6: The Hunt Is On

Hours after the initial orders had been sent, the President's plane was still a flurry of activity. With the first parts of the plan in place, the focus turned to operational considerations and long-term plans. It was a bad situation and they'd only begun to solve it.

"What if people start asking questions?" the Secretary of State mentioned to the occupants of the conference room, now slightly less packed than it had been when the crisis had begun.

"You don't think they'll actually believe we have aliens on Earth, do you?" the Secretary of the Treasury asked. He'd only been briefed today, and had at best a tenuous grasp of the situation. Still, he was a smart man and was starting to understand the situation. "Nobody's that stupid. Or that smart."

"That's not what I'm worried about, Jack. What if people start asking questions about the competency of this government?"

"Then, sirs, we call it an exercise," the Air Force general suggested, walking in with a steaming hot mug of coffee in his hand. "I've read everything Gemstone gave me. My professional opinion is that we're in a bad way, after I got over how insane this all is."

"An exercise?" SecState asked. "Why didn't we just do that to begin with?"

"If I may be frank, Mister Secretary, because it did not occur to anyone in the room," he replied carefully. "But, then again, if I may be frank, nobody would take the situation seriously if it were an exercise anyway. It would likely be dismissed as nothing more than an absurd fantasy, planning for an impossible situation."

"So what do we do when we find them?" the President interrupted, walking in with the National Security Advisor in tow.

"Paul, did you take a look at what I gave you?" she asked the General, receiving a nod in reply. "What's your opinion?"

"If I may speak freely, it scares the shit out of me. We're not dealing with human targets so much as hard-skinned killing machines with the mobility of humans. Our best bet is a precision strike using Hellfire missiles from Reaper drones."

"A drone strike in Washington?" SecTreas interrupted. "General, are you out of your fucking mind?"

"If we were at war, our response to a threat of this magnitude would be to level the entire block," SecDef argued, glancing at the general and receiving a nod in reply.

"You can't be serious!" SecState objected.

"Think about the collateral damage!" SecTreas continued. "And what the hell are people going to think about a drone strike in our goddamn capital?"

"Sir, however much damage you think these people can do, I guarantee you that it's worse," the National Security Advisor interrupted, concurring with her superior. "The consequences of a limited strike within our own capital are minute compared to allowing these people to run free."

"Mister President-"

He held up his hand, silencing the room. "I want alternatives, ones more tolerable to the populace. Preferably humans in the loop."

"We can use manned Air Force assets to carry out the same mission," the General suggested. "The Air National Guard might be preferable for political and legal reasons. I believe both the DC and Maryland ANG have the appropriate equipment."

"Why can't the Army handle it?" the Secretary of the Treasury asked. "Send in the soldiers, take them down up close and personal. I'm sure it's nothing they can't handle, and it'll reduce collateral damage."

The National Security Advisor hid her irritation at the clueless Secretary. "Sir, these people can punch through concrete walls without a scratch, cross buildings in a single bound, and toss vehicles aside like wet paper. Nothing short of anti-tank weapons is going to touch them. A missile strike is the option that minimized collateral damage."

"I take it a diplomatic solution is not an option?" SecState asked, though his tone signalled he already knew the answer.

"Unless everything we know about them is wrong- which is possible- not with these people. These are not state actors, they are dangerous terrorists and criminals with an unknown but almost certainly malicious intent."

"Well, we do have our visitors-"

The Secretary of Defense cut off his Homeland counterpart. "If they can beat Cinder, if they're willing to help us, if we can get them in the right place at the right time. And if they fail, we end up with eight dead alien kids."

This was something SecState understood. He shook his head. "It's untenable politically. We can't let them fight our fight."

"Our fight? It's their fucking fight to begin with!"

"They fuck up Washington, it's our fight."

The President held up a hand, silently pondering before making his decision. "Okay, I want to activate the Air National Guard, have them carry out the mission if necessary. Are they willing to do it, General?"

"They won't like dropping bombs on DC, but once we tell them, they'll do it," he acknowledged. "With that being said, sir, I recommend we call it a readiness exercise for now, and brief the pilots when it is necessary to do so."

