Hey, everybody. This is Hyperjade.
Welcome to Silent, a new story. This, like Absol Lhant, will likely be updated less than the main three I currently have running. I will update when I have the urge to write a chapter for it, ignoring the cycle of stories.
Next thing that must be said: I will do my best NOT to spoil another story during this one, and I doubt I will. However, you might find some information you find interesting nonetheless.
This started out as an experimental chapter, but I find myself interested in where it could go. I do like RWBY. As in, I really enjoyed it. I do certainly disagree with many of the choices that were made during the third season, but that is my opinion, and it does not detract from the first two seasons in any way. I will simply adjust events in season three if I get that far to fit what I would prefer happened.
And with nothing else to actually say to start this off, Welcome, everyone, to the world of Remnant.
Chapter 1
"Wake up, kid."
Blank darkness. One voice. Nonthreatening. Warm. Kind? Important? Order given… First hand clenches. Soil can be found underneath. Second hand clenches. There is a stone. Right leg moved. Weight on the legs. Familiar?
Hands push down, right knee pulled under, back bought back, left leg pulled forward, left foot planted on the ground. Kneeling position. Unfamiliar position. Eyes closed. Warm light apparent. Sunlight?
"You're not where you're supposed to be."
Statement. Confusion. Accurate? Assessing the situation. Earth underneath. Air feels… Richer? Sharper. More oxygen. More energizing. Where is this?
"Well, maybe you are."
Contradiction. Confusion. Speaker's own uncertainty is evident. Warm light creating calm. Friend? Enemy? Target? Why target?
"Maybe this will help."
Tone. Multiple potential meanings. Misunderstood. Require clarification.
"Maybe you're exactly where you are supposed to be."
Understood. Location appears to be capable of helping. Help what? Confusion… Why is there so much confusion?
"At least, now. Now you are."
Unclear. Was there danger?
"You will never have to do what you used to do."
Dangerous occupation?
"Am I confusing you?"
Confusion. Seeming contradictions. Direct question. Nod.
"Maybe I should be more clear…"
Appreciation. Relief. Foreign thoughts.
"Welcome to your new life."
New life. New location. Foreign thoughts and emotions. Further understanding. Lack of memory. Background sounds apparent. Birds singing. Familiar sound. Different meaning. Eyes open. Failure to understand.
The boy in his kneeling position opened his eyes. Looking upwards at the girl in front of him, he stared blankly. Gold. White and gold. Female. Unnatural gold color. Glowing. Golden eyes. Weapon in hand.
"Hey, kid." The girl said, smiling down at the confused boy. "Glad to see you awake. I decided to just wake you up after a little bit. Some introduction would be nice, obviously. I nicked the dialogue from earlier from the description, of course."
Description? Introduction?
"I'm Magic." The girl said, striking her thumb to her chestplate. "Guardian of, but you don't have to include that bit if you don't want to. So here's the deal. This is an entirely different world, with entirely different people, with entirely different laws of physics and magic and darkness and everything else."
The boy ran through his disjointed thoughts, staring at the girl. He waited. She laughed at him, which caused surprise and confusion to flash through his eyes.
"You don't have to wait around for orders anymore." She told him.
Is that what I am doing?
"Yep. That's what you're doing. I'm not gonna tell you to stand up. Heck, you don't even have to listen to my explanation if you don't want to." She replied to the unspoken question.
Astonishment. No words spoken. Permission to move freely? Why had I waited for it?
"Making progress already, are we?" She asked with a smile "Good. Fixing people's heads is always easy to get right, but then you have to make sure that the people get back into the groove of actual life. You might have realized by now that you remember very little."
Blank. Search the mind, receive no signal.
"That is honestly because you didn't have much capacity to remember. You would only remember a few things from your past, considering most of your mind was completely inoperable." The girl continued.
…?
"Basically, all you had was the ability to remember one target and…. Well, your only function was to kill. The people who damaged you permanently, they only left your mind able to keep what might be necessary to kill your target, and to obey orders. I obviously fixed that."
Killing was my sole purpose?
"Yes, unfortunately." The golden girl waved her hand dismissively. "But that's nothing compared to who you are now. Blank slate, kid. None of the times you killed mean anything to the people of this world. And because you have your mind this time, you can make yourself a life here."
A life…
"So I'll let you get to it, actually. It's probably better that you learn from the locals rather than little old me." Magic decided. "By the way, your train's leaving in twenty minutes. You should probably get on it."
...Train?
"Now, off I get. Have fun, Mute. And remember: Fighting may be what you will mostly be best at, but try to make some friends, okay?"
...Friends?
But the golden girl vanished in a flash of light, leaving the boy alone. He slowly stood up, looking around himself. The trees held bright orange colors. Everything around him showed the colors of fall. He looked down. On his feet were two metal boots with a familiar weight. In front of him was a little tablet made of gold.
"Oh, and before I forget… Well, I'm sending this to you because I totally forgot, guilty as charged, but still, I decided on a semblance for you. Considering you've never been able to speak, making you able to might have confused you more than necessary. So others can understand what you want to say through eye contact. Simple enough? Look people in the eyes and think. Go for it, kid."
Mute watched as the tablet vanished in golden light as well. He blinked. Confusion, yet with a goal in mind. He started walking, unsure of his direction.
Clank.
His boots made an awful lot of noise.
In ten minutes, he came across a ravine of sorts with a set of large tracks along the bottom. He stared at those tracks for several minutes, mentally placing them in his memory as well as he could. There would be a train of sorts… Through here?
Yes. A massive line of cars started roaring past at intense speeds. This was his 'train' that the golden girl mentioned.
The boy's expression never changed as he watched it, even eyes staring it down. Then, when he felt that it was time, he leaped and began skidding down the steep slope with his boots. Then, he leaped, instinctively bringing his boots around as sickle-shaped blades slid from the bottom of them.
He slammed into the roof of the building, his blades slowing his movement to a halt and leaving large rents in the metal surface. Mute inspected the weapons in his boot, realizing he somehow knew how to make the blades retract themselves, flicking his foot so that they did not get in the way. Knowledge of his weapons he found in his memory, the only thing that was truly clear to him.
He saw nothing else to do but walk on. The train rushed onwards through the forest, and Mute continued watching the ridges of the forest above as he walked, keeping in mind that ambushes could happen.
Clank
Clank
Clank
Clank
This continued for quite some time. The boy walked up and found himself at a trap door of sorts. He blinked, looking at it. There was a lock-like thing on it. Mute stared at it almost uncomprehendingly, uncertain of what he was intended to be doing with this door. Should he just walk on?
Eventually, he decided it didn't matter so much to him. He didn't need to open this door, certainly not. The weather was pleasant. And the wind elicited a sense of calm. So he continued walking, past the door.
Eventually, an open part of the train was obviously there to go down to. Mute saw that there were some sort of mechanical things walking around the place. It was likely a good thing that he had not landed in such a place, instead electing to land on the roof of one of the closed cars.
There he stood, white t-shirt and long pants flowing in the wind, as he stared down at everything. Then, he sensed something. His head turned as he witnessed two specks sail from the passing landscape much like he did and skidded to a halt on the train. Then, they darted forward at impressive speeds to emerge right by the door the boy had skipped earlier.
The male flashed his blade and severed the lock, and then held it open. It appeared as though the door had been important after all. After the two vanished into the building, Mute turned around and continued looking over the platform in front of him, wondering if he should continue moving forward.
Even as he started hearing a commotion directly beneath him, and metal being torn apart, he was tilting his head slightly and watching the patterns of the robots change. It seemed that they had been somehow alerted of something. They began to run towards the boy, who did not visibly tense.
Then, the door beneath him that he had not seen was blasted off its hinges and sent flying into the distance, running over a few robots. He looked on blankly as the two he had seen before, a male and a female, ran on, tearing into the robots. He saw the girl use some odd ribbon weapon that she swung the gun and blade attached to it around, slicing enemies to pieces as she did so.
