***Reese***

"I'm Neon, by the way."

...Well, what do I have to lose? "Reese."

I shake her hand and Neon immediately goes on. "So, you're into skating too, right?" I nod. "You should totally come along, then."

To where? "Are you from Beacon? Do you know if there's a skate park around here?"

"No and no. But we're gonna find out. Come on!"

Neon starts moving and after a split second's hesitation I follow her, taking the chance to take another look at her. On her top she has a green and a purple button, and under it a purple bra is visible. She has green eyes and a small, red heart tattoo under the left one, her hair has some bright blue streaks in the front, and she's wearing a white collar with a bell on it – just like a cat's.

"So," Neon breaks the silence a moment later "you're on Team ABRN, right? What school are you from?"

"Yeah. We're from Haven."

"What's it like there?"

Good question. "Well, I guess... it's a bit cooler than Vale. And from what I saw during our flight here, there's a lot more green around, Haven is kind of sitting on the edge between a wasteland and a frozen tundra. What about you? Where are you from?"

"Oh, right. I'm on Atlas' Team FNKI."

Wait, what? "Hang on. You're from Atlas?"

"Yeah, is that a problem?"

"No, it's just… Not what I'd expect, from the reputation Atlas has for discipline and stuff."

"I know, right? That gets a lot of people off guard. Three quarters of our team are, like, freethinkers and stuff, and we had to work pretty hard to keep that, but unlike the actual military military branch, Huntsmen and Huntresses do get a bit more… leeway, as long as we do follow our higher-ups' orders and show results."

Makes sense, I guess. After all, a big point of Hunter Teams is the individuality of their members, if everyone were the same, that'd be no different from any other military.

I nod. "Makes sense. By the way, do you have any idea where you're going?" Neon seems very confident in the direction she's heading, but she does strike me as one of those people that would confidently stride into a pack of Beowolves, as long as they feel they're on the right track.

"Nope." She grins "But that never stopped me. Let's go and ask...this guy. Hey! Excuse me!"

Neon suddenly darts straight ahead towards a passerby who flinches and almost drops his shopping bag when she slides to a stop in front of him. However he does apparently point her in the right direction, as she smiles and returns to me.

"I was almost on the right track. It's that way." She points in the direction and starts moving.

"...That's opposite from where you were going."

"See? Almost."

We find our way to the open-air skate park easily enough, and while it doesn't quite reach the one we have in Haven on the school grounds – though that one also doubles for some training purposes – it's outfitted decently enough, with the majority of the park a large bowl, with a halfpipe, some ramps, stairs, funboxes, rails, the works. There's a few other people skating, mostly boys, but it looks like there'll be plenty of space.

"There we are," Neon says, then turns to me with a grin "Hey, Reese."

"What?"

"Try and catch me!"

With that she hops down into the bowl and starts running, creating a translucent rainbow trailing behind her as she picks up speed. Rounding the outside of the area after a moment Neon turns around – while still skating at the same speed, not bad – and waves to me. "Come on! You'll never catch me!"

Now she's asking for it. With one practiced motion I take my board off my back, activate it, drop it into the bowl and hop on, chasing after Neon. I cut straight through the middle, jumping over a ramp on the way and quickly catching up with her, but just as I'm about to get her, Neon sticks out her tongue and speeds up even further, just barely dodging me.

I accelerate too, but Neon manages to stay just a bit ahead of me, while still finding time to grind on rails and stuff, and even do a pirouette at one point. She's definitely pretty good, maybe even as good as I am.

While chasing Neon around the bowl I notice some of the boys have stopped skating and are talking and pointing in our direction. How very mature, have they never seen girls in a skate park? Whatever, just ignore them, not the first time that's happened either, and generally most of the guys shut up very quickly once it becomes clear I've got all of them beaten.

With another burst of speed I manage to catch up with Neon, skating right beside her along the wall of the bowl. "Got you!"

"Hmm...Nope!" Neon shoves me outwards while also sharply turning and fleeing in the middle of the area as my momentum is enough to carry me over the side of the bowl and a fair bit into the air. She doesn't look like it, but she seems to have some raw strength too.

Fortunately this is one of my easier exercises, and – mostly for style points – I grab one side of my board and effortlessly guide my fall to land in a curving piece and do a u-turn, using my momentum to catch up with Neon once more.

