NOTE: THIS IS AN UPDATED VERSION OF THE STORY. IT HAS BEEN MODIFIED FROM THE ORIGINAL VERSION.
A/N : Hey fellow readers! So this may seem weird but Jay, Ren, Em, and Mau are actually four seperate writers. This is Jay talking to you right now. Hiya!
We love RWBY and wanted to make a ff togther, so we each made four seperate characters to make up a team. River is Ren's character and you'll get to meet the rest later.
I'm the one who'll be posting a managning the story but we wrote and created together. Ren, Em, and Mau send their greetings and we all wish you happy reading!
"Just shut up, you don't understand!" ten-year-old River Bay screamed at her father. Her straight black hair swung in its customary high ponytail, brushing the back of her neck. She had dark brown eyes that were always wanting to glare at her parents, but held back in fear of getting slapped. Her parents were the kind that considered what anyone else would call child-like curiosity, rebelliousness, so River often had a hard time getting acknowledged as her own person at all. But stubborn in nature, River still found the pride to push against her parents in whatever way possible. She and her father were arguing for what seemed to be the hundredth time that day.
"River Esmeralda Bay, you do not speak to me like that! You are a child, and you will do as I say to keep up our public image. Now you are coming to this party whether you want to or not!" her father yelled in her face.
River's face twitched as she felt his hot angry breath against her skin. With mixed emotions of anger and fear coursing through her, the only thing she could think was: I hate when he uses my middle name.
"Fine." was all she managed to say.
"Now go to your room and put something more appropriate on. If you're not down in ten minutes you'll be skipping your meals again tomorrow," her father spat.
"Yes...sir." she managed to force out. She turned and stiffly strode down the hallway toward her bedroom. When she got into her room, she quickly locked the door and leaned against it, hot angry tears pouring down her face.
Her mind flashed to a day she had been playing with all her "friends". The ones that her parents had picked out for her because their parents had good social backgrounds. She had been walking through a garden by the edge of some woods when a boy about her age jumped out in front of them. The boy had been dressed in filthy rags and tears were streaming down his face. He began to scream at them, cursing them and their rich families for their selfishness. He said that his mother was dying of an illness that they had no money to cure, while the rich pompous brats like them were living in comfort. River remembered being extremely shaken by this, as two guards grabbed the boy and dragged him away. It was a memory that haunted her, not only because she was terrified of what she saw in the other half of the world, but because she realized that was where she would much rather be.
Wiping away her tears, she opened her dresser drawer and pulled out a pair of jeans and a worn out Haven Academy t-shirt (the cheapest clothes she had). Then she slipped them on, as well as a pair of shoes, and grabbed her backpack. In that, she put an armful of snacks from the stash in her room, an extra pair of clothes, and her pack of throwing knives. Her mother had forced her to take self defense classes, and when they got to the point where she would choose a "self defense" weapon, she immediately went for what she thought was the most dangerous and would make her parents the most angry. Not that they knew yet because they hadn't checked on her progress since the class began.
She sat down on her bed for a moment and stared at her wall with a cold and empty expression. Her parents were what made her feel torn on the inside. They would ignore her until it convenienced them. They would scream at her and tell her that she was useless. They never talked to her, never showed her the slightest bit of affection, and they never asked what she wanted; what she took an interest in. Her face hardened and she stood up.
"If no one's gonna care about me, then I'll care about myself. I wish I could be sorry. " She muttered as she silently walked to her window and opened it. She looked down at the ground, which was less than five feet below her. Taking a deep breath, she put her backpack on, tightening the straps around her shoulders. Sitting on the ledge she scooted herself down as far as she could before jumping the rest of the way, tumbling into a roll on the grass below.
She rose to her feet and looked back up at her window before looking out at the open field before her. An overwhelming feeling of relief and joy bubbled up inside her until she let out a real laugh. A real laugh; something she hadn't had for awhile
Looking around to see if the way was clear, little ten-year-old River sprinted across the field and into the nearby woods.
Several months later...
River looked around the small jewelry shop that she was in, tucking her hands inside the pocket of her sleeveless, dark-green and white hoodie. She was now eleven years old, and her parents hadn't come after her, at least to her knowledge. She didn't care. After she had run away she had started stealing from shops to sell the items that she took to get money for food.
Most kids her age would probably die trying to survive on their own, especially those who had grown up as privileged as she had. To say that homelessness was easy for River would be lying, but River was very clever. It came with the abusive parents. But that also made her a bit numb to the fact that she was a criminal; a street rat.
