During many a day, there were three overarching ways to describe how events would inevitably turn out.

Sunshine and daisies.

'Good days'.

Shit's fucked, cap'n.

'Bad days'.

Today was alright.

'Eh'.

In any such situation, one always needed to be prepared to handle any sudden curveball that life would throw their way. Because, no matter how dastardly you were, no matter how well you handled you day-to-day affairs, eventually something was bound to go wrong and potentially ruin all your years of planning. You could be having the time of your life when suddenly you were on your last legs. Even a good event at a terrible time could make one lose focus and screw everything up.

...There was a particular incident involving a sailboat and a wedding receptionist off the coast of a small Mistralian port that came to mind.

He knew that this was how the world works. His darling Neo knew this as well. That bitch Cinder most certainly knew in her own twisted little way, as did all of her whiny little underlings.

Gosh. Cinder.

It was as if the girl thrived on railroading all of her pawns into inescapable situations built on lies and sudden flares of her bullshit do-anything power. It had taken one decent glance into her amber eyes to know that Cinder Fall was a woman who built herself up atop the corpses of her former followers and enjoyed every second of it.

Worse still, she had him by the proverbial balls. Possibly by the actual balls too, if the glances she occasionally sent his way meant anything. He would certainly peg Cinder to be the type of girl to enjoy displaying her assertive behaviour in any shape or form. Probably one of the few times where his accursed good looks had gotten the better of him.

Yet even Roman could not deny that the woman was, at her core, a survivor. A person never could grow to be that ambitious without first barely scraping by only to rise above her adversaries. She was a woman whom had learnt how to play to her strengths and use others to cover for her weaknesses. If she played her cards right she'd be able to cause quite the bit of chaos in this merry little world.

Certainly enough for enterprising crooks like himself to make a fine piece of lien or two if her played his cards right.

The key to surviving in such a crapsack place like Remnant was the ability to turn any wayward event into a favourable outcome. Bad events were just opportunities in disguise. That was all Roman did, really. He made the day work for him. Whilst being impeccably dressed, heavily armed and hamming it up as much as humanly possible, of course. But that was just his style. Everyone had to get their jollies somewhere, right?

And his little style worked.

People hated your regular dime-a-dozen cutthroats and racial supremacist, which was why the media often portrayed criminals in such a manner. When eventually caught, they were would be no hesitation in passing judgement. There wouldn't ever be that flicker of uncertainty that could spell life or death, that errant thought running through peoples minds and making them wonder if what they were doing was right and just.

Everything was so much easier for society when things were black and white. Your everyday rabble just loved just heroes and dastardly villains. And that was where the true powers of the world lay. Not with the leaders or the military, but the people. The commoners.

If Roman Torchwick had learnt anything, it was that people were who fully convinced in their beliefs that an individual was bad and against them, then they could do some pretty cruel things in the sake of protecting that which they care about. Ideals were both sword and shield to those who cared about such things.

The White Fang were no different.

Sure, they growled and said big meanie words behind his back, but in they end they were still just people playing out the same pointless tune that's been played out oum-knows how many times before. Animal features or not, they still acted the same as your lien-a-dozen human being. They played the role they chose and confined themselves in their beliefs.

It had been no surprise to him that Cinder had so effortlessly subverted them to her cause, whatever in the world her cause even was. Probably something equally as convoluted and pointless that leads to no actual overall changes in the long run. Although, the sheer irony of a totalitarian group of faunus fighting back against human oppression was being controlled by humans was quite amusing. Definite brownie points for Cinder there. If she weren't such a horrid excuse for a human he'd have almost admired her manipulative abilities.

Roman Torchwick was beginning to wonder exactly when most of his days started to fill with the aforementioned 'bad events' instead of what resulted from his typical day-to-day routine. He also wondered how such circumstances seemed to consistently make it more and more difficult to turn in his favour.

...Suffice to say, this was not a day that Roman was currently enjoying.

Ruby Rose stood there atop some no-name building in downtown Vale, silver eyes uncomprehending at the sight before her. Her mouth was gaping as her mind desperately searched for something, anything to say. She couldn't think straight.

Silver eyes stared down at her. Warm. Caring. Compassionate.

Silver eyes stared back up at her mother.

Her MOTHER.

SUMMER FUCKING ROSE.

...S-She. She was alive. There right with her. Cradling her in her arms.

A small part of Ruby wondered how long it had been since those arms had last held her.

A small part of Ruby wondered if such a thing was even possible.

Well. Okay. Maybe it was a little bit more than 'small parts' that were wondering this.

