chapter 1

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

His eyes snapped open, as if having forgotten the patterned lethargy which overcame them every morning.

Instinctively, his hand reached for where he knew there was nothing and tapped the scroll that lie there, abruptly silencing the annoyingly pleasant ring of the alarm.

Before his still groggy mind could process the incongruity, his body acted, pushing his arms back and raising his body up. From his new vantage point, he could see the soft bumps of his legs rising through the fluffy, white blanket that covered his gargantuan bed. Around him, he would have been able to see the clean and well designed, if sparsely decorated, bedroom which sheltered him; covering the floor, there was a warm, red carpet, decorated with a drawing of a large compass.

He wasn't paying attention to that, however. He was too busy tumbling out of bed and hopping about on each foot, screaming.

"Ahh, Ahh, Ahh," he yelled quietly as he took strange strides with unfamiliar legs. His teeth didn't fit, his fingers were in the wrong place, his mouth tasted weird, nothing was right.

It didn't hurt, or even feel bad; it was just disorienting, like looking at those moving-illusion pictures, except the moving illusion was his entire body, bones and all. It was the little things that set off this reaction, the minute twitches and strangely calibrated movements his body underwent, along with a quickly fading vertigo that overtook his senses. This reaction was why he was half walking, half running towards the large personal mirror that stood opposite his bed. Soon, he was leaning over the cabinet that supported the mirror, staring into the deep, blue eyes and hardened face of Mr. Schnee, the wealthiest individual on Remnant. Those were his eyes, however. That was his face in the mirror. He moved his hand touch his face, and the reflection moved to do the same.

This was all too real to be a dream, he accepted. Dreams consisted of things you knew, and he'd never known the impossible feeling of being in another person's body. Quickly, he took in his new body, his gaze shifting all across the figure in the mirror before a flash of blue and white caught his interest. Slowly, his new, and somewhat sensitive, eyes were drawn upwards to gaze at the words which hung above him.

"eenhcS?" he read in confusion, turning swiftly afterwards to look at the space above his bed. "Schnee" the embroidered and snowflake-themed crest read. 'Am I in Germany?' the man thought, 'In the future?' his thought pattern continued as he saw the paper-thin slice of glass glowing softly on the mattress.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Three light, chipper, knocks resounded across the heavy oak of his bedroom door, startling him as they echoed through the cavernous room around him to become an ominous rumble.

'Geeze, who sleeps in a place like this? Dracula?' he thought, cringing slightly as the sound slammed against his eardrums.

His thoughts were cut short when a feminine voice called, "Mr. Schnee? Are you ok?"

The muffling effect of the heavy door did nothing to conceal the urgency and worry lilting the voice.

"I'm ok," he rushed to respond, feeling strange as unfamiliar lips mouthed the words.

"Are you sure? I heard some bangs and some yelling," the woman on the other side continued.

"I'm perfectly ok," he responded.

'Perfectly ok? since when do I say that?' he thought with a confused expression.

"I just, uh, knocked something over," he continued, searching for something to distract the woman with.

"Oh! Do you want me to cal-"

"By the way," he interrupted, "what does my schedule for today look like?"

'Yeah, schedules. This Mister Schnee fellow looks like a man with schedules. Schedules for days, even.' he smiled at his quick thinking.

"Well, you're relatively clear for today, sir! You just have to host the Grand Opening Gala for the Messerschmitts. The staff finished preparing the ballroom this morning and the first guests should arrive at eight," The woman answered in a chipper tone, doing a complete one eighty from her previous state of anxiety. "Oh," she also said, as if remembering something, "You've got five voicemails, none of them seem critical, however."

"Understood, leave me while I prepare. I'll meet with you in about an hour or so," he said, absentmindedly accepting her adieus while entranced with the new, strange manner of speech that seemed to have overtaken him.

