Adam woke up to an unfamiliar sight.
What should have been the ceiling of his room was now the ceiling inside of a rather large tent. He tried to reach for his phone on his bedroom counter but soon found that his counter wasn't where it should have been, much less his phone. A sinking feeling began to dwell in the pit of his stomach.
He closed his eyes for a good ten seconds before he opened them again.
His ceiling was still missing the light that should have been hanging from it. Adam wasn't at home, somehow, someway he had woken up in some random tent. Okay, that was fine, he just needed to take a deep breath and calm down.
Adam got up from his sleeping bag and took a good look around.
There was a table full of a random assortment of papers and a large map in the middle of it. On the other side of the tent, there was a box full of clothes, and a strange white mask at the top. A sword that looked like a sheathed katana was propped up next to the box. There was also a mirror standing on another box and he couldn't help but stare at it.
The face that stared back wasn't his own.
What. The. Fuck?
What should have been black hair was now a crimson red, and what should have been brown eyes were now a sky blue. A nasty scar with the words 'SDC' covered up a good half of his face, but it didn't really mess with his vision at all. The weirdest thing of all was the pair of black horns sticking out of his head.
Adam walked over to the mirror and touched one of his horns. To his surprise, he could actually feel his fingers when he touched them, which meant they were real. Just what exactly was going on?
He had gone to sleep last night as usual and woke up as a completely different person. It was the kind of thing that only happened in movies, except now it was happening to him! If he were being honest, the whole experience was freaking him the fuck out.
He needed to go outside and get some air to calm down.
Adam walked over towards the box of clothes and threw on the first thing he could find, some edgy black and red coat. He made his way out of the tent and was greeted by the sight of an entire clearing in a forest filled with other similar-sized tents. People that wore similar masks to the one that he had found in his tent loitered around. The strangest thing was that all of the people he saw had some kind of weird animal cosplay on as well.
Did he wake up in the body of some guy in a cult or something?
Adam didn't know, but he tried to stay away from other people as he made his way towards the edge of the campsite to be alone. The trees that surrounded them were a bright red and so was the grass at his feet. It was a lot different than what he was used to, but at the very least, breathing in the morning air still felt the same.
It always did help calm him down.
"... Adam?"
His head jerked towards the direction in which the voice came from.
It belonged to a black-haired girl with a pair of cat ears sitting at the top of her head. Were those real as well? And had she just called him Adam? Did she know? No, that wasn't possible unless she could read his mind. Could she? He tried to think of something silly that would get a reaction out of her, like some of the things Joseph would say when he was stoned out of his mind.
"Adam…?" The girl asked again with a frown. "Are you alright?"
No reaction. So she couldn't read his mind, cool.
The person's body he had snatched was probably also named Adam then. He couldn't help but snort at how ironic that was. The girl raised an eyebrow at that before he quickly schooled his face back into a neutral expression.
"... Yeah. I'm fine…" Adam eventually replied. He just realized that he didn't even know the girl's name. That was going to be awkward. "... Why?"
"You're not wearing your mask."
"You're not either."
"I never wear my mask, Adam." The girl dryly replied. "Seriously, what's going on? You always wear your mask."
Did he? That was good to know, he'd file that information away for later. Maybe the guy was self-conscious about that crazy scar on his face, he knew he would be.
"Didn't feel like wearing it today." He said with a casual shrug. "I just wanted to get some fresh air."
The girl looked at him strangely.
"... Are you ready to go then?"
He blinked at that.
"Ready for what?"
She frowned.
"The train…? The raid that you've been planning for the past week?"
Raid? Train? What the hell was she talking about? Was she talking about a video game or something? Like an MMO raid?
"Err… I had a little too much to drink last night. Remind me again what it was that we're supposed to do again?"
"You don't drink."
"I did yesterday."
She narrowed her eyes at him.
He just stared back with his best poker face. Technically, he wasn't lying because he did drink yesterday; got pretty wasted with his boys as well before he woke up in the other Adam's body anyway.
Hey, at the very least he didn't have a hangover.
"Fine whatever." She rolled her eyes. "I don't know what game you're playing at, but we were supposed to attack the train transporting the Schnee dust supplies. You know, your idea to steal the dust?"
