"Whelp, your nose is definitely busted..."
"Oh reably?" Pyrrha's voice dribbled out past her swollen lips, her word's sarcasm almost visible in the air. After all this, her contempt for Mercury was still as clear as ever, even with the blood in her nose muddying her usual punctual and concise tone. Her mashed up face was covered in so much blood that it was hard to tell what the redhead was even thinking from her facial expressions, other than the broadest and clearest of emotions.
Pyrrha had given them all quite a scare. She'd only stumbled in a few moments earlier, her entire front soaked a ruddy red. Her sleeve, which she'd been using to try and stopper the blood leaking out of her broken nose, was caked in crusty red flakes. Pyrrha had nearly fallen on her already bloodied face again as she rushed into the entrance, startling the three men all gathered round in the room chatting pointlessly when she crashed through the door.
'...Startled is putting it lightly,' Mercury thought to himself. Pyrrha had been so messed up that when she walked in that Mercury thought a Stalker had somehow made it this far past their barriers. He'd almost jumped up and stabbed her right there, nearly ending both her life and probably his as well on a simple mistake. '
Luckily Jaune and Ren had both been a bit quicker on the uptake, although Jaune simply went white as a sheet at the sight of Pyrrha. That moment of shock lasted for a second, before the both started to rush towards her and were immediately shoved aside by Mercury. After he'd seen the lack of fear in their eyes, he caught on fast enough.
A few minutes had passed, and quite a lot had changed. A blanket had been spread out on the floor, and Mercury was now crouching down over his patient, with Pyrrha glaring up at him from the floor.
"Merbury, could you just go awa-"
"Stop talking, you're making the bones jiggle around more...," Mercury muttered, making the observations as Pyrrha's face still twitched and shifted under his fingers. He was rubbing up and down the bridge of Pyrrha's nose with his thumbs, hooking the rest of his fingers behind her head and holding her skull in place. Mercury had to keep her from jerking out of his aura's reach. "Also, stop being a baby, I'm dulling the pain! You'd be screaming bloody murder now that the adrenaline has worn off if I wasn't here!"
"Geb your hanbs away frob me, I'm fine enoubh as ihb is!"
"If your fine with looking like a half melted porcelain doll for the rest of your life, sure." Mercury wasn't exaggerating, and while he was trying not to show it, he couldn't help but find a tiny amount of contempt for Pyrrha's beaten face. After how she'd mercilessly tormented and pecked at him for the last few weeks, Mercury would be lying if he hadn't grown to loathe the second redhead in his life.
'Still...,' Mercury thought as he continued his work, 'this is too much. Nobody deserves this...'
Pyrrha's face was bad. The woman's nose was clearly broken, its bridge bent out of shape and angling up at her right eyebrow instead of pointing straight in-between her eyes. The break wasn't clean, and along with the thick red blood around the wound, Pyrrha's skin was turning a patchy mixture of molten purples and greens as blood leaked out under the skin as well as above it.
The rest of her once angular features weren't much cleaner. Past all her wincing and hissing, Pyrrha hadn't said anything more than that she'd gotten jumped when she and Nora started their way into town. That may have been true, but Mercury also had the feeling that somebody had taken out some pent up rage attacking her. Whoever she'd fought had clearly put some effort into stomping on her face with the hard edge of their boot. Pyrrha's upper lip was busted clean open, and the same was true for her right eyebrow. Pyrrha's eyes were both swollen, the right entirely sealed shut. And that was just what anyone could see on the surface. Mercury could feel the bones inside her face, crisscrossed and lined with spidery fractures.
'This was just cruel...,' Mercury thought to himself. 'I wouldn't even think of doing this to anyone... Even after all of her acting like... well… a bit of a bitch.'
Mercury didn't let his thoughts show though, and kept up his usual smiling bravado. "And you should drop the tough girl act. You got drop kicked to the face, and from the looks of things got stomped on a few times after that. I'm impressed enough that you didn't get knocked out cold instantly..."
"...Wheb goh ohher tings to worry abouh... We shoulb-"
"And where do you think Jaune went?" Holding Pyrrha's face in his hands, twisting it side to side as he watched the bones shift and do days worth of healing in the span of a few seconds, Mercury sighed: "Your husband didn't just run off the second he saw his beaten wife walk in the door for no good reason."
"And thabs why I shoulb geb going-"
Pyrrha stopped suddenly, hushed in surprise as Mercury grabbed the bridge of her nose between his thumb and forefinger. "Forewarning Pyrrha, this is going to hurt like a bitch."
"D-don'b you dare- ARGHHH!" Her threats ignored, Mercury quickly twisted the dislodged bone back into place without warning, hearing a loud, almost stony click as the cartilage shifted back into place. Hissing at the sudden and startling pain, Pyrrha nearly jerked her head out of his hands as she kicked out against the pain. Mercury had to lean forward to keep her with him as she scuttled back across the floor, and winced when her boot connected with his side.
"Don't Pyrrha, you'll want me here to keep you from feeling pain and screaming your head off."
"FBUCK YOU MERBURY!" Pyrrha, who was still trying to push herself out of Mercury's hands, angrily snapped: "I'd radder geb anobher beating bhan your helbp! Jaune shoulbn't be off on hibs own!"
Rolling his eyes, Mercury sighed while twisting Pyrrha's face to the right, so he could watch the more damaged eye socket reshape itself. "Believe me, the look on his face made it seem like the last thing he wanted to do was leave you with just me and Ren..."
'Speaking of...' At his mention of the other man, Mercury looked up from Pyrrha and over to the rooms other... silent inhabitant. Mercury didn't really know what to do about him. He'd just gotten back maybe two minutes before the beaten redhead, walking into the room with a light smile on his face. 'He's at least been civil... he asked me how I was doing when he got back. We'd only just started talking...'
Standing with his back to them, Ren was just leaning heavily against one of the room's pillars, with his shoulders slumped inward and his head pointed at the floor. Whether he was deep in his thoughts, or lost among them, Mercury couldn't tell. Ren hadn't said a single word. Since Jaune left fifteen minutes ago, the blonde roaring at everyone in the room to stay put as he stormed out, Ren hadn't moved an inch. He'd only listened to what Pyrrha had slurred out, with a mixture of horror and dread plastered across his usually bland face...
... Listen to the woman who'd left with a partner and stumbled back alone.
"Why are you still helping me?" While she asked, Pyrrha puckered her lips and raise her eyebrows, stretching the new scar tissue and absentmindedly noting how much stiffer the shiny pink skin felt. "My face is fine."
Suddenly Weiss peered in over Mercury's shoulder, leaning down so that she could get a good look at the injured woman on the floor. Her straight edged snow white hair hung down low and tickled Mercury's ear as she spoke, the strands bobbing up and down in the air. "Actually, she's right. You did a really good job..."
Turning the redhead's head back and forth a few times, feeling Pyrrha resist him as he did so, Mercury couldn't shake the feeling in his gut. Her nose was fine, except for a bit swollen and red across the bridge. And other than the shiny new patches of glistening pink scar on her face from the healed slices, Pyrrha was only a bit redder in the face than usual. Really, the two were right, she was totally fine. But he still wasn't sure...
"Weiss," Mercury muttered, "I know that Pyrrha looks fine. But does she look like Pyrrha?"
"...Wait what?" Weiss looked at back at the girl on the floor, who was looking back up at the two kneeling above her, obviously just as puzzled as the blonde was. "Yes, I'd say she did. I don't believe in doppelgangers, so unless you're getting superstitious on me, she looks fine."
Mercury just shook his head at the blonde. She hadn't understood what he meant.
Faces were tricky. And from all the ones he'd messed up on in the past, Mercury also remembered that along with just being difficult to fix, they were also agonizingly easy to screw up. A face was composed of so many thin interlocking plates, always individual and unique, that the bones were oh so easy to misplace. If he'd consciously made changes and healed the bones, Mercury could have fully healed Pyrrha in under an hour. But while doing that, he risked changing how Pyrrha looked, how the bones sat and rested under her skin. So he let the healing take its natural course. It's agonizingly slow, dreadfully tedious course.
