RWBY: Destiny of Two

Chapter 1: Return of the Red Reaper

There was a tingle of energy.

It lingered over her skin and seeped into her mind. Ruby felt it course through her nervous system, but her body was still unconscious and cold. She tried to make a sound, but nothing came from her throat. Her eyelids were too heavy to lift, and her chest hurts. Ruby remained calm and tried to listen for signs of activity around her. She heard her own heartbeat echoing in her ears, but that was it.

Then, a foreign sound came into the mix. It sounded like soft and muffled voices. She tried to call out to whoever it was, but again, her mouth refused to move and her voice was still lost. The voices grew louder and more frantic, and the young huntress thought she heard what sounded like the booming of automatic gunfire. Something exploded nearby and the soft muffles became muffled shouting and cursing.

The commotion lasted only ten seconds before silence reigned once more. Ruby heard some metallic clanks come from somewhere in front of her. Suddenly, the weight that kept her down was lifted, and a blast of cool air rushed into her nostrils. Ruby's eyes flew open instantly and she drew a sharp breath of air as if she had just surfaced after a long dive. She fell forward when she tried to sit up, only to be held up by a man in dirty olive-coloured armour.

"She's alive alright," Ruby heard the man say while she had coughing fits.

"I guess our dear friend remembered correctly for once," another man in a similar outfit said. He knelt down and grabbed a small flashlight from his pocket. A gloved hand shot out and held Ruby's right eyelids open. She was too weak to struggle and her coughing made it hard for her to concentrate on pushing his hand away. He shone the flashlight at her eye, and moved on to the other. "No sign of head trauma."

"Can you walk, Miss Rose?" the man carrying Ruby asked.

Ruby gave one last cough and resisted the itch that still burned in her throat. The other man took out a water bottle from his bag and brought it close to her. He tipped the bottle and water flowed out into her open mouth. Some of it spilled onto the floor and her clothes, but it did not matter to her. It helped calm her throat and while the itch was still there, it was not as bad as it was a few seconds ago. After handing the water bottle back, Ruby eased herself and gestured for the man to let her stand up straight. He nodded and helped her stand up. But once he let go of her, her legs gave out and she collapsed with a surprised yelp. Fortunately, the other man was there to make sure she did not hit the floor.

"She's gonna need physiotherapy when we get back," he said.

"Great, more dead weight," the other man muttered. He hefted her up and carried her bridal style. It elicited a blush from her, but the man was too busy to notice it. "What now, Collin?"

Collin unholstered a revolver and pressed a button at the side of his helmet. "Thunderbird One, this is Striker Two. We have the package and are ready for extraction."

While Ruby could not hear who was at the other end of the communications line, she saw their faces curl into a look of concern. After a while she heard him say 'roger that' and looked at her.

"Our ride's a little busy with a Nevermore flock and a Beowolf pack is headed our way. Looks like we'll be waiting it out for a bit. C'mon."

Whoever the man was, he had a lot of upper body strength. As they ran through the broken hallway, he did not seem to break a sweat. The entire place looked like Mountain Glenn all over again. Concrete pieces littered the floor and fissures in the wall exposed decaying wires. The ceiling lights were non-functional, but the two men had helmet-mounted flashlights to light up the dark corridors. The sound of their boots crunching on concrete and brick pieces echoed throughout the place.

They entered a large atrium where a group of people in similar olive-green armour were gathered. Among them were some casually-dressed people whom Ruby assumed were huntsmen and huntresses. Purple light from the moon flooded the atrium, and under the baleful light, she managed to catch a glimpse of a tattered Atlas banner hanging on a wall nearby. The man put her down on the floor and leaned her against a dried up fountain. He knelt down and placed a familiar object on her lap.

"I've been told to give you this, Miss Rose. Maybe you'll remember your old strength better," he said with a smile.

Ruby managed a weak smile before he stood up and unslung his assault rifle. While he went to address the rest of the team, Ruby felt elated at seeing Crescent Rose again. It was the same as the last time she had seen it except for a few rust spots here and there. She scowled. Her dear baby would need a good cleanup once they get out from whatever mess they were in. Again, she tried to move her hand to grab Crescent Rose, but only managed to lift her fingers. It was a start at least.

"So what's the holdup, El-Tee Roland?" a huntress with cropped blue hair asked with a husky voice. She blew a bubblegum bubble, popped it, and withdrew it back into her mouth. "Where's our ride?"

