The Great Temporal Step-Sibling War!

By Sift Green and AndrewJTalon

Disclaimer: This is a fan based work of Prose. RWBY is the property of Rooster Teeth and ViZ. Please support the official Release.

All in all? Mercury Black was having a good day. He got a solid eight hours of sleep, the mountings for his prosthetic legs weren't itching at all and the academy's cafeteria served some really good omelets for breakfast. To top it all off the Queen Bitch, Cinder Fall, had woken up on the right side of the bed this morning so all the subtle put downs normally sent his way hadn't been, and Emerald's fawning over the Queen Bitch had been significantly more tolerable as a result.

Then things took a sudden turn for the worst in the most mind bending way Mercury had never imagined.

Mercury had been at his desk, doodling an upgrade for the boots he wore over his prosthetics on a sheet of graph paper. Cinder was at her vanity making calculated adjustments to her makeup. Emerald was sitting on her bed flipping through her scroll in an effort to keep the team abreast of the latest news and gossip. It was a rare moment of simple peace for a group that usually intended nothing related to that concept.

Then the door to the dorm slammed open and immediately slammed shut. Mercury spared a glance in that direction expecting the return of Neopolitan, and he found himself doing a double take because the kid standing in front of the closed door looked nothing like the ice cream girl's current disguise. The kid looked a lot like a younger Emerald, but with somewhat lighter skin and with hair that was obviously dyed purple. The girl's eyes roamed over the room in an unfocused state until they locked on Em, at which point the kid launched her self forward while sobbing "MOM!"

That accusation of maternity froze Emerald in place as the sobbing child slammed into her with enough force to lay her out across the bedspread. Well honed survival instincts then forced the dark skinned thief to move out of that prone position into an 'edge of her seat' position on the corner of the bed. Yet in spite of these movements Emerald failed to dislodge the kid, and for reasons beyond Emerald's comprehension she started clinging back almost as hard as the child was.

"Who? What? Who? How?" It was an eloquent response from the thief. Mercury gave it an 11/10.

"Ma-ah-ah-om," the girl sobbed as if it was painful that Emerald didn't recognize her, "I, I'm Am-am-ethyst."

Emerald felt something inside her freeze with that name. In her wildest fantasies where Cinder knew about her feelings and they lived a life of luxury together she would imagine them adopting kids with troubled backgrounds like theirs. She had imagined a whole daycare of children she and Cinder saved from the streets and given new names matching her own jewelry theme, starting with a girl named Amethyst. Emerald felt her tongue become as lead, leaving her unable to speak.

Amethyst apparently took the silence as an invitation to continue, because she blubbered on, "My-my friend Mo-Moses has a Time, Time Travel sem-semb-lance, and, and we were wonder-ering if he could take o-other pe-ople wi-with him. Then things we-ent wrong and, and we, we went too far back and now, now I'm going to Diiiieee!"

While the mention of a Time Traveling semblance might cause disbelief in most situations Mercury found himself believing it. He had seen enough weird crap in his short life for time travel to not seem that far out there, and time travel made a lot more sense than a kid trying to con Em by pretending to be Em's kid.

On Emerald's part the mention of time travel caused everything to slide into place. A con didn't make sense, and it was impossible for a con to open up with the name Amethyst. That could only mean that the strange feeling of familiarity she felt with this girl was because the girl was by some miracle genuinely the flesh of her flesh, the bones of her bones. Emerald felt her tongue become loose, and she did her best to console her child.

"Mommy's got you my shining gemstone," Emerald murmured into Amethyst's hair, tears threatening to spill from the corners of her eyes. "Mommy's got you. Tell me what's wrong and we'll fix it. We'll fix it."

"We, we. This is, be-before you and, and dad got together," Amethyst cried, and that was all the explanation Mercury needed; he had seen the time traveling movie where the main character accidentally made their parent's break up. Then Amethyst continued, "So-so Moses-es ended, ended up pul-ul-ling, pull-ing every, every other eldest kid Da-dad could have, have had with, oth-other wo-women he could-could have married instead of yoooooouuuuu!" And that was a twist Mercury didn't see coming. He could see why the kid was upset; imagining your parents in a different relationship was only fun if one of your parents was a bastard, like his own pops. But Amethyst didn't stop there; "And-and they're all, all stronger, and-and braver, and-and better than me! And they're all, all trying to get, get dad with, with their moms, and, AND I'M NEVER GONA BE BORN! I'm gOnA DiE-iE-iE before i'm even boooorrrrrnnnn!"

