Date: 4/11

Location: Outside of Shujin Academy?

"You're still not funny." He said with a look of disbelief still there.

"Oh, you'll learn to like my jokes." I told him. "Did we take a wrong turn or something?"

"Fat chance we did." He turns to look at me with a fierce gaze. "I've taken that route many times."

"So how did we end up outside of a castle then?"

"I don't know." Anger still present in his voice.

"Well, this is Shujin." I said as I pointed towards the bronze plaque that told us that this was Shujin Castle.

He looked over towards the plaque and starches the back of his head. "What's goin' on here?"

"Your guess is as good as mine um…?" I realized that I've been following someone who knew more about me than I did him.

"Hmm… Oh yeah, the names Sun Wukong." He sticks his hand out towards me.

"Nice to meet you Wukong-san." I returned the handshake.

"Bleh, none of honor-whatever, Sun is just fine." He gives me a thumbs up and toothy smile after letting going of my hand.

With a smile of my own, I said. "Well Sun, you can call me Ruby."

"Planed on it, anyway shall we go in and ask?"

"Yeah, let's go inside a creepy castle, sure. I just hope they have the central heating on." The joys of wearing tights that aren't as thick as you thought they were and who knew this place and some form of weather.

"Well let's go then." Sun said as he's already walking across the drawbridge.

The foyer of the castle was your typical foyer for a castle (checked marble floor, red velvet rug with a gold looking trim, large ornate chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling and sconces dotting along the wall and pillars) but, the most disturbing thing to see is a large painting of Taurus standing in some sort of a heroic pose with a red heart printed cape around his neck with his torso exposed and a small gold looking crown on in his head.

"Where's the dam school?" I heard Sun say as I was I'm looking around at the decoration.

"I have to say, you guys have done a smashing job on the place since yesterday." A smirk never leaving my face.

"What's goin' on here?" There's an annoyance in play when Sun spoke.

"Don't you have the phone number for the school or something?" 'I hope this works'

He nods and I watch he pull his phone out, tap a few times and then hold it up to his ear. He groans. "No service? Where the hell are we?"

'Fuck'

We must have caused some commotion just standing here talking as a black knight showed up out of nowhere wielding a sword and shield. If it weren't for the armour clinking together, me or Sun would not have heard it coming. Just looking at the knight, it looked… too real for any cosplay that I've seen.

In the corner of my eye I see Sun approach the knight stating that he was freaked out and asking if the armour was real or not, all the while my eyes never leave the sword that the knight held in his right hand.

I wanted to tell Sun to back away, but the ever-present threat of death looming in front of us had me rooted to the spot, speechless. The feeling increased tenfold when another knight wielding a sword showed up next to the first one.

'Shit shit shit fucking shit, I'm not even going make it through my first bloody day!'

I saw Sun turn to tell me something only for the knight closes to him bash him with the shield; my hand reaches out as he collapses to the ground with a groan and a thud. I start to move towards him before pain and darkness is the only thing I feel.

The smell of freshly baked cookies is what wakes me up and before I know it I'm jumping out of bed and heading downstairs to nab a cookie before they cool. I peak my head around the corner to see if my momma is in the kitchen and after not seeing her anywhere, I head towards the cupboards where we leave the glasses and mugs.

With a glass of milk in my hands, I move towards the counter that cookies are on, I set the glass down on the floor and reach for the tray of cookies on my tippy-toes

"I don't need the steps no more; I drink milk for a reason" I said to myself.

I managed to grab the edge of the tray only to find that it's still hot and with a scream of pain I fall backwards, bring the tray with me and sending the cookies flying.

"RUBY"

"MOMMA" I yell between sobs until I'm picked up in familiar arms and sat upon the counter with a pair of hands grasping mine in search of any damage done.

"Sweetie it's ok, you're fine." She picks me up again and I nuzzle as best I could up against her whilst I whimpered and sob.

When I finally start to stop crying, I realize that we are sitting on the kitchen floor and after hearing a sigh from momma I lean away and wipe my eyes on the sleeve of my red hoodie, to see her place the glass of milk on the floor.

"Hey, that's my milk." I say#id with as much annoyance as a 3-year-old can muster.

"Oh really?" She said in a light tone and a smirk.

"Yeah!" I move to sit in her lap and tug slightly at her long red-tipped hair.

She picks up one of the fallen cookies and passes it to me after making sure it's fine to eat and within seconds the cookie is gone and I'm sitting there like a hamster, slowly chewing the cookie. I look up when I hear a chuckle from momma.

