No Such Thing as Destiny

Epilogue

Mercury figured it wouldn't be professional to fall asleep when the mission was in jeopardy, but he hadn't had time to grab a comic book before Cinder had ordered the withdrawal. Besides, Cinder hadn't told him to stay awake. In fact, she hadn't told him or Emerald anything since the tower fell at midnight.

So he took a nap in an abandoned warehouse waiting for Cinder to show up. Or at least tried to. Emerald kept on pacing back and forth, worrying. Seriously, what was even the point? Cinder didn't pay them to worry. Ever since she got her magic powers, the only reason she needed them was to fill up team slots.

He opened his eyes to see Emerald checking news reports on her scroll. "Would you cut that out? I'm trying to sleep."

"They're not showing her picture," Emerald said. "They're not showing any of our pictures. The CCT was destroyed in an 'anonymous terrorist attack.' Why is that? The last thing Cinder said to us was that we've been compromised, so why aren't we on Vale's Most Wanted?"

"I know," Mercury said. "What do we have to do to get some recognition around here? Knock down a building?"

"I'm going out to have a look around."

"Good idea. Sure, Cinder told us to stay here and wait for her, but you know her. She loves it when we show initiative and think for ourselves. Oh, wait, no, I was thinking of someone else."

Emerald rolled her eyes. "She might be in trouble."

That would be the day. "I'm not coming with you."

"You weren't invited."

He laughed. "I can hear you missing me."

"Nope," she said. "That's just your massive, throbbing ego you're hearing."

"It is pretty massive," he agreed.

"I'll give you a call in case I need something kicked."

"That's why I'm here."

WWW

"Mercury! Wake up!"

Mercury groaned and opened his eyes. Wha … was it morning already? Emerald stood over him, not in her usual clothes or the green dress she had been wearing when she left, but in something freshly stolen. Mercury was still wearing his tux, and it had gotten stained with more dust—and Dust—than he had planned.

"Did you find Cinder?"

"She's dead."

Mercury took a moment to process that. "You mean that figuratively, right? Like her signal's dead."

"No, you idiot! I mean she's dead."

"What?" No, that wasn't possible. Even in the beginning, Cinder had been terrifyingly strong. She was fast, she was ruthless, and she had a killer instinct that made him feel warm and cold at the same time. But after she had devoured half of what was basically a demigod, she had become an army all by herself. "How?"

"She was fighting Pyrrha Nikos."

"She's not really invincible."

"No," Emerald agreed. "Nikos was last seen boarding an ambulance in a stretcher. But during their fight, someone shot Cinder in the head with a sniper rifle. Now, who do we know who uses a sniper rifle?"

"No one who could take down Cinder, that's for sure. Wait, you don't mean …"

Emerald nodded, and Mercury noticed that it wasn't just her irises that were red. "It makes sense, doesn't it? This whole time, that girl has always been in our way, has always known just a little bit too much. Even when we first met her in the hallway—do you remember that? She pulled her scythe out like she wanted to kill us, and we just ignored it like she was some eccentric brat! I talked to her at the party last night to see if she was dangerous, but I … I …" She turned away. "We're going to take her down."

"Just the two of us?" Staying in Vale after the mission went south didn't seem smart, but Mercury had been on worse dates.

"We'll contact that umbrella girl, Neo," Emerald said. "I'm sure we can talk her into helping us without much trouble."

"Yeah, but there's a problem with that. First, she'll want us to help her break Torchwick out of prison."

"That doesn't matter."

"Second … Torchwick hates us."

"That doesn't matter."

"And we hate him."

"That doesn't matter! Cinder's dead, Mercury! Cinder's dead, and Ruby killed her! That's what matters. That's the only thing that does."

WWW

Ruby woke up, not just feeling tired, but drained. She had saved Beacon, but destroyed a small part of it. She had saved Penny, but she had still gotten hurt pretty bad and Pyrrha was—she'd drop by the hospital as soon as she could to visit her. She'd defeated a super villain, but … but she had killed someone. Ruby had wanted to become a Huntress to kill monsters; she hadn't expected people to be part of that group.

She got dressed slowly, and one by one her team joined her. "You don't have to come with me if you don't want to," Ruby said. "I'm only going to visit Pyrrha now so I can fit it in before my meeting with Ozpin."

"See, now you're really acting crazy," Weiss said, tying her hair to the side. "Remember what happened last time we let you run off on your own? You ended up getting into a fight with someone that even Professor Goodwitch was afraid of."

