Chapter 1: Sunrise

A pale moon hung low in the sky, peeking from below the black withered trees like a patient predator. Cracks marred its surface, and hints to the true extent of the destruction wrought upon it centuries ago were barely visible through the withered branches.

A small woman stood in deep snow, a long white cape draped over her slender shoulders. Her dark hair whispered from beneath the hood, her pale face and metallic eyes hidden.

In her hands was a long black metal pole, slightly curved and covered in scratches. At the end a thin, cruel curved blade made of hard white material was set. In all the weapon was just slightly longer than the woman was tall, though her firm grip and practiced stance said more than enough about her capacity to wield it.

Her gaze scanned the treeline, her thin lips parting slightly as though counting something. The wind picked up and she was gone, in her place a hulking black mass crouched. Its red eyes were set with the feral confidence of an unchallenged predator, embedded in a stark white mask. Its body was a seething mass of obsidian fur, muscles rippling along its flanks. It growled and its head swerved, confused at the sudden absence of its prey.

The scythe arced in a long sweep, and the beast's head hit the snow with a loud thump. Its remains shattered like glass and were swept into the swirling snowfall.

She leapt and twisted, whipping the scythe around and down into the mask of another beast, it's sorry corpse fading similarly. She landed in a roll and sprang to her feet.

Three more beasts leapt snarling from the dark forest, to converge on empty air. A bone white flash crunched into the head of the beast at the center of the group. The beast turned to ash as its fellows had.

The remaining two jumped back, panic evident in their frenzied retreat. They had never had a meal resist before, and confident hunger drained from their crimson eyes, replaced with simple fear.

One of them lived long enough to whimper, its claws making futile divots in the fresh snow.

She landed softly, her weapon's grim head hefted behind her. She knelt in the cold snow, examining a small mark left by the battle.

A loud roar from behind drew her focus and her head turned to it. A wicked maw with yellowed fangs and a blood red tongue filled her field of view, and…


Ruby woke with a start, her back straight and sweat glistening on her forehead and chest. Her black tank top was askew, and her bed sheets were tangled around her legs. Her blanket, a thick black sheet with a red rose decal, had been thrown across the room, and her she was hugging her pillow tightly to her stomach.

Her chest rose and fell with her slowly steadying breaths, and her eyes blinked. She rolled her shoulders and grimaced, and her eyes watered. She wiped them with the back of her hand.

She lay back down, still clutching the pillow, and exhaled slowly. Her eyes shut, and she draped one arm across her forehead.

Her small bedroom consisted of her bed, a simple dark black metal frame with red sheets and pillows, and a small steel desk with a chair. On it lay a long red metal combat scythe with a high caliber sniper rifle for a shaft.

Her eyes lingered on the weapon, on the small length tattered white fabric tied tightly to the end of the stock.

Moonlight lent the room an ethereal quality, and the silence of the night coated the room in peaceful safety. Her breathing returned to a steady rhythm.

Her gaze slowly slid to the digital clock mounted on the wall. It read 4:57 am.

2 hours and 3 minutes to go till my first day at Beacon, she thought to herself. About to go to Hunter school and I'm still having stupid nightmares. Pah, I bet mom would be so proud of her sniveling legacy, if she could only see me now!

A bitter laugh almost escaped her thin roseate lips, but she caught herself and huffed.

I have to remember what Dad said! Mom wouldn't want her sacrifice to be for nothing. She died to defend us from the void, I can't squander that by giving into the dark inside myself.

She sat up again, arms crossed in front of her, her face a testament to fresh determination and naive hope.

As if taking its cue from the young warrior-to-be, the dawn cast rays of dim orange light. She turned to gaze out the window.

Patch was a small village near the edge of the wall on the border of the Barrier Zone, the swath of land between civilization and the wall itself that was only inhabited by hunters and wild animals not bearing the taint of the void.

This far from the last bastion of urban sprawl known as Atlas, the capital of the human territory known as Vale, ground and air traffic was limited, and never took place at night. That in addition to the absence of any tall buildings made Patch and the other border towns virtually free of light pollution.

Ruby stood up from the bed and stretched broadly, yawning. She slid her hand across her desk until she found a small remote and pressed on a small red button.

A wide drawer slid out from beneath her bed, filled with folded clothes. She pulled the black tank top over her head and shook out her black hair, the red highlights at the tips catching the light. She shifted her legs and let her rose patterned pajama pants drop to the floor before casually kicking them aside.

She knelt and grabbed a length of black cloth, and began to pull it over her head. It was a tight black shirt with sleeves that extended to her wrists, but that left her stomach exposed. A similar pair of tight black pants soon followed.

