Fanfic / The Legend of Ruby

It’s a new kind of Legend.

The Legend of Ruby by Rassilon001 is a completed Crossover between RWBY and the Avatar series. It primarily features the cast of the former in the setting of the later, with all the bending abilities found therein. It stars young new airbender Ruby Rose, newly arriving at Beacon Academy to study the bending arts. Along the way she meets up with her team: a cool and proper Ice Princess waterbender Weiss Schnee, the mysterious and shady earthbender Blake Belladonna, and her awesome big sister firebender Yang Xiao Long.

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The Legend of Ruby contains examples of:

• A Boy and His X: Zwei is re-imagined in the continuity as a great shaggy polarbear dog. He finds Ruby shortly after The Reveal as her new companion and mount.
• Action Girl: Considering these are the girls of RWBY, it’s pretty much a given. It’d be easier to list the ones who aren’t. Which is none.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Adam, while still a villain, seems to genuinely love Blake, and when they are both threatened by a collapsing structure he throws her out of harm’s way rather than save himself, a far cry from the sociopathic yandere of his canon counterpart. Also Raven Branwen, who unlike her self-centered canon self, seems to more genuinely care about her daughter Yang and wants to re-connect with her, but prioritizes her mission for the White Lotus first and foremost.
• Adaptational Name Change: Amber, whose family name (if any) was never revealed in RWBY canon, has been re-christened Amber Kyoshi, founder of the Kyoshi Warriors as well as the Dai Li.
• Adaptation Origin Connection: Amber, established in the story as the previous Avatar before Ozpin, is greatly expanded upon as having ties to the creation of the Kyoshi Warriors as well as the Dai Li (the White Fang equivalent).
• Adaptational Superpower Change: From Exotic Weapon Supremacy to Elemental Powers.
• Adaptational Wimp: While still no slouch in a fight, Penny is an ordinary human in this universe with no bending ability. Quite a step down from a super strong, inhumanly tough, multi-sword wielding gynoid from the original source material. She later partially subverts this with an electrified gauntlet and some martial arts training.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • While the main focus is on Ruby Rose and Team RWBY, most chapters of the first book feature one of the other four man elemental teams. CFVY in chapter six, SSSN in chapter seven, and JNPR throughout in various roles. It could be argued the bending masters (Glynda, Oobleck, Port and Ironwood) have this in the tenth chapter as well, and the villains the chapter before that.
  • Exaggerated with the second “Book” of the story, where most of the main cast break down into two man teams and scatter across the globe on their own separate adventures.
• Affectionate Nickname: Ice Princess for Weiss, though she doesn’t view it that way at first.
• All Your Powers Combined: As the Avatar, Ozpin of course, as well as his predecessor, Avatar Amber, and all the others all the way back to Avatar Monty. And in the finale of Book One, the titular Ruby Rose, his successor.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Grimm remain this, but spirits seem to still have the capacity to be both light and dark.
• And the Adventure Continues: The end of the story features an epilogue detailing some of the girls adventures, but not all of them, implying they’re still going to have a lot of fun in this crossover verse.
• Ascended Extra: Arguably more of a plot device than a character, Amber is given this treatment prior to the series beginning, having been the previous Avatar to Ozpin (and Ruby) and having had a hand in creating the Dai Li (the stories equivalent of the White Fang).
• Backstory: We see what happened to Ozpin in a dream Ruby had, serving as yet more Foreshadowing regarding what happened to the Avatar. In additional, several moments come up of exposition explaining how the crossover world works in regards to Avatar and RWBY lore.
• Badass Normal: Neopolitan, Torchwick, and Penny all lack any sort of bending ability, but compensate for it with other skills and weapons that put them on more-or-less even footing with the elementalists in their midst.
• Big Bad: Cinder fills this role in the story, as she does in RWBY canon. Salem takes this role from her in Book Two.
• Blow You Away: Ruby, Ren, Sun, Fox, Russel, Mercury, Oobleck, and many others.
• Blue Blood: The prestigious Schnee family, who rule the Northern Water Tribe. Doubly appropriate because they're a family of very powerful waterbenders.
• Catapult Nightmare: Ruby awakens from a nightmare somewhat more realistically, her leg jerking and then her falling out of bed, but the general idea is there.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Port teaching lightningbending to his students. While none of his students ever did learn how to generate it (at least, not yet) Nora learned how to redirect it off-screen, leading to a her taking out a Paladin Mecha-Tank with it.
  • Also, one could argue that Oobleck’s lessons on pacifying dark spirits and purifying them helped Team RWBY use the technique to defeat the Dark Avatar at the end of Book Two.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Nora remains a bit odd, to say the least, though she seems more restrained than usual in this series. So far.
