"Hi, Mom," Ruby said to the tombstone. As usual, it was silent. The world around her was silent as well, and a featureless white, the falling snow obscuring vision and slowly covering the ground. The tombstone would have been covered in snow as well if Ruby had not cleared it off, and her footprints were the only other disturbances in the snow. They too would disappear under fresh white powder before long, and the world around her would become pristine, perfectly undisturbed, perfectly peaceful. There would only be her, the falling snow, the tombstone, and – she hoped – her mother's spirit.

"There's... been some changes since we last talked." Just as Ruby was a patch of red in a world of white, she was also the only source of noise in the silence. She spoke despite the fact that no one else was around. The thing was, sometimes there were things she needed to get off her chest. While her sister, her father, and her uncle were all wonderful confidants, occasionally there were things she just couldn't share with them, things she could only tell the dead.

"You know how I make everyone around me afraid of me?" She took a deep breath. "Well... I've started getting more powers. I can shoot out fire, electricity, ice... combinations of those... it's like I can do everything Dust can." She shook her head. "Okay, not everything. All I can do with this is... destroy things. And it's not reliable and exact and scientific and stuff like Dust is... it's wild." She sighed, fearing she was just babbling. She did that a lot. Years of isolation due to her Zone of Terror, and the fact that she preferred books to people most of the time, meant that she still wasn't very good at talking to others.

"Speaking of Dust... trying to use Dust with these powers doesn't do anything, so they're apparently not part of my Semblance. I don't know what they are. I want to believe that they mean something good, but... I can't help but think they're a sign of something darker. And I'm not sure what else might come in the future."

She stood silent for a minute or so, wrapping her cloak more tightly around herself to ward off the chill that was settling in. It only worked on the chill coming from outside of her. "Did you have something like this, Mom? Some special power you couldn't explain?" She smiled weakly. "I'd feel a lot better if this is a family trait or something. I'll have to ask dad or uncle Qrow about that." They knew Summer Rose better than anyone, of course. But there was a lot they never learned about her, like who her parents were, or much about her past. From what her family had told Ruby, Summer had just... showed up at Beacon one day, submitted her application, was gladly accepted, and proceeded to go through initiation like a natural, as though she'd been preparing her whole life for it. As though it was her destiny.

Well, Ruby believed it was her destiny to be a Huntress, too. Her Aura had awakened on its own when she was a child, so she'd had plenty of time to learn how to use it. She kept getting more and more powers, the kind that would be most useful in fighting. And her nightmares... oh, how her nightmares had changed her. Not always for the worse, however. They had taught her that there was no choice except to fight, and over five years, and hundreds of battles, she'd become quite the veteran. Yes, they were terrifying, and quite painful whenever she failed. But she'd endured. And she'd won, again and again.

She was actually really lucky, in a way. So many things had pushed her towards becoming a warrior... and she'd wanted to be a Huntress since she was a child. How many others had known what they wanted to be in life for so long? How many instead grew up to be something other than what they'd wanted to be, because they weren't skilled enough or weren't lucky enough, or simply lost interest? How many had to settle for something... lesser?

Well, not Ruby.

"...Maybe it doesn't matter where these powers come from." She drew a hand out from beneath her cloak, holding it in front of her. Sparks of red lightning danced from finger to finger as she drew out the bare minimum of power she could. Then, she let the sparks fade, and closed her hand into a fist. "I'll use them for good. I'll be a Huntress, and use these powers to destroy Grimm... and anything that would want to hurt people." She smiled. "I'll make you proud, Mom."

As if on cue, her scroll began to ring, startling her out of her moment of inspiration. She pulled it out from her cloak, checking the caller ID. It was Qrow.

"Oh... and I'll make Dad and uncle Qrow proud, too!" She said, not wanting to leave them out, of course. "Hold on, I should take this." She put the scroll to her ear, tucking it into her hood. "Hi, Qrow."

"Hey, kiddo," Qrow responded. "Where are you?" His tone wasn't accusatory, he just sounded as though he was trying to be his usual, laid-back self, but was too tired to do so. So, it wasn't urgent, but it was important.

"I'm at Mom's grave, I thought I'd... hang out there a little. Maybe hunt some Grimm, too."

"All right. I've someone here who'd like to meet you, once you get back home." He paused for a moment. "How're you holding up?" He knew Ruby rarely went to her mother's grave in a happy mood.

"I'm all right. It's just... a lot to take in, you know? But, I have a feeling that things will work out." She smiled. "I'll start heading back now, be home in a few."

"All right. Take care of yourself, Ruby."

