"Those kids were just absolutely crazy!" Roman Torchwick said while leaning back on a table in the middle of the warehouse. The rest of his White Fang crew gathered around him.

The large room was dim, lit only by the moon peeking from the hole in the roof. It was one of many storage areas for the White Fang to keep their weapons and munitions.

Roman Torchwick bit into his tobacco while copping his coat for a lighter. When he couldn't find one, a White Fang grunt immediately lit one up for him. He moved his head closer to the flame and breathed in. The moment he breathed out the smoke that filled his lungs, he noticed that most heads were turned towards the door of the warehouse.

"Someone's coming." one of the grunts said.

"Just one?" Roman asked.

"Just one, sir."

"Is it an enemy?"

"We can't tell, sir. The footsteps are light and they're just walking at a normal pace."

Roman paused for a moment to think until he heard the footsteps too. He found it odd that there was only one set of footsteps but the grunt said that they were light, so he figured it would be his recently hired mercenary, Neo. But when he heard a metallic sound hitting the asphalt, he quickly felt immediately anxious.

"Ready your arms," he commanded.

As was told, all the White Fang grunts raised their guns and swords as they waited, attention tensely pointed at the door.

The footsteps got louder as the shadow of the arriving person got bigger.

When the door opened and a little girl in a red hood stood by, most of them unintentionally let their guard slack, though they still pointed their weapons at her. They all gave each other quick looks, confused about the identity of the girl.

"Don't lower your guard down, you idiots!" Roman yelled, returning the tension from before. "For fuck's sake, it's just one crazy kid after the other." He clicked his tongue and took another breath of his tobacco before releasing it, seeing the confused looks from his grunts. "That's the kid that stopped us once before."

When the White Fang grunts gave Roman a quick look of understanding and looked back at the little girl, she'd already stepped into the building, revealing her six-foot-long scythe held low by her side. Paired with her emotionless expression in the dim room, it was almost a chilling sight.

"What are you doing here, Little Red? Isn't it way past your bedtime? Did you get lost looking for mommy?" He mocked, though he was also holding his cane.

Ruby, since entering the building, only had her eyes set on Roman Torchwick. They were dull, as always, not even bothering to scan her surroundings. She sighed, looked down at her scythe, and finally addressed him.

"Surrender now and we can end this peacefully," she said in a soft and somber — almost whispered voice.

"Good joke." Roman scoffed.

Ruby raised Crescent Rose's blade to eye level, gently caressing it with her other hand as she eyed her reflection on the gleaming blade — a deep melancholy looking back at her.

"Isn't it?"

She let her blade fall to her side again and stood with one foot forward while wearing her hood over her head. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes while kneading her aura.

Then, with one breath, she…

"AAAAGHH!" yelled one grunt before he hit the wall behind him and got knocked out.

"What the hell are you guys doing?! Didn't I tell you not to let your guard down?!" Roman yelled. "Were you really just waiting for me to tell you to shoot?! Just fucking shoot! Now she's out of our sights!"

The faunus grunts scanned the warehouse for any traces of the girl, yet all they found were rose petals floating in the air — their scent permeating all over the room, acting as some form of camouflage against the faunus' heightened sense of smell.

The sounds she made, no matter how quiet, however, were still quite audible to their ears. Not to mention their natural night vision.

"Behind you!"

Rapid-fire gunshots resounded, all aiming to shoot down the red blur that constantly escaped into their periphery. She took out the gunners one by one with her speed, distracting everyone with a trail of roses. Each victim was knocked away without ever knowing they'd been hit already.

To Ruby Rose, a bunch of weaponized amateurs had very little difference from trigger-happy schoolyard bullies, eager to test their newfound strength on whoever they find weaker than themselves. In her eyes, they were all detestable and incorrigible — rarely did she find a reformed bully. Because based on her experience, they will never listen to logic or even emotion.

They will only listen to might.

And that's exactly what she had a surplus of.

So while she only applied this simple philosophy to these very specific cases, she truly believed that "Might makes right".

Though with only 8 out of 30 grunts knocked out, she still had a lot to do.

