AN: Hello Readers of RWBY fanfic. I am Dragon. One of the co-writers of this fanfic. We hope you enjoy this fanfic. I am really looking forward to how this one will turn out. Panda any words you would like to say to the People?
Hello my wonderful subjects. I am your ruler now (HA). Ignore the peasant known as Dragon. He's very rude to me. But anyways, I'm just happy to be here and writing again.
Disclaimer: Dragon Nor Panda own RWBY no matter how much we wish we did. Any and all characters are owned by Rooster Teeth. Please support them and RWBY. Thank you and Enjoy.
Remnant. Throughout the history of remnant heroes have risen and fallen. Legends have formed and faded in time. This tale, however, is about a few specific legends. It started on the threads of fate. A group of thugs tried to rob a dust store. Little did they know what laid inside. Ruby Rose, a young and hopeful huntress-to-be put a stop to them and set forth a series of events that would change her life. She was accepted into Beacon at the age of fifteen, two years earlier than anyone else. There she met and formed her team. Weiss Schnee the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company. Blake Belladonna a cat faunus in disguise at the time. And Yang Xiao Long, Young Ruby's older sister. These four made up team RWBY. They would go through much together, grow, cry and overcome any obstacles set in front of them.
However, the tale of RWBY doesn't end well for the young heroines. Three years after RWBY was formed a group known as the white fang triggered a war between nations. However, they were just the puppets of Salem. A power hungry woman in seek of powerful, world altering artifacts known as the four Relics. As nations fell, Salem used the monsters of Grimm to secure an Artifact. Two of our heroines gave their lives to try and stop her. Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long in an attempt to stop her sacrificed themselves. Five years have passed since that day. Nations have collapsed. Only one city remains holding the fourth and final relic. Ruby Rose, the once young and innocent huntress, now 24 leads with her partner Weiss Schnee, now 26. They now stand against the white fang and the grimm themselves. But this isn't the end of their story. It is just the beginning.
Atlas Academy stood a mere shadow of what it once was. Parts of it were in ruin while other portions of it seemed ready to fall. In a room that was once the Headmaster's Office, Ruby Rose stands looking over a table with a map of Atlas and Atlas academy. Ruby Rose, now 23, looks different than she once did. Her right eye now gone in its place a black eyepatch with her symbol on it. Her hair is longer reaching her shoulders. She still wears the signature cape only slightly different. At the hood's trimming, fur was added for warmth. Her outfit not really different with the exception of a few minor changes. As for her appearance, no one could deny she looked beautiful in a way and many who knew her mother told her she looked just like her. On the table laid Crescent Rose, Ruby's signature scythe only smaller and less bulky.
The room shuddered and rubble fell onto the table. Ruby looked up as an out of breath Atlesian soldier entered the room.
"Ma'am," He said formally while saluting her, "Ms. Schnee demands your presence. She says they have found it."
Ruby perked up at that, grabbed her weapon, and hooked it onto her back before walking out of the room and into a hallway littered with piles of rubble and looking like it had seen better years. As she walked towards where she knew Weiss would be, the soldier followed closely behind her. "Then let's not keep her waiting then. Do you know the situation outside the city?"
"The Grimm are attacking from one side while the White Fang attack from the other. It would be hard to keep them both at bay, but both together? It seems to be impossible." The soldier stated sounding like he was ready to give up.
Ruby chuckled. "Well good thing that me and Weiss are here then. We are the queens of impossible." She stated making the soldier smile a bit. Almost every soldier had heard what Weiss and Ruby had accomplished. They had done at young ages what most hunters would find extremely difficult, if not impossible.
Ruby and the soldier walked into a room that held a table with several people around it. At the head was Weiss Schnee who didn't look much different. Her hair was the same. However, she now wore a white suit with a red tie. Her right side held a cape that hide her right arm and a leather shoulder piece over the cape. Weiss looked up and sighed with relief seeing Ruby enter the room.
"About time you dunce. We have a problem." Weiss stated in her normal voice crossing her arms.
Ruby looked slightly worried at this. "What is it? I thought we found the relic?" She asked standing on the opposite side of the table as Weiss, leaning up against the table lazily and slowly shuffling through some of the documents scattered nearby to garner an idea how the soldiers and hunters were doing.
