Author's Note: I think this is the biggest crossover I've ever done (in terms of the number of sources I'm drawing from). Admittedly, I did take a few creative liberties with this; I mixed up who was on what team, and for the purposes of this story, in my mind I merged Odette with the unnamed duck-girl who is in this episode (for about five seconds total). Odette is more swan-looking than in canon.

I don't own any of the following:
- Regal Academy
- Blood Drive
- RWBY
- Chad Vader - Day Shift Manager
- Star Wars

Another beautiful day at Regal Academy; the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and a dragon had to rescue Rose from plummeting to her death. In short, it was just a regular Tuesday. However, things would take a turn for the stranger well before the day was through.

The students had gathered in one of the large lecture halls for that day's assignment. Teams were to travel to different kingdoms via a magic mirror, and while there, acquire food that best represented that kingdom, and bring it back. All of the students were excited by this assignment (or the fact that they were essentially being given permission to skip their regularly-scheduled classes for most of that day). Vicki Broomstick was in especially good cheer, which was always a bad sign.

"I rigged the mirror in advance," she told her friends/minions Cyrus and Ruby. "All of the groups will be sent to dangerous, inhospitable lands. With any luck, some of these losers will be dead before the day is over."

"But Vicki," Ruby said, "then won't we get sent somewhere dangerous too?"

"Nope," Vicki said with a smirk. "The third group to go through will be sent somewhere with low danger and with easy-to-get food. We just have to go through third." The mirror was turned on, and the groups began making their ways in and through. Rose, Hawk, Astoria, Travis, and Joy went to Pixie Swallows. Finn, Odette, Gerald, and Alicia were sent to Remnant. Vicki, Ruby, and Cyrus were going to go next, but then Cyrus tripped and fell.

Sitting up, he looked down, then looked up and said, "Hold on, my shoelace needs tying." After a few seconds of struggling, Ruby crouched down, muttering, "You're doing it wrong," and attempted to tie the shoelace herself.

"If there is some problem," Headmistress Cinderella said, "perhaps the other group should go next."

"There's no problem!" Vicki said loudly, turning to face the instructors. "We have it under con-" She trailed off; Vicki had turned back to face her friends/minions, only to see that they were tangled up in an absurd amount of shoelace.

"We need help," Ruby said, looking embarrassed about the situation. Vicki covered her face with her hands, and tried very hard to not scream and/or swear. LingLing, Violet, Pinocchia, and Leena went through the mirror to Madison. Seventeen minutes later, Vicki, Ruby, and Cyrus went to Tatooine. All the while, Vicki was silently lamenting that she hadn't gone with her original plan of sending everyone to Earth, and letting the Shortbread Witch deal harshly with them.

The first thing the students noticed about their new location was that it was HOT!

"Aughh! It's hot out here!" Joy half-shouted, half-moaned. "And dry!"

Looking around, the students found themselves in what appeared to be a desert. The ground was composed of dirt and sand, with an occasional rock. The few plants were short, scrubby, sun-bleached things scattered well-apart from each other. Looking up, the sun beat down relentlessly, and the few clouds in the sky offered no shade. In front of them were a pair of adjoining buildings, with a parking lot in front of them, occupied by several parked cars. According to the sign in front of the buildings, they were looking at "Pixie Swallows Diner and Motel".

"A diner," Travis said, pointing to the buildings. "A diner will have food."

"Do you think that they'll have food that represents this place?" Hawk asked.

"Let's worry about that later," Astoria interrupted. "For now, let's get Joy out of the sun." Joy was smiling and giggling at something only she could see.

The walk across the parking lot was uneventful, though Rose thought she heard something like...growling coming from the parked cars as they walked past. She tried to tell herself she had just imagined it - that the heat was getting to her too. She didn't believe herself, but she also didn't mention it to the others.

The diner was (thankfully) air-conditioned, and fairly packed. Most of the tables were occupied, and a waitress behind the counter told them to take a seat, and she would be right with them. The kids walked through the dining area, drawing the attention of everyone there. They settled into a corner booth, next to a booth containing a smug-looking woman and a serious-looking man. The man was writing in a small notebook.

The five students had finished settling in when the waitress appeared and gave them a short spiel about the food available at Pixie Swallows Diner: the offered a variety of steak cuts, though most people just got the burger. The students exchanged glances, and an order for five burgers was placed. At the next table over, the man was staring intently at the students.

