Chapter 11: Hunter

"It is a commonly held…be-elf?"

"Belief."

"Belief, that Grimm are more active during the night. However, a closer…ex-am-in-a-tion shows that Grimm attacks are equally common during the day as the night. Researchers…hm…"

"Hypothesize." Glynda said. Mato gave her a look of annoyance for the interruption and continued struggling through the text.

When Glynda had become a Huntress she knew there were certain things she was unlikely to experience, chief among them being motherhood. It wasn't much of a sacrifice, she never had much interest in children and her patience for them was often strained even with her students who were already young adults and were mostly mature. Thankfully, her oh so considerate boss had decided to let her experience what she was missing by making her Mato's minder.

For the past two months during the break between semesters, she had effectively been the young Saiyan's mother, complete with dressing and feeding him. She understood the reasons for this, Mato had a very limited understanding of how humans live and exposing this rather large knowledge gap would give away his true origins. Ozpin hadn't needed to do much arguing to convince her of the dangers of that. This meant that only someone in the know, which was a very select group of people, could teach Mato what he needed to know to be able to blend in.

Ozpin and Ironwood had schools to run, and leaving Qrow and the young Saiyan alone together would most likely result in one of them being dead within an hour. That left only Glynda, who had comparatively little to do for the few months before classes resumed. And so, she found herself having to teach Mato how to be a human being. That included showing him how to prepare his own meals, without having to hunt down an animal to get it, how to go about buying something instead of taking it by force, and outfitting him with a wardrobe.

That last one showed a significant cultural difference between humans and Saiyans. For any other student, Glynda would have viewed the complete lack of anything resembling an interest in style or color scheme to be potential sign of some form of abuse. Something horrible, that had completely repressed his sense of individuality. For Mato, however, it was hard to believe anything could crush his spirit. He simply did not care about how he looked and seemed to find it strange that she expected that he would. It was an interesting look into the uniformity of Saiyan culture, a uniformity that she didn't think was entirely healthy.

But the biggest trial by far had to be reading. He wasn't going to be able to do much teaching without being able to read, (though as he was quick to insist he did know how to read, just not any language used on Remnant). To the boy's credit, he was a quick learner and had insisted that they skip over children's books and do their practice on something useful. But, he was also prickly and quick to become angry when he made a mistake. Not necessarily angry at her, but frustration made for a poor learning partner even in the best of times. That made for several sessions that she had cut short due to his quick temper impairing the learning process.

Today did not seem to be any exception. Mato was getting there, slowly, but that didn't make the process enjoyable. Thankfully, Glynda was spared having to deal with his mounting irritation over not being able to do anything he wanted just by trying it by a chime from her scroll.

"We have a faculty meeting." She told him. "We can pick this up later."

"If you say so." Mato said, poorly masking his relief that this was over for now. Glynda waited for him to collect his books, some rudimentary texts on Grimm, and followed him out the door. She let him lead the way to see if he knew his way around the campus yet and he guided them to the main building not on the most direct route, but they were still heading there. As they walked, Glynda observed her companion.

That the young man was strong wasn't really in question, he'd proven it on global television. But it was more than just power, there was something about how he walked, how he moved, and how he observed his environment. He moved like a Huntsman who had seen more combat than most and yet according to him he was only sixteen years old (fourteen, by his people's counting). He called his people a warrior race, and if he a typical member of the species then Glynda pitied whoever they warred against. Still, it saddened her to see a boy younger than almost every student at Beacon so familiar with violence.

Mato paused in the central tower's atrium, not knowing the way but not willing to ask for directions. Glynda took pity on him and wordlessly led the way to the elevator. They rode it up to the conference room around halfway up the tower. They had arrived later than most and so had to sit near the back of the room. Professor Ozpin was waiting for everyone to arrive at the front of the room, standing next to the screen showing a map of the area to the east of the city. The map had red markers for villages in the area and black ones for any Grimm sightings, with surprisingly few of the latter. After Professor Port entered, muttering apologies, Ozpin began without further delay.

"We all know that there has been a significant reduction in Grimm activity in the wildlands to the northeast." Ozpin said, gesturing at the map should have had far more black dots than it did. Sitting next to Glynda, Mato had a self-satisfied grin. By his account, he was single-handedly responsible for driving the Grimm from that region. Glynda wasn't sure how much of that she believed, but she had to admit he had the power to make it happen. Ozpin continued. "Since then, there hasn't been any noticeable Grimm presence in that area."