"If this really happens, that's going to be the least of our concerns," SecDef muttered.

"What if they don't show up?" SecTreas objected. "I feel like we're on the brink of nuclear war. We can't stay at this level forever."

She answered, "I recommend degrading to Yellow Ruin, keeping a heightened state of alert and ensuring the designated survivors are always separated from Washington."

SecDef didn't have much more to say. "I agree with Susan."

The Presdent nodded. "We'll wait a while longer. In the meantime, I want to start thinking about what we're going to do if this does blow up. We're going to have to explain why there was a battle in the heart of our nation. I want more intelligence from our visitors and contingency plans for every eventuality. Get to it."

"Well, the President's been evacuated and our military commanders are drawing up plans to deal with your terrorists," Michael O'Reilly assured the dimensionally displaced teenagers in his care. To say it had been one hell of a day would be an understatement. "I doubt they have a perfect plan- we couldn't come up with one when we tried."

"You've been planning for this?"

His response was careful. "We've been preparing for this possibility."

"You mentioned that we were not the first ones here," Ren reminded. "That you had an explanation for why we were recognized as fictional characters."

"I suppose I'm going to have to explain this sooner or later," O'Reilly admitted. "Might as well get it done and over with. Okay, this is going to sound insane, so just bear with me."

"Okay."

"Let's start at the beginning. You're from an animated show. That is, the world where you come from exists in fiction here," he began. "The weird part is-"

"Does that mean we're not real-"

"No." He shook his head. Best to nip that one in the bud, even if the real answer was a lot more deeply philosophical than his own. "Our scientific understanding is that everything that could possibly be- including all of our fiction-exists in some parallel universe. Somehow, you've travelled from one of those realities to our own."

"That sounds like a future fiction comic," Jaune commented.

"We call it science fiction, and it does, but you're living proof that it's real," he concurred. "You said you didn't know what that machine did, right?"

"Sorry, I have no idea."

"Well, we can speculate later. Anyway, as I said earlier, you're not the first ones to arrive." He pulled out his phone, found the picture he was looking for, and showed it to them. "Recognize them?"

"That's Team RWBY!" Nora exclaimed immediately. "They're alive?"

"Alive and well," O'Reilly confirmed. "They started arriving about ten months ago. Ruby was the first to show up, followed by Weiss two weeks later, then Blake, then Yang. What's got us confused is that they showed up one by one all over the world and you showed up all at once in the same place."

"Well, maybe they didn't arrive the same way," Nora postulated. "Did you ask them?"

"We did. None of them remember how they got here or the events leading up to it- another difference."

"So, what do we do now?" Jaune asked.

"Now?" O'Reilly sighed. "We wait."

The mid-sized business jet sat on the tarmac, three engines slowly turning as its passengers climbed aboard. The exterior was relatively nondescript, with a thick red and narrow blue stripe and no identifying markings. Anyone who looked into its registration would find it belonged to a small avaition holdings company and was on lease to a charter company that provided service to familiar but forgettable clients. In fact, the jet was owned by the United States government, operated by the CIA, and semi-permanently attached to Gemstone.

"I'm so excited!" Ruby Rose gushed as she plunked herself down into a big, comfy seat near the front of the aircraft. She tossed her bag, containing Crescent Rose and her combat outfit among other things, carelessly into the aisle beside her. "JNPR is actually here! It's gonna be so great to see our friends again after so long!"

"I hope that moron is smarter than when we left," Weiss grumbled, her mind instantly wandering into the blonde idiot in charge of the other team.

"Maybe he's hooked up with Pyrrha finally," Yang proposed, strapping herself in. "I mean, he can't be that oblivious, can he?"

"Oh yes he can," Weiss muttered.

Ruby turned to their raven-haired teammate, who had been silent up to that point. "You haven't said anything since we left, Blake."

"I'm just worried," the cat faunus admitted. She fidgeted in her seat. "I mean, I know they said we weren't going to there to fight Cinder, but what if that is what they want us to do? Or what if it's Cinder and her friends that don't give us the choice?"

