BRS- Soul Remnant

"A check in mission?"

The group of first year Huntresses known as Team RWBY had expected several things when they were collectively called to Ozpin's office a few days after the great Breach of Vale's walls, but the assignment he had set before them was not on that list.

The man behind the desk nodded. "That is correct, Miss Rose. I need the four of you to fly out to the kingdom of Threshold and compile a report on their status."

"With all due respect, Professor," Weiss Schnee cut in. "why can't you just contact them yourself?"

Ozpin smiled slightly to indicate the lack of offense taken. "It's not that simple. Threshold is possessed of a certain… unique circumstance that renders outside communication systems invalid." He sighed, seeming to fold in on himself a little. "That aside, there is still much to be done. The walls must be repaired, houses and shops must be rebuilt, hope must be restored…"

"Don't worry sir," Yang Xiao Long stated confidently. "We'll get it done, no problem!"

"Who will we be meeting with?" Blake Belladonna asked.

"You will be taken to Threshold by Bullhead." Ozpin elaborated. "From there you will meet with the Headmistress of Threshold Academy. She will tell you everything you need to know."

Ruby nodded. "Alright. Is there anything else we need to know?"

"Simply that you leave in an hour, and that the enemies that you will face once inside Threshold's borders will be unlike anything you have ever faced."

_ BGM - Black ★ Rock Shooter Animation Original Soundtrack Track 01 ~ Opening ~ _

They come from below.

Slipping up through the seams and cracks of the barrier between the planes, forcing their way into our world to sow destruction and chaos.

The Unformed.

Humanity responds.

Warriors, trained from their childhoods to combat these foes with the full strength of their Hearts and Souls.

The Black Paradoxes.

They come from below.

A tear in the deepest earth, stretching across the void to bridge this world and the Otherworld.

The Sunder.

Humanity constructs.

A great city, walled and warded from the tallest spires to the lowest foundation.

Threshold.

They come from above.

An alien queen, bent on world domination, disguising her intent behind a beguiling voice and legions of fans.

White Rock Shooter.

Humanity rises.

A young teenager armed with strong Heart and silent Soul.

Black Rock Shooter.

_ BGM - BRS THE GAME track 18- Fuji Forest _

Some hours later, the Bullhead came to a halt a fair ways away from Threshold, much to Team RWBY's confusion.

"This is as far as I go, kids!" The pilot yelled back at them. "We're at the border of Threshold territory; the treaties say no craft in their airspace!"

Ruby nodded firmly. "Right!" She turned to her team. "Ready to go?"

Weiss and Blake nodded in their turns, Yang popped a thumbs up and all four jumped out of the plane, landing flawlessly on the hard earth below.

As the Bullhead pulled an about-face and rumbled away, Ruby took the opportunity to get a better look at their surroundings.

The black wall that defined the kingdom's border lay off to the south, two miles or so away. This was no great distance to the Huntresses; their chosen calling and the requisite training they had undergone in it's service had rendered all four of them capable of moving many times that distance at a rapid pace with ease.

The problem lay in the fact that a thick black skeleton of a forest started not twenty feet from where they all stood, practically screaming 'Grimm-infested.'

Yang grimaced and activated her gauntlets. "Well, at least this won't be boring."

Blake's ears twitched back and forth, their owner's eyes taking on a haunted look. "I… I can't hear anything."

Ruby looked at her, slightly alarmed. "What do you mean?"

The cat Faunus took Gambol Shroud off her back, violently separating her weapon and clutching both katana and sheath in a death grip. "Even in a place that's overrun by Grimm, you can hear the wind, wood creaking, metal groaning, things scuttling around. Background noise, but it's still noise. Even from here, I can tell that place is just… silent. It's literally too quiet for it to be anything other than dead."

Weiss was profoundly unnerved, though she did her best not to show it as she yanked out Mytrenaster. "What should we do, Ruby?"

The reaper took a breath and faced the forest, whipping out Crescent Rose. "Head for the city and if anyone sees or hears anything moving, shoot it until it's not."

The team advanced into the forest with extreme caution, marching for ten long, aching minutes through the silent woods. This close to the trees, Ruby could see that the black wood was entirely natural in colour rather than having been burned or charred, with an oily sheen reflecting the light that seemed to pale as soon as they had entered.

The team was on tenterhooks, straining their eyes and ears for any sight or sound of a foe.

As skilled as they were, they did not possess the wherewithal to detect the form phasing out the back of a particularly large tree that they passed.

