Stonehenge. Salisbury, England. July 1485. War of the Roses.
Two men stood within the center of the circle of stones that composed the structure known as Stonehenge. One is a relatively young appearing individual with short brown hair and white armor specially crafted to evoke in the minds of others the idea of a powerful dragon. The other apparently similarly aged individual is dressed in far simpler armor, only a basic cuirass and spaulder over chain mail. Strangely, this auburn-haired, blue-eyed man seems to wear clothes that would not be made for many centuries later than the current time underneath the armor, which could be recognized as a faded pale green t-shirt, denim jeans, and gray athletic shoes. A short sword hands in a scabbard upon his left hip. This second individual is bent over gripping his knees and attempting to catch his breath while the former is looking around the ancient site that is still reeling from the powerful magics that were running through it only minutes ago, resignation barely visible within his guarded eyes.
"So, that is that all that was needed?" The lesser armored youth asks between breaths. "It is sealed again?"
"The Summoning is undone, Rose Duelist…" the ornately armored man spoke.
The Rose Duelist let out a small chuckle and rose to his full height before speaking. "I thought I had asked you to call me Solomon if you were to have me address you as Seto, Rosenkreuz."
Seto kept his eyes looking over the area, and as Solomon was just about to speak up, he began speaking. "My family… Legend has it that my family was the only noble line to actually enter into a Pact of Glory with a Card Guardian."
Solomon cut off what he had been about to say to listen as Rosenkreuz continued. "But sometime in the past, the pact was broken for reasons that are veiled in the mists of history. For generations, our family has searched the world in the hopes of finding the same Card Guardian to revive the Pact and the glory that was once ours. Since the day I inherited the "Book of M" at Dumkul, I've searched far and wide…"
Seto's gaze became distant, becoming slightly lost in his memories. "Many are the Guardians I've awakened, only to return them to their resting place. To date, search for the one true Guardian goes unrewarded. You can't imagine how excited I was when I'd come to England and learned of the 'Rose Duelist Legend'…"
His gaze looked around Stonehenge as the final pieces of magic from the summoning began to fade. "Needless to say, the result was anticlimactic at best…"
The White Rose Crusader retreated into a silent contemplation. Solomon grabbed the man's right shoulder with his left hand, causing Seto to glance right to face the Rose Duelist. "With how long your family has probably been searching, I have few doubts that you will soon find the true Guardian you are seeking," Solomon said, breaking away after.
Seto gave a slight nod, turning to face Solomon fully before speaking, "I apologize for dragging you into all of this."
The Rose Duelist fully faced the White Rose Crusader, giving a slight smile before responding. "There is no need for an apology. You were not the one who had brought me back in time to begin with. That blame lies fully upon the Red Roses, and I believe they have paid fully for their folly of assuming I would automatically ally with them after they summoned me from my time without even offering me even simply returning me to my own time, unlike yourself." Solomon gave a dark chuckle, before muttering, "Gods above, I nearly sounded like a Card Guardian with that line."
A look of confusion ran over Rosenkreuz's face for a split second at the slightly casual mention of gods, before he composed himself and responded. "I will honor my promise of returning you to your own age. However, I fear that that is not enough to repay you for your help. Wait!"
Seto strode over to the pack, retrieving something and then returning and handing it over to Solomon. "Here! Take this back with you."
It was a pendent with a blue-purple string. Upon the circular main body was a white rose upon an azure field with a golden center and two crossed single edge swords. It was the sigil of the White Rose faction. Accepting it, Solomon took a glance at the back and saw an inscription. "Man is born to die, but the Pledge of Roses is born to live throughout all eternity." A surge of power ran through the Rose Duelist, and a new card manifested itself in his mind. It was Earthshaker, a spell that launches forth what amounts to an earthquake that scrambles the terrain of the surrounding area, flattening structures where relevant. 'What?' Solomon thought.
"I will continue in my quest to find the one true Guardian," Seto continued, not noticing the confused reaction of Solomon. "Perhaps it is my destiny to fail. But my descendants shall carry on the search. Should you meet such a descendant of mine, show this Rose Pendant. For from this day onward, my family is ever in your debt and will lend whatever support it is within their powers to provide. This I promise as an eternal pledge… a 'Pledge of Roses'."