Whoa, whoa, hold on there for a second. What did she just say? Attack a train? His idea to steal what? Dust? Did he just wake up in some kind of crazy terrorist cult or something? It would explain the fixation on masks anyway.
Aw hell no.
"Uh… Right, that plan. I'll go and get ready. Just let me go grab my mask and stuff back in my tent."
The girl still looked at him strangely and he didn't blame her since he was just bullshitting at this point. It wasn't like he knew how the other Adam's personality was, so there were bound to be strange moments here and there.
"I'll wait for you by the rocks."
Adam had no clue where that was, but he just nodded in response.
"Yeah, I'll uh… see you later."
Not.
It didn't take him too long to find his tent, since it was the only colored one in the whole clearing. Was the other Adam the leader of this cult or something? Just what in the world had he gotten himself into?
Once inside, Adam grabbed the mask and put it on. It was a perfect fit, although the vision from wearing it was a little bad. It was like looking through one of those shutters glasses that had been popular a while ago. He looked around some more and found a wallet which he put into his pocket. There was a smartphone too, he didn't recognize the brand, but he stuffed it into his pocket anyway.
The only thing left that seemed to be worth taking was the Japanese-styled sword propped up by the box.
He wasn't sure what he was going to do with a sword, but he could probably pawn it off later for some money or something if he needed to. It looked kind of cool anyway, so he fastened it to his waist and stuck his head outside of the tent. Once it seemed like no one was nearby, he quietly made his way out and did what any rational person would have done in his situation.
Adam ran into the forest and got the hell out of there.
He didn't know what the other Adam was doing with a bunch of crazy terrorists, but he wasn't going to stick around to find out. He popped open his phone while he made his way deeper into the forest and turned on the GPS. There was a city nearby and he plotted a course straight for it, the sooner he got out of the woods the better.
As he was walking, he couldn't help but wonder, did that mean the other Adam had woken up in his body as well? He paled a bit at the thought of a crazy terrorist in his body and what kind of havoc he could cause. Quickly shaking his head at the thought, he kept moving deeper into the forest instead.
It was better to not think about that for right now, and worry about his current situation instead, such as what he was going to once he reached civilization.
Maybe he could go to the police-
Something rustled in the bushes nearby. A branch got stepped on as a large black bear dinosaur-looking thing stepped out from the bushes. He wasn't sure what that monster was, but it sure freaked him the fuck out.
"Ho-ly shit."
The monster made eye contact with him and he froze for a moment.
Hadn't he seen something about bears in a documentary once? That you were supposed to stand your ground or something like that? Adam was never a really fast runner, so he didn't think that he'd be able to outrun something like that anyway. He did have a weapon with him, but he had no clue on how to properly swing a sword.
The monsters let out a roar and charged at him.
"Oh shit!"
Adam made a run for it. He ducked around a couple of trees and heard the beast's heavy strides continue to chase after him. He looked back and saw that it was gaining ground on him. He remembered that people weren't able to outrun bears, but did thing even count as a bear? He wasn't sure but it was catching up to him, so he needed to do something fast.
Fuck, it was a dumb idea, but it wasn't like this his body anyway. Maybe if he died, he'd end up back in his real body or something.
Adam stopped running and pulled the sword out of his sheath. The monster got close and looked ready to bite him before he swung the sword down on its head. It almost felt natural to him even though he had never swung a sword before in his life. The blade cut through the monster like a knife through butter, cleanly bisecting its head into two even pieces.
Holy shit!
Adam had been expecting to see blood or something, but all he saw was some black sludge in its place.
The monster fell to the ground and began to disintegrate in front of him. He had to blink a couple of times to actually see if his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. After a couple more seconds, the entire monster had disappeared, its body disintegrating into dust.
What. The. Fuck.
It was like a monster from a video game or something. Adam could feel his heart still pounding, threatening to burst out of his chest before he took a couple of deep breaths.
Think about what just happened and calm down.
He had managed to cut a bear in half with a sword when he had never used a sword before in his life. The other Adam was probably a swordsman or something, so the muscle memory probably helped him kill that thing. What else was there? The monster kind of had a white mask on it, similar to the one that was on his face.
Was this a cult that worshipped these things or something?
Adam took the mask off his face and tossed it to the ground. Whatever that crazy masked group the other Adam was a part of was about, he wanted no part of them. Keeping that mask on was screwing with his vision anyway, he wasn't sure how the hell anyway could see properly with those small shutters for eye holes.
