Welcome everybody to my second fanfic ever! I thank all of you who are reading this for giving it a chance. That being said, this is my second fanfic, so reviews are always welcome.

This story is a RWBY/Thaumcraft crossover. It isn't in the crossovers section because Thaumcraft is a mod and I almost exclusively reference Thaumcraft instead of the game it mods, Minecraft. This story also assumes that you know a little bit about Thaumcraft, but I'll try to make it new-person friendly.

"Normal speech."

'Thoughts of person being followed.'

'Thoughts that the person being followed hears, but aren't theirs.'

"Someone Else speaking."

Person Being Followed

Asteritch

To say that Asteritch was annoyed is like saying that the Grand Canyon is big. It's true, but doesn't even begin to describe how much so it is. Asteritch had recently come back from his excursion into the Outer 'Lands', to call it a dimension might be wrong if his theories are correct about it. He normally referred to it as the Other Place to keep things simple. Now, it was great to have returned alive and sane, well mostly sane, he even killed a great eldritch guardian and acquired a primordial pearl. Said pearl was the source of his annoyance currently in all of its resplendent multi-colored glory. It was refusing to follow any of the rules of normal matter, i.e. it wasn't letting him break it down or even scan it.

Sure, there was the idea that this pearl was irreversibly shackled to this reality, but that was a whimsical thought at best, not even a theory. 'Is it really just a thought though?' he thought. If it was, that would explain why he couldn't break it down. "What happens when something shackled to reality meets the void?" he heard in his head. This was the fifth time that Someone Else had helped him. They were always helpful when he was stuck in a rut, and they always seemed to know the answer even though they only asked questions, so he just stopped questioning them.

'But how would they meet?' he asked himself. Then, an idea popped into his head. Just infuse the pearl with the aspects of the void. He retrieved the pearl and changed out of his thaumium fortress armor, basically purple metal samurai armor, into his more casual purple robes. He liked the color purple, it was the color of royalty and magic, or at least the color of magic's aspect.

He ran through his sizable stone tower until he reached the infusion altar in the basement. The altar was a simple construct of four man-height towers around a runic matrix. Below the matrix was a pedestal and spaced evenly apart around the altar were eight more pedestals. He placed the pearl in the center pedestal and ran back upstairs to grab some void metal and void seeds. Once he had them, he ran back to the altar and placed them in an alternating fashion around the center on the pedestals. He then ran over to his essentia jars to make sure only Vacuo and Alienis were selected to be withdrawn from. All he had to do now was start the infusion.

He reached for the matrix to start infusion. As soon as he touched it, there was a flash of light as he was sent flying backwards from an explosion from the pearl. He hit the natural stone wall of the room, though his runic protection took the blow for him.

As he stood up, he saw that the pearl was gone. In its place was a glowing white portal, akin to the portal to the Other Place in shape. He started walking towards it, partially because of his curiosity, partially because he felt like he was getting pulled towards it. "Where do you lead to?" He said before he reached up to touch it. When he touched it, everything went white and he passed out.

"... He's waking up!" A voice said as Asteritch slowly regained consciousness. He opened his eyes and saw red, lots and lots of red. As his eyes slowly focused, he realized that the red belonged to someone, it was their hair. His eyes seemingly popped back into focus. He saw that a girl with long red hair was observing him, her emerald green eyes watching his every move. 'Just like they did.' He shook away that thought and went back to observing her. She couldn't have been older than 10, and she was wearing a tiara in her loose red hair.

He decided to get some information. "Where am I?"

…

'What the hell happened to my voice!' He thought. 'I sound like I'm 10!' He looked down to his body and took a good look at his proportions. 'Scratch that, I think I am 10. But how, I was 20 before I made the portal. Did it change my age?'

"There's no going back." Someone Else said in his head. 'Well, I guess that means I'm stuck here.'

"You're in my house in Mistral." She said as if it was the most obvious thing ever. Before he could respond, a man walked through the door of the room. He looked around the room. The walls were a light teal, there was a window on his left and a door on his right in the corner, and he was on a bed in a corner opposite to the door. There was also a wooden desk in the corner to his right.

The man had short bright red hair and soft blue eyes, must be the girl's father. His face was akin to a brick, but had strong, defined features. His torso was large and strong, but not buff, and he wore a light blue polo and black jeans. He pulled out the chair in front of the desk and placed it next to the girl and sat down. "Are you alright?" He asked.

'What will my story be?' he asked himself. "I'm fine, though I think I hit my head."

The man raised an eyebrow. "Why do you say that?"

"Well, I have a small headache, and when she said I was in Mistral, I couldn't recall ever hearing of such a place." Asteritch told him. 'Good, let's stick with the truth for now, until they ask about my past.'

