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Chapter 8
There wasn't even a little resistance like there had been before, nor was there any screaming. The Cat slipped into that familiar, broken shell of a heart, spreading outward through the familiar body. In less than three seconds, fleshy eyes snapped open to the thunderhead-coated sky. The CatRuby could have beamed.
"Ruby?!" Yang shouted across the plain from beside Jaune, the fire-radiating girl's voice sounding confused more than distressed. The CatRuby felt the hot sting of spite in their heart, coming from Ruby. She'd heard and seen everything when Yang had tried to kill the CatRuby over Blake's death, and that was after the Cat's work on wearing her down had cut her ties to the people she'd wrongly thought had cared for her. The CatRuby laughed skyward, baring white fangs in their regained host's mouth, letting the sound peter out to a sigh.
"Hello, Ruby's 'friends,'" the CatRuby sighed with a teasing hand-wave, though the last word came out with some vitriol. Jaune's eyes were wide before he growled. Yang, after a moment's pause, flared her augmented Semblance, hair floating up to blast a small inferno skywards while the cracked ground around her trembled. She propelled herself with a groundward blast forward, machine arm raised, screaming as she closed the distance to the CatRuby's grinning face.
Time seemed to slow in the moment they made contact. The CatRuby's bright-blue clawed arm hadn't even finished re-forming over Ruby's arm as it backhanded Yang's metal fist in mid-air, crimson petals and pixel-like squares hanging in a trail behind the CatRuby's cape from where they'd dodged around the trajectory of Yang's fist. Yang's face with an inferno trailing behind her was still fixed into a murderous grimace, red eyes having not yet shifted. The CatRuby's mouth on their human body was smiling, while their eyebrows were frowning.
Yang had a fraction of a second to register she was sailing through empty space before the CatRuby, in a comet-shaped blur of petals, was suddenly kicking both boots into Yang's flank, knocking the fire-wreathed girl clean out of her trajectory. Yang crashed several metres across the Abandoned Acre's plain, impact triggering an explosion of fire and purple dust which shook the ground and forced the CatRuby to recoil with Petal Burst. The CatRuby – cat-ears and other blue-glowing feline parts back on their host – was smirking widely at their feat, when they heard a certain old friend charging angularly towards them, his sword raised. The CatRuby activated Petal Burst…
…and they didn't rocket away as a comet of petals, so much as they went from in front of Jaune to two-dozen paces away from Jaune in less than an eyeblink; and then just as fast, they were in front of Jaune mid-kick, sending him staggering backwards. The transition from one spot to another literally happened faster than the CatRuby could think, Semblance-associated petals fluttering in the air at either spot the CatRuby had shot to. Jaune, recovering, looked alarmed. The CatRuby was staring back with wide eyes, fang-filled mouth a small 'o,' and they quickly glanced at their large, clawed hands. Had…?
Yes.
They could feel it. There was even less disjoint between the Cat and Ruby now than there'd been before, since she'd taken them back into herself. And if that disjoint had been the reason why the Cat hadn't been able to use her Semblance, which was an extension of Remnant-folk's very hearts and souls, in an augmented state like the other Remnant-folk had…
Yes!
Ruby had fully opened her Semblance to them now, along with all the effects that the Abandoned Acre was having to augment her Semblance.
Looking back at Jaune, the CatRuby grinned widely, feeling a morbid glee bubbling.
Jaune, yelling, swung his broken shield. The CatRuby flexed Petal Burst, and literally faster than their mind could process, they'd suddenly shot upward at what the Remnant-folk would have called near lightspeed, several-dozen feet into the rainy, wet air above the battlefield. Momentarily suspended, the CatRuby grinned from ear-to-ear at their full bird's eye view of the entire battlefield below. Their head snapped to where treacherous Yang, glowing like a candle-flame on the gloomy acre, lifted herself up to a standing position on the broken ground, turning her gaze towards them in the sky.
As gravity was dragging them back to ground, the CatRuby used Petal Burst again. Yang never saw them coming, and the CatRuby's mind was only fast enough to register after they'd reaching their mental destination; cutting past Yang and causing the wire-wreathed girl to stagger from the blow. The CatRuby turned back to Yang, whose angry red gaze met theirs. She crossed her arms to flare her augmented Semblance, empowered by the strike to her aura – the CatRuby didn't give her the chance to finish. With Petal Burst augmented, they swiped at Yang faster than either of them could see. And again, and again, and again, again, again, again, againagainagain.
