Alright, so the last chapter was pretty all over the place. Hopefully this one is at least decent and keeps the ball rolling. Any who, let's get this going.
If the truth will set you free, why am I still imprisoned here?
"Demons, Witches, Bogart's and... what was the last one again?" Ruby asked, taking notes on what she and Jon had encountered through the first four floors of the "training" arena known as The Gamble on her Scroll.
Along their search of the previous floors, they had found only a few small cashes of ammo, the odd lien card, as well as weapons mods: for Ruby it consisted of a barrel chambered for a 24 gauge shotgun almost seemingly as if it were meant to be equipped with Crescent Rose with the colour scheme and design fitting perfectly. Whereas Jon managed to pick up a switch feeding mechanism to switch between his magazines and under barrel tube of his shotgun.
Currently, the duo were casually walking down a narrow, dimly lit hallway, the handful of torches that burned flickered blood red flames onto the grey stone of the walls. At the end of the hallway was their target: an engraved door that was shaped to look like an eye, painted a shade of red as if the architect wanted it to seem to ooze blood.
"Ab-humans," Jon stated coldly, stopping to load an emptied magazine with what he called "Dragons Breath" shells, his eyes flicking between his ammo belt, the emptied magazine in his hand and the door in front of them. "The spawn of mortals - mainly humans, but some Faunus occasionally - and some form of demon. The ones we were fighting were fathered by the one who goes by The Fiend in this generation."
"Oh, well... good to know, I guess." Ruby commented before going back to her scroll to type the information in before she forgot it. "Any guess as to what's next?" She asked, taking a picture of the door.
"Yeah..." he said, loading the last of the shotgun shells he had into emptied magazines and placing them into pockets on his belt. "But it's not going to be an easy opponent like the previous foes that we've faced thus far..." Before Ruby could press him for more on what he meant, he began walking again, approaching the door and looking it over as if to take in every detail of it only to halt 10 meters in front of it. Signaling for Ruby to stop, he took a knee and inspected a stone tile in front of where his left boot had stopped.
Stopping beside the CQB orientated young man, she peered over his shoulder to see a pentagram - a five pointed star with three circles enclosing it - the colour of blood engraved into the grey and black stone that made the door, the series of letters in the lower right corner read "V - X". Remembering seeing something similar to the images on the stone in front of them as a child, confusion flickered into the young leader's voice as she tried to ask on what it meant, but only managed to stammer out "J-Jay..?"
"It's a spell that forces us into the room and bars us from leaving until the next foe is defeated..." he clarified, catching the confusion, but not fully understanding the tone in her voice. "Load every last bullet into your mags if you haven't." he instructed, running a few fingers over the stone. "If you have extra mags afterwards, then load the shotgun slugs you picked up earlier into them; the barrel you got on the third floor will take both your standard bullets and the shells without damaging it too much. This next area has only 1 enemy and the room is going to be in a close quarters style for a mid-boss, so melee may be needed he-"
Having heard about enough and feeling the blood in her begin to boil, the crimsonette did the first thing to come to mind to shut him up by grabbing the collar of his coat, throwing Jon back a couple of meters down the way they had come from. Mid-flight, a storm of rose petals flooded around Jon, a hand on each shoulder was the only thing he felt before a flying knee nailing him in his core, driving the wind from his lungs. Seconds later after a hard landing on the stone floor, unable to move while trying to regain the breath in his lungs, he felt another weight press against his core and shoulders effectively pinning him to the ground.
Groaning and attempting to regain his breath, figuring that resisting would only end in failure, all he managed to do was open his eyes enough to look into the pools of silver above his own, rimmed in red and tears falling from them to land on his cheeks. The compromising position they were in would have left him blushing and rambling excuses to any who witnessed the situation... but not this time...
This time, he could only stare up in shock as the seemingly timid and innocent girl that he had developed feelings for, as she frantically looked in his eyes for some sort of recognition of what she was thinking. "Ru-" he barely whispered, receiving a hard SMACK that echoed through the hallway.
"No!" She screamed hysterically, shaking violently. "Just what the fuck really is this place!? What do you mean by 'mid-boss'!? WHO ARE YOU Jon!? Or is that even your actual name..?"
Taken aback from the young crimsonette's sudden change in attitude in such a short amount of time, Jon tried to explain himself, only to get a backhand to the other cheek. "Ow! My other cheek - Gahckhaha!" He commented before screaming out in pain as the sniper drove her knee into his stomach with even more force.
"You have done NOTHING to explain ANY of this other than that vague explanation back on floor one!" Standing over him, the sniper firmly planted her boot on the young man's chest and pointing her weapons' barrel between his eyes. "I'm sick of going through this Hell hole without as much as a hint of what's going on! Start... Talking..." the last two words being said through gritted teeth. "Or you will never see the light of day again..!"
Eyeing the gun to his head before looking back to match her gaze and sighing, closing his eyes and raising his hands. "Alright..." he grunted after a moment. "But you need to let me up; this is going to be a long story in its own right..." At this, Ruby's face changed from hysteria to confusion and anger. "If you want me to tell you what I know, you'll meet me half way with this, Lil' Red. I know more about you, your friends, and your family than what you think. I even know where Yang's mother is currently and what happened to yours..."
Slamming the barrel of her gun into his head, she was about to pull the trigger, but a thought suddenly came to her. 'What if what he's saying is true?' Thinking over what he had said, Ruby thought over her choices. If what Jon said was true, then he may have the resources to not just get her back to Beacon in one piece, but also answer questions that she had been pondering over for years now. But if he were lying just to get some sort of foothold in the situation, then she would be compromising her position in this interrogation and, maybe worse, she'd be putting her life on the line more than what it currently was. And what if everything he would tell her would be a lie? Then another thought occurred to the young Huntress: Jon may be the only thing that's kept her alive this far and shooting him now will only drop her odds of living dramatically.
Choosing to pick the middle ground in the situation, Ruby took her foot off of the young man who she wanted answers from and disengaged her weapons safety, not moving it from his face as he tried to rise to stand along with her. "Talk," she demanded, her tone that of distrust and seriousness usually only granted by the most cynical of strategists much older than she was. "It's your answers that are the only reason you're alive currently."
Choosing not to anger the young redhead further, he instead tried the more reasonable approach with her. "Alright... Considering I don't have much of a choice here, where do you want me to start?" he asked, wiping sweat off of his brow, anticipating where she would lead this questioning. 'Seriously, you idiot?' he thought to himself, semi sarcastically. 'That's what you're going to ask after how many times of going through this? You know her answer will be -'
"The beginning..." Ruby growled through her teeth, not giving him any leeway out of the situation.
Sighing, the young man closed his eyes and thought back to the beginning of his story before asking "Are you sure you want to hear what I have to say?" With the cambering of a bullet, he stated coldly "Alright... But remember this: I gave you a chance to avoid this unneeded pain, Ruby Rose..."
AN: Sorry about the wait, readers, but I've been going through some things that have taken up a lot of my time. Also, with being in an University this year for a Sound Tech. course, I've been trying to balance writing and school work in my free time. But if you made it this far, thank you for reading this! And if you have any suggestions on different enemies that our duo may face/other survivors they may encounter later on, don't be afraid to drop them in the reviews section or in a PM. Who know's? I may just use them.
