Beta-ed by xenosaiyan and MasterPrince713

"How is she? Any better? Juvia brought cookies to coax her awake!"

"She's stable, but she hasn't woken. I know that what I want to discuss with her isn't necessarily for her own good, so if one of you would prefer to take over…"

"Aside from Ms. Porlyusica and Master, you know more about healing magic than the rest of us do. You're the right choice. Where is Porlyusica anyway?"

"She went to gather more herbs. We were able to get her out of the armor and stop the bleeding, but the damage to her body and her leg especially was… extensive. If that aura of hers hadn't come back, I'm not sure if she would have made it—"

"Wait! Juvia thinks she's waking up! Ruby! Ruby, can you hear me?!"

Ruby could indeed hear the water wizard's call, unfortunately for the ringing in her skull. Her entire body ached with the familiar sense of pain dulled by medicine and magic, adrenaline no longer able to ignore her muscles' agony. Yet, it was almost nostalgic as her eyes flickered open, pushing away the darkness to take in the guild's light, just as she had back in the infirmary so long ago.

This time though, she was not greeted by Wendy, but by Mira and Juvia, the latter holding up a basket of fresh warm cookies.

"You're awake!" Juvia cheered, holding out her steaming baked goods. "Juvia made some of your favorite—"

Ruby shot up in her bed, tossing the cookie basket aside and frantically grabbing both her guildmates by their collars, dragging them in with ravenous ferocity.

"Woah!" Mira shouted. "Ruby, it's us—"

"The White Witch will come to the guild. She'll brainwash everyone to attack the Strongest Team, use the power of the Five God Dragons and FACE to wipe out all ethernano. Sitara and the Strongest Team will stop her but the Strongest Team will have to be put into Fairy Spheres to recover from their injuries which they won't get out of until after Sitara has pissed off the Brother Gods enough to destroy the world and turn it into Remnant and then Sitara will jump in an Umbral Spirit mud portal and become Salem, who now wants to conquer the world so she can turn everyone into Eclipse Etherious and kill the Umbral Spirit King before he kills the world and my mom wasn't actually dead, but she is now because Weiss killed her and now Yang's going to kill her and I… I… I…"

Just like at the parley, her breath caught in her throat, her lungs scooping rapid, shallow pants out of her mouth in a desperate attempt to maintain her oxygen. Her mind began to stall, but even then she managed a manic smile over her paling face.

She'd done it! She'd told them! She'd fixed everything, just like she'd promised! Now just a few moments and the timeline would solidify and she'd disappear!

Except… she didn't. She looked down at herself, clothed in a white medical smock with a thick and heavy cast around her leg. But as the seconds dragged on and she didn't dissipate into gold flecks, the Spirit Slayer knew she'd done something wrong.

In the meantime, Mira and Juvia looked at her with utter befuddlement covering their faces, along with growing horror at her gasping breath. A blue-haired man with a red tattoo over his eye gently coaxed the women back, equally stunned at Ruby's rant.

"Ms. Rose," the man, who Ruby now recognized as Erza's fake fiancée (what was his name? Siegrain? Sieg Hart… no… Justice… no… Jellal! That was it!), softly spoke. "Perhaps it would help if you explained everything from the beginning?"

"Yea… yeah… yeah, that must be it," Ruby muttered. "I just have to make sure you guys understand. Everything will be fixed once you understand."

So she told them. There was a lot, so she tried to stick to the big important beats. The White Witch's infiltration, The Fairy Spheres, what had happened in Atlas, the time travel, the book's true purpose, Salem's plans, what happened at the castle since the parley had been interrupted by the Crash Magic blast. As all three wizards' eyes widened with each shocking revelation, Ruby knew for sure they understood the magnitude of hell that was waiting if the timeline was allowed to play out.

And yet, just the act of her telling them, changing how they would act in the coming events, should have already prevented that! The world had started to disintegrate the moment she'd found out her mom was alive on Patch all those years ago! It should have already erased her and Remnant! Why didn't it work?! Why didn't it work!?

"Why didn't it work?" she murmured, tears falling from her eyes. Helpless anger clenched her fists at her sides as her last hope died. "It should have unmade me. It should have fixed everything."

"It should have unmade you—Ruby, what were you trying to do?" Mira demanded, her voice suddenly filled with anger born of terrified concern and love. "Why did you tell us all this about the future?"

"Because she was trying to erase it," Jellal immediately surmised, his eyes looking like he recognized the despair in Ruby's wet gaze. "You were trying to kill yourself."

"Ding, ding. Erza always said you were smart," Ruby mocked, making a show of squinting at his face. "And that tattoo… guess that explains Pyrrha."

Jellal raised an eyebrow. "Pyrrha?"

"Oh, right. Erza's probably pregnant right now. The Erza of 'now', I mean. She was pregnant when she got out of her Fairy Sphere," Ruby bluntly explained. "Nine months later, out came my friend Pyrrha. She's got a natural affinity for Heavenly Body Magic and a tattoo a lot like yours on her arm. You're smart. Do the math."

It was quite the sight to see him do just, his eyes skittering through so many emotions as his face paled. There was shock, joy, fear, all the big ones flowing through the great Wizard Saint's expression.

Juvia shot him an awkward smile. "Congratulations?"

"Yes, congratulations Jellal, but can we go back to the part where you were trying to kill yourself by telling us all this?!" Mira commanded, her normally kind gaze as hard as iron. "For that matter, do you realize what you could have done by doing it? It wouldn't just be you who was erased, it would have been your entire timeline! All of Remnant and everyone you've ever met!"

"Ha! That was the point!"

Ruby barked out a hollow, mirthless chorus of laughter, floundering back and sinking into the bedrest of pillows behind her, suddenly absolutely exhausted. She remembered the drain time traveling had put on her the last time, and she hadn't been fresh from the most intense fight of her life then.

"Guys, I'm… I'm tired," the huntress sighed, truly and utterly depleted. "I know I just dropped… everything, on you. But I need… I just need… time."

Mira was clearly not satisfied with that, but she still backed away from Ruby. "Alright. Ms. Porlyusica will be back soon. Until then, Juvia will stay with you."

