I would be lying if I said that being reborn was the most terrifying experience I ever had but it was pretty damn close.
Man where do I start?
Imagine going to sleep and waking up to blinding white lights, being held by what feels like a giant's hand, and not being able to move, to speak, to do anything.
I believe I can be forgiven for crying like the baby I was.
Someone handed me over to person, and they wrapped me up and held me close even as I screamed.
It just felt so, right, you know? Being held by my mother. Even though I was confused and scared and all I could see were indefinite shapes with no depth I stopped crying. She whispered sweet nothing into my ear, comforting me, telling me everything would be all right, that she would protect me. And then she spoke into my ear my new name, that seemed to cut straight into my soul, even though it was in a different language.
"Ian Azure."
I was so confused but I understood that perfectly.
I, had died.
My old body, and my old life.
Was gone.
I had been give a second turn, another life.
This woman, she was my new mother.
She would love me, and care for me, and raise me as her own even though I was not, well, I guess I am her child. But she didn't give birth to a new life. She gave birth to a old one.
I caught on very quickly that this was not the Earth.
I think I was about, what, 7 month old? I have no idea, all I knew was that I was old enough to crawl, and my senses had since sharpened. Anyway my mother, a single mom, was at work. She had hired a nice young girl to watch over me while they were gone. She was a teenager, and was in fact older than I was when I died.
Uh I have to stop thinking about that it gets me all depressed. Hopefully my family would recover from my death. It bothered me sometimes but I accepted that it had been my time and there was nothing I could do about it. Sometimes I felt a tug at my heart when I thought about how I would never see them again.
The pain would lessen in time.
So back to my realization I had been crawling towards my babysitter cause I was hungry. Usually I ate this mushy stuff that tasted faintly like vegetables, much like the baby food I remembered from Earth. Well at this point I did think that I had been reborn in my own world, and the food only reinforced my belief.
I tugged at her pants and she looked away from her book. (Indeed it was a book and not a magazine) She gave me a warm smile and reached down to pick me up and carried me to the kitchen. She was wearing a red bandanna and I am embarrassed to say that I could not resist the temptation to grab it and put on my own head.
She stiffened as I tugged the fabric off her head.
I was attempting to put the bandanna on my own head when I noticed.
Black doggy ear flopped out and rested on her hair.
You know I am glad that my mom never found out that she wasn't the one who was with me when I said my first words, which I had heard enough from my new parent and babysitter that I knew exactly what I was saying
"Ooooh, cute."
Age 2
My world changed forever the day before Veronica's birthday.
My babysitter, whose name I learned was Veronica, had taken to taking off her bandanna when she came over, once my Mom had left.
She always seemed so much happier after that day.
I now had a good grasp over the language, and spoke much better than my peers. Mom, and Veronica of course, were impressed, and soon taught me to read and write.
I had found out that today was Veronica's birthday, and was drawing a picture of her and I, which I had labeled "Ian Azure" and "Sister". Sure it might have been childish but I had never had an older sibling, and Veronica was the closest thing I ever had to that. I loved her like a sister, and wasn't that all that mattered?
It turned out that no it wasn't, at least to my mother when I asked her if Veronica would like what I made her.
You know what was my mistake?
The fact that I drew Veronica with her real ears.
It was a long time before I ever saw Veronica again.
I was confused, and my mother "explained" that Veronica was a Faunus, and that Faunus were criminals and ruffians, animals that had no place in human society.
It was terrible.
Veronica was such a nice person. My mom was just racist. I couldn't bring myself to hate her though, because other than that my mom was a good person, and I knew she loved me. I complained but she didn't listen and told me stories about the Faunus that no doubt her parents told her.
Age 3
I noticed a odd presence in my head. It was me, but foreign, something that I never had in my past life.
It was like a itch I couldn't scratch and I reached after it one day while I was in my room at night trying to go to sleep.
It was awesome.
Darkness started coming off of me in waves, while a low and soothing whoom sounded in my ears. Fascinated I examined my hand and tried to focus this power in my palm.
I was elated when a swirling ball of dark energy formed. I tried to shoot it from my hand, and, to my delight, it did, shooting out with a woosh of air, and dissipating once it hit the wall, leaving a small but noticeable indentation. This was awesome.
I tried to reach out to the other side of my room from my spot on the bed and a tendril of darkness stretched out and touched the wall. I called it back and with much more force shot out the tendril from my hands. It burst through the wall with a crack, and I called it back.
I was breathing heavily now, my breath hitched with excitement. So this was my Semblance.
My mom told me about the Huntsman and Huntresses that protected us from the creatures of Grimm, using amazing weapons with the power of Dust, along with their Semblances, a power a select few have, which is unique to every person. My Semblance seemed to be the power to, not control darkness, but dark energy. This was not the first supernatural thing I had encountered in this world called Remnant.
I had fell one day outside and scraped myself on the sidewalk. I had watched as my wound visibly disappeared before my eyes. My mom had explained that this was because of my aura, a kind of outer shell that protected my body from harm by lessening blows and giving a minor healing factor. I gawked when they said that even if I got cut with a knife, or fell from a building, my Aura would protect me and I would could walk away without a scratch or a bruise. This shell could be broken with enough abuse, but the shell would slowly rebuild itself till I was good as new.
Everyone in Remnant had an Aura, but Semblances were less common.
I would tell my mother when the time was right. I decided on that before falling asleep.
A Week Later
The same day my Mom died was also the day I killed for the first time.
My mother was taking me out to eat. We walked through the streets of Vale to this breakfast place we had been to before. Mom and I would always get pancakes and she was just as excited as I was. Mom was fun and even though I could walk she carried me.
I didn't mind, it was actually pretty fun.
Being a kid had some perks you know?
Anyway she told me that that she was getting a promotion at work and that she would be managing all the Dust that came in and out of Vale, and that she would bring some home and show me a cool trick.
We were crossing the street when it happened. A driver swerved into our side of the street, heading straight towards us. We had no time to react and the car slammed into us. My mom was sent flying with me in her arms and she held me tight as she slammed into a building. I heard a terrible crunch as she slid to the ground, releasing me.
I screamed.
My moms head was cracked open and blood poured out getting hold over my hands. The man who ran her over got out of his car and stumbled toward us.
"Are you alright?" he asked me, and fell silent when he noticed the blood splattered on the wall. I whipped my head toward him, murder in my eyes.
"You fucker. You killed my mother. YOU KILLED MY MOM!" Grief and anger washed over me and shot my tendrils at the man, wrapping around him and trapping him. People gasped as I levitated to his height. I saw pure terror in his eyes. He was so scared he couldn't even speak.
I whispered to him coldly.
"You are going to die."
I laughed maniacally as I tightened my tendrils grip on his right arm and tore it off of him, smashing through his Aura. Yes he was screaming now. Yes, YES.
"You like that right? You do, right?" I flashed a demented smile when he shook his head furiously.
I covered his mouth with my tendrils, his screaming was really starting to hurt my ears, and stabbed him in the knee. He was in pain and I loved it.
I stabbed him over and over and over and over.
Lazily I noted that my Semblance seemed to be passively destroying his Aura. It got weaker though, which leads me to believe that if I was attacked with Aura my power would be ripped away. I'll keep that in mind.
Stabbing him was getting boring so I released him, covered my left hand in darkness, and ripped out his heart. It was even still beating! I laughed harder.
The man's eyes fell on his heart for just a second before he slumped down, dead.
My madness started to fade as I held his heart in my hand.
His heart.
Oh my god, I.
I took one look at my dead mother and the mutilated man in front of me, and screamed.
