Chapter 1 - Darkness

She collapsed to her knees in the middle of the clearing as the grief overtook her body. As the despair encroached ever more into her mind, she couldn't stop the tears from falling. She had come here in another vain attempt to escape from her demons, hoping to emulate the quiet calm of the forest inside her own mind. But her own mind was a relentless traitor, and the more she tried to shift her focus away from her grief, the more ferocious her demons became. Her grief quickly shifted to guilt, then rage, sorrow, heartache, remorse. The emotions flowed over her in waves, retreating and advancing from the edge of her psyche in a coordinated assault. A chill ran through her as a gust of wind blew through the clearing, the movement of the leaves the only sound to break the stillness of the night.

Until a sharp crack echoed through the night. In an instant, all of her emotions were replaced with one far more primal.

Fear.

She quickly realised that in fleeing from her own mind, she had placed herself in a very dangerous situation. Because she wasn't alone.

Her heart began pounding in her chest as her fear consumed her. She heard a second crack, followed by a long, low growl coming from the edge of the clearing behind her.

A Grimm.

She had made it too easy for the Grimm, which was no doubt attracted by the veritable buffet of negative emotions she was giving off. But she didn't move. She couldn't move. Her fear became even more powerful, making her limbs feel as if they were filled with lead and covering her body in pins and needles. This seemed to enrage the monster, the negativity coming from the weak, lonely girl becoming too much for it to bear. It charged towards her, racing forward on all fours in an awkward galloping motion. The pounding of its limbs against the ground became louder and louder until she couldn't hear her own heartbeat. The Grimm roared as it reached out to her with a grizzly hand and she closed her eyes. All at once her emotions disappeared, leaving her mind clear and calm.

The Grimm's gigantic hand crashed forward into the ground, sending dirt and grass flying and leaving an impressive crater in its wake. It's wild attack sent it rolling through the clearing, but it quickly corrected itself and pushed its way back onto all fours, roaring again as it realised it had been unsuccessful in killing its prey. It whipped its head back and forth wildly, having to rely on its poor eyesight now that the beacon of negativity that had attracted it here had suddenly disappeared. But as it began to move forward, strips of black began to float up and disappear into the night sky. The Grimm quickly realised that its arm began to dissipate from the elbow down. It roared again, frantically searching for its target before spotting her standing a short distance away. The girl was a stark contrast to the small, cowering girl it had found crying in the clearing. She was smiling cockily, her oversized red scythe resting over her right shoulder.

Upon locating the girl, the Grimm roared again and began to charge as fast as its remaining three limbs allowed. The girl remained where she was, unfazed by the nightmarish creature barrelling towards her. When the Grimm finally reached her, she suddenly disappeared again, reappearing on the opposite side of the Grimm. More black dust was accompanied by another furious roar as another of the Grimm's limbs turned to dust, this time one of its legs. Left with only half its limbs, the Grimm could hardly stand, and moving at anything more than a snail's pace was out of the question.

The girl didn't wait for the Grimm to come to her this time. Instead, she raced towards the wounded beast, her speed increasing rapidly until she shot past like a bullet, removing the Grimm's remaining arm and with it, any threat the monster still posed. All it could do now was roar in anger at the girl as it lay on the ground, trying in vain to use the stubs of its limbs to lift itself up and continue attacking her. The girl pressed a button on her weapon, causing the scythe to fold up into the vague shape of a rifle. The girl trained her weapon on the Grimm's head as she slowly walked around its nearly limbless body, her cocky smile never once leaving her face. As soon as she reached its front, she pulled the trigger, silencing the beast and reducing the rest of its body to nothing but dust and ash.

As the girl stowed her weapon on her back and walked out of the clearing, she laughed softly to herself.

"Works every time".

It was a technique Ruby had been using on her hunts for a while now. It didn't eliminate all the work- the creature still needed to be nearby to sense the negativity she created - but it removed a lot of the tedious work and patience that was required when tracking Grimm. Ruby had never been a patient person, so any technique that could speed up the process was right up her alley! Of course, that didn't change the fact that producing that level of negativity meant revisiting some of her most traumatic experiences, but she didn't have to endure it long. The rush and clarity that came with combat always whisked those emotions back to the dark corners of her mind, where they were much easier to ignore. All in all, Ruby considered it an even trade. Most of the time.

