Okay all, this is my third fanfic ever, and the other two were written when I was in high school, so they sucked. This is my first RWBY fanfiction so any and all constructive criticism is welcome. (Any praise is also welcome). Also, I suck at beginnings so if this seems abrupt I apologize. Anyways, onto the story!
(Disclaimer here: I do not own RWBY, all rights belong to Rooster Teeth and such, and any resemblance of characters to real people is simply coincidence)
0~0~0~0
"It doesn't take much to see how good you'll taste slow cooked." This is what I heard before my arm was ripped off and I was knocked out. I jolted up in my bed, having woken up from my latest nightmare. They seemed to be happening more often lately, often featuring a cannibal of some sort. I laid back, wiping my hand across my forehead and looked at my bedside clock. It read two am, and I groaned softly.
Right after I laid my head down to attempt to sleep again, I heard the door down the hall open. I assumed it was my housemate going to the bathroom, but I grew suspicious when I heard tennis shoes instead of slippers on the hardwood floor. Slowly, I heard the other doors in the hallway open one by one. I quietly slipped out from my covers and slid into my closet, grabbing the shotgun that was not loaded along with the knife I had in one of my drawers.
I hid in there until I heard my door open. I hoped that whoever this was went to the bathroom door first before my closet door since it was more visible from the entry door. When I heard the bathroom door open I slid the barrel of the shotgun out of the closet door and nudged it open, and then I zeroed the sights on the intruder. He was armed with a revolver, all six shots still in (most likely) as I hadn't heard any gunshot when I woke up.
"Be quiet and slowly put the gun on the floor." I whisper shouted at him. He stiffened up and began to turn around. "I have a shotgun trained on you and I will not hesitate to fill you full of buckshot, so I suggest you do what I say!" He relented and slowly bent down, placing the gun on the tile of the bathroom. "Now kick it further in and place your hands on the back of your head."
He began to do what I said, but dropped down to grab the pistol. I dashed across the room and pulled out my knife. As soon as he had turned around with the gun in his hands, I stabbed his left kidney. He shouted in pain and I palmed his gun to my left while he grasped at the handle of the knife. Bringing most of my bodyweight into my swing, I elbowed his temple and he dropped like a sack of potatoes.
"Yo! Damien you all good dude? I heard a shout." Crap, he had a buddy. I grabbed the revolver off my carpet and grasped the unconscious man's collar, dragging him into the bathroom. This accomplice already knew something was up when Damien didn't answer him and he was going to see the blood that dripped into the carpet from the knife wound. I had no time to move from the bathroom before I heard the footsteps of this second intruder moving at my door.
"Damien?" I heard him check the closet before he gave a muffled curse. I grimaced. I left the shotgun out there. The bathroom's doorknob rattled and I fired off a round at the center of the door. "Fucking hell!" He fired into the cramped room and didn't hit his friend or me with bullets, but the ceramic tiles in the shower shattered and pieces dug into my back.
I fired another bullet, this time slightly to the right, lower down, and I heard the gun drop. I slammed the door open and kicked the gun away from him. I had hit him in the shoulder, presumably with the first bullet and then in the right upper chest with the second. What I hadn't accounted for, was him having a knife. He lunged at me when I went to check on my housemate and stabbed me in the back. The burning pain of the knife lanced through my body, causing me to stagger slightly before I whipped him in the temple with the butt of the pistol.
When I entered my friend's room, I saw that he had been tied up. I untied him as quickly as I could, starting to black out slightly. "Call 911 and tell them that there are two unarmed intruders in our home, one with a knife wound and one with two bullet wounds, both unconscious. And, one stabbed me."
"Holy shit, man!" He rushed into the living room and grabbed the landline. "Hello… yes this is…" I slouched to the floor and laid my forehead against the frame of his bed, struggling to stay awake until the medical personnel could get here. I coughed and blood came out, the dude who stabbed me must have gotten a lung or something. It was a short wait until the sound of sirens and shouts came from outside. One of the perks of living close to the police station and the hospital.
