"Nate, wake up," Curie said as she shook him. Getting up, he examined his surroundings. Everyone else was currently waking themselves as well, and it didn't look like any of them were hurt.
"Where are we?" Preston asked. It was a good question. They were in a city, but it didn't seem to be part of the Commonwealth. Not just because the layout was unfamiliar. The town was...not damaged enough. It didn't really look like a town that had weathered a nuclear apocalypse. Most of the windows were even still intact!
"Maybe we ended up someplace nobody thought it was worth firing missiles at, like Nebraska," MacCready suggested.
Suddenly, their discussion was interrupted by an explosion and the sound of gunfire. Taking his assault rifle in his hands, Nate ran for where the noises were coming from, his friends doing the same. Explosions and gunfire weren't typically signs that nothing was wrong, and wherever he was, Nate was still a Minuteman. If innocents were in danger, he was going to help.
When they got to the source of the gunfire and explosions, they found a pack of black-and-white creatures attacking a trio of soldiers in high-tech armor, who were holding them back from getting to a wounded fourth soldier and three civilians, seemingly a family. Most of the creatures were similar to huge bipedal wolves, but there were a few that resembled bears.
At least it was obvious what they had to do. "Curie, medic!" Nate shouted, as he fired two 5.56mm rounds into a wolf that had gotten close to the soldiers. The others also started shooting the creatures, save for Curie, who was attending to the wounded soldier.
Nate ran up to one of the soldiers. "Thank you. I thought we were done for," the soldier said.
"Don't thank me yet," Nate told him. "We need to get to safety. Where do we need to go?"
"We need to get to—what is that thing?" the soldier cut himself off as he saw Strong firing his minigun at the creatures.
"Don't worry, he's on our side. Focus. Your evac point," Nate pressed.
"Right, right," the soldier nodded. "Evac point is at the docks, to the south."
"Docks," Nate thought. That ruled out everywhere that wasn't on a coastline. But the fact that the man didn't recognize a Super Mutant was just as telling. Almost everyone in North America, save for the inhabitants of the few Vaults that had yet to open, at least knew of Super Mutants. If there weren't any here, did that mean they weren't in America?
It didn't matter for the moment. What mattered was getting these people to safety.
"Who are you? You're not soldiers," one of the civilians, a young girl asked. "Are you Huntsmen?"
Nate didn't know what either of those were, so he decided not to pretend. "We're better. We're the Minutemen," he told her. The name might not have meant anything to her, but he said it with all the pride he felt in his organization. Hopefully, his confidence would assure her. "We're going to get you to safety, but you're going to have to do exactly as I say."
The little girl nodded, and Nate addressed the group. He pointed out the soldier he had questioned. "Lead the way to the docks. Danse, MacCready, watch his three and nine. Codsworth, Strong, you watch our back. Make sure more of those things don't attack us from behind."
As they made their way to the docks, they gunned down any more of the creatures that tried to get close. Strong ran out of bullets after some time and had to switch to using his Super Sledge, and all of them were running low on ammunition when they reached the docks, but they made it there safely. The surprise came when they got to the docks.
Rather than boats, airships were being used to evacuate them. Airships unlike anything Nate had ever seen. They didn't resemble Brotherhood zeppelins, nor the Vertibirds the army had used. Instead, they were boxy things, which didn't seem aerodynamic in the slightest.
But it wasn't like they had any other options, so they boarded one of the airships.
General Ironwood wasn't having the greatest day.
Ever since the walls of Vale had fallen, his men and the Vale military and Huntsmen had been stretched to the absolute limit trying to keep Vale safe. They had managed to keep the Grimm from overwhelming most of the country, but it seemed some locations were already beginning to slip through the cracks.
One of Vale's outlying towns had fallen to the Grimm after the auto-defense turrets that had protected it had been taken offline. Examination of the footage had revealed the White Fang had been responsible for shutting down the defense system, and by the time Atlas troops had gotten to the scene, the town had become impossible to hold against the Grimm and many of its inhabitants had been killed. Strangely, a human man had helped the White Fang take the defenses offline. He had searched through all the records he could find for the man, but he couldn't find any record of the man's existence.
He sighed. This failure would reflect badly on his ability to defend the people of Vale. It was likely that ultimately nothing would come of it, as Vale's military was unable to manage the crisis on its own, but it would be terrible for morale.
