RAVN
Silver Trailer
Making his way toward the kingdom of Vale, the boy decided to stay the night in a small village in Mistral. Pushing open the door, he made his way into the crowded lobby and walked toward the counter, trying to ignore the eyes that turned to observe him.
The boy was short, standing at only five feet, with shaggy grey hair and grey canine ears. He wore a long silver tailcoat with grey hemlines with a stylized grey disc embroidered on the back. Underneath his coat was a black turtleneck shirt and matching black pants, with a hole in the back for his fluffy grey wolf tail, with grey shoes.
Around his neck was a black threaded necklace with round grey beads and six silver comma-shaped beads evenly interspersed among the grey beads. Tied to his waist with a red rope was a silver handheld mirror with six concentric circles rippling through the reflective surface of the mirror.
Finally, attached to his back by a brown leather strap was a silver greatsword as long as he was tall. The Okami greatsword had a long leaf-shaped blade with a fuller cross-section, the blade widening near the guard, and then narrowed toward the hilt, the guard itself having big hole in the center where the blade met the open maw of the wolf shaped handle. The wolf-shaped handle was narrow, but widened at the pommel, and ended with the wolf's tail circling around and meeting its feet, making a ring.
The boy walked up to the counter before jumping in surprise as a voice spoke to him from behind.
"Well hello there, who might you be?"
He turned to see a woman with long brown hair swept forward over her left shoulder and a black outfit with a short skirt with a short white apron. She was bending down so that her head was closer to him, her hands on her thighs.
"I'm Vergil ma'am" he said nervously, his hands playing with the hem of his coat.
She smiled and shook her head "none of that ma'am business, you can call me Lisa. I'm the innkeeper here, are you looking for a room to stay the night?" she asked with her head tilted to the side.
"Yes miss Lisa, but-" his eyes teared up "-but I don't have any money. I lost everything I had in a grimm attack" his voice wavered as he said it, and a silver spectral wolf appeared at his side, nuzzling him and he cheered up a bit, hugging the wolf's neck.
"Aww, you're so adorable!" She exclaimed happily with her hands clasped in front of her face, ignoring the casual use of the kid's semblance. "I'll tell you what," she said with her hands on her hips, "you can spend the night with me, free of charge."
"Really!?" Vergil yelled happily, his tail wagging in joy at not having to sleep out in the rain.
The wolf dissapeared, its job of cheering up its master done.
"Really" she giggled, but then went silent as she started to hear whispering from some of her other patrons, 'lucky little brat' being the least offensive or perverted of them.
"Excuse me for a sec," she said to Vergil before turning and walking to the tables "okay" he said in confusion.
Lisa stopped at the tables and put on an eerie smile. "Is there a problem here gentlemen?" Lisa said calmly as the air behind her darkened, a large white horned, mask creeping around her side. "I don't have to kick you out of my inn do I?" The mask opened a single bleeding eye, and a long tongue snaked out from between bloodied teeth.
"No ma'am!", "No need for that ma'am!", "Please make it stop!" were just a few of the remarks coming from her now terrified clientele.
"Good!" Lisa chirped, the mask vanishing behind her back again and the air returning to normal. The patrons breathed a collective sigh of relief as the feeling of dread vanished.
"Now," Lisa said clapping her hands "lights out is in ten minutes, so everybody go up to your rooms, and remember," she put on her eerie smile again and her patrons clammed up, terrified of the return of her dreaded mask, "lewd behavior is forbidden in my inn. Any rule breakers will be punished."
Without further ado she turned back to Vergil, still looking at her curiously.
He had been behind her, so he hadn't seen her use her semblance. "Come on Vergil, it's bedtime" she said cheerfully and Vergil smiled, "okay miss Lisa."
Lisa's room as at the back of the first floor, "thank you again miss Lisa" Vergil said as he walked hand in hand with the innkeeper, "it's my pleasure Vergil. I couldn't simply turn a nice boy like you out into the rain, could I?"
