Last time on RWBY X Meta Runner: Worlds Collide…
The beans have spilled on Vekk-Torr's dark origin. Surprised by Jinn, the newly formed trio of Lamar, Sage, and Arma-Kade know why the nefarious Camylonian warlord is attacking Remnant. However, Tari, who miraculously survived the fall she and Theo endured after their botched escape from the warlord, washed up on the island of Patch. And after slaying a gigantic Karkinos, Tari when to look for Theo. However, it got the attention of a Camylonian stranger. Tari's search went from horrible, in the form of a Death Stalker, to great, in the form of it exploding and revealing Theo and his new mech. But then, eight meteorites landed on the planet's surface and foiled the warlord's plan of destroying Remnant. But then, they hatched to reveal eight new but familiar heroes—all with numerous powers and abilities. One of them was Ruby Rose, the leader of team RWBY, who now has a supercharged Aura and Semblance. But as the three introduced themselves, the stranger revealed himself to be Roa-Nyn, a former ally of the warlord. He then warns them of Vekk-Torr's master plan, but the battle to save Remnant begins when the sun rises in Vale.
But who are the rest of these familiar faces who knocked on The Living Black Hole's door, or better yet, knocked it in? Stay tuned to find out!
The Xiao Long Cabin was silent that night. At the kitchen table, Taiyang Xiao Long, Ruby's dad, sat alone with Crescent Rose at the center of it and a plate of cookies in front of him.
"Ruby, I wish you and your sister Yang were much less… reckless." He sighed.
As he began to pick up a cookie, someone knocked on the door, it got the attention of Zwei, and the pet dog of Taiyang bolted towards it. Zwei barked at the front door, eager to get Tai's attention.
"No, Zwei. It's that late in the evening." He said as we walked toward the door. "It's possibly a prankster."
As he opened the door, he shooed Zwei away and groaned. As he looked up to see who knocked, he saw Ruby. Taiyang gasped, covered his mouth, and began to cry. He hugged her.
"Ruby. I thought you were gone forever." He gleefully cried.
Ruby then hugged her dad and smiled. Then, Tari and Theo caught up with Ruby, seeing the father-daughter duo hugging each other. Theo exited his mech to see the reunion.
"It's so cute!" He said.
Tai then paused and looked at the two who had just arrived.
"Who are they?" Tai asked Ruby.
"They are my friends, Tari and Theo," Ruby replied.
"Well, any friend of Ruby is a friend of mine. Come in!" Tai chuckled.
Theo then parked his mech next to the left-side corner of the front of the cabin, then the three ran into the house.
"Tari, Theo, you get my room. I get the guest bedroom." Ruby informed her friends.
"I gotta tell Ozpin about this," Tai whispered happily.
The following day, the heroes wake up from a good night's sleep. As they, alongside Tai, gather at the table, Tai makes breakfast for them: A family recipe known as raspberry waffles. Then as he puts the first stack of waffles on the table, he takes notice of Ruby's left arm.
"Ruby." Tai interrupted. "There is something with your left arm. Care to explain it?"
Ruby nervously chuckled and heard a knock at the cabin's door.
"Excuse me. I believe that's for us." Tari giggled as she got up and walked towards the door.
"If it's Ozpin, tell me!" Tai requested.
She opened the door, hoping for a friendly face, and lucky for her, it was Roa-Nyn.
"Tari. Funny seeing you in this house." He quipped.
"Roa-Nyn, glad to see you! Come in!" She cheered.
Roa-Nyn then entered and headed toward the table. As he approached it, Tai froze in fear at what he saw.
"Y- you. You're one of those robotic invaders!" He gasped.
"Dad, he's more friend than foe," Ruby informed.
"Thank you, Ruby. Sorry that we haven't met before." Roa-Nyn said.
Tai then sighed in relief and pulled a chair for the Camylonian ally.
"Well, that's that. Now, onto breakfast!" Tari cheered as she slammed the door.
But unbeknownst to her, a crow was about to fly into the house. As Tari slammed the door, the crow hit it. Outside the house, the crow reveals to be Qrow Brawnwen, Ruby's uncle and Tai's friend.
"Ow! What the shit was that for?!" He groaned in pain after getting hit by the door.
He got up and dusted himself off. But as he prepared to enter his friend's cabin, a familiar figure approached the younger Brawnwen sibling.
"Ozpin!" Qrow exclaimed. "Good to see you!"
"Good to see you too, Qrow." Ozpin greeted him.
In the house, Ruby, Tari, Theo, and Tai are currently eating her breakfast. Theo offered a sample to Roa-Nyn, but the Camylonian refused.
"Theo. He's a robot. He doesn't eat food." Tai informed.