I was put sideways on a stretcher with the knife still in my back and carried into the ambulance. It was a blur, as they hooked me up to the machines they had in there and stabbed me with a few feel-good needles. Except one wasn't a feel-good needle, and my vision sharpened from the encroaching black circle that it had been before. Sounds also became clearer as I was wheeled out of the ambulance.
"I need a surgery room prepped yesterday. He has a punctured lung and heavy blood loss. We need his medical reports from the last three years…" I tuned out the rest of what he was saying and glanced around, spotting my friend watching me from his car. He must have followed the ambulance. I also spotted two more stretchers, for the intruders I had injured. I honestly didn't care at this point if either of them made it, as they had entered our house with the intent of stealing our shit while armed with lethal weapons.
I was beginning to black out again, and this time I was allowed to. They put a mask on over my face before I conked out and told me to breathe as deep as I could. Not really a good idea with the knife in my lung, but I did and was quickly out of it.
"You know, being unconscious is just like being asleep, just weirder. Or it could be completely different for other people. This is honestly the first time I've been put under like this. The only other time I've been put under like this is when I got my wisdom teeth out." I spotted a bright light directly above my position. "Must be waking up. Either in the middle of surgery, or my room lights are super bright." Without any thought, I was dragged upwards towards the light, almost as if there were hands wrapped around my body.
"…Okay, push again. Your baby is almost out!" Something was wrong. Very wrong. I couldn't think anything else before I was pulled into wakefulness, in the arms of a doctor who seemed to be much too large compared to me. "Congratulations Mrs. Sharp! It's a beautiful baby girl!"
In my defense, what happened next was completely out of my control. I screamed as loud as my lungs would allow me, a loud piercing shriek that caused some of the other people in the room to cover their ears and the doctor holding me to wince in pain. This couldn't be real. This was a dream caused by the drugs they had pumped me full of. This revelation caused me to stop screaming, and I immediately began to giggle.
"Well, she has a powerful set of lungs on her, doesn't she? Would you like to hold her?"
"Yes, let me see the face of my beautiful baby girl." The doctor handed me off to my 'Mom'. She was a pretty woman, looking to be in her late thirties maybe early forties. Mocha skin with dark purple hair. "Oh, how precious she is. Look at you." She cooed at me and jostled me up and down gently. I grabbed one of her fingers and wondered at how real this all seemed. "Oh, she knows who her mommy is, yes she does! Honey, look at her!"
A man that had previously been sitting in a chair I hadn't spotted before got up and loomed over us. This man was huge, in his early forties and had a lumberjack beard. He was also mocha skinned, but had bright red hair. I would be lying to myself if I said I didn't find him intimidating. But then his appearance made a one eighty as he squatted down and made a face that was given to babies most of the time. It was ridiculous. I laughed at how foolish he seemed, but he seemed to believe that it was my amusement with him and not at him.
"Oh, she thinks I'm funny! And you said that nobody would find me funny!" He gave a hearty laugh and stroked his beard (along with his ego).
"Dear, she's laughing at you, not with you." She looked down at me again and rubbed my tiny hands in between the finger I had grasped and her thumb. "I think her laughter sounds like a melody, I want her to be Melody Sharp."
The man, presumably my 'father', gasped at this and held a hand to his chest in mock rage. "Melody?! How could we name our strong child that? She deserves a strong name! Something like Adagio!"
"We are not calling her Adagio! And what do you mean strong child? She's going to be like her mother, not like you!"
They traded off insults at each other until I couldn't stand it anymore. So, I did the only real thing I could do for attention and screamed again, and this time it was even louder. I heard patients in other rooms complaining about it. And then, a very faint echo reached my ears. I stopped and waited for everyone to gather themselves from the assault on their ears.
"An echo? Dang, the whole hospital must have heard that." My father rubbed his ear before he was struck by an epiphany. "Wait, that's it! Her name is Echo! Echo Sharp!"
I rolled it around on my tongue for a moment before I beamed and said it. "Eh-o, yeh." Of course, it sounded like high pitched baby nonsense, I didn't have any teeth.
