Author's Notes:
-Alright, we've made it to the last part of the post volume 3 Arc. We'll soon be getting into volume 4.
-As a brief refresher, here's where we are now;
Ch. 1-5 Fall of Beacon and Immediate Aftermath (Vol 3)
Note that ch. 6-40 is the Post-Volume 3/Pre-Volume 4 Timeskip Begin Period. This divides into the following Arcs;
Ch. 6-10 Picking Up the Pieces, Ch. 11-15 Love and Loss, Ch. 16-19 Tragedy With No End, Ch. 20-26 Moving Forward, Ch. 27-30 Reunion and Breaking Free, Ch. 31-36 Leaving the Past Behind, Ch. 37-40 Endings and Beginnings
-Similar to the finale, we'll go through the current events, the credits (if desired), acknowledge RWBY's creator, Monty Oum, and see a revamped volume 3 post-credits scene. I hope you enjoy and stay tuned for more to come.
Stay/Will You Be Here or Will I Be Alone?
Yang sat down on her bed, looking at the remaining piece of Ember Celica. She got up and looked at herself in the mirror. Her long blonde hair was messy and loose as she adjusted the gray jacket with a tied right sleeve over an orange tank top slightly exposing her midriff. The jacket's left sleeve bore her father's emblem. To complete the look, she gray-brown cargo pants, showing the rim of her dark undergarments and ribbed knee paneling. On the left leg of her pants was a red shield-shaped patch with imagery of three Ursa masks, and her emblem stitched on her right thigh.
She looked down at her missing right arm. For a moment, she envisioned her right arm manifesting from a yellow glow. She looked at the mirror, showing her a ghost of the past- Yang in her old outfit at the Vytal Festival, her gauntlets on and everything.
The mirror glowed with white energy and she was sucked into it. The next thing she knew, she was in the Vytal Festival, fighting against Mercury. There was no crowd, no cameras. Just her and Mercury in a one on one match. Her right arm went forward in a punch made right towards Mercury, but instead of hitting him, the image shattered like glass. It was an illusion.
"What the?"
"My leg, MY LEG! Why'd she do that!? WHY'D SHE ATTACK ME!?"
Mercury wasn't even there, yet the words echoed off the sound of the stadium and she found the ground beneath her crumbling. Stone broke and she fell through the Colosseum, falling from the sky and her right arm began to dissolve in glowing yellow energy.
Voices rang in her ears as the wind rushed by her.
Yang Xiao Long, stand down!
You are disqualified.
She remembered the first two voices, but her blood turned to ice when a new voice said, You're guilty, Yang Xiao-Long!
She wanted to scream, but it felt like the air was ripped out of her lungs. Her voice gone. Her head spinning as she fell.
No, no... Help!
She woke up, gasping for air. As her panting slowed down, she slowly calmed herself. She looked at her phantom arm.
I've lost everything. she thought to herself. At least Ruby hasn't left yet. Then again, what's to stop her?
The former warrior looked out the window, and thought she saw a raven. She looked away, then did a double take, but the black bird was gone.
She sighed. "Well, it's official. I've lost my mind." She spoke to empty air. "First my reputation and place in the tournament, then my arm, my best friend and partner, and now my sanity." She threw her head against the pillow. "Aside from my life, do I have anything more to lose?"
Little did the sunny little dragon know that she was merely tempting fate...
Blake and Sun were in Mountain Glen. Destroyed and dilapidated buildings as far as the eye could see, wooden and metal racks resembling structures of buildings that were never completed and the occasional Grimm lurking around. Of all the places that the catgirl had been, she never would have imagined herself returning here. She recalled the events that lead her here the first time...
The mission to stop the White Fang, Professor Oobleck accompanying them, Ruby going missing, finding her, fighting the White Fang while trying to stop the train...
She even remembered pinning Roman Torchwick down, her heel on his chest, and his taunting words that secretly struck one of her nerves.
"You think a little bow on top is gonna make people forget who you were? What you've done...?"
She came out of her flashback, shaking her head. Sun asked, "Is something wrong?"
Blake didn't answer. "There it is- the location of the new White Fang lair."
She pointed to building that, surprisingly, was not destroyed. The White Fang had to have repaired it when they retreated from Vale. Or maybe it was one of the few buildings that was never destroyed, but the latter seemed likely. The building itself was about two stories tall and made of bricks. There were guards at every entrance, holding guns in their hands and weapons on their person.
"Of course there's guards." Sun groaned.
"Looks like we'll have to fight our way through. Ready to prove your loyalty?"
He smirked. "Ready when you are, m'lady."
She smiled and rolled her eyes as they walked forth. Upon seeing them, they were shot at to no end.
"Intruders!" one of the guards cried out.
