New Moon
Chapter 2: Great Big Jerk
Disclaimer: I do not own anything except myself and my own ideas.
Being sealed wasn't really that bad honestly. He was starting to think Kurama was just a big whiny baby. It's not like he even knew whether or not any time had passed. Most of the time, he just slept. At least until a little silver eyed girl picked him up. Now he just pitied Remnant. It wasn't ready for his particular brand of chaos.
****NM****
Silver eyes cracked open blearily.
She sort of stared blankly at the ceiling for a bit.
She still remembered everything with crystal clear clarity, it wasn't like her memory was fuzzy or foggy or anything. Last thing she remembered was that big ass Wyvern had been repelled, if you could call being straight up disintegrated, repelled. There were still Grimm in the city, but with Atlas' mechs back online, those weren't an issue with how many Hunters there were in the city. At most it was just the White Fang. She hoped Blake was fine.
Huh. This actually wasn't so bad. She knew her Mentor had just been exaggerating.
It was a bit soreowowowonopethereitwas.
Ruby trembled minutely and screwed her eyes shut even as a few beads of tears leaked out from the all-consuming pain.
Someone must have been in the room with her, because she could hear someone immediately shouting for the doctor through the haze of pain.
In short order, her room was already filled with people in white robes, rushing around and messing around with that fluid bag thingy hanging above her head. After that, it didn't take long before the pain finally subsided, but that just left her feeling weary and tired down to the bone.
"Ruby! Ruby, are you okay?"
The doctors left, and she could hazily see a cloud of yellow… hair? Flitting about in front of her, Ruby smiled somewhat dreamily, "Yaang! You're alright!"
"I'm… I'm yeah, I'm alright." There was something forced about Yang's tone, but in her haze, Ruby did not notice at all.
"Ishh everyoneee elllse okay?" She managed to slur out.
"They're fine Ruby, you did good. You saved everyone."
"Geheheh…." Yang rolled her eyes at the dark-haired girl's manic little giggle. Typical Ruby.
"Go back to sleep Ruby, we'll talk once you're up."
"Mmmhmm!"
Everything sort of faded away into a wash of color and whiteness again.
The next thing she knew, she was looking at a familiar white ceiling.
Right. Hospital.
Ruby's dark silver eyes blinked numbly before she tried to look around and stopped short when she realized that she wasn't alone in the room.
Her room was packed.
Miss Glynda was there. Qrow was there, simmering not so lightly. And so were her friends.
Well, most of her friends, Ruby mentally amended. She couldn't see Weiss or Blake anywhere.
Pyrrha was there though, along with her Team, though they looked rather nervous with Ozpin, Glynda and Qrow being in the same room as them. The sweet girl sent her a small wave and a warm smile though.
Anyway…. Why?
At the questioning look, Professor Ozpin finally coughed into one hand and stood forward,
"You're awake, Miss Rose. Do you feel better?"
Ruby slowly nodded, why was he acting like she had died or something?
At the strange look he was getting from the dark-haired waif, Ozpin elaborated as gently as he could, "You've been unconscious for two weeks, Miss Rose."
That didn't sound too bad.
She had been expecting worse honestly.
The last time she had done something like this, she had been out for months.
She had been five then if she remembered correctly.
Behind him, Yang snorted like an angry yellow bull, "He didn't mention that your heart stopped at least twice. And your entire goddamn skeleton was cracked when the doctors got to you."
Ruby's little mouth formed a tiny "o" of surprise.
Everyone in the room shifted uncomfortably.
"Don't give me that look." Yang screeched before Ozpin could stop her, "What the hell was that?!"
"Miss Xiao Long, please." Ozpin interjected with a stern look.
That was enough to finally settle Yang back down, but Ruby refused to feel any shame.
She knew it had been necessary.
Hell, she distinctly remembered Professor Ozpin saying that Sensei had saved his life too!
The pugnaciously set jaw told Yang as much and her big sis harrumphed angrily.
That movement caused Ruby to notice something else. Namely, Yang's right arm.
Or rather, what was left of Yang's right arm.
Silver eyes went wide and she stared at her older sister disbelievingly.
Her chin wobbled and she weakly lifted up her hands.
Yang's shoulder slumped at that and she shuffled forwards to pull her baby sister into a hug with her one good arm.
The two sisters hugged tightly until Yang relented with a whisper, "You did good, Ruby. You saved everyone. Even me."
