Author's notes here!
Well, my fanfiction SNST has 6 chapters and amassed a total of one follower! To that one follower, you rule!
Sadly, though, I think as my first shot at fanfiction ever it was doomed to fail, and so for now, it's stopping. Instead, I am going to focus on Remnants of the Mind, my Jaune-centric fanfiction. I am also, of course, going to focus a LOT on this, if I can! Yang is my favorite character in RWBY and I wanted to make an AU where, because of her injury in Volume 3, Yang is a much more broken individual, and her semblance starts acting up to a much higher degree.
I have no idea where this is going to go yet, but there will be violence. Lots of it. It's Yang, but angrier, and with an even more powerful semblance. There will be blood.
This goes without saying, I hope, but RWBY VOLUME 3+ SPOILERS.
Chapter 1
Pains
This is a dream. It has to be. Any minute she'll wake up, and forget everything. She'll be on her bunk, tenderly snuggled into her blankets, ready to start another day at Beacon Academy. She's so excited to wake up. To end this dream and continue her life. A growing itch on her right arm interrupts her thought process.
Yang stares out the window, lilac eyes focused on nothing and body nearly completely hidden under a heavy blanket. Times like these were the only times Yang felt nothing at all, and to her, that was true peace. The Yang from only a month ago would have found the idea appalling. She was such an energetic and passionate young woman.
Was.
Yang's eyes flash red and she growls at nothing, eyes forced to focus on what remained of her right arm. Nothing but a bandaged stump. Within moments, the feeling of tranquility is gone, and is replaced with anguish, denial, anger. She throws off her blankets and curls up tight, holding her knees with her one and only arm.
Yang's flickering eyes glance to the wall ahead of her, only for a moment before shutting tightly. Her unconscious sister, only a room away from her. What if she wakes up a different person? She saw Pyrrha…
…Would Yang lose her sister too?
At some point, Yang must have started violently sobbing, because her father rushes in and holds her close. With a quivering gasp, Yang breaks down in Taiyang's arms, body trembling and heart pounding in her chest. It's been like this the past few days, hours of total lethargy, followed by minutes of complete emotional collapse. Yang could see in her father's eyes the fear of loss, of losing another so close to him. It only succeeds in making her bawl harder, and grasp at her source of comfort with all the strength she can muster.
"Shhh… It's alright, honey…" He whispers to her, the shake in his voice obvious as he tries to hold back tears of his own. Yang wails, burying her head into her father's chest and trying to calm herself down.
Three days since the attack on Beacon. Yang and Ruby were brought back home immediately. Without the CCT, communications became a scarcity even with those outside of Patch, let alone the entire Kingdom. It's not like Yang particularly cared, though. Her biological mother, then her mother, then her friends, all left her to rot. She can't even write her own name anymore. Everything is gone.
Yang goes limp in Taiyang's arms. She feels herself being picked up, but she no longer cares. Once again, the tears have left her and she imagines her life, if this were a dream. If reality were nothing more than a realistic nightmare. The relief she'd feel when she wakes up and finds her team still together, Pyrrha still alive, her arm still… there.
If only.
Yang stares at the table she just now realizes she's sat in front of. The wood that's seen many more days than her, seen her as a child, seen her not understand that Summer wasn't her real mom, seen her cruelly understand that Summer was never coming back, seen her come back a broken young woman with next to nothing left anymore.
Yang realizes that she's hearing her own name being called. She wearily lifts her head up to see her father frowning and holding her hand.
"H-huh?"
"Yang… I know you're tired, honey, but you need to eat."
"You made food…?" Yang looks down at the table in front of her again, and notices that covering the wood is a bowl of noodles. "Oh. Thanks dad, but I'm not really hungry right now."
She can see the hurt in his eyes, making her sigh softly and look back down at the bowl.
"Okay," she says, dejected. She takes the fork carefully in her hand, drearily smiling at how unnatural it still feels to be in her left hand. It's the little things. She starts slowly eating, making Taiyang noticeably brighten up and start eating as well.
Wouldn't this be a funny story to tell, if this were a dream?
Maybe then it would mean something.
Winter arrived quicker than Yang anticipated. Maybe it was a cold year. Maybe it was always this cold in Patch. Maybe Yang's just never felt so cold in her entire life. Ruby woke up only a few days after the fall of Beacon, but she wasn't any different than before. A little quieter, perhaps, but she was always the same energetic little Rose. Yang thought that'd make her happy, thought she would be relieved that her sister hadn't changed.
It only made her angry.
Ruby almost seemed confused when Yang instinctively flinched at every loud noise, or stared at the news channel for hours, or refused to eat and sleep. It was almost like nothing had ever happened for Ruby. Like nobody had died, like nobody had abandoned her, too.
It all made sense, of course, as she watches the crow outside fly away and hears her father panicking.
Ruby was planning to abandon her, too. She had been since the moment she woke up. She just wanted to plan, to enjoy herself for a month or so, to have the nice nostalgic feeling of being back home. Yang has no more tears left. She goes to sleep for the first time in two days.
Adam meets her there. Ruby, Blake, Weiss, Taiyang, Summer, Raven, Qrow. Those who could protect her. Those who called her family. Those who could stop Adam and save her from her fate.
