5: Clear and Present Danger

The National Security Advisor took a deep breath before opening the door and returning to the meeting room. Some of the most powerful men and women in the world stared back at her. It was intimidating, but she was used to it. Dealing with these people and trying to make them understand critical issues was her job.

She addressed two of them in particular. "Mister President, Mister Secretary, Orange Ruin."

That immediately silenced the room. The Secretary of Defense was the first to speak. "What kind of threat?"

She hesitated, unsure of who in the room was actually cleared for Gemstone.

The President resolved her conflict. "Go on. Everyone here is either cleared or will be."

"There's a possibility that Cinder Fall and other members of her faction are in DC," the National Security Advisor stated. "Team JNPR came through some time this morning. We haven't been able to fully debrief them yet, but they went to the police to warn us of this terror threat."

SecDef stood immediately, realizing the gravity of the situation. "Mister President, they could strike at the heart of our nation and cripple us from the top. We have to make sure that doesn't happen."

"Do you think that's what they're going to do?" the President asked. "Attack us without provocation?"

"I don't know enough about them to make that call," he replied honestly. "Susan?"

"It's a possibility," the National Security Advisor stated. "Cinder Fall is an anarchist and possibly mentally unstable and may carry out an attack on her own. Or she may have been sent through with a mission against us."

"Fucking perfect. We can't risk it," he replied. "You don't want to be wrong about this, sir. I recommend we move to the National Airborne Operations Center immediately."

"Are you saying a few terrorists are at the level of a nuclear war?" SecTreas interrupted. Unlike many of the others, he had no knowledge of Gemstone.

"It could be, sir," the National Security Advisor countered. "Additionally, we don't know who's really coming in behind them."

"Is this an invasion or an attack?"

"Could be both, could be neither."

One of the other Secretaries interrupted, "Great, we don't even know what the fuck is happening! Are you telling me this could be nothing or the end of the world?"

Her response was dry. "Unfortunately."

The President took a moment to consider his options. The entire situation was absurd, but he had to take it seriously. It was real, and the continued existence of his nation could be on the line. "Okay. Operational plan is the same as a strategic exercise." He paused. "That's what we'll call this. A strategic readiness exercise."

"The Russians aren't going to like that," SecState reminded him.

"The Russians will just have to deal with it. i'd rather not, but I'll fill Vlad in if it comes to it," the President replied, a Secret Service agent already escorting him out the door. "John, Chuck, Jeh, with me. Joe, can you hold down the fort?"

The Vice President nodded, continuing to follow the group. "I've got it."

"Good. Hopefully we'll be able to take care of this quickly and get everything back to normal." The President's optimism was shaky and he knew it. They had no idea what alien terrorists with soul magic could do in the American capital, nor what would happen next. Was it a random event, or were they the vanguard of an invasion?

"Jesus Christ, it's not gonna be Independence Day, is it?" one of the makeshift entourage asked. They were headed for the helicopter on the south lawn, a specialized Blackhawk variant known colloquially as the Whitehawk.

"God, I hope not," the President replied. He could already here the Whitehawk's engines spooling up outside. It would take them to Andrews Air Force Base, where they would board the so-called Doomsday Plane.

Needless to say, the President hoped it wouldn't come to that.

FBI agent Desmond Bresnahan was not-so-blissfully ignorant of the drama unfolding in the White House only a few miles away. He was frustrated, annoyed, and confused with his current assignment. In his charge were four teenagers that looked like comic book characters and claimed to be interdimensional travellers. His superiors at the FBI headquarters were telling him to treat them as witnesses and bring them to a secure location. They'd hinted that it had something to do with an intelligence operation, but of course refused to tell him more. And he had no idea how any of it fit together that didn't involve aliens.

"We're here," he announced to the passengers crammed into his government-provided car. He forced himself to remain professional, although there was an edge to his voice. "Follow me, please."

The safehouse was located on the edge of Georgetown, set back a fair distance from the Potomac River. It wasn't a literal safehouse, rather a block of secure apartments in the middle of a block. The location wasn't one he was familiar with, but he had received instructions on the way in. He punched in the code he had been given and the front door clicked open.

