Oaklore Woods. A beautiful forest filled with magical creatures, picturesque sights, and some of the most affordable housing options for a witch and/or wizard looking for a cottage where they can brew potions, practice spells, and jinx all those meddling kids that trespass your property while looking for a gingerbread house!
While it certainly wasn't the most breathtaking of locales that Lore had to offer, it's sheer natural beauty was enough to make travelers favor it as a scenic route in their travels... as long as you could deal with the antagonistic creatures and animals, bandit gangs, killer plants, occasional roaming dragon, and so on.
Thankfully, the presence of Oaklore Keep and its garrison meant that help was always close at hand, and not only from the venerable Pactagonal Knights. For indeed, several adventurers were known to roam Oaklore Woods in search for treasure, fights, or the occasional ruin that seemingly popped up from out of nowhere, as they are want to do.
And as a matter of fact, right now, such an adventurer was standing proudly at a small cliff edge overseeing Oaklore Woods and contemplating both what his immediate and distant futures could bring to challenge and teach him, all to make him a more worthy hero of the forces of Good.
This adventurer- nay, this... hero, the future Hero of Lore, slayer of all Doom and savior of all... was bored out of his mind.
And yeah, maybe "standing proudly while contemplating the future" didn't quite properly describe his current state, more like... lying down on the grass while his mind drifted from one inane thought to the other in his sleep...
And sure, his normal plate armor and choice of weapons, that being a buckler, a sword and spear, looked quite plain and utilitarian compared to what a legendary hero of legend should be wearing...
... Perhaps the fact he currently had his copy of "The Book of Lore" lying over half his face to shade his eyes from the sun shouldn't be mentioned...
...
Apologies, this narration forgot what kind of point it was supposed to make. Let us just... keep going. Ahem.
Indeed, the young adventurer Hydraxx was resting upon the cliff near Oaklore Keep, lazing about and allowing the time of day to pass by.
Not like there was much left to do, after all. All the quests of the day had been completed, the local Seed Spitter colony had been pacified, the Sneevils' latest dastardly raid on Oaklore Keep's precious box storage had been repelled, and the usual bait of peanuts and bananas bad been left next to the gorillaphants' breeding grounds. All in all, peace had been won over for a good while in the forest, leaving the near future ripe for lazying about.
At least until Rolith began yet another round of training involving his tamed togs, that is.
Still, even someone as carefree as Hydraxx could only sleep for so long before his body pushed for activity, no matter what the Pactagonal Knights or other adventurers said. Fourteen hours of sleep was a perfectly acceptable amount of resting during easy days, dangit!
So, with one last snore, Hydraxx rose from his slumber, grumbling mutters as he shoved the Book of Lore off of his face enough to not be in the way as he got up, his free hand rubbing the tiredness off of his eyes as he stared at the horizon. "Uwaaaaaahhhhh... guess I slept enough already..." he mumbled, slowly getting up fully and propping himself against his spear. "Gotta love slow days like these. Nothing much happens to ruin the peace!"
...
"... I feel like something should have happened there."
And indeed, Hydraxx HAD tempted fate quite blatantly. If a red dragon had descended upon him then and there, one could have charitably described the event as "karmic retribution" for such a blatant challenge of the whims of fate.
Thankfully for Hydraxx, fate was currently busy bringing retribution upon an evil warlock who had decided to proclaim quite loudly that nothing could stop him, so the adventurer had dodged quite a punted moglin that time.
"... Oh well, guess it's back to the keep, then." So, with one last round of stretching his limbs, Hydraxx turned around and began taking the path back to his current place of stay. "Guess things are gonna stay peachy today!"
Unfortunately, while one dodge was feasible, two in a row is asking too much. Case in point, fate had just finished bringing Artix to the doorstep of the evil warlock's castle, and thus had managed to overhear Hydraxx's second challenge. Realizing that such an easy opportunity could not be left unanswered.
That is why, the moment Hydraxx took a few steps forward, a swirling purple vortex opened right over his head, and dumped a pile of young adults right on top of the adventurer, smushing him against the grass under the weight of six girls and two boys, before promptly vanishing.
