A/N: Hmm? You wanted Newt? Too bad, Newton time.

It is a rather common thought that there exist parallel universes, the most commonly thought-of being one where everyone is the opposite gender. Therefore, this situation wouldn't be that jarring, if it weren't for the fact that one of these 'genderbents' was living in the normal universe.

His name was Newton Peater. Brown messy hair, green eyes, that typical boyish attractiveness, at least at first glance. But then into view comes the huge lizard's tail, the scaled-over hands and feet, the square pupils that seemed to tremble with barely-contained insanity at all times. How did that happen? As all stories, let's start from the beginning.

He lived as many salamander faunus did, tucked away in the recesses of a swamp. Unlike others of his kind, he lived with his mother. In their society, the children would be raised by the same-gendered parent, with males being taught by their fathers blacksmithing and such while the females learned to sew and other womanly things from their mothers. However, Newton's father was a playboy, a practice that is considered nigh-satanic by the salamanders. Their family-unit style of living meant that word of these 'sinners' couldn't be passed around very easily, and poor Myrn Peater didn't know until it was too late.

Back in those days, Newton hadn't been altered into his monstrous form we know today, and actually looked like an amphibian. His hands and feet were normal human flesh, his pupils round, and his tail lacked scales. However, that didn't stop the people of the nearby desert from calling him and his mother 'monsters'.

Just the same as his counterpart, he had been treated as sub-human all his life. However, his story had an even sadder end.

~o~

"Hey, are you okay...?"

The voice snapped Newton out of his pain-induced stupor. The other kids had beaten him up...again. Over time, he'd just gotten used to it. But this voice...He glanced up briefly to see who it was.

What met him was a pair of vibrant orange eyes, attached to a girl with long, beautiful black hair. She was a little younger than he was, at a glance, and wearing much better clothes than his handful of rags. However, she was smiling at him with bashful curiosity all the same. At first, he didn't answer her, certain that he was imagining it.

After a minute or two, she walked away from him, and he gave a soft sigh of relief. Nobody had ever smiled at him like that before, beyond his own mother, so he had been suspicious of her intentions. Newton checked over his wounds, to see if he'd be able to walk home, and jumped nearly a foot out of his skin when he realized that she had come back. Still smiling shyly, but this time holding a dark brown stick towards him while nibbling on the end of another.

"I got it for you from my house. Chocolate always makes me feel better when I'm down..." Glancing at the bar, then her, then back again. he hesitantly took the stick between two fingers like it was going to bite him. The girl sat down at his side, looking confused. "What is it? Haven't you had chocolate before?"

Sadly, he shook his head. All he'd eaten in his life were various berries and insects, maybe a small Grimm if they were lucky.

"You haven't?" She was looking at him with concern. "I-It won't hurt you or anything! It's a sweet. You know, sweets? Candy?" He shook his head again. The berries were always small and bitter, and the insects were, well, insects, so he'd never had anything really sweet.

"You've never had any sweets...? Then you've got to try this! I'm sure you'll like it!" She was looking at him with such an eager and innocent look on his face that he immediately caved and stuck the end of the stick into his mouth.

It took his tongue a second to comprehend the taste - the 'sweet' - that was being introduced to it. It was...really good. A second later and the whole bar was in his mouth, being chewed eagerly. She was smiling at him warmly, giving a soft giggle. "See? I told you that you'd like it...!"

The chocolate, as well as her act of kindness, had melted away Newton's reservations, and he responded to her with a huge grin. "Thank you, erm..."

She smiled at him finally speaking to her. "Pyra. And it's nothing, it was just chocolate..." Not to him, it wasn't. "H-Hey, are you going to be alright? Those other boys..."

"I'm fine, I'm fine!" A lie. A bone in his right arm had snapped, but he was rather used to pain. "Actually, I'm more worried about you."

"Hmm? Me? Why?"

He leaned over close to her, like he was telling her something he wasn't allowed to say. "'Cause I'm a monster. You aren't supposed to help out monsters! They'll get you for it!"

She blinked at him, perplexed, then laughed softly. "You're not a monster, even if they say you are. Just 'cause you've got a tail doesn't make you less of a person." His expression mirrored hers from a second ago. This was the first time anyone but his mother had said such kind things. He felt the prickling of tears in the corners of his eyes, and before he could stop himself he pulled her into a huge hug, sobbing into her hair.

