Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ A Certain Machinist ❯ That's No Moon ( Chapter 1 )

A Certain Machinist

RWBY fanfiction story

By Terdwilicker

“Noooo! Physics doesn’t do that!” I screamed at the sky. The moon was broken. It was broken, and chunks were floating in space above and behind the missing portion. But gravity doesn’t work like that. Gravity would collect up those bits back onto the moon, probably within days of the event. They don’t just float above a moon’s surface, laughing at the very concept of gravity.

“HowWOO!” cried a wolf in the distance. Another cried closer in. The snowy forest around me began to sing with wolves. Why is my back cold? Why does it smell like snow?

I’d been drinking at a bar in Tucson, like any other Arizona night. The days were so hot, and the nights barely cooled off until nearly dawn. I was walking back to the trailer park outside Davis-Montham Air Force Base where I worked on A-10s and several other aircraft models. I was an aircraft mechanic because my degree in Applied Physics didn’t pay that well, and the best stuff that was fun to work on required a security clearance, something I got from working for the Air Force. I’d been walking along the side of the road and there was bright lights from a passing car. My shadow got really big and sharp and then I’d been hit, flying and dying and don’t even remember landing. I was probably dead before I hit the ground.

And then I was here, lying on my back in around four inches of snow in a forest clearing, at night. Staring up at a moon that couldn’t exist, because physics doesn’t work that way. Snow is cold and was melting through my shirt. I sat up, shivering.

I really shouldn’t be screaming. I petered out my noise and pondered the meaning of wolves. This wasn’t Earth, obviously. The stars were all wrong. None of them were familiar, none of the constellations were right. With a telescope and a computer I could probably work out position if this is still the Milky Way galaxy. On the other hand, a moon like that screamed simulation, not even a real place.

I died. And now I’ve been reincarnated or something. Somewhere with a broken moon. I only know of a couple of places that fit that. If the stars were right and there was a visible debris field in orbit that would be a clue for Cowboy Bebop, but no such luck on either of those. The next one was a desert planet, from Trigun. This was far too damp and forested to be that place. That left the third possibility.

“BOOM.. BOOM.. BOOM BOOM BOOM… BOOM.” That was gunfire, and it sounded like .50 BMG. The wolves were howling, but they weren’t howling at me.

Do I go towards the trouble, or away from it? I looked around, noting I was still in the middle of dark forest at night. And the gunfire was the sole human I’m aware of. And they’re armed. I sighed.

Some ten minutes of fumbling under the light of a broken moon I found a clearing with a lot of hot shell casings sizzling in the snow, a girl in a red cape and hood combo posing with a giant scythe that was three times bigger than she was.

“Umm. Hello?” I called out. She looked up, embarrassed by the posing she’d been caught in.

“Hey Mister. What are you doing out in the woods in the middle of the night?” asked the girl in a cheerful chirpy voice.

I approached. Recognition reached me.

“You have… silver eyes,” I said, mimicking a certain immortal headmaster with a coffee addiction. She pressed a button on the huge scythe she was swinging around and it folded and shrunk down into a fairly compact box. She hung the box on her belt behind her. Right. That just happened.

“Eh. People say that all the time. Let me guess: you have amnesia and you have no idea how you got here?” she said.

“Oh… umm. I guess so? I noticed your moon looks really wrong,” I admitted. Sounded as good as anything.

“Third one this week. Looks like Yang wins the pool,” commented the girl. “I’m Ruby Rose. What’s your name?” Now that I’m closer I can see she’s barely five feet tall, and maybe fourteen years old?

“Do I look like a Bob to you? I feel like being Bob,” I answered. “Nice to meet you, Ruby Rose. Say, do you load your own ammo? That’s around a hundred shell casings.” I gestured to all those I could see.

“109, actually. And yes. Takes ages to make the ammo. Want a job?” she offered.

“Sure?” I answered.

“We’ll start by picking up all the casings. Put them in here,” she said, offering over a small cotton sack. I unrolled it and it became a bigger sack. I helped her collect the casings in the moonlight for the next half hour.

