Ha! Bet you all didn't expect me to update within a month this time, did you? I did it, though! I broke my own procrastination streak! Woo!

….Until the next chapter, at least. Anyways, to the reviews!

ZXEclipse- Hahaha, I'm sorry! But hey, great minds think alike, right? It's a pity, if you also thought of that, I have liked to see what you come up with. Aw, thanks! I don't think I'm that good but it's very flattering to hear. Interesting, indeed. I have a few… ideas as to what will happen before the Rwby timeline. Thank you, I will enjoy it (and have done so).

thefluffyone93- I'm thinking that I will do maybe this chapter and one more in the past before going to present-day Rwby. Yeah, I hear you. It's always stuff like that which I miss. For that, I'm sorry.

Captain Rudds- I know, right? I mean, he pretty much a walking tank in a time of bows and spears, it's almost impossible for him to not be so. Plus there's the whole 'most bada*s Titan to ever live' factor going for him. Also, thank you.

AK74FU2- Nada, he didn't use a Nova Bomb, it was a magnetic grenade. Admittingly, in hindsight it wasn't described very well. I just was having trouble describing a grenade in a way that someone who has absolutely no clue what even a gun is would interpret it.

On that note, on with the story!

The one downside of ending up on a primitive planet? You're pretty much stuck wherever you end up.

That was Kabr's thought process as he wandered through the never-ending forest. At least, it seemed never-ending to him after wandering around inside of it for a month or two but never finding an exit. Apart from killing members of the Darkness and saving people from them, not much happened during that time.

In that month or two of walking, however, he did manage to get a rough indication of the continent he was on. It was mountainous, forested (No dip, Sherlock), roundish in shape, and a little bit bigger than old-Earth Australia. Also, there was very few people on the continent. As in maybe a few hundred on the entire thing.

The exact reason why that was came charging at him from the underbrush, claws already sweeping in for the death-blow. Without breaking stride, he ducked under the strike and slammed his fist into the creature's stomach, sending the wolfish monstrosity flying deeper into the forest.

The Grimm, that was what they called those creatures. Fitting when he considered their predicament. Forced to fight off endless waves of the Darkness with only bows and spears? He would think it was a bit grim himself.

Kabr coughed a few times as he walked and continued to suppress the pain starting to tingle in his arms. Every time he killed one of the Grimm the Darkness consumed him just a little more. First it was a tingle, then a spasm, then the pain started coming in… now he was on the physical deterioration stage. When he finally reached the collapsing stage, the Darkness will consume him… literally, he was pretty sure that some Grimm would eat him when he went down. That, however, was thoughts for another time, when he was closer to his end.

He looked at the trees surrounding him, curious about their odd coloring. About a week ago they started changing from their dull green color to a more vibrant red. It reminded him a bit of the countryside around the City, albeit with a lot less wreckage and ruins, the colors also being a lot brighter. It was while he reflecting upon these thoughts that he finally ran into more people.

He had just walked around a particularly large tree and into a clearing when he first saw them. They looked normal at first, just a black-haired woman and a white-haired man in the middle of Grimm-infested woods, and he was about to leave them to their wanderings when he noticed their ears.

Specifically, their animal-like ears on top of their heads.

A Hobgoblin line rifle was out and halfway charged before he even thought about it, the end of the gun flickering with barely-restrained flames as it aimed right at the duo. The woman practically shrieked as she dove behind the man, who had narrowed his eyes when he saw the flames and had lifted his fists up in a fighting stance. For a second the clearing was still, Kabr aiming his gun at the animal-people, the man preparing to brawl it out, and the woman cowering behind the man all the while. Then, after a few moments passed, the man began talking.

"Oi!" He growled as he stared into the flaming barrel that was facing him, "If ya gonna fight us, can we get goin' already? I gots to get food for the lady soon 'fore she passes out so hurry it up, ya punk!"

Once he heard the man-creature speak, Kabr lowered his gun and peered closely at him. On second glance, the man seemed completely human save for the ears on his head that looked like a bear's. Nevertheless, he needed to confirm that they were people.

