To begin again

It was a chilly afternoon…well end of the afternoon to be more precise, already 6 PM. Class had finally ended for the unlucky students with bad schedules. Some of which had brought that upon themself, detention, extracurricular activities…for others, it was just a late Thursday.

Class was bothersome, considering the fact that exams were approaching quicker than a drunk driver on a highway. Groanings and sighs of reliefs could be heard amongst classes, the sweet release from the bell and the sounds of chairs getting pushed and making the floor creak loudly.

Following peers and friends, students were deserting the schools, some to go home on foot, others to go drink and have fun. And finally, those who needed to go grab their bus before 6:05. You see, the company behind bus schedules had no sympathy for students and told them to go fuck themselves in many ways, one being those shitty schedules.

However, it wasn't really important for the person walking on the sidewalk, chatting with a classmate, both of them were about the same size, something along the lines of 5'8 feet. His classmate, which he knew from middle school, was a teenager with brown curly hair, eyes of the same colour, and a fair complexion. For the both of them, talking was just a way to kill time before arriving at their bus stop, knowing full well they weren't close friends, or just friends for that matter.

The air truly was chilly in that late afternoon, it was even snowing. Something lots of them weren't prepared for, casual clothes and jackets, some with distressed jeans. This sight was funny for him.

Finally his bus came, it was already 6:23 PM on his watch, shrugging and sighing, he took his bus card out, a purple and white color scheme displaying his name and face. The driver looked at him, a 5'8 teenager, black short hair on the top disheveled on the sides, a straight nose, a shaved mustache and a beard of 3 days. His body was hidden behind the thick layers of clothes he was wearing, a gray and black jacket slightly open on the top, revealing another layer of clothes, a black sweater and the base of his neck. Finally, a blue jeans clearly holding from the brown belt he had. The teenager was exercising, that's for sure. The muscles from his legs weren't hidden like his upper body, but from that alone, it was clear that he was fairly toned. Perhaps muscular judging from his endomorph body type. What was the most defining about the boy wasn't the fact he looked like an adult, but rather the dull and cold brown eyes he had, he didn't bother hiding them or put on a smile, he had a neutral, almost blank face.

The teenager swiped his card on the bus scanner..? He didn't know what it was called, nor was he truly interested. A 'beep' emitted from the machine, and the boy looked at the driver.

"Hello sir." Was all he said, a nonchalant tone in his voice. If he was looking like an adult, he also had the voice of one, a deep and stern voice coming from his mouth.

"Good to see you too, kid." The man answered, his face showing a sign of annoyance. "Traffic was a pain in the ass, but I managed to get here on time." Pride could be felt in the man's voice, and the boy chuckled a little at the bus driver's antics, before putting his card back in his pocket and sitting down in the first row of seats.

A small conversation ensued, waiting for the other bus at the station to drive away, his being station 18 out of 24. Disappointed, he knew that he wouldn't be home before at least 7 PM and he still had to do homework, not that an essay about Yugoslavia and his fall in 1992 was uninteresting, he clearly wanted to relax before Christmas 2022.

Looking at his watch the boy saw that it was already 8:49, and the bus hadn't even got out of town, damn traffic.

"They really are starting road work before Christmas? I swear those guys always do that before letting the site close for three weeks because of vacation!" The driver shouted in the bus, making the boy nod in acknowledgement. "And of course they would deviate from the roads I take!" The teenager looked at the driver once again, shrugging. It seemed like coming home before 9 PM wasn't possible tonight, lucky him. The boy sighed yet again before pulling his phone from his pocket, still fully charged. Launching a game, he would have hoped that time would go faster…boy was he not ready.

It was already 9 PM, and at least another fifteen minutes were expected at bare minimum before reaching his destination. The teenager had stopped playing, thirty minutes into trash phone games and he could already feel his brain having a headache, having four hours of mathematics and physics in a row was taking its toll on him, especially considering he had a day left before holidays. He could still feel his right hand hurting a bit, not only from sports injuries, but from writing constantly all day with only a two hours break. One of them being lunch break.

