Happy Valentine's day! This chapter took a while. I just recently quit my job, so I might have more time to work on my fanfics! I wish I had a more romantic chapter or one-shot prepared, maybe next year.
Not to mention. I started writing this fanfic to 'fix' a lot of the problems I had in RWBY. But Blake's arc in Volumes 4 and 5 is where she peaked (in my eyes.) And I've been on some of the RWBY subreddits lately. Apparently, there are a lot of issues with racism represented in the show that I didn't pick up on until it was pointed out to me.
I'm Irish/Italian, and I grew up in a private school until I got to middle school (and even then I didn't see a lot of racism,) if I was any more white, I'd be transparent. So a lot of those issues flew over my head whenever I watched the show. I like to think I've done right by the characters so far, but I can't promise that I'll be perfect when it comes to the racism issues presented by RWBY. It is what it is. If you guys have any ideas of what I could write in or change when it comes to that, I gladly welcome any feedback and/or suggestions.
Anyway, kudos to whoever immediately gets the reference in the title of this chapter.
The Palace That Was Found
The Phantom Thieves of Hearts were a surprisingly friendly bunch. They were roughly the same age as the Beacon students, so they got along pretty well. They spent the rest of the night explaining what they did in their world and how they stole hearts to improve the lives of everyone around them.
A day had passed since they arrived on this boat, Ren and Ryuji were the first ones to wake up. They quickly got dressed and met each other outside of the room. "I thought we'd go to bed and just go back home. I guess this isn't all just some weird dream."
Ren nodded in response, knowing the real reason why they suddenly dropped into this strange new world. "Yeah…"
"I know this is hypocritical coming from me, but don't you think that you were jumping the gun when you told them about the…?" Ryuji stopped when a faunus couple walked by them. "Well, you know."
"I just have a good feeling about them." He shrugged.
"Not really filling me with confidence, dude." Ryuji sighed at his best friend's response. "Oh well, no point in worrying about it now." He stretched. "Even though we're trapped in a different world, probably wouldn't hurt to keep up with our exercise. Wanna go a few laps around the boat?"
"You guys going out for a jog? Mind if I join?" Sun suddenly hopped off the roof of the ship.
Ryuji and Ren jumped back a bit. "Jeez dude, you scared the crap outta me…"
"Heh, sorry. But still, can I tag along?" The monkey faunus said as he did a couple of squats. "Always gotta keep in shape, you know?"
"Uh… Sure, yeah, man." Ryuji was still a little cautious, wondering how much of their conversation was overheard.
"Man, I missed being on a boat. This trip to Menagerie is gonna be awesome! Like some kind of Journey to the East!... yeah, I like the sound of that."
"Uh-huh…" Ryuji said. "Why does that sound familiar…"
The three boys jogged around the boat for about an hour and a half before Ryuji and Ren got winded, with Sun no worse for wear. "Hey guys, why are ya slowing down?" The Aura farming boy said, jogging backward.
"Are you serious? We've been running trying to just keep up with you! Wh- whoa!" Ryuji shouted before slipping over his weak leg and landing face-first on some railing. "Ah, shit…"
"Oh crap, you okay Ryuji?" Sun and Ren ran over to check on the foul-mouthed boy.
Ryuji moved his hand to reveal a busted lip. "Yeah, I'll be fine. I've toughed out worse."
Sun blinked. "Wait, why aren't you using your Aura?"
Ren and Ryuji shared a confused look. "My Aur-what now?"
At a different time, back in Patch. Pacing in Volume 4 is weird
A few days pass and the Rose/Xiao-long/Branwen/Kirby family get ready for their trip to Mistral, heck, even little Zwei was tagging along on this adventure. They kept in touch with the remnants of Team JNPR and they all got together.
Yang noticed Jaune, Nora, and Lie Ren approaching their house and leaned in to whisper to her dad. "Hey Dad, the blonde kid's kind of going through the same thing Ruby is…" Tai glanced over to Jaune as they approached the home. Nodding, he followed Yang to greet them. "Hey guys! Glad you three could make it." The sunny dragon put on a big smile.
Jaune put on a fake smile, it was clear that he was having a hard time as well. "Yeah, we're with you guys."