Just a little closer... I'm almost beside her, but just as I try to grab Neon's arm she jumps onto a box, and by the time I register the obstacle and try to jump I'm way too close, and my board crashes into it, sending me flying. I can't bring my aura up in time and painfully hit my shin on the edge of the concrete, but then, thanks to years of practice, reflexively put one arm forward and manage to break my fall into a roll, only to come to a sudden halt when my back hits some other obstacle. "Ow!"

By the time I orient myself and make sure all limbs are still attached, Neon has noticed what happened and stops next to me. "Are you okay?"

...That's a rhetorical question, right? "Ow. I'll be fine."

Even though I did a proper roll, and I was wearing protectors, there's still a massive scrape on my forearm, as well as a small bloody line on my shin that's gonna turn into one hell of a bruise, and I'll probably get a bruise on my back where that block so rudely stopped me. All in all, I've had far worse.

Neon extends a hand to help me up, and I take it and then dust myself off. "Thanks. This is nothing. Just keep going, I'll be two minutes to drink a bit, I'll be right back."

"'Kay." Neon nods and takes off again while I make my way to the bench where we put our bags, and get out the small bottle of water I practically always have with me. Almost empty... Depending on how long we're gonna stay here, I'll have to refill it somewhere.

I look up when I hear Neon shouting cheerfully, apparently she talked some of the boys that were watching us into a race, those poor fools. I keep sitting for a bit and watch the race unfold. As I thought before, none of them would be a match for me, and so neither are they for Neon. She effortlessly leaves them behind, and still messes around with grinds and fancy jumps on the way.

It's kind of remarkable; I don't know how much, if any, lunch Neon had after her match, but I'm starting to notice even that amount of ice cream wasn't really enough for me. I have no idea if I could keep up all those stunts while seemingly bursting with energy like Neon still does.

From the looks of it the apparent leader of the boys is not particularly happy about them losing so badly and starts arguing with Neon, who still remains just as cheery as the whole time, and I think she's actually intentionally provoking him.

A moment later the two of them start a one-on-one race, and while Neon still stays ahead, this guy manages to keep far closer behind her. Ostensibly Neon is about to win when one of the other guys suddenly comes up to her from the side and yanks her tail with enough force to send her off balance and falling on her butt as the leader overtakes her and reaches the goal first. "Whaa! Ow!"

That is so not okay. I jump onto my board and make my way over as Neon gets up rubbing her backside.

"Hey! What was that for?! I totally would've won!"

"Oh, I'm so sorry," the guy that pulled Neon's tail sneers. "Not! That's what you get for pissing us off."

"Well, you're a jerk." She turns to the leader who is still carrying a wide grin. "I demand a rematch."

"You don't get to demand anything."

"Why? Because I'd beat you?"

"Don't you get it?" The leader's grin vanishes. "You'd better be gone from here."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That's supposed to mean we don't want your kind here." He almost spits out the words.

Okay, that's it. I pick up speed, skating right past Neon and jumping over the edge of the bowl, then while still in the air getting off my board, folding it behind my back and landing on my feet right in front of the leader. "Hey, just what do you think you're doing, asshole?" I point my finger at him, almost jabbing him in the chest and he takes a step back.

"What do you want? We're in the middle of something."

"'Something' being cheating and racism, and you're gonna stop it!"

"Oh, you want to defend your Faunus girlfriend, that's cute."

"Shut up. I'd defend anyone from pointless racism, especially against cheap assholes like you, Neon easily would have beaten you!"

"Reese, that's really not necessary." Neon tries to stop me but I'm not having any of it.

"It is. I'm not gonna put up with any racism, and neither should you."

"That's rich." The leader grins "But this is my turf, so what are you gonna do?"

"Well, I would have suggested talking this out like civilized people, but I realize Neon and I would be all alone then, so I'll put it into words your limited mind can understand: Leave her the fuck alone, or I'll break your legs. Got it?"

He looks dumbfounded for a moment then visibly flares up his Aura. Would you look at that, a Huntsman, or probably in-training judging from his age, and for given values of 'man' and 'asshole'. If he's the only one around, that would explain why he's acting like the head honcho here. Also this means I won't have to hold back nearly as much, because it's gonna be a fight between Hunters, not a foreign Huntress "beating up civilians".

