Ruby's eyes opened as her body convulsed.
"She's awake, turn it off." An unfamiliar voice said from somewhere nearby. She felt like she'd just run a marathon then fell off a mountain. Her head was fuzzy and concentrating on anything was nearly impossible.
"Are you sure this is safe?" Another person asked warily. "Shouldn't she be restrained?"
"Shut the hell up and do your job." Snapped a very familiar voice.
"Yang?" Ruby whispered. Her throat was dry and she sounded strange.
"She's okay!" Yang virtually shouted as she pulled Ruby into an impossibly tight hug.
"Where am I?" She asked as she opened her eyes. "And why do you look... old?"
"Hey!" Yang protested, though there was no real anger in her words and she was still smiling. "That's mean."
It might have been mean but it was accurate. It was so strange to see this person that looked a bit like her sister but more mature. She was still trying to figure out what might have happened when memories began to surface. "Professor Ozpin..."
"It's 'Overlord Ozpin' now." A deep voice chimed in. She turned to the new person and blinked. It took her brain a moment to process both the information and the one who said it.
"Dove?" He looked so different! Older, like Yang, but scarred as if he'd been in a lot of fights. His armor was different, too, heavier looking and in need of some repairs. "What's going on?"
"You've been in a coma for nine years, Ruby." Yang said, still clinging tightly to her hand. "They hid you but we finally got you back!"
"Yeah... He injected me with something... Didn't anyone notice something was wrong?" She asked, hurt. Nine years?
"They said it was some kind of reaction to one of the new medications coupled with the shock you suffered that night." Dove said, shaking his head. "We visited often at first, hoping to figure out a way to bring you out of it."
She closed her eyes, trying to block out the memories of Torchwick, of Cardin, of Ozpin...
"Then things got bad. " Yang sighed. "Chaos broke out and you disappeared."
"Why didn't he just kill me?" She asked. It would have been so easy and they had been trying before that night.
"You killed Torchwick, one of those at the front of his operation." She looked up and gasped. It was Professor Goodwitch but she was barely herself. Stress and worry lines etched her face, her eyes glowed with dust enhancement and both of her arms seemed to be melded with robotic parts, there were weapons fused with her flesh. "If he killed you it would have made you a martyr and given people the boost they needed to fight. Instead you just quietly disappeared. You were used as a distraction while he moved forward faster. Somewhere along the way he got more ambitious, his plans changed and now he is in control of all the Kingdoms."
"No one fought back?" Ruby asked incredulously.
"Oh, many fought but he was clever and had a lot of connections. He used his position as Headmaster of Beacon to gather information on all past and present hunters, manipulating or killing as needed until the majority were loyal to him. He won the backing of the faunus and the most of them gladly killed humans wherever he said to. There were enough crooked people in the government that before too long he had them under his thumb as well."
"Now he IS the government. He controls the weapons, the dust, the police, the hunters, the food... even some of the Grimm." Dove scowled. "All 'true citizens' have implants that allow them to be tracked."
"So where are we?" Ruby asked after a moment.
"Hidden in an underground base he hasn't found yet." Yang said with a faint smile. "Most of the rebellion can fit in this compound. It's owned by the Schnee company, they have been the only ones who really spoke out. They were able to sneak a lot of people to safety but it hasn't been easy."
"Wasn't one of your teammates a Schnee?" Ruby asked.
"Yeah, Weiss. She's been great... even though most of her family has been killed. She's faster than the assassins." Yang laughed. "More than one returned not only empty-handed but handless."
"She has become rather... quirky." Goodwitch said with some distaste.
"Dark times call for a dark sense of humor. Who am I to discourage her?" Yang grinned. "I bet you're starving! Let's go get something to eat!"
Ruby realized she was, she had just been too distracted to think about her empty stomach. Now that it had been pointed out she couldn't stop thinking of food. She swung out of bed and stumbled before standing. Everything seemed just a bit off in her balance. A glance down showed that her proportions were considerably different from what she remembered.
"Careful," Dove grinned. "Electrical stimulation kept your muscles from becoming atrophied but you'll still be weak for a while. There was only so much we could do without you being awake."
"Yeah..." She said, taking careful steps. The floor was a lot farther away than she was used to, as well.
Yang stayed close as she stumbled down the hall to the cafeteria. A few others were there but not many. Most looked like tired scientists on break. Aside from a lack of windows, it looked like a normal building. Yang explained that it had been built in the Schnee company's golden years and had been a facility for top secret experimentation. There was a large store of dust as well as some technology that had not been shared with the public when Ozpin made his move. They had an underground farm to assure fresh food, medical facilities, housing, and training areas set up in old labs.
