(3/20/15) A/N: So while I was looking back on some of my earlier chapters I began to realize a lot of grammar mistakes that I'd made. A lot of the writing I do is on Google Docs from my phone and I can vouch for how inaccurate that can be sometimes. Anyway I'm making an effort to rewrite the earlier chapters, or at least update them to my current style and tailor them to where the story is now (Dropping or updating some sections or unnecessary bits etc.). Honestly I had no idea where this story would go a year ago and Spring break was a good chance to clean up and look back at what I've done. If you're new to the story welcome and I hope you enjoy, input is always welcome.

"…" – Spoken

'Italics' - Thought

(Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY or its characters, they belong to Monty Oum of Roosterteeth Productions, and those characters you see not from the show like the main character are my own OCs for the purpose of the story. Enjoy) - Mojo1586

HARD FALLS, ROUGH MEETINGS

-?-

'Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!' Okay, maybe not the most well-mannered series of thoughts I'd had since this all started but hell, considering the situation I was in well, I was probably screaming. I say probably because with the wind roaring past my ears as I fell I couldn't exactly be certain. 'Man that forest is really getting close. Damn it how'd I get into this!?'

(Hours earlier)

I found myself alone with darkness on all sides, no idea how I'd gotten there. Looking down I saw I was wearing what looked like a stained, tattered dress shirt and black trousers with numerous tears. Before I could do more than register the strange attire a bright light split the dark, so intense it forced me to shield my eyes with my arm. As my eyes slowly adjusted I could just make out the silhouette of a feminine figure in a flowing blue dress though I noticed the state of her clothes were little better than my own. "H-Hey what…!?"

"I'm sorry" The girl said, her voice light and airy with a strange otherworldly quality to it. Suddenly the light flashed again with even greater force, this time blinding me completely, "I'm so sorry" the voice said again somberly, before I felt a sudden shooting pain in the back of my skull.

"WAIT!" My eyes sprang open as I found myself sitting my back against a cold stone wall in dark, trash filled alley. Looking around I could now just barely make out the sound of vehicles and civilization through a searing pain in my head. As my mind focused I realized I wasn't alone, three figures, one of whom seemed to have been crouched over me before leaping back at my sudden outburst. Unfortunately for my now splitting headache, he shouted for to the others.

"Shit! Val, he's waking up!" From what I could make out the shouting pale skinned youth was short but stocky, and had what seemed to be bear ears sticking up through his hair, and the tall figure he was talking to had curled horns like a ram coming out of the sided of his head. 'What the?' I couldn't think, my mind was misted over, however a single shred of information surfaced through the haze in the form of a word, Faunus. The horned figure cursed and shoved the bear Faunus to the side, moving to stand over me before growling at me in a deep voice. I saw that he was much larger than his friends with curly red hair, sporting a cruel smile

"Sorry "friend" but you've woken up at a bad time, we WERE just gonna rob you blind while you were layin there all unconscious, you having all those fun little accessories there" He gestured towards the ground near my foot where a heavy looking pistol lay discarded, it seemed of fine quality with flowing designs along the sides of the barrel and a small engraving on the handle. 'Why would I have something like that?' "But y'see, now we need to make sure you don't talk. Considering you humans owe us some compensation for how you treat us, think of it as retribution for your whole pompous race." His grin only widened as he noticed my confusion which he seemed to take for fear, "Only fair right?"

"Val, I don't think we should mess with this human." The bear-eared one piped up nervously, the third figure nodded in agreement, this one seemed to have scales around his eyes, hidden behind a shock of lanky dark dreadlocks, a pair of slits glowing yellowish and reptilian in the dark night.

"Bjorn's right, with gear like this he's probably some Huntsman, or at least a student up at Beacon, not some nobody. They might not take kindly to us messing with him."

The bear, Bjorn, shivered, looking nervously at me, "We don't want Huntsmen and Huntresses on us do we? Let's just leave him." Val turned on them both, a look of anger shooting across his face.

"Who cares" He snarled breathily advancing on the now cowering pair, "No one will find us, and a weapon like that's got to be worth a fortune if we pawn it off, not to mention whatever else he might have on him." I shook my head trying to clear it. I could feel something pressing into the small of my back, I reached over my shoulder to check and found what felt like a ridged metal tube strapped to some sort of sheath, 'The hell?'

The group seemed ready to argue even more as I made my way shakily to a standing position, well…a leaning position anyway, standing seemed a bit of longshot at this point, facing the thugs. "H-Hey!" Val turned to face me in response to my feeble shout. I continued on "What's going on, where am I, answer me?!" The Faunus looked at me, a look of surprise crossing his face before laughing out loud at my feeble attempt to seem threatening.

