Main theme: Let You Down by Dawid Podsiadlo
Chapter Theme: Galley Bridge from the New Danganronpa V3 Black soundtrack
The first thing that Reese Chloris could remember in her life was not her birth, or her first birthday, her first words, or even her first steps.
It was the first time she met Arslan Altan, her first love.
It was a bright, colourful morning and she was five years old. The sun was rising above the distant hills and the air was chilled. The sky was awash in pinks and oranges and the many shades of yellow in between. The autumn leaves fluttered from the sleeping trees onto the ground as the outline of a small girl in browns and yellows and blondes was highlighted in the faraway star.
It was beautiful, and in the four year-old mind of Reese, this girl in front of her was beautiful as well.
She approached the girl the same age as her. She waved. The girl gave no reply. The Lion tail attached to her waist curled behind her.
"Hi," Reese said. That got the girl's attention as she turned to face her. Her face was young and delicate and pretty and Reese fell in love instantly.
Curse her little lesbian heart.
"Hi," was the young Lion Faunus' reply.
They stayed in silence for a long while. Behind them, the sun continued to rise in the morning, and the birds continued to chirp their morning hymns.
Reese looked at the girl standing before her, before she thrust forward the ball in her hand and asked, "Wanna play?"
The girl blinked awkwardly. Her Lion's tail began to swing behind her.
"Why?" the girl asked.
And Reese, being the girl with absolutely no mental filter or shame, even for a four year-old, said, "Because you're pretty and I wanna play with you."
The girl blinked.
"I'm Reese."
The girl smiled.
"I'm Arslan."
Few other words were shared.
She never did learn why Arslan and her family was in Jewel on that day, but it didn't matter to her. The two of them played and played throughout the entire day, from sunrise to sunset. And when their separate pairs of parents arrived to pull them back to their homes, Reese whined at the thought of losing her newest friend...
And the first love of her life.
Reese didn't see Arlsan again for years, but the girl never left her mind. Even when she came upon and across more and more women to fall in love with and lust over, the memory of their perfect girl on that perfect day never escaped from her, no matter how hard it may try.
Still though, the combat school that she went to was cool enough at least. Well, not really a combat school. Hers was a roaming family, and they had flung themselves from village to village and settlement to settlement, picking up skills and talents and traits along the way (maybe that was what Arslan's family was as well, a group of wandering vagabonds trekking across Remnant and writing their own journey along the way). It was there, against the many Grimm that sought to bring about their ends, from the Veils to the Kitsunes, the Husks to the Imps, that Reese found her latent talent in Grimm killing, and decided to pursue a career in it.
But in the meantime, she and her family continued to wander the world, until finally they found a place to call their own...
In the town of Jewel.
The man who greeted them, the leader of the House of the Golden Sun and defacto mayor of the town, a four-armed Faunus by the name of Apollo Amar, was kind enough to show them around the town himself, which was kind enough of him, and was even able to help them settle down and find a house in the town, so that was even kinder of him on top of that.
The same could be said for pretty much everyone in Jewel, in fact. They were all so nice and accommodating for them, Reese had to assume that it was part of their town charter to be kind to strangers, or something like that.
It was nice, in all honesty. It was refreshing.
So Reese wasn't surprised when her parents decided to stay there for the next three years. If anything, she was supportive of it. A girl could only roam the world for so long before she decided to settle down for a while and kick her feet up.
There were growing pains to be had though. Turns out that a girl who's been on the move for so long can't sit down for ten seconds to save her life.
Good to know.
Still, at least she had company for a good while. A Techion known as DJ had been nice enough to make his acquaintance with her. Apparently he was as much of a music lover as she was-
"Nice."
"What?"
"The music."
"Oh."
"Punk rock?"
"Yep."
"Nice."
-And the two of them spent a good few months chatting together about their favourite bands, genres of music, favourite instruments to play, the works. He introduced her to sound mixing, and she introduced him to the wonders of skateboarding...
Though considering how many skateboards they burnt through in trying to teach him-
{SNAP}
"OW!"
"Dammit..."
-It would be a skill that he would never be able to learn.
Still though, their friendship was strong, resilient. It was almost like it could overcome any obstacle.
But, of course, as with all things, it was not to last.
One day, a few months after Reese had arrived in Jewel, DJ had to leave. His chapter of Techions (widely considered to be the unofficial third race of Remnant, that being Humans and Faunus that had been turned into cyborgs and given up their old names for new monikers as a sort of rebirth) had just been passing through and had stayed in the town for a pitstop. Apparently they were all on their way to Vale to make a new life there, away from all the bandits and criminals that occupied Mistral.