"I want to be alone—"

"You just told me you tried to commit suicide, Ruby! I'm not leaving you alone!" Mira shouted. The silver-haired bartender took a deep breath after her outburst, gathering herself back to some measure of control. "Besides, something tells me that you don't actually want that."

Truthfully, Ruby had no idea herself. She didn't think it mattered either way. The world was still there, which meant it was still doomed.

Mira and Jellal returned from the cozy hut, lightly shutting the door behind them. Juvia knelt down and began gathering up her fallen cookie basket. Meanwhile, Ruby just laid back in her fluffy pillows, trying to push the memory of her mother being cleaved in half before her eyes from her mind.

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Mira didn't trust herself to breathe until the door to Porlyusica's infirmary had clicked shut. Even then, the She-Devil found herself hunched over and leaning against the oaken wall for nearly a minute, simply attempting to process the nightmare she'd just been told and the broken wreck of a guildmate who'd spoken it.

But she wasn't so crippled that she couldn't notice the Heavenly Body Wizard making for the door.

"Where are you going?" she asked Jellal.

"Guiltina," he briskly answered.

"You know you can't do that," Mira reminded him. "We don't know why Ruby telling us about the future didn't alter the timeline, but you going to the Strongest Team certainly will."

Jellal stopped, his broad back facing the Take-Over Mage while he stared at the exit from Porlyusica's hut. "… maybe if I stay here, find the White Witch and take her down before she gets to the guild—"

"That would definitely change things," Mira argued. "And that's even assuming you could single-handedly take down a wizard in the same league as Zeref."

"I have to do something!" Jellal shouted. "Ruby didn't mention me. I'm not a member of Fairy Tail, so maybe I wasn't at this big battle she mentioned either. I might have more flexibility than the rest of you."

"You spent years with Ultear and years more studying Zeref's artifacts, including the Eclipse Gate," Mira pointed out. "You know time doesn't work like that. We can only move within the limits it imposes on us or we lose everything."

"Even when we're already losing so much?!"

Mira said nothing after that final outburst, knowing from her many years as a bartender that sometimes you just had to let people vent their emotions and let them realize what they already knew. Jellal had a massive guilt complex as it was, so finding out that he'd unintentionally left the woman he loved a single mother and that he couldn't help her as she trekked through a literal post-apocalyptic world was undoubtedly clouding his judgment. Honestly, when he didn't move after several seconds, she began to worry that he would jet out and go through with his hair-brained scheme.

Really, with her own decision-making as battered by Ruby's revelations as they were, she was afraid she'd join him.

Fortunately, the former Wizard Saint didn't dash out of the house, instead slumping back against the wooden wall with his head in his hands. "I've failed Erza so much, so many times. Now, she'll have to raise a child, alone, in a world where she knows no one and no one knows her, and no matter how much I want to, I can't help her!"

Mira padded over to her surrogate sister's lover, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Neither can I."

Jellal glanced up at her and sighed. "I'm sorry. She's your family. You must be suffering too—"

"That doesn't mean you aren't. Everyone is entitled to their own sorrow," Mira comforted him. "And if it helps at all, from what Team RWBY said of Pyrrha the last time they were here, it seems your daughter is quite the remarkable young woman."

"Thank you. But I don't think I have the right to call her 'my' daughter given I haven't been there for her," Jellal said.

Mira managed a small chuckle. "You really do carry that weight, don't you?"

A flash of a smirk quirked over Jellal's lips. "Guilt is a burden I've had to grow accustomed to over the years. I hope that I've learned how to not let it destroy me."

His mouth twisted into a frown after that, his worried gaze rising to Ruby's room. "She hasn't. At all."

"Ruby… I doubt she's had much to feel guilty about before," Mira said, unable to keep her concern from her voice. "She'll be alright."

"Maybe. But not soon," Jellal replied. "And if she tries to destroy the timeline again before then… is Doranbolt… I mean, is Mest here?"

"He is," Mira confirmed. "But we're not altering Ruby's memories."

"It may be for her own good," Jellal noted. "The good of us all, really. Thanks to this time loop, we'd probably all get erased up to the point we met them."

"Only if Ruby makes the wrong choice. And I don't think she will," Mira assured him. "Either way, we have to let her choose."

"And if she chooses wrong?"

"We handle things from there. I'll talk to the rest of the guild, give them as basic a rundown of the situation as I can without mentioning any names, make sure they're okay with Mest wiping their memories if Ruby tells them anything that starts breaking down the timeline," Mira clarified. "She's our friend. Standing up to her if we think she's making the wrong choice is one thing, but we can't take away that right to choose altogether."

Jellal nodded. "Admirable, if a tinge pragmatic."

"There are lines that should never be crossed, no matter what the danger. You know that better than most," Mira declared. Her confidence lasted only a few moments before fear took over her face once more. "Do you really think we'll never see them again?"

Jellal shrugged, stuffing his eyes into his sleeve. "We only have her word to go off of for the events, what Wendy and the others told her, and what this 'Jinn' showed them. That's a lot of secondhand information. Something might have been missed."

Mira hoped he was right. But she also didn't miss the wet drops smearing down the Heavenly Body Wizard's sleeve.

"Yeah," she muttered, a few tears falling down her own cheeks. "Maybe something."

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Juvia should have known something was off when Ruby had refused her cookies. The old Ruby would never have refused cookies!

Even besides that, the Ruby of now was very different from the Ruby who'd first joined the guild over two years ago. Before, she'd been an irrepressible ball of energy and light, eager to get her hands on every weapon and bit of magic she could reach, hungry for the next horizon and whatever might lie beyond. Now, she was dour, sullen, and drowning in despair. Juvia couldn't blame her given everything she'd been through, but if she didn't know who the Scarlet Reaper was beforehand, she would have had a hard time reconciling the grouchy woman in Porlyusica's hut with the excitable girl that Weiss had held back from joining the guildhall brawls before she'd finished her vegetables.

Over the next few days, she, Mira, and Jellal had taken turns keeping watch over Ruby. As she'd already spilled her guts about the future to them, they could assume that they would be safe if any more information slipped out and they'd be able to intervene if Ruby attempted to commit suicide in a more mundane manner. And after they'd gotten the rest of the guild's agreement, Mest had taken to hiding in the shadows whenever their other guildmates had come to visit the huntress, ready to erase memories if the Spirit Slayer said anything that caused the timeline to start collapsing.