"Huh? What's the matter?" she asked, blinking up at him from under his chin. He laughed softly through his tears, giving her the most grateful smile she'd ever seen.

"It's nothing. You're just...way too kind, you know?" She smiled softly. She didn't see why what she was doing was so special, but seeing such a happy look on his face was not worth complaining over.

~o~

Around two months had passed on that initial meeting, and Pyra made a point of checking up on Newton every day, bringing him sweets of all kind. She'd found that he had quite the sweet tooth, loving above all else the honey buns that the market sold. Even when he had bruises and scrapes all over, he would smile at her like nothing was wrong. After all, a 'big brother' had to be strong for his sister.

After a point, Newton had started calling Pyra his little sister, vowing to protect her with his very life if need be. He'd even insisted on doing a mock blood ritual, with water dyed red from wild berries instead of blood, in order to make them 'real' siblings. She didn't quite understand why he was so set on the idea, but thought it just his way of showing affection. She didn't really catch that he meant every word he said.

The sun was beginning to set on their latest day together. He'd convinced her to come into the swamp with him, promising that nothing would hurt her as long as he was around, in order to show her some neat-looking trees and the like. She tried to keep a brave face in the darkness of the swamp, but was more than relieved when someone came calling for her.

"Pyra? Pyra! It's time to come home for dinner!" An older boy with grayish-black hair and eyes the color of amber called from the edge of the tree line. "What are you doing in the swamp, anyway? You know you aren't allowed in there!"

"It's alright! I'll be there in a second, Big Brother!" She turned back to Newton and beamed. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" All he could do was nod mutely as she ran away from him.

That was her big brother.

That was-That-That was- no. No, no, no no no. That guy wasn't her big brother, couldn't be. He fell back on a gnarled tree root. His head sunk between his knees, his unblinking eyes staring at the ground.

"That isn't her brother," he muttered to himself, "I'm her brother. He's a fake, a liar, a bad guy. I've gotta protect my sis from him, I've gotta...gotta..."

A mad smile spread itself across his face.

~o~

She came back to him the next day, as she said she would. However, her face was red from crying, and she sat down next to him mutely. He didn't press her, drawing nonsense designs in the dirt at his feet.

"M-My brother..." She started, and he looked at her sideways. "...S-Somebody k-killed my brother..." He looked back down as she started sobbing quietly.

"T-They found him...out on the beach...They told me someone hit him in the head, and threw him in the water to drown..." After those words left her lips, she threw herself into his chest and bawled. Not knowing what else to do, he petted her hair quietly, in an attempt to calm her down. He made sure to keep her head pressed into his chest, just a little bit, so she wouldn't look up and see the smile on his face.

~o~

His mom was dead.

Right there, floating in the water with cinderblocks tied to her legs. Just under the surface, to taunt the 'witch' with hope.

Ashe Kasai's death had, naturally, been blamed on the witches that lived in the swamp. An eight-year-old child was thought incapable of committing murder, so he was allowed to live...for the time being. They didn't care that he would probably die out there all on his own; perhaps it would keep the Grimm from attacking them for a while; just call it a 'human' sacrifice.

Pyra had watched quietly as her parents ordered the death of her new friend's mother, watched as she'd been submerged and drowned, watched as Newton had ran into the forest without a word. She couldn't shake the feeling that this was somehow her fault.

~o~

Before that night, she hadn't seen him in three years. She'd gone as close to the swamp as she'd dared, but no matter how she called he never came out. She was afraid that he had died, like her parents had said he would. Now, she found herself wishing he had.

There was blood everywhere. She could hear the screaming in the streets, the one voice mad with laughter, but her parents wouldn't get out of bed. Too scared to do anything else, she'd locked herself in the closet and prayed to whatever god that would hear that whatever was out there wouldn't find her.

She heard the front door being broken down, her parents rushing downstairs to confront the intruder, and their screams of agony and the sounds of tearing flesh. It seemed like eternity until it fell quiet again, but she could tell the attacker was still there. How could it know she was here? Could it smell her?

"Sister~?" Oh Dust. She knew that voice. The only change was now he sounded criminally insane, probably because he was. "I know you're here, Sis, so come on out~!"

She didn't move. Who would? There was a homicidal maniac right outside the door. When she didn't come out on her own volition, she heard his footsteps come straight over to the closet and tear the door off its hinges.

