Ruby Rose

"Ruby? Ruby, wake up."

"Pyrrha?" No, wait, it wasn't quite right. The eyes were right but the voice wasn't right.

"I'm not Pyrrha. I'm Jen."

"Ren?"

"No. Jen."

Jen... I don't know any Jen. I forced my eyes open and took in my surroundings. "Gah! Where am

I?"

"Our apartment," a male voice said bluntly. I turned my head and saw a guy with messy hair and

glasses holding a cup of coffee

"Apartment?" I asked. This isn't in Beacon... wait. Oh, no! "Agh, I wasn't dreaming, was I?"

"You thought it was a dream?" Jen asked.

"I... was hoping," I replied. My team... my world... all gone. "I was hoping."

"I think we all were," she sympathetically. She smiled. "So, Ruby, do you want breakfast?"

"Of course I do!" I said enthusiastically, momentarily distracted. "Uh, I mean, yes, please!"

"Do you like pancakes?"

I nodded. "Ooh, pancakes!"

"Hey, we don't have any game consoles, but you can play Angry Birds on my tablet or something,"

Ben said awkwardly, handing me a flat thing that looked kind of like an old scroll.

"Ben!" Jen chided.

"What? I'm letting her use my tablet."

"It's okay, thanks," I said, but I don't think they heard me.

"Well, show her how to play, then!"

"No, I have servers to fix," Ben complained, then walked into another room and closed the door.

Well, they were strange, but I guess they were trying to be nice. I put the tablet I didn't know how to

use down and pulled out my own scroll. Angry Birds sounds lame anyway.

Sam

We'd actually arrived almost fifteen minutes before we actually knocked on the door. Me, Isaac, and

Cliff just stood there awkwardly, like we were up to something, trying to figure out what we were

going to say.

"So, what do we tell her?" I asked, breaking the most obvious question.

"Everything," Cliff said immediately.

"Is that really a good idea?" I asked.

Cliff shrugged. "She sounded okay enough last night."

"She's just a kid," Isaac said. "I don't think she really understands what's going on yet."

"Not for very fucking long," Cliff said darkly. "She can handle it. Probably. If not, well, there's

nothing we can do anyway. Not a damn thing."

"Jesus, Cliff, tone that shit down," I said. "Stop being so dark."

"I'm not being dark, just blunt," Cliff replied. "Dark would be suggesting we break her neck and

dump her in a ditch in the middle of the night because nobody's going to notice her missing."

"Cliff!"

"Hey, you're the one who made the accusation."

"We can at least leave out the part about RWBY," I suggested. I watched one episode and found it

pretty terrible, but I read a few wiki pages before I got bored and I think I learned a little bit.

Something something Remnant, something something Grimm, something something Dust,

something something Aura, something something Faunas. Ruby Rose, Weiss Schindler, Black

Primadonna, Ying Yang.

Cliff shook his head. "No. Absolutely not."

"You're going to tell someone who's standing right there that they're not real."

Isaac replied, "Well, she's you know, there, so she's real."

"I wasn't created by some weeaboo japfag." I spat. Okay, that was maybe a bit undeserved. After all,

I didn't even know who the guy was until last night.

"It doesn't matter. Representations of parallel universes," Cliff, not Isaac, explained, "I'm too

fucking sleeping to go into all the implications and the quantum shit, but suffice it to say, she's as

real as us and it actually is quite significant scientifically."

Isaac recovered from my jab, and he added, "I agree with Cliff. Explaining RWBY is actually one

of the most important things we need to do."

"Right, what else?" I asked.

"Literally fucking everything," Cliff replied, accentuating every word. "What life's like on Earth.

How to live here. The history of Earth. Current events. Our technology. Our customs. Our history-"

"You already said history."

Cliff glared at me. "I'm repeating for emphasis."

He paused. "Look, we need to bring her up to speed, and fast. We're talking a lifetime's worth of

learned behaviours, customs, and background knowledge."

"Or we could contact the proper authorities," I half-joked.

Cliff took me seriously. "What proper authorities? The fucking Men in Black? The Time-Space

Administration? Those don't fucking exist. I'll just call up CBSA and apply for a visa for Ruby

Rose, citizen of Vale, which is on another fucking planet in another fucking universe."

"Maybe we should focus on finding the rest of her team and getting her back home," Isaac

suggested.

Cliff looked at him, shooting him the look he gave people when he figured they said something

extremely retarded. "And how do you propose we do that?"

"Uh... I have no idea, actually."

"Exactly. Fifty bucks she's here for the long haul." He paused, before retracting, "Uh, that's a

rhetorical bet."

"What the fuck is a rhetorical bet?" I asked.

