*Some business before we start:

-I'm shipping pretty hard in this one. I hope that doesn't bother you. I just couldn't resist putting on my captain's hat.

-This is the Volume 2 finale. There will be a Volume 3 but...

-This bit is personal. If you don't care, go ahead and skip it. Anyway... I started writing FanFiction in January as a way to keep writing while I took a break from writing my novel. I was burned out but I didn't want to waste my momentum. Somehow, that little diversion ended up taking over for almost nine months. I never thought I would have so much fun here. Unfortunately, it hasn't always been fun. Aside from dealing with some people who have made this difficult, the fact that I set myself a tight schedule for releasing chapters made writing occasionally nerve-wracking. Now I'm burned out here. I'll be back but I'm taking some time off to work on my novel. It might be months or I might be back in two weeks. Who knows? I don't. I want to thank everyone who took the time to read my little stories and particularly those who reviewed them. Watching the readership numbers go up and reading your kind words means a lot. I hope you enjoyed the adventure as much as I did. See you later...

Chapter 36

Yosuke got out of bed and immediately took a shower. He had a busy day ahead and there was no time to waste. He opened the refrigerator in hopes of finding something for breakfast. He found some leftover fried rice and decided it would do. He ate as he walked to Junes. He was finally the manager and he had to get there early. No matter how well he planned the day, Junes was always a place of chaos. There was always something that needed his attention but luckily he was good at thinking on his feet. The hours flew by as he handled one crisis after another until it was time for lunch. He could look forward to that one hour every day when he did not have to be on his toes. Still, he did not have the energy to go far. He grabbed something from the food court and took it to his office, locking the door behind him.

He had a personal matter to attend to. He picked up the phone and called Yu. After a few rings he answered, slower than usual. "Hey partner, sorry Saki and I couldn't make it to dinner last night." Yosuke said. "I got stuck at work. I really wish we could have made it to see everyone." Yu gave a reassuring reply. "Next time I guess. I should go, I'm on my lunch break." He was about to hang up when he remembered something. "Oh yeah, Teddie says hi." Yu said a few words on the subject. "He can be a little annoying but he's been a great guy from day one. Wait a minute. How did we even meet him?" Yu could not answer that. "I'm sure it'll come to me, but now it's bugging me. Great, it'll be all I can think of all day." Yu suggested he ask Teddie. "I don't want to offend the guy. He is kind of emotional." Yu promised to get back to him if he remembered. "Oh well, talk to you later I guess." Yosuke hung up.

Yosuke was unable to eat his lunch. He was hungry and knew the food was delicious, but he could not think about anything other than how he had met Teddie. How could he not remember how he met such a close friend and coworker? Was it at work? No, but Junes had something to do with it. He seemed to have flashes of memory but then they were gone. Maybe Saki would know. She would be working at her family's liquor store, but she should be able to talk for a bit, particularly since he was technically her boss. It had been Yosuke's idea. Konishi Liquors became the official liquor distributor for the Inaba Junes. Junes got a cut of the profits and Konishi Liquors got more business than ever before. Everybody was a winner.

"Oh hey, what's up?" Saki answered the phone.

"Do you have a minute?" Yosuke asked.

"Sure." Saki replied.

"Do you remember how we met Teddie?" Yosuke asked. "I was talking to Yu about it and it's been bugging me ever since."

"I don't know." Saki said. "I don't know him that well. I think you met him around the time we started dating."

"Sorry for bothering you." Yosuke said. "I'm sure you're busy so I'll let you get back to work."

"Okay, see you at home." Saki said just before hanging up.

Yosuke's concerns only grew. How did no one know the answer? He was part of the team! Wait, what team? Why were they a team? He could remember how he met Yu, Yukiko and Chie, but he drew a blank on the others. Now he was getting really worried. Was he losing his mind? They all worked together on something. Yeah, that had to be it. Was it a school thing? No, Teddie didn't even go to Yasogami. Wait, did Teddie even go to any school? That really did not make sense. Where was Teddie even from? It was like he was…

"Teddie's not human." Yosuke said to himself. "He's a…shadow. We met him in the TV world when Yu and I were investigating…Saki's murder." Yosuke buried his face in his hands and started to cry. "Oh shit. Saki's dead. She didn't even like me. This world isn't real. It must be a dream. I guess it's time to wake up." The world around him melted as the dream collapsed.

Yu woke up and was immediately confused. Why was he in a bed? He usually slept on a futon right? He looked to his right. The clock read 11:37. Surely that was late? He became aware that he was entirely naked beneath the covers. He usually wore pajamas to sleep. Then the blankets moved, but it was not him. He looked to his left. There was someone in the bed with him. In a moment of panic he flopped out of the bed and onto the floor, landing on an assortment of his clothes.