He sighed, looking into his bag, a thick brown and black bag, some shades of gray on it. Rummaging through his stuff, copybooks, a bottle of water and another one of soda, some cookies wrapped into a bag with the bakery name on it "À la Mie Câline", and…was that his charger? The cable and the plug. He scowled at himself, remembering the fact that he had to buy another set because he lost that one a few days ago. Groaning in annoyance, he looked at the inside of his bag again, that time, nothing else.

The road was peaceful despite traffic…and the occasional sound honks behind the bus, a klaxon of cars that also waited to cross the bridge they were on. Almost at the end, the bus driver used his turn signal to the left, maneuvering on the small space allowed to him. However lady luck was not on his side today. A truck was rapidly approaching from the left, his driver seemingly in panic, the boy noticed it a split second before impact, a look of panic directed at the feet, probably the pedals, and putting two and two together before impact, the teenager had understood the situation. The truck driver had lost control over the break and was going most likely at top speed crashing into the bus.

"Shit!" Was all the teenager had the chance to say before being sent into the side of the bus, his body crashing onto the windows, a disgusting sound of glass breaking and gasping for air.

The impact had directly touched the bus driver, the sounds of metal crushing on itself was mixed with the sounds of bones breaking and the gurgling of a human being. All of those sounds, masked by the sensation of falling…the bus was ejected in the water, as well as the truck.

The teenager tried to get up, but he felt something warm coming from his face, a feeling that extended from his forehead to the back of his head, then to his cheeks and neck. On instinct, he left his right hand, seeing a liquid on his index finger, redder than his warm skin, blood. It had been a long time since he had felt this sensation, he felt lightheaded. He hadn't noticed how long the incident had happened. Looking up, he saw…something he had hoped not to see again, a dead body, almost unrecognizable, except for the clothes, now tainted red from the driver. He hoped that the guy was alive…but his wounds were severes, he had lost a ton of blood and…what was this cold feeling on his feet?

He looked down, water was rising from the broken windows, almost on instinct, he tried to kick the glass beneath to escape, only now noticing that he was at the bottom of the water. He tried to punch and kick the bus windshield, but to no avail, not only was he tired from school, his muscles felt sore from the exercise of the day before, and finally…he had already lost two liters of blood. He was unlucky after all, some glass shard here and there, the back and front of his head wounded, and would you look at that! His left arm wound had reopened.

Feeling the overwhelming drowsiness and the crushing concussion the impact had put on him, the world quickly became a blur for him. Losing more and more blood, he started to feel delirious, but he maintained his composure nonetheless, feeling the decades of training in sport and martial arts, this engraved feeling of not letting your emotion and state get in the way. Yet it was easier said than done, his composure decaying because of his lack of blood.

'That's simply great…I'm gonna die in a bus because of bad luck. At least my near-death experience at the mountains was respectable, heh…' He chuckled at his thoughts, a dying man thought. 'Guess my brothers won't miss me that much, over a year already huh…hope mom and dad won't miss their "favorite son". Who am I kidding, they will mope for a month or two and will be happy to take care of their grandchild.' He chuckled once again at this depressing thought, being replaced by someone else. He didn't have the greatest parent but he knew that he did not have the right to complain. He still had a home and food.

'It's funny how this is the first time I thought about my relationship with them so much. I don't even feel regrets, guess I'm just way too deep in my blood loss.' His eyes were dilating while water was rising, tiredness was empowering him and after another minute, his gaze became duller than before, his last thought finally forming. 'I wonder…how you guys will take this news…Xenos…Meluho…' the usernames of his best friends popping up in his mind, the person who made him smile through hardship and…an episode of his life, thanking them before finally succumbing to darkness.

A cold feeling was invading his body, something was pouring down on him, albeit rather slowly, it was still unpleasant. Coughing a bit, the teenager was feeling the cold pavement beneath him, his body lying on the ground like a drunkard who's had too much to drink. Honestly, it was not far from the truth, he was feeling like shit, like his whole body was worse for wear after an intense training back at the club. Groggily, he pushed himself up, the tiredness and commotion still ringing in his ears. He walked and used a wall to breathe again.

