Patch, being one of the only places on Remnant where people could experience nature in relative safety, had a prosperous tourism industry. Thousands of people came there every year, and they all needed a way onto the island.
That was where the ferries came in. A fleet of gleaming steal ships, armed with dozens of cannons, machine guns, and all the depth charges an aspiring huntress and unrepentant weapons nut could ever want. The thrill was not dampened by the fact that she had seen this exact arsenal before.
Literally.
Yang and Blake had went off to buy some food, and had left her with the firm instruction to not sneak down to meet all the guns. ("It happened once!" "Yeah, and we were thrown off the ship! Before we docked!") Leaving her to plan.
Obviously, they had time traveled.
Because of this, things had changed.
Therefore, first thing she had to do was to figure out what had changed and what hasn't!
…Which was harder that it looked when she had barely paid attention to the news.
She had a plan though! She was going to go to the dust shop, wait, and then when Torchwick showed up, she'd take him down and… something.
Hey, she'd only been awake for a couple hours.
Still, thinking about a bad plan was better than thinking about them.
She saw them, every time she closed her eyes. Pyrrha, struck down by Cinders arrow. Penny's corpse lying on the ground. Yang missing an arm, out cold on the ground. Beacon torn to rubble. Her fault, all of them. Jaune was screaming at her. Why? Why didn't she save them? She was a huntress, wasn't she? She should have known it was Cinder; when Yang had apparently attacked Mercury she should have went over and found out what had happened. She should have trusted her; should have known something was wrong! It never should have gotten as far as it did!
The safety railing she was holding onto suddenly collapsed under her, nearly causing her to trip into the waves below.
It didn't happen. Not anymore. Now she could change everything. No one was dying now.
Yang and Blake were sure taking a while, weren't they? She should probably go find them before someone asks where the railing had went.
Away from the open streets, Blake found herself relaxing. At this time of day, the ferry only had the commuter's and die hard tourists.
Yang had pulled her to the on-board restaurant, and away from Ruby. Blake had hoped for a few minutes that it was just to help carry food, but no such luck.
"Spill," Yang had sat them both down at a table.
"What are you talking about? "
"Come on Blake, I know you. You're acting all 'Blakey' again. More than usual, I mean."
Blake rose an eyebrow, "What about this situation is usual, Yang? I see you get crippled, then I wake up at your house and apparently, we live together; my entire past is different; and it's nearly six months in the past! Sorry for being a little 'Blakey'."
She went too far. Yang just sat there, staring at her. She looked away, tears already flowing.
"Yang, I'm sorry, it's just been…"
She felt an arm on her shoulder.
"It's ok, I get it. I shouldn't pry. I… I just feel useless right now. Ruby's already trying to figure out what to do next and, no offense, you're a train wreck, and I'm completely useless at this…"
"I'm not a train wreck."
"Blake, I'm sorry. I…" She buried her head into her arms, "This whole thing just been so... so crazy! It feels like we haven't had a chance to catch our breath since we woke up, everything's moving so fast and yet, yet nothing's happened. I just, I don't know what we're going to do."
Blake moved over to her side, tentatively gripping her far shoulder. Yang felt almost feverish, her hair burning hot.
"We've got to stop Cinder, and then…" Oh what the hell. She hugged Yang, burying into her hair. She smelt of sunflowers.
"Then let's just sleep for a while, if that's alright with you."
She felt Yang squeeze her waist, nearly lifting her out of her chair. She didn't feel as warm now.
"Yeah, a cat-nap sounds like a pretty good idea."
Did hitting her actually do anything? No, but it certainly made her feel better.
"Hey come on! It was claw-some!"
Much, much better.
As it turns out, getting from Atlas to Vale in any reasonable time was nearly impossible, even for a Schnee. No amount of money could push the Schnee airship, a modified Atlas scout ship with an included office, could push it any faster.
At least it gave Weiss time to rifle through the newspapers and archives on-board the ships CCT connection, and search for clues to what had changed with her travel. So far, it seemed like very little.
Most were identical to before; Vale was suffering from a crime spree, the Vytal festival was in a few months. The train robbery, however...
She remembered how it had happened before. The train was attacked, large number of security droids destroyed, but the crew was fine.