"What was that?" Naoto said as she woke up. She experienced a similar moment of confusion and panic and gripped the blanket tightly over herself. "What's going on?!" The panic faded a bit. "Yu, are you alright over there?"

"I'm fine." Yu said, still face down on the floor. "I just panicked when I woke up for some reason."

"Me too." Naoto said. "What the hell is wrong with us?"

"I don't know." Yu said as he stood.

Naoto averted her eyes. "Why don't you put some clothes on?" She suggested.

"It's nothing you haven't seen before." Yu said.

"Just do it." Naoto said.

"Alright." Yu slipped on his underwear. "I could say the same to you."

"I'm not the one standing stark naked." Naoto said. "So, why did you freak out?"

"I don't know." Yu said. "I was really confused, then I saw you there and panicked."

"I woke up entirely confused as well." Naoto said. "We've been together long enough that this shouldn't happen. What's our problem?"

"I was also a bit concerned that we slept almost until noon, but then I realized we're off today." Yu said. "Thankfully we're no working a case right now."

"Is it that late?!" Naoto asked.

"Yeah, so?" Yu asked.

"We're supposed to meet my parents for lunch at 1." Naoto replied.

"I guess we'll just have to hurry." Yu said. The phone rang and Yu hesitated, unsure if he should answer or start getting ready to go out.

"Just answer it." Naoto said. "I'll shower first."

Yu nodded and picked up the phone. It was Yosuke. "It happens." He said. "No problem." He waited for Yosuke to speak. "We'll just have to do it again soon." Yu was about to hang up when Yosuke said something about Teddie. "How are you two getting along?" Yosuke said something that completely threw Yu off. "I have no idea how we met him. I'm drawing a blank here." Yosuke seemed concerned about their collective lapse in memory. "Just ask Teddie." Yosuke refused because it might offend Teddie. "I'll call you back if I remember anything." Yosuke said a few parting words and hung up.

Yu sat down on the edge of the bed and thought about it. Added to the confusion he had experienced upon waking up, Yu was now very concerned about his mental state. His memory seemed to be failing him badly. He started to work through it in his head. He could remember almost every interaction he had ever had with Teddie, but not how they had met. He was suddenly interrupted as the phone rang again.

This time it was Rise. She wanted to ask Yu something. "Sure go ahead." He said and waited for her question. Apparently she had been offered a movie deal in the United States. It would be huge for her career but she was concerned. "Do whatever you think is best. Follow your dreams. If it makes you happy, I support you 100%." She thanked him and was about to hang up. "Hold on a second. Do you remember how we met Teddie?" She did not. "Yosuke asked me and neither of us could remember. It's weird. Thanks anyway, I'll let you go." She said goodbye and hung up.

Now Yu was very worried. No one seemed to know about Teddie. It was so strange. Naoto finished her shower. Walking out she noticed Yu's distress. "What's wrong?" She asked.

"Do you remember how we met Teddie?" Yu asked.

"I don't, why?" Naoto replied after a few moments.

"First Yosuke called and brought it up." Yu said. "He couldn't remember. Then Rise called and I asked her, and she couldn't remember. I can't remember and now you can't remember. Don't you think that's a little strange?"

"We can't remember everything." Naoto said.

"Maybe I can't but you can." Yu said. "It's pretty much your job. Surely something as important as the first time we met one of our friends would be easy to remember."

"You make a good point." Naoto said. She sat down beside Yu. "Let's work this out. You've known Teddie longer than I have. What's the first memory you have of him?"

"I remember talking to him in Junes." Yu answered. "He was wearing his bear suit."

"That's the same for me." Naoto said. "Maybe we met him there?"

"No, I knew him before he worked there." Yu said. "He's part of our group! We're such close friends, but I can't for the life of me remember how I met him."

"Do you remember how we met?" Naoto asked.

"Sure, you were investigating a case." Yu said. "I was…involved somehow. Wait a minute…what was the case?"

"It was…in Inaba." Naoto was perplexed. "I can't remember either."

"I remember our relationship started when I helped you uncover the Phantom Thief." Yu said. "It turned out your grandfather set it up because he wanted you to remember why you wanted to be a detective."

"I remember that." Naoto said. "Wait, why would my grandfather be the one who set that up? Why not my parents?"

"You were living in his mansion at the time." Yu said.

"That doesn't answer the question." Naoto said. "I remember I was feeling lonely and sad."

"You didn't really have friends before we met." Yu added.

"I also…missed my parents." Naoto suddenly remembered.

"Why would you miss them?" Yu asked. "It's not like…I remember now. They died."

"But we're having lunch with them in an hour." Naoto said with alarm. "This doesn't make any sense."

"It's coming back to me." Yu said. "We were investigating kidnappings and murders while fighting shadows. Teddie's a shadow. Wait, we didn't just stop fighting shadows after that case either, did we?"

