Ruby followed her older self through the village, Yang with her. Older Ruby was hiding something from her, and the adults knew what.

"How do you think she did it?" She finally asked Yang.

"Did what?" Yang asked.

"Froze the giant Grimm she was talking about?"

"Dunno," Yang shrugged, "maybe a lot of ice Dust? Or maybe she has some sort of special power because of the Breidablik? Legendary weapons in stories normally give their owner some special powers, don't they? Hey, Ruby, what special powers does the Breidablik have!?"

"Well, other then the obvious one," Older Ruby said, drawing the white-gold gun off her hip, "it can shoot magic and do this."

Ruby watched as Older Ruby whirled the gun by the trigger guard. Instead of the expected blast, the gun glowed before changing shape, becoming a gold, one edged sword with red accents and, strangely, a power symbol on the guard, then she whirled it again and the light extended, becoming a golden dory spear with blue accents. A third whirl saw the blade extend and sharpen, ending as a gold and green form of "Crescent Rose!"

"Yep," other Ruby grinned, before spinning the scythe back into the gun form, "the Breidablik can transform into any weapon I imagine, but I generally prefer Crescent Rose unless I'm in some place too small for her. Anyways, come on, we're almost there. I want to introduce you to Morgan before I go."

They made their way to the top of a hill with a tree on it, an axe lodged in the ground in front of it, and older Ruby cupped her hands around her mouth, "Hey, Morgan! Working hard, or hardly working!?"

The tree rustled, and then a young woman dropped from it. She had purple tinted black hair and eyes, a robe the same color, and silver armor around her hips, her biceps and her neck.

"I always work hard, that way I can relax just as hard," the girl complained, and Ruby plopped a hand on her head and tossed her hair.

"I'm teasing you," she said, "anyways, I have a pair of new friends to introduce to you. This is Yang, and this is Ruby."

Morgan looked at them both, before looking at Ruby, "did Thórr makes the Breidablik go wonky again?"

"The Breidablik doesn't go wonky," older Ruby said.

"It does though! Thórr touches it and then it's suddenly shooting kids instead of adults!"

"Phrasing," other Ruby said, "And ok, yes, occasionally Thórr messes with the Breidablik and I start summoning children for a bit, but this isn't that. We got sent to a past version of Remnant."

"So this is you from the past?" Morgan said, looking over Ruby, who stepped back and behind Yang, "What's that about?"

"I wasn't the best at making friends as a kid," Older Ruby crouched, "hey, listen. I know. Morgan can be a bit… much, for someone like us. But despite how she might behave sometimes, she's a good kid. She'll be a good friend to you, if you let her. I've spent a lot of time helping her learn melee combat and tactics, and trust me, she [I]does[/I] have her heart in the right place."

"Of course I do! Why wouldn't I?"

"I've seen how you treat Yarne," Ruby said, "I don't care if you have a crush on him, you shouldn't treat the poor kid like that."

"I don't-!" Other Ruby gave Morgan a look, and Morgan stopped, "I'll try to be better."

"Good to hear," Ruby said, "Now I got to go, I have a mad scientist to deal with."

"Speaking of that," Yang, Ruby and Morgan all jumped while Older Ruby gave Lyndis an exasperated look as she seemed to suddenly appear cresting up the hill, "I'm going with you."

"Ok, then," other Ruby said, "Let's go."

—- X Lyn X—

Lyn stopped her pegasus behind Ruby, who was looking down at the island. Finally, she nodded, "This is it."

"You're sure?" Ike said, "No offense, but this looks like it could be any other island in the world, not a secret base."

"Pretty sure, yeah," Ruby said, rocking back and forth on the pegasus she was on, "and even if I'm wrong, worst comes to worst, we clean an island of Grimm so people can come settle!"

Then she tipped sideways off her steed and plummeted into freefall, the Breidablik transforming into a spear as she went. Shez, Lyn and Ike all went silent, before Shez signed, goading her mount into landing, "I hate it when she does that."

Lyn did the same, along with Ike, landing in time to see the last of a group of five two legged black and bone creatures die on Ruby's spear. The spear changed in the Grimm's body and Ruby put her weight into ripping her scythe from it.

"Creeps," Ruby said, tapping the decaying body with the Breidablik, "they're dangerous if they get the jump on you and you're unarmed, but otherwise they're basically a nuisance. They like to dig underground and ambush people."

"Right," Ike said, drawing Ragnell off his back, Lyn drawing the Sol Katti off her hip, while a twist of Shez's hand saw her relic sword appear in it while she drew a plain steel sword from her hip, "I probably shouldn't have to ask this, but rules of engagement, Ruby?"

"No quarter. The Grimm won't show you or anyone else alive any mercy, so don't bother giving them any. Merlot… if you can take him alive, do so, but I won't cry if he dies. He has a lot of blood on his hands."

"So some quarter," Ike joked as the underbrush around them shook. Lunging forward, the Hero of Blue Flames easily decapitated a large wolf Grimm. Lyn leapt over the lunge from another, landing on its back and swinging Sol Katti through its neck. Ruby swept in between two and bisected them at the waist. A third lunged for her and she was gone in a flash of rose petals, and Shez was on them, living up to her title of Asura as she ripped it to pieces with a flurry of sword slashes.

