Chapter 5

Sari wasn't too surprised to find Rudy curled into her chest when she woke up, but the same could not be said when she noticed her tail curled around them both.

Fortunately, no one else seemed to be up, giving her time to hide her tail back into her coat and tuck Rudy back into her sleeping bag, before grabbing her boots to stretch her legs. She tucked away the power pins into a small storage compartment in her arms before strolling out of the ship, spotting Yang on the roof.

"Hey there!" called out goldilocks, "Why are you up so early?"

"Need to use the little girl's room," she lied, "I'll be back in a minute."

"Don't take too long! We'll probably leave in a couple of hours!"

"Got it!"

With that, she walked off into the woods, pulling off her hood to let her ears breathe a bit before deploying her faceguard and antennae.

"Tai, can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear commander," replied the program.

"Is the Teletraan up?"

"Affirmative," it… affirmed, "long distance communication is enabled."

"Good. I-."

"However," cut in T-Ai, "I found some oddities."

"Like?"

"I have located no evidence of any other artificial satellites and there seems little in the way of long-range communications," it replied, "furthermore, although the cities' luminosity hint at an advanced civilization, the settlements themselves are few and distant from each other."

"That's… rare," admitted Sari, remembering from her lessons with Arcee that nomadic species tended to form large cities once they achieved more sedentary lifestyle due to their impulse to keep moving, it was the reason human cities sprawled out the way they did, "regardless, we'll have to look into that later. I'll be leaving soon, so remember the mission. Map planet, fix ship, find permanent settlement if you can't."

"Understood."

"One more thing. We're not the first cybertronians here. See if you can't find any hints of a settlement."

"Will do."

"All right, good luck."

With that, she folded away her faceguard after T-Ai cut the audio and headed back just as the pilot began warming up the engines, unaware that she was being followed on her way out of the woods.

Sari had to admit that Beacon was beautiful.

As promised, the trip back was a long and boring one, but as safe as one could expect from a flight like this one. There was a brief scare when a gigantic bird spotted them, but the Bullhead's turret took care of it pretty quickly.

The sight of the spiraling towers of Beacon however, made the numb butt more than worth it. The spires were nowhere near as tall as Sumdac Tower, and a speck next to the trans-atmospheric buildings in Cybertron, but Beacon's towers held a beauty unlike any she'd seen on either planet.

"Yes, there's nothing quite like Beacon," piped Professor Port once he noticed the look on her face, "we'll need to file a report with Ozpin first, but after that it's up to you to stay or go. I do hope you've considered my offer. The world could use a huntress like you, and Beacon could be the place to mold you into just that."

Laying it on a little thick there, buddy, she thought before replying, "yeah, I'm still not convinced. I'm used to wandering, not training. If I'm not dead, I'm a-okay."

"There's more to life than surviving," pointed out the portly teacher, "you might want to try living a little too."

"Besides," called Yang as they lined up to land, "hunting's good money and pretty exciting, even if you just want it as a side-job like Weiss."

"Just because I'll be running the Schnee Dust Company, doesn't mean I'll be neglecting my duties as a huntress!"

"Schnee Dust Company?" asked Sari, confused at the need to produce dust of all things. Maybe the original uploader mixed up the translation?

"You don't know about the SDC?" asked Blake with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm a vagrant, remember?"

Ruby pulled out a cylinder filled with a red powder with a snowflake logo stamped on the side and handed it to her.

"Oooh, the snowflake guys," said Sari, playing off her ignorance, "I didn't know it was called that."

"Well, you learn something new every day!" boomed out Port as she handed Ruby the vial back, "If you don't mind, I'm sure Ozpin will want to meet you!"

"Sure," she replied before looking down at Rudy, "what about Rudy though?"

"Oh, well do you think you could go with Team RWBY?" he asked the girl clinging to Sari's coattails.

She didn't look too sure.

"I'll come back to get you, ok?" said Sari as she crouched in front of her, "It's just gonna be me and a couple of old men discussing what happened."

"We've got cookies!" called out Ruby in sing song.

She looked a little less unsure.

"With peanut butter and chocolate chips!" added Yang.

Sold.

Turning back to Team RWBY, Sari said. "I'll see you later, I guess."

