Disclaimer: This story was created for no personal gain other than enjoyment and improvement on my own writing skills. None of the characters within this story, or the universes they come from belong to me. RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth and Fallout belongs to Bethesda. Please support both series.
Chapter 2: New Home
Arthur stared at the sky for a full minute as his mind scrambled to form some kind of answer for the nightmare that seemed to stare him in the face. To the young knight's dismay, his head continued to draw blanks. Of all the horrid kinds of technology that man had managed to build to slaughter itself, never had they been able to completely break something like the moon. Not even the atomic bombs that had left the once green Earth almost unable to support life could have done this.
"Sir?" Miss Rose asked hesitantly, "Are you okay?"
Arthur couldn't manage to bring himself to respond. Instead, he allowed his legs to give out as his knees landed on the already abused roof and create a small tremor that kicked up a plume of dust. The contact made a loud crunching sound while more cracks formed in the once smooth surface beneath him. Then, quietly, the boy slowly placed the metallic hands of his armor onto his scorched helmet before disconnecting it from the rest of his steel shell with an audible click and huff of air.
He felt his hair stick to the top of his helmet from the sweat that the fight had caused before it began to fall back down. In the front, most of the waterlogged strands came to rest just above his eyebrows, covering most of his forehead while the rest landed about wherever it pleased, creating a black nest upon the rest of his cranium. The helmet tumbled to the ground with a hollow clanking sound. Arthur looked back to the glowing shards of white that floated in the distance with a shell shocked expression.
"What happened?" he asked quietly, his voice cracking. he could already feel despair beginning to well up within him.
When no response came, Arthur looked down to see Miss Rose's eyes widened in surprise as she raised a hand to cover her mouth in shock while the blonde's eyebrows had shot up in disbelief. After his gazed rested upon them for a moment, the two seemed to realize that they had missed his question when he had revealed his young age to them.
The elder of the two was the first to fully recover after she blinked her eyes several times before her mind focused on what he had asked. Arthur watched the gears in the woman's head slowly work out the nature of his question when she looked from the armored teen to the city behind her.
"To the moon?" she asked with a tone of hesitance, almost like she expected to be corrected when she looked to him for the correct answer. But she had hit the nail on the head.
The boy nodded in the affirmative. He felt a small breeze of cold air bite into the side of his face, sending a chill down his spine. Arthur could feel his body shiver within his armor as the girls both looked back to the large rocks that illuminated the night. He almost didn't want to know the answer, like him not knowing would somehow make the sight go away.
After all, the destruction of an object big enough to effect the tides of the planet could lead to any number of terrifying outcomes. Outcomes that could mean the end of Earth; this time, for good. Arthur shook his head violently, an attempt to remove the thoughts of another apocalypse from his mind while he mentally clawed through every physics lesson he had ever learned in his life, trying desperately to find some way that the world might crawl from the ashes again. He looked back to the two girls as he continued to think of something, anything at all, that might save them.
The two looked back to him, each with an expression of concern on their faces. They glanced to one another, likely trying to figure out who should be the one to answer. Finally, Miss Rose stepped forward reluctantly, like someone approaching a cornered animal.
"It's," she began, a mix of fear and confusion showing in her voice, "It's always been like that." She finished.
Another cold gust of wind blew by, making the girl's cloak flutter to the side while the words hung between the three like a monster they couldn't see, but they knew was there.
"What?" Arthur asked after a moment silence.
"The moon has been in pieces since before life existed on Remnant." The blonde replied, making Arthur turn to her.
he continued to try and make since of what the two had just told him, but he just couldn't seem to do it.
"That's not possible," Arthur said, his mind once again sent scrambling for an answer.
Perhaps he had been knocked unconscious from the blast he had taken at the end of the fight, leading to some kind of twisted dream? No, his body ached, and he wouldn't have been unable to hear when he got up after the blast. He also couldn't be dead for the same reasons. Arthur's face twisted in frustration. All the while, he continued to try and find some way that what the girls had just told him could be rationalized.
"How is that possible?" Arthur asked, bringing his hands up to his head and raking the metallic fingers across his scalp, ruffling the unkempt black hair that covered it.
Was he losing his mind? Did someone drug him? Neither of those conclusions made since either. He was too alert to have been drugged, and his mind couldn't have possibly fallen into insanity in his sleep could it?
