Remnants of the Past

Disclaimer: Ya know how it goes: This insane individual own's nothing but whatever what escapes his insane mind. Fire Emblem belongs to Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth and Oum (may his soul rest in piece).

- A Forest -

An endlessness of whiteness devoured entire horizons in it's all erasing presence. On its edges, a single black drop formed a continent of shadows... or did they not?

"Two years worth of memories? You truly have no recollection of your past?"

Through the canopy of midnight-black trees, a purple shade and an emerald one moved.

The purple shade flickered dismissively. "Considering that my... father... is apparently the leader of a group of religious nutcases, I'm not particularly interested in regaining the memories of my past. I was curious before, but now..."

The emerald shade stopped in its path and... faced the purple one. "So you pretend as if it never existed?"

Purple flickered again. "Well, I cannot ignore the fact that I didn't had a past, but for all intends and purposes... Like I said, I will not actively search for my memories anymore. For me, my life began when a certain brickhead of a prince reached out with his hand and helped me to my feet."

The emerald shade flickered in agitation. "And everything before that point is... unimportant to you?"

Purple shifted from side to side. "Well... I guess my birth was rather important..."

"And what about your friends? Your teachers? Your family? Your parents? The memories you made with them before you lost them?"

"... What about them?" The purple shade was clearly uncomfortable.

Emerald... just stared... accusatorily at purple. "How... how can you just... dismiss them so easily?"

Purple flickered uncomfortably again. "Well... it's not like it was my choice that they vanished..."

"People will not vanish that easily. Instead, they will wonder why their friend, their pupil, their child had left them behind, what hurtful things they may have done for you to abandon them."

The purple shade remained silent.

"Your father may be - please excuse my usage of the current era's slang - a dastard, but I highly doubt everyone else you had known in your past was the same as him. And you are okay with forgetting all memories attached to them?"

Purple and Emerald stood alone under the shadowy trees as they slowly got consumed by the ever present whiteness.

The darker shade... brightened. "Tiki... I can theorize about endless possibilities as of how I had been raised, but, in the end, it won't give me my childhood back. No matter how long I may dream about being engaged to a certain royal, it won't change the fact that I am not and never will be. I wish I could pause and regain my past, as hurtful as it may be, yet the fact remains that I cannot."

"The only thing I can do now is to move onwards."

Oh, if only that foolish dragon had known the truth.

"Chrom, we HAVE to do something..."

Her head was hurting... or, well, she thought her head was hurting. It was a head that was hurting, wasn't it? It was hard to tell since everything else that wasn't a head was hurting as well.

"What do you propose we do?"

Then there were voices in her hurting head that hurt her head in a rather hurtful manner. How much 'hurts' could one hurtful sentence contain again?

"I-I don't know!"

Something bright - light, she recalled - blinded her as her eyes opened themselves without her consent. She would have to seriously consider to change the specifics of their contract... 'Wait, no, that makes no sense.'

"I see you are awake now."

'... Wait a second...' The voices. These hurtful noises... She knew those voices! Them and the persons they belong to! These persons also had faces! And quirks! And clothing! And Bear Meat! Don't forget the Bear Meat!

"Hey there."

Through the brightness, a mop of blue and one of blonde hair greeted her vision... that was the name, right? Vision? Wasn't it also related to battlefield tactics? Something like that? Whatever it was, she was good in it, awesome even. That much, she knew at least.

"There are better places to nap than on the ground, you know?"

Ground? Ground... She hadn't been ground down to dust, did she- oh. Oh, the ground! As in the plane everyone walks on. Yes, yes, yes, yes, she knew exactly what that voice belonging to one of the blobs spoke of. Mostly. Definitely. Assuredly most definitely.

"Here, give me your hand."

Give him - it was a male speaking, wasn't it - my hand? As in, in marriage? She didn't wanted to marry yet... But chances were that the blue blob just asked her to remove her hand from her arm - it was connected to an 'arm', wasn't it - and hand it to him, but... that sounded rather bloody. She didn't liked bloody, so she reached out instead. The blob would have to deal with that.

So she grabbed his hand...

... and passed through.

"Huh?"

The woman - Girl? Child? Elder? - blinked... and blinked again. The hand was gone... and the blob too... as well as the other blob. In fact, the entire whiteness was gone. Her head hurt, though.

