There was the smell of burning wood and smoke all around, mixing with the decay of Grimm and human bodies to make a horrid stench. There was a large estate ablaze, windows shattered, and the roof beginning to collapse downward. Large red-orange flames rose from inside and out, black smoke billowing upward and tainting the starry sky. It felt so hot, even with the wall of fire being several meters away. But the worst possible part of it all was the sound. It wasn't the crackling of the fire or the various materials falling, but the screams. Grimm howling and roaring, people crying out in fear and terror before one or multiple were silenced at once. Those wails weren't all that close, but they were audible…just enough to be noticed and digested. Trying to move was impossible, simply being stuck in one spot and unable to do anything- to save anybody. But the worst wasn't that- it was when turning around. A man he had never seen before wielded a blade to slash at the eyes, a red flash of light and a loud pained scream. Only then would the dream end, and he would awake in his bed.
It didn't matter if he had slept more or less hours than normal, if he had gone to the bathroom or not, even if he had fallen asleep in class. It always ended the same- that scream and the flash. There was no real memory associated with it, just a recurring dream that seemed to always wake him.
Lance was breathing heavily, having just gone through the process of his nightmare again. He panned his head around his room in a daze, trying to gain focus of where he was- making sure he was still where he thought he was. Of course, he was still there in his dormitory room. Dirty clothes scattered on the floor, books arranged messily on shelves or the desk, and a half-eaten can of beans just sitting on the desk as well. The window next to him was partially opened and let air sweep itself into the room, bringing forth the scent of the morning into Lance's nose. It was rather refreshing after having the smell of burning wood and death being placed in his head as a result of his nightmare. Not to mention, seeing sunlight also calmed him- never been one to stay up late.
He would groan and sit up in his bed, allowing two large appendages adorned in dirty black feathers with some splotches of white to unfurrow from his back. Unlike most people, Lance was a Faunus- one with a rare and mostly undocumented trait of separated wings. Most avian Faunus had their arms be wings, have a beak, or even have talons for feet. Lance, however, was a special case and had a third set of limbs. He still wasn't sure why he was the only one who had them…
That dream….every time… the young brown-haired man would wake up in the middle of the night or sleep past sunrise due to the series of events that played through his head, his scroll rang out with a call. He lazily pawed his hand at it from the bedside table, eventually getting a grip on it and opened it to answer the call.
"Hello…?" he said hoarsely, pinching the bridge of his nose and rubbing near his caruncles to hopefully get the sleep from him.
"Good morning, mister Trylmien," responded a female voice. To Lance, that voice was very familiar…one he dreaded hearing call him. That dreadful voice and tone was that of Professor Goodwitch, one of the advisors here at Beacon Academy. Whenever she was the one on the other end of a scroll call, it was never good news.
"Ugh….Why do you of all people have to call me this early in the morning?" he would then ask rhetorically. His groan only seemed to amplify how much he did not want to be in this situation.
"It's eight forty-seven, Mr. Trylmien," she would respond back regardless. "I was informed by Professor Ozpin that he had a meeting planned with you today. Since you had not shown up to his office earlier this morning, he had me contact you."
As the woman explained her reason for calling, Lance had sat up fully out of bed and stretched his limbs. His wings spread open and were able to touch the ceiling, his arms and legs doing much more basic stretches to wake up the muscles. "I remembered, Glynda…just haven't been sleeping the best."
"I see," Glynda would reply, showing a very small amount of worry in her voice. "Have you contacted Professor Peach about this matter?"
"She's never around." Lance then replied right back, digging up a pair of socks from a nearby pile of clothes he had nearby- ones he planned to wear. "And quite frankly- I'm not really in the mood to talk about it. At all."
"Mm. Well, Professor Ozpin had wanted you to know there was a slight change of plans," she would further their previous conversation, revealing that something important was missed due to Lance's latency.
In response, the avian Faunus stopped dead in his tracks. He was putting on his pants when she mentioned a change of plans. He didn't even remember that he had a meeting in the first place…why would something change? "What did he say?"
"That, I'm afraid, has yet to be seen," Glynda replied. "I would suggest you get dressed and meet with him yourself in his office…as you were supposed to."