"Nevermores," Roland replied. "And we have a pack of Beowolves headed our way."

The huntress grinned and planted her warhammer on the floor and cracked it. "About damn time too. I was itching to give these bastards a good ass whooping."

"How large a pack are we talking about?" a huntsman asked.

"No idea, but why drizzle when you can rain, right?" Roland answered. He took out a metal cigarette case and retrieved a cigarette stick from it. "I want the entrance and windows covered. One more thing, Miss Sapphire, no heroics," he said as he turned to look at the blue-haired girl.

"Pssh." Sapphire waved at Roland dismissively. "Believe me, El Tee, we people of Remnant are all about heroics. Even the venerable Pyrrha Nikos wasn't afraid to go all out."

Ruby raised an eyebrow. That was a name she had not heard in a very long while.

"And she's dead," Roland said with a neutral expression. It elicited scowls from the huntsman and huntresses, but the lieutenant seemed unconcerned. "If the story about her was true, then she made the fatal mistake of attempting to take on a superior enemy alone. Strength in numbers, kid. Don't forget."

While the rest of the group went to cover up the windows and set up weapons by the entrance of the building, Collin approached Ruby and knelt down next to her. She smiled at him and he returned it with a weak smile. "It's going to take a while for you to recover, but I have a temporary solution. We'll need all the help we can get."

He grabbed an unrecognisable device and a small green bottle from his first aid kit. Ruby watched as Collin opened the bottle and screwed it onto the device. Pressing the tapered end of the device onto Ruby's forearm. The young huntress closed her eyes in anticipation of pain. The medic pulled the trigger. There was a loud 'snap' and a 'pop', and she felt a mild sting on her skin. Her eyes opened again when Collin removed the device and put a band aid on the area where the injector was.

"I gave you a muscular regeneration shot. It'll give you your strength back, but the effects are only temporary. You still need physiotherapy once we return to Hunter Base," Collin explained while placing a hand on her shoulder. "Give it a minute."

Ruby nodded her head. After Collin went to rejoin with the rest of the group, she decided to start with moving her fingers again. To her awe and surprise, they moved like as if they were not tied to bricks. She wiggled them and did some finger gestures with ease. Soon, Ruby felt tightening in her muscles. It was not debilitating nor was it suffocating her, but it made her felt good, like she had just done some exercise.

She picked herself up from the floor and grabbed Crescent Rose. With a flick of the hand, she unleashed its scythe form. A knowing smile appeared on her face, and it became a grin as she caressed her weapon.

"Oh how I miss you," she cooed in a hoarse voice. She cleared her throat and sighed. "I sound like a frog."

"If you're a frog, then you must be a damn old one, Lady Rose," said Sapphire while walking towards Ruby.

She frowned. "What's that supposed to mean? I'm only 17."

"Yeah, you are, but you've been in stasis for a hundred years," Sapphire said with a grin. "The name's Sapphire Bronte from the Kingdom of –"

"WAIT!" Ruby exclaimed. She held up her hand and stopped Sapphire. "What do you mean 'a hundred years'?"

"I thought you knew," Sapphire muttered while rubbing the back of her head.

"I don't think she has a clock to tell her she's been asleep for that long, dumb-dumb," said a particularly large and tall hunter. He thumped Sapphire's head playfully, causing her to wince. "I apologise for Sapphire's lack of common sense. But she's right, Lady Rose, it has been a hundred years," he said in a reverent tone.

"Um...okay?" Ruby was at a loss for words when she saw him kneel like as if he was kneeling before royalty. "Look, I don't wanna sound disrespectful and all, but...uh...why're you kneeling?"

"They think you're some important person, Miss Rose," Roland called out from the entrance.

"Bu...wha? I don't...huh?"

Nobody could give her an answer as to why, because before Sapphire could help explain, one of the machine gunners posted by the entrance had started firing. The smell of gunpowder quickly filled the air, a smell that Ruby was unfamiliar with. She removed Crescent Rose's magazine and saw that it was empty. One of the hunters called out her name and tossed her an ammo belt filled with Dust rounds. She caught it and wore it around her waist. Ruby did a double take.

One of the Dust bullets had a purple glow to it. Now, Ruby knew that purple Dust had the property of gravity, but the subtle colour difference said otherwise. It was entirely purple instead of the usual purple and black. Not only that, whenever she touched it, whatever was inside the bullet seemed to react to her. A sharp pain stabbed at her head like a thousand knives poking at her.

