Cinder had never understood why so many people hated the winter.
Many a normal person saw these bleak months as a time of cold, death and darkness.
Winter was the domain of the ancient enemy of Humanity, the black beasts of the Grimm. Evil creatures that lurked in the shadows of the world they called Remnant. Monsters that hunted eternally for the foul emotions that propagated in the souls of men and women.
To Cinder the fresh white snow blanketing their little world represented a clean slate. A new tapestry waiting for the hand of an artist. A chance to begin again after whatever mistakes had scared the warmer months.
It was a transitory time, for even as the world seemed to die there would be new life to come.
It was a beautiful night in the highlands of southern Atlas. The great and mighty northern bastion of civilization that so professed to be the greatest kingdom on Remnant. Cinder was alone in this, her own private room at the edge of this small log cabin resort village. The various people that she had come to meet with had left for the night to contact their supporters abroad. Or were otherwise engaged with normal nighttime activities.
So there she sat on a wooden rocking chair, her silk like black hair brushed back and running down her shoulders. Idly smoothing down the dress she wore, a garment that appeared like woven fire. While she cast her amber eyes out through the glass doors leading to her snow covered balcony and out into the coniferous trees swaddled in the darkness of the night. Savoring her solitude.
While Cinder did enjoy the season she saw no need to be out in the deathly cold at this time of night, unlike her two protégées Mercury Black and Emerald Sustrai. Two more of the many lost souls she had come across. Ones with skills that merited a more personal touch to harness towards her goals. Who were together spending a few days out in the wilderness as part of further "training".
Cinder had honestly just grown tired of their company and so convinced them that their survival skills were sorely lacking in a few departments. And they were to spend a few days out in the wilds. Meanwhile she met with members of the radical White Fang. Humans did not walk this world alone, and the history of Humanity here was also the history of the Faunus.
People in every way, shape and form but for the features of animals they had been born with for as long as any could remember. This heritage that set them far apart from the rest of the so called civilized peoples to be downtrodden, exploited and oppressed. Eventually there came those of their race who sought to take a firmer grip on the destiny of their own species the Faunus. Terrorists to some, freedom fighters to others, the White Fang were the exact group she needed for her plans. They along some other necessary but unsavory characters from other parts of Vale and the other three kingdoms. For no one on the side of law and order dared upset the status quo. She had summoned to this icy place to finalize plans she had for the near future.
Cinder sighed quietly looking out at the stars. Letting herself relax after many days of grueling negotiations. Taking in the wonder of this place so far away from any large city and the choking lights they held. There were more stars here than she had ever seen before. The galaxy and all its wonders tempting her to dream. It was a rare moment of tranquility in Cinder's chaotic life, she chose to savor while she could.
However her small moment of peace was soon interrupted
Light split open the heavens above her. A new unexpected borealis cut across the night sky.
It was far from an unpleasant surprise. Cinder had been hoping to see one of the fabled light shows on this trip, but had so far been disappointed.
The locals however had not done this display justice with their description. There were no restless and free blue green waves drifting the darkness.
When the preliminary flash had faded away a much more majestic column of red and purple fire spilled from the void of space tall in the night sky.
It took her breath away looking at this wild and fierce burn driving a false day over the mountain range. The sky seemed to boil around the simmering edges of this strangle mesmerizing thing.
And it seemed that was not the only surprise that the night held.
As a comet streaked out of the fiery pillar and sailed down toward the greater mountains on the horizon.
3 days later
Mercury was miserable when he was cold and when he was miserable he complained, he complained a lot. And Emerald couldn't decide whether this was preferable to his normal shady snarkiness and just irritating demeanor as they trudged through the snowy forests. Hearing her compatriot mutter curses to himself.
"So I mean this with no respect at all," Mercury began out loud, as he hiked up his coat collar one more time.
"If you want something done right…" She said trying to stop the coming tirade she knew she wouldn't.
His rebuttal was swift, "Shouldn't have had to work that hard to burn water,"
"I'm not here to learn how to field cook,"
"Yes you are."
"No I'm not,"
"Then why did Cinder send us out here? Oh right! Survival training. Which happens to include,"
Emerald cut her partner off, "Don't think,"
And was cut off in return, "Yeah yeah I know."
He resumed mumbling to himself about something or other again, wet boots, hunger, Emerald didn't know. And she didn't care either as long as he was paying attention while taking the lead. She would ignore his whining. Even as her own green hair and sweaty clothes were plastered to her dark skin. Mercury's own gray hair doing the same to his pale flesh.
