[hider=Ghost of the Past]

There’s nothing that can destroy a memory. Objects and ideas may be forgotten, lost to the time, but they’re never gone. And because they’re never gone you never know when or how they surface.

It was Spring Break at Beacon. A whole week where their students were free to go about their own business without needing to attend Beacon, unless they want to participate in missions or were punished for something prior to the break. Gren and his team, Swansong, largely chose to spend their Spring Break away from one another. Kuhaku was quite a lady’s man and seemed to want to spend his week with his woman, while Abel slipped off without much fanfare. When Gren asked all he had as a reply was that Abel had some family matters to take care of. Gren didn’t press the issue. He didn’t get a chance to chat with Sapphire before she left, though from the message she emailed the team she too had family business to attend.

This business with family made Gren want to visit his own. His mother and father lived in the city, running their little flower shop near the docks. It wasn’t the most profitable job but their business was stable enough. More importantly it kept Gren’s siblings out of trouble. They were only a few years younger than him, could have been hunters but… Gren convinced them otherwise. Being a hunter wasn’t as glamorous as the stories made it. And more importantly, it kept his siblings away from the real danger. Not the Grimm. But those who feed them.

It started on the second day of Spring Break. Gren was going to go visit the grave of his other brothers and sisters. They only had tombstones to make their deaths, their bodies were never found. Gren tried to search for them once, but only because he hoped that somehow they were actually alive. He guessed that maybe if he hoped hard enough, did the best he could, he would have saved them. But his search yielded no fruit, and what little evidence he did find only further proved that he was too late. So when Gren brought his family to the city of Beacon, he also brought these graves as a reminder to him of a very simple fact: There’s no running from the past. Either you deal with it or it finds you.

[color=00a651]”Come to mourn?”[/color]

As the giant faunas knelt as the grave of his siblings two shadowy figures stood behind him. He had no weapons and he knew these two people. He knew what they were capable of and he knew that he’d lose if he tried to fight them right now. They caught him at a bad time, but that was expected. They would have only given to him the same amount of respect that Gren had given them so long ago.

Gren awoke sometime later. Only a few minutes as far as he could tell, but he had moved far. He was still within the city but nowhere near the graveyard. Gren noticed that his limbs were detached. [color=00a651]”Hmph. They know me better than I thought.”[/color] Gren looked around the dark room. It was a warehouse of some sort with crates and barrels stacked around him. There was only one clear path to him as far as he could see, but it was obvious that he was left here to be picked up. Whoever took him here in the first place was either hoping to take his cybernetics or wanted to kill him slowly. Or both. He had to do something fast if he wanted to escape his fate. With no legs or arms it was going to be hard to maneuver but far from impossible. He’d just have to be careful. He needed a plan, know who his enemies were and where he was at. There was no telling how much time he had so Gren did some complicated eye motions and pulled up the screen from his SCROLL’s in his view. He had the thing installed directly into his head, keeping the physical device as a backup. If they took his arms they likely took his SCROLL as well. He made a few calls before he heard a door open. Shutting his scroll off Gren could do nothing more than to wait.

Soon a [url=http://i.imgur.com/oCHDZmo.jpg]woman[/url] arrived. From her dress and face she must have been at least twenty. She stood taller than Gren and would have at least gone to his chin if he had his legs. She was flanked by two people, one boy and one girl. The [url=http://i.imgur.com/bBlRXho.jpg]boy[/url] looked fairly normal: He wore glasses and had short black hair. But Gren could see through the darkness and noticed that his eyes were much like Gren’s: He had pitch black scleral. To Gren this could only mean one thing: The boy was a cyborg like Gren was. He must have been a more advance model however, considering that his body was much smaller than Gren’s own. The [url= http://i.imgur.com/QQWgOli.jpg ]girl[/url] was blond and wore predominately red. She was casually playing with a yoyo, but between each spin Gren could see the blades edging out from the center. Those were her weapons and he knew it. He knew her, he knew all of them.

