8. At Long Last
"I'm going to enjoy killing you."
Penny took a leap back to leave the grasp of her enemy, and raised her gloved fists in the air, readying herself for combat. The green-haired woman remained in place, watching the meaningless defensive actions of her prey, and let out a loud sadistic chuckle, pulsing with desire to kill.
"Fists? You're not even going to try to put up a fight?" Her tone was condescending beyond measure, like there was not a sliver of equal standing between them.
The former-statue didn't answer. Instead she breathed in and out to steady herself, hoping the limitations of her body wouldn't become a weakness during the fight. From the abrupt and violent reaction made, Emerald was clearly familiar with her friends, so it would be wise to get as much information out of her as possible.
"Well alright then, let's have some fun." Taking a single blade from its sheath that hung on her belt behind her back, the viper closed in on her with haste.
Out in the open field, where they stood, no ground could be lost, since there were no spatial restrictions for their brawl, so the ginger girl was free to step back from every attack without fear of being disadvantaged. That way she could just dodge most of the stabs taken at her face and body, and never be cornered into a checkmate. The dagger whistled above her cheek, and then close to her chest, then again in many other places but without ever managing to land a hit. Countering wasn't presently on the table, because of her infected arm and leg, so she was pushing the foe's patience from a safe spot, hoping the increasing anger would lead to a fatal mistake on the opponent's side. Luckily, Emerald's hatred was the perfect catalyst, and the effects were already visible.
"Stand still and let me kill you! I want you to pay for what your friends did!" It was working even better than expected, she was beginning to talk. "Now I can't go back to Cinder, not after failing a mission! She doesn't forgive mistakes."
Cinder? Could that be the name of who had hired Torchwick to capture Ruby? Penny yearned to know more, but she didn't expect the revelation that followed.
"At least I'll get the satisfaction of killing you. Just like I killed your friend."
What?
Her guard lowered momentarily from the shock, and it was enough for the adversary to break through it. She felt a stinging pain and looked down, expecting to find a knife carved into her flesh, but instead she saw two little darts poking their thin needles on her side. She yanked them out and threw them on the floor, then turned back up to the red-eyed woman, who stood still, calmly waiting.
Why had she stopped attacking? Why was she grinning so wickedly at her? Her head started to feel light and dizzy, and when realization hit her, so did the toxin.
The earth started spinning before her eyes, and her foe faded from her vision, engulfed by the all-encompassing whirlwind of light and colors. The floor wouldn't stop dancing up and down beneath her feet, and she was forced to crouch, stretching a hand to feel the dirt below, in order to remain steady.
The world turned blurry and out of focus, but no matter how much she blinked it wouldn't go back to normal. The landscape blended into a single indistinguishable mass, taking away all sense of guidance and direction.
Overwhelming pain ran through her as something blunt struck her face, making the redhead fall flat on the ground with her eyes instinctively closed. She waited defenseless for the next hit, but nothing came.
Gradually, she opened her eyes and crawled to her knees. There was only darkness around, pitch black and uniform. Penny got up.
Where am I?
Planks of wood began materializing and forming a rectangle amidst the dark. Then came the floorboards under her and the ceiling above. Cabinets began furnishing the walls and a stove popped up from the ground on the farthest point from the too newly formed door.
She recognized that place. The table centering the room, the three old chairs flanking it, together with a new one Yang had commissioned specially for her. The metallic cup that somehow always managed to have a fresh and beautiful rose inside. Walking forward, the girl gently placed two fingers on it, caressing the flower, and smiled.
I'm home.
No. Her smile faded, and the petals started to wither. It's just a house. It's not home without...
"Penny! You're home!" The door slammed open, and a red blur stepped inside with a grin on her lips.
The former statue blinked in disbelief, and felt tears begin to slide down her face. She hadn't cried many times since becoming human, but it was certainly the first instance where she did it not out of sorrow, but happiness. Ruby was there, right alongside her, and this time she had no intention of letting the huntress go.
Ruby ran up to her and jumped at her open arms, never ceasing to look overjoyed. Her heart skipped a beat as the contact of their bodies became imminent, but...
"Do you want to know how I killed her?"
...the figure above her vanished into a pool of blood, red as roses, which dripped down from her arms and onto the floor. Her tears turned bitter as she felt the hot substance taint her hands, just as it tainted her fragile hope.
A movement flashed at the corner of her eye, and her gaze followed it to find Ruby helplessly kneeling down further along. Her beautiful silver eyes were contorted in an expression of pure dread, soundlessly screaming for help.
