Beacon Academy. Vale. 80 AGW

Solomon seated himself across from the man already in the room. 'Really need to ask for something to refer to him as,' he thought as the Professor moved to stand next to her, based on the man seemingly having been the source of the offer for Solomon to recover here, apparent superior. 'He has the card advantage as a result of how much information we gave yesterday. Let's see how he uses it.'

The Professor translated the man's opening question, with a slightly resigned look barely visible in her face, likely from the knowledge that she would be needing to serve at that task for the entirety of the conversation. "Before we begin, I would like to ask the name you want to be referred to as. I do not believe you had mentioned it yesterday."

'Innocent enough,' Solomon thought before responding aloud. "I have been gifted a few titles in the past few months. The one I believe safest to use within this language is the organization membership title of Rose Crusader. May I inquire as to which title you would prefer to use?"

"Headmaster would be the most fitting as it is my profession in this school," came the translated response. "Rose Crusader, what organization would give you that title?"

'Odd direction, should keep it vague,' the Rose Duelist thought to himself.'I have no idea what the context might mean to them.' "The Rose Crusaders were the allies of a family with a sigil of a White Rose during a conflict against a foe with the sigil of a Red Rose. If I am to recall correctly, I believe both were integrated into one singular family in the aftermath," he responded aloud. 'If my interference didn't screw anything up, of course. Doubt it, the Rose Cards were perfectly balanced on each side when I arrived and merely stalemating the situation.'

His thoughts caused him to lose focus on what their initial reactions to this statement were. Solomon did note that there seemed to have been some minor discussion caused as a result. As it began to die down, he decided to speak up, "I apologize for my interruption, but there was a question asked by Tact- Leader yesterday that I wish to know the answer to. What nation am I within and what is the current year?"

Solomon noted a slight look pass within the eyes of the Headmaster when his words were translated. The Professor spoke of her own accord to answer his question. "You are within the city and nation of Vale. The year is the eightieth since the Great War occurred."

'This could be…problematic. I have no idea where we are,' Solomon thought in response. Similar confusion originating from Tactical Warrior indicated she was unsure about this information as well. 'And 'the Great War'? Why say that rather than First World War?'

The Professor interrupted his thought process with a translation for what the Headmaster wanted to say. "I recall you mentioning the ritual that caused you to arrive here could send you across both time and space. Given I have my doubts that you would only use it once, would I be correct to assume that you had been the target of it twice, once to take you from one time to another and a second to return?"

Solomon gave a slight wince as he realized where the Headmaster might be heading. "Yes."

"Further, it would be safe to believe that based upon your confusion, the Emerald Forest was not the original destination for your second travel."

Solomon gave a silent nod, neither him nor his Deck Leader liking where things were heading. 'Goddamnit. Why did I give away so much?'

"Can you tell us where you were taken to and where your original destination was?" finished the translation.

"Kingdom of England, near the end of the Fifteenth Century of the Common Era, for the former question," Solomon responded a bit more curtly than earlier. "United States of America, near the end of the Twentieth Century of the Common Era for the latter question." Oddly, he noted unfamiliarity in both the Professor's eyes, and, once his statements were translated, the eyes of the Headmaster. He wasn't completely certain as to how he should feel about this fact. He mirrored the concern he felt from Tactical Warrior as he thought, 'Just where are we?'

There seemed to be a fair amount of conversation created as a result of what he had said. The Professor took out an odd handheld device, which was then pulled into two halves. A holographic display proceeded manifested itself between the two parts of the device. This both impressed Solomon, and caused his unease to reach greater heights, a very slight amount of fear beginning to be added. As the Professor began navigating to something within it, Solomon thought, 'I haven't heard of any device that has those capabilities. Not even something ideas just tossed around for the fun of it. Where and when did Manawyddan send us?'

The Professor seemed to find what she was looking for, the vague appearance of a map being partially visible through the back of the holographic device. She held it out by one grip, saying, "Would you be able to point out where the nations you speak of are located?"

