In a bustling urban area, Maxwell Carter or "Max" for short is an unassuming teenager who dreams of a life filled with adventure, but is stuck in the monotony of a normal existence. He attends an ordinary high school, living amongst the trivialities...
Max watched it all unfold, rooted to the spot in front of the now-inert Dragon Balls. Disbelief warred with an overwhelming surge of relief and exhaustion. It had worked. The wish, the seemingly impossible wish, had been granted. He saw the reunions, the tears, the hesitant touches confirming reality. He saw the faces of the returned – confused, disoriented, their last memories battle and oblivion, now suddenly thrust back into a world they barely understood was still standing.
His own hands trembled. He hadn't known if it would work. Bringing back the dead was often depicted as impossible, or requiring a terrible price. But Hyper Shenron... the Ultimate Dragon Balls... maybe their power truly was limitless, or at least, limitless enough for this and he saw that he may accidentally brought someone else back.....
??:Excuse me but where am-.........R-ruby?Yang?is that you....?
a woman spoke as she was wearing a one-piece red dress with white frills under the skirt and exposed shoulders, separate black sleeves with red and black bracers and a separate black skirt that covers most of the red one underneath. She wears a less bulky version of her white cloak with a red inner liner, which is secured by a pair of black leather straps with leaf-shaped pins that attach to the cloak at the shoulders before crossing above her chest and eventually attaching to a set of thick black belts around her waist. Prior to leaving for her last mission she wore the same rose pendant that her daughter would later don where the two straps overlapped above her chest. Covering her legs is a pair of grey leggings and on her feet is a pair of black high-heeled boots with red highlights.....It was Summer Rose.....Ruby's Mom & Yang's stepmom....
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Max's mind reeled. He had wished for "those who were Killed In Action." He had meant Kaminari, Ruby (before she was healed by her Silver Eyes power surge in battle), the Void kids, Happy, Maka. The ones lost during or immediately before this specific conflict with the Null Collective's agent.
But Summer Rose had died years ago, long before the Nexus Academy even intersected with Max's life, seemingly in a different conflict entirely.
Had the Dragon interpreted "Killed In Action" as any violent death that had relevance to the Nexus? Was Summer's death somehow connected to the wider, multi-dimensional conflict they were now embroiled in, perhaps through Salem or other dark forces that mirrored the Null Collective in their destructive goals? Or had his subconscious, perhaps influenced by the images of Ruby and Yang's grief, somehow expanded the scope of the wish?
The implications crashed down on him with the force of a physical blow. He hadn't just reversed recent casualties; he had reached back into the past for someone whose death was a foundational trauma for key figures in the Academy. It was an incredible gift, a moment of profound joy for Ruby and Yang, but it was also a massive, unforeseen consequence. What would Summer think of this strange place? How would her return affect everything?
Ruby & Yang:MOM!
The two sisters didn't hesitate. Ignoring the bizarre landscape around them, the swirling æther visible through fractured windows, the still-smoking rubble, and the throng of bewildered, powerful individuals, they sprinted. Ruby, even without Crescent Rose in hand, moved with a speed born of desperation and disbelief. Yang's Semblance wasn't active, but her powerful legs propelled her forward as if the ground itself was fleeing beneath her.