When the CatRuby stopped, Yang was flying a full twenty human-feet off the ground in a backwards arc.
BWOOOOM!
Her impact caused flames to rocket skyward and outward as an enlarged, blue-glowing arm shielded the CatRuby's eyes. The ground trembling furiously underneath them. The CatRuby had barely lowered their arm when their ears caught Jaune sprinting across the wasteland, towards somewhere. The CatRuby almost dismissed him, but, deciding they wanted to give him a piece of their mind, they used their augmented Semblance to enter his path instantaneously. The CatRuby saw his eyes widening in horror as he stopped in his tracks. They wagged a clawed finger inbetween the two of them, smirking, and then they flared their augmented Semblance, throwing Jaune back from the two-footed kick that had been delivered to him at near-lightspeed. On his back, Jaune had barely opened his eyes when the CatRuby was suddenly atop him, arms slashing and raking at him in bright-blue blurs. The first couple cuts managed to scratch his armour, cloth and flesh, before Jaune had reflexively gotten his aura and his augmented Aura Amp Semblance up, which the CatRuby relentlessly continued to assault in an endless blur of motion – Jaune swung his broken shield out to force the CatRuby back, and he'd half-scrambling back to his feet when the CatRuby with their augmented Petal Burst was suddenly back upon him, swiping and kicking. Another flex of Petal Burst and the CatRuby was suddenly behind Jaune, swiping a claw at his back – his aura still flared to protect him there, but he staggered forward. The CatRuby kicked, slashed and clawed at Jaune further, until Jaune sweeping out a leg sharply took the CatRuby's feet out from under them and threw them onto their chest. Jaune was breathlessly upon them, aiming to strike his broken sword down. Flaring the augmented Petal Burst, the CatRuby was suddenly on Jaune's flank, lashing out a quick, short burst of claw-swipes at his armour's weak-spots which forced him to stagger sideways faster than he could counteract. Then they leapt backwards and lightspeed-kicked Jaune again, sending him hurtling with a flare of yellow aura over a dozen human-paces across the gloomy plain. Instead of launching at him again, the CatRuby cast a sideling glance over their shoulder, a sly smirk on their face at the idea they had in mind.
They shot with their augmented Semblance to the foot-height ridge where their sack of Ever After weapons had been left, picking it up. It was only about a second-and-a-half afterwards that they realised this was the same direction Jaune had been running towards before they'd engaged him – the cunning, self-destructive idiot had been charging towards these weapons.
Jaune planted his broken sword in the ground to hoist himself back to his feet. He opened one eye, then both his eyes widened. With a yell and a flare of augmented Petal Burst, the CatRuby shot into the air and threw out their arm, throwing two Ever-smoke pouches and baubles of Ever-tea. Jaune recoiled as the four projectiles burst on and all around him. Two rainbow-coloured incense clouds rapidly formed, and the CatRuby, returning to ground, watched as the Rusted Knight frantically tried to brush the spilled Ever-tea off of himself, coughing and gagging. He didn't stop fighting to rid himself of the Ever-tea, even as rainbow-coloured light shone on him and as the yawning ground swallowed him up. Jaune Arc, the Rusted Knight, had ascended.
The CatRuby turned, and not five seconds too late. Yang, the last human standing, had leapt in an arc through the air, not yelling to give herself away this time, literally trailing flame behind herself. The CatRuby used augmented Petal Burst to clear her landing zone a second before the fire-wreathed girl made impact. A flash of blinding light preceded a cloud of fire billowing upward, several feet wide and climbing taller, while a thin ring of flame ripped across the land. The Abandoned Acre's floating rain evaporated near-instantly. A scalding rumble ripped through the air, so terrible it could probably have been heard across the entire acre, and the CatRuby almost thought they heard Jaune's shrunken rabbit bleating in pain as Yang's heat blasted her. The augmented Petal Burst was involuntarily broken a split-second later, as the searing heat blasted into the CatRuby mid-use, throwing them backwards out of their near-lightspeed. Much of the purple ground around the CatRuby was now dancing with pitter-patters of flame like after a lightning-strike, not a trace of rain in the air below the thunderheads, and some but not all of their Semblance-generated petals had caught fire. (Jaune and the spyglass spell-laden Crescent Rose had gone to the Tree – the CatRuby could leave right now. But this fight felt SO good, and they wanted to give the last human standing, Ruby's sister, a piece of their mind.)
