The chilling wind blew through the forest making Ruby shiver and pull her cloak closer to her body by instinct. She took a deep breath and looked down at the stone headstone with her mother's name engraved into it.
"Hey mom." She started. "I know it's been a while sense we last spoke but… a lot has happened lately." She took a short pause to collect her thoughts and relay the events of the last few months through her mind.
"I found out about Scarlet." She stated awkwardly. "She's alive mom! Yang took me out to some club for my birthday and we had to stay at a hotel because she got drunk," Ruby smiled at the memory of her older half-sister's drunken rambling. "And when I went for a walk we ran into each other." Ruby giggled slightly at the memory of their encounter.
"Complete dumb luck on our part, but I'm not complaining." She joked.
Another pause set over the cliff side. "She uh… didn't have a great childhood. She was taken in by this scumbag criminal named Roman Torchwick. He's in jail now. I won't go into details, but you have every reason to hate him. I know I do, and so does she… not to mention her sister. Oh yeah, she has an adopted sister named Neopolitan, like the ice cream flavor. She just goes by Neo. She's kinda scary. Okay make they VERY scary." Ruby chuckled nervously as she remembered Neo's vague threat from several nights ago.
Ruby was leaving her identical twin sister's apartment being followed closely behind by Scarlet's adopted sister Neo. She was prepared to head back to Beacon when Neo grabbed her by the arm and pinned her to the wall using her arm to keep her neck pressed flush against the drywall.
"Let me make this clear, Ruby." These were the first words Neo had spoken to Ruby after being introduced to her nearly two and a half hours ago.
Ruby was frozen in fear as she stared into cold mismatched eyes. "My loyalties lie with Scarlet and no one else. I don't care if you two are twins. Now she clearly cares about you, so I won't kill you but if it ever comes down to you or her. I would gladly watch you die."
Ruby nodded slowly in acknowledgment. Neo smiled and let her go and stepped back a few feet. The ice cream girl gave Ruby a two-finger salute and shattered in glass.
"She means well… I think."
Another pause set over the cliff side. "We had this big plan that once we put Torchwick in jail she could move back here to Patch, and Ozpin offered her a spot on my team." Ruby choked on her words for a second. "But Roman's boss, Cinder, is still at large, and using Scarlet's own words; 'She doesn't tie loose ends. She burns them.' If she were to join the team right after Roman was put in jail then Cinder and her goons might come after her, me, Yang, Dad."
Ruby took a moment to wipe away the tears forming in her eyes. "For now, it's safer for her to remain a C.I for Ozpin and the Vale PD. But just because she can't live with us yet doesn't mean she can't meet Yang and Dad." Ruby's cheerful smile started to spread across her face once more. "We don't have anything big planned, just an explanation and introduction. I wanted a party but Scarlet shot that down pretty quick." Ruby chuckled lightly. "We're only telling Yang, Weiss, and Team JNPR since Blake already found out. It's a long story, but the moral is don't mess with a paranoid cat faunas." Ruby laughed a little at her joke.
A loud bark from behind her turned the hooded teen's attention back to the edge of the forest behind her. Standing just beyond the tree line stood her father and the family's black and white corgi. Her dad beckoned for her to follow him back to their family's cabin.
Ruby quickly turned back to the headstone. "I have to go, Dad's taking me and Yang back to Beacon tomorrow." She then took off towards where her father was standing.
Yang grew more frustrated as she rummaged through the drawers in her nightstand. Her scroll ran out of battery not too long ago, and she wanted to it to have some charge before she went back to school. With a groan she slammed the drawer shut and stood up crossing her arms.
