So this small filler came out of left field. I will try to actually update a real chapter this weekend.

New Divide

Her eyes opened to a bright light around her. An eerie silence nearly suffocating her. For now she was perfectly alone; almost an uneasy memory of when she had first awoken like this. Looking around her, she had become aware of the fact that she was lying on her back and the brightness around her felt warm almost welcoming even. Slowly she sat up and while doing so, took stock of her own body. Movement of her limbs (both arms and legs) first, followed by her fingers and toes, until she tested that both her eyes were still intact.

Listening for anyone or anything else, she determines that for the time being that indeed she is alone. Slowly getting to her feet, she pats down every inch of her body making sure that everything else was still intact. It was then that she realized two things: first being that she was without her partner, Crescent Rose; and second was that she was in her huntress garb from the future. The brightness, she sees, starts to dim and a low mist starts to set in around her; but the thickness that it radiated did not last for very long and it swirled into certain patterns that she slowly started to recognize: team RWBY's old dorm room, complete with the dangerous style bunkbeds.

She turned and let out a low gasp. Her reflection in the mirror was of her old appearance. Gone was the youthful fifteen/sixteen year old. There in the mirror was the twenty-six year old war torn huntress she had come to recognize, the near heavily scarred face most prominent being a crescent shaped scar by her left eye and a larger crossed shaped scar on her right cheek. Her breathing became shaky as she slowly backed away from the mirror. Haunting words sliced through the previous warmth that she had felt, "There will be no third chances. Ozma was the first chance, you are the second chance and last chance."

Wherever she was, one thing was certain: she may have blew it big time. Shakely, she reached out behind her and took a seat on Weiss's old bunk and cradled her head in her hands and started to cry as a hole tore through her heart. She was so much immersed in her grief at having possibly loss everything and failing everyone, she didn't see the door form or it opening, "Rubes?"

Ruby starts and looks up. Her jaw drops and her eyes widen, mouth dry, "Yang? Blake? W-Weiss?" They slowly surround her, and Ruby crawls further onto the bed, almost panicking; "Is it really you guys?"

The girls stop and look at their leader. Ruby makes note of their older appearance. Weiss marring two scars by her eyes instead of the one, Yang sporting her robotic arm that she had gotten from that bastard Adam, and Blake's one cropped cat ear and a heavily scratched arm from an Ursa. This was her old team, the team she had missed, the team that had died, "You're dead." Ruby spoke up when they didn't answer her right away.

"Well way to point out the obvious." Yang scoffed waving her robotic arm around, "Now come here sis. Please?" She holds out the same hand.

Ruby swallows and takes it. The cool metal fingers gripping her own warm ones. She is gently pulled off the bed and they stand in the middle of the room. Blake gives her a soft look, amber eyes seeming to glow with sadness and bitter happiness, and Weiss's own blue ones water with unshed tears, "Then…I'm dead too?" Ruby asks after having taken a deep breath and looks at her team in turn before looking at her sister's forgiving lavender gaze.

Yang doesn't answer this time, having looked away. Blake shakes her head, and Weiss is the one to respond, "That is a good question dolt; but we don't think so."

"You don't 'think so'?" Ruby demanded her tone radiating with astonishment, "Either I am or I'm not. However if I am, then after everything I've done, I do not believe I deserve this afterlife."

"What the hell does that mean?" Blake demands before Yang could jump in.

"Here. I don't deserve to be here with you guys." Ruby said resigned.

Yang was about to jump at Ruby and shake her, but Weiss stepped forward and placed her one hand on Ruby's shoulder and the other under her chin. She lifted her leader's head up and once she had eye contact she said, "First you most certainly do deserve to be here with us. We are not team RWBY without you. Secondly, it's a nice day out. Let's go for a walk and we can talk this out." Ruby looks outside and sure enough there is a bit of brightness of sunlight.

Ruby then feels a different hand in hers and she looks to see that Weiss had grabbed her hand and gave it a small squeeze, "Ready?" Weiss asked. Ruby shrugs and let's Weiss lead the way.

