Gray stared numbly at the grave; life in Mantle continued as it always did, as if nothing had really changed.
At 13 years old, Gray's frame began developing lithe muscles due to his training, and now he sported two identical weapons at his side.
However, for Gray, at least, everything had changed as he'd just lost the only family he'd ever known.
What could he do? He didn't have an answer.
The sound of footsteps behind him prompted him to bring one of his weapons to bear.
Not wanting to let grief be his death, he became cold as ice.
"This is a surprise," a male voice spoke to him.
Gray turned to see a man in tattered clothing with a hooded cloak hiding the features of his face.
"My condolences that you've had to endure such injustice," the man said, but Gray kept his weapon trained on the man.
"Who are you?" Gray asked with a voice as cold as hard winter deep within Solitas.
The man held up his hands, "Merely another individual whose heart aches at seeing a boy unjustly torn from his mother," he said in a sympathetic tone, or at least Gray considered it sympathy.
He didn't know why, but Gray thought he recognized the voice from somewhere.
Gray lowered his weapon slightly, "I don't want sympathy," he said.
"I want to know what kind of law exists that my mother can't live to see me achieve my dream?"
He thought the man gave a slight scowl, "Unfortunately, life is rarely fair," the man came beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"However," the man began.
"What if I told you, that not only can you achieve your goal, but you could have the opportunity to see her again?"
Gray flicked his weapon into its scythe configuration and cast an icy glare at the man, "Don't you dare toy with me," Gray said, reaching a hand toward his necktie, intent on unleashing Hyde.
The man calmly chuckled and moved away, "I figured one that had a taste for history must have wondered about things most people have forgotten," the man said as he continued to walk away.
"When you make up your mind, come and find me," he said as he tossed something into the air, which Gray caught in his hand.
He looked at the object then back to where the man had stood, only to find he was gone.
His eyes returned to the object in his hand and saw that it was a ring of some kind.
He couldn't understand it, but as he examined it, a pair of initials were engraved on the inside.
They read "A.W." which he couldn't make any more sense of.
However, sudden insight hit him; he knew where he had heard the man's voice, though he could have sworn that man had died during an Atlesian experiment that went wrong.
Yet, the thought of obtaining a better understanding of history that not even his mother had discovered was too good an opportunity.
He was skeptical about being able to see his mother again, but if such a thing were possible.
He took one final look at the grave and noticed it was becoming blurry.
Only then did he have the suspicion that he was waking up from a dream.
Gray gave a slight yawn and rubbed his eyes as morning came.
Looking around, he slowly remembered that, after the ceremony dedicated to the formation of teams, they'd eventually settled into their dorm rooms.
Which was also when it dawned on him that the room they had was the kind that had two separate rooms.
Jacen and Rowan were in the adjacent room, while he and Rouge had the other one.
Looking over toward her side of the room, she was sound asleep, and from a particular light, he actually saw her as beautiful with her pale skin accented by the silk gown she wore.
It was hard to believe that someone like her had literally ripped out a Nevermore's throat and utilized blood as sustenance and a boost for her semblance.
Still, he had to admire her for her on-site medical experience, even if her taste in posters ran to lamentable checks.
One such poster featured some boy band Gray didn't recognize, and it was probably for the best that he didn't.
He also noticed that she had an impressive book collection, some of them a kind of romance novel while the rest were a series of medical indexes arranged alphabetically.
Turning toward his side of the room, he noted that he had purposely arranged things symmetrically, not so much for appearance but because he preferred things to be orderly.
He finally got up and stretched slightly, then focused on Rouge, still asleep.
He barely managed to grab his hand, which had attempted to go for Rouge's neck.
As usual, Hyde's murderous tendencies made him take over parts of Gray's body, even when he had his tie on.
The necktie had a psychological effect that kept Hyde dormant, only to unleash him by loosening the tie during battle.
"Don't you do it," he said quietly through clenched teeth.
Then, as suddenly, he had control of his arm again.
He hoped that during his time at Beacon, however long that was, someone might be able to help him have more control over Hyde rather than the other way around.