Still, he had to stop, sooner rather than later before things could go bad. "Ughhhh...Alright then... Pyrrha," Mercury began, looking the redhead in the eye. "Just to let you know, when I dull pain, I keep your nerves from talking to the damaged areas. So... this is going to hurt like a bitch when I pull back. Your body is going to think it just got injured again, and then it'll try to warn you of the pain all over again. Pressure will help a bit, but other than that you're just gonna have to deal with it for the few minutes.
"Mercury, I'm not a wuss, I'll be-"
But before Pyrrha could say "fine", Mercury pulled his hands away from her face and broke contact with her skin. A couple of ovals of silver remained for a few seconds on Pyrrha's face before they too faded off entirely.
"See Mercury," Pyrrha began, sitting up straight so that she was on level with Mercury again. "I told you I'd be fi-" she began, before the redhead swooned as though she'd been punched in the gut, and nearly fell back to the ground again. Pyrrha's hands shot up to her face, and a low groan escaped her lips as the pain her healer had been describing finally arrived. Groaning in agony, Pyrrha rocked back and forth on her back before rolling over and pressing her face into the smooth marble floor below her, trying to crush the pain out of her aching cheeks.
Weiss's eyes widened at the old champion's sudden reaction to the pain. "Are you sure she'll be...?"
Mercury didn't catch Weiss's hanging question though, he just sat crouched next to his writhing patient. He was staring at his hands, still half held out towards Pyrrha. Almost wistful, as though he still wanted to help her. Weiss swatted him with the back of her hand at his arm, getting his attention. Pointing to the woman on the floor, Weiss again asked: "Are you sure that she's fine? That looks pretty extreme."
Mercury stared at Weiss dully, his mind having a hard time wrapping itself around her words. He looked down at his hands again, flexed them once or twice, and then shoved them into his jacket pockets. "She'll be fine, it'll ease up in a few minutes... she'd be better if we had a Tylenol or something around here, but we don't, sooooooo..."
"Hmph, alright then," Weiss mumbled, her eyes flicking off to the left as they spoke to each other. Mercury followed her eyes, and began watching what the blonde was already looking at. It was probably the most important thing going on in this room. Mercury didn't understand why Weiss wasn't with them. If he hadn't been tending to Pyrrha, he certainly would have.
"I'm not getting involved," Weiss stated, landing right on the money with guessing Mercury's thoughts. "They're the three who'll be making the call anyway. They all speak for somebody here."
Mercury looked up, and he could agree with what Weiss said. In a hushed circle on the other side of the hall Ren, Jaune and Ruby were all huddled together, in a silent shouting match on what the night's next move should be. Even though she couldn't hear what they were saying, Weiss could tell enough from their individual facial expressions. As they circled around, snapping and snipping insults, it was clear to see that both Ruby and Ren were looking for blood. Jaune seemed more hesitant, more reserved and tense than the other two.
It seemed like Jaune was losing his side of the fight.
"What do you think they could be arguing about?" Weiss looked back at Mercury, wondering what could be holding them up. "Seems like an easy open and shut decision to me." It shouldn't have been going on for the past ten minutes, since Ruby and Weiss had gotten back.
A quivering voice came from between Mercury and Weiss, muffled downward into the floor. "Jaune probably wanted to solve this diplomatically, try to keep more of us from getting hurt or killed... and I'm guessing Ren wants to go rip apart whoever has Nora."
Weiss turned to Mercury, and commented dryly: "Three guesses where Ruby lies on the spectrum?"
Mercury cracking a joke without a shred of humor in his voice, answered: "Oh… I bet she wants to go take them daises and violets. Leave them a nice note with hearts for i's… hide a pipe bomb in the bottom of the flower basket…"
Before Weiss could get the chance to agree, a sudden, furious shriek from the other side of the room made the three of them jump. Pyrrha rocked back on her knees before she banged her head back into the ground a half second later, groaning again from another impact.
"I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS! FUCKING GROW A SET!" Whirling away from the circle, Ruby stalked back to Weiss, Mercury, and Pyrrha, Ren following close behind her. They both looked livid, Ren in particular looking more animated than Weiss had ever seen him. Standing in front of the trio on the floor, Ruby looked down on Mercury and asked in a harsh voice: "We are going to get Nora. You coming?"
Before Mercury could answer, Jaune rushed forward and started pleading with the two who'd totally dismissed him. "I want to get her back too! And we will! But going in looking to blow off faces isn't the way to do this! We can't just-"
"THIS IS EXACTLY THE TIME TO BLOW FACES OFF!" Screaming, leaning up on her toes and getting in Jaune's face, Ruby pointed down at the tall woman still on the floor. "LOOK AT WHAT THEY DID TO PYRRHA! TO YOUR OWN WIFE! HOW THE HELL CAN YOU EVEN THINK OF BEING CALM AT A TIME LIKE THIS! THEY DID ALL THAT TO HER, AND SHE WAS LUCKY ENOUGH TO GET WAY! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK IS HAPPENING TO NORA?! DO YOU THINK THEY'RE JUST GIVING HER KNITTING LESSONS?!"
Jaune took a few unconscious steps back, his extra foot of height meaning nothing in comparison to Ruby. Right now, next to her, he was tiny. Especially while everyone could see the redhead was viewing the world through a spectrum of bloody crimson.
"I ran straight to the town, right to where everything happened and I saw what's going on." Jaune tried pleading, getting her to understand. "Us going in looking for-"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Turning away from Jaune, disregarding the coward completely, Ruby turned back to Mercury. "Are you going to come help us?"
Mercury chased his own problems out of his head. He'd share his concerns with Ruby later. "Course I'm coming."
Ruby nodded her head at Mercury, not showing her relief that she could count on him to be there. Turning away and walking to a small table near the hall's main entrance, the redhead Ruby reached out and snatched her knife and Weiss's pistol off the counter top angrily.
A groan came from the floor, and Pyrrha looked up from the marble flooring, lowering her palms from her face. Her eyes were watery and closed to near slits. "…I'm coming too."
The only response throughout the entire room was a simple grunt from Ruby. Standing with her back towards everyone, she'd taken the clip out of Weiss's pistol and was counting the bullets inside. Apparently she was satisfied, because after she finished counting Ruby slapped the cartridge back into the gun's handle, cocking the slider back quickly and then aiming at an imaginary enemy in front of her.
Jaune stood there silently, feeling helpless as he saw everyone preparing to go to war. Even Pyrrha was off the floor, his wife gingerly swinging her rifle over her shoulder and wincing every time she tilted her head. "Pyrrha, this isn't the right way, we have to think before we just go rushing in. What if this goes wrong and even more of us get hurt... I, I've never seen you as badly injured..."
She stood silently for a moment, listening to what he had to say. "Jaune... the time for planning has passed." Pyrrha turned towards him, and she didn't look angry or happy in saying this. She looked like nothing really. "Nora's family. And for family, we put aside logic... we don't think about casualties when it comes to us as a whole. You don't think about saving just the head of a person in a car accident, you just pull them entirely out of the wreck and just hope they'll be okay. We put everything on the line for one person." Pyrrha stepped up and stood next to Jaune, reaching for and taking his hand. "Don't make me tell you things you already told me..."
His shoulders sagging, Jaune looked down at Pyrrha, not even hiding the look of dread on his face. "Alright, fine. Let's go and-"
"Shut it Arc," Ruby snapped from across the room, unable to hold her tongue any longer. "You don't get to sound all heroic now, after you suggested we 'be passive'." She didn't even feel bad as she saw Jaune deflate, slumping in on himself. Maybe he'd lived this long because he was careful... but family should always come before preservation.
'I wonder,' Ruby thought, 'would I have thought all this a few months ago too? Probably not... Twenty-twenty hindsight I guess... it's easy to see how dark you were when you've made it out of the shadows for the most part...'
