Chapter Four

Pieces, Scattered

/-\ Ruby Xiao Long /-\

The first few things I registered upon waking were the many dull throbs in my arm. Shortly after, the few on my chest.

I groaned, trying to flex the appendage and find a more comfortable position, but I quickly found it was restrained, somehow. Just as I opened my eyes, I also realized there was some incessant beeping coming from somewhere. My first few sights were of a plain white ceiling – I raised my other hand to block out the harsh fluorescent light as I tried to get used to everything again. When I did, I looked to see what was wrong with my arm… only to see it encased in bandages.

My eyes didn't leave my arm for a while, wondering just how the hell I'd managed to wind up here, but after a moment, the memories came flooding back. The crashed saucer, fighting for our lives against the aliens, storming the damn thing to rescue Uncle Qrow, Yang being flung away by her neck, an immense, blinding pain, and then… nothing. Still staring at my arm, I saw a red bolt of something jump from my thumb up my wrist. I let out a little squeak, startled.

Rustling to the side drew my attention, my gaze falling on an unfamiliar dark-haired girl in gym clothes and a beanie. She sat in the hospital chair awkwardly, her knees pulled up to her chest and her back hunched forwards to allow her head to rest on them. She rolled her neck backwards, squirming a little while still managing to hold onto the book in her lap. She slowly blinked her eyes open, revealing them to be an almost unnatural shade of yellow – but not an evil yellow. She lazily turned her head towards me. "Oh, you're awake."

I nodded. "Umm, yeah," I let out. "So, umm… are you a nurse, or…?"

She shook her head. "Just… a friend," she said. "Even though you won't recognize me. How's your arm?"

"Stings a little, but not ba-" out of the corner of my eye, I saw it again – the red streak. I let out another squeak. "What is that?"

"That's normal," she said. I opened my mouth to vehemently disagree, but she just kept talking. "Well, normal now. When you're healed, it'll go away. The doctors weren't sure if your arm would make it, so I… helped out a little."

"You just said you weren't a nurse," I said, shortly before remembering a very important detail. "Wait, where's my Dad? Did he bring me here? What about Yang? Or Jaune? My Uncle?"

She sighed, setting her book aside and adjusting her position to sit like a normal person. "They're… here, mostly. They're getting some food while we wait – you've been out for a few hours now."

I blinked. "Mostly?"

The girl opened her mouth to speak, but then her eyes flicked to the door. It slowly opened, revealing my Uncle carrying two McDonald's bags, Jaune was behind him carrying two more, and, finally, Yang brought up the rear, closing the door behind her. For a moment, I was relieved to see they were alright, but then I noticed Yang's arm in a sling. Further, I noticed the conspicuous absence of someone who most certainly would be here if both his daughters were in the hospital.

Qrow, looked towards me, setting the food down on a nearby table. "Oh, good, you're awake."

Still, my eyes remained fixed on the door, hoping beyond hope that Dad was… just behind them, or something. The last I'd seen him, he was still in the house. The house that got flattened. "Guys?" I muttered, worry creeping into my voice. "Where's Dad?"

The three of them froze where they were. Jaune's shoulders slumped, Qrow turned away for just a moment with his hands shaking at his side, and my sister's eyes visibly glistened. She blinked several times in rapid succession, a shudder working through her body. "Dad's…" she said, voice wavering. "Dad's… with Mom."

For just a moment, I was blissfully unaware of what she was implying. Deep down, I already knew – just their reactions were enough – but hearing her say it… "...oh…" I let out. The world blurred as my eyes filled with tears – my friend's and family's faces turning into jumbled messes. Letting out a deep sigh, I reclined back against the bed. I felt… helpless. First Mom and Penny disappeared, and now Dad was gone too. With a sniffle, I wiped away my tears and looked upon my two remaining family members in this world. Would they be taken too? Was I doomed to slowly have my friends and family die with me being powerless to stop it?

Yang lunged forward, entrapping me in an embrace. Normally, I'd try to fight her off – especially in public – but today? All I could do was hold on for dear life. Mom's disappearance taught me that life was short, but now Dad too? We didn't even speak the last I saw him, and now I'd never get the chance. "Yang…" I muttered. "I… I love you," I said.

