Before Home

She was cold.

The white stuff was everywhere on the ground again. It was on the roofs, the roads, even in the thing called the carriage way. It was cold to the touch and sometimes it was so bright that it burned her eyes. The white stuff was funny that way. How could it burn her when it was so cold?

The people were cold to. They walked by her and looked and ogled her. One of the kids gave her a coat, but his mother took it away. She wanted a mother that would take someone's coat for her.

A woman stopped and looked at her. She perked up and tried to make herself nice and clean. The woman stared at her and walked over. "What are you doing little girl? Where are your parents?"

She said, "I don't have parents." The woman went "oh", and stood up and left. She cuddled in on herself again. 'I didn't like her anyways.' she thought.

More white stuff was falling out of the sky and she curled up as tight as she could in her raggedy clothes. She wanted to be asleep. It was always warmer when she was asleep.

She began to drift off, in a cold blanket of snow...

"Excuse me? What are you doing in the snow?"

She woke up from her nap to see a tall girl with a seeing kit looking down on her, confusion and concern etched on her face. "Whadda you want?" She asked.

The tall girl shrugged. "I just wanted to know what you were doing out in the snow. Where are your parents?"

She drew the poncho she had around herself tighter, getting ready to go back to sleep "I don't have parents."

"But don't you have a place to sleep."

"Here."

The tall girl gasped. "But if you sleep outside in the snow, you'll freeze to death!"

"No I won't." She glared at the tall girl. The tall girl didn't move. "Well, what are you waiting for?"

The tall girl did a double take. "What do you mean?"

"I told you I was an orphan. Now go away so I can sleep." She said.

The tall girl stared at the her, before doing something completely unexpected. "You want to sleep at my place?"

She looked up from her clothes at the tall girl, incredulous. "What did you say?"

The tall girl pointed out of the alleyway. "You can come with me and sleep somewhere warm tonight, for a few days if you want. I'll even repair your clothes for you. After that I'll take you to the orphanage."

She stared at the tall girl before pulling her poncho blanket tighter around her. "They'd just toss me out again. They said that I wasn't supposed to be here and that I was going to be sent south to the other cities. Now go away and let me sleep."

She curled up and closed her eyes. The silent dusk closed in on her, and she began to...

The tall girl picked her up. "Come on, let's go." She walked out of the alley and turned to the left. "You'll be better at my place."

She didn't say anything to the tall girl. The tall girl was just so incredibly warm. The tall girl felt like a sunny day or a warm fire that the adults at the orphanage would sometimes light. She wrapped her arms tighter around the tall girl and held on for dear life.

She was warm, and there was no way she was letting that get away from her.

"Okay, here we are." The tall girl's voice woke her up. The tall girl deposited her on a narrow bed and started going about making the room they had entered livable. A fire was going in seconds and a pot of water was boiling on it. She looked around and took in the new room.

A few candles, low burned and looking to be replaced were about, along with an oil lamp. These and the fire were prepared to illuminate the room, but they were an example of what little was actually in the room. Aside from the narrow bed and fire place in fact, only a table, a wardrobe and a lone chair consumed the minimal floor space.

The tall girl pointed at her. "Those clothes are wet. We'll need to dry them out before I can start fixing them so I'll give you one of my dresses. I'll need you to take them off and hand them over, okay." The tall girl went to her wardrobe and pulled out a small dress and gave it to her.

She looked at the dress, all simple and clean and the looked up at the tall girl. "What's your name, tall girl?"

The tall girl smiled. "My name is Luna. Luna Jinu. What is your name?"

She thought about it. Thought back to the time when she'd been in the orphanage. "I don't know."

"But you've got to have a name. Don't you?"

"But I'm not from here. My mom and dad weren't real Atlans. I don't have a name." She looked at the tall girl, Luna. Luna looked at her confused at first, and then smiled.

"Well Wúmíng, I guess we can keep each other company. My dad was a foreigner too." Luna turned and tended to the fire as Wúmíng changed. "He met my mom a while before I was born and he thought she was pretty. Nine months later, I came around and my mom thought I was pretty."

Wúmíng pulled the bigger dress over her head. "Where's your mom now?"

Luna poked at the fire. "One day, my mom met someone who was prettier then me, and left."

Luna smiled at her. "Don't worry Wúmíng, I'll take care of you for a while though."

Wúmíng stared at Luna, and looked down at the dress. She didn't speak.

