I can only apologize for how long this delay has been. I can't even say that I have the entire arc ready like I initially wanted to, this took me so long to get to paper. Despite not having the arc ready yet, I still want to post this if only so people know this story is not dead. And it's not! If it's the only thing I can promise, I do promise as such.

So please, like, comment, subscribe, hit the bell, perform a blood sacrifice, sell your soul to satan and, most importantly, enjoy!

Arcadia Bay reminded Ruby of Patch. The quiet streets, the calm air, the smell of the sea. It would have been enough to make her homesick, if she didn't consider her home to be a mountain-bound castle instead. She walked the lonely streets, one eye turned to the sky as it darkened with rainclouds. She had followed her bond with Chloe to the world easily enough, but once she was on the surface, the number of living hearts had clouded its clarity. Like a flashlight in a bright room. She would have to search for Chloe on foot, the old-fashioned way.

Ruby had another reason for keeping one eye on the sky, beyond gauging the weather. As she arrived, she had to pass through a magic circle that had enclosed Arcadia Bay. She didn't recall that being a feature when her friend first explained their homeworld to her. The spell seemed invisible from the ground, but its existence worried the young wielder. There was enough going on already, she hoped Arcadia Bay wasn't in danger as well. She had enough expertise in magic to know that the runes which lined the spell had something to do with time magic…

The clouds finally started to release the promised rain, prompting Ruby to raise her hood. Her idle wandering led her to an empty courtyard in front of a place called 'Blackwell Academy'. The school made Ruby shiver. Everything it seemed to represent contrasted the town she just walked through, and she could feel Darkness here. Despite the white noise of the drizzle, her ears caught a commotion from nearby.

She followed the noise, her gaze slowly trailing up a clocktower attached to the school's dorms… Ruby's eyes widened. She saw a person, perched on the edge of the tower. Before she could decide what to do, the person jumped. Ruby began racing for the tower, not knowing what she would do, but she had to save-

An intense headache attacked her out of nowhere. It wasn't very long, but enough to stop her in place and blur her vision. She shook it off and looked back up for… what again? She recalled adrenaline, something happening… someone falling? But at the same time, she recalled watching someone else appear on the roof, and halt the jumper.

Conflicting memories layered over each other. The only thing she was sure of what that the second person wasn't there a moment before they appeared out of nowhere. A teleporter, maybe? Ruby looked back up the tower to see the second person had successfully talked the jumper away from the building's edge. Whatever happened… at least something positive came out of it.

Then the Heartless appeared.

The dark shapes instantly surrounded the two people on the tower. Ruby didn't hesitate. In mere seconds she was racing up the side of the tower, thankfully out of sight of most people watching from the ground. She summoned her Keyblade as she neared the top and swung as she reached the lip of the building, carrying her into the air. The Heartless here were weak and few in number, and between quick strikes and a thunder spell, all of them were dispatched before Ruby landed.

"Is that a Keyblade?"

Ruby spun to face the girls she saved. The one with the brown bob and satchel bag was staring at Crescent Rose. Before Ruby could respond, she saw the handle of the roof access door begin to jiggle. The door burst open a moment later, providing a split second distraction for Ruby to vanish without anyone watching her. The security guard barely caught glimpse of red fabric disappearing over the edge, but quickly put it from his mind.

Maxine Caufield was already having a really strange week, and it was only Tuesday. All she wanted was the afternoon to decompress, but even that was interrupted by her friend attempting suicide. And of course she couldn't let that happen, not if she could do anything to stop it. But my power failed at the last moment… I'm so glad I was able to talk Kate down…

"Well, if it isn't the hero of the hour!"

Maxine suppressed a groan. While part of her was happy that this annoyance was an exceedingly mundane one, it was a still another annoyance. Not that Warren was a bad guy, but he was trying way too hard and missing Max's gentle let-downs. But she didn't want to break his heart over her knee either, so she responded amicably and didn't shy away when he sat next to her.

Above them, beyond either teenagers' perception, Ruby waited in the shadows. She needed a moment that the girl was alone, and so far that hadn't presented itself. She was able to learn a few things ahead of time by eavesdropping here, mainly their names. She also heard the pair discuss the sudden eclipse. Apparently, it wasn't meant to happen, and the girl was taking it as a bad omen.

Ruby frowned. Weather phenomenon were one of the common consequences of misusing time magic, which aligned with the sigil surrounding the world. Was that what she experienced earlier? And if so, why did she retain her memories from before the divergence? Because of Keyblade magic? Or maybe because she wasn't a local?

Ruby didn't have enough evidence to say anything with certainty, so she turned her attention back to Max. She was separating from the Warren boy and texting someone. Ruby decided this was her moment. She jumped down in front of Max, successfully startling the girl and raising Crescent Rose to her. With all that was going on, Ruby wasn't going to take any chances. "How do you know about the Keyblade?"

