Chapter 5

Keep You Safe and Warm

Ruby paced the banks of the icy stream careful not to leave any footprints or identifying marks in the snow that could be easily tracked. Her breath plumed in the thin air but she hardly noticed the bitter chill as it reminded her of the snowcapped mountains from her childhood.

The basin she was climbing now resided in the shadows of Patchwork, and at her top speed she could've been standing atop the highest peak in less than ten minutes if she so wished. She could have even visited her mother's memorial and leave roses for her, as well as check to see if any purple wild flowers had been left for her again.

She kept her hood down and face out of the wind, but kept a sharp eye out for any shadows moving in the moonlight. Perhaps it had to do with her being a trained sniper, but Ruby had excellent vision, even in the dark. So much so that she had often been teased growing up that she must've been part faunus, and had even been convinced by her sister that she was related to the Cookie Krisp cereal mascot.

There might've been some truth to her teasing, as not even their father or uncle knew much about her mother's side of the family. If there was any faunus blood in her veins however, she certainly hadn't inherited any of their natural grace, as her foot slipped off an icy rock and plunged into the freezing cold water, stealing her breath away and prompting her to flit across the stream with her semblance.

Rose petals flew through the air and on the other side of the bank she began hopping up and down on her foot until the numbness went away. She congratulated herself for not having made a single sound, but internally cursed herself knowing that if her prey was indeed in the area, they had likely sensed her aura and already gone back into hiding.

With a sigh she continued trekking uphill through the snow, leaving as few footprints as possible, both to conceal where she was going but also where she had come. Not that the Grimm couldn't sense the cabin from the other side of the island anyway...

It felt good to be out in the field again with that constant sense of unease pressing down on her, not knowing when the danger would strike, only that it would. After a month of being trapped in hospital rooms and a cramped cabin, Ruby could finally stretch her legs and return to some semblance of normalcy. She had been pacing around her family's summer home ever since they first arrived, instinctively going over structural weaknesses and possible escape routes without meaning to, when she wasn't taking care of Yang that is.

Out here she could ignore her emotions and focus solely on her work. After two years at a combat school and five months at a huntsman academy, Ruby didn't do well just sitting around twiddling her thumbs, but especially when 'just sitting' was a reminder of how useless she was caring for her big sister. Nothing she did or said seemed to help, if anything she only seemed to make things worse...

Ruby taking care of Yang was against the natural order established since either of them could remember, and was a constant reminder to them both of how drastically their lives had changed over night.

In the field however, a huntress had to always be thinking and be aware of their surroundings, which meant shutting off your emotions and leaving your troubles behind. At the beginning of her hunt, Ruby had noted how rusty she had become even at tracking, but as with everything in her life, she was quickly adapting and falling back into familiar habits.

The night before, Yang had been staring out the window into the darkness just as she had done every night since she woke up screaming in the hospital. She had seen yet another shadowy figure in the distance, and after excitedly waking her sister, she had fallen silent and hadn't said a word since it disappeared into the night.

Grimm sightings had become commonplace on the Isle of Patch ever since the fall of Beacon, and while upperclassmen from Signal were routinely flushing them out, Ruby felt that since they were likely being attracted to her sister, that it was her duty to deal with them.

A single adolescent Beowolf or Ursa might've been harmless enough to her or her father, but to a civilian without aura or someone like her sister, the threat was all too real and ever present in Ruby's already troubled and overactive imagination.

Even more egregious than the threat of physically harming her sister however, was that the shadow had caused Yang to think she was back, and the hurt it had caused her sister was reason enough for every Grimm on Remnant to die a painful death. That and it had wandered too close to Patchwork and her mom's memorial...

Yang didn't know where Ruby had run off to, and might not have even known she was gone. Their dad knew of course, and had promised to keep a close eye on her while Ruby was gone, but even so she thought it best to be quick about her hunt.

'But not too quick,' she thought to herself.

She crept through the leafless trees looking for any paw prints or snapped twigs. So far she hadn't found any sign of the creature having been prowling this particular ridge. The idea that her sister had simply imagined seeing the shadow or hallucinated again crossed her mind, but if she had to stalk through the entire mountain just to kill a single Beowolf for her sister's sake, then that's what she was going to do.

