Tap tap tap. You hear that sound a lot. Like, a whole lot. TV and movies really glams up reality, but the world is boring. Jobs are either hard work or excessive typing. As a programmer, you've of the excessive typing camp. You much prefer it that way, to be honest; you aren't much for personability, so you much prefer quietly typing away at a keyboard in the comfort of your own home rather than getting yelled at by some rich broad that never worked a day in her life in some clothing store.
Most days, you keep to yourself, programming and typing away in a house that's too big for you. Though it's not the worst problem in the world, a decent salary and a family that supports you means you live in a well-sized two story house. Location wise, it kind of sucks, which attributed to the lower price. It's not close to much of anything, but it's not like you'd go to too many places to begin with. You prefer the quiet suburbia life on the outskirts of the outskirts of a big city to the noise of said big city. Heck, even your house is somewhat isolated; you're around a corner in a court, so you're way out of the way of even the other houses. You exit your house from the back door, as your garage is a separate building facing behind the main street, so you don't even need to interact with anyone on the sidewalk should you leave your house.
Man, all that makes it sound sadder than it is. You just aren't very personable.
Though some may say it's lonely, you prefer it this way. All you need is a good internet connection and a large collection of books, a good deal of which came with the house. Socialization was better left for the online world, and time was better spent getting lost in some new fantasy on a cozy hammock you have on your balcony. Your parents might have preferred you be a bit more active around people, but you feel you're still a ways away from justifying owning a home built for a family. You were never terribly close with your parents, but you love them and they love you enough to support your lonesome lifestyle.
Which brings you to now. You're finished with work, household chores are taken care of, and you have nothing going on. For once, you're a bit bored of reading, and you don't particularly feel like watching anything or playing a game. Maybe today was best spent napping. Though… you guess you're pretty low on food; a shopping trip might not be bad, just for something to do. Standing up and stretching, you change out of your pajamas (a benefit of working from home!) and set about getting dressed. Though it isn't totally necessary, you might as well put something decent on; there's the whole, "you never know when you're going to meet the one," thing, and you'd prefer not to meet The One wearing fuzzy bottoms.
Setting out with a nice collared shirt and some headphones, you enjoy a quiet drive listening to a podcast. You decide to kill time and pass by the corner store in favor of a slightly more impressive grocery store. It was quite a bit further, but you have nothing to do today, so might as well. The drive was relaxing, the scenery was nice, and you really need to catch up on your podcast backlog. One of the benefits of working from home was being able to enjoy long drives, otherwise you'd dread every second wasted not in your house.
Your time passes and you drive home with a few full bags of food. Laziness takes you, so you park in front on your house instead of behind it in your garage, mostly because it meant you'll have slightly less walking to do. In short order, you have a full fridge and and desire to lay down and read. Grabbing one of the drinks you just purchased and selecting a book from your shelf, you sprawl out on the couch and settle in. Days like this are common and comfortable. You live a quiet life, which you have no problems with.
Just as you lay back onto your couch, book at the ready, you feel… something. You aren't sure what, but something feels off; there's a weird pressure or something in the air, along with a weird buzzing that just started. Failing to ignore it, you see if you can find the source, as there's a clear direction it's coming from. You cross the living room, through the kitchen, and look outside. There's your tiny backyard, and the humming seemed to be coming from…. maybe your garage.
You feel the world disappear as you're blinded by a blistering light and deafened by a massive roar. Force kicks you back a good three feet, though you can't tell on account of the vertigo. The only reason you know you aren't dead is that you recognize this feeling from movies, the ones where soldiers survive a grenade and the music cuts to a hum. Lights fade and flicker as you stumble around, trying to regain feeling. Eventually, you manage to climb to your feet and stated, shaking the lights from your eyes.
Attempting to figure out what just happened, you stumble to your back door, amazed it still stands. Heck, your window is fine despite the blast. As your sight charges back up to 100% you see that, for some reason, nothing looks terribly different; your backyard shows no signs of ruin sans the long grass you've failed to mow. Though… the door to your garage is open. Like, blow open.
As your ears readjust, you hear indistinct voices and shouts. Your body is just about back to normal, so you walk through the blown open door and fail to understand what happened. Like, you know that your vision is correct, you can clearly see that your fingers move the way you tell them to move, but what you see can't be right.
