Chapter Text
At long last, Ruby Rose finds herself falling and landing atop a pile of junk…. And then slipped as a monumental crash followed her descent. She found herself surrounded by what even Blake would call filth; magazines promising “hot 2-d fighting!” and the like, dolls of people she didn’t know and those she recognized too well… Body-pillows of Jaune and Ren, A picture of Nora in workout clothes? And perhaps most horrifyingly she found a comic about her own mother and… a dark haired girl making out and-!
“... this isn’t what I expected…” She stammered, putting the cursed objects out of sight, further into the pile before looking around and realizing she was just in one trash pile… there were endless more stretching out into the inky black…
Music got her attention, playing from the source of light. Realizing that she was all alone was… a strange feeling. She hasn’t been alone for a while…
“Weiss! Blake! Yang!” She called out… but all she heard was a quiet tune echoing through piles of trash, the only proof her team or… indeed, anyone she knew was connected to this place was piles of merchandise… at least some of it was cute but the others…
It was certainly not official merchandise… at least she hoped the Brothers it wasn’t.
Still as she got closer to the center she found herself looking at a very old Tv, with a game console and two arcade-style controllers. On the Screen was a cartoon heart with a skull emblazoned on it…
Ruby was happy to be holding onto Crescent Rose as she felt a sense of unease… made worse by the fact she could feel she was being watched.
“Hello Ruby.”
Crescent Rose spun around only for Ruby to find herself face to face with a woman in a white robe. She didn’t get a clear look at her face but something about her made Ruby feel uncomfortable… almost a familiar feeling of… of HER. But the woman didn’t attack her, or do anything. She seemed more… curious about her.
“So… you are the one they wish to send to Annabelle… quite curious.” The woman said, before glancing at the Scythe in mild annoyance. “I’d put that toy of yours away. You cannot hurt me or my children here… I will not allow it. Understand?”
“I doubt she’ll let herself part from it, mother.”
“Indeed… the poor girl looks so shocked to see you… you can relax here. Neo isn’t about to stab you again… we took care of that a while ago!”
Mother stepped back as her two daughters entered the scene. Ruby wasn’t quite sure what to make of them… one of them had an hourglass for a torso for crying out loud! And the other… well… Ruby blushed and looked away, making the girl with teeth on her abdomen laugh. “Aw, don’t be shy~”
‘Who… What are you?”
“I’m Aeon, my sister is Venus Lovelace… and the woman behind you is our dear Mother.”
“Wow that’s… quite a family…” Ruby replied. Something about them made her skin crawl… They didn’t look quite ‘right’, something that just seemed alien to her own eyes…
“Don’t be scared. We want to help you… couldn’t help by noticing all the commotion from your world. All that misery, terror…” Venus smiled leaning into Ruby. “Your failures… that got our attention. Really irresponsible of those Gods.”
Aeon nodded. “Quite… so we wished to help. All your friends have played a very nice role in our world… but only one had the courage to try.”
Ruby raised an eyebrow. “In this… Garbage Dump?”
“I’m going to choose to ignore that.” Venus remarked. “But no… our World doesn’t have a fancy name like Remnant, but it has a name. This place is just outside it.”
“Yang and Blake had fun, so did Weiss… and little Neo… oh she had the most fun of all.” Aeon added.
“Where are they?”
Mother spoke, making her daughters pause. “They have been returned to your world at the precise time they were needed, as will you, should you complete our task.” She lifted her hood and Ruby’s blood ran cold as she saw a beautiful face on one side… and a horrid skull on the other. “Our Heart can grant any wish, but all who have tried have been impure… you have a simple soul, one that perhaps could be used to sway the Heart…”
Venus waited for Mother to glance at her before smiling, the nervous bluster gone. “Y-Yes. The Skull Heart is in our world. One wish, and we’ll send you back with it granted… Salem dead, Summer back to life… so long as you’re pure.”
Ruby recalled the fairy tales about something too good to be true… those never ended well…
“Oh, don’t worry about that… Neo already found out.”
Ruby frowned, and Aeon’s hourglass began to shift as she pointed Crescent Rose to the trio- She pointed Crescent Rose to the trio- she blinked as she pointed Crescent Rose to the trio-
“Well good to get it out of the way; We control all possibilities here, Ruby Rose…” Aeon began. “We offer you a choice because we wish to see what you can do… and if you destroy or wish upon the Heart… you will bring our worlds closer. Do you not want justice? For all that has happened to you? We offer you a chance to do something good for two worlds… do not waste it.”
Venus extended her hand. “Unless you want to spend eternity with us, you’ll do as we say… and don’t worry, everyone else managed to make a friend and get back home… maybe you can too.”
“You… expect me to just go along with it?”
“Like we said, you don’t really have a choice if you want to go home… and believe me, we’re very patient.”
Ruby looked at the woman’s hand.… and shook it. Just upon contact she began to drift off into a deep slumber.
“Mother, we could have handled this.”
“Perhaps…” She replied. “But this one… I want to see just what you want to achieve… I hope there’s no favoritism here.”
