While the trip to the cafeteria was short, it did give Rose an opportunity to gather more information about this new world she found herself in. While she was eager to get back, she realized she had no idea how long she would be trapped here. Therefore, she needed to know as much as she could so she wouldn't cause too much trouble for the other Ruby, when she finally returned.
"I assume I can say that Weiss and I are not dating in your… reality?" Rose looked over to her 'sister' walking right next to her.
"Nope!" Yang responded enthusiastically, popping the 'p'. "But everyone but you... other you, and Weiss can tell you two are totally into each other. Other you is always doing all sorts of cute things for her, and we all know she secretly spoils you. It's really a matter of time."
Rose chuckled a bit. "That reminds me of the two of you."
"What do ya mean?" The blonde shot Rose a curious look.
"You two are so into each other it's painful to watch. Though, my Blake thinks it's impossible for a human and faunus to have a relationship, and my sister is too kind to her to push the issue."
Rose frowned with confusion as the pair shared a long look with each other.
"We may have had something like that as well." Blake responded sheepishly.
"But you came back and we are so happy together and.." Yang rambled trying to lighten the mood as they entered the cafeteria "...oh look! Food!"
Rose realized she hit a sore spot. But now that they were in a crowded, and noisy, area it didn't seem like the proper time to apologize. Instead, she focused on her next task, one that she was always enthusiastic about, food.
While the cafeteria was mostly full, many students enjoying a rare day off by taking their time eating, they were all sitting and the line for food was almost completely clear. Following behind Yang and Blake, she grabbed a tray for herself. Pausing briefly, she grabbed a second tray. If this Weiss was anything like hers, she would be angry if she missed breakfast.
Quickly piling her own plate with plenty of waffles, nutella, strawberries, and chocolate milk, she grabbed slightly different foods for the missing heiress. Weiss always ate what she called a 'healthier diet'. Rose simply considered it less tasty, therefore less preferable. Snagging an apple, two plastic cups of blueberry yogurt, some toast, and cinnamon oatmeal, she placed those all on the second tray. Gingerly picking up both trays, she started back to where she had seen Blake and Yang disappear too.
Her ears twitched around as she slowly walked to the table the Bumbleby duo were sitting. She had almost missed it as she precariously balanced two full trays of food, but now she could hear it all around her.
She was attracting attention, and a lot of it. Most of it was quiet murmuring about who the new girl was, and how they had never seen a faunus like her before. Though, scattered around, she picked up several indecent comments about her looks, her outfit, her scars, or even blatant racism about her being a faunus. Scowling to herself, she made a quick beeline to the table.
"Awww, look at my lil' sis, all grown up and attracting attention." Yang smirked at Rose as she sat down. "Though I am a little jealous now you've become my competition."
"Competition? For what exactly?" The brunette asked back looking very perplexed.
Blake sighed. "Yang thinks she's the hottest girl in the school."
"What do you mean, 'thinks'?!" Yang shot back, exaggerating a look of betrayal. "I AM the hottest. Well, until Rose here showed up. She's like me, but with sexier scars."
"That's still weird." Rose's ears flattened against her head as she stared back at Yang. "And aren't you supposed to call your girlfriend the most attractive anyways?"
"Enh, whatever works." The brawler shrugged before shrinking back from Blake's glare. "I mean, Blake's definitely the most beautiful!"
"That's probably the best I'm ever going to get." The cat faunus replied flatly before turning her attention to a group of approaching people that looked awfully familiar to Rose.
"Hello!" Pyrrha chirped cheerfully as she and Jaune sat across the table from the black and yellow members of team RWBY. "How are you today Blake, Yang?"
"Fantastic!" Yang cheered back enthusiastically. Blake simply nodded, her mouth currently full of tuna benedict.
"Are you going to introduce us to your friend?" The gladiator turned her attention to Rose.
"Oh ya!" The blonde smirked. "This is Ru-Amaranth."
"Ramaranth? That's an odd name." Nora chimed in as she plopped down next to Pyrrha, closely followed by Ren.
"It's Amaranth." Rose cut in. "It's a pleasure to meet you all."
