Chapter 3: Degradation

Clink. Clink. Clink.

Metal gently tapped against stone. The sound echoed through the cavern, fading as it bounced back and forth between the rocks.

Clink. Clink. Clink.

Legs dangled over a sheer drop, swinging back and forth.

Clink. Clink. Clink.

The girl with the rusty pipe waited on the ledge overlooking the enormous cavern, swinging her legs over the chasm below as she idly tapped her pipe against the rocks next to her. How long had she been sitting there? It was hard to tell, considering the lack of sunlight. The only illumination came from the bright orange flowers sprouting on the giant tree on the stone platform below, as well as the great glowing door right in front of it. To be fair, they did a surprisingly good job at lighting up the cavern without overwhelming it with their glow.

It probably hadn't been that long. The girl's stomach hadn't started rumbling yet.

Suddenly, a mechanical rumbling. It came from behind the girl with the rusty pipe. Through the walls of the cavern. The source of the vibrations descended through the rock, until it came to level with the bridge extending out to the stone platform. There, it stopped. More mechanical sounds echoed through the cavern for a moment, before they too stopped.

Then, footsteps. Three sets of footsteps. The girl stopped tapping her pipe against the rock and looked down over the ledge. Three people walked out over the bridge, far below her dangling feet. A large man out in front. A lady with long black hair and a white, Grimm-like mask. A younger woman beside her with much shorter hair. They were discussing something, but whatever it was, it wasn't audible from where the girl with the rusty pipe was sitting.

No matter. She didn't need to hear. She just watched and waited.

All three stopped at the giant glowing door by the tree. More talking. The masked lady held the short-haired woman's hand up to the door and it started to disappear, eventually fading until it was like it was never there. The girl couldn't see much beyond it from where she was sitting, but she could tell that the other side was quite bright, even brighter than the door had been. The large man walked through the doorway, disappearing from view. A minute later, he reappeared with something in his hand. A golden lamp with a glowing body that was blue as the clearest sky. The girl's eyes widened, but she stayed put. Her pipe did not respond, so she waited. Then, a crashing noise. Like something - no, many things - hit a metallic surface. More people rushed out onto the bridge. A girl with long yellow hair and a metal arm. A young boy with a cane that seemed too tall for him to use properly. A girl in red wielding a giant scythe. A man with spiky black hair, holding some sort of shotgun blade. The girl with the rusty pipe recognized the last two. They had been at Beacon Tower.

The pipe pulled gently in her hand. She nodded. It was almost time.

As Ruby ran out of the elevator onto the bridge, her mind raced as she took stock of the situation in front of her. Weiss, Blake, Jaune, Nora, and Ren were up at the top of the elevator dealing with Mercury, Emerald, Leo, and the White Fang. That left herself, her sister and uncle, and Oscar - and maybe Ozpin, if he opted to join the fight - against the foes in front of them. Raven, that Spring Maiden girl she had alongside her, and that large man who had coordinated the ambush. Hazel was his name, if she remembered correctly. The three of them were on the other side of the bridge, by a giant doorway that seemed to lead to... somewhere brighter. Ruby couldn't tell much more than that.

"That's it!" Oscar shouted, pointing towards Hazel. He had some sort of large, ornate lamp in his hand. "That's the relic!"

"Qrow, Yang, hold off Raven and the Spring Maiden!" Ruby shouted, pointing down the bridge. "Oscar, help me get the relic back!"

"Just leave my sister to me. I need to have a little sibling-to-sibling talk," Qrow said as he and Yang ran off towards the two bandits. Ruby watched for a moment as blades clashed and explosions rang out before turning towards Hazel.

"I don't wish to hurt either of you," Hazel said, hanging the lamp by a loop in the back of his belt. His expression grew stern as he looked at Ruby, then at Oscar. "Leave."

"Not without the relic!" Ruby shouted as she brought Crescent Rose up and pulled the trigger, sending a bullet straight towards Hazel's chest. He brought up his arm in response, blocking the shot without so much as flinching. Ruby swung her scythe around behind herself and, with another shot, launched herself Hazel, flipping over in mid-air to strike down at him.

Hazel raised his other arm, grabbing Crescent Rose's shaft and stopping Ruby in her tracks.

"Ruby!" Oscar shouted. Ruby watched as he leaped forward with his cane raised. He didn't even get the chance to strike; Hazel batted him aside with his other arm before tossing Crescent Rose to the ground, with Ruby along with it.

"I'm fine!" Ruby shouted, quickly scrambling to her feet. She flew into the air again with a blast from Crescent Rose, raising the blade as she descended towards Hazel. He brought up his arm in response once more, but this time, Ruby was ready. She disappeared in a burst of petals, reforming behind Hazel and slashing against his back.

