I'm unsure of who owns the cover art; there is a little signature in the bottom left, but it's to blurry for me to read. The best I can get from it is, 'Snider'.
Any and all references that hint towards a game, anime, manga, book, movie or tv series belongs to it's original owners.
Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY, or any other copyrighted content.
Good day and enjoy.
Aria and Aizen were outside, Aria had an umber-brown jacket with cosmetical pauldrons over her chocolate-brown wool vest and pine-green blouse. Aizen threw on a black turtleneck sweater, and grabbed a cedar-brown trench coat with three tails. They were currently filling the tray of Aizen's dual cab truck, Aria had just placed a cooler in it with sausages, bread, butter and other things to have a nice campfire picnic.
Meanwhile, Aizen has been grabbing equipment to cut and collect wood, Aizen never really liked, nor needed, proper wood cutting equipment, so he had dropped an axe in the tray to cut some dead branches up. "Aizen," Aizen looked at Aria, "are you sure you're not being a bit too paranoid?" Aizen had grabbed his scythe from it's mount in the hallway near his coat rack and had put it in the cab, under the driver's seat. "I mean, I get taking your Burial Blade, but why with the double barrel shotgun?" Aria's face was screwed in confusion.
Aizen looked down at the 12 gauge, fire dust, double barrel shotgun in his hands, Aizen looked back at Aria. "You never know," Aizen spoke in a 'matter-of-fact' tone, he never went anywhere without this thing in his vehicle. Opening the driver's side door, Aizen placed the double barrel up in between the seat and seat belt, making sure he could grab it and ready it easily.
Aizen looked at his handy work with a nod, looking back at Aria, he watched her roll her eyes and go back getting stuff for the picnic portion of their activity of the day. Aizen stepped away from the driver's seat and closed the door, walking to the tray to check things the siblings heard the sound of boots and shoes hitting the ground. Aria looked at Aizen. "That'd be the kids!" Aria stated as she continued strapping the cooler in to keep it from jumping out of the tray.
Aizen turned to the front door of his cottage and watched as Ivy was the first to come barreling out of the house, dressed in a large pine-green hoodie with denim-blue trousers on and some sneakers, she had one of those pom-pom beanies on, too, it was an alabaster-white color with jam-red trim.
Following her was Xantha; she's dressed in a seaweed-green colored jacket, a long, honey-yellow threaded skirt- and from what Aizen could see -she's wearing boots, wrapped around her neck is a garnet-red scarf that was obviously a little long for her, seeing how it looked like it had been wrapped around her neck three times.
Aizen was suddenly reminded of his old body and shivered from the little bit of chill that attack them.
She looks cozy.
Following the two girls at a more sedate pace was, obviously, Indigo. The youngest was wearing an aegean-blue jacket and crow-black trousers with leather loafers on, the frail boy had a scarf similar to Xantha's, but it was the appropriate size for a child, he also had a basil-green beanie on.
The boy was walking slowly, a bag was slung over his shoulder, no doubt filled with books. "Be careful with those books, Indigo!" Aria told as the frail child calmly walked towards them.
Aizen turned away from them and dug through his pockets for his truck's keys. They weren't in his any of his pockets, he even checked his coat.
Left them in the house...
"I left the keys inside: I'll be back." Aizen spoke as he walked to the foyer of his cottage, he shook his head at the sound of laughter from behind him as he stepped onto the veranda.
Opening the door, Aizen stepped into his home, closing the door behind him. Aizen surveyed the foyer with his remaining eye, checking every open surface for the keys.
There.
Aizen stepped to the cupboard, the shiny brass colored keys sitting on top of it. Grabbing the keys in his old hand, he looked at them for a moment, making sure they were the right ones.
Yeah, these are the right ones.
Aizen pocketed the keys into his trousers pockets. Looking up, Aizen saw he was standing in front of the strange portrait, the one that seemed to be set in the Grimm Lands.
Is that a... pulse?
