I don't own "RWBY" because that belongs to Rooster Teeth and Monty Oum.

Font:

Normal: "This isn't happening, this shouldn't be possible."

Writing: "I'm doing what I can."

Thoughts/Dreams: "I really want this to be over with."

TRANSITION: Anything with this font

This is the Beginning of a Story

Aura: the manifestation of the user's soul. It's something everyone has and something many warriors have faced. The soul however, is a different story. It is something none has ever seen, felt, or heard. It is strange how there are many ways to measure Aura, yet none to measure the soul. Many have some sort of theory for why that is; the most popular one says that the body is the protector of the soul and will shield it from sight and harm, but why would it need to do that when the soul's manifestation is what protects the body? No one knows, or at least, no one should.

Late Morning, Vale's Main Road

A teenager can be seen walking down the street, rolling a blue luggage with fount pair of wheels along its back behind him, with a spring in his step and a smile on his face. Now many would say that he has a strange way of dressing himself. A bright red top hat sat upon his head with a pair of large circular sunglasses over his eyes, a dark trench coat with many pockets ending about mid-calf over a multicolored T-shirt, some silky white gloves, a pair of desert camouflage cargo pants with more pockets than normal, and on his feet are some sandals. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for the way he's dressed; but, with him, there probably never was.

As he was strolling, he started to talk to himself, "I can't believe I got accepted into Beacon! I knew that I was academically ready for it, but I didn't think I was combat ready for it. If I am going, I need more Dust." As to emphasize his point, he was walking to his favorite Dust shop, From Dust Till Dawn; however, he stopped in his tracks when he saw the state it was in: the window was broken, there were many cracks in the concrete, and a crater outside the building. He looked around and muttered a single sentence, "This can't be good." He ran into the shop. "What happened?"

The old man that was sweeping up the inside of the store was startled to hear the kid's voice, "Oh, Jack, what are you doing here?"

Jack stopped in his tracks, not expecting him to dodge the question; but, he decided to answer the question to get his answered, "Oh you know, got accepted to Beacon, wanted to get some Dust and chat with a family friend before I leave, and then I find a freaken' crater outside! I mean, it looks like someone fought a war out there!" It was at this point that Jack was close enough that anyone could tell that he towers over the old man.

The old man sighed before looking at the oddly dressed teenager, "You're not too far from the truth, but the costs for the repairs are more preferable to the cost of restocking all of the dust." He walked behind the counter, putting away the broom, and asked, "Would you like your usual?"

Jack started to lean on the nearby counter, "I guess, but you know, if you need any help, just call me. I would always be happy to help you out."

"Oh I know that," he started to walk towards the back of the store. "I guess I'm just used to doing things myself, so you don't need to worry yourself over me." He opened a locker along the back wall to reveal cases of Dust rounds. He picked up a number of similar cases and walked back to the counter while saying, "Five cases of forty-five rounds," he then pulled out a few red Dust crystals from the counter, "and ten fire Dust crystals. You still never told me how you burn through all that ammunition, or where you keep it all."

Putting some lien on the counter, Jack retorted, "And you still never told me how old you are." He took the Dust rounds and crystals and put them all in his coat as he started walking outside, "Well, I got to go, don't want to miss the airship to Beacon. Good day."

"Wait!" The old man called out. "I have something for you!" Jack turned around to see the old man rummaging through a cabinet behind the counter. "And don't worry about the airship," he said, "I can drive you there, so you have a few more hours to spare." The old man was right; it would normally take Jack a few hours to walk from the shop to the airships on the other side of Vale.

Jack gave a sigh of relief, as he wasn't the biggest fan of walking, "Okay, I'll stay." He started to look over the counter after a few seconds of watching the old man go through the cabinet. He waited and waited until he decided to ask, "So, what is it you're looking for?"

The old man didn't even look up to answer, "I'm look for your gift." He continued to try and find what he was looking for and it didn't take much longer, "I found it! This is what I was looking for!" He pulled out a small black box; it couldn't have been bigger than Jack's forearm. "This right here," he opened the box, "is your graduation present."

Inside the box was a Dust crystal a bit bigger than Jack's fist, but there was something strange with it. It had a blue color, but not the standard blue, it was pale. Its coloring was so close to that of an ice one that the average person would believe it was just that, an ice Dust crystal; however, Jack knew that even the slightest coloration difference in Dust would mean a change in what type it was. So what was it, if it wasn't for ice or water?

