Chapter 38: "Door to Heaven" Pt. 4
Woohoo, new chapter baby! And still so many positive reviews! Must be something right. Speaking of which, the reviews!
Phoenix Warehouse Productions: Oh, it will be hilarious!
XXX777: Yep, plus it serves as a hint to how Reiatsu came into being in the RWBY-verse.
kyro232: Correct. MRE's are actually pretty good, but it depends on which ones you eat. I've actually had the pleasure of trying a few, and they've tasted great for me. Well, thanks to the Arcs not being hindered by the limitations of Dust for centuries, they have made several breakthroughs, such as having a space navy. With Magic powering their ships, they have been able to land on the shattered moon, but there was a limit to how far they can go. "The Red Line" as they called it, which is one kilometer past the orbit of the moon; past that line, the Magic powering their ships would cease as quickly as Dust would've if used in the atmosphere. Now, thanks to Bill Cipher's Hydrogen Power Cells, The Red Line isn't a factor anymore, but without FTL or more effective inertial dampeners, space flight is still rather slow. And with the Arcs in control of Remnant (again), the people have access to all their public technology as well.
JamesGachaYT: Actually, funny you should mention that. There is a show that I'm trying to make them be a part of the Arcs' own history (I'm kind of picking and choosing which parts of the show I'm going to use, but I've left plenty of clues to what show I'm referring to). It has a rather long history within its mythos, that I can be very well off for several millennia's worth of history.
BlackPhantom247: Actually, I had already given TheRightPrice my reasonings, and after giving them spoilers on what I had planned on my story's lore, they were ok with it. If you contact them, they could give you what I showed them. Though be prepared for some rather vague answers as they promised not to reveal the plans to my lore. I don't really read manga, so I can't make reactions of out of them. Never actually heard of their names before you mentioned them. Don't know what that says about me :P
Arnold takamiya: *Blink* Huh, never actually thought of that. I suppose I could have them join again (this time as grownups) with their husband after they see the SG1 episode "Meridian". In that episode, they will see a grownup Oma, so she and her sisters can visit after that (presenting their husband to their parents). Ooh, my brain is already thinking of ideas!
Guest: Never watched "my hero academia". Plus, I already have almost all of the possible children of those with crushes on him named and described. The only one I'm missing is Eve, and I'm already in the process of making a child for them.
ULTIMATE PETER: Woops, my bad. Uh, sorry, but I can't. See, I'm not a fan of Shippuden (by any means), and Naruto? I don't know how I could make that one work. I mean, I haven't watched that show since high school (over a decade), and my memory isn't that great, so my knowledge of that show has really deteriorated since then. And wikis aren't that knowledgeable as I found out. Even an individual episode would need me to do days' worth of research in order for the audience to understand what they're seeing. So again, sorry, but I can't.
Anonymous: Well actually, the show never really explained how the Stargate worked in a way for people with average intelligence to really understand, we just see the Stargate working and connect the dots on what we can understand. It was always in a scientific way that went over people's heads, or just comparing it to a one-way door. And I have to keep in mind that most of the audience are either children (who won't care for the detailed version) and teenagers (who won't understand what wormholes are in the first place). The only ones I could see possibly understanding all this jargon would be Watts and Penny (and even then, that's a stretch). Everyone else would need a dumbed down explanation to grasp the power of the Stargate since they wouldn't know most of the science behind it. Remnant, as advanced as it is, would have entire fields of science unknown to them thanks to the limitations of Dust and the constant Grimm threat drawing their attention.
Now, I want to address an issue that several people have been PMing me for since my last chapter went up. While Jaune did replace Jack O'Neill, I am not making him be as serious as Jack had been in the movie (no child deaths affecting his outlook on life). I know it's a major part of Jack's character, and changing that is leaving a major aspect of Stargate lore out. Believe me, I know, I grew up with Stargate, so I can understand everyone's frustration with me changing it (if you think that's bad, imagine how I felt about what I did to the awesome F302). But I do have many, rather major, reasons for this as some of you guys know by now. First, with Jaune married to Ruby & Pyrrha, there was very little chance of any of the children accidentally shooting themselves (one's a gun nut, the other's a former tournament fighter, and both would no doubt constantly drill the importance of gun safety). Second, with Reiatsu, death's not as big a deal for them. Remember that Jaune was shown in another timeline to come back from the dead after being stabbed through the chest with a flaming sword (and this was when he wasn't nearly as powerful as he was when he was 15). With his children all having a portion of his power, it's not in the realm of impossibility for them to regenerate from a bullet wound. It was never established just where Charlie O'Neill shot himself, so depending on the location of the injury, Jaune's children could regenerate from it. And Third, I'm planning on showing SG1/A, and Jack wasn't nearly as serious in the shows either compared to the movie. Anderson's portrayal of the character doesn't really behave like the portrayal Russel did (despite having the same names, I felt they were really two different characters). If I'm going to tackle the shows, I need to make sure that the two medias are as seamless as possible (ex: a more witty & easygoing Jack [which he wasn't in the movie], different distance for Abydos [not in a different galaxy altogether], and the look/activation of the Stargate itself [crystal in the chevrons instead of full metal, and no whirlpool in the back]).
There are actually a lot more reasons I had (as well as a tangent sidenote, that's going to be at the END of the chapter since this is long enough as it is), but I think I've made my point. Now that that's done, on with the show!
Disclaimer in the prologue.
Terra grinned as she saw the look of fear on the man's face. "Oh man, I can't wait to see him get his just desserts!"
Nora pumped a fist. "Go big brother! Break his legs!"
Ren shook his head as he gently brought her fist down. "Nora no, they're in an alien world." She pouted at him, but he smiles. "He'll need a human shield should they encounter any aggressive indigenous species."
Frigga and Odin laughed at that, very happy with their daughter's taste in men.
Nora herself was grinning at his words, and nodded with a smile.
Winter and James though didn't like the joke, not really seeing anything funny about that scenario. 'That's just in bad taste.'
Back to the sand dunes, the animal looked up nervously as Adrian slowly approached it. (Terra/Nora: "Oh come on!")
Adrian tried talking softly to it. "It's okay. It's okay. Sh-sh-sh. That's a good… boy?" He pauses a that, not knowing the actual sex of the animal, and with very little reason to check himself. So instead, he just holds out his hand, palm up, for the creature to sniff at. The animal rears its head, then calms down after taking a sniff. Then it starts sniffing his other hand, the one he used to eat his cookie with.
He was confused, "What? What is it?" He looked at the hand, and noticed some crumbs still on it. "Ohh, you want some of this?" He took out the pouch and revealed the cookie. Breaking a piece off, he smiles as the animal gently takes it from his hand. "Here you go, you like that?"
Penny blinked. "I don't know if feeding it a cookie is safe. It could be dangerous for its digestive system."
Ruby scratches her head, "What, like a dog and chocolate?"
She nods, "That is correct. This animal had never eaten one of our processed foods before. Who knows what effects it could have?"
Adrian started to pet its head as he tried to ignore the drool the creature was leaving on his palm, "There you go."
"I wouldn't feed that thing!"
Adrian quickly turned to the voice, and saw Jaune and Adams at the top of the dune with Flynt and the rest of Fireteam 1 following them.
Jaune also seemed to be flexing his right hand for some reason. 'What the? What happened?'
