25 years old was a weird age to be alive... at least, to Ruby Rose it was. The once previous huntress scanned her current situation, running a gloved hand through her hair. The grunts her and Roman hired fast at work moving the heavy crates of dust they were stealing. She smiled as one passed, catching the familiar Schnee name printed on the side.

'Weiss is gonna be so mad.' She thought, snickering slightly before frowning. A cold feeling crept into her chest and she sighed. Weiss was already mad anyways.

She decided to move on and shook her head to snap out of it, walking through the crowd of workers to find her husband. When she finally found him she raised her eyebrow at the sight of the crate next to him... it was glowing from the inside.

"Roman!" She called out, running towards him.

He turned around and smiled. "Red! To what do I owe the pleasure?"

When she finally reached him she gave him a quick kiss before pointing towards the glowing crate. "Just wondering why that crate seems to be glowing. What's in it?"

He raised an eyebrow at it, picking up a chart that showed the dust that was supposed to be in the lot. All of them the same regular type you could pick up at any dust shop.

"It doesn't look like anything here creates an effect like that..." he mumbled.

Ruby hummed and looked over at the crate. "I'm gonna go check it out."

Roman furrowed his eyebrows and shook his head. "That's not a good idea. I think we need to play this safe, we have no clue what's in there and it could be sabotage-" He stopped short, realizing it was too late and that his wife had already climbed into the crate.

"Red! What are you doing?!"

"It's fine!" She called out to him. "It just looks like a glowing dust crystal!"

His eye's widened at that and he felt his heart drop. "Get out! Dust crystals only glow when they're-" He was interrupted by a loud bang. His entire body suddenly felt cold.

"...Red?"

No reply.

"Ruby?!"

He looked around to see the nearby grunts staring at him and the crate with wide eyes. He panicked and ran to it, quickly shoving his way inside.

All that was left was her glove and a dull crystal, both laying side by side.

He fell to his knees and did something he hadn't done in years.

He cried.

-10 Years into the past-

"RUBY!" A shrill voice screamed out from inside the dorm

Blake cringed and covered her ears, glaring at Weiss. "Why are you yelling?"

"I can't find Ruby and we are supposed to be studying for Professor Oobleck's next test!"

"IT'S DOCTOR, MS. SCHNEE" Came a loud yell from what seemed like outside, causing both girls to jump and look towards the window.

"How...?" Blake asked Weiss before shaking her head quickly and responding "Nevermind. You realize that screaming her name won't do anything if she isn't here?"

"Well-"

"YANG!" Ruby screamed from outside the door to their dorm which was followed by Yang's loud laughing

Weiss humphed, walking over to the door and expecting to angrily open it to lecture her irresponsible partner, only for it to open on her face.

Ruby felt the door stop short and pulled it back, only to see her partner angrily looking back at her. "Wha- Weiss! Are you okay?!" Ruby asked, A small pit of dread in her stomach.

"No Ruby, I am not okay! Do you know why? Because my partner and team leader was supposed to be studying with me for an important test!"

"...Oh, uh, oops?" Ruby said, cringing a bit.

Yang noticed the Heiress's temper and quickly stepped in, hoping to calm her down and defend her sister. "Rubes didn't mean to be late, she just got side-tracked and-"

"It doesn't matter if she meant it or not, She is still late! How does she expect to be able to lead this team if she can't even be on time for a study session!" Weiss had replied, her anger rising.

"Well, maybe she'd want to study with you more if you weren't so uptight!" Yang said back, her temper rising along with Weiss's

"I wouldn't have to be so uptight if Ruby would just do what she's supposed to!"

"Uh, Guys?" Ruby had interrupted, causing both girls to look towards her, their angry expressions soon fading at the sight of a bright orb that floated in front of their team leader.

Blake looked up from the book she had been reading on her bed at the sudden silence of the two girls fighting, her eyes widening at the sight.

