"Where the hell is this place" I ask myself aloud as I wander about the city, lost. I was supposed to meet up with my LARP club in the park for a meet, but wouldn't you know, I lose my map and leave my phone in the hotel, accidently grabbing my contact case/glasses holder by mistake. Stupid life! So now I'm just walking down the street -
Singing "do waddi by dibby dub dibby do!"
"William, really?!"
What?
"You know exactly what. I hate that kinda music!"
Why do you think I started singing it?
At this point I should probably explain. I have voices in my head. Specifically William. Although he prefers "The Emperor of the Dark Moon," or similar titles. He's evil crazy.
Well, thank you, Ben, but who are you thinking too?
The readers of course!
Wow. 9 sentences in and you're already breaking the fourth wall! I think that's a new record for you!
As you can see, with him in my head, I'm pretty crazy. But back to the story, I was looking-
We're going to an LARP match, but this goon lost the map and now we're getting funny looks cause we're walking around Cleveland with a freaking bow on our back! That pretty much sums it up.
But now we have no story to give them!
Then let the plot progress! Move forward and start speaking if something happens! If not, I can just make something happen.
I don't trust you making something happen. You'd probably kidnap the first woman we see if I let you.
I most certainly would not. I would kidnap the first FEMALE I see. Get your terms straight.
Do you see the insanity I have to live through every day? Anyway, we're-no, I'm, dang pronouns- walking down the streets of Cleveland. Trying to figure out how to get to this freaking park. And it's not the nice part of town, either. While the buildings aren't quite decrepit, it's just got that feeling that it isn't safe. But you just have to keep on walking and hope you figure out where you made that wrong turn. Despite still seeming a bit ghetto, the area looks pretty nice. For inner city, that is. No piles of trash in abandoned lots and stuff like that.
A nice breeze blows down the street, the scent of the distant lake the wind originated from nearly detectable under the stench of the city. The breeze grew stronger, fluttering through my hair, and I stood there for a moment, reveling in the delightful sensations of the wind billowing my burgundy jacket around me. Getting just a bit chilly, I fold the collar up vampire style for a little extra warmth around the neck and reach over my head to pull my… hair? Where is my…? Oh crap!
NOT THE FEDORA!
I turn to see my beloved fedora flying away on the gust of wind. "FUCK!" So everyone in a 5 mile radius heard me swear as I ran down the street like a maniac chasing down a flying hat. I can only imagine what that must have looked like to someone else. And another thing, I can't run worth shit. At best I get a good sprint. Marathon would literally kill me. And not the literally that is metaphorically that grammar Nazis complain about. Actually literally the stress of running 24 miles would probably actually kill me.
ENOUGH THINKING! GRAB THAT HAT!
Why won't this wind stop! Come on just a little... further… GOT IT!
THE FEDORA IS SAFE!
As I put my beloved fedora back on its rightful pedestal, I actually look around. I wound up running into real ghetto. "Shit" Around me were really torn up buildings and junk lots. Real bad shit. So now I'm even more lost and stuck in the ghetto. Just great. Better get looking for a way to that park or the -
"AAAAHHH!"
Is that a feminine scream of fear I detect?
No Will, it's the mating call of the rare Vietnamese elephant shrew. Of course it's a girl screaming! We're in the freaking ghetto!
I say we investigate!
Dude, I don't want to get into this.
Come ON!
I don't know whether it was pure curiosity, Will's nagging, or just my suicidal tendencies that made me investigate, but I found myself peering into a dark alley to see two obvious gangstas advancing on a lovely ebony lady that really looked like she did NOT want to be there.
Holy shit! A rape scene! This could be good!
Shut. The fuck. UP! A woman is about to get raped and you wanna WATCH! We have to do something!
Oo! Idea! We got our archery stuff on us. Let's skewer 'em like Green Arrow!
I only got the foam tips for LARP. They ain't gonna do squat!
Then whack 'em in the head with the arrows and run like hell!