This little exercise hadn't been all that bad in her opinion. They had fire when they needed and good thick winter clothing. Nothing had attacked them and neither of them tripped and sprained an ankle or something else embarrassing.
Emerald just didn't appreciate the way that she got grouped together with Mercury in every way possible in Cinder's eyes. Meaning that whenever the idiot pissed off Cinder in some way. Emerald had to share his punishment.
And thanks to however he had irked their teacher this time. Emerald assumed the boy had, else why would they have been so decisively banished from the resort on this little quaint little nature hike through one of the most dangerous forests on the planet. During one of the most hostile times of the year. However, Emerald would never dare question what Cinder had in mind for them. She owed the woman everything. And so did Mercury.
Rounding another bend on a downward sloping path Mercury suddenly shut up and knelt down in the snow.
"Look, blood trail." Mercury said, reaching out to the ground in front of him.
"What?" Emerald asked.
He ignored her, "Fresh too."
"It's probably an animal." She countered.
"With a print like that?" The boy asked in reply, pointing towards the tracks in question.
A set of very human footprints was pressed deep into the fresh snow. Of a decent size Emerald could see. Bigger than her own at least. There upon deducing it couldn't be a child, so either an adult or older teen. Emerald squinted, taking a closer look.
"No shoes, must be a hermit running for help. Definitely going to have frostbite if they didn't have time to dress properly." She mused.
To their left several snapped branches in the tree line indicated that the stranger had not known about the path or was in too much of a hurry to care.
And without a hint of hesitation Mercury turned from the path to follow the signs of damage. Unbelieving the assassin's son having a pure intent, Emerald stepped in front of him,
'Where do you think you're going?" She demanded.
"After our lost friend," He replied. "This is the first interesting thing that has happened all week."
"We're supposed to be back in town by tomorrow," Emerald tried to say, directing him back to their task. "If we keep going we can make it by dark."
"Yeah we have plenty of time."
"We don't know who this is, a pack of Beowolves or who knows what could be through there."
'Exactly I'm bored as hell."
"That's your excuse to go tearing off into the woods for a complete stranger. You've never had a sympathetic hair on your head. Why do you care?"
Mercury leaned in close. He was taller than Emerald by more than a head. She couldn't help but tense up defensively.
He soon spoke, his breath hot on her face, "Really Emerald. You want to waste this opportunity?"
She did not reply. Now confused as to just what he meant.
A smile split his face, "Don't tell me you just want to walk back to town with nothing but frostbite to show for all our trouble. You want to be able to tell Cinder something impressive. That we showed a little initiative. A little spine, don't you? Give her a good, exciting story of our time outside?"
She remained silent, chewing over his words
"Right," Emerald finally answered, not more than a little trepid at disobeying their mistress even with the best intentions. "We don't want to have a boring story."
"Swell," Mercury said with a grin as he pushed her aside and disappeared into the brush. Emerald soon took off after him.
An hour later after following the slowing path of destroyed forest, blood and footprints grouped closer together. They finally found who they were pursuing.
But all of their theorizing could not have prepared them for what waited behind the trees.
The tall and heavily muscled back of a Human being faced the two of them. This figure sat on a fallen tree in the middle of a snowy clearing. Short dark hair, broad shoulders and the deep hisses of air drawn in pain hinted at a male. A male who at the moment seemed unaware of their presence. Busy trying to scrub blood off of his left shoulder with a piece of tattered cloth that was also partially wrapped around his body.
Emerald quickly noted he wasn't just lacking shoes. The poor garment which she could certainly guess wasn't truly meant to be clothing did not cover up enough of his skin in certain places for her to see that was the only thing that he was technically wearing. It was really some manner of tarp draped over the right side of his body. Moved to allow access to whatever thing he was attending to on his own flesh.
Aside from that he was naked as newborn, which let the companions see the deep slash marks from claws and other minor scrapes which must have been from branches covering his marbled back. He appeared to be a surprisingly healthy color, not at all affected by the cold. No obvious signs of frostbite or hypothermia that they could see from afar. He carried no wrinkles of age or wear from a life of hardship on his flesh. His skin that wasn't covered in dirt was the perfect complexion models fanatically strived to keep. It did not appear real, but Emerald could only accept it was.
