"There you are," Ruby said twisting her leg so she could look at the back of her thigh.
The black worm pressed up against her skin might have appeared to be a leech to the uninitiated, but it wasn't. She had plenty of experience to attest to that. Whereas a leech would drink its fill of blood before detaching, Clingers would just hang on. Left to their own devices they would suck until there was nothing left.
To be fair when compared to other Grimm they might not be terrifying, she might have joked about them when being regaled with one of Port's old stories, but they were still Grimm. They were still dangerous.
Ruby poked it with a finger. It had very little armour to speak of, just a few chitin plates. Most of it was soft, moist, and utterly disgusting. She shivered. It was almost possible to feel its malevolence.
Normally she was careful, but this was just a situation that couldn't be avoided. There were too many streams to wade across, rivers to swim through. Judging by the Clinger's size it hadn't been feeding for very long, it had probably latched onto her when fording the last pool.
At least her shorts were tight enough to prevent it feeding any further up her leg. The thought of having a Grimm in her underwear was not one which she wished to entertain for long. Not that it would have been much more unpleasant than the current situation where all her clothes were drenched. There was almost no chance of them drying either.
The rainforest wouldn't let them. It was the one thing she hadn't been prepared for. She'd done research, brought all the necessary supplies, chosen her route, but never had she imagined her greatest adversary would be a simple number. The air was hot most definitely, but it was the humidity that was the killer.
This deep into the largest rainforest on the planet she was pretty sure the relative humidity rarely dropped below three figures. Most of the time she had to trek through a low-hanging mist. After almost two weeks she'd accepted it as her lot. Her clothes were wet when she put them on in the morning, and wet when she took them off late into the night.
It was why she'd followed the advice online and had gone for a minimalistic approach to her attire. Boots, shorts, and a tank top. The outfit left plenty of room for her skin to breathe, and her Aura protected her from any of the sharp plants in the undergrowth. But as she had before, she was left regretting the choice now.
Aura didn't seem to matter to the Clingers; they were able to sink their jaws into her flesh regardless. With the way they numbed the skin, there was a chance she wouldn't even have noticed if she didn't take pains to check whenever she stopped. Most days she only had to contend with regular leeches, and they were easy enough to deal with; a quick spray of insect repellent was enough to persuade them to find another meal. Their cousins though, required a different approach.
Ruby extracted a stick from her campfire. Its end glowed orange. There were few things in the world that the Grimm feared, but fire was one of them. She used her other hand to pull the Clinger taut and with excruciating carefulness pressed the tip of the stick as close to its head as she dared.
Flesh sizzled. Though the heat of the smouldering branch was uncomfortable for her, it would be a million times worse for the Clinger. Not that she felt sorry for it. It was a Grimm after all, and it existed to see her dead.
The Clinger managed to hold on that intent for a few more seconds before its jaws spasmed open. As it fell to the ground Ruby scooped it up and tossed it into the centre of the campfire. She did not want to give it the opportunity to exact its revenge in the middle of the night. The Clinger shrivelled from the heat and the stench of burning blood wafted to her.
Ruby resisted the urge to gag. It brought back all manner of memories that were better left buried. Hallways covered in gore. Ghosts that haunted her still.
To distract herself she turned back to her leg. Crimson leaked steadily from the open wound. The anti-coagulant in the Clinger's saliva ensured it wouldn't close of its own accord for some time. It didn't hurt as she applied a salve to it though, so that was at least something to be grateful for. Ruby made sure she was thorough. An open wound in a rainforest was asking for an infection; a wound given by a Grimm only exacerbated the chances. Out here, without support, and hundreds of miles from the nearest settlement there would be no hope if she succumbed to illness.
Confident that she'd cleaned it as thoroughly as she was able to Ruby taped gauze over the bite and sat down. With luck and a bit of encouragement her Aura should have healed it by the morning. After all day spent fighting her way through the undergrowth it was a relief to finally take the weight off her feet.
Unclipping Crescent Rose from her belt she set it down next to her. She might have been fiercely proud of her weapon, but she had to admit it perhaps wasn't suited to her current scenario. The numerous alterations and improvements made over the years had only added to its bulk. The weight of it dragged her down all day and it was constantly getting tangled in branches. Not that she would have considered leaving it behind for a moment. The rainforests were dangerous. If Clingers were the worst she saw on the expedition, she would be greatly relieved.
Her dinner was just as uninspiring as it was every other night. She tried to mix it up, give herself some variety, but at the end of the day all MREs tasted more or less the same. The Atlesian government was not particularly concerned with the culinary requirements of its troops. As long as the soldiers got enough calories for the minimal cost that was a tick in their book.
As Ruby forced down another mouthful of something that said it was mashed potatoes she had to admit it could have been worse. At least she had food to eat, not to mention it was hot. Having to forage on top of all her other tribulations would have been asking too much of herself.
In all honesty, this trip wasn't all that bad. She'd never been anywhere like this before, surrounded by trees taller than most buildings, with burgeoning life all around. It was an experience, and one which she knew that Yang would have loved.
Ruby would have given almost anything to have her sister by her side right now, or just to know that she was ok. But it was an impossible wish. They were both criminals wanted by the country they had shed blood and more to defend. Yang wasn't active on any of her social media profiles and hadn't been since she'd disappeared. Without a number or address, there was no way for the two of them to get in contact. The only possibility was a physical message.
