Look Again (RWBY SI) (NO POWERS)

[Yachii]

I really wanna see everyone freaking out over a potato powering a bulb. And maybe an sdc pov of Jacques going PANIC mode. Menagerie would go crazy for solar power or other alternative means. Vacuo not so much of solar bcus SAND and limited water supply for it.

 

[GrindStone]

I really wanna see everyone freaking out over a potato powering a bulb. And maybe an sdc pov of Jacques going PANIC mode

Click to shrink...

"Wealthiest man in the world seriously considering wether a common crop will destroy the economic monopoly his empire relies on"

 

[Doccer]

Anon might be an alien.

 

[Anonymous Brainwash]

I'm wondering if anyone's going to realize the value of hybridization in rockets.

Dust may get wonky away from the planet's surface, but it could presumably still be used in the initial stages.

Gravity Dust to lighten the load and Fire Dust as propulsion, and once they stop working, then switching to chemical propulsion.

 

[FungusLord]

Holy AI batman.

I like the story but stop doing this constantly.

That," he said slowly, "is actually very close to the answer the chat arrived at."

"That" (someone says) "rest of the sentence" is used constantly. Over and over. Always oobleck saying it too I think

The whole
This is X
It's Y
It's Z

Also should be careful using at all. No one writes like that.


Also AI loves telling us what emotion to feel and loves having characters say "that's uncomfortable " or scary or some other emotion and it drives me up a wall.

I love the idea of the story and I'm going to continue reading but adjust your prompts or something so it reads more like a person wrote it all.

 

[Silent Knight]

question for everyone .

are we sure that salem didn't genocide several generations of humanity ?
the second humanity was made by the gods with them leaving salem and ozma took over .
if they have lived for so long , is it possible that humanity did evolve without dust and used technology to move forward
and then salem either destroyed them back to the stone age or Ozma hid knowledge to make humanity dependent on him ?

 

[RegularReader21]

This entire thing has been a treat to read!

Im not normally a fan of the 'forum/chat' style in most works, i tend to skip them infact!

Somehow you have conjured into being one i not only tolerate but have rather enjoyed!

...Please write more?

 

[BlueCladOne]

Holy AI batman.

I like the story but stop doing this constantly.

That," he said slowly, "is actually very close to the answer the chat arrived at."

"That" (someone says) "rest of the sentence" is used constantly. Over and over. Always oobleck saying it too I think

The whole
This is X
It's Y
It's Z

Also should be careful using at all. No one writes like that.


Also AI loves telling us what emotion to feel and loves having characters say "that's uncomfortable " or scary or some other emotion and it drives me up a wall.

I love the idea of the story and I'm going to continue reading but adjust your prompts or something so it reads more like a person wrote it all.

Click to shrink...

The main problem is that AI is mostly trained on online posts. Which are meant to evoke emotion and response in a short period of time... and are plaigiarized off of each other repeatedly or use the same format like a meme.

And that's before it gets fed content that someone generated with AI.

I don't think there's a prompt in existence that can remove the issues caused by this training.

A few people have managed to write something, have AI proofread it, then heavily edit it back to readability, but at that point I just see it as more effort for worse product.

 

[MissileTeatime]

I'm wondering if anyone's going to realize the value of hybridization in rockets.

Dust may get wonky away from the planet's surface, but it could presumably still be used in the initial stages.

Gravity Dust to lighten the load and Fire Dust as propulsion, and once they stop working, then switching to chemical propulsion.

Click to shrink...

This has been lurking in the back of my head all day. Stream Guy got stuck in his own Path Dependence: he focused on the possibility of space travel without the use of Dust at all, but is that really the best approach when you have Dust available?

(Also "how does Stream Guy know that there's no oxygen in space in the Remnant universe? Is he just assuming that because that's the case in our universe?" and "hey. Ruby. If that stuff can propel rockets, maybe it can propel bullets.")

 

[Kencord]

Sugar might not get you to space from the ground.

But it MIGHT from upper orbit.

Just because Dust doesn't get you out of orbit, doesn't make it unhelpful.

Gravity Dust greatly simplifies the length of space you need to accelerate by lowering mass then lifting the lightened object near to orbit by more conventional (By Remnant Standards) means. What else to do?

Ever seen 'The Kingsman'? Hydrogen Balloons, attached to Gravity Dust lightened loads get them to upper atmosphere. THEN use whatever rocket you want. Thats, what, half the fuel cost and less planning for the stages? Simplified engineering by using multiple techniques?

Thing is, what do you even send if you CAN get out there? A camera? The battery is Lightning Dust. A person? Most of the life support tech is likely Dust based too.

So yeah, they can get to space. Then what? (Not as a shot against the author, but a good stream tangent)

 

[Stard inspired]

Wait, what if instead of grim having no souls, they are the opposite, they only are a soul, that's why just like aura they disappear when they've sustained enough damage , but unlike a human who has a physical body, a vessel, for the soul/aura to regenerate, a gram has no physical body regenerate.

 

[Blarghblah]

Interesting.

 

[Nobody49]

Wait, what if instead of grim having no souls, they are the opposite, they only are a soul, that's why just like aura they disappear when they've sustained enough damage , but unlike a human who has a physical body, a vessel, for the soul/aura to regenerate, a gram has no physical body regenerate.

Click to shrink...

Nah, if they were soul they could eventually maniphest their equivalent of aura/magic, plus would make even weirder one of the brothers left that pool ,sure a weird magic pool is bad,but a weird magic pool of souls? Plus how the dragon things even work? They are just monster, if everybody that obtain a body was all soul than weiss would have very different situation with her summons

 

[Dao_of_Bibliomania]

The idea is interesting.

 

[Doccer]

SI: It's a rocket, Vale guy. And it went up. Goodnight, everyone.

Click to shrink...

SI: And one last question to leave you all on: If Dust doesn't work up there because it's planetually locked then: Do the Grimm fail to work up there too?

 

[FantasyKaleidoscope]

If we're talking about staging rockets, an easy option for remnant is to make the initial stage dust powered. If dust is more energy dense than chemical fuel as stated in ch17, then that can be used to get the initial lift while within dusts usable envelope- I believe that the first lift stage is where the majority of fuel is burned anyway so that should be a pretty efficient option.

 

[vagabond_13th]

Are we going with the theory that Salem made the second gen of humans by chucking random animals ( light ) into grim pools? ( dark )

 

[Nobody49]

Are we going with the theory that Salem made the second gen of humans by chucking random animals ( light ) into grim pools? ( dark )

Click to shrink...

Wtf? That wasn't even mentioned and make no sense

 

[Erling]

Fantastic story! I'm completely addicted!

I love how clever and deliberate it is in it's execution. Keep up the good work!