Any intimidating effect he hoped for is completely lost on me, and after a moment the leader gets angry. "Who the hell do you take me for, bitch? Don't fucking mess with me. Boys, get her!"

I quickly take a few steps from the edge of the bowl and take a basic fighting stance. It's four plus the leader on one, why don't I ever stop and think for just a moment? It's not like I couldn't take them, but I'd rather do so without my weapon and maybe even aura to avoid seriously injuring any of them, sending people to the hospital doesn't make for a really good impression.

Maybe if I just hurt one enough, the others will back off. Aaand there we have our lucky victim. With a shout one of the boys charges at me, readying his fist behind his head in an incredibly telegraphed attack.

Bitch, please. As he strikes I stop his fist with my left and easily direct it to the side, then jab out with my right palm, hitting him in the solar plexus with enough force to send him falling over backwards gasping for breath, but hopefully without doing any permanent damage.

The others immediately take a step back, this could be my chance. "Hey, dumbasses, if you don't even have your Aura unlocked, you better back off, or I can't guarantee you won't get injured."

The guy on the floor gets up and quickly backs away from me. "Sorry, Jay," he says to the leader. "That chick is way scary, you're on your own here." Called it. Cowards.

With a frown Jay steps into the circle formed around the two of us by his flunkies. "Useless bunch. You're gonna regret this, bitch."

"Oh yeah? Come at m-"

"Stop it!" Neon interrupts me. "You're totally overdoing it!"

"Am not. These assholes need to be taught a lesson. And besides, I'm just defending myself, it's totally okay if I break his legs as long as it's self-defense."

I'm not sure if that applies to actual broken legs, but quite a while ago I learned you can get away with a lot of stuff, as long as you make sure the others attack first.

"Shut up!" Jay snaps. "I'm not done with you, Faunus. I'm gonna beat up your girlfriend 'in self-defense', and then it's your turn."

"That's not gonna happen." I counter "Now bring it!"

With a growl Jay duly makes the first move, unlike his minion attacking with a proper strike, but I block it nonetheless and counter with a fist to his face that is of course stopped by his aura and he tries a wide swing with his other arm that I just duck under and land two quick hits against his chest.

I shift and take a step to the right, aiming a backhand strike at Jay's face that he intercepts with his lower arm, followed by a jab with the outer edge of my other hand that connects to his neck.

However I ended with my legs in a somewhat poor position, and Jay notices before I can correct it, turning in my direction while aiming a low kick at my exposed knee, and I can't get my leg completely out of the way in time, taking the hit to my shin instead.

Ow. Jay does have some strength there. And he'd just like that throw out the sort of move that can permanently cripple people? Do they not teach kids any decency at combat school? Well then I'm not gonna play nice anymore either.

I take a step back, and another, changing my supporting leg, before shifting forward with a side kick towards Jay's face, forcing him to defend by covering it with both of his forearms and still almost be knocked off balance by the sheer force behind my attack, and I keep using my forward momentum to just just ram my elbow against his defense, pretty much breaking it open and unbalancing Jay further.

immediately follow up by shifting my stance and striking with my left held slightly like a claw, and my palm hits Jay's sternum – I could have gone for the eyes, but I didn't wanna risk his Aura giving way at that exact moment, – finally knocking him onto his ass as I end with my feet on one line perpendicular to him, my left hand still outstretched and the right reflexively in front of my body, palm facing upwards. Just like Arslan taught me; I need to thank her for that again, her lessons in hand-to-hand were pretty helpful once more.

I resume my normal fighting stance as Jay gets up with a groan. "Is that it?" I try to put on a condescending tone, but I don't think I'm very good at it. Also this guy pisses me off more than anything. "Obviously you got no chance, so just give up, apologize to Neon and then fucking leave her alone. Got it?"

"Do you seriously think you can just pull that shit on me?"

Oh, he looks really pissed now, does he not know when to give up? "What are you gonna do? There's no shame in admitting defeat to a stronger opponent, so just do that."

"Shut the fuck up! You're gonna bleed!"