"Don't know, don't care human." He said derisively advancing on me; I tried to back away clumsily, almost falling back on the ground. "Found you just lying against the wall while we were messing around, honestly thought you were some drunk but it seems you're more messed up then that with whatever you're on." He cracked his knuckles before striking me across the face with a quick left, causing me to stagger back, stars flashing before my eyes. "Don't worry though, you won't have to worry for long." He came at me again fast, fist raised for another punch when I felt a sudden surge of confidence. In one quick motion, as if on reflex, my body moved forward towards him, bringing my left arm up to harmlessly deflect the punch while my right shot out to grab the Faunus by the neck. Val looked quite a bit stronger than I did, muscles bulging through his shirt, but I was taller and had longer reach. Using my leg to sweep his feet out from under him, I took advantage of my momentum to bring him to the ground on his back hard, knocking the wind out of him. I stood up quickly, giving him a swift but harsh kick to the side of his head that snapped his horn with an audible crack, he cried out in fear and pain, writhing and whimpering on the ground as he clutched at the injury. Taking a short breath I moved to face the other, two only stopping to scoop up the gun, it was apparently mine after all. I was in shock, having no idea how I'd just done that whole little maneuver, the other two looked just as surprised as I was. I pointed the gun at Bjorn,

"You, you're going to answer some questions for me, simple answers, clear as you can, or you end up worse than your friend here. Understand!"

The youth looked at the scaled one in fear before nodding quickly in reply, "Yeah whatever you want, please just don't hurt us Mr. Huntsman sir, we didn't mean anything by it, it was Val's idea, me an Adder were just following along." His partner was shaking his head also but paled as I pointed the gun in his direction.

"I don't want excuses, I want answers, give me that and you can go, all of you, now I'll ask again, Where. Am. I? Be specific"

The Faunus gave me a quizzical look, but a glare from me had him stammering out a reply, "You're in Vale City, commercial district, in the kingdom of Vale, Continent of Vytal." He gave me another strange look as if he thought this ought to have been obvious but soon switched back to fear as I frowned. I wasn't focused on him though, my mind trying to process this, Vale? Vytal? I knew I'd heard the terms but it was strange, I recalled only short bits of relevant information with the bulk of it slipping back into the recesses of my mind as I tried to draw more. Something about a council system, kingdoms?

"What am I doing here?" I asked him, putting the thoughts aside for later.

"It's like Val said pretty much, we don't know. We just found you here while we were walking around." He looked nervous but I "politely" encouraged him to continue "We're part of a small group operating in this area, we shake down humans who we can get alone, and you just seemed like an easy target, lone human knocked down alone in a dark alley." The boy shrugged.

I could have pressed more but they genuinely didn't seem to know anything, this was just wasting time. "You mentioned something about Huntsmen and a Beacon or something, what does that mean?"

The scaly one perked up at that one, probably trying to seem useful "Huntsman and Huntresses are warriors who fight monsters." Suddenly an intense memory came to the front, monsters everywhere, blood, screams, howls, I grabbed my head snarling fiercely at the sudden influx of images, the scaly one ducked behind his friend with a squeal of terror.

"Grimm." The memory was gone as soon as it had come almost without a trace, whatever these Grimm creatures were, I knew I wanted them dead, why was irrelevant.

The Faunus still looked nervous at my sudden outburst but continued on, "Y-Yeah the creatures of Grimm, the Huntsman and Huntresses fight them. We thought, judging by your equipment, you must have been one of them, or a student at Beacon." Seeing my confusion he elaborated quickly, "Beacon Academy, big training school for them. Very popular round here but loads of trouble for us."

"Where is Beacon?" I asked quickly, might as well start there, these three obviously had thought there was a connection, might be worth looking into. The two quickly relayed directions to the place, it didn't seem too hard to follow, it appeared to be a well-known landmark, the only problem being that it was quite a ways away, I might even have to take an airship. "Alright, pick up your friend and get out of here before I change my mind." The two edged around me and started dragging Val away, the thug turned back to look at me, eye full of hate.

"Bastard, I see you again, your dead, you hear me dead!" He shouted before his buddies dragged him off. I slumped against the wall again in relief, I had never intended to kill them but they didn't have to know that, judging by the weight the gun probably wasn't even loaded. 'Suckers', I thought laughing to myself as I examined the weapon, the design was incredibly detailed, with the word "Chance" engraved on the handle in flowing script. I shrugged and placed the mysterious weapon in a holster I found strapped to my left thigh, from what I could see I had numerous bits of ammo strapped to my belt. I also noticed what looked to be bits and pieces of body armor scattered across the ground that I might've been wearing but it was beyond salvaging.