It was like trying to cut into solid steel.

"That was a clever trick," Hazel said, swinging around with a backhand strike. Ruby disappeared into another cloud of petals, reappearing straight above Hazel and swinging Crescent Rose down at him. It struck his shoulder and stopped dead, not even causing his Aura to shimmer. "It's unfortunate that you lack the power to back it up."

Hazel reached up, grabbing Ruby's arm and pulling her close. Before she could react, his fist smashed into her chest, completely knocking the wind from her lungs and sending her tumbling across the bridge, with Crescent Rose clattering to the ground beside her. Disoriented from the blow, Ruby took a deep breath, refilling her lungs as she tried to ignore the pain in her chest. Her Aura still shimmered from the hit, sending visible ripples across her body.

"Ruby!" Oscar shouted. Ruby looked up to see him running to her. "Are you okay?!"

"I'm... yeah, I'm fine," Ruby muttered, coughing as she grabbed Crescent Rose and pushed herself to her feet. She looked up at Hazel, who was walking towards them without much urgency. "He's tough."

"He is. Ozpin is saying that... his Semblance allows him to ignore pain," Oscar explained. "And besides that, his fortitude and strength are incredible. I'm not sure how we can - "

"We don't need to beat him," Ruby said, interrupting Oscar. "We just need the relic, right?"

"Right. That makes sense," Oscar said, nodding. "How do we get to it, though?"

"If you distract him, I think I can grab it from - "

"I can hear you talking. You plan to steal the relic, don't you?" Hazel said, gesturing towards the lamp hanging from his belt. "Rest assured, I don't plan on letting it leave my person. If you still want to try to take it, then I can't guarantee that you won't get hurt."

"Darn. He's onto us," Ruby muttered. "What can we - "

"No, there's still a way to distract him. That's what Ozpin's saying, anyways," Oscar said, turning towards Hazel. He took a deep breath. Suddenly, his stance shifted slightly, and his eyes glowed for a moment. Ruby had seen this happen before. She knew what was coming. "Hello, Hazel. I regret that I was never able to meet you in person as Beacon's Headmaster after your sister's passing."

"Wait..." Hazel muttered. His eyes narrowed. "You..."

"Gretchen was a promising student. Her death was unfortunate, and I take full responsibility for it," Oscar - no, Ozpin - continued. "However, that doesn't mean I can let you - "

"OZPIN!"

With a sudden flurry of motion, Hazel ripped out his sleeves, leaving his arms exposed up to his shoulders. He grabbed handfuls of lightning Dust crystals from a pouch by his belt, stabbing them into his arms. As the yellow energy visibly coursed through his veins, he let out an animalistic roar that seemed to shake the cavern itself.

Then, he charged.

The girl with the rusty pipe peered over the ledge, watching the battle below. Three separate fights. The man with the spiky hair against the masked woman. The girl with long blonde hair against that other girl with shorter hair. The boy and the girl in red against that large man carrying the lamp. Her legs swung back and forth, dangling over the conflict and chaos. As the large man stabbed himself with Dust crystals, the girl felt a slight tug from her pipe.

It was almost time.

Taking a deep breath, the girl began to concentrate. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when they opened, they were ignited with flames. Pure energy flowed outward from her chest, through her arm, and into the pipe in her hand, causing it to surge with magical power. Though the pipe itself remained dull and rust-colored, the air around it seemed to glow with energy, growing brighter and brighter as the seconds passed. The girl scooted forward, ready to descend from the ledge at any given moment. She waited. Waited. Waited. Waited until -

The pipe pulled. The girl dropped down towards the bridge below.

"You would dare show yourself to me?!"

Ruby watched as Hazel leaped towards Ozpin, fist drawn back. Ozpin deftly dodged back with more grace than Oscar could have ever mustered, and Hazel struck the bridge, leaving a sparking crater in the stone.

"You'll pay for what you did! I'll make sure you die over and over again, until there's no one left for you to return to!"

Before, Hazel had been calm. Quiet. Focused. He had strength, but it was a controlled strength, used only as much as necessary. Now he fought like an animal, throwing his full and reckless strength into every blow as his roars and shouts shook the bridge and the cavern around them. His demeanor had changed so much just from knowing Ozpin was there. What had Ozpin done? Something involving Hazel's sister? Ruby wasn't sure.

In any case, Hazel had seemed to completely forget about Ruby's existence.

