Let us tell the tale of a girl, clad in a red hood. Perhaps you know of the story. Let us tell the tale of a different red-clad girl. For those that are the faint of heart, you may wish to put your story down, the grimm tale of the girl born from light, and taken in by the shadows.

Pant pant.

Ruby couldn't keep running for much longer. Her mother had died right in front of her eyes, and her sister had run off after her father. Grimm were on the tail of her cloak. She hated the grimm from when she first learned about them. And now, she had another reason to despise them, they had killed her mother.

Beowolves. They were big, they were vicious, and they were savage. They were only focused on one thing: Killing the girl they were chasing. She had no weapon, no proper aura training, she had only recently unlocked her semblance.

More specifically, she unlocked it a few minutes ago, feeling the need to run for her life, but her mourning for her mother seemed to resonate with her as well, she deduced that that was the reason for the rose petals trailing behind her. If it weren't for those petals, she would've been able to escape by now.

Now she hated her semblance as well.

She couldn't see straight, she was hungry, and she could feel her aura running low…

She looked over her shoulder.

Great...

The beowolf had called his… her… its friends. They had enough… Grimmpower to take on a small team of hunters, well, trainees anyways, an experienced hunter could easily dispatch of them in an instant.

'I need to keep moving…' the young girl thought, 'If I can get to a city or town or something…'

Thwack!

"Ugh ...Where… Where did that tree branch come from?"

Her world went black. Her last image was a beowolf closing in. She also thought she heard another voice...

"What the…?" The red-cloaked girl asked. "Where am I?" She held her head, "Ugh, my head hurts." She looked up and found herself in a strange building. She saw grimm blood everywhere, crates full of dust, as well as bits and pieces of some old machines and weapons.

Possibly a warehouse.

"Ah, you're awake. Finally." Ruby turned her head towards a young looking woman. The first thing she noticed was that she had amber eyes. The second thing she noticed was that her dress seemed to glow with dust. "So Ruby, what do you want to eat?"

"I...I don't know…" She stammered a bit, trying to keep the memories of her family's demise out.

"So Ruby, why were you out in the woods? Where was the rest of your family?" Cinder noticed that Ruby winced at the final word and was staying silent tears formed in her eyes. Odd, that usually only happens when oh…

"I'm so sorry, Ruby." The girl sniffled a bit. "If it'll help, I can be here for you." Cinder walked over to the girl, who now had small tears in her eyes, and gave her a comforting embrace. She noticed Ruby's eyes briefly glowing a much darker shade of grey, almost as if it had turned black for a moment, but she paid it no heed. Both now had a second family after having their first one forcibly ripped from them.

Much much later…

Her Glaive had grown rather dull. the fact that it doubled as a sniper rifle probably had something to do with it. Considering her usual method of killing, it made sense that she would also modify Rending Thorn to also act as an assault rifle if necessary. She had long forgone her old cloak in favor of turning it into a vest to hold her goods.

She had worked for Cinder for who knows how long, killing whomever she wished. She was one of the few people to join her willingly, as both wished for revenge upon the self-proclaimed 'heroes' of the world. Ruby, for despising how they didn't save her family and let them die; and Cinder, for their talk about 'peace' and 'prosperity' when it was the hunters who ransacked her village when she was only a child. Ruby had almost considered Cinder to be a mother figure of sorts, and even got her last name legally changed to 'Fall' on her seventh birthday.

Today, she was on assignment. An unknown client had ordered the death of a certain person, and she was going to make due on that. Growing up despising hunters gave Ruby a new outlook on life. She was a sadist, and she was proud of the fact.

When Ruby was a few days off of turning six, she had discovered that, by using a magnifying glass, she could burn ants. She liked to pretend that the ants were hunters and huntresses. Cinder had noticed, and gave her a small pocket knife that the girl used to hunt for food.

Her target was some moronic up and coming politician who had decided it would be a smart idea to put anyone who lived outside the border on constant surveillance. Unfortunately, for the candidate, Ruby lived in a small warehouse nearby the local forest that was just outside the forest alongside her family. She clutched her locket that held a photo of her and Cinder.

Ruby was just a few months older when she was staring down a mercenary. The merc was an old foe of Cinder's. She was so scared. When Cinder came in, shooting an arrow into the man's eye, and subsequently detonated it, Ruby had called her Queen for the first time and gave her a loving embrace.

Cinder would never admit it, but she had cried tears of sadness when Ruby called her 'Queen'. She had even gotten close to Ruby, and was originally planning to have her as her apprentice, but constantly training together had having meals together put a dent in that plan.

Cinder had wanted a daughter to hug, and have hug back. Instead, she got a sadistic girl who only saw her as a superior, and not as family.

She found the man in her sights. The night vision she placed on the scope of her sniper. Her target was reported to always wield a strange sword, and have a preference for young girls. She thought of a young blonde girl for some reason. Ruby shook her head, she had a job to do.

