Hello everyone! I'm fresh off the plane from my family's trip to Disney World and Universal! After nearly two and a half years and two pandemic cancelations, we finally made it for my family's last hurrah! Last because... well... My dad can't do crowds anymore, or new places... Anyway, we all had a blast. Best park: Animal Kingdom (that after not expecting much) Best Ride: Flight of Passage (aka Dragon Flight Simulator)

Anyway, to this.

Normally, Ruby hated math. Algebra, trigonometry, calculus, ugh... Why could nothing be easy? When applied to weapons, however, it became fun. She had to create so many new equations and formulas when she originally made her laser weapons, and used the same ones to improve her weapons back on Remnant and build XCOM's current tech.

The problem was she at least knew the bare basics of lasers. What the heck even made up ADVENT's plasma weapons? They undoubtedly had some of the alien alloy, which Tygan and Shen were finally working on a way to melt it down and pour into molds. Until Tygan found the time to figure out what was in the plasma shots themselves, all Ruby's work was just theoretical. In other words, she was expected to design weapons that might never be used because the ammo might melt through the magazines and receivers.

Ruby scowled at her notes. She knew Dust. She knew lasers. She knew the gunpowder and magnetic rail guns used on Earth. Alien guns? She had no idea. She liked the challenge of small arms lasers. Why was this driving her crazy? Alien guns! She should have been bouncing off the walls with excitement! Why couldn't she get this?

"Hey there," a familiar voice said. Ruby jumped in her seat, brought out of her own little world. She looked up at her approaching husband. For a second she thought she was dreaming, then reality caught up with her. Aaron really stood in front of her. His scale plate jacket was repaired with none of the enchanted brightanium plate exposed. He didn't have a hat though. He must not have found one onboard that he liked. Nalia stood beside him, one of her arms wrapped around his… of course… "What are you doing in here all alone?"

"Aaron!" Ruby stood up and hugged her husband which was returned right away. "Invidia and Dahlia finally let you out of the infirmary?"

"Orchid gave the final word." Aaron pulled away but he still kept his hands on Ruby's sides. "She officially declared that her kisses will have no further effect on my injuries."

"She could have done that three days ago," Ruby said.

"The Aaron she knew was killed too," Nalia said. "She was probably just making up for lost time."

"I've got to do that too." Ruby leaned forward and gave Aaron a quick peck on the lips. She pulled her husband to the booth and almost pushed him in. He slid in and she sat beside him. Aaron was all hers. Nalia sat across from them. Good. She could be the third wheel this time. Ruby leaned into Aaron and almost melted into him. That felt right.

"You didn't answer my question," Aaron said as he wrapped an arm around Ruby's shoulders. "What are you doing in here alone," he lifted one of Ruby's papers, "working on weapon designs," he looked over his shoulder, "in the bar?"

"Music." Ruby pointed up at the ceiling. At the moment, some metal group was being played way quieter than it should have been. She thought she heard someone call them 'Metallica.' "Shen doesn't like it in her workshop and I'm not going to be the person that plays their music in a crowded place… not that I have my playlist anyway."

Aaron cocked his head. "I thought you didn't like distractions?"

"Music overpowers that." Ruby flicked one of her pointed ears. "Though these things pick up a lot of things I'd rather not hear." She growled. "These people are soldiers alright. I swear, some care more about their sexual conquests than their battlefield ones."

"What?" Aaron looked around the bar with narrowed eyes.

"Thankfully, none have taken a pass at me… to my face anyway… Yang punched a prick halfway through a bulkhead."

"That added a new rule," Nalia started. "If you are defending yourself, try not to cause structural damage to the ship. We only have one Avenger. Don't break it."

"Wow." Aaron blinked. "The people here don't have Aura or wards. How'd he survive?"

"Barely." Ruby shrugged. "He's the guy hooked up to half the machines in one of the two isolation chambers. Orchid's not kissing that guy and Dahlia and Invidia are waiting to see if he learned his lesson… plus brain damage. There's only so much even Orchid can do, even at full power."

Aaron nodded. "That'll do it."

Nalia looked at the bar and the sides of her head rose. "I'll get us some refreshments." She stood up and slithered to the bar.

"So," Ruby leaned away from Aaron to reorganize her papers. "Are you all caught up on how things work here?"