Weiss had watched all that unfold, and in truth she wasn't sure how to take it. Shaking her head, already knowing there'd be trouble to deal with because of this night in the future, Weiss crossed the room. Weaving around them all, Weiss slinked around the sulking Jaune, past a stone still Ren, a jittery Pyrrha, and obviously gloomy Mercury on her way across the room to Ruby.
'Maybe that's how they all deal with nerves,' Weiss wondered to herself, noticing as she walked passed each individual the short distance to Ruby. Ruby's back was to her, and even under the redhead's thin royal red jacket, Weiss could see her partner's shoulders raised in tension.
As she came up to Ruby, Weiss decided to throw caution to the wind. She reached up to Ruby, and rested a hand on the redhead's shoulder. Ruby stiffened briefly, before she let her shoulders relax under the blondes pale palm. "So... are you okay?"
"Mm-hm," was Ruby's short reply. Weiss couldn't tell if Ruby was being rude, or if her nerves were getting in the way of talking.
"That's not a reply…," Weiss muttered, trying to gauge the woman if front of her, who seemed lost in thought.
Ruby straightened a bit, to the point where resting her hand on the redhead's shoulder wasn't comfortable for Weiss, although she still kept speaking forward. "…I'm… I'm sorry, what did you say?"
"Nothing, nothing," the blonde sighed, shaking her head at her scatterbrained partner. "So... could I have my gun?" Weiss held out her hand, reaching for the silver and black military grade pistol in Ruby's hands.
Ruby turned towards Weiss, squaring her shoulders as she faced the blonde. Instead of handing Weiss back the pistol, Ruby clipped the blonde's holster to her belt, and shoved the gun into the plastic sling now hanging off her hip. Ruby tried to hide it, but Weiss could obviously see how uncomfortable the redhead was as she gingerly rested her hand on the pistol's solid wooden grip. Other than knives, Ruby had never liked a weapon she couldn't hold with two hands.
"You aren't coming." Ruby's eyes were flinty as she looked at Weiss, waiting for an answer.
Really, Weiss wasn't surprised by what the redhead was saying. She'd been expecting something like this. "Are we seriously going to-?"
"That's final, we aren't arguing about this." Ruby turned away from Weiss, towards the rest of the room, and said something that did surprise Weiss. "And Ren, you aren't either."
Across the room, Ren simply raised his head, coming out of his own thoughts and stared at Ruby coldly. He didn't have to say anything, or show any of it either. Everyone in the room knew exactly what he was thinking.
"Ruby, why would you-" Weiss started asking, before she was silence by a flick of the wrist by the redhead. Ruby felt colder, right now. More so than she had for the past few months. And when she spoke, what she said didn't come out as a conversation or an opinion.
Her words came out as orders.
"Ren, as much as I hate to sit you out, you'll probably make a bad call and do something stupid while we're getting Nora back tonight. I need clear heads, and you'll muddy things up."
Ruby turned to Weiss, and looking at the blonde, Weiss could actually see a small spark of sadness in the liquid mercury of Ruby's eyes. "I'm the group's best fighter, and I'll the one who'll make the most difference tonight. With you there, I'd be no more than a hypocrite for making Ren stay behind."
Standing around the halls entrance, a half dozen eyes watched Ruby's speech. Everyone else had already finished their prep, although from the looks on Pyrrha and Jaune's faces it was clear as day that they disagreed with Ruby's call. Mercury just stood back and watched all this unfold, only half paying attention to what was going on.
"Well, no point in stalling any longer... We're all ready anyways," Ruby muttered, counting the three ex-huntsmen that'd be joining her. Ruby couldn't help but smirk as she counted them. Walking into the city with these three at her sides, even sitting Weiss and Ren out, Ruby felt like she was over armed. Everyone one of them was a trained killer, just as dangerously equipped as she was, with the same training and skills to get this job done.
Turning away, the redhead reached out passed Weiss and wrapped her fingers around the edge of the hall's open door. "We're getting Nora back tonight Ren... and I promise we'll all be coming back tonight Weiss." She then swung the door open, and walked out into the cold night air, not waiting for the rest to follow her.
The walk between Beacon Academy and the outskirts of Beacon proper was maybe ten minutes at most. Already they'd passed a few beggars or random street walkers, and kept moving past them without taking the time to talk. They'd wasted enough of the precious resource. Already, what they spent was more than enough for everyone to steel themselves for what was coming ahead.
The entire group followed behind Ruby. Which the redhead couldn't help but think was particularly odd...
'It's not like I have any idea where I'm going,' the redhead mused, her melancholy still tainted with some anger. Ruby had noticed that her still seething rage, which was directed at a certain individual lagging behind them all at the back of the group, was causing her posture to go bad. As she led, Ruby slouched forward, almost as though the hateful thoughts in her brain were dragging her down.
Ruby suddenly jumped when a hand fell on her shoulder. A half second later, she relaxed. It wasn't Pyrrha, as the hand was obviously male. And Ruby knew she would have noticed Jaune slink forward. Which meant it could have only belonged to...
"You need to cool off a bit." Mercury's words were biting, wasting no time on pleasantries with the already fuming redhead.
She didn't slow down or turn to face him. Only raise her voice so that he could hear her voice in the dark night air. "Oh really? And why would I need to do that?"
Cocking a thumb back, Mercury hissed: "You shouldn't treat Jaune the way you just did back there."
"What?!" Ruby jerked her shoulder away, stepping forward a few extra stride and out of Mercury's reach. "You aren't going soft on me, are you? You of all people should sympathize with me treating him like a coward, especially after how they've been treating you for the past few weeks!"
Mercury could almost feel both Pyrrha and Jaune's eyes switch from Ruby to him. And he didn't care what they thought at that particular moment. Probably some sappy form of regret right about now...
"What I would do doesn't matter. But fact is, you're better than me... you shouldn't stoop to their levels..."
"They would let Nor-"
"No they wouldn't," Mercury interjected, cutting off Ruby mid-sentence. "They were going to get Nora. They just wanted to play this a bit more on the careful side than we ever would have."
Ruby stiffened indignantly, her pace picking up unconscious. "So that makes them co-"
"It makes them careful, and that maybe what we need right now. I can remember a good three or four times back in our glory days where we would have all died on a training mission if we'd have listened to you and gone into the fray guns blazing. But we listened to Jaune, and more often than not, things turned out for the better..."
"That was when we were kids! Those rules don't apply anymore." Even though Ruby hissed those thoughts out, she could start to see Mercury's viewpoint as well.
Mercury sighed. "That's neither here nor there...just remember that your way isn't automatically the best way."
"Hmph." Ruby thought about it, her thoughts still whirling around in an angry storm of violent images and plans. But now there was a calm at the center, and Ruby listen do what Mercury said, for the most part.
"Jaune," Ruby asked without looking back, trying to sound more level, "where are we going?"
"The old crystal shop, 'Dust til Dawn'... that's where Pyrrha got attacked, that's probably where Nora would be." While Ruby couldn't see him, from just his voice Ruby could hear his relief at Ruby's dissipating anger.
"Alright then," Ruby huffed, turning down a long alley, remembering this part of the city clear enough. They weren't that far off. They'd probably be able to close the distance between them and the shop in less than five minutes.
"So... why didn't you let Weiss come?" Mercury's voice, even though it was hushed so that the odd beggar they passed on their way through the alleys wouldn't hear, echoed his skepticism clearly enough. "I mean, Ren I get, even if I personally thought the call was a bit stupid. But Weiss?" Mercury shook his head, and muttered: "What you said was total bullshit though."
Ruby thought about denying it. But she knew she wouldn't be convincing enough to fool Mercury. "Because," Ruby began, already feeling everyone one of the three following behind her listen in intently on her words. "Because I'm bringing Nora back tonight. If Weiss was here, I'd end up holding back..."
"Why wouldn't you...?"
The redhead leading their procession stopped for a second, one foot stuck hanging in the air. She looked back at the three following behind her, a sudden gap in the clouds above let the moonlight hit her face perfectly.
Mercury saw her eyes, and instantly regretted not siding with Jaune earlier. Not making Ruby sit all this out, or at least take a back seat to tonight's violence. He knew that this wasn't the right move. Jaune stiffened and stalled at the look on Ruby's face, and Pyrrha even took an unconscious step back.
