Hey so guys this was an idea I had a little while ago. I looked it up to see who had done it before (I figured someone had), and found, of course, multiple someones had made things similar to this. None of them explored it in the same way I would have like it to though, so I decided just to write my own. Anyway I would like to say to the 8 people that continuously read my other story The Power of Thought, thank you. I am not finished with that story, but I had this idea, and well... I wanted to write about it. So I'm just taking a short break from that to write this. Anyway I would really enjoy some reviews on my writing style, the story, the characters, the... Anything really. Just leave some reviews with questions or comments or anything else too. I really love reading about what you guys think, and the only way I can get better is by getting feedback. So without further ado here is the first chapter of whatever the hell I decide to call this.
I sat on the hard curb waiting for my bus to come pick me up. The curb, crumbling in places from over use, was slightly less than comfortable. The road itself was covered in a sheen of slick melted snow forming together just close enough for one to see their own reflection. That one was me.
As I stared down onto the wet road I noticed the scarring that had appeared on my left cheek. Nothing too bad, but still enough for questions to be asked. How did that- Oh yeah, I thought. Man, I was really hoping that was just a dream. My day had been eventful to say the least. So eventful in fact, that I thought I had hit my head, and had just dreamed it up. Guess I was wrong. The arrival of a yellow school bus effectively derailed my train of thought.
When the hydraulic doors opened, I stepped in. I sat down in the third seat from the front, my usual seat, and waited for the bus to fill. I was usually the first one on… And the last one off. My stop was as far from the school as the bus goes, and the wait never seemed to get shorter. I checked my phone: 2:45. The seat vibrated slightly, and I looked up. A small blonde boy sat down next to me, and smiled.
"Hey Jake," I said returning the smile, "Long time no see."
"Dude, it's been a day." He said with a chuckle. "Every day we get on the same bus, and you say that same exact thing. Doesn't it ever get boring?"
"Yeah. Yeah it does." I said as I returned my phone to my pocket.
"Hey Jake! Hey Kestrel, what happened to your face?" A larger kid sat down one seat in front of us.
Yes. My name is Kestrel. Yes I am a guy. No I don't care what the name means, or what gender is usually associated with it. And before you ask, yes I have played Splinter Cell: Conviction.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." I replied to the large olive skinned kid before me. As I breathed in I could smell the overpowering scent of fish. Then again, everybody who ate today's lunch smelled like fish so it wasn't that surprising.
"Try me," He said. Jake replied in much the same manner so I began my tale of woe and mystery.
Third Period- Just After Lunch
As I walked from the cafeteria to my third class of the day, I noticed something was off. Usually, I walk with some friends who either have lunch with me or meet me on the way. Today was different. The hallway I walked down to get to the stairwell every other day was completely empty. All the classrooms were dark, and not a soul was to be seen. I was alone.
That was okay though, I liked being alone at times. Not all the time, but at least some of the time. Eventually I got to the end of the hallway, and pushed open the door to the stairs. Again, empty. I was about to begin the climb up when I heard something off to my left. To my left was a door. A closed door I might add. Still it did nothing to absorb the noise.
Outside I could hear people talking loudly. Four voices. Ordinarily I wouldn't care in the least, but seeing as there had been nobody in the hallway prior, I decided to check it out. I opened the door, but was immediately thrown onto the ground. A shockwave of sorts threw me back into the stairwell, and slammed the door shut.
Before standing up, I checked my surroundings. Nothing was broken, the walls were fine, the ceiling was fine, and the door was even okay. I seemed to be okay, maybe a little shaken up, but still okay. I touched my cheek which seemed to have been scraped. Not much blood, but still enough to warrant unwanted question asking. I stood up, and opened the door once again. This time though, I was greeted by an eerie silence. No voices were speaking, there were no footsteps, there was no noise to be heard at all. I stomped on the ground to see if I had just been made deaf by the shockwave. Nope, I thought, not deaf. I opened the door and looked outside.