"Nalia's told me everything." Aaron nodded. "Like you said. Nothing on this planet makes sense." He crossed his arms. "I did some reading while in bed. Some things were fairly normal, as in I could see happening in Alagaësia if I never came to Remnant. Others… Space." He looked up. "These people put people on their moon."

"We will in a few years." Ruby smiled. "Angel's trying for the astronaut program, though Thorn's not the happiest about it."

"Angel? In space?" Aaron smiled as well. "I can see it."

Nalia returned with a plate piled with three full glasses and a small pile of cookies. "Looks like your mom's stuff is starting to lose its appeal. It wasn't gone in fifteen minutes this time." She set the full plate down before sliding back into her seat.

Aaron blinked and picked up one of the cookies. "I'd think there would be rationing here, or at least some regulations against this."

"For the morale boost, it's worth it." Ruby picked up one of her mom's cookies and took a bite. "Don't ask me where she gets the ingredients though. I haven't seen the stuff on the two supply runs I've been on."

Aaron took one of the cookies and took a bite. His eyes grew wide. "They taste just like yours."

"Yeah." Ruby stuffed half another cookie in her mouth. "That'll happen since she was in my head for most of my life."

"Yes…" Aaron shook his head. "Everyone here has different pasts. It's hard to keep track of them all."

"Into the Arichniverse on steroids." Ruby ate the rest of her cookie.

"I… believe I understood that reference." Aaron faced the bar. "I take it your mother's somewhere making a second batch?"

Ruby shook her head. "Alpha squad's out on mission, so she's on the bridge. Jane Kelly's out being a spy with Coulson, so Yang took her place. Something about ambushing a MOCX training exercise or something like that?" She shrugged and took one of the glasses of water.

"MOCX? Really?"

"I don't know." Ruby shook her head. "My guess is people who blame XCOM for the loss in the initial invasion. I think I heard a group called EXALT was involved too? Whoever they are, they're certainly the bad guys."

"I'll take your word for it." Aaron looked around the bar and did a double take. "Is Rex an… actor?"

Ruby turned her head to the man. One of the two screens in the bar showed Rex blasting blue light from his pistols at a group of people in glowing green pressure suits, only the scene was animated. Rex himself sat right in front of it in his armor's gray undersuit. A bandage stuck to the right side of his forehead. Ruby shook her head and faced her husband. "Apparently the place he's from is a movie and CCTV series here. A little bit before you came in, I heard him saying 'Fives was right,' so I'm guessing he's seeing spoilers for his future."

"It makes you wonder," Nalia started, "it's a big multiverse. Our lives could be well documented. This conversation could be used word for word in a movie somewhere."

Ruby shook her head. "I'm not sure about my life. There's too much trauma for it to be entertaining." She paused and looked between Aaron and Nalia. "Speaking of trauma… I was the Winter Maiden where you're from, right." They both nodded with questioning expressions. "If I'm… dead… where you come from, who's the new Winter Maiden?"

Nalia whimpered and locked eyes with Aaron. He had a similarly concerned expression. "Are you sure you want to know?" Aaron asked. "Do you want to open that all up?" He sounded tired. He faced her… It was almost a thousand yard stare. Ruby knew the look well. She saw it in her own mirror the days and months following the Battle of Salem back on Remnant.

"I've… been wanting to ask Nalia for a while, but… it just never came up. Is it… one of us?"

Aaron and Nalia exchanged a look again and Aaron sighed. "Yang. Your contingency worked." Nalia turned her head away and said nothing.

Ruby sighed. If another Ruby could keep her wits about her while being impaled by a thing controlling someone she loved, she could do it in any situation. "I'm not sure how much longer that could happen for me. Yang's not exactly young anymore." She paused. Yang was strong. She would survive with her sister in her head. She might even like having Ruby around for many more years. But there was someone else that would be extremely affected by it, one who's attachment would determine who would be Ruby's heiress. "And… Cerise?"

Her husband hesitated. "She's… not well. There are times when she mourns like any other dragon who's lost her Rider. Other times…" Aaron faced Nalia.

"You were the first bonded Maiden to die." Nalia turned her head enough so only one despondent eye faced Ruby. "We had no idea what to expect." She shook her head. "From what I've been told, when the Riders retreated to Ellesméra, Cerise pounced on Yang right away. She kept saying she thought her Gem was dead. She's maybe called Yang by her real name maybe ten times since then. She hardly even acknowledges Halcyon's existence. To her, he died in Urû'baen."