Jay pulls something from his pocket that looks like a handgun changing into a short dagger and lunges at me. That's not even a custom weapon, nor particularly threatening. I quickly dodge backwards, but before I can even start to counterattack and maybe break his wrist, which would be completely in proportion now, a large red spiked disk embeds itself in the ground between us, stopping Jay in his tracks.

Who? That's not Neon's, is it? It's not, as the owner of the weapon, a young man with spiky red hair and a pair of purple markings under his eyes, walks up from the side and retrieves it with a snap of his fingers, causing it to disintegrate into flames and then reappear in his outstretched hand before he attaches it to his back.

"That's quite enough of you," he says to Jay, who quickly tries to stash away his sorry excuse of a weapon.

"That bitch started it!"

"Do you think I'm blind and deaf?" The man hardly has to change his tone to make his distaste very clear. "I've seen everything, it was you. It's always you."

"I've given you the benefit of doubt long enough," He continues "I figured boys will be boys or whatever, but there is a line somewhere. Your blatant display of racism alone would be reason enough, but I will not be having weapons drawn in my skate park. This is far from your first offense, but sadly the first time I'm reprimanding you, so I suppose for now it's just a one-week ban for all of you, not counting today. And if I catch any of you with a weapon in here again, or even thinking of acting like a bunch of racist idiots, ever again, you can make that lifetime for all of you. Got it memorized?"

"You can't-" Jay tries to protest but the man just cuts him off.

"This is a private park, and as the owner I make the rules, so I damn well can whatever I want. Have you punks ever stopped to think what kind of impression you're giving? Vale is hosting the Vytal Festival right now, we have visitors from all over the world, and instead of its best side, you're showing racism and unsportsmanlike behavior to these two visitors. Just disgraceful. Now get lost, the lot of you! Or I will sic the police on you. Or perhaps a local Huntress, seeing as this one here beat all of you that easily."

"Wait, you're a Huntress? Seriously?" Jay looks rather stumped. "But you don't even have Aura."

The man beats me to my answer. "She just didn't need Aura to beat you. 'Cause that's what makes a Huntsman or Huntress. Not their Aura and weapons, but their skill, and the willingness to stand for others. Don't they teach you anything in school these days? Oh, whatever, just get lost. Now."

"Alright boys, you heard the man," Jay relents "Let's get going." He turns to me "You're lucky you got away this time."

"You mean you're lucky he stopped you before I got to break some of your bones in self-defense." Jay is about to return something when the owner of the park just makes him fall silent with a glance and he hurries after his gang. So much for that.

I turn around. "Let's go, Neon. Sorry about that, I guess I did overdo it a bit."

"I think you got me wrong there." The owner stops us before we can even start to leave. "The ban only extends to Jay and his cronies, you two are free to stay here."

"Really?" Neon positively beams. "That's so nice of you, sir."

"Oh, please no. If someone your age calls me sir, I'll feel way too old. It's just Lea. By the way, the two of you are from Haven Academy, right?"

"I am." I nod. How'd he figure that out? "Neon's not, though."

"Nope. I'm from Atlas."

"Atlas? You...don't look the part, that's for sure."

"I get that a lot. Must be my fabulous style." Must be your everything.

"Still, you were half right." I say "How'd you know? Or was that a lucky guess?"

"No guess." Lea shakes his head. "I've just been around. I know the styles of Atlas and Shade, so it was mostly by process of elimination. And not to sound presumptuous or anything, but this is the largest skatepark in Vale, so if you were from Beacon I would have seen someone of your skill level here before. So that more or less only left Haven. Or an oddball from Atlas as the case may be."

Neon grins. I think she enjoys throwing people off guard or subverting their expectations, I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing.

"You're in Vale for the Tournament, aren't you?" Lea continues "Then I again apologize for this idiot Jay giving you a poor impression. I suppose this is my fault to some point, I should have warned him and his gang long ago to keep it down. But I made this place because it's the kind of place I'd want to go myself, and I don't really like so-called authority figures, so I may have been too lenient with Jay in turn. But don't worry," he adds after a moment and turns to Neon "When I saw them picking on you, I would have stepped in, if your friend hadn't already been on her way."

"Hm?" Neon tilts her head, picking up on something completely different. "You're a skater yourself? Care to race us?"

