Omake 001 – ROSE

Ruby Rose was in a hurry, but then again anyone would be in a hurry when one of their best friends was at risk of being killed. Vale was under heavy assault, the Grimm, White Fang, and Atlas's hacked androids (at least before she disabled the Androids when she confronted Torchwick) advancing on the city from every direction, attacking everyone they came across. Never before had Ruby been put through the grinder like this, her feet exhausted from constant movement, her hands almost on the verge of hemorrhages from continuous usage of her sweetheart, Crescent Rose, blood dripping from her mouth and nostrils as she pushed her Semblance to its limits.

If anyone saw her, she was a blur of crimson and rose petals weaving in and out of the Grimm and whatever remained of the White Fang, striking them down, not even checking whether she was merely knocking them unconscious or outright killing them with the kinetic energy behind her speed, as she blazed a trail directly to the tower where Pyrrha was facing Cinder. The last time she'd done something this remotely intense was when she came across a Beowulf pack after visiting her mother's grave the previous winter, and that had lasted all of five minutes, whereas she had been fighting for well over that. It was pretty obvious to her that after everything was done, if she survived, that she would be in for months of recovery at the very least, but she didn't care, all that she focused on was saving Pyrrha.

The call of distress that Ruby had received from Jaune had terrified her, his plea to save his esteemed partner from the one who orchestrated this whole disaster almost undecipherable from how fast the knight was talking. The terse call had been promptly cut off, and Ruby and her reliable partner Weiss had barely managed to understand what the blond had been talking about, but enough had been said for her and Weiss to rush towards the tower as fast as they could. The dragon atop the tower certainty didn't help her plans on saving her friend, and Ruby had no idea how to even begin to tackle that monstrosity. But the goal wasn't to slay the dragon, no. It was to save Pyrrha. She wasn't going to let anyone else get hurt, her sister had already lost an arm, and Blake had been stabbed in the gut. The only ones left to do anything were herself and Weiss, the professors too busy herding the rest of the civilians aboard escape shuttles.

Finally reaching the base of the tower, Ruby turned around to find Weiss approaching, her crystal blue eyes widened in horror when she saw Ruby's face dripping with blood. Ruby's eyes hardened and she nodded towards her partner, her chin pointing to the tower in a quick order to follow her. The heiress gave her a look of concern, but the red-hooded girl shrugged it off as they made eye contact. No words were exchanged as they looked upon each other, and the white-haired partner let out a deep breath.

Weiss knew what to do as she cast a glyph using her Semblance directly beneath Ruby, like she had done the time they killed the giant Nevermore during the Initiation. Flicking her finger upwards, Weiss sent Ruby rocketing vertically, the younger girl rapidly accelerating upwards using both Weiss's help and her own Semblance as she ran on the tower's walls. The sheer force of the acceleration threatened to knock unconscious the rapidly ascending girl, but she kept going, forcing her body beyond her limits. She past a fifth of the tower's height, then a fourth, but just when she was about to reach the midway point...

The world froze.

The dragon directly overhead was just hovering there, its pitch-black wings not beating. Debris being thrown off the top of the tower from the fight between Pyrrha and Cinder, just floating in mid-air. Ruby tried moving her body, to no avail, as the mysterious phenomena seemed to have frozen time itself, barring her mind.

A glowing blue ball lazily floated towards her as Ruby continued to struggle to move.

"Child of Silver-Eyes, hear my voice," an eerie voice resonated around her, the ball projecting a woman's voice in her right ear and a man's in the left. It was rather disorienting to the startled girl as she floated there, frozen in time, and hearing a ball of light talking. Although, the female voice kind of sounded like Weiss, but the man's voice was foreign to her. Each time the voice spoke, the ball's light grew momentarily brighter, only to fade back to a dull glow as it ceased speaking.

"Who are you!?" tried to scream Ruby, only for her non-vocalized scream to echo in the frozen air, surprising her.

"Who I am is not important, what is important is that your world is in great peril."

"Well no crap! If you looked around Vale is being destroyed! I don't have the time to talk with you! I have to save Pyrrha!" growled Ruby as she tried moving, angered by her immobility when her friend was in danger.

"You do not have the power to save your Kingdom, you do not have the power to save the 'invincible girl' from her fate, no human does," interjected the dual-gendered voice.

"But!" she shouted again, but again was interrupted.

"However, I could give you the power to do so."

"What!? Explain!" demanded a suddenly focused Ruby. She didn't care if the voice was Oum himself, but being told that she could be given the power to save her friend was enough to catch her attention.

"You are a silver-eyed warrior, but that power is not enough to combat the Darkness that threaten mankind's survival. The most you could do would temporarily stun the man-eater that flies above."

"Silver-eyed warrior?" Ruby spoke in puzzlement. Was her mother a silver-eyed warrior too? She had the same eye colour like Ruby, but her Dad and Uncle Qrow never mentioned anything about that.