"Wait, what are you talking about?" Before he could even try to guess-work his way around that problem, the call ended. All that was left in his mind was the question: what was he planning?
As he flew over the cafeteria, students were walking and eating amongst themselves before they had to go to their nine-o'clock class. One of those tables housed the combined teams of RWBY and JNPR. The short ginger girl, Nora, was holding a "friendly competition" of seeing who could eat the most amount of pancakes within the course of roughly ten minutes. And as she swallowed her twentieth griddle pastry, Nora let out a roaring burp to signify her victory over her peers.
"And that's twenty! Suck it up, looooosers! I'm the pancake QUEEN!" The orange-haired woman would triumphantly declare, slamming her hand on the table as she stood up. Two of her colleagues, a raven-haired girl with red highlights and a blonde man, were groaning in pain from how much they attempted to consume during the time of the competition. The rest of their teams simply looked on in concern as they slowly ate their own crepes.
"I really can't believe you two actually tried to one-up Nora's metabolism," a black-haired woman with a bow on her head would say with little emotion in her voice. She had barely even touched her food, only a few slices being taken out and presumably eaten.
"I have to concur with Blake," a white-haired woman responded in agreement, her own dish having been finished only a few minutes ago. "You two are complete savages."
The short red-tinted girl groaned, her stomach overfilled with pan-fried dough and syrup. "I feel like I'm gonna explode…"
"Stay strong, Ruby, we'll get through this together…" groaned the blonde man, supporting his nearby friend by putting his right hand on her shoulder.
"You guys really shouldn't have gone all in," a longer-haired blonde woman responded in suit, her own hand being put on the younger girl's shoulder.
"I know that I mentioned eating a hearty breakfast gives you strength throughout the day, but I never meant for you to take it this far," a scarlet-haired woman would say, setting her own hand on the blonde man's shoulder for reassurance. "Nora is…an enigma, to say the least."
"I am the champion!" Nora would exclaim in a low-toned and deep voice, pounding her chest like a gorilla. The black-haired male next to her seemed to idly eat away at his pancakes himself, not bothering to speak.
"Not to…change the subject matter, but I have a question for all of you," the white-haired woman would speak up, raising her arm and finger to focus their conversation onto her. "Have any of you heard about that transfer student?"
"Which one? There's dozens of people who came here from the other schools," the blonde woman would fire back, unsure of what her friend meant.
"I meant the one from Vacuo, Yang. I think I've seen him a few times, actually."
Yang's eyes turned half-lidded in subtle disbelief. "That still doesn't help narrow it down, Weiss."
"I think she means the one who had the sparring match with team CFVY," the crimson-haired woman would say in an attempt to help her friend's statement. "The same one who supposedly lost his team due to a mission they were on."
"Yes, that person," Weiss confirmed. "The match itself was very insightful, even if it was rather brutal."
"I was there to see it, too," Blake would interject. "He has a very interesting strategy- jumping from one opponent to the other, never really focusing on one person. But he must have lost his flow when he went up against Yatsuhashi alone."
"Perhaps he exerted too much of his stamina with the other two fighters," the black-haired male finally spoke, giving his own inspection of the fight based on the context.
"He did seem somewhat winded by that point. But I've seen him twice before that point," Weiss would speak up again, this time willing to explain when she saw him. "First, it was on one of the balconies near Professor Port's classroom. The other was in Vale when we were fighting off the Grimm. Each time I saw him, I thought I saw…wings."
The table went silent, all expressing various levels of confusion and curiosity. "Wings?" Blake repeated.
"Wings! That would go GREAT with my pancake domination!" Nora blurted out, jumping the mood from quizzical to comical in the fraction of a second. "Oooh, I could KILL for some chicken right now."
"Not like that!" Weiss fired back, anger trailing behind her voice. "I meant physical ones. The ones birds use to fly. But they were on his back…almost all black…and big…" She paused, mulling over her words as if to find the right way to phrase it. "Is it some sort of Faunus trait I haven't heard about before?"
"Faunus are known for their altered or extra appendages," the bowed-up ravenette replied. "Some have tails, others have ears- or parts of their normal body change to suit that trait. But wings…ones that don't replace their arms…I….I know some that have bat wings, but not bird ones."
