When the young woman known only as Ash woke up that morning, she certainly wasn't expecting the apocalypse. It was just another day, though one where she was lucky enough to wake up with a roof over her head. The past week or so, she was living in a Hostel that only asked her for a few chores in the morning in return for a room. That room wasn't much, what with the stained carpet, broken bathroom mirror, no hot water, and bedsheets that still smelled of mildew after being washed multiple times. Still, it was better that the cardboard box in the alley she slept in last month.

Ash stretched as she stepped out of bed and headed for the bathroom. A cold shower was still better than no shower. She may look like a homeless person (She was technically homeless, she reminded herself), but she didn't have to smell like one if she had access to running water. She caught herself in the mirror as she stepped into the bathroom. Dull blue eyes and short hair of a dirty silver color. She also noted she could start to feel the tip of her hair on her ears. It's almost time for another trim.

After her shower, she got dressed into the few clothes she owned, sparing brief thought for how counter-productive to her scent wearing this same outfit was. Oh well. She'd find some sage or lavender on the waterfront and hang it inside her jacket. Her outfit may have looked halfway decent once, even of the punk aesthetic. Faded jeans, half-tied gray work boots, a button up and an overcoat so large and thick it made her look several times skinnier than she already was. The dirt, grime, and multiple tears all over defined the outfit for what it truly was, the only clothing of a person who couldn't afford more.

There was a knock at the door, making her jump. She still wasn't used to actually having a door. "Hey, you awake yet?" The voice of the owner's daughter called out through the wood. Ash panicked a little, looking toward a mug on her nightstand that was full of pens. She struggled the drawer open and threw all the pens into it, shoving the broken furniture closed before heading to the door.

"Yeah, I'm up!" Ash smiled as she opened the door.

"Mornin'," The girl smiled back, "You're up on dishes this morning. And can you help me with my math again?"

"Sure," Ash nodded, "I'm right behind you."

Ash followed the daughter toward the kitchen, jumping right on the dishes.

The woman who owned the hostel entered the kitchen next, kissing her daughter on the cheek before looking toward Ash. "Are you sure you want to wear that thing, doing the dishes?"

"I'm fine. It's not like I'm afraid to ruin it…" Ash told her. After dishes, Ash stood over the daughter and tried to help with the math homework. She didn't really know what she was looking at, but the young student did better with someone to bounce ideas off aloud.

As the daughter was packing her books back into bag, Ash found herself holding the girl's pen. A feeling swelled in her chest as she looked at the item in her hand. With a quick glance to make sure no one saw, Ash slipped the pen into her pocket. Immediately, a feeling of relief replaced the tension in her chest. Gripping the pen in her pocket felt so good.

"Hey, Ash, do you still have my pen?"

The woman was startled out of her moment of zen. "No, why would I?"

"That's weird, I could have sworn…" The girl looked back in her bag, under the table, even her own pockets. "How do I keep losing all my pens?"

Ash felt bad, of course. If her hosts discovered her little secret, it could cause issues. It wasn't like she stole anything valuable, even if she did, it wasn't because of its value. Still, it had caused enough problems for her in the past. It was hard to hold down a job when the manager found out every third quarter obsessively found its way into her pocket instead of the register. Despite passing regrets, somewhere inside she just couldn't stop.

Once her morning was done, Ash left the hostel. She needed to find something to eat, and she was stretching her host's hospitality enough.

Ash sat on a rooftops lip near the edge of Vale, a bag of donuts in hand. It had been a long day. She barely got enough money begging for food. She considered pickpocketing, but she had never been very good at it. She was also kicked out of the convenience store after they caught her on camera taking a string cheese, and she barely made it out with the donuts.

The sun had long since set, and Ash silently chomped away. She wondered, as she did every day around this time, whether she was going back to the hostel tonight. It was nice to have a bed, but she couldn't stay there forever. She didn't like spinning her wheels and going nowhere. She had to do something, anything, to change things. She heard rumors that the underground was in shambles… might be the perfect time to slip in. If she couldn't hold a 'real' job, she may as well make money by-

Her thought was interrupted by an explosion. The kind of explosion she had only seen in action movies before. The shock wave rocked her backwards, onto the roof. Her head hit with the force to shock her brain. As her vision faded to black, she saw the kingdom's force field fade across the sky.

She woke up with that image still in her mind. She slowly sat up and stared back at the sky. It was hard to tell if what she saw was real. The field was designed to be transparent so people looking at the sky wouldn't think of the grimm. Her eyes panned down toward street level, and that's when she spotted the breach above the still burning ruins of the power station… "Oh my god…"

The streets themselves were chaos. Grimm flooded the streets, chasing people and wreaking havoc. A screech brought a nevermore to Ash's attention just in time to see it swooping at her. She narrowly rolled out of the way and bee-lined for the fire escape. She jumped the last few steps to street level and ran out of the alley.

