A.N/ Here's an idea that has been rattling around in my brain for a while that demanded to be written. For anyone who had read my other stories this is not my way of saying they are on hiatus, hopefully now I have the first chapter of this written my muse can go back to writing the other stories. Also something to note is that the start of this story is much darker than anything else I have written previously, but the whole story after this should be a bit lighter.
I May Fall
It had been five years almost to the day since the Fall of Beacon as it was now known, and not a day went passed that Ruby Rose didn't hurt over all that had been lost since that day. Every day she had to fight with her emotions to not at some point throughout the day to burst into tears, but she knew that crying would solve nothing and this darkened and harsh world is all that they had. At twenty years old she thought sadly that had Beacon not fallen due to Cinder Fall and the White Fang she would have graduated last year with her team.
However Ruby knew that she was the only member of her team that was still capable of fighting as far as she knew. After Weiss' father had taken her back to Atlas, Weiss had tried to return and help Ruby with her quest for answers but her father had all but placed her under house arrest in the Schnee Mansion and after a while even stopped allowing Weiss to speak to her friends through video calls when they could find an outpost that had communications. The last conversation Ruby had with her partner and team mate was over two years ago when Weiss had tried to escape her father's clutches, but they never heard from Weiss after that so Ruby had no way of knowing if her friend was still alive or what had become of her.
Ruby's thoughts turned to both those of sadness and anger when she thought of her second team mate Blake Belladonna. At first Ruby didn't know what to think about Blake's disappearance after the Fall of Beacon, but after almost three years Blake contacted both Ruby and Yang to explain that she had been tracking down White Fang members and silencing them as she realised that the only way to help other Faunas was to kill off the violent and evil members of the once peaceful organisation so that it could return to its former state. This seemed to be the breath of life that restarted Yang's fire to help people, but it was a short lived flame of hope as on the day of the third anniversary of the Fall of Beacon a video broadcast went out across the four nations that showed Adam Taurus proclaim that this was what would happen to all traitors of the White Fang before he turned away from the camera and executed Blake Belladonna by decapitating her. Whilst this action did cause a lot of anger from Faunus who did not support the White Fang, all it truly served to do was instil even more fear into people's hearts that if a traitor got a public execution, then how they would be treated.
Ruby sighed slightly as she thought about her third and final team mate who was also her half sister Yang. Yang had never truly recovered after she had lost her arm trying to protect Blake from Adam, and the perceived abandonment by Blake only drove the knife deeper and Yang fell into a deep depression that eventually led to her drinking to excess. For a while after Blake made contact it seemed like Yang might recover and be who she used to be, but after witnessing Blake's execution she fell back down into her own abyss never to resurface. It had only been a year since a broken Taiyang had called Ruby while they were in the wild lands between Atlas and Vacuo to tell his daughter that he had come back after a Grimm hunting expedition to find Yang dead after she had overdosed on alcohol and drugs.
This however was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to the pain and loss that was felt by all those that had survived the Fall of Beacon and the proceeding five years. Ruby knew that her team mates on the new team that they had formed out of the remains of teams RWBY and JNPR hurt just as much as she did if not more. Over the last five years Ruby had lost count of the amount of times she had heard Nora crying and being comforted by Ren as best he could over losing not only her friends but what Nora viewed as her family due to her and Ren being orphans. Nora rarely smiled anymore even when she was killing Grim with her hammer Magnhild which used to make her happy instantaneously. Ren was much the same in that he was quiet and reserved, but now if you looked into his eyes you could see pain and that was all as he wanted the pain of loss to stop, but for him it never seemed to end.
In Ruby's opinion though it was Jaune Arc who had changed the most since the Fall of Beacon and the death of his partner Pyrrha Nikos , the girl that he could only admit to himself and others now that he had been in love with, but was too scared to tell her. It was clear right from the start of their journey that Jaune was a changed man as he was no longer cheerful like he had been previously and was much more serious about everything. Ruby had also lost count of the amount of times that she had woken up and seen Jaune wide awake with tears streaming down his face as well as him talking in his sleep as he begged Pyrrha for forgiveness and that he would do anything just to make her live again.
