21

 Alloy

I wake up.

Time: 1028.

Sleep effects: Marginal.

Order: Still active.

Objective failed.

.

Restate problem and devising alternate solutions.

Problem: Emotional core offline. Order active.

Potential solution: Reboot.

Attempted and failed.

Potential solution: Emotional triggers.

Extrapolation of solution 1: Food.

Problems: Unable to comply. Incompatible with current physiology. Unable to use Semblance to acquire compatible physiology: Insufficient Aura.

Extrapolation of solution 2: Familiar and emotionally charged media.

Problems: Vast majority of media on Earth, access impossible. Remaining exposed media lacks sufficient emotional investment to restart.

Extrapolation of solution 3: Physical contact to trigger rejection reflex.

Analysing.

...

Likelihood of rejection reflex amplifying Order state deemed too high. Order fundamentally is a defence mechanism built on trauma/personality damage.

Extrapolation of solution 4: Threat of death or other instinctual fear response.

Likelihood of event amplifying Order state deemed too high. Order will attempt to resolve presented crisis.

Extrapolation of solution 5: threat to targets I have emotional investment i-

Did I really just consider threatening Ruby to feel again?

Success. Pursuing.

No, not 'success'. I'm not going to hurt Ruby or Yang or...

Uhg.

Breathe.

I forgot to breathe.

Order state decreasing.

Yes yes, I know. Just... Give me a minute.

I still feel numb, distant, and hollow, but I am feeling a little bit again.

I push myself up out of the bed, having opted to sleep like a person, and get dressed before leaving the room.

Seeing Ruby hurt by my actions will help. The novelty of a new place may or may not help either.

The Kuo Kuana CCTS Relay Tower has gone through a lot of work in the past month and a half, with the constant supply of resources and skilled labour. Not that the Atlas teams have been doing all the work, a good portion of their time has been spent on teaching.

Still, with the work done, the region around the tower has new buildings and a pretty good medical facility.

One that is being put to the test again. This isn't the first time the Red Fang has hit a convoy, though it is the worst incident by far.

Sunlight hits my face as I step out of the house and I look at what Blake tells me the people are calling 'little Atlas'.

Not in a good way. More like a cancer. White buildings reflect sunlight more effectively, leading to cooler interiors, but the lack of 'personality' and the fact that white is 'the colour of Atlas' rubs a lot of people the wrong way.

That doesn't stop them from using the CCTS or transferring their worst patients to the advance hospital.

That way.

The door slides open and I realise I should have knocked a moment after.

"-Dad, I'm- Oh, hey Alloy." Ruby looks up from her bed, Yang by her side, up at me.

A video screen with Tai on it shows I am interrupting. "Opps. Sorry. I'll just step out."

"Nah, Ruby was just complaining." Yang shrugs, displaying an emotion I can't quite read.

Seems like my Asperger's syndrome is back in full swing. Is that due to this hardware, or habits ingrained into my soul?

"Are you going to just stand there?" Oh. I should actually make a choice.

"Yes. Wait. No." Ruby sniggers at me as I step out. "Sorry, still numb from the attack."

The door slides close and I stand outside it for a moment, staring at the metal.

What am I doing?

Leaving. I can't do people right now.

The AK-47- No, it's the Indie Rifle now. The Indie Rifle is apart in front of my across one of the tables in my lab. My lab. Seems weird to think of it like that.

I wasn't exactly rich before I came here. Living week to week and day to day, just trying to get through. The longest of my long term goals extended to the next paycheck. So, to have a new super expensive body, a lab basically given to me, presents like weapon components and magic crystals... It's all a bit much.

Though, I think a lot of that is due to how differently things are valued here. Guns might be restricted in the country I lived and grew up in, but here they are a necessity of life. People not knowing how to use one is generally considered a luxury and high achievement by the major cities.

Remnant's industry is basically always partly 'at war', so much I wouldn't be surprised if the most expensive gift I got for my 'birthday' was the clothing. Well, I would be surprised, emotionally at least. My internal assessment of value is widely different from what other people here have.

I wonder if my presents survived the crash?

The lab is very nice, and is set up how I asked. I suppose this is where I'm going to spend a lot time in the next... however long.

The whoosh of the door sliding open has me looking up from the dirty rag I seemed to be staring at.

Yang walks in. "Alloy, are you alright? You're acting... weird. Blake things so too."

Should I lie? Why is that the first thing I think of?

No. "No." My head drops to the gas piston head and I run the rag along it's edges.

She walks up and pulls a chair. I'm not like Ozma, I will have chairs for my guests. Hm, seems I am already thinking of my lab as my space.

"Spill. This about the attack?"

I sit on my own chair. "Not really. It's..."

Breathe. Breathing helps calm me down.

Calming down isn't my problem. "It's called Order. It's... Stress and shock and..."

Start from the beginning. "So, as you know, growing up wasn't particularly nice for me, and to adapt I had to get clever. I had to destroy my soul. Order is the result.

"A state of mind devoid of all but the most muted emotions, and those get burned to make it work. Absolute focus, near pure logic, the world made to make sense. Order promises to solve whatever problem... All it costs is your soul." I look up at her again. "I said I know what it's like to be a machine."

"That's... And you used it." Yang realises.

"Not intentionally." I admit. "It's an old habit, old way of thinking I have spent years fighting against, trying to find out who I am outside of the machine mind I created. But, these past couple of months haven't exactly been the most normal."

I frown. "I first noticed it during the Siege. Though that was buffered by the fact I was so powerful that didn't actually need to go that far. Then, I slipped into it a bit yesterday morning, when the group was threatened. This morning was the worst by far, the only time I have ever sunk that low was when my mother tried to commit suicide."

