The black haired woman entered into her own room, the largest within the castle.
It seemed to have been a throne room but was now full of damaged and broken chairs,mirrors and tons of completely useless items including various beauty products . And at the other way of the room a huge pile of treasure
All of them belong to a time that Big Bad once thought these items made her the most happy. But now she could never be happy, she usually spent her time in this room just brooding, sitting in the middle of the room.
Thinking endlessly about what type of mess her life had actually become and the fact that she would never get the chance to clear it up. She personally told the servants to never even clean up this room simply because it held the most memories for her.
It had become bitterly cold as well but she don't mind even if she was naked.
Her magical hood had always kept her warm.
She had given into her animal side a long time as the Big Bad Wolf and things like "clothes" was one of the first things she had felt like getting rid of. There were useless and once again a part of her life that would now rather forget.
Thousands upon thousands of dresses and suits each belong personally to her would be thrown in the nearest fireplace. She no longer cared for them
The hood though was only worthy piece of clothing to Big Bad, it was a truly magical item that always suited her needs.
Even though she was cursed to be a beast for both forms it had always there for her and if she lost it then she would remain walking around a giant black wolf for the rest of her lonely days.
The hood kept her at least on the surface as looking human and the curse never made it easier as she was the same no matter what.
No one wanted to see the woman beneath the terrifying giant creature that would take away young maidens in the middle of the night.
And usually they come back unharmed, some parts of a noble upbringing were still there with her. Ever since leaving or better yet escaping from the severance of the Evil Queen and her terrible army. And even she only felt to kill when need
This..."Belle" had already made her judgement against Big Bad and it was the fact that she was a cruel jailer.
What did she want her do...beg like some peasant!.
And yet she was beautiful in such a way that made herself feel even more ugly then even before, and the way she was around this woman was insane.
Even if she had one night with her then she would try to see past the monster.
Her old self would be wanting to "impress" this woman with gifts or showing herself off in the talents she had.
But that was useless since another part of her DON'T trust this woman one bit. Her beauty was a disguise to something else...something darker.
It had only been a few days and then she would leave and Big Bad would go back to way it was before. Back to the misery that was her life
Getting off the floor, Big Bad walked slowly toward the pile of treasure. All the thoughts in her head was of "Belle" as well as another young woman but that one had gotten away. She don't to even dwell on that woman or the fact that they shred a "friendship" and it just became to heart breaking to even think about. Besides for all she know that woman had forgotten her.
Now in a rather angry mood she grabbed the nearest thing off of the pile.
What Big Bad grabbed surprised her.
It was a crown with a name engraved in bold jewel crusted letters and it felt like a name Big Bad had rather wanted to forget...
RUBY
Belle was standing alone in a darkened room suddenly
She found herself dressed in a rather elegant yellow ball gown, she looked at her hands to see she had wearing long white gloves.
Most surprising of all was that her face was covered in a sapphire crusted mask. Suddenly all lights lid from all across the room
I GIVE YOU LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, YOUR GRAND HOSTESS FOR THIS EVENING...
THE QUEEN OF RED FOREST
The masked Belle suddenly turned at the name!, the first victim of the Big Bad Wolf here?...although she didn't really know where here was.
Coming down the large stone staircase was a tall woman in a blue colored man's uniform, her hair was tied into a bun but she noticed the color of it was all pure red. It seemed like it was not naturally the woman's hair's color. Like herself she too had been wearing a mask, this one had all sorts of jewels in it.
The Queen was walking directly toward Belle as music begin to play around them
Grabbing her arms, the Queen begin to her dance with Belle. She don't understand what was going on but she was...enjoying it.
"Why do you want to kill the Big Bad Wolf?" The Queen was direct and serious in her tone to Belle
"She's simply a monster, i know for a fact that she was the one who murdered you!" Belle answered
"You think that AM dead?, AHAHAHAHAHAHA"
Belle wasn't getting it
"Why the hell are laughing?, you must be the one that Snow White wants to avenge with her bounty!"
"DON'T YOU DARE SAY THAT NAME IN FRONT OF ME!" The Queen said in outburst, Belle seemed rather surprised by the way this dead woman was acting
The crowd around them seemed to entirely ignoring there conversion as the dancing want on
"She betrayed the trust that had with her. I was once her world and she THROW THAT right in my face.
You have only ONE view of the world don't you?" She raised one of Belle's arms to her own forehead
"...Let me guess, you want to marry someone, possibly he's the most handsome thing in the entire world right?"