Against my better judgment, I actually listened to the crazy voice in my head. Bad Idea right there. So I grabbed two foam ball tipped arrows out of my quiver and aimed both arrows at each of their heads. Probably idiotic to try a double shot, but I don't want to stand there long enough to fret another arrow. So from the edge of the corner, I aimed the arrows and let go of the string, sending the foam tips flying at the gangsters' heads.
They didn't hit anything.
Specifically, they didn't hit anything because some weird portal thing opened up between me and them that ate the arrows up.
The fuck?! Weird sci-fi portals opening up in the middle of Cleveland?
I could hear the gangsters cussing and running away from the portal as I just stood staring, paralyzed with fear.
Maybe it's like Primeval and a raptor will jump out or something?
Well, something did jump out of the portal. Two large robotic legs came out of the portal, followed by the rest of the robot body. Spider leg bottom and humanoid torso with gun hands. That's as much detail as I got before I turned tail and ran the fuck away from there!
Seriously? The first real sci-fi shit of our life, and you don't have the guts to go up all "we come in peace"?
Guns for hands, Will! That typically means evil take over robots!
Maybe it's me from the future trying to kill off me from the past!
Dude, you said you'd use genetic super soldiers. But if it is my stupid sci-fi book coming true-
"SHIT!" I'm falling. Running from a giant robot, I fucking TRIP! Get up, get up! O crap, something's got my leg! Dafuq? The robot wrapped some kinda cable around my ankle. And it's sending more out!
I DON'T WANT TO BE ON THIS SIDE OF THE TENTACLE RAPE!
I try swinging at the cables with my bow, but it's no use. The robot's got me! Within a moment of my screaming, it's retracted the cables and is holding my like a hunter holds a prize rabbit, dangling by my feet. And then it walks right back into the portal. And whoa, did that feel weird!
When we make it out, we enter into what looks like a cross between a chem lab and a metal shop, with weird machinery that looks like it belongs in a comic book.
Dude, we just got abducted by a freaking robot! We're probably in a comic book at this point!
It does look very evil lair-ish. Look, there's even minions working the machines!
"Finally I have captured my first alien!" A strange voice said from in front of the robot that was dragging us. "Let me see our first catch!" The robot swung me up be the legs so I was hanging face to face with what must have been the most stereotypically mad scientist looking person I had ever seen outside of a con. We just stared at each other for a moment of awkwardness.
"I think you got the wrong species," I finally quipped as blood rushed to my head.
"I guess the aliens have been able to disguise themselves as those damned humans," the mad scientist spoke as he turned around, revealing a fracking fluffy tail!
Ah, self-experimentation? A mad scientist after my own heart!
"I should start dissecting this one now! See how the can look so much like those idiot humans."
Oh, shit! I really don't want to see my insides right now!
But I kinda do. If I can just get my hands in there, I might be able to do something about that dang spastic colon!
NOT the time, Will! The mad scientist turned back around, now wielding a freaking hand saw as the robot dropped me onto one of those freaking metal table, my bow dropping to the floor. Before I could even move to escape, more cables from the table coiled around my limbs, pinning me to the table awkwardly with my quiver keeping me up slightly.
"Let's see what makes you tick," The mad scientist with the fluffy tail said as he aimed his saw at the middle of my gut. Holy shit I'm going to be fucking cut open by some whacked out evil genius like in some comic book! Where's the superhero when you need one!
"Gah!" The scientist suddenly screamed in pain, as blood started to leak from his shoulder. An arrow head had pierced his shoulder. A freaking arrow. As fluffy tail starts dancing around in pain, I turn my head to see a Hawkeye-like character with an epic blue spiked hairdo like Mister Freeze from the 2000s The Batman show shoot one of the minions with an arrow topped with some cartridge. Once the arrow hit the dude, he just fell over convulsing. Ok, we are so definitely in a comic book!
Aw, Taser arrow? Why couldn't he just shoot the guy through the heart? Or explosive arrows?
Our savior shot down another lab grunt as the big freaking robot that kidnapped me joined the fray. The archer quickly fretted a red tipped arrow into his compound bow and shot it at the bot, exploding the robot's head unit! There's your freaking explosives, Will!
