And here it is, the first chapter of Demonic Redemption. Mainly just "let-you-know-how-it-works" chapter, but that's important too. As you will see, there are no Semblances here, but instead powers called Luna. Everyone can have multiple Lunas.

Anyway, why did I write this? Simple. For the poll on my profile. Keep in mind that the second chapter won't come out until this story wins the poll, so if this story has more than 1 chapter when you're reading this, don't bother searching for the poll. This being said, enjoy!

Ruby Rose sighed as she looked out of the train's window. The world outside ran past her so fast she could only see blurred lines of what was near. Fields and houses went by in silence as she allowed the minutes to tick by. She knew it would take the train at least another hour before the landscape changed to Vale's houses and skyscrapers. Living on the small island of Patch had its perks, like the quiet and kind population and the abundance of small Grimm to train with, but it meant she needed to endure several long hours of journey before she arrived to the main city.

She was wearing a black jacket with long sleeves over a dark red shirt, leaving the jacket open since the carriage wasn't very cold despite the air conditioning system being active. She also wore fitting black trousers tucked into black boots with red laces. A necklace hung over her shirt, swaying slightly every time the train bumped into something on the rails, with a dark blue eight-pointed star on the chain. Her right hand was subconsciously touching it, like she always did when she was thinking. A flowing red cape laid folded on the seat beside her. She kept her red-tipped black hair nor short nor long, letting it fall on her nape and on her pure silver eyes. With her dark hair and clothing, her pale skin stood out even more.

To any outsider, the scene would've looked normal – just a girl, if a little Gothic, travelling on her own to the main city – hadn't it been for the sharp scythe resting against the wall. Even civilians would've then recognized her as a Huntborn, a close relative to a Hunter Clan, and thus someone who was born and grown into the Hunt. Someone who was trained to fight the Demons that plagued Remnant.

She had never really been taught how Demons had come to existence, as history was a subject usually covered at the end of a Hunter's training, and she still wasn't done with her training. She only knew what she needed to know in order to fight them.

Demons were divided into two categories, Grimm and Nightmares. The Grimm were extremely easy to detect, beings of darkness with no intellect that spawned from Salem, the Mother Darkness. Despite still being a threat to civilians, many types of Grimm could be easily handled by the Hunters, especially the seasoned ones. The Nightmares were the humanoid Demons, beings as evil as the Grimm, but with the mind and the aspect of a human. No one could tell a Nightmare from a human from aspect alone.

Of course, there were tricks to do it. Animals were always nervous around Nightmares, and the Demons always tried to kill any animal they stumbled into as soon as no one was looking. So many animals were killed, that the Hunters had to actively protect them. Another way was to watch them intently. Despite their intelligence, all Nightmares were intrinsically evil, and thus tried to spread chaos and darkness wherever they went.

Ruby had never fought a Nightmare, but her mother had. Summer Rose, the Deathly Rose as she was called in the Hunter community, had successfully fought and killed eleven highly dangerous Nightmares, and many weaker ones. She had always told Ruby that she had trapped one of those Nightmares inside the blue jewel so that she would be able to summon it and force it to serve her, but Ruby knew better. It was just a lucky charm. Trapping Demons was possible, but no one had ever managed to enslave one. If her mother's tale was true, then summoning the Nightmare would probably just lead to a quick and painful death.

She looked down and sighed once more. She had been doing it again. She removed her hand from the jewel just as the door opened and allowed in another girl, about as short as she was, with long white hair pulled into an askew ponytail, and ice blue eyes. The girl glanced at Ruby, and then took the seat farther away, leaning what looked like a sleek rapier of high quality onto the wall. She was wearing a white open jacket with a red velvet inlay and light blue trousers, as fitting as Ruby's, tucked into high white boots lined with fur.

Ruby knew who she was, everyone on Remnant knew. She was Weiss Schnee, the middle child of the Schnee Clan and also Heiress of the Schnee Dust Company. Both titles were held in high regard on their own, but combined they made her one of the most important teens in all of Remnant. The Schnee Clan was one of the oldest Hunter Clans of Remnant and surely the most known, while the Schnee Dust Company, SDC, was the main producer of Hunter weaponry and -despite the name- various equipment. Weiss Schnee was probably amongst the most known teens in the world.

Ruby returned to look out of the window.

