(A/N) So... remember when I said next chapter was Thursday? Yeah, turns out I'm a liar, but in a good way this time! Next chapter is STILL Thursday, you just get this one too

Chapter Three

(Un)Familiar Faces

/-\ Blake Belladonna /-\

My legs pumped and my chest heaved as I ran amongst the burning buildings, my partner slung over my shoulder. I sprinted as fast as I could, but Adam just kept getting closer and closer. I gasped as he appeared before me, his sword leaving his sheath and piercing my- what was that green light?

My legs pumped and my chest heaved as I ran amongst the burning buildings, my partner slung over my shoulder. I sprinted as fast as I could, but Adam just kept getting closer and closer. I gasped as he appeared before me, his sword leaving his sheath and piercing my- what was that green light?

My legs pumped and my chest heaved as I ran amongst the burning buildings, my partner slung over my shoulder. I sprinted as fast as I could, but Adam just-

I suddenly came to awareness as a vehicle jolted beneath me.

Luckily, my eyes didn't immediately fly open despite the pounding of my heart. I kept my body lolled against the wall, covered by a comfortable-feeling blanket. My ears, however, were still open. The atmosphere was quiet, but I could hear the steady breathing – or pained in one case – of four people. The vehicle also sounded… weird – much louder than any dust turboelectric engine I'd ever been near. At least I was on the ground, as evidenced by the familiar hum of rubber against asphalt.

"How much further?" …Jaune asked?

I sat still for a moment, believing I was just hearing things.

"GPS says a few minutes," Yang said.

"Good," Jaune said. "Hopefully they can save her arm."

That spurred the memories on. Memories of Beacon, of yesterday (at least, I thought it was yesterday). Memories of the tournament, memories of Pyrrha killing Penny, memories of Adam… cutting my partner's arm off. I opened my eyes, now convinced I was somehow in the company of friends. However, any words I might've spoken died on my lips.

I was in some kind of cramped truck, the interior of which I didn't recognize. That wasn't what shocked me into silence, though. Not only were Yang and Jaune both dressed completely wrong – well, Jaune wasn't that wrong, still wearing his jeans but instead traded his sweater for a polo shirt – but Yang still had both arms. For a moment, I began to question my sanity. Was- was it all just a nightmare? I wondered. The concoction of too little sleep and simple worry over Yang's disqualification?

Yang looked up from the bloody – but originally golden – sweater in her lap. "Oh hey, Sleeping Beauty's awake."

I rolled my eyes. "No cat puns this time?"

She winced. "So you know what they did to you, then."

Jaune looked up from his position on the floor between us, Yang and I's seats mounted to opposing walls as opposed to the rear of the cab. "I mean, they're kinda cute, but at the same time, it's like… why?"

Yang frowned, giving Jaune a light smack upside the head. "I'm right here, you know."

"Huh? Oh, sorry." he muttered before turning back to me. "Should probably say I'm taken, now, and that I didn't mean that in any way that could be construed as hitting on you."

I blinked, putting two-and-two together. "W- what?" I muttered. "Since when are you two dating? I think we'd definitely notice since, y'know, the tournament, and I thought Pyrrha-" I clamped my mouth shut, but I already knew I'd said too much. She wanted to tell him herself and made that abundantly clear a few months ago when Yang almost went up to him and spelled it out for the clueless blond.

Yang squinted. "Oh, you know Pyrrha? Yeah, neither of us picked up on that 'til after I'd already made out with this doofus in the middle of the hallway. Sorry, but not sorry," she said. "Anyway, we're coming up on the hospital now and we should probably ask if you wanna be looked at or not. I mean, the ears were obvious, but who knows what else those fucks did to you."

"...what are you talking about?" I asked. "Of course I know Pyrrha, she's on Team JNPR. You know, the team with a dorm right across from ours? And what's with the whole 'someone did something to me'. I'm fine, Yang."

She sat, silent for a moment. "I never told you my name."

"Uhh, yes you did? Even if we hadn't been assigned to the same team, you very much did tell me the night before Initiation. Remember? You dragged Ruby up to me when I was reading in the ballroom and tried to awkwardly flirt or something? I'm honestly still not sure what the whole 'your bow goes great with your pajamas' thing was supposed to be."

