It hurt, It always hurt when it woke. Much safer to remain asleep. But now It was awake, It hurt, and the world around It burned with human dust-fires. Beneath it sat a human-creature, and a Faunus-creature. Fine prey.

"NO!" The thought-voice lanced through Its mind. It knew that voice. It remembered the first time It heard the voice as It did now. It had been in a field of green when It had decided to use the Ruby-creature. It had turned itself back, abandoning its form to flow inside and mingle with the Ruby-creature's blood. The Ruby-creature's blessing had fought It, but It was old and powerful while the Ruby-creature's blessing was young and weak, awakening only to fight off the intrusion. It had pushed itself past the blessing with almost nary a thought. Then it reached the Ruby-creature's mind-center, like the blessing, the Ruby-creature was young and weak, It could easily control such a creature. So It paid no mind as it opened the way into the Ruby-creature's mind-center, only to be met with light, powerful, painful light. It knew that light, It should have known, even if the Ruby-creature didn't know that light didn't mean the light would be missing. It decided this was a bad idea, better to destroy the light before it could hurt It. It retreated, withdrawing from the mind-center, only to find It could not retreat farther, the Ruby-creature's blessing had not taken kindly to being ignored so. The blessing pressed It from all sides, holding, forcing It into place. The blessing forced It into the damage, into the empty spaces, into the Ruby-creature. It realized that It couldn't leave, could never leave, to do so would spell the end of not just the Ruby-creature, but Itself as well. It was old, powerful, It had walked the land when the moon was whole, but now this young and weak Ruby-creature held It and It was afraid.

Trapped there in fear and terror It was surprised when it felt the mind-center reach out. The mind-center didn't bring any light but a question, a question It didn't have an answer to. Even still It didn't know the answer.

"Who are you?" It didn't know who It was, It knew what It was, but that was not the question. Identity was something It never had, never wanted. The Ruby-creature was distressed that It didn't know, and tried to give it a name, an identity. It didn't feel right with that so the Ruby-creature had dropped It. It didn't know who It was but It couldn't take that from the Ruby-creature.

In time the Ruby-creature had asked more questions that It couldn't answer, many of them being some form of 'why?' It had learned that the Ruby-creature was young, yes, weak, yes, but stupid? Stupid the Ruby-creature was not. It decided that It would listen to the Ruby-creature, It would be safer that way.

So when the Ruby-creature told It 'no' It stopped. The human-creature moved and looked up at it. The terror washing off the creature was delicious, had this been what the Ruby-creature waited for? The answer came a moment later when the thought-voice spoke again.

"Not, Prey," the voice said, haltingly, with struggle, "Jaune." This had happened before when the Ruby-creature told It other creatures were not prey. It knew to trust the Ruby-creature when she said such things, and feared the consequences of going against her. So It did not eat the Jaune-creature. But something was wrong. The Ruby-creature liked to talk more than she did, quicker too. It realized a moment later, the Ruby-creature was hurt. When the Ruby-creature was hurt It was hurt, and when It was hurt It killed those who hurt It. It growled, the Ruby-creature might not like It but something was going to DIE tonight. The sound of a human metal-dust-bird flew overhead.

'Prey?' It thought-spoke, the Ruby-creature couldn't answer back but It felt her acceptance. So It readied, and pounced.

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Roman Torchwick coughed at some of the burning dust irritating his lungs. He was alive, miraculously. He was going to kill that bullhead pilot but he was alive. A few of the White Fang members had also managed to survive the explosion and inferno in front of them, most though…

