A/N: You know, it amazes me that in the time it took to write the whole thing up on paper (first drafting, some extra that wasn't used [like the 2 pages I turned into a 3 paragraph cliffhanger last chapter], and missing a whole lot of embellishing and polishing that you guys got), I actually got 6 chapters, translating into 30 thousand Words! in a relatively timely manner! It just blows me away, just like the (relatively few) reviews I've already gotten. Well, true it's about one per chapter, but I've certainly enjoyed writing this, translating from paper to electronic media, and getting a consistent reviewer. I hope you guys are too (though, how could I know if you were if you aren't reviewing?) and I hope you enjoy this chapter! :)
And sorry about the huge wait. Other than school, which I recently dropped out of because I didn't to burden my family any further (and I'd killed my second car in six months. Totalled, meaning it would cost more to fix than to replace), I have no excuse for making you wait.
"Where is she?!" She began to dash away before her neck caught on something and she slammed to the unyielding asphalt. Snow found herself looking somewhat blankly at a big expanse of blue with a bit of cotton white as violet and catty amber eyes looked down at her, disapproving looks shooting like bullets from them before Dragon spoke.
"Chill Snow. We'll find her." She said as she knelt. "Don't worry so much."
"Didn't she say that she had something to do at Beacon?" Blake asked, eyebrow raised.
"That's exactly why I don't want to calm down!" Snow shouted at her family as she got back up and snagged her cape away from Dragon's hand. They were in full combat regalia, complete with swords and signature weapons. They were fitted for war. Or living in a Grimm infested area. Whichever comes first. "You don't know just how..." Snow struggled with the word for a moment. "Not competitive, just- You don't know how she can be around people, especially around warriors she doesn't know!"
"She did just fine with the Hunters back in Haven." Dragon pointed out reasonably.
"Yeah, well she knew them, and they knew and could accept her!" Snow shot back, trying to keep her voice level and just as reasonable, but... a bit of her hysterics were indeed starting to show through. She was extremely worried, and she knew that neither of the two in front of her understood why. They never had to deal with a creature that might as well be a Grimm in human form. Not like she'd had to.
"Excuse me, but who are you looking for?"
Snow jumped from where she lay on the ground, turned in mid-air, and slammed down her weapon - a heavy black longsword half as long as she was tall with white runes suddenly glittering along its length - into the ground right in front of whoever had surprised her. Her reaction, while not exactly normal for the general population of any of the kingdoms, was perfectly normal for her in such a high-stress situation. She blushed and grimaced sheepishly when she saw it was only Penny, thankful that she'd missed and only hit the road in front of her. "Sorry Penny, I didn't mean to lash out at you. "
"That's alright." The sunnily smiling girl in front of them replied. "Is there something bothering you?"
Snow gave Penny a measuring look, unsure if she should share. She knew the girl was an android, after having repaired the girl with Rose's help, and knew the girl was trustworthy, though naive due to her lack of exposure to the outside world.
Before she could definitively decide, though, Blake answered for her. "We're looking for Rose. She disappeared this morning with a note left behind and so we're worried about what she might do."
Penny looked confused. "Do you not trust her? Or is she perhaps in danger?"
"Oh, no, we trust her completely. And we know she can defend herself." Dragon said, warding off the possibility. "It's just, we're worried about her. We know she isn't the best with other people all the time, and we're a little hurt that she had decided to leave us out of it."
"That, and Beacon Academy, where she's at, or going to, is off-limits to the four of us by Rose's own decision." Snow added in after sighing. Just to make sure that Penny understood what she could of the full scope of things. "She's not known, not to anyone, for breaking her own rules, especially not without reason, and this is a big one. That could mean a lot of things, especially bad stuff."
"OH." Penny said with an understanding look and nod.
They stood there awkwardly for a second, Snow's panic about Rose being off by herself having been derailed by Penny's appearance and the snow-haired woman's thoughts about what to do with the girl and the others having followed her cues the entire day while Penny still felt herself a little too new to the group and too different from them to really know what to do next. She may have had experience with Ruby and her team, but she was also trying to follow the advice Rose and Snow had given her the last time they'd been together - "Get out of your comfort zone, get out and meet new people! The only way to really learn this field is by experiencing it yourself. But! Don't be too completely trusting until you actually know them." - and thus had become unsure.
Blake, seeing all this, decided to create a diversion. "Penny, do you only have one outfit?"
"Um, yes. Why?" She asked cautiously.
"Well, that's no good at all!" Blake proclaimed happily. "According to social norms of today, you need to have several outfits, one for each occasion, especially if your outfit ends up dirty!" She grabbed the android's arm and pulled her away towards the mall, fully expecting the others to follow, and certainly planning revenge, which always put a happy face on her skull. After all, she still needed to get back at Dragon for what she pulled last night, though Rose's punishment would have to wait, and plenty of other things, especially since Dragon absolutely hates shopping!
Behind her was a confused android, a slightly worried blonde, and an exasperated, and now thoroughly distracted-from-Rose, Snow Angel, all following the other woman. It would be another three hours before they left, right around 9:30, and they left, much to Dragon's mixed happiness and worry, because of a worrying feeling of fear just a few miles away, right after a phone call.