After she had turned in the contract to the village warden and received her Lien, Ruby had changed out of her combat gear and cape and headed downstairs to the Inn's bar for a hot meal and a cold drink. As was her usual routine, she had chosen the most secluded part of the Inn to sit and eat her meal, in the hope of avoiding as much human contact as possible. Her current position in a dim corner at the back of the Inn also gave her the benefit of being able to see all the comings and goings in the small establishment. While she wasn't expecting any trouble - especially in such a small and isolated village such as this - old habits were hard to break. Namely, those developed during team RWBY's time in Atlas…

Drat…

So much for ignoring the dark corners of her mind. She quickly downed the rest of her drink in an attempt to stop the memories from fully forming in her mind's eye. The bitter alcohol scorched her throat and she gritted her teeth in discomfort, but it did its job in keeping the memories at bay, for now. She looked at the other two empty glasses at her table and frowned. Having grown up being constantly exposed to the alcoholism of her Uncle Qrow, she always limited her number of drinks to three. It was an arbitrary number that didn't have any reasoning behind it, but Ruby had yet to break her rule. She had always sworn she would never turn to alcohol to get by, but after the things she had seen… Well, everyone had their limits.

And with that, the memories began creeping into the forefront of her mind again. Ruby's frown worsened as she became frustrated. Usually, by this time of night, her memories had been safely locked away and she could spend her time planning the next village to make her way to. But tonight they persisted, and she was left desperately searching for a distraction.

She began listening in on other conversations in the small bar area of the Inn, hoping to find something that would derail her current train of thought. Soon enough, she heard what sounded like two girls that were involved in a very animated conversation. She quickly realised the two girls were sitting at the bar, and while their excitement was what had initially caught Ruby's attention, their topic of discussion was what kept it.

"You should've seen it, Sis! He must've killed, like, fifteen Beowolves all on his own! It was so awesome" The girl that was speaking was waving her arms around while she spoke, and Ruby smiled at her enthusiasm. She'd been the same way before she became a huntress. Well… before and after.

"Wow, fifteen Beowolves huh? Must've been one hell of a huntsman."

"Yeah. I mean, I've never seen a pro huntsman in action before, but he was something else!" The girl threw her arms into the air as if to emphasise how much 'something else' was.

"Well, Huntsman or not, I'm just glad you're ok," said the Sister. "But you do realise Mum isn't going to let you leave the village for like, a month, right?".

Her sister's statement did nothing to quell the girl's excitement. "Yeah, but it was totally worth it! He was just like one of those heroes out of those stories Mum used to read us when we were kids! Did you know he didn't even accept any payment? Crazy right!?"

This grabbed Ruby's attention. She had heard of a small Grimm attack at a nearby village that had been repelled with the assistance of a travelling huntsman, but this was an interesting development. Most Huntsman would at least stay and revel in the short-lived fame that saving a village brought them, but a Huntsman outright refusing payment was nigh unheard of. Ruby leaned in closer so she could hear the conversation better, resting her elbows on the table.

"He didn't ask for anything?"

"Nope," replied the girl. "Said he was only passing through because he was looking for someone and didn't want to lose the trail."

"His partner?" The Sister asked.

"Could be, but I think it's something much more romantic."

"Oooo. A long lost lover?"

"Yep!" The younger girl replied. She then leaned in towards her sister, and Ruby had to strain to hear her next words. "He asked a whole bunch of people if they'd seen a girl wearing a silver cape pass through town recently."

Ruby gasped at the girl's statement as a jolt of fear shot through her. Real fear this time, not the real-but-fake kind she used when hunting Grimm. Her hand instinctively reached for Crescent Rose, before she remembered she had left it in her room upstairs.

She was being hunted.

She had to get out of here. The village that had suffered the Grimm attack was only a day's travel from where she was staying, which meant that her pursuer could already be here!

Channelling her semblance, she raced through the bar towards the stairs, knocking over several chairs and tables in her panic. As she made her way up the stairs she heard the startled shouts of the other patrons at the freak gust of wind that had disturbed their night.