 

[darkphysicist]

This is certainly a super interesting story. Not what I usually go for but I am here for it now. Super excited to see what happens next.

 

[Lord of the First Flame]

Here's a theory for why the moon stays together. It has plenty of gravity dust. It's not that dust only works on Remnant. Maybe it only works on planetary bodies. Maybe as you get closer to the moon dust starts working again.

To check this you'd have to get up there though.

 

[Emiya Pendragon]

[CCT Network — Livestream: "ONE MONTH LATER: Rocket 2 (supervised this time, I promise)" — 👁 38,552 viewers]

* * *


​

(The camera opens on a very different field. Flat, fenced, with a concrete pad, a blast wall made of sandbags, and a small bunker with a window slit. Three people in university lab jackets are moving around the pad. In the center stands a sleek, white rocket about the height of a grown man, gleaming under floodlights. Its body is smooth, machined aluminum. Beside it on a cart sit two tall insulated dewars, frosting and venting faint white vapor. A small inset window in the corner of the stream shows a live feed from a camera inside the rocket's nose, currently pointed at the sky.)

(The SI walks into frame. His eyebrows have grown back, mostly.)

SI: Hi everyone. Yes, the eyebrows are back. Seventy percent. We're healing.

It's been a month. A lot happened. Remember Officer Reyes? After the last stream, she put me in touch with the propulsion group at Vale University, the same lab that took the hydrazine off my hands. Turns out they'd been wanting to test a non-Dust engine for years and could never get funding, because, and I quote their department head, "every grant committee asks why we're not just using Dust."

After the last stream went viral, they got funding.

So this time, they're in charge of anything dangerous. I'm the guy who machined the body on a CNC mill over about three hundred hours, and who's going to explain the math. Please meet the actual professionals.

(One of the lab techs waves at the camera without looking up from a checklist.)

SI: The white vapor you see is from those two dewars. One is liquid hydrogen. One is liquid oxygen. Both are extremely cold. The lab team handles them in full gear. I am not allowed within ten meters, which honestly, fair.

Board time.

* * *


​

FUEL COMPARISON (vacuum Isp, approximate)
Sugar motor: ~130 s, mass ratio to orbit ~1,600 : 1
Hydrazine / N₂O₄: ~330 s, mass ratio ~18 : 1
Liquid H₂ / Liquid O₂: ~450 s, mass ratio ~8.4 : 1
THE REACTION: 2 H₂ + O₂ → 2 H₂O. Exhaust is literally water vapor. Very hot. Very fast. No toxic exhaust.
THE MATH: Exhaust velocity ≈ 450 × 9.81 ≈ 4.4 km/s. Mass ratio = e^(9.4 / 4.41) ≈ 8.4. For every ~8 kg on the pad, ~1 kg reaches orbit. Less than half of hydrazine's requirement.
THE CATCH: Hydrogen is extremely light, so very large tanks. Must stay extremely cold (–253 °C) or it boils off. Leaks. Hard to handle. Best efficiency, worst logistics.

* * *


​

SI: So last time I said hydrazine could get you to orbit with staging. That's true. But hydrogen and oxygen is the best chemical fuel there is, efficiency-wise. Mass ratio drops from eighteen to about eight. That's the difference between "maybe with a huge rocket" and "genuinely doable."

And the exhaust is water. Hydrogen plus oxygen, burned together, makes steam. That's it. Compared to hydrazine, where the fuel itself can poison you, this is way cleaner.

The catch is handling. Hydrogen's so light that you need massive tanks to carry enough. And it has to stay at about minus two hundred fifty degrees or it just boils away. That's why there's a lab team and why I'm standing way over here.

Now. Second board.

* * *


​

(He flips a second board around. On it is a hand-drawn schematic: two tanks at the top, lines running down into a small spinning assembly labelled TURBINE / PUMP, and from there into a combustion chamber and a bell-shaped nozzle. A side branch splits off a small line into a box labelled "gas generator," with an arrow pointing to the turbine.)

HOW DO YOU GET FUEL INTO THE ENGINE FAST ENOUGH?
Small rockets (like today's): Pressurize the tanks. Gas pressure pushes fuel into the engine. Simple. Heavy tanks.
Big rockets: Pressure alone isn't enough. You need a pump. But pumps need power. Where does the power come from?
Burn a little bit of the fuel in a small side chamber (gas generator). Hot gas spins a turbine. Turbine spins the pump on the same shaft. Pump shoves huge amounts of fuel into the main engine.
The rocket powers its own fuel pump by burning a small fraction of its own fuel. No Dust. No outside power. Self-sustaining.

* * *


​

SI: This one's the part I'm most excited about. Today's rocket is small enough that we just pressurize the tanks and let the gas push fuel into the engine. But for a real orbital rocket, you need to move enormous amounts of fuel per second, and pressure alone can't do it without the tanks weighing a ton.

So you put in a pump. And you power that pump by spinning a turbine with a tiny bit of your own burning fuel. The rocket feeds itself. It's the same idea as the steam turbines in old power plants, just much faster and much more violent.

Nobody on Remnant builds these, because Dust does the pushing for you. But if you want to leave the atmosphere, this is how you'd do it. This is the missing piece.

* * *


​

LIVE CHAT

grimm_bait_420: HE'S BACK AND HE BROUGHT A LAB

ValeCommuter_22: it's a bigger rocket

SI: @ValeCommuter_22 it IS a bigger rocket

AtlasTechStudent: Okay. I'm genuinely impressed. Your numbers are right. H₂/O₂ Isp around 450 in vacuum is standard, mass ratio 8.4 checks out, and the gas generator cycle diagram is basically correct at a conceptual level.

AtlasTechStudent: Also thank you for having actual professionals handle the cryogenics.

SI: I learned my lesson. The eyebrows taught me.

VPD_Officer_Reyes: Checking in. Permits are filed, range is licensed, fire crew is on standby. This is the most paperwork I've ever done for something I'm not getting paid for.

grimm_bait_420: THE COP IS BACK

SI: Officer Reyes is the reason any of this is happening. Thank you, genuinely.

VPD_Officer_Reyes: Just launch it before my captain asks why I'm on a CCT stream again.

ValeU_PropulsionLab: Hi everyone. Lab lead here. Just want to confirm: the kid did the airframe, the lab did the engine and propellant handling. We've been trying to test non-Dust propulsion for eight years. Every single grant proposal got rejected because "why not use Dust." After his last stream, we got funding in a week.

HunterWannabe_Tom: stream guy funded SCIENCE

HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: The historical significance of this is not lost on me. A research path abandoned for decades, revived by public interest. This almost never happens. Please do not blow anything up.

GreatHunterPPort: LAUNCH THE MAGNIFICENT BEAST! I have brought snacks!

HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Peter, you are watching a stream. You cannot bring snacks to a stream.

GreatHunterPPort: I have brought them to MY OWN COUCH, Bartholomew!

DustTrader_Mo: as a Dust trader I am now feeling EXTREMELY threatened

VacuoVeteran: the camera in the corner is a great touch. we get to ride along

SI: That's the plan! The camera's in the nose. There's a parachute in the upper section. If everything works, we all get to see what it looks like up there. Live.

* * *


​

(The lab team finishes fueling. White vapor is now venting steadily from a small valve near the rocket's top. The techs retreat behind the sandbags. The SI walks back to the bunker, and the camera follows him inside, looking out through the window slit at the pad.)

ValeU_PropulsionLab: Tanks pressurized. All personnel clear. Range is clear. Fire crew in position. We are go for launch.

SI: Okay. This is it.

grimm_bait_420: COUNTDOWN

SI: Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

(A deep, roaring hiss, a burst of nearly invisible flame with a faint blue shimmer, and a billowing cloud of white steam engulfs the pad. The rocket lifts off smoothly, faster than anyone expects, and climbs straight up into the evening sky with a steady, ripping roar.)

(In the corner window, the nose camera shows the pad falling away. The field shrinks. The sandbags, the bunker, the fence all become tiny. Then the roads. Then the city of Vale, glittering in the distance, drawn in lines of light. The horizon begins to curve very slightly as the rocket climbs.)

(The engine cuts out. For a moment, the camera tumbles slowly, and the view rolls across the darkening sky.)

(And there it is. Hanging above the horizon, huge and pale and broken, the shattered moon. Clearer than anyone has ever seen it from the ground, its fragments sharp against a sky that's darkening toward black.)

(The camera holds on it for three seconds. Then the parachute pops, the view jerks, and the rocket begins to drift slowly back down.)

* * *


​

grimm_bait_420: THE MOON

HunterWannabe_Tom: OH MY GODS

MistralMom_Jenna: I'm crying. Why am I crying.

VacuoVeteran: you can see the edges. you can actually see the broken edges

AtlasTechStudent: Peak altitude reads roughly six kilometers from the telemetry. That's... that's excellent for a vehicle that size.

ValeCommuter_22: it's the moon

SI: (staring at the monitor, voice shaking slightly) It worked. It worked. No Dust. It worked.

ValeU_PropulsionLab: Nominal flight. Clean burn. Parachute deployed. We're recovering the vehicle now. This is the first successful non-Dust liquid-fueled flight on record in Vale in, as far as we can tell, decades.

HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: I would like to say something, and I would like it recorded.

HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: That image of the moon, from above the lower atmosphere, taken by a rocket that used no Dust whatsoever, is the most historically significant thing I have ever seen on a public broadcast.

GreatHunterPPort: I dropped my snacks.

grimm_bait_420: port dropped his snacks. this is a historic day.

VPD_Officer_Reyes: Worth the paperwork. Completely worth the paperwork.

DustTrader_Mo: I'm quitting my job and joining the space program

FaunusRights_Now: we saw the moon. we SAW it. from UP there.

anon_viewer_4471: A beautiful flight. And a clear view. Most people only ever see it from below.

grimm_bait_420: anon's being nice for once??

HunterWannabe_Tom: anon had a moment

SI: ...thank you. Yeah. It was beautiful.

anon_viewer_4471: It is always beautiful. That is the trouble with it.

FaunusRights_Now: and there it is

HunterWannabe_Tom: anon could not resist

SI: (quiet, looking at the frozen frame of the moon) ...Okay. Summary. And then I'm going to go outside and look at it again.

The fuel: Liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Best chemical fuel efficiency there is. Mass ratio to orbit about eight to one. Exhaust is just water. Extremely hard to handle, which is why professionals did it.

The pump: Big rockets can't just rely on tank pressure. You burn a little of your own fuel to spin a turbine, which spins a pump, which feeds the main engine. The rocket powers itself. That's the piece Remnant never built, because Dust did the pushing.

The result: Six kilometers. No Dust. And the clearest view of the moon anyone's ever had from Remnant.

The big one: Space was never impossible. We just stopped trying the moment Dust failed. Everything we needed to get up there already existed.

AtlasTechStudent: I've been arguing with you for three months. I have no arguments tonight.

HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: No grade. This is not a thing that should be graded. This is a thing that should be remembered.

ValeCommuter_22: it's a rocket. and it's the moon.

SI: Yeah, Vale guy. It's both. Goodnight, everyone.

[STREAM ENDED — Peak viewers: 62,941]

 

[Emiya Pendragon]

Beacon Academy — Lecture Hall 3B, History of Remnant, 8:30 AM

Half an hour early, and the hall was past capacity. Students stood along the back wall. Two Atlas exchange students had brought folding stools. Someone had taped a printout of the moon, taken from the rocket's nose camera, to the door.

Doctor Oobleck stepped inside, took one look, and said simply, "Homework first."

Nobody groaned this time. They were too busy staring at the paused frame already glowing on the projector screen: the broken moon, sharp and pale against a darkening sky.

Oobleck turned off the projector. "Homework first," he repeated. "It will still be there in twenty minutes. It has been there for all of recorded history."

* * *


​

The presentations were quick, and better than he expected.

Ruby had found records of old mechanical weapons: spring-loaded crossbows, compressed-air rifles, clockwork repeaters. "They worked," she said, practically glowing. "They just weren't as strong as Dust rounds. So everyone stopped making them. But you could still use them if Dust ran out!"

Nora presented pre-Dust fireworks. "People made rockets with powder before Dust! They were for festivals! Then Dust fireworks were brighter, so everyone forgot!" She paused. "The streamer basically rediscovered festival science."

"That is a surprisingly apt summary, Miss Valkyrie."

Blake had researched Faunus herbal medicine, old remedies from mining communities that fell out of use when Dust-infused treatments became common. "Some of them actually worked," she said quietly. "Nobody studied them properly, because nobody thought they needed to."

Jaune, a little sheepishly, presented his family's sword. "Crocea Mors doesn't use Dust at all. It's just steel. My great-great-grandfather fought in the Great War with it. People told me it was outdated." He shrugged. "Turns out it's just... a different path."

Oobleck nodded slowly. "A sword that has outlived every Dust weapon designed alongside it. An excellent example, Mister Arc."

Then Weiss stood, and the room noticed immediately that she was holding a sealed envelope.

"I researched gas lighting," she said. "Cities used to be lit by gas lamps before Dust lighting replaced them. It was cheaper and cleaner for a while. And then Dust lamps took over within about twenty years." She hesitated. "I wanted to know why so fast. So I wrote to the refiners at my family's company, like I said I would. About the angry batches. And about history."

She held up the envelope.