Aeon smiled. “Not to worry mother. Ruby just needs to bond with Annie and then with Jaune…”
Aeon looked to her sister who smiled with a hungry look in her eyes. “Oh yes… he will be fun…”
—
Annie was taking a break from filming, the Anniversary for Queen Nacy’s death was coming, and so filming for that was… always something. Brought back bad memories too… she barely got to do anything that time. The animation cells were done for it at least… and then came prep time to deal with the new one.
There was always a new one.
As she walked to her trailer, she had a lot more on her mind than just her cover… She lost track of the unimportant years sometime before the ground war, measuring them mostly by scientific advancements and bunches of Seven… and those seven were up.
“We’re starting to get too old for this, aren’t we Sagan?”
Her ‘Parasite’ grumbled in agreement. Sagan might have looked like a stuffed animal, but he was the source of her power… and her closest friend, the one that stuck by her until she could solve her curse.
She gently opened the trailer door, turning on the lights and would have gone straight to eating some M&Ms that she had on her bowl… if someone wasn’t in her seat.
Sagan handed her the sword; her current choice of weapon mostly due to simplicity (and of course swords usually being cooler.) With centuries of teamwork Sagan waddled up to the girl… before tripping over a Scythe.
Annie looked down and… it was much too big to be called a Scythe. Honestly looking a bit gimmicky to the Star Child’s eye, but she could see that it also doubled as a gun, but with a Caliber that would make a Gigan flinch. The thing had to have recoil that’d hurt like heck…
Looking at the girl sitting in her chair… well she matched it in her ‘color scheme’ but she looked spindly. A lithe sort of muscle, built like a sprinter. She couldn’t have been older then 18 either so… what was she doing with a weapon like this?
Sagan took a spot behind the chair as Annie spun it so the girl would face her. Her hand ready to administer justice just in case something happened.
—
She was a cold figure of unimaginable power. Her Silver eyes were meaningless in the face of it..
Pale skin, crimson eyes… but… no, why was half her face missing?
She came to strike Ruby down and-
Ruby bolted up, her head impacting something hard in front of her. The chair she was on leaning back only to be caught by something… oddly fluffy and strong.
“OW! WHAT THE H… Heck was that for?!”
Ruby grumbled as her own head swam in pain. Grabbing at her head as sleep and pain mingled in her mind. Blinking, she felt the brightness of artificial lights above her as a green smudge on the edge of her vision slowly manifested as a person. She was shorter than her too, but… she only had one eye, the other covered by an eyepatch with a cartoon star.
She looked annoyed at the silver-eyed girl. “I-I’m sorry!” Ruby stammered, trying to stand up before she noticed the sword in the other girl’s hand… pointed at her.
“I’m sure you are.” the girl replied with an authority she managed quite well despite her size and cutesy appearance. “Who are you and what are you doing in my trailer?”
She nudged her head in the direction of Crescent Rose on the floor. Ruby wouldn’t have dropped it… which caused her eyes to widen as Annie continued. “Your fancy scythe is nice and all, but if you don’t start talking-”
“I-I’m Ruby Rose! Please don’t hurt my baby!”
A snicker behind her almost caught her attention as a scowl crossed the girl's Face. “Yeah I get it, not heroic but this is more than an image thing Sagan!”
“Who’s Sagan-”
Annie frowned. “Wait how are you… Do you know who I am?”
“Uh…” Ruby tried to scramble through her head… She looked sort of like a cartoon she would have liked, or a comic book but usually those weren’t real and threatened her with a sword. “I.. I don’t know…”
The girl blinked, her sword lowering. “... Do you know where you are right now?”
“Your Trailer?”
“No I mean” She sighed, bringing her hand to her face. “The country?”
“Uh… V-Vale?” Ruby shook her head as it began to hurt again. “No uh…”
Annie sheathed her sword. “Check your pockets.”
Ruby did find a license that gave out her name and a wallet containing paper with numbers on them and a few coins. The star-girl seemed to notice the surprised expression on the silver-eyed girl’s face. “... I think we got off on the wrong foot. My name is Annie…”
“Ruby”
Annie looked past the girl to her partner, and As Ruby turned she… paused as she saw a fluffy stuffed bunny, that would have looked adorable if he didn’t open his mouth, an eye that matched the girls. It waved and mumbled something. “He’s Sagan.”
“I-Is that your eye?!”
“Yep!”
—-
Florence looked at the Silver-Eyed Girl that, mysteriously, managed to find her way into Annie’s trailer. This Ruby Rose seemed very nice at least…
The rest of the Studio had finished filming, leaving them time to discuss the situation… considering Annie had a strange idea about her. Ruby was poking Sagan as they sat down at a table in a quiet room, only a janitor making his rounds keeping them from making too much noise.
“You think I’m an Alien?”
Annie frowned as Sagan snickered. “Well when you say it like THAT it sounds stupid.” Annie replied, crossing her arms. “But you, somehow, managed to get into my trailer without being caught on any security cameras.”