"See ya!" called Ruby before following her team into the forest of arches, Rudy clinging as far away from Weiss as humanly possible with Klaus in tow.

"This is, by far, the weirdest office I've ever seen," declared Sari as she looked around at the cogs and wheels of the giant clock the office sat in, as well as the admittedly impressive view, "so where is the Wizard of Oz?"

"The what?" asked Port.

Sari groaned.

"Never mind, inside joke." Gotta be more careful.

It didn't take long for Ozpin to arrive, a grey haired man of difficult-to-place age that somehow looker both older and younger than he should.

"Ah! Ozpin! Good to see you!"

"It's good to see you too, Port," replied the man, "I read your mission report. It's a shame we didn't calculate for subterranean Grimm."

"Yes, truly a shame," replied Port sadly, "we did manage to save one of them, but I'm afraid the child has no one left."

"What will happen to Rudy?"

"Miss Woodland will be put into foster care," Ozpin informed her, "we will do our best to track down her family, but it's not very likely that we will actually find someone."

"How are the orphanages around here?" she asked warily.

"Well maintained, though I'll admit they're a bit overcrowded," replied the teacher as he sat down, "I'm sure they'll let you visit if you ask."

"I'll… think about it."

"I hope you do," replied Ozpin as he pulled out a transparent tablet of some sort, "in the meantime, perhaps we can talk about you."

He turned the tablet around, freezing Sari's oil in her lines as a familiar-looking forest was displayed.

"Like?"

A pause.

"That's… rare," Sari saw herself say, "regardless, we'll have to look into that later. I'll be leaving soon, so remember the mission. Map planet, fix ship, find permanent settlement if you can't."

A pause.

"One more thing. We're not the first cybertronians here. See if you can't find any hints of a settlement."

Another pause.

"All right, good luck."

Followed by, of course, her visor and facemask retracting into her skull.

Sari swallowed drily, reactors heating up as the video started again on a loop.

"Yes, now that I think about it, I never saw Port in the Bullhead," she admitted before pulling up the time passed since she reactivated, "less than forty eight hours and the photocat's out of the scrapyard. How about that?"

"You don't seem too concerned," pointed out a new voice behind her, a tall woman with her blonde hair in a bun and a riding crop in her hand.

"Sweet precious Primus!" she cursed, backing away from the desk to keep the newcomer in her sights, "Do not do that to me!"

"What exactly is a "cybertronian"?" asked Professor Port, "And how do you know there are more of them around here?"

"That's… a little difficult to explain," admitted Sari as her optics darted around once her radar confirmed the glass behind the white haired man would be difficult for her to break with her restraints.

"We have time," pointed out Ozpin with a calm look on his face.

"I-!"

"Please keep your situation in mind," he cut in, "you don't know what we are capable of and we don't know what you are capable of. If you can take the risk of taking us on, you may do so."

"I've never met a human that could match me," she bragged, placing her hands on the desk, aware that the other two were thumbing their weapons, "can you take that risk?"

"I have no idea, but I don't think you can," pointed out Ozpin in that infuriatingly calm way of his, "if you could, I don't think you'd have talked about settling here. Not to mention that even if we don't know where your… ship is located, we do know where to start looking. If you miscalculated our strength and the strength of any weapons you have not yet spotted, we could easily find your ship and draw our own conclusions. You would have no power in whatever decision we take."

Her servos began scraping against the glass, recognizing the threat.

"You could always kill all of us, if you happen to be right. But I have a hard time believing you would stoop to that level when a peaceful option is presented."

He took a pause to take a cup of coffee from Port before placing it in front of her.

"Explain your situation, and we might be able to help you."

She sighed, looking down at the bitter brew in front of her, before taking it and leaning back into the chair.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because in this world it is best to have more friends than foes," he replied simply, "we already have an enemy in the Grimm, we shouldn't fight each other if it can be avoided."

She stared intently into his eyes, looking for any of the signs of deceit her high-definition, full spectrum optics were well equipped to detect. Finding none and out of morally acceptable options, she decided to trust the man.

Sari sighed and leaned back on the chair, putting the coffee down on the table.

"The first thing you need to know, is that you're not alone in the universe."

"How so?" asked Port.

"What do you think the stars are?" she asked, not expecting an answer, "Or rather, what do you think the sun is?"