Yang and Robin both fist pumped and shouted, "What happened was Jaune/dad beating some ass!" The two then blinked and turned to look at one another in shock.
Tai and Qrow laughed, while Raven facepalmed at her daughters' actions.
Ruby and Altani blinked, before laughing at the glares their sisters were directing towards each other.
Terra smirked a bit at them, then shook her head and turned back to the screen. "While I am upset I didn't get to see what he did, I'm happy that Woods got what he deserved."
Nora and Saph nodded. Adrian and Alice cheered from their mothers' laps.
James shrugged, "Well, the man was warned by Mr. Coal, now I'm just wondering how hard he was hit if Mr. Arc is nursing his hand like that." That got grins from almost all of Jaune's family.
That was when he noticed Adams and Flynt pointing their weapons at the creature. Adrian widens his eye and raises his free hand. "Wait, don't fire!" He quickly grabs the harness and jingle it in front of him to show them. "It's got a harness! It's domesticated!" (Terra: "Wait don't!")
He pets the side of the animal, but something seemed to have spooked the creature. It rears up, causing Adrian to back up, accidently entangling his ankle on the loose rope on the floor attached to the harness. The creature then runs away, and the rope tightens around his ankle, and the young man is swooped off his feet, landing hard on his back and pulled away.
Adrian and Alice covered their eyes with a wince, "Ochies!"
Jaune saw this and began to run after his nephew. "Aw, damn it!" 'Saph is gonna kill me if she hears about this!' (Saph: "You're damn right I will! Run faster!")
Adams cups his hand and shouts. "Let go of it!"
Roman laughed, "How's he gonna let go you idiot? He's roped by the ankles!"
Adrian with his eyes still covered pouts, while Alice turned to glare at the mean man.
Lucy though, frowned and punched Roman's shoulder, causing Neo to laugh and Roman to glare at the brat.
Adrian yells out as he's dragged along across the sands, unable to gain purchase on anything or reach up to the ropes. "Ahhh! Help me!"
Terra flinched at the terror in her son's voice, meanwhile many of Jaune's friends were yelling at him to run faster.
Cinder raised an eyebrow. "Why can't they just shoot the thing? It's quite a large creature and it's not going very fast. He's also wearing armor, so the chances of actually hitting him is very low."
That brought everyone short for a bit, especially when they saw that one of the soldiers was carrying a sniper rifle. After a few seconds, Saph stood up and shouts, "Shoot the damn thing!"
Jaune and others chase after the beast, spurred on by Adrian's continued pleas for help. "Help me! Aaaah!" Jaune and the others soon stop atop another dune, out of breath and baking under the heat (Terra: "I don't care if you're dying of thirst, move your asses and rescue my son!").
The creature is still going strong, running through the desert sands, Adrian dragged behind, yelling as the creature jumps from the top of a sand dune and sending the man flying and landing hard on his back as they landed on the next dune.
Later, the screen shows an unconscious Adrian covered in sand.
The Arcs all winced at the disheveled appearance, noticing that his glasses had fallen off at some point.
The creature sniffs the unconscious man and starts licking his face. He comes to after a couple seconds of this, choking at the vile smell and squinting at his current lack of sight. *Coughing* "Ugh, what the fuck hit me?"
At that point, the team crest over the dune behind him and are running down to reach him.
Terra grumbled at their timing, but not all that upset at her baby's swearing as he really did need to vent after the experience he had.
Adrian finally uncovered his eyes, and flinched at the sight of his older self.
Flynt reached him first and takes a knee. "Holy shit, You okay man?" He then offers Adrian his glasses which he found during their mad dash to rescue him before trying to see if anything was broken.
Adrian thanks him and puts his glasses back on. 'I really need to invest in contacts.' He waves off the man's examination, claiming that he was fine all things considered as he stood back up on somewhat shaky legs.
Jaune, calmed at his nephew's apparent lack of injuries, gets distracted by what he sees poking out of the dune ahead of them. "Fireteam, on me."
The team follows Jaune, with Flynt slapping Adrian's back with a grin. "Fuck, you're one durable bastard."
As Flynt left, the creature starts to nudge Adrian's shoulder, but the young Arc wasn't in a playful mood anymore and gently pushed it away. "Get away from me."
Mercury shrugged, "Eh, I'd probably have done something similar if that happened to me."
A few others nodded, not liking the idea of being dragged around a desert on their backs.
A glare of light from under him caused him to look down, and he gasped once he saw the necklace Akila gave him on the sandy floor. "Shit!" He quickly reached over and grabbed the necklace. Sighing in relief that he didn't lose it, or that it wasn't broken, he put it on over his armor. (Ruby: "Man, that was a close one.")
Jaune and the others climbed the dune and paused in shock when they reached the top.
Adrian, after securing the necklace, felt the animal nudge him again and sighed. Feeling bad, he apologized and patted the animal's muzzle. From his spot, he saw Flynt and a few of the other soldiers drop, weapons ready on either side of a standing Jaune. Curious, he goes up to them.
Many were a bit concerned over the soldiers' actions.
Yang began tapping her foot at the anxiousness she felt.
Blake wasn't appreciating her partner's tapping though, and glared at her. "Will you stop that?"
Yang blushed a bit and stopped. "Sorry."
As he reaches the others, the screen pans out to show a large mining region near some tall rock pillars.
Many were looking at the scene in shock.
"Holy shit." Ilia said as she saw the large rock pillars, and what looked like ants scurrying about.
Adrian blinked as Jaune took out some binoculars. "Impossible." He whispered, getting the others to look at him.
"What do you see sir?" Adams asks, while Flynt just took out his own binoculars.
"Humans, Faunus." Jaune said, much to the shock of everyone. (1)
"Wh-What?" A few muttered in shock at the reveal.
Ruby shook her head, "That's-That's crazy!"
Nora agreed, "Y-Yeah, Jaune must've been thirsty and he's hallucinating the aliens as people!"
Ozpin and Salem just flat out refused to believe what Jaune saw, thinking that what he saw were just more of that animal Adrian discovered. 'It's simply impossible, there can't be people living on this alien planet. The Brothers never mentioned sentient life on other worlds!' They still recalled the alien ship and use of the Stargate itself, but they still tried to explain it all away.
Penny though, paled as she saw the rather primitive mining operation and the implications of that. 'Oh dear, so that's why they came to Remnant.'
The screen then shows several Humans and Faunus working the mines in very primitive conditions. Large, ragged coverings were set up to shade the people from the sun like primitive tents.
The sight of real-life Humans and Faunus there working had all critics falling silent, all the proof showing that Jaune was telling the truth.
A worker looks up from his work and spots the strange beings on the dune. "Chien pe-ow. Mieu!"
A cat Faunus boy also spots them, and points them out to those around him. "Chien pe-ow. Mieu! Mieu! Mieu, shien mow!" (2)
Jaune and the others look at the people as they started to gather at the front of the mining site. He turns to his men and just looks bewildered, "Are you all seeing this?"
Flynt nods, putting away his binoculars. "Seeing it, still having trouble believing." He then brings out his phone. "I can't wait to show NJ this." He takes a few pictures to show his daughter later. (3)
Jaune shook his head, and started to head down. "Come on Flynt, you can take your pictures later. I don't doubt we'll see anything better, so you're just wasting data right now." The team follow behind to the bottom of the dune.
