TRP is a post-Great War AU RWBY RP set in Mistral City and Haven Academy with no canons, no rank claims, no maidens, and no god interference. We offer a progression system and site-wide events that change the setting based on player actions.
Chrys wasn't entirely comfortable trudging around the alleys. Even as a Faunus without any particularly flashy clothes or weaponry, he still felt that he stuck out like a sore thumb. Nevertheless, he'd been assigned a job there, and it'd be poor form if he was to back out because the area 'gave him the willies.' This was especially true when one considered that it wasn't even supposed to be a particularly difficult mission either. It'd been classified as a scouting op, sure, but it didn't really qualify for that description any more than helping little old ladies crossing the street counted as an escort op.
The mission details had stated that there had been rumours of Grimm skulking about in the shadows. Smart as Chrys wasn't, even he could tell that that was odd behaviour for beasts that - more often than not - would just head straight for the nearest living being and savage it, or die trying. Chances were that it was, at worst, some stray wildlife, but rumours of Grimm sightings spreading would just make breed more fear and suspicion amongst the people living there. As such, at least a token investigation had to be performed, if only to reassure people that the area was clear of anything notably dangerous.
Figuring it'd at least give him some experience investigating urban areas, as opposed to plains and forests, Chrys had taken the job without thinking too much on it. Packing a pouch of shells and slugs, he'd set out early, and started poking around where the reports had stated that the mysterious Grimm had last been seen. He didn't hold out much faith that he'd see any action, but just in case, he checked that Chimera's mechanisms were working properly, not wanting to be caught off-guard by the barrel jamming when it transformed. He'd made that mistake before, and neither the recovery period nor the lambasting he got from his instructor afterwards had been particularly pleasant.
Seeing that all was well, he tucked it back into the loop on his waist that held it, and rounded the corner. There didn't seem to be anything of note in the area, beyond the odd shifty individual here and there. From the looks of things, it seemed like the people there either didn't know that there was some miniscule chance a Grimm was lurking within the general vicinity, or they simply didn't care. Deciding it'd be best not to disrupt that, he didn't bother asking, instead just exploring the area and keeping his eyes peeled for anything - or anyone - that stood out.
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Mar 17, 2021 23:34:46 GMT -5
It was cold today. The kind of windy dry cold that made it seem much colder than it actually was. She was bundled up a little more than usual to lessen the burden of keeping her warm on her aura. Her clothes were as loose as ever, but now they were pretty thick as well. Her ears and tail were even less noticeable than usual, and that was saying something given how hard she tried to conceal them at all times. Sienna Hajnal, the person she was in Mistral, was supposed to be human after all.
This would have been a nice day to sit in her room and drink the rest of that hot chocolate she bought for everyone in December, but there had been whispers around the Ground District about Grimm in the city. She had seen a few on the outskirts in recent months, so she wouldn't be too surprised if one made its way into the city. What convinced her that she should look into this herself rather than send someone else was because of what happened last month. Someone possessed by Grimm infiltrated the city and started releasing Grimm from inside his body, letting them rampage all over the Wind and Cloud Districts to make him harder to chase. It was bizarre and panicked the council enough to declare marshal law in the city. It seemed unlikely that normal Grimm would be able to hide in the city for so long, but that possessed dude was in the city for like three or more months before he was finally caught. She wanted to make sure it wasn't something like that again, or wasn't the weird slug things that probably possessed him in the first place. She'd been taking Grimm reports more seriously since then, even if it was likely to be paranoia from that incident. Better safe than sorry.
She just wished it wasn't so fucking cold. Normally, she'd run on the rooftops of the buildings to cover more ground faster, but the wind made that even more dangerous than usual. The buildings were already in pretty bad shape around the outskirts, so she always had to watch her footing on them. Wearing a few extra pounds of clothing and having to adjust for some of the stronger gusts of wind? Not worth the time she'd save. She was staying on the ground this time, and was more jogging than running. She could use the break anyway, and having some time to clear her head while making sure there wasn't anything strange happening sounded nice. There had been a lot going on lately.
Time to think wasn't a luxury she was going to get it seemed. As she turned the corner in one alley, she was surprised to see that there was someone else there. She was moving fast enough that she had to skid to a stop to avoid running into him because a light jog to her was closer to sprinting for most people. Easy enough to do, but not exactly quiet. He'd have to be deaf to not notice her. She just waved her hand apologetically and intended to keep moving like nothing happened.
Then she saw his face and had to do a double take. It was strangely familiar, but took her a moment to place. He was from Menagerie wasn't he? She really hoped she was remembering wrong because that would be awkward. It was weird enough having Nina, one of her close friends from the island, in the city out there calling her by her actual name and not the name she crossed the border with, and she would really prefer not to have more people doing that. Or having more people around her that knew anything about her in general. Unfortunately, she ended up looking surprised at his face for a little longer than what was probably natural before she started moving again.