She tried to run but her body refused to respond, feet glued to the floor by the crimson puddle. A shadow approached her friend from behind, black and blurry but some features could be vaguely distinguished. Penny screamed, shouted for the girl to turn around and run, but they couldn't hear her. The shadow picked up a knife and smiled perversely at the shine of the blade through bloodshot eyes.
"First, I coated my weapon in poison."
No!
The thing brought the weapon up to its face and licked the blade edge, slime pouring out and sticking to the thin metallic surface. It never broke eye contact whilst doing so, and the sheer intimidation had driven any will to keep screaming out of the girl.
"Then, I stabbed her in the chest!"
The dagger descended from behind on the kneeling Ruby, and the redhead closed her eyes just before it hit, refusing to watch the assassination of her dear friend. However, she couldn't block out the sound of flesh being thrusted and cut, nor the wails of agony that followed.
As the sounds subsided, she dared to peek out, hoping it was all over, but was instead met with the sight of the archer gasping for air while blood slid down her lips, a knife still stuck in her chest, silver irises wide with the accusing glare of being betrayed. And behind her, with a victorious smile, was her. Penny.
She contemplated in horror the figure previously coated in darkness, now a mirror image of herself in all but color. Her pale face and white hair were splattered with blood, her skin smooth and spotless like stone. The monochromatic eyes stared back with not a trace of mercy. The statue killing Ruby was the beast she thought to have left behind, the girl made of marble.
"But that wasn't enough, so we stabbed her again, this time on the arm."
The statue took the knife out of the huntress' chest, allowing it to finally bleed, and pressed it against her arm. This time Penny didn't look away, watching as the blade carved into the skin all the way to the bone, the chilling spectacle accompanied still by deafening shrieks of pain. She struggled against her prison, yearning to put an end to the torture, but the shackles were stronger and didn't give in.
"The wounds didn't kill her, but the poison did. It spread through her veins and festered into her heart."
The screams became louder and more desperate.
"If she made it that far, her lungs will have collapsed and she suffocated painfully."
The yelling gave way to frantic gasping for air, the victim clawing her throat trying to breath, until that too ended, and her head hung down motionless.
"And I'm sure that red-cloaked bitch watched the whole thing happen too!"
When she looked, the woman on her knees bleeding out was now wearing a black bow atop her dark mane, the white shirt turning crimson from the constant abuse. Apparently Ruby had survived, but there was no relief in knowing that, because it meant Blake didn't. The lycan was vanishing in front of her eyes, and, worst of all, she was the one doing it. That blood was on her hands.
The stone woman retrieved the knife, and stepped over the lifeless corpse in order to approach her. Penny tried once again to struggle her bound feet, but no result was awarded for the effort, and the sculpture was even closer, wearing a smile that could only mean one thing: murder.
"And now, I get to kill you too."
Her ivory counterpart raised the weapon high, and in the diminutive moment before it crashed down on her, the girl realized that her only way out was to fight back. She gripped the foe's arm as it descended, and was surprised to realize it didn't have the strength that a marble body would be expected to. Deep down she knew it had been an illusion all along, but that detail set her mind off. She couldn't drive off the toxin and end the hallucination simply with the power of will, but just knowing gave her the necessary confidence to reciprocate, and she punched the stone relentlessly with her free fist.
Just as a left hook was delivered to the statue's face, it shifted and blurred for a second, and suddenly Ruby was the one standing in front of her. There was a slight hesitation in her assault, caused by how distressingly alike the thing looked, but it was over before it could offer any advantage to the enemy. Penny wacked at the doppelganger's arm until the fingers loosened up, allowing the handle to slip in-between and out of them. She caught the weapon and without losing a breath pointed it at Ruby's chest.
The shadow flickered again, and the hands that gripped her wrists in order to stop the knife now belonged to Blake. Despite golden eyes begging for mercy, she pressed all her body weight into the struggle, and very slowly the tip inched closer to its target.
The lycan screamed when the blade began slicing into her chest. Small droplets of red peered from the wound as the knife slid further down, until reaching the heart, upon which all resistance disappeared entirely. The body went limp like a doll, and fell with its back on the floor.
It was still Blake, nothing about it changed. They were still back at the sisters' home. Two outsiders welcomed inside, one now dead because of the other. Penny cried, both from grief and due to the overwhelming swarm of emotions brought on by the illusion, now surfacing since the adrenaline had worn off.
Her tears lasted, carrying her until the toxin's effects faded away. The landscape had returned to the green fields and the blue sky, and the corpse on the floor was that of Emerald Sustrai. Her blood had washed over the surrounding foliage, coating it in a bed of ruby upon which she lied. Penny guessed it would be a fitting resting place, even a tortured monster such as her deserved a decent farewell.