Finn, Gerald, Odette, and Alicia were walking through some manner of storage area. Warehouses loomed up over them, huge and menacing. It was dusk here, rapidly turning into night. This only made the whole experience more unnerving for the quartet. It was made even worse by the shattered moon hanging overhead, pieces ready to fall at a moment's notice. At least, that's how it looked to the four frightened Animals. The fact that they had been walking for several minutes now, and had yet to encounter anyone else was only making things worse.

Therefore, it was understandable that when someone finally did appear, suddenly and from behind a corner, the four students all gave a shout of surprise and took a few steps back. The man before them was tall, muscular, and wearing black pants, a white shirt with a black hood, and a mask that might have been made of bone. A pair of fox ears atop his head twitched. He was frowning at them.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. "Are you here for the meeting?"

Alicia, who had recovered first said, "Yes, yes we are." The frown deepened.

"You're late." He looked at each of them. They could all feel the scrutiny and suspicion in his gaze. "I don't think I've seen any of you around before."

"We're new," Alicia said. "This will be our first meeting." The man's posture relaxed a little at this.

"Seriously? What took you so long?"

"We got lost," Finn said, earning an eye roll.

"Ugh, fine, whatever. Look, next time, show up on time, and try not to show up as a group - four Faunus wandering around the Warehouse District at night? That's going to attract attention; the kind we don't want.

"Especially you, Big Guy." This last comment was directed at Finn, who shifted a little. The man pulled a device from his pocket, spread it out, pushed a button on it, and spoke. "Doorman, this is Scout."

"Doorman here. What's up?"

"Just found a few stragglers. I'll be bringing them in momentarily."

"Understood."

"One more thing - you know the special mask? I think I found someone to wear it."

"...Noted. Anything else to report?"

"No. See you shortly."

"See ya." The man closed the device and returned it to his pocket. He turned around and began walking. "Come on," he said over his shoulder.

"So, what was that about?" Gerald asked, voice shaking slightly.

"Just making some arraignments. When we get to the meeting, grab a mask, put it on, and try to mingle. Big Guy, you might have to wait a few extra minutes. We've got something special for you." Finn swallowed nervously, but continued to follow.

LingLing Ironfan, along with Violet, Pinocchia, and Leena, were standing in a paved area, one occupied by scattered lampposts, large metal vehicles, and people carrying bags. Bags containing food! People were entering and exiting a large building with a sign that identified it as "Empire Market".

"A food market!" LingLing said. "Just what we were looking for!" The group made their way to the building, all of them surprised by the relative ease of this assignment. Surprised, but not complaining.

Vicki, Cyrus, and Ruby looked about at their surroundings.

"So this is Tatooine," Vicki said in a not-impressed voice. Indeed, there wasn't much to be impressed by. There was little other than dirt, sand, and rocks in every direction, stretching as far as the eye could see. This, coupled with the blazing light of two suns and searing heat, did not bode well for the students. "Okay," Vicki said, "let's find some food and get out of here."

"Vicki? Where are we supposed to find food out here?" asked Ruby.

"We ask them," Vicki stated, pointing to a lone figure that had appeared from behind a ridge. The figure wasn't too far away, and waited patiently after the kids had shouted out to them. Drawing closer, they were better able to see the person. It was a human male, middle-aged, wearing a brown traveling-cloak and carrying a knapsack and a walking stick.

Putting on her most charming face, Vicki said, "Greetings, Sir. I'm sorry bother you, but my friends and I are in need of assistance. We were hoping to acquire some food. Do you know where we may find some?" The man just looked at her with a skeptical expression, and Vicki felt a deep certainty that he saw right through her. Finally, he spoke.

"For the sake of courtesy, I won't ask how you came to arrive all the way out here, despite your apparent lack of transport or general knowledge of the area." Vicki frowned at the dig, but said nothing. "Just beyond that ridge," he pointed in the direction he had come from, "is Mos Eisley. You should be able to find food there. But I warn you, it is the most wretched hive of scum and villainy to ever plague the galaxy." The man began walking away.

Once he was out of earshot, Vicki smirked and said, "A wretched hive of scum and villainy? Sounds like my kind of place!"

"All right, why are you kids here and what are you doing?" The man from the booth was standing before their table, arms folded and eyes glaring. The Regal Academy students looked up, none sure what to say, and Travis and Joy still chewing. Finally, Rose spoke up.

