The first few minutes of the fight are underwhelming. We unleash a barrage of attacks, and he laughs them off. He shoots arrows at us, and we dodge, letting the arrows crash into the metal shipping crates or wooden dock around us. It seems to be going fine (after all, our hits are slowly wearing him down) until an arrow manages to clip me. It's barely a graze, not even a scratch, but instantly, my semblance gives a warning.

The Grasp of the White Rider is upon you, and Pestilence feeds upon your flesh. The Conqueror's Will shall not be denied.

I let out a gasp of pain as I see the area around the wound begin to rot. A moment later, a second notification appears.

Gamers Body has protected you from the effects of the White Rider's Arrow.

The rot stops spreading, but remains. At the same time, my health bar suddenly starts dropping. I activate my regeneration, feeding aura into it to keep my health bar topped off. Luckily Blake seems to have attracted his attention away from me, because otherwise he probably would have shot me again while I was distracted.

I thank her by dropping about a hundred Aura Arrows into Roman's back. Despite the massive numbers, his health bar ticks down only a little bit. The explosions do knock him off balance though, and he spins on that bony not-horse to face me.

"So, Red... no, you're not Red, are you? You're the Pale Rider. You really should change up your color scheme. I mean, Red for the Pale Rider? No, that just won't do." He fires another one of those wrongwrongwrong arrows at me, and I throw myself to the side, coming up from a roll to unleash another barrage of bullets in his direction. He shoots an arrow upward, knocking a pile of crates in between the two of us. I take the chance to catch my breath and check my stats. I let out a tetch of annoyance as I noticed my health bar getting low again already.

"What the hell are you talking about this time?" I demand, activating my Regeneration again. My health bar slowly begins to restore itself, my aura fighting against the supernaturally inflicted disease. The White Rider was the Conqueror, after all, the disease that made even the proudest kneel. I wasn't really sure how I knew that, the knowledge was simply... there.

"Our titles," he says cheerfully, flinging an arrow at Yang. She dodges, and I have Roc fire a pair of lightning bolts at him. He catches the lightning on his bow, which seems to discharge it harmlessly. "And specifically, the Rider titles. They're the important ones, you see. After all, they're what let us talk to the Grimm. Have you tried taking Grimm Form yet? Oh, what am I asking, of course you haven't. You're like those dumb cops. More power and authority than anyone else in the area, and no idea how to use it. Well, when you take on a Grimm form, you become able to talk to them. Understand them. And the thing is, each of the Riders? They're heralds of the Apocalypse. The end of an Era. The end of humanity's Era! Isn't that the perfect way to end this game? Vale falls, everyone dies! All that needs to happen is for all four Riders to activate their Grimm forms at once. Even the lesser one you start with is enough to command the lesser Creatures of Grimm, but you'll need the highest level version before we can end this game. And since I'm guessing you won't do it willingly, I'm going to make you." He grins, and the effect is completely terrifying on his bony skull-face.

"And how are you going to do that?" I demand. "You don't even know how to activate my title! And besides, there's no way you could convince me to do what I need to!"

"Did you know we're not the first ones to play the game?" he asks, suddenly completely off topic as his bone bow deflects another strike from Weiss. "The Gamer Semblance has appeared before, you know. And each time it takes on a different... theme. This time, it's the four riders who herald the end. Last time? It was the seasons. You know, Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer? As in, oh, I don't know, Summer Rose?" Yang smashes into him like a golden comet. Asteroid? Meteor? Meteoroid? Whatever. She smashes into him in a blaze of golden fire, which proceeds to explode, blasting the crate out of the way, and letting me see with my own eyes, instead of Roc's.

"Shut the hell up!" she snarls. Her hair is alight with power, and her eyes are so red I'm afraid they they're going to start bleeding. As I watch, her Title changes from Blood Knight to Golden Wyrmling. "You have no right to mention our mother! You have no right to try to use her against us! And I'm going to take a page from Nora's book, and crush you." She pummels him as she talks, her blows smashing into his inky skin.