"It's like a rhetorical question. Don't try to collect because I'm not paying. On the other hand, you

don't have to give me any money."

"Fair enough." I shrugged. "So, we just explain everything?"

"Yeah, it should be easy," Cliff said sarcastically.

"No shit." I rapped hard three times on the apartment door.

Almost instantly, Jen opened it. She whispered, "You figured it out?"

I whispered back, "Yeah. We tell her everything."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"She'll find out anyway."

Jen nodded, then stepped aside, letting us inside. Ruby sat at the kitchen table, the remains of

breakfast sitting in front of her. Ben was nowhere to be seen. Probably in his nerd den programming

or something.

I began, "Hey, Ruby-"

And then Cliff tried to do... something. "On behalf of the people and governments of Earth, I

formerly, uh, I mean, I formally extend you our welcome to our world- no, that's not right- I

formally extend you a welcome to our world of Earth- no, wait, no, it's fine- and, uh-"

"I think she gets it," I interrupted. "He's uh, kind of a sci-fi nerd."

Ruby looked up. "Oh, like aliens and stuff."

"Under most definitions, you are an alien," Cliff pointed out. "Even though you're biologically

human... well, human-ish?"

"Human-ish?" Jen asked.

Cliff shrugged. "Well, yeah, I mean, they're stronger than us, they have that Aura stuff, maybe

integration of Dust, and if there was an actual common ancestor definitely genetic drift."

"Huh?"

"This could be a while," I said, sitting down. Cliff, Isaac, and Jen followed my lead, crowding

around the table.

"Ruby..." What the hell do I say? Welcome to a completely different planet, where everyone you've

ever known and loved doesn't exist and nothing works the way it did on your world?

"Earth ain't Remnant," Cliff offered bluntly.

"Well, yeah," Ruby said, like it was obvious. What am I saying, it was obvious!

"It's not just a different world, it's, well, it's a completely different world," Cliff stated.

"That doesn't make any sense," I pointed out.

Cliff took a deep, exasperated breath. "What I mean is that this world might look similar to

Remnant, but it's not. It's not just a vaguely similar world far far away. It's much more different than

you think."

"What do you mean?"

"No Faunas," I replied. "Just humans."

"No huntsmen and huntresses," Isaac added. "No aura, no semblances, no ridiculous weapons or

superpowers."

Ruby blinked. "What about the Grimm? How do you fight them?"

"No Grimm," I replied. "Although the answer to your question would probably be drone strikes."

America, fuck yeah! Off to go and save the motherfucking day!

"Oh. So your world is peaceful, then."

I laughed, even though I shouldn't have. "No."

"No?"

Cliff explained, "Well, the Palestinians and the Israelis are going at it again, there's ISIS in Iraq, and

that's not counting the shit that's going down in Eastern Ukraine."

"What?"

Jen attempted to be poetic: "Wars, Ruby. We make our own monsters."

"Oh. Well, we had wars too, on Remnant."

"Yeah, I wonder if they were as violent," Isaac mused.

"Probably not," Cliff replied.

"I don't think you want to hear about our wars, though," I said. She shook her head. "Okay, until

yesterday I didn't even know what Dust was."

"Uh..." Ruby blinked and screwed up her face in confusion. "But that's impossible! I saw cars and

scrolls and big buildings! How can you do that without Dust?"

"Sheer manpower, at first," Cliff explained. "Then falling water. Then burning coal. Then oil. Then

harnessing the power of the atom."

"The what?"

"Look, I don't think Ruby needs to know the everything about Earth," Jen interrupted. "I think we

should focus on practical advice."

"That's a good idea," I agreed.

"Okay," said Ruby.

"First, you can't carry Crescent Rose around anymore," I said, cringing for the inevitable response.

Ruby was supposed to be very possessive of her weapon or something.

"What?" Ruby exploded. "Why not?"

"It's, uh, illegal to carry loaded firearms," Isaac explained tactfully.

"But how do you defend yourselves?"

"We don't," Cliff muttered.

I said over him, "No Grimm, remember?"

It was probably totally ingrained into her. "Oh, right."

"Okay, second, that outfit has to go," Cliff explained. "It's ridiculous."

"But I like my outfit!" Ruby complained. "It's stylish."

"The style would be considered a bit strange here on Earth," Jen understated tactfully. "I'll help you

find some clothes that you like but still look normal here."

"Uh, thanks, I guess."

"There is one more thing..." I said, staring meaningfully at Cliff.

He crossed his arms. "Oh, no, I explained the history of our planet. You're explaining RWBY."

"How? I've never watched it."

"Isaac, you're up."

He sighed. "Fine."

