Here's the update!
There was a huge commotion in the Branwen Tribe.
People were running about, everyone was preparing to battle, and some of the younger, and weaker, members were being evacuated. All in all, it felt as if the entire tribe was preparing for a fight of their life.
Raven Branwen, as the tribe's leader, meanwhile, was not impressed.
For some reason, whatever was happening right now, managed to elicit a bigger reaction from her tribe than her recent return after disappearing a year ago. It was almost insulting.
She sighed as she looked at the cause of all the chaos.
A minute or so ago a weird rift, or maybe portal, appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the camp.
Now, if it was all there was to it, her tribe probably wouldn't have reacted to it in the first place. She often travelled to, and from, the camp using her portal Semblance herself, after all.
There was, however, something wrong about this rift.
It was unnatural.
Being close to it make one head's hurt, and looking at it only made it worse. It was almost like the mortal mind wasn't designed to make sense of whatever place that portal lead to.
If she was still back in the other world, she would have likely assumed it to be the effect of some Monstrosity. It certainly looked like something the monsters from there would be capable of doing.
She knew that it was impossible, though.
Not only had she dealt with the Dark Leader of Monstrosities already. Even if she hadn't, she knew for a fact that the stupid starry cat, who had kidnapped her before, wouldn't let any of its world's monsters escape its domain.
A frown appeared on her face.
She really wanted to say, she had no idea who was responsible for it, and simply blast it into oblivion with her magic.
Sadly, the world was hardly ever so kind to her.
"Can you hurry up, Qrow?!" She shouted at the rift. "You are scaring my tribe!"
At first, her shout didn't seem to have any effect on the portal, and some of her underlings even began looking at her like she was going crazy. Nevertheless, after a few seconds, loud footsteps began echoing from the rift.
"Hey, you were always boasting about your Semblance to team STRQ back in the day. Let me have fun with my portal making ability, as well." Her brother said with a tone and expression that just made her want to punch him.
She grumbled to herself in annoyance.
Great, it looked like the time in a different world made her brother a massive twat.
"Did you miss me, Ray?" Qrow asked as he stepped out of the rift, and it closed right behind him.
No wait, he always had been like that.
"What brings you here, brother?" She asked with as much coldness and spite as she could gather.
"There are many reasons why I could be here, Raven." Qrow said, while absent-mindedly looking from one side to another. "I could be here to convince you to join our efforts against Salem."
She snorted.
With the power she currently had at her disposal, the terrifying immortality of Salem didn't really faze her. She would bet, Qrow had multiple ways to deal with the old witch, himself.
"Yeah, I guess after going through what most of us did, the threat of Salem did lose a bit of its weight." Qrow admitted with a nod. "Well, I could be here for other reasons, too. For example, I could be here to finally catch up with you after the whole year we've been missing."
"Get to the point, brother." She growled.
Qrow looked at her with a slightly raised eyebrows before smiling a little.
"I guess, I should." Qrow reached for something under his dusty coat. "You know, we technically are enemies, right?"
She quickly took a step back and moved one of her hands towards the catalyst for her magic, she kept right behind her sword. If her brother wanted a fight, she would gladly give it to him.
"Everyone, move aside!" She quickly commanded. Had her tribe wanted to help her, they would only end up dying for no reason.
Qrow grinned a little at her display.
"Don't worry, I'm not here to fight yet." He said while pulling out a small data disk from his coat. "I might be strong, but I'm not stupid enough to fight you in the open with no knowledge of your abilities."
She relaxed a little, but still looked at her brother with suspicion.
"What is it, you want, then?" She asked while warily watching the disk in Qrow's hand.
"Share some info." Qrow threw the disk towards her.
She carefully caught it, and began to inspect it in case it was some trap. Luckily, for both her and her brother who would have tasted her wrath afterwards, it was completely safe.
"I've managed to find two other heroes duking it out at Beacon's initiation." Qrow pointed at the disk in her hand. "There's a copy of the recording on it, if you want to see for yourself."
"Why give it to me?" She asked while looking at Qrow.
Her brother smiled.