Coco, after shaking off the surreal sight, shrugged. "I guess that's true, seeing a bunch of people digging up rocks don't seem all that exciting."
Velvet agreed, as did many others. Didn't stop those who could from taking their own pictures though.
As the team approached, the same boy is seen walking towards them. By this point, everyone else has stopped working and were slowly doing the same.
The team stops in front of a small crowd, and Jaune turns to his nephew. "All right, Adrian. You're up."
Adrian, taking in the environment, blinked and looked at his uncle in shock. "Wait what? Why me?"
Raven raised an eyebrow, "Isn't he the linguist of the group? If anyone could successfully talk to these people, it would be him."
Saph turned to her. "And what makes you think my son could do that?"
The woman shrugged. "Well from the clothing, and a bit of language I recognized, it sounds like a dialect of Ancient Vacuoan. Something that he was originally sought after to translate."
After that, many just looked at her in shock. Qrow stared at his sister like she was a different person.
Raven saw the looks, and rolled her eyes. "Don't look at me like that. I'm a bandit, I rob people who speak different languages all the time. Learning how to say "Give me the loot and my Tribe won't kill you" in several languages isn't all that impressive."
Winter though disagreed with the woman, and smirked at Qrow. "Amazing, she has a better understanding of languages than you do, you drunk." At that Ruby, Yang, Tai, and Summer laughed.
Raven smirked, "And that was just so I could raid villages more efficiently. What's your excuse, you lazy ass?"
Qrow just eye twitched. "I hate all of you."
Jaune deadpanned. "You're the linguist." He then motions for him to move to the people, "Try to talk to 'em."
Adrian stares at Jaune, then to at all of people who were staring at them with wonder and slight fear.
Clearing his throat, he walks forward and waved. "Hi."
Everyone just looked at the screen with dumbfounded expressions.
Raven deadpanned while Adrian facepalmed. "Me stupid."
One of the men spots the pendant around Adrian's neck. His eyes widened. "Na tu de-why-ya." He turns to the people behind him and shouts "Na tu de-why-ya!"
He then bows down in front of Adrian and the other natives follow until all are kneeling on the ground in worship. (Glynda: "Ok… did not expect them to do that.")
Jaune and the others walked forward. He looks at Adrian incredulously, "What the hell did you say to him?"
Adrian though, turned to him and shook his head while gesturing towards the kneeling people. "Nothing. All I said was "Hi", and this happened."
Jaune walks over to the crowd, and notices a boy looking up. The kid immediately ducks his head back down. He frowns a bit, and slowly kneels in front of him, "Hey, it's okay." He gestures the boy to rise. The young Faunus nervously looks at Jaune's clothes and gestures.
Jaune takes off his helmet and face coverings, showing a soft smile. "Hey. See, it's okay. It's okay. See? Huh?"
He gently takes the kid's right hand and gives a gentle handshake.
Penny smiled, "Now that's just sweet."
The boy though panics and screams, jolting Jaune away from the kid as he runs away. "AH! Si misoy. Si misoy! Kasuf! Kasuf!"
Now Penny frowned. "But that's just mean."
Weiss shrugged, "Maybe seeing a man in full combat gear scared him. He's a primitive, I doubt he's ever seen anything as advanced as modern ballistic armor."
Yang frowned. "While a bit harsh, I can see that."
Jaune and the others watched the scared boy run away, a bit weirded out by all this.
Just then, Flynt notices something on one of the baskets. "What the hell?" He mutters as he takes out a scanner and kneels, moving the machine over some rocks that the people had been mining earlier.
"Quartz. Primary element." The scanner said, and the man's eyes widened. "Holy shit." He stood up, and quickly went back to his team.
James narrowed his eyes. "I wonder what Mr. Coal found."
Before he could tell the rest what he found, the boy returned, pointing to the newcomers as he leads several others and a larger version of the alien animal (Mercury: "Woah, that's a big boy."). A carriage was on its back, with someone seated behind some red curtains.
The animal kneels, and an old Faunus steps out of the carriage. The boy was trying to get his attention, but the old man waved him off. "Na-ney." Seeing the strange people, he grabs a staff and goes to Jaune's team, his people following behind.
While this was happening, the boy was still speaking to him. Again, he simply waves him off, and holds out his staff horizontally in a peaceful gesture as he bows his head in greeting.
What the old man said next, no one could understand but Raven, and even then she only caught a tiny bit of that. "Ok, so his name is Kasuf, and he's welcoming them."
Qrow raised an eyebrow, "And how the hell did you figure that out?"
Raven rolled her eyes at his doubting her, "He bowed before them and is presenting his staff to them in a peaceful manner." She then pointed to the screen, "He also placed a hand on his chest when he said "Kasuf", so I can assume that that's him introducing himself. You don't need to be a linguist to understand that, dumbass." She grinned at her now flustered twin.
Winter chuckled at Qrow's dumbfounded expression, and turned to Jack. "Is she right?"
Jack nodded, "Yep. Kind of surprised she figured that out, but I guess living in the wild would make anyone see the subtle things in Human/Faunus body movement."
Robin grinned at her mom, pride clear in her eyes, making her smile back.
Ozpin sighed at how his past student was able to figure that out, and yet she isn't using her intelligence for anything except to steal from those less fortunate. 'Where did I go wrong with her?'
Adrian leaned over to Jaune and said in a low tone, "I can't make it out. It sounds familiar, maybe a bit like Berber. Chadic or Omotic perhaps."
As Jaune turned and raised an eyebrow at his nephew, as if silently asking him why he's telling him this when he clearly doesn't know any of those names, Kasuf looks nervously at the strangers and calls out to his people.
The people begin to rise from their positions, still nervous at the newcomers. Kasuf cautiously bows from the waist, and makes another order with a wave of his hands. Seven women then comes forward, bearing bowls filled with water. They offer the bowls to the strangers to drink. A female cat Faunus ends up in front of Adrian, and he smiles nervously.
Jaune, Adrian, and the fireteam all nod gratefully and they each take a drink.
Watts frowned. "That's just unsanitary, they don't know if the water in those bowls had been properly filtered. They should've checked to see if the water is safe to drink first."
Hazel shrugged, "I think the natives may find it offensive if they did that."
Watts though shook his head. "Doesn't matter. Drinking that water could lead to cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, hepatitis, typhoid, and polio just to name a few. They may as well just drink poison and be done with it."
Terra and Saph paled at that, and hoped nothing bad happens to their son and brother.
Adrian sighs in relief and nods. "Mmm. Thank you."
The young woman bows, and she with the other women stepped back. Kasuf bows, and Adrian bows in return. Then the young man thought of something, "Oh, wait. Here."
He reaches into a pouch and pulls out a candy bar. Kasuf looks around confused as Adrian unwraps the chocolate and raises it to his face, smiling. "Mmmmm."
Yang scratched the back of her head. "Wait, is he gonna give that guy a candy bar? And wouldn't that thing be only crumbs by this point due to the 'ride' he took earlier."
Ruby nodded, "Yeah, you're right. Man, either that cany bar is as dense as a brick, or it's incredibly lucky to survive the journey. Look, it isn't even melting."
Kasuf stared at him, then the weird brown thing. "Ya rab-id yu?" He didn't know what it was, but the color and shape of it didn't give him any confidence that it was edible.
