As a general rule Wash had always hated hospitals.

As David, he hated them because of the cost, to hear his parents argue over bills and to feel terrible because of it.

During freelancer, he hated them because hospitals meant that something had gone wrong with the mission, to see his friends in pain always broke his heart.

After Epsilon, he hated them because of the rush of memories they would bring, a reminder of the worst moments of his life.

And finally on Chorus he hated them because it meant that his friends had been seriously injured.

Wash was proud to say that his hatred of hospital had carried over to Remnant as well.

"How long is this going to take?" Church asked grumpily. "I mean seriously, 'only a few hours' she said, 'we'll catch up at the hospital' she said."

"Yes, we get it. Tex isn't here." Wash cut him off.

"No need to keep bitching and moaning about it." Sarge added.

"I wasn't bitching and moaning." Church claimed. "Hey Caboose, was I bitching and moaning?"

"Of course not, your Church!" Caboose said enthusiastically.

Church nodded in a vindicated fashion. "Exactly I'm-"

Caboose cut in.

"You were groaning." Caboose said wisely. "There's a difference."

"I hate you."

"Good to see somethings really do never change."

Everyone turned to see Tex in the hallway, arms crossed and looking like absolute crap.

She'd been away repairing her previous body so that she wouldn't be stuck speaking Spanish, but while she clearly got it working, she could have used help with the cosmetic aspect of it.

"Tex! It's uh, good to see you." Church said awkwardly. "Your looking..."

"Like crap?" Tex finished for him.

"...Yeah."

"You know, it reminds me of that time Carolina tried to teach Jensen how to drive." Wash recalled the memory.

Sarge winced. "That was a blood bath."

"Wait Carolina? She's dead! I watched her die." Tex objected.

"Turns out she survived, grappled onto the cliff before falling and went into hiding." Wash explained, remembering his own reaction to Carolina showing up all those years ago.

"Well shit, York would have liked to hear that if he wasn't..." Tex trailed off awkwardly.

"Yeah..."

They lapsed into an awkward silence that Caboose broke.

"Well I think that it is very good to see you agent Texas." Caboose said cheerfully.

Tex snorted. "Yeah good to see you too Caboose."

"It is kinda nostalgic, seeing you again. Reminds me of the olden days, just me and a couple of idiots in a box canyon." Sarge reminisced.

"Best years of my life." Tex said sarcastically.

"Well hopefully your time in Remnant will be better." Wash said.

"Speaking of, how is everyone?" Tex asked.

"As good as they could be considering the circumstances." Wash answered before elaborating. "Pyrrha got off the worst, she's still in surgery but it should be over soon. I also over heard that Ironwood is personally paying for all the hospital bills and a new leg for her. Weiss also was in surgery for her shoulder not to long ago, but she's out now and resting. Ruby, Nora, and the rest are all just resting and waiting for check ups."

"What about Qrow?"

"Oh, he's been treated for broken ribs, but he's expected to make a full recovery, as such he's currently resting."

"That's good." Tex said.

"Well want to go and see if anyone's still awake?" Wash asked.

"Might as well."

With that they entered the hospital room where everyone was, although the only person that was still awake was Ruby, at the end of the row of beds, messing with the remote that made the bed go up and down.

"Still awake kid?" Church asked.

"Oh! Hey guys." Ruby greeted them. "Yeah, I'm still awake it's cause I'm not-" She yawned. "Tired."

"I can tell." Wash said with a amused, but fond smile on his face.

"How you feeling soldier?" Sarge asked.

"I feel fine, although I can't really remember when I was combined with Caboose, the memories are... fuzzy."

"That's probably due to Caboose's... unique mental state." Wash explained.

"Because he's an idiot." Church said.

"Basically." Wash agreed.

Tex moved forward and held out her hand. "So, your Ruby then? It's great to meet you kid."

Ruby flinched back, and her eyes went a little wide.

"You alright kid?" Tex asked, her voice concerned.

"Fine, fine." Ruby said, slightly panicked before she calmed down. "I'm fine."

"We'll explain later." Wash told Tex.

Tex nodded along. "Right, well it's good to see you've been taking care of these idiots while I've been gone."

Ruby blushed. "Well, I did my best." She said shyly.

"And hey, you weren't half bad in the fight." Tex continued on.

Ruby's blush got deeper. "Thanks, I'm like even better with Crescent Rose, which is my baby."

