Howdy folks, how's it going?

Apologies for the slight tardiness, real life things and all that.

As always, shout out to Chaos Productions for his help.

And as always, I own neither MTG nor RWBY.

More at the bottom if you wish to see, but for now enjoy.

/

It bears mentioning, not all Planeswalkers out there know each other. In the massive expanses of existence, some of us can go our entire lives without ever meeting another, nor learning what we are or just how dangerous our powers can be if used recklessly, which can be a very dangerous thing for everyone involved. I was one of the lucky ones, really, I was given perspective many never got to enjoy from very early on.

Auntie Narset, a monk born and raised in Tarkir, one of the two Planeswalkers that helped my father raise me, helped to provide it. She's the one who taught me how to be calm and think things through, though I'll be the first to admit it's a lesson that has yet to completely stick. But at least it's also because of her instruction that my kicks can cause craters, which is a very useful life skill for someone like me.

But yeah, my father was known to Beleren. That guy was the founder of the Gatewatch, an organization for those like us who wish to safeguard the planes…The doesn't sound so bad? Yeah, you're right.

Let's just say that they both seek to protect the Multiverse, but they have… very different viewpoints on how this should be accomplished, which caused some… disagreements the last time they collaborated to stop a calamity. In my younger years, I only had my father's opinion to go on, so I wasn't really happy with that first encounter, but honestly? I've since come to realize that neither of them is entirely wrong. Perhaps different perspectives are necessary when it comes to a greater goal such as that.

But anyway, yeah, being my father's daughter, the daughter of the greatest nemesis to the one behind all of it, who had a massive track record of incomprehensible cruelty over the faintest of slights, kinda put a target on my back if he ever found out that I existed. Between that and me being a child, despite how some of the least scrupulous of the resistance thought that I could be an asset, the general vote was to leave me out of it. And so I stayed hidden with the refugees, under the guard of Auntie Narset, while the resistance formed a plan, and the retaliation began.

Things were looking like they were taking a turn, after that. The Planeswalkers managed to rally with some of the guilds, and launched a counter attack. The eternals were being pushed back, and morale reached its peak when a statue of the tyrant (yes, really, he had brought along a massive statue in his likeness, both to stroke his ego and as an insult to us) was sent tumbling down.

And then, from beyond the veil of the Planar Bridge, came the gods.

Oketra, Rhonas, Kefnet, Bontu, living manifestations of Solidarity, Strength, Knowledge and Ambition. Once, they had been the deities of Amonkhet, the rulers and guardians of its mortal populace. Then the tyrant came, and made them slaves, unknowing, unwitting cogs in the machine that provided him with his army. And once that purpose was fulfilled, they were slain, made to be near mindless weapons in his conquest, the mightiest of the eternals.

All things end, Yang. Even gods are not exempt from this. But what happened to this lot, how that end came, was nothing short of a tragedy.

The god-eternals struck back, sent the resistance efforts packing, and set to continue the destruction and death in the tyrant's name, even as he began his ritual, the spell to end all spells, the reclaiming of the eternity he so craved.

What happened next, amidst the wreckage and the destruction, what earned me my place among the legends of that day, nobody could have predicted…

/

Ruby was running.

The little girl knew that something very, very bad was happening. The grown-ups might not be telling her much, but she was a smart girl, and she could figure out that things were not going according to plan.

If nothing else, the shaking and the rumbling that had forced all the scared people that she and Auntie had been staying with out of their collapsing hiding place had been a pretty good indicator. The little girl was trying hard not to think of all the screaming during the panicked flight.

She had been separated from Auntie amidst the confusion, and then gotten lost amidst the many streets and alleys as she had tried her hardest to get out of the way of the fearful mob, lest she be crushed underfoot.

Now she was running, desperately trying to find Auntie, Ajani, or anyone else that could help, and stay out of sight of any of the mean blue people that wanted to hurt her and the other planeswalkers.

The sky above was growing darker, streaks of lightning in unnatural colors flashing through the clouds as a storm seemed to gather off in the distance, around the big building on the horizon, making things all the more frightening to the lost child.

And so she ran. Ran until a particular sound out of the cacophony in the distance caught her attention. A cry of distress and fear. And Ruby, despite being very afraid, couldn't quite stop herself from going to check it out. She didn't think it'd be a trap, since the mean blue people didn't speak.

As sneakily as she could, she headed towards the source of the noise, slowly peaking her head out from the corner of a building. Before her, all that she could see were ruins, crumbling buildings, boulders and large branches and roots of trees strewn about everywhere. It looked to her young mind as if something huge had tripped, fallen and broken itself all over the place. There had been a fight here…

More noise, and movement was noticed from the corner of her eye. The little girl looked, and could barely keep the gasp from escaping her lips as she noticed the small group of blue baddies there, the eternals, she had heard some of the grown-ups call them. These ones were forming a semi-circle, their weapons pointed pitilessly at a corner of a ruined building, where an older girl and a boy around Ruby's own age were clinging to each other, clearly terrified out of their minds, with no place to run. Ruby did not remember seeing them back at the shelter, but they looked like locals, probably stragglers, left behind when everyone ran…

Ruby looked up, a growing rumble catching her attention, to see stone blocks from the crumbling building give way and come crashing down… right on top of the trapped people. The older girl looked up, resignation flashing through her face as she held the boy in a tight embrace, closing her eyes…

"NO!"

