AN: So the weekly schedule seems to be working for now. Thanks for the quick feedback guys, I'm glad that so many people are willing to stick with the story after such a long and unnanounced hiatus. Many cookies for you. :)

I love the LOLs in League of Legends, and regale the riveting reflections of RWBY. However, dispite that amazing and appealing alliterative additive, they belong to Riot Games and Rooster Teeth, not me.


(Riven POV)

After a night of strange dreams, Riven woke to a polite knock on the door and the expected soreness filling her limbs and back. The Exile stared at the unfamiliar ceiling in confusion, doing her best to ignore the pain, before remembering the past few days. Her memory of the trip was a bit patchy from the continuous exertion, and some parts of her run were completely forgotten. Still, Riven did at least remember her conversation with the students.

I wonder if I can talk to them again. she thought groggily, They were fun...

She had stretched as much as her tired body would let her last night, but it seemed that hadn't been enough. From head to toe, each and every part of the champion felt as if it had been glued to the bed with Singed's Mega-Adhesive, and Riven wanted nothing more than to simply lay entirely still for the next few hours. Sadly, that wasn't an option.

A second knock. It took a while for Riven to remind herself of the impending meeting. It took even longer for her summon the willpower to move from the muscle-freezing trap that was her mattress. Riven steeled and readied herself as one would before jumping into a fight, then sat up and turned her body in one smooth motion so that her legs were hanging over the side of her bed. That simple movement caused the champion to wince in pain as her tired body screamed in protest, though long years of Noxian military training kept it at that.

A slow glance across the room revealed a clock that read 9:08 a.m.. Riven was confused at this. She wasn't sure how similar the timekeeping systems of Valoran and Remnant were, but she was still rather certain that 9:08 was later than 8:30.

Why didn't they wake me up at 8:30? Maybe a change of plans?

Unsteadily rising to her feet, Riven resisted the urge to fall back into the nice, soft bed as she made her way to the door. Each step was a challenge of discipline, and all the while her nails were digging into her palms to numb the dull shots of pain arcing through her legs.

The third knock rang through the room right as she turned the lock.

Riven had expected to see the stern face of Prof. Goodwitch glaring back at her when she opened the door. Instead, she was surprised when a calm, grey-haired man met her gaze.

"Good morning." he said, "I am Headmaster Ozpin. I don't believe that we met yesterday."

Riven's stomach growled audibly when she realized the headmaster was holding a half-full cup of coffee that reminded her far too much of the breakfast she was missing. "Um, yeah" Riven responded dully, ignoring the embarrassing complaints from her digestive system, "I'm Riven, and no. We didn't."

"Well then. It's good to finally meet you." Ozpin said, inclining his head slightly, "I guess that we can also assume no one was able to properly deliver my thanks to you for your work over the past few days. I know more than most just how dangerous the untamed lands can be, and I can't imagine it was very easy for you to trek such a distance in such a short time."

Fresh exhaustion found its way into Riven's limbs at his words, and she tried very hard to not let it show on her face. The 3-day run had been very difficult. Sure, the summoners had teleported her to Remnant, but due to the inconstancies of inter-dimensional travel, her objective could be 500 miles away from where she landed. Then there was the fact that monsters were the only known element of the vague, winding, and inaccurate path. All these factors put together meant that the summoners had needed to send a very capable solo fighter with both the speed and endurance to travel quickly while still being ready to fight at any moment.

Normally, the Institute of War would take more time to form a more solid plan and select the optimal insertion team, but this mission was very rushed. The threat was coming far too quickly for the normal prep time, so they'd been forced to grab the closest champion who fit the part, and Riven was it. She'd gone through brutal military training in Noxus, and had spent over a year fending for herself in the wilderness as an exile. She also had such great endurance that she was one of the few champions that didn't rely on mana or energy from the summoners in order to use her abilities on the Fields of Justice. Riven was the perfect champion for the job.

There were few others in Valoran that could handle this kind of feat, as the journey was arduous enough to wear down even The Exile's powerful spirit. Even after a startlingly large meal and a full night's sleep, she still hadn't fully recovered.

