"Yaaaang!" Ruby cried out in frustration, "We are going to be late!"
It had been a month since the Ruby had entered Beacon and things had been improving a lot. Not only did she managed to catch up on all the subjects she needed to do but she had found she had found it relatively easy to keep up with the work. The other thing that had happened was that she had started to get closer to Weiss and Blake, the former becoming more accepting that she wasn't leader and the latter becoming more open with her team.
"Hold your horse's sis!" Yang called from the bathroom she had been occupying for all of three minutes.
"You've been in there for ages!"
"I only just got in here" the blonde yelled back to her little sister.
With a frustrated sigh Ruby ran over to the door and started to bang on it.
"Come on come on come on!"
The door swung open and a frustrated Yang stormed out.
"Fine! I'm ready!"
"YAAAAAAAY!" Ruby cried as she grabbed Yang's arm "Bye Blake bye Weiss!" she cried before she vanished in a flurry of rose petals leaving a sleepy pair of girls behind.
"Do you feel slightly guilty leaving Yang to deal with Ruby today?" the white headed girl grumbled tiredly to her roommate"
The raven haired girl looked over to Weiss with tired eyes, the thought of having to deal with Ruby when she was surrounded a shake of her head "Not at all."
"HUNTERS STUDENTS AND CITIZANS! LEND ME YOUR EARS! Injured in the line of duty? Unable to walk and therefor work? NOT ANY MORE! May I now present to you the Maple Company's newest line of Hunter gear! The BCX390! This fully augmented electronic wheelchair is fitted with all your Grimm exterminating needs!" A skinny man cried out as a young blond girl wearing army fatigues that wasn't fully buttoned all the way to the top exposing her well-endowed chest came out on slightly larger than normal looking wheelchair to the applause and wolf whistles of a growing crowd around the stage.
"This Baby is mounted with a six barrel revolver shotgun under each armrest, two 360 degrees accuracy high powered machine guns on the shoulders and a cup holder for when you get thirsty!"
As he spoke the smiling blonde drove the wheelchair out to the middle of the stage and span it around a few times before activating each of the weapons the man next to her spoke about.
"And I know what you're thinking! What if the Grimm get in close range! WELL ill have you know the BCX390 is loaded with a DUST PULSE MACHINE! He roared as the crowed of people in front of him started to mutter in excitement.
"YES! The long awaited MDPM has finally been approved for public sale and I am here today to also demonstrate it for you! Today in the arena in two hours there will be a live demonstration with Grimm caught live today! Not only is the MDPM mounted in our BCX390 but it is available as an attachment for your weapons and will be on sale by the end of the week!"
With that the girl turned the wheelchair and drove of the stage, still smiling brightly as the speaker followed her.
"Oooo did you hear that Yang! They have a Dust Pulse Machine!" Ruby cried looking starry eyed at the wheelchair that just left "And that chair! So many guns!"
Yang shook her head, "Common Ruby lets go get lunch and we have been nonstop here all day."
"But Yaaang its Wep-Con! You know I've been dying to come here for years."
This was true, ever since Ruby started her training she had been wanting to come to Wep-Con, a yearly convention where people showed off their weapons and new weapons and technology was announced.
"I know Sis, but you have been to almost every exhibit here. Some even twice!" Yang said with an exasperated sigh.
"Fiiiine." Ruby muttered subdued "But can we come back for the demonstrations."
"Sure thing sis. I can see now why Dad never bought you here." As she started to head towards the exit.
Their dad had refused to bring Ruby to the convention many times, no matter what Ruby did. And since you had to be over 18, a Hunter/Hunter-In-Training or accompanied by an adult she had never been able to see the inside of the building before.
Ruby had even tried asking her uncle Qrow but it turned out he had been banned due to an incident with him and the Schnee Tech representative several years previous.
"Ah Ladies, How wonderful it is to see some of my students taking such an interest in the improvements in hunting technology!" a loud cheerful voice greeted them as they emerged through the doors outside.
"Professor Port!" Ruby greeted cheerfully "Are you here for Wep-Con as well?
"Oh of course, Wep-Con is a great example of all the ways we have developed to get rid of those pesky Grimm. Of course a true hunter is more than just his weapon! I'll have you know I once took out a pack of Beowolves using nothing but a paperclip, a roll of duct tape and a teaspoon!" he finished exuberantly, puffing his chest out slightly.
"Anyway I have been looking forward to this year's Wep-Con. It's a shame that Atlas pulled out of it at last minute."
"Atlas pulled out?" A confused Ruby questioned.
