AN: I'm actually working on a new fanfic right now, so I didn't expect to release this chapter on schedule. But thanks to a productive writing day and letting this chapter be shorter than usual, here it is.

"The… ghost of a legendary pirate queen?" Ruby said. "That's… well, I guess not too weird, considering who's with us now…"

"Just what makes you different from a living person, exactly?" Yang asked curiously. "You seem pretty solid to me."

The only two members of Team JNPR were sitting on rocks outside the Gold Tartarus. The rest of their group was doing last-minute exercises or other preparations.

Selena waved her hand, causing it to pass through a nearby rock. "Well, I'm what you might call an exception to the rule. I can maintain a solid, visible form if I concentrate, but most ghosts struggle to even be seen. Apparently, it's a matter of how intense the ghost's regrets are…"

Ruby thought about what she'd just learned regarding Selene. While all of Selene's crew would have had regrets when they died, Selene would have had the weight of their deaths on top of her own. After all, she was their captain and the one who'd actually opened the Calamity Box.

"Aside from that, I'm more vulnerable to fire and holy light, so I'd appreciate if you were careful using those around me," Selene continued. "Without a biological body, I'm immune to things like poison, disease and instant death magic. Though that also has its downsides, like being unable to have children… meaning my cover story as 'Selena' is actually impossible."

That caused Ruby to silently glance down at her own mechanical hands. Even with her own modifications, there were ways for her to have biological children if and when she felt like it. Being able to taste life again, yet having that option permanently torn away…

"Well, I've had decades to get used to it," Selene said, appearing unruffled. "So you don't have to worry about me. I'm happy enough with my situation. There's always more of the world for me to explore… but, obviously, that won't matter if the world ends. So, what have you discovered here?"

Ruby and Yang looked over their shoulders, at the massive hole in the world that lay behind them. It was as enigmatic and as terrifying as always. No amount of experience could prevent that.

"We haven't explored much of it yet," Yang replied. "Would've been risky with this few people. But… you've never been in one of these before, have you?"

"No, but I've heard about your previous adventures within the Tartarus," Selene said.

Ruby looked into the massive hole, its bottom completely obscured from sight even though it was a sunny day.

"I'm not sure if 'adventures' is the right word for it…"

"One thing to note is we met White Rabbit the first day we came here," Yang said. "She said some confusing stuff as usual, talking about the correct history and geometry and… well, count yourself lucky you didn't have to meet her."

"Come to think of it, Selene, you've sailed all over the world, right?" Ruby asked. "Have you ever heard anything about the White Rabbit?"

"I can't say I've heard of a character like that," Selene said, rubbing her cheek thoughtfully. "But this world is, to borrow an old expression, a big place. I only explored the seas and the coastlines, and even those still have many secrets I could never discover. And, of course, I never explored beyond this world… until today, that is."

-ooo-

Half an hour later, they'd all finished their preparations. There was still no word about Alice's Mom launching her invasion, so Ruby's group began the long climb down the ladder into the Tartarus..

At the base of the ladder was a sandy desert with cacti, similar to the surroundings of the Tartarus entrance. It was just as blisteringly hot as that description implied.

Fortunately, they came to a metal hallway soon afterwards, and the temperature decreased to a more comfortable level.

"It's truly bizarre in here," Selene commented. "If there are two places with different temperatures, shouldn't there be wind blowing between them?"

"Indeed," Promestein said, holding up some sort of scientific instrument. "That lack of wind is just one of the many mysteries of the Tartarus. Even after two centuries inside one, I'm still searching for answers."

Luka held up a hand to warn the others. "There's a disturbance in the wind—Apoptosis are up ahead."

Most of Ruby's group hid in a nearby room, but it was a bit too small for their entire group. Ren instead opted to turn invisible, while Selene became intangible and hid inside a wall.

A pair of identical Apoptosis passed along the corridor. They were… they were basically the upper bodies of women fused to large harps with strings of blue light. Lacking any kind of legs, they just floated silently over the floor.

Once the Apoptosis were gone, Selene emerged from the wall. "Well… I definitely wasn't expecting that."

"Me neither…" Ruby said, gripping Eclipse Rose tightly. "I sometimes wonder how the Apoptosis ended up the way they are. Was that one originally… a woman who happened to be near a harp, and they got fused together by the Apoptosis Effect?"