Florence nodded. “Security here is very strict… you’d be surprised what Annie’s more rabid fans could do… I’m not even sure how napalm got involved that one time-”
“Anyways.” Annie looked at the older woman for a moment before looking back. “You also got into my trailer with your scythe… something that wasn’t folded until you did it just to get it out of the door… There has to be a reason why. Magic doesn’t work like that.”
She paused, looking at Ruby’s reactions. She had stopped playing with Sagan before looking at the one-eyed magical girl and smiling sheepishly. “I-I’m not magic…”
“Oh?” Annie said with a mischievous grin. “Ya know, given how big that scythe is i beg to differ…”
“It’s also a gun.” Ruby offered sheepishly.
“The Recoil alone would break your arms without something to stop it… my powers come from Sagan…” A look from Florence made her roll her eyes. “‘And love and friendship’ but you don’t have a Parasite so…. What about those eyes?”
Ruby felt a sharp pain then… Images of a fallen friend, people she loved flashing before them as they glowed faintly. “I… I think they’re special but-”
“Easy, Easy!”
Florence cleared her throat. As the light began to fade. Ruby calmed down, taking steady breaths. Annie sighed. “Look, all I’m saying is something is going on here… And whatever it is, it lead you to us.”
Florence for her part just looked to the younger girl with a small smile Ruby wasn’t sure where to place. “I didn’t think you started believing in destiny again Annie.”
“I’ve been alive too long to believe that this isn’t…important somehow.” Annie replied, looking to Ruby. “You…. probably have a lot of questions so… ask away.”
Ruby paused, not sure what to ask… Before picking one that seemed the most important at the time. “Who are you? Really?”
“That’s quite a complicated question.” Sagan Said.
Ruby jumped before the rabbit smiled at her with sharp teeth. “What? I don’t like people-talk too often, but that doesn’t mean I can’t talk!”
Annie shook her head though there was a smile. “Alright, well, thanks for ruining the tension… I’m not a normal TV Star.”
“I thought Sagan would have given it away…” Ruby replied sheepishly.
“If you think that’s weird then just wait till you hear the next part…”
—-
Red’s eyes were fixated on the screen as it showed a rerun of Annie Vs the Big Bad Wolfman. “You know, I think Red could benefit from some… more mature media?”
Red stuck out her tongue at Bianca. “C’mon! I know it’s just a filler arc, but the Big Bad Wolf is complicated and-”
Bianca shook her head. “Red, look, you’re barely at middle-school reading levels. Maybe we should work at that?”
Kallen Frowned. “No Man’s Land isn’t some cozy little place… Red doesn’t need to read Conflict and Paxus to do her job.”
She looked to the screen as Annie sent the Big Bad Wolf-Man flying. “‘Sides, anything that features Beowulf being beaten up is good enough for everyone.”
Red rolled her eyes as she turned back to the screen, Annie giving a speech about the difference between courage and bravery. “Bravery is important for any Hero, but Courage is what it takes to be one. It can be scary to do the right thing, but a true hero always pushes past it.”
Red smiled at it… she remembered back… back home, back in Rommelgrade… all she had was Kallen and old Annie stuff… Made it almost bearable.
Almost…
“So… You’re still up for stealing Eronburg?” Red asked, her smile thinner than it was just a minute ago.
Bianca nodded. “Of course. Once we have that we’ll be rich and… well, closer to Lorenzo…”
Kallen nodded, though she didn’t speak. The Silence between the two was deafening.
“It’s nothing.” Red replied, her eyes distant as she tried to focus on the television…
—-
Ruby was struggling to think of the girl next to her as older than her… She remembered someone… else, old and ancient. Annie wasn’t as wise though, least not with how the game was going. Convicted Cogs was fun, though it wasn't like any of the ones her… sister and her played…
Her mind demanded her to stop. Annie paused the game as Ruby set the controller down, her head feeling like it was about to burst. “Ruby?”
Ruby’s breathing was ragged. She… her team…
What was she doing? She… she was doing here? Playing video games when her team, people she knew she should remember but couldn’t… where were they? She was doing something… something important and-
“Ruby! Are you okay?!”
Ruby shook her head. “N-no, no, I’m not I… I was doing something important…”
Annie paused. “No I… I get it.” she put a hand on the ‘younger’ girl’s shoulder. “It’s all just… hit you now, right?”
Ruby nodded. “... What am I going to do?”
“We’ll find them, I’m sure of it.” Annie replied, though her face remained serious. “Look it’s… I don't know how to say it but these things tend to work out in the end.”
Ruby tilted her head. “It happened to you?”
“I… think so.” Annie mused. “... It’s hard, but you know them better than me. I know it’s hard not being able to help…”
Annie paused, and tried to put on a good smile, though Ruby could see there was a hint of unsureness in it. “But… have some faith in them. And when you get back? Just keep doing what you were doing.”
Ruby nodded. “How am I going to get back?”
“We’ll find a way… now c’mon. The round isn’t over yet.”
The game went fine, and soon it was time for them to sleep, both seeing the faces of those they knew were gone.