Maxine had witnessed what Ruby did with Crescent Rose an hour ago. Whether because of that, or because she had other experience, she seemed to adequately fear the weapon being pointed at her. "I have a friend who has one!" she answered quickly.

"A friend?" Ruby thought. She couldn't think of anyone else it could be, but she still had to be sure. "Who?"

Max seemed hesitant to answer. "Chloe Price…" she finally sighed.

Ruby relaxed a little. While she would definitely be having words with Chloe about her loose tongue, she knew that the other trainee at least wouldn't spill to a villain. "Where is she now?"

Max gripped her bag tight. "Are you going to hurt her?"

Ruby conceded that to Max, she probably looked like a villain right now. She dispelled Crescent Rose and lowered her hood, hoping that showing her face would help foster hospitality. "I'm a friend of Chloe's too, I've been looking for her. We train together."

Max seemed unconvinced. "If you're on Chloe's side, why did you threaten me?"

"I don't know who you are?" Ruby explained. "And the Keyblade is supposed to be a secret. There's… things, going on… look, I can't elaborate, but I have to be on guard, okay?"

Max took a moment to absorb Ruby's words. "I guess that makes sense," she finally nodded. Max turned and pointed to a lighthouse in the distance. "She's probably there. Either that, or a junkyard past the edge of town."

"What about her house?" Ruby asked.

"That's… not as likely." Regardless, Max still told her how to find it.

"Thank you," Ruby bowed slightly and started to run off.

"You're really not going to hurt her!?" Max suddenly called out. "I just… can't handle anymore crap today."

Ruby assuaged her with a smile. "Nothin' but light in here, promise." Ruby took off again, summoning her glider once she was out of sight to make up the distance to the lighthouse.

Ruby couldn't help but feel a bit of apprehension. She didn't know Chloe for very long before being separated for so many months. But in that short time they had become fast friends. Ruby was probably closer to Chloe than either of the other students, and they were both already on the Land of Departure when Ruby got her Keyblade. Yet somehow the familiarity made it less easy to predict how a reunion would go, as it made it easier for niggling little fears to be heard.

Ruby pushed those fears down and took the last few steps. She finally saw Chloe, sitting on the backrest of the bench with her feet on the seat, facing away from her. A smile stretched across Ruby's face. "Chloe!"

Chloe froze. After a single second, she whipped around with disbelieving eyes. "Ruby!? You're okay!"

Chloe leapt over the bench and the two lost trainees shared a brief hug for their reunion. Chloe was the first to speak after they broke away. "Are the others okay too?"

"Master Kairi is," Ruby responded, "the other Masters are lost in the Dark Realm, and as far as I can tell us students were scattered to our homeworlds when The Land of Departure fell."

"Do you know what happened?" Chloe asked next.

"Someone attacked us, a wielder who had given themselves to Darkness called Crona," Ruby explained. "And right now, they're trying to finish the job starting with me and my world. Master Kairi gave me the task to pick up you and the others and bring them back there to defend Remnant."

Chloe groaned and paced for a moment. "You mean right now? I can't just leave!"

Ruby was afraid of that. "Does this have something to do with the spell surrounding Arcadia Bay?"

"The what?" Chloe was taken aback.

"You haven't seen it?" Ruby questioned. "There's a massive time sigil cloaking your world."

"Time…" That seemed to make Chloe pause for thought.

Ruby's eyes narrowed. "What do you know? What's going on?"

Chloe shook her head. "It… might be connected to a friend of mine? I don't know…"

"Chloe," Ruby spoke with a firm tone, "what is going on around here?"

Chloe considered how to tell Ruby about everything from the past few days. She gestured to the bench where they both sat down as she gathered her thoughts. "You remember how I told you I left a few problems behind when I left here with Axel?"

"Yeah," Ruby nodded.

"Well, big surprise, those problems hadn't gone away before I woke up on the beach here. Including… a three thousand dollar debt to my old drug dealer."

"A what!?"

"It was to repair my truck!" Chloe quickly defended. "He was just the only guy in town with that kind of money! A bank wasn't going to loan me that anytime soon. Anyway, I could have used the Keyblade in a million different ways to fix things-"

"You didn't…" Ruby interrupted.

"And that is exactly why I couldn't!" Chloe shouted. "Every time I considered, like, robbing a bank or something, I heard your voice in my head scolding me! So thanks for that, Jiminy Cricket…"

"Hrmph…"

"Anyway, I still needed to figure something out. I still didn't use 'good' methods, but I didn't use magic either. Figured that was as close to a middle ground as I was gunna find. I ended up at a party where some asshat drugged me."

Ruby's eyes widened. "Oh my god, are you okay!?"

