Disclaimer - I do not own RWBY it is owned by Rooster Teeth.

-Chapter 8 Start-

"It's itchy."

"Well that's too bad."

"C'mon my nose is itching, scratch it."

"Nope, I don't feel like it."

"Yang scratch my nose, I can't do it myself."

"Well you should have thought of that before you broke both of your arms."

"Yang!"

"C'mon Ruby, it's been a week, you should be used to it by now."

"You can't get used to an itchy nose. Now scratch it."

"Nope."

The Patch Island Hospital had been home to similar arguments for the past week, the blonde and her younger sister had been switching between benign bickering and genuinely adorable sappy moments. It was a source of constant amusement to those on the ward and neither seemed to care.

[You have used the {Guilt} skill on Yang Xiao Long]

"Gah, not the puppy dog eyes. Anything but that." Came the almost mournful wail from the room. "Fine, I'll scratch your nose."

[Your {Guilt} skill has levelled up by 1]

[Due to your manipulations you have gained 1 Chr]

This was also a common outcome of their bickering, the little sister always beat out the older one. It really seemed that the younger sister was starting as many of the small arguments as she could, no one fully knew why but they supposed it could be boredom.

It was as Yang was standing up to scratch Ruby's nose that Dr Bismuth entered, shaking his head at the argument he had interrupted. "Okay Ruby, I just need to check you over and we should be able to discharge you." He said as he walked in, glancing at his scroll before looking at the girl.

She was still covered in bandages, the most prominent being a patch of gauze completely covering her left eye and a patch covering the centre of her left cheek. Her hair was lopsided, the hair on the left side of her face having been kept cleanly shaven to expose the cuts coating that part of her head.

Her arms were both in casts, a short cast that went just past the elbow covered her right arm the light cast being coloured red. Her left arm, on the other hand, was in a heavier cast, covering her entire arm and being in an immobiliser it was obviously much more heavily injured.

"Alright, after I've checked over your lacerations and checked your eye we'll just need to do some x-rays and you should be fine to leave. We may even be able to replace the cast on your right arm with a splint." The doctor was really chipper as he spoke, jotting down a few more notes before facing her fully. "Now how would you say you're doing?"

The girl glanced to the left briefly, seeming to look into mid-air before looking back. "I'm fine, my right arm's about half healed, the left arm is about a quarter healed and the eye has about three weeks left."

"We'll see." He chuckled, noting down her response as positive before reaching forward and inspecting the fading cuts on the side of her head. "Well these are just about healed, we can let your hair regrow now."

"Well that's great, the bald spot looks so weird." Yang nodded from where she was sat, grinning mischievously. "I was half tempted to shave all her hair off just to make it even."

"If you did that I would have done the same to you." Ruby warned with a glare.

"You wouldn't dare." Yang gasped, grabbing her own hair, almost caressing her right bang.

"Wouldn't I?" She replied raising an eyebrow towards her sister.

"Okay, that's enough of that. I need to check your eye and I can't do that if you're moving around." The doctor admonished her, reaching towards the gauze over her eye, pulling out small torch as he did. "Now I want you to keep your eye closed until I say so." He said flicking it on and shining it at the eyelid, the light making her see orange. "Okay, the skin on your eyelid is regrowing slowly but there will be a scar covering it. Open your eye."

The light stung as it struck her cornea, the light cascading through the lens and filling her eye with light for the first time in a week. The world seemed blurry, indistinct and just plain wrong, a blotchy mess of colours as opposed to the crisp vision she was used to. "Okay, that's healing well, I'd say you were right on how long it's going to take. Do we have a budding doctor here?"

"I want to be a huntress and knowing field medicine will only help that." She shrugged as the torch was shut off and the doctor reached for towards a cart, pulling something out of a drawer.