Isaac turned to Ruby. "Okay, in this world, there's a... I guess, TV show, animation really, called

RWBY. It's about you and your team, and JNPR, Remnant, Beacon... Torchwick. It's made by a

small company called Rooster Teeth, created by this guy named Monty Oum. It's been around for

about a year. Some of us are fans, and that's how we know so much about who you are and where

you're from."

I was not prepared for Ruby's reaction. Judging by the looks on their faces, nobody was. She

screamed, not horrified but excited, faster than we could understand,

"OhmygodthatissocoolihavemyownshowhereIbetitsreallyawesomeandeveryonelovesitanditsgotweis

sandblakeandyangandjauneandnoraandpyrrhaandrenandlotsoffightsandiwanttowatchthewholethingri

ghtnowandtheniwanttogomeetthemandsayhiandtellthemthattherealrubyroseloveshavingherownshow

!"

"Ruby, slow down!" Jen interrupted.

"Sorry, but I mean, there's a show about me! That is SO COOL!"

"You're... not having the mother of existential crisises right now," Cliff half-asked, half-stated.

Ruby grinned. "Nope!"

"Well, I'm glad we got that sorted out," I finished, not wanting to dwell on things lest Ruby actually

have an existential crisis. "Okay, Ruby, any questions?"

"Why did you name your planet after dirt? I mean, I guess it's kind of cool, but-"

"No, you're right, it's fucking retarded," Cliff replied.

I didn't let him continue. "Do you have any questions that won't take an hour to answer?"

"What does fuck mean?"

"...well, fuck."

Isaac

Players and Pieces.

Ruby had enjoyed the first episode or so, like a lot. She was very, well, animated. Okay, yeah, I

made the pun. Then, from the second episode onward, she started to get quiet and sniffly. When the

credits of the eighth episode started rolling, she silently got up, walked to the bathroom, and shut

the door.

We should have realized. I should have realized. But I guess we were just enjoying the show too

much. For Sam and Benjamin, this was the first time watching RWBY, and Cliff and Jen were

enthusiastically explaining various points to them.

So when she disappeared into the bathroom, we just paused it and did our usual things. Cliff whined

about Benjamin's "pathetic disgrace to that beautiful TV" sound system. Sam tried to wrestle with

Benjamin, who called him a derp and started doing something on his phone. Jen tried to get

Benjamin's attention, and I raided their snack cupboard.

I had finished my bag of Doritos when I realized that it had been half an hour since Ruby had

entered the washroom.

"Guys!" I interrupted slowly. "We need to check on Ruby."

"I'll do it," Jen replied, standing up and walking to the bathroom door. She knocked on it. "Ruby, are

you okay?"

There was no reply. "Ruby?"

"Just open it," I told her.

"Hold on, it's locked," Jen replied. She inserted what looked like a bent hairpin into the hole in the

middle of the doorknob and turned it. Slowly, she opened the door.

"Damn it."

Ruby wasn't there. The way the room was designed, there was nowhere to hide. Even the sink didn't

have a big enough cupboard under it. Not only that, the window was open and there was a pile of

rose petals beside it.

"She must have run off," Cliff said, stating the blatantly obvious.

"No shit, Sherlock," Sam replied sharply.

"Why would she run away like that?" Benjamin asked, "She seemed perfectly fine just an hour

ago!"

"She's probably feeling alone," I explained. "She lost everything. I guess seeing Remnant again,

even in anime style, was too much for her."

"We need to find her," Sam said bluntly. "Shit, we need to find her. Right the fuck now."

"Call the police?" Benjamin suggested.

"Are you fucking nuts?" Sam retorted. "The police are exactly why we need to find her!"

"You know, I agree," I agreed. "If the police find her, they're going to think she's crazy."

"And we're probably going to get into trouble," Cliff added. "For something."

"We didn't think she was crazy."

I thought about that for a moment. "We're sci-fi nerds and RWBY fans."

"We need to go back to where she arrived," Cliff proposed.

"We don't know where that is," Sam argued.

"Yes we do. She told us."

"When?"

"On the train."

"I was drunk."

"And this is why I don't drink," Cliff replied smugly.

"Wait, shouldn't we track her?" Jen asked. "Maybe we can trace her by the rose petals."

"Yeah, I mean, how do we know the location of where she landed?" I asked. "I mean, she didn't

even know where she was."

Cliff nodded. "We don't, not exactly, but based on her description, I think we can narrow it down to

a few places. South, either toward Tsawassen or Surrey."

Sam glared at him. "So we're just gonna guess?"

"We try to track and chase someone who's way faster and stealthier than we are, or we take a chance

and intercept that person at the most probable location," Cliff summed up. "Do we take the chance

or no?"

Sam sighed. "Fine. Your way. Two directions, two cars. Let's go."