"Crescent Rose is the name of the scythe." Wash elaborated as Ruby's eyes widened.

"Wait, where is she!?" Ruby demanded. "Was she just left in the street?"

"No, no, no, no." Wash denied. "Penny collected the remains and brought them to your room."

"Ah, that's good." Ruby relaxed in her hospital bed. Then she got a strange look on her face. "Wait, remains?"

"You don't remember?" Sarge asked.

"No, like I said, it's all really fuzzy." Ruby got an intense look on her face. "What do you mean by remains?"

"Well..."

Ozpin was standing on his balcony contemplating events when he heard a sound.

It almost sounded like miss Rose yelling out a particularly melodramatic and loud "Nooooo!" But Ozpin dismissed it, he was literally miles away from the hospital and at this point the silver eyed girl was most likely resting after her latest display of power.

Indeed todays events had proved most unexpected.

Ozpin had expected Salem's forces to make a move of course, but releasing Grimm into the city...

It was clearly a test of Vale's strength, a test of Beacon's strength, but he was a a loss as to what the end goal could be.

Further mysteries had also arisen.

The mysterious agent Tex and her nemesis known only as the Meta, who seemingly had multiple semblances.

Creating bubble shields, moving at incredible speeds, seemingly teleporting. No one man could have that many semblances.

But that did not stop Ruby from displaying a new ability, insane strength at the cost of mental prowess.

But far worse than the mysteries were the injuries.

Qrow had been beaten down by the Meta, resulting in several injuries that would render him out of action for at least two weeks. Wiess had to get surgery to repair her shoulder, including the removal of several fragments from Myrtenaster which had been damaged severally. He could almost hear Jacques ranting when he got round to informing him.

But worst of all was Pyrrha, the loss of her leg was absolutely tragic and would impact the young huntress for many years to come. And that wasn't even mentioning how she'd nearly died of blood loss multiple times. But fortunately the doctors had assured him the she would survive.

And the issues didn't stop there. PTSD, hospital bills and more had the potential to tower over his students.

Ozpin turned around at the sound of his office door opening and saw James enter.

"Ozpin."

"James." Ozpin nodded. "Have you read the reports?"

Ironwood nodded.

"And?"

"Both teams did admirably considering the circumstances." James said. "But the circumstances themselves are unforgivable. Neither team should have had to face those enemies."

"I will admit that neither team should have been facing those enemies, but they were rather unexpected, particularly this 'Meta' figure." Ozpin said.

"It's unacceptable, how is it that no one in our network has even hear of this 'Meta' or the mercenary 'Felix' it seems that they just appeared one day and that's it."

Ozpin hummed. "I have a few theories about it, but it's only speculation with no proof."

"And this Tex character..." Ironwood continued. "Has Qrow given a full report?"

"Not yet, he's still in hospital at the moment." Ozpin and Ironwood sat down at the desk as Ozpin spoke. "He's expected to make a full recovery by the end of the week and for tonight at least he has the company of miss Rose and the other students."

James nodded. "Speaking of which, I'd like to inform you that due to outstanding service, the Atlas military will be paying for all hospital bills and I will personally be helping with the construction for a new leg for miss Nikos."

"Very kind of you James."

"They deserve it."

"In a similar vein, I will personally be providing counselling and therapy for my students should they need it." Ozpin informed James. After all, he had extensive experience of the subject in several of his previous lives.

James sighed. "Right, I've go some calls to make."

"Of course, I also need to contact the parents of my students about their child's condition. Including Jacques and Taiyang." He said, voice unenthusiastic at the prospect.

James winced. "Of course, good luck with that and I'll see you later."

They shook hands and Ironwood left. As he did so Ozpin got a notification on his scroll. Opening it, he saw that the download for the data on his listening devices was done.

He always kept several around Beacon as insurance and to keep an eye on certain teams.

He clicked on the one for team RPBY's room and fast forwarded it to when the 'intervention' for miss Rose's mental state would have taken place.

He hoped that there might be some answers awaiting for him.

"This is an intervention." Yang's voice said clearly.

"-clearly I need to get back as soon as possible." The voice of Church rang out from the scroll when Tex arrived back into the hospital the following morning. Only it wasn't Church who was currently standing next to her.

Tex watched amused as Qrow looked dead inside as the person on the other end kept on talking and talking.

But then there was a quite ding! And Qrow looked relived.

"Thank dust the battery died." Qrow said.

