RWBY and company made it out of bulkhead ground control and back into the city. "They couldn't have gotten far," Wash said. "Let's split up into teams of two; each of us with a guide. You two..." he pointed to Sun and Neptune and paused, "I don't know, go as your own team."

"That works for me," Ruby said. "I'll go with Mr. Caboose - er... I mean Mr. Azulo. He strikes me as someone who gets lost easily."

"Yay!"

"Everyone else, let's get moving."

/-some minutes later-/

Wash and Weiss walked along what the latter identified as Main Street, searching left and right for the Reds or, if applicable, the people responsible for their disappearance. "Not really an important question, I guess," he spoke, not taking his eyes off an alley to the left until he passed it, "But why is the moon the way it is here?"

She looked at him, puzzled again. "Why? What's so peculiar about it?"

"To you, probably nothing. But the moon where I'm from isn't broken into little pieces on one side." He pointed up, indicating the satellite's broken side. "On Earth, if something breaks the Moon, it would end a lot of lives."

"Oh. Well, whatever must have happened to ours happened before I was born; I couldn't tell you." She paused. "What makes your moon so important to life?"

"Well, it controls the tides. The ocean rises on one continent - high tide - and falls on another - low tide. If something happens to the Moon, tides would become unbalanced and Earth would flood. Does your moon not do that?"

She shook her head. "Actually, our moon governs Remnant's collective aura, allowing Dust to work and people to be protected. As long as the entire Moon stays above us, life goes on." She began to think, then added. "I suppose it's not too unlike yours after all. The collective aura shifts in strength around the poles and equator, similar to your oceans. I guess you could call it tides of a sort."

"Well, whatever it is, it doesn't answer my question... Would Ozpin or Ironwood know?"

"I suppose if anyone would know, it would be them. Why the interest, though?"

He shrugged. "I just feel like it's important. If it's not ending life as a result, I guess I can drop it." Looking into another alley revealed just as many Reds as he'd expect. "Where the hell could those four have gone?"

/-/

"Red guys!" Tucker yelled, attempting to locate the runaways. "Where'd you go?"

"I don't think that's gonna work," Yang said.

"It has before. Maybe it's too crowded here?"

"Vern, it's just us."

A quick look around proved Yang's theory, as they were the only two souls on Fourth Street. "Well, what do you suggest, Goldilocks?"

She gave him a curious look. " 'Goldilocks?' "

Tucker sighed. "It's a fairy tale on Earth." Something clicked, and he added. "A lot of things here are like that, actually."

"How so?"

"Well, 'Little Red Riding Hood' is about a little girl in a red hood who goes to her grandma's house, but she's attacked by a wolf who gets killed by a woodsman-slash-huntsman. Ruby fits the bill up until the part with the gun-scythe."

Yang chuckled. "So she does. What about this 'Goldilocks' thing?"

"Goldilocks is another little girl with blonde hair who breaks into a house inhabited by bears. She eats their food, sits in their chairs, and sleeps in their beds until the residents return and basically kick her out."

"And I guess that's me?"

"Yup. Except for the B&E, as far as I know."

/-/

"Mr. Grif!" Ruby called. "Mr. Simmons?"

"Mister Sarge!" Caboose shouted, almost too loud to be necessary. "Where are you guys?"

"Oh... I don't think they can hear us."

"Then I'll yell louder!"

"No!" She said. "Please, just don't." They continued looking. After a moment, Ruby spoke again. "Mr. Caboose, you seem smart; can I ask you something?"

Caboose began to laugh, but stopped when no-one else did. "Ah, people usually laugh when someone calls me smart. Uh, what did you want to ask?"

"Well I... You know what, forget I mentioned anything."

"Nah, come on," he urged.

Ruby sighed. "Let's say, hypothetically, there's this person you really liked, but they don't like you anymore. How would you get them to like you?"

"Hm... If I liked someone that much... I would give them ice cream!"

"I... What?"

"I would give them ice cream. And sherbet if they didn't like the ice cream! And niceness; I would never be mean to them!"

"Okay...? But what if you do something nice for them, and they don't think it's that nice?"

"...But how can something nice be not nice?"

"Like..." She paused. Caboose was right. Nice couldn't be not nice: that was the nature of its very existence! "...You're really wise, Mr. Caboose."

"Aw, pssh!"

/-/

Doc peeked into a sidestreet, finding plenty of passersby and exactly zero Reds. "They could be halfway across the city," he complained, "in any number of directions. We'll never find them."

"Don't give up so easily," Blake assured. "We've fanned out pretty far; we'll find them."

"I'm not so sure. The Reds have disappeared in even less time than they got. Sarge may spout nonsense half the time, but the other half is almost unnaturally elaborate. I mean, the man just figured out how to fly a ship that yesterday he didn't even know existed!"

"Hm... He sounds like an evil genius."

Doc's voice lowered into a sinister cackle. "No, my dear. He's not the evil genius."

Blake blinked. "What just happened to your voice?"

"Huh?" Doc said, apparently back to normal. "Oh! That's right, you haven't been introduced yet, have you? That's O'Malley."

" 'O'Malley?' "

"Well, that's his nickname. He's actually an old Freelancer AI named Omega. He's mean when he wants to be, but he's harmless as long as there's no radios broadcasting to his network."

"Oh, I beg to differ," O'Malley said, twisting Doc's face into a grin. "You know what you are to me, medic? Have you seen Pacific Rim?"

"Nah, too violent."

"Oh... Well, watch Pacific Rim and this analogy will make sense: You're a Jaeger to me - a vessel in which to do battle against any I find unworthy of existence!"

"He also wants to be majority owner of the known cosmos, but that's the big picture. Me? I'm more for the small scene. Like right now: looking for the Reds. Then maybe getting home."

"...Uh-huh... That's... different, I guess."

Doc lifted a dumpster lid, found no Reds, and O'Malley slammed the lid shut. "I almost feel it would be faster to level the city than to search for these morons. Unfortunately, we haven't access to the means."

"What do you mean? You came in on a military ship."

"Owned by the UNSC," Doc corrected, "And as far as they're concerned, we're not military. So no big guns for us. Which is fine by me; I'm a conscientious objector."

"You're a pacifist?"

"Yes, unfortunately he is. Red Sergeant! Where are you!"