A/N: This whole chapter was written in 15-30 minute increments for the past like 10 days. It's finally here though, apologies for the wait.

VVVVVVVVVV

Ruby sailed backwards through the air as Alice landed another successful hit. The petite huntress could feel the wetness of her own blood running down her forehead. The battle had not been going well, Alice had taken their initial assault in stride and now they were on the defensive. The pale girl was relentless in her pursuit. Ruby found that she was the target of most attacks with a few aimed at Nora and Ren when they jumped in. They needed to regroup, but that wouldn't be possible until she got some breathing room. However, as Alice dove towards her with a malicious smile on her face, Ruby came to realize that she wasn't going to get it.

Alice came down on the cloaked huntress with a flurry of diagonal slashes with her claws and Ruby matched them with looping slashes with Crescent Rose. Sparks flew as the weapons clashed, the two combatants matching blow for blow. Alice suddenly twisted in a complete circle and extended her left leg, kicking Ruby in her abdomen. The impact knocked Ruby off of her feet and sent her backwards through the air.

Ruby growled, digging her scythe into the dirt to rapidly slow her backwards progress. Alice came upon her again just as the soles of her boots touched solid ground. Letting out a frustrated snort, Ruby shifted Crescent Rose into gun-form and fired at the ground. The shot sent her above Alice as she came in to try and impale the petite huntress. Shifting her weapon back into scythe-form, Ruby slashed downwards at the right side of Alice's throat, seeking to decapitate her. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Ruby watched the blade of her scythe make contact with Alice's pale neck, it dug into it a few centimeters, drawing blood….

Alice managed to lean away from the fatal swing, flying away from Ruby. The petite huntress noticed that this was the first time she forced Alice to retreat. It wasn't much, but it was some progress at least, baby steps.

"Almost got me." Alice said, "You silver-eyed warriors were always dangerous."

"Why are you attacking us?" Ruby asked, "We don't have any reason to fight you!"

"Because I detest you." Alice answered, firing a linear blast from her claws at Ruby.

The petite huntress tossed Crescent Rose in front of her, letting it completely leave her hands, it spun like a fan in front of her, taking Alice's blast.

Or it should have.

Unfortunately, Alice's blast was so strong it knocked Ruby's weapon away and still had enough punch to send her tumbling backwards through the snow. Trees and sky passed through Ruby's vision as she bounced several times off the ground before finally coming to a rest on her back.

A groan escaped Ruby's lips, her reflexive action to use her weapon as a makeshift shield might have saved her, but now she was weaponless. She had lost sight of Crescent Rose after she got hit and until she found it again, she wouldn't be much help in the fight. On the bright side, she had gained a little break, no matter how short it might be.

She watched Ren engage Alice in combat out of the corner of her eye. The pistol-wielding hunter came in at the pale girls' right flank and aimed a horizontal slash at her head with the blades on his weapon. Alice leaned back to avoid the blow and then performed a series of backwards somersaults to avoid Ren's continued attacks, dodging them all nimbly. After a few seconds of this, Ren suddenly bent over slightly and Nora suddenly appeared behind him. Taking a few running steps, the Valkyrie huntress used Ren's back as a stepping stone, boosting her jump.

"Got ya now!" Nora exclaimed, pointing her grenade launcher at Alice's feet and firing. The pale girl managed to leap up to avoid the initial explosion of pink Dust, but her proximity to the blast sent her upward to Nora. The Valkyrie huntress was waiting for Alice with her hammer, rearing back for a massive blow. A wide grin on her face.

But as Nora began to bring her hammer down on Alice's torso, she found her progress stymied. The culprit was none other than Alice's hair, which had come alive and wrapped around her arms and legs, trapping them. With the threat of being clobbered by Magnhild neutralized, Alice soared past Nora, using her ivory locks, she swung Nora around like a wrecking ball, tossing her down right on top of Ren's head. The impact from the blow cratered the ground underneath the two hunters and they did not rise again.