She had made her own weapon on her own, with no one to help her. Even though her weapon used materials that were obviously Schnee-made, she didn't feel like she should've acknowledged the girl. The two of them waited in silence for the train to arrive to Vale, Ruby's drop-off point. From there to Beacon, she knew there was another train, a heavily armed and armoured one that brought them to the Academy for Demon Hunters.

"Is this seat taken?" asked a voice, tearing her from her thoughts. She looked back at the door and took in the newcomer.

He was a tall boy with black hair and magenta eyes. A single pink lock stood out on the side of his head. He was wearing white light pants and a simple green tunic with long sleeves. A few hunting knives in their sheaths hung from his belt, showing he too was a Hunter in training. A Huntborn, if she wasn't wrong, of the Lie Clan. Immediately after him entered a shorter girl with ginger hair and turquoise eyes wearing light metal armour in form of a breastplate and plated skirt. She also wore white pants, but she had metallic reinforced boots. Ruby couldn't recognize her by aspect alone, but the symbol on her sleeve said she was from the Valkyrie Clan. A heavy-looking warhammer hung, folded, on her back.

The crimsonette followed the boy's eyes to her scythe, Crescent Rose. It was in its deployed form, and was taking up at least two seats by itself, with the blade lovingly laid on her folded cape. It took her a few seconds to understand the boy's question, but eventually her tired brain managed to catch up and she blushed brightly in embarrassment, removing the scythe and allowing the two newcomers to sit down. She folded it into its compact shape and set it on her lap.

It wasn't uncommon for Demon Hunters to group up like that. Civilians tended to grow nervous around Hunters, due to the Hunter's weapons and combat prowess, so whenever the two castes were pushed together like that, Hunters tended to find other Hunters to group up with to avoid the heavy and sometimes tense silence that usually ensured.

Her hand subconsciously returning to the necklace, Ruby continued to look out of the window, waiting for Vale to appear in her sight. But before a single minute had passed, she felt someone's eyes on her and she turned for the third time, meeting the Valkyrie's water blue eyes. "What's that?" she asked, pointing at Ruby's pendant. "Is it something to ward off the Demons? Oh no, then I wouldn't be able to hunt them! Renny, tell her to stay away from me! I want to hunt Demons!"

Ruby blinked as she girl hid behind the boy, who just sighed and looked at her apologetically. "Forgive her, Nora can be a little… enthusiastic about the Hunt," he explained, his voice deep and neat. Definitely of the Lie Clan. "She is just curious and means no harm."

"Oh no, it's fine, eheh…" Ruby smiled and laughed awkwardly, idly fingering the medallion. "It's a lucky charm from my mother. And no, as far as I know it doesn't ward off Demons."

The girl, Nora, peeked at Ruby from behind the male. "A lucky charm? Does it contain garlic and willy-willy?"

Ruby found herself blinking once again. 'W-What is willy-willy?' she asked herself silently. "N-No, it's just a gem… my mother says it's the pommel of a sword. She defeated the Nightmare wielding it and, if her story's true, she trapped it in the gem, forcing it to serve whoever owned the gem," she explained, faltering a bit. The girl in white, Weiss Schnee, shot her an annoyed glare for some reason. "It's just a nice gem. And if a Demon is really in here… well, I really don't want to wake it up."

Weiss huffed. "Trapping a Demon is one of the stupidest things a Hunter could do," she informed them with a lordly voice. "Demons are born from Salem, the Mother Darkness, and return to it when killed. Trapping Dark Essence into a gem is possible, but it never ends well."

Ruby shrank a little.

"I am sure it's just a lucky charm, Ms Schnee," the boy, 'Renny', interjected. "I doubt it actually-"

"You talking about Aunt Summer's little trinket?" asked a new voice.

Ruby closed her eyes as a hand ruffled her hair, scattering all over the place. The newcomer, a busty blonde girl with very long hair and lilac eyes, sat down in the seat across Ruby. She was wearing high boots, black short shorts, a yellow undershirt and an open brown jacket. All her clothing seemed purposefully chosen to show off all the girl's curves perfectly, and give all the interest ones a good look of her cleavage. Ruby sighed as her half-sister Yang Xiao Long grinned at her. "Hey there, Rubes. Good to see you made it here. I was starting to fear you'd remain at the Rose Household."

Ruby sighed and looked at the girl. "Hey Yang," she greeted tiredly. "And yeah… I guess it's nice, right?"