The Rose Duelist accepted the device, unease solidifying into fear at an ever growing rate. "Alright…" he said as he began looking over the provided map and froze. His eyes then shot across the map, seeking for something, anything familiar, panic and fear ruling over his mind. At the edge of his awareness, his unconscious mind noted that Tactical Warrior had discarded her unease to act as a stabilizer for the turmoil of Solomon's mind.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, causing Solomon to freeze once more. The Rose Duelist knew instinctively that he would have visibly jumped at the question without Tactical Warrior's presence somewhat calming his mind.

"I…I don't…recognize…" he struggled to respond, voice low. "The continents they're…wrong…" He set the device down on the desk in front of him, trying to keep his arms from shaking, as he heard her translate it to the Headmaster. The Rose Duelist slumped in the chair, not registering what the Professor had next said. "Wh…where am…where are we?" he stumbled out, voice barely a whisper, sadness and fear thick in his voice.

Raw concern flew over his connection with Tactical Warrior as the Rose Duelist's memories began to run rampant through his mind, his awareness of the outside world dwindling as the questions began to drown his awareness. His mind flashed to his family, his mother and father, his sisters, his cousins, and he asked himself how much pain would they suffer through fruitlessly searching for what happened to him? He could never get back now. He didn't study the fucking ritual that sent him through time! There would be no closure, only an endless fucking search…

Solomon's mind flickered over to his friends. He remembered how Miguel and Bennet had attempted to sneak aboard his flight out to Japan he was taking to take part in the Duelist Kingdom tournament after high placement in the Intercontinental tournament, only very narrowly avoiding being caught. He wondered how they would deal with his disappearance. He was going to be dueling Bennet later in the day. Might their friendship break apart from Miguel blaming him for it? Going by his knowledge of them, it was all too real a possibility…

His mind jumped over to a place that made him feel a sharp stab of pain. He realized he had barely thought about…her during his months in the past. They had been going through a bit of a rough patch before he left, for reasons that only seemed petty in retrospect. Solomon froze again. The tiniest thought whispered to him, 'what if she blames herself for me disappearing?' The very idea chilled him to the bone. She had a few more friends she could trust this time. He sincerely hoped they would be enough to keep her from going…there again.

The chill caused by those last thoughts combined with what help Tactical Warrior could provide in stabilizing him managed to bring the Rose Duelist back to awareness of his surroundings. Solomon sent his thanks to Tactical Warrior as he brushed a few of the tears he felt away. Looking at the Headmaster and Professor, he noted sympathy visible on their faces. He focused on keeping his composure, drawing upon the strength Tactical Warrior offered, before speaking. "I'm not from this world, am I?" he asked.

The Professor gave a nod. "It seems so," she responded.

Solomon nodded, the weight of that statement settling upon him fully and crushing the final doubting portions of his mind. "What is this planet?" he asked.

"Remnant," the Professor responded. The Headmaster said something to her, which she proceeded to translate. "What planet are you from?"

"Earth," he responded, keeping his voice neutral in order to keep his composure. There seemed to be a very slight amount of amusement come from both of them for a split second at hearing the name of his homeworld, before they quelled it. Recalling something from earlier in the conversation, Solomon continued, "I guess this explains why you had said the Great War rather than World War I…"

"Did you say World War I?" the Professor asked in confusion and slight alarm.

"Yes," Solomon said, not taking note of her tone. "It was a conflict roughly eighty years ago in my world as well that was fought between the European powers who controlled most of the world at the time. It resulted in around ten million dead, twenty million wounded, and eight million missing in action."

Not noting their astonished and horrified reactions, he continued, "World War II was roughly thirty years later and the more devastating conflict. It had an estimated sixty million as its dead alone. Five to six million were from the Holocaust. Both were bad, but paled in comparison to the estimates for what World War III could have been."

