AN: Okay next chapter.

Thanks to Maglad and Monster King for reviewing. It's truly appreciated.

Thanks to everyone who reads as well, it means a lot to me that a few people enjoy what I write, flawed as it is.

RIP RoosterTeeth

Yang

Yang was pacing back and forth in the kitchen, her heart in her throat. Thor had taken off over an hour and a half ago and there was no contact. Thor didn't have a scroll, but if Ruby had hers…

She went to the fridge opened it, grabbed a bottle of vodka, and took a long swig.

"Yang! You said you'd stop." Blake said her voice cracking.

"I need it!" She nearly snarled "My sister might be dead!" She took another long swig.

Blake didn't say another word, but just walked to Yang and hugged her.

"It'll be okay, Thor will take care of it, you've seen what he can do."

Yang stood still for a moment, then she started to cry and hugged Blake back. "But what if he didn't get there in time?" She nearly whimpered into Blake's hair.

Then her scroll started to buzz.

Breaking the embrace Yang quickly pulled it out and saw it was her uncle. Her stomach turned into knots. This may have been good or bad, he was following Ruby and her group to keep an eye on them. If he was calling…she didn't know.

"Hello?" she said answering the call.

"Yang!" Ruby's voice came over the scroll and made Yang feel like a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulder.

"Ruby oh my god what happened? Are you okay?" She said trying to keep her voice from breaking.

"Yeah, a Beowulf broke my scroll while I was talking to you. I had to borrow Uncle Qrow's."

"Thank god." She sighed.

"Yang you won't believe was happened," Ruby said her voice sounding excited.

"Yeah?" Yang responded, thinking she knew exactly what she was about to hear.

Ruby then proceeded to tell Yang about the storm and how it wiped out the Grimm.

"And you'll never guess who's here?"

"Who?" Yang said as something dawned on her about what she'd asked Thor to do.

"It's Thor Yang, he's here and…I don't know, he's different somehow, but after he broke out of the hospital we had no idea where he went, I guess…maybe he had the same idea me and JNPR did?"

"Yeah, maybe," Yang said, of course not believing that because she knew exactly where Thor had been.

"Look, the main reason I called was just to let you know I'm okay," Ruby said "We got a lot to do here after the attack, I'll call you once we get settled."

"Okay, I love you Ruby look after yourself ok?"

"I will love you too," Ruby said as they ended the call.

With a huge sigh of relief, Yang wiped her eyes, put the vodka away, went to the living room, and flopped down on the couch.

"So Ruby is okay?" Blake said coming in and sitting across from her.

"Yup, Thor did his stuff, thank god…or thank him? I guess?" smirking a little.

"He's going to be stuck there, you know that right?" Blake said.

"I didn't think of that when I asked him to go…I'm assuming he can't keep transforming, if the last few times are any indication, it's not good for him."

"Think he'll go with them?" Blake asked

Yang shrugged "Didn't think about it beyond saving Ruby, and I don't think he did either."

"Well, he cares about her a lot," Blake said. "He cares about all his friends." She added as Yang made a face.

Yang was a little mad at the first part of the comment, given what he did to her. But she couldn't deny he just flew off with no concern from himself to save her, without a second thought. Knowing it was probably going to hurt him.

He did have some admirable qualities, under all his bluster and flaws.

"Guess there are some reasons I'm into him." She muttered to herself, but she pushed those feelings down. Especially now that he was back with Ruby, maybe they would patch things up, especially once she found out about his past, she always loved stories about ancient heroes and gods, and Thor was like a living breathing fairytale.

She needed to put those feelings behind her, they were just going to cause problems. The problem was she wasn't really best at regulating her own emotions.

She looked at Blake, who was giving her a similar feeling as Thor did. Different in some ways, but she was falling in love with her partner. She just wasn't sure the feeling was mutual and she wasn't sure she could handle that rejection.

Sighing, she decided for the moment she would just be happy her sister was safe. But even that had the thought that she'd asked Thor to hurt himself to do it. Granted the number of people he had saved, she doubted he'd ever regret it.

"Yang?" Blake's voice broke her out of her thoughts. "They'll be fine, Thor can look after himself, he always comes back around after his… post-transformation issues."