On Patch there were several places that held special memories to the pair of them. Places from their childhood. A secret cave that they'd found when exploring, a lake they'd always used for swimming, a copse of trees that they'd used for many mock battles. When she'd been on the island Ruby had left notes in all of them, anywhere she thought Yang or her family might look.
It had been useless anyway. Either they hadn't returned to Patch or they hadn't found her notes. The anonymous email account she'd set up remained empty. It was highly unlikely they were in Vale anyway. They would have run into the same problems she had.
The Tinman from the village had pursued her relentlessly. She hadn't been able to sleep for over thirty-six hours; hadn't even been able to stop moving. Nothing would have stopped it from capturing her. Nothing apart from the Vacuan border. She'd never thought she would be so relieved to step over an imaginary line, but in that instant she'd felt the same elation numerous fictional outlaws had before her. The Tinmen were acting in an official capacity of Vale, and an encroachment into the sovereign territory of another nation trumped even its desire to capture her. The border might have been an imaginary line to her, but to the Tinman it had been a wall.
After that she'd slept for eighteen hours straight before gathering her bearings and deciding on her next move. It was an easy decision. Her time in Vale had not been spent lackadaisically wandering from settlement to settlement, and she was not in this rainforest on a whim. In the last year she'd rediscovered her purpose.
It perhaps wasn't much of one. It wasn't as rewarding as seeing the looks of gratitude on the faces of the people she'd saved, but she knew it was important. Even if many wouldn't have seen it as such. At one time, she would have been among her own doubters. How often had she fallen asleep in Oobleck's classes? There wasn't much to be learned from history, or so she'd once thought.
Her position had been reversed by one of the smartest people she knew, or more accurately from a book they'd once given her. Blake's gift for her sixteenth birthday had been so thoughtful. She'd always enjoyed tales of heroes winning against insurmountable odds, and Blake had given her a book full of stories she'd never so much as heard before.
The book was one of her most prized possessions. It was too prized to leave behind. It was currently stowed in the bottom of her rucksack in a waterproof pouch. Ruby forced her mind away from the small collection of unused coupons that resided beside it. The lovingly handwritten pieces of paper caused her incredible pain whenever she read them, but it would have hurt far more to lose them forever.
Blake's book was far too precious to read in such a humid environment, but in this case she'd thought ahead in a way that would have made Blake proud of her. She extracted the laminated copies of the pages that were her focus at the moment.
In the days since she'd lost almost everything, she'd tried to read a story every night, just something to remind her of a time when she'd been happy, and in doing so she'd started to notice a pattern. Once she knew what she was looking for it was so blindingly obvious she was incredulous that no one had seen it before.
The people of Skaerlig spoke of a great champion who'd defended them using a blade of captured lightning. The scribes of the Pavorii legion wrote of a terrible assassin who'd carved through their ranks with a weapon that cared not for armour. The legends of Elysion spoke of a hundred heroes returning to fight the oncoming horde using holy swords. Even her dad had once told her a story about a great hunter who saved a village single-handedly using a blade as white as snow which cut through Grimm with ease.
She couldn't believe she'd never made the connection either. One or two appearances would have been a coincidence. Something she could ignore. Dozens and dozens of stories and tales from civilizations over a period spanning millennia was not.
It was impossible, but in her gut she knew her instinct was right. Somehow. It could have been that Ozpin's sword was one passed down from father to son across the ages, but that wasn't the case. The legends were too far separated geographically, too distinct. No normal family would have found themselves in all those places before the invention of mass transit.
She knew people would call her crazy. If she spoke up her words would probably be enough to get her committed to a mental asylum. What she was suggesting terrified her, but she couldn't ignore it. Ozpin had never aged. He looked identical now to the photo that had been printed in the paper when he'd taken over as the headmaster of Beacon over sixty years ago. Most said it was his Semblance. She had first-hand proof it wasn't; she'd seen his Semblance in action. No, if her belief was correct, Ozpin was immortal.
His existence had been recorded by hundreds of cultures. They tale wasn't always about a great warrior; in some he was a general, a leader. Still in others he was spoken of as a mage able to cast incredible spells. She'd seen him do that as well. His Dustcraft was almost second to none. Almost, because in many of the stories he wasn't alone. Often a beautiful woman walked by his side, a sorceress who could call down torrents of fire from a clear sky, and turn forests into ash with a thought. She was in many of the stories Ozpin was not. The beautiful temptress, the cruel sorceress. History had many names for her, just as it had many names for Ozpin.
The ramifications of her discovery had kept Ruby awake at night. She'd discovered something no one else had before. Gods walked among them. Or at least that was the only way she could wrap her head around what they were. Immortal, and wielding power that made lies of the skills of hunters, she couldn't think of a name that described them better.
And these gods had been interfering in the lives of normal people for as long as there had been the written word if not longer. Were still interfering in them. Ruby didn't know what had happened to set them against each other, but in their war the gods had ripped what seemed like the entire planet apart.
Vale had been invaded and its inhabitants slaughtered by the woman, only for Ozpin to take his revenge and slaughter the White Fang in answer. It wasn't a large leap to guess that the pair of them had been behind the numerous plots in Atlas, the ones which had opened her eyes. The world was their chessboard, and they weren't even finished.