"Young lady, can I help you?" The shopkeeper asked from behind the store counter.
She looked in the direction of the man, and a plan quickly formed in her head. This man was going to make her job much easier.
"Yes, do you perhaps have any other necklaces like this one?" She asked the man with a beautiful smile, pointing to a necklace that she honestly hadn't looked at.
The man thought for a moment and then nodded. "I have a couple more necklaces of that style in the backroom. Would you like me to go get them for you to take a look at?"
She smiled even more. This man was making it a little too easy. Not only were there no customers in the room, but the jeweler was offering to leave the room as well. "Please do." The man nodded and turned around.
As soon as the door to the backroom shut behind him, River grinned and raised her hand. A wisp of darkness -a shadow- floated up to the door handle and solidified, jamming the door.
River Bay had discovered that manipulating and altering the state of shadows was her Semblance a few weeks earlier when she had almost been caught pickpocketing a man. She had darted down an alley, only to discover it was a dead end. She thought that she would be caught for sure, but the shadows had seemed to bend to her will and had wrapped around her, making it look like she wasn't there.
Along with self-defense, her parents had made her take Aura training before she had run away, so she was familiar with the feeling and had played around with it awhile before unlocking her semblance. Her Aura glowed a dark green around her body when activated, a color that she was particularly fond of, as it reminded her of the crisp smell of pine needles in a forest.
Snapping out of her train of thought, River turned and looked at the largest pieces of jewelry. "Which one? Which one?" she murmured quietly. She quickly found a large gold necklace studded with diamonds, that also happened to look moved aside in favor of some more colorful eye-catching jewelry. Grabbing that one, she shoved it in her hoodie pocket.
River raised her hand towards the door and released her hold on the shadow, letting it melt away. A few seconds later the jeweler stepped out carrying a box. "Sorry that took so long. The door was jammed for a second." He set down the box.
"Oh, that's okay." She said, walking over smiling as if she was the nicest person in the world. "I'm actually looking for something a little cheaper today. What are some of your lowest priced options?"
She had learned the hard way that after you take something, you shouldn't be in a rush to leave. You should stay, and either act as though you had forgotten your wallet or buy the cheapest thing the store sells, to make it look less suspicious when you left without buying anything.
"Let's see… Our lowest priced pieces are around a hundred, maybe two hundred lien." The jeweler said with a small shrug. "Let me get them for you to see." He bent down and brought out two small boxes, standing up to place them on the counter.
River opened one of them and saw a silver necklace with tiny red and blue stones embedded around a large green gem in the middle. "It's beautiful. How much is it?" She asked.
She truly did like the necklace, but she wouldn't be getting it for herself to wear. She would buy it at its cheapest price and then sell it for more along with the necklace she had in her pocket.
The man looked at the small price tag and then smiled warmly at the girl standing in front of him. "It's original price is one hundred fifty lien. But I'd be willing to part with it for one hundred twenty-five to such a sweet little girl such as yourself."
River gave him a wickedly sweet smile, "I'll take it."
The man nodded and took the lien cards that she held out to him. When it came to work like this, you had to have a stack of cash on hand. Fortunately River was good at what she did.
He put the necklace back into its box and then put the box in a small bag and handed it to the girl.
"Thank you, sir." She said with one final smile as she turned and walked out of the store.
She had barely taken three steps when she felt something grab her arm.
Instinctively, she dropped the bag that she was carrying and pulled out one of her knives, yanking her arm away from what was holding it.
She looked to see three figures; two boys and a girl. All of them were about her age, maybe a year or so older. One of the boys, and the girl, were human. The boy had brown hair, grey eyes, and pale skin, and reminded her of a weasel. The girl had light chestnut hair in a bun and blue eyes. The one that had grabbed her was a Faunus. He had light grey wolf ears, short pitch black hair, light blue eyes, and a very noticeable scar cut across his cheek. All three of them wore the same thing: black t-shirts, jeans, and shoes. The two boys both had guns both had guns at their sides, the girl had some sort of chain weapon. And they all looked like they knew how to use them.
"What do you want?" River asked holding her knife at the ready. She glared at them angrily.
"Take it easy, little girl. We don't want to hurt you." The young Faunus boy said with a smile.
River glared at him, Who's he calling little? He's an inch taller than me and probably no older.