Because Ruby's eyes had changed back to someone else's. They were hard, dark, and filled with unveiled, cold, murderous intent...
...They looked just like they had when Mercury first picked Ruby up off the ground, when Ruby first came too in that dark cave months ago.
"I'm bringing Nora back tonight," Ruby repeated. "No matter how many steps back I have to take, as long as I can keep Weiss from seeing them… well, they never really happened then."
Mercury didn't want to admit it, but he was legitimately afraid of the look in Ruby's eyes. He'd wholeheartedly believed that this Ruby had been left behind, abandoned dead somewhere to shrivel and die from neglect. "So... were you ever any better?"
"Course I was," Ruby snapped. "I was better, and I'll put myself back together and be better than I was today tomorrow." Sneering, the redhead circled a finger around her face. "I can take all this and lock it in a box, bury it deep, try to forget it... but I'll never be able to destroy it. I've come to terms to the fact that it'll always be festering away somewhere in me. Since it'll always be here, I might as well use it when I need my shadow."
"Why would you..." Pyrrha began to ask, looking visibly shaken. For even with her vocabulary, the look on Ruby's face was hard to describe. It was like the look of a madman... of a murderous psychopath, who wouldn't think twice about gutting someone that waked across their path during any old visit to town. The expression shouldn't belong to Ruby. The girl who was at one time the sweetest person she'd ever known.
"None of you ever believed us... and by the way, I'm glad you never did, you have no idea how amazing it was to see people who thought that I wasn't that bad... that I couldn't be evil." Ruby ran a hand through her hair, thinking for a moment on how to put this. As she turned away, looking forwards towards their destination, the wording Ruby was looking for hit her. "I'm trying hard to be more pure, more sincere. More like the old me... but tonight, while Nora needs help, she doesn't need that. She'll need blighted me. She'll… she'll need this," Ruby ended, gesturing with a free hand to her whole form.
"We, we don't need...," Jaune trailed off, at a loss for words.
"Let's just get Nora. And after that, do all your best to forget tonight. I will be..." Ruby started walking forward again, mumbling forward as she walked. If her words hadn't echoed off the smooth alley walls, everyone else would have missed them.
"Because unless Nora's handed over without a scratch carrying back a basket of roses in the crook of her arm... my hands'll be soaked in so much red before this is over..."
"Ren," Weiss called, also reaching out with an arm to the lanky man still leaning against the room's central pillar looking forlorn.
She ended up resting her hand on his shoulder and calling his name twice, before Weiss was able to finally break through the shell of Ren's thoughts.
"...Hmm?"
Weiss held out another hand, and put a pair of silver sheers into his hands. "Pyrrha said you were the one who cuts her hair right?"
Ren looked down, drawn out of his thoughts with this new confusion. "Where did you-"
"Drawer over in the corner," Weiss answered, trying her best to occupy Ren's attention. "So you cut Pyrrha's hair?"
"Uh... yeah, I d-" he tried saying, before Weiss cut him off again.
"Good, because I'm getting split ends and Ruby does a terrible job with styling hair." Weiss grabbed Ren by the wrist, and was already leading him to a stool across the hall and next to the fireplace. As she walked, Weiss reached back with her free hand and pulled the black band out of her hair, her held back ponytail opening up and splaying out across her back Hoping up onto the wooden seat, Weiss turned her back to Ren, leaving him looming over her shoulders and her pure white locks.
"Are you sure right now is-"
"Now is the perfect time for a haircut!" Weiss winced at her voice, coming out much louder than she had meant for it to.
For a few seconds, Ren stood there silently, brooding over Weiss. But in the end he sighed loudly, and pinched a finger around a smaller lock of hair and felt it out all the way to the end.
"And how long did you want it?"
"How long is it now?"
She felt Ren's fingertips trail all the way down Weiss's spin, not even noticing her shiver from his cold hands."…Around the top of the small of you back."
"So... shoulder blades then?"
Ren didn't say anything, although Weiss heard the sound of metal on metal as the man behind her snipped off a strand of hair.
Weiss winced as she imagined her long locks getting sliced off. Really, Weiss wouldn't ever take more than an inch off her iconic ponytail at a time. She'd kept her hair around the same length since she was fourteen. But as much as it pained her to lose the good six inches of straight hair, Weiss didn't want Ren, her friend, brooding over what must have been on his mind even more.
Standing around quietly, a back alley and two side streets away from Dust til Dawn, Ruby, Pyrrha and Mercury were silently waiting. Ruby had decided to humor Jaune, even though she was sure it wouldn't work. But he wanted to try and play peacekeeper... so Ruby took Mercury's earlier advice and let him.
And she wasn't surprised in the slightest when less than ten minutes after he left, they heard a tall figure work their way through the litter crowded back street back to them.
"Didn't work?" Ruby raised an eyebrow, watching as the figure who must have been Jaune approached them. There wasn't' much light in this alley, especially with the clouds overhead blocking up the fragments of moon, and all any of them could see were rough black outlines around the shapes of the other three. Still, the way he stumbled over every single piece of garbage in the small distance he had to cross left Ruby almost certain it was the lanky man.
"No, you were right, civil didn't work...," Jaune sighed, wringing his hands angrily as he walked towards them. "I offered the guy almost three weeks worth of ration tickets just to tell me if Nora was down there... guy waved in my face five weeks easy."
Just as he was almost a part of the circle, Jaune actually did trip over something, and fell towards the rough cracked cement alley floor. Landing with his hands underneath him, he broke his fall and protected his face. Although when he sat up, he hissed and held his hands out to the open air. While Ruby couldn't tell, it sounded like he'd skinned his hands pretty badly.
"Auhhh...," Jaune hissed, still staying quiet and keep the groups meeting secret from anyone who might have been nearby. On the ground, they could hear him blow on the torn up skin a few times, before he turned to look at the tallest figure in the lack of light. "Hey Mercury, would you mind..."
"Don't be such a baby," Mercury hissed. Crossing his arms, he made his position clear enough.
"So...," Ruby hummed, leaving her question in the air unasked, wondering in the back of her mind why Mercury sounded so crabby. Although, they were about to go into what would probably be a pretty heavy gunfight, so she realized that her being relaxed was actually more out of place.
Jaune sighed again, pushing himself off the ground and taking a spot standing next to his wife. "We are getting her back..."
Ruby nodded, although instead of pulling out a knife and getting ready for a fight like everybody else expected, the redhead started messing with the way her long locks hung instead.
"Ruby, um...," Mercury muttered, "I don't think that now is the time to redo you hair style."
The redhead continued running her hands through her hair though, pulling the locks in random, odd directions, forcing the strands of hair to stick up as though she'd spent a few rough nights sleeping out on the streets. "I mean, I still want to talk to him first... just in my way instead..."
"What make you think that they'll talk to you? All the guards seemed pretty hard core..." Jaune's conversation the light had been better out in the open, but even there, not by much. All he could tell was that even he, with his tall six foot six build, was dwarfed by the three walking walls out in front of the shop.
"Nah... They'll talk to me..." Unbuttoning her jacket so that it hung open, Ruby had started tugging at her clothes a bit, almost as though she was trying to get them to hang looser than they already did.
Pointing at Ruby's undershirt, her V-neck low to the point where they could see a clear and deep dip in her chest, more than enough to give any guy a nose bleed, Mercury coughed awkwardly and asked: "And why are you...?"
"Pyrrha," Ruby asked, ignoring Mercury and turning towards the woman. "Alright, I walk up to you and say I've been sleeping on the streets for weeks and I'm desperate. How bad do I look, one to ten?"
"Uh, well, with your hair and clothes like that..." Pyrrha muttered, not even questioning the redhead, already taking in the silhouette of the woman in front of her up and down. "...eightish...?"
Ruby nodded, and began walking out towards the same alley entrance that Jaune had slinked back to them through only a few moments before without waiting for another word. "Do me a favor guys and move down the hall a bit, so that you all aren't sticking out like a bunch of sore thumbs..."