Ozpin was steadily tightening his grip on power. The Tinmen and the increased regulation of hunters had just been the start. Vale was building up its military, ignoring the legislation drafted after the Great War, and the other countries were responding in kind. Vacuo and Mistral had been welcoming with open arms the hunters who refused their new oaths. Every time she saw a newspaper or a television there were recruitment adverts. The gods weren't done yet, and through it all the Grimm were more active than ever.
Ruby might have known it was the truth, but no one would believe her. Not even her friends. It wasn't hard to see why. She'd talked to Ozpin. He'd seemed normal. A little peculiar yes, but nothing which suggested all this. Nothing that suggested he'd walked through the pages of history and had come out unscathed.
If she was going to persuade the world, she needed proof. Luckily she had a good idea where to find it, or at least places she could start looking. They were all in her book. Civilizations rose and fell, but they always left traces. It was her hope that in one of those forgotten ruins she'd find something, some hint. Something that helped her understand it all, understand just what Ozpin actually was.
When younger she'd never even contemplated the idea of becoming an archaeologist, an archaeologist with a gun admittedly, but an archaeologist none the less. In all honesty it was more enjoyable than she could have imagined. The first time she'd broken into a room that had lain untouched, with the dust of centuries piled on the floor, it had stirred something within her that she'd never felt before. It was hard to describe just what it was. A sense of wonder, of privilege, of awe. She knew that she was making history as much as uncovering it.
It was her hope that she was about to uncover more. Most people had at least heard of the civilization of the Calakmul, and it was often regarded as the 'Lost Civilization of the Calakmul.' There had been digs at remote settlements, artefacts found, but over millennia the rainforest had swallowed the capital. If it had ever existed, that is.
Ruby wasn't big-headed enough to believe she might have located it where generations had failed before her, but if her research was correct, she had. She'd had help of course, a lot of help. The margins of the book Blake had given her were filled with notes from various scholars, and likely regions had been theorised before. It had just been the case of collating all that information. Her conclusion hadn't been ground-breaking; Calakmul was probably exactly where the majority of academics thought it was.
The only reason it hadn't been rediscovered was that few people would have been willing to finance an expedition as large as would have been necessary. The archaeologists would have had to hire numerous hunters to protect them, guides to make sure they didn't get lost under the canopy, pack animals, and more. After many failed expeditions in the past, it was an expense not worth the risk when they might not find anything at the end of it.
It was something Ruby didn't have to worry about. All she needed to buy were the necessary supplies. It had taken her some time to save up enough, but she'd managed it. She could only hope the gamble paid off; if her timekeeping proved astute, she should know by tomorrow.
With that thought in mind she climbed into her hammock and set the netting over her. It was a surprisingly comfortable way of sleeping. The first few nights she'd ended up rolling out, but her cocoon was relaxing. As tired as she was it didn't take her long to fall into her dreams. As always Weiss was waiting for her.
Ruby hacked at the curtain of vines blocking her way. Trekking through the rainforest was hard going. Most of the time she tried to follow trails left by whatever animals lived this far from people, but sometimes those trails simply didn't exist. In those cases she had to make her own path.
Crescent Rose would have made short work of the vegetation, but she could never put her beloved through such an ordeal. Instead she'd bought a machete and, despite her limited resources, she hadn't skimped on it either. Much to the merchant's displeasure, she knew her weapons, and had known exactly what a quality blade looked like. It had been worth the effort of haggling and the eventual cost.
The foliage tumbled to her feet and Ruby sheathed the blade. It might have been made of a tempered alloy, but no edge could survive this amount of punishment for long; she'd have to sharpen it again at midday.
Another load of water was dumped on top of her. She fought the urge to swear. It was a very regular occurrence; almost every horizontal leaf collected a pool of moisture just waiting for an unwitting traveller below. Ruby wasn't even mad about getting wet. Her tank top was already thoroughly drenched and sticking to her skin, her bangs clung to her forehead, and her ponytail hung limp. No, she just hated the droplet that ran the length of her spine causing her to shiver.
The muscles in her arms ached. She'd woken early, much earlier than usual due to her excitement. It wasn't necessary to set an alarm in the rainforest. It never really went quiet with the life clambering all around even at night, but when the sun rose it was particularly raucous. Today she'd beaten most of the animals, birds, and insects out of bed.
Consequently she was ahead of schedule and hopefully didn't have much further to go. Noticing a clearing she pushed her way towards it; even if it was only a few dozen feet long it would be vastly quicker than continuing along her current path.
Not that a clearing meant that she was able to see much of the sun. This deep into the rainforest the trees were ancient. They towered over her and their canopies stretched out forming an almost unbroken blanket.
A weight hit her from behind and slammed her into the floor. The impact left her disoriented, but her body reacted instinctively. Her Aura flared in response to the claws raking the back of her legs.
Panic gripped her. No one could have responded with anything else to an ambush like this. All she knew was that something was trying to kill her. Whatever it was, it was heavy. Its weight pressed her into the dirt and crushed her chest until her breath left her.
Ruby whipped her arm back. It connected with something hard, but she was unable to get any real force in the blow. The thing growled in response. Her legs failed to gain purchase in the loose undergrowth as she tried to scramble away.
