AN: I was able to organize my thoughts a lot faster than I thought I would, so let's get right into it!
Also, I'm happy that people were so accepting of my decision to have Aqua be paralyzed after the Fall of Beacon. I was afraid people would find it unbelievable. Thank you!
Chapter 77
Cinder looked up in fear at the deathly pale woman looming over her. She was lying down on a table, a multitude of Grimm Arms holding her down serving the purpose better than any restraints. Several of them grabbed hold of her legs, torso, and remaining arm, with a few gripping her head and covering her mouth. Their grip was so tight that she couldn't move an inch off the table. Their claws were leaving marks in their skin, perfectly visible after the woman before her had ordered her to be stripped when she was brought in.
The arms had completely drained her Aura, leaving her too weak to resist.
Whatever Ruby had done to her had left her without a left eye, and most of the skin on her left arm had been burned away.
Salem had decided it would have been less unsightly if the arm had just been removed entirely, so that's what she did.
"Interesting," Salem said, as Cinder continued looking up at her with her remaining eye. "Your parasite is gone." When Ruby hit her with that weird blast, Cinder could feel the parasite Salem had used to control her die. Unfortunately, Emerald had misunderstood her when she asked for help, dragging her back to Evernight Castle instead of actually helping her.
Cinder was finally back in full control of her own body, and here she was, still in the Witch's clutches.
"You still have a purpose that you must fulfill," Salem said. "You're not allowed to leave." The woman leaned forward, looking at Cinder with an intensity to her blood-red eyes. Cinder whimpered in fear. "It seems I will have to replace the parasite." Cinder tried her hardest to shake her head, but the arms held her still. "Ozpin has a Silver-eyed warrior in play. I'll have to make sure that this one is more…robust than the last one."
More arms suddenly sprouted, flipping Cinder around on the table so her back was facing Salem.
She screamed as loud as she could against the arms covering her mouth.
Please, no! She screamed in her mind. Not again!
"So, uh, how do I look?" Ruby asked nervously, stepping out of the changing room. She had been travelling with Jaune, Ren, and Nora for several weeks now, long enough for the season to change to spring. With the warmer weather, and in celebration of a new adventure, it was decided that they would upgrade their wardrobes.
Ruby had swapped out the waist cincher from her old outfit with a black over-bust corset with red lace. Underneath that she wore a long-sleeved white blouse, one that left a patch of skin exposed that showed her… c-c-cleavage. She also donned a much shorter skirt than before, and swapped out her tights for thigh-high stockings. She still wore her combat boots, red cloak, and Wayfinder, and her hair had grown a little longer. Underneath her cape, she wore a small brown backpack.
She fidgeted nervously, subconsciously pulling on her skirt as if she was trying to make it longer while her friends looked on.
"Wow," Jaune said. He hadn't really done much to change his outfit, just swapping out his sneakers for boots. That and his longer, even shaggier hair.
"Very nice," Ren said, now wearing a sleeveless green jacket with coattails and detached purple sleeves. He also wore white pants and open-toed boots. His hair had been let down, allowing it to flow down his back.
"Is it hot in here, or is it just you?" Nora asked playfully. She was wearing a white blouse with a heart-shaped cutout in the chest, tucked into a puffy pink skirt. She also wore a black short-sleeved bomber jacket and white knee-high boots. Her hair had also grown a little longer.
"Stop it," Ruby said bashfully, pulling her hood over her face. She turned away from them in embarrassment. They didn't have to lie. She knew she looked like a kid playing dress-up and trying to look mature. She heard Nora sigh in frustration.
"Come here," Nora said, grabbing her wrist and dragging her back into the changing room and depositing her in front of the mirror.
"Hey, what's the big idea?" Ruby asked, pulling her hood down to glare at the ginger girl.
"Look," Nora said sternly, pointing at the full body mirror. "See? You're pretty."
Ruby looked closely at her reflection. The corset was tighter than her waist cincher was, showing off her developing curves, which were more noticeable than she had first thought. In addition, now that she wasn't wearing such baggy clothing, she could see that her chest had gotten bigger since Beacon, too. She smiled slightly.
She was pretty.
"Thanks, Nora," She said.
"Anytime." They exited the changing room, being met with the confused looks of Ren and Jaune.
"Uh, what's going on?" Jaune asked.
"It's a girl problem," Nora said dismissively. "You wouldn't understand."
"Is everything to your liking?" a store employee asked, approaching the group.
"Yeah, I think we're good," Ruby said, the group walking up to the counter to pay for their outfits. The clerk tallied it all up, and flipped the screen on the register around.
"That will 1,000 lien," the clerk said, causing the teens' jaws to hit the floor.
"HOW much?!" Jaune exclaimed.
"1,000 lien," the clerk repeated.
"U-um, maybe there's some kind of mistake?" Ruby asked.