The article she was reading detailed how the cars, "Looked like the interior of a haunted house."
"Oh Blake, you stopped him last time, didn't you?" She whispered, leaning back from the screen. After almost an hour of reading, her neck was starting to ache.
She had figured that the attacks would have been more brutal if one of their own had decided to switch sides, but she had forgotten about this. She wasn't sure if Blake had ever told her exactly what she had done with the White Fang, but it made sense if she had been at the train.
Still, as horrible as it was, it provided a clue as to what happened. If everything else was the same, which it appeared to be, then the only change was her being in Patch that day and meeting her future, or former, or something team.
But why had that happened? She found some records that her father had a meeting there on that day, but it didn't say with who or why. Because of the town only having tourism and Signal to draw in business, the Schnee company had only ever set up a shop within the town limits.
She got up and walked to the viewing room, deciding to wait out the rest of the trip in relative peace. Vale was a much more appealing city to look at this time, although maybe that was simply because of much better she was feeling.
The last time she had boarded the airship for Beacon, her father and Winter had been there to see her off. It was small miracle, considering their feelings towards each other. This time, Father had been nowhere to be seen.
Winter on the other hand…
"Winter!"
She had been standing right next to the airship door, staring at the logo on the side when she had approached. She wasn't wearing her uniform, instead wearing a thick sweater and jeans. Somewhat disconcerting, but it was the normal kind. She had seen her rarely wear this type of clothing before.
"Weiss, it's good to see you. I hear you're finally heading to Beacon with your friends, correct?" she said with a…smile? Was she openly smiling at her, in public?
"Um, yes, I am." Weiss said, standing next to her. Of all the people she was wondering if they had changed, Winter frightened her the most. After her mother had disappeared, or died or whatever had happened, she was pretty much the only friendly face Weiss could count on.
"Good." Winter said, and then she turned around, "I expect to see top marks from you. Work hard, prove yourself, and… just be safe, ok?"
Then she laughed.
"Try not to let Ruby eat a whole box of cookies again, will you?"
She hugged her, making Winter question if she was feeling all right. She answered by laughing and crying into her shoulder for nearly ten minutes. She was better than OK, her sister was still her sister, and despite all the craziness of the day, she knew it was going to be fine.
…Although clearly she had spent too much time with Ruby if Winter knew about her cookie addiction.
The Mountain Glenn memorial park didn't look like what you'd think a park would really look like. It didn't have any plants; rather, it had a giant concrete platform. That was about it. Luckily for Ruby, Blake, and Yang it also had a lovely little bistro, and its owners were surprisingly willing to let three heavily armed, slightly crazy looking teenagers just sit there for hours on end. Usually there was rules about that kind of stuff.
They were all sitting at an outdoor table, Yang leaning back, Ruby messaging Weiss, and Blake discovering the depth of her scrolls library.
"So… anyone else think we may have jumped the gun a bit?" Yang asked, her chair nearly tipping over.
"I'm sure she'll show up Yang, it's only been," Ruby checked her scrolls time, "…two hours."
Blake looked up from her reading, "She does live in another country. Even flying, it's probably a few hours flight."
"Four hours, fifty-five minutes, to be precise."
"WEISS!"
For the second time that day, Ruby and Yang launched themselves into a spine shattering hug. Unlike their dad, Weiss wasn't quite as stable on her feet. They hit the ground in an undignified pile.
She couldn't find the energy to care though.
"…and that's when I woke up at home. After that, we found out Blake's living at our house, and then we came out here," Ruby explained.
After Weiss had managed to get out from the teammate sandwich, she demanded that Ruby explain what exactly had happened. Now she sat across from her, writing down everything she said like it was the cure to cancer. By the time Ruby had finished, the sun was little more than a sliver.
"Cinder did it then? All of it?" Blake asked, not noticing how she was crushing the plastic fork.
"It makes sense, doesn't it? The CCT, that message, and… Penny and Pyrrha." Ruby said.
"So what are we doing about it then?" Everyone turned to Yang.
"What? I know you're all thinking about it." Said Yang, gesturing to her team.
"We've got a chance to stop all of that from happening, don't we? I mean, aside from us, everything seems the same."