Again, ignoring her question, the disembodied voice continued:

"I will supplement your current power with the abilities of one of my other agents. I will give the knowledge to use it only once in this situation as your body is on the verge of collapse, it will be enough."

"Then why isn't that person here! We need..." she tried to argue, desperation in her voice, only to be cut off once more.

"I cannot bring him to this plane of existence as he is not native to this world, the energy costs would be too great and threaten to bring even worse enemies' gazes to this planet. Of all the humans on this planet, you were, are, and will be the best option for the continued existence of mankind."

Ruby paused. Was this what was needed to save everyone? She couldn't let anyone else be hurt anymore, the people who already been killed were haunting her guilty conscience, their voices calling out asking her why she didn't save them, why she wasn't fast enough. It was the reason why she pushed herself so hard to get to the top of the tower to the point of self-destruction. Maybe… Maybe that's why this mysterious creature chose her… Her dream was to become a hero, to save everyone, and she would do anything to make that dream a reality.

And so, the figurative crown was placed in Ruby's hands, and she brought it to rest on her brow, not realizing it was a crown of thorns.

"What will happen to me?"

"If you accept, you will become one of my agents. You will protect mankind from itself and outside forces that threaten humanities existence. You will gain unimaginable power that no human, both living and deceased, could ever hope to match."

The entity wasn't telling her everything, only what she wanted to hear, but Ruby didn't know that. And even if she had, she was far too focused on saving Pyrrha to care at the moment.

"Okay….," mumbled the leader of team RWBY, "I accept! Just give me the power to save Pyrrha! To save everyone!"

"Your oath has been accepted. From here on, you are an agent of Alaya, mankind's will to survive. You are the last line of defense between survival and extinction. Welcome to the ranks, Counter Guardian ROSE."

Just as the voice stopped, the blue floating entity flew towards Ruby and entered her body. Jolts of electricity and pure agony racked girl's body, if her body could move it would have been contorting in pain.

"ARHHH!" screamed Ruby, but no one would ever hear her scream for the world remained still. Her head felt as if it had been thrown in a blender and ignited, simultaneously. Information flowed into her brain, knowledge of weapons of legendary caliber. But like Alaya said, it only gave her the ability to use a single weapon once. One she knew it would kill anything that its tip was pointed at.

Time slowly began to flow, and crackling red electricity flowed over Crescent Rose, its form shifting. Gone was the mecha-shift weapon combination of a scythe and high-impact sniper rifle, and in its in place a huge crimson longbow, even larger than her body. Power flowed into her muscles, power that would give her the strength to fire the bow once, while an arrow could be felt in her other hand, or at least she thought it was an arrow. It was rather heavy to be something to be fired from a bow, but the information in her head told her otherwise. Finally, the incantation to invoke its power was added to her mind.

This would do the job. This would save Pyrrha and everyone else from that terrorist and dragon. Ruby was sure of it.

Time resumed in full speed as a deafening crack resounded through the air, the redhead resuming her ascension like a black and red meteor, her arm already going through the motions necessary to nock the arrow.


A sound that could be comparable to an explosion shook the air just before Cinder could let loose the arrow that would pierce the "Invincible" Girl's heart, killing her, and allowing her to finally steal the remainder of the Fall Maiden's powers. All those present, terrorist, prey, and dragon, paused and looked around warily, the sound no doubt heralding something, yet none of them aware of exactly what.

As Cinder's gaze went over one of the partially destroyed sections of the tower, a red and silver blur shot into the air an extra fifty feet past the tower's peak, but all Cinder could see was glowing silver eyes staring directly into her soul.

"NO!" she screamed. She was SO CLOSE to finishing the job and the silver-eyed girl just HAD TO awaken! Swearing in her mind that she should have just killed her when she had the chance, she adjusted her aim away from her defeated prey, and towards the silver-eyed warrior, sending the arrow in her enemy's direction.

Realizing it was her chance to escape, Pyrrha used her polarity semblance to drag her armor-and herself-to the elevator and threw herself down the shaft, not even realizing it was Ruby who was the one who gave her the opportunity to escape.

As Cinder's arrow neared Ruby, the redhead pointed her own, twisted projectile towards it, and towards her target. The bow shook as the humongous arrow was pulled back, the teen roaring words of power that echoed throughout Vale:

"MY CORE IS TWISTED IN MADNESS!"

Cinder's glass arrow was now only a few feet from her, yet she didn't show the slightest sign of worry, as she finished her scream:

"CALADBOLG!"

And the air shrieked.

Space itself was twisted by the projectile, as the arrow broke, becoming a blur with enough power to raze a mountain as it leapt forward.