"We did. The problem is that we don't have a way of accessing it. We don't have the key." She stated not saying directly what the key was as both her and Ruby knew but not everyone else in the room was in on that secret. The maiden's power was required to unlock the relic's room and they didn't exactly have anyone on hand to assist with that issue.
"Well do we have any-"Ruby started before she was cut off with a loud explosion outside that shook the entire building and a huge roar that chilled most of the occupants to the bone.
Ruby and Weiss both jumped into action, ready to fight if need be. They both moved quickly over to the window to see a huge drake grimm in the courtyard of the academy. Ruby clenched her teeth and Weiss clenched her fist at the sight. Not specifically the Grimm but what stood on the grimm's back.
"Salem." They both growled in sync making everyone else in the room a bit nervous at the name of the person who brought Remnant to its knees. Ruby was the first to jump into action, pulling out Crescent Rose in sniper form.
"Weiss take as many men as you need and guard the relic. I'm going to say hello." Ruby stated causing Weiss to nod.
"Be careful Ruby. Most of the hunters and huntresses we have left are holding the grimm off on the outer city. Oh, and be sure to give her my warmest regards." She said with a little steel behind her blue eyes that seemed to only encourage Ruby before she disappeared, leaving a few roses petals behind.
Outside, the Grimm was in the middle of smashing everything and everyone it could with Salem on top of it. She seemed totally uninterested in the violence around her as her mind was focused on one thing and one thing only. As she lifted her eyes from where they were examining her hands, she smirked and said, "Get rid of them all. We don't need them in our way,"
She was finally about to get the last relic and complete the goal she had worked so hard towards before four gunshots were heard. With lightning reflexes, Salem jumped out of the way as the four dust enhanced bullets dug into the grimm where she had been standing causing it to roar and look over to the roof where Ruby Rose was standing with her weapon in gun mode. "Ah, Ms. Rose. We meet again. Our last conversation was interrupted by that faunus and sister of yours. Their deaths were not as fulfilling compared to the other hunters and huntresses I've dealt with. They at the very least forced me to pay attention to them while I crushed them, your teammates? I didn't even have to look at them to force them out of the way. Perhaps you will provide a challenge where your sister and her partner failed to." Salem stated cooly.
Ruby cocked her gun and loaded a special bullet, that had spirals of all colors. She ignored Salem as opposed to the mistake she made last time that cost her the lives of her sister and teammate as well as her own eye. Ruby disappeared in a blur of Roses. A trail of roses moved around the monster and blade marks started to appear on the Grimm causing it to roar and try to attack her. Salem frowned at this move and raised her arm at one the blur of roses and a red corrupted rune formed around the Grimm but before it could do as planned the red blur jumped to them mouth of the grimm as it was roaring. Ruby showed aiming her weapon down the mouth of the grimm.
"Conversation's over," Ruby stated and fired the bullet and let the recoil launch her backwards and activated her semblance again landing on the roof. The grimm froze for a second before chains of explosions started going off inside the monstrous being before the grimm itself exploded with every dust type explosion going off.
Several of the soldiers cheered thinking they had won that fight, but Ruby knew otherwise. She switched her weapon to her sword mod, which she added to the weapon a few years ago in honor of her uncle. "Don't let your guard down. That killed the grimm. The witch remains." She stated before a giant rune appeared on the ground causing a large explosion to go off throwing Ruby back. Ruby stuck her blade into the roof to stop her from being thrown off. She looked at where the explosion happened and her silver eye widened. Where there was once a single grimm with Salem, now was a giant hole with grimm pouring out of it. Inside the hole lay a large chamber. A giant machine sat in the center with a glass orb in the middle of it containing another orb of what looked like pure energy. The relic. Around the chamber, grimm and White Fang were fighting the soldiers with Weiss leading them with her signature weapon.
Ruby, without hesitation, jumped into the fray having lost track of Salem. The relic needed protecting and Weiss needed help. Ruby landed in the middle of a group of White Fang and used her semblance to quickly take care of them and moving to help out Weiss who was fighting a few grimm but they quickly disposed of them. Ruby switched her weapon to gun mode and fired behind Weiss taking out some more Grimm and White Fang. "What's the situation down here?" Ruby asked Weiss as she continued to fire her sniper-scythe.