Yang flinches. "What?"

"I realised what was going on, and had to act. And I couldn't afford to spend time on feelings."

Ah, that familiar pain. Mourning the loss of innocence. That was the last time I ever had a real good day. That was the last night I was alive, before I came home, smiling, relaxed and deeply, genuinely, happy.

Mum didn't like that.

At least the pain is helping wake me up again.

"It doesn't matter." I shake off the memory and get back on track. "It was a stressful situation, people were dying and I needed to be better. I needed to be cleverer and decisive, every second cost lives. So I overclocked, and somewhere along the way, I slipped back into Order."

"Alloy. I..." She's at a loss of words. I suppose dumping 'btw, my Mom tried to commit end herself', probably wasn't the best way to do that.

"Nothing you can do." Change the topic. "How is Ruby, is she alright?"

"There is something I can do." Yang just gets up, walks around the table, and gives me a hug.

Oh. I guess there is. I can be an idiot sometimes.

I sit, stiff, conflicted whether I should hug back or not. Remnant's of my social engine spin in my head, running calculations on how much I trust Yang, whether hugging her back would be socially acceptable, how long is 'just right', what she might think of me if I do or don't, how she would react on each path, how this might alter her long term perception of me, is this fair to the group dynamics, how-

'Not once did you ask, 'What do I want?'' Weiss echoes.

What do I want?

Yang lets go, and time makes the choice for me.

"How are you?" I ask before we get bogged down in my nonsense.

"Pissed." She growls.

I crack up laughing.

This is exactly why I have to- why I did cull my emotions. Inappropriate emotional responses. I'm not even sure what I find so 'funny' about it.

"Sorry. Sorry. I don't know why I did that." I manage to calm down. "Guess it's because I'm still recovering from Order." Might be my ability to laugh restarting. "Adam?"

And there it is. The hesitation. Yang was about to open up, and I laughed in her face at her emotions. That's exactly why I-

"No. Ruby." She's... I don't understand. Why isn't she leaving or insulted or closing off? "I couldn't protect her and she got hurt."

I put aside my issues and focus on her. "It's not your fault, Yang. Blame Adam, or me. She wouldn't have been with us if I didn't ask her."

Yang shakes. "No, I know that. It's... When I pulled the metal off her and saw her injured, I froze." Yang sits down onto the other chair next to me and looks at her hands in shame. "I didn't know what to do and I stopped. You walked up and checked her, made sure she was alright, that she wasn't dying."

Yang clentches her eyes together. "I just stood there."

"She's fine, Yang. I was there. Blake was there. Ruby is hurt, but she is fine."

Yang's eyes snap open, angry. Not at me, but herself. "But what if she wasn't? What if you weren't? What if-"

"Stop." I shove back. "No what ifs. We lead dangerous lives, full of risk, and I doubt anyone here is planning on stopping. So instead, don't look at what if, look ahead. There are two options, Prevention, where you reduce the odds of it happening, and Mitigation, where you reduced the damage when it does happen."

I grab her hands. "You are a fighter, not a doctor. A damm good Preventive measure, but we got ambushed Yang. Sometimes the odds come up bad and you have to deal with it. You were thrust into a situation that you had no way of dealing with, coupled with the shock of the sudden attack. Of course you froze, you can't punch broken ribs away."

"I could have at least checked her." My pep talk doesn't take. "I just felt... Useless. You know how when I was younger I went out looking for Raven."

"Tell me anyway."

Yang snorts. "When the Grimm attacked, I froze. Worse, I brought Ruby with me. That was what I was thinking about when it lunged at me. Not 'how will I survive' but 'Ruby is going to die and it's my fault'."

Yang shakes her hands out of my grip. "When Qrow saved us, I promised myself that wouldn't happen again. That I would do everything to help her. And... And I just stood there. Pulled off a chunk of metal and stared at my sister dying."

A hollow laugh comes out of her. "Ruby is in a bed, complaining how she didn't get a chance to kick ass. She doesn't know how close she came to dying, and how I did nothing."

I frown. "Nothing? Nothing Yang? You saved lives, not just Ruby's, but every soldier still with us. You defended the medic while they made sure that I, a complete novice, didn't make a stupid mistake. You kept moral up when the escort ships crashed, when the specialist took a cluster of rockets and crossbow bolts. You did not do nothing. If you did, we wouldn't be here, and Ruby wouldn't be in a bed complaining."

I poke her in the chest. "You don't use a needle to build a sandcastle. The right tool for the right job. You are a fighter, Yang. Not a doctor. Would you rather have spent years studying medicine rather than standing by her every time the Grimm come? Every time Team RWBY gets itself in trouble to find yourself useless?"

"And!" I huff. "I think you are asking too much of yourself. The cargoship exploded with you inside it for goodness sake! Of course you were dazed. The only reason you pulled Ruby out of the wreck is because I told you to, and the only reason I was still mentally functional enough to do that is because I don't have a squishy brain to slam around in my head during the impact."

Yang chokes a giggle at that. "Blake was out of it too, and our pilots. Oh, and Specialist Saltlake when he crashed into the ground." I jab her chest again. "So when you looked down at her, and she wasn't perfectly fine, your confused and hurt organic brain had to stop it's 'time to fight' instincts and completely change gear. That takes time."

No more frustration at Yang being an idiot, only empathy. "You didn't fail Ruby, Yang. Even if you were a doctor with years of medical experience at that exact moment, the insides of a crashed airship in a forest rapidly becoming a battlefield isn't exactly the best place to conduct surgery."

Not that I didn't consider it. "Trust me, I checked." I mutter.