I just need to grab the relic, Ruby thought. That was easier said than done; Hazel was leaping after Ozpin, throwing his weight around and wildly swinging like a raging Beringel. Getting hit even once, even inadvertently, would be devastating. And if Hazel spotted Ruby coming in and focused his attention towards her...

Well, it was best to not think about the worst outcomes. She carefully watched Hazel as he charged and lunged repeatedly at Oscar, who was narrowly avoiding his electricity-laden fists each time. The boy - no, the very old man inside of the boy - seemed to know what he was doing, adjusting himself as he dodged Hazel's strikes so that Hazel's back was to Ruby, putting her completely in his blind spot. The lamp swung back and forth, dangling from his waist. She had a clear shot; she just had to take it.

Now was as good a time as ever.

Ruby leaped forward, refraining from using Crescent Rose to boost herself. Speed was important, but stealth even more so; after all, if Hazel noticed her and smashed her over the head, that'd be it for her. She looked up at Hazel, who had his attention completely focused on Ozpin. Good. Confident in her approach, Ruby disappeared into a burst of rose petals, reforming no more than a meter behind Hazel. She reached forward. The lamp was so close; her fingertips were practically brushing it.

"Ruby, get away!" Ozpin shouted. What was it? Following his warning, she stopped, backpedaling as she looked up. Hazel was still focused on Ozpin, even after his warning. But Ozpin wasn't focused on him. He was looking... up?

KA - CRACK!

The world exploded. A blinding light filled Ruby's vision as what felt like a semi truck slammed into her, blowing her off her feet. She tried to catch her bearings as she flew through the air, but her brain was knocking around in her skull, and through the confusion and the sudden pain wracking through her body she was having trouble even telling which way was up. A moment later - though it felt like an eternity - Ruby crashed back down to the bridge, landing in a heap as Crescent Rose clattered down beside her.

"Ruby!"

Someone shouted. Many someones. Ruby opened her eyes, and though her vision was still blurry, she caught shades of yellow and gray running towards her.

"Ruby, are you okay?!" Yang shouted. Ruby felt a metallic arm on her shoulder. Ruby sat up and blinked out the blurriness to see Yang standing over her, with Qrow just behind her. "I saw that explosion and - "

"I'm fine, sis. Well, maybe not fine, but I think it isn't too bad," Ruby said, giving her sister a reassuring smile. Her body hurt and her Aura had been drained considerably, but she didn't feel like anything was broken. "What happened? Weren't you and Qrow fighting Raven and - "

"They didn't seem to want to stick around," Qrow interrupted, pointing down the bridge. Ruby turned to see a red portal shrinking and vanishing, with Raven and her Spring Maiden companion nowhere to be seen. They had retreated, probably to some safe place far away from here.

As Ruby continued looking over the bridge, she quickly saw why.

A smoking crater, nearly as wide as the bridge itself, had suddenly appeared where Hazel had just been standing. Broken stone and debris coated nearly the rest of the bridge, flung out by the force of... whatever had made the crater. Ruby assumed it was the same thing that had flung her into the air. As Ruby looked down the slope of the crater, she saw Hazel - or, at least what was left of him. Everything from his waist up was just... gone. Reduced to a bloody smear against the bottom of the crater. What was left was broken, bloody and mangled, unrecognizable from the man it used to be.

And standing over that was a girl with a thick coat and a rusty pipe in hand. In her other hand she held the lamp.

"Who are you?!" Ruby shouted as she shakily stood up, grabbing Crescent Rose and pointing it towards the girl. "Are you after the relic too?"

The girl stared at Ruby. She gave no response.

"Careful," Qrow warned, readying his weapon as well. "That's the girl I told you about. The one from Beacon Tower."

"The one who killed Cinder?" Yang asked, bringing up her fists. "That means she's..."

"The current Fall Maiden," Ruby muttered, finishing Yang's sentence. She turned back towards the girl with the rusty pipe. "What do you want? Why do you want the relic?"

The girl didn't reply. She just looked at her pipe. Slowly, she swung it around, pointing it down towards the ground. What was she doing? Could she even speak?

Then, the girl turned, running to the edge of the cliff before leaping down into the abyss below.

"Wait! Come back!" Ruby shouted, running after the girl. Before she could reach the edge, the bridge suddenly shifted underneath her feet, causing her to stumble and lose her balance. She heard a great roar of stone grinding against stone.

"Ruby!" Yang shouted, grabbing Ruby by her hood and pulling her back just as the stone started to crack and break beneath her. "The bridge is collapsing! We need to go!"

"Back to the elevator!" Qrow shouted. Ruby nodded; she followed her uncle and sister, as well as Oscar, back to the glowing blue elevator as the bridge collapsed behind them, the great pieces of rock and stone following the girl with the rusty pipe into the chasm below. How far down was it? Probably a long way. It was a while before the sound of crashing rock echoed up from below.