All in all, she was now very confused. And alone. And cold. And hurting. And clueless.

And hungry.

Very, very hungry.

And maybe a bit thirsty, too.

Unfortunately, there wasn't very much she could currently do against these facts. Instead, the person that successfully managed to identify herself as a female representative of her species - whatever this species may be - rubbed her eyes to get whatever made everything in her vision blur out and, afterwards, proceeded to take a good look at her surroundings.

The first thing that came to her immediate attention was the fact that it was nighttime. The second thing was a tree. The third thing was another tree, followed by - one could guess it - a blade of grass, a leaf and, to the surprise of no one, the female's bare feet... and a birch tree. Behind these trees, the female could see even more trees... and far much more behind those, too.

'An accumulation of a lot of different speciesof trees are commonly referred to as a Forest if I'm not mistaken...'

Another thing the female realized was that her... that she knew a lot of stuff, but didn't knew how she knew it all. She knew how to beat an army of one million men, but didn't knew what exactly the word 'men' referred to. Some part within her - something she couldn't quite identify - murmured that they were either some kind of disease or a weird species of genocidal, warmongering hypocrites. The female wasn't quite sure if the source of the information the shady part within her got it from was all that trustworthy, though. In fact, this hypothesis seemed to gain quite a lot of source material in the form of sloppily hidden past experiences in the form of 'memories' - whatever that word meant - to strengthen its claim.

However, this shady part within her also told the female that she had a name... and proceeded with an attempt to hurt her with profanities unheard to mankind... whatever that mankind was.

"Oh, shut up! You have NO idea how much I went out of my way to KICK YOUR BUTT OUT OF THE VOID! AGAIN!"

It was just unfortunate that the shady part hadn't actually used the female's name yet and had instead opted to continue her rather one sided argument with the rest of her mind. "I have a name, you know!"

But the female didn't bother to pay this shady part of her any more mind and, instead, just let her gaze wander skywards. "Yea, yea, just ignore the beginning stages of your insanity. It worked oh-so well every other blasted time you PRACTICALLY KILLED US!"

On an ocean of stars, "Oh no, she's quoting from The Heritors of Arcadia again. Joy." in its midst hung a shattered moon. "Huh, you noticed just now? You're sure you don't need glasses?" The female "Reflet. Your far more competent mother graced you with the name Reflet." who just remembered her name "I wonder how. Not." wondered what kind of event managed to put the celestial object in such a state, but, in the end, doubted it would matter in the present situation. "Unbelievable! You actually have a brain in that dull head of yours. I'm pleasantly surprised."

...

'Reflet' decided that she didn't like the shady part in her head. "Ouch, how will I ever hope to continue my live with this knowledge?" Though, as annoying as her shady part's side remarks may be, 'Reflet' came also to the rather logical decision that, as long as there was no permanent solution known to her, she had to simply bear with it. "Aww, you truly have a heart of pure wyvern shit."

"Lovely."

"I know, right?"

Ignoring the irritating nuisance - "Hey!" - she opted to observe her surroundings again.

Reflet hadn't paid it much mind at first, but the ground she sat on was drenched with some kind of fluid which made it rather slippery and unstable. "Girl, you're sitting in a mud puddle. A big mud puddle." The so called 'mud puddle' covered a rather large part of a part of the forest that had no trees in - "... you mean a forest clearing?" - which so happened to be named 'Forest Clearing'. The forest-trees were big... bigger than the 'girl', at least. And even though it was dark, Reflet could still see the emerald green treetops. Some crickets and birds (and whatever other pests) filled the air with their sounds and the occasional howl of a wolf made itself known.

Looking at herself, the girl could only gain limited knowledge about herself. She seemed to be a bipedal humanoid being with two arms and a with fur topped head. She seemed to wear a layer of some kind of fabric made of animal fur - "That's a coat, idiot!" - which's coloration she couldn't quite identify in the light from the starlit sky... apart from it being partially covered in mud. Speaking of mud, that's what the rest of her body seemed to be covered with.

"Yea, about that... The only piece of equipment I managed to salvage was, in fact, your coat. Don't ask me how, but you had something scarily similar to an A-support with it."

Reflet blinked. "What's clothing?"