Vergil smiled widely at her kindness.
Opening the door, she turned and said "wait here for a moment and I'll go change" she said, going into the attached bathroom and closing the door behind her.
The two slept soundly that night, Lisa in her soft silk nightgown and Vergil in the nude, she trusted him not to try anything since he was just a kid.
Refreshed, he left first thing in the morning, yelling his goodbyes to Lisa. Two spectral wolves appeared at his side to keep him company now that he set out on his own again.
As he walked outside of town limits he became aware that he was being followed. Subtly he created more wolves to try and figure out who was following him, but as it turned out it wasn't needed as one of his wolves was taken out by a gunshot. Gasping as he felt the phantom pain of the gunshot, he turned around to see that several of the patrons of Lisa's inn had followed him.
But these men and women were not just any regular patrons, they were all wearing the white and black uniforms of the White Fang.
Taking a few wary steps back, he raised a hand to the hilt poking over his shoulder.
There was a tense silence between Vergil and the White Fang members, but was inevitably broken as one of the masked faunus charged toward the boy with twin sabers leading the way. Vergil grasped Okami's hilt, moved to the left to avoid the saber going for his head, he swung toward the man's back only for his second saber to parry it off to the side.
As the boy and lieutenant were going at it, the rest of the masked faunus charged in but were stonewalled by an army of silver ghostly wolves. They readied their weapons; rifles, pistols, swords, or any combination of the three, and began to fight against the horde, taking only a few casualties in the minutes that followed as they used all their fighting skills and teamwork to fight back the kid's semblance.
Vergil stabbed at the masked faunus, only for the man to dodge to the side, the man sun and swung one saber down at the kid's head and the other at his side. Vergil was slowing down a little, feeling the pain each wolf felt as it was struck down, but still possessed the situational awareness to jump back out of the way of the strikes, spin on his heel and swing his greatsword down at the open lieutenant.
The lieutenant crossed his sabers above his head so he could catch the greatsword in the locked blades and tried to maneuver it to the side, but the kid kicked him square in the stomach, but before he could bring his sword down upon his enemy a gunshot rang throughout the now empty clearing.
A spectral wolf appeared as if on its own accord and jumped in front of the stunned Vergil, the wolf taking the shot meant for its masters heart.
Looking at the shooter, Vergil couldn't help but stare. The tall woman wore a slightly different uniform than the grunts, being more formfitting and having more armor along with a more stylized mask. She had a longsword sheathed at her side and held a revolver in her extended hand.
But what drew his attention was the long, wild grey hair and pointed canine ears.
Standing at her side was a taller man with a similar uniform but with a grey muffler worn around his neck, with a white wolf tail.
Reaching up with her free hand she removed her mask, revealing a familiar face.
"Mom?" he asked, lowering his sword, "dad?" he asked the silent man at her side, but he simply crossed his arms.
He didn't understand, he hadn't seen his family in months. Why were they here now, and why were they wearing White Fang uniforms?
"Mom, why are you here, why are you with the White Fang?" He asked, and the woman glared at him, sying "because the Whate Fang are the future of the faunus."
"But the White Fang are evil Mom, they don't want equality anymore, they want dominance!"
"Exactly!" She screamed at him, and he took a step back in shock. "We have been at the bottom of the food chain ever since we could remember, and our rise to the top is long since due.
"War is coming Vergil. Either join us or die."
Tears fell from widened eyes as he fell down to his knees in shock, his heart breaking at what his mother was saying to him. Unnoticed by any in the clearing, Vergil's spectral wolves began to vanish, one by one.
Seeing her son's response, she raised her revolver, but then lowered and put it away. Despite everything, he was still her son, and she couldn't kill him.
"Poor foolish Vergil, always fighting for the wrong reasons." She turned away, the man at her side following her.
"Kill him."
Vergil summoned more wolves... but nothing happened. He didn't understand, why wasn't his semblance working?
