Chapter 19:
The Beowulf howled, and swiped its claws at Ruby. The extra sharp nails pulverized part of the old wall. Ruby using her Semblance transported herself behind the wall, once she realized that hiding wouldn't work she ran. Running seemed to be working so far. The only reason Ruby didn't stay and fight to the death was because of what was in her satchel, which was slung over her shoulder.
Ruby had recently stolen an artifact called the Grim Sphere. The artifact was in the shape of an actual sphere, hence the name. The size of the artifact was a perfectly round sphere the size of Ruby's head, made entirely out of darkness. Over the past few weeks a disease has spread, called the Darkness Plague, Ruby had gotten infected.
The dark haired girl had two days left before she died. People who were infected by the Darkness Plague would only live two weeks from the time of infection. Ruby's two weeks, they were almost up. Ruby had only recently stolen the artifact from a human named Roman Torchwick, who was the leader of a terrorist group calling themselves the White Fang.
The Grim Sphere, reacting to Ruby's touch started to ooze darkness. The substance hadn't gotten as farther than Ruby's wrist, extending out forming another sphere. The second Sphere seemed to have been built out of a substance Ruby could only describe as, black dust. All the primary colors and secondary colors of dust could be found on the dust market, not the color black however.
After this brief observation of the strange object, Ruby had immediately stashed it inside her satchel she carried everywhere with her. When someone became a victim of the Darkness Plague, besides the two weeks left to live, they underwent immense pain. Once Ruby had gotten near death, a bond had been formed between her and the Darkness. This let her communicate with an entity known as Grimm.
Grimm had informed Ruby, while she was still incarcerated by Roman, of a plan to become the Mistress of Darkness. This, the voice had said, would cure her of the Darkness Plague. The voice had also said it would ultimately rob her of some of her humanity, come nightfall. Ruby might be human during daylight hours, but when the sunset arrived and the moon took over the sky something bad would happen.
Ruby shook her head, she needed to concentrate or she would get killed. While dodging through the broken wall and around the furious Beowulf, Ruby had drawn Crescent Rose her weapon of choice. Drawing it even with the creature's abdomen, Ruby fired a shot alongside sprinting as hard as she could past the Beowulf's side. The resulting force cleaved the Creature in half.
Ruby felt satisfied, until she saw she was surrounded by darkness. Whenever a super Grim was killed during the night or day times, its body leaked a dangerous vapor. This vapor whenever stood in for a prolonged period of time would infect someone with the Darkness Plague. However seeing as how she was already infected, Ruby didn't care that she was standing in it. The light blocking properties hid her well from the torches light.
Roman looked ready to kill someone; he looked ready to kill Ruby. The anger coming off him was palpable. Ruby decided to back away slowly, keeping the cloud of discernible darkness between her and her enemy. Because of her being infected with the Darkness Plague, Ruby could see through the black vapory substance. Thanks again to plague, Ruby's aura felt dark and somehow powerful but hopeless.
After backing up several feet, and making sure Roman didn't see her, Ruby started off into the forever fall. Ruby was pretty deep inside the forest, considering the Faunus scouts that worked for Beacon Academy never discovered the ruins she'd just come out of.
Ruby went to Beacon Academy as a huntress in training. Before this she had went to Signal Academy, one of the teachers there was her uncle Qrow. He had taught Ruby how to use Crescent Rose, her scythe weapon she had to craft when in attendance at Signal. While sill enrolled, and having a couple years left till she graduated, Ruby had been a dust store.
While in the store, Ruby had been approached by some men who tried to rob her. Ruby had fought them, she also showed off a little. Afterwards she chased the man responsible for the almost robbery, a human crime lord named Roman Torchwick. After chasing him to a rooftop, in which he boarded a nondescript transport vehicle, Ruby had come to face with another opponent, whose name she later learned was Cinder Fall. This one had fired spells at Ruby; the attack would have killed her except for the intervention of another woman.
After the two mistresses had fought, Roman then piloted the transport craft away. Ruby then had turned to the woman who had saved her and said, "Wow a huntress. You guys are real. Can I…have your autograph?"
After that Ruby had been taken to a dark room. While in the room Ruby had faced the huntress who'd lectured her on behaving herself, and endangering others. After a while Ozpin the Headmaster at Beacon had walked into the room, he had lectured Ruby as well though not as long as the huntress had.
After discussing what she did wrong, Ozpin had asked where she'd learned to fight. Ruby told him she'd learned while attending Signal Academy. She also told him that she wished to join Beacon Academy more than anything. After hearing this Ozpin had asked Ruby if she wanted to attend Beacon.
At first Ruby had refused, saying that she had two more years of training at Signal before she could graduate. However Ruby had accepted when Ozpin told her he would graduate her early, and that he wanted her to attend.
And to this day, Ruby had never once regretted making that decision. Sure in the beginning Weiss had been the ice princess with her cold heart, and Blake had just ignored her. Over time however the three, along with Ruby's older sister Yang, had become best friends. It helped that they were all picked to be part of team RWBY, with Ruby as the team captain.
Forever fall was creepy during the nighttime. Shadows were everywhere, some tangible and some not. Ruby had to brush aside as many shadows and she had to brush aside low hanging branches.
Ruby's feet crunched on the forest floor, the leaves had only recently started falling. Autumn was nearly upon them. It was to bad Ruby wouldn't be able to attend the fall festivities held at the school every year.
The way in front of Ruby was totally black. Sighing because she didn't know what to do, Ruby became frustrated. Suddenly Ruby had an idea; she was training to become the Mistress of Darkness. Shouldn't she practice with the Grim Sphere? After this thought Ruby pulled the artifact or of her bag, and held it in both her hands. Seeing that it did nothing, Ruby brought it up to her lips and sucked. Darkness started to leak out of the sphere; Ruby was consuming it.
The darkness tasted like sweet nectar to Ruby, although she would bet anything it didn't look healthy to others when she ate some. When consuming the Darkness, Ruby noticed a difference. Ruby defiantly felt healthier, stronger, and more aware of her senses than she had been in the last two weeks.
With the added sense of feeling better and being able to function, came the inherent ability to perceive darkness as light. The forest was no longer dark to Ruby; everything was illuminated, however this was soon proven to be a false assumption. Ruby had walked far into the forest part of forever fall.
The sudden light didn't come from her suddenly having wonderful night vision. The brightening of the forest, Ruby realized, was made from an actual light source. Someone had found her.
…
Thanks guys for reading chapter 19. I probably wont be posting another chapter alongside this one, sorry. Although I might just eat my words and post another one anyway, because I still enjoy writing these things. I hope you still enjoy reading them. Please leave a review; it would help me out a lot.
