Gray Like Ashes

Lengthy Foreword: I've had this story in my mind for about half a year now. And I had planned to keep it that way. I wasn't afraid if anyone wouldn't like it or something like that, rather, I was simply content keeping it to myself. But with the recent passing of Monty Oum, a man I personally think of as my hero, I found that I loathe that word. "Content" One thing Monty never was, was content. He was never satisfied, he putting his all in everything he did, and kept pushing and pushing to make it better. Good was never good enough, better never perfect, and perfection simply didn't exist in his vocabulary. To be content with something means it is good as it is. That it doesn't require further work, further effort. Monty was never content. He was truly a driven person. And now I can no longer be content with keeping my work in my mind. I want it out, I want to see it grow, not in my dreams, but in reality. Who am I to deny myself the chance to make something that could be liked, or even loved, for if I made even one person happier, then it would have been worth it. And so I dedicate both this work, and all my future endeavors to Monty Oum, as my way of remembering him & honoring his work. I can never match his resolve, but I sure as hell will surpass it.

And Thus, Kindly You Scatter.

Rest In Peace, You've Earned It.

All RWBY characters are the property of Rooster Teeth and Monty Oum

Any characters that not RWBY based are either original or are references

Please Enjoy

Chapter 1. A Bad Case Of The Monday's

I guess this is the part where I'm supposed to do some kinda lame introduction about myself. so the reader knows who the hell they're reading about.

The name is Sebastieyn Gainsborough and I'm a pretty average 20 year old guy living in Atlas. Average 5.9 height and build, average black messy hair with a matching average freckled face and glasses. Over the years, I've learned to accept my average life, for when anything "unaverage" happens to someone in this day and age, it rarely turns out to be a good thing such as the Grimm or the Faunus group, The White Fang. Of course, that doesn't stop a guy from dreaming. I guess that's the one thing I'm good at. Being a dreamer. Ever since I was little I had always dreamed of being a huntsmen and live the life of adventure, or at the very least being a police officer, and I even dared to think about signing up for the Atleasian Military seeing as my Uncle was pretty up there himself. Of course life didn't work that way, when I was about 7, during a training session with my then master in a forest known for it's Grimm, I had gotten careless and a Ursa's claw pierced my chest and punctured my heart right through my aura. I survived luckily but now over-exerting myself would equal being face down with a heart attack. Now, the only way I'd get to experience something exciting was to go walking down a dark alley with a wallet full of cash, and I'm more than sure I'd end up dead doing that, and I prefer living, if you can even call what I do living. I simply go about day to day in my current job as a mechanical engineer, only putting the minimum amount of effort needed. It paid decent money as it was so I figured, why put in more when I will go unrecognized, plus it'd be exhausting to keep having to meet those high expectations every day, so might as well keep things simple.

So there I was, keeping things simple, at my desk back at home, playing another rousing ranked game of "Hunters Of Remanant" a popular online FPS video game where you take control of famous Hunters from different times and kill Grimm or fight other hunters. And as per usual, I was losing. Badly. For the third time in a row. "This is it. This is hell. This is truly ranked hell. At this rate, I be stuck in Twig League forever" I exclaimed after watching the opponents destroy my teams CCT Tower, thus ending the game. It was then I finally noticed it was about 11:40 PM.

"Screw it, I have work in the morning, I'm going to bed." And with that, I shutdown my computer and began to don my good old blue and white striped PJ's and turned on my phone to put some music to fall asleep to, a habit I had created after doing so, so many times. It would always calm me, and honestly, even at my age, hearing silence could be a bit unnerving so having some source of recognizable sounds relaxed me. I went out like a light.

And then I woke up, my throat dry. Noticing it was still extremely dark out, I looked at the time on my scroll.

11:59 PM Sunday, December 20th

...Seriously. I slept for, what, 15 minutes? Lovely. Well whatever, might as well get something to drink and maybe I might get a decent hour of sleep before waking up. Stupid body with its stupid needs.

Getting up, I began my trek from my room down the small hallway into the kitchen. However, as I passed along, I noticed a large shadow in the living room.

The hell was that? ...Shit what am I doing, getting scared of the dark at my age. Just walk in and find out what's in there.

Me being the curious little shit I was, decided to investigate. Of course, since I wasn't trying to be sneaky or anything, no sooner had I entered the room, had the shadow turned around.

"What in the-" Before I could even finish my question, a flash of light appeared and then everything went black.

Having lived these 20 years, I've come to despise a number of things. And one of them is being woken up when I don't need to be woken. But I mean, who doesn't? I would think it's common logic to let sleeping bears lie, and so the same should go for people. So it escapes all logic that someone would not only come into my room, not only start talking, but to start poking my face.

