"Bio scan in progress," A voice said in a monotone.

"Wh-What?" Ruby quickly opened her eyes and sat up, surprised by what she heard as she woke up. She noticed that she was inside a mostly dark metal container with a blue light on the ceiling shining over her and moving back and forth across her body. "What's going on?"

"Please remain still until the bio scan is complete," The robotic voice added.

"Where am I?" The girl had no idea what was going on but tried to remain calm. "Why am I inside this thing?"

"You are in a recovery room at Dexlabs," She was told. "You will be released from the bio scan pod once the process is complete."

"Um... Okay," The young huntress understood next to nothing of the explanation."What's Dexlabs?"

"Dexlabs is one of the world's leading research and development facilities, led and funded primarily by our founder, Dexter," The voice answered as if it was reading from an Internet article.

"Oh," Ruby thought it was strange that she had never heard of something that important in Vale. "So you guys made that portal in Emerald Forest?"

"Yes. During one of Dexter's experiments, a malfunction occurred, bringing you here," She was told. Suddenly, the light went out and the girl heard what sounded like a hatch opening. "The bio scan is complete, you may exit the pod."

"Okay, thanks." Ruby covered her eyes for a moment so that they could adjust to the brightness of the room. She stepped out carefully, remembering her injured ankle. "Where are my friends? Do they know I'm here?"

"If you can provide us with the necessary information, then we can contact them for you and provide directions to this facility if you wish," the robotic voice offered.

"Actually, I can just call them on-" She opened her eyes and saw that there didn't seem to be anyone in front of her. "...Where did you go?"

"I am down here," A short blue robot with yellow eyes answered. "We apologize for any inconvenience this mishap has caused and hope that you forgive us and will not consider threatening us with legal action."

The girl blinked, taking a moment to process what she was seeing. "Cool! I didn't know adorable little robot assistants were invented yet!"

"I am a Dexlabs Robot, commonly referred to as a Dexbot," It explained. "I will inform Computress that you are awake. Goodbye," The Dexbot said as it left the room.

"Um... Alright. Bye!" Ruby was still confused about what exactly was going on, but decided that she should use her scroll to contact her friends before she did anything else.

The girl pulled out her device and tried to call Weiss, but it quickly ended the attempt and a pop-up message appeared on the screen. "No signal? Weird..." The place she was in didn't seem like it would have anything that could cause signal interference.

"Maybe if I go -Ow!" The hooded girl cringed as she took another step and pain surged through her foot. "-Outside... I'll have better reception." She reached for her weapon so that she could use it as a makeshift cane, but noticed that it wasn't there. The girl suddenly remembered what had happened just before she lost consciousness, and that she had let go of her weapon earlier while Weiss was trying to help her get off the portal.

"So... I'm in a strange facility that I've never heard of before, I have a sprained ankle, my friends don't know where I am, my scroll isn't working, and I'm unarmed," She recapped in a deadpan tone to herself. She started to awkwardly limp over to an open door that let her out of the room.

"On the bright side, falling through Torchwick's ceiling in Mountain Glenn doesn't seem so bad anymore," Ruby slowly walked out into the hallway. "Then again, Weiss is going to nag me about this from now on instead and Yang isn't going to let me leave her sight ever again..."

The girl continued down another hall and passed by a room that caught her attention. She looked inside and saw that there were several more copies of the robot that she had encountered before. They seemed to be sorting bits and pieces of scrap metal. "Huh..."

"Pardon me," Another Dexbot passed by her, carrying more broken machine parts. It then addressed its fellow robots. "Roughly thirty-six percent of the debris in the portal room has been cleared. Computress would like us to increase that number to fifty percent within the hour."

"I wonder if that has something to do with the portal that brought me here..." Ruby commented as she started to walk back into the hallway. "What have I gotten myself into this time?"


"Be very careful with those pieces, we'll likely need those in order to repair the power generator," Computress ordered some Dexbots as she continued to examine the debris and input information into a portable screen she was holding.

