AN: I mentioned in the last an about how I was basically doing extra world building with this story that I thought should've been in the series proper or whatever, and I wanted to clarify that here by sort of mentioning what is sort of my basis for decisions regarding locations in this story, that being-
For Vacuo I see it as Egypt and bits of the Mediterranean with parts of Sumerian Iraq, whereas Vale is a bit more like the British isle, France and the USA, for Mistral its like Italy, sort of Greece and most of Asia wrapped up, lastly for Solitas and Atlas I see it as like Scandinavia, Canada, Russian and Slavic sort of identities, Germany and that general group spread out across it more. I say this because it may not become apparent for some time in the story and I thought some clarification for the names of people or places might make some sense if you understood how I was viewing those places.
I don't mention Menagerie because it's just Australia but even worse somehow, though how it'll appear in the story when mentioned isn't likely to be too different from RWBY proper making out like its Samoa, Tonga or a pacific island like it is.
Anyway those are just the places I'm using in reference when writing the RWBY locations.
Chapter Title:
Arc 1: Regular People Chapters
Following the lead of my older sister I chased after her running through the backstreets and occasional alley of Valor, bouncing along the mostly dirt roads and paths throughout the small settlement towards the goal she challenged me to race her to.
The parameters for the race were: No flying, No Semblances only our own skill and determination.
We started at the house and the end goal was the bell tower next to the main building on the abbey grounds for the Church of the First Remnant. We had been there more than a few times over the years because the current priests and priestess' were on good terms with Mum's temple so often they held small celebrations together.
Hopping over a wooden crate and climbing up the side of a building onto the tiled roof of a building I ran along its spine alone for a minute before my sister bounded up onto the roof on the other side of the street. She flashed a smile at me as she leapt to another roof and so on.
Trying my best to keep her pace I bounded across the roofs until I ran out of space and jumped down onto the streets and rushed along the ground catching up to Priscilla and managing to come up alongside her-
Breaking out into the large courtyard near the Bell tower I stumbled, tripping over the roots of an old Oak and crashing face first scraping along the ground as the rest of my body curled up over me in a scorpion like pose.
After making my discomfort and pain audible via a brief yell before pained noises Priscilla came back and helped me to my feet, she didn't say anything but flicked her head to the side and pointedly looked at me then the bell tower. I got what she meant so I followed her over to the side of it and let my wings spread out to their full span, my sister latched onto my front and I flew us up touching down onto the slanted tile roof of the bell tower.
It was the highest point in the village and we could see everything around us as she stepped away from me.
"A wonderful view isn't it little brother?" she asked, her blue eyes seeming even brighter when she spoke making the contrast between her dark skin and hair even more.
"Yeah, it's really pretty." I responded looking at the horizon where the sun was beginning to set, her arm wrapped itself around my shoulders as I was pulled into a side hug and she laughed at something, maybe she'd seen something worth laughing at.
Standing around for a few minutes just taking in the sight of all the people walking the streets and whatnot came to a close as I felt ready to get off the roof before some priest came and yelled at us for loitering or disturbing a holy place.
Priscilla's arm had left my back and suddenly her hand was splayed out on my back and-
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"Mr. Solatium!" hearing a voice I jumped out of my skin and lifted my head up from the desk only to accidentally slam it back down again.
"Fuck..." I grumbled wincing while mimicking holding my face seeing as I couldn't while my mask was on.
What in Bastet's grace was that? I woke up falling.
"Ugh where am I?" asking aloud netted me nothing but seeing a very annoyed looking man with manic green hair that looked like someone doused him in water then made him touch an electrically charged sink.
My book or pillow, depending on how you wanted to look at it, was covered in a small bit of drool. Pyrrha, who was next to me looked like she wished she had done something before, was sorry and like she was trying not to laugh all at once. Blake was also with us, but on my left looking like she wanted to laugh as well.
"It appears my lessons are already boring you to sleep, would you like detentions to remedy this?" the errant Professor said far too seriously getting a rise of giggles and whatnot from around the room.
I blinked a few times and looked directly at the man- only four lines, he wasn't even worth the time.
Sighing, I answered. "I'm alright Professor-"
"Doctor!" he shouted like a lunatic.
"What?" I was more than a little confused by that.
"I did not do a Phd for fun! I'm Doctor Oobleck, not Professor!" the man had to be insane right?