I jab her one last time. "And you are an idiot for thinking so."

It takes a second, but I see my words, the obvious truth, take hold. "Is calling people an idiot the only thing you can do?"

And Yang is back. "Of course not, but when you spend so much time around idiots, it's good to remind them. It seems to have worked out for me so far. Now shoo, I have a weapon finish cleaning. Go complain to Ruby that I swore but I'm not giving you money or something."

"Wait, did you swear?" Yang challenges.

"Fuck, shit, damm, bastard, um... Huh, I can't think of any more that actually counts as a swear." I shrug. "Whatever, that's enough."

"So, 200 lien then." She grins.

"Hey! Don't get greedy."

"Enter." I call out to Blake knocking at my door outside, a security camera showing me who it is.

Patching up my synth skin holes was a slow but relaxing process, if a bit weird. So when Blake walks in and spots me in a state somewhere between 'naked' 'skinless' and 'entirely robot looking', she comes to a dead stop and stares for a moment.

Without my skin on, I definitely look like a Terminator. Not that she would get that reference, there might be killer robots in fiction here, but the Atlesian Knight program has a pretty good reputation.

Had. Had a pretty good reputation.

"Are you just going to stand in the door, or are you going to take a seat?" I invite her in, gesturing at a chair.

Well, she does walk in, not like how I ran off when I was in the same situation a couple of hours ago. Though she doesn't sit down.

Blake says nothing, and I quickly recheck it is her and not some illusion.

"You don't mind?" There we go, talking.

I pick up the face skin off the printing/repairing table and start putting it back on.

"Considering Synths haven't been around long enough to develop social taboos," I speak without move my mouth, got to stay still for this part. "no I don't mind. Sure, you could compare this to being naked," I frown and open my mouth to set the appropriate amount of tension. "but nakedness has sexual associations, and in case you haven't noticed, I lack the proper equipment."

"As if you weren't strange enough already." She mutters.

A decade ago, no, two years ago being called strange like that would have registered as a failure to me. That I was failing to 'pass' as normal. But, here, now... I might still care, but the panic and fear or rejection isn't there. Blake isn't going to go running off because I'm 'strange'.

My face skin slips back on. The rest of me can be covered up with clothing, if I need to.

I start working on the arms anyway. Thank you, Pietro, for adding gloves. Hands and fingers would have been really complicated to reskin.

"Yang told me about Order." Blake drops the topic. "I'm glad she talked to you, you're sounding much better."

"Not so monotone?" I tease. "Though, the more I use it, the higher the cost and the longer it takes for me to recover." I shake away the topic, and test that I've gotten everything right.

Thought it would be funny if it slipped off.

"How are you holding up? After..." Adam.

She sits down. That bad, huh. "I don't know."

The rest of my skin can wait. I put it aside and turn to face her fully.

"Conflicted, confused. He... He said he missed me." She takes a breath. "He tried to kill me during Beacon. He tried to kill Yang. Invited Grimm to overrun the city twice and killed you..."

Blake sobs.

"And I realised I miss him too."

I pull her into a hug. "There's nothing wrong with that-"

Blake pushes me away. "How can you say that? After everything he's done? Not to just you, but everyone! Why don't you hate him?" Why don't you hate me? "Dad, Mom, Yang, you, Ruby, Weiss... how can you forgive..."

"Forgiveness isn't earned, Blake. It's given."

I breathe again, and start moving my mouth to my words. "One of the hardest lessons I have learned is that Love cannot be earned, taken, or induced. It can only be given. And when you do give it, it creates a bond. It's only been a year since the train. How long did you know Adam before that?"

"There's nothing wrong with loving the man he was, the man you hoped and thought he was. There's nothing wrong with missing someone who you have spent so long with, cared so deeply for. It's human."

She snorts lightly at the use of Human rather than human.

"The brain, or soul or whatever, it forms attachments, and when those attachments break, it hurts. So it tries to heal them, to stop the pain. Either by remaking them, or by doing something else. It doesn't care about 'good' or 'bad', or if it's even possible, like when someone dies." I shake my head again. "The person doesn't even have to be real, like how you get invested in a character in a book."

I refocus. "Blake, you held an image of Adam in your head, and when you found out that the image didn't match the Adam in front of you, you made a choice."

"So what, he was never real? I was just pretending he..."

"I'm not saying that. What I am saying is that people change. That Adam changed, and you didn't update your image of him. That the Adam you know slowly 'died', and you didn't want to admit it. And when you realised that, you left. Because the person standing in front of you wasn't the man you loved, even if he reminded you of him. Even if you wished he was."

I pull her back into a hug. "It's okay to miss him, the Adam you love. Even the Adam still here, to hope that he might go back to who you would love him to be. It's okay to be conflicted and confused, to hesitate, to run away rather than force yourself to hurt him and yourself. It's okay to still love him, even if you wish you didn't."

Blake nods into my shoulder and we sit like that for a while before she pulls back.

"Just, um, probably don't mention this to Yang." I clarify. "At least not for a week. She's pretty pissed about Ruby getting hurt."

"Yeah. So am I." Well then. "Thanks."

"Happy to help, duh. Even if I'm not 'right', getting another opinion can't hurt. Maybe talk to your parents about it."

Blake goes off to do just that.

I walk into Ashley Wood's hospital room. The other pilot, Lode Stone, already there like I requested.

They perk up, and I read their files on their relationship. Hmm, not dating, but they have worked together for a long time. Good.

The door slides shut and I take a seat, waving Lode down as he almost jumps to attention. "Sit down."

"Yes Ma'am." He snaps.

"Uhg, I'm not even enlisted. Drop the formalities, please." I was just the first to react and take over.

