Pyrrhic Victory [RWBY/Worm]

[BuffetAnarchist]

Pyrrhic Victory: A RWBY/Worm Crossover

Alternate Joke Title: Redhead Redemption

After her death at the hands of Cinder Fall, Pyhrra Nikos finds herself in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by people and conflicts she does not recognize. Will she rise above all, or is she merely doomed to die again in this unforgiving new world?

Index:

Breath 1.1

Breath 1.2

Breath 1.3

Breath 1.4

Interlude 1

Forward 2.1

Forward 2.2

Forward 2.3

Forward 2.4

Forward 2.5

Forward 2.6

Forward 2.7

Forward 2.8

Officially Unofficial Omakes

The Increasingly Silly Adventures of Penny Polendina by my lovely editor ShimmyJesus

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3

(Obligatory note that I not only don't own either of these intellectual properties, but that this is my first time publishing a fanfiction on this site. If I have any formatting wrong let me know! Hope you all enjoy!)

 

[BuffetAnarchist]

“It’s unfortunate that you were promised a power that was never truly yours.”


The piercing burn of shame and desperation shot through me just as painfully as the glass arrow in my heel. No matter what I could do, I couldn’t stand, couldn’t fight. The ever-present comfort of my aura was gone, broken, for the first time since I was a child.


So much for the Invincible Girl.


No pain from any bodily wound could hurt so badly.


I had failed.


Beacon was in ruins, my team scattered across Vale. Penny, the robot girl--Ruby’s friend. I had killed her. She had seemed so alive when the few times I saw her, so full of hope and excitement at the beginning of our match.


She had seemed so terrified as my semblance wrapped her own wires around her and pulled. Pulled, and ripped. The fear in her eyes had been real, robot or no. She had had an aura, she had been a person. And I had killed her. I had killed her when I had not meant to, driven mad by fear, seeing things that might not have even been there.


I had killed an innocent girl on accident, but even when I pulled out everything I had, used my semblance to a degree I had never done before, I could barely even hurt the golden eyed, dark haired woman in front of me.


She had started this. She had attacked Amity. She had let in the Grimm. She had killed the old Fall Maiden, and used her power to kill Professor Ozpin.


How many more were dying out there in the streets, to the White Fang and the Grimm, because of this woman’s plan?


How many more would die because I had failed to stop her?


At least Jaune will be safe, I reassured myself as tears dropped onto the steel of the floor below. I had been able to ensure that much, sending him away in the locker. That kiss, my first--my last-- still burned on my lips. Why had I been such a fool, such a coward, to not approach him sooner, never make my intentions known, let him run off chasing Weiss who clearly didn’t care for him. No one had cared for him like I did, no one else saw that spark of potential, no one else put in half as much time to nurture it and watch it grow. Did I not deserve some happiness in exchange?


It was a stupid thing to think about, considering the circumstances. I couldn’t help myself.


Just another regret to add to the others bearing down on my broken soul as the distinct clink of glass against glass draw nearer.


“But take comfort in knowing,” surprisingly soft and gentle fingers glided across my jawline, tilting my chin up to look into the woman’s golden eyes, “that I will use it in ways you never could have imagined.”


Her eyes positively gleamed with her triumph, her pride in what she had accomplished. Such genuine joy at what she had done.


I had fought Grimm since I was twelve years old, and seen enough videos and pictures of abandoned villages and destroyed homes to think that I had known what a true monster looked like. Inhuman, with black fur, spiked armor and masks of bone and red eyes glowing like the hottest furnace of hell. Shadow and fear given form out of a child’s nightmare.


How could I have been so blind? The real monster was beautiful. The most desirable woman, she could have been the envy of the entire world, the perfect image of what a huntress should be. Perfect in poise, grace, dress, manner, and skill with weapons and semblance. All of it nothing more than the silk wrappings over a core of the darkest and most vile ambition. That was what shone through in her eyes most of all, that lust for power, that desire to dominate all others as she had dominated me.