"What does it look like dolt?! We are overwhelmed. What about Salem?" Weiss asked Ruby as she parried the rather clumsy swing of a long sword away and then ran her rapier through his stomach with a rather brutal practiced efficiency.
"Well..." Ruby started before another explosion happened before more Grimm entered looking much more dangerous than the others. Salem was right behind them.
"You let her get away?!" Weiss almost shrieked using her dust to try and hold them back.
"It's not my fault. She exploded the floor." Ruby tried to defend herself as she concentrated fire on the new arrivals before yet another explosion happened at the door. Fire consumed the area as Cinder Fall walked in. Her eye glowed as she raised her hand and fire shot toward the two partners. Ruby face changed to one of rage before her own eye seemed to let off light of its own and the fire was stopped full force with an unknown looking energy held back the fire as more and more grimm and white fang continued in.
"This isn't going well." Weiss stated seeing Ruby get slightly out of breath from using her eye and everything going on. As more and more explosions went on around them. Weiss and Ruby were slowly pushed to the machine before a random shot hit the glass and multiple explosions went off behind them, pushing them to the floor. Due to the explosions and the low level of aura they already had, they were disoriented. Neither could make out what anyone was saying, but Ruby looked up and her eye widened as the seal around the relic fractured before disappearing leaving the relic open to all. Ruby saw Salem pull out the other three relics and they began to resonate with each other.
"Weiss hold on!" Ruby stated before doing the only thing she could think of, she activated her silver eyes and used all the aura she had left to cause a massive explosion where the relics were located in a final attempt to get Salem away. Unfortunately, this caused something no one saw coming. The relics absorbed the energy before amplifying it tenfold in a giant burst of energy.
The last thing Ruby thought of before the relic exploded in hers and Weiss's faces was the day that started the series of unfortunate events that led to this very moment. She expected pain or a sudden rush of power, but she felt nothing. Wait, scratch that. She felt like she was falling before she jolted back to a stop. She opened her eyes to stare blankly at the surprisingly intact sign of a rather familiar shop from her Beacon days. Weiss, had gained her bearings far faster than Ruby had and used her glyphs to whisk her and Ruby to safety on a catwalk. Ruby just merely stared down at the store that should've been nothing but rubble overrun by grimm.
"Dolt!" Weiss said, snapping her fingers in front of Ruby's blanked out face to snap her out of whatever she was stuck in. Ruby blinked her daze away and looked at Weiss. It was clear to her that the girl didn't recognize the store in front of them. Well of course she didn't recognize the store. As she remembered, she had never gone there with any of team RWBY. Ruby heard footsteps coming down a nearby alleyway that weren't quite heavy enough to be grimm. She had to assume that they were humans or faunus.
While Ruby's mind was going a thousand miles per second as per usual, Weiss began to take in her surroundings and try to piece together were in Remnant they were right now. It didn't take too much searching to determine that the area strongly resembled Vale in architecture. But almost all of Vale had been taken back by the grimm or had been destroyed. So naturally, for her and her partner to even be in this eerily similar place to Vale, would be entirely impossible.
"Ruby, where are we? It looks like Vale before the fall of Beacon, but that's not possible… right?" She asked as she turned to face Ruby who was once again transfixed on something, or more appropriately, someone inside the shop. "Ruby?"
There was no reaction from Ruby Rose, because inside that oh so familiar shop, was one Ruby Rose, age fifteen and not a care in the world besides the weaponry she was looking at in the magazine she was currently holding.
AN: Thanks for reading Chapter 1. I hope you liked it. Was up all night getting it down and spent half a day with panda continuing it. I hope to see you all in chapter 2.DA DUH DUUUUUUUMMMMM! Subtle Panda. I can be as unsubtle as I want and you can't do anything to stop me. We shall see. Until next time folks.
**Same day update: I noticed some stuff I missed and quickly fixed it. Noting major, but I will say that we are working on the next chapter as you read this.