"Ah yes, they were all primed to announce their newest line of robotics, however they have decided to delay the announcement till the Vytal Festival. It's a shame really. Atlas normally put on a good show. Why I remember one year when…" The older man started to talk before Yang quickly interrupted.
"Sorry Professor, Me and Ruby have to get going if we want to be back for the demonstrations later today."
"Ah no trouble girls, Enjoy the rest of your day." The man said before heading inside the building.
"Thank god he didn't start telling one of his stories, he really does ramble doesn't he?" Yang said as she looked down at her sister.
"Common Sis let's get food."
"Ah what a day" Yang yawned while stretching as she walked back through the darkened streets to catch airship to beacon. "I have to admit though the Convention is amazing. I never knew there were so many crazy weapons. Though some of them seem a bit… excessive."
The sun had set and the streets were quite due to the fact anyone still out was at the convention for its late time showings. The only light on the streets were from the lampposts which were spread evenly down the side of the road, the odd one flickering slightly before regaining its strength. The two girls had thought about stating longer at the convention but unfortunately the last airship to beacon for students was leaving soon causing the two sisters to head out early.
"Yeah that lighter that turned into saber didn't seem practical at all. The size difference means that the weapon won't be that well-constructed and rather flimsy." Ruby agreed with a nod.
They had been at the convention all day and while they were both exhausted they had seen a lot of interesting weapons and inventions throughout their day, improved dust rounds and pre-built weapons for those who had trouble building their own and even upgrades for more common weapon parts made out of better materials.
A lot of the weapons there had just been showy weapons for people with money to waste to buy so they could seem impressive if they ever had to go into a fight, more decorative than actual weapons.
"Anyway I hope the others have had a good day..." Yang started before her eyes narrowed and she hissed quietly at her sister "Over there. That guy just grabbed that girl and dragged her into that alley."
Ruby turned to where Yang was looking and saw the shadowed forms sinking into the darkness of the alley.
"Common Ruby we need to stop him!" the blonde said as she ran towards the alley and after the figure.
"Yang! Wait up!" cried Ruby as she chased after her sister but as she reached the alley there was no sign of her.
The light of the streetlights had barely reached the alley and the buildings cut out any natural light from the sky. Shadows twisted in the darkness forming strange and monstrous shapes as Ruby walked descended further into the darkness.
"Yang?" the girl called softly trying to spot her sister. There was a strange silence to the alley the sounds of the city seeming to be further away. The further down Ruby went the darker things became, more oppressive as the darkness seemed to surround her.
The sound of running footsteps made Ruby jump as she spam around. To the left of her a darker patch of shadows seemed to be running further away from her.
"Yang?" Ruby called louder than before as she moved towards the movement.
A noise from behind her this time, causing her to spin around peering into the darkness, the silence deafening.
A door opened behind her this time and she saw a spark of light as she turned around to see a door closing.
Picking up her speed Ruby moved towards the door and reached for the handle. With a click it opened revealing a room shrouded in darkness. A doorway opposite her had light flickering through it faintly, not enough to light the room but enough to make out the shape of the furniture of the room.
With a breath she moved forward towards the door, trying to remain silent. The house was cold, not just in temperature but in the way that puts chills down your spine. Nerves bit into Ruby as she moved her way silent further into the house.
As she exited the room she found herself in a long corridor, lit by a couple of candles placed at intervals along the wall and the overhead electric light turned off. The walls where painted a rich burgundy and the floor was a dark brown wood.
A low muttering could be heard coming from one room.
Turning into one room she held back a gasp. The room wasn't as dark as the previous one, a faint light trickled in from the door. In the low light she could make out four people standing completely still. They hadn't even reacted to her at the door.
"Hello?" the red hooded girl whispered to only be met with silence.
With that she decided to move further into the room. The closest of the unmoving people didn't react to her presences unnerving her slightly as she waved her hand in front of his face.
Looking closer she saw it was a Faunus, not a very attractive one. His long face was rough and a slightly pointing nose and whiskery hairs protruding from under it and out of it. His mouth was in a slight grin showing badly cared for, half rotten teeth. The thing that seemed to stand out though were his wide blue eyes, the shade of the sea on a clear sunny day that seemed to shine slightly like sapphires, that seemed so full of life but at the same time dead. On top of his head were to rat ears and scruffy thin light brown hair in a rough looking manner, obviously not that well looked after.
Putting a hand on his shoulder to shake him Ruby realised that his skin was cold to the touch. Checking for a pulse she felt nothing but the ice cold clammy skin.