• Cloud Cuckoolanders Minder: Naturally, Ren is this for Nora. Tellingly, they spend so much time together she can even pick up on his thoughts and comment aloud on them on several occasions.
• Cool Mask: Adam’s Lieutenant wears one, just as he did in RWBY canon. It’s arguably even cooler now though, made of metal like his arm and leg. Adam’s mask could qualify for this as well, arguably.
• Cute Bruiser: More than a few of the girls qualify for this.
• Combination Attack:
  • As in RWBY canon, the girls of the titular team use these against the Paladin Mecha-Tank. But now they have new names based on the elements involved:
    • Thunderstorm (Ruby/Yang): Ruby creates a small ball of whirling wind, and Yang bounces a fireball off of it, both re-directing her attack and enhancing it.
    • Mudslide (Weiss/Blake): Blake liquefies the ground and slides along the mud while Weiss does the same with some ice, as they attack simultaneously from both sides.
    • Sandstorm (Ruby/Blake): Blake breaks up the ground into tiny fragments of dust and sand, and Ruby blows it up into the air to create a sandstorm, obscuring vision.
    • Volcano (Blake/Yang): Blake launches Yang skywards, who sets her fists ablaze as she comes back down to earth.
    • Blizzard (Ruby/Weiss): Weiss freezes her water into thousands of tiny particles of snow and ice, and Ruby sends them blowing towards the enemy to freeze them en masse.
  • They later add two more:
    • Sunshine (Ren/Nora): Ren launches Nora into the air so she can attack with fire from above.
    • Clay (Jaune/Pyrrha: Jaune throws water over the ground to help liquefy it, as Pyrrha finishes turning it into mud, trapping their enemies feet before hardening the ground into a clay-like rock, encasing them.
• Creator Cameo:
  • Monty Oum is a vital part of the world’s backstory, having been divided into both the first Avatar, Monty (a la Wan), and also the Spirit of Light who empowers all Avatars, Oum. Though long gone from the world, their legacy continues to inspire future generations.
  • To a lesser extent, Roo Stah Teeh is this, as the guardian spirit of the Library, a subtle tribute to the website and community that first came up with RWBY.
• Darkest Hour:
  • In chapter eleven, Future Industries has blown up, military zepplins are falling, the walls have been breached by Dai Li with explosives, Grimm are swarming the city, and Dark Spirits are circling overhead. And to top it off, Cinder is making a move to suppress unrest and conquer Beacon to find the new young Avatar... and kill her too.
  • Comes up again when Salem rips the Spirit of Light, Oum, out of Ruby and reduces her to a mere airbender. Oh, and has her Grimm Dragon, the Jormungander, about to lay waste to the entire world.
• Defeat Means Friendship:
  • Or at least a dose of respect, for Cardin gives Jaune a hand during the final battle, after having been thoroughly thrashed by him during a critical fight in the forest.
  • Pops up again, in a way, with Neo and Ren, though the latter saved the former from getting killed as well.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Blake, Pyrrha, Sage, Yatsuhashi, Adam, Ironwood, and many others.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: Inverted, Ruby has a dream about something that’s already occurred, the death of Ozpin but lacking certain context can’t tell when it happened or if it even happened. Later played straight when she starts having visions of Salem.
• Dysfunctional Family: The Schnees are not exactly a loving bunch, though the primary source of this is the father. Winter and Weiss, while cool towards one another, still clearly love their sister dearly.
• El Cid Ploy: Revealed late in the story, Ozpin died fifteen years ago (the exact same day Ruby was born), but his colleagues have been keeping up the pretense he was alive by using recordings of his image and voice and acting "on his behalf" to maintain the image he was alive. This was done to keep stability in the Four Kingdoms while they rooted out his killers and protected the new Avatar from harm.
• Elemental Eye Colors:
  • Played straight with some, subverted with others. Ruby, however, with her silver eyes, very much looks the part of an airbender.
  • And then there’s Cinder’s Supernatural Gold Eyes...
• Elemental Powers: Since the crossover features Avatar style bending.
• Empathic Environment: The whole world of Remnant seems to be this, as dark emotions not only inspire Grimm to run rampant, but cause nature to decay and wither, and lets dark spirits manifest. It’s also notable that during the great battle in the last few chapters of book one, the entire city of Vale is wracked by an awful storm. Which clears up once the fighting is done.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The Triple Threats, while notorious gangsters, cut ties with Torchwick when they realized his plans didn’t have any profit in it, and that a lot of people were going to get hurt. For his own part, Torchwick is this when he hears that Cinder’s primary focus is the school. He may not hesitate to fight kids if they come at him first, but he seems to draw the line at actually slaughtering them en masse.
• Everybody Lives: Despite some injuries, virtually no named character in the entire course of the story is killed, barring two (kinda) and that’s before the story even begins properly.