"H-how bad were the numbers?" The Professor asked, horror creeping into her voice.

"World War II's total dead only numbered a mere three percent of the population, two point three billion," he said, their reactions starting to pierce his focus of trying to recall the relevant information. "It had raised to five point eight billion at the time I had left. For much of the time between, it could have started, and thanks to the weapon developed at the end of the Second World War, it would have ended less than a day later. All governments destroyed. Estimates ranged from a majority of the global population being killed, to all life on the planet being dead."

He noted the silence in the aftermath of what he had said. Seeing the degree of the expressions they both held, he asked, "I feel as if I am…missing something…"

The Professor managed to collect her composure enough to respond. "The current global population of humans and faunus on Remnant is about seven point five million…" the Professor trailed off.

Solomon slumped back in shock again, the number repeating itself in his head. A realization then struck him, with the level of technology they display this would be a high point in their civilization. A number that humanity had surpassed thousands of years ago on his world, possibly before they were starting to understand how to smelt copper. This was followed by the realization that he had also just talked about two wars in which more people died than their world had in total population. "I...I'm sorry," he finally responded. "I didn't realize what those numbers might have meant here."

"You have nothing to apologize for," the Professor responded, the shock of the sheer scale of Earth's wars seeming to slide away. "It is…unexpected, but it seems your world never had to deal with the Grimm."

'The Grimm? Is she referring to the Beowolf Grimms?' the Rose Duelist thought. Noting he was seemingly stabilized in his emotions again, Solomon sent further thanks to Tactical Warrior before speaking to the Professor. "We had fought against some creatures by the name of Beowolf Grimms before you arrived. Are you referring to them?"

Seemingly arriving at a less disturbing topic, the Professor spoke fully at her natural tone, "Yes, though we just refer to them as Beowolves as there are more varieties than just those. The threat they pose has largely forced civilization to exist in only the limited abilities we have. Based on what you say, even some of the wildest speculation."

The last statement was only barely caught by Solomon. "Why are all these summons acting this way?" he thought aloud, the unease that was growing within him and his Deck Leader slightly lacing his voice. It was a different variety to earlier in the conversation, more laced with confusion and concern rather than fear and worry.

Both the Professor and the Headmaster were looking at him in confusion once his statement was translated. "Summon? What do you mean?" The Professor asked.

"When the Beowolf Gri- Beowolves died, the evaporated in a mist similar to summons that died in battle," Solomon explained, disturbed. "And last night…" he started, stopping himself for a second before realizing he had already started saying too much and continuing. "There's this one…dimension, if that is the right word, that I go to after battles with summons that allow for me to gain what was destroyed during battles that day. The Beowolves were on the…machine, for lack of a better word…"

Interrupting his train of thought, the Headmaster spoke up, his statement soon translated by the Professor, "How is it you know it is only summons that come up on that machine?"

"There's also a variety of spells and traps used by Summoners that can come up on it," Solomon admitted, his mind partially elsewhere.

"You've fought such individuals before?" Came the translated response.

"I have," Solomon responded. "I managed to be undefeated, at that. It was close a few times. Really close on a few occasions."

"Was there any difference with the form you seemed to have when we arrived?"

"Not really," Solomon replied, mind thinking back over his battles. "Aside from it being their appearance and a color change to the ethereal aspect, there wasn't a difference I was aware of."

The Headmaster gave a slight nod, before saying something that was translated by the Professor. "Are there any restrictions over how far they can act?"

Solomon thought a bit before responding, "There was one that was fought over about thirty-something square kilometers of battlefield, but no monster got farther than about ten or fifteen from either of us, I believe, and that was a unique occasion that burnt him out completely. I managed to barely keep from doing so myself."

The Headmaster seemed to focus back on events. "Then I do not think that there are Summoners behind these creatures. There have been battles over greater areas, and no such individuals have been seen. Is it possible for them to be unbound?" came his next translated question.