"You bet," she shot back before turning to the boy. "Oh, and as for you, Rubes's trinket is just a large gem her mother's given her. It's possible she took it from a Nightmare's sword, though, she killed quite a few of those bastards." She grinned and extended her hand. "And my name's Yang. Yang of the Xiao Long Clan. And she's my little half-sister Ruby of the Rose Clan"

The boy took her hand. "Ren of the Lie Clan, and this is my childhood friend, Nora of the Valkyrie Clan."

Yang frowned. "Wasn't the Valkyries…" she trailed off, noticing a shadow going through Nora's eyes. "Oh, I…"

"Yes, the Valkyrie Clan was wiped out by the Demons," sighed Ren, briefly closing his eyes. "She was adopted by my family long ago, and we basically grew up together."

"But not together-together, eheh," Nora laughed nervously, shooting a glance at Ren. Yang blinked in mild amusement. "Because that'd be weird, right?"

"I don't think so," Yang smirked, leaning forwards, until Ruby angrily kicked her shin. "Ow! What the hell, Ruby?"

"Stop trying to embarrass them," the crimsonette hissed to her sister. That was a habit Yang had never gotten rid of. The two of them were close, but not overly so, as they trained in different Households. Yang had been the daughter of a temporarily alliance with the Branwen Clan, while Ruby was born from a deal between the Rose and the Xiao Long Clans. It was important for the Clans to breed only between themselves to maintain the Hunt a family tradition one couldn't just marry into.

Yang Xiao Long huffed and peeked at Nora's red cheeks, inwardly sighing at the missed chance. "Ugh, fine, let's just hope for this train to go a little faster."

The door opened once more and allowed in yet another girl, another Huntborn. She had short dark brown hair and blue eyes… honestly, three out of the six in the carriage had blue eyes… but they held a somewhat cruel light in them. She wore a light brown jacket with the sleeves torn off to reveal toned tattooed arms. She also had brown low boots and fingerless black leather gloves. A pant leg went missing around mid-thigh, while the other was messily tucked into the boot. Yang narrowed her eyes when the girl entered. "Vernal," was all she said.

"It appears my whore of a sister is here as well," scoffed the girl, not taking any seat. The only free one was between Yang and Weiss Schnee, and she apparently didn't want to take the chance. "How many times have you fucked Oscar for his father to allow you into Beacon?"

Yang's eyes turned red, a sign she was about to use the Power Rage, one of the Lunas of the Xiao Long Clan.

The Luna were called such because of a legend behind them. It was told that back when the Moon was whole, people had no magic and no way to unlock their Auras. The Brothers Gods had pitied humanity, who was forced to fight the Demons of Darkness with sticks and stones, so they decided to give them a gift. They had fractured the Moon and broken it into many pieces, giving them to as many people. Those were the first wielders of the Lunas.

Every Clan held different Lunas, and protected their secrets dearly. Even though Lunas were taught, not awakened like Aura, it was strictly forbidden to teach a family Luna to a Clan outsider, punishable with banishment. The Schnees had stolen or spied the others families for their Lunas, arriving to the point of abducting, torturing and murdering the members to snatch their secrets: it was so that the Schnees had gained so many Lunas, empowering their members and agents with sometimes even three or four times as many Lunas as a normal Demon Hunter. That was in the past, but few had forgiven the Schnees for such an act.

Ruby herself only had two Lunas, Speed and Rose, that she often used in tandem. Speed was pretty self-explanatory, increasing her speed the more Mana she used for it, while Rose was more tricky. It allowed her to turn her body into some aeriform gust of rose petals. She barely felt the hits when using Rose, but she couldn't attack and it used a lot of Mana. As far as she knew Yang had Power Rage, a Luna that increased her strength the angrier she got, Damage Mirror, that allowed her to use the received hits to power herself up, and Fire Burst. The last was the trickiest and the one she liked to use the most outside combat and the less during a fight. It usually just generated a small explosion of fire around her, and it had next to no combat ability due to the very small radius. Even when she used all her Mana into it, it rarely got wide enough to hit an adversary.