Team RWBY walked to Proffessor Port's Grimm 101 class (a rather useless class with who the teacher is and not only how he teaches and what the subject matter was, in Ruby's opinion. Grimm existed, and Huntsmen and Huntresses existed to kill them in order to keep people safe. What else did you need to know?), but that was odd because they were walking, rather than their usual mad dash to the next class, even if it was for Professor Port's class. While it was true that they no longer worried about what Roman Torchwick was up to, what with him being in jail and his plot to use the White Fang to cause panic in a terrorist attack foiled, it still wasn't quite "another day in paradise" for the team. Yang seemed to be distracted the past few days, while Blake hadn't been sleeping well because of her nightmares, though even what sleep she was getting now was much better than it had been before the dance due to her complete obsession with finding out what it was that the White Fang were up to. Add to that her little upset with Weiss last night and the fact that said heiress was not currently talking to her, making her feel like all the progress they'd made in becoming friends over the past few months had come undone with the snow-haired girl's frosty attitude having come back full force, and Ruby felt helpless to help her friends. Useless. All those things those kids at Signal Academy had called her, especially before Uncle Qrow had helped her become an expert in using her scythe.
She had no idea how to help them, and in Weiss' case, she had no idea how it even happened. True, the same could be said of the other two's problems, but Ruby knew that, somehow, she was the reason the problem with Weiss even happened, that it was her fault the fencer was giving her the cold shoulder, so it fell to her to make sure it was resolved. All she knew of it for sure so far was that, because neither of them had been able to sleep at all, she'd come down to have a talk with the fencer and, somehow, the conversation had turned to mythology. It had been a fun conversation until Weiss had accidentally insulted her and her uncle Qrow and intentionally insulted one of the most powerful things that Ruby held close in many memories. While that hadn't been fun, she had already forgiven her partner for the slip by the time she'd reached her bed. She couldn't have known, so why hold it against her? But the confusing part was just how cold and standoff-ish the girl had been all day. They hadn't slept in, though Ruby had forgone her normal use of the whistle her aunt had given her for one particular birthday, and that she kept with her as a lucky charm, in deference to their fight and her wish to not alienate the rich girl. Breakfast and getting ready for the day's classes had been pretty normal, though Weiss had kept her distance from everyone completely, which was even more unusual as even before initiation she'd been willing to socialize among other things, but today she'd been completely closed off.
Normally, she really couldn't care less about what everyone else thought about her, or she tried to be, and today was no exception for the brunette, but the odd looks were really getting to her today, making her even more worried for her sister and 2 friends, especially the girl she was just slightly behind as they entered the lecture hall that Professor Port used to give his boring lectures on things they already knew.
Her Uncle Qrow had never lied to her, nor would he ever, but that didn't mean that she could properly use his advice when it came to people like Weiss. His personal life, especially when it came to his love life, had been described as a train wreck by his sister, so she wasn't entire sure if the advice would actually work, but she had to try something. One of the bigger things she'd been told various times was, when someone really got like this, it was best to stay back and watch for a bit, gauge how they acted and reacted, before planning how to approach them. This was very true when it came to combat, but Ruby wasn't entirely sure how to apply it properly here, beyond observation.
As they sat down, Ruby watched the stiffness that the heiress put out, the measured front to keep calm and specifically not look at the red-frosted brunette next to her, or really anywhere else but in front of her. She was blocking everything out, determined. On, for, or about what, Ruby didn't have a clue. Yet.
Her face was drawn, drained a little and paler than normal, as if she hadn't actually slept last night, and maybe she hadn't. Ruby knew that she hadn't, as she'd been kept up by her own turmoil and worries after retreating from the conversation to her cave of a hanging bed with some anger at the heiress in front of her, yet it seemed like the rich girl hadn't slept at all.
Her posture was prim and perfect to the point of pain, determined and focused on whatever task she'd given herself as the rest of the class slowly filtered in, though the bags under her eyes, while near-invisible, were absolutely unmistakable.
Today, Ruby had sat a row behind her normal spot (third row), so that she could watch her teammates, which failed when the others sat in their usual relative placing, Weiss to her left, Yang to her right, and Blake on Yang's other side.
Then Yang leaned over and discreetly asked, "What's going on Ruby?"
"Nothing's wrong Yang." Ruby insisted lightly before glancing over at Weiss to check for change. Nothing new.
"No." Yang said firmly, but still quietly. "Ruby, you're distracted and depressed. Even with recent worries, this is really unusual for you. Something's really wrong, and given how Weiss has been giving you the cold shoulder today, it's something involving her." Yang noted astutely while Ruby shifted uncomfortably. She'd never been able to hide things like this from her sister very well.
"Nothing's wrong, Yang." She hissed back, trying to get the blonde to shut up already.
Thankfully, that's when Professor Port walked in and much of the class, and the few who actually pay attention, quieted down. That would make their whispers too audible to be private.
"Alright class," The portly professor began in his usual deep and cheery voice."I know that todyay's lesson is one you've been looking forwards to for-"
However, today they wouldn't be having the lesson they'd "Been looking forward to" because he was interrupted.
"Professor Port."
All eyes turned to watch today's brave interloper, who happened to be Weiss Schnee as she held her hand up high for classroom attention.
Professor Port raised a large steely gray bushy eyebrow at her panache. "You have a question, Miss Schnee?"
Weiss shook her head. "More of a request for information on a particular type of Grimm." She said coolly.
Ruby's brows furrowed. What was Weiss doing? She gave her friend a questioning look, but it had no effect as the heiress was tightly focused on their teacher.
"Well ask away as there is no Grimm in existence that I don't know about!" He responded brightly.
