Into the Deadlands: Chapter 5
Ren wakes up on a dirt road, near him is Pyrrha and Nora, with Jaune standing and looking around. "Hey, Jaune." Ren said, cracking his knuckles. "I don't know where we are, but I know it isn't good." Jaune said in a calm tone. "Vacuo, maybe?" Ren replied. "Maybe, but have you ever seen a giant crater in Vacuo?"
Ren got up and said, "Pass the binoculars." Jaune handed him the Binoculars. Ren thanked him, and saw the crater, it was massive. "What the hell happened here?" Ren said. "Something must have went horribly wrong for this to happen… but it wouldn't be that big, right?" Ren had a worried look on his face.
Pyrrha had finally woken up and said, "What happened? Where are we?" Jaune was quick to answer, "That's what im trying to find out." A man on a horse sees them, and goes to them on his horse. "Why are you four here? Don't you know this is the blast site of Aspen?" 'Aspen? Never heard of a town named Aspen in Vacuo.' Jaune thought.
"Who are you four, exactly?" The man said. Ren got a good look at him, and he has brown hair, a mustache, and wearing a suit for some reason. "Jaune Arc, at your service." Jaune responded to the man. Ren spoke up and said, "Im Lie Ren, the sleeping girl is Nora Valkyrie, and the girl in the armor is Pyrrha Nikos."
"Well, I'm Joshua Berbeck, I work as a photographer for the Tombstone Epitaph." The man called Joshua said, then he offered his hand. Jaune shook his hand and said, "Nice to meet you, can you tell us where the nearest town is?" "Sure thing, its Elsin, Five miles south." Joshua said with a smile.
"Thank you, sir." Jaune said. Ren walked to Nora and woke her up by screwing with her hair. "I'm up, i'm up!" Nora said to Ren in a sleepy tone. "Welp, best I get to taking Photos, I hope to see you again!" Joshua said. Jaune nodded his head at him, and motioned the team to follow him, and they do.
Around an hour later, they had made it the Elsin, and saw a duel happening. A man and a woman were dueling, and the man yelled in a raspy tone, "You'll see your mother in hell!" but before he could even bring his gun out, he was shot and killed by the woman in red. A man on a soapbox spoke up and said, "The winner is this lone gunslinger! Give a round of applause, people!" The crowd who had gathered around to see this event burst into cheers.
The woman went to the bar, and Pyrrha decided to follow her. She entered the room, and saw people gathered around, singing a song, all stumbling around drunkenly, trying to dance to a song being played on a piano. Pyrrha walked up to the woman, and took a seat to the stool next to her and asked, "I saw you shot that man, what was that about?"
The woman looked at her like she was stupid and said, "It was a duel, he tried to out gun the best dueler this country has ever seen." But when she got a glimpse of Pyrrha's armor, instead of being shocked, she groaned and said under her breath, "I should have expected this." while placing her face in her gloves. "What's wro-" Pyrrha tried to say before the woman continued by saying, "Hello Pyrrha."
"How do you know my na-" Pyrrha tried to speak again, before the woman interrupted her again. "Before you ask, yes I am Ruby Rose, but I usually go by Meredith Witiger now." She took a swig of her drink before continuing. "We robbed a bank." Pyrrha was shocked, this wasn't the Ruby Rose that they knew, something must have happened.
"Could you elaborate?" Pyrrha asked, but that earned a glare from Ruby. Pyrrha didn't want to push on it, so she said, "I'll inform Jaune that I found yo-" Pyrrha was interrupted once again, and Ruby said, "And tell em theres no leaving this place." with a stern tone.
Pyrrha looked shocked, but stayed silent and walked out of the bar and to Jaune. "So, what did she say?" Jaune asked. "She's Ruby, but she would rather be called Meredith now. Yang and Blake are somehow dead, and Weiss is in hiding after they tried robbing a bank." Pyrrha responded, and Jaune looked shocked for a moment before saying, "Excuse me, what?"
A few hours later…
Team JNPR waited for Ruby to walk out the bar, so they could talk to her. Ruby did walk out, but drunk as a skunk. "Hey… hic Pyr… Pyrrha. How's it going?" Ruby was slurring her words, and a man with a claw mark over his entire face walked towards Ruby. "Meredith!" He yelped, and he carried her on his back, as she jumped onto him.
