RWBY: Red Tears
Chapter 1: A Broken Soul
The boy was shocked that he was still alive. Yet, he had no idea where he was. Everything that surrounded him was unfamiliar to his memory. But he had no time to think about the oddities of the landscape he found himself upon, for a sharp and excruciating pang of pain shot through his body. He reached with his left for an arm that was no longer there, feeling warm blood drip down the claws that had replaced his nails. The black feathers that now cover his body became wet and red-stained as the nasty gash that was once his left eye leaked uncontrollably with his life force. The boy knew he had to patch himself up, and with a desperate grunt, rushed through the forest, his adrenaline high and panic at an absolute maximum. Despite his newfound physique, the long and stiff tail stretching from his tailbone gave him the balance he needed to not constantly trip as he tried to find something, anything for that matter, to stop the bleeding.
The bushes easily pushed away or collapsed under him as he crashed through them, splattering their berries against his face and feathers as he searched the forest with a hurried expression. His newfound weight did not slow him down but did make him sound like a massive beast on the charge. The squealing and pattering footsteps of fleeing boar and the fluttering and squawking of panicking birds did not distract him as he skidded to a halt, staring up at a tall tree. It was a kind he did not recognize, but the leaves were large, broad, and seemed flexible. They would have to do. He gripped the tree with his hand and feet, his claws digging into the bark as he ascended it vertically. His new yet natural weapons granted him incredible grip despite his missing right arm as he scaled the tree. As his feet rested on a thick branch, the talons digging into the tree to provide leverage, he reached for the leaves, pulling them off. He plunged his hand into a small silk pouch tied to his thigh, pulling out three small globules. Gray in color and skin like a berry, he crushed them in his hand, wiping the wet and mushy sand-like pulp on the leaves before wrapping them around his wounds. Thanks to the pulp, they stuck to him, which earned a sigh of relief. While they weren't proper bandages, they were better than bleeding out.
That was when he heard the guttural growl of a familiar beast. Without a spear to defend himself, he stayed quiet within the canopy as an actual monster wandered into view. The beast has void-black fur and a head and shoulders covered in bone, its red and angry eyes staring at the forest floor as it sniffed a trail of blood. His blood, for that matter. The boy growled to himself, so panicked in getting safe that he made himself a target. While its head resembled a dog, the rest was humanoid, which confused him greatly. He had never seen a beast like that before. But like any animal, he had to be careful. It did not look friendly, and the saliva dripping from its fangs told him it sensed an easy kill. It looked up into the tree, and the boy fell still, holding his hand against his mouth to prevent himself from screaming as pain once again tore his body asunder. His grip on the tree branch tightened even more as the beast growled, seemingly ready to start climbing, fear stretching across his face.
However, the scream of another caught the beast's attention. It ran off, allowing the boy to loosen his grip as he listened for the footsteps of it or potentially other monsters. As its rage left his ears, he crawled back down, feeling the soft soil as he landed with a thud. While he would finally look to rest after having run for who knows how long, the scream he heard was all he could think about. Someone else was in the forest with him, and he had no weapons to help them. However, despite his better judgment, he could not leave that person to die. Luckily, his heightened, albeit failing, hearing allowed him to pinpoint where it came from despite the insistent ringing. With a grunt, he pulled himself together and rushed toward the source. Along the way, he noticed a sharp stone jutting from the mud, and he grabbed it as he ran with haste. He mustered what little energy he had left and burst through a large bush into a clearing.
Three "void-black beasts" enter his vision, surrounding and snarling at a figure. The figure looked small, and his anger rose as he got to cover to observe the situation and saw that it was a young girl, who appeared to be around his age, with flowing golden hair and fair skin, as she huddled against a tree, shivering in fear as the beasts crept closer. He growled to himself as he climbed on a tree and slowly clambered through several more before he found himself directly above them. The boy, unaware of a bright glow emanating from behind him, jumped from the branch, roaring with pain-filled rage just as the middle beast pounced on the girl. He slammed the stone into the beast's neck, puncturing it as his feet crashed against its back, which collapsed as it was not expecting the sudden weight change. He pressed the stone deeper, and the beast's eyes dulled. Smoke began to pour from the creature as he stepped off, which confused him.
