Ruby sat rolling a small twig between her hands the next morning, feeling raw and emotionally drained. Ruby didn't know how long she had cried for, but she doubted it had been longer than a minute. But the fact that she cried was all that mattered. Looking across the fire, which Ruby had relight in the early morning twilight once the sun had started to rise, the redhead stared sadly at the curled up figure that was barely visible under the blanket across from her. Weiss was lying in the fetal position under the blanket, and Ruby knew that Weiss was just as torn up as she was. Ruby knew that Weiss only slept with her arms around her legs, tucking her chin in between her knees, when things were bad. So when Weiss suddenly rolled up and refused to make eye contact with Ruby, the redhead was struck with guilt as hard as though it was a lead weight in her stomach. Without saying a word to each other, Weiss and Ruby quickly cleaned up their camp, and walked off towards the sun, which was barely visible through the thick canopy overhead.
As the two passed through the forest, Ruby actually recognized where they had ended up. They had arrived at the entrance to Black Fall. Blake Fall was a mountain pass that connected the massive Forever Fall forest which surrounded Beacon, Signal, and the other cities on the eastern side of the pass with the rest of the country. Black Fall had once been a dangerous place, crawling with Grimm. It had at one point gotten so bad that traveling through the labyrinth of canyons carved out by fast-moving streams had been marked as off-limits. When there had still been electricity, a cart system had been used to just ferry people over one of the many mountain range's peaks.
But now, with all the Grimms long dead, Black Fall only represented a simple choice. Would they attempt to climb over the mountain, and chance the blistering cold winds one last time? Or would they risk getting lost in the labyrinth of subterranean caves that crisscrossed the entire mountain range?
Ruby pondered that question in her head, although she didn't dare ask it out loud. While Ruby was brash and tackles, she had at least learned to gage Weiss's mood. And it felt as though Ruby was walking next to a small black cloud of negativity. In truth, both of the two huntresses were in a foul mood. One because of her failure as a partner, and another because of the weakness she thought that she had succumbed to.
As the pair walked through the forest, the snow actually somewhat fluffy under their feet, Ruby decided to try to let her anger go. Weiss didn't deserve it, and she shouldn't receive backlash from trying to help Ruby.
Groaning internally, Ruby sighed 'this is not going to go well'. Clearing her throat, Ruby asked: "So… we've been traveling east. Great... but what now?"
Weiss just sniffed and shrugged her shoulders, her thoughts angrily lashing out at the redhead. I don't care anymore Ruby. Just drag me wherever you see fit. It's all I'm good for anyway. I'm like some shitty paperweight you keep around just to keep yourself from fluttering off into the wind.
"Thanks for the help princess," Ruby called back sarcastically, hoping to rile up the heiress. Unfortunately, all that did was make Weiss hunch in on herself more. Weiss had always been short, but now it felt to Ruby as though the person standing next to her couldn't have been more than five feet tall.
Ruby just sighed, and began talking to herself more than to Weiss. "So… after we get to the other side of the mountain, we can either continue going east, and we'll probably run into the shoreline within the next three weeks. We'd be pretty close to Beacon at that point actually, probably only take another two weeks on foot to make it there if we followed the shoreline. Or… we could turn south from here, take a trip down to Signal. I'd like to visit my old home town, although that could take around three months unless we rushed". Ruby turned to Weiss, hoping to at least see some kind of opinion in her friends pale blue eyes. Unfortunately the icy orbs were pointed to the ground as Weiss kicked at a partly exposed branch from a long dead bush.
Heaving a heavy sigh, Ruby reached over and taped on the heiress' shoulder. "Heeeyah Weiss…"
"Hm…" was the only response the redhead received.
Silently fuming, Ruby tried to pull out her sweetest voice possible. "Hey Weiss, do you think this scratch on my arm looks bad?" Ruby groaned in her head, thinking to herself 'uhhh…. I sound as though I've become some ditzy prom queen.'
It did the trick though, and with the sudden change in tone Weiss looked up from her branch, wondering what caused the change in the redhead's voice. She hadn't even registered what her partner had asked, only that Ruby didn't sound like Ruby.