After eating Dove and Yang took her to one of the training rooms to start her rehab. They protested the whole way but she insisted. The world had fallen apart and she was helpless when they needed all the help they could get.
They were passing through one of the main halls when Dove made a warning sound and Yang tensed. A man and woman were walking the opposite direction but the man froze as he noticed them.
It took Ruby a moment to recognize him. She smiled, moving forward faster. "Sky?"
He did not return the smile, didn't move. She slowed to a stop and her smile faded. Everything in his stance and expression said he was angry but his eyes held only a deep pain. "You deserted us. You broke your promise."
"I'm sorry..." She said softly. Maybe things would have gone better with them there... Maybe Cardin would have lived. Tears welled up again at that thought.
"We needed you."
"I'm sorry..." However many times she said the words she knew they would never be enough. He had every right to be angry with her, she had betrayed their trust.
He took a breath to say something more but Yang got between them. "Nora, get him out of here before I beat the crap out of him."
The girl nodded and pulled him by quickly. Once he was gone Yang wrapped an arm around her and half carried Ruby the rest of the way while she cried, clinging to her sister. So many terrible things had happened and so much of it was her fault!
"It's alright, Ruby." Dove said once they were sitting in the training room. "He's just selfish and angry that he wasn't strong enough to make as big a difference as he hoped in the wars."
"He's right!" She wailed. "I should have taken my team! Or just waited! It was stupid and I should have known better after making the same mistake once before! If you two had been with me Cardin might still be alive!"
"Maybe... but if things had been different I wouldn't have Mezza." He said tossing her a towel to wipe her eyes.
"Mezza?" Ruby asked, glad for the much needed distraction. "Where is she?"
"Home with our daughter." He grinned. "Things have been bad but there has been some good to come out of it, too."
"Really? You have a kid?" She couldn't help but smile, it was hard to think of either of them as being old enough to have kids of their own.
"Rose is seven now." Dove nodded. "She's already an ambitious, scrappy little thing, too. Mezza is regretting teaching her acrobatics. It's hard to get her to go to bed when she can reach the vents on the ceiling. Once she's there you aren't likely to get her loose until she is good and ready to come down."
Ruby laughed, and enjoyed a moment of actually feeling good. They named her Rose...
"You'll have to meet her later. For now we need to get you back in shape to handle a weapon. I doubt you could even effectively threaten a steak with the best knife in the building." Yang said. Ruby stuck her tongue out at her sister but it wasn't as much of an exaggeration as she would have liked. Just the walk to the training room had left her tired.
"Hey... what happened to Professor Goodwitch?" She asked, it had been bothering her since she saw the state her old teacher was in. She was one of the best huntresses Ruby knew of and seeing her like that was a shock.
"She had it worse than most." Yang sighed. "She's still punishing herself for it. Ozpin is a great actor and even though she was one of the people closest to him when he was Headmaster of Beacon, he had her completely fooled. It took a long time for her to realize what was going on. She believed he was really fighting against the White Fang and the gangs running rampant but he was sending her out to deal with distractions. She never has said what it was that tipped her off but when she learned the truth she turned on him."
"He almost killed her." Dove nodded. "Some of the resistance members found her and thought they were taking his second in command captive after a lucky break. When she regained consciousness they didn't even have time to demand she tell them what she knew, she told them everything she could as quickly as she could and insisted they not let her anywhere near a resistance base until she had been checked for anything that might track her. Once she convinced them of the sincerity of her decision to change sides, she stood right next to Yang and led the charge against Ozpin. She didn't know as much as we needed her to, but it was enough to start making a little progress."
"Fat lot of good that's done." Yang grumbled. "It's been nothing but 'a little progress' for a long time now. She's done everything she can to help, volunteering for anything that may give her an edge no matter how experimental or uncertain. She blames herself for a lot of this and no one can convince her otherwise."
"That's so sad…" Ruby sighed, wiping at her face again now that the tears were finally drying up. Laying blame didn't seem to be doing anyone any good. She had to do something. "Yang, I need to know everything that's happened since I disappeared. Can you get that information together? It'll take a while for me to get back in shape so I can study that when I'm not working. I guess Sky isn't likely to help but I'm sure there are others I can spar with until I get my reflexes back. We're going to fix this somehow… he can't be invincible."