I don't own RWBY, yada, yada...
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It started out, as many things do, as miniscule, tiny, and so pointlessly small that it could have been mistaken for anything other than what it was. It could have been a sigh, or a cough, or a sneeze, or something that no one would have noticed. It may have been a figment of imagination, or the signs of their own self-delusion. Blake wasn't even sure if she heard it, and neither were the other occupants- save for Qrow- quite sure. Glynda just popped her ears to make sure it wasn't her figment-creating imagination. Ozpin sighed, though, clearly knowing that this quite predictable reaction would be incurred. Qrow stared plainly at the red-garbed young girl...
...and saw the frightening ear-to-ear grin displayed on her face. Blake, who had been Ruby's main source of courage to face her uncle, was feeling light-headed from the iron grip that Ruby had incurred upon her, feeling her arm go numb from the iron fingers laced around it.
She freed herself and immediately brought herself to kneel in front of Ruby, grabbing her hands and drawing a circle within her palms in straining efforts to keep the young girl under control; but it seemed her efforts were fruitless, pointless, beyond anything they could imagine to do. Their imagination had no hand in the fact that they did hear her start to laugh. They heard it, as split-second as it may have been. It was the beginnings of a tirade of laughter...but Ruby's appearance within her now madden state had changed drastically from about fifteen minutes ago to when she last went maniacal.
Her eyes had blackened so much that one would think that same blackness extended to her soul, to her very being. It hadn't; the blackness was what many saw, but what she saw when she looked in the mirror of this maddened state was, in fact, light. She saw a way out within this madness, a sanctum, sanctuary of painlessness and hope. They had shrunk to at least their half-size, and were almost shaking to the point that Blake- one of the many onlookers of this spectacularly scary sight- feared they may shake themselves free of her eye sockets.
The smile was the widest they had seen on her insanity-induced facial features, and twice as scary; all of her dagger-sharp teeth showed, glinting with malicious intent, the mechanical side of her jaw open for all to see, the display a somewhat technical show of mechanical expertise and adeptness and a scary show of glinting organic-synthetic partnership with evil intent- possibly that to rip out a throat.
But the scariest thing they all saw? The scariest thing was the look of sadness within the grin, as if she were in disbelief within her own insanity; as if trying to find answers within the many questions her own insanity brought her. But then the sadness vanished by madness; it was as if her insanity was just that; the stuff of disbelief, mixed in with happiness, elatedness, sadness, and, most importantly, madness. All of it was mixed within this little girl, creating the scariest, most haunting memory they would have of her.
Tears seemed to leak from the widened, shaking eyes, as teeth displayed themselves within a full maniacal grin.
Then came the laughing: It was as if someone had pumped a room full of mentally ill patients with Nitrous Oxide, and recorded their simultaneous laughter. It was devilish, couldn't be compared to its' scariness, and all in the room were sure to hear that laughter the following night within their many differing dreams and nightmares. Qrow, along with Glynda and Blake, were all wide-eyed and shaking, while Ozpin and Weiss just shared looked of what seemed to be apparent uncertainty, but filled with fear within their eyes and dread within their very beings. It then escalated to the kind of laughter that shouldn't be possible, yet it was; it ingrained its sound within all present's minds, and embed itself deep within the foundations of the walls, the floorboards beneath their feet, creating a haunting outlook within that laugh.
Blake didn't know what to do, and as a result, curled up into a ball off in the far corner of the room until the ruckus laughter either died down to maniacal giggling or her madness dissipated for the time being.
Yang had woken up at this point, only to hear the laughter and shoot to her feet, aiming daggers that were embedded within her eyes towards the newcomer to their dorm, Qrow. He could feel the heat from the glare, but thought nothing of it as he tried to wrap his head around what was happening.
He looked over to Ozpin, and heeded the man's signal with hands to move over to him; well, he tried to, if a small, red garbed and laughing body didn't smash into him with the force of a raging Ursa. He flew across the room, and smashed head first through the wooden door that was their dorm room door. The force of that shoulder smashing sent him further than he thought possible, and before he knew it, he was planted in the wall of team JNPR's dorm, their door also smashed.
This team was given a small mission, hence their lack of appearance within the past few hours and day. They had seen a red figure on their scrolls fight Yang Xiao Long, to which Nora was almost mesmerised by their laughter, and began her own chuckling while watching it. She hoped to a have a fight with this person.
So you can imagine her utter glee when said person's insanity-fuelled laughter filled her ears and a second later some old man flew and landed into the wall of their dorm. Pyrrha just looked at Ren, while Jaune was stuck in place out of fear and had to be moved to the other side of the dorm by the rest of them, away from a giggling Nora and an old man who was peeling himself out of the wall.