The other one, he flashed his blade out of its sheath and back into it, and the enemies in front of him would fall to pieces with relative ease. The boy analyzed the two quickly. The girl, he could sever the ribbon she used to make her weapon work. Mute, he could block the weapon and keep it from entering its sheath and proceed to defeat him.
Then the sheath apparently became a shotgun of sorts when the blade was removed. This was troublesome, but Mute soon had an idea of how to deal with it. He recognized his skill in this manner, seeing that he seemed to already know how to defeat these two.
The two ran into the next car up, and the boy, seeing that there were no robots left, stepped off of the roof and fell onto the next car without much hassle. Walking along the side of the car, seeing the ground race beneath him, the boy avoided the standalone crates and piles that somehow stayed on the car, and walked towards the destination of the two others.
He leaped to the top of the next car and continued walking along it, hearing more of a commotion in there. These weapons seemed different. And whatever was walking was making the same noise as his boots as it walked.
Then a humming noise reached his ears, and he looked over the edge of the next car, to see that door being blasted apart as the two people were thrown away by a strike of sorts.
The large robot that approached out of the gate to meet them caught the boy's attention. The robot approached the two, and the man turned to his female companion. "Buy me some time!" He shouted.
"Are you sure?"
"Do it!"
The girl darted in towards the robot. Mute watching the battle then witnessed her power in action. As he watched images of her be blown away while she appeared elsewhere. That would be more difficult to combat than the man.
The boy dropped down to the platform and began walking along the metal surface as the robot blasted it's massive beam attack again. However, the man caught it with his blade and shoved the energy into this sheath. Mute found this particularly familiar. Yet the boy walked on. He saw out of the corner of his eye as the male he had been watching used that energy to completely vaporize the pouncing spider bot.
Adam finished sheathing his weapon and stood up. He heard more clanking along the ground, which sounded an awful lot like the spider bot. He turned, only to blink in confusion behind his mask. The man watched a boy with orange hair walk right by them, stepping onto the next car, almost as if what he had just walked by was of no consequence to him.
Adam turned and saw Blake standing upon the train, the wind blowing her hair about as she stood right before the connecting piece for the train. Adam saw what she was going to do ahead of time, and held his hand out in protest, as well as confusion.
"Goodbye." She said quietly and drew her blade. She proceeded to sever the carlink and Adam's side of the car lurched as it began to slow, no longer pulled behind the rest of the train. He stared in shock as the girl's car moved out of jumping range.
"What about the crew members?" The words echoed through Adam's memories. He growled and clenched his fists. That had cost him. He stared at the girl, who was still visible, recognizing a look of sadness, perhaps even disappointment.
Adam did not know what to make of it. So he watched the girl move away from him, entirely forgetting about the boy that had simply walked past them so carelessly it seemed that it hadn't mattered at all.
Blake was not so sure of that. After she watched the back end of that train vanish into the hills as the train passed a corner, she turned, seeing the boy continue to walk away. "Hey!" She called.
The boy stopped and turned his head to look at her out of the corners of his eyes.
"Who are you?" She asked warily.
Mute looked her in the eyes, as he had been told to do.
I don't know.
Blake frowned. "You don't…" she trailed off, blinking "How did you-"
However, the boy continued to walk away. Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank. His footsteps rang through the silence as he traveled forward. "...You should stay here." Blake told the boy, who stopped. "There will be more security just ahead, and maybe more actual people further down. It would be easier just to get off when you can."
The boy turned to her again.
I do not know where I am going.
Blake's frown deepened. She did not know how he was expressing his points, but he clearly had no idea where he was going or what he was doing. "Then stay here. I will lead you." She offered.
She received a nod, and the boy walked closer to her. She tensed, but he simply stood next to her and silently gazed upon the track as it rushed below.
Blake stared at the boy as they neared their stop. Confusion nagged at the back of her mind as she tried to understand the boy in front of her, and why she had invited him along. Something about his turquoise eyes and orange hair seemed odd, like he was in no way normal.
Perhaps that reminded her quite a bit of herself. The boy in front of her never spoke, never even opened his mouth. He looked her in the eye, and she knew what he needed to know or was asking. Blake, in a moment of amusement, joked in her mind that it was usually people who knew each other for most of their lives who could just understand each other with a look.
"This is our stop…" she muttered, seeing that the train was passing through the city now, and slowing down. The boy that had decided to follow her jumped off after her, as they landed on the walkway nearby.
Blake looked over, seeing that the pavement around the boy had cracked under his boots. Not very stealthy, that one. He lifted his feet from the damaged ground and stepped onto the regular, undamaged ground, and looked at the girl. He tilted his head a bit, blinking.
What are we doing here?
"Getting away from the White Fang," Blake replied. "And I have an idea of how to go about this."
The boy looked at the arena surrounding him. Above the room, in a rectangular window, stood a victorious Blake and a man known as professor Ozpin. "Do you believe this boy is ready?" Ozpin asked the girl beside him.
"Not for certain," Blake replied shortly. "He is very strange."
"That much is for certain." Ozpin nodded. "It is not often that I see turquoise eyes."
Before Blake could think too much about why the odd man continued to mention their eye colors, Ozpin pressed a button down. "We are going to ask you to demonstrate your skills in combat through a series of tests. Please, attempt to strike every target you can."
Mute looked up through the window, straight into Ozpin's eyes.
Okay.
Ozpin blinked, as he had the last time the boy communicated with him. Interesting that the boy's semblance appeared to be to communicate through eye contact.
Ozpin began the mechanism for short range combat. The boy's eyes seemed to shadow over as he waited, and the two watched, noticing that he still stood listlessly. Blake looked on with eyes narrowed. "What is he doing?" She asked, talking more to herself than anybody else.
The first target, a small red and white disk on a stick, shot from a slot the boy stood near. The target was instantly slashed into three neat pieces by the boy's boot, which had produced sickle-like blades from the base.
The boy's eyes never changed from that calm or sometimes dull look. Eventually, targets began to appear and be destroyed as quickly as they emerged. The cheaply made targets approached at impressive speeds, and the boy missed not one. Blake watched as her score was easily surpassed before the targets became too distant for Mute to hit them all for no other reason than his legs were not long enough.
Ozpin ended the program calmly, seemingly neutral about what he had just witnessed. Blake, however, wondered what might have become of her had this kid turned out to be an enemy. Being on the losing side constantly and fighting back… It tends to put a self-preservation instinct within oneself.
Ozpin nodded at Glynda, who had joined them. "I have decided to welcome these two to Beacon Academy." He told the woman, who nodded curtly, and wrote something down on her screen using a stylus.
"Very well, Ozpin." She said to the man, before turning and leaving the room. As the boy made his way out of the room, Blake had to admit that she was very impressed with the speed the boy showed in combat even with such heavy and unorthodox weapons.
Mute approached. Ozpin sensed his wish to understand why the woman he passed had been so angry. "Glynda is simply short-tempered and… Overly formal." The headmaster explained. "And the fact that you tore apart the metal surface of the arena seems to have given her a foreboding feeling."
The boy blinked before looking at Blake.
"I don't know what's next," Blake answered the unspoken question.
"You two may preemptively stay in rooms at the academy until such time as the school year starts," Ozpin said. He had determined Blake's identity quickly. The boy that accompanied her, however, he was confused by. Yet, the boy made it clear that he did not have a place to go considering how he spoke, or rather, communicated.
The boy nodded, as did Blake. The two departed the room quickly, emerging in a hallway near the elevator to professor Ozpin's office. "This place seems more informal than I imagined," Blake commented.
Her acquaintance was looking out a window at the grounds, and did not answer. The girl realized that the boy quite literally had no idea what to do next, so she began walking through the building with her book in her hands. Immediately, she was aware of the sounds of the boy walking behind her, following her like a lost puppy. She shivered at the analogy she made. Kitten. Lost kitten.