She threw her arm back again. It wasn't much, but in this position it was the only attack she could muster. Material ripped as the thing tore its way into her rucksack. Ruby yanked the quick release on its straps. Its bulk gave her a small pocket of space. With it her thrown arm connected solidly. The thing gave a grunt, and she used the brief moment when it recoiled to shrug out of her rucksack and struggle away.
She bounded to her feet and spun to meet her attacker's glowing eyes. With a shake of its head it scattered her possessions from the ruined rucksack in its jaws. Ruby swore. She recognised the Grimm instantly. A Cheshire. The one Grimm she absolutely hadn't wanted to meet.
It dropped her bag and let out a deep, coughing bellow. The rainforest abruptly went silent. Absolutely silent. Not even the smallest birds dared to make a noise. Cheshires were undoubtedly the alpha predators of the region and everything around knew it.
They were just like any other species of large cat… that is, if a member of that species was the length of a car, had claws like knives, and plates covering its body. Cheshires could pull down gorillas with ease.
Ruby knew she'd been incredibly lucky. There had been absolutely no errant noise, no sign it had been stalking her. If not for her rucksack, its jaws would likely have found the back of her neck. Her Aura wouldn't have been able to do much about that. The bag had undoubtedly saved her life, now she just had to make the most of the chance.
In the past two years she'd learnt something important that she'd been ignorant about before; when to pick her battles. At school she'd been intent on eradicating every Grimm she saw. It had been idealistic and foolish. It was true that every Grimm she slew was one more that would not descend on a helpless family. But that was when she'd always had a nice warm bed to go back to, and support on standby. They were luxuries that didn't exist anymore. If she fought every Grimm she encountered, one would eventually get the better of her. A single wound could have been enough to end her life. Unless people were in danger, it wasn't worth the risk.
She'd run from the Grimm plenty of times. Once that admission would have caused her to burn with embarrassment, now she knew it was just sensible. It wasn't worth fighting a Cheshire hundreds of miles from the nearest village just for pride. But now she didn't have a choice. If she used her Semblance to dash into the thick undergrowth she might as well save herself the trouble and just break her own leg now. This was the Cheshire's domain; if she ran it would catch her.
At least in the clearing she had a little bit of room to manoeuvre. Her hand inched towards Crescent Rose. The Cheshire crouched down, the powerful muscles in its hind-legs tightening. They moved in the same instant. The Cheshire pounced, its leap carrying it across the dozen feet between them in a fraction of a second.
Ruby was faster.
She disappeared in a cloud of petals. Ripping Crescent Rose from her back she slammed its bottom spike into the Cheshire's side before it had even fully deployed. The Cheshire's feet threw mulch into the air as it spun towards her, its claws whistling through the air. Even in the grips of her Semblance Ruby barely managed to duck out of the way. It was startling. No Grimm she knew of was this quick.
Or smart. The Cheshire turned its body to catch Crescent Rose's blade on an armoured plate rather than vulnerable flesh. The impact reverberated up her arm, but she didn't have long to complain. It was all she could do to dive out of the way of the Cheshire's next attack.
It came after her. A flurry of snarls, slashing claws, and flashing teeth came after her. Every attack that breached her defences pushed her Aura to a precipice. Ruby caught a paw inches from her face on Crescent Rose's haft, and she pulled the trigger.
Her ammunition was limited, not to mention expensive, but all the ammo in the world wouldn't do her much good if she were dead. The bullet crashed into the Cheshire's unprotected shoulder. The pair of them separated.
Ruby refused to listen to her own body's protests, that time would come after the fight, instead she studied her adversary. The injury she'd given it was not as severe as she'd hoped. It merely glanced at it before turning back to her. It did seem to favour its other leg though.
The Cheshire was tough. This was not a fight that would be over quickly and that would only favour the Grimm. Only one option remained open to her. The wind rose.
Gusts ripped leaves from the trees. Petals swirled in the currents of air. And in the centre of it all Ruby transcended. She rediscovered the feeling she had found on the last day in Vale. Against the Knights she'd pushed her Aura further than she ever had before. On that day she'd become the wind, and so was she again.
The Cheshire started forward. She knew the instant it moved, not because she saw it, but because she felt it. She felt it in the air it pushed out of its way, felt the vibrations of its muscles. In the grips of her Semblance, her awareness was increased a hundredfold.
It was easy to predict its attack, to move just far enough out of the way, to return the favour with interest. Blood flew. The Cheshire slashed at her. For all the good it did it may as well have attacked the wind that whistled around it.
Ruby stopped thinking. Stopped worrying. She forgot her troubles and acted on instinct. Duck, cut, pivot, slash, fire, leap. She'd trained her entire life for this moment, it became so easy. It wasn't entirely one sided, the Cheshire still hit her, but it did so only because she allowed it, because she thought the trade-off worth it. The ground under her feet became slick. Blood leaked from a dozen wounds on the cat's body. Its movements slowed.
She knew what it was going to do almost before it did. It would throw everything into one last attack. It wouldn't be enough. She rolled out of the way of its last desperate leap, and with an overhead swing she hammered Crescent Rose's point through its spine. The Cheshire ripped her weapon from her grasp as it gave out a pitiful whine.