The CatRuby heard twin gunshots, as Yang propelled herself out of the crater her most devastating landing yet had made, landing in a combative stance and hair no longer flaming. She looked sooty, but the CatRuby knew better than to assume she was inert. Assuming that Yang didn't reactivate Burn in its un-fuelled, weaker state, then the first strike on her would give her the energy her augmented Semblance needed to turn her into a living explosion again. Their eyes met across the ravaged, stormy purple plain. The CatRuby bared their fangs in a low, feline growl, then used their augmented Semblance.
They made sure to target Yang's blind spots while avoiding her arms' reach. They sideswiped her from one direction with one flare of Petal Burst, then another direction with another flare, closing the time gap between Semblance uses all the while. Another, another, another, another, anotheranotheranotheranotheranotheranotheranotheranotheranotheranother. The CatRuby deactivated their Semblance, forty human-feet outside of Yang's reach, as the volley of blows all caught up to her at once. The human was thrown over thirty human-feet in the air. She crashed with a noise.
The CatRuby had one last trick they wanted to try on Ruby's traitorous, self-absorbed wretch of a sister. Grinning, they activated the augmented Petal Burst again, running in a loop around the same spot – over and over. Mind catching up behind the sustained Semblance-fuelled rotations, the CatRuby was just a blur of crimson behind and in front, forming a closed circuit. Air was howling and curling inward towards them. The flames across the Abandoned Acre were whipped about and many were extinguished.
The new cyclone on the ground began tearing rocks, objects and burnt branches of dead trees into the winds that were roaring around the CatRuby in a vortex. After a few moments, Yang was torn from the ground, twisting through tempestuous winds around the red-ringed eye of the storm, her screams competing with the howling roar of the storm in the CatRuby's ears. After five or so seconds of letting the tempest hurl Yang about, the CatRuby deactivated their augmented Semblance and came to a stop inside the storm's eye, letting the typhoon that had formed on the outer-edge of their running ring burn out around them. The dying winds threw a screaming, aimless Yang into a crash-landing beyond a ridge, her impact audible and kicking up a dust cloud before more uprooted trees, boulders and other debris began crashing all around the Abandoned Acre.
Once the winds had died down enough for the CatRuby to defy them, they crossed the distance to Yang's impact zone with one more flare of Petal Burst. The dust-cloud cleared at the moment they arrived, revealing to their eyes that the larger, yellow-haired girl was lying crumpled inside a fresh crater, which was twelve human-paces wide and five paces deep. Her purple gaze sluggishly found the CatRuby peering in at the crater's lip. She grit her teeth and glared, but her visible skin was bruising much like Ruby's had in Neopolitan's mansion, and her dark-brown coat and beige overalls had torn in places. Her yellow hair wasn't burning at all. Her aura had been completely broken – she wouldn't be able to use her augmented Semblance for a while.
"You can't win!" she croaked defiantly. "I'll kill you!" The CatRuby tossed their head back and a cackle wracked them – a lighter, airier sound that most of the (pained) laughter they'd been making in the last few hours. They felt the niggling urge from Ruby to ask, for one last confirmation.
"And what did I do to warrant that?" the CatRuby asked teasingly, smiling a smile that didn't quite reach their cyan eyes.
"You killed my friends!" Yang snarled, fist curling against the crater's sandy purple floor. "You killed my Blake!"
A higher-pitched laugh (laugh through the pain) tore out of the CatRuby, while Yang's eyes widened in surprise. The part of the CatRuby that was not the Curious Cat all but compelled the next words to rush out of them.
"Blake, Blake, Blake," the CatRuby sighed. The Abandoned Acre's slow-falling rain was returning to the ground after Yang's fire, albeit in jagged, mismatching sheets and patterns from the CatRuby's cyclone. "That's all you consider anymore, isn't it." They gestured with a clawed arm over to where Blake's maimed corpse was lying after being tossed about by the battle – just high enough for Yang to partly see over the crater's lip. "And now that she's dead, you have an idea of what those people you 'saved' in Atlas and Mantle must have felt when they lost their friends and family to your selfish idiocy. Then again, being as much of a narcissistic, blame-shifting wretch as you are, you'll just keep blaming someone else for your mistakes. Won't you." Yang glared angrily. The CatRuby's cyan-eyed, dark glare lingered on Yang, then as they felt Ruby's feelings shift, they leaned back, eyes lidded as they looked down their nose on the girl that Ruby had called her sister.