"Wha' happned.." Even his voice was off, this sensation was numbing. After a few minutes, he regained a bit of his composure, looking at his surroundings and himself.

"Is this…what hell looks like? A city block…wait now…it looks just like my town." He said, still admiring buildings around him, even if he was in a dark back alley. "No…it looks just like my town, but even shittier. Which is and isn't weird considering the last time I saw it." He wandered around a bit, finding his bag not far from where he woke up. "I was dying under water. Wait, that's right! The incident!"

Closing once again his jacket, the cold snow falling on him making him shiver a bit, the teenager grabbed his bag before strapping it onto his bag. Running around to try and pinpoint his whereabouts, he ran and ran, the cold feeling from earlier disappearing from the rush of adrenaline and blood in his muscles and body in general. He looked around but he only ended up in more and more alleyways, either it was a part of his town he hadn't visited, or he was just dumb as brick.

"Alright I know my sense of direction is a bit wonky but still..." Sighing, he looked up and saw…multiple billboards, tall buildings, a gray fog? Orange lighting? "What the hell is that? This isn't dawn, and that's not a normal fog." Having regained his composure entirely, the teenager grabbed the bottle of water from his bag and started drinking it, whilst he was thinking about the whole thing happening right now.

'So I woke up on the ground, it's snowing, none of my stuff is drenched in water, neither am I. Those are back alleys I don't know of and there's not a single store in view. That would be strange already, but now, there is this orange lighting occupying the sky of this city, this gray fog and those incomprehensible billboards. It's not even an Asian or African language, even European, this…this just doesn't exist.' Truth be told, this kind of situation was frightening for him. "Seriously, what is happening-!" His voice just cracked, strange, it hasn't happened since last year, and why…why was it higher than before? Subconsciously, he reached his throat with his right hand, not feeling any wounds, any dry blood, just cold snow that had fallen on him.

"Every injury, everything's gone? My voice feels higher than normal, is it because of the cold and the snow? Shit, I hope I haven't caught a cold when I was asleep, I don't want to be sick in an unknown place."

He continued his way, calmly marching in the cold environment that surrounded him, even with buildings, he did not have any clue what was happening or where he was. Worse even, the only signs he came across were in a gibberish that he couldn't decipher, no letters common from any country he knew. Another strange part about this was the lack of citizens right now. He looked at his watch, even if it couldn't pinpoint the exact time, it could at least give a frame to work with. 2AM, that was the time given, either this place had between 7 or 12 hours differences from where he lived, or he truly fell unconscious for a few hours. "No…that can't be it, if I slept that long, I would still feel the lack of blood in my body, worse…I would be…in a comatose state…" Now that he was thinking about it, did it not make more sense? A fake reality created by his mind with the last thing he saw in it, a town, his bag and stuff, his phone. And that gibberish that could not be translated, maybe just his mind going in a frenzy?

"Fuck it still don't make sense, it does not look like anything I saw before. The brain needs a stimulus to recreate something, it can't create something that it hasn't seen before." While he had seen cities before, larger ones at that, he knew that something like that didn't exist back home, even on the internet. Those highly polluted cities in China for example, had a blurry sky, but it wasn't gray nor did it have colored lightning or billboards about crystals. "Seriously what the hell is happening, if it isn't a coma…what is it? A parallel world?" He chuckled at his joke, even if his situation was strange, he would bounce back and go back home, now that he thought about it…

"I still haven't checked my phone…"Grabbing it, he pushed the button to turn on his screen, a dumbstruck look in face, no notifications? At 2 AM?! Even for his parents, that was pushing it far, he should have received a message a long time ago, after the incident even, he could already imagine it.

'Where are you, it's late.'

He knew that his mother would at least ask him that, yet she didn't. Did their relationship finally get rock bottom to the point where he didn't receive any message from his parents, let alone his friends or classmates? No…he looked slightly up, there was no signal. A small grunt escaped his mouth, he didn't even know how long he was there and knew his entire mood was sour. He was in a city he knew nothing about, in a language he couldn't even recognise through among the continent on his planet, his phone was practically useless without data and of course, the dawning realisation of having no place to stay, and having no money on him, nor any idea of the currency utilized here.