J-Just… how...

Her mind was so caught up in searching for any kind of explanation that she didn't even hear the words that Torchwick was saying. She couldn't even understand the words that Penny had said before the girl had jumped down and started carving away at random White Fang mooks with flying swords that came out of her backpack.

Well. Okay. She'd kinda noticed that, despite everything that was happening. Come on. Those weapons were cool as heck. She'd have to be blind to not notice something so badass. When all of this was over she was going to be having words with her ginger-haired new friend. Penny was an Atlesian, right? She wondered what it must be like over there for laser swords to be a thing.

But, even if every fibre in her weapons geek of a body wanted to turn around and focus on Penny's actions, she couldn't find the will to move. Not with those eyes staring back at her. No matter how much she wanted to be distracted from something so utterly impossible, she couldn't bring herself to deny the sight infront of her. She was rooted on the spot of some oum-forsaken building in downtown Vale in the middle of a gunfight…

All because of those silver eyes.

"You have your mother's eyes, you know."

Ruby remembered those words. Originally, many years ago, she'd vaguely remembered her dad saying them to her as a joke of some kind after she'd starting crying after being caught trying to steal from the cookie tray right after dad had finished baking them. It had been the first time she'd had cookies after mom's dea-disappearance.

S-Since mom's death.

She couldn't run from the truth. She'd vowed to never run from reality, no matter how harsh it got. No matter how unfair things became, she would keep moving forward in honour of her mother's sacrifice. Ruby wouldn't ever fall into her old self. Not since that time that Yang had consoled her and forced her to accept the truth in her own way.

"Our mom's dead, Ruby! D-E-A-D. That's it! She… she's not coming back, okay. Dead is dead. Just… just stop. I'm sorry, but you're old enough to understand now and I can't stand seeing you like this, Ruby. You need to snap out of it! Please! She wouldn't want you being like this!"

The words had hurt her. They'd hurt her more than anything ever had, up until that point. She could still remember the day like it had happened mere moments ago. Oum, she'd been so mad at Yang for that. She hadn't spoken to her sister for weeks after that moment. Whether it had been out of pure spite or sheer denial, Ruby wasn't entirely certain anymore, but eventually she'd given up and accepted it.

She had learnt a valuable lesson that day.

Thus kindly I scatter...

For the longest time she had wondered if Summer would ever have approved of her training to become a huntress. Her decision to train up had only come after Yang's intervention. No matter how many years passed though, she'd always been too scared to ever think of asking her dad about what he thought she'd say. The idea of disappointing her mother… it hurt to think about.

Oum. Dad was gonna freak. Well, either that or he'd just pretend everything was fine and wall it off.
Yet, she didn't think that Dad could wall off something as big as this. Not like last time.

Dad… I wonder how you handled it, really. Truly. Behind the smiles, behind the frowns... What were you feeling when I asked you to help me be like my mom? How would you react, if you saw her again? What would you say?

Her dad had known that once she'd made up her mind, there was no stopping her. There had been a single argument when she'd revealed her intentions (perhaps at the wrong time) but after that he had reluctantly agreed and poured every resource he had into training her up to kick as much butt as possible.

Even if she needed to get her own butt kicked first.

She loved her dad to pieces for everything he's done for her, but oum did he have a mean right hook sometimes. Worse still, he was probably a little more strict than Professor Goodwitch when it came to training. Then came Qrow.

She tried not to think about Qrow's training that much.

"Ruby… Ruby it's really you…Oh oum... my baby girl… My-"

My little sun and stars.

Unbidden, the memory stuck with full force. She found herself almost grimacing at the sheer intensity of it all. It was her earliest memory of her mother, when she was being tucked into bed beside Yang (because of a scary storm) her mother had kissed them both of the forehead before whispering that phrase.

They were both crying, she realised. Both Ruby and her mother. Tears were flowing freely from their silver eyes as they drank in the appearances of eachother. Her mother had time to briefly move her arms outwards in a hug before Ruby was bolting forwards in a burst of speed courtesy of her semblance. Her mother caught her with open arms, staggering from the sheer force of the impact.

"M-Mom… you… you're..."

You're alive… You're really, truly, alive.

Arms. Her mother's arms, wrapped around her.

She couldn't speak. She nestled herself in her mother's embrace, crying and wailing into her chest as her tiny arms held on for dear life, fearful that the woman she held would disappear again. It had been like when she was a kid, she'd do the same with a pillow when she was trying to sleep. Holding it tightly and convincing herself that she had her mother in her arms once again, rocking her softly.