Turning toward his desk, where he placed his scroll, he opened it into its wider configuration and selected the icon for his historical entry archives.
His love of history compelled him to learn all that there was about what used to be and factually is rather than how much of Remnant perceives it.
He couldn't help but laugh at the irony, history, much like himself, had a duality to it.
History had its nobler tales of great heroes, cultural development that occurred throughout the kingdoms, and so forth, yet it also detailed tragic stories of oppression based upon species or in most cases, cultural differences, as he knew people from Psarudakis and Fiskare had been absorbed by Mistral during the Great War with some Mistralians not considering them to be pure Mistralians.
Couple that with their animosity toward the people of Fiskare, whom they regarded as brutish barbarians.
Furthermore, some stories had two meanings depending on which perspective one looked at.
The Branwen Tribe of Anima, for example, were often mentioned as cutthroat bandits; while their fearsome reputation was definitely the thing of nightmares, their way of life was built on the idea that the weak don't last long in the wild, and even if not the presence of the Grimm throughout Anima would eventually triumph through tenacity.
The fact that the Grimm and the Branwen Tribe were often spoken about in the same sentence was equally misconstrued.
Some had stated that the Branwen Tribe lured Grimm into a specific area once they finished their raids to wipe out whatever they didn't need.
However, as Gray conducted his research, he felt that there was more to the tribe's method of luring the Grimm.
In the case of Vale, and in recognition of the tell-tale sash that Rowan wore, the Cú Warriors were also given their duality, having served as elite warriors who swore to defend the Royal family of Vale.
Rowan's attitude definitely matched what he'd heard about the Warriors giving themselves over to the thrill of battle, but they showed respect toward anyone who proved themselves to be capable warriors.
A melancholy thought passed into Gray's mind as he knew that, after the King of Vale had been instrumental in ending the Great War, when the Kingdoms ceased to be exactly that, the Cú Warriors seemed to lose their credibility till they eventually devolved into petty thugs that lost their honor and moral integrity.
He shook his head to refocus; what had happened yesterday was too incredible not to write about, coupled with the amazing feats he witnessed Jacen perform.
A universe of possibilities blossomed with his discovery of these Jedi warriors that Jacen was part of.
Looking at his latest entry regarding the Battle of the Emerald Forest, he looked to see that he had made a separate entry titled "Tales of the Jedi".
Sadly, it was less a complete entry than an assortment of bullet points related to small baseline items regarding this new topic.
The list held such mentions as lightsabers, Jedi, the Force, Kyber Crystals, and even something he remembered hearing Jacen say in passing as the Clone Wars.
The word clone surged through Gray's mind.
Before his father had been cast out of Atlas's good graces, he remembered numerous projects that Atlas's top scientific minds had a hand in, anything from machines that could artificially transplant aura or even the possibility of creating a new generation of defense in artificially created machines that could produce aura.
However, he'd never heard mention of Atlas looking into the possibility of cloning.
Come to think of it, even the concept of cloning sounded like a new discovery.
Gray's eyes narrowed as he remembered Jacen saying he was the last of his kind.
Had something happened during this so-called Clone Wars that Jacen wasn't ready to reveal?
He made a point of trying to add additional entries for later.
The sound of Rouge finally waking up brought him back to the present.
Turning, he saw Rouge rubbing her eyes and stretched.
"Morning, Rouge," Gray said in his kind way.
She opened her eyes to regard him, "Morning, Gray," she said, getting out of bed.
Her hair was in virtual disarray and long now that it wasn't in a tight bun.
"You look like you woke up on the wrong side of the bed," Gray admitted after a moment.
"You could use a mirror," he added, earning a slightly annoyed glare from her.
"I hate having to use one," she said sharply.
"A foul boreal of one's vanity," she added, and then she turned her attention toward fixing her hair without using a mirror.
Gray remarked that Jacen wasn't the only interesting topic he'd need to make a record of.
That Rouge was of the kind of Faunus that could pass as a human didn't bother him, though he was intrigued by how someone that could become just as beastly as a Grimm to go in close enough to rip out a Nevermore's throat would aspire to become a doctor in order to preserve life.