Coco laughed, "Actually, I never thought of that! A candy bar would look like a piece of turd to them."
Kasuf mimes eating the thing, hoping that it wasn't true. Adrian nods with a happy smile, and mimes taking a bite out of the candy before handing it to him. Kasuf takes it, and cautiously sniffs the thing. Noticing the lack of a horrible smell, he takes a small bite. He slowly chews it, then his eyes widen, and he smiles. "Bunni, bunni-wae!"
Adrian hears the words, and tries to mick them. "Bunni-wae?"
Kasuf looks amazed and he turns to smile to his people. "Bunni-wae!"
Blake shrugs, "Huh, guess he likes chocolate."
Ruby nods, "Of course, everyone loves chocolate, especially candy bars!"
Jack though shook his head. "Actually, I prefer lollypops."
Ruby and Nora looked at the god in shock. "What?!" Nora shouts in shock. "Are you a kid in an Oum-damned hospital?!"
The god raised his hands up, "Hey, what can I tell you? I'm just not a fan of chocolate."(4)
Adrian repeated the phrase "Bunni-wae" to the man, only for the old Faunus to bow once more in gratitude.
Adams looks at Adrian in wonder. "What's that mean?" He hoped that Adrian may have found some common ground to open a dialect.
But the feeling crashed and burned when Adrian shook his head. "I have no idea."
Kasuf bows once more and gestures for them to follow him. "Si pleu?"
Adrian looks back to the team, "He's inviting us to go with him."
Adams shook his head, a bit peeved at the man ability to translate this when he admitted to not knowing what was said before. "Now how can you be so sure?"
Salem shook her head. "I think the gesture alone would've been clue enough."
Adrian looks back at the team. "Because he's..." he repeats the man's gesture, "inviting us to go with him."
Nora snickered, "What a moron."
Adams saw Jaune looking at him, unimpressed, and he raised his hands in surrender. "Ok, I deserved that."
Adrian turned to Jaune. "We were looking for signs of civilization. Well obviously we found it. You want me to get us back home, this is our best shot."
Flynt took that moment to speak up. "He's right, sir. I took some readings of what they're mining back there." He shakes his head. "It's the same material as the Stargate."
"Wait what?" Weiss said, looking at the screen with shock. "So the rocks they're mining has the same metal as the Stargate?"
Jack nods. "Uh huh. The metal also greatly amplifies energy so it can be used for power generation, making it one of the primary reasons why the Stargates are made out of the stuff."
Yang whistles, "Man, imagine what kind of things we can power with that stuff?"
James and Penny were way ahead of her, thinking of how to upgrade Atlas' tech. 'This could be the thing we need to step out from our dependence on Dust.'
Jaune sighs, but nods and turns to Adams. "Alright, radio base camp. Tell them to keep that area secured until we get back."
Adams nods, "Yes, sir."
The scene switches over to the camp, as Verte is seen working on the radio. "Base camp,- is-in. -er"
Verte blinks, but quickly grabbed the mike and turned his head towards his team leader, "Woods, I've got 'em! Come on!"
Woods, with a blackeye and some bruises on his face, rushes over and grabs the mike. "This is Fireteam 2, do you read me? Over." The audience could see that he was also missing a tooth.
Yang and Robin cheered, while the children whooped in joy.
Saph and Terra looked pleased at the damage Jaune did.
Adrian fist pumped, "Wevenge!"
The response was too garbled, and Verte tries to boost the signal.
Woods shakes his head, "Can you repeat that? Over."
It was, and Adams' voice was heard loud and clear. "Base camp,this is Adams, the Colonel has requested that you secure the base. It looks like we're gonna be here for a while. Over."
Woods sighs. "Rodger that. Over and out."
The transmission ends with some more static. Woods tosses down the mike with a curse.
Verte scratches his head. "So, what's up?"
Woods scowls, "They're not coming back, okay? This is not good. No, it's not." He chuckles ruefully. "What the hell sort of trouble are they in right now? Oh man, this is bad."
Ruby raised an eyebrow. "Oh don't be so negative. They're fine."
Weiss though disagreed. "Actually, I can't really fault him for his thinking on this one. Adams didn't really explain what they found, or just why they are not coming back to base. For all he knows, they could be in hostile territory right now and are lying low."
Her team leader frowned. "Oh, don't you start too."
Yang hummed, trying to steer the conversation to another topic. "Sooo, I guess Jaune's a Colonel in this timeline?"
Jack nods, "Yep," he raises a finger up, "just one rank below Brigadier General in the Arcadian Military."
James nods, remembering the vision he had with his gift. 'He clearly deserves the rank.'
Ruby and the other students cheered at the news, happy for their friend/crush.
Back at the mine, the people were moving out in one long & large caravan. The soldiers of Remnant were with Kasuf in the front.
Kasuf pointed ahead of them, "Yu-yu."
They look and see an expansive stone city in the distance. They blinked, and Jaune turned to Flynt with a smirk. "What did I tell you?"
Flynt grinned with a nod as he pulled out his cell. "Oh yeah, way better than a quarry."
"I'll say!" Velvet shouts, who took Coco's scroll and began taking pictures of the beautiful scenery and view of the city. "It's beautiful."
Ruby and Nora awed at the sight, while Yang wanted to know if Velvet would be sharing the photos. 'Hello, new screenshot!'
Cinder couldn't help but like the architecture, It was simple, but unique with an old feeling to it. 'All things considered that shouldn't be surprising.'
Salem and Ozpin felt young again. Seeing a city so ancient-looking reminded them of what the world was like in their time.
The boy from earlier gestures to Adrian to follow them, "Yu liik. Yu-yu. Skaara." He then points to himself. (Raven: "And another one introduces himself.")
Adrian begins to follow as Flynt stayed back to take some more pictures. He points to himself, but before he could say anything he begins to sneeze. "Oh for the love of-" *sneeze* "Fuck!"
Adrian grumbled as he pouted, while Alice giggled.
Kasuf looks around, confused at the weird noise. Adrian pulls out a handkerchief and blows his nose. He then sticks it back in his pants' back pocket. (Yang: "Gross.")
Another boy, this one a Human, quickly nabs the handkerchief with a grin, which the girl who gave Adrian the bowl noticed and giggled as the strange young man never noticed.
Skaara saw it though, and wrestles it out of the kid's grasp. "Snoph-ai." As the kid tried to get it back, Skaara raised a finger as if to tell him "No". He taps Adrian and hands him back his handkerchief with a smile.
Adrian looked confused, not sure why the boy had his handkerchief, but he smiles back as he takes the cloth back with a small bow of his head. He then looks around, but when he glanced in the girl's direction, she quickly turns to stare ahead.
Terra grinned, "Ohh, what's this now?"
Saph giggled at the sight, "Is someone interested in our little boy?" She hugged a blushing Adrian as they cooed at the sight.
Kali and Ghira grinned at the interaction between the two boys, seeing a clear sign that Faunus and Humans could be friends.
Soon, they enter the city, and the screen shows that there were many rope bridges connecting to different buildings. (Blake: "Huh, reminds me of our dorm.")
Kasuf brakes away from the caravan and begins giving out orders to people.
The Faunus waves a hand towards a group on top of a rope bridge, before he turns around and bows before the people of Remnant, his people following his example.
