"James… If I may, what exactly are we looking at here?" Glynda asks as she fixes her glasses, staring (with one eyebrow raised up) at the metal contraption glinting with the midday sun Ironwood just parked near the walls of Beacon Academy behind Ozpin's office.
Because nobody really goes there, right? At least, not on purpose, right?
"About nine months ago, we discovered a viscous, blue liquid. When mixed with water and given enough kinetic energy via Dust, it has a special property that allows instantaneous transportation of goods and gears. You may even call it teleportation," Ironwood explains as he pulls up his scroll and projects a video to Ozpin and Glynda, showcasing half a dozen researchers working on miniature versions of the cylindrical machine Ironwood brought.
The muted video starts with focusing on one of the two teleporters, the research team is putting in crates full of robotic parts, various elemental dust bottles, and even a chair. As soon as the team exits the machine, the feed zooms out to a wide shot of the two teleporters separated by a wall. To ensure validity and transparency, the team approaches the second teleporter and proves it to be empty inside. Manually closing the hatch of both teleporters shut, the lights dim as a lever is pulled and some buttons are pushed, both teleporters slowly light up a few seconds later. In a bright flash of yellow light, the teleporters have suddenly died down and the lights of the laboratory return to their original brightness, the team opens up the first teleporter that they went into a while ago to show that the aforementioned items have now disappeared without a trace even as they inspected the inside of the teleporter. Upon exiting, they check the second teleporter to show that the contents inside are exactly the same as what was in the first teleporter.
"Very impressive work," Ozpin comments, "and you brought the final product here for all four kingdoms to use freely?"
"Well, not exactly, Oz," Ironwood replies, earning a questioning look from both Glynda and Ozpin, "see, when you brought up your concern about how… Imposing it is to bring entire ships full of armies in a time of festivity as well as how my tactics need a more subtle approach, I remembered that among the things I brought here, I had experimental technology. We were planning to test the teleporters to see if they can handle transporting loads across continents. And with prototypes of this size, we would also simultaneously attempt to teleport armies of Atlesian Knights and even an Atlesian Paladin alongside other things."
"James, you haven't attempted to teleport animals or even people, have you?" Ozpin follows up.
"I've been advocating for minimizing the need for living casualties in the battlefield, and I shall approach research projects like these the same way. Don't worry."
"And I assume you're not going to leave this machine out here in the back exposed to the weather?" Glynda asks.
"Of course not. With your approval," Ironwood gestures to both of them, "I am hoping there will be a strategically advantageous place for the teleporter. With more major improvements and additional failsafes, we could ensure that none of your students will set the machine off and get themselves teleported across continents by accident."
"Hmm…" Ozpin ponders on this for as long as two sips of his coffee before deeming it a safe move, "very well, general. A couple more questions about this mysterious liquid while we look around… What else is there to it? Does it have a name? Is it so abundant that you were able to repeatedly experiment on it?" Ozpin queries as he starts walking away from the machine and the area in general.
"It doesn't have a name yet, but what we do know is that this doesn't classify as Dust of any conventional form. We also have to securely lock the teleporters and include a drainage system because the mixture has a tendency to leak out and trap up foreign objects before vanishing into thin air. So…" Ironwood rambles on with Glynda walking close behind the two of them.
"ZWEI! COME BACK HERE!" A young girl shouts as she sprints out into the open, the only people with a dog roaming around the school grounds nowadays would be none other than the crimson-cloaked reaper, Ruby Rose, and her blonde brawler of an older sister, Yang Xiao Long.
"Ruby! … I knew I should have told dad to bring a leash for Zwei," Yang mutters as she jogs close behind, with Weiss (willingly) and Blake (reluctantly) in tow.
"That dolt should have bought one herself by now!" Weiss complains.
Meanwhile, far ahead, Ruby zoomed ahead with her semblance, appropriately named Petal Burst, leaving trails of rose petals spinning about in the air. As she landed, she saw Zwei's tail just before he disappeared behind the school building.
"This is your bathroom break, not playtime, Zwei. Come on," Ruby whimpers as she gets closer, she then sees a huge cylindrical machine towering about five or six times taller than her. The machine's interior is wide enough for her to run around in as well.
