A/N: Due to a case of writers block I've started another story to work on until I can figure out how to proceed...okay so maybe more than one...
Anyway, here's the first of them, I hope you enjoy, and I'll most likely be finally making an uploading schedule soon!
In the morning pre-dawn light a small camp in the Alaskan woods stirs to life, the men all get dressed in their camouflage clothes and sleepily tie their boots from their cots.
An 18 year old freckle-faced ginger finishes before the rest of them, and pulls a Flecktarn chest rig over his surplus Flecktarn fatigues before grabbing a hard polymer rifle case from under his cot.
A gray-haired man laughs at him from across the squad tent as he ties his boots. "Are you still going after that old bear in the bottom?"
The ginger pulls out his rifle and sets it on his sleeping bag before pulling four tan metal magazines out of the case and shutting it. "Of course! I think I've got him figured out, he heads down to the creek for a drink, and then goes to the clearing at the bottom of the canyon. If I can find a spot in between the two, I might be able to bag the bastard." He talks as he digs through his green duffel bag, finally pulling out two boxes of ammunition. Quickly he stuffs the rifle case back under his cot and sits down while he puts the long, streamline casings into the stubby five round magazines.
"Alright, you just be damn careful, that canyon is steep, and if you slip it's a long ride to the bottom." His grandfather warns him.
"Yeah, yeah. I know, I'll keep my radio on. If I'm not out by four come find my body." He jokes back, slapping one of the magazines into his custom AR-10 before putting the rest in the pouches on his chest rig. With a pained groan he stands up and turns to face his cot before grabbing the rifle and pulling the paracord sling over his head. "What's for breakfast?"
His grandfather grabs a packaged cinnamon roll out of a small box and tosses it to him. "Breakfast of champions, there's coffee on the stove too, don't drink it all."
He chuckles in response as he pours the coffee into his metal canteen cup, eats quickly, and knocks back the coffee before wishing the rest of camp good luck and walking down the overgrown logging road.
The descent into the steep canyon takes a half hour, and by the time he reaches the bottom the sun has risen, and is starting to cast its glow on the top of the opposite hill. The tall pines reach skyward around him, leaving good sight lines all around him as he slowly walks towards a makeshift hunting blind he'd made the day before. Upon reaching the pile of limbs and moss he sits down behind it and watches an opening in the trees roughly a hundred yards long, and twenty yards wide, a trio of well-worn game trails weave through the opening before they join at the opposite end.
'And now, we wait.'
He smiles at the thought before adjusting even further to lean against the tree behind him. He unknowingly drifts off to sleep while he waits.
He's awoken a few hours later by the sound of heavy twigs breaking, and he quickly sits up, drawing a bead on the clearing in front of him. Patiently waiting he can hear the snapping and popping of underbrush getting louder as his prey nears.
Then, he hears a huff, but it's not from the direction he expects. It's from behind him.
He wheels around to find an old grizzly staring him in the face from five yards away, the snout of the gigantic bear scarred from fighting for territory with other bears. It's only now that he realizes why the bear hadn't taken the game trail like it normally had.
He wasn't hunting the bear anymore. It was hunting him.
He quickly swings his rifle around and flips off the safety before putting the cross-hairs on the chest of the beast and pulling the trigger.
*click!*
The sound of the firing pin striking an empty chamber seems to be louder than the gunshot it replaced, and he watches in silent horror as the bear swings its gigantic paw and hits him upside the head, then the world goes black.
The first thing that registers is the headache, a sharp piercing throb that feels like a hammer to the skull with every heartbeat. This is followed by the aching all over, even down to his toes, this aching in his ribs only sharpens into an eye-watering pain when he takes a shallow breath. He slowly opens his eyes and ignores the pain as he looks around, expecting the bear to be nearby. Instead he finds himself to be in a forest full of what looks to be maple trees, nowhere near similar to the highland pine and fir forest he was in when he woke up this morning.