They watch him kill her, and the smile on Ruby's face lingers in the following darkness. Silver eyes glower into Yang's skull, amber eyes stare at her with hate, two pairs of red eyes watch with disinterest. An array of colors in a land of black, swirling together and ripping apart.
When Yang opens her eyes, it is to see her father by her bedside, typing on his scroll with a deep frown. She smiles for just a brief second, wondering if he was just playing a particularly difficult game, and that everything really was a dream.
Just to have that hope dashed when Yang tries to move her arm. That hurts her more than any nightmare. Why she refuses to sleep until she passes out.
"Ruby left, huh….?" Yang asks with a surprisingly hoarse voice, lilac eyes dull and empty.
Taiyang jumps, nearly dropping his scroll. "You… you knew?"
"I figured it out," Yang replies solemnly.
Her father nervously rubs the back of his head. "Well, she left a note apologizing. But don't worry, apparently the rest of your old team Juniper went with."
Yang nods, curling up under her blankets and wincing at the pins and needles sensation that rushes over her right arm. At first, these phantom sensations terrified her, and during her more restless periods, she swore she could feel tugging sensations, almost as if the dead were interacting with her, trying to pull her in…
She shakes her head, wearily sitting up. "Wait, why're you still here? Shouldn't you go find her? It's dangerous out there without the CCT…"
Taiyang shakes his head. "I can't do that."
"Because of me, right?"
"Yang, what am I supposed to say? I can't get Qrow to answer me, Ozpin's gone, and I can't just leave you here."
Yang frowns, getting out of bed. Taiyang stands with her, setting a hand on her shoulder.
"We can do this, Yang. Just trust that she'll be okay. I'm sure she'll send letters."
"Like those will ever even get here?"
Taiyang sighs and hugs Yang close, whispering. "Just don't leave me too."
Yang sniffles, wrapping her left arm around her father as her eyes flicker red and her blonde hair starts to heat up. "Don't you dare leave me either."
Her father gulps, patting her back as his aura starts to strain from the tighter and tighter hug from his daughter. As her hair starts to burn and her teeth audibly grind, Taiyang pats a bit harder. "Yang, calm down honey. Calm down, I'll never leave you."
"Blake promised, Summer promised, Ruby promised." Yang's grip gets even tighter and her fiery blonde hair ripples and rises with the flames, an intense heat from her aura causing the wood at her feet to warp and burn.
Taiyang's tears turn to steam as they come, and he clings to his daughter just as tightly now. Yang's flames begin to die down as she sobs, and he lifts her up and runs out of the room to grab one of the many fire extinguishers scattered around the house.
Yang's bed, following her life's example, goes up in flames.
Yang is dropped onto the couch in the living room while her father grabs a fire extinguisher. Her forehead is throbbing with an intense pain, and she falls to the floor on her hand and knees. Sadness wars with utter rage inside her head, and Yang struggles to her feet, teeth unconsciously grinding together. She stumbles to the front door, each step leaving flame in her wake. She opts to slam the door off its hinges with her fist and tumbles outside, clutching her aching skull.
Her semblance only ever got this strong when Yang had gotten severely injured in fights, but she doesn't have a scratch on her and yet she can feel the flames erupting from her form as she staggers away from the very flammable house. Her eyes burn and her breaths become increasingly unstable as she finally collapses, not from exhaustion but from the war in her mind coming to an abrupt end.
Ruby, the last true light in her life, had left her without saying goodbye.
She curls up and sobs, feeling pathetic and weak, even as the trees around her burn to ash.
Yang stares at the metal arm presented to her, conflicting thoughts threatening to split her mind in two. She wouldn't have to struggle to write, to eat, to do things she could do so easily before this mess. She could start training again, sparring and learning to use her new limb in combat. Hell, she could get into boxing now that Beacon's destroyed. This arm would pack one tough punch, after all. And yet, Yang can't bring herself to put it on. What's the point? There's nothing left for her here but broken dreams and people who have forgotten about her. The world is in shambles, torn by Adam, and the people behind the attack on Beacon, and Atlas, and that damn fool Ozpin up and dying.
Yang pushes the box away from her wordlessly and stand up. "Maybe later. This didn't cost you anything, right?"
Her visibly disheartened father rubs the back of his head, frowning and looking down at the metal arm that he had been so excited to see on his daughter. "It was a gift from Ironwood, so no, it didn't cost me anything."
"Then there's no rush," Yang replies with a small smile, before walking slowly back upstairs. "Thanks anyway, dad."
Yang walks into her room, shuts the door, and sits on her nice new bed. She smiles, looking down at her stump of an arm, then over to her drawer containing her Ember Celica. Why even try, if she's so incredibly outmatched? Outnumbered? With no allies but her own father who would never agree to let her fight regardless? There's no point in even attempting to fight back.
So why did her father have to wave that damn arm around like bait on a fish hook, false hope to feed to his daughter just to make her feel the tiniest bit better for the tiniest amount of time so she'd stop being so clingy and emotional?
It takes Yang a few minutes to realize she's surrounded by flames, and her father is standing in the doorframe, too afraid to step inside, frightened blue locked with furious red.