"We were getting some food; it's for a school assignment." The man's glare hardened.

"A school assignment?" he said slowly. "I might believe you except there's one problem: there isn't a school within fifty miles of this place. Try again."

While the team had initially been thrilled at their apparent good fortune, their excitement quickly turned into dismay. The establishment, Empire Market, was indeed a purveyor of food. What they hadn't counted on was sheer volume of food available for purchase, or the wide variety of selection. How were they supposed to find something that best represented this place, from among all that was available?

It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack the size of Regal Academy...and they didn't even know what the needle looked like! (And of course, all this was assuming that the store even sold a food that represented this place well, and that they had any left. As Violet pointed out, the last item might have been sold off before the students had even entered the store.) The quartet were going over their options when a deep, unfamiliar voice interrupted them.

"Greetings. I am the Day-Shift Manager of this establishment. Are you in need of assistance?" The students turned to face the asker. Before them was a figure of indeterminate gender; their entire body covered in a combination of leather and plastic-looking armor, as well as a helmet and mask, all in black. There was also a small control panel device on their chest, and a black cape hung from their shoulders. This person also wore a name-tag identifying themselves as "Chad".

LingLing put on a stoic face and said, "Yes. We are currently attempting to complete a school assignment. We seek a food that best represents this land. Can you please direct us to such a food?"

Chad just stood there, before saying, "Uhhh, well, there's a sale on cheese this week. Does that help you ou-oh, no." A man wearing a blue jacket and thick glasses had walked up to the group.

"Excuse me," he said, in a slightly-nasally tone, to Chad. "I'm gathering parts for a ferret machine. Where do you keep the ferrets?"

"Look," Chad said in a tone that indicated a great deal of frustration, "we don't have ferrets. We don't have live chickens, goats, ostriches, zebras, scorpions, or alpacas. We do not sell live animals of any kind! Will you please stop asking me these ridiculous questions already?!" There was a dinging sound from above, and a voice echoed through the store.

"Chad Vader dial five for vomit cleanup. Chad dial five for vomit. Again."

"OH, COME ON! That's the third time this week! Who keeps puking in the store?!" Chad stormed off, leaving the students and the man in blue standing there.

"Excuse us," LingLing said, addressing the man in blue. "Do you know where can find a food that best represents this land?"

"I would recommend you look in aisle seventeen. It's pretty good over there." The man in blue turned and walked away.

"Well?" The man asked. The students could only look up at him, minds racing but coming up blank. The answer to their dilemma came in an unexpected form: the woman that the man had been eating with.

"Hey, Arthur," she half-shouted while walking towards the exit. "I'm heading up to our room."

"Fine," the man, Arthur, replied. Then his eyes widened and he turned around. "Wait! Grace! I don't know which room we're in!" He turned back around, frowning in annoyance. "All right, listen up," he said to the students. "These people here are bad people, and they will hurt you if you give them the chance. Don't give them that chance. You need to get out of here as soon as you can. Don't stop moving, stay together, and stay away from the roads. Understand?"

The quintet nodded silently, none of them daring to speak. "Good." Arthur walked away, muttering something about a phone call. There was a few seconds of silence, then...

"He's right, you know." They looked over; a well-dressed older man at the next table over had turned in his seat to face them.

"What do you mean?" Joy asked. He smiled.

"You are currently surrounded by a large group of bad people, all of whom will hurt, if not kill you, given the opportunity to do so. Myself included." The blood of the Regal Academy students ran cold. Looking around the room, it did seem like a disproportionate number of the patrons kept glancing over at them...or were outright staring.

"Oh, don't worry," the older man said, "you're safe...for now."

"How's that?" Hawk said, trying to not let his voice shake.

"You will note that you are severely outnumbered. While this does give you the tactical disadvantage, it is also your best defense. Simply put, even with five of you, there isn't enough to go around. Add to that the fact that most of the people here are not sharesome, even in the best of circumstances. No one wants to lose out, but no one dares make the first move. We all know that whoever does go after you first will suffer the immediate wrath of everyone else.

"We are forbidden from killing each other," he added, "but savage beatings are permitted, if frowned upon."

"There you go, Big Guy! Or maybe we should call you "Goliath" from now on?"

