A/N: This one will take a bit of explanation. This is a sequel to my crossover event (Chapter 59 "Anomaly") and a continuation of Chapter 76/WPW #228 that also ties in with a number of other major crossovers of media that interest me, specifically the CW Arrowverse and the 2005-2018 iteration of IDW's The Transformers comic series. I tried to keep things coherent, but trust me: it's quite a ride.
My thanks to sh1f7er, Glensather, Gonstika/Gonstead and redditor JoshuaBFG for allowing me to use their original characters and storylines for this story event.
Earth, 2018
Decepticon Flagship Nemesis, Rechristened Lemuria
A dark, empty room. The pangs of metal on the walls from the ocean outside the only sound. Arms and legs sawed off, spark encased in a tumbling cage that will flood the chassis with electrons and neutralize the essence of life if ever the prisoner shifts his weight.
A greater imprisonment still: a mind left to wander without restriction. All the thoughts to process, all the time in the world to plan… and no means to implement anything, no way to leave the prison save ending his own life. And after spending nearly twenty million years pursuing his goals, betraying every ally, losing every resource… survival was what imprisoned him.
He robbed his people of faith - a faith he created. He orchestrated every event, drew every web, played the part of antagonist and savior in forging civilization and rendering it moot. He once threatened the very fabric of existence, but in the name of persevering his homeworld for eternity. He made an alliance of convenience with monsters and warmongers, but in the name of propagating his species through the stars. He fought darkness before realizing he had to become it in order to guide his species to their apex.
Shockwave: the crafter of Regenesis, the former Decepticon military operations commander, the former Onyx Prime, the guiding hand and the clenched fist alike of all his people's history and their endless conflict… this was to be his final fate. To be locked away on a foreign world, the single prisoner alone with his ghosts.
In the wake of Unicron's destruction, what should have been the creation of a new Cybertronian empire was squandered, his species content to settle on an alien world. Windblade -their elected leader- insisted Shockwave not be killed and condemned him to this fate, believing one who'd once believed he had all the answers would be punished all the more by being constantly, eternally reminded of his failure.
A new sound filled his audio receptors. A strange pop of color appeared in the blackness, catching his eye.
"You've seen better days, Senator."
Shockwave concentrated on it. He focused on the colors: flaring red, yellow, and another melange of white, pink, brown… two shapes, though one seemed to emanate from the other.
His first thought was he was replaying a memory. But a quick review confirmed he was still in the brig of the Nemesis, still confined… and he did not know the faces of these visitors.
They were far smaller than he was. They were far on the ground beneath him, looking up at his towering figure. Even reduced as he was, propped up by his restraints, he still had to peer down at his visitors.
Humans? This was their planet, but he was imprisoned at the bottom of the ocean. Logistically, it'd be too difficult even for other Cybertronians to visit him. As far as he knew, the only one who'd visited the ship was his warden, who'd be on the bridge monitoring chatter, rather than come to visit.
"I'm sorry we haven't met, but I've taken some time to learn about you," addressed the human clad in yellow, but encircled in red… red emanating from his companion, a shorter female clad in white, with two-toned hair. "I've observed this Earth before and I… well, honestly I never intended to come back, but I think you and I might be able to help each other."
This Earth? That merited further scrutiny… but more interestingly -more immediately: a proposition.
Shockwave had made alliances with humans before. They were always very temporary. But given this was the first visit he'd had since Prowl finished locking him in place, Shockwave was willing to humor his guest. "And how -exactly- will you do that?"
"First things first: my name is Eobard Thawne," the man in yellow introduced, waving his hand to his cohort. "This is Neo. We wanted to talk to you about Regenesis."
A human who knew of his work? Was he a member of the Earth Defense Command, trying to gain insight into Cybertronian technology? Humans did not want for ambition, and the casualties inflicted by Unicron ensured there were no longer any Autobots who could match his intellect…
"Go on," Shockwave allowed.
The human vanished in a flash of red, almost like lightning. Shockwave was perplexed. Was this some reverse engineering; some implementation of Cybertronian anomalies, or had the humans advanced their own technology so quickly?
But the man quickly reappeared, his arc of red lightning still tethered to his shorter compatriot. He held up a shard of pink crystal; energon Shockwave had christened 'Ore-13', seeded on Earth millions of years before.
"You once siphoned energy from these crystals and directed it to Cybertron," Thawne explained. "If you had all the necessary equipment, could you do it again?"
"Cybertron has been consumed," Shockwave bluntly replied. "As has every other world I seeded save for this one. There would be no way to successfully draw the energy without a corresponding resonance."
"Unicron consumed every world in this reality," Thawne clarified. "And in many others. But I know of one where one of your ores ended up on a different planet than you intended…"
Shockwave focused his optic on the man in yellow. "Perhaps you should clearly explain yourself. What 'reality' is that?"
"It's a long story, but the short version is… in one possible timeline, your rocket went off-course," Thawne explained. "In this time, in your recollection of it, Ore-4 seeded a planet called Caminus. But in another, your rocket landed on her world, which she calls 'Remnant.'"
Shockwave briefly fixed his gaze on her companion. The red lightning connecting the two seemed to rise right off her skin, subtly changing color from the dark red to a lighter shade of pink.
But Shockwave quickly focused back on Thawne's claim, immediately seeking to refute it. "There is only one timeline, Thawne. Only one result of my experiment. I have seen it; I have known more of the history of my species than anyone who ever lived."
"You're not the only one who's traveled through time, Senator," Thawne clarified. "You chose to set things on the same path you remembered them occurring, trying to control the outcome. But I'm not here to talk about ancient history: I just need you to answer one question. Could you replicate your plan for Regenesis if you had a new point to direct the energy emanating from Ore-13?"
Shockwave considered this. As illogical as Thawne's ramblings were, considering a scientific possibility always gave the logician pause… Ore-13's high energy output came at the cost of burning much more quickly than its predecessor energon ore. Ore-4's gravity well would curve spacetime as needed to gather the energy that could be collected, but nowhere near sufficient to power a planet -or space station- on the scale of Cybertron longer than a few cycles. "Ore-13 and Ore-4 alone would not be enough. And this is all moot: Cybertron is gone. Without a planet to preserve, the energy supply would simply dissipate over time."
"We can't give you Cybertron back," Thawne conceded. "But we can give you time, and resources, to build anything you want. More than that, we can give you more energy from just this one ore than you ever had before…"
Shockwave had already shot down his every request. He could've simply dismissed this offer out of hand too. But he had little better to do with his time.
"This planet is about to be hit by a wave of anti-matter, anti-matter that will consume this entire reality," Thawne explained. "At the moment that occurs, we will draw all the energy from the energon on this planet… and every other Earth in every other reality that will be hit by the wave at the same time. You will receive Ore-13 from hundreds of Earths, concentrated into a single point."
Shockwave was intrigued. As fantastic, as improbable as it sounded…
He had accounted for the possibility of his rockets going off course. He'd expected it to happen in the course of his experiments. It was not so far from the realm of possibility that he considered it impossible. He had drawn energy from another dimension to fuel Regenesis in the first place, and knew of a different dimension wherein a Prime's body had been displaced… it was not so hard to fathom that another plane of existence saw some other version of himself carrying out his same mission. Shockwave had made every effort to see the same events play out rather than allow for the possibility of change when he'd been sent to the past. He had -on occasion- wondered… what if?
"How?" Shockwave inquired.
"In time, Senator," Thawne gestured to his associate, who was visibly panting, her pink energy coating flickering more often. "My friend here doesn't have much longer. We need your answer: you ready to try again?"
Shockwave would never have accepted an alliance with an unknown entity where he had not considered every vector, every probability… but if it were possible, if a second ore still existed somewhere and could react to Earth's energy... and if this human was correct and Earth would be destroyed just the same…
"Very well," Shockwave allowed.
Thawne nodded and vanished in a flash of red. Shockwave watched a stream of red circling around the floor below, watched the girl Neo fall to her hands and knees, pink energy cackling off her body…
Then nothing.
Atop Monstra's Back
Solitas
Neo looked at the wreck Thawne piled on the beast's back. Just four heavy components, all larger than her: he called them a brain module, a transformation cog, a spark chamber, and a fuel pump. All of them embedded into the crystals lining Monstra's back.
Her Aura had nearly broken. Thawne had pushed her so far… and now that she'd returned to Salem's house, she could no longer afford to show weakness.
Give yourself a minute, kid. No one's looking for you yet.
Neo looked at her Scroll. The time had to adjust, the device reporting an error… several minutes ahead of the local Atlesian time. Neo opted not to send an error report. She just let her clock reset, two seconds after she'd left for her trip.
She looked down at the energon shard in her hand. How Thawne acquired it… he said someone flung it into the Speed Force… whatever that meant.
Get your energy back and we'll move to the next part. We rebuild his head first, so we can fill him in, let him get his bearings.
Neo didn't care about the minutiae. There was only one thing she wanted to know.
His experiment concentrated all energy -all reality- into a single point. He does it again, and everywhere in the world but wherever we're standing dies.
Including…
All for revenge. Shockwave could build whatever he wanted. The death of the rest of Remnant meant the death of Ruby Rose.
The death of every single Earth in the same moment… killed Thawne's nemesis too. Leaving only them. Only them in all of existence.
Neo felt her spirit returning. There was so much work to be done, but she had two new allies to help shoulder the burden now.
Prowl was not popular among Cybertronians. But when he called, everyone accepted his transmission. He always had something crucial to inform them of… and almost invariably, bad news that needed to be addressed.
Windblade accepted his transmission over her own comm systems. "Go ahead, Prowl."
"Shockwave has escaped," Prowl reported.
Windblade paused, holding her index finger to her audio receptor. Short of Prowl reporting the return of Unicron or the resurgence of a Decepticon warworld, there was no worse news she could possibly receive.
The former Camien, the elected First Delegate of Cybertron… there was only one adversary left who could strike fear into her. The Cybertronian who gave life to her world and tried to use it as a means to collapse all of space and time.
"I'm on my way," Windblade informed him, transforming and taking flight, heading out to sea.
The last obstacle to lasting peace… alive because of her mercy. Now at last she had to face the consequences of her decision.
She hoped she was the only one to pay the price for it. Shockwave's machinations threatened all life, and she would not have that on her head.
Remnant
Anima, After The Crash of the Argus Limited and the Lamp's Second Question
Visitors from another world. One, a warrior clad in powered armor, others strange, reptilian bipeds wielding swords composed of blue light. When Ruby Rose and her uncle came upon battle between the two, they helped the outnumbered warrior repel the superior alien force. Theirs was a friendship forged in the crucible of battle… a force of red and green united in a field of white soon blasted with gunfire and stained with alin blood.
The warrior gave Ruby Rose her name: Petty Officer Second Class, Spartan-458.
Nicole.
After the battle, she invited them to her ship, to take shelter from the elements. Ruby Rose returned to collect her team, to have introductions made… and share in the wonders of another world.
"Wow, this ship is incredible!" Ruby observed, darting around through the Nassau, examining the railing, the viewing window, the terminals, the armory… especially the armory, entranced by the various UNSC weapons.
"At least it's warm in here," Yang observed, rolling her motorcycle -and coincidentally, Maria- in through the hatch. "You got any food you're willing to share, Nik?"
Nicole halfheartedly waved to one of the crates scattered on the floor. "We're using reserve power, so nothing for the commissary. There are packaged rations in here… somewhere."
Qrow poked over Yang's shoulder. "Any of them liquid?" His niece punched his shoulder.
Weiss stepped in next, glancing around. "I don't suppose you can give us the grand tour? I'm sure we'd all like to learn about the technology here…"
Blake followed after her, arms wrapped over her bare midsection, shivering. "I'm fine not knowing."
The woman in the powered armor shuffled uncomfortably. Maria quickly read the room. "Maybe after we've had time to process it all."
Nicole faintly nodded. She was just a soldier, not… well, not knowledgeable about all the science ONI stuffed into their station. She could talk about the guns, the training simulations she used to run… but she was sure they had many more questions than that.
She had questions for them. She had so much more she needed to know about this planet, about the Covenant, about some means to return to Earth and rejoin the fight… she could only imagine how long her planet had to hold out when the Covenant had finally found humanity's last stronghold.
