Recording #59

March, 22981 AEA

"Good news, everyone! I showed the Council our latest discovery and they approved! Normally the process would take longer, but a 'certain someone' helped me out. You know who you are! Anyways, today I made more progress advancing our understanding of the Veil. We still don't know what's holding it together, but I can at least tell it's made out of some composition of magic and quantum energy. I'm working on making some tools to litmus test the exact composition, but that's gonna take a while. Oh! By the way, I found my Shapeshifter's Mask the other day. It was buried under a pile of old reports! I should really give it a tune-up later when I'm not busy, I think it got damaged under the weight of all those scrolls. Overall, today went pretty great!"

? ? ?, 78 AGW

Well. That was disastrous.

It was fair to say that Ruby was not having a great day. First there was the atrocious excuse for a landing. Then she spent close to half an hour pulling herself out of the ground, another half cleaning out the inside of her skull, and another hour checking to make sure she hadn't lost any of her two hundred and six bones.

After freeing herself from her earthly prison, she immediately spotted Dee sprawled out on the ground a few feet away from her. Curiously, her attacker never moved to bother her during the following hour and a half of cleanup. In fact, he never moved at all, ignoring her attempts at calling him out. Maybe he was taking an afternoon nap?

Relocating her shoulder, she decided to get to the bottom of his odd behavior. Cautiously, she made her way over to where he collapsed. He lay flat on his back, head furthest away from her, arms and legs splayed out in random locations, while his neck was craned backwards at an almost perpendicular angle. Ruby wasn't a napping connoisseur or anything, but that position couldn't be comfortable. She ground to a halt two feet from him, and tried once again to get his attention.

"Ahem."

"..." Dee made no indication that he heard her.

Drawing herself up in the most authoritative pose she could possibly muster, Ruby tried again.

"Ahem!"

"..." No response.

"Wake up!" She poked him in the chest. "Hello? Anybody home?"

"..." Dee exuded an aura of stillness and quiet.

Deciding against her better judgement, she gave him a swift kick to the crotch. When even that failed to elicit a reaction, Ruby dropped all pretenses and took matters into her own hands. Kneeling down, she began poking and prodding at his exposed skin. She had noticed something odd about the two strangers back on top of the cliff, but she wasn't exactly in a position to confirm her theory about them until now. Pulling off his glove, she pressed his palm against hers. Maybe an examination at the cellular level would reveal something.

Ruby let out a gasp. He was… decaying! She had noticed it back on the cliff, but it was so slight that she had a hard time telling it apart from environmental damage. Now though, the rate of decay was much faster. Ruby wagered that total decomposition would take less than a year without proper upkeep. What had happened to change that?

A thought occurred to her. Were they… mortal?

"Dear god," Ruby whispered to herself, "What have I gotten myself into?"

She sat down cross-legged as she began to piece together her thoughts, her mind racing back to earlier in the day. The unfamiliar landscape, that tragic excuse for a city, and now an intelligent species that could die very easily? Three theories formed in her head, though Ruby wasn't entirely satisfied with the validity of any of them.

The first was that she was on a completely different planet. This one was tenuous at best. While it would explain her utter unfamiliarity with this world, and the lack of her own, there were too many similarities between the two, such as the atmosphere and the flora. Even Dee and Dudley could have passed as one of her people, with a bit of disguising of course. Still, this theory offered a welcome solution, since she just needed to find her way home.

The second was that her people had reached the next step in their evolution, moving past immortality to live on a higher plane of existence. Yet if that was the case, there should have been at least a trace of their existence remaining on the world. Also, why would they leave her behind? Ruby buried that troubling thought and focused on a possible solution. If this theory were truly valid, all she would have to do was replicate the process of ascension and join her people.

The third theory…

Ruby shook her head. She could worry about the third theory after the first two have been disproved, and to do that, she needed more information. Her thoughts turned towards the city. If they were in any way a respectable civilization, they would have a library for her to use. Though, she'd have to find a way to safely enter the city first. Ruby glanced down at Dee's corpse and frowned, remembering how they got here in the first place. If these people were liable to attack her on sight, then she needed a disguise.