Leaving Crescent Rose where it was, she tore her machete from its sheath. Her first blow bounced from the Cheshire's thick skull and took off an ear, her second landed more squarely, and on the third bone split. She left the blade buried in the Cheshire's twitching body and stumbled away.
Releasing her grip on her Semblance she almost passed out. Ignored fatigue bullied its way into every muscle. Her lungs cried in want of air. There was a price to pay for every action, and this one often proved too high.
Back in Vale she'd pushed herself to her limits and found that she could exist beyond them. The time spent in Atlas meant she hadn't explored what she'd discovered, but in the last past two years she'd had nothing but time.
With extensive practice she had a greater sense of control over her Semblance than ever, and a greater understanding of it. Before, she'd always used it purely instinctively; she wanted to move faster so that was what she did. It had never crossed her mind to question just how it worked.
Her Semblance wasn't limited to speed. In Vale, she had called the wind and the wind had answered. It made sense really. She could move with incredible speed, but it never took that much more effort. It shouldn't have been that easy. She might not have paid as much attention in math class as she should have, but even she knew that the resistance from the air scaled exponentially with velocity. As fast as she could move it should have proved a major problem.
It never was though. It was almost as if the air in front of her moved out of her way, and in reality that was more or less what happened. Before her control of the air around her had been instinctive, now she had much more finesse.
With her Semblance flaring she could feel the air all around. It was almost as if it were a sixth sense, or maybe an extension of the others. The minutest vibrations were carried to her ears; she could tell when a bird took off just by how its wings displaced the air, and she could predict the future. That might have been an exaggeration, but it was what it sometimes felt like. When her adversary's movements were transmitted to her the instant they happened it was easy to predict what they were going to do.
Coupled with her heightened speed it made her almost untouchable. The only downside was it left her like this. Back in that town in Vale she'd hidden her weakness. She'd given them what they'd expected after her display. An invincible huntress. Someone to tell stories about. They hadn't seen just how much her legs had been shaking under her cloak, or how she'd collapsed onto the bed the moment she'd locked the door.
If only she could do the same now. This fight hadn't been as extended as that one, but her expedition had already taken a much greater toll on her body. At the moment all she wished to do was lie down and sleep. It was a fanciful dream that she'd never allow herself to make a reality.
Sleep might have been beyond her, but she took ten minutes to rest. To look at the consequences of her fight. A Cheshire. Few hunters could ever claim such a trophy; even Port hadn't had the skull of one in his office. Perhaps she should send him a present, wherever he was now; she was pretty sure he'd retired from teaching. He was probably sat around a fire in a hunting lodge somewhere.
With her strength returning she checked her belongings. Her rucksack had ripped along the seam, but it only took her a few more minutes to roughly sew it back together. Though the Cheshire had scattered her belongings, her most precious were safe in their pouch. She resisted the urge to open it to check; she knew them all by touch.
Her last canteen of water was used to clean the blood and dirt from her skin. It was only then that she found she hadn't escaped unscathed. It could have been worse, especially considering how the fight had started, but the claw mark across her midriff became fire the moment her eyes landed on it.
Ruby had to bite back a scream. It was the strangest occurrence with wounds. Sometimes they were fine right up until the moment she became of aware of them; then it was all she could do to think of anything else. She sloshed more water on it, grinding her teeth together, before pulling out her medical kit. It was a big one, but some of her supplies were starting to run low. She hadn't banked on getting hurt quite this often.
Tending her own wounds was something she'd sadly become used to doing. It didn't compare to having someone else do it. Not in the quality of the treatment or the care that came after it. Weiss had always fussed over her immensely whenever she'd been injured, she'd even… Ruby pushed the thoughts away. At least her midriff didn't bother her anymore; the bittersweet memories were far more painful than any physical wound.
After securing yet another bandage the only thing that was left to do was gather up her weapons. The clean-up was always her least favourite part of any fight. She'd never been fond of gore, but after Vale the sight of copious amounts of blood always caused bile to rise in her throat, even if it was Grimm's.
Crescent Rose had come through the fight entirely unscathed, but surprisingly so had her machete. The difficulty she had in extracting it from the Cheshire's skull told her just how much force she'd put into her blow. Despite having not been designed with such a use in mind it still seemed functional. Perhaps she'd got a better deal than she'd thought.
Finally she was able to shoulder her rucksack. It was lucky she was ahead of schedule; she could do with a couple of hours to recuperate. Her legs didn't seem particularly fond of the idea of walking at that precise moment, but only an idiot would lower their guard next to a fresh corpse. With a final look at the Cheshire, Ruby left the clearing.
Ruby double-checked her compass. It was difficult to gauge distances when most of the time she could barely see more than a score of feet through the undergrowth, but she could keep track of her direction. As long as she stayed on course she should hit her target. Naturally she didn't want to think of the possibility of a small error causing her to miss by a hundred miles or more.
Not that she'd keep walking forever. It was important to keep to a schedule. If she didn't find Calakmul in a week she'd turn back. No matter what. If fortune favoured her, however, it should be close by. At the next stream Ruby almost squealed with excitement.
It wasn't much, a single slab of rock half-buried in the mud at the bank, but as she ran her fingers over it she came to a conclusion. It was definitely man-made. It was too smooth, too regular to be anything else. Her heart hammered in her chest.
