Reading Team PHNK
An: Sorry 'bout the wait guys. The slump I was in hit me harder than I thought it did, and I just recently recovered. Hopefully, this chapter is up to standard. Enjoy!
Reading Orange Trailer
"I'm reading this time!" Annabeth called out, quickly standing up and gaining everyone's attention. Percy chuckled in amusement while the daughter of Athena glared at him. Hermione just nodded and held the book out to her.
She took it gratefully and made her way back to her seat. She sat down quickly and flipped to where they had stopped.
"Chapter 0: Orange Trailer," she read.
"I wonder who called me here." A young man said to himself. He was a blonde haired man with sky blue eyes, tan skin, and whisker marks on his cheek. He was wearing an orange jacket, with a green vest and black shirt, along with black jeans, and orange gauntlets. He had a giant foxtail behind him.
This man is known as Naruto Uzumaki.
"Awesome!" Naruto cheered loudly. "Now's my time to shine!" Gaara shook his head in exasperation.
"But why is he a Faunus here?" Blake asked, her gaze torn between the Naruto before her and the one on the screen.
"I'll explain after the next chapter," Dragon promised. "Brace yourself Naruto, because I'm sure you'll want to kill me for revealing the reason why."
Naruto was confused until Dragon held up nine fingers. He narrowed his eyes at him but nodded nonetheless. The others just watched confused.
Currently, he made to the meeting point of his caller before looking around. Seeing as no one was there yet, he sat down Indian style on the ground and started meditating. Usually, that wasn't really his thing, but it helped pass the time when you were waiting for somebody. Plus, he liked feeling the nature around him. As he meditated, orange rings appeared around his eyes.
"'Liked feeling the nature around him?'" Harry quoted, confused.
"What's up with his eyes?" Yang asked, wondering what was up with the hot blonde.
"Spoilers," Dragon said to Naruto, who was about to explain. Naruto snapped his mouth shut. "Suffice to say, it ties into his abilities and his past."
Annabeth and Hermione looked eager to ask more questions, but Percy and Harry quickly subdued them, smirking in sympathy at each other all the while.
"You're fifteen minutes late you know." Naruto said, sensing several people behind him. He opened his eyes, a brief flash of yellow eyes with bar pupils, before the eyes changed back to their regular blue; and the orange rings disappeared.
"What that heck?!" Ruby asked, staring at the weird eyes the other Naruto had.
"Ok, just what's up with his eyes?!" Yang demanded.
"I said I'd explain after this chapter, so be patient," Dragon told her.
"How about you tell me now?!"
"How about…no?" Yang growled at him, but Blake and Weiss held her down.
"Read!" they shouted.
Naruto turn around to face the people there, about to speak to them, before recognizing who they were. And that caused him to scowl slightly.
In front of him was a group of the White Fang, the one leading was a giant Faunus with a chainsaw sword on his back. Naruto knew that this man was the lieutenant of the White Fang.
Blake stiffened at the sight of the Lieutenant, while Weiss shuddered.
"Bloody hell!" Harry swore, making Hermione swat his arm. "How does he wield that thing properly?"
"Don't know, but I'm gonna guess his size plays a huge role in it," Percy commented with a frown.
"I'm going to say excessive training as well," Katniss added.
"Still not as good as the High Caliber Sniper-Scythe," Dragon said lightly, getting a broad grin and a vigorous nod from Ruby.
"Okay, this is getting old." Naruto drawled out, glaring at all of them. "I already told you no before, so I'm not gonna repeat myself. So how about you stop bothering me about it before I kick all of your asses once again?"
Many in the White Fang tensed, but the lieutenant stepped forward and started speaking with a thick accent. "Be reasonable Uzumaki. Joining the White Fang will benefit you, along with many Faunus. You saw the results we have-"
"Those results are because people fear you, not respect the Faunus people." Naruto retorted, not backing down. "I'm not going to join a group that loss their goal and went to terrorism to get what they want."
