I don't have much to say at the beginning of the story so just enjoy reading.
A man stumbled down a dirt road going through a forest. His red hair, that went down to his shoulders, was greasy and appeared to be unkept for many years fell upon his face and hid most of its features, a dark red full beard hid the rest of his face, but that still could not hide the single unfocused glassy blue eye of his that stared off into the distance.
A scabbard with a sword sheathed hung by his waist slightly hidden under his black overcoat, under it he wore a black leather jacket with a hood, the rest of his clothes were made up by dark grey knitted fingerless gloves, from under his jacket peaked out a red shirt, his long legs were outfitted with quite tight black jeans, on his feet were black worn combat boots covered by dust and old mud. All his clothing was old unkept scratched or torn at different parts, spots could be seen of who knows what littering the cloth.
The man stopped walking and while swaying in place looked around seeing no one close he walked towards the nearest bush on the side of the road, for a few seconds he struggled while he tried to unzip his pants, taking his substantially sized member, he started to piss as he closed his eye in relief.
"Haaaaa."
The bush shook as something that had been laying in it rose up, it was a creature made up of coal black fur, white bone plating that had red marking and two red glowing eyes it stood around three meters tall and reminded to that of a bear. The man oblivious continued to piss on the creature's leg. The creature roared in the mans face, who opened his eye in surprise and looked up, raising his hand and holding one finger up he said.
"Give me a moment I'll get to you soon just need to finish this."
The creature leaned his head to the side in what most would consider as expressing confusion.
The stream of piss stopped as the man shook of the last droplets of piss left and stuffed his member back into his pants.
"Okayy… Ursssaaa… now I'm all yours." He smirked, as now his one and only eye looked just that one little bit more alive and focused a sharpness previously unseen had seemed to return to the man.
Grimm roared again swinging its claw at the man. What transpired after would have been too difficult to keep track even by the fastest huntsman, to their eyes it would have only looked as a black blur and a red blip going through the grimm, only after would the sound of a sword being drawn and sheathed resounds through the forest.
The Ursa having now been split into two pieces slowly disintegrating, while still trying to swing its paws, not having registered that it has already fallen.
The darkly dressed faunus now standing four meters away from the dying grimm starts walking down the road while still stumbling as a drunk would his eye again glazed over, unfocused and lacking in life.
While struggling to walk down the road the man would pull out a flask out of his inner pocked of the overcoat, opening the flask he would bring it up to his mouth and throwing his head back attempt to drink from it only when no liquid hits his throat he bringing the flask before himself, turning it upside down attempting to pour it out he sees nothing comping out.
"Dammit!" he shouts through gritted teeth, attempting to kick a rock the man drunkenly falls over.
"Fuck!" He shouts out even louder, so loud that a flock of birds rise up to the sky from the forest.
Showing the flask back to the inner pocket he stands up with of course not without great difficulty and not before almost stumbling back to the ground several times. A paper map is taken out and unfolded by him.
As he looks at the map his vision is shaky, the one eye refusing to focus as everything remains blurry. Trying and failing several times to focus on the map, an arm is brought up by him to rub the eye as he blinks several times after that again looking at the map, this time seeing what is drawn on the map and he curses as he had pulled out the wrong map, this one he held was of Mistral and its surrounding territories, but he needed the Vale one. Folding the map up he rummages through all his pockets finding the Vale map he shoved the Mistral map into one of the pockets.
Quickly formulating where approximately he was on this map of Vales territory he searches in the map for the closest settlement, not marked out for being destroyed, it takes a surprisingly long time, this task was not made shorter by his headache and from time-to-time blurry vision. But he manages to find one such place, looking up to the sun then his clock, he calculates where approximately east would be and walks into the forest going off the dirt road taking the straightest path towards the settlement possible.
Two days later two big bald men that appear to be the bars security are carrying out an unconscious faunus man with red hair is thrown out of a bar into the alley next to the trash bins.
"Hey, is he even breathing?"
One of them asks off the other. They stare at one another for a moment after which the other kicks the unconscious faunus getting a grumble in response from him.
"See, alive." And he walks back into the bar. The other that showed some concern for the faunus speaks.
"You should probably sobber up before coming back later… Even better for you would be not to come back, the way you drink that's I know this will sound stupid, but it- that ain't good for you man." After saying that he nods to himself and walks back to the bar.
