ZONE 12 HEADQUARTERS, GREATER KINGDOM OF VALE

RUBY

I pulled the door shut, listening for the click of the latch before I said anything.

"So, Weiss, do you think he's lying?"

Weiss buttoned up her coat before she spoke. "I want to think so, but… Do you think Ozpin's heard of this 'Ukraine'? Or anywhere he's mentioned?"

"Should we leave him in there while we check?"

I wanted to let him out of his cuffs; where was he going to go in the middle of a military outpost, but I wanted to make sure we were all okay with somebody we didn't know walking around before I did anything.

"If we let him go, we don't know what he's capable of. If we leave him in there, at least we know he's not going to do anything. If you want to let him out, I'm not going to stop you, but I will rub it in if it backfires."

Something about Weiss smiling in that thick coat was really scary. Even a half-smile got more menacing when she was wearing it.

"Thanks Weiss. Go to Comms, tell them they're getting a guest."

Weiss nodded as I opened the door. It would seem that Taltos - if that was his name - hadn't moved while me and Weiss were talking, but he was sat slightly further back than he was when I left.

"Have a nice chat? That door's not as soundproof as you would think."

I hesitated on drawing my weapon. I wanted to know how much he heard before I did anything stupid. "Oh yeah? I guess you heard what we were going to do, then."

"You were going to let me go. Your friend in white thinks I'm going to try and escape or something. She's wrong, I'll say that much. You also plan to take me to another person: Ozpin, I think his name was. But, I don't think he's here, otherwise I wouldn't be going to a comms building." He shook his wrists on the table. "Now, cuffs?"

"You try anything and I'll kill you. Understand?"

I didn't want to think about having to kill him - hurting people wasn't something I did lightly - but I didn't want to take any chances.

"I was wondering when someone would say that. That's nothing I haven't been threatened with before, Red."

He seemed really casual about being told he was going to die; definitely something to ask about later.

I pulled out Crescent Rose, letting it unfold into full-on scythe mode, and smiled cheerily. He might have been okay with being threatened, but I don't think he was okay with a girl pulling out a scythe bigger than he was. "Hands, please."

He nervously stuck his wrists out, pulling them as far apart as he could. I was kind of thankful for it, because it made my job of slicing through the cuffs easier. A quick twirl of Crescent Rose and he was free.

"Now, remember what I said about 'try anything and I'll kill you'?" I knew I'd warned him once, but I thought I should do it again with Crescent Rose backing up my words.

He backed away from me and pulled his sleeves over his wrists. "Yeah. I wasn't going to before you pulled out the scythe, and I'm not going to now that you have. That work for you, pirosarató?"

"Come again?"

"Red Reaper. You know, you've got a red cloak and a scythe like the Grim Reaper. Therefore, pirosarató - Red Reaper. Unless you're going to give me a name, I'll use that."

I frowned as I put Crescent Rose back on her rack. "I don't care what you call me, but say it in Valish."

"Red Reaper it is. Sajnal- uh, sorry. Now, you had plans of taking me to meet someone?"

I waved him to the door. "Follow me closely. Everyone on this base has orders to shoot you if you're alone."

He grinned and shrugged his shoulders. "Feels like I'm home already. Lead the way."

I opened the door to Comms and waved Taltos through. "Weiss, you're talking with Ozpin?"

Blake's voice, not Weiss's, was the one to respond. "Weiss wanted to check over some things with our visitor's gear. I was in the area, so I figured I might as well do her job. Ozpin's a little busy, but he'll be free soon. We could take this to Goodwitch, but I know you and her don't mix well."

I smiled weakly. Even after four years, I wasn't sure what Goodwitch wanted out of me. She always made conversations awkward, because she always seemed disappointed or annoyed. "Thanks, but I think we should take what we can get. If Goodwitch is free, we take her."

Blake raised an eyebrow, but still made the call. While the line was connected, she nodded to Taltos. "I guess that's our visitor?"

"'Visitor'? I was under the impression that I was a prisoner; maybe I was a spy or something. Has that changed?"