"Please, crush me? Me?" He laughs, kicking out with his horsy parts, sending Yang flying into a shipping crate. The impact leaves a dent which quickly melts. I grit my teeth, a wave of calm taking the edge off my urge to yell out, and take the opportunity to shoot at him again. He shrugs it off just like he did the last time I tried it, and fires back. I block the arrow with Crescent Rose, sending it flying into a wall behind me. "Now where was I..." he muses. "Oh, yes. So the Gamer semblance. Each time it arrives, it does so with a different representation. The previous one was seasons, the one before that, the Tarot. That is, Swords, Cups, Pentacles, and Wands. The one before that was the four elements of Dust. So on and-"

Yang smashes into him again, this time with Weiss hitting from the other side. I use Crescent Rose to boost myself forward, joining in on the attack. Blake joins as well. All four of us smash into the jerk at once, only for him to take the opportunity to impale Blake and Weiss with a pair of held arrows at point blank. They both twist away at the last second, preventing the arrows from doing more than grazing them, but it's enough for the effect to trigger. Their health bars join mine in dropping, but unlike me, their Aura regenerations aren't able to keep up with the drain that's suddenly put upon them as they try to heal the injuries the arrows inflict.

"Weiss! Blake!" I let out a cry and disengage, rushing to grab Weiss and pull her out of the fight as Yang does the same for Blake. Without the Gamer's body to protect her, the disease is visible, actively eating away at her flesh like some sort of rot. "I'm sorry," I murmur under her agonized screams. I pull out a Red Dust crystal, and activate it heating up the Crescent Rose's blade. I take a breath before carefully slicing with her, cutting away diseased flesh and a good portion of healthy flesh around it. Her scream grows louder for a moment before choking off as her Aura, strengthened by the effects of my Semblance, kicks in and begins regenerating the injuries in a way that her body could otherwise never accomplish. I stand, turn, and calmly pull out about fifty grams of Red Dust. Torchwick just watches, a cruel mockery of a grin dancing across that fake skull mask on his Grimm form.

"Crescent Rose," I say calmly. "By the contract that binds us, by the Aura that you feed upon, I command you to grant to me the greatest extent of your power. Be Fragile. Be Broken. Be Freed. For it is in passing that we achieve immortality, through this we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee." The gems that make up the blade begin to crack, then shatter as the Dust Infused, highly unstable elemental within is released from it. And now, just to make things weirder, its Aura is awakened. I add fuel to the fire and spend all 50 grams of Red Dust channeling a single Flame Bolt through the Crescent Rose's barrel. Just before the entire weapon comes apart, I drag the elemental into the barrel as well. Then I pull the trigger.

I have no idea how these will all react. My skill knowledge says no one's ever tried most of this. Most abilities barely use an extra three milligrams to power it up to twice times as strong. Most people don't bother trying to awaken the soul of a nearly mindless construct born of the power of your contract with its originator, an aspect of nature. Especially not after it's been infused with enough dust to form an artificial affinity to the opposite element. No one's stupid enough to do all of that at once.

The fireball hits Torchwick like the fist of an angry god, and the massive twister of fire lights up the night for miles around. My set of 15 Aura Barriers, all thrown up while Crescent Rose destabilized, all wrapped around Torchwick, collapses within seconds. And the world is bathed in light.

It's cold. It's so very cold. But the moon is so whole, so beautiful as it shines down upon the empty glade. I raise my hands, and begin to chant. I call forth the demons of the depth, those with whom I've made my contract. The Interference Law will not let me change the world. It will not let me heal her. So be it. If Gaia will reject my actions, then I will reject her in turn. I will call forth an Illusion Barrier, one so large that it will cover the world, one so permissive it will allow even those without power, and one so strong that not even Gaia's influence will break it. But Gaia is an ancient and powerful force. So I'll need a way to cheat it. And isn't it lucky that someone was recently granted the Gamer ability? Every game can be cheated, after all, and, well, whenever he gets involved, life is a game.

You had a Nightmare. You did not recover HP, SP, or MP.

You rested in a medical area. Your HP, SP, and MP have been fully restored.

My eyes blink open to reveal a sterile white ceiling. I stare at it in surprise for a few seconds, not really getting why it looks so unfamiliar, before I realize there's a heavy weight on my chest. I crane my neck, glancing down at whatever's there, then almost have a panic attack. The Ancient Grimm is currently in the form of a house cat, sitting on my chest, and staring at my eyes. I quickly look around, calming down a bit when I see a number of beds with white curtains around them. Obviously, I'm in some kind of medical center. And since even in this cat form, Umbra looks like, well, a Grimm, what with those bony white and orange plates practically covering his entire body, I'm probably in Beacon's built-in hospital. Anywhere else would probably have people panicking, after all.