"Aww, look at her. Not even a day out and she thinks she's grownup." My father came down and nuzzled my face, his rough facial hair bristling against my newborn skin. I attempted to push him away, but couldn't, so I cursed my little baby limbs. I cursed them for the muscle that they lacked and the baby flab they had.
Just after he finally relented and moved away, I felt my stomach demand sustenance. I spied a nib of a bottle over on one of the tables and made grasping motions towards it. Hopefully I could mime out that I wanted to be fed. Luckily, my mother was observant enough to know what I was getting at.
"Honey, would you please grab one of those bottles over there. It seems that Echo is hungry." He just gave off a small grunt and proceeded to grab a bottle and a nib. His hand seemed to glow for a quick second before he took the top off the bottle and placed the nib it its place. Mother grabbed it from his offering hand and slowly moved it towards my lips.
The flavor of warm milk hit my taste buds and I greedily drank the liquid. "Now that everything seems to have calmed down, we'll get all the papers ready and have you out of here as soon as possible." The doctor and nurses left, after my mother gave a quiet thank you. I didn't really care; this milk was too good for its own good. And it was then that I realized that this was no dream. This was real.
The realization made me stop drinking, and mother assumed it was because I had consumed my fill of the milk. She then proceeded to burp me, and as much as it pains me to admit, it felt good. It was weird, you know, having a mother again. My first mother died when I was fifteen due to cancer. I gave my praises up to whatever god or gods were up there right now for giving me this second chance. Though, of course, I also cursed them for putting me in the body of a girl. After living for twenty-five years as a male, I knew it was going to be Hell learning how to deal with all the things females had to put up with that males didn't.
This newest revelation, along with being mostly full and warm, started to lull me to sleep. Mother softly hummed a lullaby, quickening my progress to slumber. The dreamscape was just as blank as ever, when I first entered it. I was back in my original body, my mind more familiar with my previous form. But there was a small speck in the distance that caught my eye. I started to slowly float towards it, and it floated towards me.
"…hank you."
"What, did you just speak to me floating ball?"
"Yes, and I'm more than that… but it doesn't really matter now. You won't hear from me again after this, I just came to tell you that you saved the body of the one you replaced, as the soul was taken."
"Whoa, hold up a second there. My dreams may talk to me, but nothing like referencing my real life unless it's one of those freaky future dreams."
"Shut up and listen to me. You were brought here on a whim. Your soul was the closest when this young girl's was taken from her body. Like it or not, this is your new life. You get no help from me or any other being above the mortal plane. So, buckle up buttercup, you already pissed me off. Bye." The orb disappeared, leaving me there in the white space alone.
"Well, what a pleasant being! Not." I was roused from sleep with the need to relieve myself. With my powerful observation skills and a quick scan of my surroundings, I could tell it was sometime at night. Super fucking useful observation me. Maybe the next thing that comes up will be that the room is blue, or that I'm still a girl. That being said, I still had to pee.
I glanced downwards, getting quickly annoyed at my neck rolls, and I spotted a diaper. I let the urine flow, and I immediately regretted the decision. The smell was rank. It smelled like buttered popcorn had gotten soaked in urine and stuffed in the heating vent, growing mold in a brief period of time and pumped through the vents straight into my nostrils. "Aaaaaaaahhhhh gahhhhhhh!"
The door burst from its frame not even four seconds later, with my father holding a massive war axe. His Hazel eyes quickly scanned the room for the thing that made me cry. He lowered the weapon when he realized that there was nothing here. His face scrunched up when he got a whiff of my diaper's contents. "Well, look who made a mess of their diapy. Let me just clean this up so I can get back to sleep."
He lifted me from my crib while making sure to not hit me with the mobile above the crib. He then brought me over to a table situated against the wall with the busted door. A new diaper was pulled from a box while the one I was wearing was deftly removed and tossed into the trash. Unless that trash was taken out immediately, it would still stink up the room, so I didn't really see why he threw it in there.