"It's not just her calling Yang Ruby," Aaron continued. "To her, Yang is… you. She tries to get Yang to fly with her. The way she looks at Yang is exactly the way she looks at you." He winced. "She wonders why Yang and I aren't trying for a third child. We are mates, after all."

Ruby's jaw hung open and she faced the table in front of her. She was thinking about having Angel to be the next Winter Maiden after her… but that changed things. Then again, what person would be okay for that? Would an elf volunteer?

"I'm sorry," Ruby whispered. "I can't help with that." She gave Aaron a sad but hopeful smile. "But we're together again. We can be on Remnant too."

Aaron blinked in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Come with me back to Remnant. My Remnant." Ruby grasped Aaron's left arm. "You and I can be a happy couple again. Angel and Crey can have their dad back. We can…" Ruby paused as she heard someone say 'Cerise' elsewhere in the bar. She turned her head toward the sound.

"I don't know, Rose' dragon or something?" a different voice said. "I don't put much stock in it."

"Aaron sure talked about 'his dragon' a lot," the first voice said. Must have been the guy he escorted from the Reapers. "Didn't expect it to be a damn Viper."

"It could be worse. Could be a Muton. At least the Vipers aren't hard to look at."

Ruby scrunched her nose. Of course…

"Hey, you hear the rumors about Rose?"

"Haven't been here that long. Haven't had the chance."

"I've heard she's slept with everyone on her squad." Ruby scowled at the first man's words. It wasn't one hundred percent wrong, but it was one hundred percent wrong in the way insinuated… at least if Aaron wasn't on the squad yet.

"Really? Anyone else able to get at her?" Okay, that was pushing it. Everyone thought bad stuff. Heck, that kind of thought flashed through Ruby's mind every once and a while for a few actors, but they were dismissed just as quick. It was another thing entirely to say it.

"Nah. Not that I know of."

"What about the Viper?"

"Only if you want your head bit off."

The scientist Aaron escorted scoffed. "Maybe if Rose' dragon is as loose as she is, maybe then?"

…Did… he… just… Ruby curled her fists.

The other scum laughed. "Maybe we'll get lucky."

They're talking… about my little Cerise… like that? No one even THINKS about Cerise like that! Ruby stood up and marched toward the prick that abandoned Aaron in the street of that Lost controlled city. She grabbed the back of the man's head in her left hand, then slammed the bastard's face into the bar. His 'friend' jumped on his stool and tried to stand. Before he could, Ruby swung her bionic arm around and clocked him across the side of the head. A tooth and blood went flying as the man fell to the metal floor.

"You people think that's funny?!" Ruby demanded. "Talking about women like that? Talking about Cerise like that?!" The scientist groaned and lifted his head from the bar. Ruby smashed it down once more before picking the man up and throwing him at his accomplice. "Cerise is a million times the fighter you are! If she was here, she'd tear your fucking throats out." Ruby cocked her head. Since Cerise wasn't here, she'd need to do that for her soulmate.

Arms wrapped around Ruby's arms and torso, pinning them, though pinning was a loose term. "Sergeant Rose, stand down!" a man's voice ordered.

"Like hell," Ruby hissed through grit teeth. She snapped her head back and it connected with something. The arms around her lost their grip. She grabbed one of them, kneeled down, and flung her assailant over her back and into a booth's table. She straightened and saw Rex sprawled out over a broken table. Someone took two rapid steps behind her. She sidestepped and smacked the soldier she didn't know in the back with her bionic arm.

That was it. Too many people were interfering with her justice. Ruby's bionic hand flipped inside out and the gun triggered. A reticle appeared in her bionic eye just below the red heartbeat monitor. Everyone standing in the bar froze in place. "Traitors," Ruby breathed. "We can't let creatures like that get away with what they do. They need to be punished."

"Ruby," Nalia stood up from her booth, her hands out in front of her. "You aren't well."

Ruby fixed her glare on the Bio Viper. "Like you would know. Have you or Aaron ever had a suppression collar?"

Nalia shook her head. "Never. We would-"

"Then shut up and get out of my way." Ruby's eyes bore into the rest of the room. So many people, all looking at her like she was the bad guy. No. Dead or alive, Cerise needed to be defended. These people were defending her attackers… none of them knew how she felt.

"No." Nalia slithered in front of the crowd, arms still raised. "This isn't you. Cerise wouldn't want you to do this."