A gunner blasted her with his shotgun while walking closer, but it missed as she knocked the shotgun away with Crescent Rose. She spun towards him and knocked him down with a swift kick to his temple.

Another one jumped from behind her with a downward slash of his sword. She spun a bit more, carrying her momentum from her kick to swat the grunt with the blunt end of Crescent Rose.

She was shot from across the room, but she didn't panic. She tilted her head down and sidestepped with minimal movement to dodge while shooting back with her sniper rounds. Seeing more gunners lined up behind crates, she shot them down one by one too.

13 down, 17 more to go.

Three more grunts rushed after her, all of them wielding swords. The first one flailed her arms at her, swinging wildly. The other two tried to get into the fray as well, but they were nearly hit more than just a few times.

She back-stepped the wild swings and spun Crescent Rose twice from below, knocking the sword by the hilt onto the roof first and hitting the grunt on the chin second, lifting her feet off the floor by at least a foot. She finished her off with a swift kick to her midsection, sending the grunt crashing into the wall and burying her in crates.

The other two rushed at her again but at the same time, she saw Torchwick making his getaway just like before. Unlike last time, however, she wasn't going to let him leave.

After all, no eyes were on her this time.

She disappeared in a burst of rose petals, causing the two to bump into each other. In a blink, she'd appeared behind Roman, Crescent Rose hooked around his neck and her finger on the trigger. She pulled hard, both her scythe and the trigger, and the only thing that saved Roman's head was his Aura, though it was quickly dwindling down to its last vestiges thanks to his previous skirmishes.

With her pull, she tossed Roman back into the middle of the warehouse, crashing into the rest of his grunts.

Ruby simply looked at him in complete and utter disgust and disappointment — it was as if she was looking at walking garbage.

Roman massaged his neck as he coughed, the damage he took wasn't lethal but it was still quite painful and left him struggling to breathe. He clicked his tongue and picked up his cane once again. This time though, he was prepared to engage in combat. He was used to being disdained by authorities, it came with his profession. But to receive the same look from a little girl just barely half his height ground his nerves in a way he hadn't expected.

"Surround her," he sternly commanded.

With 16 grunts left and finally Roman joining in, Ruby was surrounded on all sides.

Ruby kneaded her Aura to surround her again, summoning rose petals that whirled around her.

"Are you all really just gonna stand there and watch again?!" Roman yelled while firing explosives from his cane. "Attack, you stupid animals!"

Gunshots resounded loudly once more, deafening everything else. Explosives took over in a rhythmic beat, scattering dust, rose petals, and debris.

Ruby spun Crescent Rose to block and parry most shots while she danced in the middle of all the gunfire. When she'd kneaded enough Aura, she empowered herself to spin beyond the speed of sound, releasing a shockwave that blasted everything around her away. Even Roman felt it in his Aura when he instinctively jumped and guarded himself to cushion the blow.

Most of them were left in a daze, clutching their heads as they tried to make sense of their orientation. Roman was much the same, on the floor trying to gather his weapon and bearings as he attempted to stand.

"AAAAAAAARGH!" His hand was crushed beneath her boot.

"Surrender."

He gritted his teeth and looked up in pain to see her looking down her nose at him. And she was still wearing that absolutely unimpressed look of disdain on her face too.

"DON'T GET COCKY, BRAT!"

He pulled his hand from under her boot, but before he actually could, he felt something large and sharp pin him to the floor.

He looked down at his chest and saw her scythe plunged deep into his body, his own blood staining his white coat.

When he looked up at the girl, she was still wearing the same doll-like expression. Except, her eyes were faintly glowing.

Even when the rest of the grunts tried to attack her, her focus was still on him.

She was cut from behind.

Stabbed.

Shot.

Over and over, attacks kept coming at her.

Most of the attacks she managed to repel reflexively, but the others, she simply took with her Aura.

She was fixated on him, never taking her eyes off of his. And she repeatedly stabbed Roman in the same area with her scythe, again, and again, and again, and again, and again.

It was as if she was in a trance.

Mindlessly repeating the same action without a care in the world.

But when her Aura finally broke, all hell did too.

