Post by Argent Steele on Mar 16, 2019 11:06:29 GMT -5
[attr=class,cs-top haven]
[attr=class,cs-body haven]
[attr=class,char-name]Argent Steele
[attr=class,cs-main]
Date of Birth: 7th August 8 AV
Species: Faunus (Snake)
Romantic Orientation: Heterosexual
Aura Color: Silver
Height: 192 cm
Weight: 72 kg
Color Naming Rule: Argent means "silver" in Latin, and also means "bright" in more common language.
Semblance Name: Whisper
Rank of Semblance: C
Semblance Type: Manipulator
Primary Category: Combatant + 1
One Sentence Summary of Semblance: Argent Steele has the Manipulation Semblance of Whisper, which allows him to move objects with his mind.
Description of Semblance: Whisper allows Argent to create force upon objects within his area of influence that he has touched before, moving them however he chooses. While imbued with Whisper, objects will take on a silver glow which shows that they are currently under the effect of the Semblance. This glow fades when control is consciously ceded over the object in question or it leaves Argent's area of influence. Objects released from Whisper will retain the speed and bearing they have, but will thenceforth be affected by gravity, air resistance, friction, tailwinds, and other natural forces. Whisper does not create additional noise other than that which the projectile naturally generates, which gives it obvious stealth benefits when compared to a gun.
Whisper imbued projectiles can pierce through steels or materials of similar hardness. Moreover, while in flight, the affected projectiles can arc or snap sharply over and around allies or cover to target specific opponents, which offers flexibility and utility that a firearm cannot provide, in addition to the stealth benefit that it already possesses.
Drawbacks of Semblance: Argent must physically touch an object to exert any influence over it, and this influence cannot be reclaimed once it has left his range - for example, if shooting an arrow at high speeds, Argent cannot collect the arrow from where it lands by walking within range, and must physically touch the arrow again before he can affect it once more. Larger objects are also harder to affect and take more Aura than their smaller brethren, which limit his combat effectiveness to multiple small projectiles rather than large and powerful counterparts.
Weapon Name: Subtle Calamity / Nameless Knives
Rank of Weapon(s): E
Category: Combatants
Description of Weapons(s): Subtle Calamity is a spear that can transform into a bow. The spearhead is large and heavy, and can be launched as a ranged projectile via a Dust powered ejection port. It is connected by carbon fiber wire which is approximately the length of a small room (5m). A small but powerful motor exists in the spearhead, which can pull it back into the shaft after it has been ejected. While the weapon is in bow form, said motor also coils up the "unused" remainder of the wire so that the bowstring can remain taut.
The nameless knives are, as the name suggests, unnamed throwing knives forged from cheap metal intended to be used as disposable weapons.
Name of Non-Combat Ability: Spatial Awareness
Rank of Non-Combat Ability: F
Category: Hazard
Description of Non-Combat Ability: Argent possesses an instinctive and intrinsic understanding of how objects move and interact in three dimensions, as well as a sharp mind and good memory. In combination, these allow him to track and anticipate the paths of moving objects with a decent amount of success, allowing him to preemptively move out of the way of incoming attacks and amplifying his already existing reflexes.
Name of Non-Combat Ability: Probability Processing (Terrain)
Rank of Non-Combat Ability: F
Category: Obstacle
Description of Non-Combat Ability: Due to his practice and familiarity with crunching numbers and the memorization of formulae that others might deem as unnecessary or extraneous to Huntsman duty, Argent has a noticeable edge over others when it comes to his speed at calculating anything both inside and out of combat. Normally, this manifests in his ability to fire shots that trajectories that others might deem impossible - however, it can also be put to more mundane uses. By calculating probabilities to the best of his information and ability, Argent can seek out the best course of movement on short notice - the safest route through unsafe environments, or the quickest route through enemy territory with minimum exposure.
Name of Non-Combat Ability: First Aid
Rank of Non-Combat Ability: E
Category: Social
Description of Non-Combat Ability: Taking classes under Doctor Yuki Haragitanai's tutelage, Argent has learned how to stem blood flow from as well as bandage and dress an open wound, create improvised tourniquets, perform CPR, sew up long lacerations, and generally apply basic first aid once combat is over.
Name of Combat Ability: Serpent's Benediction: Speed of the Scylla (Speed)
Rank of Combat Ability: D
Category: Obstacle
Description of Combat Ability: While living in the wilderness and undergoing some basic training under a Huntsman’s tutelage for a year stripped much of the excess fat from his body and gave him a passing Semblance of combat awareness, Argent was not noticeably fast when first entering Haven Academy, compared to his peers. However, while he has not approached the heights of some of the fastest students at Haven Academy, diligent endurance training and constant combat skirmishing has raised his ability to accelerate noticeably faster than before. Argent can move in short bursts of up to twenty meters per second, and can maintain lower speeds for much longer.
Name of Combat Ability: Serpent's Benediction: Glare of the Gorgon (Marksmanship)
Rank of Combat Ability: E
Category: Combatants
Description of Combat Ability: From a young age, Argent had an instinctive sense for trajectories, angles, and speed - as well as the connections and interplay between all three. What this means is that he is able to calculate how various thrown objects interact with the environment on the fly, and use that knowledge to hit targets that should be near impossible to hit - such as bouncing a rock against a wall at an angle so that it hits the opponent taking cover around the corner. This sense is also what allows him to use his Semblance to its full potential, using its power to adjust speed and angles in minute detail while the object is in motion.
Unfortunately, this sense does not work with firearms. While Argent can fire and operate firearms like any other person, he cannot “feel” the interplay between forces like he can for other weapons, as firearms turn stored chemical potential energy into kinetic energy that propels bullets, and thus he cannot factor it into his subconscious calculations, which throws him off.
This sense currently has a range of roughly the length of a telephone pole, at approximately 10-12 meters.
Name of Combat Ability: Serpent's Benediction: Dance of the Dragon (Agility)
Rank of Combat Ability: C
Category: Hazard
Description of Combat Ability: Since coming to Haven Academy, Argent has focused his style of fighting around speed, range, and avoiding attacks instead of taking them head on. Under the tutelage of the professors at Haven, this improved greatly, and reevaluated intensive training following several failed missions has improved it even further. The result of these efforts is that Argent's reaction time, eye hand coordination, and ability to avoid incoming attacks are now equal to those of the average Huntsman, with room to improve in the future.
Name of Combat Ability: Serpent's Benediction: Talons of the Tarasque (Martial Arts)
Rank of Combat Ability: F
Category: Combatants
Description of Combat Ability: After changing his weapon, Argent has been training in close quarters combat to make up for his deficiency at close range.
Name of Combat Ability: Serpent's Benediction: Wings of the Wyvern (Acrobatics)
Rank of Combat Ability: F
Category: Obstacle
Description of Combat Ability: While not as experienced as others with dedicated training, Argent has spent more than a year in the wilderness under the tutelage of a veteran Huntsman, and has learnt from his mentor the importance of speed and using the terrain to one’s advantage. This training has given Argent a degree of expertise in freerunning around and over obstacles and uneven terrain, as well as experience in climbing cliff faces and large trees in nature. While he is also adept at traversing ruins in the wilderness, he is not as adept in the concrete jungle of urban environments.
Primary Drive: Argent's primary drive is to one day stand alongside the person he idolizes as a mentor and father, the Huntsman Shin Kurinji, as a fellow Huntsman, to aid him in making the world a better place without being a burden in any aspect. To Argent, that means working to master his skills and graduate from Haven Academy as the strongest he can be. To that end, he volunteers for combat missions where possible to increase his experience in the field, and spends most of his time outside of mandatory classes studying, training, or otherwise seeking another way to improve himself. In that sense, Argent is possessed of intense greed - not in the petty manner of material possessions that other minds seek out, but of experiences and materials that might forge him into a better fighter, all for the sole purpose of reaching his dream.
Fears: While not something he has ever voiced openly, Argent has a deeply hidden fear of connecting to others only to have them leave him behind. Largely rooted in the way his Faunus traits manifested at a young age and the subsequent isolation by his peers, this was further compounded by his mother's marriage to a stepfather who neglected his emotional development, as well as the birth of several younger siblings who lack his particular Faunus traits and are much more easily accepted by society, making him the true "black sheep" of the family as a result. It is hard for him to forge bonds with others, and even harder for him to let go of those bonds once they have been formed - at times, his behavior can border on the obsessive or irrational when it comes to such issues, especially when it comes to those close to him.
Despite his proficiency at probability calculation, Argent dislikes gambling on chance and possibility. He dislikes it for the constant nagging feeling that regardless of how much he prepares for an eventuality, regardless of how foolproof he can make a plan, regardless of how well he can adapt on the fly, all it takes is a random series of coincidences for things to fall apart. He is also irritated at messy living quarters, finding comfort in the act of organizing and putting his surroundings into place.