"Here, let me help you with that. Jaune, right? I'm Taiyang, Yang and Ruby's dad." The blonde Huntsman reached for Jaune's things.
"Oh, thanks…" The Arc says as he hands Taiyang his bags. "Hopefully this will be like my old family road trips when I was a kid…"
Taiyang smiled as he took Jaune's things, "Oh yeah? You've got a big family, Jaune?" He asked, making small talk as they made their way to the big-ass pick-up truck.
Yang leaned over to Nora and Ren. "How's he doing?"
"He spent a lot of time just locked up in his room." Ren started.
Nora continued. "When he finally left, Jaune just became restless. I think he wants to get up and get out there. Help where he can." Nora looked at their cabin house. "Is Ruby coming too or…?"
Ruby was finally able to drag herself out of the house and sighed as she was the last one to exit. But despite that, she was still quiet. Yang stopped talking with Nora and Lie Ren as she heard the door. A faint smile was placed on the blonde's face as she saw that her sister was at least trying. The Wilting Rose walked up to the other teenagers and took a deep breath of the cold winter air; Yang placed a hand on her shoulder and gave a reassuring smirk. The red-haired leader was still broken up inside, but everyone knew that the blonde brawler would keep the pieces together.
Qrow was leaning up against a tree a few dozen feet out while Kirby was playing in the snow. The bite-sized bubblegum giggled, building a snowman that was shaped just like him. "Poyo!" He shouted to Qrow, trying to get his attention.
Qrow looked over at Kirby sitting next to a blob of… poorly packed snow. Some might call it a snow poff, but is it really considered a snow poff? Who could really know for sure? It might be just a snowball… or perhaps a snowdecahedron? No, there's too many sides.
Qrow shook his head away from all the possible things that Kirby could have made here. He gave the little alien a grunt of approval before approaching the teens. "With all of us here, Tai's truck there should be able to get us to Haven Academy within a week, maybe a week and a half."
"And so Ruby says THAT'S A KATANA." Taiyang burst into laughter as Jaune was telling a story from their Beacon days.
"That's hilarious. Reminds me of…" Tai noticed that Ruby had finally made it out, causing him to clear his throat. With everyone now gathered, Tai and Qrow stood between the kids and the truck. "Alright, kids. We've got a long road ahead of us, but as long as we stay in the truck and keep a positive attitude, nothing will-"
Booomm
Taiyang's truck exploded, causing everyone to go wide-eyed and look over at the truck. It was engulfed in flames, the glass was shattered, and a big hole was in the hood of the car. A giant snow monster was the culprit as it floated above the car and lost its form, putting the flames out.
Zwei walked out from behind the truck and had a sour look on his face. The tiny little corgi gave them a death glare as he slowly walked back into the house through the doggy door.
"What just happened?!" Taiyang dropped to his knees and felt the anguish of losing his favorite car.
Yang scratched her head as she watched Zwei go back into the house. "Ooo… yeah, uh… I guess we haven't told you everything either… Zwei kinda got possessed by a weird ghost a few days after he arrived in the mail. Looks like whatever it is doesn't want to come with us."
"What…?" Taiyang looked back at his oldest daughter in disbelief.
"Yeah, apparently it really likes coffee-flavored gum." The older daughter stated.
"I put all my stuff in there…" Jaune was also now kneeling alongside Taiyang. "My entire allowance was in my wallet!"
Ruby blinked as she saw that everyone was getting unmotivated. They hadn't even started on their journey yet and they had already faced their first roadblock. Frowning, Ruby took a few steps forward and looked into the horizon. Her silver eyes analyzed the details of the sunrise, thinking. "We're still going." She spun around and looked at everyone, showing her resolve. "We're going to stop Salem from making another Beacon happen!"
Yang smirked at her baby sister. "Yeah, we're not gonna let this stop us!" Yang punched the air, pumping everybody up. "I'll go lock Bumblebee up and we can take the long route, we can walk to Mistral! It'll just… take a while."
Everyone sighed at Yang's words. Despite her cheery attitude, the hard facts were still apparent. This road wasn't gonna be easy, but everyone knew what they signed up for.