"Right?" Since when this turn into a conversion about Belle's own lovelife with Gaston and how the hell did this Queen know?
"Well guess what...he's a total fucking MORON! and do you know why..."
It don't seemed to be much of a question to Belle "...why" her voice sounded smell somehow so as not to set The Queen off even further
"TRUE LOVE DOESN'T EXIST!, it never has and it never will.
Snow White was mine and she could never be bothered by that and AM the one that been paying for it.
Because in the end as I have learned, you're love will beg you not to turn into crap and I HATE CRAP!"
This Queen was ether humoring Belle in some weird twist way or she was completely honest in her talk of true love!? for which Belle was still weird out by.
Suddenly from out of nowhere a tall thin man holding a candlestick appeared behind the couple
"Queen Lucas, it is time for the main event" he said in deep accent,
Belle finally had a name to the rather punchable face of this so called "Queen"
"Thank you Lumiere" Ruby said as she take off once again toward the center of the large room
Belle noticed two other figures standing in the middle of the room. Both look like equally young woman and like Ruby taller in height.
As usual with this party they both masked. Although Belle couldn't make them out clearly enough
The music stopped as Ruby started her speech
"Ladies and Gentlemen, my dearest friends, we all know that this kingdom has suffered much due in part to a plague upon us all...
THAT plague being the Werewolves and what menace they all represent within our peaceful kingdom.
And so working with the help of Merlin, he has finally found a permanent and peaceful way to get rid of them"
At the snap of her fingers, one of the masked woman as if on cue had suddenly changed in a gigantic monstrous werewolf.
Belle panic as to found a way to stop it but she can't see any silver of any kind around the huge room. As the guests back away from the creature which strangely enough wasn't attacking anyone.
Ruby was calmly walking toward the Werewolf, it had a unusual color to as it was bright yellow fur and black spots all over.
Belle noticed the two of them seemed to know...each other? and then she stopped in her tracks with what she saw.
From out of Ruby's coat come a shining unusual object, it looked like something crafted from glass...
...A rose and yet it looked like she was also something made of water, since it seemed to be pulsing in her hand. Ruby was speaking calmly to the creature
"Don't worry dear sister, it wouldn't hurt you"
Just as she pricked the wolf's hand with the glass rose, suddenly a change come over the creature as it transformed back into the blonde woman from before. The masked guests around the two gasped in utter amazement. The shaking woman briefly looked up to see that the full moon was still out through one of the room's windows
Naked she picked up her own mask and still shaking from what happened talked directly to Queen Ruby
"Did i...hurt anyone?" Belle noticed the woman's voice sounded oddly...familiar
Ruby begin to laugh toward the woman and yet her voice was serious "NO, dear sister you will NEVER hurt anyone any more as long as we have this"
Showing the rose toward the sister as both of them begin to laugh
"How is this possible?" asked one of the guests as Ruby whistled loudly
Then the doors to another room opened and with all the help of the servants, were wheeling in a gigantic looking tree made it seemed of pure glass
"Ladies and Gentlemen...
I give you the most amazing thing in the entire world a tree of special type of roses that only grow in ONE area of the world...
A tree that me and Merlin found quite by accident and one that will NOW get rid of people becoming the menace..."
Again holding up the rose to her amazed guests, she want on
"THESE ROSES ARE THE CURE TO THE FINALLY END THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLVES FOREVER!"
Everyone was clapping around her including Belle, somehow the Queen of the Red Forest had found a peaceful way to take out monsters?
How had she nor the other monster hunters ever heard such of thing?
A thousand different questions were going Belle's head as what she just witnessed. Then stopped clapping as she saw Ruby's eyes underneath the mask...
They turned into the eyes of a wolf
"RUBY!" Belle cried out suddenly awakening on the bed
She was shaking all over, surely it was just a dream or insane nightmare. And yet here she was and the fact that the strange glass roses which in fact was this totally amazing werewolf cure may have been the ones that her own family was accused of stealing from the Big Bad Wolf?.
Yet why would she keep something that would other wise permanently end her curse?
Why had only she alone had remained as a wolf in both forms then?
Belle don't quite understand the dream or why the first victim as laughing her off as she was a bad joke?
And most of amazing of all the fact that somewhere out there was a SISTER to the Queen of the Red Forest and she was a WEREWOLF!.
Or the insane meaning behind the Queen's falling out with the great hero Snow White!?