Except, she never did.

Everyone from Gajeel, to Bisca, to Elfman, Laxus, and Master Makarov himself had come to visit Ruby at Porlyusica's house as she'd recuperated, her broken leg slowly healing along with the rest of her body. Yet, more often than not, the young huntress had stayed off her crutches, remaining in bed, eating little and speaking even less, about the future or anything else.

It was as if Ruby had just… given up. That terrified Juvia more than anything else because it was the most un-Ruby-like thing she could think of.

"Fuck!"

… Granted, there were other things in the upper ranks.

Juvia rushed over to Ruby's fallen form and together with Porlyusica helped the patient back to her feet, allowing her to grab the parallel physical therapy bars on either side until she was helped back to a wheelchair.

The trio were just outside the doctor's hut, equipment set up to aid in Ruby's physical therapy in the small glade. The huntress's leg was no longer broken but Juvia was very glad she was on-site to assist if any wounds reopened and her Water-Make was needed to help staunch the bleeding.

Porlyusica frowned. "It didn't work."

"What a brilliant observation!" Ruby hissed as she sank back into her wheelchair, her cuss still hot off her lips. "I don't suppose you have any guesses as to why?"

"You tell me."

"Why in the world would I know?!"

"I don't know," Porlyusica sharply replied. "But there's nothing physically wrong with you, that aura of yours has made sure of that."

"Then why can't I walk?!" Ruby demanded.

"Ruby," Juvia gently intoned. "Please don't speak to Ms. Porlyusica like that—"

"Do you want to?" Porlyusica cut through, her eyes narrowed at Ruby. "If there's nothing physically wrong with you, the only reason you can't stand is if you don't want to."

Ruby turned away from the doctor with a frown. "I don't like being stuck in this chair."

"But you don't want to get up, do you? Have to get up and fight again? Not really," the doctor surmised. "I don't completely understand all this time travel nonsense Mirajane mentioned, but I know what it's like to be dumped in a world you don't want and have to make do. And so will you, eventually. Even if you stay in that chair for the rest of your days, you'll have to go home."

"Over my dead body," Ruby growled.

Porlyusica threw up her hands. "This is why I hate humans!"

Juvia cringed. Fairy Tail's medical advisor was not known for having a long fuse. She was a recluse for a reason after all. But with Ruby's bitterness playing off that gruff bedside manner, they just kept dragging each other down. Who knew when they would finally explode?

Except, instead of becoming more fired up from Porlyusica's latest comment, Ruby instead took on a pensive frown.

"Why?" she inquired.

"Why what?"

"Why do you hate humans?"

Porlyusica cocked an eyebrow. "They're a race of simpletons who think the only way to accomplish anything is to fight, destroy, or conquer. Why do you ask?"

Ruby's frown deepened, resignation tinging her introspection. "Because… I'm beginning to think I hate them too."

Juvia sucked in a gasp. "Ruby, you don't mean that."

"Why not?" Ruby asked, almost pleaded. "There's nothing decent about being human. They're murderers and abusers who have to be dragged kicking and screaming into a better day by their betters—"

"Betters?" Porlyusica repeated, dry and sarcastic. "And what constitutes a 'better'?"

Ruby moped into her shoulder, unable to face the sharp-tongued doctor. "Apparently it's those who 'rose above their petty humanity and chose to be better'. Those who move forward. Fairy Tail, I guess."

Porlyusica stared at Ruby unamused for several seconds. Then, she whacked the young girl over the head.

"Ow!" the huntress whined, silver fire flaring around her eyes.

"Ms. Porlyusica!" Juvia protested.

The doctor ignored the water wizard and made sure Ruby had turned to face her, towering over her patient and glaring her straight in her silver eyes. "Who in the world has been feeding you that pig shit?"

"You just said that you hate them too!" Ruby screeched.

"Of course I do! But I don't think I'm better than them!" Porlyusica shrieked right back. "I've hit countless people with my broom!"

A bead of sweat dropped down Juvia's forehead. She'd been one of those people more than once.

"No one is better than anyone else by default because of something they 'chose'. No one is worthy of respect unless they choose, continuously choose, to make choices worthy of respect," Porlyusica raged. "Fairy Tail certainly doesn't get a free pass, you pack of hoodlums! Laxus didn't get one for his little teenage rebellion, and I can assure you that his father and Master Precht didn't either. Nor will you for this whole 'trying to wipe out the timeline' business."

Ruby's fists tightened. "You don't know anything… about what I've been through. About what's waiting back on Remnant."

"You're right, I don't," Porlyusica admitted. "But I doubt it's going to get any better if you just sit here feeling sorry for yourself."

Ruby's eyes flared with emotional power, and not her Spirit Slayer Magic. Raging wind rushed into the clearing, swirling and surging into a ferocious cyclone. Juvia clutched at her hat to keep it from being blown off her head, the physical therapy bars tossed into the woods by the tsunami of ethernano flooding out from the lithe little girl.

Porlyusica didn't even flinch.

"This is that maiden power you've got bubbling inside you now?" the doctor drily observed. "I suppose I've seen worse party tricks."

"Shut up. I can't control this," Ruby sputtered, more ethernano climbing out of her as fire and ice flushed out of her arms, her wheelchair plucked away into the storm. "Shut up!"

"I was born on the terras of Edolas, little girl. It'll take more than some bad weather to cow me," Porlyusica declared, resolute. "I may not be the Sky Dragon Queen, but my counterpart wasn't the only one who braved storms."

"It's not just storms!" Ruby snarled, the ground around her blooming into lava, Juvia throwing as much water as she could on the magma to cool the rock and keep it from spreading. "You can't stop it! You will die!"

"Will I?" Porlyusica scoffed. "Let's see what happens first then? I die, or you stand."

"I don't want you to die!"

"Then it's a good thing you're already standing."

"Huh?"

Ruby's head whipped downward, her eyes widening with utter and complete shock at the sight of herself on her feet and standing tall.