"Tell me about Hydras."
The entire room froze, or at least it seemed to from Ruby's perspective. This was about last night! Why would she bring this up where everybody would hear about it?!
"Weiss! What're you doing?" Ruby hissed embarrassingly loudly, earning herself a discrete kick to the shin from Weiss' booted feet.
"Well, to be honest, I can't help but echo Miss Rose." the Professor said nervously. "There are plenty of other Grimm I could lecture about, including the various different smaller Grimm, such as the surprisingly vicious and violent Squirrel-like Grimm or the interestingly peaceful Honey Badger-like Grimm, or even my planned lecture on the common Beowulf designed expressly to put every student to sleep with commonly known information, even among the most tenacious." Ruby blinked. He actually admitted to trying to put his students to sleep? "Why would you want to hear about a Grimm that is an unconfirmed myth at best?"
"Last night, I would have - and essentially did - agree with you." Was her partner's even and measured response, though she was starting to get agitated as well. "In the process, I hurt someone I car about, and after they left, a small piece of paper flew into my face, one with a nightmarish image on it, and one I could not simply dismiss as unfortunate fantasy."
"And why not?" He asked, his tone part challenging and part afraid. "I've known you to be rather inflexible when it comes to the truth, so why would you suddenly believe a myth to be true?"
"Because if the caption was true, which I currently have no reason to disbelieve, then there is a clear and unequivocal proof that at lest one Hydra existed about twenty or thirty years ago, even if it has been covered up since then."
Ruby felt helpless, stuck glancing between a determined Weiss who seemed to be going out of her way to attack their professor, and the professor that seemed very rattled for no apparent reason by this verbal attack. She didn't know what to do.
"And why is it that that picture, which may have been doctored and thus be proven false, convince you to change your stance?" Port asked, not unreasonably.
And then she dropped the deathblow. "It was a massive Grimm, double the size of the Nevermore Team RWBY fought off and killed during initiation bearing multiple heads on long, serpentine necks being stared down by a young man bearing a blunderbuss with the blades of a waraxe on the muzzle as a woman with a broken sword charged in from the side and a pair of men charged in as well, one a dark-haired man with a scythe and the other a younger man with a slimmer sword who is the spitting image of Headmaster Ozpin himself. I do not think I need to elaborate on who I believe the man with the rifle is, in this picture."
Ruby froze just as if Weiss had turned her into a statue with her sky-blue Ice Dust, and Professor Port was just as still. While she could probably guess as to why Port was now imitating granite, such as the fact that a similar weapon to what Weiss had described was held enshrined on the wall on a plaque, the professor's own weapon propped up for show, she had her own reason to be still. That picture sounded remarkably like the newspaper article she'd been gifted with once by her uncle Qrow, a great man who'd taught her how to use her massive scythe properly and was nearly at the level of God-worship in how reverently she would have treated him if it weren't for the fact that he was her uncle, and a rather fun individual to be around as well. He had given it to her, telling her that he was trusting her with a great secret of his that he would one day unveil completely. She still wasn't completely sure why, though the picture was kinda epic, but she had promised to keep it safe, so her panic was understandable, especially because she didn't want to be seen as untrustworthy and her description definitely sounds like the news article that Qrow gave her and I don't want Port or Weiss to be hurt, especially by Qrow if he gets mad, not that he will, but he might and I don't want them hurt because Port doesn't really know anything and Weiss is my friend and-
Unaware of Ruby's mental ramblings, Professor Port and Weiss continued their mexican standoff. "According to the caption," Weiss continued. "The main combatants were a Qrow Branwen, Glynda Goodwitch, a man called Ozpin, whom I assume is the headmaster, and you, Peter Port." She paused to let that sink in. Then she leaned forward and continued in a darker tone, "Is it true that you killed such a beast?"
"Well, yes, though not by myself and that particular creature was obviously a member of a rare species, one which you will likely not ever encounter." He replied, seeming to visibly sweat now. "It would be less of a waste of time to learn more about the more common Grimm and-"
Weiss interrupted. "It would be a waste of time to learn in here what we can learn more quickly and easily in the field." Ruby had never heard Weiss be so casually dismissive about almost any class or lesson, no matter how big a waste of time it actually was, and she knew Blake and Yang were actively staring at their white-clad friend as if she'd just grown a second head, just as she herself was. The rich girl was becoming truly incensed at this point. "Professor Oobleck said that if you don't pay attention to history, then you are doomed to repeat your predecessor's mistakes. So why won't you tell us about such a powerful Grimm so that we won't be utterly destroyed when one appears?!"
"Because he's afraid."The unfamiliar voice cut clean through the atmosphere that had built up like a breath of fresh, clean air, an everyone's attention was instantly brought to the source of the voice at the entrance to the classroom.
There she stood, well, leaned against the doorframe. She was tall and, to Ruby's young inner delight, less impressive in the bust than her, even with her black and red buckled corset over a deep scarlet shirt, though her hair cut, also black with red highlights, was much more impressive and mature, falling down to the ears and covering her right eye in a very dignified manner that, when combined with her imperious silvery gaze, made for a very impressive sight, and her visible ruby earring combined with the woman's expression made for a very mysterious image. A predatory one. A Hunter's true face, as Qrow would probably say.
Then the woman visibly noticed that everyone's attention was on her and her expression was suddenly all sweetness and light, a brightly amused smile covering the predator within. "Oh, don't mind me. Just minding my own business and snooping a little." She said brightly, her face the picture of innocence.