As she crested the next small rise her hands actually shook with excitement. Her gamble had paid off. In front of her, almost obscured by vegetation, a small building rose from the undergrowth. The yellow bricks had been weathered by age and part of the roof had collapsed, but the sight of it took her breath away. It was simply magnificent.
The door had rotted, and Ruby peered inside. There wasn't much to see. The humid atmosphere had been just as unforgiving to most of the furniture. The strands of what looked like hemp in the corner might once have been a blanket, the lump of misshapen wood a table. The Calakmulese had invented ceramics though. Three plates in the corner were almost untouched.
Ruby couldn't help but imagine, just who had eaten their meals from them? What had their daily lives been like? Had they had to worry about the Grimm? How had they fought them without Dust? That was at least a question she hoped to be able to answer.
She wasn't the first to enter the building in millennia though. Animals had evidently used it for shelter judging by the excrement. The musk failed to discourage her though. Being inside a house which had existed before Vale was even a notion in someone's head was just too remarkable.
A camera clicked. All through her travels she made sure to take a lot of pictures. In the future she'd like to be able to publish a book, share her experiences with everyone else. That was still a distant future though ̶ ̶ one that at this moment was nothing more than a wish ̶ ̶ she'd come here for a reason and it didn't involve a journal.
Ruby left the building and continued on. The ground rose in front of her; in some places it was so steep she had to use the undergrowth to clamber up the incline. The hard-going failed to put a damper on her spirits. The signs of inhabitation weren't constant, but they were all around her.
When she reached the summit her jaw fell open. No matter what she did or didn't discover, the trials of her expedition were worth it for the view alone. The trees thinned and in the valley below and Calakmul stood in all its glory.
And the lost city was spectacular. It had been settled over a thousand years ago, lost to the sands of time, bested by nature, and yet it still stood. The surrounding walls had largely fallen to the forest, swallowed by the vines and trees, but the streets were still clearly visible. The distribution of the buildings ̶ ̶ some collapsed, most relatively intact ̶ ̶ gave her hints to how the residents had lived. A large paved area could very well have been a market, another section a meeting place. Her mind filled with the possibilities.
The one definite trend was that the buildings started off small at the outskirts and got larger as they neared the centre, but none could match what dominated the vista. A temple rose into the sky. Consisting of a series of square terraces, steps had been built up each of the four sides. A metal plate stood erect at the top. The bronze or copper might have been burnished by the ages, but it still shone. A homage to a god.
Staring at the huge blocks used in its construction she found it staggering that such a city could be built without the aid of modern technology. After documenting the view, Ruby started down. Her tiredness, her hunger, her thirst, had all been forgotten, replaced by absolute wonder. The walls weren't a barrier anymore and it was easy to slip through the gaps.
In all honesty she could have spent weeks exploring just the outer fringes, but she didn't have that luxury. There was only enough food in pack for a few days and that would be stretching things on the way back. With that in mind she'd ignored the smaller single-story buildings and headed towards the larger ones.
It was entirely surreal to be walking down a street first laid so long ago. She'd found ruins before, but never something of this magnitude, never something so well preserved. Most civilizations throughout history had fallen to either the Grimm or war, neither of which were kind to architecture. But Calakmul apparently hadn't. No one knew quite why their empire had failed. She had a chance to find out.
Ruby poked her head in the first of the larger buildings she came to. As before, the wood of the door had fallen victim to the humidity. It was hard to guess just what it had been; like the other building there was only a single room on the this floor. Against the back wall there were stone steps.
Halfway up them Ruby paused. It was a house, and some of its residents were still here. Skeletons didn't invoke the same horror that corpses did. There was a sense of detachment. A skeleton was long past help, a corpse was perhaps something she could have prevented.
They were still people though, and Ruby took a moment to pay her respects. The skeletons appeared to belong to a man and a woman, probably a couple judging by how her skull rested on his ribcage. They'd been together at the end, however it had happened. There wasn't much more anyone could wish for.
They seemed to have died in peace. Old age maybe? But then surely they would have been buried, or cremated, or whatever the Calakmul had done to honour their dead. It might have been a pandemic. The healthy had fled while those already ill were unable. It was a possibility. Ruby wasn't worried about any diseases; nothing would have survived this long.
Most of the buildings were entirely deserted, their insides bare. It supported her hypothesis of an evacuation. So did the other skeletons. She made sure not to disturb them, only taking pictures.
A couple of hours had passed by the time she found herself at the base of the temple. It must have been fifty feet high or more. The great blocks of rock were almost as tall as she was. The sheer effort it must have taken to construct them made her feel small.
The steps were worn with both age and use. It had undoubtedly been the focal point for whatever religion the Calakmul had practiced. Ruby tried to imagine the ceremonies. There would have been elaborate costumes, the beat of drums, the light of fires, and smell of food. She just hoped they hadn't practiced ritual sacrifice like some had.
In the small shelter atop the temple there was a heavy stone table. One that could have been used for an offering of food… or more. From the vantage point the city stretched out below her and beyond. There was rainforest for as far as her eye could see and a damn sight further. It occurred to her then, that at that precise moment, she might very well be the most isolated person on the planet.
The walls were lined with inscriptions. Though she'd done as much research as she'd been able to, there just wasn't enough information about the Calakmulese for her to be able to recognise more than a fraction of the symbols. The most complete recollection of the Calakmulese was the tale that had persuaded her to make the journey.