She nodded slightly, gripping me even tighter. "And I love you. I love you so, so much, Ruby."

Eventually, she pulled back. Even after just a moment's separation, I already missed the warmth of my sister's embrace. It was… familiar; it was comforting. It reminded me of Mom's. Taking a deep breath, I… tried to focus on the present. "When…" I croaked. Clearing my throat, I tried again. "When is the f- funeral?"

Qrow frowned. "Tai's… already in his tomb," he said. "The house is wrecked and there's a not-so-flying saucer sitting on top of half of it. We can have our own little service, just the three of us, but…" he shook his head. "We should just let him rest. Old man always said he wanted to be buried at home anyways, even if it turned out a bit sooner than planned."

Slowly, I nodded. "...if he wanted that…"

"He did," he said. After a few moments, he grabbed a McDonald's bag and practically flung it at me. "Here; the girl said you'd be hungry after the, uh, procedure. Got you two meals and a shake. I know it doesn't make up for what's happened, but it might be a start." He dug into another bag, pulling out a burger before handing the bag off to Yang. Jaune handed one of his bags to the mystery girl in the corner.

I promptly dug in. Despite not feeling that hungry – even a little put-off by food given the situation – my appetite only seemed to grow as I ate. It was like I was going through another growth spurt. By the time I'd polished off everything, I was still feeling more or less the same as when I'd started. Usually, even a single meal was enough to sate me, even if I'd just gotten off a cookie high and burned a bajillion calories bouncing off the walls. Though I was a little weirded out by this, it was, ultimately, only a minor distraction. My thoughts quickly began to turn back to Dad, and how I was never going to see him again. I remembered how Yang and I were going to take him up to the Boundary Waters – just like when we were kids – when he'd finally managed a fully sober year.

My thoughts began spiraling down and down, only being pulled back to the surface by an odd sensation. I was being watched; I somehow just knew that's what the sensation meant, though not its source. I blinked a few times, looking up from the white sheets quick enough to catch those unnaturally amber eyes darting away from me. She acted all nonchalant, eating a wayward fry from her bag, but I'd still caught her. I'd never seen her before in my life, but she said she was a friend when I'd awoken. For just a moment, I saw something that would let me dwell on something other than the extremely depressing spiral I'd just gotten out of. "So, umm…" I started. The words themselves didn't come easy, even if I was sure in the need to say them. "I'm… Ruby? Uh, what's your name?" Great job. A-plus introduction…

She simply stared at me for a moment, face blank. "You know, I don't know whether to be impressed or not that you're even more awkward and stilted than you were when we first met," she said. Her simple and flippant conviction almost made me wonder if I'd hit my head harder than I thought and I was half-way down another spiral when she continued. "And I've just realized how strange that sounds. Um, I'm Blake and I may or may not have already met an alternate version of you, Yang, and Jaune on my home planet."

I blinked once, then twice.

She simply stared back, face completely impassive.

Letting out a sigh, I turned to the others. "Is she serious?"

Qrow shrugged, swallowing a bite of his burger. "Near as we can tell, yeah."

"That's…" I started, turning back to Blake. "How did you even-"

"Like I told them. One moment I was running for my life from a psychopath and the next I was half-naked in your truck." She pulled her knees back up to her chest. "I've barely been awake for four hours and I already know just how different this place is from home. Not to mention that that the only person like me on this entire planet is… well, me." She reached up and pulled off her beanie, revealing a pair of black cat ears that flexed and stretched in ways that no fake hair accessory ever could.

"Bwuh?" I let out. "Nekos are real?"

She gave me a strange look. "...I'm a Faunus, actually. I've never heard anyone call us that."

"Oh, uh… sorry. It's a thing in anime," I said, looking away. Just as I did so, another bolt of red lightning arced across my arm. I flinched a little, but It had already lost most of its shock. "It's gonna take a while to get used to that," I muttered to myself.

Blake hummed, drawing my attention back to her. "It does take a bit, but in time, you'll almost forget what life was like without aura."

"Aura?" I asked.

"The physical manifestation of our souls. It can be used to protect our bodies, sharpen our senses, hone our reflexes, enhance our muscles, heal our injuries, and a myriad of other things. Even though I only unlocked yours a few hours ago, it's hard at work patching your arm up. I didn't see what your actual injury was, but between the aura and whatever surgery the doctors did, I wouldn't be surprised if you're completely back to normal in a few days."