"She's right," Weiss spoke up, pulling out a different set of notes, "I found some news reports, my father stores them all on the CCT network, and the only event's that have seemed to have changed are what we were involved in."
She glanced at Blake. Don't ask about the train. Don't ask about the train.
"So we can stop her," Yang stood up, "We just got handed the best second chance anyone has ever gotten, we can't just let it go to waste!"
Blake spoke, "What if it does something though? I want to do something too Yang, but shouldn't we focus on figuring out what happened?"
Yang smiled and threw her arm around Blake, "Ah, but that's the thing! This all started because of Cinder, right? Even the time travel thing. So the only way to figure out what happened…"
"Is to track her down." She pushed Yang's arms away and looked down.
"I'm just… last time, we barely survived the train and Adam and I'm just worried that if we try and change things, we're going to wind up hurt or worse."
"Blake," Ruby's voice was low (for her standards) and steady, and her silver eyes bore straight through her.
"We're huntresses; this is what we signed up for. It's… weirder than what we expected, but it's what we have to do. I'm not just going to sit there while a maniac attacks my friends." She looked down.
"I saw Pyrrha die. She looked right at me, and I did nothing. That isn't going to happen again. I, we are not going to freeze up just because we're scared, OK?"
"…Alright. What's the plan then? Do we go to the police? Ozpin?"
"Tell them what, we time traveled?" Weiss was pocketing her notebook, "We'll either be laughed out or put in the loony bin."
"Besides, if what we know got out, what would be the point to having it?"
"OK," Ruby pulled out her scroll, "I'll make a list, what do we need to do to stop Cinder? Any suggestions?"
"We need to stop the White Fang," Blake scooted closer to Ruby.
"Then we have to stop the train." Yang typed it out over her shoulder.
"Don't forget about Torchwick." Weiss this time, forgoing her chair.
"Then… then we stop her." Ruby said, saving the list.
She stood up, "So! Who's ready to become time traveling huntresses on a mission to stop a horrible future-oh crap."
"Ruby, what's wrong?" asked Yang.
"Torchwick's going to rob the dust store in thirty minutes! Come on!" She ran off, forgetting that the rest of her team was not capable of keeping pace.
Weiss groaned, "Of course, only Ruby could be late to a robbery," she stormed off.
"Let's just get there before she craters the place."
Twenty minutes later, they found themselves spread out through the store, pretending to be incredibly interested in the piles of dust. Yang had just finished rechecking the potency of their fire dust for the fifth time before she finally walked over to the magazine rack, where Ruby was reading a weapons catalog.
"Are you sure they show up here?"
Ruby glared at her.
"Just checking."
She sighed, "I don't know exactly when they had showed up! I was reading!
"Would you two quiet down! I doubt he'll show up if he can hear us!" Weiss growled from the next isle.
"Oh, like you're not bored out of your mind!"
A door chime rang through the store, and the argument ceased. Creeping like mice to the front, they took cover behind shelving.
Roman Torchwick was standing at the counter, his borrowed men spreading out. He was smirking.
"Here goes." Ruby whispered, and they spread out.
Torchwick's hired thugs did quick work of the dust supply, and within seconds they were ready to leave. It was never good linger at a robbery, bad form.
His plans were scuttled when the distinctive sound of gunshots broke out, and Torchwick saw his men flying out of the store and landing in broken messes.
He sighed, "Just can't find good help these days." Twirling Melodic Cudgel, he turned to look at the four girls who took out his men. A blondie with golden gauntlets, a girl with a scythe nearly as long as he was tall, a cat with two swords and a mean look, and Weiss Schnee. Trainee huntresses, fantastic.
"Isn't it a school night ladies?"
Any other remarks was cut by the shortest, a girl clothed in red with a giant scythe, appeared in front of him in a burst of rose petals, forcing him to duck and blast himself out of her range.
Great, trainee huntresses that know what they're doing.
Weiss quickly put up an ice wall to slow Torchwick down, and Yang jumped and charged him.
She attacked, showering the surrounding buildings and ground with small craters. Torchwick was dodging everything she threw.
Weiss and Ruby went for his sides; Blake took his back. Boxed in like he was, Yang landed a jab on his face, sending him a few feet down the street. He rubbed his jaw.