Ruby imagined herself falling victim one day, becoming a metallic abomination of scythe blades and gun barrels.

Oh, great. And I was just hoping to be able to sleep without nightmares.

"Anyway, it's time to move on," Alice said.

ooo-

They spent the next twenty minutes carefully sneaking through the Tartarus. Their path took them through lush forests, arid scrubland and zones of eldritch purple. They also encountered three other Apoptosis types along the way.

One was a red-haired woman inside a grey and gold metal capsule, armed with numerous weapons.

Another was an extremely long, fleshy worm that coiled around itself to form the vague silhouette of a rabbit monster, complete with long ears. Despite her lack of any skeletal structure, she could still move around with surprising agility.

The third was… a practically indescribable combination of two different women and machines. Essentially, it was a pair of two heads and chests, each with one arm shaped like a woman's torso made of metal, with the lower body consisting of a large sphere with a single eye and a small, toothy mouth.

Due to preliminary scouting by some of their number, Ruby's group now knew the terrain reasonably well, letting them progress quickly. Still, they couldn't help but feel nervous.

"There's so many of them…" Selene murmured at one point. "And they're the same set of four, copied a hundred times over. It's a scene right out of nightmares."

"And it could still be worse than this," Pyrrha said in response. "In the last Tartarus that most of us visited, there were… holes in the terrain, where it had been eroded away and replaced with…"

"Nothing," Yang said. "Anything that went into one of those holes never came out."

"It seems those existed due to the world on the other end being about to perish," Ilias said. "The absence of those holes in this Tartarus suggests the world on its other end is more stable."

Ruby exchanged glances with Yang. It was clear that the two sisters were on the same wavelength right now.

Weiss…

The third member of Team RWBY hadn't been anywhere around the entrance of the Tartarus, nor was there any evidence she'd once been here. And if Weiss had landed in the Tartarus, she'd certainly do her best to escape it. She might've reached the world on the other side, so it being stable was good news for her survival.

Of course, a world being cosmologically stable didn't mean it wasn't dangerous. The world Ruby had just come from was a good example, being about to enter a new war right after the previous one. And it was always possible that Weiss hadn't landed in this Tartarus.

...I hope she didn't land in the Hellgondo Tartarus. One end of that is in Hellgondo, the other probably in that world the Lilith Sisters come from…

While occupied by such thoughts, Ruby followed the others through the Tartarus.

-ooo-

After going through one of the doors only Luka could open, Ruby's group arrived at the entrance to a castle. Portions of the stone walls were corrupted by purple, but it was unmistakably a castle.

"This…" Ilias said, narrowing her eyes. "It appears to be Remina Castle. Much like in the other Tartarus, a fragment of the town of Remina had ended up here."

There was one guard standing next to the gate. Ruby had no desire to go anywhere near him, but… they had to investigate everything they could.

"Excuse me, can we go inside?" Luka asked, keeping one hand on the hilt of his sword.

"System malfunction," the guard said emotionlessly. "System malfunction."

"...Is he actually a robot in disguise?" Lucia wondered out loud.

Since the guard didn't seem hostile, Ruby's group stepped past him and pushed open the castle doors.

The sight on the other side made them stop in their tracks.

"W-What the hell is this!?" Sonya cried out.

"Please keep your voice down," Hild warned, closing the doors behind them. "The Apoptosis may notice us."

"Why… are all those people…" Jaune said weakly, "stuck… in the walls?"

Guards in armour, servants in uniform, nobles in fancy outfits, humans and monsters alike were embedded in the castle walls. Furthermore, some of them were missing skin in places, exposing the underlying muscle. A few were even missing muscle, exposing the underlying bone. It vaguely resembled insects trapped in amber, but on a bigger and far more horrifying scale.

"W-We have to get them out!" Ruby said.

Yang grabbed Ruby by the shoulder. "Wait, we don't know if this is a trap!"

"H-Hello?" Nora called out. "Can you hear us?"

None of the people in the walls looked at Ruby's group. They just muttered nonsensical words like the guard at the gate.

"...Data frozen…"

"FS067678: Destroyed."

"FS2399401: Deceased."

