As X-49, Penny, Team RWBY and Jaune battled against the Furious Cat, Jack and Ruby's wooden form begins to crack. Finally, the wooden form of Ruby began to crack, causing a powerful bright light explosion. Everyone shields their eyes as the silhouette of Ruby is visible.
Weiss: Ruby!
Yang: You're....You're you!
Blake: How?
Jaune: She knew what she needed to be all along.
Penny: She has always known. She simply needed to follow her path.
X-49: It's good to have you back, Kiddo.
Curious Cat: How PURRFECT!!!
The Cat starts to pounce towards Jack and Ruby. Ruby deflects the Cat's claw attack with Crescent Rose. X-49 then fires on the Curious Cat, wounding it. Ruby swings her scythe with a flurry of attacks at the Cat, now comfortable with fighting like how she used to before. The Cat tries to grab Crescent Rose and punch Ruby, but she uses her Semblance to dodge and then fire at the Cat with Crescent Rose's sniper form. The Cat is knocked back and angrily glares as Penny, Jaune and Team RWBY surrounds them. The Cat unleashes their energy beam attack again, Ruby dodges while Blake slashes and dodges the Cat followed up with a Semblance-enhanced Yang punching it back. Weiss then traps the Cat's feet in ice as she launches a Nevermore summon, which the Cat dissolves with another energy beam. Ruby attacks from behind as the Cat leaps into the air. Penny unleashes a powerful combination of her Maiden powers and her Floating Array weapons to barrage the cat with attacks. As the Cat was attacked, X-49 lunges at the Cat and lands several shots at the Curious Cat. Lulu then leaps off of X-49 and begins biting and mauling the Cat. Suddenly, the Cat is surrounded by X-49, Penny, Ruby, Blake, Yang, and a multitude of Weiss's glyphs. They attack the Cat with all they got leaping off of the glyphs, before all launch one final devastating blow on the Cat, knocking them to the ground. As the smoke clears, they have been reverted back to their normal form. The group stands triumphantly over them.
Curious Cat: You're broken! You break everything you touch! I call Humans...weak! Confused! Incomplete!
X-49: You're wrong, Cat.
Yang: She's never been any of those things.
Blake: That's why we follow her.
X-49: It is you that is broken.
Ruby: We're going to Remnant, and you're staying here.
It was at this point that the Curious Cat attempts to taunt X-49.
Curious Cat: Do you really think they'll ever be safe around you, Tin Man?! How long will it be before you try and kill your family and friends again?!
X-49 pays no mind to the Curious Cat's words as he walks away. As he does so, a group of Jabberwalkers began to surround the Cat.
Curious Cat: W...wait! P...please! Not like this!
The Cat becomes terrified as the Jabberwalkers began to hiss at the Cat.
Curious Cat: No! No, no! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
The Curious Cat screams in terror while the rest of the group watches the Jabberwalkers mauling the Curious Cat, horrified, before turning to see Neo. Neo becomes exhausted and collapses from using her Semblance. The group runs towards Jaune, who slowly begins to stand up. Ruby stops and gives a quick look at Neo before joining her friends. They all embrace Ruby and Ruby embraces them back with a relieved look. Neo, after regaining her posture, looks on with Hush in her hands. Meanwhile, the rest of the group discuss what to do with Neo.
Jaune: What about her?
Neo points Hush at the group, and gives a bow, tipping her hat off. She places her hat back on her head, jumps off and opens Hush. The group watch Neo floating down.
Ruby: She'll find herself, one way or another.
Neo closes her eyes as she floats down deeper with the tree branches encasing her. They look up to see the wooden statue form of Neo is erected on the tree branch with multi-colored leaves resembling Hush. Ruby soon looks down in sadness.
Yang: Ruby? What's wrong?
Ruby: When I was in the Tree, I never saw Little. I wish I could say "thank you".
Blake: Do you guys think...we might have....made things even worse in the Ever After? Just like Alyx did?
Ruby: I'm....not sure. I'd like to think we did at least a little good. Right?
X-49: I'd say we did some good.
???: Wait!
Everyone turns to see a humanoid child-like mouse wearing an orange cape with a hood and a leaf-shaped pattern running towards them. They pant after they stop running.
Ruby: Little!
Mouse Afteran: Do I know you?
Ruby stops her happy hopping in realization.
Ruby: Oh! Uh, I don't believe we've met yet. Please, what are you?
Mouse Afteran: I'm....Well, you know I haven't thought about it yet. You look like you have wits about you. What do you think I am?
Ruby: Well, uh...To me, you seem like a friend.
Blake: A guide.
Weiss: A protector.
Yang: A...dorable.
Weiss giggles as X-49.
X-49: An ally.
Ruby: Do any of those sound close?
Somewhat: Hmmm. Somewhat. Yeah. Somewhat. I'm not any one thing, I'm somewhat of a lot of things!
Ruby: It is a true pleasure to meet you, Somewhat.
Somewhat: It will be my honor to serve you.
Ruby: You've already done more for us than you know.
Somewhat: You do feel...familiar. Like a happy dream I can't remember.
Ruby tears up.
Ruby: I'm so glad we got to meet you. I'm sure you'll help lots of people. But now we have to say goodbye.
Jaune: Hey, Somewhat.
Somewhat gasps and quickly approaches Jaune and Juniper.
Somewhat: I am at your service!
Jaune: Will you look after Juniper? She means the world to me.
Jaune nuzzles his face into Juniper's. Somewhat looks on and holds their hand to their chest in conviction.
Somewhat: I will never leave her side.
Jaune smiles hearing this. Juniper lowers her head to allow Somewhat to hop onto her back. Somewhat salutes Jaune and they and Juniper march off in the opposite direction. The group begins to head towards the door, with Jaune taking one last look at Juniper as she heads off with Somewhat, wiping tears from his eyes. As they prepare to walk through the door, X-49 suddenly stops.
Ruby: X-9?
As Ruby called out to her brother, X-49 screamed in pain as he collapsed to the ground.
X-49: N...no! No!
As Ruby and the others rushed to X-49's side, X-49 could feel the reprogramming slowly took control. And then he stopped. After a moment of uneasy silence, X-49 got up and locked eyes with the group.
X-49: X-Model Unit 49 active. Black Queen Protocols engaged. Priority Targets detected. Ruby Rose. Weiss Schnee. Blake Belladonna. Yang Xiao Long. Jaune Arc. Penny Polendina. All are marked for termination. Weapons active. Assassination Protocols engaged.
With that, the Black Queen Protocols had taken over X-49. In that moment, Ruby's group were forced to fight X-49.
STAI LEGGENDO
The Tale Of X-49: A RWBY Story
AzioneWhen a mysterious robot is discovered, Ruby Rose and Yang Xiao Long take him in as both a brother and protector. In the years that followed, the robot known as X-49 would forge a powerful bond with them that will give the robot a purpose beyond his...