Proud of his daughter, Taiyang smiled as he saw his late wife's best qualities shine through the young Rose. The Old Dragon put his hand on Jaune's shoulder. "I'll salvage what I can from the truck, maybe we'll find your wallet."
Sighing, Jaune nodded and helped.
Qrow glanced over to his exe-brother-in-law and mentioned. "Maybe I should travel ahead of everyone else?"
Tai glared at the dusty old Qrow. "Yeah, that would probably be a good idea."
"What? Why?" Ruby overheard and walked over.
Qrow sweatdropped and sighed. Calling Yang over after she finished putting her bike away, the veteran Huntsman pulled out his flask and took a sip. "Guess now is as good a time as any." He capped his flask and put it in his vest pocket. "My Semblance brings bad luck to those around me. So traveling with you guys will only put you all in danger."
Ruby and Yang were disheartened by this reveal. Qrow had many reasons to keep his distance from his family, going on missions for Ozpin, being the cool mysterious badass uncle, and his alcoholism, but neither of the sisters knew that one of the reasons was that he could accidentally get them hurt. They both went in for a hug and held their uncle close.
After the embrace, Qrow went off ahead of everyone else while they got ready to begin walking. Luckily for Jaune, his wallet full of Lien did not get burned to a crisp. The bad news was that was the only thing that survived, so he had to borrow a sleeping bag and supplies from Taiyang.
And so, the group of young Huntsmen, Huntresses, and Taiyang began their long journey across Anima. They got onto the ship off of Patch and Ruby sighed, thinking about her earlier words to everyone.
"I knew my little sis was still in there somewhere." Yang walked next to Ruby and they both looked at the island of Patch as it got smaller and smaller in the distance. The older sister nudged her sibling's arm. "Proud of you."
"I can't just sit at home when I can help prevent someone else from going through what we did, even if I am hurt on the inside. That's not fair to everyone else." The black and red-haired leader stated firmly as she looked out into the distance before narrowing her eyes. "Uh, am I going crazy, or is Kirby swimming back to the island?"
Yang went wide-eyed as she looked to where Ruby was staring. "Damn, for a little guy with nubs for hands, he sure can move in the water."
Zwei yawned as he watched the humans leave. With a smile, he cuddled up in his bed and lay down. A whimpering voice spoke through the small corgi's head. [Why did you do that? You could have just run away…]
Iggy growled without even opening his eyes. This Stand-wielding dog soul was controlling Zwei's body. [The last time I went on a 'road trip to save the world' I got killed by a vampire that ate his own feet.] The selfish mutt explained. Zwei whimpered before they both heard something behind them.
"Poyo!"
Iggy sat up and looked behind him, seeing Kirby in front of his bed. The sour pup barked at the Star Warrior. "What are you doing here gumball? I thought you'd have gone with them. Get lost!"
Of course, Kirby couldn't understand Zwei's barking as speech. Kirby didn't understand a lot of things, so he thought Zwei was forgotten by the others. "Poyo!" He gave Zwei a reassuring smile and raised his little hand/nub hand before inhaling Zwei.
Iggy went wide-eyed, he didn't even have time to react with his Stand before Kirby gobbled up the tiny pup. [No! Stop you piece of SHI-]
Kirby swallowed Zwei and kept him safe as he caught up with the others.
Sun and Ryuji became fast friends. Both having the most rebellious natures of their respective groups, the two blonde boys felt natural as they hung out with each other.
Weiss found herself staring at Yusuke more often than others. She didn't have the best history with boys with blue hair, but there was definitely something that set the tall artsy boy apart from Neptune. She was enamored.
There wasn't MUCH to do on this dinky little boat, so after breakfast and sightseeing, the group met back up in the shared room.
"Is it just me, or was Hawaii more fun than this?" Ryuji said as he lounged in his corner.
"At least Hawaii had good food. We're basically stowaways here." Ann said.
"It could be way worse, we could be forced to do their dishes… or swab the poop deck," Futaba noted.
"So, you guys go into a weird alternate universe called the Metaverse, steal the treasures of bad people, and then that magically makes them turn into good people?" Sun scratched his head as he lounged on the windowsill.
