Don't. Say. A. Thing. About how much time it took. I am fully aware of it and am dissapointed in myself, no need to yell at me when I've already done enough of that by myself. Do feel free to critisize anything other than my time spent though. I'd like to hear the people's opinions.

The time they spent in the caravan wasn't very eventful.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it was as enjoyable as it could have ever been for everyone.

Everyone but Weiss.

She could even begin about Rilamy. He was a self-centered sadistic brat that only cared about killing stuff and drawing and he was the furthest thing ever from « polite » or « respectful ». The only thing he knew how to do were unfunny dark jokes, drawing, eating, being drunk and killing anything in the vehicle's path. Granted, what was on their path wasn't very friendly but still, he did not even consider moving around the threat once. And he somehow got Ruby into his thing ? She started cheering him on and wanting to see a bloody carcase after the fight. She knew that if Yang was awake, she'd kill him right away. If she didn't die first.

But that's not the point.

Even if they were younger or as young as them for two members out of three, they had a lot more experience than the huntresses in training, in hunting and in passing time, since they taught them how to play poker normally and in Helios's « Luigi version », whatever that meant, drawing or writing as a pass time, even if Blake already wrote, organizing, which was what Weiss mostly did, cleaning equipment, Ruby picked up onto it quickly, and much, much more. And yet they still all felt bored out of their minds, even after they saw Blast's monstie Noodle. A week passed by, they even got the caravan on an airship to go faster, and they finally arrived where the actual Hunters needed to go.

Yukumo.

The very oriental Japanese styled town was surprisingly big and pretty, no, beautiful. Blake seemed to have a little bit of nostalgia, it's what they all saw, even the Monster Hunters, somehow, but she wouldn't talk about it. Once they got off of the vehicle, they went straight to the chief of the village to greet her and talk with her. The huntresses were asked to not be there to peep, so they were sent to the hot baths that were Yukumo's specialty. The girls dressed down and went in the steaming water, even if Weiss wasn't very trustful and Blake was very much unwilling. Once they were in, time seemed to warp. Their muscles tensed down, their eyes closed, their legs sat them down on a wall and their chests released very heavy sighs. Somehow, this very rustic society managed to make them live two of their best moments. Gladly, very gladly for the eldest of the group, the baths were still separate. There was a mixed one but they didn't go to that one, of course not.

Then, a loud scream resonated through the bath, followed by a big splash.

Yang was up.

"Yo goils, waddimiss?~"

"Some calm, good time in a hot bath where we almost all fell asleep." Weiss couldn't help herself from being salty.

"Aww, sowwy~"

Blake sighed but smiled, Ruby tackled Yang into the water and Weiss did her best to not smile, happy that her friend was up, okay and still herself.

"Hey, did you girls see the big blue frog shark thing?" asked Yang.

Blake answered quickly. "It's Blast's monstie, her tamed monster so to speak."

That put stars in Yang's eyes. "We can tame the bloody things?!"

"Yes, but please don't yell any more, we already have all of the town's attention." Weiss told her. They were, indeed, watched by all, which made Ruby blush deeply, although Weiss and Blake did not care, at least on the surface. Blake cared but it only showed through a slight blushing that was covered by the steam.

Yang chuckled nervously, scratching the back of her head. "So sorry. But yeah, you can tame monsters?"

Ruby nodded. "It's mostly done through stealing a monster egg and making yourself pass off as the newborn's parent, but it can be sometimes done with an already grown up guy."

Yang went deep in thought. Very deep. She was picturing herself riding a dragon into the most epic of battles ever.

Then, to all four girls's surprise, something passed by, leaving bubbles and a soap like substance behind. It's body covered in pure white scales being accentuated with a deep purple fur on it's belly, arms and under it's tail. Above it's long, gracious face and all over it's shiny, entrancing back were fin-like parts that had a shading going from white like the rest to an angelic yellow with purple spots on them. It also had long, sharp, also purple claws. And it wasn't hostile at all, just taking a casual stroll through the hot springs.

RWBY was speechless. They thought that all monsters were naturally violent because of what little experience they had with them. Weiss went to ask another girl about it as it laid down on a big rock, coiling itself so it's face was gently rubbed by it's tail and going to sleep.

"He's a Mizutsune, a leviathan. They are usually peaceful creatures, except for the males during the mating season, since they want to impress females. Speaking of which, almost none have seen female Mizutsunes since during the mating season, they hide to avoid being caught in the middle of male Mizutsunes's fighting, and the rest of the time, they are taking care of the children. Raising them takes two years, luckily for the mother, they are like humans in that they most often only have one offspring each time, twins are rare. You can go touch that one and ride it and such, as long as you don't voluntarily attack it, it won't be hostile."