Qrow started coughing. After a moment, he shook his head. "A few days? They were worried they'd have to amputate her arm! Even when I was her age, it took me an entire month to heal up a gash on my leg, and her arm was a hell of a lot worse than that." he said. "This… this is big."

I was about to open my mouth and ask more, but a knock on the door interrupted me before I could begin. For just a moment, the blond head of hair that stepped through looked exactly like my Dad, but then I realized the features were all wrong – and he was wearing a doctor's coat. "Ah, good, you're awake, Miss Xiao Long," he said. "I'm Doctor Stevens. Just need to run a few tests on your arm, and then we can evaluate further treatment options."

Pushing down the feelings of loss, I nodded. "Um, yeah, sure."

He smiled, approaching my bedside. "The nurse noticed you were healing faster than expected, so we'll do some basic mobility tests. Usually, these would be reserved until a few days after the surgery, but he made it sound like you were already there." He then had me do multiple exercises with my hand – touching my thumb to each finger, stretching my wrist every which way, and having me squeeze his index finger. "Hmm… Well, consider me impressed. You already have full mobility in your hand and wrist. This is very good news – barring some exceptionally terrible circumstances, I'd say we can officially rule out amputation as a treatment option. Our primary concern was that several of your nerves were nicked or severed by the shrapnel of your firework accident; without those, your entire arm below the elbow would have just been dead weight. Barring, of course, the severe pain caused by said damaged nerves. Speaking of, was there any pain while doing those exercises?"

"A little, I guess? It kinda just feels like I stubbed my toe a few times… but in my arm."

He nodded. "Alright, let me take a peek under the bandages real quick just to make sure everything is healing properly." He started unraveling everything. It hurt more as my arm finally moved – much more – but I just grit my teeth and bore the pain. However, as the wounds became completely exposed, the doctor just seemed more and more confused. He poked and prodded and that was not fun, but soon enough, he was re-wrapping my arm. "This is… remarkable," he said as he finished up. "We had planned on keeping you for three more days for observation, but you already look like you're a week out of surgery. I don't see any reason why we need to keep you even overnight."

I blinked. "That's… that's good. Really good," I said, still grappling with the idea I'd almost lost my arm. For a brief moment, I entertained the idea of living with only one – how the hell would I even get dressed in the morning? I knew people managed it, but I was extremely glad that I wasn't going to.

He nodded. "I'll have the nurse print out a care guide, though I highly recommend you schedule a check-up in about a week's time to make sure everything is still healing properly. He'll be along shortly with that and to disconnect you from the equipment. Then, if you're feeling ready, we can release you."

"That would be nice," I said as he exited the room. With him went the limited distraction that he represented. Once more, my thoughts spiraled downwards, picturing another unshaven blond that I'd never see alive again…

/-\ Blake Belladonna /-\

I could see it plain as day when Ruby remembered what she'd just lost.

I've seen it more than enough in the White Fang, but even so, I didn't say anything. Sometimes that was for the better; letting people work through their grief on their own. Yang noticed it too and clearly didn't agree with my thinking, hugging her sister almost immediately, even if they only had a single pair of working arms between them. Their embrace didn't last long before the nurse came in to unhook Ruby. Only an hour after she'd woken up from her light coma, the nurse wheeled her out to the truck in a wheelchair. It was, apparently, hospital policy, despite her legs working just fine. Looking up, I spotted another difference between our two worlds. Though there was still a moon that illuminated the night sky, theirs wasn't shattered like ours. Just one more thing to the pile, I thought.

With some difficulty, we all piled into the truck – much to the disapproval of the nurse when he saw there were only four seats for five people. Soon, he departed, his job done. "So, umm, what now?" Yang asked. "As much as I hate to dwell on it… our house is kinda just… gone," she said, sparing a glance at me. "And that's not to mention what we do with Blake. I mean, she's from a different planet – she literally has nothing here."

Jaune frowned. "I mean, I'd have to ask, but after Saphron and Terra hooked up, there's been a spare bedroom at our place, plus we've got a guestroom."

