Author's Note
Exposition descriptions and a teensy bit of character interaction. I think the latter is my weakest point, I am terrible at small talk so getting characters talking over not a lot is tough. Help with speech formatting would be appreciated, I've tried what the internet says is the way you are supposed to write dialogue in this chapter so tell me if it's better :P Never done action before either and I think that shows too, I think that may improve over time though. What do I do for Beacon, take over someone else's slot, team of OCs, spot on a secondary character's team, or soling for BS plot reasons? Your input will probably guide me. Relationships are yours too most likely, so give some good reasons if you want input.
Chapter 3 - Further Training
My mid-teen years are going quite well in the grand scheme of things, my accident with the beowolf some years previous had given me a somewhat accelerated path down the Hunter path of schooling and thanks to what I assume is Professor Ozpin pulling strings my Apprenticeship with Heron ends up being a permanent replacement to standard lessons. Even at the point where my fellow Hunter hopefuls were transferring to schools like Pharos or Signal, I was allowed relative free reign under the tutelage of Heron. My parents were grateful as it meant costs were almost non-existent for me, Apprenticeships tend to get a small amount of funding from the Council to incentivise passing down trades. Dad was around more as a result so he and Heron could both take an active interest in my development, my fighting style becoming a blend of my father's more graceful approach to combat and Heron's aggressive brawling. The best way I can think to describe it is something like Winter's fencing and Ironwood's beating Grimm to death with the butt of his pistol. I am pleased I've grown more distinct as it adds more to the small pile of things in this world that are truly mine. It has also meant I could develop my weapons in full, I think most people would find my choices boring but for the most part I think practicality is more important.
Technically speaking I have three weapons but I have a few support items to help me as well; my main weapon is a short sword for hacking through Grimm and deflecting other blades, just a fairly simple steel blade with some minimal gold (colour rather than material) inlay for style that tucks neatly inside a sheath styled after a cane. General idea being to look unarmed where possible and so I can use it non-lethally if I need to fight someone without aura. My off-hand is a bulky Atlessian styled pistol, magazine loaded for speed and bulky so I can use it as an aid to punching things should they get to close. The third and arguably most pointless weapon in my arsenal is a hidden blade up my left sleeve. I loved Assassin's Creed. Sue me. On a practical front though the blade can pivot into my hand where needed to use as a knife to help with deflecting blows. Mainly it's the fanboy thing though. For support I have flash and smoke impact bombs, Heron has voiced that it's silly given most Hunters only end up fighting Grimm regularly but I know that there will be a fair amount of human fighting in my future as well. Armour and outfit wise I have followed in the footsteps of my father and selected pseudo-formal wear. Smart black trousers and shoes, dark grey waistcoat, white dress shirt and nice black overcoat. My only difference was some gold designs overtop the coat, almost like stylised flames at the hemline and wrists. The final design is going to include a plate metal chest covering and some vambraces once I've stopped growing so much, aura is good, but I don't want to be screwed if it gets broken.
Now as for fighting ability…
I duck a claw slashing overhead and use the opening to cut a bloody line through the beowolf in front of me's chest, pulling the blade free and stepping under the arm fully to move past it. Ash was already spiralling off its body as I place a bullet in its skull, Heron had pointed out long ago that some Grimm were capable of actions even as they disintegrated, better to double check. A bullet is far cheaper than a hospital visit. Looking up I take stock of the clearing ahead of me, with one minor beowolf down I'm left with two more and an alpha to contend with. The minors hesitate slightly at the death of their brother but the alpha is already charging, I slide my right foot back and raise my pistol and fire off a trio of bullets at its skull mask forcing its head to the side slightly which makes the smash of the gun into its snout push it even further to the side allowing my sword to slide in through its neck and deep through the body. I'm forced to leap back as it howls and goes to claw at me dropping into a fencing stance to direct the sweep away from my body proper. A flare of warning from my semblance allows me to squeeze off two shots at the leftmost minor, not enough to kill it but enough to give it pause whilst I slice through his alpha's neck, its body crumbling around it. The same minor lets out a roar steeped in rage and rushes, but it doesn't make it fully across the clearing as bullets pepper the soft body surrounding its mask. The final minor had already turned to flee so with a burst of aura enhanced speed I chase after it leaping I plunge the sword downwards through the back of its neck and out it's maw effectively stopping it and kicking myself away as the body turned to dust.