The rest of the group had done as Ruby had said, and were standing around silently waiting for the redhead's return.
"We should-" Jaune began, stepping away from the wall he'd been leaning against. He only got the chance to lean forward a bit before Mercury, who was standing next to him, put his own arm out and pressed the blonde back into the wall.
"Shhhhh, give it a rest. Ruby told us to hide, I'm sure she didn't just run off and leave us hanging for a smoke and a drink," Mercury hummed, imagining Ruby off in some bar surrounded by wispy trails of smoke, throwing darts at a cork board. Somewhere out of his memories, he vaguely remembered her teetering and spilling brown liquor all over the floor of his favorite bar out a glass of whisky, laughing loudly on the day they became seniors. Her childish laughter only punctuated by drunken hiccups.
Just as Mercury finished that thought, remembering that day with a slight smile on his face, the entire group went silent as they heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Which was the part that threw every one of them off. Even after all these years, every one of them still had the polished senses of their training, and they could easily pick out the sounds of two clicking boots making their way down the hall.
Weirdest of all, they all heard a tittering laugh from down the alley. It took them a few seconds to realize it was Ruby's, although the high and shallow giggles sounded nothing like the redhead they knew.
Mercury stood there, staring across the alley at Jaune, his jaw moving as he tried to say something. Although he wasn't sure what he'd question first. The three of them wheeled around the corner as they heard the two sets of steps approaching. And they were all surprised by what they saw.
Down the dark alley, already almost totally black in the night air, were two figures. Although the moon cast enough glinting light that they could see the redhead's locks almost glow in the dim twilight, they couldn't see much else besides that. Standing right next to her was a hulking, massive figure, closer to seven feet tall than six. And even in the poor light they could see that Ruby was hanging off his arm, almost as though she was a prom date.
"Alrightly sweetheart, deals a deal. I'll ju-," the tall man, who'd been walking forward with his arm hooked out slightly for Ruby to hold onto, stuttered off suddenly. As he saw the three shadows step out from all the way down the hall, his dark, lumbering mass came to an abrupt halt. "Hey, you said we'd be going somewhere pri-!"
He didn't get any farther, when the girl hanging off his arm suddenly brought her boot up and then let it shoot out, straight at the middle of his leg. With the impact his knee bowed back, and as he lurched to the side he got about halfway through of a shriek of pain before the redhead grabbed a tuft of hair on the back of his head and swung his face into a wall. The sudden shock ended his yelling, and as his cry died in his throat, Ruby let go of him and let him fall to the floor.
"Quiet," Ruby growled pointlessly at the dead silent figure on the ground, wherever that sweetness had come from in her voice disappearing again.
'He must be smart enough, he's keeping himself from making too much noise'. If he hadn't kept quiet, Ruby knew herself enough to know that she would have probably cut her losses right there... and his throat too.
Still, he rolled over so that he was facing her, and glared death at the redhead over him. "You're a fucking psycho, bitch! You have no idea who you're messing wi-"
With the click of a button and a flick of the wrist, his threat was ended short as Ruby's dagger extended, and the point resting against the taught, thick skin of his throat. "Spare me the lecture, I'm sure you're tough and mean enough in your closed off little kiddy pool." Ruby leaned in then, her eyes wide and showcasing a bit of the night's unveiled madness. "But you aren't even a bench warmer in my league. And believe me when I say I'd have no problem gutting you right here. That is, if you didn't have something I wanted..."
"A-a-alright, alright, I'll give you the five damn ration tickets, I'll just leave and totally forge-"
"Quiet!" Ruby leaned in closer, the cold steel of her knife pressed up against his Adam's apple. "Sorry for you, but I'm not some slut..."
Whether Ruby planed it or not, her point was only made further as she pressed the knife against his throat, and a small trickle of blood trailed down from where the blade rested against his skin.
"My colleagues and I need to know a few things. Make yourself useful to me... or I have no reason not to...," Ruby muttered, making her meaning more than clear enough as she slowly drifted her knife across his skin, causing more crimson ooze to tumble down his throat and pool at the neckline of his shirt.
'Maybe that smart comment wasn't warranted,' Ruby thought to herself as she looked into her victim' s eyes. She could feel the others creeping up around her as she stared the man down. And while she did that, she didn't see even the tiniest hint of compliance in his eyes. No... the way his eyes were darting around, it was clear he thought he had some kind of chance, and was looking for a way out of all this...
His eyes flicked up over the redheads shoulder, and he looked at the three figures standing behind Ruby. And as he quickly took in each one, he suddenly got hung up on the tall, willowy figure standing over the redhead's right shoulder. A cloud had passed momentarily, and had shone a bit of moonlight down on the entire alleyway.
"You!"
Ruby watched him, noticing the weird mixture of fear and wonder spread across his face. "What, why ar-," Ruby started interrogating, before she heard a sudden stifled breath a half second after his outburst that answered her question. "Pyrrha, is he...?"
"Yes," Pyrrha answered, her voice strained and sounding somewhere between a whisper and a hiss. Even though Ruby couldn't see the redhead, she could imagine the warrior's raised shoulders and writhing fingers locked at her sides, just dying to strangle him.
"Hmph! Well then," Ruby started, pulling her knife away from his throat unexpectedly. The man on the ground looked up startled, until he saw the redhead's face above him, illuminated by a sudden gap in the clouds above that lit the alleyway brightly. He saw the twisted, maddened gleeful look on the redhead's face as she glared down at him.
"I won't have a reason to feel bad for this then!"
Before the man could even look scared, the bottom of Ruby's foot smashed into his face. Everyone heard the sound of his nose crunch under the tread of her heel.
Their interrogation had begun.
As Weiss sat on her barstool, she listened to the soft 'shink' noise of her hair getting shorter and shorter.
"You said you wanted it to the bottom of your shoulder blades?" Weiss could feel Ren pick out a small strand of hair, pulling on the white lock and seeing how long it ran. She felt his fingers slide off at the center of her back, in the small hollow between where the tips of her shoulder blades rested.
"Yeah...," she sighed, listening to the stress in the voice behind her. Weiss knew she didn't want it there. "You know, she will be okay..."
Ren didn't respond, although in the cold, quiet room his strained heart beat was more than loud to fill the silence. Weiss thought it was going to stay that way, until he did actually speak.
"Did... did you know we all voted once?"
Weiss perked up at that, although she kept her head level so Ren didn't slice off more hair and have to raise his cuts higher. "On what?"
A few more snips past, while Ren thought. After a long enough gap, he sighed and mumbled: "On letting you all stay..."
"Oh! I...I thought you all wanted us here." Weiss tried to hide her surprise, but it probably bled through. The way Ren had parted her hair, he could probably see the muscles in her neck tense up.
"We did." A few more shinks of metal passed. "But out on that road... well, after she fell we didn't really have time to talk..."
"Oh... Ruby." Weiss could understand a bit now.
"I thought she was just being surly because she smashed her head that first day." Ren stopped for a second, although Weiss couldn't tell if he was putting his scissors down or just checked his work. "But after a few days, we realized Ruby wasn't the old innocent sweetheart we'd been expecting anymore."
"Was she really that… intimidating?"
"Most of the time? No, she's just a bit surlier than in the past." Ren started cutting again, taking a few tiny snippets off the left side. "But every once in a while, I'd catch this... this glint in her eyes. I'll be honest, it freaked me out..."
"So," Weiss asked, squirming slightly in the chair, "you all called a vote?"
"Just me actually." Ren checked the length again on both sides, tugging lightly on the tips of Weiss's longest locks in the back. "We voted, a vote saying we wanted that person around. Four out of four for you. Three out of four for Ruby. And once Ruby was in, I saw no point to vote against Mercury, so it was only Pyrrha on that boat."
"So you actually wanted..." Weiss didn't know what to do with this knowledge. Or how to take it...
"I was worried about Nora... I, I was a bit... blinded, I'd say." Ren sighed heavily, and Weiss could almost hear how heavy his thoughts were on his mind. "I was wrong. Ruby is good. And no matter what happens, the second she walks through that door I'm going to apologize for my being wrong."