"Is this an apartment block?" the blonde-haired boy asked. Bresnahan noted that although the others had fancy-looking and fairly realistic outfits, the blonde's looked completely half-assed. The boy was wearing a hoodie, jeans, and sneakers with odd looking armour clasped over top.

"It is," he replied, voice neutral. He glanced at the sign in front of him before turning right, toward the staircase. "Second floor."

Another agent was waiting for them at the top of the stairs. Bresnahan didn't recognize him, but the ID in his hand and the fact he was waiting made his identity clear enough. He nodded at Bresnahan. "I'll take it from here. Thank you, Special Agent Bresnahan."

"Can you tell me what's going on?" he asked immediately as the teenagers shuffled awkwardly toward the other man.

The other agent smiled thinly. "I could, but then I'd have to kill you. You'll be told what you need to know. I know you don't like it, but-"

Bresnahan cut him off. "Yeah, I know. Don't ask questions." He turned to leave. "Good day, sir."

Michael O'Reilly let out a deep sigh as he watched Bresnahan disappear down the stairwell. Fishing in his pockets with one hand, he waved the confused teenagers forward toward one of the apartments with the other. "Come with me, please."

"This is weird," he heard one of the girls- probably Nora- whisper. In one smooth motion, he inserted his keycard into the lock and pulled it out. The lock snapped open, and he twisted the handle and opened the door.

The apartment itself was nothing special, opening into a small kitchen with dining area and slightly larger living room. A short hallway led to a few bedrooms and the sole bathroom. It wasn't a new apartment, but it was kept in good condition with nothing broken or out of place. Significantly, it was nearly spotless except for a thin layer of dust- barely lived in. Although he couldn't see it, he was sure there was additional security equipment and supplies that wouldn't be normal for an apartment.

JNPR strode into the apartment, standing awkwardly around. O'Reilly motioned them to the couch, closing the door behind him.

"What's going on?" the blonde-haired young man- O'Reilly already knew his name was Jaune Arc- asked.

"You're in an FBI safehouse," the agent answered. "Although if you are who you say you are, that won't mean anything to you."

"You believe us?" Jaune asked.

"Pyrrha, catch. Don't be afraid to use your Semblance." O'Reilly removed a pen from his pocket and tossed it parallel to the girl, too far for her to reach. He noticed her flick her wrist briefly before the pen arced in the air into her hand.

"Nobody else on this planet can do that. So for the time being, yes," he answered carefully. "Welcome to Earth. My name is Michael O'Reilly- call me Mike. I'm a Supervisory Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation- that's sort of our country's national police force."

"Your country is the United States of America?" Ren asked.

He nodded, taken off guard by their knowledge. Of course, it wouldn't be that hard to figure out. It was the capital, after all. "That's right. Now, I already have an idea, but I'd like to hear it from you. Who are you and where are you from?"

"I'm Jaune Arc," the blonde knight answered. He pointed to the members of his team. "That's my partner, Pyrrha Nikos. And that's Lie Ren and his partner, Nora Valkyrie. We're from a place called Remnant, which is another planet I guess."

"Team JNPR of Signal Academy?" O'Reilly knew that they were from Beacon, but if they weren't who they said they were, they might react differently to his deliberate error.

"Beacon Academy," Pyrrha corrected without missing a beat.

He nodded. "Of course."

Jaune was suspicious. "Supervisory Special- Mike, how do you know about us?"

Nora asked, "Are we really in some kind of animated show?"

"It's a very long story," he answered carefully. They had to have this discussion some time, but it needed to wait. Half-truths were his best friend. "But suffice it to say that you aren't the first ones from your world to come here. I'm actually attached to a special task force formed specifically to deal with this sort of thing."

The four members of Team JNPR shared a look. The FBI agent suspected they were thinking about the same people he was, but he couldn't afford to distract them right now. Dismissively, he told them, "I promise you we will explain everything to the best of our ability. But right now, we need to know what you know about Cinder Fall."

Jaune scratched the back of his neck. "Well, that's kind of a long story, too."