Ruby hung up the call, then placed her scroll back onto her belt. She turned back to the gravestone. "I gotta go, Mom. This is probably about those powers I mentioned..." She gave a short wave. "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine." Then, she turned and walked away from the grave, into the falling snow.

I should have asked Qrow exactly who it was, she thought. Oh well. I'll find out soon enough. She walked slowly through the snow, in no hurry to get home. Not because she didn't want to go home, but... for a short while, the world was silent and peaceful, and she wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible. Plus, she was alone. Not just alone as in, "no one standing near her," alone as in "no one within a mile or more." She very much valued that kind of solitude.

And given the powers she kept developing... maybe it was best that she remained alone. An aura of fear that she couldn't suppress, and now powers of destruction that were proving difficult to control? Maybe being a Huntress wasn't the only thing meant for her. Maybe she was meant to be alone, too.

But as the snow stopped falling, and forest gave way to open field, her solitude ended. Not because of people, but because of Grimm. Waiting for her in the clearing was a gathering of Beowolves, their dark forms contrasting with the perfect white snow. There was no stealth to be had in the open ground, and the Grimm didn't even try to hide their existence from her. The silence was broken by snarls and howls.

Her Zone of Terror was keeping them at bay, but it wasn't enough to make them flee. Her powers could put fear even into creatures incapable of feeling that emotion... but there were ways to overcome fear, mostly strong emotions like anger. Or, in the case of Grimm, the instinct to kill. So instead, they waited, as more and more Beowolves gathered. Very soon, there would be enough of them that fear would no longer hold them back. After all, they were many, and she was one.

You know, having only Grimm for company isn't so bad, she thought, as the vanguard of the pack moved to strike, several Beowolves charging forward before leaping at her as one.

Because I can just kill them all.

She vanished in a storm of rose petals. The Beowolves staggered about, confused. Their quarry had vanished, but they couldn't see footprints in the snow, or smell a trail leading away.

So, they looked up.

For a long moment, Ruby seemed suspended in the air high above them, like a falcon observing its prey. Then, she brought out her prized weapon, Crescent Rose, and deployed it in rifle form. Her first shot obliterated the head of her target, and she felt a small rush of pleasure at the accomplishment. She landed, and as the Beowolves charged her once more, she leaped over the first one, somersaulting in midair and shooting it through the head mid-flip. She let the force propel her forward, straight towards another foe, before gutting it with another shot and rolling to the side. The next shot pushed her backwards and she tucked into a roll, her weapon unfurling into its scythe form.

The pack hesitated for only a moment, before one of them broke ranks and charged her. She swung her scythe overhead, the blade coming down in the crook of its head and shoulder, the haft forcing it to its knees. It turned its head and snarled at her, baring its teeth, it jaws only half a meter from her face. The moment stretched on, tension building in the both of them. A feral excitement grew in Ruby, the anticipation of the kill growing stronger and stronger. Finally, she smirked, and pulled a trigger on her weapon. Crescent Rose snapped towards her as she finished the swing, slicing the Beowolf in half.

Time slowed down as adrenaline rushed through her, along with satisfaction and pleasure. Oh yes, she enjoyed hunting Grimm after all. She savored it. Maybe it was because her nightmares were never like this. In them, she only ever felt fear, and the only pleasure she felt was relief if she triumphed. But here, in reality? This time, she was in control. Terror and panic was replaced with focus and clarity, her calm broken only by a little rush of pleasure with every kill. And they were the ones afraid.

Of course, fear didn't seem to do much to these Grimm. More Beowolves moved to attack, unfazed by the destruction of their kin. She planted her scythe in the ground, firing shots into the horde as they advanced. As the lead Beowolf reached her, she dodged its swipe with a short hop, and let the next shot propel her backwards. As she flew, she halted herself by digging her blade into the ground again, and let her momentum swung her around and up before landing with both feet on the haft, carefully balanced.

Was she showing off with this? Maybe. But there was another thing she loved about these fights – her bond with Crescent Rose, and how much it was an extension of her body and soul. Qrow had once given her advice on using her weapon – "It's not a tool, it's your dance partner." And she'd danced with Crescent Rose so many times in her nightmares, learning every intimate detail of its weight, its balance, how it reacted when she pushed or pulled on any part of it, finding out what it took to start, stop, and redirect its motion. Crescent Rose was raised in those nightmares, as Ruby painfully tested each and every version of it until it had finally taken its current form. Crescent Rose was the only one who knew just what Ruby went through, and they'd fought their way through hell over and over again. And if they could do all that in bad times, they could do even more in good times.

In a way, she wasn't alone at all.