But unfortunately, whoever built the machine was actually smart enough to not put anything important in the head, and the robot started firing at the archer with its gun hands. The guy just dodge rolled out of the way, even out maneuvering the bot and got behind it. Then the epicness started.
The archer just threw his compound bow in the air and it just split in half, right at the handle. Then fucking scythe blades unfolded from the bow as the handles descended to the ends. The archer caught each half in a different hand and swung one of the new kusarigama through one of the robot's arm guns. He kept hacking through the robot with his hand-scythes until the robot was nothing but a pile of scrap.
You've watched way too much anime if you know the name of those things off-hand.
Shut up Will. After incapacitating everything in the room that could move freely, the archer finally seemed to notice me. With a few well-placed slices, I was free.
"Holy Jesus, thanks man!" I said as I rubbed my wrists free of the cables. He just stared at me strangely. "Do you mind if I ask what's going on?"
"You don't know why you were abducted?" he said in disbelief.
"Why the hell would I? A portal just popped out of nowhere, a robot kidnapped me and then that mad scientist came at me with a band saw! How the heck should I what's going on!?"
Isn't it obvious? He needed a perfect specimen, and I was the only one in the multiverse good enough for his maniacalness.
"Long story short, you got abducted by Shadow Claw, a radical splinter of the White Fang. I'm here to try to beat this cell into submission." He answered me, then spoke under his breath, "Dang bastard Faunus are abducting random people off the street now? What could they be planning?"
Wait a sec! White Fang? Faunus? You think that maybe-
"But anyway, I'ma here to save your sorry ass hide!" the archer cut off Will with a flourish of snarky bravado. "So let's get your ass somewhere far away from these freaks!" He then looked down and picked my fallen bow off the ground. "So, can you fight with this thing?" He asked as he examined it.
"I have some practice combat experience," LARP is pretty close to real combat, just with foam instead of metal.
"Well, here's some RL experience to help you with that," he said as he tossed my bow, "Cause we're gonna have to fight our way outta here." Wanting to get the hell out of there, I jumped up to follow.
And I hit the ceiling.
I don't mean I bumped it or anything. It was a head first slam into the roof. Now normally for me, it's like the saying; "white guys can't jump." And here I am, face planted into the ceiling.
Wow, did that guy give us superpowers or something? This is awesome!
"That's some jump you got there." the archer commented as I landed on my ass.
"How the fuck I do that?" I asked aloud as I rubbed my sore head.
"How should I know?" The archer shrugged, "At any rate, we better get moving." He said as he rushed out of the door. I followed, stepping very lightly out into the hallway to see the archer shoot down another goon. But as soon as that guy fell, another couple came running down the hall wielding knives. I kid you not, knives. Come on! They had robots with Gatling arms! You think the henchies would have pistols at least! Not that I'm complaining.
"You take the two on the right!" the archer called to me as he hit another down. Frack! I have to do something. Since this guy is a-shooting arrows, I pull one of my useless foam ball tipped arrows out of my quiver and aim at the guy's knife. I let go and the foam tip hits the guy's knife, knocking it out of his hands. I fret another and aim for the guy's face this time. The foam ball whacks the guy in the face and somehow it's enough to make him fall backwards into the guy behind him. Which is weird, cause the LARP arrows are normally like fast tennis balls, not enough to send a guy reeling like that.
Now that he had eliminated his own targets, the archer easily took the bewildered goons out. He quickly grabbed a few of his arrows from the downed minions and grabbed the two foam tips I had used to return them. "What kinda arrows are these?"
"There, uh, for combat practice, so we can practice hitting a human target without hurting them," That is pretty much what LARP is, sort of. I don't know why I didn't wanna say LARP, but I just didn't.
"Huh, that's actually a good idea," he said, as if the idea of non-injurious training was a new concept to him. "But were not in training anymore. If you don't have any useful arrows, take a few of these," he said pulling a few out of his… shoulder? What I thought was his shoulder pad instead turned out to be his quiver, the arrows somehow collapsed in it. The arrows unfolded as he drew them for me, most with flatheads, but a few had freaking Tasers on them. "I not gonna trust you with the explosive arrows, though."
