This is odd, I know, but these are a couple of deleted scenes from the sequel to this story, and I'm putting them here of all places mostly to alert all you followers to the sequel's existence. Click on my name and you'll find it easily enough (it doesn't let me put links in the story area here). As for these scenes themselves, they're both bits that I wrote while Volume 3 of RWBY was in progress, but due to the way it ended, I can no longer fit them into canon. They therefore aren't canon for my fanverse either, but I didn't want them to go to waste.


"Okay, how 'bout this?" said Ruby.

She held both hands before her, one in a fist and one flat, and pressed them together. Then she bowed forward to about a forty-five degree angle.

"Ooh, I like that one," said Penny, and she imitated the gesture.

"You've got it!" said Ruby with a smile.

"Where did you learn that one?" Penny asked as she repeated the move.

Ruby looked to the side uncertainly, then answered, "Some kid from . . . far away." When she looked back at Penny, she was met with a pained expression.

"Ruby . . ." said Penny quietly. "Why didn't you protect me?"

"What?"

Penny suddenly threw her head back and her arms out, like a bird preparing to take flight. From everywhere, a male voice slithered into Ruby's ears.

"Ooh, Polarity versus metal, hhhssh . . . that could be bad."

"No . . ." said Ruby, looking around in panic. "No - !" She took several steps toward Penny and broke into a run, but even when petals erupted behind her, she still came no closer. She could feel her feet hitting the ground, herself moving - so why -

Inevitably, gashes appeared across Penny's body, accompanied by horrible metallic squealing noises. As she was torn apart, the sky flickered from blue to rose red, and a giant black chesspiece symbol appeared just above the horizon.

"Penny!"

"Ruby!" snapped a voice from Ruby's right. She stopped trying to move and looked to find Weiss standing there, glaring at her.

"What are you even doing here?! Aren't you a little young to be attending Beacon?!"

Before Ruby could respond, Weiss was pulled into the same outspread pose as Penny. In turn, before Ruby could respond to this, another voice came from her left.

"Unfortunately, the real world isn't the same as a fairy tale," said Blake, and she threw her arms out as well.

As the pieces of Penny's body clattered to the floor, giving off electrical sparks, another figure appeared behind the pile -

"Yang!" Ruby shouted, reaching out for her. As she did, there was another horrendous screech, and Ruby's own arm was ripped from its socket. It landed just in front of Penny's mutilated remains, and Ruby's shoulder let forth a cascade of sparks and screws, temporarily blinding her.

When she could see again, she found two more people in front of her, arms outstretched and faces skyward: Uncle Qrow stood behind Weiss, and behind Blake was Dad.

At once, they all began breaking apart.

Another voice whispered in Ruby's ear.

"This is what happens when you hand over your trust to people who claim to be our guardians, but are, in reality, nothing more than a helpless - useless - little - girl."

Weiss's severed head rolled up against Ruby's foot, wires flailing from the neck. Looking up at her, it said, "You want to be a hero? Wake up! You can't even protect your friends!"

Ruby tried to cover her face, but her other arm shot off like a rocket.

"Wake up!" Weiss continued. "Ruby! Wake up!"

The world crumbled around Ruby, and she found herself in bed, both arms attached, with Weiss's similarly intact body leaning over her and shaking her by the shoulders. As her vision focused, Weiss's face shifted from worry to relief.

"W - Weiss?"

"Don't scare me like that!" The reprimand was delivered with the usual authority, but an even greater amount of concern. Ruby stared blankly up at Weiss, who smiled down at her. After a moment, Weiss climbed down off of the precariously-dangling bed, and after another, she returned and, wordlessly, handed Ruby a cup of coffee in which bobbed five cubes of sugar.


Ruby slid a crumpled sheet of paper out of her pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to Yang. The blonde sister held it up with her good hand and examined it uncertainly.

"What is it, a tank?"

Ruby chortled. "No, silly, it's a design for your new arm!"

Yang looked back over the drawing more carefully. "Why does it have treads?"

"Those are scythe blades," said Ruby, zipping into position beside Yang and pointing at the paper. "And these are expansion slots for military-grade weapons, you know, in case you have to deal with something minor. And the main cannon actually fires a bunch of mini-cannons that you can fly around remotely -"

"Ruby," said Yang with a small smile, "you know how strong I am, and I don't think I could even lift this thing."

"That's the best part!" Ruby said, gesturing at the bottom of the page, where she had swirled her pencil around. "It's held up by an adjustable mini-tornado!"

"You want me to walk around with a tornado -" Yang glanced sideways and stopped when she saw Ruby's grin. Laying the paper down, she reached across her chest and pulled Ruby's cheek into contact with her own. "It's great, Ruby," she said, closing her eyes. "Thanks."


Oh, Volume 3.

As you've probably guessed, that first scene with the nightmare was mostly written to show that Penny's use of Aang's bow in canon was a result of my crossover. Anyway, go read the sequel.