A Change in Perspective

by CanEvenCookEgg

One day, a group of four boys decided to watch RWBY. Through less than ideal circumstances, they find themselves in the world of Remnant. Now, they must find out why they were really sent there, unravel the mystery of the two beings that sent them, and most importantly, find out why Kalameet seemed so familiar to Devin. DISCONTINUED.

3. The Best Laid Plans

Author's Notes:

Here we are, it seems I could get another chapter done in a week. Yay! Not only that, but also the story has reached over 200 views in just two chapters! That is way more than I ever expected. Thank you all so much. In case you were wondering, yes, I did change the name of the story. The original title was just hastily thrown together, and I think this one fits better. Now with that out of the way, let's get into the chapter.

A Change in Perspective

Chapter 3: The Best Laid Plans

Drip

We find our protagonist and his group in a cave. They are all sitting in a circle, with all but Devin having a look of contemplation on their face. Devin had just gotten done explaining what he was, a faunus. More specifically, he was a wolf faunus. He explained that faunus were just the same as humans, just a few extra furry appendages. Also, he told them that nearly all faunus were discriminated against because a lot of humans saw them as less than them.

Neither Mark nor Steven took the information quietly. Steven yelled in outrage that someone could be treated this way in everyday activities, while Mark found it abhorrent that anyone could call themselves human after condemning anyone to discrimination because of their looks.

James' reaction, however, was different. He just said that faunus should be able to live the way they want and others should leave them alone. Though, he also said that if anyone wasn't willing to fight for their rights, then they must not want them all that much.

After their discussion on faunus, Devin decided it would be good to see if anyone else was a faunus. He had them check their hair for ears and their backs for tails. Finally, he had them flex their hands to see if they had claws.

Devin POV

Now that I knew no one else had ears or a tail, I moved on to class. I moved my hand around to match what Tukson did in the show as best I could. I did that three times before I finally got results. I made my hands into claws, and flicked them to the side. Sharp, almost two-inch claws shot from the tips of my fingers. My fingers itched, and feeling the claws was awkward. It was as though I just learned how to use my hand and were numb from being underused.

I instructed everyone what to do for the claws. I had James do it first. No matter what he did, nothing happened. Then I moved to Steven, with the same results. Finally, was Mark. He had a tough time following my instructions. It was either he couldn't cup his palm enough, or his fingers weren't enough. After the eleventh try, he yelled out in frustration and slammed his hands against his leg, and yelped in pain.

He pulled his hands from his leg, and there were blood-stained claws on each hand. He fell to a knee as he pulled up his pants. When they were rolled up enough, I could see deep gouges in his leg, though there seemed to be some steam coming off them. His wounds were starting to seam themselves together right in front of us. Before even a minute had passed, his leg was completely fine, no evidence that it had ever been hurt.

After the shock left the other's systems, we all got back together and talked about what to do next. "What was that?" James scowled at Mark, as he turned to him. "What the fuck happened to you?" I spoke up and reminded them of the decisions we made. "Remember," I said with disinterest, "we chose to come here with weapons and semblance." Looks of realization flashed across their faces. Mark sighed in what I could only assume was relief.

"Oh yeah, we all agreed to come here and kick Grimm butt," Steven pumped his fist into the air. "But, how do we do that exactly? It's not like any of us know how to use our weapons." He finished. I closed my eyes in thought. We could go to Ozpin and explain the situation to him, but after volume three and four, I didn't know if I could trust him. Another alternative was Qrow, but I doubted he would even give our story any thought before he threw it away as garbage.

I opened my eyes and told them my plan. "We're going to train. We'll find out how to use our weapons efficiently and effectively. Then, we will do what we can to help the people of this world," I declared. I looked to the others, and they seemed to agree with my thinking. This was our plan for now. This is how I would help them. I was resolute.

LINE BREAK

Four months. We've been training for four months so far. It was tiring and we didn't see improvements at first. The only thing we learned in the whole first month was how to correctly hold our weapons, and swing them. It turned out that Steven's halberd had a function that allowed it to become a hand axe.

It was during the second month that we began to see the most change in our swordsmanship. I noticed that our strikes were stronger, faster, and more natural. We moved through the motions more fluidly. Gone were the stiff and telegraphed strikes, and now we slashed and struck like a dance. We learned to weave attacks together to make our own kata and we practiced them religiously.

It was in the third month, however, that we noticed the biggest change for ourselves. Steven and James learned how to activate their semblances. Steven's simply took a thought, though he couldn't control more than five things, and they had to be in eyesight. James' was activated in another way. He had to envision he was where he wanted to be, take a step, and he was more or less where he looked. It took both of them the whole month to get a hold of how to use them to their fullest potential.

