Interlude: The Nobody. (Part 2)
Prok
Go play Star Fetchers
- Location
- Scotland
... Allow me a moment of weakness.
If I had not put up the omake rules, if I wasn't offering points for them, if I had just come out and asked, "I would love to see people writing their own snippets and posting them in the thread," would you have?
I know the 'enjoy yourself' rule was more a joke than anything, but... how true is it?
Anyway, it's finally been voted on, and part 2 of The Nobody interlude is good to go, and part 3 will be up directly after!
To finish a thought-
Ok, ok, time to be a professional- the first four parts, I'm separating them with the horizontal lines here- beautiful. Between you and Clever, you've pretty much captured exactly what Jaune was like pre-Transistor. Frequent migraines, a grasp for maths and computer programming far, far beyond his educational level, eventually reaching the point where you could, true to your skills description, easily grab a Bachelor's degree in any computing course you even looked at, Mrs Platt, the book, the ostracism caused by his unlocked Aura and , I would happily slap a Canon sticker on those bits alone.
Everything else is divergent, bar the part where the Transistor actually comes into existence, that, one 200 word snippet, sent shivers down my spine, because you got what I've been trying to get ever since I started writing this- what the Transistor... is.
I've gone on about silicon and circuitry before, and it's never felt right, that's always felt too weak to me, but this, a perpetual motion machine powered by energy created through equations that are powered by the energy created through the equations...
You've pointed out to me that I'm thinking too small when it comes to your Semblance. I've been thinking too... mundanely. Thank you.
20 Fate Points and Partial Canon status.
... Where was I? Ah, yes, to finally finish a thought-
You code them yourself, with each one taking a couple weeks at least to create. If you scan someone's Semblance, a process that takes several hours, you get a small bonus to the accuracy of the Function compared to if you'd just tried to eyeball it- think of it as the difference between drawing from memory and drawing from an actual reference. The full mechanics will be discussed fairly soon, as well as an opening for Function suggestions.
Ok, ok, third time's the charm-
To finally finish a thought-
To... finally finish a thought...
Nothing? Nobody else? Great!
To finally finish a thought, I feel, in RWBY, between the Grimm, the White Fang, Salem's lot, and, hell, even Torchwick's goons... it's easy to forget that people make perfectly good monsters on their own.
|||
You take a sip of the drink set in front of you, the mixture of vodka and tomato juice, hints of salt, pepper, some Shade sauce, lemon, a hint of beef stock, which is a nice twist, gives a nice, meaty backbone to the drink- yes, the Bloody Maiden.
It's like a comforting meal in a glass.
Setting it down, you manage not to jerk back as a drop of blood falls from the ceiling, directly into your drink. You look up and see the corpse wedged between the ceiling boards, hanging directly above your glass.
... Oh. Yeah.
You did that.
Somewhere between... drinks two and three, you believe?
... Eh, you're paying for it anyway- you pick it up and take a deeper drink, the iron of the blood adding another layer to the drink, as well as making the name that much more literal. Soon, the glass is drained, and it joins its companions on the other side of the table. You're on... four, now, you think?
Lifting a bony hand, noting the gentle sway to it, you gently tap the counter to get the barmaid's attention, startling the still-shaking girl. The motion draws your eyes to her, and she immediately stops moving. Already, black streaks of mascara stain her cheeks from all the quiet crying she's been doing since you finished your works.
"So, that's the Bloody Maiden, a strawberry daiquiri, a sex on the beach- two… sex, on the beaches... sexes on the beach... a threesome on the beach, blast it- what else is on the menu?"
She just blubbers, and you find yourself smiling at her. You would call it a warm smile, but you don't really... do warmth. Really, you're just showing your teeth.
She breaks further into hysterics, quickly babbling something about... Atlesians?
"... White Atlesian?" You guess.
She nods her head hard, desperate to do something that'll keep you happy.
"Sounds good. Er, use one of the harsher vodkas you have- I like a bit of roughness to it."