“I don’t know if this is all 100 of them,” I said, handing over the sack to the girl. She lifted it up and down a couple times.

“Feels like around 90 of them. I might come back in the daytime and see if I can spot the others. Oh well. Follow me,” she said then, walking in a particular direction.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Grandma’s house!” she announced.

“Really?”

“I wish. We’re going to my house. I’ll introduce you to Dad,” Ruby explained. We walked through the woods around fifteen minutes, rounding a bend and then emerging from the woods to spot a house with some external lights on. Ruby unlocked the door and opened it for us. I stamped my feet to get the snow and mud off them before climbing the steps and entering the house. Ruby shut the door, removing her hood and cloak to hang on a hook. She was wearing some kind of kiddy version of a lady’s corset with red lacings on the front. An odd look for a young teenager with no real bust, but it sort of fits if she’s Red Riding Hood.

“Dad? I found a stranger in the woods. Can I keep him?” Ruby called when she arrived at the family home. I waited in the entry for introductions.

“Another one?” called out a groggy voice. A scraggly blonde guy with three days of beard descended the stairs with shotgun and a bathrobe, wearing the robe, not the gun. I remembered him being a boxer like Yang, so the gun was odd. Maybe the hangover explained it.

“I’m Tai-Yang Xiao-Long. What’s your name?” he asked gruffly. Buff guy, looked like a surfer from California. One of those Venice Beach body builder types.

“I’m Bob, I think. I decided to be Bob. I woke up in the forest. Did you know your moon is broken?” I reminded him.

“Huh. Another alien. Third this week. Yang! You won the pool!” he yelled up the stairs.

“Yay,” said an unenthusiastic reply of a sleepy teenager through the ceiling.

“So, what can you do?” he asked, looking me up and down. I was still in my off-duty bar hopping clothes. I’d complain of a hangover, only I was reincarnated without it.

“I’m a physicist. I’m good with machines. I can design and build stuff, things with moving parts. I noticed your daughter uses a lot of ammo in her… scythe. I offered to reload her cases in exchange for a couch for the next couple nights. That okay with you?” I asked him. He grunted, looking me up and down.

“You some kind of pedo?” he finally asked me.

“Hell no. Ruby’s cute, but not that kind,” I said. I remembered Goodwitch. “I kinda like stern blonde schoolteachers.” He recoiled.

“Uh… what?” he responded. Oh, right, he’s a school teacher. And blonde.

“Of the adult female persuasion,” I finished. “No homo.” He sighed in relief.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“I can cook. I was in the military back home. The chow hall was a bit… not to my taste. You want balanced meals that keep you from getting sick, I am your man. Again, no homo.”

“Huh. Well, okay. We’ll see. You’ve got a couple days to impress me, otherwise be on your way,” he offered.

“What can you cook?” Ruby asked me.

“It’s late. I guess I could bake you a snack. You like cookies?” I asked her. She beamed.

I crashed on her couch late that night after baking four dozen chocolate chip Tollhouse cookies. She really liked them. The sun woke me a scant three hours after crashing out on the couch, and the grunt of another male voice.

“Oi? Yang, you bringing home men already?” It was Qrow. He was drunk.

“Morning. Want a cookie?” I offered, pointing to the jar on the kitchen counter. He opened it and sniffed. Extracted one, sniffed it again.

“Is it poisoned?” he asked suspiciously, giving me the side eye. I am too tired.

“Not this time. You have a preference in poisons? Ruby ate two dozen of them last night before she let me go to bed.”

“Sounds like her. I mostly use alcohol, and I’ve got my own supply.” He bit into the cookie with a solid crunch. Chewed for a while swallowed.

“Good. I hate those soft ones,” he decided.

“We’re men. Women like soft cookies. Men like crunchy ones. This difference is one of the mysteries of the universe,” I declared. He nodded agreement.

“You’re on my guest couch. Clear off so I can get some zzz’s before the kids wake up,” he ordered. I groaned to my feet and went into the kitchen to tidy up, then found the bathroom and cleaned up properly there, including washing my shirt, which was soaked with snow melt and dirt.