"We haven't lost our goal. The White Fang is still aiming for Faunus to get rights-"
"Your goals was for human and Faunus to be at peace with one another." Naruto interrupted, correcting him. "Now, you terrorize people in order to get what you want. Why the hell did you think I left that group as soon as I saw the direction it was heading?"
"So he was a member of the White Fang before it was a terrorist cell?" Blake asked, wondering if that meant the other version of Naruto knew her.
"This White Fang was a peaceful group, but became terrorists?" Hermione questioned. "Why?"
Blake spoke up then. "It was a combination of things really," she explained. "Increased violence against Faunus, unrest amongst the Faunus community as a whole, and their former leader, the one who advocated equality between humans and Faunus, stepping down, allowing a more militant minded leader to step forward."
Naruto scrunched his nose up at that. "Sounds like Danzō back home," he grumbled. "He's a war hungry old man who always clashed with my village's leader."
That had the others back off in understanding.
"Great," Katniss growled quietly. "Just what we need; another Snow." Peeta nodded, a frown on his face as he noticed the others had heard them.
"I'm sure Dragon will explain after the next chapter," Peeta explained. "Because if the trend holds, Katniss will feature next chapter." Katniss stared up at him.
"How do you figure?" she asked. He smiled at her.
"Because trouble loves you," he teased, making her scowl at him. However, Harry, Naruto, and Percy smiled at her in sympathy.
There was silence amongst the group. When Naruto was about to speak again, the lieutenant spoke up. "Be reasonable Uzumaki. The White Fang will either have you on our side, or kill you." The lieutenant said lowly. "Besides, Adam and Blake are still in there. Wasn't your principle to never abandon your comrades or those precious to you? Otherwise, you are worse than trash?"
Blake blinked in shock. This version of Naruto was friends with Adam and herself?
"You used to be a member of this group, Blake?" Annabeth asked, shocking Blake out of her musings. Blake nodded hesitantly. "So I assume you're a Faunus, as well?" Again, she nodded and pulled off her bow, revealing her cat ears.
"Are you still with them?" Harry asked in a hard tone. RWY glared at him, but Blake shook her head at them before turning to Harry.
"No, I'm not," she answered. "I was there for a while after the previous leader stepped down, because I believed what we were doing was right, but after a while I saw I was wrong and left."
Harry narrowed his eyes at her, but simply nodded and looked back to the screen, figuring he'd find out himself.
Naruto clench his fist, his eyes briefly turning red and slitted, before closing it and took a deep calming breath. When he open his eyes again, revealing them to be back to blue, he slowly walk over to the lieutenant. When the giant Faunus saw Naruto walking towards, he calmly walk to him as well, thinking he won.
Everyone was shocked at his eyes changing again, but Naruto shook his head and motioned to keep reading. Annabeth did.
"We knew you would come around." The Faunus said, lifting his hand to shake when they got close enough. When Naruto took it, he did something any of the White Fang expected.
He first kneed him in the crotch, causing the man to cry out in pain and hold it. Naruto then uppercut him and sent him flying. As the man flew back down, Naruto stretched out his left hand to the side and when the guy got close enough to the ground, Naruto threw his hand forward. That caused a powerful gust of wind to surge forward and hit the lieutenant hard, making him fly far away from the group.
Naruto heard footsteps behind him, showing that there was some grunts behind him, to ambush him. 'Well what do you know, they can learn new tricks.'
"Awesome!" Naruto cried out giddily.
"Meh," came Percy's reply. "Jason can do better." Naruto glared at him.
"How do you figure?" he asked with a tone.
Percy shrugged. "Jason's the son of Jupiter or Zeus if you prefer the Greeks, god of lightning, skies, justice, and king of the gods. He's the resident Fly Boy of us demigods."
"Like you're the resident Water Boy, huh?" Naruto asked.
"Yes, exactly," the demigod agreed, not rising to the nickname.
Too bad they couldn't hide from him, thanks to his sage mode.
"'Sage Mode?'" Blake asked.
"What is that?" Annabeth asked.
"Spoilers," Naruto commented.
"You're going to enjoy doing that to us, aren't you?" Katniss asked. Naruto grinned at her.
"Sure am, Catnip!" he said, making her frown at him.