It don't seemed to be like the rumors around what had happened between The Evil Queen and Snow White though. It was more born out of the "pain" that this Ruby felt like she was incredibly in love with her and that love was never returned.
Although Belle did hear whispers through out the land of Snow White deeply searching for someone with simple name of "Charming"?
But can't be that same female brute she saw within her dream...could it?
Belle did agree on one point that Ruby made within the dream and that was the fact that "True Love" was indeed shit. It was a worthless out dated concept by the reign of the insane Evil Queen and the fact that everyone of the greatest heroes in the land want to war with her.
She had already found it with Gaston and yet Ruby's rant against it was beginning to enter into Belle's mind. How the hell would two strongest bravest monster hunters in all the land ever live together under one roof and NOT kill each other?
Why the hell was she now questioning the idea that maybe Gaston WASN'T all he was cut out to be?
Why did she hate the fact that family would saying "I told so" about Gaston because of some mad woman?
The same mad woman who don't believe she was ever killed by the greatest of all werewolves?
"Thank you Lumiere" Calmly the Big Bad Wolf said at breakfast to the surprised look on Belle's face
She was very curious by Belle's look and begin to question as to why
"Food not to your liking?"
Suddenly snapping out of it, Belle quickly answered "Ummm no it's not that, it's just...i HEARD that name before"
"My servants have common enough names through the land...
Believe me when i tell you Lumiere puts on the best shows and yet he's too over the top for some people's liking"
She found it really odd that the Wolf was trying to lighten her mood in some dumb utter clumsy fashion such as insulting one of her servants?
Then again WHY THE HELL were those servants, shadows or otherwise NOT raising in revolt against the very woman who killed there Queen?
She may not have been up to the same level of Regina but it was pretty amazing to Belle that they would stick around with the Big Bad Wolf, a even bigger meaner female brute then there own queen. The same one who had found a small little detail like...
CURING WEREWOLVES!
"Really Belle is something bothering you?" she did sound worried about Belle
"...Whose Ruby?"
Big Bad slummed her raw piece of deer leg on to the dinner table hard.
The red hood flowing over her angry naked form as she walked toward Belle's side
She could easily tell she had done something amazingly awful to her host given the fact that tears were coming down the woman's face
"WHERE THE HELL DID YOU HEAR THAT NAME? " she shouted in total anger at her and Belle had to think of something quick...
"...Argabah years ago, she was the Queen of the Red Forest, a mighty empire..."
"It's a empire that deserved to DIE! and HER along with it" she snapped back
"There was a rumor within the city that they had found the cure for you're kind...
...A tree with a amazing and wonderful power" Belle couldn't believe she was smiling at all and yet it was further upsetting the Big Bad Wolf
"You forget dangerous and stupid, ahah for years i hated the very mention of her name.
SHE was playing with that tree as if it were a toy,
SHE taxed her people to point WHERE NONE OF THEM wanted to stay in the Red Forest ever again,
SHE was a dumb bitch who let her armies rot and
then they do went willingly over to the Evil Queen and never returned,
It was always HER that kept making mistakes and she NEVER said anything to make up for it..."
"You're making her out to be much worse then Regina!" Belle wasn't understand any of this
"SHE'S A FUCKING TYRANT!,
That's who this "Ruby" was and SHE was a vain woman who GET WHAT SHE DESERVED!"
Belle had to ask "What of her family?, there were rumors about her sister being a ...Werewolf"
Mixing in with her crying was a bitter laughter to the wolf's voice as she said to again
"AHAHAHA, that's best part of all, Ruby's sister forgives me and...
...and i can't bring myself to even forgive what the hell i DONE
...Or looking into someone like YOU who makes me wish bringing back some old feelings i wanted to stay buried FOREVER..."
Belle hadn't ever known of a werewolf actually feeling so guilty for a murder unless...
"LEAVE ME"
Belle don't understand at first until the woman before begin to violently break things on the dinner table "You're throwing me out?"
"DON'T DARE YOU RETURN HERE...
I SAID LEAVE ME"
Belle quickly run out of the castle as fast her legs could carry her.
All her questions only brought rage to the Beastly young woman who been her hostess. In so many ways she had can't understand...
The Big Bad Wolf was indeed Queen Ruby Lucas of the Red Forest herself, she had somehow made the entire kingdom to believe she had dead at the hands of a brutal monster...herself!.
When the reality was so much more crazy since it seems since that faithful night of the ball.
She had cause her kingdom to lose more and more trust with there own ruler. It was that kind insane amount of self loathing, that ANY identity would been better then the one, people would generally enjoy hating.
