Alright guys another chapter, so I had a great Independence Day. Grilled up some meat, went to the gun range with a few friends, bought some products made here in the USA, drank some cold beer, and we finished it off with some fireworks off base, since we're not allowed to have them on base. Overall a good day.

Great way to spend the birthday of the greatest nation in the world.

Now just an update on how I'm doing in life. Truth is pretty good, I'm counting down the days til my ETS date which is fast approaching, have a new job lined up for when I get out, and if I play my cards right, I'll even be upgrading my truck to a jeep gladiator or a Ram 1500 when I get out the army.

Anyways this chapter may seem rushed because I wasn't sure how I wanted to do it. So bear with me.

"Ah shit! My head hurts!" Jem had a hangover from all the drinking he did last night.

Winter was sitting by the coffee table in the motorhome not doing much better, granted her Aura was also helping her a bit. But she was still looking into her Black rifle coffee praying for a quick recovery as she held two fingers up against her temple.

"Could you keep it down?" She said as she didn't understand why some people yelled when they had a hangover. That seemed to be the opposite of what you would want to do.

"Can't help it, if I yell more, my brain will realize the pain hurts a lot and cure my hangover faster." Jem said as Winter had never heard something so stupid in her life.

"...Are you drunk?"

"Noooo, I was drunk yessstteeerrddayyy, thats what causes hangovers." He said feeling a lot like Jack Black.

Winter didn't even try to understand his logic. That made no sense, your brain couldn't trick itself into curing-

"Ah much better!" He said as he drank some coffee and he seemed a lot more chipper.

"...WHAT?!" She yelled but her head throbbed too much and she winced.

"What? I told you, my brain worked hard to help make my hangover go away." Jem said as Winter gaped at him.

"Bullshit!" That was not physically possible!

"Hey, maybe its placebo, as long as I believe in it, maybe it will work."

"Thats not how the placebo effect works!" Jem just chuckled a bit.

"You might want to stop yelling if your hangover is that bad." He winked teasing her with her own pain.

"Ugh." She said as she went back to sipping her coffee.

In reality, Jem's head still hurt, but he honestly was hiding the pain just to screw with Winter.

While he was used to hangovers, he knew it would be at least another hour until he was through with it.

If he was back down in Tennessee, all it would take is a sausage, egg and cheese hashbrown bowl from waffle house to chase the headache away. Seriously waffle house was perfect for hangovers. Anyone who didn't think so was full of shit.

"Ow." He said quietly to himself as his head was still throbbing a bit.

"Damn, why did I move back to Illinois? I would have been happier if I stayed down south." He said to himself as he remembered how much more he liked the southern states versus his shitty home state.

Seriously it was like moving out of a happy home in the woods and moving into a crack den.

"I might have some brain damage from all the barracks parties." He remembered how they rolled a guy up in a mattress, duct taped it closed, and then threw him off the second floor of the barracks.(1)

He was starting to feel a bit nostalgic and missing his time in the army, it really got him thinking about his life was going.

"You should talk to a prior service recruiter and reenlist!" And then he stood up straight as he banished those evil thoughts form his head.

"Nope, not doing that! Nuh uh!" He may be missing the army, but he sure as hell wasn't going to reenlist so he could have another platoon sergeant smoke the shit out of him because his roommate left a pubic hair on the toilet seat (2)

It was times like this when he missed how things used to be, he thought back to Gandalf giving that speech to Frodo about what you need to do with the time thats given to you. And it reminded him that his life may be changing, and that change could be uncomfortable at time, but it was the decisions you made in that moment that would determine if you ended up with a happy life, or you ended up working a dead end job and hating your existence for the rest of your life.

He was determined to do something better with his life, and even though he was glad for his time in the military, that time was over, and it was time to move on.

Granted he was also hoping he wouldn't be dealing with a bunch of anime characters who for some reason were able to bring anime logic into the real world. But then again what was he expecting considering their way of even arriving in this world sounded like some bullshit dimension hopping plot device.

Back on Remnant

Nala was still grateful for her job, but honestly she was getting bored, the routine was the same day in and day out. She would come in, help people find dust, restock the shelves, man the counter, and she would clock out at the end of the day. She was putting some money into savings, but honestly most of it went into paying bills, she never had any time for herself.