Whatever that bullet was, it seemed dangerous. She quickly discarded it and ran to join the fight. Ruby exited just in time to see a pack of about a hundred beowolves and a dozen alphas charge the defenders. They looked mostly the same, except for some crystals growing out of their backs. The red glow that was their eyes was replaced by a purple one, the same purple she saw in the bullet earlier.

The hunters and huntresses – a total of 6 of them – had rushed forward to engage the Grimm in close combat. The rest of the fighters stayed back and fired their machine guns, assault rifles, and anti-materiel rifles. Ruby looked at Crescent Rose again and took a deep breath before letting it out with a sigh.

"Let's do this," she whispered.

Activating her Semblance, Ruby dashed forward in a flurry of rose petals. The first beowolf that came into contact with her got completely blindsided. She rammed into it and launched it backwards into another beowolf. Without waiting for the two to recover, Ruby leapt forward and brought her scythe down on their necks, separating their heads from their bodies. Not letting up, she immediately directed her attention towards two more beowolves rushing at her with bloody fangs bared.

Ruby spun Crescent Rose above her head and knocked one of them that pounced at her. Its comrade took the lead and jumped. She did an upper strike with her weapon and embedded the scythe's tip deep into the beowolf's chin. Directing her aura to her weapon arm, Ruby flung the Grimm away with such force that it bifurcated its jaw. It was about to slam into an alpha when the latter just batted it away. One tried to ambush her from behind, but Ruby ducked and thrust Crescent Rose at it just as it sailed over her head. In rapid succession, the young huntress pulled the trigger and sent it flying into the air.

Chancing a glance, she saw Sapphire happily smashing beowolf skulls, her cries of battle mixed in with laughter of slaughter. Despite her diminutive size, the blue-haired girl packed a lot of wallop. Her war hammer cracked bones and flattened heads like they were tomato. Even her left-handed punches sent beowolves reeling back into pain. She did not see an alpha running up from her right side, and she got pinned down by surprise. Ruby wasted no time dashing towards it and sliced its back. It yelped in pain, and while its grip on Sapphire loosened, she drove the top of her hammer into its face and shattered its head.

"My hero," she said jokingly and gave Ruby a wink.

Ruby blushed at the compliment. It seemed almost too easy that she was sure that Sapphire could easily save herself. The alphas posed little challenge to the group as one-by-one, their numbers whittled under huntsman attacks and gunfire. Even those that attempted to charge at the gunners were quickly cut down. However, things took an unexpected turn when one of the alphas opened its maw, the crystals on its back glowed brightly, and fired purple crystals from its mouth. Ruby was dumbstruck. There was no way any regular Grimm could do that. The crystals peppered one of the machine gunners in the neck and face, killing the poor man instantly. He fell backwards limply.

It struck her odd as well. Did they not have aura? If they did, it should have protected them from the crystals. More questions surfaced in her mind, but Ruby banished them. They were in the thick of battle right now. Questions can come later. She saw one alpha leading a group away from the main horde and they were running outside the peripheral vision of the gunners. Ruby knew instantly what they were up to. She rushed them while avoiding a slew of beowolf attacks and pounces. Once she broke free of the melee, Ruby jumped and fired Crescent Rose behind her. The recoil shot her up and towards the splinter group. She raised her weapon and swung at the alpha beowolf. However, it saw her coming and dodged underneath her scythe. Landing some distance away from the pack, Ruby dashed back at them and cut a beowolf down. The rest quickly turned on her.

They leapt at her all at once, but Ruby zigzagged between them while cutting their bodies and heads in a blast of rose petals. The alpha roared a challenge at her. She gritted her teeth and swung. It parried her strikes in an almost human-like manner, as if it was a trained fighter. A single punch from it knocked Ruby off balance, and without letting up, the alpha swung its claws rapidly at her. She managed to block a few strikes until one of them pushed her onto the ground. Her aura flared.

There was a blue glint in the sky, and it was directly above the alpha beowolf. It dove down like an eagle, and Ruby saw who it was. Sapphire had her hammer raised behind her head, the hammerhead crackled with blue-white lightning. Reacting quickly, Ruby rolled out of the way just in time to dodge a claw strike. A few seconds later, the beowolf found itself sent up into the air with electricity coursing through it. Sapphire slammed the ground so hard it cratered and threw up a dense cloud of sand and dust. Ruby saw her chance to deal a strike, and she leapt upwards and slammed the alpha down where Sapphire waited with an anticipating grin. Right before it could hit the ground, she bashed it hard enough that it flew over a cliff not far from where they were.