After spending four hours sleeping in the alley next to the all the stinking garbage the man gets rudely awoken by a group of five homeless looking kids poking him with a stick.
"I don't think we should be poking him like that what if he gets pissed off." One of the kids, the youngest looking one says. All the kids look at him
"Hey if he's dead or too drunk to resist we can take his money and we won't have to starve today and if he's not dead we can just outrun him I doubt a drunk like him can run in a straight line even, so it will be fine Tim, stop you worrying." The largest and eldest looking of the kids says while turning back towards where the unconscious drunk was laying to go in for another poke with a stick, but he stops there is no one there now just an empty spot. "Where did he go?"
"What?" The chubby one of the group asks.
A gruff voice sounds from behind them.
"The world really gone to shit if kids act nowadays like this."
All the kids turn to look behind them and see the man standing there at his full 6'4 height towering over the young kids. The kids share a look.
"Run!" Shouts the oldest.
In unison they all turn towards the not blocked end of the alley, while turning all of them feel a gust of wind go past them, and to their surprises there again stands the man who just a moment ago was behind them at the other end of the alley.
"Now which of you lil-punks can tell me what time it is?"
All the kids scream in unison out of fear.
"AAAAHHHHH!"
The man heads felt like splitting in two from the pain, so he brings up his arms to block the sound out from his ears.
"SHUT UP!" The man says and the kids surprisingly listen.
The kids again turn around and try to run away.
"Oh, for Oums sake!" Moving quickly, he grabs one of the kids by the collar of their clothing and lifts him up to face him. The kid he so happened to grab
The reek of alcohol from the man and fear the kid already was feeling caused that kid to start crying, this being herd by the other kids stopped them in their spots as all of them looked back as they stopped their escape attempt.
"Dammit, he's got Rick." One spoke.
"We need to save him." Another added.
They all ran towards the man and punched or kicked him, while he just stood there his eye looking at the kid he had in his arm and the ones attempting to hurt him. After a minute of hitting him all the kids collapsed whatever from pain at their fist and feet from hitting him or exhaustion, the man did not care.
"Well, this is just pathetic sight."
The kid in his arms had stopped bawling his eyes out and now only stared at him with a frown.
"Now as I was asking what time is it? Or are you little shits too uneducated to know time?"
"Hey, we are smart Tim even knows how to count to a hundred." The kid held by him spoke in a disrespectful tone.
"Great good for you, but that wasn't what I was asking you imbecilic." He shook the kid around.
"It's *heavy breathing* 10 in *breathing* the morning." The chubby one said quickly.
The man lets go of the kid he was holding. The kid falls roughly to the ground landing on his bottom. Searching through his pockets the tall man takes out a few liens and drops it onto the oldest kids lap.
"That's all I needed, thanks kids and how about next time not doing something so stupid, okay?"
Not giving another glance at the kids, the red hair heads towards the alleys exit, only stopping because he notices a wanted poster hanging of the wall of a building that made up the alley's walls. On it displayed was a young man 23 or so years old, a grimm mask hiding most of his face, two black horns atop his head showing his origin being a faunus, the name bellow the photo written in red Adam Taurus. A roll of an eye fallows as the man rips off the poster showing it into the inner side of his jacket where a bunch of different posters, newspapers are shoved in to keep warm. Grumbling under his breath the man spoke self depreciatively.
"Eight years passed, and no one bothers to even update the fucking wanted picture. The most wanted in Remnant my ass." While saying that Adam left the alley and headed towards the shopping district in search of an electronics shop that had some tv screens displayed.
Two hours later Adam stands in front of a shops display windows as five TVs are showing the news, a speaker barely loud enough to be heard outside the store enough for his hearing to pick it up, a newscast reporter speaks about the happening around the globe. The upcoming 44 Vytal festival is mentioned its long-awaited return to Vale after an eight-year gap from when in the 40th Vytal festival that took place also in Vale was won by the now famous Huntress at that time just a famous fighter and student at Beacon Pyrrha Nikos, a huntress from the same class of graduates as Pyrrha is mentioned having alone stopped a massive horde of grimm from destroying a Village around Vale her name being Ruby Rose, a huntsman slash musician Flynt Coal is confirmed to perform on the half time show during the Vytal festival a discussion fallows who else is rumored to appear with him.