"You're not ready to save the world," they said, disappointment from their human part making their voice sigh. "Far from it." They spread their arms and slowly rotated on the spot, observing Yang in the crater, Blake lying dead, and the spots where Jaune and Weiss had been absorbed by the Ever Tree's roots. "Do you think that you, Ruby and your teammates got so far because you were capable? Because I think you got this far because you were lucky, and because of others' achievements which you took credit for. Did you ever consider how many people's deaths in Atlas and the desert are on your heads because you wanted to have your own way instead of practicing what you preached?" The CatRuby snickered dully for a moment at the irony before they said; "Surely it's many more than I've ever harmed in the millennia I've existed for. But because you can't ever accept the lesson that you were the one in the wrong, you keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again, grinding the masses that you 'protect' into dust and ruins." The CatRuby snickered, and this time, the sound didn't entirely come from the Cat as they felt the tenure of Ruby's voice becoming sharper through the Cat's own. "Team RWBY, leading the peoples of Remnant to salvation?!" the CatRuby snapped down at Yang, whose bruised face looked utterly stunned. "You couldn't even lead a parade! The only really relevant thing that you've ever accomplished since you skipped out of the huntsman academies is doing that witch Salem's work even better than she did!"
"Shut up!" Yang spat weakly.
The CatRuby sighed, putting a blue-glowing clawed hand atop their chest as they said, "And now that Ruby and I know how little Ruby truly means to you… we're washing our paws of you. For good." To accentuate the point, the CatRuby licked their blue-glowing knuckles. "Ruby saw and heard everything you did while I was in her, you know. And as far as she's concerned…" Ruby's voice grew more and more prominent, while the Cat's grew less so as her feelings surged up from their heart. "…you're not her family anymore." Yang's jaw was slack. "You're just like your murdering bandit mother," the CatRuby snarled as the Cat's voice became dominant again. They had an urge to sigh, while the part of their heart that was Ruby felt a bitter aftertaste. "Thank you from both me and Ruby for this lesson, Yang Xiao-Long. 'Huntress.'" The CatRuby spat the title mockingly. "Daughter of Raven." The CatRuby was turning on their heel, though keeping their eyes over their shoulder on the beaten Yang. "We'll be on our way now. Through that door. And you're staying here." The CatRuby sauntered away from the crater, away from the ridge, through the jagged and mismatching sheets of slow-falling rain. They looked around for their Ever After weapons if they'd survived the battle, noticing Jaune's shrunken, burned-looking rabbit watching from a tight spot between two boulders where they must have weathered the cyclone. The CatRuby hadn't taken twenty steps away from the crater when a voice calling out stopped them.
"No."
Their lip curled at the idiot's voice, and they lazily turned back on their heel. The blonde-haired human girl was slowly dragging herself out of the crater onto the ridge. Was that a raindrop or a tear tracking on her face?
"You're not going make me doubt who I am like the leaves tried to," Yang said oh-so-resolutely. "I'm not any of those things you say I am! None of us were! We fight monsters. We help people who can't help themselves. Me, and my team, and you too, Ruby; we were the good guys! Heroes! We saved people!" The CatRuby was disappointed but unsurprised. It all went in one ear and out the other with this narcissist. The CatRuby noticed Ember Celica and the metal arm's gun attachment clicking at Yang's sides. "And you're gonna pay for what you did!" The twin guns fired, propelling Yang off the ground before she aimed out her metal arm to strike. "Now EAT THIS!"
The CatRuby waited until she was upon them. They moved in a whirl of red cape the second Yang was upon them – mid-twirl, they snatched her metal arm free of its socket, twisted and pointed it.
BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-!
The gun-attachment's blasts tore through an aura-less Yang above her arm-stump, spraying blood behind her as she was thrown backwards, away from the CatRuby.
-click-click-click.
The arm's gun-attachment clicked empty. Now it had run out. So there was the limit to the weapon's Dust ammunition. The CatRuby cast the metal limb to the ground, gazing at where Yang had fallen backwards.
Yang was splayed on the ground, bruised face much paler than it had been seconds ago, with a thin trail of blood leaking from her nostril, purple eyes staring widely and listlessly upward. The remainder of her flesh-and-blood right arm's stump had been severed from her at her shoulder, and more blood was pooling out from under her across the cracked purple ground like spilled milk. She coughed and gagged softly, causing droplets of crimson blood to spit out from between her parted lips. The CatRuby stared, and for a moment or for a few moments, they didn't see Yang Xiao-Long but instead they saw Alyx. Lightning flashed softly as Yang quietly choked on her own blood. After a moment, she lifted her remaining intact arm at an angle, lifting it towards the direction that the CatRuby was standing in – her purple eyes, growing heavy, also seemed to be looking in that direction. The CatRuby watched in curiosity, and perhaps anxious hope from Ruby. Despite everything, was she reaching out to Ru-?
