A simple walk
prologue
one year ago.
It was the first day of the Vytal festival and the entire city of Vale was bustling with festival-goers from all across remnant. As the day went on more airships would arrive to drop off people going to attend the festival. On one of these ships, a boy about fifteen-year-old was sitting in an isolated corner waiting for the airship to land. At first glance, he wasn't very remarkable dressed in Grey short and baggy shorts and a beacon hoodie he got on-line and a pair of running shoes, and at 5,2 he wasn't very tall. However, if you took a good look at him, you could see hints of a devoted free runner and Parkour enthusiast. Furthermore, if you looked past his long messy brown hair that he let hang in front off his face when he wasn't out running, you could see his dark crimson eyes.
As the airship final docked with the station, the boy got up and headed down the ramp to the port and picked up his luggage in the form of a duffel bag before entering vale proper. Standing on the front steps of the airport while looking around the courtyard his eye landed on what appeared to by tallest structure in the area, a clock tower. Taking off at a brisk jog he shortly found himself standing at the foot of the clock tower where he quickly adjusted his duffel bag and tied his hair back before climbing up the tower. Once on top of the tower he surveyed the surrounding area looking for anything that might catch his attention. After a couple of minutes, he spotted a coliseum in the distance and wondered if he could see any of the fighters before the tournament could begin.
Taking another look around the boy saw that there was a metal cable that connecting the clock tower to a nearby building that he could use as a zip line. Quickly digging through his bag, he pulled out a climbing ax and walked over to the cable then used the ax to slide down to the next building rolling into a landing on the neighboring roof. Standing up and dusting himself off he swiftly made his way over to the Coliseum jumping from rooftop to rooftop before reaching his destination. Using a fire escape down to the ground level he approached the Coliseum to find that it had yet to opened and a crowd of both spectators and student from all four kingdoms had already started to gather.
Standing a good distance from the crowd the boys inner fanboy started to take over as he saw more and more of the contestants showed up. He had always been a fan of the huntsmen and huntresses seance he was little and the Vytal festival was one of the few times he had to see them in action. He was so caught geeking out that he barely heard the argument taking place behind him until one of theme nearly shouted.
"I told you we should have gotten here earlier!" said an uptight sounding female voice.
"Oh, calm down Weiss it not like getting here any earlier would have changed anything," said another female voice. "The Coliseum isn't even open yet."
He started to turning to see who these newcomers were, but he didn't get the chances as a massive explosion erupted from the Coliseum. The explosion knocking several people, including the boy, to the ground as debris started to rain down on everyone in the immediate area. With a loud ringing in his ears, the boy shakily got to his feet while trying to take in his surroundings. All around the Coliseum there was debris and the injured on the ground while less injured members of the crowd had already started to get to their feet stumble away with a few helping some of the more injured.
However, as smoke started to rise from the Coliseum a black mist also started to pour out of the building instantly enveloping those closest to the building. The crowd watched on in horror as those enveloped in the mist started to coughing up blood before falling to the ground in convulsion before finally going still. But it didn't end there as those affected by the mist started to get back up and staggered out of the cloud the first to emerge being an Atlas student. The student stood there with a lifeless expression while surprisingly still clutching his weapon then let out an inhuman screech and attacked a nearby student. And with that more of the infected emerge from the mist to savagely attack the crowd with whatever they had on hand including some the infected student using their semblance. After that people started to run from the attackers while the sound of screams mixed with the sound of explosions going off in the distance.
Frozen to the spot the boy could only stare on as fear took a hold of him even as one of the on of the infected ran towards him swinging a machete. Raising its weapon, the infected was only seconds away from ending him before a red blur tackled the infected to the ground knocking to machete from its hand. This seemed the snap him out of his trance and for reasons that he couldn't really explain he picked up the fallen machete before taking off himself. Ultimately he had no destination in mind, he just wanted to get as far away from the Coliseum as possible. But it didn't matter where he went he kept running into more of the black mist and infected eventually winding up in front of the clock tower. For whatever reason, the tower had been spared from the mass bombing that other landmarks in the city had suffered. And after a quick search he found that there was a door that led into the interior of the tower was lock shut by a rusty padlock.