"Where do you come from?" She asked, turning to him. She learned that he was uncertain, and that, to her surprise, he had few memories. She then learned that some girl had woken him up, spoken some gibberish, and then disappeared. "That is… Odd."
He nodded, and she continued. "So I guess your semblance is to communicate with eye contact…" she muttered, "Can you actually speak?"
No.
She looked away, feeling awkward. This kid was very difficult to talk to. Keeping someone in your eyesight at all times while you talk to them, well, people may get the wrong idea from two people staring into each others' eyes constantly.
"...Have you ever opened your mouth?"
Apparently not. The girl sighed and rubbed her temples. "Okay." she said, "I think we're supposed to make do for the next few days."
And looking at the boy's blank face, she recognized that these next few days would be particularly awkward and boring at times. It was a good thing she had bought her books.
"Oh, I can't believe my baby sister is going to Beacon with me! This is the best day ever!"
"Please stop…" Ruby muttered weakly as she was being crushed by her powerful sister.
All of the new students were flying to Beacon for the first time now. The first years were doing various things on the ride, including the many, many people who were staring out of the windows to watch the city below. It was Pyrrha who calmly sat on a chair in the transport, reading the recent news and listening to the young girl complain about wanting to have normal knees.
She looked at the roster for the school, watching the people fly by as she scrolled down. After her tests to be allowed into the school, she had requested this list of people that she may wish to become acquainted with.
Her finger ghosted across the sensitive holographic screen, causing names and images to fly by. She could see who was here, and their pictures, but she had no further information. Pyrrha had accepted the limitation that she would not be granted further information because that information was very obviously private. However, she could still learn what to expect.
Cardin, for example, had a smug smirk on his face in the picture, telling her that he was someone to be wary of.
She stopped at some names that she had not seen before. They had been recently added. Blake Belladonna, and a boy simply named Mute. No last name, and the image was odd. She felt an odd surge of wariness seeing that expression on the boy. His orange hair and turquoise eyes would have helped make his expression brighter and more clear, if he did not bear a slight frown and dull eyes.
Something about that image concerned her. She did not even notice the boy stumbling past her, airsick. "Friend of yours?" A boy named Ren asked, seeming to appear directly next to her. She shivered from the boy's silent entrance, but she looked at him for a moment.
"No, I was simply searching the roster." She told the boy "Does anything about his expression seem… Off to you?"
"Like he's barely awake." Ren shrugged. "Must have been tired after whatever challenge he went through to get into this school. Maybe they took his picture right after."
"Perhaps…" Pyrrha admitted, continuing to scroll on until she found the boy next to her. "Ren, huh?"
"That's me." He nodded. He sat down next to Pyrrha, and the warrior realized that Ren had a shadow. A bright pink and white shadow with orange hair.
"Hey, Ren!" She exclaimed.
"Hello, Nora," Ren replied in his quiet voice.
The hyperactive girl zipped all the way around the seat and next to Pyrrha faster than Pyrrha could fathom. "Oooh," she said, sending the list of students flying up on the screen very quickly with a flick of her hand. She then stopped it with a finger, right on herself. "It's me!"
"How did she do that?" Pyrrha asked herself mentally. Ren shot her a look that said: Just roll with it.
Pyrrha surrendered the list to the excited girl and sat back, trying to relax. "Welcome to Beacon…" she murmured. She was soon distracted by a news report about the man named Roman Torchwick, who was responsible for many of the recent crimes that involved stealing dust. This was followed by more news of the White Fang attacking during what was supposed to be a peaceful civil rights protest. Finally, Glynda Goodwitch interrupted that bit of news with her welcoming speech.
"Who's that?" Pyrrha heard a blond girl nearby ask.
"I am Glynda Goodwitch."
"Oh."
Ren chuckled at the sight, before paying close attention to the words that Glynda used.
Pyrrha traveled alone after a polite goodbye to the odd duo out of the airship, witnessing a boy with a simple sword and sheath throwing up in the nearest bin, she tried to ignore it and walk onwards. She traveled straight towards the building, having seen it before and did not spend time marveling on the design of the building.
Indoors, the crowd of people was growing. Mingling and talking. She saw a familiar girl with bright blond hair being swarmed by her friends, and she saw her new acquaintances Ren and Nora off to the side. She supposed the quiet boy had grown accustomed to his eccentric friend.
Pyrrha walked through the crowd, politely asking to be let by as she attempted to forge her way through the crowds. The room was teeming with people, all getting to know one another in the most distracting of ways.
However, there was one place devoid of other people. The boy, who she remembered was simply called 'Mute', stood utterly alone. He had his arms listlessly by his sides, looking up at the stage blankly. Pyrrha steeled herself and strode forward. "Hello?" She asked. The boy looked her in the eye, turning his head.
She blinked. "Are you alright?" She asked. She sensed that the boy was confused to a degree, yet anticipating the speech to come. Pyrrha blinked again. How had she read him so easily? "Erm… What is your name?" She asked, despite knowing the answer.
She learned that it was Mute again, just like that. How was this kid doing what he was doing? Pyrrha began to feel extremely creeped out by Mute. When she said nothing more, he turned back to look at the stage, apparently not one to strike up conversation.
Mute watched the girl leave out of the corner of his eyes. He had not understood her wariness. The girl before, Blake, had shown less wariness than that. Looking straight at the stage felt like something he might do, yet he kept having an urge to do something entirely different. Mute became confused attempting to decide which to do.
He forced his eyes away from the stage many minutes later, in the end. Nothing was happening up there. Perhaps that was why he was compelled to look away. "Bored of staring at nothing?" A cocky voice asked him.
He turned to look at the teenager before him. He was taller than Mute. He had a smirk that had Mute thinking he might do something he would regret. "What's with the blank stare?" He asked.
Mute offered no answer. The boy stared this new kid in the eyes, unimpressed with the boy's attempt at aggravating him. He did not know the name of this boy, but walking away may be a good idea. The silent boy, deciding he had no intention of staying, stepped away from the offending boy.
"Where do you think you're going?" The boy asked.
No response.
"Running away from me?"
No response. Mute was elsewhere. Cardin blinked, then narrowed his eyes.
Mute regretted changing what he was doing a few moments later as a crowd of people promptly went to trample him as they moved in a group. Steeling his stance, the boy allowed the group of people to swarm around him and away.
He watched them go blankly, not truly thinking much about it, when he turned and his face slammed into something unprecedented. His momentum even in the first step was enough to knock the thing back, which turned out to be a girl with bright blond hair and quite the interesting set of clothing.
His eyes widened slightly upon seeing her face and blonde hair. He was given a flash of memory of a girl with similar blond hair and a similar face, smiling and laughing amongst some creatures of sorts. His leg muscles twitched, and he realized he had almost attacked the girl right there. "Oh, Hi." the girl said, her very bright hair swaying behind her. "Didn't see you there. What's your name?"
Mute forced himself to look the girl in the eyes. What did she remind him of so much that he almost lashed out on instinct? He directly thought of his name, and the girl, like most others showed surprise at his method of communication. But to his surprise, she recovered quite quickly. "That's cool." She said with a smile.
Mute tilted his head in confusion. Cool? What did the temperature have to do with his method of communication?
Apparently, that question had reached the girl, who laughed. "Not exactly a social animal, are you?" She asked teasingly "Well, I'm Yang. Nice to meet you." Mute blinked a couple times at this enthusiastic interaction between him and her.
He expressed his confusion and then informed the girl that she reminded him of someone.
"...Well, I don't know who that is, but hey. That's fine. We can still be friends." She told the boy, who blinked and tilted his head again. What did she mean by friend?
Yang did wind up taken aback this time. "What!?" She exclaimed, "You don't even know what 'friend' means?"