"You do realise sir that both a professor and a doctor require a Phd right? So there's nothing wrong with me calling you one." Now he looked like he might blow a gasket.
He was about to say something when the bell rang ending the lesson and everyone began packing their things and leaving, including myself, Blake and Pyrrha. This was our third class of the first day and we still had two more time slots left, I'm not sure what they had but I had Survival Studies which was a broad course that taught about everything you could imagine being under that banner. It was a really odd course of things that sort of just did everything that you could think of possibly ever being useful knowledge in a survival situation.
Lastly though I had- Ergonomics? Who was naming these classes? And the teacher was Dr. Aoi, another doctor then? I wonder if they care much about their title?
Not that it mattered at the moment, I was headed to the cafeteria because it was lunch time and I was starving. While I walked to said cafeteria Pyrrha and Blake were ahead of me chatting away to one another, while I would have joined in on the conversation I didn't really feel like I had anything of value to add to it. I didn't like just jumping into conversations for no reason, if I had a joke I might or if there was something worth my while in it for me sure, but otherwise it felt like it would be unnecessary.
When I entered the cafeteria my Scroll vibrated in my pocket and pulling it out revealed that I had detention after my last class with Doctor Oobleck.
Nice.
Collecting some club sandwiches I went and sat down where I found the rest of my team who were sitting next to Ruby, Weiss and the two that were together in here the morning of the initiation- specifically the ginger haired girl and the black haired boy with the pink stripe.
Yang was sitting next to her sister with Pyrrha on her right while Blake sat on the other side of the table next to the pair, with Weiss on Ruby's left. I decided to take the seat next to Blake.
I got an acknowledging smile from my partner while Ruby went about talking with Yang and the pair- I should probably find out what their names are shouldn't I? Anyway the Schnee heiress was discussing something with the redhead so I sat quietly and lifted my mask up enough to eat the sandwiches. This got a few interested looks from the other team who I assumed were trying to catch a peak of my face?
Not letting it distract me from eating I finished up pretty quickly and noticed the raven haired girl next to me was reading a familiar book.
"I didn't know you were into the 'Man with two souls' series Blake." getting her attention she looked up from the pages with those cat like amber eyes of hers with a raised brow.
"You've read it then?" Her eyes sparked with interest.
"Mm I didn't have much to do back home other than read, train, hang out with my siblings or work so yeah- it looks like you're only halfway through the series so I'll keep myself from spoiling anything."
We went on to discuss the plot of the book she was currently reading and our thoughts on the previous books in the series, like I had said she was only halfway through the series. There were five books in the series and she was on the third, so there wasn't too much left for her to read. Personally I found the series mediocre and like it really fell off toward the end, but I didn't feel like ruining it for Blake. She seemed to really love it and couldn't wait to see more.
When the bell rang and our group started to stand up another team walked past behind Blake, Ren, Nora and I, one of the people from that passing team shoved me as I was standing with their shoulder pushing me into Blake- I apologized to her as I looked watching the team leave.
I didn't know their names, but it was the ginger haired boy that wore the full armour during the initiation, the blonde that had vomited, and two others I'd not seen before.
"Who're they?" I asked no one in particular at our table.
Nora jumped to answer me saying "Team Space Cadet." she laughed at her joke, I didn't really get it though.
Pyrrha was frowning and explained the ginger's jest. "They're Team Cadet- Cardin, Jaune, Dove and Russel, a team of sycophants being led by a bully." going by how she put it I assumed Cardin was their leader seeing as he was the one who shoved me.
"How do people like that make it into the Academies? Because I had to do a personality test as a part of my interview while I applied and they told me straight to my face that anyone who showed signs of that sort of behaviour would be kicked out because they were a risk."
I've mentioned before that I had no previous proper schooling or training at a prep school so I had to take an exam to be allowed a chance so that I could be interviewed and all that involved some basic testing in the form of a written exam to make sure I had reading and writing level that was acceptable and a physical exam followed by what I could only call a psychiatric assessment.
To be fair while I assumed part of it was to make sure I wasn't mentally unstable, which was a mistake on their part because I definitely am unstable.
"You took a personality test to be allowed in?" It was the Icey blue eyed Weiss who asked with a confused expression.
