A/N: Hiya my young ducklings it is I, the Duck of Red back at it with the second chapter of 'The Pilgrim' and we're starting off strong with our glorious protagonist in MENAGERIE of all places, I wonder what he could be doing here :3.

Now even though I released this chapter quite close to the prologue it may be a little bit of time until chapter two since Thanksgiving is coming and I basically had the ground work already done for this chapter. Chapter two may come out over the break, but no guarantees.

Lastly I may create a kind of bios sheet for the main cast of characters and update it as the story progresses to track what characters look like since. Almost all of the main characters Beacon cast have different looks and Arc family. I can use it to describe the Arc in full while giving a brief introduction in the story. No one likes drawn out character descriptions in-story. Now with that out of the way, ENJOY! :3

Chapter One: Fox

Present Time


-Menagerie-

RATATATA

Rapid fire rounds could be heard resounding throughout the normally quiet desert sands of eastern Menagerie.

CLINK CLINK CLINK

A cascade of empty rounds can be seen rapidly falling, clanging against the desolate and scorching rock that spans on for miles as the eye can see.

Suddenly a blurry white blur races across the land dodging and weaving from a literal horde of grim, Ravagers. Quickly the white blur pumps round after round into the horde culling their numbers with utmost efficiency.

After what seems like hours all there that can be seen now is a massive smog of black from the decaying remains of the ravager grim. A silhouette is seen from said smog and slowly walks out into the clearer part of the land.

The figure is fully revealed standing at what seems to be 6'2; most notably is their golden hair of considerable length pulled into a low ponytail. Their face is covered by a mecha-shift face mask that has glowing golden lights radiating through the shift creases.

They are garbed in what seems to be a white poncho that has seen better days. The fabric is peeled and scarred near the edges of the poncho. As well as decently large metal high-tech pauldrons can also be seen with a symbol of two crescent moons etched into the right shoulder; also showing a right robotic arm. Dressed in black tactical combat pants, starting from the shins are boots of similar material and make-up as the pauldrons. Lastly the figure is wearing a necklace with two shining gold metal bands both bands showing etch with different small images: one with two arc moons and the other of a small running fox.

Hmm Looking around with their head on the swivel the figure seems to be searching for something in the midst of the smog.

SCREEEEEEECH!

! The white-clad warrior snaps their head upwards to bear witness to the largest ravager they have ever laid their eyes upon. Three times the size of even an ancient nevermore. The grotesque over-sized fruit bat has finally revealed itself.

"About time, I was thinking you were never going to show up, but I guess killing your whole flock would get anyone riled up" The white marksman raises his military style carbine and takes aim at the creature. Neither making a move both probing into potential weakness of their sworn enemy. Humanity versus Grim, a tale as old as time, once again to repeat itself and only one will stand victorious.


The ancient Ravager, having had enough of this Vacuoian stand-off, emits a sonic scream of epic proportion to try and flatten its prey. The force of the sonic attack was considerable and for anyone too slow would not be able to escape the size of the area of effect it produced. Unfortunately for the ugly-ass bat, the marksman expected this opening attack. They pumped their legs full of aura and disappeared from the bat's view; as well the sonic attack caused a culmination of sand and rock debris to spread, decreasing the visibility for the bat.

The Ravager was stunned at the level of speed the human exhibited, it immediately started frantically searching for the human.

RATATATA

SCREEEEEECHHHHHHH! Suddenly the bat felt extreme pain and loss of sight in its left eye. By using the cover to their advantage the hunter took multiple well placed shots against the grim. There was a small gory explosion of eye grim essence that flew out its left eye socket, greatly reducing the visibility of their enemy as well greatly angering the beast immensely.

The grim started to flail about from the loss of its left eye, this gives the hunter ample time to plan their next move. Looking around they notice something. With quick thinking they use a nearby rock fissure as a make-shift platform. Applying aura once again into their legs they jump high into the air, shattering its impromptu platform as a result, pulling out their large bowie knife from behind them.

SCHINK

Queue more pained bat noises, now the human is mounting the Ravager Monster Hunter Style.

After a few moments, finally finding a decent foothold on the winged-beast, the hunter pulls a seemingly very large hand cannon from their holster (A/N: It's smaller than the original).

BANG! BANG! BANG!