"One of the oldest refiners wrote back. He said the Schnee Dust Company, generations ago, lobbied several city councils to phase out gas lighting. It was legal. It was business. But the gas lamps weren't failing. They were replaced." She lowered the envelope. "It was path dependence. Partly by design."

The room was very quiet.

"That," Oobleck said softly, "took courage to present, Miss Schnee."

"It's history," Weiss said, a little stiffly. "History is supposed to be accurate." She sat down. Blake, next to her, didn't say anything. She just shifted her chair a few inches closer.

* * *


​

"And now," Oobleck said, turning the projector back on, "the stream."

* * *


​

The room watched the lab team, the dewars, the frosting vapor. Weiss copied the new blackboard as fast as the camera would allow.

"Eight point four," she murmured. "Mass ratio of eight point four. That's less than half of hydrazine."

"Is that good?" Ruby asked.

"It's the best chemical number there is." Weiss looked up. "It means it's actually possible."

When the schematic of the turbine and pump appeared, Ruby leaned forward so far she nearly fell out of her seat.

"It powers its own pump," she whispered. "It burns a little bit of fuel to spin the thing that feeds it more fuel. That's so cool."

"It's a self-sustaining system," Ren said. "Like a heart."

"A rocket heart," Nora said reverently.

When ValeU_PropulsionLab announced that they'd been denied funding for eight years because "why not use Dust," the room turned, almost in unison, toward Weiss.

She didn't look away this time. "I know," she said quietly. "I know."

* * *


​

Then the countdown began.

Nobody talked. Nobody moved. Even the Atlas students on their stools were leaning forward.

Three. Two. One.

The rocket lifted off in its cloud of steam. The corner window showed the ground falling away, Vale shrinking to a web of light, the horizon beginning to bend.

The engine cut. The camera tumbled.

And the moon rolled into view, huge and broken and closer than any of them had ever seen it.

The lecture hall didn't erupt. It went completely, perfectly silent.

Ruby's hand went to her mouth. Yang, beside her, reached over without looking and squeezed her sister's shoulder. Blake had stopped breathing. Weiss's pen had frozen mid-word. Nora, for the first time anyone could remember, made no sound at all.

Pyrrha sat very still, looking up at the screen, her eyes bright.

The frame held for three seconds. Then the parachute popped, and the camera began its slow descent.

Only then did someone in the back begin to clap. And then everyone was clapping, not cheering, just clapping, steadily, for a long time.

* * *


​

Oobleck stopped the video on the frozen image of the moon.

He didn't say anything for a while. He simply stood beside the screen, thermos forgotten on the podium, looking at it.

"In all my years of study," he said finally, "I have looked at every surviving depiction of the moon that exists. Carvings. Paintings. Photographs. Observatory plates." He paused. "None of them look like this. None of them were taken from above."

"You said it should be remembered," Jaune said. "In the chat. Not graded. Remembered."

"I did, Mister Arc."

"Why?"

Oobleck turned to face the room.

"Because history is not only what happened," he said. "History is also the moment when someone looks again. When a thing everyone has stopped seeing is suddenly seen. That image is a record, not of the moon, but of humanity deciding to look up again after decades of looking down at the ground and the Dust in it." He took a breath. "Those moments are rare. And they are almost never recognized at the time."

* * *


​

"Discuss," he said, more quietly than usual.

Ruby raised her hand.

"Miss Rose."

"I've looked at the moon every night my whole life," she said. "Dad used to tell us stories about it. And I never thought I'd see it like that." She blinked hard. "It felt like... like it was closer. Like we could actually get there someday."

"Perhaps we can," Oobleck said. "The mathematics says we could."

"I want to talk about the lab," Weiss said. "They were ready for eight years. The knowledge was there. The engineering was there. The only thing missing was someone willing to pay for it." She looked down at the envelope in front of her. "And people like my family made sure nobody wanted to."

"That's not your fault," Blake said.

"No," Weiss said. "But it's my name." She was quiet a moment. "I'm going to find out what else we replaced."

Blake looked at her for a long moment. "I'll help," she said.

* * *


​

"The anonymous viewer," Oobleck said, before Blake could raise her hand. "Go on, Miss Belladonna. I know you want to."

A few students laughed softly. Blake almost smiled.

"'It is always beautiful. That is the trouble with it,'" she quoted. "That's the first time anon's ever sounded... sad. Every other time, it was a warning, or a question. This time it sounded like someone who's been looking at the moon for a very long time."

"People can be melancholy online," Yang said.

"They can," Blake agreed. "But 'that is the trouble with it.' Why would the moon being beautiful be trouble?"

Nobody had an answer.

Pyrrha, near the front, was very still. She had written the line down, beneath the others in her notebook margin. Her pen was resting on the page, and she didn't seem to have noticed she'd stopped writing.

"Miss Nikos?" Oobleck asked gently.

"Sorry," Pyrrha said. She looked up, composed. "I was just thinking it's a strange thing to say about something beautiful. That's all."

"It is," Oobleck said. He watched her a moment longer than he meant to.

* * *


​

The door at the back of the hall opened quietly.

Heads turned. And one by one, the students straightened in their seats, because standing in the doorway, cane in one hand and mug in the other, was Headmaster Ozpin.

"Please," Ozpin said mildly, raising a hand. "Don't let me interrupt. I was told this is the most popular lecture at Beacon. I wanted to see why."

"Headmaster," Oobleck said, and for the first time in anyone's memory, he sounded slightly flustered. "We were... discussing the most recent broadcast."

"So I gathered." Ozpin's gaze moved past him to the frozen frame on the screen.

He stood there, quite still, looking at the broken moon as seen from six kilometers above Remnant.

He didn't say anything. His expression didn't change in any way the students could name. But he looked at it for a long time. Longer than someone looking at a photograph usually does.

"Remarkable," he said at last, very softly. "Truly."

Then he turned to the class, and his usual mild smile returned.

"You're fortunate to have a teacher who encourages you to look again at things everyone else stopped seeing," he said. "Doctor Oobleck is right. These moments are rare. Pay attention to them." He nodded to Oobleck. "Carry on, Bartholomew."

And he was gone as quietly as he'd come.

* * *


​

The room stayed silent for a few seconds after the door closed.

"...Was that weird?" Jaune whispered. "That felt weird."

"He looked at it for a really long time," Ruby said.

"It's a really good picture," Yang said.

Blake didn't say anything. But she was looking at the door.

Pyrrha was looking at it too.

* * *


​

"No assignment," Oobleck said at last, recovering. "Not this week. Instead, go outside tonight. All of you. Look at the moon. Really look at it." He paused. "And remember that someone, this month, looked at it from above, with no Dust at all, simply because they refused to accept that it couldn't be done. Dismissed."