I tried not to imagine what devastation this woman might wreak with the powers she had put on display here, but I couldn’t stop them from bubbling up to the surface. Thoughts of homes, entire cities going up in flames, fleeing survivors hunted down and savaged by the grimm like the worst nightmares from the Great War leapt to mind. Each scene came with a flash of shame, knowing that I was at least partly responsible. If I had just agreed to Professor Ozpin’s request sooner, and taken the other half of the maiden’s power, not let my fear rule me and been a true champion and warrior, would I have been able to beat her? To stop this, stop this power, magic, true magic, from falling into the hands of this murderous madwoman?


And here she was, almost caressing my face, looking down into my eyes with a new look of surprisingly sincere pity.


My resolve reformed, eyes hardening as I pulled away from the woman’s grasp. No, just because I failed doesn’t mean the others will as well. I thought of my friends, the only friends I had made in years ever since mother first began training me. Of Team RWBY and their boundless enthusiasm to fight for what was right. Of calm and cunning Ren, of strong and unstoppable Nora. Of Jaune.


Oh, dear, sweet Jaune, whose aura had shone like the sun and nearly burned when placed against my own in that first, glorious moment of its release. The goofy, kind hearted boy who had the potential to grow so much with the right guidance and drive.

He would have to find someone else to guide him, now. That thought hurt the most, that I would never see the huntsman he might become.


I had to keep faith, that no matter what happened here and now, atop this tower, good would prevail in the end. This woman would not break me. She could take my life here and now, but I would remain defiant. Though the shadow of death loomed over me, I would face it, head up and eyes open, as the Nikos had before the armies of the Emperor of Mistral so many centuries ago. I am Pyrrha Nikos, champion, student of Beacon Academy, member of Team JNPR and partner to Jaune Arc. I owed it to myself and all those I hold dear.


There was a certain sweet feeling, a kind of deep assurance in my soul, that came with staring down death. I had stood, I had fought, and though I had fallen, I did not retreat when my time came.


The question I had asked Jaune, when he had come to comfort me at the fairgrounds after Professor Ozpin had first told me of the Fall Maiden sprung to mind, then. A hope, and a promise.


When I think of destiny, I don’t think of a predetermined fate you can’t escape. But rather, some sort of final goal.


A goal now out of my grasp. But one that the others, my friends, could achieve. Would achieve. I was sure of it.


I had to be.


“Do you believe in destiny?”


The woman looked down at me then, eyes narrowing, and I could almost swear that I saw the faintest sign of tears forming in the corners of the woman’s eyes. She replied with a single word.


“Yes.”


The Fall Maiden straightened, took a step back, and I was suddenly reminded of those words I had spoken in the Emerald Forest, when I had laid my aura against Jaune’s own dormant one, waking it to its grand purpose. The Mantra of the Warrior, an old catechism of my people, used to focus the mind and soul for incredible tasks.

A rite of passage for the young and brave.

A guide for life.

A funeral chant, spoken as the bodies of heroes were laid on the pyre.

A preparation for death.


For it is in passing that we achieve immortality.


My murderer raised her arms above her head.


I remembered Jaune’s smile, the feel of his face under my hand, that first pulse of brilliant white as my aura called to his.


Through this we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all.


Shards of glass formed a bow and arrow in her hands.


My mother, when she first placed the spear in my hand, the look of pride mingled with a deep sadness I had not been old enough to understand as she spoke the words, and I felt the rush of my aura fill me, surrounding and comforting me for the first time.


I felt like I understood that look, now.


Infinite in distance and unbound by death.


I could have sworn I heard a noise off my left, like someone was scrambling up the side of the tower, but I could not turn, could not look away from the death that awaited me as the Maiden’s bow lowered.


The string was loosed.


The arrow flew.


Pain.


I gasped. Agony like I had never experienced lanced through my chest, through my ribs, through my heart. It thrummed through me like my entire body was a single cord on a lyre, that single note I was playing one of intense agony. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, could only kneel, vainly try to lift my arms, only gasp as my last breaths escaped me.


I could feel my strength flee, as if it was pulled out of me through the shaft in my chest. My arms fell, and I leaned forward as the Fall Maiden stepped towards me, once more taking my head in her hand, caressing my face. And once more, pain arced through my body.


