King: This one is short. I left you all hanging for the last chapter a little longer than I wanted. I could have chugged through and gotten this out yesterday, but anyone playing Destiny 2 should know why that wasn't going to happen~

Inspiration: Destiny 2

(Side note: I'm coming back to this one. With Forsaken going live, I kind of have to. It'll take a bit to do it justice, especially as I play the game... I'll get it out as soon as I can, though. Hope you enjoy~!)

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Salem took in a breath, "I have to admit, this is quite interesting."

Watts nodded, "It is. But I wonder if it's worth remaining…"

Hazel groaned, still unable to move.

Salem waved them off. "If you've the notion, you may leave."

Watts stood and bowed. "Movies were never my forte and Hazel remains idle…" He grabbed Hazel and had to drag him across the floor to the back. "Tyrian, some help?"

The mad man laughed and joined the other two. After a few minutes of dragging, the three walked through the door.

Weiss blinked seeing the white light behind the door, "I've been meaning to ask… What's going on in our reality?"

King reappeared. "Did I forget to mention that part? Sorry about that. Your world is in a state of stasis. I plucked you all from a specific point and you'll all return to that point as though nothing happened."

Many in the audience sighed in relief.

King floated around. "Anyone else want to go home or are we chugging on?" When no one made to move, King bounced in place and flew back up to the screen, "Alright! Let's go!"

The screen started to glow and showed a scene of Ruby walking through a bustling city. She was dressed in a red hooded cape and a form-fitting, black armor style; the attire of a Hunter.

Ruby was starry eyed, "I'm a huntress?! Yes!"

Tai just chuckled and smiled at his daughter's antics.

Ren's raised an eyebrow. "Something's off…"

Yang leaned her head back to look at him, "What do you mean?"

"The story addressed her as a Hunter. Not a huntress."

"So?"

"So… I think we're missing some context to this."

Ruby ran along and passed a few others in various sets of armor. Some looked like hers, others were vastly different.

Ren tapped his chair's armrest. "Okay. There seem to be three types of sets. One is streamlined, like Ruby's. One is a flowing robe resembling a mage. The last is the bulky armor reminiscent of a knight."

Ruby ran up to a white-haired woman with pale violet skin. Her eyes were glowing an ice blue. Her long white robe fell down her body, almost resembling a dress. Ruby walked up and hugged the girl from behind, "Hi Weiss~!"

Weiss blinked. "That's me?"

Nora's face scrunched. "I wonder…"

Weiss sighed. "Hello, Ruby."

"How'd the mission go?"

"Well enough. Unfortunately, it was terrible enough that I can't help you on your strike."

"But you promised! We need a Warlock!"

"Warlock?" Ozpin took a sip form his mug. Being an ever reviving sorcerer, he found himself pulled in for some reason.

"I'm sorry Ruby. But I can't… I wish you luck, though." With that, Weiss walked away.

Ruby groaned and threw up her hands, "Great! That's just great… Okay Ruby… Think. Who else do you know that's a Warlock?" She started to go through a mental checklist of everyone she knew not on the roster, thinking out loud, "Yang's a Titan…"

Yang tilted her head, "Titan, huh?"

Ren thought for a moment before replying, "Likely the knight. The mage seems to be the Warlock given that's what Weiss had."

Yang grinned, "I can dig it. Wonder what I'm like, though…"

Ruby continued as she walked through the streets, "So is Coco, Neptune, Penny, and Pyrrha. Ren, Sun, and Velvet are all hunters…"

Velvet blinked, "Does this mean we all have capes?"

Ruby jumped up in her chair for a second, "Capes for everybody!"

Ruby groaned. "Who else is there?" She wasn't watching where she was going and bumped into someone.

Coco chuckled, "I've heard that happens to you a lot."

Ruby huffed, "I can't help it! I'm faster than most people! So, if I trip up, people can't get away fast enough to keep up!"

"Sure… Sure…"

Ruby groaned, "Sorry. I wasn't watching where I was…" She locked up for a moment.

Standing before her was a young exo, or robotic human. He stood at around 6 foot while his eyes were a bright, glowing blue. He had a silver plating with gold painting resembling war paint.

Ruby gasped, "Robot Jaune~!"

Yang smirked, "Well that's different."

