RWBY: Dual Eclipse

"Speech"

'Thoughts'
Line Breaks

Chapter 2: New Awakenings

A new day brought forth new opportunities. For the out of place wanderer, after waking up and taking time to don his usual apparel, he made a mental checklist of goals for today.

Today's goals were to find whatever passed for a cental information hub, maybe a library or somesuch, learn more about wherever it is he landed, and if the circumstances allowed for it, acquire some of the local currency and some supplies.

'Though, if I'm going to be headed to a library or such, they might frown on someone walking in armed to the teeth with visible weaponry. Might want to put these into storage.' Summoning his wings from his back, he wrapped his axe and gun into the right one, sending them away. He pocketed his gauntlets into the inner pockets of his coat, figuring that if he needed them, they'd be readily available. Now came the issue of his left arm - undoubtedly if anyone saw it, it'd give them a mild coronary.

He thought of keeping his left hand pocketed, but sooner or later something might arise that needed his dominant arm. Gloves would potentially do, but he didn't have any spares on-hand to use. Eventually, he settled on using his left wing, transmorphing it to coat his arm and make it look like how it used to, before the incident that resulted in his new transplant. He flexed his fingers a few times as he rotated his wrist around for about five seconds, mainly to test for any issues.

'Looks and feels solid enough.' With that out of the way, he slipped out of the warehouse and within minutes was back in the city proper. Now was the time to find what he sought.

Vale Streets, 8:45 A.M.

Up and down another set of streets he went. Judging from the position of the sun in the sky, it had to be fairly close to 9 in the morning, give or take a few minutes and accounting for the possibility of Daylight Savings, assuming this world practiced such.

As his orange eye flicked back and forth, reading the various shops and other locales seen within this city, he could see the occasional person sending a worried glance his way once again, as if they'd never seen a seven-foot tall guy like him before. He ignored the glances, having had a long time to learn to do so. The words that he could faintly here being murmured, though, were another story. It sounded fairly close to the common languages he knew of, thanks to his various travels, but with the occasional word or phrase mixed in that he couldn't quite decipher. Another thing to research, it would seem.

'Let's see... no... nope... that's a book store, probably frown upon customers just reading there... no... nuh-uh...' Seems this avenue didn't hold what he sought. Time to try another.

Heading down another street, he took a moment to observe the people around him. Most of them seemed to be wearing rather casual clothing for this time of year, though he did notice that a few of the people had some electronic device in their hands, which looked to be a multipurpose phone.

'Wonder what the range is on those...' Continuing on- 'Aha! Here's the place.' It seemed he finally found one spot on his checklist.

The Vale Public Library, as it was so engraved, looked to be about two stories tall, having been erected circa 75 years ago, and had a remodeling / touchup done about 25 years back. From the small throng of people waiting at the front doors, it seems that it had yet to open.

He took this time to look over the people seeking to enter. On a scant few of them, he could see weaponry - a gun here, a pair of daggers there... a noticable lack of protective armor, though, unless it was hidden beneath their clothing. For that matter, said clothing looked more like uniforms one would wear in a profession or at a school.

'Guess I'll learn more about any open-carry policies they have here in a moment.' A few minutes later, and the front doors were unlocked, allowing people in. He remained still, watching as people filtered into the building. There were a pair of security guards there, conversing with the weapon carriers and taking a list of what they were carrying. 'Hm, a check-in station. Makes sense.'

Now it was his turn. In he went, and as the guards looked him over, he reached into his coat, withdrawing his gauntlets, to let the guards have a better look at them. There was a deep gash across both palms, exposing destroyed circuitry.

"The parts I requested won't be in for a while. About the best these can do is punch someone." After sating the guards' curiosity, he was allowed in, though asked to not display them openly, so back into the interior pockets they went.

As he headed into the main foyer, the unmistakeable scent of pages and printed ink hit him. If there was something to be found, then this place had to know of it.

'Where to begin...' Heading towards the back, it was time to see just what this world had under its belt. On his way to start at the back and work his way forward, he sighted what looked like this world's version of computers. Touch-panel interface with a holographic screen, and it looked to be open-access for searching reference materials. 'And it appears to be in a language I can decipher... History would be a start.'