Style of Self-Expression: A firm believer in the principle that actions speak louder than words, Argent keeps himself taciturn and collected, rarely raising his voice outside of combat. He views emotional outbursts from someone in his position as unprofessional, seeing the rank of Huntsman as a position that needs to be filled only by the exemplary. To him, Huntsmen need to give others hope and confidence - only by keeping expressions of dismay, fear, rage, and other negative emotions from one's countenance and actions will the common people feel secure. He is all too aware of how words can be misconstrued by those with the intention to twist narratives, and tends to take a moment or even several to choose his words carefully before replying to others.
That being said, while able to converse and understand most people with adequate communication skills, Argent does not possess the natural presence that causes people to gravitate to those with great charisma. Due to his short and measured responses, as well as his goal oriented conversational style ,people tend to run out of conversation topics when speaking with him rather easily. Moreover, his lack of discernable energy tends to put off the casual conversationalist, and discourage people from lingering longer in his presence than necessary. Argent is aware of this flaw, and is trying to fix it with continuous exposure to others, but tends to lapse into it when not actively maintaining a more casual and personable exterior.
Most Important Thing: To Argent, the most important things he can ever receive are personal bonds. Idols, friends, mentors - anyone who has shown the willingness to forge past his exterior and get to know him as a person. Argent cares about the people close to him deeply, and has already demonstrated this with regards to the disaster at Rochdale, where he cut his way through crowds of desperate civilians to reach Kishka, his team leader and girlfriend, while she went on a ill advised and short lived expedition to rescue Holly Hock from being left behind.
Argent will always tend towards the end goal of protecting those he cares about. Sometimes, this means making concessions that aren't always in their favor so they can grow as people. And sometimes, it means putting them before others, even those more deserving. When pushed into a corner, when in the worst of situations, Argent will sacrifice the world itself for the people he cares about in his moments of weakness. Regardless of his own reputation, health, or ideals, or even the very relationships he prizes so much over everything else - he will burn everything he has on the pyre to keep those he cares about from dying.
Excessive personal loyalty. That is Argent Steele's fatal flaw.
Pre-Haven Life
Haven Events Summary
 | [attr=class,title nomargin]Age 19 [attr=class,title]Gender Male [attr=class,title]Faction Haven Academy [attr=class,title]Tier Sophomore [attr=class,title]Face Claim Executor from Arknights [attr=class,title]OOC Name Ryukai |
[attr=class,main-title-left haven]Character Traits
Date of Birth: 7th August 8 AV
Species: Faunus (Snake)
Romantic Orientation: Heterosexual
Aura Color: Silver
Height: 192 cm
Weight: 72 kg
Color Naming Rule: Argent means "silver" in Latin, and also means "bright" in more common language.
[attr=class,main-title-right haven]Combat And Inventory
[attr=class,title]Semblance
Semblance Name: Whisper
Rank of Semblance: C
Semblance Type: Manipulator
Primary Category: Combatant + 1
One Sentence Summary of Semblance: Argent Steele has the Manipulation Semblance of Whisper, which allows him to move objects with his mind.
Description of Semblance: Whisper allows Argent to create force upon objects within his area of influence that he has touched before, moving them however he chooses. While imbued with Whisper, objects will take on a silver glow which shows that they are currently under the effect of the Semblance. This glow fades when control is consciously ceded over the object in question or it leaves Argent's area of influence. Objects released from Whisper will retain the speed and bearing they have, but will thenceforth be affected by gravity, air resistance, friction, tailwinds, and other natural forces. Whisper does not create additional noise other than that which the projectile naturally generates, which gives it obvious stealth benefits when compared to a gun.
Whisper imbued projectiles can pierce through steels or materials of similar hardness. Moreover, while in flight, the affected projectiles can arc or snap sharply over and around allies or cover to target specific opponents, which offers flexibility and utility that a firearm cannot provide, in addition to the stealth benefit that it already possesses.
Drawbacks of Semblance: Argent must physically touch an object to exert any influence over it, and this influence cannot be reclaimed once it has left his range - for example, if shooting an arrow at high speeds, Argent cannot collect the arrow from where it lands by walking within range, and must physically touch the arrow again before he can affect it once more. Larger objects are also harder to affect and take more Aura than their smaller brethren, which limit his combat effectiveness to multiple small projectiles rather than large and powerful counterparts.
[attr=class,title]Weapon(s)
Weapon Name: Subtle Calamity / Nameless Knives
Rank of Weapon(s): E
Category: Combatants
Description of Weapons(s): Subtle Calamity is a spear that can transform into a bow. The spearhead is large and heavy, and can be launched as a ranged projectile via a Dust powered ejection port. It is connected by carbon fiber wire which is approximately the length of a small room (5m). A small but powerful motor exists in the spearhead, which can pull it back into the shaft after it has been ejected. While the weapon is in bow form, said motor also coils up the "unused" remainder of the wire so that the bowstring can remain taut.
The nameless knives are, as the name suggests, unnamed throwing knives forged from cheap metal intended to be used as disposable weapons.
[attr=class,title]Non-Combat Abilities
Name of Non-Combat Ability: Spatial Awareness
Rank of Non-Combat Ability: F
Category: Hazard
Description of Non-Combat Ability: Argent possesses an instinctive and intrinsic understanding of how objects move and interact in three dimensions, as well as a sharp mind and good memory. In combination, these allow him to track and anticipate the paths of moving objects with a decent amount of success, allowing him to preemptively move out of the way of incoming attacks and amplifying his already existing reflexes.
Name of Non-Combat Ability: Probability Processing (Terrain)
Rank of Non-Combat Ability: F
Category: Obstacle
Description of Non-Combat Ability: Due to his practice and familiarity with crunching numbers and the memorization of formulae that others might deem as unnecessary or extraneous to Huntsman duty, Argent has a noticeable edge over others when it comes to his speed at calculating anything both inside and out of combat. Normally, this manifests in his ability to fire shots that trajectories that others might deem impossible - however, it can also be put to more mundane uses. By calculating probabilities to the best of his information and ability, Argent can seek out the best course of movement on short notice - the safest route through unsafe environments, or the quickest route through enemy territory with minimum exposure.
Name of Non-Combat Ability: First Aid
Rank of Non-Combat Ability: E
Category: Social
Description of Non-Combat Ability: Taking classes under Doctor Yuki Haragitanai's tutelage, Argent has learned how to stem blood flow from as well as bandage and dress an open wound, create improvised tourniquets, perform CPR, sew up long lacerations, and generally apply basic first aid once combat is over.
[attr=class,title]Combat Abilities
Name of Combat Ability: Serpent's Benediction: Speed of the Scylla (Speed)
Rank of Combat Ability: D
Category: Obstacle
Description of Combat Ability: While living in the wilderness and undergoing some basic training under a Huntsman’s tutelage for a year stripped much of the excess fat from his body and gave him a passing Semblance of combat awareness, Argent was not noticeably fast when first entering Haven Academy, compared to his peers. However, while he has not approached the heights of some of the fastest students at Haven Academy, diligent endurance training and constant combat skirmishing has raised his ability to accelerate noticeably faster than before. Argent can move in short bursts of up to twenty meters per second, and can maintain lower speeds for much longer.
Name of Combat Ability: Serpent's Benediction: Glare of the Gorgon (Marksmanship)
Rank of Combat Ability: E
Category: Combatants
Description of Combat Ability: From a young age, Argent had an instinctive sense for trajectories, angles, and speed - as well as the connections and interplay between all three. What this means is that he is able to calculate how various thrown objects interact with the environment on the fly, and use that knowledge to hit targets that should be near impossible to hit - such as bouncing a rock against a wall at an angle so that it hits the opponent taking cover around the corner. This sense is also what allows him to use his Semblance to its full potential, using its power to adjust speed and angles in minute detail while the object is in motion.
Unfortunately, this sense does not work with firearms. While Argent can fire and operate firearms like any other person, he cannot “feel” the interplay between forces like he can for other weapons, as firearms turn stored chemical potential energy into kinetic energy that propels bullets, and thus he cannot factor it into his subconscious calculations, which throws him off.
This sense currently has a range of roughly the length of a telephone pole, at approximately 10-12 meters.
Name of Combat Ability: Serpent's Benediction: Dance of the Dragon (Agility)
Rank of Combat Ability: C
Category: Hazard
Description of Combat Ability: Since coming to Haven Academy, Argent has focused his style of fighting around speed, range, and avoiding attacks instead of taking them head on. Under the tutelage of the professors at Haven, this improved greatly, and reevaluated intensive training following several failed missions has improved it even further. The result of these efforts is that Argent's reaction time, eye hand coordination, and ability to avoid incoming attacks are now equal to those of the average Huntsman, with room to improve in the future.
