Chapter 1: Determinism
~A Remnant Without Heroes~
Ruby Rose
Ms. Goodwitch
WRT 101
14th of November, 20PGE
Technology In The Past Two Decades
The Cross Continental Transmit System: Humanity's beacons of hope for over half a century. They led not only to accelerated progress of like minds on Remnant, but also served as a reminder why our kingdoms must be at peace.
After Grimm's End twenty years ago, the success of the CCTS only grew tenfold when the support towers throughout the continents had no Grimm to worry about, finally giving even the smallest of villages scroll signals. Our progress kept stacking onto one another tenfold.
Within only five years after Grimm's End, even the scrolls have been revolutionized into what we now call the Neuro-Linker, a device placed on the back of a person's neck, sending signals to the brain's five senses through the spine. This completely removed the need of an on-screen interface, and a window you would usually see on a computer or scroll would instead pop up within a foot of your face, and you could literally reach out and use your fingers to interact with the window as if it were real.
At first, the devices ran off of batteries and lasted about a week at a time at full charge, but the charge time and Dust consumption seemed inefficient at the prototype stage. However, at this time, Atlas had made a breakthrough in Aura research, revealing all living beings had Aura flowing through them, albeit a small amount compared to huntsmen for reasons unknown to the populace. The small amount was able to be used as a power source for the Neuro-Linker as opposed to electricity and Dust cartridges, the latter of which was kept in the design for an emergency Aura discharge that imitated an amplified Aura barrier if a person's life were ever in danger.
Even with the technological advances that came after Grimm's End, humanity has not managed to make the necessary strides to achieve space flight. This stops not only our knowledge of outer space, but also prevents us from setting up Satellites which would serve not only as an alternative to the CCTS, On a positive note, this lets the four towers serve their first two purposes when it was built: Unifying humanity and promoting peace between the four kingdoms.
~A Remnant Without Heroes~
Beacon Academy Cafeteria:
"Ugh! How in the world did I get a 74% on that essay?!" Ruby Rose had strewn the paper onto the desk in front of her in frustration. She had spent a good week on the research, and this damn thing was stressing her out ever since it was assigned.
"Well, let's see here." Yang Xiao Long reached for the paper from the other side of the desk and scanned the paper. "Scattered formatting, shitty conclusion, a few switches to second person POV here and there, and mentioning concepts when they weren't relevant.. Wow, I'm surprised you got a 74% on it." She tossed the paper like a frisbee across the table to Ruby's side. "It shoulda been lower."
Ruby put on a sad look and a pout. "You're not exactly helping here, Yang."
"Oh! I know what will though." She reached down to the left side of her chair, and came back to the table with two lunches on hand. "It's your favorite~"
Begrudgingly, the younger of the two accepted the lunchbox, unzipped it, and- "COOKIES!" The headache and stress of the essay from earlier was gone in an instant.
"Glad to see some things never change." As Ruby indulged herself with the plethora of cookies, Yang noticed a certain fellow blond walking by, and he looked very absorbed in whatever is in front of him, his eyes darting back and forth with his right index finger swiping left and right in thin air.
Standing up from her chair, Yang cupped her hands in front of her mouth and- "YO! JAUNE! WHATS UP!?"
The reaction was immediate: Jaune tripped over nothing at all and the next thing everyone saw was a teenage blond having an intimate moment with the floor. Everyone who took notice of it either cringed or laughed at him. "Oww…."
Being one of the cringers and feeling bad for making him trip, Yang made her way over to offer Jaune her hand. "You okay there, Vomit-Boy?"
Absentmindedly taking it, Jaune was still absorbed in the window in front of him. "I guess, if reinforcing my position as Beacon's Klutz is your idea of okay. It'd make me feel a bit better if you'd stop calling me that nickname though."
"Eh, it could be worse. At least you're not Crater Face," Yang pointed a thumb in Ruby's direction. "And you could have done not-so-well on Ms. Goodwitch's essay like Klutz #2 over there on top of that."