He went right to work, looking up relevant materials for world history, and used a provided piece of scrap paper and a small pencil to jot down the items he felt were the most useful. Scouring the History section once he finished his work at the computer, he nabbed a few books off the shelf and, after finding a spot to sit down at, began to browse through them.

According to the material, this world he found himself in was called Remnant, and it had been a scant 90 years ago that a massive world war took place, one that spanned a good 10 years, only ending when the King of Vale had shown up and ended the fight with his power alone, the other nations of Mantle, Mistral and Vacuo offering up their crowns to him.

'Damn, and a human pulled that off, too. Shame about their short lifespans, though... guy sounds like he'd be an interesting one to learn from.'

However, in the eighty years since that time, even with each nation now becoming its own power and having their own governing body, there were still issues at hand, such as the Grimm, soulless creatures with a distinct appetite for humans and Faunus alike. A few telltale descriptions of these Grimm were provided in the texts.

'Huh, so those obisidian wolves from yesterday were among these Grimm?' Now wondering more about those odd creatures, he made a quick return to the computer and executed a search, locating a few textbooks on the Grimm within an academic section. A quick summation proved that the textbooks were much earlier prints, but for the moment, it'd do.

The creatures of Grimm had been around since time immemorial, and each one took the form of common human fears and superstitions about wildlife, ranging from wolves, bears and scorpions to killer wasps, aquatic life and even birds. Several sketches and a few images were provided about these Grimm as he continued to read through the provided material.

Repeated encounters with these walking masses of darkness had noted their attraction to the negative emotions of their preferred prey, and the Huntsman Academies in each nation were built to train this world's inhabitants in fighting back against these beasts. These monstrosities had many a mystery surrounding them, such as their biology, assuming they had things like organs and skeletal systems and the like, alongside their origins. Attempts to capture and study them went poorly, as most, if not all, simply died in captivity after some scant amount of time. Of course, as he had learned prior, upon expiring in battle they dissolved away, leaving behind nothing to study.

'Almost as if they were tailor-made to cull the population...' He frowned at that thought. What sort of being would create monstrosities that did nothing but destroy? It reminded him a bit too much of the prior world's issues before someone tried to "solve" them, inadvertently making things worse. Shelving the thought, he went to take another look through the computer network. If these creatures were omnipresent, then the native life on this world had to have something that allowed them to fight back effectively, if civilization upon this world had progressed to these times.

A couple of quick searches relating to doing battle against the Grimm soon uncovered something interesting.

Humanity didn't have just their wits and weaponry to curtail the seemingly endless hordes of Grimm. Mining operations had uncovered Dust, nature's wrath in either crystallized or powdered form. With this multicolored wonder of nature providing a wealth of new options, humanity was able to expand further and push the Grimm back. It certainly explained a few of the "Dust for Dummies and other Inadequate Individuals" pamphlets he had seen strewn about several tables.

However, useful as this substance was, allowing for eco-friendly technology to become commonplace alongside new weaponry expansions, it had its limitations, as it was unable to function outside of Remnant's atmosphere, as many failed space exploration attempts would attest to.

'Dust, huh... so that's what that jewelry shop from before was actually selling?' He began to wonder... was this Dust a renewable resource? It would have to be, if the majority of it was split between combatting the Grimm and everyday life, otherwise the population's entire fight... no, their existence, would be one of inevitable loss. One passage caught his eye, stating that Dust wasn't just used in weaponry, whether it be directly infused into its components or consumed as bullets or fuel. Several anecdotes made mention of those whom had managed to fuse it into clothing and even directly inject it into their own bodies... though these were lost arts, as a level of impracticality and a health concern respectively caused them to die off.

Noting this for later, as he'd likely be seeing Dust in action as he spent more time in this world, he moved onto looking up reference materials for more recent events... meaning newspapers and locally produced magazines were the target of this search.

A local newspaper dubbed the Vale Times, which he noted was dated for October 4, in the year 79 P.W., had mentioned that the 40th Annual Vytal Festival was to be held here in Vale in next year's upcoming autumn season, and preparations would soon be underway in the coming months. Concerns, however, were being raised about the festival being a potential target of the White Fang, as what had almost happened in Atlas two years prior.

'A single group causing that kind of alarm?' Now curious about this group, he made a return to the computer to check out whatever reference materials pertained to this White Fang, assuming this place had any.