The barmaid begins to work, frantically grabbing everything she can to make your next order, uncaring of the bottles or glasses she knocks off shelves, working under the illusion that you're going to do to her what you did to the rest of the bar. You're not, you need her because she talked to him, and you can tell she talked to him because every barmaid tries to talk to him- it's like he radiates some aura of 'please talk to me about my problems!'-ness despite his attitude saying otherwise.
Still, you're going to be waiting a while, so you spin in your stool, catching yourself on the countertop and giving yourself a moment while your brain stops spinning.
Oof. Best make this the last one before you get down to business. While she makes up your next drink, you look out on the fruits of your labours.
As always, it started with someone thinking you were worth picking on.
College kid, drunk off his ass, armour and a weapon at his side- tournament scholarship, Hunter-in-training, you don't particularly care about anything besides the fact that he just felt like being annoying. So, when he put an arm on your shoulder, leaning in to try and intimidate you, you gently took it off.
At the elbow.
It took him a full three seconds to realise what you'd done, and the look on his face when he did! And the scream! He screamed like a little girl!
God, you could have pissed yourself laughing!
Obviously, his teammates took offence to that, so they had to go, you think a good chunk of the girl's sitting on that table over there, you definitely needed her for your surprise, you're not sure where the rest of her is, one of them you just turned into a red smear on the wall, the third...
What did you do with the third?
No, seriously, where the hell is he- frowning, you look around, unable to spot your fourth victim of the night. Lessee, number one, lying right in front of you, missing an arm, face inverted, seems right, number six is in various pieces inside numbers seven through ten, most of two's on the table directly in front of you, delicately arranged for your surprise, you remember that much. You take a moment to look over the patterns you painted in their blood again and- follow the lines, look for the shapes, don't let your eyes focus on any one piece for too long- find them correct for their purpose.
... You look up...
Mmm... no, that was the guy who tried to smash a bottle over your head. Hence why he got the compression treatment.
Where the blue blazes is he?! Ok, ok, retrace your steps, he was... number four, so he came before the bisection, but after the pasting and the heart-breaking you gone and did, so he must have been... you hear a gentle creaking behind one of the wooden pillars, and lean out a bit to see what it is, and spot your missing person, hanging from the rafters, arms splayed out to the sides.
... Right, yes, of course! That one was fun. They all were, but that one was new to you. You haven't done tendons much before, that was, that was very nice improvisation, if you may say so yourself.
Behind you, you hear the shaky rattle of glass on wood, and turn to see a nice, squat glass filled with vodka, coffee liqueur, and what you hope is heavy cream and not milk. A quick sip tells you that, yes, yes it is heavy cream. Excellent.
"So!" You start, making the girl flinch. "I... am looking for someone. Big guy, more pile of sentient scar tissue than a human being, beard like someone unclogged the drains at a pet groomer's?"
"I-I-I saw him! H-he was- he was j-just sitting there-" She points at the seat you're sitting in, in the middle of the bar, before stammering through a story about what drink he ordered, and how she pointed out the college team to get him to open up and oh good God woman get on with it!
"Get to the point. What did he say he was doing?" You tell her flatly. The slight squeak she gives is almost pathetic.
"He-he-he said he was looking for his d-daughter, er, A-Ada!"
You take another sip, enjoying the richness and the slight acidity the coffee liqueur gives it, the slight roughness of the vodka saving it from just feeling like a boozy milkshake.
"Ah, Ada. I remember her. A tiny girl, last I saw her- barely scraped four feet and change. She was lovely, a bit of a daddy's girl, but nice enough to chat to."
She nods, just agreeing with you out of fear, instead of actually engaging you in conversation. You huff a little, but choose not to hold it against her. You mean, you did kill the rest of her clientele. You doubt you'd be very chatty either.
You get to it and ask her if he said where he was going.
"V-Vale! He said he was going to search for her in Vale, b-because she would have been stuck to walking and hitchhiking!"
Hmm. If she is in Vale... referring to your own mental map of the Kingdoms, hazy as it is, you believe...
