AN: To be honest i'm not to sure about this chapter. Specifically the beginning section... I hope you all are okay with it and find my portrayal of 'future' Ruby interesting. Enjoy.


"Keep pressure to stop the blood flow. Don't show concern. Must keep her calm. She needs to stay calm. She has to live. She has so much to live for." Ruby repeated to herself as she pressed both hands down on the gash across the woman's thigh. It was deep and possibly reached the bone. She knew it must have cut an artery, there was to much blood for it not to have.

"Ru-Ruby? A-am I dying?" Her voice was horse and weak. Her long blonde hair was sprawled out on the blood stained snow. Bruises and cuts covered her body and her shirt and pants had been ripped up. One hand rested on her stomach, the other held tightly to her dead husband´s hand. It seemed as if she wanted to reach the afterlife hand with her hand in his. "I-it's so cold. Everything is so cold." She coughed, spraying a bit of the blood from her bloodied nose.

"No." Ruby's own voice cracked slightly as she held back her tears. "If I can jut stabilize her I can carry her the rest of the way to Vale's walls. Why is it still bleeding?! I'm applying Aura and everything!" Ruby´s thought were panicked, belying her calm exterior. "You'll be fine Aurora. I promise. You´ll be fine."

"Ruby. Ruby." Aurora called to her, but her voice seemed to be fading. "Ru-Ruby? Ru-Ru-" She choked on more of the blood and grabbed Ruby's shoulder. "Ruby, look a-at me." And Ruby finally snapped out of her thoughts.

"Y-yes?" She looked to the dying woman. To her surprise, she looked content. Her face was relaxed and her eyes looked almost happy. She looked so peaceful.

"Ruby.. I-it's okay. I'm not going to ma-make it" She coughed again. "I.. I'm okay with dying." She looked to her dead husband. "I... I want to join him.." She smiled.

She couched up blood, this time from some internal wound, and her vision blurred slightly. "Let me go... I have no-nothing to live for... There's nothing you can do. The w-wound is to severe.. I... I-i won't last a day..." She coughed weakly. It seemed to be getting harder for her to speak.

"This can't be happening! This must be a nightmare! This can't be real" Ruby's eyes teared up as she took pressure off the wound. "B-but I-" The Aurora pressed a hand to her friend's cheek, her soft expression slowly relaxing more and more.

"I-It's okay. Ru-Ruby. Y-you.. You-you've been a go-good frie-frie-friend" Aurora let out a final breath as she closed her eyes smiling contentedly. Her body relaxed and went colder than the snow she laid in.

Ruby didn't know what to do. She heard something behind her but she didn't react. She didn't react as the sound of growling grew louder. She didn't react to the loud roar. Her body jerked forward and red splattered in front of her. Red filled the snow. Red stained everything. Everything was red with blood. All there was was red and then finally darkness claimed it.

-HA-

Ruby jolted upright in bed as she blindly lashed forward with her hunting knife. A slender, small, yet strong hand caught her wrist quickly, the blade barley and inch from the face of her friend. Slowly, Ruby registered her surroundings and took a deep breath. "Damn it, Penny. You know better than to wake me up so suddenly." She said as she blinked in the new light, pulling her hand free to rub the crust from her eyes. She checked herself, hoping that her arm had magically grown back in her sleep. No such luck.

"I am sorry. You seemed uncomfortable again" Penny quietly whispered. "I thought you may be having a nightmare, so I tried to wake you." Penny explained quickly as she backed away, her green eyes glowing in the darkness of the hotel room they where staying in.

"Thank you but I have told you before not to wake me when I get those. They'll wake me on their own." Ruby explained. She reached to the nightstand for the lamp light.

"Penny, would you please get the lights?" her voice was kind, now. Penny nodded and turned on the lamp, illuminating the two twin beds. The one on the opposite side of the stand was empty and a mess from Penny's use. Ruby was sitting up in bed in her Black tank top and a pair of short gym shorts. Her hair was long and reached her midriff. She stored her knife in a pouch she always wore on her right thigh. Her left arm was cut off just above the elbow. She never talked about how she had lost her arm. She hadn't even told her team she had been living with one arm for over two years now.

She always thought it wasn't import that she had a prosthetic. As long as she could fight, what was the concern of her being an amputee. Penny stood by the bed wearing a black nightgown, both hands where behind her back. Her sweet face was concerned.

"Ruby, you should see someone about these dreams. They are becoming more frequent, aren't they?" Penny asked.

"I'm fine, Penny" Ruby sluggishly got out of bed. "How long did I sleep?"

"Approximately four hours." Penny said, holding her concerned gaze as she followed Ruby to the bathroom.

"That's better than what I've gotten these past five days. I think I'm improving." Ruby said. She turned on the bathroom lights, bare feet followed hers across the tile floor to the bathroom mirror.

"Ruby, they're getting worse." Penny said, pointing to Ruby's eyes where dark bags had settled from many lost hours of needed sleep. "You need more sleep." She grabbed the sleeping pills on the bathroom counter. "Are you sure you're actually taking these?"

