The Polendina Project

"Vale, Vacuo, and Mistral have fallen. Menagerie has been overrun. Only Atlas stands against the Grimm tide. But even then, they're pushing our borders back. There's nowhere else to go but north. I…doubt that humanity will see the light of day again. I've…spoken to Doctor Polendina and the Preservation Council, and we've agreed that it's time to activate The Polendina Project. We've secured…volunteers…but by the gods I hope they forgive me for this desecration. I was against it, I still am, but we need to safeguard humanity. The best and brightest were chosen, and it…it still feels…odd, using familiar faces and all. Young as they may be, they have a strong sense of duty. Projections of their survival rates are worrying, but there's still a high enough chance that it'll succeed. There's…not much time left for me, for us. If anyone finds this recording, I just…I just want to say this: know your duty, stay your path. May Oum guide you all. This is General James Ironwood signing out."

Prologue

A bag of chocolate chips.

Ruby grinned and rubbed her hands together. Her plan was coming along nicely. With her dad and Yang out on a grocery run, there was no one to stop her from making the ultimate food.

"Cookie!" she exclaimed while pouring the whole bag of chocolate chips into the mixing bowl.

Thinking that everything was according to plan, Ruby walked over to the cabinet happily and opened it. There was a bag of flour in it, but when she grabbed a hold of it, the bag deflated. She raised an eyebrow and began shaking the bag, hoping that there was still some more flour in it. Instead, a little spider fell out of it, causing her to leap back with a scream. Zwei, who was in the kitchen at the time, ran over to see what was happening. Seeing the spider, he slurped it up. He then turned to wag happily at a surprised Ruby.

"Ew, that's gross, Zwei," she said while cringing.

Zwei just barked happily and went back to sleep in the corner. All seemed fine, but something tickled at the back of Ruby's mind. She felt like she had done something like this repeatedly. Dad and Yang shopping for groceries, her plans to bake cookies, an empty flour bag, the spider, and Zwei eating it. She could not put a finger on it, but it seemed like no one was ever present in her life except for her dog. Then again, it could just be some random thought. They would be back soon enough with flour. After that, she could finish baking her delicious cookies.

She thought about going to watch some cartoons while she waited since there was nothing else she could do. Ruby raked her brains for a cartoon she liked, but she could not recall any names. Since it was still early in the day, she could surf the channels until she found something nice to watch. Grabbing a handful of chocolate chip from the bowl, she made her way to the living room while popping a mouthful of chocolate chips. As her mind wandered a bit, Ruby started asking herself why she was back at Patch. Was school out? No reason seemed to come up, and again, she decided to ignore it.

The living room was quiet, and sunlight flooded in through the windows. The air was still though, and there was not a single breeze. The curtains looked unnaturally solid for some reason. Walking to an opened window, Ruby noted that it was also quiet outside. The insect shrieks were absent, there was a lack of birds chirping, and even the rustling of leaves was gone. She threw a couple more chocolate chips into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully.

"It's like the world stopped. Weird," she muttered to herself. "Zwei!"

Immediately, she received a responsive bark. At least something here still moves. Her corgi came running into the living room and stopped in front of her, wagging furiously while waiting for his owner to give an order. Ruby finished the last of the chocolate chips and picked Zwei up. She tickled his belly, making his leg twitch furiously.

"C'mon, let's go see what's good in TV," Ruby said to Zwei.

He barked in agreement.

Setting the corgi down on the couch, Ruby grabbed the remote control from the table and sat down. When she turned on the television, the channel showed nothing but a blank white screen. She went to the next channel and it showed the same thing as well. Was there something wrong with the reception, she wondered. She kept changing the channels, her growl of annoyance growing louder and her scowl deeper as they kept turning up blank.

That was until she reached an oddly-named channel called Bootup Sequence.

"Is this a sci-fi show?" she asked no one in particular.

Words began scrolling across the screen, which seemed like it alluded to a computer starting up. Ruby felt herself drawn to it. Her surroundings began breaking down into tiny cubic particles, and this time, even Zwei had stopped moving. Her eyes widened with alarm, but her body remained rooted to the couch. As the world broke down to the last bit, all there was left was a white oblivion, one which engulfed her visions in a flash of bright light.