"Thank you. I shall not waste the trust you place in me," Solomon replied, giving a slight bow. He put it on and slid it underneath his shirt beneath the armor to prevent damage. The Rose Duelist grabbed the pack he had stored the other belongings he had gathered in his time in fifteenth century England, as well as the last of his food, before he moved to the center of Stonehenge. As Seto prepared the Ritual to send him home, Solomon focused inward. There was something he needed to do.
He found himself within the corridor to his soul. The door to his soul room was in front of him, at the end of the hall, but that was not where he was heading. Neither was he heading towards the vortex door upon the wall to its immediate left which led to where he managed the connections to which cards could be drawn upon in battle. Solomon placed his hand upon the door to the right, with the combined design of both factions split vertically down the center, the White Rose to the right and Red Rose to the left. The door opened easily and Solomon strode into the chamber.
Kneeling before an altar to a number of gods composing a pantheon that Solomon could only slightly understand the basics of was woman. Her golden hair ran over the back of her deep purple cape which hid her exceptionally ornate red and gold armor and gold sheathed sword. Two wings extended from below her red helm at each of her temples. Around the middle of her torso ran two thick lines of feathers, each facing opposing directions. This was his Deck Leader, Tactical Warrior.
"Greetings Tac," Solomon spoke, causing her to stir from her focus.
"It is odd how you would greet someone simply to tell them it is time to say goodbye," she said after rising and turning to face him.
Solomon gave a sad smile. "We have a bit of time to speak, but yes, unless the connection somehow remains intact after I return, this will be our last meeting."
One of the wings extending from her left temple gave a slight twitch that betrayed the emotions the stoic appearance she had hid. "It was an inevitability since you were first forcibly brought into this time by the Summoning Ritual. For all it is worth, I am glad that you had chosen me to pair with yourself for this journey, rather than Serpentine Princess or Thunder Nyan Nyan."
"I should be thanking you," the Rose Duelist replied. "If it were not for the connection the Rose Cards established, then I would not have been able to summon anything to face off against any of the Red Rose wielders."
Solomon took a short glance back before returning to her. "Seto is probably going to be ready to begin soon, so I might as well say this now. It has been an honor to have been able to duel with you, Tac." The Duelist gave a slight bow at the end of his last statement.
Tactical Warrior froze for a second, before recomposing herself and responding, "It has likewise been an honor to work alongside you, Solomon." She returned the bow.
Solomon gave a slight smile before exiting the room and exiting the mental world to return to the real world, Tactical Warrior's presence now presenting a feeling of a much more outward focus. Noticing that Solomon had returned to awareness of reality, Seto spoke, "The Ritual is ready to begin."
The Rose Duelist gave a slight nod. "Fare well, Seto," He responded. "May fortune favor your search."
"May your future be one of your own choice," the White Rose Crusader replied, before beginning the ritual to return Solomon home. Storm clouds once again gathered overhead and the air hummed with magic as the spell began to reach its climax. As a vortex began to form directly over Stonehenge, Solomon began to float, before being shot upward into the clouds in a reverse of how he had arrived. The clouds below him sealed as he entered them, obscuring his sight of Stonehenge.
'Farewell, Ta-' Solomon began to thought towards his Deck Leader before he was wrenched to a stop. "The hell?" he exclaimed. "This didn't happen last time…"
"IT DID NOT," spoke a thunderous, echoing voice that seemed to come from every direction and be composed of several interlacing voices. One of these voices Solomon recognized.
"Manawyddan!?" The Rose Duelist shouted aloud. He thought he felt a slight twinge of fear coming over his connection with Tactical Warrior, but it was drowned out by the all-consuming nature of the Guardian's next comment.
"INDEED," the Card Guardians voice once more assaulted Solomon's ears, this time primarily from in front of the Rose Duelist. A dark shape formed in the clouds that initially appeared similar to Manawyddan fab Llyr's appearance during the duel, but as it approached, the similarities began to dwindle until it entered the sphere of clear air Solomon had been traveling through, revealing the demon in full.
