Aero wasn't having fun. None at all. Not even the slightest bit. One might even say he was having antifun. Non-fun, perhaps. He was having a substandard, poor, inferior, second-rate, unsatisfactory, inadequate, unacceptable, shoddy, miserable, atrocious, appalling, abysmal, rotten, inauspicious time.

In a word: bad.

He had awoken from a nightmare of being surrounded by a group of Fractals to find himself in a room filled with… things. Metal things that were… on fire?... and flashing lights in his face. Annoying sounds also seemed to be coming from them. One of these things looked like it was filled with blood and was connected to some clear rope that was going into his arm, causing some discomfort. The feeling wasn't exclusive to that, however, as his whole body was wrapped in bandages and aching like he'd just been hit by a chariot.

Aero was trying to make sense of everything through the uneasiness sweeping across him when his focus suddenly snapped back into place. With a panic filled expression, he raised his left arm, as his right was tightly wrapped, to his neck. Instead of finding one of the most powerful artifacts in the world being held there, all Aero found was a distinctly necklace-free patch of skin.

Yeah, he thought. This is bad.

Aero felt a small amount of panic creep through him. If Beta was found by the wrong people, the effects could be devastating. There's no telling what a villain could do with that kind of power.

Focus, Aero. Don't lose to the situation.

The swordsman slowed his breathing and rationalized the situation. Though Beta was powerful, it was extremely difficult to use. Besides, without mixing Beta's energy with aura, there was no way to tell it apart from a regular Dust crys…

Wait. That's it!

Aero closed his eyes and focused on bringing his aura outward, causing him to glow slightly. Usually, the energy field of his Grip was condensed into a small area around an object. If he could spread out the field as thin as he could, making it almost unnoticeable, Beta's energy should give its location. That is, if it was close enough.

Raising his hand slightly, Aero directed his aura field out the door of his room and down the hallway, noting several people were in the area. He moved his field further ahead and felt a level of fatigue growing in him. Aura depletion wasn't usually a concern for Aero, given his naturally high reserves, even without his Shard, but he suspected his injuries were affecting his ability to draw from them.

Aero was almost at his limit before he finally felt Beta's presence on the very edge of his field. To him, it was like seeing the sun rising on the horizon. Beta was still near. He could get to it. But… something was wrong. Beta was moving away from Aero's range and, before he knew it, he couldn't sense the Shard's energy anymore.

No! I can't let it get away!

Acting on adrenaline fueled instinct, Aero jumped from the bed and dashed to the door. He almost made it, until whatever was in his arm pulled on him. Thinking he shouldn't give himself an open wound, Aero took a knife from the table next to him and cut the cord, causing fluid to spill everywhere and high pitched sounds to echo loudly in the room. Footsteps quickly sounded in the hallway and two men in white outfits appeared in the doorway.

They moved toward Aero, likely to try and restrain him, but Aero raised his knife in front of him, causing the two to back off slightly. Aero didn't actually plan on hurting them, but experience had taught him a little fear went a long way. This wasn't his first time waking up with bandages in a strange place. Not even close.

Remembering Beta, Aero dashed forward between the two men and out the door. People in the hallway, most of which were wearing the same white outfits, appeared from the doorways. Aero ran past some of them in the direction Beta had been, only to realize his injuries were slowing him down. He looked around for some other way to move and saw what looked like a white mat on wheels.

This is crazy.

The people started running towards him.

But I've done worse.

Aero pulled himself onto the contraption and laid on his stomach. Using what aura he could muster, he let out small bursts of energy from his feet, propelling him forward. He was making some distance between him and his pursuers, causing him to smile to himself a bit.

A smile that quickly went away upon noticing he was headed toward a wall.

Aero let out a small scream before using his left arm to fire a shot and redirect him. He made a hard right, even sliding on the wall a bit, before gaining some control and going forward. Several people, mostly teenagers around Aero's age, were moving out of the way as he zoomed past them. He was still using his semblance to search for Beta, but was having a hard time doing so while narrowly making his way between people and around corners. Not to mention his body was starting to ache all over, like the numb feeling before the pain actually comes.

