I cannot thank you all enough for the flattering, encouraging words.

Now, let's get back to killing off your favorite characters. Don't say I didn't warn ya'.

Cinder and Torchwick seemed to have moved on from their argument and were now talking about contacts, turncoats, and other people they knew in Atlas. The door silently creaked open and a thin, inconspicuous tentacle slithered into the room, bending and stretching all the way to the shelf that the Necronomicon sat on. The tentacle grabbed it, heaved it out the door before it was quietly closed, all without Cinder or Torchwick noticing.

Out in the hallway, Ruby shoved the book into her stomach, though it wasn't an easy fit. It wouldn't be long before those two noticed that the book was gone. Ruby headed back toward Neo's room, but was startled to find that the door was open with the light on. She retreated back into the dark to observe, and could tell through her enhanced hearing that two people were in there. Judging by the sounds of drawers being pulled out and cupboards getting thrown open, they were clearly searching for something.

"Why would she think Neo took it anyways?" Mercury asked, "Sometimes I wish Cinder would just share a little more with us."

"You know what would happen if we questioned her." Emerald said.

"Yeah, yeah. 'Don't think, obey'. I heard her." Mercury said fractiously.

Although Mercury and Emerald couldn't hear it, Ruby could tell that Neo was shaking around and uttering muffled yells to make noise and get their attention. Just as Emerald was about to pull out the drawer that Ruby had stuffed her clothes into, Ruby came into the room and knocked on the door frame to get their attention. She made a face as if offended that they would search through her room behind her back.

"Oh! Neo! Hello." Emerald said, putting on a smile as if trying to act innocent.

Ruby threw her arms up and made an angry face as if to ask, 'what do you think you're doing?!'

"Chill out. To be honest, we don't know why we're here." Mercury said condescendingly. His expression changed to a more serious one. "But I think you do. You better watch out, ice cream, cause whatever you've done, it pissed off Cinder." he said harshly.

Ruby motioned for them to leave by pointed out the door, and they complied. When they were gone, Ruby shut the door and looked around. Thankfully they never got far enough to find her clothes, or worse, Neo herself, but it was clear that Ruby couldn't keep up the charade for much longer. Suddenly, she spotted a tiny device the size of a grain of rice sitting at the foot of a table lamp. She would never have spotted it if her senses were still that of a human's. She reached over to pick it up between her fingers and inspect it. Did Mercury and Emerald seriously just bug this room? It would explain why they didn't mind getting sent out. Ruby crunched the surveillance gadget. She had no doubts that there more, and if she tried looking for them, there would be no way to know if she got them all. Deciding that this room was now off-limits, she left, bending the door handle on her way out so that it couldn't be turned.

XXX

The ship's living room area was now pitch dark. The lights were off, no one else was here, and there was nothing but empty darkness in the windows. Ruby walked over to the table she'd played a board game on earlier, sat down, and pulled the book out from her stomach before placing it on the table. She stared down at the book's sinister front cover, taking a deep breath as she slowly opened it to the first page. Like earlier, she was able to understand the freaky symbols, but she couldn't translate them to anything comparable to the English language. Instead they came off as impressions, concepts, whole ideas that would need a few sentences to explain. Just thinking about what each one meant put enormous strain on her mind, and she had to stop and look away for a moment repeatedly. The book was divided into countless sections each dedicated to different a deity. One was illustrated as a fish-man, seemingly described as a god of fertility, but everything else written about him was too hard of a puzzle to make sense of. Another that was far easier to read was about a creature called Ghroth, a literal living planet with a huge eye on it that roamed around space eating planets and emitting some kind of sound that awoke Great Old Ones. The next page featured the startling image of a slimy humanoid elephant demon with large webbed ears, enormous tusks, and a leech-like mouth on the end of the trunk. Ruby skimmed through dozens of inconceivable profiles until one suddenly caught her eye. "Bestows unfathomable knowledge onto others…" she muttered. She made her best effort to take in everything she could about this one, reading aloud as she went to make it easier. The words she uttered were cruel to the ears, full of hard consonants, and sounded like a monster throwing up backwards. When she got to the end of the page, she recoiled in surprise when the book suddenly came alive. The symbols and images on the pages moved like they were floating on water and the entire book just seemed… hungry… if that made any sense. "No, no, no!" Ruby panicked, "Turn off! Shut down! Deactivate!" The room's lights turned on.