But the Covenant followed her to this planet too. That would raise questions from her new collection of allies, who hadn't even realized there were other intelligent life forms outside their planet, much less a cabal of many different species united into a single, powerful faction spanning vast reaches of space…
"Guys?" inquired their youngest companion, Oscar, poking his head in from outside. "There's… uh… I don't know how to say this, exactly…"
"Say what?" Yang dryly inquired.
Oscar nervously averted his gaze. "Uh… well…"
Ruby ran back over, addressing Oscar a little more evenly than her sister. "What is it?"
Oscar lifted the hatch, letting in a gust of cold air. The others heard footsteps passing through the snow and clanging onto the metal hull of the Nassau.
Snow flitted in through the open hatch… snow that seemed to visibly hang in the air, creating a curious silhouette… snow that seemed to brush itself off.
Nicole immediately leveled her submachine guns at the quiet visitor, preparing for a familiar enemy. Blake heard the faint hint of breath amidst the clumps of ice and rock hitting the metal floor. She'd seen this type of camouflage before, but never to such an extent as to be truly invisible…
"Oh, right, sorry- left the ole stealth mode on," came an unfamiliar voice. A girl seemed to simply materialize into existence before them, a girl with dark freckled skin, blue eyes, and chestnut brown hair. A very familiar girl, if a bit taller than Blake remembered her.
"Ilia?" Blake wondered, confused.
"Oh… no, auntie, sorry," she shook her head. "I'm sorry; I'm used to us already having been introduced and you guys being -like- way older. My name is Blush Schnee."
"Schnee?" Weiss repeated.
"Maybe I should start from the beginning," Blush suggested. "You guys are family to me… and I don't know the girl in the suit, but Lu tells me we need her for a thing."
"That's the beginning?" Yang dryly had yet to lower her weapons, and no one seemed prepared to try and dissuade her.
"I wasn't done!" Blush protested. "It's… okay, let me make it as simple as I can." She took a deep breath and glanced around the room, trying to meet each set of curious eyes upon you. "My name is Blush Schnee. I'm from the future.
"And we need your help to save… uh, everything that ever was."
Solitas, Atop Monstra
One Possible Future
Neo reached up to caress her forehead. The trips were becoming increasingly jarring… the disorientation so much that her head was throbbing.
"Is the human unable to continue?" Shockwave inquired.
Thawne manifested from Neo's Aura, the illusion projected at her side, red lightning arcing off her shoulder. "She's had to experience time travel in a way most people aren't fit to, Senator. That Aura of hers' can only do so much."
"Any delays in our timetable make it that much more likely we will miss our window," Shockwave protested. "Assuming -of course- that your prediction is accurate."
"I saw the time through Neo's eyes," Thawne explained. "She'll be at the colosseum and the people there will have their attention diverted. The only real difficulty will be ensuring you leave this… I forget what Salem called it, but this big flying fish of hers' without her noticing. You get to us and we'll be in place before the folks on board burn through their Dust supply."
"And the reformatting?" Shockwave inquired.
"Well, the tech's a bit below standard for us," Thawne admitted. "But the Dust crystals keeping the comms tower afloat are pointed right down at the planet. Use them as a conduit…"
"I see," Shockwave nodded. "As for deceiving our unwitting host… my former cohorts were very proficient at that."
Thawne turned his attention back to Neo, still gaining her bearings. "Two more trips to go, kid. How are you holding up?"
Neo's head was still pounding. She turned her gaze towards Shockwave, who'd idly returned to his work, turning Atlesian steel into devices she could scarcely comprehend…
Thawne ushered her to walk; to further regain her bearings. He retreated back into her Aura, no longer manifesting as physical projection.
I know why you don't trust him, kid. You're smart not to bother, Thawne advised her. But when he's done this planet will be the only thing left in this universe -or any other- and everything below that tower floating in the sky will be destroyed when he converts the planet to cybermatter.
Neo didn't care for the science of it: only the result. Only the assurance that two lives in particular ended when Shockwave finished his work. Revenge was a motivation Thawne knew well.
That woman you work for will come calling in five minutes, Thawne explained. Game face on, kid. Time to start running.
Neo faintly nodded. She doubted Shockwave even noticed the motion - or cared to. To Shockwave, Thawne was his only partner, and Neo simply a tool.
She was used to being underestimated. And already party to many a betrayal… but if this 'Decepticon' served her purpose, she'd play his game. Unlike Cinder, Shockwave was not blinded by emotion, nor pretending to be anything other than entirely self-serving.
Two more… two more trips to the past…
Northern Anima
Weeks Earlier
"The future," Maria repeated. "I don't expect I'll get the chance to see it so… we ever get to space? Turn everything into a capsule? Make people into food?"
"Uh, no, no, maybe?" Blush replied.
The others exchanged glances. Blush pointed back to the hatch of the Nassau. "Look, I know it's really overwhelming but if you guys are on board then I need you to come along, like, right now. In particular I need Ruby and the girl from the dirt planet."
"Dirt planet?" Nicole repeated.
"That's the name, right? Planet Dirt?" Blush inquired.
Nicole's helmeted face betrayed no displeasure. Her tone, however… "Earth."
"Huh, I guess Lu did stutter a bit when she said it…" Blush mused. "So, come along and let's get right to it, huh?"
"Get right to… what?" Ruby wondered.
"And why -in particular- do you need Ruby?" Weiss inquired, trying to read this girl sharing her family name… but distinctly few of her family's features.
"Something we'd all like to know," Qrow advised her.
"Okay, well… I'm not the one who made the plan, but I can take you right to the girl," Blush offered. "I know it's a bit cold outside, but we'll have to talk there if we're gonna talk at all."
"And why do we need to do that?" Qrow asked, hand very subtly moving to the hilt of Harbinger.
"Something something patch of Mistral something something ship from another planet not always being here," Blush explained. "Look, we don't have a lot of time and I know you guys have a ton of questions, so if you're willing to hear us out, then we really need to get started."
Ruby turned her gaze to her friends. A series of fast whispers ensued as they mulled their options.
Ruby then turned her attention to Nicole, who'd still yet to lower her guns. "She says she needs you for this. What do you think?"
"I think it's the weirdest thing I've heard today," Nicole replied. "And that is saying something."
"So… is that a 'no?'" Ruby wondered.
"It's 'I'm getting a few more guns'," Nicole coolly replied. "Then, sure, they can talk all they like."
"I like her," Yang noted. "We keeping her?"
After a few moments organizing, Qrow, Maria, and Oscar were left in the Nassau, while Team RWBY and Nicole accompanied their curious guest outside, back into the snowy Animan wilds. They passed almost a hundred meters from the crash site to the treeline, where a quartet of figures waited, huddled under a tall oak.
"I thought you said there was only one girl to talk to," Blake curiously observed.
"I never said that," Blush protested. "Just that she was the one with the answers you'd be looking for." Blush strode a bit ahead of the five at her back, calling out: "Luna, I've got them: they're ready to hear us out."
Ruby scanned the four waiting under the tree. One a short girl with white hair and ears atop her head, one a tall blonde -very similar in appearance to Yang- and one sole boy, thin and scraggly, with long red hair and a white coat, very similar to…
"Torchwick?" Ruby wondered.
Blake nudged her side. "That's not all."
The last of their number, however…
Her attire wasn't the regal black they were used to seeing. But the gray skin, the spindly white hair, the way black ichor dug into her flesh…
When she turned to face them, her bloody red eyes piercing straight through their souls.
They'd just borne witness to her origin, barely hours beforehand, when Jinn answered her second question. She struck fear into their hearts once as an illusion, then again as a memory of an old wizard's life…
And here she was, right before them, standing in the snow.
"Salem," Ruby breathed.
The queen of the Grimm appraised the group. "Well… it's about time."
Remnants of LV-117
2018
The flow of time through the universe is not merely the inevitable result of the existence of matter, of physics, and biology: it is a fundamental force of nature that helps maintain the very fabric of reality. Accelerating or slowing the flow of time tears the seams. Traveling through time rips the fabric in twain.
The Decepticon Shockwave sought to alter the nature of the universe by seeding the galaxy with fourteen Energon ores, the first of which would grant him mastery over time. In drawing the energy of that ore to his fortified position on Cybertron, he began to unmake the very fabric of reality out of his desire to create an endless, eternal home for his species; the only place in the universe where time would flow. Before the process could be completed, Shockwave was destroyed, and the energy drawn from his time ore reverted. The seams were torn, but not beyond repair.
Then the scientist Brainstorm used an invention to jump through time, further straining an already damaged fabric. The burden increased when another set of time travelers followed him, using a quantum duplicate of Brainstorm's time travel device. The burden was nearly too much to bear, as time ceased to flow in every point of the universe but one once again.
And then the fabric was finally torn, when the meddling with the timeline by a Cybertronian's displaced quantum duplicate led to the creation of a second autonomous timeline. What had once been a separate reality was now conjoined to a universal stream, where a new parallel quantum state had been established opposite it.
Two realities aligned with each other, divided by a single moment in history where Megatron, the future leader of the Decepticon uprising, was killed by a quantum duplicate from a future that would never happen.
Prowl pulled the ship into stationary orbit around the debris. He gestured for Windblade to examine the hunks of rock drifting through space on their viewscreen.
"Unicron consumed most of the ore during its rampage," Prowl explained. "But the gravity well where the planet once stood hasn't yet been corrected. Because LV-117 was unstuck in time by Ore-1, there are occasional instances where it continues to exist when it shouldn't: when it reverts to a prior time before Unicron consumed it. This is the only place where Shockwave's time ore remains."
"And that's our only means of pursuing him?" Windblade inquired.
"The two humans who took him from the Lemuria departed via some sort of tachyon stream," Prowl explained. "And I couldn't find a record of either of them in the humans' various government databases. If I had to speculate-"
"Please don't," Windblade interjected.
"-I'd say that they're from another time," Prowl elaborated. "And if I found this ore intact -however briefly- then Shockwave definitely knows it's still here and will come for it eventually."
"So what happens then? We wait for the planet to just… appear?" Windblade inquired.
"I wouldn't worry about that," Prowl assured her. "Things have a way of sorting themselves out…"
Prowl moved the ship out of orbit and drew closer to the gravity well. "Hold on. We'll be making landfall shortly."
Windblade could see only empty space and scattered rock. There didn't seem to be any land to fall upon… but she humored him. "How long will that be?"
"For us, any moment," Prowl replied. "But the ship's galactic positioning calendar has already lost two weeks."
Windblade turned her attention to the ship's dashboards, the instruments… placing them seventeen days ahead of when they'd been upon their arrival. The viewscreen lit up as a sphere materialized into view, the ship breaking into the atmosphere.
"We're in now," Prowl reported. "Remember, this planet has already ceased to exist in our time, and our visit will only take us so far before the planet returns to the normal timestream. When that happens, and we're still on it…"
He left Windblade to draw her own conclusion. Either they'd be stuck outside of time with LV-117, or… they'd probably just die. That was much simpler. "Any second thoughts?"
"It's Shockwave," Prowl simply replied. "He must be stopped, no matter the cost."
"For once, Prowl," Windblade mused, "We agree on something…"
Northern Anima
After The Arrival of Visitors From the Future
Nicole had always kept her guns ready. Now Team RWBY joined her, all leveling their weapons at their immortal foe, more out of instinct than anything else… based on what Jinn had shown them, the best they could hope to do was momentarily damage Salem, only to watch her revert to form a few seconds afterwards, with all her magical power still intact.
The small gathering of people at Salem's back tensed up. The short, white-haired girl with cat ears latched onto the tall, Yang-like blonde, hiding behind her broad shoulder and ruefully muttering: "Here we go again…"
Salem herself, meanwhile, passively observed the five pointing all their weapons her way. "Well, it's good to see that you haven't forgotten me."
"Blush, what did you lead us into?!" Yang growled.
Blush walked over to Salem's side, patting her shoulder. "Better tell your mom to rest for a bit, Lu. I think they'd be more at ease if it was just you."
Salem glanced at the freckled Schnee before offering a resigned sigh. "Remember the timetable. We can only indulge for so long."
She closed her eyes… and her hair regained a modicum of color, though still very white. Her skin lost the black patches of ichor, regaining some tinges of pink, fair but no longer gray. When she opened her eyes however… they were now distinctly silver rather than red.
Ruby lowered Crescent Rose, slack jawed. "Wha-"
The girl who'd once been Salem turned her gaze to Ruby. "Oh… h-hey. Nice t-to s-see you again…"
Weiss glanced between Ruby and the girl they'd previously thought to be Salem -not that she'd taken the time to deny it- now looking much younger and sounding far more timid.
