The Darkest Shade of Red

Pt. II

You Will Be My Enemy

A Wreath Built of Withered Roses

Pt. I

"I will be your deadman,
with nothing but this blood on my hands.
Stuck in your wonderland,
I want to make you bleed just like me.
So make me your deadman,
With only poison in my veins.
Stuck in your wonderland,
Stagnated by the passivity,
I'm going to make you bleed like me."

-DWB feat. Fade "One Reason"

She was lost in the darkness. Nothing above her, nothing below her. An endless, starless night encompassing her entire being. She did not know how long she had been here, maybe she had been here forever. Floating in the black sea since the moment of her birth, and only now gained the ego to know where she was. She liked it here, in the void of nothing. Nothing to bring her pain, nothing to bring her hate. No light, no dark. No sadness, no happiness. Nothing. Ruby was at peace here, she took a deep breath and found she could not breathe, maybe she never could in the first place.

"Ruby..."

She opened her eyes at the sound of someone's voice. A familiar voice from so long ago that she could not place it. It called to her again and she turned her head to try and find its source. She looked all around for the source of the voice but found nothing but the endless void. Her name grew louder and louder in her mind until it was ringing in her ears, causing her to cease all her thoughts. She continued to search as her name became a scream in her ears, making her cry out in pain.

Finally, she found the owner of the voice. Standing before her in a bright circle of light was a young woman. She had a grey dress with a white blouse and wore black stockings with a bright green stripe going down the sides. Bright emerald eyes with freckles sprinkled her face. Bright orange hair with an off-centre bow finished the image of Penny Polendina. "Ruby!" she called out. The woman looked worried, scared something might happen to her. "Ruby! Please save me!" She stuck her hand out and reached out to her friend.

Ruby began to sprint towards her, desperate to save her friend. But no matter how quickly she ran, she could not get to her. Penny pleaded and begged for Ruby to come save her, but when Ruby finally made it to her, her body was cut. Long lines separated her limbs and sliced her torso in half. Red petals sprayed out of the wounds she had suffered and Penny fell to the ground in pieces. Ruby was too late; too slow to save her.

Behind Penny stood another one of her friends. A tall woman with deep crimson hair, with kind emerald eyes. She wore bronze armour over her legs and chest. Pyrrha reached out towards Ruby with fear in her eyes as she cried out in pain. "Ruby! Help me!" Quickly, Ruby tried to rush to her friend to save her from the fate she knew was coming, when something grabbed her ankle and tripped her to the ground. Looking down to see what caught her, Ruby saw Penny clutching her ankle with her one arm, pulling herself towards her.

"Ruby! Why didn't you save me..."

"Penny! Let go! I need to save Pyrrha!" But as she turned back to look at the Mistrali champion, an arrow came out from the black around them and struck her in the middle of her chest. Ruby watched as Pyrrha gasped for breath as she fell to her knees, clutching the arrow that took her life. Her green eyes met silver as more petals flowed from her chest, like a geyser that had just burst, coating the ground in crimson flowers.

"Why? Why didn't you save me, Ruby?" she asked as she began to crawl towards the fallen Rose. Penny continued to climb her body, asking the same question.

Why was she not fast enough to save her friends?

Suddenly, Ruby began to sink into the ground. The crimson petals turned into a sea of blood and bodies began to float to the top and limbs took a hold of her wherever they could get their hands on. She saw soldiers of all sides pushing through the thick soup of blood and bodies to cling to Ruby; hoping she could save them, all of them shouting at her to be saved. She felt nails dig into her skin as more and more people were climbing over each other to get to their saviour, but Ruby was getting overwhelmed, sinking further and further into the red sea.

"Save me!"

"Save me! Save me!"

"Please! Save me Ruby!"

There were too many, she could not save them all while saving herself. The water was coming up to her chest. She tried to break free but she was getting dragged down further and further. Someone called out her name and she looked up to see Weiss standing above her, reaching out to save her. "Weiss!" Ruby threw her arm out and tried to reach out to her friend. Weiss strained to reach for her, Ruby felt their fingertips brushing against each other, but a large, blood-soaked hand wrapped around her face and dragged her deep into the crimson.