Once again, the teenager found himself shrugging and sighing, he just needed to move a bit to gain signal once again, maybe the sky was just so polluted it could stop or filter some waves in the sky and disrupt any signals coming to his phone. With that in mind, he strapped his school bag on his back yet again. Walking and walking in this cramped city, seriously who designed this? Could a car even pass there?

He rapidly stopped asking questions to himself, when he felt someone, or something looking at him from behind, he turned back almost immediately, trusting his guts more than his mind in situations like these. His breath and heart calmed down a bit after seeing that nothing was there, perhaps it was just the stress and adrenaline that had started to drive him crazy. Walking a bit more, he settled down in a street that wasn't entirely covered in snow, every window, store or anything of the sort were closed, some spider web covering the corner of them, like it was a disused neighborhood. It was oddly comforting, at least no one would try to chase him from being on the street.

"Right…that brings me to a problem, I need a fire source…maybe…" He rummaged through his pocket, hoping to find something he still had not given back to a friend. His left hand feeling something on the back pocket of his blue jeans, he pulled a lighter out. "I was supposed to give it back to Lucy but she wasn't at school today, lucky me I guess."

He knew that starting a fire in the streets of a city was not a bright idea, but he didn't really have a choice. Pulling out some of his copybook, he took the unsticked sheet of paper from it and lit them on fire. However, seeing that it wasn't nearly enough, he decided to say fuck it, and thrown his French and Spanish book in the fire, then English. He should have at least enough paper for a few hours…he hoped. Looking at the fire beginning to grow and spread warmth, the teenager pulled his cookie before throwing the plastic containing them, another fuel to the fire.

"Great, I prolonged my life for another night." He groaned from his own words, finishing his only source of food right now. He took yet again his water bottle and drank it, until it was finished, also putting it in the fire. Looking at the flames, he decided to sleep a bit, still tired from his previous, mysteriously disappearing injuries and his sleep in the cold of the night.

"At least my clothes are warm…"He said, his tiredness catching up to him. His eyes fluttering, he decided to finally give in and go to sleep, hoping his brain would wake him up in case of danger.

Light footsteps could be heard from where he was, he didn't know what time it was, nor did he care, he was awake because something triggered his brain. Thank you, first night effect, he said mentally. Whispering coming from his left, where he put his bag before going to sleep.

"This guy seems loaded! Look at him Slate!" It was the voice of a young boy, clearly excited about a loaded guy, yeah…probably him, there was no other moron sleeping in the street at night.

"Wait Jet! He heard us last time! Are you sure it's safe?"Also a younger voice, probably a girl considering the tone of her voice, not that it mattered. Why were they interested in him?

"Bah don't worry! He's sleeping like a pile of bricks! Besides, I can beat any other kid!" That proved what the teenager was thinking, and seriously hoping was not. Kids, not only that, they were also thiefs, great, just great.

'Did that little prick just call me a kid? He is blind or the snow is making them stupid?' He thought, hearing the footsteps coming closer to him. He didn't make any movement, any sounds, his breathing was steady and resembled the one of a sleeping person. Who would have known that fake sleeping from your parents would one day come useful in a place like this.

The sound of a zipper being opened arrives to his left ears, the kid named Jet starting to go through his stuff, a slight 'Huh?' Escaping his mouth. "That guy has nothing but a bottle of black thingy in his bag?"

Before he could even proceed further, the teenager opened his eyes, and in a swift motion, grabbed the right wrist of Jet, applying a strong pressure to the pressure point located just before the hand. The teenager pushed himself up, grabbing the collar of Jet, before pulling him to the right and sweeping his leg with his own. Jet hit the ground pretty hard on his left side, the arm entering first in contact with the floor before a slight gasp of pain escaped his mouth.