"Then we'll kick her ass!" Yang exclaimed.

Her partner stared straight at her. "Will we, Yang? Those people are above our level. On top of that, we haven't trained, really trained, since we left Remnant."

"Yeah, but we'll have our friends from Earth behind us, right?" Yang suggested hollowly.

"I really hope Cinder isn't here," Ruby said quietly.

They were silent as the jet began speeding down the runway, floating into the air atop slender raked wings toward its destination on the other side of the continent.

The so-called fusion centers, operated by the Department of Homeland Security, were controversial even within an agency that attracted controversy from its outset. Created to be "primary focal points within the state and local environment for the receipt, analysis, gathering, and sharing of threat-related information", the fusion centers were often dismissed as a waste of money that violated personal freedoms while doing absolutely nothing useful and certainly not accomplishing their actual mission.

Today, the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center was abuzz with activity, largely focused on a task it was created to perform. As soon as word had come from above, the widely varied personnel working the center began the process of tracking down and evaluating the new threat.

The whole situation struck senior analyst William Yates as very odd. An unknown terrorist group dressed up as anime characters? In Washington without any sort of warning? It was also timed rather nicely to match up with a strategic exercise that took the President and his staff out of the city. Could there be something very odd, very sinister going on?

He came to exactly the conclusion Gemstone hoped he would.

"Think it's an exercise?" he asked his boss. She shrugged and he went back to his work, treating a fiction as if it were real.

Supervisory Special Agent Michael O'Reilly reflected silently as he led his charges toward an apartment building in the heart of DC. Despite being dimensionally displaced not-quite-humans from a completely different world, Team RWBY acted a lot like normal teenagers. How much of that was universal, and how much of that was from the year they had spent on Earth? Unlike some other members of Gemstone, he'd spent most of his time in DC and hadn't interacted much with the girls.

"I can't believe we finally get to see JNPR again!" Ruby gushed.

"Calm down, Ruby," Weiss chided. "You're making a scene."

Yang rubbed her eyes tiredly. "What's it called? Jet lag? I think I have that."

"I think you stayed up too late last night," Blake told her partner as they slowly ascended the staircase.

"We now think that Cinder isn't here," O'Reilly told the girls. "They could show up any minute, but we think that's unlikely. We're going to keep on the lookout but pretty soon we'll move to a lower state of readiness."

"So it's safe here?" Ruby asked after pondering what he'd said for a moment.

"For the time being. The bottom line is, don't worry about it." He unlocked the door to the apartment and gently pulled it open. "I'll let you get acquainted again. You have my number if you need me."

With that, he left the four girls to meet their long-lost friends from home.

It had been one thing for JNPR to hear that their friends weren't dead, just transported to this weird world that they were apparently stuck on. It was another completely to actually see them again. They'd tempered their grief with a slim hope for months and now they were standing right in front of them.

For RWBY, it was just as profound, but much different. Seeing their friends again brought home that Remnant really was somewhere out there, that maybe there was a way back, and that they weren't alone anymore.

Before anyone could say anything, Ruby bolted forward and wrapped the two closest members of JNPR- Jaune and Pyrrha- in a bone-crushing hug. "You're heeeeeeeeeere!"

"It's good to see you too, Ruby," Pyrrha replied happily.

Jaune managed something between a gasp and a groan.

"I knew you weren't dead!" Nora shouted, rushing toward the other half of RWBY. Blake managed to get out of the way, and the pink girl crashed straight into Yang's chest, nearly knocking her over.

Blake exchanged a glance with Weiss, who simply shrugged in response.

"Well, this is weird," Jaune remarked after Ruby let him go. He glanced briefly at Weiss.

She immediately noticed and frowned. "Don't bother. I'm with Blake now."

"You're dating?" Pyrrha asked, shocked. It wasn't that they wouldn't be a cute couple- she just couldn't see it working.

"How did that happen?" Jaune asked.

"I'm still fuzzy about how it happened," Blake replied. "But yes, we're together."