He decided to start by cleaning himself up, hopping in and out of the shower as quickly as he could and brushing down his hair and mustache shortly before donning the neatly folded suit that lay on his bed-side desk. Following this, he took a rest and sat down, staring at the intimidating selection of colognes that lined one of his drawers as he thought over the situation. He looked down through the paper-thin scroll he spun around in between his palms. In any other scenario, he knew he would have been overjoyed to study such a technical marvel. But he couldn't be bothered to do much more than coldly analyze the touch screen and look over the basic functionalities of the...phone...computer...device of sorts, the feeling of general anxiety that overtook him with the knowledge that he was in another person's body was pervasive and wearing. From what he'd gathered, he was in the body of a "Mister Schnee" in future…well, Montana or Alaska going by the accents and the arctic conditions outside his bedroom window. He worked in a company and might be rich. Actually, he was probably loaded considering he had servants and was "hosting" parties.

Of course, the right thing to do would be to reveal himself before he inadvertently got this guy fired...buuuut there was nothing wrong with testing the waters before taking such drastic action. Who knows, maybe "body snatchers" like him were common in the future and immediately put to death once discovered. The fact that today was "party day" gave him more reason to keep up the act because he had, as of right now, at least one day where he could relax and learn more about this future. This gave him a chance to act on his own terms, at least to some extent, in any case. As a bonus, he didn't have to worry about messing up anything important. Sure, these fancy parties or galas or whatever had a lot of rules and procedure, but he was sure his servants would take care of that. Besides, a gaff at a party makes the Saturday news if it's big enough; a mistake on the job could cost lives and livelihoods... He shuddered at the thought, a lingering sense of dread developing in his gut as old news reports of exploding chemical plants ran through his memory. Seriously, unless this guy's job had something to do with Chemical or Aerospace engineering, he was gonna get fired on day one.

He absentmindedly grabbed a purple cologne in a clear glass, applying the concoction before placing it back into the drawer and heading to the west wall of the room. The "west wall", as he called it, was actually a large bookcase, packed to the brim with a blue wall of velvet-bound books. He whistled in appreciation as he craned his head to see the top shelf of the collection, noticing a switch at the side which would presumably conveyor-belt the books to his level. The book he was looking for, however, was within arms reach, worn with the touch of many readings.

He frowned as he pulled the book out and looked at the full title.

"History…" It read, "...of Remnant."

He opened to the first page of the book.

"Man, born from dust, yadda, yadda, yadda, darkness, blah, blah, blah, Creatures of Grimm?" He frowned at the book, flipping to a random page decorated with an anatomically accurate drawing of a, "Nevermore, how original," he rolled his eyes at the name, looking at the massive raven which graced the page alongside a scale drawing of a human.

He placed the book back into its place. He was here to read about the history of the world not to learn about the long winded backstory to a long winded fantasy novel.

He skimmed through the titles on the bookshelf, reading...

"Technology...of Remnant," He mumbled, placed the book back into its place with a bit more force.

"Countries...of Remnant" He was starting to get mad.

"An analysis of Dust Vein decomposition patterns...In FUCKING REMNANT!"

Seriously, he thought it was annoying in his time when every franchise jus HAD to release twelve "world building" books of bullshit. The trend only seems to have gotten worse since then, however. No matter, he would just find an actual history book, even if he had to go to the library instead of scrounging through someone's fantasy book collection. It was just as the thought of looking things up on his new phone hit him that he heard three, echoing knocks from his door once more.

"Sir, the first guests are arriving," the woman politely reported from the other side of the door.

'Already?' he thought, turning to look at the morning sun shining through the window. 'Wait, did she mean Eight AM? How long is this party gonna last?' he pocketed his scroll as he headed towards the door.

He was approaching the door when a terrifying thought hit him. He didn't know the woman's name. If he was right about her being his secretary, than getting her name would be the key to getting everyone else's. But he'd have to call her something in the meantime! '

What am going to I call her?' He thought, frantically cycling through the options.

'"Sweetie?"...No,' he shook his head 'too personal.'

'Or maybe "Hun?"...Nope.'