"'Preciate it, kid, but that's not necessary," Qrow said. "I've never told Ruby or Yang, but a few years back, I inherited my folks place in Vermont. It's a bit of a drive, obviously, and it's not the biggest place in the world, but it's somewhere."

The two sisters took a moment to respond. "...You never really talk about them," Yang said. "They're technically my grandparents too, given… her."

He grunted. "Our parents weren't… good people. Far from the worst, but they weren't the sort of people you'd want to care for small children."

Yang huffed. "Probably explains a lot about Raven."

"Less than you'd think," he said, turning to Jaune. "So, kid, want me to drop you off?"

He looked ready to answer, but then paused, looking at both Ruby and – especially – Yang. "A- Actually… if it's okay, I'd like to come with," he said. "Just for a bit. The girls have gone through a lot today and… and I'd like to be there for them."

Qrow hummed. "You two want him around?" he asked. Both the girls answered in the affirmative; Yang immediately and Ruby shortly after. "Alright, well, you're eighteen, got a way back?"

"You said it was in Vermont, right? I can buy a plane ticket back to the Cities, that'll be close enough."

The man shrugged, turning back to the front of the truck. "Your call. Just let your folks know so I don't catch a kidnapping charge."

"I'm sure," he said. "Besides, if they're moving to Vermont… it'll be a while before we see each other again."

"And what about you, mysterious catgirl?" Qrow asked. "What're you gonna do?"

I crossed my arms. "Please don't call me that. I understand you don't have Faunus, but that's a borderline slur," I said, earning an apology from him in short order. Soon after, however, I… frowned. "I genuinely have no idea," I said. "I'll still teach Ruby how to use her aura – at least the bare minimum – but beyond that? I've been thrown off the deep end. I don't know anything about this place other than there's no Grimm, you somehow speak Valerian, there's some place called Vermont, and the technology seems oddly basic. I don't even know what the world looks like, nevermind cultural norms. I'd bet that any money of mine – even if I had any on my person – wouldn't be accepted here. I'm starting from square one in the most literal sense," I said, letting out a sigh. "There's… so much to learn just to get by."

The others all looked at each other for a little bit before Qrow groaned. "Well, now I'd feel like an ass for not at least offering you a place at the cabin. You said it'd take a few days to teach Ruby that aura thing? Think on it and get back to me."

Giving a slow nod, I hummed. The others took it as the affirmation that it was and everyone drifted into a comfortable silence. Even though I myself had only been awake for a few hours by this point, they had been… hard. I felt my eyelids start to droop and didn't stop them from closing. We'd probably be there by the time I woke up anyways.

My sleep was so seamless and dreamless that it took a minute to register that I'd awoken once more. Shaking off the drowsiness, I recalled…yesterday's? events and suppressed a sigh. I was still seated betwixt Yang and Jaune, with Ruby and Qrow being up front. All were sleeping and the vehicle was silent. Peering up towards the dash, it told me that it was about four AM. I shook my head; another weird similarity in an ocean of differences.

I snatched the beanie off my head, now realizing just how achy my ears were getting. They stretched and flexed, allowing the warm air of the cabin directly onto them for the first time in a good while. However, I could feel that my limbs needed the same treatment after being cooped up here for hours on end. With both normal-sized doors blocked, that only left the tiny sliding door behind me. Turning around, I judged its size. It was small, but it could work if I angled myself just right.

Moving silently, I opened it up and shimmied out of the truck. It didn't look like it had a handle on the outside, so I simply left it open to crawl back into in… an hour? a few minutes? I didn't know. What I did know was that I was now on the open truck bed – one with a good view. We were in a mostly empty parking lot of a very strange building. While the structure itself seemed to be a fairly standard general store, there was a large free-standing awning – large enough for a moving van to pull under. Just as I wondered what could possibly be the reason for such a ridiculous structure, the largest cargo hauler I'd ever seen pulled into the parking lot. It was so large, the designers felt the need to separate the engine and crew compartments from the cargo, putting that in a trailer. The monster of a truck pulled under the awning, parking next to the lone box next to the pillars which supported the awning. The driver got out, pressed a few buttons on said box, and removed a hose from the box, attaching it to a large cylinder on the side of his truck. I stared at the spectacle for a moment, trying to understand what was going on. Then it hit me.

He was buying fuel.

