James Ironwood burst into the observation room through the once closed doors. This rectangular room located in the farthest basement of Beacon Academy, consisted of a pair of metal double doors with a row of computers and recording equipment on the opposite wall. To his right was a window from ceiling to waist height, looking into a larger room a few steps below.
"You found it!" He called out to the awaiting Goodwitch as he came to a stop. His voice was the ecstatic tone of a satisfied commander, both exuberant and controlled. "Congratulations on capturing that thing. Fantastic work."
His overheaping of praise returned no response however, instead of the proud confident Glynda he was familiar with and expected, this one said nothing, merely remaining seated, staring into the room opposite the one way mirror.
Less than an hour previous the general received word that Goodwitch had apprehended their culprit, a victory worth celebrating for sure. As quick as he could he made his way to where the beast in question was being held, hungry to look this thing in the face.
There were many things the general expected to see when he finally looked upon the monster preying on his students, rage, madness, the cold eyes of a calculating killer. He had many images in his head of the one behind this. A savage who toyed with him and the instructors of Beacon in a sick game. A vicious psychopath using their newly acquired abilities to feed on children. A monster he would enjoy putting down. However; turning his gaze towards the glass, what he saw was a scene that never even registered as a possibility.
In the room before him was professor Oobleck sitting at a steel table opposite the one responsible. But this was definitely not the monster Ironwood expected to find. Clad in a thin dark tank top, white sweatpants adorned with red roses, and a pair of out of place red and black combat boots, was a distraught young girl. She sat with her feet on the chair and hugging her legs with her face buried in her knees. Even with her face most the way obstructed, James could still make out the red cheeks and puffy eyes. Sitting in that room was not a monster, but a crying child.
The dumbstruck general tried vocalise some form of coherent sound, instead only succeeding in producing random vowel noises in a questioning tone.
After a long sigh, Glynda stood to face him. "Yes James, she is the one we were looking for. Dental impressions match the ones in each of our victims. This is Carmilla's newborn."
The disbelief was evident in Ironwood's demeanor as he slowly approached the glass barrier between him and the girl. He hunted fugitives in his past, more than once the kind that took pleasure in the suffering of children. From those individuals Ironwood became attuned to the mind of a killer. He could see it in their eyes, the eyes that could kill without mercy, remorseless and evil. Yet this girl, this child, those were not the eyes of someone who could have done all this. Feeding on children and leaving them for their teammates to find. No, he was certain of it, this child could not be the one he was hunting.
Upon seeing Ironwood's head slowly shaking in disbelief, Glynda continued to speak. "Her name is Ruby Rose. You met her once, after the break in." He nodded in recognition. "Her story seems to line up with what Karnstein told me. Ruby says she was attacked in her own dorm just a couple nights before the incident with miss Schnee." Turning back towards Ruby, Glynda started to visibly become more agitated. "Like all of the attacks there was some form of short term memory loss, and miss Rose thought; or at least hoped, it was a dream."
"No, that can't be right." James started. "What was done with the victims, leaving them for us to find, calling in their teammates and faculty. It was toying with us. This can't be the work of a child, someone like miss Rose no less."
"She wasn't trying to toy with us, she was trying to save them." Glynda said with a pang of sadness in her voice. "She described the uncontrollable hunger, being unable to even stop herself. She didn't even know she was a vampire, the poor girl thought she was going insane. Even with all of that she couldn't let anyone die. She wanted each person to be found so they could get help. She had such little control over her actions but she used it to save them."
Goodwitch stepped forward, placing her hand upon the glass before closing her eyes and speaking once again. This time, anger in her voice. "I just... I wanted to get Carmilla so badly. That woman, what she has done. I thought this was the chance I needed. Even when I found out it wasn't her, I still wanted some beast I could destroy, any form of punishment I could unleash onto her. It never even occurred to me that Carmilla's puppet would be just another victim in all this."
It was plain as day to Ironwood that Glynda's anger was not directed at the one responsible, but herself. Before he had a chance to step forward and lend comfort to his long time friend, Glynda abruptly spun on her heels and spoke to him.
