AN: Salutations! (Did you read that in Penny's voice?) I've had this idea for a RWBY fanfiction for the longest time but had never really gotten around to writing it... Until I heard about Monty's passing. I won't say things that have already been said to death but what I will do is dedicate this story in memory of Monty Oum.

This is my very first RWBY fanfiction and my second ever fanfiction, so I would greatly appreciate any advice, be it on how to improve on what I lack or what I'm doing right and should keep doing.

This is a Self Insert / Original Character fanfiction and I don't think there are that many of these in the RWBY fanfiction so I thought I'll have a try at it :D
Also, I would like to promise you that while the main character will be strong simply due to her circumstances, raw strength doesn't always get you everywhere... nor is it always good...

Unfortunately, I am pretty busy with school + the fact that I would rather take more time to make a better chapter so updates may be pretty slow.

Bear in mind that since this was written when up till RWBY Volume 2 ended and very little actual info about Remnant is available, so there may be clashes with the world-building I will be doing and the canon RWBY story, so if that happens you can treat this as an AU-ish story.

Enjoy!

"I believe that the human spirit is indomitable. If you endeavor to achieve, it will happen given enough resolve. It may not be immediate, and often your greater dreams is something you will not achieve within your own lifetime. The effort you put forth to anything transcends yourself, for there is no futility even in death." - Monty Oum

Only Human Chapter 1

Dying hurts.

Ehh, its quite painful. You don't just painlessly drift off into oblivion. Nope. Especially if you happened to die due to massive internal bleeding.

So you must be wondering how would I know? Did I die?

I'll get to that later, I promise.

So here's a little more about myself. I'm a naturally quiet girl, you know, the one that just sits in one corner and does their own thing.

My friends think I'm shy, but I think I simply enjoy the peace and quiet (nope. Definitely not shy... Right?). Whats the point of talking just for the sake of talking?

Of course their opinion changed a fair bit after a certain incident. So there was this group of bullies, who were picking on my friends...

I know what you're thinking, that I would go over to the bullies and either a. Beat the crap out of them. b. I went over and gave them a furious tongue-lashing.

I didn't do either of those. I simply walked over and pinned the lead bully in place with a cold glare, before using a polite tone to inform them that I had caught everything on camera. And of course the leader would try to grab the phone.

They quickly ran after the leader tried to punch me and failed, since I had slipped within the arc of his punch and got him in an elbow lock and spun him into the ground. I blame the adrenaline and the self-defense courses I took, cause I was pretty scared actually.

My heart was pounding the whole time. So even as I stuttered out a 'it was nothing' (no I'm not shy, just... shocked, Yeah. Shocked.) my friends would conclude that under my shy exterior was an edge of steel. I promptly ducked my head and ran away. (It was a tactical decision!)

I guess this the part where I talk about my... Passing. Pardon me if its brief, but eh, I'm not really comfortable talking about it.

So it involved a ball and a road.

So my friends and I were stupidly passing the ball as we walked along the road, when it slipped out of my grasp and rolled onto the road.

So like any sane person, I left it there. I mean, that road was so busy! (you thought I was going to get it didn't you!)

Unfortunately, someone else didn't. A young boy ran after the ball, heedless of the oncoming traffic.

Even before I processed it, i had pushed the boy out of the way and got nailed by a few tons of steel.

Was it stupid? Absolutely. Brave? Maybe. Suicidal? Yep.

But I couldn't just let the boy die.

I just couldn't.

After a few minutes of the worst pain I had ever experienced, i died.

So now I was floating in some black void. As its name implies, it was completely empty, no stairs, no gates, no judgments. It was just nothing.

Then something weird happened.

Text started randomly appearing in front of me.

[Project Crimson: Startup sequence Initiated]

[Dust core at full charge]

[Safeties off. Aligning tributaries.]

[Dust core stabilizing…]

[Dust core stabilized]

[Dust core linked to aura synthesizers]

[Initiating aura synthesis]

That was when my body started glowing brightly, even as it started to dissolve, starting from my toes.

