RWBY: Thicker Than Water Volume 1: Ominous Omens

To Hunt or Not to Hunt?

Key
(F/N) = First Name
(N/N) = Nickname
(F/C) = Favorite Color

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A duck. A lean. A sidestep.

Tai avoided the jet black blade of (F/N)'s katana. The boy swung, swung, and swung; an endless supply of energy at his disposal. Sweated gathered along Tai's brow as he backpedaled.

Rusty as he was (F/N) still wasn't skilled enough to beat him but he clearly couldn't play around. To think only a year ago he'd been able tucker the kid out without taking a step; now and days the entire backyard acted as their training field. Either Beacon stepped up their curriculum -with Glynda as the main combat professor there the idea wasn't far fetched- or his son was a prodigy.

The latter was even more likely considering how much he took after his mother.

As the battle dragged on the swings grew more ferocious. (F/N)'s grin widened bit by bit, defense casted aside in favor of an oppressive offensive. Tai could see it. One of Raven's bad habits clear as day.

Another duck and he danced around (F/N). The boy twirled around for another slash but froze mid-swing. Tai held up a flag, (F/C) in color, and a perfect copy of the orange one wrapped around his own waist.

"Your loss kiddo." Tai said, waving it about.

(F/N) groaned but sheathed his katana. "Why do we have to spar with such shitty rules? Can't we just go by tournament standards?"

"I'm an old man, I need to conserve my energy." That's what he said but in truth Tai was trying to teach a valuable lesson with this setup. The flag was suppose to encourage focus on the bigger picture rather than just winning a fight but (F/N) always seemed to lose himself to the thrill of the action. That's fine in a spar but if he wanted to be a good huntsman that habit needed to hit the road. Tai could just tell him but where was the fun in that? Besides, lessons tended to stick when people figured things out for themselves.

"So you can call yourself old but you throw a fit when we do it?"

"My house my rules. Now bring it in." Tai spread his arms wide. For all that he inherited from Raven, (F/N) lacked her aversion to all things affection and hugged him without complaint. "I can't believe even Ruby is going to Beacon this year. I guess all three of you are yanging me out to dry."

A deep, deep sigh left (F/N). "At least you have a few more days before you have to say bye to them."

"True. I guess I'll be taiing up loose ends? Eh? Eh?"

"You ruined the moment." (F/N) broke off the hug completely unamused by the jokes. "You ruined it and I'm leaving."

Tai chuckled to himself as his son took off into the house. Not everyone could appreciate a good pun.

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(F/N) shook and yanked on his shirt, undoing buttons and tie alike. Crammed within an elevator packed full of fellow Beacon students and headed up towards the landing platforms, this stuffy uniform did him no favors. A entire year of an attendance and no one managed to convince him of the damn thing's necessity. They trained to protect people. What part of that involved being so damn uncomfortable?

I can't believed dad forced me to wear this just to get a few pictures. (F/N) thought, a small measure of relief gained through the loosening of his shirt.

Something poked his back.

(F/N) shifted away. This small metal case was too small to make a big deal about a simple mistake.