Ruby smiled at that, taking it for what it was: an apology, by someone who really, really hated apologizing. Weiss hadn't believed her from the start—none of them had—but each one of them had been with her in their own time and in their own way. Ruby stepped forward and gave Weiss a hug.

"Oh, so we're doing this now?" Weiss said. "Okay, that's fine, I suppose this is merited."

"Hey, are we having a group hug?" Yang said. "Count me in on that action!"

"What?" Weiss said. "No, don't …" She squirmed a bit as Yang put her arms around both of them. "Right. Now this is happening."

"Hey, Blake!" Yang said. "You wanna get in on this?"

Blake shook her head. "Not really. I have these personal space issues. But rest assured I'm hugging all of you mentally."

"Yeah, that's okay," Yang said. "I know where you sleep."

"Well, that's terrifying," Blake said. "So are we going to the hospital or something?"

Ruby nodded, and the four of them filed out the door. "We should invite JNPR to go with us."

"I bet you five lien they're already there," Yang said.

Weiss rolled her eyes. "That's a sucker bet and you know it. I'd be surprised if they didn't spend the night in the waiting room, because let's be honest: without Pyrrha, they're just Team JNR, and that's not even a color."

Ruby knocked on their door all the same, and to her surprise, it opened. "Ah! Jaune! What are you doing here?"

Jaune blinked, still in his pajamas. "Uh, I live here?"

"No, I mean, I thought you'd be … Pyrrha!" She slid under Jaune's arm into the room.

"Sure," Jaune said. "Come on in."

"Pyrrha!" Ruby said again, finding her sitting up in her bed. "I thought you'd be in the hospital!"

The rest of her team followed. "You know," Yang said, "we've been neighbors this whole time, and I've never been here. Your room seems a lot smaller than ours."

"It's the same size," Blake said. "They just don't have bunk beds."

"Hold on!" Nora said. "You guys got bunk beds? How come we don't have bunk beds? I want bunk beds!"

"That would be an efficient use of space," Ren agreed.

"You know what this calls for?" Yang said. "A party! We'll skip the fancy dresses, decorations, and all the other schools that no one cares about, and go straight to the part where we share with you the fine art of wrecking your room with style!"

"I don't know," Pyrrha said. "I just barely recovered from the last party."

"But you still had fun, right?" Yang asked.

"About that," Ruby said. "How did you get better so fast? You seemed in really bad shape last time I saw you."

"Well, about that," Pyrrha said. "It's actually a pretty interesting story." She turned to Jaune, and smiled. "Would you like to tell it?"

Jaune shuffled awkwardly. "Well, it's not that interesting."

"Ooh! Ooh!" Nora said. "Can I tell it? Can I? Okay, it was the dead of night."

"Last night," Ren said.

"Then the moon turned red."

"That never happened."

"And then, we were attacked by ninjas!"

Ren sighed. "Jaune discovered his Semblance. He heals people. The end."

"Or is it?" Nora asked mysteriously.

"You can heal people?" Ruby asked. "That's amazing!"

"Yeah, I wanna see!" Yang said.

"Well, it doesn't work unless you're injured," Jaune said.

Yang nodded. "Nora. Hit me."

Nora grinned. "With pleasure!"

"Not here!" Jaune said, frowning. "This is our room!"

Yang winked at him. "It's party time, Doc."

Ruby smiled, feeling a great weight lifted from her soul, a weight that she had been carrying since the last desperate cry for help that she had heard Jaune utter before the end of time. Save Pyrrha! Pyrrha: saved. Penny: saved. Future —

Nora smashed her hammer into Yang, sending her flying through the wall and crashing straight into Cardin in the next room over. "Ow!" he said. "What the actual hell, people? Were you aiming for me?"

"Nope," Yang said, standing up and looking around. "Just lucky."

"Yes," Nora said.

"Hey, are you doing yoga?" Yang asked.

"No!" Cardin said. "I was … reading porn."

"On a yoga mat?"

"Don't judge me! And get out of my room unless you're looking to get hurt!"

Yang laughed.

"What?" Cardin asked. "What's so funny? Stop laughing!"

Ruby had gotten a cut on her back the night before during her fight with Cinder, but she had gotten stitches and it wasn't bothering her much. She could have asked Jaune to heal it for her, but then everyone would want to see it getting healed and she'd have to lift her shirt up and that would be awkward. Besides, everyone was having fun. Ruby smiled and left the room. She shouldn't keep Ozpin waiting.