Then something happened that Juvia didn't completely understand. Ruby's eyes remained glowing with the maiden's fire, but everything else dissipated in an instant. The fire, the ice, the cyclone, all the blazing elemental magic ravaging the clear just dropped away. And the tide of excess ethernano pulsing out from the Winter Maiden, for just a brief moment, vanished.

In fact, in that moment, Juvia couldn't feel any magic coming from Ruby at all.

"What?" the huntress murmured, looking down at herself, likely confounded by the very same sensation. Only to lose her balance a second later. "Ah!"

Juvia dashed in and caught her before she could collapse, gently guiding her friend to her knees.

"Are you alright?" she concernedly asked.

"I… I don't know," Ruby said, raising her hands to her eyes as the Winter Maiden's glow faded. "What was that?"

"You stood," Porlyusica said, looking down on her young patient with warmth and hope. "Now, are you willing to try again?"

"I… not now," Ruby stammered. "I… can we take a break?"

"That is perfectly alright," Porlyusica said. She cocked a teasing smirk. "It'll give me time to pluck that wheelchair out of my house."

Juvia and Ruby glanced back at the hut, the latter's wheelchair indeed embedded deep in the ancient wood. The younger wizards managed sheepish smiles as Porlyusica chuckled at them before walking off, patting her silver-eyed patient on the shoulder as she left.

Ruby's head fell, her medical smock fluttering in the breeze, somehow making the absence of her signature red hood even more prominent. Juvia sat there with her for several moments, holding her close, staring at her friend as ethernano began to flow out from her once more in a steady tide.

"He's alright," Ruby suddenly stated, causing Juvia to raise an eyebrow. "That's what you've been wanting to ask, right? About Gray? Last time I saw him, he was fine. I don't know where he ended up in the Grimmlands, but if anyone can handle themselves in that place, it'd be him and Erza."

"Oh. That's… good. That's good to hear," Juvia replied, clamping down on her heart's squeal of relief. "… what about Weiss? Do you really think Yang will kill her?"

"Yeah," Ruby immediately confirmed. "I sent Blake to try to slow her down, but that was when I thought maybe mom had actually survived and could calm Yang down. She might delay her, but she can't stop her."

Juvia flinched, worry seeping through her. "You said that Blake's new Grimm forms are powerful."

"Very. One of them cut off Yang's arm at Beacon when she first used it and lost control," Ruby noted. "But Yang's stronger now, Full Demon Form and everything. And angry. More angry than I've ever seen her. Weiss is already dead."

Juvia's face warped into a furious scowl. "I refuse to accept that."

"And here, in this time, that'd mean something," Ruby snarked. "But they're on Remnant, where you can't get to them without breaking history. So it doesn't really matter what you accept or not."

"But you can go back! You can change things! So why are you accepting it?" Juvia demanded. "Ruby, why have you given up?"

Ruby scoffed. "As opposed to what? My choices are to either let most of my friends die and the one I inspired conquer the world and slaughter whoever gets in her way of fighting the Umbral Spirit King because she doesn't trust them with what's actually going on, or reset the timeline and wipe out my entire world so that this…" she raised her hands to point to the ravaged but still beautiful glade around them, "… can survive! Not exactly ideal, but when the options are 'be a monster and create a world that'll probably kill itself even if it works as intended' or 'cross every line I ever had and bring back a world better than my own', the choice seemed pretty clear! Just look at my mom! If she'd stayed the first time like the perfect huntress she was, Yang wouldn't be literally homicidal!"

She deflated afterward, a morose, despairing frown warping her face. "Of course I couldn't even do that right. I'm as useless at dying as I am at every other part of being a huntress."

Juvia raised a disgusted eyebrow. "Dying is part of being a huntress?"

"According to the mob boss I fought on top of a giant flying battleship."

"… Juvia thinks he might not be the most trustworthy source."

"Ha! Probably! He did have his minion try to kill me right after I saved him from getting eaten by a Griffon," Ruby laughed, more genuine than anything she'd barked since she'd been back. Still, her silver eyes held on to the doubt in their core. "And then… he asked me what I expected from him. I said 'From him? Nothing. From me? Nothing less.'"

Juvia smiled, gently massaging her friend's tight shoulders. "You believed that long before you ever found your way to the guild. Whatever principles you believe, you do everything you can to live up to him, no matter how hard."

"Maybe that's the problem. A huntress can't save the world. Someone has to be the monster to do that," Ruby wondered. "Maybe mercy and principles are the prerogative of the powerful. Maybe I'm just being naïve. Not matter how much I try to live up to my own standards—"

"You don't try. You do," Juvia interjected, forceful and imposing. The Spirit Slayer looked up at her, surprised, and the water wizard sighed. "Juvia can't tell you what to believe, Ruby. But Juvia can tell you what her experience has led her to believe."

"That we have to stick to our principles through thick and thin?"

"No. Sometimes, all we can do is compromise. Juvia had to when she killed Gray's father."

Ruby's eyes widened. "You did what?! When did this happened!?"

"During the war with Tartaros. Aside from myself and my darling, no one knows the full details of what happened," Juvia revealed. "Mr. Silver had been raised as a zombie by the necromancer Keyes. He reached out to me telepathically and asked me to put him to rest by killing Keyes. I resisted the idea, wanted to find a way to free him so he could be with Gray again… but the guild was against the wall and he was already dead. There was no time to find another way. I thought Gray would hate me for it."

"But it needed to be done," Ruby finished, her brow furrowing. "So, you think I should side with Salem? Follow mom's footsteps?"

"No," Juvia said, immediately and without doubt.

"But you just said—"

"You don't die for your friends, you live for them. Silver may not have followed that creed with his sacrifice, but it was still his choice. There was no time to seek another way," Juvia elaborated. "But it is rarer than people often think that really is 'no time', when 'being the monster' is truly the only choice. I joined Phantom Lord because I was alone, desperate to have companions who wouldn't hate me for my rain. Master Jose offered me that if I used my power to be his thug, and I accepted because I was so afraid that I wouldn't get another chance."

"But that led you to Fairy Tail!" Ruby pointed out. "It was a mistake, but it led you where you needed to be."