Jaune opened his mouth to reply, but didn't get a chance to finish.

"What about you two?" Nora asked. "Did you find weird alien boyfriends?"

"Yep!" Yang answered. "And so did my little sis!"

"Yang!"

"What? It's not a secret or anything."

Ruby rolled her eyes. Eager to change the subject, she asked, "So... what happened when we were gone?"

Jaune answered casually, "Oh, we just chased down some White Fang terrorists all the way to this base outside Atlas, with the help of your-" he pointed at Weiss "-sister. Lots of fighting, lots of explosions, and we thought we were going to die and a bunch of people did die in a White Fang attack. Yeah..."

"Whoa, back up," Yang interrupted. "How did that happen?"

"It began in Vale, when we noticed something odd happening at a bookstore Blake used to frequent- I believe it was called Tukson's. When we investigated, he was mortally wounded, but gave us an address and told us to find you." Pyrrha pointed to Blake.

"But you were already, well, you know," Nora added.

Jaune took over. "Yeah, then we infiltrated some super secret White Fang meeting, me and Pyrrha tried shook up one of Yang's friends, Pyrrha stole a car, there was a big chase and we dropped a highway on a robot."

Pyrrha smacked her boyfriend lightly. "I didn't steal it, I borrowed it."

"That sounds awesome!" Ruby reacted.

"That sounds horrible!" Weiss reacted at exactly the same time.

"When we got our mission, we chose Mountain Glenn, where we heard the White Fang would be," Pyrrha continued. "They had a train and used it to break into the city. We tried to stop it, but..."

"We couldn't do it," Jaune said quietly. "It was... yeah, it was pretty bad."

The room was silent.

Attempting to steer the conversation away from the subject, Weiss asked. "You said it involved my sister? How is she?"

"Rich," Nora answered uselessly. "I think there's a lot of pressure on her, and she was really serious about avenging you, but she's doing okay."

"What happened? What happened?" Ruby asked excitedly. "I mean, the big bad guy lair and stuff."

"Winter said she needed our help breaking down some big conspiracy," Jaune answered. "So we flew up to Atlas, confronted all the bad guys- Torchwick, Cinder, and their minions- at some kind of breeding facility, and then I stuck Crocea Mors in some kind of reactor thing and now we're here."

"So things ended pretty much the same," Blake sighed. "I mean, what happened doesn't sound any better than what should have happened."

"Should have?" Nora asked.

"You believe that because we exist as fiction, the future is predestined," Ren surmised. "Yet from what we have heard this is already different from what was supposedly meant to be."

"Maybe," Blake dodged. "I guess I was just hoping you'd bring better news."

"Things don't always go the way we hope, Blake," Ruby said.

"Hey, we still stopped the bad guys, right?" Jaune reminded them. "Or, you know, at least blew up their base and set them back a bunch."

"I guess."

"Come on, quit being so dark," Yang said, trying to bring the mood in the room up. "We're here now, and this planet isn't all bad."

"I can't believe you're here," Jaune said quietly, still taking it in. "How did you end up here? I mean, we saw the video, but it didn't really explain much."

"What video?" Ruby asked. "Huh, I guess we made that in the time we don't remember."

"How much do you don't remember?" Nora asked. "How did you end up here?"

Yang smirked. "Now that is quite the story."

"It's been two days," the President said tiredly, entering the conference room for what seemed like the thousandth time. His Presidency had been a tense one with many dangerous situations, but the current one was near the top of the list. "This plane has to land soon and a lot of people are getting really antsy. Why haven't we found our terrorists yet?"

"Maybe they aren't fucking here," the Secretary of State muttered, straightening in his uncomfortable chair.

"That is a possibility, sir," the National Security Advisor admitted. "Although our source believed that the terrorists were coming through, they might not have come through. It may be more like RWBY's situation. We might have to wait a while."

"I know," the Secretary growled. "You told us that two days ago!"

She kept her voice level, though a slight edge showed through. "By a while, sir, I mean it could be weeks, months, even a year. And it may not be here. It could be on the other side of the world."