As Yang, with a smug look on her face, and Jaune, sheepishly scratching the back of his head, made their way to the table, Ruby only stuck her tongue out at them. "That nickname is as old as Dust. And it's not my fault that woman is a stickler! Who the heck uses paper these days anyway?"
Jaune took a seat next to Ruby. "Ah, you dropped the ball on that one too?" He shifted in his backpack to retrieve a similar looking paper with a big 68% on it. "At least you did better than me."
"Ugh, this school will drive me up the wall! Oobleck is up next, and I'm so not prepared for this," Ruby gave out a cry of despair as anime tears fell down her cheeks.
With a left swipe of his hand, Jaune smiled apologetically as he sent out an invitation for a word document to Ruby. "Surprisingly, I took a few good notes of this chapter. You're free to look at them if you need to."
As she watched Ruby lazily poke at thin air in front of her, Yang noticed a notification from [Uncle Qrow] in her messaging app.
Q; Bring Ruby with you to the Crow's Nest today.
Raising an eyebrow at that, Yang typed out her reply.
Y: You finally found "the next one"?
Q: Maybe. You two will see for yourselves. Just make sure it's before 5:00pm.
'Ah, I'll tell her later,' Yang thought to herself. Looking up from the window, she can only smile as she sees Ruby and Jaune sharing a laugh.
Chime!
Q: And make sure no one knows you're coming. Yang raised an eyebrow at that.
Y: As in "that goes for Ruby too until the last minute," kind of secrecy?
Q: The exact one. You know how big of a mouth the pipsqueak has.
~A Remnant Without Heroes~
Downtown Vale:
After lunch, the two girls had parted their ways with Jaune to experience hell in their other classes. It was the most prominent academy on their continent, previously being the place that gave birth to the future huntsmen and huntresses charged with the task of defending humanity, but in the days of peace there was no more need for heroes. Still, the big four academies on Remnant persisted on the part where the young are educated to be ready for the future.
"...And by the time it starts snowing, I'll have our sled-boards ready!" Ruby pumped her fist up in the air, as if to exemplify how awesome the upcoming vacation will be.
"You know, it's awesome that you made a mecha-shift for something that goes between a bobsled and a snowboard, but wouldn't it be easier to make something like a motorcycle that turns into a snowmobile?"
Ruby put on that pout again. 'I'm no good with stuff with engines, Yang… And besides, you can go from either riding solo or having a fun ride with a buddy."
Yang flipped her hair to the side like she was making a point. "Well, when you finish that engineering degree, you'd better make something on that level of awesome when we get to it."
Looking straight ahead, the sign for the Crow's Nest is visible, just over the next block. "Well, we're here." Yang flipped through some windows in front of her interface to retrieve her SID. "Let's see what's got Uncle Qrow all worked up."
Ruby followed suit with Yang in retrieving her SID. "It must be really important if he called us over. He knows how bored we get over here."
With a chime, the entrance doors slid open in response to the girls approaching them.
As per usual with the few PC Bangs still open on Remnant, the immediate sight of a bunch of teenagers in front of LED screens with their hands on mice and keyboards were the first thing the girls saw. Instead of kids poking at windows in the air from their Neuro-Linkers or lying down in booths while playing Virtual Reality Full Dive games, the gamers in this building are purely tactile, complete with headphones covering their ears. The constant sound of keyboard clacking and mouse clicks persisted throughout the building like an orchestra's string players tuning their instruments.
"Well, at least we can say it isn't too rowdy in here," Ruby said while keeping an eye out for the messy hair of her Uncle.
Yang didn't waste time searching. "If it's as important as he put it, he'll be cooped up in his main office."
As the two teenagers made their way across the interior of the building and eventually entered Qrow's man-cave, Yang could swear she recognized someone at the desk closest to the office.
"Hey old man. Looks like this place is holding up well." The door closed behind the two girls, and their uncle was hunched over with an LED screen in front of him.