And because she was so young, it wasn't like she could just go off traveling, more importantly she didn't know the first thing about anything other than working so she could eat and sleep for the night. It made her jealous of all the kids she saw who came in here with their parents to pick up some dust or even other things from the various other sections they had. She wished she could be having a normal childhood, but she wasn't. And even though she knew she would be grateful to be alive, and even more grateful that she was working a fair job that didn't exploit her and came with good benefits, she knew it wasn't right for her to be working this young.

"Nala, could you go in the back and get some more fire dust? We're running low." Her boss said as Nala nodded.

"On it." She said in a bit of a low tone, she had lost her enthusiasm a while ago.

And yet another boring part of her monotonous life.

She walked into the back and started looking for fire dust.

Only to see that it was all on the top shelf.

"Great..." She said as she got the ladder.

Seriously, so far she was their only worker, and yet they put some of the dust they needed on the top shelf making it inconvenient for her to get?

It made zero sense.

"Okay, lets see lets just get some WOAH!" She tripped and as she was grabbing a vial, she yanked back.

CLICK

She fell to the ground and expected to fall on her back and that would be the end.

What she was NOT expecting was for the feeling of falling to continue.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" She yelled as he floor gave out from underneath her as an elevator was taking her deeper and deeper into the hidden underground store.

"WHAT DID I DO?!" She was scared she had accidentally blown a hole in the ground and somehow created a tunnel leading to the planets core.

Course that may have just been because she watched that one movie with Baron Airhart last night about them trying to get to the center of the earth for some reason, she couldn't remember what it was called though.

"SOMEONE STOP THIS CRA-" Suddenly she finally hit solid ground.

"OOF!...Owwwwwww." She said as her back was killing her now.

"What in the world just hap-" She was cut off as she looked at her new surroundings.

Somehow she was in some kind of underground cavern/laboratory. She had no idea what was going on, nor did she know she was here. But being seven years old, her brain came to the only conclusion she could come up with.

"Oh god, I'm in some kind of secret military base like Station 52!" Suddenly she was worried men in black were about to come and arrest her.

"Okay calm down, I'm sure theres a reasonable explanation for this." She said as she stood up and looked around.

"...Shouldn't there be more people around?" She asked as she was expecting to see armed guards or something.

But this whole place seemed pretty empty, but then again looking around she seemed to only be at the entrance. She was certain that there had to be other areas to this cave, maybe even hiding stuff like tentacle monsters or-

"Hey! What are you doing down here!" She turned to see an armed guard with a rifle looking at her.

"AAHHH! Men in black!" She screamed as she did the one thing any seven year old would do.

She took off running!

"Alert all units! Alert all units! Unauthorized personnel detected!" The guard said into a radio as Nala took off running.

"I don't want to get probed!" She yelled as she had seen plenty of alien documentaries.

Granted, the guard looked human, but she wasn't taking any chances!

She heard alarms blaring, and yet for some odd reason, she was able to run through automatic doors like nothing, she would have assumed that after the alarms started blaring that they would have cut off all access to any other parts of the base, but for some odd reason, she was going through multiple areas like it was nothing, occasionally passing by guys in radiation suits or other guards. Which promptly joined the chase. But it still didn't make sense. You would think a secret government organization like Men in black would be better at this?

"Stop!" Another guard yelled as she looked behind her to see at least ten people chasing her.

"Oh no no no no!" She yelled as she realized she was in over her head.

"Theres got to be someplace to go!" She yelled as she opened up one last door.

"Don't let her in there!" The guards yelled as Nora saw a door lowering itself slowly.

Again, that also made no sense, why would the door be going slow if they were desperately trying to cut it off? Wouldn't it make more sense if it slammed down blocking off her escape? Seriously these people were the worst secret agency she had ever heard of!

"WOOOOOOOO!" She yelled as she went to the ground sticking her foot out like she was sliding into home before the catcher could react.

Only to see that she was about to crash into a bunch of dust vials.

"OH CRAP!" She said as she held her hands in front of her face ready for the impact.

This was going to hurt.

Jem

"Damn I love nature." Jem said as he was out hiking.

This was one of the things he could do to get away from all the craziness that had occurred in his life recently. Just go out in a green sleeveless hoodie, jeans and hiking boots and just enjoy nature for what it was. Pretending he was a buffer version of an elf from Lothlorien.

Hey he may have been built like an Uruk hai, but he enjoyed nature like an elf.