"We have theories," replied Ozpin, "but no real confirmation. The images our astronomer's get from our telescopes aren't clear enough to discern anything in clear detail."

"Well stars are suns," she explained, "or rather, the sun is a star. Your sun, is just another star in someone else's sky."

"That's preposterous!" protested Port, "I mean, if every star out there is a sun as large as hours-!"

"Then everything suddenly becomes a little smaller, doesn't it?" she replied with a cocky smirk as her sparkpiece shone, "observe."

From her sparkpiece, she projected a swirling galaxy.

"Your sun, is one star among billions in the galaxy."

"Galaxy?" asked the blonde teacher with the riding crop.

"A formation made out of stars, billions to trillions of them. Miss…?"

"Professor Glynda Goodwitch."

The projection collapsed.

"Goodwitch?" asked Sari with a snort, barely holding in a giggle, "as in, the Good Witch of the East?"

"Glynda blinked in confusion, "Excuse me?"

"And-and the Great Wizard Of Oz?"

She began laughing.

"Where's the-where's the yellow brick road!? BWA HA HA!"

Even Ozpin looked confused as Sari pounded on his desk.

"Is-is there a man behind the curtain with a projector!?"

"I'm afraid we don't know what you mean," cut in a rather perplexed Ozpin.

"Sorry, sorry, it's just that on Earth we have this story," she explained as she struggled to come down from her laughing fit, "this girl, Dorothy, ends up stranded in this magical world, can't remember what it was called, and accidentally kills the wicked witch of the… west? Or was it South? Well whatever, she kills the witch and ends up with the witch's sister on her tail because of magic shoes or something. The Good Witch of the East tells her to find the Wizard of Oz in Emerald City to get home. She ends up meeting a whole bunch of people who help her out like the cowardly lion, the heartless tin man, and the brainless crow. You guys wouldn't happen to know any of those, do you?"

"I know a heartless tinman," grumbled Glynda to herself.

"Regardless, I'd like to get back on track," cut in Ozpin, filing away that information for later, "you were saying about stars?"

"Right," she affirmed as she wiped away a mirthful tear, "well, big or small, most stars have planets surrounding them," she switched the projection to one of her own Solar System, "some of those planets are in the right place for life to arise or arrive," she zoomed into the Earth, vividly showing off its greens and blues, "some of that life will occasionally become intelligent enough to form societies and cities, like it happened this planet and Earth," the planet turned dark, showcasing the bright lights of the cities, "and a select few of those civilizations, a tiny percentage, will live long enough to make it off planet. To colonize the rest of its star system," she switched views to Mars, highlighting the colonies, "and a percent of a percent of a percent of a percent of those civilizations that colonize their own systems, will have the chance to spread into interstellar space.

"Earth's not at that point yet," she clarified, "but I know of another planet that is."

She switched over to another planet, a very different one from Earth. A metallic world, easily three times larger than the previous planet with spiraling towers that cut past the atmosphere.

"This is Cybertron," she explained, "it orbits the Haldeen star alongside the other colonized planets in and beyond its own system, and is considered the oldest civilization in the galaxy, if not the universe."

She pulled up the image of the Milky Way Galaxy, highlighting an area red, "That's the Autobot Commonwealth with Cybertron as the capital planet," another area was lit up in purple, "the Decepticon Empire is also populated by cybertronian," other's where lit up in white, blue, and green, "Nebulon Republic, Vok Territory, Vestial Imperium," a final area was lit up yellow, "and of course, the Quintesson Pan-Galactic Co-Prosperity Sphere with Earth sitting right outside its territory. Everything else is either unclaimed or independent."

She looked around at the group. Port was staring slack-jawed at the map, Gynda looked shocked, but remained cool-headed, Ozpin was unreadable as always.

"Where is Remnant?" asked the headmaster.

"Is that this planet's name?" she asked, receiving a nod in return, "Still trying to figure that out. Tai's currently scanning the sky for any stars that we could use as a reference point, but we might not even be in the same galaxy anymore."

"Tai?" asked Ozpin.

"Tactical Artificial Intelligence," she replied, "or T-Ai for short. I call it Tai."

"I'm a bit confused," cut in Glynda, "if you're a Cybertronian as you said, why do you keep bringing up Earth?"