As soon as Weiss's head lifted and turned towards the other woman, she felt the sting of Ruby's palm against her face. It wasn't a hard hit, and it did nothing more than leave her cheek slightly pink and with a small tingle. But Weiss had been raised to take offense to such an insult, even if the dozens of tutors and years of high society training lessons had been all for naught. Clutching at her cheek and taking a step back, Weiss yelled at the girl standing next to her. "What the hell is wrong with you Ruby!"
Ruby was just as pissed as Weiss was though, and began a mini-tirade, one that had built over the past month and had finally overflowed with last night. While she had dealt with some of them, the red-head was still overflowing with so many emotions that she didn't know how to deal with. Ruby knew it was one of her greatest character flaws, but she didn't like what she couldn't easily put in a drawer and close off from herself. So the redhead decided she just wanted them gone.
Grabbing the heiress by both of her shoulders, Ruby both shook and yelled at her partner. "PULL YOURSELF TO-FUCKING-GETHER WOMAN! I'M NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO HANDLE YOU JUST WALKING NEXT TO ME LIKE A ZOMBIE FOR THE REST OF THE MONTH!"
While she was yelling at Weiss, the redhead also shook the blonde, whose head whipped back and forth with the sudden motion. Around Weiss's neck hung a strand of pure white pebbles, and as they all clacked off of each other Ruby couldn't help but imagine one of the dried gourds that the citizens of vale used to make music with during their harvest festival. Still, that was a far off thought from what she was actually getting at. Shoving the blonde away lightly, Ruby finished her statement shouting: "GET OVER THE THINGS THAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT! THEIR DONE! I REGRET WHAT I SAID, AND I DON'T WANT TO HAVE YOU REGRET THEM TOO. NOTHING HAS CHANGED, SO LET'S JUST MOVE ON!"
Ruby stood in the snow for the next few moments, breathing in deeply through her nose with the rest of her face scrunched up while trying to rake in her anger. It was annoying how hard it was to get her emotions back under wraps once she let them go. But as she felt her heartbeat slowly falling, she opened her eyes. And the second she did she felt an even harder slap across her own face.
"FUCK YOU RUBY! YOU ALWAYS TELL ME ABOUT HOW I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO...! HOW I'M JUST SUPPOSED TO..." Unable to finish either of the two sentences, although Ruby was able to guess what would have been there, Weiss just shoved her hands in her pockets while continuing to glare at the red-head. Pulling out her right hand and pointing it directly at the redhead's face, Weiss pulled out the meanest sneer she could. "YOU'RE JUST AS MUCH OF A SELF LOATHING PIECE OF SHIT AS I AM! YOU'RE A HYPOCRITE RUBY! AND A FUCKING GOOD ONE FOR MAKING ME BELIEVE IN SOME FAKE PERSONA FOR THE PAST FIVE-FUCKING-YEARS!"
Ruby left her face pointing back towards their old camp site, her cheek turning bright red as she tried to reel in her rage again. It was a lot harder now that she had a legitimate reason to actually be pissed. Oh boy Weiss, you have no idea how badly I want to bust that perfect nose of yours right now. I don't care if you won't talk to me for a month. You don't need it to keep…wait…
Ruby would have kept going, even though she would never actually really hit Weiss, but something out of the corner of her eye caught the redhead's attention and stopped her train of thought. Directly behind them, back in the direction they had been walking from, Ruby caught sight of two colors that shouldn't have existed in the perfect white snowy landscape. Two colors that didn't belong to nature.
The first was pitch black, fringing the side of an old tree that the two had passed only a minute before. That could have just been some oddly formed shadow fringing the side of the oak, or a patch of dead lichen still hanging from its host like the parasite it was. But what sent ice through the redhead's system was the second color. There was no mistaking it, and there was no explaining it away.
It was the grayed steel of the barrel of a rifle.
Ruby lost all remnants of her anger in that one instant, instantly replaced by cold fear, and with both arms she grabbed her friends shoulders and shoved the blonde to the ground behind a raised rock ledge. If she hadn't seen the rifle by that total coincidence, they both would have probably been gunned down right then and there. The two were standing in between end of the forest and the beginning of one of the dozens of entrances to Black Fall, and were totally exposed against a wall.