If there was one good thing about this was that Red and her friends weren't going to be a problem anymore. Roman waved one of the bullheads in to pick up him and the remaining White Fang, before turning around to find his weapon. They couldn't stay here, even if the police weren't on their way, the explosion and raging fire turned the entire docks into a powder keg that was more a 'when' than 'if' with regards to it kicking off. Roman had just found his weapon when he heard it. A loud rumbling growl came from within the inferno. It was something, unnatural. Something Roman had thought he'd never have to hear again after encountering the nightmares that dwelt outside the city. Spinning around with his weapon at the ready, Roman was just in time to see the bullhead he had signaled be jumped on by something. It was so quick he couldn't see it entirely, but the bullhead found itself torn apart in the air. The White Fang had seen something too because they moved to grab whatever weapons they had left and took up defensive positions. Roman readied himself as well, no sooner had they taken positions when the inferno parted, and Hell itself walked out. It was a Grimm, that much was clear, but this beast was far larger, far more armored than any of it's kind had the right to be. The beowolf was armored more than any he had seen of that kind, the few places it was unarmored were covered with fur, or at least should have been fur, instead flames took those residences, not that the beast paid them any mind. It was a visage that would have given Roman nightmares before he met Cinder and now made him wonder which flames he'd rather face.

"K-Kill it!" One of the White Fang shouted. And just like that the dam gave way bullets flew in volleys as the White Fang fired everything they had at the beast.

Roman fired a few shots but quickly retreated, knowing they didn't have the firepower to bring that thing down. Instead he pulled out a scroll and signaled another bullhead to pick him up at his destination while the others provided fire support. He didn't need to look behind him to know how the fight was going. The screams told him enough. Roman was at a full sprint when his instincts told him to dive. Always one to trust his gut Roman dived just in time to see a giant beowolf claw scythe through the area he'd just been standing.

The sound of multiple chainguns going off told him that his air support had come to assist. And just like he'd anticipated (desperately hoped) the beast turned its attention on the airships. What he didn't anticipate was the beast leaping dozens of meters directly at one of the bullheads. Furthermore rather than destroying one and falling back to the ground, the beast kicked off the burning wreck and leapt towards the next one. By the time Roman had almost reached his ride, the Grimm was on its way towards it. Rather than stick around and find out what it would do without those targets Roman did what he knew best and found a way to survive. Survival in this case being past the flames into the murky waters of Vales harbor.

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Jaune had barely gotten Blake to safety when the sounds of gunfire, roars, explosions, and screams came to an end. He wasn't sure what was going on, at all. Ruby was nowhere to be seen and that Grimm had come out of nowhere, but he knew his friend had to be in there somewhere. He also knew that Grimm only had red eyes and not the silver that had stared at him before the beast had run off. It was an uncomfortable notion, as only one person, one being he ever met had silver eyes. Jaune decided that he needed to investigate further, find out what was up with the weird Grimm, and more importantly, find his missing friend. He quickly pulled out his scroll and called his partner.

"Jaune?" Pyrrha's voice came through the moment the call had connected, "whats going on?"

"Pyrrha, it's an emergency." Jaune began, "we're at the docks right now, Blake's unconscious and Ruby's missing, I need your help." There was a pause on the other line for a moment.

"I'm on my way." Pyrrha said, "BUT, you owe me an explanation." Her tone brokered no argument, not that Jaune was in any mood to argue in the first place.

"Alright." he said and the line clicked off. Jaune took a deep breath to prepare himself, and dove back into the raging inferno.

Finding anything wasn't easy, not with flames practically everywhere. Eventually though Jaune broke through the seemingly endless sea of flames into a relatively clear area. It looked like it had been the original landing pad for the White Fang, though it was clear that the strange beowolf had gotten to them before they had the opportunity to escape. Broken bullheads sat at the edges, mangled White Fang grunts littered the ground, and in one corner sat the strange beowolf curled in on itself. It was apparently dead because it was already in the process of dissolving, and quickly at that. When the bone plates and fur finally gave way to dust, revealing an all too familiar red hoodie vest and black wolf tail, Jaune wasn't sure what to feel, but he did know he needed to act. So he quickly moved forward and scooped the younger girl into his arms shielding as much of her exposed skin as he could before making a beeline to where he left Blake. No sooner had he gotten there when the world exploded.

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A/N: I know it's the end of the week but, I did it! I technically released two chapters in the same week. Anyways in all seriousness I hope this turned out alright. I wrote it all with one hand (due to the other being in a cast) and when I finished it I was dealing with a pretty substantial headache, so yeah.