Chapter 1

A Chapter by Nyx

Nyx

Chapter 1

Sunlight streamed through the half closed blinds, banishing what little darkness remained in the room. Four occupied beds, bunk beds to be exact filled the room, and in each one was someone swimming in their subconscious. Most dreaming of faraway lands and treasure, but one was having a nightmare. This was painfully noticeable from the thrashing she was doing in her bed, with the covers now on the floor, and the pillow nowhere to be seen. The most interesting aspect of her was the bright white wings attached to her back as she continued to thrash in her sleep.

The silence was broken by the siren like noise blasting from the alarm clock. Nyx’s eyes snapped open and the alarm was cut off abruptly, with a dagger sticking out of its face. Nyx sat up and hugged her knees to her chest, shivering and remembering the nightmare again. It happened too often, this dream. She would be doing her everyday activities with her team, and everything would be going good. Then she would have one small slip up and they would find out. Her team would see her for who she truly was. They would ignore her, be disgusted by her… hate her. It wasn’t an unfounded fear; she had seen it happen to other Faunus. Poor souls who had been thrown out of their rooms and teams, ignored by all their friends just because of a single difference, and usually ended up leaving the school. It was hard trying to hide who you really were. Trying to pretend you were human. Nyx looked down at the scraps of clothing around her. What little remained of her shirt lay scattered around her, and her wings were exposed for all to see.

The icy hand of panic wrapped its claws around her heart as she looked at her slowly rousing roommates. In a flash she was out of her bed, across the room and in the closet, slamming the door shut behind her. She grabbed one of her thick bulky shirts and shrugged it over her head. This was a constant argument between her and her roommates. They were always trying to convince her to wear something more… girly. All the clothes they pushed at her failed to successfully hide her wings though, so she would refuse each one as politely as possible. Saying she was too shy to wear clothing like that. Truth was Nyx would love to dress like that. To be able to relax for once, but every aspect of her life to this point was based on hiding her true self from others. She would always keep her long blond hair in a tight bun, her sparkling blue eyes hidden behind a set of dull brown contact lenses, and the most important; her wings hidden.

Nyx sat huddled on the closet floor, once again hugging her knees to her chest, her heart trying to punch a hole in her chest. The first tear streaked down her cheek as the closet door opened and Autumn walked in, sighing.

“Another nightmare?” Nyx’s roommates were well acquainted with her nightmares, but she refused to tell them the source of them. Autumn sat down next to Nyx and pulled her into a hug, and Nyx buried her tear streaked face into Autumn’s bright red hair. When Nyx had first met the girl, she mistook her for a Faunus because of her hair. Faunus were physically identified by three traits. The most obvious was what set them apart from society, and the basis of the hatred they received, was usually in the form of animal ears, a tail, or wings. The other ways of identifying them was from odd natural hair color and very bright colored eyes.

The older girl patted Nyx’s head. “You completely shredded up your sheets you know… guess we’re going to have to go into the town again this weekend. We also need a new alarm clock.” She reached behind her and held up a small white throwing knife. “You really need to stop throwing these at the alarm clock. There is a snooze button for a reason you know.”

Nyx took back the knife, not making eye contact and still not saying a word. Autumn looked sadly down at her.

“Nyx… I really think you should talk about these nightmares of yours. If not to us, then to a professional…”

Startled, Nyx looked up. “N-No! I can’t, I- I mean I don’t need to!” Autumn looked down at Nyx like a disappointed mother.

“You do. They just keep getting worse. Come.” Autumn stood up and dragged the bedraggled Nyx to her feet and out the door into their room. “Look.”

The room looked like a tornado had formed inside of it. Her shredded bed sheets were all over the place, previously folded clothes had been thrown everywhere, and her bunk bed was tipped over, with a voice coming from under it.

“Help! Autumn? Um… little help?”

“I got ya Lyric.” Autumn lifted up the bed a little, allowing Lyric to crawl out. The girl stood, brushing the dust off her clothes.

“Wow! What happened? Did Nyx have another nightmare?” Lyric looked at Nyx with concern.

Nyx was suddenly shoved forward, slamming her head on the overturned bed, sinking to the floor as her vision began to black out. Whise stood above her, a scowl decorating her face. “This is the third time this week! If it wasn’t bad enough listening to you screaming in your sleep EVERY NIGHT, now we have to wake up to you destroying the room?!?!” Nyx curled into a ball on the floor, willing her vision to return to normal. Autumn stepped in between the two.

