Another exposition heavy chapter, sorry everyone! We will have plot next chapter I promise, but what with more introductions, it comes with more explanations.

I will admit though, the last part of this chapter kinda just came about, you know when your writing and it ends up being that the characters do something completely different than what you had planed? yeah it happened a little. But, it suits them, and I'm sure you'll agree.

also, I migh as well clarify something here, because it will come up ar some point. This fic is primarily following Ruby and her team, we may switch to orher people's perspectives to get a better idea on what their feeling, but not if Ruby and her team arent there, that means theres not going to be a mention of it, so no insight to any antagonist plans either. This is my way of writing and I do it so that you connect to the main characters more, the only time I would change it is if an antagonist has become a main member, and them it would be via flashback as to not tip off the story ahead of time.

these characters and settings are owned by 343 Industries and RoosterTeeth respectivly, I don't own RWBY or Halo, just this story.


They passed the time explaining the new group how Remnant works, or at least the major points, Dust, Grimm, The four kingdoms, and what they're known for, as well as Faunus and the White fang.

Which Cortana had a particular interest in, and unfortunately confirm ging that Earth's humanity wasn't much different when it came to terms of discrimination, trying to find any way to separate themselves or cast judgement on a different 'race' and how long it took to resolve the problem.

It didn't seem long before two Bullhead arrived, and they all climbed inside, the pilots couldn't help but stare at the Arbiter, towering over everyone bar Ruby and with the strange appendages they were not used to seeing, RBY were still uncomfortable with him so close, and that made Tai and Qrow nervous, but since Chief and Cortana seemed to be ok with him, they had to put up with it.

The ride was mostly in silence, as Chief and Arbiter watched as Remnant passed beneath them, Cortana joining them in wondering how this planet came to be if no space influence could be seen.

They arrived in the courtyard where Ozpin stood waiting, flanked by Glynda, and surprisingly, Dr Ooblek.

"TaiYang, it's been a while hasn't it?" Ozpin stated to the other man, but before he could reply, their three hosts visibly stiffened at the sight of, first the Chief, and then, behind him, Arbiter taller than all but Ruby, who was just shy of him. The three did not fail to notice her seeming aversion to the Sangheili either.

There was a stiff moment of tension, before Ozpin broke it by saying,

"Let's head to my office shall we?"

Inside Ozpin's office the group stood, Arbiter and Chief taking a moment to look at the architecture,

"Well, he certainly has his style…" Cortana spoke to Chief privately, who hummed in agreement.

"So, I believe Introductions are in order." Ozpin announced as he span round to face them, "I am Professor Ozpin, Headmaster of Beacon Academy and member of the Vale Council, This is my assistant and Combat instructor, Glynda Goodwitch, and Dr. Bartholomew Ooblek, Our History teacher."

Glynda was quite obviously trying to glair down the two newcomers, sizing them up, but they both paid her no heed above being polite when Arbiter took it upon himself to speak up first,

"Arbiter of Sangheilios," he put a hand across his cuirass and bowed, respectfully,

"Master Chief Petty Officer of the UNSC Navy," was the Chief's curt reply

"Do you have a name?" Ozpin asked,

"Classified,"

"Surely you have something else to go by,"

"Chief, Spartan, or 117 will suffice,"

"I see, well, now that that is out of the wa-" he was cut off by Cortana,

"There's one more actually…" and at the sound of her voice, his grip tightened around his cane as his stance shifted slightly, as Chief took out her chip and she appeared in his upturned palm.

"CTN 0452-9 UNSC Smart AI, Cortana, I hope I didn't alarm you."

Ozpin could have sworn… no, Cortana's voice is younger than hers, it was subtle, and he had mistaken it for a moment, but now that he realised it was different, he relaxed a little, a little.

"No, no, it's fine, you just sound like an old enemy of mine, nothing to worry about, you say you're a 'smart' AI? What's the difference?"

"A smart AI can learn from their surroundings, a 'dumb' one is limited to a specific task or set of information."

"Fascinating," Dr Ooblek spoke up, "To think there are life on other planets that can travel the stars, but that they can make such clever creations too."

"Oh I'm pretty much required for Slipspace travel," Cortana replied, "Travelling through Slipspace requires Billions of calculations every moment to make sure the ship isn't destroyed, and while they can be done by a human, it would take months to chart one trip."

"I see… Facinating."

"When Ruby arrived a few months ago, she said that you were at war with 'The Covenant.'" Ozpin told the group, "I imagine that you seem to hold some status within your respective factions, you would like to rejoin the fight as soon as possible, yes?"

"Yes and no," Cortana replied, "We would like to get back, and that is part of the reason we came to see you, but not to rejoin the fight, we have it on good authority that the Covenant is not as much of a threat as it once was."

"Really?"