A yellow glint amid the sea of red caught her sight, and she reached to find a small golden coin. The former-statue picked it up and stashed it with the rest of her belongings. It would no doubt prove useful somewhere along the march to come, and its previous owner had no longer any use for it.
Looking back one last time at the fallen foe, Penny set off on her path again. Her leg was beginning to falter and limp, but she pulled through and kept going. There was still work to be done.
The small rooftops of the nearby village began peering over the horizon, and despite there still being quite the distance to them, the huntress knew she was at the right place. Anticipation started bubbling in her stomach, and she sped up her step, eager to find the witch who would fix everything, and get her to help by any means necessary. Then she would be able to return home at long last.
The ground beneath her feet resembled a battlefield, a trail of destruction all the way through the field to the houses ahead. It was obvious that the fight staged on that land hadn't been one fought with weapons, but magic. The earth was scorched and burnt, frost crystals popping out oddly from patches of destroyed vegetation. Trees lay down, unrooted from the ground and marked by being both frozen and set ablaze. There was nary a shadow of life amongst the rubble of nature, where a veritable song of ice and fire had been sung not too long ago. Whatever had transpired during that struggle, victory hadn't come easy, and not at all for the once radiant landscape.
Ruby picked up the pace even further, leaving all that ruin behind. As the huts came fully into view, she noticed only one was still actually standing, the others broken and demolished beyond any functional use. She had seen the trail of silence left by her target, no souls behind unscathed where she walked, but this was different. This was war.
Without a second thought, she pushed the door to the house open, and stepped inside. Her heartbeat was threatening to rip out of her chest because of the understandable nerves and anxiety that had built up from travelling that last stretch. Now was the moment of truth.
"Ruby Rose. We finally meet. You sure do love to be a thorn on my side." The voice came from the opposite side of the large room, cold and premeditated, like a much rehearsed script.
The girl stepped forward, hoping to better discern the figure ahead.
"Funny. Your sister said almost the same thing, Winter."
The woman shifted uncomfortably in her seat, a wooden chair that almost seemed like a throne just by grace of her presence alone. She wore a short dress, quite more revealing than would be considered ladylike for the folk of the countryside, of pure white that became milky blue as it descended further down until it ended mid-thigh. Sleeveless and light, if offered no protection whatsoever against either the elements or assault, but that was a luxury spellcasters could afford. Her smooth white hair fell upon her face, properly combed to the side above her right brow. Her eyes were fiery, enhancing the mighty and imposing presence to such a degree that Ruby had to fight the impulse to kneel before them. All of her figure transpired grace and power, a dangerous combination, suited to strike awe in those who stood where the huntress did.
"You have a lot of nerve talking about my sister. Is that what you came here to do? Kill me like you killed dear ol' Weiss?"
"Calm down, I just want to talk. I have proposal for you." A fight with the magician was one she had no hopes of winning. She had heard many rumors about a witch by the name of Winter Schnee and how powerful she was, but apparently the woman had heard rumors about her too, and they were clearly exaggerated enough to be threatening.
"Oh? And here I was prepared for a fight. Talk then, I must say I'm curious."
"My friend is sick and I need you to help me cure her. I can make it worth your while."
"Can you, now? And what is it that you think you have that I want?" There was superiority in those burning eyes of hers, thinking that a poor peasant huntress could never have anything of value. She would soon regret making such assumptions.
"I have your sister."
"WHAT? Impossible! Weiss is dead!"
"She's not dead, just... you might call it frozen. I'm sure you can handle a little ice. And I can get you to her if you help me." Ruby kept serious and business-like throughout the exchange. The last thing she wanted was to show weakness in front of a sorceress who could eat her alive without even breaking a sweat.
"And how do I know you're not lying to me? Can you prove she's alive?"
"I... No, I can't." She lowered her gaze to the floor, feeling all that confidence crumbling down.
"Hmm, I see... You are certainly an intriguing one, Rose. All right, I'll help you."
"Really?" That was undoubtedly too good to be true.
"However, I will require a proof that you're not just trying to play me for a fool. If I'm to believe you, you'll have to do something for me first."
Despite the lack of contact between the two, it would seem the Schnees were adepts of the same work practice: a favor for a favor. Ruby nodded in acknowledgment, and waited to hear the rest of the story before making a verbal contract.
"You will go to the city of Vale, and find the man they call The General. He has a sword that I made for him, a gift from older times, but he's no longer worthy of wielding it. I want you to get it back. Do that and I will know you are trustworthy."
So the Schnee witch Ruby has been seeking wasn't Weiss, but Winter. Props to FourNails1341 for calling it from a mile away.
I had so much fun writing this one, especially the hallucination scene. It was quite the challenge. Oh and thanks for the support after last chapter, I really appreciate it.