"Nice to meet you too!" Pyrrha responded while Nora went to eating vigorously and Ren tried to slow her down.
"If you don't mind me asking, where are you from?" Jaune gave her an inquiring look. "You look like a combination of Yang and Ruby. Are you related?"
"Yep!" Yang interjected, popping the 'p'. "She's the daughter of Ruby's mom's sister and Uncle Qrow. So my cousin!"
Both Pyrrha and Jaune both looked at her suspiciously as Ren spoke up, leaving Nora to her own devices. "No offense, Yang, but your Uncle doesn't seem the type to have a child."
"Well, funny story about that…" Rose lost focus on whatever excuse she was cooking up for the other four as she stared intently at them. They all seemed familiar in their own rights. And their names rang bells in her head but she couldn't figure out why. A few seconds, as the realization hit her, she burst out laughing.
"Errr…. What's so funny, Amaranth?" Jaune looked confused as the more stoic girl's outburst interrupted their conversation.
"You just all seem so familiar, that's all." She looked to Yang and Blake, who simply gave her a thumbs up and a silent nod respectively. "I just know you all, though just by different names. That's all."
"I don't think I follow."
Rose looked around before leaning forward and quietly explaining to them about where she was from and what little they knew about her situation.
"Oh, so you are Ruby. Just a different one?" Jaune questioned.
"That is correct." Rose nodded back.
"So where is our Ruby then?"
"I would assume she is in my reality."
"So what are we like?!" Nora finally jumped into the conversation now that she had finally finished wolfing down her massive pile of food she had sat down with.
"Well, to start off with, you all are the wrong gender." Rose grinned at the four of them. "You guys are team JPTR. Lead by the quiet, shy, clumsy, and surprisingly cute Jacalyn Arc, who was somehow partnered with the famous Niko Pyrrhus. Then you have Lily Ren, the badass ninja, and Tyr Valhol, the stoic and smiting god of war."
"Ooooh!" The short berserker seemed enthralled by Rose's words. "We sound so cool!"
"I think so too. Unfortunately, you are all humans in a mostly faunus kingdom, so you are commonly overlooked."
"It always does seem to exist in some form or another. How depressing." Yang sighed and rested her chin on one of her palms, elbow bracing on the table.
"So, that would explain why you introduced her as your cousin, but why Amaranth? Why not just call her Rose?" The redheaded gladiator inquired.
"I dunno. They rejected all of my suggestions." Yang looked downcast.
"You mean puns." Rose muttered back, eliciting a chuckle from Jaune and Nora. "It was actually Blake who had the suggestion."
"Ah, The Rose and the Amaranth." Pyrrha spoke back with a gleam in her eye. "It's a great fable."
"Nerds." Yang facepalmed.
"Hey." Blake responded indignantly. "You're the one that's forcing me to play D&D."
"Ehhh" Yang chuckled sheepishly rubbing the back of her neck.
Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, Pyrrha leaned forward and whisper something into Blake's ear. Rose almost missed it in the chatter that surrounded her, but barely managed to catch what the gladiator said.
"Amaranth is pretty cool, but Daisy is my favorite ninja."
Blake's astonished look was overlooked by everyone else as they all got back to eating and chatting until they were torn from their conversations as Rose's fork clattered to her plate. The wolf faunus looked dumbfounded. Following her gaze they saw what had captured her attention as four people setting their food down at the next table. Team CRDL.
"Uh, Amaranth." Jaune tried to get the faunus' attention as she got up and slowly walked around the table towards CRDL. "What are you doing?"
Completely zoned out and unable to hear Jaune's question, she walked right up to Cardin.
"C-cardin? You're alive?" Rose looked up as though she had seen a ghost. Throwing herself forward she embraced him tightly
"What the…" Cardin looked down in surprise. "Get off of me!"
The other three boys chuckled.
"I think the faunus likes you, Cardin." Sky taunted Rose as Dove grabbed the girl's cloak and yanked backwards, pulling the wolf faunus off of their leader.
"Hey, what do you think you guys are doing?" Rose demanded as she spun around to face Cardin's teammates.