"What's wrong Wúmíng?"

She looked down. "I don't like that name."

Luna was confused. "Why not?" She shrugged. Luna asked, "Do you want a new name?"

She nodded, and Luna started thinking. "What would be a good name? What would you name yourself?"

The girl, now nameless again, thought about it. She thought about the snow. She thought about the room she was in. But most of all, she thought about how warm that Luna had been.

"I want a name that's warm."

Luna looked at her, then took the water off of the fire and found some ground oats to mix in. "A blonde girl that wants a warm name." Luna looked at her friend. "How about Kako?"

She looked at the fire. It crackled lightly, a log breaking up. "I want an Atlan name. Something that's warm and sunny."

Luna smiled. "Then how about the Atlan name for the sun, Yang?"

"Wake up! Wake up Luna." Yang shook her surrogate sister off of her bed and jumped around the room. "Today's the big day! It's finally my birthday! Come on! Wake up!"

Luna grumbled and pulled herself off of her bed, doing a morning once over of herself. "Oh great, I'll need to see my dress back up again." She slipped her spare clothes, jeans and a t-shirt, and started eating the breakfast that Yang had prepared for them.

"I can't believe that it's been three years since you found me. Can you really believe it? Three years."

"Yup." Luna was busy sewing a tear on her night dress. "Damn customers. They never settle to just let me undress. Ouch." Luna glared at the finger her needle had punctured. A spot of aura sealed the wound.

Yang finished wolfing down her porridge and some tea and started running around the room, bouncing off walls and generally being the living embodiment of happy energy. "Let's go let's go let's go let's go let's go! Come on Luna, let's go!" Yang grabbed Luna's arm and tried to drag her big sister outside.

"Okay, fine. Just let me eat sweety." Luna rubbed her little sister's head. "I'll teach you when we get outside and away from anyone else. Can't have anyone seeing some people with active auras and no hunter ID."

Yang pouted. "That's a stupid rule. Can't we just practice in here?"

Luna raised an eyebrow. "In here? What a great idea. And when we set the table on fire, we'll just buy a new one."

Yang winced. "Sorry." But brightened right up again. "Then can we practice up on the roof. Pretty please!"

Luna finished her porridge and checked out her dress. A few more stitches would be needed to fix it completely, but if any clients wanted her tonight, she'd be ready for them. Luna set the dress down. "Sure, why not?"

Yang cheered as Luna undid the locks and led her up to the apartment building's roof. It was anything special, just gravel with some fencing and moss, but the view of the cold morning sun was could see why her sister had decided to start training up here.

"Okay Yang. I want you to promise me something before we begin." Luna took her little sister by the shoulders and got her to focus on her. "These are dangerous secrets that I'm teaching you Yang. You can never tell anyone that you can do this. You have to promise me that you will only use what I'm teaching you to defend yourself."

"I prom-."

"You have to promise me that you will only use them to protect only yourself and no one else. Not even me."

Yang looked torn. Was her sister really telling her that she couldn't protect her. But...she wanted to learn to protect her sister.

"I promise." Yang said. 'Not that I mean it.'

Luna looked at her surrogate sister's face. "Let's begin then." Luna pressed her hand against Yang's forehead. "Hold still."

A deep chill descended Yang's spine. Words that spoke of love and pain began to fill her mind. 'In life, we find those who amongst the millions of myriad people of this world carry a spark of companionship. Through our connection to them, we feed this spark and draw warmth and happiness into ourselves. When we do so, we cease to call them people, and begin to call them family.' A pressure built in Yang's head, before it suddenly receded with a pop.

Luna removed her hand from Yang's forehead as a yellow aura surrounded the eight year old. "Maybe that wasn't the best idea."

"Sis?" Yang looked over her arms, still faintly glowing. "What's happening?"

Luna held up her hand, faint red light streaming from it. "This is Aura. Aura is the manifestation of our soul, and protects us when it's used. It also heals our wounds and fortifies our bodies, granting us strength and speed. But you must be careful to never use it up Yang. Because if you use all of your Aura, all of your soul, you'll die."

Yang gulped. Luna ruffled her sister's blonde hair and found the strength to stand. "Let's begin with a simple move, Springing Leg." Luna began to go through the motions of the move. "The style I'm teaching focuses on controlling the energy of the body. We concentrate and when the time is right..." Luna finished the move with a sudden drop kick wreathed in flames. Yang gasped and applauded the awesome move.