Ruby growled in frustration and continued to look for Crescent Rose, it had to be close by. Her search was cut short when Alice made a beeline for her again. The pale girl spun a part of her ivory locks into a needle-like shape, at the tip of the needle a ball of black-red aura formed. The needle suddenly darted forward and only Ruby's reflexes saved her as she leapt away to her right. What sounded like a bomb went off where the needle had landed, shooting up a cloud of dust and snow. Once it settled Ruby looked at the destruction Alice's attack had caused and blanched.

A section of the woods was completely obliterated. The cloaked huntress' silver eyes spotted splinters of wood hanging in the air, but that was it. That little ball in Alice's hair packed quite the wallop.

Ruby was forced to divert her attention back to Alice who had another needle extension heading towards her. The cloaked huntress used her semblance, dashing away from the second attack half a moment before it hit her. Alice gave chase, her speed matching hers. Ruby set her jaw in determination, putting everything she had into her semblance. The cloaked huntress' efforts bore fruit, as she began to gain distance from Alice. She was now a good two dozen meters away.

And then six needle extensions formed in the pale girl's hair and shot forward, all of them surrounding Ruby.

There was nothing the cloaked huntress could do, but open her mouth in shock, without Crescent Rose she couldn't defend herself from the black-red spheres of aura about to crush her. The spheres were only inches away, in another moment they would hit her and it would be over.

The sound of a blade whistling through the air filled Ruby's ears as Alice's hair extensions were suddenly severed. The spheres that were so close to Ruby she could have reached out and touched them were suddenly scattered in all directions away from her. Multiple booms sounded across the forest as they made contact with the ground.

Ruby felt a strong arm around her waist as she was suddenly whisked away. The trees were brown blurs as she was carried at high-speed through the forest. Finally, her rescuer came to a stop behind one of the pine trees, setting Ruby down gently. She caught sight of her rescuer's grey-bandaged hand, holding Crescent Rose.

"You dropped something." A familiar voice said to her and she froze. It was distorted, but she would know that voice anywhere. Ruby continued to look up to see a face she hadn't seen in half a year. It was different, his skin was a dark-red and a portion of his right face was covered in what looked like a broken grimm mask. His eyes even still glowed like miniature suns. But there was no mistaking the character beneath them.

"Hey." Richter Bremen greeted her with a small smile, it looked like he was struggling really hard to curl his lips upward.

"Richter…" Ruby breathed.

At long last, her search was over….

VVVVVVVVV

Jaune braced himself against the fleshy walls of the circular corridor he was in. The wound in his gut was thankfully still bandaged, but Alice's explosive display had produced other injuries on his body. Moving his legs proved to be a bigger effort than anticipated.

He wasn't sure if this was an exit or not, but it beat staying in that pit full of blood. Jaune was fairly certain he'd never get the scent of blood out of his nostrils now. Why did the bad guys need a giant pit of blood anyway? Did they think it was edgy?

Jaune continued to limp along until finally, the corridor entered into another room. As the young Arc entered it, he found himself blinded by the light in the new room. Looking to the ceiling, he spotted a large disc-shaped lamp with several lights in it. The light revealed that this was another room filled with blood, the same fleshy walls that were a part of Alice's room were here as well.

The light also revealed that he was not alone.

At the other end of the room was a girl, a few years older than him it looked like. She was embedded by her arms and legs in what looked like a giant fleshy bulb. Several vein-like cables were attached to the bulb, similar to Alice's when she was asleep, except these ones were a dark blue in color. The girl's hair was dirty and matted, under normal circumstances it might have stood out as a lovely gold color, but it looked like she had been down here for a long time, weeks, months even. The blue dress she wore was torn and tattered, held together by just threads of fabric.

Jaune winced at the sight of her, the amount of suffering this poor girl must have endured must have been beyond imagining. The girl groaned, raising her drooping head slightly. Jaune took a slight step backwards, was she…looking at him? It was hard to tell with the curtain of dirty hair blocking her eyes from him.