"What just happened?" Yang asked, her gauntlets still raised high in the air.
"It's a long story," Blush advised.
"I'm sure…" Blake muttered.
The silver-eyed girl still had her attention on Ruby. She could see the others in her peripheral vision, perhaps, but hadn't moved her gaze at all. Blush gently nudged her white-haired companion, and she managed to compose herself. "S-sorry, right. I-introductions… my name iss L-Luna Kesaph... Ro-ose."
"...Rose?" Ruby repeated.
"Hopefully this means you guys are starting to catch on," Blush suggested, gesturing to the other three at her back. "We're all… well, most of us are related to you in some way.
"We're all from the future," Blush continued. "A bunch of different futures in fact."
The short, white-eared girl slowly emerged from behind the taller blonde. She turned her gaze towards Nicole, then abruptly moved right back behind her defender rather than continue to stare at a faceless Spartan warrior. The red-haired, Torchwick-looking boy reached over to gently pat her shoulder.
"And t-the problem is we're n-not sure there'll be any f-futures for much longer," Luna elaborated. "It's w-why we came h-here, for h-her…" She gestured to Nicole, then back to Ruby. "And for y-you. F-for your Semblance."
"My Semblance?" Ruby repeated.
"We need your speed," Blush explained. "Because the guy we're after is running even faster…"
Earth-X
2019
Neo felt her Aura dings continue to mount. New patches were forming in her barrier the faster Thawne worked… the more energy he needed to craft his device.
"Almost," Thawne promised, moving erratically in Neo's vision, the red energy arcing off her shoulder in multiple directions -sometimes seeming to be in the same place at once- as the metahuman finished placing the collection panel.
Neo felt her Aura break. She watched the lingering energy waft away as Thawne's avatar broke apart, leaving a few remaining components littering the ground.
A moment passed as Thawne emerged in her consciousness again. Need to pull it together a little faster, kid. The wave's due to hit in a few minutes, and if we're still here…
Neo understood. Thawne had promised that this planet -this entire universe he'd brought her to- would be consumed by what he called a 'wave of anti-matter' that would end life in an instant. An instant that only a speedster like himself could profit from, collecting the resulting energy and transferring it to another place and time…
Neo could see it in the sky above: a descending surge of orange light. Still several minutes away as it crossed the threshold of space, but a reminder death was drawing closer.
Death had to wait a while longer. She couldn't die until Ruby Rose and Cinder Fall got there first.
She pushed herself to rebuild. To carry on just long enough…
Thawne manifested again. He set to work finishing the collection panel, then started running in a circle around her, creating the necessary charge to pause time where she stood.
Neo saw the entirety of the sky light up with fire, Thawne's red lightning moving faster and faster around her… a tiny patch of dirt and rock still standing as the rest of the world was washed away…
Then once more on the ancient Grimm's back, her Aura broken again, leaving her exhausted and sputtering.
Shockwave looked up from his work, then immediately returned his attention to it. In a few moments, the collection panel would transfer the energy across time and space… as one universe would become -and always have been- dead but all the power released by the antimatter explosion would be drawn back to a single ore: the surviving energon of Earth, Ore-13, in Shockwave's own hand. Thawne's prior visit to an alternate Earth lit up the path, and Neo's Aura would leave the trail for that energy to be directed to Shockwave's crystal.
Thawne had said there were fifty-three alternate universes, but their timetable only allowed for so many to draw from. But in many of those timelines, Shockwave had seeded Earth with his experimental energon, and each of those same Earths hit by the antimatter wave would see the energy -however briefly- contained in the raw crystal, of which only one survived into the future of Earth year 2553: a year that many Earths would never know, as they'd cease to exist five hundred years prior.
One more run, kid, Thawne promised. One more run then we set the trap. And when your girl Cinder Fall tells you where she wants to go, when she's ready to set her life on fire… you give her the match.
Northern Anima
Weeks Earlier
Luna concentrated, tightly shutting her eyes and leaning her head back. Her platinum blonde locks turned stark white once more, her skin was soon embedded with lines of ichor, and her silver eyes bled over as Salem resumed control. The kids flanking her seemed mostly unfazed by her presence and Nicole was impossible to read, but Qrow and Team RWBY were left feeling quite distinctly unnerved.
"I'll spare you too many details -there is far more to process and we do not have time to delve into it all," Salem explained. "Luna's ability to wield glyphs allows her to dilate time, and in doing so, she accidentally discovered a gravity well in one of the many remnants that I have walked."
"Glyphs?" Weiss repeated.
"As I said: we do not have time," Salem patiently indulged her. "I have existed in several different timelines: my existence is essential for the world you know coming to be. In a select few, the fate of our planet has intersected with the larger universe… including -at one point- an ore fired from a planet known as Cybertron that veered off-course.
"The ore was meant for another world: a previously-inhabited Cybertronian colony where the energon should've taken root," Salem elaborated. "Instead, some disturbance in space caused the rocket containing that ore to be diverted from its target and instead eventually found its way here. The energon combined with the Dust left behind… imbuing it with gravitational properties that affected not only the planet, but space around it.
"In another life I formed an alliance with Shockwave after he came looking for his 'Regenesis' ore," Salem continued. "He did not give me all the details of his plan, but he did provide me an incentive to join his alliance. An alliance that also included a terran like this one… but he wasn't one I thought would be amenable to helping me in this instance, so I instead opted to partner with another visitor from the stars… because of the way Shockwave's ore affected the planet, I had to find a different timeline where another terran visited, and that is curiously rare."
"How so?" Weiss inquired.
"Ore-4 affected the gravity of the planet, creating a deep well that isolated this remnant from the rest of space," Salem explained. "I do not know what terran year it is now, only that it was not the same year for us as it was for them. In one timeline, I advised a terran who ruled over vast swathes of space. In another, I met only one who used some strange power of his own to cross the distance between our worlds. This time around…" She affixed her gaze on Nicole. "... in this life, you make quite a difference in stopping the spread of a parasite, an old enemy of mine.
"But to more pressing matters," Salem quickly turned her attention back to Ruby. "Thawne is the greater threat. Shockwave is one of the most intelligent and capable beings I have ever met, but this man has powers that enable him to bend space and time without the need to use his science. This is the only timeline in which a terran and you -Ruby Rose- intersect that I am able to reach. The others… well, as I said: too much for now."
The others turned their attention to Ruby. Ruby's reply was a nervous cough.
"I'm sure you need a moment to discuss," Salem indulged. "But we cannot remain here indefinitely: it is already placing a strain on Luna's body. So if you're willing to help us, we need to know soon. We will need to make a contingency in case you are unable -or unwilling- to trust."
"And since when have you cared about what pain you put your subordinates through?" Qrow grumbled.
Salem ignored his remark. "Confer. We will wait for you."
The white-haired Faunus girl curiously glanced back at Blake and Weiss before turning her attention to Salem. The taller blonde girl scoffed and crossed her arms.
Yang reached over to her sister and her teammates, frantically whispering: "Emergency huddle."
Qrow, Oscar, and Maria caught on and moved over to join the gathering. Nicole kind of lingered to the side, her bulky armor making it hard for anyone to get too close.
"And I thought finding out there used to be an entirely different version of humanity would be the weirdest thing I heard today," Maria grumbled. "Now there are humans on other planets that can run fast enough to travel through time? Who comes up with this stuff?"
"We should focus on the important part," Blake suggested. "Salem only wants Ruby and Nicole. She didn't even say why she needs a -terran?- to help her with this, only that it's somehow relevant to the plans of these two… aliens."
"That's the part I find hardest to believe," Weiss mused. "Gravity Dust can affect local areas in large enough concentrations, but I've never heard of it diluting time by more than a few microseconds. Even with the aid of my glyphs, you can only push that a few more fractions…"
"But Salem also said that Remnant exists in multiple times at once because of the ore," Oscar reminded her. "Maybe she's not traveling as far as she seems to be? If there's anyone on the planet who'd know all these secrets, it'd be her."
"Yeah, but what about those kids with her?" Yang inquired. "That… that has to be, like, twenty years from now, if they're really our-"
"Don't fall for that, Yang," Qrow advised her. "They're just another batch of her disciples, telling whatever lies they need to."
"Including the silver-eyed one?" Yang fired back.
"Silver eyes…?" Maria wondered.
"Look, I don't know what all her magic can do," Qrow conceded. "But for some reason she wants to isolate Ruby and Nicole from us and I don't think it's because she's suddenly decided to stop anyone from destroying the world. Some people change, sure, but if what Jinn showed us is true, she hasn't changed for thousands of years."
Ruby had been quiet throughout. She turned her attention to another, as taciturn as herself… "What do you think, Nicole?"
"I think I'm billions of miles from home and someone else from my planet knows a way from here back to there," Nicole replied. "...though I agree we shouldn't be so quick to trust."
Another silence hung over them. Yang turned her attention to her little sister. "Ruby?"
"She said her name was Rose," Ruby reminded her. "Do you think that's a lie?"
"From Salem, you should assume everything is," Qrow flatly replied.
"Well… maybe we'll ask Luna instead, then," Blake suggested. "Get a sense for what the deal is there?"
"And the others?" Weiss asked, gesturing towards the white-haired Faunus girl, still huddled behind her tall, blonde friend.
"If they give us the runaround, that's one less reason to take their word for it," Maria advised. "They say time is of the essence, so maybe get right to the point?"
"That's the way I do things," Yang assured her.
"Ruby?" Blake asked.
Ruby paused. "If this is just a ploy… how do we stop Salem from killing us here and now?"
Another long, uncomfortable silence.
"For some reason she wants you alive," Weiss pointed out. "So… we have a bargaining chip, at least?"
"Very reassuring," Ruby dryly observed.
Nicole checked the ammunition in her submachine gun. "If things go south, I have an answer ready."
"Heh, you're gonna fit in just fine, Nic," Yang assured her, cocking Ember Celica.
The two moved ahead of the others in going to address Salem and her collection of allies. Yang took the lead and inquired: "So, you want us to play your game, we need something from you…" She pointed at the kids flanking Salem. "Tell us about your friends."
"Your children," Salem corrected.
Yang's confidence evaporated. "Our… what?"
LV-117
The color of the sky kept changing. First it was a clear blue, then a burning red, then littered with debris; rocks ripped up from the ground and pulled towards some twisted metal maw in the space above the planet… the doomed world endlessly repeating its cycle, from the raw, molten rock of creation to the explosion of life to the inevitable end in Unicron's feast.
Prowl remained at the ship: an anchor that would be lost again and again as Windblade searched for the activated energon Ore-1: her means of following Shockwave through the timestream. Assuming -of course- she could return to the moment of Shockwave activating the ore and drawing it from the planet before the gravitational curve meant LV-117's destruction finally became permanent… and she and Prowl would at best be stranded any number of stellar cycles in the past and at worst cease to be entirely.
It was becoming distressingly common for her to find herself in these situations. She wondered if Optimus ever had to-
If Optimus Prime ever-
He'd simply appeared before her, standing a few hundred meters away, weapon drawn and clashing with the sword of a foe… a Decepticon clad in Pretender technology.
Bludgeon, a notorious traitor who abetted in Shockwave and Jhiaxus' mad schemes… only to prove himself even more insane than his former partners and instead pledged himself to Unicron and the destruction of all the worlds touched by Cybertron's hand… quite possibly the only Cybertronian bold enough to try and destroy the universe and the timestream twice.
"Bludgeon!" she heard Prime's deep voice carry over the barren red rock. "I thought you ran home, coward!"
"I never run from Autobots," Bludgeon assured him.
Windblade immediately reached for her own sword and prepared to intervene. She'd taken several steps forward before she was given pause, watching the two clash. This event had taken place several years before, and Windblade had not partaken in it.
...she thought, anyway. Maybe she had and she'd convinced Prime not to mention it, not to reveal the events that would play out before the two had the chance to meet in defending Cybertron from Shockwave's machinations…
Her hesitation decided the result. A ship boomed overhead, its roar drowning out Bludgeon and Optimus' words from her receptors. Bludgeon drew back and taunted Optimus, before each of them vanished from sight, barren red rock replaced by lush green land under a warm blue sky.