After Yang had let go and Ruby had had a drink of water to soothe her throat, Ruby finally felt okay enough to talk, "Why is everyone here?"
The looks she was getting at that question were clearly asking if she was dumb. Yang just facepalmed.
Okay. Fine. Stupid question.
"Is… Beacon okay?" She croaked out her next question.
"It's damaged. We… lost many people and we will have to rebuild. But Beacon, and indeed Vale itself, are still standing, thanks to you."
Ruby nodded slowly. At least her main objective had been achieved.
"Where's Weiss and Blake?" She croaked out again.
The crowd in her room shifted again and Ruby quirked one brow at them.
"Miss Schnee…. Has been asked to return to Atlas." Ozpin finally answered, "and we have been unable to find Miss Belladonna. She has left Vale as far as we can tell."
Ruby's other brow joined the first one.
What the hell had been going on while she was out?
She was snapped back to reality when Professor Ozpin tapped her shoulder gently, "Miss Rose, before we continue, would you mind if we asked about…. that other Rose?"
Other Rose?
What other Rose?
Oh.
Oooohhh…. They thought…
Ruby couldn't help it. She began to giggle at the thought of her mentor dressed in her clothes.
Everyone else just looked at the giggling girl as if she had gone crazy.
"Ruby." Yang rolled her eyes again and snapped her fingers repeatedly, "Focus. Kickass Rose. Not Dorky Rose. Details. Now."
Hey, Rose silently protested, she was kickass too alright?
Sensei just kicked more ass than her.
So, she reached for her neck and abruptly paled when her fingers touched her bare neck.
The ring.
It was gone.
"My ring!" Ruby croaked to everyone's confusion.
Everyone in the room looked around in bewilderment until Ozpin again stood out, "Would I be correct in assuming that that ring had something to do with the other Rose?"
Ruby nodded frantically as she dug around her bed in case it had slipped off somewhere.
"Found it!" Pyrrha said triumphantly, holding up the little bronze thing that was hanging onto the leather cord, "It was under your bed." The redhead explained as she placed it in Ruby's grateful hands.
Ruby heaved a sigh of relief as she carefully placed it back around her neck. Immediately, she called into the void.
'Sensei?'
The response came back almost instantly, 'Sup?'
Ruby rolled her eyes; the great big jerk was obviously fine. He wasn't the one who had gotten laid out on a hospital for two weeks and got a great big cracked skeleton to go with it.
'I did warn you.'
"So? Explanations?" Yang tapped her foot impatiently as Ruby spaced out. Again.
"You remember that old video game from Mistral?" Ruby began hesitantly, "The ones where the protagonist found a crystal that had a spirit grandpa or grandma inside? And the spirit taught them everything and gave them powers like health regen and super forms and so on?"
"Neverending Fantasy 3?" Yang doubtfully quirked one eyebrow at her sister.
"Yeah, that one. The ring is kinda like that." She touched the ring fondly, "I found this…. When I was four." Ruby continued hoarsely, "At mom's grave. I was… just talking to her y'know." She shrugged awkwardly at the sad looks she was getting, "I saw this glinting in the grass and thought it was hers. So, I picked it up and kept it. Sensei told me later on he didn't know mom though."
"Sensei?" Ozpin echoed the unfamiliar word. It sounded vaguely Mistralian or Menagerian.
"Means mentor in Sensei's language." Ruby explained simply.
"Are you seriously telling me there's an old dude in that ring that talks to you?" Yang blurted out incredulously, "That gives you a super form? That's what the Other Rose is? Complete with heavy drawbacks after you fall out of it? You're shitting me, right?"
"Miss Yang. Language." Glynda shot in sternly.
"Ah…. Not quite." Ruby hedged, "I don't get anything myself. No health buffs, no super big Aura, no super form, nothing. He doesn't really teach me anything either because he doesn't know how to use a scythe. He doesn't know how to use any weapon really. At most we just spar or talk when he's not in the mood for a fight. I CAN let him use my body for a bit though, that's what that was."
"I wish it looked cooler though." Ruby rambled on, unaware of the looks she was starting to get again, "I mean, in those games, they always turned the hair something flashy like pure white. Mine just turns yellow. It's so boring."
"OI!"
"You… spar with him?" Pyrrha interjected, ignoring Yang's explosion.
"Yep." Ruby nodded happily, unaware of the looks she was currently getting.
"…. How?"
