Chapter II – A Shocking Discovery
Unknown location
Sometime in the afternoon (most likely)
"And nobody remembers anything after that?" Weiss asked.
"Nope. Only that we all apparently woke up inside this forest that is obviously not Forever Fall." Blake answered.
"Sooo... now what?" Yang continued.
"I say we stop wasting time and find a way out of this forest and back to civilization before we have to deal with more Grimm." Weiss answered.
Suddenly, they all heard some rustling coming from nearby, startling them.
"Did you hear that?" Weiss asked and the girls looked around themselves trying to figure out what was causing the sound.
Blake eventually saw that the rustling was coming from some nearby bushes. "It's coming from there."
All four girls turned toward the source of the sound, weapons drawn and pointed toward it.
"WHO'S THERE?! SHOW YOURSELF!" Yang cried.
As if in response, something did come out of the bushes, and soon enough team RWBY found themselves looking confusedly at one of the weirdest things they had ever seen. What appeared to be a mouse, or some such rodent was now standing in front of the huntresses, looking at them with a combination of confusion and curiosity. However, it did not look like any known rodent. It was standing on two legs, it was around 1 foot (30 cm) tall, and it had a pale yellow color, and oval head with large quadrilateral ears with black tips and edges, a black collar with a zig-zag pattern, a black tail bent in the middle, and pink circles on its cheeks.
Out of the four huntresses Ruby and Weiss were the first to react. "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" both of them squealed at the sight of the little creature standing before them, cuteness proximity striking once again (the two were notably the most susceptible to this), and in no time crossed the distance between themselves and the little furry newcomer until they were each on one side of it, where they were staring at it.
"Look at this cutie!" Ruby squealed.
"Aaawww! Who's the cutest widdle thing ever? Who's the cutest widdle thing ever? Yes, you are! Yes, you are!" Weiss added.
Meanwhile, Blake and Yang also took a few steps forward to take a closer look at... whatever that thing was.
"What... is that?" Blake asked completely baffled.
"Pichu?" the yellow rodent suddenly talked while looking confusedly at the humans around it, making them stop from what they were doing and take their eyes off it and look at each other in bafflement. Blake and Yang were equally taken by surprise.
"Did... did it just... talk?" Ruby asked taken aback.
"Pichu?"
"There! It did it again!"
Then a smile appeared on the little animal's face when those humans so far proved harmless. "Pichu! Pichu!" It exclaimed joyfully.
"It seems like it does talk, but all it ever says is this word 'Pichu', whatever that means." Weiss said.
"Alright, I give up, can somebody figure out what the hell is this thing? A mouse?" Yang added.
"Well, it doesn't look like any mouse I've ever seen. I've definitely never seen a mouse that is able to walk on two legs like humans and articulate words, even if it is only one single word with no apparent meaning."
"It looks like it came out of some kids' cartoon."
"Chu?" the Pichu asked and again started looking at the strange humans as if each has grown another head. It had heard what the four strange humans were saying. And even though it was still a baby Pokémon, it still had a basic understanding of how things worked in the world. Thus, it could not comprehend how they did not know what it was. After all, it was a member of one of the most popular evolutionary families of Pokémon out there. As a matter of fact, they sounded more as if they have never seen any Pokémon in their lives. All this was weird. Who were these people? And what were those things they were carrying with them? He was not entirely sure, but they almost looked like... weapons? The mouse Pokémon became more curious by the second about the strange human girls, curious like any other self-respecting baby Pokémon.
"Okay. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that that word it keeps saying, 'Pichu', is actually its name."
"I say we ask it." Ruby intervened.
"Seriously? And what makes you think it will actually understand anything you say?"
"It won't hurt to try." The red reaper then looked downward the mouse and asked: "Hello there, little guy!... Or girl? Are you a girl?" After a little hesitation, the weird little cartoon animal, while still utterly confused about what was going on, had decided to at least humor them, so it shook its head in response "So a boy." The yellow mouse nodded this time. "Good! Then, as I was saying: Hello there little guy! That word you keep saying there. 'Pichu'? What does it mean? Is that your name?" The creature nodded once again in response. "Perfect! That settles it then! And it seems he does understand me!" The red hood said with her hands on her hips and looking at Weiss with a smug "Ha! I win!" expression.
The white princess rolled her eyes annoyedly. "At least I can conclude from this that it does display some level of human-level intelligence, even though I can tell by taking a good look at it that it is still most likely an infant."
"Well, if you 'concluded' that he has some level of human intelligence, then you could also 'conclude' that using the term 'it' is not appropriate" The red reaper glared condescendingly at the heiress who again rolled her eyes at her partner and her childishness.