[WARNING! Aura influx detected. Scale: Class 7]

[WARNING! AURA CENTRE OVERLOAD IMMINENT!]

[Manual Directive issued: spreading aura to other areas.]

[ERROR! Logic core altered!]

[Restructuring logic core for optimal results…]

[Restructuring…]

[Restructuring complete. Estimated boost in performance: 70%]

[Aura fully stabilised. Aura appears to have unknown effects on frame. Proceed?]

By then my body had fully dissolved but I could still see the lines of text.

[Affirmation acknowledged.]

[Olfactory sensors online.]

A clinical, sterile smell, assaulted my nose.

[Textile sensors online. Temperature sensors online.]

It was cold. Hard and Cold.

And… My body felt cold, way colder than I thought possible.

[Auditory sensors online.]

Faint murmurings filled my ears and i wished that I could hear what they were talking about. To my immense surprise, my hearing immediately sharpened.

"-neral, that was unexpected."

"True. But it paid off. It paid off very well."

A sigh. "The council won't like this. You know how much they hate anomalies. Especially since-"

"The council will do what is best for themselves. Let them come."

A Pause.

A note of exasperation entered his voice as he continued, "Fine, I will—"

I didn't hear the rest of the sentence as another line appeared.

[Visual sensors online. Complete sensor package activated.]

I blinked.

And then blinked again.

Because surrounding the edge of my vision was some sort of Heads Up Display, and it seemed to point out areas I was focusing on.

Then suddenly I knew… I knew things I couldn't have possibly known.

Like how the ceiling was triple layered and heavily reinforced. Like how there was a circular dust? barrier that could be activated anytime to trap whatever was lying on the metal table. Like the code required to unlock the doors of this… Lab? Or even the heartbeat rates of all the people in the room.

Only there seemed to be a slight problem.

I didn't have a heartbeat.

What?

Upon my query, a piece of information popped into my mind…

And. It. Made. Me. Freeze.

As if I had finally found the missing puzzle piece, it suddenly made sense.

The lines of text. The random knowing of things. The senses no human should have.

My senses were like that, precisely because I wasn't human.

Where there should have been blood and muscles, there were only circuits and motors.

Where there should have been a heart, there was only a dust core.

Every inch of my internal body was inorganic, composed out of technology so complex, I couldn't even began to fathom how it was made. How I was made.

I was some kind of mechanical construct, a robot, if you will.

Ehh... I think its pretty understandable that I would be extremely confused.

I mean dying and then waking up as an android is pretty scary.

A sudden piece of information made me pause and rescan the individuals in the room again and then do it one more time.

Nonononononono

It wasn't possible, it just wasn't.

I turned to face them and my eyes widened.

Because standing in front of me, were General Ironwood, Penny Polendina and Dr. Polendina.

I tilted my head to the side and tried to calculate the chances of me somehow being in RWBY. Apparently, my mind took it literally and 3 seconds later, I was done calculating. The chances were... Not good. At all.

"Crimson? Are you alright?", Dr. Polendina questioned, a hint of worry in his voice.

What? Crimson? Oh... My new name. It was alright... I guess...

My revelation should have left me distraught. I shouldn't have been in the right frame of mind to even answer.

And yet answer I did. I found myself automatically answering in a cool, crisp tone, devoid of any emotion.

"Yes, I am alright," And as an afterthought I added, "Father. Thank you for your concern."

It was cold, mechanical and so unlike me.

However, Dr. Polendina seemed satisfied enough, if the grin on his face was any indication.

Then Penny approached me, in her own shy and unique way, head tilted down and shuffling towards me, before she blurted out.

"Willyoupleasebemyfriend?"

Earlier...

Penny looked at her Father's newest creation, wondering how she would be like? Would she like her or not? What if she hated her? What if she didn't want to be friends? What if…?

"Calm down Penny! It'll be ok!"