It was when she was on her knees, painstakingly taking photos of every inch of the wall, that her boot caught in the groove in the floor. Dust and dirt had obscured it, but a little cleaning revealed what could only be a panel to something below. Ruby tapped her foot. The hollow thump told her all she needed to know.
Thirty minutes later she lowered herself in the space below. The first thing she noticed was the humidity, or rather the lack of it. The air was bone dry. Her expectation built. Whatever the Calakmulese had thought to place within their temple would be perfectly preserved.
She flashed her headlamp around the walls. There wasn't much to see; it was just an entrance chamber with steps descending into the darkness. It was difficult to manoeuvre both Crescent Rose and her rucksack down the narrow staircase, but she just about managed it without scraping the walls. With stone pressing in on her from every direction she was incredibly glad claustrophobia had never been one of her afflictions. Still she had to debate the sense in descending into what could very well be a tomb.
There was absolutely no light. Unlike the films there wasn't an impossible array of mirrors or torches that had been burning for centuries. Despite it being the one of the most expensive models her headlamp only provided the slightest respite against the darkness.
The still air, the lack of light, the entire absence of scent was just plain eerie. It was impossible to tell how far she descended, but she wouldn't have been surprised to find she was at ground level or even below it before the stairs ended.
Her guess had been right. It was a tomb. And it also solved the mystery of what the Calakmul had done with their dead. Rows and rows of skulls stared at her, their bones stacked neatly below them. The eyeless sockets almost convinced her to turn back ̶ ̶ if there was a place for a horror film to be set, this was it. She didn't though, she hadn't come this far to be scared away by ghosts.
But neither did she want to wander the catacombs forever. Her solution to that problem was simple, a reel of fishing line and a small spike ̶ ̶ when the time came she could just follow it back to the stairs. Though corridors branched off every few feet she continued to follow what seemed to be the main one.
A door blocked her path. Figures were carved on it; small and insubstantial, they all seemed to be prostrating themselves before a bright light. Ruby pulled the ornate lever on the wall. Unsurprisingly it barely budged. It took almost all of her weight to make it move.
The door didn't open. "Figures," she muttered to herself. She didn't know quite why she'd expected a thousand year old mechanism still to work. Unlike in movies there was such a thing as rust, not to mention lubrication drying out. She set her shoulder to the stone and heaved.
It was hard to gain purchase on the dusty floor, her feet skidded out beneath her, but millimetre by millimetre she made progress. Air hissed as the door cracked open. Ruby slipped through the gap. She'd left the bones behind, whatever this new corridor was, it wasn't a tomb. She continued exploring.
A slab shifted beneath her boot and something skittered from her Aura. Instinctively she ducked away, her heart hammering, her hands held in front of her. Nothing moved. Nothing stirred. She forced herself to take a breath, and then another. The edges of complete panic faded. Normally her reaction would have been more thought out, but normally she hadn't just walked past hundreds or thousands of skeletons.
Rising back to her feet she looked around. A bolt from a crossbow lay on the floor. It was simply made, a sharpened stick of wood with feathered flights. It appeared deadly though, judging by the darkened stain on its tip. Ruby checked herself. Her Aura had served her well yet again.
Replaying the moments before it fired she crouched. She honestly couldn't believe it. Being in a tomb was surreal enough, but a tomb with a trap that still functioned after a thousand years. It was absolutely impossible. Unless… it had felt as if the lever had been doing something. Had she just been stupid enough to prime traps intended to repel intruders?
It was just another added element of danger to something which was already dangerous enough. She rolled the bolt between her fingers. The poison was likely impotent, and it would take an awful lot more than that to penetrate her Aura. The traps had been designed for the time they'd been built in. It was widely believed that the average Aura back then was vastly weaker than today, the majority hadn't even had Semblances. With those advantages she should be ok; as long as she was careful.
Ruby took her own advice to mind, she didn't place her feet down without checking where they were landing; avoiding the now so obvious raised triggers. They were so obvious she got cocky. She didn't step on a raised slab, but hadn't bargained on the entire floor dropping away from her.
Her stomach lurched. As she fell she managed to hook one hand on the edge of the pit. It was a tentative grip; her entire weight supported by three fingers. Her tendons creaked. Two years ago she probably would have fallen, but two years was a long time. She'd gained height and she'd gained muscle.
Her grunts broke the sanctity of the catacombs as she twisted and pulled until she could bring her other arm into play. The one thing she avoided doing was looking down. She had a head for heights, but no one would have wanted to see what the results of failure would be.
She counted her blessings that the Calakmulese had deigned to carve elaborate patterns into the floor. The grooves were just large enough for her fingertips. An inch at a time Ruby heaved herself up. It was all the strength of her arms; her boots simply had nowhere to gain purchase. She managed to get her knee over the edge and rolled to safety.
The captured tension escaped from her body. Her heart pounded in her ears. She'd been more terrified in those few moments than in the middle of a fight. It would only have taken slightly slower reactions, a single slip for it all to be over.
Some might say she'd been lucky, and she felt it, but she also made her own luck. No one else had saved her. The fingertips on her left hand had paid the price though. The rough stone had left them torn and bleeding. They were numb at the moment, but she knew that the superficial wounds would burn the moment the feeling came back to her hand.