"Honestly? Yeah, that about sums up our secondary lives pretty well." Ryuji confirmed.
Morgana meowed with a smarmy grin on his face.
"Oh, shut it, cat!" The rambunctious teen yelled at the blue-eyed black cat.
The Remnant kids sweatdropped. "I don't think I'll ever get used to these one-sided conversations," Weiss admitted.
"Once you finally go into a Palace, you'll be able to hear him like we can!" Haru explained gleefully.
"Palace… those places where distorted desires are kept, right?" Blake stated. "How can you tell that someone has a Palace that you can… Change?"
"Well, it's actually super easy," Makoto said.
"Barely an inconvenience." Futaba finished with a smile.
Ryuji pulled out his phone. "We use this Navigator app on our phones to go to the other world."
"It picks up on keywords that register the Palaces. You need a name, a location, a title of the target, and what kind of place the Palace itself would be." Makoto explained.
"Adam Taurus."
[Target found.]
Everyone in the room blinked in surprise and looked over at Blake who was just as shocked to see that it worked.
"Weirdly enough, not my first idea. But I guess he makes more sense…" Weiss admitted. She was thinking about her own father since Haru mentioned stealing her dad's heart yesterday.
"Who is Adam?" Ann asked, noticing that this seemed to be a serious person of interest.
The three Remnant teens went cold at the question. It wasn't exactly easy to just talk about the bull-man. The Phantom Thieves could all sense their hesitation.
Weiss began to shake as images flashed before her. The scar on Adam's face, losing her arm. The former heiress gripped her sheets and curled up into a ball.
Blake saw this and could only feel sorrow for her friend. She wanted to comfort her white-haired friend, but the guilt settled in. She held her hand against her chest and looked down in self-pity that she couldn't have stopped Adam.
Sun put a hand on Weiss's good shoulder, comforting her. "I'm guessing that he's the jerk that did this to Weiss." The blonde faunus said.
Blake wiped her eyes and nodded, "Yes, he used to be my mentor… But then he turned spiteful. He and the White Fang are the reason we're in this mess."
"The White Fang?" Yusuke tilted his head. "What a peculiar name…"
"Yeah, they used to be a civil rights group for the Faunus, but then someone else took over, and then it went from peaceful protests to… war crimes." Sun darkly said. "They killed a lot of people when they attacked the school."
The cat Faunus continued, "And at the head of it all… Adam is the one responsible. His radical ideas of taking over by force are what led the White Fang down their bloody trail."
"Holy shit, for real?" Ryuji and the rest of the Phantom Thieves were wide-eyed, this suddenly got a whole lot more serious than they initially thought. "And I thought our world was messed up…"
"Well, this whole world feels like something out of a fairy tale," Makoto mentions. "I mean, just think about it, monsters like The Grimm, guns, superpowers in the form of Semblances?"
"This is like an anime if it was made in America!" Futaba exclaimed. "Not to mention, Sun's name is the exact same as Sun Wukong from the 'Journey to the West' story." Everyone looked at the small orange girl as she ate a potato chip. "What…? Oh, yeah. Sun Wukong in that story is basically a super overpowered immortal force of nature that beats everyone he fights… more or less. Pretty cool."
"Where the hell did you get those chips?" Ryuji asked.
"I must've fallen asleep with them on me before we got issekai'ed here." She shrugged.
"Lucky… Can I have one?"
"No! Get your own!"
"Shouldn't we be focused on a new potential target?" Yusuke suggested, gesturing towards Blake.
"Right, right, sorry." Ryuji looked back at his phone. "Looks like the app picked up 'Spiteful' for the title. Now we just need a location of where he is and what the Palace itself would be."
"The Palace itself?" Weiss tilted her head in confusion.
"Yeah. People with distorted desires will always view the place they work or live a certain way. Palaces will form to match that viewpoint." Ann explained. "It can be any number of places. One of our teachers viewed our school as a castle."
"My former mentor viewed the shack he let me stay in and developed new ideas as his own personal museum where he presented my art as his own…" Yusuke opened his own experience to the Remnant kids.