"You feeling better Little Gem?" I nod my head and swallow the last of the cookie and reach for the glass of milk and with a couple of gulps, the last of the milk is gone. When I set the glass down, I don't make eye contact with momma and I play with the ends of my hoodie, mumbling my words.

"What's that Little Gem?"

"I'm sorry momma; I didn't mean to wruin the cookies." I look up to her with wet eyes and I lunge forward for a hug.

I feel mommas' arms wrap around me with a hand going up to my hair as she whispers words of encouragement.

"It's ok Little Gem, I know you didn't mean to. Okay. But I think it's best for you to wake up now."

I pull away from her when she says that. "What do you mean momma? I'm already awake."

She continues to tell me to wake up to the point where my tears are falling freely down my face till darkness overcomes me.

With a shove to my side, I sit upright and shout "MOMMA!" and I heard someone fall to the ground. I look over to see Sun sitting on the floor with a pained expression on his face, it's only then that I realize that we are no longer in the foyer of the castle, but in some form of holding cell and I was lying on a bit of wood.

"Are you ok Sun?" I asked as I go to get up.

"Yeah… yeah, I'm ok." He gets up and walks over to me to and offers his hand. "The question is, are you? You were tossing about quite a lot just now and just now you shouted for your mom."

I take his hand and stand up. "Thank you and yeah… sorry about that. A good memory turned bad." An emotion washes over his face and is gone in an instant.

"Anyway, where are we?" 'If he wants to ask more he can, but right now, I want to get out of here'

"It's no TV set in can tell you that now. It looks more like a dungeon than anything else." He tells me as he walked over towards the cell door.

"Hay! Let us out! I know someo..." A pained wailing noise interrupts him and I quickly join him at the cell door trying to see where the noise came from. "The hell was that?" Another pained wailing noise is heard shortly after.

"Hay, I think those knights are coming this way?" I turned to Sun.

"Shit. This is real bad! There has to be some way outta here!?" Sun said as he starts to look at a way to pry open one of the barrels.

"Unless you've got crowbar in your school bag, then you're not going to open them anytime soon." I say as I lean against one of the other barrels.

He turns to me with anger written across his. "Why aren't you helping me look?"

"Because the only way out is through that door and if only one of those knights shows up, I'm sure that if we both of us team up, we could get that sword they carry."

"No offence Ruby, but you're a girl."

"Yeah, and?" 'He's going to say something sexist'

"And I don't think you're gonna be good in a fight." 'Bingo'

With a sigh, I said. "How do you think I got this scar?"

"How should I know?" He said with a raised voice. "I never read your reco…"

"Silence you two! Be glad that your punishment has been decided upon." One of the many knights said in a slightly robotic voice as they walked up to the door.

I turned to Sun. "Looks like my plan won't work aye?"

"Yeah, no shit it ain't gonna work, there's too many of them."

"Silence!" Another knight spoke up but it fell on deaf ears as me and Sun argue about my totally legitimate plan before a familiar voice is heard.

"Will you to just give it up."

I watch Sun pale a bit and wide-eyed as he mutters "Taurus" as he turned towards the cell door. I follow his gaze to see the bull faunus from before only with gold eyes and wearing a red heart printed cape and a gold looking crown upon his head and nothing else.

"When they told me that they had caught two intruders, I thought it was some petty thieves, but to think it'd be you, Wukong. Are you trying to disobey me again? It looks like you haven't learned your lesson at all, huh?" His gold eyes turn towards me. "And you brought a friend this time. You can't do anything for yourself."

"This ain't funny, you asshole!" Sun but almost shouts at this version of Taurus.

With a shift of his tone, Taurus responds. "IS that how you speak to a king? It seems you don't understand the position you're in at all. Not only did you two sneak into my castle, but you also committed the crime of insulting me, the king."

He raises his right hand and I was glad that he was wearing some form of underwear and points it at us declaring that our punishment is death. Before I know it, I was being held by my shoulders, up against one of the cell walls, as I watched Sun getting punched into the ground by Taurus.

"What's the matter, Trickster? Are you simply going to watch?" A voice told me and I started to look around frantically.

"Are you forsaking him to save yourself?" 'I can't move away from the wall'

"Death awaits him if you do nothing." 'No shit Sherlock'

"So, answer me this. Was your previous decision a mistake?" 'No, it wasn't'

There was silence in my head and then pain. It felt like something or someone was trying to claw its way out. Soon after, I let a scream tear out of me as the voice returns.

