Planet Remnant, Kingdom of Vale

Beacon Academy

Though the shattered moon was high in the sky, and the stars were out, the lights of Beacon Academy were still brightly lit. At the top of the central spire, inside the office of the Headmaster, Professor Ozpin took a sip from his ever-present, always-full cup of coffee. Glancing over his computer's display, he turned at the sound of the doorbell going off.

"Come in." he said cordially, as Teams RWBY and JNPR entered and stood in front of Ozpin's desk. Ruby Rose, the silver-eyed leader of Team RWBY, gave off a yawn before snapping herself to attention.

"Good evening." Ozpin said. "Now, I suppose you know what this meeting is about. But, humor me on this occasion, won't you?"

"We had a food fight in the dining hall?" Yang Xiao Long said with some embarrassment.

"Indeed, though a fight doesn't begin to cover it, according to Professor Goodwitch." Ozpin replied. "Your brawl caused heavy damage to the building, you wasted several thousand lien worth of good food, and several students sustained injuries in a small stampede while attempting to flee the area."

"Now, given the circumstances, I would have let you off with a slap on the wrist, or a remedial assignment." Ozpin continued. "However, Professor Goodwitch insisted on adhering to proper disciplinary procedure for a disturbance like this...and thus...here we are."

"So...are we getting a detention?" Weiss asked, with a slight stutter of panic. Her disciplinary record was spotless, and Weiss intended to keep it that way through her time at Beacon now and later.

"No, not in the slightest." Ozpin smiled. "You'll be spending three days camping out in the Emerald Forest. You won't be fending for yourselves, but you won't have all the modern conveniences we enjoy either."

"Please listen closely.'

"There are two Bullheads waiting at the courtyard, one for each team. Inside, you will find a crate of supplies, including food, water, a first aid kit,, and some survival tools. Miss Rose, Mr. Arc, you will also be given a distress signal transponder to use if you need to be retrieved from danger. However, it is only to be used in the most dire of circumstances, and it will not activate until three hours have passed to ensure your safe arrival. And do not attempt to manipulate the device either, it has a tamper-safe internal clock."

"But should you activate it, I, Professor Goodwitch, or, Ruby, your uncle Qrow Branwen shall come and fetch you. However, I must emphasize that you are to survive with what is available to you in the wild as well, so do not rely only on your given supplies, and work together to deal with whatever Grimm cross your path, if at all."

"And we will also keep you supervised via the cameras in the forest, so if you are in danger and unable to activate the transponder, we will intervene and bring you back here."

"Am I understood?"

"Yes, Professor." the eight students replied.

"You may leave for the courtyard. Dismissed."

As the eight departed, Ozpin opened a communication channel on his scroll to Qrow Branwen.

"Yeah, Oz?" the slightly downcast tone of Qrow spoke.

"You know to keep an eye on your niece and her friends?" Ozpin asked.

"Yep. Two eyes." Qrow replied. "Just make sure they stay safe."

"I can't be sure, but I will do my best." the Headmaster replied. "Standby, Qrow. And have a good evening."

"You too."

About two hours later, as the Bullheads dropped off the students and the supply crate in a clearing and departed for the hangar at Beacon, the eight students immediately set to work making camp. Nora and Yang began finding the materials for a shelter, Blake and Ruby worked to get a fire going, Jaune and Pyrrha set out to gather water, and Weiss and Ren took watch in a nearby tree.

"Well, at least we're not in detention." Weiss said, leaning against the tree trunk. "Father wouldn't be happy if he heard that I got a mark on my disciplinary record."

"Since when does your father keep track of that?" Ren replied.

"Well, he does keep track of my progress, and advises me on occasion." Weiss replied. "It's never for long and he can be a bit harsh...but at least he cares."

Ren merely nodded, and as the fire soon began to burn, with some help from a Fire Dust capsule that Weiss tossed to Ruby, the eight were soon in a circle, warming their hands and eating a rationed amount of food from the crate.

"So…" Yang said after a period of silence. "Any thoughts?"

"Eh, at least there's no Grimm...so far." Jaune replied. "At least we have our weapons in case we do get attacked."

"That's true." Nora said, hefting her warhammer up. "And we've got food, water, a good campsite...what more could we ask for?"