This planet's navigation through chronal seas was… tumultuous, to say the least. So rapid she doubted she had much longer to search for a specific moment in history when she could interact with an energon ore that may not have even been excavated from the planet…
Prowl told her that the Decepticon known as Turmoil found Shockwave's Regenesis missile and had dug it up at some point, and provided the approximate coordinates of the site. But whether or not that span of weeks or months would occur in time for her to take hold of even a shard of energon, and still possess it at the time when Shockwave drew the energy of Ore-1 to his new target location…
If she failed, she was confident she wouldn't be the only one to notice. So she progressed, walking through a world constantly in flux, stepping over grass one moment and barren sand the next… approaching doom and salvation in equal measure.
She'd banked on a fool's hope before. She'd seen the impossible happen so many times already.
Yet sometimes one could not help but doubt. Sometimes the weight of saving all of creation was enough to wonder… if she failed…
Windblade's instruments were constantly thrown off by the timeline changes. The planet's topography kept shifting, and her coordinates kept moving. If at any point the planet entered a state after Unicron's consumption, where it was naught but a small gravity well…
She only knew she had to keep walking. To stay still, to not move forward… was to surrender, to accept such destruction as inevitable. That Windblade could not do, even when troubled by doubt.
Windblade saw a blue sky turn red, and saw grass replaced by cragged rock and burning sand. A planet at the early stages of its creation, before even primordial life could arise.
And a missile descending from the sky, preparing to seed the planet with energon ore…
There was the site. Millions of years before the energon would transform into its new state, but the correct place was clearly in her sight.
All that she needed now was a little energon… and a lot of luck.
Northern Anima
"Your children," Salem reiterated, waving her hand at the blonde and the white-haired Faunus. "Should I introduce them?"
The tall blonde -allegedly from the future- raised her hand. "Yo-?"
Yang focused her attention on the very familiar looking blonde girl. She searched the top of her head and -though hard to see from afar and in the faint snow- she did eventually discern a familiar cowlick. "...yeah, okay, sure."
The Faunus girl was nervous and reserved. When she stepped out from behind her friend, she addressed the group in a small -if still barely audible voice. "My name is Clara; Clara Belladonna. I'm the daughter of Blake and Weiss."
Her blonde friend patted the Faunus girl's head. "Or Cinnacat, as some like to call her-" She then quickly recalled the presence of the others and cleared her throat. "As for me, uh…"
Where Clara Belladonna was subdued, the taller blonde seemed very boisterous, thrusting out her fist when addressing Yang. "So, hi I'm Midas. This may come as a shock, but… what do you get when you cross an Arc with a Xiao Long?" She turned her hand back and pointed to herself. "You get this!"
Clara smiled at Midas' antics. She was so silly…
Team RWBY, Oscar, Qrow, and Maria all looked on, perplexed. Nicole, of course, had no idea why any of it mattered. Maria mostly seemed surprised to learn two of the girls she'd met that day had apparently hooked up… or would, anyway. Something to discuss at a better time…
"How did-" Weiss began.
"Wait, hold up," Ruby interjected. "When did Weiss… and Blake..." She started making some strange hand motions, trying to press them together without being too suggestive…
Salem sighed irritably. "The fate of the universe… and we still have to waste time on this nonsense."
Yang was no less perplexed. An Arc? She only knew one Arc and that meant-
Clara blushed. "It… involves a relic…" She looked very eager to deflect and not discuss the subject further.
Weiss turned her attention to Blush. Blush had the surname "Schnee" but Clara was also her child? Blake had mistaken Blush for an acquaintance of hers'...
"Focus," Maria instructed. "Plan, remember?"
"Right, right," Ruby quickly agreed, drawing a long breath and fixing her gaze on: "Salem… can we talk to Luna again? We're… uh, you know, a bit-"
"Skeptical?" Salem suggested. "Yes, as is only natural." She concentrated, once more concealing her features… fading away, restoring the shape of a younger, much less confident woman. When she opened her eyes again, they'd regained a silver hue.
"W-we need an answer s-soon," Luna pressed. "O-or we miss the m-moment to send you f-forward."
"Right, send me," Ruby reiterated. "Me and Nicole. Why only us? Why do you need to separate us?"
"S-Salem says that-"
"I don't want to know what Salem says," Ruby flatly replied. "You tell me: why do you need to separate us?"
Blush latched onto Luna's hand again. The Rose girl seemed to be having a lot of trouble keeping her composure, so her Schnee friend interceded. "Look: if you can't help us, then fine, we get it. But we need to know right now if you're willing to help us at all, because if you aren't we need to try another timeline."
Ruby glanced at the four kids. Their red-haired companion hadn't yet introduced himself… he hadn't said a word. And he looked suspiciously like someone Ruby fought with on the very worst night of her life…
"Why?" Ruby asked again. "Why did you come back?"
"Because it has to be you," Blush replied. "And yeah, I get it, I understand why you don't believe Salem. So believe your daughter."
Ruby's attention shifted back to Luna. She'd already suspected, but she hadn't quite given the idea voice…
Luna continued to shyly avert Ruby's gaze. Blush stepped forward again, still holding firm to Luna's hand. "She's fighting hard and she has to fight hard every single moment we're dislodged from time. She's fighting because if her mother had been able to do the same, she'd want her to."
Oscar had been quietly observing the whole time. Ruby felt his eyes on her back. He'd been there when she said much the same thing…
Luna was clearly more than just shy and nervous: her breathing had become noticeably more labored, and her fair skin had a visible sheen of sweat. Either she was far worse at maintaining her composure than Salem, or she was becoming increasingly strained the longer Ruby and the others waited…
Ruby turned her gaze back to her team. Qrow instantly recognized a familiar expression. "Ruby…"
Weiss, however, was more amenable, turning her attention to Blush. "If we don't help you, what happens?"
"We probably never exist," Blush cheerfully replied. "And you all die when Shockwave activates the ores when you get to-" She paused. "Uh, it's not too far from now, but probably best not say..."
Yang focused on Ruby's gaze. She already knew where her sister's head was at, and offered a subtle nod.
Weiss split her gaze between Blush and Clara, then turned her attention to Blake. Blake offered a much more affirmative nod, and Weiss fell in soon after.
Ruby turned her focus back to Luna and her three companions. "So… what do we need to do?"
The Back of Monstra, Near Atlas
One Possible Future
When Neo returned she very nearly collapsed, falling forward on the Grimm's black flesh. She reflexively cushioned her landing with her palms, but she exhaled very sharply as her Aura flickered again.
Shockwave looked up from his collection of energon crystals. "Is it done?"
Thawne manifested from Ruby's Aura, appearing in a static, neutral stance to not erode Neo's limited Aura too quickly. "The last collection panel is in place. Now we just need you to move your equipment to the communications tower. Neo's… associate is about to go there."
"Understood," Shockwave affirmed.
Thawne retreated back into Neo's Aura, giving her time to rebuild. Come on, kid. Home stretch now…
Neo took a few moments to catch her breath before rising to her feet. For a few more moments she was vulnerable, and she had to feign otherwise. It was crucial she let her Aura recover on the trip to Amity, to match up with Thawne's use of it when they arrived. Once Shockwave directed the energy to his ores, Neo would need to be very selective in how physical she was… and take very shallow breaths.
Neo found her rhythm and rose to her feet. Fortunately, she'd been able to wear her disdain openly in Cinder's presence before…
Salem, however, would be harder to predict. The queen had already demanded deference in her house, and Neo had genuflected and prostrated before her, reminding herself it was all in service of her revenge.
She would simply ensure Salem's wrath was focused on Cinder. Fortunately, Cinder could always be counted on to open her mouth.
"...I would like to think I have shown a great deal of patience over my many years walking Remnant," Salem observed. "But I do hate repeating myself. You will remain here." She narrowed her gaze, daring Cinder to object. "Is. That. Clear?"
Cinder quickly turned timid, dropping to kneel. "Yes… yes, of course. Without you, I am nothing."
A few moments after Salem was out of earshot, Cinder rose to her feet and insisted they move. Neo feigned objection, feigned reason… then went along, giving Cinder just enough defiance to think she'd earned Neo's submission.
Emerald interjected, offering to help her master. Thawne had said she'd be a necessary distraction…
Neo was beset on all sides by enemies. But their eyes were anywhere but upon her.
Emerald wanted to fly the ship. Neo stepped aside and let her. While Cinder climbed out and rode atop it -preparing to dish out a torrent of flame upon the new Winter Maiden- Neo left a facsimile in her seat and slipped out onto the colosseum's underside, catching the blade of her parasol on a shard of gravity Dust.
She saw Shockwave approaching from the south. Neo began her ascent, knowing the fighting would soon distract everyone else but the two of them… knowing that the future was moments away.
Neo scaled up the Dust protrusion, knowing she had only a few seconds before the bombs in the Dust mine below ignited and the explosions caught up to her…
A hand reached down. Neo was wary at first, but quickly noticed it was fair skin -so not Emerald- and masculine -thus not Cinder- and she accepted it in her grip. Thawne manifesting from her Aura and pulling her up that much faster…
Until she stood on her feet again, still holding the hand that lifted her up, a hand that-
That was attached to-
She mouthed his name.
He held up his hand and signed the word 'love' to her. He remembered what little she'd been able to teach him.
He wasn't wearing his hat: Neo still had it. But the coat, the slacks… the green eyes, the red hair…
Right at the moment she was to seize her revenge… the reason for it stood before her, alive and well.
LV-117
Millions of Years Ago
Windblade arrived at the impact site before Shockwave's missile had time to bore into the planet's crust. She reached right into the heat generated by the burning slag -even as her internal systems warned her of the temperature- to push aside denser rocks when they were vulnerable, ensuring that some of the ore would be exposed, or at least easier to excavate when the next time jump occurred.
Windblade activated her boosters and lifted off from the ground, watching Shockwave's missile dig further down, seeding the planet with energon that would naturally mutate when exposed to radiation emanating below the surface. Now came the difficult task of waiting… and hoping for the perfect moment to arrive when Shockwave drew the energy from Ore-1 back to Cybertron, providing her the brief window to follow it back to the only other instance in history where space and time aligned at a fixed point.
Prowl calculated that LV-117 would experience the repeat of Shockwave's Regenesis experiment in the near future… but also expected that to happen very near the point of the planet's gravity well finally correcting and LV-117 finally ceasing to exist completely. After Unicron consumed the planet in 2018, the Chaos Bringer gained the ability to manipulate time in localized points… Windblade would try to utilize the same trick to pause the flow of time long enough to follow the trail to Cybertron, then repeat the process from there to catch up with Shockwave in whatever other part of the universe he'd gone to so he could recreate his experiment.
She had to escape one dying planet unstuck from the rest of space and time, travel through time twice, save the universe from collapsing into a single point and do all of it without upsetting the existing timeline when she returned to Cybertron at the height of Shockwave's machinations, including avoiding any interaction with her own past self lest she not only create a new paradox but potentially break causality herself.
Just another day in the life of the First Delegate.
She saw the world beneath her change. She saw the exposed ore, poking out from the ground… a pink energon crystal with a deep red hue from the planet's rusted ground.
She waited again. Waited for the one critical moment that she'd need to expand into a window long enough…
Remnant, Anima
A Few Minutes Ago/A Few Weeks Ago
"You d-don't know what you're a-asking me to do," Luna sternly informed him. "If I send you a-ahead then there's n-no w-way we can get you b-back. N-not unless th-this works and it a-all comes undone."
"I know," her red-haired companion affirmed. "But this is why you brought me along, isn't it? To talk to her?
"You're not bringing anyone else along," he reminded her. "If you try to bring me instead of the terran you'll overtax yourself. But if you send me along first, I can try to persuade her to stop this."
"R-Roman," Luna did her best to be confident, despite her stammer. "She w-won't listen. She w-won't come back. She's t-too far gone."
Roman appraised her. "Is that what you believe… or what Salem believes?"
Luna could not meet his eye. She wasn't usually one for idealism… but this boy sometimes brought it out of her against her will.
Roman patted her shoulder to try and regain her attention. "I won't push you on this: I'll accept whatever you decide. You and Salem saved my family at Haven and I'm only here to help you. But if you really believed she was beyond saving you'd have let Salem destroy the timeline altogether. You'd cut your losses and let one timeline die, even if this is the one where-"
He paused. Luna nodded.
"If we're beyond saving, would she even be here?" Roman asked. "Would any of us?"
Luna sighed. "J-just remember. If this d-doesn't work, we c-can't get you b-back."