"Not monsters?" Kabr asked the white-haired man. The man slowly lowered his fists in response when he saw Kabr with his weapon down and talking calmly. He remained tense, though, just in case the metallic newcomer still had any violent tendencies.

"Yeah, we ain't monsters. All them regular people like to think we are but we ain't. You, however, ya a monster, arentcha? You not like us or the regular people." By then the man had relaxed enough to lower his guard completely and to let the woman behind him stand up. She still stood partially behind him, apparently still wary of the brown-colored stranger.

"No." Kabr thumped one gauntleted hand against his chestplate, making a metallic ringing noise fill the air. "Armor. Human." Without any further comments he turned and left the clearing, leaving the two alone in the forest.

Or so he thought. A thought that was proven wrong within moments when he heard a gruff voice say close behind him, "Hey, where ya off to? Ya just started talking to us."

Kabr turned and faced him, drilling him with his glowing red eye. When the man didn't react aside from pulling the woman closer behind him, Kabr shrugged and continued walking. "No need," he answered.

The man grumbled to him, "Well, we got one. Ya see, ya the first…" he gave Kabr a hesitant glance right then, taking in the sight of his metal armor, black-clothed body, and sparking wires, before continuing, "... thing that ain't tried to kill or harm us so far, so we wanna stick around with some company, ya know? Safety in numb's and all that."

Kabr almost said no before he took a long look at them. They wore badly-made fur clothing, seemingly stitched together from whatever scraps they could scrounge up. Even then they would have been decent clothing if they hadn't been ripped and torn up afterwards, sometimes looking like they made from claws but other times appearing to be made by slash marks from swords.

All these Kabr saw in an instant and he found himself unable to say no to them. Instead, he nodded. The man grinned for the first time when he saw that. "Great! I'm named Mikil," he pointed to himself quickly before jerking a thumb in the direction of the woman, who was looking at Kabr with a curious expression, "and she doesn't have a name but I like to call her Fiore." Then Mikil raised an eyebrow, obviously expecting him to give his own name.

Kabr obliged if only to prevent the man from bugging him. "Kabr."

"Kabr, eh?" Mikil stroked his chin when he heard the name, obviously thinking deeply about something. He apparently didn't notice his female companion's expression of surprise. "Kabr, Kabr…. hey, aintcha that fella we've been hearing about….?" He trailed off when he noticed Kabr stop for a moment. "Hey, Kabr? Kabr?!" His voice grew panicked as both he and the woman looked at Kabr with shock when he fell to his knees, then collapsed face-first into the dirt.

The last thing Kabr heard before everything went dark was a feminine voice shouting his name.

"KABR?!"

For a while Kabr's world was filled with periods of darkness, periods of pain, and, somehow, periods of light. Occasionally he heard murmuring voices and sounds of movement before he was plunged back into his shadowy existence. Finally, after an amount of time that made his stay in the Vault seem short, he woke up to the ever-so-wonderful sound of a grumbling bear-man.

"Ah, so ya finally awake, Kabr? Your collapse was so sudden that we almost were too surprised to do anything. Luckily for ya, Fiore here kept her head and made me pull ya to our camp." He gestured to Fiore, who had been sitting on a log nearby and had blushed when Mikil pointed her out. "Ya should thank her. Without her, ya might have died."

Kabr turned to her and gave her a quick nod, eliciting another blush from the young lady. Afterwards he started looking around the campsite, taking note of where they were. They were in another clearing some distance away from the old one and night had already fallen. Aside from a small campfire and a bundle of furs nearby, there was nothing to indicate that it was a campsite. At least they spared enough furs for him to lay on.

"I-it was nothing…" The woman said nervously, her animal ears twitching on top of her head. Kabr hadn't noticed this before but her animal ears were like a cat's, right down to the coarsest hair. "I-I mean, it was Mikil who carried you back to camp."

"Aye, and ya were heavy too." He rubbed a sore shoulder as if to prove his point. "If I could have got that armor stuff off ya it would have been easier."

"Never."

"What?"

Kabr gave him a look that could have frozen magma. Mikil, who had seen things in his life that would have made most people break down and collapse, had to suppress a cringe when he saw Kabr's red eye seemingly piercing into his soul. "Armor. Never. Off."