"This is my responsibility. I couldn't stop her back then and she killed her. Because of me she was able to come back and do this to my students. I promise you James, I will kill Karnstein."
After a moment, Goodwitch glanced at her watch, in that action her whole demeanor changed back to her controlled serious nature. She then made her way towards the door. "Now if you would excuse me James, Ozpin requested that I read one of the academy's councilors in on the situation. Miss Rose and her teammates are going to need their help."
"Speaking of Ozpin, where is he?"
Pausing at the doorway, she turned back and answered. "Telling her team the truth."
Yang never handled silence well, these moments of inaction left her feeling powerless. So as Weiss, Blake, and herself sat alone in the windowless conference room, her agitation rapidly grew.
She failed her sister, or so Yang felt. It was her job to protect her from the evils of the world for as long as she could. Yet this, all this, she could not stop. When Goodwitch burst into their room and found Ruby bound to a chair, Yang could not even come up with an excuse fast enough. By the time she tried to interject with a story about impromptu knot tieing training it was too late. Silver eyes looked into green, and in that moment the two shared an understanding.
There was no yelling or anger. No forceful arrests or weapons drawn. Just a look of despair and sadness on Goodwitch's face as she gently ran her fingers over Ruby's scars. Closing her eyes, the young girl shied away from the older's examination. Glynda moved closer to Ruby and softly spoke to her, a tone none in that room ever heard from the older woman. "I'm going to help you through this. I promise you that."
Thinking back to that morning's events, Yang cursed herself for not doing something more. When her sister was lead out of the room, Blake, sensing what her partner would do, insisted she not make a scene for Ruby's sake. Listening to her partner, she as well as the rest of her team could only watch as Ruby was lead silently down the hallway to an uncertain fate.
Soon afterward, Yang, Blake, and Weiss, were lead by a security guard to this conference room in the basement of the central most building of the academy. Yang's incessant pestering of the poor guard yielded her no information, the young man seemed just as in the dark as the soon to be huntress. He left them alone in this room for what felt like hours for Yang. Although Weiss would soon tell her it was actually only a fraction of that time.
Yang's frustrated pacing was interrupted by the opening of the conference room's only door. In came a white haired man in a suit followed by a man and a woman dressed in Beacon kitchen uniforms. One held the door open while the other pushed in a trolley carrying a stack of mugs and a tall white pot of what was presumably coffee. Next to the mugs were plates and covered serving trays. The man removed the coverings to reveal an assortment of breakfast items including bacon, scrambled eggs, and pancakes.
Ozpin thanked the deliverers and ushered them out. "I thought you three would be hungry so I took the liberty of having the kitchen prepare you some breakfast." He said to the girls. "Please help yourselves."
The headmaster's calm demeanor served more to confuse than comfort the girls. Harboring a violent fugitive rarely warranted fresh hot breakfast delivered.
Refusing to let her skipped breakfast get the better of her, Yang quickly started the speech she had been quietly preparing.
"This is all just a huge misunderstanding. Ruby never hurt anybody we were, uh, just practising prisoner bondage techniques. Wait no, that's not what I meant."
The blonde's embarrassing stammering elicited a silent face palm from Weiss.
"What I meant to say was that as a team we were learning how to subdue prisoners and Ruby was volunteering to be the practice dummy. Ruby is definitely not the type to go around attacking people. That would be ridiculous."
Ozpin continued to watch this curious display with great interest. Deciding he had heard enough he calmly put his hand up in a silencing gesture. "Miss Xiao Long, as much as I appreciate your loyalty to both your team leader and family we have already confirmed miss Rose's involvement in the recent assaults on Beacon students."
Defeated, Yang grasped a piece of bacon and proceeded to chew on the tasty meat product. She had a habit of eating when she was nervous or anxious, she guessed it was her way of fueling her semblance.
"I've gathered none of you know the full extent of Miss Rose's condition." The professor continued.
"Condition?" Asked a confused Blake.
"My sister is not crazy!" Yang angrily responded.