Futaba grumbled. "This is always the hardest part since you have to know the Palace owner to some degree to understand. It took these guys forever to figure out what my Palace would look like."
"Prison."
[Palace Identified: Prison]
Futaba narrowed her eyes. "Well I guess that makes sense since you said he was your mentor." the orange girl pouted.
"Cool! Now all we need is an actual location of where this jackass typically hangs out."
Blake narrowed her eyes on the phone. "Well, he could be hiding at any number of White Fang hideouts…"
Ryuji's eyes lit up, "Oh! Looks like 'Hideout' work- No… only partially. That's weird."
"You probably have to be more specific than just 'hideout' if there's a lot of them," Makoto stated. "This might be the most annoying part, it's pretty much a guessing game unless we were to go find him."
"Forever Fall hideout? Beacon? Mistral?" Blake went down an entire list in her head of possible hideouts that the White Fang had.
"Ugh. We're gonna get to Menagerie before we figure this out…" Sun groaned.
[Location found: Menagerie hideout.]
"WHAT?!" The Phantom Thieves were startled and jumped a bit when Blake and Weiss shouted.
"Well, that was easy." Sun stretched.
"So this just means that Adam is already at Menagerie?" Blake frantically looked at the rest of the Phantom Thieves.
They all sweatdropped and gave concerned glances to one another. "Maybe? It's always been kind of a vague system." Ann admits before Morgana lets out a cute mew. "Morgana is the most experienced about this stuff, but even he doesn't have a clear answer here."
Blake sat back down and crossed her arms, blinking rapidly and looking away. Sun places a hand on her shoulder. "It'll be fine. If he's there, we can handle him together."
Blake smacked his hand away. "Sun, this is serious!" She frowned. "If he really is on Menagerie, then there's a good chance he's waiting for me specifically. Weiss is still in recovery and just the two of us won't be enough to fight him." Blake furrowed her brow at the monkey Faunus.
"What about us?" Ren spoke up.
"That's nice of you to offer, but… Adam would have no issue killing a bunch of humans that can't even fight Grimm."
Weiss said. Even she was beginning to worry.
"Oh yeah! I forgot we got that, didn't we?" Ryuji closed his eyes and a yellow Aura formed around him. "I keep forgetting to turn that on."
"Oh yeah! I used my Aura to unlock theirs this morning." Sun gave a thumbs up.
"Whoa! What is that?" Ann asked as she walked up to Ren and poked his forehead.
After a brief explanation of Aura, the rest of The Phantom Thieves were excited to see what this new power could have in store for them.
"That doesn't fix our problem. You may know how to fight and have Aura, but your bodies aren't used to it. It takes time and training to effectively use your Aura in combat." Blake stated pessimistically.
That's when the cat stood up proudly and smirked, letting out another meow.
The Phantom Thieves nodded and pulled out their model guns and weapons. "Huh? Yeah, they were teleported with us when we landed here." Ryuji confirmed.
[meow, reowm. Mreeow!]
"That's… actually not a bad idea," Makoto muttered to herself.
"I'm sure what he's saying is very profound but… I'm just hearing a lot of meowing and grumbling." Weiss sweatdropped as she looked down at the 'not cat.'
"He's saying that we've got an effing plan!" Ryuji laughed and bumped into Ren, wrapping his arm around him. The Phantom Thieves leader simply adjusted his glasses and chuckled. "But for now, let's check out this guy's Palace!"
"REYOW" Morgana jumped into the air and used his mouth to snatch Ryuji's phone out of his hand. He dropped the phone on the floor and frowned at the blonde boy. "You idiot! If we were to go into the Metaverse now, what do you think would happen when we come back when the boat is miles away from here?"
"Ooo… good catch," Ann said. "We probably don't wanna swim to shore."
"Didn't even think about that… Sorry." Ryuji apologized and rubbed the back of his head as he picked his phone back up.
"What IS your plan? You never explained that part." Weiss frowned.
The Phantom Thieves shared a knowing glance and smirked.
If you haven't already, I recommend you take a look at my one-shot fic "That Time "I" got Reincarnated as Zwei" if you want the context for why Zwei has a Stand from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.