Lunch was a more lively affair, even Elizabeth had turned up, dressed in an elaborate gothic lolita gown, and we all settled down around the table.
The large roast was carved and portioned out, served in various styles to fit the tastes of the different women.
As things settled down, Gwen spoke up. "Strange has agreed to oversee the portal attempts for the next few days. The gods he consulted have… interests? I guess you would call them that, in other universes, and they are willing to provide him with the power necessary to help us out. They have confirmed a few other things."
We looked on in interest, as she pulled up her phone. Paging through it, she pulled up some notes, "Firstly, I have some good news for Ahri. Agamotto has confirmed that the Summoners of Summoners Rift aren't active in your neck of the multiverse, so as soon as Elizabeth gets a lock, we can send you home."
Ahri cheered, and turned to Elizabeth, who was eating some meat, "Can we do that tomorrow?"
Elizabeth shrugged, "Why not. I don't have anything planned for tomorrow, so I can start looking for your world."
Arhi lept out of her chair and hugged the surprised young woman, spinning her around.
As the celebrations died down, Gwen spoke up again, "For you, Yang, it's been a little mixed. Once we get there, Strange can throw around some of his weight to check in with the gods of your world. If they are around that is. The information we have suggests that they might have scarpered off to another universe under their banner and are waiting for your world to complete a challenge that they don't even know exists."
Yang scowled, "Yeah, I'm definitely going to talk to Uncle Qrow about that."
I nodded, "We'll be there with you if you want. Speaking of which, I kind of need to talk to everyone about something."
They turned to me, "What do you guys think about trying to help with the Remnant situation… Or, well, the Faunus situation at least?"
"Okay, I'm assuming you have something of a plan beyond that."
I shrug, "I've mostly been spending my time preparing for our fight against Trigon. But I've been considering deploying non-dust based technologies to help undermine the Schnee stranglehold on the economy. Perhaps also deploy a more stable long term communications solution so that they don't need to worry about the CCT going down."
They nodded, "We should probably deal with Cinder and Salem if we are getting involved like that."
I shrug, "We will probably want a plan for that. Given the time-frame, Amber Fall should not have been attacked yet, so we might be able to prevent that. It would play our hand a little, but it would allow us to capture all three of them in one fell swoop."
Across the table, I saw nodding faces.
"We will probably have to leave Salem alone for the time being," Raven opined, "As dangerous as she is, we have our hands full with the preparations for Trigon and even just getting everyone home."
Yang seemed a little put-out but begrudgingly admits that as long as Salem didn't react immediately to the loss of Cinder and Co, preventing a demon lord from escaping his seals was probably the more immediate worry. Raven's birthday was a little less than a month away at this point, and even with our preparations, the battle was sure to be hard-fought.
"If Salem does get mad that we captured Cinder, we're stopping her, right?" Yang demanded.
Gwen nodded, "It would be our fault, why wouldn't we take responsibility."
"Unless the ritual to call Trigon to Eran is already underway, we will be able to respond as soon as we hear the news." Raven offered
As Yang sat down, satisfied, I turned to Gwen, "We got a little off-topic there, any other news?"
Gwen nodded, paging through her phone for a moment before turning to Hinata, "I'm sorry, Hinata, but we don't have too much information about your corner of the woods. Strange will be helping us when we get there, so hopefully, if the Oostuki are monitoring things, we should have a chance to actually fight off any first responders and put together a decent fight."
Hinata nodded.
Honestly, it was unlikely that we would have to fight the Otsutsuki. Momoshiki and Kinshiki only stumbled across Sasuke rather than being able to detect his movements, and that suggested that they lacked extensive sensory abilities.
Strange did, but our portals were apparently difficult for him to sense outside of their immediate area.
Apparently, the portals were very obvious… but only if you were right next to them.
The moment you got much further than that, it sort of slipped into the background.
It didn't help that the effects messed with precognition something fierce.
It hadn't managed to undo any prophecies, it wasn't strong enough for that, but Strange's precognitive visitor alarm hadn't detected Gwen at all, and Madame Webb didn't see Gwen coming whatsoever.
I was tempted to see if Destiny would be able to see us coming.
Still, messing with the Mutant-human divide, at least until we had confirmed the existence of the Sublime was a dangerous consideration.
The topic quickly drifted away from the Otsutsuki and eventually circled back around to our plans for Remnant.
The primary goal was to give them some orbital infrastructure. Their dependence on Dust had made it impossible to escape their home. Even some simple communication satellites would go a long way towards helping them.
We were planning on doing a little more than that.
Spy satellite designs would be able to keep track of Grimm movements, picking out the migrations of various Grimm species.
We wanted to create habitats where the Grimm couldn't reach. If the people of Remnant could survive away from its surface (and Yang implied as much) orbital habitats may prove the answer to that problem.
That, and if possible Artificial Dust.
What little Dust that Yang had on her when she was brought here was rendered inert by the travel. Little more than pretty crystals.
The technology was inherently limited.
It made doing fantastical things easy, so switching them away from it would be difficult, but if we wanted them to leave Remnant and the Grimm behind. To unite in order to leave their world it would be difficult.
But in the end, it might be the only realistic option.
The Grimm was, for the population of Remnant, insurmountable. Their numbers were too great and the resources that they denied were too valuable.
The people of Remnant were teetering on the edge of annihilation, and honestly, I think they know it.
My solution to this was to offer a life for them in space. Where the Grimm could not get them.
And if I used that as an opportunity to remove the current power base of the Schnee corporation, well, no one we liked would be hurt.
The question was if we should do this at all.
A social upheaval like the one we were suggesting would be bloody, even with Ozpin and his little secret society there to help guide the way.
Did we dare push for that?
Even if we could end Salem, perhaps stick her in a prison pod in orbit around the sun and forget about her, even if we could purify and close up the pools of darkness that the Grimm spawned from.
Did we have the authority to attempt something like this?
At least in my world, I was working to have the rest of the world remain competitive.
This plan to 'save' Remnant. It would essentially be economic conquest of the first order.
Oh, we wouldn't have demands, outside perhaps the equal treatment of all sapients, regardless of race. But we would be taking over their economy. Working to remove dust from its position as the cornerstone of society to replace it with whatever worked the best for our purposes.
True, doing it this way would mean that they would be freer to make their own decisions in the long run, to explore the vast reaches of the void and find a safe haven from the Grimm.
Of course, that assumed that the Grimm were limited to Remnant.
I hoped they were.
The Grimm were more constructs than anything, and there was no physical reason why they would require the same things we did to survive. I wouldn't be surprised if the purely sustained themselves off of the pain and misery of their victims.
If the Grimm could follow the people of Remnant into space, our plan would fall apart.
Living in space required specific habitats and equipment to protect you from the void. If the Grimm could escape those requirements, they could attack orbital stations with impunity.
Still, we didn't yet have a better plan.