Russel bent over laughing. "Look, the faunus thinks it can talk to us like it's our equal. What a fre-"
The rest of the boys sentence was cut off as Rose kicked him over clear over the table, crashing down like a sack of potatoes on the other side. Reaching under her cloak the faunus pulled out a cylindrical devices that expanding into a staff as tall as her.
Twirling the staff around Rose tried to leap over the table after Russel, she yelped in surprise as she froze in midair. "What the hell?!"
"That's enough, young lady." Rose twisted around as she heard a familiar voice. Near the head of the table that Blake, Yang, and JNPR were still sitting stood Glynda, flanked on either side by Ozpin and Weiss.
With a flick of her crop, she dropped Rose back on the side that she leapt from. "I need you to come with me to my office. You too, Mr Thrush.
"Glynda." Ozpin interjected, pushing his glasses back up his nose. "I don't think that will be necessary. It was just a little squabble between Mr Thrush and Miss…?
"Rose. Amaranth Rose." The faunus collapsed her weapon and tucked it back under her cloak.
"Rose, you say?"
"Yes, sir. I am Ruby Rose's cousin."
"Is that so?" Ozpin took a sip out of his mug and gave the girl a small smirk. "Well, Miss Rose. I apologize for interrupting you and Mr Thrush. I expect to see both of you in the dueling arena in two hours. Have a nice breakfast."
With that the headmaster left the cafeteria with his assistant hot at his heels.
"Ugh." Weiss sat down next to Rose with a very unlady-like huff, turning away from the faunus. "Not only is my hair still wet, but now you have made me miss breakfast too. All the lines are closed."
Sitting stock with her ears half tucked back due to Weiss' anger, Rose slowly slid the extra tray she had grabbed earlier over to the white-haired girl next to her. This Weiss may look like hers, but was a lot different attitude wise.
"This… this is for me?" Weiss looked surprisingly happy looking down at the food in front of her. "I take it this is your Weiss' favorite as well?"
"Of course!" Rose smiled back as her tail wagged slowly back and forth. "I figured that you would miss breakfast, and a grouchy Weiss is nothing fun to deal with."
"Excuse me?!" The heiress' expression dropped into one of displeasure, causing her Rose's tail to freeze in place.
"Hey, cut her a break, Ice Queen." Yang reached behind Rose and placed a hand on the belligerent girl's shoulder. "She did something nice for you. You could at least say 'thank you'."
"Sorry." The fencer looked down bashfully at her food. Rose thought she could see a small blush on her cheeks. "Thank you, Amaranth."
"No problem!" The faunus beamed at her companion, ears twitching.
"You know." Blake joined the conversation. "You didn't mention how you knew Team CRDL."
Rose looked down at her food for several long seconds, her hair falling in front of her obscuring her eyes from everyone else, before starting to speak.
"They were one of the teams in my class. Shining examples of how faunus could be tolerant and accepting of humans. They were great friends with my team, as well as JPTR. Cardin and I were particularly close." Rose took a deep breath. "Their first mission out as a team, they were helping a human village evacuate under the threat of attack by Mantle. All the panic attracted the Wights, who attacked en masse. He volunteered to be the last one out to make sure everyone else would survive. They never did find his body after that."
Pushing her tray away, the wolf faunus pulled her hood up over her head. All the memories were making her too emotional to eat.
"Sorry we asked." Yang pulled the distraught girl into a side hug.
"It's alright, you didn't know." Rose sat back up. "I do not like the idea of having to fight Russel, but then again, he is not the person I know. He actually seems to be the opposite."
"If by that, you mean a racist bigot, then yes, he is the opposite." Weiss added in from the other side.
"Then it will be my pleasure to beat him." Rose grinned to the rest of them and pulled her tray back to her.
"And let the match begin." Glynda announced.
Two hours later the nearly empty arena hosted 10 people. The observing members of both CRDL and RWBY sat in the front rows on opposite sides, while Glynda and Ozpin stood under the banners that displayed the fighters Aura's.