"You'll find bandits and criminals wherever you go," Reese had jokingly proffered, but she could understand his want - their want - to go to Vale. Vale wasn't perfect, but compared to Mistral, it might as well be. The cities of Anima, Wind Path, Kuchinashi, and Mistral itself, were hopelessly corrupt, their local governments ruled by gangs, their police forces bribed by syndicates. Most officials in positions of power in the major cities were on the payroll for the crime families, and those that weren't either complied with them out of fear or were side-lined and 'Disappeared' to parts unknown.
The city of Mistral was the only decent city of the bunch, what with it being presided over by Haven and the like, but even so, it still had its fair share of problems regarding corruption. That the Spiders, one of the biggest crime syndicates in all of Mistral's underworld, had very publicly made the capital their base of operations and no one was doing anything about it only served to highlight those issues.
So yeah, Reese could understand why DJ and his lot were taking their leave to Vale. Compared to the political and governmental shithole that was Mistral, Vale was a virtual paradise.
It still made for a bittersweet farewell.
A year after her family and herself made their home in Jewel, the Arcs arrived.
As Reese would later learn, Apollo's House of the Golden Sun and the Arc family were actually friendly with each other (apparently they had a whole shared history together. Something to do with the Great War and all that), so when their home, a farmstead they had called the Arcadia, came under attack from Grimm-
Of a sort, apparently. She had never asked any of the Arcs for details, out of respect for what had happened to them and out of unwillingness to drudge up any trauma that they had suffered from the incident, but when she asked around the town about what had happened, all she got was rumours and hearsay, so those were untrustworthy by definition.
The Arc family were attacked by Grimm, yes.
Their home was destroyed by the Grimm, yes.
The patriarch of the Arcs lost his life defending his family, yes.
It was tragic, but it was (unfortunately) not unheard of. Not on the world of Remnant, the death world that it was. Settlements rose and fell in the space of a heartbeat.
What didn't make sense to her were the rumours that something had been fighting alongside the Grimm. Something else. Something... other.
What that other was, no one seemed to know, and that scared her.
-Apollo and his Golden Sun men had been quick to respond and bring them into the settlement. For a while they lingered in the town like a bad omen, a reminder of the world that lived outside their idyllic slice of utopia, until they eventually moved into the farm and manor that had once housed DJ and his chapter of Techions, declaring it to be the Second Arcadia.
Reese remembered watching the only remaining boy of the Arc family wander aimlessly around the cobblestone streets of the town. She could spot the wobble in his step, the lingering shock of the event constantly playing out in his mind. His skin was pale and mired in swollen cuts and bruises. He looked like he hadn't eaten in days, maybe even longer. His eyes were hollow and dull, like the light that was once in them had long since been lost.
She didn't know what compelled her to move forwards and try to speak to him. She just did.
"Hey."
He didn't respond to her at first. Or second. Or third. She got him on the fourth 'Hello', though. It was bound to happen. She was a natural at being an annoying little shit, after all.
"I'm Reese."
He mumbled his name. Jaune, it was.
"You're going to hang out with me."
It might seem rather mean to essentially pressgang him into hanging out with her, but at times like this, it was better to give someone in his current state of mind something to do and look forward to, rather than leaving them to their own devices.
Not when they were like... well, that.
So, they did hang out. Whenever she spotted him walking around on his own, she would quickly barge in and make herself known to him. She would take his hand and time and make it her own, and they would spend as much time as they could together.
Not as lovers, not as anything like that, but just as friends, partaking in activities from talking, to playing in Jewel's skatepark and arcade, to listening to him practice on the guitar, to even just the two of them sitting together in silence.
She would be his friend when he was in need, for no other reason than to see him through to his better days.
And get better he did, piece by piece with each passing day. Maybe not to what he used to, whatever that used to be, but at least better enough to be able to handle what was going on.
It wasn't just her to get him to what he was now to what he was before. It was apparently a group effort, one that she was not made aware of until much later. His entire family was in on it, for him and each other. Apollo too. It was only a year later down the line - a whole year, in fact - that she had learnt this truth when she spotted him walking out of a firing range with the leader of the House of the Golden Sun himself.
"You've got friends in high places, I see," Reese approached him with.
"I guess," was his reply. After a long silence, he said, "Hey Reese?"
"Yeah."
"I'm going to become a Hunter."
And she smiled, "Me too."
