Right. So this is the first chapter of the story I've been working on. Since I posted this on SB, I figured I'd share it here as well. All I can ask is for you to give me a chance- I just might surprise you.
RWBY: Silver Eyes and Shadow Games
Summary:
As three young huntresses search for their team mate and another searches for a resolution to her past, a mysterious explosion rocks the Kingdom of Vale, bringing with it fear, uncertainty, and a couple of new faces...
Genre:
Drama/ Adventure
Characters:
RWBY,
JNPR
OC/OC
Sorting:
RWBY/Babylon 5
Author's Introduction:
Before the story begins, I'd like to address the elephant in the room. This story does involve a pair of original characters in a somewhat prominent role. However, the point of the original characters isn't so they can overshadow or replace the canon characters. The point of their inclusion to the story is more '
Let's throw these two characters into the pot and stir, then see how things turn out'. It's not to make a universe which is inherently 'better' or 'worse' than the canon one.
As for the original characters themselves, they're both from a (still unfinished)
Babylon 5 and
Doctor Who crossover fan fiction series of my own making. Fortunately, knowledge of those series or my other stories
is not needed to understand and enjoy this one. The relevant details will be touched upon in story as it goes on. Also, this isn't part of the 'canon' of my other fanfic series, it's a what-if story.
But that's enough jabbering, let's jump into my first attempt at a RWBY fanfic. So, without further ado, we begin a story of monsters, men and magic...
Part 1: New Kids on the Block
Chapter 1
A presence dark invades the fair,
and gives the horses ample scare,
for chaos reigns and panic numbs,
when something wicked this way comes.
-Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes
"Having a soft heart in a cruel world is courage, not weakness."
-Katherine Henson
From where it perched atop an impressive cliff, Beacon Academy overlooked the city of Vale below, like an ever-watchful sentinel. One that promised safety and security for all. A place where legends were made.
In the center of a forest of arches and other buildings, a massive three-pronged concrete spire towered over the campus. The emerald glow at it's glass apex pushed back the expiring darkness of the night. For it was dawn, and the amber light of the rising sun was beginning to spread across Beacon Academy. It had already advanced across the pools and green fields that comprised the campus' wide, sprawling grounds.
A gentle breeze rustled through the trees that lined Beacon's main avenue. The wide stone road was lined with lampposts, and led to an enormous gray concrete sculpture. Illuminated by the morning sun, the memorial statue depicted two larger-than-life Hunters- a man and a woman- who stood in triumph on a boulder above the crouched form of a snarling Beowolf.
That same morning light seeped through one of the many windows that lined the student dormitories. It slipped through parted red-stitched curtains and the arch at the top of the window, easing its way in a golden stripe across the floor and casting the room in an orange haze.
The streams of sunlight inched across the room and grew more intense. As they did, one of the room's occupants, who'd been sleeping in her make-shift bunk bed, stirred.
Ruby Rose gave a grumbled protest as she felt the warmth of the early morning sun shining onto her face, despite the fact that she had drawn the curtains before heading to bed last night. She fumbled around for something to keep the light out of her eyes, only to discover that her sleeping mask, black with triangular red eyes like that of a Beowolves', had slid to the top of her head during the night. The song of a particularly cheerful bird outside the window pushed her the rest of the way awake.
Sleep-hazed silver eyes drifting open, Ruby sat up with an adorable sounding yawn, stretching and causing her red-tipped black hair to sway. Dressed in a black tank-top with a heart-shaped Beowolf design on the chest and long white pants printed with pink roses, the fifteen-year-old had awoken earlier than was usual for her.
As she blinked slumber from her eyes, Ruby looked around. At the bed across from her, Ruby's older sibling and half-sister Yang Xiao Long snored in her sleep. But instead of sleeping sprawled out on her back like normal, Yang was curled up under the red blankets. With her back to Ruby, the most visible part of Yang was her long blonde hair, which reached far down her back.