[color=00a651]”Revenge than, is it?”[/color]

The red-haired woman flicked her cigarette at Gren, but he didn’t react even as it bounced off his nose. [color=ed1c24]”That’s one way to put it, you sonavabitch. But as much as I’d like to just waste you right here and now, there’s bigger things going on. But I’m still going to enjoy this.”[/color] The woman looked to the boy as he stepped forward. In his hand was a device that looked like some sort of forked knife. He stabbed it directly into Gren’s chest and something happened to him. Gren could only describe it as an intense pain. The boy certainly knew how to hurt Gren; others might have just stabbed him and expected that to work, but this boy knows what made Gren tick and how to make the ticking stop. But whatever he was doing he wasn’t trying to kill Gren. He was trying to hack into him.

Gren would have liked to think he could have survived the whole Spring Break. That he managed to hold out until his team would notice that he was gone and come rescue him. But he wasn’t that strong. He lasted five hours before he gave in. He dropped the safeguards he planted in his mind and the boy started to root through his memories. He began to pull out information from Gren’s past, like his family and how he came to be a cyborg. Painful memories for both Gren and his torturers arose from the probing. Curses were spewed and Gren was almost certain someone tried to bash his face in, but at this point he was only passively aware of what was going on. By the time he felt that his mind was his again the red-haired woman stood before him.

[color=ed1c24]”If you think that death would be the worst thing to happen to you, you have another thing coming. You’ve caused us nothing but grief Gren. Now it’s time for you to pay for your crimes.”[/color]

Gren watched as the blond girl kicked open one of the boxes. Before he could see what she had pulled out Gren’s sight turned dark. He was losing consciousness. No; he was being shut down. He lost his vision before he stopped hearing the world around him. There was only one thing he heard before he blacked out completely.

[color=ed1c24]”We’re nothing alike you. We won’t stoop to your level. But like any good hunter, it’s our job to destroy monsters like you.”[/color]

Suddenly a crash. The three figures turn to see who it came from. A new [url=http://i.jeuxactus.com/datas/jeux/r/y/rygar-the-battle-of-argus/xl/rygar-the-battle-o-4e2663e96644c.jpg]challenger[/url] approaches. The blond girl takes a fighting stance with her yoyo and the boy takes off his glasses. The red-haired woman just glares at the newcomer. He walks in with a swagger in his step and his arms out as though he was greeting a crowd of onlookers. 

[b]”Now what’s this? A reunion without me? Come on now; if we’re going to be digging up old bones, might as well dig up the whole skeleton. Not like you’re going to get much from Teeth’s over there.”[/b]

The white-haired man pointed over to Gren. The Red-haired woman takes out another cigarette, which lights itself on fire. A moment of silence pasted as she took a long breath from her cancer stick, tossing it aside once she got down to the filter. She let out a huge cloud of smoke, big enough to engulf her. By the time the smoke moves on she was riding a [url=http://i.imgur.com/LkX1xBE.jpg]red motorcycle[/url]. 

[color=ed1c24]”TRAITOR!”[/color]

The blond girl charged first throwing her bladed yoyo at an angle at the white-haired man. With one of the hands that was already raised he snatched the weapon out from the air, holding it by the blade itself. But that didn’t last too long before the boy charged forward. But as he did so his body shifted, surrounded by a glowing energy. By the time the light faded he was encased in a suit of [url=http://i.imgur.com/vCIEWGz.jpg]silver armor[/url]. He struck fast at the man, forcing him to toss away the yoyo to deflect the silver fighter’s punches. They came fast and furiously, but neither the silver fighter nor the man showed any sign of wavering. The man almost seemed to be enjoying himself. The blond girl then attacked off angle, swinging her Yoyo at the man’s legs. He jumped over her weapon but as he did so the silver fighter delivered a superman punch, and without being able to brace his feet on the ground the man was sent flying right into the red-haired woman. She had been able to silently maneuver her crimson vehicle around the man and was going to crush him underneath her front tire. But the moment he hit her motorcycle he dropped his feet to the ground, raising an arm up to catch the bike. The woman began to rev the front wheel causing the friction to burn into his arm, but his armguards were quite capable of holding off her attack. And that’s when he started to laugh.