"We have only encountered it... *sigh* ...him for a couple of minutes and you have already grown attached to him?"
"Awww, come on! Look at how adorable he is! Besides, you were all over him just as much as me!" Ruby lifted Pichu off the ground and snuggled him in her arms, which made the little rodent giggle cutely.
"Okay, there are moments like this when I consider following in uncle Qrow's footsteps and start drinking, minimum legal age be damned." Yang intervened, "I mean... First, we were one step away from being ripped apart by Grimm, only to wake up a few moments later Lords know where with some weird... little... mouse... ish... cartoon... animal... thing."
"PICHU!" Pichu yelled at the blondezerker with a pout.
"Oh, good job, Yang! You offended him!" Ruby admonished her stepsister.
While her three teammates were busy quipping about their guest, Blake had caught something in the distance with the corner of her eye, so she turned her attention from the little furry newcomer to whatever caught her eye and her face quickly turned to an "Oh, crap!" one.
"Um... girls?"
"Yeah?" the other three responded simultaneously.
"We've got trouble." the shroud pointed toward where she was looking.
All three of her teammates looked in the same and saw what their feline teammate was so concerned about.
"Oh, you've GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!" Yang yelled in frustration. All four girls then readied themselves for the large number of Grimm emerging from the forest..
"Pichu! Go hide somewhere!" Ruby told to the yellow rodent.
Now the little mouse Pokémon was even more curious after he saw the big pack of strange creatures that looked like nothing he had ever seen before. What were those things? They certainly did not look like anything he had ever seen. How did the blonde girl call them? Grimm? He had never heard in his life of such thing. Were they some new species of Pokémon? And why had that red girl told him to go hide? Now he really was eager to know what the he... H-E-double-hockey-sticks was going on!
Remnant
Infirmary, Beacon Academy, Vale
14:34 Central Vale Time (CVT)
Professor John Indy was 53 years of age, sporting short hair and a short thick beard, both of which used to be black in the past, but they were now graying, dark brown eyes, and a pair of round metallic thin-rimmed glasses on his nose. He was a professor, researcher and archaeologist at the University of Vale, the College of History with quite the resumé; graduating the College at the top of his class and obtaining a PhD degree, followed by a 23-year-long career marked by countless achievements that brought him several distinctions and awards and a reputation not only as one of the most memorable people in the field, but also as a daredevil, an adventurer, and a determinator, due to his willing to go to places no sane person would go to and follow leads that no sane person would follow. He did not care if it something was based on nothing more than mere rumors, you would be damn right he would go there. A motto he always loved to say was: "Hell itself is worth exploring until proven otherwise. And if the devil spots you, you just get out of there and find another way to sneak back in".
And a common joke among his peers was: "If the man ever lost a leg, he could not care less, since he always goes through life out on a limb anyway."
But at the moment? He looked like he had just been through Hell. (Which, for all intents and purposes, was true) He was currently sitting in a bed in Beacon Academy's infirmary, his normally neatly-combed hair now a scruffy mess, his whole torso covered in bandages and his right arm in a cast. And next to him, sitting on a chair, was none other than Ozpin, Headmaster of Beacon Academy, to whom the wounded explorer was currently retelling the events that had brought him into this state.
"And... and then... they started to... to... to slaughter everyone,... my whole team!... Oh, Gods,... the... the carnage! I cou... I could only stay there watch as those things were... were ripping them all to shreds!" the archaeologist said, teary-eyed and still visibly shaken by the ordeal he had just been through.
He could not forget one second of that horrific experience. What was supposed to be a regular expedition to study some ruins deep inside Forever Fall went horribly wrong in a very short amount of time. The seasoned archaeologist knew that the expedition would also be extremely dangerous, since everybody and their mother knew that the place was full to the brim with Grimm (which is why he requested the help of Beacon Academy by lending him some students to serve as bodyguards), but he had never thought it would be an attack of such magnitude as the one that had decimated his whole team, leaving him as the sole known survivor. (And it was a miracle that he actually had made it out of there alive).
His team had all become chewing toys for the Grimm. He remembered each and every one of them. They were all good people; students with promising careers ahead of them, just a few months away from their master's degrees, and fellow members of the faculty whom he had known for a lifetime. And he sent them all to their deaths.
"Mmhm, I see. You have my deepest and sincerest condolences. And what can you tell me about team RWBY?" Ozpin replied.
"Who?... Oh yeah, the Huntresses. I... I honestly cannot tell. Last time I saw them, they were taking refuge inside the ruins, but Brothers know if they are still alive."
"I see..." the Headmaster sighed disappointedly "In that case, I say we focus on finding that out. Could you give me the exact location of these ruins?"