As Emerald and Mercury approached, this stranger heard something he deemed suspicious behind him. And like a lightning bolt suddenly stood up and faced the two of them. Clutching what looked like half a jaw bone from some predator in his right hand.
Brandishing it like a knife.
She couldn't help but gasp.
He was just a boy.
There was a wild look in his eyes, colored a flame like shade one might have found in a pit of embers or a glistening tropical fruit. Dirt and mud slathered over his powerful body, cords of muscles wrapped around long limbs bent in preparation to be used. But now Emerald saw he wasn't so towering as she assumed, she had definitely met larger people. More cuts earned from the rough path through the forest were evident next to other rough lacerations that had caked over with dried blood. Except for his face which had the supple smoothness of youth.
But twisted into the visage of a feral animal. About to be backed into a corner. Buried instincts in Emerald screamed at her to stop. To leave well enough alone with this thing before her.
The two stopped dead in their tracks. Emerald raised both of her hands, not wanting to alarm the stranger primed for violence any further.
"It's okay! We just want to help." She called.
No sign of understanding crossed his face and the boy began to step back into the trees.
Nonplussed, Mercury meanwhile, threw up his left hand to shield his own gray eyes, "Yeesh, that's not a level of naked I was expecting today."
"Mercury put your hands up and talk with him." Emerald whispered, angling her head to try and maintain eye contact with the stranger.
Her partner huffed slightly, "Why? He's gonna run."
"And we need to stop him."
"No we don't."
"You just said we needed something impressive to show Cinder,"
"Yeah, not something this... Weird."
A mere fraction of a second passed between those last words Mercury had spoken in their burgeoning debate, and the snapping motion of the stranger punching his arm forward like a missile.
And the blur of the bone knife flashing a hair's breadth away from Emerald's left ear. The projectile's wake slapped against her face making her blink in reflex. And her heart began to pound with adrenaline as she then reached for her weapons.
Before a harsh wet thud and a squeal of shock sounded behind the two young Hunters alerting them the jaw bone had found its mark.
The throat of a monster lurking at their backs.
Mercury turned like a striking serpent. No hesitation in snapping a kick at the thing that was waiting. Too far away to actually strike.
But well within range of the blaster set in his boot heel.
The harsh crack echoed out and rolled back over them by the time Emerald had turned.
And seen the Grimm.
Emerald knew it had to be one of the monsters. But of what kind she did not.
Black fur rolled over a quadrupedal body the size of a draft horse, low to the ground. A lithe tail flashed back and forth, both covered by a smattering of armored bone plates sticking blending perfectly with the white snow.
Claws curled and gouged down in pain from the stranger's attack, tearing soil. Red pupiless eyes narrowed in unfathomable rage.
Eight eyes in total.
Divvied between three heads.
Finally Emerald's hands found her weapons. A pair of long pistols strapped to the small of her back. Forgetting about the mystery of the stranger. A Grimm was hostile and needed to be dealt with, no question about it.
One of the three heads slumped to the ground, the bone so deep it must have severed whatever the monster called a spine. Black smoke spilled out from the wound, the essence of the thing leaking out like blood.
One of its clawed feet made to grip and remove the offending object. Before it raised that same claw to block some of the hard punching projectiles Emerald unleashed. More echoes of gunfire hitting the slopes and cliffs of the nearby valleys.
Mercury bunched his legs and leapt close nearly upon the beast, slamming down a foot from the zenith of his acrobatic tumble. Pounding down like a sledgehammer on the left most head. Driving it into the snow. Emerald adjusted her aim and stitched a line of puncture wounds along that serpentine neck to its armored chest.
As she shot at the beast a new chill ran over Emerald's body and soul shielding aura. An unconscious freeze telling that something had passed dangerously close to her body unseen and with lethal intent. A blur passed into her sight a heartbeat later. Emerald ceased fire in reflex.
Now seeing the stranger as he rushed in with blinding speed. Hammering his right fist into the alpha head with near perfect form. Throwing his whole weight behind the blow. Bone splinters from the now shattered mask flew away. His following blow from the left, a brutal uppercut into the things guts lifted all four clawed appendages from the ground.
His right hand was idle for only a moment. Coming down hard clamping behind the things canine ears while the left gripped tight in the depths of the Grimm's stomach.
The monster gave a terrible shriek, the last sound it would utter before the echoing reports of gunfire were consumed by the sound of snapping flesh and bone as the last head was torn free.