The bootup sequence, however, remained in her vision.

"Occupant health at optimum levels, Aura levels stable, running secondary diagnostics."

For a moment, Ruby felt a surge of coldness run throughout her body like an icy tide. The sensation lasted only a few seconds, followed by a wave of lukewarm feeling. It lasted much longer, but eventually cooled enough that she felt comfortable. The air smelled like fresh roses for some reason, not that it was a bad thing. It refreshed her mind and sharpened her senses slightly. She felt nude, like her clothes were absent. Still, she was solid as a rock, and there was nothing around for her to cover herself with.

"Secondary diagnostics complete. Subject Ruby Rose is operating at optimum performance. Recommendation: release for duties. Welcome back, Miss Rose."

Wait, optimum performance, release for duties?

The blank white surroundings faded into darkness, and her vision blurred considerably. Ruby was still immobile, so there was nothing she could do but wait. Her heart raced a little when her vision started coming back into focus. This time, her surroundings had details, and Ruby did not like it one bit. She was trapped in what seemed like a pod of sorts with no viewing port.

The insides were cramped as hell, full of tubes, wires, and other miscellaneous machine parts. She was lying on a cushion, so at least she felt comfortable. But Ruby blushed when she realised that she was really stark naked. She instinctively tried to cover her private areas, but an invisible force kept her glued. She started panicking and struggled to pull her limbs free. Her heart pounded against her ribcage while cold sweat rolled down her temples.

"Initiating dress up protocol," came the voice of a monotonous woman. It sounded like it came from a speaker within the pod.

A beam of orange light was emitted from a seemingly inconspicuous piece of device located at the top of her head. It let off a soft drone as the beam scanned her thoroughly from head to toe. Once the beam reached feet, the device switched the orange laser beam to a green one. This one made Ruby feel all tingly on her skin, but was surprisingly comfortable.

To her amazement, the beam started constructing fabric and leather out of thin air. Bit by bit, it made her a pair of combat boots, sheer pantyhose, bra and panties, skirt, blouse, and a hooded cloak. Looking down, Ruby noticed the machine had actually fabricated her original outfit. With the exception of her belt (it was missing, replaced by a utility belt instead) and a few minor details such as the cross-shaped pins (replaced with generic round ones), it was a near perfect copy.

"Whoa...that was cool," she said to herself while grinning widely, temporarily easing her from the panic attack.

"Dress up protocol completed. Releasing restraints."

The pod became quiet all of a sudden, as if the machinery had stopped working. But the interior lights were still on, so there was that. The invisible force that held Ruby down subsided, and she quickly massaged her wrists. For some reason unknown to her, they felt rather stiff, but a quick flick and crack was all that she needed to loosen them up. There was not enough room for her to stretch her legs though.

Ruby heard a series of metallic grinding noises and what sounded like gears spinning rapidly. The pod's interior was flooded with red light while the monotonous voice told her to stay put while the door opened. Ruby's eyes adjusted quickly to the dim lighting, but it only lasted for a few moments until the pod door started hissing and shifting. It swung open sideways noisily, a sound she likened to someone banging on a metal wall in an empty corridor.

Artificial white light flooded into the pod at the same time the pod's interior lights deactivated. Ruby shielded her eyes from the offending light, squinting hard to avoid sensory overload. Again, her eyes were quick to readjust themselves to the harsh lights. Once she could see again, she lowered her hand and took a deep breath. The smell of roses was gone, replaced by air that smelled filtered. There was a tinge of antiseptic in the air, or as Ruby like to call it the "smell of a hospital".

There seemed to be no one there to greet her. Stepping out of the pod slowly, Ruby looked around for other signs of life in the vicinity. Once her feet were clear of the pod, the door automatically swung shut and locked itself. It sunk back into a hole in the wall behind it, and once inside, the wall closed up with a silent hiss. As impressive as it seemed, the redheaded huntress had more pressing matters to concern herself with.

"Where am I? How'd I get here?" she asked mentally. "Is this a dream?"