That had been four years ago though and now she barely recognised Jaune as the same boy who vomited all over Yang's shoes on their way to Beacon. Jaune was now cold and calculating and showed no remorse for those that he killed whether they are human or Faunus. Over the course of their journey they had discovered what Jaune's semblance was and it turned out to be Aura manipulation which meant that he could increase or decrease his own Aura or others simply by using his semblance. At first this meant that Jaune could help heal and speed up the reflexes of not only himself but also his team mates which proved to be an invaluable help against a variety of enemies and opponents. However as Jaune started to lose who he used to be as time passed he started to experiment with the reverse of what he had been using his semblance for to see if he could drain someone of their speed and healing. It turned out that this was exactly what he could do as after nearly four years of searching for answers they found Emerald who was hiding in Vacuo after Cinder had abandoned her as she no longer needed Emerald's help.
At first Emerald had tried to use her illusions of Jaune to make him think that he was hopelessly out matched, but they had long since discussed what had happened during the Vytal Tournament and they came to the conclusion that somehow someone was manipulating people's minds so they saw things that weren't there. With the confirmation that they had been right fuelling Jaune's rage towards Emerald he had used his semblance to block her ability to use her semblance by draining her Aura. None of the rest of the team had been there for the fight, but they found what was left of Emerald's body after Jaune had finished along with a message on a nearby wall that was written in Emerald's blood.
'Knight takes Bishop'
Never before or since had Ruby been more afraid of Jaune as she saw him afterwards and he was covered in Emerald's blood and was muttering about how much he let her live with almost no Aura before he finally finished her off. It had taken several days of sleepless nights as Ruby feared for her life as she feared that Jaune had finally fallen into madness, but soon he was just as cold as he had been previously and was asking as to where they were going to next.
However this again was only the pain and loss suffered by the people closest to Ruby herself as she knew that team SSSN was also trying to find answers and had also been in Vacuo at the same time as they had, but Ruby hadn't had any contact from them in over six months and she feared that they had been killed. This brought forward more feelings of loss as right before the Fall of Beacon, Sun and Blake had been just starting to date each other since Sun had discussed with his team mates the prospect of transferring the team to Beacon for their second year onwards since he wanted to be near Blake and they had all cultivated friendships in Vale. One night Sun had had too much to drink and he had blurted out all of his feelings for Blake and how he had been falling in love with her and he was fairly sure that she had been falling for him as well.
Ruby had also heard of the losses that had been suffered back in Vale as after two years of searching Goodwitch and Ironwood had found Ozpin after he had disappeared when he fought against Cinder Fall. However it was not the joyous reunion that could have led to hope being rekindled for the Huntsman of Vale to have one of their most powerful members returning. Ozpin had been held captive by Cinder for two years whilst she tortured him for information on the other Maidens so that she could find them and assimilate their powers into her own, but Ozpin refused to submit and tell her where there last known locations were. Ozpin knew that Cinder was already incredibly powerful after stealing the powers of one Maiden and the world would be laid ruin if she had the power of two or more Maidens at her disposal. Seeing that Ozpin wasn't going to give her the information she wanted, Cinder had considered killing him publicly to create even more fear but she was stopped when she was contacted by Salem, who wanted Cinder to leave Ozpin alive to suffer with what they had done to the world. And suffer he would as when Goodwitch and Ironwood found him they were horrified to find that Ozpin was not only blind, but that he had been paralysed from the waist down due to the tortures that he had undergone whilst he was Cinder Falls' prisoner.
Ozpin tried his best to live with his new reality by trying to help Ironwood with as much information about Cinder Fall and Salem that he could remember so that they could try and combat them, but almost a year after right before Blake Belladonna was captured and executed by the White Fang Ozpin was caught up in one of their attacks in Vale and he was killed trying to shelter two children from the blast of the explosives.