"Juvia also could have made it to Fairy Tail if I hadn't joined up with the first guild that made me an offer. As could have Gajeel. Both of us knew what the things we were doing for Jose were wrong, but we did them anyway. We gave up and didn't ask 'why?'. We could have left Phantom Lord at any time, but we didn't because we didn't think we'd find another place to call home. We could have found our family without hurting so many people along the way," Juvia responded. "We have been very fortunate that those we hurt have been able to forgive us for our mistakes. Including 'being the monster'."

Ruby looked down at her hands. "I didn't want… I didn't want to give up. But I can't think of anything else to do."

"There's a difference between giving up and stopping because you've changed your mind," Juvia said. "But whether you can stop Yang from killing Weiss or not, whether you raise your sword to Salem or sheathe it, you can't make a choice on your knees."

"I… I…" Ruby murmured.

For several long seconds, she just sat there in Juvia's arms, trying to find something to say. But in the end, she let out a long breath, and perked her head up. There wasn't quite a smile on her face, but it was more than the frown that had dominated since her arrival.

"I'll need new weapons. I lost a lot of my old favorites in the fight with mom," she declared. "I'll need to make a trip to Mermaid Heel as well. I'll need Kagura's help fixing my armor, and forging some new stuff."

"Done," Juvia smiled, thrilled to see an ember of hope in Ruby's silver eyes, even if it was a slight thing that still needed quite a bit of fanning. "Anything else?"

"… yeah. I think," Ruby managed, a tear slipping down her cheeks as she turned to face her guildmate. "Do you… still have those cookies?"

Juvia beamed at her friend. She reached inside the folds of her dress and withdrew a small paper bag, tussled, jumbled, and crinkled by her earlier maiden outburst.

Crinkled, but still whole.

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"Alright, I think these are all of Lucy's favorites," Levy declared, she and Pantherlily dumping large stacks of books on the floor of the Fairy Hills hallway just outside Erza's rooms. "I also included a copy of her book just in case she wants to publish it on Remnant as well."

"Thanks," Ruby replied, wiping a bit of dust from the top cover and smiling at the title of 'The Adventures of Iris'. "I hope I have the time to read it one day."

"Better than the filth in there," Levy chuckled, jabbing a finger back at Erza's rooms, only to wince back as a small explosion echoed out from the walls. "Are you sure you want to bring it with you?"

Ruby shrugged. "Erza and Blake wouldn't be happy with me if they knew I could have taken it and didn't."

Pantherlily nodded. "A warrior requires their tomes to be the whetstones of their mind."

Ruby and Levy cringed and shared a shaky look. Best not to damage the warrior Exceed's image of the Titania.

Since changing the timeline was evidently a bust and Juvia had talked her into returning to Remnant, Ruby had set about getting herself back in order. Drawing up new weapon designs, trying to match up her schedule with Kagura's to work on repairing her, and continuing the task of figuring out just what the heck she was going to do when she went back to her own time. As well dealing with the boatload of emotional trauma she'd gotten from mom—

No! No, no, no, don't think about it, don't think about it. Don't think about mom, or Weiss, or Yang, or Salem… just focus on the task at hand. Logistics needed to be done. She could bring the guild back to the Strongest Team, but she could bring them their stuff. Being a Requip Wizard had its advantages.

"Gah!"

"Left, Gajeel! Left!" Mira advised.

"Gah! Fucking hell!"

"My left!"

Ruby winced in sympathy for the Iron Dragon Slayer. Erza guarded her smut even more jealously than Blake did, with more traps and failsafes than most bank vaults. Mira knew where some of them were, but even she, gadfly of the guild she was, hadn't been able to find out about them all. And well, no one who didn't have steel skin was gonna be able to watch away from disarming them.

"Don't worry about him," Levy reassured the Winter Maiden. "Gajeel's taken harder hits than a few traps."

"I know," Ruby replied, still unsure. "But they are Erza's traps."

Levy immediately paled before coughing into her hand. "Well… Acnologia did hit pretty hard."

"Gah! Dammit Titania! Why did you think bears would want your sm—gah!?"

Ruby chuckled at that, Pantherlily sagely nodding along as Levy groaned into her hands. It was good to be in a place where she could genuinely laugh again. But it was time to get to work.

The Scarlet Reaper flickered her magic over the book in her hands, slowly but surely stowing 'The Adventures of Iris' away in her requip dimension. Only for her face to stall in shock as she glimpsed the book below it in the pile.

"Levy…" she muttered. "That book…"

"Huh? This one?" Levy looked down at the cover. "The Saga of Ozma: The Great and P—oh, darn it. Sorry, Ruby. I forgot I gave Blake a copy already."

"No, no, it's fine," Ruby hastily said.

Pantherlily's attentive eyes narrowed. "It doesn't look like nothing."

"It's… how does the book end?" Ruby inquired to cover herself. "What happens to Ozma?"

"Uh, he dies. A sickness takes him," Levy said. "But he passes in the arms of his dearest companion, a beautiful maiden who fought by his side for years."

"Makes sense," Ruby murmured, her brow furrowed in thought. "Levy, Lily… you both grew up in monarchies. If a person like Ozma were to suddenly appear and say you need to become an entirely new species to survive a great catastrophe, and that everyone who refused would be forced to, would you side with them?"

Levy paled. "I assume this isn't just a theoretical?

"It would depend on where I was in my life," Pantherlily answered, far more sure. "If it was the me of the past, who was loyal to King Faust and trusted Prince Jellal from the bottom of my heart, then yes. If the threat was real, I would force people to evolve whether they agreed or not."

"But you wouldn't now," Ruby surmised. "Why?"

"Edolas was a different place than Earthland, an absolute monarchy whether among humans or Exceeds. And I was raised to believe that absolute obedience to that authority was just and right. But experience has shown me different ways to live that are just and right," Lily explained. "Fiore may not be a democracy as you have described Remnant's kingdoms to be, but it has checks and balances, the Crown and the Magic Council designed to check each other from abusing power. It doesn't always work, but I have found that ideal of always being questioning and holding those in power accountable for their choices to be a superior one to my old path."

Ruby's contemplation didn't subside. She'd had to question what she had been taught, what she had taught, and both herself and her teachers more in the past months than she had anything in years. If that nature was so central to democracy as Lily claimed, it certainly hadn't made her life any easier.