With three placed shots to essential parts of the wing the Grim and hunter start to spiral to ground rapidly after the hand-cannon obliterated its left wing into nothing but black dust. Queue even more flailing.

CRASH

GUH! Unfortunately this gives the grim a lucky hit on the wide-open hunter trying to also recover from the fall. He was punted about a good 20 yards.

"Ouch." Standing up they shake their head to reorient themselves from the attack. They hold out their right arm and it shows a display quite similar to that of a scroll screen, "tch! That horde left me at 60%, now I'm about 50% left, that hit took out a good 8%, it isn't ancient for no reason if a glancing blow could do so much damage" (A/N: those aura boosts used about 2% :3) the now revealed male voice of the hunter mutters to himself.

Looking up from his inbuilt scroll on the arm, he notices that the grim has recovered as well. It's glaring directly at him so hatefully that if looks could kill he would be gone, reduced to atoms. Wow its fucking pissed, acknowledging to himself that he well and truly pissed off the Ravager. He gives off a small smirk under his mask. Good. It'll be sloppier in its movements and be much more predictable.

Having had enough of the Oum-damnable human, the Grim charges like a bull at break-neck speeds toward the hunter. Maw wide open trying to crush him under its massive, quite very spiky sharp, jaws.

The hunter dives to the right, rolling into a crouch firing position; he fires rounds into the wounded side of the Grim to try and distract, even though knowing the bullets have no real damage on its body. The grim doesn't take the bait and decides to use another sonic scream which the hunter could not dodge the attack, so instead he holds his right wrist close to his chest and summons a hexagonal blue hardlight shield. He digs deep into the rock to try and weather the attack from the constant scream of the grim, and with luck he prevails. Quickly pulling out his hand-cannon he switches a dial on the gun, the gun starts to glow a white, he fires at the ground right in front of the face of the beast.

FLASH

With another scream the now blind Ravager starts to randomly thrash around to find the hunter. The opportunity created by his flash bang he once again switches the dial on the hand-cannon now it emits a glacial blue, firing at the talons of the bat. Ice erupts from the direct impact freezing the bat in place. Perfect

Readying the last weapon to be revealed, a large white and gold accented lined rifle. The rifle springs to life almost showing holographic projections of a plethora of information that could not be made out. He starts to charge the weapon, I'm only at 38% I won't be able to use even a half charge, but a ¼ should do it in. The end of the barrel emits an orb of aura that glows a bright of white and yellow with a soft black surrounding it, when the hologram shows a clear 250%, he pulls the trigger.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

A pure line of white hot aura is ejected from the rifle, at what looks like near the speed of light, completely penetrating the upper half of the Ravager. The beam of light can be seen to be traveling for nearly a quarter of a mile out finally dissipating into nothing but a soft glow of gold. Nothing was left of the Ravager but a frozen pair of talons.


-Post battle-

"HAAAH! Well that's a job well-done if I do say so myself." The hunter looks around making sure there isn't anymore grim, noticing that it's clear, he lowers his guard a little, but still alert for anything. Damn that last attack to a chunk out of me, only 23% left. SHEESH. I guess it's time to head back to Kuo Kuana and report back to Ghira. He turned to the direction of the capital and was about to walk off, but noticed something shining at the corner of his eye.

Hmm. Something was sticking out the ground reflecting the scorching mid-day sun giving off a small blue glow. Picking it up he wipes off any leftover dust and grime to fully see it in all its glory. Holy Oum, it's a raw sapphire stone, that sonic blast must have kicked it up from wherever it was resting. What a lucky find, but what to do with it?, humming to himself he remembers that when he arrived on the island he saw a local jeweler shop somewhere in the city. I know, this would be a perfect early birthday gift for her. With a soft smile he pockets the small stone into one of his combat pockets and treads back to the city. With the sand and dust picking up surrounding the hunter he disappears from view.


-Kuo Kuana-

Afternoon(4 hours after the battle)

After finally making it back to the city, the hunter looks over the bustling faunas dominant city in all its glory.

A large harbor could be seen slightly off into the distance that leads directly into the heart of the city. There in the city off to the side of the major road is palm trees and other tropical fauna decorating them. Eastern Mistralian architecture and design can also be seen. Mainly due to the very hot and humid temperature of the island we can see the style of clothing and buildings reflect the atmosphere of the land. The civilian population wearing free flowing and thin clothing akin to tropical clothing. Thank Oum for ice and fire dust weaving, the hunter thinks to himself after getting strange glances from the local populace for wearing something that looks super hot in this weather.