...Yeah, not even she was that blind. That face wouldn't fool anyone, not even naive her or bumbling Jaune, and Jaune was considered the school idiot by most.
The woman waved at them, still smiling brightly. "Go on, continue like I'm not even here. It's just getting interesting after all."
"Why don't you explain yourself instead?" Weiss said acidly, more as a demand than a request and with an edge to her voice that Ruby wasn't sure she liked.
"Well, okay." The woman said as she straightened and began to walk down the steps to where Professor Port usually taught from. Ruby's thoroughly well-developed combat instincts had her evaluating the woman's posture and strides to analyze the possible threat level she might pose, possible combat style, and possible weaknesses.
First thing she noticed was that her black leather pants seemed to be high quality, but had a more homemade feel to them, partly from the thin helical red stripes going up her legs similar to those on Penny's pants, and partly from the sheer number of pockets they held and the loops at various points (likely to hold additional weapons or gear) which complimented the three clearly visible cross-worn ammo belts on her torso, though there was also the fact that they were rather loose, though not bell-bottomed, near the feet, but very snug at the hips.
The second thing that Ruby noticed as the woman walked the small 3rd row landing was that she wasn't actually wearing a buckled corset similar to what she wore in her normal combat uniform, but rather a number of red-lined black buckled belts surrounding her scarlet shirt, each of which was their own entity from the way they moved independently, and all held loops and small spots meant to hold ammunition of various types, complete with some dark ammunition which blended in with the leather-like material, and they were similar to the secondary ammunition belts strapped over her sleeves on her forearm and biceps, which held pouches and bullets and crystals just like the other primary ammo belts.
That's when she noticed an absurdly obvious thing and something almost alarming as seeing that she'd missed the obvious thing. The obvious thing was the very large sword strapped to her back which looked like an oversized version of Jaune's sword Crocea Mors, though without an appropriately sized Kite-Shielth to hold it in. The not-so-obvious thing was the thin plume of diffuse violet smoke rising from the woman's right ear.
After the woman had crossed the few steps to the second row landing and was standing right in front of her, Ruby got brave enough to point it out. "Um, your hair's on fire." Immediately after, Ruby was smacked upside the head by a surprisingly familiar delicate hand - Weiss' - for saying something so completely stupid.
As the woman gave a confused "Hunh?" and paused at their row, Ruby turned to the disapproving Weiss right next to her and defended her dorkishness. "What? it is!"
"Oh! That's just my cigar." Ruby turned and saw the woman pull a thin stick-like object wrapped in a papery substance that was burning on one end, glowing like embers and releasing the aforementioned purple smoke. "I forgot that most people don't really smoke, and that it was even there in the first place." She turned to leave before she paused and turned back to them. "By the way, why did you use that particular method of questioning to get him to open up Weiss?
"I've seen my father use it on some of his more recalcitrant business partners." Weiss said. "Mention something they're afraid of, which is what you're getting them to do or explain, slowly ease them into it and let them quiver in ambiguitous fear, then drop the hammer, letting them ask questions to lead them where you want them to go."
Rose appeared thoughtful. "Hmm, well-reasoned, but that's nowhere near the most efficient way of getting those afraid like this to open up like you wanted with Peter here." Though, she didn't offer any was that was better than that before she turned around and finished making her way down to the now-shaking professor.
In that short time, Ruby finished her analysis which saw just how snug the pants were in the hips area (very), and how the bottoms of the pants near-fully covered her shoes, almost like Penny's pants. However, due to the way the pants covered the shoes, she couldn't get a better look at them, though the tread matched several sets of combat shoes that she had examined over the past few weeks when she became aware that she needed new ones. On the back of the belts pretending to be a corset in order to restrict bust movement and keep bones in their proper places were a few buttoned leather rings designed to hold the woman's broadsword with snaps for quick and easy removal without breaking or cutting the straps, possibly magnetic to make the "scabbard" reassembly easy and effortless. On her hands were a pair of metal gauntlets, somewhat similar in design to what Yang wore on her hands if the metal of Ember Celica were to also cover her hands, though these were a lot more decorative, some of which could be used as reinforcement on strikes and protect the hands from additional damage or add further damage to glancing blows, though they were not of the most sterling quality she'd ever seen. In fact, they were more reminiscent of Sun's gauntlets. They were somewhat tarnished, which did indicate a significant amount of silver in the alloy, but other than that slight weakness they seemed serviceable. There was also an odd pattern of pressed-down hair in a diagonal line on the back, indicative of, something. Ruby wasn't quite sure what.
Her stride was prideful, powerful, but slow and assured. It was, patient. This was not someone excitable like her, or aggressive and can't wait to fight, or at least not like Yang and her enjoyment of combat. But there was also a restrained... violence wasn't the right word for it. Aggression, rage, ferality, primal animalistic fury. Something that was just raring to get out but had been taught patience. To wait and watch and listen until just the right time. Her battle style is likely patient. Wait for the enemy to come to you, but do not forget to attack yourself. From the way she holds herself, watching everything around her, she's used to ambushes, being ganged up on, fighting off multiple enemies at once, though she does not seem to be completely unused to fighting one-on-one. Her muscles are strong, but not bared for aggression and intimidation. They remain hidden, keeping away what strength they hold until they are truly needed.