Name of Combat Ability: Serpent's Benediction: Talons of the Tarasque (Martial Arts)
Rank of Combat Ability: F
Category: Combatants
Description of Combat Ability: After changing his weapon, Argent has been training in close quarters combat to make up for his deficiency at close range.
Name of Combat Ability: Serpent's Benediction: Wings of the Wyvern (Acrobatics)
Rank of Combat Ability: F
Category: Obstacle
Description of Combat Ability: While not as experienced as others with dedicated training, Argent has spent more than a year in the wilderness under the tutelage of a veteran Huntsman, and has learnt from his mentor the importance of speed and using the terrain to one’s advantage. This training has given Argent a degree of expertise in freerunning around and over obstacles and uneven terrain, as well as experience in climbing cliff faces and large trees in nature. While he is also adept at traversing ruins in the wilderness, he is not as adept in the concrete jungle of urban environments.
[attr=class,main-title-left haven]Character Information
[attr=class,title]Vitals
Primary Drive: Argent's primary drive is to one day stand alongside the person he idolizes as a mentor and father, the Huntsman Shin Kurinji, as a fellow Huntsman, to aid him in making the world a better place without being a burden in any aspect. To Argent, that means working to master his skills and graduate from Haven Academy as the strongest he can be. To that end, he volunteers for combat missions where possible to increase his experience in the field, and spends most of his time outside of mandatory classes studying, training, or otherwise seeking another way to improve himself. In that sense, Argent is possessed of intense greed - not in the petty manner of material possessions that other minds seek out, but of experiences and materials that might forge him into a better fighter, all for the sole purpose of reaching his dream.
Fears: While not something he has ever voiced openly, Argent has a deeply hidden fear of connecting to others only to have them leave him behind. Largely rooted in the way his Faunus traits manifested at a young age and the subsequent isolation by his peers, this was further compounded by his mother's marriage to a stepfather who neglected his emotional development, as well as the birth of several younger siblings who lack his particular Faunus traits and are much more easily accepted by society, making him the true "black sheep" of the family as a result. It is hard for him to forge bonds with others, and even harder for him to let go of those bonds once they have been formed - at times, his behavior can border on the obsessive or irrational when it comes to such issues, especially when it comes to those close to him.
Despite his proficiency at probability calculation, Argent dislikes gambling on chance and possibility. He dislikes it for the constant nagging feeling that regardless of how much he prepares for an eventuality, regardless of how foolproof he can make a plan, regardless of how well he can adapt on the fly, all it takes is a random series of coincidences for things to fall apart. He is also irritated at messy living quarters, finding comfort in the act of organizing and putting his surroundings into place.
Style of Self-Expression: A firm believer in the principle that actions speak louder than words, Argent keeps himself taciturn and collected, rarely raising his voice outside of combat. He views emotional outbursts from someone in his position as unprofessional, seeing the rank of Huntsman as a position that needs to be filled only by the exemplary. To him, Huntsmen need to give others hope and confidence - only by keeping expressions of dismay, fear, rage, and other negative emotions from one's countenance and actions will the common people feel secure. He is all too aware of how words can be misconstrued by those with the intention to twist narratives, and tends to take a moment or even several to choose his words carefully before replying to others.
That being said, while able to converse and understand most people with adequate communication skills, Argent does not possess the natural presence that causes people to gravitate to those with great charisma. Due to his short and measured responses, as well as his goal oriented conversational style ,people tend to run out of conversation topics when speaking with him rather easily. Moreover, his lack of discernable energy tends to put off the casual conversationalist, and discourage people from lingering longer in his presence than necessary. Argent is aware of this flaw, and is trying to fix it with continuous exposure to others, but tends to lapse into it when not actively maintaining a more casual and personable exterior.
Most Important Thing: To Argent, the most important things he can ever receive are personal bonds. Idols, friends, mentors - anyone who has shown the willingness to forge past his exterior and get to know him as a person. Argent cares about the people close to him deeply, and has already demonstrated this with regards to the disaster at Rochdale, where he cut his way through crowds of desperate civilians to reach Kishka, his team leader and girlfriend, while she went on a ill advised and short lived expedition to rescue Holly Hock from being left behind.
Argent will always tend towards the end goal of protecting those he cares about. Sometimes, this means making concessions that aren't always in their favor so they can grow as people. And sometimes, it means putting them before others, even those more deserving. When pushed into a corner, when in the worst of situations, Argent will sacrifice the world itself for the people he cares about in his moments of weakness. Regardless of his own reputation, health, or ideals, or even the very relationships he prizes so much over everything else - he will burn everything he has on the pyre to keep those he cares about from dying.
Excessive personal loyalty. That is Argent Steele's fatal flaw.
[attr=class,title]History Freeform
Pre-Haven Life
Esmeralda Steele was a snow leopard Faunus who had once been the acrobat of a wandering carnival acrobat, reduced to a street rat scavenging in the gutters when said carnival disbanded in the wake of the Great War and Mantle's ban on artistic forms of expression by the common folk started in earnest. Later enslaved by a Mistrallean slavemaster, she worked as manual labor for years before coming of age and being forced to work as a singer by day and prostitute herself by night. Rough treatment of her body in this manner caused quick deterioration, and by her late twenties, with artistic expression now allowed to the masses, her master decided to sell her to the Dust mines as manual labor to be worked to death. Escaping captivity before that could happen, Esmeralda fled Mistral and settled down near the Mantle/Mistral border in a small town called Pine Crest, where she gave birth to a son. She never knew who the child's father was, presuming him to have been one of her many trysts, but vowed to take care of him nevertheless. In hopes of providing him with a brighter future, she named the child Argent, so that he would shine bright and never endure the same darkness that she had.
For the first few years, everything was fine. Argent only had a small patch of scales on his chest that was easily hidden with a shirt, and the Steeles embedded themselves into Pine Crest without much trouble. But then, at the age of five, things started to change. Over the course of the next three years, Argent's eyes turned from grey to gold, and scales grew everywhere - around his eyes, coating his neck and chest and arms and legs until he could no longer hide them, replacing his human skin in huge swathes. The children who’d been his peers slowly distanced themselves, no longer able to tolerate the differences which they’d once overlooked. For those silver scales, he was ostracized, and held at arm’s length, like a dirty secret or leper - and for all that his mother was accepted among the people of the village, he still saw the fear in their eyes when they looked at him. The way their mouths pressed into thin lines and the way they looked away quickly, the way the children ran to hide behind the legs of their parents or avoided him when they played together.
He worked the farm, what little help he could offer in digging the rows and harvesting the crops. Keeping them watered. Keeping them fertilized. Checking them for disease and mold. Pruning the leaves. Reaping the harvest. It was a lonely life, but he had his mother. And he had the animals, the sun, the shattered moon, the blue sky and the stars in the night, and the rows upon rows of wheat and corn rustling gently in the wind.
It was a lonely life, but it was his.
Where other children played, Argent worked as hard as he could, putting all his effort into supporting the one person who could understand him and loved him for who he was. That did not mean his life was devoid of enjoyment - far from it. Those days, those golden days - they were a memory of a better time. Of the logs spitting embers in the fireplace on a winter’s night, when the snow fell thickly outside the frost coated windows, of the summer sun’s heat beating down on him as he tilled the land, of the spring rains that flecked the skies with grey and the grasses that grew in its wake, of the rows upon rows of corn and wheat rustling gently in the autumn wind.
One night, when he was eight years old, a pair of strangers came to the town; a man and a woman with a large weapon sheathed upon her back, the both of them cloaked in green and silver. They were polite, but did not speak overmuch. A room at the inn, for a few days. Argent watched them come, their cloaks muddied by the dust of the roads traveled. He watched everyone who came, partly of curiosity and partly of boredom. No one ever looked back.
But they did.
They came around the next day, when the sun was setting, having wandered about the town since the dawn came. The Steele farm was an outlier, far divorced from the rest of the village - but they came anyway, and this time, the hoods were down.
They were like him.
She who bore the armored gauntlet had a tail - a long, slender white furred affair that he hadn’t seen the day before. And he with the pair of guns holstered at his hips…
…had crimson scales across his arms, that disappeared beneath his shirt.
While the woman had gone inside to speak with his mother, the man had sat on the porch with Argent, looking out into the distance as the younger boy did. The red scales on his arms, now exposed, shone dully in the moonlight, looking far darker than they actually were. Not so for Argent’s own - the silver scales shone as brightly in the light of the moon as they did in the light of the sun.
The man broke the silence when an hour had passed, and the moon rose higher into the sky. Like a small crack in a dam inevitably leads to water pouring through - first slowly, then in far greater volume, he coaxed words out of the boy with practiced ease, as if he were someone who had had to do this many times across a long life.