"Well yeah, I never went to a prep school or anything like that- actually I suppose you could call me a country bumpkin for what it's worth." It was true, I didn't grow up with even half the stuff everyone around me here probably did.
We didn't have T.v. or any channels that reached Valor, any sort of technology that wasn't the singular household Scroll that was a requirement for every family in the case of emergency. Otherwise we had a radio that got some basic stations that had their signals boosted out to locations like ours.
It's why I said earlier to Blake that I had nothing better to do than read or the other things I mentioned because that really was all there was to do.
It looked like all of us had the next class together though seeing as we were all headed in the same direction.
"Where did you live before that made you unable to attend a prep school?" My blonde team leader asked as I walked next to her with Ruby's team who I knew to be called team Silver from a conversation with her in my first class of the day, in front of us and Pyrrha with Blake just behind Yang and I.
"I said yesterday didn't I?" I was sure I already had, oh well. "Valor the small settlement I was from is on the border to Vacuo from the Vale side."
"Bet that's the most V's you've ever had in your mouth at once right Azzy?" Yang burst into laughter at her own joke as I shook my head rolling my eyes.
I had gotten over her puns pretty fast and considering they weren't all that great most of the time.
The others' reactions varied from unsure whether or not to laugh, stoicness, blushing redder than an apple and in the case of Nora giggling along with Yang.
[Chemistry and fun]
Walking into the last class for the day we were met with a woman standing at the center of the class room behind a crescent shaped wooden desk staring at the blank whiteboard on the back wall while students filed in and found their places in the sections of seating.
When the second bell rang signaling for classes to start she turned around facing the room.
The woman was just taller than Yang from what I could tell and had shoulder length bluish tinted dark hair and wore a lab coat over a white button up shirt, red tie and blue jeans. At least she looked like a potential doctor or scientist unlike Oobleck.
Her eyes scanned the room landing on a few people as they made to take out their workbooks and whatnot.
"Alright now that you've all taken your seats I'd like to introduce myself to you all before I take the roster and start." we all watched as the woman picked up a mug off her desk and sipped at it before continuing.
"My name is Yuria Aoi, I'm from Mistral hence my name and accent, though your all likely to call me professor rather than doctor despite what Oobleck seems to think they both require a phd so I don't care what you choose to call me by in that regard so long as it's actually my name."
The Doctor had been walking from one side of the room to the other and stopped looking at the students, reminding me to straighten my posture as I had been leaning on my arm. "I'm also probably one of the most informal teachers at the academy and seeing as I teach what I do you should be able to understand it."
There was a few minutes of pause among the entire class before Dr. Aoi seemed to remember she had a class of teenagers who were waiting for her to speak. "Oh right, if you have any questions I don't mind spending ten minutes answering some before I actually start this lesson."
An array of tens of hands shot up with a few people yelling out questions quickly getting a glare from the woman to those who yelled.
"You there." the woman pointed to where I spotted Weiss next to her team with a hand up in the air lowering it upon being chosen.
"What exactly will this Ergonomics course be teaching us and what will the curriculum be?" I couldn't help but look at the white haired girl with confusion.
"Do any of you understand what the word ergonomics means?" there was a small chorus of yes'. "There you have it, this class is here to help you all become better people persons and make dealing with others easier when you begin interacting with civilians." her eyes flickered around the room again.
Yang asked for clarification "So this class is teaching us PR and HR?"
"Yes. I just wasn't allowed to call it that." The woman smiled. "Any more questions? Particularly since they were meant to be about myself."
The ten minutes passed as the Doctor answered away getting more than a few joke questions from some students who I could only assume wanted to see how far they could push what they could ask, the only problem I could see was when Dr. Aoi actually answered the dumb questions about her type, measurements or favourite drink.
Just a bunch of nonsense that I found myself disappointed in the people who asked said questions as well as losing any sort of respect for their integrity as people. Maybe she said answers that weren't true but she also said several times that 'I have no need to waste energy on lying to a bunch of children so I couldn't care less.'
Once the lesson actually began and she started talking about the specifics for the course we'd be doing for the first semester people shut up and stopped playing around, I'd say it was definitely because she held a glare that looked like it would set the sun on fire.
Yes I'm aware the sun is already on fire.
[Lessons in Public Relations]
When the day was finished and I was leaving the class I had my detention in, Oobleck was a bit of a spastik and basically just redid the entire class again but made sure I wrote down enough notes for ten students.