"Get them!" another guard commanded.
The two former huntsman academy students easily dodged their gunfire, and Blake struck one of the guards in the back. Sun leaped over her to get the guard firing at her from behind and knocked him down with his staff. He spun his staff in his hands, knocking down guards one after the other before spinning it in front of him to fire their blasts right back at them.
Blake kicked down the door as she struck down a White Fang goon. "Come on!"
She motioned for Sun to come forth and they ran into the White Fang fortress. The two examined every room, fighting their way through several soldiers in swift motions. Eventually, the two kicked down the door as they finally reached Adam's quarters, but the chamber was empty. Adam was gone.
"He's gone."
"This can't be right. This is where Lieutenant Wycliffe said he was hiding."
"Is it possible that he knew we were coming and fled? No wait, that's ridiculous." Sun answered himself. "There's no way he could've known. Right?"
"Assuming a White Fang messenger didn't warn him of our arrival." She surveyed the room, seeing no damage. "But it's not like Adam to run from a fight, and as far I can tell, there aren't any signs of struggle. So he wasn't captured by the authorities or otherwise, so he had to left this place. The question remaining is why."
Sun shrugged his shoulders in defeat. "Beats me."
Blake looked at her new boyfriend curiously. "Hey Sun. That device that you used to used to find me... do you still have it?"
"Yeah, I still have it. Why?"
Blake took the device from him, then she grabbed a folded white sheet paper. She unfolded it to reveal a paper photograph of Adam Taurus. Holding the photo in her left hand and the device in the other hand, she scanned the photo with the special GPS.
Adam Taurus. Head northwest, towards Mistral
"And so the hunt begins." Blake smirked. "We'll use this device to track him down, and when he find him, we'll put a stop him once and for all." She pocketed the photo and she saw Sun standing there, almost as if he was staring at something. "Is something wrong?"
He shrugged it off. "Nothing. Let's go."
Without another word, the two ran off.
Weiss grabbed another book off the bookshelf with her right hand. Who knew that with the Fall of Beacon and its CCT tower that she would turn to reading so much? Then again, reading helped her a lot. It served as a distraction. And it was better than drinking.
Weiss looked at the image of her mother on her desk. Her thoughts trailed to the times she saw her drinking.
Why does mom drink so much? Is it because father just used her as a means to an end? Or... or is there more that meets the eye?
She tried not to dwell on these thoughts and was about to start reading the book jacket for the book in her hands when she heard a knock on the door. "Come in."
Estelle walked in. "Hello mistress." She gently closed the door behind her. "Are you feeling any better today?"
"A little, I suppose." She held the book in her arms. "Any word from your eldest granddaughter?"
"Still nothing. I have heard from the second oldest. She seems to be doing just fine."
"You have more than one granddaughter?"
"I currently have four grandchildren- three granddaughters and one grandson. I try not to play favorites, as I love all my grandchildren equally, but I can't deny that I have an especially close bond with my eldest granddaughter."
"And why is that?"
She seemed to hesitate at first, but then answered, "Multiple reasons. One of them being that she doesn't get along very well with her own mother."
"Oh..." Weiss looked down. "I see. I know it's none of my business, but I hope things will get better between them."
"I don't believe it ever will." Estelle said sadly. "It's been slowly getting worse for years. I fear that eventually, something really bad will happen because of their irreconcilable differences."
"I hope that doesn't happen..."
"As do I, ma'm." Estelle noticed Weiss holding the book to her chest. "And what new book have you started recently?"
"I just grabbed a random one off the shelf. I haven't started reading it yet actually. It's called..." She grabbed the book with her left hand and read its title aloud. "Snow White and the Huntsman."
"Hmm... I've never read that one, but I've heard good things about it. One of my friends told me that it was a good book."
"Good, just what I'm looking for."
"I'll leave you to it, then." Estelle began walking out. "Happy reading."
Weiss picked up the book and went to her chair. But before she could pick up the book, her mind asked her, Can you really distract yourself forever?
Ruby had just finished packing her bags. Taking a red pen and piece of paper, she wrote out a quick letter to her family.
To dad and Yang, I'm sorry for not telling you this earlier, but I'm leaving for Mistral. You need not fear, I'm with team JNPR. They asked me to aid them in their mission. Together, the five of us will put an end to the evil that caused the Fall of Beacon. I hope that Yang can adjust to all that has happened. I'll miss you guys and I hope to one day return home safely.
Love you all, Ruby
She drew a little heart on the letter and placed it on her bed.
Goodbye dad, she thought to herself.
Slinging her backpack over her shoulders, she grabbed her hood and exited her bedroom. As she went through the halls silently, Ruby saw the door wasn't completely shut. Slightly creaking the door open, she looked at her older sister, sitting on her bed under the covers, but she didn't even notice. She was lost in her own thoughts.