The students filed out slowly, talking in low voices.

"We're going to the roof tonight," Ruby said. "All of us. Team RWBY. And JNPR too. Everyone."

"It's cold," Weiss said.

"We'll bring blankets."

"...Fine," Weiss said, and nobody believed she was annoyed.

* * *


​

When the hall was empty, Oobleck took out his notebook, unlocked it, and turned to his list.

He added, beneath the last entry:

Rocket 2. Six kilometers. No Dust. First image of the moon from above.

anon: "It is always beautiful. That is the trouble with it."

Headmaster came to class. Looked at the image for 11 seconds. Said "remarkable."

He paused, pen hovering. Then, slowly, he added one more line.

He did not look surprised by what he saw. He looked like he was remembering something.

Oobleck looked at that sentence for a long, long time.

Then he closed the notebook, locked it in the drawer, and sat alone in the empty lecture hall, staring at the frozen image of the moon until the projector bulb began to dim.

* * *


​

Beacon Academy — Headmaster's Office, CCT Tower, 11:58 PM

High above the academy, the gears turned.

Ozpin stood at his window, cocoa cooling in his hand, looking up at the broken moon hanging over Vale. On his desk, a tablet glowed with a single paused frame: the same moon, seen from six kilometers up, taken by a rocket that had used no Dust at all.

Far below, on the roof of the dormitories, he could just make out a cluster of small figures huddled under blankets, pointing upward.

He watched them for a while.

"Most people only ever see it from below," he murmured.

Then he turned away from the window, sat down at his desk, and did not sleep for a long time.

 

[Emiya Pendragon]

[CCT Network — Livestream: "Rocket 3: I was being dumb (two stages, three cameras)" — 👁 71,208 viewers]

* * *


​

(Same licensed range as before. The concrete pad, the sandbag wall, the bunker. But the rocket on the pad is different now: taller than a person, nearly two and a half meters, and clearly built in two sections. The lower half is thicker, matte black, with a ring of small red-and-yellow Dust cartridges visible through inspection windows near the base. The upper half is the familiar white machined aluminum, venting a thin line of frost. The stream now has three small inset windows along the bottom of the screen, labeled UP, SIDE, and DOWN.)

SI: Hi everyone. So. I owe you an apology. Well, I owe myself an apology.

For two whole streams I've been going "no Dust, no Dust, no Dust." And after the last launch, I'm lying in bed staring at the ceiling, and it hits me. Dust works fine in the atmosphere. It only fails up high. So why was I refusing to use it for the part where it works?

I was so busy proving Dust wasn't necessary that I forgot it's still really, really good. That's path dependence in reverse. I got so attached to not using Dust that I stopped seeing it as an option. So. Hi. I was being dumb.

Today's rocket uses both. Board.

* * *


​

THE PLAN: TWO STAGES
STAGE 1 — DUST (black section): fire + gravity Dust cartridges, fired in sequence. Huge thrust, cheap, easy to handle. Works great in thick air. Cuts off around ~20 km (Dust stops responding). Target at burnout: ~20 km altitude, ~700 m/s.
STAGE 2 — LIQUID H₂ / LIQUID O₂ (white section): separates after Stage 1 burns out. Lights at ~20 km, where Dust can't work. Burns ~30 s, adds roughly ~900 m/s.
COAST (after Stage 2 burnout): air is extremely thin above ~30 km, so drag is almost zero. Extra height from coasting ≈ v² / (2g) ≈ (1,500 m/s)² / (2 × 9.8) ≈ ~115 km.
PREDICTED PEAK ALTITUDE: ~120–140 km
This is NOT orbit. Orbit needs ~7.8 km/s sideways. We're going straight up and coming straight back down. But ~100 km+ is where the atmosphere effectively ends. This is space.

* * *


​

SI: So here's the logic. Dust is incredible in the atmosphere. Cheap, powerful, way easier to handle than cryogenic hydrogen. So the black first stage burns Dust the whole way up through the thick air. Around twenty kilometers, the Dust stops responding. The lab has measured that part carefully now, by the way, and I'll show you data later.

That's where Stage One drops off, and the white stage lights up. Hydrogen and oxygen don't care how high they are. They bring their own oxidizer. So Stage Two takes over right where Dust gives up.

Once Stage Two burns out, the air is so thin that there's basically nothing slowing the rocket down. It just coasts upward on momentum. And if the math is right, it coasts all the way past a hundred kilometers.

Which is space. Not orbit, I want to be super clear. We're not staying up there. But it'll touch space and come back.

And that's why there are three cameras. One looking up. One looking sideways. One looking down. We're going to see what it looks like.

* * *


​

LIVE CHAT

grimm_bait_420: HE'S USING DUST NOW LMAOOO

HunterWannabe_Tom: the redemption arc for Dust

DustTrader_Mo: DUST IS BACK BABY. I AM NO LONGER THREATENED.

ValeCommuter_22: it's a Dust rocket

SI: @ValeCommuter_22 it's HALF a Dust rocket

ValeCommuter_22: it's half a Dust rocket

AtlasTechStudent: This is exactly what real launch design would do. Use the cheapest, most powerful propulsion for the low stage and the most efficient for the upper stage. You've basically reinvented staging strategy.

AtlasTechStudent: Coasting math is a simplification, but at those altitudes drag is negligible. 120–140 km is plausible.

SI: Thank you, Atlas guy. Your approval means a lot at this point.

AtlasTechStudent: Don't make it weird.

ValeU_PropulsionLab: Lab lead here. Quick note for viewers: we put sensors on the Dust cartridges during test burns. Dust output starts dropping noticeably around 15 km and falls off sharply near 20. It doesn't cut off like a switch. It fades. Like it's losing contact with something.

SI: "Losing contact with something." Yeah, I've been thinking about that sentence for a week.

HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: I would like it noted that "losing contact with something" is a description, not an explanation. That said, I also find it very interesting.

GreatHunterPPort: THE DUST LONGS FOR HOME! I SAID THIS MONTHS AGO!

HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Peter, please.

GreatHunterPPort: THE DATA SUPPORTS ME, BARTHOLOMEW!

HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: ...The data is consistent with a gradual weakening. Which is not longing.

grimm_bait_420: port finally has DATA

SDC_Official: The Schnee Dust Company is proud to note that the Dust powering today's first stage was sourced from SDC mines. We congratulate the team and look forward to continued Dust-powered innovation.

grimm_bait_420: OH NO

HunterWannabe_Tom: the corporation has entered the chat

FaunusRights_Now: "continued Dust-powered innovation" lmao the lab got rejected for 8 years for NOT using Dust

SDC_Warehouse_Guy: I'm the guy who literally packed that shipment and I promise the company didn't know what it was for until this morning

SDC_Official: [message deleted]

grimm_bait_420: SDC DELETED THEIR MESSAGE

VPD_Officer_Reyes: Permits filed, airspace cleared up to unlimited altitude for a ten-minute window, which took three weeks and a phone call to Atlas air traffic. You're welcome. Launch before the window closes.