"You're not a spy - unless you're holding out on us - and you're not a member of the VDF. Officially, the term for you is 'visitor'. Ruby and I are 'Huntress' or 'ma'am'. Is that clear?"

"Very. I'd taken to calling," he nodded at me, "Ruby, wasn't it? I'd taken to calling her 'Red', but if she wants me to call her something else…"

"Call me Ruby. Huntress is my job; it'd be like calling you 'trespasser'."

"Heh. Trespasser's just a small part of my job, Ruby. If you wanted to know what my job was, it's called 'stalker'."

"So you were following us." Blake scowled; she'd had plenty of bad experiences with people following her around. Mostly it was White Fang members trying to bring her back, but there were a few pro-Human people who just thought it was criminal that Faunus could be Hunters.

Taltos took her disdain in stride, to his credit. "Not quite. I would've been better prepared if I wanted to come here. You don't like people following you?"

"Most of them follow me for the wrong reasons."

"Relax, up until two minutes ago I didn't even know catgirls existed; I -"

Blake's scowl turned into a sneer and she started to walk towards Taltos.

"What. Did you. Just-"

I coughed loudly and stepped between them. "The word is 'Faunus', and I think it'd be appreciated if you used that. Right Blake?"

I shot my teammate a stern look until she backed down. Much as she might want to take him down a peg for calling her a 'catgirl', we couldn't let him die until we'd found out as much as we could about him.

"Right. But if he calls me a 'catgirl' again…"

"I'll deal with it."

The last guy who kept calling Blake 'catgirl', or some word like that, had to be rushed to hospital. Spent six months in a coma. If it wasn't for Weiss, Blake'd probably be in prison over that. Not everyone can get away with attacking an important Schnee Dust Company board member.

"He'd better hope you do."

Taltos grabbed me by the shoulder and my hand jumped to Crescent Rose, but he simply pushed me aside.

"Look, if you've got a problem with people who have - and I'm going to stress this - never heard of you or your kind, might I suggest you take it up with whatever decided it'd be funny to drop me into a world of animal-people. That said, if you want to put this to rest now, I'll be happy to oblige you."

Blake looked at me and I could tell she wanted to tear into this guy. Unfortunately for her, I wasn't going to play along. We knew nothing about him, and we weren't going to find out anything new if he was drowning in his own blood.

"Look, if you two want to fight, it can wait until after this call."

The large screen on the far wall lit up with the face of Professor Goodwitch. As usual when she saw me, it was frowning.

"Miss Rose. I was under the impression that your mission wouldn't require oversight; was I wrong?"

"No, Professor, I don't need oversight. But I thought you might want to know about anything strange that happened while we were here."

Goodwitch leaned back in her chair and adjusted her glasses.

"Is this strange event related to the Grimm activity in the area?"

"Maybe. We have no idea."

"If it's nothing to do with the Grimm, it's not part of your mission. You're there to trim back the numbers and reduce the risk to the local population, not investigate anything and everything that wanders through."

"With respect, Professor, these events are a risk to the population. One of the patrols came back this morning with one extra man. This man came out of one of the…" I knew the official term for things that we'd never seen before was an 'event', but that made it seem random. If what Taltos had said about his experience on the other side of these things was true, then whatever was happening was not random. He'd called them 'anomalies', which at least implied that something was creating them.

"One of the anomalies that have been appearing in our zone. Appearing, might I add, more and more often as we've been here."

I grabbed Taltos by the arm and pulled him into view and watched as Goodwitch leaned forward to try and get a better look. He grinned and leaned over to me. His voice was barely louder than a whisper, so I figured he didn't want Goodwitch to hear his conversation.

"She's your boss, right?"

I nodded, not wanting to give anything away while in the call.

"Okay. Just wanted to know. She's pretty hot."

I cast a sideways glance at Taltos and leaned away from him; there wasn't a world in which I wouldn't find that remark weird, even if he wasn't the first guy to say it. It's gotten to the point that I think Goodwitch has to know and is just playing it up.

"Something I should know about, Miss Rose?"

"Uh, no Professor."