Kneeling again she pulled out a black shirt made of a soft fuzzy material, which she donned over the shirt. This addition did cover her arms and torso entirely.

Next she walked past her desk, to a large red metal cylinder in the wall, which hissed open at her approach. She stepped inside, and it shut with a hiss, whirring and buzzing soon emanating from within.

The device was an SC Hunter Capsule, a means of readying Hunters for missions quickly and effectively. Ruby's model was on the cheaper end, though still considerably expensive. It contained a shower, armor equipment hardware, a vital scanner, and it played music.

Ruby emerged an hour and 45 minutes later. She had showered, the clothing she had put on before was made to endure environmental conditions and limit bacteria and fluid buildup on Hunters' bodies. In addition, her attire had changed drastically. Her feet and shins were now encased in a metal pair of armored greaves. Her knees were covered by small black pads and her thighs were armored in thicker material. Her chest and stomach were now insulated inside of a rounded breastplate. Small ridged pads followed the contours of her shoulders, and her arms were plated in metal. Her hands were unarmored, but now she wore thin black leather gloves. The black material she had taken from the drawer now extended from the top of the plated armor to her chin. She wore no helmet, as the armor did not require one. Overall her head was the only place where skin could be observed, the rounded red metal plates and black undersuit hid her body entirely. The armor was very lightweight as Hunter armor went, and did not restrict her movement at all, in fact it enhanced it a great deal. This was due to the spinning rotors set into her joints, and to the thin but firm exoskeleton that ran up her spine and down her limbs. Though the armor made identifying her as a girl difficult without looking at her face, it was not overly bulky or heavy at all. It made no noise as she moved, and although lights were set into each joint and panel, they were only noticeable if you knew where to look for them.

She reached back down into the drawer and gently tugged a long red cloth from its depths. She gave a practiced whirl and wrapped it around herself, small fibers at her shoulders holding it in place. The cape reached down to her ankles.

Ruby's face was every bit that of a seventeen year old that thought that they looked pretty cool, but tried to pass off as effortless or casual. Her self control made a valiant stand against her excitement before being overpowered, and she jumped and hugged herself, twisting around and grinning.

"I'm a Huntress!" she proclaimed to the empty room, before dashing out the door to go show Yang.


Yang Xiao Long stood in her room listening to the distant noise of Ruby's capsule readying her for her first day as a real Hunter trainee. The eighteen year old stood wearing her own armor, her lavender gaze centered on a tall but simple mirror on the wall in her room. Unlike her sister, Yang's armor was very heavy and bulky. Her legs and torso were encased in huge gold metal slabs, red lights set in the hard surface shining like beacons. The suit was not the largest Hunters wore in the field, but it was the heaviest single unit armor issued to field operatives. The red regulator suit she wore beneath the plating was still visible through the cracks in the armor, though there were far fewer than in Ruby's. The exoskeleton between her and the armor was thicker, and the rotors were more powerful. If subtle had an opposite, this suit was that very concept made manifest. The suit had no helmet, and Yang's long golden yellow hair flowed down the back of it.

She grinned and flexed the suit's arm. She was quite proud of the armor, and it had taken her quite a while to get to this point. Despite being one year older, Yang was still entering Beacon alongside her sister as a freshman. Due to her semblance, an inner flame that increased her physical prowess and produced heat directly proportional to the amount of kinetic energy she absorbed, she had been a "hard girl to shop for" as her father had put it.

Most armor simply broke the second she'd try to use it, just from the sheer strain of having her inside, and most weapons would crumple in her hands when she struck.

Her father Tai Yang Xiao Long was a smith that specialized in creating hunter armor, and was the only reason she and her sister had access to Hunter Capsules and armor in the first place.

Not a man to take a challenge lying down, Tai had taken one full year to specially design a full suit of armor that could facilitate her semblance.

In addition, Yang herself had undergone intense training and a couple of procedures to ensure that her semblance was firmly under her control. A neural implant embedded in the base of her spine enabled her to interface directly with the armor, allowing her movements to be in sync with armor's motions. This was so that the heavy metal suit did not make her sluggish in combat.

Her bones, muscles, skin, and hair had been treated with a coating of microscopic synthetic cells to make her very durable, allowing her to take the weight of the semblance and the armor.

Finally, she had devoted a large amount of her time to strength and endurance training, as well as mental conditioning to bind her semblance to trigger with anger. This allowed her more control by making her semblance an actual presence in her mind so that she could channel it more effectively.

She turned toward the doorway of her room, having heard the capsule finish its work on her sister. A red blur flew into her room and stopped just short of colliding with Yang, though the older girl didn't flinch.