"Understood," One of the blue machines spoke for the group as they all continued cleaning up the mess. While the room looked better than earlier, there were still plenty of machine parts and debris left to gather.

"What happened here?" A girl with a red bow in her hair floated into the room, surveying the damage.

Hearing a familiar sounding voice, Computress turned her attention to the new visitor. "Blossom, thank you for coming. I'm sorry for the short notice, but we have an urgent problem. One of Dexter's experiments malfunctioned and we could use your assistance."

"No need to apologize, I'm a superhero. Urgent problems on short notice are my specialty," Blossom assured her. "But if I may ask, why call for me specifically?"

"Your father was a consultant and helped with this experiment, but he's busy with research out of Townsville. When I contacted him he said that he had some notes for the project in his lab. I was hoping that you could look through them and see if any information they have could help us repair the device," The android explained.

"So, you just need me to grab the notes and bring them back here to Dexter? I can handle that pretty easily," She suddenly noticed the boy genius' absence. "Where is he, anyway?"

"I'm... not quite sure," Computress wanted to keep the fact that Dexter was missing a secret from the public to avoid any panic but decided that Blossom was trustworthy enough to know the full story. "There's more to this situation than what I've told you so far."


"Well, here we are. Dexlabs," A boy wearing flight goggles and a light blue shirt commented as he and his friend stood in front of a very hi-tech looking building. It had a mostly blue and white color scheme, but the obvious sign that they were in the right place was, quite literally, the sign that read 'Dexlabs' over the doors.

"Why did Dexter want you here anyway, Numbuh Two?" His friend, a girl wearing a red cap and a dark blue shirt asked.

"Oh, right. I never did mention why we came here," The boy remembered as they both kept walking toward the entrance. "Come to think of it, Computress never mentioned why either. She just said that she needed my help with something at Dexlabs."

"Numbuh Five thought that Dexter didn't outsource his projects," Abby replied in third person as usual, looking around the square.

"Normally he doesn't but he comes to me for advice every now and again. Off the top of my head, he consulted me about finding ways to get up to the Moonbase. That was a while ago, but maybe it has something to do with that," Hoagie pulled on a door handle. "Or there could be some... other project he wants to talk about," He continued to pull, but the door remained shut. "I'm one of the... best minds... in the Kids... Next... Door... I think this door's broken."

"No, the handle says to push the door open. You're pulling it." Numbuh Five pointed out as she pushed and sure enough, they got inside the entrance with no issue.

"In my defense, a place this hi-tech should have doors that open automatically anyway." Numbuh Two folded his arms.

"Uh-huh. Whatever you-" Abby noticed a girl slowly walking toward them. She was wearing a red hood but was otherwise dressed in black and had silver eyes.

"Um...excuse me. Is this the way out of here?" Ruby asked as she stopped and tried to balance herself.

"Yeah," Numbuh Five answered. She noticed that the girl seemed confused and a little worried about something. "Are you lost?"

"Sort of..." Ruby looked outside the doors and saw a fountain nearby. "I'm just going to step outside. I can't get a scroll signal in here for some reason and I need to call my friends."

"Maybe something Dexter's working on in here is causing the interference," It occurred to Numbuh Two that it'd be polite to hold the door open for her. "Here, let me get that... for you." He pushed the door but couldn't seem to make it budge. "Hang on... I thought you had to push these doors."

"From the outside, yeah." Abby pulled open another nearby door and stepped back to let the huntress through.

"Again, these things should just open on their own. I'll bring this up with Dex when I talk to him..." Hoagie complained.

"Thanks. If any of those cool little robots ask, could you tell them I'm just out here?" Ruby requested as she walked out the door.

"No problem." Numbuh Five answered. Once Ruby was outside, the operative turned to her friend. "What was that phone she was holding? I've never seen one like that before."

"Beats me, and I'm normally up to date on new tech like that," Numbuh Two shrugged. "Oh well, let's get to the front desk and make sure they know we're here."