"Okay, okay… Sheesh, ya real scary when ya want to be, ya know?" Mikil shook his head in mock-disappointment. "Anyways, ya should still thank Fiore. She was the one who healed ya, after all."

"Healed?" No one could heal him when the Darkness was consuming him. It simply wasn't possible without the Traveler.

"Aye. Actually, shouldn't ya heal him again, Fiore?"

"Right," Fiore slid off her log and walked over to him, her hands reaching out to gently push him into a lying position. Kabr allowed himself to go down onto the furs because he didn't sense any hostile intent from her but he didn't really expect anything to happen. It was then to his great surprise when the woman's hands began glowing purple as she grabbed his head, the purple light seeping through his helmet and into his own stores of Light.

The Darkness eating at him from within lessened, diminishing under the power of Fiore's cleansing Light, for it could be nothing else but Light. But how? How could a woman on a strange primitive planet far from the Traveler wield the power of Light?

"There," she said, not noticing the fact that Kabr was staring at her, "I did all I can. Whatever it is, it won't come out and I don't think I can heal it anymore later…." Only just then did she notice her patient's focused stare, making her feel uncomfortable. "What?"

"How is there Light?" Kabr asked with a shocked tone. "How do you have Light?"

"Light?" She shook her head as she grabbed some meat from Mikil when he came by with some. "No, what I used was my Semblance. It allows me to heal most wounds and sickness, and it comes from my Aura." She tried to give Kabr the meat but he shook his head and she kept it for herself.

"Why….?" Kabr tried to ask about this 'Aura' nonsense she talked about, tried to get some sense about the whole subject, but she blushed and seemed to interpret the question differently.

"Why did I have Mikil bring you here and let me heal you?" She scratched the back of her head and smiled nervously. "Well, I wanted to return the favor."

"Favor?" What favor? He had never seen this person before today.

"A few days ago, you were wandering in the forest when you saw a few Beowolves, right?"

Everyday he sees a few… Beowolves? Is that what they call those wolf things? "Yes."

"Well, they were actually about to attack somebody hidden in a tree." Ah yes, they did seem to be sniffing around a tree when he ran into them. A few seconds later they were sniffing the dirt when their muzzles were burned off. "That someone was me. Mikil had left to go hunting and had left me alone. I had to hide in that tree when they appeared.

"And that's why I don't leave ya alone a lot anymore, Fiore," Mikil interrupted them from his own pile of furs a few feet away. While she was talking he had bundled himself in, about to go to sleep for the night. "Ya always seem to get into trouble when I leave ya."

"If somebody didn't always try to hunt by himself with those boulders he calls feet, I wouldn't have that problem," Fiore yelled back to him. She didn't sound angry, instead it sounded more like teasing.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, get back to ya sentimental talk, ya 'fraidy-cat." The responding comeback came from the burly hunter before he turned over in his fur-pile.

"Anyways…." Fiore had the tact to look embarrassed and try to hide it before continuing, "all I could see of you was a flash of brown. It was only until a day or two later when I was scavenging for some food near a village when I heard your name. Two hunters were returning from the afternoon hunt and while I hid they were talking about brown metal creature killing a lot of Grimm recently named Kabr. I wasn't sure it was you until you said your own name was actually Kabr. When you revealed yourself to us, I wanted to return the favor and…." she smiled such a grateful smile that it even touched Kabr's jaded heart, albeit for just a moment, "to thank you for saving me. So, thank you."

Kabr looked at the grateful woman tending to him and nodded once more. She smiled again before trying to give him some meat again. "You need to eat to regain your health. Come on, have some."

Kabr shook his head before sitting up. "No need to eat." His Light sustained him and made impervious to the pangs of hunger and the calling of sleep. It wouldn't be good if he needed to have a snack or take a nap in the middle of fighting the Darkness, after all. "No sleep. You sleep."

"What?" Fiore tried to protest as Kabr stood up and escorted her to her bed of furs. "I don't need to sleep, you do! You need to recover and to heal and to…"

"Keep watch," Kabr intoned. Fiore almost argued again before she looked into Kabr's eye. Something told her it would not be wise to argue with him.