Finally, Aero felt Beta's energy moving. He turned in it's direction, all while the pain in his body grew. He was having a hard time getting an exact location, so he took a risk and let out one strong pulse from his body, the light from the field this time being noticeable. The wave immediately let Aero know where Beta was and where it was happened to be right around the corner he was headed.

He tried to slow down his strange horseless carriage, but one of the wheels gave out, causing the whole vehicle to skid and fall on it's side, the momentum throwing Aero forward. He maintained about half a second of airtime before colliding directly with whatever was carrying Beta, knocking both him and the object to the ground and causing pain to flare up all over his body.

Aero laid on his back, barely conscious and with blood dripping from his reopened wounds. Something passed between him and the light on his face, prompting him to open his eyes. In front of him was Beta, dangling from the neck of a very familiar dark haired, silver eyed girl, giving him the strangest sense of deja vu.

He tried to speak, but he felt the sharp pain of a needle entering his arm.

Then the world went black…

… again.

-x-

Aero awoke once again from his Fractal filled nightmare, causing him to nearly jump from his bed. He tried to move in his panic state, but his arms and legs, except for his already immobile right arm, had been tied down by some kind of rope. The world seemed to blur as his steel blue eyes darted around the room, unable to focus on anything. Several more distinct blurs, each with different colors, began to slowly come into focus until he realized the blobs were actually people. Aero was far from calm, but he was able to form some rushed, raspy sounding sentences.

"Who are you," he yelled. "Where am I?! What have you done to me?!"

Though he still couldn't make out there faces very well, he could tell some of them had confused looks on them.

"Answer me!"

"Young man," said one of them, an older man with white hair, "please calm down. We can't understand you."

"Yeah," said a girl with vibrant yellow hair. "Chill, dude. We're friends here."

Aero snapped out of his small frenzy and looked at the group, which was composed of the the two that had spoken and four more girls: one with a bow on her head, one with more white on than a blizzard, a grown one with what looked like a riding crop at her side and… her. The same hooded girl he had now been thrown into twice.

"Young man," the white haired one said again, causing Aero to turn to him. "Can you understand us?"

Aero was filled with shock at the question and stared at the man. The answer was yes, but it didn't seem possible that anyone would know this language. The only reason he, no, anyone, knew it was because Summer had taught them, and even then no one but Dunden and he could speak it well, but these people seemed fluent.

"Yes," he said slowly, "but can you understand me?" The group shared confused glances with each other while the yellow one just looked at the girl he had crashed into and shrugged. "I'll take that as a no."

"What did you say before," asked the white one.

"I asked if you understood me," said Aero, "and I got my answer." He looked at the straps on his limbs and wiggled slightly. "If it's not too much trouble, could someone please take these restraints off of me?"

"Not until we know you are not a threat to anyone here," said the grown woman. She was shooting daggers that reminded him of how Jen would look at Zek whenever he did something stupid. He had to admit, it was even scarier being on the receiving end.

"Glynda," said the man, "we should have more kindness for our patients here."

"Yeah," said the yellow girl. "We should be more… hospitable." She had a wide, open smile on her face, while the rest of them shook their heads, pinched the brims of their noses and groaned. Aero, on the other hand, actually laughed a little bit. Her sense of humor reminded of him of Summer's terrible puns.

While they were recovering from the horrible joke, the white haired man removed the restraints from Aero's left arm and leg. Aero weakly tried to reach for the one on his right leg, but he couldn't lift his body up enough. He fell back down into the bedding, his breathing pitifully sped up from such little excursion, when he felt the restraint loosening. He looked down, as his bed was up at an angle, and saw that the girl with the red-tipped hair undoing the strap.

"Thank you," he said with a weak smile.

"You're very welcome," she said while returning his gesture. "I'm sure it's hard to move, what with those bandages and the sleepy medicine they gave you. Just be glad it wasn't bubblegum flavor, though. That stuff's the worst." She laughed innocently at her joke and Aero let out a light chuckle as well, even though he had no idea what "bubblegum" was.