Both of them simply stared at me. "...what the fuck?" Jaune muttered.

"And why do you keep mentioning my ears?" I asked, twitching them. "You know I'm a Faunus. That became abundantly obvious after the incident at the docks."

Jaune blinked. "Is… Faunus some niche term for catgirl or something?"

I looked at him like he had three heads. "Are- are you being serious right now?" He just looked at me funny, making me pause and reconsider. Jaune may be dense as a rock, but he's not stupid. He knows what a Faunus is. And yet, I could detect no dishonesty or hostility or even anger within his voice, words, or face. Just curiosity and… a bit of apprehension. A strange thought crossed my mind, one which I'd read about… not extensively, but I'd dabbled in the genre here and there. A person died, usually through being struck by lightning, and woke up in another world. "What… what happened? How did I get… here?"

Yang frowned. "A flying saucer crashed into our home; well, mine and my sister's. We… fought them, and now we're on our way to the hospital because she got hurt pretty badly. We found you inside some weird casket thing. And before you ask, no, we didn't undress you, we found you like that."

I could tell by just the tone of her voice that it wasn't the full story, but chose not to press further. I did, however, peek under the blanket and realized I was only wearing underwear and a bra – and not even mine at that. I shivered in disgust. "That's… not where I remember being," I said. My crackpot theory just became slightly less unhinged. Even if I didn't remember any lightning, there was that weird green light as I was drawing Adam away from-

I shook my head. I wasn't even sure if that was a nightmare or not, I needed something to prove I was on Remnant still. The only problem is… what could I possibly use? They clearly had cars, hospitals, and the gun that Yang was trying to hide on the other side of Jaune, but I had no idea what the actual differences would- I blinked. Place names. "Okay, umm, bear with me, but… have… you ever heard of a city called Vale?" There. Start big. There's no way they could'nt've heard of-

Jaune shook his head. "Can't say I have."

"...Mistral? Atlas?"

Yang shook her head as well. "Nope."

My heart dropped into my stomach. "The planet Remnant?"

"Lady, you're on Earth," Jaune said. I could hear his heart beat faster – Yang's too.

My eyes widened. I was right, I realized. How in the Brother Gods names did this even happen? And to meet two people that I already knew from Beacon… what kind of sick cosmic joke is this?

Before I could do anything more, the truck screeched to a halt. "We're here!" a gruff voice said from ahead. My gaze was drawn to the front of the truck, where I saw a man in an odd brown-and-tan police-like uniform jump out of the driver's seat and run around the front of the car, opening the passenger door. He unbuckled the person in that seat and scooped them up. When he ran back around the front to go into the emergency entrance, my heart dropped.

That was Ruby Rose in his grasp.

One of her arms was bloody – very bloody. Her torso also had a couple wounds that had been patched up. On top of that, she was out like a light. I only got a glimpse of her before they disappeared from sight. Just what the hell happened? I wondered. Looking around the various windows of the truck, it didn't seem like this city was under attack by anything. Were the people they rescued me from somehow able to bypass aura? I guess it would explain how they captured me.

Yang shifted. "I… should probably go in there too. Get my shoulder popped back in."

Jaune nodded, clamoring over the center console and sliding the driver's seat all the way forward. Yang let out a quick 'thank you' before climbing out herself, wincing all the while. As she walked off, Jaune cleared his throat. "I'm 'sposed to stay with you, just in case," he said.

"I don't need a babysitter," I frowned. "...maybe some clothes, though, if you have some spares."

He stepped out of the truck and went over to the back. Opening the tailgate, he pulled out a backpack before heading back to me. "Here, Yang thought you might ask for some, so she's giving you her workout clothes. They aren't the most modest, but, well, they're a step-up from what you're wearing now."

"I appreciate it," I said, taking the bag. Looking inside, I found a fiery orange tanktop, a grey pair of short shorts, some socks, and shoes, all of which were too big for me. The only saving grace was that the shorts had drawstings, so I quickly tied them up. However, in the very bottom, I found a beanie hat. Their… responses from earlier had me concerned, so I turned to Jaune once more. "Do… you not have Faunus here?"

