Chapter One: Strange dreams and stranger feelings
Ruby tossed and turned in her sleep. She was having the same dream that she had been having for the past two and a half weeks; a strange blue sky with a whole moon and machines in many different shapes and sizes.
Some were landbound, but others took to the skies and prowled the waters of this strange place. And the girl…the girl was the most prevalent thing in her dreams, flaming red hair that was elaborately done, piercing green eyes, and a bow in her hands with an arrow nocked and ready to fire.
She waited patiently for a strange bipedal one that had a blue light as an 'eye' to pass before she quickly fired an arrow at it, which got its attention. As it approached where she was hiding in tall red grass, she silently grabbed her spear before thrusting it into the spot where she had fired before, and the machine collapsed with a soft whirring.
In another moment the girl approached a sizeable herd of machines that looked like deer, she heard a roar as a large cat-like machine pounced.
The dream ended there and Ruby shot up in bed, her face dripping with sweat. Every night the dream had different machines, and it always ended with the strange girl getting ambushed and Ruby waking up in a cold sweat.
For some reason, the dreams didn't feel like they were just dreams. They were impossible, yet the dreams were so vivid. So real. Too real.
They had stopped the attack on Haven and would be heading to Atlas, once Qrow and Ozpin deemed them ready to travel. Team RWBY was finally reunited, Blake had rallied the Faunus and had come to Haven's aid, and the school was saved. The school had lost its headmaster and a great deal of its staff. But others would take up the mantle and rebuild the areas that had been damaged in the fighting between them, Salem's group, and the Branwen tribe.
For now, all team RWBY and JNR, as well as Oscar, could do was take the time they needed to prepare for the trip to Atlas. Blake introduced or reintroduced them all to Ghira, Kali, and Ilia.
Ilia was a bit taken aback by how much of a non-snob Weiss was. However, once it was explained to her that Weiss was not her father's daughter, she turned a deep shade of red and pink in embarrassment. Weiss wasn't offended at all by Ilia's assumptions since they were well-founded, if no longer correct.
She had admitted that she had grown a great deal from the day she left Atlas, as Ruby pointed out how haughty and entitled Weiss had been at first but was now her bestest friend ever. Which earned her a glare and a brief remark from the ex-heiress about how her manners still needed improvement.
The dreams had started two days after Yang had come out of the Vault with the Relic. Ozpin, and hence Oscar, had kept it close and didn't let it out of their sight. Ruby was half-convinced that it was the reason that her dreams had started, but she was sure that Qrow wouldn't understand. And Ozpin, while he was wise, was preoccupied with other things currently.
Ruby hadn't told anyone that she was having strange dreams though she had run into Ilia on the balcony, and she had just guessed that something was bothering her. Turns out she wasn't the only one who had trouble sleeping but her shyness, and Ilia's quietness, prevented them from actually talking. So, after the initial conversation, they just sat together in silence until one of them drifted back to their bed.
Soon, the day finally arrived for their train to Argus. Which would lead them to Atlas and was met with various forms of approval by the seven teenagers. Weiss wasn't happy about it, but she understood that it was necessary so after a couple of complaints she didn't bring it up again. After the few sealed crates of Dust that were needed were sent to the station ahead of time, they all headed off.
Qrow decided to keep the others in line while Yang wanted to make sure that no one scuffed, scratched, dinged, or otherwise damaged Bumblebee, which earned a teasing remark from Nora about not wanting her bike stolen. Yang nodded thoughtfully as Ruby called shotgun and hopped behind her sister.
When they arrived and the bike had stopped moving, Ruby had immediately zoomed off to get Yang a gift and had been teasing her sister with it for the past ten minutes. "C'mon Rubes, just show it to me."
"Nope! You'll have to wait and see!" Ruby said as Yang tried to catch her before she zoomed away using her semblance.
She circled where Weiss, Nora, Oscar, and Jaune were sitting and laughed softly while Weiss rolled her eyes, though a small smile was on her lips. "What a waste of time."
"I can't believe we get to travel to Argus by train! The beautiful northern coastline! Oh, Ren! Do you think it's too early to go to the beach?" Nora asked, dodging Ruby and Yang as she ran up to her best friend.
Ren had come back with enough drinks for all of them. He nodded and started handing drinks out to everyone, with the exception of Qrow and Blake who were both elsewhere in the station. "Unfortunately, but we will be one step closer to Atlas."