Okay, now onto the hard part. I walked out of the alley, opposite the way the thugs had gone considering no sense in inviting trouble when I could avoid it, and found myself in a somewhat bustling cityscape, cars and the casual passerby moving past. I got some strange looks from some of them; guess they heard what was going on in the alleyway and thought I was trouble. Curious I looked at my reflection in a shop glass window a few feet away. Standing at a little over 6 feet, my hair was brown and cut somewhat short with a few white streaks and patches accompanying a pair of bright blue eyes.

Now that I knew what I looked like I turned to what I was wearing. A worn blue sleeveless accompanied by black jeans along with a hooded jacket with a strange symbol on the back, a blue circle with a black crescent moon surrounded by eight triangular spikes, 'Ok, weird…but serviceable'. Add the holstered gun at my leg and the strap holding the sheathed tube which I now saw was blue with silver ridges spaced evenly along the shaft ending in two thick weights at the end, I put the length of it at about a foot and a half long. I wanted to take it out and see what, if anything, it did but considering I was in a city street partially surrounded by groups of people, probably not the best idea. Resolving to look into it later I moved on.

I'd been walking aimlessly for about an hour when I found myself on the edge of a large main street gazing upon a very peculiar scene.

Two girls standing back to back, one about my age approximately (Though honestly I had no idea on that front) with flowing long blonde hair wearing a tan vest and a black pleated skirt accompanied by a slightly younger dark-red headed looking girl in a black dress with a long red hooded cloak. The two were surrounded by around a dozen men in business suits and red glasses packing swords and axes and moving threateningly towards them. "You're the red girl who interfered with our dust robbery a few days back?" One of the bigger thugs, probably the leader of the group, asked with a short grin. "Mr. Torchwick wants you dealt with to keep you from messing with our business again." He punched his fist into his palm, "Sorry, but you junior huntresses aren't leaving this street walking."

Huntresses? That caught my interest.

"Your boss must still be hiring after what I did to the last group, still not enough though." The young girl taunted the group. Brave kid.

Looking at the girls more closely I could see that the younger one had a strange looking case hanging from the back of her hip, some kind of weapon? 'Guess it might be the norm' Either way they would possibly need help dealing with these guys despite what the girl had said, even if they didn't they were huntresses, which meant they could help me get to Beacon afterwards, two birds, one stone. I dealt with Val easily enough, maybe what happened before could help out again.

"Wow, she's got a point you know, this many to take on two girls, really?" I called out loudly getting the attention of everyone present, the girls looked surprised while the leader just looked angry at the intrusion. I continued on "I could understand if you were taking on a puppy or maybe the elderly with twelve, but two teenage girls with these numbers, severe disadvantage." The blonde grinned at my words.

The leader turned to me hefting his axe witch I noticed unlike the others, was much more ornate and double edged. He challenged me "You have a death wish punk?"

I shrugged, and gestured to the whole scene, "Just saying you must, especially now that I'm here, that's three vs twelve now, still very bad odds for you." I grinned, really hope that thing before wasn't a fluke or I'm going to be regretting this very hard in a moment.

"You three with me…" He pointed out some of the bigger guys in his group, "The rest of you deal with those two." As they started advancing on me I thought about going for my gun but my body went for the tube on my back instead, as I held it outward suddenly I almost could hear a song playing in my head as a bluish energy ran down my arm into the metal object, which suddenly reacted, extending automatically out of both sides into a long blue quarter staff about as tall as I was, weighted ends gracing both sides. Silver designs ran over the metal of the shaft in twisting patterns. 'Nice' I thought, 'but how do I…', suddenly my body reacted yet again spinning the weapon in a rapid series of spins almost too fast to follow, "Fortune" a word suddenly freed itself from my mind as I entered a guarded stance with the weapon, 'Hmm…very nice, I'll take it'. I could tell that the goons the leader had with him were nervous. "Run now and I won't chase you." I reassured them mockingly, "Probably save you some pain in the long run." Sadly they didn't listen as two of them ran at me with swords. Strangely enough, I was hardly afraid, I just seemed to know how to beat them, how to fight.

I knocked the first ones blade away with a simple parry with one end of the staff, and in the same motion brought the other end into the side of his head, dropping him to the ground. The second went down barely a second later with a quick leg sweep and a smack to the head as he tried to get back to his feet. The third turned to run away straight into his leader's outstretched arm dropping him with a sickening crack, he shook his head then looked at me, "Good help is so hard to find." He raised the large axe up one handed, pointing it towards me, I just entered another guarded stance, this guy was no joke.