Before the audience could comment on that, the people on the bridge pulls away several large hanging rags, revealing a large gold disk with the Eye of Ra engraved on it suspended between two of the buildings by ropes.
Weiss crossed her arms, "Hmm, wonder why Kasuf decided to show them the Eye?"
Blake shrugged, "Maybe to show off some wealth?"
But Weiss shook her head. "No, that can't be it. While it makes some sense to show off a large piece of engraved gold to indicate the city's wealth, that wouldn't explain the people bowing immediately before its unveiling. If they wanted to impress them, showing submission first wouldn't be the way to go."
Adrian looked at the symbol, and grinned. "The eye of Ra. It's the Ancient Vacuoan sun god. They think he sent us here."
Jaune sighed and turned to his nephew. He reaches over and lifts up the pendant around his neck. "Yeah, I wonder what could've given them that idea?" He asks sarcastically. (Weiss: "Oh, well that makes explains it.")
He fingers the symbol on the gold, the same one that was between the buildings. Adrian smiles, amazed, and goes over to Kasuf. "Ra." He points at the large disk, and Kasuf looks up, a bit of fear showing as Adrian said the name again. "Ra?"
Just then, a horn blows in the distance and people start moving about hurriedly.
Adams got spooked, and raised his weapon. "What's happening? Where are they all going?"
"Well that can't be good." Roman commented as many felt a bit concerned over the people's behavior.
Flynt's radio then starts squawking, but the message was too garbled to understand. "Again. Say again. Woods, I can't hear you. Over."
He turns to Jaune and shakes his head in frustration. "I can't make this out."
He hands Jaune the radio who can only hear loud static. Jaune frowns. "Woods, say again, over."
Back at the basecamp, heavy winds were blowing sand everywhere. (Yang: "Well, crap.")
Verte was wearing his bandanna and glasses over his face, adjusting the radio dials as Woods yells into the speaker.
"We have to abandon base camp! I say again, we have to abandon base camp!"
Verte shakes his head, "It's useless! It won't work in this!"
Woods abandons the radio and starts grabbing the smaller supplies, ordering the others to do the same. "Verte, let's go! Everybody, back inside! Come on! Just take what we can and head to the pyramid! Hurry!"
Back at the city, Kasuf claps his hands, and a few men start pushing the front doors to the city closed.
Jaune looked at what the people were doing, and didn't like it. "All right, we're going back right now. Let's go!"
Kasuf calls back to Adrian and starts speaking rapidly while raising his hands in a pleading gesture.
Adrian sees the worry on his face and calls out to Jaune, "Wait, wait!"
Jaune didn't hear him though, as he and the others begin pushing their way through the crowd, trying to get to the door. "Move it, move it!" A few ordered as the people tried to stop them.
"Get back. Move it." "Get out of our way." Adams and Flynt, seeing the people ignoring them, began to shove them aside as Jaune reached the door. Two of the inhabitants try to stop him from unlatching the lock, but he fights them off, almost breaking one man's arm as he screamed in pain.
The students flinched, while the thieves nodded.
"Oh man, that's not good." Yang muttered, "They were just trying to make sure the coming sandstorm doesn't reach past the walls."
Adrian and Alice winced, "Ouchies."
Flynt and Adams grabbed a person each and used them as hostages while keeping their backs to the door as the rest of the team formed a half circle around the entrance. Jaune then turns back to the crowd and fires his rifle into the air, scaring the people into backing off.
"Na-ney!" Kasuf shouts as he approaches, holding his hands up in a non-threatening manner while looking at them pleadingly as Adrian and Skaara came up behind him. Kasuf turns around and starts shouting at his people, motioning them to back away.
Jaune looked to Adrian waves him over, "Get over here Adrian." He does, though not without glaring at him first. "Don't look at me like that, your parents will kill me if I let you get hurt."
Skaara looks directly at Jaune and speaks in a calm, unthreatening manner while raising his palms up. "Na-ney. Na-ney." He points above him. "Yu yu. Yu yu."
He gestures for Jaune come with him to a lookout position on top of the wall. Jaune, still wary for his men, reluctantly follows the boy. Adrian starts to follow, but Flynt ordered him back. "Oh no you don't. You stay right here."
Once they reached the top, Skaara points out to the desert beyond. Jaune looks and sees a large sandstorm on the horizon. Jaune cursed, but nods to Skaara showing that he understood.
Adams looked up to the top, "What is it, sir?" He calls out.
Jaune looks down to his men and shook his head, "Sandstorm, coming this way."
Adams and Flynt released their hostages, who collapses on the ground with gulps of relief as they crawled away. Adams breathes heavily as he releases his own adrenalin, apologizing to the retreating figures.
Adrian glared. "Well, that would've been an excellent reason to shoot everyone." He says dryly.
Yang shook her head, "Yeah, great first impression on the locals in the city." She gave a thumbs up. "Great work."
Ruby frowned. "Hey, come on, they didn't know about the storm." She rubbed the back of her head, "To be honest, if it was me, I probably would've done the same thing."
Jaune looks back to where the storm was and mutters to himself, "We'll stay until it's over."
Adrian taps Kasuf's arm to get his attention. "Sh-shun?" (Tai: "Oh, that was quick, he's really learning the language.")
Kasuf nods vigorously and starts explaining while Adrian tries to make out the vowels, imitating some of them. Kasuf nods and makes a whirring noise while gesturing the storm about to pass over their heads.
Adrian walks off as Adams approaches. "I'm sorry." He bows his head to the Faunus, and Kasuf nods back in respect. Adams raises his head and shrugs at the misunderstanding. "We didn't know."
The view switches to show the outside of the city walls as the sandstorm arrives, stopped by the heavy walls from breaching the city itself.
James hummed, "You know, I didn't notice this before, but those walls look to be something similar to what we would build to keep the Grimm out. Thick and sturdy construction too if it could keep a sandstorm out."
Winter and Ozpin nods, while Glynda rubs her chin. "I wonder how long it took these people to construct it. Must have taken years with the constant sandstorms." 'Those storms must come regularly if the people were that relaxed while heading inside the walls.'
Back at the pyramid, Woods leads his team inside. All were exhausted from dragging their equipment cases with them. "Come on, fall back to the pyramid! Get inside!"
They each drop their equipment and collapsed on the ground. One of the men lowers his balaclava, "Where the hell did that come from?"
Another sighs as he leans on one of the pillars, "Fucking hell. This planet sucks!"
Woods opens his case and pulls out a radio. "Adams, Flynt? Do you read? Over."
He listens intently, but there is only static. "Anyone, do you copy?" Nothing. "Shit." He tosses the radio away in frustration.
Weiss shook her head. "You cannot take your frustrations out on your equipment whenever things go wrong."
Blake shrugged. "I don't know, I think that based on the outdated equipment used in the gate room, it's a safe bet to assume that they're not using more modern tech."
Ruby scratched her head. "Actually, I've been thinking about that." She said, getting her friends' attention. "Why are they not using scrolls?"
Immediately seeing the lecture Weiss was going to give her, she holds her hands up. "I know that Dust doesn't work past the atmosphere, nor can our scrolls get a signal without a CCT relay, but those guys never went past our atmosphere." She frowned, "At least not quick enough for the Dust powering their stuff to be rendered useless. And with it being 14 years into the future, shouldn't our ability to create portable relays be advanced enough that they're more easily compact?"
