Chapter Text
It was, Qrow later mused, a fittingly bleary day in the countryside of Vale, southeast of the capital city. Darker skies than he expected from the forecast on that morning’s news - overcast, but calm - and there was clearly a storm passing over the mountains to the east, but the wind was coming in from the ocean, a cool autumn breeze, and the rain was being pushed the other direction.
Which was why the ominous crack of thunder jolted him out of his nap. His chair, already tilted precariously on its rear legs, gave into its casual flirtation with gravity, and he was pitched backward, rolling onto the wooden floor of the tavern.
Before he could take a second to regain his bearings, a bright flash of light seared itself into his retinas. He righted himself awkwardly, one hand fumbling for his blade while the other was held over his eyes, blinking away the sudden spots in his vision.
Tai and Summer were always the academics of the team, but Qrow was pretty sure that thunder was supposed to come after the lightning.
Something was wrong.
In a burst of crimson, he exploded out of the tavern, leaving in his wake a broken chair, an empty glass of whiskey, and a pre-loaded lien chit, still spinning in place on the table where he tossed it.
He booked it along the road out of town, headed directly towards the sudden funnel cloud in the sky, that was even now flashing with discharges of dark golden energy.
He felt a knot growing at the pit of his stomach. He recognized the color of those flashes. He knew who was in the center of that tempest. Something was wrong.
He was probably going to be blamed for it, too. Story of his godsdamned life.
Qrow stilled his Aura, preparing to put on a burst of speed that would put Summer to shame, had she been around to see it. He could hear her now: Shame you don’t explode in a burst of feathers, because that would be hilarious.
He shoved the intrusive thoughts into the corner of his brain. They were not important right now. They were a distraction, and distractions get people killed.
He focused on riding the wind, on getting to the heart of the storm as fast as possible.
And flew.
The scene was chaos. Qrow nearly fell out of the sky when he saw how badly the three assassins had beaten the woman he had, despite all evidence in confirmation, hoped would not be there.
And assassins they clearly were. It wasn’t a haphazard ambush by bandits, he knew Amber could handle the average threat. The information Oz had given Qrow on the woman before him wasn’t the most comprehensive file, and while it was skimpy on her combat aptitude, he still knew roughly what her capabilities were supposed to be.
Nothing short of a fully-trained Huntsman strike team should have been able to keep her so flat-footed. This was coordinated. This was planned.
Amber was limping when he touched ground. Her twin-crystal staff was poised to deal a decisive blow to one of her attackers. But she didn’t see what was behind her.
The woman in red, bow drawn. One arrow to the back.
He was too far away. Harbinger was in his hand, drawn without even thinking about it, but completely useless at this range. It was a twice-damned albatross around his neck, for all the good it would do him.
The lackeys had Amber on her knees now, as she strained to get away from the woman in red. There was something in the assassin’s hand, pointed at Amber’s face in what was clearly an execution position.
Should he risk it? Would it even make a difference? It wasn’t clear what the assassins were doing, but if their ideal outcome left Amber healthy and alive, Qrow would give up drinking on the spot.
What did he have to lose?
Unbidden, faces swam across his face. One missing. One as good as. And one so withdrawn into his sorrow from the other two that he may as well have joined them.
He tried to clear his thoughts, and two more joined the other three. The girls, tiny and afraid, the spitting image of their parents. Dependent on him, as everyone always ended up being.
What did he have to lose? Everything. But that was nothing new to him.
He was too far. He had one shot at this. If he was wrong, and fortune swung the other way…
He flared his Aura. Pushed it into his Semblance, with everything he had. Hoped against hope that misfortune would fall upon someone other than himself today.
Leaped into the air, to preserve his momentum. Twisted in mid-air, to add as much strength as he could… and hurled his blade directly at the assassin in red.
He knew, the moment it left his fingers, that he had made a mistake.
Harbinger dipped in its arc, pulled down by gravity, too soon, and skipped along the ground. It must have hit a rock at just the right angle, because the second time it skipped, the twin barrels fired, alerting the assassins to his presence.