He smiled wildly and leapt up into the air right at me, axe poised for an overhead cut, I made to block but thought better of it, jumping to the side in a quick roll to dodge at the last possible second. The axe came down with an explosive crash and cleaved a good patch of the pavement in two; he dislodged the large blade and readied himself for another leap, before he could however I was on him, for a big guy he was fast but I was faster. I barely even registered running at him it happened so fast.

Considering the man had just broken the street like it was nothing, I was surprised to find I was also somehow overpowering him, Fortune twisting in my hands, batting away strikes that looked as if they were coming in slow motion, all while lashing out at him like a living creature landing blow after heavy blow to his body, the song in my head ringing loudly. As the song reached its crescendo, with a sudden grab and twist of the staff, I pulled the axe from his grasp while simultaneously pulling out the pistol and driving the barrel into his throat. "H-How did you…" the man barely had time to stammer before I knocked him out with a quick pistol whip, flooring him.

"How's right." I looked down at body in surprise, I didn't have a scratch on me, though I knew I'd taken at least a few light hits from that axe, I should have had some cuts, the leader however was one big bruise lying on the pavement. "Didn't know I could hit that hard, wonder if… oh crap!" The two Huntresses, I spun around cursing myself for focusing too much on the fight and momentarily forgetting about them. Fortunately it seemed like they didn't need my help after all their fight well in hand, the girl with the red cloak was flying around spinning a scythe larger than she was, all while the blonde fought off her opponents with a pair of gauntlets, knocking men through the air with a series of literally explosive punches, some kind of gun in the gauntlets? After a relatively short time the two Huntresses stood above several groaning forms. The younger girls scythe transforming back into the red case-like object I'd seen her carrying earlier.

"Well that was fun ending to the night." The blonde said offhand stretching out her back, arms above her head, "Nothing like a good workout after a night on the town, Ruby get the police on call, and have them come out here." she gazed over in my direction noticing I'd finished my fight as well "Thanks for the help back there." She shouted over to where I was standing dumbstruck.

I waved away the thanks as I approached holstering the gun, "No prob, don't think you guys needed it though anyway. You both seem like you can handle yourselves in a fight well enough."

"Maybe, but thanks anyway for distracting their leader though, if he'd been involved we might've actually been in trouble." The red cloaked girl said shaking her head quickly, "I saw some of your fight, how you dodged then pow, wham and then he…with that staff, oh can I see it please?!" she went on making moves and motions imitating how I fought making noises out of some Kung-Fu movie and looking at the weapon with a look of longing until the older one stepped in front of her sighing in exasperation before offering me her hand.

"What she's trying to say is you're really good in a fight, names Yang by the way, Yang Xiao Long, and this is my dramatic, and weapon obsessed little sister Ruby Rose. What's yours?"

'Name? Right what was my name?' I mentally kicked myself for not thinking about that earlier, I was too busy walking through streets and thinking about what I was going to do when I finally made it to Beacon to give it much thought. "Actually your guess is as good as mine on that score to be honest." I said with a shrug as I shook her hand, she gave me a quizzical look.

"What? Did you forget it or something?" she asked jokingly with a laugh which died as she saw the look on my face. "Wait, seriously?" she said with a shocked look.

I rubbed the back of my head with my free hand a bit embarrassed, "Yeah actually, I just woke up in an alley about an hour ago. I can barely remember anything before and those are just odd bits and flashes."

"So what about those moves with the staff?" Ruby gestured to the weapon I was still holding. "Is that the same thing?"

"I'm not too sure on that count myself, it's like I know exactly what I'm doing, even though I can't remember how I know it. Look it's hard to explain, it just comes and goes." I gave up after a while, seeing the confused looks on their faces, "Kind of glad it worked out though."

"So you can't remember anything about yourself, name, where you came from, stuff like that?" Yang asked inquisitively looking me over. "Have you checked your pockets?"

"My pockets?" I cocked an eyebrow.

Ruby nodded her head, "Yeah like in the movies. You check your pockets just in case you might be carrying something, a wallet, something like that to help you work out what you were doing before you forgot."

I looked at the pair of them with a stupid look on my face, wow that seemed totally obvious now that they'd said it. I am really bad at this whole amnesia thing. Rifling through my pockets I brought out a few random coins that Yang deduced were from various kingdoms, a key with no inscription on it, a gum wrapper, what looked to be some mints, and a crumpled up piece of paper. Unfurling it I found that it was a note of some kind.