Goodbye Yang.
She turned away sadly. Her father wasn't even awake yet, so no one would see her leave. Quietly stepping down the stairs, the dog heard and stuck his tongue out. Ruby knelt down and petted the dog.
"Goodbye Zwei." She whispered. "Be a good boy while I'm gone, okay?"
She got up and took one last look at her home. A home she might not ever come back to. She tried not to dwell on that thought.
Goodbye.
Ruby exited out the door of her house, her backpack and gear ready for the quest. She greeted team JNPR, Pyrrha donning her cloak with her hood down. "Hey guys."
"Hey, Ruby. Thanks for agreeing to help us. Haven's a long way to go, and my father always said that there's safety in numbers." Jaune said.
"Yeah, and... we don't even entirely know what we're up against." Pyrrha added.
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean, we're about to embark on a crazy mission. We have no idea what we're really getting ourselves into. We're entering a dark tunnel and we have no way of knowing how long it is, when we'll reach the end, if we even reach the end..."
Jaune smiled. "I wouldn't say we're entirely in the dark. We have a small light- a light of knowledge, a light of truth. We know that Cinder Fall, the Fall- I mean wielder of the weapon, is up to no good, Mercury and Emerald are in cahoots with her, and that Emerald has the ability to create individual hallucinations. I'm sure that whatever gaps in knowledge we have will be filled in time."
Ren stated, "The journey will be perilous, and whether we'll find answers at the end is entirely uncertain."
"But we wouldn't be here if we weren't up for it." Nora said.
"Are you ready?" Ren asked his little red-hooded friend.
Ruby breathed in and answered, "I'm ready."
Pyrrha put her hood back up. "Then let's go."
The five began their long trek down the road leading away from the Xiao-Long/Rose family home. Pyrrha's gloved hand took hold of Jaune's as they went forth.
"A smaller, more honest soul. It's true that a simple spark can ignite hope, breathe fire into the hearts of the weary. The ability to derive strength from hope is undoubtedly mankind's greatest attribute... which is why I will focus all of my power to snuff it out."
As the words were spoken, the scene switched to Sienna, standing at the edge of a cliff of a village in Mistral, seeing the chaos unfolding below. Fires were spreading, and Grimm and rogue White Fang agents were all over the city. She got out her chain whip before literally jumping into the fray. As she fell, her facial expression shifted from an exasperated tone to a serious look.
"How does it feel? Knowing that all of your time and effort has been for nothing? That your guardians have failed you? That everything you've built will be torn down before your very eyes?"
The view switched to a young woman running in the snowy woods, a clear path in front of her, with patches of dense trees on both sides of her on slightly raised cliffs. She donned periwinkle sweat pants, a long sleeved white shirt barely visible under a snow blue parka with white fur on the inside of her hood and white winter gloves with navy blue snow boots. She stopped, shown to be heaving for breath as she looked at her hands before letting her right hand fall to her side. She brought her gloved left hand closer to her and looked at it ruefully. Her eyes obstructed from view, a tear fell down her face and hit the snow. Silently, she sighed, let her other arm fall at her side and went on her way, walking forward.
"Your faith in mankind was not misplaced. When banded together, unified by a common enemy, they are a noticeable threat. But divide them, place doubt into their minds, and any semblance of power they once had will wash away."
The view switched to Ozpin, now in the form of a green specter, at the top of the tower that was where his office used to be. He turned and saw the Grimm dragon turned to stone, before looking away despondently. He looked at the ruins and city down below him, silently sighing in defeat.
"Of course, they won't realize it at first. Like you, they'll cling to their fleeting hope, their aspirations. But this is merely the first move."
The scene showed the Arc sisters in quick succession- Rouge posing and smiling for the camera on the catwalk, wearing a pink maxi dress before going into a backroom visibly upset, then Tangerine cracking her whip before activating her semblance, glowing with a bright orange aura around her body as she fought criminals in a warehouse, and the other Arc sisters sitting in the living room sadly, looking at a picture of their absent sister, Emerald. Then it shifted to Emerald Arc with an emotionless expression as she walked through the forest, carrying multiple letters in hand.
"So you send your guardians. Your huntsmen and huntresses. And when they fail and you turn to your smaller soul, know that you send her to the same pitiful demise."
The scene then shifted revealing an ominous-looking stone stairway lined with dark purple crystals. At the top of the stairs, a figure in black robes overlooked a barren wasteland.
"This is the beginning of the end, Ozpin. And I can't wait to watch you burn."
Salem grinned maliciously with her eyes glowing red as the scene cut to black.
