headed to the CCTS app, and logged in before heading to a group chat named "Society of the Drunken Spy", and sending a message, before leaving quickly, turning off the lights and relocking the door from the outside as he went. As the lights went off, and his steps could be heard going upstairs to his attached home, a lone message could be seen loading into the chat, before sending: "Tell the Crow, the Forsaken has returned."
A week later, Vale proper came into sight as the sun began to rise. The man known as Epizon Akónito, and less commonly as the Forsaken walked towards it, still a good couple hours walk away. Notably less encumbered, as the recently acquired crate of Mantle Ale was gone. "Guess I'll have to get more next time." he grunted as he squinted at the sun, taking a decent sized circular flask from one of his coat pockets, before shaking it a bit. "And my flask is empty too so I'm definitely hitting up a bar in Vale." he snorted as nothing but a faint breeze was heard.
As he looked forwards to Vale, and then upwards to Beacon, he realized that finding out the truth was going to be a lot harder than he thought. He had people and places to find, and a whole kingdom to look through. Then again, Junior should know something. He's not the Vale branch leader of the Spiders for nothing after all. And besides, how hard could it possibly be to find people with silver eyes, a weird jackass with a cane, and some ruins on a cliff? Wasn't Junior's branch also a bar? That'd be some good multi-tasking right there. Who knows, maybe Junior would know about Salem too. She couldn't be that hard to find out about if everyone in his family AND that crazy kidnapper tea bitch knew about her, right? For now though, Epizon Akónito would focus on more short-term goals. Namely, getting to Juniors, finding the people, searching through some ruins, and most importantly, getting some more alcohol. Maybe use some cash to get a warehouse or something, stock up on alcohol for a bit and all that. He had a feeling he'd be here for a bit.
AN: Prologue of the first story I've written(and has gotten past the road-blocks known as self-doubt and anxiety to the public), so don't expect the best work until I get feedback or something. Just an idea I thought up and fleshed out while reading fanfics and listening to Sinners by: Barns Courtney, which is the unofficial theme song of the MC since it, along with most of Barns Courtney's music are great.(Insert music recommendation here.) If anyone actually reads this and has questions other than about SPOILERS, feel free to ask them and I'll probably respond. If you love the story, follow, favorite, all that, and hopefully give advice/criticism too. If you hate it, criticism is still appreciated, and flames will be read, and promptly ignored unless I can find useful criticism in them. If you're not reading this, you're not seeing this, enough said. I'm done talking to myself, as this AN has gotten both longer and more awkward as it went on. See ya in the next(and first "official") chapter(even if no one reads this), and I'll hope that at least some people enjoy this story as much as I'm enjoying writing it(other than and sometimes including my self-doubt checks).