Well... I finally got caught up on watching RWBY. And all I can say is... shit. I guess you can consider most, if not all of the events of Volume 8 non-canon to this fic, as there are a few things that happened that interfere with the plan I had for things going forward.

Ruby and Jaune rode on in silence. Which was fine by her; she needed to process the Brobdingnagian load of information she'd received over the past few hours.

Things had changed. Her friends had changed ridiculously. Jaune had become so hardened and jaded by a decade of combat and running to save his own and her life that he could take another person's life without a second thought. The man in the clinic, the one who had tried and nearly succeeded in strangling Ruby; his death was so quick, yet brutal. Jaune and thrust Crocea Mors' blade through his neck, coating the gleaming steel in bright crimson, and pulled it right back out without hesitation. Ruby had seen death before; they all had in their war against Salem. At one time or another, they'd all been forced to kill another person, either to save themselves or others. But it always affected them. Blake and Yang never went entirely back to their usual selves after slaying Adam Taurus. When Salem fell to Ruby, the woman's body nearly cleaved in two by Crescent Rose's massive blade, Ruby felt a part of herself die as well. Taking another person's life was a horrible, damaging thing; it signified a loss of innocence that could never return.

And Jaune seemed as though it was just another Tuesday to him. Like fighting off and killing assassins - one of whom used to be a close friend - was a normal everyday thing.

Then there was Blake—Ruby's teammate. A sob nearly tore from her throat at the thought of her. Ruby had to press her face against the brown leather of Jaune's jacket to stifle it. She grappled with her own mind, striving despairingly to find the logic in it. The Blake Ruby remembered was loyal and dedicated to a fault, willing to put her own life at risk to keep others out of harm's way. Ever the strong silent type, she attempted to deal with her problems alone, never risking those close to her, even at her own peril. She would die before ever allowing harm to come to those she loved. But above all else, the Blake Ruby knew would never turn on her family.

But when Ruby saw the amber eyes of her once-teammate and sister in arms, she could see none of that. All that swirled within those golden pools was rage, desperation, and sorrow. She did not know what these emotions stemmed from; hopefully, it was because she was forced into turning on her old friends. Ruby didn't think she could handle knowing that her friend, her sister's partner in more ways than one, had willingly turned her back on the ones she once held dear.

Something had happened to her friends. Someone had taken them, done away with them, locked them in a dark place somewhere, and then replaced them with strangers wearing their faces.

They had been riding for some time—an hour, two, maybe? Ruby was too lost to the maze of her thoughts that she lost track of time. But she paid notice when Jaune slowed the motorcycle to nearly a walking pace and turned off the main drag and onto a narrow dirt road. The sun hung heavy in the sky; red and orange light cast eerie shadows through the low-hanging boughs of the forest. The trees were thick and encroached on the road in many places, forcing Jaune to remain at low speeds to not crash due to some unseen root or large stone.

The situation was slightly unnerving. Ruby had grown up playing in the forests on Patch, and most of her training at Beacon took place in the Emerald forest outside of Vale. Still, there was something different, alien, about the woodsy areas on the continents of Anima. They were sprawling tracts of land, blanketed by trees and wilderness. Most of the continent remained unexplored, at least it had in Ruby's youth, due to the threat of Grimm. Settlements were constantly popping up all over the place, only to disappear within months or even weeks—all of their inhabitants turning up dead or missing due to the many bandit clans roaming outside the kingdom's borders or the monsters that ruled the night.

"Where are we going?" Ruby asked.

Jaune's gaze remained on the road, but he turned his head slightly in her direction. "Cinder has eyes in all the major cities and towns," he said, his annoyance betrayed by his tone. "We can't really shack up anywhere with a ton of people around, so we've gotta live out here. Thankfully, no one, not even the military, is brave enough to set up so far out of the CCT's range."

"Who's we?"

Ruby caught the smirk Jaune gave. "As much as Cinder was able to get her claws into the government, there are still quite a few people outside our old group that are willing to fight," he explained," They may not know the whole story—Salem, the Maidens, the gods. Still, most people don't like the idea of someone pulling strings on their local politicians behind the scenes."

Ruby cocked an eyebrow. "So, what, you've got, like, a rebellion going on?"

"Not me personally," Jaune shook his head. "It'd be hard to organize that kind of thing while looking after you. No, I leave the leadership of the discouraged citizens to someone else."

"Who?" Ruby wondered aloud.

Jaune pointed for her to look ahead on the trail. "You'll see in a minute. We're here."

He slowed them to a stop at the gates of what Ruby could only describe as a heavily armed refugee camp. A little over a hundred tents were encompassed by a chainlink fence—most likely electrically charged. Makeshift guard towers made from deer stands and hunting blinds within trees dotted every hundred feet or so were occupied by shadowed figures, each armed with a long rifle, watching out for Grimm or, more dangerously, approaching people. All about the perimeter, within and outside it, were trenches of varying widths and depths.

Milling about inside, Ruby saw that there were not just fighters. Men, women, and children of many differing ages went about their days. Most did look towards the gate at Jaune and Ruby's rather loud and obnoxious arrival on the motorcycle, though few spared them more than a glance. However, the armed men and women and the gate greeted them a little more like one would expect from a group of reclusive rebels in the wilderness.