Instead of the warm comfort of her home, Ruby found herself staring in the interior of what looked like a gigantic silo. The top was so high up that it was shrouded in darkness. The same could be said about the bottom. Looking down into the depths, she wondered how far down it was. The entire place look well-kept, but the colour scheme left much to be desired. White, that was all she saw. It was so white that it would probably give Weiss a run for her money. The silo was almost seamless, like the walls were one continuous structure without any protrusions or sunken areas. There were, however, walkways spaced evenly between each other. She noted that her current level was 7, as indicated by the large black number painted on the wall behind her.

There was no way to tell whether she was seven levels above or below ground, but she felt like going up would be the best solution. There was an archway nearby which led to a corridor. The floor made a squeaky sound whenever she walked, and it did not help that the echoes were so damn loud. It seemed like someone had been rather thorough with waxing the ceramic tiled floor. The corridor was, again, painted with a single shade of white. But it had more features as compared to the silo. There were security cameras hanging from the ceiling, tracking her every move. The fact that they were unsubtle made Ruby extremely uncomfortable. She could not shake the feeling that someone somewhere was profiling her. She stuck her tongue out at one of them, wondering if it would elicit a reaction from anyone watching.

Nothing.

Either there was no PA system installed, or they just could not care less about her silly attempt to make them say something. Reaching the end of the corridor, Ruby saw what looked like an elevator control panel. Without giving a second thought, she pressed the up arrow. It glowed white-yellow, and she heard a soft hum come from somewhere. Moments later, a loud 'ding' sounded, and the wall in front of her parted, revealing a small but neat elevator interior.

"Welcome, Miss Ruby Rose," came a more spirited voice.

She stepped inside, and the doors behind her closed. A holographic panel popped up next to the doors, displaying a list of floors available, 40 in total. Several of the holo-buttons were darkened, and she assumed that those areas were inaccessible. Fortunately, the topmost floor was available.

"Please select a floor by pressing on the desired number, or say it out via voice command."

"Forty," Ruby said aloud.

"Now headed for floor number forty: surface access."

So she was underground all along. That put things into perspective at least. While that answered a short term question, Ruby was still bothered by essential ones. She tried to recall what she was doing before that, but had no recollection of anything before or beyond the time she spent with Zwei. In fact, that was the only thing she remembered besides her name, her immediate family, and the fact that she was a student of Beacon Academy. Ruby knocked her head against the wall, frustrated that she remembered little bits of things but not important memories.

The elevator decelerated and came to a stop at her destination, and she felt butterflies in her stomach. The doors parted again, and Ruby was immediately greeted by a blast of cold air. Bits of snow splattered on her face, causing her to grunt in annoyance. This definitely was not Vale. The kingdom was too close to the equator to receive snowfall. The only place she could think of that snowed was Atlas. That again begged the question of how she got there.

Funnily though, despite the skin-piercing winds and sub-zero conditions, Ruby felt indifferent to it. There was no way this was normal. She should be cold, but instead, her body felt like as if she was still back at Vale during a cool Spring day. Maybe the materials of her outfit was more insulated than she had expected, but her hands and face were not feeling the chill either. Whatever the case, if it was not putting her in a disadvantage, she might as well make good use of it.

"So, what now, Ms. Elevator Lady?" Ruby asked jokingly.

It almost made her jump out of her skin when she heard the elevator respond in kind. "Ruby Rose is to gather at Checkpoint Bravo located 3 kilometres northeast of current position. Presence of subject is expected by RemCom, haste is recommended as subject is weaponless."

Weapons.

Crescent Rose.

It was not with her. Another wave of panic struck upon the realisation. She could not explain why it was so, because to her, it did not seem like a big deal. But the very thought of fighting with her bare hands seemed to have stirred up some concerned feelings within. Had she even attempted it before? If so, when was it?

As annoying and frustrating as her lack of memories was, Ruby decided to heed the advice of the machine. She dashed from the comfort of the elevator into the frigid wilderness, leaving a trail of rose petals behind her. The snow was knee deep, but it did little to hinder her movements. As soon as Ruby was away from the elevator, it closed its doors and sunk into the snow, disappearing from plain sight.

"No way back there now," she muttered.

There was nowhere else to go but forward from this point on.

While waiting for inspiration to pop up for Destiny of Two, I decided to write a different idea which I have been pondering on for a couple of days. Now that I think about it, it seems like I like having people wake up in a new environment, heh. Happy reading, fellow RWBY fans. Tell me whatcha think of this one.

Arclight-Zero