Everything turned orange, then red, then white, and I crumbled, fading away to a place beyond pain.


And in my mind, another voice, calm, kind, masculine, alien, a voice I had never heard before in my life, yet sounded vaguely familiar somehow.


I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee.


And in that white space, I thought I saw a vision, a series of snapshots, each passing sooner than the last. The twisting, molten length of a golden dragon seemingly composed entirely of light, the outline of a man with antlers composed of the same substance. And then my view widened, and shifted, as if I beheld all of space and time in a great fractal spider web of crystalline structures connecting worlds and universes, bending the very powers of creation and destruction to its will, an ever expanding harvest of souls and information as the great worms tunneled through space and realities. Another golden man, but this one in detail, hornless and bearded, clothed in a bloodstained white bodysuit and wearing a cape--


And then…


Breath.

 

[BuffetAnarchist]

I gasped.


Fingers in my hair, pulling.


My lungs couldn’t inflate fully, and I coughed.


Breathing hurt.


Weight, hands and knees, pinning my arms, keeping my head in place.


A weight on my stomach and ribs, rough asphalt and gravel grinding into my back.


Somewhere behind me, a man shouting.


And a knife was tracing its way across my face.


My eyes opened as I gasped again, and looked around. Faces loomed above me. They appeared to be ethnically Mistralian, like Lie Ren, but held none of the calm comfort and self assurance of my friend’s face. These were hard, cruel, scarred and weathered expressions, most of all the one currently straddling me, missing teeth in his snarl of a mouth, a green bandana folded over his left eye.


The one that was currently holding the knife.


Behind him, a girl that looked to be about my age in a fancy red jacket, with a nose ring and purple eyeshadow.


And behind her, a dark figure in a hood and cloak crouched on the hood of a large car. Not doing anything, just… watching. A huntress? Why wasn’t she helping me?


Where was I? Who were these people? Did they have any idea who I am, what they were getting themselves into with me?


What was I doing here?


Was this a nightmare… or had the nightmare been atop Beacon Tower, staring down a woman with the power of a god as she stabbed into my heart and burned me to ashes?


The one eyed man spoke, slowly scraping the blade against the skin of my face, almost gently. “One eye, the nose, the mouth, or both ears. Yan here thinks she has what it takes to be a member, instead of a common whore, so you choose one of the above, and she goes to town on the part in question, proves her worth.”


Behind him, the girl practically gigled. “Holy shit, Lao, that’s fucked up.” She didn’t sound like a normal person, shocked and scared at the idea of mutilating another human being. She sounded… almost giddy with anticipation, like she had finally gotten her chance at something she had wanted for a long time.


For the briefest second as I stared up at that face staring down at me, framed with dark hair, it looked like her dark eyes flashed golden.


For the briefest second, I burned.


I felt my aura surge around me, a warm, comforting crimson rage. How dare these people treat me, treat anyone like this? Monsters. Grimm in human form.


The thug with the knife’s remaining eye seemed to widen for a moment as my aura came back online. I felt a small moment of satisfaction at the fear in his eye.


The dark figure on the roof remained still and impassive. That was fine. These people were nothing compared to who I had just fought. I was Pyrrha Nikos, four time champion of the Mistral Regional Youth Tournament, defeated only once in direct combat. I had taken teams of huntsmen trainees down without breaking a sweat. I had fought elder grimm with my team at my side.


These monsters didn’t stand a chance.


I reached out with my semblance, feeling for the metal around me, more than a dozen knives in the hands of those surrounding me, as well as a length of chain, a pipe, and the unmistakable shape of a gun in one of the further men’s waistbands. Beyond that, a few crushed cans, and the outline of the car and some kind of large metal box, most likely a dumpster, beyond it.


For my entire career, I had kept my semblance a secret, feeding the image of the Invincible Girl with slight nudges of incoming weapons and being able to feel attacks coming from behind, but otherwise held back to keep my enemies from knowing what its limits and weaknesses were.


The only enemy I cared about already knew. I felt no need to hold back.


