RWBY is property of Roosterteeth, I only own my characters.
Chapter 24
Alex was awoken by the sound of someone pounding on his door. The soldier graoned and pulled himself slowly out of bed. Thanks to Luna, the deep gashes in his skin from the previous day's fighting had scabbed over. She had insisted on fully healing him at first, but he had declined so that she could help people in more dire peril than he was at the time.
Alex turned the handle of the door and pulled it open. Yang stood outside his room, both her hands lightly bandaged from her own injuries. Her wounds were closing at a slower rate than normal, as her drained aura had yet to fully replenish itself. Even with that, however, she still was recovering much faster than Alex was.
"Morning, Alex." Yang blinked and muttered. She had dark rings under her eyes, and she wavered slightly as she stood. "Can I get your help?"
"Of course." He knew exactly what she might need help with. "How is she?"
"Ruby finally calmed down sometime after midnight, but I stayed up to make-" Yang yawned loudly, interrupting herself mid-sentence. "-to make sure she slept. But when she woke up this morning, she wouldn't talk to anyone. I was wondering if you could try something?"
"Sure, I'll do my best. Why don't you go get some sleep, Yang? You look like you're about to fall over."
"I can't sleep while I'm worried. Once Ruby's back to bouncing off the walls, then I can rest. I'm just gonna...go-" Her mouth opened into another yawn. "-get...coffee...or something..." Yang's eyes began to drift shut.
"Don't go collapsing on me." Alex stepped out of his room and closed the door behind him. "Anything else before I go? Any suggestions?"
"I guess just...try to get her brain off what happened." Yang answered helplessly.
"Alright." Alex gave her a pat on the shoulder. "You sure you can make it to the cafeteria?"
"Yeah." The student nodded. "Just go get my sister back, please."
Alex knocked softly on the door of team RWBY's dorm. The entrance creaked as Weiss slowly cracked open the door, allowing Alex to step into the room. Weiss appeared to be in a similar state of sleep deprivation as Yang, though to a lesser degree. Zwei, Ruby and Yang's corgi, was curled up on one of the beds, next to an unmoving bundle of blankets. The tip of a red cloak protruded out from the small pile of cloth. Zwei moved as Alex walked near, allowing the soldier to sit on the edge of the bed.
"Ruby? It's Alex." No answer. He turned to Weiss. "Can I try talking to her alone?" The heiress nodded and silently excused herself from the room, carefully shutting the door as they departed. "Just you and me now, Ruby. You can talk to me." The bundle slowly rotated in place, so that Alex could see the girl's face barely poking out from the blankets. Her silver eyes had lost their usual enthusiastic luster, replaced with a saddened, dull gray. A tiny hand poked out of the cloth, Alex gently took hold of it, Zwei waddled over and licked it.
"I can't do this..." Ruby whispered. "I thought I could, but I can't."
"What do you mean, Ruby?"
"Being a Huntress. I want to go home. I can't be a killer." New tears began to fall from her eyes onto the bed.
"Ruby, what happened yesterday...it's not your fault. You saved my life by shooting him, do you regret that?"
"No..."
"Do you want to regret giving up your dream? Deprive the world of seeing the great Ruby Rose send hordes of Grimm packing?" Alex was greeted with silence as the girl mulled things over. "A huntress' job is to help people, right?" Ruby nodded her head slowly. "Then let's go help someone." Alex didn't give her time to answer, and picked up Ruby, blankets and all. He balanced her weight over his shoulder and carried her out of the room.
Ruby didn't put up a fight as Alex carried her. He set her down as they entered a testing room. Ruby shed her cloth cocoon, unceremoniously tossing the blankets into a corner. The room was mostly empty, aside from a simple workbench, a table, and four chairs. What exactly did Alex plan to do in here?
The answer came in the form of a cart being pushed through the testing room door, pushed by a certain blond boy, Jaune.
"Hey, Mr. Greene. I got your message and gathered all the stuff on the list- Ruby?" The girl's head swiveled to look at Jaune, and she offered a quiet greeting. "So, where do we start?"
"First, Jaune, you'll be making a weapon that fits your hands a bit better."
"Okay." Jaune nodded and then paused. "-and...how do I do that?"
"Well, I only know enough about weapons to perform maintenance. Luckily, there's an engineering genius in the room. Right, Ruby?" The student in question silently stood several feet from Jaune and Alex. The adult in the room stood back as Jaune examined the various components in front of him. He fiddled and attempted to match pieces together, but to no avail. Alex watched Ruby subconsciously drift closer and closer to her fellow student as he worked. Eventually, she silently seated herself with Jaune at the room's sole table.
"...that doesn't go there..." She muttered. Jaune ceased his blundering. "...it goes right here...unless you want to put in an internal Dust chamber..." Jaune smiled and followed her instructions.
"Thanks, Ruby" The corner of her mouth twitched to an almost imperceptible degree. She continued to guide Jaune through the basic components of his weapon, steadily growing more enthusiastic, giggling when Jaune somehow sent a screw flying across the room. Alex saw a sliver of light return to her eyes.