"I don't think so," responded Solomon. "There needs to be something acting as a source of energy to keep the summons stable. There would need to be a direct link to this world for the power to flow through. Summoners are the ones able to initialize it. If you haven't seen any, that would need to mean that there exists a massive connection of energy, on the scale of the realm itself or a…representative…of…it…" he trailed off, an idea forming in his mind.

"Rose Crusader?" the Professor asked she had finished her translation for the Headmaster.

Solomon slumped back again. "I…I may have an idea of why the Grimm are so prevalent…." he spoke, tone filled with shock once more. "There are…entities…known as Card Guardians..."

"I haven't heard of any such beings," the Professor responded.

"That means it was hidden well. It is both good…and bad," Solomon replied, slightly dazed. "It has likely prevented things from becoming worse, but you have no idea what you are truly up against."

"What do you mean?" The Professor asked in confusion.

"They have an offer, a pact of glory, which has the possibility that an individual and a group they specify, likely family, would gain great power from summoning one," he spoke, not noticing their reactions. "However, there are various…other…factors to consider. A specific bloodline gets the best reaction out of them, apparently, but there is also the…temperament…of the entity to consider."

"The temperament?" The Professor asked with concern.

"My mentor spoke his family had once made a pact with one that was broken for unknown reasons. However, the one I personally encountered that acted with rage towards what was done to its brother some time ago and immediately proceeded to act upon what appeared to be the base desire of them," the Rose Duelist spoke.

"Base desire?"

"Sustenance. Based upon what it said, it seems to be devouring souls," he said, only realizing the effect it might have.

"Devouring souls?" the Professor said as she reacted with further horror, with a look mirrored on the Headmaster's face. This break in composure was largely recovered from, but lingering traces of the horror of it remained. The Headmaster then had a question that was translated by the Professor, "From what you've said now and yesterday, you had to fight against one before. Did you beat it?"

"Yeah, I did and it was sealed, but I only faced the weak form in battle," Solomon admitted, his voice slightly downcast. "I only faced it in the first few minutes after its summoning, and it was the toughest battle I had, and I got really lucky! I think I barely even scratched the surface of what it was capable of in that form. The one terrorizing your world is probably in their best form right now. I encountered it once, and it nearly shredded my very essence with merely its voice when I was partially protected from it!"

As he slumped back in the chair, he heard an exchange passing between the two. After something was decided, the Professor asked, "Why is it you were so close to the summoning?"

Solomon winced. "My mentor was the one who summoned the Guardian I encountered, partially thanks to my help…"

"He betrayed you?" The Professor next asked.

"He didn't betray me," Solomon said. "I needed certain components to get me back home. He needed the same components for the ritual to summon the guardian. The components were not one use items. He promised to send me home after he had performed the ritual. We allied, and I was simply waiting until he was done so I could be sent home, which he tried to do after the Guardian was defeated."

Taking note of their expressions, he headed off whatever thoughts they had. "Look, I didn't know half the information I spoke about earlier before it happened. All I knew was that he was trying to fulfill a several thousand year quest his family had passed down to him. Further, he made an actual offer to send me home after he was done. The other faction dragged me into their mess to begin with against my will to forcibly fight for someone I did not care about, and they offered me no guarantee to send me home."

"How do you know he wasn't planning to use you as a sacrifice to this…monster?" The Professor asked with suspicion.

It was a reasonable question from their perspective, but it still angered Solomon. "I know for certain he wouldn't," he responded.

"How can you be so sure?" The Professor responded.

"He fulfilled every promise he had made me, and gifted me this," Solomon said, holding up the Rose Pendant and speaking with conviction. "This pendant marks that he had put his family in a debt to me where I am able to ask for any assistance I require, no restrictions. He was an honorable man and I do not appreciate the insinuations you are making about his character."