"That is why I believe you should know that there has been a change of plans." Riven snapped out of her moment of reflection to return her attention to the headmaster. "The meeting has been postponed until 11:30 a.m., at which we will finalize exactly what you will be doing here. In the mean time, I suggest that you have some breakfast. I can hardly imagine a single meal making up for three days of constant exertion."

No sir, Riven thought to herself, It certainly did not.

"The summoners are having breakfast in this dorm's lounge just down the hall if you would like to join them."

Riven was halfway through nodding when a strange feeling struck her. It was an unfamiliar sense of need, a feeling that pushed her into what she did next.

"Actually sir," Riven was talking before she even knew what she wanted to say, "could I... eat in the main dining hall again? I, uh... told a friend there that I would talk to them again." Ozpin raised a curious eyebrow, so she quickly added: "As long as it's okay with you of course."

The obvious worry on the champion's mind was that the Ozpin would ask about this new friend and she would have to explain herself. As illogical as this anxiety was, Riven hated justifying herself to people, especially now that she didn't technically have any kind of superior anymore. It didn't help that the subject in question was awkward enough already, and the Exile didn't need to give the summoners anything more to laugh at her for.

Not after the infamous 'Battle Bunny' incident anyways.

However, instead of interrogating her on this new friend, the headmaster simply gave her a light smile and a nod. Either he already knew, or he wasn't interested in finding out.

"Go ahead." he said, "It's good to see that you're adjusting so quickly." Riven heaved a mental sigh of relief and took a step forward before she noticed the metallic object that the headmaster was handing her. "Could you take this with you?" he asked, "It's a loaner scroll. The summoners each have one as well, and they are the main method of communication here at Beacon besides the intercom."

Riven took the scroll and turned it over in her hands. When she found it was two separate pieces, she pulled the sides apart. Between the two sheets of metal, there materialized a pale blue surface with several differently patterned squares.

I'll give it a closer look later. She thought as she wedged the new device in the back of her harness.

"In the mean time," Prof. Ozpin spoke and Riven looked back up at him, "why don't you go spend some time with your new friend? I'm sure you have a lot to talk about." Again, the headmaster gave her a small smile, almost as though he knew exactly what the topics of their discussion would be.

Riven was about to go when she found what felt so strange about the conversation. "Wait, I thought professor Goodwitch was going to wake me up. What happened to her?"

Ozpin grinned. "She is currently taking a nap, along with the rest of the faculty I assume. We had a rather late night you see."

It was just then that Riven noticed how tired the headmaster looked. He seemed so alert and his conversation so lucid that she didn't notice the dark shadows under his eyes or the now-empty coffee mug. Even with the obvious signs of sleep deprivation, this man still carried himself with supreme confidence and an aura of command and control that Riven hadn't seen since her days in the army.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I have to phone a friend." With that he turned and walked away. After a few taps on his scroll, Riven heard a series of tones before Ozpin spoke again. "Hello James, I'd like to ask a favor of you..."

Deciding that she might as well go and eat, Riven walked out of the guest dorm and down to the dining hall. As she plodded down the courtyard, it struck her how strange she was acting. She had talked to those eight students for less than ten minutes. And yet Riven had become so attached, she wanted to fulfill a half-hearted promise that she didn't even really make.

Usually, Riven hated talking to new people. Throughout most of her life, The Exile hadn't needed to make friends. This mostly came from her days as a commander. Anyone she needed to work with was either:

A) a subordinate who would follow her orders without question.

B) a commanding officer who didn't take kindly to attempted small talk.

This condition wasn't changed in her time of exile. She had been on her own most of the time, as any human contact out on the road was a potential danger to a fugitive such as herself. On the rare occasions when she did have to talk to someone, Riven was sure to keep the conversation quick and left as soon as possible before anyone found out who she was.

Even after becoming a champion, with her diplomatic immunity protecting her from most threats, she had mostly kept to herself. Everyone she met was trying to either kill her, or apologize for the aforementioned. Of these people, Riven had made a couple friends, but she relied on them to save her from having to interact with the other champions.

Now, however, Riven was going out of her way to talk to some people to whom she had said about ten words in total. She had simply dropped on the bench from out of nowhere, stuffed her face with a substantial amount of food, and left. And something had happened there that made Riven want to do it again.

