Hey everyone! First, I want to apologize for taking so long with this. I had a lot of things planned out and three chapters pre-written in a notebook but I quickly got distracted with work, school, and other fandoms - such as the 100 and different ideas for different fandoms. I tried to get back into the swing of things, only to find that I couldn't. In the back of my mind, I took what idea I had for RoG: Reap and Sow and completely changed it. So my three chapters became completely irrelevant as I revamped the idea in my head.
Secondly: Yes, 'Reborn of Grimm: Reap and Sow' was initially inspired by 'The Red Queen' created by Dravyn LeCrux. The idea of Ruby like that excited me and the writing had me on the edge of my seat and trying to smother my smile so I didn't look crazy while in public. His sequel, 'The Red Queen: Crusades', was the same for me and I can't wait for the third installment. However, RoG is not a copy. I like what Dravyn did, he did great with his world building and showing the conflict within Ruby and the other characters, but I wasn't going to copy him. RoG is its own thing, and I refuse to copy anybody, at least knowingly.
Third: I didn't have a pairing in my original idea. But after I revamped my entire idea and storyline in my head somehow, pairings came of it. So this book's endgame is Ruby x Pyrrha. I don't know if it's going to stay like that but that's the end goal for right now. Also: Blake x Sun. Jaune x Yang. Cinder x Emerald. Ren x Nora.
Let's begin. I hope you enjoy.
Chapter One -
Her muscles were screaming. Her Aura was shattered. Cuts, bruises, and blood covered her entire body. Her clothes were destroyed; no more than rags that clung to her body by threads. Her right arm was the broken limb that she cradled close to her stomach, the white bone ripping out of her flesh. Her left eye was closed, blood leaking into it from the cut that went through her eyebrow. Crescent Rose dragged on the ground as Ruby tried to lift it with what little remaining strength she had. Her chin tilted up in defiance, a cracking mask of confidence in place to show that she wasn't lost to despair or beaten just yet.
Except she was surrounded. Ursai, Beowolves, Creepers, Nevermores, a Manticore, Deathstalkers, Boarbatusks, and Griffons, all salivating for her blood and flesh. They never stopped coming. For however long she'd been trying to defend herself, they never stopped coming out of the woodwork, demanding her corpse to be ripped apart.
Ruby moved slightly forward, barely dodging a Nevermore feather the size of her arm that nearly went through the top of her shoulder but ripped through the skin of her back and took more of her beloved cloak instead. Ruby gasped and stumbled, eyes watching the surrounding Grimm that didn't move except to make room for more arriving Grimm. Her cloak was practically gone now.
"COME ON!" Ruby screamed. Tears burned the back of her eyes and the confident mask she'd held on to slipped as they just stared at her and shuffled. No matter how many times the Grimm had tested her lacking defense, they still had yet to truly attack again for the last ten minutes. They should've rushed her by now. Her negative emotions were more than enough incentive to attack her. But they didn't and she was at the end of her rope. Especially now.
Fear. Despair. Defeat. Desperation. Misery. The utter pain and agony that assaulted her body. Every emotion on the negative side of the spectrum was a tornado swirling around her heart.
But worst of all was the gut wrenching betrayal that consumed her - consumed more than the total exhaustion that caused her grip on what was left of Crescent Rose to slacken and her knees to buckle. Her belly was a mess of cuts, bruises, and bloodstains, but the longest cut wasn't made by the Grimm. Ruby could still feel the cold steel of Weiss' rapier singing as it sliced open her flesh through her depleted Aura.
"WHY WON'T YOU FIGHT ME!?" Ruby screamed at the nonsensical Grimm. But it was a good thing, she supposed. Even if she dared not to hope, she only had to last until help got there. Until Uncle Qrow could get there…
Her screaming seemed to set two of them off. They rushed her and Ruby tiredly met them. Even as her muscles felt as if they were dying, she tiredly kicked Crescent Rose up and used the less-powerful-than-usual momentum to twist and perform a perfectly coordinated swing. Crescent Rose's broken blade ripped through the Creeper and Beowulf in a splash of blood. The act wasn't nearly as powerful or clean as it used to be. The swing caused Ruby to teeter off balance and fall onto the corpses of the fallen Grimm.
