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I groan, leaning back in my chair and taking a long swig of Coke, the oppressive darkness around me doing nothing to entertain my mood. "Yeah, and am I also the the Pope? I don't think so," I mutter to the computer screen. Taking a quick glance at the clock on screen as I recap the bottle further sours my mood. "It's barely midnight. I've only just gotten online. What. Is. This?"
I try to close the window - gaming awaits - but nothing happens to it. "Wait, what?" I click the red X again. Nothing happens. Alt-F4? Nothing. Alright fine. If this thing won't go away normally, I might as well try something else.
I make sure all the files I was working on are all saved - game saves included - and I push my laptop's power button. Nothing happens. "Um," I press it again, still nothing. "The eff is this?" The pop-up is the only thing on screen, its flashing lights taunting me.
It looks like I don't have any other options but to click it, so I do. Immediately after I did, the screen flickered and went black. Faint music started playing, and a black progress bar appeared onscreen shortly afterward, though what it meant was beyond my grasp. I'll see what this loads up, but if I see any sliver of a hint of a virus on this computer, I'm gonna find a way to claim warranty on this thing and I'm getting a new one.
I get up and leave the room to take a dump, and when I come back the screen has something else on it that makes me stop in my tracks. "RWBY: Rebirth," I read out loud. "There's another RWBY game?" I remember playing the official game - Grimm Eclipse - at launch when it was still an Early Access game. I hadn't heard of any other RWBY game since. "This might be something worth checking out. Might."
I have sort of a love-hate relationship with the RWBY series. The characters, story, and action are good a lot of the time, even though the animation and story can get choppy and weird respectively. Back when I was a young weeb I actually considered buying a pair of cosplay Ember Celica gauntlets until I asked myself where I would put them. But again, that's cringy teenager me. I don't talk about him anymore.
Understandably more than a little intrigued (even with the threat of a virus on my computer, but I still hadn't ruled that out), I sit down at the computer again. The progress bar was about full, so it was only a matter of time until it got full. As expected, only a few seconds after I sat down again the bar filled up to the maximum and the screen faded to black again.
Shortly afterwards, a character creation screen showed up with hundreds, if not thousands of customization options to choose from. I couldn't help but do a low whistle. "I'm going to have a lot of fun with this; no wonder this took forever to load."
About an hour later - no joke - I lean back in my chair and examine my newly designed character. Standing at five foot nine, weighing one hundred and fifty pounds and sporting straight brown hair and gray-blue eyes, he would be much shorter and skinnier than I am in real life. I also didn't change his skin color from the default either, so he's also much whiter than me, though not pale. Oh well. Aside from skin color, I'll bet that if anyone had the option to choose their avatar's' appearance, nine times out of ten they would make themselves look like they want to look themselves.
Considering that this is a RWBY game, I didn't skimp out on his outfit in the slightest. Underneath a dark blue and black windbreaker jacket - modeled after one of my old favorites - he wears a short-sleeved plain white shirt. For his lower half, he has a pair of boot-cut jeans held up with a belt that has a Scroll case attached to it on his left side. For facial accessories, I decided to go a dark-blue plaid bandanna for edgy points. Also because I wish I could get away with wearing a bandana in everyday life anyway. For privacy's sake.
Another screen, now I have to choose a name; that's the hardest part of making an RPG character. Luckily, right next to the text box is a little 'Help' icon. Clicking on it reveals this message:
Your name must meet one of the following criteria:
It must be a color
It must be something that sounds like a color
It must be something that means a color.
"Huh. These are like the official naming rules that Monty Oum himself put in place. Nice little detail, assuming this is single-player."
I exit out of the message and the text box appears once again. "Well, he's got a pretty blue aesthetic, but Blue isn't really a name. I would say 'Duke' as well, but that's not normally associated with blue outside the sports community..." I continue brainstorming aloud until I come to a name I mostly like. "Iris sounds pretty good. Granted it is a darker shade of blue, but the darker color scheme in general can justify that name." I type 'Iris' into the textbox and hit Enter.
The final step is to choose what kingdom to start in: Vale, Vacuo, Atlas, or Mistral. I actually thought about this specific question when I was really into the show, and decided that Mistral sounded cool, so I'll go with that. I'm an artsy fartsy kind of guy. Besides, it's a fitting first area for an RPG, what with the rich/poor split in the anime. I'll probably get a lot of replay value if I choose Mistral, assuming it isn't a pure open-world five million hour test of dedication.
I select Mistral, and the game enters one another loading screen with another progress bar.
0% - Processing information…
"Oh, there's text this time."
25% - Loading character…
50% - Finding spawn point…
"The spawn points randomly set? But I chose-"
75% - Merging the soul…
80% - Generating weapon...