"Well...a book wouldn't be a bad thing to have right now to pass the time." Blake replied. Then, her ears twitched and she stood up with a start.

"What's wrong?" Ruby asked, her mouth full with saltine crackers. Blake slowly drew Gambol Shroud and headed for the treeline, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. She could've swore she saw something move in the darkness.

Her immediate thought was that it was a Grimm, but as her vision adjusted fully, she saw that the trees near her had formed an archway near a worn stone formation.

"Huh...where'd this come from?" Blake asked, as the other students came over towards her, the Faunus touching the stone, feeling its rough surface. "These trees are different...and I can smell salt water...except we're nowhere near the ocean…"

"What's this about the ocean?" Nora asked, then, she could smell what Blake had, which was the scent of salt water, wet rocks, and sand. Not only that, they could hear nocturnal birds and the crashing waves through the trees and the archway.

Which made no sense, seeing as it was the middle of a forest that was nowhere remotely near the beach. And there were no seabirds in the Emerald Forest to be heard of, thanks to the Grimm preying on them.

"So...what now?" Jaune asked. "I mean, what are we supposed to do?"

"Maybe it's some kind of portal." Pyrrha suggested, the others looking at her with disbelief. "Well, what else could it be? It's a strange stone archway, with trees, leading to the ocean. What part of that makes sense?"

"I agree with you, Pyrrha." Blake said. "But before we do anything, we should mark our position. If we go through and there's no turning back...we need to leave something behind so others can find us."

"Let me handle it." Weiss said, as she took some Ice Dust out of Myrtenaster's cylinder, and she drew an arrow in the grass, and the words RWBY and JNPR for good measure. The dust froze the grass down to the topsoil instantly, leaving a very visible mark in the ground.

"So..now we go through the strange portal?" Ruby shrugged.

"You first, Blake." Jaune said. "You're the only Faunus here."

"Alright." Blake agreed, though she shivered quite visibly and her ears flattened. As the eight of them walked through the archway, their vision turned increasingly dark for a few moments, then they blacked out.

The first to come to was Ruby, and as the others got up as well, all rubbing their now sore eyes, Ruby froze as she looked at the night sky above them.

"Umm...what's with the moon?" she asked, slightly nervous. Weiss was about to comment when everyone saw what she had.

The moon was in one piece and a stark white, a very drastic contrast from the moon on Remnant, which was shattered and colored a moderate gray. Furthemore, Blake also piped up that the constellations were out of place.

"Where are we?" Ruby murmured. "Do we still have the trans-signal-thingy with us?"

"I've got it right here." Jaune said, pulling the switch on the device to activate it. It blinked for a few moments, showing full bars on the screen...then it went dark, the bars showing the signal's strength fading away.

"Uh...guys?" Weiss said as she pulled out her scroll. To everyone's shock, the device displayed a large, visible text box reading "NO SIGNAL", and when Weiss activated the World Map function, it showed another text box, reading "UNABLE TO CALCULATE LOCATION".

"Where did that portal take us?" Pyrrha gasped. "If there's no signal from the CCTS...we can't be anywhere we'd know of in Vale."

"I don't think we're even on Remnant." Weiss said, causing everyone to look at her in shock. "The CCTS has range all across the four Kingdoms and Vytal, and we can't connect to it. The constellations are wrong, and the moon is whole. I hate to say it, and it's completely insane to think but…"

"...We're not on our planet anymore." Blake said with finality. "That explains why the transponder can't connect to Beacon. It's because there's likely no Beacon Academy to connect to in the first place."

"So what do we do?" Nora said, starting to panic. "We can't just stay here! For all we know, there's something out there that's WORSE than the Grimm!"

"I agree." Blake said, going forward towards the beach. "Let's get moving, all of us. If we can find shelter, a map, anything that'll tell us where we are...it might be a chance for us to get home."

As the students drew their weapons and headed towards the beach, they didn't notice a small object flying overhead, and it moved towards them, beginning to record their every move using its thermal-equipped cameras. It bore a mounted submachine-gun caliber turret, and its four rotors propelled it aloft as it tracked its targets.

In the faint light, text could be seen on the side.

SKELL TECH - STOLAS

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