He began to scrape the steel fingers up and down his head faster. He began to growl in confusion, fear, and frustration. He continued on, running through a list of possible explanations, each as impossible as the last until he finally stopped all motion and managed to pull himself back under control.
Whatever was going on, it wouldn't do him any good to descend into a panic. So, with all of the calm he could scrape up, Arthur let out a long and breathy sigh. He listened to the sounds of the city around him while his mind began to clear itself of each question and worry it had spawned while he had attempted to make sense of something he had no way of understanding. Not alone, anyway.
He looked up to see the blonde and Miss Rose looking at him in a mix of fear and worry while Arthur mentally prepared himself for the long night ahead. Turning to the elder woman, he gave her a smile to try and show he had fully regained his composure before rising to his feet.
"It seems I have more questions that I'll be needing answers to miss…" Arthur asked.
Stepping forward, he quickly scooped up his helmet and ignored the protests of his tired body while his feet continued to abuse the already ruined roof.
"Glynda Goodwitch," she supplied after a moment of hesitation.
The knight nodded politely, his armored footfalls continuing to make an audible crunching sound and the wind beginning to toss his hair about even more all the while.
"Please," he offered, "Lead the way."
Arthur stood silently before a bland steel table with a matching pair of chairs tucked in beneath it. Looking around, he found that it was impossible to see much farther than a few feet around the center where the furniture sat on account of the single lamp hanging from the ceiling above.
The light seemed to cast an eerie shadow of Arthur as well, leaving even more of the room in darkness while the young knight waited silently. He could still sense the same feeling of unease that had slowly been rising up within him for the past two hours that he had waited here.
He knew that whatever answers he got, he probably wouldn't like them. Any explanation he received would probably mean some form of bad news, be it that he had been sent to the future, or had found himself in some kind of experiment that a mad scientist had placed him in; one fact would remain the same: Arthur was a long way from home. He let out a tired sigh as he placed his helmet on the table with a small clang before running a hand through his hair.
Then, after several more minutes of waiting, Arthur turned when he heard the door open with a small squeak coming from the unoiled hinges. Silently, he watched a tall man walk into the room quietly.
He wore a black coat and vest over a dark green shirt with a matching green scarf wrapped about his lower half was covered by black dress pants and polished charcoal colored shoes. Arthur took note of the man's silver hair that shined slightly from the single light as it fell about in a disorderly fashion while a small pair of glasses sat on the bridge of the man's nose. His jaw was rather thin and angular, much like his other features while his brown eyes remained locked on Arthur's own blue ones.
"Arthur I presume," the man said casually.
The tone felt completely out of place with the amount of tension that Arthur could feel all about him. He could almost see it like a physical thing. It was obvious whatever the man was going to say, he knew Arthur wasn't going to like it.
"Yes," the boy answered, reaching out with his massive robotic hand for the man to shake.
"It's good to meet you Arthur, I am Professor Ozpin," the man said as he accepted Arthur's hand and shook it quickly before gesturing for Arthur to take a seat.
Arthur shook his head with a small wave of his hand.
"The chair will break Professor," Arthur said.
Ozpin arched an eyebrow at the statement before apparently deciding to leave the matter be for the moment. The young knight remained silent while he watched the man simply pull out a chair and plop down into it with his legs crossed and his forearms placed on the top knee, almost like he was about to converse with an old friend. He looked Arthur up and down for a long moment before he finally decided to speak.
"Now," he said.
He adjusted himself slightly in his chair, most likely in preparation for a long talk before continuing.
"Before we get into the main focus of our conversation, I would like to thank you for protecting young Ruby Rose from harm this evening." Arthur nodded politely, already expecting for him to go through some kind of formality before he said whatever it was he had to say.
"So," The professor said with a sigh as he looked Arthur in the eye, "with that out of the way I suppose I shall just have to dive straight into it."
Arthur's hands clenched in determination before he gave the man a small nod to inform him that he was ready. The man gave him a tired grin in return before he began again.
"Arthur, what is the name of the only planet in the known universe that can sustain life?" he asked.
"Earth," the teen replied quickly, already not liking where this was heading.
He waited nervously while Ozpin looked to the ground in silence and his small grin took on an apologetic look.
"That is wrong," he said in a calm voice. "It is Remnant."