The entity stood a head taller than Manawyddan had in the prior form. The shoulders seemed to have been replaced with spheres swirling with dark energy, each roughly the size of the creature's head, guarded with massive pauldrons that appeared to be composed of a bone-like substance. Connected to these by bone were elbow length silver-steel gauntlets that extended past the tip of the fingers into sharp claws. A line of bones that formed an X over the stomach of exposed muscle, connecting at the hips to a long purple skirt that hid everything below the navel, and at the lower ribs to a piece of torso armor that dealt great pain upon Solomon when he so much as glanced at it. Attached to the body by a neck of flayed skin was a skull that was perpetually carved in an expression of utter hatred, with twin curved rams horns extending out from the side of the head.
"WHAT THE FUCK?" shouted Solomon, the fear coming over his connection to his deck leader seemingly increasing a hundredfold. "WHAT ARE YOU?"
"THIS IS MY TRUE FORM," the monster's layered voice thundered, causing Solomon to grasp his ears in pain to try and quiet the noise. "I HAD NOT BEEN ABLE TO CROSS OVER ENOUGH TO MANIFEST IT IN YOUR REALM, BUT YOU ARE WITHIN MY REALM NOW."
"What are you going to do?" Solomon responded, barely able to hear what he spoke but noted a bit of the fear from his Deck Master had partially manifested itself within his voice. "Kill me?"
"AS MUCH AS I WOULD ENJOY DEVOURING YOUR SOUL, THE BARRIER THAT PROTECTS YOU AS YOU CROSS THROUGH THIS REALM DENIES ME THIS CHANCE."
A moment of elation ran through Solomon for a split second, only to be crushed in the next instant, as Manawyddan continued to speak. "IT DOES NOT PREVENT ME FROM THIS, HOWEVER!"
Sixteen spheres of light, eight red and eight white surrounded Solomon as the entity shouted the last word, the sound of which caused the Rose Duelist to involuntarily start to curl into a ball from the sheer pain. They spun quickly around his body, seemingly forming two crossing discs of Red and White each at a fifteen degree angle to the other, before hurtling Solomon away from Manawyddan fab Llyr with such force that the Rose Duelist blacked out.
I had the thought of creating a Duelist of the Roses/RWBY crossover fanfiction for awhile now, but reading through the Screw the Rules, I have Escalation (Worm/Yugioh) has brought it to a crescendo. As such, I finally decided to put it into words to at very least get it out of my head. So what do you think? I should note I'm going to be utilizing a deck I had gotten as a result of a playthrough of only the White Rose faction of a run I specifically went through for this fanfiction. I might put up a full listing of the cards he has within the next chapter, depending upon which route I decide to take with the story.
I'm divided between two, one wherein he'll end up within Beacon before canon wherein he'll be replacing Jaune's entrance position (his fake transcripts were known by the Staff, if I recall correctly, and it is likelier he would be removed than Ruby, due to all the magic stuff around her. Besides, he can't use Aura at the start and when you compare that to someone who has a grabbag of powers ranging from summoning monsters strong enough to kill gods to causing an area to experience a massive earthquake or terraform it to a different terrain type, he's a bit lacking. Jaune would have a heck of a lot more aura, though, since if I translate Life Points as aura, any one of the cast could take Solomon out in only one or two hits if they get a direct blow). This is not to say it'll be a retread of canon, since I'd be using an RNG to determine who would end up as their partner/team in this timeline. Because the Butterfly Effect is a bitch.
The other option is sticking him the middle of nowhere with his powers near completely choked off at the start. He'd soon come across one of the villages or nomadic communities outside of the kingdoms, and would use his powers to the best of his capabilities out there. Word would eventually get back to Vale and Beacon about him, which would drag him into the main plot of the series at that point. This one is a bit less likely, as I don't really have it developed at all and I would prefer to not have to make all too many new characters, which this would require a fair amount of.
Would like to hear people's thoughts on this matter, though, as I am still undecided on the matter.