Golden Dandelions

The Chthonic Professor

Summary: A Witch, a Pirate, a Pokémon Trainer and the God of Thunder decide to slay Grimm for a living. OR: four friends from Earth die and wind up on Remnant, each wielding a power unique to their favourite fantasy world. They try to make the best of it.

Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY, or any of the fictional universes I've stolen superpowers from.

Warning: OCs as main characters.

Chapter One - The Paradigm Shift

A warm breeze ruffled the treetops, sending a cascade of sound tumbling all about the clearing. It was an absolutely beautiful day today. There were but a few wispy clouds drifting across a vivid blue sky. The air smelled fresh and the temperature was beyond fantastic.

It didn't make any sense.

"Where… are we?"

Where were the endless grey skies, covered in an indistinguishable mass of cloud and ash? Where were the husks of trees long-dead, stripped bare of their once-beautiful leaves? Where were the sounds of screaming and gunfire? Where was the evidence, the proof, that humanity wasn't ready to deal with those who lived among the stars?

Vanessa looked down from the sky to take in her more immediate surroundings. Her heart instantly found its way into her throat. What she was seeing was impossible. There were three other people in the clearing with her. She'd never seen a single one of them before, not in her entire life… but she knew exactly who these people were. How could she not? She was looking into the faces of three strangers, and found her three closest friends staring back.

The first thing she noticed was the fact that all three of them were far too young to be the people she knew. None of them could have been older than sixteen. The friends she remembered were a decade older than that. The second thing she noticed were the eyes. None of her friends had such brilliant eye colours. In fact, Vanessa didn't think anyone had such startlingly vivid eyes, and that's ignoring the fact that two of the three people she was looking at had eye colours that didn't even exist.

However, it was while looking into those bright, vivid eyes that Vanessa convinced herself these people wearing strangers' faces were, in fact, her friends. Despite the odd colours, despite the young faces, Vanessa recognized those eyes. She recognized the fear, the pain, the darkness hidden behind their brilliant facades. How could she not? She'd been sharing that pain, that fear, with them for the last eight years. She would recognize the look in any of those eyes long after she died, but none more so than the eyes of the man (boy? whatever, she'd figure that out later) standing directly across from her.

She'd known him the longest, after all. He was the one who'd saved her life all those years ago, who'd kept her going even after all hope was lost. She'd looked back on those days, those terror-filled days during the opening weeks of the Invasion of Planet Earth, too many times to count. Every time she did, she found herself marvelling at his strength.

She'd broken down so easily, so quickly. She gave up hope. It was the death of her best friend, her last friend, that did her in. They'd been trapped in an underground metro system for days upon days, and were the last two of their friends to survive. Vanessa had already given up, by then. It was only Cassandra's fierce optimism and love for her friends that kept them all alive for so long. She'd been sure, so sure, that he would find them. That he knew where they were. That he was on his way; it was just too dangerous on the surface for him to rush in without a plan. She hadn't been wrong. He'd made it. He came to save them.

He'd just been a couple of hours too late. Vanessa was the only one left alive when he got there.

He'd saved her, fed her, nursed her back to health. He'd protected her with a fierceness and ferocity that stole her breath from her lungs, even years after the fact. With Cassandra's death, Vanessa lost her best friend and all of her hope for the future. It was only his diligence, his care, that kept her going all those years. For the life of her, she didn't know how he did it.

Because with Cassandra's death, Vanessa lost her best friend, but he lost so, so much more. It was still possible to make new friendships, to gain best friends forged in fire and blood. Though Vanessa would never forget Cassandra, she wouldn't trade these three people for the world. Cassandra's death left a hole in her heart, and over the years, these three had managed to fill that hole.

None of them would ever fill the hole Cassandra's death left in his heart. Vanessa lost a best friend, and gained three more to fill that gap in her life.

He lost his sister. Nothing could ever replace that.