There was some unexpected news, though he wasn't sure if it was good news or bad. Reportedly, a squad of his soldiers had been supported in their evacuation of civilians by twelve individuals calling themselves "the Minutemen." The group had been recorded as including "an ogre, a zombie, two strange robots, and a man in intimidating armor," which according to the security cameras in the waiting room where the Minutemen were currently waiting, was seemingly accurate. They had also been using firearms that fired gunpowder bullets of all things, save for two who had been using energy weapons. Even Atlas didn't have functional energy weapons, yet these Minutemen had access to them. And yet, nine of them had chosen to use obsolete firearms instead. The fact that there was no record of any of them existing either came as no surprise.
"Ah, James. You wanted to see me?" That was Ozpin.
"We have some interesting guests who helped with the evacuation," Ironwood explained, and he proceeded to explain everything strange about them to Ozpin. "I was hoping you could help me make sense of these 'Minutemen'."
"I think the ones best suited to answer the questions are likely the Minutemen themselves, don't you?" Ozpin asked.
"Still, you might have a perspective that might be helpful," Ironwood said. When things happened that were difficult to explain, it was usually Ozpin who knew about them.
"Fair enough. A second opinion can often be an invaluable asset," Ozpin agreed.
With that, the two of them went to meet with the Minutemen.
"We've been waiting here for two hours already! Why can't we just go?" Cait complained.
"We don't know where we are, or how to get back home," Nate reminded her. "If we leave, we'll be on our own with no idea where we are. This 'General Ironwood' we're supposed to meet with at least might have some answers for us."
"Plus, we're almost out of bullets," Hancock noted.
"Well, when's he coming? If he wants to meet with us, he should do it," Cait said.
Just then, the door opened and four men stepped through. Two of them were ordinary soldiers, but the other two were of interest. One was clearly a military man, wearing a military officer's uniform. Likely this was General Ironwood. The other man had white, unkempt hair, wore circular glasses, and dressed in a green outfit that didn't look military.
The military man shook Nate's hand. "General James Ironwood, Atlas military. This is Principal Ozpin of Beacon Academy. I hear you and your crew here saved some of my men."
"Nate Howard, Commonwealth Minutemen," Nate said. "These here are Preston Garvey, Piper Wright, Nick Valentine, John Hancock, Robert MacCready, Curie, Cait, Deacon, Danse, Codsworth, and Strong. It was no trouble."
"Still, I really do appreciate it," Ironwood said. "Though that being said, I do have questions for you."
"I'll answer what I can," Nate said. "But I'm going to have questions for you too."
"That shouldn't be a problem," Ironwood agreed. "First off, what exactly are Valentine, Hancock, and Strong? I've never seen anything like any of them before."
He didn't know what Hancock was? That was perplexing. Nate could understand Ironwood not knowing what Valentine was. As far as he knew, the Institute's influence had never left what was once New England. He could even understand Ironwood not recognizing a Super Mutant when he saw one. FEV was purely a North American phenomenon. If they were on another continent, then that continent likely wouldn't have Super Mutants. But the entire world had been irradiated by the Great War. Ghouls existed in every inhabited location on Earth. And while they might look a little different in different places, Ironwood should have seen Ghouls before.
Unless wherever they were hadn't been affected by the bombs at all.
Was that even possible? Everywhere on Earth had been affected. Even places that hadn't been nuked had seen mutants move in.
But it would explain why this place still had such advanced technology if they hadn't nukes their infrastructure back to the Stone Age.
Seeing that General Ironwood was still waiting for an answer, he began explaining. "Valentine is a Synth—an android made by a bunch of scientists. Like any human, he has a soul and free will. He's actually a prototype, one of their first Synths with free will. Danse and Curie are also Synths, just later models. Also, while artificial humans are a newer development, machines with souls are a somewhat older one, though the older models are a bit more limited in their freedom of will. I'm pretty sure Codsworth also has a soul."
Ironwood's eyes widened slightly. Whoever the Minutemen were, they knew people who had found a way to make androids with souls. As far as Ironwood had known, there was only one of those in existence, and the fact that she had been made specifically with the use of her creator's unique Semblance meant that she would likely be the only one Atlas's scientists ever made. But Mr. Howard was speaking as if wherever he had come from, they were commonplace. Glancing at Ozpin, he saw that the education was equally surprised, though he saw that surprise quickly turn to excitement.