Luna bowed. "What you saw just there was my semblance. Many huntsmen have semblances that let them be move powerful in battle. Mine is called a Metaburner semblance."

Yang raised a hand. "What does a Metaburner semblance do?"

The tall girl with black hair smirked at the short blonde. "Let me show you."

In a series of almost too fast moves, Luna began unleashing fire blasts integrated with her martial arts moves. Fire shot off in every direction, but went mostly down at the gravel roof. Luna suddenly grabbed a vent on the roof and with only a moment of preparation, had the vent's grille melted to slag. With a final flourish of movement, Luna crossed her arms and gathered her Aura in the center if her chest, her arms glowing weakly. She whipped her arms out, unleashing a torrent of hot wind that blasted the gravel away and knocked Yang on her butt.

Luna stopped and started gasping for air. Yang applauded her big sister and tried to duplicate her. She only succeeded in tripping over her own legs and falling down again. Luna walked over and collapsed next to her. "Stay still."

"But, wait, no no no NO!" Yang cried out as Luna turned over and used her little sis's stomach as an improvised pillow. Yang dramatically struggled to get her off, but collapsed (metaphorically speaking) in a fit of giggles.

The sun climbed the sky, turning the winter day brilliant shades of rose and orange. Two sisters basked in the glows of the morning for a while, but finally got to working. Yang began her attempts of earnestly duplicate Luna's first move, while Luna went about repairing her dress for the sake of tonight's customers. Finally, as the sun was nearing the point of noon, Luna said the Yang had practiced enough.

"We have to get ready for tonight. We'll continue training tomorrow, and I'll show you one more thing about metaburners when I'm strong enough." Luna said as she led Yang back to there room. Unfortunately, they weren't quite ahead of the evening rush. Two men were already standing outside the room, one knocking insistently. Luna asked him to stop.

"I hear that the whore that lives here is pretty good." said the taller of the two, the one who'd been knocking. "You'd know anything about her?" His companion slapped his shoulder and pointed at Yang. His companion elected to ignore the eight year old. "Well?"

Luna batted her eyebrows seductively. "Why, of course I'd know who she is, why, I am her. But you best be gentle with me big fella." Luna squeezed the big man's arms. "You might just break me." Luna disengaged at that point. "But I don't entertain customers before the evening, so come back later."

The shorter man turned to drag his friend off, but the big one was unconcerned. "I'll pay half again what you charge."

Luna unlocked the door. "No."

"Twice what you charge." Luna froze in the act of unlocking her door.

"Sis-."

"Shush Yang, I'm with a customer." Luna handed Yang her dress and sewing bag and glimpsed the big guy. "Well, well, well, it looks like we're going at this early tonight. What's your name big fella?"

"Bishop Winchester. I'm from out of town like my friend here." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder and pointed at his companion. "Lets get this on, yeah man." And with that he led Luna into her room and left the door open for Yang to close.

Bishop's friend looked at Yang. "What are you going to do? Charge me a premium or something?"

"No." Yang sat up against the wall. The short guy followed her lead. "Luna doesn't want me to get involved in her work before I'm fifteen. It's not fair though. She started when she was twelve!" The short guy gagged a little.

Yang looked at him. "What's wrong?"

Bishop's friend rested his palm on his forehead. "You Atlan's don't make a lick of sense to me. You hate homosexuals, but you have prostitutes the age of children. You won't let people choose who they marry, and when you find an orphan, you try to deport them."

"Hey, I don't know what you think about Atlas, but we have standards you know. If gays were running around, we'd never have children and we'd all die out. We are the smallest city you know. And we do let people choose who they marry, we just focus on having them choose the right people so they have strong kids." Yang folded her arms and glared at him. Bishop's friend rolled his eyes and chocked it up to just one more thing that didn't make sense about Atlas.

The two sat in comparative silence as the hour wore on, and finally Bishop left the room, Luna behind him. "Bye. Hope you enjoy Atlas (damn foreigner)." Luna waited for Bishop to turn the corner before kneeling down to eye level for Yang. "Okay Yang, that was one hour at twice the pay. How much did we make?"

"One hundred and thirty eight Lien." Yang answered confidently. Bishops friend cocked an eyebrow.

"You use your business to teach your daughter maths?"