Though, when they found out their semblances, they wanted to know why I chose not to have one.

Flashback

I'm slashing into a tree with my swords, hoping to get deeper into the bark this session. As I'm hacking away, I hear footsteps behind me. I stop what I'm doing, sheath my swords, and then turn around. Mark, Steven, and James are all looking at me with questioning looks on their faces.

"What do you want? Is something wrong?" I raise my eyebrow in question. Mark and Steven shuffle before James sighs and begins to talk. "Fine! If you fucks won't ask him, I will," he said, and then he glared at me with knitted eyebrows. I look to Steven and Mark, hoping for an explanation, but I receive none. They just stare at the ground.

"Fine James, what do you want?"

"Why, when those black and white fuckers asked us what we wanted for a semblance, did you say you wanted none? Is it a curse!?" He screamed at me, anger and betrayal clear on his face. I sighed. I knew this would come up, I had simply wished for it to later.

I moved closer to them and then spoke, "To answer your question, I must have one of my own answered. All of you, why did you choose to have the powers you did? What was your reasoning?" I looked at them as they contemplated their answers. James was the first to reply, followed by Steven and then Mark.

"I just thought teleporting would be cool."

"I mean, telepathy is just, kind of a neat power. That's it really."

"I thought regeneration would help me survive here."

I glanced at all three of their faces. They said what they did without wavering, but I didn't believe a word they said. "Really Mark, it wasn't because you just didn't want anyone to get hurt if you could allow It? That you would even turn your body into a shield if need be?" Mark looked down in thought, as if just realizing this himself.

"How about you Steven? Was it because it was neat, or because you finally wanted control over something in your life?" Steven's hand made a tight fist and his face was a mix of anger and pain.

"And finally, you, James? You chose teleportation. Was it because it was a cool power, or was it because you wanted to be able to go anywhere, at any time, no matter what. To be free." James looked at his hands, ashamed, right before he balled them into fists and yelled at me again.

"What does that have to do with anything? He asked. What does any of that shit matter!? You still didn't answer my fucking question!" I looked straight at him. "A semblance," I began, "Is a physical manifestation of our souls. This means that a semblance represents what you truly desire." I took a break to take a breath and ready myself. "What we want is connected to a person's emotions."

I could see the wheels turning in their heads. Steven was the first to speak his mind. "Then would that mean, you couldn't have a semblance?" Steven asked.

"I don't know. And if I did have one, I really don't want to know what it would be," I finished in a whisper.

End Flashback

Ever since that conversation, James has interacted with me less, though Mark and Steven still act the same. I shouldn't have said what I did, but what was done was done. There was nothing I could do to change it. I shook the memory from my mind. I needed to keep reviewing what had happened so far.

The lighters from Mark's pack had been invaluable for the first two months. They allowed us to make fires and cook food much easier. Though, they were made obsolete at the end of the third month. It turned out the cave was more than just a gorge in the rock wall, it was filled with dust at the rear of it. It had burn, air, shock, water, gravity, and ground dust in it. We could use the burn dust to make fires much easier than with the lighters.

At first, I was sure that it would be a long time before we were able to use them in combat, until I remembered a fanfiction I had read. It talked about how, in mixing herbs with dust, you could make dust cigarettes.

After this revelation, I went to the front of the cave and plucked a few handfuls of the mint leaves. I then got to work mashing up the mint leaves. When it came to the dust, I knew I needed to grate it somehow. So, I grabbed my ninjato and began carving them up. Thankfully, it seemed that if you held the dust gently enough, it wouldn't react with a sword blade.

After I had enough of all the kinds of dust we had powdered, I began to mix it with the mint paste. For the paper rolls, I pulverized some strong tree leaves, rolled the paste out, and cut it into squares. From there, I experimented with the proper ratio of mint to dust so it would work properly. When that was done, the last step was to figure out how to make the dust work without aura, because it seemed that Kalameet and Jundo left our auras locked.

It proved to be easier than I thought. When I smoked the D-Cigs, (that's what I'm calling the dust cigarettes) the dust would stay in my lungs until I blew out with all my breath. After that, the dust would form a cloud that attached to anything it touched, and could be ignited with a single spark.

Knowing this, I coated the last inch of the four-inch D-Cigs with very small stripes of burn dust. When the ember reached this area, it would slowly burn through each stripe of burn dust, giving me enough time to throw the butt of it at the dust cloud, igniting it and causing it to react much more violently than uncut crystals, or even powder. Even though I showed they were safe to use, no one was willing to smoke them.