"We want to hire you. We saw what you did in that shop. Very smart having the man go into the backroom. And the way you handled him with an air of confidence; you're good."
River's eyes widened as she realized that they had seen her steal. She quickly covered her surprise up with a scowl and she crossed her arms. "Why would you want to hire kid like me? What's in it for me?" She asked questioningly.
"Well, you won't have to be alone anymore. You can get help when you steal things. You'll have a place to stay." The Faunus boy said with a shrug and a smirk, "And technically we're not the ones hiring you, our boss is. He's been watching you for a bit, and thinks you know what you're doing. He sent us to get you and escort you back to the camp."
River wanted to roll her eyes at the cocky young boy. "Your boss dude sounds like a rat. He's hiring kids to do his dirty work? Why is someone like you here?"
"It's not dirty work. It's surviving." The other, pale boy growled. "Why is someone like you here? You're just a street rat, aren't you? Isn't that dirty work?"
River didn't have an answer for that. The wolf-eared boy took a step forward. "So, little lady, what's it gonna be?"
River hesitated and thought about what the boy had said. It was so alone out in the world by herself. Everyone hated her for being a street rat, or liked the person she was pretending to be. It was hard finding places to sleep, hard finding food to eat. But these kids weren't alone. In fact they seemed like friends. They helped each other out. Just watching their subtle body language, the way they stood together, it made River jealous. She wanted friends. She wanted someone to stand beside her like that. And if she was getting paid for it...
"I'm in." She said finally, coming to her decision. But she would be careful not to let them twist her mind. The minute they start using me too much, I'm out of there, she promised herself.
The kids all grinned. The Faunus boy held out his hand and said, "Welcome to the group, 'River Bay,' This is Lark," He said, pointing to the girl. "And this is Otter." He pointed to the pale, skinny boy.
Fitting, she thought. But she was distracted the faunus boy's sharp blue eyes.
"I'm Canyon," he said.
She shook his hand and smiled. This kid's snarky, cocky attitude was almost more than she could take, but somehow, she knew that the two of them were going to get along.
Six years later...
River woke up lying on the ground in an alley. Slowly, she sat up. The first thing she noticed was that her head hurt, and she saw that her arm was bleeding.
"Where am I?" She whispered to herself through a hoarse voice. The last thing she remembered was walking out of that jewelry store. As she looked down at herself she realized that years must have passed since then. For one, her body looked like one of a young woman and not of a young girl.
She quickly stood up and looked down at herself. She was wearing an auburn colored halter top that stopped five inches below her chest. She also had on black leggings and combat boots, and she saw that her knife holder was strapped to her waist. Her black hair was longer than she remembered, in a messy side braid that went a little past her waist.
"How could I go from eleven to... this and not remember it..." She muttered to herself. Though strangely enough, she felt very natural in her body.
She looked out of the alley and into a street, bustling with people and cars. There was nothing distinct about her location, and nothing that she remembered. "Maybe I can find what day it is. And where I am."
She walked out onto the sidewalk and looked around, before striding up to a group of people. She tapped one of them on the shoulder. It was a teenage boy, possibly eighteen. He had blond hair and blue eyes. He jumped when he saw her. " C-can I help you?" He asked with wide eyes as he looked at her.
She realized she must look pretty bad; covered in dirt and blood.
"Umm, yes. Could you perhaps tell me what the date is today?" Her mind raced, trying to think up a reasonable lie to tell him if he or anyone in the group of people asked.
When he didn't answer right away one of his girl companions punched him in the arm, "She asked you a question, you idiot." The girl said and turned to River, "Don't mind him, he does that to all girls who ask him questions." She looked nervous but told River what the day was.
River went numb; she felt fear creeping through her veins, making her blood run cold. She shook off the feeling and forced a smile. "T-thank you. Have a nice day." Then she quickly turned and walked away.
She walked for several blocks and turned at the corner. "How could that much time have passed? That means I'm... seventeen now. How could six full years pass without me remembering a single thing?" She muttered to herself.
She took a deep breath to calm herself down. "Okay, River. First things first, find out what city you're in." She looked around. There was a bookstore, an ice cream shop, a tanning salon...
Then she recognized one of the shops. A clothing store. It was one that she and her "friends" used to go to when their parents wanted them to spend time together. It had very expensive, designer brand clothing. She could very clearly remember her parents turning her down every time she asked for something, even though she knew full well they had more than enough money.