I said nothing as I flared my power, ripping weapons from hands and flinging them against the walls of the brick buildings hemming us in on either side.The point of the blade pressing into my cheek would have cut across my face if my aura hadn’t risen to catch and turn it, and it spun like a top before embedding itself into the car door to his right. His eye had turned from fear to full on panic as he scrambled off of me, putting an arm out to his side like he was warding away the girl behind him. “Shit!” he swore, looking around himself at his companions like he was looking for a way past them to escape, “she’s a cape!”


I rubbed a bruise I felt forming against my cheek as I rose shakily to my feet. I would have liked to have leapt up confidently, but for some reason my muscles didn’t seem to be cooperating like they normally did. I felt weak, weaker than I had been when I first entered Sanctum, nearly as weak as the first time my mother had knocked me to my back in our first spar. My eye-level was all wrong too, I noted as I straightened to my full height. I was looking the thug and the girl behind him in the eyes, but I had the feeling that ordinarily I should have been nearly a head taller than both of them.


None of this mattered, of course. I must have just been disoriented.


Behind me, I could feel the metal in the gun move quickly, and I was able to form an easy mental picture of the owner pulling it out from behind his back and leveling it at my head. That wouldn’t do. Regardless of how my body felt, my aura and semblance worked as well as they ever had. I pulled slightly, and the weapon flew out of his grip and into my own. With a half second to look the pistol over, I found the switch to drop the clip before pulling back the slide, letting the round in the chamber pop out the top and clink quietly against the hard paved ground beneath us. I let the gun itself follow, dropping it unceremoniously at my feet.


I did my best to be intimidating as I spoke, standing straight and surveying the men in red and green around me. “I have had a very trying day, and I’m not exactly in my right mind. If you would not mind telling me where we are, and what exactly you all were trying to do to me, I might consider letting you leave without facing the consequences of your actions.”


My voice was all wrong, more wrong than my height and the lack of familiar strength. It was light, breathy and completely unfamiliar to my own ears, sounding young and strained. It cracked on the last handful of words, dashing any hopes that the offer itself would have any hint of intimidation in it.


“Bitch!” the only apparent girl in the group shouted at me, eyes full of anger and hate. She ducked under the arm of the one eyed man, Yao, grabbing a discarded butterfly knife from the asphalt and rushing towards me.


I fell into an unarmed combat stance. Sure, as a huntress and champion duelist, most of my training had been with the spear, sword, shield and rifle, but the presence of any of those could never be fully relied on. Thus, my mother had taught me pankration and several other forms of unarmed self defence at an early age.


This girl had no such training, and if my body didn’t respond as quickly or move as smoothly as I would have liked, it was still far more than I would have needed to intercept the girl’s clumsy attempt at a stab. I grabbed her wrist and twisted, while my other hand found the outside of her elbow and pushed, using her own weight and momentum against her.


I felt, rather than heard, the vibration of something crunch beneath my fingers as I leveraged the girl’s arm and threw her past me. She screamed, and for a moment I allowed myself to be surprised. The girl hit the asphalt between two of her fellow gang members, face down, voice only barely muffled as she continued to yowl in pain.


“You…” I started, then shook my head. “You don’t even have your auras unlocked, but you thought you could face me?” My voice quavered a little bit, somewhere between the verge of laughter and the verge of tears.


What kind of idiot criminals were they?


I heard a crunch of shoe sole on asphalt and whirled as two more of the thugs rushed at me. This pair hadn’t attempted to take back their weapons, instead coming at me with bare fists.


They were a little better than the girl had been, some small level of martial arts training evident in their stances and how quickly they lashed out at me. I had seen much better from twelve year olds in my first year at Sanctum.


I wove between the blows before striking out, delivering a sharp kick to the inside of the knee of the first man before driving an elbow into the second’s jaw. I heard more snaps and cracks, but did not worry overmuch. Aura or no, these men were dangerous, at least to those also without aura, and at the moment I wasn’t feeling particularly merciful to people who thought that they could do the grimm’s work for them.


The one I had kicked in the knee staggered forward, and I picked him up and hurled him bodily into his companion, both of them together smashing a third of their number into a wall. With a flick of my wrist, I lifted the discarded knives from the ground and took some inspiration from a girl I had fought recently, making them form a circle, hilts to the center, blades facing out, and letting it wheel it’s way around my head like the demented halo of an angel of battle.