It was an easy enough fix though. She gritted her teeth against the pain and cleaned the wounds thoroughly before directing her Aura into the area. The skin knitted before her very eyes. The tips were left pink and raw, but whole.
Ruby stood and walked to the precipice. The entire floor had been built on a hinge mechanism and hung to the side. She didn't quite know whether she should be relived or not to find the drop probably wouldn't have killed her. Crippled probably, but not killed straight off. She would just have died of thirst in a long-lost tomb without a chance of rescue. In her mind instant death was preferable.
The gap to the other side wasn't insurmountable. Not to her at any rate. Noting where the edge was she crossed the pit with a Semblance-enhanced leap. The discovery of a new type of trap just gave her more to worry about, but fortunately she didn't encounter another. The floor sloped upwards gradually, and after a few minutes she came to a room.
Her mouth fell open. The room glittered. The myths had not been a lie; Calakmul was the city of gold. Or at least the legends had their basis in truth. The walls might not have been made of solid metal, but there was still more than she'd ever seen before set into nooks in the walls. There was so much she wouldn't have even been able to carry it all if she wanted to.
Not that she was doing this just to raid tombs or anything. Her expeditions had always been based on nobler goals. Still, food, equipment, and ammunition weren't cheap. It would have been impossible to discover the knowledge she wanted without appropriating some of the wealth that was sitting lost to the world.
Ruby knew it was theft. She didn't try to hide from that fact. At one time she would have decried herself even thinking of the act, but since then she'd experienced the harsh realities of the world. Money didn't grow on trees, and without it she would starve.
She didn't get greedy, she knew the treasure would be a dead weight in her pack, but she took enough. It was in the act that she noticed what had been inscribed on the walls. All down the corridors there had been the same indecipherable symbols, here, there were pictures.
Almost perfectly preserved in the near airtight tomb, they told a story. It was one she'd been searching for. It didn't involve a man, but it did involve a goddess. One whose powers the artisans had simply been unable to capture in the medium of stone. Whatever they were they'd awed the Calakmul enough to for them to build this room, and maybe the entire temple, in her honour.
She hadn't just appeared once either, not if the slightly different shades of inscribed panels or styles of art were anything to go by. She'd visited this city on multiple occasions, maybe even across different generations, and each time they'd worshipped their goddess and saviour. Calakmul hadn't survived from the Grimm just based on its remote location after all.
It wasn't exact proof, but it was evidence and Ruby made sure to document it all. No one would believe her theory that the goddess depicted here was still alive today, but it was yet another coincidence that all these remote civilizations shared similar deities. Someday other people would have to see it too.
It was while taking hundreds of photos that she noticed the small notch in the wall. After all the traps she was a little bit apprehensive about putting her finger into it, but there wasn't a way to avoid it. Flaring her Aura she pressed the button at its back.
There was a click and a panel swung open. The object within made her gasp. The goddess stood on a plinth. Cast in gold, the figurine was eight inches high and it wasn't hard to see why they had worshipped her. If there was any resemblance, their goddess had been stunningly beautiful. Amber gemstones shone from her eye sockets.
Without thinking Ruby reached towards it before she caught herself. She lowered her hand. She'd watched far too many movies to be that stupid. Maybe it would trip more crossbows, or the floor would fall away, or maybe even a giant boulder would drop from above. It could have been any of those or something else. The only thing Ruby was sure of was that the figurine was too good to be true.
Still though… the way it glittered was just too inviting. It was another small piece of evidence that could add up to more. Making a decision she sized up the statuette, judging its weight. She'd seen this done numerous times; she just hadn't imagined the technique would ever come in handy.
Taking a small cloth she deposited a number of heavy gold coins into its centre and bounced the package in her hand. It was about right. She barely dared to breathe as she poised her hands next to the plinth: one holding her counterfeit, the other almost brushing the figurine.
Preparing herself to flee she flared her Semblance and made the switch. Her hand ripped the statuette from its resting place and an instant later the cloth-covered coins replaced it. Ruby froze, listening for the slightest hint of danger. There was no sound apart from her heartbeat in her ears. The plinth hadn't sunk down. Her theft hadn't triggered a trap. She ceded to the pressure in her lungs. In the silence of the tomb her nerves escaped in a high-pitched laugh. She really was the greatest grave robber in history.
With the figurine safely stowed she left the treasure room and walked back along the corridor, being careful to avoid any further mistakes. She'd stay here for as long as possible, documenting everything, but eventually she'd have to move on. In the dry air of the tomb she risked extracting Blake's book.
The likely legends were scattered randomly and she leafed through them, searching for where she could go next. One in particular caught her attention. One she'd been putting off ever since deciding on doing this. There were a lot of reasons, but the reward might just be worth the risk.
If she sold some of what she found here she should be able to afford a fake identity, a good one, and travel costs wouldn't be much more. There was nothing stopping her. No reason why she should avoid it. Not after this. It could very well prove to be the location of the most definite piece of evidence too. Ruby tapped the name in her book.
Merlin.
A/N: Ruby Rose: Tomb Raider. This was a very silly chapter, but we need that now and again. You'd have thought someone else would have put together all the clues like Ruby has, but I guess not. I hope you enjoyed, a follow/favourite is always appreciated, and please leave a review.