He shrugged. "Never heard of 'em,"

That sent a pang of pain through my chest. Knowing I was the only member of my species on an entire planet… I shook my head, compartmentalizing that for later. With a deep breath, I folded my ears back and put on the beanie. It wasn't the most comfortable in the world, but I'd dealt with wearing that stupid bow for the entire year now. It was better if nobody asked questions. I climbed out of the truck and had my first proper look of the city we were in.

And what a strange one it was. Instead of tall buildings everywhere around us, the hospital dominated the landscape… at five stories tall. Every direction I looked were single-story homes, with yards, even! They could fit a thousand people in the space I see now, I thought. Easily. So why don't they? And on top of that, the parking lot we were in took up a measurable fraction of a mile. I'd only ever seen single-story houses in villages or rural farmsteads out in the middle of nowhere. Yet here they were, in the heart of a city bustling enough to have a large hospital. The amount of wasted space… it boggled my mind.

"Are you coming?" Jaune asked. "I know for a fact that the others'll really want to know just who the hell you are."

My expression fell, once again reminded of the cosmically unlikely situation I found myself in. "...yeah, I suppose you would," I said, following him inside.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the famous SDC Snowflake on the front bumper of the truck. That only raised more questions, something I didn't quite believe was possible at this point. Jaune led me through the sliding glass doors to a small reception area where a darker-skinned woman in blue scrubs was tapping away at an old-timey computer. It even had a screen and keyboard and… a two-buttoned thing she was using with her right hand? Weird. I'd only seen old screen-and-keyboard computers at the most remote of villages – places where even tech from fifty years ago was still filtering out to.

The woman looked up from the screen. "Hello, what seems to be the problem?"

Jaune shook his head. "Oh, umm, we're… fine. Just here with the others that came in."

She winced. "That poor girl," she muttered, too low for anyone but me to hear. "Just have a seat. You, umm, might be there a bit."

He nodded. "Okay, just… let us know if there's any news."

We sat down on the other side of the room from the desk, picking chairs right next to each other. He pulled out a primitive scroll – was everything here so old? – and started scrolling through whatever. I was just about to reach for the stack of magazines next to me when I heard a loud "ah fuck!" coming from behind the reception desk. The voice was clearly Yang's and I almost shot to my feet to see what was wrong, but then I noticed that nobody else seemed to have heard it. On top of that, I had another realization: she wasn't my Yang.

I slumped back down into my seat. It was really starting to set in just how cruel of a joke this was. I knew three of the four people that brought me here, but they didn't know me. They wore the faces of my friends, but they were, in actuality, complete strangers. On top of that, how the hell was I supposed to explain the situation? I couldn't just play it off, I"d already said far too much for that. And even that left the biggest question: what the fuck was this planet? Even my simple look-arounds had already revealed so many differences from what I was used to. What kind of planet did I wake up on? Did I even wake up? As cliche as it was, I did pinch myself and found that I was, in fact, awake.

That answered, I began flipping through the various magazines on the end table. Most were completely uninteresting to me, being about fashion or celebrity gossip. I did pay a little attention in the cooking one, just to see what kind of weird concoctions this place came up with. Oddly, I recognized a few dishes from back home; at least in the intent. Their names were different and the ingredients were just a little off. The next magazine was a hunting one. My hopes were swiftly dashed when I realized it was focused around hunting mundane animals instead of Grimm. I still paged through it, skimming various articles, but frowned when I recognized none of the gun calibers mentioned. I suppose it made sense, but we somehow shared a language, so it wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility our guns could be compatible too.

However, towards the end of the magazine, I began spacing out as the earlier thought of being quite possibly the only Faunus on this entire planet came back. On top of that, I was undoubtedly the only person from Remnant here as well. How was I going to deal with the fact that I woke up not even an hour ago and found out I was the only member of my species? I blinked. Wait, I know for a fact Ruby is here, so maybe we just have different names for Faunus?

I cleared my throat. "Hey, umm, Jaune?" He hummed in question. "Does Ruby have a wolf tail? I didn't get a good look before."

He slowly turned his head towards me. "...what the fuck?"