Ruby picked up on her partner's sense of unease as the sisters stopped running around and took a sip of her hot chocolate. "I know you're worried, Weiss, but Team RWBY won't leave your side for a second! I promise!"
"Thank you, Ruby. I appreciate it." Weiss gave a small smile, before Ruby's vision went fuzzy for a second and she grabbed her head.
"Ruby? Everything okay?" Oscar asked as he looked at her. She could almost hear the concern in Ozpin's voice as well as Oscar's own.
"Y-yeah, I'm fine, Oscar… thank you for asking." Ruby could've sworn that in that disorienting moment she had seen herself not in the train station, but a snowy forest at night. She shook it off quickly and took another sip of cocoa as Qrow finished dressing down the two 'Huntsmen' that would be guarding their train.
"You know… for as annoyed as I get with this whole thing sometimes, I'd rather do it than have those slackers do it," Weiss said to unanimous agreement.
Qrow fiddled with one of the rings on his fingers before he looked at the drinks that everyone had. "What? Couldn't get me one?"
"You weren't here though. How were we supposed to know what you wanted?" Yang asked, which was met with a frown and a click of his tongue.
"Touché. Is everything ready to go? Bike loaded up?" Qrow asked as everyone nodded again.
"Just waiting on Blake, as usual," Weiss said, her voice mostly joking.
"Good, I'm going get myself a coffee… I'll be back before the train leaves." Qrow put his hands in his pockets and sauntered off.
"I'll be right back," Ruby quietly said to Oscar before she made a Semblance enhanced dash into the nearest lady's room which was thankfully empty. After splashing her face with water multiple times, she finally got the courage to look up and saw her reflection, except it wasn't her as she was now.
In the mirror, she had gained at least an extra foot in height so now instead of being 5'4", she was closer to 6'4", which made her taller even than Yang.
Her hair was a lot longer than it was now. When Ruby moved, she saw that it went down her shoulders and partly down her back.
She could see that there was a small triangular piece of metal resting on her ear and wondered what it was.
The mirror version of her had two scars on her right cheek as well as three over her left eye.
Her hair was now completely black and had a couple of strings of beads in it. Some of her hair was braided but most of it was left untouched.
On her right cheek was a tribal triangular design in blue paint. Upon a closer look, Ruby could see that each of the three larger triangles that made up the design were themselves hundreds of smaller blue triangles that were interconnected with each other at their points.
Running vertically down over her left eye until her neck were two tribal lines, one brown and one white. Unlike the triangle design on her cheek, they were very simple. A bow rested on her back along with a spear. Crescent Rose was nowhere to be seen. When she turned, her mirror-self turned with her.
When Ruby looked down, she blushed as she noticed that her mirror-self had a rather full chest, not dissimilar to Yang's. The top was similar to how her older sister had started dressing ever since Beacon had fallen. Still stylish, but no longer flaunting her assets just because she could. Ruby rather liked how it looked if she was being honest with herself.
The armor was a mix of metal and what looked like leather. It was all brown, blue, and occasionally purple. Her current ensemble of a corset, blouse, combat skirt, and of course, her cloak were all replaced by a form-fitting leather chest plate that had a thin, see-through, metal mesh on the sides, leather pants with pouches, and metallic armguards.
"Ruby, what's taking so long? The trains about to get going." Yang's voice called from outside. "Do you need me to come in there?"
"No, Just a minute!" Ruby called back before she washed her hands for effect then exited the bathroom.
"Oscar said you went in there a while ago. Are you sure everything's okay?" Yang asked, tilting her head as she did.
"Yeah, everything's fine, Yang. I promise."
"Hmm, okay," Yang said, a fake smile on her face. She could tell that everything was definitely not alright with her baby sister but she knew that Ruby was just as stubborn as she was and if she didn't want to admit anything was wrong then she wouldn't but Yang would stay close to her regardless.
Ruby took a deep breath and tried to shake off what she had seen before she started walking back to the group. As she got closer to the group, she could hear a faint voice in the back of her mind. It was as if it was calling someone, calling her.
She winced softly as the voice slowly got louder the closer she got to the Relic. She couldn't hear what the voice was saying, but she could tell it was feminine and almost ethereal.
She forced the feeling down until they had begun to board the train as her vision started to swim again. She put a hand on her head and instinctively grabbed Yang's hand and gave it a squeeze.