"What if there's no time for questions, no time to convince doubters or ditherers," she asked. "What happens when it's for their own good and the good of the people, but those in power won't listen? Do you take the government by force, and kill whoever gets in your way?"

"No."

Ruby didn't know what surprised her more, the unwavering stalwartness in the declaration or the fact that it didn't come from either of the friends she had been talking to.

She turned to the entrance to Erza's room, Gajeel entering the hall with steel scales over his skin and a serious expression on his face. Also, a bear trap on his head.

"Uh, Gajeel," Levy prompted, pantomiming at her own head. "You've got something..."

"Huh? Oh, thanks, babe," Gajeel answered, noticing the device and prying it off his steel skull. He broke the mechanism in half and started chomping down on the sharp metal. "Heh, Titania didn't really think such measly traps would keep out Fairy Tail's number one Dragon Slayer!"

A bead of sweat dropped down Levy's forehead. "Laxus?"

"Second-generation hack!"

Ruby managed a light chuckle before focusing on the Iron Dragon Slayer. "You were saying about taking the government?"

"Huh? Oh right. Political power, at its most basic, is about who can make everyone else listen and be viewed as the person who should be listened to. Different kinds of governments have different justifications for why they're valid, but a democracy's is the will of the people. The majority of folks voted for the government's officials and their authority to then make laws is derived from the people having chosen them," Gajeel offhandedly elaborated, more focused on picking his teeth with the remains of the bear trap. "You bypass that electoral process when the standing government has not, even if you say it's for the best reason ever, and your new power is no longer a democratic government. And the people who have been raised under those principles, who see it as a moral absolute to be given a chance to make their own choices, will see you as the enemy."

"What does that matter if they don't have the power to fight back against their conquerors before the actual threat is handled?" Ruby challenged.

"You're trying to give them power to deal with this bigger threat, right kid?" Gajeel pointed out. "You really think they're just going to sit nice and quiet while you do it to everyone?"

"People have a habit of risking everything to make sure that others don't suffer how they've suffered," Levy added.

"It's not unusual," Ruby conceded, before her head whipped back towards Gajeel with narrow, suspicious eyes. "But since when do you talk about politics and morals?!"

A tick mark bulged over the Dragon Slayer's forehead as he glared at Ruby. "I wasn't sleeping when I was head of the Magic Council's Rune Knights."

Pantherlily cocked an eyebrow. "You slept through orientation."

"And you copied off my notes for the written exam," Levy flatly scolded. "After we'd spent a week staying up late studying."

"We were there for a year! There were varied stages of interest!" a smile spread over Gajeel's face. "Like arresting people. I really liked arresting people."

"That's great, Gajeel. It's good to have a hobby you enjoy," Mira chimed in, walking into the hallway with an enormous stack of 'Raiders & Maidens' books in her arms. "But if we could hurry this along before Juvia's afternoon cry soaks these?"

"Afternoon cry?" Ruby inquired.

"She sometimes does it when Gray's gone for long periods of time," Levy explained. "She's been getting better over the years, but… well, since you got here…"

Ruby glanced away, trying not to notice the slightest quiver in Mira's face. She didn't know how much the She-Devil had told the rest of the guild about the Strongest Team's fate, but she was fairly certain they knew that they'd more than likely never seen their friends again. And though everyone kept a strong face, were able to be legitimately happy even in the face of that tragedy, the bartender and Juvia especially still bore that weight.

The drops of water she saw dribbling from the ceiling, the floor of the level above, were like knives in Ruby's heart.

But, what else could she do but bear it? Revealing the truth hadn't done anything, and now Mest was always stalking her from the shadows ready to erase memories if something she said did start breaking down the timeline. She was fast, but against a teleporter with memory magic? Yeah, not even she could pull that off.

So, if giving up was a bust, she could only do as Juvia had advised days ago. She had a better idea of how she could try to compromise with Salem a bit now, but there was still no guarantee that it would be enough, especially with her mother's death. Each of them wanted to move their lines closer to each other, meet in the middle, but each of them could only go so far. The power of friendship could not overcome all.

Ruby took Ozma's book in her hands, thinking back on her old professor. All his good intentions, all his wise teachings, and in the end, hypocrisy all dogged every last one of them. From the start, he subverted the democratic systems he founded, centralizing real military in his academies where he trained new legions that no army could match. He had betrayed every ideal of hope he'd ever espoused to her.

But, perhaps, to believe in an ideal… was to be willing to betray it.

A huntress who blindly clung to principles and promises, a hero that would die at the end of the story, could not save the world. Neither could a monster, who tossed their dearest beliefs for the sake of their goal, always slain by consequence before any real good could be brought about.

But maybe… a person. Just a person. Not an angel as Salem saw Fairy Tail, nor a demon like she found the rest of humanity to be. A person like any other, who held themselves as just like any other, perhaps they could finally make some actually good come out of good intentions. Or at least minimize the bad.

Of course, to do that, she'd need to be able to stand as something of an equal to the Queen she called friend.

"Everything okay, runt?" Gajeel asked after she'd been silent for a few moments.

"Fine," Ruby responded, the glow of her requip flashing over Ozma's legend. "But after this, I need to talk to Cana. She's the only one who can teach me what I need to know."

RWBYRWBYRWBYRWBYFTFTFTFT

"Sorry, Rubes. Can't."

"What do you mean you can't?" Ruby petulantly whined, leaning across the empty sake jugs littering Cana's table in the guildhall. "Mavis is actually dead now! You're the only one who can teach me how to use Fairy Glitter on my own-"

Cana cut her off by pressing a single finger to her lips, chugging a mug full of some foul-smelling grape juice knockoff with her other arm. When she finished, she tossed the stein into the milling guildhall crowd. The tankard smacked Elfman on the back of the head, the burly Take-Over wizard turning from where he was talking with Evergreen to glare at Bickslow, who laughed with his babies at the hulking man's misfortune.

"What's the big idea?!" Elfman shouted. "A real man would meet me face-to-face if he wanted to start something!"

"For goodness's sake, settle down!" Evergreen lectured him. "He didn't throw the damn cup."