"...nevermind," I muttered. That only confused me further. Back home, Ruby was clearly a Wolf Faunus – and boy did Weiss love to bring that out in the first couple weeks of Beacon – but here she was Human? That made zero sense. Did that mean that the Faunus were here, just… not Faunus? Was there some other random change to them too? Did that mean I had a copy of myself running around doing… Gods, what would I have done early in life? I wondered. My entire personality used to revolve around me being in the White Fang, but without Faunus, they wouldn't exist either. And then that sparked another rabbit hole – no Faunus meant no racial discrimination.

The dark-skinned receptionist got up from her desk and walked down the carpeted hall, disappearing from view. I was mid-way through my fourth existential crisis of the hour when she came back, walking over to us next. "Qrow and Yang are done with their treatments and they'd like to speak with you."

I followed, right behind Jaune. The alternating blue-white patterned carpet whizzed by below as I still struggled to get a grip. There was nothing here; no familiarities to ground myself, the people that wore the faces of my friends might as well be strangers, I had no idea what was going to happen back home… Oh Gods, home… I hadn't seen my parents back on Menagerie for… years; half-a-decade, at least. Would I ever see them again? Would they just get a note in the mail about their daughter dying at Beacon? No, of course they wouldn't – because I hadn't listed any emergency contacts in my official paperwork. Sure, someone might figure it out, but Belladonna wasn't too uncommon of a last name, nor was Blake that uncommon of a first name – it was why I had been comfortable not using a pseudonym on my application. After all, what are the chances that the missing Blake Belladonna – that one – would just suddenly apply at Vale's huntsman academy after having run away so long ago?

Jaune abruptly turned a corner, at least making me vaguely aware of the outside world again. A few blinks and my latest mental breakdown was semi-safely sequestered away, ready and waiting to keep me up tonight just like all the other revelations I was having. "How is she?" a masculine voice suddenly said. After a moment, I realized it was Jaune's. He was sitting beside Yang – who had her arm in a sling – who herself sat next to… some policeman? He looked familiar, but I couldn't place him. Maybe he was another doppelganger and I'd seen his Remnant-self somewhere once or twice.

Yang's mouth opened, then closed. After a moment, she finally spoke. "She's… alive. We got her here in time," she sighed. "They… don't know about her arm, though. They're seeing if it recovers, but… they might have to…" she choked back a sob. "They might have to-"

He put up a hand. "I understand," Jaune said. "You don't have to say it."

She nodded, mutely nuzzling into the crook of his neck. I merely stood by and watched, still more than a little weirded out by those two being so touchy-feely. When I realized that they were content to sit in silence once more, my thoughts started drifting. I tried to keep them in line, looking around the small, private waiting room for any sort of distraction, but found… none, really. Unlike the lobby, there were no magazines to peruse, just green-painted walls and a prickly pear cactus in the center of the room. I blinked – when had we even gone through a door?

The policeman cleared his throat, standing up and moving towards me. He sat down in the next chair, putting his leg up on his knee as he idly tilted the end table between us backwards and forwards. "So, never did catch your name."

"...Blake," I said. "I'm… Blake Belladonna."

He hummed. "Qrow Branwen; I heard you talking with one of my nieces, though I was a bit focused on getting here to really hear what. So, just about anything's better than dwelling on the fact that my best friend's dead and his other daughter's in surgery… so, uhh, need a phone?" he asked, raising his primitive scroll. "Let your folks know you aren't dead or something?"

That made me wince. I really tried not to show it, but despite my best efforts, he clearly noticed. "That… won't be necessary."

Qrow gave a sad, understanding nod, putting his 'phone' away. "Sorry, didn't know," he said. "They on that ship too? Sorry if we didn't look around very much, we were kinda-"

I put my hand up. "No, no, I get it. They… they weren't, though," I said. With a big sigh, I decided to just rip the band-aid off. "They're alive… just not on this planet."

His head tilted to the side slightly, mouth forming into a frown. "Now's not the time to joke about things like that."

"I'm not joking. I don't even know how I ended up here – one second, I'm running for my life from a-" I cut myself off – no Faunus, meaning no White Fang, meaning no terrorists. "From a psychopath, and then I woke up in your car. I didn't even have the clothes on my back. I'm completely out of my depth and… well, I might not look like it, but I'm really freaking out."