"That means I'm the city of Raeg, which is in the kingdom of Vale. Great; just great." She was looking around, still trying to process, when she heard of running away from it to preserve herself, as she would have when she was younger, she ran towards it, almost instinctively.
When she got to where the screaming was coming from she saw a man holding a gun and pointing it at a group of kids who were on some sort of field trip. He was telling the teachers that unless they gave him a certain amount of money the kids would get shot.
Without thinking River walked towards the man. She stopped when she was ten feet away. "Put the gun down, now." She said to him icily.
The man turned towards her frowning, he studied her for a second and then grinned, "What are you gonna do?"
She grinned back. "Wanna find out?" She reached into her knife pouch and drew out several of the shorter ones that were better for throwing.
The man stopped pointing the gun at the kids and laughed, "Very well then, little girl, you want a fight? Go ahead." But she saw the fear flicker through his eyes.
He had barely finished the sentence when River threw one of the knives. It flew through the air and sliced his arm. He let out a cry of pain and dropped his gun. River dove forward, grabbed the gun from the ground, and aimed it at the man.
The man looked at her and scowled, "You idiot girl. I never had any bullets in that gun."
Taking out the magazine, she saw that he was telling the truth. She grinned and tossed the gun into a bush as far away from him as possible. "Ok that just makes my job easier. I hate using guns." River paused for a moment, confused at her own reason for hating guns. Didn't she used to love them? She very clearly remembered being ecstatic when she had first learned how to hold one at a young age as a part of her training course.
The man glared at her. Slowly standing up, he put his hand on the hilt of the knife that was in his arm and tore it out. He lunged forward so quickly that River didn't have enough time to get out of the way. He knocked her onto the ground. She struggled for a few seconds until she managed to flip the man over and pinned him to the ground instead. The man noticed her knife pouch and grabbed it. River leapt off of him, trying to keep the pouch out of his reach, but it was too late, and he tore the pouch from around her waist.
"Dang it!" She muttered as she realized that the only weapon that she had was one of her smaller throwing knives. The man laughed and reached his hand into the pouch to grab a knife from it.
As he looked down, River ran forward and kicked him backwards into a shadow of a tree. She smiled and lifted up one of her hands. A small sliver of the shadow wrapped around the man's throat and became solid. The man choked and gasped for air, grasping at his throat. River heard gasps from the group of small children and bit her lip. Sorry kids. There goes your innocence. After a few minutes, the man's body slumped over, unconscious.
She ran forwards and grabbed her knife pouch. At that moment, three police cars showed up, along with a huntsman. Two of the policemen took the man to the jail. Another started coming forward to question her, but the huntsman stopped him.
He was tall and had blackish-grey hair, pale skin, and black eyes. He wore a red tattered cape over a long sleeve white and grey striped shirt, and black pants and shoes. After he and the policemen exchanged a few words, the huntsman walked up to River.
"Hey there. I'm Qrow, huntsman and headmaster at Beacon, the best huntsman Academy there is. I'd like to talk to you." The man said, holding out his hand.
"Um, hi. I'm River." She said shaking his hand.
"River... Do you have a last name?" Qrow asked raising an eyebrow as he led River towards a car.
"Bay. River Bay. Why do you want to talk to me?" She asked with uncertainty as he opened the door to the car and gestured for her to climb in. She hesitated, but then decided that if this really was a huntsman she would be safe. She got in and he hopped in after her.
"So you're Alex and Elise Bay's kid, who went missing about seven years ago, are you? I'm guessing you ran away. Was there a reason for it?" Qrow said as he nodded towards the driver, who started the car and began to drive down the road and out of the city.
River looked at Qrow and frowned, "Of course there was a reason. I wasn't going to play their slave games anymore. Now you tell me, where are we going and what's the real reason you want to talk to me? Because I am not going back to them." She demanded angrily.
"Calm down, will you? I'm not taking you back to your parents. And no one else will either. I saw that fight you just had with the guy. Who trained you? I know your parents had you take some kind of lessons on fighting, but I have a feeling that someone else taught you how to throw a knife that accurately. And how to use your semblance. So tell me, where have you been for six and a half years?" Qrow asked.
River frowned and tried to remember something after walking out of the jewelry store six years ago. When she failed to remember anything, she tried to recall the people who had made her stop walking, but couldn't even remember their names or why they had stopped her. She looked up at Qrow, "I-I don't remember," she said quietly.