Mute shook his head, before looking at her with his blank expression once more. He watched Yang turn away and start muttering to herself. "Something must be done about this." She muttered in a serious tone, before she turned back. "Okay!" She exclaimed, moving over and wrapping her arm around the boy's shoulders "Friend lesson number one!"
Mute tensed as the girl touched him and then tensed even more as she pulled him away. She hadn't explained anything to him. "Friends hang out with each other, for starters," Yang said, having fully decided to be Mute's friend no matter how creepy that stare could be.
Hang out? Mute wanted to know, meeting her eyes.
"Okay, if you don't know what that means, I'll just have to teach you that too." Yang decided quickly, figuring this kid had lived devoid of any real human interaction for his entire life if he didn't know these things. "But that speech is about to start, so let's start by hanging out and listening to it!"
She pulled Mute over to a spot in the crowd where they could see the stage, and Yang shooed away some people scrambling to find places to stand for whatever reason. Mute wound up standing by her without much understanding as to why this girl was talking about random things with her. He preferred talking to Blake. That one stayed on topic, at least. This girl was just going on about random things, it seemed. Talking about her baby sister attending Beacon quite a bit.
And Mute eventually saw why, considering how Yang suddenly called over to a girl who had just walked into the room. "Ruby! Over here!" Yang called, drawing her sister's attention. "I saved you a spot!"
Both watched the short girl in red and black quickly say something to 'vomit boy', as Yang called him when she leaned over to whisper about the guy in Mute's ear. Mute was rather certain that the boy's name wasn't actually vomit boy. Nevertheless, the girl bounded up to the two of them, ignoring Mute for the moment.
"How's your first day going, little sister?" Yang asked Ruby.
Ruby looked cross. "You mean since you ditched me and I exploded?" She asked. Mute looked over at the girl with mild surprise showing on his face.
"Yikes. Meltdown already?" Yang asked.
"No, I mean I literally exploded a hole in front of the school!" She exclaimed. Mute believed her, considering the expression on her face. "And there was fire, and I think some ice?"
"Are you being sarcastic?" Yang asked slowly, teasingly.
"Ugh, I wish. I tripped over some crabby girl's luggage, and then she yelled at me…" Ruby began explaining, and Mute stiffened at the presence of another girl right behind her that he could see. She approached slowly as Ruby spoke, and Mute tensed, ready to strike if anything unfortunate happened.
"You!"
Ruby jumped straight into Yang's arms. "Oh god it's happening again!" She whimpered.
The white haired girl glared at her. "You're lucky we weren't blown off the side of the cliff!" She shouted angrily.
Yang looked down at her sister in her arms. "Oh my god you really exploded." She said slowly, in realization. Mute recognized now that the confusion was over for the moment, although he still wondered if he was going to have to kick this white girl before she attacked the red girl. He also wondered if it would be appropriate to be lethal about it. Most likely not.
"It was an accident!" Ruby protested, getting back to her feet. "It was an accident!" Suddenly, an odd piece of paper was shoved in her face. "What's this?"
"The Schnee Dust Company-..." The girl began to ramble on in a pre-prepared speech that was harder and harder to listen to as time went on. Mute memorized every word while the other girls promptly zoned out.
"Uh…" Ruby looked at her.
"Do you really want to start making things up to me?" She asked.
"...Absolutely?"
The girl shoved her pamphlet into Ruby's hands. "Read this and don't ever speak to me again." She ordered, before turning around. Yang spoke up quickly.
"Look, I think you guys just had a bad start. Why not try to be friends?" She offered. Mute glanced at the girl, mentally asking if 'friend', simply meant the opposite of 'enemy'. "No, it's a bit more complicated than that, Mute." Yang continued.
Weiss finally stopped and looked at the silent boy. Ruby noticed him at the same time, and suddenly Mute had three girls staring at him. He looked from one to the other, not bothering to think any specific questions.
"Why's he called Mute?" Ruby asked, totally distracted now. She seemed to have gotten distracted very easily.
"Because he's mute, you dip." Weiss proclaimed after a moment. "He clearly can't or won't speak."
"Oh…" Ruby said. She looked a bit downtrodden. Mute felt a stab of sympathy, a new emotion for him to deal with yet again, which irritated him, considering he had no idea how to sort it out. He settled for looking Weiss in the eyes and giving her the simple message that he could still communicate.
Weiss stepped back away from him. "Okay, that is extremely creepy." She announced, confusing Ruby quite a bit. The young girl looked between Weiss and Mute confusedly. Mute stayed silent, obviously.
Confusion. Feeling. Undefined emotion. Confliction. Mute narrowed his eyes at the offending girl, who growled and left. Ruby looked at the boy weirdly. "One of your friends, sis?" She asked.
Mute was going to inform her in his own way that he did not know for certain, but Yang had her arm around his shoulders again. "Yep!" She exclaimed, "We're officially besties!" Mute could only blink and wonder what that new word meant. Apparently it had something to do with being friends, and this girl was beginning to cause his shoulders to ache, even considering his physical durability.
He shot Ruby a look that said something along the lines of "help."
She realized that he had tried to say that, and said: "Yang, I think you're crushing him."
"Whoops!" The girl released Mute, who quickly took a step back and nearly faded into the background. He then snapped to attention and looked at the stage before any other person in the crowd as he sensed Ozpin approaching.
"Your friend has good ears," Ruby commented as they saw what Mute had been looking at.
"Yeah, he's awesome," Yang said. Then, Ozpin began his speech. With every person in the crowd paying attention, the man gave his version of a motivational speech and then informed the others of where to go next. Mute quickly realized he had learned all of this before and tuned it out. He elected to search Blake out in the crowd he stood in, only finding her near the end of it. She stood near the door with a book in her hand as she too waited for the speech to be over.
The boy tried to sneak away from Yang the moment the speech ended, but her hand landed on his shoulder. "C'mon," she said, walking with him. "We're off to the sleeping area."
Mute shot Blake the look that said "help" like he had done with Ruby, but she wasn't looking his way, and the message never got there. The boy gave up after a few moments and turned to walk alongside the two girls, choosing to analyze the weapons used by the numerous students he would be surrounded by for his time here in Beacon. A collapsible staff, a fire sword, a set of blades that extended past the elbows from the wrists, and a large amount of weapons that also appeared to be guns, unlike Mute's own weapons.
He could not truly identify the gun that Ruby had strapped to her belt, as it looked like it was a collapsible weapon of some description. Yang's weapons were clearly compacted into those bracelets she wore, the golden color of which reminded him quite a bit of the golden girl named Magic.
Speaking, or rather, thinking of Yang, he noticed that aside from her eye color, she reminded him both of Magic, who had woken up, and someone else that he was certain he had seen before, someone whose faint memory was enough to make him twitch sometimes when looking at Yang's face.
"But I look among you, and all I see is wasted energy" Mute remembered Ozpin saying. "A need for purpose, direction."
Mute looked back at the stage, but the gray-haired man was gone. "You ready for initiation, then?" Yang asked the boy as he stared off into space.
He looked back at her. Yes, he was ready. He was always combat ready.
"You ever take those boots off at all?" Ruby asked. He met her eyes next. No, he did not believe he ever took his weapons off. "Oh!" Ruby exclaimed "Those boots are your actual weapons? That's so cool!"
Mute looked at Yang. There was that word, 'cool' again. "Oh, no. It just means something like awesome or good, not the temperature meaning." Yang answered the question. Mute nodded and turned back to Ruby. He lifted his knee, and flicked his toes down, causing the two parallel sickle blades to emerge from the bottom of his boot. He then watched the girl absolutely squeal with delight, which surprised him until she brought her weapon around, and it expanded into a full on scythe with a similar shaped blade. "You have scythes!" She cheered happily.
Mute snapped his toes back up, sealing the blades away once more. He set his foot down with a clank, and proceeded to continue walking. Ruby went back to the topic of the headmaster. "It was almost like that guy wasn't even there." She commented.