"Okay, okay…." She laid down without further complaint and started to fall asleep. Before she did, though, she smiled at him one last time. "Goodnight, Kabr."

Kabr didn't say or do anything as the woman settled down and began snoring. Kabr stood up and walked to a nearby tree, leaning against it in preparation to keep watch. Mikil had long since journeyed into dreamland and was sleeping like a baby so it was just Kabr awake.

He wasn't lying when he said he couldn't sleep but even if he could he would have kept watch anyway for two reasons. First because it was simply a habit developed from fighting the Vex non-stop for a long time. They wouldn't sleep so he couldn't have afforded to either. Second was the fact that he had a lot to think about.

One of the main things on his mind was why he keeping watch in the first place. Normally he would have left as soon as he could move so why didn't he this time? Maybe it was because, because… these two seemed alone in the world. No one else would give them the time of day just because of their ears. That made no sense, by the way, they would be excellent hunters because of the additional hearing and Fiore's healing ability was invaluable in any situation. If he left them, who knows what would happen to them? He had to keep an eye on them in case something happens.

And maybe he was feeling a bit lonely…. besides saving the occasional village, he has been alone for a while….

No, absolutely not. Guardians never get lonely, they were too focused on defending the City to worry about small things like social interaction.

Next up on the list was all the 'Aura' business going all. It was like she naturally had the Light in her but that was impossible. Right? Of course it was, you had to die and be revived by a Ghost to be able to wield the Light. Wait… Ghosts revived people who had the potential to wield the Light. Does that mean that somewhere on this planet the ability to unlock that potential has been discovered without the need of a Ghost?! That…. that…. changes everything! If he could discover how that was possible and returned to the Speaker, he could potentially change the course of the fight against the Darkness! If only his Ghost was here to help him figure this all out…

Speaking of figuring it all out, what about Semblances? Was that an expression of their classes? Does that mean things beyond Titans, Hunters, and Warlocks exist upon this planet?! He really had to get back as soon as possible!

For now, though, he will watch over the two sleeping animal-people and he will figure this all out later.

For now, he will keep them safe.

"We almost gots it." Mikil whispered to his metal partner as he closed in on the unsuspecting deer. He slowly began drawing back his bow, an arrow already held tightly against the drawstring. "Just a little bits closer."

Kabr followed him quietly (well, as quietly as a lumbering Titan clad in armor could be) through the red underbrush, his line rifle firmly grasped in one hand. The red that had been overtaking the color in the trees has now fully consumed the green by then, leaving the entire continent covered in a shade of crimson. According to what the two following him for a week now have said, this was this continent's rough equivalent of old Russia's fall.

Ah, old Russia…. how he misses the rotting corpses of the fallen cargo planes, the many hours he spent with his ghost hunting down scavenging Vandals, the dark caves and the majestic forests they scouted out together in search of the Fallen House of Squirrels….

"Oi, Kabr! That furry bit of dinner is running off! Whatcha doin' there, ya slacking piece of scrap metal?!" He was shaken out of his thoughts roughly by the sound of his annoyed hunting companion and the sight of the deer running away from an inaccurate arrow that had missed the creature by a mere six inches.

The responding stream of flame he fired did not miss the unfortunate deer.

"Woo, me and Fiore gots some good eats tonight!" Mikil cheered as Kabr dissolved his line rifle and moved forward to pick up the smoldering carcass. "And we don't even gots to cook it either!" He went up to Kabr and gave him a hearty slap on the back as he was bending down. "Nice job, Kabr! Nice job!"

After Kabr grabbed the dead deer and Mikil retrieved his wayward arrow, they began making their way back to camp. Aside from the occasional pain spasms from the Darkness consuming him with a vengeance, which Fiore seemed unable to heal anymore lately, Kabr didn't have reason to speak and neither did Mikil. Silence was their company for a while. Then, in the midst of their return trip, Mikil ventured a question.

"Hey, Kabr," he began, stroking his slightly-stubbled chin. Kabr turned to face him as they walked, giving Mikil the signal to continue. "I was just a wonderin', why dontcha give me one of your fire-tube things next time we go hunting? That way, we can gets mo-"

"No." Kabr stopped Mikil's train of thought before it could go any further down its railroad. "No gun."

