Author's Headnote: Now, the Ruby chapter. Let's see what everyone's favorite vampire is up to during these times.

RWBY: Festival of Blood: Bombshell Brawl

Ruby Rose/Roxy Tudor:

Aura Status: 88%

Thirst: Thirsty

Semblance: Parasitic Petal Burst

Weapons: Heartless Rose (Formerly known as Crescent Rose), Slice of Life, Penny

Licensing: None, Illegal Huntress

Party Relations: N/A

End of main character status report

Abandoned Shack, March 11, Sunday, 9:40 PM, Basement

Ruby was sleeping in an abandoned shack's basement in the middle of the anima forests. The glassless windows meant that actual sunlight would poke through and kill her. Thankfully, there was a basement, sunlight free. Which Ruby had retired to and slept through the day...

The rogue vampire than woke up. She got up and went to grab her sweetheart, Crescent Rose. Though, her public name is now: 'Heartless Rose'. But she still calls her by her initial name when in private. Since Roxy Tudor needs to stray away from the 'noble and heroic' image that Ruby tried to emulate back before Beacon and Vale fell. Guess she knows it was never meant to be. Ruby still wants to be a hero, but she's not sure she'd be one people would look up to. The best she could do is have her old name be martyred while she finds the puppet master behind Cinder.

Still... she had remembered Cinder's final words, when Ruby was in a bloodthirsty rage.

"You better start... running."

"But... that's all... you'll do..."

Why did Cinder say that? Why did Cinder tell her to run? In hindsight, Cinder is right, running is all she is doing... but the way she said it, it was like a warning. But why? If she knew what secrets lied beneath that head of hers during her final minutes...

Regardless, she can't get distracted on that. She needs to focus on getting to Mistral. Unfortunately, she doesn't have a map so the best she could do is just walk there on foot while hoping the pathway arrows are pointed to the right direction. Changing the pathways isn't something one typically does... but knowing Mistral... that isn't below them, getting travellers lost or leading them to their death.

Yet again, the city of Mistral wouldn't be that hard to notice. Although, Ruby has heard the city is inside a hollow mountain. Regardless, she head out of the hollow shack and back into the wilderness to explore another night's worth of travelling.

Mistral Wilderness, March 11, Sunday, 10:20 PM, Forests

Back again exploring through the grimm infested woods... one of those shells have decided to attack Ruby from behind, she drew her weapon and cut it open, vanishing in the progress... it's uncanny resemblance to humans reminds Ruby of her thirst. She needs blood. The metallic red nectar is on her mind, she's absolutely disgusted at herself for enjoying the taste of blood. Being that it makes her much more of a monster, like she already is.

However, she doubts that any mortals would wander up in the woods. The fact that she said 'mortals' in her head, is something that's concering. They're people as well. With goals, dreams, and aspirations. All of which are synonyms.

Just... just... STOP OVERTHINKING EVERYTHING! STAY CALM!

Ruby inhaled... and exhaled... although she didn't get to calm down fully, as a steelfeather went and ambushed her, attacking from behind. She was caught off-guard when she was knocked back by the steelfeather, but thankfully she managed to recover and activated her grimm fists. In which she then rotated and jumped from a tree, using the momentum from the ambush to land an impactful punch on the artificial grimm, which it hits, causing the entire wing to be ripped off.

In which she then goes with a killing blow, reverting her grimm hands back to their human shape, she gets Slice of Life, loads it with fire dust and proceeds to slice the steelfeather in two, slaying the grimm.

However, she could hear more coming.

A bunch of... shells? Show up. Although instead of wearing the typical suit, they wear something more... feminine, the frame too... It appears to a woman's working outfit in an office. So, it's quite formal, but it's not a dress... it's more like a suit, with a skirt. Heels too... and as she takes a closer look from it...

"Wait..." she uttered quietly.