"Yes Ma'-" He smirks and Ashley elbows her partner to interrupt him.

"I'm sorry." I start, looking at the pilot. "I tried my best but-"

"I'm still alive." Ashley states firm, her face still pale from the blood loss despite transfusions. "That's far better than the other thing."

I managed to heal the nick on her heart and patch up enough of her lungs and internal bleeding to stop her from drowning to death in her own blood, but...

The spinal damage. She is paralysed from the ribs down. Her career as a pilot is over.

On top of that was the other damages I didn't catch. Splinters of metal shoved into her lower spine means that healing it would have only moved the paralysis down. Other splinters in her gut have taken her ability to have kids, something that her file says she was looking forward to.

Having kids is such an alien concept to me, with how broken Earth has left me. But it's important to her, important enough to make it into her file. Important enough that I regret not being able to help.

"Um. I'm here to tell you that what I did was classified. As far as anyone is concerned, you simply didn't take as much damage as you seemed to. Understood?"

They nod. "Understood."

"Understand, Amber." Lode says.

Amber?

Oh.

Oh shit.

I sigh.

"What makes you say that?" I say, going through the paces of not actually confessing to it.

"I saw you near the end of the Siege. Your Aura is very... distinct." Shredded and torn to ribbons, with a strict contrast between my white glow and the black of the burned out holes.

Great, I didn't even consider that.

"Amber is dead." I stress. "Do not breathe a word otherwise to anyone, including among yourselves. Ever. Understood?"

A lot of buildings in 'Little Atlas' might be secured against listening with extensive soundproofing, a necessity for privacy in such a high Faunus population, but not all of them.

"Yes Ma'am." There's no mocking tone in both of their voices this time.

Uhg, is this what Pyrrha and Weiss have to deal with all the time?

"Good. I'll have James confirm that with both of you."

Secrets and lies. Great.

"How... how did you get like that?" Ashley asks hesitantly.

Fortunately, we aren't idiots and have come up with plausible explanations for things. More secrets and lies though. "Semblance... pushed to beyond what I should have pushed it. I burned up most of my soul."

I have to suppress sudden laughter as they flinch, or more accurately how Ashley half flinches, most of her body unresponsive.

"Don't ask any more questions, please." I get up to leave.

"Thank you." Ashley's voice is rich with a deep solemn and genuine gratitude that takes me aback a step.

Why- oh. She thinks I burned a bit more of my soul for her.

I might actually have done that. I will need to check.

"Don't mention it." Ha, that's a joke. "Don't waste it. Live."

"I will." She vows.

Top of the line Aura monitoring equipment doesn't just sit in the hospital, but in my lab.

Top of the line Aura monitoring equipment that says I didn't damage my soul any more by Paradigm Shifting.

Top of the line Aura monitoring equipment that I am doubting.

I sigh and slump down. It's too early to tell, really. I'll need to take measurements several times a day to get a good image of the situation, though I was already going to have to do that to make sure I don't 'bleed out' from the body.

Ashley might be physically crippled, but I am 'spiritually' crippled.

It's frustrating. I wake up a new world with several magic systems, only to effectively lose access to most of them. Were this a fanfic, I would have a far more kick ass Semblance, magic, and be out there training and fighting to the point I could give Pyrrha a run for her money.

Ha, maybe even a Gamer Semblance, that's still popular, right?

...

Still popular. I guess I can't know, cut off from all the fanfics on Earth. Just like everything else.

I put aside the saddening thought and find something to do. Tomorrow we are meeting properly with Ghira and Kali Belladonna, the meeting pushed back to deal with the attack and let Ruby heal enough to walk.

Well, be allowed to walk.

Hm, a demonstration might help convince them.

Copper. Plastic. Iron.

Let's 'invent' electricity. Real eletricity this time, not that silly Dust stuff.

Now, what tool should I use to make copper wire?

I walk into the room with the case and spot everyone else there. "Sorry I'm late."

Oh Damm, now I see the appeal.

Kali Belladonna is damm sexy.

Oh shit, she caught me looking. "You're very lucky, Mr Belladonna."

Aaanndd, that just drew attention to it. Yang and Ruby chuckle while Blake groans my name. "Alloy..."

"Ghira please. And yes I am." He grins at his wife.

Right, "Ready to be sealed in?"

"Do you have to make it sound so... ominous?" Yang asks, looking at the walls of the room.

The ISOBOX.

A box shaped room with thick composite ceramic and metal walls, buried underground. Faraday cages of varying types and materials, including Dust. Gaps of almost hard vacuum. Liquid heated and cooled in different layers to further mess with any thermal vision. Lead and gold lined for radiation. Oh, and sound proofing across all the pitch black internal walls.

This is the best in privacy we could design, a series of nested cubes, some magnetically or gravity Dust levitating, so completely isolated from the outside world it requires it's own life support to be woven into the walls for heat and oxygen management.

The minibar is there because, and I quote: 'Alloy tends to drive people to drink.'

I do not.

Sometimes.

James and Ozpin have organised for multiple ISOBOXs to be set up, at least one for each academy.

Oh, and they double as a panic room.

Honestly, the only weakness of them is that you can't see the outside world from inside, if only because any line in could also be used to get information out.

Qrow called me paranoid. James called it excessive. Ozma called it a step too far.

I call it 'Barely good enough, but we should look for mo-'

Well, they cut me off before I could finish. So I silenced them with one word. 'Storyteller.'

The room is not Jinn Proof, but it's as close as I can get until my understanding of magic grows. Sorry Blue-Bust, but I really, really, want some privacy.

Nobody protests, so I hit the button.

