Three years ago, more than a dozen airships bearing the White Fang's emblem appeared above Beacon academy. In less than a few seconds of appearing, and before we could act on the situation, they began to open fire on us.

Really it wasn't even a battle. Our shuttles were public class with standard weapons going up against military grade ships. And just like all the other hunter schools at that time, Beacon had no real defenses for an attack of this nature. In fact they didn't even bother sending down ground troops. After they destroyed our shuttles, they just started firing at the school directly...endlessly...

...It all happened so fast, and we lost so many of the students and faculty in those few seconds...Though not all.

For in the chaos of the attack, I was able to round up a small team of teachers and forth year students to try and draw away the heaviest of the fire. Some were even able to take down a ship or two, and Professor Goodwitch herself was able to board the enemy flagship and confront the man leading the attack. A mister, Roman Torchwick; Though that fact remains largely unknown to the majority of the public.

Meanwhile, I had the responsibility to save as many people as I could. And there was only one way. I had decided the only thing I could do to save as many as possible, was to start "The Last Light contingency". A secret so great, that all headmasters of Beacon must take it to their graves.

You see, there are in fact, two, sides to Beacon. One, built right on top of the other. They were built around the same time, and built back when it was possible that the Grimm could launch a large scale attack and possibly overrun the above ground school.

But I digress. I opened the secret entrance into this other Beacon, and with the help of the surviving faculty, we were able to save quite a few surviving students. Then once our team of distractions regrouped with us, we closed off the entrance and left it closed. We couldn't risk anyone going back up to the surface, so there we all waited in darkness. All of us were tense and terrified that they'd find us, or that they'd blast their way through to us.

We all waited until the attack was well over, and we waited still even after the world had proclaimed there were no survivors. And after so long in waiting, sending several faculty members out to discretely gather all this information and rations they could, we had to make the tough call of staying down in Last Light indefinitely. I felt that if we released anyone, every one of us would be hunted down. For this was an act of war. The White Fang, the extremist group, had now elevated to a world threat by joining forces with the last of the Torchwick clan; the cultists of the Grimm. They had declared war on us, and on hunters everywhere.

And as it turns out, I wasn't the only one to think of this. For we heard news that the other three hunter schools; and even some of the combat schools; were entering lockdowns and were ordering combat droids and defenses. For it was all we could do; All any of us could've done at that time...

...I suppose I should explain a bit.

Since the original forming of huntsmen and huntresses, it was decreed that hunters are knights for no kingdom. We are the light to face the darkness of the Grimm. We may represent our kingdoms and our culture, but we are not to fight for them or be involved with their politics. We are the keepers of peace.

Though the problem with being a group of warriors for so long, is that the world and people change. Suddenly, good ideas of the past, seem like injustices in the present. People get different ideas on what "keepers of peace" really stands for. And I'll be the first to admit, we are only human after all; metaphorically speaking anyway; and hunters can be corrupted.

So nowadays, hunters have rules as to what decrees as a "threat" to the peace. Laws set long ago by Atlas after the Torchwick clan had been originally defeated, when I suppose the world truly realized how powerful hunters were; How effective we are at eliminating whatever we deem as a threat.

To summarize the laws: like before, hunters cannot be involved in wars. Though they added to it, saying that during times of war, no hunter is allowed in any city unless under special circumstances. Hunters are not to pursue any threat that is not contained to the Grimm, or only if they are asked personally by higher powers. And, no hunter may enter a higher position of power unless they were in a state of power first, and/or under special conditions.

Now some of you have just come to live with these "guidelines", not knowing of any other. But for the people who'd lived by old codes...it was a hard adjustment.

Keeping all that in mind, you can imagine our current situation. With constantly changing laws and rules, we were all stuck in limbo. We were faced with a threat against us that we could not fight, but was determined to destroy us at any cost. Our only hope was to wait for the four kingdoms to come to our aid, and then wait out the conflict. However...our hopes quickly faded when we received news that Atlas ruled against any higher action on the White Fang. As it would have been a violation of the treaty with the Faunus, and it would've started another war. It was then I realized, we were on our own.

So, I told whatever remained of our outside people to disappear and to try and forget. And as for the rest of us, I had to break the news to the students. We were all going to have to stay down there for... an even longer time; and no one would be allowed to leave without my say so. And while there were some arguments, I made it very clear that we had no choice.

I also made it clear that... since no one is going to help us... we were going to fight this threat ourselves.

No one had any more objections after that.

Cut to about two years later, and we've formed quite the resistance group.

The first year consisted mainly of modernizing Last Light and repairing the countless years of neglect. Not to mention making it mostly self sustaining. Luckily Last Light has countless different Dust mines to help us in every way. And now we've made it so the only reason for anyone to leave at this point , is to go and get supplies we can't produce. Mainly from robbing our enemies and pirates.

Now the second year was when we could finally start fighting back. We were sending operatives for undercover work or for covert operations against Grimm threats, the White Fang, or any issue we felt needed our attention. Of course, you can't fight a war without help from the outside. So while half of our remaining staff and fourth years stayed in Last Light, I had released the other half to go out into other schools and different places around the world under new identities to look for recruits.

Though for awhile, the problem arose of how to keep in contact with all of these operatives scattered around the world. We couldn't have someone running all over to keep tabs, and we couldn't use the traditional methods to that extent, otherwise the enemy might catch on. That is until one our teacher aids came up with a crazy enough scheme, that just might work.

His plan involved recruiting artists, singers, and many others with cultural influence, and getting them to make pieces that would give the enemy and the general public no reason to be suspicious. But to us and our operatives, these would have a hidden meaning or message. Of course we still use radio and other traditional means to stay in contact, but we try to not make risks we're not comfortable making.

Which, now brings us to Vale, and right now.

We got a tip from one of our major spies that a major assault was being planned on Vale. And unfortunately, I underestimated how fast or even if the enemy could commence such a large scale attack. By the time we learned the truth, there seemed to be no way of stopping it. We didn't have the numbers, the weapons, or even the ability to gather a force or alert the world quickly enough to stop it.

All we could do was prepare for the worst, and try to help out as best we could. This was going to be the day we'd reveal ourselves to the world again. This, was to be the day when we fought for what remained of Vale.

But then a miracle happened. A miracle I feel no one on either side could've predicted.

Four children, unknowingly, saved us all.