Vanessa had cried and cried for weeks after he'd saved her. She remembered thinking it wasn't fair. Why should she be the one to survive? Why should she be the one who was saved? He'd tracked through miles upon miles of war-torn city-scape to save his sister, and all he'd gotten for his efforts was her. It wasn't fair. Why should he be burdened with keeping someone like her alive? He'd have a much better chance of surviving on his own.

With the world falling to pieces everywhere she looked, Vanessa tried to take her own life. That was the first and last time he hit her.

She'd been startled by the sudden, throbbing ache in her jaw, but nothing had shocked her more than the look he gave her. He'd always had dark eyes, and the terror of their situation had only made them darker, but in that moment they'd been positively shining with unshed tears.

"Don't you dare." He'd grasped her tightly by the shoulders, and his voice was thick with emotion as he spoke. "Don't you dare. She gave her life so you could live yours." She remembered her heart wrenching, knotting itself in her chest. He didn't need to say her name for Vanessa to know exactly who he was talking about. "You can't just throw that away. She deserves so much more than that."

Standing there, precariously close to a several-storey fall from the top of a parking garage, Vanessa spoke for the first time since she'd been rescued.

"Why?" Her voice came out cracked and broken. She sounded decades older than seventeen. "Why don't you hate me." She'd whispered it, afraid to speak the words she'd been hammering into her head for weeks. 'I do.' She'd thought. 'I hate myself. Why don't you?'

"Because you deserve to live. Cass did, too, but she's not here and you are." It was a moment she'd engraved into her memories. She remembered everything. His words, his tone, the clash of fire and shadow in his eyes, the glow of the sun as it began to set behind his back. Every single detail. "You're a good person. She wouldn't have been your friend otherwise, and that's good enough for me."

And, oddly enough, that was the first time Vanessa really saw him. Up until that point, even after he'd rescued her, she'd only ever seen him as 'Cassandra's older brother.' To her, he'd still been the awkward, clumsy person she only vaguely knew from Cassandra's tales about her 'annoying elder sibling.' He'd been 'Cassandra's creepy older brother,' the guy who liked anime, was obsessed with reading and never looked any of his sister's friends in the eye.

Even though he'd been talking about living for his sister's sake, that was the first time Vanessa understood there was a lot more to this person than she'd ever realized. Cassandra was gone, and her death would stay with both of them for the rest of their lives, but Vanessa wasn't dead yet. She was alive. She was alive, because Cassandra kept hiding the fact that she was giving other people - giving Vanessa - her food and water when they were stuck underground. Cassandra deserved to live, more than any of them, but Vanessa realized she deserved to live as well.

And so did he. Because he wasn't just 'Cassandra's older brother,' he was a good person. She looked into his eyes, darkened by so much despair but burning with hope, and she saw him for who he really was. A brother. A friend. A leader.

"Caesar…" His name passed softly between her lips.

They were the wrong colour. They were too bright. They were set in a face too young, too unweathered, too unburdened… but she would never forget those eyes. Caesar's eyes.

What she was seeing was impossible.

"What… Vanessa?" He looked perplexed. His voice was higher than she remembered, younger, but it was unmistakably him.

It didn't make any sense.

"How… what, this doesn't-" She glanced quickly to the boy standing on her right, then to the one on her left. "Will? Nate?"

"Vanessa?" They echoed with wide eyes and parted lips.

It should have been impossible.

"How… how is this possible?"

It should have been impossible.

She took a good, long look at each of them. There were so many differences, but so many more similarities. Nate was taller than any of them, but not as tall as she remembered. Before, he'd been mulatto, with a head full of tight black curls, but now his skin was darker than chocolate and his scalp smooth as can be. However, even more than the colour of his skin, Nate's mannerisms gave him away. From his incredibly distinctive lazy slouch to the way his eyes dropped from wide surprise into half-lidded apathy, the boy to her left practically screamed Nate.

On her right was Will, and though he was the most difficult for her to identify, she still did so with an ease that surprised her. His hair was longer than she'd ever seen it, hanging like a dark blonde curtain on either side of his face. His eyes, though a far more brilliant shade of blue than they'd ever been, darted about the clearing with a cautiousness and familiarity that set her at ease.

