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Beacon was a place for beginnings.
It was a place for light and hope, heroes and legends. It was a place for endings, too.
It lit up the horizon so brightly so those who were lost could find their way to shore. It was a light in the darkness, a beacon of hope. And the good came. They flocked to the school, learning how to fight and protect and live another day.
The bad came, too. They bid their time in the shadows, observing and waiting until they could step into the light and shatter it.
But that was not now. That would come later.
This was now:
Two teams are formed. Each a fulcrum of the lever of Remnant itself, of the war that had been ingrained in the earth since the moment it was reborn.
On that stage, eight warriors are born. Their fate is sealed from the moment their names escape the headmaster’s lips. For he is the King, and they merely the pawns. He will place them in this game and sacrifice them as he sees fit. Perhaps this time, the King dares to dream, he will win. Perhaps this time, their sacrifices will mean something.
Perhaps these are the last children he will send to bleed.
(And as he looks over at his chosen few, his heart quickens. For just a moment, he allows his lips to twitch into a grin.
They are children, still. But in the eyes of these children shine something that Ozma hasn’t dared to feel for what feels like an infinity. The sensation of it in his chest is like a dear, long gone friend he has long forgotten the name of. He searches for the name for a few, precious seconds of his eternity. Then it comes to him. And it’s a name so beautiful it brings tears to his eyes:
Hope.)
From the very start, Teams RWBY and JNPR were something special.
There was a certain energy binding them, not quite tangible but real all the same. It was something they could never quite describe, but each of them knew it was there. Something bound them together - be it fate or pure luck. They were connected. Invisible strings led their hearts to each other’s.
They had made plans together on one of their big sleepovers at Beacon on what they would do after graduation. Perhaps they would travel together as one or come together again during the holidays. Maybe they’d buy a plot of land and build two houses so they could stay close. Whatever happened, they wanted to stay together. They wanted to sleep under the same sky and see the same sunset.
(Some of their dreams of traveling together and sleeping under the same stars would come true. Just not in the way they imagined.)
The night after the Fall of Beacon, everything had changed. Team RWBY slept far away from their dorm rooms - Weiss in a cold prison and Blake on a rocking ship, Yang and Ruby on Patch. JNR slept in a shelter, each other in their arms and a hand each on Pyrrha’s circlet. Miles and miles away, the sun was rising and a boy was waking with a voice in his head.
All that eventually changed, too. JNR became RNJR, and RNJR slept under the same stars every night. RWBY reunited and RNJR became JNR once more, though they only celebrated because finally, they were as whole as they could possibly be again.
Then came Atlas. The Fall. And suddenly it wasn’t just like Beacon again - it was worse. Six friends were gone in a matter of minutes.
It left an irreparable hole in the hearts of those left behind. Ren, Nora, and Oscar were never seen without each other. When they did sleep, it was near each other. Their only comfort was that the rest of them were with Pyrrha - perhaps even in the same sky they slept under.
But they couldn’t be more wrong. On the island, a foreign sky was all they could see. Sleep there was restless under the whole moon and twin suns. It wasn’t the sky they had shared with the others - it wasn’t home, not without them.
And then - they got out. The family was whole together once more.
They were changed - that was true. They were changed and the others hadn’t been there to see them grow, to help them along the way. Things were different.
But they were under the same sky.
That, from now on, they vowed, would always stay the same.
When the new world was still young, magic was feared.
There was a witch in the woods. People who ventured there didn’t return. No one lived long enough to tell the others of her face…her pale, monstrous face.
So the village took to extremes - hunting down women suspected of witchcraft, the means for execution sometimes as small as a peculiar stray cat or a missed town meeting. They were often killed before they even got a chance to explain or defend themselves…but one method was the exception.
Pressing.
The victims were chained to the ground and crushed to death by the weight of rocks. It was a barbaric practice long outlawed after Salem’s reign as Queen. But it had made its mark on history.
So when a witch came hunting for Hazel, he knew of one way to rid of her. He let her into his home he had shared with Gretchen. But he had no need of it anymore. So when the Devil came knocking, he killed two birds with one stone.
“Kill me.” She had dared.
So Hazel did. Again and again and again. He felled his house on her, crushing her under the weight of the brick and mortar. But when he dug through the rubble for her body, she had only looked up at him and grinned.
“More. Weight.”
(Only when his fists were shredded and bloody and his cheeks were wet with tears did he stop. The witch shrugged off the weight and led him back to the woods from which she came.)
They each held the weight of the war on their shoulders. They tried to split it evenly between them. That’s what teammates do.