And so they would do just that. On the day that they would leave for their own respective academies-
"Are you sure you don't want to come to Haven with me? It's much more... what's the word? It's much more cultured than Beacon, I guess... plus, it's built in between a pair of mountains that were supposedly cleaved in half by a frickin' Giant. It's dope as fuck."
"I know, but... I don't know, my family's got roots in Vale, I guess. We did well back there. It just feels right to go there, is all. It feels poetic."
"Poetic how?"
"I don't know. Just does."
"...I guess that's as good enough a reason."
-They would meet and talk and show off their weapons to each other. That and their outfits. Jaune would be his sword and shield and armour-
"Aren't those your parents?"
"Um... yeah?"
"...Did you steal them?"
"No!"
"Aw..."
-And Reese her punk rock skater gear and hoverboard, of which she had named Syrinx.
"Is that a hoverboard?"
"It's also a pair of twin bayonet revolvers."
"What?"
"They're also guns."
"Oh."
Their farewell was short and sweet and a little bit sad as well. They had been friends for around two years now. It might not have been a long time for them, but that didn't mean that it wasn't a good time.
She just wished that he would lose that strange look in his eye.
That look that screamed that he would do anything to make things (his own version of) right (in his own way).
No matter what.
That scared her more than anything.
(There was a bit of awkwardness to their goodbye, though.
"Hey, Reese... I was wondering if, maybe, before we go... um, you'd like to, I don't know... go out sometime or-"
"Jaune."
"Yeah?"
"I'm gay."
"...Oh."
"Like, super gay."
"...Oh..."
Okay, maybe more than a bit.)
The ride to Haven Academy was one of nervous trepidation and heart jumping excitement, and Reese couldn't, for the life of her, sit down along the way. She spent so much of the journey, first on one of Jewel's Hawk Gunships (a custom variant of the AAT Gunship, a holdover ship from the Great War that was utilised by various militant groups across the globe) to the settlement of Higanbana, and then on the ornate looking airship (which resembled that of a pre-Victorian Era sailing boat with turbine engines and fish wings attached to it)-
It was strange. So much of the current technology and culture that the peoples of Remnant made into their own, customs and all, were merely scavenged relics and leftover holdings from the cities and civilisations that came before them. She had heard of the Great War, of course, the fifty-year long global conflict that saw massive armies of semblance-users turn four billion people into two hundred million, and then ended with the armies of the world being disbanded and turned into healers for the environment, and the population was halved down to one hundred million from all the sudden surge of Grimm attacks.
The world was littered with the remains of the Great War. The corpse of the Floating City of Titan rested in the remains of Mount Glenn. The Sleeping City slumped besides the Valley of Giants like mangy fruit. The Heaven's Reach tower had crashed to the ground in the rubble of the Salvation Gateway besides the Azure Ocean. The Transcontinental Train Network was flooded with water and rubble and ruin. Remnant was truly that: a remnant of the world that once was, littered with the scraps of a Golden Age that wasn't as golden as people liked to believe.
If it truly was a age of silver and gold, then there wouldn't have been a war, would there? There wouldn't have been slavery of Faunus or blacks or anyone who stood against the elites in power. There wouldn't have been political intrigue or distrust or the want to destroy those that surround your kingdoms in a desperate attempt to keep hold of your crumbling empires. There would've been none of that at all.
Remnant was a scavenger's world. A dynasty of twisted steel and crumbling foundations that had long since been given over to evil beasts and malicious marauders.
-All the way to the city of Mistral, with its uphill roads and sinking canals and the kickass castle for an academy built atop a mountain that was cleaved in twain by a mythical Giant of old.
It was, to reiterate, dope as fuck.
It was a nice place to walk around though, Haven Academy. And Skate around. And hoverboard around (she got yelled at a bit by Haven's professors for the latter two, though. Maybe there were some good skateparks down in the city below). The school's architecture, and the rest of the city by extension, looked like something out of a Mistralian neo-Imperialist's wet dream, with its wood and red topped buildings and white-coloured walls, stacked towers and layered roads and tiers. The entire city was clad in browns and maroons and pale whites, huddled against the mountains as if they were growing outwards from them.
It made for a pretty sight, to say the least.
Still though, there wasn't much to do when she arrived, other than sit in the corner and wait an entire day for initiation. She would've been skating all over the place if she could, but again, she got yelled at whenever she tried, so all she could do to pass the time was sit down, chew on some bubblegum that she had swiped from a vending machine, and watch all the new arrivals pass by and-
Wait.