On the Arena floor stood Russel, with both of his swords at the ready. Opposite, and about 5 meters away, stood Rose, stock still except her tail which swished back and forth in anticipation. She had surprised everyone when she crystallized a glass looking warscythe blade at the end of her staff, giving her a 3 meter long polearm.
Letting her opponent make the first move Rose assumed a defensive stance. Deliberately leaving a small opening, she managed to bait Russel into charging her. As the boy reached hear and swung, Rose shifted the position of her warscythe, easily deflecting the blow and swung the blunt end around, smashing her opponent.
The strike, combined with his own unchecked momentum, caused Russel to go tumbling forward into a glyph. With a swift hand motion, the glyph activated, propelling the hapless boy back the way he came from. Jumping and twisting over her incoming target, Rose slashed down and raked her blade across his back, taking a healthy chunk out of Russel's Aura.
Learning from his previous mistake, the brunet approached more cautiously this time, raining blows from every direction. While Rose managed to block or parry every single strike, she was only able to make a few of her own attacks.
"Is it just me, or does it look like she is distracted by something?" Weiss asked her two teammates.
"Hmmm…" Yang glanced around the rest of the arena before pointing at the now empty side of the arena. "There! Look at the ground."
"Are those more glyphs?"
As the three girls studied the clear zone, they each noticed the slowly forming circle of small glyphs.
"What could she be up to?" Blake mused quietly.
As the circle was finally completed Rose raised her hand in the air, forming a glyph over her and her opponent. Momentarily distracted, she failed to block the next blow, a thrust that skimmed the side of the tall girl's face. As she stumbled backwards a large rock fell from the glyph in the air.
Diving backwards to avoid being brained, Russel was now left open to Rose's counterattacks. Pouncing on her opponent, the red and black haired girl rapidly twirled her staff, driving him backwards with a flurry of blows. While some of them made contact with his Aura, they only chipped small amounts away at a time.
Continuing to push Russel backwards, she guided him to the circle of glyphs still glowing faintly on the floor. Once they were a meter away, Rose feinted with an exaggerated low slash. Jumping over the blade, Russel smirked as he reached the apex of his leap, his opponent had left herself wide open.
Continuing off the momentum of the strike, Rose ducked down and spun around smashing the falling boy with the heel of her boot, hurling him backwards into the circle of glyphs.
Landing heavily, the glyphs activated. Each small glyph lanced out with a streak of lighting, rapidly draining Russel's Aura into the red zone.
"And Miss Rose is the victor of the match." Glynda spoke as the lights flashed back on. The banners indicating that Russel had fallen to 8%, while Rose still had about 61% of hers left. "Congratulations, young lady. Both you and Mr Thrush are free to go."
Professor Goodwitch strode out of the dueling arena with a clack of her heels, engrossed in what was on her scroll. The rest of RWBY and CRDL rushed to their respective teammates sides.
"That was amazing!" Yang ran up to Rose giving her a bone crushing hug, causing the other girl to yelp and tuck her ears back.
"Your coordination and precision are quite exceptional, maybe even as good as Pyrrha's. Though you don't seem to be quite as strong." Blake spoke as she tugged at the team's brawler, trying to get her to loosen her hold on Rose.
"Yeah, and your Semblance looks suspiciously similar to Weiss'." Yang narrowed her eyes at the other girl.
"I do not understand." Rose cocked her head to the side.
Weiss giggled at the faunus' expression. Despite being older and more mature, she could definitely imagine Rose's ears and confused expression on her Ruby. Though, as the taller girl's long hair shifted, she gasped as she noticed a trickle of blood run down the faunus' cheek.
"You're bleeding!" The heiress exclaimed. Pulling a handkerchief out of one of her pouches, she reached up and pressed against the side of Rose's face.
"Oh." Rose's ears flicked in annoyance. "He managed to strike me as I was using too much Aura to set up my trap and the blade managed to cut me a little. It is more embarrassing than threatening, but I didn't want to waste too much Dust in that fight. The cut should already be healed anyways."
"Wait, so not only do you have a weird Semblance, but your Aura doesn't always block incoming attacks?" Yang confronted the wolf faunus, crossing her arms over her chest. "This is all too different. Maybe if we had time to train together it would be fine, but I don't know if you should come out with us tomorrow."
