Ruby blinked groggily, sunlight filtering through the windows and bringing tears to her slitted eyes. She ached all over, the pain from the bullet wounds like sharp knives, lancing through her with every breath she took. Her left arm forearm was in a cast but she could still move her elbow and her fingers.

A gentle touch caressed her hair, fingers threading through the messy strands that were spread out on the bed.

The unexpected touch immediately woke her up. Ruby opened her eyes completely, and the first thing she saw were a pair of brown doe ears, the velvet texture lending them a soft appearance. Shifting her gaze, she was suddenly looking into a delicate, pale face, filled with big almond-shaped eyes, a little button nose, and soft and pink lips. The doe faunus' face was framed with silky, light-auburn locks, with curls that cascaded over her shoulders and down her chest.

Ruby's heart nearly stopped as she looked upon the cutest thing she had ever seen.

And then her heart started beating again, even faster before, when she remembered that she was on the run.

Before the doe faunus could react, Ruby had one hand wrapped around the doe's throat and the other gripping the bottom of her jaw. Just a small twist and Ruby would be safe. It was a shame to kill someone as beautiful as her, but Ruby couldn't risk the chance of being discovered.

However, killing her would also create questions when she stopped showing up in town...

Both of them were still, the doe faunus frozen with fright and Ruby considering her options. Looking more closely at the faunus, Ruby noticed that she was wearing a nurse's uniform: a modest white dress with short sleeves, a cute little cap on her head, and small apron that was wrapped around her waist.

The doe was the first one to talk. "H-hi, are you awake now? Y-your hair is so p-pretty, the way it goes from b-black to red at the t-tips ." She blushed and tried to look away, but Ruby's hands were still firmly grasping her small throat and jawbone.

Ruby tried to respond. "Uh, thank you?"

"C-can you let me go now?" she squeaked.

"Oops! Sorry!" Ruby exclaimed, releasing her hold on the doe's neck.

The faunus immediately backed up, tripping over her own feet and falling onto her little bottom, letting out a little gasp.

Ruby tried to get off the bed. "Here, let me help you-unghf"

After temporarily forgetting about her injuries, Ruby's pain returned with a vengeance as her legs failed her and she fell off the bed, landing right next to the faunus. It was at this point that she realized she was wearing nothing but a sports bra and boy shorts. Her face flushed as she tried to stand back up.

The doe faunus had her hands over her mouth as she watched Ruby tumble off the bed. "Be careful!" she cried.

She quickly got to her feet and pulled Ruby back up and onto the bed.

Ruby said, "Thanks", and gave her an embarrassed smile.

"So, where am I?"

The doe faunus straightened out her dress and sat down on the chair next to her.

"This is my house," she said with a smile. "I live on the edge of the town. A lot of people don't really like faunus, so I live here, alone. My dad died a few years ago and left this place to me. This was the only home I had ever known, so I finished my education at one of the nursing schools and I've just begun to work as a pharmacist and nurse at the town medical center...Sorry, I seem to be rambling a little."

"Wait, how old are you?"

The faunus ducked her head and her face heated up. "I'm only 17, but I was a pretty good student so they let me skip ahead a few grades. Even though I only have a little aura, I can use it to encourage the healing of injuries, so they took me on as a nurse."

"Woaaahhhhh. That's awesome!" Ruby said in wonder. "Is that why I'm not dead?"

The doe blinked at Ruby's straightforward question. "Well, partially, but I can't take all the credit. Your aura is pretty strong, so you only needed a little of my help before you were able to pull through and start healing quickly on your own. It's only been three days, and you're already able to move. Patients with weaker auras would probably have been in bed for at least two weeks, if not more. Your left arm, however, was shattered and had a nasty compound fracture. You should refrain from using it until it heals up. Also," she said more quietly, "you kept muttering 'no hospital, please' after I brought you in, so I just treated you here. I'm glad you're okay."

Ruby realized how lucky she had been. If she had gone to anyone else, she was sure they would have ignored her and taken her to the hospital, where she would have been recognized and arrested. Immediately she began to feel depressed as she remembered her friends' horrified expressions and Blake's fury.

The doe began speaking again, breaking Ruby out of her reverie. "I can't believe I forgot to give you my name! Hi, I'm Alysonne," she said, smiling and extending her hand.

Ruby took her hand and grasped it, smiling back. "Call me... Red."

"That's an odd name, but I think it fits you pretty well," Alysonne said. "Especially considering you came to my doorstep covered in blood."

Ruby's face immediately took on a neutral expression. "I don't really want to talk about it," she said quietly.

Alysonne nodded her understanding.

"Hey, Alysonne is really long. Can I just call you Alys?" Ruby said as her smile returned.

Alys nodded again. She had been alone for many years, and there weren't many faunus who lived in human towns such as this one. Finding a companion, especially one that was so close to her own age, was unexpected and delightful. She understood Ruby's need for privacy, as a lot of her own patients had requested the same thing after traumatic experiences, so she didn't pry further.

Perhaps finally, she could make a friend.

"Alys is fine," she said, smiling and standing up. "It's nearly lunchtime, and I'm going to go make some food. Are you hungry?"

Ruby's stomach growled at the reminder of food. "Definitely, I'm starving!"


Alys had to leave right after lunch to go back to work. They had just finished a lunch of rice and vegetable soup, with Ruby eating in bed and Alys sitting next to her.

"Sorry," she said apologetically, "I've been using up my sick leave days and I need to go back to work. Do you need anything?"