She was stabbed through the abdomen from the front by one of the many grunts. Then, her eyes glowed brightly, violently.

She gritted her teeth and grunted in pain, clutching the sword that went through her. Another one tried to take advantage of the situation, aiming to cut her head off while her Aura's protection was down. But she stepped into the grunt's range, much closer than he'd like. Then, she punched him in the solar plexus, knocking him out in an instant as he hurled. But before he could even hit the ground, Ruby stole his sword and split him in half with it.

They all hesitated, wondering whether to run away and save their own skins or stay and fight when the girl was at her most vulnerable.

But while they were stuck in their indecision, she attacked indiscriminately.

With the sword in her hand, she tore the place apart.

The remaining White Fang grunts screamed for their lives, running, screeching, crawling away from the silver-eyed monster in the body of a little girl.

They feared her more than they feared their oppressors.

They feared her more than they ever feared Grimm.

She cut.

She stabbed.

Heads rolled, bones broke, and guts spilled.

Anything within the warehouse with a pulse wasn't spared.

Gone was the grace she honed to perfection in order to serve and protect. All that was left was pure savagery with the intent to kill.

And by the end of her berserker rage, she'd regained her senses and exhausted herself entirely. When she'd come to, she was just inches away from slicing Roman's head off. But she stopped herself and plunged the sword into the concrete beside her instead.

Kneeling beside the corpse of Roman Torchwick, she whispered in anguish, eyes shut as she clutched her aching heart.

The room was silent.

When Ruby had finished a summed-up report of what happened to her after the events at the docks, no one could say anything to follow up immediately.

Her team was stunned, opening and closing their mouths in a vain attempt to give Ruby words of comfort. Deputy Headmistress Goodwitch could do nothing but stare at the girl with hardened eyes in her attempt to hide her pity. Headmaster Ozpin was much the same.

Team JNPR was acting similarly to the rest of Team RWBY, stunned to silence, unable to utter even a single word. Nora couldn't even keep it in her to stay bubbly.

"After that, I heard footsteps behind me. So I gathered what remained of my Aura to use my Semblance to escape. Unfortunately, I didn't get far." Ruby continued nonchalantly, which baffled everyone in the room. "While on a call with Headmaster Ozpin, I was found. So with the very last vestiges of my Aura, I used my Semblance one last time to do one final smokescreen and retreat into the sewers that I found while hiding. Again, I was unfortunately caught and was carried back into the warehouse for questioning. I suffered a few more hits but that was when Professor Goodwitch came to my aid, I believe."

Once more, the room couldn't follow up.

She just stood in front of the Headmaster, reporting a horror story as if she was simply recounting whatever mundane thing she saw on the way to the park on a weekend. It was chilling — her lack of emotion was the most disturbing fact to everyone else that listened.

"Thank you for saving me, Headmistress." Ruby bowed her head graciously in Glynda's direction. "I wanted to capture Roman Torchwick and the rest of the White Fang that escaped the docks. But had I waited for backup, they would have escaped already. However, I was far too inexperienced and bit more than I can chew. I have no excuse for my failure. I'm sorry."

"It-..." Glynda's eyes flinched ever so slightly. "It's nothing, Ms. Rose. I'm just glad we managed to save you before it was too late."

"Failure?!" Yang whispered harshly to the rest of her team. "She's more worried about her failure than her goddamn fucking life?!" Her eyes glowed a violent scarlet. "Are you fucking kidding me?!"

She felt a hand tightly and shakily grasp hers. Looking to her left, it was Blake, biting her lower lip as she listened to the report from their leader. To her right was Weiss, covering her mouth while listening wide-eyed, whispering to herself as well.

"What happened to you, Ruby Rose…? What…" She shook her head in disbelief. "What made you the way you are…? That's not normal for a 15-year-old. Y-You should've… she should've just left it to the professionals… that's just-… I don't-… just-… why?"

"What did they question you about, Ms. Rose?" Ozpin asked.

"If I killed Roman Torchwick."

"What did you say?"

"Nothing."

"Even after the beating?"

"Yes."

"Did you?"

"Yes."