"Aw, look at you keeping your boy in line," Bickslow teased, his floating babies giggling along. "Evergreen and Elfman sitting in a tree, K, I—"

"Fairy Machine Gun: Leprechaun!"

Evergreen's golden salvo scattered towards her teammate. Bickslow leapt to the floor, half of his babies knocked down as the others returned fire. Elfman stepped in front of his girlfriend, transforming to tank the energy blasts, only for some of the shots to bounce off into the crowd. Soon enough, bystanders whirled on the crowd, angry and growling. In an instant, a classic Fairy Tail brawl broke out through the dining hall, dust, smoke, and bodies flying everywhere.

Ruby ignored the chaos and kept her glare on Cana, who faced her with a jaunty, loopy grin that even Uncle Qrow would have been hard-pressed to match. "You're drunk. Not even regular drunk, you're Cana drunk."

"Well I've got to be. You're not being Ruby sober!" Cana slurred, pointing accusingly at the other girl. "You're wearing Wendy's cute little suit, and I mean, yeah, it's adorable on you, but where's the red hood?"

"It got destroyed. And I didn't exactly know I'd need to bring extra clothes when I… ugh, not important," Ruby waved off, shuffling back her borrowed red suit jacket and unbuttoning the top of her shirt to get a bit more breathing room (How did Wendy wear suits this tight?). "Look, if you need time to sober up before showing me Fairy Glitter—"

Cana suddenly bent over backwards, a scarlet tattoo flashing onto her forearm. "Oh, river of light that's guided by fairies…"

Ruby's eyes widened, her jaw dropped to the floor as a cacophony of golden erupted above the guild brawl, a flood of magic power surging outward. Several of the weaker wizards were blown across the room, their bodies smashing the far tables to splinters. The stronger ones, such as Elfman, the Thunder Tribe, and Gajeel (who'd seemed to have leapt in out of nowhere), continued fighting unabated, but that was only because it'd been deliberately aimed away from them.

Cana recoiled back and snatched up another wine bottle with a cocky smirk. "Ha! Need to sober up?"

"You… you just fired out a Grand Fairy Spell completely while completely wasted!" Ruby squealed. "That's so awesome—"

"Cana!"

The brunette's devil-may-care attitude evaporated, a frown morphing over her face at the new voice. Ruby was about to ask who the newcomer was when she was suddenly bowled over to the ground, the table she'd been sitting at blasted to smithereens by familiar jagged white lines. The silver-eyed woman picked herself up to her knees and glanced down at the newly atomized sleeve of her suit jacket.

"Crash Magic," she whispered, reverence and terror filling her voice as she remembered her sudden freefall when Salem's castle collapsed out from under her. But the only member of Fairy Tail with Crash Magic was…

"Oh, my adorable Cana! I'm so proud of you! My baby girl is so amazingly talented!"

"Get off me, old man! I was trying to make a point!"

Ruby looked up to spy Cana ineffectively attempting to shove off a tall, well-built man, with wild rust-colored hair over his head and chin. He wore a long cloak over a pair of metal prosthetics, euphorically snuggling up against the younger woman. If the Silver Spirit Slayer wasn't aware of their familial relation, it might have been creepy. As it was, she had many memories of her own father being just as embarrassing, memories that made her happy that he was safe back on Patch instead of caught in the chaos of the Grimmlands like the rest of them.

"You're Gildarts," Ruby said with an undertone of awe for the one man even Natsu claimed to be the absolute strongest in the guild. For the first time since her mother's death, her eyes sparkled with wonder. "Holy crud, you're Gildarts! You're the—"

"No!" Cana exclaimed, finally pushing her father off and pointing an irate finger at him. "I had an entire elaborate trickster mentor thing setup to reignite her wonder and help her learn Fairy Glitter! You do not get to just show up and get her all sparkly eyed again just because 'Oh, look at me! I'm Gildarts! I'm famed-in-story! I'm stupid strong! I once clapped Natsu through a mountain!'"

"Eh, sorry," the older man embarrassedly winced, only to immediately revert to super proud papa mode. "But your impression was spot-on!"

"Damn it, dad," Cana grumbled, ducking a bench tossed by the rampant brawl. "Look, can you please just stop any of the wreckage from that from getting over here?"

"On it!" Gildarts snapped to attention, cracking his knuckles. "As their senior, I really should end this madness—"

"No, just keep any of the wreckage from getting over here," Cana clarified, smiling fondly at the cartoonish dust cloud forming over the brawl. "I need this to keep going."

"Oh, thank goodness, because I really didn't have a leg to stand on if I told them to stop," Gildarts sighed, nonchalantly swatting aside a flying chair. He shot Ruby a smile and wave before leaving the girls' space. "Nice to finally meet you, Ruby!"

"Nice to meet you too!" Ruby called with a happy wave. Then, she turned on Cana with a disgruntled scowl. "So, you're not drunk?"

"Oh, I'm veeeerrry drunk. Just, 'normal' drunk, not 'me' drunk," the card wizard slurred, though still with an intelligent gleam in her eye. "But you're not Ruby sober! And you'll never learn Fairy Glitter like that."

Ruby's eyebrow ticked over her forehead. "I have been trying to get it right for months! But every time I try to match Mavis's spell weave it breaks down. What, do I need to be drunk? Do I need more power? It's power, isn't it? I need more power. It's always power—"

Cana cut her off with a poke to the forehead, splinters flying behind her head as her father shattered an incoming barrel. "It's not power. It's bonds."

Ruby pouted. "Seriously?"

"Magic evolves and grows alongside us based on our thoughts and emotions. The three Grand Fairy Spells require a certain type of magic power to be properly fueled," Cana explained. "Takes a lot of technical skill to channel it properly, but to form it properly requires focus on bonds for the bonds. Not the power."

"Ugh, I guess that makes sense. Mavis used the Tenrou Team's bonds to fuel the Fairy Sphere that shielded them from Acnologia. Fairy Law won't harm anything the caster loves," Ruby noted. "But not exactly helpful when I'm going to have to fight one of those friends I bonded with, someone who's following ideals that I gave them."

