Somehow, this happened. Somehow, a Skype chat went in this direction. Somehow, it became all about crossing RWBY over the MCU. The end result . . . is this. I have no idea if that's good or bad or not.

But . . . anyway, this is RWBY crossed with The Winter Soldier (with elements of Iron Man 3, The Avengers, and Captain America The First Avenger). Quite experimental and strange so far. I hope people like it.


Chapter One: Wrong Time, Right Place

November 1st, 1942, Tunis (Vichy France)

Seven days before Operation Torch

Sergeant Hans Raeder was angry.

He wanted to fight and he wasn't getting it out here in Tunis.

He wasn't deployed in the El Alamein area where his fellow German comrades in the Afrika Corps were fighting for their lives against a determined Allied offensive.

He wasn't off in Stalingrad where his countrymen were locked in a life or death struggle against the hated Soviet Untermensch.

No, he was here, making sure the lazy-ass Italians weren't causing too much trouble and that the Allies weren't infiltrating the area. Two impossible tasks he couldn't do much about.

He knew full well the Allies were around here. Pretending to be French, pretending to be Italian, pretending to be German, pretending to be locals from the area. Pretending, pretending, pretending. And there weren't much he could do about it, even though his superiors were convinced he could.

There were rumors that the Allies were preparing an invasion of North Africa. Maybe then things would be exciting for Hans. The Americans were locked in a struggle with the Japanese on the other side of the world. The people the Americans were sending were raw recruits, unused to combat. They would die easily.

Hans almost welcomed the possibility.

Until then, though . . .

Hans looked over at a shop to his right. A few men of a group he was growing annoyed with, rearguard troops with nothing better to do, were harassing a storeowner. Looked like it was gonna get ugly.

He marched over then, his hands gripping his MP-40 submachine-gun just a little tighter.

"What the hell's going on here?" he asked no one in particular.

"This man's been collaborating with the Allies!" one of the privates exclaimed.

Hans eyed the man. He didn't look like he was associated with the Allies. The type of fear in the man's eyes was different from the fear he had seen from Allied saboteurs and agents.

"Is he, or is he not giving you what you want for free?" Hans asked.

The small squad looked down as a collective.

Hans sighed. Of course there was nothing truly going on here. Still, he had to do a formality.

"Empty your pockets and set what you have on the counter. Prove to them you have nothing to hide. I assure you that you won't get shot," Hans said. The storeowner was still going to losesomething over this, this was going to turn into a small robbery, but at least he was still going to keep his store and his head.

Hans looked around. The storeowner only had one customer, a girl. Looked European, by the looks of her, dark hair and silver eyes. She was completely ignoring the commotion at the front, seeming to be reading a newspaper in front of the canned goods section.

Now she had something off about her. No ordinary civilian would be this complacent when there were German troops in the front of the store harassing the storeowner.

Also, who had eyes like this girl? Those weren't natural.

He had heard whispers of the Allies messing around with a newly discovered substance. Since they were whispers originating from the SS, he wasn't sure whether he wanted to believe them or not. This substance could mess with humans' eyes and hair colors, and make animals . . . more than simple animals.

Her appearance, in short, was most suspicious.

Hans stopped next to her, and she continued to pay him no mind. "Fraulein."

She ignored him, continuing to be lost in the newspaper.

"Fraulein."

Then she noticed him. She turned to her right, over to him. Her silver eyes were clear as day to him, and she looked young. Like a kid. Couldn't be older than fourteen, fifteen at best.

What was she?

"Oh! Hallo, Herr! Was ist los?" She spoke German well enough, but there was a foreign accent. Hans couldn't place it. He didn't like it.

"I need you to head over to the counter and empty your pockets."

"What?" the girl asked, her face confused, but showing no signs of nervousness.

"Head over to the counter and empty your pockets, fraulein. I won't ask you again."

The girl raised an eyebrow. Her total lack of fear was startling. As were the next words she spoke.

"Are you . . . robbing me?"

Hans would have said 'No', but he was never presented with the opportunity to say so. Or say anything at all.

After all, the next thing he knew was that he was flying through the air, end over end, before crashing through a window and landing outside.

Hans wasn't even able to register that he had finally seen some action before unconsciousness took him.

Not that he would have wanted to register it, anyway.


Ruby Rose hated trying to blend in with people. It never worked out. She had known it from the moment the man had gazed into her eyes. Silver eyes just didn't happen.