Finally, her eyes fell once again on Caesar. He was the most changed of them all, but she knew without any doubt it was him. His hair was dark as sin. It fell in loose curls before eyes so vividly orange-red, Vanessa could only describe the colour as magma. However, the greatest change Vanessa could see was his size.

"Caesar, how could- how is it-… I…" The words tumbled thoughtlessly from her lips. She was confused. She was so confused. What she was seeing couldn't be possible. She couldn't think straight. She didn't want to think straight. Not when it meant… not when it meant admitting that…

"We died."

Her vision was instantly obscured by tears. He sounded so apologetic. As if their deaths were his fault, his burden to bear. 'Idiot.' She thought to herself. 'Stupid, selfless idiot.'

"C-Caesar…" She hiccuped, fighting down her sobs. She took a single, halting step forwards, and suddenly he was there, right in front of her. She clung to him like a particularly steadfast limpet, her sobs wracking her whole body with their force. The last time she'd hugged him like this, he'd been tall enough that she could rest her forehead against his chest. Now, they stood cheek-to-cheek.

"I'm sorry." His whisper was so soft, Vanessa doubted she was supposed to hear it.

"I-Idiot," she sobbed, smacking his chest ineffectually, "There was noth- nothing you could have done abou- about it!"

He was rubbing his hands up and down her arms in an effort to calm her down. "I know." He spoke softly, soothingly.

The moment was ruined when Vanessa heard movement to her right. "Alll~right, I think that's enough waterworks for now." And then there was Will. Vanessa lifted her head from Caesar's shoulder to give the insensitive ass a piece of her mind. It was the only reason she saw the thing coming. Just a couple of feet away from them, hidden in the shadows cast by the trees, Vanessa spotted a pair of ominous, glowing red eyes.

It all happened in a flash. She tensed up instinctually in fear. Caesar felt her tense up and reacted faster than she could think. His hands gripped her arms firmly and Vanessa felt him shove her backwards. The thing behind Caesar lunged.

She screamed. "Caesar!" He twisted to the side, trying to dodge his attacker while getting them in sight. He wasn't fast enough. An arm, nearly as long as Caesar was tall and tipped with wicked claws, swung at the small boy (man) with blistering speed. Just before the moment of contact, Caesar lifted his right arm in an attempt to deflect some of the damage. A sickening crack echoed through the clearing as his arm snapped like a twig. The claws were impossibly sharp, rending flesh from bone as easily as butcher's blade. With terrifying clarity, Vanessa watched as the massive paw slammed into the right side of Caesar's skull. Continuing the brutally powerful swing, so much force was generated that Caesar was lifted off his feet and sent skipping across the clearing like a stone across a pond. He slammed into Nate, who had the presence of mind to wrap his arms around his smaller friend before being bowled over.

Vanessa stumbled backwards away from the creature until she tripped, landing on her rear. She could do nothing but stare up at the creature as it loomed over her menacingly.

It was a beast. A massive grotesque tongue licked slowly across dripping chops, saliva thick and disgusting with its hunger. Eyes that burned like fire left glowing trails in the air, set deep in a horrifying mask of painted bone. Powerful muscles rippled beneath coarse black fur as the thing slammed its forepaws into the earth. Chunks of dirt were gouged out by claws sharper than knives, mixing with the blood - Caesar's blood - dripping from its left paw. It growled, a low, deep sound that rumbled in her chest and sent shivers down her spine.

It was looking right at her.

Vanessa's next scream caught in her throat, never to leave her lips, as she watched a palm-sized stone bounce off the side of the thing's head.

"Hey!" Will's tone was sharp and abrupt. It was enough to get the beast's attention, that was for sure. "You wanna dance, asshole?" Will's sense for the theatrical was going to get him killed. Again.

Vanessa scrabbled through the grass for something - anything - she could use as a weapon. She came up with nothing but a twig and a pebble. Useless.

The beast prowled toward Will with a slow, steady gait. This was a predator of the highest order, and none knew it better than the beast. Will began backing away slowly, his eyes locked with the creature's. He was backing straight towards the trunk of a tree on the edge of the clearing.