• Extra-ore-dinary: Sadly, not discovered in this story. Until almost the last chapter of the first book, when Pyrrha discovers/invents it during a moment of crisis.
• False Friend: Cinder, Mercury and Emerald are again posing as students in the first half of the story.
• Fantastic Racism: Faunus hate is still there, though its downplayed compared to the source material. Ironwood also seems to have some distaste for spirits, loudly proclaiming that "this is our world, not theres" but what exactly he means by that and why he feels that way is yet to be revealed.
• Final Battle: During the “Unstoppable Force,” “Rise of the Grimm,” and “Awakening” chapters. And then again during “Endgame,” and “We Are One.”
• Foreshadowing: Ruby is the only one who ever interacts with Ozpin, and who ever seems to see him in person.

• Green Thumb: Neptune demonstrates plantbending from the get-go, usually only to manipulate flowers for flirting with girls, but also capable of grabbing up great amounts of seaweed to form a massive, colossal, regenerating body to fight with.
• Handicapped Badass: After being blinded, Pyrrha adjusts her senses to pick up on seismic vibrations, able to see the world through touch the same way Toph did. It’s not as advanced, however, given she only recently learned it, as opposed to being born blind.
• Healing Hands: A known technique of waterbending, though it’s not a common ability. It’s a bit of a surprise when Jaune ends up showing talent for it.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Many uncommon bending techniques, not least of which plantbending, are frequently seen as silly or useless. Not so come the big battles, where nobody holds back in the slightest. Arguably, this is Ruby’s strength as well, inspiring others to keep fighting even when all hope is lost.
• Hero Killer: Cinder. She already has one Avatar dead to her name, and is looking for the next.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: Cinder, Mercury and Emerald again pose as ordinary, albeit above-average-talented benders with no unusual abilities. Nothing could be further from the truth. Their abilities dwarf regular benders the way they dwarf non-benders.
• Instant Thunder: Averted. Ruby counts between the flash and the noise when she sees a storm closing, though the short count reveals it’s still very uncomfortably close.
• Internal Reveal: Readers tend to figure out Ruby is the new Avatar before chapter one finishes. The characters, including Ruby herself, don’t know (though some suspect) until the thirteenth chapter, the end of the first “book” of the story.
• Made of Iron: As with the two series, benders and non-benders alike can take quite a lot of punishment.
• Magma Man: Adam Taurus knows this advanced, deadly technique, and does not hesitate to use it against anyone in his way.
• Making a Splash: Weiss, Glynda, Jaune, Velvet, Neptune, Emerald, Jacques, and many others. Including Salem.
• Mini-Mecha: Paladin Mecha-Tanks exist in this universe, created by Future Industries. Torchwick even steals one to engage Team RWBY with in an early chapter.
• Missing Mom: Ruby’s, Yang’s, and (unlike RWBY canon) Weiss’s mothers have all gone missing for one reason or another. It forms a common bond that links them together, Ruby and Weiss especially. It's later revealed what happened to two of them, and they even find the third.
• Never Found the Body: Adam vanishes inside of the collapsing tower of Beacon, and no mention is made of what happened to him afterwards. It’s possible he died, but few (especially Blake) think it very likely.
• Oh, Crap!: Cinder has one of these when she realizes the airbender she’s been toying with is the reincarnated Avatar, and she shrugs off virtually every attack Cinder and her cohorts can throw at her.
• Old Master: For a given value of old, but Ozpin is believed to be a little past his prime. To a lesser extent, his inner circle, composed of the teachers of Beacon, though most of them are barely into middle age.
• Orphan's Ordeal: Defied by Blake, who has no interest in her birth parents, and considers the Kyoshi Warriors her ‘sisters’ but is also growing fond towards the rest of her teammates in Team RWBY. Likewise, Nora and Ren have no problem being from an orphanage in the Fire Nation, and consider one another family.