The man’s name was Shin Kurinji, and he knew. He knew all about the woes that Argent had faced at the hands of those around him, of the discrimination that had plagued him for simply looking different from others. He knew it because he had faced the same thing, not so long ago. Before the war, before becoming a Huntsman.
A Huntsman. That was what he called himself. Was called by others.
Argent listened as Shin spoke. About the places he’d been to, the trials he’d overcome, and the acceptance he’d gotten from his peers along the way. It was a cruel world, he said, that even a child would need to fight for the recognition they deserved, but that was simply how things were. Each and every Faunus not among their own kind would need to fight twice as hard for half as much - until the day that they would no longer need to. That day would come, but for now it was but a distant dream.
Still, it was not a dream in which one should lose hope.
Shin let the child hold his gun. Feel its weight, eye the steel. Argent had wrinkled his nose at it before it was returned to Shin’s own hand, the metal still reeking faintly of acrid expended Dust. The Huntsman explained that it had belonged to his father, and that the weapon had a long history behind it. Even so, the weapon simply felt wrong in his hands, as though it simply wasn’t meant for it.
The next day, a day of rest where Argent had nothing to do on the farm, Shin tried to teach the Faunus child how to shoot.
Tried.
Despite hours on hours of using the Huntsman’s Daisy Cutter (Shin, apparently, had a twisted sense of humor), Argent failed utterly at hitting the tree but a few paces before him. In frustration, he had thrown a rock at the target and hit it square in the center, which surprised both Shin and himself. Intrigued, the Huntsman had him stand further back, and each time Argent would hit the center of the target with the rock until he passed thirty paces, and even then he still managed to hit the outer edges until he had passed forty. Shin praised him, and told him that he had a good eye and a sturdy hand, and sent him home to Esmeralda, who fussed and fretted over him until he fell asleep and dreamed of Huntsmen with scales, of Huntsmen who were accepted and not judged for their features but their skills and hearts and souls.
The next night, the Grimm attacked.
Fire blossomed in the town. Shin and Jade were resplendent in their green and silver armor, cutting down the Nevermores and then the Beowolves that came rushing out of the forest. Shin’s Daisy Cutter and Jade’s Talonfall echoed with bullet reports, and the Grimm were torn or shot apart before they could even lay a single claw on any of Pine Crest’s citizens. Argent watched it all from his bedroom window with wide eyes, flashes of light and rolling thunder and two figures backlit against the bonfire, leaping and twirling as though they were in a dance of their own.
Truly magnificent. It was then and there that the seed of Argent's future was planted within him - the desire to one day be just like the heroes that had saved his village from certain ruin.
When morning came, the young Faunus rushed to the village despite not having a single wink of sleep the night before. And standing, bruised and battered but victorious nonetheless, were Shin and Jade, surrounded by black stains where the Grimm had dissolved back into shadow, stains that stretched all the way to the outer reaches of the village. A weary Shin saw Argent, and gave him a thumbs up, one that the young Faunus was happy to return with a smile.
For the next week, Shin taught Argent as best as he could, even spending some of his own lien on a bow and some training equipment for his young friend. However, as all things must, that time ended. A new mission came through, one that required the Hunter pair at a new location. Argent would no longer have his mentor in person, but Shin had one last gift for him - a Scroll, containing recordings and instructions on how to further improve himself. Though the network in Pine Crest was nowhere near as well developed as the one in the main cities of Mistral, it was still a gift that the young Argent treated as more precious than gold. So it was that Shin left, and Jade with him.
Once again, Argent was left alone.
The days turned into weeks turned into months turned into years. Argent kept practicing with the bow and with throwing rocks in his spare time, kept listening to Shin’s recorded words and lessons until they ran out and he started again from the beginning, and grew. By the age of ten, he had added hunting in the woods to his repertoire, stalking rabbits and other small game - tracking them through the trees, putting an arrow into them and then bringing the animal carcasses to a butcher in exchange for meat and coin. Old man Glass was half blind and deaf and didn’t care so much for his appearance as he did for the work Argent did, and that was fine by him.
Then came an injured man, staggering through the noon sun. Argent had watched him from where he was tilling the fields, and called for his mother. Expecting her to send him for the village physicians, he instead watched her carry the taller man back into the house in her arms, and felt a sense of unease, but shrugged it off. His mother always cared, even for strangers.
Soon, however, it became clear that she cared too much. Even as his wounds healed, even when he no longer had trouble walking, Nova stuck to his mother like white on rice. He smiled when he saw Argent, and talked to the boy, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes, and the talk was distant and forced. Argent stopped talking to him, wanted his mother to stop talking to him, wanted him to leave - but each time he tried to speak to his own mother, it became rapidly clear that she was as besotted with the stranger as he was with her.
He hated it. Hated it when black cars rolled up outside the farm and came to retrieve their boss. Hated it when Nova proclaimed his love for his mother without an ounce of embarrassment in him. Hated it when his mother would no longer look at him, having eyes only for Nova, that tender look once reserved for him and him only now given to someone else. Hated it when they sold the farm and moved to the city, his mother no longer in the clothes he’d always seen her in, but in elaborate dresses and jewelry, as different as could be.
Argent had stubbornly worn his old clothes, and tracked mud into the fancy cars on purpose. All their stuff had fit into two bags, with space left over. He watched the only home he’d ever known disappear into the distance, pressing his hands against the glass window. The tears welled up, hot and scalding in his eyes, but no one saw - or if they did, no one cared.
Nova’s mansion was larger than the cottage he’d lived in by leaps and bounds, but to the young Faunus, it was also cold and empty. There were servants aplenty, to keep the place clean and well maintained, but it didn’t have the sense of being lived in that permeated their former home. There was no warmth, no soul in that lifeless place. No matter how many inane gifts that Nova brought to him and left in his room, it didn’t - couldn’t - change that for all the man’s words and promises, his smile still never reached his eyes when he looked at his step-son.
Four and a half months after he hadn’t settled in to his new place, and a few weeks before his eleventh birthday, Argent was called in to the living room to speak with his mother and the man who would never be his father, no matter how much he purported himself to be. He was about to be sent off to a place called a “boarding school”, where he could only return to see his mother every three months.
Argent knew, of course. Knew that Nova wanted him out of the way, as much as possible. That if he couldn’t win him over with the outstretched hand, he would beat him into submission with the clenched fist. He was about to plead with his mother, to get her to see reason, but her next words stopped him cold. She was happy. Happy that he would have a chance to pursue the education she could not. Happy that he would not have to grow up the way she did, happy that his future would be brighter than hers.
Perhaps if that were all, Argent could have tolerated it. Could have held in the resentment and the seething dislike and the hollow ache in his core. And for a short while, he did, clenching his fists and focusing on his own breathing until he was able to think clearly. A single nod had signified his assent. Esmeralda had beamed and Nova had relaxed, clearly relieved that for the first time, the child would not be trouble. He’d had brought in an array of new equipment, laid out neatly on a cloth covered cart - all produced by his company, of course. Weapons, armor, and a Scroll - state of the art, all shiny and new.
You won't need to carry that old thing around any more. As a matter of fact, I've already had the servants dispose of it for you.
For a second, the words didn’t register. Then in the next, panic and rage filled him in equal measure, and he rounded on them, eyes wild. Nova had jerked back, shocked by the sudden change, but the child had no sympathy for him, only an ever increasing pulse of panic his heart pounded in his veins and behind his eyes.
He’d screamed out a desperate question, and when Nova would not answer, his disgusting mouth hanging open in shock, Argent had turned and bolted for the door. Outside, in the mansion grounds, he’d ran for the recycling bins the servants used, his small feet carrying him as fast as they ever had. He’d dug through the refuse, bags of paper and plastic and metal. The skin on his hands tore, but he didn’t feel any pain, tearing through everything with a single minded purpose. A sob of relief escaped him as he grabbed hold of a familiar shape and pulled out the Scroll. Shin’s Scroll. Badly dented, with a crack across the screen, but still glowing it’s quiet blue. Still working.
Light fell over him, and he whirled to see that hateful man, who had the audacity to have a worried expression on his face. And beside him, the mother who for the first time he felt anger at. That man, that horribly blind and self centered man, had thrown away the one gift he’d ever gotten from anyone else, and she had let it happen. Argent hissed out his hate, the words filled with venom and bile as he’d never spoken before, watching their eyes grow wide. And then, before they could react, before they could destroy anything more of what he had left, he ran, alone, into the night. Their cries of his name fell behind him in the darkness, and he was on his own.
Like his mother before him so many years ago, the small boy stowed away in a train that was headed away from his source of torment, crossing the country in a week towards the only place he could call home.