"Very well… I heed your resolve." The pain intensifies, I scream louder and my body starts to wither around.

"Vow to me. I am thou, thou art I… Thou who art willing to perform all sacrilegious acts for thine own justice! Call upon my name, and release thy rage! Show the strength of thy will to ascertain all on thine own, though thou be chained to Hell itself!"

As the pain subsides, I looked up in time to see Taurus standing next to one of the knights with its sword up to Suns' neck. 'Alright voice, let's see what you can do.'

"That's enough!" I said as a torrent of air washes over me and pushes the knights and Taurus into the wall. That is when I felt something pressed into my face, where my glasses normal sit. "Rip it off. Pull it away and then we can some fun!" A new voice told me, a girlier version of my own. I reached for the object without thinking and begin to pull.

There was little to no pain as I begin to pull the object off me as hard as I could, even though I could feel blood run down my face. I let a scream tear through me as I finally ripped the mask? away, then I felt a warmth spreads over me as my vision is engulfed in familiar a blue fire.

As I take a couple of steps towards where Sun was (who was up against the opposite side of the cell), I felt the warmth behind me and then disappear. "I am the pillage of twilight – Arsene!"

I turn around to regard Arsene as he continues to speak "I am the rebel's soul that resides within you. If you so desire, I shall consider granting you the power to break through this crisis."

"Give me your power, Arsene."

"Very well."

"For King Taurus!" I heard a knight to my left say and as I turn towards it, I watch as it turns into a black and red puddle of bile and then a carved pumpkin carrying a lantern appears. Raising one hand to the mask and the other towards the carved pumpkin and shout. "Arsene! Ravage them!" and a set of black tendrils reach up from the ground below it and warp around the creature.

With a high pitch scream from the pumpkin, the tendrils pierce through the creatures' head and with a bit more force, the tendrils split the pumpkin into pieces. "Yesss, more, more of that, neeed moore!" The creepy voice whispered to me.

"What… What was that just now?" I look towards Sun as he gets up of the ground.

"Huh? Oh, that, umm, I'm not sure, it felt great but I could really do with a nap." I respond as I leaned against the wall. "Hey, where's Taurus?"

"He booked it when whatever that was destroyed that pumpkin. He did drop these." With a smirk, he lifts up your typical set of cell keys on a ring of metal. "Oh, and what's up with your clothes?"

With that, I look down and expect to see my school uniform, but what I find is that I'm wearing a white high-neck décolletage blouse and with brown studded wristbands on my arms, an overbust corset, a black ankle-length tailcoat that fades to red, tight black jogger-style pants, brown-black winklepickers, and a pair of red gloves. 'Sweet!... Wait, these are like the one I saw the other day.' I felt the warmth of the blue flames again and looking down again, I notice that I'm wearing my school uniform again, glasses as well.

"Whoa, they went back to normal!" He mumbles "What is this place?"

"It's a castle Sun, but right now, let's get out of here. I don't think I'll be able to summon Arsene again." I said as I push myself off from the wall.

"Who?"

"You know? The tall creature with the tall top hat, wearing red with a set of large feathery wings?"

He shakes his head. "Nope." I sigh 'I'm going insane, great'

"All I saw was a black ghostly figure standing behind you."

"Well… at least you saw something." I said sarcastically.

"Shut… Shut up!"

With a laugh, I head towards the open cell door and check to see if any more of those knights where coming.

"I think we're clear to leave Sun." I turn to face him only to be greeted with a school bag flying at me. With a side step and my hand out, I pluck the bag out of the air and hoist it on to shoulder.

"Hey, what should we do with these keys?" Sun asked as he strolls up to me with his bag on his back and spinning the set of keys around on his index finger.

"I say keep them; they might help us as we escape. Right, let's get out of here."

Date: Unknown

Location: Unknown

"With that, Sun and I started to escape." I told her as I lift my head to face her properly.

"You expect me to believe that Shujin Academy turned into a castle?" Her stern voice reminded me of her sister.

"Honestly, I didn't want to believe at first, but it should all make sense soon Schnee-san." Her blue eyes never straying too far from me. "But it's going to get stranger the further down the rabbit hole we go."

Author Notes

No riddle this time.

All Feedback of any kind is welcome. I would like to hear what you guys and gals think about this story.