She was beautiful, Penny decided. Her eyes, the colour of her namesake Crimson, were wide and expressive, while her pale yellow hair framed her face in just the right way, with short bangs on the sides and one running down between her eyes. The rest of her hair cascaded over her shoulders, coming to rest around the small of her back. Crimson was clad in a silverish-grey skintight body suit, with glowing red blips of light travelling through the lines in the suit indicating that it was performing diagnostics.

Her features were perfect, almost to the point of it being unnatural.

When Crimson turned to look at Penny, her expression remained unchanged, though her eyes widened for a second, before it was gone as quickly as it had came, leaving Penny wondering if she had truly seen it.

Penny felt a comforting hand on her shoulder and she turned to see her Father smiling reassuringly at her, before gesturing towards Crimson.

So Penny shuffled towards her and before she could lose her nerve, blurted out a mumbled, "Willyoupleasebemyfriend?"

"No."

Penny's expression fell and she seemed to melt into ground even as a tangible aura of depression formed around her.

Before I continued, trying to use my most warm and reassuring tone.

"No Penny, I won't just be your friend. Because we are already siblings. And the bond we share is so much more than just friends. It means we are two halfs of a single whole."

Then I hugged her.

Though my tone still had a mechanical edge to it, it was definitely more normal, definitely had more feeling.

I always had a soft spot for Penny when I watched RWBY. Despite being some sort of super robot, she still had that child-like innocence and loyalty to her friends. And things like that were to be treasured if you considered that RWBY was essentially a world where people were hunted and killed constantly by monsters for no apparent reason. In fact, if the show had been more Grimm (God damn it Barb!) it could have possibly resembled Attack on Titan. The parallels were all there. So what reason did I have to not be an encouraging... sister? to Penny.

"Her thinking is surprisingly profound and mature... Did you program this in?"

"I've always thought that it would be good for Penny to have someone to talk to, so I did make Crimson's logic module a priority. But if you're implying that this was scripted response, then no. This is all her."

"That's... Interesting."

I resisted the urge to bite my lip as my enhanced hearing picked up on their quiet conversation. Which I wondered how could they possibly forget? Weren't they the ones for built me?

Back to the topic at hand, the more I thought about it, the more serious the repercussions of being seen as too intelligent and too human, became. Eh... I wasn't dumb. I was built to carry out a purpose. What purpose, i wasn't quite sure yet, but I was a machine, something built to serve.

And people were naturally wary when their tools became smarter than them.

Plus it could raise some inconvenient questions especially if they compared me with Penny who could sometimes be the very definition of social awkwardness.

Whelp, I decided, it wasn't like acting like a robot wasn't hard, in fact it was the opposite. It was my new nature and I had to actually make an effort to do otherwise.

I gently pried off the clinging Penny, before approaching General Ironwood.

I smiled slightly before snapping off a sharp salute.

"General Ir-"

That was as far as I got before the door blew in with a tremendous blast that shook the room.

For a moment all was quiet.

Then all hell broke loose as a stream of fire poured through the door, straight at our small group.

I was roughly slammed to the ground as General Ironwood tackled me out of the line of fire and I thanked my lucky stars that this body was way more durable than my previous one.

We quickly regrouped with Dr. Polendina and Penny under the cover of an overturned table, with the latter skillfully deflecting the hail of bullets with her array of swords.

I was scared, no scratch that, I was terrified. I had been a student in my past life and had absolutely zero experience with such situations.

All of this was real. The rounds screaming past my head, the shaking of the upturned table as bullets slammed into it. RWBY ceased being a show, this was real and my life was being threatened.

And I didn't want to die again.

"Crimson. Look at me. Your sister and I are going to handle the attackers, so you need to stay here and protect your father. Is that okay Crimson? Can you do that for me?"

I nodded numbly. Stay here and hide? I could do that.

Then a small black orb came arcing over the table, rolling to a stop beside me.

"SCATTER!" Ironwood roared.

However, even as I leapt away from the grenade, I knew I was in a bad spot, being the closest the grenade and likely well within its blast radius.

With a flare of blinding light and deafening sound, the grenade detonated.

But there was no explosive force or shrapnel.