Another interesting thing we learned, was what agitated dust was. Turns out, that agitated dust is any dust that has been thrown around and the crystal shape of it has structural damage. This causes the dust to minutely activate its properties. This was learned when I knocked a gravity dust crystal onto the cave floor and it became harder to walk. I realized that I could harness this and use it without aura.

I decided to use the agitated gravity as a means of weights. The idea was brought forth by thinking of Rock Lee from the anime Naruto and how he was able to become crazy fast because of weights. I began to see how far I could push the dust before it detonated. It turns out, pretty far. I could push them to make gravity roughly around three times heavier.

Then, I started to see how I could attach the crystals to my body. I settled on a wood bracer that had a hollow core to store the crystals in. Of course, it was a rudimentary setup, and it would only help for so long. Only James was willing to use the weights, saying that he wanted to be fast if he used a knife. But, so far, we hadn't been able to even go beyond two times the normal gravity. Our bodies simply couldn't handle the stress that accompanied extra weight of that scale. James and I had four bracers on. One for each hand and foot.

That was the last eventful thing that happened the third month.

That was enough reminiscing. I needed to get ready for my trip. When I found out we had dust, I knew I was going to sell some of it for lien. My plan was to go to Beacon, hitch a ride on an airship to Vale, and then find a dust store not owned by the Schnee and sell it there. The best place for me to go was From Dust Till Dawn. I'm sure that the shop keep would love some half-priced dust.

I knew that going to Beacon was a risk, but I knew no other way to get to Vale. RWBY never showed a way to get to Vale on foot, so I needed to go to Beacon to find my way there. I packed five crystals of each dust, and got ready to go. As I was leaving, James stopped me. He stared at me for a few seconds before he gained his voice.

"Look Devin," he began, "I know we haven't been on the best terms lately, but just, fuckin, be careful, OK?" he sighed as he looked at me regretfully. I moved to stand in front of him as I stretched out my fist. He smiled and bumped his fist against mine. I nodded my head to him as I walked in the direction of Beacon and said, "Make sure the other two stays out of trouble OK?" and continued on my way.

LINE BREAK

I came up to the cliff that Beacon sat on. It overlooked the Emerald Forest and stood about two hundred and fifty feet tall. I unsheathed my swords, and stabbed them into the cliff. I began to climb using them as my handholds. It took me fifteen minutes to climb the cliff, and quickly moved forward. It was about another fifteen minutes before I first saw Beacon. Its silver spires towering over everything else. I quickly moved to Beacon's square and saw a few students out and about.

I moved toward the docks, and immediately ran into a problem. They were having passengers show scrolls and what looked to be prove they were Beacon students. "Shit, I need to find a scroll," I said to myself.

I walked back towards the square, hoping to pick-pocket a student and steal their scroll. I sat on a bench, and waited. Thankfully, within five minutes, a student walked by and their scroll just fell from their pockets. Huh, bad luck for him.

I quickly got up and grabbed the scroll and opened it. The screen asked for a pin code. I first tried 0000, then 1111, and so on. Finally, I tried 6969, and it unlocked. I sighed, it amazed me how immature some people could be.

There seemed to be a few apps on the scroll. I went to settings and saw one that said, "Beacon Student ID." I opened the tab and it showed all the info on a driver's license. I clicked on the picture, not thinking it would let me do anything, but a message popped up that said, "Change Image?" I clicked yes and chose to use the camera. I also changed the picture and personal info.

After messing with the student ID, I once again walked to the docks. I got to an entrance, saw a woman checking scrolls, and asked if this airship was going to Vale. She said yes so showed her the scroll. After a few tense seconds of scrutiny, the checkpoint lady let me threw. After that, I got a seat closest to the door, and waited.

Once we began moving, I let myself relax and my muscles untensed. The ride into Vale was uneventful. It was five minutes before we landed, and I was the first to disembark from the aircraft.

Once I was off, I began my search for the dust shop. I looked through the streets until I found it. It was a quaint little shop that had a cream-colored exterior, surrounded on both sides by a brick wall. It had two windows and a single arch shaped door.

I walked in the door and saw the shop keep in front of the counter, wiping the countertops with a rag. He was bald on the top of his head, and had aged grey hair on the back and sides. He had bushy eyebrows of the same color, and had his eyes closed. He was wearing a green shirt covered by a red apron.

I walked to the counter and he greeted me, "Welcome to From Dust Till Dawn, the only dust shop guaranteed to match any dust prices in the market," he said with a smile.

