Fanfic / Ruby-B312

"Heh, what did I tell you about Spartans and dying, Professor?."

— Lieutenant later Lieutenant Commander Ruby-B312/Ruby Rose, SPARTAN-III Beta Company, Noble Team.

Ruby-B312 is a Halo and RWBY crossover by GreenTheRyno.

The big nail in this story is that Ruby, due to some universe crossing shenanigans, ended up in the Halo universe, and became SPARTAN-B312, better known as Noble Six. After somehow finding her way back to Remnant, she ends up stopping Roman Torchwick and his crew at From Dust til Dawn, at which point she meets Professor Ozpin... and learns of her origins. She becomes a student at Beacon Academy, reunites with her sister (who had been very depressed since Ruby and Summer both "died"), becomes the leader of a team of Huntresses, and trains said team to become an elite ODST fireteam.

Then the Covenant arrive. And everything begins to change....

It can be read on Spacebattles, Fanfiction.net, and DeviantArt (through an unofficial, in-progress port by Sierra-A137). Volumes I and II are already complete, with Volume III in progress. Volumes I, II, and III can be accessed through the aforementioned links. It can also be read on AO3, though as of this edit it is still in the process of being ported.

To see the the supporting stories, please read A Summer's Harvest and Ruby-B312: The Fall of Reach. Fall of Reach is essentially a reaction fic where Team _WBY reacts to Ruby's tour of duty on Reach, while A Summer's Harvest focuses on what happened to Summer after the attack on her home (and is a Halo Wars/RWBY crossover, with narrative ties to the main story towards the end).

Volume II-III material is currently classified as spoiler material, so proceed with caution when reading or editing.

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Tropes in this story include:

• 24-Hour Armor: Ruby tends to wear the undersuit of her armor at all times.
• Adaptational Badass: Ruby is Noble Six. This is a given.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • None of Team RWBY's families show up until Volume 3 in canon (Ruby and Yang do not count, for obvious reasons). Here, Taiyang, Winter, Whitley, Jacques, and Qrow all show up in the final chapters of Volume 1. Ghira and Kali show up in the early parts of Volume 2.
  • Adam is first seen in the Black Trailer, but doesn't return to the story until the end of Volume 2, while Corsac and Fennec Albain don't appear until Volume 4, as is the case with Sienna Khan. All four appear early into Volume 2.
  • Oscar is only seen in Volume 4, but here we see him in Volume 2... and in the VDF, operating Vale's (and by extension, Remnant's) first tank, no less.
• Adaptational Heroism: Winter does not possess Blind Obedience for Ironwood, unlike in canon, and ultimately defies his orders so that she can help save Atlas from the Covenant.
• Adaptation Deviation: A few examples so far.
  • Unlike Canon!Noble Six, Ruby!Noble Six actually ended up going on the disastrous Operation: TORPEDO. She was one of only three survivors, the other two being Tom-B292 and Lucy-B091 like in canon.
  • In canon, Draco III was a total loss, with no survivors. This is not the case here: following Operation: TORPEDO, she stowed away aboard a Covenant vessel bound for the colony. At this point, she wanted revenge for the SPARTANs killed during the mission, so she decided to go with them. Not much is known of what happened there, but her efforts saved so many lives and prevented the colony's destruction.
  • Ruby figures out Blake's Faunus status earlier than in canon and has her team sit down and sort out their personal issues such that Blake and Weiss become friends earlier than in canon.
  • Also, nobody but Pyrrha and Ruby find out that Jaune cheated his way into Beacon. Why? Because Cardin had a broken arm after Ruby shattered his elbow for bullying Velvet. Why is that significant? Well, he'd have to go to the infirmary, and that means he wouldn't be there to eavesdrop on Jaune's talk with Pyrrha (and later Ruby).
  • A big one happens at the end of this story's volume 1: A Covenant force shows up on Remnant (alongside several UNSC ships fleeing Reach, of which only a few survive) and virtually destroy Atlas sooner than it had happened in canon.
    • Another one concerning Atlas is that it was never a floating city to begin with.
  • Another big one is that Pyrrha actually becomes the Fall Maiden.... at the cost of her own mind being overwritten by Amber's.
  • A major one happens in chapter 42, and this time in a very good way. Ruby kills Cinder before she can enact her shit in the season 3 finale in canon, even shooting her twice afterward for good measure, throwing a nice, big-ass wrench into Salem's plans.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • Noble Six's Last Stand on Reach is expanded significantly, since Ruby is the one filling his/her shoes - she faces not only the horde of covenant and seven elites from the game, but also wraiths and gigantic hunters.
  • Cardin is given some additional background - his family is a minor noble house that was founded at the end of the Great War. They run the town of Winshire, which is one of the worst hotbeds for Faunus discrimination.
  • The military of Vale is given some attention from Volume 2 onward, as opposed to being completely ignored as in canon.
  • We never learned what exactly happened to Adam from Halo Wars, since his fate is tied to an achievement. Here, he ends up enlisting with the UNSC and makes it to the Fall of Reach, and ends up being one of the Terrans to land on Remnant at the end of Volume 1.
• Alien Invasion: The Covenant's response when they find Remnant.
• Alternate Universe: The RWBY/Mass Effect universe is this to the Halo one - Word of God noted that using Another Dimension to explain this would have had issues, as slipspace is also in an alternate dimension... or rather, a set of dimensions.
• Berserk Button: Whatever you do, do not call Ruby a Brute unless you have a death wish. Weiss found that out the hard way during an argument.
  Weiss: Ugh! You are nothing but a brute with ano-
  Ruby: Do not compare me to those apes! They are nothing but filthy animals that don't even deserve the bullets I used to kill 'em! If you think I'm nothing more than a Brute... just wait 'til they find this place.... They'll make the Grimm look like cuddly fucking kittens in comparison.
  • We later find out why she dislikes being called a Brute: her best friend, Lisette-B276, was torn to pieces by a Jiralhanae Chieftain's Gravity Hammer, while she was forced to watch. As a result, she absolutely hates the Jiralhanae.
  • Don't talk about Raven in front of Yang, either. That's a good way to incur her wrath.
    • As is hurting Ruby.
• Brain Bleach: Yang wishes for this after catching her mom sleeping nude in the Volume II epilogue
• Character Death:
  • Pyrrha takes on Autumn's powers and undergoes Death of Personality.
  • Jaune is run through with a Prelate's spear in the beginning of the Volume II finale, killing him instantly.
  • Cinder and Mercury also end up dead (finally) after Ruby and Red Team lure them into a trap (along with Emerald, who simply gets a knife in the back that ends up paralyzing her from the waist down, and Sun, who gets knocked out and picked up by ONI).
• Death by Adaptation: Jaune dies instead of Pyrrha (who undergoes Death of Personality instead).
  • Also, Cinder. See above.
• Dope Slap: This happens to Mercury, three times. Twice in Volume 2 Chapter 13, and another slap in Volume 3 Chapter 3.