"Don't call me Catnip!" she snapped at him. The others reared back in shock at the surprising amount of venom she put in that sentence.
"Katniss," Peeta warned softly. Katniss turned her glare to him, but eventually calmed down.
As the ambush group got close to him and readied their weapons to slice him up, Naruto jumped at the last minute to dodge all the attacks. Naruto stared them down as he was up in the air, and he unfolded his gauntlet, right before slamming down and scattering them all with a large gust of wind around him.
"Hey! I did something similar when I fought Jr's thugs at The Club!" Yang shouted.
He slowly got up, facing against the other grunts with a smirk on his face. He charge at them, right as they started running towards them, before knocking one of them with a punch, along with a gust of wind. He then kicked another grunt way, and grabbed another one before swinging him towards three more and knocking them out, using a powerful gust of wind to make the impact harder.
He ducked under the swings of two swords before the two were pushed away from him, then he threw his arms sideways with another powerful gust eating him. Naruto then did a roundhouse kick on one of the oncoming grunts, ducked from another swing, before twisting and punching the next grunt in the stomach, sending him flying, and finally spinning sideways before punching one more grunt into the ground, using the wind once again to increase the impact.
"No hits! No competition! 9 out of ten for myself for the too quick way my other dealt with those idiots!" Naruto shouted happily.
"…1 and a half out of ten," Harry mumbled to him, making the blond shinobi gawk at him in shock.
Percy's was even worse. "Negative 9 out of 10," he said dully. Naruto frowned at them.
"You two are just jealous that you can't match perfection!" he sniffed. Harry raised an eyebrow.
"You get a 1 and a half out of ten possible points because, according to that Yang girl over there, she already did the jump punch," Harry said monotonously. "That hurt your technique by plagiarizing her move. Then, like you said, your other ended them too quickly. Thus, a one and a half out of ten."
"Considering the fight was lackluster to the ones I've fought in back home, and I'll admit Harry did good in his trailer thing, my vote is in the negatives, sorry," Percy apologized, but didn't sound very sorry.
Naruto breathed heavily, looking around to see all of the grunts, male and female, unconscious or in too much pain to get up. But he knew he wasn't done. "I was wondering when you were gonna get here." Naruto said, turning his head to see the lieutenant with his chainsaw sword.
Weiss shivered. Turning to Blake, she whispered, "Thank you for the help against him, Blake."
"It was no trouble, Weiss," Blake whispered back.
Meanwhile, Annabeth and Hermione were up in arms. "I still don't understand how a sword like that is even functioning?!" the daughter of Athena shouted.
"I don't know!" Hermione hissed. "And that's not mentioning how utterly impractical it would be to use in combat! You could kill yourself far easier than actually killing your target!"
Percy and Harry just shared a smirk of sympathy and seemed to have the same thought: This happens a lot.
"You're gonna regret not joining us," The lieutenant said, activating his sword. Naruto blew a raspberry at him before charging at him, using the wind to boost him. He performed several punches and kicks at the man, with each attack making a gust of wind and forcing the Faunus to step back each time.
But as he performed another kick, the giant Faunus managed to grab his leg before slamming him into the ground three times before throwing him through a tree. When Naruto landed on his back, the White Fang lieutenant jump up to the sky and lift his chainsaw sword up to strike him down, but Naruto rolled away as the chainsaw hit the ground, causing a semi-large hole to form under it.
"Aura is pretty powerful," Peeta mumbled.
Naruto twisted back up to strike again, but the lieutenant lift his sword up and struck Naruto in the face, drawing a cry from the blonde, before striking his leg and then knocking him back with a strike to the chest.
Naruto landed on his back, groaning in pain from the attacks, before slowing getting up. It revealed that a large cut is formed on Naruto's face, diagonally, while there are two more cuts on his chest and legs. Naruto grinned as his cuts started healing up and the wind starting twisting around him.
"And he has a healing factor," Percy grumbled. "Way to add more gloating fuel to the already annoying blond guy, book."
"Hey!"
