A/n – Reviews

Jose Blas – Glad you liked it. And yes, Adam Taurus.

Kirino2-0 – Happy to see you're still reading my story, it means a lot. I also love that theory, you can probably tell that's what I'm going with for this. Adam and Corvus will be interacting while he's at the tribe so get ready for that.

Chapter 11 – Hunting the Hunters

A few hours ago…

Bruno stalked through the forest, his trusty Cernunnos bow in hand. He had been following tracks for a few days after receiving word from one of the tribe's patrols about a group of Faunus who had escaped a mine up north. Bruno was, to say the least, pissed that the patrol did nothing to help them. They may be bandits but they weren't monsters. So, Bruno set out to find this group, and not too long into his venture did he find some tracks. The tracks were of bare feet, which was strange as even the SDC mine workers wouldn't let the Faunus 'workers' go without foot protection.

He felt he had been making good progress on tracking this group as they had stopped a lot more than he had on their journey, probably due to the cold. Walking barefoot in snow wasn't exactly ideal, though he was lucky that their tracks hadn't been covered by snowfall as that would've made finding the Faunus group impossible. Unfortunately, he had encountered quite a few Grimm on his hunt, likely searching for the rampant negativity that the poor souls trekking through the woods are emitting. They were nothing he couldn't handle, of course, but the fact that the Grimm has their trail too didn't bode well for them.

He eventually came across a town, and he was hopeful that the Faunus group had found safety. He entered the town and went straight to the tavern, where he could hopefully find out something about the Faunus group, if they had found sanctuary here or passed through.

As he entered the tavern, the first thing that stuck out to him was the fact that humans and Faunus were on different sides of the room, something that was unfortunately all too common in Mistral, despite the distrust and discrimination against Faunus lessening significantly over the years. Luckily, this bar seemed like a case of overly cautious patrons, rather than flat out racism as the bartender didn't seem too bothered by the all the Faunus here, or Bruno himself either. One look at the waitress with a cat tail happily interacting with the human customers told him that this wasn't a place that he needed to be concerned about.

Taking a seat at the bar, he waited patiently for the bartender to serve him.

"I need information about a group of Faunus who arrived here, not too long ago." He asked quietly.

"Information costs money, you know." The bartender told him.

"I only pay for things I know I can get." Bruno replied with a flat expression, his deep voice rumbling.

The bartender took a moment to contemplate, idly cleaning a glass as he did.

"Miners, yes? I know of them." He said, looking to the moose Faunus expectantly. Bruno placed a sufficient amount of lien on the bar which the man swiped up. "They passed through here, but didn't stay long. Some of the more… radical residents chased them off after they asked for help. Poor bastards just wanted some food, shelter and warmer clothes, but they were chased away." The bartender shook his head as he mentioned the radical citizens. Bruno was disgusted, he had dealt with a lot of racism himself, from snide remarks to being outright attacked by some idiot who assumed he was a White Fang member, but hearing that these poor people were not only denied help but also chased out of the village into the cold winter woods made him sick.

"Do you know where they went?" He asked.

The bartender shook his head. "Sorry, no. But I do have a lead for you if you wanna find them. Some SDC guy sent out an alert across the CCT about a group of workers who apparently stole SDC property and offered a reward if the workers were returned to them. Those idiot racists thought it was the group that passed through here, and so they organized a hunting party to find them in hopes of getting that reward. They only left a few hours ago, so you should be able to find them if any good at tracking."

Bruno nodded and thanked the bartender, leaving some extra lien for him as thanks for his help before exiting the tavern and leaving the village, hoping to pick up the trail. After a bit of searching, he found what he believed to be the correct trail. He should be able to catch up to them in no time. Bruno was not only a talented ex-huntsman, but also a skilled hunter and tracker. If he wasn't, he certainly wouldn't have been able to follow the group to the village, so following this hunting party should be easy work for him.

It took him a few hours to catch up to the hunting party, but eventually he heard shouts. He moved closer until he could see a group of around 20 people. He hid behind a tree and took a closer look at them. He saw a group of Faunus wearing worn clothes, looking tired and exhausted, and also a group that he assumed to be the hunting party, if their weapons and attitude towards the Faunus group said anything. He heard shouts of 'animal' from them a few times, showing that this was indeed the hunting party that hailed from the village he visited prior.