Ruby walked out of the building and kept trying to make her scroll connect, but she still couldn't reach Weiss. She tried calling Blake and Yang's scrolls but the same error continued to occur. The girl thought about calling some of her other friends but figured that she'd have the same problem. "This thing must be broken or something..." The young huntress sat down on the front steps and sighed.

The girl looked over at the fountain in front of her and got a better look at it. She noticed that past it was a very tall, dark building that almost seemed like an evil twin of the one she was just in. "Where am I? I've never seen buildings or technology like this." Ruby noticed some more blue robots and a few darker ones with red eyes gathered by the fountain.

"Is this place even in Vale?" She thought out loud. She leaned backwards to sit on her back, but before she could get comfortable she noticed something very unsettling in the sky.

Back inside Dexlabs' lobby, Numbuhs Two and Five were at a counter talking to a Dexbot. "Computress has been informed that you have arrived," It told them.

"Thanks!" Hoagie replied as the robot continued to type information into a holographic keyboard. "By the way, do you know why I was asked to come here?"

"I do not have access to that information." The Dexbot replied.

"Hmm... I wonder-" The boy was interrupted as the girl from earlier walked back into the lobby and toward the KND agents. She looked like she had just seen a ghost. "Everything okay?"

"There's some kind of giant green... thing in the sky!" She exclaimed.

"Do you mean Planet Fusion?" Numbuh Five asked.

"Do I?" Ruby was surprised that the two kids seemed more concerned about her than what she had just described. "How long has that been there?"

"For a few months now," Numbuh Two answered. "Did you... not notice that before?"

"No..." Ruby was already under the impression that there was something strange about where she was, but now she was even more astounded. "This is probably going to sound like a dumb question, but where am I?"

"Uh... Dexlabs?" Hoagie replied in confusion.

"Yeah, but in what city? In which kingdom?" The girl asked.

"Kingdom?" Abby and Hoagie exchanged confused looks. "You're in the city of Townsville."

"Okay..." Ruby was now even more confused. That didn't sound like any nearby city that she knew of. "That's somewhere in Vale, right?"

"I've never even heard of a place with that name." The boy scratched the back of his head.

"So, you don't know where you are, and we don't know where you came from," Numbuh Five folded her arms. "Something's not right here."

"You're telling me..." Ruby agreed. "What's going on here?"

"That's what we hope to find out," A woman with blue metallic skin began to explain as she entered the room. She was followed by a girl dressed in red who was floating in mid air. "I apologize for the delay in meeting you, I have more responsibilities than usual at the moment."

"Are you Dexter?" Ruby asked. She noticed that the woman looked similar to the robots she had seen earlier, and her skin even looked artificial. "You're an android, aren't you?"

"No and Yes," She responded. "I am Dexter's assistant and adviser, Computress."

"Dexter built and programmed her, but she has her own free will and personality, just like anyone else," The girl next to Computress added. "I'm Blossom, by the way.

"I'm Numbuh Two from the Kids Next Door," Hoagie introduced himself. "And this is Numbuh Five, from the same."

"I'm Ruby," The girl in the red hood introduced herself. "It's nice to meet all of you, and this place is really cool and all, but I'd really like to get home... Could you please put another of those portals on the ground and take me back?"

"It's not as easy as that, unfortunately," The android explained. "The Space Warp Device is completely inoperable at the moment, but we will begin repairing it shortly."

"A Space Warp Device?" Numbuh Two asked. "That was one of the ideas Dexter and I brainstormed a while back. I didn't know he had a working prototype."

"Actually, that's the reason I called you. Dexter had many consultants on this project, but you were the biggest contributor. You helped him with the blueprints and understand the workings of the machine better than most. Without him, you're our best chance to fix it," Computress replied.

"Wait, hang on. Without him?" Numbuh Five asked in concern. "He's not dead or something, is he?"

"No, no. Nothing like that," Blossom quickly stepped in to clarify. "He's just missing. When the Space Warp Device malfunctioned, he was sent somewhere that we haven't pinpointed yet."