Before any could even bother thinking about saying something, a fireball was hurled through the air from a source they couldn't see and smashed right into the old man, knocking him through that wall as well and into the outside world, to which they could see was rather bright for seven in the afternoon.
Nora watched with glee as a red garbed girl with her hood lowered to reveal a scary smile and tears leaking from her shaking eyes walked into their dorm, laughing as loud as earlier. Without even such as a sidelong glance, she jumped out onto the soft grass of the outside of Beacon and landed perfectly, still laughing.
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Qrow's survival instincts kicked in the moment he heard the laughter and felt the ground shake from the force of her landing on the floor, and he rolled into a combat stance, his black and silver scythe already unfolded and ready for action.
It had a striking resemblance to Crescent Rose, except the pieces were of a higher grade; made of Atlesian metals and Menagerie ores compared to Ruby's second hand motors and used parts. It was slightly bigger that Crescent Rose, but lacked the sniper rifle hybridisation, making his thinner and easier- he assumed- to move around. Though, to be fair on his part, he hasn't seen this scythe of hers yet. He knew it was a scythe from Ozpin's notes, but knew not her semblance, what the scythe looked like, or her madness.
As soon as the still laughing Ruby landed she spotted the scythe and, if it was possible, her smile widened.
"You have a scythe too!? Oh this will be so. Much. Fun!" as she began laughing again, Qrow readied himself into a battle stance, expecting her to bring out her scythe as well. Instead, she simply took out a box-shaped red object from her back and fired a bullet at him.
From his stumbled blocking of the bullet she could tell it was unexpected that the red box that she held could fire anything at him. So, she laughed her head off while blasting more bullets at him, using the bolt action feature of her red box to keep the fire almost continuous.
Every time Qrow blocked a bullet with the flat end of his thin scythe he could feel the power behind each shot, could almost taste the gunpowder as it rained down from his blocking. He was extremely lucky that Ruby seemed to run out of bullets and reload then so he could get a breath to catch. But immediately he felt a bullet graze his left cheek, and raised his guard again, blocking- luckily- a bullet that was aimed directly for his head.
He had an idea, though, to turn this battle around. "What's the matter, are you scared to fight me?" he resorted to taunting, and Ozpin could almost wince fomr the heavy laughter that erupted from Ruby as she simply walked over to Qrow, tears streaming from her insanity-fuelled state, and that grizzly smile still on her face.
She tilted her head sideways to the left, and her smile turned into a pout. "You're not red." she burst into laughter again, and before he could even blink, he felt a heavy fist impact with his jaw, sending him flying and bleeding. He hit the ground with a busted nose, and before he collapsed into unconsciousness, he heard her giggle.
"Yay, now you're red!"
And he blacked out just as a blob of pink appeared behind Ruby.
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Ruby spun on her heels, her smile still on her face as she saw Nora, her hammer in hand, and a smile equally sized on her white face.
Ruby tilted her head. She couldn't tell if this was a friend who was here to help her get rid of the liars in the school, or if it was just another person who wanted to fight her. Oh, she could do with a good fight! But, maybe she needed someone to help her? Yes! She needed someone who hated liars like she did! But what if this person didn't hate liars? What should she do then? Oh, maybe she should just ask.
"Ooohh, you're pink! Are you a good pink or a bad pink?" everyone watching the exchange of words was completely baffled to what they meant, but just ignored it and watched to se the outcome. Ren had been trying to hide Nora's slight insanity for a while, her obsessive need to 'boop' people and make sloth noises kept her in check, but he honestly didn't see anything wrong with letting Nora, an insane person, interact with Reaper, a completely different breed of insanity. Who knows? Maybe they'd snap each other out of their insanity and become friends.
Nora tilted her head in the opposite direction to that which Ruby did, and if it was possible, matched Ruby's cheek-splitting grin, her eyes dancing around with madness like Ruby's. Nora's madness was nowhere near as bad as Ruby's, but it was still...well...madness.
Nora lifted her head and jumped enthusiastically. "I'm a good pink! Are you fighting the lies too?"
Ruby jumped up and down as well, her smile still present as she giggled. "Yes!" She sprinted over and grappled a giggling Nora in a hug, swinging her around before putting her down and giggling in unison with Nora.
Letting her go, she turned her head towards the rest of the school, still smiling as she did so. She titled her head, and Nora did the same. "It needs something..."
Nora continued what Ruby was saying. "It needs something...red."
Ruby looked at Nora, and Nora, Ruby before they both giggled and shouted out. "Let's paint the walls red!" They both grabbed their weapons, and smiled maniacally at the school, laughing as they did so.
Just as Ruby unsheathed her scythe, Qrow woke up and groaned, grabbing their attention.
They both spun around, smiling their sinister smiles with tears coming from Ruby's eyes again and both of their eyes shaking violently.