"Yeah, that's true." But if Thor had to survive without his full power…she'd been beating him spars, something that never happened when he was...well,…whole. A missing arm and eye were truly limiting his ability to fight, then there was that limp that persisted in his right leg.

But she worried about them, about them all. From how hard Ruby and JNPR had apparently been pushed, that attack was abnormally large.

"I think we…maybe should join them," Yang said.

"What?" Blake said, "But they are…aren't they way further ahead of us?"

"If we go on my bike we can catch them, especially if we call them and tell them to stay put."

"That would mean not going back to Beacon," Blake said.

Yang nodded and thought about it and realized she just wanted to be around to protect her sister.

"Would you go with me?" She asked, thinking she already knew the answer.

"Of course, we're partners, you're my best friend, Yang, I'd follow you anywhere."

Yang blushed at that, even if Blake didn't mean it romantically, it still set her heart fluttering.

"I'll call my uncle, and we can tell them to stay put until we get there." She said pulling out her scroll.

"When do you want to leave?" Blake asked.

"Today if we can get our supplies together, tomorrow at that latest, I never should have let her go without me," Yang said as she pulled up a map to the town Ruby had said they were at.

On her bike, she should be able to make it in…she estimated a week if they took it at a reasonable pace and ignored the towns between them.

With that, she set off to pack for the trip.

Thor

He felt like he was waking up with a bad hangover. His head was thumping and he felt incredibly weak.

Opening his eye, he saw he was in a bed in an unfamiliar room. Sitting up and looking around, he ignored the spinning sensation in his head, and it looked like a hotel room. He noted a bathroom, a second bed, a television stand, and a desk in the corner.

Sitting on the side of his bed he rubbed his temples to try and soothe his aching head. It didn't work, so he decided to get some water. Taking a deep breath to help stabilize himself, Thor stood up and walked to the small bathroom, turned on the water, and just stuck his mouth under the faucet.

After taking several long pulls of water, he turned off the water and went back to the bed he woke up in.

He didn't remember getting brought here in anything other than flashes. He sort of remembered being brought to the bench and he must have nodded off because the next thing he remembered was being helped to walk some distance, and he must have blacked out at that point.

He heard someone keying the door to the room open, and turning to look, he saw Ruby walk in, looking exhausted.

"Oh thank god you're finally awake." She ran over and hugged him. "This place has been crazy since the attack." She said flopping onto the second bed. "So how are you feeling?" She asked trying to put a smile on.

"Like I've been run over…a couple of times." He muttered rubbing his head.

"Okay…" She said, "So what…what are you doing here?"

"I…maybe it's better if I wait and tell you all at once, I would rather not have to explain it more than once."

"Okay…but on the roof, you looked…like"

"That is part of it, so it will have to wait."

"Same thing with the storm?" She said

"Yes." He said

Ruby let out a sigh, clearly having hoped for more information "Okay, well get some rest, I just came back to check on you."

"What are you doing?" He asked as he watched her walk to the door.

"Helping with clean up, a lot of people are missing and a lot of damage was done, so we decided to lend a hand."

Thor nodded, if he had felt up to it, he'd be out there with them, but as it stood, he was barely walking, but as he thought about what she said he called after Ruby.

"Did you say missing? People are missing?"

"Yeah?" She said turning around.

"Like not bodies, missing?"

It dawned on her what he was asking "Yeah, it's weird, we aren't really finding many...bodies."

"But Grimm don't eat the dead." He said, "They just destroy, so where did they go."

The look on her face became concerned "It's weird I know, but we are hoping they'll turn up."

Thor nodded but sincerely doubted that the missing would turn up. And while some did consider Ruby somewhat naïve, he had a feeling that she didn't expect the missing to show up either.

As she left, he thought of their conversation about him being here. That conversation wasn't going to be easy without them thinking he was crazy again. With Blake and Yang, he'd had the luxury, or it seemed at the time, that he could transform to show them what he was. But every transformation was having worse and worse side effects on him.

If Yang or Blake was here they could at least back him up. Ruby had seen him, however briefly, in his godly form so she may be an easier sell.

The only other thing he could think of was to fabricate a story. Which he didn't want to do, and doubted his ability to do so. Loki was always the one who could fabricate a convincing story.

He would just have to cross that bridge when he came to it. Right now he wanted to rest so he climbed back into the bed he woke up in and tried to fall back asleep.