Everyone paused at that.
Penny frowned, "I suppose so. Scrolls aren't that expensive, especially for a military." She turned to Jack, "How long was the travel time between our world and this one?"
Jack shrugged. "0.3 seconds." (5)
Penny paused at that, then nodded, ignoring everyone else's reaction to the short time between distances. "So Dust shouldn't really be able to have enough time to power down and render their equipment useless before entering the new planet's atmosphere. There is no plausible reason for why Dust doesn't work past a certain point in the air, but it could be that the energy of our world itself is a source of its power. Could it be that the further away it is from the source, the less energy Dust has until it simply runs out?" She hums as she thinks she solved that problem. "It is possible that scrolls may work on this world, and Ruby's theory on our ability to miniaturize relays over a decade into the future is sound since Atlas is always working on ways to do so."
Jack though, shook his head. "Unfortunately, while that is a good theory, Dust and Aura are simply products made by the Brother Gods, the gods of Remnant." He shakes his head as Penny pouts at him. "And in this timeline, as I pointed out, they are no longer a part of Remnant. With the deaths of those two, those powers and all others made by them faded away. This is part of the reason why the Arcs don't like using Dust."
Saph nodded, "Yeah, we knew the Brothers would die eventually, which is why many of us don't really use Dust except for in public. Less of a hassle that way."
Salem and Oz blinked as they stared at the Arc in surprise. 'Wait, they knew this would happen?'
Many though ignored her, and stared at the god. "Wait…" Mercury shakily held up his hands. "You mean to tell me that if these gods die, then Dust and Aura will be gone?"
Jack nods, "Yep."
Terra gasped as she thought of the anarchy this would unleash on the world. "Oh no, then everyone on Remnant would be screwed. Everything runs on Dust! Without it, the Grimm would run rampant!" Many voiced their agreements.
Saphron's eye twitched. 'Are they forgetting everything about what was said? Jack told them the Grimm were gone!' Seeing the students and her wife freaking out, she shook her head with a sigh and turned to her son. "Not my problem, is it sweetie?" Adrian shook his head and turned to the screen, prompting her to do the same.
Raven and a few other shook their heads, coming to the same conclusion as Saphron and simply chose to ignore the ones having a nervous breakdown.
The screen cuts back to the city, where night had risen, indicating that several hours had passed. It's still very windy, but the storm has lessened somewhat.
Inside the city, a festival was taking place. There is food, music, and laughter everywhere as everyone celebrates. It was like the excitement from a few hours ago was completely forgotten.
Jaune's team were sitting in places of honor with Kasuf's family and the other elders. Adrian sniffs and takes a bite of some flat bread.
Adams sees all the food and, despite his hunger, reframed from eating anything. "Hey Adrian, I don't think it's a good idea to be eating any food here." (Watts: "Smart man.")
Adrian though, shrugs and continues eating. "I dunno, they might consider that an insult." (Raven: "Well, he's not wrong.")
As soon as he said that, a new platter is placed in front of Adrian and Flynt. The creature on it looking like some sort of alien version of an armadillo. Adrian's jaw drops as Jaune laughed at the comedic timing. Kasuf gestures for Adrian to have the 'honor' of taking the first bite. Adrian continues to stare at the beast in alarm, not liking what he saw.
Qrow smirked, "Well come on, we wouldn't want to offend the people now would we?"
Adrian shivers as he looked at the creature. "No hungy." He whines as he buries his face in his mother's shoulder.
Jaune smirked. "Well, we don't want to offend them now do we, dear nephew?"
Adrian continues to chew on his flatbread, before he worked up the courage to cautiously reach forward and scoops some of the meat out from where the center of the animal's hide had been cut open. He sniffs it a little before taking a bite, tasting it. Kasuf watches anxiously.
He blinks in shock. "Tastes like chicken." He looks at Jaune with a relieved smile. "It tastes like chicken. It's good."
At the word "chicken", the children looked at the screen with hunger. "Mmm, chicken." Many of them drooled, causing Jack to sigh and have platters of chicken tender/nuggets to appear.
Altani looks at the meal, and turns to the god with a pout. "Can we have then in dinosaur shapes?" Instead of answering, the nuggets just changed into shapes of the ancient animals. "Thank you." Several of the children chorused as they began to chow down.
He laughs in relief. Kasuf cautiously smiles. Adrian turns to Kasuf, pointing to his tongue as he stretches it. "Tastes...like...bawk-bawk-bawk-bawk bawk bawk bawk." Adrian flaps his arms with his hands tucked under his armpits, imitating a chicken. Kasuf watches him in confusion.
The team and some of the natives, including Skaara and the girl, laughed at the young man embarrassing himself.
Adrian giggled at the sight, and imitated what his older self was doing. "bawk-bawk-bawk-bawk."
The laughter from the screen finally brought the students and Terra back from their scared ramblings.
He raised the hand that was holding the meat up. "Tastes like chicken. Tastes like chicken. It's good!" Adrian smiles as he takes another, bigger bite.
Kasuf smiles and laughs in relief that the young man seemed to like the food, despite his strange mannerisms.
Jaune shakes his head with a grin, and sighs after eating some of the space chicken. "So Adrian, you said that was an Ancient Vacuoan symbol." He points to the large medallion that was still hung between the buildings.
Adrian glances at it and nods. "Yeah, the Eye of Ra."
He raises an eyebrow, "Would you say then, that, it might stand to reason that if they know one Vacuoan symbol…" He trails off purposefully, hoping his nephew would get the hint.
By the looks of it, he did. "Yes." He nods and tries thinking of other symbols that these people may know about.
Ren, after fully calming down, nods. "Not a bad suggestion. In fact, I'm surprised none of us thought of that first." A few of his friends blushed, a bit embarrassed that they really didn't think about that, especially after learning about Raven's linguistic skills earlier.
Ozpin and Salem resisted the urge to facepalm. Even they didn't think of that.
While this was going on, the mystery girl has been speaking to Kasuf, and many in the audience could now see some similarities between the two. He nods with a calculating smile, and she stands.
Ruby tilts her head a bit, "Guess she's his daughter?"
Jack nods, "That's right, cute isn't she?"
A few nodded, including Adrian much to Alice's annoyance. "Me cute too." She pouts.
Back to the two Arcs, Adrian nods and moves over to Kasuf. Kasuf holds out his bowl as an offering, but Adrian shakes his head and puts his hand out, gently pushing the bowl down as he crouches. "No-no." He reaches under his armor and pulls out his necklace. He shows it to Kasuf who lowers his head, crossing his arms on his chest in an X, and starts muttering a prayer. Adrian reaches out and pulls Kasuf's chin back up to face him. He shakes his head and points to his necklace again, then reaches down and begins to draw in the sand.
Kasuf sees this and his eyes widen. Immediately, he reaches out with his foot and swipes it over the drawing, erasing it. "Na-ney, na-ney." He speaks some more words quickly, before standing up and speaking loudly to the crowd. He quickly pushes the girl back out of sight with a frantic order, and continues to speak to the crowd, panicked.
Yang leaned back in surprise. "What the fuck?"
Weiss frowned, "Why was he so afraid when Adrian drew on the sand?"
Adams looked around as the people began packing up their belongings. "What the hell's going on?"
Flynt took one last piece of food before the plate was taken away, "Looks like the feast's over."