"Not funny," the dusty old Qrow said, not even turning his head to greet the two girls. He offered a cable to each of the girls. "That's for the Social Camera I have trained on our candidate. Keep an eye on it while we see his handiwork live."
Ruby took a look at the LED screen. "Osu? That old rhythm game? Uncle, I know we're trying to find people with high reaction times, but a game like this just turns to muscle memory and reflexes even at the highest level of play."
"Just shut up and plug in, both of you." Qrow wasn't playing any games here. If the two girls were skeptical of Qrow's find before, they both knew his vote of confidence was on this one.
When the cables were plugged into the Neuro Linkers and the Social Camera window popped up for both of them, their responses were immediate.
"JAUNE?!"
"Shhhh! He's right there! He'll hear you," Qrow said in a hushed voice with an index finger in front of his lips, and another index finger pointed at the door to the main floor.
"But- but- He's-" The two girls were only flabbergasted at this point.
"Shh!" The middle aged man was having none of it. He reached over to his side and had a sip from his flask.
On the LED, they could see Jaune flipping through the song list. He settled on a particular one
The Quick Brown Fox - The Big Black (A/N: If you are unfamiliar with osu!, I recommend you go onto YouTube and search up a video of someone playing this particular song, either WubWolfWoof or Cookiezi.)
Qrow unplugged his headphones and the sound was redirected to the speakers.
"Riddle me this,
Riddle me that…
"Okay, if he's playing Osu and we're supposed to judge him off this, The Big Black has become a staple by now. Sure you have to be pretty good to execute it, but it's done to death." Ruby spoke out as someone rather skilled in rhythm games, Osu in particular.
"Well here's the funny part then" Qrow's arms were crossed and he rotated his spinning chair so he could face the two, and the girls are finally getting a good look of how haggard their uncle was despite his smug smile. "He's only learned how to play the game yesterday." His words rung in the room and a moment of silence grasped the three of them.
Whos Afraid of The Big Black-"
"WHAT?!" The two had the same exact thought of disbelief
With the sound of a crashing cymbal, the song kicked off at it's overwhelming speed of 360 BPM. Within the first 20 seconds, he's retaining a 200 hit combo with 100% accuracy. Osu isn't a game of mashing the hit button to execute the notes; there's a window of time made up of literal fractions of seconds to get a perfect "300" for the note. And Jaune was hitting them flawlessly. As a novice.
"No, there's no way! He has to be doing that!" Yang was in complete denial. Underneath her breath, she muttered two words. "/urst Li/…" For a second, she had a blank stare, then she blinked and then turned to look at Qrow. "He wasn't there… He's not a…" She jerked her head back to the monitor. He's still going at it with immaculate performance.
"Pay attention to his cursor. He's not moving it in advance. He can't even read the map properly." He turned to his two nieces. "It's all reaction. In it's raw form."
The three can only watch in awe as the song reaches it's halfway point, with no notes on the screen and a built in break period. Unexpectedly, the pause screen comes up, and Jaune Arc can be heard through the speakers.
"Uhh, Qrow? You got another ice pack I can use? My left hand's starting to hurt again."
Qrow put a finger to a window in front of him. "Yeah, give me a minute kid. You should really take a break sometime; I don't want you getting carpal tunnel in just two days.
"But this game is too much fun!" The girls could only sweatdrop at that. Yup, it was Jaune alright. "I'm having a bigger blast than Starcraft 2!"
"Alright, hang in there, kid." Qrow's finger pulled away from the thin air in front of him.
"...Starcraft?" The two girls stared at their lowly-rate role model.
A sigh escaped the uncle's lips before he took another swig of his drink. "It's a long story. Now, while you two are waiting here," he gave a knowing look to Yang, "I suggest you help Ruby get the Install program ready."
The sisters looked at each other before Ruby spoke up again. "Does this mean that…"
"Yup," Qrow drawled as he finished the last drop of whatever is in the flask. "He's our next Burst Linker for sure.
~A Remnant Without Heroes~