Chapter four: Why am I laughing?

"Azure, wait! Where are you going?" That was Pyrrha, I noted, she was trying to keep up while I stalked down the street, not really paying attention to where I was going. Screw that tiny logical voice in my head! Screw Ozpin and his refusal to tell me who I am! Ok, I may have been throwing a tantrum, maybe, but damn it it was so incredibly frustrating to have the person with the answers to all my questions flat out refuse to give me those answers!

I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and took several deep breaths as I waited for Pyrrha to catch up, this only had marginal success as a calming tactic, I still felt like inflicting grievous bodily harm to anything that would stand still long enough.

Cold seeped into my voice as I answered Pyrrha's question, though I supposed cold was better than screaming at her, which was what I wanted to do, that wouldn't have been fair to Pyrrha though. "I'm going to go back to Forever Fall and I'm going to kill a whole lot of Grimm until I'm able to speak without having to suppress the urge to scream, and I'm too tired to take my frustrations out on anything that moves."

Pyrrha was looking extremely worried but I couldn't bring myself to have more than a twinge of remorse for that. "Did-did you fail? Is that why you're angry?"

I let out a humorless laugh. "No, I passed, Professor Ozpin himself even offered me a place at Beacon."

My red haired friend's expression shifted into confusion. "But... that's a good thing, right? Exactly what you wanted."

"Except that it turns out that our esteemed Headmaster knows exactly who I am, and refused to tell me anything more than my last name, it's Tobias, by the way."

"Oh..." Pyrrha's eyes widened, and her expression fell, immediately understanding the reason for my rage. We hailed a cab, thankfully the driver didn't act like our previous cabbie had, I might not have been able to restrain myself otherwise. As it was we got out at the entrance to the forest, Pyrrha paid the cabbie and I drew my guns. I was practically twitching in anticipation. Hurry up Pyrrha, hurryuphurryuphurryup "hurry up." I hadn't even noticed vocalizing that until Pyrrha shot me a look of annoyance. Even through the haze of my increasingly unrepressed rage I felt a bit of satisfaction spark deep inside, Pyrrha could lose her temper, there was some hope for her yet. I barely managed to wait long enough for Pyrrha to pay the cabbie before extending Death and Duty's blades and breaking into a dead run for the heart of the forest.

Now, you may or may not know this but the creatures of Grimm are drawn to negative emotions. It's even been suggested that they might feed on them, though nobody has confirmed that yet, the fact that negativity draws them in like scavengers to a fresh corpse is undeniable however. Thus, in my current state of raging emotions my mere presence was like a dozen dinner bells going off at once. Perfect.

A bellow announced the arrival of the first Grimm on the scene: A massive Ursa crashed out of the undergrowth, it's left paw was lifted and about to swipe my head off. I ducked and dashed to the monster's right, slashing the side of bear demon's throat and opening the jugular vein as I went. The Grimm bear crashed to the ground, blood spraying from it's severed jugular, I didn't have time to watch my enemy disintegrate, a pack of Beowulves was bounding through the forest, straight for me. I retracted the blades on both guns and began taking controlled, rapid-fire shots at the advancing monsters. A rifle's crack split the air behind me, I spared a brief glance over my shoulder to see Pyrrha laying on a tree branch with Milo in it's rifle form nestled against her shoulder. I stopped firing, I only had so many bullets you know, around seventeen left in total. Blades extended I met the pack's charge with a yell of pure hatred for the foul creatures that had forced both of this planet's intelligent species to the brink more than once.

I found myself moving in a completely different manner to my previous fights, my body seemed fluid as I flowed around a demon wolf's attempt to bite my throat out. I removed it's left leg at the knee without so much as a hitch in my stride, my other blade flicked out as the creature fell, slipping between ribs and bisecting the creature's heart. My hands moved independently from the rest of my body, the blades on my pistols cut cleanly through joints, spines, necks and skulls, I fell into the comfortable focus of life or death combat, and all around me gore and severed limbs sailed through the air. I came out of my near-trance when I slipped in a puddle of Beowulf blood that hadn't yet evaporated, immediately I broke into a roll that took me out of the line of attack for an especially massive beast, the Alpha of the pack. Pyrrha's rifle rounds struck the Alpha around the head and neck, though the bony plates and spikes growing in those areas prevented any of the shots from being lethal it still proved enough of a distraction for me to spring upright.