"maybe dad has a spare cable." She muttered to herself. She exited her room and walked down the short hallway towards her father's room. His room was a little larger than hers or Ruby's with a double bed on the far side of the room with a nightstand with several glasses on top next to it. Across from the bed was his dresser with a circular mirror with a wooden rim on the wall behind it. The mirror had many small photographs on Ruby and Yang stuck in the rim ranging from when they were toddlers to the day they left for Beacon. A medium sized desk was tucked away in the corner with papers scattered all over the surfaced. The room was lined with shelves full of trinkets from all his hunting trips and one small shelf reserved for a framed photo of Tai's old team.
Yang wasted no time to work her way over to her dad's nightstand and start rummaging through the drawers in search for a usable phone charger.
"GOTCHA!" Yang shouted in triumph holding the cable she needed high above her head. She was about to closer the bottom drawer but a small book press vertically against the back of the back wall of the drawer. Her curiosity taking over Yang placed the cable aside and picked up the small book.
Sitting down on the bed she flipped it over seeing the painted-on title.
"'Family, By Summer Rose'." Yang read aloud. "Of course, mom would come up with a cheesy title like that."
She flipped open the book and discovered it was a scrapbook of photo's her mom had taken over the years. The first page was filled with photos of Summer before her time at Beacon, one of the pictures showed her assembling a weapon that Yang could not identify, and another was her posing with a group of people Yang did not recognize.
She turned the page and was greeted by the same image that her dad had framed of their old team. "Team STRQ… in I remember." Yang mumbled to herself. The rest of the book was filled with pictures of the team throughout their years at Beacon most of them clearly being taken by Summer herself.
Yang was a little taken aback when she saw her biological mother Raven pregnant, presumably with Yang, Taking center stage with pictures of a baby Yang surrounding it. By this point the playful scrapbook style started to fade and become more of a photo album.
The next page showed Yang at various ages playing with toys always with Summer and her uncle Qrow in the background. She never noticed that in a few of them a black bird with red eyes had sat itself on the windowsill looking into the house.
She turned the page and smiled brightly at seeing Summer with a prominent baby bump. Yang almost burst out into laughter at seeing Summer shoveling a slice of chocolate cake into her mouth. The page next to that was dedicated to an ultrasound image. It looked a little strange to Yang, then again she had no idea what an ultrasound was supposed to look like. None the less, she felt her heart flutter at the first picture of her precious little sister Ruby.
"What the hell…" Yang breather out in shocked confusion. The next page only had three photos. The first depicted Summer laying in a hospital bed after giving birth, but something was wrong. She was holding two infants.
Yang's eyes darted to the next photo. The same infants from the previous picture were dressed in matching white and red pajamas. They both had the same dark black hair that had crimson tips, and striking silver eyes. They were both stacking colored blocks seemingly at random. Yang took a second to analyze the photo a little closer and saw that the baby's pajamas had names sewn into the fabric. The one on the left-hand side of the picture read 'Ruby R.' and the other read 'Scarlet R.'.
Yang's blood began to boil, and her eye's turn the color of she sister's name sake. The final photo depicted the infants sat in highchairs being fed by their mother. Ruby was happily eating the food being fed to her while 'Scarlet', if the name tag was correct, was reaching over and pulling on a young Yang's hair.
Her grip was so tight that the hard cover was bending under the pressure. Yang's rage prevented her from noticing that the page with these pictures were heavily tear stained. The sound of the front door opening, and the muffled conversation focused her attention and rage on a singular point.
"So, you got any plans for when you get back to Beacon?" Tai asked locking the door behind him.
"You could say that." Ruby giggled.
"Just don't get in trouble okay."
Yang came thundering down the stairs and slammed the book down on the dining table so hard the whole cabin shook. Her eyes were a deep, vibrant, blood red. The book was open to the page that depicted the Rose Twins as infants.
"What. The. Fuck. Is this." Yang growled at her father.
Ruby froze. Yang was incredibly carful to never swear around Ruby for any reason. The only times she did swear were when she was sure that Ruby could not hear her, or when she was mad, and Yang looked like she was ready to murder their father.
"Yang… I-." Tai choked out.
