The moment you've all been waiting for… for all of one chapter. NEO!

This marks the end of the beginning of Fallen Snow. From here on chapters will hopefully be much longer. Though don't expect them quick, I do plan to make them steadily.

I hope you enjoy, and on with the story!

Neo could hear not but her own ragged breathing as she raced through the emerald forest. The sounds of grimm tearing after her were barely noticeable compared to the sound of her heart in her ears. She had been forced to witness her boss, her mentor, her… friend, consumed by some lousy grimm!

Cinder had assured them the incense that she gave them would keep the grimm away. Now she was fairly certain it was attracting them to her, though it could very well be her grief doing that. There were simply too many to consider fighting. Her only choice was to run far enough away from the city that the greater amount of negative emotions from there would thin the pack for her.

It was no lie, Roman was dead. Neo felt the bond she had with him sever as she watched him get eaten. The only person that could ever 'hear' her, even if only mentally, was gone forever. Just reminding herself was enough to cause tears to return to her eyes. Most inconvenient when she was sprinting through a forest in the dark. Enough so that she failed to notice the tree root in her path.

Being exhausted as she was, instinct was the only thing that kept her from falling flat on her face. Rolling with the fall, it failed to help much as her momentum sent Neo crashing into a tree. Straining to push herself off the ground, Neo could feel something wet drip down her forehead, a crimson drop falling to the ground confirming that she hit her head on something in the tumble. Neo gave a silent laugh at the irony of her apparent doom.

It wasn't Little Red or her friends, it wasn't the law finally catching up to them, or some idiot Roman had managed to screw over out for revenge. No, it was being betrayed by the person they had helped in destroying the kingdom of Vale, and then left to the literal grimm. It wasn't like they hadn't considered it, but Neo always figured Cinder to be the kind of bitch that liked to do it personally.

If I die here, I'm going to haunt that maiden bitch til she's six feet under. Then I'll kill her again in the afterlife.

The howls of grimm grew closer as Neo propped herself against the tree she had crashed into, weakly holding her Hush in front of her in a vain attempt at a final stand. If it wasn't for that stupid perfume she could have used her semblance to escape easily. Unfortunately, unless the afterlife was real, Neo would never get her chance to avenge Roman. That is unless a miracle were to just fall out of the sky.

Upon thinking that, another lone howl could be heard behind her, louder than all the ones before. Neo could feel it chill her down to her bones; and yet, the terrifying sound carried with it a sense of grief. Even the approaching sounds of grimm went still for a moment as the echo of the howl faded out.

I… don't want to know what made that sound.

Neo tried to take advantage of the situation and push herself to her feet, but a flash of pain lancing through her skull caused her to slump back down. While trying to get her head to stop spinning in circles, she heard a low growl. Snapping back to her present predicament, Neo could see the red glowing eyes of grimm piercing through the dark in front of her. Their numbers growing to the point that Neo stopped trying to count.

Seeing the first white skull become visible, Neo directed her weapon at it, knowing full well she barely had any strength with which to fight. The grimm slowly approached, a half circle forming around her, staying just a couple lengths away from her weapon.

Just as an ursa in front of her broke the line with a single step, all the grimm froze and turned their attention to something behind her. Neo was at a loss at the strange behavior, until she heard what had caused them to pause. It started softly but steadily grew into a sound she could recognize: something was running towards them, on four legs.

The grimm before her bristled at the sound, letting out growls and howls, their focus on her completely gone. Whatever was coming could pull the attention of grimm away from a victim just in front of them, and that terrified Neo. She wanted to disappear but her head was throbbing so much that trying to focus on her semblance was impossible at the moment. She would just have to hope that whatever was coming didn't see her as appetizing as the grimm.

One grimm, the ursa that first started to approach, tore away its attention from what was coming back to Neo. The ursa roared as it pounced forward, Neo vainly held her weapon in front of her hoping the beast would impale itself. She closed her eyes and waited for what was to come, only for the roar to die into choked grunts. Daring to open her eyes, Neo suddenly wished she had kept them closed at seeing what was before her.

What… is that, a grimm!?

It was a grimm unlike any she had encountered before. It held the ursa up by its neck like it was weightless. It resembled a beowolf, but its posture made it taller than even any alpha beo Neo had ever seen. It had what looked to be spikes of ice coming from its elbows and shoulders, along with two especially large spikes protruding from its back. With apparent ease the beast raised the ursa up higher, before slamming it into the ground with such force that the ursa dissolved on contact. The other grimm took a step back at the earth shaking slam, proving that even they could recognize the power this beast held.

But even with that, they were still grimm all the same, and this beast was between them and their prey. Four beowolves pounced at once, only for the beast to make two massive swipes with its claws and rend the beowolves apart. This appeared to anger the hoard, but before the rest could attack the beast went on the offensive. This beast lunged forward and started to tear through the remaining grimm like a whirlwind. Neo wanted to run while the grimm were apparently fighting amongst themselves, but her legs refused to move.

As Vale burned, and night fell, the fighting grimm appeared as nothing more than a mass of shadows writhing in the dark. The only way Neo could distinguish one side from the other were the spikes of ice from the beast, as they glowed a soft blue in the darkness. One by one the red glow from the eyes of the grimm were extinguished until only a blue glow remained.

