Author's Note:This chapter is supposed to be the first taste of what it is like trying to fight with huntsmen as a (mostly) normal human. I'm also messing with formatting options, so I appreciate feedback on how readable this is.

This chapter features our first huntsmen, and the first taste of the concept of 'normal people versus huntsman' I was searching for when I began writing.

Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY or its associated characters. The characters in this writing so far are all original characters, but I make no claim over the existing characters.

Chapter 2

Huntsmen

The shape resolved into a stocky man wearing black cargo pants and a black and red t-shirt typical of the Wings of Freedom uniform. He hurtled into the ground right next to two of our squad members, and the impact of his landing knocked them off their feet. Then a moment later a bright flash emitted from his feet and an explosion emanated from him, the blast throwing the two men away at bone breaking speeds.

One soldier was lucky and hit the asphalt on the road, rolling and bouncing out of control, slowing down before finally slamming into an abandoned car. His armor protected him from being killed as he formed a massive dent in the driver's side door. The other soldier was not so lucky, flying away at a bad angle and hitting his back perpendicularly to a light pole. The momentum of his body carried onwards and wrapped him backwards around the pole. A series of sharp cracks came from his spine as he screamed in pain before passing out from shock.

For a short moment nobody moved, too shocked by the gruesome sight, then the attacker, a short, stocky man with a thick black beard and short curly hair cracked his neck, and spoke in a thick Mistrali accen.

"Right boys, time to die then?"

Sergeant Helmsman bellowed out a warcry and opened fire on him, but the bullets were seemingly blocked by an orange field that manifested itself around the attacker.

The attacker held his arms up in front of his face as the field absorbed the energy of the bullets, then he suddenly clapped his hands together and a spark launched towards Sergeant Helmsman.

Helmsman dodged under the spark as it flew over him, then detonated right where he had been standing a moment ago. This explosion was far less powerful, but was still strong enough to drive the battle hardened sergeant to one knee for a moment.

Galvanized into action by the second explosion, Private Wilks and I raised our rifles and fired, dumping round after round into his shield as he calmly picked up a chunk of asphalt the size of a basketball that had split from his explosion. Turning casually towards us, he tossed the chunk into the air like a volleyball player would toss a serve, then spiked the jagged chunk towards us, an explosion driving it forwards at higher speeds than he could generate himself.

FEAR!

The belt screamed at me, and I felt myself accelerating again as the belt surged power into me. I dove sideways, grabbing Wilks by the back of his armor and pulling him downwards.

The piece of asphalt barely missed him, instead shattering harmlessly further down the street. I landed heavily on top of the medic, and he grunted in pain as he tried to get back to his feet.

Shoving Wilks down again, I jumped to my feet, dropping my empty rifle to let it dangle by its sling.

Stupidity

The belt whispered into my mind as I instead drew my combat knife from its sheath and charged towards my target. He had turned around now, and was moving to finish off Sergeant Helmsman. The tough sergeant had reloaded and was rising to his feet to return fire.

The attacker swiftly closed the distance between them, slapping Helmsman across the jaw. A moment later an explosion emanated from his palm and launched Helmsman a half dozen feet. I felt another surge of speed as the belt decided to back my play, and I crossed the eighty or so feet between myself and our attacker in a few seconds, leaping towards him and swinging my knife in a reverse grip directly into the back of his neck.

Only to have my knife intercepted by that damn orange field at the last moment. The impact still staggered him for a second, but as he recovered his balance he turned and threw a wildly swinging haymaker towards me.

I barely ducked under the relatively sloppy punch, and swapped the knife to my left hand, going for a slash across his chest. It connected with the field again, almost seeming to generate sparks now that I was up close and could see it happen. The sparks floated for a split second before dissipating harmlessly.

Escape!

The belt shouted.

Futility!

I danced backwards away from his next swing, a cross that nearly caught me as I stepped outside his reach, then slashed upwards with my knife, catching his wrist with the blade. It again sparked off of his shield, which I now realized was actually his aura being projected to defend him.