"There's no mistake," the clerk said, starting to get visibly annoyed. "It's 1,000 lien. Can you afford it, or not?"
"U-Um," Ruby said, pulling out her scroll to look at her remaining funds.
Her face paled. She looked up worriedly at her friends, who looked just as distraught at seeing their own bank accounts. Nora threw her head back and started crying.
"Um, could you give us a second?" Ruby asked.
The four teens walked around town, their shoulders slumped and heads hung low. Purchasing their new outfits had completely drained their savings, leaving them with absolutely nothing. They had initially planned in this town to catch transportation, but then Ruby had come up with the idea of buying new outfits, so now they couldn't afford to travel on anything except their own two feet.
"Well this sucks," Nora said, finally breaking the silence.
"Yes, Nora. We're aware," Ren said.
"Sorry, guys," Ruby said. "If I didn't ask to get new clothes, we wouldn't have spent all our money."
"It's fine," Jaune said. "We needed an upgrade anyway."
"But you didn't even get to change anything," Ruby said. "We'd need a blacksmith for your armor, which now we can't afford."
"Well, we are Huntsmen and Huntresses," Nora said. "Why don't we try to take on a job or two? Make some scratch that way?"
"I guess it's worth a shot," Ruby said.
"Sorry," the man at the local Huntsmen's Lodge told them when they inquired about a job. "We can't offer anything to you if you don't have your licenses."
"But we're trained!" Ruby argued, trying to make him change his mind.
"And we're broke!" Jaune said.
"Rules are rules," the man said. "This is an official Huntsmen's Lodge. We can't offer any jobs to any unlicensed Huntsmen."
"I'll handle this," Nora said, brushing the others aside and leaning forward on the desk. "Are you sure you can't offer a job to little old me?" she asked, fluttering her eyelashes flirtatiously.
The man looked at her with an unamused expression on his face.
"Look kid, if you don't have a license, I can't help you."
"Well, screw you, then," Nora said, stomping away from the counter in a huff.
"Well, is there any other way we can make money?" Jaune asked. The man behind the counter sighed.
"Look, if a town has an official Huntsmen's Lodge like this one, then you're out of luck," he said. "It's a liability issue. We can't allow anyone to go on a job if they aren't licensed. Keeps inexperienced kids from getting themselves killed. But, and don't tell anyone I said this, smaller towns will probably still offer jobs to you. They're desperate enough to hire anybody with a weapon. You can try your luck there, but otherwise, there's nothing I can do."
"Well, thanks anyway," Ruby said with a sigh.
"I hope the next town we run into doesn't have a Lodge," Nora said as the group walked along the path in the wilderness towards the next town. "We could really use some cash."
"And hopefully it has a blacksmith," Jaune said. "I actually have a couple of ideas for an upgrade I could make for my sword.
"Cool!" Ruby said. "What did you have in mind?"
"Well, I—"
They were interrupted by a group of creatures appearing in a circle around them, seemingly sprouting out of the ground.
They were thin and wispy, wearing white body suits, with belts holding their fingers closed and making their hands look like they ended in points. Their heads looked like hoods with a zipper keeping it closed. The zippers were open, revealing a dark purple void underneath the suits. There was white symbol on the tops of their heads that Ruby didn't recognize.
"What are these things?" Jaune asked. "Heartless?"
"I don't think so," Ruby said. "I don't recognize the symbols on their heads."
"Well, they probably die the same way, right?' Nora said, raising her hammer and charging at one of the creatures and swinging.
Except her hammer phased right through it. Nora, not expecting her hammer to not hit anything, was carried forward by her weapon's momentum and tumbled to the ground.
"Huh?" the ginger girl asked. Jaune shouted and swung his sword, only for that to pass through the creature he attacked to.
"What's going on?" Jaune asked. Ren fired his pistols at one of them, and surprisingly, his attacks actually connected, killing the creature he shot at. Ruby followed through with an attack from her Keyblade, killing the one she attacked as well.
"Ren!" Ruby said. "You get right, I'll get left!"
"Got it!" Ren said.
One of the white creatures slithered on the ground like a snake, moving closer to Ruby. It swung its feet at her, and she blocked it with her Keyblade. For some reason, when its attack was blocked, it folded itself up into a ball and harmlessly floated in the air before Ruby killed it.
"Oh, these things are weird!" Ruby said. She used her Semblance to dash behind one of them, leaving it looking around in confusion. She quickly slashed it with Crescent Rose, killing it before seeing the last one seemingly floating in midair. It hung upside down and swung its arms at her. She backed away and pointed her Keyblade at it.
"Thorn-ra!" She shouted, impaling the creature with multiple sharp rose stems. It disappeared like the others.
"What in the world were those?" Jaune asked.
"And why couldn't Jaune or I hurt them?" Nora asked.