Those I faced who saw me rushed to their feet and fled down the alley, away from the car and the barricade behind it, leaving their incapacitated comrades behind. Cowards. Part of me, a part I thought I had put to sleep long ago, wanted to chase after them, to hurt them like they had wanted to apparently hurt me, like they had no doubt hurt so many others.


The sound of fighting behind me was all that stopped me.


The huntress in the black cloak had finally decided to join in. I saw the rest of the gang members that hadn’t already run moaning or unconscious, scattered around the alleyway like so many broken dolls as the shadowy figure stalked forward, driving the one-eyed thug to back up against the door of the large car. Her back was to me, but I could see the man’s panic in his uncovered eye as he tripped while trying to get past the vehicle. The cloaked figure knelt down as the man fell, and with a short jerk pulled the knife I had embedded in the vehicle out of the metal of the door and placed it against the criminal’s cheek.


She might have said something, but I didn’t hear it over the sound of the man’s scream as she slashed the blade through his remaining eye.


I blanched. The sound he made shook me, as much or more than the blood now pouring down his face. The huntress, on the other hand, seemed completely unperturbed as she dropped the blade to the ground and turned to face me.


Well, that might not be the right word. She was wearing some kind of mask, made of metal and plastic with only the brown of her eyes visible. She cocked her head at me and I let the knives above my head tumble to the street below as well.


“You’re not what I expected,” she said, voice shockingly young sounding. Was she even younger than me? The thought that someone that age could do something like she had just done so casually chilled my blood. “You’ve got some fight in you, not like these pieces of trash,” she continued, kicking the leg of one of the downed criminals for emphasis.


“I feel like maybe we could work together. If you want to meet up again in the future, come and find me.” The huntress swept her cape to the side, and in the moment that it obscured her she went transparent, almost some kind of living shadow. She then stepped back, appearing to phase through the car behind her, and disappeared completely from view.


An interesting semblance, that was for sure. It would definitely be useful in a fight.


I let out the breath I had only just realized I had been holding.


I looked down at my hands, and realized how unfamiliar they appeared. There was a reason that “know it like the back of my hand” was an expression, but as I twisted these around, waving the fingers in front of my face, they were entirely unknown to me. They were completely without the callouses that I had built up over years of combat training, seeming far too small, far too delicate to be my own.


That scared me. The pieces of a puzzle began to fall into place, my height, my voice, my hands, the lack of strength and coordination in my body… it all meant…


The familiar, comforting red glow of my aura, my aura, surrounded this pair of unfamiliar hands in front of my face, and I was suddenly struck with the urge to vomit.


This shouldn’t be possible.


Where was I?


Who was I?


I felt a hand press down on my shoulder from behind me, and I was so startled by the fact that I had let myself be distracted and allowed a potential enemy to sneak up on me that I failed to comprehend the words the voice had said. The same voice I had heard shouting earlier, when I came to.


I whirled around and leapt backward, putting a few feet between myself and the attacker, and only just held myself back from a counter attack as I looked up and saw the fear and concern in the large, red-headed man’s blue eyes. He looked like he had been knocked around, with a few bruises of his own and a cut on his forearm that was bleeding lightly, but he also looked like he didn’t care about any of that as he looked down at me.


“Emma,” he said, and I only now realized that he was repeating what he had been saying as he touched me on the shoulder, voice ragged and hoarse, clearly full of emotion, “Emma, baby, are you alright? Are you hurt?”


I looked him in the eye, and he blinked, concern replaced with confusion for a moment. “Emma, what happened to your eyes?”


I couldn’t continue to hold his gaze, instead turning on my heel and frantically trying to find a window in the car behind me that was unbroken enough to serve as a reflection. It was faint, and slightly distorted, but I found what I was looking for.


Familiar green eyes stared back at me from an unfamiliar face. The face of a girl much younger than me, maybe about thirteen, who had red hair that was more orange than true red, who had some of that hair clearly carved away from around her right temple, who looked just faintly enough like the real me to be eerie without actually looking like she was related to me at all.