"Strong is a Super Mutant," Nate continued. "Super Mutants are people who got exposed to a Pre-War experiment called the Forced Evolutionary Virus. I don't know a lot of the details about FEV, that wasn't my area of expertise. While it did make the Super Mutants stronger and tougher than regular people, it also tends to reduce the intelligence of anyone exposed to it. Not always, I hear there are Super Mutants out there who are highly intelligent, but often."
Strong shrugged. "Strong not need to be smart like MacBeth. Strong is strong. Nate-human can be smart."
Ironwood raised an eyebrow. This was interesting. Especially as he hadn't heard of FEV. If it was a weapon from before the Great War, it would have seen use. Super Mutants did not seem subtle. So either Mr. Howard was lying and doing it badly, or there was another piece to this puzzle that he just wasn't seeing. Given that he had no alternative theory that would explain Strong, he would assume the latter for now.
"Hancock is a Ghoul," Nate continued. "Ghouls are mutants created by...well, Hancock specifically was turned into a Ghoul by a designer drug, but most people who become Ghouls do because of exposure to heavy radiation. In the wake of the Great War, it was mostly fallout from nuclear weapons that turned people into Ghouls, but nowadays there aren't that many nukes being fired, and most of the fallout has faded except in a few places like Orleans. It's usually toxic waste from power plants that turns people into Ghouls now. There's a lot of that stuff around. Power demands were high before the War, and people still need energy now. Toxic waste stays radioactive for a long time, but there aren't really that many practical alternatives to nuclear power."
Okay, now Mr. Howard had lost Ironwood. "What are nuclear weapons?"
Nate gave the General a look. "Nuclear weapons? The Great War? Destroyed civilization as we know it? Anyone on Earth would know what I'm talking about, unless..." His eyes widened. "Unless we aren't on Earth anymore."
"Blue, you can't be suggesting what I think you're suggesting," Piper said.
"I think I am," Nate said. "General, this planet. What's its name?"
"Remnant," Ironwood said cautiously. "But what you're suggesting, it's...it sounds so absurd."
"Perhaps," Ozpin spoke up. "But we have encountered a great many things that have seemed impossible, have we not, James?"
"Even so..." Ironwood said. "But...I can't think of another explanation that makes sense."
"So, what do we do?" MacCready asked. "How are we going to get back home?"
"I don't know," Nate admitted. He had to get back home to Shaun II. Maybe he could stand to lose his new home in the Commonwealth. Maybe the Minutemen could survive the loss of their General. But he had been granted a second chance to be a father. And if he was going to lose his son because of those Institute bastards a second time...
"Perhaps I can help," Ozpin offered. "I'm not just an Academy principal. I also happen to be the director of Vale's Huntsman operations. And General Ironwood directs both Huntsman and military operations for Atlas. We may not be able to return you to your world at present, but we have no shortage of resources. We may be able to help you find your way home. And in the meantime, we can provide you with the resources you will need to survive in Remnant."
Cait gave them a skeptical look. "What's the catch?"
"There is something I want from you," Ozpin admitted. "I can tell you have all seen a lot of action. I want you to act as teacher's aides at Beacon for the time being, to pass on some of the lessons you have learned to my students. But if you refuse, I will provide you with what I can regardless."
"No offense, you've given us a very generous offer, but I think we should discuss it among ourselves before we accept," Nate said.
"Of course," Ozpin nodded. With that, he, Ironwood, and the two soldiers left the room.
Nate turned to his friends. "It seems like a good offer."
"Too good of an offer," Danse said. "That man is hiding something. I'm sure of it."
"I mean, yeah, he probably is," Deacon agreed. "But it might not be something that concerns us."
"The real question is, do we have a better option?" MacCready asked. "We don't have local money; they probably don't use caps. We don't have very much ammo. We don't know the lay of the land."
"I don't know, I'm not exactly a kid-friendly person," Hancock admitted. "Still, it doesn't look like we've got better options."
When Ozpin and Ironwood came back, Nate addressed the principal. "We're willing to accept your offer, but only if we have the option of walking away at any time. We're not exactly looking for a permanent position here."