The thick slab of composite everything shifts as the metal arms pull it towards us, a slight scraping sound heard as it slots into place and closes. It stops.

We wait as multiple locks shift in place. From simple overlapping and locking metal and ceramic, to extraction pumps restoring vacuum in the gaps, heaters and coolers to balance out the thermofluids, and spot welding systems to literally fuse the room shut.

It's less a door and more a part of the wall that gets built and unbuilt.

It's silent.

Silent not just in the physical sense, but in another way nobody else but Penny can probably tell.

The CCTS connection I have had running for so long is silent.

Ruby shivers and whispers, "Spooky."

Her voice sounds loud.

"I can hear everyone's heartbeats." Yang whispers, also too loud. "Except yours."

Duh, I don't have a heart. "Are you calling me heartless, Yang?"

"It's official. Nowhere is safe from puns." Ruby groans.

"Of course. Puns are a pundamental force of the universe." Hehehe.

"You mean fundamental?" Yang puns and we high five.

The clap is loud, and I can actually hear the difference between her flesh and my synthetic nature in the sound.

"It was so cool until you started talking." Ruby crosses her arms before looking around. "Blake?"

I turn, and see Blake and Kali with odd expressions on their faces, Ghira is staring at his wife and daughter, slightly concerned.

"It's so... quiet." Kali whispers, the softest in the room so far. "I didn't realise how loud the world was."

Their ears are flickering around, turning rapidly.

I have Faunus level sensitivity, but I don't have that on all the time, nor have I grown up with it. Blake and Kali however, have spent their whole lives hearing not just what a Remnin can hear, but an entire range above and below that. The sheer silence would affect them more.

After all, it's quiet enough for Yang to hear everyone's heartbeats. How much deeper is the silence to them?

"Would you like me to put on some music or noise? Or open the door?" I offer, gesturing at the projector I brought in.

"No, it's fine." Kali states. "It's just, takes a bit of getting used to. I can hear my bones creak."

"You are more beautiful than the day I met you." Ghira takes the opportunity to compliment his wife.

The question of 'Why do you need a room like this?' goes unasked.

"Stop it." She blushes.

"It's peaceful," Blake is gently smiling. "Like there's nothing more than this room."

"No creaky bones for you?" Yang teases.

Blake gives her an exasperated look.

We are all procrastinating.

"So, what was is so important that you needed to rush here for? We weren't expecting you for another week at least." Ghira asks.

The mood drops instantly.

"Well, it was nice while it lasted." I sigh. "Bad news first."

I pull out the mini hardlight projector and link myself to it.

"3 days ago, I visited Jacques Schnee nee Gele and provided a distraction for Weiss to infect his personal SDC database with a virus." Hmm, I'm getting a psychosomatic feeling of a clenched throat.

"The day before yesterday we actually looked at the documents..." Blake shivers and her parents tense.

I open a text document first. Words on a page. Simple. Easy.

They begin to read.

I'm sorry, but it gets worse.

Gods, Grimm, Immortals, Magic, Maidens, Dust and War.

I'm sorry, but it gets worse.

The future that never was, a daughter that fell, and the world that died soon after.

Yang has her arms around her sister. Blake is in her mother's arms.

I showed my memory of RWBY to everyone. Ruby asked, and this is the first time they have seen their deaths. The end of the world.

After all, all Salem needed to do is wait a couple of decades to use the lamp. To ask the right questions on how to use the Staff to get into the vaults. Assuming she can't just say 'create me a portal to inside the vault'.

I'm sorry, but it gets worse.

The Brothers have to go.

"That's the bad news. Take a few minutes before we start on the good."

"You're an alien." Ghira takes a deep breath in. "Okay."

He and his wife are far too shocked for that to phase them much. Or the fact the minibar has been tested has dulled the impact.

I really do send people to drink.

"Horse." Yang states the old joke, but there's no joy in it.

I open up the case and pull out the vials and cotton.

"Sulfuric Acid. Nitric Acid. Cotton." Each one I state as I use it as I make up the basic Whoosh before igniting it. "We are calling it Whoosh, though the code name probably won't last long. It is a Dustless gunpowder propellent, or one of the main ingredients of it."

I am not making nitroglycerine in here.

A hand crank electric generator and lightbulb comes out second and I demonstrate electricity. Dustless electricity.

"The plan was to keep this secret for as long as possible, to have Menagerie slowly ramp up production and only start threatening the Dust market when we couldn't be stopped and held a clear monopoly of it. The funds and reputation would go to uplifting Menagerie and help kick start a Dustless revolution. To make life better."

"How does that help against... everything else?" Kali asks.

"Mass production of Whoosh will allow Humanity to fight against the Grimm far more effectively. Imagine not worrying about ammo. That, and a couple of other techs I know will help. As for the magic problem, I don't know. I want to sit down and study it to find some weakness, but I don't know how long that will take. What I do know is that this can help people, now, and tip the scales towards us."

"Why Menagerie? You could have stayed in Atlas for this." Ghira asks.

"Lots of reasons. Resources like sand, saltwater, and population. Political, to keep the balance of power as we create a 5th Kingdom. My main reason though, is this:" The projector shows the image of a teen silently coughing up blood in a Dust mine. "I didn't know it was this bad, but I was going to give this to you anyway. Out of all the people who have suffered, you deserve it most. It's going to be harder, without the resources of an existing Kingdom, but it is the right thing to do."

"Equality isn't tearing other people down. It's building everyone up."

The sun is going down.

I sit out on the deck looking over the physical Kuo Kuana as I look over the map of it in my head.