"Thanks, uh, what's your name?" I asked as I put his arrows in my norm quiver.
"Temperance Baihu, hunter extraordinaire!" He announced with a mock bow, "And you?"
"Ben Andrews."
"Nice to know you Ben. Now that intros are outta the way, let's get going." So we set off, every one of my steps propelling me controlled to avoid face-planting into a wall.
Hey Ben.
Will! You've been quiet for a while, it's been so nice! I jested as we rounded a corner.
I've been thinking-
That'd be a first.
Yeah, I know. But I think we're in another dimension. Specifically the one from RWBY. Think about it. That guy that was gonna gut us had a tail, and Tempy over there mentioned White Fang and Faunus.
Wha?! How could we…
Come on man! A robot that looked just like the ones in Blake's trailer abducted us through a portal! It's staring us in the face! Come on! In what other universe would a guy going up against terrorists with deathbots use a bow/hand-scythe as his weapon?
"Holy shit, I'm on another planet" I blurted out as we continued running. Mr. Baihu just stared at me very strangely as we kept running.
"Really?" he said with more disbelief.
"I know the planet I'm from does not have tech like I've seen here. Even the highest tech robots we got can't do half of what these bots have done, and I KNOW that nobody from my world has tails!" I rant as we head down a flight of stairs, strangely no goons are attacking. "That could even explain the super jump I had, if this place has weaker gravity."
Might also explain the huge amount of physics breaking that this show does.
"Just to confirm it, what is this planet called?"
"Remnant," Temperance answered bewildered as we got to the first floor.
RWBY CONFIRMED!
"Well, my planet's called Earth, so now I'm sure that this was some kinda interdimensional portal I got sucked through." Wow, interdimensional travel. My sci-fi dreams have finally come true!
"GET DOWN!" Temperance's scream pulled me out of my thoughts as I hit the dirt. Bullets dug holes into the wall behind me, looking like somebody was swearing in braille. I looked up to see a small army of Gatling bots pointing their arm guns at us. "Stay down." Temperance whispered. So I followed the smart guy's advice… and the robots had me in the cables again.
WHY MUST I BE ON THIS SIDE OF THE TENTACLES!?
"Relax, Ben," Temp told me as the robots carried us off upside-down. "All part of the plan." Excellent plan you have here. "When I give the word, shoot anything that moves." Very effective plan there. So the bots carried us up to the top of the building, hanging us like sausage. They brought into some kinda office, and who would be there but Dr. Fluffytail, and ruff looking BAMF Faunus with rabbit ears that was wielding what looked like boomerang pistols.
So you can make bunny ears intimidating. Good to know. Maybe I can use them in my minions.
"I see you finally got my specimen back," the fluffy tailed madman spoke to the bots.
"So, you are the ass hat in charge here," Temp smirked in realization, "this made my job a lot easier." With that his blades sliced out through the cables, freeing himself and me. "SHOOT EVERYTHING!" he screamed as we fell to the ground. So after my head hit the floor, I fretted a couple arrows and spun on my back to shoot a few bots. MAN that felt epic! Sliced right through em! Between us two archers, the bots were down in seconds.
"Ya wanna give up n-" Temp began, before being interrupted by rabbit ears' gunfire. This is gonna be epic. But as Temp and Mr. Bunny dueled out, Fluffy started after me with his band-saw in hand.
"I will dissect you alien!" Sheesh, this guy is still on this? I grabbed the Taser bolt and shot it straight at his face, just for him to cut it in half. Sawblade swung down and I rolled away. He slashed again, and all I could do from position was to push the blade out of my path with my bow. It was like a circular spinning knife through bow shaped butter. Shit I'm gonna die! I did all I could think to do; jump away. I collided with the far wall. What?
Did you forget about the gravity assist superpowers we got?