Glancing down at the bed below her sister's, Ruby frowned. It was empty. Blake Belladonna, Yang's teammate, usually wasn't awake before everyone else. For a moment, she wondered why the dark-haired girl might have risen so early and where she might have gotten off to. It was probably too early for the Academy cafeteria to be serving breakfast. Ruby knew from personal experience, though, that fact had seldom stopped hungry students from getting a late night snack. Blake, on the other hand, was not the sort of person to go raiding the kitchen, early or not.
Ruby couldn't shake a feeling that there was something very obvious she was missing. Her mind, still clouded from sleep, took a few moments to realize what it was. Memories of what had happened two days ago stirred in her mind and everything came back in a rush like a bad dream. Ruby gave a quiet groan.
Goosebumps tickled Ruby's skin as the cool night air blew through the open window, filling the room of Team RWBY. She barely noticed it as she stood by her sister's side, struggling to see how everything had gone downhill so fast. Everything had been going fine before they'd stumbled across the crime scene near the docks. They'd been having fun. Yang seemed just as lost as her. And Ruby absolutely knew that anything either of them might say would just make things worse.
"I don't understand why
this is causing such a problem!" said Weiss, frustration obvious.
"That is
the problem!" Blake snapped back.
Weiss shot to her feet, her pale blue eyes narrowed in a glare. "You realize you are defending an organization that hates Humanity, don't you?" Crossing her arms as a show of defiance, the white-haired teenager continued, "The Faunus of the White Fang are pure evil!"
"There's no such thing as pure evil!" Blake objected, standing up as well, clenched fists at her side. "Why do you think they hate Humanity so much? It's because of people like Cardin, people like you
, that force the White Fang to take such drastic measures!"
Gesturing towards herself, Weiss let out a disbelieving, "People like me?"
"You're discriminatory!" Blake fired back, accusing. Her almost amber eyes were narrowed in anger.
"I'm a victim!" Weiss shouted, stomping her foot.
A startled silence fell on the room. Ruby could see that brought Blake up short. But as Weiss and Blake stared each other down, most of Ruby's attention was on her partner.
The shorter girl leaned in close to Blake, some of her anger having left her as well. Speaking in a quiet and almost fragile tone, she asked, "You want to know why
I despise the White Fang? Why I don't particularly trust the Faunus?"
Turning away from the rest of her team, Weiss slowly moved over to the room's sole window. Leaning with her palms flat against the low wooden bookshelf in front of the open window, she stared out into the darkness. On her back and somewhat hidden by Weiss's off-centered ponytail, the snowflake symbol of the Schnee Dust Company stood out proudly.
"It's because they've been at war with my family for years. War. As in actual bloodshed." Weiss, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, revealed. "My grandfather's company has had a target painted across its back for as long as I can remember. And ever since I was a child, I've watched family friends disappear. Board members, executed. An entire train car full of Dust stolen." Weiss's voice grew angrier as she continued. "And every day, my father would come home, furious. And that made for a very difficult childhood." Those last word were marked by the white-haired girl banging a fist on the bookshelf.
Pity made Ruby leave Yang and move to her partner's side to gently put a comforting hand on Weiss's shoulder. "Weiss, I-" she began to say.
"No!" Weiss snapped, jerking away from Ruby's hand. Feeling hurt, Ruby watched her partner whirl around and stalked back towards Blake. The normally calm and composed heiress was now almost spitting out the words, her pale blue eyes alight with fury. "You want to know why I despise the White Fang?"
Any sympathy had fled the dark haired girl, her own eyes alight with a building rage. Ruby could see her fists shaking, her jaw clenched and teeth grinding together. Her bow was almost flat against her head.
"
It's because they're a bunch of liars, thieves, and murderers
!" The last word was almost spat in Blake's face.
Blake snarled, "Well maybe
we were just tired of being pushed around!"
Rubbing the last bit of tiredness from her eyes, Ruby pushed the covers back and started climbing out of bed. She knew she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep now. Not wanting to wake anyone else up yet, she was careful not to make her bed rock or swing too much on the ropes that held it up.
The polished wooden floor felt cool beneath her bare feet as she lowered herself to the ground. A glance behind her told her Weiss, wearing her blue-white sleeping gown, had stayed asleep. Her long, snowy hair pooled out over the top of the covers; her face was calm and relaxed. And the sounds of Yang's snores told Ruby she was still sleeping as well.