A short silence followed his declaration and the translation so the Headmaster could understand what was said. The Headmaster then spoke to the Professor, who translated the question for the Rose Duelist. "Back to before this topic, if you were able to fight this Card Guardian, would you?"

"All I own is quite literally what I came to this world with, and I do not know how the ritual to return back to where I came from," Solomon sighed. "Whether I like it or not, this world is now my home. The Card Guardian's actions are threatening the continued lives everyone who live on this planet. If I had the ability to challenge them and knew where to face them, I would go fight them in a heartbeat. However, I am neither know where they make their base, nor am I confident enough in my skill to go out and fight them myself…"

After it had been translated, the Headmaster had said something that the Professor disagreed with. It seemed reminiscent of the one they had had yesterday, only on a larger scale. Something seemed to be said that caused the Professor to capitulate and translate a question. "We may know of a way for you to become skilled enough. It will take a large amount of effort, however," she said, slight concern in her voice.

Solomon raised an eyebrow. "What is it?" he asked, curious.


I apologize for how long this particular chapter wound up taking to get put up. Portions of this chapter were a bit difficult to write, as they kept feeling…off. I still feel I could have done them better, but I think I've kept people waiting for long enough. I really hope that no other chapter winds up needing to take this long unless it is a really long one.

The chapter detailing moments of the time skip over the period of time between the arrival and the first day of beacon is going to be in the next chapter. Place your bets as to when I'll get to the actual point that the partnerships and teams are determined.

Recently decided to look at the trailers for Dark Side of Dimensions. My god is the animation just beautiful. I really hope there's going to be showings around where I live.

Population numbers for Remnant may seem low to many people, but let me explain the logic behind it. Some calculations run in one of the Spacebattles RWBY thread (there'll be a link in the Spacebattles thread for this story) puts Vale as being roughly the size of one hundred and fifty six thousand square kilometers as the high estimate (trust me, we need this). Looking at a map of Vale, the agricultural district is pretty small, especially since it would likely need to provide for the whole city since Grimm would limit the trade ability we are familiar with in the modern world. So let's bump it up to 25% of Vale's land area is for food production, giving us thirty-nine thousand square kilometers for food production. Now we ask ourselves, how much land area is required for a human?

Fortunately, there is a unit of measurement we can use for this. It is known as a Global Hectare. Now the footprint per person in our world is 2.7, but given higher technology, let's reduce the requirement to 2.2. Back to the calculation, the conversion rate from Hectares to Square Kilometers is 100:1. Using what is being used in this calculation, this means each person in Vale uses an average of .022 square kilometers. Now, dividing 39000 by .022 gives us the maximum sustainable population of Vale as being around 1,772,000, maybe boost it to two million with fishing.

I can't simply multiply this by four to get the answer of what the population of the four big kingdoms are, then add in a few million for the settlements for one particular reason. Vacao's a desert, Mistral's in mountains, and Atlas is on a glacier. These are not favorable locations to grow food on a large scale. Fortunately for Vacao, they seem to be on the border between desert and greenery, so we can make an argument to give them a similar population to Vale, though without the boost from fishing. Atlas and Mistral, however? They can't do near as much, so their population would be much lower. Now, they likely have slightly higher amounts of fishing being done, and if we combine these with greenhouses, the argument could be made that their populations are around 750,000. This makes the current total around 5.25 million. If we believe there exist one third of the population outside of the kingdoms, then multiplying by 3/2 gives us the world population as nearly 7.8 million. Keep in mind this is maximum population, though, so a small reduction of a few hundred thousand would give us the number 7.5 million.

People may think that lowering the amount of Hectares per person may give a more reasonable amount. There is one thing to keep in mind, however. The average for the United States is 8 per person, Norway is 5.5, Mexico is 3, and South Africa is 2.3. Yes, it could be lower, but they are already pretty low and pushing it further starts stretching the suspension of disbelief of how well off their lives seem to be portrayed.

Feel free to poke holes in my logic.