"I see that I will have to train the Fake," Umbra says calmly. "It is not permitted to die."

"... Umbra," I say, ignoring my dry throat. My Gamer's Body lets me ignore many things. Something like a dry throat is a lot less important than my question. "Have there been people with the Gamer semblance, that is, people like Torchwick and myself before?"

"Yes." It nods. "There are always four Fakes."

"Do you know if my mother was the previous one?" I ask, my throat dry. "Um, her name's Summer Rose. She... she was-"

"Your progenitor?" it asks, tilting its head like a puppy. "The one from whom you were birthed? No, she did not possess the falsehood of soul. The former four have all fallen. This is why the current Fake exists. There are always four Fakes, four deceptions, four lies that bind us. One fake being birthed to another is unlikely."

"But she might have been?" I ask. It shakes its head.

"I recall the tastes of the other Fakes. This Fake does not taste of any of them. Every Fake falls without spawning more. I suspect this is because they are false, and thus cannot bring truth."

"... Right," I say with a sigh, then frown. "Wait. If there's so many Gamers, why haven't I heard about any of them before?"

"The Falseness is not always known," Umbra explains. "It requires a catalyst to manifest."

"Huh. Okay, so what catalyzed my Semblance?" I ask it.

It shrugs its... bones at me. Umbra doesn't really have any visible shoulders in this form. "I know little of the requirements for manifesting a falsehood. I search for the Master, and that requires me to find truth, not falsehood." Why do I get the feeling that he's insulting me?

A minute of awkward silence later, Yang smashes into the room. She looks perfectly healthy. "Ruby!" She yells, launching herself at me and hugging me, "You're okay!"

"You too!" I say gleefully, quickly pulling myself upright and hugging her back. "How are the others? What happened, do you know yet?"

"The others are fine. After you, uh, shot him, pretty much everyone ever, throughout the whole town, noticed. So then the cavalry came in the form of the army. After that, we all got dragged here for medical attention," she explains. "Weiss and Blake are both fine, though they're technically still in treatment, and they've been placed in quarantine for now. Those disease arrows of his did a bit of a number of them, and if it weren't for the accelerated healing that we get from the combinations of our Aura and your Semblance, it'd be much worse than it was." She grins. "Your Semblance made the medicine work pretty much instantly, so they're really just sitting there while the doctors make absolutely certain that it's not contagious. In more depressing news, Torchwick got away, so we can be pretty sure he's going to be coming back to try to attack us again sometime soon."

"Wait, he got away?" I complain. "But what about my awesome exploding shot of doom?"

"Well, apparently, you managed to knock out every dust and aura based piece of equipment within about a hundred yards, causing a bit chaos, and knocking a lot of the civilians out when you tore their aura down," she says cheerfully. "But beyond that, it wasn't actually that lethal."

I start sulking a bit when I hear that. I sacrificed Crescent Rose for nothing? "But wait, I saw a lot of fire!" I protest.

She nods. "Yeah, apparently, it's like when someone sneezes into Dust. There's an explosion of whatever energy type's in the Dust, and you waste a lot of it, but nothing actually gets damaged despite that. Only you imbued it with opposing elements, and a lot of extra dust, so instead of a small explosion, you got a fire tornado that tore through people's auras. They're trying to figure out how you did that by the way, since everyone's Aura recovered pretty quickly. It wasn't painful or anything, it just took people straight from perfectly normal to unconscious. The law enforcement's drooling over it."

"Ugh." I collapse back onto the bed. "That's... good, I guess."

"Is it? Was your intention not to kill the other Fake?" Umbra asks. It sounds kind of annoyed. I wonder wh- Oh no. I shoot up, staring at it in horror. Yes, I did, in fact, toss it off the bed when I sat up to hug Yang.

"Oh no, are you okay?" I ask worriedly. It gives me a you're-an-idiot look, which is made a bit worse by the fact that it still looks like a cat that got turned into a Grimm.

"I am capable of surviving far more that simply being thrown at a wall," it replies, a lot more calmly than I'd have replied if I were thrown into a wall. As it talks, the bony plates that make up its armor layer begin to dissolve, and its shadow-flesh begins to melt. A moment later, it shapes itself into a human form, then solidifies. A white and orange bone mask forms over where its face would be, and it quickly reaches up to pull it off. With a weird ripple effect, Umbra's body turns into perfectly normal flesh. This time it's a girl. It's tall, with spiky blue hair, blue eyes, and tan skin. And it's dressed in a black formal dress, the kind you'd see at one of those fancy parties.

