Author's Note: This version of Ruby was inspired by "The Immortal Maiden" by RavenRose8. I just liked the idea. Some inspiration was also taken from "Remnant's Reclaimer" by Hysterical Clerical Hijinks.

Okay, just so we're clear, this world is based on the idea of RWBY with a "super power" sub-genre. Specifically, Ruby herself gaining new powers.

I don't own RWBY in any way.

[ DISTANT PAST ]

It was raining hard. That was all she knew.

She couldn't remember her name, nor where she came from. She didn't know where she was. She didn't know where she was going. She couldn't even tell if she was hungry or not. She frequently shifted between hot and cold as she sat huddled in her small shelter, so even that was unknown. All around her the rain fell. It was at once a peaceful and dreadful sound as it washed away nearly everything.

The girl considered herself again, since that was all she had to do. Her long, scraggly hair was sticking out everywhere, plain as day that she hadn't washed it for at least a few months. She didn't look, but she knew her ribs would be showing if she checked underneath her torn and battered shirt. Her bare feet ached from the nearly endless walking through miles and miles of wilderness. If she were thinking clearly, she might have wondered why the giant black creatures with the bony, white faces seemed to ignore her completely. She vaguely recalled tales of the things attacking villages and killing everyone, so it would have been strange for them to ignore her... but she didn't care.

A growling sound emanated from her midsection. She was hungry.

Eventually the rain relented. The afternoon sun was slow to emerge after the deluge, so the girl moved quickly to get some food before it did. She knew the heat of the day would drain what was left of her stamina. The wind shifted, sending the sweet aroma of fruit to her nose. She turned, following the breeze, her mouth already watering in anticipation of the meal. Her feet moved more quickly, oblivious to the scratches. She hadn't had a decent meal in nearly a week, and she was eager to fill her stomach again.

The sight that greeted the poor girl was decidedly different than what her nose had led her to believe. In a clearing lay four bodies, all young women. At first glance they looked quite dead, what with them all laying in a pool of their own blood - yet the girl soon found that they were still breathing, but just barely. All thoughts of food were abandoned as the ragged girl leapt into the clearing, frantically checking the still-living bodies to find their injuries.

No words were spoken during the whole event. There was no need for any. Although the girl had always been wary of other people, there was no caution present here - her natural curiosity and caring nature had taken over as she tried her best to clean the wounds on the women. She obviously had no idea how to do this, but she tried anyway. She had carefully moved the girls into the shade of a large tree nearby to give them some small comfort, but it was clear their time was short.

After nearly two hours, all four had regained consciousness and regarded their caretaker with weak gasps of air. Even with nearly all of their lifeblood drained from the wounds, the women had the warmest, kindest smiles the girl had ever seen. One by one, they groaned out one word each.

"Summer," said the first woman. Her long, fiery red hair seemed to fade as she spoke.

"Winter," coughed the second. The cool blue tint of her skin was turning a sickly gray.

"Fall," wheezed the third. Her short, auburn hair reminded the girl of the fallen leaves all around them.

The fourth woman, who was closest to the girl, lifted her hand. The girl took it, tears streaming down her face as she struggled to contain her emotions. "Spring," the green-clad woman sighed. After another heart-warming smile, Spring motioned to the girl. The other three turned to look, eager to hear. They wanted to know her name.

Still teary-eyed, the girl shook her head, her dark hair whipping around and smacking her in the face as she did so. Red highlights could be made out in the glints of sunshine that snuck through the treetop above them. She had no name and, even if she did, she hadn't said a word in so many years that she didn't trust her own voice to work when she needed it to.

Slowly, as though using the last of her strength, the woman in green reached up with one hand and gently placed it on the center of the girl's chest. A pleasant warmth spread over her, not unlike the embrace of a mother as she wraps her arms around the most precious thing in her world. The sky quickly grew darker, raindrops once again spattering all over the ground. The woman's bright green eyes, fading though they were, locked onto the girl's bright, silver-colored eyes as she breathed her last word, forever marking the girl and giving birth to a new life with a single, simple word.

"Rain."

[ PRESENT ]

The girl called Ruby Rose stared out of the window of her dorm room, entranced by the rainstorm. Her thoughts always seemed to return to that moment, so many years ago, when her living hell of a life had changed forever. It would always happen during the rain. Almost a thousand years had passed and it hadn't failed yet.

The door burst open, blonde hair flying in like a comet. "Hey Rubes! They're serving strawberry pancakes in the cafeteria. You comin'?"

Ruby considered for a moment. "No thanks, sis," she replied slowly. "I'm good."

The blonde paused, unsure of that answer. Ruby refusing strawberries was like rain falling back up to the sky. "You sure? Nora's already on her way there, so if you take too long..."