Why? Why did I tell them I'd come back? And why am I going through with it?

Maybe it was just that she was, once again, an outcast. Riven wasn't affiliated with anyone here, just like her days as an exile. Sure, that was oversimplifying it a bit, but it did inspire the same feeling. The difference here was that she wasn't thrown out or pushed away by everyone she met.

Here, no one knew her. Here, she had a fresh start.

"…a fresh start…" Even mumbled aloud, the words felt surreal. After all of the tragedy, betrayal, and political mayhem Riven had been through, starting again anywhere was impossible. Any ideas of the sort were confined to idle daydreams on the long hikes from village to village. The Exile never gave daydreams much thought.

There simply wasn't anywhere she could go. Demacia was right out. It didn't matter that she had betrayed her homeland and was now on the run from multiple assassins. Riven was still considered a Noxian, and according to Demacia: "once a Noxian, always a Noxian."

She had about as much of a chance there as in Ionia. They may have technically forgiven her now, but Riven had just burned down half of the Ionian countryside at the time along with everyone who lived there. However kind and patient the people might be, she couldn't blame them for holding a grudge for something like that.

Piltover may have a soft spot for the downtrodden, but they weren't going to go to all the necessary work to house someone like Riven, and Zaun wouldn't let a Noxian traitor inside its borders no matter how much you bribed the patrolman. No one in places like Mount Targon or the Freljord cared about the plight of a random exile, Bandle City didn't tend to let humans immigrate in the first place, and Bilgewater was just a bad place to be.

Out of options, Riven was forced to wander the continent alone. She'd stop by a village every now and then, doing odd jobs to restock on supplies. But she could never stay in one place too long, lest she fall prey to one of her many hunters. Eventually, the Exile went to the only place with the agenda and political power to house her: the League of Legends.

Still, while the Institute gave her diplomatic immunity, it couldn't save her from her past. Many champions and summoners made it perfectly clear how unhappy they were about her decision to continue living. Her first few weeks were mostly spent hiding from innumerable death threats now that she had made her identity and location publicly known. The Institute of War was easily powerful enough to keep her safe (Riven was hardly the most dangerous or hated entity they protected), but that still wasn't enough to put her mind at ease when enemies seemed to pop out of the woodwork to remind her of her sins.

Here though, The Exile wasn't an exile. She wasn't an enemy, an outsider, or an untouchable. Here she was a person just like everyone else, and she had been accepted instantly by a group of friends before they even knew who she was. They hadn't done it begrudgingly or halfheartedly either, instead choosing to ignore her past in an almost childlike manner. Had she been more awake, Riven would have probably become a part of their friendly banter. She could have laughed, joked, and forgotten, if only for a moment, just how different they were.

I could be anyone… Choose my own path… Leave doubt behind…

At that last thought, the broken blade on her back pulsed with energy, the faded runes glowing a dull green for a few moments. Riven could even feel the shards of her blade in a fuzzy etherial way, almost as though they were whispering at her from the distant hills of Ionia. A strange comfort filled the champion as her thoughts calmed and her focus returned.

Riven needed to find these students again and rejoin their conversation. She needed to, if only to confirm that it hadn't been a dream.

She was pulled out of her thoughts when she reached the dining hall, apparently having subconsciously followed the smell of pancakes and sausage. After pausing a brief moment to take in the realization of just how hungry she was, Riven picked up a tray and walked around the central food area, gathering a hearty breakfast.

10lb tray in hand, The Exile walked over to the same table she had sat at before and found the same two teams talking to each other animatedly. Ruby jumped up in excitement upon noticing her approach.

"You came back!" she yelled as she attempted to run at the champion. Attempted, because she was stopped when Yang grabbed her signature red cape.

"Hey Riven!" the blonde said with a smile as she pulled the overly-enthusiastic leader back to the table, "Some of us didn't think we'd ever see you again." Yang turned to her partner with a meaningful glance. Blake responded by rolling her eyes.

"Sorry for doubting you," she said to Riven, ignoring the various faces and signals Yang was giving her, "but you didn't seem too confident in the grace of 'the men upstairs'."