Ironwood started to take more notes. He never knew what Dr. Polendina will find helpful.

What Ruby noticed, however, was his robes. A long, golden cloak wrapped around his body. It was a style reminiscent of the Warlocks of Mercury. Ruby cleared her throat, "Sorry about that…"

Jaune chuckled, "Don't worry about it. "Are you alright, by the way? You blanked out for a bit."

Ruby blushed in embarrassment before trying to move passed the situation, "I'm fine. I know this is kind of out of nowhere, but are free for a mission in an hour?"

Jaune thought for a moment before nodding, "Yeah. I should be clear."

"Awesome! We're all meeting at the Cathedral at Trostland in the EDZ! See you there!" Ruby ran off, waving back to her new squad mate. The hunt was on again!

Nora's head tilted to the side, "What's an EDZ?"

All she got were shrugs.

An hour passed, and Ruby paced in the decaying cathedral of the central EDZ. She sighed. She heard stories about the area now called The European Dead Zone. Stories from the Golden Age… Now it was all a ghost town… ghost planet, more like. Humanity only had one last bastion to fend off the darkness. A long time ago, they reached to the stars and had colonies across the solar system. Now they had one city.

Salem smirked, "Sounds like quite the predicament for you humans."

Ozpin growled under her breath, unable to fight her directly.

Blake was sitting on one of the remaining pews, carving something with her knife. She was dressed in black armor with a matching hood. She looked up toward Ruby, "Would you stop pacing? This place can't handle a rut."

Ruby grinned seeing her friend in a style like hers. Blake just smiled and rolled her eyes.

Kali giggled, "Oh! That's so cute!"

Blake groaned, "Mom…"

Ruby groaned, "He said he'd be here!"

Nora jumped around her. She was dressed in a white and pink set of bulkier armor. "Hey! No worries! If he can't make it, we can beat this mission on our own!"

Nora grinned and slammed he fist into her hand, "Yeah! We got this!"

Blake finished carving a fish out of wood, "It would be better to have a Warlock with us, though."

Yang snickered, "It would be a fish…"

Blake chucked a small wooden fish at Yang's head.

Jaune jumped through a hole in the wall, dodging gunfire. He took a breath to calm his nerves before he started to talk, "Sorry I'm late."

Nora looked Jaune up and down. "So, what kind of Warlock are you, huh? You look like a Dawnblade."

Without any context, many in the audience couldn't help but agree.

Jaune chuckled nervously, "Stormcaller, actually…"

Blake turned to him in surprise, "Really?"

Nora had a giant grin.

"Yeah. That was a fun meditation…"

Ruby stepped between them and to the center, "Alright! We've got a job to do! Blake!"

Blake stood up from her seat and pulled out a holographic wanted poster, "Savun Mir. Fallen Lord of the House of Grimm."

The light-poster showed something more a creature than a man. It was almost insectoid with four angry eyes and a hinged set of jaws on either side of its head. Its head had an odd shape as well, unlike anything the audience watching had ever seen.

Ruby felt a shiver run up her spine. "Ew ew ew! That's discusting! What is that thing?!"

Salem's eyes narrowed, "Horrid. For one…" She knew many Grimm under her command looked just as awful, but at least that was solely because she based them on humans' fears.

Jaune nodded toward the poster, "A Fallen Lord? That's our target?"

"That's the idea. We only need to take him down. But the problem is his troupe of Fallen… followers. We have a small army waiting for us down there."

Nora laughed, "Then it's a good thing we're here! We can handle a whole army of Fallen!"

"We may have to if worse comes to worse…"

After a few minutes of prep, the four make their way to an underground cavern. They made headway into an open ravine hidden within. The world before them was one twisted by various pieces of technology and creatures with multiple arms walking along, holding rifles. Each resembled the creature on the poster in small ways but were all clearly his lesser. One of them turned toward the camera and roared.

Yang took a breath, "Ew… That just looks wrong."

Tai nodded, "No kidding…"

Qrow took a swig from his flask, "Kind of looks like a bug… Moves like 'em too…"

Ruby leveled her sniper rifle toward the hoard while hidden up in the rocks. She spoke low, through the team comms. "Thirty-nine confirmed targets. Fifteen Dregs, two Captains, rest are Vandals."

Jaune came in through the comms, "Seven unseen. Hidden in the lower levels."