These things... looked like Yang. Well, with the grimm mask mostly matching her upper facial structure. Though, the hair may seem long, it's under a bun so it's not sure if they got the length right. The arms also bear ember celicia-esque gauntlets on them, even made of metal, same materials as the steelfeather outer layer. How the hell did they create grimm copies of Yang?

And then there's five of them. Fighting against one Yang was tough enough, but five? Well, good grief.

And much like the real deal, they all went and attacked first towards Ruby. In which Ruby parried one, but then the other four got the jump on her. Fortunately, Ruby would know that no vampire would be able to copy Yang's semblance. Though the fighting style and skill seems to be matched to a T.

Since this is a grimm, and not the actual Yang. Ruby holds no remorse towards these doubles. She fires a bullet from the scythe, swinging it around a 360-degree rotation, knocking back all of the doubles. One of them cocked the pseudo-celicias. And launched themselves in the air, preparing for a downward blow. Ruby knows this move, she knows how to counter it. She uses Crescent Rose (Heartless Rose in public, but in cases where Ruby is being used, it will be still be referred as Crescent Rose) to deflect the incoming attack with a sideways slash and then uses her semblance to pin the grimm down. Although when fighting Yang, Ruby would have stopped there and let Yang get up, but she's not fighting Yang, she's fighting a grimm... so she impales the grimm's skull with the scythe. It screams as it starts to glow...

The grimm then exploded, knocking Ruby back.

These guys explode on death? Well, I'd have to get out of the way when landing the fatal blow, it seems.

The remaining four doubles then fired a green, grimm flare, identical to Yang's single gauge shots. All of which are heading towards Ruby. Thankfully they're not homing attacks so she could just get out of the way to start attacking the second one. And as she got to scythe distance, the double sucker punched Ruby with a grimm shotgun blast. Leaving lots of holes in her stomach, and damaging her tank top.

"Ah great, now you ruined it." Ruby said, as the fabric prepares to self-repair. "Oh wait, never mind... forgot it does that. Still have holes in my stomach, though."

Well, if she didn't need blood, she'll need blood now. Since those holes in her stomach is making her insides feel all drafty, even if they're all mostly dead. Not to mention, it hurts like hell.

But if she was mortal, she would've been dead by now. These grimm seem to be more of a threat to the huntsmen than Ruby. The purple gleaming eyes also make it clear that it was made by moon dragon. She doesn't know how long they've had these... but an army of Yangs is something she wouldn't want to mess around with.

During her being distracted by her thoughts she was punched in the face by yet another one of those grimm. It seems like she needs to stop holding back. She then threw her scythe around like a boomerang, allowing her to activate her grimm claws, being that she has no means to counter actual martial arts skills with brute force. She'd have to learn authentic hand to hand combat first.

Using her grimm claws, she began to slash around back and forth allowing the claws to bring apon an endless spree of damage, well... until the double sucker punched it with another shotgun blast, and not letting her catch Crescent Rose in time, meaning she is impaled by her own scythe. But no less... she takes out Crescent Rose and activates Penny, along with disabling her grimm claws. She folded the scythe back and allowed her skill with holoblades to be freshened up.

She threw two of the blades back toward the other three doubles. While she uses two other conjured blades to parry up all of the double's attacks... aside from the suckerpunches, Ruby knows their skills. But their fighting style is a lot less honorable than Yang, although she fights aggressively, she's never known to fight dirty.

No matter, she's not going to hold back on grimm, ones that mock her sister, no less. All three of them went to gang up Ruby from behind, but she went and performed a kick sweep... well, attempted to. Out of pure luck it knocked them all down, she then used Slice of life to slice through them all in half, but they rebuilt themselves from that... tough grimm... incredibly made.

But then she forms her right arm to form a blade made of grimm, and impales one of them through the head, which triggers the glow, and tosses it towards the other grimm, whilst toggling off the grimm blade. And watch as the grimm self-destructs, killing one more in the process. The other two badly mangled, only to heal up.

