KER-BLAM!
Ruby was standing at Sunset Hill, the snowy peak looking much like dull tourmaline in the sunset. She jumped as Jet leaped off the tree in Burning Jet Venom, causing the ground to shake from the impact. The mechanised dark suit turned to Ruby, standing at roughly a chest and head above her in height, turned and knelt with his back to her, the compartment for her to climb into opening in front of her.
Leaving the bag to be picked up by the suit, Ruby entered the blissfully warm and comfortable compartment, and felt Jet lie down on his stomach in the suit.
"Locking up for flight. How are you feeling?" Jet asked through the intercom of the suit. Ruby felt the reassuring weight of Crescent Rose on her back as she considered her answer.
How did she feel? She was going back to her mother's grave, which made her feel sad. But Jet was with her, which was reassuring, and he was going to meet her mother's ghost, which would be nice for her. Still, Yang wouldn't be with her, which caused a pang of guilt to form in her heart.
"Ruby?" Jet brought her back to attention as they lined up at a clearing. The humming of the engine was a sure sign that they were about to take off. Even the wings were moving to their outstretched position, the purple light flowing outwards from the suit.
"I'm sad that I'm going to my mom's grave, but also happy that you're with me." Ruby replied honestly.
"Good." he replied. "I'm only going to fly us to the edge of Forever Fall. After that, it's all footwork from there."
"Thanks Jet." Ruby said, and she felt her stomach lurch as the suit immediately lifted off from the ground before flying up and out of Beacon. As she watched the sunset-lit academy fade into the distance, she thought briefly before opening up communications again with her pilot. "So who did you copy Crescendo from? That sword."
"It might surprise you," Jet said after a pause, "but I didn't copy Crescendo from anyone. It emerged with my light powers." This reminded Ruby of something.
"How are you able to use light anyway?" Ruby asked. "I thought you were pure dark."
"It is pure dark." Jet replied. "But I am a child of the light god Asmo as much as I am of Deus, the dark god. If I'm able to use darkness, it makes sense that I can use light too."
"How did you become half Grimm?" Ruby asked, curious now. "Were you born that way?"
There was silence for a moment, then-
"Yang never told you did she?" the mechanised intercom queried. "Well, let me tell you."
Jet had explained what his mother had gone through at the hands of the Beowolf Alpha. He'd head gasps as he revealed each brutal occurrence, for unlike Raven, he was much blunter when it came to his birth.
"That's horrible." he heard from above him.
"It was." Jet replied, scowling. He checked the visor and saw that they were nearing the mountainside of Forever Fall. Feeling the shaking of turbulence, he landed in a small clearing at the foot of the mountain, ploughing through deeper snow than there was at Beacon. Ruby hopped out upon the hatch opening, and he rose, ejecting their backpacks before the suit disintegrated into darkness and vanished.
"Now where's going what when da?" Jet asked Ruby, grabbing the backpacks. He looked up to see Ruby trying her best not to laugh, and it dawned on him what he just said. Ruby broke down in a giggling fit as he slapped his own forehead.
"Okay, well congratulations Ruby." Jet said, starting to laugh himself as he handed Ruby's backpack to its still giggling owner. "That was by a landslide, the absolute worst sentence I have ever said, and you were the only witness."
"Jet in the year five-thousand and thirty eight everyone!" Ruby replied in a very good imitation of a game show host.
"And returning to a world where I don't say things like that," Jet said, patting Ruby on the head, "I have absolutely no way of knowing which direction we're going. Lead on, sweetheart."
He watched as Ruby recovered from her giggles, before pointing to a particular place in the forest and taking Jet by the hand. They walked into the forest, in complete silence.
They had been walking through the nexus of snow and trees for an hour at this point, when Ruby stopped for a rest. Jet, who had been tailing her, noticed a change on her face. It was sad, but also serious. Now was the time.
"Ruby?" he asked, taking a seat on the log she had sat on.
"Yes?" Her voice was cold, like the majority of this place. She had an uncharacteristically hard look.
"I need to tell you something while we're here. Why I'm fighting Flux… the end result if Flux wins." Jet said. At Ruby's nod, he continued.
"Flux and I are two halves of one person. I am Jet, just as Flux is Flux. She was originally me as well until she separated herself from me. I was the dominant personality, you see, and Flux the recessive one, only coming out in extreme circumstance. We used to love each other, as brother and sister."
At his words, he saw Ruby's expression soften a little.