I mean, I was okay at combat. The weaker Grimm don't faze me, not even in medium sized packs. Larger packs are a problem as are singular powerful opponents. Eh, I have time to grow. The most important thing was the growth in my semblance and the need to use it less. I've learnt I can see the pre-emptive afterimages in varying times before the actual thing they show. During a fight for example I can focus and draw the full power of my semblance and can see at maximum ten seconds ahead of real time if I need to, but in order to effectively keep track of a fight I can only really do that during lulls in combat where I have time to see it. Usually if I need to use my semblance at all during the heat of battle a low level effect a second or less ahead gives me the time to react without my getting distracted by things that haven't happened yet. Speaking of; there is a fortunate or unfortunate side effect depending on your viewpoint. Very occasionally whilst in deep sleep I get flashes of what's to come, for the most part perfectly in line with what I know from the show but occasionally wildly different. The further from the present the less accurate my ability to see becomes. It's where the active ten second limit comes from, any further and it both might not be accurate and takes too long to see coming during a fight. Perfect semblance for someone who needs to change the future really.
Another side project that fully came to being in my teens was the development of a scroll application, I figured coding and a wealth of things to borrow from my world would mean a steady income for myself both as a way of funding any later endeavours and providing my parents a buffer. We went from struggling over any surprise big bills to comfortably living. The app itself I decided would be a merger of the two biggest I could remember from home, thus DustBook was born. On the web front a social network with individual pages and a front page for information from all your friends chronologically, the mobile scroll app combines a live and group chat functionality and a photo communication option with expiring photos for communicating visually with your friends. Yup. Those two apps. It's not a rip off if the original doesn't exist in this universe. Not to mention Remnant has just a woefully poorly developed internet. Given five to ten years I think I can get the CCT network looking far closer to the internet as I would remember it, so provided I live through what's to come I think I comfortable life running a tech company and doing Huntsman jobs on the side could be my twilight years.
Between lessons with Heron, Dad and my own time developing software I didn't do a lot of socialising which was kind of ironic given my chosen apps. I had a few friends I had maintained from early school, but it was only as a group socialising and the occasional scroll call to catch up. I had made a few friends on trips to Vale who were a little more substantial, but given we'd tend to just bump into each other at the combat training centre it was more a familiarity than true friendship. The training centre used a mixture of hardlight dust replicas of Grimm with a simulacrum of intelligence to make them a fun fight and older model Atlessian bots used as combat dummies that hit and fired back. It was fun and was a good low-level warmup, but I was a bit past them being able to help me improve. I mainly just showed up at this point to keep a foot in the canon of the world because Velvet shows up here regularly which was a lucky introduction to a potential ally in Beacon.
"Hey Velvet!" I called over to her as she entered the lobby.
"Hi Slate, good to see you," she smiles in my direction and walks over as I raise a hand in a wave.
"Come for more training or looking at the hardlight dust again?" I ask her; it's the main reason she still attends despite far outclassing the simulation enemies.
"Yeah," she rubs the back of her head sheepishly, "I know I want to use hardlight dust in my weaponry but it's a little expensive at the moment and I still need to work on getting my weapon to shape it properly." Velvet and I had gotten talking after a shared combat simulation with some hardlight Grimm and I decided to man up and speak to a canon character without panicking. It'd taken quite a few meetings before Velvet relaxed properly around me as she started out quite skittish, I don't understand how someone so strong can take racist bullying with nothing but a whimper but aside from helping grow her confidence by being friendly there's not a lot else I can do. Pacifism against her fellow man if a hard trait to break.
"I think you'll get it, and when you've figured it out, you'll be even more formidable. It's hard enough fighting you with just martial arts, when you're capable of pulling an arsenal out of your pockets you'll be unstoppable!" Velvet laughs and blushes a little,
"I'm not sure about that, hardlight will use up any copies I have so I won't be able to go all out in every fight…" I cut her off,
"But that's where your academy team will come in, they'll be able to cover you long enough to build up stocks then unleash your full power when you really need it." That gets a smile.
"Okay," she huffs, "it was nice talking, but I need to get going. My timeslot is soon, and I don't want to miss it."
"Alright Velvet, see you later!" I reply before turning back to the monitor that had previously held my attention as she moved off to the reception area.