"How can you tell?"

"The Eye of Another World."

Blake chimed in, "The helmet? You have that?"

"Yeah."

Nora asked, confused, "What's it do?"

Ruby moved her sight to find a few Fallen in close proximity, "It's a scary piece of armor. Thing can track anyone or any thing without fail. Supposedly, you'd have access to see the whole of the universe at your whim."

Cinder wished she had something so useful. "That would certainly have its uses."

Salem shook her head, "Unless it cannot be controlled. If it goes beyond you, you'd see everything. More than the mortal mind can handle."

Ozpin groaned. He agreed with her. He actually agreed with Salem! That's not supposed to happen.

Nora gasped, "Seriously?! That's so cool! Ooh! How many fingers am I holding up?!"

Ruby sighed, "Nora, he's right next to you and you can't see his eyes. What would that prove?"

"Good point… Um… Oh! I've got it! What color is…"

Nora's voice fell off as the world slowed a moment. Ruby's finger was on the trigger of her rifle; and one pull later, the bullet was loose. A second later, a Dreg's head exploded along with an impact detonation claiming the two beside it.

Ruby went wide eyed, "Explosive rounds! The sheer impact without using Dust is incredible! What kind of ammo is that?"

Blake jumped down holding a sidearm pistol and shot five of the Fallen in a little over a second. Nora and Jaune followed suit; Nora carrying a grenade launcher and Jaune with a hand cannon. Jaune shot three more to clear a zone as Nora fired three shells to rip through the line of Fallen. Those left alive scrambled away to stay that way.

When the coast was clear again, Ruby jumped down from her perch and smiled, "Alright! Scavenge the area for ammo. Power ammo goes to Nora first."

Jaune picked up a purple ammo clip off the ground and tossed it to Nora. Nora grinned and tapped the clip onto her launcher. The clip morphed into a grenade as she loaded it into the weapon. She spun the drum and smiled.

Ruby smiled, "That's so cool! Imagine if we could do that! Any ammo of certain types could interchange with every weapon!"

Tai and Qrow chuckled at Ruby's shenanigans, but both actually did agree with her. It would certainly be helpful…

The camera moved around to show Jaune's helmet-covered head. The piece was like a network surrounding a clouded faceplate. The 'clouds' beneath the plate even moved around. It gave off the vibe of always watching everything. As if the universe itself conspired against you. It was unnerving, to say the least.

Ruby turned to Jaune, "So, is Savun in the next room?"

Jaune nodded, "He is. But he's also got a few friends with him."

Blake cracked her neck as she reloaded, "Shouldn't be too hard if it's only a few."

The four looked to the entryway and smiled. Ruby swapped her sniper for a three round pulse rifle. "Alright… Eyes up Guardians!" She giggled, "I always wanted to say that!"

The four burst through the doorway to find Savun sitting atop a throne of parts and bones. To either side were two honor guards of similar form with four arms and a set of spears. Savun stood and picked up a massive scorch cannon. He growled, complete with little insectoid clicks weaved inside it.

Tai shivered a little, "That's disgusting…"

Port laughed, "That's nothing! It's no different to anything we can handle!"

Bart smirked, "Says the man afraid of rats…"

"THEY'RE BAGS OF DISEASE AND FAMINE!"

Savun gestured and the guards charged toward the group. Nora seemed to crackle with electricity and jumped into the air. She slammed back down with a bolt of lightning erupting from the point of impact.

Ruby followed suit by forming a gun of flames. She fired three powerful shots into hidden Fallen warriors. This unnerved Savun, but bolstered the team thanks to Jaune's helmet.

Savun roared again and leveled his cannon. Only to have Blake jump into the air and shoot him with an arrow of shadowy energy. Jaune followed up this jumping over the Fallen lord and unleashing his electrical force into the alien creature. In moments, the Fallen Lord was disintegrating from the force leveled against him. All four would go home with loot to spare and a mission complete.

Nora was bouncing her seat. "That… was… AWESOME! Did you see us out there?! We ripped that guy a new one!"

Ruby chuckled, "Yeah! I want to be able to make gun out of fire! It looked so cool!"

Blake nodded lightly, thinking the bow was rather impressive as well.

Yang crossed her arms, "I'm a little annoyed I didn't get to see what I get in this, but I'll live."