The dead carcass slumped limp to the ground. Already the foul matter began to smoke. Within a few minutes it would dissolve completely leaving nothing behind to suggest it had ever been. Such as the nature of these animals. One of the many mysteries the people of Remnant had yet to unravel.
Emerald had never seen such display from a Human. A quick and unsophisticated takedown with a ferocity she didn't think possible. It had all happened so fast.
"Thank you," She said to the stranger. Just a boy really she confirmed to herself seeing him up close now. "And here we thought we were going to help you."
He did not reply, a cold wind picked up. Brushing the tattered cloth he tried to pull down and salvage some of his decency. Coming down from an adrenaline high, she noticed the look of suspicion returning to the boy's face. He began to take back away again, quickly closing on the fallen tree that had served as his makeshift seat.
"Mercury," Emerald hissed.
"What?" Came his curt answer.
"Put, your, hands, up." She said. Punctuating every word.
With a resigned sigh Mercury finally raised his hands and tried to put on some sort of smile. Speaking as he did, "Alright weirdo take it easy."
Emerald took a few more steps forward and was almost within arm's reach.
"It's okay we're friends." She said, mainly a lie.
His piercing stare finally closed when all the hardship both Emerald and Mercury knew nothing about caught up with the boy. Tension left the boys muscles and he slumped back down onto the log.
He managed to look up at the other two as they approached. Still speaking between each other.
"Well what now?" Mercury asked,
Emerald shrugged, "I don't know… We'll just. We'll give him a hand and ask what the hell he's doing out streaking through the tundra."
"Oh yeah, great idea." His reply was laced with sarcasm,
Emerald elbowed him in the ribs, "Something interesting remember?"
Mercury took out their first aid kit and after spending a brief cautious second next to the practically nude other man in case this was all a ruse. Knelt down and began examining the bite mark.
"What's your name?" Mercury asked.
The boy turned his head toward Mercury but said nothing, just narrowing his eyes as if he did not understand.
"Do you speak Vytan?" Emerald asked.
Again the reply was silence, not a word of anything at all.
"Maybe he can't talk." The green haired girl suggested.
She reached into Mercury's bag and retrieved some of his spare clothes which only earned her a scowl from him. Emerald just smiled.
"You want to keep staring at all he's got to offer?" She asked playfully, "I think I misjudged you somewhat my friend."
Mercury just turned back to his work, scowling even worse. Producing a needle for stitching the puncture wounds closed.
When he made to drive the thin piece of steel through flesh. Instead found his hand wrapped and restrained in a flash. A new scowl covered the mysterious boy's face. His gaze flicked between the needle point and Mercury.
"Well he may not be sharp but he knows what's sharp." Mercury noted, flexing his captive fingers uncomfortably beneath the surprisingly strong grip. With his own free hand Mercury pinched one of the wounds. The boy flinched in pain.
"Easy, easy," Emerald said. Not quite in panic but definitely with some fear. Having just seen what those hand were capable of.
Mercury spoke, "We need to stop the bleeding. Understand?"
He dragged one of his gloved fingers through the blood trails on the boy's chest.
"This, no good." Mercury said. Trying to emphasize the meanings behind his words.
Glancing again back and forth between his wound and the needle, a realization occurred behind those bright eyes and he opened the powerful fingers and let Mercury resume his work.
Half an hour later they had treated the silent boy's wounds as best they could. Still not said a word had been spoken between the unlikely trio. Only more sucking air through his clenched teeth when disinfectant had to be applied on more cuts.
Once all Mercury and Emerald could do had been done. Including a frustrating few minutes of charades getting the boy to put some actual clothes on. There came the next challenge.
What were they going to do with him?
Mercury coughed into a fist before he spoke, "Think Cinder will consider this interesting enough?"
Emerald answered, "Are we really going to take this dolt with us?"
"I don't know," Mercury said. "Why don't we see what he has to say about it."
The kick fighter looked to the taller boy. Receiving a tilt of the head in response.
Emerald groaned in frustration. Still she figured it was only polite to ask. "Do you want to come with us? Back to town?"
Those eyes the color of sunset found Emerald's own red. Nothing was said between them.
Again she sighed, "Alright. Follow us."
With a solid push on the boy's arm, Mercury began to steer him back the way the three had come. And soon together they reached the lonely forest path and resumed their trek back to the village.
Both of Cinder's pupils continued questioning their new companion as they traveled. And still only got silence for an answer, but at the same time speculations ran wild in their heads.
"Who was this kid?"