The water rushed past her head and she could not breathe. Looking around, she saw thousands of people all swimming towards her, looking to be saved. She could not do this, there were just too many to be saved. She was not strong enough to save them all. She struggled and screamed against the hold of her dead captors as she tried to free herself. Strength, she needed more strength. Pushing and pulling, she drove a fist into the face of a faceless soldier, and he floated away from the horde sinking her, only to be replaced by two more, looking to her for life.

"Ruby..."

She looked around for the person who owned this new voice; she searched and found the Red Death standing across from her. While Ruby drowned, the Red Death stood on the bodies of hundreds of people. Her strength was unmatched by those that tried to cling to her for life. Ruby needed that strength, the strength to survive. Reaching out, Ruby tried to get some of that strength, just a little bit. The Red Death smiled a crimson smile as she lazily reached out to help her. "You can't save them, Ruby, they are already dead."

"How! How do I save them!" Ruby screamed out.

Ruby never got her answer. She continued to be dragged down into the depths of her crimson sea, where body after body was piled on top of her until there was no room to breathe. She struggled as a hand wrapped around her throat and began to choke the life out of her. Her chest burned for breath as she scratched at the arm that held her neck. Her lungs tried to force air from her closed throat, pain continued to build in her chest as the seconds ticked by until-

Ruby gasped as her eyes shot open and she was torn from her nightmare. She took a few seconds to look at her surroundings, to try and figure out where she was. It looked like a plain hospital room; she was on a plain bed with simple white sheets. Two chairs were sitting against the wall, unmoved and unused. As she caught her breath, she laid back down and pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes to try and centre herself before holding her breath for a count of five and letting it out slowly.

Slowly, Ruby tossed the sheets off her naked body and pushed herself to a sitting position and swung her legs over the side. The floor was cold against her bare feet as she leaned forward and rested her face in the palms of her hands and tried to calm her beating heart. The room was illuminated by the glow of dawn, filtered through simple blue curtains, making everything just bright enough to see everything around her plain room.

"The enemy is still out there..." came the familiar, gargled voice from in front of her. Slowly, Ruby lifted her head from her hands and saw the Red Death standing in front of her. She looked like she always had in her mind, her hair wet, her shirt covered in crimson as her cloak dripped heavy red petals as she stood there. "They, still live. She still lives." Ruby knew exactly who the Red Death was talking about. Shooting up to her feet, she pointed a finger at the crimson woman to make her point known.

"Don't you dare touch her!"

"She is the Enemy!"

"Weiss is not the enemy!" Ruby yelled at the Red Death, "She is my friend!"

"She tried to kill you!" The Red Death screamed back.

"Just leave me alone!" Ruby screamed out, she could feel her throat starting to hurt from the strain.

"The world will turn against you, Ruby! Everything I have done for you was for you and you alone! How many times would you have died if it weren't for me?"

"Shut up..."

"The first day you joined the army and your ship got blown out of the sky? I killed that trooper for you."

"Shut up."

"What about the bridge? When you were trying to get survivors from Vale across the river, but Atlas had it under their control. It was me who taught you how to kill them."

"Shut up!"

"YOU WILL LISTEN!" The Red Death screamed back and stood in front of Ruby. "The day will come where the people you call friends will betray you, and you will have no one else but me!"

"Leave me alone!" Ruby shut her eyes as she screamed her last command out. When she opened them, she was alone in her room. Quickly, she looked around to try and find where the Red Death went, but she was just gone. Ruby let out a deep sigh as she felt her knees began to shake, she could feel the tingling in the back of the throat as her stomach turned against her. Rushing to the door that led to the tiny bathroom in her hospital room, she dove for the toilet and emptied whatever was in her stomach into the shallow water.

Finished, Ruby wiped her mouth clean with the back of her arm as she weakly flushed the toilet. Gathering her strength, she pushed herself to her feet and held onto the sink for support as she began to run cold water to washed her face clear of vomit. Cupping the clear liquid in her hand, she brought it to her mouth to rinse the terrible aftertaste out and take a few sips to cool her sore throat. Looking up in the mirror above the sink, she took in her own body for the first time in a long while.