Summer held her tightly. Tight enough where she felt her aura flicker slightly, before the woman abruptly softened her embrace. Ruby almost wished that she hadn't relaxed, just the reaction from her aura was enough to convince her it wasn't some illusion... some trick done by the baddies to destabilise the mighty leader of team RWBY.

It was real. She was real. And she was right there.

She stiffened as she felt hands rubbing against her back in an effort to calm her down. Those same circular calming motions that her mother had once used to get her to relax one night when a particularly nasty storm had hit their house. Her mom was shaking, she realised. Trembling.

Oum. Why is she even thinking about this? Her mind was such a mess right now. Nothing made sense anymore. How could it? How could anything make sense when your dead mother was-

"It's okay, sweetling. Shh. It's alright." her mother cooed as she pulled back from the hug. "Just relax. Focus on my voice. M-Mother's here for you now. I'm not going to leave you. Not ever. I'm right here, Ruby. Right here with you. Calm down… I'm right here..."

It almost sounded like she was talking to herself at the end.

She sniffled softly, whimpering even as her mother wiped away the tears that were threatening to cloud her vision. Oum, she must look ridiculous at the moment. Certainly the Ice Queen would probably call her out for looking like a dolt or something that sounded equally snooty. But Ruby didn't care. She'd gladly be a dolt for the rest of her life, just so that she could be with her mom again.

"H-How…?" Ruby managed to choke out the word. In the state she was in, that was probably the best she was going to get. Honestly, it hurt to think. Everything hurt.

Yet if Summer noticed her distress, she didn't comment on it. She merely gave a warm consoling smile that only served to make Ruby whimper.

She had missed that smile. So damn much.

"Your little blonde friend. Kira, I think it was. She, er, umm... okay, look, she had one of those weird names, like the ones that people from Kuroyuri have..." her mother trailed off, blushing in embarrassment before shaking her head and continuing. "She sent me here, Ruby."

Kira.

She could only mean Kirakishou.

The blonde girl with the cute dress and silly smiles.

My friend.

Kirakishou.

Kirakishou sent her mother to her.

KIRAKISHOU HAD SENT HER MOTHER TO HER.

What.

"What."

"What?!" her mother retorted, confused and perhaps a little indignant at her daughter's tone. Ruby figured that she kinda sounded a little like Weiss at the moment. "I… I mean, that is her name, right? I, well, to be entirely honest I wasn't really paying that much attention when she introduced herself... I was a little, erm, occupied at the time..? No, I'm sure it..."

...Yup. That's mom alright.

It was made abundantly clear to her, much to her relief, that she wasn't the only social wallflower in the family. Had to get it from somewhere.

She tried to laugh at the absurdity of everything, but it come out more like a dry rasp than anything else.

"N-No. That's not what I meant." Ruby cut her mother off weakly, yet somehow it was enough to stop her mother's rambling in its tracks. Ruby thought her voice sounded a touch strained. Perhaps she needed to stop drinking so much soda on weekends. That's probably it. "That's… That's Kira. Kirakishou. That's her name, yes...But..." she muttered, lost in thought.

I-I don't… how…?

Tiny white vines don't resurrect dead mothers from the grave, no matter how pretty they look or whatever. That's not how nature works. That's not how semblances work. People don't just… they can't...

A hand cupped her cheek.

Memories flickered into the forefront of her mind. Honestly, at this point she wished her damn mind would just shut up for ten damn seconds and let her-

"I could not be happier, to be bonded with my maiden of the Red Rose."

Kirakishou... She remembered when the blonde girl had said that. Right to the headmaster's face. There was no hesitation. No worry. No nervousness. Nothing. Just straight facts said with that damnningly cute smile of hers. Oum. She'd thought she was going to melt in embarrassment at the time.

Yet as she watched the odd rose-themed girl tearfully explain her past, Ruby had found herself not caring that much that Kirakishou had inadvertaintly embarrassed her infront of the headmaster. It wasn't as if the girl was teasing her like Yang did sometimes (read: most of the time). It was just Kira's way of showing affection in her own, unique, style.

"Thank you, Ruby. For choosing to nurture a beautiful rose like me."

Why did you do it, Kirakishou? She couldn't help but wonder, Why did you bring my mother back to me? How could you even do it? Your semblance is those weird vine things. Not… not this… You can't bring back the dead, everybody knows that. Dead is dead...

"...I miss them, you know. I know that I shouldn't. They hurt me. They did everything to ruin my dreams. But, in this world without Father, I cannot help but miss them."

