"It'd actually turned out to only take around half an hour before they'd reached a settlement, a small walled town surrounded by fields of vegetables, however the ground was sandy and the plants looked to be as scraggly as the forest they'd passed through.
Xander was pretty sure they'd doubled the population of the town by arriving. He also noted the gates had been closed and farming implements had been abandoned in the fields, meaning the locals were exceedingly cautious… or maybe it was the fact that they were driving a half dozen large vehicles in what was largely an empty land characterized by an abundance of sand.
Xander reached for the town and felt the connection, absorbing the language and noting how deep they'd had to dig their wells for water. Also he was wrong about the population, there was just over a hundred people. It was a one White Mana town, but could be tapped to refill water supplies.
"They might think we're bandits," Leo said with a sigh.
"Which is understandable," Xander said, "we have more people on the buses than they have in their settlement."
"What? I thought you couldn't speak our language," Leo said in confusion.
"I couldn't," Xander agreed, "but now that I've felt a faunus settlement, I know the language."
"That is going to make things so much easier," Leo said, "I have so many questions!"
"I'd have a bunch if I was you too," Xander said. "Hell, I have a bunch now."
"Are you a god?" Leo asked intently.
"No," Xander said, "I'm a planeswalker, though we do have a number of common traits. Who broke the moon?"
"The God of Darkness, creator of the Grimm, broke the moon when he and his brother, the God of Light first wiped out humanity before remaking them," Leo explained.
"And the faunus are the remade humanity," Xander guessed.
"No," Leo said with a chuckle, "the God of Animals created us to try and make the remade humanity stop their war on animals."
"Yeah, sounds like typical god behavior," Xander said.
"Why did you save us?" Leo asked.
"I don't like slavery," Xander said, "and you guys were slaves, so naturally when I appeared on your world and saw you, my first instinct was to free you."
"Well, thanks for that," Leo said. "How are you different from a god?"
"Gods have domains they are limited to and a people they watch over," Xander said, "I have neither."
"That still sounds like a god to me," Leo told him.
Xander nodded. "It's a theological thing, Gods are supreme in their domain and draw power from worshipers, I'm not supreme in anything and don't draw power from worshipers."
"Still not seeing a lot of difference on the practical level," Leo admitted.
"Unless I'm facing a god in his domain there really isn't one," Xander conceded.
Leo nodded. "Well whatever you call yourself you performed miracles on our behalf and we're grateful," the lion faunus said.
"And I'll probably be performing more," Xander said. "How many mines are using faunus as slaves?"
"Nine of them, well eight now," Leo said.
"Then there are eight more groups of miracles I need to perform on… What do you call this planet?"
"Remnant," Leo said, "and the continent is called Menagerie. The capital and only true city is called Kuo Kuana. That's where we need to go as there's little enough that is safe from the Grimm."
"Road trip it is," Xander said as the T-800 opened the doors and everyone got off to stretch their legs.
"You mean to see us all the way there?" Leo asked hopefully.
Xander nodded and got up. "Yeah, it'll make it easier to empty the mines if I can just open a portal directly to them from there."
The pair exited the bus and Xander tapped a Green mana causing the crops to grow and multiply while enriching the earth to make it fertile. "Do you think they'd like a lake and where should I put it?"
Leo just stared at him for a moment before bursting out laughing.
Ryu, the Sennin, and the terminators gathered around for their orders.
"Would you mind if I did a quick dive into your mind to get the local language?" Ryu asked. "It would make things easier."
"You can do that?" Xander asked.
"Causes a bit of a headache, but it's an effective skill," Ryu told him.
"Sure, go ahead," Xander said and closed his eyes.
Ryu flipped through several hand seals, causing his hands to glow blue with chakra before placing a hand on Xander's head and closing his own eyes.
Leo's laughter petered out while he watched, curious about what they were doing.
"Done," Ryu announced in the local language.
Xander blinked and tapped a Blue Mana, his headache vanishing almost instantly. "Can you teach the others? And come to think of it, why didn't you do it before?"