The old man must have seen the questioning look on Jack's face as he started to answer the unasked question, "This right here, young man, is Spirit Dust. It's one of the rarest types of Dust around. It unlocks the user's Aura, and all you need to do is crush it in your hand. I know you have always had trouble unlocking your Aura, so I thought this would be the perfect gift for you. You've had many people try to unlock your Aura, so I got this in hopes that it would unlock it."

The smile on Jack's face was so bright that would have blinded the average person. He jumped over the counter to hug the old man. "Thank you!" Jack shouted, "Thank you so much!" He was always separated from the majority of the Signal Academy students because of the fact that he could never use his Aura, not even like a natural defense like the other students. He finally had a way to get on more even ground.

He took the Dust in his hand and tried to crush it. "Tried," was the key word. He could not even put a crack into the crystal, no matter how hard he tried. He knew he could break Dust crystals; he's done it many times before, so why couldn't he do it now?

Time ticked on and it refused to become damaged, even after adding his other hand. Finally, a single crack formed, then another. Cracks formed one after another after the initial crack, until finally, it shattered. Jack waited to feel anything, but nothing came. There was no feeling of power, strength, or even warmth that some of his classmates said they felt when they activated their Aura. His hope on activating his Aura started to dwindle and fade.

The old man saw this and was about to console the young man, only to get thrown back by a sudden force. Jack finally felt it, the power, the strength, the warmth all his peers talked about. He felt it; however, he didn't feel it for long. The use of such a large quantity of aura, after just unlocking it, put a tremendous strain on his body, and all of what he just felt turned to weakness, fragility, and chill. His body became numb and the last thing he heard was the old man shouting his name before darkness swarmed his vision.

Two Hours Later, From Dust 'Till Dawn's Backroom

"What happened?" Was the single thought going through Jack's head when he woke up. He felt strange, he felt weightless. It was then that he remembered, so he bolted straight up. He looked down at himself, but he didn't see what he expected. He saw that he was still in his clothes, but he was translucent. The floor beneath his legs, he could see it. No matter what he did, Jack's body remained translucent; however, being translucent wasn't the strangest thing he saw.

There, sitting against the wall was a person that looked extremely like Jack, clothes and all; but, that can't be right. The guy was sitting on one side of the room, while Jack was standing on the other side. Before he could investigate, the old man entered the room, with few scratches that he didn't remember him having, and started to check up on the imposter. "Come on Jack," he started to slap the guy's cheek, "wake up."

Jack was now really confused, "What are you talking about, old man? I'm right here."

The old man nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a voice come from behind him. "Who's there?" He asked as he looked around, "Show yourself!"

"What are you talking about?" Jack started to wave his hand in front of the old man's face, "It's me, Jack. I'm right in front of you." He couldn't understand it at all. Sure, he was translucent, but that didn't mean he was invisible, right?

The old man didn't seem convinced, "If you are really Jack, tell me something only he would know."

"You and I both know that I don't like being asked to do that," the voice didn't seem amused, in fact it sounded quite irate.

The old man heard that and immediately backed up. "Okay," he said, "I believe you, but are you using your Aura?" The question was the closest thing to relevant to the situation at hand, so it had to be asked.

Jack was confused about it himself. "I don't think I am," he wasn't sure if he was or not, it made no sense. He then got an idea so he voiced his thoughts, "Hold on, I think I got something." Jack remembered how his teachers would tell the other students that in order to use their Aura; they need to recall the feeling they had when it was first unlocked. He tried to call back the feeling of being on top of the world, the feeling of invulnerability, and the feeling of being able to burn a thousand suns.

The old man was looking around the room in order to try and see anything to indicate where the "real" Jack was, and just when he decided to give up and wait to see what the lad's plan was, he saw a faint light out of the corner of his eye. A single patch of light floated in the room, and it slowly spread until Jack's fully clothed silhouette of multiple colors of light was completely visible. The old man was speechless at what he was seeing, it's not every day someone sees the form of the one they would call a grandson made from Aura.

Jack opened his eyes to see the old man' shocked expression. He tried to get him out of his stupor with a small joke, "What? Is there something on my face?"

Realizing that he stared, the old man tried apologizing, "Sorry, I just never thought I would see you made of Aura."

