"Cinder!" the voice of Emerald called out in a panic. "We need to get her some help."
"What about her?" Mercury's voice asked.
"What about her? We can leave her here. Something'll eat her..." Emerald scoffed.
"Hold on, I see someone coming. We need to go." Mercury pointed out.
"Fine." Emerald answered.
"Easy there kid... I gotcha..." Qrow's voice stated comfortingly.
"No one's been able to get through to Beacon since that Wyvern's been stuck to the tower." Qrow's voice explained.
"I can't get any calls out to anyone." Taiyang's voice stated.
"Well till we can get that thing off the tower, our communication networks are dead."
Ruby groaned as she woke up in her bedroom. She looked around in surprise.
"I'm... Home?" she asked and looked down to see she was wearing her pajamas.
Taiyang was sleeping beside her bed.
"Dad?" Ruby called out as Taiyang finally woke up.
"Ruby!" he hugged her tightly. "I'm glad you're finally awake."
"W-What happened?" she asked as Qrow peered into the room.
"You've been out for the past 2 weeks." Qrow explained.
"W-Was that all a dream?" Ruby asked looking towards her father and Qrow, hoping to be right.
"I'm sorry..." Taiyang stood up. "I'll go make you some hot food." he started out of the room.
"It wasn't a dream." Qrow sat down in the chair Taiyang was sitting at.
"Then Beacon's really..."
"Yes, it is." Qrow scratched the back of his head.
"What about Pyrrha? Or Cinder?! Penny?"
"She's gone kid... Cinder wasn't at the tower when I got there and Penny... Her remains were brought back to Atlas along with Amity Colosseum." Qrow answered as Ruby looked down.
"I... I failed." Ruby felt tears well up in her eyes as Qrow put a hand on her shoulder.
"Hey now... you still made a huge difference." he assured her.
"How?"
"You did a number on the Wyvern." Qrow explained.
"I... Did? How did I do anything to that monster?" Ruby asked.
"I'm not sure how to say this exactly... You're special. Special the same way your mother was. Not just in the 'Mommy's little angel' kind of way either." Qrow shook his head. "You have silver eyes."
"Ozpin told me that when we first met." Ruby affirmed.
"Well that was part of what drew Ozpin into admitting you into Beacon." Qrow chuckled. "There's some old legends of Silver eyed warriors that I'm sure you'd have learned about if you had a second year at Beacon. But to keep it short, as the legend goes... These warriors were able to petrify Grimm with fear just by looking at them."
"Just like... The Grimm Reaper?" Ruby asked.
"In a similar sense to the Grimm Reaper, yes." Qrow chuckled. "At least till she mysteriously vanished." he glanced over and saw Taiyang waiting with the tray of food. "I suppose I shouldn't keep you from eating." he stood up.
"What happened to Professor Ozpin?" Ruby asked.
"He's..." Qrow looked down. "I have to continue his work in his stead." he explained simply. "We did have reason to believe that Cinder's trail leads back to Haven." he smirked. "But I doubt a pipsqueak like you would wanna get involved in that." he left the room as Taiyang walked into it with the food tray.
The second Ruby started eating she threw up. It was likely going to take some time for her to fully get back on her feet.
A couple of days later...
Yang sat in bed, looking despondent as she stared out the window.
"Yang..." Ruby's voice called out to her sister from the doorway.
"Ruby." Yang stated flatly while Ruby sat at Yang's bedside.
"I'm... I'm glad you're okay." she hugged Yang but Yang didn't move.
"I'm not though." Yang responded. "It's... It's all gone." Yang looked to her stump of an arm. "Penny... Pyrrha... Beacon... It's all just gone."
"What happened to Beacon? Dad told me the city was mostly cleared out from the Grimm there. He wouldn't tell me about Beacon though..." Ruby crossed her arms.
"It is. But Beacon's just overrun. Because that Giant Wyvern is frozen there, the Grimm haven't been able to get cleared out."
Ruby looked away from Yang before suddenly glancing back. "Where are Weiss and Blake?"
"Weiss's father came for her. Atlas was blamed for a lot of what happened and Ironwood's become as paranoid as ever. We're probably never going to see Weiss again." Yang explained to her.
"And Blake?-" Ruby was cut off before she could finish.
"Blake Ran." Yang grit her teeth.