Or, in the case of one unfortunate soul missing all of his skin, just humming in a strange rhythm.

"...Well, I certainly won't be going into any of these walls," Selene said, trembling visibly.

Promestein took out various instruments and held them up to the walls. The results made her frown.

"I… believe these were once normal people. As for what they are now… I'm not sure."

"Can we pull any of them out?" Ruby asked.

"What if that kills them?" Ren suggested. "Many of them already have injuries that should be mortal."

After some deliberation, they began conjuring up gusts of wind to blow on the trapped people, just to see if they'd budge. None did, nor did any of them stop their weird vocalisations.

Then Luka activated the powers of Sylph and Gnome together, followed by several other people casting protective spells on him. He called out to the nearest person in a wall and—after the typical lack of response—reached out with his sword.

"Sorry for this…"

Luka touched the flat of his blade to a maid's torso. The maid continued babbling and didn't budge from her position. It was as if her body was one with the wall itself.

"...I don't think I can get her out," Luka said. "Not without… cutting her out."

That was met with silence. Ruby glanced left and right, but there were more people stuck in the walls as far as she could see.

"With this density… and based on the size of the castle…" Ruby said. "There must be hundreds… maybe over a thousand of them like this…"

"How could they end up in the walls in the first place?" Sonya asked.

"Maybe… Maybe it's like how the Tartarus have lots of different places all jammed together?" Yang suggested. "And like the Apoptosis being mixes of people with animals or machines?"

Several people gulped audibly. If that was the case, then staying in this castle might cause them to end up the same way.

They began moving through the castle at a quicker pace than before. For the sake of speed, they didn't just avoid all of the Apoptosis in their path. They sometimes killed isolated Apoptosis with a quick blade to the throat, not giving any time to call for reinforcements.

Ruby didn't want to listen to the countless voices from the walls. But if she were to turn off her auditory senses, she—and thus the whole group—would be slightly more vulnerable. She had to listen and so had to take in what they were saying.

"FS0880009: XX Trisomy," said a guard with a skinless face. "Reproduction impossible."

"Experiment was a failure," said a scientist in a lab coat.

"God – was born," said a nurse.

"It hurts," a guard said, still without any emotion. "IT HURTS."

There were so many implications—and explicit meanings—in these words that it was hard to work out what the actual answer was. But none of the possibilities were good.

Weiss… didn't have to go through this place, did she…?

After climbing up a set of stairs and going through a purple cave, they finally left the horrifying ruin of what had once been Remina Castle.

Their new location was the barren stone path in a starry sky. Though mysterious in its own way, at least the only danger here was falling.

"This is the point at which we stop encountering Apoptosis," Luka said, for the benefit of those who'd not been here before. "And at the end is a magic circle that will take us to a new world."

"Again and again, there's new surprises…" Selene said, peering over the edge. "And I used to think ancient insect monsters would be the worst of my concerns…"

They walked along the path towards the end. Ruby saw the usual rock formations and dead trees…

...and, on one of those trees, a message had been scratched into the bark. It was hard to make out against the rough surface, but the handwriting looked familiar.

"Wait!"

As the others stopped, Ruby looked at the message closely. The scratches looked as fresh as if they'd been carved minutes ago, but time might not have any relevance in this place. More important was the meaning of these scratches.

"If you're reading this, let's find our way back to Beacon together."

Tears welled up in Ruby's eyes—a function she'd kept even after becoming a cyborg. She raised her hands to wipe them away.

"She… She did come here…"

"I wasn't sure if she could actually survive on her own," Yang said. "Dammit, Ice Queen, you really are…"

Yang's eyes quivered. She turned away so the others wouldn't see her cry as well.

"A question… is evidence of a long-lost companion reason to feel sadness?" Radio asked.

"I believe this is happiness, not sadness," Hild replied. "Biological beings may shed tears due to several emotions."

"I see… I'll add that to my memory…"

Jaune placed a warm hand on Ruby's shoulders. "It's great news," he said. "Now you have someone… someone to criticise you all the time again."

"Yeah… it's been too long…"

Ruby wanted to activate her Semblance at full bore and hurry to the magic circle. It was possible that Weiss was fighting for her life at this very moment. But rushing alone into unknown territory wouldn't help anyone.