"Very well. Are you going to introduce me to this visitor?" Goodwitch's expression told me that she knew I was lying. Not much I could do about that.

"Sure. This is Taltos. He claims he's from a place called 'Ukraine'. Does Beacon have any records of a place by that name?"

Goodwitch tapped a few commands into her scroll, smirking as she did. "Taltos… Is that really his name?"

"Professor?" I was used to Professor Ozpin being all strange and cryptic, but not Goodwitch.

"Taltos. It's a word from a Mistrali language; means 'wise man'. So, that begs the question, what is a 'wise man' doing where he has no knowledge?"

I glanced at Taltos, eyebrow raised in question. He nodded, a bemused smile on his face.

"She's right. That is what my name means. But it's not a 'Mistrali language', whatever that is; it's Hungarian. As for what a 'wise man' is doing here… Well, I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase 'fools rush in where angels fear to tread'?"

"I've heard of it. Are you telling me your name's related?"

"In a sense. I've never been the first person into anywhere in the Zone, except here. By Zone logic, I'm the wisest man, as I get the loot of the first guy if he dies as well as the first pick of the building's loot. And if my friends could see me now, they'd probably call me 'schastlivchik' - 'lucky man'."

"I wouldn't call being detained by Vale's Defence Forces 'lucky', Mister Taltos."

"It wouldn't be fair if I wasn't. As it stands, I'm on the same military base as at least three reasonably attractive women with an interest in who I am and way the hell away from the Zone. That's lucky by any metric."

"Do not get ahead of yourself, Mister Taltos. As soon as we can, we will be returning you to 'the Zone'. You don't belong in Remnant, and I see no reason to accommodate you. Miss Rose, is it possible to send him back?"

Scientific questions weren't my field, especially if it was dealing with things I'd never seen in person. I did know that Blake had been paying attention to the 'anomalies' that had spat out Taltos, so she seemed like the best choice to answer.

"Uh… Blake?"

"Some of our soldiers have been using the events to dispose of trash and contraband while they've been on-mission, so I think we could send our visitor back through one of those portals without much risk."

Taltos cast Blake a sideways glance as she said 'without much risk'.

"To me or to you guys?"

Blake brushed off his question and continued.

"That being said Professor, I have one reservation about sending him back; the events have been appearing more frequently and in a wider area since we first saw them. He is the only being, living or dead, to have passed through that we know of. If the events are connected to the location he comes from, this 'Zone', then we might be able to use him to shut them down."

"Use him how, Miss Belladonna?"

'"Anyone travelling to the other side would need a guide to be effective there. I suggest a team of Hunters follow Taltos back to his 'Zone' and try to find out what, if anything, could be causing these events on that side."

"And if it's not from Mister Taltos' Zone?"

"Then at least we've eliminated one possibility."

"Suppose I was to follow your suggestion, Miss Belladonna. Who would I send?"

Blake shrugged and gestured to me.

"Team RWBY, obviously. It wouldn't be right to suggest a plan with little chance of return to you and not put myself at the top of the list of volunteers."

"And your mission?"

"Delegate another team. The soldiers here just need oversight and support; they don't care who the Hunters are that help."

Goodwitch took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, replacing them before she spoke.

"Even if I denied you the request, that wouldn't stop you, would it?"

Blake looked at me, with what passed for hope in her eyes. Blake, I really hope this plan works for us.

"You know we wouldn't tell you, Professor."

Blake smiled as Goodwitch leaned back and sighed.

"Very well, Miss Rose, your request is granted. I'm assigning two teams to fill your team's position. I would suggest you wait for them before you depart."

Goodwitch tapped in a command on her scroll and ended the call. Blake turned to me.

"Thanks for the support, Ruby."

I returned the smile, but I wasn't sure about Blake's reasoning. Goodwitch raised some good points about the portals.

"Here's hoping you're right."

"Let's hope. Has Taltos met everyone?"

"He's still got to meet Yang, then we can get him his kit back."

"Wait, I'm getting my guns and everything back? Firstly, thank you, secondly, you guys were seriously believing that I might be a spy ten minutes ago. Why the change of heart?"