She looked at herself, really looked, and found herself afraid of what she had become. She had become thin, dangerously so. Ruby could make out the faint outline of her ribcage from her sides, the slight dip from her chest to her stomach. Her arms were beginning to lose their muscle mass, becoming skinnier and weaker. The injection site inside her right arm had continued to get worse and worse. The red infection lines spread further than they were the last time she really paid attention to them.

Looking at herself, she remembered when she was once full of smiles and love for the world. Now she had grown up, lived in the truth of the world, and found it out the hard way. Her love had dried up long ago, her happiness had died, and the warmth she wanted to give to everyone had chilled to ice. She once believed that everyone had good inside of them somewhere, but no longer. Gone was that girl; a tired and broken reflection stood in her place.

She looked at the dark circles under her eyes; she leaned in to get a good look at them when she saw a hand come up from behind her and grab her face. Blood dripped from her fingertips as her nails dug into her skin above her right eye. Before Ruby could do anything, the hand ripped her skin like paper, revealing the face under her skin, and an eye that was black and silver.

Gasping as she woke up again, a pair of hands were holding her down as she tried to right against it. "Rose! Take it easy! Breathe!" Ruby looked over and saw Midori was holding her down so she did not thrash around her bed anymore. Keeping their eyes connected, she willed herself to take deep breaths; pain filling her chest with each breath she took. "Easy does it...Easy does it..." Midori released his grip on her arms and began to rub her back, bringing air back into the lungs, easing the pain in her chest.

Finally, she laid back down on the bed and held her head with her hands. Her whole body throbbed painfully as she closed her eyes and just concentrated on breathing without pain. With a nod, Midori took his hands off of her and sat down back in his chair and watched her carefully as she finally got her bearings. She was in a hospital room, but the curtains were open and the sun was coming through, lighting everything up in the afternoon glow.

Looking down at her body, her entire torso was covered in bandages from her chest to her hips. She could see the stains of old blood and something else on the bandages around her side. Every breath she took sent flames through her lungs as she tried to understand what happened. "How are you feeling?" Midori's voice cut through her thoughts. Wincing, Ruby tried to sit up but only managed to lift herself up for a few seconds before giving up and laying back down.

"Everything hurts..."

"Sounds about right," Midori nodded as he pulled his chair closer to the bed and thumbed a switch on her bed. Slowly, she felt the bed slowly rise into a sitting position so she could talk to him. It still hurt, but at least she did not have to use her own, sore muscles to move herself. "What happened out there?"

Ruby blinked a few times as she tried to remember what she did. "What do you mean?" Ruby's voice cracked and she swallowed hard with a hand on her throat. Midori got up out of his seat and picked up a plastic cup that was sitting on the table and walked to the bathroom to fill it up as he explained to her.

"Well, after you ordered everyone to team up with the Atlesians to take down that giant thing, you went and did your hero thing, killed it, then ran into the desert. We found you the next day; half buried in sand, bleeding out, and poisoned." He returned with the cup and gently held it to her mouth. Taking short sips, she let the cold liquid cool her throat and fill her body with a chill that numbed the pain in her chest slightly. "You're lucky you had enough poison inside of your to make an anti-venom, else you probably wouldn't be here right now..."

Ruby looked down at herself and rubbed her side from where Tyrian's stinger had stabbed the Red Death, where it stabbed her. "We also found some other guy in the sand by you. He looked way worse than you did. What the hell happened out there, Rose?" Ruby took a deep breath as she remembered the fight with the scorpion faunus. The way he moved, how he talked to her, his attacks, and how the Red Death took control and fought him. The last dream was fresh in her mind; Ruby gently reached up and felt the skin around her right eye, still intact and unscared.

"He tried to kill me." Ruby finally spoke with a deep breath with a hitch as pain rocked her lungs. With another sip of water, she calmed her breathing down and adjusted herself in her bed before continuing. "He said I killed his daughter."

"Did you?"

"He said his daughter was the giant Grimm..."

