The sands of Vacuo weren't exactly the place you would want to die on.
Ruby her team had finally managed to escape the void, made it to Vacuo, only to run into Cinder Fall and her new allies.
And Cinder had gotten stronger.
"Salem wants you alive , Ruby," Cinder hissed in hate."But she didn't say in one piece!"
With that a giant fireball hurled at Team Rwby.
The heat got closer until…
WHOOSH!
a figure rushed in front of her, shielding ruby and her team from the blow.
"What!?" Cinder growled.
Ruby looked up the figure in front of her, and her jaw there, slightly injured but overall okay, was a very pissed Taiyang Xiao Long.
"Dad?" Ruby gasped. "But how?"
"How do you think?"A certain voice asked behind her.
Ruby and Yang both turned in shock and anger to see Raven standing beside a closing portal.
"Raven," Yang gritted her teeth.
Raven smirked, "you're welcome."
Ruby snapped back to her father. "Dad, whats going on?"
Taiyang glared. "2 years, and this is the first thing you say to me?"
Ruby stopped…that's right…she had run away from home, with only a letter…not exactly the best way to treat one's father.
"Dad, I'm-"
"So, you're Little Red's Father,"
Cinder levitate to the ground.
"Seems interesting, I don't see the resemblance"
Taiyang turned to face Salem's maiden.
"As opposed to having a name that respectively means fire and fall maiden?"
He retorted.
Cinder chuckled. "Actually I had the name Cinder since I was little. I just took the name Fall after what I've been through. Acquiring the Fall Maidens powers? That was just coincidence."
"And what of Rhodes?"
Cinder stiffened, and stepped back in shock.
"How…how do you know that name?"
Taiyang's eyes widened, before going sad. "So it is you. Little Cinder, you've truly fallen "
"HOW DO YOU KNOW RHODES?!" Cinder screamed.
"Dad, whats going on…do you know her?"Ruby was confused.
Tai sighed and kneaded his forehead.
"Let's just say she was supposed to be your stepsister"
The desert was literally filled with noise-filled silence.
"WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN!"
Weiss was not sure what to think of Ruby's Dad, but now she wasn't happy.
"Shall you tell them…or shall I?" Tai asked Cinder.
Cinder frowned…"I want to hear it"
Taiyang took a breath."Summer Rose and I were raising Ruby and Yang together, while trying to help Qrow with his alcoholism.
It was after team STRQ had broken up, so we didn't have the ability to return to the field..But we did have a few friends who trusted with our was a Mistral huntsman that we did on a visit to Atlas, he came across a young girl who was forced to do all the work for a catering restaurant, treated poorly, and had a shock collar on her neck…A slave, by any other
name or girls name was Cinder.."
Taiyang looked at her…"its you isn't it?"
Blake was stunned. "Atlas allowed slavery of faunus AND humans?!"
"They wouldn't call it slavery, " Cinder replied."I was adopted from A Mistralian orphanage so the owner could work me to the bone without dealing with Mistralian officials trying to stop her..When I met Rhodes..That was the first person to ever show me trained me, unlocked my Aura, gave me a weapon "
"The goal was to help you escape with him to Patch…to us" Taiyang explained.
"Summer had come up with the idea of adopting you…one more addition to a family not based on blood, but of trust…And Rhodes would have been free to train you in Patch, where you could finally have a normal childhood, and have two sisters who would treat you well…and you be a good sister to them…
I know it sounded like a crazy idea, but Summer had come up with plenty of crazy ideas before…and we trusted her on them… I supported her strategy here as well, because she always made them with good intentions"
Cinder was silent, not started running down her one good eye.
Ruby was stunned…her mortal enemy had been an Atlesian Slave?
"Wait, but what happened?"
"What do you think happened, Ruby?" Cinder answered.
"The Madam had her daughters spy on me. And when they found the sword Rhodes gave me? They proceeded to torture I had semblance arrived that night. And I killed my slavers. And as their bodies fell to the ground?Rhodes was there in the entrance."
Cinder began breathing hard, reliving the past."I was happy…I wouldn't have to run anymore…I could be with Rhodes.I COULD BE A HUNTRESS!
'Running is all you will ever do.'
Those words he spoke, drawing his sword…every last bit of my hope broke that night…
For all his talk about wanting to help me escape slavery…murdering my slavers was somehow a worse crime in society than slavery itself….
And so I killed the man who tried to bring me in for trying to survive…and I ran…"
Cinder took a deep breath, the tears continuing to flow. "I really…I really would have loved Summers idea…it sounded so nice…"
Then the tears stopped, and the fire returned. "But society isn't nice…and at the end of the day, all you people are doing is protecting the Status Quo"
Her breathing chose her next words carefully.
"If you want to know why people like me serve Salem? Its because she has the power to change this world into something better than this at the end of the day, the ends justify the means "
Ruby and Yang were was their enemy.A monster…and a person.A person who their world had shaped into a monster.
"I'm truly sorry for what you've gone through," Taiyang said gently."Truly, I pity and sympathize with the child you were."
"However,"His expression hardened as he removed a battle axe from his backstrap, and brandished it."I cannot forgive the monster you've become…and a huntsman slays monsters"
Cinder sneered. " Have you forgotten? You're facing a a Maiden!"
"And I'm a pissed off father of two girls who you've threatened!" Taiyang retorted.
"If you think that having a title or a few magic tricks is enough to make me back off?"
He grinned maniacally.
"You must have lost some brain cells along with that Eye!"
There was once again complete and utter silence. Cinder slowly retracted her jaw from the ground and glared.
"The last person to try 'roasting' me got burned and buried.I hope you're ready to die?'
Taiyang's body began glowing with aura."Bring it"