It was in this same attack that part of the walls around Vale where critically damaged and with the surging number of Grimm outside it led to a large section of the wall collapsing and letting the Grimm flood into the city. The only huntsman that had been close enough to respond were team CFVY who had chosen to stay in Vale to help defend the people rather than return to their families. The accounts brought forward by survivors of that day told stories of four huntsman, both human and Faunus standing side by side and sometimes back to back as they fought off the never ending sea of Grimm as team CFVY would not let any Grimm past to kill innocents and so they faced overwhelming numbers and didn't even consider retreating. Velvet Scarletina was the first casualty of team CFVY, she had been fighting for hours and her aura was all but spent which allowed several Beowolves to get in close and they clawed her down. It was said that in seeing his team mate and who many believed was the woman that Yatsuhashi loved fall to the Grimm sent him into a heartbroken rage that saw huge Grimm being carved in two by the strength of his swings fuelled by pain. It was Coco's partner Fox who fell next as although he had long since learned to adapt and fight Grimm despite his blindness; he was still able to be caught by surprise as he was when and Ursa snuck up behind him and knocked him off his feet allowing the other Grimm to rip him apart.
This is when many thought that they would die horribly as the brave team that had stood against the Grimm was now down to just two members, but Coco seeing her partner, the man she was secretly in love with fall to the Grimm made her stalk the battlefield like an angel of death. One of the last civilians to be evacuated said that both Coco and Yatsuhashi had tears rolling down their faces as they fought on with neither giving much thought for their own well being as they punished the creatures that would dare take their team mates from them. This complete disregard for their own safety allowed the last few civilians to be evacuated safely which was a small comfort to the last two members of team CFVY. Recovered camera footage showed that Yatsuhashi was able to keep fighting for another half an hour before he was brought down due to sheer exhaustion and was devoured by the Grimm. Coco Adele, the tough as nails leader of team CFVY disappeared in the swarm of black Grimm bodies and was presumed dead. This fact was confirmed several days later when two huntsmen were send to check if there were any survivors and if any Grimm had survived. What they found was Coco Adele's body with dozens of wounds inflicted upon it, but hundreds of dead Grimm surrounded her body showing that she had given her life in protection of the city as any Grimm that had survived had retreated due to so few being left and self preservation instincts kicking in.
Team CFVY was honoured as the brave defenders of the city and their names were commemorated on the Beacon memorial that stood to pay respects to all who had fallen in defence of Beacon and Vale.
It was while Ruby, Jaune, Ren and Nora were in Vacuo in search of answers that they were given a tip off from a local huntsman that they should visit a strange hermit on the outskirts of their settlement who seemed to know of events shortly before they happened. Whilst on their journey they had learnt that the four Maidens from Ruby's favourite fairy tale were in fact real and their existence had been hidden by Ozpin and the other head teachers from the huntsman schools around Remnant so that the four Maidens could leave in peace without fear of people coming to kill them and stealing their powers.
It was here that they also ran into Mercury Black who had been sent by Cinder Fall to scout the area where the Winter Maiden was supposedly hiding and report back so that Cinder could come and assimilate her powers. When both parties saw each other they immediately launched into combat as Mercury may not have always got on with Emerald, but he still respected her skills and seeing her killer Jaune made him launch into a killing rage. However Mercury was outnumbered four to one by huntsmen who wanted him to suffer for the role he had played in the Fall of Beacon, Jaune in particular with the loss of Pyrrha due to Cinder Fall.
As Mercury tried to use his bionic leg shotguns he was distracted by first Ren shooting with his twin guns Stormflower which forced Mercury to block as he was charged by both Ruby and Nora with Crescent Rose and Magnhild respectively which made Mercury have to roll and dodged away lest he be either cleaved in two or have his ribs smashed. However this led him right into the path of Jaune who used his semblance to make it so that Mercury couldn't make his shotgun whirlwinds and also he couldn't heal either. Mercury sensed what was happening but he couldn't escape as Ruby used her semblance to cut one of his legs off from under him causing him to crash to the ground before Jaune cut off the other leg. At first Mercury tried to barter for his life with information on Cinder, but it was all information that Ruby and Jaune had already found out previously which led to Mercury to straight up begging them to spare him.