As they make their way through the halls, the mist that had returned. Ruby took note that it wasn't as thick as the first time she saw it, but that it was changing the scenery around them until she started to realize that the hallway they had just been going down had turned into Beacon's gardens, "Where are we anyway?" Ruby asked slowly having pulled out of Weiss's grip and went towards a bed of different colored roses.

"Well we were going to ask you that." Blake said slowly having gone over to the reaper, "Where do you think we are?"

"Beacon." Ruby said getting up from her crouch position and looked around them. Indeed it was Beacon. The mist was forming a light outline of the academy and as she looked around more, a bench started to form and she went over and felt that it was indeed solid. Hesitantly she took a seat, as if she was afraid of falling through it, but surprisingly enough it held her.

Yang sits next to her and she bumps her sister's knee, drawing her out of her musings, "Beacon huh? Well why you would imagine school is beyond me. Honestly if it were Weiss hallucinating this fantasy-"

"HEY!" Came the retort of said Ice Queen.

"Then I would understand." Yang finished as if she were not interrupted.

Ruby chuckled at this and at the look on Weiss's face until she processed Yang's words, "Fantasy? Hallucinating? So I am not dead?"

Yang, Blake, and Weiss shared a frown before looking at Ruby once more. The reaper sat patiently waiting for one of them to respond. Blake and Yang shared another look with Weiss, and why the former heiress was voted to be the one to talk to her was something that was beyond her; so rather than diving right into it, she deflected to a different route, "Why don't you explain how you ended up here first; that way we can piece everything together."

Ruby sighed and avoided their gazes and everything that she had been forced to carry spilled out. She told them of her final stand with Salem and the relics, then how the two brothers made her a deal, how she went back in time and her adventures (or misadventure depending on how you look at it), reuniting with everyone, to finally her betrayal of her teams and the new events that occurred at Beacon Academy.

It felt like an eternity to get through those events comparing and playing them over again in her head, but she managed it. Taking a deep breath she waited for the blow up that didn't come. Finally managing some courage, she looks at her team and says, "You guys must be ashamed of me."

"No." Yang says placing a hand on her sister's knee, "Just a bit disappointed is all."

Ruby looks down, "You cannot shoulder this yourself." Weiss said softly, "Quite honestly, I would have thought you would have had more faith in us."

"I do!" Ruby states shocked her partner would have even say that.

"Doesn't sound like it." Blake says arms crossed, amber eyes downcast and shone with her own displeasure, "I mean you not telling us the whole story is much like how Ozpin kept us in the dark about his past."

Ruby stood up suddenly and paced around them, "I am not trying to do that. I am trying to protect you!"

Yang stands now and meets her sister's eyes, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Ruby you cannot always protect us." Ruby looks away, "I know you know this. You have to let us in. Doesn't really matter if you gave us the big picture. We have a right to know."

She was right, and Ruby knew it. She just wasn't ready to face that reality just yet. Especially after the fall of Beacon, "Ruby please. You know us. We are not all that different. Past, Present, Future. It's still us." Weiss said wisely stepping closer to her former leader, "We are and forever will be your team."

"You know what you have to do." Blake says, "We hope you make the right choice in the end."

The mist starts to slowly come back and pools at their feet. It's faint, but Ruby sees it. Somehow she knew time was almost up and she would leave…whatever this was, "I'm scared." She admitted, "I really have no idea what the hell I am doing. I tried…I really did but no one would listen. Beacon fell and now once more we are scattered." She looks at them, "I don't want to fail any of you."

"The only way you would fail us is by not trusting us." Yang says with a small smile.

Ruby shakes her head, "It is not a matter of not trusting you. I do with every fiber of my being. More than you would ever know."

"Then prove it." Blake challenges and repeats her previous statement, "Make the right choice."