Back on Remnant, I'd been to an isolated community in Far Northwestern Vacuo once that relied on burning some local black tar for power through some convoluted system because dust was so expensive to ship there, but that was the only time I'd seen someone not use either crystals or powder. And yet, someone here had established a business selling this… tar-fuel analogue to the mass market. I wondered how efficient this system was compared to what I was familiar with – dust electric drives only needed their crystals switched out every thousand miles or so, and people would generally just do that at home after buying from a dust shop. I shook my head, consigning myself to witnessing another idiosyncrasy of this strange, alternate world.

The mundane spectacle only lasted a few minutes before the driver finished up, returned the hose to the box, and drove off. When he finally disappeared, I took a look around – something I probably should have done as soon as I got out of the truck. We appeared to be on the outskirts of a small town, yet there was a conspicuous absence of any walls surrounding it. For a moment, I wondered if these people were actually suicidal, but then I remembered that there were no Grimm here. They didn't need the high walls with gun emplacements everywhere like we did.

I let out another sigh, once again realizing just how unfamiliar everything was. Looking back to the awning, I decided it seemed like a good place to get an even better look of the area – what other casually earth-shattering revelations did this place hold? With a simple aura-powered leap, I was up top. It was clear the awning wasn't washed very often, but I'd sat on dirtier surfaces during my time in the White Fang. So I did – I had a seat and looked around some more.

To my right laid the wall-less town, where no buildings stood taller than the numerous oaks, birches, and elms sprinkled throughout. To my right, farmland as far as the eye could see. Even though it was the middle of the night – and a partially overcast one at that – my Faunus eyes allowed me to see a trio of deer gallop through the bare land. If this place's seasons were anything like those of Remnant, I'd guess it was early-to-mid spring just based on the fields – the farmers had either not planted yet, or planted so recently the crops had yet to sprout. An incomprehensibly large freight truck thundered past on the highway that separated the farmland from the town. Another surprise was that it took me this long to notice my breath forming a slight fog with every exhale. Early Spring it is, then, I thought.

For a while, I just simply sat there on my perch atop the awning, watching the moon trace its path across the sky and the traffic go by down below. A few more vehicles – most being those large freight trucks – stopped for fuel throughout the hours I sat up there with my thoughts. Either nobody noticed me or they simply elected to leave me alone. I didn't care which – it was just nice to be alone for a bit.

Of course, the niceness didn't last. Though I'd spent much of the time analyzing my surroundings or thinking on the revelations I'd come to earlier, my thoughts eventually drifted back to Beacon. What I'd been about to do. Yang, my wonderful, selfless partner that I'd met as she dragged her wolf-tailed sister through the ballroom, had lost her arm. All because of me. All because I was too slow in stopping the White Fang; stopping Adam. The second I'd handed her off to Sun, a thought entered my mind. Leave, it commanded. Your presence will only hurt her more.

As the skies started to brighten with the first crimson burst of sunlight, I still sat there atop the awning, knees pulled to my chest. Maybe it's a good thing I washed up here, I thought.

After all, with me gone, Adam would have no reason to hurt her any more…

/-\ Weiss Schnee /-\

I'd wanted nothing more than to just continue my days as usual.

I'd gotten comfortable in a routine – study at all hours I wasn't either in class or taking care of my basic mortal needs.

Then came the news. Patch, Minnesota. A UFO was shot down there and landed on someone's house. Pictures were everywhere – even someone as separated from social media as I was had seen them. Though the picture-takers were obviously not the first on-scene, given the numerous US Army Soldiers patrolling around the crash site, it was still obviously a vehicle not made by mankind. That just simply couldn't be faked.

And it brought up a number of conclusions I'd already written-off. The Yakutsk Massacre – what I'd originally dismissed as the work of particularly talented video editors and wild instinct-driven panic – was now much more likely to be true. I'd gone back and re-watched those videos almost as soon as I'd seen the images from Patch; the videos of the Grey-like aliens cutting down fleeing civilians. It all looked so generic at the time – even the black man-shaped and sword-wielding silhouette that appeared right before the cameraman fled.

But it was probably real. And I'd dismissed it. I'd just dismissed people's lives.