"It's… hard to explain. I don't just talk to him. When I touch the ring and sort of wish it, the world sort of slows to a stop. Then I sort of mentally go into the ring to see him. My body's still here." Ruby replied a little shyly.
Ozpin immediately paled and shared a heavy look with Qrow.
That… sounded familiar.
A fifth relic? One they didn't know about?
That… didn't sound good.
What was this one called? The Ring of Power?
And it was just swinging around the world without a goddamned vault or Maiden to protect it?
The best part was, it appeared that this one, had been safer than all the others purely because no one had even known about it. Not even the goddamned Relic of Knowledge.
"I'm going to need everyone to stop asking Miss Rose any more questions." Ozpin immediately started lockdown procedures, he already regretted asking questions in front of these many people, but how was he supposed to have known?
"Why?" Yang interrupted.
"I'm afraid Miss Rose may be in great danger." Ozpin temporized, "This kind of power may draw the wrong sort of attention to her."
"Bit late for that." Qrow observed bitterly, already guessing what Ozpin was trying to do and what he was planning to do, "She's been all over the news for the past two weeks. You take that thing away from her, and she won't even have a backup option, drawbacks be damned. And we've already learned that Beacon is not infallible."
"Sensei says you don't have to worry about that." Ruby timidly interrupted, "It doesn't matter if you take the ring. It'll just come back to me."
Qrow's mouth felt like it was filled with sawdust, "And if someone…. kills you for it?"
Ruby paled, "Wha-what?"
Ozpin looked around the room and sighed heavily, "There are many people who want that kind of power, Miss Rose. None of them good." He bowed apologetically, "Please get some rest. It seems like you will have a busy schedule ahead of you."
He said some other things too, but Ruby was now too dazed to hear anything.
****NM****
That night, as she laid on her bed, blankly staring at the ceiling with unseeing eyes, replaying that earlier debacle over and over again in her head. Eventually, she placed her hand on the ring hesitantly.
The world visibly slowed to a stop and then it…. shattered like glass.
Reality seemed to shift sideways and she found herself standing in a meadow all of a sudden, no longer in her bed at the hospital.
In here, she was completely hale and healthy. There was no soreness whatsoever.
She stared at the door in front of her and hesitated.
"You might as well come in." a voice called her out.
Ruby smiled pitifully before she pushed the door of the Mistralian or Menagerian styled cottage open.
Ruby didn't really know what style the cottage was supposed to be, she was just parroting Professor Ozpin. Inside, there was a cozy living room with a small fire burning merrily in the hearth. A rugged blond man who looked to be in his mid-twenties was sitting on the floor in a corner. The book in his hand and the Mistralian atmosphere of the home completely failed to match with the man's Valean styled trousers, white shirt and black vest.
As she was staring at him uncertainly, the blond peered back at her over a pair of glasses, "Well?"
"So…. That was a thing." Ruby finally replied awkwardly as she took her customary seat next to him.
"Mmmhmm. Like I said, I did warn you." The blond repeated his earlier statement with a more informal tone than the one he had used with everyone else and casually flipped to the next page.
"When?" Ruby protested indignantly, "You just asked me if I was willing to make a sacrifice! I thought you were just talking about being stuck in the hospital! You didn't say anything about maniacs chasing after me!"
He glanced at her, "It was included in the fine print. Right under 'sacrifice' and next to 'common sense'." The man noted dryly.
The girl made a keening sound and rolled around the room in a childish tantrum, prompting the older man to roll his eyes and turn to another page uncaringly. She eventually ended up rolling until her head was comfortably wedged on the man's lap and she pouted up at him as adorably as she could.
Her mentor ignored her.
She pouted harder.
Her mentor flipped to another page.
She cranked it up to eleven.
He lasted for about a minute under her onslaught.
Then he folded like a house of wet cards.
"Alright, alright. Stop looking at me like that." The blond man finally put down the book with a resigned sigh, "You're so lucky I'm one of the good guys. If it was someone else sealed in here, like giant grumpy foxes, you'd probably be having a real bad time right about now."
"Don't know any foxes."
"Lucky you."
Ruby happily bounced up and hugged the blond's midsection, "I knew you'd help!"
"Not so fast." The blond warned her, "This isn't going to be easy."
Ruby just hummed happily, despite his words, the blond was still patting her back gently.
"Alright! What are we going to do?"
"Not we. You. I'm stuck in here, remember?"
Ruby nodded excitedly, "Okay, what do I need to do?"