Fuck it. He poured on the speed, trailing behind his blade as it struck the ground a third time. This time, the vibration engaged the servos, and the sword began to unlock in mid-air.
The two lackeys holding Amber turned to see the commotion. The woman in red faltered for a moment, then hastily turned back to her task. Qrow watched in horror as something black and sticky shot out of her glove, wrapping itself around Amber’s head.
Harbinger had finished extending, and the handle shot out, bouncing the newly-formed scythe high in the air.
Qrow felt his heart sink into his stomach as it started falling directly towards Amber.
And then, the wind picked up, and Harbinger curved in its flight to neatly sever the black strands connecting her to the assassin.
He was close enough now to hear her scream in fury. His long legs pounded the unpaved road. Three steps. Two.
Fire lanced under his feet, exploding the space he had just been occupying. He darted to the side and continued forward, his eyes set on one goal and one goal only.
One step.
And then the fallen Maiden was in his arms, as he ducked past a trio of explosive arrows, skidding to a halt beside a tree stump, in which his scythe had embedded itself.
He placed her carefully on the ground, propped her up against the stump, and stood up to face the trio.
Kids. They were just kids. A girl in green raised twin pistols at him, as a hard-faced boy in silver shifted his fists and feet into a defensive stance. And the other - the woman in red - stood dumbfounded as the white opera glove on her right hand dissolved into nothing.
She stared at her hands, turning them back and forth. “No. No, that shouldn’t have… it’s not enough. It was supposed to be mine!” Her eyes, one barely visible beneath her bangs, blazed with fury, as her head snapped up to meet Qrow’s gaze. “You will pay for that!”
The girl in green turned to her companion. “Cinder, this is out of our league, we need to abort.”
Qrow casually reached over and plucked Harbinger from the stump. “Your friend’s right, Cinder,” he said, twirling it idly in his hands once, twice, three times, before bringing it to a loose ready position. “Your luck has run out.”
“Like hell it has,” Cinder snarled. She grabbed her bow off her back, split it into two wickedly curved blades, and rushed forward.
Qrow sighed, shifted his feet, and tensed up for one decisive strike.
The crack of thunder almost pitched him off his feet again, and a bolt of lightning streaked past him to strike Cinder square in the chest. There was a flash of orange as her Aura visibly shattered from the blow, and she was thrown a dozen feet down the road, bouncing once off the unpaved dirt path before rolling, limply, to a halt.
The girl in green and the boy in silver glanced at each other in unison and promptly vanished.
Qrow blinked. There was no telltale burst of speed, no smoke, no indication of any means for the assassins to have escaped. They simply disappeared.
“That’s… not something you see every day,” he said to himself. Well, not quite only to himself. “What about you?”
He turned as he spoke, making it absolutely a question that was a casual aside, and not at all one of cautious concern.
Amber, the Fall Maiden, stared up at him. Her arm was still outstretched, pointing directly at where she had hurled the bolt of lightning at Cinder. Her face was raw from where Cinder’s whatever the fuck that was had wrapped around her head, raised welts that had swollen her left eye shut. “Not before today,” she agreed. “Can you get us to safety?”
“Or die trying,” Qrow said. It shouldn’t have been a legitimate gamble.
“Good,” said Amber, nodding in thanks, her voice heavy with relief, “because I’m going to pass out now.” Matching word to deed, her eyes immediately fluttered back as she tipped over.
“Great,” Qrow muttered, truly to himself this time, as he caught her before she hit the ground. With his other hand, he reached into his pocket for his flask. “Oz is going to kill me.” His hand came out empty, and he started patting down his other pockets.
Damn. Left it back in town. Of all the luck.
Chapter One
Red Alert
There was a saying: “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
Historians were a bit sketchy on its origins, of course - some say that it was a famous phrase of a well-known carnival barker, others say there’s no actual record of the man saying anything of the sort - but public opinion on the phrase itself was fairly solid.