He takes another breath and grabs at the painful area on his right side, he finds the spot to be warm, and sticky. He looks down at his hand to find it covered in blood, along with his entire right side.
At first he's alarmed, but calms himself before acting on anything.
'Alright, first step: bleeding.'
He grabs a roll of gauze out of his IFAK on his belt and gently prods at his side until he finds the source of the blood, one large claw mark just above his second rib. He stubbornly presses the gauze against the wound as he struggles to stand up, and finds his rifle some four feet away on the ground.
He slowly walks over and picks it up before slinging it on his left shoulder.
'I'm gonna need help getting out of here.'
He slowly reaches up and presses down on the PTT button on his radio. "Mayday, mayday, mayday. Anybody on this channel...please respond." He lets go of the button and listens for several minutes, silently praying for a response, but none comes.
"Damn it..." he groans and picks a direction on his compass, choosing to head eastward, where a large cliff stands in the distance.
Progress is slow, painful, and unsteady, and he falls multiple times on nothing but his own feet with a pained yell that echoes off the trees.
This carries on for an hour until he reaches a clearing with a bunch of ruins on the other side, he stumbles towards them until he notices a blonde girl and a black haired girl emerge from the trees. The black-haired girl notices him first, and gasps before pointing him out to her partner. The blonde rushes over, stopping a couple yards away with a concerned look. "Hey! You alright!?"
Before he can say anything a sense of vertigo washes over him, followed by the edges of his vision growing dark. Then the black around the edges of his vision closes in, and he falls to his knees before falling forward onto his face, unconscious.
When he wakes up his nose is assaulted by the smell of disinfectant, and he instantly knows he's in a hospital. He slowly opens his eyes, to find that one is covered by something, and he reaches up to find that half of his head is wrapped in gauze. He hesitantly lifts his head and looks around, noting the thick, bulky cast on his left leg and the large amount of bandages wrapped around his torso.
He gives a pained groan and lays his head back down, staring up at the ceiling for what seems like hours before someone enters.
"When do you think he'll wake up? If he had aura he should be healed by now-oh hey! You're awake! How you feeling?" The blonde from the clearing walks in, shortly followed by a girl in a black skirt and a red hood, and they both sit down at the side of the bed.
"Well...to be entirely honest I feel like shit...but all things considered...I'm alive...so pretty good." He pauses for a second and looks around the hospital room. "Where am I?"
The two girls look at each other before the blonde answers. "You're in Vale...if I might ask...what happened to you?"
He takes a minute to collect his thoughts before he answers. "I was hunting an old bear, I've taken the last two years learning his patterns, and I was finally going to hunt him. Except for I wasn't hunting him, he was hunting me. I pulled a fucking rookie move and forgot to load my rifle while on my way into the canyon, and he caught me completely off guard, he couldn't have been from here to the door when he charged." He pauses and chuckles at a thought in his head with a wry smile before wincing. "I guess you could say it was an unbearable experience for me."
The girl in the hood snorts and rolls her eyes as the blonde gives him a gentle high-five. "I think we'll get along fine!" She giggles before pulling out a small item out of her pocket and pulling on the edges, expanding the small item into a medium sized tablet that is transparent on the back of the screen. He blinks several times as he looks at the tablet in surprise. "That's a fancy tablet, what's the model?"
She stares at him for a second to see if he's joking, but his curious expression proves he's not. "It's a fifth generation scroll...everyone has these."
She shows it to him, and his mouth drops open slightly. "Really? This is the first time I've ever seen one. My phone isn't nearly that cool...shit where's my chest rig?"
He looks around the room again and the girl in the hood reaches under the bed before pulling out the bloodied mess of pouches and straps. "This?"
He nods in response. "Furthest left front pouch...actually, just hand it here please." She hands it to him and he places it on his lap before he opens one of the pouches and pulls out his phone, placing it on the table next to the bed before retrieving his wallet from the same pouch. "Excuse me for a minute, my folks are definitely freaking the hell out. I was due to report in more than two hours ago." He picks up his phone and taps on it several times before he puts it on speaker. It just gives a dial tone, and he stares at it in surprise. "We're in the middle of town right?"