_ BGM - BRS THE GAME track 15 - in trouble _ 

They did, however, hear the growl that it emitted upon sighting them, and immediately sent bullets in that direction, but all that accomplished was blowing up the tree that it stood behind.

When they spotted the thing through the dust, even Blake couldn't hide her shock.

The girls had faced down a few types of Grimm in these early days of their education, and studied up on more, but they hadn't been prepared for a walking skeleton that appeared to be made out of the same substance that the trees were and wreathed in black fire. And they certainly weren't prepared for more to literally melt out of the trees around them.

Ruby yanked back the bolt of Crescent Rose and took aim. She'd taken along some bullets that had a higher Dust-to-gunpowder content than she normally used on account of it being more expensive, but she felt that the extra Lien would be well worth it if she dropped these things fast enough-

BLAM

For a moment, Ruby felt a fierce triumph as the nearest skeleton's skull snapped backwards.

That triumph died a fiery death as the thing straightened back up, completely unharmed.

Weiss swept her sword back and flung it forward, engulfing the same skeleton in a blast of fire Dust. It stepped out of the inferno none the worse for wear, dripping embers off it's humeruses.

Blake and Yang rushed it together, the former going for it's vertebrae while the latter simply punched it right in the sternum.

Neither blow had any discernible effect, which made Yang spark some embers of her own. "Okay, what the actual f-"

The blonde brawler was cut off by the flames covering the skeleton's bones flaring up, knocking both Huntresses in training away.

Weiss began to panic as she noticed the rest of the horde getting closer. "Now what do we do?"

An answer came, but not from Ruby. "Hit the deck!"

The two girls that had kept their feet threw themselves at the dirt just in time to avoid the barrage of purple bullets that came shooting from the trees, landing right between the empty eyes of every skeleton in the clearing and dropping them like juvenile Beowolves.

_ BGM - BRS THE GAME track 01 - BRS the Game _ 

The four turned to see a girl who didn't look a day over sixteen prop a massive gunblade on her shoulder. "Hey there! You must be the Huntresses from that Beacon place."

Ruby took a few seconds to get to her feet and get her mind around the fact that no one should be able to swing something that big around that casually before responding. "Uh, yeah. That's right. Who are you?"

The girl grinned. "The name's Black Matagi, First Patrol Officer of the Black Paradoxes! Headmistress Ram told me you were coming and she wanted me to meet up with you."

Ruby nodded hesitantly. "Uh, OK. Lead the way, I guess."

Matagi saluted playfully before turning and walking off, her gunblade dissipating into purple light as she went and drawing the Huntresses up short.

Ruby shot a look at her sister. "You guys all saw that, right? Right?"

Somehow, her team's affirmatives did not make her feel better.

They trekked onward through the forest, the uneasy silence only broken by Matagi's cheery whistling.

Ruby made an effort to break the silence. "So, uh… Patrol Officer?"

"Uh huh!" Their guide chirped. "Me and a few others, my direct subordinates by the by, take long enthusiastic walks in the woods and if we see any Unformed, we kill them until they are dead." She shrugged. "It can get kinda boring at times, but does provide some level of challenge so I can't complain."

Presently, the forest parted and thinned to reveal a massive, heavily fortified gate. Matagi threw the ill at ease Huntresses another cheery wave before leaving to get back on patrol. Waiting to meet them was a tall woman in orange and black armour and thin-rimmed glasses, standing with a strict, military bearing.

"So you're the Huntress trainees Ozpin sent. I'm Shizu, head combat instructor of Threshold. Headmistress Ram sent me to escort you to the academy. This way."

Ruby blinked, and they were all suddenly inside the wall. "What the - "

Shizu was already moving, setting a brisk pace that the Huntresses matched easily enough, once they had caught up.

_ BGM - Black ★ Rock Shooter Animation Original Soundtrack Track 02 ~ Fuukei~  _

At first glance, Threshold was a lot like Vale. The people carried themselves a little more cautiously and there were a few stores that looked more freshly built than others despite having some substantial establishment dates, but the overall atmosphere was about the same: A sanctuary, a bastion against the Grimm.

Then, they rounded a corner and saw the Academy.

Or rather, the sheer and shockingly sudden scar in the landscape that the Academy was perched over.

_ BGM - Black ★ Rock Shooter TV Animation Soundtrack ~Track 01 ~The Story~ _

It resembled nothing so much as a giant bundle of thirteen interlinked towers, seemingly naturally formed from stone that was light-absorbing black in colour. The entire thing was held up by a web of massive links of chain as big as some of the buildings they'd seen at minimum. Most unnerving of all, the gaping, yawning chasm below the place didn't seem to have a bottom, stretching downwards into black nothingness.