Behind me, the man found his voice. “Emma, please honey, tell me what’s wrong?”


I couldn’t break the gaze of the stranger I saw in the reflection of the car window.


I took a breath, and in a quiet, almost broken whisper, I asked myself, “Who is Emma?”


Because she certainly wasn’t Pyrrha Nikos.

 

[BuffetAnarchist]

*Emerges from the depths of lurking in CW to finally start my own story*

Sooooo... yeah. That's what I have so far. I plan to get a decent amount of writing done over the next week so I should have more soon. This story is more of a concept than a fully organized fic at this point. And I'll be the first to admit that the concept is kind of bonkers.

I have a rough idea of where I want the story to go and what the various arcs to get there might look like, but I don't have a formal outline so far because I'm really bad at organization and am a bit of a pants-er. As such I'm more than welcoming of constructive criticism when I have more published. If anyone is interested in possibly helping beta future chapters let me know!

 

[Mannfred Von Carstein]

You know, there’s just something so nice about a fic that takes canon, and without even bothering to say a thing, upends it in the opening scene.

The ramifications an anti-Emma into Emma’s body are going to be entertaining to watch.

 

[gadeel]

How bananas is the PRT going to be when they find out that she can unlock Aura? They may be taken aback that it requires something so lewd as holding hands though.

 

[Kaisu]

Very interesting! Most crossover fics just straight up transplant the character from one world to another, so this is a refreshing approach. Is Emma still in there, I wonder, or has Pyrrha supplanted her completely? The fight between her and the ABB thugs was well done.

 

[Radiorobot]

I'm really digging both this concept and your writing so far. I'm really interested in the fact that at least so far she doesn't have any of Emma's memories at all. There're so many ways she and Emma's family can react right now and I'm excited to see where you take her.

The Fall Maiden straightened, took a step back, and I was suddenly reminded of those words she had spoken in the Emerald Forest, when I had laid my aura against Jaune’s own dormant one, waking it to its grand purpose. The Mantra of the Warrior, an old catechism of my people, used to focus the mind and soul for incredible tasks. A call to greater purpose, a direction for life.

Click to shrink...

I could feel my strength flee, as if it was pulled out of me through the shaft in my chest. My arms fell, and I leaned forward as the Fall Maiden stepped towards me, once more taking her head in her hand, caressing her face. And once more, pain arced through my body.

Click to shrink...

EDITED TO HIGHLIGHT ISSUES

I noticed some perspective anomalies in these two quotes and I think in one or two other spots of the first chapter. It seems like you originally wrote it in the third person then swapped it over to the first person? If so I think that's a good choice since it gets us in Pyrrha's head better. Especially so considering that it seems matters of identity are gonna be a big theme.

How bananas is the PRT going to be when they find out that she can unlock Aura? They may be taken aback that it requires something so lewd as holding hands though.

Click to shrink...

It'll be interesting to find out whether that's actually true or not. I never got all that far into RWBY so I don't know how much literal truth there is behind Aura being a manifestation of the soul. If it is factually true then it's very possible that it's an aspect of souls native only to Remnant.

 

[BuffetAnarchist]

You know, there’s just something so nice about a fic that takes canon, and without even bothering to say a thing, upends it in the opening scene.

The ramifications an anti-Emma into Emma’s body are going to be entertaining to watch.

Click to shrink...

I'll admit that cutting Stations of Canon off at the pass is a major factor to why this fic exists.

Emma's Interlude is hands down my favorite chapter in all of Worm. It re contextualizes everything up until that point in the story beautifully, and turns Emma from Alpha Queen Bitch of Bitchburg into a real, traumatized and deeply flawed human. It's the hinge-point on which Taylor's story turns and she doesn't know anything about it.

I'm a major fan of alternate history and "What if?" scenarios in general, and I've been thinking about the potential of the Alley Incident as Emma's trigger event for a long time. Of course, there are reasons in canon why it isn't one, and those reasons are great. But the "What If" wouldn't leave me alone.

