Chapter-31
Winter and Weiss moved into the mines itself, freeing the chained up Faunus where they could and getting them to head outside. They came across some of the guards who had all been knocked out, rather brutally from the stories the Faunus told them.
Hearing a pained scream ring out through the mines, both women sprinted further into the mine where they came to a large opening with the walls surrounded by chained up Faunus, all looking towards the fight in the middle.
They saw Ruby standing in the middle of almost twenty guards, all of whom were cruel people who hated Faunus who had no problem forcing them to work to the death.
A few of them even had whips while others had cattle prods, but Ruby all but ignored them. Scythe deployed it was a standoff as the guards all surrounded her.
Ruby nor Aria spoke, no offer of the chance to surrender as was the norm but instead Ruby just buried her scythe into the ground and charged towards them.
The guards thought they were ready but as they tried to attack Ruby she only dodged out of the way of the strikes to land her own back at them.
The twenty guards didn't stand a chance as Ruby brutally punched and kicked them, bloodying their faces up as she hit them with more strikes than she needed to.
Each time they tried to shock her with the cattle prods she just ripped them out of their hands just to hit them with the horrible tool, but she wouldn't do it once but multiple times.
As the last guard, the head guard for the mines was the last one still standing while all the others were on the ground unconscious and bleeding.
He threw out his arm, as he attempted to catch Ruby with his whip but Ruby all but ignored it as she caught the tool in her hand.
Yanking sharply on it she pulled the man towards her through the air, punching him in the face to knock him onto the ground.
What happened next surprised everyone, Ruby moved to straddle the man and was about to start punching him but instead a series of black and red rapiers all appeared in the air surrounding Ruby, blades pointed at the ground and towards the man on the ground.
Black snowflake glyphs were all behind the rapiers but neither Winter nor Weiss knew where they had come from as neither of them could summon anything and even then, it would only be in blue.
Winter shot forward as soon as she spotted Ruby's intention, quickly pulling her back while at the same time delivering a kick to the downed man's head to knock him out.
"Ruby calm down. Look at what you're doing." Winter said, pointing out the rapiers in the air around Ruby.
"What the? Where the hell did these come from?" Ruby exclaimed loudly, confused at where they came from.
"Think of them vanishing." Winter stated, guiding Ruby.
Ruby did as instructed, imagining the swords vanishing from existence and seconds later they did. Though they did appear again briefly as it seemed Ruby thought about killing the man.
"Well, you really are a Schnee after all." Weiss stated, trying to make light of the situation.
Standing back up Ruby looked at her hands for a moment before she vanished in a flash of rose petals, leaving the two sisters alone.
Looking at each other they shared a confused look before they went about freeing the Faunus in the mines.
Neo was with Mizu watching as all of the Faunus were led outside and the police went about helping them with food and water while doctors were going amongst them all to check them over.
Suddenly a red blur was seen flashing past and Neo was knocked over by the blur, she didn't notice all the eyes on her. Or the fact that all the Faunus were staring at the reaper just hugging this black haired woman.
Neo looked up towards Mizu, unsure what to make of this but saw the older woman was smiling softly at the pair before speaking up. "Red, I think you should go somewhere private for the minute." Mizu stated. Noticing the spectacular around them.
It didn't take long for Ruby and Neo to hear this and quickly ran with Neo in her arms back to their aircraft and upon entering, Naomi noticed the sudden entrance and decided it best to leave them along for a minute.
"Ruby?" Neo asked softly, just feeling Ruby hug her tightly.
"I'm sorry." Ruby said softly.
"There's nothing to be sorry for." Neo replied, her voice softening and smiling lightly at Ruby.
"There is…I've been distant. Since I came back, I just…I couldn't handle it. I was dead, ready to move on only to be thrown back into life and to find out that my mother could very well be alive…I just don't know what I'm doing." Ruby said, baring her soul to Neo.
"Well, I'm sure we can figure it all out. We normally just wing it." Neo said, smirking towards Ruby who laughed in response.
"You're right. As long as we're together, we'll overcome anything." Ruby responded on a soft smile, hugging Neo as she buried her face into Neo's neck.
"What's wrong?" Neo asked, shivering as she felt Ruby's warm breath on her neck.
"Can we go home?" Ruby asked softly.
Neo's face softened once more, the worry leaving her body as she hugged Neo back, a hand on Ruby's head and she planted a soft kiss on her head. "Of course we can sweetie." Neo answered.
"When was the last time you slept?" Mizu asked, spying her daughter sitting on her bed surrounded by all the files they recovered from the compound.
"What day is it?" Ruby asked, not even bothering to look up.
"Thursday." Mizu answered. They had attacked on the Saturday and retrieved everything from the area alongside everyone arrested under Hunter authority so not even Ironwood could get him out of it.