"Well since the Arbiter personally killed the last Hierarch, and the Capital has fallen, yes"

He raised his eyebrow, and the response was an abridged form of the Halo campaigns, revealing the fact that The Arbiter was apart of the Covenant before the Great Schism, and the truth about Halo was revealed to him.

They left out the more classified details, only going as far to say that the Flood should be stopped in the most over the top way as possible, to stop the possibility of a spore escaping unnoticed.

"I'm sorry, 'nukes?' Ozpin stopped them, confused at the term.

"Nuclear weapons." Cortana replied, "Does this world not have them?"

"I'm afraid not, we do not have such things," was the response, "We use dust for just about everything, from transport to weaponry and power,"

"I see... Well, A Nuclear Weapon that uses the power of either a runaway fission reaction of a Radioactive element, commonly either Plutonium, or Uranium, though others have been used, or a condensed Fusion reaction that is released to give out a similar explosion, but without the radioactive fallout of the former."

"Fallout?"

"When a Fission bomb goes off, it rarely uses all of its components during the reaction, and the leftover bits of radioactive material, as well as any radioactive waste formed by the process, is scattered into the surrounding area, in atmosphere this can be quite devastating, as radiation can remain in an area for centuries after the initial blast, not to mention it could travel thousands of Kilometers from the blast zone, it's why they're known as dirty bombs to the Navy,"

"And what process are Fission and Fusion exactly?" Ozpin asked, morbidly curious about these supposedly deadly weapons, but he still had no idea of the magnitude of theses explosives.

"Fission is when an Atom becomes unstable, usually because of an added Neutron and breaks apart into two smaller atoms, releasing a ton of energy, and because usually the atom had too many Protons and Neutrons to just become two atoms, it usually also produces two Neutrons that go flying off, if they encounter more of the first element, it can quite quickly get out of hand, hence, a 'runaway' chain reaction."

"And Fusion?"

"A lot safer in terms of if something goes awry, Fusion is the process of smashing two atoms together to make a heavier element, and releases more energy than the counterpart. Reactors began to pop up during the mid 21st Century, or about 400 years ago, and apart from a few select cases, have been our main power source for the past 400 years. It is quite hard to achieve for someone new to Nuclear science though, as to get a good reaction conditions need to be similar to a Star in either pressure or heat, and that means that if a fault occurs, most likely the reaction will stop, the surrounding area may be subject to some unpleasant conditions, but it won't be nearly as devastating as a Fission meltdown. And the result of which is that a glass of Water has the same output of a barrel of Dust, assuming that it is similar to Oil in terms of reactivity."

"I see." Ozpin responded, "One last thing on the topic, but you have been talking about these weapons as if they wield tremendous power, just how devastating are they?"

"Well, the first bomb was made in 1945 at the end of the Second World War, where the nations of the world fought due to a dictator known as Adolf Hitler was trying to wipe out the Jewish people, a religion that was one of the oldest surviving at the time, because he saw them as the cause of all the problems in the world.

Hitler allied with a nation known as Japan, and they would not surrender after Hitler had been stopped, so the United States of America created the Manhattan Project, where the first two Nuclear weapons were made; Little Boy and Fat Man. Imaginative names I know, but they were the second smallest in terms of destructive capability, aside from the self-detonation device within most experimental UNSC tech, and an experimental missile designed to be wielded by infantry rather than dropped from an Aircraft. The smaller of the two, Little Boy, wiped out a City in an instant, killing tens of thousands and destroying over two-thirds of the buildings there. An Average Havok Tactical Nuke of the UNSC is 2000 times more powerful than that."

The bombshell shook everyone who hadn't been told it, and even though Ruby had told her team, the raw figures still hit them.

"And you want to use several of these to make sure the Flood doesn't escape?" Ozpin asked in disbelief, not able to comprehend the magnitude of these weapons, one at each of the four Cities could very much wipe out Remnant for good.

It was Arbiter who replied this time, "As a good friend of mine once said to the Human Admiral who expressed the same concern, 'One single Flood spore can destroy a species.' When a small scale Infestation of one of my people's Cruisers landed on a Human world, Glassing half of the Continent it was on was the smallest measure to be taken, it may have even called for more, but I hope it did not."

"The Flood's strength is in how fast it grows," Cortana took up the conversation again, "In just a day on Halo, it went from feral to having a Proto-Gravemind, and it can start emploring strategy, if you don't notice it before then, you are as good as dead."

"I see, well hopefully we never have to face such a threat." Ozpin grimly responded, "Now, what was it that you wanted to see me for, aside from a way back to your people?"

"We were wondering if you had any familiarity with the Forerunners, As Ruby seemed to have left and returned by Forerunner means, Surely you must know something about them?"

"I'm afraid Grimm has left us unable to expand much further beyond these cities," Ozpin explained, "There are a few small villages and farms dotted across the planet, but as soon as populations start growing above a few hundred, unless there is substantial protection, most settlements fall to Grimm, with too many people having negative emotions attracting older, stronger members."