This couldn't be the same boy she knew 3 years ago. The scars of many battles won marred his skin, where it was visible underneath all the blood caking his body. Her parent's bodies were hardly recognizable, as he'd smashed and bitten them to literal pulp. He was holding a pair of war hammers loosely, just as blood-stained as he was. But the worst part was his eyes. Oh sweet Dust, his eyes. Though he was grinning like he'd won a prize, that smile didn't reach those unblinking eyes that seemed to bore right into her.

"Sister, your Big Brother's here now," he crooned, his head ticking side-to-side to an unheard rhythm. "Big Brother got strong. Real strong! Now nobody will ever hurt you or trick you or make you sad! 'Cause if they do, Big Brother will make chili out of 'em! Isn't that great? Huh? Isn't it great, Sis?" He was giggling now, reaching out towards her with one of those blood-stained hands. The hands that killed her parents, and probably everyone else she knew, too...

In panic, she screamed, bolting up and past him. She didn't register the squishing under her shoes, or Newton's playful calls of 'so we're playing tag?' and 'no fair, turning into fire like that!' She just needed to get away from this place, away from him, as fast and as far as possible.

~o~

They spent years like this.

Pyra never felt safe, not once after that. People called her jumpy, paranoid, reclusive, but could you really blame her? She didn't want to get close to anyone, not with that psychopath obsessed with her. Even though she did her very best to put distance between her and him, he always had a way of finding her again. Eventually, she enrolled at Beacon Academy, in hopes that being surrounded by hunters and huntresses would deter Newton from coming after her once again. It seemed to be working, but that wasn't the reason Newton was gone.

~o~

"I'm going to be honest with you, I didn't think this dimension machine would work," a man in a long lab coat stated with false enthusiasm. "However, I do believe that you are living, breathing proof, my friend." His 'friend' only glowered at him in response.

"You see, I have an...interest in the biology of faunus. I haven't had a chance to see one of your kind in...Nevermind. How interesting. You resemble a man I once knew." The man's brown eyes narrowed behind his glasses, his smile turning bitter. "I killed that man a little too quickly. I suppose you're a second chance to rectify that mistake, hmm...?"

"I'll kill you," Newton murmured. He was trapped in a room, steel-plated and air-conditioned, as though his captor knew very well how to keep him under wraps. "I'll get out of here and I'll throw your entrails in the trees like decorations."

"We'll see about that."

~o~

The good Shadow Doctor, Jonathan Medicumbra, knew how to twist a knife around without killing the victim, so to speak. Grimm and Lizard faunus DNA, among other no-doubt illegal chemicals, were poured into Newton's bloodstream, along with enough 'open-heart surgeries' to leave him with even more scars than before. A shock chip had been implanted at his hairline, for use in case he flipped out and killed another one of his assistants like he did when they stuck needles into his eyes. His tail scaled over, as did his hands and feet, as a taunt against his insistence that he was not a reptile. The change even affected his face, leaving his pupils square and small patches of scales on the corners of his cheeks. For the fun of it, he was only fed the corpses of other test subjects.

This wasn't even the start of the mental torment. Jonathan used Newton like an attack dog, using the moving-the-goalposts method of telling him that his target had his sister, or knew where she was, or any variation thereof. Newton, though not very bright, did realize that he was lying, but the insanity compelled him to follow his sister to the ends of the earth. Eventually, Jonathan just told him that his sister was dead, showing him fake images of her rotting corpse, and the sound of all that remained of his sanity shattering like glass was almost audible.

To Jonathan, the fit that Newton had afterwards was just an annoyance when trying to sleep. He'd go from angry enough to smash solid concrete in two to sobbing quietly to himself and right back again. He never truly calmed down over it, either. Hell, even the old tricks still worked on him. Oh, how proud of his work Jonathan was.

He had single-handedly turned a man into a monster.

A/N: MY FINGERS. THEY FEEL LIKE THEY ARE INTERNALLY BLEEEEEEEDING. Anyway, I took a good 5 to 6 hours writing this, so yeah. This is Newton. He's a platonic yandere towards Pyra, because she was the only person besides his mother to show him kindness. As with Newt, I keep the same mentality as to his karma; even though he had reason, what he has done is inexcusable. And I swear to God, if I find any fan-works of Newton being portrayed as an innocent little angel, I will punch a face. Probably Pyron's.