• Dramatic Irony: Many have noted that the Covenant's declaration of "Your Destruction is the Will of the Gods, and we are Their Instrument" is actually extremely fitting for Remnant, in a haphazard way - the Gods of Light and Darkness did indeed have Remnant purged of humans in the past, and plan to do so again if Ozpin cannot unite mankind and change them for the better.
• Drives Like Crazy: Ruby appears to be this. The Fall of Reach segments indicate that Kat was even worse, something Ruby noted during the Battle of Viery.
  Kat: I've got the wheel
  Ruby: [deadpan] Because that worked out so well last time...
  Kat: At least when I'm driving, the car obeys the laws of physics!
  Ruby: Eh, they're boring anyways.
  [the 'Hog rounds a corner and crashes iinto a cliff face]
  Ruby: Goddamnit, Kat...
  Kat: Hey! At least I didn't drive us off the cliff!
  Ruby: Yet....
• Eviler than Thou: The Covenant are pretty clearly this to Salem - as the story notes, it's been millennia since Salem and Ozpin started their feud, but Salem has yet to destroy any of the kingdoms. The Covenant, on the other hand, manage to demolish Atlas at the end of Volume 1 of the story within a single day.
• Experienced Protagonist: As Noble Six, Ruby has fought the Covenant on multiple planets, and thus has far more experience in battle than every single human and Faunus on Remnant.
• Flat "What": Jaune's reaction to Ruby telling him to start limbering up during their morning PT workout is this.
• Freakier Than Fiction: In-Universe - Ghira notes while talking to Team RWBY and Winter that if someone had told him a day ago that he'd be hosting both of the Schnee daughters, he would have called them a liar.
• Fusion Fic: Ruby is Noble Six, as stated above.
• Groin Attack: Subverted. Ruby grabs a pencil Yang threw at her, and then throws it hard enough to embed itself in the crate the blonde bruiser is sitting on... just below her crotch.
  • Played straight in Volume 1 Chapter 11, "Homecoming", during the final training match (between Pyrrha and Ruby). In a last-ditch attempt to win, Pyrrha kicks Ruby in the crotch. Even without armor, Ruby doesn't seem very fazed by it, and ends up holding a knife to her opponent's throat to get her to yield.
  • In Fall of Reach, a Jiralhanae gets hit with a dose of this, courtesy of Ruby, while trying to put itself out after a few plasma rifle shots set its' fur ablaze.
• History Repeats: A certain teacher didn't pay attention to the "educational videos" that Noble Six (Ruby) presented on "How To Efficiently Fight The Various Covenant Ground Forces" class, especially involving Emile's stab in the back courtesy of an Elite. Guess what happens to her.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Weiss sees Ruby's recordings of her time on Reach, she's surprised when Jorge apparently calls Halsey "mom", only for Ruby to tell her it's actually the result of his accent, and that he really said "ma'am". This is something several fanfiction writers have accidentally let slip. Though as Jorge is a Spartan II, it actually makes sense that he'd call her "Mom" since that's basically what Halsey was to all of them, a strict, yet caring step-mother.
• Man on Fire: In Fall Of Reach, Part Nine, "Burned And Turned To Glass", a Brute Minor gets shot with a plasma pistol. The heat from the shot sets its fur on fire, causing it to try putting itself out... only to be followed up with a Groin Attack.
• Mythical Motifs: Of a sort - ODST troopers from Norwegian-populated planet compare Grimm to their own aggressive fauna which, in turn, was named after Jotuns/Ice Giants from Scandinavian mythology.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Ruby mentions using a scythe during the Invasion of Draco III. Her weapon in RWBY is the High Caliber Sniper Scythe Crescent Rose.
  • In Fall of Reach, Ruby asks if any Spartans survived. Cortana says that there were two, although one was clinically dead: Linda-058.
  • Two for Halo Legends:
    • Ruby mentions an elite being able to block bullets with an energy sword. She's referring to Thel 'Lodamee from The Package
    • Ruby's Last Stand on Reach included her briefly fighting hunters that were bigger than wraiths. Hunters of this size show up in The Duel as part of the force sent to kill Arbiter Fal'Chavamee.
  • The finale chapters of Volume II see a Prelate deployed to hunt down Ruby.
• Nuclear Option: The UNSC's standard response to Covenant warships in-system, the results of which were visible from the surface during the invasion of Atlas.
• Noodle Incident: Ruby was involved in the Invasion of Draco III, but most of the details from that battle are never described. The only concrete facts are that she used a scythe to kill a massive number of Covenant forces and met John-117 while on the planet.
  • The "laser pointer incident" in Volume 1. All anyone knows about it is that Jaune and Blake were involved (along with a laser pointer, obviously), and she gave him amnesia.
• Oh, Crap!: There are many examples in the story. One of the more humorous ones is when Team _WBY wonders why they should be worried about classes after Ruby shows them her time at Reach...only to look at a clock and realize they spent the entire night watching those videos and now only have a few minutes to get ready for class.
• Precision F-Strike: Weiss, when she found out that her father decided to disinherit her in the middle of an invasion inside the escape tunnel. I think the stress has finally got to her. Warranted too, considering that her father's a rich bastard.
  Not only is this a wrongful disinheritance, father, but larger things are at stake! If you haven't noticed, the godsdamn mother-fucking Covenant are burning the city!
• Prosthetic Limb Reveal: Commander Emanuel Witherson reveals to General Ironwood and the rest that he has a titanium Artificial Limb.
  • Yet until now we don't know if Commander Witherson lost his due to an accident or a close encounter with a Spec Ops Elite.