"Wait, what?"
90% - Transporting…
"What's this all about?"
Suddenly I start having a splitting headache, not unlike a migraine. It's now that I realize what it means to be 'transported.'
"You've… got to be kidding…"
Welcome to Remnant
A white light, and then…
...Nothing
"Hey, hey. Wake up. C'mon, there are better places to take a nap. C'mon, wake up!"
A voice, female if I had to guess. She's loud.
"Give it a rest Margaux, he's sleeping too hard."
Another voice, another girl. I've never been visited by any girls. Must be something like a fatigue-induced hallucination. Unless I'm in the hospital. I'd better not be in a hospital.
There's some rustling, and the first girl huffs, "Not anymore, he's stopped snoring."
I don't snore. Also it doesn't smell like any hospital I've been in... I'll open my eyes on the count of three. This all better be a hallucination.
"He's definitely awake. His heart rate has sped up."
One
"Since when did you start paying attention to that? Since when have you paid attention in general?"
Two
"That's so mean!"
Three.
I open my eyes. I'm in the middle of the woods on the side of a trail with two very attractive girls about my age standing over me.
They look like perfectly opposite twins. They're both the same height and figure, but one of them has black hair and the other has white hair, the dark haired one is more tan than the white haired one...
...Even their outfits are complete opposites. One of them is wearing a dark outfit; a black t-shirt with gold trim and jet black jeans (I've literally only seen one pair like those in my life. Including hers.) with a gold colored belt. The other one has a very light outfit; It's exactly the same as the first girl's, but with white where the black was and a light blue where the gold was.
There's something off about these two though; (aside from their perfectly opposite colored clothes) something that I've only seen in certain works of fiction.
They both have tails. Big, fluffy animal-like tails. No ears to match, just the tails. And they look 100 percent natural. The dark one has a black tail, and the light one has a white tail, matching their hair colors. I don't know how to react to that. I don't have to either, because the girls have noticed that I'm awake.
"Well he's awake now," The dark one says without even looking at me.
"Ha! I told you! I told you Nox, and you didn't believe me!" Her tail starts to wag, hitting me in the face. Oof, it's definitely real.
I sit up and tiredly wave my hand to get the tail out of my face, and I get my wish... Except now she's entirely in my face, grinning wildly and asking too many questions.
"Hey, what's your name? Where'd you come from? Why're you here? Are you okay? You don't have an Aura. Why not? H- Ow!"
The dark girl pulls on the light girl's tail, sending the poor girl toppling backwards with a loud yelp. "You idiot. He just woke up, stop weirding him out." She turns to me with one of the most forced straight faces I've ever seen. "I apologize for my partners, ah… zeal. Allow me to introduce us. My name is Nox Candor. The person who won't leave you alone for even a second is Margaux Lynn..."
What kinds of names are those? Sounds like some real fantasy-like names. Also, the dark girl - apperanly named 'Nox' - pronounced her partner's name like 'Margo,' but her tone made it seem like she was insinuating that it's spelled differently. As if she read my mind, the girl reiterated her partner's name. "...Margaux with an A-U-X."
"Hello hello!" The light girl - Margaux - doesn't seem the least bit fazed from the remark. "What's your name?"
"Um…" I can't exactly say my actual name here. If I am where I think I am I have to go with the name I chose for the game. "Iris. My names Iris."
"Just Iris? No last name?" The dark girl - Nox - gave me a questioning look. For a second I thought she would grill me for an 'actual name,' but she suddenly starts to look like she understands. "Oh wait, that's actually pretty common, right?"
"Uh… Yes," I clear my throat, "Yes it is." I have no idea if that's the case or not, but this Nox character just gave me an excuse to not make up a last name. "Yeah."
"Woah! I've heard of people like you, but I've never met one until now!" Margaux had snuck up behind me somehow and started playing with my hair. My straight hair. Wait a second.
I look down at myself, trying not to let on that I'm shocked in any way. I hadn't even realized it before, but I'm wearing way different clothes than what I usually wear. Jeans, a blue jacket, even that bandanna... it's just like what the character I made wears. I look at my hands, and sure enough my skin color matches the character. Its at this point that I also realize that I'm armed as well, something that I was never prompted to choose but was mentioned in that loading message; in a sheath at my left side is a three and a half, maybe four foot sword, and in a holster on the right is what appears to be that Scroll case. "Oh dang."
Before anyone could say anything else, I notice that something's rustling through some bushes. I knew what was going on, but before I could react Nox had pushed me behind her and she and Margaux had drawn their weapons; both were bows, but they looked drastically different. Nox's looks more like a hunting bow, with multiple bowstrings and a strong-looking frame. Margaux's on the other hand doesn't have any bowstring to speak of, and it's frame looks like one long blade, sort of like a Brave Bow or Crescent Bow from Fire Emblem.