Going over to the window and the bookshelf in front of it, Ruby could see the vast Forest of Forever Fall that surrounded Beacon on two sides. The sky was dark, but touched with dull purples and reds in the direction of the rising sun, which was just starting to peek over the horizon.
A glimmer caught her gaze. It was far in the distance, resting among the darkness in the red trees of the Forest of Forever Fall.
"Huh...?" She murmured to herself without thinking. She was sure that hadn't been there before.
In a sudden flash, like a bolt of lightening, the gleam flared brighter. It was a strange mix of colors now. A dark blue mixed in with a pinkish-purple color. The light was blinding in the morning darkness. Startled, Ruby flinched away from the widow with a high-pitched cry of surprise and a flurry of red rose petals.
She found herself with her back against the wall at the far side of the room, having used her Semblance to cover the distance, scattering petals across the floor in the process. It'd only been a split second, yet Ruby couldn't shake a feeling that there'd been something
wrong about it. Light shouldn't behave like that. Shouldn't be oily and twisted.
To Ruby's left, Weiss' covers shuffled, and the heiress murmured something in her sleep, before going still again. A jaw-cracking yawn drew Ruby's attention up to where Yang, in her night-clothes of an orange tank-top and black shorts, was stretching. Her expression and amethyst colored eyes were half-awake. "Nggggh, wha – Ruby?"
At that moment, a tearing rumble, like a thunderclap of sound, slammed into her ears like a blow.
Ruby jerked, clapping her hands over her ears. She could feel the floor tremble breath her feet as the shock-wave hit Beacon.
Weiss shot upright, her long white hair not done up in the usual ponytail, in disarray. Her eyes darted around wildly as if expecting some sort of attack. While Yang gave a surprised,"Whoa! The heck?"
A tangle of sounds- sharp cries of surprise and of people scrambling around throughout the dormitory- followed as the thunder faded away.
"What…" Weiss stopped and then tried again, "What in Remnant was
that?"
-RWBY-
Paula Ravenwood rolled from where she'd fallen on her side. Moving without thinking, she raised herself up with none of her usual catlike grace. A slim and shapely human woman, she was almost thirty, with dark red-gold hair that reached down to her shoulders. She wore her normal attire: black dress jeans, black boots, a blood-red shirt and equally red leather jacket.
Still dazed, she remained doubled over, gasping as she struggled to get her breath back. The fall had been punishing; hitting the ground had pushed out what little air that had remained in her lungs and made her see stars. Her hands, encased in tight-fitting opera gloves that reached up to her elbows beneath her jacket, rested on her knees. Paula forced herself to take in slow, measured breaths, letting the cool air fill her lungs and ease her racing heart.
Her dark gold eyes flicked to the fallen figure a few feet away, who'd almost gone face-down in the dirt along beside her. Even through her mental barriers, at this close range she could still feel his now-familiar presence. One of the hardest things about explaining what her telepathy could do was when she had to talk about auras, how they felt. It wasn't something she could really describe. But if she had to, the man known as Shaidar Gorthule was like when a cloud covered the sun, dropping everything into shadow.
Even as she thought this, he unsteadily rose into a sitting position, much like she had. A thick layer of oily black material, almost like a diver's wet suit, covered his lean form from head to toe. This close to him, she could see it wasn't one solid color, but a motley mosaic. Instead of merging into one another, they were separated into small, misshapen black segments on a lighter charcoal black background. Several short curved spines of the same bio-metal protruded from the back of his upper arms. Likewise, four similar- if larger-spikes projected from his upper back in vertical pairs: two to each side of his spine.
Through the disheveled strands of her hair, she saw the black armor covering the front of his head flow back. It revealed the familiar face of a man in his late twenties as his head turned, looking at her.
His lean face and short dark hair were ordinary enough to disappear into a crowd with little trouble. His eyes, looking alien on his otherwise human face, were the only things that stood out on him. They were dark green flecked with orange. The pupils were vertical slits like those of a cat, and where a human eye would be white, his sclera were black.