Vanessa moved to warn him, to shout - anything would work, as long as it got his attention - but for the briefest moment, his eyes cut away from the beast's to lock onto her own. There was a message there. His gaze was steady. He knew what he was doing.

The beast decided that would be the best moment to strike, while Will was looking away. Will seemed to anticipate this. The creature swung, leading with its right paw. Will dropped to his stomach right in front of the tree, the beast's swing coming so close it ruffled his hair, and rolled away as quickly as he could. He rolled to the side beneath the swinging arm, so that when it attack with its other paw, the thing slammed it into the side of the tree. Bark exploded from the point of impact, showering Will in wood-chips.

He scrabbled away from the creature as quickly as he could. It tried to pursue the blonde boy, but found its claws lodged firmly into the damaged tree. It paused for no more than a moment, seeming to study its predicament. Then, with a powerful tug, it wrenched its claws free from the wood.

Will looked startled. He hadn't counted on it being strong enough to free itself so quickly. With a horrible reverberating growl, the beast took one last look at Will before diving in for the kill.

Vanessa heard it before she saw it. There was a mechanized whirl. It was, she thought, the kind of sound you'd expect to hear when a robot moved its arm.

Then the creature was headless. There was no in-between.

It fell to the ground, dead, and began dissolving into black smoke before their eyes. In its place stood a man unlike any Vanessa had ever seen. He was holding a sickle longer than himself, wearing a ragged cape that flapped violently with his sudden arrival. A thick five o'clock shadow covered his jaw, and his red eyes looked just as terrifying as the ones on the beast.

"What," He ground out with a voice like crumbling granite, "Do you kids think you're doing?" He turned to look down at Will, a grimace pulling at his features. Will didn't even flinch. "Do you know how quick you would've been killed if I hadn't been passing through?"

He turned to look at her and Vanessa immediately wilted beneath his glare. "Lucky." He growled. "You're damn lucky."

"Caesar." The name was past her lips before it even formed in her thoughts.

"… Huh?" The man leaned back a bit, looking confused.

"Please." She pulled herself onto her hands and knees, arms shaking with fear and adrenaline. "Please help him. Please. Please." Her voice cracked. She'd never been so earnest in her life. This man, whoever he was, could be Caesar's only hope.

A groan from the other side of the clearing clued the man in. He shifted his gaze to look for the source of the sound. By the look on his face, he did not like what he saw.

"Shit." He swore emphatically. With quick, long strides he crossed the clearing. Vanessa scrabbled after him, Will close behind. She watched as the man knelt beside Caesar, who was being held in Nate's lap. He grabbed her friend's chin with long, calloused fingers, tilting it to get a better look at the wound. He visibly bit back a gasp. Vanessa didn't have nearly that much control over her reaction. She gasped loud enough for all of them, then immediately choked on a sob.

"Well. That doesn't look pretty." The man mumbled softly.

Caesar's face was a bloody, mangled mess. A single, nearly inch-wide trench traveled from beneath his jaw all the way up to his hairline at a faint slope. His right eye wasn't even visible beneath all the damage. On either side of the massive wound were two smaller gouges. One stretched from below his ear up to his temple. The other was just large enough to split the right side of his lips and follow the curve of his chin. All of them are thick with fresh blood.

It's everywhere. Nate's hands are slick with it, and it's already beginning to pool in his lap, beneath Caesar's head. It's a sickeningly familiar scene.

"He's losing too much blood."

Will glared at the man like he's an idiot. "Then we need to do something, fast. Isn't there a nearby town, or-"

"He'd never make it." The man was frowning deeply. "It's more than a day's run to the nearest town, and they wouldn't have any doctors good enough to heal this even if he survived the trip."

Vanessa felt her lower lip begin to tremble. She bit down, hard, in an effort to stop it.

"There's got to be something you can do?" She pleaded with the man. He'd shown up like a wraith to save Will's life, maybe, just maybe, he had something up his sleeve that could save Caesar?

