Chapter 24_ Perpetual Twilight

Hey Ya'll GP here

Wow... the last real chapter... somehow I am feeling majorly nostalgic. I really cannot believe I've gotten this far and yes I know I say this a lot but I could not have made it without you and you and you. The Epilogue will be out as soon as possible, as well as the fact that I am going to be editing all the chapters, replacing bad words, spell and grammar checking, etc. just in case. I am going to also post a dedication at the beginning of the book and acknowledgements chapter after the Epilogue. If you want to you can check those out. Also... to the person who wanted a drawing of Roman's masquerade ball outfit: Sorry it has taken me so long. I did draw it soon after you asked me to but... it looked bad. So I trashed it.

Alrighty then... on to the story.

Ruby and Roman walked outside the city, their footsteps leaving only the barest hint of their existence in the forest floor. Moss covered the trees and vines hung from the foliage. The two stood out in the greenness of the forest, their voices rarely broke the quiet of the woods and the only sound was the distant rumble of a Grimm and the call of the birds nesting above their heads. Finally Ruby's voice broke the silence, "Do you think that we will ever find out what's been going on?"

Roman continued walking, not looking at the girl next to him, "What do you mean Red?"

"Do you remember the first night you came to Beacon?" she waited until he nodded to continue, "I told you that no one ever tells me anything. The past few months just seemed to cement that into my brain. I guess I'm always supposed to be stuck in the dark."

"Red," he began, "Most people don't know anything either. In fact, back when I worked for Cinderhella I was equally less informed as you are now. The people in power tend to overlook the fact that those under them have the power to learn things and to keep secrets."

"What are we supposed to do then? Accept our fate and never learn anything important! Always have our blindfolds on?" Ruby skidded to a stop and glared at Roman, throwing her hands up into the air and startling a few nearby creatures.

Roman stopped and stared back at Ruby, he shrugged, "Do what I do. Spy, steal, bribe, exchange information until the darkness at least seems a little bearable."

Ruby started moving again, her face set in concentration as she thought about his words, the orange-haired criminal followed after her, his cane spinning in his hand. Once again the only sound was the peaceful animal noises and the occasional monster screech in the distance. Thoughts ran through Ruby's mind and after staring at the shadows in the forest the vast array of greens and browns she decided.

"Okay."

She ran to catch up with Roman, latching onto his arm. He looked down at the girl hanging off his arm and raised an eyebrow, her voice high pitched and hopeful, "Together."

Weiss looked out the window at her mansion in Atlas, her long hair brushing against her arms as she raised Myrtenaster and swung in a wide arc. She clenched her teeth, determined to get stronger. Her father had kept her away from news, telling her that if she wanted to be the heiress of the Schnee Dust Company she couldn't have any contact with the rascals from Vale. That itself seemed odd to the girl, since she knew that a business owner had to know what was going on in the world to make the correct decisions. Her strikes became hurried and her face was uneasy. Her form was sloppy and she breathed hard from her nose as anger fueled her attacks. She couldn't get away. She couldn't leave. What was she to do?

A black-haired jumped from train car to train car, avoiding the men and women who patrolled the vehicle. She had no weapons in her hands and she reached the end of the train, about to jump from the top of the car into the forest. Her feet had barely left the ground when she felt a warm hand grip her arm and pull her down. Adam stood above Blake, a grim smirk under his mask, "You didn't think you could get away that easily did you? Not like last time. Didn't I tell you that if you tried to escape I'd finish what I started with that fire haired blonde?"

Blake cowered in fear and clenched her eyes shut, trying to shut out the reality of her situation. She followed Adam back into the interior of the train.

Yang's head hit the table and she kept it there, staring at the rest of the club in distress. Her left hand clutched a glass with a strong alcoholic drink over ice. Even the cute umbrella couldn't distract her from her other arm. It hung limply, considerably shorter than the other arm. She picked up her head for a second just to slam it into the table. How could she let this happen? Ruby was missing; Blake was missing; Weiss was stuck at her father's house, practically imprisoned; And Yang was helpless. What help could she be missing an imperative part of her body. Junior walked up behind her and rested a large hand on her shoulder. She shook it off and he didn't comment on her casual rejection, "So Blondie, what's wrong? You've been here drinking for two days straight and I don't think I've seen you sleep at all."

She didn't answer him.

"Is this about your arm? Or is it your sister, 'cause I have a feeling I might know where she is."

Yang's head shot up so quickly she might have gotten whiplash, "Where?!" her left hand grabbed his collar and pulled his face closer to her's.

The End

It has come to my attention that some people are wondering why I am ending this fic (that's you Timmy) and I feel that I should address that topic. The first reason I feel is the most obvious, I have been planning this ending for at least 4 months, and I knew that I was going to end it soon and that I would end it in this way, although I didn't necessarily know all the details. My second reason is that I have never written a story this long, in fact most of my stories begin losing momentum by about the third chapter, I have ADD and often hop from one thing to another and never finish anything. In fact I am beyond surprised that I even wrote a proper ending for this. And yes, I know the ending is a bit abrupt, I think so too, however… I feel that it is following the same idea I have been bringing out throughout the story, that of unknowing. Both of the characters and of the readers. Only I know what is truly happening and I like to keep my readers guessing. The third reason I ended it here is that I feel it is a good stopping place, not only is it a cliffhanger, one of my favorite things, there are a lot of aspects of the story that are not set in stone, and while I think of my own 'ending' per se, so can you. As this is so I like to give my readers the option of coming up with what they feel would happen in the future (some of my favorite books have ending such as this like: A Series of Unfortunate Events, and Scythe. Both of which I would recommend). The last reason is kind of sad but a reason that has been troubling me for some time, that is, I lost my passion in the Rosewick fandom. It's not that I don't ship them anymore, I do, but I'm the type of person who, when they find a ship, reads fics until they are sick of the ship and then moves on. However, since there were barely any fics when I got into this I had lots of passion to write my own, now though, I have reached the point where the fanfictions for this fandom are abundant and I am satisfied with amount of them on all the sites I use to publish this story. Please forgive me for ending this and I hope you enjoyed it to the end, just as I did. Look forward to the Epilogue.

Gravity_Piglet out