APERTURE

Nothing anyone was trying was working. At this point even Emerald was trying to get communications restored, or at least the broadcast.

"Dammit!" Nora scratched the back of her head. "This is the part where I'd consider my hammer, but I'm trying to think smarter than that." she admitted.

Before they could try to figure things out more, a portal opened behind them, much to their surprise.

"Is that?" Emerald walked over to the strange framed portal that appeared before them.

"That must be what Ruby and the others came up with." Oscar reasoned while examining the portal too and putting his hand to it, stopping before he touched it.

Everyone's gaze fell on Jaune.

"Why are you all looking at me?" the blonde asked nervously as Nora snickered a little.

"WHY ME-!" Jaune screamed as he was shoved through the portal and screamed while he was being pulled through till he touched down on the other side.

Looking around at the strange plane all these portals were in surprised him and he turned back around, taking a deep breath before coming back through. "Yeah, You're gonna wanna see this for yourselves."

Upon entry into this portal hub the group examined their surroundings thoroughly. Emerald stared down into the deep abyss that existed below the platform and spit off the platform.

"That's gross." Nora scoffed, but then did the same with an even bigger loogie, holding an ear out, hoping to hear a splash or something below, but there was nothing.

"Falling's probably not a good idea." Ren remarked while staring down.

"Well it's too late to ask the girls to redo this to fit safety standards." Ozpin remarked as he saw May Marigold leading some Mantle refugees through the first portal.

"This way everyone!" she called out.

"That's it!" Nora punched an open palm. "We can go around and execute our plan the old fashioned way!"

"Good idea, Nora." Jaune nodded. "We'll cover more ground if we split up to get more people."

The others nodded and all raced across the platforms, Emerald pulled herself to a slightly higher platform with her weapon and Jaune glided down to a lower one.

The people gathered in the Atlas subway station were reasonably frightened. Between all that had happened the previous day, the dire warning of their city falling, the ground shaking beneath them, and these strange portals that appeared before them, they didn't know at all who to put their trust in.

One small brave boy decided he'd be the one to make the bold approach with a rock in hand and threw it as hard as he could towards the portal… Just as Jaune was flung through it, the rock hit his head directly. "Ow!" he groaned as the rock thrower winced a little.

"Attention, citizens of Atlas." Jaune produced his Huntsman badge, which seemed to now read as revoked. He grunted and put it away. "My name is Jaune Arc, and if you'll follow me I can lead you all out of Atlas before it falls," he explained.

"Wait, aren't you one of those fugitives the general warned us about!" a man called out from the crowd. This man looked to be of the higher class given his suit and expensive watch.

"I am, but I'm still here to help all of you get out of here before this whole city falls." Jaune explained. "You can either come with me in spite of what the General said, or stay here and fall with the city." Jaune glared forward. "So what'll it be? I just want to help."

Nora wasn't having an easier time getting her message across to the people gathered inside of this mall.

"Come on, if you don't go you'll be stuck here when the city falls! Trust me, please!" She insisted before a Centinel burrowed it's way through a wall and attempted to attack a family of three, this attack was thankfully stopped with a single grenade fired from Magnhild.

"Come on, it's clear that things won't stay safe here forever." Nora slung her weapon over her shoulder as people began to approach the portal.

"Look, you all can just stand around here and argue with me or go!" Jaune was beginning to get real tired of these people not wanting to cooperate with him because of his wanted status.

The boy that had attacked him earlier walked over to him. "Are you really here to help us, mister?"

"Of course." Jaune smiled, kneeling to the boy's level.

He then looked back at the crowd and blew a raspberry out before running into the portal. "Hey wait, be careful in there!" Jaune called out to him as the crowd of people all looked at Jaune who shrugged and followed after the kid.

Upon exiting back through the other side of the portal Jaune was able to see that the others had successfully managed to gather their people to begin walking across the pathways toward the larger portal.

"Everyone keep it moving and stick together!" Nora called out, pointing to the larger portal that the pathway led towards.

"Try to stick to the middle of the paths!" Ren added to his explanation as the people gathered around on his platform started to comply.

Jaune's group of people had finally started to funnel into the portal. "Heh, so the tough love approach was all they needed, huh?" Nora chuckled while walking over to him.

"Yeah… I guess so." Jaune scratched the back of his head before a scream cut off his focus for a moment.

Nora ran to the edge of the platform.

Looking down she could vaguely see someone on a lower platform. It was Cyrus Medori from Team FCSA, he stood up after he was knocked through it.

"Guys!" he called out as Erika was the next knocked through the portal, she backflipped up to her feet.

"That can't be good." Nora transformed Magnhild into it's hammer form and nodded to Jaune.

"You can go help them. I'll make sure things keep going smoothly." Jaune ran through another portal.

Nora jumped from the platform and towards where the four members of Team FCSA seemed to be gathered now, glaring over at the portal they came out of.

Oscar and Emerald met halfway on a larger connecting platform. "How'd you get your group to cooperate?" he asked.

"Oh let's just say…" a hallucination of Ironwood appeared before Oscar. "They have an easier time listening to authority." Emerald dispersed the hallucination. "As far as they're concerned, I'm just one of his people."

She chuckled as Ren walked over, staring up at the larger portal that people were starting to funnel into. "We should probably check things on the other side."

"Good idea." Oscar stepped through the portal first, followed by Ren.