Where else did he have to go?
Argent had hoped that this was all some sort of nightmare. Some sort of fever dream, where he could wake up to see his mother once again and look out upon the crop fields and see that this was real, that this was the truth, that everything up until now that had gone so horribly wrong was nothing more than an overactive imagination from a belly too full of food and a brain too full of radio serials before bed.
He’d never even once considered the possibility that there might not be a home for him to return to.
Argent collapsed in the dirt, staring blankly at the skeletal frame of a new building where the cottage and farm used to be. There was a black hole in his chest, an ache so terrible that he could no longer move. He’d lost everything.
Everything.
When the construction workers involved in Nova Core Engineering’s new Pine Crest distribution warehouse came to work the next day, they found a broken child, sitting in the soil and clutching a damaged Scroll. There were dried trails of salt on his face, from his eyes to his cheeks, and his arms were littered with scabs from small wounds that had drawn blood. His eyes were bloodshot, the skin on his feet torn and broken from walking without shoes or socks.
It took a while to recognize him, but when they did, a single call was enough to bring Nova and Esmeralda driving up to Pine Crest in a car, to find him huddled in a corner. Despite the accumulated dirt of a week’s travel, Esmeralda still scooped him up in her arms and cried as she hugged him tightly.
Argent looked on his mother for the first time in a week, and felt nothing. None of the boundless love his heart would swell with for her but months before, none of the calm peace that he’d always felt when she was around and held him in her arms. Overnight, she’d become a stranger, one he could care less about.
When he looked at Nova, there was nothing, too. A distant memory of a sense of dislike, but nothing like the burning hate that had come before. Nothing seemed to quite matter now, as if he was just a spirit inhabiting a vessel of flesh, and everything happening to him was but a show happening upon a screen. They went home, and Argent dully packed his items to leave for the boarding school before he sat on his bed and turned over the Scroll in his hands. A video of Shin blossomed on the screen, and he watched it to its end.
He still felt nothing.
The next years passed in a blur.
Argent went to school. He lived in a bunk with five others. The others avoided him. He attended classes. He studied. He did poorly. He spoke when he was spoken to. He ate when it was time to eat, and slept when it was time to sleep. He washed his clothes. He cleaned the room. He studied more. He did better. When the time came for school to end, he returned home for a few days before he once again went back to Root Institution.
The second time, he did not return home, and did not do so again until he graduated. Letters came, which he did not read. Argent developed a cordial relationship with most of his peers. Most did not get close, though a few seemed to take to him - mostly open-minded and extroverted humans who saw past his appearance. At the age of fifteen, he graduated from the school in the upper quarter of the cohort, and left to go back to his mother for the first time in four years.
Argent noted dispassionately that the number of sisters he had had had now grown to four, the newest one swaddled in a bundle of cloth and cradled gently against Esmeralda’s bosom as she had smiled and welcomed him back. Something like a blade of ice pierced through him, and he winced at the ache, but it quickly faded away, and he simply nodded politely, brushed past her, and made for his room.
Nova had offered him a place at the company, but Argent rejected the proposition and found work instead as a worker at a Schnee Dust processing factory. It was dull, mind numbing work, but it paid well (not that it mattered), and the monotony was, in its own way, relaxing for the young Faunus. That, and he didn't have to return home, living in a room at the workers' dormitory on site. It was much the life as he had led in the boarding school, albeit swapping out academic studying for physical work.
There was a girl, though, in the grey cloud of indifference that had settled over his life - a human girl who was his supervisor. A young woman who smiled at him more often than the others, who seemed to like him. She sat with him, sometimes, when they weren't on the clock, and they talked.
She talked enough for both of them, truth be told - not that he minded. It was somehow relaxing, the way her words washed over him like a hot bath after a long day, and the world no longer seemed quite as grey when she was around. It was nice to have someone who cared about how he felt, who didn’t seem to mind when he fell silent, whose presence drained tension from his body like an ink spot dissolving into water. It was a good twelve months.
Then things went awry, as they always did. It started small, with her asking for little favors here and there. Then the favors got bigger, and worsened from there. He tried to refuse, sometimes, but she would plead, and pout, and eventually his resistance would melt like butter left out on a summer day.
And then, at last, things came to a head. She was let go by the SDC, and coerced him into helping with what she claimed was a final revenge - of taking the crates of Dust stored in the warehouses on site, and selling them off on the black market. To cover the costs for her living until she found her next job, she said, pressing herself into him and resting her face into his shoulder. Wetness stained his shirt there, and against his better judgement, he had nodded.
In the dead of night, they made their move with a number of people she’d claimed were friends she’d called in to help. His unease grew, but he said nothing.
He should have.
He remembered the glass from the windows above falling a moment after they shattered far above, and he remembered the gleam of green and silver armor in the moonlight. Remembered the golden eyes in the depths of the cowl, and the gun he’d once held being brought to bear. Remembered its thunder going off, and its muzzle flaring bright, brighter than the sun-
The next thing he knew, he woke in the hospital, one side of his head wrapped in bandages. And at his bedside was the Huntsman he'd once held up as a hero, looking very tired and old.
Things cleared up from there. The girl, apparently, had been a member of one of Mistral’s many street gangs connected with those deeper in the criminal underworld. Her Semblance was hypnotism, and she'd thoroughly fooled him, worming her way into his heart until he was completely under her thumb. And then, when she had what she needed, she had thrown him away without a second thought.
In the presence of his hero, in the face of the gentle concern the Huntsman gave him, all of the emotions Argent had locked away over the years came rushing back in a flood, a torrent so forceful he was swept away without a chance to even try to keep himself afloat. Sobbing, everything spilled out of him as fast as he could say it - of how he’d been replaced, in every manner of the word, of how he’d lost everything, of a home where he wasn’t wanted and a family where he wasn’t loved, of how that girl had been the only one to care-
Shin waited until the tears stopped flowing. Waited until the words had stopped coming and Argent had slumped, worn out. And then, very slowly, very quietly, had pulled the younger Faunus into a hug, to rest against his chest. Exhausted, Argent drifted off to sleep. When he woke next, Shin was gone, but he had left a note for him - a reminder to stay strong in spite of what had happened.
The next few weeks was a whirl of activity and things he could barely remember. The police came and verified his accounts with that of witnesses and Shin’s own report, and pronounced him an accomplice under duress. Essentially being let off with a slap on the wrist, he still had to serve two weeks of community service, and received a message in the mail about the termination of his contract at the Schnee Dust Company. Life became a blur of paperwork and plain work, serving his dues until his sentence was over.
And then, when Shin came to him with the offer, under the moonlight, extending an open hand, Argent took it. Packed his things and left, like he had once before, leaving his life behind, and a letter addressed to his family.
Do not look for me.
It was the best year he had of his entire life. Even if sometimes they slept under nothing but the stars and they walked until his feet blistered, even if sometimes they went hungry because their rations ran out or were destroyed in their battles. Under Shin’s tutelage, he trained his body, his Semblance, and his skill. The Huntsman was always careful to never stray too far into a place where Argent would be in too much danger, delegating much of his missions off to others he knew in order to do so. They fought in ancient ruins, in verdant forests, and sometimes even in the urban jungle, against monsters in human form instead of Grimm. Argent smiled more, laughed more, felt more in that single year than since his scales had grown in.
A few weeks after his seventeeth birthday, Shin had brought him in for a talk. Producing a envelope, the Huntsman had handed it over - an application for Haven Academy, and a letter of recommendation from Shin himself, enclosed within. There were some things that he was just not good at teaching, the Huntsman explained, and it was better that his protege learn for himself, at a place designed for him to grow. There was only so much they could do together while Argent was still learning, after all. Argent had nodded in response. Increased autonomy and the ability to stand alongside his mentor rather than behind him was something he had wanted for a long time. And so he would see it through, no matter the cost.
A slew of tests awaited him, written and physical alike. The Faunus ignored the looks from everyone else, and gave his all. Gave his everything for the chance to be like the one whom he'd come to trust as a brother, more than the family he'd left behind, who'd left him behind. Acceptance had been as quick as they would allow, and soon enough, it was time to board the airship to Haven. With all his worldly possessions in a beaten and battered backpack, Argent stood before the boarding ramp, flanked on either side by the family he'd chosen. Shin's hand was heavy on his shoulder, but it was a good weight. A reassuring weight. A promise that he would be waiting, and one he intended to keep.
Argent hugged the both of them one last time, and went to Haven.