"I woke up the next morning with sore wrists, but nothing worse than that," Chloe assured. "Still tracked down that little asshat at the school a few days later. He's a rich kid, the kind that daddy pays for all his problems to go away. Figured if I make myself a problem, I get paid off too. I cornered him in a bathroom, and… this is where things start getting weird…"

Ozpin deemed a meeting necessary. With the changes to his roster of allies in the past few days, he needed to be sure his group as it was now were all on the same page. And so, gathered in his office was himself, Glynda, Qrow, Kairi, and Winter. Weiss, Yang, and Blake were there as well, since they knew too much at this point not to be. "I'm glad you all could make it on such short notice."

"Who is this one?" Winter asked, gesturing to Kairi.

"This is Ruby's Master," Ozpin introduced her. "Kairi will be taking Ruby's place while she is on another mission."

Winter glanced at the remains of team RWBY. "She's on a mission alone?"

"She's on an assignment from me, not Beacon," Kairi elaborated.

"Doing what?" Winter pressed.

"Gathering allies. That's all I can say."

"All you can say!?" Winter's eyes narrowed.

Ozpin held up his hand. "Peace, Winter. As a group that values our own secrets, we had a standing arrangement with Ms. Rose. If she requested an end to a line of questioning, we would respect it. That same arrangement applies now to Master Kairi."

Winter crossed her arms. "I imagine General Ironwood wasn't very happy with that."

"Indeed," Ozpin nodded. "It was also one of the secrets Ruby did divulge that Ironwood used to attack her out of turn."

Winter's widened eyes and dropped hostile aura confirmed she got Ozpin's point. She was still conflicted on the issue as a whole. She wanted to trust her general, but everyone here opposed his recent actions. Could they really all be wrong?

In the silence, Kairi's eyes found Qrow's. She looked him up and down, putting pieces together from old descriptions. "Are you Ruby's uncle?"

Qrow smiled. "That's right! She talked about me?"

Kairi nodded. "She was always upset that she couldn't tell you everything. I'm… sorry if that caused friction between the two of you."

Qrow waved her off with a smirk. "Like Oz said, we get keeping dangerous secrets. I'm over it. We're cool."

Kairi smiled. "Thank you."

Weiss stepped forward in the next beat of silence. "If I may speak next, are you planning on bringing us fully into the fold, Headmaster?"

"No," Ozpin told them with certainty. "We can't deny what you already know, but you are still students, first years at that. With no extra-ordinary skills and abilities such as magic or the Keyblade. It's simply too dangerous."

"I understand, sir," Weiss nodded. "I just wanted to be sure."

"Actually…" Qrow interrupted. "Before Rubes left, she gave us a theory about our Maiden Thief being undercover here as a visiting student."

Kairi perked up. "That would explain the Darkness I feel blanketing the academy as a whole."

"I get not sending them out to fight her," Qrow clarified, "but they could at least keep an eye out while they're being normal students and report anything unusual?"

Ozpin turned to his second-in-command. "Glynda?"

"Hmm… I don't like using them, but it would be a waste considering they're already 'in' on things so to speak," she conceded.

"We'll do our best professor," Weiss nodded. She turned to Yang, "you can be low-key about this, right?"

"Yes, princess, I'll be just fine," Yang assured with an eye roll.

Blake smirked. "Be nice, you can't say her concern is unfounded."

"Ugh, I know…" Yang crossed her arms.

"One last thing," Qrow turned to Winter, "are you sticking around?"

"Officially, I'm here to search for the General. However, everyone here knows I'm not likely to find him. Or even any lingering trace, apparently." Winter took a deep breath to think. "I could stay as long as I can stall the investigation, but I cannot say with certainty how long that will be."

"Will you stall?" Ozpin followed up.

Winter nodded. "I'll stay as long as I can, if only to watch over my sister. I cannot promise that I'll have the same pull with the forces here as the General did, however."

"Very well," Ozpin accepted.

The group broke off, and Winter was left not knowing what she was going to do. She had to appear to be searching for the General, but what would she actually be doing? She wasn't the type to vacation. She was a workaholic at a loss for any actual work. If only the General was still here… things would be so much simpler.

In Vale, a man with a crew cut and grayed temples walked toward Beacon. The man stopped at a nearby reflective window to take in his own appearance. He knew who he was supposed to be, but somehow he didn't feel… right. The lack of a metal plate in his forehead and his flesh and blood arm under his right sleeve didn't help. He couldn't pinpoint how he felt wrong beyond that, but he had a feeling he knew somebody who could explain it to him. He just had to make it back to the school. Was 'back' to the school the correct thought? Or had 'he' never been there?

Am I even the same man?

His confusion only reinforced his desire for answers. Answers he would only find with a Keyblade Wielder like Ruby Rose.