The shady part of her mind... stared. "... You are kidding, right? 'Clothing' is something irritatingly and horrendously important to short lived sacrifices and Manaketes alike. It covers you vain freaks of nature from... I dunno, stuff! I never cared about that stuff! When I was alive, I just stole the first processed animal furs I got my hold on and called it quits. Just appreciate that you have that stupid thing!"

"Okay."

"You're not appreciating it! Thank me, bow before my benevolence! Pledge your soul to me and burn settlements in my name!"

"What are settlements?"

"... Just... try not to die again, okay? I don't want my work go to waste just because you tripped and impaled yourself on a stick."

Absently, Reflet noted that the shady voice inside her head spoke in a tone as if whatever it had said had happened before. "You didn't listen?!"

Indeed, the girl had not paid the shady voice much of her attention. Instead, it was mostly directed towards a red eyed representative of the local fauna, a werewolf-like creature with midnight-black fur and a white bone-like mask with red glowing markings covering its head. On the creature's back, two rows of moonlight-white bones had apparently grown out along its spine. Additional bones grew out of the creature's muscular forelegs (arms?), which did nothing to lessen the menacing sight of its white claws.

Behind this odd looking creature, hidden in or behind scrubs, patches of grass and other kinds of undergrowth, two dozen additional pairs of red eyes could be seen, all seemingly moving to the apparently very well known landmark that was the mud puddle with the name 'Forest Clearing'.

"Well, I don't know about you, flat chest, but it seems like you managed to get us into a highly lethal situation. Again. Also, aside from that, 'Forest Clearing' isn't actually the name of a landmark... I think. You never know what goes through that void between human ears."

Reflet just tilted her head to the side. "I'm very sorry, shady voice inside my head, but your logic makes no sense. I don't have a chest to store books in, I absolutely abhor the 'Lethality' Technique and whatever these human ears and these heads are, there's surely to be a brain nearby."

"... Why am I surprised? I should've seen this coming from miles away." The girl heard a sigh inside her head before the shady voice continued. "... Well, kiddo, I'll enlighten you later... when your life, which I would like to mention is, at least by proxy, also MINE, isn't in a SERIOUS SHIT-TON OF DANGER!"

Slightly confused, Reflet decided to sweep the mud puddle 'Forest Clearing' - "THAT'S NOT IT'S NAME!" - with her eyes again, only to see the local, presumably carnivorous fauna surrounding her... the two dozen plus one masked wolves, that is.

Where was the danger?

"... These. Shards. ARE. The danger."

"Ah."

"And they are CHARGING at you!"

"Ah."

"Defend yourself, you IDIOT!"

"Defend?"

"ARE YOU SERIOUS?"

The big and rather more unique looking 'Big-Brawly-Hound-thingy', as the local fauna will from this day on be called by Reflet for lack of other terms - "Really?" - rushed through the muddy mud of muddiness with grace only seen in Big-Brawly-Hound-Thingies walking through muddy-mud-of-muddiness. Shambling closer and closer, the black, white and red beast fixated it's gaze on the poor, innocent form in front of it, leaping high into the air when only a few meters separated it and its prey.

And promptly collided with a small dome of... nothing.

Reflet tilted her head to the side. "Why did mister Big-Brawly-Hound-thingy collide with a... an... invisible wall?"

The... girl felt the shady side in her tilt their head in confusion, too. "Well... Apparently the Dragon Skin I so graciously gifted you with interacts in interesting ways with passive defensive abilities such as Aegis and Pavise. How you with your disgustingly flat chest managed to stay in possession of these quite advanced techniques is a mystery even to the dashingly beautiful and intelligent being that is me. I'm quite intrigued, I have to admit."

Reflet didn't like the shady voice inside her head. - "Well, screw you, too!" - It talked too much and made her head all hurt from the tantrums it threw in her skull. - "I'm female, not an it!" - But she decided to be a dependable girl, decided to ignore the mad ramblings for a while and, instead, watched the Big-Brawly-Hound-thingy with apt interest.

A clawed arm-leg blindsided her from her right side and sent her skidding through the mud puddle. With a graceless yelp, Reflet fell face-up to the ground, covering her hair in so much muddy water that one couldn't identify its original color.