"I think I deserved that..." was Hydraxx's muffled reply underneath the pile of bodies.
-O-
This had not been Ruby's best day.
Oh, it started well, with her teammates and their friends on Team JNPR heading out for a good day on the town, the best way to spend a Saturday free of homework or studying for tests, no matter what Weiss said.
They had spent most of the afternoon just walking around, chatting and taking in the sights, until finally they had decided to close out the day by visiting the second best ice cream shop, because the best ice cream shop cost an arm and a leg for a simple ice cream cone, and as much as Weiss had a near-infinite money cheat code, Ruby still felt bad abusing it.
Again, it was supposed to be the perfect finish for a perfect day.
So naturally, the moment they walked into the ice cream shop, RWBYJNPR were met with the surreal sight that was Roman Torchwick, grumbling up a storm and pulling out an absurd amount of lien cards to pay for the actual, legitimate industrial barrels of ice cream piled on one corner of the store, and upon which Neopolitan was sitting atop of, drinking an oversized strawberry milkshake.
The situation was so surreal, it even took a good minute of stunned silence before Torchwick turned around, still grumbling as he put away his wallet, and finally realized that some of the most prominent headaches in his life were standing right there, staring befuddled at him and his closest partner in crime. Except this time, none of them had weapons on hand, they weren't surrounded by industrial amounts of Dust, and Neo was more worried over chugging down her milkshake to pay attention to things currently happening.
Naturally, Ruby decided to say the first thing that came to mind.
"... Why are you paying for those?"
The reply to that was two-fold.
The first was the sound of a seven individual facepalms, performed by WBYJNPR. The second came from Torchwick.
"Because, Red, Neo likes this shop, and I know how to not ruin a business so I can keep my friend happy."
"... Huh... I see."
Again, silence, interrupted only by Neopolitan casually flinging her now-empty milkshake glass back towards the store owner, who promptly caught it mid-air and took it away to be washed, leaving Neopolitan free to hop down from the pile of barrels she was sitting atop of to stand next to her oldest friend. Finally, however, Yang stepped forward, slamming one fist against her other hand, eyes shining red as she stared down the two criminals.
"Alright, you two, better give up before we rough you up!"
And that's when the big purple portal randomly opened up, sucking in all ten "customers" of the store into itself before disappearing, and leaving only a single unimpressed store owner behind.
How long they spent inside that vortex, none of RWBYJNPR's members could tell. They couldn't even see each other, or their surroundings, just the sensation of falling infinitely down a hole, until finally they were released from said infinite falling to drop to... wherever they had just been dropped.
At the very least, Ruby knew this "wherever" included all of them being piled together like a mass of spaghetti and meatballs.
"Ow, my legs!"/"Dammit, Yang, get your chest off my back!"/"Ugh, move over!"/"J-Jaune, your arm!"/"Sorry, Pyrrha!"/"Ooo, Ren~"/"Nora please..."
The cacophony of complaints and words dripping with things Ruby didn't even want to start thinking about only barely registered as they all struggled against one another, until finally, RWBYJNPR managed to extricate themselves from one another, allowing the eight young adults to stand up and spread out in a loose circle.
That was also the moment the eight realized how radically their surroundings had changed.
"Uhh, guys? Where are we?" asked Ruby uneasily, the young girl slowly looking to her surroundings, quickly taking note of the absolute sea of green foliage and blatant lack of civilization, except for what seemed to be a stone tower peeking through the canopy of the trees. It was also at that moment that Ruby did a quick headcount, and realized to her dread that they were unfortunately a couple heads short. "And where's Torchwick? Or Neo?"
"With any luck? At the bottom of the ocean..." grumbled Yang with a grimace, the blonde grunting as she did her vested best to stretch her limbs, a few cracks resulting from it. "Brothers, I hope this happened..."
-O-
"... Neo?"
"?"
"I am never buying you ice cream again."
"?!"
"Yarr harr, landlubbers! Hands where I can see them!"
-O-
"It'd be so good ..."
"That's all well and good, but that still doesn't explain where we are," said Weiss with no small amount of bite, and to which Jaune immediately jumped at the chance to reply.