Yang looked down at her sister. "Ruby, what's wrong? Sis?"
"Kid, you okay?" Qrow asked once he had pushed his way back to his nieces. Yang's eyes were full of worry as she shielded her sister from the back instinctively.
"I-I dunno. I-I just feel weird... The Relic feels like it's calling to me." Ruby said quietly before she slumped over into Yang's arms.
Qrow lightly rested his palm on Ruby's forehead and her skin was cold, really cold. A lot colder than it should've been for having been in a heated train station. It was as if his youngest niece had been out in the Atlesian tundra for hours without her Aura.
Yang was barely able to keep herself from freaking out about the fact that her sister was unconscious and freezing cold. As soon as they were all on board and the other passengers had gone on ahead, she dropped to her knees.
"Ruby? Ruby? Ruby!?" Yang gently shook her sister before her whole body glowed yellow and Ruby's glowed red. The older sibling's eyes rapidly changed between red and purple before fluttering to a close.
After several very tense seconds, they opened again. "I-I gave her a large portion of my Aura… hopefully that helps her wake up soon."
She turned her attention to Oscar. "Ozpin, I know you're listening. Do you know what happened to her? What the hell did the Relic do to my sister?"
Oscar's body slumped for a second before an older, wiser, voice left the fourteen-year-old, farmhand and he shook his head. "I confess, I am at a loss. They are by nature inert until they are directly called upon, and gaining a response may happen only once in a lifetime. I am rather familiar with this one in particular and not once has it acted of its own accord as Miss Rose described. Even if it did, Ruby's experience would have been a mere instant, vivid, and without question. Instead, your sister seemed very disoriented and confused."
Yang frowned but she reluctantly accepted what the former headmaster said. "Guys, I think we should go to our rooms and put our things down…Then I think it's a good idea you tell us about the Relic. That okay, Oz?" Yang's voice was soft but sharp as she used his nickname. Her tone made it clear she wasn't so much asking as telling.
"It is, Qrow and I can find a lounge for us to talk if there is one. I think your plan is best, Miss Xiao Long." Ozpin nodded and let her decide what they would do.
Getting into an argument was something he'd rather avoid at the present time.
Once Blake and Weiss had put their bags down and given Yang soft hugs, they left her alone. Yang gently kissed her sister's forehead and then laid hers against it.
"Please sis, please wake up soon. Please wake up." The fact that Ozpin didn't know what was going on with her baby sister scared her more than she would've admitted.
She cradled Ruby in her arms and hummed a soft lullaby. It was their special one, the one she only used in really upsetting situations like when Summer died. Right now, this definitely qualified as a really upsetting situation.
When the lullaby was finally over, Yang reluctantly put Ruby back on the bed and got up. "I love you, Ruby. Always have, always will. Please wake up soon." She gave one final look at her baby sister before she closed the door to the sleeper cabin and went to go to get answers.
Aloy's body felt like it had been run over by a herd of Grazers, and her head pounded with a headache. She slowly got up and rubbed her temples with her thumbs. It took her more than a minute before she registered that she wasn't where she had collapsed, and where she had ended up was very different than where she had been.
A look out of the window showed a snowy forest. Aloy wasn't sure where she was, but wherever it was, it was moving and fast. She patted her body to make sure that she had everything that she had had before. "Yup, my arms and legs are still here… well, that's obvious, but still." She ran her fingers across her head and frowned when she discovered her Focus was no longer on her ear
The Seeker began to panic and look for the device before a memory flashed and she frowned. "That creature... it must have knocked it off my ear. My spear is gone too… that's right I dropped it before I collapsed."
As the girl was lost in thought, the door opened, and she was met by the sight of three teenagers. The blond-haired, lilac-eyed girl reacted first and activated a gauntlet that covered her arm. Aloy noticed that she had a metallic arm, and the black-haired girl had… cat ears?
Once Ozpin told them about the Relic, the rest of team RWBY had wanted to check on their leader, sister, and partner. What they weren't expecting was the fact that Ruby was gone and that a new girl, unfamiliar to any of them would be looking at them curiously.