"Tsunade would skin me alive if I did it to someone in their condition," Ryu said, "plus I don't know if their minds operate the same way ours do so it'd risk damaging us both."
Xander examined the new jutsu he'd just learned since it was used on him. "It would work the same as using it on one of the Inuzuka."
Ryu nodded. "Good to know."
"If you're going to use that on me I'll need another bottle of sake," Jiraiya said.
"Already finished yours?" Xander asked, surprised.
"It was only one bottle," the toad sage said with a grin, "plus I did share."
"A single bottle doesn't last long," Tsunade agreed, giving Xander a meaningful look.
Xander rolled his eyes and created a pair of Tanuki gourds. "Here, magic sake that doesn't run out. Just remember to stay sober enough to be on guard for Grimm, the black creatures."
"Yes sir," the two nin agreed with wide smiles as they accepted the gourds.
"Since I'm the one casting the jutsu…"
"Here," Xander said, creating one for Ryu.
"Thank you, it's much appreciated," Ryu said with a smile before all four nin vanished.
"What are they?" Leo asked.
"Ninja," Xander replied. "Do you guys have ninja?"
"We have porn with a ninja as the main character, but I don't think we have them anymore and they were never that powerful," Leo said.
"Jiraiya writes porn so I'm not surprised," Xander said. "Now, where should I put the lake?"
"A five minute walk that way," Leo suggested. "That way it won't flood the road or the town."
"I'll do that then," Xander said before unsummoning the Terminators and then resummoning them with his knowledge of the local language added.
"Couldn't you have done the same with us?" Orochimaru asked in the local language, startling Xander who hadn't noticed him approaching.
"I could, but you guys are sapient and it takes time for Terminators to grow into people, so it's less of a moral problem for me," he replied. "Also, you guys are much more expensive."
Orochimaru nodded.
"I'll be right back," Xander said before turning to the T-800s. "You guys, obey the nin."
"Affirmative," they chorused.
"Kinda creepy," Leo said as Xander started walking.
"I'll give them blue rings when I get back," Xander called over his shoulder, not bothering to explain anything.
It felt good to stretch his legs and look at the land around him since he'd spent the last few days on a spaceship. It was pretty quiet out here which was such a relief after visiting the Blind Eternities again.
Once he'd gotten far enough away he tapped a couple of Blue Mana and created a freshwater lake, before taking to the skies and flying to the edge away from the road and doing it once more, expanding the lake to a truly massive size. "And that should take care of the water problems they've been having," Xander said before flying back to find the small settlement had opened its gates and a number of people were talking to one another.
"What'd I miss?" Xander asked Ryu who was puffing on his pipe.
"Discussion, disbelief, and cautious acceptance," the nin replied. "If the sight of their fields blooming didn't do it then the inland sea you just created did."
"It's nowhere near as large as a sea," Xander said.
"For people who live in a place that is almost a desert it might as well be," Ryu replied.
"Eh, that's fair," Xander said.
"This little town is called First Stop as it's the first stop everyone makes as they travel to Kuo Kuana," Ryu said. "There are seven towns on the route and provided we travel through the night and don't run into any trouble we should reach there by the day after tomorrow."
"Anything other than bandits or Grimm?" Xander asked.
"No, those are the only real threats," Ryu said. "They mentioned sandstorms in some areas, but I can handle those pretty easily by using jutsu."
"Good to hear," Xander said.
"The mine you rescued them from was on another continent and word has already spread through a device they call a scroll," Ryu told him. "It's a handheld electronic device that they all carry."
"That should raise some eyebrows, but I doubt they'll raise security until after I clear out another mine," Xander said.
"Indeed," Ryu agreed. "I'd suggest sending us in to prepare the mine in advance before we start the operation."
Xander nodded. "It'll slow us down to a camp every other day, instead of one a night, but it'll be safer for the faunus."
"They're all 'hired' for a city called Mantle," Ryu said. "Might want to consider relocating them as well."
"I'll just have to expand my plans a little then," Xander said. "I can reshape a bit more land, build up the small towns we run across so they have more room for people."