The team silently agreed to follow them, and they do. After a couple minutes, they arrive at a newly built hotel, and the duo enter it. Jaune whispers, "I'll head in, buy a room, and we continue the chase tomorrow, got it?" The team nods their heads in agreement, and let Jaune do his thing.
He manages to get a room with his charm and a discounted priced of only five bucks, and the rest of the team get in the room and sleep for the night. They are woken to the sound of gunfire, and Nora runs out to see what it is. A man with what seems to be a wooden leg screams, "IT'S BACK! THAT FUCKING GHOST ROCK INFUSED PLANT IS BA- AHHHH!" before being picked up by it and ripped in half, dropping his gun.
The rest of the team run out to see a giant plant with tentacles ripping people to shreds left and right. Ruby runs out with her revolver and says, "Oh god damnit." and took aim at the beasts eyes. She fires and hits, making the giant creature scream in pain before focusing on Ruby. She tries to dodge but gets her arm grabbed. With her free arm, she throws her revolver to team JNPR, and Jaune catches it.
He aims at the tentacle holding Ruby and fires in a panic, making the creature let go of Ruby and light the creature ablaze. Ruby falls five feet before getting up and pulling out a pump-action shotgun. JNPR see the carvings in the wood glow a silver light, and Ruby fires at the beast, causing the beasts stomach to explode after the 'The Wrath of Gods' as Ruby called it pierced the unholy creatures stomach.
The beast falls, and Ruby pulls out a molotov and lights it. She throws it at the beast to make sure it's finally gone. She sighs in relief and turned to Team JNPR and says, "And that's how you kill a demonic plant creature." She looks at the guy ripped in half and says, "Looks like his luck ran out." she said with a somber tone.
She then pick pocketed his lower half to find a couple bucks. She got up and said, "If you really want to know want happened, head to the bar at eight PM, got it?" JNPR nodded their heads, and Jaune looked the most shocked, "Is this really Ruby Rose?" he thought.
10:00 PM, The Muse's Bar
The team entered the bar and saw Ruby at a five person table, drinking a cold whiskey, and she motioned for them to sit down. They sit and Ruby takes a swig of her drink and begins to speak, "So, it all began when we woke up on a grassy plane, around seven years ago." Jaune says, "You've been in this place for seven years?" with a shocked expression. "Got the scars to prove it too." Ruby lifts up her shirt a little bit to show a couple claw marks. She then continues telling her tale until they get to the plan of framing Pyrrha's death. When she told Pyrrha that they found an alternate version of her, she was speechless.
Ember, Colorado. Seven years earlier.
Team RWBY walked up to the Sheriff's office, with their evidence and hostage in hand. They entered the building, and Marcus and Mary were there to greet them. "I see you brought Chance back, what about that outlaw scum?" Marcus said. Blake handed him the photo and said, "Got this off the corpse." Marcus smiled with glee, and went into his desk to get the team the bounty money.
"Here's three-hundred dollars for the four of you." He handed them bundles of cash and Ruby said, "Thank you, sir." Mary spoke up and said, "Thank god you finally got the nuisance, now I can no longer worry about that bank getting robbed. You can keep the horses if you like." She then got a cigarette, and smoked it.
The team said nothing, and walked out of the building, and got on their horses and rode off towards Pyrrha's camp.
Around five hours later…
"So, did he buy it?" Pyrrha said with a cigarette in her mouth. "He fell for it, he's dumber than a pile of rocks!" Yang said with a grin. Pyrrha smirked and got a bottle of whisky and some shot glasses from her bag. "To celebrate my freedom!" Pyrrha cheered with a smile.
Most of the team looked at their shot glasses full of whiskey, While Yang happily drank her shot. Pyrrha encouraged the rest of the team by saying, "Come on, drink up!" One by one, the rest of them drank their shot, with Ruby being the last.
"Let's get some rest, we got a long way to go." Pyrrha said with a sleepy tone. "Where are we going?" asked Ruby. "We're going to Kansas, where my crew is at." Pyrrha explained. Ruby, being too tired to question further, went to sleep on the warm dirt near the campfire.