Nothing came up on the computer's directory, so he had to thumb through more newspapers and magazines to find the information he sought. It was the far back end of the library that had some answers, as a fair amount of old reference materials tended to drift their way back there.

Caught in the middle of all of this were the Faunus, humanoids with a few animal features here and there, ranging from ears, scales and tails to more subtle traits like retractable claws, wings and other biological implements. More often than not they had only one visible trait.

'Explains what I thought I saw both yesterday and on my way up here...'

The Faunus had a shared existence alongside humanity, yet were treated with suspicion and scorn by many due to their exclusive traits. Following the end of the war, they had fought to obtain equal rights as the humans, yet it seems their attempts at gaining equality had mixed results. Several articles showed that while they had obtained citizenship status, a majority of humans within the kingdoms still continued to discriminate against them. Most were content to remain on the island known as Menagerie, though some did try their hands at life in the four kingdoms.

It was due to this increased discrimination that the Faunus right group, the White Fang, had formed. Originally a peaceful protest group lobbying for equal rights, after a change in leadership roughly five years ago, their acts had turned much more violent, and while they had gotten the Faunus the respect and rights they sought, it was more out of fear of retaliation than any sort of actual reform. This change was also signified by the alteration of their sigil. Originally a encircled white wolf's head with an almost melancholy look to it, it was now a blood red wolf's head, eye narrowed and teeth bared, with three slash marks going through it.

Reactions to the White Fang seemed to be mixed, depending on the region. Vacuo, the kingdom which lay to the west amongst a sprawling desert, had a White Fang presence that was essentially nonexistant. Vale, its continental neighbor here on Sanus, was decidedly more mixed on them, having had to deal with a fair number of excursions against the group. Mistral, which lay on the eastern continent of Anima, looked to understand their plight, but not their methods. On the northern continent of Solitas lay Mantle, with Atlas replacing it as the continent's main city. Atlas hated them with a passion, as it seems they'd been at war with the White Fang for quite some time.

'...what a waste. Discrimination over some minor body parts and other skills? You'd think that with a common enemy, one that doesn't give a crap about who or what you are, social reform would do the world a serious amount of good.'

'I'm inclined to agree-' It had taken him a moment to realize that another voice had spoken to him, a feminine voice. He looked around the library-

'Down here.' -only to have his gaze trail down towards his left hand.

'Is that... who I think it is?' Faintly, the outline of a humanoid head could be seen forming right above where the eyeball on the back of his hand would be, if not for the cover his transmorphed wing provided. The only features that could be seen were a pair of red-colored irises and pink-tinted hair. He was rather grateful that he was hidden in the back, lest this raise all sorts of questions from passers-by.

'Kinda obvious, Mr. Raoul.' The feminine voice replied back. 'I mean, no way would I want to stick around in Mita's computer systems- I might've seen something I couldn't unsee.'

'You managed to hang on, even through that warp?' To that, the figure nodded. 'I wasn't even able to sense you at all...'

'Yeah, won't lie, was kinda scared for my after-life there for a while. I felt myself getting seperated, but I was able to cling on, so to speak. Knocked me right out, though.'

'You seem... oddly calm about it.'

'Well, when you're honestly dead-dead, things like emotional responses and the like tend to get a bit muted. 'Sides, we got something a bit bigger to deal with.'

'Indeed. The more I read into things here about this world, this Remnant...'

'Not quite what I was going for, though it is duly noted. What's our situation looking like?'

'Don't quite know how to respond to that yet.' The one known as Raoul shifted slightly. 'Wherever we are in the cosmos, we're well outside communications range with everyone else. It could make contacing them particularly troublesome, much less finding a way back.'

'...kinda wish we'd taken up Dimensional Gate lessons from Atreya and Carl.' The faint figure sighed.

'Hindsight's a regular bitch like that... either way, we're gonna have to establish communications and some manner of forward base, if we're going to be stuck here for a while. Among most of these humans it'd be easy enough to blend in, I just need to keep my wings under wraps... and of course nobody needs to see what this arm really looks like.'

'Though, if these texts were anything to go by, if they do come up you could try to pass as a Faunus.'