As I watched, The hand he had just attempted to punch me with scooped up the sparks as they were dissipating, then he brought his other hand together in a clap.

The energy coalesced into a singular large spark, like he had sent towards Sergeant Helmsman, and the resulting projectile spit out from between his palms to detonate in front of me, knocking me off my feet and driving the wind from my lungs.

I hit the ground hard and rolled, tucking my head and arms in to protect myself as I bounced and scattered across the ground. My right shoulder was wrenched hard as my rifle caught on something and the sling wrapped around it, bringing me to a sudden painful halt.

Helping.

I felt healing emanate from the belt, restoring my breath and easing the pain in my shoulder. I got to my knees, desperately looking to avoid another attack. Fortunately for me, now that I was clear of the enemy combatant the rest of the squad had reformed into fireteams and was beginning to return fire, each soldier firing off a short burst before fleeing their position and attempting to dodge a return attack.

It was like a group of neolithic hunters attempting to bring down a mammoth, each man or woman poking and wounding the target just a little before running away, seeking to tire and distract the enemy huntsman so we could bring him down.

Having lost my knife while tumbling, I scrambled over to where my rifle had been caught under a fallen light pole and began reloading it to rejoin the fight.

Like a frustrated bull, the enemy huntsman let out a roar as yet another hail of gunfire hit him in the back, his aura flashing weaker this time. He waved his hands through the air, collecting heavy handfuls of sparks as bullet after bullet sparked off his aura.

Right as I raised my rifle to fire, he stamped his foot into the ground, cracking the asphalt, and surged every spark he had collected downwards into the ground. The road shattered and split, sending out a massive shockwave that carried thousands of pebbles and hundreds of fist sized chunks in every direction.

Soldiers dived for cover, peppered by debris. A few were outright killed as large chunks of asphalt found vital spots and crushed throats or cracked skulls.

I raised my arms to protect myself from a large chunk that was flying towards me, when suddenly loose rubble around me swirled and formed into a makeshift barrier directly in front of me, other stony shields formed around several other wounded soldiers, the opposing debris from the blast harmlessly scattering off into other directions.

"Hey! Grimm bait!" An angry and distinctly female voice shouted from behind me.

I turned to see an Atlesian soldier dressed in what looked like white scout armor a short distance behind me. Her armor was lighter than mine, with short sleeves, fingerless gloves and no helmet, allowing me to see her golden colored eyes and bright white hair, as well as the angry but determined expression on her face.

Loose rubble swirled around her in circles as she rode a wave of rocks and asphalt across the street. She was pointing directly at the enemy huntsman, an oversized warhammer in her other hand as she surged forwards.

"Yeah!" she shouted again, "I'm talking to you sparky! Why don't you pick on somebody your own size!"

Sparky, as she had so elegantly described him, boomed out a laugh, drawing a pair of brass knuckles from his pocket. He rushed to meet her charge, the two warriors clashing in an open intersection as the rest of the soldiers tried to keep their heads down.

As they exchanged blows, I took advantage of the opening to check on Sergeant Helmsman. He was conscious, but not lucid, mumbling to himself as he looked up at the sky from on his back.

"Can you help him?" I asked my belt, speaking at full volume to be heard over the clashing coming from down the street.

Uncertainty.

I placed a hand on Helmsman's neck, attempting to slow the bleeding coming from a gash that ran along the side of his throat. After a moment I felt a short surge of power again, and the gash healed itself somewhat, though not completely.

"Good enough, thanks" I said to the belt.

I reached into the sergeant's medical kit, withdrawing a flexible bandage and applying it to the remaining cut to stop remaining blood that was slowly draining into the street. Training dictated I reserve my own medkit for myself, though I wasn't sure whose training it was.

As I worked, Helmsman seemed to regain some lucidity. His eyes refocused, and his pupils began dilating correctly when exposed to the bright light of the sun overhead.

Satisfied that Helmsman wouldn't bleed out, I turned back to see the outcome of the fight and if there was any way I could help. The woman with the hammer was now standing on a pillar formed from rubble, deflecting attacks with her hammer and redirecting rocks towards him with some form of telekinesis.