"Huh," Yang says, staring at it curiously. "That's actually pretty cool. Do you actually have any limits on that?"

"At my maximum mass, I am the size of a small mountain," it replies absently. I stare at it.

"... Where does that extra mass go when you shapeshift, anyway?" I ask after a moment. It shrugs.

"I have found no reason to care," it says dismissively. "Far more importantly, the Fake must be trained."

"... Wait, a Grimm is offering to train a Huntress?" Yang asks, staring at it. It raises an eyebrow in return.

"I have often watched other Fakes. I am aware of how the falsehood works," it replies. "Furthermore, I will not be training the Fake directly unless the Fake chooses to achieve its Grimm form-"

"Wait, that's common?" Yang interrupts. It gives her a somewhat offended look, but nods.

"Yes. There is always a Grimm form, although similarly, it always has some some other effect demonstrating its mortal background. However, that is not what I wish to speak of. Instead, I wish to say that I will be interfering with its... 'quest' generation. Accomplishing those objectives will make the Fake stronger more quickly."

"Huh. Okay," I say thoughtfully. "I'll have to work around going to Beacon though."

It shrugs. "I have discussed this with the gray-haired leader. He accepted. However, I must know, why is this Fake born of the void?" It focuses its eyes on me. I stare back at it.

"Huh?" I ask eloquently.

It grumbles, but begins to explain. "The Fakes... they have always existed. Four of them. Their souls are fake, but they are here. They remain upon this world, they can be tasted, though the taste is muted and hidden, and false. But this Fake has no taste of its own. It has no soul, simply an endless void that tastes of the elements, and of Gaia's will."

"Who?" I ask in confusion.

"Wait, Gaia, as in the will of the world?" Yang speaks at the same time I do.

"Yes." Umbra nods. "That Gaia. Now, know this. The four falsehoods are channels that Gaia has carved into reality, to allow her influence. The voids are the paths through which she extends her will. These paths are limited and understandable, though we cannot sense Her within them. She is, after all, one without the emotion upon which we feed. This same void serves as a shield, hiding the emotions of the ones who possess it away from us. However, this Fake... this Fake possesses nothing but this void. This emptiness through which Gaia's will extends. And even the emptiness has taken a flavor, when it should not be able to! Gaia is all things, so how can her void take on the taste of flame or frost? How can the Void have a taste?"

"Wait, so if I'm... an instrument of Gaia's will or whatever, why do you call me fake?" I demand, kind of annoyed.

"Because all such beings are Fake. They are not truths, they do not exist in truth, they are simply constructs, walls built around the voids," Umbra snarls, its fingers clenching and unclenching repeatedly in frustration. "They are... things. False. And this one is more so! The others possess true souls, though they may be hidden and smothered beneath Gaia's will, but this one has no soul at all! So why then can it cast the light of a soul? It does not feed as we must, it does not exist as we do, it is Fake but it pretends at truth far more than any other dare!"

"Whoa, calm down," Yang interjects. It snarls at her, but quickly does. "So... you're saying that my sister's a conduit for the will of Gaia, but she's not the right type of conduit because she's too much of one."

"Yes," Umbra hisses.

"... Okay, that doesn't make sense. Why does Gaia need a conduit, anyway?" Yang asks in frustration.

"There's an illusion barrier, isn't there?" I ask, gasping in realization. "One around the whole world. And it's what's spawning the Grimm! And... and Gaia needs to break it, but She can't because it's anchored to the moon or something, so She needs us Gamers!"

Umbra nods. "Yes."

"So... could we break the illusion barrier?" I demand. "Would that make there be no more Grimm?"

"In a way. You are aware of how an Illusion Barrier works?" it asks.

I nod. "Yeah, it gathers nearby souls, then condenses them into monsters. Then the concentrated energy can be harvested."

"That is how they once worked," it corrects me. "However, the Barrier that Spans the World is different. It must be, to hold off Gaia herself. As it has sealed Her away, it has also removed that within it from accessing the flow of souls. Now, an illusion barrier is powered by emotion. It gathers the negativity, hatred, and despair, and uses it to form us. Once it has, it ceases to support our existence, and we must feed to continue. As we are creatures of emotion, any emotion suffices. Positive emotions simply have an unpleasant feeling when we devour them."