Air Force One was technically only a callsign referring to a USAF aircraft carrying the President. Usually, this was the VC-25, a specially modified Boeing 747-200B airliner. Modifications include additional communications equipment, an aerial refuelling receptacle, missile jamming equipment, and allegedly an escape pod. The interior layout was totally changed, incorporating a special cabin for the President, an office in the sky, and seating for the various government functionaries and press that followed the President.

The VC-25 was not the Doomsday Plane.

That nickname belonged to the E-4, also known semi-officially as Nightwatch. It was also a modified Boeing 747, but the similarities stopped there. The E-4 was designed to be a flying operations room in the sky from which the President and his staff could maintain command and control over the American armed forces in any situation, up to and including nuclear war.

Near the front of the aircraft was a conference room, currently occupied by the President, a smattering of Cabinet secretaries, the National Security Advisor, and a few senior military officers. Designed to seat nine people comfortably, the room was packed.

The staff aboard had begun their task of controlling the crisis before the huge aircraft had even taken off. The aircraft's communications equipment could relay messages sent through the Washington-Moscow hotline, which went active almost immediately. The Russians sent a boilerplate letter decrying American provocation, and the President sent a boilerplate letter of apology back. The back-and-forth seemed like an absurd throwback to the Cold War to everyone involved.

Soon, initial notes from JNPR's debriefing came from Gemstone. A communications technician printed the electronic message, made several copies with the photocopiers near the back of the plane, then silently distributed them to the officials who would make the decisions.

The Secretary of Defense immediately noticed an inconsistency. "So it's been a semester since RWBY disappeared, from their point of view. How long is a Remnan semester?"

The National Security Advisor had the answer. "Four or five months. Same as ours."

"It's been longer than that," he pointed out.

She worded her response carefully. "We do not know how this interdimensional travel works. It's possible that time doesn't flow at the same rate hear and there. Even the physicists only have theories. Note that RWBY left at once, but came through at even intervals and retained no memories of the event, but JNPR came through all in one go and do retains memories of the event."

"Which is another inconsistency. These teenagers are saying they chased terrorists across half a planet, then ended up here, by, and I quote, 'sticking my sword into some kind of Dust energy thing'," one of the top generals in the Air Force said skeptically. "Forgive me if I think it's a little hard to believe."

"Paul, the entire situation is hard to believe, but that's the reality we now live in," the President interrupted quietly, yet firmly. "Gemstone has confirmed that they are the real deal, and they have no reason to lie. They took a considerable risk trying to inform us of this threat. We must take it seriously. Now, how do we find them?"

"Well, if they really shoot fireballs and that sort of thing, they'll reveal themselves when they attack," SecState noted.

"Jesus Christ, John, that's exactly what we're trying to prevent!" SecDef snapped. "We need to find them first."

"What I'm saying is that they'll stand out in a crowd," he retorted, partially in an attempt to save face.

"But will anyone report it?" the Secretary of Homeland Security pointed out. "We need our own agencies watching."

"They're already watching," the National Security Advisor reminded him.

"Only at the highest levels," he countered. "We'll only know about it if it gets kicked upstairs. We had a terrorist threat this time, but if the bad guys are trying to stay hidden, we might not hear anything about them."

"Hiding on an alien planet?"

"You can get away with a lot without people noticing, even in DC." The Secretary of Defense turned to the President. "Sir, I agree with Johnson. If we want to find these people, we need to make it a real counterterror operation."

"What's our cover story for this?" the President asked.

The National Security Advisor paused, then shook her head. "We didn't think of this one, sir. Only an immediate attack or a quiet search."

"How could you miss that?"

"It was our assumption that an event big enough to require evacuating key parts of the government would not involve continued secrecy," She turned to her absolute superior. "You're not willing to go that far, are you, sir?"

"I'd prefer not to," the President replied. He exhaled slowly. "If it was a confirmed threat, I would have no hesitation. But they may never appear. Cinder Fall and her minions could have been sucked into a black hole for all we know." He looked up. "I need options, damn it."

"Well, why not just say they're some kind of anarchists disguising themselves as these characters," SecState suggested. "Just like those hackers with the V For Vendetta masks."