As the four made it back to the elevator, Ruby collapsed, her Aura drained. She was more tired and sore than she had realized.

"Who was she?" Ruby muttered, looking out into the now bridge-less cavern. Oddly enough, the stone platform with the glowing tree and the door the Spring Maiden opened up were still there, floating in the abyss. "Was she with Salem too?"

"I... don't think so," Yang said as the elevator started to ascend. "That Hazel guy was someone on Salem's side, right? He seemed to be the leader of this operation. If that girl was with Salem, why would she just kill him like that? It doesn't make sense."

"Hey, Ozpin. You seem pretty quiet," Qrow said, looking at Oscar - or Ozpin. Qrow was probably better at telling the difference. "Do you know something? You always do."

"Not as much as I would like, unfortunately," Ozpin - Ruby was pretty sure it was him - said, turning to the other three. "But I have seen that girl before. In one of my previous lives."

"Wait, one of your previous lives?" Ruby asked. "Like, when you were Beacon's Headmaster?"

"No. Earlier than that."

"Earlier? Weren't you, like, fifty years old as Beacon's Headmaster?" Yang pointed out. " That means..."

"I was as shocked as you are. I would call it an impossibility if I didn't know better, but yes, I have seen her before, far before any of you were born," Ozpin said. He sighed. "I would be hard-pressed to forget that face."

"Why?" Ruby asked.

"Because in that life, that girl was the one to kill me."

The girl with the rusty pipe fell to the cavern floor, crumpling into a heap as she crashed against the stone. After a moment, she slowly pushed herself up. Where was the lamp? There it was. Down on the ground, next to her. As she picked it up, she heard a rumbling above her. Stone grinding against stone. She looked up. The bridge was collapsing, with giant chunks of rock and stone crashing down towards her. She looked back down at the lamp, seemingly unfazed by the sheer amount of debris about to collapse over her head. The rusty pipe in her hand pulled. She concentrated.

Everything stopped. The shattered bridge froze in midair, as if held suspended by an invisible wire. The lamp glowed a bright blue as it pulled upwards, but the girl kept a tight grip on its handle as wisps of blue smoke flowed out into the air. They slowly gathered together, coalescing into a single form - a woman with blue skin, long hair, and practically no clothing at all.

"Normally one is supposed to call out my name in order to summon me, but I can make exceptions for those such as you. Your thought is as good as your word," the woman explained as she floated in the air above the girl with the rusty pipe. "I am Jinn, a being created by the God of Light to aid Humanity in its pursuit of knowledge. I've been graced with the ability to answer three questions every one hundred years."

The girl looked up at Jinn, her expression stiff as ever.

"There are two questions remaining in this era. Now, child, what knowledge do you seek?" Jinn asked, floating closer to the girl. She chuckled. "Though I suppose 'child' would not be the best way to refer to you now, would it?"

The girl kept staring at Jinn. The grip around her pipe tightened, then loosened again.

"I see. Is that your question?"

The girl nodded.

"In that case, then I have unfortunate news for you."

The girl tilted her head.

"Your desire... there is nothing in this world that can grant it to you. Not man nor machine nor Grimm is capable of that. Even my siblings would fall short of your request," Jinn explained. "Only the Gods themselves can give you what you seek."

The girl nodded.

"One question remains. Is there more that you wish to know?"

The girl turned. She started walking off towards the exit to the cavern.

"Very well."

Jinn disappeared as the girl made her way across the cavern floor, and time started to flow once more. The frozen bridge thawed, falling once again. Giant chunks of stone crashed down all around her, shattering against the ground and spraying fragments of rock through the air like shrapnel. The girl was unfazed, walking through the deadly rain of debris as if it didn't exist. Her pipe pointed her along, and she followed it, paving her path ahead without hesitation. The slightest of smiles crept along her face for a moment before she reverted back to her usual lack of expression.

The way forward was clear.

A/N: And that's chapter 3! Man, I got this one out quicker than I expected. Fun fact: even though I've been writing RWBY fanfic for over two years, this is actually the first scene I've written that heavily features Ruby or any member of the core cast of the show!

Thanks to everyone who reviewed! Maybe this chapter has answered some of your questions, or maybe it's left you with more questions than answers. Maybe her goal is more clear now, or maybe it's just as vague as before. What remains constant is the girl's will and ability to move forward.

Thanks as well to everyone who read, followed, and favorited. Don't expect every update to be as quick as this one, but I'll try to not keep y'all waiting too long. Have a nice day!