Yes, you believe you know how to get to Vale before him! Excellent!
You begin to laugh, a shrill, shuddering, clicking noise, the girl freezing in place like if she stays still, the sound will stop.
"Wonderful! Why, if I leave right away, I might be able to get there before him, surprise them both!" You tell her, downing the rest of the White Atlesian in your hand, slamming it down on the table, tearing a scream from her throat.
Heurgh. That's really starting to get on your nerves quite a bit. Really, really on your nerves, it's just such a grating sound-
Well, you have what you came for. And the girl does mix a damn good Bloody Maiden, even scared out of her mind. That kind of talent deserves to be rewarded. No, you won't kill her.
Just... shut her up a little. You reach your arm out a little, your Semblance shifting the bone and flesh like putty until your hand covers her mouth even as she backs away, your arm looking like an outstretched coil of rope.
"Shh... it's like listening to nails on a chalkboard." You tell her, gently pinching her lips together, before changing your mind and just wiping them away completely.
You bring your hand back, flicking the splat of flesh away from your hand as you do. She paws at the smooth skin where her mouth should be, still silently screaming through her nose.
... You're bored.
Getting up off your stool, you walk around the bar, eventually finding... eh, somebody's wallet, and pulling out a few cards of lien, lobbing them onto the counter before putting it back where it should go.
"That should about cover it!" You call back as you walk out, poking various lines and streaks of drying blood, pulsing your Aura through them as you do, before gently closing the door behind you. That should keep them busy- you think he's got deputies with him now.
You take a deep breath, the brisk midnight air cool on your face, the thin cotton shirt you have woefully inadequate for keeping the chill out of your bones.
That's alright, though. You like the cold anyway.
As you begin to walk down the road, only the slightest of sway to your swagger, you feel compelled to whistle a tune you haven't thought of in a long time.
And with that, it's time to move along.
Always is.
If I had not put up the omake rules, if I wasn't offering points for them, if I had just come out and asked, "I would love to see people writing their own snippets and posting them in the thread," would you have?
I know the 'enjoy yourself' rule was more a joke than anything, but... how true is it?
She Shines, if Spotify is to be believed, is its own single, which might explain why it's not included on the soundtrack- it was released about two years later, in 2016. Personally, I've never heard it in-game, and the release date, at least to me, hints as to why, but I'm no expert in these matters.
Anyway, it's finally been voted on, and part 2 of The Nobody interlude is good to go, and part 3 will be up directly after!
To finish a thought-
AAAAAGH. AAAAAAGH.
Ok, ok, time to be a professional- the first four parts, I'm separating them with the horizontal lines here- beautiful. Between you and Clever, you've pretty much captured exactly what Jaune was like pre-Transistor. Frequent migraines, a grasp for maths and computer programming far, far beyond his educational level, eventually reaching the point where you could, true to your skills description, easily grab a Bachelor's degree in any computing course you even looked at, Mrs Platt, the book, the ostracism caused by his unlocked Aura and , I would happily slap a Canon sticker on those bits alone.
Everything else is divergent, bar the part where the Transistor actually comes into existence, that, one 200 word snippet, sent shivers down my spine, because you got what I've been trying to get ever since I started writing this- what the Transistor... is.
I've gone on about silicon and circuitry before, and it's never felt right, that's always felt too weak to me, but this, a perpetual motion machine powered by energy created through equations that are powered by the energy created through the equations...
You've pointed out to me that I'm thinking too small when it comes to your Semblance. I've been thinking too... mundanely. Thank you.
20 Fate Points and Partial Canon status.
... Where was I? Ah, yes, to finally finish a thought-
You code them yourself, with each one taking a couple weeks at least to create. If you scan someone's Semblance, a process that takes several hours, you get a small bonus to the accuracy of the Function compared to if you'd just tried to eyeball it- think of it as the difference between drawing from memory and drawing from an actual reference. The full mechanics will be discussed fairly soon, as well as an opening for Function suggestions.