As I watched, she caused a piece of concrete to fly from behind Sparky and crack him over the skull. His orange aura flickered in and out, then shattered with a sound like breaking glass.

The woman let out a satisfied grunt, then surged forwards, her pillar reforming itself into a ramp as she slid downwards swinging her hammer to finish the fight. In response, the huntsman dodged sideways, before withdrawing a flare gun from his pocket and firing it into the sky.

"Oh no you don't!" She shouted, redoubling her efforts to catch him "You aren't getting away from me this time Sparky!"

The enemy huntsman moved quickly, dodging behind a car parked alongside the road and attempting to retreat into an abandoned building.

Sensing an opportunity I raised my rifle and fired, only to see my bullets deflect at odd angles as a second, taller man suddenly materialized next to the enemy huntsman, blocking my line of fire.

This new man was wearing black heavy armor with dark blue highlights featuring a fully enclosed helmet that seemed to deflect my shots without him even projecting an aura.

He held what looked to me like a high powered electromagnetic assault rifle in a ready position, not pointing it directly at anyone but ready to fire at a moment's notice. The rifle had some sort of blade under the barrel that was currently collapsed to allow him to wield it, but looked as though it could be extended outwards to form into a proper melee weapon.

The woman raised her hammer and was preparing to charge when he spoke. His voice was heavily filtered and projected into a deep rumbling by speakers built into his armor.

"Don't try it Evelynn, I know where the rest of Team SAGE is, and I'm not above spending the rest of the day hunting them down."

Evelynn paused, then lowered her hammer into a guard stance.

"Fine," She replied with barely restrained anger. "But don't you dare bring him back here."

"Deal." Came the rumbling voice as he turned and grasped the other huntsman by the shoulder.

The figure in the imposing dark armor sent a quick glance my way, and I was glad the helmet Wilks gave me hid my face so he couldn't see me squirm as he looked me up and down. Then, as suddenly as he had appeared, both men vanished.

-/-

As the squad recovered from the attack, Evelynn joined Sergeant Helmsman, who was now lucid again, in a private discussion.

I overheard snatches of conversation, and was able to piece together that after our tank was destroyed two members of Team SAGE had been dispatched to bolster our squad. Her teammate, Lieutenant Eugene Rivers, was scouting ahead, and would be providing cover for the assault on the stockpile itself.

I busied myself helping Private Wilks tend to the wounded and count the dead, but I couldn't help noticing that he was looking at me like he was trying to study me. Finally, I decided to confront him about it.

"What's going on Wilks?" I asked him, "Are you good?"

"Yeah, uh yeah no I'm fine." He responded. "I just, umm." He hesitated, as if trying to find the right words.

"Are you sure you're not either a huntsman or totally insane?"

I sat back on my heels, having finished applying a splint to a soldier's arm, then turned to look at him.

"What?" I asked, confused.

"Well uh, it's just the way you ran in there to fight a huntsman with a freaking combat knife man, that's completely insane for anybody that isn't either a huntsman or suicidal. And if you weren't fine right now then I would be certain that you at least dislocated your shoulder when he hit you with that blast."

I thought back to the fight, trying to search my mind for a reason that I had acted the way I did. I certainly had made decisions like I was bullet proof, or had experience fighting in such an aggressive manner. But at the time it only seemed logical. If he was channeling the energy of the bullets back at us, then the only smart option was to engage in melee combat. Though clearly that hadn't worked out.

"I don't know" I replied truthfully, "That guy was definitely dangerous, though I'm more interested in who the second huntsman in the black armor was, our huntress didn't seem to want to risk a fight with him."

A voice from behind me caught me off guard.

"That" Evelynn said, clearly having finished her discussion with Sergeant Helmsman "Was Hyperion, one of the ranking members of The Pantheon. And you're right, I definitely didn't want to risk a fight with him without the rest of my team."

Wilks and I both jumped a little at her sudden appearance, and Wilks seemed like he wasn't sure if he should salute or bow or both.