Aloy scanned the three. The blonde seemed to be the leader of the trio, so if she told her companions to attack, they probably would. She slowly put her hands up to show them that she had no intention of attacking them. The machine hunter knew that she would be able to fire off a shot quickly, but she wasn't going to provoke a fight if she could avoid it
The remaining members of team RWBY looked at each other, hands hovering near their weapons, but they didn't draw them. "Who are you, and what have you done with my sister!?" Yang asked her lip curling into a snarl.
Aloy understood what the girl was saying, though it took her a second to process the words through the girl's accent. It was faint, but Aloy could tell that it was there. Erend, Avad, Helis, and all the Banuk that she met on her journey had had thicker accents than the girl, so it wasn't as difficult to understand her as it was any of them.
[One moment I was delving through an Old One ruin, and then I was fighting unconsciousness to find myself here. Wherever here is.]
Aloy said as her hands remained where they were, but she slowly moved her head to look outside the room's window. Wherever this thing was going, it reminded her of The Cut, the Banuk territory that was once Yellowstone.
Yang, Blake, and Weiss looked at each other. The girl's accent was pretty thick, so it took each of them time to realize that wherever she had been before, she hadn't planned on ending up on the train to Argus.
"Weiss, Blake. What do you think of her?" She whispered to her team, as she turned to them, keeping one eye on the stranger, they huddled up in a triangle, that way they could each watch her.
Blake spoke first. "She hasn't done anything to suggest that she is a threat. Not to be macabre or anything, but I highly doubt she killed Ruby. There's no blood, no sign of anything being out of place. I understand that Ruby wasn't feeling well, but there would still be something if this mysterious girl had done anything."
Weiss nodded. "I concur, she doesn't seem to know where she is or even who we are. There's no advantage to killing Ruby, none at all."
Yang's anger faded, but only enough that it was replaced by the worry over where Ruby was. She took a deep breath before she deactivated Ember Celica and looked at the girl, who hadn't moved.
The brawler stood up and looked at her. "I'm not going to lie; I don't trust you. But, whatever, you're here. So, should I call you Stranger? Or do you have a name?"
The old her would've attacked without a second thought, but her training taught her that throwing a punch didn't always have to be the first thing for her to do.
Besides, Blake and Weiss were right, the girl standing in front of her hadn't made a single threatening action the entire time, and she hadn't seemed to recognize any of them.
When the blonde spoke to her, once she figured out the accent Aloy slightly moved one of her legs forward. [Aloy, my name is Aloy. What should I call you three?] She motioned to the three of them.
It didn't take much to realize that 'Aloy', as she called herself, was asking for their names. Yang pointed at herself, "Yang Xiao Long."
Weiss did the same thing that Yang had done. "Weiss Schnee, a pleasure, I suppose." She said with a slight nod to Blake.
Blake's cat ears lowered slightly before she spoke. "Blake, Blake Belladonna." Her amber eyes met Aloy's and stayed there.
Aloy's brain picked up on the fact that 'Weiss' and 'Blake' had different sounding accents than 'Yang'. They were faint as well, but she definitely noticed that they were there. She figured that they were from different tribes, though Blake's cat ears still confused her.
When there was a scream, Aloy's instincts told her something was wrong, so she unslung her bow from her back. And, nearly ran into an older man whose clothes were wrinkled, his hair was oily and lazily slicked back. His breath stunk of old alcohol.
They looked at each other in wary shock before Yang came out. "What's going on?" She asked Qrow.
"Grimm, grab your weapons! Who's this?" He pointed at Aloy.
Aloy actually had an easier time understanding him since he didn't seem to have an accent at all. She didn't doubt that he had one, but she couldn't pick up on it. Aloy wasn't sure what a Grimm was, but she was about to find out.
"Later, we have bigger things to worry about. C'mon, we have a train to protect." Yang said as she beckoned Aloy to follow them. She didn't trust Aloy, but right now dealing with Grimm was the priority, so she forced herself to push her mistrust and her worry for Ruby aside in order to focus on the Grimm.
Aloy followed the four of them to a ladder with a hatch above it. When the man pushed it open, there was a rush of cold air, so it was safe to assume that it led outside.
When Aloy got outside, she saw creatures that looked similar to the one that she killed back in the Old One ruin. These had wings and looked more like Ravagers than the wolf-like one from the ruins. "So, these are Grimm. Interesting."
She pulled out three Blaze arrows and let them soar through the air, they landed in one of the Grimm's wings, and the Blaze ignited them as the creature screeched in pain.
