Ilia Amitola was used to fighting for what she wanted. Ever since the day she learned that her parents had died, she fought. For food. For safety. For answers. It had left her strong, emotionally at least. But above all, it left her alone. There really wasn't any proper place for a girl like her in Atlas. Especially not one who for so many years had pretended to be human.
Sure, it worked out for a while. All her friends believed that she lived out of the way, or hated her parents, so were fine with having the girl visit their homes instead of her own. Why would they need to look any deeper than that? Their school didn't allow Faunus. Ilia had laughed at their racist jokes and made jokes with the best of them. Who would have thought any better that she was anyone lesser than them?
But, if a person's faunus traits were linked at least a little bit to their personality, then Ilia for all accounts was a chameleon. She did what she had to, to survive. First to get a good education, thanks to her parents.
And then when both of them died in an explosion at the Schnee mines, she did what she had to, to escape that kingdom. It was hard, to find out that her parents had died. She found out in school, while in class. The pain had been too much for her to hide, and without meaning to, she let her faunus heritage show. She turned blue. Blues of every shade, each darker and more depressing than the last.
And all her friends? Well, they were shocked. And then they laughed. And then they got angry. How dare a filthy faunus pretend to be one of them? Ilia couldn't blame them. She had done exactly as they said. Their criticisms held nothing but truth.
So she had left. She joined the White Fang because they were her only means of escaping the kingdom. And then as soon as she was free, she left that organization. It did not matter that they cared for faunus in need. Or did the dirty work that many of her kind were too scared to do. She had spent years in school laughing along with her fellow human friends, at the faunus. Cursing the White Fang for their attacks, because she had human friends who lost family to their scorn.
How could she pretend to be on of them? Oh right. She was a chameleon. But she didn't want to be anymore. She didn't want to be Ilia the chameleon, who changed her colours to fit with the crowd. She just wanted to be Ilia Amitola, the girl who happened to be a chameleon faunus.
Except, she didn't know who that was yet.
She survived out in the streets where she could. She begged on the streets, pretending to be human once more in the richer areas of town, and faunus once more in the poorer ones. She pretended to be younger than she was, helped by her scrawny, almost sickly thin body, to get any sort of sympathy. She fought back against those who tried to take her food, often failing to save more than a few crumbs. But it was enough to get by. Enough for the universe to give her something good. Something by way of an open-house tour of Beacon Academy. Humans and faunus all welcome. And she toured and she fell in love. With the school and with the culture.
She trained by herself, whenever she could. She took the early exams for those who did not have experience or training at the combat schools and became one of the very select few to get their admission letters.
Now she was running through a massive forest with Beacon on the horizon. Even after being chased by a pair of huntsmen, and quite possibly a professor, she could not help but to smile. It had been a fantastic morning. She had beef. Beef! For breakfast. And so much of it. She doubted she had ever had so much food her entire life.
Just for that, she knew she had to get into Beacon. She was going to go to school and become a huntress and find out who Ilia Amitola really was, when not pretending to be someone else. The thought of being herself for possibly the first time in her life was more exciting than she cared to admit. If not at least a little bit frightening.
It all depended on her partner really. She hoped for a faunus. Someone who would understand her, at least a little bit. Maybe become her first faunus friend. Her first real friend when not pretending to be human. Hopefully not a faunus hater. Or someone overly loud.
Loud people were scary.
"Hey!" Came a shout from behind. "Are you the civilian we're trying to find?"
Ilia turned to see two people, a boy and girl. Shaking her head, she replied, "no."
"Would the civilian actually tell us?" The girl asked her partner, who shrugged in kind.
"No idea. The rules for this Initiation were fairly loose. Like, what even is he -or she- supposed to look like? If the civilian's a professor, or professor aged, we might have run by them without noticing! Ugh, frustrating… You sure you ain't the civilian?"
"Umm, no?"
"You don't sound too sure of yourself," the girl said, seemingly pulling a long cord from her belt.
Ilia took a step back and held up her hands, "no wait. You've got the wrong person!"
"Either she's a civilian and we pass Initiation, or she's really an Initiate, and we remove some competition." The boy said, with what looked to be an apologetic shrug.