"Hey, Ugly, why don't you try to take a piece out of someone closer to your weight class?" I knew the Beowulf Alpha couldn't understand what I was saying, but it was a pack creature, and one thing it knew better than anything else was a challenge. Locking my eyes onto the burning red, hate-filled eyes of the Grimm I took a step forward and bared my teeth in a savage grin, this, this is what I needed, a fight where the slightest mistake would mean death. My aura was still low from my combat test, my muscles were beginning to voice their opinion of the abuse I'd heaped on them, I didn't care, all of that served as an excellent distraction from thinking about Ozpin, my past, or my future. Right then I was just Azure Tobias, warrior, and that's how I wanted it. The Alpha and I had been circling each other for half a minute, glaring like two wolves about to fight for control of the pack... Yeah, fuck that noise, I'm not some dumbass canine, getting into fair fights, I'm a lion, a cat, and cats use whatever advantage we can get. The moment the Alpha's back was to Pyrrha's tree I called out one word. "Pyrrha!" CRACK! The rifle round punched through the vulnerable back of the Beowulf Alpha's skull and exploded out the other side, passing over my head less than a second later.

Since the enemy had been wiped out I closed my eyes, trusting Pyrrha to warn me if any new Grimm showed up, and let the roiling mass of emotion flood my mind, I needed to get back my calm center, and the only way to do that was to stop shoving all my emotions into a corner. It started as a shaking of my shoulders, then a nearly mad giggle, which rapidly transformed into a full fledged laugh, and... were those... tears? I reached up and touched the liquid drops spilling from the corners of my eyes, yup, definitely tears. I had pushed so much of the anger, fear, and confusion I felt at all times into this hunt that I just couldn't stop until I'd let everything out. Was it wrong that I felt a cathartic release from horribly butchering soulless monsters en mass? I didn't think so, but what did I know? Pyrrha approached me cautiously, I didn't blame her, after all I had just started to laugh like a crazy person... actually I was still laughing like a crazy person, I should probably stop, shouldn't I? Taking several deep breaths I forced the laughter to subside.

"Sorry about that Pyrrha, I just needed to let it out, I felt like I was going to explode with all the emotions I'd been repressing since I woke up, so it was either laugh or scream, and I didn't think you'd appreciate me screaming myself raw, besides, laughter's healthier."

"Y-Yeah, screaming would definitely have been worse..." Pyrrha still looked a little freaked out, however what I did a second later startled a squeak out of her, huh, that was really cute, and totally unexpected, and did I mention really really cute?... A-wuh? Oh, right, I was doing something... I hugged Pyrrha Nikos, yeah I know what you're thinking, it wasn't like that! Or at least not mostly, I just threw my arms around her for a quick squeeze, long enough to mutter "thank you" into her ear before releasing her, her face had turned as red as her hair and she wasn't looking at me, oh shit, did I mess up or something?

I felt my own face burn as words tumbled out. "Ah... er, sorry, got carried away, but seriously, thanks for sticking by me like you have, I would have gotten into serious trouble if you hadn't, so thanks, for being my friend I guess." Holy crap I'm bad at this, Pyrrha was chewing on her lower lip, and still not looking at me, I messed up didn't I? Wait, she's speaking.

"N-No p-problem, what are friends for?" My famous friend stuttered as she raised her eyes from the ground and met mine with a small, uncertain smile playing across her face... Why is my best friend so cute? This would be considerably less uncomfortable if I wasn't reasonably certain that I could easily end up falling for her with a little effort. Well... today has certainly been an emotional rollercoaster (stupid teenage boy hormones) but I'm starting to think that I could do with some relaxation time, one emotional breakdown was enough for me, thanks.

My lion ears twitched and I felt my body act on pure reflex. I shot forward and tackled Pyrrha out of the way, cursing my foolishness, there we were in a Grimm infested forest, chatting like schoolgirls (though one of us is a schoolgirl, so that might not have been a fair comparison, I doubted Pyrrha is in any way a gossip), stupid, stupid, STUPID! The massive jet black snake head that had found itself with a mouthful of dirt, rather than a mouthful of tasty Human, hissed in outrage. That hiss was soon joined by a second, as where a tail would be on a natural snake, the creature's scales faded from black to white, a second, pure white snake head controlled the white half of the King Taijitu independently from the black half.

The twin heads of a King Taijitu wove around each other hissing and flicking their tongues out to taste the air, waiting. I made the first move, levelling both pistols and firing a shot at each head, gauging their reactions, neither snake head flinched as the rounds struck them, that was not good. My mind raced, like natural snakes each King Taijitu head was capable of lightning quick bursts of speed when they struck at their prey, but otherwise they weren't very fast. They were, however, unfortunately, hideously strong and covered in bullet proof scales, not to mention venomous. If you managed to survive being impaled on it's sword-sized fangs or crushed by their enormous jaws you got poisoned on top of it! Whoopie! Thank God for aura I suppose.

