Sam

"School's a bit different here than it is on Remnant," I explained to Ruby, dropping a plate of

cookies in front of her. Jen told me to keep Ruby fed, but she didn't actually specify what to

feed her. I read somewhere that Ruby liked cookies, so that's what I gave her.

"But there's still combat school, right?" she asked between mouthfuls of cookie.

"No, not unless you're talking about terrorist camp," I replied.

"Terrorist?"

"Uh, bad people, indoctrination, not here, nevermind." I tried to sneak a cookie from Ruby's

plate, and was rewarded with a punch in the shoulder and no cookie. I suppressed a wince.

For a 15-year old girl, she could punch really hard.

"No, there's no combat school," I replied, resisting the urge to rub my shoulder. Apparently

everyone in RWBY trained to be a badass from childhood or something. "Everyone goes to

the same school."

"So you learn combat and math and art?" Ruby asked.

"We, uh, don't learn combat," I replied. Well, not officially, anyway.

"But how do you... oh, right, no huntsmen or huntresses." Ruby picked up a cookie and

paused. "But how do you defend yourselves?"

"Don't have to. This is a very safe country."

She seemed to accept that as an answer. "Okay, so what's school like?"

I was at a loss to describe it. How do you describe school? I mean, ever since I'd graduated,

I'd compared everything to high school, either favorably or not so favorably. And before

that, I'm sure I'd done the same with elementary school. "It's, well, it's school. You go to

class, make friends, do stuff, and eventually you finish it and move on."

"Oh, okay." Ruby said,

"I'm kind of confused," she added after a brief pause. "You said you finished school, but you

also said you're still in it."

"That's because I'm in university now," I explained. "I finished high school. That's the last

part of public education, grade eight or ten to grade twelve. That's all free and mandatory-

government backed. After you graduate from that, you can choose to go on to college or

university, or you can just try to get a job."

"Grade?"

"Uh, public school goes from grade one to grade twelve," I explained. "Technically,

kindergarden is before that, though, and that's also part of it. I don't know how old I was

when I was in grade one, but I turned eighteen in grade twelve."

Ruby's eyes lit up- and in her case it was literal. "Oh, so high school is like Signal and

university is like Beacon!"

Beacon was where the show was set, but what the hell was Signal? I shrugged. "I guess."

"Well, Earth is not that different then." Ruby paused. "Well, the schools aren't, anyway."

"Nope, I guess not," I replied, leaning back. "Anything else you wanted to ask?"

"Actually, yeah," Ruby replied. "I keep hearing this word around you guys. Fuck. What does

that mean?"

"Aw, fuck," I muttered, then realized that I'd just sworn in front of a 15-year old girl. Then I

realized that I'd been doing it constantly for the past three days. I cleared my throat,

suddenly awkward.

"Well, uh, it's like this..."

Jen

Ruby was already awake when I got up. Ben had already gone to work- he was opening

today. Groggily, I poured myself a bowl of cereal. Lucky Charms, blergh.

I started pulling out another bowl for the girl when she interrupted me."Oh, I already ate."

Curious, I asked, "What did you eat?"

In response, she pointed to a bowl of strawberries, which was now empty. "I hope you don't

mind."

"No, no, it's fine," I replied. "Ben and I don't even like them. Only Sam eats them."

I wolfed down my cereal, then dumped the milk still left in the bowl down the drain and put

the bowl in the dishwasher. There was something about her outfit that had been bugging me

as I ate. I asked her, "What do the crosses mean?"

I mean, I knew what they meant here, but I wondered what they meant on Remnant.

Ruby fingered the silver adornments. "These?"

"Yeah."

She shrugged. "I'm not sure. It's a symbol my family used."

"That's it?" I asked, disappointed.

"Well, I mean, they're from somewhere, but I don't know where," Ruby replied. "Maybe

Qrow knows. Sorry."

"That's okay," I replied. Then something occurred to me. "But you might not want to wear

those here."

"Why not?"

"The cross is typically connected with Christianity, one of the belief systems on Earth," I

replied, choosing my words carefully. "It's not a cult or anything, but it would be unusual for

a non-Christian to wear crosses, especially as prominently as you do."

"Oh. Okay."