"Please if you would just take a seat I will explain." Said Ozpin as he gestured to the table.
After Yang sat down, Ozpin began to explain everything he and his team knew about what happened to their team leader. The three girls listened in stunned silence as their headmaster talked of vampires and Ruby's transformation.
"Vampires." Weiss eventually said, breaking the silence after Ozpin's spiel. "As in, blood sucking undead creatures?"
"A more apt description would be functionally immortal, but yes." Replied Ozpin.
"And my sister was somehow bitten by one of these things and is now one of them?" Said Yang.
"Right now I am not sure on the particulars of she acquired this condition. Currently professor Oobleck is interviewing miss Rose to ascertain the nature of her infection." Said Ozpin.
"Well you can fix her right? Turn my sister back to normal right?" Yang asked anxiously.
"Look miss Xiao Long," replied Ozpin, "until this case we were unaware this condition could be transferred to new hosts at all. But I can assure you that we are doing everything we can to help your sister."
"What about the one that did this to my sister? You're gonna kill her right?" Asked Yang.
"That is a much more difficult task than you may think." Responded Ozpin. "The reason we haven't dealt with this woman thus far is we are unable to terminate any of these individuals. They appear to possess extraordinary survival adaptations."
"So finding and beating the crap out of this chick is out of the question I take it?" Said Yang.
"Precisely. You and your team are to remain at Beacon and are forbidden from confronting this woman yourselves. Is that understood?"
The three girls nodded in response.
"Good. Now for the time being your teammate needs you to be there for her. She's alone in this and it would help a great deal if she could have your support. Right now the entire force of this academy is working to see that miss Rose will return to her normal self. I just ask that you give us time. Please be patient."
As much as he wished to reassure the girls, none were fooled by what he said. They all knew what he really meant, that they had no idea how to help Ruby.
It was decided that for the time being it would be best if Ruby remain in the observation room. The door remained locked from the outside and she was monitored constantly. For her own comfort a cot was moved into the room and she was allowed to use the nearby restroom so long as she had an escort of Beacon guards. Yang even brought down some fresh clothes for her and Blake and Weiss provided some reading materials. Although Weiss's were more of a scholastic nature than Blake's chooses. As much as they tried to dress it up, Ruby was still in a prison.
Officially Ruby was listed as the latest victim and had therefore been moved to a special ward for her own safety. Luckily for her, the time she was taken in by Goodwitch was early enough that it did not appear that anyone saw what happened. For now Ruby's condition remained a secret, at least from the student body.
For Ruby the rest of the day was spent undergoing various tests, ranging from medical examinations to psychological evaluations. Everyone involved hoping to gain some insight into her changing form. This included everything from checking her new retractable fangs to measuring her aura output.
One of the most revealing tests came from professor Oobleck. He simply walked into the room and placed a cup on the table in front of Ruby and asked her to have a drink. By this point in the day Ruby was so beyond tired off all the tests that she grabbed the cup and gulped down its contents without thinking.
The taste was horrible. Metallic and bitter, all around one of the worst things Ruby had ever drank. She quickly spat out the foul liquid into a bucket produced by the green haired professor.
"What the heck was that?" Asked Ruby.
"Blood, from the medical supplies of course. Which confirms my hypothesis." Responded Oobleck. This caused a series of confused looks from the young girl. "Well," The energetic professor started, "it would appear that when you are feeding it is not the blood you are consuming. Not just the blood that is. Based on the weakened aura of the victims and what we learned here, it would seem that you are in fact feeding off of a person's aura and the blood is just a means of transfer. Of course this unfortunately means we can not satisfy your cravings with donated blood packs, but we will figure something out."
The aura, the energy produced by a living soul. Ruby tried to make since of this new revelation. If she was truly feeding on people's aura, what did that mean for her? She figured that she could not just go around feeding off of her friend's auras. So far her only means of not turning into a mindless killer was draining the blood of people, but draining aura was more dangerous than just draining blood. Without a strong aura a victim could not hope to heal from her attacks in time to receive medical attention. Ruby wished it was as simple as just draining blood.