I was surprised by how short she appeared to be up close. During the fight she had seemed imposing, but now I realized that she was likely just under five feet tall. She continued speaking as I studied her.

"Hyperion is in the top ten most wanted right now." She elaborated. "He's been a massive thorn in our side, popping up in places he shouldn't be and causing havoc."

Wilks nodded in agreement.

"I heard that just a day or two ago he wiped out an entire anti air battalion in just twenty minutes." He said with a hint of awe.

Evelynn shook her head, waving a hand to dismiss his comment.

"No private, he only destroyed the triple A emplacements and killed the crews. The rest of the battalion attached to them managed to drive him off. Fortunately, as you just saw, he's not particularly interested in killing random soldiers. From what Atlesian Intelligence understands he avoids fights when possible."

Now that I was able to get a better look at her I noticed the name and rank on her uniform read 'Stone, First Lieutenant.'

"What was that stuff he mentioned about Team SAGE, Lt?" I asked.

She explained further, gesturing to the patch on her shoulder that read 'SAGE' with the design of a blocky warhammer overlaid on top of a sage leaf.

"Team SAGE is the team of huntsmen I lead. Currently we're spread out, but with Hyperion's past behaviors I wouldn't be surprised if he really could find them before the end of the day. I wasn't willing to take the risk just to get the kill on a relatively low priority target."

"You don't think your team could handle him?" I asked.

She laughed, a short bitter bark.

"Hah. No unfortunately. He's closer to the level of the Ace Ops, and he's notorious for hit and run attacks. We would have a better chance of trying to negotiate with a Grimm. My team is good, but we aren't that good."

I got the same feeling of being examined a little too closely, though this time it was emanating from Lieutenant Stone instead of Private Wilks. I shifted, a little uncomfortable with all the attention I had received recently.

"You seem familiar for some reason, Specialist Phoenix. I can't quite put my finger on it though. Have we met before?" She asked, drilling me with a hard look.

"I really couldn't tell you ma'am" I replied honestly.

Seeing her confusion, Wilks jumped in to explain.

"He uh, took a pretty nasty head wound ma'am. When we found him he didn't even remember where he was. He's been otherwise fine though other than some amnesia. Some of the guys think that he might actually be an huntsman and just doesn't remember. So uh, maybe that would be where you met him?"

Now it was my turn to give Wilks a long look.

"Some of the guys huh?" I asked with a hint of sarcasm. "Is it literally anyone other than you, Wilks?"

"Hmm" the Lieutenant intoned. "Maybe, I don't feel any aura coming off of you, but you certainly fought like you had it. I've very rarely seen anybody charge into a fight like you did without aura to protect them."

"Yeah…" I trailed off, not really wanting to be praised for almost getting myself killed trying to fight a huntsman with a knife. "It wasn't really my finest moment."

"Well, either way." She continued "I need someone to run point with me when we get to our objective. Eugene, my sniper, will be busy providing overwatch. With Sergeant Helmsman out for the count and the rest of the squad either nursing minor wounds or generally just shaken up I'm gonna need you to pick up the slack. From what I've seen you can handle it. Just try not to get killed on me okay? I don't need that on my conscience."

I paused to consider her plan for a moment, she was largely accurate in her assessment. The only other soldier in our squad who was operating at full effectiveness was Private Wilks, and only because I had shoved him down during the fight. Everyone else had taken at minimum some bruises and soft tissue injuries.

I had sustained my fair share of injuries myself, but my belt had been able to heal me. We couldn't risk our only medic going first into what was likely to be a close quarters engagement, so Wilks wasn't an option.

That just left me available to run point with the operative. Drawing the same conclusions as she clearly had, I nodded my agreement. "Fine ma'am, I'll go in with you, if Helmsman signs off on it"

All told, our squad was down to eight members who were combat ready. They had apparently started with a full sixteen when they left base, but ambushes and general attrition had been eating away at the team's combat power even before I had joined up with them.