Then she'd be able to tell herself that since it hadn't been a hallucination, that it was proof her sister was getting better, and that soon enough they'd be able to return to the natural order of things.

Ruby continued following the wind, letting the tug on her cape be her guide of staying downwind of her prey. In the back of her mind, Ruby was reminded of all the times she and her sister had played huntress in these hills. Their parents' team had been registered with Signal before Raven's death and her mom's subsequent retirement, but afterward their Uncle Qrow had gone off to become a ranger out in the territories, eventually being promoted to Captain due to his long tenure, which was how most non-Atlesian huntsmen received their ranks. By outliving everyone else.

Rangers served as both ambassadors and mediators between the kingdoms and territories. Once contracted by a village or territory, they established order out in the fringes of society where there was none, often spending more time passing judgement over bandits and horse thieves than actually fighting off hordes of Grimm.

Ruby knew of course that being a ranger wasn't nearly as romantic as the stories made it out to be, but sneaking up a mountain with the shattered moon hanging over her head, freezing and possibly surrounded by bloodthirsty monsters, it was like a dream come true for her.

Despite there not being any trails to follow besides the stream, her sense of direction had taken her to the small outcropping exactly where her sister had seen the shadowy figure. The snowy landscape was as beautiful as it was desolate, and she approached the edge of the cliff with a hand cautiously resting atop one of Penny's compactable swords at her hip. Paw prints marked where the creature had stood on its hindlegs, and she peered down at the cozy cabin in the distance with smoke rising from its chimney.

She knelt down well-aware of her surroundings and studied the print for a closer inspection. It belonged to an adolescent Beowolf just as she suspected, probably five and a half feet tall standing upright and two hundred pounds, but the recent snowfall made it difficult to be positive. It couldn't have been too terribly old seeing how it would've been hunted down by now. A peculiar indentation in the print caught her eye however, and feeling it with her fingers she was reminded of the heel from a boot. Immediately her thoughts went to her sister and the shadow she had been searching for, but she quickly blocked the emotions out.

Somebody was being hunted, and as far as Ruby was concerned, she was the apex predator of these mountains.

Ruby unclipped Crescent Rose from her belt and unleashed her six foot long sniper-scythe. She raised her rifle quickly finding her target, and dialing in she could almost smell the body odor fermenting in the bedroom.

Yang was sitting on the edge of the bed looking down at something in her hand. Under normal circumstances, the window would've been open despite the cold and Ruby would've given her sister a friendly 'thinking of you' love tap with low grade ammunition as a practical joke, but she quickly lowered the rifle when her emotions began bubbling to the surface again.

She glared at the dark woods daring the monster to reveal itself. She was out in the open with nowhere to run, but when it didn't appear she sighed and returned Crescent Rose to her ammo belt. Now she was the helpless little girl everyone saw her as. The same one who had to grab a step stool or climb onto the countertop whenever somebody moved her toothbrush. The same little girl who had failed to protect her sister, Pyrrha, and Penny, as well as her home...

Ruby waited a moment longer but decided either the Beowolf didn't know it was being tracked, or still found her to be too much of a threat. Without a second thought she glanced back down at the tracks and followed them into the woods. She tracked them for several minutes until they came to a sudden halt underneath a particularly large tree, and took a deep breath before finally glancing up.

Ruby's mind worked faster than the average huntress' due to her semblance, and the microseconds she had to consider whether she was reckless or rusty, and work on her grocery list, felt like an eternity.

The Beowolf's razor sharp claws swiped at the cloud of rose petals and Ruby appeared from another cloud twenty yards away. She didn't draw her weapon, instead she merely studied the creature which mirrored her own curiosity. The gangly beast couldn't have spawned more than a week ago as it wasn't much bigger than herself, but it had already grown ivory armor which helped camouflage it in the snow.

"You made my big sis cry," she said, her hand tightening into a fist. "Nobody makes my sister cry..." The Beowolf struck again at blinding speed but Ruby continued watching until she could smell the beast's rancid breath before disappearing again.