'I honestly doubt it'd be that easy.' Shelving the reading material back where he had originally gotten it from, he took a moment to stretch his back. 'Regardless, with this information on-hand getting about should be much easier.' Feeling that this was a good stopping point, he began to leave the current section and headed for another. He scanned over the available titles, but didn't see many more that would help at this moment in time. The figure quickly disappeared from view as he headed towards a more populated area of the library in his search for relevant material to read.

'What makes you say that?'

'The more we know about each major nation on this planet, the better we can blend in and get the information we require, alongside knowing where to go to pick up what we need.' It was as he was looking towards the entrance that something crossed his mind. 'Now that I think about it, are there any major functions that you can access, given your current state?'

'Not too many at the current moment. That warp kinda scrambled things up - give me a little time to get things sorted out.'

'All right.' With his companion fading away, he decided it was time to head out. Now that he knew where to go if he needed to look things up, next on the list was getting some food. A quick check on a nearby clock showed that it was close to two in the afternoon.

Vale City Streets, 2:23 P.M.

With an information hub now established, Raoul was thinking of finding some local currency.

From what he'd managed to gather, both through his research and some casual observation, Remnant's main currency was known as Lien, and it seemed to come in the form of several color-coded cards. There had been attempts at using paper currency and coins in the past, but with rising technological innovations the decision was made to switch over to currency that proved more than capable of surviving the world and its many dangers. A standard currency also made purchases and trading much less of a hassle, as the need for exchange rates was abolished.

Now came the tricky part - how to acquire some. Without any sort of proper identification he wouldn't be able to work for it, and it's not like the Grimm would dump out a whole bunch upon getting killed.

'Guess we'll just have to appropriate some off an unlucky schmuck, assuming nobody dropped any.'

'And how will we do that? I kinda doubt someone would just walk around with a bunch of cash on-hand in broad daylight.' His friend responded back.

'True, but if there's anything I've learned in my travels, it's that nearly every world has its fair share of criminal activity. Money-hungry fools tend to be dime a dozen, and considering how much higher tech this world is, even with those Grimm-things mulling about...'

'...Mr. Raoul, indulge me for a moment. Those Grimm... it was stated that they're drawn to negative emotion, correct?'

'Yeah, that's what those texts said. What of it?'

'If there is criminal activity going around, then they would have to have learned to keep it low-scale, to avoid drawing too much attention. Otherwise I get the feeling that this city would've been overrun long before we got here.'

'Hm, that is a fair point. They'd likely either stagger their attempts, or they'd go after something that wouldn't be missed very much. Either way, it might be a better idea to at least get some kind of hideaway established before I go about cracking skulls open. That warehouse is all right, but sooner or later people will start getting suspicious. Yet at the same time, it's not like there's going to be an abandoned luxury penthouse suite.'

'Either way, it's the best place for now, until we can get a supply base going. There's still too much about this world we don't know yet.'

'Indeed.' Making a turn onto another street, he continued scoping out the city, mainly to find any points of interest... well, that was the plan, until commotion ahead caught his attention.

In front of what appeared to be a store was a massive group of what looked like Faunus, many of them holding picket signs and sounding very cross with whomever or whatever that shop represented. In all he had counted roughly 30 to 40 individuals within the group, and while he was able to discern some traits, namely ears and a few tails, he wasn't going to get the chance to try and tally them up, as Vale Police had arrived to try and quell the situation. He took a moment to spare a quick glance at the storefront. The first thing that stood out was the large snowflake emblem.

'Schnee... Dust Company Outlet Store..' With discretion being the better option, he made for another street, mainly before he could end up getting caught in the potential riot. 'What's got their hackles raised about that shop?'

'A good question... and if I can tap into whatever passes for a network in this city, I might be able to get some information for us on the go. Just a bit more unscrambling and we should be good.'

Off he went to scour the city some more.

Elsewhere...

For the fourth time that day, someone replayed one of the videos making the rounds throughout the news, of the multi-colored sparks seen just outside Vacuo territory yesterday.

They wanted to dismiss this as a mere prank, to think that someone had too much time on their hands and made a spectacle purely for the hell of it.

But something in the back of their mind told them that this was no mere light show put on by someone that had nothing better to do. This was the end result of something big. Notes were being compiled, differences were being singled out... and one major difference was already apparent as another viewing of the videos was being made.

