It was a quiet forest. The wind blowing through the trees. The sun just barely filtering through the leaves, having just peaked over the horizon.
Beneath one of these trees lay a dark form. Still and silent.
Eyes snapped open.
The form stirred and slowly sat up, revealing the form to be a man wearing a dark leather coat, silver pauldrons, with a stream of silver hair cascading down his back. Cat like green eyes surveyed the surroundings, narrowed in confusion.
"Where… am I?"
The silver haired man slowly rose to his feet, both of which were clad in thick heavy black combat boots, which matched the material of his black leather coat.
Looking around, the man's eyes ever scanning for threats or clues and finding none, he tested his surroundings with his various senses. No strange sights or smells, nothing strange to hear. Just a seemingly strange forest.
His face pulled into a frown, the man seemed to gather himself for a moment, then leapt.
His jump took him clear above the trees, for which he spun once, then quickly dropped and landed with an unworldly grace that almost seemed as if gravity lessened its hold on him at his command.
Sephiroth, for that was the man's name, quickly considered in his mind's eye the surroundings he had seen. A number of things had stood out to him immediately. The first being that while the general area he was in was natural forest, there wasn't a complete lack of civilization. Far in the distance he'd spied some sort of building, the top of which had looked much like a castle with a large central tower.
The second thing he'd spotted were a few large flying creatures. Black with white bone like armored masks, bird like, and quite unlike anything he had ever seen before.
The building too was not a location Sephiroth recognized, and seeing as he'd been all over the planet and been forced to memorize every possible significant location he might happen upon. Combine that with the unknown creature… He could only foresee one of two possibilities that were remotely likely in this situation.
The first…
"Computer, register override access priority 1, Sephiroth, code S138742. Terminate simulation."
…
Nothing. Not a flicker. No wavering in his surroundings that should have revealed a Shinra simulation room.
"…Computer… register alpha priority command shutdown. Authorization Hojo… code H7743892."
…Still nothing. Technically he wasn't even supposed to even know that authorization code. But even more damningly, the computer didn't even make an acknowledging tone or access denial tone. That meant either Shinra's computers had been completely compromised and overwritten, or…
He was somewhere, somehow, entirely, completely new. Possibly not even anywhere on his planet. Granted, he could still be on the planet, but he'd been to and seen enough of the whole world to safely say that there was not a single kilometer of land he had not laid eyes upon anywhere.
And he did not recognize this place.
He had a few options at this point, but he settled with the one that had the highest probability of getting him answers. He started making his way towards the towers in the distance.
Along the way, and several minutes into the journey, Sephiroth's keen hearing picked up rustling in the foliage.
He was being followed.
It wasn't even that particularly stealthy. Likely some wild animal, if he were any judge as to its level of skill. No heartbeat though, but with how strange the monsters of the world could get, that didn't surprise Sephiroth any. Simply informed him that a stab through the chest where a heart would be would likely not result in a fatal blow, shifting his priority of targets to the neck to separate the head from the body. Very little survived that kind of injury, heart or no.
Still, this creature seemed content to stalk Sephiroth through the foliage from a moderate distance, prompting Sephiroth's curiosity a slight amount, only for that curiosity to disappear once new rustles joined the first. It was simply waiting for numbers to gather for an ambush. Disappointing. And futile.
When the first creature leapt out of the underbrush at him, Sephiroth spared but a moment to observe the creature. Lupine. Biped. Clawed limbs. Bone like armor mask. Red eyes. No sound of internal organs. Likely a phantasm.
"Useless," Sephiroth commented as if remarking on the weather, already in the process of turning, his sword materializing in hand and neatly bisecting the creature, causing it to divide in half and burst into near tangible black smoke which quickly dissipated before the sword had even fully manifested.
By the time the two other creatures had leapt out, Sephiroth's blade had fully appeared, and he bisected these two with near contemptuous ease, just like the first.
Sephiroth regarded the remnants of the creatures as they disappeared and turned away in contempt. What disappointing lifeforms. A much smarter being would have seen what happened to the first and far more intelligently decided that avoiding the danger was better. But instead those two had rather committed suicide on his blade, despite the example he'd made of the first.
It was not the first time he'd dispatched a creature too stupid to live, and it wouldn't be the last, but it did not stop being irksome.
With a flick of his sword, he then ran it into a non-existent scabbard, causing the blade to disappear once more, and he continued on towards what would hopefully be answers.
O
And that's a wrap for this story prompt. Basically it's General Sephiroth in Remnant from RWBY before he got mindraped by JENOVA or put through a mountain of stress by the betrayal of friends. What kind of force for change can the silver SOLDIER enact on Remnant? What kind of chaos would follow in his wake? How would Oz treat the lost warrior? Or would he lose him to Salem's machinations? Or would Sephiroth merely ignore both? Would he destroy Salem for his own ends, simply for the attempt at manipulating him? How would he react to the Faunus and the White Fang? Might they mistake him for a cat faunus with his eyes?
Remember, he's not the calamity yet. Just a man with enough power to slice a nibel dragon in half with one swing, a largely stunted upbringing with some not so great friends, and more questions than answers.
But that hasn't stopped him from being a good man. Yet. Just a lonely one.
And the greatest question of all… If someone were crazy enough to unlock his aura, what would Sephiroth's semblance be?