Aloy's zone of focus was on the creatures that were called Grimm. She noticed but didn't spare a second glance at the fact that the five of them were joined by three more boys and a girl.
She soon found out that her regular arrows couldn't pierce the white armor that surrounded the Grimm's gleaming red eyes, but her Hardpoint arrows, usually used to rip plating off machines, could pierce the armor, so she quickly alternated firing those, her Blaze, and her Chill arrows.
Aloy fired off one last shot as she heard a shout, and her fighting companions scrambled to the hatches that led to the top of the train. She realized they were quickly approaching a tunnel, she slung her bow on her back, before sprinting to the closest one and doing a running slide into the hatch.
She quickly managed to regroup with the others who were crowding around a brown-haired man with a broken arm. Aloy had seen many strange things on her journey, but when the blonde-haired boys started to glow white, she thought she was still asleep for half a second.
"Um, Yang. Who's that?" Jaune asked as he used his Aura to amplify Dudley's. His voice was softly accented, it sounded very faintly like Erend's own accent, but Aloy wasn't sure if it was her imagination.
"Oh, right." Yang looked at her and pointed to the small group that she had been addressing. "Go on. introduce yourself, I'm not going to do it."
Aloy rolled her eyes. "Of course, That would be too easy." She thought to herself with a faint hint of amusement.
[I'm Aloy. It's a pleasure.] She kept it simple.
It didn't take long for Ren, Nora, and Oscar very long to figure out that she had said her name and a short greeting. To Ren and Nora, she sounded almost like she was from southern Mistral, and thanks to Ozpin, Oscar barely had time to register that Aloy had an accent at all.
"Right, well if I may ask, how did you come into contact with Aloy? And where is Miss Rose?" Ozpin asked once he had taken control of Oscar's body.
"We have bigger things to worry about. Believe me, I don't want to think about anything but my sister. Right now, the Grimm come first on the priority list. It's what Ruby would say." Yang cut Qrow off just as he was about to say something.
That didn't deter her uncle. "Oz, I agree with her. we can worry about that after. I don't like it but Firecracker's right. Our duty comes first."
Aloy's attention had been drawn to the lamp that rested on Oscar's hip as the conversation moved away from her introduction to the four, something drew her attention to the thing. She felt like she was experiencing a faint pull towards it. For a split second, she thought she could smell roses and stale air.
The pull was broken when Yang, Blake, Weiss, Qrow, and the smaller black-haired boy started to move away from their companions. [I'm assuming there's some sort of plan?] She asked Qrow as she put her hands on her hips.
Once he navigated past the accent, he nodded. "We're splitting up. The six of us are staying here with the Relic and those three are going to make sure the train gets to Argus."
He waved a hand to the group that had stayed behind. While his niece, her team, and their friends were trying to figure out a plan after Ozpin told them the Relic attracted Grimm. When he mentioned Aloy and asked if she should know, Ozpin had nodded.
Ozpin highly doubted that Aloy was a spy for Salem considering the strange events that had happened to Ruby had preceded Aloy's arrival. He also pointed out that Aloy hadn't tried to harm any of them in any way, shape, or form.
He was still wary of her, yes, but Ozpin believed she would show her true colors given time. Trust but verify was what he said. So, until Qrow was absolutely certain about her one way or another, he'd do exactly that. He'd trust the mysterious Aloy but he'd keep a close eye on her.
Ruby's head felt as if it had just been stepped on by a horde of Goliaths, her vision was hazy and her eyes burned. It was like she had opened them in a pool but a thousand times worse than that. Once they finally felt like they were no longer burning she slowly opened her eyes.
She immediately noticed two things. The first, was that the feeling that she had had around the Relic was gone and she felt like the normal, happy go lucky, Ruby again.
The second thing though was way more concerning to her and that was that she had no idea where she was. It was a room with a really tall ceiling that was made out of stone. It looked like a cave so that's what she assumed.
There was an inactive transformer and when she turned around, she noticed a collapsed something… that looked it had violently exploded. There were tiny impact craters in the walls which she noticed had Beowulf claw marks on them. They were unmistakable… and so were the marks on the skeletons around the room.
"Yang? Qrow?" She called out, she was expecting a prank since her sister and uncle had pulled elaborate pranks on her before. Granted she did it to them too but still…
Ruby shook her head. No, it was more likely that something had happened after she had slipped into unconsciousness. Maybe the train had crashed and she had been dragged here because it was shelter.