Dude. That's some heavy shit. Mercury leaned back in his seat and let out a slow, silent breath.

Emerald's grip tightened around Amethyst. She had know about her daughter for less than five minutes and she could already feel her slipping away. At that moment every bit of steel Emerald had within her settled within her spine. There was an obvious way to protect her shining gemstone, and Emerald spoke the words that would change the course of her life:

"Then we just need to get to your father before anyone else does." Emerald nodded decisively as she adjusted her grip on Amethyst. The girl was a little large to want to carry, but getting ready to do so felt right. "What's your daddy's name?"

"Jaune," Amethyst sniffled, "Jaune Arc."

Surprise ran through Emerald's mind, and yet the surprise wasn't exactly unpleasant. She had spied a bit on Jaune for Cinder and he was attractive, for a boy. He was naïve and rough around the edges but he did have some real potential. Potential Cinder planned to cut short, but surely her mistress could make a few adjustments and-

"I. Thought. You. Liked. ME. Emerald."

Mercury felt his blood run cold at Cinder Fall's venomous tone. His eyes flicked over to her vanity to see the Queen Bitch looking over her shoulder at Em with the most intense gaze he had ever seen on the Bitch's face. She slowly turned in her seat without moving her head like some kind of demonic owl.

Mercury got up and slowly made his way to the door as quietly as he could possibly manage.

The raw hostility in Cinder's tone drove a wrench into the gears of Emerald's thoughts, and Amethyst froze like a rabbit under the gaze of a hawk.

"I. Thought. You. Were. In. Love. With. ME." Cinder hissed like a viper. "I. Thought. Your. Loyalty. Was. Unquestionable. You've spent years working to get into my good graces, years lapping at every shred of affection I've gifted you, all with some vague hope that I'd bring you into MY arms and MY bed. And now some phantasmal possibility made flesh throws itself at you and it makes you question your relationship with ME?"

New shocks forced their way through Emerald's system. A large part of her had always deluded herself into thinking that the only reason Cinder was so cold and distant was because Cinder was unaware of her feelings. But to know without a doubt that Cinder had been aware the whole time and was still so cold, distant, and sometimes subtly cruel? Something in Emerald's heart was tearing.

"And to think you'd be tempted to turn your back on MY plans, on ME, for what?" Cinder growled like a blasting furnace. "A weak Looser giving you a weak and pathetic child who can't take care of herself? Who can't defend her own pathetic life? That's what makes you reconsider your relationship with ME?"

Cinder stretched forth her hand, conjuring a knife of glass in the air within Emerald's reach. "Take. It. Take it and prove you are willing to Cut. Out. The. Weakness. That. Would. Take. You. From. ME."

Emerald's grip on her daughter tightened. She couldn't even look at the knife.

"So. Be. It." Cinder stood up from her vanity, bringing the knife to her own hand and enveloping it in flame, "Prepare to die, Traitor."

Mercury threw the dorm room door open: "RUN EMERALD! RUN!"

Those words broke Emerald out of her mental gridlock, and she sprung forward with all the speed her aura-enhanced legs could muster, heaving Amethyst onto her shoulder so she could efficiently run with her child. A split second after she started moving the burning glass knife struck the bed where she had been sitting, engulfing the furniture in flames.

Emerald tore from the room with her heart thundering in her ears. The hallways were dangerous, and too enclosed. She needed room to maneuver. A courtyard would have enough space to not get instantly fried by a fireball. She needed to get to a courtyard.

She ran.

Cinder Fall burst out of the dorm room a moment later, knocking Mercury to the ground in the process. Cinder tore through the hallways with tears made of flame running down her face.

"GET BACK HERE YOU LYING WHORE! I'LL BOIL YOUR BLOOD! I'LL COOK YOUR MARROW! I'LL TEACH YOU FOR TRICKING ME INTO THINKING YOU LOVED ME! DIE! DIE! DIE!"

Back in the dorm room Mercury tried to sit up and take stock of the situation. His flesh seemed unburnt. His left leg prosthetic was slagged though, so getting anywhere would be a drag. Emerald's bed was on fire, so that meant... yep there was the fire suppression system kicking in. Now he was stuck on the ground and he was soaking wet. At least there wasn't any more fire.

"SON OF A- ugh! FOR THE LOVE OF- hrrrrnn! AND TODAY STARTED OFF SO WELL!"