His frown deepened for a moment, but then his expression became neutral once more. "Normally, I'd write you off as having a few screws loose, but we did find you in a saucer. You already told us why you're here, so…" In a flash, his gun was out of his holster and pointed directly at my head. "Explain to me why I shouldn't put you in the ground right now," he said. "Those assholes we found you with? I'm sure you already know what they did to us."

Though I was a little impressed by his speed, his weapon… markedly less so. Though it would sting, I did have an aura, and the likelihood of him using explosive rounds when he is also point-blank are very, very slim. "Because I have literally nothing to do with them – whoever they even are. They abducted me and the next thing I know, I'm in the truck. If you need a measure of character, I'm a huntress-in-training. I know I don't exactly have my ID on me, but please, trust me."

I could see him slowly blink, clearly mulling it over, but the weapon didn't budge. "Let's assume I don't know what that is. Enlighten me."

Yet another rabbit hole of questions jumped out at me, but, again, I filed them under the rapidly growing 'process later' section. "A… a huntress is just a female huntsman. Not a hunter – they hunt mundane animals for food. We… we protect cities and villages from the Grimm. At least that's our main-"

"And what the hell's a grim?"

"...job…" The word slipped out as I processed his question. I was silent for a good while, wondering if he was just fucking with me at this point, but, again, his face and the gun told no lies. He was completely serious, knowing absolutely nothing about the innumerable hordes of monsters that constantly harried and assailed our civilization. Our civilization. That was… Wait, what if they just call them something different? I wondered, hoping beyond hope that the Grimm of all things would still exist. "U- umm… large… predators, I guess. Black fur, white bone masks, red eyes… evaporate when killed, come in many subspecies," I said. His expression didn't change. "What… what do you call them?"

He just grunted. "Don't call 'em anything, cause they don't exist."

For the second time today, my heart dropped into my stomach. I turned away from Qrow, simply putting my head in my hands as I tried to figure out what the ramifications of this would be. Sure, everyone fantasized about a world without Grimm, but for it to actually be reality? How much else was different? I wondered. The Grimm have been against us every single step of the way. And yet, such a fundamental force of our world wasn't present here… nor were the Faunus, despite Humans clearly existing. What other basic things are just… gone? Is the same true in reverse – do they have things we don't?

"We ain't done," Qrow said.

"No, we're really not," Jaune said. "You still haven't told us how you knew our names."

Time for another band-aid, I thought. "That's… gonna sound crazy."

Yang snorted, eyes still red – markedly less literally than I was used to – and puffy. "A flying saucer just fell from the sky with an abducted catgirl inside it and squished my Dad," she said, voice hitching at the end. "Try us."

"Because there's extraplanetary twins of you two and Ruby where I'm from," I said. "And maybe you too, Qrow. You look familiar, but I don't know you."

They were all silent for a moment before Jaune spoke up. "Well, at least you know it sounds crazy."

I simply shrugged. There really wasn't much I could say to that besides: "It's the truth."

"And how would we verify any of this?" Qrow asked. "Even if you were telling the truth, just how the hell'd we be able to know beyond just 'trust me bro'?"

"Who were we?" Jaune asked, drawing a raised eyebrow from Yang. "Hey, if they're really our twins, they can't be that different, right?"

She glanced back and forth between us. "Well, I distinctly remember her being surprised we were dating, so…"

"Because everyone knew Pyrrha was into him," I said. "Everyone except him, at least. And also, he kinda threw up on your shoes the first day we got to Beacon… uh, the huntsman academy. So that might have put a damper on any romantic feelings."

She raised an eyebrow. "And what else? Tell us about… us, I guess."

I nodded. "Well, me and you were on the same team – along with Weiss and then Ruby was our leader. Of course that acronym spells R-W-B-Y and I'm sure you can imagine the confusion that happens when the team leader's name and the team name are pronounced the same. Jaune is the leader of our sister team – JNPR – with Nora, Pyrrha, and Ren."

"That still doesn't tell us much about us," Yang said.

"Okay, fine. Your semblance, then – you take a hit and can dish it out twice as hard. Your hair sets on fire, eyes change color, it's actually quite spectacular."

"You're gonna have to explain what that is, too," Jaune said.

I blinked. "It's… a semblance," I said. "It's the physical manifestation of your aura, unique to every individual." They continued to stare at me, blankly, though Qrow had finally lowered his gun when I wasn't looking. Even if it still laid in his lap. ""Aura… the physical manifestation of our souls? The thing that protects us from harm and gives us the strength to overcome impossible challenges with our bodies alone?"