"Wait, how do you know how they used to work?" Yang frowns.

"I was created by the first Barrier when it was being tested," the Grimm replies with a shrug. "The Master did not know of my existence, and the barrier was shut down. Normally, that which is created by the barrier is destroyed, but due to the circumstances of the time, and the experiments that were committed, I fed and survived until the next Barrier was created."

"Wow, you're old." Yang whistles. "Do you remember everything from then?"

"I remember little from before my fifth millennium," the Creature of Grimm says dismissively.

"That's... really long," I finally say after we both stare at it in shock for a bit. "Geez. Oh, but you didn't explain. Would breaking get rid of the Grimm?"

It gives us a look that reminds us that we're currently asking something how to kill it and everything like it. "It would not," it finally says. "It would simply prevent further Creatures of Grimm from forming. Those of us who still exist can sustain ourselves by feeding."

"... You know, if you guys don't need negative emotions, wouldn't peace be possible?" I suggest.

"I am the first among my kind, and I have achieved the ability to speak with the ensouled only recently. For a significantly amount of time, I was both extremely powerful and extremely hostile to you ensouled. And I only ceased that hostility because I became curious about the four voids through which Gaia retained her influence," it points out.

"So... that's a no?" I sigh. It snorts.

"So, I don't suppose you know anything else we'd find interesting?" Yang asks curiously.

It cocks its head. "I would not know what you find interesting, and what you do not. You who have a light are difficult to understand. You are blinded by it, deafened by it. You do not look, you do not hear, you do not taste, you do not smell, you do not feel."

Well. That's kinda insulting. I huff at it, but don't comment, not having much else to say in wake of its revelations. Instead, I decide to pull up my various status screens and stuff, and see what's going on in them. The status screen is perfectly normal. HP's back to 79, AP's at 2570, and SP is at 81. So even if resting didn't restore them, the fact that I was asleep and not using them that whole time did. So that's good!

It's on my skills menu that the first few differences show up. First off, there's the "Collaborative Skills." The only one I have so far is Prismatic Blow. Its description is "All four members of your team strike as one. All attacks get a 10% bonus to damage dealt per attacker." My Sniper Rifle, Sniper Mastery, Two Handed Axe, and Axe Mastery also went up. Weirdly, everything went up by exactly 5 levels. They've even got the same amount of XP left over as they did 5 levels ago!

The next difference shows up in the Jobs menu, under quests. Apparently, I failed the "Stop the Dust Robbery" quest, which gave me a consolation prize of... 5 levels in my weapon skills. Okay, so that explains that. I also got a couple new quests out of it though!

A Wizard is Prepared

Your latest encounter with the criminal known as Roman Torchwick has demonstrated your lack of preparation. Match his level before your next fight.

Reward: Prepared title.

Failure Penalty: None.

The other one's part of a new Storyline, called "Invoking Arcana."

The Fool

You were the Fool, the empty void. Your journey has just begun. Summon the Fool Arcana and pact with it.

Reward: Invocation Skill.

Failure Penalty: None

"So when can I get out of bed?" I ask, deciding to put everything else aside for now. I can deal with it later.

"You've got the ability to perfectly diagnose yourself, so whenever you want," she replies cheerfully. "Although it helps that your Gamer's Body skill keeps them from poking at you and actually getting results. All that happens is you take some hit point damage and then immediately regenerate."

"Awesome." I grin as I drag myself out of the bed. I don't feel sore or anything like I used to when recovering from being put into the hospital, which is nice. "So let's go visit the others! I bet I can pick up a healing skill and heal them or something, so we can all get out of here."

Weiss and Blake are in the same room, and both of them seem to be awake. Blake is reading a book. Not a skill book, unfortunately, so no new skill there. Weiss, on the other hand, is busy arguing with a nurse when we arrive.

"Look, I can just use a Glyph to accelerate my healing! It might leave a scar or two, but you said I'm fine, right? So I'll be fine! Worst comes to worst, we're right here anyway!"

"Wait, what's going on?" I ask as we wander into the room. The nurse turns, lets out a shriek, and drops her clipboard. I blink at her in surprise before I realize—oh, right, Umbra's still following me. Then I realize he's supposed to be in human form, so that can't be it. "What?" I give her a confused look.

