NeoNazo356: First announcement. For those of you that haven't caught it yet, there is a "Lost Chapter" at the end of the original Giant-Slayer waiting for your purview in case you haven't seen it yet. Just a hidden "extra" for those of you that haven't removed Giant-Slayer from the Follow list. It's been in planning for a long time, but I wanted to make it a simulrelease alongside the beginning of Giant-Slayer (Volume 2) New World.
And now onto the fanmail!

Greywing44: Yes! I was hoping Lilith would be in this one! She's one of my favorite characters in Borderlands(Npc mostly) Gameplay wise I prefer Wilhelm, Axton, or even Roland(May god rest his stoic, awkward soul).
I think if you added Tina you'd break the system. Or the building realistically.
So her tattoos were made because she was either exposed to a high amount of dust in the womb or...Heredity? The long term effects of dust on the body were never fully explained so you could go with that I suppose. Or maybe just crazy mothers eating dust to make their babies strong and healthy. I can see Corperations pitching that and going to war in a kind of subtle way...
This chapter is kind of slow compared to the last one. But Lilith makes it worth it.

NeoNazo356: When it comes to Lilith's tattoos in the RWBYverse, they're made with Dust as part of the "fuse it with their own bodies" angle touched up on in the World of Remnant: Dust sub-episode. Basically, turning Dust into Tattoos is a more-refined version of what Hazel does when he jams Dust crystals into his body for an "undiluted" power boost like Bane does with the neo-steroid Venom.
As for the chapters being slow, since I'm making them shorter in able to get them out more-frequently, well, it's a tradeoff. Not to say there won't be action later-on, it'll just be more-concentrated instead of being spread out through super-large chapters like in Giant-Slayer. I think a couple chapters in that were 15, maybe 20k words in length, maybe even more than that at some points.

KitsuneDragon: So since you said Thaumaturgy and Magecraft have a seemingly low combat potential does that mean there are no true mages existing in the World of Remnant currently aside from people like Salem and Ozpin?
Cuz magic in combat as shown in a lot of shows and anime is amazing and OP when in the right hands.

NeoNazo356: By-and-large, "magic" is considered by the public as "fiction" or "fantasy"; as evident by Jack and Ruby's dialogue on the very subject #epicforeshadowing. In the way that "sufficiently-advanced science is indistinguishable from magic", while originally, Dust was considered "magical", once people began to understand it, it changed from Magic to Science. In a fantasy/sci-fi world like RWBY that has both "rivets" and "trees", the line between Magic and Science can become especially-blurred.
Since the bulk of this story was planned well before the whole Canon explanation of Magic in Volume 6, there will be significant differences from the Canon. The ending of Volume 3 will be the largest "deviating" point from the Canon into a long-standing Fanon. Doubly-so since RWBY seems to have "lost direction" in recent years.
I haven't quit RWBY altogether like some fans have, but I'm just not going to re-write entire swaths of my story to accommodate a Canon that's less-exciting than I thought it would be. This is fanfiction after all.

*NEW WORLD*

"Well, Lilith seemed… nice," Blake hummed as the two teams made their way to lunch.

"I like her," Yang agreed with a nod.

"Of course you'd like her," Weiss huffed disparagingly.

"Is that a slam on my fashion sense?" the blond asked, feathers ruffled.

"I'm just saying, a Beacon professor should dress a bit more… respectably, is all," Weiss argued.

"You just have your panties in a twist about her clothes because you're too much of a prude to show a little skin," the blond huffed as she poked Weiss in the sternum just-above her budding bosom.

"You leave my epidermis out of this!" Weiss hissed smartly as she swatted the blond's finger away.

"Fine, I'll leave your skin out of this," Yang returned before turning to her primary ribbing target. "So Blake, you wanna talk about him now?"

"Talk about who?" Nora asked as they got in line.

"The boy Blake stayed the night with yesterday," Yang said stirring the pot.

"Blake met a boy?!" Nora gawped audibly.

"Don't sound so shocked!" the raven-haired girl cried.

"Way to go, girlfriend! I knew you could get any guy you wanted!"

"For the hundredth! Time! Nothing! Happened!" Blake shrieked, angrily piling food onto her tray.

"Hello, again," a chipper voice greeted from behind the buffet line.

"UWAAAGH!" Blake cried throwing her arms, and her tray, upwards.

"Ohcrap!" a familiar white-haired teen cried as he planted a hand atop the sneeze guard separating them and vaulted upwards, his free hand extended. The tray landing atop his extended hand, one by one the heaved food items landed on the tray, the white-haired teen precariously balancing each and every object, not a one falling on its side. "Whew. That was a close one."

"Vincent?! What the heck are you doing here!?" Blake cried in shock at who was in front of her right now.

Because apparently that was the more-shocking of the two.

"I work here now," the teen said chipperly. "Not here-here per-se, but I was asked to make up for a labor deficit because someone caught a really bad bug on the weekend and couldn't stop hugging the porcelain throne. Whatever that means," he said shrugging one shoulder.