"You're not making sense anymore," Jaune said. "Where does religious mumbo-jumbo come into this?"

My mouth opened, then closed. I rubbed my temples. "Religion doesn't come into this – it's… it's just aura. I have it, you have it, every living thing has it. It's just that only huntsmen and some specific tradesmen specialize in its use; soldiers or police might have it unlocked too, but they don't…" I shook my head. "It's aura – how do you not…" Then a terrifying thought entered my head – What if they don't have souls to generate aura? I reached forward and grasped Jaune's hand. Sending a pulse of aura into him, I felt an unusually faint – even for a civilian – response. I breathed a sigh of relief, letting go of his hand. "Sorry, just had to confirm somethi-" I blinked again. "Ruby doesn't have her aura unlocked either," I muttered.

"Okay, you're really starting to freak me out," Qrow said. "What's so important about aura?"

I whipped around. "In her case? It can heal," I said. "Not as well as a semblance focused around healing can, but… you said she was in danger of losing her arm?" He nodded. "It's not a guarantee, but if I unlocked her aura, she would certainly have a better chance at keeping it."

"And how do I know you're not blowing smoke up my ass?" he said. "Because the kid's right; we've all heard the nutjobs who say they can heal. Why're you different?"

Rising from my seat, I strode over to the cactus in the center of the small room and picked a needle off its skin. I turned back to them. "Aura can protect from harm," I said, reinforcing the needle as I jammed it into my wrist. Hard. Nothing happened other than my skin visibly denting under the pressure. I separated the two again. "It can also heal," I said, lowering my aura and swiping the reinforced needle across my wrist. Immediately, an angry red wound appeared where none had been before.

The others looked surprised, but didn't do or say anything. I let the wound get redder and redder until a drop started to pool – I made a show of catching it in my other hand and wiped the wound with my thumb, showing them the rapidly re-reddening slash. Only then did I reactivate my aura. When I wiped it again, blood was no longer oozing from the wound. Within thirty seconds, it was as if the small wound never existed in the first place.

Qrow recovered from the display first, shooting to his feet and getting to within an inch of my face. "I would do anything to make sure she keeps that arm," he said. "Are there any dangers? Any risks that I need to know about?"

"Aura tends to attract Grimm, but… you don't have that problem," I said. Though his intimidation attempt might've worked on others, I had stared down monsters fifty times his size and I was still here. "I would need to train her for a little bit in its usage, though – a few days at most for the absolute basics. When she has the hang of it, she won't be able to hurt herself with aura unless she actively chooses to. But it is another thing to be conscious of – it's like growing another limb, suddenly."

Qrow studied my face for a long while. Eventually, he let out a big sigh. "If you're lying, I swear to God I will put a bullet right between those fancy little ears o' yours." He flashed his gun for emphasis.

I nodded. "Understood."

He turned around and marched towards the door. "She's a few doors down. Doctor said we can't visit until she's awake, but I think this overrules him."

I quickly followed after him and stepped back into the hallway. In less than a minute, we were in a clean tiled room with a few beds set up – only one of which was occupied. For just a moment, I stood, looking at the twin of my team leader, hooked up to various machines. Her injured arm was in a full cast, she had a needle in her other arm, and, of course, a heart rate monitor on her finger. Instead of her typical black-and-red combat dress, she wore a white and blue hospital gown… and a line of stitches just above her eyebrow.

Taking a deep breath, I moved to her bedside and took her arm. I sent an auric pulse, just like I had with her sister, and found a similarly deep return. Before even starting the required chant, I pushed more auric force into her, trying to get a better read on just how to unlock her aura. I'd done it before in the White Fang, but this would be… unique. No one was like this back home, and yet, I'd just touched two examples within the last five minutes.

Her latent aura came back stronger, though it was still hidden deeper than the norm. I nodded; it would have to do. Closing my eyes, I began the process.