The Big Bad Wolf persona was the one thing she was comfortable with and NOT the self made "tyrant". Belle couldn't believe what kind of hell it must have been for her and yet SHE was the one that Snow White wanted to put a bounty on of a thousand pounds for.
Would this have been Belle if she hadn't choose the life of a monster hunter?
Her starting hate a former life she had made and cursing it as a separate person, it yet what started that was a very noble cause.
At first but now it seemed it was more like a curse then a cure and one that don't help the one werewolf who found it. Along with the help of the famed Merlin the magician of Camelot. Last she heard he was seen in the Land of the Raising Sun, home to the great Jade Empress.
He couldn't help the Big Bad Wolf and it seemed for good reason given that outburst back there
Just now she wanted anything to happen to her like something to get her mind off that right now like say the Evil Queen's army capturing her,
Although Regina was said to think of the monster hunters as "little people" and just generally ignored them as one of "Snow White's pets"
Or Captain Hook's gang coming to take her to Neverland
Or heading right to Camelot to talk to Merlin
Or just a...
"SWAMP TROLL!"
Swamp Trolls were the most terrible in all of the lands since the infamous use of them in the war.
They looked like fetal monstrous things kind like wolves except much bigger
They were as ugly and foul smelling as ever but they were known for being lethal in terms of speed, there bite was rather deadly to any other creature. Just not to humans though.
Maleficent was said to be rather fond of using them against Princess Aurora's kingdom.
Belle was smiling at least she would be distracted at the very least.
She loved fighting those things and...
Her weapons were back at her own house in Cocteau...
" ummmm oh shit" she suddenly realized
As one of its claws nearly missed her head as tried to dodge each of it deadly attacks, she was quick on her feet. Suddenly she saw a sharpened wooden stick near the wide river area of the far forest. She grabbed at the stick and begin to handled it as she would a sword
Growling at her Belle know she had to get the troll to expose it's chest and stab it in the heart...
Easier said then done when chew the tip off and with one claw grabbed hold of her neck "Oh your a smart one"
As it was about to bite into her, it suddenly growled in pain as Belle noticed a black shape from behind.
The Big Bad Wolf's claws were inside the back and riding it as the creature fought get her off.
It throw Belle into the river as the Swamp Troll focused on the threat. Swimming upward she surface to see the battle wasn't going well
Just as Belle had gotten out, the Big Bad as throw into the same river. Landing next to her, she still sounded mad
"You run right into a Swamp Troll!?"
"Aren't Werewolves and Swamp Trolls deadly enemies?" Belle yelled back just as the Troll launched itself at both of them.
Falling into the brook again, she saw something shining in the water, a silver knife.
Smiling widely she turned to see the wolf growling at the troll in early morning light. It run its claws right into the troll's chest but at the same time the troll bite right into her shoulder.
"NO!" she yelled again as she begin to stab randomly into the troll's back as the battle raged on...
She don't care for her own safety, she wanted Ruby to live
Finally she saw her moment as Ruby punched the troll hard enough to land on it's back and with knife in hand, jumped into the center of the huge creature...
Stabbing it right into the heart as it fell down dead.
Completely covered in the green blood of the creature, Belle begin to laugh and then turned to see the wolf yelling in pain
Running toward Ruby, she saw her on the ground trying vainly to get to her hood which had fallen into the side of the river.
Quickly grabbing it she throw the hood over Ruby as the wolf turned into her human form but she was crying out in pain.
"I forget those trolls are poisonous to Werewolves!" She suddenly realized
They made there way quickly back to the castle with Ruby still yelling madly in the horrible pain that going through her body.
Belle had no choice by sit her down within the entry hallway, she noticed all the shadowy servants had come to there mistress's aid, but still it felt useless
"I'll be dead before you even put...the first bandage on me!" Ruby shouted through it all "Tell me how to help you then?"
"I need the cure"
Suddenly Belle realized what she needed to do "Lumiere!, where is it?, where's the glass tree, show it before your Queen DIES!"
She noticed a shadow across one of the hall's lights running down toward a hallway near the entry way, Belle quickly followed as she kept up with the shadowy servant.
In a selfish way she know that allowing the Swamp Troll's poison to work it's way into Ruby's system and kill her. It would give her the 22 thousand pounds and the "tyrant" Queen of the Red Forest would be gone forever.
But the way Ruby talked about herself earlier don't rung false to Belle and it felt like she ever regret the problems she caused to her kingdom.