Ruby immediately felt guilty. "Oh shoot, I forgot you had a job. I'll be fine, I can just sit and rest. Oh, and this might sound weird, but..."

"Yes?" Alys was hopping from foot to foot, clearly urgent to leave.

"Could you buy me some leather, fabric, and red and black dye? I think I need to patch up my ruined clothes."

"Oh! Yes, your clothes were in tatters, but I salvaged what I could. They're on the clothesline out back, wait a second, let me get them."

In a flash, Alys went out to get the clothes and came back in twenty seconds, panting.

"Here," she said, holding up what was vaguely recognizable as Ruby's cape and dress, "These are your old clothes. These," Alys raised up a pink t-shirt, folded running pants, and sneakers, "you can wear right now. I can buy you some more underclothes tonight, when I get from my shift."

Ruby smiled and thanked her, and checked the clock. "Alys! It's 1:30! When do you need to get there by?"

Alyss gasped. "I should have been arriving by now!" She threw the clothes onto the bedside table and sprinted out of the room.

Now, how am I supposed to put these clothes on? Ruby thought to herself. Sighing, she once again tried to get off the bed.

After half an hour of struggling and nearly screaming in pain, Ruby managed to put her on her sweatpants and t-shirt with her one arm. She carefully stepped off the bed, mindful of her trembling thighs, and started walking around, trying to exercise her unused muscles.

A thought suddenly shattered her calm.

Where is my weapon? Did Alys see it?

Ruby began panicking. Disregarding the amount of pain she was in, she stumbled around the small cottage, frantically searching for her precious High-Caliber-Sniper-Scythe. After a fruitless search around the house, she ran back to her room and tugged on her sneakers. Opening the door, she rushed outside and began retracing her the route she had escaped by. It wasn't hard, considering the large smears of blood she had left behind her while crawling her way to the door.

Walking back and forth, she noticed that she had started crawling with both hands sometime after rolling into the tree. Crouching down and combing the area carefully, she found her scythe folded up underneath a bush, looking no worse for wear. It would probably need some lubricant and a sharpening, considering the amount of use she had put it through in the past few weeks, but it was otherwise undamaged. Ruby clutched her weapon to her chest, caressing it's smooth, hard exterior, and savoring its feel.

She needed to hide it somewhere. Bringing it into Alys' small house and keeping it hidden would be an impossible task, and its discovery would raise too many questions.

Ruby thought about it for awhile, and then had an idea. She walked back up the hill she had rolled down, going a little deeper into the forest. There.

Stopping at a large boulder, she brought up her aura, flaring it as strongly as possible, and unfolded her scythe. Ruby slammed her scythe into the side of the boulder, and began carving.

A few minutes later, she had created a square-shaped hole in the side of the boulder. Slabs of stone littered littered the ground beside her. Refolding her scythe, Ruby shoved the scythe as deeply into the boulder as possible, then picked up each of the slabs and shoved them back in. As a final touch, she took a bit of gray mud and smeared it into the small indentation her carving had left. Ruby stepped back, proud of her work. The boulder looked untouched, and only Ruby knew where it was.

Satisfied and exhausted, Ruby walked back to the cottage to see if she could begin repairing her clothes.


"What do you mean that they're MIA and 'most likely dead'? Where the hell is the rest of your team?"

The man who was the leader of the Beacon Academy Guards now stood in front of Glynda, one arm in a sling and leaning on a crutch. Now, his helmet was heavily dented, the tinted display at the front cracked. The sword-bow strapped to his back was broken in half, one end nothing but a mass of splintered metal. His quiver was empty and his uniform was ripped in several places. Black and red blood stained the front of his uniform.

"We miscalculated, Ma'am. She lead us straight to a Taijitu nest, and two fifty-foot black and whites engaged us. They took out four of us in a surprise attack, but we managed to take the two down with only one additional loss. What we did not expect, however, was the thirty-five or so twenty-foot baby Taijitus that burst out of the White Taijitu's belly. We stood and fought, but eventually we were overrun. I'm the only one who managed to get away. I accept full responsibility and I will take any punishment you deem fit."

Glynda palmed her face and sighed.

"Stand down, soldier. You are not to blame for this mess. I assume that the target escaped during the fighting?"

"Yes Ma'am."

"Return to bed and take two weeks off for recovery. Use that time to begin recruiting new guards."

"Thank you, Ma'am." The man began limping back to the hospital wing.

Glynda tapped the surface of her tablet.

"Ruby escaped." stated the man in a monotone.

"Yes," sighed Glynda. "What do you think we should do?"

"Was Ruby severely injured?"

"Yes, the video shows her holding a presumably broken arm, with two bullet wounds in her chest and two bullet wounds in her stomach. Judging by the bloodstains, she suffered copious blood loss and could have gone unconscious at any time."

"Good, then. Send out teams to search for her body. I highly doubt she survived the night in the forest. Now all we need is visual confirmation of her death."

"What if we don't find the body?"

"Then we'll put up posters and spread the word to neighboring towns. But I still think she died in the forest, and we don't need to cause the other towns to unnecessarily panic."

Glynda rubbed her eyes tiredly.

"I hope you're right."


Notes: Ch 7 is over! Look, I introduced a new character! :) I really like reviews, they are what sustains me, please keep leaving them!

Answering a question:

Q: "so assuming Yang or Weiss said yes they did love her. would this mean they would unknowingly be submitting themselves to a fate where their Ruby's torture buddy? or would there be a actual relationship. "

A: Just wait and see, do you think Ruby could handle a real relationship? Or would she snap?