Ruby succeeded in getting Weiss out of the way, and the rock ledge covered the heiress entirely from their enemies. But Ruby, being taller and forced to stay out in the open while she shoved Weiss down, wasn't so lucky. As she fell besides Weiss, the redhead landed on top of the ledge next to where the heiress had been shoved behind… completely exposed to whatever was coming their way.
Weiss, still thinking the two were having a huge fight, remained oblivious to what had set Ruby off. Instead she thought that the redhead had finally snapped, and had begun some vicious attack. As the blonde fell, and Ruby disappeared from sight for a quarter of a second, Weiss expected the redhead to suddenly appear over the ledge, either to attack her with words or with fists. She quickly understood her misjudgment when the blonde heard the loud crack of a rifle… and a scream of agony a second later from the redhead.
Weiss heard Ruby shriek "fucking hell!" and a second later Ruby rolled down into cover next to Weiss, landing with absolutely zero grace on her side half on top of the heiress. She quickly rolled off Weiss, who just gotten the wind knocked out of her by Ruby's shoulder slung rifle hitting her directly across the chest. Blocking out the pain, Ruby grabbed her rifle off of her back, and hunched down against the rocky outcropping they were hiding behind. She couldn't feel anything from her right leg except for an extreme burning sensation, as though from the knee down she was boiling in oil.
Weiss wasn't as level headed though. While she had regained some of her composure, Weiss still couldn't catch her breath. With the sudden shock the blonde had gone paler than even her porcelain white complexion should have allowed, and as she looked down at her partner's leg cold fear struck her to the core. The wound had mostly been covered up by Ruby's black cargo pants, but what was visible was a marbled mixture of red and white. The bullet had destroyed Ruby's kneecap, and had probably ripped open several of the veins leading to Ruby's lower leg. There was no way in hell that they were going to be able to run.
Ruby on the other hand hadn't given a second thought to her leg… she was already in combat mode, and had become completely oblivious to everything except what she could hear. Ruby had amazing hearing, close enough to rival Blake and her extra set of ears when the two had argued over whose was better, and already began planning out what she was going to do.
I hear… at least two people coming at us from where we came from. One's directly in front of Weiss, and the other… ten feet to my right, both about fifty feet back. I know there is another one at the very top of the hill; I was shot by a rifle, and that is where I saw the muzzle….. And I hear something tearing up the snow all the way up at the top of the hill, where I saw that rifle barrel in the first place. I can't tell what that is though… maybe somebody dropped something next to their sniper and is scrounging around trying to pick it up?
Ruby wasn't ready to fight, and Weiss wouldn't be useful until she actually knew where their attackers were. Weiss had never been a great shot, and she really had only ever used her pistol when she was forced. So Ruby did the only thing she could think of to stall. Start a conversation.
"Hey! Kind of underhanded attacking two unprepared women while they're having a heart to heart conversation isn't it!"
The pair both waited silently, praying that they would have a few more seconds to plan out a counter attack before they actually had to fight. Ruby had decided to make the guess that there were only three people there, although there could have been more that she was unaware of. But if Ruby wanted to think she could win the fight, she had to think there even was a chance of winning.
Unfortunately Ruby's gambit didn't work.
Suddenly, from the very top of the hill where Ruby had heard the odd scraping noises, a distinctly male voice yelled: "Get em!" That was followed by the sound of multiple dogs suddenly howling for joy as they ran down the incline, ready to tear into either Ruby or Weiss.
Ruby disregarded all sense of self-preservation and got onto her one good knee, propping up her rifle on the ledge before her so that she was still mostly behind cover. Ruby saw eight dogs running down the incline, although she didn't take any time to double count. With three bullets she took down three hounds. And after a missed shot on a shorter one, Ruby quickly killed another two. Ruby felt a bullet whiz through her hair next to the left side of her face, although that didn't faze her. She stayed positioned in the exact same place, taking another shot at the dogs.
At this point the remaining three dogs were around half way down the incline, only seconds away from reaching the two of them.
"WEISS RUN!" Ruby screamed at the woman next to her while looking forward, missing another shot as the dogs got closer and closer. Instead of following orders though, Weiss sat frozen, still staring at Ruby's leg. What was she supposed to do?
