I'm not sure what the usual protocol on A/N's and the like is, so I'll just leave it at the end of the chapter.

CHAPTER 2:

Moonlit Midnight in Vale

Ruby shot out of bed. She was covered in sweat, and her arm was outstretched as if reaching for something. Her chest heaved in and out at the phantom pain she had experienced. She took as many deep breaths as she could to calm herself back down, and she pulled her arm back to stare at it in dazed confusion.

What was that? Ruby wondered. She let her hand drop and she gripped her sheets tightly as she stared down at her lap. She had never gotten so far into her dream before. She'd only ever seen enough to recognize that it was a world filled with weapons, and weapons alone. As far as Ruby was concerned, it had always been enough. She loved seeing it when she did, because it always gave her new ideas on what she could improve in Crescent Rose.

But this time was different. Ruby shook her head. This time, she did something she had never done before. She had touched a weapon in that broken world. She winced as she felt her body burn at the thought. Gingerly, she brought a palm to her forehead and winced at just how it was.

Snore!

Ruby jumped out of bed at the noise and drew into a stance that was completely unfamiliar to her. When the noise happened again, Ruby flinched before frowning as she looked down at the sleeping form of her sister. She then sighed. It was just Yang. Of course it was.

But then she looked left and right at her raised arms and blinked in confusion. "What…" Ruby whispered, relaxing her stance. She brought her hands close and stared at them once again. She couldn't remember ever standing or positioning herself like that whenever she trained. It especially wasn't a stance she would use with her Crescent Rose. Just to make sure, Ruby stepped away from her bed and did a few of her basic forms.

After her fourth or seventh form holding a phantom Crescent Rose, Ruby shook her head. No. If anything, the stance she had taken seemed to lend more towards holding a pair of heavy short swords than a large scythe. When Ruby thought about trying out the odd form again, a strange feeling overwhelmed her. She shivered at the uncanny feeling and decided against it.

"I need a breath of fresh air," muttered Ruby. She looked at the clock and hummed at the time. "It's not too too late yet. I could go for a walk…" Ruby then glanced back over at Yang and watched her grumble in her sleep before turning in bed and pulling her sheets closer.

With a shameless smile, Ruby nodded. "Yang won't mind, right?"

After getting dressed into her usual attire, Ruby admired her look and nodded. Just as she was about to step out, she saw her Crescent Rose resting next to Yang's gauntlets. She snorted at such an easy decision. Ruby tucked Crescent Rose on her back and smiled at the familiar weight. Then, she put on her headphones and, as quietly as she could, she stepped out and closed the door to their hotel room.

It was easy to get outside after that. There was no one in the darkened halls of the hotel, and the late-night receptionist barely gave her a glance. Soon enough, Ruby was strolling through the midnight streets of Vale, wondering at how so many of the shops looked so different when they were shut down and closed for the night. Some places were still open, and she did still see groups of people roaming the streets, but they were few and far in between. Listening to her favourite music also made it seem all the more livelier, while taking deep breaths helped calm her down and take her mind off of her dreams.

At some point, Ruby found herself standing in front of the only open Dust store in the area, From Dust Till Dawn. Finding the name amusing for some reason, she stepped in and smiled at the tired old man at the counter before making a beeline straight to the magazines in the back. There, Ruby went straight for the weekly issue of Weapons Magazine and began rifling through its pages.

Ruby frowned as her frantic page flipping slowed before she stopped completely. Each page was just as packed as every other issue she had ever seen before, but it felt like she had just watched a movie on fast forward and hadn't caught any of the details she usually did. When her eyes fell on the highlighted gun-sword of the page she stopped on, the backs of her eyes felt like they flared with heat.

A copy of the weapon flashed through Ruby's mind, and even without looking at the details listed about the weapon or its name (Thunder's Howl, her mind whispered), the short history of the weapon, its current owner, and even who designed it itself into her soul. Ruby gasped at the feeling that was so very familiar, too familiar. One she had just experienced in a dream she was still trying to understand.

Just as Ruby was about to start panicking, one of her favourite songs: This Will Be The Day, came on. At the familiar tune, she closed her eyes and did her best to keep breathing like Yang once told her to. In and out, in and out, until the tightness in her chest disappeared. Ruby let the frenetic but steady rhythm roll through her, and she felt the panic begin to disappear before it could crescendo.