"Jet!"The little girl shouted, a slight distress in her voice. The teenager turned back to her, assuming the other kid won't get back up after hitting the ground so hard for, probably, the first time of his life. Upon seeing her, he noticed something wrong, something very wrong. She had cat ears, that is…biologically impossible? Unachievable?

"Am I seeing things? Or did China finally managed to engineer a cat girl?" The teenager asked out loud.

"What the hell are you saying!"A voice beside him asked, Jet got backed up? Did he get thrown often as a child to be up like that in seconds? Looking at him once again, the teenager found another thing biologically impossible with him, the kid had a cat tail, same color scheme from Slate, black.

Now that he looked a bit more, he noticed the features of the kids. Jet was 12 years old, 10 at the very least, having blond short hair, unkempt like he didn't know what a brush was. Being shorter than him but still reaching a good 5'2, impressive for a kid that seemed to not have eaten for a week. Speaking of which, even if he wasn't skinny enough that he could see his bones, the teenager found it weird that Jet was particularly scrawny for his age. Slate on the other hand, while having the same hair color, had medium length hair going to the base of her neck. She was even shorter than Jet, probably around 4'11. She probably was around 9-10. Considering that, the teenager assumed that they were probably siblings, or at least relatives. Not that it matters when the kid interrupted him.

"What kind of dumbass human comes to Mantle with nothing but a black liquid on him? You don't even have Lien or food!" The Jet kid said, Lien? Mantle? Now that did sound familiar, and the kid just said 'dumbass human', so he wasn't seeing things, they both had animal traits.

'Which again isn't possible. I'm starting to believe more in the comatose state theory than before right now…' He mentally said, already looking like a deranged human being in front of kids. Bad kids. But kids nonetheless. Speaking of which, the Jet Kid is sprinting towards him, launching a left fist trying to hit the guts of the teenager, which he countered quickly by stepping to his left, entering the 'guard' of Jet, before using his right hand to grab Jet face and swipe both legs of the kids with his right left 'O-Soto Gake', it was called. The kid met the ground a second time today, this time, his back absorbed most of the damage caused by the fall. Yet he still groaned in pain, gasping for air after the fall, his diaphragm probably took the fall badly.

"If you get up and attack me again, I promise you, you'll end up worse than right now. Grab your friend, go home, and I might forget you tried to steal from me kid, a fair deal hey'?" The teenager said, a smile appearing on his face, a kid who, from how he throwed the punch, never fought before, tried to fight him. He did not have over ten years of training in clubs and different fighting styles for fun.

"How…but I have my Aura!" Jet seemed to whine, before getting back up, cringing a bit in pain.

"Jet! Stop!" The girl shouted, which the boy ignored, pulling something from his back pocket. Something that the teenager probably should have considered, coming for a kid desperate enough to steal from others. A black handle who seemed a bit worn out by time and humidity, holding a sturdy black blade around 6 inches.

'That's a combat knife. Look just like the one of the German army.' The teenager stepped backward instinctively, watching the boy moving closely. He did not want to run in a city that he did not know, but against a knife, his best choice was distance. Bracing himself, he waited for the perfect moment to counter attack. The adrenaline rushed once again in every part of his body, his kind, well aware of the danger of a knife in a street fight, was trying to make him on guard as much as possible.

When Jet tried to do a direct stab to his gut, the teenager's body moved to his right, sidestepping to avoid the blade he kicked Jet left knee with a right kick, making the kid lose his balance. His left arm went to grab Jet's arm, holding it with his armpit while pulling upward to apply pressure to his humerus. Finally, he delivered a straight punch in the boy's sternum, followed by a right knee in the guts and a sweep with his left leg, a "De-Ashi Barai", called him Judo. Acting quickly, he put his right knee onto the boy's ribcage, applying a decent amount of pressure, enough to hold him down, but not too much to avoid breaking bones.

"Alright kid. You tried to stab someone because he put you on the ground two times? Are you fucking insane? Or do you have no common sense?!" The teenager shouted, stealing his stuff was already bad enough as it is, but now? Trying to outright murder him was beyond what he knew. Sure crazy people would try to stab you in the street for the fun of it, or because they are mentally deranged. But the kid in front of him wasn't some crazy psychopath, or under any influence like drugs or alcohol, no stuttering, no sloppy movement for a 12 years old kid, and his eyes weren't bloodshot.

