Chapter 1
Steel’s P.O.V.I sprinted through the market of Menagerie, followed closely by a boy with red hair and bull horns and a girl with black hair and cat ears: Adam Taurus and Blake Belladonna. As I turned a corner, I looked back. Adam was still chasing me, but Blake was gone. I looked back to the front and stopped just before I ran into Blake.
“Aw, come on, you guys!” I exclaimed. “You know I’m not as fast as you.”
“Yes,” an adult voice said, “but you should also be able to blend into a crowd with a single thought.” Blake’s father, Ghira, the leader of the White Fang, walked up.
“I know,” I told him, “but I can’t figure out how to change into a person, and no matter what I am, my eyes are the same.” Ghira nodded.
“One limit to your semblance shouldn’t keep you from blending in.” He smiled. “However, you’re doing extremely well for only just figuring out what your it is.” He looked at the three of us. “Go have fun. You three have earned it.” The three of us laughed and ran off through the market.
Once we made it to the pier, we stopped.
“I think you need to work on your running skills, Steel,” Adam said as we sat down on the edge of the pier. “You almost always get here last.” I elbowed him.
“You’re just lucky I didn’t turn into a cheetah and sprint all the way here.” Blake smiled.
“Wouldn’t that be cheating?” I nodded, and felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Jacob!!” I exclaimed. “Do you want me to tell mom that you keep following me?” My twin brother shook his head.
“Hey, Jacob,” Blake said. “How long have you been following us?” He thought for a second.
“Since you passed me by the toy stand.” I elbowed him in the stomach.
“What happened to you being observant, Steel?” Adam asked. I shoved him forward and into the water. Blake, Jacob, and I burst out lasting until Adam grabbed my ankle and pulled me in. I resurfaced with a mouthful of water and spit it in Adam’s face.
“That’s disgusting!” he yelled.
“What’s disgusting?” someone asked. For a second the four of us were confused, but it was simple enough.
“Ilia, where are you?” Blake asked before a girl with red hair, grey eyes, and freckles appeared below the pier: Ilia Amitola. “No, seriously. Where are you?” Adam and I smiled.
“She’s down here,” we said at the same time. We stared at each other.
“Did you not see them if you were down there?” Jacob asked. Ilia shook her head.
“I just got here,” she told us. “Swam from down there.” She pointed south to another pier. “So what did you guys do?”
“Adam’s being annoying,” I told her. I ducked my head under the water as Adam’s hand came at the back of my head. As I resurfaced, Adam said, “She pushed me in, I pulled her in, she spit water in my face.” He looked at me and smiled. I stuck my tongue out at him.
“Well, if you guys wanna do something interesting,” Ilia started, “there are some huntsman from Vytal on the island.” My wolf ears perked up.
“Where?” She shook her head.
“I’m not gonna tell you,” she said. “Ghira told me to tell you they were here and see if you could track them. I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to.” I smiled.
“At least my tracking’s better than my hiding.” Adam nodded.
“Maybe that alone will get you into Beacon,” he said. I growled at him.
“You’re so lucky you get to go a year before we do.” Blake and Ilia nodded. Adam frowned.
“Yeah, except I’m not going to Beacon.” We were confused. This was the first time we had heard him say this.
“Like I’m gonna go to a school that’s mainly humans who hate us just ‘cause we’re different.” I looked at the water. He had a point, but Beacon was the best academy for future huntsman and huntresses there was. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter right now. You can’t go ‘til you’re seventeen. Let’s see if Steel can find these huntsman.”
Adam’s P.O.V.
As we followed Steel through the woods in search of huntsman, I pondered the idea of going to Beacon, as I had done a lot in the past year. Humans and Faunus didn’t have anything to fight about, except for the fact that the humans wouldn’t even give us a chance because we had animal attributes. Beacon was the number one academy for aspiring huntsman and huntresses, but there were too many humans that would make my life worse.
I looked ahead of us to where Steel was sniffing out the huntsman, and I smiled. She was too under confident in her own abilities. I didn’t know how she could manage to avoid us in the market for over three hours, and then turn around and say she wasn’t good enough to go to Beacon. She was super talented, and pretty, and . . . okay, I guess you could say I had a crush on Steel. But I said the same things about Blake, too. What wasn’t to like?
“Guys!” Steel whisper-yelled, snapping me back to reality. “I think I found ‘em!” I ran up beside her, and she looked up at me. I smiled and looked through the foliage in front of us. Sure enough, on the other side were three people with the Vytal symbol stitched into their left sleeves. I fistbumped Steel, smiling.
Steel’s P.O.V.
As we watched the huntsman talking to each other, Adam looked at me.
“We should go out there,” he said. My eyes were wide. “I mean, think about it. We’re four fourteen-year-olds and a fifteen-year-old. It’s not like they’ll think we’re up to something. We could just ask them what they’re doing, and if they ask why, we say we wanna go to Beacon.” I thought about it. It was actually a very well thought out plan. I smiled.
“Why not?” He smiled and mouthed, ‘One, two, three.’ We stood up and pushed through the bushes, ignoring the other three’s protests. The huntsman looked at us. There were two men, one with brown hair and one with blonde, and a woman with black hair.
“Hi!” I said cheerily. “Are you huntsman?” The woman smiled and walked closer to us.
“Yeah, we are,” she said. “Who are you?” I smiled.
“I’m Steel,” I said. “This is Adam.” I heard the bushes rustle behind us.
“That’s Blake, Ilia, and Jacob,” Adam said. The woman smiled.
“It’s nice to meet you guys,” she said. “I’m Cerule, and the two buzzkills behind me are Indie and Dango. How old are you guys?”
“Adam’s fifteen,” I said. “The rest of us are fourteen.” Adam nodded.
“What’re you guys doing?” Adam asked. The black-haired man walked forward.
“That’s confidential,” he said sharply. Cerule shook her head.
“D, be nice,” she told him. “They’re just kids.” She looked back at us. “Why do you wanna know?” I smiled.
“We all want to be huntsman, too!” I said happily. Cerule smiled.
“Well, we can’t keep confidential business from other huntsman, now can we?” I smiled. “We’re looking for a group of rogue faunus that have organized protests and revolts, and they’ve been said to originate from Menagerie.” I tilted my head in confusion.
“Who?” She looked back at Dango and Indie, then back at us.
“The White Fang.”
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