"As a girl, I wanted to be just like those heroes in the books. Someone who fought for what was right and protected people who couldn't protect themselves!"
| Ruby Rose | |
|---|---|
 The Bee's Knees | |
| Vital Statistics | |
| Title(s) | The Bee's Knees, 'Red' |
| Gender | Female |
| Race | Human |
| Faction | None |
| Relatives | Summer Rose (mother/deceased), Taiyang Xiao Long (father), Yang Xiao Long (older sister) |
| Alignment | Alignment: +3 - Huntress In Training |
| Level | BL1 |
| Status | Active |
Ruby is the lead character in Rooster Teeth's animated series 'RWBY'. She is the player's third character, and was picked up on August 30th, 2014.
Background[]
Ruby is the daughter of Summer Rose and Taiyang Xiao Long, and is close friends with older half-sister Yang Xiao Long, with whom she was raised on the island of Patch.
Ruby was born and raised on stories of grand adventure and heroes defeating monsters and saving the citizens from trouble. Ever since she was a little girl, Ruby wanted to make a difference in the world, to make things a better place for everyone. After her mother went missing and presumably died, she moved in with her Uncle Qrow. He took her under his wing, and trained her how to become the huntress she dreamed of being. In time, Ruby would apply and be accepted into Signal Academy, a school where children can grow and learn to become Hunters and Huntresses; people who protect the world from criminals and creatures known as Grimm.
As she excelled in school, Ruby had a run in with a criminal known as Roman Torchwick, and made an attempt to apprehend him. Failing to do so, she was rescued by the head Professor of Beacon Academy, Glynda Goodwitch. Escorted to the school, Ruby met with Headmaster Ozpin, who was impressed with Ruby's skills. He would proceed to promote her a few grades right into Beacon Academy, much to Ruby's surprise and joy.
She went on to become leader of Team RWBY, paired up along with Weiss Schnee, Yang Xiao Long, and Blake Belladonna. The four have been progressing through school as well as recently been on the trail of Roman Torchwick's scheme, though Ruby would soon find that as she was traveling back to her dorm, a strange light emitted from one of the hallways began to blind and envelope her, plopping the young girl into a strange land...
Involvement[]
Ruby hasn't had much input in any deep plot points, but has been adventuring quite a bit since her entrance into the multiverse. Meeting with Dante, she took a liking to him and the two became good friends. Ruby often can be found residing around Deadpool and Dante's Viewtiful Bar&Grill because of this.
Ruby has met with the strange creature known as 'Kyubey'. After witnessing a child in distress, drowning in the ocean, Ruby made the wish that the child would be save, and became a magical girl.
After she initially woke up in Castle Oblivion upon falling into the Multiverse, Ruby came across a number of students of the Garden. Found during the students' combat simulation, Ruby awoke the power of the Keyblade when attempting to save her new allies during a battle with a double-barreled tank. Afterwards, she found and accepted help from Ventus to train her.
During a trip with Dante to slay some demons, and hopefully gain some materials to make a new weapon, Ruby and Dante were confronted by a demonic Vergil, and the battle resulted in the two nearly dying. Ruby had earlier forcefully donned a 'Kamui' (God Robe), known as Mugaketsu. In order to save Ruby's life, it fused itself Life Fibers with her wounds and life-force, the two becoming one in a way. With this, she gained the power to transform Mugaketsu with the power of Life Fiber Harmonize.
Powers and Capabilities[]
Ruby is very skilled in combat, despite her small stature and age when compared to those around her. This is a result of special training from her Uncle Qrow, who Ruby claims took her under his wing in order to improve her skills. As a result, Ruby is a master at using her scythe; even Ozpin admits that he hasn't seen someone of Ruby's skill since Qrow himself.
Ruby's first display of her skills was in the "Red" Trailer, where she single-handedly fends off a large pack of Beowolves without injury. Later, in "Ruby Rose", she is able to defeat Roman's group of henchmen after they tried to rob From Dust Till Dawn, forcing Roman to retreat.