It was probably the first time any of the Huntresses present were feeling threatened by merely beholding a building.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Shizu opined with a sardonic smirk.

"That's one word for it." Blake muttered.

The woman actually laughed. "You've got that right. Now, normally we could just take a transport over the chains, but we don't have all day so I'll just jump us there."

Ruby started. "Wait-"

_ BGM - BRS THE GAME track 07 - Aliens Conference _

"-What?!"

Everyone toppled over, unused to the sensation of being yanked off the physical plane by your soul, whirled along through the void and dropped back onto the physical plane like a toy in the hand of an overenthusiastic toddler. Only Shizu kept her feet by dint of long experience.

"Heh. Wimps."

Ruby lifted her face off the floor and turned her eyes towards this new voice, but all she managed to make out was an indistinct mess of black, white and gold.

"These are the best Beacon Academy has to offer?" The mess slowly cleared into the form of a young woman wearing an outfit that only qualified as decent because of the jacket and mid-thigh boots she was wearing, with gloved arms folded across a substantial chest as she looked down at Team RWBY with what could only be described as disdain.

"As I recall, you didn't do too well on your first combat mission either." Came a cooler voice.

As Ruby and her team pulled themselves upright, they caught sight of four other teenagers observing them with varying levels of amusement.

The one in front was decked out in a dark blue longcoat accented with thick white lines, a blue shirt with a white star on the front and two lines placed at odd angles lower down, blue fingerless gloves, dark blue shorts, a pair of blue, white-edged belts, long light and dark blue socks and dark blue boots with black laces. Her blue hair was tied up in short, choppy twintails and her blue eyes danced with mirth as she grinned boyishly at the four Huntresses.

Holding her hand was a taller, more regal looking girl in a green sleeveless dress and leggings and black heels. Her right hand was, as previously stated, holding onto the first girl's hand, but the left one was free, displaying the black silk glove, the five acid-green claws that tipped her fingers and the spine-shaped strip of fabric that wound up her arm. Her hair was straight and shoulder length, with two princess curls framing her more composed expression and dark green eyes, shifting to a brighter shade in places as she directed a fond look at the next girl in line.

This one was the shortest of the bunch, and exuded the most attitude. She was wearing a strange combination of a black zippered one-piece and a skirt, currently unzipped halfway to show a mud-brown tank top, a black pageboy hat with a dark orange ribbon tied into a bow at the front, tough black elbow-length gloves with white accents, black short shorts, black stockings and black sneakers with white lacing, along with black metal cuffs at her ankles.

The fifth and final girl was sat in a yellow and black wheelchair. Her blonde hair fell a little past the shoulders of her off-yellow blouse, and her hands fiddled with the green blanket that covered the rest of her body. Her yellow eyes were a little unnerving but her smile was kind enough.

By this time, RWBY had pulled themselves up off the floor. Shizu waved a hand at the newcomers. "Team RWBY, I'd like you to meet Saya Irino, Mato Kuroi, Yomi Takanashi, Yuu Kotari and Kagari Izuriha. Ladies, this is Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long."

Mato waved with her free hand. "Hi!"

Ruby surprised herself with a wave back. "Uh, hi."

"You don't have a formal team structure?" Weiss inquired.

Shizu shook her head. "We let the students find out who works with who best for themselves. This does result in varied team size and even a few lone wolves, but the upshot is that we have a team size and composition for nearly every situation. In any case, these five young ladies are our top students, purely due to the fact that they can beat the ever loving crap out of anyone else in the school apart from the teachers."

Yuu shrugged. "And to be totally honest, that's because we really don't see the point."

"In any case," Shizu continued. "it is customary for visiting warriors to test themselves against our students in the arena when they arrive."

Mato's brow lifted in surprise. "Who told you that?"

"The Headmistress."

The girl frowned. "Right…"

Ruby raised her hand. "Uh, could we walk to wherever this arena is? If we do that weird teleporting thing one more time, I think I'm gonna throw up…"

Yuu rolled her eyes playfully. "Well, if you wanna be all boring about it, then fine. Let's go!"

_ BGM - Black ★ Rock Shooter Animation Original Soundtrack Track 10 ~ Kinchou ~ _

Fifteen minutes later, four of the five girls were limbering up in a preparation room not unlike those at Beacon. Mato finished an overhead stretch and looked over at Kagari. "You want in on this?"