"Ruby gave me a basic introduction to Grimm, but not much," Cortana told the headmaster, "Do you mind telling me more?"

"Certainly, They have been around longer than recorded history for this planet, and come in all sorts of sizes and strengths, Beowolves to Ursa, Apathy to Wyverns, Boarbratusks to Goliaths, but they all share a few key traits; they do not have Aura, are covered in a black or sometimes red hide, with plates of bone protruding over key parts, sometimes forming spikes, and want the destruction of apparently any sentient life, as they ignore wildlife.

They disintegrate upon death, and as far as we know, are endless in number, if a Grimm survives for a long time, it grows smarter, whereas a young deathstalker is not much of a threat, and can be handled by anyone trained in basic combat, one that has survived for many years, hundreds in some cases, are much larger, tougher, and take a team of well-experienced huntsmen to take down."

"I see, Thank you anyways for your help. How long do you think would it take to make a space-worthy ship, if you were to be supplied with schematics for everything?"

"Vale is, unfortunately, not too well established in the manufacturing of warships, while I understand it is smaller than the presumed length of the vessel you came in on, the Kingdom of Atlas has an industry much more suited to the task, constructing battleships for their military.

I can introduce you to General Ironwood if you wish, he is the head of the military and coincidently headmaster of Atlas Academy, but I imagine the media is growing quite curious as to what has fallen from the sky."

"Well, it's probably about time we smile for the camera boys," Cortana quipped, "I hope it goes without saying, what we've said, about the Flood, Nuclear weapons, and the Forerunners will be kept confidential,"

"Don't worry Cortana, I have my fair share of secrets, it won't leave this room, you have my word." Ozpin replied curtly, "I trust it is ok for me to save the media some trouble and alert them that you're here?"

"Yes, better get this done and over with," she turned to Chief, "Shall we?" She asked, smirking at the Spartan, before her avatar disappeared and the chip was re-inserted to the Chief's helmet and both him and the Arbiter left the office to deal with the ensuing army of the press that Ozpin had just finished sending a message to. Goodwitch and Ozpin followed with a gesture from Ozpin to help handle the slew of questions that they would have about Beacon associating with these aliens too.

Upon the departure of the group, the air almost visibly tensed as Ruby knew Ozpin had something to say to her. Qrow sensed this between them, and put a hand on Tai's shoulder, "I imagine Oz wants to speak to Ruby and her team alone for a moment," he whispered, leading him outside the office to wait on the trio left inside.

"You did not tell me of these Weapons of Mass Destruction," Ozpin stated casting a glance at Ruby,

"Seeing as I thought I would not have contact with other UNSC personnel for the rest of my life, I thought it wouldn't matter," Ruby replied, the slight venom matching the mistrust in Ozpin's,

"As for their use against the Flood, I didn't know they were a potential threat at the time, Remnant is far from UNSC space, I have already checked the constellations, so the Covenant would have little reason to be here, and so we would not need for them there. If we did happen to encounter the Covenant, I would have informed everyone I could about the threat they posed, though with the official numbers of the Atlas Military, and licenced Huntsmen, even with Aura and Semblances, I doubt Remnant would last a week against a full-scale assault."

"... I see." Ozpin replied, before sighing, "Your team seem to be taking this information rather well,"

"I had divulged a bit more to them, seeing as they are my team, they deserved to know where their leader came from,"

"And I do not?"

"You stated yourself, you have secrets, I have mine,"

"Would it not be best to inform me of thing such as these, as someone who is…" He paused for a moment, "At a level where trust would come with the position?"

"I am not a puppet," Ruby retorted, "I won't blindly follow orders like a military tool anymore, I follow my own rules. It just so happens that those rules have the best for Human and Faunus-kind, and seem to coincide with yours, but should that change, I would gladly lead my team down what seems to be best, even if that means we will be enemies."

Ozpin saw that look in her eyes, one of fierce determination, one that Glynda's death stare couldn't hold a candle to, he had seen that only a handful of times before, and not always, was he on the right side of said glare, much like now.

Ruby's silver eyes pierced him, dragging out the moment to seem like an eternity, and had he been anyone else, he might have caved, but he had been through tougher tries will and strength over his life, he just hoped that Ruby would realise that he too, wants the best for Human and Faunus kind.

She continued to hold her gaze as Ozpin lowered his, not in defeat, but resignation, "Well, at least you let me know where your loyalties lie." He sighed, "And having a foundation on sharing that kind of information does make for a good team, I will give you that."

Both Yang and Blake let out a breath they hadn't realised they were holding, the pressure given off by their leader had felt enough to suffocate both of them, but it was easing off now, as Ozpin spoke again.

"I won't hold you from your break any further, so take the time to rest, and I shall see you at the beginning of the Winter semester."

He turned round and let the team leave his office.