"Blake…" Yang wheezed.
Oh. They guessed not.
Nevermind.
Yang's purple eyes dilated and became listless, then her sole remaining arm thunked lifelessly back to ground beside her. Her entire body had stopped moving. Yang was dead. Team RWBY was gone, just like Team STRQ before it.
So much for all the faith and expectations that that mad old immortal headmaster had placed in those delinquent girls.
The CatRuby stood over Yang's corpse for a few moments longer, releasing a tension in their host's chest by sighing. Memories were filtering through Ruby's mind – happy memories throughout her life of the bright and caring girl that she'd remembered Yang as. Not the person she'd become by the time she'd fallen into the Ever After.
Once those few moments had passed, the CatRuby turned heel and walked away from the dead human girl, away from where Jaune's shrunken rabbit – side half-singed but otherwise unbroken in body – was curling herself up to rest beside the pile of vines where he'd been absorbed, away through the jagged sheets of slow-falling rain and the cracked plain.
The CatRuby found where their sack of Ever After weapons had been slung by the cyclone. Most of the smoke-bombs and tea baubles were intact – the sack holding them had been designed to cushion any impacts to prevent the contents from being damaged, but the Shringress Salads were so ruined that the CatRuby couldn't dip their claws inside to use one without the foodstuff's magic working on them, so they had to pour the contents away.
No more distractions, no more hindrances. Not even for that rabbit Afteran whose heart might need helping. No more Alyx's or Jaune's or Team RWBY's.
The CatRuby activated their augmented Semblance and aimed straight towards the Ever Tree. Petal Burst didn't lose any of its augmented near-lightspeed after they'd exited the Abandoned Acre. They shot at near-lightspeed up into the Ever Tree. They never looked at what they were leaving behind, or at the spot where Alyx had died, as they shot into the giant, open door filled with white light.
Many, many times the Cat had trotted, ran and thrown theirself into the door, over and over, only to be spat back out into the Ever After every time.
The CatRuby wasn't spat backwards this time.
For a moment, there was… nothing. Then the CatRuby was spat forwards, into somewhere. Somewhere that wasn't the Ever After, somewhere they'd never seen before. Somewhere exciting and NEW.
Gasping, the CatRuby didn't fall so much as lazily float downwards. Their surroundings in all directions looked like a deep, dark-green night sky, dotted with bright-green stars. Stars which hung around the CatRuby, drifting closer and passing them by like so many suspended fireflies. The CatRuby's mouth was agape and their eyes wide. There were no acres, trees, ocean nor anything else visible below. They almost didn't notice when they stopped floating down as their half-shredded, claw-tipped boots touched an invisible surface – a clear floor that cast a reflection but was otherwise featureless, almost indistinguishable from the night 'sky' which it reflected. Glancing around, the CatRuby approached one of the flying green 'stars' that hung in the air, shaped like baubles on closer inspection. Lifting up almost on their tiptoes, the CatRuby batted lightly at the glowing stars with both arms – no longer enlarged and clawed – like they were playing with leaves or fireflies, and the tiny green lights scattered. The CatRuby felt their smile in a way that the Cat hadn't felt their smile in a long, long time.
This place was unlikely to be Remnant, the CatRuby knew that from Ruby's memories – memories which now felt as much as part of them as the Cat's own, as the girl had fully sunk into the new purpose that the Cat had given her body and mind, leaving the identity of Ruby Rose behind to be one and the same as the Cat.
But this place was somewhere new. For the first time in so, so, SO long, the CatRuby felt young again. A soundless gasp escaped them as something caught their eye. They pattered towards it. In the endless starry sky with a mirrored floor, the CatRuby approached what looked like a station of some kind. A dim orange glow was emitting from what looked like a fireplace or forge, made of uneven stones. Racks stood on either side, adorned with instruments: mostly weapons. There were swords, aces, axes, and there was also Myrtenaster and Crocea Mors. Between the racks and in front of the fiery hearth, someone was sitting at a table – a large someone, who the CatRuby recognised from Ruby's own vision which she remembered in the Garden.