Oh, she was crying again.

"What's wrong, sweetling?" her mother's voice caused her to blink and refocus, staring blankly at the woman in an attempt to calm her frazzled thoughts.

She sniffled.

She-

Ruby froze abruptly, eyes widening in surprise. In an instant she found herself staggering backwards, stumbling haphazardly as she stared in disbelief at her mother's body.

Those… her arms.

They're not human.

They're not prosthetics. Mom n-never had prosthetics...

Ball jointed limbs.

She looked a little closer at the woman standing beside her. Now that she focused, she could see that a few things stood out.

A face that was too perfect, too immaculate to ever be called a true face. How could she not have seen it before? Even with her outfit, it couldn't hide something like that.

Her mom's skin had been pale, yes, but never that pale. Never had it possessed that sheen to it, akin to a ceramic of sorts, yet with an odd fleshy texture that had the slightest similarity to skin yet appeared blatantly different.

Summer's lips curled into a warm loving smile, something that should be physically impossible on… on...

"Y-You… You're a doll.."

Summer Rose nodded mechanically, raising a hand to inspect the jointed digits herself. "...It was quite the surprise to me as well, when I first woke up." she spoke in a faraway tone, no real inflation to her voice.

Ruby thought that her mother certainly didn't sound surprised.

After a pause as if to shake her mind of her thoughts, she continued. "Your little friend explained everything to me, Ruby. It's okay. I don't mind it, not really. I'd rather be walking as some bizarre doll than… the alternative, if it meant that I would be able to see my baby girl again. I think she knew that, your friend."

"...But… how..?"

Her mother smiled demurely. "That would be something you would have to ask her yourself. I'm not entirely sure, myself. Your little friend is a bit, erm… Well." her mother coughed as if to hide her awkwardness. The cough trick had never worked for Ruby and it certainly didn't work for her mother either. "She, well, she has a unique dialect to say to least. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. But it makes it a little hard to understand her."

A unique dialect… that's one way of putting it. Ruby thought incredulously. Oum. It was like nobody could speak to the damn girl except her. It wasn't that hard, really.

"W-Where is Kira, anyway? I… I don't think she would just… just do something like this and leave." Ruby reasoned out. Though she wasn't entirely sure in the first place. She didn't know much about her new friend. They'd only just met recently after all, and it had been in the middle of a big issue with Blake and Weiss that she was attempting to fix up.

Though, somehow, she felt… comfortable with Kira. Yes. That's a nice, safe, word she could use to describe her thoughts on the blonde-haired girl. There were a lot of weird, nebulous feelings she held for the girl that she was only beginning to understand, but in the end... she trusted Kira. And, considering everything that Kirakishou had shared with her regarding her past, it was clear that Kira trusted her aswell.

She knew, deep within her heart, that if she asked Kirakishou to tell her what had happened, her friend wouldn't hesitate to tell her.

So where was she?!

Ruby didn't know what she'd do. She didn't know what she'd say to the pretty girl who resurrected her dead mother as a doll. But damn if she wasn't going to find SOMETHING to say.

"From what I could understand, your friend was weakened severely after bringing me… ah... here. She could be barely speak out loud. I had to strain to hear what she was saying. I wanted to get her to a doctor, but, well… I may have been a little hasty in my efforts to see you again, rosebud..." Summer explained, rubbing the back of her head.

Ruby blanched. "So you just left her there?!" she retorted incredulously. She'd seen enough movies to know that bringing someone back carried a huge cost. It always did. Something something equivalent exchange or something. There was a big chance that Kirakishou could be seriously injured from doing whatever it was she did in order to bring her mother back from the dead.

Dead. Dead dead dead.

Summer Rose held up her hands in a placating manner, frowning. It was only then that Ruby realised she'd been glaring rather heatedly at her mother.

...Maybe Yang was right. Maybe puberty was a wild ride of emotions. She never imagined that she'd be getting mad at Summer freaking Rose of all people. Maybe she was just a little exhausted with everything that was going on around her. She needed a break.

"Relax, sweetling… it's okay. She just seemed rather exhausted, is all. Must have took a lot to get me here with you. I'm sure that she'll still be in her dorm room once all of this is sorted, okay? For now, we need to focus on the-"

Wait… what?

"...Kira brought you back in her bedroom?" Ruby blurted incredulously. Isn't there supposed to be some big ritual chamber, or was that only in the movies?