(In a small, dark corner of her mind, Vanessa knew if he'd been capable of using some magical healing powers, the man would have healed Caesar by now.)

The man said nothing. He just kept frowning with a troubled look on his face.

Will gnashed his teeth so violently, Vanessa heard it clearly. His lips were pulled over his gums, baring his teeth in disgust. "You're a Huntsman, aren't you?" He ground out, his tone sounding accusatory. Vanessa looked up at him in surprise. There was a look in Will's eyes, and Vanessa wasn't sure she liked it.

Will knew something. He knew something she didn't. There was meaning behind those words.

She glanced over to Nate, who was still cradling Caesar's head in his lap. Through the entire ordeal, he hadn't looked up from Caesar's mutilated face. Now, however, his piercing gaze was locked on the man's red eyes. She'd seen Nate give people this look before. It was effective, and he almost always got his way when he used it. Now, though?

Now it was downright intimidating. His eyes were an impossible shade of yellow, like something you'd expect to find on a hawk, and his gaze did not waver.

"Yeah, kid." He responded to Will's question without turning away from Nate for even a moment. "I'm a Huntsman."

Nate, Vanessa realized, knew the same thing Will did. And whatever knowledge that happened to be, it had something to do with the man in front of her being a 'Huntsman.'

"Then unlock his aura. It'll heal his injuries."

Though the man didn't remove his hand from Caesar's chin, he turned his whole body, not just his head, to look at Will. "What are you, dumb?" He bit out harshly. Will didn't even have the decency to look fazed. "I find four dumb kids in the middle of goddamn nowhere trying to fight a Beowolf, and you want me to unlock his aura? You'll all be dead by morning."

For the first time, Will looked surprised. He tried to cover it up quickly, but Vanessa wasn't the only one to notice. The Huntsman chuckled, and Vanessa shivered at the sound. It was dry and utterly humourless.

"Didn't know that tidbit, did ya kiddo?" He smiled condescendingly. "Well, I am a teacher, so I guess it's my job to educate you. If I unlock his aura, 'Caesar' is going to start attracting every Grimm in a one-mile radius. He's untrained, and he's a kid, so he doesn't know how to control his emotions. On top of that, he's just been mauled by a Beowolf, and no matter how much he heals, he's never getting that eye back. Kid's gonna be a total nexus of negative emotions when he wakes up."

"And that means Grimm."

Their eyes all turned to Nate. It was the first time he'd spoken since the Huntsman got here. The man gave him an appraising look, before nodding.

"Yeah. And that means Grimm."

Will scoffed. It was a short, disgusting sound, but it was so Will Vanessa swore she saw an image of his twenty-six-year-old self superimposed over his body.

"What do I care? If it'll save his life, unlock his aura." He crossed his arms and stood with his feet planted and shoulder-width apart.

"I'm not saving one kid just so it can get all four of you killed." The man shot back.

"Then unlock all of our auras." Will was stubborn as ever. Dying hadn't changed a thing. "We'll protect ourselves."

The man snorted in derision. "Even worse. You'll not only get yourselves killed, you'll get other people killed as well attracting that much negativity. I am not letting four kids run about with untrained auras-"

"THEN TEACH US!" Will roared, arms thrown high in the air. "YOU SAID IT YOURSELF, YOU'RE A TEACHER, AREN'T YOU?" He took in deep, sucking breaths, his chest expanding and contracting rapidly with the effort. For the first time since he'd shown up, the man looked startled. "I will not stand here and watch my best friend die when there's a way we can save his life." Will finished, voice low and dangerous.

The Huntsman stared searchingly into Will's eyes.

"Even if I unlock his aura, he might not have enough of it to heal all his wounds. He'll suck himself dry trying to heal, and then that'll kill him instead."

"It won't." Will sounded so sure of himself. "He's stronger than that."

"Alright. Say he's stronger than that. He recovers, heals up all nice. Why should I have to lug you three around as well, trying to keep you all alive and teaching you how to use aura? I could just save the kid's life, dump you all in the nearest town, and head back to Signal with him. Problem solved."