Kasuf holds out both hands to Adrian in a "stop" gesture, speaking beseechingly to him as he shakes his head.
Adrian looked from Kasuf to his team, surprised. "It seems like writing is forbidden to them."
Jaune facepalmed. "Oh come on, can't we catch a fucking break?"
Kasuf meanwhile continues speaking and gesturing to the crowd. Several elderly women broke off from the crowd and rushed forward, wrapping Adrian in a red blanket and began herding him away from the crowd.
Terra looked worried, "Where are they taking my baby?"
Saph raised an eyebrow, "Gotten over your little panic attack did you?" Terra blushed. "Besides, the people seems happy, I don't think they're going to do anything bad to him. He's also wearing armor, I think he'll be safe from people armed with sticks." Yeah, she was still a bit pissed off that her people's achievements were forgotten so easily. 'Do they think it's easy to discover other fuel sources? It's not! It takes years, if not decades, of research!'
Adrian looked at the women surrounding him, "What? What? Uh-heh. Uh..." He looks to the team nervously as they began to stand up. "They want me to go with them! Should I stay? I'll go with them. No no, I'll be fine!" He tries to calm them down, trying to avoid a similar situation from a few hours ago. He passes the young Faunus woman, who watches the proceedings a bit nervously.
Inside a large tent, Adrian laughs as one woman scrubs his feet. Some are combing his hair with wooden combs, while a pair are washing his hands. Adrian is uncomfortable with the attention, but does not appear to want to offend. 'How did they manage to get me off my armor?'
Saph blinked. "See? They're just giving him a bath." She frowned, "Though them being able to remove his armor is a bit worrying."
Adrian tilts his head. "Bath?" He asks in confusion. What he saw didn't look like a bath, and those combs don't look too comfortable from where he's sitting.
Adrian, starting to feel a bit claustrophobic, starts to stand up, "Okay. That's good. All right. That's good. Okay. I think that's good. My hands are pretty clean. Thank you. Thank you very, very much." He smiles at the women, who seem content with their ministrations anyway and began to leave. "Thank you-That was very nice. Thank you, that was great. I smell much better."
Vernal smirked, "Something tells me that's a lie." She noticed his stiff posture, and couldn't help but feel sorry for him.
The last elderly woman turns back, smiling and bowing, saying something to him that suspiciously sounded like "So handsome". (Yang: "Wait, what'd that mean?")
Adrian bows, "Yes, thank you."
Once they all leave, Adrian sits on the blankets next to him, looking around and sniffing himself. He grimaced, "Oh, by the Pillars. I smell like a yak."
Just then Kasuf's daughter, wearing a shear red veil over her head, enters the tent just as he was starting to put on his socks.
Adrian, glancing at the entrance and seeing another woman entering, starts waving her off distractedly while trying to put his clothes back on. "No, no. Please-no more. Please." He looks around for his armor. 'Where did they put armor? Uncle Jaune's going to kill me if I misplaced it.'
The girl ignores him and continues to walk to him.
Noticing the girl not stopping, Adrian gives her his full attention, "Please, no more. I'm fine. I'm clean, I'm-I'm…"
She stands before Adrian and lifts her veil over her head, exposing her cat ears. He recognizes her and laughs in relief. "Oh. I thought, heh, you were one of the uh...cleaning..."
Adrian's voice trails off as she starts to pull her top off her shoulders, baring her breasts to him. The screen placed in a way to show only her back to the audience, while also showing Adrian's surprised face.
"Woah!" Coco lowers her sunglasses in disbelief. "Wow she works fast! Must really want the Arc D, huh?" She grins as she places her sunglasses back. "I respect that." Yang and Nora agreed with the fashionista, grinning as they cheered the girl on.
Saph and Terra looked shocked at the young woman's rather bold action, before they looked at their son as he blushed and covered his eyes with his palms. Saph giggled at that, "Well, I suppose that's one way to claim what she wants. Avoids the whole denseness problem right away." Terra laughed as Adrian just blushed harder.
Pyrrha blushed, 'Maybe I could do that. Show Jaune how perfect my breasts are, and perhaps I can have him to myself.' She knew a few others were planning the same thing, so she knew she would have to work fast if she was to come out on top.
Chibi-Jaune blushed and turned his head from the sight. Next to him, Chibi-Blake rose an eyebrow, "What's got you so flustered? You saw much more than that during our time alone~." She whispered in his ear, causing the boy to gulp.
Alice pouts in frustration, and looks to her mama. "Mama, you do that too?" (6)
Glynda blushed in mortification as Qrow and Roman snickered at her, and was about to deny it, but then she remembered what she and Jaune supposedly did in Ozpin's office. Her blush got worse, and she stuttered. "N-No s-s-sweetie."
Alice didn't buy that, not this time, and glared back at the screen.
Adrian looked at the beauty in front of him for a moment before his brain kicked in. "No-no-no-no-no. You don't have to do that. Please?"
She gasps in surprise as Adrian goes over to her and tries to pull her top back up over her shoulders, covering her once more.
Mercury looked at the man like he was an idiot, "Dude, she's literally baring herself for you! How are you going to deny that? If it was me, I'd hit that in a second!" That last part earned him several slaps in the face by Emerald and her children.
Roman shook his head and gave a rather surprising answer. "That's because unlike you, he was raised as a gentleman, and a gentleman never takes advantage of a lady." A few, like Klein and Whitley, agreed with him. He then stands up and takes off his hat, giving the man onscreen a small bow with his hat on his chest. "I salute you, good sir, for allowing her to keep her decency."
Adrian's parents looked at the young man in pride, before looking back at their baby boy, who was still covering his eyes. Saph cooed, "Oh, don't worry sweetie, everyone's decent now." Adrian slowly peeked over his hands, and seeing the girl covered up again, lowered his hands with a sigh of relief. Terra just giggled at how cute his embarrassment was.
Adrian smiled gently to her, "Maybe you should go. Okay?"
She just stares back in disappointment and shame. (Yang: "Ouch, rejected even after exposing herself, that's harsh.")
Seeing this, he pulls her in a gentle hug, surprising her. "It's okay." He whispers before braking the hug and gently guiding her to the entrance. "It's okay, it's all right. We're here. Whoops, let me grab that." They reach the entrance of the tent and he pulls back the flap. He blinks in shock though when he sees Kasuf and some other elders standing outside, milling about a few feet away from the entrance.
Tai blinked, "Wait, why were they standing there? Isn't she his daughter?" He felt a bit creeped out. he didn't want to know why the old Faunus was standing outside the tent where his daughter was trying to seduce the young Arc.
The other fathers felt the same way. Klein shivered in horror, not wanting to think of his little snowflake in that situation with himself waiting just outside.
Kasuf looks back to the entrance, and stares in horror at the tent opening. He asks a question to his daughter, and she shakes her head negatively. The old Faunus pales, and prostrates himself while he starts begging to Adrian.
Adrian looks from Kasuf to the girl in bewilderment, then seems to realize something. He shakes his head before smiling, trying to appease the old Faunus. "No-no-no-no-no. It's me. I wanted...to...thank you." He bows his head in thanks, "I wanted to, say I'm very happy." He hugs the girl close to him.
Kasuf looks confused, "Eh?"