"Well I was built on Cybertron, but activated on Earth."

"Built?" quipped Port, having finally gathered his wits, "Activated? Why do you talk as if you were a machine?"

"Well, because I am," she admitted, changing the projection to a soundless video of her team arriving at the park and transforming, "that's what a normal cybertronian looks like."

"My word, they're enormous!" gasped Glynda.

"Hah! You think the Autobots are big? Just wait till you meet a Decepticon!" she replied with a laugh before continuing, "Cybertronians are a chameleonic species of autonomous robotic organisms, capable of transforming into other mechanical forms to blend in. Due to our habit of exploring and colonizing other planets during the Age of Expansion, we also developed something called the Language Matrix, a collective mind in which all known languages are stored with location coordinates for easy activation."

"That's how you know others have been here," concluded Professor Port.

"The mere fact I can talk to you means I'm not the first one here," she affirmed before continuing, "Anyhow, A normal cybertronian is colloquially known as a Transformer, but a new species known as a technorganic was recently sparked."

"That's where you come in." stated Ozpin.

She nodded in reply and transformed her left hand into its hacking mode, "I am one of three currently existing technorganics alongside Waspinator and Blackarachnia," she switched to projections of them transforming from beast mode to robot mode, "but as you can see, we could be considered different species ourselves. These two are similar to a race of cybertronians from planet Animatron, but while animatronians have a beast mode, they're not actually technorganic."

She displayed Rhinox, an animatronian tourist she'd met when he decided to scan a rhinoceros at an exhibit of the Anthropocene Extinction.

"I'm unique in two ways. One is that I'm the only known technorganic with a robot mode that can actually pass for a normal cybertronian, even if it's as a minicon," she switched to a display of her own robot mode, minus her skirt, "the other is that I'm the only technorganic to be activated as one. Blackarachnia and Waspinator were sparked as regular Autobots before they were forcibly reformatted."

"And you?" asked Glynda.

"Twelve years ago, an experimental protoform of unknown origins, that's a cybertronian child or fetus, ended up on Earth for unknown reasons," she stated, projecting a hologram of Earth next to Cybertron, "my father, Isaac Sumdac, found the protoform in his lab and activated it. The protoform was somehow able to decode his DNA into a blueprint it could use, presumably synthesizing organic compounds from ambient carbon dioxide, creating me."

"You are twelve years old then?" asked Port, "Quite tall for your age, I would assume."

"I had an upgrade when I was nine," she pointed out, replacing the planets with a picture of herself on Bumblebee's shoulder, "that's me when I was nine, and that's my best friend, Bumblebee."

Ozpin stared at the small child, noticing the very human ears on the girls head, "Am I to assume that Earth is also populated by humans?"

"Yep, but I'm not sure if Remnant's humans are actually humans." She replied pensively.

"Explain," he demanded.

"Well, a few thousand years ago, a random wormhole sucked up a city and dumped it in a planet called Coruscant ," she replied as she pulled up the planet in question, "that's not even in the same galaxy and they have a serious midichlorian infestation, though I hear the lifeforms there formed a symbiotic relationship with the pests."

"What are the chances of that happening twice?" asked Glynda, cutting in before the scientist could get side-tracked again.

"Not very likely," admitted Sari before she brought up two humanoid figures, one drastically shorter than the other, "which brings up the other two options. On the right we have a Nebul from the Nebulon Republic, and on the left a human from Earth. As you can see, they have incredibly similar body types, despite the Nebuls' average height of one point five meters."

She then pulled up visage of a Quintesson scientist.

"This Quintesson is a scientist is named Al-Badur," she explained, "around three million years ago, he stumbled across Earth, where he found what we now know as australopithecus afarensis, an early hominid," she pulled up a hologram of Lucy's latest model, "funny thing is that the humanoid body type is otherwise inexistent in the Earth's animal kingdom. Seeing a chance to experiment with convergent evolution, he snatched up some close cousins of australopithecus afarensis and dumped them in a similar planet he'd claimed as his own and modified an area to resemble the African Plains. On Earth, those cousins evolved into the bonobos, an unusually peaceful sup-species of chimps with a habit of reproducing via orgy. On Nebulon, these evolved into the Nebul, resulting in an incredibly peaceful civilization of humanoid apes… with a habit of reproducing via orgy."