Blake smiled earnestly at Taltos and waved her scroll.

"Aside from the fact that you're in a well-secured military base? The armory just got done inspecting your weapons, and they're not that great. The guns the soldiers carry around outperform it in just about every way. If you were a spy, you would've at least carried weapons capable of killing a soldier. Maybe, if you were well-briefed, you might have something to take down Yang."

"And how do you know I'm not?"

Blake glanced at me, her smile now more smug than kind.

"I think that's the kind of question she'd like to answer personally, don't you think Ruby?"

I shook my head as I thought of what the end result of somebody thinking they could take Yang always was. She'd even turned it into a fight club among the soldiers; five hundred lien for surviving a minute, two hundred for every minute more and, if they beat her, 'a night with the dragon'. It didn't take much to figure out what she meant by that. I found it a little creepy, but she knew what she was doing.

"Tell her we're coming over. Don't want to interrupt her halfway through training."

"I think Taltos would. I'll tell her anyway; she can get warmed up."

I nodded and walked towards the door, waving for Taltos to follow. He was in for a shock if he thought he could beat Yang.

We were halfway to the gym when Taltos spoke up. "So… Ruby, right?"

"That's my name."

"Blake said you were both 'Huntresses'. In terms of military, what are they?"

I turned around, keeping my pace up; anyone behind me would move out of the way anyway. "What's 'in terms of military'?"

"You know, in armies there's the regular grunts - your ground forces - there's the armored divisions - tanks and armored personnel carriers and their crews - and there's special forces - the people that do things that you can't trust the grunts to do. I gathered that you're not grunts, because I noticed the wide berth the uniformed guys give you. That leaves 'vehicle crews' and 'special forces'. I want to know which group you guys fall under."

I stopped as I thought about where my team fit in Vale's military. "I guess we're… yeah, I guess we're special forces."

I waved for him to walk with me as I turned back around. "Does Ukraine have creatures called Grimm?"

"Like the brothers?"

"Brothers?" I didn't know that Grimm had families. Maybe they did in Ukraine, or maybe it was just a name they gave them.

"Yeah, the fairytale guys. Wrote stories like 'Snow White', 'Cinderella', 'Little Red Riding Hood', 'Rapunzel'... you guys have stories like that here?"

"What are they about?"

"The four I mentioned? Girls struggling against an oppressive or abusive elder figure. Well, except Red; Red's fighting against nature. You've never heard of stories like that?"

"Red sounds like a Huntress. But yeah, we do have stories like that. Yang used to read them to me when I was little."

"The same Yang we're going to see now?"

"Yep."

"Is she a close friend or something?"

"She's my sister. She's… she's not like me, though."

"Not like you how? Not like you in that she's not dressed up as a fairytale character, or…"

That was a strange thing to say; 'dressed up as a fairytale character'. I wasn't, as far as I knew.

"What?"

"Yeah, you could pass for university-age Red Riding Hood. Flick the hood up, please?"

I was weirded out by the request, but it was harmless enough. I did as he asked and pulled the hood of my cloak over my head.

"...Holy shit. I'm walking with Grown-up Red Riding Hood. I've fallen into fucking fairy-tale land."

"It's a coincidence that I look like a person from a book in your world. I didn't style myself after her. How do you know she didn't style herself from me?"

It was a pathetic attempt to defend my choices in clothing, but it had to be said. I was not going to accept that the clothes I wore had anything in common with some story-book character without serious proof. Pathetic as my defense was, it still got him to take it kind of seriously.

"Unless you were walking around German forests about 400 years ago, I really doubt a fairy-tale character was based on you."

I flipped my hood back down as we got to the door to the gym.

"I might've been," I pulled the door open and waved for Taltos to enter ahead of me.

"But I think my sister's better for questions like that. Guests first."

A/N: Hey all!

I didn't expect this fic to take off as much as it did! It's kinda scary, because now I've got people paying attention. Not that that's bad; I know what I'm doing with this.

On that note, thank you to Challos for being my editor for this story, and see you all next week with the third chapter.