Ruby dropped her jaw and cocked her head in disbelief. Cerise was a dragon. Violence was in her blood. Nalia knew that… or… did she? A dragon would have no problem with this kind of justice. Which meant… this wasn't Nalia. They had a real Bio Viper onboard. An ADVENT spy. Ruby bared her teeth and growled. She knew just what to do with spies.

And if it was really Nalia, this would balance things out. There was another Nalia out there with no Aaron. Ruby centered her reticle on the Viper's face-

-something smashed into the right side of her head and everything went black.

Aaron caught his wife before she could fall far. He lowered Ruby to the floor as Nalia pounced forward. "Orchid!" the dragon yelled. It still felt weird hearing his dragon's voice in his ears rather than his head.

At the same time, he barely registered the sound. He could only stare at the sheer impossibility in front of him. Ruby Rose, his beloved wife, lay in front of him, her head in his lap. But she died in his arms years ago. Nalia cremated her in Ellesméra. Seeing her alive was impossible enough. His hair was longer than hers now. While Ruby wasn't nearly as protective of her hair as Yang, she wouldn't let anyone cut it that short. Then there were the cuts on her face from the punch. While the punch wouldn't do that to most people without Aura, Ruby had circuitry beneath her skin that allowed her bionic eye to function. Some of that could be seen through the breaks.

"Coming!" Orchid slithered through the crowd and leaned over Ruby. Aaron kept his wife's head still while the healer inspected the wound. The Psi Viper cocked her head as her glowing tongue lolled out of her mouth. She kissed the wound twice and the blood and tears disappeared. Orchid refocused and kissed Ruby's forehead at least a dozen times. With each lick, Ruby's unconscious form relaxed a little bit more.

"See neds to be thrn in th big!" someone demanded, sounding like he was speaking through a fishbowl.

"She needs help!" Dahlia said. Aaron glanced up. Both Dahlia and Invidia knelt over Ruby's victims. "I'm sure you know the Shaken Protocols? Ruby has something we call Split Soul Syndrome. Something you or your buddy said set her off."

Aaron grimaced, then refocused on his wife. A small smile graced her face. As he watched, Ruby's head lolled toward Aaron's torso. Even unconscious, she wiggled closer to Aaron, just like she'd do before she was killed. He stopped a laugh from escaping his throat. The only thing good about this situation was that he held his wife once again.

"There." Orchid's tongue rolled back into her mouth. "She should wake up in a much better mood, her triple S at a more manageable level."

"Where do you want us to take her?" Aaron asked. "I'm not familiar with the… 'Shaken Protocols.'"

"Take her to her bed for now." Orchid rested a hand on Ruby's forehead and nodded. "Normally, we give medication to those who break in combat or after they get back. In this case, I think Ruby needs my Semblance. I just need to figure out how many applications per day and how many. She needs to be awake and thinking right for me to get a good number."

I'll clear the way if you carry her, Nalia offered, this time mentally. She stood up and glared around the bar. It would be nice to have Yang clear the way, or Summer. It would be nice to have one squad leader on our side. Her head stopped as she stared pointedly at Rex. The other squad leader was being attended to by both medics. Aaron couldn't place the expression on Rex' face. A quick look into his thoughts didn't reveal anything either.

Aaron shook his head and hooked his arms beneath his wife. He picked her off the ground and stood up. Ruby melted into her husband's arms just like she used to. "Let's get going."

"Make a hole!" Nalia ordered aloud. She had to push back some of the gawkers to clear a path. Aaron tried not to acknowledge the stares. Some were surprised, some angry. He'd heard from soldiers in the various militaries on Remnant that rumors spread faster than light in tight areas. It looked like this was no exception.

Still, they made it to the crew quarters without being stopped, probably because Nalia hissed away anyone who might have tried to stop them. The Bio Viper opened the door to the squad's room… probably Aaron's room now. "Which one's hers?"

This one. Nalia gestured at the bottom middle. I know you're wondering. Orchid and I have been sharing the bed with Ruby since we arrived. There should be enough room for the two of you.

"I'm… pretty sure I thought about it at some point." Aaron took his time laying his wife down on the bed. As soon as he took his arms away, Ruby's smile fell a little. "She knows."

Nalia shrugged. Is that any surprise?

"Not really." Aaron sat by his wife's side, though he had to lean forward to not hit his head on the bunk above. He reached back and grasped Ruby's natural hand. Her smile returned to its full contented state. Aaron took in Ruby's sleeping face… he pulled back as he finally realized what he did. "Oh my gosh… I just punched my wife in the face."