Flynt had come back late again, well after I'd stopped studying in favor of finding out everything I possibly could about these two events. He was smug, making me admit I was wrong – as if admitting it to myself wasn't already much harder. He'd then promptly turned around and invited me to his next gig, which was where I was now. The world's gone to shit, he'd said. Enjoy it while it lasts.

I tried, I honestly did. This party was simply so different from the soirees and balls I was used to that I simply had no idea what to do. On top of that, I'd gotten the usual flash of vertigo, being so close to this many people. I took a seat for a moment, acclimating to the surroundings. Everyone around me was having fun – some even did unseemly and oversexualized dances on each other. After several attempts over the course of an hour, I eventually gave up on trying to fit in with them. Instead, I just consigned myself to standing in the corner, alone as ever. A few boys approached me in my solitude, but I'd turned them away. They had all been clearly intoxicated, and I dealt with alcohol enough at home.

At least the music was tolerable.

/-\ Private Daniel Murray /-\

For the first time in a day, I finally stepped out of the isolation quarters in Vahlen's lab.

Samples had been taken from just about everywhere in that Ghost UFO shot down yesterday, and foreign bacteria had been found in a stasis chamber of some kind. It had been enough to send the higher-ups into a panic and consign us to an all-expenses-paid vacation to the beautiful and boring quarantine labs. After a day of occasional prodding, however, the eggheads seemed satisfied we weren't actually going to keel over with some alien Ebola or something, so we were released.

The first thing I did when I got out was go to the lounge – it'd been way too long since I'd gotten something good to drink. I wasn't alone in the idea either; I ran into one of my squadmates on the way. She'd been first through the final 'just-in-case' decontamination scrub and from the looks of her, immediately went to the showers to clean off the gunk the process left in your hair. Lance Corporal Greene, a scout from the Yanks, wasn't very big on conversation, so we simply walked together in silence.

As we walked down the base's metal-lined corridors, a chorus of cheers and laughter reached our ears – a sign something fun was going on in the lounge. Soon enough, we were treated to the sight of Captain Anderson drinking someone under the table. Our own squad lead – Sergeant Olssen – was right next to him, cheering the officer on. I moved past them and the disgruntled operatives behind the Captain's passed-out opponent forking over a twenty each, sliding up to the bar. I ordered an IPA, just like I'd been wanting every second I was in that stupid isolation chamber.

The bartender nodded and left to retrieve my drink. When he did so, I inadvertently locked eyes with an unfamiliar, yet somewhat attractive face across the bar. She was a bit older – probably late thirties – with some pretty black-ish red hair and a face that looked familiar. A little thought placed her as one of Shen's engineers. She herself looked miserable, though, mascara runny and a half-empty bottle of red wine next to her. Immediately, I knew she'd just lost someone close to her – you don't be an Operative for very long without going through that. I looked away, knowing it was probably better to just leave her be for now. Those wounds needed time to heal, not a stranger.

It wasn't long after that the bartender returned with my IPA. I smiled, cracked open the can, and just savored the scent for a few moments. Content, I raised it to my lips and-

"ALERT!" The base intercom boomed, its female voice making everyone in the lounge immediately freeze. "Abductions in progress in Stockholm, Sweden. Strike Six, report to the armory immediately, repeat, Strike Six to the armory."

I groaned, only taking a single sip of the IPA before leaving it on the counter. Seven others rose just as I did and bolted for the exit. It wasn't e-fucking-nough that we just went on that Ghost UFO mission, I thought. You just had to send us on another one RIGHT NOW, didn't ya?

(A/N) So, remember last chapter when I said there'd be a Remnant PoV every other chapter? Well, I also decided that there was a startlingly low amount of XCOM in this XCOM fic, so they'll alternate for a bit… at least until an event happens and XCOM becomes a bigger part of the story. This one isn't too far down the line, actually, but I won't spoil it. In the meantime, have some OC PoVs.

Anyways, to pre-empt some of the comments, I know there's a fuel station in Volume 5 that Yang goes to, but I don't feel that it makes sense in the context of Remnant, so it's been un-personed. Plus, this lets me do the funny thing of having Blake think of a standard gas station as some weird, eccentric thing that Earth does. I absolutely love doing that, if you haven't noticed; just highlighting the differences between two worlds with such different circumstances… It just clicks, y'know?