Rain poured all around her. Tsuruya rolled over and pushed herself up onto her feet. Standing up, she was completely drenched. She looked around to find herself in a ruined city, long-burning fires engulfing a building here and there. She couldn't begin to guess what had happened here. She made sure her sword was sheathed and fastened to her waist.
The man behind her, at least she assumed it was a man and not some evil creature, cleared his throat impatiently. "Ursa's almost here. I think we're going to have to fight it if we want to get away. And, of course, that fight will probably attract more Grimm. I hope you're ready for battle."
There was a word or two he had said that she wasn't certain of the meaning of, but when she thought about it in context she figured that he might be referring to something like the wolf-monster she had encountered before. She drew her sword. "I'm ready."
That seemed to satisfy him, as he turned away from her to looked down towards the end of the alley. Then, coming from around the corner of a ruined building, a giant bear-like monster appeared. It had the same look as the wolf from before, so she determined that they were indeed similar, with the bony protrusions and mask and the red lines on its face. The bear, Ursa, whatever, was much bigger. She could see that there were huge spikes on its back as well. It didn't look like an easy kill.
The man jumped at the Ursa, just barely dodging a sudden swipe from the beast's paw. He drew his sword in an instant and slashed it across the monster's face. It fell back, roaring in pain, but jumped back to the fight immediately. The man landed, quickly rolling out of the way of another strike. He slashed at the beast's paw as he went, causing more pain.
Tsuruya wanted to help, but she wasn't sure where to start. She didn't even know what she was up against. Sure, she had killed the wolf-creature, but she had no basis for any sort of concept of the power gap between the two monsters. While she was hesitating, thinking through her options and capabilities, the Ursa got a hit in on the man. He was sent flying and crashing into the wall, and then slumped to the ground. The Ursa lumbered toward him on its hind legs, moving in for the kill.
No time left to think, Tsuruya shouted at the monster. No clue if it could understand her, she shouted the first thing that came to mind in her English vocabulary. "Hey! Look at me, dweeb!" The Ursa turned to look at her, so she continued. "Yeah, that's right! Come and get me, dork!"
It was a success, to whatever degree it could be considered, as the giant black monster left the man behind and headed for her instead. She drew her sword, totally not ready for fighting something this big, but not about to let the first person she met in another world get eaten. As it got nearer to her, she had to admit that she had no idea how to fight something like this. Now standing over her, the Ursa roared down at her.
Tsuruya rolled her eyes. "Ah... damn it all."
A second before it would have brought its large clawed paw down on top of her, a dark figure streaked through the air over its head, landed on top of the white bony mask, and drove a long sword blade through the top of its skull. The tip of the blade poked out the bottom of the the Ursa's jaw. The beast fell forward, and if it weren't for her having jumped away to dodge its attack, she would have been crushed under its weight.
The man, no worse for wear, stepped down from the beast's head and sheathed his sword. "You don't have any combat experience, do you?"
Tsuruya watched the corpse of the Ursa as it began to disintegrate, black smoke coming off of the body. She shook it off and turned back to the man. "Combat? Uh, yes... but not against something like that. My father taught me how to fight... people."
He shook his head. "Alright, well, we'd better get moving or you're going to end up with a crash course in fighting Grimm. Follow me, and be quick. We've got maybe half an hour before nightfall, and the bullhead will have to abandon the rendezvous point ten minutes before that."
Tsuruya put her sword away and dusted her school uniform off. She chided herself for going on this trip in such an unfitting costume, but it was too late to change into something better. "How far away is that?" It was best not to ask questions, except for the obvious ones.
He grimaced. "Fifteen to twenty minutes away if we go fast."
And with that, he was off running. Tsuruya started off after him, and she was glad that she was at the top of her track class. If she hadn't been so good at sports, she would have lost him in an instant. If she hadn't had such great stamina, she would have gradually lost him. As they ran through abandoned streets, everything looking like it hadn't seen life in years, she spotted the sun on the horizon. It was almost gone from view.
The turned a corner, and when Tsuruya followed the bullhead came into view. It looked close to a helicopter, except had two jet engines sticking off the sides instead of a propeller. Her first thought was that it was really cool, and her second thought was that she wanted one, but then she stopped. The man jumped in through the door on the side of the vehicle, then turned and motioned for her to follow. She was distracted by a massive shape in the air above them.
She pointed up at the shadowy figure. "What the hell is that?"
The man shouted over the sound of the bullhead's engines. "It's a Nevermore! We need to get out of here before more of them show up!"
Looking back down, she jumped in and joined him. He smacked the wall behind the pilot, and the bullhead took off. Tsuruya watched the gigantic bird flying past them as they moved away from the city. It was heading over the city, which was a relief. It was much bigger than the wolf creature or even the Ursa. She couldn't help but wonder if anyone was capable of fighting something like that.
She could see the city now. Whereas she might have expected smoke rising from the ruined buildings, there wasn't any. It had burned for so long, it was a wonder there were still fires burning there. It was a scene of total devastation. She could tell it had once been a thriving city, but now it was all gone.