That was, until a hand roughly grabbed Ruby's shoulder and brought her out of her impromptu meditation. She stared in confusion until the well-dressed man pointed at his ears. Ruby gently closed the now crumpled magazine in her hands and took her headphones off.

"What is it?" asked Ruby. "Is something wrong?"

The man responded with a snarl. "Put your hands up! Now!" he yelled, and brought up a sword that flashed through her mind telling her that it was [Nameless/Mass-Produced/Issued by Junior/Uninteresting/Used for Crime/Crime/Crime]–

Ruby bit back her shock at the information as she found herself smiling incredulously at the man. "Are you robbing me?"

"Yes!"

"...Huh." Ruby could only blink as she wasn't expecting him to actually admit to it.

The man then moved to swing the sword at her, but Ruby knew she was much faster than he was giving her credit for. She easily dodged the swing and grabbed his arm before twisting it, causing him to drop the sword. Deftly grabbing it before it fell, she let go of his arm and spun her body into a kick that sent the man flying. His Aura flared as he crashed into the table in front of one of the shop's windows. After a long moment, another dressed exactly the same replaced him while pointing a gun at her.

Not a moment was spared as Ruby engaged her Semblance and rushed at the man. When he moved to shoot at her, she tossed the sword at his gun and struck it out of his hand before jumping and kicking him through the window.

Glass shattered and flew everywhere as Ruby landed. Her hands flew to her Crescent Rose and was already expanding it as she brushed herself off and stood up. As the weight of the scythe unbalanced itself, Ruby let it rest on her shoulder while turning to face the rest of the people that had decided to rob a shop while she had been in it.

The tackiest man of them all seemed to be the leader as he seemed to acknowledge Ruby with a tilt of his head. The thought occurred to her to look extra cool by spinning her scythe around and making a big show for them, but something else told her to downplay her abilities, at least for now. She wrestled with herself for a bit on what she wanted to do, this was her first real fight with other people after all, but the decision was made for her when the hired guns poured out of the shop towards her.

Ruby felt like sighing, while another part of her grinned in glee, as their swords swung at her. Crescent Rose slid off her shoulder, and she let it swing down and over before hooking the arm of the closest thug with it. She then fired its rifle-half, letting the recoil break the man's grip and sending him twirling while making her go flying towards the next thug. Ruby let the scythe swing forward into the chest of said thug and crashed him into the ground before firing again, spinning her into the air.

The airtime gave Ruby some space to breathe. Recollecting her thoughts, she counted how many were left with every spin. Three, plus the tacky leader. Cool, she thought. I can handle this. I've got this. As Ruby started slowing, she put her feet against Crescent Rose's blade and waited for it to spin into position. The moment it did, she fired its rifle and fired again just as she let the scythe slam into a thugs head, sending him straight to the ground. Ruby fired the rifle again to shave off some momentum and change her direction, where she used her Semblance along with her speed to slash the next thug several times all across his body before sending him flying into the air.

And then, Ruby felt more than saw the sight of a gun barrel pointed at her. She swung her head towards the last thug and widened her eyes before he shot at her and Crescent Rose. Ruby's scythe sparked from the impacts while Ruby herself dove and winced as her Aura took some sizable hits. Scrambling for something, anything, her hands found the sword of one of the downed thugs. Ruby blinked at the blade in her hand as its information passed through her, but she couldn't care less about it. What she did care about was finding another one on the ground, which wasn't hard.

Ruby looked at the two swords in her hand, all but identical, and her gaze fell on her Crescent Rose now behind the thug that had shot at her. "Darn it." Ruby pouted. "You separated me from my sweetheart. You're not very nice, are you?"

The last thug responded by pelting her with gunfire. Ruby narrowed her eyes and brought her swords forward before swinging them in front of her at wild speeds, effectively parrying every bullet that flew at her. But in the back of Ruby's mind, she knew there was no way she should be able to wield swords like this. It definitely wasn't muscle memory—She'd never trained to use two swords before but it was an odd familiarity all the same.