Yeah. It was a good one too.

Aaron whipped his head to his dragon with his jaw hanging open. "What?"

Nalia stiffened as she locked eyes with her Rider. This isn't that. You didn't do it out of anger. You physically can't. She averted her gaze. You know what happened on Vroengard. We did that ourselves after the Battle of Salem. She met Aaron's eyes again. Trust me. Ruby won't blame you for this.

"I hope you're right." Aaron squeezed Ruby's hand. "Could you give us the room?"

Nalia nodded. I'll tell Summer and the Commander what happened, then I'll make sure no one disturbs you. She slithered out of the room. The door shut behind her.

Aaron sighed and looked at his wife's face again. With Orchid's kisses, Ruby was probably having a pleasant dream, even with that thing in her head. Even if she wasn't thinking right, she did say something very true in the bar. Aaron had never been cut off from Nalia. He had no idea what his wife was going through every second of every day. He couldn't even look into her mind. The only thing he could do was look on, listen, and just be there. Doing nothing always felt terrible.

So instead of sitting there feeling sorry for himself, he let go of Ruby's hand and cupped the far side of her head. He ran his fingers through her hair and scratched her head. She always liked that when she was tired or just waking up.

After a few minutes of that, Ruby moaned in her sleep and leaned into the head massage. Her eyes fluttered beneath her eyelids before the lids cracked open. Ruby smiled up at Aaron, one that Aaron would only see after a long day the day before. He thought he felt his heart stop in the best way. "Morning, honey."

Aaron returned the smile as best he could. "It's afternoon, actually."

"Oh… Thanks for letting me…" Ruby blinked several times and her smile fell away. She stared at the metal of the bottom of the top bunk. "How did I…" She rubbed the side of her head Aaron wasn't massaging. "Must have been a good dream."

"I can't speak to that, but I believe if it was, Orchid's kisses had something to do with it."

"Orchid's…" Ruby stared at him like he grew a second head. "What happ…" Her eyes grew wide and her skin lost color. "Oh my gosh… the bar… I didn't hurt Rex, did I?"

"He at least could walk out with little assistance from our healers. The other two, not so much." Aaron paused. He didn't think telling her she was about to kill Nalia would be the best course of action.

"They were jerks, but…" Ruby shook her head and clenched her eyes. Tears formed at the corners of her eyes. "I… almost murdered two people… maybe more…" her eyes snapped open. "Almost Nalia…"

…Okay, she figured that one out on her own. "You know that wasn't you. It's that thing in your head."

Ruby sighed and shook her head. "I thought I'd be able to handle it peaking… I guess not."

"Few can."

"What stopped me?"

"Cognitive recalibration." Aaron shrugged. "I hit you really hard in the head."

Ruby's eyes lit up for a split second. "Was that a Defenders reference? From you?"

Aaron shrugged. "I can try." He squeezed his wife's shoulder. "I'm with you, Ruby. I'm not leaving you until Cerise is back in your head."

"Thank you…" Ruby exhaled hard once, twice, and those breaths turned into sobs. "I… I miss Cerise!" Tears began streaming from her eyes.

"I know. I know." Aaron lay next to his wife and pulled her close. She latched onto him like her life depended on it and cried into his shoulder. He just let it happen. She needed every bit of support she could get.

After a while of that, Ruby pulled back and locked eyes with Aaron. "I love you," she swore. She locked her lips with his and kissed him hungrily. The force and passion behind it surprised Aaron. It was something he never expected to feel again. Still, it was quite a turnaround. Then again, triple S was known to give people and dragons extreme mood swings. The part of him that said going home with Ruby was wrong again said this was wrong, only much, much quieter.

When they came up for air, panting, Aaron asked, "Are you sure you want to do this?"

Ruby twitched her head up and down. "There's no doorknob, but I've got duct tape and a sock."

"What do you call that thing you did?" Yang asked the only friendly Sectoid she'd ever met. "The thing that made me feel even stronger?"

"Translated into your language," Verge started in accented Vytalian, "my people call it a Mind Merge. It not only makes you stronger, but it improves the target's ability to take damage."

"I felt that, too." Yang tapped the Sectoid's chest with the back of a hand. "Think you can teach me that? There are so many situations where that would be useful."