"Step away from the Necronomicon, Ruby Rose!" Cinder said as she entered the room, holding Velvet in a chokehold. A fireball was generated from Cinder's palm and held against the side of Velvet's head. Mercury and Emerald came into the room behind them looking confused and astonished.

"What? Ruby?" Velvet said with surprise.

Ruby sprang from the table to the open floor looking shocked, then gritted her teeth in anger. "For your sake, you better not hurt her." she hissed. She was using her original voice again, but she still had Neo's face and hair.

"If we both get what we want, there would be no need for anyone to get hurt." Cinder said with a gracious smile, "Now, I believe you have something that belongs to me."

"Forget about me, Ruby." Velvet said, "Just stop them, whatever they're planning."

"Hmph, the dagger." Ruby mumbled to herself, still able to feel the dagger inside her stomach, "I have it in Neo's room." she lied to Cinder, "If you move aside, I can go get it for you."

"No need." Cinder said, still pleasantly smiling, "Just tell us where you hid it."

Ruby folded her hands behind her back. Her left pinky finger stretched straight down, stabbing through the floor and traveling under it like a tunneling worm. She just had to stall. "Hehe… believe me, you're gonna need me to point it out for you." she said.

Cinder frowned, quickly going from pleasant to impatient. "You're not leaving this room unless I have the dagger or your friend is dead." she said bitterly.

"Cinder," Mercury spoke up, "do you want us to just beat her up?"

"No. The two of you together would be no match for her." Cinder said without taking her eyes of Ruby.

"No match for her?" Emerald said disbelievingly, "I've seen her fight. She isn't-"

"This isn't the 'Ruby' you remember." Cinder said more darkly, "She's different now."

"Wow," Ruby said with an impressed nod, "You sure know a lot about… them. I've been wondering how, but I guess it doesn't matter when I already have a better source." Her voice transitioned to its monstrous tone. Her finger sprang out from the floor like a spear at the hand Cinder generated the fireball from. It stabbed into Cinder's wrist and Ruby was now able to control that hand like a puppet on strings, allowing her to force Cinder to dissipate the fireball. Ruby's right hand changed into a tentacle that reached out, grabbed Velvet like a lasso, and yanked her to Ruby's side of the room.

Cinder pulled her wrist off what impaled it as Mercury and Emerald leapt at Ruby to attack. Ruby retracted her pinky finger and stopped Mercury's jump kick with one hand. She lightly pushed back and sent him flying into the wall, almost breaking through it. Emerald swung her chain-sickles but Ruby avoided them without really needing to try. Emerald resorted to using her semblance of perception manipulation to throw Ruby off, but Ruby's enhanced senses could see straight through it. She dodged the next attack, moved forward, and flicked Emerald in the forehead. Emerald fell back like she had been punched as a small stream of blood leaked down her face.

"I did tell them." Cinder said, seamlessly ignoring the pain in her wrist as she generated glass dual swords in her hands. Ruby moved to deal with her next, thinking she could bring her down just as easily, but Cinder moved significantly faster than Mercury or Emerald had and slashed Ruby across the chest.

"Gah! Son of a-" Ruby yelled in pain.

"Ruby!" Velvet cried.

Ruby motioned her to stay back. "Don't worry! I'm okay!" she said. Cinder created some darts of fire and sent them at Ruby. They hit, engulfing Ruby in flames but she managed to remain standing with her clothes now burnt and torn, bearing her original appearance again. Now taking Cinder seriously, Ruby hardened her fists to the likeness of steel and went on the offensive. She may have been a lot stronger and faster, but Cinder was far more skilled. They fought, and Cinder was able to keep up with Ruby in their melee.

"What in blazes did you do to yourself?" Mercury said as he tried to intervene, but Velvet kicked him in the face with her good leg.

"That was for earlier, I suppose." Velvet said shyly, almost sounding apologetic.