And so, they danced. The Beowolves couldn't keep up with the pair, as Ruby twirled Crescent Rose around, rolled it like a lever with her body as a fulcrum, counterbalanced its weight with her own, and used the recoil from its shots or the force of its shifting mechanical parts to propel her. It took the lives of their enemies by blade or bullet, and preserved hers with its own body whenever claw or fang would have struck her.

But despite everything, they were still heavily outnumbered. And as Ruby blocked a swing that sent her flying backwards, she took stock of the enemies that remained. There was still a whole field of them, like a swarm of black ants on a sheet of paper. They advanced slowly, beginning to spread out and surround her. They were no longer willing to break ranks and rush ahead of their packmates, instead clustering together and advancing as a group, so that Ruby couldn't just take on a few of them at a time. She would have to fight them all at once.

She took a deep breath, and as she reloaded her weapon, she remembered the reason she had come out here: to try and come to terms with her powers. The nightmares had taught her not to rely on her Zone of Terror, for in those dreams her enemies seemed immune to fear. She could only rely on herself and Crescent Rose.

But this wasn't a nightmare, it was reality. And like it or not, she had a lot more power at her disposal, forces that were as much a part of her as her weapon was. It was time to get comfortable with them. And here, there was no one to worry about, no one to accidentally harm... and no one to be terrified of her when she didn't want them to be. It was just herself, Crescent Rose, and a horde of Beowolves. And she knew her scythe wouldn't judge.

She rested her weapon on her shoulder, freeing one hand which she held palm-up, and willed a ball of flame into existence above it. She focused her thoughts on destruction, on burning and killing the Grimm that surrounded her. The flame grew hotter, threatening to burn her, but she kept it under control, restraining its power so it didn't grow and touch her skin.

The Beowolves, heedless of the flame growing both inside and outside of Ruby, closed in on her. And as they lunged for the kill, a wave of flame erupted from Ruby, spreading out in a circle, melting the snow around her and lighting the nearest Grimm on fire. As they howled in fury, confusion, and pain, she stepped back, forming more flames in her hand before sweeping it in front of her, burning both the first wave of Grimm and igniting the next that had closed in. Then she dashed forward to meet the horde head-on, sweeping her scythe with one hand and launching another wave of fire with the other.

The pack began to falter, unprepared for the destruction unleashed upon them. Burning Grimm ran wildly about, hindering the rest of the pack as Ruby moved among them, sowing more chaos with fire and scythe. As she zigzagged through the pack and emerged on the other side, she switched tactics, calling ice to her mind and switching Crescent Rose to compact rifle mode. Spinning to face the horde, she aimed her weapon with one hand, firing precise shots while the other hand formed and launched fist-sized shards of ice, rapidly and randomly. A moment later, as one Beowolf dodged a shard and lunged for her, she switched her weapon back to scythe mode and reversed its grip, facing its edge away from her and catching the Beowolf in the stomach with the haft. She reached for its chest, pushing against it as she formed an intense cold in front of her hand, freezing it from the inside out. One pull of Crescent Rose's trigger, and the scythe snapped forward and around, shattering the frozen Beowolf and showering the next Grimm in frozen shards, blinding them while Ruby lunged for them and cut them apart.

As Ruby activated her speed Semblance, dashing from foe to foe and slicing each apart, she started to feel something else inside her. The destructive energy was draining from her, but losing none of its strength, her remaining power eager to be unleashed and claim more victims. She felt its impatience, its urge to kill growing within her, disrupting her focus like a waterfall suddenly crashing into a calm lake. It was no longer about fun, nor about fear. Ideals and noble dreams were distant abstractions. Emotions and feelings gave way to instinct, to a simple need to kill these Grimm, violently and completely.

And as she cut through the heart of the pack once more, she summoned up one last reserve of energy, gathering electricity within her, like a thundercloud charging before the strike. She moved past the remaining Grimm, then turned to face them, waiting just long enough for them to regroup, before reaching her hand forward and projecting a torrent of lightning bolts in front of her. She put all of her destructive impulses into it, turning the electricity crimson red as it thrashed about, seeking out and electrocuting the unfortunate Grimm.

Finally, she extinguished the energy and let her arm fall. Six Beowolves were left, having been far enough out of range of the lightning. The urge to kill remained, but she stood still, glaring at them as though she could kill them with looks alone.

Then, the Beowolf closest to her took a step back, then another. The resolve of the others quickly broke as well. The destruction of the rest of their pack by a single girl, combined with her Zone of Terror, finally made them turn and flee.