"The eyes, so blue, so pure. I like the eyes. We need the eyes" the muttering voice grew louder in the corridor outside the room as the creaks of the old wooden floor steadily go closer. "Lost the skin, the skin needs to be found replaced. The Hair as well. I like the hair. We need the hair."
Ruby jumped into action, aiming to hide but wasn't fast enough as a slumped figure walked through the door wearing a worn, old hoody. The face of the man entering the room was covered by the hood, leaving only green bloodshot eyes visible which instantly stopped moving when they focused on her.
"Little girl? No little girl meant to be here. She's seen the eyes? I don't like that. The eyes are ours. Need to go. Can't be found." He muttered under his breath moving forward.
Ruby slowly reached to her back for Crescent Rose but the next thing she knew the man was in front of her, gripping the arm that was going for her weapon, the other caressing her cheek softly with a rough hand causing Ruby to shiver in revulsion at the touch of his greasy skin.
"Nice skin, Soft skin, Pretty skin. Silver eyes. So pretty" he whisper more to himself to himself. "But I have eyes. Need skin."
Ruby froze in disgust as the man leaned in close and licked her cheek slowly while holding her chin with his hand, his tongue wet and slimy across the side of her face.
"Don't worry little one." He whispered softly, his breath hot on her ear. "I will find a place for you."
"Lots of pretty pieces fit the puzzle" he muttered as he pulled away and turned to get something from the other side of the room.
Before he could react, Ruby grabbed Crescent Rose off her back and swung it, in its still holstered form at the back of the man's head sending him flying towards the wall with a flash of aura absorbing most of the blow.
As the man slammed into the wall, his head slamming into the light switch causing a sudden blinding flash as all the lights in the room turned on, blinding Ruby with the sudden change in light.
Blinking the rest of the figures in the room came into view.
They were all Faunus.
One of them was tall female with long red hair and a pair of fox ears on the top, dressed in long blood red dress that covered a very shapely figure her face was perfect with smooth pale skin her eyes a wonderful green with neat eyebrows fitting her face perfectly. The only problem was her lips, or her lack of. Where most people had their lips were pink skin and pure white teeth stained with blood.
Another was a very pretty looking male, with smooth pale skin and with full lips. His eyes however were missing. Two black voids were where they should be. His long hair was a mixture of black and white and a long black and white striped tail looped down next to him.
Next to him was a small girl who looked to be around ten. She had rather cute face and a small dress on. On her head were a pair of curly horn, visible through long curly whitish blonde hair that hell to her waste. Her mouth was open and completely devoid of tongue and teeth. Her innocent eyes staring blankly in front of her
They were all Faunus.
The hooded man rose back to his feet and reached for a table, pulling a long thin knife that was stained with coppery red. Hissing he looked towards the staring girl.
"Silly girl" he hissed, his voice slightly raspy. As he took a step forward towards Ruby, he raised his knife as she got ready to change activate her scythe.
"Ruby? Where are you?" Yang voice called, slightly muffled from the walls.
The man's eyes winded at the sound, before he turned and ran out of the room.
Ruby blinked at the man's reaction and ran out of the room, with her weapon turning into a sniper. As she went into the long corridor she looked both ways and saw no sign of the disturbed man.
"Ruuuby!" Yang's voice echoed again.
Not missing the chance to get out of the building she was in, she put holstered her weapon and wiped the spit of her cheek with her sleeve before moving quickly down the corridors of the building to the door she had come in through.
That Rat Faunus. That was the same Faunus that Ruby had seen Torchwick yelling at several weeks ago. The same one that she had been told had gone missing and Torchwick had been looking for all month.
"Yang! Over here!" she called as the door closed silently behind her.
A few seconds later the blonde showed up.
"Sis! Did you see that guy? I managed to find the girl." She said cheerfully but with a hint of anger.
"No I didn't find anyone." Ruby answered.
She knew she should tell Yang about the man in the building and the Faunus but she knew if she did the police would come and that she wouldn't be able to track him down. She had to let Varken know that she had found his missing Faunus and get Torchwick to send men out to examine the area and see if they could find any information.
Also the fact that this man had taken her by surprise. Normally she could have taken him down but she had been out of practise. Fighting Grimm is a lot different than fighting Humans and Faunus. Grimm don't think as well and are a lot more predictable. Next time she would be ready.
Next time she would teach this man not to mess with her underlings, Faunus or otherwise.
"Dammit. You should have seen the girl when I found her. She was on her way home from work. Poor girl gets hard enough time as it as a Faunus."
Ruby nodded before she blinked.
"Yang? What time is it?"
"Almost eight why?"