After fumbling for too long trying to get her key into the lock, Ruby finally made it inside the small room she was staying in. She frantically began throwing her possessions into her small travel pack, not stopping to figure out what was what. She had left her combat gear was still strewn across her bed, but Ruby definitely didn't have the time to go through the process of getting changed into it. Instead, it was roughly thrown into her pack with the rest of her possessions. She then moved to the door and paused, mentally making sure she hadn't left anything important behind. Once she had assured herself that she had grabbed all her possessions, she grabbed Crescent Rose and raced out of the room.

She hadn't given any thought to where she was going, only that she needed to put as much distance between the village and herself. Now that she knew someone was searching for a girl in a silver cape, she realised she had unwittingly left behind a trail of witnesses in her travels. While she generally minimised the amount of time she wore her combat gear in public, there were still plenty of people in the towns she had stayed in that would have seen her in her silver cape as she left for or returned from her hunts. Which meant that whoever was searching for her would be able to trace her right to this very Inn.

Thankfully she had already paid the Innkeep in advance for her lodgings, so once she made it down the stairs she made a beeline for the door, keeping her head down and trying not to draw too much attention to herself as she struggled to weave through the displaced tables and chairs without tripping over. Thankfully, most of the other patrons were still focused on trying to explain the freakish occurrence that had knocked over half of the tables and chairs in the bar.

As she stepped through the door and into the night, she instantly felt less claustrophobic, taking a deep breath of the cool night air to calm her nerves. Thankfully, the Inn she had been staying at was very close to the Southeastern entrance of the villages, no doubt in an attempt to make itself one of the first things weary travellers saw when entering the town. Ruby turned and began walking swiftly towards the entrance, the large stone wall that made up the village's perimeter rising to her left.

"Ruby."

She froze mid-step, her heart in her mouth. She turned around slowly to face her pursuer.

"Jaune," she exclaimed softly. She was rooted in place, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. It had been a long time since she had seen her friend.

"Heya Ruby." Jaune was leaning against the wall of the Inn with his arms crossed over his chest, with one leg bent at the knee so his foot was resting against the wall. In her rush, Ruby had walked right past him without noticing.

They both stared at each other for a long while, before the silence finally got to Ruby. She reached up to scratch the back of her head, smiling awkwardly.

"Sooo… uhhh… Whatcha doing here?" she asked.

The question finally seemed to jolt Jaune out of his stupor, and he hurriedly stood up from the wall, awkwardly reaching to smooth over his pants before realising they were covered by armour. He instead opted for holding his hands behind his back.

"Oh, right!" He exclaimed. "Well… I've come to convince you to come back."

Ruby sighed. She had hoped this moment would never come. It was part of the reason she had spent the last three years travelling through the most remote areas of Remnant, knowing that she could never forget her old life, but trying all the same.

"Jaune, you know I can't."

"No Ruby, I don't," he replied, anger seeping into his voice. "Nobody knows why you won't come back, because you didn't even tell us why you left. You just disappeared without a trace! We wouldn't have even known you were alive if it weren't for Weiss!"

Ruby's heart stopped at the mention of her partner and she looked away to hide the tears that instantly began encroaching on her vision. She knew Jaune hadn't dropped her partner's name by accident. She had forgotten how mature and calculated he had become over the years.

She looked behind her towards the exit of the village, seriously contemplating using her semblance to make a quick escape. But before she could contemplate the idea any further, Jaune interrupted her.

"You can't run from this Ruby," he stated matter-of-factly, the anger now gone from his voice. She turned back toward him. "You might be faster than me, but I promise you I won't give up until you've come home."

She believed him. Something about the tone of his voice told her that no matter how far she ran to escape her past, Jaune would make sure that it always found her. That he would always find her.

She sighed, accepting her fate. "So what do we do now," she asked.

"Well, I have walking all day," replied Jaune. "And we just so happen to be next to the best place in town to find something to eat".

Ruby cracked a smile at that. "Well I did just eat, but I guess I could go for seconds."

Jaune laughed and opened the door to the Inn, before turning back to Ruby as he laid eyes on the chaos inside the Inn.

Ruby's eyebrows shot upwards as she remembered the damage she had left behind in her panic.

"I can explain!" She yelped.