"Possibly." Verge cocked his head. "I am unfamiliar with how your mental abilities work. If we can-"

"Whoa." Yang threw her right arm in front of Verge as they entered the crew quarters. A black sock was duct taped to the door to their room. Someone whimpered in the common room. Yang faced the sound. Nalia had her face buried in the armrest of one of the couches and pulled a pillow on top of her head. The Viper looked up and locked eyes with Yang. She didn't know what that expression was, but she thought she knew what it meant. Aaron was getting freaky. Likely with Ruby.

"Why is there a foot covering on that door?" Verge asked.

"That," Yang turned Verge around, "is a 'Do Not Disturb' sign when no actual sign is available."

"But that is our room."

"Not right now, it's not." Yang pushed Verge out of the crew quarters. She hadn't spoken with the alien much, but she did know enough that he didn't know any normal human social cues, no matter how small. Even if that wasn't Aaron and Ruby, Yang wasn't about to let an alien walk in on them.

Ruby may need your help when she's done, Nalia told Yang.

"Ugh!" Yang gagged, clenched her eyes, and shook her head. Bad timing and word choice, Nalia! She glared at the Viper over her shoulder. Nalia looked up at her with concerned… and disturbed eyes. What are you talking about?

Ruby's triple S peaked.

Yang dropped her glare and stared at the door to the squad's barrack. That made everything fall into place. How bad?

She almost shot me. She… Nalia whimpered and buried her head under the pillow again.

Part of Yang wanted to be embarrassed, but she couldn't. She'd seen what triple S could do. Heck, she fell victim more than once in different ways. Whatever could get Ruby out of this funk without hurting herself or someone else, it was more than fine. While this Ruby wasn't her sister, she was for some other Yang out there, and Yang's needed to stick together.

Yang kept escorting Verge away from the crew quarters as she scowled. We need to get that thing out of her head…

Cerise glared at the evil-dark-ADVENT facility. She'd learned from some of her unwilling informants that this place had something to do with other-world-machines. It looked no different than the others she had seen. Unfortunately, that included the small-brain-soldiers. As much as she could outsmart some of them, there were too many for her to take all at once.

So instead of trying to burn the place down like her heart wished, she searched the coming and going two-legs and no-leg-slitherers that looked like this body. Unfortunately, after an hour of waiting and watching, she only saw blue, green, and yellow no-leg-slitherers, none of the red like her. That did nothing to shield her from the auto-magic-turrets. If they were half as good as her Gem's designs, they would recognize her as not one of them and kill her.

The former dragon hissed to herself. She needed allies, which were hard to get when all the two-leg-round-ears on this planet wanted to shoot her on sight. There had to be someone here who wouldn't want to kill her. She just needed to find them.

Just as Cerise started to push herself backward, an ear-breaking-fake-scream burst from the facility. The former dragon snarled and gripped the fast-but-small-arrow-shooter she'd been using for months. They'd found her. If it was a fight they wanted, it was a fight they would… Cerise blinked as the no-brain-soldiers ran toward the facility, not away from it.

This was new. Cerise resettled and lay in wait for more changes. Once the no-brain-soldiers disappeared into the facility, the only movement came from the auto-magic-turrets and the wind-shake-trees. At once, the alarm stopped. A second later, all fake-lights faded and the auto-magic-turrets drooped. Cerise cocked her head. Power outage?

Something inside flashed through the see-through-rock before they exploded out, along with the rest of the building. Cerise ducked as flying fake rock flew overhead and landed all around her. She thought the now-quiet-alarm was loud. That explosion might actually make her sound-hurt-ears bleed. She opened her eyes and couldn't see anything behind the not-there-light-flashes.

Blind and deaf, but still alive. Not many could survive a blast like that. Cerise took a risk in lowering her mind-safe-defenses and stretched out beyond herself. She felt the grass beneath her, the trees around her, dying enemies in front of her. Once she got her sight back, she'd be able to-

-another aware mind touched hers. Cerise retreated back into herself and reached around for her fast-but-small-arrow-shooter. She'd fought those things before. Their minds were stronger than a dragon's, but they could still be killed by fast-but-small-arrows.

The mind she felt before touched her mind again but bounced off her defenses. Cerise tensed as her eyes began to see right again. Her attacker kept at her, probing her defenses… but it was gentle. It almost felt like one of her Gem's mental hugs. But it wasn't her Gem. If it was, Ruby surely would have called out, or Cerise could have felt her partner-of-her-heart-and-mind. The other mind made one last pass before pulling away. It was still there, but it made no attempt to break her.