I am also, unfortunately, a shameless RWBY fan. No matter how disappointing the show itself can be at times I love it to pieces because of emotional reasons I can't justify logically. I love Pyrrha's character, and I'm also a massive fan of heroic character deaths, which made me love Pyrrha even more. I'm one of the die-hard Pyrrha/Arkos fans that doesn't want her to come back though. Her death fundamentally changed the tone of the series. I genuinely cried during the scene with her statue in the most recent season. Her death is still affecting the cast and that's important.

So I wanted to use her in a fic in a way that doesn't take away from that emotional influence on canon. Thus, this.

How bananas is the PRT going to be when they find out that she can unlock Aura? They may be taken aback that it requires something so lewd as holding hands though.

Click to shrink...

Such things are still quite a ways off, unfortunately. But that is in the works.

Very interesting! Most crossover fics just straight up transplant the character from one world to another, so this is a refreshing approach. Is Emma still in there, I wonder, or has Pyrrha supplanted her completely? The fight between her and the ABB thugs was well done.

Click to shrink...

Spoilers, darling! And thank you! Portraying fight scenes is something that I'm always the most nervous about, so I'm glad that you liked it. Hope the prose was punchy enough to convey what I wanted to convey on a physical and emotional level.

 

[ccstat]

Interesting! I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with this.

I wonder whether you will make losing her lifeline by having her best friend overwritten by someone else so soon after Annette's death enough to push Taylor towards a trigger event?

 

[bejammin2000]

I too am curious how much of Emma is still inside there...

 

[BuffetAnarchist]

I'm really digging both this concept and your writing so far. I'm really interested in the fact that at least so far she doesn't have any of Emma's memories at all. There're so many ways she and Emma's family can react right now and I'm excited to see where you take her.





EDITED TO HIGHLIGHT ISSUES

I noticed some perspective anomalies in these two quotes and I think in one or two other spots of the first chapter. It seems like you originally wrote it in the third person then swapped it over to the first person? If so I think that's a good choice since it gets us in Pyrrha's head better. Especially so considering that it seems matters of identity are gonna be a big theme.



It'll be interesting to find out whether that's actually true or not. I never got all that far into RWBY so I don't know how much literal truth there is behind Aura being a manifestation of the soul. If it is factually true then it's very possible that it's an aspect of souls native only to Remnant.

Click to shrink...

Guilty as charged! I thought I had caught all of those but thanks for pointing out the ones that slipped through the cracks. Future chapters shouldn't have that problem.

As for the aura problem, and the problem of Emma's memories and her relationship with her parents, that will all be covered in the upcoming chapters. Or, at least, the family stuff will. Aura mechanics will take a while to become fully relevant.

 

[NaanContributor]

Corrections, overlapping with Radiorobot’s.

The Fall Maiden straightened, took a step back, and I was suddenly reminded of those words I had spoken in the Emerald Forest, when I had laid my aura against Jaune’s own dormant one, waking it to its grand purpose.

Click to shrink...

My arms fell, and I leaned forward as the Fall Maiden stepped towards me, once more taking my head in her hand, caressing my face.

Click to shrink...

The point of the stiletto pressing into my cheek would have cut across my face if my aura hadn’t risen to catch and turn it, and it spun like a top before embedding itself into the car door to his right.

Click to shrink...

Isn’t a stiletto explicitly an edge-less knife, and therefore useless for their purpose of cutting off a part of her face? And tops don’t flip end over end, which is what I think you meant.

I felt weak, weaker than I had been when I first entered Sanctum, nearly as weak as the first time my mother had knocked me to my back in our first spar.

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The cloaked figure knelt down as the man fell, and with a short jerk pulled the knife I had embedded in the car out of the metal of the door and placed it against the criminal’s cheek.

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Looking forward to more.

 

[LordsFire]

The second chapter was a solid start. To be honest, I barely skimmed the first, and didn't see anything I didn't already know from watching the show.

You definitely have my interest here.

 

[Nox0101]

First off, I find the premise you're doing very interesting and worth watching. Secondly, I'm wondering how you will do Taylor's characterization in this fic. To say she was a completely different person at this point in time would not be an exaggeration. I think you could take a lot more creative liberties with her character since all we(I) know was that she was a bit of a chatterbox.