It was a phrase that encompassed all of human society from time immemorial. It was a long-standing tradition, really, if one thought about it. Con men throughout history were grifting the unwary ever since there was a concept of some thing to grift them out of.
Long-standing tradition. That was the term, absolutely.
Roman flicked his lighter and lit a cigar as he led the way into the Dust shop. Counter-service robberies were a bit beneath him these days, but sometimes the job was what it was, and there was an awful lot of lien at the other end of this. Expenses, a flat consulting fee, and whatever else he could skim off the top? A contract like that was practically bursting at the seams with opportunity.
If brigand he must be, then he’d do so with glee. Roman Torchwick always approached his opportunities with a spring in his step, a song in his heart, and a fully loaded cadre of expendable, rented goons at his beck and call.
(Roman had tried hiring his own syndicate of kneecap-smashers back in the day, but it was simply more cost-effective to outsource. You paid by the hour, and if anything untoward happened to your temporary posse? Why, you paid the deductible and went on your merry way.)
(Hired help was, in many ways, a buyer’s market.)
There was, in fact, a sucker born every minute. That much was absolutely true. Roman had spent his entire life making sure that he would never be one of them.
He gestured to a store that still had its lights on. Junior Xiong’s rent-a-goons flanked him and pushed the doors open, startling the old man behind the counter.
“Do you have any idea,” Roman announced, broadly to the world around him but specifically to the old man, “how hard it is to find a Dust shop open this late?”
The old man held up his hands as the brute squad raised their weapons. “Please, just take the money and leave.”
“Oh, we’re not here for your money,” Roman said, his voice soothing and conciliatory. “Just your Dust. Your best crystals, if you please.”
He stood by as the goons opened cases and started packing away all the Dust they could carry. Crystals from the display case, powder from the dispensers along the walls - Roman meant to take all of it.
Generally speaking, Dust shops weren’t worth robbing - the price gouging the Schnee company employed to keep their competitors out of business also meant that it wasn’t worth selling on the open market. That, and any violent acts inside a store could risk an ignition, and that much Dust in close proximity? Too dangerous to consider. It just wasn’t worth robbing a Dust shop for the money.
It was a good thing that Roman wasn’t robbing it for the money, then.
There was a commotion in the back of the shop. One of the thugs slid across the tile floor, crumpled to the ground and coming to a stop at Roman’s feet.
“Check it out,” he instructed one of the others and resumed counting crystals.
He wasn’t selling the Dust. It was already paid for, in his services and his expertise. He just needed to fulfill the request, by any means possible. It was a lot of Dust, more than just one shop could cover, but he had some time to—
Another crash grabbed his attention, and he jerked his head up in time to see a henchman - the one he’d sent to check out the noise - sail through the air and crash through the plate glass window. The henchman was followed by a red and black blur, soaring through the now open window in a burst of wind and, for some reason, rose petals.
This is exactly what Yang does at night, Ruby thought to herself as she landed in the street. Loud noises, explosions, fights in darkened alleys and dismal nightclubs.
She reached behind her and unhooked Crescent Rose from its frame on her back. Absolutely what Yang does without telling anyone.
Although it was Main Street, fully lit by the moon and the rows of street lights, and she had relocated the fight outside to avoid an explosion.
She allowed herself a grin as she triggered Crescent Rose’s mechanism, slamming the base into the ground while it unfolded into its full length and unveiled the wicked sharp scythe blade. Yang never actually told her the details, so it didn’t really matter. Close enough, still counts.
Ruby counted the men as they filed out of the storefront, arranging themselves in a half-circle around her. That, plus the matching black and red outfits, meant they were definitely from some sort of organization, and that always meant a crime lord in the comics.
I wonder if Yang ever fought a crime lord.
Standing in the doorway, watching the henchmen surrounding her, was a man in a white overcoat. His hair, orange as a candle flame, fell over his right eye, and he reached up to adjust his black bowler hat. “It’s just a kid,” he said, his tone more annoyed than anything else. “Get her.”
The henchmen rushed her, and she started dodging.