"So, Dexter was the boy on the other side of that portal..." Ruby realized as she heard the others explain what was going on. "If I'm here where he was, maybe that means he's back in Emerald Forest."

"And that's in Vale?" Abby asked, and Ruby nodded in response. "Great. Now we just need to figure out where in the world Vale is..."

"You guys really don't know about Vale? But it's one of the four- Ow!" The hooded girl cringed as she started to move her foot and ended up stepping on it in a very uncomfortable way.

"Are you alright?" Blossom asked as she floated toward her.

"It's just my my foot acting up..." Ruby replied as she knelt forward for a moment.

Blossom looked at Ruby's foot and quickly figured out what the problem was. "Your ankle is sprained. It's minor, but you should still go to a hospital."

"How did you figure that out?" Ruby wondered out loud.

"X-ray vision. It comes in handy," The PowerPuff Girl explained. "Did you get that injury from teleporting?"

"Actually, I hurt it right before that when I was fighting a Grimm." The huntress replied.

"A Grimm?" Numbuh Two asked.

"...This is making my head hurt," Ruby didn't think it was possible to live anywhere in Remnant and not know about the Grimm. "You seriously don't know about...? Never mind."

The huntress in training stood up and tried to steady herself. "If it's going to be a bit before I can head home, I guess a trip to the hospital won't hurt. Would anyone mind taking me there?"

"Sure. Numbuh Five can get you there no problem," Abby offered, before turning to the others. "You guys should be able to take care of things here, right?"

"I can already think of some things that we'll need in order to get the Space Warp Device working again that might not be here," Hoagie thought out loud. "I'll put together a list."

"I'll head home and find the Professor's notes. Maybe there are some materials in his lab that might help us too," Blossom chimed in.

"Alright, contact us if anything comes up." Numbuh Five walked out of the building with Ruby following a little slowly so that she didn't aggravate her ankle.

"This is troubling..." Computress commented after the two had left.

"What do you mean?" Numbuh Two asked.

"I've never heard of a place anywhere called Vale, but Ruby talked about it like it was common knowledge," Blossom folded her arms. "And it's virtually impossible for her to not know about Planet Fusion."

"You don't believe her? She seemed nice, and it felt like she was telling the truth," Hoagie replied.

"I believe her. That's why I'm worried..." The superhero thought for a moment. "How far could that machine have taken Dexter?"

"Our calculations showed that it could reach Mars, but she can't be from there, and certainly not from the Moonbase or Planet Fusion," Computress explained. "It may be that we underestimated its capabilities."

"You're saying that she's an alien?" The KND operative scratched his head. "That's not impossible but she looks human to me, and the Space Warp Device from my calculations would have problems reaching the Moonbase, let alone any distant planets."

"Excuse me, Computress?" A Dexbot came into the room with a sheet of paper. "The girl's bio scan results are complete."


"How long do you think I'm going to be here?" Ruby asked. She and Abby had been sitting in the waiting room for a few minutes and the former was already bored, so she figured it wouldn't hurt to make conversation.

"Not too much longer. You'd probably have been seen by now if it wasn't so busy today." Numbuh Five had noticed that the hospital seemed a little understaffed. She had seen three different doctors briefly come into the room but every time they took someone back one or two more people would enter the building and check in at the desk.

"That's good." The duo sat in silence for no more than a few seconds before the huntress in training thought of another topic. "Your friend said earlier that you're part of the Kids Next Door... What is that exactly?"

"We're an organization that fights against adult tyranny." The operative answered.

"...Adult tyranny?" Ruby raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah. Healthy food, unfair bedtimes, dental hygiene, stuff like that," Numbuh Five noticed that her new acquaintance looked very skeptical, but continued. "Of course, nowadays we've got other things to worry about too."

"That's... nice. And your parents let you do that?" Ruby wasn't sure if she believed her or not, but it wasn't the most surprising thing she had been told in the past couple hours.

"You don't even know about the KND, huh?" The girl wearing a cap commented. "Where is Vale, exactly? You seem to be out of the loop on a lot of things."