"If I hadn't known better, I'd say you might be Nora in disguise," Ruby said when she landed.

"Nora...you mean Lady Nora Valkyrie?" Sapphire asked while hefting her hammer casually.

"Yep!" Ruby nodded happily. "Is she alive?"

Sapphire shook her head. "She died of old age some 20 years ago. Lived a long life, bless her."

"Oh, I see," said a crestfallen Ruby.

Sapphire placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled. "I heard from my mom that she spoke very highly of you. You can't imagine how much hope she had in her, believing that you were always alive. Her dying wish was to see you return home safely."

Wherever home was. To Ruby's comfort, at least Nora had lived in relative safety. Ruby blinked rapidly and wiped some tears from her eyes. She took notice of the hammer while doing so. "That hammer, it's not Magnhild, is it?" she asked.

"Nope. This is Raigo, but you can call it Daemonhammer. You won't be wrong to say that I took many inspirations from Lady Valkyrie. Even my semblance has something to do with lightning and thunder," Sapphire explained.

Ruby looked behind Sapphire and saw that the group was busy cleaning up the last of the beowolves. She then returned the attention to the huntress before her. "I noticed you don't actually channel lightning through your body."

"Obvious statement of the century, Lady Rose." Sapphire said with a smile. "I do have the ability to generate lightning and channel it through Raigo though. No Dust required."

A loud roar could be heard coming from somewhere by the cliff. When Ruby went to investigate, an aircraft rose up and surprised her. Its twin engines flared as it sped towards the group. It seemed to be in good condition despite a giant Nevermore feather piercing its side. The two rejoined the rest of the group just in time to see the aircraft's ramp open up. Two medics emerged with two body bags, each carrying one. The interior of the aircraft was dark, but Ruby noticed there was a silhouette of a person in it. As the person stepped out from the aircraft and into the purple glow of the moon, Ruby's jaw dropped. Almost instantly, her surprise turned into one of recognition and happiness. The other person was calm and collected, but his smile was unmistakable.

"Uncle Qrow!" Ruby cried out

"Hey, kid, long time no see," he replied with a casual wave.

She ran up to him and hugged him so tightly that Qrow had to wrench her free. "How? How is it that you're still alive?"

"Long story, but I don't wanna bore you with the details right now. So here's the short and sweet version: Warp fuckery."

"What?" Ruby cocked her head.

"I'll explain more when we get back to Terminus City." He turned to look at the soldiers standing by the entrance. "It's what brought them here too," Qrow muttered. While Qrow was examining them, Ruby noticed something wrong with his eyes.

Instead of the usual red that she was familiar with, it was tinged with purple. He even wore a long-sleeved shirt, something her uncle would loathe under normal circumstances. Even with the sleeves covering his arms, Ruby noticed a purple glow coming from his right arm. She did not manage to ask him about it as he had disembarked to talk with Lieutenant Roland. A few of the hunters stepped into the aircraft, and Sapphire beckoned Ruby to join them.

This aircraft looked nothing like the Bullhead. It was larger, rather square-ish, and frankly, quite unsightly. But the engines were far quieter, and the interior was very spacious. It could easily fit twenty well-equipped huntsmen, and maybe even two Paladins. The pilots broke and removed the feather before welding the gash with plasma torches. It was a crude repair, but it did its job.

"Not bad for your first fight in a hundred years eh," a huntress said as she looked at Ruby.

Ruby nodded shyly and sighed. The weakness of the body had returned now that the drug had worn off. She became lethargic, though not as bad as it was before. Her aura had restored some of her natural strength, but it was not enough for her to walk about freely. Soon, fatigue took over, and Ruby's eyelids closed shut. She did not feel Qrow propping her up, the aircraft lifting off, and the hum of the engines.

All she felt, was total darkness.

A/N: Having a very free day does wonders for creativity, if only I stopped trying to play Dawn of War every time I get the chance! As for responses for some comments I received, funny that you two should mention Breath of the Wild, cos I assure you its total coincidence. I never even followed the game xD

Anyway, I appreciate the comments. Keep them coming, I'd love to hear more from my readers, be it suggestions or critiques.