Ruby coughed and heaved, blood spilling out of her lips and onto the cold ground. Crescent Rose slipped from her fingers as she curled in on herself. She tried to breathe in, but her chest hurt. The tears behind her eyes let themselves out as she turned her head to the side, only to find herself staring out at a path behind her.
It's where they went, after driving a bullet through her leg and leaving her to die.
The plan to kill her, as far as Ruby could tell, wasn't premeditated. They took advantage of the dozens of Grimm that had been attracted to Ruby when Weiss and the other fourteen out of sixteen chosen had let out their frustrations that such a dolt could ever be as good as them. Pyrrha, the fifteenth chosen next to Ruby, wasn't part of the argument but she didn't do anything to stop it either. After Weiss used her rapier to try to slash open Ruby's stomach and one of the others shot Ruby's calf a few minutes after the battle started, Ruby watched over a dead Grimm as they retreated into the woods with an unconscious Pyrrha over their shoulder.
Black edged her vision now. Ruby could barely pick up her arms but she tried anyway. She managed to get to her knees, her breath wheezing and her stomach forcing the blood she tried to swallow back up her throat. As her stomach drove her blood past her lips and onto the ground, she could only lean and rest her forehead on the cool bone plating of one of the many dead Grimm she'd felled. She was so tired.
"Why won't you kill me?" Ruby cried, her voice but a hoarse whisper. She picked her head up, glaring at the hundreds of monsters that refused to move in on their weak prey. "TRY HARDER YOU FUCKING PIECES OF SHIT!"
Her father would have washed her mouth out with soap for saying that, if he ever heard her. Yang wouldn't have been much better in the past.
Not that Yang cared anymore now.
She and Blake had been distant since Ruby had been picked. Blake more so than Yang, but either way Ruby had somehow lost her sister in such a small manner. Yang wasn't sure if Ruby could handle Beacon. Yeah, she'd been invited to Beacon two years early, but was she really ready to be there? Blake had been jealous but Yang had lost faith in Ruby and her abilities - at least according to Yang during a private conversation with their father that Ruby had stumbled upon. Ruby's skills were better than most but Beacon was a class of its own. With all that was happening with the White Fang and Roman Torchwick, Yang thought that Ruby might not be able to handle it.
She didn't see the bullying that Ruby had to deal with every day, with Weiss' glares and the shoving in the hallways. The spitballs and the silent treatment that Blake couldn't help but give her. Cardin Winchester with his insults. Some girl she'd never met before knocking her books out of her hands as she was walking to class from lunch. Even Velvet gave her a glare or two in the hallways when she thought Ruby wasn't looking. Yang couldn't tell that the stress came from inside the halls of Beacon, instead of the outside.
Ozpin, though a genius in his own right as a Huntsman, didn't make things much better. He was blind to things in his school, and so were the other teachers. They did nothing, if they ever saw anything out of the ordinary. Oh, they were well aware of her stress and declining grades in everything except Combat, Work Shop, and Grimm Studies. They pulled her aside for the last couple of weeks, admonishing her about her declining performances in their classes and telling her that as a picked Intern, she was supposed to be the best and set an example for the rest of Beacon.
Ozpin was worse. Ruby set up the excursion for the sixteen to sharpen their skills. Outside of Vale's City limits where the Grimm were large in number and size, they'd be free to go all out with their weapons without fear of hurting one another or any property Professor Goodwitch would have to fix later. Needless to say, Ozpin loved the idea once Ruby explained why. ('Look how well that turned out,' Ruby thought as she stared down the hordes of Grimm.)
As they talked, Ruby brought her doubts to him, trusted him with her insecurities about why she was picked for the internship. Students had whispered about favoritism from Ozpin, especially after it was revealed that her Uncle Qrow would be mentoring the four freshmen the weeks before the Vytal Festival. He reassured her though. Called her skilled and talented. Driven and focused. That she was a star pupil and someone who would make a fine Huntress after more training. That her experience against people and Grimm were part of the reason she was invited into the school anyway.
'Part of the reason,' she had realized as she walked away. Curiosity reached her core and turned her right back around. Only to hear him call her a weapon. Some sword to sharpen for some big war she didn't even know about. Her Uncle Qrow was in on it, though he wasn't happy about it. He defended her in his conversation with Ozpin, but Ozpin was adamant. Ruby was going to be the turning point on the war with… Salem. Whoever that was. They were preparing her for a war she wasn't even sure she wanted a part in.