'Never thought a toy like this would end up being useful here.' Ruby mused as she pulled her Shapeshifter's Mask out of her cloak's pocket dimension. She briefly considered simply using the mask to restore her old visage, but another cursory look at Dee convinced her that she would stand out too much that way. She'd need to fit in to hide among these...

Come to think of it, she never found out what these people called themselves, and it wasn't like she could ask Dee about it either. Guess it was up to her to give them a temporary name, just until she had more information.

"Let's see, uh... How about Idiotheads?" Ruby sounded out loud. "Nah, too many syllables."

She poked Dee's skin.

"Fleshbags? Hmm, that sounds like an insult, actually."

Well, she could always just name them after their most defining characteristic.

"Mortals it is." She hummed in satisfaction, and went back to fiddling with her Shapeshifter's Mask.

It was an odd old thing, the mask. Completely bone-white on the outside, with a doll-like countenance that was constantly shifting between various faces. With no visible interface, it was up to the user's control over magic to reconfigure any settings. It was designed to fit over the entire head like a helmet, with a dark, almost pitch black inside that morphed with the user. Ruby noticed that the bottom of the mask was a bit frayed, leaving the latching mechanism a bit wobbly. Did she forget to repair it when it had gotten damaged? Well, as long as she was careful, it was nothing to worry about.

Now, for her disguise… She needed a few base characteristics to work off of. If Dee and Dudley were any indication, these mortals were quite plain in appearance. Uniform skin, hair that only grew on the head, and monochromatic eyes with black pupils and white sclera were the major differences she noticed. Thankfully, she shared the same general body structure with them, so no changes were needed there. Pulling up the interface, she quickly filled in the generics: body structure, smooth skin, nails, ears, nose, and mouth were all locked in.

"Hmm, let's see here…" She murmured to herself, scratching her chin. She wanted to keep some semblance of her original appearance intact, but wasn't sure about which aspects to dial back in order to blend in.

"What do you think, Dee?" She glanced down, before palming her face in embarrassment. Right, corpses can't talk, and mortals can die. This was going to take some getting used to…

It took a while before Ruby settled on a disguise that retained aspects of her original look, while looking similar to the mortals she encountered. She ended up copying Dee's skin tone and hair length, but adjusted the color of her hair to a dark, almost black, red, in remembrance of her previous skin. Her eyes were the most complicated. Ruby glanced upwards, briefly wondering if the night sky would look the same as she remembered, before setting her eye color to a light grey. It wouldn't have the same twinkle of magic as before, but it would have to do.

With that, Ruby stood up, sliding the now configured mask into her cloak for later use. She spared one last glance at Dee's very dead body and sighed. Even though it was an accident, and he technically attacked her, she couldn't help but feel a bit guilty about his death. She swore to be a bit more careful around these mortals, now that she knew how fragile they were.

She shook her head. 'Alright Ruby, get your head in the game! Now's not the time to get distracted!'

It was getting dark, and she had a lot of ground to cover. While it might have been easier to just fly directly to the city, intuition was telling Ruby to be thorough in her quest. If she found any clues before even reaching civilization, then she would be in an even better position to learn what had happened.

'Just gotta make my way to the city and keep my sockets peeled for anything interesting along the way. How hard could it be?'

It was only once the sun had fully set, and the moon shone brightly in the night sky, that Ruby had begun to panic. Up until then, the walk towards civilization was monotonous, but peaceful. There wasn't anything noteworthy about the landscape, and Ruby found her mind wandering. On a whim, she took her eyes off the terrain and glanced skyward. It was a beautiful clear and starry night, and she noted grimly that she did indeed recognize some constellations out of the bunch. Still, she was willing to write it off as a cosmic coincidence.

Until she saw the moon. Ruby had seen plenty of unnatural things in her lifetime; it came with the magical territory. Yet nothing could top the far-sight enhanced image of the shattered moon before her. Just thinking about the amount of firepower required to pull off a feat like this had Ruby's head spinning. Even worse was the feeling of recognition welling up within her. This was her moon! Sure, it was partially shattered, but the size, shape, color, placement of craters—albeit with a few new additions, were all shockingly familiar. Aeons of memories of studying the moon came flooding back, bringing panic with it. She'd have to wait a few rotations to truly know, but evidence was swiftly mounting that this was in fact her home planet.