"Actually we're in the Beacon infirmary, and it's been a week since we found you." The blonde shows him the date and he deadpans at the year.
"Do me a favor, without looking at the tablet recite the year." He tells her, not believing what he sees.
"Twenty-two seventeen." She replies automatically, as if it's common knowledge.
"But...that's not possible...is this some sort of prank? Because it's not funny." He looks at his phone and his jaw drops. "There's no way, this doesn't make any sense." The blonde looks at him with furrowed eyebrows, and he finally clears things up. "It can't be that year, because that would mean I was unconscious in those woods for two hundred years... it was twenty-seventeen when I woke up to hunt the bear..."
The two girls steal sideways glances at each other and the blonde puts her scroll back in her pocket. "Well! As much as we would like to stay and help, we've got classes in fifteen minutes. Soooo bye!" They both quickly stand up and hurry out, leaving him alone in the room, stunned and confused.
Several hours later he's still staring at the ceiling, having convinced himself that it was a cruel prank. Suddenly there's a knock on the door. "Enter!" He calls out, painfully adjusting himself to sit up. The door slides open, and a gray-haired man with a green scarf, spectacles, and a neat looking cane walks in.
"Hello. Glad to see you're awake. How are you feeling?" He walks over to the side of the bed and sits down in one of the chairs.
"Well...I'm alive...I've definitely felt better, but it could be worse." He motions to his ribs and head before he slowly pushes his chest rig off his legs, and onto the floor.
"Quite, however it has been brought to my attention that you are rather confused about the year."
"Err, yes sir. I was under the impression that it should be the same year as when I got mauled by a bear, however it's been brought to my attention that it is two hundred years later. This should be impossible."
The man stares thoughtfully at him before the door is slid open, and a blonde librarian-like woman walks in before handing a cup of coffee to the man.
"Thank you. Now that she is here allow me to introduce myself. I am headmaster Ozpin of Beacon academy, and this is the headmistress Miss Goodwitch."
"A pleasure to meet you both. For now if we could just call me Jackson that would be great."
Ozpin nods slowly and takes a sip of coffee before speaking. "Very well. If I may ask Jackson, what were you doing to end up in such serious condition?"
"Well sir...I was hunting a bear. I fell asleep in my stand, and when I woke up it turned out that I was the one getting hunted."
"Do you mean an Ursa? We don't have bears around here." Goodwitch asks, bearing a confused expression.
"If by Ursa you mean Ursus Arctos then yes, I was hunting an old grizzly bear that I'd been learning the habits of for the past two years."
Goodwitch only looks more confused, but Ozpin seems to have an understanding of the situation.
"Young man, if I may ask, may I see your driver's license?"
"Erm...sure?" He grabs his wallet off the bedside table and pulls his state-issue driver's license before offering it to Ozpin. The old man balances his coffee cup on his knee and takes the small card, scrutinizing it for several minutes before handing it back.
"Very intriguing. Recite your birthday to me please?
Jackson closes his eyes as he slips the card back into his wallet. "January twenty-first, nineteen-ninety-nine."
Jackson opens his eyes to find Goodwitch staring wide-eyed at him. "But that's impossible! That would mean you're over two hundred years old!"
Ozpin cuts her off with a raised index finger. "And yet there was no falter in his voice, meaning he has either practiced, or he is telling the truth." He sips at his coffee again, looking over Jackson with a thoughtful look in his green eyes. "There is also the fact that in his picture he has no Faunus features."
Jackson looks at him questioningly. "Faunus? What?"
"Sadly there's no mirror in this room..."
"There's a signal mirror in my vest."
Ozpin reaches down and holds the vest up for Jackson to access the pouches. He quickly undoes a snap and grabs a small square mirror out of the pouch.
He fumbles with the mirror slightly until he gets it aimed at his face, and gasps at his reflection. The exposed side of his face is lined with scars, the largest of which starting on his cheek and going up through his eye, ending at the bridge of his nose. But the most surprising thing are the two brown bear ears atop his head, sticking out of his hair.