"You think it'll work?"

SecDef and SecHomeland shared a look. "That's your option, sir."

"Any other ideas?"

"Give up on secrecy or ignore a known threat," the General replied.

"Those aren't options. How do we do this?"

"Counterterror operation. We'll inform key members of local and federal law enforcement operating DC, as well as intelligence assets," the Secretary of Homeland Security immediately replied. "That also keeps it somewhat lower-key, we don't want to tip off our marks, do we?"

The President nodded before asking the Secretary of Defense for his opinion. "Chuck, what do you think?"

"It lets us get a lot more exposure with minimal risks," he replied. "The cover story makes more sense than the reality. Let the conspiracy theorists conspire; nobody will believe them."

"Good," The President said, giving it a final mental once-over. "Give it a name and get on it. If they're here, I want them found."

Special Agent Todd Costello hung up his cellphone, took a deep breath, and stepped into the office of the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It wasn't every day that a relatively junior Special Agent spoke to the Director, but today was hardly a normal day to begin with.

"What did Gemstone say?" the Director asked, all business. Costello noticed that he was flanked by two agents that weren't in the room before.

"They said it's probable, but not certain," Costello answered. "And extremely dangerous if they're really here."

The Director suppressed a laugh. "The President agrees. You just missed it, but they're going full-panic mode. These costumed weirdos may not look like a threat, but they want them found." The Director was cleared for and knew exactly what they were dealing with, but his phrasing implied that the other agents in the room weren't.

"If they are here," Costello clarified. "We don't know that yet."

"Respectfully, sir, this is a woman in an anime costume and maybe four other people, all that look more like stupid nerds than real terrorists," one of the agents objected. "Are they really that dangerous?"

"In short, yes."

"So, why haven't we heard of them?"

Costello chose his words carefully. "They're not exactly a new group, but that's classified."

"Classified? What the hell is Gemstone, anyway?" another agent asked.

The Director answered this time. "A name you've never heard, Special Agent."

With a quiet thud, a thin stack of papers landed on Fred Coleman's desk. As she passed by, the officer who delivered it announced what it was. "Today's usual paperwork bullshit and a weird as fuck APB."

He took a brief look through the various forms- just routine paperwork, nothing special- before moving on to the all-points bulletin. Also known as a BOLO- Be On LookOut- an all-points bulletin was an alert to the personnel of a law-enforcement agency or another law-enforcement agency that contained information about a suspect of person of interest.

This one, however, was odd. The picture was only a drawing- that was unusual, but not unheard of- that matched the description of Cinder Fall, one of the supposed terrorists the teenage pranksters had told him about. The all-points bulletin noted that the woman "may be disguised as the character known as Cinder Fall" and "may use Cinder Fall as her identity."

Several possible associates were listed. One was an orange-haired man who he identified by name before reading it- Roman Torchwick. Or, rather, someone going by that name and appearance. The other three weren't named by the teenagers, but were described. The short lady with heterochromia: Neopolitan. The green-haired, red-eyed girl: Emerald Sustrai. The young man in grey: Mercury Black.

The thought briefly crossed his mind that the kids had been telling the truth, that they were really from another dimension. Which, according to the FBI agent, was a cartoon. That the government was covering up what the threat really was, keeping some secret about aliens on Earth. But that was the kind of insane theory the aliens guy on TV would come up with, not someone sane and rational such as himself.

Instead, he chalked it up- not completely incorrectly- to something else.

"Fuckin' spooks."

Emergence has come a long way since its humble beginnings. I've gone from writing average young adults to depicting the most powerful people in the world.

I know that there's still an awful lot of talking in a fic that was supposed to have more stuff going on. I think I really only had about five chapters of content for Act I and had to stretch it a bit, which slowed things down considerably. But Act II will have more action, including some (hopefully) awesome fight scenes. It should be just about right for six chapters. Act III... might actually be too long. We'll see. In retrospect, six chapters at 3000 words each per arc was probably a mistake.

I did cut and rework a bunch of stuff and try to streamline this chapter, though.