"Why are you out of bed?" she yells dramatically, glaring at me. "We still don't have any idea what's wrong with you, or why you weren't waking up, or-"

"It's fine!" I say soothingly, holding up both my hands. "My stats are all what they're supposed to be, I don't have any HP damage, I'm fine!"

She glares at me. "Are you a medical professional?" she demands. "No? Get back into bed!"

"Yang!" I whine. "You said they'd let me up!"

Yang rolls her eyes. "Dr. Shiruba let her up," she says to the nurse as she pulls a note out of her pocket. "We've got a note, see?"

The nurse narrows her eyes, then stalks over, grabbing the note and looking it over. "Hmph. I suppose so," she finally grumbles. "Be careful though," she stresses, giving me a look. "Your semblance makes it difficult to treat you. The same for you, Miss Schnee!" She suddenly spins and points at Weiss. "Rest!"

Weiss gives her an annoyed look, but sighs as she lays back down.

"So. Since when can you heal with more than the passive Aura effect?" Yang asks curiously, sitting down in the chair beside her bed.

"I picked up the skill a little while ago," she explains. "You're aware of my Haste glyph? Well, due to how Ruby's semblance works, I managed to modify it to accelerate healing in a part of the body."

"That sounds like it'd exhaust your body's natural healing abilities pretty quickly," Blake comments.

Weiss rolls her eyes. "Of course it will. It's still better than having a giant hole cut out of my chest."

"Ah, sorry about that," I say sheepishly, kicking the floor. "But Torchwick had hit you with one of those arrows, and you were rotting and I had to stop it, but I didn't have any way to so I had to cut it out, and are you going to be okay?"

"I'm fine." Weiss sighs. "I understand. I need to pick up a few proper healing abilities though. I am the team support mage, after all."

"Oh. Huh. Wow, we did get pretty lucky, didn't we?" I say as I realize what she's talking about. Apparently, we ended up going with the 'optimal' hunter group. A support mage, an artillery, a tank, and a striker. "I wonder if they did that on purpose? A lot of the teams seem more optimized than you'd expect from random chance."

"I think that has more to do with the fact that less optimal teams don't tend to make it that far," Blake comments, having put her book away. "A team of all tanks tends to get worn down, a team of all strikers or all artillery burns out, and a team of all support mages doesn't get enough time to actually get all their support skills active."

"Well, this is an interesting conversation," a voice says from behind me. I spin, startled. "Are old friends allowed to join in?"

"Sterling?" I blink at him. For a moment I feel kinda guilty that I'd pretty much forgotten about him. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey Ruby," he says, sounding a bit sheepish. "I'm, uh, actually here to see you. I got my affinity constructed, so I was visiting to talk to you about doing the contracting. And then I heard you got hurt, so I figured I'd drop in to see how you were." He shrugs. "No flowers or get well soon gifts, I'm afraid, I didn't hear about your injury until after I'd already arrived. Uh, sorry about that."

"Nah, it's fine. I'm not really a flowers kinda girl. Oh, anyway, this is my team! This is Weiss, she's my partner! She's our support mage, glyphs and stuff, but she's pretty good with her rapier as well, so she can get pretty close. The girl on the other bed is Blake, she's our striker. The guy behind me's Umbra- and he disappeared. Of course he did. Anyway, you already know me and Yang!" I grin cheerfully at him, looking for Umbra out of the corner of my eye. When I spot the sign of an Instant Dungeon, I relax, and focus my attention back on the others.

He smiles back. "It's nice to meet you all. I'm Sterling. I was one of Ruby's friends back when she was at Signal with us non-geniuses."

Weiss and Blake give him polite greetings, though Weiss looks a bit curious. "You mentioned you managed to get an affinity? What type?"

"Metal," he says, tapping the pistol-sword at his side. "I've been watching a lot of Ruby's fights-"

"Wait, you've been watching my fights?" I blink at him in surprise. "How?"

"Sparring club publically broadcasts its practice fights unless you ask them not to," Weiss explains. "It's a publicity thing. It helps us hunters advertise our skills to the type of people willing to hire us. Father occasionally checks the records for people he thinks would be useful to hire in security."

"Huh. That's pretty cool," I say thoughtfully. "Wait, so why didn't we hunt down the records of everyone else's fighting styles before the tournament instead of observing them in person?"

"How are we supposed to know who we're looking for?" Weiss points out. "And even then, most of them probably aren't even in the club. Blake and I aren't, but we're still going to be in the tournament."