"Isn't it obvious?" He asked. "I give you the info, and you eliminate them whenever you've got the chance. Like that, we have two opponents less to worry about, and you get the chance to flaunt your newfound power."
Was that really the extent of what Qrow wanted?
Sure, it would allow him to stay anonymous to other heroes, but she still knew of him, and she certainly wouldn't hesitate to eliminate him. She might even do it right now to save herself the trouble later.
For all intents and purposes, Qrow was essentially gifting her a good opportunity and useful info.
There was a single problem with it, though.
"I'm not your attack dog."
Qrow raised his arm in defence.
"I'm not saying, you are." He said. "However, you cannot deny that arriving the next time they scuffle like that to finish them off, would be a huge victory for you. Hell, I'm pretty sure that just defeating the knight kid would give you enough reputation to make every other hero think twice before challenging you to a fight."
"Why not do it yourself, then?" She couldn't help but ask.
Qrow took a step beck and looked a bit withdrawn.
"Let's just say the skillset I've acquired in the Infinite Seas doesn't lend itself well for open combat." Qrow shook his head. "Especially not against people of those kids' power."
She looked at her brother for a second.
Then two.
Then she exploded in a fit of laughter.
"Ha! It seems that even when given a chance in a different world, your bad luck still follows you around." She said in between her laughter.
"Yeah, yeah, laugh all you want." Her brother said while waving his hand before looking directly at her with a knowing smirk. "It's not like you were that much luckier than me either, miss magical girl."
Her body instantly became tense as she instinctively reached for the catalyst to her magic.
She could accept Qrow knowing she was an otherworldly hero, but him directly knowing what type of power she had, was a bit concerning.
"Well, whatever, I didn't come here to threaten you." Qrow grew serious for a moment. "No matter what you decide to do, I would still recommend arriving at Vale shortly. Something tells me, the city's going to be in chaos soon."
"I will think about it." She said honestly.
Qrow nodded, before snapping his fingers and making the rift appear behind him again. It was still as painful to look at as it was earlier. She shuddered at the thought of travelling through something like that.
"Good, that's honestly more than I expected of you." Qrow turned towards the rift. "I will be leaving now."
As she watched him leave, she barely stopped herself from saying 'goodbye' to her annoying brother.
The time she spent in the other world must have really made her softer than she thought.
"By the way, do you want a lift to Vale?" Qrow asked right before entering the portal. "It's free, and I doubt you will find a faster mode of transportation on Remnant!"
"Get lost!" She scoffed. "I can travel plenty fast on my own, and you must be crazy if you think I will voluntarily enter this portal of yours! I'm going to travel to Vale on my own terms!"
"It's your choice." Qrow shrugged in response before disappearing into the portal and closing it right behind him.
As the whole cause for commotion finally disappear, silence slowly overtaken the tribe as every one of her tribesmen looked at her with confusion in their eyes. They knew that she was stronger after returning, but at the same time they were fortunately unaware of everything that was going on.
"Uhm, b-boss-" One of her tribesmen tried to say something but was stopped by her violently slamming the ground with the sheath of her sword.
"Shut it!" She shouted to everyone around her before turning towards the main tent. "Bring me some device that can read standard data disks, quickly! I've got opponents to evaluate."
None of the tribesmen dared to make her wait.
(...)
There was something oddly nostalgic about Vale, for Roman Torchwick.
He couldn't quite place exactly what it was, though.
It couldn't have been the atmosphere of the huge city, because he had visited many such cities across his career as a master thief of, not one, but two worlds.
It wasn't the fact that Vale was on Remnant, either. He had next to no attachments to this specific world anyway. If anything, he would probably say that by this point, Earth was much closer to his heart than his home world.
Sure, Neo, his partner, might have been one thing Remnant had going for it, and she certainly made this place worthwhile, but he would still rather take Neo with him away from Remnant than stay here.
A small shiver suddenly went through his body as one of his powers warned him that someone was observing him.
He smiled subtly as he abruptly turned in a different direction.
Maybe it was the thing he was feeling so nostalgic for.
The sense of danger.
It had been a while since the last time he had felt genuinely threatened by something, after all. Ever since he had begun to truly grow in power, it was easier to find people scared of him than the ones who could scare him.