"I'm alright. Besides, quiet time in here is already pretty rare." Ruby glanced around the room, driving home the point. Laundry was the main culprit in giving away that the room was lived-in by a bunch of teenagers. Books of various shapes and sizes adorned the shelves and a desk area that was, rarely, used for homework. The makeshift bunk beds cast dark shadows into the corners. This was home.

Yang chuckled, "Heh, if you say so. No pouting later!" She gave her sister a ruffling of the hair, knowing Ruby hated it but doing it anyway.

The younger girl batted the hand away, "Can I pout now, then?" She crossed her arms and stuck out her lower lip as far as it could go. Yang just laughed, which of course got Ruby laughing.

With a casual wave behind her, the blonde brawler exited the room. Ruby quietly got up, turned off the lights, then sat back down to watch the rain, her mind silently returning to thoughts of her past.

[ PAST ]

Rain, as she now called herself, took very little time to locate an old wooden shack somewhere deep in the forest. It was as though she just ...knew where it would be. The old man who lived there was a little scary at first, but he soon opened up to the girl and even took her in to stay with him. She learned that he was a good friend of the four women who Rain had seen die, and was deeply grieved to hear of their loss. While she didn't remember everything the old man said, the girl finally understood that he was some kind of wizard who could use magic... whatever that was. She also learned that he had given nearly every bit of it to the four maidens, as he had come to call them.

He also said that somehow, beyond his reasoning, he had felt all of that magic lying within Rain. He could only guess it was because she had been there at their final moments, and it was their parting gift to their new friend. Rain could only tear up again as she thought of those four young women, so full of life, being cut down so brutally. Neither of them would likely ever know the truth about what had occurred with their magic.

The old man and Rain worked together to learn what had happened, but the details had been lost to the passages of time. Thinking back, Rain remembered something about angry, drunken villagers who feared the 'witches' and had somehow gotten the drop on them. She hated the fact that something so important at that time had so quickly been forgotten.

Because she had been staying with the old wizard, Rain didn't realize how much time had been passing - but it had been nearly fifty years since she had seen even a remote sign of civilization. By then the old man had deduced the truth of her situation - the girl hadn't aged a day. Having gained the powers of all four maidens, Rain had gained a form of immortality. She had no desire to test the limits of this ability, so she made a strong effort to ensure that she remained safely anonymous.

The next couple of centuries seemed to fly by. Over the course of several human lifetimes, Rain had taken on a large number of new and different identities: one time she was a homeless drifter, another she was a soldier in the Great War. Most times she simply tried to live as a civilian and just enjoy the peace. Each time she did this, she also took on a new name: Rachel, Rebecka, Rachelle, and Rinoa were just a few of them. She always tried to keep an 'R' name for simplicity's sake.

Her most recent life came about courtesy of a woman who, somehow, resembled Rain herself. She was a young Huntress called Summer Rose. The two became fast friends over the years, and Summer became the first person outside of the old wizard who learned of Rain's true identity. Much to the girl's delight, Summer didn't care. Not only that, she had formed a plan to ensure they stayed together even longer - as Summer grew, she could 'adopt' Rain as her daughter once Rain's former role as Huntress ended with her faking her own death (something she had become quite good at by this point). And so, on that fateful day, Ruby Rose came home with her 'mother,' Summer Rose, and met the rest of her family - Taiyang and Yang Xiao Long. Ruby and Yang bonded almost instantly, as though they had always been sisters.

Ruby would often find Summer staring at the two of them with a slight sadness in her gaze, knowing that this happiness would fade away with time. Ruby never truly knew the depths of Summer's love for her, despite the fact that Ruby could easily have been one of Summer's ancestors. Thinking about it later, it occurred to Rain that she may well have been.

The day Summer died was the second saddest day of Ruby's life. The day the four maidens died had been the first.

[ FUTURE ]

The name of Ruby Rose was the last of the false names the girl had taken. She vowed to never take another.

She sat on an empty cliff, looking out over the ruins of the once-great city of Vale, now destroyed and falling prey to the reclamation of nature. In the distance, she could make out the crumbling walls and spires of Beacon Academy, at one time the single brightest hope in all of Remnant. Houses and storefronts littered the landscape, long forgotten remains of lives that had been lost in the Final War. The rusted, hollow shells of tanks and airships dotted the ground, each laying where they had fallen. There were no bodies - even the skeletal remains had faded and vanished after nearly 500 years of silence. Ruby studied it all. She remembered the fighting, the screaming, the explosions. She remembered the death and destruction. She spent all of her time making absolutely sure that she'd never forget.

Everyone was gone. Humans. Animals. Even the creatures of Grimm. Only Ruby Rose remained.

No, she was back to being Rain now. There was no one to hide from anymore.