"Professor," said Glynda, "are you sure about this? This is the same boy who just took a joyride through our school on a gurney."

"Which sounds awesome by the way," said the blonde girl, causing the woman Glynda to roll her eyes. "Are you sure we should trust him?"

"It's not like he's going anywhere," said the man. Aero was forced to admit he was right. His body wasn't exactly in the best condition. It was only on pure adrenaline he had been able to move as much as he had. Now that he was calmer, he doubted he'd be going anywhere on his own, especially considering his whole body felt somewhat numb. If he had Beta, he could probably just lift his bo…

Beta!

Aero's panic returned as he remembered that his Shard was still missing. Normally, Aero wouldn't let himself, as Summer would say, "freak out" so much, but the whole situation was getting the better of him, something the warrior in him hated.

"Are you okay," asked the girl with the bow.

"My necklace," said Aero.

"Oh," piped up the hooded girl. She pulled a chain with a glimmering silver crystal on the end of it out of her pocket. "Here. Let me just…" she said as she bent over and tied the metal around Aero's neck, giving him a sweet sense of relief at having Beta back. She fell forward slightly, nearly bumping Aero's head, and leaving their faces very close to each other. Both had slight blushes on their cheeks as the girl quickly stood up. "I may have… tried it on for a bit. Sorry."

Aero raised his hand up and felt the cool crystal with his fingertips.

"Do you," he said hesitantly, "know what this is?"

"Uh," she said, "a very pretty rock?" Aero felt even more relief as she gave her answer. If they didn't know what Beta was, their was no way they could know how to use it. That knowledge made him feel slightly safer.

"Mmhm," coughed the silver haired man. "Can you tell us your name, and perhaps why you thought it best to attempt escaping from a hospital room with several major lacerations still freshly made."

And just like that, Aero felt the stress return. If he told them who he really was, this whole situation could get even more difficult than it already was. It may also give them a clue as to what Beta was, putting him and world in potentially grave danger.

"If it's all the same to you, sir," Aero said, "I'd like to know your names first, though I can say I left, well, because I was afraid of loosing this." He put his hand up to his necklace. "It's very important to me. A family heirloom."

"Very well," he said. "I am Professor Ozpin, Headmaster of Beacon Academy."

"It's nice to meet you, Headmaster," said Aero, who was trying to hold back his look of shock upon hearing the names Ozpin and Beacon. He remembered stories about them. Ozpin was a legendary Huntsman and Beacon was the school Summer had attended, but it was impossible these could be the same things Summer told him about.

"My name is Professor Goodwitch. I also teach here at Beacon."

"I am Weiss Schnee, huntress-in-training and heiress to the Schnee Dust Company."

"Blake."

Aero had a hard a hard time focusing on what the others were saying as his mind was putting together the pieces he'd been collecting. The language. The machines. Ozpin. Beacon. There was no way any of these things could exist unless…

"The name's Yang."

"I'm Ruby. Nice to meet you, Mr. …," she said trailing off.

Aero thought his heart was going to stop. He could practically feel his pupils shrinking as sweat droplets started to form on his brow.

"Yang…"

"Your name's Yang too? That's cool."

"No," he said. "Yang. You're Yang Xiao Long."

"So you've heard of me, huh," she said crossing her arms. "I guess I am pretty famous." Aero paid her no mind as he turned his head to the red-hooded girl.

"Are you… Ruby Rose?"

"Um," she said in a worried tone, "yes. How did you know who my sister and I were?"

"Half-sisters," said Aero.

"Ok," said Yang with a serious expression, "how did you know that?"

Aero laid his head down and stared at the light on the ceiling, which he now realized was being powered by electricity, the stuff in lightning, just like all these other machines. He was in absolute shock. His mind was still trying to find some other answer, but he kept coming back to the same conclusion.

This place. This time. It wasn't his.

"Hello? Remnant to Blond Boy. Are you gonna answer my question or what?"

It was silent for a moment.

"Aero."

"Huh?"

"My name is Aero, Son of Halos," he said as he raised his head up to face the sisters, "and I was the last person to see Summer Rose alive."