There was this one girl who tried to scare him into working for her right after his return. Silly girl thought that just because she could throw some fire around, she would suddenly be able to threaten him.
What was her name again?
He looked up to think about it for a second.
It was Cinder Something, possibly.
He thought, at least
Eh, it's not like it mattered any more anyway with the girl already gone. In the end, she turned out to be more of an annoyance than anything compared to him. Although, to be fair, most things on Remnant would probably end up as nothing more than annoyances to him.
He glanced at the roof of one of the building behind him.
It's possible his current stalker would turn out to be something more, though.
Whoever it was, they seemed to be ignoring the best illusions Neo was throwing at them from hiding like nothing. It was almost like they weren't even perceiving those illusions in the first place.
Was being able to see through illusions one of their powers?
Well, it wasn't like it mattered anyway. If they truly wanted to scuffle against him then he could just simply take them on. It wasn't like illusions were a big part of his power-set anyway.
He stretched with exaggeration to signal to Neo that he would deal with their stalker alone.
The only answer he got from Neo was an illusion of light flashing towards him. It was as much of an answer as he could get from his partner, he supposed.
After slowly making his way to an unpopulated alley, and making sure Neo had the time to gain some distance from them, he had finally stopped in place. When it came to places his first fight of this screwed war could happen in, some isolated alley in Vale was certainly decent enough.
"I think we've strolled for long enough!" He said sufficiently loud for his stalker to hear. "I don't know about you, but I would certainly like to get this foreplay over with and fight! That's what you've been following me for, isn't it?!"
Silence met his question.
"Are we really doing this?" He rolled his eyes in annoyance.
Not wanting to dillydally for any longer, he quickly extended his arm towards the spot he felt his stalker hiding in and formed a finger gun.
"Bam!" He said jokingly as a small, yet powerful, ball of fire flew out of his finger.
The fireball flew through the air faster than it had any right to be. It was so fast that even sniper rounds fired from the best sniper riffles wouldn't come close to the speed his projectile was travelling at.
It took less than a fraction of a millisecond for his projectile to hit the target.
By the time it did it, however, his target was already devoid of any enemies.
"So my suspicion was correct." He heard a voice say from behind him as his stalker finally decided to reveal themselves with a heavy thump of landing on the ground. "I must say, I didn't expect for a crook like you to also be an otherworldly hero."
He turned around, to face his enemy head on, with a smile on his face.
"I didn't expect to be fighting kids, either." If they wanted to exchange banter with him, then he wasn't going to disappoint them. "And, are you seriously wearing sunglasses even though it's already getting dark? What are you, an eighth-grader?"
His stalker apparently didn't take his quip kindly, as she merely grunted something to herself before making a mini-gun appear in her hands out of thin air, with a small display of red flames while doing it.
"I'm guessing that I'm not going to lose any sleep for killing you." His stalker said as her weapon began rapidly revving up.
Not wanting to get punctured by a hail of point-blank bullets, he instantly jumped back, raised his arms to protect his face, and activated all the defensive powers he could think off the top of his head.
No sooner than his feet touched the ground again, he felt a barrage of projectiles collide with him.
"Damn!" He grunted as the bullets collided with him and he felt pain.
It had been a while since the last time a gun of all things had hurt him. Usually, when he activated just one of his defence focused powers, things like ordinary weapons became basically unnoticeable to him.
The fact, that despite having activated multiple such powers, those pellets felt like someone rapidly punching him with all their might was beyond surprising to him.
An even bigger surprise to him, was that he felt himself being pushed back because of this attack.
What were those bullets?!
He might not have known what sort of world that kid had gone to, but he knew very well that he should have been an immovable object right now. Shots from tanks wouldn't have shaken him, let alone some mini gun.
A loud scoff came out of his opponent, and the barrage momentarily stopped.
Knowing that he had, at best, only a second of respite, he immediately lowered his arms to have a look at his enemy, only to see her right in front of him and swinging a giant sword at his face.
He quickly activated multiple speed based powers, gritted his teeth in frustration, and ducked just under the swing. Considering how much the bullets had hurt him, he didn't want to test his defence against her sword.