Ruby's nightmares diminished after being adopted, or rather, having the legal proof of adoption. Her nightmares usually involved a woman in a white cloak being killed by the cross fire between some grimm and a hunter's gun blast, a blonde man being torn apart by an ursa, and a blonde girl being impaled by a beowolf.

Ruby finally got the man in her sights. Her target was talking to someone in the shadows, and was accompanied by three other people. Odd, he was talking to a young girl- 'Oh my goodness!' She thought. The man and two of his… What she assumed to be friends just got killed by the girl. 'She might make a decent ally…'

Ruby's Queen had gotten some other recruits as well. Some thief with green hair named Emerald, some son of a mercenary named Mercury, a criminal that she would describe as a 'douchebag' named Roman Torchwick, and his little ice cream colored 'assistant' named Neo.

She enjoyed Emerald's company. Considering the both of them were rescued by Cinder, they bonded rather well. Though Emerald was put off by Ruby's insistence to calling Cinder 'Queen'. Emerald had seen Cinder wincing every time she was called 'Queen' by Ruby. She nearly got burned for asking why.

Mercury was tolerable. Ruby enjoyed tinkering with his legs. Added a feature to make it appear as if it were broken so as to trick opponents into letting their guard down, miniature machine gun turrets in the knee area, magnetic soles to cling to surfaces, and on the top of both feet, she engraved the word 'Queen' on them in red and gold. Mercury had opted to get boots that doubled as what appeared to be shotguns to hide them.

Roman was a different story. Ruby disliked how he endlessly flirted with Cinder and showed general apathy towards her Queen. His attitude was grating to her. Ruby never understood why her Queen wanted him in the first place, but she understood that he was wanted. But Ruby vowed to kill him immediately if her Queen asked for it.

The ice cream girl, whose name she learned from the idiot in the bowler hat, was much more interesting. Not much of a talker, but that's what Ruby appreciated about Neopolitan. Ruby could never understand why she was even loyal to Roman in the first place. Not that Neo would reveal why anyways.

Ruby had adopted all of them as her family. Emerald and Mercury as her siblings, Roman as some uncle, and identifying Neo as her cousin. But she still never saw Cinder as her mother.

Ruby retreated. While she wasn't happy about not being the one to take down her target, she was satisfied that the man was finally dead. He had caused too much trouble for her Queen, and she was all too glad to finally have a chance to eliminate this target.

Not that she could get the satisfaction. She would have enjoyed taking him to the Room. The Room was a place where Ruby conducted her torture. It was there that she had discovered that the average adult human body held about one and a fifth gallons of blood, the human skull could only withstand five hundred twenty pounds before shattering, and that the body can last only twenty five minutes without oxygen.

Years earlier...

Ruby was in the Room. She was 'interrogating' a merc that was hired out to kill her Queen. The woman had disappointedly lasted only twenty minutes before cracking. She wanted to break her record of seven hours.

Nevertheless, Ruby had eliminated the person who had hired her victim. Shame that that man was the former headmaster at Beacon academy. Now some asshole named Ozpin was going to take over.

"My Queen," Ruby bowed before Cinder, "The target has been eliminated"

Cinder winced at the fact that Ruby didn't see her as family, only as a superior. She had long gotten over the depression of not having her chance at a second family, but that still didn't make the hurt less worse. "I see…" She started, "I'm surprised, my gem, I thought you would have wanted to, ahem, 'interrogate' him for some additional information."

"Unfortunately, my Queen," Ruby said, trying not to disappoint her Queen, "I was not the one who eliminated him." Cinder raised an eyebrow, "It was the faunus girl he was trying to have his way with."

"I see." Cinder continued, "Well, we have some plans for the future." Ruby looked up, rather slowly so as to not anger her Queen, not that it has ever happened before, "Our operation requires that we get some information in the Cross Continental Transit system." Ruby raised an eyebrow, "I'll be needing you to infiltrate Beacon academy."

To be continued...

AN: So… I'm a RWBY fan apparently. So, yeah. Typical Ruby on the dark side of things type of AU. Oh, and I didn't pull those calculations out of my ass or anything, I actually looked them up. I like doing things for the art.

And I figured that if their stories are different, so would their weapons. So try to bare with me on altered weaponry. The glaive works similarly to Crescent Rose, only that, when in assault rifle mode, the blade is on the end, allowing for a mix of melee and long range combat. If you want a visual image, imagine the MA5B from Halo, just with a blade of sorts on the end. It can also become a greatsword. And the target? - Think a guy who raped his best friend's girlfriend in the pool of his allies' blood, and aforementioned best friend cut off his arm and got his eye gouged out…

I'm talking about Griffith from Berserk. Pre-Eclipse, of course.

So… uh fun facts, fun facts… Hmm, oh, uh well, the original plan was to have her be a common thief who ran into Cinder, I decided to scrap that, and make her into Cinder's assassin, rather similar to Neo for Roman if you want a comparison. Ruby was five when she encountered Cinder in this AU, so that means Yang would have to have been seven when her chapter starts.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, this is a fan-made story, please support the official source.