"I'm stunned that thing fits so well." And it did fit well. When the quartet and their guide had reached their destination (a warehouse), they were greeted by another man, dressed like the first, this one with lizard tail. Odette, Alicia, and Gerald had all taken a generic bone mask and put them on. Finn had to stay back - they had something special for him...a custom-made, plus-size bone mask, styled after an elephant (or a mammoth, or something like that). The two men were admiring their handiwork; Finn was mildly embarrassed by the attention.

"Yes, well, thank you for the mask," Finn told the two. "But I really do need to catch up with my friends."

"Oh, that's a good point," Lizard-Tail said. "The meeting will be starting any moment now." One hurried walk down a long hallway later, the three entered a very large room, one that took up most of the space within the warehouse. The two men broke off to join the crowd of people in identical uniforms.

"New recruits stand to the right," someone was shouting.

There must have been hundreds of people in total. Most were wearing identical uniforms: black pants, white shirt with a red wolf-head and three slash marks on the back, and a black hood. To the right of the room, the people were wearing regular street clothing. Everyone there was wearing a bone mask.

"Alicia," Gerald whispered, "I have a bad feeling about this."

"Don't worry," she whispered back. "We just hang around for a few minutes, and if things look dodgy, we bail. Sound okay?" Gerald just whimpered; things looked plenty dodgy already, but he couldn't bring himself to say so.

Up on the stage at the front of the room, a man was addressing the crowd. "Thank you all for coming. For those of you who are joining us for the first time tonight, allow me to introduce a very special comrade of ours. I can assure you, he is the key to obtaining what we have fought for for so long!"

A red-haired man in a white coat, black pants, and a black hat walked out on stage. "Thank you, thank you," he said over the shouts of anger from the audience. Apparently, they did not approve of this comrade. "Please, hold your applause."

"What's a human doing here?" a girl with antlers shouted.

"I'm glad you asked, Deary," the red-haired man said, walking and waving his cane slowly. "Now, I'll be the first to admit, humans are the worst. Case in point." He gestured to himself. "So, I understand why you would all love to see us locked away, or better yet, killed."

"Alicia," whispered Gerald, tugging at her sleeve. She shushed him but was already working on an exit strategy.

"I'd like to mention the fact that you and I all have a common enemy: the ones who control, the people pulling the strings, the dirty, rotten humans that run our kingdoms. Governors. Military. Even the schools. They're all to blame for your lot in life." He was working the crowd up; shouts and whistles of approval rang out.

"Uh, guys," Odette whispered. "I think we should be leaving."

"And they're all pests that need to be dealt with," the man continued. "Fortunately, I'm the best exterminator around - no offense to any rodents in the room." He snapped his fingers, and the banner that had been hanging above the stage, serving as a backdrop, was pulled away, revealing a very large robot. The audience cheered wildly at this sight.

"Oh, we are so in over our heads," Alicia muttered to herself.

"As some of you may have heard, this right here," he rapped his knuckles against one of the legs. "Is Atlas' newest line of defense against all the scary things in the world! And thanks to my...employer, we've managed to snag a few before they, uh...hit the shelves. Now, many of your brothers have already moved down to our new operation in the Southeast. If you'd rather stay within the city, that's fine. But if you're truly ready to fight for what you believe in, this is the arsenal I can provide you. Any questions?"

"Hey, what do we do?" asked Finn, looking at classmates. They could only shakes their heads, thinking the same thoughts: things were getting real bad real fast, and they needed to get out. However, trying to leave now would likely prove disastrous. All around them, the others attendants were chanting and waving their fists.

"Would all new recruits please come forward," said the first man. The people on the far right, the ones in street clothes, began to walk forward to the stage. Afraid of making a scene, the Regal Academy students walked forward as well, all silently panicking. Their salvation came in the form of two people up ahead, one male and one female, who weren't walking forward despite being among the new recruits.

The red-haired man had been looking over at these two, frowned, and tossed aside the cigar he had been smoking. Apparently he recognized these two, and they were not on good terms with one another. The male whispered something to the female, the female whispered something back. She then pulled out a gun and shot an electrical box, throwing the entire room into darkness.

Chaos erupted, and things got real ugly, real fast.

"Y'know, I had plans. Lots of plans. They were good plans, too. Where do I keep going wrong?" Vicki punctuated this last sentence with a hiccup.