The street was not the refuge she had hoped. A pack of beowolves quickly caught her scent, and she was running again. What the hell happened!? Kingdoms are supposed to be safe! The grimm pushed her into another alley and she knew she couldn't run much longer. The rooftops were off limits, she was already chased off there. She could only keep going down.

The beowolves thundered down the alley. One stepped on a loose grating, catching its attention. The creature stared down the grating until a scream sounded down the alley. As the beowolf pounced off, fingers slipped through the holes in the grate and slipped it into its proper place.

Ash spent hours walking through Vale's sewers. She had no idea where she was going, but at least there were no monsters down here. She wanted to use a manhole to help get her bearings, but she was afraid to stick her head out. So, she walked further, turning at random as she reached forks. Until she noticed something strange…

The sewers had maintained a thin level of water on the floor (at least she convinced herself it was just water). Though at the moment, the squishy-sloshing had stopped. When Ash looked down, the water was gone. It had seemed to seep through dozens of cracks in the ground. Ash's eyes followed the cracks past a large iron bar security door that appeared to have blown off its hinges. "Why is a sewer tunnel locked off? What's above here?"

She stepped through the gate and followed the wreckage until she saw light through the ceiling. "I must be right under it… the blast zone…" It was hard to tell at first glance whether the ground caved into the sewer because of the blast or in the mayhem following. As Ash looked closer, she saw something that distracted her from her musings. A bright red object that stood out against the gray stone and black rebar. She carefully approached to see that the object was, in fact, a bloody arm.

"Oh shit!" Ash bolted the last few steps to examine the body. This right arm appeared to have been scorched raw, with nearly every inch of skin either soaked in blood or burned to a black crisp. A latex glove seemed to have melted into the flesh. That would be difficult to remove. The arm disappeared under a large block of cement and rebar with the only other visible body part was this person's head. The right side of their face sported the same burn damage as their arm.

Ash didn't know what happened, but she could guess. This girl was in the middle of the explosion that took out the wall. It was a miracle she was in one piece, but there was no way she was still alive…

Sigh…

The subdued sound of air passing made Ash reach her hand out in front of the mystery person's mouth.

Sigh…

To Ash's amazement, the person was actually breathing. She quickly tried to life the debris off, but it proved too heavy. Ash breathed took a deep breath, setting her hands on the concrete. Calling upon her semblance allowed her access to the structure of the stone itself. She broke down the bonds and rapidly aged the concrete. It began to crumble, each broken off rock breaking further until all that was left was dust. Ashes to ashes…

Only rebar covered what Ash could begin to tell was a girl. It was much easier to lift on its own, and she now had the girl freed. Attempts to rouse her were futile, and Ash was beginning to wonder what she planned to do with the girl. It was probably the worst time in her life to choose to be a hero. She couldn't carry a subconscious girl across a grimm-infested city.

As if on cue, a growl came from behind her. Two more beowolves and an alpha had dropped down into the sewer behind her. "Crap, crap, crap!" Ash renewed her efforts to wake the bloodied stranger. Once shaking proved fruitless, Ash wound up her arm.

SLAP!

Ash's brain didn't catch what happened next. Her next conscious thought, she was pressed into a fresh crater in the wall. Her airway was completely cut off as she was suspended solely by the bloody girl's bloody forearm against her neck. Her vision was dominated by a face half gory with messy hair and one brightly glowing red eye. She was happy there was nothing in her bladder to void.

The grimm were only slightly fazed by the speed of the event. The growls returned quickly, and that frightening red eye slowly panned to meet the beasts' gazes. One beowolf pounced, and the girl vanished. Ash fell to her knees, coughing as breath returned to her. A beowolf head landed in her field of vision with a wet splat, bringing her attention back up. The scary girl was holding the spine of the now-dead grimm in her burned right hand.

The next grimm pounced, which Ash could already tell it was a bad idea. Sure enough, the girl turned on her heel and threw her left fist toward the oncoming beast. The creature skewered itself on the human limb, burying itself all the way to her shoulder. Its corpse was casually tossed off. All that was left was the girl and the alpha. Ash knew who she would put her money on at this point, if she had any.

The alpha charged, and the girl waited. When the beast was close, the girl stepped to the side and tripped the grimm. It's momentum carried it into the wall with enough force to drop more rubble from above down into the sewer. In a flash of what Ash could have sworn was rose petals, the girl was in front of the monster with her fist pulled back. Once again rubble fell from above as the punch did nothing less than obliterate the alpha's head entirely.

With the grimm gone, that terrifying eye focused back on Ash once again. The homeless girl looked for something, anything, that could help. The girl kept walking slowly forward, until something that fell with the fresh rubble caught her eye. Ash traced her line of sight to a dismembered human hand on the ground.

The girl's gait transformed. Her steps to that hand were softer, her approach slower. She got down on one knee, reaching for the hand. Ash watched the girl slowly turn it over in her hand, looking at the painted nails and feeling the skin on her still-intact left-hand fingers.