Helmsman had been worried about accomplishing our objective without our armored support, but now that we had two huntsmen who would be joining the attack he was feeling much more confident. After a short discussion between him and Lieutenant Stone he agreed to sending me in on point with her. To me it seemed like they also had exchanged a knowing look between them, but without hearing the conversation I wasn't able to interpret it.

So, with the squad squared away and any useful supplies taken from the fallen, we set off on our march further south, towards our objective, and the inevitable fight that would be waiting for us.

-/-

A little over an hour, and about two miles of broken terrain later, Lieutenant Stone held up her left hand in a fist, signaling a halt. I was still impressed that she could wield her massive hammer one handed. It had to weigh upwards of a hundred pounds but she handled it like it was a toy.

Curiosity

I felt from the belt.

"About what?" I whispered, dropping into a crouch behind cover as the rest of the formation quickly scattered off the road and into cover.

Friendship.

"I don't know, maybe I do know her from somewhere, she seems as familiar as anybody else here."

The Lieutenant was still standing on the side of the street, having not bothered to get into cover. She approached the side of one of the taller buildings and waved me over. I jogged quietly to her, curious as to what she had planned.

"What's up ma'am?" I asked.

She motioned further down the street.

"If we take that intersection and head left we will be about a quarter mile out from our objective, but most of the buildings between here and there have been nearly flattened by artillery. We won't be able to rely on them for cover. Apparently one of The Pantheon was protecting our objective from the worst of it, so that building is still intact, but I doubt there's enough cover between us and them to safely advance."

I nodded, thinking about the implications of her statement.

"So we need a way for the squad to get a quarter mile under direct fire from an enemy that almost certainly knows we are coming?" I concluded.

"Pretty much," She agreed. "Let's talk to Eugene, he'll have worked out the best approach by now."

I looked around, "Uh, where exactly is he, ma'am?"

With a malicious grin she pointed up, all the way to the top of the five story high rise we were standing next to.

"Come on then soldier, up you go"

I barely had time to ask "Wha-?" before she reached up to grab the collar of my armor and I was yanked skywards. She leapt into the air, dragging my hapless self along with her as she easily soared at least thirty feet into the air. The sudden jerk sent the blood in my body pooling into my arms and legs, and my vision narrowed for a moment as blood drained away from my head. I lost my grip on my rifle, forced to let it dangle by the sling.

As we reached the top of our trajectory, loose rubble and rocks from the surrounding area rose up to meet us. She leapt off them, increasing her velocity and flying another thirty or so feet into the air, dragging me along the entire time.

It was all I could do not to shout with surprise, though oddly the height and sense of weightlessness in free fall felt familiar to me. We cleared the roof by a good ten feet, and the lieutenant released me mid air, giving me a gentle nudge to clear our landing trajectories.

I fell downwards onto the roof of the building, managing to awkwardly roll into the fall to avoid cracking my skull on the rooftop. I definitely did not need any additional head trauma today. As I came to a stop, I righted myself and sat up, noticing that of course she had simply landed on her feet without a care in the world.

"You're an asshole, Lieutenant" I said, or tried to. No sound seemed to come out. As I noticed that, I also realized that neither of us had made a sound on the way up or when landing, And the rubble she had leapt off of mid jump had similarly not made a noise when it came crashing down to earth. Confused, I turned to look around and finally noticed the third person on the roof.

In the corner, sat another huntsman, a finger to his lips indicating we should be quiet. He wore a camouflaged suit of scout armor, including a cloak and hood that seemed to be based on some sort of snow leopard winter camo. In his other hand he held a high powered sniper rifle that looked to have mechanized components similar to Hyperion's rifle. He was somewhere between Lieutenant Stone and myself in height, with dark eyes and black hair that peeked out from under his camouflaged hood.

The roof had a small guard wall around the edge, about three feet high. Crouching below the wall, Lieutenant Stone shuffled towards the sniper, who I now recognized as Second Lieutenant Eugene Rivers, Team SAGE's dedicated scout and sniper.

Curiosity.

The belt thought as we watched.