"Camylonian." Roa-Nyn corrected.
"Camylonian? What's that? An Atlesian troglodyte?" Tai joked.
Ruby, Tari, and Theo laughed at the joke.
"Good guess, but actually, no. My people are a peaceful kind. That was until Vekk-Torr's campaign of darkness, malice, war, and death." Roa-Nyn replied.
"Vekk-Torr. He tried to kill me." Tari shrilled.
"You encountered him?" He questioned.
"Like, yes, man. Vekk-Torr looked menacing and scary! He is somewhat a huntsman, but what he hunts is not just Grimm—it's people. He also collects other things, like artifacts, weapons, trinkets, and MacGuffins!" Theo responded.
"Theo, you went into his ship?" Roa-Nyn asked.
"Not to mention, he almost killed Tari." Tai hinted.
"But we luckily survived getting blown up in space and falling into the atmosphere!" Theo replied.
"Not to mention we rescued Ruby for some reason!" Tari added.
"Good point." Tai nodded.
The front door opened, and both Qrow and Ozpin entered. The unlucky huntsman and the headmaster of Beacon entered the kitchen to see the five in a conversation.
"Which scumbag made me hit my head on the door?" Qrow asked the group.
All five of them got up and started pointing fingers—Ruby and Theo pointed to Tari. Tari and Tai targeted Roa-Nyn, and Roa-Nyn framed Tai. With a pissed-off look, Qrow pulled out Harbinger and pointed at the five.
"I knew it was one of you metal-handed dweebs. Mainly the one with the blue hair." Qrow nagged.
They all put their arms down, and Tari nervously chuckled.
"Oops. Sorry." She said.
"Don't mention it. Blame my Semblance." He replied. "Now, Tai, would you like to tell Ozpin about your overnight discovery?"
Tai gave Ruby a signal to Ruby to come close to Ozpin. She then walked towards the headmaster and waved hello. With a shocked expression on his face, Ruby began to show off her new arm.
"You look… different." He complimented. "Much different than before."
"I know, right?" She looks like a new Huntress!" Theo interrupted.
What Theo said got Ozpin's attention. The Headmaster walked over to Tari and Theo and examined them.
"Fascinating." Ozpin wondered. "Tell me. Where are you two from?"
"Well, we are not from here," Tari answered.
"Sorry to bother you, but we may need to skip ahead of her backstory. The readers may need to get caught up with Tari's adventures." He interrupted the group as he pulled out a magic stopwatch.
He then clicked on the stopwatch and fast-forwarded time until Tari finished her backstory.
"And what about you? Are you friend or foe?" Ozpin asked Roa-Nyn.
"He's an ally," Tai affirmed.
"Thank you, Tai," Qrow interjected.
"That's your name? Tai?" Roa-Nyn pondered.
"Taiyang. But you are on the mark." Tai confirmed.
Everyone chuckled at his statement. But as Ruby slapped her new arm on the table, everyone took notice.
"Ruby, how did the technology of my people get onto you?" Roa-Nyn questioned the young Huntress.
"I'll answer that question." Ozpin bespoke. "It was at the beginning of Vekk-Torr's invasion of Remnant."
Then, Tari approached the Headmaster and touched Ruby's arm, which analyzed the origin of the Huntress' new limb and activated her Meta Runner Vision to know how it all began.
"It all started when his ship landed in the Land of Darkness, a dark domain that belongs to Salem. The puppet master behind the Grimm." Ozpin narrated.
Tari saw what Ozpin was talking about. Salem, and her subordinates, Tyrian Callows, Arthur Watts, and Hazel Rainart, were meeting about the next phase of the destruction of Remnant. They heard a spacecraft parked near the Spawning Pools. Salem, then took notice.
"Excuse me. I will deal with the new neighbor." She informed.
She then walked to see the spacecraft parked near the pool. Vekk-Torr emerged from his ship and walked toward the nose of the shuttle.
"Speak, invader. Why are you here?" She questioned.
"Salem. You control a power that rivaled man in this domain. I would like to know its secrets." The Camylonian warlord responded.
"I beg to differ. You want my powers for your gain." She refuted.
Suddenly, her subordinates came to her side, eager to fight off the warlord.
"Hey, you can't park that spaceship over there! It's illegal!" Tyrian yelled.
Vekk-Torr then floated near the group. He crossed his arms a looked at them in a taunting manner.
"Who says that I can't?" He demanded.
Then, from a single strike of The Queen's Servants, the Camylonian warlord was struck down.
"What? He was nothing more than a pest." Tyrian bragged.
The group then watched him fall, and as they saw him fall into the Grimm Pool below, they focused their attention on Tyrian. With severe looks on their faces, Tyrian nervously laughed.