He closed in on the door with sweaty palms as he desperately searched for an appropriate nickname. Cringing in anticipation, he slowly opened the door before looking through and immediately thinking,

'Oh, thank the greatest good of goodnesses, she has a name tag!' He rejoiced.

The light blue tag hung over her right breast reading, "Schwarz."

'Schwarz, huh? Strange name, but it's the future or whatever.' he dismissed the peculiarity and lifted his gaze from the tag. A pale face stared back up at him with gleaming dark eyes and softly curving strands of coal-dark hair running down on either side.

"Good morning, Schwarz," he tested, hoping that there wasn't a secret handshake he'd just forgotten to do.

"And a Good Morning to you too, mister Schnee!" she replied with a chipper tone, rising up on her toes in a short hop at the greeting, her fur-trimmed skirt twirling heavily at her knees as she did so. The richly textured, black of the hem almost gleaming against the uniform darkness of the rest of her outfit, the rest dark fabric only being broken up by the sable, fur hem running along every edge of her velvet jacket and the white cloth that covered her chest, just underneath the light-yellow, short collar that rose up above the neck of her jacket. All of this tied together with a grey belt with and two white, rectangular attachments that hung down on either side of the belt like earrings, reaching down to her knees with their length.

His heart lightened at her expression, and at the confirmation that he'd apparently greeted her correctly. A wave of confidence filled him as he closed the door behind him and walked down the hall, Schwarz following behind with clicking heels.

'Yeah, I've got this. It's just a party. I'd have to be, like, an advanced level idiot to mess this up.' our new Mr. Schnee thought with a smirk.

"Oh, and, it seems there is another matter for you to attend to." Schwarz tentatively probed.

"Yes?" he replied.

"Your daughter, Weiss, has sent a message. She says she'd like to accept your invitation to appear at the Gala today after all, but on the condition that she be allowed to bring along guests," Schwarz said in an even and calming tone. "Mr. Schnee", for his part, didn't pay much mind to her hesitation, it sounded, to him, more like a formality from the sound of things if his own daughter had to "accept an invitation" to a party.

"Of course," he said, "invite her. How many guests is she bringing anyways?"

"Really?" Schwarz exclaimed, wide eyed. "I mean, of course, sir. She's bringing three guests, though you should know that one of them is coming as a date, a girl by the name of," she looked down at her tablet, "Blake Belladonna."

"You say that like I'd mind," he said absentmindedly, nodding at his surroundings. 'Yeah, I'm definitely lost.'

"It's not that sir. It's just that some aspects of Ms. Belladonna's guest sheet seem to have been left blank," Schwarz said, clearly uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation.

"Look, Schwarz," he said, looking around at his surroundings and trying not to seem as lost as he was, "If she's human, than let her through," he chuckled at his own joke.

"That's just the thing, sir," Schwarz said with the gravest tone imaginable. "Her guest sheet," she paused, "It doesn't SAY whether she's a human."

He paused for a moment, processing the statement. Then his face brightened, "HAHAHAHA," he laughed immediately as the statement clicked. 'Holy crap, who knew Schwarz was so funny! She even had me going with that whole serious business persona!'

He interrupted Schwarz's uncomfortable chuckle as he wiped a tear from his eye. "Look,Schwarz, remind me to give you a raise sometime," he said, patting her shoulder and causing her eyes to glow once more as she looked up at him.

"Just invite them over and focus on the rest of your duties," he finished.

"Yes, sir," Schwarz replied, expertly hiding her worries. Mr. Schnee could take care of such things, after all. He'd been navigating the swirling politics of the Atlas corporate head for longer than she'd been alive. She was sure she was just being paranoid if he thought nothing untoward could happen.

'Yeah, things are going great,' he smiled, 'looks like nothing would come to foil his party day after all, considering how dedicated a crew I have.'

"By the way," he asked, looking back at Schwarz as she followed him.

"Yes, sir?" Schwarz answered.

"Where are we going?"