Weiss actually snorted at the thought. "You'll have to explain what for..."
Ren didn't say anything. Weiss just heard a few more 'shinks' behind her as he continued cutting.
Only a couple of minutes later, and they already had everything they needed. They knew Nora was inside. They knew she was locked in an old cellar with a half dozen other random women, and that the only key was on one of the storehouse's nine guards.
Ruby twisted her wrist, snapping it to the side sharply and scattered the specks of blood clinging to her knuckles across the alley floor. Without a shred of guilt, although Ruby knew she'd eventually feel it later, the redhead looked down on her handiwork...
They'd learned all that from the man propped up against the wall. Who was now in tears, cradling his mashed and broken face in his good hand, his other hanging at his side shattered. He hadn't had the chance to swell up yet, but he'd probably look like Pyrrha had in a few hours.
If they let him live that long.
"An eye for an eye..." Ruby began, sneering down at the groveling man below her. "I'd say you had this coming sooner or later..."
"Just... just please..." He seemed at a loss for words, his eyes shining brightly up at the redhead above him. Searching for some small speck of sympathy.
He found none. Ruby had seen Pyrrha before the majority of Mercury's healing had kicked in, and felt no shame in paying his man back in kind. "Well, thank you for everything...," Ruby began, realizing she didn't even know the name of the man she'd just tortured. A half second after that errant thought she just shrugged her shoulders. It would just be useless information, only weighing her thoughts down later. Ruby knew that she'd regret all this one day, but right now she was still wrapped up in her bloody and vicious thoughts.
"... Thank you, but you have outlived your usefulness to me now..."
He looked up in horror at Ruby, and began stuttering in fear to the redheaded torturer above him. As he started talking, little specks of blood and spit dribbled down his face from his busted lips. "I-I-I-I I told you everything! You can't just k-kill me now, I did everything you-"
Cut off suddenly as the tip of a boot collided with his temple, the light went out of his eyes and he slumped to the ground.
Putting her foot back down, Ruby wondered for a second if that would be it. If it'd been that easy, if it hadn't really been a choice, but instead an accident... but even unconscious, the man on the ground still twitched from the pain he felt through his dreams. And now this would be hard.
Twirling the blade of her dagger through her fingers, as though it was a simple coin, Ruby thought about what she would do next. And in the end, she left it to the group. Without turning to the rest, the redhead left her question hanging in the air. "...Well?"
There was silence behind her, although she could hear the rustling of fabric as the three behind her shifted uncomfortably. The first voice, breaking the silence with anger and spite, was the one she'd already been betting on.
"Just kill him." But even with her harsh tone, there was a small hint of regret in Pyrrha's voice, tingeing her execution order somewhat hesitant.
A few seconds of quiet followed her words, until Jaune's voice picked up next. Ruby had also been expecting his response, disagreeing with his wife.
"We're better than them... we don't need him dead, so we shouldn't put him that way." But even with his declaration, there was still a hint of malice in his voice. It seemed as though running face to face with the man who had left his wife beaten on the side of the road had robbed him of his usual compassion. Ruby knew Jaune would be fine with his death, although he'd never wield the knife himself.
There was more silence, and it seemed as though the one say that Ruby actually cared about wasn't going to take a side. But he did, although Mercury's advice was the most ambiguous of all. His words gave her nothing, and all Ruby could feel were his coal black eyes boaring a hole in her back.
"You break the tie... just know that it'll be you wielding the knife, whichever way you choose."
Ruby was glad he'd said it that way. Because it let her test herself. And Ruby realized that even with all her proclamations of going back to the madness and bleakness of her hate... she'd changed. Deep down in her very core, she wasn't ever going to be that Ruby again.
Killing him... She would have done it before, a few months back. Slit his throat and let ruddy red flow free, laugh and revel in his pain as she watched the person below her in his final death throws as he lost this cruel game of life. And she'd done things like that before in the past too...
But as Ruby looked down at the figure slumped over at her feet, instead of blood lust or a thirst for vengeance, all she felt a crude sense of... of revulsion. A sort of cringe against the idea of killing him. Holding his fragile life in her hands, it wasn't that Ruby couldn't take his life and grind it to dust. She could.
But instead, it was that Ruby absolutely didn't want to.
Ruby's knife finally stopped spinning, and with a click the blade was drawn back in again. Ruby slipped the handle back into her jacket's inside lining, glad to have the cold metal out of her hands.
Turning back to the others, Ruby looked at her companions. Two were eyeing her grimly, both at different levels of both simultaneous relief and disappointment that she wasn't died absolute black. And Mercury only smiled at her with a relived grin, obvious even though his lips did nothing more than twitch slightly upwards at the corners.
Ruby walked out passed the other three, leaving her victim slumped against the alley wall. As she went, she thought hard with each strong step, mindlessly noting Pyrrha, Mercury and Jaune falling in line behind her.
'So, I'm not an executioner at least...,' Ruby thought to herself, lost somewhere between anxious and content. 'I am a killer, it's a lie to say otherwise. Nobody here can say differently though, even white knight Jaune must have gotten his armor tarnished during all our days... But I'm not an executioner anymore... and that fact alone makes me no worse than anyone else here.'
"So what now?" While Jaune asked it, Ruby knew everyone else was thinking the same thing. Even she was wondering.
Coming to the end of the alleyway, where she could see two more men ambling around the outside of the shop that held Nora, Ruby steeled herself again.
With a click, her dagger's blade was back out, and she said quietly: "...now... now is when we can't afford to show mercy."
Weiss heard a clink behind her, as metal was put down on glass.
"I'm done," Lie Ren muttered aimlessly, taking a step back from the smaller woman, letting her get up.
Weiss jumped off her stool, and without even checking the length of her hair she redid her ponytail, making sure it was in its off-centered knot as always. Really, Weiss didn't want to know, although she winced as she felt the fresh and stiff tips brush against the top of her back.
Turning around to thank Ren, Weiss spun on her heel only to find an empty space. It took her a half second to find him again, and when Weiss did she had to frown. He was back directly against the room's central pillar again, leaning against the column and staring at the closed heavy oak doors.
Taking long, slow steps, Weiss slowly walked over to him and decided to lean against the other side of the pillar. Out of his line of sight, Weiss sighed to him: "You know... they will be fine."
"... Why are you not worried?" Ren didn't sound bitter when he asked. He only sounded curious. "You let me cut your hair, even though you hated the idea, just to get my mind off Nora... but you have just as much to worry about as I do."
Weiss stood there for a moment, thinking. She bounced the tip of her boot against the ground, actually wondering about his question. Why wasn't she worried?
When the reason hit her, Weiss laughed to herself lightly. Ren actually leaned forward and looked around the barrier between them.
"I guess... I guess it's because I can't even... fathom a world without Ruby." Looking down at the floor, Weiss smiled at the thoughts on her own mind. "I don't ever have to worry about a life without her... Ever since we met back at Beacon, I think I've known that my life's story isn't about me."
Weiss smirked, and felt her eyes get a bit watery. "Ruby's the hero of my story. She is a good person... and I've been a fool all this time."
She was about to say something else too. Something profound and full of meaning. Something that would change everything. But, just as she began to let those words fall off her tongue... a knock came at the door.
Both Weiss and Ren's heads snapped to the door, and watched the handle turned down and a hand slipped around the door's edge. Neither one of the two could breathe as they watched the heavy oak slowly open inward towards the hall.
The door opened to a gap just one person wide, and as the redhead had promised earlier in the night, Ruby stood hanging of the door frame, the fire lit hall illuminating her figure and making the night behind the woman black as obsidian glass.
Weiss sighed in relief, her heart starting to beat again. Ruby was fine... until she noticed the jacket Ruby had been wearing when she left was now tied around her waist, and a sock was tied around the top of her left arm. And while she had probably tried to clean herself up, there were obviously smudged trails of red streaking down Ruby's shoulder, all the way to the tips of her fingers.