"That was close. You alright?" Shaidar questioned, speaking with an accent which, while mutated, was still British. Despite his being out of breath, his concern for her was clear to hear. Though Paula knew the motion of looking her over with his eyes was more out of habit than anything else. A holdover from when he'd been fully human. Back to when he hadn't been a cyborg either- though all that had been long before she and him first met. He could—and probably was— using his cybernetic sensors to examine her from head to toe.
Paula couldn't help but smile a little. Their relationship wasn't the most openly affectionate. But then, they weren't the most touchy-feely people around either. They still loved each other regardless- or at least insofar as two people like them were capable of that emotion.
She shrugged, her red-gold hair shimmering with the movement. "I've been better. You?" she said, still panting a little. Her voice carried a trace of a drawl typical to the American south.
"Tolerable." He coughed as he tried to catch his breath. "Nice thinking back there. I'd say you got us out in the nick of time."
"Thanks. You know what they say— timing is everything." It was a weak quip. She'd all but thrown herself at him in a last desperate measure,
and teleported them both through the portal he'd linked open to the Shadow's universe. All while fighting to hang on to him against the pull of decompression into the vastness of space as the armored hull of the United Nations Spaceship
Indomitable had been torn open by weapons fire. She and Shaidar had been traveling aboard as observers.
Shaidar's lip twitched into a small smile. "They have indeed."
Getting to her feet, Paula frowned at her outfit, which was covered in a thin grime of dirt. She brushed herself off with gloved hands, making a quick check of her coat pockets and belt. Luckily, she'd landed on her other side, so all three of the glass vials were intact. Likewise, the snub-nosed energy pistol was still in its holster on her belt.
That done, Paula raked her hand unevenly through her hair and got a good view of her surroundings for the first time. Her eyes widened.
"Oh, what the hell have we gotten into now?" she murmured.
Overhead, a distant canvas of stars hung in a dark blue sky. All around her, a vast, hill-crowded, crimson forest stretched into the distance. To her right, the sky was dark, but touched with dull purples and crimsons. Paula had no way of knowing if what she was witnessing was dawn or dusk. The cool air was quiet save for the sound of the creaking and groaning of trees. But this wasn't the true cause of her dread.
In the pale light sunlight, Paula could make out a ragged circular clearing around her and Shaidar. It had to be several hundred feet across; about the size of a parking lot. The ground beneath her feet was stripped clear of the normal underbrush and mulch of leaves, exposing hard soil. Toppled trees littered the ground, bare of bark and branches. Several had splintered against some boulders near the edge of the clearing. Paula only now became aware of the nose-wrinkling stench of ozone mixed in with odors of decaying leaves and earth.
All this radiated out from the central point- where she and Shaidar Gorthule now stood. As if there could be any doubt for the cause of the newly created clearing.
"Well. This is different." Shaidar said, looking around. At five foot eight he was only a little taller than her. A ripple passed through the armor as it changed from its default black to a vivid red and orange autumn forest camouflage pattern. Paula could tell he was trying to be nonchalant, but she knew better. He was worried, just as she was. But they'd both seen and done too much in their lives to let that fear rule them.
"More like the start of a bad horror film." Something caught Paula's attention, and her golden eyes gazed up into the clear sky above. To her left and low above the treeline, a shattered half-moon glowed down, cold and white. Paula's eyes traced over its craters and pockmarks, noting the similarities to others she'd seen on other worlds on its unfamiliar face.
"And I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," She added, causing Shaidar to glance up from the portal device strapped to his left arm.
"Oh dear," he said, peering upwards at the broken alien moon. As the light changed, a deep orange gleam flickered to life within his eyes, making them resemble a pair of faintly glowing coals.
"You're saying the obvious darling." Her voice was laced with a playful tone that was only slightly forced.
"Little bit," he agreed, looking back to her, the motion making the orange glint in his eyes die. "Can you sense anything out there?"
Lowering her mental barriers for the moment, Paula reached out, scanning for other minds. "No one but some panicking animals in my range, so on the upside we haven't been seen. On on the downside we're definitely in the middle of nowhere. You?"