"Why no 'gun', Kabr? Me and Fiore could have lots more food if you give me one." Mikil slapped the flank of the carcass once as they talked. "If this is whatcha get with one, think how much we would gets with two?"

"No." Kabr's tone went quiet and extremely cold, stopping any further argument Mikil could have in its tracks. All Mikil could do then was toss his hands in the air, fortunately while his bow was on his back.

"Fine, fine, ya obsessive piece of junk." Mikil shook his head a few times. "Sheesh, it was a simple question. No need to be so sensitive."

Rationally, Kabr knew Mikil was right, that they would get more food for him and Fiore if he simply gave him one of the guns. It's just…. the Vex weapons were his. No one else can touch the Vex weapons. No one else can use the Vex. The Vex were his alone. Everything Vex belongs to him. No one else will take that from him.

"Well, whatever. We'll still gets enough to eat now with you hunting so why…" Mikil stopped talking quite suddenly and stopped walking, causing Kabr to stop as well. Kabr turned to face him and saw the expression on Mikil's face; an expression full of horror.

"No…" Lightning could have struck right then and it would have still missed Mikil, that was how fast he took off running. Kabr shrugged off the deer carcass and went after him, the speed enhancements in his leg armor being pushed hard for only the second time he came to this strange planet. As he ran, though, he was still able to notice the massive amount of smoke filling the air from the direction of the campsite and the sound of angry shouting.

Kabr caught to a heaving Mikil quickly and kept pace with him as they ran towards the campsite. Mikil didn't react to his sudden reappearance save for running faster. Then a little faster. Then a little faster. Then a little….

When they had burst into the campsite clearing right then, they were met with fire. Lots and lots of fire.

The campfire had long since spiraled out of control, setting all nearby grass and sticks aflame. The furs were just a pile of orange and red flames by now, appearing to have set alight by another source other than the campfire. Arrows littered the ground, fired willy-nilly by people who obviously didn't care if they had hit or not. It was a scene of destruction and, for Mikil, a scene of despair.

"No… they didn't…" Mikil fell to his knees and looked like he was on the verge of tears. Kabr didn't want that because it was uncomfortable to watch a thirty-something year-old man with bear ears cry.

"She lives," Kabr told the near-weeping man on the ground. Mikil looked up at him, the first tears beginning to leak out of the corner of his eyes.

"What?"

"That way," Kabr pointed towards out of the clearing diagonally, in the direction where the arrows on the ground were the thickest, where there were footprints scattered all around, and where shouting could still be heard from.

Mikil didn't bother to respond before bolting straight in that direction. Once again Kabr followed, this time to make sure Mikil didn't gets hurt…. wow, he really has been around him too much. Maybe he shouldn't follow actually. It would be better for his speech patterns.

"Well, well, well, looks like the little kitty has nowhere else to run." The white-haired man speaking was a young man in his twenties, dressed in well-made furs and wielding an exquisite bow. The little kitty in question was huddled against a large boulder while a group of six hunters surrounded here with their weapons drawn.

"Since we caught her, should we skin this cat? It'll make a nice coat," another one of the group chuckled with an eerie grin.

"Naw, we should keep her as a pet, put her on a leash and 'play' with her sometimes," a brown-haired man to the right of the boulder said.

"Please, just leave me alone," the cat-woman tried to beg, only to scream in pain when the first man kicked her in the stomach.

"Who said you could talk, freak?!" He yelled at her angrily. "Animals like you exist only for our gain." He pulled back the string of his bow while he loaded on a particularly sharp arrow. The rest of the hunters ran forward and held the woman in her twenties down, ignoring her struggles and her pleas for help.

"And we like to gain…" The man paused for a moment as he reached full draw, his arms beginning to shake with the strain, "...by hunting animals."

Just as he was about to let go of the arrow, a hairy fist slugged him in the jaw.

Mikil roared as the hunter went flying across the open space, leaving his bow behind. His face was an ugly shade of brick-red and his hands were grasping at the air. Between that, his heaving frame, and the elongated canines now visible in his gaping mouth, he looked every bit of the bear his furry ears took their appearance from.