*Poke poke*

"I thi-...Moving." A little girls voice?

*Poke Poke*

Who's talking? Who's in my room? Ugh, why does my head feel like shit? Chest is burning too.

"Yea- ...ink he's getting up." Now a little boys voice?

Is it the brats again? I told em not to come in here. Maybe if I keep sleeping they'll go away.

*Poke Poke*

"PA! I Think he's waking up!"

*Poke Poke*

Seriously?! Do they have to shout in my ear?!...Wait a minute...I don't live with my parents anymore.

I suddenly bolted upright, not the best idea considering the pain I was in. It had taken me a few seconds to gather my bearings, the first thing I took in was the drastic change of scenery, instead of my blue painted room with a desk, holoscreen, game systems, bookshelf, and king sized bed, and Monty knows how many comics and knick knacks, I was in a rather droll pastel room with just about no decorations, two doors and was laying on a single person bed. I also realized I wasn't wearing my usual clothes and instead found my self in a hospital gown. Finally, I noticed the two voices I heard came from a little boy and girl both no older than 9 at the most, both standing to either side of me. The boy a brown haired mop head with green eyes and a scraggly build to be expected for a child his age, and the girl a blonde curly haired petite little thing with green eyes. And I most definitely knew neither one of them. And then all hell came loose.

"...AHHHHHHHHHHHH, HE'S GONNA GET US! RUN!" Both children had shrieked and ran out the only door in the room, causing my already bad headache to elevate to a new level of hurt.

"Well that was a thing."

"Indeed it was. Good to see your still among the living boy. "A tall dark haired man with a scruffy beard and glasses came walking in, speaking to me. "Sorry about the kids, you know how they get with you."

"Uhh, sorry?" A bunch of different questions were going through my mind at a million miles per second. I figured I might as well start getting them out of the way, so I asked the most obvious one. "Where exactly am I Mr...?"

"What, did you hit your head as well? Hmm, maybe you received an concussion during the whole ordeal, though I saw no signs of one." The man took a standing thinker pose, fist under his chin as he observed me, thoroughly creeping me out.

"You still haven't answered my question?" Less said as a statement and more of another question, but it got the job done.

"Well your in my home boy, it's me, Maes. Maes Donahughe, ring any bells?"

"None in the least. Now where exactly is your home? And why am I here for that matter?" This man definitely didn't seem familiar, and I tended to have a good memory for faces.

"Hmm, maybe the injuries were worse than I thought. Maybe answering your questions will jog some sense back into you!" The Maes exclaimed, " You are in Lestia, a village on the outskirts of Vale, specifically in the home of the resident Hunter/Doctor, that is the where! As for the why, well my oh so cute daughter and son found you fighting an Ursa Major in a meadow not to far from here, a meadow where they shouldn't be playing, mind you-" raising his voice so his kids, who could now be seen hiding behind the doorway, would hear.

"Sorry Papa!" The kids shouted together.

"But," He continued, "I suppose if they hadn't found you, the injuries the beast inflicted would have killed you, so you should thank your stars that they did! Now it's my turn to ask a question, what exactly do you remember?"

This was getting weirder by the minute, not only am I not home, but I'm in a completely different continent?! How the hell did I end up all the way in Vale of all places?! I then realized I hadn't answered the mans question, "Umm...Not exactly sure myself, I'm pretty sure I was sleeping in my bed at home, but I woke up to get some water. When I was walking I noticed there was someone or something in my living room, thought it was strange and went to check it out, I walked in and then they turned. Next thing I know, there was a flash of light. That's everything I can think of as to how I ended up here." As I finished, I looked to Maes and noticed he had a very confused expression on his face. I continued "Guess I'll ask another question, I haven't heard of Lestia before, but I know Vale. Is there anyway to get there, it seems I'm pretty damned far from home.

His confused expression grew even more at this "A long way from home? Son where is it that you think you live?"

"Well, Atlas, in the central part of the residential area. I still wanna know why I was brought all the way from Atlas to Vale, just as much as I wanna know what happened to me as well."

With this, Maes paused and took a second to think. Then he turned to his children, "Mikael, Nina, please leave the room for a few minutes. Both children complied to their fathers wishes and closed the door. Maes then turned to me.

"I'm going to ask you a few questions, and they may seem strange but please answer them as well as you can."

An uneasy feeling came over me, "Uh, sure I guess."

"Okay first, what is your name?"

Weird, shouldn't he know that? Maybe I didn't have any ID on me when they found me. "Sebastieyn, Sebastieyn Gainsborough." A dark flash came over Maes face as he thought about what I said.

