Here's a sort of 'epilogue' chapter. This really is going to be the last one since the ending pretty much makes it impossible to go anywhere else from here.
By the way, some Reddit memes have given me a really fucked up idea for twisted Lancaster. People have joked about Summer jumping on Taiyang's Tai Wang in a really short amount of time given the age gap between Ruby and Yang. Other fics joke that Ruby also inherited this due to her Rose genes with Jaune being the sad blonde in the scenario.
And now I'm thinking of a oneshot where Ruby deliberately does things to make Jaune depressed because it makes him more attractive to her. She could have saved Pyrrha, but chose not to because it'd make Jaune sexy sad. She could kill Cinder with her Silver Eyes immediately, but leaving her alive adds more of that juicy depression for Ruby to comfort Jaune out of later. And so on and so forth. Her first reaction to seeing Jaune older and depressed in Ever After? Look at all that sadness she can fix him out of! Then she warns Weiss to back the hell off.
I could also add Cindere in there as a joke so on one side you've got Ruby who deliberately makes Jaune sad and on the other, you've got Cinder who'll murder any woman that so much as looks at him. And neither is willing to share. Whoever wins, Jaune loses.
Reminds me of that joke about Yang's mommy issues since her mom is an emotionally closed-off dark-haired woman with a katana who ran away when Yang needed her the most. Blake is also an emotionally closed-off dark-haired woman with a katana who ran away when Yang needed her the most.
Jaune was gone.
Ruby looked down in disbelief at the letter sitting at the table. It was a simple piece of paper with just a few words written down. A declaration that he was leaving and that if she cared about him in any way then she wouldn't look for him. It was followed by reassurances that it wasn't because of her and that maybe someday he'd come back if she still even wanted to be friends at that point.
Ruby looked over the note again and again as if it would somehow change the contents. It didn't. Jaune was gone, and this time she was sure he wasn't kidnapped or anything. They'd come up with signals he could use in case Yang's mom and that Cinder woman tried to kidnap him and the headmaster again. None of which he used in the letter at all.
The rosy reaper let out a shaky breath and sat down on her and Jaune's shared bed. The two of them shared just about everything. They shared the same apartment, the same bed...so many things. And why wouldn't they? They were best friends! The only true friend Ruby ever had in her over one hundred years of life in this world.
Ruby lay back on the bed and picked up her scroll, seeing her reflection on the darkened screen for a moment. Over a hundred years alive and she didn't look a day over twenty. Her cuteness, or whatever the heck you wanted to call it, didn't let her age. It didn't let anyone she cared about age either. Her family, Weiss, their sister team, Jaune...they stopped aging at about the same time she did. Cause any of them dying would make her sad and not even death was willing to do that.
The Brother Gods came down when they realized she and the people she cared about were immortal. One look at her and they'd acted the same as everyone else, gushing about how adorable she was and offering her their powers if it would make her happy. She didn't really care for it - she already had all of the powers of the Maidens cause of course they thought of her as they died - but it wasn't like there was anything or anyone to use it on. The Grimm were pacified, no one commited crime, and Remnant was basically at peace.
She still took their powers, but only to make sure they wouldn't kill everyone like they did back in Salem's time. They were kind of jerks. She also sealed it somewhere so no one could ever use it again.
Ruby took another deep breath and grit her teeth to keep from pouting or sniffling. If she so much as wobbled her lips then reality itself would bend and Jaune would be right back here. So she didn't. As much as she wanted Jaune back, he was her best friend and she was going to respect that he needed some space. She'd seen it a lot in movies, people leaving their friends and families to 'go find themselves'. Weird that he was doing it now instead of when he was actually twenty, but it wasn't like they were strapped for time.
Of course, it didn't stop her from feeling lonely. She'd had Jaune with her for a century and now he was just gone. Who was she supposed to be normal besties with now? Everyone else was too enamored by her to ever treat her normally and it was hard going back to being alone after a hundred years of always having Jaune so close by.
She wondered how he was doing. Did he find himself? Did he miss her? Cause she missed him. The urge to pout and bring Jaune back to her grew stronger as the days passed and yet she stubbornly refused to give in for the sake of her best friend.
Ruby only lasted a week before the loneliness became too much. She still didn't force Jaune back - she didn't want to be a bad friend - but then another idea came to her. She'd been watching a bunch of superhero movies lately and there was all that stuff about the multiverse and alternate realities. She also knew that those existed in real life too from her talks with the Brothers.
She chewed on her lower lip and looked down at her right hand. She knew she could change reality with an expression, but opening a gate to a whole different world was something else entirely. But then, a voice whispered at the back of her, what if she found a world where she wasn't Cute? Where she was just Ruby Rose, a normal woman with normal knees who was just like everyone else?
The temptation was too much for her to resist.
Ruby sniffled, "I wanna go to a different dimension..." she whispered, making sure to sound super sad about it.
She barely had time to blink before a glowing blue portal appeared in front of her. This was it. A portal to another dimension. She stood up with bated breath and tiptoed closer, poking at the swirling gate with her right hand. Tingly.
Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and stepped through the gate. The tingling feeling covered her body for a moment and when she opened her eyes again she found herself in the middle of Vale surrounded by people. She looked around in wonder and was mildly disappointed to see that it was identical to the Vale back home. Was this another dimension or did she just teleport outside?
Her question was answered when the people stopped and stared at her. It wasn't the usual fawning and, ugh, worship that she got back home. Oh no, these were the looks of people who saw the Cute for the first time in their lives.