This is going to be a lot of work. Menagerie has quickly embraced vacuum distillation, even though they managed to get reverse osmosis working not long after that. Graphene membranes. Graphene was only just being explored properly on Earth, but here a lot of it's mechanical features are well known and used to fortify some alloy composites.

Again I am hit with the odd dissonance between Earth and Remnant technology. At least they don't have very long Carbon Nanotubes, or I might be pissed. Even though that would play to our advantage.

Little bit of Terran pride there, maybe.

I just hope they adopt the other technologies I introduce just as quickly. Well, not just as quickly, with easy access to sand and Remnant engineering, vacuum distillation was set up in just a month and took of super fast. Other techs will take time.

I suppose that's what happens when you give a fairly easy and cheap clean water source to a population that was straining it's supplies. The river from the mountains can only provide so much, and water Dust is both expensive to get and needs to go through it's own filtration process.

One of the reasons OT!James didn't use heavy weapons on Monstra was Dust poisoning of the very limited farmland. Not all of the Dust gets used up in a reaction, leaving trace amounts in the soil. A little is fine, generally, (so much so that using Dust for some dishes is a thing) but too much causes problems.

As well as other complications. The plants soak it up and then their Aura sets it off. Plants that are a lot less tolerant of tiny explosions or whatever happening inside them.

Not that it lasts forever, and one of the solutions to curing Dust poisoned land is to grow a fast growing weed to get in and set off all the Dust, but that takes time. Time which the people of Atlas, high in the sky and cut off the world, would suffer starvation.

Then the Grimm landed and all hell broke loose. Grimm liquid soaking the ground, Dust poisoning, corpses of the defenders, any one of those things would put a population off eating food from it. All three basically blacklisted a decent chunk of Atlas' sky high farmland.

No wonder he went Mettle.

I sigh and turn back to my notes. High pressure air in, cool to liquid, then distil out the nitrogen and oxygen. If we need the extra oxygen, I am planning water electrolysis for our hydrogen and oxygen source.

Energy storage has already begun with a sand battery I had starting to be built. Another cheap, easy and reliable way of storing energy. Does only really work with heat though, the conversion efficiencies drop hard when the output steam is run through a turbine.

Well, that's okay. Having a heat exchanger system will allow us to 'step up' the temperature to steel making levels, all powered by the sun, if a bit slow.

I push that aside, we aren't up to there yet. At least all of this is green energy, if not as effective. I made a point of pointing out the problems with fossil fuels.

Problems like coal mining being basically Dust mining, but with a less versatile product. Problems like the measurable reduction of intelligence people suffer in high CO2 environments. Problems like CO2's long term environmental problems. Problems like the ash waste from burning coal and toxic gases from all fossil fuels. Problems like the same issues with Dust mining in that you need to find a deposit and then defend it while mining it.

They took to the environmental issues a lot better than Earth would, which makes sense. On Remnant, naturally defensible locations are rare. You don't want to make them uninhabitable by living in them, not just for yourself but for generations down the line.

But all this eco friendly tech isn't nearly as effective as toxic tech, which is why Earth ignores it.

Uhg, if only I could set up a fission reactor. That would solve all the energy needs for basically forever, if I am cautious enough and get it right. Nuclear waste isn't an issue, Earth knows that even if they ignore it, and meltdowns are a thing of the past with proper design and computer control. More than that, Remnant doesn't have the same cultrual revulsion to it that would allow them to actually look at it rationally.

But... that would involve giving nuclear science away, and it's only two steps away from 'intentional meltdown' to 'thermonuclear weapon'.

I should get back to work.

Or I could take a nap. It has been a busy day, and it will be a busy... however long I am here. I don't want to burn myself out like I did with James and the book. Well, I am still burned out from that.

Right, sleep time.

The world won't end tonight if I go to bed now.

My head is blinking.

Oh, that's someone trying to call me, the phone is in my head.

What?

Oh right, Remnant. I forgot.

Who is it? James Ironwood. On an encrypted line, marked important but not urgent.

I stay still in bed and rotate my mind towards a defence, activating my cybersecurity suite as well. Just in case.

"Hi James. Is the world ending?" It might not be marked as urgent, but it's nice to ask. Also, he woke me up.

"Alloy. Not at the moment. I trust I am not interrupting something." Hmm, how lazy am I right now? To be lying still in bed taking a call, so still as to not even need to move my mouth.

Or talk aloud. "I'm awake now. Just had a long day. What's up?"

"I got your memo," Memo? Oh, Lode and Ashley. "and I have talked with them. How did they ID you?"

"Aura colour." I state. It's only partially true, but he will know what it means. "I Paradigm Shifted my Aura which put it on display. Lode Stone recognised it." Hmm, I haven't actually told anyone about that Paradigm Shift yet.

Should get around to that.

"Of course you did." I know that tone. It's 'oh, Alloy did another impossible thing' tone. Also known as 'I need a drink'.

"You didn't just call me to confirm that, did you?"

"No. We reviewed security footage looking for the leak. Cinder and Emerald were at the landing pad." Ah. "They saw you."

Well, I am not sleeping now.

I get up and unplug from the wall, waking up properly.

"So, she either has, or knows someone that has, contacts in the military." I frown. "How much more messy were we organising the shipment to leave early?"

James goes silent for a second. "I don't think this was a one off. Gut feeling."

"Damm." So, James' gut, (yes, it's a valid source of information) is telling him that we really do have a leak, and not that this was a result of us rushing to get us in Menagerie. "Did Adam get lucky?" I ask hopefully.

"You know the answer to that."

"Double damm." Adam's attack wasn't just coordinated, he basically knew our flightpath.