SI: Officer Reyes, you're a legend.

* * *


​

(The lab team finishes fueling the upper stage. White vapor streams off the top. Everyone retreats. The SI heads into the bunker. The three camera insets flicker: UP shows darkening evening sky; SIDE shows the range fence and the distant tree line; DOWN shows the concrete pad beneath the engine nozzle.)

ValeU_PropulsionLab: Stage two tanks pressurized. Stage one Dust cartridges armed. Range clear. Airspace window open. We are go.

SI: Okay. Here we go.

grimm_bait_420: COUNTDOWN

SI: Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

(The base of the rocket erupts in a blinding burst of red-orange flame, laced with faint purple distortion from the gravity Dust. The roar is louder than anything the stream has broadcast before. The rocket tears off the pad and rockets upward, a pillar of fire and smoke trailing behind it.)

(DOWN camera: the pad drops away instantly. The range shrinks. The forest becomes a green carpet. Vale's rooftops appear in the distance, then Vale itself, small as a toy city.)

(SIDE camera: the horizon tilts slightly and holds steady. The sky shifts from pale blue to deep blue.)

(UP camera: the sky darkens. And darkens.)

ValeU_PropulsionLab: Ten kilometers. Stage one nominal.

ValeU_PropulsionLab: Fifteen. Dust output dropping. As predicted.

(The flame at the base begins to flicker and sputter, the red growing dim and patchy.)

ValeU_PropulsionLab: Nineteen... twenty. Stage one burnout. Separation.

(DOWN camera: a jolt. The black first stage falls away beneath, tumbling, a small parachute blossoming from its top as it drops toward the ground.)

ValeU_PropulsionLab: Stage two ignition.

(A nearly invisible blue-white flame flares from the white upper stage. The rocket surges upward again.)

(SIDE camera: the horizon begins to curve. Visibly. Unmistakably. Below the black sky, a thin, glowing band of blue hugs the edge of the world.)

ValeU_PropulsionLab: Forty kilometers. Sixty. Stage two burnout. Coasting.

(Silence. The engines are off. The rocket climbs on momentum alone.)

ValeU_PropulsionLab: Eighty.

ValeU_PropulsionLab: One hundred.

ValeU_PropulsionLab: One hundred and ten.

ValeU_PropulsionLab: ...one hundred and twenty...

ValeU_PropulsionLab: One hundred and thirty-one kilometers. Apogee.

* * *


​

(All three cameras, at once

(DOWN: Remnant. Not a map. Not a painting. The curve of the whole continent of Sanus spread below, green and brown and white-capped, with the gleaming speck of Vale on the coast. Clouds drift in slow swirls over an impossibly blue ocean. Far to the edges of the frame, other landmasses, some familiar from maps, some faint and unfamiliar at the horizon, fade into haze.)

(SIDE: the edge of the world. A razor-thin line of glowing atmosphere, blue fading to black, and above it, nothing. Pure, total darkness. The stars are out, in daytime, sharper than anyone on Remnant has ever seen them.)

(UP: the moon. Broken. Enormous. Not blurred by a single wisp of air. Every fragment crisp and bright, the jagged edges clear as cut glass, the gaps between them black and empty. Up here, above the atmosphere, it looks close enough to touch.)

(For several seconds, the stream is completely silent. The rocket hangs at the top of its arc.)

(Then, slowly, it begins to fall.)

* * *


​

SI: (barely audible) ...we're in space.

SI: (a little louder, voice cracking) We're in space. We made it. We actually—

(He stops and doesn't finish. He just watches the three screens.)

* * *


​

grimm_bait_420: WE'RE IN SPACE

HunterWannabe_Tom: I CAN SEE THE WHOLE CONTINENT

MistralMom_Jenna: I'm sobbing. I'm sobbing at my kitchen table.

VacuoVeteran: the stars. in the daytime. look at the stars.

FaunusRights_Now: the edge of the world is BLUE. it's so thin. it's so THIN.

ValeCommuter_22: it's space

AtlasTechStudent: Telemetry confirms. 131 km. Above the practical boundary of the atmosphere. This is the first image of Remnant from space in recorded history.

AtlasTechStudent: I've been arguing with you for four months. I'm crying at a lab bench.

ValeU_PropulsionLab: We did it. We actually did it. Eight years.

VPD_Officer_Reyes: Best paperwork I've ever filed.

GreatHunterPPort: I have no words. I, Peter Port, have NO WORDS.

HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Nobody say anything to Peter. This is historic.

HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: And I will say only this. For the entirety of recorded history, humanity has looked at the moon from below and at the land from within. Today, for the first time, someone looked at both from outside. Everything written about this world from now on will be written by people who have seen it from above.

DustTrader_Mo: and DUST helped. DUST GOT IT HALFWAY THERE.

SDC_Warehouse_Guy: I packed that Dust. I packed the Dust that went to SPACE. Well, halfway to space.

grimm_bait_420: warehouse guy is having the best day of his life

ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: I've read old texts my whole life that describe the world as a garden. I never imagined I'd see the garden from above.

VacuoVeteran: church guy that's beautiful

anon_viewer_4471: One hundred and thirty-one kilometers. Higher than anyone has been in a very long time.

grimm_bait_420: anon's here

HunterWannabe_Tom: "in a very long time"??? anon what does that MEAN

FaunusRights_Now: anon's implying someone's been up there before???

SI: ...what do you mean "in a very long time"?

anon_viewer_4471: Only that the old space program never reached so high. Congratulations. You've given people something to look up at.

HunterWannabe_Tom: ok that's a normal explanation but anon SAID it in a weird way

FaunusRights_Now: anon always says it in a weird way

SI: Yeah. That's... fair. The old program didn't get this high. Thanks, anon.

* * *


​

(The UP camera tumbles as the rocket falls. The moon drifts out of frame. Moments later, the parachute deploys, and the white upper stage begins its slow descent back toward Remnant.)

SI: (wiping his face, laughing a little shakily) Okay. Okay. Summary. I'm going to try to get through this without crying again.

The mistake: I refused to use Dust because I wanted to prove it wasn't needed. But Dust works great in the atmosphere. Refusing to use it was its own kind of path dependence.

The fix: Two stages. Dust gets you through the thick air, cheap and powerful, until it fades out around twenty kilometers. Then hydrogen and oxygen take over where Dust can't.

The data: Dust doesn't cut off like a switch. It fades, from about fifteen to twenty kilometers. The lab says it's like it's "losing contact with something." Nobody knows what.