The creature was mostly metal, pieces held together to form a person shape. The creature was carving a small wooden statuette in their hands, which the CatRuby saw as they got closer, depicted an upright-standing mouse with large eyes and a short cape. They wondered…
Seeing the CatRuby approach, the creature set the mouse statuette down on the table in front of them, where it was among an array of other wooden statuettes.
Who was this creature? What was this creature?
…It felt almost alien to the CatRuby to know, after all this time, that they could find answers to those questions without delay again, as they had when they'd been young.
"Ahh," the creature sighed as the CatRuby stepped closer than the far edges of the racks, the CatRuby's eyes wide in awe and curiosity. The entity's voice was feminine-sounding, and it had a curious tune to it, like the echo of something ringing on metal. Yet despite all that, it was a melodious, soothing sound. "I've been waiting a long, long, long time for you." Something about hearing the creature speak pulled at the very core of the CatRuby's being. It felt like anodyne to their weary heart, like the promise of rest and comfort, like a sense of belonging, of coming to the place where they truly belonged; all at once. It was unlike any sensation the Cat or Ruby had ever experienced, yet it felt strangely like… something they'd always known but had never realised. The closest approximation was what it had felt like for the Cat to be in their Makers' presence, hearing their voices speak, but even that didn't feel like this metal entity's voice did. It felt warm. Was this a taste of the comfort that ascension brought for the other Afterans? Was this…?
"Welcome… to my workshop." The entity's face was made of metal plates forming a shifting, expressive mask, with vacant holes for the eyes and a mouth. That face smiled tenderly at the CatRuby, almost with a sense of relief and happiness. The CatRuby's curiosity shouted at them to take another sweeping glance or to begin asking questions immediately, but that sense was… oddly dulled. As if the mere sound of this entity's voice pacified them with the unspoken, warm assurance of something heard…
Was this… Had they finally found peace?
The CatRuby found theirself pulled closer to the metal entity without even realising, until they were directly across the table from them. The entity's warming smile for the CatRuby widened.
"Tell me what you want to know."
THE END
A/N: And so ends the journey of the Curious Cat.
I know some readers might be disappointed or feeling cheated that I didn't show the Cat or CatRuby going to Remnant, but this is where and how I always wanted to end the Cat's story in this fic – they enter the Blacksmith's intermediary dimension, and the Blacksmith can finally give them their answers and closure with the barrier that separated the Cat from her circumvented. After answering CatRuby's questions on the Brother Gods leaving and such, who knows? Maybe the Blacksmith will ascend the Cat now that there's nothing separating them from her inside her dimension. Maybe the Cat will stay by her side in her workshop, viewing the cosmos alongside her through windows to everywhere and everywhen and learning new things forever. Or maybe the Cat will eventually go to Remnant or another world anyway to explore it in person. The point is, the Cat has won their happy ending.
I have to say, writing and posting this fic has been very educational for me. I was not expecting it to gain as many favs, kudos and comments as it did in as short a time as it did.
I've been toying around with the idea of writing another fic that's set in the same universe as this one, or writing a post-fic timeline on my Tumblr (Zerm2v0hg) like Hrodvitnon did for her Monsterverse fic 'Abraxas;' which would chronicle what happens on Remnant in this fic's universe. Although it would most likely be tonally different from this fic and probably wouldn't hook the same audiences; it'd be less of a vent fic focused on bashing RWBY/J to their faces, and more focused on Qrow, Winter, Nora, Ren and the others back on Remnant getting their shit together amid the fallout of theirs and RWBY/J's Cosmic Fuckup so that they can save the people they still can and turn the tide back against Salem. 'The Tale of a Cat Most Curious' has been a lot more popular than I was expecting, but I'm not sure how much that's due to it being my first 'RWBY' fic and how much that's due to it being a cathartic spitefic against RWBY/J's Bullshit.