Her question was answered when Ruby shouted: "Get the fuck out of here!"
Without taking a second glance back, Weiss turned on a dime and flew at a full sprint into the mouth of the ravine, disappearing from sight in less than a second. Leaving her partner to defend a futile fight.
As the blonde ran at break neck speeds along the rock ledge that ran parallel to the river below her feet, she heard the sounds of several barking hounds still chasing her. Their howls were barely audible alongside the roar of the water and the sound of her own boots smacking against the rocky surface, although she had to assume that they all had decided to pick the white blur instead of the red bloodstain back at the gorge's entrance. Good, at least now Ruby stands a chance.
Apparently the dogs had chosen a moving target, instead of finishing of Ruby. At least Weiss's conscience would be a little clearer for abandoning her partner. If Ruby died defending Weiss… well, the blonde didn't want to finish that thought. Ruby surviving was a guarantee. This was the redhead's world now. Ruby not surviving was an absolutely ludicrous thought.
The only reason Weiss had maintained a lead on the hounds, all of which were faster than she could ever hope to run, was due to her ability to jump and vault over all the large rock ledges in her way instead of running around them like the dogs were forced to do. She would have been caught and dragged down to the ground in the grips of the canine's jaws long before that otherwise.
Weiss's boots, not as snug a fit as she would have liked, caught on an exposed chunk of limestone as she ran down the ever thinning pathway. The blonde only stumbled for less than a quarter of a second, but it was still more than enough time for the closest dog to get the chance to jump for Weiss's face.
If the dog had aimed lower it would have succeeded. But in passing up the blonde's legs or torso for the chance to sick itself on her face, the Doberman left itself open while it soared though the air. A flash of silver, and a spray of blood following behind a second later, appeared as Weiss slashed out at the dog with her hunting knife.
Weiss didn't stop to see where she had struck. She didn't wait to finish the job. Without another glance, she continued hurtling down her steadily decreasing path. And the two remaining dogs jumped over their fallen pack mate and continued to give chase, unfazed by the Doberman's slashed throat.
Ruby shot another round, killing the fourth attacker she had seen attempting to make it down the mountain. Ruby couldn't feel relieved though as she pulled back the lever on the barrel and put a new bullet into the chamber. There were still more out there, Ruby just knew it. She still hadn't seen whoever had taken her leg out yet, and since she was wrong about her initial guess she assumed were there were more people in this group than that.
Ruby leg didn't hurt anymore, although instead dangerous numbness had consumed her entire lower leg and had begun to slowly creep up towards her mid-thigh.
The redhead's eyelids hung low, and it truly scared Ruby how tired she was. Adrenaline should have kicked her body into overdrive, and she should have felt as though she could run a marathon. Instead, as her pant leg grew warmer and the dark splotch in the snow grew, she couldn't help but feel as though she was drifting off.
Pull yourself together! I can't stop now; Weiss is still running for her life!
Ruby's eyes snapped open wider at that thought. She couldn't fail her friend yet. As long as she stood here, no one would be able to get past her to Weiss. So here she would stand, until she could no more.
Ruby had been right when she thought there had been more, and out of her periphery she saw the flutter of a coat in the wind as someone attempted to flank her in the tree's to her right. It was actually impressive how he had made down this far without being seen. But even more than that though, it was insulting how easily their group thought they would be able to take down the redhead. Apparently they hadn't heard any stories of the most dangerous person to walk across Vale since the beginning of the apocalypse… a small, unassuming redhead of 27, who would fight tooth and nail for Weiss.
He went down without much fuss, pierced through the rib cage by Ruby's last loaded bullet. As he went down, Ruby fumbled around through her dropped rucksack, trying to pull out the spare loaded clip she always kept on her person. As she felt her fingers find the smooth metal of the extra clip, she heard the sound of a pistol being cocked. It was directly behind her, in the opposite direction the last shooter had come at her from.