Ruby winced at the chorus of gushing, cooing, and outright squeeing that she got. People brought out their scrolls to take pictures and videos of her and many got down on their hands and knees, crying about how lucky they were to see someone so cute. The rosy reaper sighed and trudged along, walking through the city while the crowd followed her at a respectable distance. Okay, so this world wasn't immune to her cuteness either, but maybe she could still find certain people who were? Maybe Jaune or her counterpart in this universe.
She made her way to the bullhead docks for Beacon, figuring that maybe Ozpin would have some info, and stopped when she saw a strange and yet familiar sight.
"Jaune, come on! The new X-Ray and Vav's coming out today!" A fifteen-year-old Ruby Rose tugged a seventeen-year-old Jaune Arc by his right hand and all but dragged him down the steps. It made her remember the good times with her own Jaune. She really did appreciate him for coming into her life. She didn't know how she could've gone on for so long if not for her bestie.
The other Ruby and Jaune stopped when they saw her. Her younger counterpart's silver eyes widened and she gasped. Well, that wasn't a surprise. Seeing a dimensional counterpart of yourself was bound to shock anyone. Ruby smiled shyly and raised a hand to wave at her younger counterpart. It'd be weird making friends with herself, but at least she wouldn't be gushing over he-
"Oh my gosh, you're so cute!" the other Rose said. Ruby's greeting died in her throat as her younger counterpart bounded over to her and looked up with wide, awestruck eyes, "You look just like me, but way cuter! Oh, this is so amazing!"
"Y-Yeah!" Her hopes only sank further when Jaune joined her younger counterpart, eyes brimming with admiration, "W-Who are you? I've never seen someone so cute in my life!"
"I...my name's Ruby..." The words tasted like ash in her mouth. If anyone would've been immune, she thought it'd be Jaune and her own counterpart. But no, they were just as vulnerable to her cuteness as everyone back home.
It was then that a dark thought came to her mind. What if her Jaune was truly unique even across the multiverse? What if he and he alone was immune and no one else was? The mere idea of it caused her heart to clench painfully. Her Jaune was gone, at least for a while, and the thought of being alone until he came back. And if he didn't...no, she couldn't take it. There had to be someone else immune to her. There had to.
"Oh my gosh, my name's Ruby too! Oh, wait, do you want me to change my name so we don't have to share? Cause I'll do it right now!"
Ruby forced a smile on her face as her younger counterpart continued to gush. Okay, so she and this dimension's Jaune weren't immune, but maybe someone else was? It wouldn't hurt to at least check. Maybe she could even do some good while she was here. If Salem was as evil as she was back home then it would've been irresponsible for her to not do anything about her nefarious plans.
Sadly, no one proved immune to her cuteness. She did end up locking Salem away in a vault, but the fact that she'd saved this dimension from destruction didn't make her as happy as she thought it would. And so it was after she'd thoroughly explored this dimension that she pouted and opened up another gate. Ruby assumed that once she was gone whatever cuteness-induced mania that took hold over everyone would disappear.
She was unaware that it just wasn't that simple. The second she stepped into that dimension, she'd already infected it with the Cute, and when she left the seed she'd planted sought out a new host. And so, that dimension's Ruby Rose woke up from what felt like a trance to a world that suddenly worshipped her as the personification of cuteness, doomed to the same life of loneliness that her counterpart suffered until she found her own immune friend.
Ruby's search for more individuals, or perhaps even an entire dimension, immune to her cuteness continued. She'd gone through dozens of worlds, some with variations and others almost the exact copies of her home. There were some where Jaune was the headmaster of Beacon and others where she was the older sister to Yang while Jaune was the Vale four-time champion.
There was even a super weird one where Mister Ironwood was a General and threatening to bomb Mantle for some reason while Salem was right outside the walls. That was one of the dimensions she stayed behind to fix.
Sadly, not a single one of them was immune to her cuteness. So after spending some time in each dimension, she left, leaving behind the seeds of Cuteness that continued to spread throughout the multiverse.
Ruby sighed as she returned home. Jaune still wasn't back despite all the time that passed and she was slowly losing hope that she'd ever find someone she could be normal with, "No, don't give up..." She slapped her cheeks and forced a smile on her face. There just had to be a dimension out there she could just be Ruby Rose, and that'd make all this traveling worth it.
She opened up another gate and arrived at another almost-identical-looking Vale. She ignored the people gushing at her arrival and asked to borrow a scroll so she could check the news. Huh, this one had team RWBY known as the Defenders of Vale after they saved the kingdom from Grimm pouring inside with elemental powers. Maidens? That was new. She didn't run into those a lot in her travels.
She returned the scroll (stealing was wrong!) and was about to begin her search again when she saw it. Ruby blinked and stared up at the odd sight. It...It looked like a screen, but there was someone on the other side. Man or woman? She couldn't tell.
No, wait, there was more than one screen. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of them, all looking straight at her. She couldn't see their expressions for some reason, but she also didn't hear the same gushing she was used to. Had she finally found them? The people immune to her cuteness? Her heart beat in both nervousness and excitement and she only had one question on her mind as she reached out for your screen.
Did you think she was cute?
Yes, she is.
Anyway, that's the end for this parody fic turned cosmic horror...thing. Really can't get any farther than Ruby going on a (failed) multiversal adventure, spreading the Cute across universes like a cancer before finally breaking the fourth wall.
Next update...not sure. Maybe I'll make that twisted Lancaster one? Might be fun in a very dark way.
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