"What? He isn't replacing you, my queen!" He joked.
Then all of a sudden, the pool began to boil. The Grimm started to spaz out, and the Camylonian warlord rocketed out of the pool. The group then saw him float in front of them.
"Gods, demons, and for some reason, professional wrestlers! They all dwarf my power! What chance do you have?!" He bellowed as he began to charge up a powerful blast.
In retaliation, Salem and her colleagues readied their arms.
"You will regret crossing me, invader," Salem growled as she prepared to fire her magic.
"My thoughts exactly." Vekk-Torr sinisterly chuckled.
The two fired at each other, but Vekk-Torr's plasma blast overwhelmed Salem's magic. The explosion was too destructive; it destroyed Evernight Castle and reduced her three followers to ash. After the explosion blew her due to her immortality, she got up and saw the castle she called home in ruins. In fear, she emerged from the rubble of her castle and saw the invading warlord float over her. She tried to use a spell to subdue him, but he responded by severing her right arm with his sonic slash from his longsword. She then screamed in pain as she clutched her shoulder in pain.
"You fiend!" She yelled.
Vekk-Torr looked down and picked the witch up from the rubble. Salem's look went from one of anger to one of fear.
"Like it or not, your power will be mine. One way or another." He confessed.
She then saw the Grimm swarm around the warlord, and Salem's severed arm began to come near her and reattach itself. As the limb finished reattaching itself to its body, Salem felt something she hadn't felt in a long time – pain. As Salem became a living lightning rod, Vekk-Torr siphoned her power to himself, making him control the Grimm. He then threw Salem aside and informed his soldiers.
"Let the invasion… COMMENCE!" He ordered.
Then, thousands of his soldiers and the recently controlled Grimm stormed across the planet in his name. As a few soldiers circle Salem, the latter wakes up unconscious.
"What is the meaning of this?" She demanded.
"A new world order. One of my caliber." He responded.
Tari was shocked at how he arrived on Remnant and then closed her eyes.
"Make it stop. Make it stop! Make it stop!" Tari screamed.
But as she opened her eyes, she saw team RWBY fighting off an army of Vekk-Torr's enhanced Grimm in Vale. As she saw Ruby before her enhancement, she tried to get her attention. But she always ignored her because she was a temporary figure watching these moments. However, an Ursa, a bear-like Grimm, leaped onto Yang, Ruby's elder sister, who punched it in the gut, which oozed out the substance that once covered Remnant onto her.
"Yang!" Ruby yelled as she ran to rescue her from the attacking Grimm.
Ruby activated Crescent Rose and decapitated the attacking monster, only for it to spill its substance over her left arm. But lucky for them, Camylonian soldiers, who were secretly working for Vekk-Torr, came to the aid of the two siblings. Yang then threw Ruby away from the carnage as many soldiers aided her.
"Save yourself! I'll hold the line!" Yang ordered.
"But…" Ruby interrupted.
"No buts about it! Run!" Yang yelled as she headed towards the soldiers to fight off the Grimm.
Ruby nodded, and the siblings headed their separate ways. However, the soldiers set Yang up a trap. As they take down a more powerful Ursa, its corpse oozes its substance all over Yang. While Ruby was running toward her allies, she saw Weiss slaying a Nevermore, only for her to get crushed by it and covered by its substance. Blake wasn't lucky as well. While she and Pyrrha, a friend of Ruby's and a member of team JNPR, tried to evacuate citizens, they were overwhelmed by hordes of Creeps, and the concoction already covered them. It was down to Ruby, Nora, Jaune, and Ren to hold off the Grimm hordes. But Ruby was without Crescent Rose because her left arm got covered by the concoction, which transformed into a crystalline cast as it got exposed to oxygen. With every citizen evacuated, the remaining four heard loud footsteps. Cars flang, and everyone raises their arms to face the upcoming threat. A giant triceratops like Grimm named a Miragequill. As Nora pulled out Manghild, she then fired at its head, only for it to swallow the six grenades and come to a screeching halt.
"Nora, you need to stop being so reckless," Ren proposed to her friend.
"I regret nothing." Nora piped. "I lived as–"
The grenades exploded inside the Miragequill's stomach, covering the remaining four hunters in the substance. A few hours later, the Camylonian army approached the eight hunters, now in their crystal cocoons. They picked them up and put them on a cargo ship, the same one Tari and Theo escaped from. However, unbeknownst to them, Roa-Nyn and the angelic Knight of the Core began analyzing each one, with the latter using his lance to supercharge their Auras, Semblances, and weapons before they were stored.
"This world is not doomed yet, my friend." The angelic Knight illuminated.