Port's coffee sprayed out of his nostrils, "I beg your pardon!?"

"Yep, marriage isn't a thing with them either," she affirmed, "the kids are raised by the whole community. It's really interesting to see actually."

"You think Remnant might be an experiment of some sort?" asked Glynda with narrowed eyes, cutting in before she could get sidetracked.

"It's the kind of thing the Quintessons would pull off if they thought they could get away with it," she admitted, "BUT, there's another option."

She pulled up yet another hologram of a rather muscular humanoid.

"This guy is General Zod from planet Krypton," she explained, "he came to Cybertron seeking refuge about a hundred years ago after his planet was destroyed. Unfortunately, kryptonians turned out to be deathly allergic to energon due to their radiophagic tissues. I actually studied the remains of a kryptonian child that was left in an escape pod named Kal-El."

She shut down her holographic projector.

"The thing is, Krypton has no history with Earth," she concluded, "through sheer chance and convergent evolution, humanoid species have evolved in other planets, some of which could even pass as human, like the kryptonians might have if they'd ever contacted Earth. From a statistical standpoint, it's even possible for two genetically compatible species to evolve in completely different galaxies."

"And which option applies to the people of Remnant?" asked Port.

"No clue," she admitted, "but I'll find out soon enough. Tai will be able to tell me where I am, and my ship's lab will tell me what you are."

Ozpin released a slow breath before continuing.

"Let's get back to the real question I need to ask you," he said, "why are you here?"

Sari straightened out and looked him in the eye, optics glowing blue.

"Because I am the first of my kind," she stated sharply, "and I refuse to be the last."

"Ohmygosh!Whoisthis?She'ssocute!"

"Nora, what did we say about freaking out new people?" chastised Jaune after Nora almost kneed him in the face as she'd leapt over him in her rush to coo at a little girl standing with Team RWBY, "But who is that though?"

"This is Rudy!" cheered Yang as she plucked the nervous girl out of Nora's reach, "We brought her here to get a snack."

"Rudy?" asked Jaune before turning slightly to the left, "and Ruby?"

"Yeah, that won't get confusing," scoffed Blake before heading to their hall's community kitchen, "Where did the cookies go?"

"Cookies?" asked Nora with a nervous fidget, "What cookies? I mean, what are cookies? CAN YOU PROVE COOKIES EVEN EXIST!?"

"You ate them, didn't you?" asked Weiss with a deadpan, resulting in the sudden death of Rudy and Ruby's smiles.

"Yes."

She sighed, flicking her white pony tail back before heading into the kitchen herself to open the fridge.

"Well, since there are no cookies I guess she could have some of my snack bars."

"Um, Weiss? No offense, but your snack bars taste like cinnamon-flavored woodchips covered in cocoa tree bark," quipped Yang before putting Rudy on her sister's shoulders to peek into the pantry.

"There's nothing wrong with my snack bars," protested Weiss as she pulled out a plate full of ugly brown lumps with what appeared to be hay sticking out at odd angles, "I designed them myself to have the perfect weight to calorie ratio, as well as a high protein and fiber content."

"It looks like Klauss' poop," piped Rudy, eliciting a snicker from Ruby and an indignant scoff from the heiress.

"It does not look like…!" she started, before trailing off as she examined the lumps at different angles.

"We promised cookies, and cookies we shall deliver!" declared Yang as she popped out of the pantry, arms laden with sacks of flour and giant jars of peanut butter, "Can someone run to the store for chocolate chips?"

"I have some," called out Ren as he stood, "Nora likes chocolate chip pancakes, so I always make sure to have a few dozen sacks handy."

Rudy and Team RWBY blinked in surprise.

"Sacks?" asked Ruby, "Chocolate chips come in sacks?"

"He's not exaggerating," pointed out Jaune, "I'm still not sure how we fit it all in the room."

A few minutes later, Rudy and Ruby, now covered in the contents of a whole sack of flour, were busy kneading peanut butter cookie dough with chocolate chips in it into little balls.

"It's gonna take us hours to clean this up," complained Weiss as she put a third tray of cookies into the oven.

"Nah, that would be boring," pointed out a vibrating Nora as she ate cookie dough out of a bowl, pupils dilating and contracting at random intervals, "all we need is a "sometime later". It's kinda like a lazy movie montage."