"That's how he acted before I started dragging him along." Yang pointed to the boy who was walking away. "Think they're related?"
"Somehow, I doubt it," Ruby replied. "Hey, he's getting away."
"What? Get back here!" Yang exclaimed, running after the boy. Ruby giggled to herself as she watched her sister keep the guy in check, thinking about how Yang liked to get up close and personal with antisocial people and go about fixing that.
Many hours later, everything was fixed up for the night, with sleeping bags and the like. Ruby was writing on a piece of paper with a pen while Yang walked towards her with Mute in tow, as she was still keeping the boy around and talking to him about seemingly random things. He would look at people and hope for assistance, but that assistance was not provided.
"It's like a big slumber party!" Yang dropped down next to Ruby so powerfully Muse wondered if her shoulder was all right.
Mute saw Blake sitting down with her book nearby. He had a valid way to escape these two if he needed it.
"Not sure if dad would approve of all the boys, though," Ruby muttered. Mute tilted his head as he looked at the girl beneath him.
"I know I do." Yang gave out a noise Mute had never heard before, and the message of the words had him stepping back. Then Yang looked past Mute to the group of boys behind them doing various things, including 'vomit boy' as he looked at them. She gave an 'eww' sound at that and started asking what Ruby was doing.
"Aww, that's so cuuuute!" Yang teased loudly enough for Mute, who was spacing out, to catch. He then watched her get blasted back by a pillow, which did not seem to harm the girl much. He stared at Blake, seeing her eyes flicker towards the noise, and he caught her eye with his plead for help. Finally, she gestured towards him to come over by her. He felt more comfortable around the one who gave him his personal space.
He snuck past Yang as she discussed friends with Ruby. According to Yang, a negative friend was not physically possible. Mute filed that information away as he made it over to Blake, and copied her by sitting in a chair nearby.
"Holding up well?" Blake asked.
She learned that no, he was not doing well. And that he had spent most of the day confused, or scaring people he talked to enough that they gave him a lot of space. He was grateful for the space, but oddly uncomfortable, and he did not understand that discomfort.
"Hmm." Blake hummed as she looked back at her book for a moment. "I think you're going to have to get used to it now, considering that we are both going to be at this school for several years if all goes well."
Mute nodded and looked back. Yang had noticed the blinking white outline where Mute had been and was looking about for him while Ruby's eyes found Blake, and she stared. She said something to her sister, who saw both Mute and Blake, and quickly moved to get to them, Yang dragging Ruby along the way.
Blake became distracted by the sounds of Ruby struggling, lowering her book just enough to see Yang approaching in her tight shirt and long pants. "Hello~" Yang exclaimed in greeting. "I believe you two may know each other?"
Despite Mute's understanding of the girls passing on to her, she had to ask: "Aren't you the girl that exploded?"
"Er… That's me." Ruby replied awkwardly, and extended her hand. My name's Ruby, but… Uh… You can just call me crater… Face…" Ruby trailed off, shaking her head at herself. Blake said nothing for the moment, unimpressed by the girl's attempt at icebreaking.
Mute was very attentive to the conversation. "So… What are you doing?" Ruby asked sheepishly.
"I was just reading this book," Blake told them.
They were as silent as Mute.
"Which I will… Continue to read."
More silence.
"As soon as you leave." Blake finished.
"Yeah, this girl's a lost cause." Yang decided, and turned away, but Ruby had other ideas.
"What's it about?"
Mute looked at Blake now, as the girl raised a brow. "The book, I mean." Ruby continued.
"...It's about a man with two souls." Blake explained, having a little warmer expression. "Each fighting for control over his body." Ruby nodded and smiled at the girl, who simply began reading her book again until the girls in front of her started getting more excited, and Yang grabbed Ruby's foot, and Ruby punched at her sister…
Mute watched the show unfold with his blank stare. The sisterly scuffle simply had no obvious malice, no reason to intervene. He, however, was the only one not saying anything. "Well, Ruby, Yang, it was nice to-" Blake started, but was cut off.
"What on earth is going on here!? People are trying to sleep!"
Weiss had managed to sneak up on the lot of them, and was shouting at the sisters. Yang gathered herself, chuckling, only for her eyes to meet Weiss' eyes. "Oh not you again!" Both girls shouted at each other, already tense.
Mute sweatdropped while Ruby cut them off. "Wait guys she's right. People are trying to sleep."
Weiss, however, was not having the assistance provided by Ruby. "Oh, now you're on my side."
Ruby couldn't let that go without comment. "I was always on your side!" She insisted.
"Yeah, what's your problem with my sister?" Yang asked angrily. Mute glanced at Blake, seeing that she had the candles in her hand, and he realized what she was going to do. The boy gave her a nod and closed his eyes, reclining in the comfortable chair. "She's only trying to be nice!"
"She's a hazard to my health!" Weiss refuted.
Blake blew out the candles.
"Tomorrow, your initiation begins."
The echo of the memory brought his eyes open slowly. He still sat in the chair, reclined somewhat. He felt rested for the most part, perhaps aching a bit. Not as bad as seeing his vision filled with blond hair. He nearly slashed Yang's throat out immediately, his legs twitching again. Every time she showed up, he found himself instinctively aching to take a swing at her. Confusion. Bafflement. Somewhat tired.
"Big day," Yang said, grabbing Mute's hand uninvited and pulling him to his boots. "Get up and face it with a smile!"
"This girl's presence is terrible for my health." Mute thought. Then, he realized that he had been meeting Yang's eyes. The girl laughed as she got his message. "Maybe." She said, pulling him along "But you can't just sit around doing nothing all the time."
The girl was not insulted? Would relief be an appropriate emotion?
"Here are the locations that each group goes for initiation." Blake handed him a list, before handing a list to Yang and Ruby respectively. Weiss was nowhere to be found. "I believe they put you two together because you are siblings." Blake continued, pointing to the two girls on one line of pictures. That same line contained Weiss. "The people in most of the lines were scrambled when they had to add some people to the roster that merely took a test rather than transfer from a school. I believe they tried to match up people who would make excellent teams together in most cases based on their initiation rules, of which I am not aware of at this time."
Ruby had swirls in her eyes from trying to process all of that. "Wow," Yang said after a moment. "You really know how to make a speech."
Mute searched his list. He found himself, seeing Blake in his initiation group. He turned the page and tapped it, notifying the others.
"Awww…" Ruby muttered when she saw it. "Neither of you are going to be on our team?"
"We don't know if that is going to be how they do it, to be honest," Blake said, after sparing Mute a quick look. "Ren and Nora have been kept together as well. On our roster."
Ruby showed her list, revealing that her initiation also contained the Pyrrha girl that Mute had met, and the boy named Cardin. Mute informed the girls of his impressions of each of the two. "Yuck. Avoiding Cardin." Yang muttered. "He sounds like one of those people who's full of themselves."
"Pyrrha seems nice, though," Ruby noted. "Hey, there's Jaune. He's in a totally different initiation from any of us. He's nice. I hope he finds good teammates."
Mute stood up. It was about time to head off anyhow. Yang waved him goodbye as he started to walk away with his list in his hand, and both Yang and Ruby turned to say goodbye to Blake. The black-haired girl was replaced by air, and both looked about in confusion until they realized that Blake had managed to join Mute as he walked without their knowledge.
"Welp." Yang shrugged. "We'll see them later. Let's get ready."
"Yeah!" Ruby exclaimed.
Mute waited with Blake while the girl rummaged in the locker she had. The turquoise-eyed boy had not bothered to use his locker at all, instead having kept his weapons on his feet where they belonged. He asked her why she would part with her weapon at any time.
After Blake met his eyes and was thereby questioned, she closed her eyes. "My blades are not exactly clothing." She explained, "And without weapons, meeting people has less chance to turn ugly, I suppose." She looked him in the eye. "Nobody was going to ask you to take your shoes off for the night. It was pretty clear how attached you are to those things."