"Can we focus on the question at hand, please?" the President interrupted. "Susan, how likely is it that we've missed them?"

"Not very likely, Mister President," she replied. "These are in effect aliens on a completely foreign planet. If they tried anything, we would know about it right away. Otherwise, they're very distinctive and with this kind of search we would have spotted them."

"Even if they weren't aliens, we would have found them, or at least known they were here," the Secretary of Homeland Security added. "We have the most effective network in the world."

"So most likely they're not here, and if they are, they're hiding so well we're not going to find them," the President acknowledged. "Either way, we have to do the same thing, do we not?" He looked at the Secretary of Defense. "Chuck?"

He nodded. "Yes, sir. We can lower our readiness posture; move the Vice President and Deputy Secretary of Defense and keep some of our assets on standby. And we continue the search. In fact, we may have to expand it."

"This is nuts," the Secretary of State commented suddenly. "I mean, we're running a strategic exercise and a terrorism exercise, boom, just like that, totally unannounced. The people are freaked out, the Russians are freaked out, hell, I'm freaked out."

"It's been a very stressful few days," the President agreed. "With that said, I think we have overestimated the threat. I'd rather overestimate than underestimate, but we weren't prepared. I want a better plan next time, and I want to seriously look at whether the secrecy aspect is worth the risk. And if it's at all possible, I want a way of knowing this is going to happen before it does. I also need a good story to feed to everyone."

There was a chorus of acknowledgement from the men and women in the room.

"But for now, let's get this plane on the ground. The strategic exercise is over. Now we have one hell of a waiting game to look forward to."

I know the updates are too slow to satisfy a lot of you, especially considering the relatively short length of each chapter. All I can say is deal with it. I'm a full-time post-secondary student with an industry project, I'm developing three video games, and I'm writing two other fanfics, one of which alternates updates with this one. I know that it's frustrating, but this is the best I can do and I apologize for it.

The format of this chapter may be a little weird. This is one case where the new format turned out to be more of a curse than a blessing. I think the pacing is also a bit messed up. I thought I didn't have enough content for six chapters, but I probably did if it was arranged better.

The big challenge I had was to depict the passage of time without explicit or flow-breaking timeskips. I think it could have been done better.

I know it's a bit rough overall, but I wanted to wrap this arc up before the end of the month. After this, you can expect an interlude or two, then Part 2: The Intruders some time in November.

knight7572: I guess not. Could you clarify, please?

GreatWyrmGold: It's not unreasonable for younger Weiss to be the heiress over older Winter if there was some circumstance that made the latter unsuitable. However, she seems to be working at the company, which wouldn't make a lot of sense for most of the scenarios I can think of.

5 Coloured Walker: You have to pay extra for that.

The Zombineer: JNPR is lucky, but the circumstances of their departure have something to do with where they ended up. I see what you mean about Winter, and it has occurred to me as well. The second act of Convergence will likely have an answer.

Tatopatato: Rose will factor into the story, though I'm not ready to reveal when or where.

dark habit: Are you referring to the Secretary of State? While informed about the situation, it's not really in SecState's purview, so his knowledge of it is somewhat tenuous. Gemstone as a whole is fairly well-informed, but not everyone cleared for that knowledge is.

Inquisitor of: While Earth is tantalizing because of the lack of Grimm, it's not an easy target for an invasion. If the circumstances aren't completely awful, we will make absolutely sure that they know that. As for RWBY, Remnant is still home, but it's hard to forget the year they spent on Earth.

COD532: They've already planned for this possibility. Protocols are in place for containment, interrogation, and enhanced interrogation. Whether they are practical or not is another story.

goverstreeetboy: Could you repeat that in a readable format?

CalligoMiles: The current state of railgun technology has produced weapons small enough to fit on a large destroyer. I think a KS-23 is more Yang's style, though my favorite mental image is still Nora with a Mark 19.

Yoshtar: Gemstone has had contact with RT since the beginning in one form or another. They can ask what the big master plan is, but they're going to quickly find out that the timelines have already diverged and not a lot actually matches up. As for your final questions, they will be answered by the end of Convergence.