"Do you have any close family, and if so please name them for me." I guess he needed their contact info?

"Well there is father Mattel Gainsborough and mother Anna Gainsborough, as well as my older brother Joshel Gainsborough. I got four younger siblings, but too young to be able to contact if that's what you were thinking. Also there is my Uncle, Hyde Predecessa who is part of the Atleasian Military, we meet often so I guess he is another person you can contact." Again as I finished, Maes had that dark look on his face. I'm really not liking it.

"Okay last question, what was the current date?" Huh, that's a weird one, maybe I've been out for a while.

"The current date, or at least the date before...well this," I motioned, regarding the whole situation "as I remember it should be Monday, December 21st."

"...And the year?"

"Oh, uh 10XX" (Obviously I don't know the real current time date for RWBY, so I'm taking a book out of Megaman)

After that, there was a long period of silence as Maes resumed his thinker pose, that dark look still on face. As I was starting to feel uncomfortable, or rather, more uncomfortable that I already was, he turned to me once more.

"I'm sorry but two more things, first, does the name Eton Cresent mean anything to you?"

Well that was a curve ball, but I answered his question once more, "Not in the least, should it?"

Ignoring my question he continued, "Final question. Can you describe yourself for me?"

And just like his last question, this one threw me for a loop as well. I figured I had nothing to lose tell him what he already knew so I played along.

"Well, I'm 5'9, black hair and eyes. A bit scraggly, uhhh, freckles and glasses. What else can I say? Oh I have a scar over my heart when I was pierced by an Ursa's claw from when I was younger, pretty large one so I guess that's a defining feature on me. Is that good enough?"

"Can you show me the scar?" Did it have something to do with this situation?

"Sure I guess?" And so I pulled down the collar of the hospital gown and pointed right over my heart, "It's right...huh that's weird...It's not there." At that I finally began to look over my body for the first time since waking up. I noticed I was definitely a bit buffer than before, and where there had been callused fingers and burn marks from working with so many different tools as an engineer, now there was clean unmarked skin. In fact, it seems as though I had a slight tan, which should't have been possible given how little sun there usually is in Atlas.

None of this made sense. A person who is injured doesn't suddenly lose scars and gets buffer with a tan to boot. My headache worsened and hit me tenfold, and now I felt I was gonna throw-up on top of that.

"Is there a bathroom I can use? I feel like I'm gonna puke." I clutched my stomach as more pain hit me.

Maes looked at me once more and replied, "There is a bathroom behind the other door over there," He said pointing to the door that had yet to be opened.

"Okay, thanks." Getting up hesitantly, I lifted myself off the bed. I was suddenly hit with a sense of vertigo as I stood, and I began to stumble a bit but I quickly caught my self.

Maes looked at me and asked "You gonna be alright?"

"I'm fine, just a bit woozy. Probably from sitting down so long." I replied.

"Okay, I'll help you then." He place a hand on my side and threw one of my arms over his shoulders. Within a few steps, we made it to the other side of the room. Opening the door I saw the toilet and began to upchuck the contents of my stomach into the sacred white bowl as Maes stood in the door way.

After a few good minutes of regretting everything I've ever eaten my entire life, I was finally done. Getting up shakily, I brought myself to the sink and washed off my mouth. Guess I finally got that drink, and it only took me a continent switch to do so. I thought to myself dryly. How could things possibly get any weirder. And then I looked in the mirror, and there was no black haired, freckled face, scrawny 5.9', 20 year old with glasses to be found. Instead, what stared back was a white haired with blue streaked, clear faced, decently built 6' something, young guy looking right at me. I touched the mirror just in case there really was someone there, but I met with the usual cold resistance that was the tell tale sign of reflective glass. I quickly looked at Maes, who now had that concerned look on his face again, I guess I found out why he asked all those weird questions. Looking back at the mirror I finally realized something.

..."Huh, didn't even notice my glasses were missing." I noted. And then I passed out once more.

And That's chapter one everyone! A massive wall of text! Now a bit of info about this fic

A. This will take place about a week or two after "The Breach" in the RWBY time line and Lestia is the village Ren had wanted to visit with his team before they had to cancel it due to the trouble in town.

B. I tend to hate over powered, plot armored characters, and that will go doubly so for my own character, so as he continues his path and gains new found skills and abilities, please let me know if he is way to strong for the RWBY-Verse (I have a weapon and semblance all planed out and they will be epic as fuck!)

C. I shall be trying to do either weekly, or bi-weekly updates, maybe tri-weekly updates, but Chapter 2 will definitely be out pretty soon.

Please feel free to review, and let me know what you think. Or don't and be another anon. It's not like I care about you or anything baka!