"W-Well, this is clearly a forest!"
"Great observation there, Vomit Boy..."
"So... maybe we got dropped in the middle of the Valean wilderness?"
"Except Vale doesn't have trees like these," quickly answered Blake, motioning to said trees currently surrounding them. "Trust me, I've been walking the Vale woods for a long time, and these aren't native to the mainland."
At that, Jaune wilted slightly, but a reassuring hand put on his shoulder by Pyrrha served to keep the young man's spirit from crumbling. This, in turn, prompted Nora to dash forward, taking up a proud stance as she pointed at the horizon beyond. "Isn't it obvious? We've been sent to an alien world by mysterious beings so we can fight the forces of evil and save the day!"
The others, in turn, stared at the ecstatic girl with what could charitably be described as "confused pity", especially Ren, who gave his oldest friend a pat on the back of his own. The others, however, instead refocused their attention on trying to find any clues that could help them discern where they had landed.
"Or, you know, you could ask me."
That is, until another voice, a new and unknown one, piped up with a very tired tone, right in the midst of the group. And so, RWBYJNPR turned and watched as a young man dressed in a set of armor not dissimilar to Jaune's own, if significantly more complete, and carrying a sword, shield and spear that looked as old and simplistic as those a frontier village member would wield against the Grimm. The young man had shoulder-length black-and-blonde hair, emerald green eyes and a build not unlike what a trained Hunter or Huntress would have: muscular, yet lithe, and with a stance that seemed both lazy yet at the ready at the same time.
"You know, it's kinda rude that you just dropped out of the sky on top of me," continued the young man as he wiped dirt and grass off of his armor, not even looking at RWBYJNPR as he continued speaking. "I mean, I was asking for it, tempted fate and what not, but it's the principle of the matter, ya know?"
To no surprise, of course, the eight young adults did not reply to said statement. They simply stared at the weirdly-dressed young man, taking in his entire appearance, thoughts running a mile wondering who this stranger was, and even if perhaps he was the one to blame for their arrival. For the longest moment, said silence stretched out... until, finally, the unknown amidst the Remnites decided to do something quite unusual.
He sighed, cleared his throat... and then began to talk, switching not only the direction he was facing from time to time, but also his expression and even his voice.
"Well, gee, mister! I'm sorry for dropping out of nowhere on top of you and hurting you! Oh, don't worry, miss, I'm fine now, thank you for worrying for my health! Of course, mister, it's only the proper thing to do when we, again, landed on top of you! Yeah! And hey, since you're the first person we've met and you don't look like an overgrown sneevil, could you help us out in finding out where we are? We aren't quite from this part of Lore, you see. Well then, since you've all shown such care for my well-being, how could I refuse that request! Please, just follow me over to Oaklore Keep, I'm sure we can straighten out your situation with help from the knights! Oh, by the way, my name is Hydraxx, what's yours?" With his small one-man-play finished, the young man took a long breath, then turned to the gathered Hunters-in-training with a half-lidded look, motioning with one hand to them. "And then you all say your names, I smile and nod, and then we go on our merry way."
The silence that followed that was only made more awkward by the fact a Flying Eyeball lazily passed over everyone's heads, and a tumbleweed rolled past and fell off the cliff.
Finally, however, Ruby's brain managed to reboot from the situation, and she decided to ask the most important question of the matter.
"D... Did you have to do the bad impressions?"
"Yes, yes I did," was the young man's shameless reply. And with that, he took off towards the forest, not even sparing a glance over his shoulder before he disappeared through the tree line. A moment later, however, his head poked through the foliage once more, along with one arm. "C'mon, I don't wanna miss the turducken or the moglin berry juice!"
And so, RWBYJNPR slowly but surely took off to follow the strange knight, the eight students keeping close to one another as they took their very first step into the unknown.
"I don't sound like that, do I?" whispered Weiss incredulously to Blake, who instead of replying, merely gave the Schnee heiress a half-lidded look of her own before resuming her walking. "... There's just no way..."
It was only when they were halfway through the trail, that Ruby realized something.
"... Wait, where did he say we were, again?"