"I'm Adam, by the way."
She turned to the man standing beside her in the bullhead. "Adam?"
He nodded. "Adam Taurus. Head of the Beacon Rangers." It sounded impressive, though she wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but her face showed that she understood. He pointed to her. "Now it's your turn."
She shook her head, trying to clear it of all the strange thoughts that were running through her mind. "Call me Tsuruya."
"Okay then."
There was silence for a moment before Tsuruya nodded towards the city. "What happened here? What are those things?"
He shot her a look that left no doubt in her mind her thought she was brainless for not already knowing. "Where have you been for the last three years? Those things are Grimm. Nevermore, Ursa, Beowolf, and the list goes on for miles. They've always been outside the borders of the four kingdoms. I guess they finally decided they wanted in."
Tsuruya had to shout over the engines so he could hear her. "I ran into a big werewolf-looking thing just before we met. I managed to kill that one."
Adam looked interested for a bit, before nodding as if that was expected. "Beowolf. They're big, but not so big that you can't fight them the same way you would a person. Usually, anyway. You really don't know anything about the Grimm?"
She shook her head. "Nothing besides what you've already told me."
"Huh..." He took a deep breath. "Well, no one really knows where they came from, but they've been there for as far back as history can recall. So far as we know, their driving instinct is to kill Humans and Faunus and destroy anything we've made. They don't need to eat, but they eat people simply because they want to. We can't really study them either, because they begin to disintegrate as soon as they die. Before the attack, trained huntsmen and huntresses would write volumes of books about all the different known types of Grimm. New types would be discovered literally any time someone went outside the kingdoms. But that's all in the past. Vale fell, and we have no way of knowing if the other kingdoms survived."
There was a lot he had said that she didn't understand, but she assumed it was because he was assuming she knew stuff about this world when she really didn't. She had to figure out a way to get him to explain from the start, but as she was thinking on this something caught her eye. As the sun was setting, she saw what looked like a castle. A huge building on the edge of a cliff, with a river running around it and pouring over the cliff in a magnificent waterfall. It was beautiful where the last rays of sunlight hit it, but she imagined it would look dark and foreboding if the storm clouds were stretching all the way to the horizon and blocking the sun. It would look that way regardless in a few minutes.
Adam leaned around her, taking in the sight himself. "That's Beacon Academy. Once home to hundreds of huntsmen and huntresses in training. Now its walls serve as the last line of defense from the Grimm, protecting all of the remaining population of Vale, as well as a number of people who were visiting from the other kingdoms at the time. The Grimm attacked in the middle of the Vytal Cultural Festival, and other schools like Beacon had sent their students here for the event. As a result, the number of people still living in there is pretty large, but it makes a lot of us wonder if there's anyone left alive in the other kingdoms."
Tsuruya wanted to say something, to clear something up. Unfortunately, her question was based on something she misunderstood. She didn't know what a Faunus was, or even that it was a thing, so she thought he had said 'fauna' instead. "Those monsters... the Grimm. They looked like animals to me. Why do they attack other animals?"
Adam didn't catch her misunderstanding, and so took the question at face value. "They normally don't. Usually, Grimm and normal animals just leave each other alone. They get into territorial fights from time to time, and that could go either way with a smaller Grimm, but the bigger ones just make animals run and hide. And a lot of Grimm may look like animals, but they aren't. You'll understand it when you see some of the uglier ones. Animals, and Humans and Faunus, have souls. We can tell something has a soul if it has an aura. Grimm don't have aura. They're soulless."
She caught it that time. He had said 'Faunus' separately from animals. That had to mean something. "Wait, what's a..." She noticed the horns on his head again. "Faunus? Are you a Faunus?"
He looked disturbed. "What, you couldn't tell?"
She had no choice but to shake her head again. "I... I've never met a Faunus before."
Adam grimaced. "Well, before we start being friends or anything, I think you should know I used to be a high-ranking member of the White Fang. I'm not exactly a nice person, so don't go getting any ideas."
Tsuruya offered him a smile. "Aww, don't say that. You're... you're the nicest Faunus I've ever met."
He groaned, and she sensed he was rolling his eyes. She had just said she'd never met a Faunus before. "That'll change next one you meet, which will be as soon as we land if you stick around to say hello to the pilot."
She felt bad for him, and a bit guilty for not explaining her situation sooner, but she figured it would be best if she wait and find out who could take a story like hers. The bullhead swung in low over Beacon Academy, as if it were in a hurry, and flew into a hangar. The large hangar doors closed behind them, sealing them off from the night. There was no going back now... for now. She had at least the night to find someone who would believe her, albeit ridiculous, story.
Adam jumped out onto the hangar floor and turned to her. "Well, here we are. Our home, and now yours too. Welcome to Beacon."
She sincerely hoped this place wouldn't really end up being her home for any length of time.
Author's note: So now you know. But we still don't know what all happened here, and it's going to be quite the mystery to solve. Trust me, it'll be a big one. All you have to do to figure out what's wrong is count the characters as they appear. Someone will be missing who should not be missing. You'll find out soon enough.