Mute agreed and looked over towards some others nearby. He saw the girl, Nora, and the boy, Ren. He identified them based on their pictures in the roster curled up in his hand. "Nora?" Ren asked in a very quiet voice.
"Yes Ren?"
"...I don't think sloths make a lot of noise."
Mute filed the information away. Could be important. Why else would they be talking about it?
"...That's why it's perfect!" Nora exclaimed, "Nobody will suspect that we're working together!"
Mute blinked. Now he was confused. He turned to Blake for explanation, but she merely shrugged and went about her business with Mute hesitating before following behind. Their trip eventually took them to an airship.
"Well," Blake commented as she looked at the smaller ship. "We don't have Vomit Boy on our trip."
He pointed out that Ruby seemed to think 'Jaune' was actually quite nice. Blake tilted her head in acknowledgment before both boarded the airship along with the people they would be taking initiation with. How fast the days have flown by. Almost as if they barely happened at all. Mute looked out the window at Beacon, still wondering if the place truly meant anything to him. So far, he had stood around, been confused many, many times, and after that, the only one he still actually knew properly was Blake, and perhaps Yang. Yang herself worried him for a reason he could not identify. He kept nearly attacking when she drew close. Something had to be done about his nearly violent response to the mere sight of the girl.
Mute found himself viewing the city once more. Rather than marveling, he was memorizing streets and landmarks as they passed. The complex city that the school was above held many interesting and unique buildings to analyze and remember. Blake did not reprimand this excessive attentiveness, as she knew from the five or so days she had known him that Mute would not ease up from just a little pleading.
There was something almost mechanical about the boy. Something that reminded Blake of a robot. The way his movements were very automatic and robotic. And at the same time, he clearly wasn't a robot of any sort. The boy had a semblance, after all, to transmit what he needs to say via eye contact, which went rather well with his inability to speak. Or perhaps, Blake began to wonder, his semblance and his inability to speak were related. Could one cause the other to occur? She was uncertain.
However, the two soon found that they had lost track of time and as Mute informed Blake that the plane seemed to be arriving at its destination. Mute had been asking himself questions for half an hour, such as who he had been back before he had been taken away and supposedly healed. If his brain was unable to process things properly as the odd Gold lady said, why would he have anything to remember?
He made a connection. The golden girl said that he could remember his target… And Yang's presence kept on making him twitch with familiarity… Had Yang been his target? Was that why he kept almost attacking when she drew close? He frowned deeply. Everything seemed more orderly than before, but even then, it seemed a bit scrambled. Yang had been… Suffocating to be around in his position, but he would not directly attack her… Right?
The boy then followed Blake out of the airship and found himself on the edge of a mesa high overlooking a forest. Mute searched the forest with his intent glare, seeing things shifting in the trees and clearings. He searched the faces of the others, and only Ren seemed to be seeing everything he was, and Blake was not far behind the both of them.
The other initiates began standing on platforms before professor Ozpin, headmaster of Beacon. Mute met his eyes, aware that the man had not been on the airship. He forced a thought at Ozpin, asking how the man had gotten here.
The man pointedly ignored him for the moment and began his next obviously pre-prepared speech. Speaking of going down into the forest and obtaining one of the relics in some 'old temple'. Mute was not impressed by the theatrics, but then the time came to pay attention. "Some of you have been interested in the formulation of teams. Allow me to settle some of this confusion." Ozpin declared. "Each of you will be given teammates. Today."
Mute and Ren nodded in acceptance. Nora gave Ren a bright smile. Blake found there was only one person to turn to, that being Mute, as he was the only one she had spoken to directly in this group so far.
"These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon." Ozpin continued "So it is best to be paired with someone with whom you can work well."
Mute nodded again.
"That being said, the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years."
Mute blinked. That didn't sound like the most reasonable way to forge a team, but what did he know?
"Are there any questions?"
Mute fixed the man with a hard stare. Yes, he had questions. He had questions based on a lot of things.
"Good!" Ozpin ignored the assault of questions Mute leveled at him through eye contact. Then, to Mute's left, students began being launched off of the platforms they had and were being thrown into the forest. They were prepared with landing strategies. Was Mute?
He looked at the people being launched, knowing his weapons were heavier than theirs were, so he predicted that he would land in a certain area of the forest. He met Blake's eyes, and the girl nodded to him before she went sailing into the forest quite further than Mute would be. He would have to put effort into meeting her first.
Nora and Ren were quickly launched, and Mute saw Ren aiming for the trees even as he flew upwards. Mute gave Ozpin a stern glare for keeping information from him before he was suddenly shot into the sky by the platform he stood on. He twisted in mid-air to see the headmaster drink from his coffee as he watched the boy. Despite not knowing what Coffee was, Mute still somehow felt slightly offended by the uncaring nature the man put into his efforts.
Then he was falling through the sky, dropping towards the ground. He angled himself, seeing the tree he was going to sail past, and gathering a decent idea out of it.
With a flick of his ankle, he extended the sickle blades on his left foot, before snagging a thick enough branch with them and spinning towards the trunk of the tree. He twisted so that his back was downwards, seeing that he still had plenty of downwards momentum, and slammed the sickle blades of both boots into the tree trunk. The impact was slightly jarring, but he grinded all the way down to a meter above the ground with his boots tearing up the tree he slid down.
The boy swiftly bought his blades back in as he reached backward and upside down to catch the ground and then spring from his hands to his feet. Despite the torn apart tree, along with the branch that fell directly to his right of him, the landing had been textbook.
Mute recognized he was facing the wrong direction, using the mesa as a vantage point. He assumed that forward was the correct way to go. Unaware that his boots were making quite the racket as the boy walked, he closed his eyes, intending to open them when he found Blake, who he felt he could trust.
He walked on for ten minutes. The warning that he might die from earlier rang in his ears, but he paid no outward attention to it. He was unaware of such a threat. He was aware that he could handle what came his way. Thus, when he heard growling from behind him, he slashed without bothering to look at first.
He turned and looked upwards, seeing a now gutted bear-like creature with bone structures protruding from its back. The grotesque dark creature grunted from the deep wound but prepared to attack anyhow. Mute slammed the bottom of his boot into the chest of the creature and sent it flying many meters away, as well as unleashing a loud flash of darkness.
Bwoof!
Mute looked at his boot, which hummed with the energy that the beast had exuded. He recalled the use of this metal, and dismissed it. It was hardly worth thinking about until it was relevant. He flicked his foot and expelled the remaining energy in what seemed to be a teardrop-shaped blast that had apparently pierced the beast he had kicked badly.
He inspected the bearlike creature. It had a large hole in its chest from Mute's boot unleashing its own power against it. It's red eyes had dimmed, and he could see it start to break into small floating pieces that disintegrated over time. Mute wondered if this was how every creature he destroyed would react once dead.
He then discovered that these things tend to hunt in packs occasionally, if not all the time. Mute really had no concept of pack hunting, so to him, it was merely a coincidence that so many had just shown up around him at once. These were smaller, with fewer bone structures from their backs. They had less of a dark aura as well. To achieve the same energy in his boot, he would have to be closer to them longer. Unless…
Mute stepped back and neared his boots to the disintegrating beast, watching the energy soak into his boots excessively. The weapons seemed not to be affected by the continuing level of energy. With a little bit of this energy, he could do enough damage to put a hole straight through the large beast. With continual addition of energy, he had more than enough to do far worse to this horde of bear creatures.
They started to trundle forward three or so at a time, likely because they couldn't fit more. Each met a single blast to the chest and died, falling to the ground. Their disintegrating bodies released enough dark energy to soak into Mute's boots even more. The last bear got a dose so large as Mute put extra effort into the strike that Mute used up half the energy in that boot and the bear was completely disintegrated, as was the tops of the trees around it in one flare.