Summer shrugged. "Eh. I was a little surprised too. Isn't there supposed to be some big ordeal, you know? Candles. Chanting. People in cloaks. That sort of thing? I just woke up there and within a couple minutes I was speeding towards the docks. Scared the hell out of a couple students, I think. Um. Sorry about that. You may have to deal with a few really confused students on your way back to Beacon."

Well, at least it's good to know that she ended up liking the same type of movies that her mother liked. Likes.

"...It's okay..." she muttered awkwardly.

Summer clapped her hands. They made a weird sound, she almost giggle when Summer also looked a bit surprised at the sound. "Right! So. Let's go beat up some thieves and then we can sort out this mess later. What do you think?"

And, just like that, it was over.

Blake didn't know whether to laugh at the absurdity or collapse into tears at the confirmation that the group she had once staunchly believed to be the paragons for faunus rights had devolved into a ravenous group of fanatical cutthroats.

Being ordered around by a racist human with the worse sense of fashion I've ever seen. A criminal. Adam… why did you do this? Why did you let things go down like this? You would never have allowed something like this to happen. Was… was it me? Did you throw everything to the wind after I left? Was it all for nothing?

She wasn't stupid. Blake knew that it was beyond selfish to believe that one person could cause such a radical change in a group with firmly held beliefs and desires.

Yet she could not deny Adam's way with words. He was charismatic. He could get in your head, almost to the point where you could hear a voice in your head telling you what to believe. Oum, if he wanted to do so, Blake held no doubt in her mind that Adam held the ability to radically sway the White Fang's beliefs if given enough time.

But now? Mere months after she'd deserted, Adam had managed to radicalise the faunus into willingly cooperating with such… scum? Sure, he was renowned for his ability to turn others to his side, but something of that scale seemed completely out of the blue and neigh-impossible, which was why she'd had such trouble thinking that the White Fang could be a part of the robberies.

Yet they were. But why in the world would the White Fang need to steal dust? With their constant raids on the Schnee Dust Mines, they had more than enough dust to arm themselves. The degree of dust that they were attempting to steal held no value apart from pissing off both the SDC even futher, along with agitating both the shipping companies and any munitions seller in the local area.

And everyone knows not to piss off either of those two groups.

So… why are they doing it? What reason could Adam have?

I-I don't know…

There were too many unknowns for her to come up with a proper conclusion. She needed answers. Evidence. Something to help her understand all of this nonsense. The question was how in the world was she, a former White Fang agent turned academy student, ever going to get to the bottom of this?

She shoved her thoughts to the side for the moment and refocused on what was happening around her.

A ginger-haired girl had jumped down to assist them against the White Fang the moment that Roman Torchwick opened fire against Ruby. Blake vaguely recalled meeting the girl when her team was escorting Kirakishou to Beacon Academy. For all intents and purposes, Blake was beyond glad that the girl was on their side. She was a machine. Ripping through White Fang goons like mincemeat and leaving broken soldiers in her wake. It was as awe-inspiring as it was terrifying.

Sun Wukong had suffered a few injuries in the events leading up until the strange girl's appearance and Blake used the brief reprieve from combat to pull the boy out of the line of fire. She didn't know what exactly powered those lasers that the girl was firing (out of her swords for oum's sake) but given how they were tearing through the hulls of bullheads with relative ease, she figured it would be bad if the monkey faunus were to get hit by one of them.

Ruby had certainly made some interesting friends in the past few days.

The White Fang was putting up a solid enough defence, but it was clear they were outmatched in practically every way. All they had going for them was numbers, which were being cut down rather quickly courtesy of the girl. Blake was inwardly glad to see that the girl never went for a killing blow, but it was clear that some of those soldiers weren't getting up any time soon.

Then Ruby decided to join in.

Followed closely by another older woman that was practically the spitting image of her team leader, albeit one clad in a white cloak and a slightly different hairstyle to Ruby herself. It was clear the two were atleast related in some way. Her mother, by the looks of things.

Ruby had never talked about her mother. Or the rest of her family outside of Yang. But at the current moment Blake didn't exactly care about the Rose family history. She was just glad that Ruby's mother was on their side. Never in a million years would she want to go up against such a person.

The woman didn't have a weapon. She sure as hell didn't need it.

A/N: Another chapter down. We are coming to a close for Volume 1 of RWBY. I hope you all enjoy the recent developments and I'm eager to hear what you all think. Summer is such a driving force in the RWBY story, yet is barely mentioned apart from a few choice developments. Naturally, with Kirakishou influencing things... that might be subject to change.

There may be a brief lull in uploads. Work is entering a hectic time. But I'll still be here, typing when I can.