Naruto charged the lieutenant with lightning speed and started performing barrages of powerful punches, strengthened by the wind, before performing one final punch, his eyes turning red and slitted as he did. The punch caused the Faunus to fly throw the trees and crash into a large boulder. But Naruto wasn't done yet.
"Copycat!" Yang shouted, frowning. She turned a vicious glare to Naruto. "Quit copying me, you ass!"
"What are you talking about?" Naruto asked, confused. Yang, however, just sent him a furious glare and huffed before turning away from him.
"You'll see, copycat bastard," she grumbled, furthering Naruto's confusion.
He jumped up, twisting the wind around one of his fists, before flying towards the lieutenant with a battle cry. And with one hit, he drove the White Fang lieutenant threw the boulder and deep into the ground.
"For some reason, I think he stole that one from me," Weiss mumbled, thinking.
"Why's that, Weiss?" Ruby asked.
"Don't know, but it's irritating me."
"Oh, oh! Maybe he copied you too, Weissy!" Nora shouted.
"Hey!" Naruto shouted.
"Nora," Ren said with sigh.
"Hang on, hang on, Ren," Jaune said in a placating tone. "Maybe Nora's onto something here." He ignored Naruto's indignant cry of "HEY!" "He's already copying Yang, so he might be trying to copy all of us too."
Naruto pouted. He wasn't a copycat!
That was Kakashi sensei's thing.
Naruto breathed heavily, grinning slightly, and folded his gauntlet back up. Despite being annoyed with the White Fang, that was fun. As Naruto walked away from the scene, he felt his scroll ring and he took it out of his pocket before answering. "Naruto speaking."
"Hey Whiskers, where are you at?" A voice said over the phone, sounding annoyed.
"That's Uncle Qrow!" Ruby exclaimed. "I wonder if this Naruto knows us!"
"Oh, I sure hope so," Yang mumbled, punching her hand. She wanted to beat the copycat up for copying her.
"The kiddos have been asking for you, wondering where you were at. Do you know how annoying it is for them to be asking about you every minute?"
"He DOES know us!" Ruby squealed, hands over her face in an effort to contain the squeal.
"Good," Yang said with a dark smile.
Naruto chuckled a bit at the last part. "Someone called me to meet him in the forest. Unfortunately, the 'him' was actually the White Fang again."
The man groan. "I thought those idiots learned that you wouldn't go back to the White Fang."
"Sometimes, you can't teach a pet new tricks," Naruto joked, before speaking once more. "I would call the police to get them, before any of them wakes up."
"I'll be sure to do that." The man said. "For now though, get your ass back here so the kiddos will stop asking for you."
Naruto chuckle once again. "You got it Qrow." And with that, Naruto close his cell phone.
"So, we have Percy rescuing Dust shipments from the White Fang at sea," Pyrrha noted. "Harry fights in tournaments and apparently fights me all the time. And now we have a Faunus Naruto who is apparently being hounded by the White Fang. This world the book is describing seems to be getting interesting."
"No joke," Jaune admitted. "Though, I can't help but feeling that it means the challenges will be more difficult as well."
"That's a given, though," Percy said deadpanning.
"So, what's the deal with the blond over there?" Katniss asked, wanting an explanation.
"He's a shinobi, or ninja if you want a more popular answer," Dragon answered. "He and Gaara are from a land where ninjas are the dominant warriors and they use an inner power called 'chakra' to perform superhuman feats."
While not as crazy as gods having kids or magic, it was still a jaw dropping for the others. However, Nora, Yang, and Ruby got over it quickly and jumped up in unison, eyes shining brightly.
"YOU TWO ARE NINJAS?!" they asked, star struck. Naruto and Gaara were startled by the shout, but before the three girls could say anything else, Annabeth spoke up.
"So that explains the nature thing he did, and his eyes changing?" she asked.
Dragon shrugged. "Partly. Naruto's trained in the art of a Sage, granting him even higher amounts of power and connecting him to nature. His eyes changing signifies that. The red eye part, since I know Yang wants to know that? I'll explain after the next chapter." Dragon clapped his hands. "And on that note, who wants to read next?"