For the first few years, everything was fine. Argent only had a small patch of scales on his chest that was easily hidden with a shirt, and the Steeles embedded themselves into Pine Crest without much trouble. But then, at the age of five, things started to change. Over the course of the next three years, Argent's eyes turned from grey to gold, and scales grew everywhere - around his eyes, coating his neck and chest and arms and legs until he could no longer hide them, replacing his human skin in huge swathes. The children who’d been his peers slowly distanced themselves, no longer able to tolerate the differences which they’d once overlooked. For those silver scales, he was ostracized, and held at arm’s length, like a dirty secret or leper - and for all that his mother was accepted among the people of the village, he still saw the fear in their eyes when they looked at him. The way their mouths pressed into thin lines and the way they looked away quickly, the way the children ran to hide behind the legs of their parents or avoided him when they played together.
He worked the farm, what little help he could offer in digging the rows and harvesting the crops. Keeping them watered. Keeping them fertilized. Checking them for disease and mold. Pruning the leaves. Reaping the harvest. It was a lonely life, but he had his mother. And he had the animals, the sun, the shattered moon, the blue sky and the stars in the night, and the rows upon rows of wheat and corn rustling gently in the wind.
It was a lonely life, but it was his.
Where other children played, Argent worked as hard as he could, putting all his effort into supporting the one person who could understand him and loved him for who he was. That did not mean his life was devoid of enjoyment - far from it. Those days, those golden days - they were a memory of a better time. Of the logs spitting embers in the fireplace on a winter’s night, when the snow fell thickly outside the frost coated windows, of the summer sun’s heat beating down on him as he tilled the land, of the spring rains that flecked the skies with grey and the grasses that grew in its wake, of the rows upon rows of corn and wheat rustling gently in the autumn wind.
One night, when he was eight years old, a pair of strangers came to the town; a man and a woman with a large weapon sheathed upon her back, the both of them cloaked in green and silver. They were polite, but did not speak overmuch. A room at the inn, for a few days. Argent watched them come, their cloaks muddied by the dust of the roads traveled. He watched everyone who came, partly of curiosity and partly of boredom. No one ever looked back.
But they did.
They came around the next day, when the sun was setting, having wandered about the town since the dawn came. The Steele farm was an outlier, far divorced from the rest of the village - but they came anyway, and this time, the hoods were down.
They were like him.
She who bore the armored gauntlet had a tail - a long, slender white furred affair that he hadn’t seen the day before. And he with the pair of guns holstered at his hips…
…had crimson scales across his arms, that disappeared beneath his shirt.
While the woman had gone inside to speak with his mother, the man had sat on the porch with Argent, looking out into the distance as the younger boy did. The red scales on his arms, now exposed, shone dully in the moonlight, looking far darker than they actually were. Not so for Argent’s own - the silver scales shone as brightly in the light of the moon as they did in the light of the sun.
The man broke the silence when an hour had passed, and the moon rose higher into the sky. Like a small crack in a dam inevitably leads to water pouring through - first slowly, then in far greater volume, he coaxed words out of the boy with practiced ease, as if he were someone who had had to do this many times across a long life.
The man’s name was Shin Kurinji, and he knew. He knew all about the woes that Argent had faced at the hands of those around him, of the discrimination that had plagued him for simply looking different from others. He knew it because he had faced the same thing, not so long ago. Before the war, before becoming a Huntsman.
A Huntsman. That was what he called himself. Was called by others.
Argent listened as Shin spoke. About the places he’d been to, the trials he’d overcome, and the acceptance he’d gotten from his peers along the way. It was a cruel world, he said, that even a child would need to fight for the recognition they deserved, but that was simply how things were. Each and every Faunus not among their own kind would need to fight twice as hard for half as much - until the day that they would no longer need to. That day would come, but for now it was but a distant dream.
Still, it was not a dream in which one should lose hope.
Shin let the child hold his gun. Feel its weight, eye the steel. Argent had wrinkled his nose at it before it was returned to Shin’s own hand, the metal still reeking faintly of acrid expended Dust. The Huntsman explained that it had belonged to his father, and that the weapon had a long history behind it. Even so, the weapon simply felt wrong in his hands, as though it simply wasn’t meant for it.
The next day, a day of rest where Argent had nothing to do on the farm, Shin tried to teach the Faunus child how to shoot.
Tried.
Despite hours on hours of using the Huntsman’s Daisy Cutter (Shin, apparently, had a twisted sense of humor), Argent failed utterly at hitting the tree but a few paces before him. In frustration, he had thrown a rock at the target and hit it square in the center, which surprised both Shin and himself. Intrigued, the Huntsman had him stand further back, and each time Argent would hit the center of the target with the rock until he passed thirty paces, and even then he still managed to hit the outer edges until he had passed forty. Shin praised him, and told him that he had a good eye and a sturdy hand, and sent him home to Esmeralda, who fussed and fretted over him until he fell asleep and dreamed of Huntsmen with scales, of Huntsmen who were accepted and not judged for their features but their skills and hearts and souls.
The next night, the Grimm attacked.
Fire blossomed in the town. Shin and Jade were resplendent in their green and silver armor, cutting down the Nevermores and then the Beowolves that came rushing out of the forest. Shin’s Daisy Cutter and Jade’s Talonfall echoed with bullet reports, and the Grimm were torn or shot apart before they could even lay a single claw on any of Pine Crest’s citizens. Argent watched it all from his bedroom window with wide eyes, flashes of light and rolling thunder and two figures backlit against the bonfire, leaping and twirling as though they were in a dance of their own.
Truly magnificent. It was then and there that the seed of Argent's future was planted within him - the desire to one day be just like the heroes that had saved his village from certain ruin.
When morning came, the young Faunus rushed to the village despite not having a single wink of sleep the night before. And standing, bruised and battered but victorious nonetheless, were Shin and Jade, surrounded by black stains where the Grimm had dissolved back into shadow, stains that stretched all the way to the outer reaches of the village. A weary Shin saw Argent, and gave him a thumbs up, one that the young Faunus was happy to return with a smile.
For the next week, Shin taught Argent as best as he could, even spending some of his own lien on a bow and some training equipment for his young friend. However, as all things must, that time ended. A new mission came through, one that required the Hunter pair at a new location. Argent would no longer have his mentor in person, but Shin had one last gift for him - a Scroll, containing recordings and instructions on how to further improve himself. Though the network in Pine Crest was nowhere near as well developed as the one in the main cities of Mistral, it was still a gift that the young Argent treated as more precious than gold. So it was that Shin left, and Jade with him.
Once again, Argent was left alone.
The days turned into weeks turned into months turned into years. Argent kept practicing with the bow and with throwing rocks in his spare time, kept listening to Shin’s recorded words and lessons until they ran out and he started again from the beginning, and grew. By the age of ten, he had added hunting in the woods to his repertoire, stalking rabbits and other small game - tracking them through the trees, putting an arrow into them and then bringing the animal carcasses to a butcher in exchange for meat and coin. Old man Glass was half blind and deaf and didn’t care so much for his appearance as he did for the work Argent did, and that was fine by him.
Then came an injured man, staggering through the noon sun. Argent had watched him from where he was tilling the fields, and called for his mother. Expecting her to send him for the village physicians, he instead watched her carry the taller man back into the house in her arms, and felt a sense of unease, but shrugged it off. His mother always cared, even for strangers.
Soon, however, it became clear that she cared too much. Even as his wounds healed, even when he no longer had trouble walking, Nova stuck to his mother like white on rice. He smiled when he saw Argent, and talked to the boy, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes, and the talk was distant and forced. Argent stopped talking to him, wanted his mother to stop talking to him, wanted him to leave - but each time he tried to speak to his own mother, it became rapidly clear that she was as besotted with the stranger as he was with her.
He hated it. Hated it when black cars rolled up outside the farm and came to retrieve their boss. Hated it when Nova proclaimed his love for his mother without an ounce of embarrassment in him. Hated it when his mother would no longer look at him, having eyes only for Nova, that tender look once reserved for him and him only now given to someone else. Hated it when they sold the farm and moved to the city, his mother no longer in the clothes he’d always seen her in, but in elaborate dresses and jewelry, as different as could be.
Argent had stubbornly worn his old clothes, and tracked mud into the fancy cars on purpose. All their stuff had fit into two bags, with space left over. He watched the only home he’d ever known disappear into the distance, pressing his hands against the glass window. The tears welled up, hot and scalding in his eyes, but no one saw - or if they did, no one cared.
Nova’s mansion was larger than the cottage he’d lived in by leaps and bounds, but to the young Faunus, it was also cold and empty. There were servants aplenty, to keep the place clean and well maintained, but it didn’t have the sense of being lived in that permeated their former home. There was no warmth, no soul in that lifeless place. No matter how many inane gifts that Nova brought to him and left in his room, it didn’t - couldn’t - change that for all the man’s words and promises, his smile still never reached his eyes when he looked at his step-son.