The two remained quiet for a time before Ozpin looked back to Arthur to see him still standing in one spot waiting patiently while despair pooled within the young knight's chest.
"Next question," the silver haired man continued, "what is an aura?"
Arthur thought for a moment, wondering why he would ask about such a word before finally answering.
"An atmosphere around someone or something." He said, shifting in place when he spoke.
Ozpin shook his head slowly. a small shimmer of green light seemed to form about his body while his head continued to move side to side, making Arthur's eyes widen at the sight. The boy had never seen such a thing. The closest thing he had ever witnessed was the sickly glow of an over irradiated ghoul as it stumbled about within the old decaying subways beneath the D.C. ruins. But this was something else entirely.
It looked like some kind of green barrier that glowed about Ozpin's body while he sat there; as if he wasn't doing something that a normal man would deem impossible. Part of him actually wondered if it was even there at all; but Ozpin's next words silenced that theory quickly.
"This," he said after allowing Arthur to stare blankly for a solid minute, "is an aura Arthur."
The boy blinked at the sight for another moment as the green shimmer began to fade. Then, when it fully dissipated from view, Arthur brought his hands to his face and dragged them up and down slowly while he felt his previous panic from the sight of the moon resurface before returning the appendages to his sides.
"What," Arthur began, unsure exactly how to phrase the question.
He could feel a chill run its way down his spine and the stale air in the room felt like it was beginning to thicken to a point where Arthur almost couldn't breathe right. All the while, Ozpin sat on the opposite side of the table, waiting patiently for Arthur to regain his composure.
"What you just witnessed," Ozpin said eventually, either attempting to finally aid the knight, or just simply growing tired of waiting, "was me summoning the physical presence of my soul which the people of Remnant call aura. It's something that everyone learns about at around the age of five; everyone except you, Arthur."
The man finished and his sad smile morphed into a frown while his eyes hardened. The man seemed to be peering straight through the boy, making his nerves even more tense.
"What I am about to tell you may seem insane," the professor said as he leaned forward, "but no matter what I say, I want you to remain calm and refrain from lashing out."
Arthur stared back at the man for a long while, trying to calm himself for what he was about to hear. He could feel his gut twist and turn violently, and his real hands shook on the grips for the controls of the armor, making the metal counterparts turn to fists as a result. The sound of the metal fingers grinding against the palm echoed quietly for a moment before he forced his body still and took a deep, calming breath. He could feel sweat begin to bead on his forehead beneath a forest of hair as he gave Ozpin a confident nod, no matter how unsure he truly was.
Ozpin's eyes closed and his head turned towards the floor beneath Arthur's feet. The teen could see the professor's shoulders rise and fall once when he sighed in what seemed to be a reluctant acceptance of the boy's readiness for what was about to be revealed. Then, he looked back to Arthur again, and began.
"I believe," he said slowly, making Arthur's body tense in nervousness, "that you are from another universe entirely."
"One that exists completely separate from the one Remnant exists in," he finished with a hard stare pointed directly at Arthur.
Arthur stared at him, his face becoming blank while the news hit him with the force of a mini-nuke. He could hear the words echo over and over in his head. Could such a thing be possible? Could he be in an alternate reality that stood on a completely different plane of existence? And if that was the case, then how could he have crossed over into it?
More importantly, how could he go back the other way? Each question he asked himself seemed to just pile upon the last until his mind was just an assortment of questions blocking out any other thought. He felt his stomach lurch as he resisted the urge to allow bile to spew forth from his throat and could see stars in the edges of his vision.
Somehow though, it made a sick kind of sense. It explained how a small fifteen year old girl could swing a giant metal weapon about like it was child's play. It explained why the moon sat in the sky in fragments rather than the white orb that had once been a companion throughout the cold nights in what was left of America's capital city. Finally, it explained how a man with no signs of mutation whatsoever had been able to summon a mystical green light like such a thing was as common as breathing; witch, apparently, for most people in this world it was.
Arthur growled as he blinked away the fuzziness in his vision before taking several long gasps of air to calm his stomach. He found himself leaning on the table for support. The metal groaned in protest to the added weight. He began to grind his teeth together, forcing his body back under control. After staying in his hunched position for another half minute, he slowly looked back to Ozpin to see that the man had a grim expression marring his features.