I was now walking through the halls of the school heading slowly toward the BYSN dorm room. It was pretty late now so I could probably get some dinner, but I wasn't really hungry at the moment.
Passing by other students most of which were second and third years from what I could tell, I only saw a small handful of fourth years who were all decked out in their gear walking around with their weapons talking about missions they were heading out to. Like usual I was stared at in the hallways as I passed them all, two people actually stopped me to ask about it, interested in my mask and wanted to hear the story behind it.
Since I wasn't doing much else with my evening I didn't mind talking to them and making some friends or building some basic level of relationship with them. The two I spoke with were 'Manus Jómsborg' and 'Yan Qing', firstly I was approached by Manus in the hallway where he asked about it and since I was in the mood to I followed along with him to one of the park benches that was out in one of the many gardens across the school.
Manus was certainly a specimen. That's for sure, I mean I'm tall, but he's easily three heads taller than me. To top that he's built like a tank and I'm sure could pick up a car easily, like there was just something about how strong he seemed combined with his height he just seemed so intense in a way. Which was the opposite of how he actually was as I found out.
Manus was apparently an Elephant Faunus and something of an evolutionary wonder as his family due to their heritage had a bone and muscle density that made them able to perform acts comparable to Goliath Grimm.
Anyway he was telling me about all that after I explained how I got the mask and why it was necessary as well as my family being Faunus and whatnot. As for what the Titan of a man looked like though He has a wild mane of brownish black hair that went down to his mid back bonded in red cloth in a low ponytail, his eyes are bright blue, his skin tone fair with a slight grey tinge. I couldn't really tell what his Faunus trait was but I took his word for it seeing as I was hiding my own after all.
His personality was that of a teddy bear, something about him was warm and cuddly in an older sibling kind of way. Though he had a soft spoken manner of speaking it still commanded charisma and strength, he really was odd- but then again who was I to talk?
When I was considering making my way back to the dorm like I originally was meaning to, Manus asked if I was interested in hanging out with him for a few hours while he and a friend of his worked out in the school gym. Again I wasn't planning on doing anything anyway so I said yes, at the time I hadn't realised I should probably change so I ended up following along in my uniform.
Manus himself wasn't wearing the uniform and was a fourth year so I guessed he was in the middle of some downtime between classes and missions.
When we met up with this friend of his it was when I met Yan Qing who wasn't nearly as tall as the elephant in the room and was probably only about as tall as Yang, probably a little taller- though he came with his own gimmick I assure you of that.
Yan was wearing a light grey sleeveless shirt with black accents with basketball shorts and shoes, the most stark thing about him was his tattoos that appeared to be all over him with what looked like a Mistralian dragon wrapped around his arms and legs leading me to think that it was its body going all the way around him. Though the backs of his hands had the ying/yang symbol on it.
He too had long hair like Manus'. His hair was jet black and goes down to his waist which he has in a low ponytail though he has three sections of it parted over his face and his eyes are a lime green which just sort of seemed pop more than anything despite everything about the man being something that just popped out next to anything else.
Anyway these two were pretty cool guys and I never really had many friends back in Valor so I ended up spending two and a half hours with them working out in the gym getting to know them, they were super friendly and open to just talking about whatever which was nice.
My time with them came to an end and Yan left me with a piece of advice about some classes and Manus made me promise to meet with them another time like this and I finally headed back to my dorm once I had their Scroll info.
[Titans and friends]
Opening the door to the room I wiped my face with my blazer trying to not be as sweaty from having spent a large portion of the time in the gym running on a treadmill and doing rowing. Once the door was shut behind me I took off my mask and as I did I found Pyrrha sitting on one of the couches watching some show on the t.v.
Like I'd said I've never watched one before having only really been introduced to one when I walked past a second hand store selling some older models, I was somewhat interested in learning more about what sort of stuff was on it or if there had been any shows made from the books I'd read over the years.
Since I was still sweaty though, I just passed by without saying anything heading into the bedroom and then the bathroom grabbing a shirt, shorts and underwear beforehand.
I dumped all my clothes on the counter in the bathroom unfurling my wings and stretching them out as the sounds of the t.v. became muted by the sound of running water, leaving a towel over my new clothes for when I got out and left my mask next to that finally allowing my face to feel free.