Thus, the group travelled the remaining distance at a brisk walking pace. They found the teleportation circle and stepped on it one by one.

-ooo-

On the other side was bright sun and a sandy desert landscape, similar to that on the other end of the Tartarus. Indeed, this wasn't a world in its death throes.

Ruby's group searched the surroundings, but there was no more evidence of Weiss' presence.

"Now, where would Ice Queen go to?" Yang asked, crossing her arms.

"She'd look for the nearest village or town," Ruby said. "But we can't count on that being the same as in the previous world. Maybe the countries are completely different in this world."

"Maybe this is a world where intelligent life wasn't ever created," Chrome suggested.

"Hmm…" Luka said, holding a hand to his forehead. "According to the spirits, the four elements in this world are vibrant, full of life. I guess that's a good sign, at least."

"We'd get a better picture from the air," Ilias said. "Of course, that comes with the risk of exposing our presence as well…"

Sylph popped out of Luka's body. "You wanna fly up high? Then me too!"

Various protective spells were cast on Ilias, Promestein and Sylph, along with a spell that coloured their bodies bright blue. Then the two angels and one spirit flew upwards, becoming indistinguishable against the cloudless blue sky. A few minutes later, the trio came back down again and returned to their normal colours.

"The only signs of civilisation are to the east," Ilias reported. "Around the approximate location of Lady's Village... no, Succubus Village."

"There's also some signs of battles," Promestein added. "But those are even more distant, too distant to see any details."

All attention focused on Sylph, who appeared to be thinking harder than she ever had before.

"Sylph?" Luka said. "Did you see anything else interesting?"

"Hmmmmmmm… there's something else about the wind in this world…" Sylph replied. "It's kinda… more playful? More like a child?"

"Could this world be younger than ours?" Sonya wondered. "Once we get to that civilisation, we should ask what year it is."

"And how can we get over there as soon as possible?" Ruby asked. "We don't have our ship in this world."

Various suggestions were brought up and then shot down. Eventually, they come up with a compromise between safety and speed.

The two angels and the wind spirit turned blue again, while the others piled into the Pocket House. The Pocket House was shrunken down and picked up by Ilias. Then all three began flying east.

Within the Pocket House, Ruby could only pace back and forth nervously.

Oh, what if Weiss isn't there after all? What if she's mad at us for not coming earlier?

Yang forced a glass of orange juice into Ruby's hands, but the sweet drink could only do so much to calm her down.

Eventually, the Pocket House was set down on the ground and expanded to full size. Its occupants left and the house was shrunken down once more.

Succubus Village lay at the head of a small river, so this region was more lush and green than usual for central Gold. There was even woodland on either side of that river, where Ruby's group had been able to land unseen.

"Alright, here we are," Ilias said.

"Would this friend of yours really be in Succubus Village?" Sonya asked. "The way you've talked about her, I have a feeling she'd take one look at the village and just… move on."

Ruby had a suspicion Sonya just wanted to keep Luka away from the village full of succubi. Understandable, but they had more important concerns right now.

"We still have to ask around to see if Weiss has been seen nearby," Ruby said.

"And we need to learn more about this parallel world," Yang added. "That's the whole point of going into the Tartarus, isn't it?"

"Hold on, there's something else I should mention," Promestein said. "When looking at the village from above, I couldn't see any succubi. The villagers I saw all looked human… though, of course, that doesn't rule out the possibility of monsters or angels disguised as humans."

"Then this might be a completely different village that happened to spring up in the same location," Ren said. "After all, no matter what history this world has had, it's always useful to live near a water body."

"Hmm… let's do this," Alice said. "Since the villagers at least look human, let's send in only the ones who are human or can look like it. The rest can stay in these woods as a reserve force, to hurry out in case of emergencies."

The others agreed with this proposal—quite reluctantly, in Sonya's case. Thus, a group of Ruby—after adjusting her skin to look like biological skin—Yang, Team JNPR minus Pyrrha, Luka, Sonya, Lucia and Selene headed out of the woods and to Succubus Village.

AN: Adding Selene to the party wasn't in my original plans, but now that I have, she seems to be working well. The main downside is that it increases the number of characters again...

Anyway, please remember to leave a review if you liked the chapter and/or have suggestions.