Aizen stared intently at the painting as it seemed to pulse with energy in front of him, questions running through his head... the most prominent one was:
Where did I get this damn painting!?
No matter how hard Aizen tried, nothing came to mind- it was like the painting at had just appeared in his cottage!
With a growl, Aizen turned away from the painting and began walking back outside.
I'll figure it out later...
Opening the door, Aizen stepped outside and into the slightly nippy air of high country Anima, greedily inhaling the cold air. to ease his nerves. He liked out here, no one ever came this far up or even considered living this far out. It gets as cold as Solitas in winter. But that's why he liked it here; it's removed from people, it's cold, and he's alone.
"Come on, Sweetpe!" Aria shouted from the truck, sitting in the passenger seat, the kids filling the back seats. "I'm not driving!" Aizen shook his head as he continued walking to the truck.
Well, almost alone.
There were those people that just never left him alone. Those people being his family.
They never left him alone.
"Quit prattling, old timer! Let's go!" I felt a vein throb in my head.
"I'm old, but not that old."
Darkness.
Absolute darkness.
It was the best I could think of to describe what I was currently surrounded by.
Complete and utter darkness.
But as I floated(?) in the eternal abyss, it began to crack like a dome and light began to shine through. Along with the light came sound, the sound of voices.
Shouting voices.
Who's shouting...?
The dome of darkness cracked more and more. As the dome split apart, the light was getting brighter and was blinding me...
I steadily dragged my eye lids open. My head was filled with cobwebs, but when I opened by eyes, I couldn't see anything around my left side, only my nose from my right eye.
I took a sleepy glance around; there were two doors that I could see, one had shouting coming through it, another led to what I assumed to be a bathroom. I was currently in the right corner of the room on a bed.
I did well to ignore the muffled shouting coming through one of the doors. I slowly sat up, and started to register how the left side of my head was aching. Lifting my hand up to my the left side of my head, I felt soft fabric...
...What the...?
Shaking my aching head (ow), I started thinking back to the fight with the Nuckelavee. And realized I didn't remember a thing after I was suddenly hit in the head...
...Hit in the head...
And with a dreadful thought, I tumbled out of the bed, and started stumbling my way to the quiet door on the right. My left foot got caught on something and I went face down with a loud thud! Dragging myself to my feet with the aid of a low wardrobe and continued my fervent path to the door. The shouting outside the other door persisted, masking the noise of me occasionally bumping into things.
Just outside the door, I bumped a small table and knocked a vase off the table! It hit the floor with a loud crash and shattered! The flowers and water inside covered the floor, not that I cared. I just wanted to confirm my fears.
Opening the door, I stumbled into the bathroom (I was right), the mirror that I was hoping was in here was directly to my left. With a glance, I saw my long white hair in a mess, a bandage expertly wrapped around my head and covering my left eye. Stepping up to the mirror, I looked into my exposed red eye, fear and worry was etched into my face.
With shaking hands, I brought them up to the bandage and pulled it to the side...
I couldn't stop the ensuing scream.
Azure and I were sitting off to the side, watching Art and the now named Qrow shout at each other. "Damn it, you need to discipline her! She could have killed a comrade!" Art shouted at Qrow, looking down at the multi-shaded drunk.
"I'll be sure to do that, but now's not the time. We need to-" Qrow was cut off by Art grabbing his collar and lifting him a good two feet off the ground to get him level with his eyes! Cerulean glared into red.
Azure and I jumped off the couch in a panic to stop Art from clobbering Qrow (not that we could do much)!
"What!?" Art's looked at him with a baleful look. "Not the time!? She need's tactics training and trigger discipline! You gonna keep brushing it off until she shoots someone else!?" Art shouted at Qrow's face, the large golden man's face was turning red. Qrow was giving him a mildly dejected, but calm look.
"Art, I think he gets the-" Azure was interrupted by a crash, like a vase shattering. Everyone stopped what they were doing, Azure started walking towards the room Aizen was resting in.
"That didn't sound good," Qrow said before Art dropped him with a thud and started walking towards the door as well. "hey!" Qrow shouted but was ignored.