“Leave her alone! I understand you’re upset about this, but we’re a team. Nyx needs our help and we can’t just keep pretending that nothing’s wrong!” Autumn pulled Nyx to her feet.

“Fine! But stop trashing the room! This isn’t some Faunus hovel!” Nyx clamped her mouth shut to keep from responding with the angry retort on the tip of her tongue. Instead she simply looked away and nodded. Her mouth had gotten her in trouble before, and she was not about to let it expose her secret. This wasn’t the first time Whise had made a comment about Faunus. The first time, Nyx’s heart had just about exploded, fearing that the girl knew her secret, but after time being in the same team with Whise, Nyx had come to discover that the girl had a troubled past with renegade Faunus extremists. This was precisely why Nyx worked so hard to keep her secret.

Autumn stared right into Nyx’s eyes. “We ARE having that talk later today. You’re not getting out of it this time.”

Lyric grabbed her stuff and began to push them all towards the door. “Come on! We’re going to be late for class.” Nyx let herself be pulled forward towards their first class; trying to think of ways to get out of this “talk” Autumn was so keen on making her do.

They entered their first period and took their seats in the front, much to Nyx’s dismay. Being in the front usually meant being used for demonstration. The topic today was cross weapons training, or fighting opponents with varying weapons and learning the strengths and weaknesses each weapon held.

The professor walked in and immediately called on her and one other. “Nyx, Thrash. Up here please.” Nyx walked forward keeping her head down. Thrash sauntered up, resting his enormous greatsword on his shoulder as if it weighed nothing.

“Very good. Now for today’s lesson, small weapons verses large-” The professor stopped and stared at Thrash’s blade. “Um I mean enormous weapons. You two will spar using the lessons from the previous class. Remember to focus on the strengths and weaknesses of your individual weapons... Thrash, please go easy on her.” Thrash grinned, an evil glint in his eye, and nodded to the professor, although he really didn’t look as if he was going to heed the professor’s request.

During sparing, Nyx would usually pull her attacks, and really work at not standing out. Faunus were known to be extremely competitive, something that had developed from years of discrimination. She would make it so she almost never won, usually getting in a few good strikes but ultimately allowing the opponent to get the final strike on her. They always trained with blunted weapons, but they could still easily break bones.

Thrash stepped to the center and hefted his giant piece of metal, easily holding it in his hands, and waited for her to get ready. Nyx walked toward the center of the room, twin daggers appearing in her hands, and looked at Thrash’s greatsword rather conflicted. On one hand she needed to keep up her disguise, and being able to stand up to Thrash in combat would defiantly get her noticed. On the other hand, she really didn’t want to get hit by that thing. She stepped up to Thrash and held her weapons at the ready.

Before she could come to a decision, Thrash launched forward and slamming his sword into her weapons, scattering them across the room, and was turning his momentum into a second attack aimed at her head. On pure instinct, Nyx rolled backwards, pushing off her hands and flipping back to her feet, leaving Thrash staggering.

Nyx quickly took this opportunity to reclaim her daggers. In the background, the professor was yelling something at them, but she was too busy trying to keep her body in one piece to care.

Thrash rushed at her again, a primal scream ripping itself from his throat. Nyx dived to the side, landing hard on her back and crawling away from him again. Thrash walked slowly towards her this time, blocking all escape routes, while swinging the sword in lazy circles.

“No escaping this time Nyxy. Come on, use those tooth picks of yours. I dare ya.” Nyx’s eyes narrowed and she stood up. Oh this wasn’t good. He challenged her. I mean sure, she really needed to keep up her disguise as weak little Nyx… but on the other hand, he challenged her… and she was really itching to be on the winning side for once. A small dangerous smile began to spread across her face.

In the audience, Autumn tensed. They had seen this smile before, on rare occasions. It usually made itself known before Nyx did something crazy and outright dangerous. Autumn began to really worry when she noticed the slightly crazed look in Nyx’s eye.

