Weiss Schnee looked at the full body mirror, inspecting every detail of herself until she was sure she looked perfect. Making sure her armor was fastened properly one last time, she walked out of her tent.

Taking a survey of the camp, she barely registered the two guards outside of her tent giving their greetings. Twenty soldiers. That's how much father had allowed her to take. Her father letting her pick out her own soldiers, let alone go on her own mission was quite a surprise, considering the level of protection he used to exert over her.

Smiling inwardly, she could feel the pride well up within her chest. Weiss could finally make a name for herself, not one given to her by her blood lineage or family's merits, but one constructed from the deeds she herself accomplished.

She sighed. Of course, her father restricted two of the spots in her squad to two soldiers he trusted. Yang Xiao Long and Blake Belladonna. The former, called the 'Dragon's Flame', a renowned brawler, with no records of a lost fight. The latter, a complete opposite to Yang, with no records at all. The only thing known about her was her love for books, and that she was easily the most deadly ninja in the world. With the two of them in her squad, there should've been no way for anything to go haywire, but like all things in the real world, nothing ever goes as expected.

Weiss' first official mission was rather simple, a patrol to the northern wall, checking up on villages as they went, and to offer assistance to those in trouble. Weiss knew why her father had sent her to the northern wall. The reports that came from the northern direction stated that they were always fine, never any trouble coming from there.

Deflating a bit, Weiss continued the inspection of the camp, killing time until they were ready to move out.

The only seriously dangerous part came from the wall itself or rather what came from outside the wall. Grimm. The Great Northern Wall had been placed centuries ago, protecting humans and faunus alike from the grimm that continuously traversed the outer areas of the realm. The only ones that ever went outside the wall were the famous Hunters and Huntresses. When Weiss had asked just how powerful the Hunters were, her father had told her that he had seen one take out a hundred grimm alone, while it took about five average soldiers to take out one.

Annoyingly, to both Weiss and her father, Hunters were rare, and extremely hard to find. Out of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers her father had in the army, there was not a single Hunter among them.

Weiss looked up at the sun, noting it was about time to move on.

They were getting close to the wall now, the top of it appearing just over the horizon. Glancing back over her shoulder, Weiss could see Yang trying her best to get a conversation going with Blake, but the latter was proving to be especially engrossed in today's book.

Blake was the first to notice it, suddenly putting away her book, her hand resting on the sheath of Gambol Shroud. Weiss was glad she happened to look back, immediately calling for the squad to halt. Chatter, horse's movements, wheels rotating, everything stopped. There was no sound. That was exactly what Blake had picked up on. There should've been the noises coming from birds, critters trotting about, branches cracking underneath the footsteps of animals seeking food, but there was nothing.

Weiss had never seen everything go so wrong so quickly. Luckily for her, she had just gotten off her horse, the process of bending over as she landed saving her from the arrow embedding itself into the horse beside her. It wasn't just one arrow, along the sides of the path and coming from the forest surrounding them came a hail of arrows. Already half her soldiers were gone, Blake was nowhere to be seen, and Yang was hauling another soldier to the ground along with her.

Hearing a battle cry coming from behind her, she whipped out Myrtenaster in a flash, embedding itself into the throat of the man rushing her. Pulling it out, she heard the telltale noises of Yang's Ember Celica smashing into her own foes, and throughout the forest she could hear the random cries of pain, likely coming from Blake's stealthy approach to combat.

It had seemed like they were going to win the battle, despite the heavy ambush they had run into, Weiss deftly moving about, picking off targets she deemed hazardous to Yang, who was simply locking onto the closest one and beating their heads in. That is, until one of them appeared. A grimm. Weiss was glad she had payed close attention to her grimm studies, identifying the one in front of her as an ursa major, but there was a difference between knowing it and actually seeing it face to face.

Bumping into the back of a tree, Weiss was forced to attempt to block the ursa's strike, but was not expecting the strength that came behind the strike and was sent flying into another tree. Vision dimming, she could barely hear the shouts of her name. Weiss felt something sticky coming from her abdomen, and looked down to see blood leaking out from the wound the ursa had inflicted. Seeing a shadow appear on her, she looked up into the red eyes of the grimm, and passed out.

The rhythmic thumping was almost calming. If it weren't for the pain Weiss was feeling each time the thump came, or the fact that she was being kidnapped by an ursa. The first thing she had done upon waking up was to not alert the ursa. She was being carried over the shoulder of the ursa, who was making its way deeper into a forest, this one looking different from the one she had previously been in, greens covering every inch of it.

Subtly, she looked over the ursa's shoulder, seeing the top of the Northern Wall disappearing over the horizon. Panic stirred in her, realizing that the wall disappearing didn't mean she was being brought back into her own country, but further outside the wall.

Weiss took a deep breath, mind racing to figure out how to take out the ursa. Clink. Myrtenaster. Her rapier was hanging on to a torn piece of her combat dress, barely clinging on. Waiting for when a thump came, she raised her arm swiftly and took hold of the weapon, plunging it deep into the shoulder she hung off of. The ursa roared, leaning over in pain. Weiss took the advantage, standing up fully on its shoulder and took her rapier out of the shoulder, stabbing the ursa in the back of the head.

As the body disintegrated, Weiss jumped off, almost collapsing on the spot with how weak she felt. Her torso was still bleeding, for how long she was unsure, the canopy of the forest making it impossible to see the sun.

At some point during her surprise attack, the forest had become even more dense with greens, blocking out her view behind her, making her question which direction she had even come from.

A smell infiltrated her nostrils, one of burnt wood. Stealthily, she weakly made her way towards the smell, keeping her sight on her surroundings. Stopping in front of a bush, Weiss could tell the smell was just on the other side. Ever so slowly, she moved aside the bush, but didn't see the indent in the ground in front of her, causing her to roll forward and plop down into the middle of a clearing, eyes looking up into the sky.

"Uh… hi there?" The voice was small, uncertain, as though questioning whether or not she was truly seeing what lay before her. Weiss turned on to her side. A girl, probably just as old as she was, dressed in a mixture of red and black, was sitting on a rock, hands held out towards a campfire.

"Hello-." Weiss' voice cut out as her consciousness faded out again.