Yang and Ruby wasted no time going up to it, Ruby getting on it's back and Yang going up to it, faking punches. The Mizutsune didn't mind the little girl on his back and nudged Yang softly so she would fall over playfully. Blake didn't go up to it and instead kept staring from a distance and Weiss came over after a minute or so. She pushed Yang away from his's face, making her go over to his tail so they could keep their fake fighting up, and stared deeply into it's eyes.

She saw a scar right under it's right eye, a deep cut, very obviously wanting to blind him but missing. She put her hand forward and the creature put his's muzzle in it. She rubbed the soapy scales that were so clean she could see her own refexion. She kept petting the leviathan, slowly but surely getting closer and closer to it's scar. Once she reached it, she rubbed it's full length, admiring both how cruel and clean it was. It was very wide, as wide as her own palm, and made him flinch when she touched it, making her get even more gentle. She wondered not who, since it was obviously a hunter, but how, with what weapon. She remembered those that she saw on display in the caravan's armory and, after a few moments of reflection, came to the conclusion that it was a great sword with fire properties, seeing how the edges were burnt, although hard to see under the scales and cleaning. It must have been the first time she felt so sorry for another, and it was towards a powerful animal. She saw where the Mizutsune was looking, and it was at her own scar, on her left eye. She understood why she felt simpathy towards him, having forgotten this scar, and that it felt simpathy towards her. She whispered a few words that not even she understood, her own soul and sorrow coming out with a tear from her almost wounded eye, and then she placed her face on his, her scar touching his. She felt very close to the monster, and the others saw it. They decided to leave them alone for now and go back to silently watching like most other women in the spring.

She finally got her scar away from his after a solid five minutes, her eyes red and her face having soft tear marks along her cheeks. "I'm so sorry." she said in the sincirest voice anyone ever heard. None of her teammates could say anything.

Blast had been there for a while and saw the entire interaction, but decided that now was the moment to get up to the team members and tell them that now is the time to go. She then went to Weiss and told her to come out whenever she felt ready, but she simply nodded at her, at the Mizutsune and exited while the leviathan went back to the nap it was planning on having, his scar having some tears on it, both human and monster tears.

"So... We're going to stay here?"

"Yep, there haven't been many hunters around for a bit and problems have started piling up, so there now have an actual job to do."

Ruby was very happy for them. "That's great!"

Helios chuckled akwardly though. "There will be a need to be more productive, still gotta eat. We'll have to get you girls up and hunting as soon as we can."

RWBY nodded as they understood. "We're already huntresses in training, so the strength shouldn't be a problem." remarqued Weiss.

Rilamy spoke up. "We still need to get y'all in on the monster hunter rules though. So first things first, there's 14 weapon types. Great sword, long sword, sword and sheild, dual blades, hammer, hunting horn, lance, gunlance, switch axe, charge blade, insect glaive, light and heavy bowguns and bow. Either your weapon fits in one of these categories, either it's deemed illegal. Got it?"

Weiss raised her hand. "Hunting horn? A hunting horn isn't a real weapon. Also what even is the difference between great sword and long sword? And insect glaive doesn't even sound real."

The few hunters that heard her and the town's blacksmith looked like she had insulted their ancestors.

Blast was quick to explan. "Hunting Horns, also known as HH, are very heavy support tools. The songs they can play can provide many different buffs and even heal. Great Swords, or GS, are really big, really heavy blades while long swords are like katanas, more adept at making long comboes while the great sword is all about timing so a swing can deal incredible damage. Aslo the Insect Glaive, aka IG, is pretty much what it sounds like: a big glaive or stick that uses pheromones to command around a giant bug called kinsect. It can draw 4 types of fluids when hitting a monster." Yang chuckled at the mention of fluids but was ignored. "Red fluid makes your attacks faster and stronger, white fluid-" Yang laughed out loud but was quickly shut up by many pairsof hands slapping themselves over her mouth. "-makes you move faster and orange fluids make you more immune to knockback, although it doesn't actually increases your defense. Finally, green fluids heal you a tiny bit, but it might be the tiny bit that saves you."

They nodded in understandanting and the surrounding hunters finally went back to their daily business even if they kept up their offensed glares on them.

Helios took it upon himself to explain the rest. "There are the Sword and Shield, or SnS, pretty explicit, with some places even producing oils for the blades, blades that are around the same size as White Missie's. The shield can actually block quite a lot of damage, but it's small so be careful when using it as it'll be easy to have it slip off and/or carrying you.

