The moon shone brightly that night, as the traveling band of Mistrali citizens walked the decrepit path back to their village, a ways off from Mistral proper, and outside the protection of the walls. The swamps around the city leaving the migrants a perverse form of defense from any Grimm in the area, allowing them to be picked off from range should they try and force their way through the dregs of the swamp.

This group of travelers was led by a man calling himself Damon Rex. His sole purpose was to guide these inhabitants from their village each day to and from the city where their jobs were, his only weapons were a simple straight sword and a pistol, both very bland in ornamentation, but effective nonetheless. The Damon had killed many Grimm with these trusted weapons, and he would continue to do so to the end of his days.

Damon had dark brown hair, falling just above his shoulders in length, his skin tanned from many days of trekking and guiding people through the swamps. He wore a black jacket that had several patches in it from the many scrapes he had come into from his years fighting Grimm, underneath he wore a simple white synthetic shirt, thick green cargo pants, and black combat boots. His face was expressionless as he trudged through the swamp, steel blue eyes ever alert to what could attack them from the swamps along the path at any moment.

Upon arriving at the village, the migrants went to their separate dwellings for the night, Damon retreating to his home at the heart of the settlement, meeting with his wife Artemis Rex as he had so many times before, and greeting with great joy both her, and the newest addition to the household, his son, only a few months old, Logan Rex.

Artemis had flowing brunette hair, her eyes a powerful grey, and a pale complexion. She wore a simple white blouse and a grey skirt, wearing simple grey slippers on her feet. She assisted the village with its regular rotation of jobs, like supply rationing and preparing commerce and what goods they could sell to Mistral.

Logan had yet to have many outstanding features appear yet, the only known things were that he had his mother's gray eyes and his father's dark hair, his pale complexion also resembling his mother. Logan's life had been mapped out for him since birth, he would replace Damon when he grew too old to protect the inhabitants on their trek's to and from the city, likely utilizing the same weaponry Damon himself was using, seeing as the village always conserved what they could out in the farther reaches of the Mistrali swamplands.

Artemis and Damon put Logan down for bed, both of them exhausted from the day, and knowing that the next day would only be just as trying, maintaining a village out in the swamps was a difficult task, and Artemis was in charge of rationing out food supplies for the next week. This would be the last time they place their child down for bed their entire lives.

Just as they were settling down for bed, they overheard shouting in the village, a great commotion seeming to occur all around them. Damon quickly got up and changed into his combat gear, grabbing his sword and leaving the gun with his wife. "I'll be right back." He said to Artemis. "If anything happens, you know how to use the gun, protect yourself, and protect our son…. I get the feeling this isn't just a minor commotion" he said grimly.

She nodded in understanding, getting out of bed and giving him a kiss, her only parting words being "I love you, be safe.", before he rushed out the door to see what was going on.

Damon quickly ran to the edge of the village to see what was happening. When he arrived however, his blood ran cold. In front of him, several villagers were attempting to fight off a pack of several dozen Ursai, led by an Ursa Major. The villagers were no match for the bloodthirsty horde however, and they had to beat a hasty retreat inside the village as the Ursai began to strike them down one by one, only the stray Ursa being killed in the frantic melee.

Damon ran to the alarm bell, practically ringing it out of place, and alerting the remainder of the village that they were under attack, before rushing up the small radio tower the village had, and send out a plea for assistance from Mistral proper, not waiting for a confirmed response before he scurrying back down to join the brawl that had begun to ensue below him.

His sword in hand, he managed to cut down an Ursa who was fast approaching him, not giving it the opportunity to swing at him as he severed its right paw and beheading it in the same motion, it beginning to fade away into dust immediately. He quickly moved on to down a second Ursa with a swift stab in the chest, before assisting a fellow villager with a third, temporarily saving his life before the same villager was brutally cut down by another Ursa before he could catch his breath. Damon knew this was likely the end, but he would be damned if he wasn't going down fighting, still holding out hope that Mistral had caught his distress message, and were sending troops or hunters to save the village… or what would be left if they didn't arrive soon. The thought of losing his village, his wife, his family only enraged him and made him fight harder, eviscerating another two Ursai, but he was tiring quickly.

The Ursai had beaten the last of the resisting villagers to the town hall in the center of the village, its simple square design effective enough to hold the Ursai for a time at the doors, but the Ursai quickly smashed through the walls in their blood rage, the Ursa Major still alive and kicking, leading the unstoppable charge of the feral Grimm. Damon knew that unless they could kill that major, this was their last stand. He steeled himself as he awaited the beast to charge him, this hadn't been the first time he had fought a major, and he refused for it to be the last. He waited for it to be practically right on top of him, before going for a quick strike in the neck, but taking a blow from the side by the major at the same time, causing his hit to only wound instead of kill, and knocking him violently into the wall of the town hall, his aura now completely spent.

Damon weakly looked up, seeing that the Ursa approached him for the killing blow, he gave it one last move of defiance, the Ursa Major crashed on top of him, but also crashed on top of his skyward pointed sword, plunging deep into its ribcage, and ending the Grimm's, and Damon's lives. It was a valiant effort, but without Damon's steadfast presence giving them hope, the last villager's defense broke quickly, them being slaughtered by the remaining Ursa with hardly any contest.