The boy briefly thought that about moving on, but the sound of the infected screams getting louder drove him to action. Taking the machete, he hacked at the old lock with as much force as he could muster swinging away until it finally broke. With the lock broken he rushed through the door quickly slamming it shut behind him and barricading it with what look like a workbench before collapsing to the floor. It felt like he'd laid there for hours and he probably would have stayed like that if it hadn't had been for a burst of static from somewhere within the tower. After another burst of static, the boy got up to find the source of the noise only to determined that it was coming from somewhere above him.
Looking around he found a ladder leading up to a higher level of the tower partly hidden by a tarp. Removing the tarp from the ladder he climbed up to a higher platform that someone had turned into a small living area. There was an old recliner and coffee table stuffed into a corner and a desk with an old comm radio. Walking over to the radio it continued to cough out more static along with a stream of indecipherable words that seemed to loop. Sitting down at the desk the boy started to adjust the varies nobs on the radio to try to clear up the signal eventually getting a clearer signal.
"Hello, my name is Blake Belladonna are there any other survives out there, please respond. I repeat are there any other survivors out there," said a voice over the radio.
Quickly grabbing the radio mike and pressed the call button. "Hello! Hello, can you hear me.
"Yes! Yes, I can hear you do you have any other survivors with you" said Belladonna.
"No," said the boy.
"Oh," Belladonna said in a sad voice. "Well, are you at lease somewhere safe."
"I think so," said the boy looking down at the barricaded door.
"Well that's good to hear," she said. "My names Blake Belladonna by the way what's yours."
"oh yeah, my name is...
Present day
"...number five. Number five! Dude wake up!" came the voice of number fives dispatcher over the radio.
Jolting awake from his sleep number five slowly sat up in the recliner he calls a bed while rubbing his eyes before pointlessly giving an annoyed glance at the radio. Reluctantly he dragged himself out of his chair going over to the desk sitting down in front of the radio and switched on the mike.
"Alright Rose I'm awake," Five said with a yawn. "What's the order for today."
"The ice princess is running low on electric dust for the hospital keep," she said. "But before making the dust run you have to meat up with Runner Nine first. "
"Wait number nine's back," five said in shock.
There was a brief pause before Rose answered. "Unfortunately no, he's been missing for over a month now and a volunteered has stepped forward to replace him."
There was a brief silence as both Five and Rose knew that after anyone had gone missing for a month they were usually declared dead. And in the case of runners like number Five and Nine once their month was up they would be replaced once a volunteer stepped forwarder and took up their number.
"So where am I supposed to meet up with the new Number Nine," he said.
"She should be waiting for you at a shop called Tukson's Book Trade," Rose said.
"Alright I'll head out then, Five out," he said flipping off the mike.
Leaning back in his chair his thought once again drifted to Rose and how he really didn't know anything about her except for her name and even that was technically wrong. Both runners and their dispatchers never used their real name with Runners going by number and dispatchers using a call-sign. This was supposed to keep a runner and dispatcher from getting to attached to each other in case of their death, which was a depressingly high occurrence amongst runners, although that wasn't always the case. At first he had worked with Blake but after a while she started to take up other responsibility's and about ten months ago Rose took over as Five's dispatcher.
Standing up from the desk he picked up his duffel bag from the coffee table then grabbed the machete and climbing ax storing them in his bag and quickly throwing on his hoodie. Slinging the duffel bag over his shoulder he went over to the ladder and climbed up to a hatch that led to the top of the clock tower. Climbing up onto the roof he took a deep breath of the surprisingly cool crisp air as the sun started to rise. Walking over to the metal cabal Five quickly scanning the surrounding area checking for any infected only the see the regular debris filled streets with the hint of nature starting to reclaim the city. Seeing that the coast was clear Five took one more deep breath and used the cabal to slide down to a nearby rooftop and made his way to meet the new runner.