She holds herself like a few of the legends Ruby had met through her uncle Qrow. Like someone with history, who knows herself and knows the enemy and knows, for absolutium fact that she will still be here at the end of the day, but her enemies, the idiots who attempt to kill her today that is, will not be. Because she has had to learn that and been taught that ad nauseum.
That's about when the woman reached the professor, and when Ruby noticed the state the poor man was in. He was practically sweating bullets made of sweat and his face was far more pale than she had ever seen anyone, even Weiss, though it did seem to be regaining color, and he seemed to be in some sort of pain.
"Since I seem to have your attention," The unknown, yet somehow familiar, woman said, her earlier confidence making another appearance, tempered as it was by sadness, sorrow, and empathy. Not pity, but sympathy. "Here's how I know. You have Survivor's Guilt. A condition that I am very aware of, having been through it myself and have watched my family suffer from for years. We've all had people that we've lost, people we were supposed to protect." She slowly, gently, grabbed his shaking hand before pulling him into a surprising gentle hug. The confidence was gone, replaced by grief and a wish to comfort."It wasn't your fault. You did what you could."
Prof. Port pulled himself away with a strong jerk, the woman allowing him to pull back. "How could you possibly say that?! You weren't there! You never saw it! Not the destruction, not the chaos, none of it!" He roared, voice filled with self-loathing in a way that put fear into every student that heard it, very much a difference from his normal powerful, gaudy, and self-assured self.
She gave him a sad smile. "Lemme guess, Hollow's Ground?" At his sudden stillness, she nodded with a sigh. "Yeah, I figured. We were there a few years ago, destroying what Grimm were left over. It was a Nested Hydra, and you and your team were young and stupid. Thought you could kill anything. But you'd never encountered Nested Grimm, never seen a Hydra, never known what they could do. Me? My team? My family? We've seen it all too often, and while I usually just don't care one way or another, I've seen the sorrow on their faces when they see the destruction and I always have to remind them that they didn't break those buildings, they didn't kill those people, they were only just arriving and when you arrive is when your contribution actually starts. If you didn't know beforehand, then you didn't know beforehand. That's all. And I know more about the story than you might think." He turned to her sharply before she continued. "I read the article on what happened last night, because I was watching over the students when the piece of paper slapped me in the face. Interesting reading, but believe me when I say that I've lived through worse, and when the victims are people that I've cared about, including once or twice when it was entirely my own damn fault, it's a hell of a lot worse." She gave a self-deprecating smile with a faint motion towards her hair-covered right eye.
"And just how did you pay for your mistake, might I ask?" Professor Port queried, trying not to be too improper and ask about a touchy subject.
"Well," Rose said with a thoughtful, remembering pause. "The first village that I watched burn was because I set fire to it." At his surprise, she said bluntly, "What? They insulted Snow." She shrugged at his continued shock before continuing. "That one I got punished by Snow for, she hit me upside the head very hard. The others were pretty much unimportant, meaningless to me. Hunter's Haven though..." There was a far-off look in her eye at the mention of that town, a combination of pain and fondness and tears in her visible silvery eye which glistened with unshed tears. After another moment of leaning against Port's little-used desk, she continued softly, making the non-faunus in the room with their not-as-sharp hearing to strain to hear. "Haven," She took a deep, shakey breath before she could continue. "Haven was home. The only home I ever had, and the only good thing I ever made. The only truly good thing of my own two hands that never corrupted into something wrong. A home for Huntsmen and Heroes." She pointed vaguely in the direction of Jaune and Pyrrha as she said, "Johnnyboy led the town, loveable idiot that he was. Great guy, pulled himself out and up after I helped him meet his wife, Pyrrhic. See, I insisted it be him, I didn't know anyone else pure enough, and I knew I'd destroy my one dream if I led it. Of course, Pyrrhic met him 6 months after he took the reins, and 6 months after was their marriage. Such a happy day that was."
A watery smile crept onto the woman's face as a tear fell from her visible eye. The pain Ruby could see in the woman's features and posture made her wonder, what could possibly be in these good memories to hurt her so deeply? "I could go on and on about the many wonderful things about them and the other Hunters of Grimm I knew, and about the town itself, but you're not here for that. You're not here to listen to an old woman ramble on about those who died to protect and serve, even if they were the best I ever saw, and I saw a lot of Hunters, though none could match Johnnyboy's determination even before we taught him how to destroy the nightmares. The man was rather instinctive about how to keep his friends alive and the Grimm dead. Good at it too." She paused for a moment before saying, "Well, once you got him to stop trying to look good or act amazing or try something stupid someone would say would work or prove himself, that is. It wasn't that he was a bad person, just wanted to make sure people liked him. Wore off after awhile, let himself relax and be a person." She shook her head, trying to get back on track. "Well, a long time after we'd established Haven, it was thriving. People were happy and healthy and, barring the occasional death because of Grimm, we were growing faster and better than ever before. Pyrrhic was expecting, and Snow told me it would probably be a girl, and they had already gathered a few children who had lost their parents to the Grimm, so they knew from experience that they'd at least be able to get the kid to survive. Right about then, I heard a rumor about a Dragon in the area. I was always looking for a good fight, and at the time it had been..." She paused to try and account for the amount of time between the time she was describing and whenever it was she was looking for. Then she shook her head in defeat and said, "A very long time since I had killed a Hydra, with or without my family, so I was hard to restrain long enough to grab the proper weapons so that I could get to a good fight again, though part of that was because, if the rumors were right, it could've been close enough to find Hunter's Haven, and being a Grimm, that made it a threat, and I never took kindly to threats, especially to family, like the entirety of Hunter's Haven."