To be honest, Ruby considered Mana to be quite more useful than Aura. Sure, Aura protected her and healed her wounds, but with her low reserves she still relied on not getting hit, while Mana allowed her to use her Lunas. If she had to choose between turning all her Mana into Aura or turning all her Aura into Mana, she'd surely choose the second. Unfortunately, they came as a joint package, and no one could access their Mana without accessing their Aura as well. All except for the Grimm, of course, as they had Mana without having any kind of Aura. Nightmares were a slightly trickier matter, as they had both. Although since Aura could only be unlocked in beings with a soul, Nightmares' version of Aura had been called Dusk, to symbolize the eternal night they tried to bring to the world.

She focused back on the conversation just in time to hear Vernal huff and turn away from Yang, whose eyes were still red. The girl's blue eyes settled on her, and a hint of malice appeared in them. "So you are my sister's bastard sister, aren't you?" she asked with a grin, making her flinch.

Yang basically roared as she stood up and shoved the girl, Vernal, out of the carriage's door. The blonde slammed the door strong enough to make it shake even after she let go of the handle and stomped back to her seat. "Fucking damn cunt," she swore under her breath.

Fortunately, the rest of the journey passed in relative calm, even though Yang remained in a bad mood until they reached Beacon.

/-/

Beacon Academy for Demon Hunters.

She was there.

Ruby looked around, admiring the huge fortress built on the top of a cliff, with a gigantic reinforced wall that surrounded it and protected it from most of the Grimm. Any attacker would've quickly been shot down by the guards constantly patrolling on the walls, but the student body itself was usually enough to keep the Grimm in the surrounding area down to reasonable levels.

On a side, an immense forest extended up to the horizon, its green trees hiding the Demons lurking within. On another, she could spot another forest in the distance, but with blood-red leaves. The cliff dropped vertically into a huge lake whose depths were probably still unexplored, and probably inhabited by Grimm. Still, she liked how deep it looked, even just a hundred yards from the shore the waters were basically black.

Beacon itself was glorious. The inner side of the perimeter wall was decorated with colonnades and archways. Between the fortress's castle and the wall there was a wide garden full of trees, grass and small, artificial streams and ponds to liven up the place. Beyond it she could see Beacon proper, a huge castle topped by a giant tower, Ozpin's if she wasn't wrong. The newly-adapted-to-school old stronghold looked very solid, but also kinda artistic. It was built like garrisons, but it had open balconies on the rooftops, and high-in-the-air walkways on the sides of the walls. She had no idea why those walkways were there, but they looked cool.

She stepped onto the path with a large smile. Finally. She was there. She was in Beacon. She was-

"Heya lil' sis!"

-Yang.

She turned to look at the blonde girl, who just grinned at her. "Hey Yang. I guess this is it, huh?"

The taller girl just barked out a laugh as she playfully punched Ruby's shoulder, making her wince."Whoops, sorry, didn't mean to hit that hard. But yeah, this is it! This is the day we start seriously kicking some butts!" Yang punched the air and made some silly victory dance. "I still can't believe ancient Ozpin did this. I mean, sure it's cool, but it's totally unheard of!"

Ruby smiled a little more genuinely at that. Yang was right, it was completely unheard of. Up until their parents' generation, each Clan trained their own Huntborns until they were ready to seriously join the Hunt. But Huntlord Ozpin, current head of the Ozpin Clan, had decided to try and unify all the Clans by turning his household into a school for the future Hunters. Not all the Clans had agreed, and some had even be against the idea, but eventually he had managed to get permission from the Hunter Council and had built the school. And now Ruby was there, and nothing was going to stop her. "Yeah, it's pretty cool," she smiled at her stepsister. "Come on, let's get going. I can't wait to see Beacon proper."

Yang laughed as the two of them jogged up the path that lead into the school. Many other students were there as well, gazing dreamily at the large buildings or admiring the gardens. The Ozpin Clan was one of the richest Hunter Clans of Remnant, and their wealth reflected in their household-turned-school. Ruby had never seen something as magnificent as that. It was breath-takingly beautiful. And she was going to live there until she was ready to join the Hunt.

Ignoring Yang's cry of 'Wait!', she used her Luna, Speed, to shoot forwards. She couldn't wait. Dodging a few other students, she halted in the middle of the garden, grinning brightly, before shooting off once more, not caring about how much Mana she was consuming for something as superfluous as that. She couldn't wait. She looked around to get a look at her possibly new Hunt comrades, but none of them really attracted her attention, so she just sped into the atrium, pouting when she saw that she wasn't the first.