As for the other two, the mask opened up on them, revealing their wide grimm mouth. and the hair let down, matching Yang's hair to a tee. They also are glowing green. With their fists having a metallic exo layer on the knuckles. Guess Ruby was wrong, sure grimm can't copy semblances, but they can sure try and mimic them. One of them ran fastly toward Ruby and punched Ruby before she could react, knocking her back towards a tree, which ended up getting destroyed by the impact.

Which means attacking with brute force will no longer cut it. With the two grimm Yangs charging out to punch out Ruby's aura... she's gonna need a layer of protection. She covered herself in grimm, head to toe... with some grimm bone around the non-jointed areas. This provides protection, and saves her aura from being depleted... but it greatly decreases mobility.

But when the blows come in, Ruby felt that her aura was taking less damage. In time she was able to block the attacks, she then used her vampiric strength to throw the two over and went to finish it off with a grimm blade to the chest on one of them and tossing it to the other...

After that, Ruby was exhausted... she was gasping... though she didn't need air, it was more so as a habit prior to her vampirism to do that after recovering from a battle... but she couldn't collapse just yet... she needed blood. Especially in her condition.

Though, being in the forest in the middle of the night, it'd be best for Ruby to abscond from the scene and find a source of blood.

With those unique grimm, guess she's still in Moon Dragon territory. Which means she just needs to find some mooks... she then heard foot steps...

A sole White Fang mook... wonder what's going on with them?

She stalks the mook... much like a predator stalks it's prey... which unfortunately the correct analogy for Ruby. She doesn't like what she's doing, and she's afraid that she'd grow to like it. But she needs it to survive. Though she won't die of thirst, it's more so collapsing in the ground before the sun rises that would kill her. Her fear of the sun is rational, it does kill her.

But no less, she waits for a good opportunity aaaand...

Ruby pounces on the sole mook and bites them in the neck, draining their blood. As the blood enters her body, she could feel the swiss cheese holes in her gut closing up and her aura replenishing. When the holes vanished, she let go and left the mook unconscious.

Ruby feels rejuvenated from the blood. She had to do it survive, and now she's back to her scheduled trip to Mistral. Travel, head for a buidling to rest in, wake up, continue. The only real stops would be the Yakuza's grimm. Occasionally a group of thugs, it's mostly grimm, though.

It's a long walk, but Ruby thinks she'll make it...

Mistral Wilderness, March 12, Monday, 12:00 AM, Mistral Roads

Staying on the road is always a good sign. She needs to just walk along the road and stop for any nearby buildings aaaaand...

She notices there's a light glowing behind her, she turns around and sees a green van approaching her. She quickly dives out of the way as the van was swirving to avoid hitting Ruby. The van was approaching at a fast speed so it had no chance of stopping.

Whoever was driving that van was likely on a hurry... But oh well, the chances that those people would want to head to mistral are slim. So, she'll continue heading towards the pathways towards Mistral, slowly walking there on foot.

However, she knows the sun would rise eventually... she's learned to tell the time by the rotation of the moon, it's past midnight, which means she has around four hours to find shelter... well... five, because the sun rises at 5 AM, 4:30 AM if she's unlucky.

She doesn't have to stop at the first piece of fortification she sees, though. Although convenient, it'd only slow her down from reaching Mistral. So, she usually stops around 2 AM, sets up camp inside some shelter. Whether it be a shack, cave, or whatever it is shielding Ruby from the sun. She quickly toggled to bird mode to get a bird's eye view of the path she's heading towards.

She could have done that at any time, just her initial form is preferable. Well, spending most of her life as a human, that is. She's also spent most of her life as a human. The simple joys that mortality brought, and the challenges. But now? First thing she does when she finds a body of water is to dive into it. Although unlike mortals, she can't drown. So the water would just soak her up and possible shield her from the sun...

Though filling her body with water is not a good idea if she wishes to be cured. Because she'd drown right after. Well, that is if there is a cure for vampirism. If there is a cure, likely all the ex-vampires who knew about the cure would be long gone.