Just as Azure was about to open the door, a scream pierced the walls! The blue half-faunus ripped the door open and charged it, Art and I hot on his tail!
When I stepped into the room, I saw the vase that was previously sitting on the wardrobe shattered with it's contents spilled out. Ignoring that, I watched as Aizen barrel out of the bathroom and plow through poor Azure, knocking him over! Art quickly grabbed Aizen by the shoulders, halting him from causing anymore damage to others and himself.
Art pulled Aizen in front of him, Aizen was thrashing in Art's steel grip, trying to break away! "Aizen! Snap out of it!" Art pushed and pulled Aizen, trying to get the ex-huntsman to calm down. Instead of trying to thrash and pull away from Art, Aizen began to punch at the titan's chest! Art grunted from the first punch to his gut which was followed by another to his chest. "That's it!" Art said as he pulled one hand away from Aizen's shoulder and promptly slapped him, a loud resounding smack! "Get a hold for yourself!" Art shouted at Aizen's face.
Aizen was stunned, literally. Aside from the blinking of his right crimson eye, Aizen was motionless. After a short spell, Aizen grabbed Art by his one of his shoulders...
And promptly punched him in the face! "Thanks," Aizen said as he stumbled away from Art.
By this point Azure had gotten back on his feet and noticed that Aizen was just about ready to fall over as he backed away. "Careful, Aizen," Azure said as he helped steady the larger man. "You took a nasty hit to the head, along with..." Azure trailed off, "losing your eye, you've got a concussion. It's not very severe, but you're going to be off balance for a while." Azure began pulling him to the doorway to the living room.
Art and I followed behind them, stepping back into the living room. Azure set Aizen down on one of the couches, the man in white seemed to melt once he was sitting, years of stress seemingly bleeding off him in seconds.
But I shouldn't be ridiculous, he's just relaxing now that he's in a safe environment. Art walked over to one of the chairs and sat down, gently so as to not break the poor thing from his monstrous height and weight. "So how long have I been out," Aizen said.
Art looked at him. "Not long, just a couple days." Art seemed to sink further into the chair, relaxing now that he was out of his heavy, brass-colored armor and not lugging Titan around.
Qrow was standing next to me as we both watched from across the living room. "You guys are weird," he flatly stated.
"Sometimes I can't help but think the same thing," I said, huffing as I watched my brothers fumble around.
"I'm off to a bar, call if anything happens." Qrow waved his scroll at me and I nodded. He nodded back before making his exit out the front door.
I walked over to Aizen and Azure, the latter doing several checks on the former for any other injures he might have missed. I took a seat next to Aizen, "How are you feeling?" I asked gingerly.
Aizen turned his whole head to look at me, I couldn't stop my gut from dropping, he was missing his eye and he was never getting it back. We don't know how much of him is made of that white crystal stuff, he might not even be compatible with cybernetics. "Tired," he stated, "like I haven't slept for years." he looked away from me and leaned further into the red couch. Azure gave him an annoyed look from moving so much, but didn't say anything.
The sound of the front door opening got everyone's attention, stepping in was the other hunters from the Nuckelavee fight. I knew all four of them, as they were among the biggest trouble-makers in Beacon. The short girl in red was Ruby, the leader of team RWBY. Then there was Jaune, the leader of team JNPR and his two other teammates Ren and Nora. "Oh! Hey guys," Jaune said, a smile decorated his face. "We've got all the ingredients for chicken noodle soup." Jaune's smile wavered when he looked at Aizen.
Jaune stepped in further, letting Ren, Nora and Ruby in. "Hey guys!" Nora cheerfully waved, she had a backpack in her free hand and the clinking coming from it said there were hunter supplies.
Ren gave a small bow. "Hello." Ren had another backpack like Nora's, most likely full of equipment.
Ruby looked nervous when she noticed half the room was looking at her, and in response she let a nervous laugh with an equally nervous laugh. "uh... hey everyone!" she gave a quick and small wave, she also had a backpack although much smaller than the others.