Of course, after handing the sergeant's ass to him, there were a small squad of soldiers she needed to wipe out as well. Good for her, then, that she had brought in a special weapon to the party, a weapon that had already impressed her with the way it had helped send the German army sergeant flying through the window like a cannon had shot him out.

She unleashed the Crescent Rose.

She moved between them like an acrobat, kicking, punching, and whacking people with the Crescent Rose. In its current form, it was a gigantic, powerful scythe, and Ruby had no issue using the weapon exactly as it was designed to do.

She was not an ordinary girl. She hadn't been an ordinary girl since 1938. She hadn't been an ordinary girl since the Japanese had attacked China, if she wanted to get technical.

Dust was going to change the whole world, and the Axis Powers had no idea it was coming. Ruby wouldn't have it any other way.

After the commotion came to an unceremonious end, all that was left was the storeowner and Ruby. Ruby eyed the man, who had his back against the wall, quivering in fear.

Ruby smiled and waved. "Hi! Sorry about the mess!"

The storeowner's eyes rolled back into his head and he fainted.

Ruby sighed. She yanked out some of the francs that her officer had given her before she had been sent out here and set them down on the counter. Hopefully the storeowner would come to his senses before the Nazis did.

She thought about hiding the Crescent Rose and trying to stroll out like nothing happened, but before she could do so, she saw a trio of German patrolman rushing towards the store, guns out.

Oh, this is swell.

Attempting to hide and blend back in was no longer a possibility.

The Germans opened fire. Utilizing her left hand, Ruby spun the Crescent Rose while walking backwards.

Dust had changed her. Her eyes, her body, they could do things that the supposed Ubermensch couldn't come close to doing.

She was only fifteen, but she was strong. And she knew what she had to do.

All the years in China, watching the Chinese and Japanese kill each other, had taught her war.

The moment they stopped firing in order to reload, or stare at her in shock, Ruby bent down by one of the privates she had knocked out and ripped his Luger pistol out of his holster. She opened fire with it, aiming right at the chests and heads of the patrolmen. They all dropped, though she emptied the pistol in the process.

She ran then, out the back, charging through the small freezer in the process.

I wasn't supposed to go into action yet! Yang's gonna kill me!

She hid the Crescent Rose, transforming it back into a innocent-looking baton, and ran through the alleys. Already, she could hear people all around her, shouting in German, not yet aware she had been the attacker.

If the Nazis don't kill me first.

She frowned while she ran. The thought was automatic, try as she did to not think it.

God, I hate Nazis.


Of course, by getting into a fight, Ruby had risked blowing the mission, which wasn't due to happen until tomorrow. When Ruby snuck into the safe house, she found herself approached by an exceptionally angry Yang Xiao Long.

How did Ruby know Yang was 'exceptionally angry' and not just 'angry'? Her eyes were red. As red as blood.

"What were you thinking, Ruby?"

Ruby wasn't sure whether to be apologetic or terrified. Yang looked furious enough to kill her right now. "I-I didn't know what to do! He told me to empty my pockets!"

Yang buried her face in her palm. "This is why I keep telling you not to go outside unless it's absolutely necessary!"

When Yang's palm left her face, and she re-opened her eyes, they were their normal violet shade. Ruby calmed down then. She felt a lot of the pressure leaving the room with Yang's eyes back to normal.

Yang's eyes, much like Ruby's, had been permanently changed back in 1939. They had always been violet, but her long, golden hair, and that her eyes turned red when she was angry, those were results of Dust. Yang was also Ruby's older sister (technically half-sister, their mother was different), and, as far as Ruby knew, the only other surviving member of her family. Unless their father was still alive wherever he was in China, anyway.

Yang's eyes seemed to shimmer as she looked at Ruby. "I know you have the right intentions, and I know you only fought because you felt you had to. But . . . if the enemy has any idea who you are . . ."

Yang did not need to finish the sentence for Ruby to understand. "Not only could I have blown the mission, but the enemy would know who we are. And possibly about Dust."

Yang's hands clenched into fists, and Yang's voice seemed to break, just a little. "And then we could get killed, and Dust won't be top secret anymore. I'm not letting you die in this war, Ruby, or have more people be killed because the enemy finds out about Dust. I just can't."

Ruby knew the lengths Yang would go to protect her. The discovery of Dust, the first attempt to experiment on the mysterious substance, it had ended in disaster. Ruby would never shake off the sight of her mother, Summer, disintegrating, nor the other scientists who were exposed to Dust and died the same way.

And she would always remember, as the Dust crept in closer, Yang grabbing Ruby, tackling her to the floor. Yang had tried desperately to tuck Ruby's arms underneath, trying to cover Ruby up with her own body. Futile as it was, it was the only thing that could be done to try, somehow, to save Ruby.