"Speaking of clothes, you need to get some more."

Ruby pouted.

"You don't wear the same thing all the time, do you?"

"No," she replied sheepishly.

"I picked up some stuff that looked your size," I told her. "You probably won't like it, but we

can go shopping for something else later today."

"Well, okay."

Cliff

"You'd be surprised how familiar the White Fang situation is to us."

"I thought you said you didn't have any Faunas?" Ruby asked, sitting across the table from

me. I must admit, she looked strange in the red hoodie and black jeans.

I nodded. "We don't. But that's not to say we didn't have similar situations."

Without waiting for Ruby, I continued, "The White Fang used to be like Martin Luther King

and the civil rights movement. Now it's more like, say, Hamas."

"What."

I sighed. Of course. With no context, it would be meaningless.

"To understand this, we're going to have to go way back," I explained. "This is the year

2014. I think our years are approximately the same as yours. Remember that, because I'm

going to be using our date system."

"Uh, okay."

I brought up a picture of a black man. Specifically, Samuel L. Jackson. "Okay, what's this

person? Race, I mean."

"Human."

"More specifically."

"What do you mean more specifically?" she asked, genuinely confused.

Which made sense. With the Faunas around, that divided the population of Remnant cleanly

down one line. An actual biological distinction that creates a clean line. Why draw any

others? We all liked to divide into us and them, but our divisions were much more arbitrary.

They had something clean and solid to work with.

"This is a black man. He has dark skin and other traits that are common among certain

groups of people."

"So?"

"For a long time, that mattered. And maybe it still does."

"Why? That's so silly!"

I chuckled briefly. "Yeah, it is. But until the mid-20th century- that's the 1900s- black people

were considered inferior and mistreated."

"That's horrible!"

I continued. "In the United States- big country just south of us- they'd brought black slaves

from Africa for working sugar cane and cotton fields. I think they used the whole race thing

as a justification to keep slaves-"

"That's horribler!"

"Yeah, our world doesn't exactly have a glorious past," I admitted. "But anyway, fast

forward to the 1950s- maybe it was the 1960s. African-Americans have been free for half a

century, but still don't have the same rights as white or other races. Having to sit in a certain

spot on the bus, or not being allowed into a restaurant, for example."

"Then there's something called the Civil Rights Movement." Which I know close to fuck all

about. "And there's this guy, Martin Luther King, and he goes around the country, protesting

and making speeches. He goes like 'I have a dream' and there's something about a freedom

riders bus or something..."

Ruby looks totally confused. I ask her, "Are you following?"

"Sort of."

"Good enough." I was probably overloading the poor girl with info. Info that I didn't have

much of.

"Basically, after this movement, the black people in the US get more or less equal treatment,

at least in the eyes of the law. During the next several decades, there's a big push for

equality in the rest of the world and it usually works."

I sigh. Wow, I butchered that. "Just... look up Martin Luther King. I'm sure someone else

can explain better."

"Okay," Ruby replied. "I still don't get why you would treat someone badly because of the

colour of their skin."

"Because..." How do you explain it? "Why do some look down upon the Faunas? It's the

same dynamic. Maybe the differences are more subtle here, but the idea is the same."

She seemed to accept that, at least for the moment. "Well, okay, I guess. But what's

Hamas?"

"Okay, Hamas." I decided to be simpler this time. "We don't have to go back that far- well,

supposedly this goes back to ancient times, but the recent tension only started this century."

"Uh-huh."

"We've got two groups of people, the Israelis and the Palestinians." I think those are the

right terms- they're the ones I always hear, anyway. "They're from the same piece of land-

which is now divided into Israel and Palestine. For a long time, it was just Palestine. Then,

after World War Two-"

"You've had two world wars?" she asked, once again reminding me I was talking to an alien,

however human (and adorable!) she might look.

"Yeah, again, we're hardly paragons, but I'll talk about that later. Anyway, the Israelis were

given part of their ancestral homeland and right away there was a war to establish their

independence. After that, they started marginalizing the Palestinians, pushing in and taking

land that was supposed to be kept part of Palistan."

"Why would they do that?"