That confusion, however, prevented him from noticing the one to his side rushing him as it slashed his chest with its claws. He screamed in pain, feeling blood once again seep down his torso as he gripped the stone tightly and thrust it into the monster's arm. It howled as it tried to shake him off, but he held firm despite his wounds, and he dug the stone back out of its limb and stabbed the beast's eye with it. Its hands came to its face as he ducked under it and stabbed the stone into its chest, which felled the creature. It fell backward, and as the dissolving body slammed into the ground, the last beast pounced him from behind it. He quickly retracted the stone from the vanishing body and threw it in the air, punching the monster on the snout to stun it before catching the stone and stabbing the creature in the nose. It backhanded him with its left as it held its nose with its right, sending him skidding back into a tree.
The trunk snapped in half from the impact as he bellowed in fury. His back, covered with scratches and bruises, popped and crackled as he shakily stood up, glaring at the beast. The light behind him glowed brighter as his rage grew to even greater heights. He could not locate his stone, yet found no need for it anymore. He was ending this beast right here and now. He rushed the beast, jumping high before gripping its neck with his arm. It howled as it bucked, trying to get the boy off him, as his grip on its neck tightened evermore. It desperately clawed at the boy's arms in a vain attempt at retaliation, but this move proved fruitless as it began to lose oxygen and fell unconscious. It fell to the ground with a loud thud as the boy slid off of him, growling like a feral beast himself as he put his foot on the beast's skull. With one push, he smashed the beast's head in, splattering black blood and brains all over him and the grass. He gasped as he stepped away from the body of the beast, feeling the last of his adrenaline leave his system as he fell to his knees, clutching his chest to stop the bleeding. The beasts vanish in puffs of black smoke, earning a minute grin from the boy. He slowly turned to look at the girl, whose purple eyes stared back in both awe and fear. He tried to speak to the girl, but blood began to enter his throat. He coughed as he gripped the grass, trying to stay awake as the girl rushed to his side.
"Hey! Hold on! Please hold on!" she screamed as he groaned, falling to his side. He was heaving deeply, but not from the blood. He could breathe, but the air around him seemed incomplete. He gripped his chest, trying to listen to the girl's shouts. She spoke a language he had never heard before, and knowing his last potential moments of existence were full of gibberish annoyed him greatly. She turned away from him and began to shout to someone far away. "UNCLE QROW! PLEASE HELP US!"
Suddenly, they both shot their gaze toward the opposite edge of the clearing as another one of those dog-like beasts entered the fray. This one, however, was larger and covered in more bone. Its rageful yet experienced pupils landed on the pair as a monstrous growl escaped its ugly mug. Despite being out of it, the boy knew this was too much to handle. With a sudden burst of energy, he quickly stood up, grabbing the girl with his left arm and slinging her over his shoulder before making a break for it. He also seized the sharp stone, as having something to defend himself is better than having nothing. The boy could hear the thunderous footsteps of the old beast behind him, throwing small trees to the side as it gained on the two. The girl screamed in terror as she saw it open its maw, ready to snap around her head, before the boy's tail shot up and smacked the beast, temporarily stunning it and giving them a slight head start. The girl cheered, thinking they were in the clear.