It didn't work. Dust infected Yang, and it infected Ruby too.

But they survived. Not only survived, but became stronger.

They were the only true supersoldiers in the world, and as American citizens, it was only a matter of time before the US military came calling. When the USA entered the war, they immediately got ahold of Yang and Ruby and put them through a private boot camp in the States. Now, in addition to Yang's Ember Celica and Ruby's Crescent Rose, they had formal hand-to-hand and firearms training . . . plus each got a promotion to captain so Allied soldiers would be forced to take them seriously.

Though, sadly, the look of Allied soldiers upon seeing Yang and Ruby tended to be sadness and dismay more than disrespect.

After all, they were still only kids.

"I don't think any of the survivors knew what hit them," Ruby finally said. "As long as I stay inside we'll be okay, I think. I wasn't followed."

She would have known if she was.

"You're sure," Yang said. It wasn't a question.

"Yes. One-hundred percent."

Yang managed to smile. "All right, if you say so. I'll trust you for this one."

Looking at Yang smile filled with Ruby with an impossible confidence. She felt invincible when she was with Wang. Like nothing would hurt them, or break them apart.

Perhaps most importantly, Ruby felt safe.

She chuckled and grinned widely. "I won't let you down, Yang!"

Yang's smile was warm, almost maternal. "I know you won't, Ruby."


Washington D.C., United States

Present Day

Ruby woke with blurry vision, a warm face, and a choked-up throat.

Tears leaked from her eyes as another memory of her big sister slid across her mind's eye like a slideshow.

"I'm sorry," she whispered at she stared at the ceiling.

She turned to her left, seeing the only surviving picture of her and her family, taken in the spring of 1937, right before the Japanese had attacked China.

Seeing her, Yang, their father Taiyang Xiaolong, and the only person either of them knew as "mother", Summer Rose. They had just traveled to China, not knowing that the discovery of the century was about to be made, or the true terror of war.

All of them, gone. Even if their father had survived the war, he would've been long dead by now.

No family. No one even to contact. Only one person she knew from the war still lived, and he was in an assisted living home, suffering from Alzheimer's, fading away by the day.

All of the battles. North Africa. Sicily. Italy. Burma. France. Belgium. Germany. Finally Norway, which had the most tragic battle of all.

What was it all for?

Ruby would give back all of the medals, all of her misleading youth, even her Crescent Rose, just for her family to still live.

She reached and grabbed the picture, which was neatly tucked into a wooden frame. She brought it to her chest for a few minutes, in total repose, trying to find strength.

"I'm sorry," she whispered again softly. "I'm sorry. I let you down. I let you all down."

The sun shone through her window then. It was a golden, scintillating light, the kind of light she had adored as a small child.

It was as if Yang was out there, in heaven, like an angel, inviting Ruby to wake up and join the world one more time.

Okay. Okay. You win, Yang.

The light faded, and then came back, as if the sunlight had winked at her.

Rub it in, why don't ya?

Ruby put the picture back down on her desk, and then sat up in her bed and rubbed her eyes and yawned.

Biologically, she was twenty. When she had been first exposed to Dust, the strength and the athleticism didn't really show. After all, she had been a kid. But as she grew older during the war, the strength, the speed, the endurance, the forced elite physical appearance, they had had begun to show themselves. And now that she was (biologically) twenty, it was all too clear what she was. She looked like she was some elite Olympic athlete, someone suited to triathlons . . . or perhaps that newfangled competition where people beat the hell out of each other senselessly in a cage. What was that again?

Argh, who cares. It's just unhinged boxing.

She looked over at the Crescent Rose, still strong, still unbreakable. Despite the war, despite being frozen in ice for a zillion decades like Ruby was, it still was like it was brand-new. The most resilient weapon ever made, by anyone.

She smiled.

After all, it was Ruby who built it herself.

She looked back outside then, staring out at the new day, with only a couple clouds in the sky to interrupt the inviting sunlight.

Maybe I'll go for a run. That usually makes me feel better.

This early in the morning, the chances of being mugged for an impromptu autograph session (or some type of media frenzy) were fairly low too. The longer she waited, the less likely she would be able to run uninterrupted.

Yeah, the time was now.

She jumped from the bed, stretched, and walked over to her closet.

There, you see, Yang, Mom, Dad? I'm not quitting yet. Stop worrying about me, okay?

She opened the closet.

I'm never gonna quit.