Leo brought an older catgirl over. "This is Samantha, she runs First Stop and she'd like to thank you for what you've done."
"Thank you… milord," she said awkwardly.
"Just call me Xander," he said. "I'm here to help."
"What you've done already is more than enough," she said, eyes drifting over to the fields and the lake with a look of awe on her face.
"I want to at least improve the town a bit," Xander said, "won't take me a minute."
"If you like," she said, not sure what to do in this situation.
"Thanks," Xander said, walking over to the rough stone and wood wall that surrounded the small settlement. He placed a hand on it and cast Castle, changing its nature from a worn down refuge that had been repaired many times to a gleaming settlement of white stone several times larger, that looked to be ideal for fighting off an army. "Buttress," Xander cast, causing the walls to get even higher and thicker, turning it from an armored outpost into a small defensible city.
Everyone fell silent as they just stared. Xander turned around to see almost everyone looking from him to the city and back again and gave them a little wave, which got the majority waving back in response.
"I guess we don't need to worry about bandit attacks anymore," a young bull man said as he slowly began to grin.
"Or pretty much anything else," another agreed.
Xander walked over to Leo and Samantha. "Okay, that's done. Might I borrow a scroll, I'll give it back."
"Sure," she said numbly, pulling out a small rectangular device.
Xander scanned it, acquiring the pattern and an idea of how it worked before handing it back and creating one of his own. He pressed the gold diamond symbol on it and pulled apart the two sides of the rectangle, a flexible screen unrolling from inside of the device.
"Our reception is a bit poor out here," Samantha said apologetically.
"Looks fine," Xander said, pointing to the upper corner of the screen where a series of increasingly large bars displayed signal strength.
"Okay, now that's a miracle," she said, opening her scroll and checking the connection.
"And I have to register," Xander said with a sigh before tapping away on the screen and filling out his personal details as best he could.
"Uh, mayor," a red haired fox girl who looked to be in her mid teens said, poking Samantha in the side.
"Yes Genease?" she replied absently as she checked everything that her phone had recorded to make sure she wasn't hallucinating.
"Everything's been upgraded," Genease said. "You know the signal tower I cobbled together? It's… You'd have to see it to believe it. Everything in town is bigger, newer, better."
"A benevolent god's stopped by," Samantha told her.
"Not a god," Xander said automatically as he typed.
"But the only difference is theological," Leo offered with a grin. "Would you mind making me a scroll? They took ours away in the mines and there's people we all need to contact."
Xander paused what he was doing and created a table before tapping a half dozen Mana and creating dozens of scrolls. "There, that should cover… Hold on." Xander gestured again, tapping even more Mana to create another mass of scrolls. "There."
Leo and the nin quickly claimed a scroll before people flooded the table, eager to contact distant loved ones.
"This is even better than the internet back home," Xander said as he located news feeds and got an idea of the bizarre tech level of this world and how it mostly ran on Dust.
Xander gestured as he tapped the Dust mine and created a mass the size of a bus of red crystals. "So that's fire dust," he murmured while everyone stared at it in horror. "What?"
"If that goes off we're all dead," Leo explained. "It's best not to just pile up dust crystals like that."
"Oh," Xander said, "that seems obvious in retrospect. It's stable right now so we should probably spread it out a bit then," Xander turned to the crowd. "Everyone grab yourselves some crystals or just make smaller piles, your choice!" he called out.
"That's benevolent?" Genease asked in shock.
"She said benevolent, not wise," Xander replied as he went back to reading about the world he was in.
"You're lucky he didn't smite you," a young bunny boy told Genease.
"I only smite bad people," Xander said.
"See? Benevolent," Leo said, trying not to laugh.
Genease tried to think of something to say to cover for her almost apocalyptic faux pas, and said the first thing to come to her mind, "Can you make my boobs bigger?"
"Probably," Xander agreed absently before saying, "Oh, that reminds me!"
Almost half the crowd was now staring at him.
"See? Benevolent," Jiraiya said with a grin, before Tsunade smacked him in the back of the head.
Typing By: Abyssal Angel
Beta By: Abyssal Angel and Mist of Shadows