Unlike herself, Shaidar Gorthule wasn't a telepath. Nor was he a Preternatural—the name used by the few aware of her 'world' and the existence of people born with supernatural abilities. Of course, the Hadean Throne and the Aegis preferred it that way. Both Preternatural factions went out of their way to keep the rest of humanity ignorant of their existence.
In truth, it was anyone's guess if what her people had was truly magic or not. Between her travels alongside the Doctor and the years she'd spent working for the United States Department of Extraterrestrial and Supernatural Investigation, Paula wasn't sure anymore either.
Shaidar Gorthule was a Techno-mage. Like the rest of his order, his abilities were the result of a network of bio-mechanical cybernetic implants throughout his body. That technology had been created and supplied by an ancient race of aliens known to most as the Shadows. The Techno-mages served the Shadows in variety of ways, but mostly as elite agents, soldiers or some mix of both.
"All's clear on my end too. But I'm getting metal, probably train tracks, and a radio transmission from over there. I'd say it's an automated hazard alert." He said, gesturing towards several of the fallen trees at the far edge of the clearing. Paula thought she could see a metallic glint underneath.
"As for long range," Shaidar Gorthule continued, "I'm detecting a lot of radio traffic from the south west. Almost certainly from a major city, but it's out of scanner range. And we can't stay here; our arrival has been noticed by the locals. Seems we created quite the light-show."
"Damn. Well, if the locals don't like visitors, we'll be busy soon. It was your portal. Any clue where we are?"
"Yes and no," the Techno-mage replied evenly. "From what radio traffic I can intercept, the city is named 'Vale' and the people of this world call it 'Remnant'. Unfortunately, I've never heard of either before and we're too far out for me to access any computers wirelessly. I don't suppose any of that sounds familiar to you?"
"No, I don't know the names. It...it feels a bit like the Underworld or one of the other pocket Realms might have felt, back home. Not quite the same but... Of that nature, if less so. Other, is the best word I've got, in a preternatural sense."
"Now that
is intriguing, if not what I'd hoped for. At least on the bright side, this place beats the vacuum of space."
"There is that. Still, this could be complicated." She grinned, a sharp smile. "Let's hope they don't burn witches or things may get messy."
"For them, I'd think," Shaidar Gorthule commented dryly. "We should get a move on. As much as I don't fancy strolling through a strange forest, I'd rather we weren't here when some spooked and trigger-happy natives start showing up."
Here he glanced down for a moment, before continuing, "Still, all things considered, I think we'll remain on foot for a bit. At least until anyone who does manage to track us will think they lost the trail in the forest. It should be safe enough- I'm not detecting anything dangerous with my scanners."
"Can't portal us out then?" Paula asked as they started walking between the fallen trunks, their feet leaving almost no impression on the hard earth. Gorthule's armor flowed back over his face while she spoke. Only when it settled into place did he reply.
"Afraid not. Whatever caused us to accidentally arrive here damaged the linking device." He said, referring to the mechanism wrapped around his wrist like an oversized watch. It was now hidden once more beneath his armor. "In fact, I've shut everything down except diagnostics until I can give it a good look over. Preferably somewhere secure."
"Well. That is inconvenient. And being only half Cerberi, I can't teleport between dimensions." Not to mention she couldn't teleport them to this 'Vale' city. She'd never been there before, didn't have a line of sight and was certain she didn't know anyone living in it either.
The Cerberi were a breed of magic users who served the Hadean Throne. They were an upper class, but some worked as hired guns or mercenaries to upper-level leaders of the Underworld. Save for their alliance to the Throne, they were the mirror-image of the Guardians that served the Aegis.
"Assuming this place is like one of your people's pocket dimensions, is it possibl-" His head snapped around, peering out into the forest as his voice dropped off into a sharp whisper. "Unknown contacts inbound!"
His warning came only a fraction of a second before a chorus of guttural and undeniably enraged howls filled the air, along with a cloying and horrific scent.
Paula stopped, turned, her right hand coming to rest on the grip of the energy pistol hanging on her hip. She reached out, scanning with her mind again instead of her eyes. For an instant, she felt, sensed nothing. Then there was a hint of minds that weren't quite minds at all. They were empty, hollow shells. Twisted. Animalistic. Filled with hate. And a yawning, ravenous hunger. Her heart went cold in her chest.