Lea lets out a short laugh. "I like the sound of that, but I'm afraid I'm not in the shape for any skating right now. A few weeks back when we had Grimm inside the city an Ursa mauled my leg, and I'm still recovering."

Indeed, the left leg of his trousers is bulging out at the knee, like he's wearing a bandage or one of those knee brace-thingies. It's weird how I'm totally fine wearing my protectors, but the one time I had to have one of these I hated every second of it. And the accident hadn't even been my fault, that fruit cart clearly took my right of way.

"Oh." Neon winces as she notices Lea's leg "I'm sorry."

But he just waves it off "Nothing you have to do with any of it. And the doc says I'll be back to 100% in the end, I just can't strain it in the meantime, so no skating for me."

"Aw man, that really sucks. I don't think I could stand even a single day without rollerblading."

"I can imagine." Lea grins "But I'm gonna survive that little break. In the meantime I'm taking over some of the supervisors' shifts, which is exactly what I have to be getting back to now."

He gestures over his shoulder in the direction of a boy on a longboard doing some relatively tricky and inappropriate jumps. "See that one? He's been trying to impress one of his classmates for a while now by pulling more and more dangerous stunts, if someone doesn't tell him to slow it down eventually he's gonna need get hurt and then he can find out if the girl likes him falling on his face too. I heard some people like guys with scars, but... If you'll excuse me, I'm gonna put a stop to Romeo before he winds up needing stitches. You two have fun. Good bye."

"Thanks, good bye."

"Bye~e!" Neon waves as Lea turns around and heads towards the boy who just now barely lands right side up from his jump. I could do that one blindfolded, but I guess I have more experience than him, and I'm using the correct board; these kind of jumps are not the kind you do on a longboard.

"Hey, I was wondering," Neon says "About what Lea just said. Do you like scars? I mean, are you 'into' them or something? Or are scars like a total turn-off? Or neither?"

...That's a pretty good question. I never really thought about that. This is part of the 'tough, rugged Huntsman' stereotype, but the women falling for that are very much a stereotype themselves, one that I don't even remotely fit. I actually have a fair share of scars myself, none really dramatic or disfiguring, just scrapes and stuff accumulated throughout my life. I only unlocked my Aura a few years back, and even then I don't always have it up when skating.

Protectors still only do so much when you really wipe out, and even then my worst ever accident hardly left a scar, but probably would have killed me without my helmet. This way I only got concussion and a tiny scar that's hidden under my hair anyways, while the helmet was absolutely shattered. Oh, right, Neon asked me a question.

"No idea, really. But now that I think about it, I guess a scar is the result of a wound, right? And surviving that wound and getting through it is a sign of strength, so if we extend the scar to symbolize that strength as well, then I guess I sort of like scars, or maybe more respect them. Something like that."

"I see. Do you have any actual battle scars yet? I mean from Grimm, not from some stupid training accident or something."

I shake my head "None so far. No one on our team, in fact. We always got lucky enough to avoid any major injuries while out on missions."

"That's good. One of my teammates already got a scar. He defended his partner from a Deathstalker, and its tail broke his shield and went straight through his armor – as in plate mail – and into his arm. All of us made it out, but Kyle got that scar, and the injury handicapped him for weeks, all of us were pretty beaten up, really, and the whole thing was just a mess anyways. And-" Neon cuts herself off, actually looking downcast about something. Did I bring up something? She was the one who started the subject, though.

Either way I hurry to get her mind off it. "Nevermind that. Hey, Neon?"

"Hm?"

Neon looks up as I grab my board off my back and start running towards the edge of the bowl. "Catch me!"

AN: Yay, racism and bullying, fun stuff! Not. Yea, not absolutely everything is gonna be happy and shunshine (but for the very most part it will). Spot the callback to Volume 1 of the series proper in that scene.

Also there's a pretty clear (to me at least) KH reference in here; as well as a little bit of foreshadowing about Neon, try to find them.

I'm not a skater of any kind, so I hope I didn't mess up any of the terminology too bad (if there happens to be an actual skater or similar reading, please PM me or tell me in a review if I made any mistakes). There likely won't be too many detailed skating scenes, in part because of this, and because skating (as a lot of sports I'd wager) is much more interesting to do for yourself than read/write about for any amount of time.