It was as though a switch had flipped inside Ruby. She grinned, because she could sense their fear, and she enjoyed it. She went from being a warrior to something else entirely, something far more feral. She was a predator, and these Grimm were no longer monsters in her eyes, or even combatants. They were her prey.

And the worst thing one could do when faced with a predator was to run from them.

She activated her Semblance once more, chasing after them, a wolf chasing scared deer. She caught up to each one and cut them apart, feeling a malicious euphoria with each kill, and when she closed on the last one-

-She saw a woman in a white cloak that fluttered in the wind and the snow. The woman turned to face her, and smiled at Ruby. Her silver eyes were warm, and kind-

-She suddenly thought of her mother, and remembered what she really was, what she truly wanted to be: A Huntress, not a predator. A protector, not a killer. Trying to shake herself out of her frenzy, she slammed Crescent Rose's blade into the ground behind her, digging a trail into the ground and bringing her to a stop. As she gasped for breath, she swung her weapon around in front of her, trying to calm herself as she took aim at the last Beowolf. Slowly, her hands stopped shaking, her breathing slowed down, and a small amount of calm returned to her. She took a deep breath, and pulled the trigger.

The battle ended as it began, with a shot to a Beowolf's head.

Ruby collapsed to her knees. Her heart was still pounding, and she felt every pulse of blood as it rushed through her head. She took deep breaths, trying to purge the negative feelings from her system.

Is this... normal? Am I supposed to be like this when killing Grimm?

She closed her eyes. The first part of the battle had been... quite euphoric, and she still wasn't sure why. She was fighting for her life, after all, and fighting to destroy monsters. That wasn't a time to be having fun, was it? ...Then again, Yang seemed to enjoy herself when she was fighting, so maybe that was just normal for fighting Grimm. She'd have to ask her father and uncle about it later.

But when she started using her powers? Then it became something else entirely. She'd only felt a simple drive to exterminate the Beowolves, as though they were a stain that had to be removed, a blight on her mind and soul that would not let her rest until they were dead, as though her entire purpose was to kill them.

...That's how Grimm feel towards humans, isn't it?

She really wasn't used to these feelings, this bloodlust. It certainly wasn't how she imagined fighting Grimm to be like. She thought it'd be like her nightmares, with her fearing for her life – or perhaps, for someone else's life. She didn't expect to do to Grimm what they would love to do to her.

Maybe that's not a bad thing. They're monsters, killers. They exist to destroy. It's only fair if I treat them the same way, right?

But what really troubled her was how she reacted when they ran. She'd felt pleasure again, but of a much more... malicious sort. It wasn't about saving herself or protecting others, it was just... pleasure from killing something that no longer posed a threat to her... and euphoria from seeing the effect she'd had on their minds.

But that really wasn't surprising. The truth was, she'd kept something secret about her Zone of Terror. When she made others feel fear, her own seemed to drain away. Not because she was channeling her fear into them, but because... seeing others in fear produced the opposite in her. Was that part of her Semblance too? Or was that just the kind of person she was?

Maybe it was all right to have fun when fighting Grimm, or to become obsessed with destroying them, if it meant protecting people. But to have both of those feelings while chasing fleeing Grimm? That was just about killing, and about enjoying others' suffering, others' fear.

And people were much more capable of feeling terror than Grimm were.

Ruby grimaced, squeezing her eyes shut as if doing so could blind her to the mental image of feeling the way she did, while hunting people.

But then, another image came to her mind. She thought of her sister, her father, her uncle – the people she most wanted to protect. She thought of her mother, a symbol of what she had lost, the way she felt when people died. And she thought about all the people in the world who might end up like her mother, if someone didn't protect them.

"I might be a ruthless killer when it comes to Grimm," She said, declaring her thoughts out loud to strengthen their meaning, with Crescent Rose and, perhaps, her mother as witnesses. "But I'll never be that way towards people. I'll always help them, no matter what. I might enjoy killing Grimm, but I enjoy helping people even more." She looked down at her beloved weapon, the one she hoped would be her partner on hunts for many years to come. "Besides, you'll stop me if it ever comes to that, right Rose?"

As usual, the scythe was silent. But the two of them had never needed words to communicate.

"And mom?" She looked back the way she had come. She couldn't see the cliffside grave, but she knew where it was by heart. "Thanks for looking out for me."

Somewhere above, a bird flew from its perch in the branches.

Author's Notes:

This is the first (but not the last) time in this fic that I engage in what I call novelization - writing out events that actually happen in canon. In this case, the Red trailer. I don't particularly like doing so, but this chapter was still fun to write. It did, of course, require a lot of watching, pausing, and re-watching the Red trailer however. I hope I did a good job.