She wasn't the next Regina, a woman who was said to feel nothing and whose acts were truly monstrous.
Belle know Ruby had a lot of demons in her and she don't want to face any of them. The Big Bad Wolf was something she created out of pure shame and not power, the werewolf packs had run away from her? There most powerful and they were running away.
But it seemed Ruby allowed loneliness to be her own friend and anyone who loved her had seemingly forget her.
She hated the very idea of true love
Why through out this day was Belle feeling like she beginning to feel "sorry" for a monster, that she would basically kill herself.
Belle at the end of the new hallway a side door swing open
Going inside she gasped to see the thing she saw in her dream was standing before in all it's beautiful reality
Thousands upon thousands of glass roses were covering the tree and it filled the room with a unusual scent,
It smelled like a mixture of wolf bane and summer flowers,
she don't quite understand where the hell a thing like this come from, or why it would cure werewolves.
But she had little time to think of how this tree come to be and grabbed the lowest of the roses as the shadow of Lumiere waved back to her.
The feeling in her hand of this thing was stunning, it don't feel like glass but like she was holding something alive. It moved in her hand much like water but she wasn't to let go of it. Those things were in the shape of roses and yet it held something else as well.
But she can't dwell on this thing, just that it needed to save someone
"I have it, now what can i do?" Belle said directly
Ruby grabbed her hood around her chest and was pointing her clawed finger at her bare breast
"Put it right into my heart" she growl to Belle's shock
"That will kill you!"
"Nothing matters now but just please DO IT!" Ruby growl once again
Belle saw that green veins had been forming all over her human body. She know that Swamp Troll poison was worked slower and weaker when come to humans effected and the healers were very successful with getting rid of the poison
Werewolves were a different story given the fact that both saw themselves as natural enemies.
Ruby's body was indeed human on the surface and yet internally she was still a animal. The poison was attacking the wolf part of her body and winning
Closing her eyes Belle aimed the unusual rose right into Ruby's heart as she was about to scream
TOWN OF COCTEAU
"A Swamp Troll, i saw it's dead body near the river bank" cried out a little boy not far from Sir Gaston as well as his newest companion.
They were both near the town center,
A giant foundation that held a statue of heroic looking beautiful woman, triumphantly holding her saber in the air and at her feet a dead wolf creature.
Written at the base of the foundation:
Queen Ruby:The Slayer of Werewolves and the founder of Cocteau
"You're so called "plan" failed!, darling. How the hell am going to rule the pack if the Big Bad Wolf is still around?"
Gaston smiled at the young woman with her black and white hair as well her smoking a unique Argabah pipe.
"Cruella, the Swamp Troll could have still do it's job and besides i have plans for us..."
"DON'T KID yourself, i need Cocteau in my hands as the most powerful pack ruler of the werewolves.
THAT BITCH steal everything from me. I don't need anymore screw ups"
Gaston was laughing at Cruella although she wasn't founding it funny "Belle will get the Beast's head"
But Cruella just smiled "Darling, there's more then just that Beast of a woman.
You see Ruby has selfishly horded somewhere the one thing that will make me more powerful to all the packs."
"Cruella, you been locked up for too long in that dungeon in Atlantis to set to believe non-sense" Gaston growled back
"What that a tree filled with glass looking roses is in fact a cure for those infected by the moon. Think of it clearly Gaston, the packs will fall in line.
Imagine the endless ways in which they would take to get it"
"Yesssss, you're people controlling the men and women who wanted walk in full moonlight normally. They would even kill for you" Gaston was setting to see Cruella's point
"Big Bad take that power once, i get thrown in one of Arel's little dungeon in Atlantis" Cruella did found that a rather insulting little detail
"Maleficent and Ursula shouldn't have betrayed the true werewolf queen then.
But am still worried that the real Snow White will not be happy,that you forge her handwriting just to put that bounty on Ruby?"
As both of them come toward the entrance to a ally way, Cruella roughly grabbed Gaston by the neck lifting up into the air with one hand. She was still calmly talking to him as if this was rather normal for her.
"Don't worry Gaston about that overrated princess. I have men all over the kingdoms ready to take care of that problem.
All i want is for you to see Belle doesn't screw up her job of KILLING Ruby for me and if not..."
Now she was gently putting him and getting rather close to him "...Then you Kill the Beast" Gaston smiled stupidly as Cruella kissed him
Next Chapter: Sisters of the Moon