"Friday night was the last time I was asleep." Ruby commented as if it was nothing. Since getting the files she had done little but go over every piece of information she could find about buildings or compounds that were owned by the Schnee family, namely the male leader.
But also during that time at the same time, she had spent time with Winter in learning how to control her summons, which she discovered were a number of black rapiers that she could control individually. Currently she could summon ten at once.
"You know this isn't healthy. You need to rest." Mizu said disapprovingly.
"I guess. But mom's still out there. I'm sure you want to find her just as much as me." Ruby replied, finally stopping and looking up to Mizu for the first time.
The bags under Ruby's eyes were evident, even if Neo had been helping Ruby with sorting through all the information, it still didn't stop Ruby from working endlessly.
"I do. But I know about actually pacing yourself and looking after yourself. How have you managed to stay awake?" Mizu asked.
"Coffee. Tablets. Using my Aura to boost myself." Ruby listed off, looking back at the file in her hand.
Mizu just sighed, realising that Ruby wouldn't stop so decided a different tactic. "How about a compromise?" Mizu asked.
"What sort of compromise?" Ruby asked.
"I will help you comb through these files for an hour, I might be able to help. After an hour though, I want you to sleep for at least eight hours." Mizu replied, a soft smile on her face.
"But…" Ruby started to say.
"Eight hours!" Mizu said more forcefully this time.
Ruby just ducked her head, "Alright." Ruby agreed.
So for the next hour, the pair worked together combing through the files that they could, it varied in degree. Some of it was simple memos between the man and parts of the company, while others were bank statements that he had made.
As the hour was almost up, Mizu came across something. "Hold on. Have you seen any bank statements sending large sums of money out of his private account?" Mizu asked.
Ruby's wolf ears perked up at this as she looked up at her mother, her eyes glossing over as she went through her memory.
"A couple. There was one sending one point five million lien out of his account, listed as Atlas Holiday Home Upkeep several years ago. And there was another one, I'd say around a million lien this time, for the same reason and this was around fifteen years ago. Roughly. Why?" Ruby asked, opening her eyes as she was confused as to why Mizu was asking about that.
"Well. We don't have a holiday home in Atlas. We live there and have a home, but we don't have a holiday home there. And certainly not one that requires a million lien in upkeep." Mizu answered.
"Then what is it?" Ruby asked, looking at the file again to try and discover something.
"I'm not sure exactly. I need to make some calls to a few people and see if I can discover where this supposed home is." Mizu responded, moving to stand up and start putting the files away. "Now, I believe you have you end of our deal to uphold." Mizu said, smiling softly.
Ruby pouted as she looked up to Mizu, trying her best look, "But I want to know what you find out." Ruby said.
"And you will. After you sleep." Mizu said, not relenting at all.
"Fine." Ruby said, defeated as she helped pack away the files before getting ready for bed.
"Thank you my little wolf." Mizu said softly, rubbing Ruby's head as she climbed into bed.
Ruby snuggled into the bed, growling softly in appreciation for the touch as she buried herself into the bed. Soon falling asleep.
Mizu smiled softly as she sat there watching Ruby sleep for a little bit, her normally guarded features were much softer now and more peaceful. Her ears were flat against her head while her face was half buried in the pillows.
"Is she asleep?" Neo asked softly as she entered the room quietly.
"Yeah. She is, I made a compromise with her." Mizu answered.
Already guessing the compromise Neo instead asked, "Did you find anything?"
"We did actually. Several transactions each year for the last fifteen or so years, a million lien each time and well. It's for a holiday house in Atlas." Mizu answered.
"That's a lot. Must be a nice house." Neo said, not even thinking what a house that amount of money would look like.
"I wouldn't know. I've never seen it, or even known about it until now." Mizu replied back.
"What do you mean?" Neo asked, confused.
"Exactly what I said. I've never even known of it." Mizu responded. "But I'm going to go find out." Mizu promised.
"Well, I'm sure Ruby will want to know when she wakes up." Neo replied.
"She wanted to stay awake, but I made her go to bed." Mizu said, smiling softly at her words.
"Thank you for doing this." Neo said, hugging the woman.
Returning the hug, "Anything for my daughter in law." Mizu stated.
"Well, am I still? Ruby was technically dead." Neo asked, smiling in response.
"Just another excuse for a wedding." Mizu said, smirking at Neo.
"I guess so." Neo stated, yawning a little.
"Why don't you go to sleep as well? I'll be by later on once I find out more." Mizu promised, and Neo just nodded in response.
Mizu smiled once more at the woman before she left the room, intent on finding her other daughters to enlist their help in finding out just where this supposed holiday home was located.
A/N
So another chapter down and i'm completely and utterly tired. Stayed up and watched loads of extra life, which was amazing and they raised an amazing amount of money.
Not much more to say as i'm still working on other stuff and slowly getting there plus a few other things. So until next time.