Finally, do you prefer the author's notes before or after the actual chapter?

cyberswordsmen: That is a serious problem. When you're trying to develop a new strain of wheat, it's okay to kill most of your experimental crops. When you're dealing with humans in a context already averse to the concept, it's unacceptable.

knight7572: That's... oddly specific, actually.

Tatopatato: Nora is a difficult character to pin down. It's easy to portray her as a bumbling airhead always doing crazy things for no apparent reason, but in my opinion that's a grave injustice. Nora can be serious and is actually pretty perceptive, but hasn't really had an opportunity to show it much. There's another side of the coin which many authors ignore which I hope to explore. It doesn't make her less crazy when she's being crazy, but when can she see and take the correct course of action? Not this time, which is what I figured some might have an issue with.

rileasw: It's funny you mention that. I actually have a lot of trouble separating Emergence canon from my general headcanons- they're basically one and the same. Sometimes I'll comment on a discussion and then realize a moment later that nothing I said makes any sense outside the context of this fic.

animal56: Most of the answers you seek are in Tabula Rasa, a fic that will eventually tie into this one.

Spartacat10: I'm not sure what you mean by this. They did comment on how Aura and Semblances aren't a thing on Earth.

Ghost762: Tabula Rasa, a semi-experimental fic that I decided to tie into this one.

Unkown: It's a vocal group, but a fairly small one when you look at the bigger picture. I think most people will be fairly indifferent, but it depends how well the Faunus community manages their image in the first moments of contact. On the other hand, there are people who will think the Faunus are freaks, animal monsters, spawn of Satan, et cetera, though that's also going to be a fairly small group.

Guest: Considering she has abandonment issues of her own, she would almost certainly not be okay with that. An attempt would not end well for all involved.

fallout24: Tentative plans for a war fic as a spinoff (not within the general continuity but set in the same world) after the conclusion of Convergence. It may delay Emergence Second Interquel.

Guest: No, because I don't have any interest or experience in writing them, nor do I believe they would add anything to this fic. It would also cause problems crossposting and may actually be illegal for some readers.

MGL342: Again, read Tabula Rasa. I probably should have put this in the prologue somewhere, but I didn't expect so many to ask about it.

inquisitor of fics: You're greatly simplifying a very complex situation. If they return, they will explain Earth, but would that result in an invasion? I think it would actually deter one. When the powers that be hear what RWBY has to say, they'll realize that Earth is not full of backwards primitives with no martial capability, but actually has a few superpowers that can wipe out the Kingdoms in a matter of days. Some will question it, of course, but overall it would give them pause, not motivation.

Second, they are Remnans, but they spent the better part of a year on Earth. They made friends and even romantic connections with Terrans. They received a significant amount of help from the locals and the local government. Earth is not some abstract concept but a real place with real people that they've experienced firsthand. Why would they support a war that they know is wrong, waged between their old friends and their new ones? I don't see them joining either side, instead pushing hard for peace, powerless as the world goes to hell around them.

Mr Fizz: It's been a while since I've read anything Mass Effect, but I'll take a look when I get the chance.

COD532: Are you sure that's the right fic? I'm pretty sure the only chapter with that sort of violence is Chapter 13.

Terran versus Remnan action is coming in Act II.

TheMAO17: They already went through it- sort of. Blake was the only one to have a seriously problematic one. Weiss suppressed it for the most part, Yang kind of shrugged and decided to just roll with it, and Ruby never really thought about it past how cool it was to have her own show. Will they have one again?

I lean toward no. While JNPR did have a very similar adventure to the one they were supposed to have, it's still very different from what happened in Volume 2. They didn't have a message from their dead teammates to set them up. They didn't watch Tukson die. There was no Winter helping them out. They didn't steal anyone's car. They didn't go on to chase the bad guys to Atlas. Yes, it was similar, but it can be explained well enough by everything already being in place by the time RWBY left.

Speaking of Winter, that's one detail that's pretty much confirmation that their Remnant and the fictional Remnant are distinct. In about a month, Rooster Teeth will show off Winter's design- as Weiss's older sister.