The result: One hundred thirty-one kilometers. Space. Not orbit, just touching it. But we saw it. The whole continent. The edge of the world. Stars in the daytime. And the moon, with nothing in the way.

The big one: We didn't need to choose between Dust and no Dust. We needed both. The old way and the new way, together.

AtlasTechStudent: Best summary you've ever given.

HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Agreed.

ValeCommuter_22: it's space

SI: It's space, Vale guy. It's really space. Goodnight, everyone.

[STREAM ENDED — Peak viewers: 184,603]

 

[Emiya Pendragon]

Beacon Academy — Main Amphitheater, History of Remnant, 8:15 AM

Lecture Hall 3B couldn't hold them anymore.

After the previous class, when students had been turned away at the door, Professor Goodwitch had sent a short, crisp message to Oobleck: Use the amphitheater. Please. The fire marshal has opinions.

So now Doctor Oobleck stood on the stage of the main amphitheater, the same room used for the Headmaster's opening address, looking up at nearly three hundred students. First-years. Second-years. Upperclassmen. Atlas exchange students. A handful of Haven transfers. Professor Port in the front row, beaming, a bag of snacks in his lap.

"Peter," Oobleck said.

"I am AUDITING, Bartholomew."

"You are eating."

"I am auditing while eating."

Oobleck sighed, took a long sip from his thermos, and looked out at the sea of faces.

"When I began teaching," he said, "I had a class of twelve. Three of them slept." He set the thermos down. "I would like to state, for the record, that I do not know how to feel about this."

The amphitheater laughed.

"There is no homework to review," he continued. "I assigned you the moon. I trust you all looked at it."

Three hundred students nodded. On the fourth row, Team RWBY and Team JNPR sat shoulder to shoulder, several of them still slightly bleary from a night spent on the dormitory roof under blankets.

"Good," Oobleck said. "Then let us see it from somewhere else."

* * *


​

The amphitheater screen was enormous. When the stream began, the three camera windows filled half of it on their own.

When the SI announced, "I was being dumb," a wave of laughter went through the room.

"He admitted it," Yang said. "On camera. To seventy thousand people."

"That's the second time," Ren noted. "He did the same thing with the hydrazine."

When the SI explained that refusing Dust had been its own kind of path dependence, Oobleck paused the video and turned to the audience.

"Note this," he said. "Last week, I taught you the term path dependence. This week, our streamer discovered that you can fall into it by rejecting a path, just as easily as by following one. He became so committed to proving Dust unnecessary that he stopped seeing Dust as a tool." He tapped the screen. "The mind that says always and the mind that says never are the same mind. Both have stopped looking."

A few students wrote that down.

* * *


​

When the lab lead described Dust fading between fifteen and twenty kilometers, "like it's losing contact with something," Weiss went very still.

"That matches," she murmured.

"Matches what?" Blake asked.

"The refiner's letter. The one I got about the angry batches." Weiss pulled a folded page from her bag. "He said the most potent Dust always comes from the deepest parts of the mines. Deeper veins, stronger Dust. Surface deposits are weaker. And Dust that sits in storage for years slowly loses potency, even sealed." She looked at the screen. "Deeper is stronger. Higher is weaker. Further from the ground, less power."

"Like it's connected to the planet," Ruby said.

"Like it's connected to something," Weiss said carefully. "I'm not saying the planet. I'm saying the pattern is consistent."

"Porty's theory," Nora whispered. "The Dust longs."

In the front row, Port had turned around in his seat and was pointing at Weiss with enormous enthusiasm.

"MISS SCHNEE HAS DATA!"

"Peter, turn around."

* * *


​

When SDC_Official appeared in the chat, a groan went through the amphitheater. When the message was deleted, it became laughter.

Weiss had put her face in her hands.

"That's my father's PR department," she said, muffled. "I know the woman who writes those."

"It's not your fault," Blake said, patting her shoulder.

"It's my name," Weiss groaned. "Again."

* * *


​

Then came the countdown.

Three hundred students fell silent.

The first stage roared off the pad, red-orange Dust flame laced with purple gravity distortion. The DOWN camera showed the range falling away. The SIDE camera showed the horizon steadying. The UP camera showed the sky darkening.

When the Dust flame began to sputter at fifteen kilometers, Weiss leaned forward and watched it with an intensity that made Blake glance at her.

"Nineteen... twenty. Stage one burnout. Separation."

The black first stage fell away beneath.

"Stage two ignition."

And the rocket climbed into the black.

* * *


​

When the three cameras reached apogee, the amphitheater didn't make a sound.

The DOWN camera showed the whole continent of Sanus spread beneath them like a map come to life. Vale on the coast. The Emerald Forest, a dark green smudge. Mountains, rivers, clouds drifting in slow spirals over the ocean.

"There's Beacon," someone whispered in the back. "I think that's Beacon. That little dot by the cliffs."

The SIDE camera showed the edge of the world. A razor-thin band of glowing blue, and above it, nothing.

"It's so thin," Ruby breathed. "Everything we breathe. It's just that thin line."

The UP camera showed the moon. Broken, enormous, and utterly clear.

Nobody spoke.

Then, very quietly, from somewhere near the top of the amphitheater, a first-year began to cry. And nobody laughed at her, because a lot of people were doing the same.

* * *


​

Oobleck let the frame hold for a long time before he paused it.

"Before we discuss," he said, "I want to show you something."

He rewound the DOWN camera footage to apogee, and zoomed in on the far edges of the frame.

"Here. And here." He pointed. "Along the edges of the image, near the horizon. Landmasses. Some you'll recognize from maps. Anima's northern coast. The edge of Solitas." He moved the pointer. "And this one."

At the very edge of the frame, hazy and faint, a dark shape sat at the curve of the world.

"I have checked every map in the Beacon archives," Oobleck said. "Twice. That landmass is poorly charted. Its coastline appears on only a handful of very old maps, and none of them agree with each other. No modern survey has mapped it in detail. It is simply marked 'unexplored.'"

The room was quiet.

"Is that where the Grimm come from?" Ruby asked. "Our proposal. The maps. The migration flow."

"I have no idea, Miss Rose," Oobleck said. "And I would caution you against leaping to that conclusion. But I will say this. For the first time in history, we have a photograph of places we have never been. That alone changes the questions we can ask."

Team RWBY exchanged a look. Yang was already grinning.

"We are not going there," Weiss said immediately.

"We're proposing—"

"No."

* * *


​

"Discuss," Oobleck said.

The amphitheater had never been this full, and it had never been this eager. Hands went up everywhere.

A second-year from Atlas stood first. "The two-stage design," she said. "It's not just clever engineering. It's a philosophy. Use Dust where Dust works, and something else where it doesn't. Atlas has built everything on the assumption that Dust must do everything. This proves it doesn't have to."