The red eye faded out and became silver while her breathing became heavier. Her vision glazed over, and Ash could tell she was no longer mentally present. Her breathing only got worse. She fell to the other knee as her strength gave way. Heavy breathing turned to full hyperventilation. The dead hand fell as the strange girl's live hands gripped her head. After a few more moments, the girl finally passed out from hyperventilation and slipped back into unconsciousness.

Ash looked from the girl, to the hand, to the fading remains of the grimm, and had only one thought. "What the fuck just happened?"

Ash was watching her new… she hesitated to say friend… sleep. She had managed to carry the vicious woman into another part of the sewer with an intact ceiling. While moving her she had found a green pistol tucked into the back of her red sash, under the black cape. She only wondered for a moment why it wasn't used it against the grimm. Then she realized the girl didn't seem to have all the sharpest crayons in her basket-case in the first place.

After settling in their new location, Ash collapsed the tunnel to block them from prowling grimm. With an area they could actually stay in for a while, she built a fire to keep warm and waited. The strange girl finally stirred almost an hour later. It was hard to see her right eye properly under all the blood, but the left one was clearly a shining silver. The girl took in her surroundings, eventually settling on Ash herself. After a brief moment of thought, she finally spoke, "Did you slap me?"

"Finally awake, I see," Ash said in lieu of answering what was possibly a dangerous question.

"Yeah, I am…" The girl replied distantly. "And only me…"

Ash was confused, "Who else would be awake?"

"No one," the girl quickly replied, "What the hell happened back there?"

"That's my question," Ash smirked, "You got mister Hyde for a semblance or something?"

"Something like that," The girl shrugged. "Where are we?"

"Another part of the sewers," Ash told her. "We should be safe, I collapsed the tunnels."

"How?" The girl studied the damage.

"My semblance. Short story, I age things," Ash nodded.

"Right…" The girl nodded and got to her feet, "So what's your plan to get out of here?"

"Get out?" Ash laughed, "Are you crazy? There are monsters in the streets!?"

"Because starving to death is a much better option," The girl rolled her eyes sarcastically, "Open the door, aging girl, I'm out."

"Hey, I have a name!" Ash cried.

"Congratulations. I used to have a bunch," The girl responded dryly, "What do I win? Is it a door out?"

"You're a bitch, Dr. Jekyll," Ash told her pointedly.

"Observant, mystery slapping girl," the bitch smiled condescendingly. "Look, I'm leaving one way or another. Your way is safer. Are you going to help me or not?"

Ash looked between the two collapsed 'doorways'. "What's your way?"

The girl thought for a moment. "Remember those beowolves?"

"Right…" Ash nodded. "Well, move over," She walked around the angry woman and began 'ashing' the debris she used to block the tunnel. Once a 'door' was there, the scary girl stepped through, and Ash quickly followed.

The angry girl said nothing for a surprising while, perhaps because there weren't many differing paths in a sewer. Once they got to street level, Ash noticed her companion occasionally glancing back at her.

"Okay," The girl stopped short at a street corner, "Why are you following me?"

"Should I not be?" Ash asked.

"There's no guarantee I'm safe," The girl's eyes lingered on the black grimm blood still on her hand. "Any minute I could turn around and kill you..."

Ash frowned. She wasn't sure if this woman was being serious. She definitely had the ability, but if this woman was willing to kill her Ash had the feeling she would be dead already. "I think I'll take my chances."

"Really?" The woman stared at her incredulously, "Why?"

"Honestly? You scare the shit out of me," Ash told her.

"And that makes you want to follow me?" The girl raised her good eyebrow.

"Hey, scary people survive!" Ash defended, gesturing to the city around them.

After a moment of thought the girl shrugged and continued walking, no longer paying mind to her new companion.

Ash followed close behind. "So, um…" she coughed into her hand, "What do I call you?"

"Call me?" The girl questioned, "Why do you need to call me anything?"

"Because we'll be 'travelling' together?" Ash pointed out.

"No, you'll be following me," She corrected, "I'll be ignoring you, and if you get left behind, that'll be it."

"Well, I can't keep calling you 'that scary girl' in my head," Ash tried next, "So what am I supposed to call you? Jekyll?"

"That works as well as any name I've ever had," The girl nodded.

"How many names have you had?" Ash asked the girl now known to her as 'Jekyll'.

"More than my share by now, for sure," The angry girl replied off-handedly.

"How come you don't care to use one of your old ones?" Ash started feeling more comfortable the more questions Jekyll answered.

Jekyll stopped short for a moment, and by the look on her face Ash was afraid she was going to have another panic attack. Luckily, Jekyll shook it off with a short, "No one who matters is here to use them."

"Sorry…" Ash sighed, "I'm, uh… Ash, by the way…"

"Sure," Jekyll smirked.

"What?" Ash frowned.

"Hey, I'm not judging," the dark woman waved it off, "I know a thing or two about 'chosen' names."

"So it seems," Ash nodded. "We should really take care of your, um, everything."

The scorched girl looked down at her right arm, still dripping fresh blood like a trail of breadcrumbs. "Is there a hospital near here?"

"Sort of? This way," Ash took the lead and her new friend followed.