Cinder flipped backwards, combining her dual swords into its bow form and fired three arrows at once in midair. Arrows stabbed into Ruby's knee, waist, and left eye causing her to falter from the pain she was not yet used to. As she pulled out the arrow in her eye, Cinder used the opportunity to cut her clean in half through the waist. The ceremonial dagger fell out from the opening. Ruby landed on the floor and looked at her lower half lying a few feet away. "Oh, c'mon!" she groaned in frustration.

"I know this wont kill you," Cinder said, generating a massive fireball from her good hand and pointing it at Ruby below, "but it'll keep you down long enough for me to toss you off the ship." Velvet suddenly tackled her.

"Stop hurting my friend!" Velvet cried. Cinder shoved her back and redirected the fireball at her. Velvet screamed as she was engulfed in flames like Ruby had been, but when the smoke cleared, instead of someone still standing there, there was only a charred, smoking body. Ruby finished putting herself back together when she took notice, and stared with a completely stunned look on her face. Even after what she had done and what she had become, the last thing Velvet had spoken was to call her 'friend'.

"Too bad, so sad." Mercury said sarcastically. He fired a shot from his boot at Ruby, cautious of getting to close to her. Ruby didn't react when the shot shredded through her hip, nor did she when she was hit by another, and another. Finally Mercury leapt forward and knocked her back down with a kick, but she still kept that look of disbelief. Was Velvet… gone? When Mercury kicked at Ruby again, she turned her enraged face and grabbed him by the ankle. He was flipped onto his back when she grabbed onto his other ankle… then she ripped him in two like a wishbone.

"Hmph…" Ruby grumbled like a beast, covered in blood and having one of her episodes again. She lunged forward and threw a punch at Cinder, smashing through her blades like a rock through a window and striking her in the gut. Cinder flew backwards into the wall. "You wanted this so badly?" Ruby said as she reached down to pick up the ceremonial dagger, "I'll give it to you!" She approached Cinder and slashed at her with the knife, but Emerald dived in the way to block it with her sickle at the last second. The dagger made a shallow cut in Emerald's finger.

"Huh?!" Emerald gasped, looking at her finger as the bloodless, withered line on it rapidly began to expand. "Aaahhhhhhhhhhh!" she screamed as the rest of her entire body began to dry up, become a shriveled prune of a standing corpse, then literally turn to a pile of dust and ashes on the floor.

Ruby fell backwards with a horrified expression. The shock of what she'd just seen had snapped her out of her frenzy. "Whoa! What the unholy crap?!" she cried in dismay. She wasn't the only one freaking out, as even Cinder seemed to back off and completely forget about their fight. They watched as a transparent mist-like stream traveled out of the ash pile and moved to the Necronomicon, which drank it in. "So, it really does rip people's souls out…" Ruby said incredulously. The atmosphere of the room completely changed. The air grew freezing, the lights flickered and died, and there was an overwhelming feeling of dread. They could feel that a new presence had entered the room, but they couldn't see it.

"You fool! You read from that passage?!" Cinder cried. She fled the room looking uncharacteristically terrified.

"Huh? What?" Ruby uttered as she watched Cinder withdraw. Cinder had left the book and dagger behind without a fight and for what seemed like no reason. Ruby looked around the room, finding that nothing had changed, and yet it felt incredibly different. She flinched when she heard Velvet make a choking cough. "Velvet?! You're alright!" Ruby said, running over to and kneeling beside her friend.

"I wouldn't say 'alright'." Velvet said as Ruby helped her sit up. Velvet's torso and a portion of her face was horribly burnt and still smoking.

"There's a first aid kit in the cargo bay. I'd get it but I don't want you out of my sight. Can you stand?" Ruby asked.

"I… I think so." Velvet said as she put an arm over Ruby's shoulder. She grunted but worked through the pain as she was slowly brought to her feet. "What little aura I still had took most of that blast. I only took second-degree burns." she said.

"Only?" Ruby said with discomfort.

"It could've been much worse." Velvet said, eying the bloody dismembered remains of Mercury and the pile of ash that used to be Emerald. Taking it slow, they turned and headed for the doorway. "How did…" Velvet began to ask, but stopped herself, "I wont ask how you put yourself back together after getting cut in half."