A flashbang, an explosive that utilises high intensity light and sound to incapacitate and disorientate, my mind helpfully provided once again. So that explained why I was unaffected, since I could block out the excess light and sound.

That was worrying. They wanted us alive, but for what reason?

Spotting a dazed looking Dr. Polendina, I grabbed him by the arm before racing through a door into a side room and locking it behind us.

We found ourselves in some lab storage room.

Scanning the room, I realised that there was nothing to barricade the door with, but I did manage to find a metal bar as a makeshift weapon.

I could still hear the muffled explosions and screams coming from outside as the battle raged on.

This led to my second question, Who exactly was attacking us? In my frenzied state, I hadn't managed to get a glimpse of our attackers.

I had my suspicions though.

The White Fang member that demolished the door confirmed my guess.

A lean muscular faunas, he dragged his war axe behind him, metal scraping against the cold stone floor. Judging from his battle worn appearance, this was no ordinary grunt.

I tensely positioned myself protectively in front of father, metal bar held upright.

"Don't come any closer!"

The White Fang member took one look at me and chuckled darkly.

"A little girl trying to be a hero?" He pointed his axe at me before continuing, "Here's a lesson for you, there are no such things as heroes. The weak are the meat which the strong will feast upon."

"And right now you're the meat."

His axe easily cleaved the metal bar into half before he used the flat side of his axe to send me flying into the wall.

As I slid down the cracked wall, he approached me, axe raised overhead to deal a decapitating blow.

NO!

IdontwanttodieIdontwanttodieIdontwanttodieIdontwanttodie

[Combat mode engaged. 23 Hostiles detected. Determining course of action.]

[Course of action determined. Hostiles threat level: High. Elimination protocols engaged.]

My hand shot out, grabbing the shaft of the axe, stopping it a few inches from my neck.

A look of surprise appeared on the White Fang member's face even as his left fist followed up with a punch.

My right hand caught it mid motion before I twisted and with a sickening crunch, his wrist snapped.

"Your statement is in error."

I swept his leg out from under him, causing him to meet the floor with a loud THUD!

"Correction: You are the meat."

My calm voice didn't waver as my foot crushed his throat and I watched dispassionately as he expired.

1 down. 22 more to go.

As The General for the Atlas military, James Ironwood was not a man easily provoked. He believed in logical and decisive actions that gave his enemies no room for quarter, executed in a cold methodical fashion. And yet, his turbulent emotions were threatening to slip through his iron control.

The White Fang had somehow managed to get inside one of the most secure buildings in all of Atlas and even managed to sneak in a number of strike teams.

And now they were threatening his chief engineer and his child.

It didn't matter that he was way above their level, they were just sturdy enough to prevent him from dropping them like flies.

And. They. Just. Kept. Coming.

He and Penny couldn't keep this up forever, sooner or later someone would get past them and to make matters worse, security wasn't responding to his calls through his cybernetic implant.

The challenge wasn't beating them, that he could do easily. The difficult part came in when he had to keep them away from Crimson and Polendina, especially when they outnumbered them badly.

One of the leaders, a faunas wielding a war axe, motioned rapidly to the other White Fang members.

Ironwood narrowed his eyes.

Suddenly, a group faunas broke away, coming at him in a wedge formation.

He ducked under as a sword sliced the air above him, before kneeing the sword wielder in the stomach and dropping him with a downwards elbow strike.

The other four faunas circled him warily before they seemed to close in on him, only to pull back at the last second.

Something was wrong.

His fears were confirmed when the axe-wielding leader came barreling towards him at an incredible speed, glowing brightly.

Some sort of charging semblance. The other four were probably meant to box him in.

He leapt away, spin kicking a faunas that was in the way.

To his surprise, the leader just kept charging away from him. Towards the room where they were hiding in.

Shit.

The door shattered with one swing of his axe and the leader walked in.

Ironwood ducked and weaved through the crowd of faunas. He would get there in time. They would be fine. He didn't even bother to consider failure.

A silver blur sped out and... kicked? a white fang member into the wall, where he slumped down from the cracked wall.