But now that he was trying to, he couldn't quiet his mind. Ruby had acted…well normally around him. That wasn't at all what he expected after what he'd done to her. While he would like to think that maybe she had forgiven him and moved on, he doubted it.

That whole issue would be addressed sooner or later whenever Ruby wanted to.

What he kept thinking about and was dreading in addition to talks of his godhood was that conversation he was going to have to have with Ruby. He'd been drunk when it happened but that hardly made it better.

Groaning he put his hand over his eye and just thought of the situation he was in. He had some awkward conversation ahead of him.

He also found himself feeling a strange sense of isolation. No one here knew who he was, and they probably still thought he was an escaped mental patient.

Team JNPR was here as well, and while he liked them all, he wasn't as close with them as he was with Team RWBY. That line of thought made him wonder what Weiss was up to. She'd been forced to leave and it made his stomach churn to think of her being separated from her friends. He knew that sensation all too well, being cast down to this world away from all he knew.

Thinking about his friends' situations, he felt drowsiness come over him, and soon he fell asleep.

Weiss

As she walked into her bedroom, Weiss thought the date with Loki had been a pleasant, low-key affair, although she thought she may have given away her ulterior motives. Whenever she even thought of bringing up the source of Thor's equipment he'd divert her. If that was what he was doing he was remarkably good at it, almost like he was a mind reader.

That was ridiculous of course, sure she'd heard of people with semblances that could do such a thing, but one look at Loki and it was clear he wasn't a fighter. Oh, he was fit and lean, but he just didn't carry himself in the way a fighter would, let alone one with a semblance.

He just kept the conversation focused on her and her time at Beacon, and the narrow range of the topic he was interested in made her feel like he was digging for something as well. But that didn't make sense either, there was nothing of interest about that time that related to her that wasn't already fairly well known, and even what little that wasn't shouldn't have been interesting to someone like Loki.

Regardless, it had been a pleasant enough time. It was nice to feel like a normal teenager for once.

She made plans to meet him again, this time however she planned on just enjoying his company. Her plans to get information out of him seemed doomed, he was too smart and aware to let anything slip on accident. There was also the possibility he didn't know more than what he had already told her.

But she was finding she liked him, which was odd. She'd only ever thought of dating a Huntsman because the lifestyle was one that required…a certain mindset, and anyone who dated a Huntsman or Huntress needed to have an understanding of it.

Loki worked in the lab…of her father's company.

Her father…that prickled at the back of her mind. He wouldn't approve, but that wouldn't matter for long.

That made her think of Loki. She didn't want to lead him on, but neither of them gave any indication of this being serious. When she left, she'd let him know and hope he took it well.

They weren't really serious anyway, but she had come to like him quite a bit despite the relatively short time she had known him. Three dates hardly made them an item, but she also knew he may get in trouble with his job if her father found out they'd done even that.

But oddly that was part of the appeal to her, going on dates with someone her father considered below her station.

Her scroll buzzing took her out of her thoughts and looking at the screen she was shocked to see the caller ID as Jaune.

"Hello?" She answered tentatively.

"Weiss!" Ruby's voice came screaming over the scroll's speaker "Oh man you won't believe what happened."

"Ruby! Calm down and speak at a normal volume if you could please." Weiss said.

Ruby lowered her tone and proceeded to tell her a story of a Grimm attack on the town they were staying at, and the freak storm that killed all the Grimm.

Ruby apparently didn't know and wasn't following the news from her hometown, but these storms had been happening there as well, baffling scientists. But the fact one happened where Ruby just happened to be when her hometown was the epicenter of a similar phenomenon. And at Beacon, on the night of the attack, a very similar event happened.

It was very odd, which was an understatement if there ever was one. If it weren't for the fact that these storms were wiping out hordes of Grimm, the constant storms would of, she was sure, caused huge amounts of stress and negative emotions. But the storms purportedly didn't do any harm to humans or their creations, almost like it was an anti-Grimm force.

Just another mystery to add to the list.

"Weiss, are you still there?" Ruby's voice came over the scroll and Weiss realized she was letting her mind wander.

"Yes, Ruby I'm still here." She said.

"Isn't it crazy?"

Weiss realized she had missed part of the conversation, but there was no way she was going to admit that.