WWW

Ruby remembered when she had talked to the Headmaster after the first timeline's dance. She hadn't managed to stop anyone, but she had still pressed every button on the elevator on the way up because she was just that nervous about confronting Ozpin.

This time, she skipped the thirteenth story, because that would just be unlucky. Well, what was really unlucky was going out in public without her signature cloak, but after using it for a bandage the night before, it, uh, it needed to be washed.

When she finally made it to the top, Ozpin was in a meeting with someone else. He glanced up at her over his spectacles and promptly wrapped things up. "It will take some time to adjust; there's no going around it, and no point rushing it. But if you ever need anything, Amber, my door is always open. Now, Professor Goodwitch would be the best person to help you through the details. She's one floor down."

The girl he was talking to, Amber, stood up and started walking toward the elevator.

"Ah, Ruby," Ozpin said. "Have a seat."

As soon as he said that, Amber spun on her heel and stared at her. "You're Ruby?"

Ruby hesitated. "Yes?" Had they met? Amber didn't look familiar, with her country style clothes, brown hair, and a scar on her face that made her look like she had gotten in a fight with something awesome. That meant that she knew Ruby by reputation alone. "Um, I don't know what you heard about me, but I didn't do it."

"Actually," Ozpin said, sipping out of his mug, "in this case, I believe you did, Miss Rose."

Way to throw me under the bus! "Okay, I may have knocked over the CCT last night, but it was an accident, and I can fix it! Somehow."

Amber reached her hand out as if to touch her, but hesitated as though seeing an invisible "Do Not Touch" sign next to her, and instead dropped to one knee.

"I will never," Amber said, "be able to pay you back for what you have done for me, but if you ever need anything, Ruby Rose, ask me, and I will give it to you."

"Um, okay." Wow, she did not like the Communications Tower. Weird. "Well, my friends are throwing a party later. You could come to that if you like." Unless I get expelled.

Amber nodded solemnly, stood, and left.

Ozpin indicated the chair in front of his desk, and Ruby sat down. "So," he said. "At approximately eleven forty-five last night, you left the Vytal Festival Formal with one Penny Polendina of Atlas and broke into the Communications Tower. There you ambushed one Cinder Fall of Haven. The ensuing conflict destroyed the tower entirely, and Miss Fall fled the scene only to be pursued by Pyrrha Nikos and yourself. The final conflict resulted in Fall's death. Is that correct?"

"Um, yes?"

Ozpin straightened his glasses. "Now, in our line of work, luck can sometimes be an adequate substitute for reliable information and careful planning—but this? This was not the product of luck, was it?"

Ruby hesitated. "Am I in trouble?"

"Trouble?" he repeated. "Goodness, no. You are being commended. I've had Mr. Branwen scouring the continent looking for Miss Fall, and then you went and eliminated her yourself."

Ruby blinked. "Uncle Qrow was looking for her?"

He nodded. "Yes, he was positively livid when he found out that you had gotten to her first. Green with envy, I'd say. Then he ranted something ironic about reckless endangerment and sloppy security, but the connection broke down before he could finish. Long distance calls don't work very well with the tower decommissioned. But enough of that. How did you know to even look for her?"

"Um …" Hardly anyone had believed her so far, but she couldn't exactly lie to the Headmaster, could she? "Do you promise not to laugh?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Miss Rose, while there are many things beyond my power, I can assure you that I can promise you not to laugh."

She took a deep breath. "I'm from the future."

"I see."

She hesitated. "You're not laughing."

"You're not joking."

"No. No I'm not."

"Perhaps," Ozpin said, "you'd like to start from the beginning."

WWW

"… then I woke up with a really bad headache in the hallway a few weeks ago, and that's how I got here."

"Interesting," Ozpin said.

"So, you're taking me breaking the laws of physics really well."

"Am I?"

"Can I ask you something, Professor? Are you from the future too?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Me, from the future? Whatever gave you that idea?"

Ruby looked around the room. "Well, I see a lot of clock designs in your office, gears and minute hands and stuff."

"Interesting. No, I am from the past, like most people. But if it helps you understand where I'm coming from, there is a belief, a philosophy, if you will. It says that everything in the world can be understood, that the universe follows certain laws without fail and that each of those laws can be contained within the human mind. That philosophy is often known as Complete and Utter Nonsense."

"Oh."

"Now, I don't mean to nitpick, Miss Rose, because you did a magnificent job with recent events, but if you ever return to the past again, I would like to be the first to know. I believe I mentioned as much in the handout everyone received during orientation."