"What the...?" He reaches up and touches the ears in disbelief, and flinches when the feeling registers atop his head, the brown hair on his ears feels soft to the touch. "This...this doesn't make sense...I never had scars like this...and I definitely didn't have ears on top of my head...this shouldn't be possible." He mumbles to himself as he lowers his hand to his face and traces the big scar.
"And your driver's license reflects that. Yet we have undeniable proof that you do indeed have those features." Ozpin points out before taking a rather large swill of coffee.
"I...wait, I was told I'm in Vale, please tell me that's Vale, Oregon."
Ozpin shakes his head. "I do not believe I've ever heard of Oregon, what kingdom is it in?"
Jackson's jaw drops open, and he looks between the two adults. "Kingdom? It's in a country. The United States of America, on the western coast of the continent of North America."
Goodwitch looks irritated, and quickly voices it. "This is clearly an act! Quit your shenanigans and tell the truth or you will-"
She's cut off by Ozpin again, and he turns to her.
"That is quite enough, you may leave now."
Goodwitch looks at him with a fire in her eyes, but quickly nods and stalks out.
Jackson waits a minute before speaking, as he can hear her heels clicking down the hall.
"I uhhh...I'm not sure what I said. I'm telling you everything you want to know." He says awkwardly, his shy personality starting to come out slightly.
"I believe you, she's just...less experienced with these situations than I am." Ozpin comforts him as he finishes off the coffee in his cup.
"So...sir...w-where am I?"
"You are in the world of Remnant, and your account of the country from which you came from matches up with a similar account a dozen or so years ago. You are no longer on your planet."
Jackson stares in awe, hoping everything is not true, yet believing what Ozpin is saying. "But...how...? The last thing I remember is getting knocked upside the head by ole' Scarface...then I woke up in a forest and those two girls helped me..."
Ozpin nods and nudges the chest rig under the bed with his cane while Jackson thinks aloud.
"Tell me, did you have a nice family?"
Jackson is startled out of his thinking and stares at Ozpin before nodding slowly. "Yeah...the best mother a kid could ask for, my dad took me hunting every year, I had a twin sister and a younger brother."
Ozpin nods solemnly, a sad look in his eyes. "I see...my sympathies." With that he stands up and walks over to the bed. "I would like to extend an offer for you to attend Beacon academy. It would assist in your learning of Remnant and all who exist on it."
Jackson stares at the ceiling for a moment before looking at Ozpin. "I accept your kind offer. However, if I may have a few weeks to work some things out in my head, that would be lovely. Are uniforms required?" Ozpin nods in response. "If I may, I would like to stick with my apparel that I was found in, even if I need to have some spares made. I never have been one for fashion, only functionality and comfort."
Ozpin looks thoughtfully and smiles before offering his hand. "I believe we can make that possible. I shall have your weapon returned once you are discharged. Oh, that reminds me, do you have an aura?"
Jackson just stares at him like he'd been asked to grow a second head. "A what?"
Ozpin simply smiles. "If you may allow me, on Remnant we all have an aura, it's a barrier that assists in protecting from attack, as well as it helps with healing injuries. I can unlock yours so you will heal faster."
"Err, please do, the sooner I'm out of this hospital the better."
Ozpin nods and they shake hands before he places his hands on Jackson's chest, and begins mumbling something, before long a feeling like grabbing an electric fence surges through Jackson once, leaving a buzz lingering in his chest.
"There, it is done. I look forward to speaking with you again, however I must go." Ozpin nods respectfully and walks out, closing the door behind him.
Jackson stares at the door and blinks several times, trying to comprehend the meaning of the exchange. The only thing that keeps popping up is what Ozpin said in response to his family.
'I see...my sympathies.'
And there you have it, more chapters coming in a couple days. PLEASE leave a review asking any questions or if you have praise to give.
With that, I bid you adieu!