Learning to Fly

A/N: Hello again! It's time for another story/story-fragment thingy. I love RWBY, and I couldn't resist writing a little something about a character that I didn't think much of in the beginning of the series. But over time, this one began to grow on me a bit. After a while, I wondered why I hadn't written anything, so I did! Friendly reminder again that I truly do not own any of this. OH, and also be sure to leave a review so I can continue to improve my writing. With that aside, let's begin!

...

Everything was on fire. Houses, carts, street poles, and even the street itself seemed to be caught in the blaze. The village would be all but ash soon, and Grimm would come shortly after. Even the remnants of misery and pain seemed to beckon them. One house wasn't burning yet, but it was only a matter of time before it to was engulfed.

Arguing voices came from inside the house. The voices were hasty and sharp.

"He's only a kid, Bruce!"

"So were the rest of them once!"

"You can't be serious! He doesn't deserve that!"

The child sat huddled in the corner. Tears streamed down its face as it tried to hide from the two arguing Faunus in the center of the room. The child could not have been older than five years old, its bright orange hair was almost complemented by the orange haze that glowed from outside. The child was crying for its mother, but so far no one had come.

"If we leave him here, he will grow and become a monster just like the rest of humanity! You know that better than anyone, Gretta!"

The one named Gretta shook her head. Her tail swished nervously. She knew how much Bruce resented the humans. She did too, to an extent, but this was too far.

"We don't have time for this. They others have already left. The humans from nearby villages will be coming soon, and if they find us…"

"Let them find us!" Bruce growled angrily. "I'm tired of running, pretending like I don't matter!"

Gretta stepped back in fear. She had never seen Bruce like this before. His claws were out, and his fangs were bared in a menacing manner that Gretta had never seen before. Both his claws and jaws were stained in blood, as were hers. And Gretta was fairly certain that her and Bruce were the reasons why the child's parents weren't coming. The child didn't have parents anymore.

"Bruce…" she was interrupted by the drone of approaching hovercraft. Hovercraft meant people from the city, and people from the city meant guns. She instantly reacted.

"We have to go!" she yelled grabbing Bruce by the arm and hauling him towards the door.

"I'm not going anywhere!" Bruce yelled in reply, yanking his arm away. "I'm not done here!"

"Please! Just forget about it! We have to go!" Gretta pleaded.

Bruce looked from the child back to her, then back at the child again. The child turned to look back at him, fear ever present in its eyes. Finally, Bruce relented.

"Fine!" he roared. "Let's go!"

The child watched with wide eyes as the two of them disappeared through the doorway. He was all alone now. He was so scared. His parents were gone, he hadn't seen them since the attack began. He cried out, but no one seemed to answer. He tried again, and this time he heard footsteps approach the house. A silhouette appeared in the doorway, a flashlight scanning the room from the shadow's hand. The child heard a voice yelling. Then everything went dark.

…

Cardin gasped and bolted upright in his bed. His breathing was heavy, and his bare chest heaved with every heavy breath he took. He looked around wildly for a few moments before realizing where he was. His memory came back to him as well. He was in a group home. A hastily thrown-together housing development used for refugees and those that had been displaced due to the attack on Beacon. The attack. Right. Cardin sat for a moment and remembered again all that had happened that night. He and his teammates had been in the stadium when the nevermore broke through, but they had been lucky, and had been the first ones to make it out of the coliseum. Cardin had already been having a bad day. And the first thing he did was get to his weapon. He knew that the White Fang was behind this, and he'd be damned if he wasn't going to get some payback.

He and his teammates had all to eagerly jumped into the fray. To Cardin's disappointment, he spent most of his time fighting rogue Atlas bots, and very little of it was spent putting the White Fang in their place.

Team CRDL had emerged from the battle relatively unscathed, but they could hardly call it a victory. The school had been overrun, and Vale had barely been able to repel all of the Grimm. To make matters worse, the CCT had fallen too, and who could forget the massive Dragon Grimm that had appeared in the sky?

In the aftermath, students were sent home to their families. Cardin had grown up in an orphanage in one of the coastal cities south of Vale, and had transferred straight into Beacon after graduating from the combat school there. Russel and Lark were both from Mantle, and after a few goodbyes, were on the next airship home. Dove lived in a coastal city in southern Sanus, and offered Cardin the opportunity to crash with him and his family, but Cardin declined. He did not want to be a burden on the Bronzewing family. Plus, he wanted to be ready the next time the White Fang attacked. And that meant being where the people were. Cardin clenched his fists as he thought about the extremist group for what was the first of likely many times that day. Those criminals deserved to rot, every single one of them. Hell, all Faunus needed to be punished. A message needed to be sent to those savages. They were nothing but greedy, warlike animals who only cared about themselves. Cardin was disgusted when he thought about it. How could humanity tolerate these degenerates as they destroyed their cities and killed their people? Whatever, all Cardin needed to care about was being ready when the time came.

Getting up from his bed, Cardin walked the few steps to the small closet the room had. The room he had was just a small one room living area, nowhere near as large as his dormitory back at Beacon had been, but at least he had it to himself.