Nodding his head, Jack started walking towards his body. It's very strange for a person to see their own body in the third person without assistance. "Is it getting weird in here?" He joked as he stared at his body, "Or is that just me?"

The old man shook his head in response, "No, this is definitely strange." Neither of them could understand the situation they were in, the day started off normally for both of them, but after the use of a single Dust crystal, it went downhill.

Jack finally became tired of the silence in the room, "Well, I kind of want my body to do something interesting because I'm bored." Not even a moment passed by when the body's head shot up.

The body immediately jumped to its feet and scanned the room. Once its eyes landed upon Jack's silhouette, it dropped onto one knee, pressed its knuckles perpendicular to the ground, and the head became parallel to the floor. Neither of the two people could understand the bizarre act the body did.

Jack was the first one to come back to the world or reality and made a comment, "Well that was interesting." That was when something occurred to him, "Wait a second. That was interesting. Old man! It did what I told it to do! I can probably get it to do whatever I want!" He looked over the body and realized that it was still kneeling, so he spoke, with a bit of authority in his voice, "Rise." It did so, and Jack started to give it random commands one would usually give when playing Simon Says.

The old man finally snapped out of it and saw what was happening. "Jack," he needed the boy's attention, "why don't you try and see if it could put you back in your body?"

Jack's face lit up in realization, "I see what you mean. All right, body, put me back into you." Nothing happened; the body didn't move an inch. It did nothing but stand to receive its next order. Jack didn't give up yet so he tried different variations of the command over and over. His hope of getting back into his body started to flicker and fade, only this time, there was nothing to save it.

Jack couldn't understand it, it listened to all of his other commands, so why not now? "Tell me," he was close to breaking down, "why aren't you following my command? Why won't you put me back in my body?"

Two monotone words flowed into the air from neither the old man nor Jack, "I can't." It startled the two in the room as they never expected it.

The two didn't know what to do, so Jack only muttered a small, "What," as he tried to build himself back to handle what would probably come.

"I can't," the two words came again, but this time they were prepared and they found that it came from the body. "Once Soul leave Body," it started to explain, "can't come back." Even with its broken vocabulary, the message came across clearly.

The curiosity showed clearly on Jack's face, "How do you know this?"

The body only answered with a single word, "Instinct."

The word only made the old man question, "If it's instinct, then why doesn't Jack know this?" The body just stood there, not bothering to answer the question.

They stood for about a minute until Jack realized that the body wouldn't respond to the old man, so he re-asked the question. Now that the soul asked the question, the body answered, "Soul never meant to leave Body, but Body knows when it needed." What it said only served to confuse them even more, but they knew that was as much as they were going to get from it.

Jack couldn't let the opportunity to sum up the situation pass, "Well this sucks." He started to think of anything they could do, when an idea came to his mind, "I'm going to call you Johnson!"

The old man was just puzzled by the kid's actions, so he voiced his concerns, "Shouldn't you be more worried about other matters, and really, 'Johnson?' That's just your last name."

Jack only shrugged while he reasoned, "I need to live with the fact that I'm not going back in my body sooner or later, so why not now?" Even when the old man knew the kid since he was born, he could never understand him, it seemed like he was ready to cry only a few minutes ago. "And besides," he continued, "I can't just keep referring to him as "body" when he clearly has a mind of its own; and, that means I don't need to make up a name for him."

The old man could only sigh as he shook his head, "Do you have a plan?"

Jack instantly responded with, "Yeah, but do you have some sort of bandana here? Oh, and what about time to get to the airships?"

The questions seemed a bit odd to the old man, so he could only give a weak response, "There should be some in one of the crates backs here and enough time to get there early, but why do you need to know this?"

Jack became excited so he raised his fist into the air as he spoke, "Because I'm still going to Beacon!"

The old man couldn't help but question the boy's sanity, but he went with it after a little motivation.

End Chapter

Well people, that is basically my first attempt at a RWBY fanfiction. I got the idea from a post on Tumblr. The post talked about how silly it would be if you die during a zombie apocalypse, and your soul would leave your zombie body. The soul would then be stuck having to watch as their previous body bumbled around like an idiot.

So, I made this fairly strange OC that basically has a few screws missing in his head.

The next chapter should be up by tomorrow or the next day.

Like always, if you have a question, just leave it down in the reviews.

So with that, I conclude. Good day, good night!