"What do you mean, you don't remember?" Qrow asked, sitting up straight and looking at River closely.
"I-I mean that I woke up this morning and the last thing I remember, I was eleven and was walking out of a store when someone stopped me. I don't remember who." River's voice was hoarse. She had left out the part about her stealing a necklace from the store.
Qrow frowned and studied the girl next to him. He nodded, "Hmm, six years passed and you don't remember any of it. Interesting."
"I'm telling the truth!" She exclaimed. But then she added, "Please don't tell anyone." She didn't know what happened to her, and frankly, she didn't want anyone else to know until she figured out herself.
Qrow just laughed, which annoyed River. "Don't worry. Your secret's safe with me. The real reason I am talking to you is to tell you that I want you in Beacon. Students are running short. Good people are finding… other ways to use their skills." Qrow said, looking at her to gauge her reaction.
She swallowed. "...I can't go to Beacon. I don't have the money, and my parents most likely disowned me after I ran away," River said, looking out the window.
Qrow smiled. "I never said that you had to pay, I was gonna say that I am giving you a scholarship to go to the school."
"You're joking," River said, staring at Qrow. Becoming a huntress had never crossed her mind in all of her… forgotten life. But she didn't want to be a filthy, homeless criminal. Something about her unremembered past was telling her that what Qrow was offering was where she was supposed to be.
The man chuckled again. "No, I am not joking." The car slowed to a stop.
Qrow tossed River a roll of lien. "I only expect you to pay me back some way or another in the future. The semester starts in a week, and I expect you to be there."
River got out of the car, but before she could say thank you, the door shut and the car drove off.
She turned and looked around, and saw that she was standing outside of a hotel. She looked down at the money in her hands. "This is a lot of lien." She said to herself, staring down at it. She looked back up at the small hotel. "Guess I'll put it to use."
River managed to get one of the cheapest rooms available at the place. When she got into the tiny room, she took off her knife pouch and put it onto the dresser by the bed. Then she walked into the bathroom area and took a long look at herself in the mirror.
She looked as if she had bathed in a mixture of dirt, sand, and blood. Her pants had a tear in the knee -probably from when she had dove for the gun- and her arm had a large cut and dried blood on it. Now she knew why the kid's she had talked to had looked so terrified. She could only imagine what that huntsman had thought of her.
She sighed and slowly undid her tangled braid. She looked through the drawers by the sink for something to brush it with and luckily found a comb that someone had left behind.
She tried to comb her hair, but the knots in it were awful. While she was trying to get the comb unstuck from a strand of her hair, she saw something glimmer in the lighting and noticed four small, emerald colored gems on her head.
She frowned and looked closer into the mirror. They were each about half the size of a dime and were placed so that two were on either side of her face on her temples, but were not very noticable.
She raised her hand and ran her finger over one of them before pushing down hard. Almost immediately her head started to pound painfully.
"What the hell?" she gasped loudly.
They must be some type of jewelry thing that I got, and I don't remember... River thought to herself.
"Because I can't remember anything!" She growled out of frustration. She raised a hand to run her fingers through her hair but frowned when they got caught in the black strands, reminding her that she should get cleaned off.
She undressed and got into the shower, sighing as the hot water ran over her face. It seemed to wash away her anxiety along with the dirt and sweat. She took fifteen minutes untangling her hair and cleaning off the layer of mud she had acquired.
After she had dried off and put on the cleaner clothes that she'd been able to buy off of the hotel manager, she was forced to face her thoughts. Her mind got the best of her as she felt a panicked feeling rising in her chest. Her hands and knees were shaking and she sat down on the modest little bed that sat in the corner of the room.
"O-okay, River, what do you know? You know you'll be at Beacon in a week. Or… you think you will…" she frowned "You can take this time to try and remember everything, and find out who the heck you are now."
Deciding it would be best to rest now and deal with her anxiety later, River climbed into bed and fell into a deep fatigue-laden sleep.
She didn't know what was going on. She didn't know what to expect. But whatever it was, she knew there'd be no such thing as a "normal" life for her.
A/N : Jay here again. But here is a message from Ren:
Hey ya'll! This is Ren, River's creator! It was a lot of fun creating River's personality and all of that! (hahaha I kind of mixed some of my own personality in her-cough cough probably all of it- ) I hope ya'll liked this chapter! I hope ya'll are excited to read the rest of the story! Oh wait! I already know what happens! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! :)