As luck would have it, just as Ruby was getting tired from blocking with the swords and was about to falter, the thug ran out of ammo. Without missing a beat, Ruby shot forward and yelled as she slashed at the thug once, thrice, twenty times in a matter of seconds. The thug gaped at her before his eyes rolled back and he collapsed.

Then Ruby realised what she was holding and threw the two identical swords away as if they were garbage. Her body felt like it was burning up and she knew what might be able to cool her down. Within a flurry of petals, Ruby picked up her Crescent Rose and hugged it to her body. "I'm never getting separated from you again!" Ruby cooed.

Ruby turned to face the leader who stared down at his downed men in disdain. "You were worth every cent, truly you were." He huffed his cigar one more time before letting it fall from his lips to the ground. He then stamped it out with his cane and Ruby bit her lip as the name of the cane and its owner shoved its way into her mind.

[Melodic Cudgel/Mistralian Custom-Made Gun-Cane/Owned by Roman Torchwick, 'Master' Thief/Used for–]

How do I know all of this?! Ruby screamed in her head as she stamped down the flood of information. While she was warring with herself, The now-named Roman raised Melodic Cudgel and aimed at Ruby.

"Well, Red, I think we can all say it's been an eventful evening, and as much as I'd love to stick around…" Roman shrugged. "I'm afraid this is where we part ways."

Ruby widened her eyes as the reticle to his cane popped up. The shot came, and Ruby launched herself into the air with a shot from Crescent Rose. The street exploded with red Dust while Ruby fell and landed roughly. She immediately looked for him again, but the storefront was now devoid of one Roman Torchwick.

Her eyes darted around until she saw him scaling a nearby fire escape. Ruby wanted to go after him, but her first instinct told her to check on the shopkeeper. Luckily enough, he seemed fine albeit weary and frightened as he stumbled to the door to look at her.

"You going to be alright if I go after him?" asked Ruby with a raised brow. He murmured something and nodded, to which Ruby smiled. "Alright. Just sit tight!"

Roman was just climbing over the edge of the rooftop when Ruby shot up and over with her Semblance. She skidded to a stop on the concrete and watched as he stepped onto a bullhead that came out of nowhere. Ruby primed her rifle just as Roman turned around and pulled out a red Dust crystal.

"End of the line, Red!" Roman cried.

Ruby narrowed her eyes as he tossed the crystal. She was sure he meant to shoot at it the moment it landed at her feet, but something in Ruby was angry at the thought of doing nothing while an enemy took aim at her. Still airborne and closer to Roman than her, Ruby popped her own scope out, and took aim. Then, as if falling into a trance, Ruby zeroed in on the Dust crystal and somehow knew that it had already been hit before she even pulled the trigger. And with the pull of a trigger, the Dust crystal exploded, sending the entire Bullhead reeling away from the rooftop.

How did I know that was going to hit? wondered Ruby incredulously as the Bullhead seemed to struggle to regain control. She shoved the thought away for later when she figured she wasn't out of trouble yet, because the Bullhead steadied itself, and where Roman once stood was now the shadowy figure of a woman with glowing eyes.

The sound of footsteps behind her made Ruby's grip on Crescent Rose tighten. She then turned to see a blonde-haired woman with green eyes that reminded her so much of S~b~r who was studying her with a calculating gaze and something that felt like disapproval.

Hey! Ruby silently whined, I'm the victim here!

"Stand back," she told Ruby as she brandished a weapon that was [The Disciplinarian/Dust-Compatible Riding Crop/Owned by Glynda Goodwitch, Huntress Teacher at Beacon Academy–]

She's a teacher at Beacon?! Ruby stared in awe, the fanatic within her now overpowering any other questions she had, including how she suddenly knew any of this. Instead, Ruby did as Goodwitch asked of her and stepped back as the Beacon teacher started sending tendrils of energy (aspects of her Semblance, Ruby's mind whispered) at the Bullhead, making it shake and shudder before casting something that made clouds of sharp ice begin raining on the ship.