Midori took a few moments to process this information, blinking a few times, opening his mouth then closing it and tilting his head to try and look at it from a new angle before speaking. "You mean the fucking spider thing?" Ruby just nodded as she took another sip of water. "What the actual fuck?"

"I don't know, he was weird..." she said with a shake of her head as she downed the rest of the water. "I kinda passed out after I fought him though..."

"Yeah, that was probably the poison. After we found you, were you delirious fighting us as we were trying to save you. Violet gave you some of your stimulants but I think it was too much and you stopped breathing before the ride came."

She looked over at him with a confused glance. "How did I make it here then?"

"That's when your friend Coco came in..." he sighed as he ran a hand through his dark blue hair. "We tried to keep you alive with chest compressions, but after a while, Violet called it. You were legally dead by her word. Then Coco decided she didn't like that so she slammed her fist into your chest. It worked, but she also broke four of your ribs..." Ruby nodded and rubbed her chest lightly bandages gently. That explained it. "Doctor says you'll be fine in a few days with your Aura. But that brings me to another point..."

Ruby looked over at him as he pushed himself to the edge of his seat and looked at her with a serious look on his face. "What were you thinking, taking on that spider thing by yourself and running off without anyone?" Ruby looked away from him and sighed deeply. "That was extremely dangerous and irresponsible of you. You could have died out there."

"You're not my dad," Ruby snapped at him with a glare from her silver eyes. Midori opened his mouth, but then closed it quickly with a quick sigh.

"No. I'm not. But that doesn't mean I don't care, and I'm not the only one." She saw him nod past her and Ruby looked over at the small bedside table that she had not noticed yet. "This 'I'm the only one who can do it!' mentality may sound cool in stories, but that's not how the world works. You can depend on people, on your friends, on us." As he spoke, Ruby studied the one gift that someone left for her. A small glass bowl sat on the table that was filled with water. Floating on the top was a flower that had a pink core that faded to red (like roses) at the tips.

A sharp pain rocked through her brain as she looked at the flower. For a split second, she thought she saw the Red Death hovering over her. She held her eyes closed as Midori continued on, saying that the mute woman and a man in a wheelchair came in yesterday to deliver the flower. Ruby knew it was Ren and Nora, probably the only people in the city who would do that for her. She flinched at his touch as he squeezed her shoulder as he got out of his seat and nodded at her.

"Take a few days, Rose. We're going to be stuck here for a while. Relax, you're safe here." Ruby nodded as she tried to get her breathing under control. When he left, Ruby clenched her eyes shut, trying to control herself. Her breathing became so erratic she heard the soft beeping of her heart rate monitor start to speed up at an alarming rate. Looking around her room for anything to help, she saw Crescent Rose sitting in the corner of her room.

Rushing out of her bed, she ran across the room and knocked over the IV that was connected in her arm. Picking the weapon up, she held it to her chest as she searched the room for the Red Death, but she did not show. With her weapon safely in her hands, her heart began to calm, the once erratic beeping of her monitor began to mellow out and resume to normalcy. With no sighting of anyone else in her room, she limped back to her bed, weapon in hand until she pulled the blanket back over her and took a painful deep breath.

With one last look over at the flower, it looked normal, harmless and perfectly fine. But for just a brief moment, her whole world looked red.

Red like roses.

A/N: Welcome back! Let's start the year off right with blood and angst!

Sorry for the extended leave of absence, but I figured I'd concentrate on the holidays and spending time with friends and family. But, I'm back and better than ever! Been watching the new season as it comes out for free RT members and I'm super excited to start implementing some of what we learned in the actual show. That being said, a large number of things are going to be way off canon (I.e, Raven for sure)

That being said, big thanks to StreetAngelJ for his continued work on making my story as best as it can be!

Do you like Destiny? Do you like my writing? If you answered yes to one of those, then come check out my Destiny fic, "Fragments of Light" featureing the guardians that me and my friends have made in the game.

As always, if you enjoyed, leave a Kudo! If you already have, leave a comment! I love reading them and I love replying to them. This story is also posted on , so if you read there as well, come show your support! I also have a Tumblr (AngryFaceWritings) Come say hi!

And as always, thank you for taking time out of your busy day to read my slice of madness!