"An excellent point," Oobleck said. "Next."

Velvet, from the back, raised her hand shyly. "The church viewer said they'd read about the world being a garden their whole life, and never imagined seeing it from above." She paused. "I think that's what this stream was really about. Not the rocket. Just seeing something you've always been told about, for real."

"Well said, Miss Scarlatina."

Jaune raised his hand. "I want to talk about the landmass. And the unfamiliar stuff at the edges. If we can see places we've never been... does that mean the next thing is going there?"

"Perhaps, Mister Arc. Every age of exploration in history began with someone seeing a coastline they couldn't reach."

* * *


​

And then, of course, Blake's hand went up.

The amphitheater, which had learned the pattern even among students who didn't normally attend, let out a quiet, knowing murmur.

"Miss Belladonna," Oobleck said. "Anon."

"'Higher than anyone has been in a very long time,'" Blake quoted. "Then, when the streamer asked, anon said it only meant the old space program never got that high." She shook her head. "But that's not what 'in a very long time' means. If you meant 'higher than the old program,' you'd say 'higher than anyone has ever been.' 'In a very long time' means someone was. Once."

"Or anon just phrased it badly," a first-year called out.

"Anon doesn't phrase things badly," Blake said. "That's the whole point. Every message has been careful. Every single one."

"Maybe anon meant the gods," Ren said quietly. "In the old stories. If the Brothers left, they'd have gone... up. Or away. Somewhere."

The amphitheater was very quiet.

"That's a mythological reading," Oobleck said carefully. "Not a historical one."

"I know," Ren said. "But anon keeps saying things that only make sense in the mythological reading."

Pyrrha, beside Jaune, had gone pale. Not dramatically. Just a subtle draining of color. Her hands were folded tightly in her lap, and she was looking at the frozen image of the moon on the enormous screen as if it were speaking to her.

Jaune noticed. He didn't say anything. But he moved his hand an inch closer to hers on the armrest.

"Miss Nikos," Oobleck said gently. "Your thoughts?"

Pyrrha took a breath.

"I think," she said, very carefully, "that some old stories might be older than we assume. And that some people might take them more seriously than the rest of us." She paused. "That's all."

Oobleck looked at her for a long moment.

"Thank you, Miss Nikos," he said quietly.

* * *


​

"No assignment," he announced finally. "I have run out of questions to give you that the streamer has not already asked better. So instead, I will ask you to do one thing."

He turned to the enormous frozen image of Remnant from above.

"Remember where you were when you saw this. Genuinely remember it. Write it down tonight, somewhere private. Because one day, historians will ask people what they felt the first time they saw Remnant from space, and I would like at least some of those answers to come from this room." He paused. "Dismissed."

* * *


​

The amphitheater emptied slowly, in a low, humming wave of conversation.

In the front row, Port finally stood, brushing crumbs off his coat. "A magnificent lecture, Bartholomew. Truly. I shall tell my classes that I was present."

"You were eating, Peter."

"I was present while eating."

He clapped Oobleck on the shoulder and departed, humming.

Pyrrha lingered near the top of the stairs, looking back down at the stage, where the image of the broken moon still glowed.

"You okay?" Jaune asked.

"I'm fine," she said. Then, after a moment: "Jaune... do you ever feel like you've been told part of a story, and you're only now realizing how much you weren't told?"

Jaune blinked. "...Yeah? I mean, kind of. All the time, lately."

Pyrrha smiled at him, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Yes," she said softly. "Me too."

* * *


​

When the amphitheater was empty, Oobleck sat alone on the edge of the stage and took out his notebook.

He added to the list:

Rocket 3. 131 km. First image of Remnant from space.

Dust fades 15–20 km. "Losing contact with something."

Refiner: deeper veins = stronger Dust. Storage = gradual decay.

Unexplored landmass visible at horizon. Poorly charted. Old maps disagree.

anon: "Higher than anyone has been in a very long time."

Miss Nikos: "Some people might take old stories more seriously than the rest of us."

He looked at that last line for a long time. Then he underlined it.

He closed the notebook, and for the first time, he didn't go looking for Peter. He simply sat on the stage in the empty amphitheater, looking at the enormous frozen image of the moon, and thought about how many people might already know things he didn't.

* * *


​

Beacon Academy — Headmaster's Office, CCT Tower, 1:14 AM

The elevator opened. Qrow Branwen stepped out, flask in hand, looking tired.

"You wanted me to look into your internet ghost," he said, dropping into the chair across from Ozpin's desk.

Ozpin didn't look up from the tablet in front of him. On its screen was the image from the DOWN camera: Remnant from above, and at the very edge of the frame, a dark, hazy landmass at the curve of the world.

"And?"

"And nothing." Qrow took a swig. "That account routes through something like eleven different relays. Some of them go through Mistral. Some through Vacuo. A couple I couldn't even trace. Whoever's behind it knows exactly what they're doing." He set the flask down. "Oz. That's not some lonely fan who likes rocket videos."

Ozpin was quiet for a long moment.

"No," he said softly. "I didn't think it was."

Qrow studied him. "You know who it is?"

"I have suspicions." Ozpin set the tablet down, the image of the dark landmass still glowing between them. "And I don't like any of them."

"Want me to pull the kid out? Get him somewhere safe?"

"Not yet." Ozpin turned toward the window, where the broken moon hung over Vale. "If someone is watching him this closely, removing him would only confirm that he's worth watching. For now, the safest thing he can be is exactly what he appears to be. A curious young man asking questions in public."

"And if the ghost decides curiosity's a problem?"

Ozpin didn't answer right away.

"Then," he said quietly, "we'll need to be watching too."

Qrow looked at him a long moment. Then he picked up his flask, stood, and headed back to the elevator.

"You know," he said over his shoulder, "for a kid in a cheap apartment, he's sure making a lot of powerful people lose sleep."

The elevator closed.

Ozpin stood alone at the window, looking up at the moon, until the sky over Vale began to lighten.

 

[Emiya Pendragon]

a short hiatus will start.. to focus on my other stories and to refine my next chapters to make them better...

 

[Bartimaeus]

Containment of Hydrogen is far more complex than just cooling it down. It also corrodes metals and penetrates into atomic lattices.

 

[Yachii]

Thanks for the chappies

 

[Dao_of_Bibliomania]

a short hiatus will start.. to focus on my other stories and to refine my next chapters to make them better...

Click to shrink...

Thanks for the chapters and be careful not to burn out or anything!!!

 

[Lord of the First Flame]

a short hiatus will start.. to focus on my other stories and to refine my next chapters to make them better...

Click to shrink...

Huh. It's been so long since I've seen you I forgot you had other stories. I'll have to take a look again.