Quick as lightning, a dozen nightmares of black fur erupted from the underbrush at the clearing's edge. The creatures were in the broad outline of a wolf, if a wolf had aspirations to become human. Each was roughly bipedal, with bodies that were slumped forward as they ran on all fours. Even in the faint sunlight, fangs glistened in muzzles. Burning, hate-filled red eyes glared out of faces masked by bone.
In that instant, Paula lashed out with her telepathy. But she'd never encountered anything quite like this before. Her attack wasn't coordinated enough to do more than disorientate them. Several creatures stumbled, a few even colliding with each other or fallen tree trunks.
Even while they stumbled, Paula was running through her few spell-casting options. She almost drew her pistol, but stopped before she'd barely begun. She had a better idea. These things could well be magical—she'd try an attack on those lines first.
As her hand darted to her coat pocket, the creatures shook themselves, staggering but ready to continue their attack. They never got the chance. Two dozen bat-winged imps flickered into existence above the creatures. Each was the size of a large dog. Dark copper armor covered much of their gray bodies. Long steel teeth gleamed in crooked mouths. Paula recognized the imps for what they were of course; hard light constructs. Solid holograms of Shaidar's creation. Holo-demons.
Like a swarm of furious hornets, the imps dove on the wolf-creatures. Bear-trap jaws and arms ending in claws or short blades stabbed and tore chunks out of black-furred flesh. Again, the creatures fell into disarray. They shrieked and swatted at the holographic imps, who darted through the air or clung to their enemies as they hooted, hacked and bit.
It was then her searching fingers closed around the distinctly shaped glass vial holding an explosive potion. Paula pulled it out of her pocket, when she felt Shaidar wrap an arm around her waist and pull her close to him. She felt his breath on her cheek. "Hold on," he said in a short, clipped tone.
She felt something shift under her feet. Her gaze flickered down involuntary. She could almost see a rippling distortion under her feet in the shape of a flat, translucent square. The platform looked to be a little over a yard wide and across but only about an inch thick.
Like all Techno-mage platforms, this one was an extension of the 'mage who generated it. So, Shaidar had an instinctive ability to keep his balance through various maneuvers. But, any passenger on the platform—such as herself—had to either hold tight to the Techno-mage or hope for a gentle ride.
As they shot upwards, a guttural snarl ripped her attention back to the fight. The holographic imps were fighting well, but even as Paula looked, one fell prey to a beast's attack. Its body fizzed into nothingness as it 'died'. But that was not what drew her gaze.
One creature was bounding forward, a pair of imps still stubbornly clinging to it. This one was larger than the rest, with scattered white spines protruding from its back and arms. Its eyes, shining with menace, were fixed on her- on
them.
The platform jerked sideways as the creature leaped for them with claws splayed. Paula drew her arm back, almost whacking Shaidar in the face with her elbow, and threw the explosive mixture right at the creature. More by pure luck than by design, the glass vial hit its face and shattered. There was a cough of an explosion. A burst of pallid green fire. The creature tumbled back down into the dirt with a ragged yelp.
About a dozen feet above the treetops, their ascent stopped. As the platform spun in place, Paula caught a final glimpse of the clearing before it was behind them. Their purpose now served, the holographic imps had dissipated. The other wolf-creatures were now glaring up at them, snarling and scrabbling around under them like dogs who'd gotten a cat up a tree. The larger creature she'd hit was getting to its feet. It was still smoldering, with large swaths of fur and skin burned away.
Then the creatures were gone, left behind as she and Gorthule flew out over the forest. The whole fight had only lasted a handful of seconds.
"Sorry for that," Paula said, almost absently to Gorthule. His armor had returned to it's default black color. "So a little like Hadean demons—well, obviously not but in theory, could be similar. That's a bit of useful information."
"It's fine," he replied, "But I'd rather you hadn't done that."
"I just wish I'd killed the thing." Paula's eyes were still narrowed in thought, the wind ruffling her red hair. She felt more shaken than afraid by what she'd felt from those creatures. There was a pause as the rest of Shaidar's comment registered then. "I thought I only almost hit you?"