Instead of any of that though, Ruby just raised an eyebrow at Weiss after she scanned the room and saw a small pile of white locks in the corner.
"You chose now to get a haircut?" The tips of Ruby's lips twitched as she locked eyes with Weiss, and the blonde woman couldn't help but smile back.
"Ruby, I, I just-" Ren started stuttering, trying to make good on his promise to Weiss. Somehow, that stupid oath was in the front of his mind, not the more pressing matter.
Ruby didn't pay him any attention, and only stepped in and to the right, out of the door way. And when he did, an orange blur shot into the room the second she left a gap.
The shape collided with Ren, and before he could even react, a head with ginger locks was pressed up against his chest. And a pair of arms wrapped around his back, pulling herself even tighter to him.
Ren didn't cry. But as Weiss watched the look on his face as he returned the hug to Nora, she almost did.
Walking down the short path to her destination, Ruby couldn't help but smile as the warm celebration lights disappeared behind her. They'd all got her back. Everything was finally right in the world. And after her one drink, which was already making her feel woozy, Ruby found her dark thoughts had been sealed away without any real trouble, even though she was still getting edgy looks from Pyrrha and Jaune.
When they'd gotten back, there had been a few moments where everyone let Nora and Ren have their silent moment. And startling them all, pulling herself out of Ren's embrace, Nora raised her voice and shouted: "The bottles are under the floorboards in our old dorm! I don't care what you all are doing, but I'm going!"
Nobody really drank much besides Nora herself, and her tolerance was so high that she'd have to down quite a few bottles to really get hammered. But everybody enjoyed a bit, if for no reason other than to smooth out their nerves. Everyone had had a stressful day.
Well, everybody except for one. Ruby hadn't noticed, but once they were all in the old Team JNPR dorm, the redhead realized that Mercury seemed to have just... vanished. Retracing her steps, Ruby walked down the stairs and into the main hall again. Nothing there either. The others had started walking down the stairs too, not following Ruby but just to get out of the cramped dorm.
But after a few minutes of searching around, Ruby found a folded note with her name on it, left on a low shelf near the door in a scribbly, hard to read cursive.
Yo. Need to talk.
Meet at gate.
Trash talking.
So Come Alone.
~M.B.
It took Ruby a couple of seconds to remember that his last name was Black. And so that was why Ruby was walking down the gravel path to Beacon's main entrance. While she walked, the redhead thought about the last hour, and how dark it had been compared to the atmosphere she'd just walked out of.
'I'll have to talk to them about all that happened down in that basement... explain that it wasn't me... but who am I kidding? I don't even know if that was me today... although I saved Nora's life down there, and stopped Jaune from losing his life, so maybe I should just leave it...'
But even with those thoughts weighing on her mind, Ruby was still happier than she'd been in months. Nora, one of her few and best friends left in this broken world, was safe, and almost entirely unharmed. Hearing the gravel crunch under her feet, along with the pleasant chirping of the crickets in the early spring night air, Ruby couldn't help but feel as though her spirits were soaring.
She found him alright, right where his note said he'd be. From a distance Ruby could see Mercury leaning up against a large wooden crate, the 'this side up' logo on the wooden side obviously and comically pointing straight into the ground. He was looking out through the main gates, which were hanging slightly ajar, up at the moon past the rusted iron wrought bars. His silver hair was almost stark white under the night's glow. Closing the distance between them, Ruby still couldn't make out his face, pointed away and still hidden in shadows.
"Hey, what did you need to wait all the way out here for?" Chuckling to herself, Ruby called: "You know, we do have rooms inside of the building, we can always meet there... Anyways, come on back, we've got stuff to do! Celebrations to attend! Nora's decided to just give up her entire stash, and I'm guessing you've got a few good parlor tricks up your sleeve."
"...Should you all really be drinking right now? I mean, I know we've got reason to celebrate, but I don't think it's a good idea to get hammered after what we just did. Hopefully not, but there probably are quite a few angry killers out there looking for us tonight..."
Ruby shrugged her shoulders, finally getting up to Mercury. Seeing his face, Ruby could easily see that he was feeling down. "Well, I know Weiss isn't touching the stuff, and I don't think anybody is getting hammered tonight."
"Hm..."
"So then... 'trash talking'?" Ruby raised an eyebrow at the gloomy man, wondering what he was down about. "You have an issue with somebody? ... and also, on a side tangent, you left that note where anybody else could have easily read it, you're lucky it was me who-"
"I don't have any problems," Mercury sighed, so lost in thought he didn't realize he cut Ruby off. Looking up, he massaged the back of his neck, clearly showing his stress. "I just really didn't want to hang out, and I wanted to say something that would get you to not bring the rest along."
"Ugh! Alright, maybe you do need to get drunk!" Reaching out and pushing against his arm, Ruby shoved off the man and started walking again. "Come on, we can talk while we go back!"
Mercury turned towards Ruby, and out of the shadows he mumbled sadly: "Sorry, but I'm not. I... I think my show's up..."
Ruby wasn't expecting that voice, and it brought her euphoria crashing to the floor. "Wait, what? I-is something wrong Mercury?"
"No, no... Really, I've been thinking about this for a while now," he obviously lied. Standing silent for a moment, Mercury looked off again angrily. He refused to meet the redhead's eyes. "I mean...It's not like I'm gonna be of any use to you guys out here anymore. Earlier we had bigger problems and I didn't want to mention it..."
"Mercury, just get it off your chest, this isn't like you..." Ruby mumbled, worried for the old enemy, and now her closest friend.
"...Ah fuck it, I'm out of aura…," Mercury sighed, swinging his leg and kicking at a rock on top of the cracked pavement. The stone made a loud pang as it collided with the fence. "It's why I haven't been healing anybody today... why you're still walking around with a stab wound."
"Wait, what does that ha-"
"Well, I'm not out-out yet," Mercury corrected, "but I feel like I'm close enough to it to say I'm empty... Fixing Pyrrha's stupid face took a lot out me…"
"Mercury, it doesn't matter! Yes, it's inconvenient that you can't heal. It's inconvenient that Weiss can't make ruins, that Ren can't create shields, that I can't disappear in the blink of an eye... but that doesn't matter nowada-!"
"I feel tired," Mercury stated, cutting Ruby off again. Looking down at his hands, Mercury kept flexing his fingers over and over, obviously lost in his thoughts. "I mean, I guess its fair... It's like I've just been playing a game for the past eight years, and I'm the only character allowed to heal. I had to lose that advantage and start playing on equal footing sooner or later, right?"
If Ruby's happiness had crashed to the floor, his next line buried it six feet deep into a grave.
"I've wanted to see if I can take care of myself for a while... Not die off while I'm on my... on my own..." As he talked, he seemed to start choking up. He wouldn't look Ruby in the eyes either, staring up at the shattered moon above him and the redhead.
"Like that matters Mercury! Come back! We need you, powers or not!"
"Nah Ruby," Mercury sighed. "You proved tonight that you don't need me. You'll always be fine. You have me convinced."
"Mercury, I-I," Ruby stuttered, looking lost for words. "Mercury, I don't want you to go!"
She couldn't tell, it was only there for a second, but Ruby would have sworn a conflicted flash of anguish darted across his face. But a second later, it was replaced by Mercury's usual grin. Ruby had never realized until now how hollow it's always been.
"Sorry Red, but I don't really like the atmosphere here anymore... Everyone's made it perfectly clear they don't want me around…"
"First off," Ruby started, her voice sounding frantic," that is not true. And even if it was, who gives a shit?! They owe you! For healing me, for fixing up Pyrrha, for getting back Nora... We all owe you so much!"
Mercury leaned down, reaching behind the crate he'd been sitting on. And out from behind it, he swung out his old pack again.
Just like the first day she'd been with him, always two steps ahead of the curve. "I... I'm gonna go."
"No!" Ruby stood there stunned, unable to comprehend all this. How could everything fall apart so fast? "You'll die out there on your own!"
"Pftt! Sheesh Red, have some faith! I'm sure I'll be fine..."
Ruby just stood staring wide eyed at him. She couldn't understand what was happening. Even at her speed, she wasn't fast enough for this.