The SAGE members quickly engaged in a discussion using rapid hand signs. Unfortunately it seemed like sign language wasn't one of the languages I mysteriously understood, so I was forced to simply sit down and wait.

("Yeah") I said silently to the belt, the words snatched away by whatever effect was surrounding us. ("I'm curious too, maybe his semblance is some sort of control over sound? It would certainly explain why there's no noise at all right now"). I poked my head over the wall to get a view of the objective we would be assaulting.

What Stone had said was true, almost all the buildings between us and our target were blasted into loose collections of rocks and dust. A massive swath of the city had been flattened, but directly at the center of the area sat a single untouched building. The building was three stories high, and looked to be some sort of block apartment housing.

-/-

As I looked, I felt a tug from the belt around my waist, as if it was trying to get my attention.

Help?

("With what?") I asked.

Help.

It repeated itself, much more confident this time.

Suddenly, my vision focused, and all my senses, with the exception of my hearing which was still apparently suppressed, somehow became elevated.

I could taste the faint but distinct hint of expended munitions on the wind and smell the different types of materials that had been burning and turned to smoke by the blasts. A gentle breeze brushed over my chin and mouth, the only part of my head left exposed by my Atlesian helmet, and I could feel precisely the humidity, speed, and direction.

As my vision focused I observed the building again, seeing small flashes of movement that had escaped me before from inside the complex. I saw a glint of metal gleaming from a window and realized that it was a machine gun nest pointed directly towards our position. After studying their defenses for another moment I shrunk back behind the wall, puzzling how we would get past them.

While I didn't hear the two huntsmen approaching, with my heightened senses I could feel the vibrations of their movements through the ground. I turned to see them looking at me and holding out a notepad with notes on their defenses.

-3 machine gun nests

-1 mortar emplacement (roof)

-27 combatants (estimate)

-Small arms and anti armor weapons

-No huntsmen (left approx 1 hour ago)

I took the note from them, and motioned for a pen. Lieutenant Stone handed me hers and I made a note, crossing out the '3 machine gun nests' and writing in '4.' Stone looked at me quizzically, so I elaborated on the bottom of the note.

"Likely missed the one on the west side, hidden partially behind a fallen tree."

My handwriting was somewhat sloppy, which bothered me for some reason, even though it apparently hadn't bothered me enough for me to fix it before I lost my memories.

Rivers looked at the note, then back at me, then popped back up over the wall for a quick second with his sniper rifle. After a moment he dropped back down and nodded his agreement, circling the '4' I had written and giving me a thumbs up.

Stone just smiled like she knew something we didn't and motioned me towards the ledge. With a sigh I followed her over to the ledge and resigned myself to my fate.

-/-

Back on the ground I brushed loose dirt and dust off my armor after having recovered from my second impromptu flight. Having recovered my dignity, I whispered a question to Lieutenant Stone.

"Couldn't we have just taken the stairs?"

"Now where's the fun in that trooper?" She replied with a confident grin, then her face fell and she continued more seriously.

"Eugene thinks our best approach is to go in a straight assault on the target from here, he can provide enough cover fire to keep their heads down and I can provide enough physical cover to get the squad into a position to assault the building. They won't be able to use the mortar without exposing themselves to his sniper fire, so the only heavy munitions they have will be hand held."

I nodded my understanding and she kept speaking.

"On our signal, Eugene will drop their sentries. That should hopefully give us enough time to cover some of that distance before they can organize a defense. We'll attack as the sun is falling and use the cover of night to make our escape."

"What's the plan once we get to the building?" I asked.

"Standard vertical pincer assault." I blinked, and she sighed, disappointed that I didn't understand what she meant.

"It's a pretty common huntsman strategy, one goes high, the other goes low. In this case you'll go high because most of the resistance should be on the ground floor."

"Define 'go high'" I asked, not liking what I was picturing.

"I'm gonna throw you through a third story window." She replied nonchalantly, and I could feel a slight twinge in my gut at the prospect.

"Yeah… that's what I was afraid of."