Ruby tried to swivel, to turn and at least do something in the face of her doom. But as she turned, she felt a hole be ripped through her right shoulder. Ruby dropped her rifle in pain, clutching at the wound with her other hand while her right shoulder burned with bone splintering pain. Spinning, landing on her ass with her back against the rock outcropping, Ruby looked up at cold, furious eyes.
As she saw a huge sniper rifle over the man's shoulder, she thought to herself: Damn... there were six.
After that errant thought she felt a second and third bullet pierce her right rib cage, tearing her lung to shreds.
Weiss was in serious trouble. She was starting to run out of steam, although the adrenaline seemed to be keeping her going for now. After her third trip, Weiss's hands bloodied and her white jeans torn from the stumble, the two remaining dogs had caught up to less than five feet away from the blonde's coattails.
Still though, she continued sprinting across the stone path, hoping that something would give her an edge in a moment against however many dogs were still pursuing her. Weiss honestly had no clue how many there were; she had never taken the time to check. If the blonde had known there were only two, she might have decided to turn and fight. She could take two dogs. But as the eternal pessimist, a trait that had kept her alive multiple times in the past, Weiss assumed there were more than she could handle.
The roaring rapids were less than a foot underneath the ledge that Weiss was running across, and mist coming from the tumbling waves left the path slick and dangerous. Across the river, the opposite bank was above her head, somehow escaping the destructive lapping of the tides.
The blonde's heart sank as she looked ahead of her, and she saw that before the next turn in the gorge's bottom, about a half mile away, the ledge that Weiss was running on had been completely eroded into nonexistence by the constant pounding stream. Casting a look around, Weiss saw two options. The safest one, which Weiss completely rejected because of her incorrect assumption, would have been to just turn and face the two hounds still chasing her. Weiss had once been forced to take a fledgling Ursa bare handed; two starved dogs didn't stand a chance.
Instead Weiss's eyes landed on a small rocky outcropping a few hundred feet in front of her. Most of the stream was around ten feet across, but at that point, the stream narrowed to only six. Weiss knew that while she wasn't as fast as a the pack following her, she could definitely jump farther and higher.
Putting on a small burst of speed, using up the last dregs of her energy, Weiss sprinted faster than she had in years down the rock path, jumping onto the small rocky outcropping and from there to a smaller boulder that hung over the slick path. If Weiss had taken a moment to consider how slick a rock constantly getting hit by the mist from the rushing rapids would have been, she would have slowed down. Instead, Weiss forced out one last burst of speed.
With the burst of speed Weiss's boot skittered across the stone surface, and her left foot shot out from under her on the slick surface. Weiss lost all the momentum that would have carried her over the gap. She now fell, falling across the rift as her arms clawed at the air.
The blonde collided with rocky wall, a full body span lower than where she had planned on landing. Weiss's forehead smashed into the jutting out ledge, and the lights went out in the blonde's head instantly. She barely even felt herself fall into the frigid waters below.
Ruby stared up into the cold eyes of her killer, who had pulled down his face mask and begun screaming at her in rage. As the redhead held a hand over her chest wounds, she struggled to even breathe. She tried to look the man who would end her life in the eyes, although she didn't register a single word he said. It was probably some crap about how he would avenge the lives she had taken. Ruby's thoughts lashed out at him. If they hadn't even picked this fight nothing would have happened anyway.
Instead of the terror Ruby had expected to come with her death, Ruby just felt her eyelids grow heavy, and she was unable to keep them open any longer. As she slowly started to drift off into unconsciousness, Ruby's final thoughts were of Weiss. She knew they would be. In as close to loving as she could bring herself to go, she heard her internal voice complain: Damn it Blondie, I knew you'd get me killed! If I die here and you didn't make it, I swear to god I'll haunt your ghost wherever it shows up!
Ruby barely felt the strong blow across her face, as her attacker tried to get her to listen to him. He wanted the red-head to hear her killer's final curses before she was executed. Sucks for you… I'll spite… you even… by dying. You… you… don't…you…
And with that, as Ruby felt a few warm droplets of blood rain down on her face, the redhead's mind went totally dark, and all thoughts passed from her grasps.
Thanks for reading, although I don't really have anything to say this time... Thanks again, and I hope you'll leave a favorite or a comment. It's always great to receive feedback, lets me know how things are going.