The Beowolf's head spun as a fist connected with its jaw. It swiped for her head attempting to decapitate her but a series of kicks broke whatever semblance of bones held together its hindlegs. Aura radiated from her body covering them both in rose petals as she climbed on top, pummeling and tearing at the beast, ripping apart its jaws, growling just like the monsters that had torn her apart as a child, and just like all the students and civilians she hadn't been able to save.

Ruby might've felt sorry for the creature had it not wandered so close to Patchwork and her sister, and if it hadn't caused them both to think it was Blake...

Even though it was already beginning to dissipate, Ruby continued ripping and tearing until there was nothing left but shadow stained snow. Gasping for air, she stood up on unsteady legs, her eyes flickering between silver and red. Her aura shield shimmered as she hadn't quite been able to rip off the beast's claws in time, but fortunately they hadn't scratched her skin or torn her clothes. She was however covered in the black, tar-like substance that substituted for a Grimm's blood, or so the experts thought anyway, but after flaring her aura a few times this too disappeared.

Standing over her prey she kicked snow over its remains, which was more respect than she or the other victims of Patchwork had ever gotten.

After some time had passed, her wrist scroll vibrating brought her back to reality, and she answered with a sharp voice. "Yeah, Dad? Everything alright?"

"Yang's fine, sweetie" he said. "Did you find-"

"-Beowolf. Adolescent with about three-quarters armor. Set an ambush but didn't have a pack. It's dead now..."

"That's not good," said Taiyang slowly. "They're not spawning fast enough to create packs yet, but they should still be juveniles without armor. I'll call the school and they'll send a team in the morning. I guess this means we'll have to make the searches daily now."

"I'm gonna keep hunting," she said, hardly listening. "I can cover more ground than all the juniors and seniors combined, and I know the area better than anyone. I can probably have the entire island searched by morning if I hurry."

There was a pause on the other end. "Ruby, sweetie, even if Blake is out there, you've been looking for her for almost a month. She's a faunus, and from what you've told me, she's spent most of her life hiding from people looking for her. If she doesn't want to be found, you're not gonna find her."

"But the Grimm, they'll-"

"I know, but faunus aren't as easily sensed by Grimm as we are, and you're also not sneaking up on one even when they're asleep. I'm sure this isn't her first winter outdoors, and you're assuming she's even still in Vale..."

Ruby briefly recalled her last search when after nearly two days of searching she collapsed to her knees and began calling Blake's name, begging her to go see Yang, knowing she could hear her and that she was somewhere on Patch despite Yang, Weiss, and her dad's insistence that she had gone back to Menagerie or perhaps Anima.

"She wouldn't abandon Yang," she said firmly. "And Blake hiding somewhere up in the mountains would explain why there's so much Grimm activity. With all the medication Yang's on, they shouldn't be able to sense her from so far away, much less spawn everyday because of her. I know Blake's a faunus, but with how she must be feeling right now it would at least stir up any Grimm in the area."

Her father was silent again but finally he sighed. "Sweetie, your Uncle Qrow went looking for her, and if he can't find her nobody can. And I don't think the Grimm need a reason to spawn right now, but if they do, you and I are more than enough reason."

"Fine, then I'm going to kill every single Grimm on this island!" She unfolded Penny's sword before taking a series of breaths, her eyes flickering again. "I'll be back in just a couple hours, okay? Once I'm done, I'll run and get us some groceries, and Yang some cinnamon rolls. I-I love you, Dad."

"I love you too, sweetie. Just come home safely. Yang's not the only one who needs you..."

(A/N: Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed. This chapter was inspired by my reading of "Lonesome Dove" a couple years ago, and I decided to rework it into "The Twilight Dragon" as a companion to Chapter 1. I like the idea of Ruby searching for Blake but not telling Yang, and also her relieving stress by hunting Grimm. It seems in character for her, and I also wanted to show how much more reckless and/or violent she's become since the fall of Beacon. She's not stupid, and she wasn't in any real danger this chapter, but she's evolved from wanting to kill Grimm as quickly and efficiently as possible, to letting her emotions control her actions much like Yang. I felt that it was a natural evolution for her character, and I also wanted to have transitional chapters in the story due to multiple angsty chapters in a row being a bit much for some people (including myself). This won't be the only flashback we'll see, and I hope you enjoy what's still to come.

All credit goes to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who has blessed me with this story and with all of you wonderful readers. God bless)