"No, we even went to a parallel universe to do it." Naoto said. "Then Team RWBY came from there to help us…"

"Fight Hypnos." Yu finished for her. "He must have trapped us in a dream. This is a dream!"

"It all makes sense now." Naoto said. "It explains our earlier confusion as well."

"I guess all that's left is to wake up." Yu said.

"Yeah, let's wake up." Naoto said. "I'll take the truth over fantasy any day. Even if this fantasy is pretty great."

"I can agree with you there." Yu said. The world around them melted as the dream collapsed.

Almost at once the group began waking up. The exception was Ruby. Yang made her way over to Ruby's bedside. "What's wrong with her?" Yang asked the doctors.

"I don't know." One of the doctor's said. "She's sleeping just like the rest of you, but she is significantly more badly injured."

"How bad is it?" Yang asked.

"Well, we managed to remove the metal fragments and the good news is they don't seem to have done any permanent damage." The doctor explained. "The bad news is she did lose a dangerous volume of blood. Until we perform more tests we can't rule out the possibility that she has suffered some neurological damage due to lack of oxygen."

"We need to wake her up now." Yang declared. She started for the television but Labrys blocked her path.

"There's nothin' we can do." Labrys said. "I was in there. There's no access to any of your dream worlds."

"The only way out is for her to do it on her own, like we did." Blake said. "Believe in her."

Ruby awoke in a state of confusion. She did not know where she was. She was about to panic but as she looked around her mind cleared and she began to remember. She was at home on Patch, in her bed. It was strange that she would not recognize it. Her face hurt for some reason. Maybe she had hit her head in her sleep. That would explain it.

Ruby stumbled out of bed and made her way to the kitchen. She sat down at the table. "Good morning mom." She said.

Summer was cooking something and had not noticed Ruby's arrived. "Oh, I didn't see you there." She said. "How did you sleep?"

"Not great." Ruby replied. "I think I hit my head or something. I don't feel very rested either."

"I think this will make you feel better." Summer said as she opened the oven. She extracted a tray of chocolate chip cookies. "Looks like perfect timing. Just give them a few minutes to cool."

"Thanks mom." Ruby said. "So where's Yang?"

"She's at Beacon, don't you remember?" Summer replied. "She doesn't get to come home on her days off like you do."

"I wonder if she likes it there." Ruby said. "Hopefully one day I'll go too."

"I'm sure you'll get in." Summer said. "You're going great at Signal and our family has a history there. Your uncle Qrow and the headmaster are close friends you know. Just be sure it's what you really want to do."

"What do you mean?" Ruby asked.

"Being a Huntress won't be easy." Summer answered. "It's dangerous and you'll face many hardships. You won't get to spend much time with your family and friends either, just your teammates really. It's not for everyone."

Ruby started eating the cookies. She should probably have waited a few more minutes but she could bear it no longer. "You still get to spend time with me." Ruby said with her mouth full.

"Well I'm retired." Summer explained. "When I was still active it was mission after mission. I barely had time to rest, let alone have any fun."

"But you tell such fun stories." Ruby said.

"There were some great times to be sure, but it wasn't always enjoyable or exciting." Summer said. "There was a lot of pain and boredom mixed in there too. That just doesn't make for good stories, so I don't talk about it. It can be very lonely. You would hardly have any time to see me at all."

"That would be hard." Ruby admitted. "It's hard to imagine life without you helping me along." Ruby thought about it and suffered a sharp pain in her head. "Ow!" She cried. She closed her eyes and held her head until the pain started to fade.

"Are you alright?" Summer asked. "What's wrong?"

"It's just a headache." Ruby said. Her voice was strained.

"Maybe you should lie down." Summer suggested.

"I think you're right." Ruby said. She grabbed one last cookie and headed back to her room. She flopped down on her bed, looking at the ceiling.

The pain was almost gone now. What had brought that on? Ruby was just thinking about life without her mother. The pain returned, stronger this time. Why? Why did it hurt when she thought about that? No matter. She decided to think about something else. She wondered how Yang was doing. They had been on some crazy adventures together. Wait a minute. Ruby seemed to remember that they had been a team. Pain shot through her skull. What was this? Back to her thoughts. How could Yang have been on a team with her? Ruby was too young and Signal did not assign them anyway. She would have had to go to Beacon with Yang for that. Another sharp pain. Something was clearly very wrong but Ruby could not tell if it was physical or psychological.

Summer walked into the room. "You said you were feeling tired so I made you some coffee." Summer said, handing the mug to Ruby.

"Thanks." Ruby said. "At least you didn't have to climb up like Weiss."

"Who's Weiss?" Summer asked.

"Weiss is…" Ruby started before the pain in her head returned with a vengeance. She dropped the coffee mug. It fell to the floor and coffee splashed onto the wall and carpet.