Nyx sauntered up to Thrash, hips swaying, the smile growing on her face, and her twin daggers held in an unworried manner. A look of confusion crossed Thrash’s face, and he brought his great sword into the guard position, wary for any tricks. Instead of attacking him she began to walk past him, ignoring him completely. Thrash was dumbfounded, and not knowing what else to do, looked to the professor for guidance.

In one smooth movement, Nyx spun and swept Thrash’s legs out from under him. She stood up and dusted herself off even as he hit the floor with a thud. She looked at him with pity. “Oh, sorry about that. I didn’t see you there.”

Thrash growled in rage and clambered to his feet and attacked her. To be honest, Nyx was rather impressed with how fast he could swing his sword, but in the end it was still a greatsword, and as small as she was, she had the gift of agility on her side. She shifted to the side slightly, and Thrash’s massive sword split through the air inches from her. The sword clanged off the floor. Instead of trying to pull back the greatsword for a counter attack, Thrash threw his body weight forward, intending on bulling over Nyx. Instead, she planted a hand on his shoulder and vaulted over him. She winced as his hand dragged across her scalp, yanking her hair, as he tried to grab hold of her. She landed in a roll and came up, her bright blond hair pulled out of its tight bun and streaming down to her waist.

Nyx grinned at Thrash and streaked forward, all thoughts of staying under the radar vanishing. Thrash only had time to look shocked before she was upon him. She feinted left, and then spun to the right, stabbing him with her blunted dagger. He tried to counter, but she ducked under his sword long before it reached her. She rolled behind him, slashing at his ankles then catapulting into the air, flipping over his stumbling body, and slamming the hilt of her dagger into his temple, causing an explosion of spots to shoot across Thrash’s vision.

The class stared at the fight in absolute awe. It was well known that Thrash was the bully of the school, on top of being a competent fighter. Nyx, in comparison was that shy quiet girl that no one ever really noticed. Several of the students were staring at her, jaws wide open, not daring to blink. Who was this girl and what had she done with Nyx? This girl was flowing through Thrash’s attacks without a second though, counter attacking with perfect precision, and grinning evilly all the while.

Thrash staggered back, trying to ward off the incoming attacks unsuccessfully with his greatsword. This was its weakness. While the greatsword could deliver devastating blows, when it came to blocking, it was ill suited. Thrash tried one last desperate swing at the tornado formally known as Nyx. His sword once again passed through thin air as she drove in close slamming her dagger into several pressure points in his arm causing him to drop the sword before slashing savagely at his neck with her blade.

Thrash collapsed to the floor, holding his bruised throat from where the blunted blade had slammed into it, trying to will air to go into his lungs. Nyx stepped back, a self-satisfied smirk on her face, she turned her back to the coughing Thrash and once again faced the class.

The class stared back in shock, with eyes wide, mouths agape, and the professor’s coffee spilling out of the mug he was holding. Nyx’s feeling of triumph was short lived as the cold hand of fear once again seized her heart. A deep blush settled on her face as she realized what had just happened, and her daggers slipped from her hands, clattering to the floor. The bell chose the perfect time to ring, and Nyx made a hasty exit, disappearing into the crowd in the hallway.

Talking exploded in the room. No one could believe what had happened. A few of Thrash’s friends went to help him, but he pushed them away with a snarl and stormed from the room. Autumn and her roommates looked at each other in shock, and quickly gathered Nyx’s bag and daggers, before running into the hallway.

“Where did she go?” Autumn asked.

“Wow! Did you see that! I didn’t know she could fight like that!” Lyric was practically bouncing with excitement.

“That was quite unexpected. I want to know where she learned to tumble like that. Come on, she probably ran to our next class.” Whise led the way down the hall.

As it turned out, Nyx wasn’t at their next period, or any of the remaining classes that day. Gossip spread like wildfire across the school campus. What astounded so many wasn’t the fact that Thrash had been beaten. He was good, but he was far from the best. No, what astounded so many was how Nyx was the one to beat him. Nyx, the girl that was so remarkable at remaining unremarkable in the eyes of her peers.

As each hour passed with no sign of Nyx, her team began to become more worried about her. It was late, and as much as Autumn wanted to keep looking for her teammate, she was forced to call a halt to the search for the night. Autumn, Lyric and Whise stumbled into their room and collapsed onto their beds, exhausted after a day of trekking all over campus looking for the missing Nyx.

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