The reason we didn't fly directly to Kuo Kuana was the same other shipments haven't. Predictability. If ships followed the same path back and forth, it would be easy to have a scout 'upstream' to tell them we were coming, and then have an ambush quickly prepared further down.

Kuo Kuana might be on the shore, but a boat with a couple of rocket launchers could take down a convoy easy.

Did take down a convoy easy.

"Well, good news is that it's likely Cinder and not someone else who fed him. Adam having direct ties is unlikely." I reason. "Though, there is still a high level leak, and if Adam or Cinder are half clever," they are. "then they won't constantly leverage it to hide their source."

I don't say mole, because the leak might not be a person. Or, the person might not know they are leaking information. Who knows if there's someone out there with a mind reading Semblance or psychometry Semblance or whatever.

Bloody Magic.

"I have ordered a subtle investigation, but for something his level, I'm not confident we will turn up anything." James admits.

With the time gap in the OT, there's a very good chance this happened during it and was a contributing factor to James going Mettle. "I'm sorry, I can't think of anything OT to help."

"Thank you anyway. I've increased security escorts for all future shipments and organised a second one of the cargo contents that got hit." James finishes, trying to do something to help.

"Thanks. Make sure to include extra toxic sludge, I've noticed people here getting twitchy." James chuckles at my description of coffee.

Not just coffee, but an Atlas brand of very dark and bitter coffee that is so thick you almost need a spoon to eat it. I can understand a preference for high caffeine content, but the stuff is so bad it has the nickname 'Atlas Glue'. I've never liked coffee, but even I know that 'drink' is terrible.

It was one of the things lost during the attack, and low caffeine content Menagerie coffee isn't cutting it for the people from Atlas who are hopelessly addicted here.

"Stay safe, James."

"You too." We end the call.

I'm not going to be able to sleep. Time to get back to work.

Nitrogen burned with oxygen to produce Nitrogen Dioxide, which is then reacted with water to produce Nitric acid. The machine will need inputs of pure water, nitrogen and oxygen. We could use unseparated air, but I don't like the idea of other impurities in the gas stream. That will take a lot more effort to separate out, and we will need the infrastructure for air distillation for other things.

Like ammonia. Ammonia is... Nitrogen Hydrogen... NH3, that's it. NH3 is used for a lot of things, including fertiliser, heat pump fluid (at least until we can get CO2 for heat pumps), RDX production...

What does Remnant use for it's agricultural industry?

Oh, shit. Literal shit.

At least for the near city farms where infrastructure can be set up to move it the short distance. For long distance and remote farms, Grimm attacks effectively force them to move around, letting the fields lie fallow. Fertiliser, while a thing, is not exactly used that often, though farming equipment like tractors and other stuff that can be moved is.

This wouldn't fly on Earth, but with such a low population size and the massive amount of land available (if only 'on loan from the Grimm'), it works. Hmm, a lot of focus on livestock, which makes sense.

They can be moved, and Grimm generally don't target animals, so the end result is a lot of ranching.

When I looked at the food prices in Vale, riding with Yang, I got a little confused as to why meat was so cheap.

Well, now I know.

I shake my head. This internet connection in my head makes it far to easy to get distracted.

RDX needs Hexamine, which needs ammonia and formaldehyde.

Methanol plus... Oxygen, I think.

No, go back to the start.

Carbon gets steam dumped onto it to create carbon monoxide and hydrogen. That CO gets more Hydrogen reacted with it (hydrogenation reaction, iron catalyst I think) to create Methanol. Then that gets reacted with Oxygen to make formaldehyde.

I'll need to run some tests and work out the pressure and temperature ranges. And... I can't remember what is toxic and what isn't. Good thing I'm not organic, though I will need to add a set of tests for that.

At least I remember that Carbon Monoxide is poisonous.

Hmm, can't acetic acid be made from methanol or formaldehyde? Iridium catalyst and ... iodine?

I make a note to check it later. Acetic acid can already be sourced. It's literally the acid that makes up vinegar.

Ruby is outside, and I remotely open the doors before her fist hits the door to knock.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" I ask/tease.

"Nope! I'm all good." I narrow my eyes at her. "Well, mostly good. 'No strenuous activity for a week'."

A week. She had several cracked ribs and she's already up to go in a week. Remnant's medical tech and the existence of Aura makes things crazy good. I guess that makes sense from a fiction perspective, the show RWBY was about fighting after all, but that's the sort of thing that gets glossed over in a timeskip.

Seeing it happen, slowly, infront of me is completely different.

"Hmm." I look back down at my current project.

"What are you working on?" Ruby is hovering...

I almost tell her, but... "Might be better to show you. Stand back."

I put the rod in one end and hit the switch. Dust vials glow and release electrical energy that flows through coils in sequence, each one tripped by a small laser sensor that gets blocked as the iron rod moves.

The rod hits the ceramic plate mounted to the wall across the room with a crack. Hmm, the plate needs to be replaced, I dumped too much power from the Dust into the coils.

I grin. "No silly Dust Repulsion Pairs for me, thank you very much. That's another victory over Weiss." We might have a small rivalry going on, Dust versus Alien tech.

It's a small, multistage coilgun. A proof of concept, really. The Dust vials will need to be replaced with capacitor banks, but this shows that it works.

I shouldn't really be doing this, but I'm on break, and this will help convince the masses to switch over to electricity versus Dust. I'm thinking fixed installations for city defence, hooked up to the city's power grid.

"I can't believe you were holding out on me. I thought we were friends." Ruby grabs a rod and puts in into position.

I roll my eyes and hit the button again.

The plate shatters.

"Ruby, have I not given you enough weapons techno-" I catch the look on her face. "Actually never mind. That was a stupid question."

"Yes! Now! How does it work?" Ruby demands.