She sighed, now downcast as more tears started to fall. Ruby would be more concerned about her right now, but she was a little too enthralled by the story being told to care as much as she normally would. "It was closer than I could have ever thought. A day or two spent traveling in the direction it was said to be in, another to check and follow tracks and signs of damage, and a fourth to find the damn thing. Less than an hour's true journey from Haven, and it had nested, just like the Hydra you dealt with, Peter." Rose's eye squeezed shut, painful memories likely surfacing as she retold the story. After a moment, she continued. "I did the thing that I knew so well, I attacked. But even with my experience with Hydras, I was defeated within minutes. I would be dead, but the creature wanted to play with me. So I ran, like the powerless animal I was, blinded by the fear I rarely, if ever, felt, and I just tried to survive. Over the hills and rocks, and around and over trees I ran, ignoring what injuries I gained after my clothing had been torn to pieces by the Grimm, my weapons shattered, and just tried to get home alive. I crested a hilltop and saw Haven, close enough to touch. I paused at the sight, and that's what sealed their doom." the woman squeezed her eye shut in remembered pain, more tears streaming down on the left side of her face. But oddly, none on the right. "I heard a thump in the air a moment before a tree came crashing down on me. I moved just enough to slip and land face-up, leaving me in the perfect position to be stabbed in the eye by a broken branch while another tree came down and trapped my legs and shoved another thick branch through my torso." Gasps were heard throughout the room, the loudest seeming to come from Professor Port and Ruby herself. "I screamed. I couldn't stop it, and I couldn't staunch the blood because of the sheer size of the trees and the shapes and sizes of the debris in the way. A 'whump!' sound combined the the feeling of the ground shaking like a Monolith was passing by cut through the pain as my head was ripped from the branch's grip and I opened my eye to see through the pain and saw the dragon bending down over me, poisonous-looking acid spittle drooling all around me as it looked down and judged me. Red eyes shone down as the hiss of acid dissolved the ground and a growl like a Greater Beowolf pack multiplied put true, paralyzing fear in me for the first time in my life." She shuddered at the memory. "I saw a talon reaching down, but I could do nothing to stop it from touching me, killing me, since my head had ended up in a ditch of sorts, and I now lacked the power to move it. I felt it touch the ruined remains of my eye, and moaned, as that was all I could do. I knew I was about to die. But then it pulled back, blood coating the claw as it spread it's wings and after looking at me one more time, it took flight. I watched it as it descended upon Hunter's Haven, burning it to the ground, and I knew as I watched that I had brought it there, that I was the cause of all that pain and death, and I wept, for loss of a dream and the removal of family."
Ruby swallowed thickly as the loss of the woman's family in the story touched the part of her that had a similar pain from losing her own mother. She knew the pain of losing family well enough, and she saw Weiss similarly affected out of the corner of her eye, making her wonder who the heiress had lost. The tears ran freely now in grief, sorrow, and remembered pain. The woman's breath hitched for a moment before she continued. "I went into what is now known as shock, my body spasming violently as the psychological shock of all the pain combined with the poison now flowing through my body, courtesy of the beast that had razed Haven to the ground, and the rest I don't remember. The next I remember, I was on a bed of pine needles, well-bound in bandages and cleaned with only a little more than half my vision left and Snow attending to me. She told me-" her breath hitched again before she continued. "She told me that when she'd found me, she'd found a bloody body with tears pooled in a ruined eye, which had some odd black goo on it and in it, which was being absorbed by the cloth over my eye, and the thought that I might actually die." She looked down at her shoes and gave a soft, sad chuckle, finding something oddly funny inside her mind. "Of course, before I woke up, I'd never known that such a saint could be so very cruel."
"And what do you mean by that?" the portly teacher asked.
She looked at him with a sad smile. "Well, who else but a saint could accept a monster like me?" She said in a tone to match her smile. Then she continued before anyone had a chance to respond to that. "Snow is the one who woke me up to those basic ideas like 'Kindness' and 'Morality' by affording me mercy through an amazing and powerful grace even though I have never deserved it. I am, and always will be, a complete and utter monster." When he opened his mouth to protest, she held up a hand. "Save it." She said, suddenly tired, a little winded from having to recall- no, re-live such painful memories. Whatever it was, it hurt. It was bad, and it still hurt even now, many years later. "I've heard it often enough from Snow and my customers. As for Snow? She took care of me, even after I attacked her with a desire to kill her and after being told, quite accurately, that I was worse than even a monstrous Grimm. Her cruelty after Hunter's Haven was burned to the ground was born of the same mercy as she nursed me back to health. A week or two later, after the salve on my eye had done all it could and I could stand on my own, I ran off after she fell asleep. I'm still not entirely sure whether it was to track down the Dragon and kill it, or simply to pick a fight and die. Probably both though." The older Huntress gave a soft snort. "Didn't even make it three days before I was bound and thrown over Snow's shoulder until I could calm down enough to be told never to do that again."
The tone with which she had told her story had entranced the whole room, Ruby especially. She had been raised on fairy tales like this, and it would have been right at home in her father's rather thick, heavy, and rather dusty copy of Grimm Tails. The book itself was rather old, and the stories it held inside were even older. Far older. Some were supposedly about people just living in a time where Auras and Dust were nothing more than dreams.