Come to think of it, that was rather strange. It had certainly been long enough for them to start expecting Grimm to be returning to the area. That they weren't definitely was something to note. Judging by some of the mutters around the table, she wasn't alone in finding that bizarre.

"Though we have yet to receive any reports about Grimm, we have received disturbing news. Two weeks ago, the people of Luna Village reported that the neighboring village of Veridian had been destroyed." Ozpin waved his arm and one of the red markers disappeared from the map.

"Do you mean to say that they were attacked by the Grimm?" Professor Port asked.

"Perhaps." Ozpin said. He looked grim, whatever this was had him worried. "The village itself is fine; the homes and buildings are mostly intact with little sign of damage. But the people are either dead or missing. If it was Grimm, they were awfully neat about their slaughter. In addition, the valuables within the village are still there."

There were more murmurs around the table. It sounded far too precise to be a Grimm attack, but who else could have caused it? A small army of bandits, perhaps? But even the most bloodthirsty group of brigands would have looted the place. So what did that leave?

"The Huntsman dispatched to the scene said that the wounds inflicted on the villagers were consistent with Grimm claws, but there was also a suspicious absence of bite marks or signs that people had been eaten. He concluded that the marks might have been faked by human attackers, or else we're dealing with an abnormal breed of Grimm. Then, a little over a week ago, he dropped out of contact. The Huntress sent after him reported that now Luna Village was gone as well, before she also stopped reporting in." Another red dot vanished as the talk around the table grew much more concerned. Two Huntsmen and two villages being wiped out without anyone knowing why or how was a troubling trend. Mato didn't join in the chatter, his eyes fixed on the map in an unblinking stare.

"It's clear that, Grimm or not, there is a significant threat out there. We need to address it quickly before more lives are lost. Given what's happened, sending out a single Huntsman clearly is not a wise decision. Two, perhaps three Huntsmen will need to be sent."

"Then it is quite unfortunate that at present we are rather shorthanded." Bart said. Without the students around, it fell to the teachers and faculty to do the missions that would normally serve as training material. Even at this meeting, only half of Beacon's staff was in attendance with the rest away on assignments.

"Who were the guys you already sent?" Qrow asked as he leaned back in his chair. He was the only non-teacher present and though he had the sense to not have his flask out his voice was still more slurred than it ought to be this early in the day. "They were newbies, right?"

"Does it matter?" Glynda challenged, pretty sure she knew where he was going with this.

"It might." He leaned forward and poked a finger into the table for emphasis. "If we sent someone a little more experienced, maybe they won't just die right away."

'Someone' meaning him, Glynda thought as she frowned. The man was only happy when he was in the field and he'd been cooped up far too long for his liking. Ozpin was keeping him close in case there were any developments with Cinder, and Qrow was cunning enough to press his case in public where that couldn't be used as a reason to refuse him.

"Do we have confirmation that the missing Huntsmen are dead?" Peter asked, tabling the discussion for the moment. Ozpin, having taken a seat at the head of the table, shook his head.

"Without finding the bodies there's no way to know for sure." He took a sip of his coffee. "I don't think it's very likely they are still alive, though."

"Then sending any Huntsman alone would be folly." Peter said, folding his arms. "With so little information to go on, repeating that mistake would more than likely only get more of our number killed."

"I can go."

The words caused the entire table to turn and face Mato. "I beg your pardon?" Port asked.

Mato didn't look at him, his eyes still fixed on the map. "I said I can go, investigate this matter, and destroy this threat, whatever it is."

"That's not up to you." Qrow reminded him, his tone a warning.

"Who else would you send?" Mato asked while folding his arms and finally looking away from the map. "You're short on hands, so sending one person would be best. A key part of the mission is reconnaissance and I can cover more ground than any of you. And if it is dangerous, well, I am the strongest person in this room."

"That remains to be seen." Qrow muttered darkly.

"There is quite a bit you still need to do to prepare for the upcoming semester." Glynda ignored Qrow and focused on Mato. "You don't have anything even remotely resembling a coherent course layout yet."

"All the more reason for me to go." Mato replied. "I've made some changes to my techniques recently. Do you really expect me to teach them to others before I test them in a real battle?" He gave Ozpin a pointed look. "This is why I am here, after all."