"Soooooo… By Blake's reaction just-now, you must be the boy Blake spent the night with~" Yang cooed looking like the cat that ate the canary. "I'm Yang, nice to meet you!" she said extending her hand.

"Oh gooood…" Blake groaned as she palmed her face, which was flushing brighter and brighter red by the moment.

"Nice to meet you too!" the teen said returning the blond's infectious smile. "I'd shake your hand, but they're kinda full right now," he said adjusting his balance.

"I'll say. That's quite the handstand," Pyrrha nodded appreciably.

"I think you're gawking at the wrong thing," Jaune hummed as he looked at Blake's undisturbed food.

His eyes may not've been as "fast" as everyone else's, but even he could see that as the foodstuffs were still falling, the white-haired handstander had shifted the tray just-enough so that no one object landed atop the one that came before.

"To balance himself like that with only one arm is impressive," Ren noted.

"Well, you know how it goes. Robot arm's stronger than my human one," Vincent replied with a nod.

"Yes, but… Your robot arm's on the right side," Blake murmured, pointing out the fact that the teen was holding himself aloft with his left arm.

" . . . " Looking down, then back up at Blake, Vincent realized he was-in-fact holding himself aloft with his flesh-and-blood arm. "Oh crap…" he muttered as his arm began to wobble. "Someone catch MEEEEE!" he cried as his arm gave out from under the weight.

The teen nosediving toward the floor, Blake was just a bit too slow to catch him, the white-haired teen's face meeting the floor with a- *WHAM* -as he went over.

" . . . Ow."

"Love the dismount, but he flopped the landing," Nora sighed disappointingly.

"Maybe, but I give him points for keeping the food intact," Ren noted as he eyed the relatively-undisturbed food.

"My back…" Vincent groaned into the floor, back arced painfully and feet dangling above his head.

"I feel your pain, buddy," Jaune said, taking a knee and patting the teen's shoulder consolingly.

"Vincent, I am so sorry I didn't catch you!" Blake apologized profusely as she took the tray from his upheld hand. "Can you stand?"

"Yeah… Give me a second," Vincent said planting both hands on the floor. His back arcing even further, eyes went wide as the white-haired teen contorted himself until his feet met the floor before raising himself up to a standing position not unlike a contortionist. "Hup," he grunted upon reaching full height, bending down to touch his toes now that he was on his own feet, audibly popping his back. "That is… much better," he said as he stood back straight, rubbing his face from when he landed.

"Flexible too? Blake you dog~" Yang cooed batting a paw following the whitette's display.

"Yang I get that you're bored without Jack around to talk to but don't take it out on me!" Blake hissed hurriedly before turning her attention to Vincent. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. No permanent damage," the teen replied as he twisted from left to right. "Still though, small world, huh, Blake?"

"Yeah… Small world," Blake replied nervously. "Anyway, back to what I was saying earlier… What the heck are you doing here?! At Beacon!?"

"Well, Old Man Wok didn't want me spending the best years of my life behind a counter, so he talked to an old friend of his and got me a job up on the hill so I'd be able to make friends my own age," the white-haired teen answered as casually as one would about the weather. "Or at least that's the vibe I was able to get off of him," he said rubbing his chin.

"So you're saying… you're going to be here…" Blake said in realization as she began to pale a little.

"Every day?" Yang asked with a glint in her eyes.

"Pretty much," the older teen replied with an enthused nod. "Why?" he then asked with a confused tilt of his head.

"Ohhhh… No reason~" Yang cooed. "No reason at all~" she said creeping up behind Blake and putting her hands on her shoulders. "Noooo reeeasooooon aaat alllllll~" the blond drawled quite-auibly as she discretely nudged Blake forward.

" . . . Well that isn't ominous at all," Vincent said with a beaming smile before his arm was suddenly grabbed.

"Would you excuse me for a second? I need to talk to him alone," Blake said dragging him off.

"Be sure to make it a quickie~ We've got class after this!" Yang called out, Blake flushing crimson in embarrassment as numerous eyes followed her out.

*NEW WORLD*

After dragging Vincent out of the food court at large, Blake dragged him around the corner and placed the both of them in the shadow of one of the pillars. Glancing around to make sure they weren't being watched, Blake then pinioned the white-haired teen a look as she tried to gather her thoughts. She'd just assumed she would not see him again after that morning, so seeing him again the very same day… kinda pulled the rug out from under her.

"So… Listen… About the kiss this morning…" Blake began nervously.

"Yeah? What about it?" Vincent asked with a shrug.

"You uh… Wait, what?" Blake asked to his question with a raised brow.

"What about it?" he repeated.

"Well um… I mean… I just didn't want you to get the wrong idea. Kind of a spur-of-the-moment kinda thing I didn't really think through and... Huh?" she asked after another pause.

"What do you mean by wrong idea?" he asked with a tilt of his head.

"You uh… Uh… Uhhhhhhhh…" Blake said completely unprepared for this overly-aloof personality type. "Just… Thank you. For letting me stay the night at your place," she decided to say.

