Some months ago...

"You look lost, little girl." The taller of the three said to Aegle, his eyes unclear shadows behind the reflective surface of his sunglasses. His tone, for Aegle at least, was unreadable. She was inclined, if only from habit, to assume his concern genuine, but that assumption didn't gel so well with the knowing, sardonic smile that stretched across his lips, exposing at least two teeth which were steel capped. Unbeknownst to the orange haired girl who was looking at it, that particular smile was something which its owner had practiced in the mirror for just such an occasion as this one. The sort of occasion which called for making someone uncomfortable without the need to do anything overtly threatening. After all, as he smiled, he showed off just enough of his metallic fangs to get the proverbial point across. 
"I'm not." Aegle, for whom intimidation was a twelve letter word describing a thing which happened to other people, replied with a smile equal parts uncertainly amicable and confused. He was smiling at her, so she felt it her duty to answer in kind. She wasn't a big person by any stretch of the imagination, and all three of the men confronting her had almost two feet on her, as well as a couple hundred pounds each. Still, Aegle seemed genuinely oblivious to the obviously threatening way they had surrounded her. 
"Not lost?" One of the men said, to the left of the faunus with the steel tipped fangs. He also had sunglasses on, but they were tipped up onto his forehead, leaving his iridescent amber eyes bare. "I guess she must know where she is, huh?"
Steel fangs grinned a bit more widely, as he glanced in Amber eye's direction.
"And if she does, then she must know these're our streets."
Where they were was a less traveled part of Legion's industrial district, near the great dust refinement towers which serviced the capital's expansive dust trade. Small residences spotted the district too, homes inherited from a time when most of Legion's work force wasn't mechanized, which had gone to ruin in the shadows of the city's great factories. Aegle had come here because she'd heard one of her brothers say someone could see most of the old city from the top of the towers.
"Yer right..." Said the last of the three, a barrel chested man heavier than the other two combined, whose right arm ended not in a hand, but a metal cap. There was scarring around the edges of his wrist too, implying some horrible accident had taken his hand. He broke into the conversation, which was little more than a rehearsed stage play for Aegle's convenience, with the slow ease of a well practiced player. "She must'a paid the toll."
Aegle, whose knowledge of criminal cliches was frightfully limited, blinked in blank confusion before she tipped her head to the side and, much to the delight of the three men, interjected with, "Toll?"
Iron fist, Amber eyes and Steel fangs alike turned their attention upon her, each wearing his own personal version of pleased surprise, as if Aegle had just said exactly what they had wanted to hear.
"Suuure..." Steel fangs said in a friendly tone, "The toll you gotta pay to walk through here. You did pay it, didn't you little girl?"
"Nope," Aegle answered openly, wearing a frown of consternation so genuine it was almost embarrassing. "I didn't know there was one."
The three broke out into smiles, like wolves regarding a lamb to young to know it should have already started running. Finally, Amber eyes whistled out a low, mystified whistle. 
"She didn't pay the toll." He said to Steel fangs.
"That ain't good..." Iron fist agreed, the sympathy in his deep voice movingly palpable.
"Well jeeze..." Steel fangs said quietly, still wearing his predatory smile, "Lookit her. She's so small n' defenseless... They're probably already lookin' for her." He spoke as if he'd forgotten Aegle could hear him, even though his words were plainly for her benefit. Aegle, having bought the show up until this point, looked nakedly curious, though not yet concerned. 
"Who's they?" She asked.
"Bad men." Iron fist told her with sagely gravity, his steel grey eyes staring down at her in sympathy, his wolf's grin tactfully replaced by a look of concern. "There's a big gang of Faunus what kidnap and hurt little girls what wander into their territory without payin' the toll." Moving his attention from her and back to his associates, Iron fist quietly whispered, loudly enough that Aegle could still hear him, "We gotta help her. Can't just let 'em grab her."
Amber eyes, who was not nearly so good an actor, tried to look shocked. 
"We can't do that. If they found out, we'd been a lot of trouble." He said, too loudly to be whispering, his smile still audible in his words. "Besides, I ain't got no money for the toll neither."
Iron fist looked both stoic and worried, "Nor d'I..." He confessed with crushing gravity.
"What about her? Do you think she's got money?" Amber eyes asked, leering at Aegle.
"Let's ask her." Steel fangs said with cold confidence. He hadn't taken his eyes off of Aegle the whole time. "You got any cash on you?"
"A little." Aegle answered, wanting to be helpful despite the growing sense of uncertainty for this whole situation. "S'not a lot though..."
"What about your parents?" Steel fangs asked quickly, his voice never rising above a predatory growl. "Little human girl like you has gotta have rich parents."
Aegle, feeling doubly uncertain all of a sudden, as she sensed the whole scenario changing imperceptibly around her, regarded Steel fangs with an open and honest face. 