"You did?"

He nodded. "Page twelve, I believe. Didn't you read it?"

She hesitated. "I … skimmed it."

He sighed. "I really ought to put that part in larger print. Oh, before I forget, I have something for you." He pulled a sheet of paper out of his desk drawer and handed it to her. It read:

CERTIFICATE OF TIME TRAVEL

I, Headmaster Ozpin, declare _ to be of sound mind and to have traveled through time from the date of _/_/_ in an alternate timeline to_/_/_ of the current timeline, and should be taken seriously concerning any and all prophetic claims pertaining to the period between these two dates.

"Now, if you could sign and date it," he said, "this may be of use to you among your more skeptical associates."

"Wow, thanks! Um, how many of these do you have?"

He shrugged. "I can always print off more when I run out."

She nodded. "Makes sense. Hey, since you're already giving me stuff, could I ask for something else?"

He smiled. "Of course, Miss Rose. What would you like?"

"See, a while ago I was kicked out of the Vytal Tournament for cutting off one of Cinder's henchmen's leg during a sparring match, but since Mercury was evil the whole time, could I get back in?"

He considered that. "To be honest, given in your timeline Cinder used the Tournament to bring about the fall of Beacon, and that it was to be broadcast through the Communications Tower which is currently undergoing extended repairs, I was of half a mind to cancel the event altogether."

Ruby's jaw dropped. "What? You can't! The Vytal Tournament was the best thing ever last time, and we barely got through the double's round before Cinder started wrecking everything! I can't have saved the future and ruined the Tournament, Headmaster! It just doesn't work that way!"

He cocked his head. "Well, I suppose with Cinder out the picture, the danger has diminished. It will be postponed, there's no going around that, but when it does happen, I can promise that you will have a part in it."

She let out a sigh. "Thanks. I was worried I had done one of those, you know, butterfly of death things. Oh—one last thing. You know my friend Penny? She shot Cinder in the face with a laser canon? Well, she told me once that she wanted to transfer to Beacon. That was in an alternate timeline, so I don't know if it still holds, but if you could, I don't know, pull some strings? Talk to General Ironwood about it?"

He frowned. "I don't see why my influence would be necessary. Until one school declares war on another, any student can transfer from one Huntsman academy to another with only a slight modicum of paperwork."

"Really? Even though she's a robot?"

He blinked. "She's a robot? Well now. That's interesting."

Ruby covered her mouth. "Whoops. I thought you already knew."

"No, I confess I did not. But tell me, your friend who was so helpful in your fight—did she have an Aura?"

Ruby nodded. "She told me that she was the first synthetic person who could make one."

"The first," he repeated. "But perhaps not the last. A manufactured soul. Oh, James, what are you doing?"

"Hmm?"

He let out a breath. "Aura cannot exist without the soul, and even an artificial one requires self-awareness and free will."

"So … you're saying Penny's a real girl?"

"I'm saying that there is a fine line between an advanced weapon and a slave race, a distinction that we cannot afford to confuse." He leaned back in his chair. "Very well, Miss Rose. I cannot promise you that your synthetic friend will choose to transfer to Beacon, but she will have that choice. Does that satisfy you?"

Ruby wasn't sure what Ozpin meant by "slave race," but she forced a grin and gave him a thumbs up. "I think that's everything." She folded up her time travel certificate, put it in her pocket, and started for the door.

"One last thing," Ozpin said. "What did you just say, two minutes ago?"

"Uh, two minutes? I said that Penny shot Cinder in the face with a laser canon … maybe?"

"You said that you saved the future."

Ruby hesitated. "Yeah. Why?"

Ozpin frowned thoughtfully. "No reason. No reason at all. Carry on, Miss Rose, and have a nice day."

WWW

"Alright, party time!" Yang said, perhaps more loudly than she needed to, but exactly as loudly as she wanted to. "What do we got? We have the two coolest teams in Beacon, RWBY and JNPR, and the fun half of Team … sorry, are you guys SNNN or SSSN? I always get that mixed up."

"SSSN," Sun said. "But right now we're just SN until the other two get here."

"Team SN it is," Yang said. "And then we got some loners. Ruby, care to introduce them?"

"Okay, first off, here's Penny! A lot of you have already met her, but for those of you who haven't … her name is Penny." Okay, maybe she wasn't as good at this sort of thing as Yang was, but Ruby had her hood back (freshly laundered), and that made her feel at least ten times as confident.