Ruby's main weapon in combat is her scythe, Crescent Rose, which she designed herself, as all students at Signal do. Her weapon is a combination of a scythe and a high-powered rifle, which causes a large amount of recoil when fired. Ruby uses the recoil from Crescent Rose's shots to augment the speed and force of her strikes. However, she is also able to spin Crescent Rose with exemplary skill and power without the recoil, often executing chain attacks with this technique.
Even without the use of special abilities, Crescent Rose is incredibly sharp. In "The First Step, Pt.2", Ruby was able to cleanly slice through a large tree with a single, non-recoil-augmented blow, causing the tree to fall. She also uses the weapon itself as a platform from which to attack, shown when Ruby laid down completely on the handle of Crescent Rose while firing at opponents. Sometimes when she plans to fire the rifle from a stationary position, she twirls Crescent Rose's scythe tip into the ground to give her a monopod for stability and a way to absorb the recoil that would otherwise cause Ruby to be thown backwards.
Ruby carries two kinds of ammunition with her: unmarked and Cross Clips. The unmarked magazines will fire off a high-caliber bullet with a white muzzle flash. Cross Clips (technically magazines), on the other hand, give off a black muzzle flash and are shown to have significantly greater power than the unmarked magazines. This lends her even more speed and power. With Cross Clips, Ruby is able to use Crescent Rose to propel herself with extraordinary speed before rotating herself axially in midair to execute a devastating spinning slash attack.
To add to her already impressive battle prowess, Ruby's Semblance is speed, as stated by Pyrrha Nikos. Because of her Semblance, she is able to move from place to place so quickly that that she appears to be teleporting, as she seems to materialize out of nowhere. She does so to avoid the first Beowolf's lunge in the "Red" Trailer, and later shows it to Weiss during a conversation in the Emerald Forest. In "Best Day Ever", Ruby was shown using her speed to great effect, as creating a powerful whirlwind that blew away not only Team JNPR, but also most of the loose objects in the room, slamming them all against the cafeteria wall, causing it to shatter and form a crater.
However, Ruby doesn't seem to have full control of this ability or is only able to use it when concentrating, as she didn't use it when being chased by the Death Stalker in "Players and Pieces", leading to her being pinned by the Nevermore's feather. Whenever she uses her Semblance, she leaves a cloud of rose petals in her wake that quickly dissipates. It is unknown what causes this, but these rose petals are not merely symbolic and can be perceived by others, as shown by Weiss who once waved her hands trying to brush them away.
Additionally, in "A Minor Hiccup", she had difficulty stopping. This may have been due to her carrying Penny and not being used to controlling her powers whilst carrying a heavy load equal to or greater to her body weight.
Ruby has enhanced endurance, showing no signs of fatigue in battle at all. In "The Emerald Forest", Weiss and Ruby are forced to retreat from a pack of Beowolves, and when battling the Nevermore, she showed no signs of fatigue. After running a certain distance to safety, Ruby shows no signs of weariness, while Weiss is seen trying to catch her breath. Her endurance is also seen after the battle with the Nevermore, where she is aided by Yang, Blake, and Weiss in defeating the large Grimm by dragging it up a cliff and beheading it; upon landing, she doesn't appear to be exhausted in the slightest. However, despite her endurance, in "Search and Destroy", Ruby is seen to be exhausted after fighting several groups of Beowolves, but this could've been due to the fights having been one after another, possibly having no break.
Ruby also seems capable of jumping extraordinary heights, even without her weapon's recoil. In her confrontation with the Beowolves, she jumped several meters into the sky (augmented with her Semblance) and took a couple seconds to return to the ground. Later in her first skirmish with Torchwick, she dodged his cane's explosive flare by jumping unaided several times her height into the air.
Ruby is not without weakness however. In contrast to her sister, Ruby's hand-to-hand capabilities are rather poor; in "Mountain Glenn", after losing Crescent Rose when a section of the ground collapsed underneath her, she was easily defeated by a nameless White Fang soldier despite attempting to fight back, ignoring her first punch, blocking her second and knocking her unconscious without much of a struggle. Later on, in "No Brakes", she is unable to land even a single unarmed hit on Roman. These incidents show that, for all her amazing skill, Ruby is still a child two years younger than her peers. Her body is likely not as strong as her comrades, and thus she has less natural strength than they do. This is a major contrast to "Ruby Rose", when she was able to take down two of Roman's men with relative ease without the use of her weapon.