"Thanks for not wiggling around, Echo. Heh, this is going to be easier than the others said. They said you would be a hellion and would not be an angel unless you wanted something from me. They also said you would be exactly like your mom, but I can tell you're going to be just like me. And I can say all of this to you because I know that you don't understand me at all." He nuzzled his face into mine, his beard bristling against my face again.
"You don't understand the can of worms you just opened on yourself, buddy." I filled my lungs and let out another echoing wail, the windows rattled and a door down the hall (or perhaps somewhere else in the house) crashed open and the patter of feet rushed to my room. Mother entered, wielding a sword and shield. Her eyes zeroed in on me, in the arms of my father. I gave what I assumed to be a smug grin to my father before he was shouldered into the wall and mother caught me in her arms.
"Shh, shh, I've got you. Nothing's going to hurt you. Everything's fine." Everything was obviously not fine, if the groans coming from the hole in the wall housing my father were any indication to the situation. "Rowen, what did you do to make her so upset?"
"Nothing!" She sent a glare his way. "I swear on my beard, Fila, that I did nothing that would upset her so much that she would yell again."
She kept glaring for a few more seconds, content to just watch him sweat and second guess himself, but then she relented and went back to paying attention to the baby in her arms. "I'm still wondering why these two came running in here with weapons like those. Must be a bad neighborhood or something." She placed me back in my crib, but now before planting a kiss on my forehead.
"Now that all that is taken care of, a bed time story to help you get to sleep. Once upon a time, there was a wizard, who resided in a small hut in a field. He was alone, but he was content with what he had. One day, four young maidens wandered near his hut. He was ecstatic "My, how blessed am I to have visitors. I can't quite remember the last time I saw someone. Please come in and have some tea or coffee. Tell me of your travels." And so, the four maidens had tea with the wizard and told him of their travels, wearing down the day with their tales."
"This sounds more like something I've heard from RWBY rather than a tale in my other life. But then again, wouldn't RWBY be a tale from my old life as well? Wait… if this ends with the four maidens becoming the maidens of the seasons, then I'm on Remnant. That means Grimm. Now the weapons might make sense."
"Sadly, the sun was nearly about to set, and the maidens had to return to their travels. So, the wizard saw them off, but not without giving them something. It was both a tremendous blessing and a terrible curse. He made them the maidens of the seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. He knew they would wield these powers for good by listening to them. And then, they were gone, split to the four winds so that they could help others and keep the powers they held safe. And for the wizard? It's said that he still lives in that hut to this day, watching over travelers and hunters alike, seeing if there are any who can help the world and halt the Grimm threat."
She said nothing more before she pushed the mobile above my bed, setting it into motion. The slowly rotating shapes ushered me to slumber as mother, or Fila now that I know her name, helped Rowen out of the wall. The last thing before I was fully asleep that I heard was Fila telling Rowen that he was 'going to repair that hole in the wall first thing come morning'.
0~0~0~0
My slumber this time was dreamless, as I woke when there were rays of light coming in through the window and my stomach was yelling at me to get something to eat. I rolled over, intending to get out of bed before remembering where and what I was. I could pick out the sounds of metal clanking against metal, like pans coming together or pans against the metal fins on a stove. The hole that had been created was patched up, though very crudely in my opinion.
"Honey, could you go and see if Echo is up yet."
"Fila, if she was up, you know she would be wailing. Mrs. Turner next door said that it was normal for babies to start yelling when they wake up."
"Just go check on her." The no nonsense tone of her voice earned her a grumble from the man before the scraping of chair legs was heard.
"Yes, dear." The footsteps neared my room and he poked his head in, looking at my crib. I gave him a stare like no other, the stare only a baby can give. He locked up and I intensified my stare. He started to shake, like I was staring into his soul and revealing all his sins for the world to see. I opened my little mouth and took in a deep breath… "Oh dear Oum, no! Not again!"
I shut my mouth again, releasing the air with a puff from my nose. He gave a sigh of relief and came over to the crib, gently picking me out from it. "Well, now that you're up, let's see about getting you something to eat. He took me out towards the kitchen through a narrow hallway with only three actual doorways and an opening at the end that opened to the living room. The kitchen was portioned off by a half wall, and that was where mother was.