Once she could see the tree beside her, Cerise stood with fast-but-small-arrow-shooter in hand. The facility was too far away to be sure, but judging by the red and orange smudges, what was left was burning. Cerise growled. If what she was told was true, she needed what was in there.

A stick broke behind her. Cerise whirled around and raised her fast-but-small-arrow-shooter… A female elf walked out of the trees, top-paws raised. She wore a purple… blazer?... with a traditional elven tunic underneath. Her leggings were also elven, though she had a Remmartian 'fanny pack' and belt. A Ruby-made-weapon-box lay on her left him. The purple sword across her back labeled her as a Rider, though Cerise couldn't see the paw-grip well enough to identify it. She had three golden stars on each of her shoulders with the center ones being larger, the symbol of the Rider-Leader, but this two-leg-pointed-ears wasn't Arya. Cerise thought the elf looked familiar, but she couldn't place it.

The elf's eyes narrowed. "You aren't who I expected." Before Cerise could respond, should-not-move-roots shot out of the ground and wrapped around her arms. They yanked not-her-hands down and behind her. Her fast-but-small-arrow-shooter flew into the brush. Cerise snarled at the traitor-elf. A month ago, she realized this body could heat itself to be as hot as her fire. She did so and she smelled sweet-burn-wood, but the root-chains didn't burn.

"You won't be able to do that." The traitor-elf unhooked the Ruby-weapon at her hip. She pressed a button and it expanded into… something. A 'submachine gun?' She stepped forward as Cerise struggled against the not-wood. "I saw your people in that building. I unfortunately had to destroy it to stop them from taking me hostage. You are going to tell me what I want to know so I can return to my own people." She stopped a leg-length away and glared at Cerise. "The first things I want to know: who and what are you?"

Cerise glared back and hissed. The expected mental attack came and Cerise braced against it. It was strong. Too strong. This elf knew what she was doing. It wasn't just an overwhelming force, it felt like it was aiming for a weakness. If this traitor was going to break in, might as well give her what she wanted.

The dragon lowered her defenses and forced her mind at the elf. I am Cerise Longtail! Dragon of Ruby Shadeslayer! The mental attack stopped and the elf-traitor's jaw dropped open. I am a dragon, elf. I don't know what ADVENT did to me or how, but I will find out and make them pay. Cerise narrowed her eyes even more. They also have a suppression collar on my Rider, the elf stiffened and Cerise felt rage flare, and YOU just destroyed a place that might have had information!

The elf stood in silence for too-long time. "I apologize, Cerise." Her fast-but-small-arrow-shooter collapsed as did the not-roots. "I should have known when I felt your mind."

Cerise snatched her weapon from the ground and aimed it at where the elf once stood, but she was gone. She looked around herself and found the female standing on the other side of Cerise no-protection-shrub-cover with her arms raised. Her eyes… glowed leaf green. The no-move plants started to shake. Noise from the no-stand-facility caught her attention… the shouldn't-move-ground shook and rose. Much of the fire disappeared.

The dragon tightened her grip on her weapon. The Summer Maiden, I believe?

"Of course," the elf said like she said heat rises. She faced Cerise with a cocked head. "You know this."

Cerise growled. I have no idea who you are.

The elf blinked. "You…" She narrowed her eyes. "Did whatever they did to you and Ruby affect your mind too?"

There's a lot less space in this brain. It wouldn't surprise… me. Cerise blinked as she finally could focus on the sword's paw-grip. She recognized the hilt and scabbard. Eld Moi, Velvet's sword, before that the elf… Yaela's nest-mate. Cerise' eyes widened. That's why she looked familiar. She had seen some of Nalia's memories of the female, and the two-leg-pointed-ears had a strong resemblance to her sister. Cerise ticked the safety on her fast-but-small-arrow-shooter and relaxed her arms. Rafye.

"Why do you still sound so surprised?"

Cerise shook her head. This is impossible. You're dead. You died before I hatched.

Man, I hope I nailed Ruby's slope... Been working on it from the beginning of this fic.

Speaking of beginnings of fics... *sigh* I've written a prologue and an outline for a new fic, and for my first time, it doesn't involve RWBY. Just waiting until I listen to the most recent audiobook before continuing. I've fallen into the 'Write what your heart wants to write' pit and I can't get out. Depending on the reception of the prologue and first real chapter, that might be it. If not... I could be splitting time between this and that... I'm falling into the pit of too many stories again... send help.