"Yeah, you wont. Just lean on me." Ruby said as they exited the room. They entered the now lifelessly dark hallways that seemed to stretch on much further than she remembered. They got to the door for the cargo bay, opened it, and… stared down another long hallway, exactly like the one they had just walked through. "What the?!" Ruby barked.

"That's strange. I know this ship can't be that large." Velvet said.

"It isn't…" Ruby said. They went down this hallway as well, opened what should have been the door to the cargo bay, and found another mimic of the same hallway, except this one seemed to unnaturally twist and curve. They turned around and tried to head back the way they came, but the hall was now even more disorienting, as if someone had taken the image of it and mixed up in a soup. "Oh no," Ruby whimpered, "no, no, no! Not another R'lyeh!"

"You sound like you've seen this before." Velvet said woozily. She seemed to be getting a headache by just looking at it.

"Close your eyes! Don't look at it!" Ruby said shaking her head, "Just follow my lead." They continued on slowly, though the walls traveled past them faster than they walked. "Gah!" they both yelped as they tripped and fell face-first onto a soft, shifting surface. Ruby brought her head up, picked up some of the ground, and watched as it slipped between her fingers. "Sand?" she said dumbfounded. She looked ahead at what she couldn't put a word on. There were thin streams of sand falling up, sideways, and diagonally. Spires that seemed to go on forever ran in all directions like a giant messy haystack. This place was as dry as R'lyeh was moist, and it was hard to tell if it was a large room or 'outside'. An array of things floating around in empty blackness described it better. It was also unclear which way was what, though the way forward felt like 'down'. "I guess reality went on another lunch break." Ruby said.

"It's so cold!" Velvet said, shivering madly, "Is this some sort of illusion Cinder conjured up?"

"Illusion or not, this isn't Cinder's doing." Ruby said wearily.

"Then who?" Velvet asked curiously.

Ruby looked around. She couldn't see it, but she knew that something had been watching them from the start. "Hey, why don't you make a triangle with five-and-a-half right angles?!" she shouted at whomever was toying with them, "You may as well add an ascending staircase that loops while you're at it!"

"You didn't read from the Necronomicon just for a show." said a new voice.

Ruby and Velvet freaked out when they noticed a man that was not a man standing on the sand in front of them. Ruby didn't know when or how he'd gotten there. He was just suddenly there. The man had pitch-black skin, not African, but like physical darkness. He was dressed like an ancient pharaoh complete with one of those headdress-crown-things called a 'Nemes'. He didn't have eyes or a nose, just a huge mouth of long sharp teeth where the face should have been. Ruby felt herself tilt her head over and bow before him without having any idea why.

"It's been some time since one from this planet has asked for my attention." the pharaoh said in a sinister, but perfectly clear voice, "You have it."

Ruby slowly stood up, her gaze locked on the tall, sinister man. Considering what was written of the other deities in the Necronomicon, this guy didn't look too bad. He wasn't a walking-mountain and he wasn't trying to kill her or Velvet yet, but Ruby couldn't take her eyes off of him. His presence was just so overpowering, and yet it felt like this wasn't all of him. Nowhere near all of him. "Umm, so do you grant wishes?" Ruby asked, nervously trying to be hopeful.

"Sometimes I do, but you don't want anything given to you." the pharaoh said. Absolutely no expression could be seen in him. He was like a black hole of sentiment.

Ruby raised both eyebrows. "Err… I can think of a few things." she said awkwardly.

"You think of what has befallen Blake and your home Vale. You wish for it to all be taken back." the scary-pharaoh-thing said.

Ruby gulped. Could this guy read her mind or did he just know everything? "Yeah… if you don't mind me asking, who you are?" she asked.

"A servant." was the pharaoh's reply.

"Okay, mister Servant, sir." Ruby said, feeling a little better with how this thing was acknowledging and answering her questions, "The book said that you share knowledge with others. Would you happen to know how I could become human again?"

"I typically demonstrate such things to mortals during public exhibitions," the pharaoh said, "but you want your answer quickly." He reached out and tapped his finger against Ruby's forehead.