Glynda frowned at his hidden meaning. It was true that Mato was expected to be the guardian that the Fall Maiden could no longer be and it was good that he was willing to abide by their request to keep that role a secret, but he would make a poor guardian if he would not follow orders and insisted on operating independently. "Even so," She began. "You do not simply get to decide what-"

"I apologize." Mato cut her off. "I misspoke earlier." Glynda turned her head in surprise as the young Saiyan stood. "I will go. If you would like to send someone else that is your choice." He turned and headed for the door. "If there's nothing else, I'm told I have a lot of work to attend to." He exited without waiting for a response.

"Cocky little shit." Qrow muttered under his breath. Glynda sighed. Making unilateral declarations then leaving before anyone could tell him no was one of Qrow's favorite maneuvers in this sort of meeting. The older man likely would have been proud of the young Saiyan if they could ever agree on anything.

"Not to impugn on our new colleague's skills," Peach said into the awkward silence, "but I think additional personnel should be sent. If we are lacking in available hands, a full team of students can serve as a substitute for a single Huntsman."

"I agree." Ozpin nodded behind his coffee mug. His eyes flickered to Glynda. "Can you take a roster of what students are currently on campus?"

Glynda nodded. Though classes were over, there were always some students who would rather spend their months off staying at Beacon than returning home. There were bound to be at least a few full teams on hand and plenty of people around to form into some ad hoc teams if necessary. "I can. But I would advise against sending students to face an unknown threat like this."

"They'll be on reconnaissance only." Ozpin reassured her. The headmaster had been a little too loose with sending their students into danger for her liking at times, but he realized how perilous an unknown situation like this could pose. "If there's any fighting, I'm sure you can handle it."

He smirked at the look on her face. "With our young friend mobilizing, you now have an abundance of free time, do you not?"

As Ruby stepped outside, she made sure to close the door gently. Dad and Yang were probably asleep, but Ruby didn't want to risk waking them. They would no doubt ask why she couldn't sleep, which she didn't want to answer. Mainly because she wasn't sure herself.

Ever since the end of the semester Ruby had been feeling unsettled. Well, that wasn't quite true. The feeling had been lingering in the back of her mind ever since her first encounters with Roman Torchwick and his White Fang goons. But back then, the origin of any sense of unease was obvious. There were Bad Guys out there, ruthless and cruel people hiding in the shadows of the city who would hurt others while enacting their evil plans. And this fear, if you would call it that, was easily banished by the thought that Ruby and her teammates could and would stop them.

But now there were no threats left. Roman had been arrested, the White Fang soundly defeated at the breach. The shadowy puppetmaster pulling strings from behind the scenes had been exposed and subdued by the White Fang warrior Mato, after he betrayed her or she betrayed him, Ruby wasn't entirely sure. And according to Jaune Mato himself had been beaten to a pulp by some mystery man and taken away by Professor Ozpin. All the enemies had been accounted for, yet Ruby's dark mode remained. If anything, it had grown more prominent in her thoughts.

Why? Was it some intuition that the danger had not passed, just become more elusive? That mystery man and his fight with Mato proved there were things happening that she and her friends were unaware of. Then again, Mato was one of the bad guys and Jaune made it sound as if the mystery man had been trying to avoid hurting them while attacking him. So he probably wasn't a villain either.

This line of thought had led Ruby to a dark place before, a place she found herself returning to now. She had grown up on the stories of brave heroes vanquishing evil, be it Grimm or people. She had wanted to be one, an aspiration that went from slaying imaginary Grimm with a stick in her backyard to enrolling in the most prestigious Hunting academy in the world. It wouldn't be an understatement to call her dreams of righting wrongs and saving the day something her life had revolved around. And fate had provided for her.

It had seemed so neat, when Ruby looked back on it. Her clash with Roman Torchwick prompting her admission to Beacon, meeting Weiss and Blake and becoming the leader of their new team, being drawn into more fights with Torchwick as they slowly uncovered more of his schemes. It had all been setting the stage for the brave Team RWBY, led by the heroic Ruby Rose triumphing over the evil criminals and terrorists, saving the city. Saving the day.

Only, that hadn't happened. Their attempt at stopping Torchwick at Mountain Glenn had been a mixed success at best. Sure, they minimized the damage, but his attack on the city had still gone through and Torchwick himself had been apprehended by someone else entirely. The real villains, hidden in the shadows, had been exposed and brought down before Ruby even knew they existed. The elite, highly powerful enforcer had turned on his bosses and been himself defeated not long after. It was not a very fulfilling ending to the saga of Ruby the Heroine.