"I don't know, but is everyone okay?" Ruby asked. They all answered in the affirmative. "I think we should get a move on before more of them show up."
Yang gently lowered Mom into the tub, warm water having already filled it. Mom's wheelchair sat off to the side in the bathroom. Yang was wearing an orange cropped tank top and grey sweatpants, bandages wrapped around the stump of her right arm. Since she now only had one arm to work with, helping Mom in and out of the tub was a lot more difficult than it would have been otherwise. After all, she couldn't pick her up with just one arm. So, after helping Mom get undressed, Yang had to roll up her pant legs, kneel down in front of the chair, and essentially give her mother a piggy-back ride to carry her out of the chair. She then had to step into the tub herself and slowly lower her body down so Mom could sit without falling and splashing water everywhere.
"Thanks, sweetie," Mom said after she was sitting down in her bath. "I'm thinking we should get some handrails installed."
"Probably," Yang said, stepping out of the tub and sitting down on the floor next to it, resting her arm against the side. "But with Uncle Qrow gone, we don't exactly have a handyman around that can do it." Uncle Qrow had left shortly after Ruby and their friends had headed to Mistral, telling Mom that he would keep an eye on her, leaving them at the house.
"We could always ask Tai," Mom said uncertainly.
"No thank you," Yang said bitterly. Mom sighed. "I really don't want to have the conversation I know we're about to have." Mom put her hands up in surrender.
"Fine, we won't," she said. "You probably already know what I was going to say, anyway."
"…"
She was saved from having to continue the conversation when the doorbell rang. She stood up with a sigh.
"I'll go see who it is," she said. "The body wash is in the bottle next to you. Just call me when you need me to do your legs."
"Okay," Mom said picking up a sponge and the bottle of soap. Yang stepped out of the bathroom, walking past the open door to her bedroom on the way there. She could see, sitting on the night stand next to her bed, the remaining gauntlet from Ember Celica. Her eyes widened when she saw it, her left hand beginning to shake. Seeing her weapon began to bring it back.
The flames.
The sword.
The pain.
She shook her head, quickly moving down the hall to try and steady her breathing, making herself presentable before opening the front door.
"Uh, hey Yang," Tai said nervously. Yang narrowed her eyes.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"I can't see if my daughter is okay?" he asked.
"As you can see, I'm fine," she said.
"A-Are you sure?" Tai asked. "Do you need any help with anything? With Aqua?"
"Nope." Tai sighed.
"Look, Yang," he said. "I know this can't be easy."
"You know nothing," she snapped. "I've never needed you, and I'm not going to start now."
"Honey, please—"
"Don't call me that."
"Yang?" Mom called from the bathroom.
"Coming!" Yang called back, sending Tai one last glare before closing the door. She stepped back into the bathroom and crouched down to help Mom wash her legs.
"Who was at the door?" Mom asked.
"No one."
Somewhere far away from Remnant…
A man in a black coat approached a large computer in the basement of the castle in Hollow Bastion. The King's lackeys were dealing with a large invasion of Heartless at this present time, leaving the computer room unguarded. He inserted the usual disc into the computer, prompting him to type in a password. He began pressing the keys.
Another
He pressed "Enter", opening up six more dialogue boxes.
Ansem
Braig
Dilan
Even
Aeleus
Ienzo
Upon entering all the passwords, a passageway opened up in the large chamber below the computer room. He walked down the chamber, descending down a long spiral staircase, bottoming out into a white hallway. Along the walls were locked doors, secured with electronic locks and large chains.
He ignored all of them, instead walking to the end of the hallway and opening a door to a small chamber. He sat himself down in the throne in the center of the room. He looked down at the pile of discarded blue armor and Keyblade, lying at the other end of the chamber.
"It has been far too long… Friend."
AN: I'm gonna be honest, Ruby's Mistral outfit is absolutely her best one.
I realized that we know the currency on Remnant is called Lien, but we are never given any point of reference for exactly what the value is. Like, we are never given a price for anything, so I decided to assume that it's roughly equivalent to the U.S. Dollar.
Also, I decided to expand the lore a little bit on exactly how Huntsmen and Huntresses find work by making the Huntsmen's Lodge. It can only offer jobs to licensed Huntsmen, but some smaller towns that don't have an official office of the Lodge will still hire unofficial Huntsmen out of desperation.
We've also got some of Yang trying to be a caretaker for Aqua, but she's having a little trouble with only one arm. And she's still pissed at Tai for foisting her and Ruby onto Aqua.
We also have the first Nobodies of the story appear. Now remember, Aqua never learned that Nobodies exist, therefore Ruby doesn't know either.
I wanted to do a little bit of stuff before we get into the exact start of Volume 4. I am really excited for the new stuff I'll be adding!
As always, thank you very much for reading, and I'll see you all next time!