Before Ruby knew she was doing, her body took a step forward and her good arm swung at him, her hand already a fist. 'I'm not good with words... I'll make Weiss convince him... or Nora, or Jaune, or even Pyrrha will now.' Ruby didn't even know what her plan was after the swing. Maybe knock him out and drag him back, let the others make him stay.
But he took a step forward too, and before Ruby knew what was happening, Mercury had swatted her hand down and his arms had wrapped around her in a soft embrace, gingerly on her left side. "Weak sure, but I'm still a huntsman right now... a measly girl couldn't get the drop on me, not even the best of them like you..."
Her head barely peeked out over his shoulder, and Ruby just stood there silently, still and unable to get past her thoughts. Her eyes stung and her chest felt hollow. Ruby had to keep blinking furiously for some reason as she looked out over his shoulder.
"Sorry Red... Sorry...," Mercury faded off, unsure of what to say as he held Ruby, absently noting how warm she felt, either that or how cold he was.
"D-don't... you d-don't get to say sorry when you're the one making this choice."
"Hmph, good. That's what I wanted. I want hell's fury, not tears and whimpers."
"Shut up," Ruby growled angrily, her eyes getting watery and sappy even after what he'd said.
"Hmmm... Hey Red," Mercury hummed, squeezing her softly as he talked; "do you know the funny thing about hyenas?"
"S-shut up," Ruby choked out again, her voice breaking in that tiny sentence.
He didn't listen. "You know, everybody thinks hyenas are dogs. They look like dogs, don't they?" Mercury stopped for a second, and when the girl in his arms stayed silent, he kept talking. "But actually, they're more like lions. So like wild cats. Which is weird to me... anyways, hunters are always called tamed wolves right? We used to call you shackled, but same idea really... anyway, wolves and hyenas, they'd never ever mix in the wild. Unless things get super messed up and weird, they don't even cross each other's territory... what I'm trying to say is-"
"A-are you using the excuse that cats and dogs don't mix?" Ruby finished his thought for him, her voice coming out husky and thick.
Mercury nodded. "Hunters are wolves. I'm a hyena. They may look the part, even if they're ugly... but they aren't dogs... just like me. I won't belong here. Not now, not ever."
Mercury was surprised himself, when he suddenly felt a pair of arms wrap around him tightly. Looking down, he saw Ruby had dropped the stiffness, although he she still wouldn't let any tears spill over. He was glad, it would make all this easier...
"...No...," was all she could manage.
"Hmmm... you know... you could come with," Mercury mumbled jokingly, already knowing without a doubt Ruby's answer. He still heard the redhead's breathe catch in her chest though.
"I... I thought you said that cats and wolves don't mix?" Ruby's mind was already racing, trying to catch up with what Mercury was saying.
"No, they don't... but I wouldn't say you were ever a wolf. Especially after what I saw today. Wolves don't wear masks…" Smirking to himself, looking up at the sky above him and trying to commit this moment to memory, Mercury replied: "Even when we were both at the academy, you've never really been one of them... I'd say you were always a jackal. You've still got a tiny bit of our darkness in you, even if you try to bury it deep."
Ruby's face tilted up, looking at him with wide eyes. Almost child's eyes. "You're part of the Wolf family, sure. But you do also share hunting grounds with us hyenas too..."
Ruby dwelled on what he said. Part of her wanted to say no. Part of her wanted to say yes. Part of her wanted to rush back and grab Weiss, screw everyone else and leave tonight. Part of her still wanted to fight Mercury and drag him back.
And the biggest part of her wanted to scream up at the night sky, to cry and wail over how unfair all of this was.
Mercury chuckled, breathing down into Ruby's hair. It worried him how much Ruby was thinking about what he'd said. "Goodbye Ruby." Pulling away, feeling the arms around his waist fight him for a moment before they loosened, Mercury stepped back. "You're wrong you know... when you say you can never throw it away. You'll only have that darkness in you as long as you cling on and keep it there..."
"Mercury," Ruby choked out, standing right where he'd left her, looking lonely and dejected under a dead streetlamp. "Please, don't-"
"Go back. Patch things up with Weiss. Keep her here, keep her safe. The fact that you two still have each other is a miracle... and not all of us got that. Don't waste it another day..."
Starting to turn away, Mercury started blinking rapidly as he joked. "So don't worry about me. I'll be fine, I definitely don't want to see my Mrs. Black any time soon... I know I'm already grey, but Emerald would kick my ass if I showed up and wasn't already wrinkly too."
And with those parting words, Mercury straightened himself out, pushed past the gate and onto the open road. It was maybe a twenty foot walk before he'd round the corner and make it out of sight. And the entire way he fought himself. He fought looking back, he didn't want to test his resolve.
And just like that, so abruptly... Mercury was gone.
Ruby just stood there, slumped against the crate that Mercury had just been leaning on. Trying to comprehend what had just happened. She'd never even asked about Emerald once... she'd never even thought...
A part of her knew he was gone forever. But another, smaller part was still hoping that Mercury would lean back around the corner in a second, and flash Ruby a goofy grin that easily read 'jokes on you, how could you think I'd leave?!'
But the night stayed quiet.
In an hour, she'd return to the party. The redhead would show up to the main gate, clear eyed and sharp. She'd calmly tell everyone they'd lost a good ally and a great comrade.
But right now... Ruby couldn't help it. She cried. She finally let the tears really spill over and fall down her face. Weeping bitterly as her best friend, who'd she only even known as a friend for a short time, walked out of her life forever.
She'd lied to Weiss again. Earlier today, when Ruby had made her a promise.
Ruby was wrong. They didn't all make it back tonight...
Hey, so just an author's note. It's been a while, so I've got a lot to say this time. Nothing story related, so feel free to skip...
First off, I'm really sorry I've been gone for so long. I was dealing with some of my own issues, and once I got off my usual schedule, it was a bit too easy to walk away from the site completely and just go 'wait til next week... wait another week... nah, don't post it yet, you should go do something else...' Really I've been sitting on a mostly completed story for the past three weeks, just kind of fighting with myself on posting it. I know pretty much everybody knows this already, but I'll say it again. If you write, draw, or do some kind of skill based hobby, never just stop for no reason. Because once you do, it's really fucking hard to get going again.
I mean, it wasn't like I was just twiddling my thumbs doing nothing. Mostly I just wrote one shots and poetry scraps, more for myself than for anybody else. But it definitely was not that productive of a way to spend my time. Out of the seven, I may post one or two of them, I may not, I'm not too sure yet. I don't really feel like cleaning the stories up or doing any detailing. For the most part they were just pointless, directionless one-shots really...
But enough about me. About the chapter.
This chapter was really scary to write. And I hope you all enjoy it. But... it wasn't easy for me to write in the slightest. Remember last chapter when I said there was something special about this one? Well, now that I think about it, it's not that big of a thing...
This was the first chapter for Remnants I ever actually wrote, almost five months back. This chapter was just a thrown together scrap that turned into what I consider to be a pretty decent story. Now, when I first wrote this chapter, it was only three thousandish words, had a totally different plot, and the characters were all either drastically different or totally absent. I liked the chapter so much I had to figure out how to get from somewhere to here. Everything beforehand had kind of led to this point for me... funny how things sometimes just work out, huh? It was still really tough though. Now I'm looking forward to getting to the next big milestone.
Side note, is it weird that I delete authors notes? I only keep around the most recent chapters, and then get rid of the last one...
Anyways, I'm going to be sticking to my old schedule like glue, because fact of the matter is I won't improve without practice. So, new chapter will be coming in about two weeks (although there may be a tiny chapter that gets posted in between this and the next), unless both an atom bomb drops and hell freezes over.
So see you all around! It's good to be back, I've got a bunch to catch up on! Stick around if you want more, and know I'd always love to chat if you're interested!
P.S. And also, a good friend of mine LegacyHunter on Deviant art and LegacyHunter23 on the site made the new cover. Which is just as badass as the last cover (courtesy of him as well!). So you should go check him out too!