For nearly two centuries, Rain had wandered what was left of the world of Remnant. She saw all of the cities, great and small, all lying in total ruins. She explored vast battlefields, devoid even of lingering spirits, walked down ancient roads that were returning to the soil, and wondered absently how many lives were lost in that one, horrific day.

Then she had sat down on this cliff side, content with staring down at the ruins of her last, true home. She had been there for just about three hundred years straight by now, and was fine with waiting until the cliff itself collapsed before she would bring herself to move again.

Her thoughts had lingered into the past many, many times over the years. She thought of the old man and his rough, raspy voice. She thought of Tiberius, her first love, who had gone on to lead an army of 1500 men straight into an ambush of gigantic Grimm. She laughed as she remembered the first child she had adopted with Radian, her 12th husband, and how the boy had admired his 'mother' like she was some kind of living goddess. He would act just like a loyal bodyguard, even though his father was standing right next to him. There was really no helping that boy.

If Rain had any tears left by this point, she would have shed them for Summer Rose, her greatest friend and, later on, her 'mother.' Out of the thousands of people Rain had known and loved, she missed Summer most of all.

A lingering pain in her chest brought back the memory of her own team of Huntresses, called team RWBY. She, as Ruby Rose, served as team leader and it was a fun challenge to use her vast knowledge and experience to win at nearly everything they set out to do, while at the same time maintaining a false front of the innocent 15-year old girl she was supposed to be. She grinned as she thought back to Crescent Rose, her self-declared 'sweetheart' and combination scythe-sniper rifle. Fawning over it was a fun pastime that she kind of missed. It had fallen to rusty fragments about 200 years ago.

She missed Weiss Schnee. The stuck-up heiress was an easy target to latch onto and Ruby made the most of her acting skills while in her presence. Of course Ruby knew of the Schnee company (hell, she helped start it), and she managed to play off Weiss' personality flawlessly. Ruby winced as she remembered Weiss' final act of defiance - the heiress had thrown herself in between the enemy and a group of innocents, using the last of her aura to shield them until they could get to safety. She then launched a final spell that destroyed their attacking forces. She had passed away in the hospital later that night.

Ruby's chest puffed a little when she thought of Blake Belladonna, her faunas friend and the single greatest champion of faunas rights in the history of Remnant. She had almost single-handedly taken down the White Fang, a faunas-based terrorist organization that she had been involved with earlier in her life. After that, she had sat down with nearly every major leader of the human world and signed many, many treaties. It was thanks to her efforts that faunas rights were not only restored, but the rights of all races were actually secured through several long-term deals. Naturally this made Blake a prime target for assassinations, but none of them succeeded thanks to her background and physical conditioning as a huntress. But all the training in the world couldn't protect the woman against the worldwide energy surge that wiped out all life on Remnant.

Well, all but Rain that is.

If Summer Rose was Rain's closest friend, then Yang Xiao Long was right behind her in line. The two of them were nearly inseparable in their first few years together, even upon entering Beacon Academy. Aside from Weiss, there was no one Ruby would have rather had at her back in a tight situation. Yang was easily the best brawler Ruby had ever met, and that was saying something. It had come as no surprise, then, when Yang decided to go into full-time Huntress work. She had loved it from the get-go. It pained Rain to think of how Yang had died, but in truth, there was no other way the blonde would have preferred to go out. Yang had gone down while fighting the single largest and oldest Grimm on the planet. But she had taken it with her. From what Rain had heard, it was a glorious battle. The only positive thing Rain could think of regarding Yang's situation was that her sister never had to live through any of the war that followed only a few months after her death. The Final War.

Rain sat and looked out over the dead city. There were no tears in her eyes. She had run out of tears a long time ago. If there really was an afterlife for humanity, there were two things she knew: all of her friends were there now, celebrating their reunion and their new, everlasting peace ...and that she would never join them.

For the first time in nearly a hundred years, the dark sky began to open. A gentle rain cascaded down over the ruins.

The girl called Rain found that she did have a few tears left after all.

Once another hundred years had passed, a nearby cliff finally collapsed. Tons of rock gave way, falling in waves to the valley floor below.

But there was no one there to see it. Where the last girl on Remnant once sat was an imprint of a small bottom with no footprints leading away from it. Instead there was a blue-green crackle of energy that sparked and fizzed before disappearing.

In case you were wondering, while Rain was thinking of her old teammates, yes I did have her think of herself as Ruby again. Frequently.

I mainly blame it on her attachment to the name that she has a hard time letting go of. She had gotten so used to calling herself Ruby that it was harder than she expected to go back to just being Rain. It's not 'cause I'm lazy. Really.

Assuming my other works don't change things too much, I probably won't edit this chapter - but if I do, I'll let you know.