"Umm yeah." She said hoping she could pick up what Ruby was talking about.

"I mean Thor just disappeared from the hospital and now he shows up here? Like what are the odds of that?"

Weiss was honestly shocked to hear that. Last she knew Thor was missing and he just so happened to turn up in the town Ruby was in. Why? How?

Despite her shock at the news, Weiss rallied almost instantly.

"Really long odds." She said, "What does he have to say about it?"

"He hasn't yet, he said he's waiting to tell us all at once, but we're all real busy helping out with the aftermath of the attack so our schedules haven't lined up yet."

That made Weiss wonder what could Thor possibly have to say that he needed them all together to tell them. It was possible that he just didn't want to tell the story more than once, but the oddness of how he apparently just showed up, after a bizarre event like the storm, made her wonder.

"That is a bit odd don't you think?" Weiss said.

"I mean yeah, but Thor has always been a bit different. He said it would just be easier to tell us all at once, and he was in such bad shape I didn't want to stress him out by pushing the issue."

Thor was in poor health? That must have been mentioned in the part of the conversation she'd let her mind wander off during.

"How bad off is he?" She asked.

"I mean…" Ruby stalled "He had us really scared for a minute, but right now he just seems to be exhausted, like he hardly has the energy to walk." A moment of silence followed before Ruby spoke again "Sorry about running my mouth, I haven't asked you how you're doing. What have you been up to?"

"Oh, nothing much." She said, which was true, that her father had her touring facilities and having her learn 'hands-on' site management. All pure busy work to keep her occupied, especially given how off her father actually managed to company was very different, but it hadn't been a fruitless endeavor on Weiss's end. "Mostly bored out of my mind by my father."

"Oh, that sucks." Ruby's voice came over the scroll laced with a good amount of sympathy. "Look, Weiss, I have to go I just wanted to check in with you…"

"Why now?" She asked before she could stop herself. It was an abrasive question, and frankly, she was happy to hear from her partner, and she didn't want to make her mad.

"Just…I just thought it was about time we talked." Ruby said.

Weiss was certain there was more than what Ruby was telling her, but she wouldn't push it.

"Okay, well I'll let you go I'll call…" She just remembered something "Why did you call me on Jaune's scroll?"

"Oh, I lost mine in a fight with some Grimm, well, I'll get a new one soon and call you again soon alright?"

"Ok." She said

"Okay goodbye," Ruby said.

"Goodbye."

Hearing the call end, Weiss now had more questions she wanted answered. So many things seemed odd since the attack at Beacon, and Ruby was acting weird near the end of the call. She wasn't telling Weiss the whole story of why she was reaching out.

Then there were those freak storms, and Thor showing up. Then something clicked in her mind. Thor's semblance was weather control. Was he somehow connected to these Grimm-killing storms? No, at least not directly, he wasn't near powerful enough to make a storm on the scale of a city. That and the storm only killed Grimm, Thor could be precise with his powers, but he would have no way of actually being able to hit just Grimm over a large area he couldn't possibly see.

"Ugh, so much doesn't make sense." She muttered to herself as sat on her bed and lay down. She looked at her scroll and muttered "I wish things could just go back to how they were." But she knew that was impossible now, her father would never let her go back to Beacon, and if she tried he'd just bring her right back home.

She needed to get out from under her father somehow, but she had to find somewhere to go, she just knew she had to do it soon because this life was suffocating her.

She needed to get out, the call from Ruby had fanned her desire for freedom, and the memory of her friends…friends she sorely missed.

The only thing was how to do it without getting caught and pulled back. Her father had her, not exactly under observation, her movements were well known, and just by the nature of who she was, it was hard for her to go unnoticed in a practical sense.

She'd have to be careful because the one chance was all she was likely going to get.

She knew leaving would mean the end of her inquiries as to what was going on with Thor's equipment, but speaking to Ruby had made it seem like such a small thing, getting out and back to the people she loved was far more important than finding out if her father had stolen technology. Whether he had or not didn't really change her perception of him.

She'd have to say her goodbyes carefully as well, not that there were many people she wanted to see before she left. She could count the number of people she'd want to say goodbye to on one hand.

Sitting up, she started to mentally go through a list of what she'd need to do to make her escape.