"Alright, I need you to leave this eyepatch on, only removing it to use an eyebath. I'll tell your father all the details when he comes to pick you up." The eyepatch was a plain white, with an elasticated top and bottom band, it was positioned on her head, the bands snapping slightly as he removed his hands. "Now we just need to do some x-rays and you should be good to go."

"What time should she be getting out?" Yang asked from her seat, peering curiously at the doctor. She had pulled out a scroll and was obviously waiting to message her father.

"If all goes well, I expect she'll be discharged at about three o'clock." Bismuth replied, standing up and grabbing a wheelchair that was folded up against the wall. "I don't see why there would be any issues, everything is healing well."

A small beep diverted Yang's attention back to the scroll. "Well that's good, Dad says he'll be here at two. Whereas I have to get to school, I only have the morning off." Turning to Ruby she gave a smile. "I'll see you off to the X-rays but then I'll have to go. Professor Scathach is just waiting for me to trip up."

Ruby began to nod before swinging her head towards her sister. "Wait, why's Professor Scathach waiting for you to trip up?" She blurted out getting a lazy wave of the hand in response.

"Don't worry about it, it's not important." She waved it off, jumping to her feet as the doctor moved over to Ruby. "I guess I'll wait outside while you remove her tubes." She said slightly awkwardly before moving out of the door.

A beep emanated from the doctors pager, he glanced down at it before sighing. "I'll have to call a nurse in to transfer you over to x-ray, I'll be back later with your results." He said before reaching over and pushing a button on the wall, he waited for a few moments before a strange clacking noise filled the air before the door opened. The woman who entered looked normal enough, at least until you looked lower down, in place of normal legs were long, thin, slightly scaly, they split into four long toes, three in the front and one at the back, long talons extending from them, explaining the noise. The nurse had brown hair with brown eyes accenting them. "Yes Doctor Bismuth."

[Nurse]

Teal Scarlatina - Lvl 8

"Ah, Nurse Scarlatina," He said as she walked in, waving his pager. "Could you prepare Ruby for and transfer her to X-ray, I've been called away."

"Of course Doctor." She nodded before moving forward and taking a look at the clipboard, her feet clinking against the floor. Now that she was closer Ruby could see an interesting type of shoes on her feet, they were metal plated, covering her talons, the rest of her foot was covered in flexible black leather, laced on top of her toes. "Now, I need to remove your catheter, and your IV drips." She said sweetly, as the door closed, Dr. Bismuth having left. She moved over to Ruby, pulling off her blanket. "This will pinch a bit."

It pinched, it pinched a lot.

"Once your Uncle's back we're going to be having a talk." Taiyang said as he pulled onto the road to their house, it was one and a half miles long from where it started to their house with several smaller roads branching off to other houses and cabins. "You're not in trouble but we really need to discuss this."

"Wait, back? Where's Uncle Qrow?" Ruby asked from the other front seat. She was dressed in a light red spaghetti strap top and a knee length skirt, her right arm was now in a splint as opposed to a cast.

Her father was quiet for a moment, just shifting the cars gears before minutely shaking his head. "It's nothing serious, he just had to go up to Beacon to talk to the Headmaster." He said slightly strained, getting a frown in response. Noticing her expression he adopted a slightly chastised look. "I'm not annoyed with your Uncle, I'm annoyed with something he told me." He reassured her, turning back to the road.

"What was it?" She asked, staring at him with a serious look.

"That doesn't matter right now." He shook his head without looking at her. "That's a conversation for another time."

The car lapsed into silence, just the quiet rumbling of the engine and the slight echo of the wind outside the car. The silence was more than slightly awkward, like there should be a cough every now and then.

"Well we'll worry about that chat when your Uncle's back." His expression slowly changed from solemn, his lips tilting up slowly. "For now you should be worried about your surprise."

In an instant Ruby's entire body changed, she straightened up and twisted almost unnaturally fast towards her father. "Surprise, you've got me a surprise? What is it?" In response her father just chuckled as he pulled the car around to their house, parking in the garage. "Is it a gun?"