Neo could do nothing but wait and stare as the beast turned towards her. This was the first time she could see its head since it arrived and 'saved' her. Like the glow from the crystals coming from its body, the beast's eyes and lines of its mask glowed the same blue, if only more brightly. It towered over her, stopping just a stride away from being able to end her. Neo could see gashes ranging across its body, oozing a liquid that wasn't quite as black as its hide. It also looked smaller than before.

Grimm don't bleed. What is this thing!?

Doing the only thing she could, Neo pointed her weapon at the grimm, creature, beast… whatever the hell the thing in front of her was. It looked down at the weapon, tilting its head as though it was trying to understand what it was, before it began panting. It took Neo a moment to realize it wasn't panting at all, but laughing at her, this thing was laughing at her.

Something in Neo snapped at the absurdity of the situation, with a rage-filled thrust she attempted to fight back. The beast reacted instantly by moving its head to the side, causing Neo's weapon to miss its head and pierce its shoulder instead. Growling, the beast freed itself of Neo's weapon and pinned it, and subsequently Neo, to the tree behind her. Neo stared in fear as the beast brought its head within an inch of her face before unleashing a terrifying roar.

Neo could tell her eyes had turned white with fear, and honestly wasn't able to tell if she pissed herself as she stared into the glowing blue eyes in front of her. She was fairly confident the only thing keeping her conscious at the moment was her survival instinct, though it wasn't exactly able to help her in her present situation. Though it was what happened next that took the cake for Neo.

In the deepest, distorted, most guttural voice she had ever heard, the beast spoke, "That… Hurt."

It… can speak!?

It was at the shock of hearing those words that Neo broke away from the piercing eyes before her, to let her notice what was happening to the beast. Much like any dying grimm, this one looked to be dissolving. What that happened to reveal, Neo could never have expected.

Though the event happened quickly, it felt like it was happening in slow motion as Neo drank in every detail of what was happening. As enough of the beast dissolved away, Neo could tell that something was underneath this exterior of grimm. The first point where she could make out full details was the arm still pinning her and her weapon to the tree she was against. With the grimm exterior gone she could see pale white skin through the remains of a tattered black jacket that appeared.

Following the arm as the rest of the beast dissolved away, Neo continued to note more details. The person was a huntsman, evident by what she assumed to be weapons by his hip. His black jacket was sharply contrasted by the stark white and gray uniform beneath it, that could only denote him as a member of one nation, Atlas. Though right now where he was from was the least of Neo's worries. The grimm mask staring at her dissolved away to reveal a very angry faunus, if the two fluffy ears among his mass of silver hair belonged to the animal she believed, a very angry wolf faunus.

His wounds bled the same off-black as when he looked like a grimm, though his aura did seem to be healing him, very slowly. While angry, he was much less threatening to Neo in his current state. Every breath seemed to cause him pain as he continued to stare at her with rage, though his iron grip that pinned Neo had not relaxed in the slightest. She wouldn't even recognize this man as the beast that had struck fear into her and destroyed a hoard of grimm single-handedly if it weren't for the eyes that stared into her soul. While more normal looking, they still held an ethereal blue glow; a reminder of the beast that had stood before her just moments ago.

Neo flinched as he let out another growl, even seeing his current state it unsettled her, as he repeated the words he said just a moment earlier, "That… Hurt."

The glow faded from his eyes, and Neo felt his grip on her weapon weaken. Though before she could take advantage of her freedom, her savior apparently decided that now was an okay time to lose consciousness. In quite an unceremonious heap, he collapsed headfirst into Neo's lap.

Grunting in pain at the sudden impact, Neo's first instinct was to shove him off. Though when she went to do so she found herself unable to go through with it, and not because of a change of heart. Neo looked down at her right arm and willed it to move, only for it to twitch. She was so exhausted to the point that her body refused to listen to her. Neo tried to wriggle him off as she was shouting in her mind, knowing full well he couldn't hear her:

GET OFF ME! THIS IS NO TIME OR PLACE TO TAKE A NAP! AND I AM NOT A PILLOW!

The person on her groaned and muttered something that Neo almost missed with her inner raging, if it wasn't for the particular words that were spoken, "Uhnn, stop… shouting."

Neo froze at the words. It couldn't be possible. Roman was the only one that could hear her, and Neo always thought it was because of her semblance creating a bond between them. Even that side-effect of her semblance didn't manifest until after spending years with Roman. There was no way that some random stranger could actually be able to hear her. Could it?

… Hey? D-did you just, hear me? Can you hear me!?

She received no response. If she wanted answers, then she was going to have to wait until he woke up, whenever that could be. The howls of grimm were distant now, Neo figured chances of them being attacked with Vale being such a beacon of negative emotions were pretty slim. With the lack of danger, Neo's adrenaline finally ran out and she experienced the full weight of the exhaustion she had been powering through on will alone.

With her consciousness slipping, Neo leaned back into the tree. Letting her aching muscles relax was almost enough for her to fall asleep. She spared one last look at the person who had saved her, whether he meant to or not, she was happy to still be alive. Because now she had a chance to get her revenge for Roman. As she fell asleep, Neo's last thought was a very simple one, directed at the man in her lap.

I am so going to slap you when I wake up.

So, how was it?

Hopefully vivid enough to allow your wonderful imaginations to pick up where I started.

These first two chapters are short for my liking, so the next one shall do better. I, like most I believe, enjoy a good long story, which I hope to deliver.

I write this as volume 7 is still not finished, and I hope it will give me something good I can do with this story. If not… then we will divert from canon and create our own amazing narrative! Thanks for reading.

Til next time, WRW out.