Henchmen. Hench-man. That was a funny word. To hench. He henches, she henched, they will hench.
Ruby allowed herself a chuckle as she flipped her scythe blade over, bringing the short toe-blade on the reverse around to catch the largest attacker behind his collar (he was the henchiest of the men, she realized with glee) and, with a deft flick, leveraged him around and flung him into a pair of garbage cans set on the street corner.
There was a flash of steel, which she met with another twirl of the handle, catching the barrel of a handgun that had been aimed at her head like a club. The henchman struggled against her grip for a moment.
“Hey,” she asked him, while she had his attention, “is a lady henchman a henchwoman? Or is it a gender-neutral term?”
“What?” replied the thug, clearly the academic of the bunch.
“I mean, they never actually use the term ‘henchperson’, so I didn’t want to say the wrong thing,” Ruby explained. She reversed her grip on the handle and pressed the trigger, allowing the recoil of the high-powered rifle shot to spin her around the thug. His own gun caught on the scope assembly, and he was dragged around in a circle while she used the flat of her blade to clock another hopeful assailant across the temple.
“You shouldn’t misgender a criminal just because they’re a criminal,” she added helpfully.
“I… I don’t actually know,” the man said.
“Oh.” Ruby sighed, then kicked him in the face. He went down like a sack of potatoes. “I’ll have to ask someone else.”
She planted the blade in the asphalt and used it as an anchor to pivot around the handle, ducking under a pair of fists as she swung back around to the other side. The motion carried her to a firing angle, and she took a quick shot at the leader in the white coat. She didn’t stay still enough to see if it connected, however, because there was a hail of Dust rounds in the air, all converging on her. She kicked the blade out of the asphalt, braced herself against the flat rest she’d built at the base of the blade, and fired again, propelling her backwards.
And Dad said I’d overdesigned Crescent Rose, she thought, using the rifle to bounce herself back and forth across the street, zig-zagging out of any easy line of fire. Her scythe was a perfect specimen of modern engineering, collapsible with a bolt-action ammunition delivery system that was operable in literally every single configuration, a variable angle high impact blade, and also it was red.
Ruby really liked unconventional angles of attack; neither humans nor Grimm dealt well with foes that bounced around the battlefield the way she was currently doing, and the explosive course changes that Crescent Rose could add to her own Semblance-enhanced running speed let her explore every opening she could find in a much greater range than anyone would expect. Three more bounces brought her back into the fray, her feet touching ground for the first time since the initial burst, and she brought the weight of the weapon crashing down on the goon in front of her.
Three more quick bursts of speed and she was alone in the street with the leader. All the black-and-red suits were either unconscious or limping away in pain.
The man in white sighed. He stepped out of the shop and glanced at his fallen men. “Well, you were worth every cent, truly you were.” He stepped over one of the motionless bodies as he sauntered forward.
“Well, Red, it’s been fun, but I’m on a clock...” He raised his cane and pointed it directly at Ruby. “...so it’s time for all the good little girls to say goodnight.”
Ruby tensed as the foot of the man’s cane flipped open to reveal a gun barrel. No, wait, she realized with a sudden jolt, not a gun—
She leaped upwards with all her might, just barely swinging Crescent Rose downward fast enough to use the recoil to kick herself higher than the miniature rocket that struck the asphalt directly under her feet.
If that was the kind of weaponry that criminals had access to, Ruby was almost tempted to rethink her career path. Well, not really, but… almost.
“Kids today,” Roman muttered as he pulled himself up to the roof of what appeared to be, before half his rented brute squad crashed through the windows, a laundromat.
It didn’t matter. He had the case, which meant he had the Dust. Not quite the full score that he was hoping for, but this was only one hit of many, still a lucrative one at that.
He grabbed his scroll from his pocket and sent a quick message. Job done. Extraction for one. Assume cops.
He waited a second for a confirmation. No text sent back, but there was a high-pitched whine in the air that he wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been listening for it. Perfect. Time to go.
“Hey! Hold it right there!”
