Author's Note: This story is over (maybe, more on that later) but I'm not done with RWBY and F1. I'm writing a reboot called RWBY Turbo that takes place during the 80's turbo era and should start posting soon. I hope you've enjoyed this story, and I hope you'll stick with me for a new adventure.

Epilogue

Pyrrha was right. She did get Yang next year, winning her fourth title in another close race. Ruby did not have long to wait either and won the championship the following year. Then it was time for a surprise. Reese Chloris, originally hired by Schnee Automotive to be the #2 driver to May before her untimely death, won the championship, the first for the organization since Winter's all those years ago. There had been a critical change, all the way at the top. Mr. Schnee had suffered a rather severe heart attack the previous year. He survived but stepped down as head of Schnee Automotive as his health continued to fail. Winter took over and immediately set about reversing his more controversial policies. The result was immediate success.

Weiss had spent three years being outrun by Pyrrha. Now it was abundantly clear that she could not compete if they were in identical equipment. So Weiss made a change that shocked everyone. She went and drove for her sister at a team she had said she would never have anything to do with. Reese was no match, and neither were the rest of the field. Weiss won two titles in succession. Then there was another change, and Schnee Automotive's dominance evaporated.

Winter was on a crusade to make things right. Her father had done some awful things as head of the company. Some were big, affecting thousands of people. Others were more personal. He had certainly done wrong by Blake and Penny. Winter purchased Beacon Motorworks and put Blake and Penny in charge of Schnee Automotive's engine program. That deal included providing those same engines to Beacon GP and Team Juniper. Superior engines, as always, had provided the catalyst for Schnee Automotive's recent dominance. With that advantage gone, the team went into decline.

Yang won the championship and it was not close. Well, not for Schnee Automotive at any rate. Pyrrha and Ruby were close. Weiss was a distant fourth. For her part, Winter did not seem to mind. All she really cared about was doing the right thing. The business side of things was looking great anyway. The following year was another disappointing one for Weiss as Ruby won her second title. The real surprise was the second place runner. After a few up-and-down years Sun and SeaMonkeys F1 had finally put it all together and he fought with Ruby all the way to the wire, losing out by a few points in the last race. That was fine, he would win his next year, though that with rather less competition. More on that in a bit.

Through all that time, safety continued to improve. Pyrrha led the charge, becoming as outspoken and implacable an advocate as Winter had been. Yang and Weiss, joined by Ruby, were her constant allies in the fight to keep drivers safe. There were still deaths. Drivers were still maimed. There were still tracks that were terrifyingly dangerous. The point was it was always getting better. And finally the Emerald Forest, that horrible monstrosity, was gone. After a fiery crash that nearly killed Sun during Yang's third title season, it was removed from the schedule for good. Forever Fall, once suicidally fast, was now broken up by chicanes that slowed the cars to sane speeds. Menagerie was reshaped and transformed into a thoroughly modern circuit. Shadering was finally up to code. The future, for once, looked bright. Racing was not safe, but it was no longer a blood sport.

Flashback. Yang had just edged Pyrrha out for her second title. If anything, the battle brought them closer together. Their engagement was a short one as they were married a few months later in a small ceremony on Patch. A honeymoon to an undisclosed location on Mistral's coast followed. It only ended when the pair had to be back for the start of testing. Flash-forward. Yang and Pyrrha were now both thirty. Ruby had just won her second championship. There was a whole new crop of young drivers in F1, all dedicated to safety in a way most of the previous generation had never been. It was time for them to make their mark. After racing side-by-side for 12 years, Yang and Pyrrha retired together. Thanks to highly advanced - and terrifyingly expensive - technology they would have a pair of children together, a daughter named Summer and a son named Pyrrhus. Both would go on to drive in F1 with somewhat less success than their parents. But that was still far in the future.

Weiss finally took over the GPDA upon Yang and Pyrrha's retirements, with Ruby and Sun at her side. The three of them still had a few years of racing left in them. The four years of their leadership saw only one fatal accident. Then Weiss and Sun retired. Ruby took charge. Her time in the lead was short and tragic. That year saw two fatal crashes, including one that claimed the life of Reese. They were random and flukey, and Ruby could have done nothing to prevent them, but she took it hard nonetheless. She won the championship and promptly retired. F1 was entering a new era and she wanted nothing to do with it. A loophole in the regulations had led to the introduction of turbo engines that were capable of producing unheard of power. If something was not done, the speed would surely kill more and Ruby was no longer willing to put her own life on the line. It would be up to a new generation to do something. They failed to take up the mantle and the GPDA was disbanded with Ruby's resignation.

It would be the governing body, not the drivers, that would put a brake on the increasingly dangerous speeds. Somehow no one had died though a few had come very close. That would all change on one tragic weekend just over a decade after Ruby's retirement. In a painful and ironic twist, the victim would be the driver who had dominated much of the previous decade, Willow Schnee, Winter's daughter. After a crash claimed the life of another driver during qualifying, she had vowed to reform the GPDA. Then in the race she had gone off track at high speed and not survived. It was the wake-up call the world of F1 needed. Safety became the most important factor, more so than even competition and speed. There would not be another fatal crash for over two decades.

After her retirement as a driver, Ruby had stayed involved in F1, working as the chief mechanic for Beacon GP for many years. She could still design a chassis like no one else. Even as the technology changed and carbon fiber replaced steel and aluminium, she was the best of the best. Nora still knew her aerodynamics and no one could beat here there, but when it came to mechanical grip Ruby always had the edge. The competition between the pair defined much of the decade following Ruby's retirement as a driver, with their cars winning every constructors championship and all but three drivers titles, those won by Willow for Schnee Automotive.

Ozpin had already been old when he first hired Yang to drive for him. Somehow he remained in charge of Beacon GP for another three decades. After Willow Schnee's death he decided it was time to get out of the game. Who was there to buy the team but a group consisting of Yang, Pyrrha and Ruby. With F1's renewed focus on safety they decided it was time to get back in. They could not drive of course. They were too old and they had seen too much. That privilege was reserved for the young. They would just see to it that those young drivers had what they needed to be safe and successful on track. It was a new era, one they wished they had driven in. Still, for all the triumph and tragedy, joy and pain, they had lived as few others had, lives they would not trade for anything.

END

Author's Note: Okay, so it says END, but maybe not. I've been writing a little and you may see some surprises in the coming week. Stay tuned.

Inspirations

- The mention of Sun's near-fatal crash at Emerald Forest (Nurburgring) is based on Niki Lauda's fiery crash there in 1976.

- Ruby's year in charge of the GPDA is based on 1982. Reese's crash on Gilles Villeneuve's.

- Willow Schnee represents Senna and that weekend Imola 1994.

Inaccuracies and Anachronisms

- The turbo era was already well underway by 1982.

- Elio de Angelis was killed in a testing crash in 1986.