"… We cannot dismiss the possibility of Miss Weiss Schnee making her return to the musical scene with this year's Vytals half-time show, she is know to have a history with Mr. Coal and the huntsman academy even being a big sponsor of both-" The newsman cuts himself off as someone from behind the camera runs up to him and hands him a sheet of paper. A breaking news animation plays on the screen. "Speaking of the Schnees, coming with braking news from Atlas Today at 07:20 Sir Jacquess Schnee is confirmed to been found dead by his secretary. His office was found in a mess with signs of fighting having taken place, an investigation by Atlas military has been launched into the murder of the SDC CEO Jacquess Schnee, while asked for details General Ironwood refused to give any comments about the investigation taking place or any details about the murder and possible suspects. An announcement has been made by the Atlas government that the General will hold a video conference that will translate live all across Remenant tomorrow at 11 A.M. were more will be revealed about the circumstances of Mr. Schnee death…" The reporter tethered off speaking about something Adam did not listen further to what was being said.
He brough up a hand slapping himself across the face, feeling the burn left by the slap. Adam was overjoyed knowing this was not a dream and he began to smile then came the chuckling, he held his stomach as full blown joyous laughter broke out of him. For several minutes he laughed while people passing by gave him weird looks, as he laughed out of lightheadedness he collapsed to the floor, but even then, he continued to laugh his head off.
Finally, after ten minutes of laughing with tears of joy running down his face Adam calmed down. He stayed lying on the sidewalk, slowly the joy in his expression dissipated until it was all gone the permanent frown returning. His eye that had gone from lifeless to full of life the moment the death of the Schnee was announced had again returned into the lifeless unfocused gaze. He rose to his feet and walked away from the shop. While walking, if another person was walking in his path, he would not move to avoid them he would bump or full on push them over if they did not move out of his path.
Screaming and incomprehensible rambling from a crazy looking human at the side of the road had caught the attention of Adam as he stopped and turned only his head to look at that human. That person had uncut long for a man orange hair, two blue eyes that darted around never settling on a single spot, to Adams surprise he had some pieces of grey knightly armor, once it could have been a full set, but this man had only a shoulder and arm pieces on opacite arms left, a cup by the humans side with a sign begging for a few lien was placed as the man continued to scream and ramble about nonsense.
Adam walked up to the crazy man sitting at the side of the road.
"It must be your lucky day." Adam said as he dropped a few lien into the cup
The crazed man did not even register that continuing to ramble and shout what Adam identified as 'I'm sorry!', 'Never again', 'I promise', 'Please spare me', 'I'll stay away from them'. Adam stayed before the man watching the crazy fella with a squinted eye, while the man continued his crazy ramble, failing to discern any meaning from his words or find out what had broken this young fella like this he nods and walks off.
Finding an abandoned house in this town is surprisingly easy and lucky for him it had even a single sofa left by the previous residents, hey it might have smelled of mold but the same could have been said for the whole building.
Adam sits down on the sofa taking out a watch he stole from some poor schmuck. He checks the time confirming it to be 5 PM. After doing that lets go of the watch, it falls and clatters onto the floor the glass of the watch cracking. Leaning back onto the sofa he took out a flask and took a swig from it.
"Ahh knocks me right out." After saying that he instantly fell asleep and started to snore.
Next morning Adam would awake shaking all over, sweating profusely and still feeling tired as hell. Hurriedly searching for his flask and falling to find it, he slams a fist into the backrest of the sofa, what follows is the sound of the flask falling off the sofa and clattering on the floor.
At that sudden sound Adam jumps up of the sofa while drawing out his sword, the watch crunching beneath his feet, he stumbles around scanning the room turning suddenly to check every corner. Lowering the sword his arms and body doesn't stop trembling. His eye finally focuses on the flask that made the sound, a smile graces his face as he lunges to grab it, missing the flask by a good foot of distance.
Adam almost falls over only saving himself by stabbing his sword into the floorboards, after getting his balance back he goes for another attempt to pick up the flask this time succeeding. He hurriedly goes to unscrew the cap after accomplishing that he throws it back and starts taking big gulps out of it, the shaking lessens with each gulp and his body seems to relax the tension disappearing as the flask runs empty, Adam wipes off his lips.
"Ahhh perfect for a wake-up meal."