Speaking of aura, I'd actually managed to recover some while fighting the Beowulf pack, it was now at approximately thirty-eight percent, not great but a damn sight better than the ten percent (more or less) that I'd finished my combat test with.

"Pyrrha, distract it!"

"Roger!" The red headed tournament champion shifted Milo into it's spear mode and charged in. If we hadn't been fighting for our lives I'd have taken more than a second to watch Pyrrha's assault, it really was a thing of beauty, not a move wasted. Mid charge, Pyrrha leaped and rolled over the striking black head, throwing Akouo, her shield, at the white head to discourage it's own strike, before using her magnetism to call the shield back onto her bracer and jabbing backward with her spear to keep the black head's attention on her.

I meanwhile climbed a tree, yeah, I know that's nowhere near as awesome, but bear with me here. I reached my target branch and stood up on it, mentally berating myself for coming up with such a crazy plan, even as I went about fulfilling it. Blue lines of aura flowed down my left arm like a glowing blue circuit board, gathering around my metal fist in a swirl of indigo and azure light against silvery metal. Still questioning my own sanity, I took off running along the branch, launching myself into the air above the black head. The demonic snake never saw me until my aura reinforced robotic fist slammed into the top of its head, driven by gravity, well-crafted servo motors and all the force I could pour into the punch. The hit sent the black head crashing to the ground, the impact even shook the white head, I punched again and again until I broke through two layers of bone and a layer of scales and flesh. Moving with purposeful speed I tore a hole in the black snake's skull with my mechanical arm, then I drew and emptied Duty into the opening, seven shots, straight into the brain. When the White head hesitated from feeling it's other half's concussion and subsequent painful death, Pyrrha struck hard. A loud BANG echoed through the forest as Pyrrha threw Milo with a shot fired from the butt of the javelin, the Dust enhanced recoil sent the javelin rocketing through the weak scales on the snake's throat, the spear stuck in it's target, but didn't pierce far enough so Akouo was sent spinning through the air, guided by a steady magnetic push, to impact with the Milo driving the javelin deeper into the King Taijitu's throat, killing it.

For a minute we stood there, breathing hard as the two headed snake Grimm disintegrated, then I accidently broke the silence by inhaling some of the Grimm smoke rising around me. This immediately had me coughing it out, that stuff was disgusting! Laughing quietly, Pyrrha went to retrieve her weapons, i'd have said something about the laugh, but I was too busy attempting to cough up a lung or two, ugh, Grimm smoke is NASTY!

Once I could breath normally we made our way back to Vale, chatting easily with each other, talking and laughing, and generally enjoying each other's company, I needed that. Half an hour later we stepped through the doors of A Hunter's Paradise still laughing. Near the back of the gym a small blonde girl stood, running through what looked like katas. When I'd first seen her I'd thought she might have been a younger boy, her hair was in a short ponytail, her figure was boyish, not to mention concealed some by the grey hoodie she wore, and her face had slightly androgynous, though delicate-looking features: A rounded chin, small mouth and wide, pale blue eyes.

On second glance it became obvious (at least to me) that she was a girl, it wasn't anything overt, just the way she held herself, the shape of her eyes and cheekbones, her long eyelashes and rosebud mouth, all pointed towards female. Her eyes didn't seem to move with her body, just staring blankly ahead. She was blind.

It took Pyrrha an extra second to notice the blind girl. "Oh! I wonder who that boy is, I've never seen him around before." The red haired champion asked, I nearly facepalmed, I'd forgotten that, as a Human Pyrrha simply didn't have my eyesight, and had made the same mistake I'd almost made.

Keeping my voice low I corrected my friend. "Pyrrha, that's a girl."

"Yes, I am, I can also hear you, so there's no point whispering." The blind blond didn't break from her flowing stances as she spoke, her voice was softer than Pyrrha's but also slightly lower pitched. Pyrrha and I turned a little pink around the ears. The strange girl smiled in our general direction as she came to the end of her sequence, let out a deep breath and turned to face the pair of us. "Hi! I'm Luna Argent." Luna had been striding towards us, as much as a five foot five blind girl could stride, I found it odd that, though she was unquestionably blind her steps showed no hesitation whatsoever.

I shook her offered hand and the instant our hands came into contact Luna angled her head up so that she was "looking" in the general area of my face, I guessed she had some kind of touch based extra sense for her Semblance.

"Azure Tobias, the girl next to me is Pyrrha."

"Hello!" Pyrrha greeted Luna brightly, the blonde turned her head and smiled on Pyrrha's general direction. Pyrrha, it seemed had just realized that Luna was blind as her eyes widened and she glanced over at me, I shrugged. Rusty came out of his office/apartment in the back, saw Pyrrha and I talking with Luna and smiled.