"…For it is in solitude we achieve solace…" I muttered, lips moving on their own. "Through this, our minds are cleared and our weapons honed. From the shadow of my soul, I release yours, and by thine light, find hope…"

When I opened my eyes, I could see the faint crimson lightning of her aura bubbling to the surface. After a moment, it dissipated. I nodded, satisfied that the process had worked. "It's done," I said, turning to the others. They all had various shocked expressions on their faces – as if not fully expecting what I'd just done to actually do anything.

I just hoped it was enough.

On A Planet Far, Far Away

/-\ Ruby Rose /-\

Slowly, I approached my sister's room.

I'd just woken up earlier today, and after the bombshell that Uncle Qrow had just dropped on me… I just wanted to see her again. And, of course, I wanted to make sure she was alright. I shivered just thinking about what she… what she lost. My hand stopped just an inch from the handle as I heard her… sobbing. It was faint, just on the edge of my hearing. I'd heard her cry before, but like this?

She only cried like this when she thought about Raven.

I knocked, waiting a moment before turning the knob and stepping into her room. "…Yang?"

She just… sat there, looking out the window. I stood just inside the doorway, eyes occasionally glancing at the bandage where her… where her arm used to be. After seemingly hours of just waiting there, she still gave no response. Frowning, I turned around, closing the door behind me as I le- "Ruby," she said.

I whipped around, blurring to her side in a flurry of rose petals and enveloping her in a hug. "I'm so glad you're okay," I said… knowing how untrue that was.

She pulled away slightly, making me release her. "…But I'm not…" she said. "It's all gone; the school, Penny, Pyrrha, and…" Her eyes flicked to her… stump.

"B- But what about Weiss and Blake? They'd never-"

"Weiss's father… he came for her," she interrupted. "No one outside Vale knows what happened here, so he just… he took her back to Atlas."

I blinked, trying to hold back the tears that I could feel building up. "…And Blake?"

A tear leaked from her eyes. "I- I don't know."

"W- Wha-"

"Sun said she was running from someone. The way he described him, it's that bastard that did this to me!" She thrust her stump into my face. "She- she locked eyes with Sun, set me down while I was unconscious, and… and drew that son of a bitch away." She looked up at me, tears flowing freely. "No one's…" she gulped. "No one's seen her since."

My heart jumped into my throat. "Y- Yang… B- Blake wouldn't-"

"It's been a week, Ruby!" she shouted, only holding my gaze for a moment before her head drooped again. Several tears fell from her hung head, splashing on the sheets of her bed. "I… I got her killed."

"Th- that isn't-"

"I rushed in without thinking and got my arm cut off!" She shouted, blazing red eyes glaring at me. "Then she had to cover for me… a- and she couldn't get away. I… I… got my best friend… killed."

I could only look at her for a moment, my own tears flowing free. I lurched forward, enveloping her in a hug as we cried together. I don't know how long we sat there, but when I pulled away next… two breakfast trays were sitting on her end table, cold to the touch.

I didn't feel like eating any of the food on them. When my sister awoke not long later, she didn't either.

(A/N) Oh boy. Implications, implications… Surely this won't have consequences, will it? Of course we know that Blake is safe(ish) on Earth, but they don't' even know Earth exists. Also, yes, I made Ruby a Faunus because it's cute. I justify my actions with it being another way to differentiate Ruby from Ruby beyond just the last name, but let's be real, it's because Wolf Ruby is abso-goddamn-lutely adorable.

Anyways, I should probably mention that the timescale between Earth and Remnant doesn't match up perfectly. Call it timey-wimy bullshit, non-experienced dimensional travel time, nonlinear universal time scaling, or whatever other science-sounding wordsmithed hogwash you can come up with, it just makes things easier. For the first while, Remnant will experience more time passing than Earth… until that reverses when "certain conditions" are met waaaaaay down the line in the story. This works out because for all the butterflies that the above angst causes, things mostly play out as we see them in the show. So to tie-in a Remnant section every once in a while is relatively easy, given I only have to show the differences as they pile up. And oh boy are there some fun ones. There will be a Remnant scene roughly every other chapter or so – sometimes things were just too long and I didn't have room, or, in one case, I had written several chapters past an event, realized I needed to insert something while editing, and was forced to break the pattern for a chapter (hint: this has happened already lol).

Anyways, that's enough wall o' text from me, enjoy the rest of your morning/afternoon/evening wherever and whenever you finish reading this!