Your garage was formerly all but empty. Aside from some miscellaneous power tools and random storage, there was a big empty space usually reserved for your car. However, instead, there was a large… thing. Like, a machine of some kind, but one more suited to a science fiction story than anything you're used to. Scorch marks and bits of metal line the ground surrounding the base of it, as if it had erupted in an explosion; the metal chassis did appear to be somewhat broken, but there was plenty more to be concerned with.
Stepping carefully around the machine now occupying your garage, you look out your garage door. Thankfully, you must have forgot to close it, seeing as it was open, but as you look out to the fields making up the view behind your house, you see the cause of the voices.
Along with several masked figures running off into the distance, you see four distinctly colored people facing the fields.
A girl in a red hood.
A girl in a white dress.
A girl with long black hair.
A girl with wild, untamed yellow hair.
The four girls looked across the field, staring daggers at the people running. It took a long while before the scene really seemed to progress, as they stood there, exhausted and panting as the world turned around them. Eventually, the blonde one began looking around, clearly lost. She looks behind her, towards you, towards the machine. Confusion spreads across her beautiful features as she looks around her. The other girls follow suit, scanning the landscapes and eventually shifting their confusion to you.
This..
Weird doesn't begin to describe the events you see unfolding.
As the woman with black hair accepts her surroundings, she steps closer to you, showing that she means no harm. Holding her hands up with caution, she grows closer and closer.
Now, you could continue to wonder about what was going on, or you could accept it. You can accept that the girl in the red hood was wearing a fantasy style corset. You can accept that the white haired girl had pure white, not dyed, but natural hair in a long ponytail. You can accept that the girl in black had bright yellow eyes. You can accept that the blonde one had a black and gold arm.
Before the woman with black hair has a chance to speak, you interrupt her.
"B… Blake?" you ask, staring at someone you recognize, but someone that shouldn't– COULDN'T- exist. Before you was Blake Belladonna, and behind her was the rest of Team RWBY.
Blake stops in her tracks, as does the rest of her team. The four of them look at you, each with their own brand of confusion. "W…What? You… know me?"
Seeing as you don't have too many options, you raise your hands to ease their minds and say, "You're… Team RWBY. From the sh…" you take a moment to think. "From Beacon Academy."
"Well, I guess we are a little famous…" Yang says, billowing her hair.
"We're not famous, Yang," Weiss says, holding up her rapier, but struggling. "The last time we were seen in any sort of public manner, you supposedly shot an innocent student in the legs. That was two years ago; he shouldn't recognize us on sight, nor should he look so positive about us if he did."
Understanding what Weiss was saying, Yang puts up her dukes and cocks her lone Ember Celica, readying the gun in her mechanical arm. Blake gets into a more active stance, but doesn't draw. Ruby rushes over to Crescent Rose, lying on the ground; she readies to swing it and pose, but fails to move it off the ground.
"Ruby?" Weiss asks, seeing Ruby struggle to lift her weapon. "What's wrong."
"I…" Ruby pants. "I can't– UMP– lift her!"
Yang takes a step forward and calls, "Some sort of gravity Semblance!?"
You step back, holding your hands up higher. You'd rather not get shot, especially by a massive shotgun capable of lifting Yang with the output.
Ruby immediately shouts, "No! Something's wrong!" Giving up, she stands and addresses her team. "I don't… I don't feel right."
Weiss' arm lowers as she loses the strength to lift Myrtenaster. "I think Ruby is right. Explain yourself. What's going on? Where are we?"
You lower your arms, slowly so as not to invoke a reaction. "I'm Mark. My garage blew up and now you guys are here." You point behind you to where the machine was taking up space in your garage. "You're… on the outskirts of the city…?" you say, recalling that they shouldn't know where you live.
RWBY looks around again. They take note of the rural farming land making up your surroundings.
"Where are we?" Ruby asks. "We're not at the base anymore."
Blake looks past you at the machine. "The rumors did say the White Fang were working on a transporter device. Not that I believed they would get it to work…"
"Not even the SDC has figured out teleportation, and my father has spent the money to develop leads. To think they've found something…"
"Not important!" Ruby says. "He doesn't want to harm us, and he doesn't look like he knows what's going on." She approaches you, her soft features and rosy cheeks letting you know she's peaceful. "You already know us, but we're Team RWBY. I think we should talk."