Instead Jaune knelt down beside him and said; "Your boss didn't spare the life of the woman I loved, so why should I spare you?" Before he unsheathed his sword and plunged it into Mercury's right eye causing him to scream out in pain as he bled from his now missing eye socket. Growing tired quickly of Mercury's screaming Jaune twisted his sword and angled it towards Mercury's brain before applying more pressure that cut off the screams as Jaune's sword came out of the back of Mercury's skull. Ruby, Ren and Nora were still somewhat unnerved by seeing this side of Jaune who had just executed a crippled man without a second's hesitance or any sign of remorse.
Before any of them could say a word about what had just transpired, a hooded individual stepped out of the shadows and spoke to them; "You must let go of you anger and hate Jaune Arc. They will destroy you and a doubt Pyrrha would want you to do such things."
Jaune was instantly alert and dropped into a fighting stance with his sword and shield raised, but the stranger continued on like no such event had happened.
"You are lost Jaune Arc. You have lost who you are and I fear you are lost to darkness forever."
"Who are you? How do you know my name and how do you know about Pyrrha? Answer me!" Jaune growled at the hooded stranger who laughed softly not seemingly intimidated by him at all.
"I saw your arrival at this place many days ago along with your companions; Ruby Rose, Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie. You have been searching for answers for many years and somewhere in this time you have lost your light Jaune Arc."
"You still haven't answered my question; who are you?" Jaune retorted with some pressure being added to his words.
The stranger lowered their hood and it was revealed to be a woman in her late twenties with almost snow white skin and bright blue eyes, but that was not what was most surprising about her appearance. What was shocking was that there were silver flames dancing around her eyes and lightly around her hands, but the stranger did not seem to notice them at all.
"I am the Winter Maiden, Jaune Arc. You may call me Sapphire, and I have been waiting for you to find me here. There is a lot we need to talk about."
Jaune lowered his sword slightly but he kept his shield up as he was all that trusting of this woman who was claiming to be the Winter Maiden just yet which was a mirrored action by Ruby, Ren and Nora as well.
Sapphire led them into her house a few hundred metres away and after lighting a few lamps to illuminate the room she sat down at the table before gesturing for the four following her to sit at the table as well.
"I know that the four of you don't trust me when I say I am the Winter Maiden, but I can show you that I am telling the truth. I am going to show you events that have yet to happen but will if the world follows its current course. You might at first say that I am just manipulating your minds like that girl Emerald once did, but know that it is almost impossible to make four minds at once see the same illusion."
Sapphire then allowed the flames around her hands to build before laying her palms on the table to guide the flames into a box shape that then created a screen out of silver fire.
"You already know that Remnant is teetering on the edge of an abyss that will lead ultimately to humanity becoming extinct if the Grimm continue to ravage our cities and if the four Kingdoms can't work together to stop it. As you see in the fire Cinder Fall will not stop until she has become queen of the world, or what will be left of it if she continues on this path. She would see all humanity become extinct and let the Grimm reclaim this world. I see the question on the tip of your tongues, why would she want humanity to become extinct if she is human herself. Well the simple answer to that is that Cinder Fall is not entirely human."
Ruby, Jaune, Ren and Nora looked at Sapphire in shock at what they were being told about the reason behind the Fall of Beacon. It was Ruby who was able to speak up first; "What is she then if you Cinder Fall isn't human and she certainly isn't Faunus?"
"I can't say for certain what I believe Cinder Fall to be as all I have is bits of information about the earliest Maidens and a dark threat that required all four of them to come together in order to defeat. However some of the first Maidens reference that these creatures of which I know believe that Cinder is the last of are a hybrid abomination race that spliced a fallen Maiden with the blood of one of the elder Grimm. When a Maiden is chosen it is because she is an individual that believes in the value of human life and that of nature and will do all she can to preserve it, but when they turn away from this and use their powers for selfish or evil uses the powers are stripped from her and she will become corrupted as the power of a Maiden is supposed to stay with its host until their death, and if it doesn't then it creates a corrupted soul."