Yang ignored her teammate's response and cut off Riven before she could define exactly which men she had been referring to. "So. Are you gonna sit down with us or just stand there looking awkward?"

Riven grinned and sat down on the end next to Pyrrha, but Ruby was the first to speak. "Umm... Soooooo..." she said with a quizzical look on her face, "YEAH! What are you doing here?" At this, the girl donned a look of horror and clamped her hand over her mouth. "I'm sorry, that came out wrong. I mean-"

"It's fine; I understood you." Riven said quickly, trying to simultaneously calm Ruby down and contain her laughter at the girl's excitement.

The rest of the students had no such qualms, with everyone except Blake and Ren laughing openly. Ruby's face went as red as her name implied, but the cacophony barely lasted long enough for Yang to give the girl a light punch on the shoulder before petering out into an assortment of suppressed giggles.

After the teams calmed down, Riven did her best to answer Ruby's question. "Well... I originally came here to deliver a message," she said, a light feeling of uncertainty growing steadily in the back of her mind, "but that's done and I'm still here. Honestly, I have no idea what they're keeping me for. I've already been away from the Institute for three whole days."

"Yeah," Yang said, obviously confused, "you keep mentioning that Institute, and you said something about a league yester-DOWN RUBY!"

Too late. The caped girl was already standing on her seat, clenched fists quivering with anticipation. "The League of Legends! YES! What is that? It sounds SO COOL!"

Apparently she doesn't care about drawing attention to us. Riven thought as she glanced around nervously. Dispite her self-reliance and independent spirit, she really didn't like being the center of attention. Thankfully, no one looked their direction for more than a couple seconds before going back to their meal. "Um, yeah..." Riven said, pulling her attention back to the two teams, "This is gonna require a lot of context. Are you ready for a short history lecture?"

For the briefest moment, there was silence as everyone at the table processed Riven's words. That moment passed as quickly as it came, and all of the students reacted simultaneously.

Yang groaned and slammed her head on the table with a bang that made the a couple glasses fall over. Jaune did the inverse, simply leaning back until he fell to the floor with a yelp. Ren, Blake and Pyrrha employed various face-palming techniques, and Nora shouted something unintelligible. On the other hand, Weiss sat up straight and looked at Riven with renewed interest while Ruby nodded with enthusiasm.

Aside from Yang's incoherent mumbling, Riven didn't hear any direct objections, and just assumed that the teams were being overdramatic. Thus, she took a deep breath and began talking.

"Right. The Institute of War and the League of Legends... where to start... I guess with the Rune Wars is as good a place as any." Yang sat bolt upright all of the sudden. The glare she sent Blake suggested that she had either been pinched or kicked under the table, though the black-haired girl showed no signs of mischief. "So, the Rune Wars..." Riven started, before remembering a critical point, "ended while I was in exile, so most of this is hearsay."

"Heresy?" Nora Jumped up in her seat and stood up straight, pointing an objecting finger at Riven. "You're evil!"

Ren sighed at this and leaned over. The boisterous redhead gave and "Oooohh!" of understanding as he whispered something in her ear.

"Anyway," Riven continued unperturbed, "The Rune Wars were ...terrible." A rather morbid mood settled around the table at that last mood. Despite their various personalities, all of the students quickly adopted the look a soldier wore when standing at attention. They all sat straight-backed with arms down, either in their laps or on the table, and their faces were all serious and attentive.

That was sudden. I hope they're ready for this though, because terrible is probably the only word that sums up the Rune Wars.

"Pretty much every city-state in Valoran, my uh, homeland," she added when the students gave her weird looks at the word, "was involved, but the main contenders were Noxus, my native country, and Demacia."

"No one's really sure what started it, but pretty much everyone was dragged in soon enough. They were all trying to justify their roles by declaring themselves paragons of virtue, Demacia especially. They were trumpeting their statements of justice to the heavens: 'We're the light of this world! We crush dirty Noxians! Blah, blah, blah'." Riven shook her head in disgust while a couple of the other girls giggled at ther impression. "That was pretty accurate by the way. In reality though, Noxus was the only one who was right."