Great. Another high-pitched whine. He sighed and turned to see the kid there, her ridiculously oversized weapon somehow not toppling her over.
“I’d love to stay and chat, Red,” Roman said, reaching into his coat pocket, “but I literally have a million better things to do. You understand, right?”
The sound of the engine he’d been listening for grew deafening, and he grinned. The searchlights of the Bullhead he’d been waiting for switched on, illuminating him from behind, and the glare shadowed his movements from immediate view. “But I’ll leave you with this parting gift,” he shouted, tossing a red Dust crystal at the girl’s feet. She had her arms up to shield her eyes from the sudden light, and couldn’t react fast enough to stop Roman from raising his cane and blasting the crystal.
The explosion was magnificent. He didn’t stop to watch it, however - he’d already turned to jump into the waiting personnel bay of the aircraft, thumping the bulkhead as he landed to confirm he was on board.
Something barely grazed his ear at high speeds. He switched hands on the guardrail and whirled around. Red was there, not even singed, and he quickly saw why: a taller woman was standing in front of her, her Aura flaring as she raised her weapon for another attack.
He thumped the bulkhead again, grabbing the pilot’s attention. She glanced up at him, one smoldering eye visible beneath the fringe of her dark hair. The other woman in the cockpit did not react - she was, as always, all business.
“We’ve got a Huntress,” he warned, sliding into the pilot’s chair just as she left it to go handle the situation.
He glanced at his co-pilot. “Even odds on her handling it?”
The woman sitting next to him raised an eyebrow, before turning mismatched eyes back to the controls.
Roman sighed. “Everybody's a critic.”
When the Dust crystal blew, Ruby only had enough time to throw her arms up to shield her face. Careless. She’d been careless, and that much Dust at once—
A glowing purple sigil interposed itself between the explosion and Ruby, catching the force of the blast and diverting it around her. The heat was almost unbearable, but almost was enough in this case.
She blinked up at the Huntress now in front of her, shielding her from further attack. Blonde hair, pulled back into a severe bun, with one curly forelock framing the right side of her face.
The Huntress straightened her glasses as she glared at Ruby, ensuring that nobody was any more than minorly singed, then turned her attention back to the hovering airship.
Ruby had seen her before, she was sure of it. The white blouse, buttoned most of the way up, tucked into a high-waisted black pencil skirt, gave her an extreme schoolteacher vibe, an effect only slightly mitigated by the artfully tattered crushed velvet cape that was even now whipping around in the winds created by the Bullhead’s thrusters.
The Huntress tensed, and Ruby turned her attention back to the Bullhead. Standing in the doorway, obscured by the glare from the airship’s spotlights, a woman was carefully aiming a weapon. Her dress lit up with orange-red glyphs - fire-type Dust sewn into the cloth, Ruby realized with a start - and a trio of arrows shot out, piercing the rooftop in a triangle around the Huntress. The tips of the arrows lit up the same shade as the assailant’s dress, and the patch of roofing around them started to glow, emitting a frantic screech of rapidly heating metal.
The Huntress jumped backward, pushing Ruby out of the way of the rooftop exploding into a cloud of flame and superheated ceramic shards, shrapnel that froze in midair as Glynda waved her riding crop, her Aura pulsing the same shade of purple as the underside of her cape.
And it was Glynda Goodwitch, Ruby was now absolutely sure of it. Not only had she grown up listening to the stories of Dad and Uncle Qrow’s old team and their exploits at school, but she had stolen Yang’s admissions brochure to Beacon Academy when she wasn’t looking. Prominently displayed on the list of faculty? Assistant Headmistress, Glynda Goodwitch. Trained Huntress, Dust Specialist.
Listed Semblance: Telekinesis.
The twisted shrapnel reformed into an enormous spear, which Glynda sent rocketing towards the Bullhead with a burst of Aura and a wave of her hand.
What followed was something Ruby would remember for the rest of her life. Two wills clashing, two Huntresses facing off at the height of their power. Ruby could only guess that the other woman was in fact a Huntress, but regardless of whether or not she followed that particular path, she had training and she had skill.