"...What the hell?" Yang whispered, moving closer to her sister and attempting to poke it.

The poking action seemed to only make it worse, the orb soon expanding until the brightness was too much for the girls in the room.

"Yang, you dolt! Why would you poke it?!" Weiss shrieked, her hands covering her eyes.

"I wanted to find out what it was!" She yelled back.

Ruby attempted to back away from it, closing her eyes. The wall soon hit her back, and all she could do was cover her eyes and hope that whatever it was didn't explode or blind them.

She heard Yang call out her name but wasn't sure which direction she had called from, scared to open her eyes to try and see her. She feared doing so would just lead to her never seeing her sister again.

"Is everyone okay?" She yelled out, getting 3 answers of "yes". She moved a hand away from her eye in an attempt to feel the wall until she made it to the door of the dorm, though before she could take two steps a heavy object suddenly fell on top of her, knocking her out.

The girls opened their eyes, realizing that the light had vanished. Blinking and rubbing their eyes to help their vision clear up, they all looked to where they had heard the loud thud.

To their surprise, a woman lay sprawled on top of their leader.

Yang felt her jaw drop open, Blakes' eyes widened, and Weiss gasped once they had taken in the appearance of said woman.

Silver eyes, semi-long hair that started off black and then faded into a ruby red shade, and that striking red hood.

"...Ruby?" Yang asked, her confusion likely surpassing any time she had been confused before.

The woman just stared back at them in shock, looking around the room as she tried to take it all in. The dorm quickly became to quiet that if someone were to drop a pin, the noise of it falling would likely easily be heard.

A groan came from underneath the woman, causing her and the rest of team RWBY to look down.

"Ah, shit." The woman mumbled as she got off the girl, scrambling back and hitting the wall. "Sorry!"

The silence had returned, and despite their team leader laying unconscious on the floor nobody had attempted to move.

"Holy shit," Yang whispered, not sure how else to respond. "-Well this is... a thing?"

The woman currently next to their leader let out a nervous chuckle, pulling on her hood. It seemed that nobody had any words, and both parties feared they would be stuck in a perptual state of silence until a small voice piped up from the floor. "Ugh, What happened?"

A silver eye opened, taking one look at the woman and furrowing her eyebrows. "Who is that?"

Weiss scoffed. "Isn't that the million dollar question?"

The woman rubbed the nape of her neck, looking away nervously. "Uh..."

Blake raised an eyebrow, obvious suspicion on her face. "Well? Who are you?"

"I don't think I can tell you." She replied shyly.

Weiss furrowed her eyebrows, glaring a bit at the woman. "You appear out of nowhere in our dorm room from a ball of light, looking frighteningly similar to our team leader, and you refuse to tell us just who you are and what your intentions are?"

The woman coughed into her gloveless hand. "Well, when you put it that way..."

"So, you'll tell us who you are then?" Yang questioned.

"I'm not sure, I don't think I could do much damage by telling all of you but I'm scared it could..."

"It could what?" Ruby asked.

"I'm scared it could completely screw up the universe as we know it."

A pause.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me, I could actually mess with everything by telling you a single thing! Haven't you seen those movies? You know, the time traveler goes back in time and by doing one thing that change the entire future?"

"The butterfly effect?" Blake had begun to ask, but was soon deafened by Yang exclaiming "You're a time traveler?!"

The woman looked at Yang with horror, frustrated by how easily she had already given up information. At this rate, the future she had grown to love would be no more.

Yang hadn't seemed to notice her horror and if she had, she didn't seem to care.

"So does that mean you're Ruby from the future?! Are we all bad-ass huntresses?! Did I find my mom?"

The woman just pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "Well, I've already accidentally admitted to being a time traveler, might as well..."

Yang looked at her as if she held the answers to everything, and she quickly closed her eyes

"My name is Ruby Rose, I am 25 years old... and from the looks of it, I've gone back about 10 years into the past."