"No, no guns, not for a good long while." Taiwan almost barked suddenly, before cringing as he realised what had happened. "I'm sorry just, not for now. We'll look again when it's time for you to build a weapon."

"Then what's my surprise?" She almost chirped, before suddenly swinging her head to look at a pop-up.

Quest - Guess The Surprise

Your Father has a surprise for you. You have 3 attempts to guess what it is before you enter the house.

2 Attempts Remaining

Success - A new skill, 1000 EXP for the new skill

Failure - A new skill

Taiyang raised his eyebrow as she swung her head, before something clicked. "This is something to do with your semblance isn't it." He smirked slightly as her head swung around to look at him. "Your Uncle told me about your semblance after you were injured, that's something else we'll be talking about." Her eyes widened with dread momentarily before he cut everything off by messing up her hair. "Now what was that about?"

"It gave me a quest to figure out what my surprise is, I've got two more guesses. I'll get a bonus for guessing it." She admitted sheepishly as she reached over and tried to undo her seat belt, her splint getting in the way.

Giving a small chuckle he reached over and released her belt, before reaching over and opening her door. "Well what's your second guess then?"

"Umm, a sword?" She said watching the attempts go down to one and her father to shake his head.

"You and your weapons." He opened his own door, removing his seat belt and stepping out. "It isn't a weapon or a piece of armour." Locking the car he moved over to Ruby's side of the car, helping her out of her seat. "Now what is your final guess."

"Umm." She walked just outside of the garage, stopping as her father closed the door, locking the car away. He turned around, smiling at her briefly before they began to walk to the front door. "I don't know." She was frowning, thinking quite hard. "I have no idea."

"C'mon, just take a guess." He responded, grinning at her. "It doesn't matter if it's a stupid guess or not."

"Umm, a puppy?" At that moment two things happened.

First, Taiyang stumbled, missing his step.

Second, a pop-up blinked into existence in front of her face.

Quest Success

Learned {Animal Training} skill.

{Animal Training} levelled up to lvl 5

The squeal that emanated from her mouth was painfully loud, causing a high pitched barking to sound from inside the house. In a moment she had started running skidding to the door. "Open it, open it, open it." She started chanting, almost dancing in front of the door. In a moment he had caught up, fishing out his key and opened the door, his mouth dropping as he looked inside.

There were scraps of carpet everywhere, wood was lying shattered over the floor with the tables and the television table lying on their sides. There were bits of sponge surrounding the sofa with a hole in the center, a being covered in black and white fur was filling the hole. "I really should have seen this coming." Taiyang almost choked out, gritting his teeth.

[Puppy]

Unnamed Corgi - Lvl 1

"I'm going to name you… Zwei." Ruby announced, scratching the puppy on the head. It was several hours after Ruby was discharged, both Yang and Qrow had come back, Qrow having picked up Yang after his meeting, just arriving as Taiyang finished cleaning up most of the room, Ruby sitting on the armchair with the new puppy on her lap.

[Puppy]

Zwei - Lvl 1

"Such an imaginative name." Yang drawled, scratching Ein's head as she sat on the floor. "Naming him Two when we already have a dog called One."

"We have a theme going." Ruby defended her choice, her fingers running through his fur.

"Whatever his name, we'd better not have a repeat of this." The blond man groused, rubbing his shoulder. "Hey Yang, could you take Eins and Zwei for a walk? They've been in the house all day, it's only luck that Zwei hasn't gone to the bathroom."

"Yeah, yeah. I'll take the dogs out to crap." She grinned as Tai's smile grew tight, even as Qrow chuckled. She stood up and stretched, before moving over to the breakfast bar and grabbing both leads. Eins immediately ran over to her, sitting down at her feet, wagging his tail. "I'll be back in like an hour." She said, clipping onto his collar before walking over to Zwei and clipping onto his collar, picking up the puppy.