"You think you have memory loss? What do you remember?" The man asked.

'Well, time to lie.' "I… remember waking up and asking where I was, then you walked in." Asteritch lied. The man's face scrunched up.

"Very well then, for now you'll stay with us until you do remember." The man stood up and put the chair back. "I'm Peleus Nikos, this is my daughter Pyrrha." He said as he gestured to the girl. "Now, what do you know about the Grimm?"

"The depressing?" Asteritch guessed.

Peleus sighed. "No, the creatures of Grimm. They're creatures of darkness that have no soul and are drawn towards negative emotions." He explained.

"Ok." Asteritch said. 'This is going to take forever.'

The next few hours were filled with history and science lessons, in which he learned many things about this new world such as Faunus and dust. The dust wasn't impressive, it sounded exactly like crystallized essentia, though what people managed to do with it was astounding.

Pyrrha had invited him to spar with her, because they assumed that he had been in combat school because of his weapons. That made his job of explaining everything so much simpler. He was currently in their backyard in his robes and his weapons in hand. He had a zephyr longsword, which in reality was a katana, and his thaumic revolver, which was apparently outdated in this world. He hadn't been able to find his runic shielding.

He drew his katana from its sheath on his hip and held it in both hands, it was made for 20 year old him and 10 year old him wasn't large enough or strong enough to use it in one hand. He kept the point close to the ground as readied himself for battle.

"Are you ready?" She asked as she got into her stance with her sword and shield. He simply nodded as he tensed himself. She ran at him as he just stood there. As she approached, he flicked the blade backwards and then seemingly slid backwards a few yards. Pyrrha preemptively stopped and raised her shield for his follow-up attack, which shortly arrived after he flicked his blade back up, causing himself to slide back to where he had just been, and did a large upwards slash. Pyrrha then slashed at his face, which was rewarded with Asteritch getting a cut on his cheek.

Pyrrha realized what she did and put her weapons away. "Stop!" She ordered. This confused him, but he sheathed his katana.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

"Why didn't you tell me you didn't have your aura unlocked?" She asked.

"I didn't think it was that big of a deal." He replied, which was part of the truth. The other part was that he thought that by simply being in this world, people had this magical 'Aura' unlocked. He still didn't understand aura from what Peleus had explained.

"It is! I could have accidently killed you!" She screamed. Asteritch winced, he didn't see why she was yelling.

"Look, calm down." He said as he put his hands on Pyrrha's shoulders. "Is it possible for you to unlock my aura?"

Pyrrha suddenly looked timid. "Yes, but I've never done it before and it could do some really bad dam-"

"I trust you Pyrrha." He replied.

"But I-" Pyrrha babbled.

"Just do it." Asteritch interrupted.

"Ok." Pyrrha placed her hand on his chest and started chanting. "For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee." Her hand glowed white as Asteritch felt a barrier get released. It was as if a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders and he felt like he could fly.

Suddenly he could hear screaming. "MINE!" He heard Someone Else shriek. A violent flash of dark red emanated from Pyrrha's hand as she fell backwards limp. Asteritch rushed to catch her and checked her pulse. Alive, but unconscious was what he decided. He struggled but eventually succeeded at putting Pyrrha on his back piggyback style and walked back into the house.

As he entered the house, Peleus saw him and approached him. "What happened?"

"Turns out I didn't have my aura unlocked, so I asked Pyrrha to unlock it for me. I think it lashed back at her and knocked her out." He knew there was more to it than that, but hopefully that would never have to come up. "Where is her room?"

"Down the hallway, to the left." Peleus answered with a slightly worried expression.

This confused Asteritch. "Why are you so calm?"

Peleus chuckled. "This isn't exactly uncommon when people unlock someone else's aura, so I'm not surprised that she's unconscious. I'm just hoping she learned something from this."

"What is it you want her to learn from this?" Asteritch asked.

"Sometimes, she can't do things by herself and expect to be fine." Peleus answered. "Now, go put her down in her bed, I'm sure carrying her in her combat gear is tiring for someone your size." Asteritch made no pause as he bolted towards the room Peleus had said was Pyrrha's room. He entered through the open door and found a room of red and yellow. He put her down in her bed and knelt by her side.

'I've never known Someone Else to react like that. Was he trying to claim her or was he trying to stop her from unlocking my aura? Either way, they've changed. I don't like where either train of thought leads to.' He looked at Pyrrha's sleeping form. 'I don't think she wanted to hurt me, but because of me got inadvertantly hurt herself.' He put a hand on her shoulder. "I vow on my title as a thaumaturge to protect you until the end."