"Would it hurt you to not attack me for a single moment!?" He shouted as he pushed his opponent back with a basic wave of kinetic energy.
The girl was sent flying a good couple meters back, and only a wall at the end of the alley stopped her from falling further away.
Sadly, she didn't appear to have taken any damage from that.
He was pretty sure he heard her click her tongue in annoyance as she was landing, as well.
"Are you seriously finding this fight annoying?" He couldn't help but ask with an exasperated tone.
"There is a reason I want to end this fight so quickly, you know?" She said while stretching one of her arms and making the giant sword disappear in a flurry of scarlet red flames.
He wasn't given the time to answer her as the moment she was done stretching, a barely-noticeable bloodthirsty grin appeared on the girl's face, and she dashed towards him.
The girl moved so fast, she looked like a glowing blur of brown and red.
Seeing the girl approaching fast, he quickly took a single step back, activated a power which allowed him to create solid constructs out of barriers, and formed a giant wall between him and the girl.
Multiple years as a villain on Earth had taught him that when dealing with speedster heroes, the best strategy was usually to let them fall into obstacles on their own.
There was a limit to human reaction speed, after all.
Unfortunately, as if his stalker wanted to do nothing more than spite him, his attempt at making her crash into his wall was foiled almost instantly.
As it turned out, the girl's durability was strong enough for his barrier wall to break under the pressure of her speeding body. If anything, it acted as nothing more than a speed bump on her way towards him.
"Is that all!?" The girl shouted as she raised both of her hands and made her giant sword appear in them again.
He clicked his tongue in annoyance before dashing to the side to avoid the sword.
"It's not." He grunted as he dodged another sword swipe from the girl. "It's usually enough to deal with most of my opponents, though."
"What sort of enemies have you fought in your world?" The girl swung her sword again, only for him to barely dodge it once more. "Some sort of silly comic book villains who couldn't match their own power?"
"You would be surprised." He murmured in response as he moved out of the way of the girl's sword.
The girl didn't stop swinging her sword at him. Her swing were wide and full of power, clearly meant to deal with opponents bigger, and more durable than he was. It was probably the only reason he could dodge them, as well.
She continued to charge and attack him, almost like she was in some sort of frenzy.
If he were to be honest, the constant dodging was slowly tiring him out. He was pretty sure, he would be able to go on like that for a couple of minutes at most, less if the girl decided to diversify her tempo.
Of course, there was no way he was going to show any signs of it to her.
"Alright, I think that's enough." He said loudly enough for the girl to hear him.
With a swift movement, he dodged under yet another sword strike, quickly dashed away towards the edge of the alley, and, using one of his more destructive powers, sent a giant explosion at the bloodthirsty girl.
His opponent, like a brute she had proven herself to be, took the explosion head on.
Even if she didn't choose to do that, there wasn't really any place she could have used to dodge it. The explosion easily devastated the entire alley, making multiple building loose huge portions of their walls as it spread outwards.
As the explosion echoed through the streets of Vale, it was more than enough to alert almost a quarter of the entire city that something was happening.
Although her durability and strength were great, his opponent still had to stagger for a moment after getting hit by it, which allowed her to easily hear the crowds of people hurrying towards the commotion they just made.
"You..." The girl started with an accusatory tone as she made her sword disappear.
"I don't know about you, girl, but I wouldn't want to wake up tomorrow with a target on my back for all the other heroes to see because of a single fight we had to today." He said loudly with a grin.
The girl grumbled something to herself in annoyance, and he couldn't help but grin further.
"If you would excuse me." He quietly prepared his favourite power he acquired from Earth. "I will do what thieves do best and disappear!"
With the final word being his, he activated his power and vanished from the alley in a blinding flash of light.
The very next instant he appeared, with the same flash of light, right next to his partner, Neo, in one of their more hidden hideouts.
A wide smile appeared on his face.
There truly were few things as good as an ability to teleport.
(...)
Pyrrha couldn't believe how normal Beacon felt.
She was a part of a seemingly normal team, attended typical lectures for a Huntsmen academy, and even ate ordinary food in the cafeteria with her colleagues right now.