"So, I take it by the fact that you're quiet that she was up?"
"She still is up, I'm carrying her right now." He set me down in a baby seat with one of those tiny tables in front of it. "Surprised she didn't yell her head off again. Though she made like she was going to for a sec there."
Fila just hummed and flipped something in the pan. Rowen went back to his seat and flipped open a newspaper that he had probably put down to check upon me. Silence reigned in the kitchen for a few minutes, with only the scraping of the pan and plates in the background. I started to tap my pudgy little fingers against the plastic table, growing impatient. Fila noticed before Rowen did and huffed.
"Rowen, did you not get her something to eat?"
"No, I didn't. I thought you were making her something?"
"No, I'm not making her something! We have baby food in the fridge, along with bottles of milk. Please take care of our daughter while I make OUR food."
He rolled his eyes and got up again, placing the paper down. Moving to the fridge, he opened it and grabbed a container of baby food and a bottle of milk. The hand holding the bottle glowed again, and he placed the bottle on the tray while he went to grab a spoon. I put my hand to the bottle and it was warm. His semblance must be to heat things with his palms, which probably wasn't that great a semblance for his weapon. He came back with the container open and a spoon sticking up out of it.
"Here you go, open on up kid." He got a decent amount of the goop on the spoon and moved it towards my mouth. I took a tentative mouthful of it and cringed at the taste. It was like leafy hospital food. I reluctantly swallowed it so I didn't cough it out. I stuck my tongue out to show my obvious disgust in the food. He chuckled and got another spoonful of it. "Just a few more and you're done. I know this stuff don't taste great, but it's all you're going to get for a while."
A few more spoonsful of that and it was done. He tossed the empty container into the trash and came back to help with the bottle, as I could not hold it on my own with my puny limbs. The taste of the warm milk helped wash out the taste of whatever I had just ingested, and I was grateful for that. With the bottle quickly emptied, he gave me a minute to get it digesting before picking me up and giving me a soft pat on the back. A small burp came out and a pressure that I hadn't noticed before vanished.
Fila placed two plates on the table, filled with bacon, hash browns and eggs. The amount was honestly surprising until I remembered that at least one was a hunter and the other had training at the least. "Did Henryk tell you if you're close to clearing the caves near town yet?"
"Yeah, he said there's only a few more pockets left, we should be able to finish it up today with no problems. Then those Schnee guys can set up their equipment, and we'll get our final pay for this thing."
Fila sighed, putting her fork down. "I just wish it wasn't the Schnees. Why couldn't it have been that group setting up in Mistral?"
"Because those guys know they're going to go out soon. The SDC has a monopoly on dust and will drive them out of the market soon. I know you didn't want me to take this job for them, because of their views on Faunus, but we need the money even more now with an extra mouth to feed and look after."
"I just… have a bad feeling about those caves nowadays. It's like there's something hiding in there that needs to stay there." She just shook her head and picked up her fork again, beginning to finish off the rest of her breakfast.
"Well, if there is something like that, then we're leaving at the first sign something is up." He glanced at the clock ticking away in the living room. "Crap, it's about time I left." He shoveled the rest of the food on his plate into his mouth and chugged the coffee he had. He gave Fila's forehead a light peck and did the same for me. "I'll be back at six. Love you both!"
With that, he exited the front door. "How about we read a book while we wait for you to get sleepy." Fila picked me up and carried me to the couch, where there were already a collection of picture books waiting. We spent close to an hour reading, well, her reading aloud and me silently wondering what these caves were holding. Dust, obviously, but what kind and in what amount. I grew tired and was carried back to my crib, gently placed inside and sung to sleep.
The next time I woke, it was to screams. It wasn't six. Rowen wasn't coming back. Fila ran into my room and grabbed me, rushing me into a garage I hadn't seen yet. There was a small room in the wall, behind a steel door that looked like the wall from the outside.
"Honey, I love you." And with that, she left me there, in that dark cold room.
These were the last words I heard from my new mother.