Vanessa felt ice freeze her veins and stop her heart.

No.

"No way in hell, old man." For the second time since he'd shown up, the man looked startled. Vanessa balled her hands into fists and grit her teeth. "Where he goes, we go. End of story."

Will and Nate were both nodding in agreement.

"Exactly. Anyway, even if you did separate us, he'd just escape and make his way back to us. But, by then, he'd have learned everything he could about unlocking auras, and then you'd have four untrained kids with unlocked auras out and about." Now the man looked intrigued, almost as if he'd take Will's words as a challenge, so he quickly tacked on "Caesar's just crafty like that," right at the end.

Another staring contest between Will and the Huntsman ensued. The man eventually broke the stare, a long, heavy sigh leaving his lips.

"Alright," He looked back at Will. "Fine. Have it your way. The kid'll die anyway if I don't do something soon, but I'm telling ya now, we've got a lot more to talk about after this."

Will nodded and crossed his arms. "Fine. As long as you heal him."

With that said, the man turned back to Caesar, sat down cross-legged, and laid a hand on his chest. Then he started glowing.

And that's when everything finally sunk in. Death? Auras? Huntsmen? Grimm? Training? This place, whatever it was, had absolutely nothing in common with the Earth she remembered… and the boys knew something about it.

Her eyes narrowed. The moment Caesar was in the clear, Nate and Will were in for one heck of an interrogation. She was going to get to the bottom of this.

…

Whatever this was.

Caesar woke up feeling like someone had taken a jackhammer to his skull. Repeatedly. His head was pulsing rhythmically to the beat of his heart, sending waves of pain cascading about his mind. He grimaced. The skin on the right side of his face felt tight and unnatural. It pulled oddly with the change in expression. He went to poke at the unfamiliar sensation, only to find he couldn't move his right arm all that well.

He finally tried to pry his eyes open - and his thoughts froze dead in their tracks, because he'd tried to open his eyes. Plural.

Only one eye responded.

His vision was blurred and unfocused. He only dimly registered that it was dark outside. He blinked once, then twice, attempting to make some sense of his situation. Again, he received no response from the right side of his face. He could only feel the tight pulling sensation growing stronger with each attempt at opening both eyes.

With some measure of apprehension, Caesar lifted his left hand (briefly glad at least that seemed to be working just fine), and brought it up to his face. The instant it came into contact, his heart dropped.

Scar tissue. His face was covered in scar tissue.

Morbidly fascinated, he began poking at the mass of mangled flesh where his eye used to be.

…

Admittedly, it took longer for that thought to sink in than it should've. With shaking fingers, he traced the grisly wound from just beneath his hairline, completely over his absent right eye, and all the way down his cheek to where it finally tapered off to a point just below the curve of his jaw. The longer his fingers wandered, the more difficult it became to breathe. It wasn't long before his breaths were coming in short, painful gasps.

Then, suddenly, he was sitting up. There was a comforting hand on his back, attached to a pair of concerned red eyes set in a grizzled face.

"Easy- easy, kid." The very familiar voice of Qrow Branwen assaulted his ears, and he nearly fainted. He'd died, found himself de-aged, unrecognizably altered, and somehow alive alongside his three closest friends, been mauled by a monster, lost his eye, was horribly scarred in the process, and now he was staring at a real-life Qrow Branwen? This situation was all kinds of messed-up. "Breathe. You're not doing yourself any favours by panicking."

A soft rustling from somewhere behind Qrow grabbed his attention. With a quick darting glance, he caught the concerned - though unfamiliar - faces of his friends looking back at him. Seeing that, he let out a slow, shaky sigh. Already, he was breathing easier. His friends were fine. Whatever had happened, his friends were fine. Although, that did beg the question…

"What… what happened?"