Four and a half months after he hadn’t settled in to his new place, and a few weeks before his eleventh birthday, Argent was called in to the living room to speak with his mother and the man who would never be his father, no matter how much he purported himself to be. He was about to be sent off to a place called a “boarding school”, where he could only return to see his mother every three months.
Argent knew, of course. Knew that Nova wanted him out of the way, as much as possible. That if he couldn’t win him over with the outstretched hand, he would beat him into submission with the clenched fist. He was about to plead with his mother, to get her to see reason, but her next words stopped him cold. She was happy. Happy that he would have a chance to pursue the education she could not. Happy that he would not have to grow up the way she did, happy that his future would be brighter than hers.
Perhaps if that were all, Argent could have tolerated it. Could have held in the resentment and the seething dislike and the hollow ache in his core. And for a short while, he did, clenching his fists and focusing on his own breathing until he was able to think clearly. A single nod had signified his assent. Esmeralda had beamed and Nova had relaxed, clearly relieved that for the first time, the child would not be trouble. He’d had brought in an array of new equipment, laid out neatly on a cloth covered cart - all produced by his company, of course. Weapons, armor, and a Scroll - state of the art, all shiny and new.
You won't need to carry that old thing around any more. As a matter of fact, I've already had the servants dispose of it for you.
For a second, the words didn’t register. Then in the next, panic and rage filled him in equal measure, and he rounded on them, eyes wild. Nova had jerked back, shocked by the sudden change, but the child had no sympathy for him, only an ever increasing pulse of panic his heart pounded in his veins and behind his eyes.
He’d screamed out a desperate question, and when Nova would not answer, his disgusting mouth hanging open in shock, Argent had turned and bolted for the door. Outside, in the mansion grounds, he’d ran for the recycling bins the servants used, his small feet carrying him as fast as they ever had. He’d dug through the refuse, bags of paper and plastic and metal. The skin on his hands tore, but he didn’t feel any pain, tearing through everything with a single minded purpose. A sob of relief escaped him as he grabbed hold of a familiar shape and pulled out the Scroll. Shin’s Scroll. Badly dented, with a crack across the screen, but still glowing it’s quiet blue. Still working.
Light fell over him, and he whirled to see that hateful man, who had the audacity to have a worried expression on his face. And beside him, the mother who for the first time he felt anger at. That man, that horribly blind and self centered man, had thrown away the one gift he’d ever gotten from anyone else, and she had let it happen. Argent hissed out his hate, the words filled with venom and bile as he’d never spoken before, watching their eyes grow wide. And then, before they could react, before they could destroy anything more of what he had left, he ran, alone, into the night. Their cries of his name fell behind him in the darkness, and he was on his own.
Like his mother before him so many years ago, the small boy stowed away in a train that was headed away from his source of torment, crossing the country in a week towards the only place he could call home.
Where else did he have to go?
Argent had hoped that this was all some sort of nightmare. Some sort of fever dream, where he could wake up to see his mother once again and look out upon the crop fields and see that this was real, that this was the truth, that everything up until now that had gone so horribly wrong was nothing more than an overactive imagination from a belly too full of food and a brain too full of radio serials before bed.
He’d never even once considered the possibility that there might not be a home for him to return to.
Argent collapsed in the dirt, staring blankly at the skeletal frame of a new building where the cottage and farm used to be. There was a black hole in his chest, an ache so terrible that he could no longer move. He’d lost everything.
Everything.
When the construction workers involved in Nova Core Engineering’s new Pine Crest distribution warehouse came to work the next day, they found a broken child, sitting in the soil and clutching a damaged Scroll. There were dried trails of salt on his face, from his eyes to his cheeks, and his arms were littered with scabs from small wounds that had drawn blood. His eyes were bloodshot, the skin on his feet torn and broken from walking without shoes or socks.
It took a while to recognize him, but when they did, a single call was enough to bring Nova and Esmeralda driving up to Pine Crest in a car, to find him huddled in a corner. Despite the accumulated dirt of a week’s travel, Esmeralda still scooped him up in her arms and cried as she hugged him tightly.
Argent looked on his mother for the first time in a week, and felt nothing. None of the boundless love his heart would swell with for her but months before, none of the calm peace that he’d always felt when she was around and held him in her arms. Overnight, she’d become a stranger, one he could care less about.
When he looked at Nova, there was nothing, too. A distant memory of a sense of dislike, but nothing like the burning hate that had come before. Nothing seemed to quite matter now, as if he was just a spirit inhabiting a vessel of flesh, and everything happening to him was but a show happening upon a screen. They went home, and Argent dully packed his items to leave for the boarding school before he sat on his bed and turned over the Scroll in his hands. A video of Shin blossomed on the screen, and he watched it to its end.
He still felt nothing.
The next years passed in a blur.
Argent went to school. He lived in a bunk with five others. The others avoided him. He attended classes. He studied. He did poorly. He spoke when he was spoken to. He ate when it was time to eat, and slept when it was time to sleep. He washed his clothes. He cleaned the room. He studied more. He did better. When the time came for school to end, he returned home for a few days before he once again went back to Root Institution.
The second time, he did not return home, and did not do so again until he graduated. Letters came, which he did not read. Argent developed a cordial relationship with most of his peers. Most did not get close, though a few seemed to take to him - mostly open-minded and extroverted humans who saw past his appearance. At the age of fifteen, he graduated from the school in the upper quarter of the cohort, and left to go back to his mother for the first time in four years.
Argent noted dispassionately that the number of sisters he had had had now grown to four, the newest one swaddled in a bundle of cloth and cradled gently against Esmeralda’s bosom as she had smiled and welcomed him back. Something like a blade of ice pierced through him, and he winced at the ache, but it quickly faded away, and he simply nodded politely, brushed past her, and made for his room.
Nova had offered him a place at the company, but Argent rejected the proposition and found work instead as a worker at a Schnee Dust processing factory. It was dull, mind numbing work, but it paid well (not that it mattered), and the monotony was, in its own way, relaxing for the young Faunus. That, and he didn't have to return home, living in a room at the workers' dormitory on site. It was much the life as he had led in the boarding school, albeit swapping out academic studying for physical work.
There was a girl, though, in the grey cloud of indifference that had settled over his life - a human girl who was his supervisor. A young woman who smiled at him more often than the others, who seemed to like him. She sat with him, sometimes, when they weren't on the clock, and they talked.
She talked enough for both of them, truth be told - not that he minded. It was somehow relaxing, the way her words washed over him like a hot bath after a long day, and the world no longer seemed quite as grey when she was around. It was nice to have someone who cared about how he felt, who didn’t seem to mind when he fell silent, whose presence drained tension from his body like an ink spot dissolving into water. It was a good twelve months.
Then things went awry, as they always did. It started small, with her asking for little favors here and there. Then the favors got bigger, and worsened from there. He tried to refuse, sometimes, but she would plead, and pout, and eventually his resistance would melt like butter left out on a summer day.
And then, at last, things came to a head. She was let go by the SDC, and coerced him into helping with what she claimed was a final revenge - of taking the crates of Dust stored in the warehouses on site, and selling them off on the black market. To cover the costs for her living until she found her next job, she said, pressing herself into him and resting her face into his shoulder. Wetness stained his shirt there, and against his better judgement, he had nodded.
In the dead of night, they made their move with a number of people she’d claimed were friends she’d called in to help. His unease grew, but he said nothing.
He should have.
He remembered the glass from the windows above falling a moment after they shattered far above, and he remembered the gleam of green and silver armor in the moonlight. Remembered the golden eyes in the depths of the cowl, and the gun he’d once held being brought to bear. Remembered its thunder going off, and its muzzle flaring bright, brighter than the sun-
The next thing he knew, he woke in the hospital, one side of his head wrapped in bandages. And at his bedside was the Huntsman he'd once held up as a hero, looking very tired and old.
Things cleared up from there. The girl, apparently, had been a member of one of Mistral’s many street gangs connected with those deeper in the criminal underworld. Her Semblance was hypnotism, and she'd thoroughly fooled him, worming her way into his heart until he was completely under her thumb. And then, when she had what she needed, she had thrown him away without a second thought.
In the presence of his hero, in the face of the gentle concern the Huntsman gave him, all of the emotions Argent had locked away over the years came rushing back in a flood, a torrent so forceful he was swept away without a chance to even try to keep himself afloat. Sobbing, everything spilled out of him as fast as he could say it - of how he’d been replaced, in every manner of the word, of how he’d lost everything, of a home where he wasn’t wanted and a family where he wasn’t loved, of how that girl had been the only one to care-
Shin waited until the tears stopped flowing. Waited until the words had stopped coming and Argent had slumped, worn out. And then, very slowly, very quietly, had pulled the younger Faunus into a hug, to rest against his chest. Exhausted, Argent drifted off to sleep. When he woke next, Shin was gone, but he had left a note for him - a reminder to stay strong in spite of what had happened.