"He'll die either way for his crimes," Ruby reformed with a shrug, "Making Grimm more dangerous, causing the fall of Mountain Glenn. Those are crimes that'll get him an execution. You're just speeding up how quickly he dies."

"Whatever happened to the girl who wanted us to take as many people captive as possible?" Shez joked, and Lyn cracked a smile.

"Don't get me wrong, I think we should capture people whenever it's possible. But last time Merlot tried to blow up his base with us in it. He absolutely does not care about our lives, so I'm not gonna force you to care about his."

—- X Ike X—

Ike was a modest man, he knew he was a good fighter. If he was a bad fighter, he would have died years ago, probably when he started out as a member of his father's mercenary company, but just as likely in any of the hundreds of battles he had fought over the years since taking charge of Greil's Mercenaries.

That did not mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that he was the strongest hero in all the worlds. He didn't know how that myth started before he even left Tellius, but it had and had marked his life since defeating Ashera. First, it had been Veronica coming and tricking him into a Contract in the form of, well, of a mercenary contract. Then upon being summoned by the Breidablik, he had quickly found that few people wanted to face him in the sparring pits of the Order of Heroes.

There were, of course, exceptions to that rule. Lyndis, Chrom, Alm, and Blyeth were all willing to fight him if they had the time. As was, of course, Ruby Rose.

"Ruby, how many Grimm are on this island again?" He called, looking over his shoulder in time to see Ruby rip open a wolf's mouth and shove the Breidablik down it. Three loud thunder cracks sent the monster spasming before Ruby dropped it and let it decay. Throwing the Breidablik in the air and kicking it at a second, she let it transform into the spear and punch through the approaching Grimm before disintegrating into rose petals and reforming at the blade, ripping it from the decaying body.

"I didn't!" Ruby laughed, the spear transforming back into Crescent Rose so she could decapitate another Grimm, "We haven't even gotten to the good ones yet! Those should be in the base up ahead!"

"Oh, good," Ike couldn't keep the snark out of his voice as the winded up an overhead swing, Yune's flames building around Ragnell before he brought it down in an explosion of blue fire that swallowed two wolf Grimm, "I was worried we'd get BORED!"

"Right?" Shez called from in a vortex of wind, tearing four wolves to pieces with it, "Ruby says it's a scientist experimenting on Grimm and I expected something out of the Agarthans! This is practically a walk in the park!"

"Come on," Ruby said, shifting the Breidablik into the form of a sword, "Let's go find Merlot."

— X Ruby X—

Ruby wasn't the most adept with the sword form of Breidablik, for a couple of reasons. The first, of course, was that she was primarily a scythe user. While she had some training with swords from Signal, it wasn't where she had put her primary focus. The second was that she didn't really need to be, the sword was capable of being used telekinetically. And the third, and most glaring reason, was that the damn thing steadfastly refused to not take the form of Floating Array, Askr damnit!

Great sword? Oversized Floating Array. Short sword? Small Floating Array. Dagger? Miniature Floating Array.

Yes, she got it, dear sweet Relic of hers, she wasn't over Penny's death half a decade later. She didn't need to be reminded every time she needed a sword.

This was why she never, ever used it as an ax. Because if the sword was Floating Array, and the spear was Miló, there was only one ax there was any chance the Breidablik would transform into and Ruby didn't want to reopen a decade and a half's worth of dealt with abandonment issues.

Pushing those thoughts aside, Ruby launched the Breidablik at the first mutated Grimm they found, a Beowolf. It slit the tendons of the claw raised towards Ike, who swung up Ragell and took off the arm at the shoulder, sending black and green smoke pouring from the wound. Another swing took its head off and let it drop.

"There should be more," Ruby said softly, "there were more when Teams RWBY and JNPR dealt with them. It took us all working together to clean them out."

"Wasn't that months after this?" Lyn offered as they continued forwards, "maybe he hasn't had time to modify more than a few."

"I doubt that," Ruby said, "because that implies that he modified them all in a few months. And he's suspiciously quiet, he wouldn't shut up last time we were here."

"Then he moved locations?" Ike offered.

"Maybe," Ruby walked to a door at the end of the hall, pressing the button, "but I get the feeling- yeah, that's about what I expected. He panicked when we got here."

In the room, surrounded by a dozen mutated Creeps and Beowolves, was the mutilated body of Dr. Merlot. Reaching down, Ruby picked up the decapitated head and sighed. Well, at least that was one loose end tied up.

Ruby looked up at the Grimm, reaching deep inside her. Past the tendrils of magic from the Breidablik into the core deep within. An all consuming flash of silver light came out of her eyes and swallowed the room, and when it faded, the Grimm had been scattered as dust on the air.

"C'mon," Ruby said, "Let's get back to the Resort. I'm sure Ozpin wants to be able to introduce us to the other leaders sooner or later."

—