Her clothes were very different from what she wore on Menagerie. She lived with her uncle, who was extremely wealthy and had picked out some fancy dresses for her to wear. She wouldn't be caught dead wearing frilly dresses like that anymore. Her face was pretty distinct though. She didn't know very many people that had freckles covering their entire body like she did or a chin that might as well have been a pickaxe. Her face had always been the kind of face that'd be easy to pick out of a police line-up and she hated that.
In the end, she really hoped she was just imagining things. Either that or that she was sufficiently different seeming from the quiet, anxious girl she was on Menagerie.
Despite not having much faith in reports that there was anything lurking around the area aside from some rogue rodents rummaging about the rubbish, Chrys still recognised that he had to stay alert on the off chance that something more sinister was lurking around the corner. So when he came face-to-face with that freckled figure, it took him all of a split second to snap out of his initial shock and look her over. Some part of him knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he'd seen her from somewhere. She looked fairly distinct, after all - he knew he'd remember if he'd seen her before.
The cogs were turning in his head, and for a scant few moments, that much as plain to see on his face. His expression shifted soon after into one of realisation, and he piped up in a chipper tone once it fully dawned on him who it was that he'd run into - figuratively, and almost literally. "Sinopia?" He asked, stepping towards her to try and get a better look at her. It'd been a while since they'd last met, and the clothes she was wearing were a far cry from those he'd last seen her in. But there was no mistaking that it was her.
"Sinopia, it IS you!" He said. Ever the sociable person, Chrys greeted her with a friendly smile and a confident tone to his voice. Completely unaware of the fact that she was using an alias, he thought nothing of calling out to her like that, nor of holding his hand up to try and get her attention. While he supposed that perhaps he was being a little too friendly towards someone he didn't know particularly well, he'd not found much many friends in Haven - neither his horns nor his tail were particularly easy to hide, and a disheartening amount of the student body made no secret of how they felt towards Faunus. Any chance he'd take to make new friends or reconnect with old ones, he'd take enthusiastically.
He hoped that he himself was recognisable enough that she'd know it wasn't just some stranger greeting her. He was fairly distinct in his own way, of course, being a Faunus built like a tank and all. The scar across his eye wasn't exactly subtle either, and if she'd seen him with it before, he hoped she'd recognise at least that much. "How've you been? By the gods, it's been ages!"WORD COUNT: 410 THREAD TOTAL: 839
Last Edit: Mar 20, 2021 14:00:54 GMT -5 by Deleted
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Mar 19, 2021 23:54:47 GMT -5
After giving a friendly, apologetic wave she put her hands in her pockets and tried to walk away. She hoped it would be that easy, but it was just her luck that it wasn't. Her shoulders visibly tensed, and she stopped walking, like her legs were suddenly frozen, when she heard her name. Not the shitty common name she adopted because no one would ever remember it, but her actual name. For a moment, she considered not stopping at all and pretending like she had no idea what he was talking about, but after a reaction like that she couldn't really do that. Stiffly, she turned back around and forced an award smile.
"Hi." She momentarily took one of her hands out of her pocket to give another stiff wave. "I wasn't sure if you were who I thought you were."
She really hated running into people that knew her from several years ago. Now there was going to be another person running around calling her a different name when she was already tangling with dangerous forces that could take advantage of that. She was also different from how she was and that would undoubtedly lead to certain expectations. What would anyone that knew her back then think of her now? At least the anxious demeanor and social awkwardness wasn't anything new. If anything, it was worse back then because everything was so different from what she was used to.
What was she even supposed to talk about here? How she stowed away on a boat to Vacuo to follow Alina -- someone that was dishonorably discharged from the Menagerie Guard for being a bit of a loose cannon and then exiled from Menagerie entirely for punching out an ambassador? How she spent a year and a half or so in Vacuo living as a bounty hunter and a mercenary? Or that she came to Mistral to join a criminal syndicate that ended up dissolving, so she and Alina basically ended up starting a gang in the Ground District with a bunch of refugees from some village that was burned to the ground by a shitty Haven trainee?
Putting those actions to the quiet and sensitive person she used to be would probably be weird for anyone. Back then she was afraid of her own shadow and didn't really know how to react to anything. Not long before leaving Menagerie, she accepted that she would probably never be happy. Rather than try to do something so futile, she instead looked for purpose and became determined to leave the world a better place than it was when she entered it. Returning to the battlefield honestly felt better than trying to pretend like she was normal.
But talking about any of that would be uncomfortable, so if she could keep his attention on talking about himself or something else then that would be ideal.
"Good. I'm good." Oh yeah, nailed it dumbass. "Mistral's a nice city. Little cold though. What about you? How have you been?"