Azure stood up from Aizen. "Here, I'll give you hand with all that." Azure walked up to Jaune, taking one of the shopping bags and walking to the kitchen with Jaune, talking along the way, mostly about Aizen's condition. I could hear everything in the room, not that anyone was whispering. Ren and Nora set the two bags down on the coffee table in the center of the furniture, Ruby did the same, setting her smaller bag down with the rest.
Nora was prattling to Ren about a dream, where her and him are taking half the country and leading it into peace. "– And then we start getting ready to take Vale –" I did my best to tune her out. Nora, from what I've gotten to know about her these last couple of days, is a sweet girl with too much going on in her head, but she manages and that's admirable.
Before I could properly tune them out, Ren said, "Nora, that's treason."
Ruby however, had sat on the free chair farthest from Aizen, most likely trying to work up the nerve to talk to the man that she had shot– even if it was accidental, shooting an ally for the first time hits hard. And then she began psyching herself up. "Oh, you can do this, Ruby, you can do it. Just go up to him and apologize and let him know that I got him some ammo." Oh boy.
Art sat up when he heard that, paying close attention.
Hopefully Aizen's in too much pain to care that much.
Art and I watched as Ruby stood up, grabbed the small bag and shuffled up to Aizen and I. Once in front of the white haired man, she spoke up. "U-uh, hey– um..."
I opened my only eye, and looking at the owner of the voice nearest to me. Aria hadn't said a thing so I didn't look at her and it didn't sound like her, too high pitched and young.
It was the girl in red with the large scythe, I blinked at her when she shuffled nervously in front of me. "Yes?" I asked.
She swallowed. "U-um, I– uh– I got you some ammo for your weapon..." ...
Excuse me? I couldn't help but stare at her for a little bit, my brain trying to catch up with her words and my short–term memory. I watched as she slowly handed the small dark bag to me, my hand took it from her hand out of instinct. I felt my eye twitch a little bit. I let out a slow sigh. "...Did you touch Merciless...?" I asked, opening the bag and pulling a bullet out. I examined it from every angle I could, aside from the bullet head, it was identical to one of my bullets.
"N–no, I– I– uh asked Art what caliber your weapon used, cause we were heading out and I decided to get you some ammo," she said, looking down at her shuffling feet.
I leaned forward, took a breath and let it out, slowly. "Thank you, these will need modifying before they're useful," I said, wondering how I was going to do just that without a workshop.
Ruby swallowed again. "U–umm..." she had more to say.
"Yes?" I asked, my voice tired despite having been sleeping for the last couple of days.
"I- I, uh –" Ruby shuffled on her feet and put her hands behind her back, most likely rubbing them "– I- I'm- I'm sorry, um, I'm sorry about... hitting you... in- in the fight... with the- the- Neckalavee..." Ruby's voice slowly died in her throat as I slowly stopped listening, my remaining eye blink slowly as this new information processed through my brain.
I took a shaky and very deep breath, my hand clinched into a painful grip, my uncut nails digging into my palms. If they were any longer, I would have most likely drawn blood. Ruby started talking again, "I-! I'm really –" I brought my hand up, cutting her off.
I felt a queasiness in my stomach, I was absolutely infuriated with her, but at the same time, my rage was evaporating.
After a moment of thinking, I chose to simmer down and give her a warning, before my anger surfaced with full force.
I let out a sigh, dropping my hand and leaning back, I could feel some of the tension in my shoulders bleed out. "Just –" I craned my head to look at her properly, making her cringe "– don't let it happen again– to me, or anyone else. Got it." I said, I saw stress drain from her face, she obviously didn't catch the sheer menace in my voice, but what can you do? Some just aren't as sensitive to others' emotions.
I turned my head away, looking at Aria's surprised face. "What?" she just looked away. I just simply shook my head.
"Aren't– aren't you going to yell at me?" Ruby gingerly asked.