Outside of combat, Ruby has expressed great knowledge regarding weapons, which shows in her complex design of Crescent Rose. On occasion, she has also shown the ability to quickly formulate and execute plans for her team, which may have contributed to her appointment as team leader.
Followers / Summons (remove if not applicable)[]
Penny[]
- A somewhat mysterious girl who turned out to be an android, created by Ironwood for unknown reasons. She befriends Ruby in the series, and seems to be somewhat naive to the world and those around her, but is kind and caring to others. Despite her cute appearance, Penny is combat ready, and controls a number of swords by extremely thin wires that are connected to her.
Lambda-11[]
- A strange girl that was detected by Penny one day while she and Ruby were out walking. They found Lambda sitting alone under a tree, staring at a strange bug. The trio began looking and talking about other bugs, and decided to have Lambda join them. The mysterious girl claimed that malfunction in her teleportation caused her to appear in the Multiverse. Without having any way of receiving orders from Kokonoe, Lambda decided to tag along.
Quotes[]
- "I don't wanna be 'the bee's knees'. I don't wanna be any kind of 'knees'! I just wanna be a normal girl, with normal knees." —Ruby, after Yang Xiao Long describes her as special
- "You're about to see a whole different side of me today, Weiss, and after it's all over, you're going to be like, 'Wow! That Ruby girl is really, really cool... and I wanna be her friend!'" —Ruby, trying to make friends with Weiss
- "Magnets are cool, too..." —Ruby, after Weiss tells her that polarity controls magnetism, not poles
- "Justice will be swift! Justice will be painful! It will be DELICIOUS!" —Ruby, to Team JNPR, right before the food fight
- "C'mooon, c'mon! I wanna play the Kiiiing's Game! Who wants to play?" —Ruby, calling out to others to play King's Game.
Trivia[]
- Ruby alludes to the fairy tale character Little Red Riding Hood as well as the Grim Reaper.
- This allusion has affected her appearance, causing her to almost constantly wear a red hooded cape.
- In the "Red" Trailer, she fights a large pack of Beowolves, possibly a reference to Little Red Riding Hood coming face to face with a wolf in the story.
- Like the Grim Reaper, Ruby uses a scythe and wears a hood. Furthermore, she fights the creatures of Grimm.
- Her name alludes to a type of gemstone that is often found in red. Furthermore, "Ruby" is the name of an actual shade of red. Meanwhile, her surname alludes to a type of flowers that are also found most often in red.
- Monty stated that Ruby and the other girls will have no ties to any fairy tale at all. However, in a past interview, he did say Ruby's design was influenced by Little Red Riding Hood and that all the other main characters' physical appearances will be majorly influenced by other fairy tales and mythological tales.[4][6]
- Monty has confirmed that Ruby is left-handed. However, she is seen wielding her weapon with her right hand just as easily. Monty has stated that it is "common to switch both hands while fighting, especially to make it interesting."
- Despite sharing similar emblems and a red-and-black color scheme, Monty confirmed that Ruby and Adam are not related to each other, and that their emblems differ from each other in terms of "scatter and wilt".
- Although Ruby is often depicted to favor sweets like cookies, her favorite food is actually strawberries.
- Early designs for Ruby were set aside and later used for Miltiades Malachite, one of Yang's foes in the "Yellow" Trailer.[8]
- Ruby is the first character to be playable in RWBY: Grimm Eclipse. Her playstyle revolves around stringing together long combos on enemies.
- Ruby's alternate outfit appears to be based on the early sketch shown in the second production diary.
- Ruby is originally from an island named Patch.
- If one includes her original design from the trailer, Ruby has the most outfits out of any character.
- Ruby, alongside Nora Valkyrie, is one of the few characters who owns one object which is in sale at the Rooster Teeth store. In this case being her Rose Pajama Pants.
- Ruby takes her mother's maiden name rather than her father's surname. The reason for this is unknown.
- Ruby and Blake are the only members of the team who bear alliterative names.