The wheelchair-bound girl shook her head with a demure smile. "No thank you. My legs are playing up again today, and I'd rather not strain them unless I need to." She waved away the concerned looks. "I'm fine, I just don't feel up to fighting right now."

Mato frowned a little, but let it go. "Okay. Everyone into the arena."

The four Paradoxes warped out, leaving Kagari behind.

"Showoffs," the girl murmured with a fond smile, before her wheelchair turned and rolled out the door leading to the stands.

"Alright!" Shizu called out from her position on a flattened rock spire protruding up from one side of the circular arena. "This is a four-on-four match between the teams of Mato Kuroi, Yomi Takanashi, Saya Irino and Yuu Kotari, and Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long. The match will end when one team is defeated in it's entirety, whether by knockout, ring out or surrender."

"Go easy on them," Mato murmured to her team. "They aren't Paradoxes like us."

The other girls gave a single nod of acceptance. Of the four of them, only Yuu had summoned her weapons, while Team RWBY had theirs out and at the ready.

_ BGM - Black ★ Rock Shooter Animation Original Soundtrack Track 12~ Hakunetsu ~ _

"HAJIME!"

Yuu and Yang burst forward, meeting in the centre with a clash of fist on metal fist. Saya took a flying leap over her smaller teammate, King Saw reared back to strike, only for Blake to meet her halfway and draw her off as the two brawlers started exchanging punches. Yomi caught Ruby's lunging strike on the shaft of her own scythe, and the two began a whirling dance of clashes and dodges. Weiss skated over the ground, rapier pointed directly at Mato's chest, but just before it could make contact a flash of blue intercepted it with a CLANG!

Mato looked lazily down at the Black Blade in her hand before directing her trademark grin up at the shocked heiress. "Gotcha."

Weiss quickly found herself shooting backwards as Mato's katana came out of it's guard position, flipping over in her hand to point at the floor. Weiss got her feet under her and surged back in, only for a lazy movement of Mato's arm to violently deflect her attack.

Then, Mato began walking forward, starting a simple pattern of similar attacks, if they could even be called that. Weiss quickly found her temper mounting as she found herself constantly retreating under the aggravatingly low-effort swings that paradoxically felt like they were being delivered by a giant. The overall effect was like fighting the Giant Knight again, but in the body of a teenage girl.

Ruby was not having much more luck against Yomi. Even if she didn't like to put on airs about her own skills, she knew very well that using a scythe in combat, especially one as customised as Crescent Rose, took a degree of skill that most were not capable of, and she had trained under the best user of such a weapon in the world to reach the level that she was at now.

But Yomi's usage of her Dead Scythe was unlike anything Ruby had ever seen.

The girl was using astounding levels of flexibility that made Ruby's abs ache just watching to duck, flip and weave around her strikes, while Ruby herself was having to spin Crescent Rose like a baton just to ward off Yomi's constant stream of attacks from both ends of her weapon.

Ruby desperately lashed out with her scythe, slamming both scythes into the floor by their blades, and popped up into a handstand to deliver a series of powerful kicks. To her annoyance Yomi had the same idea, which resulted in a clash of black and red boots vs green high heels.

Saya found Blake to be a fascinating opponent, from the seamless switching from cleaver to katana and sheath to ribbon-sickle and back to the rapid shadow-steps that augmented her attacks, ensuring that King Saw was in constant motion around her body  to continue to block her strikes. Saya lashed a leg out at Blake's knees with a backhanded swing of King Saw coming in after it. Blake responded by throwing herself backwards out of range of the leg and teleporting from that prone position to aim a kick of her own at Saya's head.

The redhead proceeded to not only catch the kick but bodily throw Blake towards the centre of the arena, passing through Mato and Weiss' fight along the way.

The blue-clad tomboy ducked easily under the flying Faunus and caught Weiss' next strike on her gaurd.

Weiss' frayed temper finally snapped. "Take this seriously, damn it!"

_ BGM - Black ★ Rock Shooter Animation Original Soundtrack Track 12~ Kanashimi ~ _

Mato looked at her quizzically as the rest of her team paused their own fights to listen. "Eh?"

"You're not even putting any effort into what you're doing!" Weiss raged. "This is a fight! I refuse to continue if you aren't going to take this seriously!"

Mato sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine. Alright ladies, let's wrap this up." She leapt backwards and landed in a crouch, flipping her blade around in her grip and holding it out to the side as she bowed her head.