She took out her Scroll. If her team or her friends were nearby, she could contact them. She looked down and frowned when she saw that it was off. Ruby knew she had charged it last night since she charged it every night. When she pressed and held the power button, she was expecting it to turn on but it didn't. Not even the Atlas logo showed up as it usually did.
The scarlet Huntress frowned as she turned her Scroll around. She was seriously hoping that she accidentally had forgotten to charge it as she popped the back cover off of it.
What she saw shocked and concerned her. The clasps that held the Dust crystal in place were still secure, but what was concerning to her was the crystal itself was dull and gray instead of the normal yellow color that Electric Dust crystals were supposed to be.
She took a deep breath; she couldn't let herself get overwhelmed. That wouldn't help her figure out what was going on or where she was. She put the Scroll down and turned to Crescent Rose. Ruby ejected the magazine with practiced ease and removed the top round from it.
Years of seeing and buying Dust ammunition rounds had taught her how to tell if a Dust round was active or not. The Dust that resided within the bullet head was inert just as her Scroll's crystal was.
Ruby frantically checked all of the others before tossing her magazine to the side. She wrapped her cloak around herself and tried to calm herself down before she had a panic attack. She took several long, deep breaths before she felt her racing heartbeat go back to normal.
Ruby was torn. She knew that one of the rules of being lost was not to wander off since that'd make it hard for rescuers to well rescue you. But on the other hand, this definitely wasn't the Argus Limited and since her Dust was useless to her, she had a feeling that when the Relic whammied her something happened. Something she didn't understand.
Aloy was still shaking off the feeling from the train crash. She had found two blankets that were very thick and wrapped herself completely in them. The impact still hurt like hell, but she was alive and nothing was broken, thank GAIA for that. Unfortunately, that's when the yelling started.
"Great! This is great! We're stranded, we lost a third of our party and my sister and the best part is that instead, we have a mysterious girl named Aloy!"
She dislodged a mount of some kind before she, and it toppled back into the snow. Aloy smirked at that before offering a hand that Yang took after a second.
The Seeker watched as Yang, Qrow, and Weiss started to bicker back and forth which soon roped in Oscar, except he was apparently two people.
She thought it was a waste of both time and energy when the bickering turned into shouting and that turned into a discussion about the… Relic which led to shouting back and forth until Ozpin, who apparently could take over Oscar's body realized the Relic wasn't on his hip.
Aloy tuned out all of the pointless talking. Instead, her attention turned to the surrounding forests as her survival instincts kicked in. She muttered softly under her breath, wishing she had her Focus as she looked for a trail. As she muttered to herself, she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye and her hand went to her bow.
She lowered her hand when she saw that it was just Blake whose cat ears were twitching in her direction. Aloy still found it odd that she had cat ears on her head. But her eyes lowered as she saw Blake pick up the strange lamp that was apparently called a Relic.
Aloy turned away and resumed looking for a trail until she heard the boy struggling to get his next words out of his mouth. "Hurry…he's… trying to stop you." And that's when she looked back.
"Stop her from what?" Yang asked as she moved in front of Blake a bit.
"He's afraid… you'll find out what he's hiding." Blake stepped back and held the Relic closer as Oscar strained to talk. "Jinn… Say her name to summon her."
The snow started to blow more and Aloy shielded her eyes the best she could as the Relic glowed and Blake whispered. "Jinn?
Ruby did her best to stay put but she had no food or water. She knew that an average human could survive anywhere from eight to twenty-one days without food but only three days without water, so she couldn't afford to wait for very long. It also didn't help that her metabolism was still fast. Not as fast as it was when she was younger but she still burned a lot of calories.
Eventually, her hunger overruled her caution. She left the room where she had been holed up, Crescent Rose fully extended. The room led out into a hallway where she saw a door at the other end, but it looked like a fight had happened since there were scorch and frost marks on the floor.
As she moved towards the other end of the hallway, she saw something lying on the ground and her silver eyes widened. It was the small triangular thing that had been on the ear of her mirror self.
Ruby slowly kneeled and picked it up before standing back up and turning it over. The device was very lightweight, and she was able to hold it between two fingers. Down the middle was a thin white line, which she took to be how it displayed the power level.