A few other people I had a vague idea of locations and current activities for were Pyrrha, because her advertising team even pre-DustBook were phenomenal, but once I had a stable public build they upped their game immeasurably. She's still based at Sanctum and doing well, just a single tournament to go before the four-win streak that cemented her as the 'Invincible Girl' is complete. Of course, now I exist in this world and have a Huntsman mentor with his own opinions I can say I don't quite agree with the moniker. Don't get me wrong she's leagues better than I am, but she wouldn't last a minute against an actual Hunter just yet. Too floaty and fancy for an actual brutal fight to the death. By the awkward looks her fans and manipulators tactfully ignore it's quite easy to see she still dislikes the fame and name, honestly I think she'd enjoy things a lot more if she lost, but then she doesn't seem the kind of person to do so on purpose. Perhaps a goal for Beacon will be to land a hit on her to break the image, if only a little.
The other famous one is Weiss who clearly has the family public relationships department running her pages because there's no way I can see the 'real' Weiss saying or endorsing any of the things her official page, she is still doing concerts all over Remnant but prioritising Atlas which isn't a real surprise given she lives there. If I'm lucky I'll be able to make a good impression to pre-emptively break down some of the cold exterior, we might be able to skip an entire arc if Team RWBY as a whole investigates the White Fang at the docks instead of just Blake.
Yang and Ruby are doing well at Signal, the former has a massive social group on DustBook who she updates constantly. If I had to guess I think she might be a fan of attention (Who would think?). If I were so inclined, I could keep up with their day to day lives quite easily. Ruby as well because although she doesn't have a particularly active account herself as mentioned Yang shares everything.
No other individuals have any up to date information, so I'll essentially be flying blind for the rest, not a problem I am relatively good at improvisation. I mean one is a terrorist, so I doubt they'd have a DustBook account.
Aside from combat simulation centres Vale sported a number of features of interest for me, my parents just thought I had an interest in the local culture but once I had weaponry, a license to carry them and the skills to use them they were happy for me to be out in Vale mostly alone as long as I checked in regularly. Bullheads ran between Ochreton and Vale three times a day so you had to have a fair amount planned to justify the trip so I developed the hobby of mapping the city out mostly to explain the trips to my parents and partially to tell people if I was stopped in the street for any reason.
By this point I'd tracked down Junior's nightclub, several Dust shops including From Dust 'til Dawn, Tukson's Book Trade and the docks. All attempts to find the Crow Bar were sadly for nought; a damn shame really because I love a good pun. I decided becoming a regular at the first two would probably help me when the time of canon begins so they became a chill evening hangout and my main supplier of Dust. My first time at Junior's was dull compared to Yang's.
Junior's Nightclub was if not imaginatively named then certainly well designed. Sleek modern glass doors open in front of me and I get the first look at the interior, more sleek glass contrasting nicely with the industrial lighting. I'm not really one for dancing so make my way over to the bar, Junior isn't on duty so there's a conspicuous lack of Malachite twins which makes sense given they always seemed to be akin to his bodyguards. Instead an older teen mans the bar dressed in a similar outfit to Junior, but with dull blue hair.
"What'll it be?" The bartender cuts through my thoughts and draws my attention over to him.
"Can I get a lime and soda please? Alcohol this early might be overkill." I reply, slapping some lien down on the counter, "And if possible one of those tiny umbrella's?" He collects the money and deposits my change and in short order a drink in front of me. The bar's pretty quiet this early so I'm not surprised by the small talk.
"What brings ya?" The bartender, Teal judging by his nametag and overtly matching hair.
"A mix of things, scouting and relaxing. Figured a drink before heading home and a chance to get of my feet is always good." I reply.
"Fair enough, Huntsman? Kinda young looking." He queries, eyes flicking to my pistol.
"Not yet, though I am hoping for it. For now, just an Apprentice," I shoot back, "Though not long and I'll be at Beacon. You'll most likely see me a lot more if we're allowed out."
"Beacon is the place to be for the aspirin' killer of Grimm. Good luck to you." He moves off to serve another customer and after two more drinks of the same level of dull conversation I move off too.
Honestly, the hope is that Beacon doesn't fall, consequently Vale remains strong and all those people get to keep having dull and boring conversations for the rest of their lives. Thinking back on them I might need to rethink the dull retirement as a tech giant. Might need to keep the Huntsman thing going if possible, to stave off the boredom. Luckily, this phase of it is coming to an end, I can apply to Beacon soon and then it'll all be dramatic fights against terrorists, high speed mech chases down the highway and preventing the mass killing of thousands. Joy.