"If this doesn't work… does that matter?" Roman wondered.
Luna paused for a moment. She closed her eyes, and Salem slowly reasserted herself. At their backs, Blush distracted her mother while she made an inquiry. "...if we don't help you, what happens?"
"We probably never exist," Blush cheerfully replied. "And you all die when Shockwave activates the ores when you get to-"
Salem took Luna's watch from her pocket and tapped Roman's arm. "If you're still there, on the other side… we'll look for you."
"I'll be waiting," Roman assured her. "With open arms."
Salem drew a glyph over her watch. For them, the moment drew out… and Salem pinpointed the destination. She spun the hands of the clock over and over, giving him the push forward… without Ruby's speed to accelerate them, Salem would need to use her own magic, taxing Luna's body only further.
Roman felt the push as Salem flung him ahead, moving across sleet and forest, then rock and ice, then open water, then towards an even colder continent, to a platform left out in deep tundra above an abandoned mine…
He did not pretend to be confident. But he would try…
Salem faded back within Luna's features. Luna opened her eyes again, her breathing increasingly ragged. Ruby turned her attention from her friends back to Luna and her three companions. "So… what do we need to do?"
Solitas
One Possible Future
Neo continued to appraise him, quickly realizing that something was amiss. Not only was he far too young -possibly as much as a decade behind Roman when he passed- but his features were quite different. Fair skin, bright red hair, green eyes, a slender build… but that was it. Were it not for the white coat and tan slacks, she wouldn't even have been reminded. He'd just be another nameless face in a crowd, like so many others were.
Neo swiftly withdrew her hand from his grip. With both hands free he crossed them over his chest, signing to her the word 'love.'
Neo followed his hands, searching for a weapon. It wasn't at all like Roman to offer one hand without arming the other, even to her. Though… she was glad to see he remembered what of the language she managed to teach him.
The redheaded boy flatted one palm over his chest. With his opposite hand he tapped with two fingers: My name is…
Neo immediately grit her teeth: she hadn't ever managed to get that far when instructing him. She immediately reached for her parasol, extending its hidden blade and leveling it to his chin.
The boy did not run. He let the blade press just above his neck, firmly maintaining eye contact. "I thought this might happen," he murmured. "Would you rather I say it aloud?"
Neo glared at him. What difference did it make if his lies were signed or spoken?
We're on the clock here, kid. Not sure what this one's deal is… but if Shockwave's plan works, it might be a Time Remnant ended up falling through the cracks. The only place they could end up is here. This'll be the only point left in all the universe when we're done.
"My name is Roman Ren," the redheaded boy informed her. "I'm-I'm your son."
Her-
Well, isn't that interesting… Thawne mused.
"You have to stop this," Roman pleaded. "You don't know what you're about to do."
Neo very much disliked being talked down to. Presumably that would've been one of the first lessons she imparted to her children.
She moved the blade closer, actually scratching the boy's chin. He hadn't even activated his Aura? She'd like to think she wouldn't have raised such a fool…
"I know you think you have to do this," Roman pressed on. "But you don't. You… you can find something that matters more to you than revenge, if you ever believe that-" Neo pressed a little firmer, drawing blood. If she aimed a little lower, she could pierce a major artery…
Neo wondered how committed he was to the act. Would he continue to try to reason with her, not activate his Aura even as she sliced him up?
She didn't have much longer to indulge him anyway. Emerald would notice she was missing at any moment-
"You can eat ice cream three times a day," Roman suddenly interjected. "You always want more than one flavor. You don't really like eating at the table when you're by yourself and eat in front of the TV instead. You try not to let anyone notice but you like to watch daytime soaps, even if you always get frustrated because you had to miss an episode for work. You keep the volume loud so there's noise in the house and-"
Neo drove the blade deeper, ever closer to the artery. Now she was growing more concerned than irritated. How long had he watched her? What did he know? Who fed him his intel?
"I'm… I've never lied to you," the boy sheepishly explained. "I can't lie to you; you know all my tells. That's why I hoped that, maybe…" He sighed. "...I know it's hard to believe. I know you're in a bad place right now. But it will get better for you, eventually."
Neo's grip tightened on her parasol. She was getting tired of these empty platitudes.
"It's hard to let go," Roman conceded. "But if you don't, they're not the only ones who die. And eventually you realized that killing them didn't make you feel any better. Killing them didn't bring him back."
Neo's rage finally exploded. She moved to press her blade forward… but drove her strike upward, into his chin, slashing below his lip and missing his artery. He fell backwards, clutching his face where she'd offered her riposte.
She watched him writhe on the ground for a moment, still leveling her blade. He still hadn't engaged his Aura… she could easily skewer him…
She heard the clash above as Cinder found the robot girl. Neo's gaze turned skyward as Shockwave moved into position above Amity.
Neo kicked the boy with her heel, driving him towards the same edge she'd found herself on. He may not have had the sense to engage his Aura, but he did react quickly enough to latch on for dear life, his legs dangling off the side, even as the colosseum began lifting higher and higher thanks to the exploding Dust.
He's not worth it, kid, Thawne assured her. Get to the computer. It's finally time.
"I was hoping your friends would be here," Cinder observed. "But it looks like they left you to do all the work…" She superheated Dust shards in her cloak, creating dozens of new spears to aim upon her prey. She laughed at her opponent, musing: "You're just a tool to be used!"
"You do not know what you're talking about," Penny defiantly replied.
Cinder flung her superheated spears at the new Winter Maiden. Penny activated the rocket boosters in her boots and flew to dodge the attack, but the blades pursued her, manipulated by Cinder's scorching caress… relentlessly following her even as she tried circling the arena floor.
An unlikely savior interceded, however, when Maria -still piloting the loader she'd used to assist Pietro with construction- stepped in, Cinder's spears barely scratching her chassis. Maria narrowed her gaze at Cinder and readied her mech's massive fist. "Get away from her, you b-"
A sudden burst of energy rained down, striking the top of Maria's loader, ripping away much of the metal and exposing the machine's power core. Cinder and Penny turned their gaze skyward: that amount of firepower would've been impressive coming from an Atlesian flagship, let alone…
It was a ship without visible kingdom markings; a design neither of them recognized. A deep purple, with what appeared to be crosshairs atop its hull… more like a handheld gun than a plane.
That was, until its gears began to shift and what at first appeared to be an unconventional vehicle… transformed into a towering, humanoid robot, albeit one with a cannon where its left hand should've been, and a flat, hexagonal head with a single yellow eye.
"What in the world-?!" Penny began, but didn't have a chance to finish her thought: the towering purple machine batted her away with its right hand, sending her crashing into the colosseum wall.
Cinder moved to follow her target -confused, but largely indifferent to this interloper- until a second blast erupted from the cannon on its left arm, striking Cinder and knocking off most of her Aura, the force of the energy burst launching her right through the arena wall and out into the frigid air.
Maria struggled to get her mech righted to counteract the twelve-meter-tall purple robot. She never got the chance to press up from the ground: the towering machine reached into her loader and extracted the Dust powering the suit, causing Maria's chassis to flop back onto the arena floor.
The Decepticon logician turned his optic onto the yellow ore in his hand, already beginning to react… sinking into his palm, trying to reach the other energon ores he'd brought along. The electromagnetism of the lightning Dust could detect the radiating power of the Ore-13 from Earth.
Shockwave turned his attention to the terminal, where the chair-bound human continued to feverishly program the tower. Doing Shockwave's work for him, by engaging the gravity Dust -and thus activating Ore-4, the key that would bend space and bring the energy of dying worlds right to him…
Remnant, Anima
A Few Weeks Ago
"I'll p-push Nicole ahead with my S-Semblance," Luna explained. "The trail of g-glyphs left b-behind will help y-you to run it. You'll have a c-clear path to f-follow."
"I still don't understand how this is supposed to work," Ruby muttered.
"The time dilation will speed up your pace, but you'll still be moving slower than Nicole is when she's pushed forward," Blush elaborated. "But because Nicole will move along a series of glyphs, you'll be able to see the path she moved in and be able to reach them before they'd naturally expire. The time dilation will continue to move with each of you as you push ahead, and your pace will continue to accelerate.
"You're the only one who can do this," Blush pressed. "Ideally we'd send more people, but we've already pushed Luna harder than her body can take. She could only move us because we were all already on this continent and we all moved from a fixed point to the same fixed point in another timeline. She has to send Nicole but she can't send anyone else at the same time, and you can keep up as long as you maintain your footing."
Salem reasserted herself sometime during the conversation, Ruby instantly becoming wary of the immortal witch now standing to her left. "Do you need any time to say your goodbyes?"
Nicole headed over from the small group. Her helmet made her expression hard to read, but she seemed prepared. Ruby, meanwhile, headed back over to her teammates, quickly pulling all three into an embrace. She kind of awkwardly glanced at Oscar, Qrow, and Maria… hoping they'd get the message with just an affirmative nod.
She returned to stand beside Salem and Nicole, Blush going to rejoin the white-haired Faunus girl and the tall blonde -Clara and Midas, Ruby reminded herself. Ruby turned her attention back to Salem, staring at her so long the witch finally inquired: "...what?"
"Why are you helping us?" Ruby asked. "I thought- I would have thought destroying everything and everybody was what you wanted."
"In another life," Salem acknowledged. "But I've led many of them now; enough to ask myself how many times I could make the same mistake."
"So what's different this time?" Ruby pressed.
"The children," Salem flatly answered.
Ruby wanted to ask more. But the hands on the clock had already begun to spin, and glyphs began to form on the ground. Ruby turned her head back to the white symbols forming before her, Salem affixing more such glyphs directly upon Nicole. "So… what do I do?"
"Run, Ruby," Salem simply replied. "Run."
Nicole seemed to be moving ahead now… moving without changing the position of her feet. Ruby hastened to keep up, activating her own Semblance and running towards the glyph… and the next… and the next… always behind Nicole, but the world around her moving faster and faster like a blur…
Ice, rock. Sand, water. White, gray, dark blue. All flashing by in an instant. Ruby kept her gaze on the glyphs before her, even as she ran upon them over running water or empty air.
Running… a streak of red moving across the world…
At her back, her friends watched Ruby disappear in a flash of light. Salem fell forward onto the snowy ground, Aura flickering on the body of the girl she inhabited… breathing hard, coughing and sputtering.
Yang glanced around the otherwise quiet clearing when she noticed something amiss… "Hey, what happened to that red haired guy?"
"Uh…" Midas nervously massaged the back of his head. "So, yeah… the person we're trying to stop? Turns out it's his mom."
Weiss sighed. "Oh, for the love of-"
LV-117
Beginning and End
A second ship appeared, resting on the surface beside Shockwave's missile. A team of Decepticons excavated the exposed ore, starting at the site Windblade had dug for them -the smallest crack in the ground transformed into a deep crevice- to be transported aboard their ship, fitted with a transwarp device.
Turmoil -a minor Decepticon general in his day- had been commissioned by Shockwave to retrieve Ore-1 and return it to Cybertron, unaware that merely retrieving the mutated energon would alter his transwarp system into a full-blown time drive, which would eventually be instrumental in Shockwave's final stages of Regenesis. All of it had been carefully, meticulously planned… and in taking this step, Windblade had to beat back her own temptation to undo what would -what had already happened.
Ore-1 shard in hand, Windblade moved in while the Decepticons were focused on their work. She took hold of the time drive and prepared for transport of just one… just herself to Cybertron, for events that would occur decades later to Turmoil and his crew, but for Windblade would be the blink of an eye.
She left the black hull of the Decepticon ship behind and found herself before the time drive, latched to the chest of Shockwave, the Decepticon's face consumed beneath a steadily growing singularity that would consume the Crystal City Shockwave had made his base of operations.
The gravity was too strong for her to retreat from. She could only make use of the time drive again to move her position, to find the resonance where Ore-1 had activated once again… a moment preserved at this single point in history, where present, past and future intersected in the chassis of the same Decepticon logician.
Windblade struggled against the pull of the black hole where Shockwave stood. His own body was being pulled within, drawn away from the Cybertron of 2013 to the Cybertron twelve million years beforehand, where his machinations would begin anew.