"I have a concern," Hancock said. "Strong and I are going to stick out like sore thumbs. How do we address that?"
"It won't be a problem," Ironwood assured him. "Tonight, the news will run a story about the twelve brave Huntsmen who rescued several civilians during the evacuation. We'll have a section on the two of you, saying that an encounter with a biological weapon combined with the effects of your Semblances mutated you. People might think it's odd, but they won't question it too much."
"There is one thing you all will need," Ozpin said. "To survive as combatants on Remnant, and to complete the illusion of being Huntsmen, you will need your Aura unlocked. Do you have your Auras unlocked?"
"What's an Aura?" Nate asked.
Hancock scoffed. "Haven't you ever heard of the Aura Borealis?" Behind him, Valentine facepalmed.
"Aura is the manifestation of the soul," Ozpin explained. "Not in the spiritual sense, but in the very real, physically observable sense."
"You've lost me," Nate admitted.
"All living things have a soul, even plants, and Aura is a physical manifestation of it," Ozpin said, calmly and warmly. "It increases your strength, acts as a shield, permits you to move faster, and allows you to heal faster. Everyone can use Aura, but it requires a great deal of training, and the Aura of many is too weak to bother. It only makes them slightly stronger, for Aura reflects you as a person, and it takes a strong will to have a worthwhile Aura."
"We're not exactly planning to spend years here learning to weaponize our souls, even if that does sound cool," MacCready said.
"Of course not," he said warmly. "There's an easier way to do it. A skilled enough Huntsman or Huntress can use their Aura to activate someone else's. And considering that it would be in your best interest to have an active Aura if you're working at a school full of young people with powerful Auras, well. I'd be delighted to activate yours." Ozpin held out his hand.
Nate offered Ozpin his hand uncertainly. "Thank you for trusting me," Ozpin said. "For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee." Suddenly, a blue, softly glowing aura appeared around his body, and the next thing he knew, he felt stronger, fitter, and healthier than he had ever felt in his life.
"What the hell?" Nate asked.
"That's your Aura," Ozpin said gently. "I'd say it's around average in strength and size. I've met Huntsman and Huntresses with far weaker Aura than this, but those who were far stronger as well. I suggest you take some time to practice with it. Your Aura can protect you from harm, but not passively. You have to actively maintain it in order to do so. Aside from that, the only thing left of notice is your Semblance. Most qualities of Aura are the same from person to person, varying only in terms of strength, but Semblance is different. It's an ability each person with a strong active Aura has, unique to that person with a handful of hereditary exceptions."
"So, what's mine?" Nate asked.
"Semblances can't be unlocked the way Auras can. Once your Aura is unlocked, it comes on its own time. Sometimes in the heat of a life or death situation, sometimes in the middle of typical physical exertion, sometimes it just happens. We can't find out yours until it activates," Ozpin said.
Ozpin then went around the room, activating the Aura of each of the Minutemen. As he did so, Codsworth took Nate aside. "Master, I am nervous."
"What's wrong, Codsworth?" Nate asked.
"I fear that when he attempts to unlock my Aura, nothing will happen," Codsworth admitted. "That it will prove I do not actually have a soul. You seem so sure that I do, but I don't know. My personality was programmed into me."
"Maybe, but would you have an opinion on it if you didn't have a soul?" Nate asked. "I think the fact that you're worried about not having a soul proves you do have one. See, Valentine just got his Aura unlocked. If he was just programmed to act in the way the original Nick Valentine would have, I don't think that would have happened."
When Ozpin got to Codsworth, Nate insisted that Codsworth let Ozpin unlock his Aura. When Ozpin did so, there was a distinct glow around Codsworth. It wasn't as strong as the others, but it was definitely there.
"I...I feel marvelous!" Codsworth said. "As if I was fresh off the assembly line!"
"Your Aura is on the weaker side, but you do definitely have one," Ozpin noted. "You, Valentine, Curie, and Danse may be the first robots to ever have Aura. I have to thank you. Thank you for allowing me to be witness to something completely new. Something that didn't exist in the world before today."
"So, do we start tomorrow?" Nate asked.
"No, school isn't in tomorrow," Ozpin said. "And even if it were, you all require your new staff orientation first. You will begin on Monday."