So yeah, I felt that my first part was a bit weak and lacking so I decided to redo ONLY the 1st part and instead explore more into Ruby and Cinder's relationship prior to them working together.
FYI: This takes WAY before my last 2 previous posts.
So I just had a dream today where my Uncle from my mother's side had a Disco Elysium Skill Page and one of the skills I remember he had was called "Atomic Heart".
I don't remember the exact skill description but apparently the skill was for "wounded lovers" or "heartbroken exes" and it helped you recover from the loss of your loved ones abandoning/leaving you.
Yeah, just wanted to share that.
(Unfortunately I haven't got a cool name for the fanfic yet and am open for any suggestions)
The story takes in a really depressing future where team RWBY win and defeat Salem but at great personal sacrifice and Ruby becoming an extremely bitter and jaded person as a result of her trauma.
Additionally, in this AU certain events happened differently compared to what happened in the canon show which played in the hand of why this version of future is so depressing.
#Cain Capricorn.
Bastard son of a noble faunus family from Menagerie, he is a mountain goat faunus who was born as a result of his mother's infidelity and as such was rejected by his family of tiger faunuses and bullied by his older brother for being a "prey" type faunus.
His only source of comfort were stories of a "hero" known as Adam Taurus who heroically died protecting Menagerie from a monster.
(While Adam and his WF did attack Beacon, his plan to kill and replace Sierra was foiled when a large powerful Grimm attacked Menagerie forcing him to fight it at the cost of dying to his injuries he sustained from the battle, his death led to him and his faction being hailed as heroes despite the dark truth behind his crimes)
Cain is such a hardcore Adam fanboy that he:
Collects every single one of his merch,
Commissioned a replica of his weapon,
Dyed his hair with red accents,
Wears clothes with design very similar to Adam,
And ollows a "brutal training routine" which consists of punching solid wood and stone until his hands bleed.
One day, after getting into a fight with his brother he would accidentally beat him up to a pulp after the latter broke his Adam Taurus action figure. In fear of being punished by his family he would run away from Menagerie and move to Vale.
#Engel Schnee.
Daughter of Whitley Schnee, she was essentially born with a rare form of Atavism causing her to be born as a bird faunus with wings despite both of her parents being normal human.
Her grandfather, Jacques Schnee (who unfortunately wasn't arrested in this AU and continued to torment his children) was completely disgusted by this and forced Whitley to have her wings surgically removed.
Whitley thankfully managed to talk him out of having his wings cut off as yet as the surgery may pose some risk to the health of his child. And so poor Engel llived a good portion of her childhood wearing a tight vest that hide her wings from the public.
When the time came for her surgery, she begged and cried her father to not take her wings away from her which angered Jacquees to the point that he struck her across the face in order to silence her cries.
This was the last straw for Whitley who in a fit of blind rage and years of bottled negative emotions/trauma, killed his father by bashing his skull in with a nearby ornament in front of his daughter.
After that, the SDC's went bankrupt due to several scandals and rumours surrounding the family. Poor Whitley despite killing his father to protect his daughter became a fragile shell of man he once and fell into a deep depression.
Meanwhile his daughter became a violent sociopath due to all of the trauma in her childhood and hatred for men like Jacquees, as she would brutally hunt down, torture and slaughter any and all Anti-Faunus Activists.
#Paulie "Duke" Xiong
Heir to the surviving remnants of the once infamous Xiong family, he used to hear stories about their criminal organization's glory days. He is also aware of their subsequent fall due to the incompetence of his foolish father.
He is a young conman who uses what little connections he has to sell various faulty goods such as art replicas, low quality materials (such as dust and food), terrible secondhand weapons and most importantly, "fake" magical relics.
He desperately seeks to restore his family's reputation but his efforts just lead to failures and him becoming a laughingstock within the criminal underworld.
He is also the "leader"/founder of my protagonist's team, he found Cain almost about to be arrested by the Vale authorities, he helped him escape and then offered him a place to stay in-exchange for him to be his bodyguard which the latter agreed.
He met Engel after getting kidnapped by a bunch of thugs he scammed, he was about to be beaten and killed when she descended into their secret base and slaughtered every single one of the criminals due to their aggressive Anti-Faunus activities.
(He was lucky that she agreed to his offer because he had no prejudice against Faunus and also because she wanted to humor him but overtime liked hanging around with him)
And the last member of their group is...
#Ella Fall.
During the final battle, Cinder was reverted back to a baby due to magic/Grimm hijinks. Ruby wanted to kill her but after some convincing from her friends and her last shred of humanity she chose to spare her.
Cinder was given a second chance at life as she was raised at a slightly better orphanage then the one she had been in before, she received a new name "Ella" but due to faint memories of her past life, she remembered her last name "Fall".
