RWBY: Batman Begins

Epilogue

The symbol of a bat shined in the night sky.

It was a beacon of hope for the people of Vale. For them, it was a sign that someone was watching over them. Protecting them.

For Ruby Rose, it was the symbol of her friend. She stood at the cliff, looking over at Vale in the distance. A searchlight was placed behind her, with the shape of a bat symbol on the glass. She had been the one to name it, "the Bat-Signal". This was the first night trying it out, and she was excited to see what her friend thought.

She heard a clanging noise behind her, and she turned around to see Batman knocking on the Bat-Signal behind her.

"Nice," he said.

"I couldn't find any mob bosses," Ruby joked, shutting the Bat-Signal off.

"Well, Miss Rose?"

"So formal," Ruby said. "Stick to Ruby." She reached into her pocket, and pulled out her scroll, revealing a Huntress license. "Official Huntress."

Batman looked over the details of the license. It was official. He nodded.

"Congratulations."

"My team and I both got the promotion," she said. "We couldn't have gotten here if it wasn't for you. You really started something. Bad guys are running scared. Hope is on the streets."

"But?"

Ruby pouted, crossing her arms. "Why so negative? Not an optimist, are you?"

"That's why we're here," Batman said. "To make things better."

Ruby smiled, and nodded. "That's right. But now that you mention it, there are some problems. The Narrows is lost. And we still haven't caught Crane or half the inmates of Arkham that he freed."

"We will," Batman assured. "We can bring Vale back."

"There's the positivity I was looking for," Ruby said. "I hate to ruin the moment, but what about escalation?"

"'Escalation'?" Batman asked.

"I learned that word recently," she said. "Correct me if I'm using it wrong, but when we start carrying semiautomatics, they buy automatics. We start wearing Kevlar, they buy armor-piercing rounds."

"That is the correct usage of 'escalation'," Batman said.

"Oh, yay!" Ruby said. "But we have one more problem. You're wearing a mask and jumping off rooftops. It's influencing this guy." She reached into her utility belt, pulling out a plastic bag. "He committed an armed robbery, killed two people. Like I said, he's very theatrical, like you. And he leaves a calling card."

She handed Batman the plastic bag. He took it from her hand, and stared at what was inside the bag.

It was a Joker card.

He looked up to Ruby. "I'll look into it."

He made his way past her to the cliff, preparing to glide back to Vale from here. But, before he could go, Ruby spoke up.

"I never said thank you," she said.

Batman stopped. He turned back to her, staring her directly in the eyes. It was a look that told her how genuine his next words were.

"And you'll never have to . . ."