"Hmm, that hadn't done as much damage as I thought it would do. No gashes, no open wounds, not even a single bruise. However, your Magical Reserves still seem to have taken a slight dip. That Renewal-skill of yours better fill that up again."

Ignoring the annoyance inside her head again - "Why you-" - Reflet stood back up, her legs shaking as a gust of wind passed through the... clearing.

Another one of the Big-Brawly-Hound-thingy's friends slammed against an invisible wall a mere arm's reach in front of her and recoiled. A second of these creatures followed the other one's lead and drove it's right, clawed paw into Reflet's abdomen, sending her skidding all the way back to the 'boss', who took the liberty to knock the mud covered girl high into the sky.

At the apex of the current trajectory, the girl, somewhat battered after being abused as a punching bag, came to a very accurate conclusion: 'They are not nice.'

"YA THINK?"

Reflet dropped unceremoniously into the center of the mud puddle - "Did you actually not use that as a name?" - face first.

Quite needless to say, her head hurt after the hard fall.

"Hmm, so where would I be if I was- Found it!"

The girl didn't liked that the shady entity inside her head seemed to be shuffling through whatever was inside the brain of hers. It also slightly annoyed her that another one of these hunky Big-Brawly-Hound-thingies had face-planted itself at the weird barrier directly behind her and, as a consequence, coated her in more mud.

Now what should she do-

"Ninety-eight, Ninety-nine Aaaand done!"

- to survive an encounter with a numerical superior foe she had almost no real intelligence of?

"Self-Preservation and Strategic Capabilities successfully reintegrated. Should any side effects like excessive Nose Bleeds, Conveniently Selective Amnesia or an Unhealthy Lack of Apocalypse-Triggering Tendencies occur, please don't hesitate to ask your resident Fell God's Customer Support. The Creation thanks you for your faithful patronage."

Reflet violently shook her head in an attempt to
A: get some of the mud out of her long, unkempt, white hair,
B: banish the annoying voice inside her head - "Hahahahaha, ya failed!"
C: get a good grip on her motor controls since she seemed to have been shrunk down,
and D: ... err, forget about D.

"You had a naughty, naughty thought, I saw it~."

The little girl pouted in a definitely not cute manner. "Am not!"

"As much as I want to tease you to death with this wonderful, wonderful piece of blackmail, it may be in our mutual interest if my magnificent self would order you to take a step to the left RIGHT NOW."

Reflet didn't even consider thinking twice about defying this particular order and just went with it, taking exactly one little step to the said direction, just in time to see one of the black furred creatures sail past her and slipping rather ungracefully over the mud. "Aaand two steps forward." Once again not questioning the irritating Voice's demand, the girl did as she was told and was rewarded with the sound of another creature slamming claw-first onto the ground. "Turn one-hundred-and-eighty degrees..." Quirking an eyebrow, Reflet complied, - "... stretch your right hand out..." - stretched her right hand out and-

- and touched the snout of the Big-Bad-Hound-thingy.

Pain shot through her arm. Purple lightning - it was lightning, right? - coursed through her arm's veins. She screamed. The Beast screamed. The shady voice inside her head vanished, cackling maniacally while doing so.

Everything stopped. Just stopped. No sound, no movement, nothing. Even the rest of the Pack didn't do anything.

Then the creature howled out in pain as bulky bone-plates exploded from its back, forming some kind of protective shell... plate-mail... carapace... that kind of thing. The bushy tail morphed and elongated into something reptilian-like, protective bone-mail-shell growing on the upper side. The Head-Mask elongated, too, making room for two more sets of eyes. The Jaw widened, a new set of pointy teeth growing in and out of it. The creatures front limbs morphed, muscles bulging and condensing, the 'nails' on four of its 'fingers' thickening and lengthening while the 'pinky fingers' fell off, turning into black smoke. The hind legs elongated, too, becoming much more muscular and the 'nails' on its 'toes' grew into something a whole lot more menacing.

The Thing howled loudly to the heavens, menacing red eyes and markings along it's 'armor' turning an eerie shade of dark, glowing purple.

"I. Am. UNSTOPPABLE!"

Whatever menacing Aura this new creature managed to emit had instantly been broken once the (rather warped) voice of a young sounding girl escaped it's maw. The menacing sight stattered even more when the creature elevated one of its hind legs to scratch a seemingly irritating spot behind its... bone-masked head.