His foot had other plans as it kicked against the mangled root of a tree. The two came tumbling down, eating dirt as the beast came to its senses. It roared in rage as it charged them once more. The boy growled as he stood up, holding the stone forward and prepared to fight. His body was beginning to give out, but there was no way he would let that happen. The girl gripped his arm, giving him a fearful look that told him to run, but they weren't going to make it, so he had no choice but to fight it. As the monster reached them, he thrusted the stone towards its chest, only for it to grab his arm and toss him aside. He skidded to a halt as he rushed the beast, jumping up on its back and stabbing through its back. However, this only angered it further as it leaned and fell on its back. The boy grunted as he kicked the beast off him, which quickly recovered and attempted to stomp on him, which he rolled away from. He frantically got up, only for the monster to slam its jaws down on his right shoulder. He screamed in agony as its teeth punctured his wound-covered skin before he used his tail to swipe its legs from beneath it. He fell to the ground, gritting his teeth as the pain of missing body parts, gashes on the chest, scratches on the back, and now the puncture wounds in his left shoulder proved to be too much, even for his high tolerance. The beast howled, its pitch deeper than before, as it got on all fours and went for the kill. He knew that he could not dodge nor tank the hit. He's gone for good. The boy shut his eye and accepted his fate.
But his supposed fate did not come. He opened his eye just in time to see the beast coming to make him food flying into a tree. His shaky vision became blurred as a new figure emerged. The figure, an adult man wearing unusual clothes at the looks of it, wielded a giant sickle-like weapon as he shot around the beast with blinding speed, expertly weaving every attack it threw at him like a demigod. Relief washed over him as the man sliced the head of the monster right off its body with minimum effort, leaving it to collapse upon itself as it slowly disintegrated.
The girl rushed to the man, giving him a tight hug as she wept in his arms. They spoke to each other in that unknown language, yet he knew he had to thank him for saving them both somehow. His body buckled as he stood, taking what scant remains of the mysterious energy that kept him going when his own depleted, as he held his arm across his chest to lessen the pain. His single eye looked at them with a slight tinge of worry.
"Dr…Dras…ouib…"
Qrow and Yang stared at the boy, astonished he was still standing despite his out-of-place feathers being coated head-to-toe in his blood. Wounds big and small litter his form, which was all-around unusual. The long reptilian tail juts from his body like a crocodile's, his hands and feet have large claws like a nevermore, and his single eye shivered with despair that no boy his age should have to experience. His eye is a deep red with no iris, but in its place is a creepy thin slit for a pupil that pulsed from being thin like paper to rounded like a prey animal as he heaved with difficulty and went in and out of consciousness. But that was not the strangest part about the boy, one that confused Qrow but terrified Yang a bit, despite knowing the boy saved her:
He had no mouth.
He had a nose and an eye, but no mouth visibly existed on his face. It was as if staring into a glitched computer model. And it freaked Yang out even more when he managed to speak without it. Despite only being around her height, the boy's voice was deep and guttural, like a Grimm-turned-human. Yet, there was also a hint of fear and a whole lot of pain. His appearance scares her, but she can't help but feel pity as his body finally gives out. He fell to the side, the soil softening his fall as his body became eerily still. Blood loss must've finally caught up to this poor and broken soul. She looked up at her uncle with panic in her eyes.
"W-We got to get him to the doctor!" the young blond shouted, gripping the boy's arm and pulling with all her might. Even when she used her aura, the boy was too heavy to lug around. He was not obese, far from it, but he weighed as much as an adult Ursa to her estimate, though this was likely an exaggeration. Qrow sighed. He had not expected such a transgression to happen today. His niece runs off into the forest because she sees a sudden flash of light and almost immediately gets attacked by beowolves that fall by this boy's hand, who not only came out of nowhere but did not look like ANYONE he has noticed in his travels. Even in such a destroyed state, he somehow managed to win. "Come on, uncle! H-Help me, please! He…agh, why is he so heavy!?"
"Alright, alright, settle down," Qrow told her. He gently pushed her aside as he took hold of the boy's arm. Upon feeling the intense resistance to his strength, he realized what gave him the strength to destroy those beowolves made him just as heavy as she said he was. Without using his aura, it took all his strength to drag him just an inch across the blood-stained soil. Reluctantly, he infused aura into his arms, giving him the strength to lift the boy. He's alive, at least, as the boy's chest raised and flattened like a loaf of bread rising and softening in a fast-forwarded time loop as they walked out of the forest. How he is still breathing despite the deep claw marks is beyond him.