"Nora, you've had too much sugar," snapped Ren as he took away the cookie dough and handed her a broom, "we need that for the cookies."

Sometime later, the kitchen was sparkling clean as Blake pulled out the last batch of cookies.

"What'd I tell ya!?" declared Nora, much to the others' confusion, "Hey, it's not my fault I turn into a fourth wall breaker when I hit a sugar rush!"

Please keep to your lines Nora.

"Think we made too many?" asked Pyrrah as she helped Blake pile the newest batch atop the four foot pile of baked goods they'd made.

"No such thing as too many cookies!" cheered Ruby as she picked up a particularly large pastry the size of a dinner plate and a giant salt cracker, "Here you go Rudy! Klauss, here's a treat."

"That is still confusing," grumbled Weiss before glaring back at her snack bars, "it does not look like reindeer poop."

"It does," quipped Yang, "how's the cookie Rudy?"

"Mmm-Hmm!" she moaned over a mouthful of cookie.

"Good to know!" she cheered as she ruffled her hair.

"Why is there a cow here?" asked Pyrrah.

"Reindeer," corrected Ruby.

"Why did you bring a little girl here anyways?" asked Jaune as he picked out a snickerdoodle, "Where are her pa-? Mmmph!?"

"Jaune, think of all the reasons that a group of huntresses in training might bring a kid back from a mission to a supposed safe-spot in the middle of a Grimm infested forest!" hissed Pyrrah into his ear.

Jaune's eyes widened. "Oh, sorry."

"It's fine, just try to be tactful," pointed out his partner.

A soft sniffle caught their attention.

"Little late for that," said Blake softly.

Rudy was crying, fat tears trailing down her cheeks as she struggled to shove the cookie into her mouth while Klauss nuzzled her side.

"Rud, I-." started Yang, only to be stopped by a hand on her shoulder, "Wha-? Nora?"

The ginger grenadier simply shook her head with the most serious look all but one of them had ever seen her with, before nodding towards Ren, who was already crouching in front of the sobbing girl.

It took some time for Rudy to notice him, startling when she saw his pink eyes locked on hers two feet away. Normally she'd be scared of him, or at the very least wary, and yet…

"Things aren't alright," he told her softly, "and they probably won't be for a while, but they will be. I promise you that."

Then she realized he understood. She lunged off her chair and wrapped her arms around his neck, sobbing into his shirt.

"Don't bottle things in," he told her as his and Nora's arms wrapped around her, tears spilling from both teammates' eyes, "cry when you want to. Scream when you want to. But let it out somehow."

"I miss my daddy."

Author's Note

Fun fact: I actually finished this chapter on the same day as the last one, I just wanted a buffer zone.

I have to admit, I'm not entirely satisfied with Rudy's parts insofar, mostly because I'm not sure how a traumatized child would actually behave. I'll be doing more research into typical PTSD in children, but until then you'll have to settle for sudden breakdowns.

Regarding the shipping possibilities, I'm still hung up on that. A guest recommended Ruby, but compatibility aside, the way they proposed is precisely what I'm trying to avoid. Part of what I found interesting about TFA is the nonexistence of Primus and Unicron. I'm also avoiding any form of past Cybertron/Remnant relations, so Ruby's Silver Eyes being energon or allspark based is out of the question.

I also dropped in the idea of multiple humanoid species, simply because it really bugs me that the same species would somehow evolve in two different planets. It's not impossible, just really unlikely. My theory is that they aren't human by the same definition as we are, the presence of a subspecies with random animal part protruding from various parts of their bodies is evidence towards that, but just look really similar. I'm still in the air as to what they'll actuaqlly be, but I really hate leaving unanswered questions.

It's why I prefer Sci-fi over fantasy.

BTW, I'm really on the ropes for the names on Sari's species. Androbot, Anthrobot, Androgyn, Homobot (no), Pretender, Sarco Ferrum, Sarcofer, Anthro Ferrum, Anthrofer, Biobot (maybe)... honestly, if anyone has any ideas, I'm all ears.

Also, does anyone think Sari's tail should be weaponized somehow? It's an idea I've been playing around with, but I'm not entirely convinced. If you have a good weapon in mind, please let me know.