I shrugged. "Because they wanted it, probably. Okay, then this Palestinian rebel group crops

up. It's called Hamas. They like to launch rockets into Israel- that's the Israeli part of this

land- and kill civilians. In response, the Israelis launch airstrikes into Palestine. It's usually

tense but not violent, but it's been heating up recently."

That was a gross, gross simplification, but I'm trying to make this understandable to

someone with zero background.

"So who's the good guys?" Ruby asked after a moment of thought.

"There are none. We've got two sides who are both right and both wrong. And neither is

willing to back down."

"But they can't both be evil, can they?" That was surprisingly naive, even for Ruby.

"You'd be quick to label them, but it doesn't work that way," I replied. "Look, I don't know,

maybe Remnant really does have good and evil. But here, everything is relative. Everything

is shades of grey. Start thinking in terms of cost/benefit, power and wealth, gain versus

loss."

"What?"

I sighed. "We all do things for certain reasons, some more logical than others. Morality is a

merely a subjective judgement of the value of those actions."

"I don't get it," Ruby replied, blinking. "How can you not believe in good and evil?"

I sighed again. How could she? Childish innocence, I guess, untainted by cynicism. "Okay,

let's go back to the terrorism thing. Say I strap a bomb to my chest, walk into a crowded

shopping mall, and blow myself up, along with fifty civilians."

Ruby's eyes widened. "That's horrible! Why would you do that!"

"Would you consider that action evil?"

"Yes!" Ruby shouted.

I shook my head. "But from my perspective, I'm a noble warrior fighting against the

oppression of my people. It's a common tactic. Kill some civilians, make them pay and think

twice."

"How can you think that's right?" I think Ruby's getting pissed off at me.

"I'm not saying it's right," I corrected firmly. "What I'm saying is that the world is a lot more

complicated than you think."

She blinked.

I sighed. "Forget it. I'm just a cynical bastard who's bad at explaining stuff."

She walked away.

I spent the next five minutes pondering the fact that I had just lectured Ruby Rose on

morality.

Jen

I was exhausted and hungry after a long night at work and a longer day at college. Then I

had to wait for the SkyTrain because of maintenance and... yeah, I wanted some comfort

food. I stepped into the apartment, tossed my backpack on the couch, strode over to the

kitchen and threw open the fridge.

It was nearly empty. There were some condiments, a mostly-empty jug of milk, and a few

slices of bread. That was it. The freezer was almost as bad, with all the frozen pizzas, most

of the chicken strips, and all but one of the TV dinners gone.

We'd just gone shopping a few days ago! I thought supplies were getting a bit low yesterday,

but I figured we'd be okay for a few more days. We didn't really eat that much.

Sighing, I pulled out the TV dinner. Salisbury Steak... more like Salisbury Slab of Shit. And

it wasn't even Swanson, this was no name. I called, "Ben, what happened to the food?"

"It got eaten," he called from the computer room.

Sometimes, communicating with Benjamin was an exercise in frustration. The problem was

that he answered your question directly and simply, without actually considering what you

meant rather than what you said.

"Did Isaac visit?" I asked more precisely as I unboxed the TV dinner.

"Yeah."

"Did he eat the food?" I placed the TV dinner in the microwave and gave it two minutes.

"Some of it."

"What happened to the rest of it?"

"Ruby."

I turned to the girl, who waved at me from the couch. "Hi!"

"Ruby, how could you eat most of our food in two days?"

"I'm sorry," she apologized. "It's just that I was hungry and I guess with all the stress I just

wanted to eat! And then all the cookies were gone!"

"I'm not mad," I assured her. "I meant, how could you eat so much? You're not very big. No

offence."

"I don't know," she replied, thinking. "Usually I don't eat that much. But I was still hungry

even after I ate, so I kept eating."

"Hmm," I muttered. Overeating was sometimes observed as a psychological response to

stress. "You could be overeating because of the stress. You're probably a lot less active here,

too, so if you aren't careful you could, well, get fat."

"I've actually lost a little weight," Ruby admitted sheepishly.

What? I was going to reply, but the microwave beeped at me. I pulled out the plastic tray of

food and set it on the table, grabbing a knife and fork out of the drawer to dig in with. It was

spongy, tasteless, and lukewarm, but I didn't care.