Were she not aware, she would at some point have to kill her monster of a leader, she would have easily forgotten there was something unusual here at all. It was all just so ordinary and routine.
There were some differences between her life at Beacon and everyone else's, of course.
Neither she nor Jaune, were ever called out to fight in a combat class, for example. The fact some teachers preferred to avoid eye contact with half of her team also didn't escape her notice.
Despite all of that, however, she almost felt like a normal girl at Beacon, and not a multiverse travelling hero with the purpose of defeating eleven other people like her.
She sighed as she took another bit of her food.
Ever since returning to Remnant, her life was one giant mess.
"You alright, Pyrrha?" She jumped a little in surprise as she heard Jaune say.
Great, and now the eyes of all her friends were suddenly on her. She hunched a little to make herself appear smaller, from the spotlight. It took all of her willpower to not stand up and quickly run away from the cafeteria.
She was supposed to avoid any attention, not draw it!
Every second Jaune was focused on her was a second closer to her identity being compromised!
"Everything's fine." She finally let out in a subdued tone. "I'm just slowly getting tired of the bland food we keep getting served here. Y-You know how it is."
All her normal friends, which constituted of team RWBY, Ren, and Nora, nodded their heads in agreement. If there was one thing everyone in Beacon agreed on it was that the food, while passable, was far from diverse.
"Is it really that bad?" Jaune asked. "I find it quite tasty, to be perfectly honest."
"I mean, it's not terrible..." Ruby mused out loud while playing with her meal.
"It's painfully average." Yang said with a bland tone and everyone on their table nodded.
Pyrrha smiled subtly when her cover wasn't blown because of a single mistake on her part. Maybe not being as monstrous, and disconnected from the rest of Remnant, as Jaune, had some advantages.
It was far easier for her to pass off as a somewhat ordinary Huntress in training, when her personal strength wasn't that much beyond everyone else, after all.
Having ordinary friends, and colleagues, like team RWBY certainly helped with that, as well.
Although, it was a bit of a surprise and scare for her when she learned that Ruby, leader of team RWBY, was two years younger than her. Maybe it was just because of the paranoia she had gotten from being around Jaune so much, but her mind immediately began suspecting the girl of being another returning hero.
Thankfully, it didn't seem to be the case, and the girl was simply personally scouted out by Ozpin two years early for some unknown reason.
Huh, perhaps Jaune was onto something with thinking the headmaster was one of the heroes?
"Bwuh?" Before she could think about this theory any further, though, she heard a loud clanking sound as Nora jumped onto the table and took on an inspiring looking pose right next to her.
"Alright, I've decided, this pitiful taste of our fearless leader cannot continue being so bland any longer!" Nora shouted loudly, with determination in her voice. "The first occasion we get, team JNPR is going to Vale to show Jaune what truly decent food taste like!"
To the surprise of no one, Nora's declaration wasn't met with applause and clapping. Instead, almost the entirety of her team merely looked at the orange haired girl with placating smiles on their faces.
"Wouldn't that be a bit wasteful, Nora?" She asked. "The term has just started, and I'm not sure if we should go on such trips so early in the year. Beacon does have a reputation of being a difficult school."
Walking around in the city full of random people, would also make it easier for Jaune to learn that she had disappeared from the face of the Remnant for a year, and subsequently realise they were enemies.
She didn't want to fight Jaune to the death so early into the war!
"I must agree with Pyrrha, it would be unwise to waste so much free time on some restaurants." Weiss came to her rescue. "Besides, I wouldn't recommend going into Vale right now at all, there's been quite a turmoil there recently."
Unfortunately, just as easily as she had just helped her, Weiss decided to give Jaune another reason to visit Vale.
"Turmoil?" She heard Jaune ask.
"Yes." Weiss nodded before pulling out her scroll. "Supposedly an entire street was destroyed in Vale, last night. The cause is currently unknown, but the main suspects are White Fang or some new terrorist organisation."
The Schnee heiress turned her scroll towards them to show them the news article with photos of the destruction, that explosion had left on the street.