Penny smiled politely. "It's a pleasure to meet you all." She had a mechanical arm now. Well, she had two mechanical arms, but this time one was obviously mechanical.

"She fights with flying swords that shoot lasers. She hit Cinder in the face with them, like, twice last night, and I wish I had a video."

"I do have a video," Penny said. "I recorded the whole thing."

Ruby blinked. "You do? Oh, we are so watching that later. On repeat." She hesitated. "Oh, and one last thing. I may or may not have kidnapped her from a bunch of Atlesian engineers, so I'm not saying that military robots will break in here and try to kill us, I'm just saying that they might."

"Awesome!" Yang said. "New friends and live entertainment!"

"I was wondering why you were having this in our room instead of yours," Jaune said.

"Okay, who's next?" Yang said.

"Well, next up is Amber. I just met her today, but she seems cool. Uh, I think she's new here."

"Actually I've been in Beacon for a few months," Amber said. "But I just woke up from a coma last night."

"It was a crazy night," Ruby agreed. "So what weapon do you use?"

Amber hesitated. "Sometimes I use a walking stick?"

Ruby nodded. "Subtle. Do you have a cool Semblance?"

"Something like that." Amber's eyes burst into flames, and she began to float a foot above the floor.

"That is a cool Semblance!" When Cinder fought, sometimes one of her eyes would burst into flames, but only one, so Ruby doubted that there was any relation.

Amber smiled. "That's really all I can do indoors without causing property damage."

Yang laughed. "Aw, you're worried about property damage. That's adorable. But seriously, let loose. This is a party, remember? And we got Professor Goodwitch on speed dial."

"But don't let loose too much," Jaune said. "Some of us live here."

"Okay," Yang said. "So who's the last one?"

"Um, actually I don't know," Ruby admitted. "I just met her today and I don't think she can talk."

The last girl smiled and mimed zipping her lips shut.

"I like her so far," Blake said.

"But her eyes sometimes change color when she blinks, so that's pretty cool," Ruby added.

"Hold on," Weiss said. "If you just met her, and you still don't know her, why'd you invite her to the party?"

Ruby shrugged. "She brought ice cream."

Weiss nodded. "Fair enough."

Yang clapped her hands. "Alright, now that we got introductions out of the way, now let's get to the fun part—wrecking the room with style!"

WWW

A/n Well, I managed to actually finish a story! If you've been following some of my other stuff, you know how rare that really is. Let me tell you, ending stories is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Clearly, I need more practice.

As for how this story turned out, I am mostly happy with it. I ended up leaving most of the characters besides Ruby in the background more than I wanted to, but with Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang, Jaune, Nora, Ren, Pyrrha, Sun, Neptune, Cinder, Mercury, Emerald, Penny, and Ozpin, the stage was a bit full, especially with only seven chapters—and to be honest, seven chapters is about my limit. There are people out there with hundred chapter fics, but I'm thrilled when I can get into the double digits.

Anyway, enough about that. Since I finally managed to finish this story, let's do some acknowledgements, shall we? Many of you (well, all of you, really) have read this story, but a blessed, chosen few have left reviews. You know who you are, but I want to make sure that everyone else here does, too, because do you know what happens when I write a chapter and don't get any reviews? Nothing. Absolutely nothing happens. But something did happen, and it's all thanks to the following people:

Reshin Amara, you wrote the first review for this story, and have left a review for nearly every chapter after that. Mastermind4892, sometimes I swear you were more enthusiastic about this story that I was. Prince Podincherry, you have a great eye for details and more than once picked up a few inconsistencies that I missed. Parselmaster, you were very consistent and supportive. You too, Merendinoemiliano and Kharki Takan. Sunder the Gold, you put a lot of thought and detail into your reviews, and I loved reading them. Same for you, LordsFire. And Hooddies, Ralyx, CherepMikhailov, Sakuralovelight, Hyrushoten, GotNoName123, HighPriest, Jiggly Joe, Nemrut, BukkakeNoJutsu, Ghest, A me, Danget the critic, Krazyfanfiction1, Lasereye27, Anime Nightwing39, Senpen Banka, and Guest—if I misspelled your names it's because of my computer's autocorrect, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate your support.

Finally, most of all, I would like to thank Magery, my editor. You guys read these chapters when they were good, but he read them when they were crap, and even when they were crap he saw parts of them that were good. Also, he's the guy who got me started watching RWBY in the first place, so without him, I wouldn't even have thought about writing this story. So finally, Magery, thank you.