Firstly, growing up with Ruby had taught her to be used to her excitable little sister's speed semblance. Secondly, if they had collided Yang probably wouldn't have budged.

"Yang! We're going to Beacon! This is it! We're gonna-" Ruby began pouring words from her mouth at such a rate that even her incredible talking speed proved inadequate to communicate her excitement, and her expression of it devolved into happily bouncing in place.

"Woah woah woah, calm down Rubes, you're gonna wake Zwei up!" Yang said, grinning at the sight of her exuberant sibling. Her bubbling good nature never failed to make her smile.

She gripped Ruby by the shoulders to firmly ground her until her bouncing subsided.

Both girls looked each other up and down, enjoying the moment.

Yang ruffled her sister's hair and laughed lightly, "The grimm better look out! My widdle sister is gonna get em!"

Ruby crossed her arms and pouted, "Yang! You can't do that voice anymore! I'm a huntress, not a little kid," she huffed.

Yang met her gaze and smiled, "Ruby, I've seen you grow up so much since Dad brought you here, no one knows better than me that you are gonna be the best huntress ever! But no matter what you kill, you'll always be my widdle sister who likes strawberries and bedtime stories."

"Thanks Yang." Ruby said, her cheeks taking on a light pink flush at the sudden honest support from her usually wisecracking older sister.

"Anywho, I hope we end up on the same team!" Ruby said. "It would be so much fun, and it makes sense cuz we've been practicing fighting together since Signal. We could be some sort of awesome, badass huntress sister duo!"

"Ehhh, I don't know," Yang drawled playfully. "I think a pipsqueak like you would only slow me down"

"Yang!" Ruby whined, pouting again. Yang laughed and smiled. "Just kidding ya Rubes, it would be pretty awesome to be on a team together."

"Well, I certainly hope my girls don't plan on leaving without saying goodbye to their good ole' dad!" A deep voice announced from the doorway.

Tai Yang Xiao Long stood in the doorway, wearing a dark blue jumpsuit with a tool belt, huge yellow goggles, blacksmith's gloves, a long apron made of durable fibers, and the wide smile of a proud parent. His hair was short and grey, but his eyes were a vibrant shade of purple similar to Yang's.

"No Dad, never." Yang said, stepping forward and gently hugging her father. Ruby jumped up and kissed her father lightly on the cheek before hugging both of them, to the extent that she could reach.

"I love you Dad," Ruby said, "I'll miss you."

"No you won't, you'll make all new Hunter friends and forget all about your poor old man," her father teased.

" No way!" Ruby yelled, hugging her father tighter.

"Aright aright, Hunter lesson number one sport: Be careful hugging people in power armor" Tai wheezed. "Oops!" Ruby said, letting go of her father quickly.

"We really will miss you Dad" Yang said.

"Yeah!" Ruby chimed in.

"Okay okay, I'll miss you too girls." He replied. The three began to tear up slightly as they ended the hug.

Tai sniffled dramatically, drawing a laugh from his children. "Aright, you'd better head out. Get there first and scope out the competition. Make me proud!"

"We will!" The girls replied in honest unison. Tai pulled a small lever in the wall of Yang's room, causing the back wall to pull open like a garage door. The modification had been made to allow Yang to leave the house without decimating the doorways.

The young warriors walked out the opening into the fresh Vale morning sun. It was past dawn now, the sky a faint blue and the sun shining brightly from just over the horizon. The wispy clouds were few and far between.

A small shape slowly became visible in the distance. As it grew closer it became apparent what it was. A small silver aircraft with slim wings, a streamlined chassis, and large hover engines on the wingtips and under the craft itself. Green highlighted lines connected the engines to a large tank embedded at the back of the craft, and long thin energy weapons were positioned like squared shoulders hanging off the side of the main body.

"Woah." Ruby said in a voice that held nothing but pure childlike wonder. "Ride's here sis!" Yang said loudly, despite the silence of the approaching craft's engines.

The airship touched down on the ground a short distance from the humble dwelling, on a pad in the center of the road.

The words "Beacon Academy" could be seen painted on the body of the ship in green letters.

The sisters walked toward the vehicle, Yang's armor whirring and clanking.

The side of the craft hissed open to reveal two large grey hunter capsules.

Both sisters climbed up and into the airship and waved as the cylinders slid shut.

The side slid shut and the craft lifted off noiselessly.

Inside the house, a proud father quietly gave voice to his hope that the maiden in white was watching their daughters proudly, from wherever she was now. A single tear carved a damp forlorn path from his eye to his silver mustache, before it was wiped away.