But they all knew Ruby shouldered the most of it. No matter how hard they tried to take it from her, she clung to it like a lifeline. And they knew that she would hold that burden for as long as she had her eyes of silver, as long as the war was on, as long as she was alive.
But still, they tried.
Even as Ruby grit her teeth at the sky and said -
“More weight.”
Ruby hadn’t been there at the beginning.
But she would be there at the end.
For there was nothing she wouldn’t do to protect those she loved.
Salem would be there at the end.
Salem never once crumbled under pressure.
Salem had once been a young girl who would do anything to save those she loved.
In the moments before the end, it was silent.
Their forces had gathered in the halfway rebuilt Beacon Academy, hiding inside and waiting to get the drop on Salem’s forces. The staff had returned to protect their school, hidden among the woods and hills surrounding the school for when the enemy came. FNKI and SSSN were waiting halfway down the cliffside, hidden among the cliffs in case anyone tried to sneak in from behind or came by sea. Qrow, Tai, and Glynda were positioned on the border. CFVY waited behind the entrances. Emerald was situated high up in a tower with a bird’s eye view of their forces, ready to make illusions where needed and comm the others at the first sign of danger.
Inside the amphitheater waited RWBY and JNOR. They would wait until information came from the others as to where Salem was, and then, if everything went according to plan, they would end it all. They would kill her, right then and there.
…It would be over.
Just like that, thousands of years of hidden war and death and torture would come to an end. Some would refer to the war as hell. But they’d be wrong. The war isn’t hell. They aren’t sinners - not yet. In hell, children wouldn’t have to fight wars. In hell, only sinners were punished.
Hell would be a mercy.
The lights were dimmed, and in the shadows their eyes played tricks on them when they looked beyond the stage. They had stood there, once, all those years ago. They could almost see the ghosts of who they’d been. They had stood there at the beginning of their lives and here they stood at what could be at the end. The thought was suffocating.
They sat on the empty stage. Weapons ready, bodies tense, waiting for the end. Triple checking ammo and dust and backup supplies. Stealing glances at each other with the thought in their minds that this might be the last time they were all together - that some of them, or all of them, might not come back.
“What if we don’t have a happy ending?”
Ruby’s question broke through the hushed conversations. She had learned to be more open with them lately about what she was really thinking. It was hard, but it was better for her to let it out then to let it fester inside and deal with it alone.
The others shared glances over her head. She always wanted their honesty - harsh truths were better than kind lies.
“We might not.” All eyes turned to Weiss. “We might not win. But we will die knowing that we were the ones to try.”
Ruby stared at Weiss, an unspoken conversation passing between them. Ruby nodded, never breaking her gaze. An understanding came over all of them. A resignation.
That’s all they could do - try. That’s all they had been doing ever since Beacon. Fighting an impossible battle against an immortal force with all the odds on her side. It’s all they could do. It might not be enough. But maybe was a good enough reason to try. Maybe they’d lose, maybe they’d win. Nothing was certain.
…Except for this.
“I’m glad it was you.” Ruby stood, tall and strong, chin held high and eyes steely with pride. She looked every bit a leader. Every bit a Huntress.
She looked at her team, meeting eyes with each one.
“No matter what happens today, I’m glad it was you.” She blinked, holding back tears. “Even if I had to pick from all of Remnant, I would choose each one of you over and over again.”
Weiss stood, taking her partner’s hand in her own. The others soon followed, pulling each other in until they all stood in a group embrace, clutching onto each other, memorizing the feel of each other in case they wouldn’t get another chance. In case this would be the last time they all stood alive. Knowing that the people they held in their arms meant the world to them.
Emerald’s voice rang from their scrolls.
“She’s here.”
Slowly, they split apart. No longer touching, for if they did, they feared they might never want to let go.
Ruby drew Crescent Rose.
“You know the plan. The goal here is to end it. No matter what.”
She breathed in and out, long and slow, the others unconsciously following along. She opened her eyes, silver light briefly flashing at the sight of her family - her hope. Her reason to try.
She smiled. This could be one of their last moments among the living and she smiled. Because one way or another, it was going to be over.
“One last time. I love you all.”
And together, they marched to the end.
The world stilled as the dust settled on the birthplace of a new era.
But as soon as the ash cleared, Velvet took a picture.
Click.
RWBY and JNOR, still braced for battle, weapons drawn. Staring at each other in shock as they realize they won.
Click.
Ruby dropping to her knees, her teammates running to join her on the ground, dropping their weapons and letting the tears fall.
Click.