Ruby ran without caring if they heard her footsteps in the hallways and she avoided the Headmaster and her uncle for a week until the excursion.
"COME ON!" Ruby shouted again, breathing as deeply as she could. Her chest hurt and her voice was hoarse. "WHAT KIND OF PANSY-ASS GRIMM ARE YOU!? YOU FUCKERS SCARED OF A FIFTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL?! HUH! IS THAT IT?!"
Despair and defeat gave way to rage and defiance. She was tired. Hungry. Her body hurt and wounds of both the emotional and physical nature took their toll on her psyche. Ruby couldn't handle it anymore. After Beacon's betrayal and the hordes of Grimm that fought her to a standstill, she was done being sad. Done mourning things she used to have. Done with being so very weak.
Why did it have to be this way? She had only ever tried to help people, like her mother. And now, she couldn't even protect herself. Forget about protecting Remnant, she needed to save herself.
Tears still streaming down her cheeks, Ruby felt another burning behind her eyes. Power - unadulterated and raw filled her eyes. The Grimm bodies around her began to crumble into stone. Bone plating paled and red markings faded. What was intricate black fur, feathers, and scales turned into simple imitations of stone. Most of them were going to die.
As black completely overtook her vision, Ruby let out one last scream.
"Good morning, Vacou!" An annoyingly chipper voice greeted. "I'm Marcus Thatch."
"And I'm Sarah Levy," a female voice rang in. "And this is Vacou Radio…"
The rest of the dialogue tuned out of Ruby's head as she opened her eyes to a wooden roof. Her muscles were stiff and sore, bones cracking as she moved. Her back was cushioned and she was covered by a heavy blanket. She was also naked.
Ruby brought her hand to her chest to keep the blanket from falling off of her as she sat up. Warm candlelight lit up the room softly, casting deep shadows but it was enough light to see by. The room was sparse, only having a dresser on the wall opposite to her, a door next it, a window on her left wall, a bedside table which hosted the small Scroll-Radio to her right, and a chair that catty-cornered next to the bedside table. The Scroll-Radio seemed off, being smaller and practically holographic than what she was used to.
"... less than hospitable," the man on the radio continued. "The Grimm made for another try past Mountain Glenn but were quickly stopped by Atlas Military warships with help from Beacon Academy's finest students - including Vytal Festival finalist, Pyrrha Nikos."
"On a less positive note," the woman picked up with a sad tone of voice. "Roman Torchwick has, once again, escaped from Atlas custody. Reports from witnesses say that he had the help of Cinder Fall, who is responsible for many attacks against Vale for the last year. Please note that Emerald Sustrai and Mercury Black, Cinder Fall's known associates, are still at large. If you see them, please call the proper authorities."
Ruby looked at the radio in confusion. Year? Roman had only been a big problem for a few months. For as long as he'd been stealing Dust, right? Ruby didn't think that a couple Dust robberies warranted Atlas' attention, no matter how good of friends Ozpin and General Ironwood were.
And who was Cinder? Ruby frowned. The first time she met Roman, he was with a woman who was able to take on Professor Goodwitch before escaping. Then that girl at the Vytal Festival dance that Beacon hosted. That was right before Ruby was picked. Cinder Fall… Wasn't that the name of a Haven student?
Ruby rolled over to the edge of the bed, using the blanket as a over-sized towel as she stood. Her legs wobbled before buckling and sending her down to the floor. Her elbow hit the side of the bedside table, causing her to stifle a yelp and the Scroll-Radio to turn of as it fell to the floor.
Ruby tried to lift herself up on shaking arms when she spotted her arm. Her right arm. The one that was supposed to be broken but now seemed to be in perfect condition minus the numerous scars that stretched up past her elbow and bicep to her shoulder. The longest scar ran from her wrist to her elbow from where her ulna broke her skin, and it was surrounded by smaller scars.