"She's not my daughter. I'm sixteen, and she's eight." Luna clarified. "And yes. Yes I do. Now do you want something or are you just going to stand there and look stupid bub?"

He winced. "I need to stick with Bishop. He's trying to see how many prostitutes he can sleep with before he has to head back to his wife and kid in Vale. I'm just stuck with him because he'll probably cause some international incident if left alone. And my name is not bub, it's Will."

"I couldn't care less about your name." Luna turned and pulled Yang into the room before giving a parting line. "But if you ever need some relief, you know exactly where I am, so do me a favor and never come back."

Yang raced out of the crowd and under the awning for her apartment. The building was cool and dry compared to the mid summers rain outside. Yang was soon up at her level and fiddling with the keys to the room. It wasn't easy with the groceries in hand, but she managed.

She also managed to avoid tripping over the package that was at her room. "Luna, we have a package."

"Ugh. Go away." Luna waved off the noises of her little sister. Yang left her sister to her bed and pulled a sandwich out of the bag of groceries. Luna finally turned over and glared from her bed at Yang. Yang kept chewing as Luna got out of bed and cursed at the realization that the front of her dress had been ripped right up to the her navel. She still got the package inside and set on the table before she began to repair her dress.

"So, was business hard last night?" Yang asked.

"Not as bad as usual." Luna said as she repaired the long rip. "Just a bit rowdy last night."

Yang set her sandwich down. "Yeah. Luna about work-."

"I've said it once, I've said it a million times Yang. You wait until you're of age. That won't be for another two and a half years."

"It's not about work. Well, its not about starting work early." Yang was studying her sandwich intensely. Luna tried to look her in the eye. "I've been thinking that, well, I might need some...practice...before I start in and get working with you. And I was thinking, well..."

Luna's eyes widened. "No. No, you, you know what they do to homosexuals in Atlas Yang! If they found you with me, we'd be deported, or worse, lynched. And we're sisters, I mean, it's just-."

"I'm not asking to sleep with you!" Yang interrupted. She was blushing furiously. 'Ask once, and every time you bring up work, she reads you the riot act.' "I just want to watch you once. You know, see how it's done."

Luna winced. "Sorry Yang. I just need to make sure that you know why we don't do this." Luna reached into the bag of groceries and pulled out her own sandwich. "So, how's your practice coming along?"

Yang stood up and walked over to a small dresser, the only addition to the room in the seven and a half years that she had lived there. She pulled out a knife and sat back down at the table. Luna set her sandwich aside. "Are you sure you can do this Yang? If this doesn't work, you can't try again."

Yang took a long breath, her Aura awakening around her. "I know." With that, she inverted the knife and lopped off her left thumb. Luna gave a little jerk at the site. Yang concentrated her Aura into her left hand and shifted it into her semblance. Slowly, cells began to replicate and repair the damage. In ten seconds, a thumb was sitting back on her hand, while another disconnected one was lightly bleeding on the table. Both Luna and Yang let out breaths they didn't know they were holding.

"Well, there is the last secret to metaburner Aura quite nicely dealt with. Congratulations Yang." Luna reached across the table and hugged her sister.

The package was subsequently ignored.

Yang squeezed her stinging eyes. She coughed. Something was wrong! Yang pulled herself up and got a face full of smoke for her troubles. Impulse threw her down on the floor, underneath the smoke. She could see the fireplace was burning with a ferocity that shouldn't have been possible, consuming the wall behind it. "Luna! Luna!" She screamed. Yang couldn't hear anything, got up and bolted to the door. The wooden door gave way, only to reveal shade-on-earth. The entire hallway was burning. Yang tried to duck underneath the smoke, her Aura snapping on. The heat and air pressure seemed to dissipate a little. Yang took a deep breath... and immediately doubled over as smoke entered her lungs, singeing them and sending her to the wooden floor. Something, some conversation from long ago filtered into her mind.

Whatever it was, it was quickly forgotten as the floor, weakened by the fire, gave way. Yang fell into the floor below, splinters and a wicked shard of wood embedded in her legs. Yang struggled to get up, Aura pushing the wood out of her legs and sealing the cuts.

"Yang! Yang!" A smoke wreath figure stepped out of the flames, wearing an orange bandana. "Yang! Come here!" The orange bandana came down and Yang saw Luna, moving through the flames to her. "Come on."