The energy these creatures had was clearly worth quite a bit. Very clearly, if the beasts themselves actually used the energy they seemed to be built from, they would do far more damage. And yet they did not. This implied the stupidity of these animals, the fact that they were basic instinct to kill alone.
And Mute wondered what exactly they were supposed to be.
After realizing that he had gathered quite a bit of energy in his boots, he walked on casually, his boots jet black instead of white and releasing an illusionary black flame from them. The boy looked at the grass beneath him, seeing the blades slightly cling to the metal. The grass was not doing enough to slow him any, so he walked on again.
Five minutes later, he was annoyed as he stood among a pile of disintegrating bodies again. This time, they were more wolf-like, although they were essentially bipedal until they crouched down before lunging. Unimpressed, yet irritated at the frequency of attacks, Mute strode away with even more energy in his boots.
Five minutes later, Mute's brow was furrowed. Why on earth was this damn bird attacking him? It was particularly large, and Mute was forced to deflect feather projectiles. However, the bird's neck was small enough to be slashed right off by his boots.
Five minutes later, Mute was thoroughly pissed off as he didn't even bother killing the last beast, one of the wolf things, that seemed to be already disintegrating. It turned out that one of the spikes from the bears had flown straight through its body when Mute kicked it off. Mute didn't care, not bothering to watch it topple over.
How many damn creatures were in this forest?
He leapt up to a branch with ease and looked out over the forest. The 'ruins' were a few minutes walk away. Mute almost jumped back down when he sensed a presence. He turned and shot a glare, beginning to expect dark creatures, but Blake herself relaxed a tree away. Both of their eyes met.
It is dangerous here, Mute told her with his eyes. Dark creatures. They attack constantly.
Blake raised an eyebrow, and jumped over to him. "How exactly is it that you don't know what the Grimm are?"
Mute did not react in any way. Blake narrowed her eyes. "Even the grimm are lost to your memory?" She asked. He nodded, and she sighed. "You seem to be handling yourself just fine." She commented. She looked at his boots, and that was when she backed up.
Mute informed her that the dark energy from the monsters was building up in the metal of his boots and that he could use it to attack them back. Blake looked at him with her eyes wide. Never before had the girl seen a metal do this aside from Adam's blade, and even then Adam used his semblance to achieve it.
"That certainly explains why I haven't seen a single grimm all day." She commented, "They're all flocking to you because you're giving off a lot of energy that grimm do, and they generally make packs by sensing similar energy to their own and flocking to it."
Mute looked down at his boots. He was being attacked because he had all of this energy? Blake soon learned that the boy could dispel the energy though it seemed quite volatile when he used it.
"Then try to waste it when you can," Blake ordered, to which Mute nodded. Blake jumped out of her tree, and Mute made to follow her, his boots clattering and completely negating any stealth Blake used. She paid close attention to the fact that his boots seemed not to have changed much despite the aura they gave off.
Both the girl and boy landed smoothly, although Mute sank two inches into the mud. In unison, they looked up at the damaged building that resembled a shrine of sorts. Carefully built to look ruined, sitting in the middle of a clearing that seemed too perfect. Not circular, but certainly oval, with a large branch of plains off to one side.
Mute frowned at the sight of the relics. They seemed small, made of different colors, white or black. Blake could easily see them from this point as well. Both walked forward as casually as they could to avoid alerting nearby grimm that might be sensitive to sound and little else. "...Chess pieces?" Blake asked a little incredulously at the sight of the relics. Talk about removing the concept of the legitimate adventure right at the end.
Mute supposed they were supposed to take one. He met Blake's eyes, and both realized at the same moment that neither of the two of them actually gave a shit about which piece to take, so Blake grabbed the white rook piece from the podium without actually looking.
Both were about to leave before they were startled by an explosion. The two bristled before turning right around to find a bear grimm's back emitting a hot pink burst of energy before it collapsed dead on the ground, with Nora tumbling off of it. "Aww… It's broken." She whined, getting up and looking at the beast.
"Nora, please." Ren was stumbling away from the creature. "Don't ever do that again."
But Mute and Blake followed Ren in blinking confusedly. It was almost as if the girl had straight up vanished or something, and then Mute heard her say 'oooh' much closer to him than he would have liked.
The boy leaped away on impulse while he saw the mad pink girl dancing around with a white rook piece on her head. "I'm queen of the castle! I'm queen of the castle!" She sang.
"Nora!"
She stopped suddenly. "Coming Ren!" She exclaimed, letting the chess piece fall into her hands before she jumped over to where Ren had managed to Join mute in both of their quiet stances.
"I'm surprised you found that bear in the first place, with Mute exterminating everything in the forest," Blake spoke up, prompting the others to look at Mute with impressed looks. "When Mute was informing me of what kept attacking him, it seems that they were just beowolves and ursas, but…"
"So we're fine because everything's been attacking you." Ren summed up. Mute tilted his head for a moment in acknowledgment.
"Well, nothing is going to sneak up on us in the middle of the plains." Blake said "We may get a breather. Or swarmed. Whichever."
"Speaking of swarmed, it would probably be best to get out of here. We just have to return to the top of the cliff, yes?" Ren asked.
"Yeah! We've totally got to get up there and stuff!" Nora exclaimed with her fist in the air.
Mute's eyes widened a fraction of an inch, instantly alerting Blake. She knew the kid was super sensitive to the presence of things for some reason, so she turned the direction he was turning. Everybody stepped back beside Mute, who stared at the massive bird almost expressionlessly.
Blake understood when he turned to her. She had told him to get rid of all of that energy in his boots. But both detected a lot more activity, and everyone discovered that grimm were moving out of the forest in many directions.
"Swarmed." Ren decided, preparing his weapons.
"I think Mr. Boot Blade over here is going after the big bad bird," Nora commented. Mute shot her a look that ultimately said: 'boot blade? Really?' Before he started sprinting towards the bird on his own.
The others would be defending themselves, this he knew. He knew how to use his weapons, as if it was an innate knowledge that he could call on. This energy was at his command after he absorbed so much of it.
Like one-moment rocket boosters, the dark energy flared at Mute's boots and sent him skyward. He began using them like actual rocket boots, uncaring how much energy he used in the process.
The bird brought back its massive wings, and the nevermore unleashed a torrent of feathers at the boy. Mute, however, had little trouble flying past the feathers and slamming his feet into the head of the beast.
And then he called upon every last bit of grimm energy stored in his boots and unleashed an incredible flare of dark power, obliterating the head and base of the wings of the massive beast, blasting Mute straight back to the main group, where he skidded calmly to a stop. His boots, now depleted, reflected the sun's glare once more in their white color.
"That. Was. Awesome." Nora said in her version of awe.
"That's one way to use up all the energy you got." Blake acknowledged, and then the grimm began swarming them.
Nora unclipped her grenade launcher from her back and started blowing beowolves to smithereens on one side while Ren easily distracted the ursas around the area with quick and simple strikes with his blades, using the odd green energy that his automatic handguns fired to irritate the ursas and outright kill a few small beowolves.
Blake joined Mute in his attack on their half of the beasts. Blake's shadow trick allowed her to avoid dozens of strikes and attack the enemies at critical points easily. Mute took the opposite approach to dodging. He outright attacked and took apart each enemy he came across, the sickle blades concealed in his boots flashing out and in over and over as he spun on his hands and did flips, delivering fast and powerful swipes to his opponent's. The odd white metal of his boots sliced easily through the hides of the ursas and beowolves that attacked him.
Every time he killed a grimm, he would use some of that energy to send himself flying over to the next target using the burst of grimm energy. Blake slashed the beowolves down the middle. Ren's gunshots seemed to do significant damage to the remaining beowolves, and once everybody was done kicking ass, they turned to watch Nora casually squish a final grimm's head with her hammer, ending the battle.