"No one's ever justified in starting or perpetuating outright war." Blake said, interrupting Riven's monologue. "Nothing is ever worth putting that many lives on the line, no matter whose they are."

There was finality in Blake's words that surprised everyone at the table, to the point that no one at the table spoke for a few seconds afterwards. The certainty with which she said such an absolute statement told Riven volumes about the type of person that sat in front of her.

Well, front and to the left.

"Well, in the end, we were right anyway." Riven said bluntly, "You see, in Noxus, there aren't classes or ranks, at least outside the military. Everything revolves around strength as a impartial decider of status. If you were stronger than someone, you had power over them. If someone hurts or steals from you, then you simply aren't strong enough to defend yourself and your belongings."

"That's horrible!" Pyrrha shouted, her hand over her mouth. The other students wore similar expressions of horror.

"Yeah." Jaune said in a more subdued tone, "How can you live in a place like that?"

"It's not actually as bad as it sounds. " Riven said, trying to find a way to describe Noxus that wouldn't make it sound awful, "Despite its... cruel methods, Noxus is probably the only place in Valoran where everything is fair." The table stared at Riven again, silently asking for clarification. "In Noxus, it doesn't matter whether you're male or female, rich or poor, young or old. If you're strong enough to handle a responsibility, you got the power to control others. It's not nice, but it's undeniably fair."

"That sounds a lot like anarchy." Weiss said, tilting her head slightly, "How can there be any sort of justice in that kind of system?"

Again, Riven just shrugged at this. They're taking this a lot better than most. Then again, most people I told about this hated Noxus anyway. "There isn't really, but it's not about that. Noxus decided that impartial fairness is better than the false justice that Demacia keeps bragging about."

"But any form of justice, biased or not, is better than total anarchy."

"I guess it's sort of an organized anarchy."

When she received assorted strange looks from the table, Riven took a second to re-think what she had just said. "Okay, that didn't make any sense. Let me try to explain."

"By the Noxian definition, strength is more than muscle power or sword skill. It also refers to tactical thinking and, most of all, influence. There are lots of powerful Noxians who can barely hold a sword. They still hold high ranks because people trust them enough to follow." There was a slight edge to Riven's words in that last phrase that wasn't entirely coincidental.

I hate people like that. They don't have any true Noxian strength, but they still make it to the top. Take, I don't know… SWAIN for instance.

The students took a moment to consider Riven's words before Pyrrha spoke up. "Not every good fighter is a tactician though. I've seen a lot of fighters in tournaments who didn't have much of a strategy other than 'hit them in the face'. What happens when they get promoted?"

Riven's face twisted from anger to disgust when she remembered her old drill sergeant. "Those kinds of fighters are usually a sort of... middle-class management that lead by example. Sometimes, if they're REALLY strong, they can be elite agents or bodyguards that serve directly under High Command, but that doesn't happen very often."

"But you said anyone who was strong could lead." Ren pointed out, "What makes these people different?"

"They didn't really do very much commanding because you can't get anywhere by just oppressing people weaker than you. I mean, you could, but no one dumb enough to do that ever got promoted." Riven replied, before remembering a quote from an old comrade. "No one can rise to the top on their strength alone. Weaklings are still useful, and if you press them too hard, they usually find a way to turn on you."

It was at this point that Riven realized she was supposed to be telling them about the Rune Wars, not singing the praises of her homeland.

Back on topic Riven. Stop being a poster child and focus on the conversation for once.

"So yeah, that's Noxus for you." she said, leaning back and opening her arms, "There weren't any brutes at the very top, but strength still meant everything. And that was all that mattered in the Rune Wars. There wasn't room to live a life of peace. If you weren't a soldier, you made weapons and supplies for the soldiers."

The students were surprised at Riven's harsh statements, and even Yang was paying attention. "We tore each other apart. The city-states... I mean... I was a commander at the time. Everything we built was designed to tear someone else down. If you weren't a militant state, you were conquered by one."

And here's where we get to the painful part. Riven thought, as the memories started flooding in for real now, Keep it together. You can still do this.

"Eventually, we went too far. The weapons we used just completely destroyed the environment. We made the land... dead." Riven said, the pain of memory now very evident in her voice, "There's no better way to describe it. Even after the wars were over, nothing grew on the battlefields. Nothing. All that's left there now are charred, black wastelands. It's awful, just thinking about them... The damage we did..."