"J-Jaune? Is that you?" An all too familiar voice croaked out.

The young Arc's eyes went wide as saucers as he took a closer look at the girl. He spotted the Arc family emblem on the left shoulder of the girl's blue dress and felt the color drain from his face.

"Jasmine…?" He asked tentatively.

VVVVVVVVVVV

Ruby numbly reached up and took Crescent Rose from Richter's outstretched hand. Neither one of them spoke, and the silence was beginning to drag on. She wanted him to talk first, to explain his disappearance for all these months. To tell her why he didn't come to see after all this time. She deserved that much at least.

"It's...been a while." Richter finally spoke, breaking the long silence. Ruby scowled at him. Richter's orange glowing eyes went wide as she delivered a nasty knee to his gut. The blow took him completely by surprise and he doubled over, holding his stomach.

"That's what you say after half a year!?" Ruby shouted at him as he struggled to get air back into his lungs. "You go off on your own, after promising me you were coming back to Vale. You don't call or write or send any word telling me you're alive! And you make me search half the blasted continent to find you!"

"I know it's not nearly enough, but for what it's worth...I'm sorry." Richter replied, standing up straight again, a sorrowful look in his eyes. To his credit, Richter did not flinch from her scrutinizing gaze and Ruby knew him well enough to know that his apology was genuine. "After Darion's defeat, when the escape pod shot you to safety, I got a crazy idea in my head. The massive grimm that was awakening in the mountain, I tried to consume it."

Ruby's silver eyes went wide. "You tried to eat a massive grimm!?" Richter nodded slowly and the petite girl crossed her arms in front of her chest, glaring at him. "You're right that was a crazy idea, what were you thinking?"

"Well I didn't consume as much as absorb actually. It took a monumental effort of willpower and strength, at some point the strain caused me to black out and when I came to, I had turned into this." Richter said, pointing at his face. "The first thing I noticed after regaining consciousness was that the hunger was gone."

"That's good though right? That was your goal?" Ruby asked tentatively, judging from Richter's sullen look, she wasn't going to like the answer.

"It was, but the hunger was replaced…." Richter's hands curled into fists. "By an insatiable bloodlust. I'm constantly battling with the desire to kill…even now. The dragon that dwells within me is demanding your blood and it takes a very conscious effort to ignore it." With a visible effort, he relaxed. "I couldn't return to you like this. If I lost control and hurt you, I would never forgive myself…"

Ruby stopped him by caressing his left cheek with her right hand, despite the anger she held for him for disappearing, it was still good to see Richter again. She brought him in for a hug, wrapping her arms around his neck tightly. "You're strong Richter, you wouldn't have hurt me." She said softly into his ear.

"You don't understand Ruby, I…."

"I have faith you can beat this thing, and we can do it…together." She interrupted him. "So please, no more running off on your own or trying to be a martyr. From now on, you're going to take care of yourself."

"I don't know if I can…" He tried to protest.

"You will. Because you love me right?" Ruby replied, he stiffened when she said the 'L' word. She was reminded of the conclusion of their battle half a year ago, when she held him similar to this, and just like that time, Richter finally relaxed into her embrace, wrapping his arms around her tiny waist.

"Okay…I'll try..." He said to her. Ruby smiled in response, closing her eyes and savoring the moment. She had Richter back, one piece at a time, things were going back to normal.

"How touching." Alice suddenly said. Ruby and Richter immediately separated, grabbing their weapons and looking up to the sky ahead and above them where the pale girl was currently hovering. "You two almost bring a tear to my eye." She said mockingly.

"What's your deal?" Ruby asked. "What have we ever done to you?"

"You were born." Alice stated coldly, eyes flashing. "Man has proven time and time again that even their best, even their most altruistic, will give in to selfishness and betrayal. You are a stain upon Remnant and mother wishes to cleanse that stain!" As she spoke those last words, Alice bolted forward, glowing crimson orbs of electricity crackling between her fingers.