Ozpin took a deep breath and a sip of his coffee before asking again. "Clarify this with me one more time, please." He sat upright, giving Ruby a stern look. "How exactly did you kill Roman Torchwick? From what I understand, he isn't just someone any huntsman trainee can deal with on their own, especially when surrounded by an entourage of at least 30 White Fang members. It's part of the reason why he hadn't been caught by the authorities until now."

"Multiple blows to his chest," Ruby stated matter-of-factly. "He was already weakened from his skirmishes at the docks when I fought him. The White Fang members were amateurs with weapons thrown into their hands."

"And explain to me one more time why you'd, as you said, gone berserk?"

"I don't know." She, again, stated matter-of-factly.

Weiss, Blake, and Yang gave her an odd look before sharing looks with each other. Team JNPR did the same too.

Ozpin simply nodded. "And the rest of… the White Fang?" He gave her a raised brow. "What about them?"

"I assume I was wounded heavily by one of them during my state of battle frenzy."

"Is that so?"

"Yes."

Ozpin leaned on his desk and clasped his hands together, covering his mouth. "You seem quite calm, Ms. Rose. Have you experienced this before?"

"Not that I recall."

"Truly?" Ozpin's eyes narrowed, carefully but intensely scrutinizing the young girl's expression.

"Yes." But Ruby wouldn't give him an inch.

Ozpin subtly tilted his head at her, looking at her quizzically. "Is that so?"

Ruby merely nodded her head in affirmation.

"I see." He leaned back on his chair and rested his hands on his desk. "Is there anything else to your report, Ms. Rose?"

"The three people that caught me, the male seemed like a young adult with gray hair. He fought mostly with kicks and had metal greaves for weapons. The second one was a green-haired lady with dark skin, it was a bit difficult to tell during the night. But she looked around the same age as the male. She fought with sickle-pistols."

Ozpin and Glynda shared a quick look of understanding with each other while Ruby described her captors.

"The last one was a lady with black hair and amber eyes — around the same age as well. She used fire to attack, causing her dress to light up as well as her eyes. She was the same lady that aided Roman Torchwick last time."

Once more, Ozpin and Glynda shared another look of understanding, albeit a little longer.

"Thank you, Miss Rose," Ozpin continued. "For now, you may return to your dorm and focus on recuperating. The rest of you, I understand that what you've learned today isn't so easily digestible, but please return to your studies. That will be all, dismissed."

As the students silently left, Ruby stood between the closing doors of the elevator and shared one last look with Ozpin.

And for a second, he could've sworn he saw her eyes glow dimly.

The rest of the sister teams returned to their classes as soon as they could. Yang wanted to be with Ruby to look after her but Ruby urged her to attend instead. All she had to do was promise to elaborate on what really happened.

It was to be expected.

And so for the rest of the day, Ruby found herself alone in her dorm, lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling while lost in her thoughts.

Lunch came and Yang rushed back to their dorm, however she was stopped by Weiss.

"Yang, I think we should discuss this first."

"Isn't that why we should meet Ruby now?"

"I mean, we should discuss for now how we should approach Ruby about this topic." Weiss leaned closer to Yang as she spoke in a softer voice.

Yang gave her an incredulous look and was about to answer but Blake spoke over her first.

"I don't think we should be questioning Ruby when our emotions are running too high."

Yang looked back at her teammates with the same incredulous look. Though they were eyeing her with sincere looks, their eyes couldn't hide their confusion.

Their fear.

As Weiss and Blake waited for Yang's response, they saw the subtle change in the way she looked at them. When Yang looked away sighing, clicking her tongue, and scratching her head, they understood completely.

She was disappointed in them.

Weiss and Blake shared a look between them, communicating their worries and anxieties wordlessly. They couldn't help it. They knew their leader was different. They knew their leader was rarely sunshine and rainbows. Just based on how dry her reactions were to everything, they chalked her up to having an emotional disability.

However, they didn't expect it to go so severely.

"Murder… no." Weiss mulled as she returned to her seat at their lunch table. "She gave them a chance to surrender but they still attacked. She had to defend herself… right?"