[b]”Hah ha ha ha… [i]My turn.[/i]”[/b]

Suddenly the bike wheel jerked to a halt. But the force it was going was so intense that it tore the rubber off the wheel. The red haired saw this and jumped off, pulling out a sawn-off shotgun from her long coat. Grabbing the bike from its destroyed wheel the man hurled it at the two other fighters who managed to jump into the air to avoid the attack. But just as the silver fighter got air born a shield came flying at him, hitting him with enough force to send him out of the roof of the warehouse building.

[b]”Strike one!”[/b]

The shield than turned to the blond girl as she was still in the air. She braced her body to block the attack despite knowing that her weapon and defenses wheren’t the best. But she needed worry, as the red-haired woman shot the shield as it was flying at her causing it to move off course and hit the ground. But that hardly stopped the man, who dragged the shield back to him with a chain. The red haired woman pulled out another sawn-off shotgun and fired it at the man who managed to block the shots with his shield, just as the blond came with a drop kick. But the man was looking at her the entire time and was ready himself. He reached out and grabbed the girl by her feet, and despite how much force she tried to put she couldn’t free herself. It wasn’t because the man was grabbing particularly hard. No, it was just his Semblance preventing her from escaping.

It was almost comical as the man then metronomic mashed the blond girl three times against the ground, tossing her away when her body went limp. The red hair woman had reloaded her weapons by that point and disappeared. She did not escape however, and was merely hiding so she could get the sneak on the man. He looked around figuring that he was close to winning seeing that he was down to him and the woman, but then he felt a great force kick him from behind. The silver fighter had returned and he had an upgrade: [url=http://i.imgur.com/8t0D1zX.jpg]Wings[/url]. The speed at which the silver fighter came in was great enough to force the white-haired man through sever crates until he hit the wall on the opposite side. Despite the attack however the man was largely uninjured save for the dust that now layered his clothes. 

[b]”Oh, you got a new toy did ya?”[/b]

The man casually strolled through the path of destruction dusting himself off. He bore no bruises or scars from the attack, and even his shield has no blemish from being previously shot at. The silver fighter landed on the ground next to the blond girl, picking her up before glancing at the man. Before either of them could make an attack a wall of flame emerged from the ground. This actually made the white-haired man raise his arm in defense but it was just a diversion. The silver fighter flew away with his injured partner while the red haired woman escaped from the front entrance. The fire began to spread to the wooden boxes and would threaten to engulf the entire warehouse soon. The man simply sighed, returning his shield to normal size and jogging towards Gren.

By the time the sun came up Gren opened his eyes. He was kneeling in front of his sibling’s grave. He had his arms and legs once more. The dew on his body suggested that he had been sitting here for a long time. 

[color=00a651]”Did I fall asleep?”[/color]

A snap smack to the back of his head gave him the answer, as did the voice that it belonged to.

[b]”Naaah.”[/b]

Gren looked up to the man from before. He was eating a bagel sandwich as he walked over to the grave Gren was sitting in front of. No words were exchanged between the two men beyond what was said previously. Nothing had to be said. They knew what they had to say, what the other person would say in responds. For the next ten minutes the two men just stood there watching the graves as the sun rose up on the horizon. Eventually the man left, but not without a parting word.

[b]”There’s no saving the monster inside kid. It has to be killed or it’ll kill you. You know there’s plenty of people who’ll do the job for ya if you aren’t up for it. If you keep running all you’re going to do is make it harder for yourself. You can be damn sure of that.”[/b]

As the man left Gren was once again alone with his own thoughts. He always considered telling his team more about his past. But he felt that it was something that not everyone would be supportive of. Not even Kuhaku or Abel would accept it if Gren told them. At best they simply wouldn’t believe it. Maybe they could look past it. But even if they could forgive Gren for it, he never could forgive himself, and he knows there are people out there looking to bring him to justice. There was no clearing his name: He was a guilty man. His hands were stained in blood, and he can do nothing more than to keep washing them with blood.

But there was no giving up. Redemption wasn’t something he could just earn. There wasn’t a tangible goal he could get to pardon his sin. If he was going to die for justice then so be it. But he was also going to live to do what little good he could. There was no saving the monster he was becoming, but at least he could be the monster who fought other monsters. That’s the best he could hope for. That’s who he was.
[/hider]