 

[BuffetAnarchist]

Corrections, overlapping with Radiorobot’s.





Isn’t a stiletto explicitly an edge-less knife, and therefore useless for their purpose of cutting off a part of her face? And tops don’t flip end over end, which is what I think you meant.





Looking forward to more.

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What can I say but whoops? And thank you, of course.

First off, I find the premise you're doing very interesting and worth watching. Secondly, I'm wondering how you will do Taylor's characterization in this fic. To say she was a completely different person at this point in time would not be an exaggeration. I think you could take a lot more creative liberties with her character since all we(I) know was that she was a bit of a chatterbox.

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The differences in Taylor's characterization are going to be a major part of this story, as well as a major hurdle in actually telling it. Obviously I'm a lot less familiar with old happy-ish TayTay than I am with the Compartmentalization Queen. I hope I can do her justice when she appears.

 

[WinterWombat]

This is a really cool premise! I look forward to seeing more of the story as it spirals out from here. Definitely want to hear what happened to the real/original Emma consciousness, because that will have so, so many implications for how the fic goes from here.

 

[Vandenbz]

Cue training montage! Looking forward to Pyrrha meeting Taylor, that'll make for a FAR different encounter compared to canon, especially if Pyrrha compares Sophia to Cinder and refuses to have anything to do with her. Already curious as to if she'll awaken Taylor's aura. Pyrrha will definitely need to recreate her signature weapons soon too.

As for potential romance, I'm banking on Chris/Kid Win. Similar to Jaune in that he wants to be a hero, holds vast potential, has a nice personality, and tends to act like a dork around girls.

 

[Fecyrineu]

What happend to Emma? Is she dead?

 

[SeigegangScruff]

How bananas is the PRT going to be when they find out that she can unlock Aura? They may be taken aback that it requires something so lewd as holding hands though.

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The Youth Guard would never allow such degeneracy to occur

 

[Ariel Schnee]

What happend to Emma? Is she dead?

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Hopefully.

The Youth Guard would never allow such degeneracy to occur

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Sadly, I can actually see this happening. I live in America. I know about two seventeen year old high school students who were given detention, and in-school suspension, for 'acting in a lewd and provocative manner' while in school. They were holding hands, walking closely to each other down the hall, and each one telling the other how deeply they were in love with them. They'd been dating for months. And they're also engaged.

@@@

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I'd really, really, really like to see more of this fic soon because it's so good!^_^

 

[Fecyrineu]

Hopefully.

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That's kinda cold. Emma at this istance wasn't a cruel bitch, just a a traumatized kid scared to death.

 

[SeigegangScruff]

Sadly, I can actually see this happening. I live in America. I know about two seventeen year old high school students who were given detention, and in-school suspension, for 'acting in a lewd and provocative manner' while in school. They were holding hands, walking closely to each other down the hall, and each one telling the other how deeply they were in love with them. They'd been dating for months. And they're also engaged.

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Imma say this, with no intention of being rude, or insulting, but a lot of the stuff I see in the news, just portrays the United States, as being excessively strange. Like hearing about a school announcing a school shooter (when it was only a drill), and saying specifically that it is not a drill causing mass panic - and later hearing it justified by them despite injured students, or a student shaving their head (in support of their friend who has lost their hair due to chemo) being suspended, and any number of just outright strange things. Then there are the overly controversial incidences, which I don't want to mention here out of fear of triggering someone.

I live in Trinidad, an island in the Caribbean, so I understand weird shit. Hell, we have our own local memes of "hashtag - Trinidadisnotarealplace". But some of the decisions I see being made by authority figures in America, truly make me question - who decided it was a good idea to let these inmates leave the asylum? And what genius decided it was a good idea to put them in positions of power?

 

[Hughmann]

How bananas is the PRT going to be when they find out that she can unlock Aura? They may be taken aback that it requires something so lewd as holding hands though.

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Watch out, mentioning minors engaging in debauchery like hand holding and calling someone by their first name can get you banned pretty quickly.

 

[Radiorobot]

...

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I'm not gonna give any reply just want to say that I and others don't want the mods to have a reason to be up in here.