I looked back to the literal red head. "I want to," I stated bluntly, making her flinch slightly. "You recklessly fired a high power rifle at a fast moving target, while the recoil is excellent for it's mobility with the correct training, it's still a danger to your team." I looked at the ginger and the Mistral native. "It's an absolute miracle that they haven't been hit yet," I stated, looking back at her.
She looked absolutely down trodden, but she seemingly quickly caught herself before she could fall further. She opened her mouth to speak, "I'll start training, I'll get better. I promise." I jerked an eyebrow eye. That's not how this works.
I shook my head before waving my hand at her. "Do what you must. There's a long road ahead of you." I leaned my head back and closed my remaining eye. I heard the noise of Ruby's boots moving away, prompting me to truly relax.
"You handled that well, Aizen." I let out a sigh and looked across from the couch I was sitting on with Aria. It was Art, a smile across his pale face. "I was a little worried about what you'd say to her." he crossed his arms.
"Give me a break, I feel tired– too tired to put up with a child," I stated bitterly, crossing my arms. "how did someone like that even make it as a huntress-in-training..." she lacked standard trigger discipline, and it drove me up the wall.
"She's still learning, clearly, that's why she was still in training," Art said. I didn't take to kindly to him defending her, but he has a fair point. "plus, she's already be chewed out, by me and her uncle." Art tried to sink further into the seat while his arms were crossed.
"Her uncle?" I asked.
"The guy with the red cape," Art said, his eyes closed, still trying to sink further into the seat.
"Right." I stood up and stumbled slightly when I tried to stretch to my full height.
"You okay?" Aria asked, I looked at her.
"Yeah, just gonna be rough for a while with only one eye," I said before making my way to the kitchen. Finding it was easy, basically just followed the actually really nice aroma. Stepping in, I saw the cause. The blonde guy, along with the Mistral native, the ginger, and Azure were all working on a large pot of bubbling food, chicken noodle soup as the blonde one said.
Azure was the first to notice me thanks to his enhanced hearing. "Hey, Aizen, food's almost ready." Azure speaking prompted the other three to look at me. "Oh, this is Jaune."
The blond, Jaune, waved. "Hey, man." he turned his attention to the Mistral native, "this is Ren."
"A pleasure to meet you." Ren gave me a quick bow.
"And I'm Nora!" Nora stated jovially.
I couldn't help but smile at her cheer, not easy to maintain that kind of attitude with everything that's been happening across Remnant. "It's nice to meet you all under better circumstances," I said, offer them each a hand shake.
"So..." Jaune started. "how's your head?" way to be subtle, Jaune.
"Still throbbing a little bit, but not as bad as when I woke up." I rubbed my head. "anything to drink? My mouth's dry," I asked.
"Yeah, we got some bottled water in the fridge, there's also some tea," Azure said, pointing at the white fridge and the cupboards.
"Thanks." I walked over to the fridge and retrieved one bottle from the pack. Tea sounded nice, but not today... "what time is it?" I suddenly ask.
"Uh..." Jaune quickly checked his scroll. "it's... six thirty-four." Jaune slipped it back into his pocket.
"Thanks, definitely too late for coffee," I lamented as I took a swig from the bottle in my hand.
Jaune chuckled. "We would of gotten some, but Nora has a... reaction? I guess from coffee." Jaune scratched the back of his head.
"I told you we should've gotten some coffee!" Nora stated.
My eyebrow jerked up and I looked at Ren. "How bad does she get?" I asked.
"It's best if you never experience it," Ren ominously said... That's disconcerting.
Jaune spoke up though. "She had a coffee induced coma once, and when she woke up, she said she went through a bunch of different parallel universes. I was a dog in one of them!" Jaune stated, getting a laugh out of everyone, including myself, even if it was just a chuckle.
I shook my head, staving off the rise of further laughter, and I took deep a breath and exhaled. I took another swig from the bottle, the cool water was pleasent against my parched throat. As everyone went back to prepping dinner, I couldn't help but notice how young Jaune, Ren and Nora were. "You lot seem a little young too be fully trained Huntsmen and Huntresses..." I started, getting them to look at me.