Nox nodded in her partner's direction. "Margaux, try to focus on protecting Iris. Like you said, he doesn't have an Aura. I'll take the offensive."
The rustling gets more intense, most likely because the thing is getting closer. Both girls nock an arrow into their bow, though in Margaux's case it's more like 'materialized an arrow.' Cool.
The rustling stops, replaced by a loud crash as a big white… something bursts out of the bushes and yells. And boy does it yell.
"ITS YA BOYYYYY!" It took me a few moments to realize that the thing was a human, and a few more when I realized who he resembled.
"Guzma?!" I shout in shock, but my shout is drowned out by the sound of impact the Guzma-expy backhanding both Margaux and Nox.
"Guzma? What kinda name is that?" He shakes his head in exaggerated exasperation, grinning psychotically at me. "The names Ashe, kid. And don't ya forget it!"
Nox and Margaux recover quickly, each shooting an arrow at Ashe. Margaux charges towards Ashe with unmistakable killing intent. Ashe dodged both attacks with ease before socking Margaux in the face, sending her flying back again. "Hey, whassamatta with you? I'm trying to talk to somebody here, yo!"
I know I should do something to help the two girls, but I don't know what. They all are moving way too quickly and skillfully for me to keep up with them, let alone hold my own, but I think I can at least try to distract Ashe before he murders all of us.
I reach down to my sword's sheath. Maybe I could do something with it. However that was cut short as a brightly shimmering wall forcefully pushes me away from the action.
Nox glares at me, her hand shimmering the same color as the wall. "Don't try it."
"Well sorry, I thought I could help!"
Ashe, while Nox was distracted, launched himself towards her. I panic and manage successfully to maneuver around the wall, pushing the girl out of the way. It's only while I see this Ashe guy in my face that I realize it was really stupid to not at least attempt to get my sword out.
By what I assume to be sheer dumb luck, I manage to duck away from Ashe's punch and push him away with a shoulder bash. It doesn't do much - and it hurt more for me than what it looked like for him - but it did distract him long enough to stop his assault on Nox. "Yo, what the hell?"
Before I could stop myself, I point at our aggressor and with a very commanding tone I say, "Stop it." Everybody including Ashe stares at me in shocked silence, and I feel like I'm going to get curbstomped. It stays that way for what felt like a minute before Ashe erupts into laughter. "You know what? You are hilarious. See ya 'round, kid." Then he just walks off - uncontested - back into the woods.
It takes a couple minutes more for the girls and I to fully register what I just did. After that few minutes Margaux finally speaks up from right beside me, and since I forgot she was even there I flinch a little. "He just left because of that?"
"I guess. I have no idea why though."
"That's really weird. You're really weird," Margaux says with a huge grin on her face.
Knowing that she probably doesn't register insults, I smile back at her. "Yeah, thanks."
"That fighting was also… something." Nox walked towards the two of us, as poker faced as before the fight. "Sorry...I'm being a bit harsh. Who'd you learn from?"
"Um…" I'm used to having to fight, partially because my schools were garbage and partially cause I got my growth spurt late. I did do some martial arts classes after school, but if I word it right, my answer technically won't be wrong. "...I'm partially self taught."
"Really? So are Nox and I! We're totally on the same wave!" Margaux's tail starts wagging rather quickly; does she get this overexcited about things like this all the time?
Nox put her hand on her partner's shoulder. "It's wavelength, you adorable idiot."
"To be fair, she was pretty close," I defended, already feeling comfortable around the two girls. Speaking of being comfortable…
"...What are you two doing out here? I can't imagine you living out here. Are you traveling?"
"Yes." Nox answered flatly, to which Margaux punches her on the shoulder. "You gotta say more than that!" She then turns to me, "We're gonna go to Haven Academy!"
I don't know how to respond. I'm definitely not in Idaho anymore. "Haven? The school Haven?" As in, I'm actually in Remnant, or at least some freaky-deaky sci-fi VR version of Remnant?
"Yeah! Wanna join us? We'll totally let you come with us, right Nox?"
The girl in question stares at me for a few seconds, as if daring me to make her say no. I just stare right back at her with what I hope is a blank stare. I also hope she doesn't see the horror I'm trying to suppress. Several seconds pass until she finally answers. "Alright."
"Great! Let's go then!" Margaux yells excitedly, ditching the rest of us to walk down the path.
I start to follow her, but Nox stops me. "Margaux."
"Yeah?"
"You're going the wrong way."