Aside from a small circle of missing grass, nothing seemed to be wrong. There was no evidence of an explosion of any kind, but there was still something wrong. Something seemed out of place. I inspected the circle. Once I was close enough to see what I had thought to be a very well made circle, I could tell that it was not what I was expecting at all. About 10 feet in diameter, the circle was not just well made, it seemed almost flawless. Inhumanly flawless. Next to the circle were two sneakers that I recognized almost immediately as my friend Kaitlin's. They were slightly off shade of bright pink, and there were chunks out of the toe on each shoe. She never told me why, but I always assumed she just had big feet.
Focus, I willed. I had to get to class, there was no way anyone would believe this until they saw it, and I wasn't about to bring my teacher out to see a pair of shoes. She would just think I was trying to waste class time, give me a detention, and be done with it. There was no way she would subscribe to the idea I was late because of some shockwave that did no damage to the building at all.
Whatever the case I knew I would have to run if I was going to get there in time, so run I did. I backed away from the circle, turned on my heels, and ran. I got hallway to the door before I heard someone yell. I thought about turning around, but that could mean bad things. There was a large plot of missing grass that I was now running away from for some unknown reason. Whoever was calling me would have to be incredibly stupid to not think I had something to do with it. Maybe though, maybe they hadn't seen my face. Maybe they didn't know who I was, and maybe, just maybe, I could get away scott-free.
I was almost to the door when I stopped. Or rather, was stopped, by someone. In front of me stood a small girl in a red and black hoodie, and matching skirt. On her back was a… Was that a cape? Yes. Yes it was.
"How did you...?" I asked trying to make sense of what just happened. One second there was no one, then the next second she was there. My senses were going crazy. My eyes were struggling to find the source of her speed. Sure she was small, but you'd still need massive legs to have gone that fast. I still heard nothing as if I were in fact deaf, but I smelled something for sure. Flowers? Yeah flowers. No. Wait yes, but more specific than that. I was frankly surprised that I even knew what any one kind of flower smelled like compared to another, but truth be told it was a pretty obvious smell. It was roses. The air around me smelled like roses.
"Are you listening to me?" The girl asked in a tone I couldn't really read. Usually reading people wasn't that hard from tone, but this girl didn't seem to put any tone into it at all. There was no anger, no annoyance, she didn't even seem hurt. It was just a simple question. Strange.
"Sorry," I said, "Could you say that again?"
"I asked if you were listening to me." She replied in the same tone as before.
"Right I know that, but usually when someone says that, they said something before that the person in question wasn't listening to."
"What?"
"Let's start over. What did you say first?"
"I asked what your name is."
"Oh, that simple eh? Well I'm Kestrel, and you are?" I set this one up specifically so she couldn't ask about my name. Years of experience perfected this technique, and it never failed.
"I'm Ruby. Isn't that a girl's name?" She asked.
"Ruby? Yes I think it is." I replied. Damn. She saw through it. This kid's good.
She chuckled, "No. I mean your name. Isn't Kestrel a girl's name?"
I sighed. It would seem I have to say this every time I meet someone new. "Technically it's a unisex name, but yes mostly girls use it. Anyway, I have to get to class. I'm already late, and I'm really not in the mood for detention right about now." I began walking around her and through the door.
"Wait! I have more questions!" She pleaded.
I turned around. I really didn't want to just leave her there, she looked so confused. Then again, I didn't want to get a detention either. "One more question Ruby, then I'm gone."
"Okay okay one question. Uh… Did you see what happened?"
"Sorry no. I was inside when it happened." I said.
"When what happened?"
"The shock- Hey didn't I say one question? I really have to go. I'm sorry," I said as I opened the door for the last time that day.
Bus Ride Home- After School
"What the hell man? You didn't try to figure out what happened? That's so unlike you." Asked the larger kid in front of me.
"Yeah well… I really didn't want to get a detention today. I have things I need to do after school." I replied.
"Like what?" Asked the blonde boy to my right.
"You know, homework and stuff," I dodged the question. It seemed it was going to be that kind of day.
"And what might that stuff be, huh? I know you broke your Xbox so that can't be it."
"Yeah, I have some stuff to do. You know, stuff. Like the good stuff, but not as good."
Gabe pushed my shoulder into the seat. "Come on you can tell us. What could it possibly be that has you so worried?"
"Well, I want to figure out who that girl was, and there is still Kaitlin's shoes. I have a feeling she wouldn't just leave them there in the middle of a field for no reason." I responded.