They had reached Mos Eisley, looked around, been shown several pieces of "food" that Vicki refused to buy, and at some point, ended up in a bar. (Apparently, there wasn't a legal drinking age. Or there was, but the proprietors didn't enforce it. Or they just didn't care.) Vicki was staring at the bartender, and wondering if he really had five arms, or if it was just the booze.

'Probably both,' she thought.

"Well," the bartender said in a gravelly, buzzing voice. "I just serve drinks to thirsty people, so I'm not really all that qualified to be judging plans. However, one thing I've learned over the years is that you take after people you hang around. So my advice is this: take a good look at the people closest to you, and decide for yourself if they're really helping you out, or just dragging you down." He slid away, leaving Vicki with her thoughts, and her alcoholic beverage.

'How many of these have I had?' she wondered. 'Eh, it doesn't matter. But that guy made a good point - maybe it's time to take inventory.' She looked over; Ruby was slumped over the bar, passed out and snoring. Turning around on her seat, Vicki could see Cyrus, who was looking unsteady and being told that, "You'll be dead!" by a shabby-looking man.

Cyrus looked at him, shouted, "AW, SHADDUP!" and slugged the man right in the mouth. 3.141 seconds later, a bar brawl was in full swing.

"Okay, we've eaten. Now let's go," Rose said in a hushed voice. Most of the other patrons had left the diner. Those who were left were sizing the kids up, and sizing each other up.

"Rose, we can't leave," said Hawk. "We still have to pay for our meal."

"Yeah," added Astoria, "and we also need to get more food to bring back. We cannot afford to get a failing grade on this assignment!"

Travis, who had been rather quiet up until then, spoke up. "I have an idea," he told the others. "It isn't a great idea, but I genuinely think it will work. First, we're going to need all the money we've got. Any bills, any notes, any loose change, any emergency stashes; put it all on the table." The next few minutes were filled with awkward shuffling and shifting, as wallets, purses, and pockets alike were emptied out. Emergency monetary stashes were retrieved, prompting the others to look away as needed. When it was over, sitting on the table was a modest pile of assorted bills, notes, and coins, of varying denominations and currencies.

"It'll have to do," Travis said, looking at the collected money, before turning to Hawk. "Okay, when we go up to the counter, Hawk will do the talking."

"Why do I have to do the talking?" Hawk asked.

"Because, if we want to get out of here alive, then we will need to take every advantage we can get. And that means putting the old Snow White Charm to good use." A few minutes later, after the plan had been outlined and everyone knew their parts, the students got up and walked over to the counter.

"Hello, there," the waitress said, smiling at them. "Anything else you folks need?"

"Of a sort," Hawk said in reply, smiling back. "We wanted to pay for our food, and we were also hoping to get a couple of burgers to go, if possible." The waitress' smile dropped a little at this last part.

"Uhm, I don't know about that…"

"If it would help sway your decision, we are willing to pay this much." The five students put all the money they had collected together on the counter. "All this, to pay for our meal, and buy a couple of burgers to go." The waitress was looking at the money, interested but trying to not let it show.

"Just a couple of burgers?" she asked.

"Just a couple of burgers," Hawk repeated, nodding, "to go, and ready to go as soon as possible."

The waitress bit her lip, thinking, then said, "You know what? Stay here for a few minutes, while I go talk to the chef. I think we can work something out." She winked at Hawk, turned, and walked back into the kitchen.

"I think that went well," Joy said after the waitress had left.

One by one, the groups returned.

LingLing, Violet, Pinocchia, and Leena brought back several cans of non-radioactive baked beans.

Finn, Odette, Gerald, and Alicia returned empty-handed and looking very disheveled. Apparently, there had been a very big fight. Gerald was crying because they had nearly been killed. (Finn did bring back a mammoth-styled bone mask, which Rose later said looked cool.)

Vicki, Ruby, and Cyrus returned empty-handed and falling-down drunk (which is exactly what Vicki and Ruby did). Cyrus got into an argument (which rapidly degraded into a fist-fight) with a potted plant.

Rose, Hawk, Astoria, Travis, and Joy returned bearing hamburgers. There were just enough burgers for everyone to have a half, and there was much eating and enjoyment. At least, until Coach Beast spat out a bunch of sequins. Put off by the odd find, he did a quick spell to check the nature of the meat. As it turned out, the meat used to make the burgers was human flesh.

When word of this broke out, there was much vomiting.