"Take your gauntlets and your scroll." Qrow reminded her, reaching to the table next to him and picking up the metal shot-gauntlets.

"Yeah yeah." She replied, grabbing the gauntlets and snapping them on her wrist. "See you in a bit." She waved, moving over to the door, basically dragging Zwei. After the door closed behind her the tone of the room changed.

"So, I think we have a lot to talk about." Tai breathed out kind of harshly. Qrow moved from where he had been leaning against a wall to move behind Ruby. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Qrow placed his hand on her shoulder, giving it a small squeeze. "It was my call Tai, she came to me first and I decided to keep it quiet. If people found out about it there would be trouble, I decided that as few people as possible should know."

"Do you really think I would tell anyone about something potentially dangerous like this?" He retorted, his stress coming out.

"I thought you'd freak out." Ruby admitted, scratching her nose.

"And I wanted to talk to Ozpin first." Qrow sighed, pulling out his flask. "After that it had been a week and…" He let it hang, taking a long draw on his flask.

Rubbing his eyes Tai looked between the two. "Explain the semblance." He waved his hand.

"I've already told you what it is." Qrow fired at the man.

"Just, explain it again. Please." Taiyang almost spat the sentence, staring at Qrow fiercely. Ruby decided to speak up for him, squirming slightly as she spoke.

"My semblance is called 'The Gamer', it allows me to treat my life as a video game. I can see my health, my aura, how much energy I have. It makes it easier to learn things and I can do things on autopilot." She began, pausing as Qrow snapped his attention to her at that last point. "When I know how to do it I don't need to think about it, I can just activate and my body does it without my input. I was in first aid class and when we were learning CPR I was able to do the compressions and breathing at the exact rate we were told to aim for."

"That explains the aura bolt." He murmured, shaking his head at Ruby's quizzical gaze. "That's something for another time. Carry on."

"It also gives me quests, loot, create groups and it allows me to see how strong others are compared to me." She swallowed briefly, meeting her father's eyes. "I can also learn abilities from books by absorbing the books. That allowed me to learn my {Instant Dungeon} ability, I was hurt in one of those." She stopped talking at that, hesitating and looking down at her lap.

"She forgot to mention the fact that she can collect pieces of Grimm, her instant dungeons seem to create proto-grimm and she can create armour with anti-grimm passive abilities," Qrow added before taking a swig from his flask again. "If the wrong people find out about her semblance it could cause a lot of trouble. I need to keep her on the down low while simultaneously getting her as powerful as possible, as quickly as possible."

They were quiet for a moment, the only sound being a creaking by the window. "Who's been looking into Ruby?" There was a hint of venom in Taiyang's voice at this question.

"So far only one person has been sniffing around, I'd like to keep it that way." Qrow responded, pausing at Tai's glare from the non-answer. "Fine, so far I've only caught her sniffing around. She spent about a week following Ruby after Ruby had unlocked her semblance, I confronted her but… you know how Raven is."

A small squeak sounded from outside the window causing Qrow to immediately dash forward his hand flashing down to below the window sill. "Ow, Uncle Qrow that's my hair." Yang's voice echoed from outside as he pulled her into view, his knuckles almost white from how tightly he was gripping.

"Inside, now." He growled, pointing to the door before letting go, Yang landing with a thud outside the window. He immediately walked over to the door wrenching it open and ushering the blonde inside, the dogs following on her heels. "Over by your father."

The blonde walked sheepishly over to the sofa, planting herself as far from her father as she could. The middle being taken by Zwei, who dived into the hole that was in the cushion, his head poking from the top. The sound of the window clicking shut echoed around the quiet room, Qrow stalking back over to Ruby. "What did you hear?"

Rubbing her scalp she tried to glare back at Qrow but was quickly cowed by his gaze. "I just wanted to know why you were being so secretive about Ruby."

"And you didn't think that there was a reason for that? What did you hear?" Qrow snarked back, before returning to his original question.