"Can I!?" Nora asked eagerly to fight this man, but Ruby just tilted her head and waited for him to take out his weapon. As he did, Ruby stared at the scythe, as if calculating something.
Ruby tilted her head to a near perfect ninety degrees and laughed again. "It's funny you know?"
Nora began laughing, as if it was a joke between them both while Qrow just groaned. "...What's...so funny?"
Nora burst out laughing again, holding her sides with her weapon dropped on the floor. Silently, Professor Goodwitch and Port dropped down from the ruined wall, weapons in hand and sneaking up to them.
Qrow saw this and shook his head, telling them to stay there as Ruby began laughing and talking. "You lied to me! I don't like people lying!"
Qrow raised his hands in defence. "Ruby please! I'm not lying! I am your uncle."
Ruby suddenly roared, her voice dropped into an animalistic growl, her eyes red-raw from the tears falling as she smiled. Her smile was still there, but her voice was different. It dropped to an almost masculine level, sounding brassy and croaky.
"If you're my uncle, where were you when I was being tortured!?" after no answer, Ruby continued. "WHERE WERE YOU!?"
Qrow was shocked; he went silent, as did the rest of the school. Nora had snapped out of her insanity at the voice dropping of Ruby, and stared wide-eyed at what she had heard, as did everyone else. Glynda was frozen in place as Port loaded an oversized tranquiliser dart into his blunder-axe.
Nora just collapsed of shock.
Just as Port took aim and shot, the dart flew out at unimaginably fast speeds, rocketing towards Ruby with the speed of sound.
But she was faster. Not taking her eyes off of Qrow, she moved to the left with her semblance had grabbed the dart as it whizzed past her head, clutching it in her hands as Port looked on in astonishment; well, everyone assumed it was astonishment, but they couldn't tell due to his thick eyebrows and bushy moustache.
In one swift motion, she jabbed the tranquiliser into her neck and, if it was even possible, she smiled wider. Her teeth held some sort of secret promise with Qrow's neck, threatening to tear it out. Port waited for the effects of the tranquilising dart to take effect, but it didn't.
"What are you talking about?" Qrow asked her, to which earned him a laugh, only this time...it was genuine, not insanity fuelled. Blake, who was part of the watching group of people, heard this and knew instantly that she was snapping out of it with every word Qrow said. She moved through the group, but was suffering with resistance. Thinking quickly, she used Gambol Shroud's ribbon to launch herself over the mass of students, making her way to the front of the crowd.
Ruby ripped off her jacket, showing everyone her bandage-wrapped body. She smiled sadly, this time no insanity there, which made them all think she'd gone sane again...until her smile went back to its sinister toothy, ear-to-ear grin.
"You see what people have done to me? If you were my uncle you'd have stopped them!" she laughed again, but tears flowed from her shaking eyes.
Qrow looked genuinely shocked. "I...I had no idea! How could I have stopped them if I didn't know!?"
Ruby then muttered something, and suddenly, a circle of shadows swam around her, waiting for the command to attack.
Her insanity was gone, and she spoke clearly now, with no stutter of giggling. "You want to see what they did to me?" she ripped off the bandage-sleeve covering her robotic arm, and Qrow almost fell to the floor in disbelief. "They tore off my arm! Do you know what that was like?" she then tapped the side of her jaw, the left side, with her organic hand. "They shattered my jaw when I was seven! SEVEN! Do you know the pain I was in, still am in?" she muttered something again and a circle of glyphs appeared, floating around her. All were white, all with the symbol of a rose in the centre of it.
Qrow was mystified; she had two semblances? This was- wait, what is she doing?
Blake reached the front of the group, and was about to jump down, before freezing up at the sight and words that Ruby spoke.
"Do you know how much times I wished I was dead? Do you know I turned to the White Fang for help, only to be attacked and left for dead?" again, she muttered something, and fire erupted into her left hand.
Her eyes had changed to the colour of orange, a burning flaming orange that Qrow had only seen in one other person; Cinder. The tips of her hair glowed a mixture of red, black, white and yellow, and the flames in her hand grew to a dark orange, as opposed to their usual yellow.
She smiled sinisterly. "If you were my uncle, you'd know that I've been through too much to believe some random stranger!" Ruby sneered, and just like that, she hurled a ball of orange fire at him, the glyphs all turning orange, spinning around Ruby in a circular motion. The shadows at her feet suddenly turned into black arrows, all pointing at Qrow should he do anything else.
The fire edged closer to Qrow, closer to his stubble-covered face. He could practically feel the flames licking at his stubbled chin...
...but as he opened his eyes to face the flames head on, to brave their hateful flames, he could see as clear as day that they did not hit.
Instead, there stood a person he hoped to never see again since Summer's death.
The one person he hoped Ruby would never have to meet in this accursed world either.
"...Neo?"