The ranger of RWBY

[azukugames]

Ryuto kicked the can and watched it skitter across the pavement, bouncing off a storm drain with a hollow tink.




"Another day, another absolutely nothing happening," he muttered, hands stuffed into his hoodie pocket. At least the Power Rangers episode had been worth it the fight




choreography alone had him replaying it twice before bed. He was already debating a full rewatch of Gokaiger for the third time, and maybe finally catching up on RWBY. He'd dropped it somewhere around Volume 4 and never really found his way back.

Maybe tonight, he thought.




Start fresh.

A horn blared somewhere behind him.

Ryuto's head snapped around.

The truck was already there enormous, white, moving with the kind of serene inevitability that left no room for argument.

"Oh shiii







FUCKING TRUCK-KUN.




Somewhere on Remnant

The first thing Ryuto registered was heat.

The second was the smell — smoke, thick and acrid, laced with something underneath it that he couldn't name but that made every instinct in his body stand at attention.

"Agh—" He pushed himself upright, blinking hard. His head throbbed. His palms were scraped. He was lying on a hillside, dry grass beneath him, and when he looked down the slope he saw the orange glow before he fully understood what he was looking at.

A village. On fire.




"No no, no He was already moving before the thought finished forming, scrambling to his feet and half-running, half-sliding down the hillside toward the smoke.










Twenty-five minutes later.

He came in through the eastern edge of the village at a dead sprint, vaulting a collapsed fence post, and skidded to a stop in the middle of what had been a market square.

They were everywhere.

Large. Dark. Moving with a low, prowling confidence that made the air feel heavier around them. Their fur was pitch-black, their eyes burning red behind bone-white masks cracked with red markings. Bone spikes jutted from their arms and backs like armour grown from the inside out. Their claws left gouges in the cobblestones with every step.

Beowolves, Ryuto thought, and felt something cold move through him that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with recognition. Those are Grimm.

A scream cut through the smoke.

He saw her a woman, back pressed against a crumbling wall, a child clutched to her chest with both arms. The Alpha Beowolf in front of them was the largest of the pack, nearly twice the height of the others, its mask thicker and more elaborate, its red eyes burning with something that looked almost like anticipation. It raised one massive claw.

Ryuto was between them before he consciously decided to move.

He didn't understand how. One moment he was fifteen feet away; the next he was standing in front of the woman and child with his arms spread wide, and the Alpha's claws had stopped inches from his face.

"Whoa he breathed. "How did I do that?"

His hand dropped to his waist, found the holster there when did I get a holster? and he had the Gokai Gun up and firing in the same motion. The shot caught the Alpha between its masked eyes and it staggered back with a noise like grinding stone.

Something in his pocket grew warm.

He glanced down, then reached in with his free hand. His fingers closed around something solid and angular and he pulled out a Ranger Key. Red enamel, gold trim. A tiny, unmistakable figure.

Gokai Red.

The surrounding Beowolves had stopped. The pack watched him with those burning eyes. The Alpha was recovering, shaking its massive head, the rage in its expression sharpening into something personal.




Ryuto looked at the key. Then he looked at the woman.




"Get back," he said quietly. "Both of you get as far back as you can."

"Thank you," she whispered, already moving.

Ryuto turned to face the Alpha. The pack behind it began to advance.

He held up the Morpher.

Okay, he thought, and felt something in his chest settle — the same feeling he'd had watching Gokai Red charge down impossible odds on a screen in his living room, times a thousand. I really hope this is going to look as cool as I think it is.

He slotted the key.

"Gokai Change!"

The flash of red was blinding — a wave of light that rolled outward from where he stood and pushed the nearest Beowolves back a step through sheer force of it. When it faded, the boy was gone.

In his place stood a figure in a structured red jacket trimmed with gold, a white collar sharp at the collar, silver-white gloves, and boots that caught the firelight. The helmet red, gold-trimmed, the visor shaped like a pirate's eyepatch turned slowly toward the Alpha Beowolf.

The woman, watching from behind a collapsed wall thirty metres back, felt her child grip her arm.

"Gokai Red."

The Alpha charged.










Ryuto moved through the pack

The Gokai Saber cleared its scabbard in a clean arc that sent the first Beowolf dissolving into black smoke before it finished falling. The Gokai Gun covered his flanks,

The Alpha came at him twice. The first time, Ryuto sidestepped and let its momentum carry it past him, landing a kick to its knee joint that buckled the leg. The second time, he held his ground, drove the Saber upward in a two handed grip, and the Alpha's momentum did the rest.

It came apart in a cascade of black particles that scattered on the wind.

The remaining Beowolves hesitated that strange, animal calculation Grimm sometimes performed when their pack hierarchy shattered. Then they broke, melting back into the treeline at the edge of the village.

Ryuto stood in the empty square and breathed.

The fires were still burning, but the screaming had stopped. He could hear voices now — survivors, calling out to each other in the dark. The sound of a village beginning the slow work of counting what it still had.

He powered down, the suit fading with a shimmer of red light, and stood there in his ordinary clothes feeling the weight of the Gokai Key in his hand.







Later — much later, when the fires had been beaten back and what remained of the village guard had organised the survivors — Ryuto found a quiet road on the outskirts and followed it north, turning the key over in his fingers.

"Okay," he said to himself, working through it methodically. "Remnant. I'm actually on Remnant." He looked up at the sky — the moon was shattered, its broken pieces hanging in orbit like scattered teeth, and the sight of it hit him harder than he'd expected. That detail always hit different in the show. Here it was just there, enormous and fractured and completely real. "I'm on Remnant, I have a Gokaiger Morpher and at least one Ranger Key, I just fought actual Grimm, and I have absolutely no idea what Volume I've landed in."

He exhaled.

"Fantastic. Great. Love this for me."

He pocketed the key and kept walking. The road had to lead somewhere — a town, a trading post, maybe a settlement large enough to have information about what was happening in the wider world. Beacon Academy, the status of the Kingdoms, whether Ozpin was still running things or whether everything had already gone sideways.

Please let it be early, he thought. Please let it be Volume One. Give me some runway here.

The shattered moon offered no opinion on the matter.

Ryuto pulled his hoodie tighter against the night air and walked on.



A/N I wanna test this as a challenge to myself since most characters I make are op

I wanna gradually build up his power

And sorta bring hope to Remment

I am gonna switch bewtween forms

And I need to read up on seanti stuff