"Ack!-" Jet winced in pain, trying to gasp for air, his diaphragm and lungs compressed by the knees of the teenager. "Don't you have-hurgh!" The teenager applied a bit more pressure to his ribcage making him scream in pain, even with his Aura, Jet couldn't overpower the kid in front of him, and his entire body was shaking from pain. His inside was screaming from the multiple falls, and never before had he felt such pain to his arm when the boy in front of him pulled it upward. "Aura?! How are you so strong?!"

"Aura? Alright I am unlucky enough to be in a place I don't know of, and now, I manage to fall on the sole kid who speaks bullshit…" The teenager sighed, clearly annoyed and bothered by the whole situation. Still, he kept pressure. A thing was still gnawing at him, Lien, Aura, Mantle…it felt like something he had heard somewhere, maybe a few years back? "To answer your question kid, I trained and endured more pain and techniques than I did to you today. That was just childplas compared to what I put up with, even if no one tried to stab me before." The teenager said, feeling a bit proud that years of training hours per week while having school was paying off, even against a 12 years old. Gotta take win where you can.

"Bullshit?" The kid felt the knee of the teenager pushing a bit less than before, finally catching his breath. "Don't you know what Aura is? And stop calling me kid! You're not even older than me!"

"What are you even saying?" The teenager seemed to laugh a bit at Jet. A lot of people used to believe he was an adult due to his features, but being mistaken as a kid that hadn't even hit puberty? Now that was some comedy.

"B-But you don't look that much older than us." The Slate girl said after witnessing the altercation. The teenager looked at her, relaxing. She did not have ill intention, he could tell by her confused and scared eyes, as well as her stuttering. However, he noted it was strange that both kids found that about him. Maybe it was a provocation from Jet to rile him up, which would be strange considering the fact that the kid couldn't even budge him. "Y-You look like you're thirteen." She said once again, making him tilt his head in plain confusion. What were they saying?

"Alright, very funny kids but-!" As he looked at her back again, he saw…something he could not believe. A reflection provoked by the orange lighting making the city glow like sunset. In this, he could see himself, in the glass of a nearby abandoned building. He looked the same, mostly. Same height, weight and muscle, he was sure of that, since he knocked down Jet more than once. However, what made him shiver was his face. His eyes were still the same, nonchalant and cold, however, the iris was darker than before. The biggest changes about him? The one that truly made him scared of himself? His hair. Before, they were short, perhaps medium length. They were black, but now? Pure white, his hair was on the other side of the spectrum. How? How did this happen? Stress? A sudden case of canities after the incident? Not only that, but his beard and mustache had disappeared. To top it all off, his jaw was slightly more…"childish", like a kid that was just about to…hit puberty…

Everything was finally making sense. Why they were saying he did not look that much older than them, why his voice was higher than before, and why he didn't exactly feel the same since he woke up. He chalked it up to tiredness and having nearly died a few hours ago. He could not deny that he had physically changed and woke up in a different place than before. 'Time travel? Parallel world?!' He hastily thought, his mind going a hundred miles per hour.

The kids seemed to have noticed that, a confused look on Jet and a worried one on Slate. "A-are you okay?" She asked timidly, still scared that a kid their age could beat up someone with an aura. Even if it was another kid.

"Hey dude you-argh!" Jet winced once again in pain, feeling the knee of the teenager burying itself deeper in his stomach, making him cough and almost puke.

'Mistral, Lien, Aura! Wait a goddamn minute!' His mind seemed to have recalled something, but he could not confirm it like that. No…he needed more evidence. It was probably just a bad dream. "Hey! Little girl! Where are we?!" He asked frantically, like a mad man whose mind was collapsing on itself.

"H-huh?" Was all she said. Confused and even more worried by the voice of the kid in front of her. Jet snickered through the pain, before answering "We're in Mantle, in the Kingdom of Atlas, you've hit your head or what?"