"Whoa…" Ruby gasps in awe before-!
"Ruby!" Ruby hears all three of her teammates shout, breaking her out of her trance.
"Guys, look what I just found," Ruby starts, pointing to the teleporter.
Yang whistles in amazement, "well, would you look at that."
Weiss responds with, "Atlas military tech? What's it doing here?"
"Think they're giving us bunkers… Or free saunas?" Yang replies.
Blake eyes it suspiciously before warning, "we should probably take Zwei and just go. If we get caught, we won't be able to explain whatever happens to the machine."
BARK! BARK!
Looking back down, they see Zwei already nearing the machine.
"Better close the door," Ruby says as she presses a big red button near the entrance, resulting in a small hiss and maybe a low rumble, but no sliding doors, latches, or hatches closing.
That button was not for the door.
Bark!
Zwei has now entered the machine and has gone into the far end.
"Zwei… No running around in the mysterious-machine-that-could-get-us-in-trouble…" Ruby warns as she enters the humming machine as well to pick him up.
The machine starts powering up with Dust and illuminating as it should.
Zwei starts staying very still. As Ruby commanded. But then Zwei starts lifting one of his hind legs up.
Tissssssssssssssssssss~
Uh oh.
Then Ruby sees transparent pipes on the floor filling themselves up with water mixed with drops of blue liquid and cackles of electricity as it should.
"ZWEI!" Ruby shouts as she picks him up and scolds him before trying to run out.
Finally, the mixture starts pouring out of the pipes, filling the floor and leaking out of the teleporter… Not as it should.
"RUBY!" Yang, Weiss, and Blake shout out, with Yang rushing in as well, avoiding most of the liquid. Ruby's boots splattering the blackening mixture with each step until it became more viscous and harder to get out of. Eventually, even her cape is gradually getting soaked and stuck.
"OH NO!" Ruby exclaims, Zwei lets out a whimper before being told by Ruby, "Hang on, Zwei!"
The substance is now GLOWING, streaks and strokes of color seemingly growing bigger within the mixture. She goes for a last ditch effort by hugging Zwei and using her speed semblance to force herself out, but the tar-like substance traps her and they fall flat on the floor.
But what happened next was horrific to everyone else, Ruby and Zwei just sunk into the floor. Seamlessly.
The trio could not believe their eyes. But they soon will have to because as soon as the other two watch Yang take one step into the colorful tar leaking out near the entrance, she too has sunk into the liquid, nearly headfirst, similar to how one accidentally misses a step in the stairs and trips and falls down.
"YANG!" Weiss shouts, using her white glyphs to launch herself into the air and reach out for Yang's outstretched hands. As soon as Yang grabs hold, Weiss summons another glyph mid-air pointing to Blake and tries to propel the two of them to safety.
Blake helps out by unsheathing her weapon and transforming her katana-pistol into a kusarigama-pistol. She then wraps the ribbon around her hand before hurling the pistol at Weiss, who then catches it with her free hand.
Unfortunately, the liquid keeps flowing out and spreading towards Blake whereas Blake herself can't budge even when she's pulling her hardest.
"It's not working! It's like something's sucking Yang in harder than we can pull!" Weiss shouts.
But Blake is not out of options.
"Weiss!" Blake calls out.
"What?"
"Aim my gun towards the sky and start firing! We have to call for help!"
Weiss complies, readjusting her hold on the weapon.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
Right after the third shot, Blake's left leg starts losing its footing as it slowly dips in the liquid.
"Gah!" Blake buckles under the pressure and falls in as well. Weiss, refusing to let go of either hand, gets dragged in as her glyph falters and vanishes.
Once all four huntresses (and one dog) get sucked into the portal, the machine powers down and so does the energized liquid. In the next instant, the tar-like substance convulses and sublimates into thin air as if nothing happened.
Nothing except the faint whiff of a canine's urine that tampered the teleporter.