"That's close enough!" called a rabbit-eared faunus woman. She didn't lift the automatic rifle in her hands to aim at them, but Ruby could hear the subtext of "or else" beneath her words. "I don't know what you two think you're doing here, but I'm gonna have to ask you to cut the engine and get off the bike. Keep your hands in the air and move very slowly; my men are twitchy!"

"Jaune?" Ruby queried under her breath.

"It's okay," he said, glancing at her over his shoulder. "It's dark, so they can't really see us, plus it's been a while since I've been back." Jaune then stood and climbed off the bike, though he kept one hand on the handlebars to keep it steady; Ruby scooted forward, taking his seat on the rider's cushion.

He addressed the woman at the gate, "Clara!" he greeted, waving toward her. "It's me, Archangel! I know it's been a while, but I'm back, and I've got something to return to your boss." Jaune tilted his head, gesturing at the bike and Ruby.

The woman squinted at them, then muttered something into a walkie-talkie. Ruby's eyes widened. She had a feeling she knew who the "boss" was.

"JAUNE!"

An ear-piercing howl of fury split the muted bustling of the camp. It was a sound like the raging call of a Beowolf on the hunt. The single word was drawn out impossibly long and likely left the one who made it out of breath, even still it grew louder by the second, as the culprit approached the gates from within the camp.

"Where is he?!" cried the voice. Ruby's heart stopped as Yang Xiao Long stormed around the corner of a tent toward them, her eyes a lethal shade of red. They glowed brighter and more terrifying as they locked on the blonde stood next to Ruby. "I'll kill you! Dammit, Jaune Arc! One week! I lend you the bike for one fucking week, and you keep it for three months?! What the hell is wrong with y-?" Yang's voice and her rage trailed off into stunned silence as she grew close enough to the gate to see Ruby and Jaune clearly in the dimming light of evening.

"Yang?" Ruby said quietly, ready to cry in joy.

Her big sister was too shocked to speak in response. Instead, fast as lightning, she gripped the chainlink gate with both hands and ripped both segments apart in a single motion, snapping the heavy lock and chain holding them together like a rubber band. Yang crashed into Ruby like a shot from a cannon; Jaune laughed as he narrowly sidestepped the incoming blonde missile by a hair's breadth. The two of them hit the ground with a dull thud, Yang twisting around so that Ruby landed on top of her, then wrapping her in a hug tight enough to rival a hydraulic press. For the second time today, Ruby found herself with the life being choked out of her; only this time, instead of a cold-blooded murderer, she was being killed with love, her face turning blue as it was buried in her sister's boobs.

For some reason, death by cleavage wasn't looking like a horrible way to go right now.

Blake was on the converging border of many different emotional states. On the one hand, she was angry enough to have put her fist through the nearest wall if there had been a wall present—as it was, she was slumped against a tree on the side of a dusty Mistral road. On the other hand, Blake wanted nothing more than to break down into tears, curl into the fetal position, and cry herself into oblivion. And in an even stranger part of her mind, she was happy. Happy that her old friends had escaped her again. She didn't want them to, but she hated the idea of dragging them before Cinder.

Actually, it was more likely that it would only be Ruby that she brought to Cinder. Any orders regarding Jaune Arc ended with the words "irrelevant" and "eliminate if possible."

Despite the hurricane inside her head, though, Blake was the picture of calm on the exterior. That was due to the face staring at her... no, staring into her soul, from her scroll's screen. Cinder Fall looked at Blake with a mixture of smug satisfaction and disappointment, like she hadn't expected Blake to succeed and was happy that she wasn't wrong. The Fall Maiden's mouth was drawn into a thin line, but her golden eye betrayed that she was relishing the pain Blake felt.

"Tell me, Belladonna," Blake cursed herself for flinching at Cinder's purring voice. "How long have you been under my employ?"

Blake closed her eyes and sighed. "Two years." In all honesty, she would have preferred to fall on her own sword than truthfully admit such a fact. It felt like - it was - a betrayal of everything she'd fought for.

"When I... acquired your services, I was under the impression that you were skilled in this sort of thing," Cinder continued. "After all, you, yourself, are responsible for the deaths of a significant number of my subordinates."

Blake was silent. She already knew where this "lecture" was going.

"So tell me, Miss Belladonna, how you have failed so many times to accomplish this one, simple task."

Once again, no answer.

"Need I remind you what it is you stand to lose if Ruby Rose is not eliminated?" Cinder was getting annoyed now. Blake could sense the impending ultimatum.

"No, Cinder," Blake muttered, gritting her teeth slightly, so her voice was clipped and rude. "I know exactly what's at stake."

"Good," Cinder sneered. "Because if you fail one more time, you can consider our contract null." She leaned into the screen so that all Blake could see was her stone face. "If Ruby Rose is not dead within the month, you... and the one you love will be."

With that, the call ended, and Blake was left to sag against the tree trunk. The darkness in her mind became thicker than the night that enveloped her. Tears fell freely, and she screamed a banshee scream into the heavens. Damn Cinder. Damn Ruby.

"Damn me..." she wept.

A few hundred words shorter this time, but I felt like this was a decent stopping place. The plot is still in its beginning stage, we need to let it simmer then add a little spice, stir 10 to 15 minutes over low heat, and then we will have a mildly thick, spicy plot.