A red-haired girl dressed in light bronze armour stood a little to the side, tall and rigid as she waited for everyone else to arrive. Ruby didn't even need to see her bright emerald eyes to recognize her. Of course she recognized her, she was Pyrrha freaking Nikos! She was extremely famous! It was said that due to her great skills and unique -and still unknown- Lunas, she had never lost once, even when she had first started training. For the girl to be there meant that Ozpin's offer had probably interested the Nikos Clan.

The Nikos Clan's story was a pretty confusing one. Normally, all Clans' children could either become Huntborns or accept a normal citizenship and support the Clan in some other way than combat. Never before had happened for a Clan to spawn a Virtuous, as it was known for them to lose their unique powers once their Aura was unlocked, but for some reason Pyrrha Nikos hadn't. She had been born a Virtuous -something that had always been theorized as possible only among civilians- and had retained her power even after her Aura had been unlocked at the young age of six.

The Virtuous were a very special type of people. Aside from being much apter for combat, they possessed a unique perception sense, being able to recognize Nightmares at a mere glance. Only truly powerful Demons could 'hide' their Dusk, their dark Aura, from a Virtuous, and for Pyrrha Nikos to have retained both her combat aptness and her Virtue… it surely made Ruby very envious.

She shook such thoughts from her head. No! It wasn't the moment to be envious of someone who basically owed forty percent of their combat skill and actual power to a mere miracle and unheard-of-before happening! Damn it, put like that it was even worse. She didn't resent the girl, of course, but she couldn't help but feel a little envious. Why hadn't she been given those abilities too? It wasn't fair!

Slowly, the atrium filled up with people, and Ruby found herself sided by Yang once more, who briefly scolded her for running off without warning her, to which she just shrugged sheepishly. Finally, a man walked on the stage. He had messy silvering hair and brown eyes hidden behind small opaque glasses, and wore a dark green suit with a green scarf loosely tied around his neck. He stopped before a microphone, and leaned slightly on his cane, a cane Ruby knew to be his weapon of choice.

"Hello to all of you. I am sure everyone here knows who I am, but let me introduce myself. I am Huntlord Medeis Ozpin of the Ozpin Clan, but for as long as you will stay in this school, I will be your Headmaster and Professor." His eyes swept over the crowd as he took a small pause, scanning the students' expressions. "I must apology for the… quite hard-to-reach position of my school, but as you might know this was once my Clan's very household and as such, was built in a strategic and inexpugnable location."

He seemed to pick up on the crowd's disinterest, because a flash of annoyance passed in his eyes before he cleared his throat. "Now, I see many of you are tired from the long journey, so let me keep this brief," he continued, much to everyone's relief. "With this school we are testing the waters and, hopefully, becoming an example for others to follow. I do know that many of you would've gladly remained at their Clans to train on their own, but I must stress the importance of knowing how to fight alongside who will be your future comrades in the Hunt. As such, I gathered you all here to train you as peers instead of individual students."

"You will remain here until your skills are deemed worthy of the Hunt. Tomorrow you shall be tested in the Emerald Forest during Initiation. Your skills will be evaluated, as will your teamwork, and graded appropriately. You will have to reach a certain grade in order to attend Beacon." Seeing the crowd's interest already beginning to dwindle again, Ozpin sighed. "That is all. Please, Professor Glynda Goodwitch shall accompany you into the ballroom, where you will sleep for tonight. Tomorrow, you will face Initiation. If any of you wants to back down, they can ask me or Ms Goodwitch at any time, and they will be allowed on the train back to Vale with no shame whatsoever. Not being ready to die is not a fault."

His eyes wandered on the crowd once more, but Ruby was sure that when he spoke the next words, he was talking to her, and to her alone, although all the students probably thought that. The headmaster's gaze was piercing, and she found a shiver running down her spine as he spoke with a cold, emotionless voice that told nothing but the truth.

"Because, mark my words, the Hunt will kill you."

Well, cheers Ozpin... Seriously, you could've just avoided the whole "you're all going to die" thing. It's true but hey, EVERYONE is gonna die. No one has invented the Elixir of Immortality yet. Time is the greatest killer of them all.

So... well, here it is. As you can see I tried to keep this chapter around as long as An Extension of the Soul's chapters. That's my new goal. Writing longer chapters.

Up next should be Last Rook of JNPR, that is currently second in the poll. I basically wrote this and Last Rook at the same time, jumping from a Libreoffice file to the other.

Until next time,

Khor Evik Vlakhavlakh