Reaching into the closet, Cardin pulled out his usual workout outfit: a simple gray shirt and orange gym shorts. He started every morning by going for a run before beginning his usual training routine. Cardin dressed and laced up his running shoes before exiting the room into the hallway. Walking down the hallway, Cardin exited through the front door out into the City of Vale. The early rays of the morning Sun were just starting to appear over the horizon, and there were few people about.

It had been a few months since the attack, and reparations had been going surprisingly well. Most of the buildings had been reconstructed, and things had begun to almost return to normal. Shopping centers had reopened as well as local businesses, the council had been reformed, and the City's defenses had been mostly rebuilt. Though the city was faring well, the aftermath of the attack was still fresh on everyone's minds. It showed as they nervously walked through the streets, as though something could jump out at them at any moment. It was a bit depressing to see, and Cardin was thankful that there were not many people out and about this early. After doing some light stretches, Cardin took off through the city, settling into a comfortable pace as he did so.

Cardin enjoyed running, it took his mind off of things for a while. He had been having that same nightmare for as long as he could remember, but it felt more intense recently, and Cardin's temper was wearing thin in response. Running at least allowed him to forget about it for a while. The activity always seemed to clear his head, and he found it refreshing after a rough night.

Cardin's route usually consisted of running in a straight line, turning around at his favorite park, and going home the direction he had come. That gave him the most amount of uninterrupted time to run in the park, and he felt proud of himself for planning it that way.

As Cardin entered the park, he saw a few children running and playing what appeared to be a game of tag, but other than that, the park was completely empty. Cardin was happy about that. He had the whole park to himself. Cardin continued running, picking a path that rounded the park and ended at the same entrance he came in from. The park was beautiful, and the birds had already begun to sing, and Cardin spotted a few through the trees as he followed the path. Cardin felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth, and he forgot all about his dream as he came back around to the entrance.

Cardin turned as the kids he had seen from before came into view, only this time, they were not playing tag anymore. They now had formed a circle around another kid that hadn't been in their group before. The kid in the middle was actually a small fox-Faunus, as Cardin guessed by his pointed ears and bushy tail, and from the looks of it, he was scared out of his mind. The kids around him were yelling and jeering at him, apparently angry about something.

Cardin snorted and turned back to his jog.

'Twerp probably swiped their money and thought he could get away with it,' Cardin thought with contempt.

"If we don't teach this freak a lesson, he's gonna grow and become a monster just like the rest of them!"

Cardin froze in his tracks, his eyes widened slightly. What did that kid just say? Cardin turned to look back toward the group of kids. His mind currently dragged elsewhere by the words he had just heard.

"I-I think we should just go home," one of the kids in the circle said. The largest one in the circle turned toward him. The biggest one sneered and pushed the kid out of the circle.

"You wanna leave? Go then! I'm not done here!" the big one said.

Cardin's hand immediately went to his head as a sharp pain burst into his head. He growled as he tried to will away the pain, and it receded after a moment.

Shaking his head, Cardin immediately looked back over to the kids, who had now pushed the Faunus to the ground and were jeering at him from above.

The pain returned as quickly as it had gone, and Cardin did not know why, but for some reason he knew it was because of those kids. That pissed him off, and he snarled as he stomped towards the circle. He wasn't about to let them ruin his day without ruining theirs.

"HEY!" Cardin bellowed as he rapidly closed the distance toward the little group. They all turned and their eyes went wide as they saw the angry teenager approach. There was fire in his eyes. Cardin was above hitting children, but that didn't mean he didn't intend to make them shit their little pants.

Hastily, all the kids scrambled to their feet and took off through the park away from Cardin. Their feet carrying them as fast as they could to put as much distance as possible between the hulking teen and them. All but one.

Cardin turned to look as the small Faunus got to its feet. The fox-Faunus looked up at the relative giant that towered over him. For a moment he looked scared too, but his fear broke into a look of pure joy as he wrapped his little arms around Cardin's leg.

"Thank you, Mister!" the child said happily. He barely contained his happiness and began talking a mile a minute in an excited voice.

"Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!"

Cardin looked down at the child, initially surprised at the kid's seemingly bottomless energy. His surprise faded quickly back to anger as he roughly pushed the kid away from him.

Now it was the child's turn to look surprised. After stumbling a bit, he looked back up at Cardin with a look of betrayal and confusion.

Cardin jerked his thumb off to the side, indicating that the Faunus was not welcome here either.

"Beat it, furbag!" Cardin growled. The child stared at him shocked for a few more moments before tears slowly began welling up in its eyes. Turning away from Cardin, the child hurried away, attempting to wipe its eyes as it ran.

Cardin ground his teeth as he turned back to the exit to the park. Seeing the kid cry had only increased Cardin's rage, and he smashed his fist into a tree before taking off to finish his run. He was still seething, and he doubted any amount of running would fix his mood. But that didn't mean he couldn't try. Cardin fell into a sprint as he left the park and ran through the city once more.

Back in the park, the tree he had punched cracked loudly before breaking at the hole his fist had made. It was a large tree, and the upper trunk fell hard before slamming into the ground with a deafening thud.

A lone figure had watched the whole ordeal, unnoticed among the bushes and foliage…