Rouge finished fixing her hair, went into the closet to get her uniform out, and then went into the bathroom to change.
As his eyes went toward her desk, he noticed an old typewriter and a leather-bound book with a lock on it.
It plainly read on the front with gold embroidery, "Rouge Nightshade's Diary".
His mother often taught him not to go poking into someone's privacy, but Hyde seemed to have other ideas.
"Bet there are all kinds of nasty little secrets that fanged creature is hiding in there," Hyde's voice jeered nastily.
Gray gave a disgusted scowl, "Don't start getting so petty, Hyde," he whispered angrily.
Hyde's voice gave a derisive snort, "You think you're ever going to score with that beast?" He said mockingly.
Gray clenched his fist, this had been happening ever since his father, obsessed with trying to garner success and status with his experiment in making someone's inner evil manifest into a way to fight the Grimm, used his son as a lab rat, making his own semblance become its own personality.
His father intended to use that then to transplant into a new breed of soldier known as the Atlesian Hyde Berserker, soldiers that, much like Gray himself, had one side that was cold and precise that could also infiltrate an area without the enemy's notice, with the other side being a psychotic killer with a thirst for carnage.
Fortunately or rather unfortunately, in his father's case, the Atlesian Council, with then-commander James Ironwood, declared the experiment as unethical and dangerous. Then, they arrested him while he and his mother were quietly moved to Mantle.
Despite his mother trying her best to raise him herself, the damage his father had done to him seemed irreversible.
However, his mother was a patient parent, and eventually, her interest in history became the key that unlocked his coldness and he managed to pursue his desire to learn what his mother taught him.
Before she met his father, Ash Tuman lived as an archeologist from Vacuo, who was always fascinated by the history that was tied to her discoveries and kept a detailed journal covering her expeditions.
One of which was the ruins of some kind of temple in the middle of a lake somewhere in Mistral.
Somehow she'd ended up in Atlas, where she met Gray's father, eventually, the two married and Ash gave birth to Gray a year later.
Despite the poor living conditions of Mantle, Gray and his mother managed to endure.
However, Ash had been struck with a debilitating illness, and without access to top-quality medical facilities, Gray knew his mother didn't have long to live.
In desperation, Gray had tried to get in contact with someone in Atlas who could help, which led him to a tense visit with his father, who wasted no time in calling Gray the finest creation he'd ever made, though it wasn't the affectionate way that a father typically regarded a son, Gray knew his father only saw him as a prized project.
Gray thought about either coldly shooting his father or unleashing Hyde, but he decided that his father, from that moment forward, was dead to him already.
Unable to find anyone in Atlas willing to help, he returned to Mantle to do whatever he could to make his mother more comfortable in her last moments.
Her final days saw her coughing up blood, and her skin had gone as white as the snow that gathered from outside the walls of Mantle.
Despite Gray's efforts, it tore him apart to be so unable to help her.
Not caring about her illness, he came to her side, knowing that it was likely she wouldn't see the morning, and embraced her as she whispered for him to follow his heart as he pursued his dream.
All Gray could do was hold her with tears streaming from his eyes as he heard the beating of his mother's heart slow and then stop entirely along with her breathing.
It took Gray a second to register that Rouge looked at him with concern.
"Are you alright?" She asked.
Gray gently touched his face to realize he had been crying from his memories.
"I-I'm fine," he said, though he wasn't as confident as he sounded.
He saw Rouge take out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes dry.
"You look like you were recalling something painful," she said gently.
She was sharp in her intuition, and somehow, Gray regained his enthusiasm.
"To think just yesterday you and I were fighting an Elder Nevermore," he said, getting a short laugh from Rouge.
"You weren't too bad either," she said, placing her handkerchief back into the pocket of her uniform blazer.
As was typical of the female uniform Beacon students wore, it fit Rouge perfectly, and her fedora seemed to add a particular charm.
Though the look of the uniform made him realize something, "What time is it?"
Gray looked at the time on his scroll, it was almost an hour or so before their first class was to begin.
Getting to his feet, Gray went to get his own uniform ready, "Well, let's make today our best foot forward," he said with confidence.
With a slight smile, he went to change as well.
END