Ok, ok, third time's the charm-
To finally finish a thought-
J, C, N, T, jacinth is a reddish-orange variety of zircon.
To... finally finish a thought...
Nothing? Nobody else? Great!
To finally finish a thought, I feel, in RWBY, between the Grimm, the White Fang, Salem's lot, and, hell, even Torchwick's goons... it's easy to forget that people make perfectly good monsters on their own.
|||
You take a sip of the drink set in front of you, the mixture of vodka and tomato juice, hints of salt, pepper, some Shade sauce, lemon, a hint of beef stock, which is a nice twist, gives a nice, meaty backbone to the drink- yes, the Bloody Maiden.
It's like a comforting meal in a glass.
Setting it down, you manage not to jerk back as a drop of blood falls from the ceiling, directly into your drink. You look up and see the corpse wedged between the ceiling boards, hanging directly above your glass.
... Oh. Yeah.
You did that.
Somewhere between... drinks two and three, you believe?
... Eh, you're paying for it anyway- you pick it up and take a deeper drink, the iron of the blood adding another layer to the drink, as well as making the name that much more literal. Soon, the glass is drained, and it joins its companions on the other side of the table. You're on... four, now, you think?
Lifting a bony hand, noting the gentle sway to it, you gently tap the counter to get the barmaid's attention, startling the still-shaking girl. The motion draws your eyes to her, and she immediately stops moving. Already, black streaks of mascara stain her cheeks from all the quiet crying she's been doing since you finished your works.
"So, that's the Bloody Maiden, a strawberry daiquiri, a sex on the beach- two… sex, on the beaches... sexes on the beach... a threesome on the beach, blast it- what else is on the menu?"
She just blubbers, and you find yourself smiling at her. You would call it a warm smile, but you don't really... do warmth. Really, you're just showing your teeth.
She breaks further into hysterics, quickly babbling something about... Atlesians?
"... White Atlesian?" You guess.
She nods her head hard, desperate to do something that'll keep you happy.
"Sounds good. Er, use one of the harsher vodkas you have- I like a bit of roughness to it."
The barmaid begins to work, frantically grabbing everything she can to make your next order, uncaring of the bottles or glasses she knocks off shelves, working under the illusion that you're going to do to her what you did to the rest of the bar. You're not, you need her because she talked to him, and you can tell she talked to him because every barmaid tries to talk to him- it's like he radiates some aura of 'please talk to me about my problems!'-ness despite his attitude saying otherwise.
Still, you're going to be waiting a while, so you spin in your stool, catching yourself on the countertop and giving yourself a moment while your brain stops spinning.
Oof. Best make this the last one before you get down to business. While she makes up your next drink, you look out on the fruits of your labours.
As always, it started with someone thinking you were worth picking on.
College kid, drunk off his ass, armour and a weapon at his side- tournament scholarship, Hunter-in-training, you don't particularly care about anything besides the fact that he just felt like being annoying. So, when he put an arm on your shoulder, leaning in to try and intimidate you, you gently took it off.
At the elbow.
It took him a full three seconds to realise what you'd done, and the look on his face when he did! And the scream! He screamed like a little girl!
God, you could have pissed yourself laughing!
Obviously, his teammates took offence to that, so they had to go, you think a good chunk of the girl's sitting on that table over there, you definitely needed her for your surprise, you're not sure where the rest of her is, one of them you just turned into a red smear on the wall, the third...
What did you do with the third?
No, seriously, where the hell is he- frowning, you look around, unable to spot your fourth victim of the night. Lessee, number one, lying right in front of you, missing an arm, face inverted, seems right, number six is in various pieces inside numbers seven through ten, most of two's on the table directly in front of you, delicately arranged for your surprise, you remember that much. You take a moment to look over the patterns you painted in their blood again and- follow the lines, look for the shapes, don't let your eyes focus on any one piece for too long- find them correct for their purpose.
... You look up...
Mmm... no, that was the guy who tried to smash a bottle over your head. Hence why he got the compression treatment.