"Why?" Ruby asked.
"I don't know and honestly. I could care less. Sun told me she ran after making sure I was safe." tears streamed down Yang's face. "Sometimes bad things just happen..."
"Yang-" Ruby reached her hand out.
"Just leave me alone Ruby." she scoffed.
"But..." Ruby stood up now. "I want to go after Cinder and her team. They're the ones who did this. It was all staged including your incident, Yang."
Yang clenched her fist, and it was clearly shaking a lot. "That doesn't matter anymore, Ruby. Everyone saw and everyone made their own conclusion about what kind of person I am."
"We can get back at them, Yang. We can clear your name and make sure that nothing like this ever-"
"Just shut up!" Yang turned towards Ruby with red eyes. "You can go wherever the hell you want. As for me? I'll just lay here." Yang leaned back against the headrest of her bed.
Ruby hung her head as she started towards the door before stopping and turning towards Yang. "I..." she choked on her own words for a second. "I love you." Ruby stood for a moment, but when she realized no answer would come, she turned and left.
Yang held her head, more tears streaming down her face as she wept silently to herself.
A raven perched outside her window looked down at her before it flew off.
"What do I do, Mom?" Ruby asked as she looked to a Grave Marker perched on top of a cliff. The Marker was engraved with the words.
Summer Rose- Thus Kindly I scatter.
"A lot's happened since Beacon fell. Yang's been bedridden and refuses to do anything. Dad thinks she'll get up eventually but I'm... I'm not sure myself." she shook her head. "My teammate Weiss is back in Atlas and my other teammate Blake is missing. Everything's just in so much disarray."
"Maybe Torchwick was right." Ruby scoffed. "I should just die like every other huntsman in history..." she sat down now in front of the marker.
"I wish you were here Mom... I wish you were here so badly. You'd know what to do." Ruby curled up. "Everyone's in so much pain right now and I don't know how I can help anyone. I sat there and watched Pyrrha die in front of me and I was useless. I don't even know what's special about my eyes. I wish you could tell me. There's so much I wish you could tell me."
Fall soon gave way to Winter as snow fell around the marker and Ruby stood in front of it again.
"Hey Mom..." Ruby, with her hood over her head and wearing a new outfit, knelt down in front of the marker. "I finally finished my recovery."
"I know you wouldn't want me to give up my hope. I know that you wouldn't want me to quit so I won't quit." Ruby turned towards the remaining members of Team JNPR.
"We promise you, Mrs. Rose. That your daughter will be safe with us." Jaune affirmed.
"We'll get to the bottom of this and reach the truth." Ren nodded. "Even if the road is long and uncertain."
"And kick plenty of bad guy butt along the way!" Nora cheered.
"I'll visit you again someday Mom." Ruby smiled, glancing back and starting down the path with Jaune, Nora and Ren. A flock of birds flew in front of the sun as the group left.
A crow followed behind the new team in the distance as Nora started to make a fuss about what their team should be called.
In the midst of a dark and desolate wasteland that had giant dust crystals protruding out of the ground stood a castle and behind one of it's windows was a woman, her skin was white and her face had dark veins around it. Her sclera was black and her eyes a glowing red. She also wore a long black dress and had her hair tied and done up in a rather ornate manner. She turned towards a meeting room where 3 shadowy figures sat around her before the door to the room opened with Emerald on the other side of it.
All of the figures in the meeting room turned their attention towards her.
Emerald ignored all but the woman who stared directly at her.
"Come closer... Child." Salem stated with a smile on her face. "Tell me all of it... About how Cinder made Beacon burn." her eyes started glowing brighter now.
Commentary: And with this chapter, we end off Volume 3. I hope you enjoyed it ^^. This ending chapter was done differently than the original finale, focusing mainly on the aftermath of Beacon's events along with Ruby slowly recovering after being out of it for a while. Another borrowed idea here with the time progression along with Ruby's scene at her mother's grave being here instead of the start of the Volume.
I should probably mention how exactly next Volume's chapters are gonna work. Essentially it'll follow this order, R, then W, then B, then Y. If one of them finishes like say Blake's storyline finishes first, then the order will be R, then W, then Y, till each subsequent storyline is done. There's 20 chapters I've written out already for it, and I certainly hope you guys will like it. I know I really liked how it turned out, especially Weiss's storyline.