"Wait so you told us that you weren't going to find out who she was, just so you could figure out who she was? That doesn't make sense," Gabe asked.
In reality there was more to it than that, but I really didn't feel like explaining how I was going to sneak out, and go back after dark. They didn't need to know that, right? Probably not.
"Yeah that about sums it up."
"Whatever man."
Yeah, whatever.
The Circle- That Night
I arrived on the scene just in time to see… Nothing. There was still no one there, and the circle was still untouched. Even the shoes were still there. I approached the circle, but stopped midway from the road. I had seen something out of the corner of my eye, and I was still on school grounds so I could get in trouble pretty easy. I looked up the large sign outside our school that read: [Small Town] High School. The symbol of a boar with silver tusks was on the front. That was probably all it was. Just the mascot, I thought.
I began walking again. I reached the circle with no interruptions this time, but there was still something wrong about the whole thing. It felt like I was being watched, and I really didn't enjoy that feeling. Especially at night.
I stepped into the circle, and instantly I was aware of who my watcher exactly was. "Ruby, what are you doing here?" I asked the darkness. The girl had sprinted across my view so fast my eyes couldn't keep up with her leaving only the familiar scent of rose. The same roses I had remembered smelling in our first encounter.
"I could say the same to you Kestrel. I'm here to find out what happened here… And where here is."
"Where here is? What do you mean? Do you really not know where you are?"
She came out of the shadows then. "No! I don't know where I am, what happened, or what I'm going to do!" She yelled in a higher pitched voice than I had heard in a long while.
"Hey calm down," I soothed, "Ruby are you telling me you lost your memory?"
"No. I don't know. I remember being with my team, and then there was this shockwave that threw us in different directions, and then I was here. I don't remember where here is though. Are we even in Vale?"
"Um. Where the hell is Vale?" I asked.
"Vale, you know. Like the southernmost kingdom? Do you really not know where Vale is?" She asked with a quizzical look on her face.
"Never heard of it. Southernmost kingdom of what exactly? You know what never mind. I'm more interested in the shockwave you said you felt. I felt one here too, just before that circle appeared."
"Yeah there was this bright light, then this shockwave, then I just sort of-" Her voice faltered as a bright light appeared to our left.
I staggered back, planting my left foot behind my right one. I put my arms in front of my face trying to block the light from blinding me. The drastic change from almost pitch black to bright as the sun could easily have blinded me in an instant.
This time I was ready for the shockwave, and I braced myself for the gut wrenching effect. All the good it did me… I was thrown off the ground reducing my defense to nothing. I flew back twenty feet, and landed on the back of my neck. The shockwave kind of forced me into some sort of a roll which may have saved my life, but it still hurt like hell. I landed on a mixture of limbs and back, and was able to stand up again with minimal resistance.
Looking around I noticed Ruby had landed on her feet a few yards to my right. "Are you alright?" She shouted even though we were right next to each other. The shockwave had the same deafening effect that it had had before.
"Yeah! You?" I shouted back at the girl, who nodded curtly before looking on to the new circle that had just formed next to the first one. In the center of the circle was a girl.
Okay so there is a story with the name Kestrel, but I don't feel like explaining it just yet. Maybe later. Also I want to point out some things in this AU. There is not RWBY the show because while I want this to be realistic I also want it to be fun to write, and I really don't want to have to talk about a psuedo anime that the people come from. Another thing, all of the characters that will be in this will be popping up very close, and there is a reason they didn't all arrive together that I will explain later. They will also arrive close to the same spot Ruby did (Nothing like Emergence though I did like that story), and to top it all off this is a psuedo inverted self insert reverse-ish thing. I am drawing a lot from myself for the main character, but he is not me, and other stuff about him (Has not been explained yet!) is not the same as with me. Did that make sense? Whatever.
Damn, there were some other things I wanted to talk about here, but I can't think of them so I guess you got off easy this time. Anyway follow and favorite if you want to see more. Leave a review if you do or don't, just remember to tell me why. Okay so bye, and I'll see you next chapter (I'll try to get it out soonish. This one took me an hour or two split between two days so I can't guarantee anything).