"I guess so..." She answered, still wanting to be helpful, even as her hackles started to rise. Then, feeling as though she hadn't said enough on the subject, Aegle added, "My dad's works for the military and my mom's a scientist."
Steel fang's expression came as close to hunger as it possibly could without him licking his chops. 
"Tell you what." He said quietly. "Me and the boys'll help you out. I'll cover your toll and you can just get your rich parents to pay me back, right?" he said, his voice desperately wanting to sound agreeable and reasonable under the ever present, ravenous growl which laced each word he spoke. 
"We'll even lead you out, make sure you don't get scooped up before you can pay. What do you say?"
Aegle hesitated. It all sounded reasonable enough to her, even if it was all really alien and confusing at the same time. She was disinclined to even consider that there might be some ulterior motive behind the whole charade and, even if she hadn't been, would have been ill equipped to see the obvious endgame to their ploy. So she took them at their word.
"I guess so..." she answered finally, but without much conviction. Even if she hadn't altogether figured out what was wrong, she still sensed something as being out of place. 
"Good..." Steel fangs all but purred, before he put his hand out to Aegle in what he doubtlessly thought looked to be a very gracious and amicable fashion. It looked more like a rattle snake shaking its tail. Still, Aegle reached out and took it, and, as she did so, a quiet mechanical hum sounded from beneath her clothes. Each movement she made thereafter was accompanied by a quiet whirring sound, like dozens of tiny motors torn from the guts of a remote controlled drone. Steel fang's raised his eyebrow but said nothing, and the four of them started down the alley the way that Aegle had initially been headed. 

Aegle limped more than walked, though it was a strange limp. Though she plainly favored one leg over the other, standing on either did not cause her any apparent discomfort and it looked more like one leg had simply grown in a different direction than the other. Thanks to an ease of movement which could only have come from years of practice, she easily kept pace with Steel fangs and his cronies, though all three occasionally looked back at her as she shuffled along, whirring all the while like some wind up toy. Her slight slouch, which previously might have been taken for some sort of affectation on her part, further added to her asymmetrical aesthetic. Beside her limp, the slouch looked less like a case of lazy back syndrome and more like, alongside her leg, she had grown crookedly at some point in her life. Steel fang's hold on her hand was firm, but not painfully so, and Aegle was aware of the warmth that radiated through his palm and into her own. After a couple of blocks, she was also aware that they were not heading out of the district, but deeper into it. Steel fangs, similarly, was growing increasingly conscious of the general roughness of Aegle's hand. Though he hadn't taken an express interest in it before taking hold of her, he had since found it to be thickly calloused and, especially about the knuckles, thickly scarred. He had also noticed that, since they'd first set out, she was looking around a lot more and growing increasingly agitated and confused. 
"So you some kinda cripple, then?" He asked finally, not cruelly, but in an attempt to draw her attention away from the fact that they obviously weren't leading her to anything even approaching safety. Aegle's attention, as intended, immediately adhered itself to Steel fangs, though he saw none of the animosity or hurt that should have been present from so callous a comment. Instead, there was open curiosity on her face, and he could tell just from looking at her that she was wondering what had possessed him to ask such a question.
Speaking to hold her attention, Steel fangs shrugged and said, "You're humming and whining like some kinda machine. You got some prosthetics or something? Were you in some kinda accident?" To their credit, both Iron fist and Amber eyes had the presence of mind to look uncomfortable with Steel fangs chosen topic. They flanked Aegle closely on either side, and it was easy for her to make out their embarrassed expressions. 
"I'm not crippled." Aegle answered shortly, though her tone was more informative than admonitory, "I'm gonna be a huntress, actually." There was an obvious pride in her claim. Steel fangs, before he could stop himself, snorted loudly at such an absurd claim. Iron fist and Amber eyes, however, exchanged uncertain glances with one another. Reading them the wrong way, Aegle stopped sharply and glowered at them all.
"Hey!" She said, honestly and apparently offended, color rising in her pale cheeks. "You don't think I can be a huntress?" Her emerald eyes blazed with shock, and she tried to yank her hand out of Steel fang's grip, to emphasize her outrage. She was a little surprised when his grip abruptly tightened, and her hand did not come free. Her eyebrows furrowed, and she gave her hand another firm yank which made the motors beneath her bright orange hoodie whine sharply. 
"You? A huntress?" Steel fangs said, his voice low and dangerous. 
"Hey!" Aegle answered, her own voice loud and shrill and demanding, "Let go!"
Steel fangs answered by tightening his grip even further, tight enough that the small, hard bones in Aegle's hand ground together. Both Amber eyes and Iron Fist clapped their hands down on Aegle's shoulders, and each could feel the straining metal bands that made up her brace beneath. 
"Hey!" Aegle cried again, though not in pain as the trio had expected, but in something approaching anger. "You're hurting me!" 