Taking the hint from the mirror version of herself, Ruby put the device on and was surprised when it activated. "I see; I guess this thing is like a Scroll but mixed with a Semblance?" Ruby asked no one but herself.
She shifted Crescent Rose to her right hand and experimentally raised her left hand and swiped left, noticing that the UI shifted in the direction of her swipe. She swiped back to the first part and then swiped right. "I see, this must be how I control the UI."
The Huntress shifted it back to the original view and noticed that the left side was labeled "Video Diaries" while the right side was labeled as "Machine Notes." She was curious about both of those but for right now she had to keep moving.
She deactivated the device and continued to move down the hallway. That led her into a room with two other doors as well a grate that looked like it had been kicked off its hinges.
Ruby decided to cautiously investigate the two rooms before she moved on into what looked like an air duct system. The first was just a bedroom while the second one was caved in.
She really wished that she didn't have to crawl through the air ducts. Unfortunately, it looked like the only way to ascend so she took several deep breaths and folded Crescent Rose before stowing it on her back. Ruby experimentally tapped the device twice, which seemed to be how it was activated.
Her eyes widened when she saw that the device highlighted what looked like footsteps that led into the vent which she followed. Once she was inside the system, she saw that the footsteps were superimposed by the reconstructed hologram of a girl's figure. Then more as the system recreated the foot traffic before her eyes. Some of the figures were overlapping so she took a guess and figured that the overlapping figures led to a central location.
Her guess was proven right when she saw a vent similar to the one she crawled in from. Once she entered, she realized how narrow of a space she was now in. Thankfully she was small and thin enough to maneuver out of the cramped space.
She rubbed her elbows as she took in the room. The vent that she had crawled out of was behind a much larger device than the one she had seen back in her 'entry' chamber. Except this model was more than double the size and the colors were different. It took up the length of the room and was black with red markings.
It reminded her of the Grimm, which caused her to shudder as she rubbed her arms. The air in the room was stale and cold. She could've sworn that it smelled very faintly like snow but it was probably her imagination. As her silver eyes scanned the room, she noticed for the first time that it seemed like it was lived in.
Ruby was familiar with the concept of a temporary basecamp; any aspiring Huntsman or Huntress was. On one of the walls was a map that detailed where she was now and what looked like the system of vents that she had crawled through. One of the corners had a small collection of furs that were obviously for sleeping and a couple of pouches on a table.
The thing that caught her eye the most however was laying in the center of the room. A beautifully crafted spear rested on the floor. Even from a small distance, she could tell that it was well made. Ruby walked over and picked it up delicately.
The spear was around four feet long and a larger component down by the base which was carefully and tightly wrapped in place by a well-crafted leather portion. It was well tended but also well used as she could tell that pieces of the shaft and the spear tip had been replaced.
"Well, whoever was here before obviously cared for this weapon. I can see why… it's so well crafted!" Ruby ran her hands over it and tried to avoid going too crazy over it.
That's when she noticed that her mouth was dry and it was a bit hard to swallow. She had to find water. that was more important right now and she could examine and ogle the spear later.
Ruby gave a small mental apology to whoever made this base camp as she lifted several of the pouches and shook them so she could hopefully try to find a canteen. Several of them sounded like metal so she put those back where she found them. A few were labeled things like "Blaze", "Chillwater", "Metalburn", and "Sparker".
While she didn't know what they specifically entailed she was smart enough to know that Blaze typically meant something fire-related, Chillwater probably meant ice-related, and Sparker was undoubtedly electric-based.
She very carefully set those back where they were before continuing her search for the sound of sloshing water. Thankfully, the very last one she shook had the sloshing she was looking for. Carefully, she unscrewed the smooth metal cap and began to greedily down the water
Once she had had her fill, she rescrewed the cap onto the waterskin and sent a silent thank you to the person who made the camp. She opened one of the pouches that she wasn't able to determine what was in it by sound alone and was both thrilled and relieved to see blueberries in it.
"I know I probably seem like a thief to you… but I promise I'll make it up to you when you get back." She said to the empty air.
For now, all she could do was wait and make sure the camp wasn't anymore disturbed as she rested. It wasn't much as far as repayment went but it was the least, she could do until whoever set the camp up came back. "Now, let's see what you can tell me." She double-tapped the device on her ear to activate it before swiping to the left.
Well, that was a thing. Ruby is now on Earth and Aloy is on Remnant. That can't be good...