She would constantly be haunted by a doubtful Ruby who would frequently visit her at night during her sleep every time she did something "bad". She did this to scare Ella away from following the same path as before and still holding negative resentment towards Cinder as well as fearing that she may revert back to her old ways.
Despite Ella being a scared and meek kid, she frequently put up the act of a rebellious delinquent as a form of coping mechanism against the "Boogeyman" haunting her. This eventually culminated into her running away from the orphanage and living on the streets by herself where she was then found and taken in by Paulie.
With each of the character's backstory out of the way, the main story starts when Paulie gets his hands on a magical artificat that can supposedly allow them to travel back in time.
And since each one of them has strong reasons to do so (Engel wants to kill Jacquees and free her family from him, Cain wants to meet his idol Adam, Paulie wants to learn how to improve his semblance and restore his family reputation while Ella wants to know more about her strange visions) they use the device to frequently jump back in time and to their future.
Now...with that all out of the way, you may think that this feels like a super edgy, depressing and dark fanfic. Well, what if I told you that this is actually a COMEDY.
You see I only explained you their backstories, I haven't really told you much about the characters themselves.
Firstly, Cain is a HARDCORE HARDCORE Adam fanboy. Like the type to "jump off a cliff if he told him to", combined with the fact that he is physically SWOLE but he uses a fighting style he has zero experience with.
Like, he has been punching trees and boulders every day since his childhood meaning he punches like an absolute truck meaning he should be more of brute force breaker yet he wieids a sword that requires dexterity. (He is pretty fast though)
Also he actively chooses not to use aura and evade attacks, causing him to frequently stack injuries in every single one of his fights. All because he heard that Adam only used his aura when he was 18 so he swore to not use his until he became 18 himself.
Overall evaluation: dumbass.
Then we have Paulie who is OBSESSED with learning magic despite the brother gods having taken away all of humanity's magic. Though this does not stop him from collecting and hoarding various supposed magical artificats from around the world.
Eventually, this obsession (and possibly exposure to so much background magic) caused him to discover his semblance which allows him to "JAILBREAK" the magic inside of them and FORCEFULLY ACTIVATE the magic item despite any and all original arcane restrictions.
Although unfortunately it doesn't allow him to properly control the magic item, just activate it. Which paired with the fact he has no idea what the item originally does usually always causes some kind of chaotic effect.
But not as chaotic as perhaps his grimore which allows him to CAST ABSOLUTELY ANY RANDOM EFFECT which ranges from summoning six boxes of pizzas, forcing everyone in the vicinity to sing, turn weapons into giant Power Ranger mechs that can combine together or summon an average guy
(think DnD Wild Magic but funnier).
He also wields one of the WORST weapons a hunter could ever have. He calls it the "Doom Broom" and it is a smaller, more lightweight version of his father's rocket launcher that can turn into a club.
Unfortunately, the reason why it is terrible is because it takes TOO LONG TO RELOAD and fires only a SINGLE strong dust projectile. The only cool thing is that he can ride it to propel himself around in the air (think how a witch flies on a broom)
Meanwhile, Engel is the most sharp tonal contrast of a person you can imagine. She looks like a sweet, innocent and pampered princess (think Robin from HSR) yet has the absolutely mole vile imagination and potty mouth.
Her favorite hobbies are drawing horrifying gorey art of Jacquees Schnee (or just literally any Anti-Faunus activist), listening to both heavy metal and pop rock, studying Biology to torture people effectively longer and enjoy greasy fast food.
She is possibly the only person who has any actual combat experience due to the fact she has killed people with her giant chainsaw that also has detachable, knife sized, magnetic blades that she can conceal within her wings or throw as projectiles.
She also has a very fucked up semblance which is a mutated version of the original Schnee family semblance. This horrifying version allows Engel to create copies of PEOPLE she has killed.
Though the most insane part is that she can make these summons retain their injuries before they died without the injuries hampering their ability to fight.
This has led to her having the ability to call upon ghostly disfigured ghouls that can wield their entrails as whips or float in the air despite having no physical body or exist as constantly burning humanoid figures.
Oh and did I mention that she is possibly a cannibal?
And lastly there is Ella....who is possibly the least insane member of the group. She likes to pretend that she is a "tough girl" but rather is very "conflict avoidant" as she is also the weakest member of the team.
She wields a heavily modified Crescent Rose, left to her by the Boogeyman during their encounters (though her friends think she found it in the junkyard), which she has absolutely no idea how to properly wield and so she just fumbles with it a lot.
Her only usefulness to the team is that her semblance has completely resetted itself, changing from being able to manipulate heat, into being able to produce flames that can heal people. (Yup, she is a healer)
However, she does have one additional unique ability which is that she has a SILVER EYE. NOT EYES. Just one that contrasts her regular amber eye. This silver eye is sadly only at 25% power compared to how strong an average silver eyes maiden meaning it's capabilities are highly limited.
So what do you guys think? Any feedback.