Yang and Luna bolted through the flames, searching for a window. One of the windows was blocked by debris, and the other was blocked by a massive gap in the floor. Unseen by both, shade colored Dust followed them, flowing like living smoke.

Luna breathed through her bandana, but Yang was gasping as the smoke laden air burned her. The smoke popped like flashbulbs. The lines of the hallway and the debris jumped and shuttered. The world spun like a top.

"Yang! Oh lovers, Yang! Hold on!" Yang tried to breath, and suddenly the air was cleaner, as Luna pressed her bandana onto her mouth. "Breath Yang!"

The world settled, and Yang could see Luna standing over her, pressing her orange bandana into her mouth. She could also see the ceiling, slowly caving in above her. Yang pointed, and Luna looked. Her eyes widened, and with a heave tossed Yang out of the way.

The ceiling collapsed on Luna.

Yang stared, then turned and bolted. The wreckage of the floor above was blocking the window, but Yang had a dangerous idea.

Unnoticed by the panicking twelve year old, shady Dust slipped into the debris that had buried Luna.

Yang got to the window, and crossed her arms. Aura spun around her, building into a tempest that at its peak, Yang released. The force blasted the debris from the window. Yang turned and ran down the hallway before turning back. With a push of her Aura, Yang ran at the window, and cleared it with feet to spare.

Momentum carried Yang out away from the apartment building. Fire teams and police watched as the girl was carried out across the gap and with almost practiced ease, made a three point landing just as the building's supports gave way, the entire structure coming down in an avalanche of fire and wood.

Men swarmed around her.

"There were ten still unaccounted for."

"We've only found nine bodies."

A nurse asked for her arm.

"Started in room 412." Her room.

"Metaburner marks." Her Aura.

Finally, a short man to see her hand. Yang gave it to him, and with a pulse of Aura, he was examining her. Finally, he declared her miraculously fit.

"Whole place demolished."

"Nothing left but cinders."

The short man spoke up. "I think this little girl would like to be alone here. I know her though, so I'll stay." The doctors left, though only went outside the door.

Yang finally placed the short man in her memory. "Will? What are you doing here?"

Will shrugged. "I'm here on liaison from Vale, and I'm just here because your home burned down and it looks like the fire was anything but a gas fire. Now, I know that you are a civilian and you have an active Aura. I know that that's illegal in essentially every city on the face of Remnant. And I think that you have an Aura that has a very specific peculiarity. Are you a metaburner?"

Yang gulped. "No."

Will looked to the side and groaned. "I have a very special Aura myself. I'm a sensor. I can see with X-Rays. I can spot the back scatter. I can see your bones, your heart, and if you are lying. Yang, you are lying."

Yang looked down. She was still wearing the bandana Luna had given her. "You know I'm not from Atlas Yang. I can see that you want to stay here, but if you stay here, you will get arrested." Yang was avoiding his gaze. "These Atlans they have some pretty strange rules, and I can't quite understand all of them, but every city has a law against civilians, regardless of age, having Aura. I can't change anything here, but I can take you home and say that I've been training you. I can vouch for you, take you in. You'd be able to live the life of a huntress. A happy life."

Yang finally looked at him. "Why do you care? To you I'm just the daughter of some call-girl that lived in a city that didn't make sense."

Will nodded. "You're right. I didn't think you were anything special when I first saw you, but I happened to be in the right place at the right time, and I saw something that skipped a lot of people's eyes. I thought that because you were the last out and that you had a metaburner semblance, you might be able to explain somethings."

Will reached into his pocket and pulled out two pictures. One was a signed photo of Luna, obviously a souvenir from some former customer. The other was of the rubble that had been Yang's home for almost eight years. Moving out of the rubble was a figure, lithe and fast, and running away. Yang could recognize it instantly. "That's Luna."

Will put the photo away. "The way I see it, you can come with me and train to be a huntress. Or you can stay and be arrested. I know it isn't a-."

"Can you help me find my sister?"

Will gave Yang a long, appraising look. The twelve-year-old held herself up, radiating confidence. Finally Will was satisfied. "I can. It won't be easy, but I can teach you to find her, to fight anyone that stands in your way. You just need to say yes."

Yang smirked. "Yes."

A/N: That should not have taken so long. More over, I know that I should have released a chapter to my story, The Second Step, but my life just exploded in my face, so I'm having problems. I hope this can make up for it.

Please, read and review.