Yomi flipped back upright and backed away a step, winding up like a baseball player.

Saya tensed her arms as a blood-red glow built around King Saw's edge.

Yuu backhanded Yang away and spread her Ogre Arms.

Then the four girls moved.

"Black Blade."

One instant Mato was a full three metres away, the next she was almost past Weiss, her katana a solid bar of pain across the heiress' abdomen.

"Dead Volley."

Yomi unwound in a single smooth motion, sending Ruby flying straight up into the air.

"Royal Strike."

Saya slammed the flat of King Saw into Blake's back.

"Ogre Burst."

The fingers of Yuu's Arms reconfigured into cannons with all six barrels pointed straight at Yang, who simply grit her teeth and crossed her arms protectively in front of her head.

All remained still for one long moment, then-

"Journey's End!"

"Dead Spike!"

"World-Rending Blade!"

"FIRE!"

Mato shoved hard to the left, the briefest of sparks flickering around her left eye. Yomi jumped straight up into the air and slammed the flat end of Dead Scythe into Ruby, sending her rocketing into the floor. The red glow around King Saw exploded, flinging Blake towards the edge of the arena. And six blasts erupted from Yuu's Arms, covering Yang in explosions.

The four leapt back to back, dismissing their weapons in turn. The Black Blade went the same way it had come, King Saw simply vanished when Saya placed it on her back, Yomi whirled her Scythe once before it flashed over into rapidly dissipating green fire and Yuu's Orge Arms vanished in cubes of bright orange light.

When the dust settled, Team RWBY was out cold.

_ BGM - Black ★ Rock Shooter Animation Original Soundtrack Track 16~ Jijitsu ~ _

Some time later, Mato and her friends swung by the infirmary to check on the girls they'd all but beaten into the ground.

Mato walked up to the attending nurse. "How are they doing?"

"Well, aside from being unconscious," the woman huffed, "They seem to be doing well. No external or internal injuries that I can detect. That Aura they have is quite impressive."

Yuu huffed and folded her arms. "Feh. Not that impressive. We were holding back as much as we could and they still couldn't keep up with us."

"They don't have connections with their Others," Mato reminded her teammate as she walked back over. "And we went easy on them for a reason. If I hadn't used the flat side of Black Blade, Weiss would have been cut in half. And you looked like you were having fun with Yang."

Yuu shrugged, a smirk stealing it's way across her face. "Yeah, true. She didn't fold after the first punch, which is something I can't say about a lot of the pansies here. Must be one of those fancy Semblances or something."

Yomi reached up and let her claws play across the sleeve of Mato's jacket, her eyes on the acid-green tips. "What I want to know is why Ozpin sent them here. What business does he have with Threshold?"

Mato caught the hand with her own and started rubbing the fingers softly. "If he's anything like Ram, he wants something." The eyes of the Shooter met those of the Dead. "These girls would have won against almost anyone else in this school. It would have been a hard fight for some of them, but at worst it would have been a case of a graduating student going up against an intermediate; A tough fight, but a fair one. Something they could have won if they were smart."

Saya shifted her weight. "But instead, the prisoners got shoved into a ring with the lions for the entertainment of the masses."

Mato nodded, indistinct rings appearing in her eyes for a moment. "Mm. Rock's dealt with Ram enough times to see a pattern here, and I think it's best to ride it out for now. If people start getting hurt, then we'll start kicking ass. Until then, we'll help these girls out with whatever they need."

Saya huffed. "I left my last job because I wanted to avoid listening to high-school students blather on about their problems."

Mato turned her head and looked at her teammate, the rings in her eyes sharpening into focus for a moment.

The redhead tossed her hair and glanced off to the side, doing her best not to show weakness. "Fine, you're the boss."

Mato snorted. "Damn right I am."

The door to the infirmary creaked open, drawing everyone's attention as Ram walked through with a combination of grace and overt power that only the most powerful Others could manage. "I believe you four are currently on break, yes? Better to spend it out in the sun than in an infirmary. I will attend to our guests."

Mato frowned, but took Yomi's hand in a firmer grip. "Alright, Headmistress. C'mon, girls. I think Kagari made more macarons today."

The four filed out peaceably, but Mato's suspicions hadn't been lowered one bit, and neither had her hackles.

Rock had dealt with the older Others of that world many times, and her instincts had been blended with Mato's for so long paranoia was almost second nature.

The only question was, whose plans would spark the flame first?