"It's not that. I'd planned to get us out and leave behind as little evidence as possible for the locals to puzzle over. If they learn about us, I want it to be on our terms. So the more we can mislead them about our capabilities the better. They can't fight what they don't know. Besides, we would have gained nothing by staying there and battling it out with those creatures."
As Shaidar elaborated, the platform beneath them grew by several feet and darkened to the color of smoke-blackened glass. She'd seen for herself in the past how platforms could be created in various shapes, such as a chair, a chariot and so on. All which would be more comfortable and easier to sit on. But, as he'd explained to her, simple designs were easier to create, maintain and also change to a degree while in use.
"Ah." She wasn't too inclined to apologize, largely since she was a little skeptical that the platform had been moving away fast enough, but it was a potential problem. But it explained why Shaidar hadn't just killed them. After all, bodies and battlefields could be examined. "Better a potion than a phaser then."
Now that she thought about it, Paula realized his decision to use holo-demons had been more than just a way to keep those creatures busy while they escaped. It was another attempted deception on his part. Anyone who investigated would probably think the creatures had been fighting some other animal. Yes, the fight would have still looked odd given the location. But, it might have been enough to allay suspicions. At least for a little while.
"True. Still, it's not your fault. I should have made my intentions clearer before those things showed up. Speaking of which, how well could you detect those creatures back there?" The platform slowed a little as Shaidar let go of Paula's waist and sat down.
"Not very well," Paula said, sitting down as well. "I've never sensed anything quite like them before. Their minds were almost empty. It's like they were some sort of projection. Which explains a little why I didn't sense them earlier." A thought struck her, "Come to think of it, I don't think I saw any of those creatures bleed. Which isn't normal, even for demons."
She'd thrown in that last sentence for Shaidar Gorthule's benefit. When Gorthule's associates had shown up in her universe, her people's secretiveness had been directed at them as well. Of course, few people were aware of the Shadow's true nature as being from another universe. They'd gone to great lengths to hide where they'd come from and instead claimed to be from a distant galaxy.
"Neither did I. And I couldn't get a reading on them with most of my sensors. My motion scanners only picked them up as intermittent contacts and that was at a reduced range. They barely showed up on infrared as well." There was a definite trace of unease in his voice at the end.
Paula fiddled with a knife thoughtfully for a moment, its blade a dulled gray that did not reflect the light, before returning it to it's forearm sheath. "So, we know we're in a preternatural world with the weirdest damn moon I've ever seen. We've got a couple names. And we can't get out, for now."
"I'm afraid that's the long and short of it. But I expect we'll know more soon enough." He said, quietly confident.
Author's Chapter Note:
For clarification, Shaidar Gorthule is pronounced 'Shade-are Gore-thule'.
Not sure how well it came across, but I'm really trying to push the idea of the Grimm being weird and unusual by anyone's standards. Hence why Shaidar and Paula had such a hard time detecting them.
Likewise, I've tried to get across that while both the original characters are intelligent, experienced and generally competent, they're not perfect by a long shot and make mistakes. After all, they've
accidentally ended up in an unknown universe. That's the very definition of fucking up with
style.
On the subject of the Techno-mages, I'm heavily using what we saw in
Babylon 5,
Crusade and the
Techno-mage trilogy over the Babylon 5 RPG book for the Techno-mages. Most because the RPG give the Techno-mages abilities and skills that are never shown or mentioned in any of the aforementioned TV shows and novels. Plus, the RPG book reads like someone did a lazy 'find and replace' search in a RPG rulebook for wizards' and swapped out some words and terms for more 'sci-fi' ones.
As for Paula's people, it's a bit like the World of Darkness tabletop games or the Dresden Files books. For those who aren't familiar with those, think (seemingly) supernatural shenanigans behind the veneer of normal life. Though in the case of Paula's people, they aren't as widespread or powerful as the supernatural forces in those series.
Reviews and constructive criticism is always welcomed. I'm very curious to hear people's thoughts about the story so far and how well I portrayed the canon cast and my original characters.