While her smile might have been awkward, his was nothing if not warm. There was nothing forced about it - he was genuinely happy to find someone that he knew from his past, and a Faunus, no less. Granted, the circumstances weren't quite what he was expecting or hoping for, but the details didn't matter much. They'd run into each other again, and he was itching to catch up with her and trade stories. They'd not seen each other in quite a while, after all. Sure, he didn't know her quite well enough to swap stories like they were old war buddies, but he'd take any friendship that he could get.
Granted, there wasn't really much for him to say. Some amusing stories about his time learning how to cleave Grimm in two, some odd rumours he'd heard about various diplomats, but not much that she wouldn't have experienced in some form or another while she was living in Menagerie too. Still, he supposed that was a bridge that he could cross when he came to it. For the time being, he figured that he could just enjoy her company, then meet with her another time.
He nodded slightly at her question, still smiling, though it had shifted into a smaller, more friendly one, rather than the beaming he'd been doing before. "Good!" He said, still as brimming with confidence as he was the day that he'd left the island, though that was more due to encountering an old acquaintance than anything else. "I've been good. Classes have been keeping me busy, but I've been enjoying them." His classmates, not so much, but he supposed that much was to be expected outside of Menagerie. It didn't make it any easier, but at the very least, it was consistent enough that he thought he could get sued to it.
He opened his mouth to say something and keep the conversation going, but that mention of classes managed to jog something in his memory - more specifically, the actual reason he'd come down there. "Oh, right, the hunt!" He glanced about the area, seeming to look for something briefly, before turning back to face her. "Sorry, I'm actually here on a job. There's been reports of a Grimm creeping around. No attacks yet, and nobody's gotten more than a glance, so my money's on it just being some wildlife that wandered in from the Outskirts somehow. But someone needs to investigate anyway - better safe than sorry."
He paused for a moment, thumbs in his pockets, wondering how to make his exit, before something else popped into his head. From the way his expression shifted to one of realisation so suddenly, it was like a lightbulb had gone off inside him. "Hey, if you've got some time, do you think you could help me out? I'm sure it's nothing, but if I'm wrong, then I could use another set of eyes. I'd be here with a team, but I... don't actually have one." He ended it with a sheepish smile, and his hand rubbing the back of his neck slightly. WORD COUNT: 515 THREAD TOTAL: 1354
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Mar 22, 2021 23:48:28 GMT -5
She blinked and shifted at his excitement and his beaming smile. It took a concentrated effort on her part to avoid staring. Honestly, she was surprised she made such an impression. Most of the time it felt like she was invisible. A good number of people in the Kozaks barely knew who she was, and wouldn't know who was talking to them if she walked up to them, despite working directly under the leader and being in charge of logistics. She could understand people recognizing her, or at least thinking she looked vaguely familiar, because she had such distinct features, but this level of enthusiasm felt weird. It was almost uncomfortable. She wasn't really sure how to react to someone she didn't know well being this happy to see her.
Fortunately for her social awkwardness and anxiety, he ended up changing the subject quickly. The topic made her look back at him (rather than at the ground like the broken concrete was especially interesting today) with a raised eyebrow.
"Wait, why are you looking for-- Oh.
She managed to catch herself before asking such a stupid and obvious question. Really, she should have been able guess by his presence in Mistral considering what he was doing in Menagerie and how generally clueless he was. So, like Nina, he decided to join the school for aspiring psychopaths. Though, to be fair to her, they weren't especially close, so remembering every detail and immediately making that connection would have been difficult. Her shoulders tensed a bit more, and she took a deep breath to try to stop herself from getting too on edge. She couldn't help it. By default, she was suspicious of anyone even remotely interested in that institution. Even being around Nina was a little uncomfortable now, and the shark faunus was one of her closest friends on Menagerie. She was open about her involvement in the Faunus War and some of her experiences, though she typically fluffed them up a bit and left out the really gory and uncomfortable details. Given what happened then, she wasn't sure how any faunus could even acknowledge Huntsmen, let alone want to become one.
But that wasn't important right now. She also had a job to do. Stiffly, she straightened back up and suddenly became a lot more serious. Her tone became flatter and more business-like as well.
"Yes, I heard those reports as well and was investigating myself. I'm hoping it's nothing, but it's not impossible with what's been happening," she hesitated for a moment and nodded. "Sure, I can come with you," she paused again, mildly confused as to why he found it so unlikely there might be something here. "Have you not been in Mistral long?"
Sienna had always been a little paranoid, though how obvious it was varied. Her anxiety was fairly visible, and it went hand in hand with the paranoia, but it was harder to see the ridiculous trails her brain could go down sometimes if she didn't voice them. The perceptive might have noticed that she seemed unnaturally afraid of seemingly random things, that she asked weird questions sometimes, or felt the need to check things repeatedly to make sure they weren't broken or dangerous but that was the extent of the more visible tells. She really did hope she was just being paranoid here though.