Dual Blades, BD, are more akin to Black's, it's just that it's not one's the blade and the other's it's sheath. They are fast to compensate for low damage. Basically a thousand tiny wooshes, in contrast to the Great Sword's one big wha-bam, basically. They can also go in "demon mode" and "arch-demon mode" along with their user. In order to go into demon mode, the user must hold the blades in a cross above their heads and let their body move around freely, without thinking, making them go even faster. However, it'll eat your stamina like a fat boy at a golden corral. Arch-demon mode when enough damage has been dealt in demon mode. They'll go even faster when they'd normally be in demon mode and, when they'd normally be in "normal mode", they'll be just a bit slower than demon mode.

The Hammer, sometimes just H, is as bare-bones as can be: it's a hammer with a gead the size of your torso and belly combined. Go break some skulls. But it is surprisingly easy to maneuveur with the required amount of practice. You can sacrifice some stamina for better hits, some use only these.

The Lance, L, is an easy concept too, it might be called lance but it could be called sheild. It's the best at defense and it's shield is very fucking strong. The same can't be said about the lance itself, it's defensive after all, not offensive.

The Gunlance, GL this time, is pretty much this: take the lance, take out some defense and instead put a cannon that makes explosions on the tip of the lance."

Yang was definetly interested in this one.

"The Switch Axe is my favorite. Shortened to SA, it starts out as an axe with a gauge that gradually fills up. That gauge is filled with vials. What it's for, is that when you press a button, the blades move, the front one sliding down and the back one turning to take it's place, and the weapon turns into a sword! And that sword has the vial's propriety: strength, for better pure damage, elemental, for more, well, elemental damage, and exhaust, which drains the creature's stamina faster. You can even overload the vial, it doesn't harm the inner mechanism, just eats away a lot of the gauge, and then cause a big explosion!"

Again, Yang was definetly interested.

"The Bowguns are pretty explicits. They're guns. You have a light version, Light Bowguns, obviously, that are more about speed and elemental damage, and the Heavy Bowguns that are slower but deal more brutal damage.

Finally, the Bow. It's... It's a bow, what do you expect."

The four young girls took some time to reflect upon this, not noticing the three experienced hunters getting back inside of their caravan. Weiss was the first to turn to them getting ready to depart once more.

"Wait, what are you guys doing?"

Blast's head was poking out. "Nature is the best teacher, even if it is the strictest. All hunters learnt that way. Ask the chief for more info about the rules, and have fun!"

Before they could react, they were gone. They were left alone because it was normal around here. Ruby was a bit sad, feeling abandoned, Yang was still lost in thought (thoughts of how badass she could become), Blake understood their way of thought and nodded to herself and Weiss... Weiss looked bad. She stared into the distance, even after they dissapeared and was way too silent. After a few minutes to gather themselves, they saw the heiress and wondered what was wrong.

"Uh... Weiss? Did I do anything wrong?"

"You okay there Ice Queen?"

"We should leave her alone for now. Let her gather herself. We'll go get the info they said we could get and resume it all to her when she's good."

"So... What did I miss?"

They were now in an unused house. There were a few for now hunters, with half of them empty.

"Well, we asked the nice pink lady about the rules of being Monster Hunters."

"And...?"

"Well, to put it bluntly: don't hurt people."

"Contrarily to huntsmen and huntresses, this is the job of Monster Hunter. We must not intervene with the people's affairs. This is the town guards's job."

Weiss nodded in understandment.

"I see. Anyway, we should go to sleep, we'll have a whole day full of learning tomorrow. Our goal for now should be-"

"Making our own caravan! Ooo, ooo, what are we gonna name it? What style should we go for? What-"

"Right, we'll need that." Ruby looked offensed by Weiss cutting her off, forgetting that she did so herself. "But in order to be able to hold our own, we'll need to take on diferent roles."

Blake thought the same. "We should need a blacksmith to handle equipment, and possibly the caravan itself, a quest handler would be pretty useful, a merchant to buy and sell ressources and a designated driver, but not necessarily, just to have a fourth role. We can skip that and have it be a shift between all of us."

"Well, as the leader, I should handle this matter."

Yang was excited and trusted her sister, but Weiss wasn't too up to the idea. Blake didn't care, simply reading a small monster list that only had the basics of the world.

Again, feel free to criticize my writing, but don't criticize my timing. I've already got a few key events in mind, I just need to stop being lazy.

Now, it's been a long time since I've said this, but...

Farewell, my subjects,

Your Saltyness