Ruby suddenly felt as if her brain had been blasted by a bolt of lightning. "Gaaaaah!" she screamed and fell to the ground, breathing hard as blood leaked from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. Indescribable images and sounds raced through her mind, things that her head just couldn't process. It felt like she had gotten the knowledge she asked for, but it was so great that her mind had been crushed under its weight. Like a traumatic memory that needed to be shed to survive, she immediately forgot the knowledge she had just been granted.

"You seek knowledge, but only a return to ignorance will satisfy you." the pharaoh said.

"Ruby!" Velvet shouted, running to her friend's side.

"I'm fine!" Ruby gurgled out through the blood in her mouth, "It's not as bad as getting my head blown off."

"What? How would you know that?!" Velvet asked sounding dumbfounded.

Ruby tried to look at the pharaoh through her red, murky vision. "I'm betting you knew that would happen!" she croaked at him, "You're just interested in torturing us, aren't you?!" The pharaoh didn't answer and just stared at her. "You know what? Forget I asked you anything!" Ruby shouted, "Just let us out of here or I'll… I'll…"

The pharaoh waved at her to come closer. "Try it." he ordered.

"If you insist." Ruby said as she stood up, "Huh?" She suddenly realized that she was holding Crescent Rose in its scythe form, though the blade was still missing from when Miriam had broken it. Ruby looked down upon herself and found that she was no longer in burnt rags, but in her personal outfit again, and it was back in perfect condition. "How did…"

"You are most accustomed to your scythe." the pharaoh said. A new blade appeared on Crescent rose, shaped exactly like the original but made of the same dark-green material as the dagger.

Ruby didn't bother to inspect the strange new blade. "Whatever bargain you're trying to make, I don't want any part of it!" she declared angrily.

"The only price is that you use if freely, without restraint." the pharaoh said.

"Fine with me!" Ruby yelled as she swung Crescent Rose at the pharaoh. She cut into Velvet, whom was suddenly standing in the pharaoh's place, looking as shocked as Blake had been. Ruby leapt back in horror and dropped her scythe. Velvet fell onto the sand with that frightened expression frozen on her face.

"Now you will tell yourself that this isn't real." the pharaoh said, standing beside Ruby and speaking into her ear, "You will deny that anything could be wrong." The pharaoh knelt down over Velvet and tapped his finger on her forehead. She gasped back to life, sat up, and clutched where she had been partially cut in half. "You will cling to the idea that you have any control." the pharaoh added. Ruby reached out with both hands, grabbed Velvet by the throat, and began choking her to death. She stared with a look terror into her friend's equally frightened eyes. Ruby's hands were just moving on their own and she couldn't stop. Finally, she snapped Velvet's neck and left her dead on the sand a second time.

"This can't… this isn't… I wouldn't…" Ruby said, staring down at Velvet's corpse looking heartbroken.

"Ow!" Velvet cried as she sprang back to life again, "What happened? Why is my neck so stiff?" Ruby kicked up her scythe, caught it, and quickly chopped her friend to pieces. She could never want this, yet it didn't actually feel like she was being forced to do it against her will. It was honestly impossible to tell the difference between her own actions and whatever the pharaoh made her do.

"Stop it! Why would you make me do this?!" Ruby sobbed.

"It takes no effort." the pharaoh said.

"But what do you get from this?! Don't you have anything better to do?!" Ruby wailed.

"Rather than ignoring the ants as Cthulhu and my master does, I prefer to burn them with a magnifying glass." the pharaoh said as he reached out with one hand and shoved Ruby, sending her flying backwards. "Hei! Aa-shanta 'nygh!" the pharaoh said as Ruby smashed through the image of the twisted abyss behind her like it was a glass picture and fell out the window of the airship toward the ocean below. With her hands reaching out, she watched the pharaoh standing inside the airship's living room, encircled by the Necronomicon, the ceremonial dagger, and the bloody remains of Velvet, until the sight fell out of view. Ruby and her scythe fell side-by-side as the black surface of the ocean zoomed closer. She plunged into nothingness.

Show them gods and deities,

Blind and keep the people on their knees!

Pierce the sky, escape your fate,

The more you try the more you'll just breed hate,

And lies, truth will rise,

Revealed by mirrored eyes!

XXX

To be continued…

You probably already realized, but that was from RWBY Volume 2's end credits theme titled 'Sacrifice'.