Inside the house of Damon and Artemis, Artemis leaned against the wall of their home, cold fear gripping her being as she clutched baby Logan close to her with one arm, the other gripping Damon's pistol shakily. She had not heard any more sounds of conflict for several hours now. She wanted to hope, but deep down she knew, she and her child were the only two surviving members of the village, and that thought of knowing she would never see her husband again brought tears to her eyes, slowly sinking to the floor.

As movement outside their closed oaken door graced her ears, she snapped the pistol up immediately aiming at the door, pulling the hammer back with her thumb slowly. She waited with baited breath as the cold fear inside her refused to allow her to make any form of motion to hide her or her child.

Suddenly the door crashed open, and Ursa charging the mother and son. Artemis rattled off six dust rounds in record fashion, three finding their mark in the beast's flesh, the rest bouncing off of the Grimm's plating harmlessly. It made a swipe at her, but she turned her back just in time to allow the monstrosity to cleave a massive chunk of her back, instead of hitting her child. Artemis weakly held up the pistol once again squeezing off one last round into the creature's neck, dealing enough damage to kill it, but she too soon succumbed to her wounds, and moved no more, her child still in her arms, not making a single sound.

The officer of the division of soldiers and hunters dispatched to see what had become of the village known as Principium was pissed. They had received a garbled signal earlier in the night, and they had mustered a small force to go investigate what had happened, unfortunately for him, even in the wee hours of the morning, it was painfully obvious that they were too late to save the village. It had most certainly been run through in a matter of minutes, maybe an hour at most if the inhabitants were tough, but the size of the marks on the ground indicated Ursai, and a lot of them, this village was doomed from the start.

"Dammit!" he cursed to himself. "Why can we never make it on time… why are the Grimm always so damn efficient at wiping out these settlements?!" He had asked himself this many times, and every time, the silence of the dead was the only answer he ever received. "Fan out and look for survivors." He half-heartedly grumbled. He never expected to find any survivors, but it wouldn't hurt to find someone just this one time, anything would be better than searching through another gore-filled graveyard.

Several minutes passed, and it seemed to the officer that this would be a repeat of the same painful lesson humanity was taught every day: to expand beyond their borders was to flirt with death in the most absolute measure. Then a miracle happened: he heard a crash and some gunfire, perking up he rushed to the source, followed closely behind by the remainder of the force as they converged to where they had heard the source of the sound: a house just off the center of the town, slightly to the north of the shattered town hall, where the highest body count had been.

They reached the house to find the door smashed down, a dead Ursa wisping away, and a woman lying there, a pistol clasped in her hand, her back torn to shreds, and she was fading quickly. He rushed to her side, kneeling down and saying to her "Stay with me!, Hey stay with me!" as he tried to frantically roll the woman from her side, stopping when he saw the child in her arm, and her faintly gaping at him, her stormy grey eyes slowly losing the life in them. She weakly released the child, letting the officer cradle the baby in his arms, the woman letting go of her final breath, stilling herself forevermore.

A hunter in red and grey Oriental garb common to Mistral knelt down next to the green clad officer, carefully shutting the woman's eyes. "Her name was Artemis Rex." He said calmly, but with a touch of sadness in his voice. She was the wife of Damon Rex, a hunter and guide for this village, and one of the bodies we found in the town hall. He was a good man, it's a shame they went the way they did. This was their son, Logan Rex."

"How do you know them?" the officer asked in shocked disbelief. They had been so close to saving this woman, but once again they were too late, but maybe not late enough. They had at least found the child of this woman alive before he met the same fate.

"I was a friend of Damon's, went to Haven with him, last saw him a month ago when he was showing off his boy. It's a shame he had to suffer this, he was better than many men I've met in my time." the hunter said with quiet sorrow.

"I-I want to refer to your judgement on this one then hunter." The officer stammered out. "You knew the family, I believe it best that you determine what happens to the child."

The hunter gave the officer a nod, taking the child from his arms and standing back up. "There is a monastery in the north of Mistral, there he can train to become a hunter until he applies to one of the academies, they hold many techniques and arts of combat for him to choose from and hone, some of which have been lost from most of the world. I will take him there and mentor him as best as I can, along with the monks that reside there. Oh, and please, call me Oda."

"Good. Yes, this is good. We need to clear up what bodies are remaining and give them proper burials. We will do that, you take him there immediately, a child should not remain around such blood and death, he may have mental scars already." The officer said with a quick nod to the hunter, as he stood up from the body of the woman, a small crowd of the scouting party now forming around them.

"Understood sir." Oda said evenly to the officer. He turned around and parted the crowd, beginning the trek back to Mistral. "I promise I won't let you fail Logan, you will grow up to do your father proud, I can sense the potential in you is great, and I promise to nurture it into something far greater than Damon could have ever hoped for." Oda said softly to the now sleeping child in his arms. He silently made his way back to Mistral, years of training would begin for Logan as soon as he was able to walk and speak, Oda determined to make sure the legacy of his now deceased friend would live on in the boy he held.