"WHO DARES TO TOUCH MY KITTY-CAT?!" His voice made the heavens themselves rumble as his raging body faced the now-trembling hunters. They let go of Fiore as they backed away from both the boulder and the beast that was currently facing them. "WHO DARES TO STRIKE MY DAUGHTER?! I WILL TEAR YOU TO SHREDS IF YOU HAD SO MUCH AS EVEN TOUCHED A SINGLE HAIR ON HER EARS!"

"Mi-Mikil…" Fiore whispered as she huddled against the boulder, tears running freely down her face at his proclamation.

The brown-haired hunter who spoke earlier gathered his courage and stepped forward, brandishing his bow with an arrow already drawn. He called back to his four remaining companions, "Come on, lads! He's just one lowly piece of trash versus five of us, he's dead meat!"

He released his hand, sending the arrow at high speeds towards Mikil courtesy of tension. The pointy bit of rock pierced Mikil's shoulder, sending a steady stream of blood pouring down to the ground. Mikil's response was to roar again, so loudly that leaves began falling off the trees and a certain zombie's helmet filters nearly popped, and charge at the surprised hunter.

Mikil reached the hunter before he could react and grabbed his bow, snapping it over his knee without pause. His twitching hand grabbed the hunter's throat, lifting him into the air and then slamming him into the ground. The hunter's breath left him in a moment, rendering him unable to even scream in pain.

The four hunters still standing glanced at each quickly before two of them charged forward with spears while the other two stayed behind with their bows being readied to fire. So occupied they were in attempting to aim their bows, in fact, that they missed the flash of metal that appeared behind them.

They noticed him only when one of them was lit on fire.

The unfortunate man screamed as the flames seared his skin and his clothes turned to ash. He promptly ran off into the woods, leaving behind both his bow and his stunned partner. Said partner tried to bring his bow around to fire at the sudden attacker, only to eat metal as the newcomer smacked his metal-clad hand into his face. He went spiraling to the ground, out cold.

Kabr stepped over the unconscious person and made his way to Fiore, grabbing her by the arm and lifting her onto her feet as she continued staring at Mikil.

"Kabr, shouldn't you go help him?" She asked him, her eyes never leaving Mikil for a moment as the bear-in-a-man's-skin lifted his victim up by the throat with a clawed hand and smashed him into an oncoming blitzer, making them fall like twigs under his primal anger. Kabr shook his head as he pointed a finger at the raging Mikil.

"Fine," He said, watching the man slung a fist into the hunter still standing's jaw, sending the man tumbling into his fallen allies. Mikil snarled as he fell upon the downed trio, fists, fangs, and claws tearing into them like a, well, bear with a pile of meat.

Kabr and Fiore continued to watch for several minutes as blood and hair flew into the air before Kabr decided to finally end up. He went and grabbed Mikil's hand just as it went back for another blow, stopping him in the midst of the beating he was giving out.

"Enough," He said, getting a glare from Mikil with rage still burning in his eyes. Kabr ignored it as he gestured towards the frozen Fiore standing across the clearing. The rage vanished immediately as Mikil rose to his feet and rushed towards her. As he ran, his more animalistic traits such as the extra hair and the claws quickly vanished from his body, making him appear almost completely human except for the bear ears. Fiore did nothing but widen her eyes when Mikil wrapped her in a fierce bear-hug (because it had to be said) with tears running down his face.

"I gotta stop leaving ya alone, little kitty," Mikil murmured between bouts of weeping. "I always end up saving ya like this, even we just first met. Never again, Fiore. I'm never leavin' ya alone again."

"Mikil…." Fiore tried to cut in, "Did you mean it?" When Mikil looked up at her face with tears running down his, she attempted to explain. "Do you really think of me… as your daughter?"

Mikil looked flabbergasted for a moment before he gave her a big grin as he stood up, pulling her up with him. "Of course, ya scaredy cat. From the first time I saved ya from those hungry wolves years ago, I always thought of ya as my daughter." He jerked his head quickly in the direction of Kabr, who had been standing quietly nearby during their private moment. "And I like to think of that hunk of metal as that one crazy cousin everybody has."