The young man nods, "Thank you." He then closes the tent flap, keeping the girl inside with him. Kasuf just stares at the closed flap in confusion, before he stands up with a shaky smile.
Back inside, the woman goes and sits on the blankets, looking away shyly from him. Adrian crouches in front of her, uncertain. "Uh..." He points to himself, "Adrian."
The girl smiles a bit, and points to herself. "Shau'ri."
Adrian smiles, "Shau'ri. A beautiful name." he clears his throat when he saw that she was staring at him again, "You-uh-we-we came...uh..." He begins to draw a pyramid in the sand. "Pyramid...see, we came-huh-from a...pyramid." He draws two downward lines from the pyramid, looking like a ramp, and mimes his people walking out from it with his fingers.
He looks up to see Shau'ri glancing away, scared and uncertain.
He sighs in defeat, but gives another gentle smile. "Hey, it's okay. Never mind. It's okay."
Shau'ri looks back now that he's stopped drawing. Adrian smiles at her and stands up, but now looks disappointed. He paces around the tent, peeking outside the flap a few times. With him not watching, Shau'ri takes a deep breath, gathering up her courage, and brushes away the bottom part of the drawing. She keeps the pyramid part intact as a base to draw more.
Adrian tilts his head. "What she doin?"
A few of the students were wondering the same thing.
Adrian turns back just in time to see her drawing a circle on top of the pyramid. His eyes widen. "Remnant?"
"Wait, she'd seen that symbol before?" Cinder asks, surprised that the girl had managed to find it.
Shau'ri looks up, uncertain.
Adrian goes to her. Kneeling in front of her, he asks in excitement "You-you, you know this symbol? You know this symbol?" He points to his eye, then down at the drawing, "You've seen, this symbol?"
Shau'ri mimics his movements, and nods with a little smile.
He grins and holds out his hand for her to take. "Show me." He whispers, "Show me?"
She takes it and he pulls her up.
"Aww, that's so sweet~! They're going to bond!" Saph gushes over the scene, causing Adrian to blush again, "Mama stop."
END
Chapter done, yes! I stopped it here because the next scene is where Ra finally shows up! Ok, so here's the sidenote I mentioned from the beginning of the chapter:
I never knew this but apparently Charlie was about 8 years old when he died, the same age most of Jaune's children are right now. Like seriously, what are the odds? I'm not making this up, I seriously had no idea about his age until I googled it because I got curious after I had already privately explained my reasoning to some of the PM's/reviews. And what makes it just a bit better is soon afterwards I realized that out of all of Jaune's future children that have physically shown up by this point (those not in photos or namedrops), only 4 of them are not eight years old: Alice(2), Alex(14), Sapphire(14), and Mellissa(14) (and if you add up all their ages, you get 44). And I just realized that my little rant is in the end of the Fourth part of my reaction to this movie! I just can't escape the number 4! To give context to what the fuck I'm rambling on about, there was someone who'd PM'd me after the chapter that had the Prophesy came out, about how much I seemed to love the number 4. There's 4 Elders, 4 Pillars; Jaune had 8 children (at the time), 4 of whom were brought over to the Nexus and canonized by the Pillars themselves (and are all 8 years old); the prophesy I made had 16 words in every sentence, each divided evenly by two for every rhyme I made, making 8 words before & after each comma; and the prophesy itself contains 8 sentences… and I just now realized that the prophesy is on Chapter 16, great. Again, can't escape the number 4. I wasn't even aware that I was doing it when they PM'd me, so that was just an amazing set of coincidences; and it still continues to hound me!
Ok, rant's over. Now while I was working on this chapter, I've been going over my list of ships for my Arcadian Fleet, and I've been wondering: Should I upload the list in a chapter, upload a new story which has the list, or should I just put the list on my Profile Page? See, I've been thinking of having each ship get their own proper profile after I reveal each one, but I don't know which of the three options to choose from is easier; and I'm thinking on having a poll set up so that you guys can decide. Speaking of which, I don't know how to set a poll up, so I'd appreciate it if any authors can give me some pointers on that. Until next time!
List of current Jaune's children in the Nexus:
Neo: Lucy
Emerald: Peridot & Garnet
Vernal: Amber
Raven: Robin
Sienna: Altani
Glynda: Alice
1. Well of course I was going to put in some Faunus, come on guys!
2. Skaara is a Caracal Faunus. The animal is a medium-sized wild cat native to Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and India. So imagine him with the cat's wide ears and unique eyes (circles rather than slits like many other cats).
3. NJ: Neon Jr. I figured as they were partners, since they never dated then they would name their kids after each other (since "Revenge of the Arcs" showed she was with someone else). And he's using a cell phone rather than a scroll.
4. I'm actually not a fan of milk/dark chocolate, prefer lollypops myself. I do like white chocolate though. I know that this draws parallel to a Let's Play, but I do agree with Fiona's choice; and before you say anything, no, at no point did Jack ever eat chocolate up to now. During both Holiday chapters, everything sweet that he had were either non-chocolate candies or pies. That's it. I never explicitly mentioned him eating chocolate when he got the gift of Mexican candy, and the giver only mentioned names to candy that normally doesn't have chocolate in them.
5. In the last chapter, Penny only commented on how the two Stargates established a connection with each other in mere moments, not how long the actual tripthrough the Stargate was. The tracker on the probe would obviously take a while to catch up to the robot, but the audience never questioned how long the actual trip was. They assumed that the trip took that many seconds. As for the 0.3 seconds thing. In season 9 episode 13, Carter explained how it takes an average 0.3 seconds to travel between worlds. She also said that a significantly longer trip took about 3.4 seconds. Since Abydos is the closest world to Remnant, it would be well within the average distance time.
6. You guys may think it's weird for a two-year-old to be feeling jealous like this, but as some of you know, I've been trying to make a "Baby Geniuses" reaction for a long while before my computer crashed for the second time. In that movie, the genius babies are very intelligent until they reach about two years old. Before they reach that age though, the babies would be able to have complex emotions and understand/speak dead languages. This would've been the case here as well (that at two, once they start learning our modern languages, they would "cross over" and forget their past knowledge), however Alice and Adrian have Arc DNA in their genetic makeup (gifted in Alice's case), which means they have the Alteran genes as well. This in turn has extended the deadline to a bit after four years old. Enough time to explain Adrian's rather bizarre behavior in Vol.6 (I know the fake tantrum in Argus base was supposed to be a distraction, but that's still pretty advanced for a four-year-old to know how to do on command [especially when I noticed that in the wiki he had practiced it beforehand]). Now while I did scrap the movie, I wanted to pay homage to my previous work. Like Stargate I grew up with this movie, and like Stargate, I had taken great time and effort in making it as detailed as possible. Besides, it's not the first time I hinted at them having more complex thought; remember how Alice was able to somehow vividly remember her birthday party, and how she thought of having revenge on Ozpin for stealing her cake? She knew he would get punished if she did that, and was smiling at his pain! I don't think a normal two-year-old would be able to hold a grudge like that. As for Adrian, at the end of last chapter, he was screaming "Wevenge!" while clapping his hands. He's two! How would a two-year-old be able to understand something as complex as the act of revenge? And in this chapter, he had covered his eyes when Shau'ri took off her clothes, despite him being far too young to even understand the meaning behind this action. People may think that all these were jokes, and they are (mostly), but they were also meant to hint at the true intelligence of these children.