And the best part was, he even packed his own food and cooking supplies in his hiking backpack. He found a nice cave to set up camp in which gave a perfect view of the forest he was currently in, and he smiled as he got ready to set up camp.

He set up his camp chair first, and then he started to unpack the supplies he had brought for his weekend camping trip away from RWBY, JNPR and Winter. Don't get him wrong, he did enjoy hanging out with them for the most part, but every now and then you had to get away.

"Do do dooo." He sang and hummed to himself as he brought up a tiny collapsible wood burning stove/firepit.

He only bought this because he saw it on multiple camping channels, and how it seemed just big enough to cook small meals for one to two people, and since he wasn't going to be out here for very long, he didn't see the need to have a big campfire, especially since the weather was warming up now.

It was then he brought out his main meal for the day. He pulled out a cooler out of his pack and unveiled his pride and joy. Two large porterhouse steaks, along with his seasonings, cast iron skillet, and everything he needed to cook with.

"Now this is life." He said as he enjoyed these small trips he took.

All he had to do was cook his own meals, enjoy nature and just get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, it was a perfect vacation for him.

So without any hesitation, he started his fire, and started preparing his cast iron skillet as he seasoned the steaks, he always liked to let the skillet heat up for a bit while he seasoned the steaks so that way as soon as he put them on, you would immediately hear the satisfying sizzle of meat cooking. Plus this was one big ass skillet, so he could cook them both at the same time.

"Mmmm, this is going to be so good.' He said as he was going with a buttery steakhouse seasoning on both.

"And here we go." He said as he laid the two steaks on the skillet.

And immediately he heard that satisfying sizzle.

"Damn thats sexy." He said as he got his tongs ready as he had a pot of black rifle coffee going on a separate stove.

Seriously he could never understand how people could hate camping, right now he was cooking one of his favorite meals, while making coffee, and just listening to the birds chirping and not having to worry about cars making noises. It was a perfect getaway from modern day life.

He flipped the steaks as he made sure he was getting that nice sear on each side. Occasionally poking the tops with the tongs to see how much give they had, after all, he loved to make sure his steaks were rare, so you had to do the firmness test to see where it was at, lest you commit a sin and fuck up and make your steak well done.

He noticed hey were firming up a little but with plenty of give, so just a little bit longer, and they would be good to give.

He poured himself a cup of coffee and set it off to the side as he got a wooden cutting board out to put the steaks on.

He let them rest for a bit before he got ready to cut into them.

"Well time to di-"

CRACKA BOOM!

"Oh please don't start rai-" Suddenly he looked up and noticed it was still bright and sunny out.

Then where did that boom come fr-

"AHH!" He heard a small scream and a THUMP.

"Ooowwww." He looked in front of him to see a little girl.

"What the he-" Suddenly he took a look at her.

She was face down in the dirt, so he couldn't see her face, but he noticed one very noticeable trait.

A lions tail.

She was a faunus!

But that meant-

"Not agaaiiiinnn." He said as he was worried now.

Nala's POV

Nala had no idea what happened, last thing she saw was a bright flash, and now she was face planted into some dirt.

"Owwww." She said as started to pull herself out of the ground.

"What hap-" She was cut off as she opened her eyes and looked around.

She was in a forest now! How was that possible?! The last thing she knew she was in that lab, and then she ran into those dust vials, and now she was here!

"What is goin-" Suddenly she smelled something.

Something...mouthwatering! She knew that smell! She knew it well! And she hadn't smelled it in a long time!

She sniffed the air a little bit more, and she turned her head.

She saw a bearded man wearing jeans, hiking boots, and a sleeveless hoodie, he was staring at her in shock. But she wasn't worried about him, she was more interested in what she saw in front of him.

She saw two very large porterhouse steaks that were fresh off the skillet, not only that but the aroma was invading her nostrils as she couldn't help but get closer as she remembered that sweet sweet smell of cooked steak. Sadly she had not been able to afford beef because of how expensive it was, so it had been nothing but instant ramen ever since she started working, and even then, she still had to buy a grill or a skillet. Since she needed to either grill them or pan sear them. And that was even more money she didn't want to spend.

Her stomach growled as she crawled on all fours towards the steak. But her brain was still able to think clearly.

She looked up into the eyes of the man who was still in shock at what he was seeing. But she looked up at him with those innocent eyes.

"Mister please...could I have some steak?"