Windblade held firmly to the time drive, pushing the Ore-1 into the device mounted on Shockwave's chest, fighting against the gravitational pull as she desperately tried to embed the energon into the Decepticon who would repurpose that same energy, drawing the past to his position in the future…
Windblade saw the darkness of the singularity growing all around her. If she couldn't activate the time drive, she too would be flung millions of years into Cybertron's past, and even with the transwarp technology in hand she'd have to somehow survive longer than most of her species were capable of on an untamed planet alongside the greatest Cybertronian enemy she'd ever faced, and again risk polluting the timeline with her intervention.
Somewhere in the encroaching darkness, Windblade saw a flicker of light…
Remnant, Solitas
A Sunrise Dark
Pietro frantically called to the others, even as he feverishly tried to guide Amity's ascent into the upper atmosphere. "Penny?! Maria?! Come on, y'all- somebody talk to me!"
"Careful what you wish for, doctor," mused an unfamiliar voice, as a blonde-haired man in a yellow suit approached him, trailing a curious streak of red energy back towards a shorter girl clad in white, with a long mane of two-colored hair beneath a black derby hat. "You just might get it…"
"Wha- who are you people? What are you doing here?" Pietro demanded.
"I've been called a lot of things," the man in the yellow suit mulled. "But for now, Doctor Polendina… maybe you'll listen to me and step aside. We need your cute little communications tower for a little pet project we've been working on."
"You can't interfere with it now!" Pietro protested. "If we miss our broadcast altitude we won't be able to reach the rest of the CCT with Ruby's message about-"
"Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't worry about that," the man in yellow advised him. He turned his gaze skyward. "You're about to have bigger problems."
A loud roar caught Pietro's attention. A shadow fell over his head and something massive landed behind him, hitting the ground with such impact Pietro's chair briefly lifted from its rest.
He didn't even have time to turn around before he was batted away by a massive purple foot. Pietro was knocked from his chair and skidded along the floor, landing in a heap several meters away, lying paralyzed on the ground.
Thawne moved over to the terminal Pietro had occupied. "I'll reroute power from the gravity Dust to this point. We'll have to do this fast: without the thrust this tower will start to lose altitude and this hunk of metal probably won't take the landing very well."
Shockwave turned his single eye to the tower above Thawne's head. He began depositing the various shards of Ore-13, from many different Earths about to be exposed to antimatter waves that would further empower the machine. Thawne placed the collection panels around the central tower before racing away to other points of the colosseum, quickly extracting smaller shards of gravity Dust from the engines to place alongside the Ore-13. Ore-4 and Ore-13 began reacting to one another, arcs of energy moving across the room between individual shards.
Shockwave's chest lit up with faint blue light. Where he'd once placed the time drive, and the Ore-1 of LV-117… previously inert without its mates, now resonating and active once again. Time, gravity, and enough antimatter to power this small satellite indefinitely… after Shockwave used the Ore-4 to reformat the planet into a new Cybertron, a new birthplace for his empire, and the only point of light against the infinite darkness.
Thawne found Neo simply observing them, walking slowly over to her side, trying not to tax her Aura any further. "Hey, kid, we're almost there. A few more minutes and we've pulled it off: we're the only ones left in all the universe; in every universe."
Neo faintly nodded. It wasn't as satisfying as watching Ruby Rose and Cinder Fall die at her hand.
Nor as satisfying as watching a soap and eating a big bowl of ice cream, actually…
"Hey, kid, don't worry about it," Thawne reassured her. "I know that weird guy tried to mess with your head, but it's nothing to trouble yourself over. Soon he'll end up the same as everyone else… just like every other one of them clad in red: Rose, Fall, Flash..."
Neo nodded. Sure, it was good to hear… but it did ring a bit hollow without a corpse for her to find.
Thawne returned his focus to Shockwave and the tower. "Senator?"
"It begins, at last," Shockwave confirmed. "The antimatter will collect in this tower and fire straight down into the planet, to wipe the slate clean… clean of everything but my Ore-4."
"Upon this rock..." Thawne mused. "Then the wave will spread out and do the same to Earth -to every Earth- and rip asunder everything but your Energon, to be drawn back here to infuse this planet's husk with your lifeblood."
"A sunrise dark shall cast pall upon the empire," Shockwave observed. "And time will rust…"
Ruby finally found herself upon solid ground again, screeching to a halt as she ran across a blank gray slate of floor, almost crashing into a wall. Nicole seemed better acclimated at first, but she very nearly doubled over herself, having to crouch slightly and hold to her knees, trying to keep herself steady.
"You okay?" Ruby asked.
Nicole nodded. "Just… doing a lot of things for the first time today."
"Tell me about it," Ruby agreed. "Alright, where did w-"
She paused as she took in her surroundings. "...Amity Colosseum? I thought Luna and Salem said this was the future, not-"
Not where she saw Penny die. Not where she heard the cry of Grimm that brought with them the fall of Beacon.
"...come on," Ruby gestured to Nicole. "I know this place okay. It's been a while, but I think that-"
Some sort of energy reaction took place over their heads, briefly illuminating the gray of the arena with electric yellow. A crack like thunder followed shortly after, as the skies overhead seemed to be turning increasingly dark.
"Uh, maybe what we're looking for is over… there, in that general direction," Ruby suggested.
"Target in sight," Nicole agreed, reaching to her hips to demagnetize her submachine guns. Ruby took off ahead of her with Nicole charging after, heading towards the center of the makeshift satellite.
At their backs, a Grimm arm pulled up along the hull of the floating colosseum, Cinder Fall's ragged breath muted by the thunderclap.
She recognized that voice. She knew it well.
To think that the Winter Maiden and the silver-eyed warrior were both in the same place…
A hand reached down towards her black Grimm limb. Cinder turned her remaining eye upward to see… Roman Torchwick?
No, much younger. Not quite the same… swagger about him, and a fresh scar over his chin. But if not Torchwick, who-?
"Hello, auntie," the redheaded boy greeted. "Spare a moment to talk?"
Neo watched the machines of her world warp by Shockwave's technology. Thawne dashed about between collection panels, moving quickly enough to direct the antimatter without ever being touched by its destructive ray.
All of it pouring into energon crystals lining the communications tower, each glowing a baneful pink light.
Neo didn't care to observe the process. Even the light at the end of the world could be quite dull when the audience would rather turn her gaze upon-
Neo leveled her parasol once again when she saw a familiar face. Though Neo thought she'd cut her hair recently -and gotten herself a new outfit. Those white, baggy sleeves and that longer head of hair weren't her best look, in Neo's opinion.
But she'd make a lovely corpse just the same.
"What's going on?" Neo heard the familiar whiny voice. "That- that's a giant robot."
Shockwave turned his gaze towards the interloper. "And he shall stand alone while not alone…" He turned his optic away from the girl in the red hood to another humanoid beside her, clad in powered armor. "And adorned the titan will be in black metal."
Neo kept her attention on Ruby Rose, caring little for her towering brute of a friend. Thawne grinned. "Well, well… I was wrong, kid. Looks like your destiny came right to you."
Neo didn't care for the word. But if Ruby Rose had so kindly rushed towards her death… Neo could hardly be bothered by Thawne's pontificating. At long last, her patience had been rewarded.
"Child," Pietro called from the floor. "You have to-have to stop them. I don't know what they've done, but they talkin' like the world's about to end!"
"All worlds are about to end," Thawne corrected him. "And you get a front row seat… be honored."
Ruby reached to her back, readying her scythe. Neo stepped towards her, coming clearly into the silver-eyed girl's field of vision… to make perfectly clear Ruby Rose knew whom would be her executioner.
"Neo…" Ruby muttered.
No fear. That would not do.
The person in powered armor leveled twin guns at the towering Shockwave and at Thawne. She turned her helm towards Ruby and observed: "We're outnumbered."
"That a problem?" Ruby inquired.
"Only that my aim may be more… indiscriminate," Nicole replied.
"Suits me," Ruby nodded.
Thawne chuckled, cracking his knuckles. "I'll keep the Spartan off you. Little Red Riding Hood is all yours'."
Neo curtly nodded. As though she would allow things to play out any other way…
Shockwave was still observing events unfold, even as the energon ores continued to resonate. "And the stars shall scream," he turned his gaze back to his chest, to Ore-1 slowly dredging out from his chassis. "And the symbol of the uncreator shall be clear… and his gaze shall unravel the legacy of Primus."
Shockwave knew better, of course. The prophecy was an invention; his own creation to motivate and guide his younger self into creating Regenesis in the first place. For when his first attempt failed and he was flung millions of years into the past, unable to return after his time drive was lost in the singularity… how things should come full circle after all.
But when Shockwave reached for the ore, he found himself unable to detach his grip. The energon was so dense… he could not pull his fingers away. He tried to remain calm and not alert this new pair of enemies -or his nominal 'allies'- but quickly found himself unable to relax his grip.
He had to retrieve Ore-1 to precisely capture the energy expenditure, lest the antimatter overwhelm even the abundance of Ore-13 he'd embedded in the satellite. He still had considerable time before the energon was overwhelmed, but being unable to utilize his right hand would stall his work too long…
...that was, until another hand emerged from within his chest, red and black and gold… and reaching right through from the ore. Shockwave's grip was no longer affixed, but the pain in his sensors made it that much harder to focus just the same.
The tear widened across his chest. The shards of Ore-4 reacted to Ore-1, bending the area, expanding the event horizon as something -someone- emerged from Shockwave's chest and landed on the Amity colosseum floor.
Thawne paused, turning his gaze to… "Another Cybertronian? Now?!"
She stood up moments later, her systems adjusting to… yet another new galactic date, an area saturated with raw energon crystals overloading her circuits, and… four humans facing off against each other?
But then she turned and saw: "SHOCKWAVE!"
Shockwave peered down at the hole left in his chest. His time drive, reactivated from within the singularity… not lost, as he'd previously believed. The past had come forward to the present, and the circle drawn and completed at last.
Shockwave fixed his optic on Windblade. "Thus shall the adversary rise."
Windblade knew the words. Her people once recited the prophecy, never knowing that Shockwave had created it, dictating the pace of history for Cybertron and its colony worlds through machinations that lasted multiple lifetimes…
Windblade reached for her sword. Shockwave reacted first, firing his arm cannon and blasting the First Delegate away from him, skidding along the gray floor, crashing beside two of the humans: one clad in a red hood, the other in expressionless, faceless armor.
"...I don't think she's with them," Ruby observed.
"Then we are no longer outnumbered," Nicole optimistically suggested.
Ruby moved beside the winged, significantly more feminine robot. "Hey, are you alright?"
The robot tried to analyze the language. Not a human tongue she knew, and her internal processors were already trying to isolate the damage from Shockwave's laser…
But she was offering help. If she was Shockwave's creature, Windblade very much doubted this human would reach down when she had fallen.
The human in powered armor spoke a tongue Windblade knew. "The bad day you're having just got worse."
Windblade quickly turned her focus to this mysterious, armored woman. "Shockwave… I'm here to stop him. He has to be stopped. If you humans remember, he's tried to destroy all of reality a couple times now…"
"So we've heard," Nicole confirmed. "If you're here to help, we could use an extra gun."
"Or sword, in this case," Ruby chimed in.
"...or sword, yes," Nicole nodded.
Windblade rose to her feet, turning her attention to Shockwave, Thawne, and the short girl in the beret. "...those the bad guys?"
Thawne chuckled. "Little transformer… you're already too late."
Ruby readied Crescent Rose. Windblade took hold of her sword with both hands, drawing it from its sheath. Nicole fixed her guns on Thawne, eager to respond to his boasts with lead.
"Well, this isn't at all what I had in mind…" Thawne mused. "But someone had to try and put a stop to us, I guess…"
"A black star," Shockwave added. "Unstopped… and unstoppable."
Windblade tensed up. Thawne chuckled. "Unstoppable indeed… let them try and prove us wrong."
Nicole started firing. The man in yellow dashed around -moving around her hail of bullets- trailing red lightning at his back. Ruby tried to get a bead on him with her sniper rifle, but Neo interceded, trying to skewer Ruby with the blade of her parasol.
Despite their elevation, there was no fear of catching wind in the fabric. Ruby Rose wouldn't be able to escape her a second time.
But she kept dodging Neo's attacks, utilizing her Semblance to try and reposition herself to provide cover fire for the woman in powered armor. Thawne arced his own speed around Nicole, striking her with his left hand at a rapidly increased pace.