And that was what haunted her. Objectively, that outcome had been a pretty good one. Almost no one had gotten hurt and the villains were all locked up with no hope of escape. Could she have done better, even if she had known Cinder and her gang's identities and Mato's whereabouts? Probably not, Ruby had to admit. And that lead to the question that haunted her in the quiet hours of the night.

Am I upset because I wanted to save the day? Would I really put myself, my friends, and others in harm's way just so I could be the big heroine?

It was not a pleasant thought. Ruby had never really stopped to consider the underlying morality of her aspirations before. Why would she, doing good and preventing evil was good by its very nature, wasn't it? But what if you were doing good for selfish reasons? Could you still call yourself a good person? Then again, since Ruby was aware of this and didn't like herself for it, didn't that mean she was a good person deep down?

Ruby shivered from a gust of chilly night air. This was all above her head. She couldn't work through this tangled web of morality herself, and getting Yang or Dad to talk her through it would require confessing some things she didn't want to admit.

Her musings were interrupted by the chiming of her Scroll, like a siren in the silence. Ruby quickly answered, her haste keeping her from checking who was calling.

"Who is- Ren? What's going on- Wait, slow down, what's happened?"

As Ruby listened to Ren's uncharacteristically urgent words, she reflected that at least her unease turned out to not have been from her inner conflict after all.

Mato yawned as he stepped out into the morning sun. He had stayed up far longer than he had been expecting writing out his lesson plan. He hadn't had a need to write so much for a long time, but he knuckled down on it and now was the proud owner of a properly thick binder full of his handwritten work. Now all he had to do was hand this off and as luck would have it Goodwitch was making her way along the stone path from Beacon's central tower to the teacher's living quarters. Mato gently lifted off the ground and floated over to meet her.

"Here." He dropped the binder down to her once she was close enough. Goodwitch caught the binder and eyed it suspiciously.

"What's this?" She opened it and started to flip through it, her customary stoic expression shifting into a frown the more she saw.

"The lesson plan you've been nagging me to make for the past two weeks." Mato said, trying to keep from grinning. Goodwitch's frown deepened as she looked up at him.

"Mato," She began, her tone like she was speaking to someone incredibly dense. She lifted up the binder, open to a page covered in inhuman script. "I can't read a word of this."

The grin slipped out. "I can. And since I'm going to be the one teaching the class, that's all that really matters." He rose farther into the air. "This little errand shouldn't take long. I'll be back in a day or so." He blasted out of there before she could get another word out.

Mato adjusted his course so that he was flying in the direction of the village and zoned out as he made the trip. He knew he would probably pay for that little bit of cheek, but it was worth it. If he had written in English, it would have taken twice as long and Goodwitch would have realized straight away that roughly half of Mato's binder was about the proper application of agricultural techniques.

He had done a proper lesson plan, but looking at the scant few pages it had taken Mato had been struck by a rather vivid impression of Goodwitch staring down at him in disapproval and asking if this was really all he had. It wasn't his fault humans needlessly complicated everything; Mato hadn't even tried to understand the lesson plan of Goodwitch's that she had shown him as an example. Mato's own plan was wonderfully simple. Here's how you utilize ki, here's how I'm going to tell them how to do it. No muss, no fuss.

The real problem that Mato faced was that thinking his hypothetical lessons through made it clear to him that attempting to teach ki manipulation to a large group was going to be ineffective. Without direct instruction, the humans were more liable to flail around hopelessly than they were to master themselves. But the nature of the human classes would make it difficult to provide one on one training to a student.

Mato turned the problem over in his head, but had yet to reach a satisfactory solution by the time he reached his destination. He hovered in the air, pondering his next move. He could swing by the village, but that would most likely just slow him down. He could also go check out the destroyed villages for clues, but the Hunters who had already been hadn't noticed anything. Mato went lower, almost skimming the treetops. He sniffed, looking for the all too familiar stench of Grimm.

He began to canvas the area, moving outward towards a nearby mountain smelling all the while. Aside from a false positive that turned out to be a Beowolf, there were no Grimm to be found. That left a couple of possibilities. Either the Grimm that committed the attacks had left the area, or the attacks weren't committed by a Grimm after all. Perhaps he should pay the destroyed villages a visit, to see if there were any scent trails, Grimm or otherwise, that he could track. Or maybe he should swing by the village to ask if they knew anything.