"She used to be really protective of me, and would come out if someone threatened me or scared me. She was nice. But once she started questioning why she was recessive and how to become dominant, that's when our fight begun. I won, mostly, which is why you've seen me, and not her, the first time we met."
Ruby's expression softened even more, and her face developed more of a pitying expression.
"But that makes me a time bomb. Once Flux has gathered enough strength, she'll return to this body." He put his hand on his chest. "She'll seize control and take all of my power. Merging it with her own, none of us will stand a chance against her. She'll become the accompanying spirit of a puppet, and her puppet will literally become a god. Me. No-one will stand a chance against us if that happens."
"Won't you be able to resist?" Ruby asked. "Surely if you are with her, you'll be able to stop her."
"I wouldn't." Jet replied, looking down. "My desires would become hers, and though you'd be facing me in battle, I would want what she wants; total domination. Compared to me, the White Fang would be like a soft breeze versus an iron wall."
"I've considered ending it all, destroying myself so that she cannot achieve that state." Jet muttered, keeping his eyes on the snow between his shoes. "But that would send her into a maddened rampage, and she would slaughter thousands of innocents before she is destroyed. So I have no choice but to seek her out and destroy her."
He felt an arm around his shoulder, and looked to his left to see Ruby hugging him, and he reciprocated, turning to face her. He noticed a growing wetness on his shoulder, and realised she was crying.
"Why don't you tell me any of this stuff?" she asked, sobbing into his shoulder. "Why do you cover up your pain, so I can't help you?!"
"You would suffer with me." Jet replied, as she moved back and he grasped her shoulders, keeping her in place. "There wouldn't be, and still isn't, anything you can do. So I keep my pain bottled up so that only I'm hurt by it. Because the truth is," he locked eyes with Ruby, now mirroring her stare earlier, "I am scared, I am worried, but more than that, I'm not causing you senseless pain! Remember my vow? I wouldn't cause you pain unless by circumstance or request!"
Even as he yelled, he felt as if a hole in his heart was being torn, allowing all of the pain and darkness within to spill forth, blackening all under it, but at the same time emptying himself of the void within.
"Then I'm calling off the vow you made to me!" Ruby responded sternly. "Because this journey is all about trust. Being with me is all about trust. And you need to trust me! I won't be hurt by your pain, I'll soothe it! Believe in me, Jet!"
Jet sat in stunned silence. Part of it was due to his shock at being yelled at by his childish girlfriend. But he was kidding himself if that was the main reason.
She was right.
He put his head in his hands and turned away.
"I've been such a fool." he said slowly. "Of course you wouldn't be hurt by it."
"Um…" Ruby replied, giving a sure sign she couldn't hear him.
"I've been protecting you from myself the whole time, not realizing that I was being destroyed from the inside!" Jet exclaimed. "And the worst part is, I've not realized that I've been causing you to suffer my silence as a result! I'm an idiot!" He looked up at Ruby, who was still giving him a look of stern appraisal. "You're right. So, since you've revoked my vow, at least let me make a promise."
"A promise?" Ruby asked.
"That I'll be more open when something's bothering me." Jet replied, pulling a small box out from his back pocket and concealing it behind his back. Now was the time.
"Thanks, Jet." Ruby said, slowly. "What have you got behind your back?"
"It's something that signifies a powerful bond in Theyl, and is a prerequisite for something even greater." Jet replied, taking the box out from behind him. It was a small, rectangular box that fit in the palm of Jet's hand. He opened it, revealing two rings. Both were silver, and one rose was crafted from a ruby in exquisite detail, while the other came from a jet. The roses weren't overly large.
Ruby's eyes lit up as soon as she saw them. They were sparkling, like a child that had seen a sparkling new toy. A metropolis of emotions stirred up from deep within him, but the most prevalent one was definitely… love.
"I'm offering you the red one." Jet explained. "Ruby Rose, will you be with me? Until death parts us?"
Ruby immediately took it, so fast that if Jet hadn't known better, he'd have sworn the ring had vanished.
"Yes, Jet! Of course!" she said, attempting to put it on the index finger of her right hand. Jet suppressed a laugh as he put his own, black ring on the middle finger of his right hand, then held it up to Ruby. The excited girl quickly took the hint and slotted hers onto her finger, then looked at it with glittering eyes.
Jet didn't say anything else. He didn't have to. He pulled Ruby into a hug, and kissed her on her lips, which were, despite the cold, still warm.