Before anyone else could attempt to interject, three scrolls chimed with a message alert in sequence. The crimson-haired woman, the shorter ravenette, and the blonde woman all looked at what the message was- exchanging glances once they all read it. The rest of their friends would look to them as well, wondering what the issue was.
The redhead was the first to clear the tension. It…seems like the three of us have something to discuss with professor Ozpin. And with that, she stood up and patted her male blonde team leader on the back- which made him groan a little more. Yang helped the red-adorned girl up onto her feet and headed out one of the exits. The rest of their grounds waved at them, the trio waving back as they walked together. Once they were together as a trio, they walked side-by-side together as they made their way to the central tower.
"Wonder what this is all about," Yang mused, a bit disappointed that she couldn't finish her breakfast.
"Perhaps Ozpin wants to congratulate us on our performance so far," the redhead suggested, wondering the same question herself. "Glynda's message wasn't exactly clear about it."
"Wait!" Ruby would split in, darting ahead of the two. The latter duo stopped to not run into their friend, a flurry of rose petals also adorning the area. "What if he's sending us on some secret mission?!"
The two older females exchanged glances again. "...that is…a very unlikely possibility," Pyrrha would respond first, prompting Yang to follow suit.
"I think you might have your hopes up, sis. Pretty sure it's just something we did."
"Yeah, like being some of the best students at Beacon!" Ruby would reiterate, trying to get their hopes up. "Imagine what kind of stuff we'd be doing if we were on a team together!"
"We would be a pretty good team. Just wonder who's the fourth…" Yang asked aloud with no answer from the other two. But the trio thought on it together as they took strides towards the tower again.
They were inside the main terminal hall within minutes, moving to one of the elevators near the back to ascend up the tower. They passed various floors along the way: the communication rooms, data storage rooms. The elevator stopped at the top floor, letting out a small chime before the metal doors opened wide. They were now able to see into the headmaster's office, adorned with a myriad of windows and gears that rotated slowly above the literal glass ceiling. As the girls stepped through into the office, the other elevator had just now closed its and started its descent downwards.
"Good morning, professor!" Ruby excitedly called out to greet her superior.
"And a good morning to you too, miss Rose," said the professor, responding with a similar happy tone. "To you as well, miss Xiao-Long and miss Nikos."
"Thank you, sir," Pyrrha would voice out in response, giving a small nod of her head as to emphasize her words.
"Glynda said you wanted to see us," the blonde woman said as her arms folded under her chest. "Whatcha need from us?"
"I wanted to inform the three of you that you were picked from your teams for a special assignment," Ozpin would explain. "The council members of both Vale and Vacuo have allowed one last huntsman mission to take place before the coming summer break and the Vytal Festival soon after."
The three girls had very different looks. Pyrrha was somewhat perplexed but understandably ready to tackle this new challenge pushed her way. Yang's smirk widened as she anticipated a far more dangerous mission than the one her team had gone on weeks prior. And Ruby was now giddily bouncing on her feet in excitement, a soft squeal coming from her that slowly rose in pitch.
"You three will be assigned a team leader for this mission. I had met with him moments ago, conveniently ended right before you had shown up to my office." A display from his scroll appeared in the air, the three of their heads and names displayed in order of Pyrrha, Yang, then Ruby. A fourth placement would appear with the name "Samuel Pitch Trylmien" appearing as the first box. "For this mission, Samuel Trylmien will be your team leader. I believe you had seen him around campus or when you all attended the fight in Vale. Either way, you four have been selected and shall be…team sapphire." The letters from their first names would grow larger as the rest faded, placing their heads above each letter to signify the placement. S-P-Y-R.
Ruby, unable to contain her excitement any longer, shouted: "I'M SO EXCITEEEEEED!" and spun around her two friends in a flurry of rose petals, clinging to Yang's arm once she made a few laps. Ozpin stood up from his desk and gave the three students a few final words of encouragement:
"I wish you all…the best of luck."
This was simply the set-up- a teaser for the rest of the story! From here on out, the chapters will be numbered and will have names for them. Along with that, every first letter from the beginning of each chapter will all add up to a secret phrase that will explain more about the new character.