I removed Mark's bag from my back, and set it on the floor. "I'm not here to buy any dust, I was actually hoping to sell some." I pulled the dust from the bag and set it on the counter. He picked one up and examined it. He turned it over and over, then put it back down.

"Young man, just where did you get this dust? It is of a much higher quality than even what I sell," he said with astonishment. I quickly thought of what to tell him, and just said that I happened upon a cave while hiking and found dust inside of it. "Well, what were you wanting out of it?" He asked cautiously. He most likely thought that I wanted the maximum amount out of them. How wrong he was.

I looked at the dust crystals he had, and saw that none of them went below seven thousand, five hundred lien. I took a moment to decide, nodded to myself, and gave him my price. "Six thousand per crystal. I won't go any lower." He stared at me, well what I thought was staring, it was hard to tell without seeing his eyes, and hastily said "DEAL!"

He gave me six thousand lien per crystal, and I had twenty-five crystals, so I was able to get one hundred-fifty thousand lien for practically nothing. Before I could leave however, he got my attention. "Young man, because you sold me this dust so cheap, why don't you pick three canisters of dust, on the house?" he asked me as I turned around. There was no reason to say no, so I took the canisters he provided me, and took one each of ice, steam, and magma, which I was ready to test with already. Magma was the color of orange-red, and I wanted to know what it did.

As I was beginning to leave, I heard something. It was faint, but I would recognize that anywhere. It was a song.

"They see you as small and helpless, they see you as just a child."

I instantly looked to the back if the store, and sure enough, I see a figure in a red cloak with the hood up, black leggings and black boots. "Well, fuck me and call me Sally," I said as I looked at Ruby. That meant that-

*Ching*

I didn't need to turn around to see what was happening. I quickly hid behind the dust counter and stayed quiet. It wasn't until Ruby kicked one of the goons out the window that I acted. I quickly drew my ninjato and engaged one of Junior's thugs.

He saw me coming and attacked with a very telegraphed one-handed slash with his red sword. I blocked it easily with my left ninjato, then I swung horizontally under our locked swords, and he was pushed back. I then followed up with a diagonal slash with my right sword, and knocked him into the wall. His head smacked into it, and he laid there, unmoving.

I quickly got outside and saw Roman about to attack Ruby. I ran to Roman's back and did a diagonal slash from my right shoulder to my left hip with both swords. He was thrown to the ground where I tried to take his cane away, but I was cut in the back by one of the goons. I pushed away the pain as I spun around and kicked him in the chest. I moved closer to him and engaged in a sword fight. Fortunately, he wasn't any more skilled than the other I fought, so a few slashes and a final kick to the face was all it took to beat him. Unfortunately, when I turned around, both Roman and Ruby were gone.

I moved to the nearest building with a side ladder and climbed it. When I got to the top, both Ruby and Glynda were already there and fighting Cinder from the bullhead.

I ran to their position and began to fire on the aircraft. Glynda and Ruby looked back at me for a split second, before they redoubled their efforts on stopping the fugitives. I kept shooting, until I ran out of bullets. When we arrived, we only had the clips we were given, so we always used our guns as a last resort. Just because I was out of ammo, didn't mean I was out of the fight. I switched my guns to sword form, then addressed Ruby.

"Cloak girl! Do you have any shots left in that thing?" I asked her. She looked at me then smirked. "What do you have in mind?" she asked. I looked at her and said one word. "Spin!" She had a full-blown smile on her face as she began to spin, using her sniper shot to keep her momentum up. I jumped on the blade, and rode it for a few seconds, then yelled, "Tilt the blade up and shoot!" The ground became an incline as I readied myself. I heard a "HYAA" as I was flung up towards the bullhead.

I put both ninjato in front of me like a human spear. I saw Cinder's eyes widen as I crashed into her, sword first. Even though what I did should have killed her, she just stood up, barely favoring her right side. I miscalculated. I forgot about her aura. I slashed at her, hoping to overwhelm her, but nothing connected. She evaded every one of my attacks, and when I pushed her to the back of the bullhead, I thought I finally had her.

Just as I was about to hit her, she spun behind me, and my swords hit the metal frame. I heard crackling being me, and I ducked as a vortex of flames impacted where my head would have been. Before I could recover, I was kicked in the head, and I smacked into the floor. I rolled onto my side and moved behind her. She quickly, and faster than I could react, punched me in the face and I staggered backwards, and fell out of the aircraft.

Thankfully, I landed on the roof, but not without damages. I landed on my left leg, and I felt something pop. I then slipped and fell onto my back, agitating my sword wound.