Ruby and Richter leapt in opposite directions, moments before a linear beam of aura sliced through the area they were just standing in. As before, Alice began making a beeline for her and the cloaked huntress prepared to defend herself with Crescent Rose. However, Richter came in like a comet, smashing into Alice's right side and sending her sailing through the air to her left.

Ruby watched in amazement as Alice smashed through several trees before landing on her feet in the snowy ground. She slid for few meters before killing her momentum. Richter was still coming in fast, his aura manifesting around his body as the head of a great dragon. Ruby watched as her childhood friend crashed into Alice like a meteor, the pale girl blocking his sword with her claws. The impact sent Alice sliding back half a dozen more meters, but surprisingly, she held her ground.

Richter's aura dissipated around him, revealing his surprised face. Alice grinned at him. "Not bad greycloak." The pale girl said before a needle-like extension from her hair crashed a black-red sphere of aura into his sternum. Richter was blown back the way he'd come, his limbs parallel to the ground as he rocketed backwards.

Ruby quickly took action, leaping into the air to try and intercept his trajectory. At that speed, crashing into the ground would be hazardous. Unfortunately, the cloaked huntress reacted without thinking and as she caught Richter from behind, the air left her lungs in a wheeze as gravity took them both to the snowy ground below. She and Richter were a tangle of limbs as they tumbled backwards a dozen meters, finally coming to a rest with Richter on top of her. He had his back to Ruby and her arms were wrapped tightly around his waist. She had managed to cushion Richter's fall somewhat, but never had success led to such soreness.

"Okay...she hits hard." Richter said, wincing.

"Yeah...she's...no joke." Ruby managed to say as she attempted to get air back into her lungs.

"Attacking her head-on is fruitless, we're going to need a plan if we want a chance to beat her." Richter said as he untangled himself from her.

Ruby smirked. "Well, as luck would have it, I have a plan."

Richter raised an eyebrow at her. "You have a plan? Now I know we're doomed."

"Oh so NOW you're making jokes again? Weren't you supposed to be busy brooding?"

It was Richter's turn to smirk. "What can I say, being with you is bringing it all back." His facial expression turned serious. "So what do you got?"

VVVVVVVVVVV

Jaune couldn't believe it, his sister, Jasmine, was right before him, attached to a large fleshy bulb by her limbs. She had been missing for the better part of a year. Their father had sent out countless search teams to find her, but none had succeeded. Had she been in this creepy lab the entire time? Jaune found that thought unsettling.

Through sunken eyes Jasmine stared at him, tears beginning to form. "It….it really is you."

Jaune walked up and embraced his sister. "It's okay Jasmine, I'm here." The young Arc couldn't help but take note of how frail she felt in his arms. She was always so strong, but now he almost didn't recognize her. Jasmine's captors had turned her into a broken shell of her former self, and it was deeply unnerving. "We searched for you everywhere..."

"This lab was hidden well…." Jasmine replied.

"That doesn't matter anymore." Jaune said, offering a reassuring smile. "I'm going to get you out of here and we're going to go home, that's a promise." Jasmine grit her teeth and Jaune felt his right shoulder begin to get get soaked by her tears. "It's okay to cry." He said with a gentle smile. "I won't tell dad."

"I'm….not crying because of that….I'm crying because if you're here, then Alice must be awake…." Jasmine replied.

"How do you know that?" Jaune asked.

"I can feel it….She's awake and so many innocents are going to die because of her…." Jasmine said, continuing to cry. Jaune winced at his sister's display, she seemed so…broken. The horrors she must have endured….

"It's okay." He soothed. "My team. My friends will stop her."

"They will try." Alice replied. "But Alice is unlike anything they've faced before…."

VVVVVVVVVV

"You ready?" Ruby asked.

Richter nodded. "Everything is set."

Ruby confidently smirked. "If this works, we'll win. I know it."

Richter raised his left eyebrow at her. "And if it doesn't? Got a plan B?"

He watched her rub the back of her head nervously. "Uh, would you be mad if I said I didn't?"