There.
A familiar shock of wild blonde hair against dark skin and olive green eyes. A yellow robe that only covered one shoulder. A stern, beautiful face that looked like it could kill a man and a Golitath with a single glance. A golden Lion's tail swinging behind her.
Her.
Her.
It was her. The girl which she had played with so long ago.
"Arslan!"
The girl in question looked at her, a blink to her eyes, "Yes? Is there anything I can help you with?"
"It's me."
Arslan blinked, "Hm?"
"Reese."
"..."
"Arslan?"
"I'm sorry, I... do I know you?"
...What?
Reese's smile dropped into a frown. Her arms and shoulders sagged. All the good feelings inside of her vanished, draining away into the pit growing in her stomach.
She didn't... remember her?
"You don't remember me?"
Arslan said nothing.
"We played together... when we were younger... I've been thinking about you ever since then."
"Where? When?"
"In lower Mistral... when we were four..."
"Four years old...? That was... Reese - it's Reese, right? - that was thirteen years ago. I was a child, and apparently so were you. Even if what you're saying is true... how are the both of us supposed to... for how long do you say we 'Played' for?"
"Um... a day."
"A day."
"From morning to evening."
"Reese, that was thirteen years ago. Even if it is true - I do remember my family having business in lower Mistral at that time. That much I do remember - how are either of us supposed to remember a single day from when we were only four years old?"
"I remembered it," was Reese's only response.
Arslan put her arms to her side and looked away, "And I didn't."
Yeah... you didn't... Reese was slightly appalled with herself at the bitterness of that thought, but kept it to herself.
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
A long silence passed between the two as they stood their ground. Around them, the rest of Haven's initiates continued to pour into the academy. The birds chirped. The sky was somewhat cloudy. The sun continued to hover blithely in the sky.
This was not the reunion that she was hoping for.
This wasn't how it was all supposed to go.
Arslan spent a good few seconds quietly looking at her, before she turned to Reese and went, "But if you're really that eager to be my... acquaintance, then maybe we should introduce ourselves once again."
Reese paused, blinked, stared at her dumbly, "R-Really?"
"Really," Arslan smiled, "I'm good at judging people for who they are, and I can tell that you want to be my friend, if nothing else."
There was something else to Reese's motivations, but she wasn't about to voice them.
Arslan held her hand out to the punk girl, "I am Arslan Altan."
"...Reese Chloris," Reese said as she took the hand into her own.
It wasn't how she wanted their reunion to go, but it was better than nothing.
The initiation that followed was easy as pie.
All that the Headmaster of Haven Academy - a squirrelly Lion Faunus (much like Arslan, but without the squirrelly part) by the name of Leonardo Lionheart - had wanted them to do was, after being dropped off at the far end of a wide, swampy jungle outside of the city of Mistral, was to find themselves a team of four, and make their way back through the jungle, up the mountain, and back into the Academy. Only a set number of teams would be able to get in, so the faster the better.
Easy as pie.
The only complication, of course, would be the Grimm. The jungle that they would be wading through was chocked full of the monsters, from Lancers to Beringels, Lagartodiles to Grendels, Long Tongues to Whisps. Dozens, if not hundreds of Grimm populated that jungle, and it would be up to them to march through all of the big scary monsters that were trying to kill them and make it into Haven with a team of four and with their lives.
Like she said, easy as pie.
She had been quick to find Arslan on the ride up there. They had been shoved into the same airship together, in fact (the same kind of flying boat-like airship that looked like it had been pulled straight out of a Mistralian anime), so fate was really smiling on her now. And those two boys that they had picked up along the way, Nadir and Bolin, they were cool too. Super cool, in fact. Bolin had that weird perception to him, being all attentive and aware of people around him and stuff, and Nadir couldn't help but make a pun about everything, so that made him automatically the coolest guy around in her books. Plus he was probably the only guy she knew who could pull off the pink hair, so that was even cooler.
At least she wasn't on the same team as that guy with the blue hair and trident. Neptune something-or-other. He was a flirt by nature, it seemed, considering how he had approached not just herself with a not-as-witty-as-he-would-clearly-like pickup line, but also a dozen other girls as well.
She felt bad for whoever would be on his team. Hopefully no girls. They deserved better, no matter who they were.
So, she had her team. Arslan put herself forward as the leader, of course, and the others were quick to fall in line, herself included.
So they landed at the edge of the jungle, made their way in, and readied themselves for the immense challenge to come before them.
Except... there was no fight.