Ruby nervously nodded as she washed her mouth out with a water bottle given to her by Oobleck. Even with all of these tests and all the data they were collecting none of it helped sooth Ruby's creeping urge to lunge forward and tear open the professor's neck, or the slowly weakening desire to fight that urge.
The remaining members of team RWBY spent the next day taking turns keeping their leader company. Yang was first, nearly taking Ruby's ear off. She talked about the latest gossip, boring classes, anything to distract the pair from the situation at hand.
"Yang," Ruby said nervously during a lull in the conversation, "could you tell Dad that…"
"Nope!" Yang abruptly cut her off. "You are going to tell him yourself."
"Seriously Yang."
"Nope. You are going to be just fine, there is no need for this talk Ruby."
"But Yang, eventually I'll become… I mean to say that soon I won't be ya know, myself and I want you and Dad to know that,"
"No!"
"Yang you heard what Goodwitch said, I'm going to turn into one of those things. I can feel it inside of me, this growing hunger. I don't know how much longer I'll still be me and I want you and Dad to know…"
"Ruby no, I refuse to listen to this." Yang cut her off, anger growing in her lilac eyes. "You are going to get better and you will be back to your normal non blood thirsty self, I promise you that." Yang would not stand to consider losing someone else. Her mother was gone, another one abandoned her, the last thought she would entertain was losing her little sister too. Reaching forward, Yang took Ruby's hand. "You will be okay sis. You just have to hold on a little longer."
Not long afterward Blake took over with "Operation Keep Ruby Company," as it became known. As Weiss was currently apprehensive about spending time alone with Ruby, Blake was spending extra time with the young leader.
The session started off with Blake reading one of Ruby's favorite books to her, a suggestion she got from Yang. The story was about a young hero out to save his village from a terrible monster and overcoming great personal obstacles to do so. To Blake it seemed to put Ruby at ease as they sat on her cot together.
After their reading the duo moved to the observation room's table and began playing a game of cards. As time went on Blake noticed Ruby becoming more uncomfortable. She was fidgeting in her seat and having problems focusing on their game.
"Is there a problem Ruby?" Blake asked, the girl's behavior peaking her curiosity.
"No I'm okey dokey Blake. Everything is A-okay." Ruby's false cheer did not settle Blake's concern, but for the moment she decided to drop the issue.
As they continued Ruby became more uneasy. Her eyes kept jumping between her cards and Blake. Ruby's hands twitched and her breathing quickened. Then in a flash Ruby lunged across the table grabbing Blake by the arm yanking her over the table. Before Blake could react she was face down on the tile floor, Ruby on top of her tearing at her shoulder wildly with her free hand.
Her dominant hand pinned, Blake could do little to fight off the berserking girl on top of her. The noises emanating from the girl, almost primal in nature. There was not rational thought in this girl, only pure animalistic hunger.
Suddenly the door flew open and Ruby was blasted off of Blake before coming to rest on the cot. When Ruby regained her senses she was sitting on her bed with Susan, one of her personal guards, was holding her by the forearms. A handful of medics were swarmed over Blake who was still lying on the floor.
"Oh god Blake I'm so sorry!" Ruby cried, tears beginning to flow down her pale cheeks.
Blake pushed off one of the medics as she sat up. "Its alright Ruby. Its just a scratch." She said with a smile, trying to reassure Ruby.
After the medical staff ussured Blake out of the room, Ruby insisted Susan leave her alone.
"Are you sure Ruby?" Asked the concerned guard, unsure if it was best to leave the distraught girl alone.
Ruby responded with a teary nod. "Okay." Susan responded, before she turned and left the room.
As soon as she was alone, Ruby leaped off her cot and grabbed one of the two chairs in the room. In one fluid motion Ruby jammed the chair under the doorknob, bocking anyone else from entering her room. Ruby knew she was too dangerous to be around, and she refused to let anyone else be harmed.
"Really?" Asked a slightly amused Yang. "She locked herself in?"
"Yang this is serious!" Weiss angrily responded.