(REPLIES)
Oscuro Oscuro: (SPANISH) Me alegra que hayas disfrutado la batalla y el giro de Ruby, y gracias por tus comentarios al respecto. :)
Oh, estoy completamente de acuerdo en que el Jabberwalker no es muy fuerte en absoluto, por las razones que dijiste, y definitivamente es mucho, MUCHO más débil que el "canon roto: el aura potente de Jaune en un solo golpe" que es Furious Cat. Creo que las razones principales por las que el Jabberwalker es una amenaza tan grande para los Afterans, mientras que cualquiera de RWBY/J puede manejar uno con facilidad, es porque la mayoría de los Afterans son criaturas pacíficas que no están dispuestas a luchar contra el Jabberwalker, además de la mayoría de Son mucho más débiles que un cazador/cazadora remantiano promedio. Los cazadores y las cazadoras generalmente parecen ser peces normales en un pequeño estanque en Ever After, y pocas cosas, además del Gato Furioso, son más fuertes que ellos. Es gracioso que menciones que el Jabberwalker tiene algo en común con el Gato sobre que los Dioses Hermanos los abandonaron a ambos, ya que he tenido un headcanon por un tiempo antes de publicarlo esta noche, que el Jabberwalker mismo se ha vuelto loco a lo largo de los eones desde su ascensión sin ascensión. inmortalidad como la que tiene el Gato, además estaba esa escena del Jabberwalker en Abandoned Acre (que se supone que es el antiguo campo de pruebas de los Dioses Hermanos) cavando entre los escombros buscando algo y silbando sobre arreglar algo, lo cual el programa nunca explicó. . ¿Quizás el Jabberwalker no siempre fue la cosa errática y divagante que usa una sola palabra como es su personalidad en el presente?
(Un largo fragmento sobre mis múltiples pensamientos sobre por qué el Gato no "elimina" al Jabberwalker a continuación, algunos de ellos canonizados en este fic y otros no).
Basado en la escena del Jardín, creo que el Gato se mantiene alejado del Jabberwalker principalmente por miedo a que su Afteran-permakilling amenace al Gato. Lógicamente, el Gato Furioso debería poder hacer un muñeco de trapo con el Jabberwalker en un 1 contra 1, pero la forma normal del Gato no es tan difícil: la forma normal del Gato sólo tiene el aliento cinético del rayo para defenderse contra el Jabberwalker, y no puede hacerlo. Hay muchas otras cosas en contra excepto huir. Además, creo que al Gato le llevó eones aprender a transformarse en su forma de Gato Furioso, ya que creo que no era algo de lo que los Dioses Hermanos pretendían que el Gato fuera capaz, sino algo que el Gato aprendió a hacer. propios con el cambio de forma limitado de su cuerpo de luz dura. Además, creo que es razonable suponer, según el canon, que si bien el Gato y el Jabberwalker pueden ser heridos y debilitados convencionalmente por la fuerza bruta, ninguno de ellos puede morir permanentemente con nada menos que las mandíbulas de Afteran-permakilling del Jabberwalker o con un poder mágico que sea normalmente no se encuentra en el Para Siempre desde que los Dioses Hermanos se fueron; ya que a diferencia de otros Afterans, los Hermanos hicieron que el Gato y el Jabberwalker fueran partes permanentes del Para Siempre con propósitos permanentes, y los Hermanos no tuvieron la previsión para darse cuenta de que los cuidadores de los ciclos de ascensión y muerte necesitarían la misma ayuda que ellos. dieron a otros ni lo que la falta de ascensión de ellos mismos le haría al Gato y posiblemente también al Jabberwalker a largo plazo. También he establecido para esta AU que el Jabberwalker tiene capacidad de venganza si lo arruinas lo suficiente como lo hizo Neo, lo que sería otra razón por la que el Gato no querría arriesgarse a ponerse en la lista de mierda personal del caminante una vez que ese comportamiento El rasgo del Jabberwalker se hizo conocido. Otras razones por las que creo que el Gato nunca eliminó al Jabberwalker. El propósito original del Gato no es buscar peleas con amenazas externas o eliminarlas preventivamente de ninguna manera, el propósito del Gato es encontrar y curar a los Afterans rotos, al igual que el propósito del Príncipe Rojo no es ser amable o jugar limpio al ganar su juego. Incluso si el Jabberwalker PODRÍA ser asesinado por el Gato Furioso, matar permanentemente cualquier cosa como lo hizo el Gato cuando atacó a Alyx (y lo que "eliminar" al Jabberwalker probablemente implicaría) es, creo, el fracaso final del propósito del Gato, que jugó Otra parte importante de por qué el Gato se rompió por completo después de matar a Alyx. Y nuevamente, luchar contra una amenaza mortal parece ser un concepto bastante extraño para la mayoría de los Afterans; obviamente, ya no es tan extraño para el Gato en el momento de la llegada del Equipo RWBY, pero creo que eso se debe a que el Gato tiene tal una existencia y un recuerdo largos y sin ascensión, a diferencia de la mayoría de los demás Afterans.