"Feisty! I like it!"
"Shut up! Bee's Schnees!" Ruby yelled out.
Yang grabbed Gambol Shroud, while Weiss made a sheet of ice headed straight towards Torchwick. Blake threw Yang down the sheet, and Weiss sped her up further with glyphs.
Torchwick managed to brace himself, but Yang's blow hit like a freight train. If the blood from his mouth was any indication, his aura was pretty much gone. Yang pulled her arm back.
A rocket propelled cane rammed into her stomach, followed by said cane crashing down on her jaw.
"Not bad Blondie. Not good enough!" His attempt to follow up was interrupted by a red scythe, followed by a glyph powered ascent to the roof tops.
"Yang! You OK?" Ruby asked.
"I'M GOING TO TEAR HIM IN TWO!" Yang's hair was alight with flames, her eyes crimson red. The street seemed to almost be melting.
"Yeah, she's fine. After him!"
Torchwick had to admit, these kids were a hell of a lot stronger than they looked. It wouldn't matter now, since Cinder was on her way. Huntresses or not they couldn't hit what wasn't here.
He heard four sets of feet hit the ground. Scowling, he turned around.
"You just don't know when to quit, do you?"
Blondie charged him, her hair lit up like the sun. She threw another punch at him, but he managed to deflect it with his cane.
This left him open to a shot from Schnee, who hit him with a blast of fire. The black one popped up on his left, but when he fired the round passed straight through. The girl puffed off, like she was smoke.
Now would be a good time to show up Cinder!
Red started spinning her scythe like a propeller, forcing Torchwick to focus on blocking. Despite his own speed, it was taking nearly everything he had just to keep up.
Cat lady tossed her weapon at his feet, encircling them in a ribbon.
He managed to jump up before she could tighten it, but he catches a hit from Blondie.
Landing a few feet away, he dusted off his coat.
Red's fast, Blondie hits hard, cat's got Neo's power, and Schnee's got dust. Perfect.
He shot up a slow round and hit it with the handle, spewing out a wave of fire. Schnee tries to block it with an ice wall-when did she learn to do that?-but it powers straight through into-
A purple, extremely ornate barrier rose up to stop his blast cold. Behind it was the very angry face of Glynda Goodwitch.
Torchwick knew he had no chance against a huntress like her. Luckily, it looked like he didn't need to last much longer; his ride was here.
He spat out a glob of blood and spit.
"Thanks for the fun, but I've had my fill for the night!"
A gunship rose up behind him, and he turned and jumped aboard.
"We've got a huntress!"
Ruby had never before been so happy to see Glynda before. After the first few minutes of fighting, she had begun to wonder if she would ever show up. Now she was here, and now Cinder was here.
Time for the top secret plan!
"Blake! Yang!" They both turned to her.
"Bumblebee! But vertical!"
Catching on, Blake threw Gambol Shroud behind her, stretching the ribbon to the edge of the roof.
Yang grabbed it and jumped, firing shots to build up momentum. She was nearly to the ship when a huge wall of fire threw her back down to the roof.
Cinder stood in the shadows, hands steal wreathed in flames.
For a minute, Ruby felt something deep within her heart. A whisper of something. Almost as fast as it came, it fled.
"Ice flower!"
Weiss created the glyph, and Ruby opened fire. If Cinder was going to block her shots again, fine. She'd just aim for the turbines.
Cinder shot out blasts of fire, deflecting Ruby's assault. She flung the shards at them, but was stopped by Glynda, who again turned them into a giant spear.
By this point, all of team RWBY was hitting the ship with everything they had. Yang had gotten back up and was firing blasts of fire the size of cars, Weiss was blasting with nearly every type of dust she had, and Blake and Ruby were firing constantly. Cinder could block all of their attacks, but there was no way she could block theirs and Glynda's.
The ship turned around, its cargo doors closing. It's gun spun up and laid down a torrent of fire, forcing Glynda to shield them. Within seconds, the ship was gone.
Leaving team RWBY alone with a still very annoyed Glynda.
"I hope you understand the consequences of your actions here." Glynda walked around the team, seated at a table.