• Pai Sho Master: Cinder plays an excellent game, but Ozpin seems equally good, having set up a number of events long before the story even started. He also plays the literal game as well, and teaches it to Ruby.
• Playing with Fire: Yang, Nora, Port, Coco, Scarlet, Neon, and of course Cinder. Word of God is that this was Ozpin's original element as well.
• Princesses Rule: Very much subverted. Weiss is the younger Princess of the Northern Water Tribe, but she starts out a selfish, arrogant brat. She manages to grow out of it.
• Pure Energy: Chi-Blocking exists in this universe, with at least one practitioner, which could be an example of this. In addition, its implied energybending is known by at least one other character, who uses it to steal bending away from others.
• Running Gag: Weiss is referred to almost everyone, including those who’ve barely met her, as ‘Ice Princess.’ It gets to the point she herself starts doing it.
• Sadistic Choice: Torchwick offers one to Ruby, go and save her friend Penny or try to recapture him. To no one’s surprise, Ruby chooses the heroic option, allowing him to escape.
• Ship Tease: Some pop up here and there, primarily the Ruby/Weiss, Ruby/Penny, Ren/Nora, and Jaune/Pyrrha shippings.
• Shock and Awe: As a Professor and a Fire Sage, Port knows the lightning technique of course, and attempts to teach it to his students. While none ever quite seem to get the hang of it, Nora Valkyrie later learns how to redirect electricity instead, and uses this to great effect in the final battle.
• Shout-Out: Several crop up over the course of the story.
  • Some have compared the new initiation ceremony, instead of being launched into the forest (which could’ve been fatal for some given their new powersets) the students are lined up along a perimeter and enter the forest from different ends, just like the Forest of Death part of the Chuunin Exams.
  • The Writer freely admits he also borrowed some ideas for the First Grimm from Kaiju films starring [[Film/Godzilla]].
• Sigil Spam: The White Lotus emblem appears here and there, since its used by the secret society of the same name.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Both Penny and Pyrrha have several close calls but survive to the happy ending. Torchwick also manages to escape death by cutting his losses and bailing during the invasion of Vale, and is subsequently never seen again.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Cinder knows this technique, making them a sort of Combustion Lady.
• Tailor-Made Prison: Early on its mentioned Vale has one of these ready to deal with benders, the walls are lined in steel and they have restrictions to deal with water or fire benders who get out of line. Unfortunately, it doesn’t keep Torchwick locked up for long. Later, it’s made the home of Cinder, Emerald and Mercury as well.
• Timeskip: Between parts one and two, three months have passed, making it Summer Vacation.
• Title Drop: On occasion, as a way of establishing that this is Ruby’s time, and no longer the Age of Avatar Ozpin or any previous successors.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Ruby starts out a modest but capable airbender. By the end of the story, she's the goddamned Avatar. In addition, many other characters can be seen as this, particularly Jaune, who becomes a decent fighter with water when before he was downright helpless, as well as picks up Healing Hands that make him more useful in other ways to his teammates. Justified, they’re students, learning and getting better is what they’re supposed to do.
  • Penny takes another one of these in the Book Two finale, piloting an Archangel, which is like a super enhanced mecha-tank/paladin into battle with Ciel as her co-pilot.
• The Triads and the Tongs: Triple Threat exist, and they make a passing mention of the Agni Kais and the Red Monsoons. For the T3’s part, they’re non-benders, and the name comes from it being a family organization (Father + Mother + Junior). And while they are criminals, they practice very strong Even Evil Has Standards.
• Why Did It Have To Be Water?: Neptune. While not flat out terrified of it as he is in canon, thanks to a different skillset, he considers it unpleasant to deal with, and especially dislikes submerging himself in it. This makes it hard to utilize his strongest technique.

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