And the moment I silence was the response, I had pretty good idea of why they were here. "You're all from Beacon." I said lowly, my voice grinding in my throat.
Jaune was the first to speak up with a somber voice as he looked at me. "Yeah..." he said very shortly, like he had more that he wanted to say. It didn't escape my eye that Ren and Nora looked at each other, both equally as sullen and Jaune.
I sighed. "I know it's not my place, but... You lost someone, didn't you?" I asked, looking at Jaune in particular.
Jaune looked at the floor, idly stirring the pot and slowing down. "My partner... and my teacher..." Jaune's hand squeezed the wooden spoon he was holding.
I sighed again. "...What was it like?" I looked at my boots, they were scuffed from the journey here.
"Huh?" This seemed to be turning into a conversation between Jaune and myself.
"Beacon, I mean, should've said that. I haven't been there for a long time." I looked back at Jaune, locking ruby eye to cobalt eyes.
Jaune looked back at the pot and began stirring properly again. "It was... It was great, I got to meet Pyrrha, Ren and Nora, and also Ruby and her team." Jaune started thinking, switching from dreadful memories to good ones. "Ruby was actually the first friend I made at Beacon." Jaune was starting to smile.
"She hasn't shot you yet has she?" I smirked as Jaune looked at me, surprise on his face. "my first friend at Beacon, shot me in the ass while we were collecting mushrooms as punishment, his weapon was a really dumb design of an axe and a rifle," I said, chuckling. "Onyx didn't leave me alone, took a couple years after graduation and marriage to get him to start his own life." my smirk, turned into a smile.
And I got a little chuckle out of Jaune and the others. "Ruby hasn't shot me yet." I glanced at the others and Ren was leading the others into the living room.
I looked back at Jaune. "What else did you get up to in Beacon?" I asked, swishing the water in the bottle.
Jaune started thinking again. "Uh, I stood up to a bully." I quirked an eyebrow at that. "and I wore a dress when Pyrrha couldn't get a date for the dance." I recoiled at that and Jaune was looking at me, too. "yeah, it was crazy night!" Jaune said, scratching the back of his head with his free hand.
"Geez, the Beacon you went to and the Beacon I'm from sound completely different." I shook my head. "what was the dress code?" I asked.
"Men wore blue pants, blue blazers and red sweater vests with a tie and shoes, while the girls wore short, plaid skirts and they didn't get a vest." Jaune looked up. "some students actually customized their uniforms, like Ruby, she always wore her cape," Jaune said.
"Wow, back in the day, the men wore black turtlenecks with a green blazer, black pants and wore short boots. And the women actually wore the same thing, but they wore long, green skirts that had thin hard to see stripes. You couldn't customize your uniform back then, you got reprimanded for it." I said, thinking back to my days in Beacon.
Jaune whistled. "That's a change, how bad did the reprimands get?" Jaune asked, glancing at me.
I let out a chuckle. "That's actually why were collecting mushrooms for Professor Harlequin, Onyx had cut the sleeves off his blazer and shirt." I shook my head at the memory of Prof. Harlequin. "crazy bitch –" Jaune flinched slightly at my words "– she sent Onyx to Ever Fall to get some Blood Mushrooms, she didn't trust him to find the mushrooms himself, so she spun a wheel and sent me." I finally had another sip of the water bottle.
"Wait– spun a wheel?" Jaune stopped stirring for a moment and looked at me.
"I don't even know why Ozpin let her have it on school grounds," I said.
"Wow, Old Beacon sounds like a whole different monster compared to the Beacon I went to." Jaune laughed started stirring again.
"Sounds like it," I said.
Silenced didn't reign for very long. "So," Jaune started. "what was your first day like." Oh boy.
My eyebrow jerked up. "That's a new one," I took a deep breath. "let's see..." I looked at my boots again. Memories of years gone by flowing through, including getting my Huntsman-license revoked...
Yeah, this took way to long to write.