"Oh my, are you okay?!" Summer exclaimed.

"Why does my head hurt whenever I try to remember?!" Ruby shouted.

"What are you even trying to remember?" Summer asked.

A series of images surged through Ruby's head, accompanied by shooting pains. Beacon, Weiss, Blake, fighting in the forest, Torchwick, shadows, and…her mother's grave. "This world isn't real!" Ruby screamed in panic. "I go to Beacon, I'm on Yang's team, Weiss and Blake are my teammates and…you're dead."

"I'm calling a doctor." Summer said as she rushed out of the room.

"This world isn't real." Ruby cried. "I want it to be real but it isn't. I…I have to wake up." The world around her melted as the dream collapsed.

Ruby woke up. "What happened?" She asked.

"Ruby!" Yang exclaimed. "Thank goodness you're awake!" She hugged Ruby tightly. Too tightly for Ruby's liking.

"Yang…please…can't breathe…" Ruby gasped as she tried to squirm free. Finally Yang relented.

"We were all really worried about you." Yu said. "Hypnos trapped us all in dreams, but we woke up hours ago."

"That's what happened to me too." Ruby said. "Mom was alive…" She trailed off, too emotional to say anything more about it. "What were your dreams like?"

"The three of us were in the same dream." Yang said, pointing to her teammates. "Weiss was team leader, Faunus had equal rights to make Blake happy, and my mom never left. The problem was you weren't there. How could we ever be happy in a world without you?"

"Could we have been in the same dream?" Yosuke asked. "I talked to Yu in mine."

"I talked to him in my dream too." Rise said. "I was the number one idol in Japan."

"I was running the local Junes and Saki was still alive in mine." Yosuke said.

"I talked to Yu as well." Naoto said. She was not willing to divulge the whole truth. "My parents were still alive."

"I'm pretty sure we were all in the same dream." Yu said. "I was with…"

Naoto elbowed Yu in the gut. "Yes, we must have all shared that dream world." Naoto said staring daggers at Yu.

Yu knew what Naoto was getting at. He needed to be discreet or she would kill him. "My dream wasn't too different from real life." Yu said, sticking to the vaguest of descriptions.

"Well you do have a pretty awesome life." Yosuke said.

"We kind of all do." Rise said. "Maybe that's why the dreams couldn't hold us."

"There weren't shadows either." Blake added. "I wonder why Hypnos did not resist us."

"Speaking of which, how did Aigis escape her dream?" Weiss asked.

"Makoto, a different one from Hypnos, showed up and destroyed Hypnos." Aigis explained. "The dream then fell apart."

"Makoto was there?" Mitsuru asked. "Could it have really been him?" She wanted him to be alive just as desperately as the others did. Any sign that he was still out there in some form was something they could cling to.

"I do not think so." Aigis said. "I suspect his appearance was the result of genetic material burned onto my Papillion Heart when he made physical contact with it. That could also explain how I inherited his powers."

"He touched your heart?" Labrys asked. "Were you that badly damaged in combat? Our hearts are normally only accessed under extreme circumstances in carefully controlled laboratory conditions."

"No, I was not injured." Aigis replied. "I instructed him on how to do so and he touched my Papillion Heart at my request. In the process, some of his skin cells were permanently burned into it."

"So he touched your secret place and left behind genetic material?" Yosuke said. "That sounds a lot like sex."

"I am aware of the symbolism." Aigis said. "Given the limitations imposed by my physical form, it was the most intimate thing we could have done."

"I can think of a few other things you…" Yosuke started. Yu smacked him in the back of the head. "Sorry, I'll shut up."

"So, anyway, do you think Hypnos has been destroyed?" Rise asked.

"I do not know." Aigis said. "If he is a god as he claimed, it would be foolish to assume he is gone for good. However, I do not think we have much to fear from him in the short term. He has been defeated."

"So it's all over?" Ruby asked. "I'm a little disappointed that we weren't the ones to take him down."

"I'm just happy you're okay." Yang said. "The important thing is that now everyone is safe."

"I guess that means it's time for you guys to go home." Yu said.

"It's time for all of us to go home." Naoto said. "Rise's show is tomorrow and then we fly back to Japan."

"Even though we always seem to spend all our time together fighting shadows, I had a lot of fun." Ruby said. "It's a shame we have to leave."

"But leave you must." Margaret said. Somehow the group had not noticed the glowing blue door on the other side of the room. "Gather your things. It is time to go."

"Hold on, I have an idea." Rise said. "Before you go, why don't you all come to my show tomorrow? I mean, we're all here already. Margaret, you can come too if you want."

Margaret thought for a moment. "I feel my sister would get more enjoyment out of it, but it could be interesting." She said. "Alright, you can stay for one more day."

End Volume 2