"Finished." Ruby placed her hands on her hips proudly. Jaune looked equally pleased as they examined the completed product. Alex had scavenged several parts from an old EDC low caliber sub-machine gun, which Jaune and Ruby had then filled with components. He had figured that the weapon's light frame and small size would allow Jaune to adapt to carrying it easily.
"Step one done. Good work, you two. Now for step two. Jaune you brought something for target practice like I asked?"
"Yep."
"Alright, set it up at the back of the room, then stand around fifteen feet away from it." The blond student nodded happily and grabbed a rolled up sheet of paper from the cart. Alex turned to Ruby. "Feel a bit better?"
"Thank you for not letting me give up." She said, before closing the distance and latching onto Alex's waist. "And...thank you for saving me."
"Sorry that I didn't slow down the bullet enough." Ruby made a small huff of amusement.
"You and Miss Aya did fine." Alex raised an eyebrow, and Ruby pulled a bent and twisted pair of metal ovals from a hidden pocket under her cloak. Alex realized what had happened, and began to chuckle.
"Told you she'd watch your back."
"You both saved me. If the bullet hadn't slowed down by hitting you, I'd probably be dead."
"Well, you saved me too, so I'd say we're even." Alex ruffled Ruby's hair, and she broke into a calm smile. "Now, let's teach Jaune how to shoot, shall we?"
Yang slowly stumbled her way through the halls. She had gone to the cafeteria for some food and coffee to keep her awake, but then she had overheard the other students in the building.
"Did you hear the rumor?"
"Did you know that Rose killed somebody?"
"Damn, who knew a little girl like her could be so cold-blooded." The gossiping went on and on. Yang had angrily shoved her plate and cup away and stormed out of the cafeteria.
Yang was jolted out of her thoughts as she bumped into someone. They that made a grunt of surprise as she fell on top of them.
"Morning, Beautiful. How's your sister doing?"
Oh, I really don't need this right now. "Why? So you can spread more rumors about how she's a murderer?" Yang furiously pushed herself off the boy's chest, knocking the air out of his lungs as she rose.
"Why would I do that? She saved the Bossman after all."
"Huh?" Yang scrutinized the boy's face. He looked familiar... if she mentally added a scraggly beard and a helmet... "Ryland, right?"
"Yup." The young soldier nodded.
"Sorry about accusing you like that. I'm-"
"-Tired and frustrated. I know. Just let the rumor mill run itself out."
"But-"
"I've already spoken to several people and...corrected their stories."
"Wait, really? You did that for Ruby?"
"Any friend of the Major is a friend of the First Infantry." Ryland's face broke into a toothy grin.
"Maybe I was wrong about you." Yang's own mouth stretched into a smile at the soldier's infectious happiness. "I thought you were just a flirt, but you're not so bad, Ryland."
"I think I'll choose to take that as a compliment."
"It was."
Well, there was no better way to say it. Jaune Arc was not born to be a swordsman. The blond boy had surprised both Alex and his classmate by hitting the head of the Ursa on the poster he had set up five times in quick succession. Jaune had shown stunning discipline behind the trigger, taking only single shots with each pull.
"You sure you've never handled a gun before?" Alex asked.
"I figured it wouldn't be right to just swing the thing around and hold down the trigger..." Jaune replied.
"Well, you handled it like a pro." The soldier took a quick peek at his scroll. "It's getting late, though, you two missed lunch. Let's stop here for today, and we'll pick up again tomorrow." Jaune packed his new weapon away safely in a hard case, then turned to leave with a wave.
"Thanks, Mr. Greene. Thanks, Ruby. I'll see you both tomorrow." The door slid shut behind him. Ruby tugged on Alex's arm.
"Now the horrible feeling is coming back." She said sadly. "Does it ever stop? Does it get better?"
"Ruby.." Alex knelt on his knee to better match the girl's height. "It does stop hurting after a while, but I want to tell you something. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you have to take a life, pray that it hurts just as much as the first time. If you get used to killing, that's when you lose yourself." He placed both his hands on her shoulders. "That pain tells you that you're still human. Don't forget that, and don't think less of yourself for feeling it, alright?" She nodded quietly. Alex rose to his feet. Ruby wrapped her arms around his waist again, pulling away after a few moments.
"Thank you, Mr. Alex."
"I think you can drop the 'mister' part, Ruby. We're friends, right?"
"Oh- Okay then. Thank you...Alex."
"You're welcome, Ruby. Now go find your sister, she's been worried about you."
"Yes, sir!" She attempted a joking salute and ran out of the door, trailing rose petals in her wake.
Meanwhile, in two separate places, the two Schnee sisters received an identical message on their scrolls.
To my daughters,
Matters at the estate were handled more quickly than expected. I will arrive in Vale tomorrow at noon precisely. I wish for the both of you to meet me at the "Alten Herrenhaus" an hour after. Do not be late.
Calder Schnee.
A/N: Well, Ruby's mostly out of the woods now. But it looks like Weiss and Winter'll be dealing with their own problems soon enough.
Rebmul: Well, some of your questions should be answered here. But, it's not done yet.
Dimas15: Thanks for the willingness to be patient. I ended up sleeping in the middle of the day yesterday, and that replenished my energy.
Gravenimage: Thanks for stopping by!
HeroBladeRiyet: Ruby's life will now be commentated by the Halo announcer.