Shakily, Ruby ran a finger down the scar. It was real. She felt it was real. Shivers wracked her body as the hair on her neck raised. It was sensitive, Ruby figured out. The nerves and tissue that made up the raised mess of flesh remembered the hurt and warned her body. She'd gotten plenty of scars during training but the after effects weren't this strong and the scars had faded over time.
Ruby suddenly scrambled, desperately trying to remove the blanket from the front of her body. She hit the bottom of the bed, sending a loud thump through the room. It went ignored as her she ripped the blanket from her stomach and saw the scar there. Perfectly horizontal, it was broken by her bellybutton. The flesh wasn't raised as much as the one on her arm was, as the cut wasn't as deep. If it was, her guts probably would have spilt out.
Her attention tore to her leg as she saw the bullet scar. It was a mess of tan against her pale skin. Other scars - claw and bite marks from the Grimm that had gotten a few good hits in - covered her body, healed but permanent. It wasn't some new cut her Aura could heal into nothing or wasn't able to. It looked like an old scar, her body already convinced that all the healing had been done; convinced that there isn't any need for her Aura to make the scars disappear.
All over her body were scars that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand straight up. Little and big, short and long, raised and faded. There was no shortage of the damaged tissue. Her hands roamed her back the best they could, her right hand coming into contact with a scar on her left shoulder that went from the top of her shoulder and curved down along her shoulder blade.
Her thighs held a set of claw marks that went from the top of her hip down to the outer side of her knee. Her right cheek had a small, jagged scar that started in the middle and reach for the corner of her mouth only to jerk back down and over her chin. Her left hand was a mess of cuts, no single scar standing out or completely on its own from the others; a net of scars. She felt rather than saw the scar that split her left eyebrow and ran halfway to her temple.
It rushed to her, right then: I'M ALIVE!
She survived! She wasn't dead! Ruby hugged herself tightly, tears running unabashedly down her cheeks. Somehow, she survived the hordes of Grimm. And the betrayal of the people she considered friends. Despite her wounds her betrayers and the Grimm had inflicted on her, and the emotional trauma that she had yet to fully acknowledge - she managed to survive everything thrown at her.
But… how? Uncle Qrow? Another professor? Maybe one of the others came back for her!
Ruby shook her head harshly, once again covering herself with the blanket and wrapped her arm across her eyes. The pressure of her arm countered the less-than-joyous tears as they tried to push past her eyelids. Despite the hope that had overtaken her for a moment, she doubted that any one of those no-good backstabbers would have gone back for her. With as many Grimm as there were, it was a suicide mission for any of them to come back - if any of them regretted leaving her there to die.
A squeaking sound brought Ruby looking towards the door as instincts took over and she rolled into a crouch. Her hand automatically reached to her back, where she usually kept Crescent Rose only to grab empty air. Silver irises met a pair of brown wide eyes belonging to a small child Ruby had never seen before. The little boy's pajamas was a sleeveless t-shirt and a pair of bottoms with matching prints of sharks. His brown hair was a mess, like he had just woken up, and his pale skin had lines on them from sleeping on crinkles - from clothes, blankets, or his pillow, Ruby didn't know.
After a second of watching her, Ruby smiled weakly and gave a small wave.
"Hey there," her voice croaked. Only now when she tried to speak did she feel the dryness in her throat. Like she hadn't drank anything in a couple hours.
The boy's eyes widened further before he sprinted out from the doorframe yelling at the top of his voice. "Mom! Mom! She's up, she's up! Mom!"
Ruby struggled to her feet, legs still shaking under her weight. She pushed on though, crawling over to the opposite wall and used it to hold herself up. Smells, pungent and sharp, made Ruby cringe back. She had no idea what they were, but it made her salivate. She wasn't hungry either, but she was practically drooling at the smell that wafted into her nose. Ruby ignored it and opened the door instead.
She was on an upper floor. A staircase that led down was to her left and the hallway was short. Four doors lined the right and a fifth door was at the end of the hall opposite to her. The third door was open and light spilled out into the hallway. Before she could even step out of the doorframe, a woman was running out of the open room as she put on a robe.
The brunette woman stopped with wide eyes and her hands slowed as she tied her robe closed. The woman had skin the color of mocha, her green eyes zipping over Ruby's features and her cat ears twitched.
Ruby's eyes scrunched in confusion.
"Who are you?" Ruby rasped.