Stepping into the shower and feeling the water hit my body was one of the most relaxing things I could remember in a while, like there had been a ton of tension built up that I wasn't able to rid myself of since the last time I had one. After a few minutes I began washing myself with the soap already sitting on a rack that came off the wall, there were also hair products though I didn't really need that at the moment so I stuck with just washing my body and making sure I cleaned any grime out of unwanted places.
When I was finished and left the shower turning it off I started on the process of shaking my wings and flapping them some to dry them off before I started drying my body itself with the large grey towel that was sitting racks for us that had the Beacon emblem on it.
Dressing in the shirt and shorts I had brought in I hung the towel up and left the bathroom entering the bedroom and found our blonde team leader sitting on her bed doing something on her Scroll.
"I was wondering whether you'd run away already." Yang said, offering a smile as she looked to me then to my wings. "You never did tell us about those."
Sitting on my bed I let my wings stretch out "Well here they are Yang, is there anything in particular you wanted to know?" She put her Scroll away and walked over.
"Can you actually fly with them?" She looked at them curiously.
"Yeah I actually used to fly pretty much everywhere when I traveled back home." bringing my right wing in closer I plucked a feather wincing in the process.
"Ow that looked like it hurt- oh?" She took the feather that I offered.
"Losing one won't matter in the long term, I'll end up moulting in a few months time so you can have that one." The feather was about thirty or forty centimeters long.
She looked somewhat concerned "You moult?"
"Yeah, while Faunus aren't actually part animal we had evolved to adapt to situations over the decades and for whatever reason whatever genome that let me be born with wings hadn't kept me from moulting my wings to replace the old feathers." I watched as my leader sat back on her bed twiddling the feather around in her fingers brushing it against her skin.
"There anything else you wanted to ask Yang?" her eyes glanced at me after I asked then she shook her head.
"No I think you've satisfied my curiosity about you for the time being… actually why do you hide them? They're awesome and I'm pretty sure everyone would love them." Her words while flattering and nice…
"To be honest I guess I'm just being stupid… I thought that if I hid them I could avoid experiencing any sort of Faunus racists." I had said originally that I hadn't ever had anything like that happen before so why would I ever let it get the better of me?
"You're a really dumb person, you were right you are being stupid- plus even if anything like that somehow managed to happen in Beacon don't you think the staff would crack down on it immediately so maybe there might be some dumbass out there in the school moronic enough to do it- especially to you mister mystic eyes." She had walked over to be and been slapping my back to emphasize what she was saying.
I just hung my head feeling just as dumb as she said, I mean hell I don't know what I'm afraid of with eyes like these… except maybe…
"I need to go think" I said as I stood and walked over to the window next to Pyrrha and my beds before opening it out into the darkening sky and stepping out of it letting my wings do the work as I flew upward onto the tallest roof nearby to rethink my stupidity.
Yang's voice called out to me as I rose into the sky.
Realising a few minutes later that I didn't have my mask on as I touched down on the roof of the first years dorm building after spending a little bit of time enjoying the feeling of flight, I sighed and sat down looking up into the sky.
…
It was the first time I had come to stargaze since arriving in Vale and if I was honest, it was really shit.
You could hardly see any stars at all, the moon was rising and the stars were following as the night came on. The night was young as the saying went but even by this time of night back home you could see five or six times the stars, it was kind of depressing really.
The people of Vale city couldn't witness the galaxies the same way or planets among the stars without telescopes or observatories, whereas like I keep saying Valor was just so much different compared to the capital city of the country. Mum would probably think Vale was missing its soul or something because the people here couldn't see the constellations of the gods.
I wasn't as religious as her, but I felt like there was something missing now that I was here and I couldn't see those same constellations.
…
I've been told my eyes were like looking out into space and that my pupils and iris' were like galaxies in themselves, Mum used to say that they were 'reflecting the heavens' whenever she described them. Apparently my eyes when I was born before my Semblance activated were the same strong blue as my mother and sisters.
…
Sorry.
I've been avoiding my idiocy this entire time haven't I? Bringing up something, anything to distract me from it and how dumb I've been.
AN: If you have any questions or what have you just ask them in the reviews and I'll be sure to clarify anything or answer what you ask unless it gets covered sometime soon in the story itself.