Emerald paused, looking back for a moment, she couldn't help but feel something wrong. She decided to dismiss that feeling for now and proceed with the others.

In the middle of a platform where a particularly larger crowd was walking down, the cloaked Cinder Fall stopped. Her remaining eye scanned around, narrowing at the distant Team RWBY as they were walking with Penny who seemed to be carrying the relic on her person.

They were nearly at the central portal. "You're not leaving that easily…" she muttered under her breath.

A smile formed on her face as well as a fireball in her hand.

The younger Cinder woke up to the smell of burning, a smell she was all but used to by this point. Opening her eyes, she was surprised to find herself not dead, in fact she seemed to be resting in some kind of bed in a dark room.

Standing herself up, she was determined to leave this place of her own accord, that was until the figure that had saved her emerged from behind her. "Cinder Fall…" the voice of Salem spoke up now.

Cinder's eyes went wide as she spun around and her eyes widened in fear of the woman that stood before her. "W-Who the hell are you?!" she asked, reaching for her weapons, but realizing they weren't on her person any longer.

"Are you looking for these?" she asked, holding up the swords now.

"Those are mine!" Cinder yelled and snatched them both from the witch who didn't seem moved by her actions.

"Such simple primitive desires…" Salem spoke towards seemingly no one in the room. "Tell me girl, what is it that you want?"

"What do I want?" Cinder now brandished both of her swords.

"Yes, you heard me." Salem dropped her guard completely despite the fact she had just armed Cinder.

"I want to be free!" she ran forward and ran one of her swords through Salem's stomach, the woman grunted a bit in slight pain while lurching over forward.

"Freedom?" Salem asked. "I can do far more than that." she dissolved herself into a smoke and reappeared behind Cinder, without a single wound on her.

Annoyed, Cinder tried to slice her open, but the wound she dealt immediately closed. "What the hell are you?!"

"It doesn't matter what I am…" Salem answered. "What matters is what I can do for you."

"W-Why do you want to help me?!" Cinder asked, pointing a sword at Salem now.

"I know your story, Cinder Fall. The unfortunate orphan girl who got adopted by the wrong family, who would no doubt go on to die in some fruitless attempt to maintain control of her own life." Salem explained.

"How do you know so much about me?!" Cinder watched as the woman before her produced a small creature in her hands, it was the same Grimm Mouse she had spotted that one time.

"My eyes and ears exist everywhere in this world, girl." the witch explained as the mouse dissolved into a mist now. "Now tell me what it is you desire." she held her mist shrouded hand towards Cinder.

Cinder was mesmerized by the sight before her, the mist swirled in Salem's hand before vanishing entirely.

Hesitantly, the woman's hand reached towards the extended hand… "I want to be strong." She took hold of Salem's hand. "I want to be feared." she looked her in the eyes. "I want to be… Powerful." Those words escaped Cinder's lips as a smile formed on her face. "You're telling me you can give me that?" a slight chuckle escaped out of her now. "I'm listening."

"I'll give you so much more than you know." Salem firmly shook the younger woman's hand while staring at her burning eyes. She had most certainly found her maiden...

Upon stepping through the other side of the portal to Vacuo, Oscar, Ren, Emerald, and the Atlesian refugees were immediately greeted by a strong sandstorm.

"W-Where are we?!" an elderly woman asked.

"Welcome to Vacuo!" Ren gestured out to the desert around them.

"Is the city nearby?!" Emerald asked, hoping for an affirmation.

"I can't tell, the sandstorm's blowing too strong!" Oscar shielded his eyes. "This is bad. With this many people here we're practically sitting ducks till this storm clears."

"Can't Penny dispel this storm?!" Ren glanced back over towards the portal.

"Something's not right." Oscar turned in the direction of the portal as well. "The others should have come through already…" He now ran over to it and jumped towards it to go back through, but he was repelled backwards.

"W-WHAT?!" Oscar walked back over and punched it, getting flung back again. "I don't get it…"

"Ambrosius…" Ozpin's voice spoke in his head. "Someone must have worded something incorrectly."

"Or too specifically." Oscar stood himself up as a distant shriek got his attention.

"What was that?!" A frightened soldier that had gone through the portals asked, aiming his rifle at the sky.

"Grimm." Ren took his weapons out. "Without Jaune here I can't mask this many people…"

"Meaning we're doing this the old fashioned way then." Emerald's weapons transformed into their sickle form.

"Looks to be the case." Oscar readied Long Memory.

Several large Ravagers began to fly towards the crowds of refugees as the trio assumed their battle stances.

Commentary: The title of this chapter is one I'm pretty proud of, and yes I'm sure you can guess where I first ever heard the word Aperture. But it's not just related to Portal, it actually quite literally means "hole", which is the perfect term I'd use to describe these magical portals that appeared out of nowhere to everyone in Atlas/Mantle.

This is the shortest chapter of the whole volume, and well it mainly just covers the start of the evacuation efforts. We're leaving what's happening in the portal world ambiguous here, but let me tell ya... It's getting real wild in there and you'll see that next chapter.

I wanted to have these events in this chapter to sort of just build the tension more, and we also finished Cinder's flashback finally on a very familiar note. If you guessed that I wanted it to end where Volume 3's flashback began, you win a fictitious cookie I have no way of providing to you.

The only other big change I got is the fact that some notable Atlas military people made it through the portal, because I mean there's just a point where ya gotta realize you're on a sinking ship, pride be damned and all that.