The Mark VI absorbed the kinetic impact, its shield holding. Thawne sheepishly glanced at Nicole, who bashed him with the butt of her submachine gun, sending him reeling a few steps… but he found his footing before Nicole could follow up, avoiding another stream of gunfire and repositioning himself once again.
Windblade moved to close the distance between Shockwave and herself, but he easily caught her sword with his right hand, the blade barely chipping his purple chassis. "How thoughtful of you to bring my time drive back to me. Now the Ore-1's interactions can be more… precise."
"You're still as insane as you were the last time we chatted, Shockwave," Windblade grumbled. "Guess you didn't learn anything all the time we kept you locked up."
"On the contrary," Shockwave objected. "I've learned the value of persistence… when you have the power to back it." He leveled his cannon arm at Windblade and prepared to discharge another laser burst… at the close range and in her already damaged state…
...when another, smaller blade -attached by a length of wire- imbedded itself into Shockwave's wrist, pulling his cannon arm back. The shot discharged into the arena wall, leaving a gaping hole; the frigid wind surging in like a storm current.
Shockwave turned his optic to the source of this new attack, only for three other blades to be launched onto his arm and shoulder. The small, redheaded human woman from before… with wired blades emerging from her back?
Not a human at all. Thawne had failed to mention that…
"Let her go!" the nonhuman girl commanded.
Ruby recognized the voice. She looked up from her scope across the battlefield to see her… cast in a redesigned body, with longer, poofier hair, new thrusters in her black heeled boots… but unmistakably…
"Penny…?" Ruby breathed.
Neo saw an opening and moved in. Nicole turned her attention from Thawne and fired at Ruby's assailant, only for the girl in the black derby hat to apparently shatter into pieces. Ruby quickly dashed over to regroup beside Nicole, still keeping her attention on Penny, apparently reincarnated and attempting to hold the giant robot's cannon away from firing range.
Ruby tried to calm herself. Salem had said this was only one of several potential timelines and not necessarily the future of the world Ruby knew. But… did that mean that the timeline had diverged before Penny's death at Beacon, or…
She had no time to dwell on it. Thawne dashed over beside her, interjecting himself between her and Nicole. Before Ruby had a chance to react, he'd leveled her with a clothesline, knocking off a good chunk of her Aura.
"Slow," Thawne mocked. He readjusted his position once again, charging towards Ruby on the ground, only for Neo to move in first, aiming to strike Ruby while she was down. Thawne quickly shifted his course, going for Nicole, but had to break off again when the Spartan-II fired his way and he had to dodge the oncoming gunshots.
Shockwave, meanwhile, finally began to overpower Penny's pull, drawing his arm back into place. Windblade, however, had not been idle: she inverted the VTOL fans on her wings to face the one-eyed Decepticon, blasting his face with stiff gusts of wind to go along with the sharp current his hole already let in. Shockwave eventually lost his grip on her sword and Windblade delivered a quick slash across his already-damaged chest.
Abandoning his poise for a moment, Shockwave thrust his left arm with all his upper body strength, uprooting Penny from the ground and flinging her over his head; crashing right into Windblade and actually knocking the comparatively smaller transformer down, surprised by the weight of the redheaded girl.
"Shockwave, the tower!" Thawne urged. "We'll deal with the kids!"
Shockwave turned his attention back to the terminal. The antimatter wave was about to hit the various alternate Earths, and the Ore-13 about to absorb a monumental, almost uncalcuable level of energy.
Neo pursued Ruby as the silver-eyed girl rolled along the ground, deftly maneuvering around the shorter woman's strikes. Penny climbed up from Windblade's torso and moved into place beside her friend, clashing two of her thin swords against Neo's parasol.
"Penny!" Ruby exclaimed.
"Ruby, thank goodness you're here!" Penny noted. "Though… did you somehow manage to grow your hair back in less than a week? Not-not that I don't like the look-"
Neo capitalized on Penny's distraction, her illusory self shattering after a short clash and slipping right by the machine girl, going for Ruby once again. Ruby narrowly avoided being skewered again when she brought up Crescent Rose to defend, Neo's blade sailing over Ruby's shoulder and giving her Aura another scratch.
Thawne took Neo's place against Penny, striking the robot girl with an accelerated punch, hitting her hard enough for her to leave her feet and be driven back into the wall. The speedster then moved to attack Nicole again, striking rapidly with multiple punches to her torso, quickly tearing through the shields of the Mark VI armor…
Nicole hoisted up her knee. Thawne caught the attack with both hands, but had to retreat again when Nicole attempted to fire her submachine guns at him, running back several meters, counting the spent shells discharging from each weapon…
She only had so much ammunition. She'd run out eventually, and when she did Thawne would tear through her armor's little shield and put his fist through her face…
Penny, however, followed Thawne's movements, noting how a trail of red lightning arced whenever Thawne moved. Lightning that seemed to be attached to the same unfamiliar girl so relentlessly chasing Ruby…
"Armored girl!" Penny called to Nicole, "Shoot the girl attacking Ruby! The man in yellow needs her as his conduit!"
Windblade climbed up from the ground at last, focused on Shockwave's back. Nicole took Penny's suggestion to heart and started firing at Neo, who quickly used her Semblance and shattered into pieces, vanishing from sight once more… until the trail of red lightning betrayed her position, and where she'd reemerge a moment later.
Ruby moved in with her scythe, intercepting Neo when she reappeared. Neo looked on, stunned, just barely able to raise her parasol to deflect Crescent Rose's slash.
Thawne grimaced. "Get out of the way! I'll deal with these little interlopers myself!"
He started running faster, and more lightning arced off Neo's body, more of her Aura drained away to empower him… so much her Aura started to flicker.
Ruby turned her attention to the lightning, chasing after it, using her Semblance to keep up… or at least keep Thawne running, pushing Neo's Aura to its breaking point that much faster.
Windblade charged towards Shockwave, only for the Decepticon logician to whirl around and take hold of her throat, hoisting her from the ground and leveling her up from the ground once again. He turned from the terminal and leveled his arm cannon to her once again, musing: "No more, Camien; no more half-measures."
Windblade nodded, even as Shockwave's cannon powered up, illuminating her face with the charge of his laser. "I couldn't agree more."
She let her sword clatter to the ground and drove her free hand into Shockwave's chest, to the Ore-1 still connected to the time drive… newly empowered by the resonating energy flow of Ore-4 and Ore-13.
She bid the time drive complete the same task as it had before… return its bearer to the moment upon which the fate of time and space hinged.
Windblade retracted her arm. She saw the laser erupt from Shockwave's cannon… only for it to be drawn back, pulled in by the gravitational pull, as the cannon, the arm, and the Decepticon scientist all vanished before her, Windblade falling to the ground once again beside her sword.
Cybertron, 2013
A Prophecy Fulfilled
Shockwave reemerged, glancing around, quickly taking in his surroundings. Crystal City, slowly being drawn into an infinite darkness… a singularity of his own making. His younger self had already fallen within it, the time drive sending him twelve million years into the past.
A sunrise dark shall cast pall upon the empire.
Shockwave looked down at his chest, at the energon from Ore-1 becoming inert once more. Without the means to time travel -as he had at that moment and millions of years beforehand- he had only to fall into the crushing gravity well. Where… it was only logical that he-
And time will rust.
Shockwave watched his younger self disappear into the darkness, the time drive shielding him, ensuring his journey, and that the timeline was preserved, with his present self as its sole witness.
And he shall stand alone while not alone.
Shockwave searched for any technology within his chassis to save himself. He could already feel the gravity shredding his body, the purple of his metal plating stripped away to expose bare circuitry, cast black against the swirling, colorless darkness of the singularity.
And adorned the titan will be in black metal.
Shockwave's internal computer reported one distress message after another. He knew there was no point in heeding them now.
And the stars shall scream.
Shockwave glanced down at his exposed chest, at the now dull, powerless shard of energon embedded in his circuits. He saw his single optic reflected back.
And the symbol of the uncreator shall be clear.
Shockwave looked down at his left arm, ripped away by the gravity. The laser core erupted blasting him with shards of his own internal mechanisms, pushing him that much closer towards the end.
And his gaze shall unravel the legacy of Primus.
Shockwave's optic flickered as his system attempted to go into stasis lock. But he could already feel his spark casing twisting, contorting under the unrelenting gravity… exacerbated by the slashes Windblade had made to his chest.
All because of Windblade of Caminus… because his Ore-4 found its way to her colony world…
"Thus shall… the adversary rise…" Shockwave mused.
He lowered his head, watching his chest plating snap. He heard his spark chamber crack.
He thought it fitting. That ambition should be thwarted once again by an unpredicted variable. That the prophecy he himself created should come about by his own misstep.
As was only logical.
Shockwave, former senator, former Decepticon military operations commander, possibly the greatest mind Cybetron ever produced… finally saw his spark extinguished, a single point of light against the infinite darkness.
A black star. Unstopped and unstoppable.
Remnant
The Satellite
Thawne heard Nicole run out of ammunition and discard her submachine gun. He moved to attack her, to finally break through her pesky protective barrier… only for Nicole to reach for her another weapon magnetized to her hip, which the Spartan-II hoisted in her right hand.
She'd never wielded it before -only recently having acquired it in the battle in the snow- but she'd seen the Sangheili fight with them many times. Her tactics would be somewhat more… imprecise.
Nicole activated the Type-1, casting two blades of plasma from its curved hilt. Thawne very nearly ran right into the sword in the Spartan's hand, but managed to duck down and slide under Nicole's rampant swing. He retreated from the trio of women, grimacing as Neo continued to try and pursue the little silver-eyed girl even as her Aura drained down faster and faster…
Thawne glanced around the arena floor, noting a particular absence among his allies… then turned his gaze to the energon ores lining the CCT, reacting to the antimatter, their color shifting from pink hues to dark yellow… contorting, their power output no longer counterbalanced by Shockwave's time dilation.
Thawne cursed. There went Plan A…
Still, he never failed to have a contingency. And if Shockwave couldn't utilize the antimatter wave now, Thawne could find another suitable timeline to try again. For the moment, however, he'd deal with the interlopers and take whatever valuable technology he could from the Cybertronian and the little cyborg girl…
Thawne started running faster and faster, burning through Neo's Aura. Drawing it all to him to push himself towards a level of power they wouldn't be able to match.
Neo collapsed, her Aura shattering on her body. Ruby turned her attention to Thawne, now little more than a red blur racing around the floor. Nicole, Penny, and Windblade all readied their swords.
"If we can predict his location I can take him out," Nicole suggested.
"He's too fast," Ruby admitted. "Even for me."
Penny came to a realization, abruptly -and rapidly- tapping Ruby's shoulder. "Cover me." She raced towards the terminal, braving Thawne's red storm. Ruby caught on, diving into the fray after, trying to keep pace with Thawne… and more importantly, keep his attention.
Thawne slowed ever so slightly to glance back at Ruby Rose trying to chase him. Lightning encircled his yellow suit, collecting in an increasingly virulent swarm. "You're fast, kid, but to me you might as well be standing still." He turned around to face down the silver-eyed warrior, the red bolts running along his arms.
Penny found the terminal. Despite Shockwave and Thawne's reprogramming of the communications tower, the basic routines of Amity remained unaffected, including the combat settings for the Vytal tournament…
Penny disengaged the artificial gravity. Thawne and Ruby suddenly found themselves running -then wobbling- on empty air.
Windblade caught on quickly, transforming to vehicle mode, using her VTOL jets to provide her own momentum. Nicole climbed onto the Camien's back, finding a place to magnetize her feet while the transforming jet moved to pursue Thawne while he was vulnerable.
Ruby saw the pair coming, transforming Crescent Rose into its sniper rifle form and leveling it at Thawne, firing several high impact rounds… drawing the lightning away from his body with the metal shells flying by his head.
Thawne tried to adjust himself, to frantically maneuver his body back towards the ground, but the storm front pushing cold air towards him and the lack of gravitational pull to accelerate…
Windblade arced just past Thawne. Nicole leveled the energy sword, the plasma blades slicing right through what remained of his lightning storm.
Penny reached towards Ruby, her eyes lighting up with green Aura… pushing her friend towards Thawne with her own powerful wind current. Ruby adjusted her scythe back into place and met Nicole in the middle, passing Thawne's opposite side.
The lightning followed all three as Thawne felt the blades intersect. Neo's Aura finally failed, and his physical manifestation broke in two, fading in flickering red.