Unkown: I should expand that to how both sides present themselves to the other will determine the initial state of faunus-Terran relationships. If Terrans manage to make a positive impression, that's a good thing, but we may end up alienating human Remnans, especially the more, erm, conservative ones. Similarly, pursuing relationships with Earth or even trying to make a positive impression may alienate more radical faunus.

fallout24: I'm now thinking the spinoff is almost a sure thing, mostly because I have no idea how to approach the second interquel. I do, however, know exactly what I want to do with the spinoff so that should give me some time to think about where to take the main story.

Guest: I actually don't have an opinion on that. I deliberately wrote the fic to leave it open, but I haven't really thought about it past that.

mastermind: There are no plans for the currently revealed Volume 3 characters in Convergence. Cinder and company will have their reasons for doing or not doing what they do, which will be revealed in time. I really disagree with the notion that Grimm are not the massive threat they are implied to be. In Emergence, I've written them as existential threats that have shaped Remnan society since its inception. If that becomes a point of divergence, so be it. Finally, I don't plan on giving a concrete explanation, but speculation and conflict over it will be a plot point at some time.

Guest: I have no plans to do this, sorry. Usually Spacebattles gets the fic first, so I haven't actually written the responses when it goes up there.

SIR MAV ALOT: Fundamentally, the strength of Terrans is in the collective- teams, institutions, civilizations- even more so than it is for Remnants. Taking a pure combat example, a Hunter or experience commando from Remnant is an order of magnitude or two more powerful than any soldier on Earth. However, we can deliver a bunker-busting weapon in a three-metre circle anywhere on the planet within forty-eight hours. To a lesser extent I'd say that another strength of Terrans is in our machines; devices to get the job done when we simply cannot. As for mixing, it's already happened, and it's proven viable. You're probably going to hate Emergence Next.

Mr Fizz: I'm not really into superheroes, so those reference points mean little to me. I can say that hybrids will be stronger than Terrans but weaker than Remnans from a purely physical standpoint, and that they will have an unlockable Aura.

sci-fiman127: Missionaries would likely be among the first to travel between worlds, from both sides. However, I see radical ideologies such as extreme Marxism-Leninism, faunus nationalism, and anarchism being more attractive than pure religious extremism.

COD532: Terrans are defenseless individually, but that doesn't mean we lack any sort of effective weapons. That treatment of hybrids is overly harsh, especially if their circumstances would make them effectively Terran in all but biology. In some countries, it would also be unconstitutional- even a full Remnan with two Remnan parents born in the United States would qualify for citizenship unless they were both diplomats.

Queenfan27: Probably. Most of them think that the Nazis are horrible and don't really go past that, but Blake thinks deeper about it, afraid of both sides edging further into extremism.

GoldBurn: They do have some options besides the lethal one, though none are really sure. I have made mention of the possibility of several mythological and historical figures actually being Remnan. Unfortunately, I haven't really had the chance to bring it up in the story yet. Are there more Remnans on Earth? Maybe.

EliteSlayer103: Not as badly as you might think. Anti-tank weapons are designed to hit fast-moving targets, and they've had time to develop tactics to use against Remnans. The biggest problem is not taking down a Remnan but doing so without causing unacceptable collateral damage.

fallout24: It's on a 2-3 week release cycle. Updates may be as rapid as once a week or as slow as once a month.

revolversolid4: It's possible, but there are no plans to make this a multi-crossover. I'm focusing on Earth and Remnant, with other possibilities saved for a possible far-future fic.

Americayeah: I've actually asked if anyone would be interested in doing fanart to no avail. It's a bit disappointing, but I guess this fic just doesn't attract artists.

If you ask a question in a review that you want answered in a timely fashion, please register/log in and do not post as a guest. A few people asked me when the next chapter would come out in guest reviews. Unfortunately, I have no way to reply to an anonymous user so I can't really answer that until the next chapter, by which time the answer is obvious. So if you have a question, please do not review anonymously.