"Sorry kid," the lieutenant said with a voice full of pity, "orders are orders." He swung his saber down to put the poor kid out of his misery, but in a rush of motion he fell back onto the grass, and went to stand up and attack the kid again but...
His hands, he didn't have any hands!
The lieutenant looked warily at the kid, breath escaping him in huffs, a wild, untamed look in his eyes and his body hunched over his sword.
Vergil opened his mouth wide in a wordless scream, howling all of his pain and sorrow into the air as he ran toward the lieutenant at blinding speed, and he tried to dodge, but ended up with a greatsword through his gut.
The body of the White Fang officer fell to the ground, greatsword with it, as the berserk faunus sprinted toward the remaining masked faunus. He attacked them in a flurry of punches and kicks, uncaring as their bullets and blades bounced off his aura shield, whittling it down to nothing, he didn't care when their blades bit into his sides and their bullets punched through his flesh.
He didn't care about anything anymore, too lost in his anger.
"Why would you stick your neck out for a Faunus whose parents have just joined an organisation of delusional lunatics?" Vergil asked with his face screwed up in a depressed look, his eyes devoid of emotion, and fixing the man on the opposite side of the metal table with a suspicious look.
The battle against the White Fang? That was long over. Someone on the edge of town had seen the fighting and the White Fang uniforms and had called the authorities, leading to the arrest of the only surviving faunus left in the area, himself.
His rage had died down by the time they arrived, so they were able to take both him and his sword into the station without any struggle.
They roughly shoved him into a cell, and several hours later two people, a man and a woman, had arrived.
The man was tall with a black suit worn over a green turtleneck and grey hair, if a shade darker than his own, and the woman was blond with a braid on one side of her head with oval glasses, a white blouse with frilled cuffs, a weird black vest/skirt thing and black stockings and high heels.
He had a feeling her face was usually stuck in a stern expression, but at the moment she was looking at Vergil in concern.
Ozpin just sighed and turned to face Vergil.
"I believe in judging a person by their own actions, and not on the actions of their parents," he took out a scroll and showed him a recording of his fight with the White Fang earlier, though it was unclear how that recording was taken as he had not remembered seeing any cameras. "Your actions today have proven to me that you are more than worthy of a place in Beacon" he said, taking a drink from his mug.
Upon seeing that Vergil's look still hadn't changed, he continued "as headmaster of Beacon, I have taken in a variety of students from all walks of life. So trust me when I say that your parents being members of the White Fang is nothing compared to when I let in two members of a bandit tribe," Glynda gave her coworker a harsh look at his slip, but was ignored as he continued in a calm and even voice "and they have gone on to become two of the best Hunters Beacon has ever produced."
This revelation clearly shocked Vergil, and as he thought about the information he'd been presented, Ozpin stood and turned to leave. Just as Ozpin and Glynda were exiting the door, Vergil's voice rang out again.
"The two you were talking about, who were they?" Ozpin looked over his shoulder to see Vergil looking at him with an unreadable expression, but he suspected he knew what Vergil was thinking when he asked the question. Glynda looked at Ozpin with her eyebrows knitted together, she knew the man was an exert manipulator, even if he never used that particular skill in an evil manner, she didn't think a hurt and vulnerable young boy needed this kind of thing.
"Am I to take this as acceptance of my offer?" Ozpin asked in return with a barely visible smirk on his face, knowing how the conversation was going to play out.
"Only if you tell me their names" Vergil answered, trying and failing to be impudent.
"Very well," Ozpin said as if he was making some great sacrifice "their names are Qrow and Raven Branwen."
Vergil's eyes widened at hearing those two names, Raven was a little more mysterious, but Qrow was famous all through Remnant. "I shall expect to see you when next term begins, Vergil" Ozpin replied as he left.
Glynda followed him as far as the door before she spared Vergil a glance "If you ever wish to talk, my office is always open" she said, closing the door behind her, the sounds of his cane and her heels clicking on the polished floor fading as Vergil was left alone with his thoughts.