Cana gently patted the side of her head, shooting the younger woman a sympathetic smile. "It takes a hell of a lot of courage to stand up to your enemies. But even more to stand up to your friends. You won't be doing yourself or them any favors if you let your bond become a noose around your necks. Heck, Lucy could have gotten the rest of the guild killed if she'd ignored the attack on Tenrou to search for Mavis's grave with me instead of standing up to me."

Ruby tilted her head. "I don't think anyone ever told me about that part of the Grimoire Heart attack."

"I had daddy issues, got in my own head, did some really dumb stuff," Cana summarized, all before shooting Ruby a sly smirk. "Though, nothing as dumb as trying to erase myself and my entire world from history."

"I'm never gonna live that down, am I?"

"In your words? Nope."

"Or that, apparently," Ruby replied, though she did snigger at Cana's teasing tone before a melancholic expression took over her face. "I fought my mom. She died saving me from my best friend, now my sister is trying to murder that best friend and I sent our last teammate to stand in her way. If I can't reach a compromise with Salem, what if I'll just be making things worse?"

Cana shrugged. "The whole 'fight your friends to save your friends' is hardly an ideal solution, but that doesn't mean it isn't necessary sometimes, scars or not. But if it comes down to it, you can handle it. Not overnight, obviously, but you can handle it. You're stronger than you think."

"Why do you say that?"

"Are you kidding? I've been flirting with Lucy for years now. I know what it looks like when someone's stronger than they think," Cana laughed.

She suddenly shot to her feet and cracked her neck, drawing a deck of cards from her bag as she turned towards the wider guildhall. "Besides, where else are you gonna get practice like this?"

Ruby followed the card mage's gaze, looking past Gildarts smacking down assorted furniture and into the maelstrom of madness he stood before.

Elfman and Lisanna tag teaming Bickslow and his babies.

Freed slashing down Evergreen glowing bolts as she tried to riddle their other teammate from behind.

Bisca sniping down Gajeel before he could run down Alzack, only for Juvia to step between her old friend and the gunslingers and using her water body to shield him.

Max hitting Warren. Laki smacking Nab. It was chaos, friend battling friend with all their varied menageries of magic.

It was Fairy Tail. Simple, beautiful, and utterly insane.

Ruby took a deep, gluttonous breath of it all, and a sweet, cool relief poured down her spine. A chunk of her heart, turned to stone by the despair of the Grimmlands, crumbled away, the weight in her chest lifted away bit by bit. Like her talks with Juvia, and Gajeel, and Levy, and Lily. Her friend could help her carry it.

She… didn't have to fix things.

Because it was already broken. It was always broken. Maybe it always would be. The guildhall filled with madness and life was no different from the roof of her house on patch, Zwei in her arms and Erza sitting by her side watching the sunrise. And that… that was alright. There was plenty of darkness everywhere, but there was light too.

And if it was hard to find, well… she wouldn't find it on her knees.

Cana clapped her hard on the back, the silver-eyed wizard hopping forward and pouting back at the drunk. At least, for a few seconds before they both burst out laughing.

"Well, kiddo?" Cana challenged, eagerly shuffling her deck. "Ready for your first practical lesson on Fairy Glitter bonds?"

"Aww! My daughter is such an amazing teacher!"

"Darn it, dad! Stop ruining my cool moment!"

Ruby smirked at the family banter, a spiked club requipping into her hand. But the moment the weapon touched her palm…

'My beautiful girls.'

Ruby's hand recoiled, her tool dropping from her grip and clattering against the floor. Cana and Gildarts halted their bickering and turned towards the clatter.

"Rubes?" Cana asked, concerned.

"You alright, kid?" Gildarts inquired, radiating dad energy.

'Mommy loves you more than anything in the whole world.'

Ruby stood still for a moment, her breath shuddering as her hand shook. However, she refused to close her eyes. She knew what she'd see if she did, the same image that was drowning Yang in wrath.

But… her head was above that water. And it was getting easier to tread, every day she was at the guild. Even she'd never run again, she might learn to swim.

When her mother's final words left her mind again, the young girl gulped, kneeling down and retrieving her fallen club.

"I'm not sure I am," Ruby replied. She shot a smile, genuine smile at Cana. "But, I've been told that I'm stronger than I think."

Her semblance activated and she charged into the brawl, smacking Gildarts in the back of the knee with her mace as she zoomed off. Fairy Tail's ace and his drunken daughter laughed like maniacs as Ruby approached the chaotic guild battle. No Crescent Rose, no armor, no team, no mom, no hood, and still she entered the fray.

She could move forward, a stream of rose petals flowing behind.

Originally, I had thought that I would be able to get all of Ruby's second trip to Fairy Tail done in one chapter. Turns out, I was dead wrong! Looks like this'll be a two-part mini-arc for Rubes within the larger Grimmlands Arc.

Fortunately, this gave me the opportunity to really slow down this chapter and laser-focus it on Ruby. As a character, she starts this chapter at her biggest low point, past the Despair Event Horizon and trying to commit suicide on behalf of her entire timeline. She does not believe things will work out no matter what happens and thus hastens them to such a conclusion. And thus, a large part of the FT characters' objective this chapter is, through their own quirky ways, to help her pick herself up from her despair. She won't ever be a Wide-Eyed Idealist again, but complete cynicism is no more healthy for her, nor helpful to her goals.

Of course, while this chapter certainly strives for a lighter tone than the rest of the Grimmlands Arc due to its less dangerous setting, it is not meant to be easy for Ruby. While the chapter's timeline of mere weeks is certainly Hollywood-speed for a mental recovery, I wanted to make clear throughout that Ruby's recovery is not 'done'. She's been given time to decompress from the immense mental stress she's been operating under and a healthy environment and support system to start learning to handle it, but the trauma she's experienced won't simply go away, as I hope that the penultimate beat of hearing Summer's last words shows.

A large theme of this story, building on RWBY's attempts to investigate similar ideas, is that there is darkness in the world. It is real, it is dangerous, and the path through it is one that a person can very easily become lost on. But there IS a path through it. And Ruby will have to find it if she wishes to make her encounter with despair something she can walk away from without destroying all she seeks to protect.

Thank you for Reading! I hope you enjoy what comes next!

Go Forth and Conquer!