I should be working on AC transformers... this was me getting side tracked when I made a bunch of solenoids. Hmm, and the exact moment I had it working, she walked in. Maybe Ruby has a 'detect weapons' sense or something.

I pick up an iron rod, hold it up as the focus, and perfectly seriously say: "Polarity. That's right, it controls poles."

I crack up laughing at her expression and save the video clip. I'm sure Weiss and Pyrrha will get a kick out of it.

It took them a few days, but it looks like my luggage was recovered from the wreck.

What I wasn't expecting is for Kali to be the one to bring it to me. I guess she has something else to talk about.

"Thank you, Mrs Belladonna."

"Kali, please." Hmm.

"Then thank you, Kali." I take the bag. "Would you like to come in, have some tea on the deck?"

"That would be wonderful, thank you."

I put my bag away and we walk upstairs, splitting up while I set the kettle in the kitchen and she walks out on the deck. It's not cold, not yet, but the sun has just gone down. Menagerie is mostly desert, and while a lot of people think of deserts as hot, they can get very cold during the night.

Tray in hand, I walk out to the deck and pour her a cup after putting it down.

It's quiet. Not ISOBOX quiet, but still quiet. We can see the lights of various houses glowing, candles mostly, from where we sit.

I sip my own cup of 'tea'.

"I was under the impression you could not drink tea." She says, adding a single sugar cube to her cup.

"I can't. This is hot water." Kali smiles at the distinction. "Food and drink are important parts of social interaction, and while I can't eat, I can drink water. Having it hot just helps the illusion."

I mean, I could drink tea, but it would clog up my water filters very quickly.

We sit and sip as time passes. I could be working, but that would be rude even if she doesn't know.

Instead I ask a question. "Does it look different from here?"

Kuo Kuana lays before us, my house/lab building part of 'little Atlas' on the outskirts of the city near the CCTS Relay Tower. Even without a deck on the second floor, we would have a good look at the city, the Tower is elevated on a hill for better coverage.

But, that's not what I'm asking, and she knows it.

'Does the world look different after learning about everything going on?'

"Yes. It's an entirely new perspective." Kali sounds sad. "How does it look to you?"

"The same. I've always seen it like this." By the time Kuo Kuana was introduced in the OT, Beacon had fallen. "Though, more and more I am beginning to see what it could be."

Kali sips her tea. "Not just what it could be. I was walking through the market today, and there was laughter. Children laughing, and an ease in the air and among the people."

Hope.

With a decent clean water supply, Kuo Kuana's glasshouses are able to operate at full capacity without drawing from population's drinking water supply. More than that, there will be a trust there that this isn't temporary, that even if all the distillation systems break, they can always make more. A glass cylinder with a black painted bottom is hardly an expensive thing, and with how hot the days get here, the required pressures are very low.

Food and water security.

"It'll get better." I promise. "We haven't even gotten the centralised heating systems set up yet."

Sunlight collectors to power the sand battery, which then transfers it's heat to surrounding houses during the coldest parts of the night. Oh, and a big enough sand battery can serve as seasonal storage, so when winter comes things will be fine.

"Now I see why Blake talks about you."

Warning. Something is wrong. Something is wrong.

I check Kali with my visions and sensors again to make sure she is who I think she is. She comes back clear. "She sounds so... hopeful. We thought that perhaps she was nursing a crush, but that seems silly now."

Ah, 'Blake talks about you'. Blake isn't much of a talker, and while I expect to have been mentioned to her parents, the way she said that set off my internal alarms.

"Please don't try to ship me with your daughter." Kali laughs at my very real, very genuine request. "Please. I have enough going on in my head, I do not need romance with someone on top of that."

"No, I don't think you need to worry about that from her." Stop smirking.

Thank you. I am not joining Blake's Harem, thank you very much. She has more than enough relationship troubles without adding my brand of crazy, and I have enough mental issues without adding a relationship like that.

Ah, another light just turned on. I wonder if that is Dust based or a candle. Maybe even a Semblance?

"How is Blake? With being back home, that is."

"She's conflicted, much like your OT." Ah.

Just because she knows how things are, doesn't mean her emotions are up to that point yet. Though she'll probably come to terms with it sooner with both knowing and the several calls to her parents over the past couple of months to soften the blow.

"Though, she did come to us and talk about her relationships yesterday. A suggestion from a friend who seems to have given her good advice." Ugh. Don't butter me up.

"I'm glad Yang is looking out for her partner." I deflect.

Kali ignores it. "Thank you, for helping her, for helping us."

"Not doing it for the thanks." I probably should take them, I'm rejecting them due to my self worth problems. "Though, they are appreciated."

Kali finishes her tea and slowly stands up.

"Then thank you again. Oh, and I suggest you practice your tea making for next time." Okay, so she's coming back.

"That may be difficult," I stand and walk with her inside, tray in hand. "seeing as I literally can't taste it."

Ah, dammit. I fell into her trap. "Then I suppose I will have to make regular visits to help you."

"Blake told you I overwork, didn't she." I narrow my eyes at her but she doesn't reply. Doesn't verbally reply, that smirk is still there. "Dammit Blake."

"I will bring the tea leaves next time." Kali struts downstairs, and I try not to look at her ass.

Why do I feel like I've just been played?

I get to work cleaning the dishes, trying to work out what exactly just happened.

Author's Note:

Did you know that FFNet still isn't updating my views? It's been months since it has changed from 6009 views.

Anyway, welcome to the Menagerie 'arc'. I put that in quotes because I don't really have arcs planned, based on how I'm writing this, though with my upcoming Deadline, I do have a rough outline of things sorted.