Ruby

As she hung up the call and went back to work she felt like her sense of loneliness fading. Was that all she had needed? To talk to her team? It seemed simple now, but she hadn't felt like she could face them for various reasons, but almost dying had broken those walls down.

Then helping the people of this town… made her feel like she was doing something rather than just walking on an endless journey to a destination that never seemed to get any closer. She knew on an intellectual level that their mission to Mistral was important, but with how slow it was going made her feel like they had stagnated.

Helping the survivors of the Grimm attack was a more immediate and visible difference to be made.

Putting Jaune's scroll away after her break she went back to the volunteer work she was doing.

Currently, she was handing out supplies in what was normally the town hall, not the most glamorous job, but help was help. And a lot of people had been displaced, so they needed to get the necessities.

"Thank you." A middle-aged woman said with a smile as Ruby handed her a box with food, blankets, and various other odds and ends that hold her and her family over.

"You're welcome!" She said with a smile. That sort of thing always made her feel good.

But aside from helping others, she heard things while she did this. Like how villager who had been given up for dead were turning up, in the surrounding woods and working their way back to the village.

That was truly bizarre, apparently, they were being carried off by the Grimm, which is something she had never heard of Grimm doing. That was worrying behavior, thinking about what they were going to do with those people.

The prevailing theory she was hearing was it was supposed to be a trap, to lure more people out. While the Grimm she had seen did seem smarter than other Grimm, it didn't seem like that was likely to her.

The attack had been so vicious and overwhelmingly large, that there wouldn't have been anyone left to lure out, the attack seemed like it was supposed to wipe out the village.

Then there was the question of why this village had been attacked by such a large horde.

More questions. That seemed to be her life right now, chasing down answers.

"Having fun?" a voice coming from behind her cut into her thoughts.

"Huh?" She said turning around she saw Jaune "Yeah actually I am." She said smiling at him and handing him his scroll back. "Thanks for letting me borrow it"

"No problem, we need to be able to reach each other you know?"

Ruby nodded, but her mind wandered back to the fact she really needed to get her own scroll, she didn't like having to borrow someone else's when ever she went off on her own.

"So what have you been up to?"

"We've been helping with clean up," Jaune said.

Ruby understood the "we" was JNPR, and she felt her sense of isolation creeping back in, but she pushed it down.

"How's the wall looking?" Ruby asked,

"We finished removing the debris today, I think another group is going to work on patching it now."

"Well, that's good." She said, stating the obvious because she just didn't know what to say. That was happening more and more. Which was funny, when she was on the phone with Weiss or Yang, she found it hard to find things not to say.

"Yeah." Jaune said "Well are you done for the day? I thought we could all go get dinner."

"Ummm." Ruby looked at the clock on the wall and saw that she could leave, they had only needed her for a few hours…not that she had stayed for a few hours…she'd been here for nine and a half at this point. She'd really been throwing herself into the relief effort. "Yeah, I think I can go, I just have to check in with the coordinator."

"Sure." Jaune said, "I'll be waiting outside."

Ruby sighed and made her way desk, well really a table, where all the volunteers checked in and got assignments. It was manned by a large middle-aged man whose name she never caught.

"Hey." She said to the man "I'm gonna call it a day."

"Alright, Ms. Rose. Thank you for your help." He said

That made her feel a bit bad, that he knew her name but she hadn't bothered with his. She made a mental note to make sure she learned it tomorrow when she came back.

"Goodnight." She said.

"Goodnight." He said back, and with that, she walked out of the hall.

As she exited, she saw Jaune and the rest of JNPR waiting for her, jogging up she realized someone was missing. "What about Thor? Doesn't he want to go?"

JNPR all exchanged looks before Pyrrha clarified the situation "He's still not feeling well Ruby, I checked on him before we came to meet you, he just wants to sleep."

That was very odd to Ruby, Thor had always had a huge appetite, and his turning down food was worrying.

"Maybe I should go check on him instead…" Ruby muttered.

"Oh come on Ruby." Nora said, "He's just worn out, let him sleep."

Ruby however wasn't so sure, how he'd been acting after she'd seen him…transform…back into his normal state had her worried something might be wrong with him. But Nora might be right, he could just be suffering from exhaustion…although given how long he'd been suffering…, but Thor didn't seem concerned all that much…

As she mulled these thoughts over in her mind Jaune spoke up.