"No…" Ruby clutched her head in pain as she tried once again to remember how she ended up in that cave. "Where did everyone go? Where did our cities go? Our kingdom?"

A faint hissing from behind her jolted Ruby out of her thoughts. Whirling around, she was met with not one, but two massive snake heads. Each one towered over her, with beady red eyes and some form of symbol adorned on their heads. Curiously, one was stark white, while the other was pitch black, and they joined together where a tail would have been instead.

"What do you want?" Ruby glared at the serpent, wiping away the nonexistent tears from her face.

The creature didn't respond, which was odd, because usually she was pretty good with animals. Instead, the black head lunged forward, jaws opened wide to reveal a row of sharp white fangs. Recognizing its intentions, Ruby responded in kind.

"For science!" She yelled, before diving headfirst into the snake's open maw.

She was curious to see what kind of digestive system this creature had, but her vision went dark as soon as she entered its mouth. A black, viscous substance covered her, and even the night vision spell she cast earlier was no help in penetrating the darkness.

'Well, it looks like tar, and feels like tar, let's see if it burns like tar!'

An explosion of fire magic rippled out from her, instantly incinerating the snake's innards. Smoke billowed out of both heads as Ruby somehow managed to crawl out of the white side, turning and kneeling down to examine the remains. It turned out to be a pointless endeavor, as the corpse dissolved into nothing right in front of her, leaving her alone.

Again.

Ruby had believed her people were infallible. How could she not? They were the most technologically and magically advanced species on the planet! They were on the cusp of unlocking the secrets of the very universe itself! But for what? All to disappear without a trace, leaving her behind?

No. This wouldn't stand. She might be jumping the gun a little in assuming she was the only one left, but the fact remained that she was in a completely alien world where people could die, and skeletons are attacked on sight.

'And if I am the last of my people? Then it falls to me to find out what happened.' Ruby stood up with newfound determination. 'I won't let anyone stop me from finding the truth. I am Eternal. And I will make my people proud, regardless of what happens.'

A few days passed without incident as Ruby continued to make her way towards civilization. Sure, she had encountered a few more of those serpents, but they proved to be a mild inconvenience. She also met other creatures that shared similarities with the snake: they were all predominantly black, with red and white markings, were always aggressive towards her, and dissolved into nothing upon death. It annoyed her that she could not study them properly as a result, but such thoughts were swept aside as she made her way closer to the city.

It was just another cloudy morning. Dark storm clouds hung overhead, and the air was equal parts hot and humid. A spark of lightning caught Ruby's attention.

"Rain?" Ruby mused. "No, wait a minute."

An avid practitioner of magic, she could recognize when someone was trying to control the weather. Even the best attempt to mask a storm as natural had its marks.

"Hey, don't think you can hide from me..." She quickened her pace towards the epicenter of the storm. Suddenly, a massive explosion erupted from the center, sending leaves and debris flying into the air. Ruby took the Shapeshifter's Mask out of her cloak and slipped it on, breaking out into a sprint.

"Now this is worth checking out!"

A/N: Don't worry. Skeleton Ruby (and Faunus Blake) will be making a reappearance. Apologies for the late-ish update, was getting caught up on Volume 8.

The original plan was for our Ruby to find Ruby Rose's corpse, and steal her face (literally). Scrapped because it was too gruesome, and I dislike major character deaths. So yeah, we won't have two versions of Ruby running around. I'll cover how that affects STRQY in Chapter 5.

I hope my description of Ruby's shapeshifted form was good enough. Just know that she looks similar enough to a Rose, but is not a carbon copy of canon Ruby or Summer. I'm know I'm also being a bit vague and holding back on some details of her original appearance. Saving it for later, sorry!

Please let me know if I made any mistakes or if you don't understand something. Thanks for reading!