"Vale's one of the four kingdoms of Remnant," Ruby explained. "I'm from Beacon Academy. You have to have to know about that, or at least one of the other academies, right? This place is way too fancy to be outside of any kingdoms' borders. Which one are we in?"

"Um... America?" Abby guessed, assuming that kingdoms and countries were interchangeable in this context.

"Unless there's a secret fifth kingdom that I don't know about, that's not one of them..." The huntress folded her arms. "This place is too weird to be real. There's a giant green thing in the sky. We flew on a bus with rockets attached to it to get to this hospital. Not to mention this whole city looks like it came straight out of a sci-fi game. I've never seen or heard of anywhere in Remnant that's anything like this place."

"...Remnant?" The agent asked.

"Remnant, the world we live in," Ruby replied. "Where else would we be?"

"So, the world you're from is Remnant? It has four kingdoms, different technology than Townsville, and doesn't normally have Planet Fusion in the sky?" Numbuh Five recapped.

"Uh, yeah. Why are you talking like this is all news?" The hooded girl raised an eyebrow.

"Because it..." Abby stopped herself from saying anything else, concerned about how Ruby would react to finding out how far from home she really might be. "Er... Never mind. Be right back. Numbuh Five has to... check in with Numbuh Two and the others."

"Um... Okay," Ruby replied as Abby walked away. The former noticed that the latter suddenly seemed worried over something. "I didn't say anything weird, did I?" She quietly asked herself.

"Are you Ruby?" A boy wearing a white coat and a head lamp walked up to her.

"Yeah. Is the doctor ready to see me?" The girl asked, still sitting down.

"Yup. This should only take a few moments." The boy bent over and put a small metal object onto Ruby's injured foot.

"What's that? Also, should I head back and see the- Whoa!" The object grew and started to expand until it covered all of Ruby's foot and part of her leg. "Did the doctor tell you to do that?"

"Sort of, I guess. I am the doctor." The medic explained as he pressed some buttons that appeared on the newly formed metal boot.

"...You are? You don't look old enough to have gone through medical school... Or high school." The hooded girl noticed that the doctor probably wasn't even as old as she was.

"I'm fairly new, but don't worry. I know what I'm doing," The doctor looked at an electronic meter on the device that was starting to fill up with a blue light. "With things as bad as they are right now the hospital needs as much help as it can get, but it doesn't hire amateurs."

"You have a PhD though, right?" Ruby asked, but the boy's reply was just him uncomfortably clearing his throat. "Don't I need to take my shoe off so that you can actually see what the injury is and treat it?"

"No need. I'm already treating you." A loud beep that sounded like it came from a microwave came from the boot and it shrank and scaled back down to a small badge-like object.

"And now I'm done," The doctor grabbed the device off Ruby's foot and quickly walked away. "I have more patients to attend to but if you have any questions or need help, please see someone at the counter."

"Wait, hang on! I still have..." Ruby stood up and as she did, she noticed that she had no problem doing it. She walked forward a few steps as she normally could and didn't feel any pain or discomfort. Her formerly injured ankle seemed to be as good as new.

"Well, if it helped I guess I won't question it..." She decided in a deadpan tone.

"Make room, coming through!" A blue blur zipped past Ruby and ran up to the front desk. As it stopped, the creature was revealed to be someone who looked like a blue lizard in a metal suit. He was holding a kid who looked severely injured in his arms. "He's got Fusion Matter poisoning, he needs to see someone now!"

"I'll get a doctor right away." The receptionist ran out of sight and a few seconds later, a doctor and some nurses came out of a door pushing a wheeled hospital bed.

"He was ambushed over in Orchid Bay. He looks bad, but you can help him right?" the creature set the unconscious boy on the bed. He had green slime all over him, and one of his arms was almost completely covered in it.

The doctor quickly took out a small device and used it to scan the patient. "This is Class Three FM poisoning. We should be able to cure him, but we need to start the process immediately," She wasted no time and started pushing the bed back through the door. "Get the tools ready, we may need to perform surgery!"