Riven was gone now, the world slowly fading into half-focused images from her past. The bloodstained walls of a Demacian stronghold, the uncountable bodies lying on the scarred plains. "And that's not even counting all the people... Hundreds killed every day... Families shattered... Orphaned children left to die in the streets... Left to DIE... all because we were so caught up in killing each other."

Riven pulled herself back to reality when she felt Pyrrha's hand on her shoulder. Sitting up, she saw that she had gone way too far with the details, especially considering her audience. Jaune and Pyrrha were giving her very worried looks, Ren had his head down with eyes closed in a state of quiet mourning, and even Nora was at a loss for words. Weiss and Blake both stared off into the distance, lost in thought, and Ruby was sitting in Yang's arms with tears streaking down her face.

Taking a deep breath to try and stabilize herself, Riven regained everyone's attention to continue her story. There were tears still making their way to her jawline, but The Exile's face was one of focus and determination now. "Words can't describe how... horrible it was. But... eventually, a group of powerful mages came together to put a stop to it."

The sudden change of expression in the Exile and hardened attitude with which she said that last statement gradually sobered up her audience. A couple students wiped tears from their eyes and Ruby shuffled awkwardly off her sister's lap, still sniffling. At the word 'mages', Ren and Weiss gave Riven confused looks, but she ignored them and kept going.

"They called themselves 'summoners' and they formed the Institute of War to calm down each of the city-states. Now, they were strong, yes, but they couldn't stop the conflict on their own. Remember, it was the whole of Runterra at war, not just Noxus and Demacia."

Riven was now leaning forward slightly, using various ambiguous hand gestures to punctuate her statements while the students listened intently. "The politics was too complicated to just stop it immediately. So instead, the summoners offered an alternative. By their rules, all conflict would be settled in a sort of... battle-by-the-best format. Instead of sending hundreds of men to die, each side would submit their greatest warriors. These warriors were called, or I guess we ARE called, champions. We fought each other in the place of the huge armies and war machines. Aided by the summoners' magic, these champions fight on predetermined battlegrounds called the Fields of Justice, and the winning team wins the war."

The two teams had calmed down somewhat, and Weiss was even nodding in understanding. "They reduced the armies down to a smaller scale and isolated the battles. By doing so, they separated the average citizen from the war." she said with a hand on her chin, "That's actually quite clever."

Ruby's face lit up again, this time in admiration. "Wow, the champions really ARE heroes. They sacrifice themselves to keep others safe. Kind of like hunters and huntresses!" Riven paused at that last statement.

...I'll ask later. She decided, and continued her story. "Actually, the summoners eventually developed some sort of spell that resurrects the champions after they die. It's pretty cool, even if it does take an eternity to set up."

The students stared at each other yet again. "No way," Yang said, "I'm calling bull on that one. How do they do that?"

Riven only grinned at this. "I don't know." she replied, shrugging her shoulders, "Maybe you can get one of them to explain it to you if you have an afternoon free"

"Anyway, the Institute got a LOT of complaints from the city-states that the matches weren't fair. The Fields of Justice weren't well suited to some of the fighters, and some of the champions were just dominating the others."

Ahhh the early days... No junglers, no items, no meta... Just me, my sword, and a dead Singed.

"Because of this," Riven continued, "the Institute made a large set of rules for the matches and turned them into more or less a sport. Champions were revived multiple times a match, and more objectives and layers of strategy were added to... 'Increase strategic diversity' as they said."

A couple of the students raised an eyebrow, but none of them said anything. "Eventually, the matches became such a big part of the Institute that it was split off into a separate organization: the League of Legends." Riven said.

I'll just give them the official description. It's easier than coming up with one myself, and I also don't have to be lectured by Nika later.

"The League of Legends serves two main purposes. Its main job is to settle conflict between the city-states, but it also does it in a way that satisfies the deep-seeded bloodlust of the people. After that big of a war, you can't expect people to suddenly find their 'inner peace'. Even the innocent civilians had worked day and night to produce weapons and supplies for the soldiers. People just weren't ready for a peaceful lifestyle yet. They're still not if the recent ratings are anything to go by."