Fiore smiled as she returned finally Mikil's hug, the two lost in their own little world (ugh, why do I write so many cliche things?). Then the tender moment was ruined when the first hunter Mikil knocked out, the one with white hair, groaned and began sitting up from his position on the ground.

"Ouch, what happened?" He asked himself, not appearing to notice the approaching red-eyed being. "All I remember is chasing a mangy stray-" The next few words died in his throat when he heard a click and lashes of fire formed in front of his face.

"Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah!" He cried out, shuffling backwards on his hands and feet as fast as he could. He looked up fearfully at the source of flames. "Hey, please, be careful with th- wait a minute." He peered closely at the sight that greeted him, looking over the brown metal, white accents, and glowing red eye, before a light-bulb seemed to go off in his head and he was on his feet, shaking Kabr's hand fiercely.

"Wow, you're Kabr!" He said excitedly as he continued to shake his hand in Kabr's cold grip, ignoring the looks of confusion he was getting from the two others in the clearing and Kabr's blank stare. "I never expected to meet you out here! What are you doing with these animals?" With those last words he spared a glance at Fiore and Mikil, eliciting a hiss and a growl from them.

He shrugged as he turned back to the unresponsive Titan. "Nevermind, who cares? I've been wanting to meet you ever since you saved our village chief a while back. You're all we've been talking about since then. Especially since you snapped one monster's spine with a punch!" A grin emerged on his face, not one of happiness but of hidden intent. "Actually, it gave me an idea for something a while ago and I want to tell you about it." He began steering Kabr away from his companions and began walking him in the direction of his village with an arm around Kabr's shoulders, ignoring the duo that followed them angrily anyway.

"Comrades?" Kabr asked the man as they walked, jerking his thumb back towards the clearing. The man merely waved off the question with an unconcerned toss of the arm.

"They'll be fine, no Grimm are around so they'll come back to camp later. Now onto business, Kabr, my friend. You see, I happen to be a miner by trade. A few days ago while I was just digging along, I hit an ore vein that just won't break. No matter how many men try to mine it, it simply won't shatter." The hunter threw up a hand in mock-exasperation. "And the d*mn Grimm always attack for some reason when we try to get more people in to dig it up!" A long finger suddenly found itself up against Kabr's chestplate when the hunter- no, miner made his point.

"And that," he said excitedly, "is where you come in. Everyone knows you're the strongest person around. Even other villages say so. I mean, you can break a Beowolf's mask without effort, something that's never been done before! I bet you can easily break a measly rock, probably with just a finger! Even if you couldn't, you could hold off those b*stards of darkness with ease as we get more miners into the tunnels."

"So," he ended with, a hand extended out for Kabr to shake, "What do you say? No matter how much we dig up, we'll give you about a third if you help me out."

"Don't listen to that lying pile of junk, Kabr!" Mikil interrupted for the first time with a shout, garnering an annoyed glance from the whire-haired talker. His only response to the glance was to pull Fiore a little closer to him. "I gots a bad feeling about this and that punk too! He tried to hurt Fiore, he can't be anyone good! Don't do it!"

Part of Kabr's mind agreed with Mikil completely, that nothing good could come from this arrangement. Another part didn't care, the part that wanted him to leave all of these talkative strangers behind and just go be by himself again, where he would be more comfortable.

The final part, the part of him being wracked and wounded by the Darkness currently eating him on the inside, wanted him to accept. It wanted him to contribute one final thing before he went, to show the Darkness that it could not hold down a Titan like him, no matter how much it devours his Light.

And maybe, it whispered deep inside, you want to give a parting gift to those who saved you from the Darkness, if only for a little while.

In the end, that part came to the forefront of his mind as he looked into the miner's now-leering grin. "Well?" He asked, moving his hand a little closer to Kabr's still form. "Are you in?"

Kabr grasped the outstretched hand and gave it a firm shake despite the loud protests from the man-bear close behind him. The miner's grin grew a little longer when he felt the grip that met his own.

"Excellent," He said as they both pulled their hands back. "Since I know your name, it's only fair you know mine now that you accepted my proposition. My name is Feucht Schnee and it's a pleasure to work with you at last, Kabr."