"Hey, no problem! Strangers are just friends you haven't met yet!" Vincent replied with a chipper smile.

"Right… Friends…" Blake nodded. "Out of curiosity… What do you think of me?"

"What do you mean?" he asked with a tilt of his head.

" . . . You know what, nevermind. I'm just gonna chalk it up to the amnesia?"

"Chalk what up to the amnesia?"

"Please go back to work," Blake said hitting the emergency exit button for that conversation.

*NEW WORLD*

"That was fast," Yang said the literal moment Blake returned. "So is he just that good or...?"

"Or nothing. We only talked. And nothing else," Blake said tersely.

"Geez, don't have a cow Blake, I was just teasing," the blond said raising her hands. "So you really didn't do anything then?"

"No! Why do I have to keep repeating myself?!"

"Well I mean, you're such a pretty girl, I just thought it'd be really easy for you to sink your claws into any guy you wanted," Yang answered honestly.

"As-flattering as that is," Blake said sarcastically, "I'm not that kind of girl," she finished with a flat look.

"Right. Right. I guess what they say about 'the quiet ones' doesn't apply to all quiet, bookish girls," Yang conceded.

"Thank you. Finally we're all on the same page," Blake sighed.

"I apologize for letting Yang convince me otherwise," Weiss saw fit to add. "I honestly did think you used your feminine wiles to secure a room for yourself when you didn't rent a hotel room the other night."

"I'm just glad we cleared up this misunderstanding," Blake sighed.

"So what do you think of him?" Yang cooed.

"Oh not this shit again."

"I'm serious. What do you think of him? You don't spend the night at a guy's place without at least liking them."

"Well…" Blake sighed, thankful Yang was no longer of the thought process that she slept with him. "He's… a really nice guy. I saw him save a couple Faunus from those racists that hit Jack with that Molotov, and he even walked them home. It was… really inspiring," she said with a fond smile. "After realizing I missed the last ship to Beacon, Vincent made me dinner and even gave me the bed while he took the couch. That he didn't try to do anything skeevy to me…" she paused, thinking back to the unbroken tape in the doorway. "He's really different from most boys."

"I'll say. He must have a very generous benefactor if he has Automail that articulate," Weiss hummed.

"You noticed?" Blake gawped.

"Why wouldn't I? Outside of Rush Valley in Vacuo, Atlas is the leading provider of Automail prostheses," Weiss returned as she ate. "When he caught that tray with his right hand, the sound it made clued me in."

"Yes, well, as it turns out, the guy doesn't even remember where his Automail came from," Blake sighed. "He has a huge scar under his hairline, and most of his past memories are just… gone."

"Wait, you mean like legit amnesia?" Yang asked.

"I thought that only happened in cheesy soap operas after the writers wrote themselves into a corner," Nora hummed contemplatively.

"Yes. I was a little skeptical at first, but the scarring on his head backs it up," Blake returned. "I'm glad that someone genuinely nice found him. If it were anyone dubious, who knows what might've happened to him."

"Probably sold into slavery," Yang shrugged as she picked at her food.

"Whoa, Yang, that's really fucking dark," Nora bit out. "Where the hell'd you come up with that idea?"

"Yeah, Yang, slavery was outlawed ages ago," Ruby returned. "I remember because I didn't fall asleep in History that day."

"Just because something's illegal doesn't mean people will stop doing it," Yang bit out as she ate, her mood suddenly soured.

To her credit, she was conscious-enough about it not to glance Jack's way, because she might break her promise if she started laying out bread crumbs for people to follow because of her big mouth.

" . . . Still, that was really fucking dark."

"Yes, Nora. We noticed."

"Hey wait a minute, what did you mean when you said he saved some Faunus from 'those racists that attacked Jack'? What the heck were they doing out of jail-"

"Holding."

"Don't care, Yang- So early?" Ruby asked turning her attention back to Blake.

"The police are corrupt. End-of-story," Blake said tersely.

" . . . Well that's really disheartening," Pyrrha sighed. "Do you at least know what happened to them afterward?"

"Probably sleeping off their beating in a dumpster somewhere," Blake hummed noncommittally.

The less she knew about what the White Fang did out-of-uniform, the better.

Plus, since she wasn't involved in the… disposal, of those racists, she could claim plausible deniability if it came up on the news or something.

"Oh, so the guy can fight then?" Yang asked curiously.

"Only in times of extreme duress, apparently," Blake replied.

"So where do you think he's staying?"

"Didn't ask," Blake shrugged as she returned to her food. "Doubt it's anywhere nearby."

Blake would of course learn that god has a sick sense of humor.

But that, is a story for another day.

*NEW WORLD*

AN:
I did technically hint at this during the prequel. I mainly moved Vincent to Beacon so that way it wouldn't be only Jack causing the plot to "move along".

That's also partly why I fried Jack's brain in the first chapter of the sequel. So that unlike the prequel, Jack wouldn't be the only cog in the machine (that is the narrative).