"First, we'll need to get out of Beacon and go on a journey." The blond said sagely, "You will need to seek out eight other rings just like this one scattered around the world. Each contains a part of my power. You will have to find them all and unlocked my true power before I can pass it on to you."
"…."
"…."
"You're shitting me, right? Eight other rings? All over the world?"
"Language." The whiskered blond smirked, "Also, yes. I was shitting with you."
"Senseeiiii~~" Ruby whined in a spoilt manner.
"I'm serious about the journey though."
"What? Why?"
"Tradition I suppose." Her mentor replied with a shrug.
The dark-haired girl stared at him like he was insane, "What tradition!?"
"Tradition for people who have dangerous beings of power stuck in them." The whiskered blond commented wryly.
Ruby perked up as she suddenly saw a loophole, "Wait, so…. If it's just tradition, I don't actually have to go on a journey, right?"
One rough and calloused hand tousled her hair, "Be serious for a minute, kid. I'm not joking about that trip."
He lifted up one finger, "Your first problem, like your uncle said, is the fact that you probably already have a target on your back if what he said about our little adventure being recorded and put online was true. Even if they don't know about the ring, chances are, they still want to know how you did what I did because my RasenKuhaku sure as hell ain't no Semblance, and I haven't even pulled out the big guns yet. No to mention, those that DO find out about the ring, will know they need to go through you first."
The second finger rose, "Your second problem. This attack on Beacon wasn't an accident. Someone arranged everything to happen at the same time. In other words, you and I just screwed up someone's plans. Someone who's more than likely going to be gunning for you as revenge, ring or no ring. And this time, they'll pull out all the stops because they already think you're powerful."
Another finger lifted, "Your third problem; they already know where you are. You stay in Beacon and someone'll eventually come along, most likely the guy from problem #2, and try something stupid. Best case scenario, you get hurt. Worst case scenario, other people get hurt trying to protect you and you die anyway."
The next finger went up, "Your fourth problem is the fact that Beacon's walls can't block a damned fly, much less an assassin, for the foreseeable future, so they're just gonna keep on coming. Plus, Ozpin's a piece of shit."
"What?" Ruby who had been listening intently squawked at that last line, "Why? Weren't you just getting along fine with him?"
"I don't like liars." Her mentor replied simply, "And he started lying out of his ass every other sentence the moment you told him about me. He was lying so hard I was wondering if his pants would spontaneously combust or something. Granted, he might have a reason for that and he did point out the most important thing, but he's hiding a lot of other things that may or may not be related to points 1 to 3, so, until I find out what that they are, I'm not gonna trust him with someone as squishy as you."
He fondly poked her squishy stomach just to make a point.
The girl who he had watched grow from a tiny little thing no taller than his knee, until she was about chest height, growled angrily at him in return.
It was adorable.
So he booped her nose.
"Stop that!"
She batted his finger away before slumping back down into her seat and curling up sadly and hugging her knees to her chest, "So I really have to leave all my friends all over again?"
"For what it's worth… I'm sorry, kid."
"…S'okay." Ruby murmured and quietly wiped away a tear, "When do I need to go?"
The blond sighed and pulled the small ball of a girl to his side, "There's no deadline, I guess. But I'm not the one in danger here. I can't make your decisions for you. All I can do is tell you what's what…"
One silver eye peeked up at him and she nuzzled his side, "I don't regret doing it y'know."
"I know." He nodded solemnly.
The two of them sat together in companionable silence.
"Incidentally. There's nothing that says you can't bring a few friends along. A small group is even easier to hide than one lone traveler. Four or five sounds perfect."
"…"
"Also. I'm just about done modifying your core. Took me about a decade to scratch it out bit by bit so you didn't go mad from pain since you weren't born with one and boy wasn't that a huge pain in the ass. I was even planning on making it a big surprise gift for your first year at Beacon, but nooo~ you had to join early. Anyway, that super big Aura and buffs and so on? Yeah. Bit of training, and we should be good to go. Super forms' still a bit iffy though, not sure how I'm gonna pull that one off, but we'll see."
"…"
"Plus. we can fix your sister's arm before we go. It'll set you back a day or two at most. No biggie."
"…"
The blond hummed to himself happily when Mount Ruby finally erupted and a small ball of black fury and rage launched herself into his stomach with a war cry, "YOU BIG JERK! YOU COULDN'T START WITH THOSE FIRST?!"
****NM****