The moment she saw it, Pyrrha knew it wasn't a result of some Dust bomb. If anything, it looked like an effect of some impossibly powerful Semblance, one which couldn't realistically be found on Remnant, as Semblances were still limited by the person's Aura.
It seemed there was at least one more hero somewhere in Vale.
Her team leader, obviously, has realised it as well, and now there was likely nothing that could stop him from going to Vale as soon as possible, and hunting the unknown hero.
Maybe, he would be too busy with looking for that hero to find out anything about her?
She stopped herself from sighing in disappointment. Even if it truly would happen, the chance for it was so low, she couldn't stand by and do nothing about it with the hopes she wouldn't be discovered.
"Interesting." Jaune murmured loudly. "Do you know a place I could go to and possibly get more info about it?"
Well, it looked like not-interfering stopped being an option by now.
"Are you saying you want to do something about it?" Blake asked loudly.
"Maybe." Jaune answered. "I would need to have more information about it though."
Obviously, if it truly turned out to be just some terrorist activity he probably would act about it, at all. She knew, she likely wouldn't have if it meant revealing her powers to the world at large.
"I know a guy who might share some info." Yang admitted.
It took nearly all of her power to not groan at Yang's words. If the person she was talking about was some information broker, then the only thing Jaune would need to ask in order to find out about her were famous people who had recently disappeared for a year.
She would have been the first person who came up.
"Great, then I would have to bother you about it." Jaune said happily. "You will point me towards the guy, won't you?"
"You got it, knighty!" Yang made finger guns out of her hands and cheekily pointed them at Jaune. "Let's go there tomorrow night."
Well, it looked like her cover was blown completely.
At the very least, she had a single full day of peace left.
Although, now that she thought about it, there might be some good opportunity for her in this situation, too. Since she was going to lose her anonymity tomorrow anyway, she could use this occasion to set up a proper ambush at Jaune in Vale.
With no real need to have an alibi for it, she might even reveal her hidden ace.
Jaune might have been powerful, but she sincerely doubted he would be able to defeat her strongest familiar, Athenas.
And cut!
Quite a few heroes had been introduced today, hadn't there.
I won't be giving you the files for everyone of their worlds yet, only the ones who fought, so still no Qrow.
Anyway, that's it from me, see ya!
[World Name: Earth-Av3]
[Inspiration: My Hero Academia/Parahumans]
[Hero/Villain: Roman Torchwick]
[Description: Earth-Av3 is a world that, for the most part, followed the standard Earth history, the only real change happened in 2025 when a reality defying substance called 'Bend' was discovered. The most common effect of 'Bend' was the capability to grant superpowers to anyone who came in prolonged contact with it. The exact workings of Bend are not known to the people of Earth-Av3, but it is widely known that the more Bend one came in contact with, the stronger their power would grow. At first those superpowers were exclusive to the privileged and wealthy, but after an unfortunate accident in one of the biggest Bend laboratories, the substance was spread throughout the entire atmosphere. As of the current year of 2102 it is speculated that over 30% of all the humans have some sort of superpower.]
(...)
[World Name: The Human Realm]
[Inspiration: Devil May Cry/High School DxD]
[Hero: Coco Adel]
[Description: Despite being called a world on its own, The Human Realm, in reality, is only one third of a bigger universe. The whole world actually is a combination of three parts, The Human Realm, The Demon Realm, and The Spirit Realm. Usually those realms are completely separate from each other and only traversable through death, but ever since the great war between The Spirit Realm and The Demon Realm, The Human realm had been regularly invaded by the residents of The Demon Realm. While the demons were stronger, and more destructive, than any human weapon could ever be on their own, their existence was still largely kept a secret. To combat them, humanity began employing specially strengthen humans called 'Demon Hunters'. One can only become a Demon Hunter after absorbing the power of either a powerful spirit, or a demon. Absorption of the demon, or spirit, doesn't come without a cost, however, as beyond gaining the increased power and supernatural abilities every Demon Hunter mutates just a little. It is widely believed, that the less noticeable mutation one have, the more powerful a Demon Hunter would be, with the strongest possible mutation being merely glowing red eyes.]