Nora's destructive force had complimented the speed and grace of Ren and Blake, who matched each other in speed but differing in fighting styles. Both would have to decide how best to work together in their battling.
Mute, as the rest of the group seemed to be aware of now, seemed to be in a class of his own. The elite in his group. Even with his relatively short range, his learning curve of utilizing those flashes of absorbed energy was skyrocketing.
"Let's get moving." Blake decided, and everybody quickly agreed.
Even as they left, Mute detected another pair of people coming into the clearing just as they disappeared into the forest.
The four of them ran alongside each other, sprinting in sync as if they had been doing it for years. Mute paid attention to the fact that Nora seemed to have little difficulty keeping up with the group, despite her seeming affiliation towards sheer strength. Because they were running rather than walking, they arrived at their destination in roughly ten minutes.
They found a set of odd boar-like grimm with long, curved tusks. Just beneath the cliff. Behind them rested a big scorpion thing. They all looked at the group at once.
"Boarbatusks" Ren identified the creatures. Mute braced himself, in time to see one of the three things suddenly start spinning incredibly quickly and rolling straight at him like a bladed ball of death. Mute kicked it away, his blades flashing.
The boar was sent sailing into a tree, but appeared mostly unharmed, to Mute's surprise. Its tusks had been slashed off, however. He frowned.
He met everybody's eyes, and they knew he would be going after the giant scorpion instead. The trio nodded and prepared themselves to handle the different boarbatusks. Mute elected to ignore those grimm, knowing immediately that the monsters would be destroyed. He dashed past the charging boars and sprinted straight for the scorpion. Seeing that it had a white mask of sorts on, he judged it's weak points. He narrowed his eyes as he approached, realizing this was going to be a one and done deal.
He struck the ground right in front of the scorpion as it tried to attack him, and leaped straight up with his boot flashing from the side. The stinger was instantly severed and slammed into the odd mask built into the creature's head, before whirling and slamming his heel into it with as much force as he could muster, impaling the creature's brain and killing it. Mute used the energy he had managed together to rocket himself away from the beast, landing in the center of his friends with his boots white once more. He reckoned that had been rather easy to accomplish compared to what the others might have been expecting.
He turned to his right to see a boarbatusk with Ren's blades stuck through its belly, immobile. He turned to his left to see a disintegrating boarbatusk with Blake standing nearby. He heard a detonation behind him and a flash of pink, and knew that Nora was done with her battle.
Ren turned to the group. "Let's get to the top of this cliff." He said.
"Pyrrha Nikos, Ruby Rose, Yang Xiao Long, and Weiss Schnee…"
Mute stood in his place in line next to his new teammates, already informed of how things would turn out. Informed of his teammates, which was something he had come to expect after that day. Apparently paperwork had to be done, and Mute had approached Ozpin with questions in mind.
Ozpin had been doing some paperwork in his room, drinking his favorite type of coffee when Mute stepped into the room, seeming not to care of how loudly his boots clanked onto the surface of the floor.
Ozpin looked up, raising an eyebrow calmly. He was informed quickly that Mute was not entirely satisfied with the headmaster's blatant disregard of the many questions he had. Questions including why the rosters for the initiation times and places were scrambled.
"I suppose you have earned some honesty." Ozpin nodded calmly. "Very well. I had fully expected and planned for Blake to appear in this school, and had planned my rosters accordingly. My rules, everything, was designed to match the students I knew would be approaching this school for this year."
Ozpin knew Mute understood by the thought reaching him. He knew that Mute was thinking that he had not been expected. Ozpin was further informed about the golden girl who had called herself Magic who had woken the boy up.
Ozpin frowned as he looked at the boy, but did not say much for a while.
Mute recognized that because of his appearance, Ozpin had to change drastically to make the teams fit better with his presence, and because of the fact that he had appeared mere days before everything started up, the headmaster could not manipulate the placement of students to fit better. Therefore, it would be more difficult.
Why, Mute wondered, was there such haste in making these teams fit better? Was the man expecting something to happen so incredibly soon? He narrowed his eyes at the headmaster, deciding not to directly ask, as it could make Ozpin wary of him.
Thus, he turned and left without a word.
"Led by… Ruby." Ozpin continued. People cheered, as the girls around the younger student congratulated her. Mute noticed that Weiss was more hesitant about congratulating Ruby about her leadership.
Before he could think about that much, his group began walking towards the stairs to the stage.
"...Blake Belladonna, Lie Ren, Nora Valkyrie, and Mute." Ozpin spoke, introducing the students now on the stage. Mute wore a suit, which apparently was a 'uniform.' It was hard for him to concentrate on what he wanted to do because it felt uncomfortable, as if he had never worn one before. Still, he looked at Ozpin as he spoke to the crowd, seeing the gray-haired man shift almost in an almost indiscernible manner. Ozpin was uncomfortable with his presence. He wasn't planned, wasn't supposed to be here. He was a volatile variable in Ozpin's plan, which at least seemed to be laced with good intentions to Mute's knowledge.
Essentially, Mute had a lot of weight about to bear down on him and he knew it. He might have to get on Ozpin's good side…
"Led by… Lie Ren." Ozpin decided.
Everyone cheered while Mute continued thinking. He would have to build Ozpin's trust in him and then proceed to assist in the plan the man had, if the man's intent was indeed in the best interest of other people.
Values. Emotions. Calculations. Plans. Mute frowned. Every last thing he was feeling felt very new to him. Even so, Yang seemed to think feelings should be followed, Blake and Ren's skills helped Mute see that planning and calculating was important, and Ruby herself, that little girl, had quite a bit of emotion erupting from her at all times. She was extremely expressive, and Mute recognized that this seemed to easily connect her to other people in positive ways, aside from Weiss of course.
Mute nodded over to Ren, while Nora hummed happily and bumped shoulders with the boy. Blake gave her own nod of recognition. Smiles were shared around the group, and Mute saw this expression. Should he be smiling?
Nora met his eyes long enough to catch that question, although Mute did not realize he had asked. The girl elbowed him with her bright smile. He decided, ultimately, to comply. He bought his lips upwards in a smile not unlike the small smile Ren had on his face.
Inwardly, it felt very odd to do so. It was almost difficult, as if he had rarely if ever smiled before. Looking out over the crowd, the boy recognized that these people would be the people he was around for a long time. He quickly realized that things could get complicated quick, and his smile faded as he looked out over the group.
Values? What values did he have?
Emotions? He did not feel much in that sense. They were too new for him.
Calculations? He calculated everything, but only in the sense of victory. Was there more?
Plans? He knew that his skills lay in battle, and his plans did not go much further than how exactly to destroy the creature in front of him with the utmost skill and power.
He breathed out slowly through his nose. This would not be easy.
Well, well. Magic's back, and her shenanigans have opened up the world of Remnant to me as an author. I owe her a thank-you. I have high hopes about this story. I will certainly continue it, although the rate at which it updates will likely not follow the pattern of the three main stories that I am currently keeping updating, New Age, TAC2, and KatJ. Those stories will likely be updated more often.
By the way, sorry Jaune fans. I happen to not be the biggest Jaune fan. He will be around, of course. I'm not going to completely ditch him as a character. You might have noticed I totally switched some team alignments around. Yes, I did. I did indeed, and I felt like it could work if I play my cards right, and I have a good hand.
The title might have given the character that changed everything away, but for those who I managed to surprise, I hope it gets the gears turning about what's up with this and what could possibly have led to Mute being here. I will do my best to avoid spoiling it and such, although subtle hints I'm capable of. Look alive, cause you might miss them.
Please tell me what you think. I am aware that I am bringing this story to an entirely separate fanbase with this story, but I am confident that that will matter little when it comes to my readers enjoying the story itself. I hope you had fun reading this first chapter, please review and give me your first impressions. Thank you all, and have a nice day.