He's going to need a drink after this.
After dropping Yang back at the house, Qrow took the boy to the hospital. It's a small hospital, but it is world-renowned because of who runs it. The dark-haired man knew the doctor there could help this boy, even if he appeared unique to any known kind of Faunus. Now that he thinks about it, is this boy even a Faunus? Sure, he has animal traits, but they appeared to be a mishmash of unrelated creatures that weren't limited to just one body part, evident to all the raven-like feathers coating him like hair. He's like one of those human-animal hybrids from those science-fiction horror stories he read to his nieces. It is just as well to point out that no one missing a mouth and having a broken aura can still talk. Telepathy is a rare semblance, and this boy was wounded heavily, meaning his aura shattered. If his aura broke, yet he still used telepathy, it made him question who this boy was. He didn't know what to make of it, but he didn't let it bother him as he pulled into the parking lot.
He stayed with the boy to supervise as the doctor got him into stable condition. He called Taiyang to tell him what he was doing and what happened, so it'll be late before he can get home. Qrow was a little annoyed since he could not drink his stress away in the hospital, but keeping sober probably would help him with dealing with the boy, if only for a short time. Soon, the doctor came into the waiting area. He pulled his cartoonish-looking goggles over his pure yellow hair as he looked at the huntsman with a surprised look.
"Mama mia!" he yelled. "Qrow, this is an amazing find!"
"I didn't think I could make the smartest man in Patch surprised. Is the boy alright, Dr. Flavio?" Qrow questioned the doctor as he removed his gloves, which were stained with blood and covered in black feathers. He threw them in the biological waste bin as he opened the blind to the viewing window. The boy was on his side since his tail made it hard to lie down, and the feathers of his torso had to be shaven so the good doctor could properly bandage him. His chest heaved slowly yet painfully, which made the huntsman feel a pang of pity.
"Yes, yes, the boy is stable. But him being stable at all is only one of the most shocking things about this boy!" Flavio told him. He sat in a desk chair and wheeled himself to a highly advanced computer. He typed in a code as a visual of the boy appeared on screen. Qrow's eyebrows furrowed as the doctor pulled up some stats.
"What do you mean by that, doc?" Qrow questioned the doctor. The yellow-haired man typed even further, highlights appearing on and around the boy's wounds.
"You see all this? This is not something a normal boy could survive. He appears to be around the same age as your older niece, yet this damage feels like something only a pro huntsman could take," he began. He typed some more and brought up liquid levels in his body. "And it's obvious this boy has had at least the missing arm and eye for a good while before he got the other wounds, and even longer before you saved him, so he is missing a lot of blood. In fact, from my calculations, this boy should have little to no blood left. He must have some powerful bone marrow to still have any life force after all he went through today."
Qrow's gaze softened as he heard this. This boy went through all this trouble, all this pain, to try and save his niece at the risk of his already fleeting life. He must thank the boy once he wakes up if he ever does. Flavio shivered a little bit, the excitement palpable on his face as he pulled up more screens showing more interesting tidbits he found about this poor boy. The huntsman shook his head as he knelt beside the doctor.
"Fine, fine, he got through some tough scrapes, I get it. But what's his deal anyway? He's like nothing I've ever seen before, and he weighs a ton. I had to bust out some of my aura just to haul him into the truck, and he's barely got any muscle under all that fluff," the huntsman pointed out. Flavio looked up and grinned.
"Of course, of course. I noticed something off about the boy's claws. They are reddish-orange and difficult to scratch with my tools. I gathered a small sample of them as well as several other samples from exposed bone from his injuries, and put them through my compositor to see what I could find…and it turns out, every single bone in his body, or at least the parts made out of calcium and keratin, is made of pure iron. That's probably why his bone marrow can pump out so much replacement blood."