The lance was deflected by a wave of flame, sparked from a pair of explosive arrows. The shrapnel twisted around the airship, splitting into three streams and striking off the armor plating, before coming back for a second pass.
Whoever was piloting the Bullhead was good, too - the airship banked with just enough time to avoid taking a stream of shrapnel to the starboard engine, and instead merely let it tear through the canopy.
A fresh volley of arrows were deflected by a redirected stream of shrapnel, which was duly incinerated by a wave of fire from the woman hand, having gathered as much of the Dust from her dress as she could in one pass. Glynda sent the remaining batch of her improvised missiles to pierce the canopy at the helm of the Bullhead, which must have dealt at least some damage to the people inside, because the craft started wobbling to regain control.
Ruby converted Crescent Rose to its bolt-action rifle configuration and started sending shot after shot at the airship, each one deflected by an orange burst of Aura.
The woman took advantage of the opening to send a full brace of arrows streaking towards Ruby, surrounding her with a patch of fire priming itself to explode beneath her.
Glynda whipped her riding crop behind her, and Ruby felt herself picked up off the ground and thrown across the rooftop, just before a series of explosions vaporized the spot she had just been standing. The Huntress likewise had to throw herself out of the way of another series of blasts to avoid the same fate.
By the time the smoke cleared, the airship had peeled away, too far and too fast to chase on foot. Ruby pulled herself to her feet and glanced up at Glynda, who straightened her glasses once more and set her jaw.
Ruby sighed. She was in trouble, she just knew it.
World of Remnant
Huntsmen
Ever since the Great War and the dissolution of the monarchies, the Four Kingdoms have existed in a time of cautious peace. Trade between nations were at an all-time high, and the establishment of the Vytal Festival maintained the competitive spirit that has, for the time being, been an adequate replacement for war.
But the Kingdoms do face other threats than diplomatic and economic ones; bandits, natural disasters, and the eternal presence of the Creatures of Grimm. While the nations do have their own armed forces to protect themselves, the same is not always true of the people and goods that travel the roads, skies, and seas between cities, and not all of the quiet country villages have a standing militia.
Thus, the Huntsman Academies. One for each Kingdom, the Academies take in promising students and turn out full-fledged Heroes of the Realm.
Huntsmen and Huntresses fill a variable role in society at large. Most are based in cities, taking jobs from Hunt Boards that are requested through the Academies proper. These jobs can take a Huntsman anywhere in the world, and are a major source of income, as every job posted has been vetted and approved. Sometimes a Huntsman is needed to escort a ship through hostile territory, defending the cargo and crew from bandits and Grimm alike. Other requests can have a team eradicating an infestation of Grimm from a nearby town, or to provide security for a pre-planned event out in the fields.
Not all Huntsmen stick to the job boards, however. Many choose to wander the world on their own merit, offering their services to villages and farmers who may not be able to contact an Academy for an official request.
Some Huntsmen are employed as local town constabularies, taking advantage of the Academy’s training in local laws as well as combat ability. Others choose to join the military branches, their education propelling them quickly up the ranks to prestigious postings and government contacts. A smaller number will settle down and simply live in a village, offering their services in payment for food and housing, but otherwise enjoying the quiet life out in the country.
Many Huntsmen return to the Academies, or the feeder schools surrounding them, to share their knowledge and experience for the next generation.
Regardless of a Huntsman’s chosen career path, there are three things that are always common knowledge.
One, a Huntsman is always a person of interest wherever they go, for good or for ill.
Two, Huntsmen talk. All the time. Especially if they’re from the same graduating class. Even if news doesn’t make it to official channels, if a Huntsman knows something, their friends will know it soon enough.
Three, the life of a Huntsman is one of action, always. Even if they retire into teaching, they remain Huntsmen and Huntresses, and always carry themselves as such.
It’s an open secret, unspoken, but acknowledged: No Huntsman has ever died of old age.