Vytal, these kingdoms survived the Great Wars, the Faunus Rights Revolution, and God knows how many Grimm. But when Ruby Rose went after the Schnee Dust Company, she inflicted more damage than all of the wars and Grimm combined.
And it all started with a gun. A gun, whose barrel was pointed directly at Ruby's skull. And Ruby looked right back at the weapon, her eyes full of fear and anger.
Everything was in slow motion as Ruby saw the owner of the gun pull back the hammer, readying the gun to be fired. Ruby wanted to move, to grab the gun, to do something. But she couldn't will herself to move. So she just braced herself for the inevitable. She braced herself for the loud gunshot, and the bullet that would follow it. She braced herself for death.
But when the shot came, death did not follow. The bullet impacted Ruby's head, and she felt it tear through her. But when she landed on her back, she was still breathing. Ruby felt the blood slowly moving down her face, as she laid quietly on the hard, cold floor.
Ruby watched the room, watching her assailant violently toss her things around the room, pouring gasoline all over the floor of her dorm before striking a match and letting it fall to the floor. The gasoline quickly lit up, allowing the fire to spread across the room, consuming the paper that was now spread across the room, as well as Ruby's binder, which had been dropped upon her arrival.
Ruby closed her eyes, waiting for the fire to consume her, and end her pain. But when she opened them, she saw that the fire had touched every inch of the room, excluding the area where she laid. Some of the fire had gone out, but it left indications of where it had been in the form of scorch marks. Her bunk bed had fallen, the rope suspending it in the air had been burnt and snapped, smashing the bed below it. Yang's bed still stood on top of Blake's, but was burning, and was probably about to collapse at any moment.
Ruby let her heavy eyelids close one final time as she awaited her inevitable demise.
Jaune sprinted back to his dorm, keeping his eyes on the smoke filled sky, and the flames that licked the side of the building. Normally, Jaune wouldn't have given a fire in the dorms a second thought, but this was the biggest fire they had yet. And it was seemingly in RWBY's dorm. He had only really seen Ruby all day, and that was when she was on her way back to the dorms. And she had told him that she would meet his team and the remainder of her own in the library.
But she didn't show. Jaune had been sent to check on her when he saw the fire, and somehow he knew. He knew she was in there.
He immediately sprinted into the building, dashing up the stairs to his floor. He quickly ran through the smoky hallway, using his hoodie to cover his nose and mouth.
Jaune was not prepared for what he saw when he kicked down RWBY's door: Ruby was laying on the floor, in a pool of her own blood. There was a large wound on the side of her head, and the fire surrounded her, engulfing the room, which was more or less destroyed. His eyes widened as soon as he realized that Weiss must have had some sort of explosive dust in the room that was due to explode at any second.
He quickly grabbed Ruby, not thinking for a second that she might have been killed. He dragged her out of the room, and tossed her onto his shoulder, sprinting back out the way he came. Jaune made it halfway back down the stairs before a support beam collapsed above his head, causing a large amount of rubble to obstruct the door.
Jaune quickly turned around, running to the nearest hallway. He didn't like his current idea, but it was the only way he was going to make it out alive.
He scanned the hallway as he ran down it, looking for the nearest window. There was one at the end of the hallway, so he kept running, having no thoughts of slowing down. As he approached the window, he quickly spun around, going out the window backwards. He used his large reservoir of aura to shield both Ruby and himself from the impact of the ground.
Jaune quickly scrambled to his feet, checking Ruby's pulse and breathing to make sure she was okay. And she was. More or less. There was ton of blood coming from her head, and it had ruined her school uniform.
Jaune gently picked Ruby back up, carrying her bridal style to the infirmary, where they quickly took her, carting her away to some back room. They kept him in the waiting room as they awaited the arrival of Glynda and Ozpin.
When the two teachers arrived, one was seemingly fuming, and the other showed no expression whatsoever.
"First," Glynda angrily said, "A fire starts in the dorm building, then, we have a student come into the infirmary with a bullet wound in their skull. Both of which seem to revolve around Team RWBY!"
Ozpin ignored her statement, approaching Jaune.
"Mister Arc." He said. "Would you care to shed some light on the subject?"
Jaune told Ozpin exactly what happened, excluding no details about the fire or the state in which he found Ruby.
And once he was finished, Ozpin walked off, through the same door that they took Ruby through.
It was several hours before Ozpin remerged, motioning for Jaune to follow him back through the sliding doors. Ozpin led him down a long, white hallway, passing by several closed doors, doctors and nurses before they stopped at one of the closed doors. Ozpin turned to Jaune before he opened the door.
"What you see in here stays in here." He said. "Understood?"
Jaune meekly nodded.
"You shall not tell a soul that Miss Rose is still alive, and you may not speak about it outside of these walls."
Jaune's eyes widened. "Why are you trusting me with this?" He asked.
"Because she requested to see you." Ozpin said.
The headmaster opened the door, and ushered Jaune in, closing the door behind the blonde boy.
The room that he had entered was mainly white with hints of polished wood along the walls, and a rolled up curtain pressed against the wall, hanging from the ceiling. The room was rather large for a one person room, so it seemed as though they had taken out the other beds to isolate Ruby. There were many plugs on the wall behind the bed that Ruby lay on.
And Ruby herself, she looked like hell.
There was gauze wrapped around her forehead, stained red by the amount of blood seeping through. And her eyes groggily watched him as he approached her. There were all kinds of tubes running to her, but it seemed as though she had tried to take them off. A breathing tube did not rest on her face, but rather around her neck. Despite the full bag of morphine running to her IV, Ruby looked to be in an immense amount of pain.
Jaune grabbed one of the many chairs that were scattered around the room and pulled it up next to the bed, sitting down beside her.
"Jaune…" She said, her voice scratchy and hoarse. "I need you to make a phone call for me."