"Who was that?" Tex asked curiously.

"That was Tai, Ruby and Yang's father. Oz told him about what happened and he called me at four in the morning." Qrow explained as Tex looked at the clock hat read: 10:12 A.M.

"Hey everyone, just level with me. I don't sound like that right?" Church asked the room.

There was an uncomfortable silence as Church looked around for an answer but everyone just looked away, not daring to look him in the eyes.

Church slumped back. "Great, I sound like a fucking dork."

Tex chose to ignore that and Church in general.

"So how's things been then? Recovering from that ass kicking well enough I hope."

Qrow snorted. "If I remember correctly, YOU were the one that was chopped in half."

"But I got the last laugh when I kicked the Meta's ass." Tex countered.

"Who's the Meta?"

Tex turned around to see all of the kids standing there. Ruby, Yang, Jaune, Nora, Ren and a girl wearing a black bow on her head.

"That's the name of the guy I was fighting." Tex told them.

"He was the one that hurt Qrow and Weiss right?" Yang asked.

"Yep." Ren nodded. "But fortunately Weiss will be out of the hospital by the end of the week."

"What about the other one... Pyro wasn't it?"

"Pyrrha." Ren corrected Tex. "She's out of surgery right now and rest, but she can't have visitors yet."

"Yeah and that's us getting discharged now." Nora chipped in.

"Great to hear." Qrow said. "I'll be out in a day or two, they just want to make sure there's no complications, and then I need to take it easy for a week or so."

"Whoopy doo, everyone's recovering." Tex fake cheered.

"Thank god Doc isn't here." Sarge said. "Otherwise no one would be getting better."

They met again late at night on a discreate airfield, Ghira with his wife and most trusted of guards, Locus only with his weapons and the armour on his back.

But Locus had a lot on his mind. Earlier that evening news had arrived from Vale of an attack from within the city.

Some footage had come with that story, but most of it was clearly doctored and edited, yet in one frame the visage of agent Maine, the Meta himself was clearly visible.

Everything Locus knew about the freelancer pointed towards him being a major threat to the people of this world, so Locus knew what had to be done.

He had his first target.

"I'm assuming that you saw the footage?" Ghira asked, to which Locus only nodded.

"And?"

"The individual in the footage is known as the Meta, a very dangerous individual with powerful technology." Locus said at length, making sure he only told Ghira what he needed to know.

"Is he a threat?"

"Yes." Locus said immediately.

"Then you know what you need to do, Find and take care of him, and anyone else from your world." Ghira said.

"Do you have the equipment I requested?" Locus asked.

Ghira gestured broadly to the aircraft that was beside him. "This is a Manta, acquired from the Atlas military by my friends in the White Fang, the equipment and funds you requested are on board."

Locus gave a small nod of thanks.

But as he did so, Ghira's scroll went off, the chieftain picked it up and frowned.

"What is it?" Kali asked.

"Headmaster Ozpin. Why would he be contacting us?" Ghira shook his head. "No matter, I'll deal with this." Ghira then looked Locus straight in the eyes/helmet. "We never met."

With that he departed, his wife and guard with him, leaving Locus alone as he considered what to do next.

Logically it would make sense to track down the Meta, but at the moment his whereabouts were again unknown, furthermore the use of his enhancements in the small amount of footage Locus had seen suggest that he had the use of at least one A.I.

No, Locus needed allies before he could hunt him.

Locus then brought up the map of energy readings on his HUD.

Two in Atlas, One in Vacuo and Mistral each and three on an island called Patch.

After much deliberation Locus decided on Atlas as a starting point, even if both people there would prove threats, Atlas would provide Locus an ideal place for acquiring Dust and weapons.

So, Locus got on the airship and began the pre-flight air checks.

He was headed to Atlas.

Notes:

And that's the end of that chapter.

Woo! That was fun to write. Not much to say in terms of notes except that all recovery times and medical stuff were taken from various health websites and the NHS website.

As always I'd like to thank everyone for reading, with extra thanks to those that comment/review, you guys are the best.

Next time Doyle and York get in some bonding time. While Blake has an (incredibly awkward) reunion with her parents while Tai and Jacques display their own parenting styles. But till then, I'll catch ya'll on the flip flop.

Review replies:

ReaderWarrior: To answer the question, the had no say in it, what's bringing them to Remnant works in mysterious ways.

Jno: Yep, their here.