"The airship leaves in 10 minutes!"
Yang's eyes widened before she swore and started running to the landing pad, Ruby hot on her heels.
Ruby's hands flew over the keyboard in her sewer lair as she searched for information about the missing Faunus. So far she had found almost no news reports and no police reports about any missing Faunus in the best five years.
There had been the odd one, a Faunus child being snatched from a nursery a year ago or a Faunus who had married a human vanishing on their way back from work. So far though none had matched the descriptions of the body's in the house she found today.
When she and Yang made it to the airship (with seconds to spare) she had excused herself to the toilet and promptly thrown up the content of her stomach. It had hit her suddenly that all the people in the room were dead.
While she had encountered death both due to her past, wanting to be a hunter and her side job she had never seen it so trivialised and blatant. The Faunus in the house had been killed and put on display with bit missing like some sort of art show.
After she finished filling the toilet with her lunch she took out her scroll and sent a recording to her computer in the sewers. It would relay the message with the hologram she had saved for remote messages to Torchwick.
She got him to go to the house with Varken and couple of other White Fang members. She asked them to check the building and see if they could find anything about who had taken and killed the people on display.
After dinner and spending time with her team (and telling them all about the amazing weapons she had seen that day, even if she was thinking about getting Torchwick to steal some of them) she managed to slip away when everyone had turned in for the night.
Now she was waiting for Torchwick to contact her with what they had found at the house. She hoped that it wasn't the missing person Varken had mentioned to her a month previous.
Since Varken had told her about that another four Faunus had gone missing, slowing down to one a week. If however the Rat eared man in the house was the missing Faunus then things didn't seem to be looking up for the rest.
Her computer beep, alerting her to the call request. Clipping on her helmet she accepted the call sending out the hologram.
"Roman. What did you find out." The girl questioned straight of the bat.
"It's not good." The well-dressed thief said over the sounds of something smashing in the background.
"They found another eight Faunus in there, some they recognised from going missing several years ago. The Rat Faunus that you mentioned was indeed the one we have been looking for."
A roar interrupted as a crate smashed into the wall behind Roman.
Ruby sighed. "I take it Varken is not taking this well."
"I only just managed to stop him going and killing every human in the area."
Ruby nodded. "Bring him over. We need to talk.
With a wave and a yell of "Varken" the man called the older Faunus over to him.
"What." He growled his face red in anger and sweat. He was literally trembling in rage. His fists clenched tightly at his sides.
"I'm sorry for you loss." The girl calmly said. "However losing your temper here is more likely to do more harm than good."
The larger man twitched before he growled "How should I react then? One of my men has been put on display like some sort of taxidermy animal! THERE WHERE CHILDREN WITH BITS CUT OUT THEIR FACE!"
Ruby nodded her head, "Yes and causing a loud enough commotion to attract attention which might lead to this operation being discovered and then how could you find the man who has done this. "
The man growled towards Ruby, his cheeks shaking slightly.
"Now I've heard that the man you found is our missing Rat Faunus from before."
The Warthog Faunus took a breath before speaking.
"Yeah, I'd recognize those eyes anywhere. He always was an ugly little fucker but his eyes… his eyes were different."
Ruby nodded. "And you found more Faunus there? You recognised them?"
The man nodded. "Yeah, knew one of them myself. Though like most people I thought he had deserted the White Fang."
"Ok. From now on no Faunus is allowed outside on his own. I'm going to organise people to start looking into this man. I won't allow innocents to be murdered in this city. "
The man growled again but nodded in understanding.
"That includes you. Don't go out doing anything stupid. We will find this monster." Ruby said calmly to the still enraged man.
"Now Roman. Is there anything else I should know?"
"Yes I found…." Before he could continue a gentle clinking sound slowly got louder before a feminine voice spoke up.
"Hello Amethyst. It's been too long."
Ruby internally sighed. Why did she need to show up now of all times.
"Cinder. How nice of you to join us."
AN/
First of all thank you for reading. This will be my last chapter before Christmas and I hope you enjoy it.
I have been wondering though, when writing about how Ruby started her life of crime would it be better to right it in one big flashback chapter or over the course of several interludes. I myself am leaning towards the interludes.
Also if anyone has any OC ideas, feel free to let me know (and with a bit of a background as well if there's a specific way you think they should act.) I'll try and fit some of them in when I'm needing a OC. I got a few planned out but new ideas are always awesome.
Anyway I hope you have enjoyed this chapter and if you have any feedback/suggestion please feel free to leave a review, helps me know how people are feeling about how my story's going.
Have a great holiday everyone.