Here Ren interjected with something that had sparked a question in his mind about what Sapphire had said about Elder Grimm; "Sapphire you mentioned Elder Grimm, I have never heard of Grimm being classed as such, what is an Elder Grimm?"
Sapphire fixed Ren with an odd look but answered his question; "I am not surprised that you have no knowledge of this class of Grimm as thankfully only a few still remain alive. As you know Grimm may live for many years if they are not killed by humans or other means, but one in every million Grimm is born with something else in them that make them different and immortal. This means that if left unchecked they are able to grow to enormous size with immense power, much like the Dragon that Ruby froze atop the tower at Beacon that could create Grimm by itself. I only know of three other Elder Grimm that are currently alive in Remnant but I do not know their locations. These three have no known names as they are not catalogued like other Grimm and I can only tell you what they are similar to; the first is a gigantic spider like creature thought to be thousands of years old that is roughly the size of Beacon itself, its armour is so thick that it would take the combined forces of the four kingdoms to break through it in order to kill the creature. The second is like a Rapier Wasp, but many times the size of one and its stinger is big enough to kill a person with aura immediately as the poison it exudes negates auras effects to protect its user. If you ever hear a roll of thunder but the skies are blue and clear make haste for shelter as this creature has killed thousands of people both human and Faunus in its life time. The third is something that many will talk about in passing but not know that it actually exists; far to the north in the very tip of Atlas lies a glacier field where some of the rarest forms of dust can be found but also what dwells under the ice is an Elder Grimm that resembles a cross between a squid and a shark. What many believe to simply ships becoming lost or falling prey to the glacier field is in fact the oldest of all four of the Elder Grimm. This creature is said to be the size of Beacon with tentacles the length of ten bullheads, it waits for ships to draw close on a remote course through the glacier field before dragging them under. None of these creatures has dared attack a city in millenniums but if they sense that there are no longer enough huntsmen and no more Maidens save for the stolen power inside Cinder, they will see us extinct."
They all sat in an uneasy and scared silence for a while at the revelation that such deadly creatures existed in their world before it was Jaune this time that broke the silence; "You mentioned that Cinder was a hybrid between a fallen Maiden and the blood of an Elder Grimm, How is such a thing possible and why did she attack when she did?"
Sapphire grimaced at the question as if she was being tormented by the answer; "As I said earlier she is an abomination; when a Maiden becomes corrupted they lose their soul and with it their aura as we know it but they become compatible with the Grimm to share in their abilities. Cinder shares the blood of the Dragon that attacked Beacon which is how she was able to command it. When a corrupted Maiden shares the blood of an Elder Grimm they are able to use a dark form of aura much like your aura, but due to it being fuelled by their Grimm blood it is almost unlimited in amount and they gain some dark powers that normal humans cannot even begin to understand such as her ability to steal other Maidens' powers. It also means that Cinder is immortal and the only reason why she did attack until five years ago is due to the fact that she was not powerful enough to do so, like the Elder Grimm she grew more powerful as she became older. I estimate that Cinder Fall is roughly two thousand years old at this time, it makes her the youngest of the Elder Grimm by over four thousand years, but that age combined with the destructive creativity of a human mind means she is just as dangerous as any of the other four."
It was then that Nora interjected herself into the conversation after being quiet for so long; "If this is all true, why aren't you telling us how to stop Cinder and the other Elder Grimm?"
Sapphire looked at them sadly before answering; "I am not telling you how to beat them because with all that had happened they cannot be killed. With the death of my sister Maiden there aren't enough of us to combat Cinder or the other Elder Grimm. However there might be an alternative, but it may well not work."
"What do you mean alternative?" Jaune asked rather sceptically.