"Well, I wouldn't be surprised at the very least." He replied, rolling his eyes.

"Hey!" Ruby exclaimed indignantly. "My plans are successful most of the time!"

"Somehow." Richter's face turned serious. "Here she comes."

Sure enough, Alice was flying towards them, rapidly picking up speed. Richter tried to ease the tension he felt in his jaw and failed. This idea was crazy, it was preposterous and so undeniably Ruby. As much as Richter wanted to dismiss the girl's plan, he couldn't deny that it had a chance of succeeding. He shifted Dyrnwyn into revolver-form, pointing the gun at the ground. Besides, he couldn't think of a better plan at the moment, better a plan with some degree of success, however slight, then a plan that would be doomed from the start.

Instead of rushing to attack him, Alice changed direction, heading towards Ruby's retreating form. So, she had been right about Alice having a certain fixation on her. Good, He could use that to his advantage.

Firing at the ground with his revolver, Richter shot up a large chunk of the ground. It floated right up into Alice's path. He watched carefully as Alice prepared to slice the debris into tiny pieces. She noticed too late, the glyph he had placed on it.

An explosion ripped through the air and Richter moved himself into position for his next move. Alice fell from the sky, landing with her back to him. He raised Dyrnwyn, pointing at the back of her head and pulled the trigger. The pale girl's aura protected her from a fatal wound, but the close proximity of the shot did send her sliding forward through the snow on her face for a full second and a half before she managed to flip back to her feet, facing him.

"You'll have to do better than that greycloak!" Alice sneered.

Richter smiled.

Alice's face became illuminated as a glyph began glowing underneath her feet. Before she could react, it detonated, sending her high into the air. Richter ran underneath Alice, leaping onto a tree, he bent his knees as the soles of his boots made contact with the trunk. Straightening his legs, Richter shot into the air after her, positioning himself so that he was above and behind his target.

Shifting Dyrnwyn into sword-form, he gripped the weapon with both hands and raised it over his head. Channeling his aura into it, Richter brought Dyrnyn down in a swing that would cleave Alice in half. Except the pale girl reached up impossibly fast with her claws and blocked the attack.

Richter was going to follow through when Alice suddenly delivered a mule kick to his gut, doubling him over and knocking him back half a meter. The distance between the two was just enough for Alice to do a full rotation and execute a nasty elbow smash to Richter's left cheek. He hit the ground hard on his right shoulder, it felt like a bullhead had crashed into his face, but he couldn't afford to dwell on the pain. Flipping back to his feet, Richter wasn't surprised to see Alice in his face, the claws in her right hand reared back and ready to strike.

The former huntsman brought his sword up in the nick of time, blocking Alice's claws from reaching his eyes with the flat of his blade. However, her strength was so great that it sent him sliding backwards across the ground, shooting up snow everywhere. It was hard to believe that she was stronger than him, he had consumed a freaking dragon!

Pushing aside his outrage for the moment, Richter rolled back to his feet. The former huntsman deftly spinning Dyrnwyn in his right hand. This Alice girl had the upper hand in strength that was true, but how did she fare with close quarters combat?

She closed the distance between them and Richter struck like a cobra, gripping the handle of his sword tightly and performing an upwards diagonal swing. The attack swatted away Alice's right hand, leaving her open to the sidekick he delivered with his right leg into her gut. Richter kept rotating counter-clockwise, building momentum. He unleashed a backhand with his left fist as he completed a full rotation, intending to hit Alice on the left side of her face. Unfortunately, the pale girl leaned backwards just enough so that his fist passed harmlessly in front of her face. He was going to follow through when Alice did a quick backward somersault and buried her right foot under his chin.

Richter managed to stay on his feet, sliding backwards a few meters. He spotted Alice pointing her left claws at him and noticed the crimson orbs of electricity between the fingers. Instincts told him those orbs were bad news and he side-flipped to his left, two bolts of electricity passed through the space he had just occupied.