Stumbling towards the broken-down door that he busted open yesterday to get inside, he steps out into a front patio that has a roof over. The cold air hits his face and pitter-patter of rain fills Adams ears an annoyed grunt escapes from his mouth while he stands watching the rain droops falling and hitting the untended lawn forming puddles all across the garden. Throwing a hood over his head, he walks out into the rain heading towards the fence gate leading out of this fenced in garden. His destination being to go back to the heart of the city to hear the announcement of the dear old General, the thought of hearing more about the death of the bastard Schnee bringing an evil smirk to his face as he walks pass the gate into the paved street of the town.
Adam stands before the shops' display window as five TVs are showing the news, a speaker not loud enough to be heard over the rain outside the store, lucky for him subtitles are turned on. Having arrived too early Adam is forced to wait in the rain staring off to the empty streets, the only moment from him being the rise and fall of his chest as he breaths. Even as water starts to seep past his waterproof hood and run down his hair and head, he gives no reaction to it, just continues to stand doing nothing but staring off into the same spot. That spot happens to be where the homeless human sat yesterday. Unsurprisingly that man is nowhere to be seen only the sign begging for lien and the metal cup next to it were left there. Out of the side of his eye Adam sees the General finally come on the screen, losing whatever interest he had in the spot he was staring at Adam faced the screen fully focusing on reading the subtitles. The conference began as most would condolences being sent to the Schnee family by the General at their loss, how they're going to put their best efforts into this case.
"Get on with it, like anyone cares for that cold hearted family. Tell us how that bastard died, if he suffered before he died, I hope he did heheheh. Who's the fucking hero that did the bastard in? come on tell me already?"
Adam had gotten right next up to the glass in anticipation. After several more useless tirades about how Atlas needed to uphold justice in these trying times the General got to the good part, reading the killer's name as a security recording of the office that evening came on air, Adam took a step back in surprise.
"*whispers*Me?..." Confusion evident in his voice and on his face Adam tries to think clearly something was not right. The next word that come out the Generals mouth finally make him lose his cool.
"*shouts*What!?" Adam barely stops himself from slamming his fist into the glass and shattering it. He leans onto the glass mumbling to himself.
"A hunt for me? They go to be kidding. Because of the fuckers murder… This… I did not kill him, but who would fucking believe me…there's the dam recoding of it. Hahahahaaa… *sighs* a setup, why? by who?... Atlas?" Shakes his head. "No, they haven't given a shit about me for six years and this ain't there style, they wouldn't do it so underhanded like this." Adam realizes something and out of a habit pulls out his flask unscrewing it and going for a swig but stops after realizing its empty. "Dammit!"
Taking steps back from the window, he looks around, pulling his hood more over his face. Luckily for him because of the rain the streets and city is empty of pedestrians and the few cars going past should fail to identify him. Hurriedly he walks off not wanting to test his luck anymore, hoping that not a lot of people watch this, and he still has a chance to get a bottle of liquor from a store, it would be a risk one he will have to take as he needed a drink right now.
Finding a shop that sells alcohol was easy and cause of the weather it did not have many customers, the only people that were there two clerks and he scouted out three shop assistants with only one more shopper around distributed across the store. Hiding his face, he hurriedly walked to the liquor aisle and grabbed the bottle of the largest and strongest liquor they had.
As Adam walked towards the checkout section, he could feel the stares of the shop assistants and the clerks bore into him. Hoping that it was because of his homeless look and not because they recognized him, reaching the counter Adam nervously placed the bottle on it the clerk clearly forcing a smile took the bottle and after scanning it strook up a conversation.
"Good day sir. Quite terrible weather we are having today ain't we sir?"
Adam did not register the words and with shaking hands was focused on counting the amount of lien he needed to pay, whatever his hands shook out of nervousness or alcohol withdrawal was hard to tell.
"Is everything alright sir?"
This time Adam did hear him and looked up at the clerk.
"Huh?"
Still smiling, the clerk repeated what he had said previously.
"I asked about the weather of you sir."
"Oh uhhh… yeah its bad out there raining cats and dogs you could say."
The clerk looked wight into his eye for a moment longer, a moment that seemed to drag on for eternity for Adam. After three seconds the clerk looked away.
"That will be 135.55 lien sir."
Adams' heart almost jumped out when the clerk started to speak, lucky he managed not to drop the lien he was holding.
"Yeah, here." He placed the exact amount needed to pay on the counter.
The clerk took it, counting the amount and checking if the lien was not fake then he placed it into the register.
"Thank you for shopping here."