Then one of the pack's members pounced on it.

It found itself with the beast's claws stuck in its chest.

The creature... smirked. "Take that, degenerates! Fear me! Bow before me! Beg for a painless death!"

Reflet... Reflet shook her head in... well, 'disappointment' wasn't that far off a word, but didn't quite fit all the same. She closed her eyes and sighed. "Really? Do you honestly think that anyone will be stupid enough to follow up with your 'suggestions'? Every hero with a sliver of common sense would've mercilessly exploit the time given to them to prepare some kind of overpowered, mass scale annihilation attack and throw it into your face once they are ready or, if they are generous, you finished your monologue."

When Reflet opened her eyes, the Creature was right in front of her face and had impaled one of these Brawly-Hound-thingies that had apparently crept up on the little girl as she had held her lecture. Said Creature stared at the little girl with the mother of all deadpan-stares that had ever graced the earth.

The white haired girl decided that it was rather appropriate to remain silent.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on who one may ask) loud growling of the other beasts cut through the quiet clearing like a half-molten knife through heated butter, which ultimately shifted the attention of both the 'armored' creature and the girl towards them.

"Sooo..."the creature began, "I don't know about you, but even my magnificent self may have trouble in executing one successful Lethality after the other. Not much, my godhood forbid, but... a bit. The short story is that I am quite at odds with constantly babying your... developed rear, so you'll have to pull your own weight. Somehow. Oh, and left, two steps."

Stepping two steps to her left, the girl absently watched how one of the seemingly mindless beasts impaled itself on an outstretched claw of the creature and almost instantly turned into smoke before it got absorbed by the aberration it lost its life to.

Huh.

So, pulling her own weight... Reflet had to admit, it sounded like a really good idea, but there was a tiny flaw to it.

She didn't know how.

Don't get her wrong, she already managed to find flaws in the enemies general 'strategic reasoning', found some major and minor weak spots (their bellies were unprotected, they couldn't turn fast enough while running or standing and you could quite easily pass around them after they swiped widely at you - which they did quite often - and, afterwards, quite easily sever their hamstrings) and simultaneously played a chess match against herself within her mind (she lost), but otherwise...

The white haired girl had no weapon, but even if she had one she was quite certain that she had forgotten how to use them right.

Were axes stabbing tools or did you shoot them at the enemies? No, the image was an arrow! You held them by the handle and sliced stuff with it... No, that's a lance... isn't it?

"Get your head out of the clouds! Back, one step!"

Narrowly dodging a swipe aimed at her head, Reflet watched as the beast got engulfed in a ball of dark purple fire that originated from the creature's mouth-

Fire!

Of course! There was this swirly, flow-y energy-thingy inside her stomach and above her skin that did all sorts of funny stuff. In theory, all she had to do in order to wreck havoc upon these not so kind beasts was to direct this energy to her outstretched palms, emit it out as a stream of fire and-

A lance of yellow energy shot out of her palms, tore through two beasts and seemingly three dozen trees within the blink of an eye before detonating into a Giant pillar of light, a cracking, ear shattering BOOM following mere seconds after. Reflet could barely keep her balance as the following shockwave collided with her body. Hard.

That was no fire.

"Well... Congratulations, you managed to waste fifty percent of your maximum amount of magical reserves with a friggin' Mjölnir! Should you survive this - you better ensure that you do - then we'll have a really fun time teaching you all about Magical Control. Not."

Well, that explained the exhaustion

Sort of.

However, from the twenty-five, dark furred beasts, merely six still existed. Whatever the creature had done to the rest of them, it seemed to be rather effective with existence ending and all that.

"So, hatchling,"the creature began, "your Reserves are somewhere underneath the twenty percent threshold. To safe us both major headaches, YOU will step forwards three times," Reflet followed that part of the instruction immediately, just in time to avoid getting her head cut off by the swipe of one of these beasts - who also found a claw impaling his chest a mere second later - ,"jump on my back," The girl did as she was told, trying to avoid touching the rows of spikes as best as she possibly could while she was at it, "sit down and then you'll hold on tight... because you idiot managed to get the entire forest mad at us! Great job, dimwit!"