Penny reengaged the gravity. Ruby landed in a heap, but Nicole and Windblade managed to stay aloft and make a proper landing. Penny then moved to her father's side, first helping him to his chair then moving him over to the terminal to try and stop the adjustments Thawne and Shockwave had made.
"This ain't good," Pietro murmured. "These crystals are completely unstable. Gonna blow any moment, if I had to guess."
Neo groggily looked up from the ground. Nicole leveled the energy sword to the back of her neck and subtly shook her head.
"How many are there?" Penny asked. "Maybe we can extract them?"
"Extract them and take 'em where?" Pietro asked.
"Into the upper atmosphere," Penny replied. "Where the Dust ceases to work."
"This isn't your 'Dust,'" Windblade informed her. "I should be the one to take it. I knew all along this would be a one-way trip…"
Ruby glanced around the arena. The air was getting increasingly thinner the higher they went…
"Then we should leave," Ruby replied. "All of us."
"Ruby, what about the message?" Penny asked. "If we lose the tower we never contact the rest of Remnant."
Ruby had… no idea what Penny was talking about. "Well, broadcast it now, send whatever you can," Ruby suggested. "Because this place is going down. We have to go."
"Afraid she's right," Pietro conceded. "We gotta find Maria and get to the ship. I'll start the signal and see how much of it gets sent out…"
"What about this one?" Nicole inquired, gesturing to Neo on the ground.
Neo was groggy, already past her breaking point. She looked up at Ruby, glaring, offering one last defiance before her eyes drifted shut…
She heard the girl say something. She heard Roman's name.
She saw them gather around her, felt someone reach down in the darkness...
When Neo woke she found herself in the back of a transport ship. She could see Ruby Rose ahead of her beside her redheaded robot friend, along with the old woman and the chair-bound man in the cockpit. Neo glanced about for the armored woman, but saw no one else in the cargo bay with her.
She crept closer, listening to… Ruby Rose's own voice?
"We didn't have time to prepare for Salem," she heard the high pitch from a Scroll in the robot girl's hand, "But now you do. Just because she can't be destroyed doesn't mean she can't be beaten."
Such irritating optimism.
"If she really was unstoppable, she wouldn't have acted with such caution until now," the voice of Ruby Rose continued. "She knows we're a threat. So even if we -even if Atlas -falls you can't give up."
Neo searched for her blade. She could clearly see Ruby's back…
That's it, kid. Just a little longer and I can get us out of this…
Ah, yes. And the voice in her head. So she was not completely unarmed…
But then, Thawne had left her to fend for herself and stolen all her Aura. Another 'ally' who'd only manipulated her and turned her willing blade to their own machinations.
Hey, now, let's talk about that later, Thawne cautioned. I swear, whatever I've got in mind can wait. Her life will be yours' if you just let me-
Neo knew how this pitch went. She considered her options.
"I hope Amity tower will bring us all together," the recorded voice of Ruby Rose continued. "Because in the end, that's how-"
Abrupt static, then the long din of an error message. The old man looked up from the cockpit controls. "The tower went. Radar just picked up the explosion… but no debris. Whatever they did, the energy discharge cancelled itself out."
Neo knew her window was slipping. Without her parasol, she'd need Thawne to deliver her surprise attack.
To kill… to finally have her revenge…
Ruby turned around, looking up from Penny's Scroll. Her robot friend readied her blade, and the old woman behind them turned around, readying her walking stick to join the fray herself. Ruby, however, stepped between them and urged them to put their weapons down.
"I didn't kill Roman Torchwick," Ruby flatly told her. "I didn't. I fought him up in the air just like I fought you and your new friends, but I didn't kill him. The Grimm killed him."
An easy, plausible lie. Not one she need ever have believed.
Ruby reached to her back, producing Neo's parasol, offering it to her in the flat of her hand. "I didn't kill him then, and I didn't kill you now. Because right now… well… today I had to work with a lot of people I never would've thought were worth it."
Neo had to concede that Ruby Rose had saved her life when she could've just as easily left Neo on the exploding tower without getting her hands dirty.
It's hard to let go. But if you don't they're not the only ones who die.
I can get her, kid. I can get her and you can put that blade right through her heart.
"I saw someone change in a way I never believed they could," Ruby elaborated. "And… I know you don't have any reason to trust me, but I won't lie to you. I'm… I'm trying to get better at believing things I never would have been able to before."
Do it, kid.
Neo looked down at the blade in Ruby's hand, reaching over to take hold of the hilt.
Do it!
Neo met those silver eyes again. Not so long ago she'd been ready to destroy an entire planet just to know the light had gone out from those eyes.
It will get better for you, eventually.
Neo didn't know whom to believe. She fell back on her instincts.
The girl was a poor liar… Cinder was not. The girl had saved her life, Cinder and Thawne had both abandoned her to her fate.
Neo turned around and headed for the cargo bay door. Even high up in the air, she had a means to catch the wind.
To abandon her revenge when it had been right in front of her…
Neo opened the sliding panel and jumped out, letting her parasol catch the current and guide her descent.
Ruby sighed. "That… went about as well as I expected it to, actually."
Windblade and Nicole moved to fly beside the transport, peering into the open side door. Windblade chimed in to the ship's comms: "Everything okay over there?"
"Yeah," Ruby acknowledged, looking over at Penny. "Yeah, we're good."
The Atlas Vault
Penny took hold of the floating staff of Creation. Time paused around the four as the entity created by the God of Light emerged to hear their plea.
"So, you want me to create a machine that will send this girl and two aliens back through time to another continent and possibly in a parallel dimension," Ambrosius mused. "How exactly do you propose I do that?"
"I recently utilized a device to do exactly that," Windblade explained. "I can give you the schematics as best I can recollect from my system memory."
Ruby turned towards Penny. "If this works…"
Penny nodded solemnly. "I know. I… do you think my Ruby will tell me what happened to her afterwards? So I won't have to worry about where you ended up?"
"I don't know," Ruby admitted. "When you meet up with me again, ask. Ask me if I remember this. And if I don't… tell me all about it. I'll bet I'd like to hear the story."
"It would be nice to have time to sit down and just talk again," Penny observed. "It seems like every day now we have some other crisis to deal with."
"Tell me about it," Ruby bemoaned. "But, hey… at least we're still all together, right?"
"That is something to be grateful for, yes," Penny agreed.
Ruby embraced her friend, who eagerly returned the hug. Ambrosius opened a portal at her back, Nicole and Windblade waiting at its edge.
"Well… if this ends up being a shorter trip than we planned, we'll find you again, huh?" Ruby suggested.
"I'd very much like to introduce you to your other self if you do," Penny suggested.
"Ugh… come on, you did see her hair, didn't you…?" Ruby muttered.
Penny smiled. Ruby turned and walked towards the portal the staff's keeper had created for her. "Ask me, Penny. Ask me if I remember."
She stepped into the portal, disappearing in a flash of white.
Northern Anima
Weeks Earlier
"So, the redhead boy is Neo's son?" Yang asked. "How does that work?"
"Well-"
"No, no, never mind, forget that part," Yang shuddered. "I mean, who's the dad?"
"Who said there was a dad?" Blush inquired.
"I just mean that-"
A portal opened at their backs. Those already armed prepared their weapons, while Salem and the kids from the future looked on, surprisingly passive at the sudden appearance of yet another anomaly. Apparently their lives weren't any less eventful than their parents' had been.
Ruby stepped forward first, emerging into the snow. Then Nicole, then… a very tall robotic humanoid with a feminine build and wings behind her shoulders.
"Ruby!" Yang called, racing over to hug her sister. Weiss and Blake followed quickly after, latching onto their teammate in a tight embrace.
Salem turned her attention to Nicole and their new, towering guest. "It's done, then?"
"Hostiles down," Nicole confirmed.
Salem turned her gaze to the taller robot woman at Nicole's back. "Another Cybertronian?"
"Caminen, actually," Windblade gently corrected.
"Thereby hangs a tale, I'm sure," Salem mused, returning her focus to Ruby, buried under her friends.
Windblade turned her attention to the Nassau. "Is that ship still functional?"
"Parts of it," Nicole answered.
"Let's have a look," Windblade requested. "I might be able to do something with it…"
Solitas
One Possible Future
Neo concentrated, knowing that he'd resist. Knowing that her demon would cling tightly to her, whispering promises to sate her darkest wish.
He wanted revenge too. He wanted it so much he'd destroy all of creation just to kill one man in a red costume.
Neo thought she was willing to do the same. Until a boy from the future told her it was possible to believe something else, and the girl she'd come to kill had saved her life when she had every reason not to.
Neo watched the corrosive red Aura erupt off her in a bolt of lightning, before fading away… Eobard Thawne condemned once again to wander without a vessel, on a hostile alien world far from the target of his wrath. Alone with his mission, and his hatred… and no other option.
Neo had one other: she didn't see what became of the boy who claimed to be her son.
If he lived…
Emerald piloted the ship back to Salem's Monstra. Cinder mulled over her wounds, thinking of how she would disguise her weakness while in her master's hall.
Then she turned her gaze back to the unconscious boy lying in the seat behind her… the boy who claimed to have come from the future with a warning. And Cinder had thought the trip a waste...
A bargaining chip to buy Salem's favor… or an asset to give her -and her alone- knowledge of the future.
Northern Anima
The Past
Windblade could not get the entirety of the station spaceworthy. But she could use its slipspace engines to make travel possible to Earth and Cybertron. Nicole was willing to accept a relatively fast journey home, even in a cramped cockpit.
"The Covenant will follow your ion trail," Salem explained. "And menace this world no further. Unfortunately, it will have no shortage of other problems in your absence."
"Which you'll be spearheading, I'd imagine," Yang dryly noted.
"Oh, you'd be surprised how many enemies you'll face in the course of your lives," Salem assured her.
Nicole turned to Ruby. "You helped me when I was lost. If you need me to stay-"
"Your people need you to help them," Ruby cut her off. "We can save our world. You go on home and save Planet Dirt."
"...Earth," Nicole corrected.
"That too."
Nicole nodded. "Thank you, Ruby Rose. For everything."
"I wish to express my thanks as well," Windblade added. "I'm not sure how long it'll take for me to return home to my proper timeline, but I have a means of return I did not expect… and I owe that to you and your friends and allies."
"And we owe you for cutting up that robot cyclops guy," Ruby affirmed.
"...seriously, what the hell is going on in the future?" Maria demanded.
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about it," Salem dismissively replied before quickly moving on. "But we should take our leave as well. We have to collect Roman and return to Haven; we still have our own battle to carry on with."
Blake turned her gaze to the shy cat Faunus, who gave her a small wave. Blake gently lifted her own hand to wave back.
"It's been so weird seeing you guys like this," Midas noted. "We're gonna have plenty to talk about when we get back."
"Salem," Nicole interjected, turning the queen of the Grimm's eye back to her. "You said I would be needed on this trip but I don't feel my presence was essential. We stopped Shockwave and Thawne but never were able to stop the antimatter from consuming the station. The Ore-13 still detonated just the same."
"Your contributions -however small- made all the difference," Salem assured her. "Your part in this is greater than you know."
"...right," Nicole halfheartedly nodded.
Ruby hugged the girl, barely able to fit her arms around Nicole's powered suit. Nicole slowly reached out and patted Ruby's back.
"Good luck," Ruby wished. "I… really do hope -however small the chance is- we see each other again."
"...when my war is over," Nicole mused. "I may try to find my way here again."
Salem subtly smiled as she gathered her cabal of teenagers. Nicole-458's story was far from over, though she had no way of knowing what pierced the veil of time… she did not know all Salem did.
Salem turned to bid them farewell. "Until we meet again."
Earth, 2553
New Mombasa
Windblade dropped her off outside the city. Nicole had to come in the rest of the way via Warthog to attack the Covenant forces on the ground. She took to the fight with ease: after Thawne, the Grunts and the Brutes were little threat to her.
But another adversary -following the Covenant in pursuit of Windblade's ion trail- descended to Earth, to the epicenter of the fight in New Mombasa. From a single ship descended a transport sphere with a single occupant.
Nicole turned her sniper rifle on it. A new Covenant deployment? Too small to be a Hunter…
From within the sphere emerged an enemy clad in orange armor, with a blue cannon mounted on the right arm. Humanoid, vaguely feminine… though the green visor of this entity's helmet betrayed nothing to Nicole.
The bounty hunter Samus Aran fixed her visor on this curious foe in powered armor…