And if she is like this forever... well... she already accepted the fact that she's a vampire. She's already gotten mostly used to it. Blood, no daytime, and aura can't recover unless drinking blood. It's a simple recap in her head, she doesn't need to recite it for the eleventeenth time.

More grimm shows up... shells, she first encountered them back at the club, why Moon Dragon was in vale is beyond Ruby, but they're simple enough to cleave through, just slice off the head and they'll die, this is what Ruby did. There's no reason to feel sorry for the grimm, although surprisingly one of them had blood in it... which covered Ruby's outfit. She's gonna have to wash that later.

Regardless, bloodstained and shelter seeking, Ruby still needs to keep on the road. Hopefully she could find somewhere to rest before the sun goes up. She sees a raven flying around, which is quite curious... but birds are like that. Curious creatures and all of that.

It was quite a long walk, she refrained from using her semblance, mostly to enjoy the view. Mistral's mountainous areas do make for nice view, but climbing mountains is something she'd rather not do. Being that it's time consuming, and she doesn't want to disintegrate herself for the illusion of a shortcut.

On the road, she had encountered an abandoned farm. Likely attacked by grimm a long time ago. But the house could be used to keep Ruby sheltered. Which is perfect for sleeping through the day and getting back on the road when the sun goes down.

Abandoned Farm, March 12, Monday, 3:50 AM, House Bedroom

The bedroom is mostly made of wood, no dead bodies anywhere so Ruby doesn't need to defile the dead. The bed is likely old but Ruby can't be picky. As for the windows... the draft means she'll need to do some patching up. She grabs some of the certains, and some nearby adhesive duct tape that was nearby for some reason and sealed the window holes shut. With the windows now fully closed, Ruby can finally sleep.

The bedroom also has a chest filled with clothes. She's likely gonna wash up here before heading out again. But for now, she carefully gets on the bed and shuts her eyes for her dead slumber. Another night successful, well to Ruby. She's successful to the fact that she's not a pile of ash. That's something! Though, for one it's great that she didn't have to pull up a ruse as 'Roxy' this night. Though, it should be considered that finding another settlement is inevitable.

Character Change: Ruby Rose - Jaune Arc

Green Van, March 12, Monday, 1:00 AM, Mistral Wilderness

While Jaune was riding in the backseat. Well, in the middle no less right next to Yang and her budding stump. Jaune thinks he can see Yang's bone's coming out of her stump. But he doesn't want to find out since it's disturbing to look at her pink left arm and not be disgusted at it.

What's even more annoying is that Yang snores in her sleep, and she is sleeping next to Jaune, who cannot sleep because snoring makes it hard to sleep. Well, not for the one snoring that is.

Which means Jaune would have to wait until Violet is done driving and ready to set up camp. There must be a lot of grimm around these parts if he's still driving, the sun is likely almost up and the only one getting any sleep is Jaune.

However, the car did stop... the abrupt stop was audible enough to wake up Yang. Who punched the car door as a reflex, and then hurt herself in the process as her aura is likely busy with her other arm.

"Why did we stop?" Jaune asked.

"I found a place to stop. It's an abandoned city." Violet Stated.

"I think the word you'd be looking for is: unfinished." Ren said, apparently correcting Violet. "Oniyuri was a project built by various elies unhappy with Mistral, but the project was left unfinished when the project heads were found dead, and everyone involved else suddenly vanished. People speculate it was either organized crime that was controlling Mistral, or the grimm, with evidence of both."

"It's still abandoned, finished or not" Violet objected. "Either way, we set up camp here. The walls would provide protection against the Shells. As for the Steelfeathers, we have Nora for that."

Nora waved her hand in response.

After that, everyone had gotten out of the van.

Author's Footnote: Sorry for long update. Keyboard software issues. The N key is being very rebellious to me and it's hard to type when it's acting up. I may have to remap some redundant keys to fill the needs if it persists. But I'll be happy to inform you that I'll continue working on this, regardless.

As for the Yang grimm, they'll be called Bombshells, sure not creative, but it'll do.

See ya next chapter... when it comes.