"Ruby has a crazy video game semblance, people could be after her and my mother was watching her." She listed off, eyes sharpening at the last point, almost turning hungry as she stared at her Uncle.

"That's not a good thing Yang!" He snapped back, just an octave below yelling. "It's a bad thing, a very bad thing."

As he opened his mouth to continue speaking he was cut off by an almost barking shout from next to Yang. "Qrow." Taiyang gave a warning glare, staring down his sworn brother. "That's enough."

"She needs to know Tai, you are getting on to me about the dangers Ruby could be facing but you want me to ignore the greatest threat Yang faces, the threat she seems determined to run into headfirst." He fired back, moving from beside Ruby in an almost aggressive manner, frustration evident.

"She's my daughter Qrow, it's my decision." The blond almost snarled back at him, his left hand gripping the arm of his chair, his feet turning slightly so his weight was settled on the balls of his feet.

"And she's my niece, my goddaughter and this is my fucked up family we're talking about." He spat out, stalking the distance to stand over Taiyang. "She needs to know, otherwise she'll either be walking an incredibly dark path or to her death."

"Girls, leave. Your Uncle and I need a chat." Tai ground out, glaring up at the red eyed man.

"Yang you stay. I'm done with staying quiet, I'm going to tell you all about your mother." He promised ignoring the glare Taiyang was throwing at him. "You won't like what I have to say but you need to hear it."

"Qrow." The man almost whispered, looking pathetically up at him

"She needs to know Tai. We almost lost Ruby to a threat we didn't understand, let's not lose Yang to a threat we do know about." He beseeched the man, kneeling down in front of him. "Please Tai, you know I'm right. I understand why you don't want to but you know why we have to."

The room was silent as Tai just stared at Qrow before finally speaking. "Ruby, please go to your room. No eavesdropping."

"Okay." She nodded, standing up slowly, pain lancing through her body but fading almost as quickly. "C'mon Eins, Zwei." The older dog almost immediately jumped up, trotting over to her, the puppy only seeming to be following it's elder.

She walked stiffly over to the stairs, glancing back at the tense scene briefly before walking up the stairs, hearing only a few words before she left the room.

"I suppose we should start with the Branwen Clan."

Nearly two hours later Yang slowly entered their shared bedroom, flopping down wordlessly onto her bed. She ignored the puppy that dived onto her stomach, just lying there even as Eins started snuffling at her hand. "Yang, are you..?"

"A bandit." The blonde cut her sister off, her voice sounding raspy and quiet. "My mother's a bandit… a thief, a murderer." Ruby opened her mouth to reply but was cut off by a wet sniff. "She never intended to stay, she wasn't coerced into leaving."

She was silent for a time, Ruby sitting on her bed awkwardly as her sister grabbed a pillow and buried her face it. "W-what did Uncle Qrow tell you?"

Yang pulled the pillow off her face, moving it to her side but keeping it clutched in her hand. "The Branwen Clan are a group of bandits over on Anima, they raid and destroy towns and villages over there. About eighteen years ago the huntsman started cracking down on them, they couldn't raid as easily as they could before so they came up with a plan. There were a pair of twins who were about the right age for huntsman training, so they sent them to Beacon to learn from huntsman so they could kill any huntsman the clan came across."

"Because of the different continents barely anyone knew who the Branwen were and those who did thought they were defectors." She let out a large sniff that was closer to a snort before continuing. "So the twins were placed on a team, Team STRQ. They went through Beacon, the brother growing closer to the team, growing to care more for the team than his bandit family."

"Eventually they graduated, went on missions to learn how the huntsman acted and then the time came for the twins to return to the bandit camp, only to discover that the sister was pregnant because of a 'short-lived' relationship with the other man on their team." She growled at the words short-lived, her fists clenching. "She originally was going to get rid of the child but the rest of the team convinced her to keep it, the child was born months later and the new mother decided that then was the time for the twins to return to the clan."