And that was when Qrow knew he needed something to drink. So that's why the boy was so heavy: he's full of metal! Flavio has to be joking! There is no way that this boy has iron bones. That doesn't happen in nature! Sure, those with semblances that allow them a temporary elemental transformation exist, but non-biological material naturally in place of anything biological should not be possible. He exhaled a tired sigh as he looked back at the boy, who slept soundly on the hospital bed.
"You gotta be kidding me," the dark-haired man couldn't help but mutter. Flavio turned around to look at the alcoholic huntsman with a deadpan expression.
"I can see that look in your eyes. Would a doctor ever go against his oath?" Flavio told him.
"Okay...then tell me what the deal with his face is, cause he could talk to me without it, but the boy most definitely has no aura left to use a semblance," Qrow resumed.
"Ah, another oddity! He DOES have a mouth!" Flavio shouted with excitement. He pulled up another picture that showed the boy's skull. Hidden beneath a thin layer of skin are jaws full of large, razor-sharp teeth that look like something on a Grimm.
"But where IS his mouth?" Qrow interjected.
"I believe that his mouth is kind of like a snake's. He has no true lips, but his mouth stretches all the way around his jaw bones, and if he were to open it, he can probably open it so wide it looks unhinged. While we have not seen him do that yet, I imagine that he would show it once he eats. Until then, we can only postulate what it really looks like," Flavio told him. "And speaking of snakes…"
He rolled his chair over to a large machine, which looked like a large cylinder. He pushed a big red button, and it roared to life, displaying large amounts of information on several screens attached to the system. Flavio patted the machine like it was his daughter as he looked back at the dark-haired huntsman.
"This baby here has helped me discover over fifty new species of snakes and other critters, both through direct genetic testing and ejected environmental DNA samples, alongside being able to detect the composition of objects. I took a DNA sample from the boy, and discovered something strange," Flavio explained, feeling proud of his accomplishments. The doctor pulled up one of the screens, which showed a cartoonish version of the boy's genetic code. "The boy's DNA seems normal at first, but then as I was scanning a bit more, I realized that there were four extra strands of DNA wrapped around it, occasionally intersecting his own at various points."
"So...he's not from this planet?" Qrow pondered.
"…I mean, I wouldn't throw that out the window just yet," the doctor said. "But I will admit, something is also off about these other strands. Two are human, with one incredibly close to his own DNA, while the other two strands represent two creatures, one that I do not recognize but close to DNA samples I've collected from troodons…and then there is this other one that is unique in that there are unique amino acids attached at small points here and there that have some iron atoms within them…which means that this thing is not just unique to humanity, but unique to life on Remnant as a whole. No other organism uses iron for a lot of things, especially for making bones and stringing DNA with it."
"…so we're dealing with some kind of freaky human-alien hybrid?"
"I don't know for sure. I'm not one of those council wackos that disregards anything out of the norm as a hoax, so it's very likely that this DNA belonged to some sort of alien, or at least a creature not known to science or one that remains undiscovered. But that is only one DNA strand out of the five in the boy's cells, so his genome is beyond me for right now," he added. Qrow had seen a lot of weird things in his life as a huntsman, but this boy was something else entirely. He looked back at the boy as Flavio continued, the doctor's eyes sparkling with curiosity. "He's a mystery wrapped in an enigma, and I'm dying to find out more about him."
Qrow massaged his forehead, feeling a blend of wonder and dread, emotions that had been absent for a long time. The huntsman sensed deep down that this boy would cause problems aplenty if word spread. He wished that he would regain consciousness soon and perhaps provide them with some explanations. Or at least some hints about his origin because he worried things would surely deteriorate.
I had this story planned out for the longest time, but after some time, I decided to toss it, since I thought I'd use this mysterious boy in an actual book I may write. However, since I decided that my books would instead be based on dreams I had, I decided to rerelease RWBY: Red Tears once again. I'm sorry for my very long absence from this site. I hope you enjoyed this chapter.
This is Sporedude135, signing off...