What?

The blur revealed itself to be Crimson, her hair flowing behind her as she wielded a war axe half the size of her as if it were a mere toothpick.

Then she was across the battlefield cutting down White Fang members with a deadly grace, axe making deadly arcs through the air. Each strike was lethal and she didn't miss. Not once.

'That must be her combat mode… Polendina wasn't exaggerating when he said it was effective.' Ironwood mused grimly.

Between the 3 of them, the remaining members were quickly routed, with 4 taken alive.

THUNK!

The bloodstained axe carved a furrow into the ground as it was dropped.

Crimson looked like she had showered in red, and the irony wasn't lost on him.

Then she sank to her knees and her shoulders started shaking violently.

Drip! Drip! Splat!

The drops of blood dripped from the tips of her now red hair, painting the floor a deep shade of crimson.

It had been surreal.

Like a dream, where she was only an observer.

Where she had watched as she ruthlessly eliminated those threatening her.

Her hands clenched and she wanted nothing but to sob uncontrollably. But she couldn't. She lacked tear ducts.
'And a heart' she wanted to add.

Snow swirled around her as she stood at the edge of the balcony, overlooking the magnificent snow covered mountains of Atlas. It was a breathtaking scenery, but Crimson didn't pay the least bit of attention it was due.

She was a murderer.

And she didn't know what to think about it.

She had killed 12 people today and she knew that her hands would never be clean, just as how her memories of it would haunt her forever.

Admittedly, they had been trying to kill her and she had acted in self-defense but she still couldn't shake the feeling it was wrong, especially when she had cut them down in cold blood.

Argh! She was just so confused!

Then there was this whole situation. She had died and been reborn in the fictional world of RWBY.

The very idea of reincarnation was absurd, but reincarnating into a world that didn't exist was even more so.

She had already accepted the fact, that yes, somehow she was here but that didn't make it any better.

She had nearly been killed a few moments after her 'birth' and she had no intentions of dying again, so she had to take stock of the situation.

The problem about being in RWBY was that it was very new and she had only watched the first 2 volumes of it so far. She knew nothing about the overall plot, motive of the villains or even that much about the world of Remnant.

And RWBY was not such a nice world. Put in one mysterious and deadly force of monsters that killed humanity indiscriminately, forcing them to be confined to 4 major kingdoms and then adding, in said kingdoms, a deep-rooted racial conflict and discrimination between faunas and humans and you could have a very very bad situation. Eh... and there happened to be some dangerous bad guys trying to fulfil their own agenda by spreading chaos in the kingdoms?

Remnant could be a downright mean place.

And she had experienced it firsthand.

Chrrrunk!

Crimson gingerly removed her hand from the balcony railing, eyeing the handprint shaped indent, before resolving to deal with it later.

Hopefully, a long long time later.

Crimson took a deep calming breath— it didn't matter that she didn't actually need to —in an effort to sooth her jumbled thoughts.

Opening her hands, she allowed snowflakes to drift into them, feeling the chill. She wore a red-trimmed, white cloak over her silver bodysuit but it was more for appearances. The cold didn't bother her anyway.

A particular snowflake caught her attention.

12-sided and formed with intricate patterns, it was beautiful.

It was also the symbol of the Schnee dust company.

Her hand closed around the snowflake; before she spun on her heel and walked towards the exit, cloak billowing behind her.

If she was going to live here, then she needed answers.

AN: Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Rate & Review to get an imaginary cookie!

Crimson may seem a bit overpowered but that's because she was built with Remnant's most advanced technology and is some sort of super robot... More will be explained later. Plus she wasn't exactly facing top-notch opponents.

So why did she kill instead of just knocking out? In RWBY people are way tougher, thanks to aura. Knocking out someone becomes no longer easy nor reliable. I mean just look at Yang, she got thrown really hard and she was back on her feet after a few seconds. Or Weiss. She got chainsawed and was well enough to form an ice shield moments later. (These 2 examples take place in episode 11: No Brakes)