For a moment, there was utter silence in the room.
That simply would not do, or so the universe decided.
That's when the chime of a Scroll going off for a face-to-face conversation coincided with one of the other students (one Ruby was unfamiliar with, directly behind her) loudly calling out "Bullshit!"
Ruby jumped as the woman gave the room at large a soft smile as she pulled her (obviously custom-made) Scroll from her pocket. "Well, at least someone has the balls to call me out on it." She said as she pushed on the blinking yellow diamond shape in the middle of the front, answering the call as the Scroll widened to show the screen, which, transparent as it was, allowed the students to see the white-haired woman who looked strikingly like Weiss in a rage (and also very familiar) as Rose suddenly cringed in fear and sheepishness as she prepared for the coming chewing-out.
"ROSE RUBELLITE OF THE RED RIDING HOOD, DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG WE'VE BEEN SEARCHING FOR YOU?!"
"I'm sorry Snow, I've just been a little preoccupied. I wanted to check on Ar-"
"Shut it!" The brunette's jaws shut with a click.
Oh, that's why they're familiar. The woman here was the same one she'd had fun with in the Mall, and the woman on the screen was her friend, who'd had to fend off Rose's unconscious attacks. Odd, Rose looks so different.
Snow glared so powerfully Ruby thought Rose might be set on fire. "Didn't I tell you never to leave us like that again?" Her voice dangerously low.
Rose tried, and failed, to suppress a snort. "Funny story 'bout that: I was actually telling that story to Peter Port to make him feel better about Hollow's Ground."
"And did I not tell you specifically to not even so much as set a single foot in Beacon Academy?" Snow continued on as if Rose hadn't spoken. Oh boy, Rose is in serious trouble.
But then Snow blinked. "Wait, you did-" She paused to allow what had been said to reach her properly and then continued on, more powerfully, "Why in the hell would you do that?"
"Because the poor boy was feeling his survivor's guilt, and I told him he wasn't alone."
Snow paused, apparently thinking. "So he was at Hollow's Ground, that place that the Hydra trashed, where we saw all those fangs and bones and Grimm, right?"
"That's the one." Rose said brightly.
"Okay, given the destruction, I can believe the existence of the guilt. I still don't see how that applies to me finding you under a burning tree near the wreckage of a dead village with a ruined eye." The white woman said. "Speaking of," She continued, seemingly ignoring Rose's guilty look. "Show it."
Rose appeared unsure. "Um, my eye?"
"Yeah. It's been a month, and we agreed to check on it every other week, remember?" Snow said slowly, as if explaining something to a child who should already know what was being said. Ruby knew this tone: Weiss still uses it on her every so often. "Since we're overdue..." Snow trailed off meaningfully.
"But, there are other people here." Rose said a little edgily.
"So?" The other woman said dismissively. "If you're at Beacon, then they're Hunters. They can take a slightly squeamish sight."
Rose paused at that. "Snow, we're screwed up, you know that, right?"
"What does that have to do with you taking off your eyepatch for an overdue checkup?" Now, Ruby wasn't always the most observant person when it came to people, but she thought that maybe Rose should just do as told because Snow was getting obviously ticked off.
"No, it has to do with the fact that they're children, not really experienced, blooded Hunters. They haven't even started into 'queasy' territory. They won't be able to handle 'slightly squeamish'."
"Well, too bad for them they're around when you chose to suddenly grow a conscience." Snow said, scowling up a storm in a scarily accurate impersonation of Weiss in a rage.
"Alright, fine. Just don't blame me for whatever you hear." Rose grumbled back.
She went over to the Professor's desk and propped the scroll so that it lay at an angle that could see her and gave Snow one last baleful glare before she stood straight, removed the suddenly visible eyepatch, black with a red border and a scarlet rose embossed in the middle (not as fancy as the one on Ruby's belt, but still undeniably a rose), and Ruby immediately blanched. Now, from the woman's story, one might think there would be very little left, especially given how long ago she'd implied it to be. Like, if there was newer flesh that had grown into the eye socket, resulting in a more or less solid plane of skin, or perhaps a loose patch of skin that used to be the eyelid, or perhaps a glass eye underneath that eyelid, but under the patch had been a sunken, misshapen closed eyelid where some sort of black goo was slowly leaking out from underneath.
Now, Ruby had seen plenty of cheesy gory action flicks (and a very few horror flicks, sneaked when neither Yang nor their father were watching, which had left her with more than a few sleepless nights), so she knew the signs of things being faked. This, this was not faked. There was no goo on top of the eyelid that would point at it being from the eyepatch, no smearing that might indicate barbecue sauce or really any other sign that she knew of. This goo, whatever it was, really was coming from underneath Rose's eyelid, maybe from the eye itself, and it did not look fake at all.
Snow sighed. "The entire way, Rose. As your personal eye doctor, I need to see it." Came the voice from the scroll.
Rose hesitated, then Ruby turned to Team JNPR and gave a soft call to them. "Pyrrha, cover Jaune's eyes. Ren, do Nora's." When they looked at her, queasy but confused, she hissed out, "Do it!" She was acting on instinct right now, which said that the two more innocent members of JNPR should be spared whatever they were about to see, just as she knew that she needed to see it. She didn't know why, though she might later describe it as being that, as the Team's leader, she needed to see whatever threat might arise with open eyes. Besides which, she wasn't quite as innocent as everyone else thought she was, but either way, she knew she would regret this bullheaded decision to see what was under the eyepatch.