Not saying anything, Adam grabbed the bottle and headed out of the store.
Unbeknownst to him, on the other end of the shop one of the shop assistants was saying something to another.
"Hey Tyrese, I'm gonna go step out for a break to catch a smoke, that alright with you."
The assistant called Tyrese looks at the weather outside.
"In this weather?" Tyrese asked of the other.
"Hey, when you gatto go, you go, weather be dammed."
"You really need to drop smoking it's not good for you." After shaking his head he added. "Sure, go-ahead Perry."
Perry walked off. Entering the staff changing room, he opened his locker grabbing his pistol from it throwing a jacket over himself Perry exited the shop through the workers' exit. Now standing in the rain he took a bunch of sharp breaths and headed off after Adam.
Back with Adam. Having filled his flask and stored it in his pocket. He was sticking to alleys and making his way towards the town's perimeter wall even if not many people were outside going about, he still preferred this, sticking to the shadows out of sight, from time to time taking a sip from the liquor left in the bottle. As he was going in for another sip a shout from behind made him stop halfway in the motion.
"Don't move."
An eye roll from him.
"Fuck." Adam sounded disappointed in himself.
"No sudden moves, kneel on the ground."
"Look I think you are mistaken we still can all just forget about this and go our separate ways."
Adam turned to face the assailant.
"Oum dammit Commander. I said no sudden moves why you got to make this harder than it has to be."
Adam looked with a confused face at Perry who was holding him at gun point.
"Perry that you?"
"Yes."
"The fuck you doing here?"
"Sorry commander, but I saw the Generals speech, they quadruple your bounty, and I need the money you have to understand."
Adam was disgusted with Perry.
"After all that Atlas has done to faunus like us you going to be their attack dog now? Do you not got any pride as a faunus as a proud member of White fang-"
"The White fangs dead Commander." Adam looked hurt by those words. "It has been disbanded for nine years already. I moved on with my life sir."
"Maybe to you its dead, traitor... But it lives on." Adam raised the bottle to take a sip.
A gunshot resounded through the alley as the bottle shattered hit by the bullet. Adam froze panic overtaking him.
"I'm being serious I am taking you in. I have a family I need to take care of and the bounty-"
He was cut off as a sword glowing red broke his aura and pierced his stomach faster than he could react to. Adam holding the handle of his blade that was sticked inside of Perrys stomach, had more than a furious expression as the red glow of the sword kept increasing. But his expression suddenly calmed down and the glow dissipated.
"The White fang was a bond stronger than blood, I guess... only to me it was like that." He pulled out the sword, Perry collapsed to the ground. "So, for the sake of old times I will show some grace for you, I'll leave a body for them to mourn."
After flicking off the blood of the blade Adam ran disappearing into the darkness of the alleys not to be seen in this town again.
End of chapter.
You probably already figured out that this story is set in an alternative universe, one that had the White fang dissolve a year before what would be considered the shows start first day at Beacon for team RWBY, that the fall of Beacon never happens, that Pyrrha doesn't die, Salem doesn't get revealed to the masses, there are more things that change, but they aren't jet mentioned or its to early to reveal it, it would ruin the mystery. Yes the story would revolve around Adam trying to figure out who killed the SDC CEO while many know faces hunt him down, an ironic faith considering he is the most likely suspect, but he actually didn't do it you got to believe me. I'm not going to reveal who did it, but I will say this - if you connected all the dots in this chapter you can already figure out who did it, but it is really hard to do that, you would have to be a genius or really good at guessing to get it and at the end its way to early to attempt that as your still missing one or two plot points that makes it a lot easier to guess who donned it, but I won't spoil it for I definitely will write that passage at some point.
So yeah a murder mystery with an asshole alcohol addict Adam stuck in the middle of it and when I say asshole, I mean it, he would be a really deplorable person through the story. He would be a antihero and I mean that, not the romanticized antihero we have now in modern stories, but a true one, you know a terrible person fighting for a good reason or purpose, but with terrible ways, doing bad things in-between all of it. Let me just say this there will be many endings written for this, multiple choice for the reader to chose what the prime one is and in one of those endings the murderer kills himself, after Adam gives him a speech how alike they are, how their methods, their modus operandi is the same, giving the murderer a realization, what a monster he has become and deciding to kill himself. you and i are not so different spiderman
Well that's all I have to say so goodbye.