This Is Amazing!!

This is amazing!!

AU where teenage Grian, Mumbo, and Scar are plucked out of their respective universes and brought together.

(Backstories are based off of YHS + Scar and Mumbo's backgrounds as CoD players, but you don't really need any knowledge of either of those things for this AU)

Details below! Heads up, it's going to be a huge mess of rambling, I hope I can make it coherent enough. Also, disclaimer, I know basically nothing about CoD, except that there's a war and you shoot people.

CWs/TWs: Abuse, children in the military (I feel like there should be more, feel free to comment or mention in the tags any that you'd like me to add!)

GRIAN

So basically, Grian's backstory is more or less as it is in the Yandere High School series-- for those who don't know much about it, these are the key details you need to know:

Grian was abandoned by his parents as a young child. He basically had to raise himself-- this is why his last name is unknown. There is no family he actually belongs to.

He had two close friends since kindergarten: Sam, who would grow up to be his abuser, and Taurtis.

He has witnessed and participated in several murders and other felonies in his high school years, most of which he was unwillingly dragged into by Sam. (He's definitely initiated his fair share though.)

Sam has abused him in so many ways that it would be too complicated and lengthy to list them all here-- some examples include gaslighting, threatening with knives, etc.

Uhhhh I'm not sure if I should include him dating Taurtis, since that stuff happened during their third year (18 years old) I'm fairly sure?? Maybe they dated a bit earlier in this AU, obviously minus the... glarging.

Those are the very basics, more or less.

Grian here is extremely jaded regarding people, as well as largely desensitized to things like violence. For a long while, he refuses to speak to either Mumbo or Scar-- Scar especially, because he finds an uncomfortable resemblance to Sam. I like to think that when Scar learns Grian's name initially, he flubs the pronunciation a bit due to how unusual it is. All it takes is for 'Gree-on' to absentmindedly leave his mouth once, and Grian wants nothing to do with him for at least a few weeks.

He warms up to Mumbo a bit quicker, sort of in the way a cat will warm up quickest to the person in a group who wants the least to do with them. Mumbo leaves him alone-- Mumbo displays very little threat, so he gravitates towards him more.

As time passes, he becomes more outgoing and more chaotic and rebellious, the latter of which stems mainly from his need not to be under anyone's control or manipulation ever again. In fact, he's kind of a dick about it at first-- but he mellows out eventually as time heals his wounds. He learns to have genuine fun again. To let himself trust that his new friends won't hold a knife to his throat at the slightest inconvenience.

~~~~~~

MUMBO + SCAR

Scar was recruited into the army at 10, orphaned by the war and taken in by the military to be raised into a soldier with no choice at all in the matter.

Scar got all of his- well, scars, from battle. He was the best sharpshooter in the field even at his young age, and incredibly strong to boot. Essentially, he was a prodigy, given high praise by his comrades and his superiors. Although, he wasn't exactly happy in his position... it was just kind of what he did. What he was always just supposed to do, no questions asked since as far back as childhood. Being pulled out of the war is scary, at first, but a massive relief too.

Mumbo, on the other hand, was recruited at the much later age of 15 and not built for war in the slightest. The higher-ups in the military thought having a vampire might be useful, with what they assumed would be much higher strength and resistance to the sight of blood. However, that's not really what they got. He wasn't particularly good at fighting, couldn't control his physical strength in a way that'd be useful to the army, and took longer than most to adjust to the horrors of the battlefield.

What he was, however, was an extremely gifted mechanic-- he could repair machinery and weapons like nothing else. He tinkered with gadgets in his little free time. In spite of that, however, he was never happy in the military. Much like with Scar, getting suddenly poofed away into another, more peaceful place is one of the best things that happens to him.

Having been comrades for years, Mumbo and Scar know each other pretty well. Though, admittedly, young Mumbo sees Scar as a bit of a "person in my general vicinity who is super nice to me, but also I don't know if we're really friends, because they are WAY too cool for me". They do end up becoming more genuinely close as time goes on, enough for Mumbo to be able to lightheartedly poke fun at Scar without a second thought.

Scar does his best to be social with Grian, especially since he already knows Mumbo pretty well. However, for reasons unknown to him, Grian really doesn't like his company-- which saddens him more than he wants to admit, considering he's the first new person around his age that he's seen in years, but he smiles it off (it's the only way he really knows how to cope with negative emotions, really. It's how he's kept himself from losing it altogether).

Mumbo, on the other hand, is outright unnerved by Grian at first. He's uncannily desensitized and guarded for a civilian, and he doesn't like it. After all, Mumbo literally fought in a war and he hasn't gotten used to its atrocities (yet. i'll have you know that he does in fact grow more down to murder later /lh)-- and here Grian is, not batting an eye at the prospect of them. He can even use a gun with little to no issue. It doesn't help much that Grian seems to stick around him more than he does Scar.

(also i like to think that Mumbo cannot grow even a single whisker on his face until he's like 20, a time upon which his moustache just sprouts overnight out of nowhere /hj)