"I know, I know. But I mean, she knows she has come out eventually right?" Yang said as she gestured to the door to Ruby's room. "Its not like there's a bathroom in there."
A glare from Weiss was all the got from that comment.
Yang threw her hands up in a calming gesture. "Okay Weiss, look she's scared that she's gonna hurt someone that she's now locked herself in there. Ruby's terrified and confused, let's just leave her there for now until she calms down. Forcing down the door is only gonna make the situation worse, alright."
Flowing Yang's advice they decided to leave Ruby alone for the time being. If it allowed Ruby to feel more comfortable than it was worth it. Hopefully the professors would figure something out soon, Yang was not sure how much longer she could watch her sister deteriorate like this.
Later that afternoon Goodwitch, Ozpin, and Ironwood found themselves in professor Oobleck's office once again. This time however, they were going over miss Rose's test results.
"While for the most part miss Rose exhibits all the signs of a perfectly healthy young woman," the green haired professor started, "she does possess some rather interesting physical changes." He pulled an image of Ruby's teeth up on the center screen. "Right here you can see an extra pair of retractable canines. I guess you could call them fangs. This is really fascinating stuff."
"Yes we get that you're interested in teeth but let's get back to what's important here." Said Goodwitch. "Have you found a way to fix her?"
"Unfortunately no. In fact some of our tests have turned up some worrying information."
"Like what professor." Asked Ozpin.
"Its her aura levels." Oobleck answered as he pulled up the test results on the screen. "Now normally we would associate these low results with someone who had expended their energy in a fight or a duel. But these results were taken hours after miss Rose had expended any major energy. This leads me to a concerning conflusion. If her aura is this low without the added stress of expending it in combat than its what's powering her aura is where the problem lies."
"Her soul." Said Goodwitch in a worried tone.
"Unfortunately. I hate to even suggest such a thing, but I believe its dieing. Whatever process is changing miss Rose, its killing her soul. This helps to explain her willingness to hunt the students, her ability to tell right from wrong is fading with her humanity. If we don't find a way to stop this soon, there won't be anything left to save.
It had been a long day for Goodwitch, discovering what happened to Ruby was almost too much for her. The look in that child's eyes shattered something inside her. A monster she could handle, but this, this was not something she was prepared for.
Walking into her apartment that night she was ready to embrace sleep for a temporary reprieve from the day's events.
"Long day love?" A deceptively friendly voice greeted her.
Spinning her head around, Goodwitch spotted the unwanted visitor lounging on one of her hairs. Carmilla's jet black hair matching her jacket and thigh high boots with her white toothy grin cutting through the darkness.
Having no patience for games, Goodwitch continued her match into the room as she flipped on the lights. After hanging up her cape she approached Carmilla, staring at her with crossed arms.
"Why are you here?" She said with a huff. "We caught your newborn and unless you've had a change of heart, which I doubt you even have, and plan to help us cure miss Rose, I suggest you leave."
Carmilla laughed at Goodwitch's angry ultimatum. "Oh Little Witch, there's no cure for this condition, believe me, I've checked. I've been alive a long time as you may know. But more importantly you're under the impression that just because you have her locked in your basement that this is all over. That's cute by the way. Almost an adorable level of innocence." She said with a smirk as she rose from her seat and stepped close to Goodwitch.
Glynda's thoughts turned to the child alone in that observation room. She had to be safely contained, right? But Glynda knew this could not be over, why else would Carmilla still be here? Goodwitch studied the woman in front of her, looking for any clues that would reveal her ultimate goals. Turning one of her students into vampire was not done on a whim, this woman had a reason for doing this, and Goodwitch would find out why.
Receiving only a glare from the subject of her quips, Carmilla put on her best pout face before unleashing her biggest smile. "Oh you're going to have to find a way to destroy it love, before it destroys you. This girl's powers are growing almost as fast as her hunger and she is in no way contained." Her tone then turned more sinister. "Oh love, do you have any idea what it is you have in your basement?
Author's Notes:
As always if you enjoyed this please leave a review, I love hearing from you guys.