Teams RWBY and JNOR huddled together on the grave of the Gods’ greatest mistake. They hold each other like their lives still depended on it, like the world was ending instead of beginning. They’re surrounded by dust and debris and covered in blood and bruises. Tears streak their face, mouths open in shock or cathartic screams.
It’s victory personified.
It’s hope. It’s grief.
It’s the beginning. It’s the end.
It’s realizing that all roads have led them here - to each other.
That here, in the aftermath, they are home.
The weight was still there.
The war had been over for months and each of them still felt it crushing them when they tried to sleep. They would wake up and reach for their weapons at the slightest sound, eyes wide and searching for a threat before realizing there was none.
They still felt like one day the weight would crush them.
So they tried to release it before it could. They talked to each other about their fears, their nightmares and their struggles. They helped hold each other up whenever someone needed a little help.
But Ruby shut down.
The first few weeks, she barely spoke. The words she did speak were short - simple yes’s and no’s and the occasional apology for their worry. Even still, she worried about others over herself, even when she was drowning and they were safe near shore.
So they decide to get her out of Patch. Go on a vacation, all eight of them. They’d go visit Pyrrha, do some sightseeing, relax on the beach. Maybe it’d be good for her. There’s no harm in trying.
So they try. They go to Argus.
It’s there, on the beach one night, that Ruby says her first full sentence since the end.
“She said that she created me. She said we were the same.”
She doesn’t cry, then. The rest of them do. Yang reaches over and pulls her close, Weiss and Blake taking a hand while Jaune, Ren, Nora, and Oscar file in and around. They didn’t know the full story of what had happened while Ruby and Salem were alone at the end. Maybe they never would. But they wouldn’t let her shoulder it alone. They wouldn’t let her carry more weight.
They hope that one day Ruby will learn to grieve boldly. That she will grieve with unsuppressed screams and shouts and anger because the world isn’t fair and it never was. She will grieve because they live in a world where the good die before they reach the spring. She will cry. Finally, she will cry.
And when that day comes, they will hold her. They will all be there, holding her tight enough to keep her pieces from breaking apart until she can glue the broken parts of herself together again. They will cry with her. They will rejoice in the salt carving tracks down their cheeks and falling to the ground, not raising a hand to wipe them away.
Because tears are for the living.
They’re alive.
Their hearts still beat for each other, their lungs still fill with air for laughter and love and words only they can say.
That day will come. Not today. Tomorrow, perhaps. Maybe years in the future. But that was not now.
This was now:
It’s a new day.
Jaune is telling an exaggerated tale of their misadventures, his hands waving about and smacking Oscar in the face with his enthusiasm. Oscar bursts into laughter, his face turning redder when he sees the expression on Jaune’s face as he frantically apologizes. Nora tackles Jaune from behind in revenge, the two of them rolling across the ground in a tangle of limbs and shrieks. Ren smiles and shakes his head fondly, throwing his head back with the weight of his joy.
Yang starts cheering Nora on, her arm around Blake, and with a nudge from Yang she joins in on the support, a laugh in the air and a grin on her lips. Ruby darts behind Weiss as the play-fight gets a bit too close to them, using her partner as a human shield. Weiss shoots a glare at Ruby, the light in her eyes and twitch of her lips a sure sign that she’s mere moments away from laughing at the sight.
And Ruby, her chin on Weiss’s shoulder and an indescribable joy in her chest, looks around at her team. Her family. The people she had gone to the ends of the earth with and came back. The people whose lives were in her hands, and hers in theirs. The people who she trusted with everything in her.
She turns to Pyrrha’s statue. The sunset casts them all in a golden light. Pyrrha looks every bit as angelic as she was when she was among the living and the dreaming. She turns back to her family, smiling widely.
And then the world stops. The others freeze, their heads turning to Ruby at lightning speed. Because Ruby laughed.
For the first time in months, Ruby laughed.
And suddenly the lines of then and now and one day were blurred and one. It was everything all at once - a moment and a memory and an eternity. There was no war, no battle scars and friends lost. Here and now, they were all together once more. They could hear Pyrrha’s laugh and feel Penny’s arms around their waists, eternal and bright. Just this once, everything made sense.
This, they were sure: They were ten people meant to find each other, even if they weren’t meant to stay.
This, they think as they look at the family they’ve built, is what we fought for - chests bursting with joy and eyes sparkling like the sun, smiles wide and laughter loud. Sunsets and picnics and midnights and victories. Singing and dancing and healing. Being together at the beginning and together long after the end.
This, too, is for the living.