"Surgery? Is he going to be okay?" Ruby walked up the the strange person who had just ran past her. She knew that it was probably none of her business, but was concerned enough to ask anyway.

"Hopefully. It's Class Three, so they shouldn't have to go too far inside to remove it, but I don't imagine he'll be up and fighting again for a couple weeks." The creature's face plate retracted, showing his blue face and yellow eyes.

"...You're a dinosaur in a tracksuit, because of course you are..." The girl didn't even know why she was surprised at anything she was seeing at this point. "No offense. I mean, that's not a bad thing, I've just never met someone like you before."

"I get that a lot. Not always as a compliment, but still." The alien replied. Suddenly, a loud beeping noise emitted from a symbol on his chest as it started to glow red.

"Whoa, what's that mean?" The hooded girl had to quickly cover her eyes as a red light engulfed the person she was talking to. It quickly disappeared, and she looked again to see that the creature that had formerly stood a bit taller than her was now a head or so shorter than her.

"It means XLR8's time is up for now," He now looked like an average human boy wearing a white shirt with a black stripe on it. "I'm Ben, by the way."

"I'm Ruby, nice to meet you." The girl replied with a smile. "So... How did you just do that? Was that like an illusion or something?"

"No, I have a watch that lets me turn into aliens," Ben held up his hand, showing off a strange looking accessory on his wrist with an hourglass-like symbol on it."It alters my genetic code or something like that. I'm not really sure how it works, but it does."

"...Aliens, huh? Do you mean like... metaphorical aliens?" Ruby asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No... I mean aliens," Ben replied nonchalantly. "It crash landed in a capsule from space and I found it in the woods."

"...Okay, how is this place making less sense the more I find out about it?" Ruby shook her head.

"Huh? What do you mean?" The boy asked.

"Teleporting machines, anti-adult organizations, alien watches..." The girl continued. "Is everyone here delusional or have I gone crazy?"

"We think we might know what the problem is," Numbuh Five returned and walked up to the hooded girl. "Ruby... There's no easy way to say this, but I'll try to put it as delicately as possible-"

"I'm dreaming, right? I have to be dreaming." Ruby suggested.

"Nope, sorry," Ben replied. "You're wide awake, unless I'm the one dreaming."

"Well then what's going on? This place is too weird to be real..." The huntress thought out loud.

"Wait, am I missing something here?" Ben scratched his head. "What's wrong?"

"It's a long story..." Ruby started, "The short version is I'm lost and I don't know where in the world I am."

"At least you know you're on Earth, that's a start," The boy assumed.

"Earth?" The girl asked.

"Yeah, you know. We live on- Ow, hey!" The boy was interrupted by Abby dragging him a few feet away and turning him around so that Ruby wasn't in earshot.

"Ben, Numbuh Five strongly recommends that you shut up." The operative whispered.

"You always say that, but I get the feeling that there's something going on here that I don't know about." Ben whispered back.

"And it's none of your business. This is a very delicate situation, so get back to whatever it was you were doing and leave her alone." Abby insisted.

"She says she's lost and she doesn't know what Earth is. Is she an alien?" The boy asked.

"Again, none of your business." Numbuh Five repeated.

"I'll take that as a yes," Ben figured it was safe to say, given how defensive Abby was being. "I'm like an expert on aliens, I can help."

The operative facepalmed. "Having an alien device on your wrist doesn't make you an expert on trying to explain to someone that she's on another-"

"Why are you two whispering?" Ruby walked up to the others. She didn't hear any of their conversation but could tell they were keeping information from her. "I trust you guys, but if something's wrong I want to know about it. Maybe I can help."

Abby let out a sigh. Breaking the news to the girl was going to be rough, but at least she'd know the truth. "The situation you're in is hard to explain and I don't know how well you'll take it, but no matter what we promise that we're going to get you home."

"Thank you," The hooded girl was silent for a moment before continuing. "There's something... different about this place, and not just all the cool technology and quirky people. I can tell I'm far from home, but... How far am I exactly?"