• Recursive Fanfiction: Several snippets and even sidestories in their own right have been written by fans of this work. Most of them are hosted on the Spacebattles forums (and threadmarked under the "sidestory" tab), though one has been gifted to the author himself and posted on his FFN account. Major ones include:
  • A Lost Soul: A four-part mini-story posted by Sierra-G343 on the Spacebattles forums; not considered canon and considered by its' author to be an Old Shame.
  • Things Not To Do At UNSC Base Reavia, a non-canon list of things not to do at UNSC Base Reavia (in a similar vein to other Things-Not-To-Do lists) from the same author (with contributions from others), only available on the fic's official Discord server (though a Google Docs adaptation is being considered).
  • The First Remnant Marine Battalion: An ongoing story being written by "Ghost" Sierra-G339 (different person from above, despite the similar usernames). Posted to the author's own Spacebattles account in the story's thread, though it was given to GreenTheRyno to be posted on his FFN account as well. This story has been confirmed to be canon by GreenTheRyno, who also has a minor editing and consulting role in the story, though the vast majority of the work is done by "Ghost" Sierra-G339.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Weiss after her father decided to announce her death to the world... one can wonder how bad it would look for Jacques's PR Department against Beacon and the UNSC's PR, not to mention the fact this is Weiss Schnee, whose team - not to mention her sister - managed to blow up a CAS-class assault carrier!
  • Dr. Halsey in B312: Fall of Reach, as with canon Halo: Reach.
  • Heck, even Ruby herself. She was thought dead by her family for 10 years, when in fact she had spent 17 years (due to some weird stuff regarding temporal flow between universes) under ONI's thumb as a SPARTAN-III. The results were not pretty: she still has PTSD from the disastrous Operation: TORPEDO, and unlike her canon counterpart, she's more than willing to kill people.
  • Also, Yang, who was believed to have been killed by her mother early in Volume II, only to appear aboard the Spirit of Fire late in A Summer's Harvest before returning near the Volume II Finale.
  • And while we're on the subject of Remnan Spirit of Fire crew: Summer, who was thought dead after a Grimm attack on her home, along with Ruby. Turns out, she survived the attempt on her life and ended up aboard the Phoenix-class ship, becoming involved in the battles of Arcadia, the Etran Harborage, and Installation 02, before returning to Remnant alongside Yang in the Volume II Finale.
• Schmuck Bait: Jaune dies this way, climbing up a tree in order to try and get better signal, only to be impaled by a San'Shyuum Prelate.
• Shout-Out: Oh, where to start? Red vs. Blue? Babylon 5? What about Mass Effect? Or even Destiny?! Granted, Mass Effect becomes a much larger part of the B312-verse later on.
• Ship Tease: Made blatantly obviously with the "Bumblebee" and "Whiterose" team divisions mentioned in chapter 10.
• Spared by the Adaptation: From the Halo side, there's Noble Six, since they're Ruby, and Sgt. Forge, since he didn't blow up the Slipspace drive. From the RWBY side, there's Summer, who spent 20 years aboard the Spirit of Fire, before returning to Remnant to kick some alien ass.
• Stunned Silence: A Running Gag in the "Fall of Reach" segments is has Team _WBY react this way whenever something truly absurd, terrifying, or amazing happens.
• Tank Goodness: M808B Scorpion of the UNSC Marine Corps to the rescue!
  • In an attempt to reinforce Remnant against future Covenant attacks the UNSC is trying to recreate a lot of war equipment using whatever material, facilities and technology available in Vale, starting at a Tractor Factory.
    • The result is, to quote Lieutenant Commander Ruby Rose-B312: "Holy shit, it's like the lovechild of a British Mark One and an A7V German Tank."
• Tanks, but No Tanks: The First Armored Vehicle they find is a light excavator of some kind heavily modified with several layers of metal plates haphazardly bolted on and four Atlesian laser rifles mounted to the front in place of a scoop.
  • A redneck killdozer. Seriously! To Quote Ruby in one of her dossiers: "This agent does not believe they know what they're doing."
• Tempting Fate: Winter dismisses the dangers of the Covenant that Weiss told her which she heard and saw from Ruby's Helmet Cam.
  Winter: I hardly believe that, sister. Those... Elites, as you called them, are already far too large and unwieldy. Any form of life larger than them would certainly-
  [Drop pod lands, cue Hunters ]
  • Also, Jaune's untimely death.
  Jaune: Wait, you can get reception out here?!
  [He checks his Scroll]
  Jaune: Aww... I still got nothin'... Hey uhh, Winter? I'm gonna go climb one of these trees, see if I can get a signal.
  Winter: That won't be necessary, Mr. Chloros already has a signal on... whatever device he's using.
  Jaune: Aw, c'mon! I mean, we don't really know who he called and I've got Ruby's number right here! She could bring that one dreadnought thing that floats above Vale!
  Winter: Indeed, however, you are also pointlessly exposing yourself to danger by climbing atop the tre-
  [Jaune is pierced through the chest with an energy lance, killing him nearly instantly]
• The Cavalry: Averted and Played Straight, The Royal Atlesian Navy arrived in full force to counter the Covenant Ships in the Invasion/Destruction of Atlas, they managed to destroy a CPV-class heavy destroyer and three SDV-class heavy corvettes but are unable to make a dent or even a scratch of the CCS-class battlecruiser. But, just as things are about to go from bad to worse, a UNSC Light Frigate arrives to the rescue and fires its' Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, damaging and destroying the battlecruiser.
• The Nicknamer: Ruby is this, to the annoyance of both Noble Team and Team RWBY. Ironic, because IIRC, Yang fit this trope in canon.
  • Also, Qrow. Ruby comes by it honestly.
• Took a Level in Cynic: Defied with extreme prejudice - for all of the horror that Ruby has been exposed to as a Spartan-III, she has not lost her idealism, though she's closer to The Idealist than her canon self, who was a Wide-Eyed Idealist at the beginning of the series.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Ruby has taken a few, but it isn't too pronounced right now.
• Outside-Context Problem: Zig-Zagged with the Covenant. While Ruby prepared her team for a potential invasion, she did next to nothing for the planet as a whole.
  • Much to Atlas's detriment during the Volume 1 finale.

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"Welcome to Counter-Covenant Operations 101."