"You actually handled that far better than I predicted." The man said quietly, allowing the words to fill the now quiet room for a few moments. Arthur chuckled a little after allowing the words to really sink in after he had regained his mental control.
"I'm glad I impressed you then," the teen said in a ragged mumble that held a great deal of sarcasm. Arthur grinned at the man to try and hide what remained of his inner turmoil as the questions continued to itch the back of his head, begging to be answered.
"On the contrary," the man replied, allowing his sad grin to return. "I'm kind of disappointed that I didn't get to hear you scream like a girl."
Arthur blinked at the man for a moment, finding himself caught off guard until the joke truly caught hold of him and made him burst into laughter. He heard his voice echo around him in waves of amusement and fearful recognition of what he had just discovered.
The laughter died out soon enough though. Arthur's worries had clawed at his brain until he could ignore it no longer. The boy's head fell to lull loosely between his shoulders as the last of the sound left him. He could see the long shadow beneath him mimic the slight movements of his armor as he continued to lean on the metal table.
"Can I go home?" he asked at last, deciding to finally appease the nagging thoughts that had been wailing from the recesses of his mind. He already had a fairly decent idea of what the answer would be. No matter how much he wanted for his assumptions to be proved wrong.
"I'm afraid not," he heard Ozpin say after a long pause. "Even the idea of you being from some different reality is only a theory."
"No matter how much you probably wish it weren't the case, we have no way of sending you back to wherever you came from," the man said somberly.
Arthur could feel it; feel his body grow numb as he began to think about what that truly meant. What it meant for everything he had ever been trained to do. Years of preparation and fighting, of learning and struggling? All for nothing. He felt strangely… cold. Yet his body did not shiver. He had faced many tragedies like this before and he had stared at each one with little more than an angry sneer. But this wasn't something that could just be glared at and then moved on from.
This was something that completely removed him from anything he ever knew. The only things that remained were his memories, his beliefs, and his equipment from being in the field. So what could he do now? If the city he was in now was any indication, this world had never faced an apocalypse. It hadn't torn itself apart over petty squabbles. He didn't know what to do.
"You know," Ozpin said, disrupting Arthur's thoughts and causing the boy's eyes rise to meet the professor's, "This world still needs protectors."
The statement caught the knight off guard. It was alluring though, a protector; a bulwark against the dangers that lurk behind every corner. Something that would have made Elder Owyn Lyons proud, even if he was on another world.
"What would I need to do?" Arthur said slowly, trying hard not to sound desperate to find new purpose.
The bespectacled man sat still for a moment, his eyes roamed up and down Arthur's face as if to try and find something that might make him retract whatever offer he was about to make. But at last, he spoke.
"Well first," he began, an expression of deep concentration upon his face, "I need to know that you intend to aid the people of Remnant, and that everything you do is for the betterment of all those who stand with you."
Arthur nodded immediately, finding that such things had once been asked of him by the brotherhood. Just as he had readily accepted then, believing that they are vital for the survival of man, he readily accepted now.
Finally, after Ozpin's serious expression remained for a full minute, the man's face changed to another small grin before he continued once more. "Then I suppose I only have one more question for you," he said, "How would you like to go to school?"
So what do you guys think? Is it too short or anything? I wanted it to be a bit longer, but I also didn't want it to feel like I was stretching it out too much. If you guys want, I can add the beginning of Arthur's ride to Beacon with the other trainees but I just thought that it would be better to have the entire ride to be its own chapter.
In other news, I probably will take a while to have the next few chapters up. Once school hits I'm going to have to deal with the hectic few days that come with that return. So with that being said, don't get too worried about me abandoning this story. I will be back after I get back into the swing of juggling History Fair, an online class, and wrestling. Luckily, wrestling season will be over in about a month or so, and History Fair will be due at about the same time for my teacher to grade. With those two out of the way, I'm certain that I'll be able to start updating more often By about March or April because damn it, I will see at least one of my stories through to some kind of conclusion! So yeah, the next one is going to take somewhere from a month to a month and a half from now. Keep in mind that depending on your opinions I may also bang out an extra scene for this chapter before my break ends officially though.
Also, Happy new year guys! I didn't really do much last night, except for hang out with my family for a couple of hours and watch the ball drop; but I enjoyed it and I hope you did too. Anyway, I will see you guys later, and hope to receive some good constructive criticism.