-Joel

They're meeting at the arranged place. I swear this is the last time I'm helping you, just leave me out of this. PLEASE! -N

"Joel huh?" Yang said reading the paper over my shoulder, "Strange note, wonder who "they" are. Anyway it sounds ominous doesn't it, they didn't even sign their name."

"Whatever it was or who these people are I don't remember any of it, though I guess it isn't a total loss, at least I have a name now." I said with a small sigh, 'Joel, no last name but it was a start.'

"Well Joel now that's settled, is there anything else we can help you with? Ruby asked sympathetically. Suddenly I remembered what I was supposed to be doing.

"Actually yes there is" I said quickly placing the note back in my pocket, "That guy said you were Huntresses, was that true?"

"Yes, well, more like Huntresses in training really" Ruby said enthusiastically, "Why do you ask?"

"Well I just wanted to know if you knew anything about Beacon Academy, I was heading there before I came across all this."

"Yeah we're students there, we just finished our first week there and we were out celebrating when loser and his gang showed up." Yang kicked one of the thugs who looked to be stirring on the ground eliciting a fresh moan from the man.

"Well some guys I talked with said I was outfitted like a huntsman or at least a student there. It's my only real direction at the moment so I thought it was a good idea to check out." Yang nodded in agreement.

"Well you definitely fight like one though I'd have remembered seeing someone like you walking around, our headmaster might be able to help you though. If you want we can take you to him."

"Yes thank you guys so much." I said gratefully, bowing my head on reflex, 'Guess I just have to get used to that'.

Yang smiled, turning back to Ruby, "Hey sis, mind waiting for the cops, they'll need someone to let them know what happened and I can take him back on Bumblebee to catch the last airship." Ruby looked a little annoyed but agreed to stay behind. "Oh and by the way" she pointed at the staff I was still holding "You'll probably need to put that away"

"Oh, yeah sure, give me a sec" I looked up and down the length of the weapon, I'd been too distracted earlier to notice what I'd done to activate it in the first place. Now that I was looking however I noticed a series of buttons and switches along the length of the weapon, accessible for when I was fighting but small enough that they wouldn't interfere with my movements. "Wonder what else this thing can do." I muttered pressing the most prominent button causing the staff to retract in on itself once again. I noticed Ruby shooting quick glances at it as I moved to place it in its hilt. "You know what, here." I tossed the tube to Ruby who caught it with a shocked look on her face. "Hang on to this for me would you?"

"Really" a look of excitement crossed the young girl's features as she gazed down at the weapon in her hands.

"Just to give you something to do while you wait, let me know what other little tricks it can do." I wasn't completely sure the girl could hear me at this point as she began examining some of the buttons closely, brow furrowing in concentration. Yang gave me a quick smile and motioned for me to follow her.

Yang led me to a street a short way away from the scene of the fight where a yellow motorcycle stood perfectly balanced next to the curb. "Thanks for letting her borrow your stick thing, you didn't have too" she said suddenly. Glancing back over her shoulder at me.

"It's no trouble, I could tell it was eating at her and it's not like I need it right now." I said shaking my head. "So when you said she was weapon obsessed..."

"Yeah I meant it, Ruby's always had issues with meeting new faces, so she tends to use the weapons they fight with as a way of getting to know them. She says that they're an extension of who we are. It's just how she's always been." She sighed "She's been getting better at it but..."

"I understand" I interrupted quickly "Don't worry we all have our ways of dealing with people."

"Just wanted to let you know I appreciate it, and I'm sure she does too."

Yang stroked the bike lovingly before putting on a helmet as well as a pair of goggles. As she mounted the bike she turned towards me with an apologetic look. "Sorry I don't have a helmet in your size." I noticed a small black helmet with a rose motif along the side that must've been Ruby's

"It's alright, my brains messed up as it is anyway, a head injury can't do much worse" I said with a quick laugh, I Got on the bike behind her and hesitated slightly before wrapping my arms around her waist, blushing slightly. She gave me another one of her quick grins before stating up the engine "Hold on tight okay" she called back, kick starting the engine.

"Sure thing." I replied quickly as we began moving through the crowded streets. As I held on for dear life as Yang dodged and weaved through traffic eliciting shouts and honks as we zoomed by, all while trying to keep Yang's cascade of hair out of my face I grinned. 'Things are finally starting to look up for me.'

(Present)

'Yeah, definitely looking up huh,' I thought dryly as the forest beneath me drew steadily closer. 'Yeah this is going hurt, well Joel, welcome to Beacon.'

-END