Steel fangs, for his part, glanced down quizzically at the hand he was hold, sure he was squeezing it tightly enough to take the fight out of the small girl it belonged to. He glanced over his shoulder and looked, not at Aegle, but at Iron fist on her left.
"Griz." He said shortly, and the big man nodded before he wound back and took a swing at Aegle's cheek with his iron capped stump. Aegle caught the swing out the corner of her eye and tried to weave around it, but the hand of Amber eyes kept her from moving away. The blow took her hard in the side of the head, with a dull and resonant clang that shook through her skull like a gong toll. Before Aegle could wrest control of her muscles away from her shaken consciousness, she found herself dropping to one knee and trying to blink the stars out of her eyes. Everything shook faintly, as if a dull afterimage of the world had been superimposed over top of it, lagging a split second behind everything else. 
"Raise your voice again, call for help, make even the softest squeak, and you'll get another one." Steel fangs said solemnly, all the laughter gone from his voice. "Got it?"
Aegle could taste blood in her mouth, and spat out something which might have been part of the inside of her cheek. Her aura had dulled the impact of Iron fist's punch, but it had not stopped it entirely. Aegle's aura seldom stopped attacks entirely.
"You know what?" She asked quietly, as she raised her free hand and wiped the blood from her lips. Her tone was dull and clumsy, the sound of someone punch drunk and incoherent, but her hand moved confidently from her mouth to sneak down the neck of her hoodie. Her questing fingers found the intensity dial hidden on the back pack of the brace she wore. 
"I don't think you guys are very nice..."
Steel fangs glowered and, to Iron fist, he said, "Screw it. Knock her out. We'll carry her back."
Aegle dialed up the intensity on the brace, all the way back to one hundred percent, causing the whole brace to hum loudly. At the same time, Iron fist placed his hand on Aegle's shoulder, restraining her, as he wound back for a second swing at her unprotected head. Plucking her hand from the neck of her hoodie and with no effort to rise from where she knelt on the gritty tarmac, Aegle swung a left hook directly into Iron fist's crotch. Her blow briefly impacted the imperceptible field which represented Iron fist's aura defense before, with what smelled faintly of ozone, she broke through and planted her knuckles firmly into his groin. The big man shrieked, loud and high, and stumbled back as both his hands shot down to cup the aggrieved region. He collapsed to the ground in a heap, panting and keening, and curled protectively around his wounded vitals. 
Steel fangs, who had turned the moment Aegle started humming like a cheap lightbulb, promptly gave her captured hand a firm yank. He easily pulled the much lighter girl towards him, just as he swung his knee up to catch her cleanly into the chin. Aegle's teeth clicked together painfully and the whole world shook into colorless static and noise. She briefly slumped backwards, wanting to fall to the ground, only to have her arm yanked savagely again. As she swung forward this time, her vision cleared enough for her to see Steel fang's knee already swinging upward for a repeat performance. Aegle grunted dully and, reacting more out of muscle memory than any real forethought, swung her head downward and headbutt the rising knee cap. The effects of this gambit were too fold. First, the connection of bone on cartilage made Steel fangs grunt in pain and immediately recoil, releasing Aegle's hand in the process. The second effect was that the first of the impact sent Aegle, uprooted as she was, swinging backward like a puppet with its strings cut. She collapsed onto the ground only a couple of feet away from Iron fist, who was too busy throwing up in the gutter to take much notice. 
"Little shit's got fight in her." Aegle heard Steel fangs growl, "Don't let her get up; Break her legs if you need to." It took a moment for her to understand that this last directive was probably aimed at Amber eyes. Sure enough, the lankier of the three rose into view above the stunned Aegle. In his jewelry clad hands, he hefted the sort of telescopic baton that the Legion police department sometimes used. Aegle groaned a quiet admonition which went unheeded as Amber eyes raised his baton and, with almost perfunctory effort, took a swipe at her knees. Aegle twisted where she lay, felt the baton hit the metal knee brace hidden under her cargo pants, and kicked ineffectually at Amber Eye's crotch. It was an attack he easily avoided, probably because he'd seen it coming, though the fact that she kicked at him with the same leg he'd struck did cause a bit of surprise to flash onto his sneering face. Sidestepping her kick, Amber eyes swatted at her again with his baton and, this time, impacted the bony face of her shin. Aegle didn't even react, save to kick herself backwards with her other leg. She looped, somewhat clumsily, back into a roll and came up on her feet in one semi-smooth movement. The moment her feet were planted, her hands rose up and her shoulders hunched forward in what was easily recognizable as a standard boxing guard. Where her roll had been clumsy, the way she entered form was nearly flawless. Amber eyes, baton upraised, loped toward her for a crude swipe at her head, while Steel fangs pulled something out of his coat. That was when the real fight began...