"HOW COULD YOU NOT TELL US!" Yang screeched so loud the birds in the surrounding forest flew away in fear.
"I'm sorry, but-." He tried to explain.
"Why are you apologizing to me? It's Ruby you should be apologizing to, IT'S HER DAMN TWIN!" Yang cut him off.
Ruby was pulled from her state of shock and looked down at the book Yang slammed down on the table. She teared up upon seeing the two photos of her and her twin as infants, her hand instinctively gripped onto her silver necklace that contained a copy of the first photo in the book.
"Just calm down and let me explain why I didn't tell you." Tai almost pleaded.
"You fucking better." Yang growled.
Ruby tunned out the conversation behind her and picked up the book looking at the pictures closely. Her heart melted at seeing the two of them building a house of blocks together. It may have looked random but somewhere deep down she knew what they were attempting to do. The final picture made her chuckle slightly. Scarlet was leaning over her highchair and tugging on Yang's blonde hair looking happy as could be. Yang didn't look mad in the picture, but she certainly wasn't pleased with the situation.
"Ruby…?" Her dad's voice pulled her out of her thoughts.
He had the beginning of tears were forming in his eyes. "Did you hear any of what I just said?"
Ruby just smiled, "NOPE!" She chirped as she turned around the book still in her hand. She quickly noticed that Yang's eyes had dulled to a pale red.
"Ruby how could you be so happy about learning you had a sister that died?" Yang asked baffled.
"Because she's not dead."
"Ruby, what are you talking about?" Tai asked, convinced that his daughter was in denial.
"Yeah, Dad said that she died when you were still babies." Yang added.
"Yang do you remember the night of my sixteenth birthday." Ruby asked, confusing her father and sister.
"Yeah I took you dancing." Yang answered perplexed.
"So, you remember that you got so drunk that we had to stay in a hotel for the night."
"You what!?" Tai interjected furious.
"Dad you can punish Yang's stupidity later okay." Ruby quickly stated, making her dad back off. "Well after you fell asleep I went for a walk and… I bumped not someone that looked exactly like me, and she said that their name was Scarlet Rose. She even had a copy of this photo with her." Ruby finished letting the information sink in.
Yang and Tai were speechless, and Ruby took it as a sign to keep going. "After she was taken from here she wound up being taken in by…" Ruby cut herself off, anxiety filled her body at how Tai and Yang would react to the end of her sentence.
"By who…?" Yang reluctantly asked. Tai remained dead silent.
"…Roman Torchwick. He… he may have taken her in, but he made her childhood a living hell." Ruby finished.
Yang's eyes quickly returned to their blood red state as she grabbed a nearby vase and hurled it out a window shattering both the vase and the glass.
"THAT BASTERED!" Yang shouted. Tai's slowly sat down on a chair.
"After we met she came up with this plan to work for Ozpin and help put him in jail."
"She's Red." Yang said to herself. "Then who was the other girl? The short one with the weird hair."
"That would be Scarlet's adopted sister Neo." Ruby answered.
"Well, Torchwick's in jail, why hasn't she come home yet?" Yang asked almost pleading.
"Because Torchwick wasn't the mastermind behind the robberies. He was just a tool being used by someone else. Someone that might go after Scarlet and try to kill her if she found out that she helped bring down their operation." Ruby's tone grew morose and somber.
"Why… why did you wait this long to tell us!?" Yang pleaded her eyes tearing up the red color fading and being replaced by a deep purple laced with blue.
"She wanted to wait until Torchwick was arrested. She wanted to see her family with a clear conscious. We both wanted to tell you right after Torchwick was arrested, but… things didn't pan out that way." A small tear ran down Ruby's cheek. "If it's any consolation, we were going to tell you right after we got back to Beacon."
Yang wanted to be mad at Ruby for hiding this from her, but she couldn't. It made sense to her, and she hated it. A strong stream of tears fell from her eyes that she desperately tried to hold back.