The former huntsman had barely touched down on the ground again when Alice nailed him in the sternum with a jump kick. This time his feet did leave the ground, his body parallel to the dirt and snow, sailing two meters above it. Despite the pain he was in, Richter couldn't help but growl in frustration. Alice was stronger than he was and beating him in physical combat, a girl who had been asleep for decades apparently! He wasn't ready to give up yet though.

Performing a series of rapid backflips, Richter steadily killed his backwards momentum, capping it off by landing on the side of a tree trunk and launching off of it. Channeling as much aura as he could into his sword, the former huntsman lashed out in an upwards swing at the advancing Alice, who was bringing her right claw forward in a downward slash that would have bisected him.

Sword met claws in a brilliant flash of light and then Richter was executing a complicated series of slashes and cuts. He sought to chop Alice into confetti, but the pale girl wasn't making it easy. So far she had blocked all of his attacks and to make it even more infuriating the damn girl still looked half-asleep.

Richter turned his rage into focus as he found another gear. With each clash of his weapon against his opponents' a shockwave was sent out, bending and creaking the trees in close proximity to them and sending snow flying all over the place. It made it look like they were battling in the middle of a snowstorm. Richter's blade was a web of steel as he attacked Alice numerous times with it.

And yet she was still deflecting it all.

VVVVVVVVVV

Lie Ren did his best to brace himself against the barrage of shockwaves that were washing over him. He was just about to head to Alice's position to assist Ruby when the shockwaves started, now he was doing all he could to stay on his feet.

"Ren!" He heard Nora shout from behind him. Ren looked back to see that she too was doing all she could to keep from being blown over. He extended his right hand out to her and she took it with her own. "What is going on?"

"Don't know." Ren answered shortly. "Just don't let go!"

VVVVVVVVVV

Cinder watched as Alice and Richter traded blows from her perch atop the roof of one of the disguised buildings of the secret lab. She felt something similar to pride in Richter, having helped create him. He was holding his own, but he looked to be going all out, while Alice looked like she was still shaking out he cobwebs from being awakened.

The amber-eyed fugitive smirked. She had to admit, things were looking bad for a while, with her cover being blown in Vale and the White Fang withdrawing their support. But now, things were beginning to turn back in their favor. Alice would be the spearhead of their new plan.

Once again, they could set their plans into motion, and mankind would be torn down, brick by brick.

VVVVVVVVVV

Richter took another step backwards as he parried furiously against Alice's assault. She had methodically turned the tables on him, putting him on the defensive. It was all he could do to keep up with her attacks.

Finally, one got through, a clean upwards diagonal slash across his chest from her left claw. Richter felt himself involuntarily flying backwards, watching helplessly as Alice dashed after him, a confident smirk on her face. He snarled at her, she had beaten him completely, in power, speed and technique. He wasn't used to someone being stronger than he was, it was quite the humbling experience.

Still, he was never counting on beating her in a direct fight in the first place. It was time for the moment of truth, to see if Ruby's plan would work. Alice had knocked him back right towards the area he needed to be.

"Now!" Richter shouted, the snow directly in front of him suddenly exploded and from that snow, Ruby's petite form leapt upward.

Crescent Rose in scythe-form, she trailed it just below her, timing it perfectly for the blade to rise up towards Alice's neck. The pale girl's smirk had disappeared and her lips had parted slightly in an expression of shock. Richter looked on in anticipation, time seemed to had slowed down to a crawl. Ruby's blade was a mere inch from Alice's throat, this was going to work!

"Go!" He shouted.

Ruby pulled the trigger of her weapon, the recoil shot boosted her upwards. Richter heard the sound of flesh ripping...

...And Alice's head flew from her shoulders.

VVVVVVVVVV

A/N: I wanted to end this chapter in a different way, but I ran out of time :(

The next chapter is my main inspiration for this story. Unfortunately, I'll be busy this 4th of July weekend and I want to take my time with it to make sure I get it right. So it may be another two weeks for a chapter, too many things happening!