This Is the Run

A RWBY fanfic by

Joak Drysso

Disclaimer: Welcome back baby to the disco fire

Chapter the Last: (Wrong Warp to) The End

Weiss never particularly felt like the last year had been a big step for her. Looking at other members of their cohort, particularly JNPR, you'd have thought that they'd been locked in prison for three years and finally granted pardon in their fourth. It was the way of things, as she understood it, that the first three years were nose to the grindstone, and the fourth was rager central.

As far as she was concerned, the other teams were late to the party, because RWBY (with the exception of its namesake and youngest member) had been having ragers ever since Professor Port gave them tacit approval to have alcohol on hand to deal with Ruby. They called it a team-building exercise, and once Ozpin had spoken to Port, he also gave his tacit approval, in the form of a bottle of Mistral's finest whisky and a card that simply read "My deepest sympathies".

Between Weiss' relationship with Ruby and Yang's general appreciation of alcohol, that bottle hadn't lasted a week. Weiss was more than able to keep a steady supply of drink in their room, though she sometimes wondered what her father would say about the fact that the Schnee fortune was funding three burgeoning cases of functional alcoholism.

Fortunately for everyone involved, whether it was the constant exposure or Ruby consciously holding back, it became easier to handle the sheer weirdness that surrounded the girl. RWBY, as a team, became known as the Odd Ones, an appellation they couldn't really argue with, but they were also the single most effective team in Beacon. Not that that had been hard once Ruby had discovered how to, in her own words, "hack their parameters and boost them sky-high".

No, all in all, fourth year at Beacon was much the same as it ever was, which included her being the only person in their dorm room doing one last revision on her final paper. The others, having decided enough was enough, had all wandered out to the cafeteria after Ruby had dragged a promise out of Weiss that she'd be along when she was done.

One last scan caught nothing out of place, aside from the notes she'd already made for final tweaks, and she set the paper down and leaned back in the seat, stretching. A nice, relaxing dinner with her girlfriend and her team sounded great.

So of course, something happened to cause all of her plans to go awry.

The door of the dorm room flew open. Weiss started, and then rolled her eyes, turning, an admonishment already on her lips. "Ruby, how many times do I have to tel-" And then all pretense of thought died.

Standing in the doorway was Ruby Rose, but it was not her Ruby Rose. Her Ruby Rose did not have the sheer grace that this woman exuded, and her Ruby Rose sure as hell was not carrying around a girl who looked for all intents and purposes like a Schnee, but for her silver eyes.

"What." Weiss was, if nothing, as articulate as ever.

"See, Ariana, I told you, sweetheart, you just have to hit the right frame and-oh, hey Weiss!" Ruby smiled.

"What." Weiss repeated as her brain struggled to reboot. Processes were preventing shutdown from occurring.

"Man, this is so nostalgic. I have a lot of great memories of this place." Ruby swept into the room. "I'm sure you're surprised to see us. I just thought, you know, it might be nice to show Ariana what her mommy was like when she was younger."

Weiss managed to raise a shaky hand and point in the direction of the cafeteria.

Ruby blinked and followed her finger, looking at the wall, before she made the connection. "Oh, no, Weiss, sweety. I'm Ariana's mom." She placed the young girl down, who eagerly skipped over to Weiss.

"Mommy!" The young girl chirped excitedly.

"What."

Tea was the order of the evening. Ruby had apparently picked something up in her seven – as Weiss had learned, dazedly – years between Weiss's now and her own now. It was prepared exactly according to her tastes, and did a remarkable job of soothing her worn nerves. When she tasted a hint of whisky in her second cup, she'd given Ruby a curious look, to which Ruby simply offered a knowing smile.

Now considerably calmer, Weiss was bemusedly talking with her future-wife(?) while her future-daughter(?) sat on her knee.

"I really am sorry for causing you so much stress, but Ariana really wanted to see you and this was the only wrong warp I could find that was easy enough for her to understand."

"Wrong warp?" Weiss asked, and then immediately held her hand up. "Nevermind."

Ruby laughed, a deep and rich sound that settled nicely in Weiss's stomach. "Oh that never gets old. Can you believe that even seven years later, Blake or Yang will still occasionally do that? At this point I just use terms to try and trick them into it."

"So…" Weiss prodded Ariana, causing the girl to squeal in delight. "You said in a way she understands. Does that mean she…?"

Ruby nodded. "She's already showing signs of it."

"I bet I'm real thrilled about that." Weiss said dryly.

A smirk crossed the woman's lips. "Well, I'm sure the thought briefly crossed her mind, but she was too over-the-moon in love to really care much."

A smile tugged at Weiss's own mouth as she looked down at a beaming Ariana. "I can believe that." She didn't pay any mind to Ruby's snickering. "I never thought to ask…well, you, until now, but what is it like? You started explaining it once, but then you just kinda stopped."

Ruby gave her a searching look, before smiling. "Honestly, at this point I've almost lived with it half my life and it's a bit hard to remember what it was like beforehand. When I first discovered it, I tried to kind of ignore it. It seemed so ridiculous, right? Dad was worried I was hallucinating, hell I was worried I was hallucinating. But then I kinda learned everything about it. You know how I am, if I can figure out how something works I will." At Weiss's nod, she continued.

"By the time I got to Beacon proper, I knew just about everything there was to know about the system. Can you imagine that, Weiss? Knowing the boundaries of the world and knowing how to break them, how to accomplish almost anything in spite of thousands of years of knowledge to the contrary?"

"You must have felt like a god." Weiss said quietly.

"A little, at first." Ruby confirmed. "It was a heady feeling. But you all kept me grounded. And finally, I learned restraint." She smirked. "Well, to some extent anyways."

"I hope she learns just as well." Weiss wrapped her arms around Ariana, prompting Ruby to chuckle.

"She's a much better student than I ever was. Gets that from mommy. I think you don't have to worry about that."

"So no time travel visits from my daughter then? How disappoint-"

The door flew open again. "And this has to be where mom and mommy-" An older woman, definitely of Schnee descent, with stunning silver eyes, burst in, apparently in the middle of a monologue to herself. She stopped cold when she saw the group assembled. "Mom…mommy…" She said, and then froze as two sets of eyes pierced her. "Uh, uh, I can explain!"

"I think," Weiss said slowly, causing both Ruby and the older Ariana to flinch, "that I'm going to need to do some disciplining before this is all over." Her eye twitched. "But please, dear. Explain."

A/N: And that's that. This chapter is inspired by wrong-warping, another common glitch used to access incorrect locations from certain places. One of the most famous of these is Ocarina of Time wrong-warping, which allows Link to do things like teleport from Gohma's portal to the castle collapse at the end of the game, or from King Dodongo's lair into the credits proper. In particular, this glitch is used in longer categories to allow Adult Link to do Child Link dungeons, hence the time travel stuff.

The tone shift wasn't entirely planned but I like it.

Thank you for accompany me through this silliness. I've got a big (biiiig) project that I'm preparing for and should have started writing at least like halfway through this story getting posted up. Much like this, it won't be posted until everything is complete, but hopefully it won't be a long wait.

I hope you enjoyed.