Where the blue blazes is he?! Ok, ok, retrace your steps, he was... number four, so he came before the bisection, but after the pasting and the heart-breaking you gone and did, so he must have been... you hear a gentle creaking behind one of the wooden pillars, and lean out a bit to see what it is, and spot your missing person, hanging from the rafters, arms splayed out to the sides.
... Right, yes, of course! That one was fun. They all were, but that one was new to you. You haven't done tendons much before, that was, that was very nice improvisation, if you may say so yourself.
Behind you, you hear the shaky rattle of glass on wood, and turn to see a nice, squat glass filled with vodka, coffee liqueur, and what you hope is heavy cream and not milk. A quick sip tells you that, yes, yes it is heavy cream. Excellent.
"So!" You start, making the girl flinch. "I... am looking for someone. Big guy, more pile of sentient scar tissue than a human being, beard like someone unclogged the drains at a pet groomer's?"
"I-I-I saw him! H-he was- he was j-just sitting there-" She points at the seat you're sitting in, in the middle of the bar, before stammering through a story about what drink he ordered, and how she pointed out the college team to get him to open up and oh good God woman get on with it!
"Get to the point. What did he say he was doing?" You tell her flatly. The slight squeak she gives is almost pathetic.
"He-he-he said he was looking for his d-daughter, er, A-Ada!"
You take another sip, enjoying the richness and the slight acidity the coffee liqueur gives it, the slight roughness of the vodka saving it from just feeling like a boozy milkshake.
"Ah, Ada. I remember her. A tiny girl, last I saw her- barely scraped four feet and change. She was lovely, a bit of a daddy's girl, but nice enough to chat to."
She nods, just agreeing with you out of fear, instead of actually engaging you in conversation. You huff a little, but choose not to hold it against her. You mean, you did kill the rest of her clientele. You doubt you'd be very chatty either.
You get to it and ask her if he said where he was going.
"V-Vale! He said he was going to search for her in Vale, b-because she would have been stuck to walking and hitchhiking!"
Hmm. If she is in Vale... referring to your own mental map of the Kingdoms, hazy as it is, you believe...
Yes, you believe you know how to get to Vale before him! Excellent!
You begin to laugh, a shrill, shuddering, clicking noise, the girl freezing in place like if she stays still, the sound will stop.
"Wonderful! Why, if I leave right away, I might be able to get there before him, surprise them both!" You tell her, downing the rest of the White Atlesian in your hand, slamming it down on the table, tearing a scream from her throat.
Heurgh. That's really starting to get on your nerves quite a bit. Really, really on your nerves, it's just such a grating sound-
Well, you have what you came for. And the girl does mix a damn good Bloody Maiden, even scared out of her mind. That kind of talent deserves to be rewarded. No, you won't kill her.
Just... shut her up a little. You reach your arm out a little, your Semblance shifting the bone and flesh like putty until your hand covers her mouth even as she backs away, your arm looking like an outstretched coil of rope.
"Shh... it's like listening to nails on a chalkboard." You tell her, gently pinching her lips together, before changing your mind and just wiping them away completely.
You bring your hand back, flicking the splat of flesh away from your hand as you do. She paws at the smooth skin where her mouth should be, still silently screaming through her nose.
... You're bored.
Getting up off your stool, you walk around the bar, eventually finding... eh, somebody's wallet, and pulling out a few cards of lien, lobbing them onto the counter before putting it back where it should go.
"That should about cover it!" You call back as you walk out, poking various lines and streaks of drying blood, pulsing your Aura through them as you do, before gently closing the door behind you. That should keep them busy- you think he's got deputies with him now.
You take a deep breath, the brisk midnight air cool on your face, the thin cotton shirt you have woefully inadequate for keeping the chill out of your bones.
That's alright, though. You like the cold anyway.
As you begin to walk down the road, only the slightest of sway to your swagger, you feel compelled to whistle a tune you haven't thought of in a long time.
And with that, it's time to move along.
Always is.
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