Ilia screamed as she felt heavy cord wrap around her body, binding her legs together and arms to her chest, giving her just enough air to breath. As the two took a step closer, she screamed loudly once more, shaking her head wildly from side to side.
"A sloth in need!" Came a wily shout from above.
Suddenly, a massive hammer blocked the path between Ilia and her assailants. "Don't worry Misses Sloth, Nora is here to eat pancakes and break legs. And I'm all out of pancakes."
Ilia could only watch in amazement as this tiny redhead girl clobbered the two. Each swing of her hammer hit and tore through their weapons and their bodies alike.
"Hey wait! We surrender. Just don't take us out of Initiation. We'll, urm, owe you a favour?" the boy pleaded to the hammer wielder.
"Queen Nora like-y! Then peasants, be on your way! If we meet again, there shall be pancakes and syrup!"
The two didn't stay to figure out what that meant, dashing off back into the forest with a loud apology to Ilia.
And then Nora's attention was on her.
And dammit, for such a short girl, she was incredibly cute.
"Oh my god!" Nora shrieked, rushing to her side.
"Whoa, what is it?" Ilia asked, gasping at the realization she had turned pink and orange.
"You can change colours! That's so cool! Can all sloths change colours? Or are you like… a super sloth? The queen of the sloths maybe? I guess if I can't have Renny, I can have the queen of the sloths as my partner. Your majesty." She ended her rapid-fire speech with a deep bow.
"Umm… I'm not a sloth."
"You sure? That was a pretty amazing sloth impersonation before."
"What, my scream?"
"Yes, exactly! I was hoping to have Renny as my partner, but I just knew that I had to save you since your sloth impression was so much better than his! He'll forgive me. Oh, hi! I'm Nora Valkyrie." Nora smiled and extended her hand to the girl, who was still internally chastising herself for changing colours, as well as sighing, figuring the girl was straight.
Why did all the cute girls have to be straight?
"Hi," she finally replied, grasping Nora's hand and letting the shorter girl's immense strength pull her up. "I'm Ilia Amitola. I'm a Chameleon faunus."
Nora looked over her in a strange way. "Nah, you look more like the queen of the sloths. Don't worry, I'll keep your secret." She smiled and winked.
It shocked Ilia, at how blasé Nora was about her being a faunus. Not even a flinch.
"Does that mean we're partners?"
"It sure does Ili. Ili? Ami? Amitili? Bah! Your name doesn't shorten properly to a nickname. Don't worry, I'll work on it. My name doesn't shorten too! Gasp!" Ilia quirked at hearing Nora actually shout 'gasp'. "I almost forgot to ask the most important question before I accept you fully as my partner."
Nora's mood immediately became serious, causing Ilia to flinch. The two stared at each other, eye to menacing eye. "Do you…"
"Yes?"
"prefer pancakes or waffles?"
Ilia stuttered. Then without meaning to, burst into laughter. She had been so scared for no reason. This Nora girl was cute and funny, and it was just amazing to finally laugh for once.
"You scared me!" She finally managed to say between snickers. "Umm, I would have to say pancakes, but that's just because I've never had waffles."
"Good choice!" Nora shouted excitedly, holding a thumb up for her. "And let's keep it that way. We don't want to taint your perfect mouth with the unholiness that is waffles."
And once more, Ilia's body changed to pink and orange. Did this girl realize what she was saying? Nobody calls people's mouths perfect. Well, Ilia knew exactly what she wanted her perfect mouth to do and- nope! Ilia immediately shook that terrible, terrible thought from her head before her body changed colours once more.
"Well, Ilia. I guess now's time to ruffle up ourselves a civilian!"
And with a real and bright smile, Ilia followed after her overly rowdy and rambunctious partner. Beacon was really shaping out to be a great idea.
The first pairing!
Zapper Frost - Only longer! :D
merendinoemeliano - Thank you
Darknight2124 - If they were, then I wouldn't be able to have more fun Cardin beatdowns in the future!
PrepareForSomethingAmazing - I love 10 year old Ruby. Can't get enough of that cuteness!