"If you're worried about him we can all go and check on him." He said, "Then we can go, hey maybe he'll feel up going now."

"Yeah, can we?" Ruby said.

The rest of the group voiced their agreement, and Ruby could feel it was just to put her concerns at rest, but she appreciated the gesture a great deal because it reminded her that despite how she felt sometimes, they didn't view her as an outsider.

Loki

As he watched the news, Loki felt the draw of the stone again. It was addicting, he had to admit, but he pushed the thought of it to the back of his mind, knowing if let it control him, he would be in for trouble, especially when he couldn't truly control its power. If he could properly manipulate it the call of its power would be a non-issue.

He was taking steps to remedy the issue, but for now, he had to be careful, he'd already been burned by its power once and had no desire to repeat the incident.

Instead, he tried to focus on the news, which was…not exactly engaging but he felt a need to stay up on the current state of the world. Granted the news in Atlas was pretty slanted toward events that directly happened in Atlas.

He hoped for more news of his brother, even if the reports didn't know it was him. The Beacon incident had clearly been him working with his full power. But that raised more questions, if Thor had his hammer back, and his power, where was he? It wasn't like him to go quiet, he was too active, too noble, and too brash to just sit back without making his presence known in some way.

So perhaps he'd lost it again? Or his father had placed some sort of limit on the hammer, in addition to the worthiness enchantment.

Or perhaps someone else found the hammer and was worthy? That seemed unlikely, given Odin's specific standards, but it was possible. But the scenario had the same problem as the first, why would someone with that power not be using it? Or maybe they were and it just wasn't making the Atlas news? The same was possible for Thor if he was staying in one relative location.

Turning off the TV, Loki made his way to his bedroom and opened his closet. He didn't touch the box with the stone in it. He needed that power…well no he didn't, not strictly speaking, but he felt he was supposed to use it, beyond the feeling of returning to godhood it gave him, his gut feeling was he would need it at some point.

Closing his closet he grabbed his lab coat and ID and decided to head to work. After hours he could work on his own little project.

Walking to the lab helped clear his mind and shake off the draw the stone had on him, distance seemed to help with these urges.

As he walked up to the lab building, he pulled his ID out and swiped it to enter. Working his way down the halls to his workstation.

Besides working on reverse engineering his brother's weapons, a task that was almost completely done, he worked on his own designs and ideas for equipment.

His current project however was not what his superiors thought it was. Ostensibly he was working new housing unit for dust crystals that would make more efficient use of them.

But it was for him, and the stone. He had no idea if the technology would interact with the stone or not, but he'd have to test it somehow. That meant either smuggling the equipment out or the stone in. Both presented risks and he would probably only get one chance either way, the surveillance in the facility was exceptional and while he was crafty, there was no way he could take the equipment could be taken out without someone noticing.

That meant he would need to bring to stone here, and while he could smuggle it in fairly easily, once he tried to do something with it, it would raise questions. And if it didn't work, he'd have to flee, the stone would make it easy if he was willing to burn himself again, but that wasn't appealing to him, not just how he'd have to injure himself, but he'd give up the comfortable little life he'd set up for himself. Which while not quite the royal life he'd once enjoyed, was far superior to the street life he'd been forced to live in for years.

As he thought of the life he'd managed to cobble together for himself, he thought about how'd he feel if he lost it for nothing. That was what truly gave him pause, ending up back on the streets, or potentially ending up in some sort of legal trouble. In the past, he'd never had to worry about these sorts of things. Sure he'd been imprisoned before, but he always expected he'd be able to escape, either with his cunning or his sorcery. He still had his mind, but he lacked the advantage of his family being the ones who he'd have to answer to.

As he looked over his workstation, those were the issues he was caught between. He'd never been this timid about any of his schemes.

"What to do…" He muttered to himself "What to do."

AN: I've been having a harder time writing this version of the story compared to the first one I did and I was wondering why until I got to this chapter. When I wrote my first story I had more "freedom" with the story, less of the series was out at the time and I had to make up a good deal of the lore for myself. Granted that stuff is now incorrect but at the time I was just filling in the gaps. This story has a different hurdle and that is how much of a canon story I'm going to incorporate. It's just something interesting I just realized was changing my writing process.