She wasn't disappointed.
Rose sighed and opened her eye, slowly and flinchingly, as if the act of opening her eye pained her, and Ruby had to hold back the bile suddenly burning at her throat, and she heard numerous disgusted sounds and a few cases of vomit.
Part of what made this worse was that the eyelid still seemed basically normal, even held some sort of normal shape. This though, this was not an eye. This was some, horribly misshapen, pulsating black mass that resembled a rather disgusting and squelchy ball-shaped Grimm's body. The fact that the entire mass that had replaced the woman's eye was seeping that same black goo, top to bottom, was getting her close to vomiting. She knew she wasn't alone in this, and she was kinda thankful for those few sneaked movies because it helped give her more of an iron stomach against something like this, and she was suddenly very glad that she'd asked Pyrrha and Ren to cover their partners' eyes. Jaune would've thrown up for sure.
There were a few clinically detached hums from the open scroll on the desk. "Well, while it'd be better to see it in person, I can definitely say from here that it looks a hell of a lot better than last month, and infinitely better than when I first found you there all those years ago." The thought that it could be worse, while initially incomprehensible to Ruby, was quickly replaced with a possible image based off of "Creature of the Black Slime Lagoon", which involved an intelligent set of tentacles growing out of the eye, which nearly sent Ruby over the edge into vomiting. She held it in (barely), though she could taste the bile and hydrochloric acid on her tongue, and she held back a shudder, trying not to remember days as a kid when she threw up often. She vaguely heard Snow say that she would have to apply a new coating of some herbal paste or other.
Suddenly, a slight breeze blew past her ears, through her hair. Strange, Ruby thought. In Beacon Academy, you never actually felt the drafts the likely powerful air movement systems, probably installed by AlCSys co. because you never heard it or felt it but you knew it was there, created to keep the air from getting stale or stuffy, but this felt like a weaker version of Signal Academy's air flow on a hot day, except for something she couldn't fully put her finger on, except to say that it was... wrong.
Then, as Rose was putting her eyepatch back on and covering it with her hair once again, the light breeze carried something past her nose. A small stench, light and diffuse but definitely gag-worthy, and more importantly, it came from behind her, rather than from Rose and her damaged eye. Immediately after, she felt an odd tingling sensation in her aura.
Of course, she wasn't paying it the slightest attention, as that's when Rose stiffened.
"Rose?" Snow asked worriedly. "You okay honey?" There was no conscious response to that, but Rose did put her hands to her head, right around her ears, face screwed up in pain. "Rose!?" Rose started making small pained noises and started to shrink in on herself, still ignoring Snow.
Ruby didn't remember standing up or walking over, but she did remember Snow screaming to a "Dragon Blake" that Rose was "flipping in pain" right before Rose flinched back from her outstretched arm as she asked the older woman if she was okay, despite the very pained expression on the older brunette's face.
"Don't touch me." She said very tersely, pain lacing her voice very clearly.
"What's wrong?"
Ruby was only marginally surprised to see Weiss beside her. The Snow Angel had softened and lightened up a lot since the beginning of their first semester, and was willing to do a number of additional things with her that she never would have before Beacon. True, she was still a complete Ice Princess, all Prim and Proper and stuff, but she acted like a person now. What did surprise Ruby was Rose's reaction to her.
First was a strained and whispered, "I can't hear you over the noise in my head." Then she got a good look at Weiss's face and it went from strained to stern, confused, and annoyed, which was mirrored throughout her body language. "Why the hell don't I see you using crutches, Weiss?" She asked in a more normal tone and volume, pain seemingly disappeared. "I don't want to have to restitch your stomach because you ripped them out after having endured an experimental emergency treatment like that. You could bleed out." She said it all with a tone very much like a doctor lecturing a bad patient, which was a tone Ruby actually knew quite well from her own visits to the hospital, whether for Yang, or for herself after certain treatments and surgeries.
Weiss chose to take that statement differently than Rose likely intended. "Was all that nothing more than an act?" She asked irately.
"No it wasn't, I-" Rose cut herself off, apparently surprised at her own words, and blinked. "Wait, I can hear you now. That means..." She trailed off, eyes widening in realization. She swore softly and asked, "Do you guys have your weapons nearby?"
Weiss gave her a look that clearly called the suddenly panicky woman an imbecile. "This is a combat school. Of course we have our weapons."
"Mine's at my seat." Ruby admitted, and if it was a tiny bit sheepishly, then who could blame her? "Why?
Weiss obviously could, if the way she turned her "you are an imbecile" look to bear on her.
Suddenly, the big door in the back of the classroom that everybody mostly ignores by now rattled with a resounding "Doom" sound. Rose fluidly turned to face it in a ready stance whilst Ruby jumped and Weiss took a step back. "That's why." Rose responded with a snarl, blade now in her hand while the quick draw "scabbard" reassembled the snaps on it's own, giving the younger brunette a happy moment for a successful identification. That moment was interrupted by a second massive door rattle.
"Go! Grab your weapons and armor and prepare for the fight of your lives!" Rose commanded, and the partners nodded and went to do as requested.
But they weren't able to get to their dorms to grab their combat uniforms. When they got to their seats to grab their weapons and stand with their team, the door was rattled a third time, which knocked it down and an oversized Beowulf leapt out, right at the team.
Paralyzed in fear and surprise without ready weapons, they waited for death to tear them to ribbons.