Escape from Remnant

Chapter 20: The Vaulted Rabbit Hole

Click click click click clank click, Ruby typed on the keyboard surrounded by her team watching her struggle to read the small print label on the side of the Trimadol Texas had given her. She had to squint and strain her eyes just to read some fine print for the most part in a unrecognisable language. The battle with their instructors was over and everyone had taken one good trip to the nurse for some heals and treatment. After all that beating up and beating down their reward was a drug that they knew nothing about, Ruby had pulled the cap off only to reveal a needle, it was pretty obvious what you needed to do to administer said drug.

But that wasn't the case now, the whole team thought that maybe, just maybe this stimulant could lead them to discovering something about their mysterious instructors. Maybe, just maybe, in their naive child like fantasies concocted up in their minds that this would lead to some sort of great adventure down the rabbit hole.

"Terra...Group..." She repeated to herself staring down at the stimulant. They were now at the library using the computers which had proper access to the wider web from all 4 kingdoms unlike their phone only had local Vale internet. She pressed down on the enter key and eagerly awaited the results as did her teammates who moved closer towards the screen but nothing came up. Ruby slumped back, she was stumped at the dead end they had encountered.

It was the same pretty much for everything, Las Vegas was a dead end, Nevada was a dead end, rifle dynamics lead to literal schematics and studies on the dyamics of rifles, and Trimadol had nothing on it. Ruby was confused as was her team, these men were supposed to be killing machine soldiers but if that were the case then why was there next to nothing?

That's when ruby got a idea, it was a long shot but maybe it could pay off enough to work. Professor Peach specialised in chemistry, maybe she could tell them something about the drug or its composition. The group left the library, on the way talking about various topics like the upcoming field trip, Juane's supposed new 'friendship' with Cardick, homework, classes, tests, life as a student at beacon academy.

Eventually after a short walk they reach a laboratory, one of the many laboratory classrooms used for chemistry and dust classes where they could run practical experiments with all necessary equipment and safely. They had gone to that specific laboratory classroom after going to her office only to find a note that told them where she was.

Yang pulls the door open, the violent action causing a loud sudden noise that in turn dominoed into professor Peach jumping in shock from whatever she was doing. The laboratory was a sanitised room devoid of dirt specks, small white tiles made up the room's walls while the floor was made up of similar larger off white tiles. Laboratory equipment seemed to be missing from their shelves, the culprit being none other than professor Peach herself on the table with the missing equipment all hooked up to each other. In another separate section there were some chemicals strewn about.

She was making something. But the team was supposed to see a basket of injectors that looked identical to the stimulant Ruby was given. Oh the gods...she was making them. Peach looked equal parts tired and surprised to have team RWBY meet her in such a incriminating position.

"H-hello Ruby and RWBY...what can I do for you...heh..." She quickly hides the basket of already made stimulants putting them down onto the floor out of sight of the students.

"Uhhhhh Professor Peach...What are you making...?" Weiss points to where the basket was initially then moved her finger to where it was now approximately.

"It was those guys ideas!" She immediately pins the blame on almost throwing her hands up in the air like a murderer caught in the killing act red handed. Something was up with those men now for sure, and team RWBY vowed to get to the bottom of the rabbit hole. But first they should get what they wanted from their professor first.

"Professor peach I just wanted to know about this..." Ruby dug in her pockets approaching closer and showed her the Trimadol Texas handed to her. "Its almost like everyday there men pull out a new drug out of thin air!" She exclaims opening up the stimulant and unscrewing the needle part to take a sample of the Trimadol so that she could find out what it was.

She shoves the sample into a machine, some sort of advabced medical device that could read the contents of solutions with a small simple screen on the top panel displaying the results after awhile, opioid. Additionally it was a synthetic analgesic whatever that meant to team RWBY.

"Well im afraid its a opioid, a very powerful combat drug that really should not be in your hands until the very last desperate moment..." Professor Peach mused at the results capping the injector and handing it back to Ruby.

"Wait so there a nothing about its origin?" Blake questions not satisfied with the answer still wanting more in line with the rest of her team.

"No that is a question I've asked myself many times especially when they asked me to replicate these stims." She puts her hands on her hips looking around at what she had done, the equipment, chemicals, the batches of finished stimulants in the basket, the floor.

"Your making these things for them...?" Ruby asked knowing the answer already, she takes a step forward towards her professor unsure to feel horrified or relieved.

"Well..." She looks down at the floor letting out a sigh. "When those men came to me...I saw the stuff they had. These drugs...stimulants...they are revolutionary, you know Atlas was trying to make something similar to these drugs. But for years they failed to make anything with dust until..." She picks up one of the stimulants she had made. "4 men walked in with some of the most revolutionary medical stimulants and combat drugs I had seen in my life randomly and asked me to produce some for them."

"And you said yes..." Yang completed for her.

"Look there were some drugs I didn't want to replicate, some were too harmful, I remember Mister Moron showing me one that had a estimated 25% chance to kill you or Texas showing me one that was just highly concentrated blood from someone. The fact is that some are amazing, amazing enough I've begun to make them for distribution to the student population likes this one, they're called probital."

"So you literally have nothing on where they drugs came from?" Ruby circles back around to the topic they had came here for in the first place.

"Unfortunately no..."

"Guess that's that..." Ruby admits feeling defeated, they had climbed into a truly impossible rabbit hole, she tells her team to return back to their dorm room and leave professor peach as she waved them goodbye reminding team RWBY about the excursion the next day to the forever fall. What a anticlimactic ending.