Ruby falling down into an abyss isn't the most accurate way to describe her experience. It's as if the gravity was heavier, the air thicker even as she hyperventilates, her vision blurring in an attempt to take in the sight of her environment which is covered top to bottom in a dark pool of liquid that pulled her in.
Ruby reached out for her weapon behind her, Crescent Rose, and expanded it into it's scythe form. She checks to see Zwei tucked under her, aims her sniper-scythe below her, and starts firing her way upwards.
It's not working. She's only resisting the pull, but not stopping or going up.
Ruby squints her eyes as she looks around again, focusing this time. Amidst the glowing void, she notices that some of the green streaks and strokes of colors are actually jagged and rigid. Almost like the sides of a cliff or a mountain.
Maybe.
Ruby winds up her scythe and swings it to the side.
CRACK!
Her scythe made solid contact with one of the edges, hooking her in place. She braces for impact as her momentum drives her towards the cliffside. It was a hard bump and her aura did flicker just a teeny bit, but no major injuries.
"YES!" Ruby exclaims in triumph.
Crumble… Crumble… Crumble…
Looks like it's too much to handle.
Ruby starts swinging her feet around to try and find footing among the juts of "rock" as Crescent Rose is slowly cutting through the cliff it was hanging on by sheer force of weight.
Ruby's feet finally found something to step onto. But her hands haven't found something to hold onto yet.
That's when Ruby hears another scream. An oddly familiar feminine echo.
"RUBY!" The echo calls out, and that's when Ruby recognizes it. Yang.
BARK!
Zwei responds from Ruby's hug.
Upon turning her head up, Ruby sees a blur of yellow fall down accompanied by a white dot and a white scribble, the former Ruby could guess is Weiss while the latter is Blake.
"Guys! I'm here!" Ruby calls out, she readies her knees for a good jump, tucks Zwei tightly, unhooks Crescent Rose, and activates her semblance one more time upwards, gambling with the last good chunk of her aura left.
It doesn't work though, as Ruby merely sped sideways and she crashed into another cliff across her.
Hitting her head too hard this time with her aura depleted, Ruby's consciousness fades just as fast as her fall as she accidentally loosens her grip on Crescent Rose and just proceeds to fully wrap her arms around Zwei.
The glowing streaks and strokes of color and jagged green start being obscured by Ruby's own eyelids closing. The last thing she saw that stood out were the red of her scythe, Yang's yellow hair, Weiss' pure white clothes, and Blake's silhouette.
And so she kept falling…
And falling…
And…
Falling…
…
…
…
Ruby feels uncomfortable all of a sudden, so she tries to turn to her side. Which she can easily do all of a sudden.
Something cold and wet is on her forehead as well.
Was it just a bad dream? Am I having a fever?
Groaning at the pain of her head, neck, and back, she keeps her eyes shut and croaks out, "Yang?"
No response.
"… Weiss?"
No response.
"… Blake?"
No response.
"… Zwei?"
A faint bark can be heard. Ruby finally faces back up and has the strength to open her eyes.
The first thing she sees is an unfamiliar room. It's neither the white ceiling of her school dorm nor the wooden planks of her family home. Surrounded by walls of dull medieval red, and a bricked ceiling, Ruby glances down to see herself without her cloak and on a purple bed and blinks several times.
"Ugh… Uh… Dad?"
No response. Ruby notices that on her left are several posters, banners, picture frames, and books, none she recognized would come from Yang, or anybody she knew for that matter. She turns her head to her right.
"… Uncle Qrow?"
As soon as she cranes her head to the right, she sees a pale girl.
Not the sickly pale, and definitely not as pale as her or Weiss.
She has aquamarine hair, but it's brown near the roots
Does she dye her hair?
And her eyes are like…
Penny's? Pyrrha's? Not quite. Blake's…? No… These eyes are duller than Blake's, so… Gold? Yeah.
A pale girl with golden eyes and two-toned hair, mainly aquamarine but brown at the roots.
Ruby would've tried to describe her some more were it not for two overly familiar things catching her eyes: her red-hooded cloak being worn by the pale girl, and Zwei being carried by her as well.
"Uh… Who?" The girl slowly asks Ruby.