Blake sat beside Weiss, food in front of her though she didn't find much of her appetite. She had her hands over her book as per usual, though it wasn't opened. She didn't even have a finger between the pages.

The rest of the sister teams were pretty much in the same boat as well. Jaune, Pyrrha, Nora, and Ren were all eating their lunch in quite a somber mood — you'd think there was a funeral.

"Yang?" Nora asked, looking up from her half-eaten plate of pancakes. She'd be grabbing seconds by now if this were the usual.

Yang bit into an apple while giving Nora a look and not another word. She saw the same confused and scared look from her too.

"Do you think Ruby's alright?"

Yang couldn't help to raise an eyebrow at the question.

"Do you think Ruby's alright?" she repeated the question in her head several times.

She swallowed the bite she took and pushed it down with a sip of water. "She just went through a harrowing experience that none of us should've had to go through, Nora. What do you think?" She asked coldly while looking away.

Nora felt a bit peeved at the response. She pursed her lips and looked down at her plate again. She felt a hand on her head after a moment, feeling her partner's worry for her lifted her mood if only for a little.

Internally, Yang scoffed.

Not at Nora.

But at herself.

She understood where Nora was coming from. She wasn't stupid. She knew what her friends were thinking. What they were feeling. She'd seen it before, after all. It was also the same question she'd been asking herself all day.

"I don't know, Nora. I honestly don't know," she said with another sigh, hanging her head with her elbows on the table, hands feebly massaging her head.

There was a thick silence. It hung for a moment, though it felt like unbearable hours.

"What should we ask Ruby?" Jaune asked, hoping to get somewhere. He pursed his lips, unsure of what to even think of. "Should we even ask her anything at all?"

The rest of the table looked back at him, mulling over his questions.

When the school day ended and they all returned to their dorms, they were all expecting a serious talk with Ruby. So with a tense grip on the doorknob, Yang opened the door, leading the way in for Blake and Weiss to follow.

They walked in, searching the room for the familiar head of short bob-cut dark hair. It didn't take them too long, the room was pretty small and she was sitting on the study desk reading the day's lecture with her headphones on.

"Ruby-"

When Yang called out, Ruby looked up from her book and removed her headphones. She tilted her head and silently asked her question with a raised brow.

Yang paused, unable to speak as she looked back at her sister. Her mind was suddenly blank and all she could hear was white noise. Blake and Weiss stood beside her, waiting for Yang to broach the topic.

"..."

Yang took a breath and smiled at her sister warmly.

"Did you eat anything for lunch?"

The question was out of the blue for Weiss and Blake. They fully expected Yang to start questioning Ruby considering the way she was acting the whole day. And yet…

"Yes."

"Strawberry and coffee don't count as a full lunch."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"That was lunch."

"I knew I should've gone here during lunch! You should be eating healthily to recover faster, damn it!"

As the sisters shared in their daily banter, the other two shared a confused look between them. Weiss was the first to sigh and sit down her bed, though she was hesitant before she took the first step. Blake was much more hesitant in following suit, sitting on her own bed.

While Yang was locking her sister in another choke hold (it wasn't anything truly strenuous), Blake didn't take her eyes off of her leader.

"I don't regret it."

Those words hung in the room as silence took over. Yang stopped coddling her sister, only looking down at her as she was hugging her head from behind. Weiss and Blake's hearts spiked for a moment, not expecting the topic to be broached all of a sudden.

"I-"

"You're safe."

Ruby closed her mouth as her sister spoke over her.

"You're safe and that's all that matters."

The conviction in Yang's words took over the awkward atmosphere that hung loosely within their room.

"Hn."

As Yang held her sister dearly, Weiss and Blake shared another silent look. Blake heard Weiss speak in a voice heard only by her.

"She's lying."

AN: Hello again!

Kept you waiting again, huh?

If you've been following me on Twitter (you don't need to by the way), then you may or may not have noticed that I've been keeping myself busy with improving my art. I figured I should grab another creative outlet while I wait for my burnout to go away, so I went back to drawing again!

Anyways, thank you for reading as always. I'll see you in the next chapter.