"Be the leader I made a promise to all those years ago." Weiss whispers earnestly, "You may think she no longer exists;" Ruby winces, but Weiss continues, "but I know she does. Deep down I know she is still there."

Before Ruby could respond, she feels a pull and sees that the mist was now at ankle level. Something is pulling her and if she listens closely, she hears an echo bouncing in her head. Her hand goes to her head and she presses on her temple and winces in pain, "You alright?" Yang asks concerned.

"Yes, just getting a weird feeling is all." Ruby responds as she feels herself losing a bit of equilibrium, just to gain a bit of it back. The dizziness passes and she sighs, refocusing on her former team, "You know what is to come then?"

"If you hadn't screwed with the timeline too much then yes." Blake says grimly, "Haven."

"And the retrieving of the Relic of Knowledge." Yang responds.

"We don't have the faunus to back us up this time." Ruby states looking at Blake, "You were not at Beacon, Yang didn't lose her arm, Weiss didn't go to Atlas, and right now team JNPR is still here. You are all together. I don't know what will happen or what I cannot change."

Weiss shook her head, "We've faced unknowns before. This is no different."

Ruby gave her a deadpanned look, "So you know a bit of the unknown, but you cannot control everything. Regardless of what is going to happen, just please have more faith that we can handle it." Yang states in response to Ruby's look.

Ruby sighs and once more the pull comes to her again and the echoing in her head becomes louder. The mist is now at their knees, "So I've got to go back, haven't I?" It's not like she didn't want to, she knew she had too. She just wanted a bit more time with her team.

"That is up to you." Weiss responds quietly arms crossed, a knowing smirk on her face much like she used to wear when she would go over their lessons from their classes.

Ruby looks at her confused, "I've got a choice?"

"Yes. We are in Beacon as you say we are;" Yang says also smiling. The scenery changes and they are no longer in the garden but the airfield. Ruby sees the massive airships and reaches out to touch one. Her hand meets cool metal. They watch on and Yang's smile falls as she finishes her thought, "I guess you can get on an airship and…take off…"

"And where would it take me?" Ruby asks just as sadly and softly.

Blake answers this time, "On."

Silence falls between them again as Ruby admires the aircraft. However as sorely tempting as it was to go with her team, she knows she cannot, "She is still out there."

"True, and our past-selves are still out there too." Weiss points out, a hint of proudness in her tone as she sees Ruby straighten her posture.

Still the inner self doubt and hatred is strong as the reaper admits her weakness, "You guys are better than me. You might have better luck. I bring devastation."

"You bring hope. Ruby, why do we have to keep saying this to you?" Blake asks, "You do not have to do this alone. No matter which versions of us you are with, we are telling you the same thing. You are not, nor ever were, alone."

"By returning, you may ensure that fewer souls are maimed, fewer families are torn apart." Yang states, "You of all people should understand the consequences of what is to come if Salem isn't stopped."

Weiss nods along and adds, "And if you are half the leader we think you still are then you will think that is a good enough reason to go back. That we will say good-bye for now."

Ruby nods, holding back tears. Yang, Blake, and Weiss look at her and Ruby suddenly reaches out and pulls them into a hug. The girls cry softly, mourning for losing what they had and yet thankful for briefly reuniting, "I promise I will tell you all everything when we get the Relic of Knowledge from Haven."

Pulling away they look at her and Yang smiles sadly, "You have to do what you have to do."

Ruby looks at them once more, "So you never did answer my question." They look at her with small smiles on their faces, "Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?"

There was a slow building warm brightness that came on as the mist is now around them, starting to become thicker to the point that it started to obscure Ruby's view of her former team mates. Weiss answered first, "Of course it is happening in your head dolt."

"But why should that mean that it is not real?" asked Blake, amber eyes bright with amusement.

"Love you Rubes. Remember that. See you soon!" Yang said cheerfully.

The echoing in her head became louder as did the dizziness. There is a sudden bright light of warmth and Beacon's airfield vanished around her and she succumbed to the massive pull back to reality.