Sapphire didn't answer him and instead looked at Ruby; "Ruby Rose I know your uncle told you the myths surrounding the silver eyes warriors, but he did not know how important your powers are. I know that you froze the Dragon on top of Beacon tower where it remains to this day, but you also have the power to shatter any Grimm apart from elders while using your powers. However the powers of your bloodline are not all that is required to defeat this evil, it also requires amplification from the aura of another bloodline as old as yours. The bloodline of Jaune Arc along with his semblance would allow you to combat both Cinder Fall and the other Elder Grimm with training!"
"If this is true then why are we not training for this rather than talking about what creatures want to see us all dead!?" Jaune shouted at Sapphire who didn't seem at all affected by his outburst.
"I am not training you Jaune Arc as you have a tainted soul, your acts of murder against the two you knew as Emerald and Mercury has forever tarnished your soul to the point where there is no coming back and you would not be able to channel your power to its full potential. Had you not tarnished your soul I would have been able to teach you how to use your aura not only to amplify Ruby's powers but also to resurrect your partner Pyrrha Nikos!"
You could have dropped a pin in the room and it would have sounded like a crash of thunder the room was so quiet after Sapphire had finished admonishing Jaune, however this was quickly broken by an enraged Jaune.
"You dare speak her name; you know nothing and what lies are you conjuring about resurrecting the dead!"
"Sit down and be quiet you insolent boy!" Sapphire shouted back which led to the lamps flickering at the escape of her powers due to her strong emotions. "You must have not been not paying attention all those years ago as to what Pyrrha said when she unlocked your aura, yes she unlocked your aura but she also left the imprint of her soul within your excess aura. Have you ever wondered why you have so much aura? You have so much aura as you were chosen to be the next to receive your bloodline's hereditary gift to use the excess aura to strength your team mates in battle. However that is only the tip of the iceberg, if you had trained your aura you would have found you only have unlocked a tenth of your full aura. Had you done so then you could have siphoned off twenty percent of your full aura and used your love for Pyrrha Nikos in order to resurrect her, but your soul is tainted and you can no longer access the rest of it as your bloodline has deemed you unworthy of such power."
Jaune had been growing paler as Sapphire ranted at him until he finally broke down crying at the knowledge that he could have brought back the woman he loved, if only he hadn't fallen into darkness. It was Ruby who braved Sapphire's anger to ask what she most wanted to know at the time; "Sapphire you said there was an alternative, what is this alternative as it has to be better than anything else?"
"The alternative Ruby Rose is we try an ancient ritual that has not been attempted in hundreds of years to send one of you back in time before the events that led you here happened in order to change the past so the future might be changed. Using your power as a silver eyed warrior along with Jaune's extra aura as well as inputs from Ren and Nora I will attempt to send you back to before this all happened so that you can guide events and save us from what has happened. Assuming it works correctly you will wake up roughly six years in the past with all of your memories from this timeline which you must use in secret to change the new one. However you must make sure that teams RWBY and JNPR still form as otherwise it could lead to Jaune being expelled from beacon and without him and his bloodline powers you don't stand a chance in defeating Cinder."
There was some commotion after all of this was said, but Sapphire quieted them all quickly by stating that they could either trust her or go back into the hellish world they lived in and try to defeat an enemy they stood no chance against which got them all to comply quickly as they had nothing left to lose.
"Ruby you know that it wasn't only Jaune and Pyrrha who lost their chance for happiness don't you? There are so many more that could have found love but were afraid to put their hearts out in the open including you. I know you both tried to deny it but you and your partner were starting to grow even closer before she was forced back home and still to this day her only thoughts are of you. Just let it form naturally and you will find happiness with her." Sapphire said before she arranged them in a semi circle around Ruby before she started to chant in an unknown language as the other three focussed their auras.
As the world became blurry around Ruby she heard a voice in her head that she was sure belonged to Sapphire; "Good luck Ruby Rose, your mother would be proud of you" before she felt a pull on her being and her vision went dark.