As he moved closer, making sure to not be seen, he saw bodies on the ground, four to be exact, all Faunus. All dead too, to his dismay. Seeing that the hunters had already killed, he decided to forego peaceful methods, not that they'd have worked anyways. He didn't usually kill people, but he never hesitates when the time calls for it.

Nothing an arrow packed with fire dust, he took aim at a small cluster of hunters who weren't near the Faunus, and fired the arrow at them. The arrow exploded in a spectacular burst of flame, melting snow and charring both the hunters and trees nearby. It seemed that they didn't have aura for some reason, they were probably just civilians then, but no matter. They had killed these poor people, that's all that mattered to Bruno at this point.

He rapidly notched another arrow, a wind dust one this time, and fired it in between the group closer to the Faunus, and the Faunus themselves. When it buried itself in the ground, it blew the hunters and Faunus away from the impact point making space between them. He then shot another fire arrow at the now downed group of hunter burning them before they could get up and retaliate. Three of them were unhurt by the flames, two were distanced enough to not be burned and the other one had a purple shimmer over his body. They did have an aura user among them, so they weren't completely stupid. He notched an ice arrow, intent on freezing them in their tracks but the aura user disappeared before reappearing behind him and slashed him in the back. He was too fast to have gone invisible and flanked him, the only other explanation was a teleportation semblance. Such semblances were extremely rare and are quite powerful, but also use a lot of aura. Such a shame that a powerful ability was given to a common moron.

Bruno swung his bow at him behind him, slashing him with the sharp blade that lined the limbs of Cernunnos and struck true, dealing a blow that had the man's aura flickering as he stumbled back. Bruno rapidly notched an arrow and fired it at the teleporter then moved in, shattering his aura with another slice from Cernunnos' blade before delivering a brutal fist to the man's face, knocking some teeth out and laying him out cold on the snow-covered ground. Seems like he neglected his fighting skills because he thought could get by with surprise attacks with his semblance, unfortunately for him it didn't work on Bruno.

He turned around, notching an ice arrow and firing it at one of the two advancing towards him, the arrow piercing his shoulder and freezing him solid. He blocked a blow from the other with his bow, sent a fist into his side and slashed across his throat with the blade of Cernunnos. He walked towards the immobilized man and delivered an aura-powered punch to shatter his frozen form completely, leaving nothing but chunks of ice and viscera.

After the fight, Bruno made his way towards the group of Faunus. Now that he was closer he could see that most, if not all of them were injured, likely by the now dead hunters. Most were mourning their lost companions. One of them, a large man with dark red hair and a pair of broken bull horns on his head, stood in front of the group. Bruno assumed he was the head of this group, of sorts.

"Are you alright?" Bruno asked, concern lacing his deep voice.

The man nodded, and spoke in a strained voice. "You're… here to help us, right?"

Bruno gave a small nod. "I heard of your group from a patrol of ours. I could not have just let you all wander around in the cold in your state."

The red-haired man let out a sigh of relief. "Thank God… do you have food and medical supplies of any sort?"

"I do not, but there are some back in my tribe. I shall bring you there so you may recover your strength."

"Thank you, my friend." The man said with a tired smile on his face. "Let me make sure everyone is ready, then we'll follow your lead."

As the man turned back to his group Bruno couldn't help but doubt himself. They barely had enough food for themselves back in the tribe, Raven will be pissed to not only have to use some of their food on injured civilians, but also having to deal with them until they've recovered enough for them to travel to another village. Before Bruno could doubt himself any more, the man looked to him and told him that they were ready. Behind the man's leg was a boy resembling him, not much older than Corvus. All semblance of doubt was gone as he looked at the injured child, and began to lead them back to the tribe.

'Raven will have to suck it up and deal with it' he thought to himself.

A/n

Well, that was fast.

I really enjoyed writing this chapter, it's much easier when I'm not writing children. Not only that, but I've been waiting to flesh out Bruno a little more so this chapter was pretty nice for me to write up.

I hope you enjoyed chapter guys, I'll see you in the next one.