Nothing.
Nothing at all.
Sure, there was a stray Beowolf or two lingering around the area, a sleeping little Nevermore that Reese had even been able to jump in its nest, and even an adventurous pair of Creeps that had tried to jump them in turn, but other than that, no fight. No nothing at all from the Grimm. It was like they had just vanished, undertaken some sort of mass exodus from the world itself.
There was some sort of explanation for this, Reese knew. Over the last year or so, Grimm numbers had been decreasing across Anima. Entire gatherings and hordes of Grimm that were being monitored had mysteriously vanished, disappearing off the face of the continent, leaving only scant few of the monsters in their wake. It had been the quietest year of Grimm activity in recent history.
It wasn't just in Anima, though. Across the continents, from Solitas to Menagerie, Grimm populations had been rapidly depleting, as if they were all performing some sort of massive exodus across the entire planet. Sanus had it worst. Across the forests and grassy plains of the lands of Vale, the number of Grimm across entire acres of land could be counted on one hand and with fingers to spare. Even in the last month, that number had fallen even more so.
Reese wasn't going to complain. Enough lives had been taken by the Grimm. They deserved this break. They really did.
So, with this new streak of luck given to them, and with Reese flying overhead - with her hoverboard - as their scout, Team ARBN (as they named themselves) breezed through the initiation, making their way through the swampy jungle and then up the tall mountain, all the way back into Haven Academy.
Success! Team ARBN was the first team back into the academy at record time!
It should've been a moment of celebration.
It should've...
But something was wrong.
When they made it into the academy grounds, no one was there to greet them. Everyone was gathered in the main auditorium, watching something on the big screen in the centre of the hall.
And when the unofficial Team ARBN saw the image on the screen, they were horrified by what they saw.
Sanus, burning.
Vale, under siege.
The Emerald Forest, ash and cinder.
The Valerian plainlands, a warzone.
The forces of Beacon, ravaged.
The Grimm, ascendant.
The initiates for Beacon-
DJ... Jaune...
-Massacred.
And the world, drawn into the throes of war once more.
Remnant's brief age of peace had ended...
And the Second Great War had begun.
And here we are, the beginning of Reese Chloris' adventure through the bloody world of Ascendancy! I hope ya'll can stick around for the brief ride.
As some of you may know, for the past month I haven't been uploading anything at all onto both FF and Ao3. In fact, I've only just started to upload new stories onto both sites once again now.
This is because I was feeling stressed and burnt out from all of the work that I had done recently, as well as with recent happenings in my home life and general life as is. Ascendancy was suffering as a result, and writing itself became more like a chore than something that I enjoyed doing.
So, I decided that I needed to take a month's break from writing in general, and took to resting my mind and pick up some new hobbies along the way to keep myself busy, like catching up on my reading and taking to colouring in some picture books, among other things. I really needed that break, and I think I'm genuinely ready to come back to writing as a main time hobby now once again.
However, I'm not quite ready to get back into the mainline Ascendancy story once again. There's a lot of stuff in the opening chapters of Phase Two that I need to change, and some new scenes that I need to add into it, and I can't find the energy within myself to do it yet.
So, I've decided to write something else in the meantime to get myself back into it.
Hence this story, about Reese Chloris, an obscure character in the RWBY lore (my favourite kind of character!) as she travels through the world of Ascendancy! It's my way of kicking myself in the bum and getting myself back into the mood of writing for Ascendancy.
I have to be honest with you, I feel more attachment towards obscure characters in the franchise than I do with the main characters. It even extends to other franchises like Transformers: there's just something to love about unrecognised dark horses in a mainstream property than there is in any of the main characters that we've already seen a dozen times before.
Plus, Reese is a character that I've offhandedly mentioned in one of the early chapters of Phase One, so I've been meaning to get around to telling her story.
But what's this, an innocent girl with a relatively happy childhood? With loving parents and a peaceful home and something akin to being content with her life? Who isn't already suffering from some sort of significantly crippling post-traumatic stress disorder? In MY story?
Ohohohoh, we better fix that, shouldn't we?
After all, this is the Ascendancy universe, and everyone knows that in the Ascendancy universe, if you aren't suffering from some sort of crippling traumatic experience, you're not doing something right.
(These characters are like little pieces of China clay in boxes, you know? I just want to know how much I can shake them until something breaks...)
But anyways, with all of that said and done, please, by all means, leave a review, share your thoughts, follow and favourite, and with all of that said and done, I shall see you all next time!
Titanmaster 117 out!