Mato caught a whiff of the scent a second before the attack came.

For a saiyan, that was plenty of time. Mato twisted away from the striking claws, turned his spin into momentum, and delivered a kick to the back of the head of his attacker. The impact sent the Grimm slamming into the ground.

Instead of pressing the attack, which might have been wiser, Mato regarded his enemy. He'd never seen a Grimm like this before. It was the saiyan sized and the same shape, although its tail was a thicker one more akin to the tail of a large reptile than the slender saiyan tail. Aside from that, and the claws, this Grimm was effectively a human covered in black fur. It was the mask that really stood out. It was a plain white surface without any sort of features, not even eye or mouth holes. The only irregularity was a pair of minute slits, right where the nostrils would be on a normal face.

This is the destroyer of villages and slayer of Huntsmen? Mato asked himself. A Grimm who's blind? I guess this explains why no one was eaten, it doesn't even have a mouth.

Mato descended to the ground to face his foe. The Grimm 'eyed' him warily, backing away a step and raising its hands into a poor semblance of a combat stance. It seemed willing to wait for Mato to make the next move.

"So passive." Mato commented to himself, though his voice was loud enough that the Grimm could hear. Assuming it had ears, anyway. "Jumping a more powerful enemy is all well and good, but when you fail that enemy is going to crush you unless you have a backup plan. If you were going to rely on your own strength, you wouldn't be trying to sucker punch people."

It occurred to Mato that he was explaining proper combat procedure to a mindless animal. Its similarities to a sayianoid must be clouding his judgement, or else he slipped into 'teacher' mode easier than he thought he would. "You have no idea what I'm saying, do you?" The Grimm cocked its head, the universal gesture of confusion giving Mato second's pause. But only enough for him to offer a courtesy before attacking.

"My name is Mato. I'd ask yours, but even if you had one you couldn't tell me." The Grimm might have an answer for that. Mato would never know, as barely a second after the words were out of his mouth he darted forward and kicked it in the chest.

The Grimm recovered well from the sudden assault, whirling from the attack and sending a clawed hand towards Mato's face. But to the new and improved Mato, it was like the beast was moving in slow motion. He easily sidestepped the swipe and drove his palm up under the Grimm's chin, letting off a small blast of ki to send the creature flying back. He body flickered behind it and slammed it in the back of the head, driving it into the ground. He waited there, hovering, as the Grimm picked itself out of the crater.

So far, the monster was making for a good training partner. The revelations Mato had had regarding the nature of ki during his fight with the Kai had revitalized his growth as a fighter. The exact amounts of ki to suppress and to utilize during combat was an entirely new paradigm he wasn't used to yet. Suppress too little and you got no benefit from the exercise, suppress too much and you were far too vulnerable to any surprises.

From the training he had done alone, Mato had settled on a tentative half-and-half approach. That should keep his body strong enough to at least survive any unanticipated attacks, while providing him with plenty of spare power to make use of. But without testing it in actual combat, that would maddeningly remain only a should. Enter, this Grimm. Powerful enough to let Mato cut loose against it but not powerful enough to actually pose a threat to him. If anything, the Grimm was a little too weak.

As if responding to his thoughts, the Grimm rocketed off the ground faster than before and threw a punch stronger than its earlier attacks. Not fast enough to catch Mato off guard or strong enough that he couldn't easily deflect it, but it was progress. Progress Mato rewarded by slapping an open palm to its 'face' and sending a pulse of ki into it. The Grimm fell back onto the ground, it's mask smoking from the energy blast.

Mato flexed his fingers experimentally. Throttling his energy even when it was already 'on-site' was easier than he had expected. He'd assumed the output would be harder to- A sharp cracking noise caught his attention. He looked down at the Grimm on the ground. Cracks were slowly inching across its mask. The odd thing was, they weren't emanating from the center of where Mato had blasted it, but rather there were two patches of fissures roughly halfway up the Grimm's 'face'. In fact, they looked an awfully like…

The Grimm's hands covered its mask and its claws dug into the cracked areas. With a flick of its wrists, it dug them out in a single swift move, revealing burning orange eyes beneath the mask. It pulled itself off the ground and its head swiveled so that his eyes met Mato's.

Mato suddenly felt that he probably was going to regret not killing the monster when it was still blind.

AN: I think I got a little too meta there. Sorry Ruby, I know you were looking forward to a main character gig but it just didn't work out.