And with these words, the mount of a very confused amnesiac made a run for it, carving a chunk of evaporating flesh out of a hound-thing along the way.

- Beacon -

Glynda Goodwitch stared blankly at the screen in front of her, not willing to b her eyes. She blinked, took her glasses off, cleaned them thoroughly, put them back on and started to stare again, only to put them off and clean them again. She had probably done so continuously for the last two hours but she couldn't help herself. The newly instated vice-headmistress just couldn't believe what she was seeing before her.

"Intriguing, isn't it?"

Putting her glasses back on, Glynda once again stared at the image of the horrific monstrosity as it clawed its path through Beowulf after Beowulf, three-pronged, reptilian claws coated in such dark purple energy they may as well be liquid shadows. As usual, the Grimm dissolved upon death, but, instead of dispersing entirely, the black clouds instead fused with their... hunter?

An unknown kind of Grimm with cannibalistic tendencies, that was something the huntress could understand. Such behavior had been observed from time to time in the wild.

No, what truly boggled her mind was the fact that the thing actively defended the... Faunus (?) clinging on its back. A small, white haired girl with long, pointy ears and unnerving, purple glowing and clueless eyes.

Who had cast magic!

It couldn't be anything else BUT magic! That giant pillar of lightning simply couldn't be the result of a Semblance. The amount of Energy Dust you would need to burn through to get the same results...

"Is... is she..."

Ozpin took a sip from his mug, his face set in a rarely seen, contemplative expression. "Unlikely, but it is a possibility none the less, as slim as the chance may be. Though, considering the identical coloration of her robes and her... mount's markings and eyes, we can somewhat safely assume that the girl is able to... control a Grimm and manipulate their... physique." The headmaster let out a sigh, just as the monstrosity and its rider move through the forest with breakneck speed. "Yet, seeing how the girl observes her surroundings with such childlike wonder... It is as if she isn't aware of the dangers this world harbors while her mount, oddly enough, does."

The blonde teacher stares at the young Faunus as she and her... mount successfully arrived at the edge of a cliff, the last of their pursuers' smoke integrating with the nightmarish beast. Though the hidden camera only captured the backside of the child's head, it was clear as the coming dawn that the girl looked over the vast expanse of the Emerald Forest with poorly concealed wonder.

And there, in the far distance, towered Beacon Academy, a great shadow hiding parts of the night's sky.

Suddenly, the monstrosity dissolved into a cloud of black and purple smoke, letting its former rider fall on their rear, much to the white haired girl's obvious confusion. The cloud seemed to care little about this since it started to form a more... humanoid, ghostly shape.

Then It stared directly into the camera, It's eyes directly fixed onto Glynda's.

And it smirked, a purple glowing crescent partially hidden by invisible fangs.

It held a gaseous claw in front of its maw and... and giggled!

... Before, just as sudden, whirling around and extending one of its arms to grip the torso of the Faunus who, apparently, was about to jump down the cliff.

Glynda stared at the scene, took her glasses off, cleaned them, put them back on and observed again.

Ozpin took another sip from his mug.

At last, he smiled. "So, ready to make contact with our little anomaly?"

Author's Notes

Heya.

This snippet had collected enough dust on the shelf and I finally managed to get the chapter's ending done. I'm not exactly content with the whole pacing, but I hope I hadn't done a too terrible job with it.

I wanted to create a Crossover of Fire Emblem and RWBY for a long time now, but HOW to go at it always escaped me. I had Ideas, don't get me wrong, but the whole "throw some FE-charas through the Outrealm Gate and let them do stuff" didn't seem all that... interesting, so I went with this route. Sure, there are some "Avatar wakes up in a different world after sacrificing him/herself"-stories out there, but few - very few - had Grima ride along... and I hope I made this version of Grima at least somewhat more interesting than It's Canon-counterpart.

And yes, Reflet's a Manakete. Yes, she lost her memories again. Yes, the Grimm are exactly what you think they are: Walking Tacos with legs, masks and claws.

I have absolutely no Idea when I'll update this. Apart from writing MBaRS, Multithreading, cleaning my room, distracting myself with gaming and being generally unreliable, there's a lot of Real Life stuff happening. For now, I just await your judgement... while hiding behind the walls of a Terran Bunker.

Thank you for reading my ramble.