Weiss could see Rose's ears and tail both droop at Yang's declaration. While the brawler may be justified in her comments, it was a little strange hearing her be so reasonable.
"I would have to disagree." Ozpin interrupted their conversation, leaning on his cane. "With skills like that, I see no reason to prevent Miss Rose from accompanying the three of you on your mission tomorrow. Though of course, Miss Belladonna will have to be the acting mission leader."
"Of course, Professor." Blake bowed slightly to the headmaster. "Come on, girls. We can talk about this tomorrow."
"Just remember, teamwork will be your most essential resource out there. Good luck, and come home safe." Ozpin smiled slightly and waved them a goodbye as the four girls retreated back to their dorm room.
"I can't believe Ozpin is letting you come on the mission with us tomorrow." Blake spoke over to Rose as she situated herself under the blankets of Yang's bed. The brawler was still absent, having gone last in the washroom.
"I can't believe he made Blake the leader of this mission." Weiss' bitter tone carried across the room. The heiress had meant to say it only loud enough for herself to hear, but in her anger she had spoken a little too loudly.
"I can't believe you've allowed Ruby to have a bed like this." The wolf faunus perched precariously on her Remnant Land version's bed. "There's nothing about this that says this a good idea."
"You know why, Weiss. This mission is directly related to the White Fang and I have the most experience with how they operate."
"Yeah." Yang's sudden interjection caused them all to turn and look at the blonde exiting the bathroom. "Plus, Ruby has already designated Blake as her second-in-command anyways."
"SHE WHAT?!" Weiss shriek caused both faunus to wince in pain and rush to cover their sensitive ears. While Blake was on Yang's more stable bunk, Rose was not so fortunate. Sitting up in surprise, the bed swung slightly causing the wolf to tumble backwards and spill off the side, landing heavily on her back with an 'oof'.
"Weiss!" Yang admonished the smaller girl as she rushed to Rose' side, looking down at the black-and-red haired girl with a look of concern."Are you alright?"
"Oooooow..." The faunus managed to groan and chuckle at the same time. As Yang helped Rose back up they turned back to their previous conversation.
"What do you mean I'm not the second in command?" The heiress demand of her teammates. "I'm Ruby's partner and the obvious choice!"
Yang facepalmed. "Don't take it too hard, Snowflake. I'm sure Ruby had her reasons."
"I did." Rose responded eyeing Ruby's still swaying bed suspiciously. "While my Weiss was a talented fighter and an educated tactician, she had very little real world experience at the time I had to make the decision. My Blake on the other hand had years of experience fighting against real enemies. It was the obvious choice at the time. I'm sure Ruby had similar reasons for her decision."
"Well there you go, Frosty! Not that you hear me complaining about how she didn't choose her own sister" Yang smirked at the shorter girl.
"I just… Ugh!" The fencer flopped down and pulled the covers over herself. "I'm going to bed."
"We should probably all get some sleep now. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day." Blake stretched and wiggled her ears, beckoning for Yang to join her.
"Yeah." Rose looked up at Ruby's bed before poking the still disgruntled Weiss. "I don't trust that bed, can I sleep down here with you again?"
Weiss stared at the faunus for a few seconds before responding. "No."
"Fine." Rose groused before realizing she probably shouldn't be sharing with her girlfriend's doppleganger anyways.
Turning off the lights, she carefully crawled up onto the death trap of a bed again and slipped under the covers.
"Goodnight."
"Goodnight."
"Night."
A few moments passed before Weiss sighed. "Goodnight"
Poor Weiss, I don't think anything ever goes her way.
So yeah, there are some differences between Remnant Land and Unity in terms of Semblances, Aura, and Dust.
I'm so so so sorry this took so long to come out! Unfortunately I had a bad combination of more duties at work, busy season, Overwatch, Neptunia, running a D&D campaign, a marathon, and a particularly attractive Tumbleweed.
I hope you enjoyed this! Let me know how it is! Hopefully the next chapter will be sooner!