"...What?" The gears in his head finally started to work, Mantle, Lien, Aura, Kingdom, Atlas…

'I'm in fucking RWBY.' This realisation would have been probably one of the best for a lot of people. Who would not be in a world they knew off? Especially when they escaped death for that? However…the teenager was not happy. He was fucking livid. 'Of all the STUPID! ASININE! SHARK-JUMPING BULLSHIT!' He punched the ground beside Jet face, injuring his left fist, but the pain didn't even attain his brain, the adrenaline and pure rage stopping this minor pain. The punch surprised and scared both kids, especially Jet. A few inches away and he wouldn't feel his nose anymore.

"Y-you good dude?" He asked shakily, disturbed by the older kid's action.

"I'm fucking peachy! Don't you see?!" He shouted, venom in his voice. Sure landing in another world seemed to be a fun prospect. Except when you realize that you had no ID. That you don't have money, a house. That you can't read the language. And finally realizing that you're in the worst, or at least, one in the worst city in the series. For him, it was even worse, considering he had not seen the show since 2018. Four years ago.

He grabbed the leather sheath from Jet, then the knife, before putting it in his left pocket. "Considering you still aren't dead in this godforsaken city, and still have relatively good clothes. I'm gonna assume someone still takes care of you both. And don't bullshit me saying that one of you does the heavy lifting, because if I can kick your ass in a few seconds without aura, you clearly don't stand a chance against anyone other than a citizen." He said, anger still present in his voice. Yet he still needed to assess his situation and make a plan to at least survive more than three day in the continent of…Solitude? No it was the latin of it…Solita? Solitas? Something along those lines.

"H-how did you?" Jet said, surprised by the reflection of the kid in front of him. He didn't think that someone could just assume that from there clothes and appearance alone. Jet tried to say something witty to get his knife back, but he knew better than to mess with the guy who beat him just a minute ago. "Y-yeah…our father helps us but his shop isn't doing great…even worse during winter." He answered truthfully, not having something to hide anyway.

"Well at least you both are better off than me." The former teenager said, a quick thought crossing his mind. "You know what? I'll forget this aggression if you take me to him. Wouldn't want the police on your tail huh?" He said, wanting to laugh at his bad pun of the faunus kids.

"W-wait no! We'll take you to our dad! J-just don't call the police…" Jet said, the kid grabbing his left arm with a scarred tone in his voice. Why was he doing that?

'Right…faunus discrimination. Shit, must be even worse in Mantle…did he get hurt by them?' The former teenager scolded himself. Even if he had seen racism happening to his best friends, he remembered that abuse and violation of rights were even worse in the Kingdom of Atlas. Segregation was still something here. "I won't if you just take me to your shop, I promise." He spoke with a softer tone, trying to reassure the kids. Jet nodded weakly and started to walk while he followed him.

"E-excuse me? W-we still don't know your name!" The Slate girl said, making the boy sweat a bit. He couldn't give his real name considering how the name rules were after in RWBY, and he doubted that Quantuum would be an appropriate name.

'Color rule huh? Hum…' He looked at his jacket, and his sweat, gray and black…Mercury was already taken, Silver wouldn't fit him. Suddenly, an idea came to his mind, making him smile a bit.

"My name huh? Vinaceous." He looked at the kids with a warm and soft smile, contrasting with his whole demeanor and look.

"Vinaceous Kobalt, that's my name." He said, receiving a nod from the siblings. Marching onwards to his next direction…

Author's Note :

Why hello there!

Welcome to my (technically) first fanfiction on this website.

Like I said in my profile bio, I'm just someone who's trying to write something interesting for you guys.

English isn't my first language, so excuse my (maybe janky) writing and any grammar errors that could still be in there.

This first chapter will serve as a way to gauge my level, for me and you. I have already written a second chapter but any feedback in between the two would be nice.

Vinaceous is a shade of red. It's also a hint toward my original nationality.

Kobalt is derived from the Cobalt which is a chemical element.

Jet and Slate are both shades of Black