His mind was already running away with his thoughts before the question had fully left his lips. He and his friends were suddenly inhabiting bodies that weren't their own. He'd been attacked by a monster with dark fur and very sharp claws. It'd been strong enough to knock him unconscious with a single blow, and completely blinded his right eye, leaving him permanently scarred. He'd somehow survived the wound, and already it'd healed enough to be a scar, rather than a wound. Now, while Caesar wasn't sure how long he'd been out, he didn't think it'd been very long. Not only were they still in the woods, meaning they hadn't gotten him to a hospital, but the other three kept shooting Qrow weary glances. They weren't quite comfortable with his presence yet. That meant he was still a new factor, and they hadn't figured out his true intentions. Caesar thought it was reasonably fair to assume his 'attacker' had been a Grimm of some kind, if Qrow's existence was to be believed.

Following that same vein of thought, they clearly hadn't gotten him looked-at by a proper healer. The only other method of healing Caesar knew from his memories of RWBY involved aura. Which meant, if Caesar was correct, that Qrow Branwen had unlocked his aura in order to save his life.

"You were attacked by a creature of Grimm. A Beowolf, to be exact. Left you with a concussion, a broken arm, and a heck of a nasty scar."

Caesar was nodding along. Instant gratification was such a wonderful thing.

"Then, when you realized I was losing too much blood to get me to a proper hospital on time, you did the only thing you could. You unlocked my aura." He finished, tone smug.

Qrow was looking at him, disbelief written all over his face.

"What?" Caesar gave him the most innocent look he could manage. It probably didn't work with such an intimidating scar bisecting one side of his face.

"You're telling me you figured that out on your own?" The disbelief hadn't left the man's face. "How? You haven't even been awake for more than five minutes."

Caesar didn't know what to tell the man, so he shrugged. Three simultaneous sighs from behind the man nearly pulled a laugh from his lips. Vanessa, Nick, and Will walked around Qrow to stand beside their friend.

"Caesar does that sometimes." Nick said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "He can be scary smart when he wants to be."

"Yeah," Will tacked on, "He has his moments."

Caesar blinked his lone eye. "Ey! I have more than moments. Ass." He grinned when Will rolled his eyes. Even on another person's face, that was a familiar sight.

For a long moment, silence stretched between them. Nobody knew what to say. It was an incredibly awkward situation. What is one supposed to do, exactly, when they've just had their face nearly removed by a creature of darkness, followed by a chat with a fictional character?

Then, as if he'd been looking at a picture upside-down his whole life, and someone just-now decided to turn the world right-side-up, everything clicked into place in Caesar's mind.

"Wait… we're on Remnant?" He couldn't have sounded more incredulous if he'd tried.

Qrow snorted. "Of course you're on Remnant. Where the heck else would you be?"

The earlier silence quickly turned unsettling as the Huntsman took the time to let his words sink in. Then, quick as a flash, he was eyeing the four of them suspiciously. He found four increasingly-suspicious-looking children staring back at him.

"Caesar." Will's tone was defeated, in every sense of the word. He didn't look away from Qrow, even thought he was addressing his friend.

"Yes, William?" Caesar, by contrast, seemed entirely unrepentant. He didn't look away either.

"You're an idiot."

"It's funny you would mention that. I've never been more aware of that fact in my entire life."

"As long as you know."

"Oh~ believe me. I know."

Throughout their by-play, Qrow's eyebrows had slowly been inching closer and closer to his hairline. He turned to look at Will.

"Well," He said, "Now might be a good time to have that talk, don't you think?"

All four of them swallowed nervously. Things were about to get interesting.

AN: I've wanted to write something like this for a while, but despite having such great potential for OC-driven stories, people in the RWBY fandom don't seem to like writing OR reading them. So, I wanted to write something people would actually read. Hopefully.

I, at least, think it's going to be interesting. I'm going to try and stay away from as many tropes as possible, to make a more 'believable' story. There are also going to be some alterations to the powers of the main characters in order to better fit the constraints of aura and semblances.

I also really shouldn't be putting this out right now, as I've got two major term papers due this coming Tuesday and Thursday, but writing this let me relax, and it turned out better than expected.

As always, tell me what you all think!

The Chthonic Professor