The next few weeks was a whirl of activity and things he could barely remember. The police came and verified his accounts with that of witnesses and Shin’s own report, and pronounced him an accomplice under duress. Essentially being let off with a slap on the wrist, he still had to serve two weeks of community service, and received a message in the mail about the termination of his contract at the Schnee Dust Company. Life became a blur of paperwork and plain work, serving his dues until his sentence was over.
And then, when Shin came to him with the offer, under the moonlight, extending an open hand, Argent took it. Packed his things and left, like he had once before, leaving his life behind, and a letter addressed to his family.
Do not look for me.
It was the best year he had of his entire life. Even if sometimes they slept under nothing but the stars and they walked until his feet blistered, even if sometimes they went hungry because their rations ran out or were destroyed in their battles. Under Shin’s tutelage, he trained his body, his Semblance, and his skill. The Huntsman was always careful to never stray too far into a place where Argent would be in too much danger, delegating much of his missions off to others he knew in order to do so. They fought in ancient ruins, in verdant forests, and sometimes even in the urban jungle, against monsters in human form instead of Grimm. Argent smiled more, laughed more, felt more in that single year than since his scales had grown in.
A few weeks after his seventeeth birthday, Shin had brought him in for a talk. Producing a envelope, the Huntsman had handed it over - an application for Haven Academy, and a letter of recommendation from Shin himself, enclosed within. There were some things that he was just not good at teaching, the Huntsman explained, and it was better that his protege learn for himself, at a place designed for him to grow. There was only so much they could do together while Argent was still learning, after all. Argent had nodded in response. Increased autonomy and the ability to stand alongside his mentor rather than behind him was something he had wanted for a long time. And so he would see it through, no matter the cost.
A slew of tests awaited him, written and physical alike. The Faunus ignored the looks from everyone else, and gave his all. Gave his everything for the chance to be like the one whom he'd come to trust as a brother, more than the family he'd left behind, who'd left him behind. Acceptance had been as quick as they would allow, and soon enough, it was time to board the airship to Haven. With all his worldly possessions in a beaten and battered backpack, Argent stood before the boarding ramp, flanked on either side by the family he'd chosen. Shin's hand was heavy on his shoulder, but it was a good weight. A reassuring weight. A promise that he would be waiting, and one he intended to keep.
Argent hugged the both of them one last time, and went to Haven.
Haven Events Summary
In his time at the Academy, Argent quickly realized that unlike the previous institution he'd studied at, certain human Haven Academy students were a lot more obvious with regards to their distaste for Faunus. Outclassed terribly due to his lack of training, he was eventually rescued by Kishka Burzanova, a would-be alpha in such matters, and taken under her wing. For him, this meant being beaten relentlessly in one on one training sessions until he could begin to react and fight back with a modicum of skill. It was during this time that he began to rapidly improve, finding his own form of combat and learning to use his Semblance to maximum effect.
Later on, Argent would conduct his internships with Professor Theloria Shadecloak, going on a week long mission of Grimm extermination and performing adequately despite some initial issues. Shortly after that, he would also participate in a mission to restore communications to Mistral by escorting essential parts on a newly refitted Argus Limited. Overall, the mission was a success despite bandits and Grimm doing their best to make it otherwise, and Argent returned in high spirits to Haven, where he designed and forged a new weapon with Kishka's help, who he'd come to respect and befriend after a time.
Midterms came next, and were largely uneventful until the night, where he shared a bonding session with Kishka and they advanced their relationship to the next stage. Afterwards, however, all hell broke loose when Aegle Verdant, one of Kishka's other proclaimed interests who had not taken nearly as kindly to the attention as he had, sought revenge on his girlfriend by splitting them into different classes with her newfound authority as Class Red's team leader. Kishka would proceed to challenge her to a duel and lose, and much time was spent comforting and consoling her, something which he was admittedly terrible at.
After a time, Argent was sent out on a mission to Rochdale, a small town besieged by Grimm. Due to unforeseen circumstances, only a small number of civilians were evacuated before the Grimm attacked, and desperate remainders swarmed the escape transports in a bid for life. Argent was forced to turn his blades onto the crowd for the safety of himself and other students, an act which would haunt him for the rest of his life, but also harden his resolve to do everything necessary to resolve a mission. The weapons were lost on the mission, and he reverted to using the weapons that he had gained from his mentor before enlisting.
Due to difficulty processing the trauma after the event, Argent would seek out and receive counselling from his professors, which eased him past it and helped consolidate his thoughts into a further drive to prevent such disasters from happening again. Afterwards, he participated in the Vytal Festival as part of Kishka's team, and was caught up in Solomon Moon's plot to get Kishka expelled from Haven Academy by his attempt to commit suicide during a duel by turning off his Aura. Moon was expelled from the Academy for his crimes, and would vow revenge as a result.
Mere days after the Vytal Festival had concluded, a village on the coast of Mistral by the name of Kersch went dark. Delivered by train to the outskirts, Argent led a team of Haven students into Kersch. The culprit turned out to be Solomon Moon, already unstable from his constant attempts to insult and belittle everyone in Haven but with little success, finally driven over the edge by having his behind tanned by an old man with a walking cane after trying to murder said elderly man in a fit of rage. Moon, in a masterful display of tactical genius, chose to respond to this by mustering all the forces he could on short notice to invade Kersch and administer a final solution to the Faunus citizens there, imprisoning the rest. For his efforts, Argent cut him to pieces with his Semblance and escaped with the rest of his fireteam without suffering major losses.
Argent continues to study at Haven to this day, older and wiser than when he began. He is better at talking to others now, but is also significantly more brittle and subdued where before he simply lacked interest as a result of his experiences. Nevertheless, he continues to hold on to his dream of being a great Huntsman one day, one who can stand alongside his mentor without shame.
Later on, Argent would conduct his internships with Professor Theloria Shadecloak, going on a week long mission of Grimm extermination and performing adequately despite some initial issues. Shortly after that, he would also participate in a mission to restore communications to Mistral by escorting essential parts on a newly refitted Argus Limited. Overall, the mission was a success despite bandits and Grimm doing their best to make it otherwise, and Argent returned in high spirits to Haven, where he designed and forged a new weapon with Kishka's help, who he'd come to respect and befriend after a time.
Midterms came next, and were largely uneventful until the night, where he shared a bonding session with Kishka and they advanced their relationship to the next stage. Afterwards, however, all hell broke loose when Aegle Verdant, one of Kishka's other proclaimed interests who had not taken nearly as kindly to the attention as he had, sought revenge on his girlfriend by splitting them into different classes with her newfound authority as Class Red's team leader. Kishka would proceed to challenge her to a duel and lose, and much time was spent comforting and consoling her, something which he was admittedly terrible at.
After a time, Argent was sent out on a mission to Rochdale, a small town besieged by Grimm. Due to unforeseen circumstances, only a small number of civilians were evacuated before the Grimm attacked, and desperate remainders swarmed the escape transports in a bid for life. Argent was forced to turn his blades onto the crowd for the safety of himself and other students, an act which would haunt him for the rest of his life, but also harden his resolve to do everything necessary to resolve a mission. The weapons were lost on the mission, and he reverted to using the weapons that he had gained from his mentor before enlisting.
Due to difficulty processing the trauma after the event, Argent would seek out and receive counselling from his professors, which eased him past it and helped consolidate his thoughts into a further drive to prevent such disasters from happening again. Afterwards, he participated in the Vytal Festival as part of Kishka's team, and was caught up in Solomon Moon's plot to get Kishka expelled from Haven Academy by his attempt to commit suicide during a duel by turning off his Aura. Moon was expelled from the Academy for his crimes, and would vow revenge as a result.
Mere days after the Vytal Festival had concluded, a village on the coast of Mistral by the name of Kersch went dark. Delivered by train to the outskirts, Argent led a team of Haven students into Kersch. The culprit turned out to be Solomon Moon, already unstable from his constant attempts to insult and belittle everyone in Haven but with little success, finally driven over the edge by having his behind tanned by an old man with a walking cane after trying to murder said elderly man in a fit of rage. Moon, in a masterful display of tactical genius, chose to respond to this by mustering all the forces he could on short notice to invade Kersch and administer a final solution to the Faunus citizens there, imprisoning the rest. For his efforts, Argent cut him to pieces with his Semblance and escaped with the rest of his fireteam without suffering major losses.
Argent continues to study at Haven to this day, older and wiser than when he began. He is better at talking to others now, but is also significantly more brittle and subdued where before he simply lacked interest as a result of his experiences. Nevertheless, he continues to hold on to his dream of being a great Huntsman one day, one who can stand alongside his mentor without shame.
[attr=class,cs-bottom haven]