"Hi Rusty, I was just getting to meet Azure and Pyrrha here, they seem nice." Luna greeted Rusty without turning, she'd probably heard him walking in, Rusty was a big guy, and his footsteps weren't particularly quiet.

"Yeah, they're good kids, you'll like them I think. Anyway, it's time for practice now, go get your weapons."

"Okay! It was nice meeting you two, if you stick around maybe we can hang out after practice, yeah?" Luna smiled up at both of us, though I was pretty sure she only knew my height, not Pyrrha's. Regardless I nodded, mostly out of habit, since she couldn't see it, and replied.

"Yeah, that sounds great." Pyrrha voiced her agreement a second later with a small "uh-huh." Luna's smile brightened further. As she bounced off, I noticed that her feet were bare, which, if I was right about the touch-based sensory Semblance explained how she could weave through a room full of gym equipment without even feeling her way around with her hands. Idly, I wondered what the range on her extra sense was, probably not large, as she hadn't known how tall I was until we'd shaken hands. Luna's destination was a canvas tote bag laid on a bench against the back wall, fishing inside for a second Luna withdrew a pair of odd looking objects, after running her fingertips over both objects she pulled them on: they were a pair of fingerless gloves with what seemed like some kind of Dust reservoir on the backs of her hands, connected to something on the palms by tubes, it was too far away for my Semblance to pick them up, so I just took a seat outside the small practice ring and waited.

When Luna joined Rusty in the ring she'd stripped out of the hoodie, leaving her in a black tank top and knee length jeans. Rusty had more than a foot on his sparring partner in height, the boar tusked man was massive, intellectually I'd already known that, however, seeing him in the ring with someone whose head topped off about even with his chest drove the point home further. Luna's face was set in concentration, her body settled into a tightly controlled stance, her left leg slightly forward, right leg bent just a little, her body turned so that she was facing Rusty from the side, and her hands held open in front of her. Rusty held no weapons, but he was a 6'10'' giant, he didn't need weapons.

Rusty made the first move, a straight right which Luna reacted to in the split second between when the attack flew past her outstretched left hand and when it would have connected, moving with a grace that defied her lack of sight, Luna ducked under the huge fist, landing a palm strike on her opponent's elbow as she passed by. The impact preceded a flash of cyan light and ice formed around Rusty's elbow. Lightning quick Luna drove three palm strikes into Rusty's torso, the stomach, solar plexus and chest specifically, each hit was punctuated by a burst of elemental energy, electrical sparks flew with the first hit, a patch of ice formed where the second hit landed and the final attack knocked the huge gym owner back with a burst of fire. Rusty caught his footing quickly and casually shattered the ice encasing his elbow. Luna wasn't content to just stand react, she crossed the distance between herself and Rusty in a second.

The fight was fast paced, but I could tell Rusty was holding back, he was at least as skilled as a practicing Huntsman, so naturally he was holding back, he could have taken all three of us at once, even if Pyrrha and I had been at full power. Holding back was the only way Rusty could make this fight last long enough for Luna to get anything out of it. Unfortunately, the training session got put on hold when a small fireball from one of Luna's gloves was deflected to one side and set my sleeve on fire. I stripped out of my jacket, only to find my shirt smoldering so I pulled that off as well and stomped the fires out. In doing so I turned my back on both Pyrrha and Rusty (Luna too, but since she couldn't see, Pyrrha and Rusty were the important ones in this instance), two sharp intakes of breath had me turn back to see Rusty looking poleaxed, edging toward thunderous, Pyrrha dumbfounded, and poor Luna completely confused.

"What?" No, seriously, why are they looking at me like that?

Pyrrha's hesitant voice tried to answer me. "W-well... Um, you-you have... tattoos, on your back."

Dr. Williams hadn't needed me to remove anything more than my jacket before her device had been able to get readings from me until she'd removed my arm, which had only required my left side be pulled up, and I hadn't thought to check for them earlier, a spark shot through me, even as a weight dropped into my gut at their reactions, this could be a major clue, but judging by the reactions it wasn't good news. "What are they? Anything that might give a clue about my past?"

Pyrrha swallowed nervously, definitely not a good sign. "You know how you thought you might have been a criminal before losing your memory? W-Well, I think we can say with confidence that your theory has been confirmed."

That didn't sound good, but I'd deal with that later, I needed to know what the tattoos were. Still shirtless I walked over to a full length mirror against a wall and took a look. In the center of my back was a lion with one paw on a human skull, and on my right shoulder blade, done in blood red and chalk white, was a snarling wolf head, superimposed over three ragged claw marks. Somehow I recognised the symbol immediately: The mark of the White Fang. I was a terrorist.

(Author's Note: Here's number four, enjoy!)