Ruby looked over at her dad. He was facing the ceiling tears running down his face. Ruby was just able to make out what he was saying.
"She's alive. My baby girl's alive."
Scarlet took her seat at the table in the mall food court. She set her coffee down in front of her and pulled out her scroll to read an article Neo sent her earlier that morning. The article Neo sent her was titled 'Torchwick Extinguished.' She chuckled at the name and began reading it. As the name suggested it was about how her adopted 'father' attempted an attack on Vale but was foiled by one Team RWBY on their first mission outside the kingdom. She smiled proudly as she read out every member of the team accompanied by a photo; her smile brightened as the author took the time to list Ruby as 'The teams expert leader'. Her smile faded a little at the final paragraph.
'Unfortunately, Torchwick's daughters only known as Neopolitan, and Red are still at large. The Vale PD has no leads as to where the sister's might be hiding. All we can hope is that neither of them attempt to fill in their father's shoes or attempt to break him out of jail.'
"Well both me and Neo are working for the Vale PD, and Ozpin so… that's unlikely." She joked to herself, taking a sip from her coffee. With a relaxed sigh she began browsing other articles on the site seeing if anything caught her attention.
She loved the peace and quiet. Well, 'quiet' might not be right given her location, but it was still nice to be alone.
"When did you get back?"
'Damn it.'
Scarlet turned around to see Ruby's partner Weiss had snuck up behind her. She was in a strapped white dress decorated with light blue snowflakes, and white leggings and heels. She had a coffee cup in her hand and set it down in front of Scarlet and sat down with who she believed to be her partner.
Scarlet had a short internal debate with herself. She could keep up her charade and pretend to be her sister. But on the other hand. Ruby will be back tomorrow, and they will tell all her friends. 'Screw it.' She finally thought to herself.
"I think you have me confused with someone else."
"What are you talking about?" Weiss responded sounding not amused.
"I'm Scarlet." She stuck out her hand over the table. "You might know my sister. Ruby."
Weiss looked a little dumbfounded at the sudden revelation. "Your joking right?" Her coffee stuck halfway to her lips.
"Nope." Scarlet chirped putting her hand down.
"If you're telling the truth, then why did Ruby never mention you?" Weiss interrogated.
"You ever see one of those movies where there are identical twins that are separated at birth, but later in life find each other and become best friends?"
"Yeah…"
"That's our situation. We met on our sixteenth birthday." Scarlet took a long sip from her coffee.
"If your still not convinced then," She put her cup down and pulled out her gold necklace and unlocked the locket to show Weiss the photo kept inside.
"You're really Ruby's twin." Weiss breathed out.
"Told ya'."
"Well, my name's Weiss Schnee. I'm Ruby's partner." She introduced.
"I know. This isn't the first time we've met."
"What do you mean." Weiss asked intrigued.
"You remember that trip to the mall?" Scarlet clued a smug smile spread across her face.
"That was you?" Weiss questioned surprised.
"Yep." She answered.
"Your quite the actor." Weiss praised.
Scarlet chuckled. "You kidding me, I screwed up several times that day."
"You were rather rude to Jaune." Weiss accused.
"I have a low tolerance for stupidity.' Scarlet defended.
"You and me both."
Scarlet took a large gulp from her cup emptying it of its contents. "Well, I better be going." She stood up with energy.
"We haven't been talking for ten minutes!" Weiss interjected.
"I got errands to run. Besides Ruby gets back tomorrow, you can just ask her any questions you might have."
"I guess that makes sense." Weiss muttered to herself.
"Later Snowflake!" Scarlet chirped walking away from the table.
"Wait… Snowflake?" Weiss nearly choked on her coffee. She only knew a single person that had ever called that nickname, and that person had a similar fashion sense to her leader.
"Red… the informant." Weiss mumbled under her breath all her questions suddenly finding answers.
Next Chapter; Everyone, Meet Scarlet