"Wha... You..." Professor Indy was looking baffled at the Headmaster, unable to find the right words, while the latter lifted an eyebrow in response. Was this man seriously going to try to delve into the Grimm-infested forest for an infinitesimal chance that is students may be alive? One second later, the archaeologist sighed, deciding it would be a bad idea to doubt the abilities of the Headmaster of a huntsman academy. "Sure. Give me a second, please."
Then, the archaeologist lifted his Scroll off the table near him and, soon thereafter, forwarded the coordinates of the ruins into Ozpin's Scroll.
"Thank you, Professor. And I do not want sound intrusive, but I would like to know what was the initial purpose of the trip?"
"You would like to know about that?"
"Sure. I mean, normally, ruins in Forever Fall are not that special. The place is full of them. Yet, you seemed to be very interested in this particular site, which means that it must have had something that set it aside from the rest of them. And I am especially interested because this whole thing involved some of my students, who are now missing."
"You would not believe me if I told you."
"Heh! If I got paid got paid for every time I heard that phrase. Try me."
Thus, Professor Indy decided to humor him. "Very well. The ruins in question may have allegedly been used as some sort of secret bunker for scientific experiments."
"Experiments?... What experiments?"
"Experiments involving interdimensional travel."
"I... Interdimensional travel?"
"Yes. I know this sounds insane, but... *sigh* ...Listen, Professor. If you are curious about where I got this idea from, it all started about one month ago, when I came across an old journal at a local bookstore. I did not even have any previous thought of buying it. I was at the bookstore just to kill time. It was my day off and I had nothing better to do, and I do know the owner, because I go there pretty often. Anyway, I took a quick look through it, and it kind of just... caught my interest. I did not even know the writer, so they must have been some amateur treasure hunter. When I asked the owner about it, he told me it had been donated alongside other books by someone who had found them collecting dust in their attic or something like that, and also that if I was looking for an actual journal I should keep looking, because he considered that one as being either a work of fiction, or the ramblings of a madman, and, for some reason, that made me even more curious. He even told me that I could take it on the house since he thought it was worthless and had gotten it for free anyway."
"Because it was talking about the existence of other worlds and people who have discovered how to travel between them, correct?"
"Correct. It also mentioned several different locations scattered across all four known landmasses on Remnant that had supposedly been used as secret facilities from where you could travel between worlds, most of them hidden behind ancient ruins."
"And unlike the one who gave you the book, you believed what was written."
"Well... I had decided to try and find out whether or not it was true. And the place I chose as a starting point was the closest of those sites, in Forever Fall. So, I went and asked for funds from the faculty and, after some convincing, they gave me their approval. Of course, I was careful not to mention anything about why was I interested in these newfound ruins; I only told them that there were supposedly some undiscovered ruins deep into Forever Fall, otherwise there was no way they would have given me those money."
"Hmm... This certainly caught my interest. Would you mind if I borrowed your journal for a while?"
"You... You actually believe me?"
"Well, Professor, during my entire life I have seen and heard a lot of things, some stranger than others. At this point, I am willing to believe anything until I am proven otherwise."
"*chuckles* We're not that different from each other."
Ozpin chuckled back at the archaeologist's remark "Yeah, it seems so."
"If you want to read the journal, you can take your time. At this point, I know the whole thing by heart and as I said, I got it for free."
"Well, I guess this is all then. Now I am going to make the preparations for the travel into the forest to find and rescue team RWBY. Goodbye, Professor, and thank you for having this conversation with me. Rest well now."
"Thank you too, Headmaster. And I do pray you will find your students."
Ozpin nodded in a 'Thank you.' manner, sat up from his chair and went out into the hallway. There, standing by the door, was Professor Glynda Goodwitch, who had been waiting this entire time for the Headmaster to finish his business inside.
"Sir." the disciplinarian said as Ozpin closed the door. Then, they both headed toward the exit. "How did it go?"
"Heh! I dare say, Miss Goodwitch, I have a feeling that whatever will happen in the near future is going to prove very interesting."
The teacher stared at the Headmaster with a confused look, trying to understand what he meant by that.
Unknown location
Sometime in the afternoon
Team RWBY was fighting tooth and nail against the Grimm.