"We didn't do anything wrong! They tried to rob the guy and we just stepped in!" Yang tried to defend them, but Glynda slapped the table with her riding crop.
"I understand that, and normally that would be worth of praise; but not when it's accompanied by several thousand lien worth of property damage!"
"It's not our fault!"
"The craters kind of were, and the broken window, and the melted pavement…"
"Shut up Ruby."
"Now Glynda, I'm sure that they didn't intend for the damage." Professor Ozpin stepped out of the shadows, this time he was carrying a tray of drinks rather than cookies.
"Ruby Rose, Yang Xiao Long, Blake Belladonna, and Weiss Schnee." He placed the drinks down. "Three of you are going to Beacon tomorrow, aren't you?"
"Yes, sir, we are," said Weiss.
"Ah, well, that would justify the reaction, don't you agree Glynda?"
She huffed and walked away.
"Now then, what I'm curious about was where you learned to fight like this." He pulled out a scroll displaying a video of their fight with Torchwick.
"Now, I understand that you have all been training to join Beacon and become huntresses, but this is a bit beyond what most first years are capable of. Interesting names, by the way."
"They were Yang's idea."
"Blake!"
"Indeed. Well, care to explain when four trainee huntresses got skilled enough to battle with an experienced criminal?"
It was Ruby who answered, "Well, it's…well…we train a lot, and…my uncle Qrow helped?"
"Qrow, one of the world's greatest scythe wielders? He's your uncle?"
"Yes, you know him?" He was at Beacon after all.
"Of him, yes."
He put away the scroll.
"Miss Rose, your friends are already on their way to my school tomorrow morning. Judging from what I saw in that video, you are more than capable of joining them. Would you care to?"
To Ozpin's surprise, Ruby Rose didn't look surprised at his offer.
"More than anything."
He chuckled, "Well then Miss Rose," he stood up and shook her hand, "Welcome to Beacon."
Later, after contacting Taiyang and informing him of what had transpired, Ozpin met with Glynda outside the interrogation centre.
"I'm not sure if you understand what you did in there." Glynda turned to face him.
"Miss Rose is still a young girl, and you just accelerated her by two years."
Ozpin sipped his coffee, "You saw what she was capable of. I'm honestly considering rigging the team creation. They've fought together before."
"That doesn't justify it."
Ozpin merely turned his eye towards the city.
"Tell me Glynda, when you had first arrived at the scene, did you honestly think that it was the work of four trainees?"
She glared at him, causing Ozpin to shift his eyebrows, "I thought not. She could possibly be a hazard to the health of her peers if she was kept at her age level."
"That's not the only reason, is it?" It was a statement, not a question.
"No, not entirely."
Halfway across the city, Torchwick had managed to land the Bullhead in one of the Fang's warehouses. It hadn't been his first choice, but the fight had managed to cut one of the fuel lines.
Before he could even fully exit the cockpit, he was thrown against a wall and lifted by his neck by Cinder.
"What was that, Torchwick?" Her eyes were spewing fire; her hands uncomfortably hot.
"How was I supposed to know an entire team of trainee's would be there? I'm good, but they outnumbered me four to one!"
She shook for a minute, before dropping him on the floor.
"There better not be a next time."
He rubbed his throat, "Don't worry, there won't be." He'd never seen her emotional before, and here she seemed angry.
That kid had gotten close enough that she might have seen her face. Good to know he still had some leverage.
He pulled out his scroll and called for Neo to pick him up.
Last time I go somewhere without some real backup.
Cinder sat on the roof of the warehouse, glaring into the night.
What should had been a simple robbery went to hell because of four teenagers. She recognised the Schnee, but the rest were alien to her.
It wouldn't have concerned her; it would be easy to find records detailing who was friends with her, if it wasn't for how the blond one had looked at her.
She looked at her, and she recognized her. How? The entire thing felt off. Glynda she could see, but four huntresses just happened to be at a dust shop at the exact time Roman was robbing it? No, something didn't fit.
But for the life of her, she couldn't figure out how. Maybe it was just a coincidence. But she'd spent too much time on the plan to trust that.
The only option was to find out who they were and what kind of threat they possess.
Then, well, she'd figure it out then. After all, they could be of use to her.