"Only the brother didn't want to return, he'd fallen in love with the life of a huntsman, he loved his team and he didn't want to return to being a killer and a thief. He tried to convince his sister to stay, to build a life for herself with her daughter. The sister didn't like that."

"She declared her brother a traitor and immediately set about trying to kill him, but she was weakened from the childbirth and her brother easily overpowered her. But he was unable to bring himself to kill his sister so he let her go, she left the team, her oaths as a huntress and her unnamed newborn behind to return to the bandit clan where she's been slaughtering her way through the villages of Anima ever since."

She went silent, shaking slightly on her bed, her hands white from how tight her hands were clenched.

774/780 Hp

Several beads of blood began to well from inside of her fist, dripping down onto the bed, Eins whining at the scent of the blood. "I'm the daughter of a murderer, I wasn't supposed to be born and her plan was always to abandon me." Her hands slowly unclenched as she spoke her voice going from angry to heartbroken. "I used to tell myself that she left for a reason. That there was some threat or something that made her leave, I guess I'm just an idiot."

"You're not an idiot." Ruby was up on her feet, hobbling over to her side. She reached forward with her right hand, putting it in Yang's hand. "You're my sister, the sister who basically raised me when Dad couldn't."

Yang tried to speak but was cut off by Ruby who was getting on a roll. "That woman might be your Mother but she's not your Mom. We have the same Mom, Summer Rose was the woman who raised you, she was the one who called you her daughter. Let's be honest, she was more your Mom than mine."

"No, I barely remember what she looked like, the most I remember is that she was good at making cookies." She interrupted Yang's shocked arguments at her statement. "I'm your sister, Summer Rose is our Mom, Taiyang Xiao-long is our Dad and Qrow Branwen is our Uncle. That's our family, not a woman who ran away the first moment she could."

"I just don't want to be abandoned again." She whispered back, staring up at the ceiling. "After Mom died Dad was either focused on his work or drinking, Uncle Qrow was off on missions and you couldn't talk, I was alone. I don't want to be alone." She sounded truly pitiful, an unusual state for the almost eternally sunny blonde. The room was silent for a few minutes after that declaration before a pinging noise caused Yang to startle.

[Ruby Rose has invited you to a party]

Join?

Y/N

"Ruby?" She looked over at her sister, a small nod being the only reply. Swallowing she turned back to the impossible floating screen before her eyes, reaching out and pressing the Y.

[Initializing Party Interface]

[Formatting To Individual]

Yang Xiao Long gained the {Gamer's Mind(False)} skill

Yang Xiao Long gained the {Gamer's Body(False)} skill

Ruby Rose set as party leader

Yang Xiao Long has joined the party

Party Chat Available

"Does this work?" A smaller grey box appeared in front of Yang's eyes bearing the question, her eyes snapping over to Ruby who was surrounded by half a dozen screens, a duplicate grey one sitting front and centre. Ruby nodded towards the message screen smiling all the while.

There was a small message button at the bottom of the screen, a glowing speech bubble sitting idly there. She shakily reached out causing the button to depress, the screen shifting to expand, a keyboard appearing on the screen. "Hello." She typed, her finger quickly retracting as the message was sent. She heard a small ding from over near Ruby as the message arrived.

"You can message me whenever you want, we can see how we are, where we are and how healthy we are." She listed off, beaming towards her sister before her face softened. "You're not alone, I won't let you be alone." Yang's face said everything to what that meant for her.

[Your reputation with Yang Xiao Long is {MAXED}]

Yeah, that too.

-Chapter 8 end-

Author's Note

Merry Christmas.

Here's your present.

I'm sorry it took so long but it's been a rough few months with a death in the family and the resulting grief and depression. It made it really hard to make myself write. But here it is.

The chapter is finished as of 23:57 on Christmas Eve.

Please Review and leave constructive criticism, I can't improve my writing without it.

Thank you all for sticking with me,

It means so much.

Thank you.