Something nigh-imperceptible flew into the air, and remained there for several minutes before descending. Only two of the videos had managed to capture this detail...

Vale Agricultural District, 5:25 P.M.

Raoul found himself on the far southern edge of the farmlands that he had traveled through yesterday. While a few places of interest were mentally bookmarked during his stroll through the city, it did little to alleviate his current predicaments of no cash. As far as food went, there wasn't much to say on that front either. The sun was already starting its descent into the horizon, giving the likely estimation of it being a fair bit past five in the evening.

"Well, today was a bust." At this declaration, the holo-form from before emerged from his left hand, using a slightly larger projection since they were by themselves. A few more features could be seen, mainly a pair of small red horns that jutted out from her forehead right above each eye, parting some of her hair into a fringe that hung down between them.

"Considering we've only had today to look around, I'd say it's a bit early to call it such."

"Maybe..." He idly rolled his neck, and one could hear a few joints pop.

His companion broke him from his train of thought. "Well, here's some good news. I've managed to unscramble some functions of mine."

"Good news indeed. What all is available for us?"

"Of my original functions, the Usatako Unit is now functioning at full capacity again, which will be quite the boon in long battles. I'm also able to pick up on a wireless signal, but I can't quite patch into it from here - whatever it is, it's in a programming language I'm not familiar with currently. If I had a proxy to work with I might be able to learn more."

"Still, that's a hell of a good start. Anything in your memory files that we could make use of?" It was about ten seconds before she spoke up again.

"Well, when I was last in Mita's systems we had been discussing ways to improve the Item and Soul Divers on board the ship." She disappeared from view, and a 3D image of a machine appeared in her place. It was a small to medium-sized machine, somewhere between the sizes of a shoebox and a standard cardboard box. Its exterior was coated in a dirty white finish. "Their diagnostic files are all within memory, and I do have Atreya's old design here."

"Hm... now you've got me thinking. If sufficient technology exists here that we could replicate Atreya's design, an Item dive would give us all the supplies we'd need."

"The question now is how we get our hands on such technology." The image of the machine dispersed as his companion's visage replaced it. "We're a virtual unknown here, and I get the feeling that this world's technology might not be 1:1 with what we know."

"I know it's a long shot, but it's the best we have right now. There's no satellites, so barring either a freak accident or something else, we can't just toss a message out to our guys and request a pick-up." It was at this moment he thought of them. "Makes me wonder how they're fairing right now."

"You and me both. That said, you think anyone from our side of the cosmos might've landed here, like how our bunch did in the other world?"

"That's a damn good question. We'll have to look into that."

Now was the time to contemplate and figure out their next move. Supplies were a must, and if prior experiences were anything to go off of, a mobile mode of transport would be best. Much as a base of operations would help, one that's planted in a city would eventually get investigated.

With nothing better to do, he wandered off into the wilderness to think this over, as he didn't feel sufficiently tired yet, and figured maybe slaughtering some Grimm would help kick-start his mental synapses.

Present Time, Interrogation Room, 9:49 A.M.

"A companion?" This caught Ironwood's attention. To this, Nelius rolled back his left sleeve after removing the wing-borne coating covering his hand, showing the grafted arm that replaced his flesh and blood original. "What in the world is that?"

"I ended up with this for two reasons... to preserve a life, and preserve knowledge." The eye on the back of his hand glowed slightly, and as he laid his hand down on the table, his companion appeared above the glowing eye. Unlike what had been described in the story, this image of the aforementioned companion was a much clearer one.

"Greetings to you all." Red-colored irises peeked out from behind pink-tinted hair. If one were to assign a skin tone to her, it'd be a standardly fair kind, the sort of skin that remained untouched by the sun. Ironwood had actually moved a bit closer to get a better view of this, a genuine look of surprise on his face.

"This is... Dr. Polendina would be beside himself if he could see this." He could see the look on the scientist's face even now...

"I bet he would, but I believe that could be saved for another time." Ozpin gently reminded the General. "Now then... what came of your excursion?"

"Next up..." Nelius' companion spoke first. "Well, put simply, it was the lynchpin as to why we're still around this Kingdom."

To that, Ozpin merely raised an eyebrow in response.

"Go on." 'I wonder...'

"So I had headed south to parse out my thoughts..." Nelius began...

Chapter 2- Complete