"For the love of Oum, Penny! I. am. Fine. Okay?" She looked dead into Penny's emerald eyes with her own silver ones. A moment passed and Ruby put on a smile for her worried friend. "I am combat ready, as you used to say." she giggled a little and was pleased to see Penny give a small smile.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive"

Penny seemed content with that answer. "Okay. Hurry and take a shower. I'll meet you downstairs. I have something to check on. Meet me in the breakfast lounge." Penny called behind her as she walked out the bathroom door and then out of the hotel room.

Ruby stood still, her shoulders slumping as she gazed down slightly "Thanks, Penny..." Ruby sighed and closed the bathroom door stripping and turning the shower on. She had been traveling with Penny for at least five years now. Remnant had entered into a time of unprecedented peace. The White Fang had gone underground and the ringleader, Cinder, was behind bars with Roman Torchwick. Penny had no reason to stay home and Ruby had always told her to feel free to join her on her adventure's, so she did.

In their time together, Penny had become Ruby's best friend. They had gone through so much together. Ruby remembered how many times she had screwed up before Penny joined her. The scars all over her body where a clear indicator. Her hunting career hadn't been a walk in the park.

Ruby shuddered as the cold water hit her body, shocking her senses awake. She hugged her body with her one arm "That's the stuff" She muttered under her breath as she grabbed a bar of soap and began to lather her body, idly tracing the scars and recounting how she had received them. Sighing, she traced the scar that reached from her sternum and traveled all the way down to just a few inches from her naval. She had received it from a mantis-like grimm when escorting a group of faunus refugees. Her aura had been absolutely exhausted at that point and was unable to heal the wound.

She continued onward to her back, wincing as she came across the puncture scars on her back that had a matching set on her stomach. Had those claws been closer together, it would have severed her spine and no amount of medical help could of fixed her then. She remembered very well how she had gotten those. Having just woken from a nightmare about them, the memory seemed fresh. She continued further to her legs a group of scars adorned the insides of her thighs. That story was embarrassing more than anything. She had jumped over a charging boarbatusk doing a full split as she did so. However, the jump hadn't been fast enough and she had cut the inside of her thighs up. She was thankful she had no lover who would ever see the scars. Then she had a few miscellaneous battle scars that had just never been healed by her Aura for some reason.

She finished lathering most of her body and let the water rinse the soap off. She stood in the water for a while, soaking in the cold. She had grown fond of the cold water. Years of being forced to cuddle with the cold heiress on team building trips had caused her to grow used to it. The cold reminded her of her team. The only warmth she was comfortable with was the warmth provided by her cloak and Yang. She turned the water off and stepped out, drying her body and sighing softly.

Ruby missed her team more than anything else in the world. If she was honest, she would probably trade her other arm just to be able to go back to her days as a student in Beacon. She missed the team work. She missed team JNPR. She missed the innocence. She wished she could go back to the days when she truly believed that fairy tales would all end well if she tried hard enough. Back to the days when she had a team of friends at her side at all times. Sure, Penny made a good companion and could do the work of 20 huntsman, but it just didn't feel the same.

She pulled herself from her musings and finished drying her body. On the counter was a large, black box that bore her crest. She opened it. Inside were three items, Surrounded by padding on the top layer where two prosthetic limbs. One looked completely human and matched her skin tone. It had four screw looking items at the opening in the top shoulder piece of it. The other looked like a scaled gauntlet, reaching the shoulder combined with a military piece of hardware.

She grabbed the more realistic looking arm prosthetic, taking it out of the padded hollow made for it. A small screen was under it with a percentage showing how much dust remained in it. To Ruby's pleasure, it was at one hundred percent capacity. "Great. Now, let's see" She equipped the limb, fitting it over her arm. The shoulder piece lightly burned her collar bone as it fused with the skin. A chill went through her, followed by a tingling sensation as her body became aware of the feeling of being whole again. The arm had receptors in it that sent and received signals from her nervous systems. With this, Ruby could almost pretend she had never lost her arm at all. The purpose of running on dust, as well as aura, was that the dust in the limb acted as a nervous system spread throughout the whole arm allowing the wearer to feel as if it were their true arm. This also allowed the user to command certain elemental attacks making, it popular among hunters who had lost limbs to grimm in their time.

She allowed her self to get used to the feeling. Although it was good, she could say for a fact that there was still a slight difference between the actual feelings you could receive from a real limb and this high tech little beauty. She took her time getting dressed since she was not in a rush for anything. She stepped out of the bathroom, her hair draped over her shoulder as she brushed the red highlighted locks. She put on a black tank top and a pair of black cargo pants. Grabbing her scroll and a medium sized red bundle of cloth, she finishing brushing and stepped out of the hotel room, putting her hair into a ponytail, to join Penny downstairs for breakfast.


AN: What do you think? Sadly if you don't like Ruby's story line that i will reveal more of in the course of the story i'm not changing it. So either give it a chance stay on the ride to see where this story is going. At the moment i'm kind of doing the introduction chapters. Next is Weiss and then we'll start to get to the more interesting area's. I am very bad at introductions. So if this isn't to great i apologize but trust me once i get further into it i'm sure you will see some more improvement.

Please give me your thoughts. Feel free to follow this story if your interested in where this story is going. Favorite if you have faith that this story has potential. Review if you want to leave suggestions. Thank you for your time my friends. Be safe.