The market is the most populated area of the city where most of the population spends their day either working, trading, or just loitering around. He heads over to a nearby stall that looks to be manned by middle-aged female dog faunas; short brown hair and two floppy dog ears. As he approaches she seems to be looking over some piece of paper and checking off something. Thinking to himself, Hmm, conducting inventory it seems.

"Excuse me miss" Giving her a smile

She looks up from her clipboard and takes in the sight of the heavily armed hunter, and grows a little worried, thinking that he was an Atlas soldier, but quickly notices the left pauldron and sees the double moon symbol and quickly calms down her worries. She begins taking in his very handsome features, Holy shit he's hot, and gives off a small tinge of pink; plastering on a big toothy smile showing her very canine-like teeth. "WELCOME HANDSOME TO THE 'TREASURE BOX'. What could you do for you? I got everything that you could ever want from dust, booze to clothing. You tell me what's your fancy and I'll ring you up", finishing her very loud sales pitch.

Chuckling nervously, he scratches the back of his head, "Haha well um, I'm not here to buy anything I'm looking for the local jeweler shop is sorry."

Giving off a downtrodden look, basically like a kicked puppy, "Oh. Sorry for jumping to conclusions, it's two blocks down take a left it's called, 'Stone Cutters'". Going back to her inventory still having a slightly depressed look, knowing that most of Kuo Kuana is pretty poor and making a living is quite difficult.

With a resigned sigh, "Well you know what I am quite low on ice dust, I could use a resupply preferably dozen cut crystals" That should last her a week, it's not cheap even here in Menagerie and with this job done it wouldn't even put a dent into the difference anyways.

Excitedly perking up she's giving a very radiating smiley, "OF COURSE! Lemme ring that up for you".

DING


"Stonecutters eh. Pretty cliché". Shrugging his shoulders, he opens the door to the store.

RING

First thing he notices is the overall look of the store. Filled to the brim with old and authentic items of value and jewelry lining the walls. Almost giving no room to peruse the small shop, but fortunately enough to navigate to the cutter where he notices very old lizard faunas with a white comb-over could be seen taking a small nap.

Noticing the small bell RING. Startling the old man out of his slumber he puts on his glasses to take in the sight of the walking armory. The old man raises eyebrow a little at the sight of him, but quickly gives a polite and raspy response, "hello youngster, how can I help you?"

"I'm looking to have a piece of raw sapphire cut and trimmed to be worn as a necklace, also could you shape it into something specific? Lastly, could this be a rush order that can be done today?" The hunter pulls out the azure stone from his combat pocket and hands it over to the jeweler.

Looking over the beautiful stone. Appreciating the very pure stone, "Who's the lucky lady?"

A soft smile graces his lips, "My daughter, it's a birthday gift".

The old man chuckles softly, "Congratulations, how old will she be this year?"

"Three" He responds

"Well, rush order will cost quite a lot and it'll take about two hours give or take." Responds the old lizard with his assessment. The hunter hums and ponders to himself, "That's fine, I have the lien and that amount of time should be perfect anyways since it'll be perfect to give it after her birthday dinner".

"Alright let me get right on it." The artisan prepares to go into the back to cut the stone and then remembers, "Oh yea what did you want it cut into?"

The hunter just gives a cheeky smile, "A fox".


A/N: AAAAAHHHHH. That was draining, this was my first ever fight scene that I have ever-written. Now I know it's on the shorter side than a lot of fanfiction stories out there, and the reason I did it like that is because I'm not a humongous fan of drawn out fights. Reasons being how I see real fights, they're usually short and quick.

Jaune's armor and weaponry is based off Snow White from NIKKE since, I love the look of it. I did make some small changes like adding the adding the Arc symbol and shrinking the Over-sized revolver and changing it into a hand-cannon.

Now another thing, yes in the wanderer Jaune stories that he usually has a daughter, but what's different from mine is that his daughter is his biological child. Since her age does line-up with how long he left Beacon. I also revealed above that he was married as shown by the two wedding bands on his necklace.

Now lastly before I go is that child and his wife are characters from another fandom that will be identified in the next chapter, but if you wanna guess go ahead and with that. I'll catch you on the flip-side :3