As I ate, I thought about it. Remnant humans are quite a bit stronger and faster than we are,

even without semblances or aura or anything fancy. I figured that at least basic principles

like conservation of energy worked over there, which meant that you could not get that for

free. To do what they do, they would need to burn a lot more energy than we do. Which

means a faster metabolism and with it more food intake. With that in mind, their food was

probably a lot richer than ours.

Well, probably. I only just started taking college level biology- I had to make up for what I

screwed up in high school first.

"So, I'm sorry about the food thing..."

"Don't worry about it. We can go shopping tomorrow after I'm finished school, and you can

pick out what you like."

Isaac

"So I know you probably don't want to see RWBY again," I said to... well, Ruby. I still

couldn't believe that was actually Ruby Rose sitting across from me, but over the past week

I'd kind of gotten used to seeing her every time I visited Benjamin. I had to focus on starting

classes, which was hard, so I'd only made it out here twice. "But I'm wondering how much

you remember from, well, in the series."

I quickly added, "This isn't because I'm curious. I think it might help us figure out how you

got here, and maybe where your friends are too."

"Oh, okay."

"What's the last thing you remember before you ended up here?"

She just stared at me. Then I realized she was thinking. Finally, after a minute, she replied,

"I'm not sure. I think there was bright lights, and people yelling, and I remember Ozpin was

there... I think. And Torchwick and the White Fang. But I don't know how everything goes

together. It's like someone mixed all the memories up and took out some of them."

That wasn't useful at all. We'd all assumed until now that she dropped out where Volume 2

was at now and came here, but she could be from anywhere in the series. Even in the future.

Which had some interesting implications for canon and divergence and events and stuff.

"Hmm. Do you remember fighting Torchwick in the mech suit?"

Ruby raised an eyebrow. "Mech suit?"

Okay, so definitely not caught up. Hmm... wasn't the volume split on a term break? I asked,

"How many terms have you spent at Beacon?"

"One," she replied. "We were between terms."

So, between Volume 1 and Volume 2 then.

Awkwardly, Ruby asked, "So, uh, the people who made RWBY, did they make anything

else?"

"Rooster Teeth? Oh yeah, they made lots of stuff. I like Red vs Blue, maybe you'll find it

interesting."

Sam

We gathered in Ben's apartment once again. The mood was sombre, to put it nicely. We were

all tired- not only were we doing a search, but half of us were going back to school, too. For

Cliff and Isaac, it was their first time at their institution.

"Well, it's been one week," Ruby said sadly.

"Yep. Three days of hell at BCIT," Cliff said.

"It was not that bad," Isaac argued.

"I still say you should have gone to UBC," I interjected smugly, even though my experience

so far had been... mixed.

Ben stuck out his tongue. "Hah, when you guys are doing boring stuff I'm getting money."

"Guys..." Jen muttered.

"Ah, right, the search for RWBY," I announced, clapping my hands together. "Cliff?"

"Yeah?"

I waited for him to explain, then reminded him, "Mitch and the drones."

"Oh, right," Cliff replied. "He did two passes through the area, then a third one on the most

likely parts to be sure. Found some interesting stuff- a couple lesbians kissing, a hobo fight,

and some whackjob burning shapes into the field- but no Weiss, Blake, or Yang."

"Damn," I muttered. To be honest, I wasn't expecting that to work out anyway. "Ben, what

about those ads?"

"Nope."

"Nothing?"

He shrugged. "Well, we got a few trolls-"

"What kind of trolls?" I asked. Maybe what he thought was trolls was actually what we were

looking for. You never know with Ben.

"There wasn't anything like what we were looking for," Jen clarified for him.

I sighed deeply. "Well, does anyone have any other ideas?"

There was silence. I guess nobody did.

Ruby broke the silence, eyes sad and downcast. "We're giving up, aren't we?"

Cliff stated bluntly, "Yep."

"No. Don't think of it as giving up," I reassured her. "Think of it as extending the search to a

long-term project."

Isaac added, "Maybe they weren't transported instantly. Maybe they're somewhere far away.

Maybe they're still on Remnant trying to find a way to get to you."

I clarified, "We might have to wait for your team to come to you instead of going to them."

"Wait," Isaac interrupted. "There's still one thing we can try."