En cuanto a si el Gato siente alguna simpatía por el Jabberwalker… Esa es una pregunta interesante, pero si la siente, entonces creo que definitivamente queda eclipsada por el miedo del Gato hacia el Jabberwalker según lo que vimos en el Jardín. Creo que el Gato probablemente no siente mucha simpatía por el caminante, en parte debido a mi headcanon, expresado en este fic, de que el Gato nunca se enteró de los orígenes del Jabberwalker y, por lo tanto, no conoce sus puntos en común.
(ENGLISH) Glad you enjoyed the battle and the Ruby twist, and thanks for your feedback on those. :)
Oh, I completely agree that the Jabberwalker isn't very strong at all, for the reasons you said, and it's definitely way, WAY weaker than the "broke canon-Jaune's potent aura in a single punch" Furious Cat is. I think the main reasons why the Jabberwalker is such a threat to Afterans whereas any one of RWBY/J can handle one of it with ease is because most Afterans are peaceful creatures that aren't inclined to fight back against the Jabberwalker, plus most of them are a lot weaker than an average Remnantian huntsman/huntress. Huntsmen and huntresses generally seem to be mostly normal fish in a tiny pond in the Ever After, with few things besides the Furious Cat being stronger than them. It's funny you mention the Jabberwalker have a commonality to the Cat over the Brother Gods abandoning them both, since I've had a headcanon for a while before posting it tonight, that the Jabberwalker itself has gone insane over the aeons from its ascension-less immortality like the Cat has – plus there was that scene of the Jabberwalker in the Abandoned Acre (which is supposed to be the Brother Gods' old testing ground) digging through the rubble looking for something and hissing about fixing something, which the show never explained. Maybe the Jabberwalker wasn't always the rambling, single-word using erratic thing that its personality is in the present?
(Lengthy chunk about my multiple thoughts about why the Cat doesn't 'eliminate' the Jabberwalker below, some of them canonised to this fic and some not.)
Based on the Garden scene, I think the Cat mainly stays away from the Jabberwalker out of fear due to its Afteran-permakilling threatening the Cat theirself. The Furious Cat logically should be able to ragdoll the Jabberwalker in a 1v1, but the Cat's normal form isn't so tough: the Cat's normal form only has the kinetic lightning-breath for self-defence against the Jabberwalker, and can't do much of anything else against it except flee. Plus, I think it took aeons for the Cat to learn how to warp theirself into their Furious Cat form, since I think it wasn't something the Brother Gods intended the Cat to be capable of but rather was something the Cat learned to do on their own with their hard light body's limited shapeshifting. Also, I think it's reasonable to assume based on canon that while the Cat and Jabberwalker can be conventionally injured and weakened by brute force, neither of them can be permanently killed by anything less than the Jabberwalker's Afteran-permakilling jaws or by a magical power that's not normally found in the Ever After since the Brother Gods left; since unlike other Afterans, the Brothers made the Cat and the Jabberwalker to be permanent parts of the Ever After with permanent purposes, with the Brothers not having the foresight to realise that the ascension and death cycles' minders would themselves need the same help that they gave others nor what the lack of ascension for themselves would do to the Cat and possibly also the Jabberwalker in the long run. I've also established for this AU that the Jabberwalker has the capacity for vengeance if you sufficiently screw it over like Neo did, which would be another reason why the Cat wouldn't want to risk putting theirself on the walker's Personal Shitlist once that behavioural trait of the Jabberwalker's became known. Other reasons why I think the Cat never eliminated the Jabberwalker. The Cat's original purpose isn't to seek out fights with outside threats or pre-emptively remove them in any way, the Cat's purpose is to find and heal the broken Afterans, just like how the Red Prince's purpose isn't to be nice or play fair when winning his game. Even if the Jabberwalker COULD be killed by the Furious Cat, permanently killing anything as the Cat did when they attacked Alyx (and which 'eliminating' the Jabberwalker would likely entail) is, I think, the ultimate failure of the Cat's purpose, which played another major part in why the Cat completely snapped after killing Alyx. And again, fighting back against a mortal threat seems to be quite an alien concept for most Afterans – obviously, it isn't so alien to the Cat anymore by the time of Team RWBY's arrival, but I think that's down to the Cat having such a long, ascension-less existence and memory unlike most other Afterans.
Regarding whether the Cat feels any sympathy for the Jabberwalker… That's an interesting question, but if they do, then I think it's definitely eclipsed by the Cat's fear of the Jabberwalker based on what we saw at the Garden. I think the Cat probably doesn't have much of any sympathy for the walker partly because of my headcanon, stated in this fic, that the Cat never learned of the Jabberwalker's origins and so doesn't know of their commonality.