I tried to stand up, but my ankle wouldn't allow it, so I took a knee, as I watched Cinder get away. I looked to my right and saw Ruby look to Glynda with wonder in her eyes. "You're a huntress," she said. "Can I get your autograph?" A tense second of silence was followed by a very stern "No."

LINE BREAK

"Look, neither of us had anything to do with them alright." I said as I slouched in the metal chair. I was in a dimly lit room with only two chairs and a table, all of which were metal. The other chair was occupied by Ruby, and we were being scolded by Goodwitch.

"Oh, I believe you," she began, "I'm simply shocked that you would go and commit such a heinous act with a group of men you've never even met, late at night, in an alleyway."

Oh, I was going to milk this for as long as I could. "Or as you like to call it, Wednesday night," I replied, before she slammed her riding crop down into the table. Glynda Goodwitch was an average aged woman, with yellow hair in a bun, with green eyes. Her choice of dress was a white blouse, with a black and purple cape, that went to the middle of her back and ended in multiple tears. She also wore a black dress bottom and black leggings that led into black heels.

"Jesus, take a joke," I said without any inflection. Honestly this meant more for me than I let on. "Does it look like I'm taking this lightly?" she asked sternly.

"Well, you do seem better at taking it hard."

SMACK

Right as she was about to retort, Ozpin walked in. Ozpin looked to be an older man with grey hair that covered his left eye. His eyes are walnut color, and on his nose, lay a pair of glasses. His choice of clothing was a green ascot of sorts, with a cross on it, a dark green over coat and pants, and a green undershirt.

"Ruby Rose and you sir, you both have silver eyes," he declared. Ruby began to stammer, trying to come up with a response. My thoughts turned to the last time I saw Ozpin on RWBY. I balled my hands into fists and narrowed my eyes, as anger swept through me. How dare he speak to us after what he did! He killed Penny and Pyrrha! He caused Beacon to fall!

"So where did you learn to do this?"

My fists pressed tight against my legs.

"S-signal Academy."

"They taught you to use one of the most dangerous weapons ever designed?" a condescending voice asked

My fingernails pierced into my skin, and my palms began to bleed.

"Well, one teacher in particular."

"I see. It's just that I've only ever seen one other scythe wielder of that skill before. A dusty old crow."

My entire body began to shake as I lowered my head. My anger was boiling! I've NEVER been this mad before. FELT this much HATRED!

"Ats mu nkl."

"That's my uncle Qrow. He's a teacher here at Signal. I was complete garbage before he took me under his wing, and now I'm all like hoo, wtchaa, woah."

"So, I've noticed. And what is an adorable girl such as yourself doing at a school designed to train warriors?"

My teeth clenched and my face contorted into a visage of anger and hate.

"Well, I want to be a huntress."

"You want to slay monsters?"

"Yeah. I only have two more years of training left at Signal, and then, I'm going to apply to Beacon. See my sister's starting there this year and she's trying to become a huntress, and I'm trying to become a huntress, because I want to help people. And my parents always taught us to help others, so I thought weeeell, I might as well make a career out of it. I mean the police are alright, but huntress' and huntsman are just so much more romantic and exciting and cool, just eeyyuuu ya know?"

"Do you know who I am?"

THAT WAS IT!

"I KNOW WHO YOU ARE! YOUR -" my breath left me as my anger did, leaving a pit that felt ten times larger than before. The rest of my sentence died in my throat as I was silenced. Everyone in the room looked towards me. Ruby's eyes were wide with fear and confusion. Glynda had her hand on the base of her crop, waiting for me to make a move. But Ozpin, he just sat there, studying me with narrowed eyes.

I closed my mouth and eyes as exhaustion swept through me. My wounds seemed to throb a little more as that feeling of emotions left me again. "Oh, and who am I then my boy?" I looked him in the eye, my anger gone, my eyes were once again apathetic to the world. "You're Ozpin, headmaster at Beacon," I replied tiredly, barely above a whisper. Everything had compacted today and I just wanted to sleep.

"Well then, how would the both of you like to come to my school?" Ruby of course immediately said yes. I had yet to reply. I knew he was offering me this position because of my eyes, not that he knew I didn't have the silver eyed powers.

I knew I might regret this decision, but it was the best thing I could do at the current moment.

"On one condition," I began.

ENDING NOTES:

Whew this took a long time to write. I really wanted to nail Devin's character this chapter. Lots of story in this chapter, so I hope you all enjoyed it. Let me know what you guys thought, and thank you all for reading. This is CanEvenCookEgg, signing off.