[cue RWBY Volume 3 Credits and Music-Divide]
RIP Monty Oum (1981-2015)
[cue new volume 3 post-credits scene, Summer's Gravestone]
Ruby looked at the gravestone. "Goodbye mom... May the rose petals guide me on my journey, and back to you."
The heroes stood there in a moment of silence, mourning the dead and the end of their youthful innocence. Pyrrha, who had her hood down in respect for the dead, asked after a moment of silence, "Do you... mind if I stay here for a moment? There's something I'd like to say and do in solitude. I'll meet up with you by the broken tree."
The other four former Beacon students left, Jaune looking back at Pyrrha sadly before he, too, went away. The gladiator girl knelt down in the snow before the tombstone. She opened her cloak to reveal the duffel bag of swords. She got her backpack off her back and retrieved a family photo that she retrieved from the ruins of her house. Using her semblance, she opened the bag and made the swords levitate until they flew down, creating a circle around her that she gently set upon the ground.
She put her hands in prayer and spoke, "Mother... father... Words are not enough to describe the heart-crushing sorrow that fills my soul." Tears began to swell in her eyes. "I love you and I miss you dearly... I wish that you were here, guiding me through this seemingly endless night. I don't even know if I'm doing the right thing; I want to believe that I am, but I don't even know what my destiny is anymore. Beacon has fallen into pieces, the power I was promised was taken from me, and now I'm challenging that said person, but for what reason? For power? For spite? And what if I fail? What if I am not strong enough to do it? I have my allies, but I'm still scared." She cried, sobbing horribly. "I don't even know what me and my friends are getting into. This chaos and darkness... it could be even deeper than I realize. Which is why... before I go... I ask that you hear my prayer. Mom, give me your wisdom, to know right from wrong, when to fight and when to retreat. Dad, give me your courage to face all evil and chaos that comes my way."
She looked at her little brother in the photo. "Ash..." She stifled back a sob. "I do not know where you are, or what has become of you, but I can sense that, somehow, you're out there. I pray that the stars guide us on our separate paths so that we may meet again."
She then looked at Penny's swords, tears threatening to fall again. "Penny..." The tears she held back fell once again. "You were a good, sweet, innocent little girl. Loved by those who knew you. Penny, I know that you don't even know me, and that I hardly even knew you, but I kindly ask of you... to give me the hope to see this through til the very end. The will to continue, even in the darkest times. I know I made the promise to defeat the ones responsible for your death, but... I fear that I can not stop her... The fall maiden is extremely powerful, and even without her magical powers, she is extremely formidable. Her accomplice, the mirage maker, is also powerful and skilled on her own account. Could I really even defeat Emerald and put an end to Cinder's evil ways?" She sighed. "I don't even know who I am anymore." She looked down in regret. "I don't know if I can keep this promise, but I know one thing is certain;" The gladiator girl picked up one of the swords in front of her with her hands and held it sideways. "I will fulfill this promise to you... or I will die trying." A single tear fell onto the sword.
As she knelt there, she felt herself getting colder. The red-haired warrior picked up the family photo, putting it back into her backpack. She levitated the swords, put them back in her bag and manually zipped it shut before slinging it back on. She stood up, her legs shaking and put her hands down. "Well, it is time for me to go. Farewell, mom and dad. You will always be in my heart. Goodbye, Ash. For now, until I see you again. Farewell, Penny Polendina. I will never forget my promise to you."
She secretly thought to herself, An oath to keep with a final breath. As I look into the eyes of death...
The gladiator girl turned away and left the scene, not realizing that a deathly pale-skinned woman watched her from afar, a black sphere showing her with her hands underneath her chin.
"Such a huge promise to the deceased. A heavy burden on her shoulders." The Seer floated away, down the outdoor purple and red glass staircase, leaving the witch to her thoughts. Salem turned to look at the domain, the land of darkness. "Too bad it is a promise that can never be fulfilled." She conjured a flame in her hand before forming a small image of an autumn leaf with the fire in front of her. "She seeks to bring her down, yet she does not even know the damage her friend has caused to her worst enemy." She smirked to herself before the flame leaf vanished. "But when the fall maiden returns, she will be stronger than ever."
As she said this, Cinder was shown, still unconscious as the blanket covered her missing arm. "From the shadows she will rise, from the shadows she will strike- and when she strikes, she will bring the not-so-invincible girl's downfall." The view turned to Salem once again, this time her eyes glowing with red energy. "So enjoy this life while you can, Pyrrha Nikos, because when Cinder Fall rises once again, you will be outmatched. You will find yourself alone once again. Your weapons will shatter with your soul, your strength will run out, and when the chips are down, she will finish what she started. There will be no escaping your fate..." She clinched her fist in sadistic joy. "and you will meet your demise."
Her malicious laughter echoed throughout the land until the scene faded to black.