The mysterious woman in the Bullhead responded by sending ball after ball of fire at Goodwitch. The Beacon teacher shielded each and every one, sparks and splotches of hot fire burning the roof around her. Suddenly, the entire area underneath Goodwitch grew a bright red, and Ruby narrowed her eyes as Goodwitch jumped while fire and stone erupted from the spot she had just been in. Landing gracefully, Goodwitch stopped beside Ruby and collected the roof shards into a giant javelin and shot it at the Bullhead.

Fire met the javelin, but even that wasn't enough to stop it. The Bullhead dipped to let the rest of the javelin glance off its already damaged hull. The rubble scattered but kept moving in Goodwitch's telekinetic grip as it circled around and began pelting the Bullhead's sides until the mysterious woman created a heat wave that pulverized the rubble into dust. As if sensing a lull in the fighting, the Bullhead quickly began to turn.

Ruby glanced at Goodwitch, who was staring at the Bullhead with a deep frown. Aren't you going to keep trying? Ruby asked Goodwitch in her mind. They robbed a Dust shop and threatened an innocent person! She turned her attention back to the Bullhead and frowned herself. If she won't do it, I will.

Bringing Crescent rose up, Ruby took aim and fired multiple times. Some shots glanced off the Bullhead's hull, but the few that made it to the woman were blocked by her hands—Something Ruby knew shouldn't really be possible.

"What—"

Ruby then widened her eyes and looked down at the quickly burning rooftop just as Goodwitch yelled at her to move and went as far as flinging Ruby with her telekinesis. Ruby cried as she then flailed in the air and subsequently botched her landing. All around her, the roof was now torn up, and above her the Bullhead was already ahead and flying away. Scrambling to her feet, Ruby stared at the shrinking Bullhead before she felt the piercing gaze of Goodwitch on her.

"Well?" asked Goodwitch as she folded her arms. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Ruby giggled nervously and shrunk Crescent Rose, putting it behind her back before putting on her best smile. "Uhm…it wasn't my fault, and can I have your autograph?"

A/N: Well, that was something. I spent the last three days writing this because apparently you all love this idea just as much as I do! I'm honestly still trying to figure out where I want this story to go, so please bear with me. As it stands now, I want it to be a well-paced story that doesn't have Ruby suddenly realising she has a broken power like UBW, only to go guns blazing and saying "Haha storyline go brr". No, I want the little details to add up until the change in the RWBY storyline is so complete that it seems like its always been like that, at least in "Remnant of a Dream". Tell me what you think of that, if you will.

Now, to respond to my Reviews, something I've never done before!

RESPONSES:

Archangel, Sky Tempest, Wyran and Marco:

I have heard your cries (and everyone else who seems to want more), and present you with another chapter!

TalonScythe:

Yeah, I've noticed that too. With literally any other fanfic involving Shirou or EMIYA reincarnated into an established character, said character is almost always completely erased. I've always found that to be dull and boring, because like you said, it just becomes Character A in Character B's body. In this case, I'm really trying my hand at seeing what I can do with Shirou's life affecting Ruby's own outlook on things, as well as how she approaches things. This, along with potential future interactions that can trigger memories from Ruby's life as Shirou.

And yeah, Shirou's soul itself, at least from what I understand, was a complete mess after the Fuyuki Fire, so much so that it gave him a Reality Marble. Something like that definitely doesn't go away when the soul itself is reincarnated. So yes, it is still with Ruby, but no, Ruby will not just become Shirou 2.0, and if that starts to happen, you have permission to slap me in the face.

Blucifer:

I never said Ruby's Semblance was going to change. There's enough distinctions to be made between magecraft and Semblances/Aura.

Guest:

I don't know what you're talking about, but it sounds interesting.

Saber EMIYA:

Yorokobe, shounen. It is continued for at least a chapter more.

SentinalSlice:

In relation to my response to TalonScythe, I will not make Ruby "Shirou 2.0", but yes, aspects of Shirou will bleed over into Ruby at key points and during those times that Ruby begins accessing her Reality Marble. You do bring up a point that it would be incredibly interesting, so I guess you'll just have to see where I go with it.

U. .Ventura:

I mean, you've basically got it in one go. That's what I'm trying for: Ruby Rose and all her quirks and passions, along with Shirou Emiya's life and ideals influencing and empowering her.

Anyways, that's all I have for today. Please continue leaving Reviews, I love reading them! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and on to the next one!