"Oh. That makes sense, I guess," I admit sheepishly. "And since my Semblance is likely to give us most of the information anyway, scouting out a couple people at this point would just be a waste of time, wouldn't it?"

"Exactly." Weiss nods. "It'll change when we actually see the brackets, but for now what information we've got is enough."

"So... how exactly did you guys get hurt anyway?" Sterling asks curiously, waving at the bandages that are visible on the two Huntresses still in bed. "Did it have to do with that huge anti-auric pulse that hit the docks a while ago? There were rumors that a team of hunters got into a fight with Torchwick over there, and then he summoned an army of Grimm. And since you're the only one who I know can actually summon..." He trails off, looking at me expectantly.

"Oh, yeah, that's mostly right. Except instead of summoning a Grimm, he turned into a... fake Grimm. Because that's his Semblance." I quickly swap out what actually happened for a slightly more reasonable but still somewhat accurate story. "While in that form, he's a lot stronger, so I tried to blow him up. Failed miserably. And Crescent Rose died!"

I frown sadly at the memory. I liked Crescent Rose! She was awesome! She had blades and spikes and shot bullets and made my spells even more powerful, and most importantly, I'd infused an elemental into her! So she was even more alive than most weapons are! Plus... well, weapons are kind of an extension of ourselves. Even if I didn't use her directly in a fight much, being without her just feels... wrong.

"Aw, cheer up sis," Yang says comfortingly as she hugs me. "You can resummon her, right? The elemental that you infused into Crescent Rose? And then you can rebuild her, and she'll be... well, she won't be the same, but you'll still have another version of her!"

"It's not just that." I sigh. "It's... it's just that we're all growing stronger, you know? But he is too! And he's getting better than us faster! He took on all four of us, and he barely flinched! Crescent Rose took me months to make, and it'll take Blake and Weiss a while to heal, and we just lost all of that time because of a single fight with him! We've fought Nevermore less challenging than him!"

Yang holds me tighter, not saying anything. The room is quiet for a moment before Sterling breaks the silence with an awkward cough. "Well, I'm... going to go now, I guess. I hope you're doing well and continue to do well."

I pull myself out of Yang's arms a bit reluctantly. "Wait! You needed the next bit of the summoning, right?"

"Oh, yes." He nods. "I tried to get ahold of more of my brothers notes, but he didn't take good ones on that part."

"Why don't we do it right here? I kinda wanna see what it's like from the other end," I offer. He blinks, then nods, apparently realizing that I'm trying to distract myself.

"Of course, if you're offering," he decides. "Do you mind drawing the circle then? I'm not- okay, that's kinda impressive."

As he spoke, Weiss had reached into a bag that was hidden by the bed until now, and pulled out a vial of dust that she handed to me. I popped the cork, and quickly used my Dust Shaper ability to form the summoning circle. "Put your sword in the middle," I instruct him. He follows my directions, getting out of the circle even before I order him to. "Do you know the chant?" He nods, looking kind of nervous.

"Yeah. Should I begin?" he asks.

"Yup!" I nod. "Just concentrate on the blade, and start chanting."

"Aura. The might of my soul. I, Sterling Silver, call upon the ancient contract of ages past to summon thee. I beg that you heed my call. Come, Metal Elemental." The sword glows a brilliant white. Oddly, it doesn't consolidate into anything, just kinda petering out. Despite that, he begins speaking.

"I'll begin in accordance with the ancient rituals," he says, his voice soft, almost worshipful. "My name is Sterling Silver. You have heard my name, so please, tell me yours." Suddenly he collapses, falling to his knees with a grunt of pain. I'm about to step forward to help him when my knowledge tells me not to because this is how it's supposed to go. Suddenly his face smoothes, the pain that was twisting it apparently disappearing.

"Our souls are one," he gasps out. His body begins to glow as his aura burns into existence. Violet sparks flow from his body toward the space above the blade, slowly forming into a vaguely humanoid image. "I am Sterling Silver," he declares, his voice a bit stronger. "We will be one forever." A moment later, he nods, a slight smile on his face, then he looks up at me. "That hurt," he says, his voice sounding kinda accusing before he falls over, unconscious.

"Ah! Are you alright?" I yelp, quickly rushing over to him. Yang snickers a bit as she follows me.