Ruby swung her scythe, decapitating a Beowolf that was standing on two legs roaring defiantly, (Remember kids, that is what you get for trying to look scary and imposing instead of focusing on actually dealing blows.) then repeated the motion a few more times, slicing some more of the lupine Grimm, before she switched Crescent Rose to rifle mode and landed a (boom!) headshot on an Alpha Beowolf that was charging toward her. Meanwhile, Weiss was swinging Myrtenaster, leaving several cuts in the torso of another Beowolf, before she positioned her rapier by her side pointing forward and thrust it in the werewolf's chest, dealing the final blow. Blake was holding her ground against a Creep hitting at its head with her dual weapons. The whatever-like Grimm responded by opening its jaw, lunging in. However, when it snapped its jaw shut, it bit a body... of stone. The black cat had jumped in the air, leaving behind a copy of stone to take the hit, and landed on top the beast, pointed her sword downward, knelt, and plunged it into its nape, the tip of the blade bursting out through its throat. Then she backflipped off the downed creature and, just as she landed on the ground, an Ursa Major jumped at her... only to be diverted off-course mid-air by a fiery fist from Yang. The big bear flew in the air, hit the ground, and ended up back on its feet. The blondezerker ran toward the bear, which got up on its hind legs, ready to strike. But, before it could come back down, the yellow brawler hit each of its knees with a shot of Fire Dust from each of her shotgun-gauntlets. Now with its knees blown off, the Ursa Major could not stand on its legs anymore and fell on its back. While lying on the ground, Yang climbed up on its chest, sat on her knee and proceeded to subject the bear's head to a no-holds barred beatdown until there was no more head.
Soon after, team RWBY regrouped ready to fight more creatures.
"At least there seem to be relatively fewer Grimm than in Forever Fall." Weiss remarked.
None of these events had been missed by Pichu's eyes, who had been sitting on the sidelines this whole time, watching the fight in utter amazement, combined with confusion and fright. Pichu could not comprehend what those scary-looking creatures were, but also why were the humans fighting them. I mean, the humans are fighting those Pokémon if that's what they are. Why? Aren't Pokémon supposed to do that? And what made it really scary was that the humans were mutilating the creatures. Thus, even a baby like him could realize that the girls were killing them. Although, when something dies isn't there supposed to be more blood? And why are the bodies disappearing once they die? And the longer he witnessed the battle, the quicker he realized that those monsters also were trying to kill the humans. Why? Pokémon would never murder? We are fighters, not killers! What are those things?
While Pichu was preoccupied with so many questions, Team RWBY had already finished with the Grimm.
"Well, that takes care of that... Again..." Blake commented.
Suddenly, a loud roar came out of the woods and startled the girls. "What was that?!" Ruby asked.
Pichu was also reawakened from his thoughts by the roar. Then, the ugliest bear he had ever seen emerged from behind the trees and the Tiny Mouse Pokémon put on a face of pure horror when he realized it was glaring straight at him.
"PICHU!", he screamed while standing there and looking in sheer terror at the Ursa Major that was making a run for him.
Team RWBY looked in horror at the beast that was charging toward their newest friend. "PICHU!" Ruby shouted, then turned toward the giant bear, Crescent Rose in her hands in scythe mode and tried to get its attention, "HEY! LEAVE HIM ALONE YOU...!"
But, before the reaper could continue any further, something incredible happened.
Pichu, in his complete panic, started glowing yellow with electricity and, before the girls could say anything, the Electric-type rodent showed his true power to the girls for the first time. "PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!" The Thunder Shock hit the Ursa Major dead-on. The ursine Grimm tried to push forward, but it soon saw itself slowing down and eventually stopping only a couple of meters from the rodent Pokémon, where it stood up on its hind legs and roared at the sky in pain.
After a while, the bolt of lightning disappeared, and the now-charred bear Grimm fell stunned on the ground and was getting back up on its feet when Crescent Rose's blade planted itself in its nape and came out through its throat. Then, Ruby pulled her scythe back with added momentum from a gunshot and the blade sliced the Grimm's head in half. The beast fell on the ground and vanished. This left only Pichu and four flabbergasted huntresses who were trying to process what they had just seen.
Blake became the first to say something: "D... Did Pichu just... shoot a lightning bolt out of his body?"
"Thank Gods. For a moment there I thought I was the only one who saw that." Yang responded, then chuckled. "Well... That was shocking."
Her teammates groaned in response.
"Although, let's acknowledge the elephant in the room." Ruby said.
"Which is...?" Weiss asked.
"That that... was... AWESOME!" the reaper raised her fists in the air while shouting that last word, then she turned toward the Electric-type rodent, "Pichu, how did you...?" She suddenly stopped herself from talking as her smile slowly faded off her face to be replaced with an expression of worry as she was saw the yellow rodent lying motionless on the grass. "Pichu?" When the cartoon animal did not respond, Ruby instantly knelt at his side and lifted him in her arms, with her teammates standing behind her equally worried. Nonononononono! "Pichu! Are you alright? Answer me! Pichu! What happened?!"