"What do you mean? What did you see?" Roa-Nyn inquired his colleague.
"I see a hero from another world. Who wanted to experience this world to herself but somehow freed these individuals from their slumber. " The angelic Knight predicted.
Tari then blinked. Images of Vekk-Torr brainwashing every Huntsman and Huntress on Remnant, the time she was in Remnant with Theo, and the hatching crystal cocoons flashed before her eyes. Then, she saw Vekk-Torr getting knocked by a mighty blow. Both looked up to see what struck the latter—a silhouette of an amalgamation of herself and Ruby. Vekk-Torr and the mysterious figure continued to battle, with continuing blows that began to weaken the warlord with every hit the figure delivered. As he was tired, the figure stood over him triumphant.
"It is over, Vekk-Torr. You will harm Remnant no longer." It reckoned.
It raised its scythe and began to slice him in half. Then, Tari gasped as she deactivated her Meta Runner Vision, catching the attention of everyone around the table.
"Tari! What happened?" Tai asked.
"I saw how Vekk-Torr got here, how Salem fell. I saw all of it and how we can beat him!." She gasped.
"Remarkable!" Roa-Nyn exclaimed. "Tell us more!"
"We need to find the others, especially Yang," Tari informed everyone around the table.
"Yang is alive and well? That's great!" Tai praised Tari, mentioning the elder sibling of Ruby.
"We can't just sit here and do nothing. We gotta go!" Theo hollered.
"Whoa there, Theo. We need to discuss a plan first." Roa-Nyn hinted.
"You are correct. We need a strategy. How do we stop this Vekk-Torr figure?" Ozpin inquired the entire group.
"One step at a time, Ozpin. Revolutions don't happen over a day." Roa-Nyn replied.
Ruby then noticed Crescent Rose on the table, and she picked it up.
"So, where do we start?" Ruby questioned.
Tari got up from her chair. Confident that she, Theo, and Ruby are ready for the challenge ahead.
"Yeah. Who's on the list first?" Tari queried.
"Honestly, he's not far from here." Roa-Nyn chuckled.
He then pulled out a dice-sized black cube with neon blue edges and placed it on the table. It then expanded and created a three-dimensional map of the city of Vale. It also showed pictures of the general in charge of Vale and two Huntsmen from Haven Academy.
"Vale. It's under control by Braane-Strom. The brains and strategist of Vekk-Torr's forces." Ozpin added.
"Who's he?" Theo questioned the group.
"He was once a champion in the board game you call 'chess.' He is so proficient in the game that no one can rival him. However, his dark intent grew as his fame in the game grew. Numerous criminal gangs recruited him to plan the most impossible, unexpected, and unpredictable heists imaginable, including stealing Vekk-Torr's most prized trophy: The Platinum Stingray. In retaliation, his soldiers attacked the genius and his gang for stealing the said item, but only Braane-Strom managed to escape. Hours later, he turned to the Knights of the Core for misdeeds. Much to his surprise, Vekk-Torr broke him out of prison and quickly recruited his military strategist. Braane-Strom is one of Vekk-Torr's top generals, treating every battle plan like a chess match. As of recent events, he has recruited a Distortion bruiser who runs an underground fighting federation, which has expanded since she took it over." Roa-Nyn explained.
"Alongside that, two Huntsmen from Haven have been recently spotted. Both of them act normal, but one has a robot companion." Ozpin mentioned.
Tari took notice of the image of the two Huntsmen and, to her surprise, noticed one of them.
"Lamar?" She gasped.
"You know him?" Ruby asked.
"He's a friend of mine. Somehow, Vekk-Torr got him into Remnant too." Tari replied.
"If that is the case, we must find him before his forces do." Ozpin implied
"Well, thanks for crashing my place, guys. Good luck on your adventure!"
Everyone except Tai got up and finished their breakfast. The map returned to its cube form, and Tai picked it up and returned it to Roa-Nyn. Then they shared a fistbump before the latter left for Vale. Everyone except Tai walked outside the cabin, ready for a new adventure. Theo got into his mech, and the group headed toward the docks. Meanwhile, in his ship, Vekk-Torr watched the group on his monitor as they left the Xiao Long Cabin as Tai waved goodbye.
"So, it seems that Tari has found some allies. Very well. Soon, you and your friends will falter." He noted.
As he continued to look at the group, he noticed an individual who was once a friend of the warlord.
"Roa-Nyn!" He grunted. "By the time Tari falls, you will share her fate!"
Vekk-Torr then looked at his map.
"As for Remnant, it will disintegrate!" He cackled.
Who will find Lamar's group first?
What danger awaits in Vale?
And who else will be there?
Be here when all those questions get answered in Chapter 5: Nerf This!