"He'll be fine, it's just the same Aura exhaustion you went through, remember?" Yang says. "Let him get a bit of rest, he'll be fine. And now you know why I was always so worried about you after this." Even though she sounds kinda careless as she talks, she's pretty gentle as she picks him up and drops him onto one of the spare beds. "So it looks like you guys got a new roommate!" she says cheerfully to the others, "Hope he won't... steal too much space."

"Okay, that was stretching it." Weiss frowns. "Sterling Silver is a silver and mostly copper alloy, with very little iron or carbon."

"She might be using the sword as the base for the pun," Blake points out. "Which is still a bit of a stretch since the elemental isn't the one taking up the space."

The rest of the visit passes without much happening. Sterling wakes up a couple minutes later, and quickly heads out, a bit embarrassed about having completely drained himself. Once he does, I turn to the others. "So we need to do something," I say firmly. "We lost pretty badly, even though all four of us went against him at once. So we need to get stronger more quickly. Luckily, Umbra offered to help. So I've got a few quests that I think we should focus on. Due to EXP leakage, we should all be able to benefit from them. Oh, and by the way, we've apparently got permission to work our schedules around this, though I'll have to ask Professor Ozpin for the exact details."

"Details of what?" The headmaster's voice comes from the doorway. Is everyone spying on us today, and showing up... um... somewhat around their names? Hm. I guess it wasn't perfectly convenient, was it? Still. Kinda odd.

"Of your agreement with... Umbra," Weiss says delicately. "He mentioned he was going to help us out."

"Ah, yes." Ozpin nods. "He is trying to find this... Master of his. He seems to think that recruiting you four for the journey will help him and you both."

"But you don't?" Blake asks, narrowing her eyes at him.

"I can't say," Ozpin replies, shrugging. "I admit to knowing very little about the capabilities of this Gamer semblance of yours. Whatever happens though, finding more details on the origin of the Grimm would never be a bad thing. And he seems rather unconcerned about the fate of other members of his kind, so you will be able to defend yourselves to the best of your ability while you are out there. Doctor Oobleck has kindly agreed to escort you on your fact finding mission, as you will be heading to a number of areas with significant historical significance. He will also be serving as your teacher and will be grading you during this mission."

"Wait, what?" I give him a confused look.

"Well, we can't have you simply dropping out of Beacon," he points out. "So we're going to treat this like any other student mission. You will be taking the class work that you'll be missing along with you. Do try to avoid falling behind, please." The four of us nod in agreement. "Very well. You'll be leaving a week after all of you have been discharged, which should be in a couple days at most."

AN: Has anyone else ever gotten the feeling of getting halfway through a story, and then realizing your shocking twist is completely idiotic? As in, the one that you based about half the story so far around? Ugh. Let me tell you, it's painful.

Anyway, yes, this is actually a crossover with the Gamer. Shocker, that. And yes, I realize I made some modifications. Most of them are due to the effects of the world-spanning Illusion Barrier, but some are just there so the worlds actually, you know, merge. There's also a lot of exposition about the nature of the Gamer in this setting, and the origins of Grimm (in this setting.) Of course, since it's anchored to the moon, people aren't exactly capable of doing anything to the world-spanning Illusion Barrier.

Next: The Invocation skill. This is lifted from Anima: Beyond Fantasy. It's a variation of Summoning. Instead of summoning your minion to stay there and help you out, you instead summon the creature, which makes an attack or grants a boon or whatever, and then leaves. So summoning Salamander, for example, results in a fire elemental showing up, while Invoking her results in a giant blast of fire that tries to omnikill everything.

Sterling: So, he just randomly reappeared. This is mainly just to note that the ripples are starting to spread, and to give an idea of how long developing a single Affinity takes for people who aren't Ruby. So anyway, other people are developing the summoning skills. It'll probably drop off again once they realize that it's not actually useful at the low levels most people are capable of learning it at, but for now there's going to be a brief surge of summoners, starting around the end of season 2's timeline. At that point, we'll be so firmly off the rails that I doubt season 3's going to have much effect other than actually giving me more background information to use. Anyway, another reason Sterling's here is to give us a view of how the "normal" hunters see things. Otherwise I'd have to either pull in someone from JNPR or I'd have to make up a new OC. Since JNPR isn't exactly normal, and I dislike making OCs, Sterling it is.

Final Note: This is a full 2 pages or so shorter than I normally do it, but whatever. Uploading it. I've been making you guys wait for months, and this is as good a place to stop as any.