Ruby did not hesitate, did not think. She dashed forward, blurring into a cluster of petals that blitzed past the undead soldiers. One moment, the stragglers were trapped, their fate sealed, and the next they were behind the monsters seeking to trap them, as the boulders crashed thunderously into where they'd been moments prior.

The eternals barely had the time to process the sudden development and turn towards their prey before a gout of pure, white flame washed over them, burning until not even ashes remained.

Satisfied that the danger was gone for now, the little girl turned towards the two she rescued, who were looking around, confused, disoriented, a little nauseous even, but very much alive.

"Are you alright?" She asked worriedly as she stepped over to them, drawing the attention of the older girl, wide eyes looking down at her with shock, fear, and dawning realization.

"Y-yes. Thank you, thank you…" She all but whispered, holding the boy tighter as tears begun to run down her face.

"It's alright!" Ruby replied with all the cheer she could muster. "Come with me, we gotta find a safe-"

The girl's words died in her throat as she looked beyond the locals, her eyes widening with horror. From the other end of the city block they were in, a figure appeared, stepping past a corner.

It looked like all of the baddies that Ruby had seen so far, skeletal and covered in plated blue and gold, except this one was massive, so large that the young planeswalker's own tiny form barely went up to its ankle, but yet it moved with a grace and silence that should have been impossible for anything of such size.

In one hand, it carried an ornate, golden bow, and on the other arm, arrows were holstered, larger than even the tallest man. A floating, golden crown hovered over a skull which, unlike the human and occasionally dog, goat, snake or bird ones she'd seen in the normal sized eternals, was that of a cat.

A battalion of regular eternals followed behind the giant, to the older girl and boy's whimpers of distress, marching in eerie unison, but Ruby was barely paying attention to them. There was… something about the large one, some sort of weight that settled itself over the surroundings just from its presence alone. Ruby did not know why, but looking at it made her feel… sad, like she was looking at something that had once been beautiful, something that had once been good, but was now broken…

Wrong…

To the girl's confusion, she could feel… something, in the back of her mind, something she could not quite place. The more that she looked at the giant, the more that she felt… itchy, inside her head, right behind her eyes…

Wrong.

And as sunken, hollow eyes sockets fell on her, Ruby knew that there would be no escape. Not from this one.

Ruby stepped forward, standing before those she had just saved, who having seemingly come to the same conclusion as her, just stood there, the brief flicker of hope snuffed out. At that, the giant moved, looming towards the little girl like an inevitable, inexorable promise, with slow, impossible grace, and yet to Ruby looking like nothing if not a puppet in ill-fitting strings…

Wrong!

The giant approached, until it was standing right before the girl, looking down through its inscrutable death mask. A moment, a minute, an eternity of silence followed, and as she looked up defiantly, the feeling within Ruby, the outrage she didn't understand, the demanding itch inside her head, were reaching a crescendo…

This is wrong!

The giant reached down, a skeletal, clawed hand seeking the little Planeswalker, and she knew well what fate awaited her the moment she felt its touch. But Ruby, to her own surprise, was not afraid. The feeling swelling inside was taking over her every thought, occupying the whole of her being. It demanded release…

And as the hand, the end, was but a moment away, without understanding how or why, Ruby gave in.

The little girl screamed, and her entire form begun glowing as bright as a star, as the power rushed forth in an almighty torrent, engulfing the giant before her, as like called to like.

The explosion of pure, white light swiftly surged through the entire area, forming a dome that was visible for miles around, drawing the surprised attention of beleaguered defenders and those responsible for the chaos alike. The light surged through the giant, through the broken being that had once been a god, washing away the layers upon layers of wicked and vile sorceries, that had shrouded a once noble purpose, like so much filth. Chains of malice and control, woven throughout the ages like a carefully woven tapestry, snapped like strings as the light burned through them, reaching even beyond the material form, scorching through the weave.

Elsewhere, a serpent stopped its fight with a champion. An ibis ceased its duel of sorcerous lightning. A crocodile stopped its rampage. And a world away, a jackal looked to the horizon.

As swiftly as it had appeared, the light faded, followed once again by silence, as Ruby slumped to her knees, spent and exhausted. The girl and the boy were still behind her, unharmed, while the eternals before them were nowhere to be seen, obliterated by the light.

All but the giant, who still stood there, seemingly untouched… But something was different. For a moment it stood still, almost a statue, before slowly, almost hesitantly, raising its hands, and just staring at them.

Then it looked back down, to the small, now completely helpless girl standing before it… and it kneeled, its presence now one of kindness and warmth.

"You are one of mine, Ruby Rose." Oketra, The True, spoke in a faint, raspy voice, her tone one of weary sorrow. "And I owe you more than I will ever be able to repay."

/

And so the differences start falling into place.

On another note, I'm going to be honest. In my original plan for this little travel and flashback arc, there were gonna be three different stops before returning to Remnant. Alas, while my new updating schedule has generally worked well for me, as it is, it has kinda made that plan unfeasible, as I feel like things are dragging on a bit as it stands. So we're gonna be wrapping up things in Ravnica within the next two updates, return to Remnant, and leave the other ventures off plane to other, future significant events.

All the same, I hope you folks enjoyed the chapter, and if you did, please be sure to leave a review, or alternatively show some love to the Tvtropes page for this fic, which could use some expanding.

Next up, the climax of this version of the War of the Spark, but before that, we got the next update to Of Red Petals and Black Feathers.

Cya all in the next one, stay safe and take care.