Oh, yeah. But bigger problems now. Now I got no weapon and Dr. Fluffy is coming back for round two and- HOLY SHIT! BOOMERANG INCOMING! Fetal position saves my life yet again! The bladed boomerang gun spun back around the room, and whizzed by Doc McFluff, disorienting him from his pursuit.
Temperance looked away from his fight for a split second to see if I was alright, a big smile on his face. The boomerang was returning to its owner, through Temp's arm.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Time seemed to slow down as his scream filled the room. Blood was splattered on the floor as the gunman reclaimed his gun, smiling. Temp's scythes scattered across the floor, along with his arm, falling into a fast forming puddle of blood. Everyone in the room stared at Temperance as he fell to his knees, the Faunus with a look of glee. My face probably didn't even react yet, from the shock.
"No. HELL FUCKING NO!" Without me even knowing what was going on, my body suddenly launched forward and grabbed Temp's blades. Before I knew it, my body was fighting the gunman with Temp's scythes. I'm no longer in control. WILL!
Don't talk. Now is for VENGEANCE!
Normally, Will taking over would be the worst thing possible. He hacked and slashed the gunman, gaining ground, pushing him back. Doc Fluff came in from the side and hacked with his saw, but somehow Will blocked it, the saw grinding sparks off the blade of the scythe. Then Will kicked the rabbit guy in the nuts. It must have looked epic. Then a sweep kick to Fluff's legs and he was on the floor.
HEY WILL! The guys are down! Help Temp!
Fine, jeez. You don't have to yell!
So Will grabbed Temp by the shoulder and pulled him up, slinging him over the shoulder, his blood started to flow down our arm. Wow, mini-Gs for the win. We ran, all we could do was run. Will slashed at a fire alarm with his free blade, probably to distract the pursuers with the alarms that blared and the torrent of sprinkle water that fell on us.
Nope, looking for the fire exit.
Or that. That works too. The emergency exit signs were glowing, and somehow in English. Will followed the lights at full speed, and ran out a red door, to almost run off the side of the fire-escape to the street far below.
"Shit, that've been anticlimactic." Will started running in circles, desperately descending the metal staircase, never glancing back to check on pursuers.
"Ben…" Temperance groaned out. OMG he's alive.
"Shit, you're awake, Temp! Hold on, safety on the way!"
"Behind…" was all he got out. Now when someone is using what could possibly be their dying breath to say behind, you had better freaking look behind you! WILL FREAKING TURN AROUND! He turned and low and behold, boomerang had us in his sights.
"Time for epic!" As boomerang bunny shot down at us, Will rolled to the other under the stairs to dodge, Temp, kinda flopping off to the side. Then Will started to fiddle with the buttons on the scythes. Now is NOT the time to fiddle with things man!
"Just gotta figure out which button… GOT IT!" The scythes whirred as the blade retracted and it turned onto a bow once again. Will grabbed an arrow out of Temp's miniquiver, topped with a red cartridge with an exploding smiley face painted on as Bunnyrang jumped down.
"Eat exploding arrow, bi-atch!" The arrow sailed towards him as the he tossed his gunblade at it. The arrow and gun collided in midair, filling it with fire. Will didn't care. He didn't even stare at the flames. He just Launch arrow after arrow into the cloud of fire, aiming at where the gunman was. When the smoke cleared, the gunman lay on the stairs, scorched with a few arrows sticking out of his chest.
"Well, that was fun. Ben, I've had my recommended dose of blood for the day, so I'm giving you the reins again. Get Tempy to the doc, like, yesterday-delivery fast." And with that, I had my body back. I didn't revel in the return of control I normally got. I grabbed Temp and ran. When we got to the bottom, the police had surrounded the building.
"Help, him!" I cried as I ran out to the waiting line of officers. They ran up and carried the injured hunter away, as I fell to my knees, adrenaline starting to be replaced by fatigue. The cops started to circle around me, but before I could answer any questions, a strong presence pushed them aside. And who should look down on me but a certain Huntress professor, with a girl in a red hood in tow.