The whole get-up just screamed edginess in his eyes.
"Shit man…" Adam mumbled to himself as he ran a hand over his hair. "Just what the hell am I going to do now?"
God, even his freaking voice sounded edgy as hell.
His phone began to ring and he took a look at who was calling. A picture of some buff guy with one of those white masks and the name 'Lieutenant' popped up on the screen. Yeah, no way in hell was he going to answer that call. That dude looked like he could rip him in half with his bare hands.
Adam declined the call and began to scroll through his contacts.
A bunch of names that he didn't recognize and pictures of people that he had never seen before. He eventually found the name of the black-haired girl that he had spoken to earlier by matching the picture in his phone with the image of her in his mind, Blake Belladonna. He looked through some more of the contacts before his phone started ringing again, a different person with a different mask this time.
If those crazy terrorists were going to keep calling him, that was going to a pain in the ass. As he made his way towards the city, he just started blocking everyone on his contacts.
Adam was going to have to hard pass on hanging around the crazy terrorist group.
Blake took a look at her scroll.
Adam was late. That wasn't normal. Adam and late didn't mix, he was always punctual, but then again, he hadn't been acting normal all morning. Just what exactly was he planning? Did he know that she was planning on running away during the train raid?
No, there was no way.
She got up off the rock she was sitting on and made her way back to the White Fang camp. White Fang members were running around in a bit of a panic and she couldn't help but wonder what was going on. She was about to make her way towards Adam's tent before Adam's right-hand man grabbed her shoulder.
"Blake, have you seen Adam?" The Lieutenant asked her. "He's been missing for the last couple of hours."
"... What?" Blake turned around with a confused expression on her face. "He said he was going to grab his things and get ready for the raid."
"His tent's empty and he's not picking up his scroll." The Lieutenant gruffly replied. "I don't know what he's thinking, we're going to miss the train at this rate."
What was Adam thinking? What was going on? Blake wasn't sure, but it was making her nervous. Did he really know that she had been planning on running away during the raid? Was that why he wasn't showing up?
"Damn it… We need to find him soon." The Lieutenant scowled. "I'm going to get some people to help look for him. You see if you can find him too, alright?"
Wait… She could use this. Blake had been planning on using the raid as a distraction to run away, but this could work too.
"Alright." She replied with a nod. "I'll check the south side."
A grunt was all she got in response from Adam's right-hand man before he stormed off. The south of the forest was towards Vale, so she could just make her escape and no one would be any wiser. It was different from the way she had planned it, but the results would be the same nonetheless.
The only unknown variable here was Adam.
What was going on with Adam? What was he planning? Those were the only thoughts that occupied her mind as she made her way into the forest towards Vale. As she kept walking, she noticed a White Fang mask lying on the ground.
Blake knelt down and picked it up before her eyes widened in surprise.
It was Adam's mask, which meant that he had been through here. What was it doing here though? He never went anywhere without his mask, it was why she had found it so strange that he hadn't worn it this morning. He didn't like showing the scar on his face, so why had he left his mask behind?
And why was he headed towards Vale? Was he… Leaving the White Fang too?
No, it just didn't make sense. Adam dedicated everything to the White Fang, it got to the point where he was almost fanatical about it. Did he really know that she was planning on leaving the White Fang behind? Was that why he left too? Was he doing it to follow her? How would he have known though?
Blake didn't understand, it didn't make any sense.
Hesitantly, she took out her scroll and looked through her contacts until she reached Adam's name. Should she call him to ask? The Lieutenant said that he wasn't picking up any of their calls, but she knew that he would answer if she called. She needed to find out what he was doing; if he knew about her plans and was doing all of this just to chase after her.
Blake hit the call button and slowly brought the phone towards her ear.
"We're sorry, the number that you are trying to reach has blocked you."
What?
Adam blocked her number? Just what in the world was going on here?
Author's Notes- I thought it'd be fun to do one of these friend inserts with one of my buddies, who also happens to be named Adam. If you're not familiar with how it works, I basically give him scenarios and he tells me how he would react to them. He also has never seen RWBY before so that always makes it fun, haha.
Adam: Am I doing a good job so far?
SFX: You basically destroyed the original canon storyline already, so I guess?
Adam: Nice.