The glass and broken arrow flew past each other, missing another by mere centimeters and continued to their targets, both striking directly in the chest of their targets. The tower exploded in a golden light, a light powerful enough to rival the sun and lighting the night sky as if it was a summer's day at high noon, drawing the attention of everyone—Human, Faunus, and Grimm—in Vale, including the white-haired heiress standing in horror directly beneath the tower. The dragon and power-stealing woman were literally disintegrated from the sheer power the projectile unleashed upon them, disappearing without a single trace left of them as their very beings were torn to shreds by the explosion.

As the tower was engulfed in light, the glass arrow struck the young girl in the chest, and Ruby sputtered in response as she stared at the arrow jutting from her left breast, piercing her heart. She had long since exhausted her Aura, leaving her completely open to the projectile, and she could only cough weakly as she stared at the foot-long piece of glass protruding from her chest.

"Oh…. Crap," she muttered weakly, exhaustion catching up to her as gravity resumed its hold on her body, wind howling at her ears as she fell, blood droplets surrounding her body.

Just as Ruby was about to crash on the ground, a white glyph appeared beneath her, slowing her descent as Weiss caught her, the white-haired girl wrapping her arms around Ruby's dying body, her hands shaking with horror as crimson blood coated her hands and clothes. Ruby's blood. Wilting rose petals scattered about, slowing resting themselves on the quickly growing crimson pool.

"No… no no no no no!" repeated a frantic Weiss, staring at the piece of glass punching cleanly through her friend's chest.

"Ruby no, Ruby, Ruby! Wake Up! Please! Ruby!" she cried, trying her best to stop the flow of blood coming from her friend's body. Her first and best friend, who was dying in her arms.

"Ruby! Please Wake Up! Please don't die!" she screamed, slapping the redhead, hoping to keep her awake for a few more seconds, seconds in which help would undoubtedly come…

Tears fell from the lonely teen's eyes onto the younger girl's face, who used to be so full of life but was now contorted in a slight grimace, her eyes closed.

Dimly glowing silver eyes slowly opened, blinking blearily as Ruby stared at Weiss, her weak voice barely audible.

"Weiss?... I don't feel so good, I'm really cold," she croaked weakly, and began to cough blood into the Heiress' already blood-stained coat.

"You're going to be okay Ruby, just stay awake okay! You're going to be fine!" tried to smile Weiss, cradling her friend's hands in her own.

"Hey Weiss…" mumbled Ruby.

Coming closer to hear the dying words of her best friend, the Schnee Heiress forced herself to speak, unwilling to let her emotions prevent her from hearing her leader one last time.

"Yes, Ruby, what is it?"

A faint smile made its way across the blood-stained face of the crimson girl who gazed up at her teary-eyed teammate. It was her biggest secret, one she had carefully kept from everyone, no matter how bad a liar she was. It was one she had wanted to tell Weiss for days now, but with the Vytal festival, she hadn't gotten the chance. But if she didn't say it now, she would never be able to do it. So, she forced a weak smile on her face and opened her mouth, forcing her last strength into uttering the words she had wanted to say for so long…

"I love you…" she croaked, her mind, in its last instant, focusing on the other girl's reaction, just before she died, her silver eyes dimming and her head dipping forward, into her friend's, and crush's, chest.

Blue eyes widened in shock, it took Weiss a moment to understand Ruby's words, and when she did, she cradled the girl's body to her own, pressing her forehead against hers as she sobbed. Her cries grew with time, until she was screaming in anguish, screaming her rage, anger and regret to the world, wordlessly cursing those responsible for taking the redhead from her. She cried in agony for the world to hear, the body she was cradling dissolving into blue motes, leaving Weiss's blood-stained hands empty, leaving nothing behind but her blood, single glass arrow, and wilted rose petals scattered about.


Elsewhere, in a desert plain with crusty soil and giant metal gears hanging from the sky, numerous rust-covered swords impaled into the ground…a little red-riding-hood with silver eyes woke up.


Authors Notes:

Haha, I should have just made this a separate story. But like Ruby said to Weiss, "Nah!" A bit of White Rose there at the end, but then Ruby had to die. Good job Ruby 10/10. So yea, Ruby is a Counter Guardian in this side-story. I tried to base the encounter with Alaya like the protagonist did in Saga of Tanya the Evil with his/her encounter with 'Being X' (you should watch it, 11/10 would recommend).

I wrote this little side-story when I was taking a break from chapter 4 (which is going to be quite lengthy so please be patient). Hope this will satisfy your thirst for more in the meanwhile.

You know what I was listening on repeat as I wrote this chapter and my main Chapter 4?

Losing It All – Anberlin. A rather contrasting conclusion to this Omake. But do not fret! There will be more of this Omake in continuations! Then again, all of my chapter names (except this one) come from songs by Anberlin, We Came as Romans, Aimer, and Trust Company. (Got a nice list of chapter names for future chapters).

A field of thank you's to Arawn D. Draven for beta'ing my chapter!