Most of the students were some combination of confused and underwhelmed by this description. Yang specifically had propped her head up on her palm in a universal stance of apathy. "So the League of Legends that Ruby's been losing sleep over is just a glorified combat circus?"

Riven frowned at this. That's not really a fair way to put it.

"There's more to it than that" She said, "Remember, the main purpose of this 'show' is to be an impartial decider for major political issues. There's a whole department in the Institute devoted to making sure the matches aren't rigged or unfair. The fights are also entirely real. Real tactics, strategy, and combat skills, not just us showing off." Yang looked unimpressed, so Riven moved on. "It also serves the purpose of removing dangerous figures from society."

The raised eyebrows were raised even further, and Riven did her best to explain. "Valoran is a weird place. Even apart from the human tanks produced by the Rune Wars, there are a LOT of other forces at play that I can't even begin to comprehend. Even now they're finding new champions to add to the roster around once a month. When there aren't any war heroes to add to the list, there's usually some ancient being we've offended, or some horrible... thing... from the Shadow Isles or the Void..." Riven paused a moment as she remembered the reason she was here in the first place. As much as she would have liked to go off on that tangent as well, the summoners hadn't let her know who she could tell about the mission besides the headmaster.

Shaking herself internally, Riven returned to her original point. "There's new champions added once a month or so, and they just keep getting weirder. Essentially, if you can imagine it, we probably have something like it in our roster."

"I doubt that," Weiss said, "there's no way they can have every type. Combat is too diverse a field to be covered by a single organization."

"We probably do anyway." Riven replied, leaning her head back to think, "There were 114 champions last time I counted, and all of us have different fighting styles."

"I guess we'll just take your word for it." Blake said, "But you still haven't told us what you're doing in Vale."

Riven shook her head in reply. "Like I said, I can't tell you. Mostly that's 'cause I don't know much myself. And the little bits I do know I haven't been authorized to tell anyone except the headmaster."

When she saw the disappointed faces of the students in front of her, Riven decided to say a bit more. Leaving them in the dark after telling them this much just seemed cruel. Besides, if they pry into something they shouldn't, I can just pretend I don't know anything.

"If I had to guess, I'd say we're here to chase down some supernatural threat to humanity or something along those lines." That got Ruby interested again, and Riven decided to stick to official statements again, just to be safe. "The Institute of War dedicated itself to: 'The suppression and/or elimination of all large-scale threats to human life.'" Riven waved her arms around as she said that. "So that's probably what led them here."

"Because the Institute controls the League, and the League controls us champions, we occasionally get sent on missions to fix things normal people can't touch. Like I said, we have a pretty diverse roster."

"So you're a super-secret-super-spy too?"

Ruby just needs to calm down and pick an emotion already.

Riven sighed in response. Usually, the Exile liked staying out of the limelight. As a person who was almost universally hated, attention was always a bad thing, and the less her enemies knew about her, the better. On the other hand, Riven was trying to start a new life here on Remnant, so she could at least tell them a bit about her fighting style. "I'm not usually the one to do the covert stuff. They pick me for anything that requires a lot of versatility and endurance. Also, I don't use magic to fight, which can be really important in some circumstances."

Ren raised a finger and pointed it at Riven in an objective stance. "There! You mentioned magic again. What do you mean by that?"

To this, the only response Riven really had was a shrug. "I don't know. Like I said, I don't use the stuff. All I can tell you for sure is that magic uses mana. Besides that, you'll have to ask the summoners for more info."

"There's not much more I can tell you about the Institute without permission anyway." she said, trying to change the subject, "Besides, you still haven't told me about Remnant, or those hunters and huntresses Ruby mentioned."


AN: Chapter three. The weekly schedule's working out well so far. Don't expect it to last. Chapter four should be out next Friday if I know what I'm doing (I usually don't).

In the mean time, please leave a review with your honest criticism. I'm finalizing a hierarchy of writing priorities to put on my profile so that you guys have a sort of syllabus to work off of. You won't have to use it, but if you want to be helpful, that will be the best way to do it.